A Well-Tempered Heart

by Jan-Philipp Sendker

  Something had happened to me without my noticing. Is it true that we can count the moments in which something really happens in our lives? Do we notice it right away, or only in hindsight?

  One of my brother’s coughing spells interrupted my thoughts. I rose and hastened to his side.

  He stirred from his sleep and gazed at me bleary-eyed, still somewhat groggy. As if he was not quite sure where he was.

  I knelt beside him and stroked his hand. I was comforted by its warmth. “Did you sleep well?”

  “Not too badly,” he answered softly.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “No, only thirsty.”

  Thar Thar brought a cup of tea and a wooden bowl containing the dregs of a glistening ointment that smelled strongly of eucalyptus. “I found a bit of salve from our medicine man. You should rub it into his chest and back. It will help him.”

  U Ba straightened up and slurped at the hot tea.

  I hesitated a brief moment.

  “Shall I do it?” asked Thar Thar.

  “No, thank you,” I replied, surprised that he had immediately sensed my uncertainty.

  Thar Thar removed himself discretely. I crouched behind U Ba, pushed his shirt up, dipped two fingers in the ointment, and spread it with circular motions between his shoulders. His skin was warm and soft, much softer than I had expected. Almost like a child’s. His back was speckled with tiny liver spots, the kind I remembered my father having. The kind I found on myself in the mirror.

  When I was done, he lay back down and I applied the salve to his chest. He closed his eyes and breathed peacefully. I could feel his heart beating beneath my hand. Slowly and evenly.

  The fragility of bliss.

  I wondered what my father would have likened the sound to. Drops from a leaky faucet? The ticking of a wall clock? Strings plucked on a violin?

  “Are you sure you don’t want anything to eat?”

  I fetched water from the kitchen, but by the time I returned my brother had fallen asleep again.

  THAR THAR HAD peeled all the potatoes and put the rice on when he turned to help me with the tomatoes. I had never seen anyone cut vegetables so deftly.

  “Tell me about your brother and yourself,” he asked. “Why does he live here and you in New York?”

  “It’s a long and complicated story.”

  “You have said that you’re in no hurry.”

  “We have the same father. He’s from Kalaw. When he was a young man, before U Ba was even born, a rich relative brought him to Rangoon. Later that same relative sent him to college in the United States. That’s where he met my mother. They married, and he became a successful lawyer.”

  “Is he still alive?”

  “No. He returned to Kalaw decades later and died there.”

  “He wanted to see his son again?”

  “No. He did not even know he existed.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Quite,” I said. “How could he have known about his son? My brother lived with his mother, and they had no contact.”

  “Is she still alive?”

  “No. They died together one day after my father’s return. They hadn’t seen each other for fifty years.”

  “How beautiful!”

  “What’s beautiful about it?”

  “The fact that they got to see each other again. The fact that they did not die alone. Is it for her sake that he returned to Kalaw?”

  “I think so. She was deathly ill. He must have sensed it.”

  We said nothing for a while.

  I felt a gnawing jealousy rising in me. Not of Mi Mi, but of the love between her and my father.

  Jealousy and loneliness.

  Would anyone ever love me that way?

  Would I be able to stand it?

  Would I recognize it when I encountered it?

  U Ba had once told me that “we acknowledge as love primarily those things that correspond to our own image thereof. We wish to be loved as we ourselves would love. Any other way makes us uncomfortable.”

  Was he right? And if so, what did it mean? What manner of love would I recognize? What way did I love? Was it possible that even at thirty-eight I was still unable to answer that question?

  Thar Thar must have felt my growing sorrow. He reached out and stroked my cheek tenderly. I took hold of his hand and held it tightly for a moment, letting my head rest in it for a few precious seconds.

  Without any preamble I said: “My father could hear heartbeats.”

  I knew he would believe every word I said.

  I told him of a small boy whose father died young, whose mother left him, and who toughed it out for seven days and nights sitting on a tree stump, eating nothing and drinking nothing so that he would not miss his mother’s return.

  A boy who nearly died, because hope alone cannot keep someone alive indefinitely.

  I told of a young woman who learned that we do not see with our eyes, that we do not travel with our feet.

  I told of butterflies identifiable by the beat of their wings.

  Of a love that brings sight to the blind.

  A love stronger than fear.

  A love that causes us to flourish, and that knows no bounds.

  He followed my tale intently. When it was over he gazed at me for a while, then asked: “Can you also hear heartbeats?”

  I shook my head.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Completely.”

  He pondered. “Your brother?”

  “No.”

  “Too bad.” Thar Thar looked at me, deep in thought. “I once knew someone who could tune a heart.”

  “Tune a heart?” I asked, wondering if I had understood him correctly.

  “Yes, like an instrument. If a heart was out of tune, he would retune it.”

  “Any heart?”

  “Not just any heart.”

  “How can a heart be out of tune?”

  Thar Thar cocked his head to the side and smirked. “The daughter of a heart listener really ought to know that.”

  Was he making fun of me?

  “Alas, there are many ways. Have you never heard of irregular heartbeats, rapid heartbeats, premature heartbeats? If life has made you mean, or if disappointments have made you as bitter as a slice of tamarind, your heart beats too deeply. If you are afraid, it starts to flutter like a young bird. If you are sad, it beats so slowly that a person might expect it to stop completely any minute. If your spirit is overwhelmed by confusion, it beats most irregularly. Is it different in America?”

  “No. But when we have arrhythmia we go to a cardiologist.”

  “That’s a different matter. They are mechanics of the heart. They have nothing to do with tuning a heart.”

  “Who does, then?”

  Thar Thar cleared his throat, stuck the knife into the cutting board, and fell silent. A shadow swept across his face.

  “How does one tune a heart?” I asked quietly.

  He did not answer.

  “Does it require a special gift?”

  He looked past me. His lower lip began to quiver.

  Where was his wonderful laugh? The one he had no right to, given the life he had led.

  “What does it take to be a heart tuner? Who can do it? A magician? An astrologer?”

  He shook his head. Without a word.

  He rose, turned, and went into the hall. Shortly thereafter I heard him conversing with the chickens in the farmyard.

  What was all the fuss about heart tuning? Who was the heart tuner he had known? Ko Bo Bo? Father Angelo? Why did his face darken at the memory of him?

  I cut up the rest of the tomatoes, then sliced dozens of carrots and waited for his return. In vain.

  When I was finished, I noticed him through the kitchen window sitting in front of the shed chopping kindling.

  THAR THAR DID not return until he came back with the others later that afternoon. He asked me, as if nothing had happened, whether I would be willing to teach the children a
few sentences of English. I would surely be more capable than he, and having a real American for a teacher would be an extra incentive for them, he suggested.

  Before long the twelve of them were sitting in three rows of four on the floorboards in the middle of the hall. I folded my cushion in two in order to sit up higher and perched myself in front of them. Thar Thar stood beside me and said a few words to them in Burmese. His pupils nodded, a nervous smile flitting across many a face, then he sat down in the last row. A dozen pairs of eyes gazed at me expectantly.

  I said nothing.

  What moments earlier had seemed so simple, chatting a bit with them in my native language and teaching them a few useful phrases, seemed suddenly to be an impossibility. An arrogance. An excessive burden. English lessons without pencil and paper. Without a blackboard. Without books. Without a lesson plan. The curiosity in their faces. What did they expect from me? What could I give them?

  They waited patiently.

  The silence was troubling to me, but not to them.

  I looked from one to the other. Moe Moe, who despite her fever was sitting in the first row. Beside her Ei Ei, her stiff leg stretched out toward me. The deaf Ko Maung focused on my lips as if all the secrets of the world rested on them. Behind him Ko Lwin, sitting up straight in spite of his hunched back, the quivering Toe Toe nuzzled up right next to him.

  At that moment it dawned on me why I felt so nervous; it was their eyes. They had seen more than mine. They had endured miseries that I knew only from hearsay. If at all. Their souls were wiser than mine. They were not expecting anything from me. I had no need to prove myself. To accomplish anything. Whatever I might give them would be enough. They were grateful for the time I was devoting to them, whether it be minutes, hours, or days. They radiated humility and dignity, a modesty that took my breath away.

  I swallowed. Cleared my throat. Wrung my hands so that it hurt. Looked down at the floor.

  “How are you?” I said softly.

  Silence.

  “How are you?” I repeated.

  “How are you?” came the echo. In unison.

  Whispered.

  Shouted.

  Murmured.

  Mumbled.

  I had never heard such an array of variations on that sentence. Each voice put a different face on it. The sincerity with which they pronounced it. The meaning with which they imbued it. Out of their mouths, in this half-collapsing monastery, it lost its how-are-you-I’m-just-fine-how-about-yourself ring.

  “How are you?” I said, emphasizing each word carefully.

  “How are you?” they repeated. Enthusiastically, loudly, clearly.

  I smiled, relieved. They smiled back.

  “My name is Julia. What is your name?” I asked, looking at Moe Moe. I saw the gears turning in her feverish head. Searching her memory to see whether the question rang a bell. Carefully considering the possible meanings of each word, weighing them against one another, making decisions. Gathering courage. She moved her lips with the same deliberation as hands caressing a newborn.

  “My name is Moe Moe,” she sang.

  “Very good!” I cried.

  The pride in her eyes.

  “What is your name?” My eyes turned to Ko Lwin.

  His gears were turning, too. He bit his lower lip, furrowed his brow. His thoughts were running in circles. My words were opaque to him.

  “My name is Julia. What is your name?” I said again, only deepening the mystery for him.

  He took his time, and I was in no hurry. The others waited patiently.

  “I am very fine,” he said so quietly and imperfectly that I could barely understand him.

  Moe Moe turned around and whispered something to him. A flicker in his eyes. The courage for a second attempt.

  “My … name … is … Ko … Lwin?” he ventured cautiously, as if his life depended on it.

  I nodded. “Good. Very, very good!”

  The delight they all took in his accomplishment.

  I asked them their names. How they were doing. Where they were from.

  Thar Thar smiled at me from the back row.

  Whether I liked it or not, that smile made my heart pound. Harder than I had felt it pound for a very long time.

  AS I LAY in bed I thought about Amy. Heart tuning. She would like that. She would probably dedicate a whole series of paintings to it. Heart Tuning I. Heart Tuning II. Or The Art of Tuning Hearts. The Heart Tuner. A Heart Out of Tune. I imagined red canvasses. With circles. Black notes in the middle. Or a white paper with a red circle, lines above it suggesting a tuning fork.

  Or was I wrong? Amy always said there were themes one could neither paint nor put into words. Themes so vast that only composers could even approach them. If at all. All other artists must practice humility before them.

  With these thoughts in mind I drifted off to sleep.

  In the night I awoke to the sound of dull blows. As if someone were pounding posts into the ground with a sledgehammer. They made their way to me from a considerable distance, had their own particular rhythm, sounding sometimes lighter, sometimes darker. I listened briefly but was too tired to pay them much heed, and after a few minutes I fell back asleep.

  Chapter 6

  THE NEXT DAY Thar Thar asked me to help them in the field. It was time to harvest the ginger, carrots, and potatoes. The more hands the better.

  We marched off together bright and early in the morning, right after breakfast, laden with baskets, trowels, rakes, cultivators. The sun was still hidden behind the mountains. It was chilly. A thin layer of frost covered the grasses and leaves. The air was clear and fresh, the sky deep blue and cloudless. A cuckoo called.

  “You should make a wish,” said Thar Thar, who was walking behind me.

  “Why so?”

  “It’s a custom of ours. If you hear the first call of the cuckoo in the morning, then you can make one wish.”

  “Will it come true?”

  “Only if you run into two potatoes that have grown together during the harvest.”

  “You believe in these signs?” I asked, surprised.

  “Doesn’t everyone? In their own way?”

  THE FIELDS BEYOND the bamboo grove extended farther than I had suspected. Some of them had been freshly turned over; in others various vegetables were growing. The potato stems had already partly withered. Moe Moe, who was feeling better, showed me how to harvest.

  “You see?” she said, grasping a cluster of leaves with her one arm, then pulling it out, stalks and all. Potatoes hung from the bottoms of the stalks. She knelt on the ground.

  “You see?” She blinked at me proudly and started to dig in the earth for more tubers.

  It must have rained heavily a few days earlier. The ground was still soft and wet. With both hands I rooted in the furrows. Moe Moe took the potatoes and set them in a basket.

  Together we had quickly found more than two dozen. We scooted along, pulling the next plants out. I dug and she gathered. After a couple of yards we were a well-oiled machine.

  She looked at my dark black hands and arms, muddy to the elbows. “How are you?” she asked.

  “I am fine, just fine,” I answered.

  “You are fine?” asked Moe Moe, and I could see how difficult she was finding it to keep a straight face.

  “Yes, I am fine,” I said. I couldn’t help laughing. Moe Moe joined in, and we laughed until we cried.

  The sun rose above the peaks, and soon it was warm. Sweat ran down the back of my neck. I was the only one without any kind of hat. When Moe Moe saw how profusely I was sweating she took her straw hat and set it on my head. I wanted to give it back to her. Her eyes implored me not even to try.

  My brother would have said that she was grateful to be able to do me a favor.

  The pleasure of giving.

  When our basket was full, I was ready to haul it back to the monastery. It was so heavy that I couldn’t carry it more than a few yards on my own.

  “Heavy,” I
said, setting it down with a snort.

  “Heavy,” Moe Moe repeated, paying careful attention to each sound. “Very heavy?” Her inquiring face.

  “Very heavy!” I confirmed.

  “Need help?”

  “Yes, I do need help.”

  Her eyes beamed. I realized that every word was not just a new vocabulary item for her; it was a gift, precious and unique. Something to be tended and preserved. That’s why we would so often see her repeating words. Something that helped her to open a new door or window, to unlock a strange world for her, to communicate with me.

  We each took hold of a handle and lugged the basket together through the bamboo grove.

  That afternoon, during the English lesson, every bone in my body was aching from the unaccustomed work. It was a good feeling to have my body announcing itself to me in such a pleasant way.

  By evening I was so tired that my eyes were falling shut already at dinner.

  So passed the time. In the morning we worked in the field. In the late morning Thar Thar and I would return with one of the girls to the monastery. We spent nearly every minute there together. He helped me when I tended to my brother; we cooked and did the laundry together. When, as if by chance, we happened to touch, in the kitchen or at the well, it meant more to me than I cared to admit. I saw in his eyes that he felt the same way.

  In the afternoon we taught our lessons, which now primarily consisted of my English instruction. I looked forward to it all day long, especially Moe Moe, whose contagious thirst for knowledge was gradually affecting everyone. Thar Thar always sat in the back row. His presence uplifted me.

  We both tried to stay close, but still we could not find a quiet moment for conversations such as we had enjoyed during the first two days. Sometimes I even had the feeling that he was avoiding them. When I would sit on the steps after dinner, he would join me, but always with Moe Moe or Ei Ei or both in tow. Although I would have preferred to be alone with him, I was not disappointed. When the time came, I would have another chance to spend time with him. I had no doubt.

  I felt better in the monastery than I had for a long time, in spite of the physical strain, in spite of having a wooden crate for a toilet, in spite of the absence of a shower. I slept well. Had neither backaches nor headaches. At times I was filled with a lightness that I had not felt in years. Amy would probably have described me as “deeply relaxed.”