The Art of Hearing Heartbeats

by Jan-Philipp Sendker

  Back at the monastery they helped him up the steps to the veranda. The staircase was steep and narrow, without a handrail, and Tin Win wished he could climb it himself. But two monks took him by the hands, a third held him firmly from behind, and Tin Win took one step after another, learning to walk.

  Crouching on the floor in the kitchen, they ate the rice and vegetables. Flames blazed in the fire pit, over which a sooty and dented kettle of water boiled. Tin Win sat in their midst, not hungry but tired. He could not say which strain had been greater: the long march or having to rely on the monk in front of him. He was so exhausted that he could hardly follow U May’s lesson, and fell asleep while meditating in the afternoon. He was roused by the monks’ laughter.

  Only lying awake later that evening did he recall the marvelous sounds of the morning. Had that been a dream? If his ears had not deceived him, where were those sounds now? Why could he hear nothing but the snoring of the other monks, no matter how hard he concentrated? He longed to recover the intensity he had experienced only hours earlier, but the harder he tried, the less he heard, until in the end even the snuffling and snoring all around reached him only from a great distance.

  In the weeks that followed, Tin Win did his best to participate in the monastic routine. With each passing day his confidence in the bamboo staff increased, and he enjoyed walking around town without fear of fall or mishap. He learned to sweep the courtyard and to wash clothes, and he spent many afternoons with a tub and washboard ringing out the robes until the cold water made his fingers ache. He helped clean up the kitchen and demonstrated an extraordinary knack for making firewood. One cursory feel sufficed for him to advise the others whether they had better break a given piece of wood on their knees or over a stone. Soon he recognized the monks not only by their voices but also by their lip-smacking, their coughing and belching, their tread across the floorboards, the sounds of their soles on the wood.

  He was happiest during the hours spent with U May. The boys would crouch in a semicircle, Tin Win always in the first row and not two yards away from the old monk, whose voice still held the same power and magic that had moved him so profoundly at their first meeting. Even when U May said nothing, allowing the young monk who assisted him to lead the class, Tin Win sensed his proximity. It reassured him. Often he would remain seated when the other children rose and left, edging closer to U May and barraging him with questions.

  “How come you can’t see anything?” Tin Win asked him one day.

  “Who says I can’t see anything?”

  “Su Kyi. She says you’re blind.”

  “Me? Blind? It’s true I lost my eyesight many years ago. But that doesn’t mean I’m blind.” He paused, then asked: “And you? Are you blind?”

  Tin Win considered. “I can tell light from dark, nothing more.”

  “Have you a nose to smell with?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Hands to feel with?”

  “Certainly, yes.”

  “Ears to hear with?”

  “Of course.” Tin Win hesitated. Should he tell U May? But that’d been weeks in the past, and sometimes he was no longer certain that he hadn’t imagined the whole thing. “What more do you need?” asked U May. “The true essence of things is invisible to the eyes.” A long silence, then: “Our sensory organs love to lead us astray, and eyes are the most deceptive of all. We rely too heavily upon them. We believe that we see the world around us, and yet it is only the surface that we perceive. We must learn to divine the true nature of things, their substance, and the eyes are rather a hindrance than a help in that regard. They distract us. We love to be dazzled. A person who relies too heavily on his eyes neglects his other senses—and I mean more than his hearing or sense of smell. I’m talking about the organ within us for which we have no name. Let us call it the compass of the heart.”

  The monk reached out his hands to him and Tin Win was surprised at how warm they were. “A person without eyes must be aware,” U May told him. “It sounds easier than it is. You must attend to every movement and every breath. As soon as I become careless or let my mind wander, my senses lead me astray. They play tricks on me like ill-mannered children looking for attention. Whenever I am impatient, for example, I want everything to happen more quickly. My movements become hasty. I spill the tea or the bowl of soup. I don’t hear properly what others say because I am already elsewhere in my thoughts. Or when rage clamors within me. I once got angry with a young monk, and shortly thereafter I stepped into the kitchen fire. I hadn’t heard it crackling; I hadn’t smelled it. Rage had muddled my senses. Eyes and ears are not the problem, Tin Win. It is rage that blinds and deafens us. Or fear. Envy, mistrust. The world contracts, gets all out of joint when you are angry or afraid. For us as well as for anyone who sees with their eyes. Only they don’t notice it. Be patient.”

  Tin Win turned toward the old monk.

  “Be patient,” he said again.

  U May attempted to rise. Tin Win sprang up to help him. The old man leaned on his shoulder, and the two walked slowly through the hall onto the veranda. It was raining. Not an ardent shower, but a soft, mild veil of summer rain; the water from the roof dripped at their feet. U May leaned forward so that it rained onto his bald head, running down his neck and back. He drew his pupil out with him. The water ran down Tin Win’s forehead, cheeks, and nose. He opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue. The rain was warm and a little salty.

  “So what are you afraid of?” U May asked him.

  “Why do you think I’m afraid?”

  “Your voice.”

  Of course U May was right, but Tin Win didn’t know what he was afraid of; it was almost always there, pursuing him like a shadow on a sunny day. Sometimes it was small, barely perceptible, and he could keep it in check. On other days it would resurge, increasing beyond measure until his hands were clammy with cold sweat and his body trembled as if smitten with ague.

  The two stood silently side by side. Doves cooed under the eaves. After a few silent minutes, the old monk asked again: “What are you afraid of?”

  “I don’t know,” answered Tin Win softly. “Of the plump beetle crawling though my dreams and gnawing at me until I wake. Of tree stumps on which I sit and from which I fall without ever hitting the ground. Of fear.”

  U May stroked the boy’s cheeks with both hands.

  “Every one of us knows fear,” he said. “So well! It encircles us like flies around ox dung. It puts animals to flight. They bolt and run or fly or swim until they believe themselves safe or until they keel over dead from exhaustion. Humans are no wiser. We see that there is no place on earth where we can hide from fear, yet still we attempt to find one. We strive for wealth and power. We abandon ourselves to the illusion that we are stronger than fear. We try to rule—over our children and our wives, over our neighbors and our friends. Ambition and fear have something in common: neither knows any limits. But with power and wealth it is just as with the opium I sampled more than once in my youth—neither keeps its promises. Opium never brought me eternal happiness. It only demanded more and more of me. Money and power do not vanquish fear. There is only one force more powerful than fear.”

  That evening Tin Win lay motionless on his straw mat. Except for U May, all the monks slept in one large room next to the kitchen. They spread out their mats on the wooden floorboards and buried themselves in their woolen blankets. Up through the cracks in the floor crept the cold of the night. Tin Win listened hard. He heard one dog barking and another answering. Then a second and a third. The fire in the kitchen still crackled softly. On the roof the little gold bells tinkled until the breeze finally settled and they, too, were quiet. Tin Win observed how one monk after the other fell asleep, heard their breathing become quiet and regular, until all at once all sound completely disappeared. A silence prevailed more complete than Tin Win had ever experienced. It was as if the world had melted away. Tin Win plummeted into an abyss, turning in the air, tumbling, stretching out his
arms, looking for something to hold on to, a branch, a hand, a sapling, anything to break his fall. There was nothing. He fell deeper and deeper until suddenly he heard again the breathing beside him. And the dogs. And the rattle of a motorcycle. Had he drifted into a dream? Or had he been awake without hearing anything for a few seconds? Had his ears failed? Just like that? Was he going to lose his hearing as well as his eyesight?

  Fear beset him, and he thought of U May. There was only one force more powerful than fear. The old man had comforted him. He would find it. Only he must not look for it.

  Chapter 4

  SU KYI WALKED across the monastery courtyard. In the shadow of a fig tree six monks greeted her with a bow. She spotted Tin Win in the distance, sitting on the topmost step of the veranda stairs, a fat book on his knees. His fingers rushed over the pages, his head slightly tilted, his lips moving as if he was talking to himself. Every afternoon for nearly four years she had found him reading whenever she came to fetch him from the monastery. The things that had happened over those few years! Just last week U May confirmed again how much Tin Win had changed, how gifted he was. He was the best and most industrious student. He possessed an extraordinary capacity to concentrate and often astounded his instructor with a memory, an imagination, and a power of deduction unlike any U May had ever witnessed in a soon-to-be-fifteen-year-old. Tin Win could recite the contents of lessons days after the fact, effortlessly and completely. In a matter of minutes he would solve math problems in his head for which others required a slate and half an hour. The old monk regarded him so highly that after one season he had begun to give him additional, private instruction in the afternoon. Out of a crate he had pulled books in Braille given to him years ago by an Englishman. Within a few months Tin Win had mastered the alphabet. He read everything that U May had collected over the years, and it wasn’t long before he knew every book in the monastery. Fortunately, thanks to U May’s friendship with a retired British officer whose son had been born blind, it was possible to provide Tin Win with a steady supply of new books. He devoured fairy tales, biographies, travel accounts, adventure novels, plays, even philosophical treatises. He lugged a new book home nearly every day, and just the previous night Su Kyi had been wakened once again by his murmuring. She found him squatting in the dark beside her, a book on his lap, his hands sweeping across the pages as if caressing them, while he quietly whispered every sentence his fingers felt out.

  “What are you doing?” she asked him.

  “Traveling.”

  She smiled, tired though she was. Only a few days earlier he had explained to her that he did not merely read books but traveled with them, that they took him to other countries and unfamiliar continents, and that with their help he was always getting to know new people, many of whom even became his friends.

  Su Kyi shook her head, because in his life outside of books he was apparently quite incapable of making friends. Whatever else the school might have done for him, he remained aloof and shy. And in spite of his engagement with the lessons, he had only superficial and sporadic contact with the other boys. He was courteous to the monks but maintained his distance, and Su Kyi worried increasingly that no one could really get through to him. No one, perhaps, but herself and U May, and even there she was not so sure. No, Tin Win lived in his own world, and sometimes she caught herself foolishly wondering whether he was sufficient unto himself, whether he had any need at all for companionship.

  Su Kyi stood at the bottom of the stairs clicking her tongue, but Tin Win was so engrossed in his book that he failed to notice. She watched him and realized for the first time that there was nothing more of the child about him. He had shot up over the heads of the other monks. He had the powerful upper arms and broad shoulders of a farmer but the delicate hands of a goldsmith. In his features she could recognize the young man he was soon to be.

  “Tin Win,” she said.

  He turned his head in her direction.

  “I still have to get something at the market before we go home. Do you want to come with me or wait here?”

  “I’ll stay.” He dreaded the crowds that jostled among the booths. Too many people. Too many unfamiliar sounds and strange scents that might bewilder him and make him stumble.

  “I’ll hurry,” Su Kyi promised.

  Tin Win stood up. He tugged at the new green longyi he had tied with a strong knot about his waist, then walked across the veranda into the monastery hall. He was on his way to the fire pit in the kitchen when he heard a sound he did not recognize. At first he imagined that someone was striking a piece of wood to the beat of a clock, but it was neither dull enough nor hard enough for that. An entirely distinctive monotone rhythm. Tin Win stood still. He knew every room, every corner, every beam of the monastery, and such a sound he had never yet heard. Neither here, nor anywhere else. Where did it come from? The middle of the hall?

  He listened hard. He took one step and froze. Listening. There it was again, louder and clearer than before. It sounded like a knocking, like a quiet, gentle knocking. A few seconds later it was joined by the shuffling steps of the monks, their belching and farting from the kitchen, the creaking of the floorboards and the jarring of the shutters. The doves under the eaves. Above him there was rustling: a cockroach or a beetle crawling across the roof. What kind of chirping was that at the wall? Flies rubbing their hind legs together? Something drifted down from above. A feather. Wood worms gnawed the beams beneath him. A breath of wind in the courtyard lifted grains of sand into the air and set them down again. From afar came the snorting of oxen in the fields and the din of voices at the market. It seemed to him as if a curtain drew slowly back to reveal again the world he had briefly encountered once before, then lost. The hidden realm of the senses for which he had so longed. Here it was again.

  And through all that crackling, through the creaking, whispering, and cooing, the dripping, trickling, and cheeping, came that unmistakable soft knocking. Slow, calm, and even. Somehow the source of all sounds, tones, and voices in the world. It was at once strong and delicate. Tin Win turned toward it and hesitated. Did he dare approach it? What if he frightened it off? Carefully he lifted one foot. Held his breath. Listened hard. It was still there. He ventured a single step, then a second. He set one foot in front of the other, cautiously, as if he might otherwise tread on the thing. After each movement, he paused momentarily, making sure he had not lost it. It grew clearer with every step. Then he stood still. It had to be right in front of him.

  “Is someone there?” he whispered.

  “Yes. Right at your feet. You’re about to trip over me.”

  It was a girl’s voice. One he did not recognize. He tried in vain to call up her image.

  “Who are you? What’s your name?”

  “Mi Mi.”

  “Do you hear that thumping noise?”

  “No.”

  “It must be here somewhere.” Tin Win knelt down. Now it was nearly next to his ear. “I hear it more and more distinctly. A soft pulsing. You really don’t hear it?”

  “No.”

  “Close your eyes.”

  Mi Mi closed her eyes. “Nothing,” she said, and laughed. Tin Win leaned over and felt her breath on his face. “I think it’s coming from you.” He crept closer to her and held his head just in front of her chest.

  There it was. Her heartbeat.

  His own heart began to race. He felt almost as if he was eavesdropping, as if he had no right to the information to which he was now privy. He felt fear rising in him, until she laid her hand on his cheek. Its warmth flowed through his body, and he wished she would never take it away. He sat up straight. “Your heart. It’s your heartbeat I’m hearing.”

  “From such a great distance?” She laughed again, but she was not mocking him. He heard it in her voice. It was a laugh he could trust.

  “You don’t believe me?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe. How does it sound, then?”

  “Wonderful. No, more beautiful than th
at. It sounds like …” Tin Win stammered, searching for words. “I can’t describe it.”

  “You must have good ears.”

  He might have thought she was having a laugh at his expense. Her tone revealed to him that she was not.

  “Yes. No. I’m not sure if it’s our ears that we hear with.”

  For a few moments, neither said a word. He did not know what to say. He was afraid she might stand up and run off. Perhaps he ought to talk and talk and hope that his voice would captivate her. Mi Mi might stay and listen as long as he kept talking.

  “I’ve never …” He wondered how to put it. “Noticed you in the monastery,” he said finally.

  “I’ve seen you many times already.”

  A woman’s loud voice interrupted her. “Mi Mi, where are you hiding?”

  “In the hall, Mama.”

  “We have to go home.”

  “I’m coming.”

  Tin Win heard that she lifted herself but did not stand up. She extended her hand and quickly stroked his cheek once.

  “I have to go. See you soon,” she said, and he heard her moving away, but she was not walking. She was crawling on all fours.

  Chapter 5

  TIN WIN SAT on the floor, his legs pulled up to his chest, his head on his knees. He would have liked nothing better than to sit there the rest of the day and the night and the next day, too. As if any movement might destroy what he had experienced. Mi Mi was gone, but the beating of her heart had stayed with him. He remembered it, heard it, as if she were sitting next to him. And what of the other tones and sounds? He lifted his head, turned it from one side to the other, and listened around. The rustling continued quietly on the roof. The cheeping at the wall and the gnawing in the wood were still there. The snorting of the water buffalo in the fields, the laughter of the patrons in the teahouses—Tin Win was certain he heard them clearly. He stood up carefully and could hardly believe it. This intense hearing had stayed with him. The noises, whether familiar or strange, were still there. Some were louder, others quieter, but their power and intensity were undiminished. Would they help him find his way in the world?