The Art of Hearing Heartbeats

by Jan-Philipp Sendker

  His fear had dissipated gradually. Tin Win did not know when or how it had started. It was a lengthy process. A mango does not ripen overnight. He first noticed it on one of those unbearably hot summer days. He sat bathed in sweat in the park at the Royal Lake. A pair of doves perched in front of him, their heads drawn in, too exhausted to bill and coo. He gazed at the water and dreamt of Mi Mi. For the first time, the thought of her did not evoke in him that crippling, all-consuming longing that would sap him of all vigor. No fear. Not even sorrow. He loved Mi Mi more than ever, but his love was not devouring him. It no longer chained him. Not to his bed, not to a tree stump.

  When it started to pour, he closed his eyes. A brief but intense shower. When he opened his eyes again, dusk had fallen. He straightened, walked a few paces, and felt with his whole body that something had changed. A burden had fallen away from him. He was free. He expected nothing more from life. Not because he was disappointed or embittered. He expected nothing because there was nothing of importance he had not already experienced. He possessed all the happiness a person could find. He loved and was loved. Unconditionally. He spoke a sentence aloud, softly, barely moving his lips.

  As long as he breathed, he would love her and be loved by her. Even if she lived two days’ journey away. Even if she did not answer his letters and he had given up all hope of seeing her again anytime in the next few years. He would live every day as if he had woken up next to Mi Mi and would fall asleep beside her.

  “Cast off.” The voice of a young officer on the bridge wrenched Tin Win out of his reverie.

  “Cast off,” repeated two men on the pier. With a splash the lines fell into the water. Black smoke billowed from the stacks. The ship vibrated. The blast of the horn was loud and deep. Tin Win turned around. An old man beside him gazed at Rangoon and briefly tipped his hat, a curious melancholy in his eyes. As if he was taking leave of more than just a city full of people. Beyond him two young Englishwomen waved white handkerchiefs and wept.

  Chapter 7

  I REALIZED NOW that weariness had stolen over U Ba’s face while he spoke. The creases around his mouth and on his forehead had deepened. His cheeks looked sunken. U Ba sat perfectly still, looking right through me.

  I waited.

  After a few silent minutes he reached into his pocket and, without a word, produced an old envelope. It was creased and torn, having apparently been opened and closed many times in its life. It was postmarked Rangoon and was addressed to Mi Mi. The address had faded a little, but the blue ink, the large letters, and the oddly extravagant handwriting were still plainly legible. On the reverse of the envelope, the return address: 7 Halpin Road, Rangoon.

  There was no way it was my father’s hand. I opened the envelope.

  Rangoon

  14 December 1941

  Dear Mi Mi,

  My nephew Tin Win bids me inform you that he left the country a few days ago. Even as I write, he is en route to America, where, after his arrival in New York, he will be enrolling in law school.

  Occupied as he was with travel preparations during the weeks preceding his departure, it is no wonder he found it impossible to communicate with you personally or even to write you a few lines. I am sure you will understand. He has asked me to thank you on his behalf for the countless letters you wrote him over the past two years. His scholastic and personal responsibilities in Rangoon regrettably left him no time to reply.

  Since he does not expect to return before completing his degree a few years down the road, he asks that you henceforth refrain from any further correspondence.

  He wishes you all the best.

  Respectfully,

  U Saw

  I read the letter a second time and a third. U Ba looked at me expectantly. He seemed alert and relaxed again. As if the recollection had cast only a momentary shadow across his face.

  I had no idea what to say. Unfathomable, how the letter must have hurt Mi Mi. How betrayed and abandoned she must have felt. For more than two years she had heard nothing from my father. She had written hundreds of letters, and these lines were the only answer she ever got. Out there in Kalaw, rolling cigars, dreaming of my father, of a life with him, not even knowing if she would ever see him again, dependent on brothers who did not really understand her. Her loneliness aggrieved me. It was the first time I felt anything for her.

  At the start of my journey she had been a name, a first stop on the quest for my father, nothing more. Over time she had acquired a face and a body. She was a cripple who had stolen my father from me. And now? She had been duped and deceived. U Saw’s letter infuriated me.

  “How did she take the letter?” I asked.

  Out of his pocket U Ba drew a second missive, more heavily creased even than the first. Postmark: Kalaw 26-DEC-1941.

  Addressee: U Saw, 7 Halpin Road, Rangoon.

  From: Mi Mi

  Honorable U Saw,

  How can I thank you for taking the trouble to write to me? I am humbled by your efforts. You really needn’t have gone to such lengths.

  Your letter has filled me with a joy I find difficult to describe. Tin Win is on his way to America. He is doing well. You could hardly have sent happier news. In spite of all his responsibilities and the very demanding travel preparations, still he found the time to ask you to write to me. If only you knew how happy that makes me. Once again I want you to know how grateful I am that you have honored his wish.

  Of course, I will likewise honor his request.

  Yours with unfailing respect,

  Mi Mi

  U Ba folded the letter back into its envelope. We smiled at each other. I had underestimated her. I’d seen her as a helpless victim, powerless to defend herself against U Saw’s machinations. She was smarter and stronger than I had given her credit for. And still I felt sorry for her. How lonesome she must have felt. How was she going to get by without Tin Win? How did she survive the long separation from my father?

  “It was not easy in the beginning,” said U Ba without my having asked. “Her parents died the following year. First her father, her mother two months later. Her youngest brother joined the independence movement and wound up fighting as a guerrilla in the jungle. She never saw him again. The Japanese are said to have tortured him to death. Her eldest brother’s family perished in an English air raid in 1945. Those were difficult times. And still—it leaves me almost speechless, Julia—still she grew more beautiful with each passing year. She mourned her family, no doubt. She longed for Tin Win, too, but she did not suffer from a broken heart. It marks a face forever, that pain, but Mi Mi never experienced it. Her features never hardened, not even in old age. It may seem difficult to understand, Julia, but physical distance or proximity were really irrelevant to her.

  “I have often wondered what was the source of her beauty, her radiance. It’s not the size of one’s nose, the color of one’s skin, the shape of one’s lips or eyes that make one beautiful or ugly. So what is it? Can you, as a woman, tell me? ”

  I shook my head.

  “I will tell you: It’s love. Love makes us beautiful. Do you know a single person who loves and is loved, who is loved unconditionally and who, at the same time, is ugly? There’s no need to ponder the question. There is no such person.” He poured tea and took a sip.

  “I don’t think there was a single man in all of Kalaw in those days who would not have taken her for his wife. I’m not exaggerating. After the war, suitors turned up from all corners of Shan State, several supposedly even from Rangoon and Mandalay. Word of her beauty had spread that far. They brought gifts, silver and gold jewelry, precious stones, and sumptuous fabrics that Mi Mi would later redistribute around the village. She turned down all proposals. Even later on, when Tin Win had already been gone ten, twenty, thirty years.

  “There were men prepared to die in hopes of coming back into the world as one of her animals, a pig, a chicken, or a dog.

  “Mi Mi lived in her parents’ house with relatives who looked after her. She tende
d the stock: the chickens, the two pigs, the scrawny old water buffalo, and the dog. She rarely ventured off the property. She spent every afternoon on the porch rolling cheroots, rocking gently to and fro, eyes closed. Her lips moved as if she was telling a story. Anyone privileged enough to have seen her at this task will never forget the graceful elegance of her movements.

  “Her cheroots really did have an entirely distinctive flavor. They were sweeter, with a trace of vanilla that lingered in the mouth. A rumor arose a few years after independence that her cigars not only tasted extraordinary, but also possessed supernatural powers. That will not surprise you, Julia. You’ve seen how superstitious we Burmese are.

  “One evening a widower smoked one of her cheroots. That night his dead wife appeared to him and gave her blessing to the marriage with the neighbor’s daughter he had long wished for. Until then, the girl in question had scrupulously rebuffed his every overture, yet when he sat by her porch the next morning to serenade her, just as he had done every other day, she came out of the house, sat down beside him, and spent that whole day and evening with him. Beside himself with joy, the man smoked another of Mi Mi’s cigars the next night, only to behold his wife’s face smiling encouragingly at him amid the twisting smoke. The next morning, again, the young woman sat with him, and a week later she consented to his proposal. The widower attributed his good fortune to Mi Mi’s cheroots, and since then there has not been a single man in Kalaw who has failed to smoke at least one of her cheroots before taking a stroll with his heart’s desire. These cigars were quickly adopted as a remedy for all sorts of ailments, particularly for hair loss, constipation, diarrhea, headaches, stomachaches, and in fact for any kind of complaint.

  “Over the years Mi Mi became something of a wise woman of Kalaw, held in higher regard than the mayor, the astrologers, and the medicine men put together. People disdainful of astrologers would seek her counsel when settling disputes between spouses, siblings, and neighbors.”

  U Ba stood up, folded the envelopes carefully, and tucked them into the waistband of his longyi. How had they fallen into his hands? Where did he learn of the contents of the correspondence between Mi Mi and Tin Win? Not from my father, who, after all, knew nothing of Mi Mi’s letters. There were many details in U Ba’s portrayal of events that my father could not have provided.

  “Do you mind if I ask you a question?” I said.

  He waited.

  “Who told you the story of Mi Mi and Tin Win in such elaborate detail?”

  “Your father.”

  “He can’t have been the only one. You describe so many impressions and feelings that my father could not have known about.”

  “Once you’ve heard the whole story, you will have no more questions.”

  “Where did you get the two letters?” I insisted.

  “Su Kyi. U Saw visited Kalaw in the early fifties. Fortune turned against him after the war. Or should I say his luck ran dry, which isn’t quite the same thing. During the occupation he had collaborated with the Japanese, a fact that endeared him neither to the English nor to the Burmese independence movement. Once the British had retaken the country, a couple of his rice mills went up in flames. The cause of the fires was never determined. In the years following independence there were several assassinations in this country and endless factional violence. More often than not, U Saw found himself on the losing side, a circumstance that cost him a great part of his fortune. He allegedly tried to buy himself an appointment as minister. He came to Kalaw twice for a few days. We suspected things had got too hot for him in the capital. He brought a lot of luggage both times, mostly documents, folders, and files that he left in the house. He did not survive his third visit. Su Kyi found the letters among his effects.”

  “How did he die? Was he murdered?”

  “Some who knew him have said so in retrospect. He was struck by lightening while playing golf.”

  “Did you know him personally?”

  “I met him once briefly in Rangoon.”

  “You’ve been to Rangoon? ”

  “I attended school there for a while. I was a very good pupil. A friend of our family was generous enough to cover my tuition at St. Paul’s High School for a few years. I even won a scholarship to study physics at a university in Great Britain. I had a knack for natural sciences.”

  “You studied in England?”

  “No. I had to return to Kalaw.”

  “Why?”

  “My mother took ill.”

  “Something serious?”

  “Old age. She was in no pain, but everyday life became increasingly difficult for her.”

  “Don’t you have any brothers or sisters? ”

  “None.”

  “Weren’t there other relatives?”

  “There were.”

  I shook my head perplexed. “So why didn’t they take care of your mother?”

  “It was my responsibility. I was her son.”

  “But U Ba! Your mother was not seriously ill. You might have brought her over to England after finishing your degree.”

  “My mother needed me right away.”

  “Was she an invalid?”

  “No, what makes you say that? ”

  We were talking circles around each other. Each answer upset me more than the last, and at the same time it was clear I was not going to get anywhere pursuing my logic.

  “How long did you take care of your mother?”

  “Thirty years.”

  “What?”

  “Thirty years,” he said again. “She lived to a ripe old age by Burmese standards.”

  I calculated. “Between the ages of twenty and fifty you did nothing but look after your mother?”

  “It kept me quite busy.”

  “I’m not saying you were lazing around. I, I … going to college in England. You would have had every opportunity in the world.”

  Now it was he who could not understand me.

  “You could have done research as a physicist. With a bit of luck you could have landed a job in America.” Why was I so wound up?

  “I am well satisfied with my life, Julia. Though my wife, whom I loved dearly, died too young. Still, that could have happened to me anywhere in the world.”

  We weren’t finding any common ground. Did he really not know what I meant? Each of my questions left us further apart. I was getting furious while he was keeping cool. As if I were the one who had misspent a life.

  “Have you never regretted coming back to Kalaw?”

  “I can only regret a decision made consciously and of my own free will. Do you regret that you write with your left hand? What I did went without saying. Any Burmese in my position would have done the same.”

  “Why didn’t you go back to Rangoon after your mother died? There might still have been a chance to emigrate to England.”

  “Why? Must one have seen the world? In this village, in every house, in every shack, you will find the entire range of human emotions: love and hate, fear and jealousy, envy and joy. You needn’t go looking for them.”

  I looked at him and was moved by the sight: a little man, dressed in rags, with stumps for teeth, who with a bit of luck might just as easily have been a professor with a luxurious apartment in Manhattan or a house in some London suburb. Which of us had lost perspective? Was it me with my demands or him with his modesty? I was not sure what I felt for him. It wasn’t pity. It was a curious kind of affection. I wanted to shelter him even while I knew very well that he had no need of my protection. At the same time, I felt secure—cozy, almost—in his company. As if he were shielding me from something. I trusted him. Until then I had thought you needed to know a person in order to like him or feel close to him.

  Chapter 8

  MY FATHER AND I are standing on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York. I’m eight or nine years old. An autumn day with a crisp wind that already hints at the cold of winter. I’m dressed too lightly, and I’m freezing. My father puts his jacket around my shoulders. The slee
ves are much too long. I’m drowning in it, but it warms me. Through the cracks in the boards at my feet I see sunbeams dancing on the surface of the East River far below. Would my father be able to save me if the bridge were to collapse right now? I size up the distance to the bank. He’s a good swimmer, and I have no doubt. I don’t know how many times we stood there like that. Often without a word.

  My father loved those parts of New York that are really of interest only to tourists. The Circle Line ferries that loop around Manhattan. The Empire State Building. The Statue of Liberty, the bridges. As if he were only passing through. Most of all he was drawn to the Staten Island Ferry. Sometimes after a full day’s work he would walk down to the pier just to take the boat ride out and back. I remember one time when we stood at the ferry’s railing, just above the cars, and he said that he couldn’t fathom how much the harbor and the skyline of the city had changed. When he closed his eyes he could still see the same image as on that bitter cold morning in January 1942, when the wind was so icy that hardly anyone besides him could stand to be on deck.

  At the time I couldn’t understand what he saw in the very places most New Yorkers avoided except when they had uninitiated visitors. Later I found it boring. As a teenager it got embarrassing, and I wouldn’t go with him anymore. Now I think it was among tourists that he found the distance he needed between himself and the city to which he never really belonged. I suspect these places were his vanishing points when he was beside himself with longing. Is that where he felt closest to Mi Mi? Did he see himself leaving New York by ship or plane? Was he dreaming of it?

  U Ba and I walked up the ox trail to the summit. The afternoon was getting on now. The first fires were burning in front of the huts, and the wind wafted the smoke across the yards. By now I had grown accustomed to the scent of burning wood in the evening.