by Daniel Mason
It took two days to climb through the steep jungle and over a mountain pass. In front of them the descent was brief, and steep, and softened into the Plateau, a vast patchwork of field and forest. In the distance, at the edge of the plain, another set of hills rose, gray and undefined.
They descended a narrow, stony path, the ponies’ hooves searching for footholds in the soil. Edgar let his body rock loosely in the saddle, relishing the stretching of muscles tightened by days of riding and sleeping on the ground. It was late, and the sun cast their shadows long into the valley. Edgar looked back at the mountains, at the crest of mist that capped the peaks and spilled over the slopes. In the fading light of dusk, Shan farmers worked in the fields, wearing wide hats and trousers that flowed about their feet. The rocking of the pony was slow and rhythmic, and Edgar felt his eyes close, the fantasy world of crags and temples disappearing briefly, and he thought, Perhaps I am dreaming, It is all just like a child’s fairy tale. Soon it was dark, and they galloped through the night, and he felt himself slumping forward on his pony.
He dreamed. He dreamed that he was riding a Shan pony, that they were galloping, that in the pony’s hair were twisted flowers that spun in the air like pinwheels as they moved through the paddy, past costumed ghosts, choreographed flashes of color against an infinite green. And he awoke. He awoke and saw the land was barren, and burnt rice stalks swayed in a slight breeze, and out of the earth grew mountains of karst, crag towers that hid golden statues of the Buddha, rising from the floors of caves like stalagmites, so old that even the earth had begun to dust them with deposits of carbonate. And he dreamed again, and as they passed, he could see into the caves, for they were lit by the lights of pilgrims, who turned to watch the strange foreigner, and behind them the Buddhas trembled, and brushed off their lime cloaks and hovered, also watching, for the trail was lonely, and few Englishmen ever passed this way. And he awoke, and before him on a pony’s back rode a young boy and a woman, strangers, she sleeping too, and her hair broke loose and streamed back to him, and flowers drifted out, and he dreamed he caught one and he awoke and they were crossing a bridge and it was dawn, and beneath them, a man and a boy paddled a dugout in the brown churning water, themselves the color of the boat and the current, and so it was only by the shifting shadows of the water that he could see them, and they were not alone, for no sooner had they passed beneath the bridge than came another boat, drifting, a man and a boy, and he looked up and a thousand bodies paddled for they were the stream and he dreamed, and it was still night, and from the crags and valleys came not men nor the blossoming of flowers, but something else, like light, a chanting, and those who chanted told him that the light was made of myths, and it lived in the caves with the white-clad hermits, and he awoke and they told him the myths, that the universe was created as a giant river, and in this river floated four islands, and humans lived on one, but the others were inhabited by other creatures who existed here only in tales and he dreamed that they stopped by a river to rest and the woman awoke and unwrapped her hair from where the wind had tied it about her body, and the boy and she and he knelt and drank from the river, and in it catfish churned, and he awoke and they were riding riding and it was morning.
They climbed the hills on the opposite side of the valley. The land became mountainous, and soon again it was night. Then Nok Lek said, “Tonight we rest. In the dark, we are safe.”
At their side there was a loud crash. Edgar Drake thought, Another pig, and turned to catch a pistol butt in his face.
And now only trajectory, falling. A crack of wood on bone and a spray of spit and then a bending, slipping, slowed by boots in metal stirrups, fingers still in reins, releasing, down, now the crash of the bushes, the body against the ground. Later he will wonder how long he is unconscious, he will try to recollect memories but cannot, for only movement seems to matter, not only his but others’, the descent of the men from the trees, the glinting arch of cutlasses, the sweep of shotgun barrels, the bolting of ponies. So that when he stands again in the crushed branches, he sees a scene that could have composed itself in seconds or, if measured by heartbeats or breaths, much longer.
They are still on the pony. She holds the shotgun and the boy a sword, high above his head. They both face a band of four, three with knives drawn, flanking a tall man with his arm extended, a fist, a pistol. The weapons glint as the men crouch and dance, it is so dark that the glinting is the only clue that tells him they are moving. And for this moment, they are all still, they bob only slightly, perhaps this movement is just from the deep breaths of their exertion.
The blades float imperceptibly, winking like starlight, and then a snap, and with a flash of light they move again, it is dark, but somehow he can see the tall man’s finger tense, and she must see it too, for she fires the shotgun first, and the tall man shouts and grabs his hand, the pistol is thrown across the forest floor, the others spring on the pony, grab the shotgun barrel before she can discharge the other chamber, pull her, and she doesn’t scream, all he hears is a small cry of surprise as she hits the ground, one man whips the shotgun from her hands and points it toward the boy, now the other two are on top of her, one grabs her wrists, the other tears at her hta main, she cries out now, he sees a flash of her thigh pale in the thin light, he sees that the flower has fallen from her hair, he sees its petals and sepals and stamens still dusted with pollen, later he will wonder if this was but his imagination, it is too dark. But he doesn’t think now, he is moving, he springs out of the brambles, toward the flower, and the fallen pistol which lies beside it.
It is not until he raises his hand, shaking, saying let her go let her go let her go, that he thinks he has never fired a gun.
Freeze, and now it is his finger that flickers.
He awoke to the coolness of a wet cloth against his face. He opened his eyes. He was still lying on the ground, but his head was resting on Khin Myo’s lap. She gently cleaned his face with the cloth. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Nok Lek standing in the clearing, rifle at his side.
“What happened?” he asked.
“You saved us.” She said it in a whisper.
“I don’t remember, I passed out, I didn’t … did I shoot … them …” The words came out jumbled, incredulous.
“You missed.”
“I—”
“You almost hit the pony. It bolted. But it was enough.”
Edgar looked up at her. Somehow, in the midst of everything, she had thought to fasten the flower in her hair once again.
“Enough?”
She looked up at Nok Lek, who watched the forest nervously. “I told you, one of Anthony Carroll’s best men.”
“Where did they go?”
“They fled. Dacoits are fierce but can be cowards when confronted. But we must go. They may return with others, especially now they have seen an English face. It is much more lucrative than robbing poor farmers.”
Dacoits. Edgar thought of the men on the steamship from Rangoon. He felt her run the cloth over his forehead. “Have I been shot?”
“No, I think perhaps you fell after you fired because you were still hurt from your fall from the horse. How do you say, you fainted?” She tried to appear concerned, but couldn’t suppress a smile. Her fingers rested on his forehead.
Nok Lek spoke in Burmese. Khin Myo folded the cloth. “Mr. Drake, we should go. They may come back with others. Your pony came back. Can you ride?”
“I think so.” He struggled to his feet, the warmth of her thigh still on the back of his neck. He took several steps. He found himself shaking but he didn’t know if it was from fear or his fall. He climbed back on the pony. Ahead of him, Khin Myo sat with a rifle across her lap. She seemed strangely comfortable with it, the gleam of its barrel resting against the silk of her hta main. Nok Lek pulled another from his saddle, handed it to Edgar, and tucked the pistol into his belt.
Hiss. The ponies moved into the darkness.
They rode through an interminable nig
ht, moving slowly down a steep slope and then across empty rice fields. At last, when Edgar was certain it would never arrive, the sun’s light spread out over the hill in front of him. They stopped to sleep at the house of a farmer, and when Edgar awoke, it was afternoon. Beside him, Khin Myo slept peacefully. Her hair had fallen over her cheek. He watched it move with her breath.
He touched the wound on his forehead. In daylight, the ambush seemed but a bad dream, and he rose quietly, so as not to wake Khin Myo. Outside, he joined Nok Lek, who sat drinking green tea with the farmer. The tea was bitter and hot, and Edgar felt beads of sweat form on his face, cool in the light breeze. Soon there was stirring inside the hut, and Khin Myo came out and walked to the back of the house to wash. She returned with her hair wet and combed, and her face freshly painted.
They thanked the man, and returned to their ponies.
From the farmer’s lonely house, they climbed a steep hillside. Edgar understood the geography better now. The course of the rivers descending from the Himalayas cut parallel north-south gorges in the Plateau, so that any trail they followed was cursed with a long succession of ascents and descents. Over the hillside lay another range of mountains, and these too they climbed, its valleys unpeopled, and over the next range they passed a small market where villagers clustered around mounds of fruit. They ascended again and reached the ridge just as the sun was setting behind them.
Before them, the mountain slope fell once again, but not to rise in another set of hills. Instead the slope was long and steep and below it a river roared, cast in the darkness of the hills.
“Salween,” said Nok Lek, triumphantly, and hissed.
They rode down the steep path, the ponies bucking with each uncertain step. At the banks of the river, they saw a boat and a lantern and a sleeping man. Nok Lek whistled. The man jumped up, startled. He wore only a pair of loose trousers. His left arm hung limply at his side, twisted as if waiting to accept a bribe. He jumped to the shore.
They dismounted and passed the bridles to the man with the paralyzed arm. Nok Lek unloaded the packs and stowed them in the boats. “The boatman will bring the ponies by land to Mae Lwin. But we go by boat, it’s faster. Please, Ma Khin Myo.” He held out his hand and she took it and jumped into the boat. “Now you, Mr. Drake.”
Edgar stepped toward the boat, but his boot slipped and caught in the mud. With one foot in the boat, he tugged, but the mud only made fierce sucking sounds. He grunted, cursed. The boat swung outward into the water and he fell. Behind him, the two men laughed, and he looked up to see Khin Myo, her hand covering a smile. Edgar cursed again, first at them, then at the mud. He tried to push himself up, but his arm sunk deeper. He tried and failed again. The men were laughing harder, and Khin Myo couldn’t hide a soft giggle. And then Edgar too began to laugh, doubled over in that impossible position, one leg thigh-deep in the mud, the other held above the water, both arms soaked and dripping. I haven’t laughed like this in months, he thought, and tears began to stream from his eyes. He stopped struggling with the mud and lay back, looking up at a dark sky through branches illuminated by the lantern. Finally, with effort, he pulled himself up and then into the boat, dripping. He didn’t even bother to clean the mud from his body; it was too dark to see, and Nok Lek had already boarded and was trying to push them off with a pole.
Once into the current, they floated quickly downstream. They left the lantern with the boatman, but the moon shone brightly through the trees. Still, Nok Lek kept close to the riverbank. “Not enough light for friends to see, but enemies can,” he whispered.
The river twisted through tree branches and past fallen trunks. The boy negotiated the current skillfully. The roar of insects was not as deafening as it had been in the jungle, as if hushed now by the susurration of the river as it ran its fingers through the shivering tree branches.
The banks were thick with foliage, and occasionally Edgar thought he saw something, but each time he convinced himself that they were only shifting shadows. An hour into their journey, they passed a clearing and a house on stilts. “Don’t worry,” the boy said. “Only a fisherman’s hut. Now there is no one there.” The moon shimmered above the trees.
They floated for many hours, and the river dropped swiftly through steep defiles, past overhanging crags and cliffs. Finally, at a wide bend, Edgar saw a collection of flickering lights. The river carried them toward it, quickly. He could discern buildings, then movement on the bank. They pulled up next to a small jetty. There, three men stood watching them, all in pasos, all shirtless. One was taller than the rest, his skin pale, a thin cigar hanging from the edge of his mouth. As the boat slowed, the man took the cigar and flicked it into the water. He reached down and extended a hand to Khin Myo, who gathered up her hta main and climbed onto the dock. There she bowed slightly and moved forward, slipping into the brush with the ease of one who had been there before.
Edgar climbed out of the boat.
The man looked at him without speaking. The piano tuner’s clothes were still soaked with mud, his hair matted against his forehead. He could feel the dried mud on his face crack as he smiled. There was a long silence and then he slowly raised his hand.
He had thought about this moment for weeks, and about what he would say. The moment called for words fit for History, to be remembered and recorded once the Shan States were finally won and the Empire secured.
“I am Edgar Drake,” he said. “I am here to repair a piano.”
Book Two
I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known—cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honor’d of them all,—
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’
Gleams that untravel’d world whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Ulysses”
Some say that seven suns, and some that nine were created, and the world became like whirlwinds; there was no solid part remaining.
Shan creation myth, from Mrs. Leslie Milne,
Shans at Home (1910)
12
Edgar Drake was led by a porter along a short path, past a sentry, and through a dense brush. Ahead, lights danced, framed in the branches of scattered trees. The trail was narrow, and the brush scraped his arms. It must be difficult to move a column of troops through here, he thought. As if to answer him, Doctor Carroll spoke from behind, his voice loud and confident, with an accent Edgar couldn’t place. “Excuse the difficulty of the trail. It’s our first line of defense from the river—with the brush, there’s no need to build ramparts. You would probably appreciate how hellish it was to carry an Erard through here.”
“It is trouble enough in the streets of London.”
“I can imagine. The brush is beautiful too. We had a little rain last week, rare for this time of drought, and it came alive with flowers. Tomorrow you will see the color.” Edgar stopped to peer more closely, but realizing that the porter was far ahead, he began to walk again, quickening his gait. He did not look up again until the brush ended abruptly and they entered a clearing.
Later he would try to remember what he had dreamed Mae Lwin would look like, but the first vision overwhelmed all past imaginings. The moonlight swept over his shoulder to a cluster of bamboo structures that clung to the hillside. The fort had been built below a steep mountain, cresting about a hundred yards beneath its precipitous face. Many of the buildings were connected by stairs or hanging bridges. Lanterns swung from roof beams, although with the light of the moon, they seemed almost superfluous. There were perhaps twenty huts altogether. It was smaller than he had expected, flanked on either side by thick forest. He knew from the reports that there was a Shan village of severa
l hundred people behind the mountain.
Doctor Carroll was standing at his side with the moon at his back, the details of his face dark. “Impressive, isn’t it, Mr. Drake?”
“They told me so, but I hadn’t thought it would be like this … Captain Dalton tried to describe it to me once, but—”
“Captain Dalton is a military man. The army has yet to send a poet to Mae Lwin.”
Only a piano tuner, Edgar thought, and turned back to look at the camp. A pair of birds flew across the clearing, cooing. As if to answer their song, the porter who had carried Edgar’s bags from the river called from the balcony on the second tier of houses. The Doctor answered in a strange language, which sounded different from Burmese, less nasal, with a different quality of tone. The man left the balcony.
“You should go to bed,” said Carroll. “We have much to discuss, but we can wait until morning.”
Edgar started to say something, but the Doctor seemed intent on leaving. Instead he bowed slightly, and bid the Doctor good night. He walked across the clearing and climbed the steps to the porter. On the balcony, he paused to catch his breath. It must be the altitude, he thought, It is high on the Plateau. He looked out and caught his breath again.
Before him, the land sloped to the river, a gentle descent through scattered trees and brush. On the sandy bank, a cluster of dugouts rested side by side. The moonlight was almost blinding, and Edgar looked for the rabbit, as he had on many nights since they had passed through the Mediterranean. Now, for the first time, he saw it, running at the side of the moon, as if half in dance, half in a scurried attempt to escape. Below the rabbit, the forest was thick and dark, and the Salween slipped by silently, the sky swimming almost imperceptibly through its currents. The camp was quiet. He had not seen Khin Myo since they arrived. Everyone must have left to sleep, he thought.
