by Daniel Mason
“Mr. Drake, please. It is a beautiful morning. Let’s not ruin it with talk of politics. I know that after such a journey, one would be interested in such matters, but I find it dreadfully dull. You will see—the longer you are here, the less such opinions matter.”
“But you wrote so much …”
“I wrote histories, Mr. Drake, not of politics.” The Doctor pointed the smoking end of his cheroot at Edgar. “It is not a welcome subject for me. If you have heard what some have to say about my work here, I think you can understand why.”
Edgar began to mutter an apology, but the Doctor didn’t respond. Ahead, where the path narrowed, Nok Lek was waiting. The party dropped into single file and followed the trail into the forest on the other side of the ridge.
They rode for nearly three hours. Descending from the ridge, they entered an open valley that rose slowly, south of the vertebral hills. The trail was soon wide enough for two ponies, and while Nok Lek again went ahead, the Doctor rode alongside the piano tuner. It became obvious very quickly that Carroll had absolutely no interest in hunting. He spoke about the mountains in whose shadow they rode, how he had mapped the area when he first arrived, measuring altitude with boiling-point barometers. He told stories about the geology, the history, local myths about each outcrop, glen, and river they crossed, Here is where the monks keep catfish, Here is where I saw my first tiger on the Plateau, rare, Here is where mosquitoes breed, where I am doing experiments on the spread of disease, Here is an entrance to the world of the nga-hlyin, the Burmese giants, Here is where Shan sweethearts court, at times you can hear the sound of flutes. His stories seemed inexhaustible, and his tale about one hill only ended when they passed another. Edgar was astounded; the Doctor seemed to know not only every flower but their medicinal uses, scientific classification, local names in Burmese and Shan, their stories. Several times, pointing to a flowering bush, he would exclaim that such a plant was unknown to Western science, and that “I have sent samples to the Linnean Society and the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, and I even have a species like it that bears my name, an orchid, which they have named Dendrobium carrollii, and a lily named Lilium carrollianum, and another, Lilium scottium, which I named after J. George Scott, the political administrator of the Shan States, a friend whom I admire deeply. And there are other flowers …” and with this he even stopped his pony and looked directly at Edgar, his eyes bright, “my own genus, Carrollium trigeminum, the species name meaning ‘the three roots,’ a reference to the Shan myth of the three princes, which I promise to tell you soon, or perhaps you should hear the Shan tell it … Regardless, the flower in profile looks like a prince’s face and it is a monocotyledon, with three paired petals and sepals, like three princes and their brides.” He stopped occasionally to pick flowers and plants and press them into a worn leather book which he kept in a saddlebag.
They stopped by a bush covered with small yellow blooms. “That one,” he confided, pointing, his shirtsleeve rolled up over a tanned forearm, “has not been given an official name yet, as I hope to send samples to the Linnean Society. It has been quite a struggle to get any of my botanical work published. The army seems to be concerned that somehow my writing about flowers will reveal state secrets … as if the French didn’t know of Mae Lwin.” He sighed. “I suppose I will have to retire before I publish a pharmacopoeia. Sometimes I wish I were a civilian without the rules and regimentation. But then I suppose I wouldn’t be here.”
As they rode further, Edgar’s nervousness and disorientation began to dissipate under the onslaught of the Doctor’s enthusiasm. All of his own questions, mostly about music, about the piano, about what the Shan and the Burmese thought of Bach and Handel, about why Carroll remained, and ultimately why he himself had come, were temporarily forgotten. Oddly, there seemed nothing more natural than marching on horseback to hunt plants without names, trying to make sense of the Doctor’s river of stories, Shan histories, Latin nomenclature, and literary references. Above them, a raptor circled and caught a rising current, and he imagined what the bird must see, three tiny figures winding their way along a dry trail that traced the collar of the karst hills, the tiny villages, the Salween snaking languidly, the mountains to the east, the Shan Plateau dropping to Mandalay, and then all of Burma, of Siam, of India, of the armies gathered there, grids of French and British soldiers blind to each other but visible to this bird, gathered waiting, while in between, three men rode together, collecting flowers.
They passed houses on stilts, dusty roads leading to small villages, their entrances marked by wooden portals. At one, a tangle of branches was strewn on the pathway, and a piece of tattered paper covered with swirls of writing was pinned to the portal. Doctor Carroll explained that smallpox had struck the village, and the script was a magical formula to fight the disease. “It is terrible,” he said. “We vaccinate people in England now with cowpox—it has been mandatory for several years—yet they won’t give me enough supplies to do so here. It is a horrid disease, so contagious, and so disfiguring. If one survives.” Edgar gripped his reins uneasily. When he was a boy, there had been a smallpox outbreak in the slums in East London. Sketches of victims had appeared daily in the broadsheets, young children covered with pustules, gaunt, pale cadavers.
Soon rocky outcrop began to appear, pushing out of the earth like worn molars. Edgar was mindful of the comparison, for the broad open landscape narrowed quickly, and they followed a ravine down between high pinnacles, as if descending into the earth’s intestines.
“This track would be completely flooded in the rain,” said Carroll at his side. “But we are experiencing one of our worst droughts in history.”
“I remember reading about it in a letter you wrote, and everyone I have spoken to has mentioned it.”
“Whole villages are dying of starvation because of the meager crops. If only the army understood how much we could accomplish with food. With food alone, we wouldn’t have to worry about the war.”
“They said they can’t bring in food because of the dacoits, because of a Shan Bandit Chief named Twet Nga Lu—”
“I see you have read that history too,” the Doctor said. His voice echoed off the cliffs. “There is some truth to that, although Twet Nga Lu’s legend is exaggerated in all the boisterous conversations in the officers’ messes. They just want a face to put on the danger. That is not to say he isn’t a danger—he is. But the situation is more complicated, and if we are to hope for peace, it requires more than the defeat of one man … But I am philosophizing, and I promised you I wouldn’t. How much of the story do you know?”
“Only a little. To be honest, I am still confused by all the names.”
“We are all confused. I don’t know which report you read or when it was written—I hope they gave you something I wrote. Although officially we annexed Upper Burma last year, the Shan States have been impossible to control, and thus it is almost impossible to station troops here. In our effort to pacify the region—‘peaceful penetration,’ in the parlance of the War Office, a term I find vile—we have been engaged in fighting a federation of Shan princes calling itself the Limbin Confederacy, an alliance of Shan sawbwas—the Shan word for their princes—who want to overthrow British rule. Twet Nga Lu is not part of the Confederacy, but an illegitimate chief operating across the Salween. We would call him a dacoit, but he has too many followers. His name is perhaps more legendary because he works alone. The Limbin Confederacy is less easily vilified because they are organized, and even send their own delegations. In other words, they seem like a real government. But Twet Nga Lu refuses to cooperate with anyone.”
Edgar began to ask about the rumors of the Bandit Chief that he had heard on the river steamship, but there was a rattling from above. The men looked up to see a large bird lifting off from the crags.
“What was that?” asked Edgar.
“Raptor, although I didn’t get a good look at it. What we need to beware of here are the snakes. They often come out at this time of
day to get warm in the sun. Last year I had a pony bitten by a viper, leaving her with a terrible wound. The bite can cause humans to go into rapid shock.”
“You know much about snakebites?”
“I have made a collection of poisons and have tried to study them. I have been helped by a medicine man, a hermit who lives in the hills, who, the villagers say, sells the poisons to assassins.”
“That’s horrid. I—”
“Perhaps, although death by poison could be quite peaceful, compared to the other methods one sees … Don’t worry, Mr. Drake, he has no interest in English piano tuners.”
They continued their descent. Carroll pointed down the ravine. “Listen,” he said. “Soon you will hear the river.” The clip-clop of hooves was answered by a distant, deeper rumbling. The trail continued to drop, and the ponies struggled to keep their footing over the stones. At last Carroll stopped. “We should dismount,” he said. “This is too precarious for the ponies.” He swung himself off with a single, graceful movement. Nok Lek followed, and then Edgar, still thinking about the snakes. The sound of the river grew louder. The ravine narrowed sharply, and now there was scarcely enough room for the ponies to pass. Above him, Edgar could see branches, logs, wedged into the narrow chasm, testament to past flooding. Soon the ravine took a sharp turn, and the floor seemed to disappear beneath them. Carroll handed the reins of his pony to Nok Lek and walked carefully to the edge. “Come and look, Mr. Drake,” he shouted over the roar.
Edgar walked gingerly to join the Doctor where the trail dropped steeply away to a river that flowed twenty feet below them. The stones were silver, polished by the flow of water. Edgar looked up. The sun winked down through a sliver of sky. He could feel spray on his face, the thunder of the rapids shaking the ground.
“In the rainy season this is a waterfall. The river is twice as high. This water comes all the way from Yunnan, in China. It is all from melted snow. There is more. Come.”
“What?”
“Come here, come and look.”
Edgar picked his way uneasily over the stones, wet with the spray of the river. The Doctor was standing at the edge of the precipice, looking up the rock.
“What is it?” asked Edgar.
“Look closely,” said the Doctor. “At the rock. Do you see them? The flowers.”
The entire face of the ravine was covered by a dull moss, sprinkled with thousands of tiny flowers, so small that he had mistaken them for beads of water.
Carroll motioned to a smooth surface on the wall. “Now put your ear there.”
“What?”
“Go ahead, put your ear up against the wall, listen.”
Edgar looked at him skeptically. He crouched and put his head to the stone.
From deep within the rock came a singing, strange and haunting. He pulled his head away. The sound stopped. He leaned back. Again he could hear it. It sounded familiar, like thousands of soprano voices warming up to sing. “Where is it coming from?” he shouted.
“The rock is hollow, they are vibrations from the river, a high-pitched resonance. That is one explanation. The other is Shan, that it is an oracle. Those who seek advice come here to listen. Look up there.” He pointed to a pile of rocks on which a small wreath of flowers had been placed. “A shrine to the spirits that sing. I thought you would like it here. Scenery fit for a man of music.”
Edgar rose and smiled and wiped off his glasses once again. While they talked, Nok Lek unpacked several baskets filled with stuffed banana leaves, which he laid out on the rocks away from the precipice, where it was dry. They sat and ate and listened to the river. The food was different from the rich curries Edgar had eaten in the lowlands. Each banana leaf contained something different, sliced and seared pieces of chicken, fried squash, a pungent paste that smelled strongly of fish but tasted sweet with the rice, which too was different, sticky balls of grains that were almost translucent.
When they had finished, they rose and led their ponies up the little path until it became flat enough to ride. The trail climbed slowly out of the coolness of the ravine and into the heat of the Plateau.
Carroll chose a different route back to the camp, one that took them back through a burnt forest. In contrast to the first trail, the land was hot and flat, and the vegetation dry, but the Doctor stopped several times to show Edgar more plants, tiny orchids that were hidden in the shade, innocuous-looking pitcher plants whose carnivory Carroll explained in macabre detail, trees that held water, rubber, medicine.
On the lonely road, they passed through an old temple complex where dozens of pagodas were aligned in rows. The structures were of various sizes and ages and shapes, some freshly painted and capped with ornaments, others pale and crumbling. On one, the body of the pagoda had been crafted into the shape of a coiled serpent. It was eerily silent. Birds flitted over the ground. The only person they saw was a monk who looked as old as the temples themselves, his skin dark and wrinkled, his body tinted with dust. He was sweeping the path as they approached, and Edgar saw Carroll press his hands together and bow slightly to the man. The old monk said nothing, but kept sweeping, the grass broomstick swaying with the hypnotic rhythm of his chant.
The trail was long, and at last Edgar grew weary. He thought how much the Doctor must have traveled through the Plateau to know each stream, each hill, and how, if they were separated, he would not know how to find his way back. For a brief moment, the thought frightened him. But I have trusted him by deciding to come here, he thought, there is no reason I shouldn’t now. The path narrowed and the Doctor rode ahead. Edgar watched him as he rode, his back straight, one hand on his waist, alert, watching.
They passed from the forest onto a wide ridge and back into the valley from which they had come. The sun was setting when, from the rise of one of the hills, Edgar saw the Salween. It was dark when they reached Mae Lwin.
13
The following morning, Edgar awoke before the children came, and wandered down to the river. He expected to find the Doctor eating breakfast or perhaps even see Khin Myo, but the bank was empty. The Salween lapped against the sand. He looked briefly across the river for birds. There was a fluttering. Another crested kingfisher, he thought, and smiled to himself, I am already beginning to learn. He walked back up to the clearing. Nok Lek was walking down from the path that led up to the houses.
“Good morning, Mr. Drake,” said the boy.
“Good morning, I was looking for the Doctor. Can you kindly tell me where he is?”
“Once a week the Doctor is in his … how do you say?”
“The Doctor is in his surgery?”
“Yes, his surgery. He told me to get you.”
Nok Lek led Edgar up the small path to the camp headquarters. As they were entering, an older woman passed inside carrying a crying baby in her arms, swaddled tightly in a checkered cloth. Nok Lek and Edgar followed.
The room was full of people, dozens of men and women in colorful coats and turbans, crouching or standing, holding children, peering over shoulders to watch the Doctor, who sat at the far end of the room. Nok Lek led the piano tuner through the crowd, speaking softly to part it.
They found the Doctor at a broad desk, listening to a baby’s chest with a stethoscope. He raised his eyebrows in welcome and continued to listen. The baby lay limp and passive on the lap of a young woman Edgar guessed was its mother. She was very young, a girl of perhaps fifteen or sixteen, but her eyes looked swollen and tired. Like most of the other women, her hair was tied up in a wide turban that seemed to rest precariously on her head. She wore a dress tied over her bosom, a hand-woven cloth patterned with interlaced geometric designs. Though there was an elegance in the way she wore it, when Edgar looked closer, he saw that it was tattered at the edges. He thought of the Doctor’s stories of the drought.
At long last, Carroll removed the stethoscope. He spoke to the woman for a moment in Shan, and then turned to rummage through a cabinet behind him. Edgar peered over his shoulder at the rows of apoth
ecary vials.
The Doctor saw him stare. “Much the same as any English chemist,” he said as he handed the woman a small bottle of a dark elixir. “Warburg’s tincture and arsenic for fever, Cockle’s pills and Chlorodyne, Goa powder for ringworm, Vaseline, Holloway’s ointment, Dover’s powder, laudanum for dysentery. And then these.” He pointed to a row of unlabeled bottles filled with leaves and dirty liquids, crushed bugs, and lizards floating in solution. “Local medicine.”
Carroll reached back into the cabinet and took out a larger flask filled with herbs and a smoky liquid. He pulled the stopper, and the room filled with a deep, sweet scent. He dipped his fingers into the bottle and pulled out a wet mass of leaves and placed them on the baby’s chest. Water pooled around the leaves and ran over the baby’s sides. He began to run his fingers over its body, spreading the fluid over its throat and chest. His eyes were closed and he began to whisper something, softly. At last he opened them. He wrapped the baby’s swaddling back around the leaves and spoke to the girl. She rose and bowed in thanks, and walked away through the crowd.
“What was that?” Edgar asked.
“I think the child has consumption. That little bottle is Steven’s Consumption Cure,” said Carroll. “Direct from England. I somewhat doubt its efficacy, but we don’t have much better. Do you know of Koch’s discoveries?”
“Only what I have read in the broadsheets. But I couldn’t tell you anything. I know Steven’s Cure only because we bought it for our housemaid—her mother has consumption.”
“Well, the German thinks that he found the cause of consumption in a bacteria, he calls it a ‘tubercle bacillus.’ But that was five years ago. As closely as I try to follow the advances, I am too isolated, and it is difficult to know how science has changed.”
“And the plant?”
“The medicine men call it mahaw tsi. It is a famous Kachin cure, and their medicine men guard it from foreigners. It took a long time to convince them to show it to me. I am pretty certain it is a species of Euonymus, although I can’t be sure. They use it for many ailments, some believe that even saying the words mahaw tsi can cure disease. They say it is especially potent for diseases of air, and this baby has a cough. Anyway, I mix it with Holloway’s ointment. For a long time I was doubtful about the herbs, but I think that I see some improvement in my patients who use them. That and prayer.”
