The Piano Tuner

by Daniel Mason

  I will write more, for there are other things that remain unsaid, if only for the limits of space and ink and sunlight.

  I remain,

  Your loving husband,

  Edgar

  It is still light. There are other things that remain unsaid—he knows this, but his pen trembles when he brings them close to the page.

  Khin Myo stood at the edge of the willow tree. Her face was drawn. “Mr. Drake,” she said. He looked up. “Doctor Carroll sent me to find you. Please, come. And hurry. He says it’s important.”

  19

  Edgar folded the letter and followed Khin Myo up from the river. She said nothing, but left him at the door of the headquarters and walked quickly back down the trail.

  Inside, he found the Doctor at the window, staring out over the camp. He turned. “Mr. Drake, please, sit down.” He motioned to a chair, and sat on the other side of the broad desk he had used for the amputation. “Sorry to disturb you, you seemed so peaceful by the river. You more than anyone deserve a moment of repose. You played beautifully.”

  “It was a technical piece.”

  “That was far more than a technical piece.”

  “And the sawbwa?” Edgar asked. “One can only hope that he felt the same.” The Prince had left that morning on a throne mounted to an elephant’s back, the flash of his sequins disappearing into the greenery of the jungle. He was flanked on either side by horsemen, their ponies’ tails dyed red.

  “Charmed. He wanted to hear you play again. But I insisted that there would be better times for that.”

  “Did you get the treaty you were asking for?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t asked for it yet. Directness rarely works with the princes. I merely told him of our position and asked nothing, we shared a meal, and you played. The, let us say, ‘consummation’ of our courtship will have to await approval of the other princes. But with the sawbwa’s support, our chances of a treaty are better.” He leaned forward. “I brought you to my office to ask your further assistance.”

  “Doctor, I can’t play again.”

  “No, Mr. Drake, this time it has nothing to do with pianos, and all to do with war, regardless of my poetics on the meeting of the two. Tomorrow night there will be a meeting of Shan princes in Mongpu, north of here. I want you to accompany me there.”

  “Accompany you? In what capacity?”

  “Company, only. It is half a day’s journey, and the meeting should only last a day or a night, depending on when they begin. We will travel by horseback. You should at least join us for the journey—it is one of the most scenic in the Shan States.”

  Edgar began to speak, but the Doctor gave him no time to refuse. “We will leave tomorrow.” It was only when he was outside that he realized Carroll hadn’t invited him out of camp since their trip to the ravine that sang.

  He spent the remainder of the evening by the river thinking, bothered by the suddenness of the trip, by the urgency he sensed in the Doctor’s voice. He thought of Khin Myo and their walk in the rain, Perhaps he doesn’t want us together. But he dismissed this, There is something else, I have done nothing wrong, nothing improper.

  Clouds came. In the Salween, women beat the clothes against the rocks.

  They left the following afternoon. For the first time since Edgar arrived, the Doctor wore his officer’s uniform: a scarlet jacket with black braids and his gold rank badge. It gave him a regal and imposing air; his hair was combed, dark and oiled. Khin Myo came out to say good-bye, and Edgar watched her closely as she stood and spoke to the Doctor in a mixture of Burmese and English. Carroll listened, and took the sardine tin from his breast pocket and selected a cheroot. When Khin Myo turned at last to Edgar, she didn’t smile, but only stared as if she seemed not to see him. The ponies were washed and groomed, but the flowers had been taken from their manes.

  They rode out of camp, accompanied by Nok Lek and four other Shan on ponies, all holding rifles. They followed the main trail up the ridge, and turned north. It was a beautiful day, cool with echoes of the rain. The Doctor carried his helmet on the saddle and smoked pensively as he rode.

  Edgar said nothing, but thought of the letter he had written to Katherine, folded in the confines of his bag.

  “You are unusually quiet today, Mr. Drake,” said the Doctor.

  “Only daydreaming. I wrote to my wife for the first time since I arrived in Mae Lwin. About the performance, the piano …”

  They rode. “It’s strange,” the Doctor said at last.

  “What’s strange.”

  “Your love of the Erard. You are the first Englishman who has not asked me why I want a piano in Mae Lwin.”

  Edgar turned. “Why? Oh, it has never been a mystery to me. I have never seen a place more worthy.” He drifted into silence again. “No,” he said. “I wonder more why I am here.”

  The Doctor looked at him askance. “And I thought you and that piano were inseparable.” He laughed.

  Edgar joined him. “No, no … It must seem that way at times. But I am serious now. It must have been weeks since I completed my commission. Shouldn’t I have left long ago?”

  “I think that is a question for you to answer.” The Doctor tapped dark ashes from the end of the cheroot. “I have not held you here.”

  “No,” Edgar persisted. “But you haven’t encouraged me to leave, either. I expected to be asked to go, as soon as the piano was tuned. Remember, I am ‘quite a risk’—those were your words, I believe.”

  “I enjoy your company, our conversations. It is well worth the risk.”

  “To talk about music? I am flattered, but really, there must be more than that. Besides, there are those who know music much better than I, men in India, in Calcutta, in Burma even. Or if you merely wanted conversation, naturalists, anthropologists. Why would you make such an effort for me to stay? There could be others.”

  “There have been others.”

  Edgar turned to face the Doctor. “Visitors, you mean?”

  “I have been here for twelve years. Others have come, naturalists, anthropologists, as you say. They came and stayed, never for a long time, only long enough to collect samples, or make sketches, and expostulate on some theory or another on how the biology, the culture, the history of the Shan States fit into their opinions. Then they returned home.”

  “I find that hard to believe. It is so enchanting here …”

  “I think you are answering your own question, Mr. Drake.”

  They stopped at the top of a rise to watch a flock of birds take flight.

  “There is a piano tuner in Rangoon,” said Carroll when they began to move again. “I knew that long before I sent for you. He is a missionary, the army doesn’t know he tunes pianos, but I met him once long ago. He would have come, had I asked.”

  “I imagine that would have saved everyone a lot of effort.”

  “It would have. And he would have come and stayed briefly. And left. I wanted someone for whom this would be new. I don’t mean to mislead you, of course: that was not my primary intention in bringing you here.” He waved the cigar. “No, I wanted to have my piano tuned by the best tuner of Erard pianos in London, and I knew this request would force the army to acknowledge how much they depend on me, that they know my methods work, that music, like force, can bring peace. But I also knew that if someone did make the journey all the way here to answer my request, it would be someone who believed in music as I did.”

  “And if I hadn’t come?” asked Edgar. “You didn’t know me, you couldn’t have been certain.”

  “Someone else, more visitors, perhaps the missionary from Rangoon. And they would have gone home after several days.”

  Edgar saw the Doctor stare into the distance. “Have you ever thought of returning home?” he asked.

  “Of course. I remember England very fondly.”

  “You do?”

  “It’s my home.”

  “And yet you continue to stay, why then?”

  “I have t
oo much here, projects, experiments, too many plans. I hadn’t intended to stay. I first came for work. There was only a glimmer that it was for something different. Or maybe it is simpler than that, perhaps I won’t leave because I am afraid to hand over my command to someone else. They would not do this … peacefully.” He paused, and took the cigar from his mouth. He stared at the smoke seeping from its end. “There are times when I have doubts.”

  “About the war?”

  “No, perhaps I am expressing myself poorly. I don’t doubt what I have done here. I know it is right. I doubt only what I have missed in doing it.” He rolled the cheroot back and forth between his fingers. “I listen to you, and how you speak of your wife—I had a wife once. And a daughter—a tiny baby who was mine for one day. There is a Shan saying that when people die it is because they have done what they needed to, because they are too good for this world. I think of her when I hear them say this.”

  “I am sorry,” Edgar said. “The Colonel told me. But I didn’t feel like it was my position to ask.”

  “No, you are too considerate … But I should apologize, Mr. Drake: these are sad, distant thoughts.” He straightened his back in the saddle. “Besides, you asked me why I stay. That is a difficult enough question. Perhaps, everything I just told you about not wanting to give up the camp is wrong. Perhaps I stay simply because I cannot leave.” He put his cigar back in his mouth. “Once I tried. Not long after I began to work at the hospital in Rangoon, another surgeon arrived with his battalion, to remain in Rangoon for a year before moving up-country. It had been years since I visited England, and I was given the option to return home for a few months. I booked a berth on a steamer and traveled from Rangoon, where I was stationed at the time, to Calcutta, and there boarded the train to Bombay.”

  “It is the same route that I followed.”

  “Then you know how stunning it is. Well, that trip was even more stunning. We were not thirty miles from Delhi when the train stopped at a small supply depot and I saw a cloud of dust rise up over the desert. It was a group of riders, and as they drew closer, I recognized them as Rajasthani herders. The women were dressed in exquisitely colored veils, which still glowed a deep red despite the dust that had settled over them. I think they had seen the train from a distance and had come to inspect it out of curiosity. They moved back and forth beside us, pointed at the wheels, the engine, the passengers, all the time talking in a language I couldn’t understand. I watched them, the passing color, still thinking, and I boarded the steamer to England. But when the boat reached Aden, I disembarked and took the next steamer back to Bombay, the next train back to Calcutta. One week later, I was back at my post in Pegu. I still don’t know exactly why seeing the herders made me turn back. But the thought of returning to London’s dark streets while those images continued to dance in my head seemed impossible. The last thing I wanted to become was one of those sad veterans who bores any listening ear with disjointed tales of unfamiliar places.” He inhaled deeply on the cheroot. “You know, I told you how I have been translating the Odyssey. I always read it as a tragic tale of Odysseus’s struggle to find his way home. Now I understand more and more what Dante and Tennyson wrote about it, that he wasn’t lost, but that after the wonders he had seen, Odysseus couldn’t, perhaps didn’t want to, return home.”

  There was silence.

  “That reminds me of a story I once heard,” said Edgar.

  “Yes?”

  “It was not long ago—three months, maybe—when I first left England. I met a man on the ship in the Red Sea. An old Arab.”

  “The Man with One Story.”

  “You know him?”

  “Of course. I met him long ago, when I was in Aden. I have heard many speak of his story. A story of war is never lost on a soldier.”

  “A story of war?”

  “I have heard soldiers tell me the same story for years. I can almost recite it now; the images of Greece are so vivid. It turns out the story is true, both he and his brother were just boys whose families had been killed by the Ottomans, and worked as spies during the War for Independence. I once met an old veteran from the War who said that he had heard of the brothers, their valor. Everyone wants to hear the story. They feel that it is auspicious, that those who hear it perform bravely in battle.”

  Edgar stared at the Doctor. “Greece? …”

  “Yes?” asked the Doctor.

  “You are certain it was about the Greek War for Independence?”

  “The story? Of course. Why? Are you surprised that after so many years I still remember it?”

  “No … I am not surprised at all. I too remember as if I heard it yesterday. I too can almost recite it now.”

  “Is there something wrong then?”

  “No, nothing wrong, I suppose,” said Edgar, slowly. “Just thinking of the story.” Thinking, Was it different only for me, I could not have imagined it all, this all.

  They rode on, and passed through a grove of trees with long twisted pods that made rattling sounds as they shook. The Doctor said, “You wished to say something. That the Man with One Story reminded you of something I said.”

  “Oh …” Edgar reached up and picked one of the pods. He broke it open, the dried seeds spilling out over his hands. “It doesn’t matter. It is just a story, I suppose.”

  “Yes, Mr. Drake.” Carroll looked quizzically at the piano tuner. “They are all just stories.”

  The sun was low in the sky as they passed over a small rise to look down on a collection of huts in the distance. “Mongpu,” said the Doctor. They stopped by a dusty shrine. Edgar watched Carroll dismount and lay a coin at the base of a small house that held a spirit icon.

  They began their descent, the ponies’ feet splashing in the mud of the trail. It grew darker. Mosquitoes came out, great clouds, breaking and coalescing like dancing fragments of shade.

  “Foul creatures,” said the Doctor, swatting at them. His cheroot had burned to a short stub, and he took the sardine tin once again from his pocket. “I recommend that you smoke, Mr. Drake. It will keep the insects away.”

  Edgar remembered the malaria attack, and conceded. The doctor lit a cigar and passed it to him. Its taste was liquid, intoxicating.

  “I should probably explain a little about the meeting,” said the Doctor as they began to ride again. “As you have read, since the annexation of Mandalay, there has been active resistance from a union of forces called the Limbin Confederacy.”

  “We spoke of this when the sawbwa of Mongnai came.”

  “We did,” said the Doctor. “But there is something I didn’t tell you. For the past two years, I have been in close negotiation with the sawbwas of the Limbin Confederacy.”

  Edgar took the cigar awkwardly from his mouth. “You wrote that no one had met with the Confederacy …”

  “I know what I wrote and what I told you. But I had reasons for that. As you probably know, at the time that your boat was somewhere in the Indian Ocean, a force was established at Hlaingdet under Colonel Stedman: companies from the Hampshire Regiment, a Gurkha company, Bombay sappers, with George Scott as political officer, which gave me hope this wouldn’t turn into a full war; he is a close friend, and I don’t know anyone as sensitive to local issues as he is. But since January, our forces have been engaged in active battle near Yawnghwe. Now the commissioner feels that the only way to control the Shan States is through force. But because of the overtures by the Mongnai sawbwa, I think we can negotiate peace.”

  “Does the army know about this meeting?”

  “No, Mr. Drake, and this is what I need you to understand. They would oppose it. They don’t trust the princes. I will put this bluntly—I, and now you, are acting in direct defiance of military orders.” He let the words sink in. “Before you speak, there is something else. We have also spoken briefly about a Shan dacoit prince named Twet Nga Lu, known as the Bandit Chief, who once seized the state of Mongnai but who has since retreated to terrorize the villages ruled by the true Mon
gnai sawbwa. They say that few people have ever seen him. What they haven’t told you is what they don’t know. I have met the Bandit Chief many times.”

  He waved away a swarm of mosquitoes. “Several years ago, before the rebellion, Twet Nga Lu was bitten by a snake near the Salween. One of his brothers, who sometimes trades in Mae Lwin, knew that we were only several hours downstream. He brought the sick man to me, and I administered a poultice of local herbs that I had learned from a Mae Lwin medicine man. He was nearly unconscious when he arrived, and when he awoke, he saw my face and thought he had been captured. He grew so angry that his brother had to restrain him and explain that I had saved his life. Finally he calmed down. His eyes settled on the microscope, and he asked what it was. He didn’t believe me when I tried to describe it, so I took a sample of pond water I had been examining, placed it on the slide, and asked him to look. At first he had trouble with the microscope—opening the wrong eye and so forth—and looked ready to throw the instrument to the ground when the light, reflected from the sun through the canted mirror, met his eye, bringing images of the tiny little beasts familiar to any English schoolboy. The effect could not have been more profound. He staggered back to his bed, muttering that indeed I must have magical powers to summon monsters from pond water. What would happen, he exclaimed, if I decided to set them loose from the machine! He now seems to believe I have a form of magical vision that the Shan believe can be found only in amulets. Of course, I won’t protest, and since then he has returned to me several times, asking to see the microscope. He is very bright and is learning English quickly, as if he knows who his new enemy is. Although I still cannot trust him, he seems now to accept that I personally have no designs against Kengtawng. In August last year, he seemed increasingly distracted, and asked me if there was anything I could do to block the signing of a treaty with the Limbin Confederacy. Then he disappeared for three months. The next time I heard his name was in a Mandalay intelligence briefing on an attack on a fort near Inle Lake.”