The Piano Tuner

by Daniel Mason

  Silence again.

  You don’t even know what this has meant to her, what it is like to be someone else’s creation. Why are you telling me that? Because you are different now from when I met you last. What does it matter, we are not talking about me, Captain. When I met you last, you said that you couldn’t play the piano. I still cannot. Yet you played for the Shan sawbwa.

  You don’t know that.

  You played for the Shan sawbwa of Mongnai, and you played The Well-Tempered Clavier, but only to the twenty-fourth fugue.

  I told you, you cannot know that, I have not told you that.

  You began at Prelude and Fugue number 4, that is sad, number 2 is so beautiful, You think that your song would have brought peace, You cannot admit Anthony Carroll is a traitor because it denies everything you have done here.

  You don’t know about the song.

  I know a lot more about you than you think.

  You aren’t here.

  Edgar, Don’t destroy that which you cannot understand, Those are your words.

  You aren’t here, I hear nothing, you are only the crickets’ shrill, you are my imagination.

  Perhaps, or perhaps only a dream. Perhaps I am only the night playing tricks. Perhaps you picked the lock on the door yourself. Possibilities, no? Perhaps four shots were fired from the bank instead of three. Perhaps I came here not to ask questions for anyone but myself.

  And now.

  The door is open, Go, I won’t stop you, You are escaping alone.

  Is this why you came?

  I didn’t know until now.

  I wish to embrace you but that will answer a question I do not yet want to answer.

  You wish to ask if I am real, or but a ghost.

  And you wish to answer.

  We have been ghosts since this all began, said the shadow.

  Good-bye, said Edgar Drake, and walked through the open door and into the night.

  The camp was empty, the guards were all asleep. He moved silently, and left the door open behind him. He began heading north, thinking only of putting distance between himself and the camp. Heavy storm clouds covered the moon and the sky was black. He walked.

  He ran.

  24

  Only minutes away, and rain began to fall. He was running, already breathless, when the first drops hit him, one two three points of moisture on warm skin. And then, without hesitation, the sky opened. Like a dam breaking, clouds cracking as if sundered. Water drops falling like spools of unraveling thread.

  As he ran, Edgar tried to picture a map of the river, but his memory was blurred. Although they had been traveling for almost two days, they had been slowed by the piano, and could not have traveled more than twenty miles. And the wide bends in the river meant that perhaps Mae Lwin was even closer by land. Perhaps. He tried to recall the terrain, but distance suddenly seemed less important than direction. He ran faster through the falling water, his feet kicking up soft mud.

  And then suddenly he stopped.

  The piano. He stood in a small clearing. The rain pounded on his body, stronger now, washing over his hair, running down his cheeks in rivulets. He closed his eyes. He could see the Erard, floating at the shore as the soldiers had left it, shaking in the current. He could see them coming down to take it, pulling it in, grabbing it, pawing it with hands dirty with rifle grease. He could see it sitting in a powdered parlor, revarnished, retuned, and deep inside, a piece of bamboo removed and replaced with spruce. He stood still. Each breath brought the warm spray of rain. He opened his eyes and turned. Back to the river.

  The bank was heavily forested, making walking almost impossible. At the river, he slipped into the water, its surface shaking with the drumming of the storm. He let the current move him downstream. It wasn’t far, and he pulled himself into the shore with the willow branches. Water laced his face. He struggled onto the bank.

  Around him, the rain crashed through the trees in massive sheets, carried on lashes of wind that whipped through the willows. Tied to a tree on the bank, the raft tugged wildly, the river foaming over its edge, threatening to tear it downstream. The piano was still tied to the deck. They had forgotten to cover it, and the rain beat at the mahogany.

  For a moment Edgar stood and felt the current build up against his legs, the sting of water through his shirt. He watched the piano. There was no moon, and in the shifting curtains of rain, the Erard trembled in and out of perception, its shape outlined by the droplets that shattered against the dark wood, its legs tensing as it swung with the cant of the raft.

  They would realize his absence soon, he thought with rising panic, perhaps they already had, and all that was keeping them from finding him was the rain. He waded through the water to where the raft was tied to the tree, and dropped to his knees. The rope had already begun to rub the bark from the trunk, the raw pulp turned out where the fibers had torn it. He fumbled at the knot with his hands, but the raft had pulled it tight and his numb fingers couldn’t loosen it.

  The raft tugged against its ropes, water gurgled up over the logs, it could capsize at any moment. The wail of the Erard seemed to say this, the shaking of the raft was throwing the hammers up against the strings, the notes crescendoing with the roar of the river. He then remembered the tool bag he had packed. He led himself along the rope toward the raft, and found the large chest. Struggling, he opened it, and reached his arm inside. His fingers touched the dry leather and he pulled it out.

  Fumbling with the ties, he opened the bag and frantically tore through its contents until he found the penknife. The piano’s song was getting louder, all strings at once. He threw the bag into the water where it floated briefly in the eddy formed by the current against the raft, and he turned, back to the bank. The river caught him off-balance and he fell to his knees, catching himself on the rope. His glasses were knocked from his face, and he caught them in the water and shoved them back on his nose. He reached for the rope, opened the penknife, and began to saw, the twine of the rope peeling apart under the tension as each strand was cut, until he reached the final fibers and the rope broke on its own. The raft shook, the piano sang as the hammers were slung up with the energy of the release. The raft paused briefly in the current, turning, caught in willow branches, their leaves stroking the piano’s surface. And then a curtain of rain, and the piano was gone.

  With difficulty, he pulled himself to the bank. He thrust the penknife into his pocket and began again to run. Through the underbrush, slapping branches from his face, hurtling through clearings drenched with walls of rain. In his mind he saw the piano floating, waves of rain pounding its case, the wind tugging the lid open, the two playing a duet on its keys. He saw foam and current pushing it downriver, past other villages. He saw children pointing, fishermen paddling out with their nets.

  When lightning struck again, it illuminated a spectacled man running north through the forest, clothes torn, hair plastered to his forehead, while a black mahogany grand piano bobbed south in the current of the river, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, which caught the light. They spun out as if released from a locus, where a guard dog tore forward at its leash, and a reconnaissance team of soldiers frantically gathered their lanterns.

  His feet pounded the trail, splashing mud against his body. The path cut through a dense grove of trees, and he followed, riding it into the dark, crashing through branches. He stumbled, fell spinning into the mud. He pulled himself up, pushed forward. Panting.

  After an hour, he turned toward the river. He wanted to wait until he was closer to Mae Lwin to cross, but he was afraid that the dogs would catch his scent.

  The river moved swiftly, swollen with rain. Through the darkness and the downpour he could not see the other side. He hesitated at the edge of the water, trying to discern the far bank. His glasses fogged with rain, blurring his vision even more. He removed them and thrust them into his pocket. For a moment he stood at the edge of the flowing river, seeing nothing but blackness, listening to the current. And then, far in
the distance, he heard the bark of a dog. He closed his eyes and dove.

  It was calm and quiet beneath the surface of the river, and he swam through the darkness, the current swift but smooth. For a few short seconds he felt safe, the cold water running over his body, his clothes fanning out with each stroke. And then his lungs began to burn. He pushed forward, fighting the need to rise, swimming until he could not endure the burning any longer and shot to the surface, exploding into the rain and wind. For a moment he rested, catching his breath, feeling the river carrying him away, and briefly he thought how peaceful it would be to just give up, and let the river carry him. But then lightning flashed again, and the whole river seemed to burn, and once again he was swimming fast wild strokes, and when he felt he couldn’t lift his arm again, his knee brushed against rocks and he opened his eyes to see the shore and a sandy bank. He pulled himself forward onto the bank, and collapsed in the sand.

  The rain beat down on his body. He took deep rapid breaths, coughing, spitting up river water. Lightning struck again. He knew he could be seen. He struggled to his feet and began to run.

  Through the forest, struggling over fallen logs, crashing arms first, blindly, through the lianas, he pushed forward, panic growing, for he had thought he would hit a trail which followed the left bank south from Mae Lwin, a route he had never traveled but which he had heard of from the Doctor. But nothing, only forest. He ran down a slope, dodging trees, to a small river, a tributary of the Salween. He tripped, and skidded down through the mud, falling instead of running, until the slope evened and he was back on his feet, and across the stream on a fallen tree trunk, up the other side of the bank, scampering, pulling himself up through falling clods of dirt, and at the top of the slope stumbling, falling, back up again running, and then suddenly his feet caught in the brambles of a thicket and he fell again, crashing into the brush. The rain beat down. When he tried to rise, he heard a growl.

  He turned slowly, expecting to see the leggings of the British soldiers. But instead, inches from his face, stood a dog alone, a mangy animal, soaked, its mouth full of broken teeth. Edgar tried to move back, but his leg was caught in the bushes. The animal growled again and lurched forward, its teeth snapping. A hand shot out of the darkness, grabbing the animal by the skin of its neck, pulling it back, barking, angry. Edgar looked up.

  There was a man, and he was naked except for a pair of Shan trousers, rolled up to reveal sinewy, muscled legs, streaming with water. He didn’t speak, and slowly Edgar reached down and untangled his foot from the brush and rose to his feet. For a brief second, the two men stood, staring at each other. To each other, we are phantoms, Edgar thought, and lightning flashed again, and the man materialized out of darkness, his body glistening, tattoos winding over his torso, fantastic shapes of jungle beasts, alive, moving, shifting with the rain. And then it was dark again, and Edgar was running through the brush, the forest getting thicker and thicker, until he burst into the open, a road. He wiped the mud from his eyes and turned north running, slowing, tired, running again. The rain came down in sheets, washing him.

  In the east it began to get lighter. Dawn broke. The rain relented, and soon stopped. Exhausted, Edgar slowed, walked. The road was an old oxcart road, overgrown with weeds. Two narrow tracks ran in uneven parallel, slashes cut by the worn edges of cart wheels. He looked for people, but the land was still. Farther along, the trees dropped away from the side of the road, becoming scrub-brush, scattered grasses. It began to grow warm.

  As he walked, he thought of little, but looked only for signs that could lead him to Mae Lwin. It became hot, and he felt beads of sweat mix with the drops of rain in his hair. He began to feel dizzy. He rolled up his sleeves and opened his shirt and in doing so, felt something in his pocket. It was a folded piece of paper, and for a moment he tried to remember what it could be, until he recalled his last moments on the shore with the Doctor, and the letter he had given him. He unfolded it as he walked, peeling the wet sheets open. He held it out before him, and stopped.

  It was a page torn from Anthony Carroll’s copy of The Odyssey, a printed text annotated with India ink swirls of Shan script, and lines underlined:

  My men went on and presently met the Lotus-Eaters,

  nor did these Lotus-Eaters have any thoughts of destroying

  our companions, but they only gave them lotus to taste of.

  But any of them who ate the honey-sweet fruit of lotus

  was unwilling to take any message back, or to go

  away, but they wanted to stay there with the lotus-eating

  people, feeding on lotus, and forget the way home.

  Through the translucence of the wet page, Edgar saw more writing and turned the paper. In dark strokes the Doctor had scrawled, “For Edgar Drake, who has tasted.” Edgar read the words again, and slowly lowered his hand, so that the page flapped at his side in the breeze. And again he began to walk, now with less urgency, slowly, perhaps it was only because he was tired. In the distance, the land rose to become the sky, blurring together in watercolor strokes of distant rainstorms. He looked up and saw the clouds, and it was as if they were burning, the pillows of cotton turning to ash. He felt the water from his clothes evaporate, steaming, leaving him as a spirit does the body.

  He passed over a rise, expecting to see the river, or perhaps Mae Lwin, but there was only a long road stretching forward to the horizon, and he followed it. In the distance, he saw a single blemish on the open stretch of land, and as he approached, he saw that it was a small shrine. He stopped in front of it. This is an odd place to leave offerings, he thought, There are no mountains or homes, There is no one here, and he stopped and looked over the bowls of rice, the wilted flowers, joss sticks, the now-decaying fruit. There was a statue in the spirit-house, a faded wooden sprite with a sad smile and a broken hand. Edgar stopped in the road and took the paper from his pocket, and read it once again. He folded it and tucked it next to the little statue, I leave you a story, he said.

  He walked and the sky was light but he saw no sun.

  In the afternoon, he saw a woman in the distance. She carried a parasol.

  She moved slowly along the road, and he couldn’t tell if she was approaching him or walking away. All was very still, and then from a distant memory came the echoes of a single summer day in England, when he had first taken Katherine’s hand in his and they had walked through Regent’s Park. They had said little, but watched the crowds and carriages, and other young couples. She had departed with only a whisper, My parents are waiting, I will meet you soon, and disappeared across the green beneath a white parasol, which caught the sunlight and danced slightly in the breeze.

  He thought now of this moment, the sounds of her voice growing clearer, and he found himself walking fast, now a half-run, until from behind him, he thought he heard hoofbeats, and then a voice, a calling to halt, but he did not turn.

  Again, the shout, Halt, and he heard mechanical sounds, clinkings of metal, but they were distant. There was another shout, and then a shot, and then Edgar Drake fell.

  He lay on the ground, a warmth spreading beneath him, and he turned and stared at the sun, which had come back, for in 1887, as the histories say, there was a terrible drought on the Shan Plateau. And if they don’t tell of the rains, or of Mae Lwin, or a piano tuner, it is for the same reason, for they came and vanished, the earth turning dry once more.

  The woman walks into a mirage, the ghost of light and water that the Burmese call than hlat. Around her, the air wavers, splitting her body, separating, spinning. And then she too disappears. Now only the sun and the parasol remain.

  Author’s Note

  An old Shan monk sat deep in argument with the Hindu ascetic.

  The monk explained that all Shans believe that when a man dies, his soul goes to the River of Death, where a boat waits to take him across, and this is why, when a Shan dies, his friends place a coin in his mouth, to pay the ferryman who takes him to the other side.

  There is an
other river, said the Hindu, which must be crossed before the highest heaven is reached. Everyone sooner or later reaches its shore, and has to search out his own way across. To some it is an easy and quick crossing, to others it is a slow and painful struggle to reach the other side, but everyone gets home at last.

  Adapted from Mrs. Leslie Milne, Shans at Home (1910)

  Edgar Drake, Anthony Carroll and Khin Myo, the site of Mae Lwin, and the delivery of an Erard piano to the Salween River are fictional.

  Nevertheless, I have attempted to place my story within a true historical context, a task facilitated by the fact that the history and characters of the Shan Revolt are more colorful than any imagination can conjure. All historical briefs in the story, from Burmese history to the Erard piano, contain true information. The pacification of the Shan States represented a critical period in British imperial expansion. The Limbin Confederacy was real, and their resistance determined. My story ends in approximately April 1887, when the principality of Lawksawk was occupied by British forces. Following this military victory, British domination of the Southern Shan States was swift. The Limbin Prince surrendered on May 13, and by June 22 Mr. A. H. Hildebrand, the superintendent of the Shan States, reported that “the Southern Shan States have now all given in their submission.”

  True historical figures referred to in this work of fiction include the political officer to the Shan States, Sir James George Scott, who introduced soccer to Burma while principal of St. John’s School in Rangoon, and Burma to me with his scholarly and sympathetic work The Burman, the first academic piece I read on the country and the inspiration for much of the cultural background of my story. His books, from meticulous descriptions of the yôkthe pwè in The Burman, to the encyclopedic compendium of local histories in The Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States, to the collection of his letters, Scott of the Shan Hills, were an invaluable source of information, as well as an endless pleasure to read.