by Daniel Mason
He waited. An hour passed, and then perhaps two, although he couldn’t be certain, and couldn’t even indulge the habit of looking at the broken watch, as he had recently left it in his bags.
Another hour. Slowly, his anxiety began to lift. Perhaps the Doctor has changed his mind, he decided, He has thought about this more carefully and now knows that it is a misbegotten idea, that I am not ready for such performances. He waited, increasingly convinced that this was true. He went out on the balcony but could see only the women at the river.
At last he heard footsteps on the stairs. It was one of the servant boys. “Doctor Carroll give this to you,” the boy said, handing him a note, bowing.
Edgar opened the letter. It was written on Shan paper like all others he had seen, but the handwriting was slouched, hasty.
Mr. Drake,
I apologize for not meeting with you as promised. The sawbwa’s emissary requires more attention than anticipated, and unfortunately, I will be unable to speak to you about your performance. My only request is this: As you know, the sawbwa of Mongnai is one of the leaders of the Limbin Confederacy, with whom British forces under Colonel Stedman have been at war for the last two months. I hope to propose a preliminary treaty with the sawbwa while he is in Mae Lwin, and, more importantly, to request that he arrange a meeting with the Confederacy. All I ask of you is to select and play a piece that will move the Prince with emotions of friendship, to convince him of the good intentions of our proposals. I have the utmost confidence and faith in your ability to select and perform a piece appropriate for this occasion.
A.C.
Edgar looked up, to protest to someone, but the boy was gone. When he looked out over the camp, it was empty. He cursed.
He spent the night in the piano room, at the bench, thinking, beginning pieces and stopping, No that is not right, I cannot play that, thinking, beginning again. Thoughts of what he should play alternated with questions of what the visit meant, who the sawbwa was, and what the Doctor intended by the music, by the meeting. He stopped sometime in the early hours of dawn, when he rested his arms on the keyboard and his head on his arms and fell asleep.
It was afternoon when he woke with the impression that he had fallen asleep in his shop back in England. As he walked back to his room, he was amazed at how the camp had transformed itself overnight. The pathway had been swept of the detritus left by the rains, and covered with fresh pieces of timber. Banners were strung from the houses and fluttered in the light of dusk. The only sign of the British presence was the flag hanging outside the headquarters, which had been converted into a dining hall. It seemed oddly out of place, he thought, he had never seen it in the camp before, which now seemed peculiar—after all, it was a British fort.
He returned to his room and waited until the early evening, when a boy came and knocked on the door. He washed and dressed, and the boy led him up the steps to the headquarters, where a guard instructed him to remove his shoes before entering. Inside, the tables and chairs had been replaced by cushions laid out over the floor before low wicker tables. The hall was quiet; the sawbwa and his retinue had yet to arrive. He was led across the room to where Doctor Carroll and Khin Myo were seated. The Doctor was wearing Shan clothing, an elegantly tailored white cotton jacket hanging to the top of a paso of iridescent purple. It looked quite regal, and Edgar was reminded of the day he arrived, of how Carroll had stood by the river, dressed like his men. Since then, Edgar had only seen him in European clothes, or army khakis.
There was an empty cushion between the two of them. The Doctor was engaged in deep conversation with an older Shan man seated several cushions away, and motioned to Edgar to sit. Khin Myo was speaking to a boy who crouched at her side, and Edgar watched her as she spoke. Her blouse was of silk, and her hair looked darker, as if she had just bathed. In it, she wore the same teak pin she had worn on her walk. At last, when the boy had left, she leaned over to Edgar and whispered, “Have you prepared what you will play?”
Edgar smiled weakly. “We will see.” He looked about the room. He could barely recognize it as the drab clinic or office he was accustomed to. Torches burned in each corner, filling it with light and the aroma of incense. The walls had been draped with carpets and skins. Around the room stood servants, many of whom Edgar recognized, others he didn’t. They were all dressed in fine flowing trousers and blue shirts, their turbans clean and impeccably tied.
There was a sound at the door, and a hush fell over the room. A large man in glittering regalia entered. “Is that him?” Edgar asked.
“No, wait. He is smaller.” And as she said this, a short, plump man in an extravagantly sequined robe entered the room. The Shan servants at the door dropped to the floor and kowtowed before him. Even Carroll bowed, and Khin Myo, and—glancing to his side to imitate the Doctor—Edgar bowed as well. The sawbwa and his retinue crossed the room until he reached the empty cushion beside Carroll. They sat. They were all dressed in matching uniforms, pleated shirts with sashes, their heads tied with clean white turbans. All save one man, a monk, who sat back from his table, which Edgar understood as a refusal of food, as monks are not to eat after noon. There was something different about the way the man looked, and as Edgar continued to stare, he realized that what he first thought was unusually dark skin was a blue tattoo, which covered his entire face and hands. When a servant came and lit a bright torch in the center of the room, the blue skin stood out sharply against the saffron robes.
Carroll spoke to the sawbwa in Shan, and although Edgar couldn’t understand their words, he sensed murmurings of approval around the room. The hierarchy of the seating surprised him, that he should sit so close to the sawbwa, closer than the village representatives, and closer to Carroll than Khin Myo. Servants brought out fermented rice wine in carved metal cups, and when all had been served, Doctor Carroll raised his cup and spoke again in Shan. The room cheered, and the sawbwa looked especially pleased. “To your health,” whispered Carroll.
“Who is the monk?”
“The Shan call him the Blue Monk, I think you can see why. He is the sawbwa’s personal adviser. He doesn’t travel anywhere without him. When you play tonight, play to win the heart of the monk as well.”
And the meal was served, a feast unlike any Edgar had seen since he had arrived in the Shan States, dish after dish of sauces, curries, bowls of noodles served with thick broth, water snails cooked with young bamboo shoots, pumpkin fried with onion and chili, seared pork and mango, shredded water buffalo mixed with sweet green aubergines, salads of minced chicken and mint. They ate much and spoke little. Occasionally the Doctor would turn to say something to the sawbwa, but for the most part they remained silent, and the Prince grunted his approval of the food. Finally, after countless dishes, each of which could have culminated the meal, a plate of betel nuts was set before them, and the Shan began to chew vigorously, expectorating into the spittoons the party had brought themselves. At last the sawbwa leaned back and with one hand draped over his stomach, spoke to the Doctor. Carroll turned to the piano tuner. “Our Prince is ready for music. You may go to the room before us, to prepare. Please bow to him when you stand and keep your head low as you walk out of the room.”
Outside, the sky had cleared, and the path was lit by the moon and rows of burning torches. Edgar climbed the path, his chest tight with apprehension. There was a guard outside the piano room, a Shan boy he recognized from the mornings on the Salween. Edgar nodded to him, and the boy bowed deeply, an unnecessary action, as the tuner had come alone.
In the torchlight, the room looked much larger than before. The piano stood on one side, and someone had laid a number of pillows over the floor. It feels like a true salon, he thought. At the far side of the room, the windows that faced toward the river had been propped open, flooding the room with the serpentine course of the Salween. Edgar walked to the piano. The blanket had already been removed from the case, and he sat at the bench. He knew he shouldn’t touch the keys—he did not want to rev
eal the song, nor let the others think that he had begun without them. So he sat with his eyes closed, and thought about how his fingers would move and how the music would sound.
Soon he heard voices on the path below, and footsteps. Carroll and the Prince and the Blue Monk entered, and then Khin Myo, and then others. Edgar stood and bowed, low, like the Burmese, like a concert pianist, for in this respect the pianist has more in common with cultures of the East than those of the West, he thought, who choose to greet by taking the hand of their visitor. He stood until they had reclined on the pillows and then seated himself again on the piano bench. He would begin without introduction, without words. The name of the composer would mean nothing to the Prince of Mongnai. And surely Carroll knew the piece; he could explain what it meant, or what he needed it to mean.
He began with Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in C-sharp Minor, the fourth piece of Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier. It was a tuner’s piece, an exploration of the possibilities of sound, and a series that Edgar knew from testing the tuning of professional pianos. He had always called it a testament to the art of tuning. Before the development of equal temperament, the even spacing of notes, it was impossible to play all of the keys on the same instrument. But with equally spaced notes, the possibilities suddenly seemed endless.
He played through the Prelude, the sound rose and fell, and he felt himself sway as he played. There is much I could tell the Doctor, he thought, about why I have chosen it. That it is a piece bound by strict rules of counterpoint, as all fugues are, the song is but an elaboration of one simple melody, the remainder of the piece destined to follow the rules established in the first few lines. To me this means beauty is found in order, in rules—he may make what he wishes from this in lessons of law and treaty-signing. I could tell him that it is a piece without a commanding melody, that in England many people dismiss it as too mathematical, as lacking a tune which can be held or hummed. Perhaps he knows this already. But if a Shan does not know the same songs, then just as I have been confused by their melodies, so might the Prince be confused by ours. So I chose something mathematical, for this is universal, all can appreciate complexity, the trance found in patterns of sound.
There are other things he could say, of why he began with the fourth Prelude and not the first, for the fourth is a song of ambiguity, and the first a melody of accomplishment, and it is best to begin courtships with modesty. Or that he chose it simply because he often felt so moved when he heard it, There is emotion in the notes, If it is less accessible than other pieces, perhaps this is why it is so much stronger.
The piece began low, in the bass strings, and as it increased in complexity, soprano voices entered, and Edgar felt his whole body move toward the right and remain there, a journey across the keyboard, I am like the puppets moving on their stage in Mandalay. More confident now, he played and the song slowed, and when at last he finished he had almost forgotten that others were watching. He raised his head and looked across the room to the sawbwa, who said something to the Blue Monk and then motioned for Edgar to continue. Beside him, he thought he could see the Doctor smile. And so he began again, now D Major, now D Minor, and forward through each scale, moving up, each tune a variation on its beginnings, structure giving rise to possibilities. He played into the remoter scales, as his old master had called them, and Edgar thought how fitting a name this was for a piece played into the night of the jungle, I can never again believe Bach never left Germany.
He played for nearly two hours, to a place where, halfway into the piece, there is a break, like a rest station on a lonely road, that settles in the wake of the Prelude and Fugue in B Minor. On the last note his fingers stopped and rested on the keyboard and he turned his head and looked out over the room.
18
Dear Katherine,
It is March, although I am not certain of the date. I write to you from the fort and village of Mae Lwin, on the banks of the Salween River, in the Southern Shan States, in Burma. I arrived long ago, and yet this is my first letter home from here, and I apologize for not having written to you sooner. Indeed, I am afraid that such silence must worry you greatly, as by now you must have come to expect my letters, which I wrote so often before leaving for the Shan Hills. Unfortunately, I don’t think you will read this letter for a long time, as there is no way to get mail to Mandalay. Perhaps it is for this reason that I have been hesitant to write, but I think that there are others as well, some that I understand and others I do not. When I have written to you before, it has always been about some idea or event, or thought, which makes me wonder why I haven’t written since arriving here, since much has happened. Weeks ago, I wrote to you that what saddened me most about coming here was the feeling that I would leave incomplete. Strangely, since I left Mandalay, I have seen more than I could have imagined and I have understood more of what I have seen, but at the same time this incompleteness grows more acute. Each day I am here, I await an answer, like a salve, or water that satisfies thirst. I think this is why I have postponed writing, but I have found few answers. So now I write because it has been too long since I wrote last. I know that when I see you, the events I describe in this letter will be old events, the impressions long past. So perhaps I also write simply because I have a deep need to put words to a page, even though I may be the only one who will read this.
I am sitting beneath a willow tree, on the sandy banks of the Salween River. It is one of my favorite spots. It is quiet and hidden, and yet I can still see the river and listen to the sounds of people around me. It is early evening. The sun has begun its descent, and the sky is purple with the gathering of clouds, perhaps we will have more storms. Four days have passed since the rains first began. I will remember that day better than I will remember the day I left Mandalay, for it marked such a change on the Plateau. Indeed, I have never seen anything like the rain here. The drizzle that we call rain in England is nothing compared to the pounding of a monsoon. At once, the sky opens and soaks everything, everyone runs for shelter, the footpaths turn to mud, to rivers, the trees shake, and water pours off leaves as if out of a pitcher, there is nothing dry. Oh, Katherine, it is so strange: I could write for pages only about the rain, the way it falls, the different sizes of the drops and how they feel on your face, its taste and smell, its sound. Indeed, I could write for pages only on its sound, on thatch, on leaves, on tin, on willow.
My dear, it is so beautiful here. The rains have arrived early this year, and the forest has undergone a most incredible change. In only a matter of days, the dry brush has transformed itself into explosions of colors. When I took the steamer from Rangoon to Mandalay, I met young soldiers who shared with me stories of Mae Lwin, and at the time I couldn’t believe that what they were saying was true, yet now I know that it was. The sun is bright and strong. Cool breezes drift up from the river. The air is filled with the incense of nectar, the scent of spices cooking, and sounds, what incredible sounds! I sit beneath a willow now, and the branches hang low so I can see little of the river. But I can hear laughter. Oh, if only I could capture the laughter of children in the vibrations of string, or put them on paper. But here words fail us. I think of the language we use to describe music, and how we are unequipped for the infinity of tones. Still, we do have ways to record it; in music our inadequacies are confined only to words, for we can always resort to signatures and scales. And yet we still haven’t found words for all the other sounds, nor can we record them in signature and script. How can I describe what I mean? To my left, three boys are playing with a ball in the shallows, and it keeps drifting out to deeper waters, and a young Shan woman washing clothes—perhaps she is their mother, or maybe their sister—scolds them when they swim out to retrieve it. And yet they keep losing the ball and keep swimming after it, and between the losing and the swimming there is a particular laughter like none I have ever heard. These are sounds forbidden to a piano, to bars and notations.
Katherine, I wish you could hear it too, no, I wish that I could take it
home, remember it all. As I write, I feel both a tremendous sadness and a joy, a wanting, a welling from within me, something ecstatic. I choose my words carefully; this is truly what I feel, for it rises in my chest like water from a well, and I swallow and my eyes brim with tears as if I will overflow. I don’t know what this is or where it came from, or when it began. I never thought I could find so much in the falling of water or in the sounds of children playing.
I realize what an odd letter this must be for you, for I have written so much, and yet still I have described so little of what I have done or seen. Instead I babble like a child to the paper. Something has changed—you must know this already by the way I write. Last night I played the piano for an audience, and quite a distinguished one at that, and part of me wants to mark this as the moment of change, although I know that it isn’t—the change is something that has come more slowly, perhaps it even began at home. What this change means I don’t know, just as I don’t know if I am happier or sadder than I have ever been. At times I wonder if the reason I have lost track of time is that I will know when to return not by a date, but when an emptiness is filled. I will come home, of course, for you remain my greatest love. But only now am I realizing the reason you wanted me to go, what you told me before I left. There is a purpose in all of this—you were right, although I do not know yet what it is, let alone if I have even accomplished it. But I must wait now, must stay now. Of course, I will return, soon, perhaps tomorrow. Now I write because I feel you must know why I am still here. You will understand, dear, I hope.
Katherine, it is growing dark, and even cold, for it is winter here, as strange as that may sound. I wonder what others would think if they read this letter. For, by all superficial appearances, I look the same, I don’t know if anyone else has noticed a change in me. Perhaps this is why I miss you so, you always said you heard me even when I was silent.