The Piano Tuner

by Daniel Mason

  No one spoke. Nok Lek paddled ahead, singing a soft song. One of the brothers sat on the chest at the back of the raft, a paddle in his hand, his lithe muscles flexed against the current. The other stood at the bow, staring downstream. From the center of the raft, Edgar watched the bank reel past. It was an unworldly feeling, the smooth descent past hills and streams that tumbled down to join the Salween. The raft rode low in the river, and at times, water washed up over the logs and touched his feet. When it did this, the sunlight flashed on the waves, hiding the raft beneath a thinness, a fluttering of light. He felt as if he and the piano and the boys were standing on the river.

  As they floated, he watched the birds diving and rising on the currents of air, coursing in flight with the river. He wished he was with the Doctor, to tell him that he had seen them, so that the Doctor could add them to his collection of sightings. He wondered what the Doctor was doing now, how they were preparing, if he too would bear arms against the attack. He imagined the Doctor turning back and seeing Khin Myo standing in the flowers. He wondered how much he knew and how much she would tell. No more than twelve hours had passed since he had touched his lips to the warmth of her neck.

  And from Khin Myo, his thoughts drifted to a memory of the old tuner he had once been apprenticed to, who used to sneak a bottle of wine from a wooden cabinet after they finished work in the afternoons. What a distant memory, he thought, and he wondered where it came from, and what it meant that now was the moment of its remembering. He thought of the room where he had learned to tune, and the cold afternoons when the old man would wax poetically about the role of a tuner, and Edgar would listen with amusement. As a young apprentice, his master’s words had seemed maudlin. Why do you want to tune pianos? asked the old man. Because I have good hands and I like music, the boy had answered, and his teacher laughed, Is that it? What more? replied the boy. More? And the man raised a glass and smiled. Don’t you know, he asked, that in every piano there lies a song, hidden? The boy shook his head. Just the mumblings of an old man perhaps, But you see, the movement of a pianist’s fingers are purely mechanical, an ordinary collection of muscles and tendons that know only a few simple rules of rate and rhythm. We must tune pianos, he said, so that something as mundane as muscles and tendons and keys and wire and wood can become song. And what is the name of the song that lies in this old piano? the boy had asked, pointing to a dusty upright. Song, said the man, It doesn’t have a name, Only song. And the boy had laughed because he hadn’t heard of a song without a name, and the old man laughed because he was drunk and happy.

  The keys and hammers trembled with the sway of the current, and in the faint ringing that rose up Edgar again heard a song with no name, a song made only of notes but no melody, a song that repeated itself, each echo a ripple of the first, a song that came from the piano itself, for there was no musician but the river. He thought back to the night in Mae Lwin, to The Well-Tempered Clavier, It is a piece bound by strict rules of counterpoint, as all fugues are, the song is but an elaboration of one simple melody, we are destined to follow the rules established in the first few lines.

  It makes you wonder, said the old man, lifting his wineglass, why a man who composed such melodies of worship, of faith, named his greatest fugue after the act of tuning a piano.

  They floated downstream. In the afternoon, their progress was slowed by a steep drop through rapids, around which they were forced to portage.

  The river widened. Nok Lek tied his dugout to their raft.

  In the early evening, they stopped at a small deserted village by the edge of the river. Nok Lek paddled the canoe to shore and the two other boys jumped into the shallows, splashing while they pulled the raft. At first it resisted, like a recalcitrant animal, but slowly they pulled it out of the current and into an eddy. They fastened it to a log that lay on the beach. Edgar helped them untie the piano and lift and carry it to the bank, where they rested it on the sand. The sky was heavy and they pitched a shelter with woven mats and covered the piano.

  At the edge of the buildings, the boys found a discarded chinlon ball and began to kick it about in the shallows. Their playfulness seemed incongruous to Edgar, whose thoughts raced one upon the other, Where now are the Doctor, and Khin Myo, Has the fighting begun, Perhaps the battle is already over. Only hours ago he had been there, but now he could see no smoke, nor hear gunfire, nor screams. The river was calm, and the sky clear save for the gathering mist.

  He left the boys and walked up the bank. It had begun to drizzle lightly, and his feet punched out dry footprints in the moist sand. Curious as to why it had been deserted, he followed a trail that ran up from the shore and toward the village. It was a short climb; like Mae Lwin, it had been built close to the river. At the top of the path he stopped.

  It was, or had been, a typical Shan village, a collection of huts gathered in disarray, crowded on the bank like a flock of birds. Jungle swelled behind it, flowing down between the huts in tangles of vines and climbing plants. Edgar sensed the burning before he saw it, a mistiness in excess of the rain, a stench of soot that sifted up from the charred bamboo and mud. He wondered immediately how long ago it had been abandoned, if the stench of burning was fresh or but a reincarnation in the rain, Moisture destroys sound, he thought, but enhances smell.

  He walked slowly. Details emerged from soot stains and ashes.

  Most of the huts were badly burned, leaving many of the structures standing bare and roofless. In others, walls had collapsed, and roofs of intertwined leaves undulated in half suspension. Burned fragments of bamboo lay scattered on the ground. At the base of the lowest houses, a rat ran through the debris, the pattering of its feet violating the silence. There were no other signs of life. Like Mae Lwin, he thought again, but absent were the chickens that pecked at fallen grain from the path. Absent the children.

  He walked slowly through the village, passed burned and abandoned rooms, looted, empty. At the edge of the jungle, creepers had already begun to sneak through the interlacings in the walls, the slats in the floorboards. Perhaps it has been abandoned long ago, he thought, but plants come quickly here, as does decay.

  It was nearly dark, and mist from the river sifted through the burned structures. Suddenly Edgar felt afraid. It was too silent. He had not wandered far, but now could not tell the direction back to the river. He walked swiftly through the mass of homes, which seemed to loom, doors like burned mouths, skeletal, leering, mist collecting on the rooftops and coalescing into droplets, rivulets, running now. The houses weep, Edgar thought, and through the slats of a hut he saw the flames of a fire, lighting the mist, and darkened shadows that swelled against the hillside and danced.

  The boys were sitting around the fire when he approached.

  “Mr. Drake,” said Nok Lek, “we thought you were lost.”

  “Yes, I was, in a way,” said Edgar, pushing his hair from his eyes. “This village, how long has it been abandoned?”

  “This village?” asked Nok Lek, and turned to the other boys, who crouched by the opened baskets and rolled small bits of food in their fingers. He spoke to them, and they answered in alternation.

  “I don’t know. They also don’t know. Months maybe. Look how the jungle has come back.”

  “Do you know who lived here?”

  “They are Shan houses.”

  “Do you know why they left?”

  Nok Lek shook his head and turned to ask the brothers. They shook their heads in turn, and one of them spoke longer.

  “We don’t know,” said Nok Lek.

  “And what did he say?” asked Edgar, motioning to the boy who had spoken.

  “He asked why you want to know about this village,” said Nok Lek.

  Edgar sat in the sand beside the boys. “No reason. Only curiosity. It is very empty.”

  “There are many abandoned villages like this. Maybe the dacoits did it, maybe British soldiers. It doesn’t matter, the people move somewhere else and build again. It has been this way for a l
ong time.” He passed Edgar a small basket of rice and curried fish. “I hope you can eat with your fingers.”

  They sat and ate in silence. One of the brothers began to speak again. Nok Lek turned to Edgar. “Seing To asked me to ask you where you will go when we reach British territory.”

  “Where?” said Edgar, surprised by the question. “Well, I don’t know, really.”

  Nok Lek answered the boy, who began to laugh. “He says that is very strange. He says you are going home, of course, that is what you should answer, unless you forgot the way. He thinks this is very funny.” The two boys were giggling in starts, covering their teeth. One reached over and held the other’s arm and whispered something. The second nodded and placed another ball of rice in his mouth.

  “Maybe I have forgotten the way,” said Edgar, laughing now himself. “And Mr. Seing To, where will he go?”

  “Back to Mae Lwin, of course. We will all go back to Mae Lwin.”

  “And I’ll wager you will not get lost.”

  “Lost, of course not.” Nok Lek said something in Shan, and the three boys began to titter again. “Seing To says he will get home by the scent of his sweetheart’s hair. He says he can smell it even now. He asked if you too have a sweetheart. And Tint Naing said you do, it is Khin Myo, so you will come back to Mae Lwin.”

  Edgar protested, thinking, There are terrible truths in the taunts of children, “No, no … I mean, yes I do have a sweetheart, I have a wife, she is in London, in England. Khin Myo is not my sweetheart, you should tell Tint Naing that he should get rid of this silly thought right now.”

  The brothers were giggling. One put his arm around the other and whispered to him. “Stop that,” said Edgar, weakly, and felt himself beginning to laugh again as well.

  “Seing To says that he wants an English wife. If he goes to England with you, can you find him a wife?”

  “I am certain that there are many nice girls who would like him,” said Edgar, playing along with the joke now.

  “He asked if you have to be a piano man to have a beautiful wife in England.”

  “He asked that? If you have to be a piano man?”

  Nok Lek nodded. “You may ignore his questions. He is young, you know.”

  “No, that is fine. I rather like that question. Nok Lek, you may tell him, that, no, you do not need to mend pianos to have a beautiful wife. Although it doesn’t hurt, I imagine.” He smiled, amused. “Other men, even soldiers, find beautiful wives.”

  Nok Lek translated. “He says it is too bad he must return to his sweetheart in Mae Lwin.”

  “It is a pity indeed. My wife has many friends.”

  “He said that since he can’t meet her, he wants you to describe her. He wants to know if she has yellow hair, and if her friends have yellow hair.”

  This is getting somewhat silly, thought Edgar, but as his thoughts returned to her, he found himself speaking earnestly. “Yes, she … Katherine—that is her name—she does have yellow hair, it has streaks of brown now, but it is still very pretty. She has blue eyes, and she doesn’t wear spectacles, like me, so you can see how lovely they are. She plays music too, much better than I do, you would like very much to listen to her play, I think. None of her friends are as beautiful as she is, but you would still be happy.”

  Nok Lek translated for the other two boys, who stopped laughing and stared, enthralled by the description. Seing To nodded sagely and spoke, this time in a sober tone.

  “What did he say?” asked Edgar. “More questions about my wife, I suppose?”

  “No. He asked if you wanted to hear a story, but I told him not to bother you.”

  Edgar was surprised. “No, I would be quite interested. What is the story?”

  “Nothing really, I don’t know why he is so insistent that I tell you.”

  “Do tell me. I am rather curious now.”

  “Maybe you have heard it before. It is famous. It is about the leip-bya—a Burmese word. It is a Burmese story, so I don’t know it well like Seing To. His mother is Burmese. The leip-bya, it is a kind of spirit, with wings like a butterfly, but it flies at night.”

  “A moth, perhaps.” There was something about these words which bothered him, as if he had heard them before. “I am unfamiliar with this story,” he said.

  “Actually, maybe it is not a story. Maybe just a belief. Some Burmese say that the life of a man lies in a spirit that is like a … moth. The spirit stays in his body, a man cannot live without it. The Burmese also say that the leip-bya is the reason for dreams. When a man sleeps, the leip-bya flies from his mouth and goes about here and there, and sees things on its journey, and these are dreams. The leip-bya must always return to a man by morning. This is why the Burmese don’t want to wake sleeping people. Perhaps the leip-bya is very far away, and it cannot return home fast enough.”

  “And then?”

  “If the leip-bya is lost, or if in its journey it is caught and eaten by a bilu—how do you say—an evil spirit—then this is a man’s final sleep.”

  The boy reached forward and prodded the fire, sending up sparks.

  “And that is the story?”

  “I told you—a belief only, but he wanted me to tell you. I don’t know why. He is strange sometimes.”

  It was warm by the fire, but Edgar felt a chill. From his memory, images of India, of a train ride, a boy falling, a baton flashing in the night.

  “A Poet-Wallah,” said the piano tuner softly.

  “Sorry, Mr. Drake?”

  “Oh … nothing, nothing. Tell him that it gives me much to think about. Perhaps one day he should be a storyteller.”

  As Nok Lek spoke, Edgar stared across the fire at the small boy, who sat in the embrace of his brother. He only smiled, his body lost in the smoke of the fire.

  The flames grew low and Nok Lek left, disappearing into the darkness and returning with more wood. Across the fire, the brothers had fallen asleep in each other’s arms. It began to drizzle, and Nok Lek and Edgar rose and put out the fire. They woke the boys, who mumbled and followed them up to the shelter. It rained several times during the night, and Edgar could hear the drumming of the raindrops on the mats covering the piano’s case.

  In the morning, they struck camp beneath overcast skies. As they floated on, they left the woven mat over the piano. The rain clouds broke in the late morning, the sky cleared. The river, swollen with tributaries, flowed more swiftly. By early afternoon, Nok Lek told Edgar that they had passed into land controlled by the principality of Mawkmai, that within two days they would enter Karen country. There the British had border posts on the river across from northern Siam, there they could stop, they did not need to travel all the way to Moulmein.

  It will all be over soon, thought Edgar, It all becomes but a memory. And without being asked by the boys, he removed the woven mat from the piano and stood at it once again, deciding what to play. A finale, for if tomorrow we leave the river, tomorrow the dream ends, and the pianist will become a tuner once again. The raft floated lightly with the current, and the strings rung with the wave of hammers. Ahead on the bow of the raft, one of the brothers turned to watch.

  He did not know what to play, only that he must begin and the song would follow. He thought perhaps he should play Bach again, and tried to think of a piece, but it didn’t seem right now. So he closed his eyes and listened for something. And in the vibration of strings, he heard a song that had risen to the sky weeks ago, one night on the Irrawaddy, and then that moonlit evening in Mandalay, when he had stopped to watch the yôkthe pwè. The song of loss, the ngo-gyin. And he thought, Perhaps this is fitting now. He put his fingers to the keyboard, and as he began to play, the song descended from where it had risen once, sounds that no tuner could have created, sounds that are foreign, new, neither flat nor sharp, for Erards are not constructed to be played on a river, nor to play the ngo-gyin.

  Edgar Drake played, and there was a crack of gunfire and a splash, and another, and another. And only then did he open his ey
es, to see two of his companions floating in the water, and the third, faceup, silent on the deck of the raft.

  He stood at the piano, the raft spinning lazily from the force of the fallen bodies. The river was quiet; he did not know from where the shots had been fired. Trees on the bank rustled slightly in the wind. Rain clouds drifted slowly through the sky. A parrot called, and flew off from the opposite bank. Edgar’s fingers remained still, suspended above the keys.

  And then, from the right bank, a rustling, and a pair of dugouts pushed off from the shore, making their way steadily downstream to the raft. The piano tuner, who did not know how to control the raft, could do nothing but wait, stunned, as if he too had been shot.

  The current was slow, and the dugouts gained on him. Each dugout held two men. When they were about a hundred yards away, Edgar saw they were Burman, and that they wore Indian Army uniforms.

  The men said nothing as their dugouts pulled alongside him. One man from each dugout climbed out onto the logs. The arrest was swift, Edgar didn’t protest, but only lowered the key cover over the keys. A rope was tied from the dugouts to the raft, and they paddled to shore.

  They were met on the bank by a Burman and two Indians, who escorted Edgar up a long path to a small clearing of guardhouses, above which flew a British flag. They walked to a small bamboo hut and opened the door. There was a chair in the center of the room. “Sit,” said one of the Indians. Edgar sat. The men left, closing the door. Light shone through the slats in the bamboo. Outside, two men stood guard. There were footsteps, the door opened, and in walked a British lieutenant.