The tiles were moist and cool on his feet. The climb was lined with vendors selling a riot of religious goods: paintings and statues of the Buddha, garlands of jasmine, books and fans, baskets filled with offerings of food, stacks of scented joss sticks, gold leaf and lotus flowers made of fine silver foil. The merchants languished in the shade. Everywhere, pilgrims climbed the steps—monks and beggars and elegant Burmese women dressed in their finery. At the top, he passed beneath an intricate portico and onto a vast platform of white marble and gilded domes of smaller pagodas. The crowd of supplicants swirled in clockwise fashion, staring at the tall Englishman as they passed. He stepped into the current of bodies, following it past rows of smaller shrines and kneeling worshipers, who fingered rosaries of large seeds. As he walked, he stared up at the pagoda, its bell-like swell tapering to a fine tip capped with a cylindrical umbrella. He was blinded by the glint of gold, the reflection of the sun on the white tiles, the pulsing mass of worshipers. Halfway around the pagoda, he stopped to rest in the shade, and was wiping his face with his handkerchief when the faint chime of music caught his attention.
At first he couldn’t tell where it came from, the notes reflecting off the corridors of shrines and mixing with the chants. He followed a small path behind a vast platform where a monk led a group in prayer, hypnotic words he would later learn were not Burmese but Pali. The music became louder. Beneath the hanging branches of a banyan tree, he saw the musicians.
There were four of them, and they looked up to acknowledge his presence. He smiled and studied the instruments: a drum and a xylophone-like board, a long goosenecked horn and a harp. The last was the instrument that most caught his attention, for he knew the harpsichord well, of course, as the grandfather of the piano. This was a beautiful harp, carved in a form that looked like both a ship and a swan; the strings were strung close together, which he noted was possible because of the harp’s unique shape. A clever design, he thought. The man’s fingers worked slowly over it; the melody was eerily discordant, and Edgar found it difficult to pick out a pattern. He noted the haphazard way it danced along the scale. He listened more closely, yet still the melody eluded him.
Soon another observer came, an elegantly dressed Burmese man holding the hand of a child. Edgar nodded to the man and the boy and they listened to the song together. The presence of the other man reminded him that Captain Dalton would be calling on him that evening and that he had to bathe and dress. Reluctantly, he left the musicians. He finished circling the pagoda, joining the crowd once again where it pooled up against the entrance and poured over the stairs. He followed it back down to the street and sat on the bottom steps to tie his shoes. Around him, men and women slipped easily in and out of sandals. Fumbling with his laces, he began to whistle, trying to recapture the piece he had just heard. He rose to his feet. It was then he saw her.
She was standing about five feet away, a baby perched on her hip, her clothes in rags, her hand outstretched, her body painted a deep yellow. At first he blinked, thinking she was an apparition, the color of her skin a ghost image of the gold of the pagoda, like the floating illusion one gets from staring too long at the sun. She caught his eye and stepped closer, and he saw that she was gold not from paint but from a yellow dust, which covered her face and arms and her bare feet; As he stared, she extended the baby toward him, her yellow hands clasped tightly around the tiny sleeping person. He looked at her face and the dark pleading eyes outlined with yellow; only later would he learn that the dust was turmeric, which the Burmese call sa-nwin, and which women spread over their bodies after childbirth to protect against spirits, but which this woman wore to beg, for by tradition, a woman who still wears the sa-nwin should not leave her home for days after childbirth, and if she did, it could only mean that the child was sick. But standing at the base of the Shwedagon, he did not know this, he could only stare at the gilded woman, until she took a step closer and he could see flies at the mouth of the child and a widening sore on its tiny head. He stepped back, horrified, and rummaged through his pocket for coins, and without counting dropped them into her hands.
He backed away, his heart racing. Around him, the pilgrims continued their procession, oblivious to the gilded girl who counted the coins in surprise and to the tall, lanky Englishman who looked one last time at the temple and the girl beneath its soaring spire, thrust his hands into his pockets, and hurried down the street.
Later that evening, he received a visit from Captain Dalton, who invited him to join some of the officers for billiards at the Pegu Club. He declined, feigning fatigue. It had been several days since he had written to his wife, he said. He did not tell Dalton of the image that still stayed with him, that it felt wrong to drink sherry over war gossip while he thought of the girl and her child.
“Well, there will be plenty of time for billiards,” said Dalton. “But I do insist that you join us for the hunt tomorrow. Only last week an infantryman reported seeing a tiger near Dabein. I have made plans to travel there with Captain Witherspoon and Captain Fogg, both of whom recently arrived from Bengal. Would you care to join us?” He stood silhouetted in the doorway.
“But I have never hunted before, and I don’t think I’m—”
“Please! I will not hear of it. This is a matter of duty. This tiger has been terrorizing the local villagers. We leave early tomorrow. Meet us at the cavalry stables, Do you know where they are? No, you do not need to bring anything. Your hat perhaps, We have plenty of riding boots, and of course, rifles. A man with such skilled fingers as yourself will be a fine shot.” And at this flattery, and because he had already turned down one invitation, Edgar accepted.
7
The following morning, Edgar found the Captain saddling a horse outside the stables. Five other men were gathered around him, two Englishmen and three Burmans. Seeing the piano tuner approach, Dalton came out from under the horse, where he had been cinching the saddle. He wiped his hand on his breeches and extended it. “Mr. Drake, beautiful morning, isn’t it? Wonderful when a breeze comes this far inland. So refreshing. It means the rains may be earlier this year.” He stood and looked up at the sky, as if to confirm his meteorology. Edgar was struck by how handsome and athletic he looked: his face ruddy and tanned, his hair combed back, his shirtsleeves rolled up over his dusty forearms.
“Mr. Drake, let me introduce you to Captains Witherspoon and Fogg. Gentlemen, this is Mr. Drake, London’s finest piano tuner.” He pounded Edgar on the back. “A good man, family’s from Hereford.”
The two men extended their hands amiably. “Good to meet you, Mr. Drake,” said Witherspoon. Fogg nodded.
“I will be finished saddling this horse in a moment,” said Dalton, ducking back under its belly. “She can be very naughty, this one, and I don’t want to fall off when a tiger is in my sights.” He looked up and winked at the tuner. The men laughed. Ten feet away, the Burmans squatted on their heels in loose pasos.
They mounted the horses. Edgar struggled to get his leg over the saddle and had to be helped by the Captain. Outside the stables, one of the Burmans rode ahead, and soon disappeared. Dalton led their small group, chatting with the two other captains. Edgar followed them. Behind, the other two Burmans rode together on the same horse.
It was still early, and the sun hadn’t yet burned the mist off the lagoons. Edgar was surprised at how quickly Rangoon became farmland. They passed several oxcarts traveling into the city, whose drivers pulled over to the side of the road to let them pass, but otherwise scarcely acknowledged their presence. In the distance, fishermen poled thin boats through the marshes, materializing in and out of the mist. Egrets hunted in the marsh, close to the road, lifting and placing their feet with precision. Ahead, Witherspoon asked if they could stop to shoot them.