“That’s horrid. I—” ‘
“Perhaps, although death by poison could be quite peaceful, compared to the other methods one sees…Don’t worry, Mr. Drake, he has no interest in English piano tuners.”
They continued their descent. Carroll pointed down the ravine. “Listen,” he said. “Soon you will hear the river.” The clip-clop of hooves was answered by a distant, deeper rumbling. The trail continued to drop, and the ponies struggled to keep their footing over the stones. At last Carroll stopped. “We should dismount,” he said. “This is too precarious for the ponies.” He swung himself off with a single, graceful movement. Nok Lek followed, and then Edgar, still thinking about the snakes. The sound of the river grew louder. The ravine narrowed sharply, and now there was scarcely enough room for the ponies to pass. Above him, Edgar could see branches, logs, wedged into the narrow chasm, testament to past flooding. Soon the ravine took a sharp turn, and the floor seemed to disappear beneath them. Carroll handed the reins of his pony to Nok Lek and walked carefully to the edge. “Come and look, Mr. Drake,” he shouted over the roar.
Edgar walked gingerly to join the Doctor where the trail dropped steeply away to a river that flowed twenty feet below them. The stones were silver, polished by the flow of water. Edgar looked up. The sun winked down through a sliver of sky. He could feel spray on his face, the thunder of the rapids shaking the ground.
“In the rainy season this is a waterfall. The river is twice as high. This water comes all the way from Yunnan, in China. It is all from melted snow. There is more. Come.”
“What?”
“Come here, come and look.”
Edgar picked his way uneasily over the stones, wet with the spray of the river. The Doctor was standing at the edge of the precipice, looking up the rock.
“What is it?” asked Edgar.
“Look closely,” said the Doctor. “At the rock. Do you see them? The flowers.”
The entire face of the ravine was covered by a dull moss, sprinkled with thousands of tiny flowers, so small that he had mistaken them for beads of water.
Carroll motioned to a smooth surface on the wall. “Now put your ear there.”
“What?”
“Go ahead, put your ear up against the wall, listen.”
Edgar looked at him skeptically. He crouched and put his head to the stone.
From deep within the rock came a singing, strange and haunting. He pulled his head away. The sound stopped. He leaned back. Again he could hear it. It sounded familiar, like thousands of soprano voices warming up to sing. “Where is it coming from?” he shouted.
“The rock is hollow, they are vibrations from the river, a high-pitched resonance. That is one explanation. The other is Shan, that it is an oracle. Those who seek advice come here to listen. Look up there.” He pointed to a pile of rocks on which a small wreath of flowers had been placed. “A shrine to the spirits that sing. I thought you would like it here. Scenery fit for a man of music.”
Edgar rose and smiled and wiped off his glasses once again. While they talked, Nok Lek unpacked several baskets filled with stuffed banana leaves, which he laid out on the rocks away from the precipice, where it was dry. They sat and ate and listened to the river. The food was different from the rich curries Edgar had eaten in the lowlands. Each banana leaf contained something different, sliced and seared pieces of chicken, fried squash, a pungent paste that smelled strongly of fish but tasted sweet with the rice, which too was different, sticky balls of grains that were almost translucent.
When they had finished, they rose and led their ponies up the little path until it became flat enough to ride. The trail climbed slowly out of the coolness of the ravine and into the heat of the Plateau.
Carroll chose a different route back to the camp, one that took them back through a burnt forest. In contrast to the first trail, the land was hot and flat, and the vegetation dry, but the Doctor stopped several times to show Edgar more plants, tiny orchids that were hidden in the shade, innocuous-looking pitcher plants whose carnivory Carroll explained in macabre detail, trees that held water, rubber, medicine.
On the lonely road, they passed through an old temple complex where dozens of pagodas were aligned in rows. The structures were of various sizes and ages and shapes, some freshly painted and capped with ornaments, others pale and crumbling. On one, the body of the pagoda had been crafted into the shape of a coiled serpent. It was eerily silent. Birds flitted over the ground. The only person they saw was a monk who looked as old as the temples themselves, his skin dark and wrinkled, his body tinted with dust. He was sweeping the path as they approached, and Edgar saw Carroll press his hands together and bow slightly to the man. The old monk said nothing, but kept sweeping, the grass broomstick swaying with the hypnotic rhythm of his chant.
The trail was long, and at last Edgar grew weary. He thought how much the Doctor must have traveled through the Plateau to know each stream, each hill, and how, if they were separated, he would not know how to find his way back. For a brief moment, the thought frightened him. But I have trusted him by deciding to come here, he thought, there is no reason I shouldn’t now. The path narrowed and the Doctor rode ahead. Edgar watched him as he rode, his back straight, one hand on his waist, alert, watching.
They passed from the forest onto a wide ridge and back into the valley from which they had come. The sun was setting when, from the rise of one of the hills, Edgar saw the Salween. It was dark when they reached Mae Lwin.
13
The following morning, Edgar awoke before the children came, and wandered down to the river. He expected to find the Doctor eating breakfast or perhaps even see Khin Myo, but the bank was empty. The Salween lapped against the sand. He looked briefly across the river for birds. There was a fluttering. Another crested kingfisher, he thought, and smiled to himself, I am already beginning to learn. He walked back up to the clearing. Nok Lek was walking down from the path that led up to the houses.
“Good morning, Mr. Drake,” said the boy.
“Good morning, I was looking for the Doctor. Can you kindly tell me where he is?”
“Once a week the Doctor is in his…how do you say?”
“The Doctor is in his surgery?”
“Yes, his surgery. He told me to get you.”
Nok Lek led Edgar up the small path to the camp headquarters. As they were entering, an older woman passed inside carrying a crying baby in her arms, swaddled tightly in a checkered cloth. Nok Lek and Edgar followed.
The room was full of people, dozens of men and women in colorful coats and turbans, crouching or standing, holding children, peering over shoulders to watch the Doctor, who sat at the far end of the room. Nok Lek led the piano tuner through the crowd, speaking softly to part it.
They found the Doctor at a broad desk, listening to a baby’s chest with a stethoscope. He raised his eyebrows in welcome and continued to listen. The baby lay limp and passive on the lap of a young woman Edgar guessed was its mother. She was very young, a girl of perhaps fifteen or sixteen, but her eyes looked swollen and tired. Like most of the other women, her hair was tied up in a wide turban that seemed to rest precariously on her head. She wore a dress tied over her bosom, a hand-woven cloth patterned with interlaced geometric designs. Though there was an elegance in the way she wore it, when Edgar looked closer, he saw that it was tattered at the edges. He thought of the Doctor’s stories of the drought.
At long last, Carroll removed the stethoscope. He spoke to the woman for a moment in Shan, and then turned to rummage through a cabinet behind him. Edgar peered over his shoulder at the rows of apothecary vials.
The Doctor saw him stare. “Much the same as any English chemist,” he said as he handed the woman a small bottle of a dark elixir. “Warburg’s tincture and arsenic for fever, Cockle’s pills and Chlorodyne, Goa powder for ringworm, Vaseline, Holloway’s ointment, Dover’s powder, laudanum for dysentery. And then these.” He pointed to a row of unlabeled bottles filled with leaves and dirty liquids, crushed bugs, and lizards floating in solution. “Local medicine.”
Carroll reached back into the cabinet and took out a larger flask filled with herbs and a smoky liquid. He pulled the stopper, and the room filled with a deep, sweet scent. He dipped his fingers into the bottle and pulled out a wet mass of leaves and placed them on the baby’s chest. Water pooled around the leaves and ran over the baby’s sides. He began to run his fingers over its body, spreading the fluid over its throat and chest. His eyes were closed and he began to whisper something, softly. At last he opened them. He wrapped the baby’s swaddling back around the leaves and spoke to the girl. She rose and bowed in thanks, and walked away through the crowd.