“Perhaps it is because you just met me that you are telling me.”
“Perhaps.”
They were quiet. “I know very little about you,” he said, and the branches of the willow rustled.
“My story is short,” she began.
She was thirty-one years old, born in 1855 to a second cousin of King Mindon. Edgar looked surprised when she said this, and she added quickly, “It doesn’t mean much, The royal family is so large that, if anything, my ounce of royal blood meant danger when Thibaw came to the throne.”
“You cannot mean you welcome British rule?”
“I am very lucky,” she said only.
Edgar persisted. “But many people in England strongly believe that the colonies should have their own governments. In some ways I am inclined to agree. We have done some terrible things.”
“And some good.”
“I wouldn’t expect someone Burmese to say that,” he said.
“I think perhaps it is a mistake of the ruling to think that you can change the ruled.”
She said this slowly, a thought like water spilled, now spreading around them. Edgar waited for her to say more, but when she spoke again, she told him that her father had sent her to a small private school for the Burmese elite in Mandalay, where she was one of two women in her class. There she had excelled in mathematics and English, and when she left she was hired to teach English to students only three years her junior. She had loved teaching and became good friends with other teachers, including several British women. The schoolmaster at the time, a sergeant in the army who had lost a leg in battle, had noticed her talent, and arranged to tutor her himself in the hours after class. She spoke of him the way one tells a story with a hidden ending, but Edgar didn’t ask her more. The sergeant had fallen ill when his amputation site suddenly became gangrenous. She had left school to care for him. He died after several feverish weeks. She had been devastated, but she returned to school. The new schoolmaster also invited her to his office after hours, she said, lowering her eyes, but with different intentions.
She was dismissed two weeks later. The spurned schoolmaster accused her of stealing books and selling them in the market. There was little she could do to answer the charges, and she hadn’t wanted to. Two of her friends had returned to Britain with their husbands, and she shuddered at the thought of the schoolmaster’s pawing hands. Captain Nash-Burnham, who had been a close friend of her father, arrived at her home two days after she was fired. He said nothing of the schoolmaster, and she knew he couldn’t. He offered her a position as a housekeeper in the visitors’ quarters. The quarters, he told her that warm morning, are usually empty, should you choose to have friends visit, or even hold classes. That week she moved in, and the following week she began to teach English at the little table beneath the papaya trees. She had been there for four years.
“And how did you meet Doctor Carroll?” asked Edgar.
“Like you, he was once a guest in Mandalay.”
They stayed on the riverbank for the rest of the afternoon, talking beneath the willows, and Khin Myo spoke mainly of Burma, of festivals, of stories she was told growing up. Edgar asked more questions. They spoke neither of Katherine nor of the Doctor.
As they sat together, Shan families passed on the way to the river to fish or wash or play in the shallows, and if they noticed the couple, they said nothing, It is only natural that a guest be treated with hospitality, the quiet man who has come to mend the singing elephant is shy, and walks with the posture of one who is unsure of the world, we too would keep him company to make him feel welcome, but we do not speak English. He does not speak Shan, but he tries, he says som tae-tae kha when he passes us on the trail, and kin waan when he likes the cook’s food. Som tae-tae kha means “Thank you.” Someone should tell him this, we all know he thinks it means “Hello.” He plays with the children, this is different from the other white men who come here, perhaps he does not have any of his own. He is quiet, and the astrologers say that he is looking for something, they know this from the position of the stars on the day he arrived, and because there were three big taukte lizards in his bed and they all pointed east and chirped twice, the woman who cleans his room remembered this, and she went to ask the astrologers what it meant. They say he is one of the kind of men who has dreams, but tells no one.
Dusk came, and at last Khin Myo said, I must go, and she didn’t say why. And Edgar thanked her for keeping him company, The afternoon was lovely, I hope to see you again.
I hope so, too, she said, and he thought, There is nothing wrong with this. He stayed at the river until the scent of cinnamon and coconut had drifted away.
Edgar awoke in the middle of the night, his teeth rattling. It is cold, he thought, This must be winter, and he pulled another blanket over himself. He shivered and slept.
He awoke again, sweating. His head was hot. He turned and sat up. He ran his hand over his face and brought it down wet with perspiration. He felt as if he couldn’t breathe and gasped for air and tore off the blanket and pushed aside the mosquito net. He crawled outside, his head spinning. On the balcony, he inhaled deeply, felt a wave of nausea, vomited. I am sick, finally, he thought, curled his legs up to his chest, and felt his sweat dry and grow cold, as the wind came up from the river. He slept again.
He awoke to the sensation of a hand on his shoulder. The Doctor crouched over him, his stethoscope hanging from his neck. “Mr. Drake, are you all right? What are you doing out here?”
The light was dim; it was dawn. Edgar rolled onto his back, groaning. “My head…” he moaned.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know, last night was terrible, I was so cold and shivering, I got a blanket, I was sweating so much.” The Doctor put his hand on his forehead.
“What do you think is wrong?” Edgar asked.
“Malaria. I can’t be certain, but it definitely seems like it. I will need to look at your blood.” He turned and said something to a Shan boy who was standing behind him. “I will get you quinine sulfate, it should make you better.” He looked concerned. “Come.” He helped Edgar up and led him to his bed. “Look, the blankets are still soaked. You’ve gotten yourself quite a nasty case. Come and lie down.”
The Doctor left. Edgar slept. A boy came and woke him. He brought water and several small pills for Edgar to swallow. Edgar slept again. He awoke and it was afternoon. The Doctor was sitting by the bed. “How are you feeling?”
“Better, I think. I am quite thirsty.”
The Doctor nodded and gave him some water. “This is the usual course of the disease. First chills and then fever. Then you begin to sweat. And then often, as now, you suddenly feel better.”
“Will it come back?”
“It depends. Sometimes it occurs only every two days, sometimes only every three days. Sometimes it comes more often, or it is much less regular. The fever is terrible. I know; I’ve had malaria uncountable times myself. I get delirious.”
Edgar tried to sit up. He felt weak. “Go to sleep,” the Doctor said.
He slept.
He awoke and again it was dark. Miss Ma, the nurse, was sleeping on a bed near the door. Again he felt his chest tighten. It was hot, the air was still, stifling. He suddenly felt the need to get out of the room. He lifted the mosquito net and slid out. He stood tentatively. He felt weak, but he could walk. He tiptoed toward the door. The night was dark, the moon hidden by clouds. He took several hungry breaths and lifted his arms and stretched. I need to walk, he thought, and padded quietly down the stairs. The camp seemed empty. He was barefoot, and the coolness of the ground felt good on his feet. He followed the path down to the river.
It was cool on the banks, and he sat and breathed deeply. The Salween moved past silently. From somewhere came a rustling, and a faint cry. He stood and walked uneasily across the beach to a small trail that ran by the river through thicker brush.
The sound grew louder as he walked through the bushes. Near the end of the trail, he caught a glimpse of something moving on the bank. He took two more steps through the brush and then he saw them, and for a moment he stood still, shocked. A young Shan couple lay in the shallows of the river. The young man’s hair was tied up above his head, the woman’s hair was loose, spread out over the sand. She wore a wet hta main and it was pushed up her body, covering her breasts, revealing a smooth hip sprinkled with sand and the river. Her arms wrapped around the young man’s back, her nails gripping his tattoos, and they moved silently, the only sound was the shifting sand and the river as it lapped against four feet. She moaned again, more loudly now, and her back began to arch, her hta main pooling down against her arms, her body turning, wet sand falling from her hips. Edgar stumbled back into the bushes.