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.
I will write more, for there are other things that remain unsaid, if only for the limits of space and ink and sunlight.
I remain,
Your loving husband,
It is still light. There are other things that remain unsaid—he knows this, but his pen trembles when he brings them close to the page.
Khin Myo stood at the edge of the willow tree. Her face was drawn. “Mr. Drake,” she said. He looked up. “Doctor Carroll sent me to find you. Please, come. And hurry. He says it’s important.”
19
Edgar folded the letter and followed Khin Myo up from the river. She said nothing, but left him at the door of the headquarters and walked quickly back down the trail.
Inside, he found the Doctor at the window, staring out over the camp. He turned. “Mr. Drake, please, sit down.” He motioned to a chair, and sat on the other side of the broad desk he had used for the amputation. “Sorry to disturb you, you seemed so peaceful by the river. You more than anyone deserve a moment of repose. You played beautifully.”
“It was a technical piece.”
“That was far more than a technical piece.”
“And the sawbwa?” Edgar asked. “One can only hope that he felt the same.” The Prince had left that morning on a throne mounted to an elephant’s back, the flash of his sequins disappearing into the greenery of the jungle. He was flanked on either side by horsemen, their ponies’ tails dyed red.