“Charmed. He wanted to hear you play again. But I insisted that there would be better times for that.”
“Did you get the treaty you were asking for?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t asked for it yet. Directness rarely works with the princes. I merely told him of our position and asked nothing, we shared a meal, and you played. The, let us say, ‘consummation’ of our courtship will have to await approval of the other princes. But with the sawbwa’s support, our chances of a treaty are better.” He leaned forward. “I brought you to my office to ask your further assistance.”
“Doctor, I can’t play again.”
“No, Mr. Drake, this time it has nothing to do with pianos, and all to do with war, regardless of my poetics on the meeting of the two. Tomorrow night there will be a meeting of Shan princes in Mongpu, north of here. I want you to accompany me there.”
“Accompany you? In what capacity?”
“Company, only. It is half a day’s journey, and the meeting should only last a day or a night, depending on when they begin. We will travel by horseback. You should at least join us for the journey—it is one of the most scenic in the Shan States.”
Edgar began to speak, but the Doctor gave him no time to refuse. “We will leave tomorrow.” It was only when he was outside that he realized Carroll hadn’t invited him out of camp since their trip to the ravine that sang.
He spent the remainder of the evening by the river thinking, bothered by the suddenness of the trip, by the urgency he sensed in the Doctor’s voice. He thought of Khin Myo and their walk in the rain, Perhaps he doesn’t want us together. But he dismissed this, There is something else, I have done nothing wrong, nothing improper.
Clouds came. In the Salween, women beat the clothes against the rocks.
They left the following afternoon. For the first time since Edgar arrived, the Doctor wore his officer’s uniform: a scarlet jacket with black braids and his gold rank badge. It gave him a regal and imposing air; his hair was combed, dark and oiled. Khin Myo came out to say good-bye, and Edgar watched her closely as she stood and spoke to the Doctor in a mixture of Burmese and English. Carroll listened, and took the sardine tin from his breast pocket and selected a cheroot. When Khin Myo turned at last to Edgar, she didn’t smile, but only stared as if she seemed not to see him. The ponies were washed and groomed, but the flowers had been taken from their manes.
They rode out of camp, accompanied by Nok Lek and four other Shan on ponies, all holding rifles. They followed the main trail up the ridge, and turned north. It was a beautiful day, cool with echoes of the rain. The Doctor carried his helmet on the saddle and smoked pensively as he rode.
Edgar said nothing, but thought of the letter he had written to Katherine, folded in the confines of his bag.
“You are unusually quiet today, Mr. Drake,” said the Doctor.
“Only daydreaming. I wrote to my wife for the first time since I arrived in Mae Lwin. About the performance, the piano…”
They rode. “It’s strange,” the Doctor said at last.
“What’s strange.”
“Your love of the Erard. You are the first Englishman who has not asked me why I want a piano in Mae Lwin.”
Edgar turned. “Why? Oh, it has never been a mystery to me. I have never seen a place more worthy.” He drifted into silence again. “No,” he said. “I wonder more why Jam here.”
The Doctor looked at him askance. “And I thought you and that piano were inseparable.” He laughed.
Edgar joined him. “No, no…It must seem that way at times. But I am serious now. It must have been weeks since I completed my commission. Shouldn’t I have left long ago?”
“I think that is a question for you to answer.” The Doctor tapped dark ashes from the end of the cheroot. “I have not held you here.”
“No,” Edgar persisted. “But you haven’t encouraged me to leave, either. I expected to be asked to go, as soon as the piano was tuned. Remember, I am ‘quite a risk’—those were your words, I believe.”
“I enjoy your company, our conversations. It is well worth the risk.”
“To talk about music? I am flattered, but really, there must be more than that. Besides, there are those who know music much better than I, men in India, in Calcutta, in Burma even. Or if you merely wanted conversation, naturalists, anthropologists. Why would you make such an effort for me to stay? There could be others.”
“There have been others.”
Edgar turned to face the Doctor. “Visitors, you mean?”
“I have been here for twelve years. Others have come, naturalists, anthropologists, as you say. They came and stayed, never for a long time, only long enough to collect samples, or make sketches, and expostulate on some theory or another on how the biology, the culture, the history of the Shan States fit into their opinions. Then they returned home.”
“I find that hard to believe. It is so enchanting here…”
“I think you are answering your own question, Mr. Drake.”
They stopped at the top of a rise to watch a flock of birds take flight.
“There is a piano tuner in Rangoon,” said Carroll when they began to move again. “I knew that long before I sent for you. He is a missionary, the army doesn’t know he tunes pianos, but I met him once long ago. He would have come, had I asked.”
“I imagine that would have saved everyone a lot of effort.”
“It would have. And he would have come and stayed briefly. And left. I wanted someone for whom this would be new. I don’t mean to mislead you, of course: that was not my primary intention in bringing you here.” He waved the cigar. “No, I wanted to have my piano tuned by the best tuner of Erard pianos in London, and I knew this request would force the army to acknowledge how much they depend on me, that they know my methods work, that music, like force, can bring peace. But I also knew that if someone did make the journey all the way here to answer my request, it would be someone who believed in music as I did.”
“And if I hadn’t come?” asked Edgar. “You didn’t know me, you couldn’t have been certain.”
“Someone else, more visitors, perhaps the missionary from Rangoon. And they would have gone home after several days.”
Edgar saw the Doctor stare into the distance. “Have you ever thought of returning home?” he asked.
“Of course. I remember England very fondly.”
“You do?”
“It’s my home.”
“And vet vou continue to stav, whv then?”
“I have too much here, projects, experiments, too many plans. I hadn’t intended to stay. I first came for work. There was only a glimmer that it was for something different. Or maybe it is simpler than that, perhaps I won’t leave because I am afraid to hand over my command to someone else. They would not do this…peacefully.” He paused, and took the cigar from his mouth. He stared at the smoke seeping from its end. “There are times when I have doubts.”
“About the war?”
“No, perhaps I am expressing myself poorly. I don’t doubt what I have done here. I know it is right. I doubt only what I have missed in doing it.” He rolled the cheroot back and forth between his fingers. “I listen to you, and how you speak of your wife—I had a wife once. And a daughter—a tiny baby who was mine for one day. There is a Shan saying that when people die it is because they have done what they needed to, because they are too good for this world. I think of her when I hear them say this.”
“I am sorry,” Edgar said. “The Colonel told me. But I didn’t feel like it was my position to ask.”
“No, you are too considerate…But I should apologize, Mr. Drake: these are sad, distant thoughts.” He straightened his back in the saddle. “Besides, you asked me why I stay. That is a difficult enough question. Perhaps, everything I just told you about not wanting to give up the camp is wrong. Perhaps I stay simply because I cannot leave.” He put his cigar back in his mouth. “Once I tried. Not long after I began to work at the hospital in Rangoon, another surgeon arrived with his battalion, to remain in Rangoon for a year before moving up-country. It had been years since I visited England, and I was given the option to return home for a few months. I booked a berth on a steamer and traveled from Rangoon, where I was stationed at the time, to Calcutta, and there boarded the train to Bombay.”