It was, or had been, a typical Shan village, a collection of huts gathered in disarray, crowded on the bank like a flock of birds. Jungle swelled behind it, flowing down between the huts in tangles of vines and climbing plants. Edgar sensed the burning before he saw it, a mistiness in excess of the rain, a stench of soot that sifted up from the charred bamboo and mud. He wondered immediately how long ago it had been abandoned, if the stench of burning was fresh or but a reincarnation in the rain, Moisture destroys sound, he thought, but enhances smell.
He walked slowly. Details emerged from soot stains and ashes.
Most of the huts were badly burned, leaving many of the structures standing bare and roofless. In others, walls had collapsed, and roofs of intertwined leaves undulated in half suspension. Burned fragments of bamboo lay scattered on the ground. At the base of the lowest houses, a rat ran through the debris, the pattering of its feet violating the silence. There were no other signs of life. Like Mae Lwin, he thought again, but absent were the chickens that pecked at fallen grain from the path. Absent the children.
He walked slowly through the village, passed burned and abandoned rooms, looted, empty. At the edge of the jungle, creepers had already begun to sneak through the interlacings in the walls, the slats in the floorboards. Perhaps it has been abandoned long ago, he thought, but plants come quickly here, as does decay.
It was nearly dark, and mist from the river sifted through the burned structures. Suddenly Edgar felt afraid. It was too silent. He had not wandered far, but now could not tell the direction back to the river. He walked swiftly through the mass of homes, which seemed to loom, doors like burned mouths, skeletal, leering, mist collecting on the rooftops and coalescing into droplets, rivulets, running now. The houses weep, Edgar thought, and through the slats of a hut he saw the flames of a fire, lighting the mist, and darkened shadows that swelled against the hillside and danced.
The boys were sitting around the fire when he approached.
“Mr. Drake,” said Nok Lek, “we thought you were lost.”
“Yes, I was, in a way,” said Edgar, pushing his hair from his eyes. “This village, how long has it been abandoned?”
“This village?” asked Nok Lek, and turned to the other boys, who crouched by the opened baskets and rolled small bits of food in their fingers. He spoke to them, and they answered in alternation.
“I don’t know. They also don’t know. Months maybe. Look how the jungle has come back.”
“Do you know who lived here?”
“They are Shan houses.”
“Do you know why they left?”
Nok Lek shook his head and turned to ask the brothers. They shook their heads in turn, and one of them spoke longer.
“We don’t know,” said Nok Lek.
“And what did he say?” asked Edgar, motioning to the boy who had spoken.
“He asked why you want to know about this village,” said Nok Lek.
Edgar sat in the sand beside the boys. “No reason. Only curiosity. It is very empty.”
“There are many abandoned villages like this. Maybe the dacoits did it, maybe British soldiers. It doesn’t matter, the people move somewhere else and build again. It has been this way for a long time.” He passed Edgar a small basket of rice and curried fish. “I hope you can eat with your fingers.”
They sat and ate in silence. One of the brothers began to speak again. Nok Lek turned to Edgar. “Seing To asked me to ask you where you will go when we reach British territory.”
“Where?” said Edgar, surprised by the question. “Well, I don’t know, really.”
Nok Lek answered the boy, who began to laugh. “He says that is very strange. He says you are going home, of course, that is what you should answer, unless you forgot the way. He thinks this is very funny.” The two boys were giggling in starts, covering their teeth. One reached over and held the other’s arm and whispered something. The second nodded and placed another ball of rice in his mouth.
“Maybe I have forgotten the way,” said Edgar, laughing now himself. “And Mr. Seing To, where will he go?”
“Back to Mae Lwin, of course. We will all go back to Mae Lwin.”
“And I’ll wager you will not get lost.”
“Lost, of course not.” Nok Lek said something in Shan, and the three boys began to titter again. “Seing To says he will get home by the scent of his sweetheart’s hair. He says he can smell it even now. He asked if you too have a sweetheart. And Tint Naing said you do, it is Khin Myo, so you will come back to Mae Lwin.”
Edgar protested, thinking, There are terrible truths in the taunts of children, “No, no…I mean, yes I do have a sweetheart, I have a wife, she is in London, in England. Khin Myo is not my sweetheart, you should tell Tint Naing that he should get rid of this silly thought right now.”
The brothers were giggling. One put his arm around the other and whispered to him. “Stop that,” said Edgar, weakly, and felt himself beginning to laugh again as well.
“Seing To says that he wants an English wife. If he goes to England with you, can you find him a wife?”
“I am certain that there are many nice girls who would like him,” said Edgar, playing along with the joke now.
“He asked if you have to be a piano man to have a beautiful wife in England.”
“He asked that? If you have to be a piano man?”
Nok Lek nodded. “You may ignore his questions. He is young, you know.”
“No, that is fine. I rather like that question. Nok Lek, you may tell him, that, no, you do not need to mend pianos to have a beautiful wife. Although it doesn’t hurt, I imagine.” He smiled, amused. “Other men, even soldiers, find beautiful wives.”
Nok Lek translated. “He says it is too bad he must return to his sweetheart in Mae Lwin.”
“It is a pity indeed. My wife has many friends.”
“He said that since he can’t meet her, he wants you to describe her. He wants to know if she has yellow hair, and if her friends have yellow hair.”
This is getting somewhat silly, thought Edgar, but as his thoughts returned to her, he found himself speaking earnestly. “Yes, she…Katherine—that is her name—she does have yellow hair, it has streaks of brown now, but it is still very pretty. She has blue eyes, and she doesn’t wear spectacles, like me, so you can see how lovely they are. She plays music too, much better than I do, you would like very much to listen to her play, I think. None of her friends are as beautiful as she is, but you would still be happy.”
Nok Lek translated for the other two boys, who stopped laughing and stared, enthralled by the description. Seing To nodded sagely and spoke, this time in a sober tone.
“What did he say?” asked Edgar. “More questions about my wife, I suppose?”
“No. He asked if you wanted to hear a story, but I told him not to bother you.”
Edgar was surprised. “No, I would be quite interested. What is the story?”
“Nothing really, I don’t know why he is so insistent that I tell you.”
“Do tell me. I am rather curious now.”
“Maybe you have heard it before. It is famous. It is about the leip-bya–a Burmese word. It is a Burmese story, so I don’t know it well like Seing To. His mother is Burmese. The leip-bya, it is a kind of spirit, with wings like a butterfly, but it flies at night.”
“A moth, perhaps.” There was something about these words which bothered him, as if he had heard them before. “I am unfamiliar with this story,” he said.
“Actually, maybe it is not a story. Maybe just a belief. Some Burmese say that the life of a man lies in a spirit that is like a…moth. The spirit stays in his body, a man cannot live without it. The Burmese also say that the leip-bya is the reason for dreams. When a man sleeps, the leip-bya flies from his mouth and goes about here and there, and sees things on its journey, and these are dreams. The leip-bya must always return to a man by morning. This is why the Burmese don’t want to wake sleeping people. Perhaps the leip-bya is very far away, and it cannot return home fast enough.“