Maung Sein was only peripherally aware of all the interest he was arousing. He sat up straight, as if meditating, eyes lowered most of the time, hardly believing what he had done. He, who was otherwise so shy that he clammed up the moment a girl was in the room or even in the vicinity, he had suddenly had the audacity to ask this young woman, the most beautiful he had ever seen, if he might sit with her. He did not know where the source of his newfound courage lay. It had simply been there. As if bravery needed only a suitable occasion to make an appearance. Who knew, thought Maung Sein, what he was really capable of.
From time to time Nu Nu would ask him a question, which he would answer courteously, though he found he had to repeat every second sentence, so quietly did the words pass from his lips.
Maung Sein was an unusually quiet individual who on many days uttered little more than a couple of sentences. Not because he was rude, morose, or disaffected, but because he felt the world was better explained through actions than through words.
And because he treasured silence.
He had spent his youth as a novice in a monastery. There the monks had taught him not to attribute too much meaning to this, his life. It was, after all, but one in an infinite chain. The justice and happiness that eluded an individual in one life would be granted him in the next, if he deserved it. Or in the one after that. The exact details were beside the point.
What’s more, they had taught him to be friendly and helpful to others. Not because he owed it to them. Because he owed it to himself.
These were two of the maxims by which he sought to lead his life. The rest would follow.
Or else it was not important.
Maung Sein cast about for something he would like to tell the young woman beside him.
About his work as a lumberjack? He could not imagine it would interest her. About his uncle who had just fathered a child with the neighbor’s daughter, thirty years younger than himself? No, he would be hard-pressed to find a topic more ill-suited to the occasion.
About himself? His family at home, where Death was a frequent guest. A silent visitor to whom one addressed no questions, who took whomever he wished. To his youngest brother he had appeared in the guise of a snake. The boy had reached innocently to pull that stick out of the underbrush. What does a four-year-old understand of the art of natural camouflage, of the secrets of mimicry?
Death had jostled his eldest brother out of the crown of a eucalyptus tree. An eight-year-old boy who wanted to know what the world looked like from above.
Only wings could have saved him.
No, he would rather talk of Happiness. She was no stranger to him, even if she was a less frequent visitor than Death, more fleeting. He would see her at regular intervals as long as he kept a sharp eye out for her.
Today she had come to him in the form of a tomato rolling across his path, along a trajectory that led him back to an overturned basket.
He might also have chosen to pass by. One must not be deceived by the many disguises of Happiness.
The more he thought about it, the more clearly he recognized that he did not wish to say anything at all. It was enough simply to sit there. To be near her. To be able to glance at her from time to time, and to get a response.
Nu Nu enjoyed his silence, even though it cost her considerable effort to keep her curiosity in check. She was convinced that she would learn all that mattered when the time was ripe.
She could see during the brief moments when their eyes met that he would not be startled by tears for a dead butterfly; he would make sure there was always a log on the fire.
As the market drew to a close Nu Nu packed the remaining vegetables in a basket. It was heavy, and she asked Maung Sein to set it on her head. He raised it with an effort and declared that she would never be able to carry such a burden by herself. The way he said it made clear to her that he would sooner make the trip two or three times than let her carry the basket. He would be able to provide for her. In every respect.
They took the basket between them, one on each side. He set her sister gingerly on his shoulder, which Khin Khin accepted without complaint. And thus they set out.
When they parted he asked permission to see her again the next day.
That evening Nu Nu lay awake for a long time. She remembered the stone from earlier in the day. She knew now what shape it had been.
Chapter 4
NU NU LAY beside her sleeping husband, listening to the rain. She could tell by the sound what it was pattering on. The thick leaves of a banana tree rang out deep and powerful. The small, thin bamboo leaves were bright and gentle. The puddles in the yard gurgled. Her old roof swallowed the drops with a dull sound only to spit them out again as a burbling rivulet into the gutters. The mats of dried grasses and palm leaves that covered her house leaked in several places. Nu Nu heard the appalling splashing on the floorboards. There was no money to repair them. They would have to serve for another year. At least.
From a neighbor’s house the tones of a tin roof, loud and furious. She would never be able to sleep under that, she thought, no matter how practical it might be.
It had started to rain the previous afternoon and had not stopped since. That was unusual. At this time of year the rains generally pelted from the heavens in bursts that lasted one, maybe two hours, making the air heavy and humid. The ground soaked up the moisture, and the sun devoured whatever was left with its merciless rays. In a short time the ground would again be dry, waiting impatiently for the next downpour.
Outside, dawn was gradually approaching. The first beams of light were falling through the cracks in the wall. Nu Nu snuggled again against her husband, throwing her arm across his chest. For a few minutes she savored the warmth of his body, the even rhythm of his heart beating beneath her hand, his breath on her skin. Then she got up, fanned the smoldering fire, hung a kettle over the flames, sat down in the open doorway, and watched the water turning their yard into a growing pool of mud.
She loved the rainy season. She loved these months clad in silver-gray when the earth awoke, when life throve in the unlikeliest places and nature, uninhibited, covered everything in a veil of green. It was also a time when she need not rise before the sun just to get to the fields on time. When she and Maung Sein had a few hours to themselves because there was nothing to do but listen to the sound of the rain. Or to weave a basket.
Or to follow one’s passion.
She felt desire kindling within her and briefly considered lying down with her husband again and seducing him the moment he woke, but she decided against it. The way things looked, they would have the whole day for that, and the novices would be standing in front of their hut expecting their daily offerings in one hour at the latest. She stood up, went to the hearth, put rice on, and picked out a handful of especially large tomatoes and eggplants for a vegetable curry. Only the best for the monks, even though food was in short supply in their house at times and Maung Sein occasionally grumbled about her generosity.
Nu Nu felt a deep sense of gratitude and humility when she thought about the past two years and she wanted to show her appreciation however she could within the modest means at her disposal. She wondered what she had done to deserve such joy. What good deed might she have performed in a previous life to warrant such a rich reward in this one?
Thanks to a loan from Maung Sein’s uncle when they got married, they had been able to buy this old hut, the attached property, and a field. It lay in a village two days on foot from her birthplace. The hut offered sufficient space, and there was a room with a cooking pit in one corner. On a wooden shelf behind the fire stood bowls, tin plates, cups, and a few sooty, dented pots. The cutlery and two cooking spoons were stuck into the wall of woven palm fronds. Beside the shelf sat their few supplies: half a sack of rice, tomatoes, ginger, eggplants, and one jar of fish sauce.
Above the door Nu Nu had hung an old clock whose hands had frozen at six o’clock long ago. On the opposite wall hung the altar with the wooden Buddha.
Between the wooden beams her husband had installed two bamboo poles where they could hang their few things. A towel for each, a longyi, a shirt, some T-shirts and underwear. That was all they owned.
In the yard grew two lanky papaya trees, bananas, bamboo, and palms. Behind the hut there was room for tomatoes and other vegetables.
Out of Maung Sein, the lumberjack, her father had made a farmer whose enthusiasm compensated somewhat for his lack of native ability. He was often among the first in the field, and he had made a point of helping his father-in-law in order to learn from him. With modest results. His vegetables never really flourished. The cabbage was skimpy, and the tomatoes didn’t taste right. The yields from his rice field, too, fell far short of what the neighbors harvested.
Some days they were so hungry that Maung Sein doubted whether he would ever be able to provide for a family. He thought about working as a lumberjack, but there were not many of the mighty teak trees left in their region. He would have had to travel to more distant provinces and would have been away for several months of the year. Neither he nor Nu Nu wanted that. Every hour they spent apart was an hour wasted.
A life of privation did not matter to them; it was the only one they knew.
Together they had discovered something entirely different: their bodies.
The first shy touches had given way to an almost unquenchable longing.
Nu Nu’s desire had driven out her unfathomable sorrow. During the first months there had still been a few days when it crept up on her, and Nu Nu had done her best to stave it off and hide it from her husband. But Maung Sein had an impeccable sense for his wife’s moods. One look into her eyes was enough. When he saw how much energy it took for her simply to get out of bed in the morning, how much trouble she had preparing a meal, chatting with a neighbor, or going to the market, he would redouble his care for her without peppering her with questions or chastising her. As if it was the most natural thing in the world that a person should suffer from time to time a sadness so great that it exhausted and discouraged her.
Now she could not even remember the last time she felt heavyhearted.
A serene spirit and a troubled one gradually finding peace.
Since meeting her husband Nu Nu had been firmly convinced that certain people belonged to one another.
Kindred spirits. Soul mates.
Later, much later, she sometimes wondered if she had used up most of her happiness during the first two years of living together with Maung Sein. Was that possible? Was there such a thing as a limited supply of lucky breaks? Did people come into the world with an allotment of good fortune that they could enjoy during their lives, some earlier, others later? Ought they to have been more sparing with their intimacy? But how can a person guard her happiness? Or was everything that happened mere caprice and chance? Were we balls to be kicked around by forces that followed no rules, that did with us as they pleased, like a raging river with a little branch that eventually is crushed in the flood?
In that case nothing in life would make any sense or have any meaning. But one look at her sleeping husband—and later into her son Ko Gyi’s eyes—was enough to reassure her that it could not be so. A token of love, a gesture of compassion, a helpful deed—regardless how big or small—was all it took to let Nu Nu know that her doubts were unjustified, that there was a power that lent each and every one of us our particular value.
Nothing was futile. Nothing was in vain.
Maung Sein and his love had convinced her of that to the very core of her soul. Until those things happened that caused her again to have doubts. Forever. About everything.
Sapped her life of meaning the way salt draws liquid from a body until it destroys it.
But that was later. Much later.
Now the curry and the steaming rice stood before her. She filled a mug with tea and squatted again in the doorframe, waiting for the procession of monks or for her husband to wake up, to stretch and turn to her, to look at her through drowsy eyes until a smile swept across her face.
The rain was gradually slackening, and Nu Nu noticed a few dry leaves falling from a tree into a puddle at the bottom of the stairs. Tiny messengers, rocking in a storm, hounded by bean-sized raindrops that sank one leaf after another. Only one refused to go under, no matter how often it was hit. Nu Nu closed her eyes and counted to ten. Should it—against all likelihood—still be afloat when she opened her eyes, she would know it was not mere chance, but a sign.
She intentionally counted slowly. At five she started to feel nervous. At eight she contemplated what it might mean. When Nu Nu opened her eyes there was the grayish-brown leaf still floating in the middle of the puddle. She walked down the steps, plucked it from the water, and thoroughly examined its form and patterning. At first glance she did not make out anything remarkable. She flipped it over. On the back were two black spots staring at her like little eyes. The stem continued into the middle of the leaf. It resembled a spinal column. She held it up to the gray sky, and against the light she could clearly see the branching stems running like veins through the leaf.
Eyes. Spinal column. Veins.
Did this dry leaf presage a child? Why not? It was meant to be discovered and deciphered by her; why else did it refuse to go to the bottom like the others?
Nu Nu wanted some confirmation of her suspicion. She examined the leaf one more time and then leaned over and let it slip from her hand. Should it fall in the puddle and there weather a second bout of rain, that would end all doubt. The normal trajectory of the leaf ought to have carried it somewhere under the steps, but the wind changed direction. It sailed right back to the puddle, in which a further handful of new leaves now floated. Nu Nu closed her eyes and counted to twenty-eight, just to be sure. Eight was her lucky number. The two in front of it doubled her luck.
When she reopened her eyes all the leaves but one had vanished. She recognized it at once.
The world was full of signs. One needed only to know how to see and interpret them.
For two years Nu Nu had been waiting for a child, a son, to be precise. She had imagined that after the wedding, pregnancy would be a matter of weeks or at most a few months. After six months, when she still could detect no changes in her body, she asked her mother, who urged her to be patient.
At the end of a year she called upon the advice of the local medicine man, who attempted to treat her with various herbs and teas, to no avail.
She consulted the astrologer, who made very careful calculations regarding the best days for her to conceive, days that she took full advantage of, with the sole result that Maung Sein had sore genitals.
She thought nothing of walking for a day to get to the nearest city to visit an astrologer renowned for his extraordinary abilities. He, too, consulted books and tables, reassuring her that she would bear a healthy son who would soon be followed by an equally healthy brother. He could not say when, exactly. The indications pointed in contradictory directions. It might be a while yet. Maybe even a few years.
Nu Nu returned to her village deeply disappointed. She wanted nothing as much as a son. The neighbors’ daughters and her friends were mostly mothers already. A few years, the astrologer had said. An almost unimaginably long time. Or perhaps he was mistaken, and she was one of those unfortunate women who could never have children, no matter what they tried?
There were days when she thought of little else: a person who would belong only to her. Who would need her like no other, who could not live without her. How would he look? Tall and lean like his mother? Or with his father’s muscular build, his light skin and curly hair?
Would she bring a serene or a troubled spirit into the world?
Maung Sein was nonplussed by his wife’s impatience. Whenever they had a child, be it a boy or a girl, they were not going to have much influence over whether it came into the world healthy or ill, whether it would live past its first birthday or, like so many other newborns, die before the age of one. The essential things in life were predesti
ned. In his view, trying with all one’s might to influence them was dangerously presumptuous and could bring nothing but misfortune. He refused to drink the sundry concoctions his wife prepared according to the medicine man’s instructions, apparently in order to make both of them more fertile. He did not accompany her to the astrologer’s, because he did not wish to know anything about the future. He could not alter it anyway. Maung Sein implored his wife repeatedly to exercise greater patience, to find the equanimity without which life was unbearable. And even if for some reason they never did have a child, it would not be a tragedy. It was just one existence. One among many.
She would agree with him, only to besiege him with questions again two days later. Why she wasn’t pregnant. Whether he would try a potion after all that some midwife had brewed for her. Or what he thought of a particular name.
For a long time it was the sole point of contention between them.
Nu Nu heard the wood creak and looked up. Her husband sat on the sleeping mat in the half light, rubbing his eyes and yawning. She admired his muscular torso, the powerful arms that could lift her into the air as if she were a child, the hands that caressed her so tenderly or held her so firmly that that contact alone was enough to arouse her. It took all of her self-control not to go to him.
“Have the monks been by yet?” inquired Maung Sein. As if he had guessed her thoughts.
“No.”
“Let me guess … still raining?”
“Yes, but it’s slowing down. Are you hungry?”
Her husband nodded. He stood up, retied his longyi, pulled on a fraying T-shirt, got two tin bowls, spoons, a mug, gave her a kiss on the forehead, stroked her face tenderly, and squatted down beside her.
Nu Nu’s heart was racing with excitement.
He poured himself a tea, gazed at the lead-gray sky, the low-hanging clouds, and the muddy yard full of puddles. “We’ve got a lot of time today.”
“A whole lot,” she replied as coyly as she could.