He had more trouble when it came to the tones produced by people. Soon after losing his eyesight Tin Win had begun to pay attention to voices, learning to differentiate and interpret them. They became for him a kind of compass to guide him through the world of human emotions. If Su Kyi was angry or tired, he heard it in her voice. Whether his fellow students envied him his accomplishments, whether he was annoying the monks, whether a person liked him or not: all was revealed to him by the tone in which a person spoke to him.
Every voice had its distinctive repertoire of expressive forms, and so, too, did every heart. Recognizing strangers by their heartbeat on a second or third meeting posed no difficulty for Tin Win, even though the beating was never absolutely identical. It betrayed much about body and soul and altered with time or according to the situation. Hearts could sound young or decrepit, boring or bored, mysterious or predictable. Yet what was he to think when an individual’s voice and heart were at odds, each telling a different, mutually incompatible story? Take U May, for instance. His voice had always sounded strong and robust, as if untouched by the years. Tin Win had always pictured him as a great old pine with a mighty trunk, impervious even to the storms that occasionally swept the Shan Plateau. One of those trees under which he had previously felt secure and loved to play. U May’s heart, however, sounded neither strong nor robust. It sounded fragile and weak, spent and weary. It reminded him of the emaciated oxen he had seen as a child, passing by their house, behind them a heavy cart loaded with sacks of rice or wooden beams. He had gazed after them, convinced they would fall dead before they reached the summit of the mountain. Why did U May’s voice not match his heart? Which should he trust? The voice or the heart? These were questions to which he knew no answer. Though he believed, somehow, that with Mi Mi’s help he would resolve them. Some of them, at least.
Chapter 13
MI MI REMEMBERED precisely when she first heard of Tin Win. Two years earlier one of her brothers had gone into the monastery as a novice. While she was visiting him with her mother, he spoke of a blind boy who had fallen that morning with a thabeik in his hands. For fear of spilling the food, he had not let go of the bowl and so landed hard on his face, bled from his nose and mouth, and—to make matters worse—lost a whole day’s rice in the dirt. He was supposedly extremely clumsy, being blind, after all, but in class he was the best. The story had saddened her, though she couldn’t say why. Did that mishap remind her of her own attempts to take a few steps on her crooked feet, behind the house, where none might see her? Of the pain and the two steps she managed before falling to the dusty ground? She wondered why Tin Win had tumbled, whether it happened often, and how he managed to get around at all. How must he have felt? Lying in the dirt, everyone’s food gone to waste. She couldn’t help but think of a day she played marbles with her friends in front of the house. The other children marveled at the glass balls an Englishman had given her. They rolled them into little depressions, and Mi Mi was proud to show them how the game worked. One girl suddenly leapt up, declaring she was bored. Why didn’t they have a running race instead? First one to the eucalyptus tree was the winner. And off they ran. Mi Mi slowly collected her marbles. Only once had she asked the question: Why? And she had known that there would never be an answer. Her feet were a whim of nature. It would have been silly to look for causes or to rebel. She would not bicker with fate. Still, it hurt.
Worse than the pain was the distance she felt from her family at such moments. She loved her parents and brothers above all else, but the fact that they did not really understand what went on inside her isolated Mi Mi nearly as much as her feet did. Her brothers’ care was touching. They took turns carrying their sister to the field or to the lakes, hauling her through the village, to the market, or to relatives on a distant farm in the mountains. They never thought of it as a sacrifice, but as something quite routine, like chopping wood in the morning, carting water, or harvesting potatoes in the fall. They expected no gratitude in return, of course not. Yet if Mi Mi was ever sad, if she wept for no obvious reason—a thing that was rare but not unheard of—they stood around not knowing what to say or do. With puzzled expressions. As if to say: We’re doing everything to make your life good. Why is that not enough? Not wanting to seem ungrateful, she would swallow her tears as best she could. It was the same way with her mother. Yadana marveled at her daughter. Mi Mi knew that. She was proud of the strength and grace with which her Little Snail bore her handicap. And Mi Mi wanted to be strong, if sometimes only not to disappoint her mother. Yet she also longed for moments when she might be weak, when she need not prove anything to anyone. Not to her parents. Not to her brothers. Not to herself.
A few days later she was sitting on the monastery porch, and her brother pointed out Tin Win as he was sweeping the courtyard.
Mi Mi couldn’t take her eyes off him. She was amazed at the thoroughness with which he cleaned a place that he could not see. At times he stopped and lifted his head, as if he smelled or heard something in particular.
In the days that followed she thought of him often, and on her next visit she lingered on the steps until she saw him again. He came with an armful of firewood, mounted the steps right next to her, and went into the kitchen without ever noticing her. She followed him and watched him from a distance. He broke a few sticks and set them in the flames. He put water in a kettle and hung it over the fire. It seemed effortless. She was impressed by the calm, thoughtful manner in which he moved, the quiet dignity he radiated. As if he was grateful for every step he took without falling, for every move he made without injuring himself. Was life without sight as easy for him as it appeared? Or did it cost him as much effort as her daily life without feet? Might he understand what went on inside her when the other children ran to the eucalyptus tree? When her mother looked at her full of pride while she felt anything but strong? When her brothers carried her past the neighbor girls sitting with young men by the side of the road, singing songs, shyly holding hands? Several times she wanted to speak to him or crawl into his path so that he would stumble over and thus become aware of her. She resisted the urge. Not out of shyness, but because she was convinced it was unnecessary. They would meet. Every life had its own course, its own rhythm, on which Mi Mi thought it was impossible to exercise any decisive influence.
She was not surprised that afternoon in the monastery when Tin Win came to an abrupt halt on his way to the kitchen, made half a turn as if picking up a trail, walked over to her, and crouched down. She looked right at him and read more in his milk-veiled eyes than she ever could with her parents or brothers. She saw that he knew what loneliness was, that he understood why it might be raining inside a person even when the sun shone, that sadness needed no immediate cause. She was not even surprised when he told her about the beating of her heart. She believed every word.
She lived from one market day to the next, was impatient for the first time in her life, counted the hours and minutes, could not wait until they saw each other again. Her longing was so great that after a few months she wanted to pick Tin Win up after his lessons at the monastery. Would he be happy, or would she be intruding? She could act as if she were coincidentally passing by with her brother. When he heard her waiting on the veranda he came straight over to her. His smile dispelled her doubts. He was at least as happy as she was. He sat down beside her, taking her hand without saying a word. From then on they saw each other every day.
Tirelessly he carried her through the village and across the fields, up the mountains and back down again. He carried her in the scorching midday heat and in the most torrential downpours. On his back, in his company, the limits of her small world evaporated. They roamed and roamed, making up for all those years when her horizon had been the garden fence.
During the monsoon months, on days that threatened to sink them into the mud, they’d stay in the monastery and take refuge in Tin Win’s books. His fingers flew over the pages, and now it was his turn to conjure images before her eyes. He read al
oud, she lay beside him and surrendered to his voice, irresistible as it was. She toured with Tin Win from one continent to the next. She, who on her own feet would not have made it to the next village, circled the globe. He carried her up the gangways of ocean liners, from one deck to the next, all the way to the captain’s bridge. On arrival in the ports of Colombo, Calcutta, Port Said, or Marseilles it rained confetti and the ship’s band played. He carried her through Hyde Park, and they turned heads in Piccadilly Circus. In New York they were nearly struck by a car, Tin Win insisted, because Mi Mi was always looking up instead of concentrating on the traffic and on guiding him through the canyon-like streets. She was no burden. She was needed.
With great patience, Tin Win was teaching her to hear. Of course, her ears were not as sensitive as his. She was not going to hear his heart beating without laying her head on his chest. Nor could she distinguish dragonflies by their humming, or frogs by their croaking, but he did teach her to attend to sounds and voices, not only to hear them but also to pay them reverence.
Now when anyone spoke to her she focused first on the timbre, what she called the color, of the voice. The tone often said more than the words spoken. At the market she knew right away whether customers were intent on bargaining or would accept her price for the potatoes. She bewildered her brothers by knowing in the evening after only a few sentences how their day had been, whether they were happy, bored, or irritated. Little Snail became Little Psychic Snail.
When Mi Mi was not waiting for him on the monastery steps one day at noon, Tin Win was immediately alarmed. They had seen each other every day for more than a year, and she had said nothing the evening before about not being there today. Was she sick? Why had none of her brothers come to let him know? He set off at once for their farm. It had rained heavily in the night, and the ground was wet and slippery. Tin Win made no attempt to hear the puddles in advance. He sloshed through them, crossed the empty marketplace, and hastened up the mountain. He slipped several times, fell, and got up, sparing no thought for his drenched and muddied sarong. He plowed into an old peasant woman. In his agitation he had heard neither her voice nor her heartbeat.
The house was empty. Even the dog was gone. The neighbors hadn’t a clue.
Tin Win tried to calm himself. What could possibly have happened? Probably they were out in the field and would arrive soon. But they didn’t. At dusk his anxiety returned. Tin Win heard himself calling out her name. He shook the stairway railing until it broke off. He imagined he could see again. A giant butterfly dropped down from heaven like a bird of prey, landed in the meadow, and crept toward him. Tin Win climbed a tree trunk. Red points came hurtling toward him. A searing pain shot through him each time one hit. He tried to dodge them, running across the yard, bloodying brow and chin. Three neighbor boys brought him home.
Chapter 14
IT WAS A wail like none Su Kyi had ever heard. It was loud, but that was not the strange or alarming thing about it. This was no wretched lament. It was a violent revolt, a scream of rage and doubt. It hurt the soul, not the ears.
She woke at once and turned to the source of the noise. Beside her sat Tin Win, mouth open wide, howling loudly. She called his name, but he didn’t respond. She wasn’t even sure he was awake. She grabbed his shoulders and shook him. His body was tense, almost rigid. “Tin Win. Tin Win,” she cried, stroking his face and taking his head in her hands. That soothed him. After a few seconds he dropped slowly back onto his sleeping mat, where he curled up, his knees to his chest, and slept on, his head resting on her hands.
When Su Kyi woke in the predawn light, Tin Win lay whimpering beside her. She whispered his name, but he did not answer. She slipped into her longyi, pulled a blouse and sweater over her head, and spread a blanket over him. Maybe he’d caught a cold, she thought. He had not come home until after dark last night. Three young men had brought him. Tin Win had looked dreadful—muddied, bloody, cuts all over his head. He had lain down on his mat without a word.
She went into the kitchen and made a fire. Yesterday’s hot chicken soup and rice with a bit of curry would do him good.
At first she did not notice the gagging and gasping. When she came into the bedroom he was kneeling in front of the open window, vomiting, and it sounded as if his body were forcefully ridding itself of everything he had ever eaten. The heaving came in waves, and the less he brought up, the more violently it shook him. Su Kyi could see how eventually it took hold of his entire body, until in the end nothing but a greenish, foul-smelling substance was coming out of his mouth. She dragged him back to his bed and tucked him in. He groped about for her hand. She sat down next to him and took his head in her lap. His lips were twitching. His breathing was labored.
Tin Win didn’t know whether he was dreaming or awake. He lost all awareness of time and space. His senses turned inward. The fog before his eyes gave way to a sinister darkness. In his nose was an acrid stench, the smell of his own viscera. His ears registered nothing but the sounds of his body. The rush of his blood. A bubbling and burbling in his stomach, gurgling in his bowels. His heart. Above it all hovered fear. It had no name and no voice. It was simply there. Everywhere. Like the air he breathed. It ruled his body, lorded over his thoughts and his dreams. In his sleep he heard the beating of Mi Mi’s heart and called her name, but she didn’t answer. He searched, running in the direction of the beating, but never reached it. He ran faster and faster without ever getting closer to her. He ran until he collapsed from exhaustion. Or he saw Mi Mi sitting on a stool, walked over to her, and suddenly the earth opened and swallowed him. It went dark, and he fell, and there was nothing he could hold on to. He got hotter and hotter until he noticed that he landed and was sinking in a simmering bog. Then the dream would start all over again from the beginning. Why was he unable to dream his own death?
But it was not dying that frightened him. It was everything else. Every touch. Every word. Every thought. Every heartbeat. His next breath.
He couldn’t move. He couldn’t eat. He spat out the tea that Su Kyi poured into him. He heard her voice, but she was far away. He felt her hand and yet was not certain she was really touching him.
Again and again, the words of U May went through his head. “There is only one power that mitigates fear, Tin Win.” But what power can mitigate the fear of love, U May?
Three days later he still showed no sign of improvement. Su Kyi massaged him for hours. She rubbed him down with herbs. She hadn’t left his side in seventy-two hours. He complained of no pain, was not coughing, and his body seemed to her rather too cold than too hot. She had no idea what was ailing him, but she was sure of this: It was grave, and it seemed to want his life. She wondered whom to turn to for advice. She was as wary of the nurses and doctors at the little hospital as of the astrologers and medicine men of the Danus, Paos, and Palongs. If anyone could help, it was U May. Perhaps, she thought, Tin Win was not suffering from any illness at all. Perhaps ghosts and demons had been wakened, who—as far as Su Kyi knew—dwelt in all of us, waiting only to emerge from hiding or to unmask themselves. So she set some tea beside the sleeping Tin Win and hurried to the monastery.
She painted the past three days and nights for U May in all their detail, but the story did not seem to trouble him particularly. He mumbled something about a virus, the virus of love, the infection which, if she had understood him correctly, everyone carried, but which only ever afflicted a few. When it was triggered, however, it was accompanied in the beginning by considerable fear, by tumultuous states that would confound both body and soul. In most cases, these symptoms would subside in due course.
In most cases, he had said. And Su Kyi could not help but think of an old story—this of her great uncle who had not left his bed for thirty-seven years, who for years at a time lay motionless on his mat, staring at the ceiling, making not a sound, refusing to eat on his own and surviving only because his relatives, with the patience of angels, fed him daily. And all of this because the neighbors’ daughter, wh
om he had desired in his youth, had been married off by her parents to another man.
And there was another such story—this of Su Kyi’s nephew who lost his heart to a girl in the village and who sat singing love songs in front of her family’s house every evening at dusk. That in itself was nothing unusual, a custom practiced by most young couples in Kalaw. But her nephew never stopped singing, even when it became unmistakably apparent that the girl’s family did not welcome his overtures. After a while he would sing not only in the evening hours but throughout the day, and when he started singing at night as well his brothers had to come and—since he refused to go—carry him off. At home he climbed into an avocado tree and did not stop singing until his voice failed him for a good three weeks and six days later. From then on he moved his mouth in time with the melody, his lips forming the words of the song that told of his eternal love. The longer she thought about it, the more stories she remembered of peasants and monks, of merchants and traders, goldsmiths and wagon drivers—indeed, even of certain Englishmen—who had similarly lost their minds.
Perhaps it had something to do with Kalaw. Perhaps it was home to an extraordinarily virulent strain. Perhaps it was the mountain air or the climate. Something in this unassuming corner of Southeast Asia that made it particularly severe.
U May himself saw no reason for concern.
Upon her return, Tin Win lay still unmoved in his bed. Su Kyi ground eucalyptus leaves in her mortar and held them under Tin Win’s nose, hoping they would stimulate his sense of smell. She tried the same with a bunch of hibiscus blossoms and jasmine. She massaged his feet and head, but Tin Win did not respond. His heart was beating, and he was breathing, but he exhibited no other signs of life. He had withdrawn into a world where she could not reach him.