“I couldn’t bear to be without you,” she whispered.
“I’ve been here the whole time.”
“I wanted to feel you. And I was sad.”
“Why?”
“Because you were so far away, because I couldn’t touch you,” she answered, astonished at her own words. “Every hour we spend apart saddens me. Every place I go without you. Every step you take without me on your back. Every night that we don’t fall asleep in each other’s arms and every morning that we don’t wake up side by side.”
She turned around and knelt in front of him. She took his head in her hands, and he could hear the tears running down her cheeks. She kissed his brow and his eyes. She kissed his mouth and his neck. Her lips were soft and moist. She covered him with kisses. He drew her to himself, and she wrapped her legs around his hips. He held her tightly, very tightly. Otherwise she might fly away.
Chapter 16
THE BEATS REMINDED him of a downspout’s steady dripping. In recent days the silences between beats had grown ever longer. It was a wellspring that was gradually drying up.
Tin Win had heard it coming. Weeks ago. U May’s heart had always sounded tired and weary to his ears, but recently the beats had been fainter even than usual. For the past two weeks a young monk had been instructing U May’s pupils single-handedly while U May lay in his bed, too weak to lift himself. He ate nothing and drank little, in spite of the tropical temperatures.
Mi Mi and Tin Win had spent the past few days and nights by his bedside. Tin Win had read to him until his fingertips were sore. Mi Mi offered to sing for him, but U May declined. He said that he knew of her voice’s magical powers and that he did not wish to lengthen his life by any artificial means. A brief smile graced his lips.
Now, having granted themselves a respite, the two were sitting in a teahouse on the main thoroughfare, drinking fresh sugarcane juice. It was hot. For the past two weeks Kalaw had been beleaguered by a heat wave that showed no signs of relenting. The air stood still. Neither said a word. Even the flies were suffering in this heat, thought Tin Win. Their buzzing sounded more sluggish and listless than usual. Beside them sat merchants and vendors; everyone was complaining continuously about the weather. To Tin Win it was incomprehensible. U May lay dying not two hundred yards away, and the people were just drinking their tea. Going about their business. Chatting about trivialities like weather.
He recognized the approaching monk immediately by his uneven gait. It was Zhaw, whose left leg was a hair shorter than his right and who limped because of it, though not visibly—no one besides Tin Win had ever noticed it. Zhaw had bad news—his heart sounded nearly as wretched as that of the wounded calf Mi Mi had found not long before and who had died in her hands.
“U May has lost consciousness,” Zhaw rasped, completely out of breath.
Tin Win rose and knelt before Mi Mi, who clambered onto his back, and together they set off. He ran down the main street, Mi Mi directing him through the foot traffic and past carts. They turned onto the road leading to the monastery, hurried across the courtyard, up the steps.
All the monks and many of the townsfolk had gathered around U May. They sat on the floor and filled nearly half of the great meditation hall. At the sight of Tin Win and Mi Mi they cleared a narrow aisle to U May’s bed. Mi Mi was shocked by the sight of him. His face had sunken further in the past hour. His eyes now sat so deeply they seemed to be vanishing into his skull. His nose protruded, and his lips had nearly disappeared. The skin stretched across his cheekbones was as pale and lifeless as a piece of leather. His hands lay folded on his abdomen.
They crouched beside his bed, Mi Mi somewhat behind Tin Win with her arms around his chest.
Tin Win knew it would not be much longer. U May’s heart was scarcely louder than a butterfly’s wing beats. How he had been dreading this moment. For some time now he had been unable to imagine a life without U May. Without his voice. Without his advice. Without his encouragement. U May was the first person he had opened himself up to. And U May had tried to release him from fear. “Every life contains the seed of death,” he had explained to Tin Win repeatedly in those first years of their friendship. Death, like birth, was a part of life that no one could escape. It was senseless to resist it. Far better to accept it as natural than to fear it.
Tin Win appreciated the logic of the argument, but it had never really persuaded him. The fear still lingered. The fear of U May’s death, but also of his own. It was not as if he was clinging to his own life or that he considered it especially worth living. Yet the fear had been there, verging at times on panic. It had an animal quality, and it put him in mind of the piglet he had once watched his father slaughter. It was a sight he would never forget. The eyes stretched wide. Those bloodcurdling squeals, the desperate struggling, the whole body twitching. The fear of death is presumably a survival instinct, Tin Win later thought. It must be an essential part of us, of every living creature. At the same time, we must transcend it to take our leave in peace. He found this an irresolvable contradiction. Not once in the past two years had he contemplated dying, and now that U May’s impending death compelled him to, he found himself unexpectedly serene. Now that he finally had something to lose, he was no longer afraid. He would have loved to ask U May for an explanation, but it was too late. U May suddenly moved his lips.
“Tin Win, Mi Mi, are you there?” He was not speaking, but breathing the words.
“Yes,” said Tin Win.
“Do you remember how I wished to die?”
“Free of fear and with a smile on your lips,” answered Tin Win.
“I have no fear,” whispered U May. “Mi Mi will tell you whether I am also managing to smile.” Tin Win took U May’s hand and implored him to say no more. “Spare yourself.”
“For what?”
It sounded like his final word. Tin Win hoped he would say something else. No life should end with a question. For what?
It sounded like vain striving. Like doubt. Like something unfulfilled. Tin Win counted the seconds between heartbeats. Several breaths passed between each.
Again U May opened his mouth. Tin Win leaned forward.
Then it was quiet. Tin Win waited. Silence. A boundless silence, engulfing everything, drowning out every sound.
He heard Mi Mi’s heart and then his own, their rhythms gradually converging, beat by beat, conforming to each other, and for a few seconds—it seemed to him a long time—he heard their two hearts beat as one.
Chapter 17
THERE HAD BEEN certain powerful moments in her life Yadana would remember until her dying day. The first time she set eyes on Tin Win was one of them. She’d been sitting on the porch of her house, ready to weave some dried grass into a basket. It was late afternoon; she could already smell and hear the neighbors’ fire, the clatter of their pots and tinware. She was alone. Her husband and sons were still in the field. Suddenly Tin Win was standing in the yard, carrying Mi Mi on his back. Even now she could not have articulated just what moved her so. It was the radiance in Tin Win’s young face. It was his laughter when Mi Mi whispered something in his ear. It was the way he gingerly climbed the steps to the porch, feeling his way from one to the next, then squatting down to let Mi Mi slide gently off his back. It was simply the new light in her daughter’s face, her eyes like two stars in the night.
After that, Tin Win brought Mi Mi home evening after evening. At first he was noticeably aloof, setting Mi Mi down and bidding them farewell shortly thereafter. Within a few weeks, though, he was helping Mi Mi with the cooking and staying for supper.
Yadana took to calling him her youngest son. The longer she knew him, the better she liked him. His tact, his thoughtfulness, the tenderness he showed Mi Mi. His humor and his modesty. His intuition. Often he seemed to know how Yadana and her family felt even before they had exchanged a single word. Nor did Yadana have the sense that he was particularly troubled by his loss of his vision, least of all with Mi Mi on his back. Sometimes the sig
ht of the two of them walking up the mountain would move her to tears. Despite his burden, Tin Win walked perfectly upright. He was not lugging Mi Mi. He carried her like a gift, happily and proudly. She sat on his back, singing or whispering in his ear. Often Yadana would recognize the two of them by their laughter well before she saw them coming.
Her husband had dubbed them “brother and sister” after a few months and was still calling them that almost four years later. Was he just careless in his choice of words, or did he really fail to appreciate what was playing out right before his eyes? The longer she thought about it, the more she suspected that he meant what he said and that he, like many men, apparently lacked a feel for certain things, a sense that would have helped him to see beyond the superficial.
Obviously Mi Mi and Tin Win had been more than brother and sister for a long time now. The joy Mi Mi radiated had nothing of a child’s. Tin Win was still very quiet, polite, and respectful, but in his voice, his gestures, and his movements was now more than thoughtfulness and tenderness. These two young people enjoyed an intimacy of which Yadana was almost a bit envious. She herself had never experienced anything like it with her husband, and truth be told, she did not know any other two people so close to each other.
Yadana wondered whether it might be time, now that they were both eighteen, to broach the subject of marriage. But since Tin Win was obviously an orphan, it was unclear to whom she should turn. Perhaps, she thought, she should simply wait until Mi Mi or Tin Win asked her. What difference would a few months or even a year make? She was convinced that she need not worry about her daughter or Tin Win. They had discovered a secret of life that had eluded her, even if she had always sensed its existence.
Chapter 18
IT WAS JUST after nightfall one summer evening when Tin Win got home from spending the afternoon at the lake with Mi Mi. The swimming and the long hike had left him pleasantly exhausted. It was a mild evening after a hot day. The air was dry and comfortably warm. The croaking of the frogs in the nearby pool was so loud that it drowned out all other sounds. Su Kyi would have supper waiting for him by now. Opening the garden gate, he suddenly noticed two unfamiliar voices—men talking with Su Kyi. They were sitting by the fire in front of the house. He heard Su Kyi stand up and come over to him. She took him by the hand and led him to the strangers. The men got right to the point. They had been waiting for Tin Win all afternoon. Su Kyi had made them very welcome, serving them tea and nuts. Now they were weary from their long journey and looking forward to their hotel. Especially since tomorrow would bring further strenuous traveling. They had come from Rangoon. His uncle, the venerable U Saw, had charged them with bringing him, Tin Win, to the capital by the fastest means possible. He would learn all further details personally from his uncle. They would take the early train the next morning to Thazi, where, a few hours later, they would board the night express from Mandalay to reach Rangoon the next morning. The tickets had already been purchased, seats reserved. The first train was leaving Kalaw at seven. They would come to get him. Would he please be waiting for them at six? Ready to leave.
At first Tin Win didn’t understand what they were saying. As always with strangers, he had listened first to their hearts and their voices rather than to their words. The heartbeats had not revealed much. Their voices sounded oddly expressionless. Whatever they were doing in Kalaw, whatever they were telling him just now, it was of little importance to them.
Only Su Kyi’s deep sigh put him on the alert. And her heart. It was beating more quickly than the occasion called for, as though she had just climbed a mountain. But Tin Win had learned with Mi Mi’s help that not only physical exertion could set a heart to pounding like that. People might be sitting quietly on the ground, externally at peace, all while their hearts were racing in their chests like animals running for their lives. He knew from personal experience that dreams and fantasies often worried and threatened people more than reality did, that the head could tax the heart infinitely more than even the hardest labor.
What was Su Kyi so worried about? Now that the men had left, and she was repeating sentence for sentence what they had said, the words very gradually sank in. By train. To the capital. Alone.
“Why? What does my uncle want from me?” asked Tin Win when he finally understood.
“I don’t know,” she answered. “People in town say he’s very wealthy, that he has good and influential friends among the English. Supposedly even the governor. I’m sure he can help you.”
“I don’t need any help.” Tin Win scoffed at the thought that anyone, out of pity, might offer him help.
“Maybe he’s heard of the trouble with your eyes and would like to have a British doctor examine you. At any rate, we’ve got to sort out now what you’re going to take with you tomorrow.” She turned to go into the house.
“Su Kyi.” Her heartbeat was out of step with the words she meant to comfort him. “What do you really think?”
“Oh, Tin Win. It’s just that I’m going to miss you. But what am I saying, me, a selfish old crone. I ought to be happy for you.”
“Su Kyi!” His voice was reproving. He heard quite distinctly that she was concealing her true thoughts.
“Besides, you won’t be gone for more than a few weeks, at most,” she went on, as if she hadn’t heard him at all.
He was taken aback. Until now the idea of the journey had been something abstract. He had never traveled and had no concept of what it involved. He would have to leave Kalaw. He would arrive in a new place, strange and therefore threatening, and he did not know what to expect there. He would have to do without Su Kyi, without the monastery or the monks, without his home, without the familiar noises or smells. Without Mi Mi.
The idea was so preposterous that it had not registered until that moment. Now he was expected to set off in a few hours without even knowing when he would be able to return. In a few weeks? A couple of months? Ever? He felt the demons and phantoms stir in his breast.
Tin Win took the bumpy path over the mountain ridge. He knew every stone, every pit along the way. He walked faster, started to run. At first warily, then with increasing strides until he was bounding along at top speed. Some power was driving him forward, some power that had no thought of falling. He raced past the pool and turned at the bamboo grove. He sped down the meadow and back up the other side. He ran without stumbling, barely feeling the earth beneath his feet. Was it memory, instinct, or longing that guided him so confidently to Mi Mi’s house?
He took the last few yards more slowly and caught his breath for a moment behind the hibiscus hedge that sheltered the house from the road. He stepped into the yard. The dog ran over and leapt on him. Tin Win patted and calmed him. The pig was snoring under the porch. All was quiet in the house. He climbed the steps slowly. The door was unlocked. It creaked when he opened it. He could tell by her heartbeat where Mi Mi lay sleeping, and he felt his way carefully through the room to her mat. He nearly fell over a tin pot sitting in the middle of the floor. He knelt beside her and laid a hand on her face.
She woke with a start. “Tin Win, what are you doing here?”
“There’s something I’ve got to tell you,” he whispered. Tin Win pushed one arm under her neck, the other under her knee, and lifted her. Their faces nearly touched. He had never carried her in his arms. They went to the stairs, down the steps, and across the yard.
She caressed his face and neck. “You’re sweating.”
“I ran the whole way. I had to see you.”
“Where should we go?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Somewhere we can be alone without waking anyone.”
Mi Mi thought a moment. The fields began a few houses down, and there was a rain shelter in one of them. She directed him there, and a few minutes later they reached the refuge and crawled inside. The walls were woven grass, and through the holes in the roof Mi Mi could see the sky. It was a clear night, full of stars, unusually warm. Mi Mi felt her heart beat quickly, expectantly. Sh
e took his hand and laid it on her belly.
“Mi Mi, I’m leaving for Rangoon tomorrow morning. An uncle of mine who lives there sent two men to take me there.”
Decades later that sentence would still ring in her ears. Only hours earlier, at the lake, she had been dreaming of their future, of a wedding. She had imagined herself and Tin Win living in a house with children in the yard, children with feet for walking and eyes for seeing. She had lain in his arms, describing the scene to him. They had determined to raise the issue of marriage with Mi Mi’s parents in the coming weeks. And now he would be going to the capital. Mi Mi knew what that meant. Rangoon was the other end of the world. Few people ever went there and even fewer returned. She wanted to ask what his uncle wanted with him and how long he would be away and why they had to be apart, but at the same time she sensed that words could not help her, not now, when she longed with her whole body for Tin Win. She took his hands and pulled him down to her. Their lips met. She pulled her shirt over her head, and he kissed her breasts. His warm breath on her skin. His mouth dancing downward along her body. He loosened her longyi. They were both naked. He kissed her legs and thighs. He teased her with his tongue. She felt him now as never before. And she felt herself. More and more deeply, more beautifully than ever. He was giving her a new body with every movement. She pictured herself flying over Kalaw, over the forests and mountains and valleys, from one peak to the next. The earth receded to a miniature ball on which Rangoon and Kalaw and all the other cities and countries lay no more than a finger’s breadth apart. She lost all control over her body. It was as if every one of her emotions had suddenly exploded, the rage and the fear and the doubt, the longing, the tenderness, and the desire. For one moment, for the duration of a few heartbeats, every one of the world’s promises was fulfilled, and nothing could contain her.