Neither of them spoke. Tin Win was thinking of Mi Mi. He wondered how she would describe his uncle. Did he have chubby fingers? Was he overweight? Did he have a double chin like the sugarcane merchant in Kalaw whose heartbeat sounded similarly flat? Did his eyes sparkle? Or was his gaze as expressionless as the thumping in his chest? Who would help him, Tin Win, decipher this new world he had entered? The doctors? What would his uncle’s friend do with him? And would he be allowed to return to Kalaw once they realized there was nothing to be done? With a bit of luck he might be back with Mi Mi by the end of next week.
And if the doctors restored his eyesight? Tin Win had not considered this possibility until now. Neither in the preceding years nor since coming to Rangoon. And why should he have? He already had everything he needed.
Tin Win tried to imagine the consequences of a successful operation. Eyes to see with. Sharp contours. Faces. Would he retain the art of hearing? He pictured himself looking at Mi Mi. She lay naked in front of him. Her lean body, her small, firm breasts. He saw her flat belly and her pubic hair. Her tender thighs, her genitalia. It was odd, but the image did not excite him. There could be nothing lovelier than to caress her skin with his tongue, to touch her breasts with his lips, and to hear her heart dancing ever more wildly.
His uncle’s voice interrupted this train of thought. “I have much to do in the coming days and will have little time to spend with you.” He set down his eating utensils. “One of the houseboys, though, Hla Taw, will be at your permanent disposal. He can show you around in the garden or even in the city, if you like. Tell him whatever you need. If I can arrange it, we will dine together on the weekend. The appointment with Dr. McCrae is on Tuesday.” U Saw hesitated. Had the astrologer prescribed how much time he ought to spend with the family member in distress? He could not recall anything of the kind. To make certain, he would call on him again tomorrow afternoon.
“I thank you, U Saw,” replied Tin Win. “I do not deserve your generosity.”
U Saw rose. He was exceedingly pleased. His nephew understood propriety. The thought that he, U Saw, might restore the boy’s eyesight delighted him. Such a gesture of magnanimity, a generosity that could hardly be taken for granted, would surely not go unrewarded.
Chapter 3
TIN WIN LAY awake at night and slept during the day. He had come down with diarrhea. The bathroom seemed farther and farther away, and he spent hours on the tiles in front of the toilet for fear he might not manage the trip.
Strange noises mocked or frightened him at every turn. Something was rattling and gurgling behind the walls and under the floor in the bathroom. The spider under his bed had turned ravenous. The flies in their death throes, the breaking of their legs, the sucking and chewing sounds of the spider—it all disgusted him. One morning he heard a snake slithering silently across the floor of his room. Her heartbeat betrayed her. He heard her approaching. Crawling into his bed. Across his legs. He felt her cold, moist body through the thin sheet. She hissed beside his head as if she wanted to tell him a story. Hours later she disappeared through the half-open window. The geckos on the walls were having a laugh at his expense. More than once he covered his ears and cried out for help.
Hla Taw blamed it on the unfamiliar food and the heat. Tin Win knew better. He was sitting on a tree stump. Waiting. Soon, she had said.
He drew a deep breath and held it. Counted the seconds. Forty. Sixty. The pressure in his chest increased. Ninety. One hundred twenty. He started getting dizzy. His body screamed for oxygen. Tin Win did not give in. He heard his own heart stutter. He knew he had the power to bring it to a standstill. Good.
Death appeared in the distance, approaching with long strides, looming ever larger until he stood right in front of Tin Win.
“You summoned me.”
Tin Win was afraid of himself. He had summoned death, but didn’t yet want to die. Not yet. Not here. He needed to be with Mi Mi again, to feel her again, her breath on his skin, her lips at his ear, the song of her heart.
He inhaled deeply.
He would find out what his uncle wanted from him. He would do what was asked of him and then return to Kalaw as quickly as possible.
Four days later Tin Win stood in the doorway to the terrace, listening hard. It was raining. Not a downpour, but more of a steady, slow rustling and pattering. Tin Win liked rain, it was an ally. In it he heard Mi Mi’s whispering, that voice capable of such tenderness. It gave shape to the garden and the house, lifted a veil from his uncle’s estate. Drew pictures. The rainfall sounded different in every part of the yard. Beside him the water crashed on the tin roof connecting the kitchen to the house. In front of him it crackled on the stones of the terrace, whose size he could now precisely determine, thanks to the rain. The drops fell more softly on the grass. He could hear the path between the flowerbeds, the bushes, and the lawn. The sandy ground swallowed the water almost without a sound. It struck the large palm leaves, then ran down the stems; it gushed over the flowers, plucking and tearing at the blossoms. He noted that the yard was not flat, that water flowed, barely audibly, away toward the street. He felt as if he had gone to the window in his room, had opened the shutters and seen the grounds for the first time.
As the rain fell harder the drumming on the tin roof surged, and Tin Win stepped out onto the terrace. The water was much warmer than in Kalaw. He stretched out his arms. The drops were big and fat. He felt Mi Mi on his back. He wanted to show her the garden. He took a few steps, then broke into a run. He tore across the terrace onto the lawn, dodged a palm, ran around the tennis court, hopped over two small bushes, raced in a broad arc to the hedge that bordered the property and then back to the terrace. A second time. A third. Running set him free. It released energies that had atrophied in recent days.
The rain wrenched him out of his anxiety; he was more alive with every drop. Mi Mi was with him. Because it was she who had opened his eyes, because it was she, in a very real sense, seeing for him, she would always be with him. All that came between them were his fear and sorrow. U May had told him: Fear blinds and deafens. Rage blinds and deafens. So, too, envy and suspicion. There was only one force stronger than fear.
Tin Win ran to the terrace. Out of breath, dripping with joy.
“Tin Win.” His uncle’s voice. Why had he left the office early?
“Doctor McCrae has sent word. We should go today. Right now.” U Saw observed his nephew quietly for a moment. “I saw you running. Are you really blind?”
So close to the truth, and yet so far.
The examination took only a few minutes. A nurse held his head. A doctor with powerful hands pulled at the skin around his eyes. Stuart McCrae leaned forward right in front of him. His breath smelled of tobacco.
McCrae did not say a word during the exam. Tin Win focused on the beating of his heart and wondered whether he might even infer the diagnosis from it. Its rhythm never varied. It was not unpleasant, merely alien. It sounded even, reliable. As did the voice. McCrae spoke in short sentences that started anywhere and ended just as abruptly, uninflected by rises or dips. Not unpleasant, merely devoid of emotion.
The diagnosis was quick and simple. Tin Win was blind. Cataracts. Highly unusual at his age. Presumably a genetic disorder. Operable. Tomorrow, if they liked.
The injections were the worst part. They stuck him with long, fat needles above and below his eyes and near his ears. The cold metal penetrated deeper and deeper into his flesh, as if they were trying to skewer him. Then they removed the lenses. Tin Win felt the incisions but experienced no pain. They called for needle and thread and stitched his skin back together. Like a piece of cloth. He wore a bandage around his head for the next two days.
Now doctors and nurses were clattering about with scissors and tweezers, giving one another instructions Tin Win did not understand. They were going to restore his sight, they said. He would feel like a newborn. They would remove his bandages, and he would perceive light—warm, glowing light. He would recogniz
e outlines and shapes, and in a few days, when his glasses were ready, he would be able to see again. Better than before he was blind.
Tin Win was not sure whether to believe them. Not that he mistrusted them or suspected they would knowingly mislead him. They meant what they said, but they seemed to be talking about something else. “What is more precious than our eyes?” Stuart McCrae asked before the operation and also immediately answered: “Nothing. Seeing is believing.”
They acted as if they were liberating him from a prison. As if there were but one truth. The nurses bade him be patient but Tin Win wanted to tell them no one need hurry on his account. If he was impatient, it was only because he wanted to be with a young woman who moved about on hands and knees. She knew that one saw with more than eyes and that distances were measured not only in steps. To the doctor and nurses, however, Tin Win thought it best to say nothing.
“There we are.” McCrae undid the bandage. He rolled it up, and with each turn the tension in the room increased. Even McCrae’s heart was beating a tick faster than usual.
Tin Win opened his eyes. It hit him with the force of a blow. Light. Glaring, blazing light. Not dim, not milky, but white and bright. Truly bright.
The light hurt. It hurt. It burned his eyes. He felt a stabbing pain in his head. He pinched his eyes shut, retreating back into darkness.
“Can you see me?” his uncle cried. “Can you see me?”
No, he did not. Nor did he need to. The heartbeat was quite sufficient. It sounded as if U Saw were applauding himself.
“Can you see me?” U Saw repeated.
Tin Win squinted. As if squinting might filter the pain out of the light.
As if there were any going back.
Chapter 4
THE GLASSES FIT straightaway—on his nose, behind his ears.
He was supposed to open his eyes. As if it were that simple. After eight years.
He wanted to wait until Mi Mi was sitting before him. He wanted her, and only her, to be the first thing he saw. He granted them a crack. He peered through them as if out of a hiding place.
The veil was gone. Just like that, the milky gray fog had disappeared.
Everything he saw was sharp and clear. The acuity sent a pang from his eyeballs across his brow all the way to the back of his neck. Doctor McCrae and U Saw were standing in front of him. They were staring at him, proud and anxious, as though they had created the world afresh, just for him.
His uncle’s face. Yes, there it was. He saw it.
His eyes closed again. No, it didn’t hurt. No, he was not dizzy. No, he did not wish to lie down. It was just too much. Too much light. Too many eyes staring at him. Too many expectations. Too many colors. They irritated him. The creamy white of U Saw’s teeth with their brown edges. The silvery glint of the chrome lamp on the doctor’s desk. His reddish hair and eyebrows. The nurses’ dark-red lips. Tin Win had lived in a black-and-white world. Colors make no sound. They neither bubble, nor chirp, nor croak. His memory of them had faded over the years, like symbols written on a page.
Please open your eyes again. Tin Win shook his head.
“Something is wrong with him,” U Saw said.
“I don’t think so. It’s the shock. He’ll get used to it.”
Both were right.
Tin Win sat on a redbrick wall on the banks of the Rangoon River, the harbor spread out before him.
Open your eyes. He had to remind himself. Ten light-filled days. Ten days crammed with images. Needle sharp. Multicolored. He still wasn’t used to it.
Downstream stood leafless trees of steel rattling back and forth on rails. Their hooks vanished into the bellies of freighters to reemerge carrying dozens of bound sacks. Yesterday they hoisted an elephant on board. He was hanging from ropes in a red tarpaulin, waving his legs about. Helpless, like a beetle on its back. In front of the warehouses were piles of crates and casks, destinations spelled out in black. Calcutta. Colombo. Liverpool. Marseilles. Port Said. New York.
Hundreds of boats cruised the harbor. Some under sail, others motorized. In many sat a lone rower. Several ships were so brimming with people, baskets, and bicycles that every swell brought water on board. Upstream, houseboats were homes to entire families. Between the masts the laundry hung to dry. Children scampered on deck. An old man napped in a hammock.
Tin Win watched seagulls glide without a wing beat through the air. He had never seen such elegant birds. It was damp and hot, despite the light breeze that flitted across the water.
Again he shut his eyes. He heard the piston beats of a ship’s motor. The wood worms in the wall of the warehouse next to him. The faltering heartbeats of the fish in a basket at his feet. The slap of waves against the hulls. He could tell by the tone whether a boat was built of metal or wood. He could even distinguish different types of wooden planks. These noises portrayed the harbor more vividly than anything his eyes might have taken in. Eyes registered images, a torrent of them. Every second, every movement of his pupils, every turn of his head resulted in new ones. He watched these images, but they did not engage him. He was a curious observer, nothing more.
For minutes at a time his eyes might fixate on the same spot, on a sail, an anchor, a cutter, or a blossom in his uncle’s garden. He would touch the object with his gaze, get the feel of it, every crook, every edge, every shadow, as if he could take it apart and put it back together in order to look behind the surfaces, the façade. Bring it to life. It did not work. Seeing something—a bird, a person, a fishing boat—neither made that object more real nor brought it any closer to him. The images before him would lapse into motion, yet images they remained. Tin Win felt an odd distance between himself and everything he saw. The glasses were a poor substitute for Mi Mi’s eyes.
He climbed off the wall and walked along the harbor. Was he an ingrate? What had he expected? His eyes were indeed practical in everyday life. He got around more easily, didn’t need to worry about running into chairs or walls, or about tripping over sleeping dogs or tree roots. They were tools he would soon master. They would make his life safer, simpler, and more comfortable.
Perhaps the distance they created was the price one had to pay. The essence of a thing is invisible to the eye, U May said. Learn to perceive the essence of a thing. Eyes are more likely to hinder you in that regard. They distract us. We love to be dazzled. Tin Win remembered every word.
He walked along the Rangoon River, past boats and cranes. Around him men carried sacks of rice from the pier into a warehouse. They walked bent, carrying their burdens on their backs. They had tied their longyis up above their knees. The sweat made their eyes sticky. Their dark legs were slender as sticks and their muscles tensed with every step under the weight. Coolies at work. Only when Tin Win closed his eyes did the scene move him. They were groaning. Softly but woefully. Their stomachs growled with hunger. Their lungs were gasping for breath. Their hearts were spent and feeble.
So. He had retained the capacity to hear. He would think of vision as an auxiliary sense. It would do no harm, provided he took U May’s warning to heart.
He walked farther downstream, then turned into an alley. The air in it was nearly unbearable. No breeze from the harbor, none of the openness of the avenues where Europeans strolled. Most of the closely packed houses were of wood, with windows wide open. He felt he had descended into the cellar of the city. It was filthy, narrow, loud. It stank of sweat and urine. In the gutters lay rotten fruit, scraps of food, rags, and paper. On all sides people squatted on stools, and benches packed the far-too-slim sidewalk. Many edged into the street. The single-story shops were crammed to the ceiling with goods: bolts of cloth, tea, herbs, vegetables, noodles, and above all rice. Tin Win had not known there were so many varieties, each with its distinctive bouquet. The passersby laughed and chatted in a language he did not understand. Many stared at him as if he was an intruder.
Tin Win wondered if he ought to turn around. He closed his eyes. There was nothing threatening in the sounds he he
ard. Fat sizzled in the kitchens. Women kneaded dough or chopped meat and vegetables. In the upper stories children were laughing and shrieking. The voices on the street were not hostile.
Nor the hearts.
He walked on, taking in the sounds, the scents, the sights, putting everything in its place, wrapping up the impressions and tucking them away to share them later with Mi Mi.
He wandered from a Chinese quarter into an Indian one. The people were taller, their skin darker, but the air was no better, the streets no less crowded. Another room in the cellar. The cooking smells were more familiar. Curry. Ginger. Lemongrass. Red pepper. The people he passed paid him no heed. Tin Win could not determine from the heartbeats whether he was walking down a Chinese or an Indian street, whether he was among the English or the Burmese. Hearts sounded different from person to person, betraying age or youth, joy, sorrow, fear, or courage, but that was all.
The driver was waiting for him, as agreed, in the early evening near the Sule Pagoda. They drove past lakes reflecting clouds of dusk in light pink.
At home U Saw was waiting for him. Uncle and nephew had dined together every evening since the operation. On that first occasion Tin Win had felt so ill at ease that he had touched neither his rice nor his curry. He had excused himself, blaming the heat. U Saw did not notice his lack of appetite. He had wanted to know what his nephew had done that first day with his—U Saw’s—gift. What did you see? Where did you go?
The questions made Tin Win uncomfortable. He did not wish to share his experiences with U Saw. He was saving them for Mi Mi. At the same time, he did not wish to appear impolite or altogether unappreciative. He outlined skeletal impressions as succinctly as possible. On the fifth evening Tin Win noticed that his uncle did not react at all when he repeated the stories from the previous evening. U Saw was not listening. Or he was not interested. Probably both. That made things easier. Same questions, same answers. And thus arose evening after evening a conversation that his uncle invariably cut short in mid-sentence after exactly twenty minutes. Just as he was taking his last bite, he would stand up and explain that he still had work to do. Bidding Tin Win a good night and a pleasant morrow, he would disappear.