“But not yourself.”
“Let’s just say that there are men who get lost in the rhetoric of our imperial destiny, that we conquer not to gain land and wealth but to spread culture and civilization. I will not deny them this, but it is not the duty of the War Office.”
“And yet you support him?”
The Colonel paused. “If I speak bluntly, Mr. Drake, it is because it is important that you understand the position of the War Office. The Shan States are lawless. Except Mae Lwin. Carroll has accomplished more than several battalions. He is indispensable, and he commands one of the most dangerous and important posts in our colonies. The Shan States are essential to securing our eastern frontier; without them we risk invasion, French or even Siamese. If a piano is the concession we must make to keep him at his post, then it is a small cost. But his post is a military post, not a music salon. It is our hope that when the piano is tuned he will return to his work. It is important that you understand this, that you understand that we, not the Surgeon-Major, are hiring you. His ideas can be…seductive.”
You don’t trust him, thought Edgar. “Just a concession then, like cigarettes,” he said.
“No, this is different, I think you understand.”
“So I should not try to argue that it is because of the piano that he is indispensable?”
“We will know when it is tuned. Won’t we, Mr. Drake?”
And at his words, the piano tuner smiled. “Perhaps we will.”
The Colonel sat forward. “Do you have any other questions?”
“Only one.
” “Yes, what is it?”
Edgar looked down at his hands. “I am sorry, Colonel, but what exactly is wrong with the piano?”
The Colonel stared. “I think we have discussed this.”
The tuner took a deep breath. “With all due respect, sir, we discussed what you think is wrong with a piano. But I need to know what is wrong with this piano, with the 1840 Erard that sits somewhere in a jungle far away, where you are asking me to go. Your office has told me little about the piano besides the fact that it is out of tune, which, I might add, is due to the swelling of the soundboard, not the body, as you mentioned in your letter. Of course, I am amazed that you did not anticipate this, the piano going out of tune. Humidity works horrors.”
“Again, Mr. Drake, we were doing this for Carroll. You will have to make such philosophical inquiries of the man himself.”
“Well, then may I ask what it is that I need to mend?”
The Colonel coughed. “Such details were not provided to us.”
“He must have written about the piano somewhere.”
“We have only one note, strange and uncharacteristically short for the Doctor, usually a man of eloquence, which made us somewhat incredulous of the request, until it was followed by his threat to resign.”
“May I read it?”
The Colonel hesitated, and then passed a small brown piece of paper to the piano tuner. “It is Shan paper,” the Colonel said. “Supposedly the tribe is famous for it. It is odd, as the Surgeon-Major has never used it for any other correspondence.” The paper was soft, a handmade matte with visible fibers, now stained with a dark ink.
Gentlemen,
The Erard grand can no longer be played, and must be tuned and repaired, a task which I have attempted but failed. A piano tuner who specializes in Erards is needed urgently in Mae Lwin. I trust that this should not be difficult. It is much easier to deliver a man than a piano.
Surgeon-Major Anthony X Carroll, Mae Lwin, Shan States
Edgar looked up. “These are spare words to justify sending a man to the other side of the world.”
“Mr. Drake,” said the Colonel, “your reputation as a tuner of Erard grands is well known by those in London who concern themselves with the matter of music. We anticipate the entire duration of the journey to be no longer than three months from when you leave to when you return to England. As you know, you will be rewarded well.”
“And I must go alone.”
“Your wife will be well provided for here.”
The piano tuner sat back in his chair.
“Do you have any more questions?”
“No, I think I understand,” he said softly, as if speaking only to himself.
The Colonel set the papers down and leaned forward in his seat. “Will you go to Mae Lwin?”
Edgar Drake turned back to the window. It was dusk, and wind played with the falling water, intricate crescendos and diminuendos of rain. I decided long before I came here, he thought.
He turned to the Colonel and nodded.
They shook hands. Killian insisted on taking him to Colonel Fitzgerald’s office, where he reported the news. Then more words, but the piano tuner was no longer listening. He felt as if he were in a dream, the reality of the decision still floating above him. He felt himself repeating the nod, as if doing so would make real his decision, would reconcile the insignificance of that movement with the significance of what it meant.
There were papers to sign and dates to be set and copies of documents to be ordered for his “further perusal.” Doctor Carroll, explained Killian, had requested that the War Office provide a long list of background readings for the tuner: histories, studies of anthropology, geology, natural history. “I wouldn’t worry yourself too much with all of this, but the Doctor did ask that we provide them for you,” he said. “I think that I have told you all you really need to know.”
As he left, a line from Carroll’s letter followed him, like a faint trail of cigarette smoke from a salon performance. It is much easier to deliver a man than a piano. He thought he would like this Doctor; it is not often that one found such poetic words in the letters of military men. And Edgar Drake had much respect for those who find song in responsibility.
2
A heavy fog drifted along Pall Mall as Edgar left the War Office. He followed a pair of torch-boys through mist so thick that the children, swathed in heavy rags, seemed disembodied from the hands that held the dancing lights. “Do you want a cab, sir?” one of the boys asked. “Yes, to Fitzroy Square, please,” he said, but then changed his mind. “Take me to the Embankment.”
They walked through the crowds, through the stern and marbled corridors of Whitehall and then out again, through a jumble of carriages, filled with black coats and top hats and sprinkled with patrician accents and the smoke of cigars. “There is a dinner at one of the clubs tonight, sir,” confided one of the boys, and Edgar nodded. In the buildings around them, tall windows gave onto walls of oil paintings, lit by high-ceilinged chandeliers. He knew some of the clubs, he had tuned a Pleyel at Boodle’s three years ago, and an Erard at Brooks’s, a beautiful inlaid piece from the Paris workshop.
They passed a crowd of well-dressed men and women, their faces ruddy from the cold and from brandy, the men laughing beneath dark mustaches, the women squeezed in the embrace of whalebone corsets, lifting the hems of their dresses above a road glistening with rain and horse dung. An empty carriage waited for them on the other side of the street, an old turbaned Indian already at the door. Edgar turned. Perhaps he has seen what I will, he thought, and had to suppress the desire to speak to him. Around him the crowd of men and women parted, and losing the light of the torch-boys, Edgar stumbled. “Watch where you are going, my dear chap!” roared one of the men, and one of the women, “These drunks.” The crowd laughed, and Edgar could see the old Indian’s eyes light up, only modesty keeping him from sharing this joke with his fares.
The boys were waiting by the low wall that ran along the Embankment. “Where to, sir?” “This is fine, thank you,” and he flipped them a coin. Both boys jumped for it, dropped it, and it bounced on the irregularity of the road and down a grating. The boys fell to their knees. Here, you hold the torches. No, then you will take it, you never share. You never share, this is mine, I talked to him…Embarrassed, Edgar fished two new coins from his pocket. “Here, I am sorry, take these.” He walked off; the boys remained arguing by the grating. Soon only the light of their torches remained. He stopped and looked out at the Thames.