“But where?”

“Downriver. You will float out this morning. It is only several days to British forts in Karen country. There you will be met by troops who can escort you back to Rangoon.”

“Rangoon?”

“Until we know what is happening. But Mae Lwin is no longer safe for a civilian. The time for that is past.”

Edgar shook his head. “This is all happening too fast, Doctor. Perhaps I can stay…or I can take the piano into the mountains. I cannot bear this…” His voice drifted off. “What about Khin Myo?” he asked, suddenly. I can ask this now, she is part of this, inextricably so, She is no longer in my thoughts only.

The Doctor looked up and his voice grew suddenly stern. “She will stay with me.”

“I only asked because—”

“She is safer here, Mr. Drake.”

“But Doctor—”

“I am sorry, Mr. Drake, but I cannot talk longer. We must make preparations to leave.”

“There must be a way I can stay, now.” Edgar tried to control the panic in his voice.

“Mr. Drake,” said the Doctor slowly, “I do not have time for this. I am not giving you a choice.”

Edgar stared at him. “And I am not one of your soldiers.”

There was a long silence. The Doctor massaged the back of his neck again and stared down at the maps. When he looked up again, his face had softened. “Mr. Drake,” he said, “I am sorry that this had to happen. I know what this means to you, I know more than you think I know. But I have no choice now. I think one day you will understand.”

Edgar stumbled out into the sun.

He stood still and tried to calm himself. Around him, the camp spun with dizzying activity. Men arranged sandbags or ran to the river with rifles and ammunition. Others cut and tied bamboo into sharp ramparts. A line of women and children worked as a fire brigade, filling buckets, clay vessels, cooking pots with water.

“Mr. Drake.” These words from behind him. A small boy held his bag. “I am taking this to the river, sir.” The piano tuner only nodded.

His eyes followed a line of activity up the mountain, where the front wall of the piano room had been completely removed. He could see men working inside, shirtless bodies toiling at a bamboo-and-rope pulley. A crowd had gathered below to watch, buckets of water and rifles still in their hands. Above he heard shouting. Further up the trail, a group of men strained at a rope. He saw the piano lurch into the air, uneasy at first, but in the room the men steadied it, pushing it onto a slide made of long pieces of bamboo that had been lashed together. The men at the rope groaned, the piano swung out on the pulley, flying now, slowly, down, and Edgar heard a ringing as they let it drop, the rope burning their hands. For a long time the piano remained suspended, inching slowly down the bamboo, until at last it touched the ground, and another group of men rushed to catch it, and Edgar took his first breath since he had looked up.

The piano stood on a dry patch of earth. It seemed very small in the light, against the backdrop of the camp.

More shouts and running, bodies moved about him in a blur. He remembered the afternoon he left London on the steamer, how the fog swirled, how all became silent, and he was left alone. He felt a presence beside him.

“You are leaving,” she said.

“Yes.” He looked at her. “You know?”

“He told me.”

“I want to stay, but—”

“You should go. It isn’t safe.” She looked at the ground. She was standing so close to him that he could see the top of her head, the stem of a single purple flower twisting itself into the darkness of her hair.

“Come with me,” he said suddenly.

“You know I can’t.”

“By this evening I will be miles downstream, by morning you and Doctor Carroll may be dead, and I will never know—”

“Don’t say those things.”

“I…hadn’t planned for this. There is so much left that I…I may never see you again, I don’t want to say this, but—”

“Mr. Drake…” She began to speak but stopped. Her eyes were moist. “I am sorry.”

“Please, come with me.”

“I must stay with Anthony,” she said.

Anthony, he thought, I have never heard his name. “I came here because of you,” he said, but already his words sounded empty.

“You came here for something else,” she said, and from the river came a call.

22

They carried the piano through the flowering brush at the edge of the camp and down to the river. There, a raft was waiting, a rough contraption of logs three times the length of the piano. The men splashed into the shallows and set the piano on the raft. They lashed its legs through spaces between the logs. They worked quickly, as if familiar with the task. When the piano was secured, a chest was placed on the other end of the raft, and similarly fastened. “Your belongings are inside,” said Carroll.

It was still unclear who among the many men wading through the water, twisting rope, tying, adjusting, would accompany him, until at last the piano was secured and the raft balanced. Then two boys walked up to the bank, picked two rifles each, and walked back to the raft.

“This is Seing To and Tint Naing,” said the Doctor. “They are brothers. They are very skilled boatmen and they speak Burmese. They will accompany you down the river. Nok Lek will go as well, but in a dugout, to scout the rapids ahead. You will float to Karen country, or perhaps as far as Moulmein, which would take five or six days. There you will be deep into British territory and safe.”

“And then what should I do? When should I return?”

“Return? I don’t know, Mr. Drake…” The Doctor was silent, and then held out a small piece of paper, folded and sealed with wax. “I want you to have this.”

“What is it?” said Edgar, surprised by the offer.

The Doctor thought for a moment. “That is for you to decide. You must wait to read it.” Behind him one of the boys said, “We are ready, Mr. Drake, we need to go.”

Edgar extended his hand and took the paper, and folded it once more and slipped into his shirt pocket. “Thank you,” he said quietly, and he stepped onto the raft. They pushed off from the shore. Only looking back at the bank did he see her, standing in the flowers, her body half hidden in the brush. Behind her Mae Lwin rose to the mountain, layers of bamboo homes, one without a wall, open and naked to the river.

The raft was caught by the current and swept downstream.

The rains had swollen the river considerably since Edgar had first floated down months before. He thought of the night they had arrived, descending silently through the darkness. How different a world it seemed from the one in which he now traveled, the wooded banks drenched in heavy sunlight, the garish scintillation of the leaves. Sensing their approach, a pair of birds took off from the shore, flapping under the weight of the light until they caught a current of air and banked downstream. Hoopoe, Upupa epops, Perhaps they are the same ones I saw the day I arrived, he thought, surprised that he knew their name. The boat followed the birds, sunlight flashing off the case of the piano.

No one spoke. Nok Lek paddled ahead, singing a soft song. One of the brothers sat on the chest at the back of the raft, a paddle in his hand, his lithe muscles flexed against the current. The other stood at the bow, staring downstream. From the center of the raft, Edgar watched the bank reel past. It was an unworldly feeling, the smooth descent past hills and streams that tumbled down to join the Salween. The raft rode low in the river, and at times, water washed up over the logs and touched his feet. When it did this, the sunlight flashed on the waves, hiding the raft beneath a thinness, a fluttering of light. He felt as if he and the piano and the boys were standing on the river.