The heart remembers, p.22
The Heart Remembers, page 22
The family spent the night under a tree on the edge of a park. The branches hung over the path like a roof. They had spread a tarp on the sidewalk and arranged some newspapers and burlap sacks on it. Three small children were already huddled asleep in the middle of it. There were people with big hearts and little ones, with sound hearts and damaged ones.
There were people on whom something had been inflicted and there were still others on whom somewhat more had been inflicted.
We lay down on two sacks beside Htun Htun’s siblings. It was so warm that we did not need a blanket.
I was completely exhausted, but at the same time too wound up to fall asleep. On top of everything else, my cheek was hurting so badly that I could hardly stand it. I looked from side to side.
“What’s troubling you?” whispered Htun Htun.
“What do you mean?”
“You can’t even lie still.”
“So?”
“Your parents are dead, aren’t they?”
“No,” I contradicted him.
“Sure they are. I have a friend whose parents are also dead and he can’t sit still, either. Don’t you have any uncles or aunts you can stay with?”
“My parents aren’t dead.”
“So why aren’t you with them?”
“What’s it to you, anyway?”
“Did you run away or something?”
“No.” I thought for a minute. “They ran away.”
Htun Htun turned to me and rested himself on one elbow. I could feel him staring at me in the dark. “Both of them?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“How should I know?”
“Parents don’t just disappear like that.”
I turned away.
He tugged on my shoulder: “Should I ask if you can stay with us? It would be no problem. You could help out waiting tables and washing dishes.”
“No. I want to see my mother. I haven’t seen her in a very long time.”
“Why not?”
I didn’t want to lie. I wanted to tell him what had happened, but it was impossible.
The truth.
I could have told him in three sentences. In two. In one. But I couldn’t get the words past my lips. The mere thought of it made me queasy. I didn’t have any words for what had happened. And so I told him about a mother who was an actress, from America, where she had so much work that she had no time to see me. Even though she was always promising to visit me and my uncle in Kalaw, she always ended up having to go to Singapore, Los Angeles, or London in order to make movies. I told him that I hadn’t seen her in seven years and was hoping now to surprise her on her birthday. And I told him there were people who would steal even from children, but I’m guessing he knew that already.
When I was done he said nothing for a while. I started to worry that he had already fallen asleep, but his breathing was too irregular for that.
“Is she famous?”
“Who?”
“Your mother, of course.”
“Yes. In America.”
“Very?”
“Yes,” I reassured him.
“Your father, too?”
“Not so much, but he always travels with her.”
“As her bodyguard?”
“Something like that.”
“I get it.” He thought for a while. “Listen,” he finally whispered, “I have an uncle who drives a rickshaw. He knows every street in the city. Maybe he can help you find them. I’ll take you to him first thing tomorrow.”
Chapter 5
THE MAN IN QUESTION did not particularly appreciate being woken so early in the morning, and even less so once he learned what his nephew had in mind.
“Golden Valley is far,” he grumbled. “Tell your friend he should take a bus or a taxi.”
“He hasn’t got any money.”
His uncle cursed. Wearily he stepped off the rickshaw and retied his longyi. He put a hand on his nephew’s shoulder and gave it a hard squeeze. “Then you tell your mother that she owes me a dinner, deal?”
Htun Htun briefly scrunched up his face, then smiled and winked at me.
His uncle turned to me. “What’s the address?”
“Forty-two.”
“Forty-two what?”
I shook my head.
“You don’t know the street name?”
“Something with I,” I said sheepishly.
“Inya Lake Road?”
“No.”
“Golden Valley is a big place.”
“There’s a lake right nearby, and an embassy.”
“Which one?”
“I…I don’t remember exactly. It looked pretty big on the map.”
He cursed again. “The American?”
“Hm, yeah, I think so.”
“Do you at least know your parents’ names?” he asked sarcastically.
I told him everything I knew about them and then some: their names and that my mother was American (and a famous actress) and that my father played guitar and was missing a finger on his left hand; that my mother was very tall and very beautiful and that she had a smile that would warm your heart.
He rolled his eyes, sighed deeply, and shook his head. “Hop on.”
He turned to his rickshaw, took a few powerful strides, and jumped on. There weren’t yet many cars on the streets, and soon enough he was pedaling hard to get over a bridge that passed over the train tracks. He had the most muscular calves I had ever seen, but still he was huffing and puffing.
We had been riding for about half an hour when we stopped at a food stand by the side of the road. He climbed off the bicycle and went over to a woman who was squatting at a table and chopping vegetables. He ordered a tea and the two of them chatted for a while without paying any attention to me.
In her display case there were several cans of My Boy condensed milk. I counted the letters, then the cans: “one…twelve…twenty-four.”
Then I started all over again.
“She knows your father,” he said when he finally came back. “He drinks a tea here now and then. He doesn’t live far.”
“How does she know he’s my father?” I asked skeptically.
“Maybe because there aren’t that many Burmese men in Golden Valley who are missing a finger but still play guitar and who are married to a foreigner, smarty-pants.”
We turned onto a narrow street that led up a hill. He pedaled standing up and using all his strength. I offered to step out and walk along beside him, but he brushed it off. All the houses in the street stood behind high walls topped with barbed wire. Any time I caught a glimpse of a window, it had bars on it. Like in a prison.
At a kiosk he asked a second time. A man came out, gestured, pointed up the street and then to the right.
“Everyone knows your father, but no one knows your mother.”
He ought not to have said that.
We went to the next intersection, and when I saw the street sign I remembered right away: Inya Maing Street. “This must be it,” he said, pointing to a white two-story house surrounded by a wall and a garden full of shrubs and trees. We stopped in front of a green iron gate. Number forty-two. I climbed out and burned with shame that I couldn’t pay him.
“Thank you,” I said. “That was—”
“Next time you can pay double.” He interrupted me and laughed. “Good luck!” Then he turned and rode off without ever looking back.
“Thank you,” I repeated quietly.
Chapter 6
THE GATE WAS CLOSED but not locked, and I slipped through it into the yard.
In the shelter of the bushes I crept through the garden to the front door, where I hid behind a column. The door was open. In the kitchen I could see two women chatting and cooking. I was just thinking about calling to them when I heard a third voice from the second floor.
I recognized her immediately.
One of the women, pills in hand, hurried up the stairs. A short time later she came back down again and disappeared into the kitchen.
Without a sound I stepped inside and flitted across the entryway to the staircase.
My legs felt heavier with each step.
I wanted to turn back.
I wanted to hide.
I wanted to go back to U Ba.
From above I heard someone shuffling papers.
My heart was pounding as if I had just run up the 272 steps to the pagoda in Kalaw.
Or up some giant celestial stairway.
There were many rooms off the main hall. One of them was open.
I tiptoed to the door.
The room it opened on was big and long and full of books. They lay in piles on chairs and on the floor. Just like at home.
I stepped inside.
At the other end there was a couch along the wall and a desk in front of the window.
There was my mother, typing on a keyboard.
She sat with her back to me.
I stopped in my tracks.
“Mama?” I whispered.
She kept on typing.
“Mama?” I said, louder this time.
She froze. Perfectly still.
The chair turned in my direction.
Inch by inch.
“Mama?”
I took one step toward her.
Then another.
She stood up. Braced herself with one hand on the desk.
I stood still.
We were no more than a few yards apart. Four, maybe five.
And seven years.
And one scar.
At least.
I don’t know how long we stood facing each other.
A telephone rang.
Someone called for her.
She didn’t move.
Louder now.
Still she didn’t move.
“Bo Bo.”
I wanted to run to her, but I couldn’t move. Not a single step.
Carefully she approached me, as if I were a shy animal.
Biding her time.
Deliberately.
As if she feared that I might flee at any moment.
She was at once so familiar and so strange to me.
My hands needed time. My nose. My eyes. My ears.
Every part of me needed time.
Almost every part.
Now we were inches apart, and I flung my arms around her.
I felt dizzy. Everything was spinning. The bookcases, the chair, my mother’s face.
She caught me as I fell.
Chapter 7
WHEN I CAME BACK to my senses I was lying on the couch.
My father was sitting beside me.
“Where’s Mama?”
“Resting.”
“Is she feeling ill?”
“No, she was just tired.”
Why was he not telling the truth? “Is it my fault?”
“Nothing is your fault.”
“Everything is my fault—”
“Bo Bo, stop,” he said, interrupting me. “Why do you say that?”
Because I thought it was true. I didn’t have a better answer.
“Can I go to her?”
“I think she’s asleep.”
“Can we look in on her?”
He rose and took me by the hand. I was grateful for his help. We went to a door at the other end of the hall. My father opened it carefully. The windows were wide open. A gentle breeze moved the white curtains. My mother lay on a bed and was indeed asleep. Her skin was paler, her lips redder, her hair blacker than I had imagined. I thought she was even more beautiful than U Ba had said.
Then my father closed the door again and led me into a room across the hall. There was a wide bed, a dresser, a bookcase, and a desk. From the ceiling hung a wooden fan. There were colorful paintings on the wall, and the sun reflected off the highly polished wooden floor. The room had its own bathroom with a toilet, a shower, and a tub. I had never seen such a beautiful room.
“This is where you’ll sleep,” he said.
I flinched. “Here? Won’t we all sleep in the same room?”
The question seemed to embarrass my father. “Hm, well, actually…it’s a big house, you know, it is not like in Kalaw. We have plenty of room. Mama and I have our bedroom, and you have your own.”
He didn’t mean it to hurt. But at that word I found myself overcome with such a deep sadness that my eyes welled up again. I didn’t want my own room. I had no desire to sleep alone.
He must have seen the disappointment in my face. “I mean…we will see later.”
We stood looking at each other without a word. “Are you hungry?” he asked after a while.
“No…or maybe yes, after all.”
We went down to the kitchen. The two women were there, chopping vegetables. They looked so much alike that I could not tell them apart. My father introduced us. They were sisters, and they lived together in a room off the kitchen. We stared at each other. As if they had never seen a twelve-year-old boy. As if I had never seen twins.
I had no idea what I wanted to eat. They suggested mango with sweet rice. I offered to help, but they didn’t want me to. My father and I sat down at a long table in an adjacent room. A short time later one of the sisters brought me a fresh peeled and chopped mango and a bowl of delicious rice. U Ba and I had never prepared it so well.
My father watched me but didn’t eat anything himself. “I waited for you at the train station yesterday afternoon.”
“The train got stuck.”
“So I heard.”
“How did you know…?”
“U Ba called when he found your letter.”
I should have thought of that. “Is he angry with me?”
“He was worried.” My father regarded me with his big, dark eyes. “We were, too.”
“I’m sorry. Forgive me.”
“You should probably give him a call later.”
“Yes,” I said while devouring my mango. I had barely finished it when the sisters offered me a second one, which I gladly accepted.
“What are those two doing here?” I whispered after they had disappeared back into the kitchen.
“They’re from Hsipaw, and they need work. They help Mama and me around the house and in the garden.”
“Is Moe Moe no longer with you?”
“No, unfortunately.”
“Why not?”
“She got married last year and she lives with her husband’s family in Bago.”
“Do the sisters cook for you?”
“During the week. They have the weekend off. Then Mama cooks, or I do.”
“Can Mama cook?”
“Of course. She’s a very good cook.”
“Me, too.”
My father nodded. “I know.”
“What does Mama do, actually? Does she work?”
“Yes. She’s a lawyer and a consultant.”
“What’s that?”
“She gives advice to companies that want to invest in Burma, and also to the government before they pass new laws.”
“And they listen to her?”
“Sometimes.”
“And what do you do?”
“I help Mama.”
“Giving advice?”
He paused a moment. “No, I wouldn’t put it quite like that.”
“How then?”
His only answer was an evasive smile.
“Don’t you work?”
“Oh, I do. I teach English every afternoon at a monastery school.”
When I had eaten everything down to the last grain of rice, I was overcome with a great weariness. From the kitchen I could hear the ticking of a clock.
“You must be exhausted from your long journey and your night on the street.”
I nodded.
“Do you want to lie down?”
I nodded again.
He got one of his longyis and a clean shirt that was much too big for me, and he brought me to my room. Exhausted, I lay down on the bed.
“Are you okay resting here?” he asked with a gentle smile.
I nodded. “Yes. Can you stay a little while?”
“Of course.”
He lay down right next to me; I felt his warm breath on my skin. He stared at the highly polished floor as if there were something interesting to see there. I followed his gaze, but I didn’t notice anything remarkable.
“Are you still angry with me?”
“Why on earth would I be angry with you?”
“Because I didn’t want the harmonica anymore.”
“Oh, no, I’m not angry at all.” He stroked my arm. “Don’t you worry. I understood why you were so furious with me. I guess I would have felt the same way.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I am sorry I did not explain to you why I had to leave. I thought it was still too early for you to know…It was…it was a mistake…” His voice trailed off; he paused for so long that I was starting to think he had forgotten what he wanted to say. “I’m very happy that you have come.”
“Sure? I was afraid you would be angry, because I just—”
“No.” He interrupted me and turned to face me. “Believe me, I am really glad you are here. But the next few days will not be easy. For any of us.”
When he had gone I lay there in the middle of the bed. Even with my arms stretched out in both directions I could not feel the edge of the mattress. There was room enough for two U Bas beside me.
At least.
Nothing was easy.
For any of us.
It was too warm for a blanket, but without my uncle I felt as if I was missing something to hold on to. In the bathroom I found two big, thick towels. I rolled them up together and held them close. I fell asleep with the towels curled in my arms.
Chapter 8
