The heart remembers, p.5
The Heart Remembers, page 5
When she calls me, her voice sounds young and bright, as if she were my big sister.
I see her face: Her eyes are radiant like no one else’s I’ve ever seen. And her smile really would warm your heart.
A scar runs across her left cheek, dark red, as wide as a matchstick. It reaches from the corner of her mouth almost to her ear. Even so, I think my mother is beautiful.
We look a lot alike. So much alike that everyone says I’m the spitting image of her when they see us standing side by side.
I like that.
Eventually my father crawled back into bed. His breathing was coming shallow and quick. Like every other evening, I turned toward him and took his hand. He turned toward me, too, so that our noses were nearly touching. The stale smoke of the cheroot still clung to his hair. I could feel his warm breath on my skin, and I had the impression that it smelled differently than it had earlier in the evening. Sourish and sharp, almost a bit bitter.
“Papa?” I asked, as if needing to confirm that he was the one lying next to me.
He didn’t answer.
“Papa?” I repeated.
“What is it?”
Were you talking to Mama on the phone? I wanted to ask. Why did your voice sound so strange? Is she not feeling well? Did she ask about me?
I didn’t dare. I was too afraid of what he might say. I knew that she wasn’t feeling well. Had things gotten worse? Was she not asking about me because she wasn’t interested? Or, and this was my greatest fear: He hadn’t been talking to her at all, but to someone else. He had a new wife. No one could talk to my mother anymore because she was dead. I was so afraid of that sentence that I couldn’t bring myself to ask a single question.
“What is it?” he asked again.
“I…I…I’m not tired anymore.”
“It’s the middle of the night. Go back to sleep.”
He twisted this way and that and had as much trouble sleeping as I did. Eventually he settled down, and pretty soon he was snoring.
I waited for a while, then got back out of bed and went into the living room. My father had left his phone lying on the table. Before I could think better of it, I took it and looked at the incoming and outgoing calls. Two calls just before midnight, another at 12:37 a.m. All the same number, not one I recognized, but that didn’t mean anything, since the only numbers I knew were Ko Aye Min’s and my uncle’s.
I hesitated only briefly, then pressed the button to return the call. There was crackling on the line, then it started to ring. I felt dizzy and cold. My heart was pounding. I felt it in my whole chest, and I could hardly breathe.
I pressed the phone to my ear and waited. It felt as if the silences between rings were getting longer and longer.
Just as I was about to hang up, a woman’s voice, dark and tired, answered: “Hello?”
I stared in disbelief at the device in my hand. Was I really on the line with my mother?
I wanted so badly to say something, but I didn’t know what.
“Who’s there?” It didn’t sound like her. More like a growl.
It took all my courage. “Bo Bo,” I whispered. “It’s Bo Bo.”
Silence.
The woman on the other end was breathing heavily. After an eternity she asked: “Who?”
“Bo Bo.”
Silence. My ears started to ring.
“Bo Bo?”
“Yes.” I held my breath and didn’t dare to move.
“I…I…I don’t know.” Her voice trailed off into a question, as if she were trying to remember something.
“From Kalaw,” I cried. “Bo Bo and U Ba.”
She hung up.
I clenched the phone with both hands. Had she forgotten who I was? Like Daw Hnin Aye’s grandmother, who couldn’t remember anything anymore? Who poured water into the fire and couldn’t find the way back home? Who asked her grandchildren every morning who they were?
No. It wasn’t my mother’s voice.
It was the voice of an old, sick woman.
The voice of a stranger.
And then the phone rang.
Once.
Twice.
I didn’t want my father to wake up, so I turned down the volume.
The vibration in my hand went right through my entire body. It got more intense with each ring.
Eventually it stopped, then started right back up again.
I sat petrified on the couch, not knowing what to do. When it started to vibrate again, I crawled back into bed.
It didn’t take long for me to fall asleep.
That afternoon my father was waiting for me in front of the school. I almost didn’t notice him. There was always a big rush of people at the end of the school day. A policeman with a whistle was directing traffic. Army jeeps picking up officers’ children clogged the street. Other parents on mopeds ducked in between them. Mothers with umbrellas stood waiting for their little ones.
My father was on the other side of the street in the shade of a bougainvillea. He waved to me when our eyes met. I plowed my way past the other children and ran to him.
“What would you say to a fresh sugarcane juice?” He knew it was my favorite. “Or maybe an ice cream?”
We went to the ice cream stand. There were two flavors: green tea and papaya, exactly the two that I didn’t like.
My father took my hand and we walked to a wooden shack near the market, where we took a seat beneath a plastic tarp. It was looking like rain.
The juice was delicious, cool and not too sweet. I drank it in tiny sips to make it last as long as possible.
My father lit a cheroot and kept a close eye on me. “I talked with Mama on the phone,” he said suddenly.
My stomach flinched, as if one of the boys on the playground had rammed an elbow into it. It hurt so badly that I leaned forward and groaned softly.
Had the strange woman on the phone told him that someone had called her from his phone?
I did not want to hear anything about her. Not one word.
“What’s wrong?” he asked worriedly.
“I’ve got a bit of a stomachache,” I lied. “Nothing too bad.”
“She sends her love.”
“Who?”
“Your mother.”
I stared at him point-blank and tried to read his eyes. As if I had only to fix my eyes on him long enough in order to see what was going on inside him. That was impudent of me, but I couldn’t do anything else. He did not turn away from my gaze. Suddenly his eyes flashed a little. My father raised his eyebrows and furrowed his forehead.
“What’s going on with you?” he asked, and I heard the surprise in his voice. Or was it embarrassment? Insecurity, because he was lying?
The thunder crashed so loudly that I flinched, and then came the rain. Just a few drops at first.
“Nothing.”
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“How…how am I looking at you?” I asked, lowering my head.
“As if I were some stranger you were afraid of.”
I had no idea what to say.
He was waiting for an answer. “Bo Bo,” he said at last. He put his hand under my chin and lifted it gently so that our eyes met again.
“Bo Bo,” he started again. “The news isn’t good. Mama needs me. I’ve got to catch the bus back to Yangon this evening. I am really truly sorry.”
I jerked my head away. He lowered his hand.
I didn’t care what was going on inside him. Whether he was truly sorry or not. Whether he was telling the truth or lying. Whether it was difficult for him. I didn’t want to know anything about it.
Most of all I just wanted to scream.
To kick my feet.
To punch him.
He hadn’t even been here for three weeks. We wanted to finish the second water tank together. We wanted to make more music together. Whittling. Cooking. We still wanted to go hiking and swimming.
“Do you want another juice?” he asked quietly.
“No,” I answered loudly and rudely, and it sounded completely different from how I really felt. Or maybe it didn’t.
“Can’t I come with you?” I had never dared to ask that question.
He looked at me, surprised. “No, it’s out of the question.”
“Please.”
“It’s impossible.”
“Why can’t I?”
“Because it’s impossible. It’s too soon for that.”
“But why—”
“Because I said so,” he interrupted bluntly.
“Just for a few days.”
“No. Period. That’s enough lip. I don’t want to hear another word, you understand?”
My father had never spoken to me like that.
The rain was coming down in torrents now. The water was streaming off the tarp, but I didn’t care. I stood up and walked along the street toward the train station. Within just a few steps my shirt, longyi, and school bag were completely drenched. My right flip-flop stuck in the mud. I just kept walking.
“Bo Bo, wait,” I heard my father calling.
I picked up my pace.
“Wait right there.”
A moped approached us. It drove through a puddle right next to me, splashing mud all over my white shirt.
“Wait for me.”
I was done waiting. It was time for him just to stay with me.
The tears on my cheeks mingled with the raindrops. I didn’t care.
My father had nearly caught up to me. I started to run. I ran as fast as I could. Past the train station. Across the tracks. Up the mountain. I was indifferent to the rain or the pain in my chest or the blood or the scrapes on my feet.
When I finally got home I got the harmonica from my room and put it on the table.
A few minutes later my father stood dripping and panting in the doorway. In one hand he held my shoe.
“You may as well take that harmonica with you,” I said pointing to his gift. “I don’t want it anymore.”
Chapter 12
I SPENT THE NEXT FEW DAYS at Ko Aye Min’s place.
In the evening we sat in his hut, and I told him about the woman on the phone and my father’s hasty departure.
He took it all in without a word. From time to time he would wrinkle his brow, sigh, or bite his lip. When I was done he thought about it long and hard before saying a word.
“He must have had his reasons,” he decided in the end.
I scowled at him. That was not what I had been wanting to hear. Not at all. Though when I think about it carefully, I’m not sure what I would have wanted him to say.
Poor Bo Bo?
No. I was not looking for pity.
How rotten of your father to take off like that. How can he leave you here all by yourself?
Not that either. If Ko Aye Min had criticized my father, I would have risen to his defense. I was all twisted up inside, and I had no idea who could sort me out again. I certainly couldn’t.
He must have had his reasons.
The longer I thought about that sentence, the more hopeless I felt.
His reasons. Of course he had his reasons. If only someone could explain them to me.
Next morning I forged an excuse for myself and sent it to school with Ko Thu Riya. He was the best friend I had in my class; he wouldn’t rat me out.
Ko Aye Min left the house early. He had to meet a group of tourists at the airport in Heho and take them to their hotel on Inle Lake. I spent hours in his office in front of the computer, played a few games of chess with a kid from America, lost every single one, poked around halfheartedly in the bookshelves, watched a YouTube video of all Cristiano Ronaldo’s most beautiful goals. When I got bored of that I looked for videos of penguins and parrots, my favorite animals, but they didn’t hold my interest long, either.
I sat under the canopy outside the door and waited without having any idea what I was even waiting for. When it started to drizzle I watched the rain raining.
Ko Aye Min returned in the afternoon and gave me a little package wrapped in old newspaper. “I brought something for you.”
I could feel right away what it was and had no desire to unwrap it.
“Don’t you want to open it?” There was a hint of disappointment in his voice.
“Of course.” I tore open the paper. A shiny new harmonica flashed in the light.
I swallowed. It was such a kind thought, but that just made it worse.
“Thanks.” For his sake I put it to my lips and blew into it.
It sounded like my father.
It sounded awful.
“It sounds good,” he said happily. “Can you play a song for me?”
“Not yet, but soon,” I fibbed, and I was ashamed of myself for being such an ingrate.
That evening he invited me to join him and his girlfriend, Ma Ei, at the Red House for dinner. There was pizza and noodles and a jasmine-white cheese called “mozzarella” or something like that, served with raw tomatoes and olive oil. That seemed really odd to me. The only thing I knew about olive oil was that some girls rubbed it into their hair to make it shinier. I always ordered spaghetti with spicy tomato sauce and hoped that it wasn’t prepared with olive oil.
I had met Ma Ei once before at Ko Aye Min’s office. She was short, hardly taller than me, and she had asked me to teach her chess. She said Ko Aye Min was too strict a teacher. She was from Kalaw, and she worked with her younger sister at their mother’s restaurant near the market.
Her hair was so long that it reached nearly to her hips. But the most striking thing about her was her eyes. So round, and not brown, but bluish gray.
Ma Ei was delighted to see us. She was kind of wound up for the first few minutes, but it passed quickly. She asked what my favorite subjects were in school, how my uncle was doing, what it was like living with just him, the chickens, and a pig. She really listened to my answers, and when I told her she had very beautiful eyes she laughed and stroked my hand.
No one had ever done that in quite that way.
“You’re sweet.”
No one had ever said that to me, either.
It was clear to see that she really liked Ko Aye Min. In her eyes I could see a warm glow, a joy, even admiration. But there was something else lurking there, too. I hadn’t noticed it right away because I had let her smile and her questions distract me. The longer we talked, the more time the three of us sat at the table, the more clearly I could see it.
As if a fog were slowly lifting from her eyes. I just needed to be patient.
A lot of people were like that, I thought: they could laugh, I mean really laugh, with their mouth and their cheeks, their whole face, and their eyes would beam, yet still there was some profound heaviness in their heart.
Once I had noticed it with Ma Ei it was plain to see, and it did not go away the whole evening long.
Just before we left, Ko Aye Min had gone to the counter to ask about something and to pay, our eyes met again. I saw in that moment that she understood that I had discovered what was hidden behind her gentle smile.
She didn’t say anything.
Instead, for the second time that evening, she gently stroked my hand.
The next day, suddenly, there was U Ba standing in the doorway. I don’t think I had ever been happier to see him.
“Here you are! No one at school could tell me where you were. The teachers were astonished. They insisted that I had written a note to excuse your absence…”
For a minute I got scared that he would be mad at me. “I’m sorry, I…” I stammered, embarrassed.
“It required all my powers of imagination to explain plausibly that I nevertheless did not know where you were…”
A smile flashed across his face, and I knew that he was not angry. I ran to him, and he took me in his arms.
“Have you been home long?” I asked.
“No, just since this morning. I took the bus, and I needed to catch up on some sleep.”
I hugged him long and tight.
“Will you come home with me?”
“Of course. I was just waiting for you. The house was so big without you or Papa…”
I locked up Ko Aye Min’s office and left the key under the mat. We strolled down the road. U Ba linked arms with me. At the market we bought a bunch of flowers for the altar, soft bread, and instant coffee for my uncle’s breakfast, and eggs, rice, onions, and vegetables for dinner.
Chapter 13
MY UNCLE HAD CHANGED while he was away. The journey to Yangon had taken a lot out of him. Even when I rubbed his feet, it didn’t revive him the way it used to. I could sense it clearly even though he claimed I was mistaken.
He looked as if he had gotten shorter and thinner. He walked more slowly, more stooped, as if each step took a toll on him. If I were as big and strong as my father, I thought, I would take my uncle on my back and carry him across the yard and all over Kalaw. We would go shopping together at the market and then order Shan noodles and an extra-strong tea at his favorite teahouse. And if he wanted, I would even carry him up the two hundred steps to the monastery so that he could enjoy the view of the whole city. But it will be another three or four years before I’m that strong.
It was harder and harder for him to get out of bed in the morning. He didn’t even join me for breakfast. When I got home from school in the afternoons, it seemed to me as if he had just woken up. At night, on the other hand, he was keeping long hours. When I came into the kitchen in the morning the ashes in the fireplace would still be warm. Same with the tea. Why was he staying up so late? What was he doing all that time by himself? It must be awful to sit there alone on the couch at night while everyone else was fast asleep. Not a sound from the neighbors. Not a bird to be heard. Not even a chicken clucking.
