Free The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Philipp Sendker Page A

delicate, slender fingers cease to feel, degenerating into numb, useless appendages? He was strong, much stronger than he himself knew or his lean body betrayed. She had come to understand that over the years. And he no doubt had the power to withdraw to the very ends of the earth. The boy could will his own heart to stop beating if he wished it, just as his eyes had ceased to see. In the deepest core of her soul she sensed that he would one day end his life in just that way and no other.

Chapter 14
     
    U BA FELL silent.
    How long had he been talking? Three hours? Four? Five? I hadn’t taken my eyes off him, and I now suddenly noticed that everyone else had left. The tables were empty. The room was quiet. There was no sound at all but the soft snoring of a man sitting behind the glass pastry display. His breath hissed and rolled like steam rising from a teakettle. Two candles burned on the table between U Ba and myself. I realized I was shivering. The rest of the room was dark.
    “You don’t believe me, Julia?”
    “I don’t believe in fairy tales.”
    “This is a fairy tale?”
    “If you knew me as well as you claim to, it would come as no surprise that I don’t believe in magic. Or supernatural powers. Or even in God. Least of all in stars orconstellations. People who abandon a child because of some alignment of the stars at his birth? They must be sick.”
    I took a deep breath. Something had set me off. I tried to calm myself. I didn’t want him to see I was angry.
    “You have traveled far and wide, Julia, while I have seldom left our village. And when I did, my road took me no farther than to our little provincial capital, a day’s journey in a horse-drawn cart. My last excursion was many years ago, but you have seen the world. Who am I to contradict you?”
    His humility angered me even more.
    “If you say it is so,” he continued, “then I will gladly believe that there are no fathers or mothers in your world who cannot love their children, for whatever reasons. Perhaps only stupid, uneducated people behave that way, a further proof of our backwardness, for which I can only beg for your continued forbearance.”
    “Of course I didn’t mean that. But for us it’s not about the stars.”
    He looked at me and fell silent.
    “I didn’t come six thousand miles to hear tales. Where is my father?”
    “Please have a bit more patience. This is your father’s story.”
    “So you say. Where’s your evidence? If at any time in his life my father had been blind, don’t you think that we, his family, would have heard about it? He would have told us.”
    “You are certain.”
    He knew I was not.
    I told him I had no use for introspection and navel-gazing. I was probably one of the few New Yorkers who had never been to a therapist. I was not the type to go looking for the causes of all my problems in my childhood, and I had no respect for those who did. I reiterated that I could not believe my father had been blind at any time in his life, but the longer I talked, the less I was addressing myself to U Ba. He listened and nodded. It seemed as if he understood exactly what I meant and agreed with me. When I was done, he wanted to know what that was, a therapist.
    He took a sip of his tea.
    “I fear, Julia, that I must excuse myself for now. I am no longer accustomed to speaking at such great length. I often spend entire days in silence. At my age there is not much left to say. I know that you would like to ask me about Mi Mi, the woman to whom your father wrote. You would like to know who and where she is, and what role she plays in your father’s life and thereby—perhaps—in yours.” He stood up and bowed. “I’ll see you to the street.”
    We went to the door. I was a full head taller than he was, but U Ba did not seem small. On the contrary, I was too big. His quick, easy strides left me feeling clumsy and stiff.
    “You will find the way to your hotel?”
    I nodded.
    “If you wish, I can collect