Free A Well-tempered Heart by Jan-Philipp Sendker Page A

the living room.
    It had cooled off. I dug a fleece out of my pack and put it on. In the process I accidentally kicked one of the pails. “Why do you have so many plastic buckets scattered about?”
    He looked around as if noticing them for the first time. “Oh yes, the buckets. My house is old; the roof leaks in several places. But don’t worry, the bedroom stays dry.”
    “Why don’t you have a new roof put on?”
    “It’s very expensive; the price of wood has exploded …”
    “But with the money I sent you,” I interrupted, “you ought to have been able to build a brand-new house.”
    He tilted his head to one side and looked at me thoughtfully. “That is true.”
    “So why didn’t you? What did you do with the money?”
    The question just slipped out. In a tone that immediately made me squirm. As if he had to justify himself. I wasn’t looking for him to give me an account of himself. The money had been a gift.
    All the same.
    “Of course it’s your own business, but I expected …”
    U Ba furrowed his brow in thought. “You are completely correct, little sister. It is a good question: Whatever did I do with all that money? Let me think. Some of it I gave to the owner of the teahouse so that he could afford the new establishment. My neighbor’s wife was very ill. She had to go to a hospital in the capital and needed money. The son of a friend was studying in Taunggyi; some of it went to him.”
    I hoped that was the end of the list. My shame deepened with every example.
    “A few years ago we had a decidedly dry year, and the harvests were bad. A few families needed a bit of help. What else?”
    He was quiet for a moment. “Yes!” he suddenly cried out loudly. “I also bought something for myself. Something truly marvelous.”
    U Ba went to the bookcase and pointed proudly to a cassette recorder. “I bought this for myself with your money,and every time someone goes to Rangoon they come back with a new cassette for me. Half a moment.”
    He loaded a cassette into the player, pressed “play,” and shot me a proud, expectant look.
    Horns and strings started to play, something classical.
    “Sometimes my neighbors come, and they bring their neighbors,” he said in a solemn tone, “until there are so many of us that we sit in tight rows on the floor listening to music together. All evening long.”
    I concentrated on the piece and attempted to decipher what the orchestra was playing. It sounded simultaneously familiar and utterly bizarre. As if drunken musicians were attempting Beethoven or Brahms. It sounded like a Chinese-made tape recorder—tinny, shrill, and very uneven.
    “I think the speed is fluctuating.”
    U Ba was taken aback. “Really?”
    I felt unsure and nodded cautiously. It hurt my ears.
    “Do you really think so?”
    I nodded again.
    He was quiet for a long while. “It doesn’t matter. I find this music beautiful all the same.” My brother closed his eyes and followed the melody of a violin. “Besides, I have no point of comparison,” he declared, his eyes still closed. “That is the secret of a happy life.”
    I saw how intensely the music moved him. He opened his eyes for a moment and cast me a grateful look, closed them again, and with every note the flutter and wow mattered less until I hardly noticed them myself. In the middleof a delicate solo the violin dropped out suddenly. It was so dark that I could no longer even make out my brother’s silhouette. For one moment I heard nothing but the humming of the insects. Then the neighbors’ voices.
    “The power,” sighed U Ba in the darkness. “It has failed frequently these past few weeks.” He stood up, and a moment later I saw his face illuminated by a flickering match. He lit several candles and distributed them throughout the house. Their glow bathed the room in a warm, soft light.
    “Sometimes we have electricity again after a few minutes, sometimes not until the next day,” said U Ba, refilling my mug.
    I