The Art of Hearing Heartbeats

“I speak of a love that brings sight to the blind. Of a love stronger than fear. I speak of a love that breathes meaning into life, that defies the natural laws of deterioration, that causes us to flourish, that knows no bounds. I speak of the triumph of the human spirit over selfishness and death.”

U Ba, Julia’s secret half-brother, offers a prelude to the stories he will tell her about their father and his mother, giving the reader an overview of the novel’s main themes. He will continually ask her what one thing can overcome fear, having foretold the answer in this quote. He foreshadows the undying love of Tin and Mi Mi, despite their 50 years apart. The ironic contrast here is that Julia perceives Kalaw and its teahouse as barren, but U Ba will eventually instill in her a transformative joy that she could not have known anywhere else.

“At the beginning of a conversation he would close his eyes and concentrate on a person’s voice as if losing himself in a song, whereupon he seemed to know exactly what frame of mind people were in, how confident they were, whether they were telling the truth or bluffing. Supposedly it was something one could learn, but who had taught him, when, and where, he wouldn’t reveal, no matter how I pleaded. Not once in my life had I managed to deceive him.”

Julia makes these comments as part of a lengthy description of her father, Tin. With more context, the reader realizes that Tin maintained his ability to judge people by their voices and evaluate their moods and motives by their heartbeats. Julia’s description depicts an honest person with no pretense, yet ironically, one who also never reveals his past—not even to his beloved daughter.

“After you were born I found an old letter in one of his books. He had written shortly before our wedding. It was a love letter to a woman in Burma. He wanted to explain it to me, but I didn’t want to hear anything about it. […] I told him I would leave him if I ever found another letter like that, no matter how old it was, and that he would never see me or his children again. I never found anything else, though I went through his things thoroughly every couple of weeks.”

Julia’s mother, Judith, makes these comments as Julia prepares to search for Mi Mi in the hopes of finding her father. This quote epitomizes the couple’s growing distrust.