Saving Fish From Drowning (29 page)

Black Spot sat at the rear, one hand on the rudder. He squinted, thinking of the sick child he had left at home. Only three years old, and already she could see the goodness in people. He pictured her dark eyes, bright and darting as they had been before the sudden, frightening change. Her body had begun to shake, as if to get rid of the intruder ghost. Then she stared upward as the dead do, seeing nothing. And her mouth, out of that came the babble of someone tortured.

He had to leave her while she was still sick. The twin gods had told him to return to the town. Salt and Fishbones assured him many times: She will get better, of course she will. The twin gods’ grandmother had thrown the chicken bones, examined the feathers, and spilled the rice. She had told Black Spot that it was his own mother, confused by her green death, who had wandered in the night and come to the little girl’s bed mat by mistake. She had lain in her soul and gone to sleep. She meant no harm. She loved Black Spot’s daughter like nothing else in the world. Don’t worry, Salt and Fishbones said, the shaman has tied your daughter’s wrists and bound her to earth. He has done a ceremony to remove your mother’s green ghost.

And your wife has been giving your daughter the leaf tincture, put2 0 0

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ting it under her tongue and on the moist parts of her inner cheeks.

Every hour she does this. So you see, everything has been done.

Black Spot’s little daughter was at home with his wife in the forested high hills, in A Place with No Name. In the winter months, he visited only when the rains fell or when trouble brought the military and closed off the area to tourists. Then no planes came to Helo airport bearing visitors to Inle Lake. There were no customers to fill the water taxis and take to the far side. At times like this, Black Spot and his fellow boatmen went to see his cousin Grease, who worked in a shop repairing tourist buses.

“Hey, brother, can you take me up the hill?” Black Spot would ask, and Grease never denied him, for he knew Black Spot would bring supplies for his family as well—fermented shrimp paste, noodles, peanuts, a hundred spices, the foodstuffs that a jungle did not yield.

Black Spot would also bring whatever equipment he and his fellow boatmen and their secret supporters had managed to obtain through cooperative theft. Grease would choose a vehicle that had been repaired, and they would drive east, away from the lake, down a scarce-used road that took them to a secret opening in what seemed to be impenetrable thickets. Here they wound their way up into an area with the taller trees of the rainforest, until the canopy above allowed only meager slices of sunlight. At the edge of a sinkhole, they stopped. The depression ran up and down a cleft in the mountain, created by the collapse of karst roofs covering an ancient river deep in the earth. Grease would stop the vehicle, and Black Spot would jump out, ready to cross the chasm to No Name Place.

None of the people of Nyaung Shwe Town knew that this was

the true home of the three boatmen and the mechanic. The people in the lowlands referred to anyone who lived up there as “people of the jungle.” They might have been isolated tribes, bandits, or the pitiful remnants of insurgents, about whom it was difficult to speak, except with a quiet sigh of relief that you were not among them.

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Tomorrow, Black Spot and his tribal brothers would return home, perhaps for good, because today the course of life had changed. The Younger White Brother was here, and as he had promised during his last visit on earth, he would save them. He could manifest weapons.

He could make the tribe invisible. They would then leave No Name Place, walk openly without being shot, until they reached a patch of land, the promised land, just big enough to grow the food they needed. There they would live in peace, and no outsiders would cause them trouble, and they would cause no troubles to them. Their only desire was to live peaceably among themselves, in harmony with the land, the water, and the Nats, who would be pleased by how much the tribe respected them. It could all happen, thanks to the return of the Younger White Brother.

THE AIR AT THE DOCK had been warm, but as the three boats sped over the cool lake, the passengers began to feel chilled. At the front of my boat, where the prow narrowed, Moff’s ponytail whipped wildly and smacked Dwight’s face. Harry and Marlena

snuggled against each other, Harry’s jacket draped over their chests and bent knees. Rupert sat toward the rear with Walter, and although he was cold, he resisted putting on the windbreaker his dad had handed him. He faced the wind like a god, not knowing that was what he would soon become. On the other passenger boat, Esmé and Bennie huddled together, with Pup-pup bundled between them.

Wyatt and Wendy held the conical hat in front of themselves like a shield.

At times, the three boats appeared to be racing against one another. “Ahoy!” Vera shouted as her boat accelerated, and when her friends turned to look from their boat, she snapped a photo. What a good idea. Others reached into bags to pull out cameras. Beyond 2 0 2

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them, on the banks of the river, children waved next to their hunched-over mothers, who were washing clothes in the shallows.

Walter leaned toward the boatman to give directions in Burmese:

“Take the detour through the market.” Unbeknownst to Walter and the others, Black Spot actually spoke a fair amount of English, but he always found it to his advantage to pretend he knew none and to eavesdrop on conversations. Never show a weapon before you need to use it. His father had taught him that. Bitter words to recall, for his father had had no weapons when he needed them. Neither had Walter’s. . . .

B LACK SPOT HAD GROWN UP a sharp and curious child, and he learned his English by absorbing it from the tourists who said and did the same things every day. The same questions and requests, disappointments and complaints, photos and bargains, appetites and illnesses, thank-yous and good-byes. They spoke only to the guide.

No one ever expected a child to understand.

He had grown up among tourists. Unlike the Karen tribes who

stayed in the hills, his family was Pwo Karen; he had spent his early life on the plains. His family lived in a town about seventy miles from Nyaung Shwe, and they were comfortably situated although not well-to-do. His father and uncles did not farm, as most Karen people did. They were in the transportation business: the transportation of tourists in longboats and the repair of tourist buses. Their women sold shawls and shoulder bags woven with their special knot. They found it easier to take their chances with the whims of tourists rather than those of monsoons.

Life was good until the purges came. After that, there was nothing to do except flee into the jungle, high up, where it was so thick only wild things grew. When the purges stopped, Black Spot and his 2 0 3

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friends and cousin went quietly to the town of Nyaung Shwe, where they were not known. They procured black-market identity cards of dead people with good reputations. After that they lived two ways: in the open life of the dead, and in the hidden life of the living.

THE NOSES of the longboats pointed left, toward a canal leading to a clump of teak buildings on stilts above the water, their roofs steep-pitched with rusty corrugated tin.

“We are headed toward a small settlement, one of two hundred along Inle Lake,” Walter explained. “We won’t be stopping here, but I wanted you to have a quick look-see at what you might find in this area, these hamlets tucked away in small channels. Unless you’ve lived here all your life like our boatmen, it’s rather easy to become confused and lost. The lake is shallow, and the hyacinth grows by the acre each week and shifts around like landmasses. It’s been quite a problem for these farmers and fishermen. As their livelihoods are choked off, they depend more and more on tourism, an industry that is, I’m afraid, not very dependable, subject to changes of weather, politics, and such.”

Bennie took this comment as a personal challenge not to disappoint the natives. “We’ll buy lots,” he promised.

When the boats drew closer to the settlement, the pilots eased up on the outboards until the noise fell to a soft clicking. Side by side, the two passenger boats edged water gardens bright with tomatoes and glided under wooden walkways, and were soon upon a floating market, where dozens of canoes laden with food and trinkets sped toward the tourist boats like hockey players after the puck. The canoes, ten to twelve feet long, had shallow hulls of hand-carved lightweight wood. The vendors crouched at one end, overseeing their stocks of woven bags, low-quality jade necklaces, bolts of cloth, and crudely rendered wooden Buddhas. Each vendor beseeched my 2 0 4

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friends to look his way. Onshore were the vendors who sold more practical goods to the local people: yellow melons, long-stalked greens, tomatoes, golden and red spices, clay pots of pickles and shrimp paste. The colors of the women’s sarongs were those of a happy people—pink, turquoise, orange. The men squatted in their dark-colored longyis, the ever-present cheroots clenched between their teeth.

“What’s with them?” Moff said. On the dock were a dozen soldiers in camo-gear with AK-47 rifles slung over their shoulders.

Heidi immediately felt nervous. She was not the only one. It was an ominous sight. The group noticed that the locals paid no attention to the soldiers, as if they were as invisible as I was. Or were the local people watching as cats do?

“They are soldiers,” Walter said. “Nothing to be concerned about.

I can assure you there has not been any trouble with insurgents in quite some time. This area—much of southern Shan State, actually—

was once known as a red zone, a hot spot for rebel warfare, and no tourists were allowed then. Now it’s been downgraded to white, which means all is perfectly safe. The insurgents have fled high into the hills. There aren’t many left, and those who are hiding are harmless. They’re afraid to come out.”

For good reason, Black Spot said to himself.

“Then why all the rifles?” Moff asked.

Walter laughed slightly. “To remind people to pay their taxes.

That’s what everyone fears now, new taxes.”

“What are insurgents?” Esmé asked Marlena in the nearby boat.

I noticed that Black Spot was listening intently, his eyes darting toward the daughter, then the mother.

“Rebels,” Marlena explained. “People against the government.”

“Is that good or bad?”

Marlena hesitated. She had read sympathetic reports of rebels who were fighting for democracy. They claimed that their family members 2 0 5

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had been slaughtered, the daughters raped, the sons enslaved, their homes burned. But what could she say so she would not alarm her daughter?

Esmé read her mother’s face. “Oh, I know. It
depends
.” She sniffed knowingly. “With everything, it depends.” She stroked the puppy in her lap. “Except you, Puppy-luppy. You’re always good.”

“Hey, Walter,” Wendy called loudly. “So what do you feel about the military dictatorship?”

Walter knew questions like this were inevitable. The tourists, Americans especially, wanted to know where he stood on political issues, whether he was adversely affected, and if he supported “The Lady”—he was not supposed to say her name out loud, but he did from time to time when he was with tourists. In former days, anyone who said her name with praise could be taken away, as his father had been. After The Lady won the Nobel Peace Prize, the camera flashes shone on Burma. The world asked, Where is Myanmar? For once, a few people knew. Walter nurtured a secret hope that Aung San Suu Kyi and her supporters in other countries could actually drive out the regime. But the years went by, and sometimes the junta released her from house arrest only to put her back soon after. They made overtures to talk about a transition to democracy. And everyone would be heartened that the bully had finally softened. But then they would say: Talks of democracy? What talks are those? It was a sport, that’s what Walter finally realized. Let the democracy lovers score a point, then take it back. Let them have another point, then take it back. Let them think they are in the game, and watch them spin in circles. He now knew there would be no change. The children born after 1989 would never know a country named Burma, would never know a government other than SLORC. His future children would grow up with an obeisance to fear. Or would they sense there was another kind of life that they could be living? Was there an innate knowledge that would tell them that?

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He looked at Wendy and took a deep breath. “The poor,” Walter began, measuring each word, “especially those who are not well educated, feel things are better now than in years past. What I mean is, while Myanmar is among the poorest countries in the world, the situation is, shall we say, more stable, or so the people feel. You see, they don’t want any more trouble. And perhaps they are grateful that the government has given them little gifts from time to time. At one school near here, an important military officer bought the head teacher a tape player. That was enough to make people happy. And we now have paved roads from one end of the country to the other.

To most people, this is great and good progress, something they can see and touch. And there is also less bloodshed, because the rebels, most of them, have been contained—”

“You mean killed,” Wendy inserted.

Walter did not flinch. “Some died, some are in prison, others have gone to Thailand or are in hiding.”

“And how do you see it?” Harry asked. “Is Myanmar better off than old Burma?”

“There are many factors. . . .”

“It depends,” Esmé said.

Walter nodded. “Let me think how to put this. . . .” He thought about his father, the journalist and university professor who had been taken away and presumably killed. He considered his job, a desirable one that supported his grandfather and his mother, who never spoke to each other. He thought about his sisters, who needed a clear record to attend university. Yet he was a man of morals who despised the regime for what had happened to his father. He would never accept it. On occasion, he met secretly with former schoolmates whose families had suffered similar fates, and they talked of small personal rebellions, and what would happen to their country if no one ever again spoke out in opposition. He had once wanted to study to become a journalist, but was told that such studies would lead only to 2 0 7