Saving Fish From Drowning (49 page)

Only a few people would go, Dwight said. They would borrow

two machetes from the tribe, take food and gear, one of Heidi’s headlamps, the extra batteries, some wormwood leaves. “Who’s going to go with me?” Dwight asked.

Moff knew that he was logically the one who should go, but he couldn’t leave Rupert. He had almost lost him. He had to watch over him from here on out.

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“Anyone?” Dwight said.

Everyone remained silent, hoping he would take the clue that it wasn’t a reasonable request. But Dwight had never registered silence as disapproval, just timidity and indecisiveness. He asked Bennie what he thought: “After all, you
are
our group leader. In fact, maybe
you
should go.”

Bennie thought Dwight had said the words “group leader” with an excess of sarcasm. And to counter the slight, he wanted to say he was willing to go. But he had now been without his anti-seizure medication for more than two weeks. He had experienced some

warnings: flashing lights, phantom smells, and more recently, that familiar sinking feeling of being pulled down into the earth, of his mind’s dwindling as if he were becoming smaller yet heavier, shooting backward straight through the earth’s core and out into hyperspace. He would get that warning sense of doom, and it took all his strength and concentration to resist panicking. In the past, some of these episodes had been auras that heralded the arrival of a more generalized pattern, the synchronous neuronal firings that spread throughout the whole brain and led to a grand mal. He felt he was building up to a big one, and that would make his going into the middle of nowhere a very bad idea. He could die out there, tumble off a cliff while unaware, or suffocate in all those sticky plants, while leeches and gigantic carnivorous ants crawled into his nostrils and eye sockets. And what if they ran into another tribe who still had a Stone Age mentality? They might think he was possessed by a bad spirit and beat him to set him free. He’d read stories of things like that; he remembered one in particular about an American diver in Indonesia who swam at night with a headlamp and was clubbed by fishermen who thought he was a magical manatee.

Before Bennie could respond to Dwight’s suggestion that he go, Marlena interjected: “I don’t think that’s such a good idea, splitting up the group like that. What if you didn’t come back when expected—

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would we then send another bunch of people to look for you and risk those lives as well?”

Bennie nodded, relieved Marlena had provided such good logic for his excuse.

But then Dwight broke in: “I asked Bennie what he thought.”

Bennie was caught off guard. “Well,” he said, drawing out his thoughts, “I think Marlena has a point. But if everyone else thinks I should go, I will, of course.” He smiled good-naturedly, feeling safe that no one shared Dwight’s opinion.

“You know, Bennie,” Dwight said with a tone of impatience, “I’ve been noticing this about you. You seem unable to make decisions or keep them. If you do, it’s based more on what you think others want to hear. We don’t need to be pleased and coddled. We need firm leadership, and well, to be frank, I don’t think we’ve really gotten that from you since the beginning of this trip.”

Bennie grew red-faced. All his practiced retorts flew from his mind.

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” was all he could manage to sputter.

The rest said nothing. They knew that this was Dwight’s way of saying that Bennie was to blame for their current predicament, and privately, they thought the same. Bennie should have nixed the idea of going into the jungle for Christmas lunch with men they didn’t even know. And now, by not defending Bennie, they were in some ways expressing their agreement with Dwight.

Bennie felt his head tingle.
Why are they looking at me that way?

Why don’t they say anything? My God! They blame me, too. They
think I’m stupid. . . . I’m not! I’m overtrusting. I trusted that damn
guide. Is it so wrong to trust people?

Suddenly he gave out a deep cry and fell backward, hitting the ground hard. The others winced, thinking he had lost his balance.

But then they saw his face was contorted and congested. Bennie’s whole body was clenching, as if he were a large fish flopping out of water. A dark stain of urine formed at his crotch.

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“Oh my God!” Roxanne shouted. “Do something!” She and

Dwight tried to hold him still, and Moff kneeled to jam a stick in his mouth.

“No, no!” Heidi yelled. “That’s not what you’re supposed to do!”

But they didn’t hear her, so she pushed them off and grabbed the stick from Moff’s hand and hurled it to the side. She, the consummate hypochondriac, had taken three first-aid courses and was the only one there who knew that what they were attempting to do was an outdated method, now considered dangerous. “Don’t hold him down!” Her voice filled with an authority that surprised even her.

“Just get him away from the fire. Make sure there’s nothing sharp on the ground. And when he’s done convulsing, try to roll him to his side, in case he vomits.”

In a minute, it was over. Bennie lay still, breathing heavily. Heidi checked his pulse. He was groggy, and when he realized what had happened, he groaned and murmured, “Oh, shit. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He felt he had let everyone down. Now they knew. Heidi brought over a mat for him to lie on, and though he was still upset, he had a terrific headache and felt an overwhelming pull toward sleep.

As for Dwight, he sensed that everyone blamed him for triggering Bennie’s seizure. They avoided eye contact with him. There would be no more talk of bushwhacking that day.

OFF IN ANOTHER PART of the camp, Rupert and Esmé had given only a glance toward the ruckus. One person or another was always letting out a screech when a snake was spotted or a leech had attached itself to a leg. The leeches seemed to love Bennie especially, and would hurl themselves at the white meaty skin above his sockless ankle.

Rupert and Esmé, still weak from malaria, sat on a woven mat, 3 5 3

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their backs propped against a mossy, decaying log, termites teeming under its flaking bark. The youngsters were playing a pantomime game in which they took turns acting out a category of things they missed. Esmé made licking motions with a fisted hand.

“Dog licking your face!” Rupert yelled.

Esmé giggled and shook her head. “I have that,” she said, and scratched Pup-pup’s belly.

“Guy licking a girl!”

She shrieked and covered her face, then socked his arm.

He smiled. “I know. Ice cream in a cone.”

She smiled. Next she weakly drew a circle in the air, then used her finger to dissect it into wobbly sections.

“Pizza!” Rupert guessed, and a second later: “Foods you miss eating!”

Esmé nodded and gleamed with happiness.

Marlena glanced up at the kids, dazed by what had just happened to Bennie. How innocent they were, enjoying each other’s company, unworried about the future. Only two weeks before, they would have nothing to do with each other. But when Rupert had recovered somewhat, he saw that Esmé was lying nearby, delirious, and he found himself encouraging her to pull through, just as he had. “Hey there,”

he’d call to her. “Hey there.” And now he showed a brotherly warmth toward the younger girl, feeling he was the main reason she had been saved, while Esmé, to judge by her giggles and watchful eyes, thought so, too.

A first crush, Marlena thought. She was both sad and glad that Esmé had a boy who filled her heart with hope, a boy who might keep her yearning for a future, a will to go on, when their lives were now so uncertain.

The malaria had frightened them badly. At least here in this camp they had shelter, clean water, and in a manner of speaking, food.

Their hosts were kind and tried their best to make them comfortable, 3 5 4

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letting them have the most sheltered sleeping areas, giving them the larger portions of the daily fare. To supplement the rice and noodles, they foraged for fresh edibles, caught a variety of fine-boned rodents and birds, as well as the occasional monkey. No matter what it was, Marlena told Esmé the meat was chicken. And Esmé knew that it wasn’t, but she took whatever there was so she could give it to Pup-pup.

Esmé doled out tasty treats for each play bow the little dog made.

Before they had gotten lost, Harry Bailley had taught her how to train her puppy to do this. “There’s no reason to delay training until a dog is doing behavior you don’t like,” he had said. “A puppy is quite happy to offer you what you want over and over again—but you have to reward her for what you want her to repeat. Is it a bark, a tail wag, a yawn? Or how about when she goes down on her front paws and leaves her backside in the air? That’s when you give her the treat—as soon as you see that.” Esmé had watched Harry dangle a treat above Pup-pup, and the dog immediately tipped her nose up to follow the scent. As Harry moved the tidbit up and down and side to side, Pup-pup’s nose followed, as if tied to the treat with an invisible string. Up went her nose when the morsel was over her head, down it went when she did her play bow to the lowered treat. “Good girl!” Esmé cried, and doled out the treat. That was how she passed the long days in the jungle, and Pup-pup never failed to entertain her.

One day, Esmé said to Rupert, “Watch,” and then she looked with serious intent at Pup-pup. “Bow to the king.” Down Pup-pup went, her butt still in the air, tail wagging. And Rupert said, “Pretty cool,”

which sent paroxysms of shivery delight up Esmé’s spine. He thought she was cool.

“Bow to the king!” Rupert commanded the dog, again and again.

Nearby, a group of children crouched and watched. Loot and

Bootie were among them. When the dog-training session was finished, Bootie ran to Black Spot.

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“The Younger White Brother has recognized who he is,” she said.

“All the creatures on earth know it. The dog bowed whenever the Lord of Nats cried out who he was. At last, the Lord is ready to make us strong.”

BLACK SPOT SAT DOWN on the log bench next to Marlena. He sensed that this American was kind. With her Chinese face, she looked more like them and thus might be more sympathetic. “Miss,”

he began shyly. “I am asking you question?”

“Sure. Go ahead,” Marlena said, giving her friendliest look.

“Miss, the boy Rupee, he can help us?”

Thinking that he meant that Rupert should help them with chores, she answered, “Yes, of course. I’m sure he would be glad to.” And if he wasn’t, Marlena said to herself, she would persuade his father to exert some pressure. “What would you like him to do?”

“Saving us,” Black Spot said.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Marlena said, and thought, Why would they think Rupert could get them out of No Name Place any better than the rest of them?

“Saving us from SLORC soldiers,” Black Spot said. “For many, many years, we are waiting for our Younger White Brother to come.

Now he is here, he is bringing our book.”

Marlena was baffled. It took ten minutes of intensive questioning before she understood the gist of what Black Spot was saying. This was their Christmas surprise! They had been kidnapped by a crazy tribe, who believed some mumbo jumbo about a savior who could make them invisible. Dwight had said they might have paranoiac delusions, and it was true.

But no, that couldn’t be right, she told herself. After all, they weren’t being held captive. They had not been tied up with ropes or blindfolds. No ransom demands had been made, as far as she knew.

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The people here were gentle. They went without so that their guests could be more comfortable. And no one would have tried to stop them from leaving. It was just that the bridge was down, so they couldn’t leave. No one could. She looked at Black Spot, at his haunted eyes. Maybe they had grown paranoid and delusional from seeing their families killed. Or perhaps he was delirious with the onset of malaria. He did look a bit feverish. Better get the old grandmothers to give him the sweet wormwood tea.

EACH MORNING, those who were strong enough paired up to do

chores. They shook the bamboo blankets free of any insects that had collected on them overnight, sprinkled more of the termite powder on the mats. They had tried heating water on the stove, but now they bathed in the running-stream trough as the tribe people did. They took turns washing their clothing, whatever needed to be rotated among the clothes they had worn and what the tribe had given them, tunics and longyis that were often much nicer than what the tribe wore. Marlena and Vera were learning from the twins’ grandmother how to make yarn out of pounded-thin strands of bamboo and

weave it into a blouse. Bennie shaved with a razor that a one-eyed man kept sharp. The others let their stubble turn into beards.

One morning, Moff and Heidi borrowed two machetes from

Black Spot, grabbed their hiking sticks, and plunged into the rainforest to forage for food. They were on the lookout for young bamboo shoots, which they found to be mild and tasty, not at all bitter like many of the other plants. The Karen people had showed them how to find the young sprouts. As they departed they could hear the happy shouts of children and adults watching Rupert doing a card trick.

To make sure they did not get lost, Moff and Heidi first positioned themselves with the small compass Heidi had sewn to the outside of 3 5 7

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her backpack. They walked straight into the jungle, and if they were forced to deviate because of obstacles, they slashed at vegetation to mark where they had been. They had wrapped the bottoms of their trousers with bands of cloth to keep out bugs, but they still had to use a bamboo comb to detach burrs and sticky leaf buds that clung to their clothing. The trees were tall and the connecting canopies served as sun umbrellas. This part of the jungle received scant light, and thus gave a feeling of perpetual dusk. But even in this dim world, they could not miss some peculiar-looking plants.