Saving Fish From Drowning (58 page)

ALTHOUGH BLACK SPOT knew how the tape had made its way to Mandalay, he still believed it was a miracle. How else would Harry 4 1 9

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have known to give it to the lady reporter? The story on the tape was even better than he had remembered. Sister Roxanne had spoken with great heart about their suffering and used just the right words about the cruelty of the SLORC soldiers. She showed the tribe’s wounds, the maimed, the faces of good people. She spoke of their kindness. Their story was not on TV Myanmar but on Global News Network. His heart pounded. The whole world knew their story.

Their story of survival was greater than any of those on
Darwin’s
Fittest.
A leaky boat was a small problem. The hippopotamus did not really exist, nor did the crocodiles. For those TV people, it was all pretend. But his people had a true story, and so it was better. The world now knew who they were, and their hearts would find them in No Name Place. Their show would be number one, week after week, too popular to cancel. They would be TV stars, and never again would they have to worry that they would be hunted and killed.

He already knew what to call the show:
The Lord’s Fittest.
He went to spread the good news.

M Y FRIENDS ’ ELATION dissipated in the next hour.

This began when their backs were turned to the TV, when they felt they no longer needed to watch out or worry. They did not realize that in the jungle a TV is a not just a TV. It is a Nat. You must watch it continually, or it will get angry and change the story.

The TV Nat had been talking and talking, and no one had been listening. His attendants were jabbering among themselves and changing the past. That troublesome tape of Roxanne’s? Now it was funny! Remember when we were in the back of the truck, they said, going to the Christmas surprise, and Roxanne was telling us to wave?

And Wendy was saying, This better be good! Ha. Ha, ha. Who could have known?

Black Spot went to my friends and apologized for all the trouble 4 2 0

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caused by his bringing them to No Name Place: “When Walter is not coming and no one is knowing why, we are saying to ourselves, No Name Place is also a very good Christmas surprise. And yes, of course, we are also hoping already you are bringing the Younger White Brother so he can meeting his tribe. The Great God is helping us, miss. I am thinking he is helping you, too.”

The TV Nat was irritated. No one was thanking him. So for a moment he left No Name Place and flew to New York.

At GNN headquarters there, the anchor walked from his desk to an area off camera designed to look like a cozy library filled with books. When my friends turned their attention back to the news on TV, an interview that had obviously started several minutes earlier was on.

The anchor was sitting in a boxy armchair. “They’ve been known to imprison even those foreign journalists who report unfavorably about them.”

A young man sitting on a sofa said in a British accent: “Right, and spies are treated even more harshly. You’d be rather lucky to be imprisoned for twenty years—and that, my friend, would be after the torture.”

“Like Belinda, you took a substantial risk getting this footage, didn’t you?”

He nodded modestly. “But not nearly as big of a risk as those eleven Americans may be facing. Wouldn’t want to be in their running shoes.”

Chills ran down the spines of my friends.

The anchor leaned forward. “Do you believe those Americans

have joined the Karen tribe as underground rebels?”

“No,” Heidi whispered. “We haven’t.”

The man pressed his lips together, as if reluctant to answer. “To be honest, what I really think? Well, I really, really
, really
hope not.”

My friends felt a vise pressing on their throats.

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The man continued, “The Karen tribe are known for having insurgents among them. It’s not the whole tribe, mind you, but they are a fairly large ethnic group. Many have passively resisted the junta, while others have engaged in guerrilla warfare. The junta doesn’t seem to see much difference between the two. A number of Karen are hiding up in the jungle, including, apparently, where the Missing Eleven were last heard from.”

The anchor shook his head sadly and said: “And now we’ve just heard on the home video, which was made by the American woman Roxanne Scarangello, that they wanted to help the Karen tribe, not in a token way but, and I quote, in ‘a substantial way that can make a difference.’”

Roxanne whispered, “A hundred dollars.”

The anchor looked concerned. “That’s not going to sit well with the regime, is it?”

The British man sighed heavily. “It was a brave thing to do, but also very foolish. Forgive me for saying this, but Americans tend to operate under their own rules in other people’s backyards. The truth is, in Burma, foreigners are treated under the same laws as the natives. The penalty for drugs is death. The penalty for insurrection is death.

The penalty for engaging in warfare with insurrectionists is death.”

The anchor sat up, clearly unhappy to end on that note. “Yes, well, we certainly hope it won’t lead to that. But now let’s switch gears.

You’re a documentary filmmaker. You’ve done quite a bit of investigating on the regime’s treatment of dissidents, those who have spoken out against them in even the mildest of ways. And now you’ve put together a documentary on this very subject. . . .”

“It’s a work in progress—”

The anchor faced the camera: “Our viewers should know that this entire documentary will be aired on GNN later this week. But right now, we’re going to have a look at a portion of it, a GNN exclusive.

It may be a bit rough in spots, but we know our viewers will overlook 4 2 2

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that so as to be informed on what is the very latest in our series
Democracy Goes to the Jungle.

The anchor turned back to the filmmaker. “So Garrett, tell us what we’re going to see.”

“It’s called
Oppressed and Suppressed
. . . .”

An hour later, my friends sat on two logs facing each other. Roxanne felt especially bad. The documentary had shown gruesome details of what had happened to members of ethnic tribes, as well as Burmese journalists and students who had criticized the regime and were now wasting away in jail. Appearing at the bottom of the screen throughout the documentary were photos of missing Burmese. My friends felt sorry for their Karen friends here in the jungle, but they felt sorrier for themselves.

“The soldiers
can’t
kill us. We don’t deserve this,” Bennie cried.

“The Karens don’t deserve it, either,” Heidi said.

“I know that,” Bennie replied fiercely, “but we aren’t here because we wanted to be rebels. We got stuck and we gave a hundred dollars each. We shouldn’t have to be tortured to death because a bridge fell down and we wanted to be generous.”

Esmé said nothing. She was stroking Pup-pup. Marlena assumed she was too frightened to speak. But Esmé was blessed with a child’s point of view—that adults overreacted to everything, and while things were indeed scary, her main concern was making sure no one hurt her dog.

My friends had exhausted themselves from a long day of bicycle riding, the trance ceremony, the elation of near salvation, and now a plunge into an abyss as deep as the one that prevented them from leaving No Name Place. Without anything more to say, they drifted off to their own bed mats to weep or pray or curse until oblivion mercifully could take over.

The people of the Lord’s Army crouched in another area of the camp, smoking cheroots and drinking hot water. The latest TV pro4 2 3

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gram had shown their bravery in the face of death. This would only help to increase the popularity of their show. They were giving thanks now to Loot and Bootie, to the Nats, to the Lord of Land and Water, to the Great God, and yes, to the Younger White Brother, even if he did not recognize who he was. They had had doubts, but now those were banished. Whether he knew it, he was manifesting the miracles. He had made them visible around the world.

The TV Nat was abandoned. The twins forgot to turn him off so he could sleep and be less mischievous. And thus he continued to cast light and shadows on the world before him. He was at his luminous best, calling out prophecies, changing fate, creating catastrophes, then retracting them in the next update.

My friends awoke at dawn to a profusion of birdcalls. They had never heard the birds sing so insistently, so ominously. The Karen people had never listened to such beautiful morning songs. In spite of this avian chorus, the camp seemed unusually quiet. Moff walked over to the television set. It was stone-cold dead. Right away, Grease jumped on the bicycle generator and began to pedal. The other members of the tribe gathered fuel for the campfire and foraged for food.

They were happy to carry out their routines, the daily habits of living.

At noon, one of the batteries was considered sufficiently charged to turn the television on. Global News Network came back on the air. My friends were afraid to move closer to an object that had delivered such a painful shock the night before. They sat quietly on their two facing logs, listening to the birds, wondering what their shrill cries meant.

HARRY HAD GONE through a similar roller coaster of emotion. He was sitting in an office in Rangoon, being interviewed by five men.

Saskia and the dogs were also there, as were Wyatt’s mother, Dot Fletcher; her boyfriend, Gus Larsen; and Wendy’s mother, Mary 4 2 4

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Ellen Brookhyser Feingold Fong. Harry was sipping a cup of English Breakfast tea.

Thank God, the consular officers had come that morning to take him and the others to the U.S. Embassy. It could have been the Myanmar military. And in fact, the SLORC soldiers had appeared at his hotel a half-hour after Harry had been whisked away.

“Why didn’t you people show up ages ago, when my friends were first reported missing?” Harry griped.

A consular officer named Ralph Anzenberger answered in a droll voice. “Well, you see, Mr. Bailley, we were sitting on our duffs, waiting for the Burmese government to give us permission to leave Rangoon and do a search. We were still waiting, actually, when you finally materialized in Rangoon to do another public relations show for the military regime.”

Harry squawked. He was not doing any such thing! He had taken the only route he knew to keep attention focused on his friends.

“It did that,” Anzenberger agreed, “but the junta has also benefited by turning your reality show into propaganda to boost tourism.

And by the way, there were no witnesses who saw your friends in Pagan, Mandalay, and Rangoon. You knew that, didn’t you?”

Harry’s face flushed at the obvious truth that had only recently dawned on him. “Of course,” he maintained. “What kind of fool do you take me for? I was playing along.” Saskia cocked an eye and gave him the same doubting look she used years before, when he denied flirting with others.

Anzenberger looked at a file. “How did you know to give the tape to the GNN reporter, Belinda Merkin?”

“Her? Ha. She’s not really a reporter.” Harry was glad he knew something Anzenberger didn’t. “She’s a kindergarten teacher I ran into at the hotel pool in Mandalay. I borrowed her camcorder, and we watched the tape together, that’s all. But I didn’t give it to her. It’s right here. See?” And he pulled the tape out of his pocket.

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Anzenberger bunched his eyebrows and glanced at his colleagues.

“Mr. Bailley,” he said. “Belinda Merkin is a reporter with Global News Network. She’s been there for a number of years. And she did give some interesting footage to her employer. It aired last night on the international broadcasts and caused quite a stir. Shall we watch?”

Twenty minutes later, Harry sat in a stupor. Was he dreaming? Did he have malaria? None of this made sense. It was the same tape, all right. Had Roxanne given out several of them? And that vixen Belinda. Kindergarten teacher! Bet they had a laugh over that one!

Anzenberger was speaking to him. He said they would now show him some other footage, the aftermath.

“AND NOW from GNN headquarters in New York, the latest on the Missing Eleven and their new role as freedom fighters for democracy. . . .” What followed were quick scenes from cities all across America, holding what looked to Harry to be parades. There were rallies and demonstrations, with marchers carrying placards and banners: “Free the American Eleven,” “Hurrah, Freedom Fighters,”

“Go, Karens, Go,” and one that said “Nuke SLORC.” There were shots of vigils and fasts in Tokyo, Oslo, Madrid, and Rome, and in Germany, a silent march where candles illuminated poster-sized photos of the missing carried by demonstrators—and pictures not just of the American Eleven but of Burmese students, journalists, and supporters of the National League for Democracy as well. A thousand photos of the missing. A thousand of the dead. A sea of people.

“As support for the American Eleven grows,” the anchor said, “so do denouncements of the Burmese military regime around the globe.

People in many nations are calling upon their governments to do something. We’ll be talking soon to foreign policy experts on what this might mean in regard to U.S. relations with Burma—and yes, that is what people are going back to calling the country that was re4 2 6

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named Myanmar by the junta. Coming up next.” A logo sprang up on the screen: “Democracy Goes to the Jungle.” It was superimposed on an image of bare-chested natives leading an elephant, the same image that had appeared on the box of matches delivered to Harry’s hotel room and countless tour brochures.

When the segment was over, Harry gave silent thanks. “They’ve always been good-hearted people,” he remarked to the Embassy staff,

“quick to empathize with the disadvantaged. That’s why we came to Burma, you know, to see for ourselves what the conditions really are, and to determine if we might help in any small way—not through violence, of course, but in ways that rely on gentle persuasiveness, a kind presence. Actually, it is not unlike the techniques we use in shaping dog behavior. . . .”