Saving Fish From Drowning (55 page)

The better shots, which were few, captured the universal subjects of coffee-table books: local people in colorful costumes, snaky canals, smoky alleys. And those ethnic women with crisscross halters and heavy bundles of pine needles, those women he and Marlena had seen outside Lijiang. What were they called? The tribe name was like

“Nazi” or “taxi.” Naxi!—that was it. Evidently that same tribe was also in Myanmar. Ha, maybe they were the same ladies, professional photographic natives who circulated everywhere, like those Peruvian flute players who popped up no matter where you were in the world.

The images came in unconnected bursts, reflecting the mind of a person with attention deficit disorder. Harry watched in snatches, while taking ample opportunities to admire Belinda’s luscious thighs, the plush delta separated from his naked eye by a flimsy bit of Lycra. Back to the camcorder screen: A fleeting field, a swoosh of sky, primitive pagodas and bewildered grandmothers, then buffalo cows, more buffalo cows, a child riding a buffalo cow, now signs and more signs, signs with innovative applications of the English language. Belinda read aloud: “Lodging and Fooding,” “Restaurant and Bare.” And then she came to a group of people, barely more distinguishable than ants on the screen. They stood behind a sign: “Sincerely Welcoming You to Farmous Grottoe of Female Genitalia.”

At the same instant that she saw the Westerners were Harry and the missing tourists, Harry’s heart flip-flopped.
Grotto of Female
Genitalia?
All the scenes just viewed now took on the eerie quality of déjà vu. Zilpha saw that Belinda had a look of intense focus.

“May I?” Harry said, and before Belinda could answer, he seized the camcorder from her hands and deftly pushed the rewind button, then whipped out his reading glasses.
Play.
There it was, the familiar sign, and there they were: Dwight, Heidi, Moff . . . and sweet, darling 3 9 6

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Marlena! Curious, she looked older than he remembered her. But there she was, next to him in China, his arm around her waist, and around them were the others. Alive, so alive, so happy then. And
now?

He realized that in his hands, in that tiny rectangle of circular reels, was a parallel world, the past seen as present, reexperienced as here, as now, unchanged, able to repeat itself over and over. “It’s us,” he said.

“Can I see?” Belinda asked.

Sorry.” He punched up the sound and let her see. “It’s us,” he announced. “It’s a tape of us, my friends, before they disappeared.”

Belinda feigned surprise. “Oh my God, really?”

More snippets of the past rolled by, and not a glimmer of disaster in any of them. As he watched these ten-to-twenty-second spurts, his mind was a tangle of worry. Where did this tape come from? Did TV

Myanmar really mean to give it to him? Couldn’t be. They would have called to tell him what they were sending. So who sent it? His heart raced, not knowing which way to go, up or down? Was it a sign they were alive, or was it—

Belinda broke into his thoughts. “Where did the tape come from?”

“It was handed to me by a bellhop this morning,” Harry said. “At least, I assume it was a bellhop. Roxanne made the video. She’s with our group.”

Belinda nodded. Of course, she knew the name. She knew all of them, as well as their ages, occupations, physical attributes, and names of family members. How could she have been so stupid not to recognize earlier what they had been viewing? She didn’t even have the excuse of not wearing reading glasses like Harry. No matter, because here it was, in her hands. The scoop. She felt killer instincts surge in her brain, and saw all the signs leading to “top of the news hour,” an in-depth special, a fast-track promotion to anchor the evening news or produce her own weekly show, numerous Emmys, and her ultimate dream, a Peabody.

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As they watched with absolute attention, Belinda tried to remain concerned but not delighted. My God, what a scoop this would be, and it had literally fallen into her lap, along with Harry, the number-one interviewee! Surely this was fate sent down by the ratings god.

Only one question remained: How would she get that tape out of Harry’s hands and into those of her producer at GNN? She wrinkled her nose at Zilpha to indicate she had sniffed out a fish that needed to be hooked and landed, and her colleague acknowledged her with a sudden yawn to let her know she could “rest assured.”

Belinda tried to be optimistic. “This must mean they’re alive. It was slipped to you to let you know that.”

Harry nodded and sighed. He still pictured Rupert shivering on the tape.

Zilpha leaned forward. “You know, I have a computer in my room.

We can see this more clearly if we plug the camcorder into it. That way the video will be the size of the computer screen and you’ll be able to make out the details.”

Belinda looked questioningly at Harry, and he responded, “Yes, yes, by all means, yes.” They hurried to the room. With a deft movement, Zilpha connected the camcorder to the jack in her computer, and surreptitiously inserted a recording disc in the DVD drive. They started the video again, and the images jumped onto the screen.

When she saw that Harry was fully absorbed, Zilpha reached into her backpack and turned on the recording device, then aimed the microphone toward Harry.

Harry now saw that the frames were date-and-time-stamped. December 18th, 10:55 P.M., December 19th, 3:16 A.M. . . . He frowned.

“I don’t remember this happening then.”

“It didn’t,” Belinda said. “The date never got changed from Pacific Standard Time.”

Harry’s brows flew up. “Amazing that you thought of that.”

“Not really,” she said. “I forget to reset my watch all the time when 3 9 8

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I’m on—” She coughed, having almost said “assignment.” “On vacation,” she quickly recovered, while mentally kicking herself. No more slips.

“Even so,” Harry said admiringly. He pressed the fast-forward button and the lives of his friends zipped by, complete with squiggly voices, until he saw their arrival at Floating Island Resort. There’s Heinrich, he noted, old slobberchops and greasy palms, meeting them at the dock. Harry turned up the volume and heard Roxanne narrating as she recorded: “The Intha fishermen here stand on one leg to fish. . . .” The next image was Harry’s cottage with its partially burned roof.
Criminy, she filmed that?
Roxanne was giving a wry description: “. . . He set his bungalow on fire last night.” She giggled, then snorted out the rest: “And he tried to stomp out the flames, wearing only his birthday suit!”

Harry reddened, but when he glanced at Belinda, he saw she was straight-faced, watching the video with serious intent. And then, like evidence of ghosts, eleven shadows climbed into longboats. The date and time stamp indicated December 24th, 3:47 P.M., which was stupid o’clock on Christmas morning in Myanmar, so damn early it had still been dark. His heart was drumming in his ears.

He is with them now, in that lost time now found.

He hears Marlena call out to Esmé, “Honey, did you bring your coat?” The throaty sounds of the outboard engine drown out the answer. Cut.

Moff is looking toward the mountains, the only sounds the soft plash of water on the boat’s sides. As sabers of light slice at the mountains’ purple silhouette and open the sky, everyone murmurs in unison. Cut.

They’re amid the rhythmic clacking in a weaving mill. Cut.

Noisy banter and bargaining in a cheroot factory. Moff and

Dwight waggle cigars out of one side of their mouths and utter Groucho Marx witticisms. Cut.

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His friends are watching a man pour a gooey mixture onto an artisan’s screened frame. Harry realizes this must have been the papermaker’s place. All the things that these witnesses had reported were true! So what happened after? Harry can barely breathe. Cut.

And here it is: A flash of green, a patch of sky, and bodies jostling about with shouts and groans. An engine grinds into gear, and someone—it sounds like Moff—yells: “Hang on!” The world is

heaving from side to side, and Dwight lurches into view and then out. Roxanne shouts in a sarcastic voice: “As you can see, we’re on this
ultra-deluxe
bus, making our way to a Christmas surprise in the rainforest. . . .” “This better be good!” Wendy’s voice is heard to yell back. Cut.

All is quiet, save for a bird calling and the creaking bend and snap of young ferns being stepped upon. The camera eye looks ahead and sees the travelers’ backs trudging upward in single file. A man is complaining: Bennie. A woman is, too: Vera. Cut.

Some are sitting on a log, others leaning against it. The camera eye closes in on an oil-coated paper umbrella, and when Roxanne calls,

“Hey, you,” it tips back, and underneath is Esmé, snuggling the white puppy. She wrinkles her nose at the camera. Cut.

What’s this? A river? A gully? Definitely some sort of deep chasm, but even though the eye drops down and down and down, the bottom can’t be seen. It looks sickeningly deep. Cut.

Long ropes run over the perilous rift—oh, it’s a suspended bridge.

“Hell, no,” Bennie says off camera. A hiss of words follow: “Safe?”

“Scared.” “Shit!” Are his friends actually going to cross it? Good God, there goes Moff! Now Rupert! Heidi! And Marlena—she

makes it, too—good girl! There goes Esmé, Dwight, Vera, Wyatt, Wendy, Bennie . . . Roxanne calls for Dwight to take the camcorder from Black Spot, and the camera blurs and then is on fixed on her, and she, too, crosses with a wobble and a shout. Cheers and laughter. Cut.

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Dark faces, Burmese, perhaps tribal. Two old women in turbans are behind Dwight’s partially viewed head. They look up and wave to the camera. “These are the Karen tribe,” Roxanne says. “As you can see, it’s really primitive here, untouched by the twentieth century.” Cut.

Dwight is inspecting a small hut made of tree roots. The camera’s eye looks up, then down. “This is the finest hotel in the region,” Roxanne says. The camera surveys a set of trees. Cut.

A feast and smiling faces. His friends are eating. They wave: “Hi, Mom!” “Hi, Mom.” “Hi, Mom.” “Our new home . . .” “We’re going to learn how to make food just like this . . .” “Hi, Daddy, this tribe is the coolest. . . .” “Man, this is so great we never want to leave. . . .”
They never want to leave?
Harry is aghast. Did they actually stay on purpose? Are they sympathizers? Cut.

Rupert is showing card tricks to two small cheroot-smoking children with reddish hair. “In magical lands, magic can happen, but only if we believe. Do you believe?” The little girl answers, “We belief in God.” Cut.

The eye of the camera glides across in a blur and stops on an unknown object, a fallen tree branch . . . wait, what is that? Good Lord, it’s not a tree but the stump of a leg! The eye moves upward.

And its owner also has a sewn-shut eye. And look at this poor girl, horrible, horrible, she’s missing her arm. This one, part of a leg. This one, a foot. The camera sweeps to the face of a somber-looking young man. He has smooth cheek planes, large, almost black eyes.

He looks like an Asian god. And he can speak English, but his accent and soft voice make what he is saying hard to understand: “When the mine is exploding, the mine is no more danger, and the soldiers are very happy, because now path is safe for walking.”

The eye of the camera sweeps to the mutilated body parts and comes in close so that fused vermilion flesh fills the screen. Roxanne speaks in a shaky voice. “It’s heartbreaking. . . . They forced them!

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The fucking military took away their land, burned their villages, enslaved them. God, this is so sickening. . . . It really makes you appreciate . . .” Her voice drops to a fierce whisper, and it is obvious she is crying. “Oh God, it makes you appreciate not ever knowing such things. . . . We have to help them. . . . We can’t just give them sympathy or a token bit of help. We want to help in a bigger way, a substantial way that can make a difference.” Cut.

The chasm again. Voices are grumbling, arguing, nay-saying, insisting. “This is the shits,” Roxanne says. The eye of the camera veers toward a ladder of ropes running straight down the other side of the crevasse. The bridge has collapsed! They’re looking down? Has someone fallen in?
Who?
How many? Marlena? Esmé, Moff? No?

No! Thank God. They’re fine. There they are. All there? Yes, they must be, since no one is acting crazed with grief, just pissed. So that’s it. They can’t get out. The bridge is down. They meant to come back all along. And they’re alive. They’re simply stuck. They must be okay. They had food. Thank God! Cut.

It’s night. Why has so much time gone by without any video? The date stamp says December 30th, so it is the 31st, New Year’s Eve.

Rupert is lying on the ground, his eyes looking upward, perhaps at stars. Whoever is holding the camera is shaking it. It makes Rupert look jittery. Rupert is mumbling, but it’s impossible to hear what he is saying. Every now and then, he lets out a shout. A night moth flutters by, dancing with the light of the smoke.

Vera is speaking. “You shouldn’t do that.” She isn’t scolding. She sounds very gentle. She must be telling Rupert to not be so noisy, because others are sleeping.

Rupert doesn’t answer. The camera continues shaking. No, wait, it’s Rupert who’s shaking. He’s shivering, shivering violently. He must be sick, terribly sick. It is now Moff who is speaking, although he is not seen. “His mother,” he says in uneven breaths, and the camera heaves with him. “She’ll want to feel she was next to him . . .

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taking care of him, too. . . .” Oh God, he’s crying. Moff is crying!

Harry has never known his friend to do that. What does this mean?

Rupert lets out a shout again.

“Honey, please,” Vera is saying, so tenderly. “His mother is going to hug him in person. Nothing bad is going to happen. We won’t let it. Come on, turn off the camera. Sit down, get some rest. We still need you to help with the others. . . .”
Others?
What’s happened to them? Are they sick, too? Is it too late? Does she mean graves must be dug to bury them? Was it poison, malaria, no food? Or did someone hurt them? Did they try to run away and someone stopped them?