Saving Fish From Drowning

  If any good can be said of Seraphineas Andrews, it is the schools and clinics he built. He allowed his daughters and eventually all girls to attend school so that they could read and write and do sums. The instruction was motley, a collision of English and Burmese, but one can’t quibble with the good of an educated mind in any language, even if it’s pidgin.

  There is one other mystery associated with Seraphineas, which has never been settled to any degree of certainty. It involves a book, wittily written in an acerbic voice, that was published in the United States under the name S. W. Erdnase, and entitled Artifice, Ruse, and Subterfuge at the Card Table—the work of an obviously cultured mind. No one has ever determined the identity of S. W. Erdnase. Some, however, point out that “S. W. Erdnase” is “E. S. Andrews” backward.

  Through trick or book royalties, Seraphineas had money to buy goods in America, and a friend would ship these to Burma. Every year the crates arrived, with schoolbooks, blackboards, and medicines, as well as replenishments of favorite foods. There were also white dresses with rickrack for his virgin brides and the latest fashions for his wardrobe, all in a creamy ivory: French-tailored shirts, morning jackets and waistcoats, cravats, and a Panama hat. The kid-skin boots were always lacquer black. The walking stick was ebony and gold, with an inlaid ivory handle.

  One day, while on a picnic with several of his favorite wives and sons, he walked into the jungle and did not return to his half-eaten meal. At first, no one worried too much. The Lord of Nats had the power of invisibility. He had often disappeared when soldiers of the British Raj came to arrest him for swindling and murder. He had given some of his invisible powers to his children as well. But this time, too many hours passed, the hours turning into days, then weeks, then months. No trace of him was ever found, not a scrap of clothing, shoe, bone, or tooth. The Important Writings were also gone. In later years, when it was time for myths to be enlarged, several of his followers recalled that they had seen him flying with white bird-angels to the Land Beyond the Last Valley—to the Kingdom of Death, where he would conquer its ruler. But he would return, the faithful said, never fear, for it was written in the book of Important Writings. And when he did return, they would recognize him by the three Holy Signs, whatever those turned out to be.

  Although many missionaries had come and gone since, it was Seraphineas Andrews’s influence that prevailed with this Karen splinter tribe. His followers continued to be known as the “Lord’s Army,” but his actual descendants were few, for most of them had been killed over the periods of upheaval. The rusty-headed twins were two who remained, from the lineage of the Lord of Nats and his Most-Most Favorite Concubine. She was much higher in status than the Most Favorite Concubine, and somewhat lower than the Most-Most Favored Wife. This was according to the twin’s grandmother, who was not from the paternal side, and so not of the divine lineage. But she was the one who named the boy “Loot” and the girl “Bootie,” English words meaning “goods of great value taken in war.” She kept them from being that, as she now testified to the tribe and the Younger White Brother.

  “EVERYONE RECOGNIZED Loot and Bootie as divinities,” the grandmother recounted. “There were three signs. . . .”

  The first was their double healthy birth when times were bad—they were the long starving days, for sure. But the moment those two came into the world, a big juicy bird fell from the sky—glutted drunk on fermented fruit—and landed head side down and feet side up, right in the cooking fire. All we had to do was pull it out, brush off the ashes, and put it in the pot.

  No tears, that was the second sign. The twins never cried. Why a divinity has no need to cry, I don’t know. But they never did. Not when they were babies. Not when they were hungry. Not when they fell down and broke a nose or a toe. Not when their father and mother died. This would be very strange for anybody else, but not when you are a divinity.

  But the greatest proof came the day the soldiers chased us into the river. It was three years ago, when we still lived in the southern end of Karen State, to the south of where we are now, before we came back to the home of the Younger White Brother. In those days, we lived among the flat fields. Down there they were building the big oil pipeline to Thailand, and many villages were burned down to make room for that. My husband was the headman and he told them that the SLORC army would not only burn our homes but also force us to work on the pipeline. We knew what happened to people who did that. They starved. They were beaten. They got sick and died. So we made a plan. We wouldn’t go, that was the plan. We would take our best things high in the mountain and deep in the jungle—our cooking utensils, our farming tools. We would leave a few junky things just to fool them into thinking we would come back.

  We flatland farmers went to live in the jungle like the hill tribes. We lived by a big stream, and we learned how to swim the slow green waters. We bathed there every day, and it was never deep. We had made another plan. If the soldiers came, we would jump in the river to escape. But the day the soldiers came, the stream was running like a crazy spitting demon. It was the monsoon season. Still, we ran for the water as the soldiers ran for us. I grabbed Loot and Bootie—and the river grabbed us, and there was no time to think what was up and what was down as we tumbled along.

  Some of the villagers were thrashing, some were paddling, and I was holding the edge of a bamboo pallet, that’s what Loot and Bootie were sitting on. How we got this pallet, I didn’t ask myself at the time, never did until just now, and now I am telling you that the Great God gave it to Loot and Bootie, since there was no reason He’d give it to me.

  So on this pallet, Loot and Bootie were riding, and I was hanging on to just a small edge, a pinch, careful not to tip them over. I saw our whole village moving down the river as one, and I had a vision—or maybe it was a memory—it was everyone in the threshing field on the first day of harvest, which wasn’t so long ago and was also coming up soon. In that field, we thrashed as well, moving through waves of ripened grass. We moved as one, for we were the field, we were the grass, that’s how I remembered it. And here we were again—our entire village, our headman, my family people, and the dear old faces of girls who had pounded the rice with me since the days we wore our littlest white smocks. Now they were pounding the white water to keep their heads afloat.

  Those old girls and I saw the green soldiers running along the banks of the river. Oh, they were mad that we had escaped. We had jumped into the river and ruined their fun. They’d have to wait another day, wouldn’t they? The old girls and I had a fine laugh about that. Their eyes were crinkled into smiles, and over each old face was a beautiful shiny veil of water, poured from the top of her head, running over her eyes, then falling into the cup of her happy mouth. With these bright veils, my old sisters wore young faces again, like the first time we wore our singing shawls. It was for an old-old elder’s funeral. We walked ’round and ’round the body, pretending to mourn, and shook the shawl fringes to sound the bells. And the young men went ’round and ’round the other way, to catch our smiles and count how many they caught. How glad we were that the old-old elder finally had the good sense to die.

  And quick as that, the years swam by, and there we were in the crazy water, over fifty years old, the age of our dead elder. And the young men were now running along the banks in their ugly green uniforms. We saw them tip the noses of their rifles at us. Why were they doing that? And each nose made a little sneeze, like this, up and down, up and down, but no sounds. No crack, no hiss, just one watery veil turning red, then the other, and me wondering, Why no sounds? No boof-boof. My sisters were shuddering, trying to keep their spirits in their bodies, and I was trying to grab them to hang on, but then with one great heave, they went limp, just like that.

  When my senses came back, I saw that the twins and their pallet were gone. I pushed my poor old sisters away to see if Loot and Bootie were underneath. The soldiers still had their rifles aimed toward us. All around me, the villagers were pounding the water, but not to ge
t away. They were hurrying to shore. Maybe my husband told them to do this. Everyone listens to the headman and doesn’t argue. Maybe he said, We’ll work the pipeline and make another plan later. Whatever he said, I saw them climbing the banks. They were sticking together, because that’s how we are. And I would have done that, too, but I had to find Loot and Bootie first. The Great God told me I had to do this.

  So I stayed in the water by the Great God’s will and against my own. Only one soldier tipped his rifle nose at me, but he was very young, and instead of a little sneeze, his rifle made a big one, so he couldn’t shoot anything but the sky. I saw our village was already on fire. The thatch of the houses was burning, the rice sheds, too, black smoke rising. I saw my family and the other villagers crawling on knees and hands toward the soldiers. My husband, my daughter, her husband, my other daughter, the four sons of my rice-pounding sister, her husband, who was still looking back to see where she was. I saw some of them fall flat onto their faces. I thought they had been kicked. One by one, they fell. One by one, I shouted, Ai! One by one, I was leaving them. And even if I had tried to swim back, the stream was too fast, and it carried me away, like an empty boat.

  I was going to tip myself over and fall to the bottom of the river. But then I heard them, Loot and Bootie. They were laughing like the tinkling bells of a singing shawl. They were still on the pallet, spinning in an eddy. After I reached them and checked them twice for holes, I cried and cried for I was so happy, and then I cried and cried again for I was so sad.

  That was the day I knew Loot and Bootie had the power to both resist bullets and disappear. That’s why the soldiers never saw them. That’s why they’re still here. They’re divinities, descended from the Younger White Brother, who also knew how to disappear. Of course, Loot and Bootie are still children and quite naughty at that, so mostly they disappear when I don’t want them to. But now that the Younger White Brother has come, he can teach them how to disappear properly. It’s time they learned.

  Why am I still here? I have no divine powers. No such thing for me. I think the Great God kept me so I can watch over Loot and Bootie, and that is what I do, my eyes never leave them.

  He also wanted me to live so I could tell this story. If I didn’t tell it, who would? And then who would know? I’m past the age when most are gone, so that’s proof, too, of the Great God’s will. He told me to bear witness of what I know—just the important parts, and not about the old girls and how pretty they looked. But that’s what I remember, too, that and no sounds. Why no sounds?

  The important part I am supposed to tell is everything I didn’t see, what happened after the river took me away. I now know this: Some they shot as soon as they came ashore. And others, they tied their hands behind them, poured hot chilies in their eyes, and covered their heads with plastic bags, then left them in the sun. They pounded many with rifles and our own threshing tools. To the rest, who wept, they shouted, Where are your rifles hidden? Who is the leader of the Karen army? They took one man and cut off both hands and all his toes. They dangled the babies to make the fathers talk. But we did not show them the rifles. No one did. How could we? We had no rifles. So a soldier showed a man his rifle and shot him dead. They shot all the men who were still living. I cannot tell you what they did to the babies. Those words won’t come out of my throat. As for the women and girls, even the ones who were only nine or ten, the soldiers kept them for two days. They raped them, the old ones, too, it didn’t matter how young or old, six men to one girl, all night, all day. The screams never stopped for those two days. The soldiers called them pigs, they pierced them like pigs, told them they screamed like pigs and bled like pigs. With those who tried to fight them off, they cut off their breasts. Some of the girls died from bleeding. As for the ones who lived, when they were all used up, the soldiers shot them. All but one girl. She prayed and prayed for a way to live, even while the soldiers were using her. And the Great God answered her prayers. While the soldiers were using her she fainted, and they threw her off into a corner. When she revived, she saw they were busy with another girl, so she crawled away and ran into the jungle. Many days later, she found another village and told what had happened. When she finished, she started again. She could not stop talking. She could not stop crying or shaking. The tears kept pouring, like a monsoon cloud, until she used up all the water in her body and died.

  I wasn’t there to see any of this, but I am supposed to tell these things. And if there isn’t time to say all my testimony, then the important part to know is that we three are alive, Loot and Bootie and myself, and one hundred and five people from my village are dead. That’s the only reason the Great God didn’t let me stick together with them, so I can be here today, so I can tell you these things, so you can remember it, so we can write it down, now that the Younger White Brother has brought back the Important Writings.

  AS SOON AS the old grandmother finished her testimony, the twin boy Loot sang out in his native tongue: “Dear Great God and Older Brother Jesus, today Ye deliver us from evil. Ye deliverest Your messenger, the Younger White Brother, Lord of Nats. Ye deliver a warrior for victory. Ye bring Your troops, strong men and women! Count them! Ye deliver food, excellent food for nourishing our bodies, food so we can face Your enemies and fight with bodies that cannot be pierced by bullets or knives or arrows. Make us invisible. Give us victory against the SLORC army. We also pray for the Nats, keep them peaceful. We pray for our brothers and sisters who died a green death after they were baptized in the stream. For Yours is the kingdom and the power . . .”

  To my friends, it sounded like rap music.

  Bootie broke in, and her prayer was in a liturgical English of sorts: “Dear Heavy Fazzer, Great God and Bo-Cheesus, we pray Dine Lord of Nats safe us fum gheen dess. Not let us die in bud and bosom of life like our fazzer and muzzer before us, our bruzzers and sissers before us, our aunties and unkies before us, our cuzzins and fends before us. Potect us so we not falling into hands of enenies or new Nats dat die gheen dess. When our fends and enenies be dead, keep dem in Dine grafess. Keep us safe.”

  The two children closed their eyes and appeared to drift off to sleep while standing.

  “What the hell was that about?” Dwight whispered to Roxanne. “It almost sounded like English. Did you understand any of it?” Roxanne shook her head, then added, “Nothing beyond Great God and Cheez Whiz.”

  The residents of No Name Place then passed around a wooden plate with seeds, first to the twins, then to the rest, and each partook of one seed, downing it like a communion wafer. My friends politely ate one each as well.

  When the ritual was done, the twins’ grandmother approached Rupert with a long sacklike tunic made of a royal-blue cloth woven with a zigzag pattern. She bowed and mumbled to him in Karen to accept this humble gift symbolizing his faithfulness in returning. The girls nearby giggled with hands cupped over their mouths. “You teks,” she told Rupert.

  Rupert held up empty hands and shrugged. “I don’t have any money,” he said. He was not about to bargain for a dress. When the grandmother insisted once again that he take the gift, Rupert pulled his pockets inside out. “See? No money. I swear.” He had only the deck of cards he had been given on the flight to China. He held them up as proof that he had nothing valuable.

  All at once, the people in front of him fell to the ground and prostrated themselves.

  “For God’s sake,” Moff said to his son. “They’re begging you. It’s a Christmas present. Just be polite and take it.”

  “You take it,” said Rupert, and as Moff started to reach for the cloth, Bootie cried out, “No, no, he teks.” She walked up to Rupert. Moff whispered fiercely through clenched teeth that Rupert should simply accept the damn dress and be done with it. And once Rupert took the unwanted gift, the people rose to their feet, and the twins sidled up to him.

  Loot tapped the hand holding the cards and pantomimed a fanned deck.

  Rupert grinned. “Man, everyone in Burma likes to see card tr
icks.” He happily shuffled the deck, drawing the cards up with one hand and letting them slide into place. He held the deck in front of Loot. “All right, pick a card, any card.” And the twin divinities were delighted to hear this start of the ritual, the identical words that had been uttered more than a hundred years before by their founding father, the con artist Seraphineas Andrews. In short order, the twins shrieked joyfully as their sign appeared, the Lord of Clubs, the avenger of all evil.

  Three other children aligned themselves near the center of the camp and began to sing a cappella. The tune sounded almost like a church hymn, but much sadder, Vera thought, and it had that Asian tonality, as if the harmonic thirds had shifted to fifths. She and the other Americans stood quietly, appreciating the heartfelt performance. With the second refrain, two men joined in, one beating a bronze drum decorated with detailed frogs, the other blowing a buffalo horn. My friends gave Black Spot the thumbs-up. “What tribe are you again?” Bennie asked him. “I want to tell my people in America that we visited you.”

  Black Spot responded in his accented English, “We are ethnic Karen people, but we are also calling the Lord’s Army.”

  “I’m sorry. What was the last thing you said?” Bennie leaned in to hear above the chanting songs.

  “The Lord’s Army,” Black Spot repeated.