Saving Fish from Drowning - Heal Burma

AMY TAN
say a dead person stays three days around the body, then another
forty-six before departing to the next incarnation. If that was the
case, then I had yet another month or so to go. Not knowing the
prospects, I feared them.
As if reading my thoughts, Marlena asked, “Where will you go
after this?”
“Back to Mangshi airport,” Lulu said. “Another group is com­
ing.” She looked at her watch.
“Does it ever get boring?” Roxanne asked. “Having to take care of
people like us all the time—what a pain.”
“Oh, no. You are very easy, no trouble. Not boring or pain.”
“You’re too kind,” Bennie said. “What was your most difficult
group?”
“No one is ever too much a difficulty,” she said diplomatically. But
then she sighed, looked down, and said, “Oh, maybe one time, it was
more difficulties than the others....Yes, that time, it was great dif­
ficulties.” She forced a smile and went on: “I just took a big group to
airport, we said good-bye, and I am leaving. A young Bai woman, she
comes up very fast and right away is asking me, Hold my baby, sister,
so I can grab my suitcase. She hurried away. Some minutes already
are passing by, the baby is crying very softly, and I pulled the blanket
and I am seeing this baby—oh, she is very new, and oh-oh, she has
split lip, empty space from mouth to nose.”
“Cleft palate,” Vera whispered to Bennie.
“Two hours later, I knew this woman is not coming back, so I took
this baby to my parents’ house, decide what I should now be doing.
In baby’s blanket, we find money, hundred yuan, like ten dollars U.S.,
and also is note in simple writing, saying this baby girl is three days
old. So we are not knowing what to do. We decide on keeping this
baby. We make many plans, make clothes. And we know this baby
will be needing the special surgery. But soon we are finding out she is
not eligible because she is not registered to anybody. To register her,
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