Saving Fish from Drowning - Heal Burma

AMY TAN
sweating pain. Bennie had forgotten about humanity and pickles.
His mind was devoted fully to the perturbations of his bowels. An­
other cramp shot through his intestines, and he rode the waves by
pressing down harder on his knee, which in turn placed an equivalent
pressure on the pink bag. It burst with an audible pop, and the fer­
mented turnips and pungent juice splashed on the floor, sending into
the confined bus cabin a smell not unlike that of the entrails of a rat
floating in a sewer. That is how the others would have described it,
had they not already been gagging and vomiting.
As for myself, I have always been fond of pickled turnips. They
are excellent in all manner of home-style dishes, a welcome bit of
crunch in a bowl of morning rice porridge, which had once been my
fond custom.
I T WAS NOT until their arrival at the hotel that Harry was missed.
Walter began to collect passports. Eleven? Why were there only
eleven? He glanced about, trying to match faces to passports. Mr.
Joe was busy unloading luggage from the hold, and the passengers
were pointing out the pieces that belonged to them. All the men
had canvas duffels, though one of Bennie’s bags was a fake Gucci in
leatherette. The women had a preference for expandable wheelies,
decorated with bright bunches of yarn that would make a surrepti­
tious luggage thief look elsewhere. Heidi was passing out antibiotics
from her bountiful supply.
“Two pills a day for three days,” she said. “If it’s the usual kind of
mild dysentery, you’ll find relief by morning. Be sure to drink plenty
of boiled water.” Moff, Rupert, Marlena, and Bennie nodded weakly,
accepting the pills like dying Catholics getting their final holy wafers.
Ah, Harry! That’s who it was, Walter decided. Harry Bailley had
not yet given him his passport.
“Has anyone seen Harry?” Walter asked.
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