Saving Fish from Drowning - Heal Burma

AMY TAN
toward Esmé, she pretended to sneeze. The pup squeaked again, and
again Esmé pretended to sneeze. She headed for the restroom, where
she pulled out a few pages of the teen fashion magazine she had
brought, and laid these on the tile floor. She put Pup-pup on top and
urged her to “go potty,” and soon enough the puppy squatted and the
pages darkened. Pup-pup was very smart for being just a baby.
When Esmé returned, Heinrich greeted her with glazed eyes: “Ah,
so Our Little Pipsqueak has come back to the fold.” She gave him her
best blank face, then hurried to find her mother seated at a table.
Lunch was about to be served, tout compris, except for the wine and
beer, and, as they would learn later, the overpriced “welcome” cham­
pagne they had downed with their gracious host.
Over lunch, Heinrich joked that they had better not gripe about
the food and service here. “’Tis all owned by a formerly fierce tribe
that once settled disagreements by having you over for a tête-à-tête
and carrying off your tête. What’s more, they receive protection from
their friends, the SLORC soldiers. So you see, your satisfaction is
guaranteed, no complaints. Ha, ha, ha.”
“No complaints here,” Bennie said. “Food’s great.”
“What do you mean, protection?” Moff said. “Like the Mafia
kind?”
Heinrich looked around as if to check that no one among his staff
was listening. “Not exactly.” He rubbed his fingers, the sign for filthy
lucre. “If you help others, you receive merit, a bit of good karma.
Oh, come now, don’t act so surprised. It’s a tradition in other coun­
tries, yours as well.” He clapped Moff on the shoulder. “Isn’t it so,
my friend? Ja?” He laughed uproariously at his own comments.
Then he added, “Actually, yes, everyone has become quite friendly,
quite, quite. When business is good, relations are good. The past is
old business—fffttt!—forgotten, time to move ahead to the future.”
He paused and reconsidered. “Well. Of course nothing is ever com­
pletely forgotten, unless you’re dead, but we can selectively ignore,
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