Saving Fish from Drowning - Heal Burma

• 9 •
NO TRACE
It was Christmas Eve. At nine-thirty, Marlena listened to her
daughter’s sonorous rhythms and then tiptoed into the bathroom.
She quickly ran a razor over her legs and massaged an ambergris-
scented lotion on them. She removed her sturdy underwear, hoping
the humidity would erase the panty line on her skin, then donned a
long gauzy cotton sheath the color of tangerine sherbet. With pound­
ing heart, as if she were the daughter and not the mother, she eased
past Esmé’s bed and out the door, and slipped down the plankway
toward Harry’s bungalow.
Now here they were together at last, Harry and Marlena, lying be­
neath the mosquito netting, their naked bodies lit by the golden glow
of a citronella candle. Marlena’s eyes were pressed shut, and her
mind and body were in an unequal battle between maintaining con­
trol and losing it utterly and completely. Harry was tracing small cir­