Saving Fish from Drowning - Heal Burma

SAVING FISH FROM DROWNING
gave him a photograph of himself with his own father. On the back
he had written: “With hope, a mind is always free. Honor your fam­
ily and not those who destroyed us.” Walter nodded and put the
photograph under the stone that had hit his head and loosened his
thoughts.
When Walter woke in the green room, his head was a pounding
drum. There were three military policemen nearby. He learned that
the American tourists had disappeared. He was about to tell the po­
lice what he knew, but then he clearly remembered his father’s words.
He remembered the sound of his voice. He remembered the pain of
losing him. “I remember nothing,” he told the military police.
Walter remained as dependable and as efficient as I had always
known him to be. As soon as he heard that his charges would be air­
lifted, he arranged to have their luggage retrieved from Floating
Island Resort and sent to the American Embassy in Rangoon. He
secured airline tickets for their flight to the capital, where they met
with Embassy officials for a debriefing. When my friends insisted he
have dinner with them the night before most of them departed, he
was able to speak to them openly, knowing they would safeguard
what he said. He told them of his father, the journalist and professor,
of his steadfastness to the truth, and later the cost of it. “I wanted to
be a journalist at one time,” Walter said, “but I became afraid, more
concerned with my own life than that of my country.”
“Come to the United States. You can study journalism there,”
Wendy said. “Your English is perfect, so you’d have no problems
keeping up.”
Many of the tourists he had met had said he should go to the
States. It was a nice gesture, and only that, since it was nearly im­
possible for anyone to secure a visa. First you had to speak English
fluently, which he did. Second, you had to have an unblemished aca­
demic record, which he had, in English literature. And last, you had
to have sufficient funds to get there, and then to buy your food and
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