Saving Fish from Drowning - Heal Burma

AMY TAN
friends and I could see the startling snowcapped peaks of Tibet
glinting in the distance. Each time I have seen them, it is as amazing
as the first.
Vera was jingling and jangling on the bumpy bus ride. She wore a
profusion of ethnic-style jewelry around her neck, and encircling
both wrists and ankles, and this was complemented by a colorful
caftan, sized extra-large, though she was hardly fat, merely tall and
big-boned. Since turning fifty, ten years ago, she had decided that her
usual garb should be no less comfortable than what she wore to bed.
Thrown over her shoulders was another of her trademarks: a raw-
silk scarf printed with African motifs of her own design. Her hair,
dyed taupe brown, had been shorn into a springy cap of baby’s tears.
Seated next to her on the bus was the newly designated tour
leader, Bennie Trueba y Cela, who began to read aloud the commen­
tary I had meticulously appended to the itinerary months before:
“Many believe Lijiang is the fabled city of Shangri-La that James
Hilton described in his novel Lost Horizon. . . .” In remembering
me, Vera chuckled, but her eyes stung with tears and she used her
scarf to wipe away the wetness on her smooth cheeks.
I confess I was overwhelmed with self-pity. Since my death, it had
taken me some time to accustom myself to the constant effusion of
emotions. Whereas I had lacked dimension of feeling my entire life,
now, through others, there was width, volume, and density ever grow­
ing. Could it be that I was sprouting more of the six supernatural
talents that Sakyamuni received before he became the Buddha? Did
I have the Celestial Eye, the Celestial Ear, along with the Mind of
Others? But what good did it do me to have them? I was terribly
frustrated that whenever I spoke, no one could hear me. They did
not know I was with them. They did not hear me vehemently dis­
approve of suggested changes to the careful tour plans I had made.
And now look, they had no idea that the “commentary” I had
42