Chapter 4: Rescue and Shock (1)
After resting for a while, I tried to stand but my legs gave out on the first attempt—my muscles had turned to water, soggy and heavy, completely useless.
If I even had muscles left to speak of.
I sat with my head hanging, rested some more, then tried again. This time I managed to stay upright.
My cervical vertebrae seemed unable to support my skull, the back of my neck screaming with pain. Head bowed, back curved, I clutched my pack to my chest and shuffled forward step by slow step.
Almost there.
Cold sweat ran into my eyes. I wiped it away haphazardly and kept my eyes on the path ahead.
Grandmother said: walk carefully, don't trip.
At the very least, I could manage that.
Time became a dull knife carving flesh—cruel, endless. It seemed like ages later, and I thought I'd walked far, but when I looked back, trembling, I'd only covered a hundred meters or so.
Beneath my feet was grass, the soil beneath it saturated with water. My soles stuck, and when I tried to lift them, I tripped instead. My knees hit the marshy ground.
Cold water seeped through my pant legs. My knees registered the chill first.
My vision, which had been flashing white, gradually cleared. Kneeling in the water, I finally saw where I'd been blindly heading—a vast blue-tinted lake lay before me, water grasses lush, white waterbirds skimming gracefully over the surface.
I gave a bitter laugh.
It really was too funny. I couldn't help laughing, one sound after another, until I started coughing, laughing so hard I nearly suffocated.
I hadn't died in Northern Myanmar, hadn't died in the D-Zone—but I almost drowned in a lake because I'd nearly passed out from hunger.
Tears streamed down my face as I laughed. I turned and walked a little way along the shore, and then—like a broken machine finally draining its last flicker of power—I collapsed. My eyelids refused to stay open. An expanse of gray-black rapidly spread through my consciousness.
Before I blacked out, I saw brilliant green water grasses growing in the lake, the clear water beneath, and a massive water buffalo submerged and swimming.
It raised its head, fixing dark, placid eyes on me.
...
I jolted awake. The sky overhead was already dark, stars cold and sharp.
Rustling sounds nearby. I rolled onto my side, propping myself up—and was surprised to see a buffalo lying on the ground not far away, its enormous horns turning slowly in the dusk.
A calf was suckling, making grunting, swallowing sounds. The mother buffalo's wet, quiet dark eyes turned toward me, fixing me with a steady gaze.
After a moment, I crawled toward her.
The buffalo's body was vast. I leaned my depleted frame against her side. The calf's head kept bumping against me—bright with young vitality, and smelling of warm animal heat.
I patted the mother buffalo's belly. She didn't move, her breathing rising and falling steadily.
I leaned against her, waiting for her to leap up and trample me, or to stand and walk away and refuse me.
I waited a long time.
Those liquid dark eyes half-closed. The buffalo, as if touched by something sacred, lay there in silence.
I understood.
I lowered my head against her, like her calf.
Buffalo milk was gamey and thick. I forced myself to drink until I was about half-full.
After a long time, the buffalo got up, flicking her tail, and led her calf slowly away. She ambled off, moonlight spilling across her curved horns.
I don't know why, but a wave of grief and grievance rose in me—as if, after long suffering, someone had genuinely comforted me, gently touched my wounds.
I knelt on the ground and bowed my head to the departing mother buffalo.
Sustained by that small amount of milk, I dragged myself another two or three li. Just before dawn, I finally staggered through a stretch of dense forest and collapsed by the side of a road.
When light came, I recovered a sliver of consciousness, coughing from the dust kicked up by passing vehicles. I turned away involuntarily, trying to avoid the choking exhaust fumes.
In my peripheral vision, I saw a car brake sharply in the distance. Two figures emerged and came sprinting toward me.
The light in my eyes went out again. I sank back into darkness.
2.
People were chattering and poking around me. Someone was going through my pockets, pulling at my hands, touching my hair—turning me this way and that. I couldn't tell what they were doing. A man bellowed something, and the crowd scattered with giggles.
I opened my eyes. A few children were being shooed out of the room by adults.
I moved my gaze. White ceiling, iron-frame bed, IV bag, tubing. A retention needle was stuck in my left hand.
The pillow smelled of disinfectant. There were a few other beds in the room, occupied by two or three dark-skinned Burmese people, also receiving IVs. Their families sat beside them, glancing curiously in my direction.
The children who'd been shooed away kept peering around the corner, seizing every chance to creep closer, as if I were some novel toy.
A modest local clinic—I registered my surroundings, but I still didn't know which town this clinic was in.
Seeing me awake, a man in a collared shirt and longyi came over and said something with a delighted expression.
"&%*#@%?"
I blinked, uncomprehending. He slapped his forehead and switched to clumsy Mandarin—
"Chinese?"
I regarded him uncertainly, not sure whether I should answer.
The man looked puzzled too. He tried a few more phrases in Burmese—or perhaps another Southeast Asian language.
I slowly closed my eyes.
People came and went, talking a lot, most of it incomprehensible.
Someone patted my shoulder gently.
I opened my eyes. A middle-aged man, mid-forties to mid-fifties, also in a collared shirt and longyi, rubber flip-flops between his toes. His sleeves were rolled to the elbow, and his wrists bore chunky amber and prayer beads.
His skin was very dark, but his hair was slicked back flawlessly, apparently held in place with gel. He carried a certain presence.
I watched him in silence.
The man pulled over a chair and sat down by my bed.
"Chinese."
Not a question. A statement.
When I still didn't answer, he waved a hand as if to tell me to relax, didn't press the point, and instead gestured at the IV bag.
"You have malaria."
I glanced at the IV, then back at him. He was rolling his prayer beads with a benevolent expression.
"Very severe. Another two days and you'd have needed a blood transfusion to survive."
So it was malaria. No wonder... I rubbed my fingertips—the puncture marks from blood tests were visible on my left hand.
The man's eyes were fixed on me. Fine lines at the corners of his eyes appeared and vanished with his expressions.
"Little lady, I think I know what you're afraid of."
I said nothing. I didn't even twitch my brow, studying his face.
"My name is Wu Tao. You can call me Fifth Uncle. I'm Chinese too—I've been doing business in Myanmar for decades. Yours isn't the first situation like this I've seen."
His eyes didn't waver. No lip-pressing, no nose-rubbing, no pupil contraction, no abrupt gestures.
Up to this point, at least, he wasn't nervous, and he wasn't lying.
"Don't be afraid. You're safe here. Get your health back first, and I'll think of a way to send you home. Should I contact the embassy for you?"
His words fell into silence, and then a stretch of quiet.
The prayer beads clicked rhythmically between his fingers.
I looked into his eyes and slowly shook my head.
Wu Tao leaned forward slightly, interlacing his fingers—a sincere, trust-seeking posture.
"Are you sure?"
The question seemed to please him—I'd finally given a response.
"Where is this?"
I swept my glance over his hands, lowered my gaze, and asked softly.
Wu Tao paused, then answered quickly: "Gunlong."
Gunlong. Still over fifty kilometers from the border.
"Can I have my bag back?"
Wu Tao shook his head. "Little lady, when they brought you in, you had nothing on you. I didn't take your things!"
He even gave a hearty laugh.
Just then, the nurse came in to administer medication. Wu Tao helped me sit up against the headboard, and I swallowed the pills.
The pack was lost—entirely possible. By the time I reached the road, I'd been more or less delirious. I couldn't be sure I'd still been carrying it.
The two phones and the dagger had been in that pack.
I said nothing else, leaning wearily against the cold bed frame and closing my eyes.
Wu Tao sat for a while, exchanged a few words with the people nearby, then left.
By afternoon, the IV was finished. The nurse removed the bag, and I asked her where the bathroom was. She pointed with gestures. Once she was gone, I put on my shoes and, supporting myself against the wall, step by step made my way out of the ward.
Down a short corridor—the lower half of the lime-washed walls painted green. Near the clinic entrance, a bench sat against the wall for patients and families.
Two men sat on the bench, playing with their phones. They appeared not to notice me.
I knew they were Wu Tao's men, left behind to keep an eye on me.