Little Girl Gone

14



“You know that I am from Burma, yes?” Tooney said.

Logan nodded.

Tooney’s gaze grew distant, lost in a memory. Finally, he looked back at Logan. “When I escaped, I was able to bring most of my family with me. Many were not so blessed. My younger sister, my brother, my wife, my two daughters, we were all together. The only ones who could not come were my father and my older sister. He too old to travel, so she stay to take care of him.” He paused again, but only briefly. “It was not easy to leave without them, but we had no choice. My wife had been…vocal in her concerns about the government. One day we were warned by a friend that soldiers would be coming for us that night, so we knew it was time to go.” He shook his head. “Thirty minutes after they tell us this, we gone. The only things we bring were clothes and food. Everything else we leave behind. All memories of our life.

“Friends hid us in cars and drove us into the jungle in the hills to the east. From there we walk for five days, hiding when we hear patrols, until we cross into Thailand. This was 1984. Already there were refugee camps along the border with thousands of other Burmese. We were just six more.

“Then, for a second time, we were lucky. We stayed in camp for only one year. A church in San Luis Obispo sponsored our whole family. That’s how we got out of Thailand. That’s how we come to California.”

He took another pause. This was a lot more about Tooney than Logan had ever been aware of, but by the knowing nods from his father, the story wasn’t new to him.

“My oldest daughter, Sein, did you know her? She several years older than you, but we not move to Cambria from San Luis Obispo until after she graduate high school, so maybe not.”

Logan shrugged. “I saw her around a few times. But I don’t think I ever spoke to her. I knew Anka a little, though. She was two years behind me, I think.”

Tooney gave him a half-smile. “Anka, my American child. She born in Burma but it like she never lived there. She teach high school English now, and she married to white boy like you. He’s a good man, though.”

“As opposed to me?”

Tooney shook his head. “You not bad. But you lonely man. You need someone to warm your heart.”

Logan let the instant psychology session, as unexpectedly accurate as it was, pass without comment.

“Sein, she meet Burmese boy at camp in Thailand,” Tooney went on. “His name Khin. She tell me all the time she love him. Khin’s family sponsored, too, but by group in North Carolina. So he far away. Did not stop them, though. As soon as he out of high school, he come to California for her, and marry her. He good man, too. Very much love her. They have first baby 1988. My first granddaughter, Yon. Then one more in 1991, Elyse.” He drifted again. “My wife never see Elyse.”

“She was born after your wife died?” Logan asked. He only had vague memories of Tooney’s wife. As far as he could recall, he never saw her after his first or second year in high school. He’d heard later that she’d passed away, but he didn’t know the family very well at the time so the details didn’t stick with him.

“No,” Tooney said, an undercurrent of anger in his voice. “Thiri, my wife, she died in 1994. In Burma.”

“Burma? But I thought you said she came here with you.”

“She did,” he said. “Do you know Burma history?”

“A bit.”

“Aung San Suu Kyi?”

Logan nodded. She was the daughter of Aung San, the popular Burmese general who was assassinated when she was still a young child. Later she became a symbol of freedom in a country that had come to be run by a ruthless military dictatorship.

“In 1988 Aung San Suu Kyi return to Burma, and help start NLD, National League for Democracy. Thiri believe Daw Suu Kyi would save our country from the evil that was running it. She want to sneak back into Burma to help. ‘For us,’ she told me. ‘For our families. Burma will always be our home.’ We fight so much about this, but I knew I could not stop her. In ’89, Daw Suu Kyi was put under house arrest. But Thiri still free, and help spread the word about the NLD, and Daw Suu Kyi’s beliefs in a Burma without fear. In 1990, there was a nationwide election, and NLD won by large amount. It should have been moment of my country’s freedom. But it was not. The generals void the election and send out troops . Thiri know she could no longer stay, so headed for the Thai border, same trip we had make together six years before. Only she not reach it this time. She caught and taken to prison. After her arrest, I never talk to her again.”

“I’m so sorry,” Logan said, knowing the words were inadequate. He had no idea that the man who poured his coffee every morning had lived such a tragic life.

“After the election and the crackdown, we not know if Thiri alive or not. She send message to me that she was leaving the country. But that was it. Months went by without a word. She just disappeared. Then my sister in Burma found out Thiri arrested.”

Tears glistened in Tooney’s eyes as he fell silent for a moment. “It was very hard on our daughters. They handled it very different. Anka was still in high school. She focused on her studies, and began working hard to lose the little bit of accent she still had. She wanted nothing to do with the country that would imprison her mother.

“Sein went the other way, and follow her mother’s example. She became more involved in the democracy movement. Doing what she could from over here, taking over where my wife left off. When we learned Thiri had died, Sein got even more involved, speaking out, organizing, doing whatever she could. Now she is a powerful voice outside of Burma, calling for removal of the generals who rule over our people. She travels around the world, talks to groups wherever she can.” He took a deep breath. “Thiri would be very proud of her.”

“I’m sure you’re proud of her, too,” Logan said.

“I am.” There was a wistfulness in his voice, a sadness that confused Logan. When Tooney saw the look on his face, he said. “Sein blame me. Not much for her mother’s death, but for not going back to Burma with my wife and helping the movement. Maybe if I went, maybe Thiri would still be alive. But Anka was in school. I had to stay. Thiri made me promise to watch over the girls.” A tear finally rolled down his cheek. “Sein and I not talk much anymore.”

Tragedy on top of tragedy. Logan gave him a moment, then said, “I’m still not clear what all this has to do with Elyse’s disappearance.”

Tooney looked at him. “The man yesterday morning, he told me Elyse taken to shut up her mother. If Sein cooperates, they will let Elyse go. There is a human rights conference in London in two weeks. Sein is supposed to give important speech there. They don’t want this to happen.”

“But who are they?”

“The Burmese false government, of course. The generals of Myanmar, as they have decide to call our country.”

“Wait. You think the Myanmar government is behind your granddaughter’s kidnapping?”

The look on Tooney’s face said it should be obvious. “Who else? They are crazy. They are not like other countries. Believe me, I know.”

Logan let this sink in for a second, but found it hard to believe a foreign government was kidnapping people in the U.S. “The man who attacked you wasn’t Burmese. He was Caucasian.”

Harp scoffed. “Probably just hired for the job.”

“I don’t know. It sounds too—”

“Crazy?” Tooney asked.

“But why kill you?”

“Elyse is the important one. Not me. Maybe I was just in the way.”

Logan hesitated. “What about the rest of your family? Have any of them been attacked, too?”

“They can’t get to Sein. She is in Europe with Khin and oldest daughter, Yon. The foundation that she work for give her with excellent security. Besides, Burma would want to quietly shut her up, not kill her. Her death would be international news and focus more attention on the country, not less.”

“Have you called her and told her about Elyse?”

“I wanted to know for sure he was not lying to me first. That’s what I’ve been telling myself, anyway. But the truth is that I know Sein won’t answer even if I do call.”

“You’re going to have to try and get a hold of her somehow.”

He looked ashamed. “I know.”

Logan paused for a second. “If Sein’s death would focus more attention on Burma, wouldn’t killing her daughter do the same thing?”

Tooney shook his head. “Elyse is not high profile like Sein. Her death could be made to look like anything. An accident, suicide, whatever they want. Besides, Sein would never let it come to that. They know this. Our children are always our weaknesses. She will do what they want so Elyse will live.”

“And if we call the police?”

“They will kill her now. Make her disappear so they can claim zero responsibility and avoid creating international incident. No one will ever know what happened. It is the only thing they can do.”

“What about your other daughter?” I asked.

“Anka’s married to an American. She has an American last name. That’s her protection. They would not want the kind of trouble they think might happen by hurting her.”

“Elyse is an American, too. Hurting her is going to cause just as many problems.”

“They won’t see it that way. To them, she is one hundred percent Burmese, like her mother, and her grandmother.”

Logan leaned back. “There’s no guarantee they won’t kill Elyse anyway.”

Tooney paused, then locked eyes with him. “One way is for sure, the other is…unknown.”