Along the Broken Bay

by Flora J. Solomon

  Inez appeared with a glass of water in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other. She handed the water to Gina. “Heaven help you. Are you okay?”

  Gina sipped the water, not feeling okay, her heart still pounding so hard she felt the pulse in her ears. “Yes,” she said through gasps. “I’m just a little sick. It must have been the chicken I ate. I’m more embarrassed than anything.” She accepted the cigarette that Inez offered and the whiskey that she poured into Gina’s water glass.

  Inez talked in a voice just above a whisper. “It’s the Nips, isn’t it?”

  Gina focused her gaze on Inez, who was stunningly exotic and with an imperial guise, the descendant of an ancient ruler, perhaps. Afraid to compromise her newly adopted cover, an expat of Italian descent, Gina drew deeply on her cigarette. “I have no problems with the Japanese. Why should I?”

  “Have it your way, then.” Inez stepped toward the door.

  “Wait! If the Japanese trouble you, why do you work here?”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No. Tell me. I want to know.” Gina’s voice broke.

  “The lack of options. My teaching degree isn’t worth a pittance since the Japanese took over the schools. I was a dance minor, so luckily I have my talent to fall back on. I feel fortunate to even have a job. You auditioned. You saw the line of wannabes.”

  Inez started to leave, but Gina stopped her. “How can you mingle with them?”

  Inez turned toward her. “I’ve steeled myself not to care who’s in the audience. You can’t get away from the Japs, Gina. The buggers have infested Manila, and this dump is no worse than other places I’ve worked. Stay around long enough and you develop a shell. You learn they’re just men away from their women. They’re horny and depressed. If you’re smart, you learn to play on their emotions, smile a lot, befriend them, and then use them for your own benefit. It takes the sting out.”

  Gina stood openmouthed, contemplating this woman with a beautiful face and tough inner core. Did she not know the cruelties and perversions of the beasts she was entertaining?

  Inez smirked and handed her the whiskey bottle. “You’re full of hate like the rest of us. It’s written all over your face and in the tightness of your body. To survive in Manila, you’d better learn to hide that real quick.” Inez disappeared inside.

  A documentary of atrocities rolled through Gina’s thoughts, and she cried to the closed door, “I will never, ever, in a thousand years befriend those butchers!” She heard the words in her head: You’ll be surprised at what you will do. She glanced around, but she was alone in the alley.

  Through a boozy haze, Gina finished her second set, and afterward she shadowed Inez and noted how she worked the tables. “You’re too smart for your britches,” Inez cooed to a grinning Japanese officer. She plied the bleary-eyed man with more beer and silly talk, stroking his fingers and murmuring, “I like men with strong hands.” They both snickered, he relishing the attention and flattery from a beautiful woman and she tucking money into her satin bra.

  On the ride home, with her thoughts reeling, head pounding, and stomach sour, Gina considered her options. No matter the path, she’d have to manage her fear of the Japanese in order to work in occupied Manila. As the horse clip-clopped along in a hypnotizing rhythm, her direction became clearer. She would follow Inez’s lead, disguise her hate behind a bodacious smile, and use the Japanese, their power, their knowledge, and their pockets full of money to support Davy’s guerrillas.

  Chapter 17

  TROUBLE FOUND

  Never arouse me from the throes of a nightmare, for nothing is ghastlier than waking to this reality.

  —Ray Thorpe, Cabanatuan prison camp, October 1942–January 1944

  Gina didn’t realize how difficult it would be to mask her true feelings, how much energy it would take, or how easy it was to brood and forget to flash her bodacious smile. The first weeks after accepting the job at Rosa’s Cabaret, she didn’t sleep; despite the numerous baths taken, the tedious number of sheep counted, and the anesthetizing effects of the alcohol imbibed, she remained anxious, fearful, and wide eyed, tossing and turning in her bed. Dark circles appeared beneath her eyes that makeup didn’t camouflage, and not having an appetite, she noticed her dresses fit looser.

  The second time her mind went blank and she forgot the words to the song she was performing, Julio took her aside. “I didn’t expect this of you.”

  “And just what did you expect?” she snapped and turned away to hide her humiliation.

  “More savoir faire.” He grabbed her arm. “You’re worldlier than most of these yahoos. What’s going on? Are you ill?”

  His face, long and handsome, attested to his Spanish ancestry. He was always ready to help, and he played the hell out of the old beat-up piano. “No, I’m not ill.” But then she confessed, “I’ve lost some friends, and I can’t . . .” She checked herself before saying more. What did she really know about Julio, except that he seemed like a nice guy? “Never mind; I’m just overtired.”

  “Ah. Tired. It’s an easy fix.” He showed her a bottle of pills he took from his pocket.

  She peered at the Japanese label. “What is it?”

  “Philopon. Methamphetamine. The Japs gobble them like candy.” He opened the bottle. “Here, take one. It’ll perk you up.”

  Gina stepped back. She should have recognized the source of his mood swings and erratic, high-energy behavior. “No. I never take anything stronger than aspirin.”

  “Your call. But there’s no reason to suffer.”

  She saw Rosa standing at the back of the room. After Gina’s disastrous first night, Rosa had called Gina into her office for a talk and told her to shape up or move on. Needing money for rent, food, and clothing and to support her friends in the mountains, Gina couldn’t afford to be on Rosa’s bad side.

  She tried to take a deep breath, but it felt like a band of steel kept her chest from expanding. Gazing at the bottle of potent energy pills Julio was holding, Gina wavered. What was one little pill? She held out her hand, and Julio shook half the bottle into it. She swallowed one with a sip of water. The restriction of her breathing soon disappeared, and she sang her second set robustly, and then she joined Inez at the tables and dazzled the patrons with her sharp wit and wisdom.

  Later, at home, she completed the household tasks she had not gotten around to and then baked a batch of cookies for her housemates using the last of the rationed sugar . . . but that was a worry for later. She crashed on the couch around noon and woke up just in time to go to bed for the night, waking in the morning to a wave of paranoia. Terrified, she retrieved the pills to flush them down the toilet, but remembering the Japanese audience she’d be facing that night, she put them back in her purse.

  While Inez was tutoring Gina in the craft of manipulating the Japanese, the two became friends. Inez had a son the same age as Cheryl named Rizal.

  “He’s named after José Rizal,” Inez said, “a poet, a doctor, a hero, and my great-grandfather. He was executed in 1896 for leading a revolution against Spain’s rule.” She contemplated for a minute. “He was only thirty-five . . . same age as my husband is now.”

  “Where is your husband, Inez?”

  “He’s with the army on Mindanao, the island south of Luzon. I haven’t heard from him in a while.”

  “I’m sorry,” Gina said. “It must be very hard on you.” She knew she was speaking for herself too. Not a day went by when thoughts of Ray didn’t cross her mind.

  Arielle, Inez’s younger cousin, was as vivacious as Inez was circumspect. Gina learned that underneath her vibrant exterior, she was mourning her brother, who had been killed on the forced march, and pining for her American husband, who was imprisoned in Cabanatuan.

  “I have a friend who might be there.” Gina kept her inquiry vague, having professed to be a widow. “Is there a way I can find out for sure?”

  Arielle shook her head. “The place is locked down. Nothing gets in. Nothing com
es out. I want to send my husband money. I haven’t found how to do it.” She sniffed. “But I will.”

  The two women were able teachers, and between them and Julio’s ready supply of Philopon, Gina was able to hide her feelings and work the tables with a degree of aplomb. She soon had the customers pigeonholed into categories: the uncomfortable Filipino nationals who mistakenly wandered in; the rude and rough Japanese soldiers, sailors, and civilians, the mainstay of the clientele; and the Japanese naval officers just off their ships and wanting to be entertained. Gina gravitated toward the naval officers, who were older, more refined, and more generous with their money, which she funneled to the guerrillas.

  She found the entertainment at Rosa’s Cabaret lackluster and vaudeville-like, with a variety of acts. The most popular performers were the dancers, Inez and Arielle, and also a husband-and-wife team whose routine was more acrobatic. Second in the popularity contest that Gina held in her own mind were the musicians, like herself and the Harmonies, a trio of singing sisters. With his high energy, Julio was in demand, engaging the audience, starting his set with something flourishing like “Rhapsody in Blue” and then taking requests. He seemed to know every song that had ever been recorded, and the crowd, if boozed up enough, sang along. She learned he had studied music at Silliman University on Negros, an island south of Luzon. The audience ignored the string of ventriloquists and their grinning dummies, magicians in top hats, and comedians who told off-color jokes that the Japanese never got.

  Though not very creative, Rosa proved to be a tireless businesswoman, greeting every customer at the door and lavishing personal attention on them throughout the night while overseeing the bar, the cash flow, and her staff. She was always stylishly dressed in beautifully tailored clothes and had a penchant for gaudy jewelry. She was married to a German businessman, but she had a paramour, Arielle told Gina, a member of the Kempeitai, an on-again and off-again relationship that dictated her moods. Tonight Rosa directed Gina to attend to a Japanese naval commander sitting alone at a table and nursing a beer.

  He was young for an officer, his face smooth and skin tight. Gina stopped at the bar for her usual drink, a bubbling ginger ale served in a martini glass, and another beer for the officer. A Philopon boosting her daring, her insides didn’t quake when she approached him. She forced a smile, placed the drinks on the table, slid into a chair, and started her well-practiced teasing. “What’s a handsome man like you doing sitting alone? You don’t have any friends?”

  He grinned, showing a chipped tooth. “Not as pretty as you.” Already a bit tipsy, he slurred his words and reached out and touched her arm.

  She fought against showing revulsion for this man, who represented evil and death, his touch as lurid as a gash. “I don’t believe that. There are many pretty women in Manila. I bet a strong young man like you plays sports. Do you like jai alai? I could reserve a court time.” She slid her arm away.

  He frowned at the rebuff and reached for a cigarette. “I have no time for games. I’m shipping out the day after tomorrow.”

  “But you could come back to visit.” She provided him a light, the flame reflecting in the dark of his eye. “Maybe we could get to know each other better then.”

  He sat back, smiled, and blew out a stream of smoke. “I like that, but it’s not for me. I’m taking my men to Lingayen Gulf. It’s too far away to visit.”

  She faked disappointment. “What’s an important man like you doing stationed way out there?”

  “Lingayen Gulf is heavily fortified.” He sat up, making himself look taller. “I have several hundred men under my command.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Gina teased. “You’re too young to be so important. You must be very smart.”

  Inez brought a dish of peanuts to the table and sat with them.

  As usual Inez’s presence was well timed. “Inez, would you believe that this handsome officer is old enough to have several hundred men under his command?”

  “Four hundred,” the officer interjected.

  Gina addressed Inez. “Don’t you think it’s a shame . . . he’s going to be stationed in Lingayen Gulf. He should be here, where the action is.”

  “It’s heavily fortified,” the soldier repeated. “Thirty thousand men are there.”

  Gina and Inez continued the flattery and cajoling of the talkative young officer, who needed to boost his importance in the presence of the inconsequential bar girls. However, it was not lost on Gina that thirty thousand Japanese soldiers fortifying Lingayen Gulf might be information General MacArthur would like to know.

  In the morning she put together a package including a few things requested by Vivian; a miniscule amount of money for Davy, all she could give; and the information about Lingayen Gulf.

  Many customers were young and exuberant, in port for a few days, and seeking a fun time. Others were in port for a longer term, waiting for orders or for their battle-scarred ships to be repaired in dry dock. Inez pointed to a table of three newly arrived Japanese officers. “The good-looking one has been here a few times. Seems he’s a fan of yours. I asked around. His name is Tanaka, Admiral Akia Tanaka. Go over and say hello.”

  Gina hadn’t known she had a fan, and she was impressed that he was an admiral. She sauntered over to the table. The Harmonies were singing a boogie-woogie, and she had to shout. “What can I get for you gentlemen?”

  All three ordered a beer.

  When she returned with their order, the Harmonies had finished their set. The other two officers nodded and clapped, but Admiral Tanaka remained unresponsive.

  “You’re not a fan of boogie?” She noticed he was a handsome man, his hair thick and stylishly cut, his face fine boned, and his features even.

  He replied in English without a hint of an accent. “I’m not a fan of noise. If you must shout for us to hear you, soon you’ll damage your voice, and that would be a dishonor. I come to this unpleasant place to hear you sing.”

  Gina took a chance and glanced at this man’s face to see if he was teasing her. She saw no threat in his gaze or demeanor. “Thank you. It’s kind of you to say that.”

  “I say it in all sincerity. You should be working in a better place where your talent is appreciated. You see, the pearl of a good life is beautiful music.” He flashed a crooked smile.

  She should be singing at a better place . . . his place, Gina surmised. She’d heard the flattery, come-on lines, and innuendoes dozens of times, to which she would feign misunderstanding, respond with humor, or, if sensing aggression, quickly retreat. She chose to repeat his poetry. “The pearl of a good life is beautiful music. You seem a cut above, sir. It’s been my impression that the Japanese crowd is a rowdy one. To you, I’ll dedicate my next number. What would you like me to sing?”

  “Do you sing Gershwin?”

  “Backward and forward.”

  At first he frowned at her answer but then chuckled. “Then I’d like to hear you sing ‘Summertime’ . . . forward, please.”

  Gina smiled. Julio played a piano rendition of the popular tune, and now she wished she’d taken time to practice it with him. “‘Summertime’ it is, Admiral Tanaka. I hope you’re not disappointed.”

  His face creased into a delighted grin, but her smile wavered. “Summertime” was Ray’s favorite song from the opera Porgy and Bess, which they had seen a few years ago. He had purchased the original cast recording and often played it in the evening while he wound down from his day. She broke eye contact and made up an excuse to leave the table. Later, with Ray on her mind, she poured her heart and soul into Gershwin’s hypnotic lullaby.

  The night dragged on later than usual, a group of sailors out for a party refusing to leave until Rosa told her bouncers to throw them out. A scuffle ensued, and Gina cowered in a corner away from flying debris. However, a mirror nearby shattered, and shards of it covered her shoulders and slipped down the front of her dress. Gina froze. Over shouts, whacks, and the crack of breaking furniture, a woman screamed, and the ligh
ts went out. When the lights came on, the sailors were ejected with kicks to their backsides.

  “Idiots,” Inez said while in the dressing room helping Gina pick the glass off her skin. “I think we got it all. We ought to get hazard pay working in this joint. It’s getting late. You want to share a taxi?”

  Gina looked at the clock. “I can walk. I still have time. Thanks, though. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She didn’t mind walking home after work, a pleasant interlude between a busy night and her lonely room. She closed her locker and dug into her purse to find her keys. They weren’t there. She dug deeper but still couldn’t find them. Irritated, she dumped the contents of her purse onto the table, but still no keys. Where could they be? She searched her locker and her pockets. In the bathroom—why would she take them in there?—but she looked anyway. She finally found the keys in the toe of a shoe in her locker. Grabbing them, she slammed its door shut, locked it, repacked her purse, and left fifteen minutes before curfew. She’d have to hurry tonight.

  Toward the end of her walk, the normally busy streets had emptied of people, and streetlights cast long shadows on the sidewalk. She passed a closed sari-sari store and an empty bar. Feeling uncomfortable alone on the street, she looked over her shoulder and hurried toward the safety of her rooming house, two doors down.

  “Halt,” rang through still air. “Halt!”