Warriors in the Crossfire

by Nancy Bo Flood

  I bowed. “You are very generous. But—”

  Ako shook her head. “Kento, tell him! Tell him the caves are not safe.”

  Kento raised his hand and signaled Ako to hush. “Our father sent word. Friends will take us—all of us—to safety. Don’t go to the caves, Joseph. Come with us.”

  “Please, Joseph, don’t go there!” Ako pleaded.

  Kento nodded to Ako. “Leave, little sister. Now, please. Joseph and I must—”

  “No! I—” But their mother took Ako by the hand, and hurried them both from the room.

  “Joseph, fighting is fierce in the south. The Americans are pushing north. Already they have taken Garapan.” Kento swallowed. “Our soldiers will stop them … soon, I’m sure, before they can attack here. Later, when your father returns—”

  “My father is dead.”

  “Dead?”

  I didn’t know I was shouting. “Your people have done this!”

  “My people?”

  “Your people, the Japanese, they killed my father.”

  Our eyes locked. “Joseph, I am sorry. Forgive me for my rudeness.” He bowed very low. I turned to leave.

  Ako crept back in. She whispered, “My heart is sad for you, Joseph. Come with us.”

  I looked at her, so young, so brave.

  “Joseph, you asked for help. What can we do? How can we help you?”

  “I must carry my father to the sea, to Sa’dog Tasi.”

  “But Joseph—”

  “My father came home.” I met Kento’s gaze. “I am his son.”

  Kento stared at me. “You are going to Sa’dog Tasi? Tonight? That would be suicide! American ships are bombing the beaches. Planes—”

  “I am Rafalawash, Rapaganor, descendant of the navigators. My father’s son.” I met Kento’s eyes with my own. “Will you help me?”

  “Joseph.” Kento stared at the floor. “I promised my father to stay with my family. I must keep that promise.”

  No one spoke. No one moved.

  “Kento, I must carry my father to the sea. I cannot carry my father alone.”

  Kento did not look up. “I am sorry, Joseph, I cannot help you.”

  “You have turned your back on us. We are no longer of the same clan. You have become … Japanese.”

  I ran from his house.

  I wrapped my father’s body in our most valuable mat, woven long ago by my own mother’s mother, who had pounded long leaves of pandanus into fine thin threads and woven them to make this sacred mat, soft as a silk shawl. I stared at it and then at my mother, saw the pain on her face, and looked away.

  My mother tied a burial cloth, a long red sash, around my waist. All was ready. I looked at the burial mat but did not voice my fear. Without help, I doubted I could carry him to the sea, to Sa’dog Tasi, the beginning of his spirit path. I reached down and lifted the mat. My legs were shaking. I held my father. I took a first step, stumbled, shifted the weight for better balance, then left. I walked without stopping, through the mud, through the gray rain, through the dark, except when an explosion lit the world—red, orange, yellow—for an instant … until darkness returned.

  The rain fell harder. I stayed away from the road, moving slowly. Each step meant pulling free from the mud, finding a secure place to step, keeping the mat balanced. At the river I would need to find the sharp curve where it deepened, where the current was strong. See the place in your mind, Joseph. See it, and you will find it.

  Fireballs whistled across the sky, sometimes exploding over the sea, sometimes closer, overhead. With each bright pop I closed my eyes, afraid to breathe until finally the shell exploded—someplace far enough away—where it didn’t blow us up. Then I took another step.

  The rain poured even harder, sometimes like a waterfall. I could barely see, but I was afraid to wipe my eyes. My father felt heavy, cumbersome, and I was ashamed of wanting to quit. Ashamed again that I had stopped singing, had fallen asleep.

  The shells from the ships fell closer, shaking the earth with each explosion. Along the hillsides, Japanese guns boomed back in reply. My arms grew numb. I no longer felt fear or grief or even the rain. As if I had left my body, I watched a mud-covered boy stumble through a waterfall of rain that fell on his head, down his back, and over his precious cargo.

  Finally, I could hear the roar of rushing water amid explosions and thundering rain. I had made it to the river. I stepped in knee-deep water and began to slide. A board slammed into my legs. My knees buckled. A thick plank swirled by, spinning like a giant paddle. The current washed against me, pulling me deeper.

  I caught the edge of the plank, steadied one side, and laid the mat on top. I tied it with the red cloth as the river grabbed and pushed. I chanted a few phrases of prayer: Ancestors, come. Welcome my father, greet him.

  A high whistle screamed. Light burst behind my eyes and filled my head with pain. The river blew up, covering my face with mud and gravel. Water knocked me over and swirled me around. My father was gone.

  Anna Maria stood outside our house, soaked, as water dripped down her face. She didn’t seem to notice. “We must find Ignacio.”

  “We will,” I lied. She did not ask about Father. I wanted to collapse, to fall asleep and not wake up. “Come inside, Anna Maria. It’s dangerous out here.”

  She stared straight through me. “He will come home. He will look for me here.” Rockets shrieked overhead. Explosions shook the earth. My eyes would no longer focus. I could hardly see what was real and what I feared.

  My mother gently took my sister’s hand, wrapped her in a shawl, and pulled her back inside. Taeyo was ready to be carried. Mother handed me our sleeping mats, then reached up into the rafters. She took down my father’s dancing stick, pressed it to her chest, and placed it in my hands.

  “Your father wanted you to have this. He is pleased with his son.” Our eyes met for an instant.

  I swallowed hard, turned away. One last time, I looked around the small room.

  “All is ready.” I picked up Taeyo. “Let me carry you on my back. Here, hold onto my shoulders.” We walked out the door and left our home.

  See it in your mind.

  I could see nothing.

  We stayed single file as we left our deserted village. The rain had stopped. The air stank of singed earth and burnt trees. My eyes soon stung from the acrid smell of explosives. To the south the horizon was a smudge of smoke and bursts of fire. The north was nothing but inky black. I wanted to stare at the sea, to hold its image in my mind. I looked up at the dark hillside on my right where we must soon climb. Brief bursts of rockets lit up patches of cliff and jungle, then poof, gone. Another explosion shook the ground.

  We walked on—along the beach and then up the steep hillside, through the brush, always careful to stay in the tall grass as Father had done. First we must reach the ravine. My mother followed close behind, whispering the rosary or praying to our ancestors and always encouraging my sister, calming Taeyo when he cried.

  Another explosion; it hit so close we felt a wave of heat. Taeyo called out for his father. My sister stopped and stared at the darkness that was the sea.

  “Anna Maria, hurry.” I tried to encourage her.

  “Ignacio will search along the beach. He knows where to find me, where I wait for him.”

  I looked at my mother. “Tell her to hurry.”

  “She looks for her husband.”

  I hesitated, set Taeyo down on a boulder, and took my sister by the shoulders so we were face to face. Such touching of brother to sister was forbidden, unless … unless her life was threatened. “Anna Maria, listen to me. We must keep walking. Ignacio wants his son to live. His new child—”

  “His son to live? But Ignacio is looking for me.”

  “Anna Maria, when the fighting stops, I will bring you here, back home, back to the sea.”

  Her eyes searched mine. “Back here to the sea? You promise?”

  I gripped my father’s dancing stick. “I promise.”
/>   I remember the rain, the burning orange sky, and my bare feet slipping in the mud and stumbling on the sharp rocks. I remember my mother whispering her prayers, calming little Taeyo, and my sister following, head down, never speaking.

  I remember darkness, rain splashing, as we huddled under trees, resting, listening. My mother patting my sister’s hand, repeating her prayers, her lips moving, making no sound. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us …

  I remember the rhythm of the dance singing in my head as we walked through the night, climbing, stopping to breathe and to pull my sister up when she fell, glancing back to see that my mother followed, helping them up the steepest parts.

  We came to the top of the ravine. Here is where Father had said, See it, Joseph. See it in your mind, and you will find it.

  I closed my eyes. In the darkness I could see.

  WAR

  Moonlight

  Shines silver

  Across breadfruit leaves,

  Broken shards of light,

  Broken dreams,

  Broken.

  The cave was farther than I remembered. And colder. The floor was slick with the ooze of dung and dust mixed with condensation. Water clung along the ceiling and dripped everywhere, on my head, my back, my arms. “Stop!” I wanted to scream. I could not imagine that soon I would long to hear the sound of water, to taste even one drop.

  We were all cold, tired beyond feeling anything, even fear. Mother spread the sleeping mats across the damp, rocky floor. Taeyo curled up, still shivering, and immediately fell asleep. Anna Maria wrapped herself around him, warming him with her own body. Soon his shaking stopped and his body relaxed.

  I checked the supplies. Everything was stacked exactly as before. That seemed a lifetime ago. Why had Ako warned us not to come here? Where was she hiding? Was she safe?

  I sat near the entrance; my mother sat in the back, near Anna Maria and Taeyo. Her lips continued to mouth words of prayer. I didn’t realize I had dozed off until I awoke abruptly, shaking, startled by the roar of a plane followed by the sputter of machine guns. Taeyo cried out in his sleep. Anna Maria held him, massaged his wounded leg, whispered a song about brave young warriors. I dozed again until awakened by another explosion so near that the whole cave shook. Gravel and dust fell from the ceiling, clattered around us. A lone rat gnawed at a cane stalk, unperturbed by the sounds of gunfire or our presence. I threw a stick. Get out! The stick clacked against a rock and I saw again the searchlights, the pool of silver blood, the beach. Kento. We had been so eager to become warriors.

  The rain continued, grew into a downpour.

  “Good,” my mother said.

  Startled, I stared at her.

  “Our footprints have been washed away. We are safe.”

  “Safe?” I did not know what to say.

  “Joseph, we have only a few herbs for Taeyo’s wound. We must use some of the water to keep it clean. Any infection would be dangerous.”

  Several days and nights passed. What was real and not real became a blur. The air turned hot and the cave soon stank of bat dung, rat droppings, and our own wastes, thinly covered in the shallow pit at the back of the cave. Finally the rain stopped, and rays of sunshine pierced through the canopy of leaves that curtained the cave’s entrance. The warmth felt wonderful and I began to think, yes, we had made it to the cave, we were safe. Maybe the fighting would end soon, we would return home and find Ignacio. Maybe Taeyo’s wound would heal quickly.

  The sounds from the fighting grew louder, closer. I moved our mats farther from the entrance, safe from stray bullets. In one area, I could almost stand upright. I walked back and forth, touching every rock and crevice. I couldn’t stop moving. I counted the coconuts, restacked them along the back wall, recounted. The gourds and bottles of water seemed too close to the entrance. I moved them. Shook my head, recounted, moved them again.

  Anna Maria left Taeyo resting next to our mother and sat at the cave’s mouth, near the ledge, gazing toward the sea.

  “Move back,” I urged. “You’ll be seen. Or shot.”

  She would not answer and seldom moved except to care for Taeyo. She offered him chunks of soft coconut and the cooked breadfruit we had brought. After refusing food for several days, Taeyo was hungry, always hungry, a good sign, but his questioning voice was too loud. What if soldiers heard him? The Japanese threw grenades and sputtered bullets from their machine guns. The Americans ate children.

  More days and nights passed, a blur of heat, explosions, gunfire, splashes of blinding light from rockets. No one spoke. We each sat alone, my mother and Taeyo in the middle of the cave, my sister at the front. I fought to stay awake. Sleep meant nightmares of being pulled down into the black ocean, my father’s hand just out of reach, Kento disappearing.

  More hot days and nights. The shelling had stopped, but gunfire continued and crept closer each day.

  I recounted the coconuts, the bottles and gourds of water. Now, day ten, the stacks of supplies had dwindled. Soon they would be gone. I could not think, my mind would not follow one path. In frustration I restacked the stalks of cane. My fingers touched something smooth, something hard. My father’s machete. Ever so carefully I picked it up as if it might shatter, sat down, held it in my arms, and cried.

  My mother refused her share of food. “Anna Maria must eat for her child. Save the coconuts for her.” My mother grew thin and listless. How long could we survive, hiding here like rats, not turtles? I opened two coconuts, one for my sister and one for Taeyo. His leg had healed and he could walk. He became restless. I smiled the first time he followed me like a shadow, pacing back and forth in the cave, arms behind his back, stooped over. Then I caught him throwing stones at the trunk of the breadfruit tree.

  “Stop! Get back inside. Soldiers are out there, everywhere! You know they will shoot.” I glared at my sister. “Why don’t you stop him? He could get us all killed.” I shrunk from my words. Only last month, words spoken to me by my father.

  The better Taeyo felt, the more he moved, the louder he spoke and the bigger his appetite. “I’m so hungry, Uncle Joe.”

  “One coconut a day, Taeyo. That’s all. See how small the stack has become?” I didn’t tell my nephew that for me, each day held only one small piece that I nibbled, chewed, and sucked out every bit of sweetness before I swallowed.

  “Uncle Joe, can I climb down the tree?”

  “No, don’t go near that tree.”

  “Uncle Joe, let’s do something.”

  His exaggerated frown made me smile. Yes, we all needed to do something. But what? Then I remembered. I pulled out Sensei’s book. “Okay, come here.” I opened to my favorite page. “‘An ancient pond, A frog jumps in, The splash of water.’”

  “What does that mean, Uncle Joe? ‘Splash,’ that’s it?”

  “Think, Taeyo, what does the splash begin? What cannot be stopped?”

  “Ripples, Uncle Joe, everyone knows that.”

  “Further than we can know or see.”

  The book became our secret game. We studied the strange little poems, puzzles made of words. Each time I made Taeyo memorize one new kanji and practice writing it. I found a strong stick and sharpened it. He made rows of kanji; their lines scratched in the dirt floor soon crisscrossed our cave.

  “Just like in the sand at the beach, Uncle Joe.” We both grew quiet. Ako and Kento … names we never spoke aloud. Where were they? Were they safe?

  “See all the lines I made, Uncle Joe? They look like a fishing net. Let’s catch a big fat shark.”

  I grinned, hoping his mother would notice, would turn her head away from her hopeless vigil. Anna Maria often seemed unaware of Taeyo, not answering his questions, not responding to his attempts to be silly. Silently she maintained her vigil at the cave’s entrance.

  “Uncle Joe?”

  “Yes, Taeyo?”

  “Where is my father?”

  “I don’t know, Taeyo.”

  “When will we see Ako again?”

&nb
sp; “When? I can’t promise exactly when, Taeyo, but when we do, she’ll be so surprised at how many kanji you know.”

  Taeyo nodded and then poked at the dirt. He stared at his mother; she didn’t seem to notice. He threw his writing stick against the wall and curled up into a tight ball.

  That night I studied my little nephew’s sleeping face. He was so young, so eager to explore, to learn, to live. Wait like the turtle. How long, Father, how long?

  The heat continued. Hunger was a constant ache, but now, much worse, was our thirst. The need for water festered. All the bottles were empty. No matter how many times I recounted the gourds, the result was the same. We were almost out of water.

  Dampness had dried to dust, which we breathed, swallowed, and choked on. The sun burned through the breadfruit leaves. Everything smelled dry and dead. Even the wind had deserted us.

  We needed water. In my mind I saw the ravine, the grotto, the clear trickling stream. I had to get water. Again and again I crept to the entrance, knowing I needed to climb down, find the grotto, but a rattle of bullets would break the silence followed by moans and cries, so near! Face your fear. … I could not.

  Taeyo pushed away the book. Often he stayed curled up, refusing to speak, and even pushing away his share of food.

  I sat near my sister. She did not seem to notice, not even to turn her head.

  “Anna Maria?”

  No response.

  How could I awaken her? Taeyo needed her. “Anna Maria, I was remembering when Ignacio told me about how you two met.”

  Still nothing.

  “… about luus.”

  She looked up. “Yes. Ignacio loves the telling of luus.”

  Taeyo heard his mother’s voice, turned his head, and watched.

  “Ignacio said you were the most beautiful of all.”

  A flicker of a smile flitted across her face.

  “There was a full moon, like the one we will have soon.”

  My sister nodded.

  “But the mothers didn’t scold?”

  “The mothers?” My sister looked at me. “The mothers? They sweetened our hair with coconut oil and ylang-ylang, hoping the love potion worked … hoping the flowered mwaar would be captured by the most handsome one.” She looked away, her head nodding.