~ * ~
Tal and the guerrilla boy, Benito, shoved the banca off the beach into the green shallows.
When the boat bobbed, Benito jumped on. Tal walked alongside. Water rose to his waist.
“Get in,” the guerrilla said.
The water buoyed Tal as if it, too, wanted him to climb on.
Benito pulled on a line to hoist the old cloth sail. He was going to leave, and not ask Tal again.
A few of the soldiers guarding Mamatid point waved farewell. The boys looked to be off for an afternoon of fishing, two friends, brown and white.
Tal had not said goodbye. He’d told no one he was leaving. How could he? If the army knew he was going back to Los Baños, they’d stop him; the camp and village were still inside enemy territory. If Remy knew? He might’ve tried to prevent it. He might not. Carmen could not afford that coin toss.
Tal whispered goodbye now and pulled himself over the side.
He moved to the center while Benito tied off the sail for a breeze coming over the bay. The boat slid quickly into deeper water, heeling against an outrigger. The deck stank of tar and fish. At Benitos feet lay his rifle and long knife, a water skin, and half a dozen mangoes. The boat creaked easily. When Benito pushed the tiller to leave the shore, the lowering sun moved behind the sail.
“Eight miles,” the guerrilla said. “It’ll be dark when we get to Anos.”
The shoreline receded fast. In ten minutes they covered a distance Tal could not swim to land. He closed his eyes.
“Tuck boy. Do you know how to sail?”
“Not very well.”
“Then keep your eyes open and watch what I do. I won’t be coming back with you tonight.”
Tal sat up. Benito was no older than seventeen, but he had a swagger, and he had weapons. He would make a good ally. To not have him along for the whole undertaking was a worry.
“Why not?”
“I told you Nagata was alive. I didn’t tell you what he’s done.”
Slowly, Benito described the midnight massacre at the Catholic chapel, the burned or bayoneted corpses of women, children, and elderly. It made sense why he’d not told Tal of Nagata’s revenge on the village before they’d climbed into the banca. The story was fearsome, and anyone hearing it would consider not coming.
Benito said, “You should’ve killed that Japanese.”
“I thought I had.”
The guerrilla spat into the water. “I almost did this morning. She stopped me. She won’t leave him.”
“And you won’t help him.”
Benito shifted the tiller. “No, not after last night. No Filipino will. He’s dead the second anyone sees him.”
Carmen was protecting the guard who’d shot Remy, been part of the regime that had starved, beaten, and humiliated thousands, turned Carmen and Yumi into slaves. Suffering opened the way to honor. Was this honor? Yes, and something more. Mercy.
Tal put out a hand for the water skin and took a slug. Behind them, Mamatid grew smaller. The wind in the sail urged the banca on.
~ * ~
After an hour on the bay, a pall of smoke five miles ahead became Benito’s landmark on shore. He sailed the banca straight for it. When the sun disappeared, he steered by the flickerings of fire.
Neither boy spoke. Tal did not want to seem afraid, and he assumed the same of Benito.
From the surging bow, he watched the barrio draw closer. The wind lessened as the boat neared shore. The water lost depth and flattened. Benito eased the sail to slow the banca, gliding past in silence. Nothing moved inside the barrio. The breeze pushed smoke away from them. The flames licked lower, dying and finishing their work.
Benito grounded the banca. Tal stepped out to drag the prow onto the narrow beach. Benito gathered his rifle and long knife. He joined Tal in the pebbly sand. The two stood gaping, shoulder to shoulder and exposed should there be any Japanese left among the ruins with a desire for more murder.
Anos was empty and absolutely dead.
Tal followed Benito under palm trees scorched of their fronds. Electricity was gone from the barrio; the only light flicked from the fading flames in the charred crevices of the village. Heat pulsed from the wreckage. The barrio was soundless save for the crackle of embers. The one paved road through the center remained clear, the same road where, six weeks ago, Remy had bought new clothes for Carmen and Yumi. Benito took his rifle in hand. Neither he nor Tal crouched in their walk down the empty tarmac.
Many of the bamboo-and-stave homes were built on stilts to protect against monsoons. Some had crashed to the ground, their legs burned away. Others, gutted, stayed supported on scarred posts. Tal stepped close to one elevated house, curious at the rumpled, swollen outlines of the blackened piers.
The smell struck him before the sight, a sweet aroma hiding the bland stench of burnt hair. Tal recoiled into Benito. The guerrilla moved past him into the shadow, under the seared floorboards of the house. Benito reached out his rifle to poke at a cooked arm, as if he needed to test his belief in what he saw. Tal’s breathing quickened. He closed his throat against a rising puke and stepped beside the guerrilla under the house.
Filipinos had been tied to all four pillars. Eight bodies stood with their backs seared to the poles. They were ebony and naked, featureless as men or women. Hands were rounded nubs missing fingers, bald and rigid faces grimaced without lips, eyelids, or noses. Benito stood in their center, turning a slow circle.
Tal slid his hand inside Benito’s elbow. “Let’s go.”
He towed the young guerrilla from beneath the house. They did not return to the road but made their way through the heart of the barrio. Under every charred dwelling they found the same, more than two hundred corpses black and bubbled as pitch. They came across dozens of bodies that had been bayoneted then tossed onto the burning shanties like pyres. Here and there, dogs sat whining by their destroyed homes and did not follow when Benito and Tal walked past.
Tal asked, “Where were the guerrillas? Why didn’t they stop this?”
The Filipino jabbed a finger at him. “Where were the Americans?”
The two said no more, and moved through the carnage noiselessly. Any living sound seemed indecent. Tal wanted to leave the village. This place was like an underworld; he felt the pull of death here.
The guerrilla was hard to tug away. Benito seemed mesmerized, intent on cataloging every horror of Anos. Tal stepped in front of him.
“Look, the Japs that did this can’t be too far away. We’ve gotta go get Carmen.”
The boy’s eyes fixed on the last fires in the ruins.
“Benito?”
The guerrilla held out his old rifle.
Tal took it without knowing why. “What are you doing?”
“I’m staying here.”
“What for?”
“Someone might be alive.”
Tal spoke gently. “They’re not.”
“Then like you said, the Japanese can’t be far. Hurry, Tuck boy.”
Benito slid the bolo from the loop at his back. The long knife reflected red until the boy vanished into the remains of the village.
Tal strapped on the rifle. He watched the dark ground to trip over nothing, and ran toward the camp.
~ * ~
Chapter Fifty-six
T
hey’re BACK,” Carmen said.
Kenji struggled to his feet. He stood beside her in the window.
Smoke billowed above Anos a mile and a half north. Quickly the gray pillar thickened to black as more of the village was put to the torch.
The sun retreated into its own red blaze. For the third day in a row, the world around Carmen burned. The charred bones of the camp below, the razed church behind the orchard, now the village by the bay; she gazed at Makiling and imagined the horizon on fire, set off by the sun touching the mountain like a match.
She sat before Kenji did. He held himself at the window a long time. His shadow cast on the wall behind him, boxed in burning go
ld. Carmen gathered to her the pistol and the doll.
Kenji remained in the window until nightfall. In the fresh darkness, he slumped beside her beneath the sill. He lowered his chin and breathed deeply, regaining the strength he’d spent.
He said, “I will die with shame.”
“You’re not going to die, Kenji.”
“It doesn’t matter. Tonight, a hundred years from now.”
She checked his bandage, newly wrapped in the late afternoon. The white under his arm held. The hole in Kenji obeyed no logic, it bled or not as it saw fit. His stamina gained, only to ebb. How much longer he could survive this room, the pitiful food she scavenged, the creek water she washed his wound with, she did not know. She wondered the same for herself, not because of the food or water, but the smell of smoke again in her window, the rampage of Nagata.
“How many bullets are left?” she asked.
“Give it to me.” He reached for the gun.
“No.” She smiled. “I don’t want you shooting the Tuck boy, like you swore.”
Kenji worked his right hand to test the grip. A sad humor lit his eyes. “I may have to shoot him some other time.”
He showed Carmen how to drop the magazine. Four rounds remained.
Kenji lay flat on the tatami. Carmen pulled the water bucket close. It was only a quarter full. She soaked a cloth strip to squeeze drips into Kenji’s mouth. She did the same for her own thirst.
Holding the doll in one hand, gun in the other, Carmen watched the annihilation of Anos in red splashes against her walls. Kenji lay motionless.
The village burned hot and high, but not long. All the structures were of bamboo and wood and did not resist the flames. Carmen’s room regained its gloom. She held the doll and the pistol in her lap. The creatures of the ravine, tricked and delayed by the fire, began their night calls. Carmen had no clock, the time ticked by on their screeches and chirrs.
She watched the doorway without its curtain, opening into the darker hall. Who would come through it next? Another guerrilla, to kill Kenji? A Japanese to kill her? The Tuck boy to rescue them both?
She believed Kenji was sleeping, but he stirred first, lifting his head off the tatami.
Carmen had to choose which to drop. She set the doll aside, to put both hands on the gun.
Kenji sat up beside her.
She whispered, “It might be Tal.”
Kenji shook his head. “It’s not.”
Carmen bit her lip. She slid her finger over the trigger and held the pistol away from her, aimed at the heart of the doorway. Her arms prickled but the gun did not quake.
Kenji laid a hand over her wrists. “Put it down.”
“No.”
“They’ll kill you. Let me talk to them. There’s no other way.”
Carmen lowered the gun but kept it at her side.
The soldiers clattered on the stairs. They reached the landing. One of them inched down the hall.
Kenji took Carmen’s hand.
The long barrel of a rifle topped by a bayonet appeared in the doorway. The gun crept forward until the Japanese holding it cleared the opening. Seeing Carmen and Kenji seated side by side, the soldier ducked behind the wall. The bayonet dropped, the soldier had gone to a knee. He hissed to others on the landing. They jangled down the hall to stop outside her door.
One set of boots followed, unhurried.
A guttural voice spoke. “Nitouhei, yakushitamae”
Kenji said to Carmen, “He wants me to interpret.”
Two soldiers flashed across the doorway. One crouched, the other stayed upright. The bayonets and barrels of three rifles protruded into the doorway, barbs for Nagata’s voice.
“All right,” she said.
Kenji answered. “Hai”
Nagata spoke. The sound of the man spilled into Carmen’s room as bloody as the firelight from the village.
When he paused, Kenji translated. “Thank you for saving my interpreter, Songu.’”
Kenji replied, Sore wa kanojo no namae de wa arimasen” To Carmen, he said, “I told him you are not Songu.”
She squeezed Kenji’s hand.
Nagata spoke.
“He says he wants to put his head around the corner. Please do not shoot him.”
Carmen answered. “Hai”
When Nagata’s face appeared past the doorjamb, Carmen was reminded of how short he was to be so vile.
Through Kenji, he said, “I will not hurt you. I have come to protect you.”
“Tell him thank you but I am glad to stay here.”
“You cannot. You must come. There is little time. My squad has already gone back to the mountain. I have come to take you there to safety. The guerrillas are everywhere. They know you have served the Japanese.”
“The guerrillas will not harm me.”
“They will when they learn you have saved the life of a Japanese soldier. I thank you for this. The corporal is very valuable to us.”
“And to me.”
Nagata bowed his head. “I understand this. You will come with us now. We will care for you both.”
Carmen raised the pistol.
“Take back your head.”
Nagata, without interpretation, retreated behind the wall.
She said to Kenji, “I don’t know what to do.”
“We have to go.”
“I don’t believe Nagata.”
“There’s no choice. There are four of them. You’ll die if you fight. Give me the gun.”
“The Tuck boy is coming.”
“He has not come in time. But no matter where he is, he does not want you dead. Nor do I. Please. I know Nagata. Do not test him.”
Carmen handed him the pistol.
“Kenji?”
“Yes?”
“Are you afraid?”
“Always.”
She kissed his cheek. “It does not show.”
Not taking his eyes from her, Kenji called out, “Watashi wajuu o motte imasu. Hairinasau
Two of the rifles lengthened in the doorway until the soldiers holding them appeared. They stepped inside. Both weapons were leveled, one each at Carmen and Kenji. Nagata entered between them.
His uniform was darker than the soldiers, sweated through. Composed, Nagata reached for the pistol. Carmen assumed he would be frenzied, to murder so many, so coldly. Nagata crammed the gun in his waistband. Kenji drew in his legs to stand. Carmen got to her feet to help him. The rifle’s aim rose with her.
Nagata motioned to Carmen. “Kanojo hairubeki da”
Kenji gathered himself, fighting lightheadedness. He answered in Japanese. The argument was fast and decided when Nagata swept out of the room with a gesture for the soldiers to bring Carmen.
Kenji said, “He refuses to leave you here. We’ll go together.”
He raised his left arm for Carmen to slide his tunic sleeve over it, then rest the shirt across his shoulders in a mantle. When Kenji was ready, she turned to her window and the murky ruins of the camp.
A bayonet and a grunt prodded Carmen in the back. She looked once at the ruins of Tal’s barracks, then put the camp behind her.
Carmen took Kenji’s arm. Bearing his weight, they left the room.
Nagata stomped down the dark stairs. Carmen and Kenji followed. The three soldiers walked close behind, rifles ready. They stank of soot.
~ * ~
Chapter Fifty-seven
T
AL’s WIND did not give out until he reached the orchard. He set Benito’s gun on the earth and propped his hands on his knees. He panted beneath a mango tree that Carmen had passed her hand through. The memory made him grab up the rifle and continue. He hurried through images of her touching these trees.
Tal burst into the field of cogon grass. Trampling the tall blades toward the road, he lost steam again. At the edge of the tarmac he stopped, dizzy with exhaustion.
He stood beside the pavement leading into the camp. The pillboxes guarding the main gate were shattered, the concrete pi
llar he’d been tied to lay busted in the dirt. The barbed wire was knocked down, the ground cratered. Beyond the gate, the camp dissolved into darkness, burned featureless like the bodies of Anos.
Tal entered the field that led to Carmen’s building. His breathing eased, clearing his head. She waited in her room for his return. Tal would climb the stairs to her, take her hand and dash with her through the ravine and bamboo, paths and dead village, all the way to the banca. They’d push off onto the black water and sail north by the moon.
Broken Jewel - [World War II 05] Page 42