The Year of Counting Souls
Page 22
One of the guards was the man whose thigh wound she’d treated a few days earlier, but from his glare, she didn’t think he was remembering the treatment. Ingrate. He’d have gangrene if she hadn’t treated him.
Louise bowed deeply. “I am going into the village. We have nothing but rice, and I need food for the hospital.” She pointed to the boy and his bananas. “Like that. We need more food.”
She started for the trail that led across the dike between two rice paddies, but had only taken two steps before one of the men blocked her progress. He looked irritated to be driven out of the shade and into the hot sun. He said something to her that was either an order or a question. Who could tell?
“I need food from the village,” she repeated. She pantomimed eating. “Captain Mori said I could leave when I needed to. Yoshiko Mori—your officer. He said I could.”
This seemed to spark something in the men, and they began to discuss the matter. Mori’s name was repeated several times. Louise thought it better not to wait for their verdict, so she stepped around them and kept walking. She expected to hear a short, angry retort, the Japanese equivalent of “Halt!” But they didn’t stop her.
Louise walked until she reached the shade of a tree between two village shacks, where she stopped to catch her breath and calm her thumping heart. Sweat trickled down her ribs and between her breasts.
She wasn’t the only one to take refuge in the shade. Three village dogs lay dozing around the tree trunk, one of them Stumpy. He lifted his head and thumped his half tail, but the heat was too much to get him to stand up. He was her patient, too, in a way, and she couldn’t help but see how he was doing.
“Look at that,” she said. “Your mange is back. You need to keep better company than these mutts. Bet you have worms again, too, with all that garbage you’re eating.”
His tail thumped again, and he gave her a look that seemed to say, “Yes, and I don’t really care. It’s delicious.”
She thought he’d stay napping in the shade, but when Louise moved on, he rose to his feet and followed several paces back.
“You’re better off on your own,” she warned him. “You know that, right?”
Stumpy paid her no attention but kept following. She thought about shooing him off, worried for his safety, but he was probably okay. The dogs were safer than anyone else in the village. Americans had died of injuries and illness; villagers suffered under the rampaging Sakdals. The Japanese soldiers risked partisans, tropical ailments, and even their own officers, from what Louise could see.
No, being a village dog wasn’t the worst thing in the world, given present circumstances.
Louise’s destination was a villager named Nola, who had sold them food before the Japanese arrived. The woman kept several chickens at her home on the edge of Cascadas and sold the eggs for exorbitant sums to the Americans, who were desperate for them. For a more reasonable price, the nurses had acquired lard for cooking, as well as squash, corn, and a spinachlike plant called Talinum.
What Louise really wanted, what she’d have given anything for, was fresh bread with butter. But it was all rice here, meal after meal, day after day. That was acceptable if you could find something else to go with all that rice.
She found Nola squatting outside her hut, roasting bananas on a stone over a little fire. It was the most delicious thing Louise had ever smelled, and her stomach clenched greedily.
Nola was slender and flexible, and her figure looked girlish squatting in front of the fire, not like the grandmother she was. One of her daughters had moved to a nearby village with her husband, who was a trader of sorts, and it was through him that Nola got some of her supplies. Her husband was dead, but one son still lived with her, and if Louise made the purchase, he’d haul the goods to the hospital.
Louise cleared her throat. “Excuse me.”
Nola looked up, startled, and her eyes widened when she saw the nurse. She glanced around with a worried expression and waggled her finger in a warning.
“There’s nothing wrong,” Louise said in a calm tone. “The Japanese let me out. I only want to buy some food—eggs and vegetables. We’ll need more rice. Bananas, too. And eggs, did I say that already? As many as you have.” She pantomimed cracking eggs.
“Food no. Today no. Not give. Not have.”
From the fearful look on the old woman’s face, it seemed that the Japanese had already been here, had no doubt taken what they wanted. Louise looked to make sure there were no Japanese or Sakdals around, then pulled out bills and coins from her trousers, about twelve pesos in all.
“Don’t worry, I’ll pay. I won’t steal from you.”
The smell of roasting bananas combined with the mere mention of eggs to make her almost faint with hunger. It was all she could do not to reach down and help herself, burned fingers be damned.
“Mabuting tao ang mga Amerikano,” Nola said. Americans good. This was followed by something else in Tagalog that Louise didn’t catch, and finally, “No food. No give. Haponese!” Another fearful look around.
“They took everything? Even fruit? How about that?” Louise pointed to the roasting bananas and pantomimed giving money. “I’ll take it.”
Nola pushed away the offered money. “Haponese no food Amerikanos.” She clicked her tongue and drew her index finger across her throat.
Louise finally understood. Nola wasn’t saying she didn’t have food; she was saying that the Japanese had forbidden her from selling to the Americans. With more than twenty men under his command, Captain Mori would be demanding everything for himself.
“A little bit, then.” Louise held up two fingers. “Two eggs. And some rice.” She pantomimed pouring grains of rice through her hands. “And the bananas. Please. Just a little.”
But nothing would budge Nola. She grew more agitated the longer Louise tried, finally waving her arms and speaking rapidly in a high voice. Worried that the noise would draw attention and put them both in danger, Louise threw up her hands in defeat.
“Fine, refuse to help us.” Desperation made her sound shrill. “We have two days of rice and almost nothing else. Do you hear me? Nothing. For God’s sake, if you don’t—”
And now Louise was the one who would attract attention. She had to get hold of herself, had to pull herself together. She straightened her clothing, turned around, and walked away. Stumpy had been watching the whole exchange with a slightly puzzled expression and fell in behind her.
Louise felt more exposed and in greater danger than ever walking through the village, but her heart sank at the thought of returning to the hospital empty-handed. There had been few complaints about food—except for Frankie, of course, who would complain about anything—but given how Louise’s mouth had watered and her stomach growled at the roasting bananas, they must be ravenous by now.
Rice and beans every meal, and now only rice. She had to get something, if for no other reason than to fend off beriberi and scurvy. Venture to the edge of the rice paddies and see if she could scavenge fruit? What about wild game? Could she convince Captain Mori to let her men out hunting? What if she promised to share the meat with the Japanese? No, what a ridiculous thought. Mori would never allow it.
In fact, she was putting herself at risk simply by walking around the village. Venture toward the forest and they might simply shoot her. But she had to take the risk. There was fruit in the trees on the edge of Cascadas.
But when she cleared the last of the village houses and reached the brook, she stopped in dismay. A Japanese soldier was bathing in a pool beneath one of the series of cascades that gave the village its name. He was short, with broad shoulders and a thick neck. Built like a wrestler, with a prominent scar on his back. Fortunately he was turned and didn’t spot her.
Louise thought he was one of the men she’d treated for malaria earlier, although he seemed better now. At the very least, his chills hadn’t stopped him from washing in the cool mountain stream. He scrubbed himself so vigorously with a bar of soap that it
looked like he was trying to peel off his skin. It was easy to read something into that, but she’d once seen Sammy washing his hands and face with that same enthusiasm, so it was probably a Japanese habit.
Stumpy kept trotting forward even as Louise backed away. For a moment she thought the dog was going to go up and say hello to the soldier and then she’d be discovered, but he stopped and looked back at her. She gestured urgently. Miraculously, the dog returned to her side.
Louise gave him a stern look once they were back in the relative safety of the village. “I think it’s time you and I parted ways, don’t you? I’ve got to find my way out of the village, and I can’t have you sniffing soldiers or barking or whatever.”
He looked up, panting. Looked worn out from the heat, but he kept following.
“Go on, then, you heard me. You’ll be happier in the shade, and I don’t have a single thing for you to eat if that’s what you’re hoping for. I mean it. I’m putting you in danger, too, you know.”
It was then that she realized something odd. Since getting past the two men at the hospital, she hadn’t seen a single other enemy soldier until now. Her mind had been fully occupied, or she would have noticed it earlier. There were only seven or eight Japanese soldiers in all, so that part wasn’t so strange, but what about the Sakdals? Where were they?
She was more observant as she backtracked through the village. It was quiet, few people out and about. A naked child of three or four stepped out of his house and looked up at her with wide eyes. A woman emerged after him, her expression fearful as she dragged the child back by the arm. Her face grew more fearful still when she saw Louise.
“Food not give. Not have.” The woman vanished with her child.
“Yeah, I get it,” Louise said. “You’re all scared and won’t lift a finger. Fine.”
In any event, if the rest of the Japanese had left, along with their thuggish helpers, she had only to avoid the bathing man and the pair guarding the hospital and she could keep searching for food. There were some banana trees next to the alcalde’s house, which Mori had taken over as his headquarters. If he was away, she could risk stealing some.
The exact situation was uncertain enough that her heart was pounding as she worked her way down a tiny alley between the hillside and three village homes. When she reached the last one, slightly larger and less dilapidated than the others, she stopped and listened. Voices came from one of the houses, but they were two women speaking in Tagalog and a baby crying. Nothing from the alcalde’s house. It seemed abandoned.
You could go inside.
The thought came to her unbidden. She realized as she’d been walking through the village that she’d been unconsciously searching for Sammy Mori. Far from pocketing his little book of poetry just in case, she’d fully intended to find him and return it.
Before she could reconsider, Louise took the three steps to the porch of the shack and pushed aside the mosquito netting to let herself inside. It was clean and tidy, with a rolled-up mat in one corner that must serve as Captain Mori’s bed. A shorter bamboo mat sat in front of a stubby makeshift desk, and there were a few papers on it with Japanese writing. The papers were stacked, with two pens lying side by side. A wooden bowl sat with a pair of chopsticks on top of it. Both clean.
There was nobody inside. Wherever they kept Sammy, it wasn’t in his brother’s house.
For a moment Louise thought about setting the book on the table. Let Captain Mori return and see his brother’s poetry book. Maybe it would prick his conscience. Maybe he’d carry it to Sammy and the two brothers would have a moment of reconciliation.
But no, she decided. It was too risky. The Japanese officer would know how it got there. If he thought she was searching his house while he was away, he’d withdraw her privileges. Maybe worse.
Disappointed not to have found Sammy, Louise came outside and went to the banana grove. There were no ripe bananas, but she spotted several clusters that looked almost ready to eat. Take them back to the hospital, hide them for a couple of days while they ripened, and share them out. It wouldn’t be much, but it would be something. Now, how to get them down from the tree?
She’d climbed many trees in her younger days, but the slippery trunk of the banana tree was something else. She kicked off the bakya and dug her toes into the trunk as she tried to hoist herself up. Maybe a few weeks ago she could have managed, but her arms were weak, the muscles melted away through disuse and sorry nutrition.
She had greater success with another tree. Its bananas were higher up, but it grew next to the hillside, and she was able to use the hill for leverage as she scaled the tree. When she got up, she realized they couldn’t simply be plucked off like apples. What she needed was a machete to hack down the entire stalk. She wrenched and twisted and finally got some of them loose, which she dropped to the ground. She shimmied down.
So far, so good. Now she just had to get past the guards at the hospital, who hopefully wouldn’t question her about the origin of the inexpertly harvested bananas.
Stumpy barked as Louise was slipping on her bakya. She turned to hush the silly thing, but the dog wasn’t barking at her. Instead something beneath the house had drawn his attention. Like the other nipa huts, it sat on stilts a couple of feet above the ground. This kept the buildings dry from the constant rains, as well as kept out snakes and other animals. Of course, this also provided an ideal hiding place for various crawling things.
Stumpy squirmed his way farther in until only his rump and tail were exposed. He’d probably found a cobra. Didn’t a street dog have better sense than to go in after it?
“Get back here right now,” she whispered.
Stumpy whined, then barked again, this time more agitated. Good heavens, he was going to get her caught. She eyed the bunch of bananas at her feet, tempted to snatch them, leave the dog, and run.
“Stumpy!” she said. “Stop that.”
And then a voice came from the darkness beneath the house. “Miss Louise? Is that you?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Louise froze in shock. Sammy? Had Captain Mori been so cruel as to chain his brother up beneath the house, as if it were a dungeon? It had been three days already, and Sammy must be dying down there in the mud and rotting leaves.
She grabbed for Stumpy to pull him out of the way. He resisted, whining.
“Did they put you down there?” she whispered.
“No, I’m hiding.”
“What?”
Stumpy escaped from her and squirmed into the hole. He barked again.
“Keep quiet, you dumb mutt,” the man said. “Go on, get. I’m trying to hide here.”
That wasn’t Sammy’s voice. It was Corporal Fárez.
“What are you—Jimmy, is that you?”
“Shh, yeah.” Then, in a different tone. “Stumpy, will you please . . .”
Fárez’s hands emerged from the hole, pushing a filthy dog ahead of him. Stumpy shook off clumps of dirt and leaves, trotted a few paces away, and flopped down with an aggrieved sigh.
Louise straightened and looked around. When she was certain she was alone, she turned over the bananas as if studying them. She didn’t look at the house or the space beneath it.
“What are you doing down there?” she asked.
“Waiting until night. I got here before dawn and have been hiding here ever since. As soon as it got dark, I was going to come to the hospital and find you.”
“What? Why? Did you know you’re hiding under the house of the Japanese commander?”
“Huh?”
Louise turned over the bunch of bananas again, as if it were the most fascinating thing in the world. “This is Captain Mori’s house.”
“Mori?”
“Sammy’s brother. He’s military police.”
“Figures. I didn’t know. It was the best place I could find. Most of the houses are too open underneath, too easy to spot someone hiding there.”
“You’re lucky he’s not here.”
“He wouldn’t do that.”
“Sammy is back with his kind now,” Fárez said. “He’s one of them again, and I’ll bet he told ’em everything.”
“How would he have helped, anyway? Sammy didn’t know where you’d gone. None of us did.”
“Bet he told his brother we’d escaped. That put them on the trail.”
“Captain Mori already knew,” Louise said. “He spotted the missing radio. He didn’t believe me when I said that Kozlowski had died—he’s no idiot. And his adjutant is plenty clever, too. Then there’s the locals, always talking and spreading the word. I’m sure that’s how Mori tracked you down.”
“However it happened, they found us, all right. We were about twenty miles from here in another village. Well, five huts and a church with a collapsed roof—not much of a village. Someone warned us the Japs were on the way.”
“Mori must have heard through the bamboo telegraph. It’s hard to keep secrets up here.”
“It helped us in this case,” Fárez said. “We got word and made a run for it. You’ve got to hand it to that Mori guy. He’s relentless. We came down the hill to find the enemy coming up the other way. Had a little firefight—I think we got two or three of the Sakdals, but they hit Kozlowski.”
“Really?” Louise licked her lips. “Was he . . . is he . . . ?”
“No, he’s not dead. I brought him partway down, but he can’t travel anymore. Anyway,” Fárez continued, “we got into the jungle, and the Sakdals didn’t want to go in after us. Don’t blame them, really. Mori shouted at us in English. He said he had all of you prisoners at the hospital.”
“That’s true enough.”
“The guy’s English is perfect. Like his brother’s. Sounded like a Yank yelling at us. Anyway, he says we can turn ourselves in and we’ll be taken care of. We keep fighting, and he’ll have us shot ’cause we didn’t stop when we had the chance.”