The Year of Counting Souls

by Wallace, Michael

  What a depressing thought. So much misery. So many dead, so many still to die.

  Kozlowski seemed to be worrying over the same thing, but suddenly his face brightened. “Guess who we picked up last month? Stumpy! Yeah, that guy had been hanging out in Cascadas the past three years right under the nose of the Japanese occupation.”

  “Really?” she said, laughing.

  “Sure thing. He recognized us, all right, and practically jumped into Fárez’s arms. Better Fárez than me. Smelled pretty ripe and he’s as mangy as ever. Otherwise, fine. Little gray around the muzzle, is all. But I’ll tell you something.” Kozlowski grinned. “There were eight dogs in Cascadas with stumpy tails.”

  “What? Really?”

  “I always thought he lost his tail in an accident, but I guess he was born that way. Remember when you had to treat the dog’s . . . illness? Cut one of ’em off, didn’t you, but Stumpy managed just fine.”

  Louise put her hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh.

  “Did you ever hear what happened to our Japanese buddy?” Kozlowski asked, voice turning serious.

  Her heart fell. “Sammy Mori.”

  “Yeah, right. Mori. Haven’t thought about him for a while, but that talk about Stumpy reminded me. I figure he had a hard time of it once he was back with the Japs, but . . . well, it’s a war, and anything can happen. Maybe he came out okay.”

  “Then you don’t know?”

  “Know what?” His face fell as he took in her expression. “What is it?”

  Louise told him what had happened: Captain Mori’s fury at learning of the escape, his demand that Louise bow her head to be executed, Sammy throwing himself at his brother to stop it and dying as a result.

  So many months and years had passed, so long maintaining her poise. She’d needed to stay strong. Every time weakness threatened, she’d thought about the people she’d lose if she failed, if she collapsed in on her fears and doubts like Frankie had. First her soldiers, then the internees after she was brought to Manila. She’d faltered inside many, many times but never let it affect her outward behavior.

  And now she broke. Thinking not just of Sammy, but the others she’d lost, the pain she’d seen on so many faces. The cries of hungry children and the terror of cruelty at the hands of the enemy. And now she was here, outside the walls that had been her prison, in the open air with palms swaying gently above her. So beautiful and ugly at the same time. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she couldn’t stop them.

  Kozlowski held her for a moment. When he pulled away, his own eyes were damp.

  “But Sammy saved your life, didn’t he?” Kozlowski said, his voice rough. “Killing him must have shocked the violence right out of his brother.”

  “And Stumpy.” Louise laughed through her tears. “He bit Mori on the leg after Sammy died. They all tried to kill him. Stab him, kick him, shoot him. Stumpy ran off, mocking all of them.”

  “When this war is over,” Kozlowski said, “I’m going to find Fárez. Find that mutt of his. We’ll get Stumpy a medal, wait and see.”

  Something changed in the tenor of the blasts that had been reverberating dully through the air and ground as they walked. The enemy artillery was changing targets. Kozlowski cocked his head with a frown.

  “Come on,” he said, all business. “We’re safe for now, but I’d rather be inside when the shells start to fall.”

  Louise nodded. “I’ve got work to do anyway.”

  They turned around. Captain Kozlowski held out his arm, and Louise took it.

  As they passed back through the gate, Louise’s eyes spotted a captured Japanese flag with its rising sun and splaying rays. An American soldier was using it to wipe the mud from his Jeep. Another man rested his stocking feet on a pair of Japanese steel helmets while he polished his boots, a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

  Seeing the remnants of the Japanese soldiers made Louise think about Sammy Mori again. He’d died with his beloved poetry on his lips. A death poem. Had he written it himself? She thought he had. But how had it ended?

  A narrow river with a deep channel. Cross it once and—

  He’d died before he could say the rest. Over the past three years, she’d tried to put in the word or words that would complete the thought. The river must represent death. The channel narrow, but deep. The poem must end with something about crossing the river and never returning. But that seemed too direct, and Sammy told her such things had a surprise or a twist.

  Maybe the end of the poem was about the people who watched your back as you crossed. Wishing they could speak to you one last time. Knowing they never could.

  Or maybe it’s not about death at all. Maybe I’m the one who crossed the river.

  Three years ago, a few short weeks had passed in the mountains while a war raged around them. Louise had met a sensitive Japanese soldier, and something had bloomed between them, unexpected amid so much cruelty and death. It meant something. It had to mean something.

  Author’s Note

  I was fortunate to once visit the ancient Japanese capital of Kyoto. Like everywhere I visited in Japan, the city was clean, the people friendly and impossibly polite, the society well ordered. But even in a country filled with great beauty, Kyoto stands apart. Every corner seems to have a temple or shrine or garden with a sublime beauty that will make you catch your breath.

  I had been reading about the Pacific theater of World War II in preparation for writing this book, and as I traveled through Kyoto I wondered how the same people who’d built the Zen Buddhist temple of Kinkaku-ji—the Golden Pavilion—could be responsible for such atrocities as the Rape of Nanking and the Bataan Death March.

  A similar question could be asked of the Germans, of course. That two cultures such as the Japanese and Germans could be synonymous with culture and civilization and law-abiding behavior and yet have inflicted so much cruelty and suffering on other people raises troubling questions about human nature and should make us all feel humble about our place in history. What happened there can happen anywhere.

  I used a number of sources for the Japanese poetry in this book, as well as some of my own tweaks (translation being an imprecise art), but a book that helped me narrow my focus is The Essential Haiku: Versions of Bashō, Buson, & Issa, edited by Robert Hass. It is highly recommended for its thought-provoking and humorous translations of master Japanese poets.

  About the Author

  Photo © 2011 David Garten

  Michael Wallace was born in California and raised in a small religious community in Utah, eventually heading east to live in Rhode Island and Vermont. In addition to working as a literary agent and innkeeper, he has been a software engineer for a Department of Defense contractor, programming simulators for nuclear submarines. He is the author of more than twenty novels, including the Wall Street Journal bestselling Righteous series, set in a polygamist enclave in the desert.