by Zoe Daniel
She wonders about Mrs Reyes, who is elderly and unwell. Her home is gone. Perhaps she would prefer to go to Manila to be with her sons?
‘The UN has arrived too,’ Danilo explains. ‘There’s help coming from countries all over the region. America and Australia are also sending supplies and doctors.’
Right on cue there’s a deep rumbling sound. Angel scans the horizon.
‘There!’ announces Issy, pointing. It’s a huge, fat-bellied cargo plane, coming in low and steady.
Angel squints at the flag on the aircraft’s tail. What’s in it and where did it come from? she wonders. Who is coming to help us?
The plane passes over them with a deafening roar.
‘Royal Australian Air Force’, she spells out along its side. It’s so low she can even see a picture of a red kangaroo. The moment it’s gone, there’s another dull drone in the distance and another speck on the horizon. They count six enormous military planes that morning: two from the Philippine Air Force, and one each from Australia, Singapore, Thailand and the USA.
Finally, help is here.
When they get back to the house, Angel is eager to get going, but Maria doesn’t want her to make the journey alone to the church.
‘The planes have only just arrived and today they are unloading. Tomorrow they will be set up and ready to help you.’
‘What about Papa?’
‘How will you find him in all the chaos? Believe me, Angel, it’s better to wait for twenty-four hours.’
Maria cups her hands gently around the girl’s face. ‘There are bad people out there. You saw those men last night. They think they can do what they like. Your mother would never forgive me for letting you go while Tacloban is still in this lawless state.’
She is right about Veronica, and Angel knows it. Reluctantly she agrees to wait until tomorrow.
That afternoon, after they have scavenged some packets of dried noodles and tins of beef loaf, she and Issy walk down to the waterfront, where the sea is full of sticks and plastic and vehicles and upturned boats. A small clean-up crew is at work using big poles and nets to pull junk out of the water. Here and there in the shallows people are collecting bits and pieces and piling everything up in orderly pyramids along the shoreline.
The girls pitch in to help, collecting small unsalvageable things and dumping them on the rubbish heaps. There are lots of broken household items, sodden pillows and cushions and pieces of clothing. Angel picks up a small dirty-grey teddy bear that once would have been blue. Around its neck is a frayed ribbon with a bell on it. She remembers with a jolt the muddy bears at home and feels a rush of worry about Cristian and Carlo. She wonders where the child who took it to bed every night is now and she stuffs it into her pocket. It doesn’t seem right to throw away someone’s precious toy.
Nine
After a restless night, Angel wakes early and prepares to set out for the church. Justin and Danilo have already gone out to find more materials to barricade the door against intruders. They were all badly shaken by the ease with which the looters had gained entry. Maria seems even more reluctant to let her go.
‘In broad daylight I’ll be fine,’ reasons Angel. ‘It’s still early and there are plenty of people about. I will get to Santo Niño in a few hours.’
‘Let Justin go with you; he’ll be back soon, I’m sure,’ pleads the woman.
‘He’s needed here,’ protests Angel. ‘Your family needs to find food and water and secure the house.’
There’s no arguing with that.
‘I promise I won’t take any chances. And when I get to the church I will find my father and we will be back with medicine and food before it gets dark.’
The truth is, Angel would prefer to have someone go with her, but there is so much to be done here, they need all hands on deck, especially with more mouths to feed.
Angel says goodbye to Issy and Maria and hugs Mrs Reyes. The old lady is propped up on the porch so that she can watch the goings-on outside, but she scarcely opens her eyes and her breathing is still laboured.
‘God bless you, little one,’ she whispers in Angel’s ear. ‘I will be back before you know it,’ says Angel brightly and plants a kiss on the sunken cheek.
With a couple of flat cakes and half a bottle of water in a plastic bag, Angel picks her way out of the barangay and onto the main road. It’s eerily quiet. There are only a handful of vehicles and no shops are trading, but she can hear lots of banging and clattering going on as residents busily go about erecting shelter however they can.
She walks along the roadside past wrecked businesses. Those that were lucky enough to escape storm damage have since been broken into and looted. Windows have been smashed and doors broken down by people looking not only for food and water but also clothing and electrical goods to sell on the black market. Angel shakes her head.
She passes a shopping centre that only opened a few months ago. The front steps are littered with broken glass and items left behind by the thieves as they ran off with their spoils. She picks up a phone charger, lured by the thought of being able to call her mother, but then drops it again. It wouldn’t be much use anyway because the old phone she and her father had was ruined in the storm.
A little curious, she walks up to one of the shops and peers in. There’s not much stock left, just a couple of shirts askew on hangers, a single running shoe from one of those expensive American brands, and a pair of black sunglasses lying on the floor. They’re half hidden under a display cabinet that has had its door broken open. The thieves probably didn’t see them in their rush to get away. Angel picks them up. They’re expensive and sleek looking, like the ones she’s seen movie stars wearing on billboards. She looks around the abandoned store, almost tempted, then places them carefully on the counter top and leaves the shop.
The sun is peeking through dark clouds and it’s hot and steamy. She can hear the regular drone of aircraft coming in and it comforts her to think that they’re bringing help and provisions. There’s purpose in her step as she heads towards the church.
Angel rounds a corner to see a long queue of people waiting patiently along the road. Ahead, soldiers are handing out bags of rice from an enormous trailer drawn by an equally large tractor. There are four soldiers standing on the top of a gigantic mound of rice sacks, rolling them one by one to a dozen or more soldiers below, who carefully load them onto the shoulders of the people in line. There’s no pushing or shoving here. Although they’re all no doubt very hungry, everyone is waiting their turn. She smiles as she passes and the people smile and wave back, even as the heavens open and the rain starts falling again.
Filipinos are a tough bunch, she thinks to herself. And resilient.
She rounds the next corner and comes upon yet another queue. People with buckets and containers of all shapes and sizes are lined up.
‘What’s going on?’ she asks a young woman with a red plastic washtub and a tiny baby asleep in a sling on her back.
‘It’s a mobile water-treatment van,’ she explains. ‘They are pumping water into it from the city’s water system and then purifying it so that it’s safe to drink. There are a few of them around the city now.’
Angel is impressed. She realises this is the kind of equipment that’s coming in on those big cargo planes. Whole families, from the elderly to small children, are sharing the job of carrying the heavy water containers home.
There are shelters here too. Schools have been turned into safe havens for people whose houses were ruined by the storm. She passes a high school building that looks full to bursting with families. Children wave at Angel from the upstairs windows and hoot happily when Angel waves back. She smiles to herself and wonders if her own school is also providing much-needed shelter.
The town hall is a welcome sight. Because it’s on a hill there’s little water damage and apart from a few broken windows the grand façade looks more or less as it did a few days before when Angel passed by in the jeepney with her mother and brothers
. Several roof sheets have come off and they’re lying on the muddy front lawn, where a number of aid agencies have set themselves up in tents and outbuildings, the staff distinctive in their hiking boots, cargo pants and cotton shirts. Many of them are Filipinos, but there are plenty of foreigners speaking in exotic languages, too.
Angel walks up the steps to the town hall and peeks inside. It’s a long way from the cool, spacious interior that she imagined. The hall is being used as a base by the mayor and his staff as they coordinate the relief effort, and it’s a hive of activity as workers bustle about. There are queues everywhere and the walls are lined with mountains of rice bags and packs of water that extend all the way up a large staircase.
Just outside the door Angel overhears a Filipino woman talking to a group of newly arrived workers still carrying their backpacks from the plane. They’re all wearing USAID T-shirts.
‘We’ve got shipments coming in all the time, as you would have seen at the airport. It’s great that it’s finally happening, but it’s been very slow getting supplies out to the survivors.’
‘How come?’ asks one of the young aid workers.
‘Everyone is negotiating with the government on how best to roll out the aid. It’s complicated,’ she sighs.
‘Politics, eh?’ says the young man.
She smiles ruefully. ‘There’s some debate over who’s going to control things. It’s time consuming. There are a lot of people here who need help so we need to get past the talking and get moving.’
Angel notices a queue nearby that seems to be for medical treatment, so she steps over to join it. Her various cuts and scrapes are painful and weeping and she needs to find a doctor to come and visit Mrs Reyes. She waits for what seems like hours in the beating sun. A man in a Red Cross hat hands out bottles of water and Angel takes one gratefully. A lady with ‘UN’ written on her blue T-shirt takes people’s names and details.
‘What’s your date of birth?’ she asks Angel. ‘And where are your parents?’
Angel explains that she hasn’t seen her parents since the storm.
‘I hope to find my father today at the church.’ She gestures down the hill, where the roof of Santo Niño is just visible.
The woman looks at her searchingly and nods. ‘Okay,’ she says. ‘Go and look for your father, but if you don’t find him there come back and see me and we will make sure you have somewhere safe to sleep tonight.’
Angel promises the woman and thanks her. She’s getting close to the front of the line but the day is getting lost in this queuing, she realises, and she’s desperate to find her father. She’s about to give up and leave when a voice calls her name.
‘Angel?’
She steps forward.
‘Your turn.’ A smiling woman in green shirt and trousers takes her hand and leads her into the medical tent, over to a counter covered in medicines and dressings. ‘My name is Lucy. I’m from Manila and I just flew in this morning.’ She smiles and gently picks up Angel’s arm, which is scored with deep, ugly scratches. ‘Now, what do we have here?’
One by one, Angel’s cuts and abrasions are cleaned and dressed. The cut on her foot is the worst and Lucy is concerned about infection. She takes a lot of time cleaning it and finally bandages it tightly with a sticky dressing.
‘It should have had stitches but I think it’s too late now as it’s partly healed,’ she says with a sigh. ‘You should try to come back here every day or two so we can change the dressing, otherwise it will get infected and make you sick. Do you understand?’
Angel nods. She winces as Lucy gives her an antibiotic injection and another needle for tetanus.
‘I think that’s all we can do for now,’ Lucy says.
‘Oh please, there’s one more thing. I have a friend, our neighbour, an old lady. She couldn’t walk this far but she badly needs help. Can you come and see her?’ Angel pleads.
Lucy looks at the long line of patients outside the tent.
‘Not today. Come and see me early in the morning tomorrow and we will go then.’
Angel thanks her and takes a bottle of water and a couple of small packets of what look like hard cookies from a box nearby.
Two male aid workers are deep in conversation nearby and her ears prick up when she hears them mention Samar.
‘Excuse me,’ she says shyly. And then louder, when they don’t respond: ‘Excuse me?’
They stop mid-sentence and turn to her.
‘Yes,’ one man says brusquely.
‘Do you know how bad the damage is on Samar? My mother and brothers are there. I can’t find my father and I have no way of getting in touch with my family …’ She trails off.
The men glance at each other.
‘There is severe damage on Samar, especially along the coast. Where was your mother?’
‘Near Basey,’ Angel says. ‘But a short distance inland.’
The two nod hopefully. ‘Basey is very badly damaged, but if your family was away from the beach they may be okay.’
Angel doesn’t know how to feel about this news. Severe damage! She thinks back to all the times she has visited her grandparents’ place. Is it high enough and far enough away to have escaped the sea? What about the wind? Again she wishes that she had a phone to call her mother. She walks out the front of the town hall and stares at the placid ocean hundreds of metres away. It’s hard to believe it can be so destructive.
She fixes her gaze on the tower of Santo Niño and begins to walk. It doesn’t take her long even through the unrecognisable streets. Just before she reaches the church she encounters the bizarre sight of a police launch with its bold red sign ‘PULISYA’ in the middle of the road. It must have come to rest there after the water receded.
From the outside, it looks like the church has withstood the worst of the storm. The tower has lost its tiles and large parts of the roof have been torn off, but the structure is sound and most of the intricate stained-glass windows have survived. As she walks around the outside Angel sees the garden is a swirl of mud and rubbish, but it can be cleared and re-landscaped. It might have been so much worse. The cross has fallen from the steeple, but could be fixed, she reasons.
Quietly Angel steps through the back door and into the cavernous interior. She can smell the wax of burning candles and hear the low hum of prayers. A few dozen people are gathered and Mass is about to begin. She is not ready to join them yet.
Slowly Angel takes in the sight of the heavy wooden pews that have been swept aside like children’s toys by the water, and left piled up against the far wall of the church. The floor is awash with mud. She walks into the open centre of the building, empty now, but where the pews should be, and looks up. The saints are still there catching the shafts of occasional weak sunlight on another overcast day. The sunbeams create a web of golden light across the ceiling where a couple of small birds flutter, the light bright on their wings.
Angel remembers the last time she was here, when her brothers chased the birds in this atrium while her mother spoke with the priest. It feels like so long ago.
Where are her little brothers now? Fear washes over her as she recalls that neither of them are strong swimmers yet. How she wishes she had spent more time practising in the water with them.
Father Jose begins his sermon by blessing those who have died and their loved ones left behind. Angel realises that most of those gathered for the service are weeping. She feels like weeping too.
At the back of the church there is a board covered in sheets of paper. Angel moves closer and sees that they are lists of the missing. She begins to read the hundreds and hundreds of names. She knows many of them – too many of them. They are people she and her family have met at church every Sunday for as long as she can remember. Fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, babies …
She picks up a pen hanging on a string that is pinned to the noticeboard. At the bottom of the last list she carefully writes the names of Veronica, Cristian and Carlo. She puts down their ages, and when
they were last seen. The pen hovers for a moment as Angel smothers a sob, then slowly adds Juan’s name to the bottom of the list.
She is alone.
Ten
Outside the church Angel has no idea what to do next. She sinks to the ground and buries her face in her hands. ‘Where are you? Where are you, Papa?’ she moans as she gives in to her misery.
After a while she feels a gentle hand touching her head. Glancing up she sees a white robe through the blur of tears.
‘Father?’
The priest takes her by the hands and lifts her to her feet. Close up she can see that his white robe is grubby and one lens of his thick glasses is cracked clean across. As always, the priest radiates peace and calm.
‘Angel, I am so glad to see you safe. I hoped your mother was going to take you all to Samar?’
‘I … I stayed with Papa … we didn’t know the water would come … it swept him away … now I don’t know where he is …’ She is fighting to hold back the tears.
‘Where have you looked for him?’
‘I went back to the house and I waited. Then I came here, but I haven’t seen him. Have you seen him?’
Father Jose shakes his head. ‘What about your mother?’
‘I don’t know anything. I haven’t heard. Our mobile phone is gone. There’s no way to contact her …’ Angel can hear herself babbling.
‘You have experienced terrible things, child. You have felt awful fear. But you have been strong and resourceful. I’m proud of you.’
His words cheer her a little. He continues, ‘Juan is a strong man, stronger than most. And he is a good swimmer. He would fight hard to survive.’
‘Where can he be?’
‘Have you tried the airport? Many of the injured have been taken there.’
‘The airport!’ Suddenly she has purpose again. ‘How do I get there?’
Heavy trucks are rumbling back and forth, dropping supplies at the town hall and the church and returning to the airport. There is one outside the church now. The driver has just offloaded a crate of water bottles and Father Jose calls out to him.