Shadow of Time

by Jen Minkman

  1937

  For a number of years, Ned, Nantai and I work together on several road-building projects. The three of us get on very well. At the end of 1937, we finally go back to Kayenta where my mother still lives in our family hoghan together with her younger sister. Ned has left Oraibi to continue his studies. Nantai builds a new hoghan close to our old house and he gets engaged to Tahnazbah, a girl from the village. He has now completed studying with the old hataalii in Kayenta.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to meet Tahnazbah’s cousin?” Nantai asks one afternoon when the wind outside is howling and we are sitting inside by the fire. My brother is prodding the fire with tongs and the flames light up his slightly worried-looking face.

  “No,” I wave his suggestion away. “I should not do that.”

  Nantai sighs. “Do you really think it is still dangerous, shik’is?”

  “I cannot be sure, of course, but I don’t think I want to find out, and I don’t reckon Tahnazbah’s cousin wants to find out either. I have no wish to drag anyone along in my misery. What happened to Ho’oneno must never again happen to anyone, whoever it is.”

  “Think of yourself. Surely you are entitled to your share of love and happiness?”

  I do not speak and shiver in spite of the fire. When I have a deep sleep, I sometimes dream of the Spanish woman who I killed in cold blood. She was not a soldier and did not hold a position of power. She was just an ordinary colonist who only acted according to what her culture had taught her.

  I do not answer my brother’s question, but after a moment’s silence he continues: “I will find out how we can tackle those yenaldlooshi, believe me. Even if it takes me years, I will help you.”

  He looks at me and I smile at him. “Thank you.”

  1942

  The world has changed. I can smell it in the air. I can read it between the lines in the letters that Ned sends us. There are more and more roads. Noisy cars that spew out smoke frequently drive through Kayenta and the first coal mine has opened in Black Mesa. The biligaana are digging into Mother Earth and claim that they can harness and capture Her energy. They need a lot of energy, for on the other side of the ocean a dangerous leader has arisen who is a threat to America. In his last letter, Ned wrote that he is going to command a regiment in Europe. I have no idea how long he will be gone and if he will be able to write any letters when he is there, but he has asked me if Nantai and I can pray for him.

  So we did. My brother organized a Protection Way ceremony to ask the gods to help Ned in the war. We went to the highest mountain top in our area and made a smoke offering to the gods. As the sun was setting, we stood next to each other, both singing and lost in thought. Shash, the bear, and Né’éshaa, the owl who is Nantai’s totem animal, are our companions on the other side of the veil, the spirit world which is never far away as long as you open up to it.

  We have given up trying to find the yenaldlooshi in the past. During one of his vision quests, Nantai heard from Né’eshaa that my spirit tormentors can only be defeated in the place where they are physically hiding in the past. We have no idea how we could possibly find out, and I am now resigned to the fact that in this life I will not know love. My memories of Ho’oneno are still with me and do not fade. It has been more than a hundred years now since I held her in my arms, but I can still see her face. I am keeping her pendant in a beautiful little box in my hoghan. Every now and then I take the jewel out and stare at the turquoise colors of the inlaid stones. A blue butterfly... that is how I will recognize her if her spirit ever decides to visit me again.

  The unrest in America increases. The war that is raging in Europe is coming our way. Every so often Nantai and I get to see a newspaper through the trading post. The papers write about the Japanese enemy at the other side of the Pacific Ocean, who want to attack our country. With a growing sense of indignation we read about this. I have never before felt the urge to fight for something together with the white men, but now that I have read such horrible things about our mutual enemy, things are different.

  “We have to do something,” I say one evening, before throwing down the newspaper in disgust. My brother is sitting outside his hoghan, cutting a bull roarer for next week’s ceremony.

  He looks up. “About what?”

  “The war.”

  Nantai sighs and nods. “That is how I feel, too. There is a threat that throws a shadow over everything we do here. Tahnazbah even asked me if it wouldn’t be a good idea if a number of men from the village joined the army.”

  “Well, I am quite prepared to enlist, but we are not even allowed to vote in elections. The biligaana do not see us as full-fledged members of society. Why would they ever allow us to fight for our country and our freedom?”

  A week later, out of the blue, there is a chance for Nantai and me. A certain Sergeant Johnston comes to Kayenta. He is accompanied by a man from the Diné people, John Benally, who serves in the American army. I am quite excited when Sergeant Johnston explains during a meeting how, having grown up on the reservation, he got the idea of using the Navajo language as a code language. How he and Corporal Benally are looking for people who want to join the Navajo Communication School and fight in the war.

  Thirty minutes later, five men from Kayenta, including Nantai and I, have put their names forward to go to the Marine Boot Camp. The idea is that we will be trained first to fight in the army and then go to Camp Eliot to be trained to use our language as a code language. There are no words in Diné Bizaad for most of the army terms, so for us, too, it will be a kind of secret language that we have to learn.

  “At last we can make ourselves useful,” Nantai says happily while we are arranging a few formalities at the provisional recruiting office. “We are recognized by the palefaces. We are no longer outsiders.”

  I nod, and hope that my brother is right. It would seem that the Americans finally see us as respectable citizens. Here is a chance to show our strength and prove our worth. They will know who the Diné are, even though we will be called Navajos.

  1943

  Boot camp is tough. From early morning to late in the evening we are trained. For me it is particularly difficult, since I have been in a war before and have only bad memories of it. Yet I am proud that we can defend our country, even though we are being led by white commanders. In the spring of 1943 we are taken by a coach to Camp Eliot, where we will be trained in the Communication School. Although we are not physically put to the test, the mental strain is just as great, if not greater. Every night I dream of the code words we had to learn during the day.

  After the summer we finally get started. We are drafted into the Second Marine Division and are transported across the Pacific to Betio, a small island that will bring us a good deal of strategic advantage once it is our hands.

  The night before we arrive in the waters around the Tawara Atoll, my dreams are not about war. In the ship’s hold where we sleep, Ho’oneno comes to me in my dreams. She smiles at me and stretches her hand out toward me and tells me that everything is going to be all right. When I wake up in the morning, I can feel tears on my face. I would have loved to hold the pendant in my hands for a while, but I have chosen to bury it by the lake behind my house. If I were to die here on this little island in the Pacific, I would never be able to find the pendant again should I be reborn once more.

  “I do hope that everything is going to be all right, shan díín,” I say softly to her dream image, the only thing of her I have in this place.

  The next day, our ships fire their guns for hours on end and bombers throw their deadly cargo on the little island, destroying most of Betio. Most of the Japs’ defenses have been wiped out. Then we are taken to the island in landing craft. The white soldiers are fully convinced that there will be practically no Japanese left alive after the deadly bombing.

  “Hell,” shouts the soldier steering our craft. “We are running aground.” With a scraping sound the boat stops. The other craft are doing no better.

>   “It is low tide,” another soldier calls out. “We are too deep in the water.”

  After some confusion it is decided to make the soldiers wade through the water to get to the island. I peer at the coast. There is an eerie silence there and the island presents some kind of threat that I cannot explain.

  “Here we go,” says Nantai with a nervous tone in his voice, grabbing my shoulder. “Ayor anosh’ni, shik’is.”

  “I love you, too, my brother.” I smile at him encouragingly before we lower ourselves in the water. I can sense that Nantai is more afraid than he wants to let on.

  With difficulty, thousands of soldiers wade toward the beach. It is a long, painful procession, as occasionally our feet meet with coral reefs rising up from the seabed. Then all of a sudden hell breaks loose. We can hear the rattle of machine guns and next to me a young, white soldier disappears under the water, without making a sound, a bullet hole in his head.

  “Watch out,” I cry, panicking, and drag Nantai with me under the water. Without seeing much, we struggle on to try and get to the beach. When we finally come up again to draw some breath, we dare not raise our heads above the water further than our chins.

  Speechless, I look around me. As far as the eye can see, there are floating bodies of soldiers who have been shot. Blood is turning the water red. Some soldiers have managed to reach the beach and are crouching against the wall that separates the beach from the land to stay out of enemy range. Miraculously, we reach the wall unharmed and Nantai collapses in a trembling heap. I lean against the wall beside him and look out over the beach. The sea is calmly washing ashore the bodies of Marines. More and still more. I gasp for breath when an Amtrac tank, which has just plowed across a coral reef, suddenly explodes and bursts into flames.

  The shooting continues for hours. The few soldiers who have been able to reach the shore are sitting still with petrified faces, shivering with cold. They offer a sorry spectacle. One of the Amtrac tanks has managed to get to the beach and the corporal who was in it is now cautiously creeping toward us.

  “Start transmitting,” he shouts, and rapidly spews out tactical data and coordinates. Nantai and I switch on the radio equipment, which has remained undamaged in the watertight D-packs we are wearing.

  Slowly the sky turns dark. The Japs have stopped firing. The only remaining tank is used as a shield when, in turns, we get to have a few hours of sleep. I cannot catch any sleep, nor can Nantai.

  “This is barbaric,” he says, when he finally speaks again. We have been sitting next to each other for hours without speaking. He stares at the remains of the second tank, which reached the beach, but drove over a mine. “How many people have died already?”

  I close my eyes. “I do not know. Too many.”

  At the end of the next day, we have achieved our mission: the western part of Betio is in American hands. But at what cost? Death is hanging in the air in the form of a disgusting, odorous stench. Tears come into my eyes when I think of all the dead people on the beach, who will never be properly buried. The battered and bombed hills of the island remind me of the coal mines in Black Mesa. Wounded Earth.

  I sleep back to back with Nantai. I am very, very happy that he is here and that I do not have to go through this alone.

  When a watery morning sun wakes up the soldiers, I pass on our plans to the troops further on, and a little later there is a message ordering us to push ahead to the location where the second regiment is hiding.

  The sun is already low on the horizon when, suddenly and unexpectedly, we come under fire again. I crawl away and hide behind an uprooted tree.

  “Shik’is!” I shout at Nantai, who, twenty yards from where I am, has crawled into a shallow hole in the ground. He sticks his head out over the edge of the hole and then cautiously crawls towards me, occasionally pausing. I can see how he is only a few yards away from my hiding place, when all of a sudden, there is a deafening explosion. With eyes wide open, I see Nantai disappearing in a cloud of smoke which makes me start to cough vehemently. I narrow my eyes into slits and try to see where he has gone.

  Then the smoke lifts and I understand what has happened. Nantai has stepped on a mine and is mortally wounded. Risking my own life, I crawl out from behind the tree trunk, grab Nantai by his arms and pull him away from the place of the explosion. I do not want to look at the bloody stump where his left leg used to be. I do not want to look, for I know what it means.

  “Shik’is,” he mutters weakly. “What happened?”

  “You fell,” I lie. “Just keep calm.”

  He smiles and grabs my hand. “My leg is tingling all over.” He wants to lift himself to look at the leg that is no longer there.

  I push him back. “I’ll dress it in a minute.” I pinch his hand, reassuringly, while holding back my tears.

  Then, in the midst of grenade and gun fire, in a soft voice, I sing a traditional song for my brother, whose face gradually draws pale. The light in his eyes is fading and when finally reinforcements arrive from behind, he has practically lost consciousness. His spirit is already somewhere else, in a more beautiful and peaceful place.

  When he finally breathes his last breath, it has become dark. Above my head the stars start to twinkle, every now and then hidden by the smoke of grenade fire. I do not listen any more. I do not hear anything. I do not feel much when a thumping explosion shakes the earth close by. A pang of pain goes through my body.

  I look beside me. It is as if I am dreaming. I can see Nantai. My brother looks at me, whole and radiant. He still has his leg and he embraces me, smiling. “I will look after you, shik’is,” he says, with confidence. “I will not leave you alone. I will help you to get rid of your curse, I promise.”

  Then there is an owl that looks at me with curious, wise eyes. It spreads its wings and flies up to the full moon, which in my dream lights up the night.

  I awake and look up at the night sky over Betio, where there is no moon shining. It has not risen yet. Dear God, I feel tired. A tiredness that I can no longer hold back takes possession of me.

  I do not think that I will see the moon tonight.

  With a shudder, Hannah jolted awake. Her eyes fluttered open, but she couldn’t see clearly. “Where are we?” Her voice cracked, her throat feeling like it was made of sandpaper.

  Just then, she noticed someone behind her who put a towel around her shoulders, lifting a cup of water to her lips.

  “Drink,” Sani said close to her ear. She did, gulping the water down eagerly. Her entire body felt like she’d been wandering in the desert for weeks.

  Slowly, her eyes adjusted to the sparse light in the hoghan. Across from her, Josh was still in a trance, sitting cross-legged, his eyes closed and his hand holding hers.

  “Is he okay?” she croaked, tilting her head to Josh.

  “He is almost awake,” the hataalii replied. “I think he is still conversing with his animal spirit.”

  Hannah furiously blinked her eyes, sudden tears welling up. All the emotions she’d felt, all his emotions, the memories she’d seen through his eyes, the experiences she’d lived through with him – it was too much. It was so much. The things Josh had done for her in his previous life spoke of an infallible, never-ending love. The way he had stood by his people and guided them through the years, leading them on a mission of peace, spoke of his unwavering perseverance, of an almost impossibly strong faith in God’s hand in everything.

  Hannah couldn’t stop crying, completely overwhelmed by all she had seen. Despite her tears, she wanted to comfort Josh, and she grabbed his hand tighter to do just that, wherever he might be in spirit. Her entire body felt cramped up, goosebumps spreading across her skin when a gust of wind blew into the hoghan.

  She turned around to face the doorway, looking past the partially thrown-back blanket into the starry night sky.

  “What time is it?” she asked in a confused voice.

  “Almost midnight,” Sani replied.

  Hannah shot him an incredulou
s look. “We sat here all day?”

  “Two days,” he calmly said. “It is Friday evening.”

  Gee. No wonder her entire body was aching and she’d been thirsty like a sponge when she woke up.

  Oh no. Where was Ben? He was probably worried sick – after all, he had no way to contact her. “My brother ... I have to ... is he...”

  “He knows where you are.” Sani smiled reassuringly. “Last night, Emily came up here to check up on us without interfering. She made it clear to me she would talk to your brother.”

  Hannah silently thanked her friend. She watched the hataalii step out the door of the hoghan. Maybe he was going to get Ben.

  At that moment, Josh drew in a deep breath. He opened his eyes and fastened his grip on Hannah’s hand. “You’re crying,” he whispered, rubbing the tears from her cheek with his other hand.

  “I’m crying for you,” she whispered back, sliding toward him, taking him in a gentle embrace. He felt cold, and she decided to share her blanket with him. Her body warmed up his.

  “Why?” His hand gingerly trailed down her arm.

  “For all the things you did, for all those people you loved, while you were in pain yourself,” she replied in a wavering voice, still sniffling.

  “I am proud of the lives I’ve led,” he mumbled into her hair. “It has always served a purpose that there was sadness, and the hurdles I had to take made me grow as a person.”

  “I’m proud of you too.” Hannah looked up, holding his gaze. “But from now on, it won’t be a lonely fight anymore.”

  “Not in this lifetime.”

  “No, not in any lifetime. I don’t know what fate has in store for me, but I’m sure of one thing. I won’t leave you alone anymore.” She took the pendant around his neck in her hand and pressed it against her chest, close to her heart. Just for a moment, she could feel the weight of centuries pressing down upon her, like Josh had felt it in the course of many lifetimes. He must be so tired. And she hadn’t even seen all of his lives – only the last two before this one. Suddenly, she wondered why she’d seen memories of a lifetime she hadn’t been a part of. Maybe it had to do with Josh still longing for her in that lifetime.