As soon as each day ended and the firewood was stacked, taro dug, and coconuts gathered, I slipped down to the cove to meet Kento. It felt good to break curfew, to defy one rule. No one bothered us except Taeyo and Ako. No matter how much we threatened, they showed up. Ako slipped through the night like a shadow. Taeyo rattled every branch and vine. They mostly kept quiet as they practiced skipping stones and writing kanji in the sand.
Every evening Kento taught me letters, and I taught him to crack a coconut without losing a drop of juice, to dig taro without bruising the root, and where to find the hidden springs of fresh water.
“Remember, Kento, coconut meat is food. The milk inside is water rich with energy. If you have a breadfruit tree and three coconut palms, you can survive anything.”
I showed him the little shells that cling to the undersides of sea rocks and how to find an octopus hidden in dark crevices of coral. He was afraid to grab the soft head and bite off the sharp beak. He learned.
“Kento, tell me about the battles, the ships. Are they coming closer?” He would not say.
“Joseph, if there are battles, they will begin in the south.”
“In the south, near the airfields? Why?”
“That is the best place to invade. The beaches there are wide and shallow, easier for the Americans to unload their soldiers and quickly attack. But it is very exposed.” Kento looked away, mumbled, “Easier for us to gun them down.”
“Us?”
“Will they shoot at us?” Taeyo piped in.
Kento turned away.
The rains began and fell steadily. Still no message from Father or Ignacio … when the season of the rain begins, we will escape … they must still be alive, they must. Sensei had seen them. Rain splashed on the roof and ran in rivulets around our home. Water would now be rushing down that ravine and the steep path to the cave would be slippery with mud. How could my family climb up that muck? How would I find the cave?
One evening Kento came alone.
“Where is Ako?”
“Home. Tonight Mother forbade her to come.”
Taeyo tugged at my shirt. “Shall I get her?”
“No! Not tonight. Too many soldiers.” Kento turned to me. “Tonight let me teach you how to be a samurai, a true warrior.”
“I am a true warrior.”
“Yes, but listen. You, too, Taeyo. Long ago in Japan, the great warriors, the samurai, learned many kinds of battle skills. They learned to focus completely on the smallest details—to focus until their thinking was as sharp as any sword … or as hot as fire.”
“We do the same when we prepare to dance: light the fire within you, touch your spirit … fly … words my father said that at first made no sense.”
“My father said, ‘If you can focus, you can endure.’” Kento pointed to a little hole in the sand by my foot, the home of a ghost crab. “Watch. When the crab comes out, study every detail: how it moves, where it hides. Think only about that one tiny creature. Become that creature.”
“Become a ghost crab? Why?”
“Let nothing else come into your thoughts. Focus. Then imagine words. Write them. When you write, my father says you discover truths, something known but unknown to you.” Kento wrote several columns of kanji. “Like this, a poem for us.”
Ghost crabs
Racing bowlegged, sideways, tiptoed,
Pop
Into holes,
Survive.
“Like this, Uncle Joe!” Taeyo began racing across the beach, sideways on all fours like a giant crab.
“Taeyo, stop! Be still. Be quiet.” I frowned at Kento. “So, we must become crabs … or ghosts?”
Before he could answer, we heard the sound of booted footsteps crackling through the brush.
“Halt. Stand straight,” a soldier snapped. “It is past curfew.”
A second soldier stepped out of the shadows. “Children! Foolish children. This place is off-limits, forbidden. Go home. Go now!”
My hands fisted, but I kept my mouth shut.
“Go home!” He pointed toward the village.
We began to walk away. “Don’t talk, stay next to me,” I ordered Taeyo.
Someone was running down the beach in clear view of everyone. We stopped. The soldiers shifted their rifles. I held Taeyo’s arm.
“Kento! Joseph!” Ako shouted between gulps of air. “We must leave! We must leave!” Then Ako saw the soldiers. She also stopped, stood still.
I turned to Taeyo. “Go home before there is trouble. Kento and I will take Ako home. We need to talk. Tell Anna Maria I will be home soon.”
“But—”
“Go.” I pointed.
Taeyo frowned. Then he slipped through the trees and soon was out of sight.
Kento and I hurried back down the beach with Ako between us. When we were out of sight of the soldiers, I whispered, “Ako, what happened?”
She struggled to get the words out, shaking her head, brushing away tears. “Soldiers. At our house.”
“What do you mean?”
“They said, ‘Pack—prepare to leave.’”
“Leave?” I glanced from Ako to Kento.
“Are they going to arrest us, Kento, or shoot us?”
“Hush.” Kento warned. “Father has a safe place for us. Joseph, you and your family join us. The caves are not safe.”
Ako blurted out, “Remember what I told you, what Mother said.”
A gunshot exploded nearby.
A child screamed.
I could not move, could not breathe. A child cried, and I knew that cry.
“Taeyo!”
FATHER
Night gives way to day,
And death
To life.
I carried Taeyo home. As soon as he had his arms around my neck, he clung so tight I could hardly breathe. I softly chanted a warrior song, and soon he stopped crying. My sister met us not far from our hut. Once inside, she rolled out a mat, and I set Taeyo down. Blood oozed from his leg. Anna Maria brought water, soap, strips of cloth, and vine leaves, healing herbs, pounded into a poultice. The bullet had gone through the side of his leg below his knee, not deep. A clean wound. After she washed his leg, treated it with the herbs, and bandaged it, the bleeding barely oozed. Taeyo slept. Anna Maria sat by his side, massaging his arms with one hand, holding the roundness of her belly with the other.
My mother brought water. “Drink, Joseph.”
“I shouldn’t have sent him home alone.”
“Joseph, we do not know what is on the other side of a decision.” She urged me to drink more water. “No one can change from boy to man in a single day.”
I sat with my arms wrapped around my head. My world had become crazy. How could anyone shoot a child? What did Ako mean that they had to leave? Should we go with them? But would they protect us? How could I ever find the cave? What did Sensei say? But what if the Japanese lost? No, that could never happen. I tried to think. I wanted to cry. Where would our family be safe?
I did not mean to sleep.
I woke up coughing, choking on smoke. Was this another nightmare? Smoke burned my throat and eyes. The earth trembled. The screams were real. I ran outside.
Flares shot across the early morning sky, but it was not a sky I recognized. The southern horizon glowed orange, as if it were burning. An orange that was wrong, that smelled like death. The south … the airfield … my father … Ignacio. Another explosion shook the earth. Black smoke poured across the southern horizon. Tongues of flames shot up, disappeared, reappeared.
My mother and sister were outside. They stood holding each other, staring south. I looked toward the reef. Giant ships, steel gray, crowded along the reef—so many, so huge. Streams of fire and smoke exploded from them, above them. Where had they come from? Were these American? Why hadn’t the Japanese stopped them? People were running out from their homes, babies were crying, children screaming. What should I do? Ako had urged, “Come with us.” But I promised Father I would go to the cave.<
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People trudged past, carrying children. So many faces streaked with soot and tears. Some saw me and shouted, “We are leaving! We are leaving! Come with us.”
I looked at my mother. She shook her head.
Women ran past carrying mats, bundles of food. One walked beside a wooden cart pulled by a water buffalo. A black dog trotted behind, its belly swollen, soon to have puppies. How would they survive? I turned to my mother. “We must leave.”
“Soon.” She continued to roll up another mat, wrap another packet of baked breadfruit in banana leaves. “Taeyo is resting. His wound will soon stop bleeding.”
“We will wait a few hours,” I said. “No more. After the moon rises, we will leave. Even with the rain, the moonlight will help us find the way.” How will I ever find the way?
Explosions continued. Ugly curls of smoke smeared the southern sky. Ashes fell with the rain. We stayed busy with preparations for leaving. We did not speak. Taeyo barely stirred. Outside, people were walking, running, and carrying bundles on their backs or little children on their shoulders.
Roosters crowed, dogs barked. The familiar sounds made me shiver. How many days since my father and Ignacio had left? Maybe twenty, maybe more. Every evening my sister had cut a mark on the breadfruit tree outside our house. Even now she went outside and made one more mark, then continued on to the shore.
“Don’t let her go there,” I urged my mother. “It is too dangerous.”
“Let her be.” My mother followed and stood near my sister. I stared at their silhouettes. I went back inside and checked on Taeyo. Good, he was sleeping. I slipped my hand under my sleeping mat and my fingers found the familiar shape, Sensei’s book. I held it for a moment, then tucked it in with our things. I heard a noise and looked up.
Someone stepped into our hut and stood before me, dripping with rain. An old man, a skeleton covered with skin.
My father had come home.
He stepped toward me and collapsed. I caught him and held his shivering body against mine as if he were a child. I tried to say his name, but nothing came out. He lifted his arm, pressed his hand on my lips, and whispered, “Joseph. Listen … listen.”
His voice was barely more than a rattle.
Word by word, he struggled to speak. “Tell Anna Maria. Joseph, tell her.”
“Tell her what, Father?”
“Soldiers saw us. Running.” He closed his eyes and breathed several times before he could speak again. “Soldiers beat us, left us to die. I did not die. Tell Anna Maria.”
My father pulled my face close to his. He spoke slowly. “Darkness came. I woke up. Ignacio was gone. I called. Then I heard them, Joseph, the chants. They led me home.”
My father stopped. His gaze shifted. He stared at something behind me.
My mother screamed. She ran to my father, sat beside him, cradled his head.
“Water!” my mother cried. My father needed water.
Anna Maria handed me a gourd filled with fresh water. I had not heard my sister re-enter the room. She stood behind me, her head bowed. Her hands were trembling. She looked at me, questioning.
“Ignacio?” she whispered.
I looked away and held the gourd to my father’s lips. He swallowed like a child, water spilling down his chin. This broken man was my father. It could not be.
My sister waited. I did not know what to say.
My mother bathed him. She massaged his bruised skin, first with water from the sea and then with coconut oil, her fingers rubbing in strength, forcing life back into his body. His bones seemed to groan and crack, bones that stuck out like the ribs of a starving dog.
Father motioned: Come near. His hand touched mine, his fingers hot from fever. Before, his skin had been cold.
His lips mouthed a simple request: “Sing.”
I could not sing. Ashamed, I turned my face away. I shut my eyes. Outside, people were shouting, children crying. Everyone fleeing, running from our village, away from the sea where the sky had turned blood red. My sister sat watching, waiting.
Father’s hand touched mine. “Sing, my son.”
His touch, the sound of his voice … my father had returned. He had defeated war.
I sang. Slowly his breathing relaxed. His arms ceased trembling. I sang, whispering in his ear, sometimes making no sound at all, watching his face, watching the tight lines soften. Breath by breath, my father’s face relaxed. I sang the songs of our dances, warrior hymns, chants of the navigators. I sang of the sea that gives life and takes it, of our journey away from home and of our return. I sang to my father. I thought he was healing. I did not understand that he was dying.
The ground shook. The air smelled black with flames, oil, and gasoline. Our island was burning. But the bombs and fire had not come to our village yet. We had time before we must leave. The rain continued falling. Taeyo cried out. My sister murmured soft sounds, comforting words.
My mother sat next to me, her lips mouthing first the prayers of the rosary and then the chants of our ancestors. My father struggled to sit up. “Joseph, tell her.”
My mother looked at me.
I shook my head.
My mother stroked my father’s head. “You are home. You are safe. Rest.”
Again he struggled to sit up. “Ignacio, run!”
My sister’s eyes met Father’s.
His eyes seemed to clear, to focus on my sister’s face. “Anna Maria.”
His eyes clouded with tears. “Ignacio … is gone.”
My sister stood, slipped outside, and ran to the sea. I heard her screams, her terrible keening pouring grief and fear across the water. Cries I shall never forget.
I stood to go after her.
My mother spoke. “No, Joseph, let her be. She cries her pain. She cries so her husband might find his way back. She cries to our ancestors to bring him home.”
Father trembled. His breathing became more fitful. He called for my mother, “Rufina! Rufina Maria.” She was holding him, offering him water, cooling his head with wet cloths. But he could not see her.
Finally his breathing calmed, became shallow, slower, and then he slept. He looked again like my father, the father I remembered. The father with whom I had danced and hunted turtle. His eyes flickered opened and met mine. “Take them to the cave.”
I nodded so he would not argue. But I would not leave without my father.
His eyes closed. His lips parted slightly, repeating my mother’s name. Tears slipped from his eyes. Bending near his face, my lips next to his ear, I sang. Over and over, stronger and stronger until his tears stopped flowing.
Curled up close to my father, my head next to his like a child’s, I sang.
The ground shook again and again as if the sea had swelled into a giant wave that curled and crashed over our home. I did not realize I was dreaming. I was swimming through the swirling surf, struggling to reach my father. More waves swept him farther and farther away. A terrible roar filled my ears as I tumbled over and over. The water exploded. I woke shaking and confused.
My father did not move. I touched his forehead. It felt cool, almost cold. I stared at his chest but could not tell what was real and what I wanted to see. Prayed to see. I held his hand in mine. It was cold. It was not my father’s hand.
My father was dead.
I screamed at the sky, the sea, at war. No! If I had kept singing … he would still be alive. My father would still be alive.
The sky glowed after each explosion. Orange. Red. Burning. All around me the world was burning. My father was dead.
Night gave way to dawn. A dawn stinking of war, trembling with war.
I faced the sea but could not hear its voice. War split the air, pierced my ears with its screams. Smoke stained the horizon, curling around our village like the tentacles of some hideous monster.
From the ridge behind us, Japanese guns spewed fire and smoke at the ships along the reef. Returning shells burst above our heads. Would the enemy come here and attack our village? Th
e Japanese would fight back. But we would be scattered like minnows with no place to hide. We would be the little fish caught in the middle—caught between the hills and the ocean—between the Japanese and Americans. Caught in the crossfire. My father had understood. Go to the cave. Hide. Wait.
A low keening, my mother’s cries mixed with prayers, pulled me back—to now, to my family. Mother was preparing my father’s body for burial. She worked slowly, carefully, as if the war did not exist. She washed him and rubbed his skin with coconut oil perfumed with sweet ylang-ylang blossoms. Their fragrance would protect him from the dark spirits that would try to steal his soul. His body must be brought to the sea, to a sacred place. There the outgoing current would carry him over the reef to the ocean. There our ancestors would welcome him. There he could rest.
But who would carry him? Women were not allowed, not even his wife or daughter. Ignacio was gone. Everyone—uncles, nephews, and brothers—gone.
The rain continued falling, harder and harder. The rain was saying, yes, I must do this. I must carry my father to the sea. But I needed help. Then I would lead my family to safety as I had promised. To the cave. First I must carry my father home.
•
“Kento!”
I banged louder. “Kento, are you still here?”
The door opened a crack. “Is that really you, Joseph?” Kento peered out. “What are you doing here? Are you crazy? Soldiers—” He glanced behind me and pulled me inside.
I stood wet with sweat and rain. I gulped in deep breaths before I could finally blurt out, “Will you help me?”
Kento locked the door. Behind him, in the darkness of the unlit room a match flared and a candle was lit. The faces of his mother and sister stared back. I had not seen Kento’s mother for a long time. After she married Kento’s father, Tanaka-san, “the Japanese,” she had lived apart from us.
Kento cleared his throat. “Joseph, we are leaving, soon. Tonight, to hide.” Kento glanced at his mother, who nodded. “Joseph, my parents have urged me to ask again. Come with us. We will have food, water, protection—a safe place.”
Warriors in the Crossfire Page 6
