by Zoe Daniel
Eventually Angel is snagged across the chest by a long, thick cable. It winds her at first but she grabs it. It’s a little loose, and she and Mrs Reyes, still clinging to each other, are pulled up short as the current propels them forward. Angel’s shoulder is stretched to breaking point but she resists the urge to let go. With a chill she realises that she’s holding on to what should be a deadly powerline, but there’s no electricity running through it now. The water must be very deep. In Tacloban the powerlines are more than two storeys high.
Hand over hand, Angel drags herself along the line and Mrs Reyes follows behind. The water continues to tug at them, but at last they reach the power pole that the wire is attached to. Angel climbs onto a cross bar and hauls Mrs Reyes up next to her. They climb up as high as they can, one either side of the T-bar, and wrap themselves around it like caterpillars on a twig. Then they hold on grimly as the water rages beneath them and the wind does its best to topple them off.
With their heads so close together, Angel can see now that Mrs Reyes is in a bad way. Her eyes are clenched shut and her face is tight with pain. She shouts right in the old woman’s ear.
‘Mrs Reyes, stay with me. Don’t let go.’
‘I’m trying, anak ko, little one. I’m just so tired …’
‘You saved me!’
Mrs Reyes lifts her head and looks into Angel’s eyes. ‘It was God’s will.’
‘How? How did you know I was in the roof?’
‘The waves were coming. I climbed. Water lifted me and dropped me on your roof. I saw you. I saw your hand reaching. I grabbed it.’
‘You saved me, Mrs Reyes. You saved my life.’
‘It was a miracle, child. God wants you to live.’
‘Papa. Did you see him?’
Mrs Reyes closes her eyes again and rests her head on the power pole. She needs all her strength just to keep holding on.
A gust of wind slams into them and with only one hand clinging on, Angel suddenly loses her balance and her body flips to the underside of the T-bar. Now she’s swinging by an arm and a leg and all she can see is the churning black sea below, reaching up to engulf and swallow her …
Six
Somehow, Angel manages to swing her dangling arm back over the pole and then slowly – finger by finger – she pulls herself up and hitches her body on top of the T-bar again. Gaping at her in horror, Mrs Reyes shimmies forward and clasps her forearms over the top of Angel’s, binding them together for added strength.
The old woman shouts over the wind: ‘Hold fast. No letting go – you hear me? We are going to make it, you and I. We will get through this together.’
And this is how they remain for the next few hours. Clinging to the power pole like monkeys. They’re lucky it stands up to the wind and the water. As it begins to get light the rain is so heavy they still can’t see much. But they can hear buildings creaking and tearing, disintegrating all around them. The crunching and collapsing combined with the noise of the storm is deafening.
When it finally stops, Angel’s ears are ringing. Her head aches and her skin stings. Every muscle screams from holding the same position at the top of the pole for so long, and she feels as though her fingers will never unbend, they’ve been gripping so tightly.
‘It’s over,’ Mrs Reyes finally says, in a shaky whisper. ‘Come now, the danger has passed.’
When Angel lifts her head she registers there’s barely a breeze. The sky is still grey, but it’s pale now, not dark like before. From her high vantage point she can see the sea, still choppy, in the distance. Carefully, she raises her body and, straddling the T-bar, she looks around her.
Her city is unrecognisable. It has been destroyed. In its place are mountains of jagged timber, great chunks of broken cement, smashed furniture and piles of jeepneys. There are cars and motorbikes hanging from trees. Even more bizarre, in the middle of it all is a huge fishing boat, at least twenty-five metres long, perched precariously on top of a pile of rubble. Everywhere is brown and grey and black. The rich green tropical vegetation has been wiped out.
‘Oh, Yolanda,’ she breathes in awe. ‘What have you done?’
Tears are streaming down Mrs Reyes’ face. ‘There’s nothing left,’ she murmurs. ‘Tacloban is lost.’
Far into the distance Angel can see the dome of the convention centre. She can also just make out Santo Niño Church. They both look okay, but there’s barely a single building left in between. She tries to work out where her own house should be but it’s impossible to detect shapes beneath the ocean of debris and churned-up water that’s covering every square centimetre of space. Somehow she will have to find her home in this mess. And she will have to find her father.
Her hand jerks to her throat. Incredibly, the pearl is still there on its golden chain, tucked beneath the collar of her shredded polo shirt. Its smooth, silky surface comforts her and reminds her of her father’s words: I am with you. A small comfort, at least.
Towards the foreshore Angel can see people already climbing around on piles of splintered wood and smashed cement that used to be houses. She resolves to head towards them first.
She turns again to Mrs Reyes, who is watching her with pity in her eyes.
‘You must prepare yourself for the worst, child,’ the woman says softly.
Angel wriggles along the cross beam to the central post. Although they are high above the road, there’s so much debris piled up that all she has to do is slide down the power pole a short distance and step down onto it. Mrs Reyes does the same, Angel holding her arms out to catch the older woman.
Both of them look appalling. They’re covered in cuts and bruises. Mrs Reyes has a black eye and there’s a nasty slash on her face that is open and weeping. Angel is covered in bleeding scratches and her hair is one giant knot. Their clothes are filthy and torn and both have lost their shoes, which is immediately a problem as they begin to pick their way through the splintered wood and sheets of buckled tin and shattered cement. Angel cries out as she treads on a nail sticking out of a piece of timber. She inches her foot off the sharp, rusty spike and watches the blood ooze from the wound. Mrs Reyes is concerned. ‘You’ll need a shot for that,’ she says. But where will they find a doctor in this chaos? They turn and look across the tangled landscape bathed in dull, glassy light.
A woman is squatting beside a hut that has been flattened by a concrete wall, weeping inconsolably. Further on a man is frantically digging around the edges of a collapsed building, a little girl sitting nearby watching him with empty eyes. Sights like these make Angel’s heart ache, but she is as helpless as they are. All she can do is continue to make her way over slabs of roof, along broken timber beams and unstable, teetering pieces of cement. Occasionally there’s a thick black powerline snaking through the debris. Angel and Mrs Reyes avoid them carefully. The electricity appears to be off, but it’s hard to know for sure if every line is dead.
More survivors are beginning to crawl out from underneath buildings or down from high spots where they escaped from the surge. Dozens emerge from a school building that sits in an elevated position, undamaged apart from a partially torn off roof.
Everyone moves slowly, dazed and traumatised. Angel asks people if they have seen her father and they look at her with blank expressions. Some speak to the desperate young girl with sympathy, but most of them are in their own quiet hell, searching for loved ones, just like her. Here and there lie what look like bundles of clothes, but when Angel steps over one she sees a tangle of dark hair and a leg twisted at an impossible angle. She lets out a whimper. It’s the body of a young man. She doesn’t recognise the partly obscured face but she knows that it could easily be one of her schoolmates. Mrs Reyes comes up beside her and says, ‘Poor soul.’ The old lady leans forward and covers his face with a piece of tin. ‘Someone will take care of him. He’s at peace now.’
From then on, Angel avoids anything that looks like it might be a body. All around people are collecting the dead. Some are howling in g
rief; others just stare in shock. It seems like every single survivor is searching for someone, expecting the worst.
Angel is worried about her father, very worried, but she refuses to believe that he is dead. Juan is a tough and resourceful man. She has to believe that he is safe and it gives her the strength to keep going.
Slowly the young girl and the old woman pick their way over and through the mounds of debris. They are heading in the direction of home, although with no landmarks it’s difficult to work out exactly where that is. Angel is amazed that they were swept so far by the surging water; a kilometre or two at least.
She thinks she knows where the house might be but each time she scales a mountain there’s another ahead of her and her bearings shift again. She scans the mess for a glimpse of the faded green of Mrs Reyes’s house or the taklub post on the shoreline in front of hers, but there’s no sign of either. The reality is that her father’s house may be among the many dwellings now lying in pieces under her feet.
Their progress becomes painfully slow. Mrs Reyes is starting to wheeze as the dreadful ordeal finally catches up with her. Every so often she lets out a gasp and points at another bizarre sight: a boat hundreds of metres from the shoreline or a couch hanging from a tree or a TV dangling from a power pole.
Angel limps on ahead and is first to reach the shoreline, where her feet sink into the ankle-deep mud and sludge. There’s a small boat lying upside down and with a start, Angel realises it’s her father’s bangka. It appears to be relatively undamaged. No doubt the engine is past saving and turning the boat back over will need the strength of a few men, but it’s a sign that they must be close to home.
Her mind fills with the memory of her father outside securing the boat amid the screaming wind and rain. She was sure he was going to be blown away. Then the moment when he pushed her up and out of the water into the arms of Mrs Reyes. Angel has no doubt it was he who instigated her miracle rescue and tears threaten to burst through again. How she longs for her home, but at the same time she is terrified of what she might find there.
Scanning the mounds of rubble further along the shore, her eye catches on something familiar. It’s the Filipino flag from Mrs Reyes’s flagpole lying in the mud. Beyond it, bits of splintered green timber create a trail of sorts that she follows until it stops. She looks up at a pile of broken planks. They are propping up some sheets of tin that lean like an awning across the front of her family’s house. It’s still standing!
Angel is flooded with a bittersweet relief. Her knees go weak and she sinks down into the mud. She wonders how she is going to get inside when the door is totally buried under debris. Mrs Reyes limps up to her and hands her a bottle of water and a bag of potato chips. Angel realises that it’s some time since she had anything to eat or drink.
‘I took them from the ruins of the store,’ the old woman explains, looking a little guilty. ‘We have to eat.’ She holds up a plastic shopping bag with a few bottles of water and some soggy snacks. ‘It’s not much, but it should get us through today.’ She lowers herself onto the wet ground next to Angel. They open a bottle each and drink deeply and then share the packet of potato chips and a mushy chocolate bar between them.
Eventually Mrs Reyes takes a deep breath and heaves herself up. Step by step she makes her way over to the spot where her house once stood. There’s nothing left but a cement slab blanketed in debris. The old woman shuffles around, shaking her head and muttering as she picks up the odd small item. She starts making a pile: a muddy tea towel, a metal spoon, a saucepan, the shards of a china plate and a couple of smeared family photographs, which she wipes on her torn clothes before placing them carefully on top.
Angel gets up and walks back to the flag that she spied half-buried in the sludge. She picks it up and rinses it in a muddy puddle as best she can and places it next to the meagre pile of possessions. Angel contemplates all that remains of the kind old woman’s long, busy life and drops her head into her hands, overwhelmed. Mrs Reyes stops her fossicking and puts her arm around the child.
‘Don’t worry for me, dear, I don’t need much, and houses can be rebuilt.’
It’s true.
Angel regards her own broken home, still standing but now without roof or windows. She is sure her father could fix it; he’s so clever at repairing things.
In the meantime she has to assess the damage. It’s her job to look after their home now. She pulls half-heartedly at a sheet of tin that’s covering the door but she knows she can’t go in that way; it’s too dangerous. She steps back for a moment and considers her options.
‘I’m going to have to climb in,’ she says, thinking aloud.
Mrs Reyes agrees. ‘Yes, I think that’s the only way. Careful of sharp bits!’
Angel begins a slow crawl up the pile of rubble leaning against the wall, doing her best to avoid nails and splinters and slicing edges of tin. It’s not easy, especially without shoes. By the time she reaches the top of the wall and pauses on the small remaining corner of roof her hands are dotted with tiny splinters of wood and she has another deep cut on her foot. She looks over the expanse of wreckage for a moment. The sea is almost calm, but littered with junk floating on the surface. She looks towards Samar where her mother and brothers should be. The sun is high in the sky now and as often happens after typhoons, there are already patches of blue. It will rain again later, but for the moment Yolanda’s shocking aftermath is fully illuminated.
Angel swings her legs over the roof and peers down into her home. The table and chairs are tipped upside down; pots and pans and utensils have been torn from their hooks and litter the room; bedding is strewn around, wet and muddy. There’s spilt rice and broken jars and plates all over the place. Black sludge smears the walls and lies deep on the cement floor. Her brothers’ twin teddy bears that they’ve had since they were babies lie face down in the mud.
All the careful packing away of their household items was a wasted effort. Hanging the kitchen utensils on nails, folding the bedding and clothes and stacking them into the roof, boxing up food and placing it high out of harm’s way – undone in an instant.
Angel half-slides, half-climbs off the roof into what remains of the living room. She lands in a puddle of mud and water, wincing from the pain in her cut feet. Slowly she wades around, inspecting the damage. There’s nothing much that’s salvageable apart from perhaps some cutlery and some pots and pans. She picks up the old mobile phone and tosses it back into the mud again. Useless. She spends a few minutes making a pile of some things that she might wash and try to save. Eventually she turns over a chair and sits down.
She looks up through the roof at the sky, dark clouds slowly passing over and the occasional flash of blue. The smell of salted fish is gone; now the house reeks of mud and salt water.
Jammed in the corner is a wet bag of clothes upended in the mud. She pulls out a T-shirt and a pair of old cut-off jeans and changes into them. They’re damp, but anything is better than the ripped and shredded clothes she’s been wearing. At the bottom of the bag is a pair of damp canvas shoes and she jams them onto her filthy, blood-smeared feet. A pair of her mother’s old sandals, buckled together, are floating in the mud. They will work for Mrs Reyes. There’s nothing more to do here. Grimly she climbs up, swings her legs over the wall and descends the rubble.
Mrs Reyes is sitting on the seawall and she looks up as Angel approaches, but says nothing.
Angel shakes her head. She puts the sandals down and sits next to Mrs Reyes.
She’s found her home but what of her mother and her brothers? She has no way of knowing whether the storm hit Samar with the same ferocity as this. Are they alive? Where is Papa? Where is my family?
Angel and Mrs Reyes sit on the seawall for a long time, too exhausted to make any plans. When dark starts to descend, Angel collects some dirty but relatively dry blankets and the two of them crawl into the narrow space made by the sheets of tin propped against the wall of Angel’s house. As soon as they lie dow
n they fall into a deep sleep.
Seven
When she wakes at dawn, Angel knows what she has to do.
‘Everyone will be at the church. It’s still standing and it’s safe. That’s where I’ll find my father.’
Mrs Reyes still looks exhausted, but she nods wearily. After dipping their faces and hands in a bucket of cloudy rainwater, they set off in the direction of Santo Niño.
The journey is slow and difficult because there’s so much mess obstructing their progress, and Angel soon realises she is desperately hungry. She and Mrs Reyes have had nothing to eat since yesterday when they finished the snacks collected from the wrecked store. There’s not so much to scavenge now. Too many people have had the same idea and what’s left is wet and spoiling.
They’re thirsty, too. Water is an even bigger problem than food. The taps are not working and the water in the creeks and ponds is too dirty to drink. Angel observes some desperate people scooping water out of a puddle and filling buckets but she knows that the water will make them sick. It’s full of debris from the storm and brackish from the salty sea.
She runs her tongue around the inside of her dry mouth. They have to get a drink soon. They’ve been walking for several hours and Mrs Reyes is flagging. Angel can’t remember it being this far to the church.
The two of them sit quietly on top of a pile of smashed-up timber. All around below them people are at work, pulling out salvageable items, retrieving things like mangled bicycles and motos, building makeshift shelters from pieces of wood and sheets of iron. Many are using bricks and chunks of wood as hammers; others have managed to salvage the odd useful tool from the mess. A few families have commandeered a large boat that’s teetering atop the rubble. They are sleeping in its cargo hold, which stinks of fish, but at least it’s out of the rain. There are still fairly constant heavy showers interspersed with the occasional burst of hot, steamy sunshine and the sickly smell of death and decay is pervasive in the afternoon heat.
