Angel

by Zoe Daniel

  ‘Shall we get going again?’ Angel asks Mrs Reyes gently.

  The old woman has her eyes closed, resting. For a moment Angel thinks she must be asleep but then she nods wearily. ‘Yes, my dear. We must push on.’

  Angel helps her to her feet. ‘You know, I do wonder why the government isn’t handing out water and food yet. Where’s the army?’ Mrs Reyes says.

  Angel nods in agreement. Water, power and phones are all still down. It’s more than a full day after the storm and they’ve seen no sign of any help. She squints into the distance. The church is still a long way off.

  ‘Let’s find somewhere to sleep before it gets dark. We’ll make better progress tomorrow after we’ve had some rest.’

  The two of them hobble along. Angel’s cuts and bruises are aching now. She’s concerned about the wound on Mrs Reyes’s face. It’s weeping red fluid and very angry looking. As well as food and water, they really need a doctor. Angel feels completely helpless and more than a little scared.

  I don’t know what to do, she repeats over and over in her head. I don’t know what to do. I wish Papa was here. She struggles to hold back tears as they trudge along through the wreckage. Everything is so bleak. The smell of rot is everywhere. People are pressing pieces of cloth to their mouths and noses, but it’s impossible to completely block it out.

  They are near the centre of what used to be the city and everyone looks exhausted and desperate. So far, Angel has not seen a single person that she recognises. They all evacuated before the storm hit, or they’re safe at the church, she tells herself. But she only half believes it.

  She slows down to wait for Mrs Reyes, who is trailing along behind, progressing at a snail’s pace now. She helps the old woman climb over a mountain of rice that has spilled out of a storage warehouse. The water from the storm has washed tons of it out into the street and it’s wet and stinking as it ferments in the sunshine. The rice squelches under her feet. It’s absolutely disgusting. She holds her breath, trying to block her nose, but it’s unavoidable. The sour stench will stay with her for days, in her hair, on her clothes, the taste of it stuck in her throat. She gags uncontrollably as she and Mrs Reyes slide down the other side of the sludgy pile. She can’t understand why people are collecting the rice in buckets and tubs and then she’s aghast when she realises why. ‘They’re not going to eat that, surely?’

  The old woman nods. ‘People are hungry, child.’ She looks grey and exhausted. She puts her hand on her chest, breathing heavily.

  ‘I’m not sure that I can go much further,’ she tells Angel. ‘My heart is fluttering.’

  Angel looks around worriedly. They need somewhere dry and safe where Mrs Reyes can rest, and she must find them some water at least. She scans the surroundings for any landmark that she might recognise, trying to get her bearings. At first it all looks the same, just piles and piles of broken and damaged buildings, but her gaze settles on a hand-painted sign.

  ‘WE NEED FOOD!’ it says. ‘BARANGAY 18.’

  ‘That’s where Issy lives!’ she exclaims. She knows the way to Issy’s house well.

  ‘Come,’ she says excitedly to Mrs Reyes. ‘This way!’

  They start down the narrow alley. It’s full of mud and junk, but a few houses have survived Yolanda’s fury. Angel is quaking inside as she shepherds Mrs Reyes through the debris. What has happened to her friend? She thinks of the last time she saw Issy, that afternoon at school when her mother and brothers came to fetch her. Before the storm, before everything changed.

  Angel wonders how long it will be before they can go to school again. She wonders if the school is even still there. She sends a quick and silent prayer for her teacher, Mrs Fernandez, and the other students. Absently her hand goes to her neck where the pearl hangs safely on its chain, tucked beneath her T-shirt. She squeezes it tightly, sending another wish to the heavens, for her father.

  Mrs Reyes is barely able to walk when they reach a rickety gate, hanging by one hinge and propped open with a piece of broken cement. Someone has placed some long planks through the gateway and into the house, forming a kind of bridge across a sea of mud. Much has changed, but Angel is sure that this is Issy’s house and she calls out: ‘Issy! Issy! Are you here? Oh, please be here …’

  A figure with a sweep of dark hair is crouched over a small cooking fire on the porch. She looks up and jumps to her feet when she sees who it is.

  ‘Angel!’ Issy exclaims. ‘Thank God you are safe!’ For a moment, Angel doesn’t recognise her friend with her drab clothes and unkempt hair, but her warm smile is unmistakeable.

  The two girls run to each other and hug tightly.

  ‘You made it!’ Angel cries joyfully.

  ‘We all did, but only just …’ says Issy.

  Angel turns to Mrs Reyes, who is leaning against the gate.

  ‘Mrs Reyes and I made it through the storm together. She saved me.’

  Issy nods seriously. ‘I am so glad to see you again, Mrs Reyes.’

  ‘She’s not well,’ says Angel. ‘Can we rest here for the night?’

  ‘Of course,’ says Issy with concern and the two girls support Mrs Reyes on either side as they move her into the house.

  When Issy’s mother sees Angel, she pulls her into a fierce embrace. Normally very careful with her appearance, Maria is wearing a stained shirt and trousers and her hair is covered in a scarf.

  ‘Veronica will be beside herself with worry. I wish we could tell her you are safe, but there is no communication anywhere in the city.’

  ‘So the whole network is down?’ asks Angel.

  ‘Yes, but even if it was up all the phone batteries are flat. With no electricity there’s no way to charge them.’

  Angel explains everything that happened to her as the three of them prepare some food amid the wreckage of the living space. Issy’s house is more substantial than Angel’s, reflecting her father’s higher income. The walls are cement brick and there are three separate rooms, a small fridge and even a television. Today the house is still standing and the roof is still on, but the water has damaged everything inside. The electrical goods are ruined, the furniture is broken and all the other household items are damp and filthy.

  The family and their surviving neighbours have collected whatever provisions they can find from the nearby store and Issy’s father and brother are out looking for more. They have flour and some tinned sardines, and a small amount of bottled water that Issy and Maria readily share. Angel and Mrs Reyes struggle not to gulp it down, they’re so thirsty.

  Issy and Angel prepare some flat cakes with the flour and fry them in a pan over the fire. It’s not much, but Angel still can’t help gobbling her share down. Mrs Reyes only manages a little. The old woman falls asleep on a damp mat on the cement floor under the watchful eye of Maria.

  ‘She needs a doctor,’ she whispers to Angel.

  They observe Mrs Reyes’s chest as it rises and falls erratically in her sleep.

  ‘I will go tomorrow into the centre and find what help there is,’ Angel vows.

  She also needs treatment for her cuts, especially the one on her foot, which is becoming infected from walking around in the putrid slush. Issy’s mother does her best to wash it but she has very little clean water and no antiseptic. There’s only so much she can do.

  Just before nightfall, Issy’s father, Danilo, trudges through the door, carrying a plastic bag.

  ‘It’s not much, but …’ He spots Mrs Reyes first and frowns in confusion at the old lady asleep in the middle of the floor. Then he looks up and sees Angel.

  ‘Thank goodness.’ He hugs her with genuine relief. Seeing him reminds Angel of her own father. Danilo is chubby and bald, always cheerful, where Juan is slim and wiry with a serious demeanour, but they are both loving fathers who are devoted to their families.

  ‘How are the others?’ he asks hesitantly.

  Angel doesn’t trust herself to speak so she shrugs helplessly, her eyes shiny with tears.

 
; Justin comes in then, looking even wearier than his father. His cargo pants are shredded and his long fringe is dirty and matted with salt as he pushes it out of his eyes. When he sees his sister’s friend the grim line of his mouth lifts just a little.

  ‘Good to see you, pipsqueak,’ he says solemnly.

  Eight

  After dark, the two girls go outside and sit on the porch. Issy has found a comb and she gently begins to tease out her friend’s knotted hair. As she works, Issy explains how she and her family survived.

  ‘The water flowed into the house up to the roof, so we swam out and climbed up that pole there.’

  She points to a sturdy post that forms the corner of the front fence with a broken streetlight still attached to the top.

  ‘All of us climbed up and just clung on there with the water washing around us. It went on for hours. How we all held on to a single pole for so long, I don’t know. We were one above the other, holding on to each other’s legs. It was so exhausting and scary.’

  Issy shakes her head, remembering the long, long night and morning.

  Angel tells her friend how she was separated from Juan and how the flood dragged her and Mrs Reyes through the wreckage until they latched on to the electricity cable.

  ‘You were so lucky the power was off!’ Issy gasps.

  The two teenagers sit silently together in the dark. Angel’s hair is smooth and knot-free now, and Issy plaits it into a single neat rope.

  ‘We’re all lucky, you know,’ says Issy quietly. ‘So many people have died here. The family next door all drowned, hugging each other.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right,’ Angel agrees. She takes the comb and slides it through her friend’s shoulder-length tresses with sure, comforting strokes. She knows that she’s lucky to be alive but she can’t feel any real sense of relief or happiness until she finds her parents and brothers. ‘Why is the government not helping us?’ she complains. ‘Why are the phones still not working?’

  Issy can only shrug.

  ‘I’ve heard a few planes flying over but I haven’t seen any sign of help yet,’ she says.

  The barangay is inky black with no electricity. Only small pinpricks of light from cooking fires and candles glimmer in the dark. Issy and Angel doze on the front porch, where it’s cooler than inside the house, although mosquitoes whine incessantly. Around midnight the girls are suddenly snapped awake by loud voices down the lane. It sounds like a group of men arguing. Then there’s a loud bang.

  Danilo bursts through the front door.

  ‘Girls, inside quickly,’ he urges them.

  ‘What is it?’ Angel asks sleepily. The two girls scramble inside the house as the yelling gets louder and the shots get closer.

  Maria and Justin are wide awake.

  ‘Is that gunshots?’ Mrs Reyes is concerned but disoriented and weak, reluctant to move from her mat on the floor.

  ‘Looters,’ Danilo answers grimly. ‘As if things aren’t bad enough already, now they want to steal the little we have. Quickly, we need to hide some of the food.’

  Issy and her mother gather the tinned fish, a bag each of flour and rice and a bottle of oil and hide it all under a pile of damp bedrolls along with the last of the bottled water. They’re only just in time. A group of men burst through the gate, shouting and waving pistols. A couple have bigger guns, long rifles like the ones that soldiers from the Filipino military carry. Angel counts six men, ragged and dirty, with torn pieces of cloth tied around their faces to conceal their identities.

  ‘Food! All of it!’ demands the one at the front, who seems to be the leader. Two of the others are carrying crude torches and they wave the naked flames dangerously around the room, searching for anything to take.

  ‘We don’t have much,’ Danilo says calmly. ‘You are welcome to share it.’

  ‘We will not share, we will take all that you have,’ sneers the leader.

  Cowering in the corner with Angel and Maria, Issy starts to whimper in fear. One of the thugs stops searching and looks them over. He reaches out and touches Angel on the cheek and she slaps him away. Before the man can react Mrs Reyes hisses loudly, ‘Get away from her. Beast!’ The old woman wobbles to her feet and steadies herself on a broken chair. Next to her, Justin glares threateningly, his arms crossed tightly in front of him. The man looks at them for a moment, then lets out a cackle and resumes the hunt for food.

  Danilo remains steady. ‘We will show you what we have,’ he says, nudging Maria towards the supplies that they deliberately didn’t hide: some bags of flour, rice and a few blackened bananas that he and Justin scavenged that day. The looters snatch up the items, shoving Issy and Angel in the process. The girls do not react.

  ‘Thanks for your kind hospitality,’ the leader sniggers as he heads towards the door.

  Mrs Reyes glares at the tall, muscular man with a pistol in one hand and a sack of rice in the other.

  ‘Shame on you,’ she says defiantly. ‘There is no courage in stealing food from children and the destitute.’ For a moment he looks uncertain, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot.

  He opens his mouth to protest but she raises a hand.

  ‘Go now,’ she commands him. ‘Don’t even think of coming back!’

  To everyone’s relief, the looters turn and leave. As soon as they have gone, Justin turns on Angel.

  ‘Well, that was stupid, hitting that creep. You could have set them all off.’

  ‘You would have done exactly the same thing,’ Angel says angrily.

  ‘No, I would have thought about it first …’

  ‘Enough!’ orders Maria. ‘It’s over. Now get some sleep!’

  But even after they calm down and all is quiet again, Angel is wakeful, startling at every tiny noise. When the dawn finally comes she feels relieved, and thoroughly drained.

  In the grey light she shifts uncomfortably on her mat on the porch, watching Danilo, who is repairing and reinforcing the gate. She shudders when she considers how horribly wrong last night could have gone. Survivors had been talking about armed men looting since the storm but she didn’t really believe it could be true. Now she knows it is. It’s one thing to take a few things to feed yourself in a crisis, as most have done, but violent, organised looting is another thing altogether.

  Angel is more determined than ever to find her father and get help. Today she will push on to the church, leaving Mrs Reyes who is far too unwell to go further. She has barely stirred from her place on the floor where she collapsed as soon as the looters departed. Her lined face is bathed in sweat and her breathing is fast and shallow.

  A distant, somehow familiar sound interrupts Angel’s thoughts. Danilo hears it too. He stops what he’s doing and goes out into the street. Angel follows and the two of them stand together, eyes scanning the sky, listening intently. Seconds later, a helicopter appears above them, hovering like a dragonfly. The Filipino flag is clearly emblazoned on the side of the aircraft and Danilo bellows: ‘AT LAST!’

  The military has arrived.

  The helicopter hovers briefly overhead and then swoops over and past them, low and smooth.

  ‘Quickly, it’s landing,’ Danilo shouts. ‘They might have supplies. Hurry!’

  The two of them set off in the direction of the chopper, with Issy and Justin close behind. They run along the narrow lane, dodging all the clutter, and out onto the main road. There’s a large expanse of open land a few streets away and Danilo leads them towards it. Sure enough, as they round the corner they see not one but two large military choppers hovering a few metres above the ground, surrounded by a quickly expanding crowd.

  ‘Hurry, kids, hurry,’ Danilo huffs.

  Around the aircraft it’s chaos as people jostle for bags of rice and packs of bottled water. The helicopter blades are whipping up mud and leaves and sticks, adding to the frantic atmosphere as the sound of the engines blends with the shouting on the ground. It’s clear there won’t be enough for everyone. Soldiers throw bags of rice one or two
at a time out the open doors of the choppers along with the water packs. Frantic people pounce and wrestle each other for the spoils. Angel and the others stand back and watch, reluctant to get caught up in the mayhem.

  Those who manage to grab a bag of rice or some water heave it onto their shoulders and hurry away as fast as they can. Gradually the crowd disperses as supplies dwindle until one last bag of rice is dumped out the door. Then the choppers begin to rise into the air.

  Empty handed, Angel watches the soldiers hanging out the doorways, legs dangling. One catches her eye as his craft starts to pulls away. He gives her a nod and a half salute, then shouts something to her, pointing towards the centre of Tacloban. She strains to hear but the chopper is too noisy. Then they’re gone.

  The four of them watch the helicopters head towards Tacloban Airport until they are just dark specks in the sky.

  ‘What do you think that guy was saying?’ Angel asks Issy.

  ‘I’m not sure, but he was pointing towards the city centre. Perhaps there are more supplies there?’

  ‘Do you think they’ll come back?’ Issy asks her father, who is deep in discussion with some of the other bystanders.

  ‘Apparently, there’s a big staging point being set up at the airport,’ says Danilo. ‘Food and water is being brought in as well as medical supplies. They are also going to start evacuating people who want to go to Manila.’

  ‘Will we go, Dad?’ Issy asks. The family has many relatives in the capital.

  ‘I think it’s better to stay here once we have enough food and water. This is our home and we will protect it and repair it,’ he says. ‘Those planes should be for those more needy than us: the old, the sick and the orphaned.’

  His gaze rests on Angel for only a split second but she catches it. He thinks my parents are dead, she realises with a dull ache. She knows that it may be true. Perhaps she is an orphan now. She shakes the thought away.