Angel

by Zoe Daniel

  They light some candles, say a few prayers and Maria leads them in singing ‘The Lord Is My Shepherd’ and then the famous ballad ‘Hindi Kita Malilimutan, I Will Never Forget You’.

  At the end, Angel whispers, ‘Mrs Reyes loved that song.’

  Issy squeezes her hand and whispers back, ‘We will never forget her.’

  At dawn, the family is up and Maria gives the travellers some packets of peanuts and two precious bottles of water. Angel and Justin say their farewells and turn down the lane towards the waterfront, which they have decided should be the quickest way to get to Angel’s house. There hasn’t been much cleaning up down here close to the sea though. It looks much the same as it did when Angel passed through with Mrs Reyes just four days ago. There are still mountains of rubble and trash everywhere. Some people have made makeshift shelters amid the debris, using broken bits of roof and timber, but others are still sheltering beneath plastic tarpaulins.

  Here the concerted effort to collect the dead is obvious. At one point they pass a row of white body bags emblazoned with the distinctive Red Cross logo. Angel can’t help but think of Mrs Reyes and the fact that they can’t even give her a proper burial.

  The two of them make much better time than Angel did on her journey out with the old woman. They trudge along at a decent pace until they round the curve in the shoreline. Then Angel sees her father’s little bangka still untouched and upside down in the mud. It looks in bad shape but when they get up close and Justin does a swift inspection, he says, ‘Your father is right. This hull is seaworthy.’

  Angel eyes it doubtfully. It’s going to be a big job to even turn it over, let alone get it back into the water.

  ‘First things first. Let’s see if we can find an engine.’

  Yesterday, when Angel mentioned the bangka, Justin had remembered his friend Nelson, who lives in an apartment above his father’s mechanic’s shop not far from Angel’s house. The two friends liked to hang around the small tin shed on the roof where Nelson’s father worked refurbishing old engines that he would sell at a reduced price. Angel listens now as Justin explains how the engines are stored in a heavy steel cabinet.

  Angel follows Justin inland for about a hundred metres. He keeps pausing to work out where he is, and eventually he points ahead to a huddle of shops and declares triumphantly, ‘There it is!’

  Although the building is still intact, the doors of the mechanic’s shop have been torn open and the inside fully stripped of anything useful. Angel guesses people have been in here looking for tools. But the metal stairs to the apartment are still in place and they climb to the upper floor where they find the inside has also been looted and abandoned.

  Justin’s face is ashen as he surveys his friend’s former home.

  ‘Nelson said that he and his family were evacuating to Cebu to stay with relatives. They are not going to be happy coming home to this.’

  The ladder that used to access the manhole in the roof is nowhere to be seen. The two of them drag a large table over and Justin steadies a chair on top of it. Then he unhooks the latch and pops open the manhole, pulling himself up easily through the ceiling. Moments later his head appears through the opening and his hand reaches down to Angel.

  ‘Come on up. You’ve got to see this!’

  The roof is almost entirely clear of objects. The force of the wind has swept everything away except for a large steel trunk chained down by heavy metal rings embedded in the cement.

  ‘Is that it?’ Angel exclaims.

  ‘Incredible, isn’t it?’ says Justin, heaving the heavy lid open.

  There are three boat engines inside the trunk and Justin immediately focuses on one that Angel can see is very similar to her father’s.

  ‘Do you think it works?’ she asks Justin.

  ‘It looks alright to me,’ he answers as he examines the casing, then points excitedly at a slip of paper attached to the bottom with a rubber band. He rips it off and holds it out to her. ‘It’s got the owner’s name and the cost of repairs. That means the job was finished and this engine was waiting to be collected. We’re in luck!’

  ‘What about Nelson’s dad?’ Angel asks. ‘Will he mind?’

  Justin says, ‘I think he’d want to help you find your family.’ Angel smiles at his kindness.

  It takes them another precious hour to get the engine back to Juan’s bangka. It’s almost as heavy as Angel, which probably explains why the looters haven’t taken it already. It’s so unwieldy that they have to lower it down from the roof with a sort of sling made out of seat belts from the workshop. Then, suspending it from a long steel pole, they carry it between them across their shoulders. They also take a hammer, a spanner and a screwdriver from the trunk.

  It’s slow going and they don’t reach the boat until mid-morning. Angel can’t help missing her father’s strength in this situation. She feels a pang of guilt that he might be expecting her to visit today.

  ‘Now we need to get her upright,’ sighs Justin. He gives the boat an experimental shove but it’s stuck fast in the mud and barely moves. He looks around for help but everyone looks busy collecting or repairing things.

  ‘If only we had a tractor,’ he laments.

  ‘Yeah right,’ she laughs.

  They sit down and look across the water at Samar. It seems so close but it may as well be on another planet.

  ‘I’m going to swap the engines over,’ says Justin. ‘It’s easier when it’s upside down anyway.’

  He begins to dismantle the waterlogged engine on the bangka with the tools from the trunk. At first Angel watches, but after a while she wanders off down the waterfront, checking out the damage to their neighbours’ houses. It’s all much the same along this stretch. Most of the buildings have been knocked over and those that haven’t lost their roofs have been completely flooded. There’s little left to salvage.

  Some of the neighbours recognise her and wave from wherever they’re hammering, nailing or collecting items from their damaged homes. Then she meets one of her father’s fishermen friends. He is pleased to hear that Juan made it through. She tells him of her family’s situation and that she and her friend are trying to fix the boat so that they can get to Samar.

  ‘My wife and children are in Manila,’ he explains. ‘I thought we could come back and rebuild, but as you can see, there’s nothing to come back for.’ He indicates his former home, pulverised beyond repair.

  ‘Here,’ he says, going to a crate that he has been filling with a few salvageable items. ‘You’ll be needing some fuel. It’s very hard to come by because the service stations have been damaged and the pumps aren’t working. There’s a black market already and the prices are crazy, so people are siphoning it out of the fuel tanks of abandoned vehicles.’

  He hands her two screw-top glass bottles containing amber liquid.

  ‘That should be enough to get you there and back,’ he says. ‘It’s not much use to me. My boat was wrecked. Take it and I wish you and your friend the best of luck.’

  Angel is warmed by his generosity. She thanks him profusely and starts back to the bangka.

  ‘Could do with some help here!’ Justin calls out to her. He has loosened the old engine and now he needs to lower it to the ground. Angel places the bottles of fuel in a broken basket lying nearby and hurries over to assist. The procedure is more awkward than heavy, but Justin seems to know what he is doing. He steps back to survey his work. ‘It’s ready to take the new engine,’ he tells her. ‘We’re going to need fuel though. That’s going to be difficult.’

  Angel picks up the bottles from the basket and holds them out to him.

  Justin grins. ‘Wow! I’m not even going to ask how you managed that. Now we just have to work out how to turn this boat over.’

  There’s a loud revving and they see a truck inching along the road that runs by the water. Three men are in front of it, tossing rubbish out of the way so that the truck can pass, but it’s slow going. The driver waves and smiles at the two t
eenagers. Then he drops the truck to an idle and leans out the window.

  ‘Looks like you could do with some help?’

  ‘Oh yes, please,’ replies Angel.

  ‘Well, it’s going to take us all day to make a path through this mess, so we may as well do something useful …’

  He drives the truck over and the clean-up crew attach some thick steel cables to the boat. The vessel is winched up, up, up onto its end and lowered down so that it’s settled the right way up. Now that it’s been flipped and is close to the water’s edge, the new engine is lifted into the boat and fastened securely in place. Then everyone grabs hold and they start to inch the boat slowly to the lip of the cement wall. The truck driver lets out the cable while they keep the little boat level and upright until finally it plops into the shallow water.

  Everyone claps and cheers as the bangka bobs about in the sea. So far so good. ‘Salamat, salamat!’ say Angel and Justin and the clean-up crew wishes them ‘Swerte, good luck!’ before they head off to resume their slow progress clearing the road.

  It’s a sunny afternoon, still steamy with a few clouds. They drink thirstily from the water bottles and crunch on peanuts. The sea is flat and a pale, milky blue. Again Angel reflects on how changeable the ocean is. Deadly one minute, idyllic the next.

  Justin licks his lips nervously. ‘I guess we better try it out then.’

  They climb into the boat and Justin attempts to start the engine. It almost kicks, but there’s a deafening rattle and it peters out. He fetches his tools and tinkers for a while.

  Angel is content to sit in the prow while Justin does his repairs. ‘When did you learn to do this? I thought you were all about maths and study.’

  ‘Ah well,’ smiles Justin. ‘This is all part of my master plan. One day I’m going to run a fleet of fishing boats. It’s going to be huge – the most successful business in Tacloban – but I’ll need to be able to do all the numbers and the accounting. I’m going to be my own boss.’

  Angel is impressed. ‘Why do you know about fixing boats then?’

  ‘A good boss needs to understand every aspect of the business inside out, don’t you think? That way, my employees will respect me as one of them.’

  Angel had no idea that Issy’s brother was such an entrepreneur. Like her, he has been making plans for his future from a young age. Underneath the swagger he is hardworking and highly motivated.

  Lifting her gaze she sees a big black seabird wheeling in the sky overhead. She’s sure it’s the same one she’s seen before and is oddly comforted to think that somehow it survived the storm and made its way back here.

  The quiet is shattered as the engine finally sputters into life. Justin revs it hard, concentrating until he’s satisfied with its rhythm.

  ‘Okay, we’re in business,’ he says. ‘Let’s do this.’

  ‘What about your mother?’ protests Angel suddenly. ‘We promised her we’d find an experienced fisherman to take us over.’

  ‘See any experienced fishermen here?’ He indicates the now almost deserted beach. ‘Come on, we can do this. We don’t need adults to help us, we’ve come this far.’

  Angel is nervous about the journey across and what they might find in Samar, but it’s the only way to learn what has happened to her mother and brothers.

  Fourteen

  Angel sits in the prow and grips the edge of the little boat tightly as Justin moves it out of the shallows. The calm sea is full of objects that could damage the hull: jagged beams of floating timber, upside-down boats, even a floating car. Angel scans ahead, helping Justin to steer through safely. The further they get from land, the less they have to avoid until finally he is able to accelerate into the open water. She has to admit they make a good team.

  The black seabird is still tracking them high up in the blue sky. Angel has to squint into the sun to see it, but even when she can’t quite spot the sweep of its wings, she knows it’s there, keeping an eye on them.

  It’s so liberating to be out here on the open sea, away from the grim sights and sickly, cloying smells of Tacloban. As they pull away from the shore the damage becomes less visible. Angel takes a deep breath and fills her lungs with salty sea air. She can almost pretend everything is normal when she glances back at the distant city, although the skyline is strangely uneven and jagged.

  She turns towards Samar, bracing herself for how bad it might be.

  ‘Where do your grandparents live?’ asks Justin.

  ‘Their farm is a few kilometres inland from Basey,’ she replies.

  ‘Inland. That’s good, isn’t it?’

  ‘I hope so.’ Angel goes on to describe her grandparents’ farm. It’s just about her favourite place in the world. She has spent many happy childhood days there, playing with the baby ducks and the farm dog, Bantay, since he was a little puppy. Best of all is when her grandfather takes them for a ride in the cart with the sweet-natured pony, Blackie, clopping along the dusty roads.

  They’re much closer now and Justin guides the boat towards the picturesque little beaches and coves that are favourite locations for holiday postcards.

  They’re still a couple of hundred metres from shore when Justin turns the boat and steers it along the beach. They are both stunned into silence as they contemplate the scale of the damage. Once idyllic white sandy beaches are now entirely buried beneath rubbish. The graceful palm trees that fringed the shoreline are nothing but ragged stumps. Historic beachfront villas that faced Tacloban City, their Spanish architecture giving them a quaint, European charm, are gone forever. The smell of death is here too, and Angel half-closes her eyes to avoid seeing the bodies she knows are there, on the shore and in the shallows. People on the beach wave to them frantically with odd pieces of clothing or torn sheets as flags. This is not a friendly greeting; it’s a desperate cry for help.

  Justin pulls the boat in at the once-pretty coastal village of Santa Rita. He can tell it’s the village from the shape of the shoreline, but nothing else is familiar. He ties up the bangka and removes a piece of the starter engine so that it can’t be stolen. ‘I’m not taking any chances,’ he explains as he buttons it up in one of the deep pouches of his cargo pants.

  They scramble out of the boat and look around. Several people are picking listlessly through the rubble. A man wearing nothing but torn shorts is hammering broken pieces of timber onto a ruined house.

  ‘Do you have anything you can give us?’ he asks the teenagers and they shake their heads apologetically.

  ‘We’ve had no help or supplies yet,’ he tells them. ‘Where the hell is the army?’

  They feel helpless. There’s so much destruction here that the survivors simply don’t know where to start.

  ‘This is terrible,’ murmurs Angel. ‘They’ve got nothing.’

  ‘What’s the situation further inland?’ Justin asks the man.

  ‘I don’t know, I just don’t know,’ the man replies. ‘The power is still off, the phones are still down. It’s impossible to find out what’s going on.’

  Angel pulls the mobile phone out of her pocket, now only half charged, and dials Veronica’s number. It’s still not responding. She’s really starting to get scared now. Samar was on the frontline and obviously took the full force of the storm. It seems like everything was mashed to a pulp here and she’s starting to think that it’s a miracle anyone survived at all.

  Angel’s strength is draining fast and her whole body begins to droop. She can feel Justin looking at her worriedly.

  ‘Let’s see if we can find some transport,’ he says, brightly. ‘If they’re anywhere, they’ll be at the farm.’

  They clamber over the debris on the beach and into the village square. Most of the houses are damaged but it’s marginally better the further they get from the sea. Angel feels a prickle of hope. If her family were up on the hill, perhaps they’re safe?

  A group of volunteers has arrived from Cebu only minutes before. They are setting up trestle tables piled with medicines a
nd dressings, and unpacking syringes for vaccinations. Another group has begun handing out bottled water and bags of rice.

  ‘See? Help is slowly coming,’ Justin says confidently. He approaches one of the volunteers – a young man with an eager smile – and asks how he got here.

  ‘We managed to get a lift on a truck full of journalists. One of those big vehicles that are high off the ground with big fat tyres. They just crunch over the top of everything!’

  ‘What are the roads like?’ Justin enquires.

  ‘They’re only partly open and there’s still a lot of flooding. We saw a couple of horses pulling carts – they seemed to get through – but that’s about it.’

  Angel pipes up, ‘Horse and cart! My grandpa and grandma have one of those, they use it for everything.’

  ‘So much for modern transport,’ says Justin.

  ‘Times like these we have to fall back on the old ways to survive,’ says the volunteer.

  ‘Is the truck still here?’ asks Angel.

  ‘Might be,’ answers the volunteer. He points to a giant pile of rubble that was once a school building. ‘They dropped us behind there about ten minutes ago.’

  Justin and Angel move as fast as they can over the scarred terrain and are rewarded by the sight of the tall boxy truck parked behind the school. Several foreign reporters and camera crews are clustered nearby, stretching their legs before they have to climb aboard for the next stage of their bumpy ride.

  ‘Hello? Excuse me, can you help us?’ calls out Angel and their pale, unfamiliar faces turn towards her. Suddenly she is paralysed with shyness. Since when did she have the nerve to approach complete strangers – international journalists, no less – and ask them to help her? Before the typhoon she would have died before putting herself forward like this, but now she doesn’t hesitate.