by Alan Chin
They crawled through twisting vines and over fallen tree trunks for another half mile. An eternity passed before Andrew stumbled through a thick stand of vegetation and saw the coastline. Blue-green water stretched to infinity. Vast. Incomprehensible. The space within him expanded.
He had forgotten that a world other than the prison existed. He wished that he had brought Jah-Jai so he could play music with the surf pounding the sand for an underlying beat. Tottori walked up behind him and enfolded him in powerful arms.
“I should have brought you here sooner,” Tottori whispered. They merged while watching the sun wander toward the horizon.
Distant laughter violated their solemn stillness. Far up the beach, a dozen stout huts squatted on stilts under the palm trees, a few yards beyond the yellow sand. Several brightly painted dugout canoes languished on the beach with their sails neatly furled. Fishing nets draped from long poles. A horde of naked children began a game of keep-away in the surf.
“Come,” Tottori said. “Let us pay our respects to the village elders.”
They wandered down the beach until they stood before the largest hut. Three elderly men and a toothless old woman hunkered on the veranda, smoking pipes with long, slender stems. Forty feet down the beach a pig carcass roasted on a spit over glowing coals. The aroma of roasting meat wafted on the air.
Andrew followed Tottori up a rickety ladder and onto the veranda. They squatted on their haunches, emulating the Malays. Several natives emerged from the hut and gathered around. The mood turned lighthearted.
“Tabe, Wang San,” Tottori said.
“Welcome, Tottori,” said the oldest-looking man. He wore a maroon sarong, and a single piece of coral jewelry hung from his neck on a leather cord. He smiled, showing the few betel-nut-stained teeth he had left.
“How are you?” Tottori asked.
“Me good,” replied the old one, groping for the proper English words.
Tottori pointed to Andrew. “Ichi-ban boy.” Tottori took Andrew’s hand, brought it to his lips, and kissed it.
Comprehension lit up their faces. The old man caressed Andrew’s cheek, appraising his beauty. He nodded and winked to tell the officer that he approved of such a fine mistress.
A wave of satisfaction flowed through Andrew from being with these people and each one understanding his role.
“You eat?”
Tottori nodded, and food arrived minutes later: thick slices of roasted pork dripping in fat, grilled eel, baked sweet potatoes, millionaire’s cabbage, fried bananas, fresh papayas, and a pitcher of coconut milk. A feast for such a village, Andrew thought. They must be prospering from selling their nightly fish catch to the Japanese.
Everyone ate, the women more shyly than the men. Andrew ate with his hands, licking the pork fat from his fingers. He ate more slowly than the others, savoring each bite, while he wondered how to tell the elders that their radio had put them in danger.
The old man turned to his wife and, speaking in Malay, said, “The food is not to the young master’s taste. What else might we prepare for him?”
Andrew knew enough Malay to understand the old man’s meaning and he replied in Malay, “On the contrary, Grandfather. This feast is beyond delicious as the stars are beyond the clouds. But something troubles me.”
“What could be disturbing on such a night?”
Andrew could tell that Tottori didn’t understand Malay, so he decided to gamble.
“Thou keeps a little snake which interests the Englishmen greatly.”
“Many things interest the English.”
“This snake hisses news from far away.”
The man’s eyes widened perceptibly.
“This snake has poison fangs,” Andrew continued. “A wise man would shoo it away. The English are like old women and love to gossip about such creatures.”
“Thou, my grandson, are both wise and kind.” The old one bowed to his guest while the others traded fearful glances.
“What did you tell him?” Tottori asked, obviously aware of the sudden mood change.
“I thanked him for his hospitality.”
Tottori studied him with a curious smile.
Andrew quickly finished his meal so as not to seem impolite.
“Would thou have more?” the old man said.
“No, thank thee,” Andrew replied, knowing that to overeat would be rude.
Women whisked the plates away and brought coffee. The men filled their pipes and lit them with a burning brand brought from the cooking fire. After they finished their coffee, Tottori stood and bowed. Andrew followed his example.
“We thank you for your hospitality,” Tottori said. Andrew translated.
The old man waved a hand. “I’ll not forget thy kindness. Go with Allah, my grandson.”
The evening sky blushed a pure shade of lavender. The stars had not yet appeared, but the villagers gathered at the boats to prepare the nets. A few minutes later they hauled the boats into the surf and glided across the water, leaving a green trail of phosphorescent light. The same light inflamed the surf and made the night seem magical.
Tottori led Andrew a hundred yards up the beach. They undressed as the moon peeped over the horizon. Holding hands, they dashed into the water, diving into an oncoming wave of green light. They swam underwater until they found a cold pocket in the warm surf. Breaking the surface, they floated lazily in the shallows.
The sea caressed Andrew’s nakedness. It felt like a thousand silky fingers roving over his skin. For a second he was back at the Bai Hur Sze Temple enjoying a midnight swim with Clifford. Andrew playfully splashed a handful of water at Tottori. The air shattered with brilliant phosphorescent light. They tumbled in luminescence; were covered with it; radiated it. Seduced by such splendor—this delirious freedom, a full stomach, swimming naked with Tottori—Andrew trembled, humbled by sheer awe.
As Tottori hugged Andrew, the surf swirled around his loins and mixed with the heat from Tottori’s body, igniting Andrew’s insides. They kissed, a sensuous pressing of lips that seemed to last an eon. Tottori carried Andrew to the beach and laid him on the sand. Waves lapped at their legs. He smothered Andrew with his body. His mouth consumed Andrew like an act of communion. Andrew’s hunger surged as Tottori’s lovemaking became imperious and turned into an act of taking possession.
Andrew welcomed the aggression, surrendering to Tottori’s brutality. He merged with the sand under him and the stone-hard body covering him while luminescent water swirled over their legs. It all coalesced into a sensation of ferocious love. This was the first time they had made love outside the confines of their bedroom. The weight of the entire universe pressed from all sides, crushing them together with such agonizing ecstasy that nothing but their hunger for each other survived.
Later, as the tide rushed out, they lay with limbs interlocked. Andrew’s flesh was bruised. He looked into Tottori’s eyes, and for the first time there was no trace of fear. The terror in Tottori’s mind had finally been incinerated.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
December 25, 1944—1000 hours
PREPARATIONS for the Christmas celebration began before dawn. Cocoa planned the menu and sent every man out to borrow, steal, and buy an extra hot plate, two stew pots, coconuts, bananas, papayas, and spices. Every egg in the camp was bought up at exorbitant prices. Grady killed three plump hens and plucked feathers all morning.
The feast had the entire crew dizzy with anticipation. Men who hadn’t smiled in years were unable to contain their excitement.
Andrew fabricated a present for Mitchell. He had Do-Han scrambling to scrounge the materials: paper, string, cloth, thin bamboo sticks, and glue. Andrew also wrapped Clifford’s silk sarong with the same colorful paper. At eleven hundred hours, he hustled to Hut Twenty-nine to help prepare the feast.
Cocoa set two stew pots on hotplates. He half filled one with water and added four pounds of katchang idju beans along with heaping spoonfuls of salt, pepper, and sugar. He planned to le
t the beans simmer for an hour before adding the two pounds of pork. As Cocoa unwrapped the banana-leaf sheath and brought out the roasted pork, a hush fell over the hut. Even the drone of flies seemed to fade into silence.
“Somebody pinch me,” Ogden mumbled. “I’ve got to be dreamin’.”
Cocoa cut the meat into half-inch cubes and, his face beaming, covered it with the banana leaves and set it close to the stew pot. “That’s right, boys. This will be the best damn celebration this camp has ever seen. Today we eat like men.”
In the other stew pot, Andrew brought the water to a boil and dumped in three cut-up chickens, innards and all. He added the grated meat from six green papayas, milk from four coconuts, salt, and pepper, and brought it to a boil. The air filled with a delightful fragrance. He covered it and took it off the heat. After an hour it would be ready to add the rice. That done, it was time to wait.
The Americans were on the second lunch schedule that day, so they hustled out of the hut at 1300 hours to stand in line for their rations of watery fish soup and steamed rice. To a man, they downed their soup to keep their stomach juices at bay but saved the rice for the feast to come. They ran to the hut like schoolboys playing a game.
The other prisoners took notice. Mouthwatering aromas drifted over the entire eastern end of the camp. It grabbed control of their minds and twisted their stomachs into knots.
“Bloody hell,” said a stocky British corporal to his chums. “What’s that brilliant smell?”
“Goddamned Jappos are cooking something bloody marvelous to drive us batty.”
“It’s meat! The Jappos are cooking meat.”
“No mate, it’s coming from inside the camp. It’s got to be the Yanks. The Jappos don’t eat meat, only fish heads and shit like that.”
“Five long hours to dinner and those scum bastards are cooking meat. May they rot in hell.”
“Dead on target, mate. Those bloody swine don’t have the right to be living so high and mighty while we’re starving. Why don’t our officers bring them down a peg or two?”
At Hut Twenty-nine, the preparations were all but done when Stokes led Mitchell, Fisher, and Moyer up the hut steps. The men gathered loosely around the stew pots. Some tried to take their mind off the food by playing bridge, but nobody’s mind was on the game, and nobody bothered to play the torturous food game while real food was cooking.
“Sweet Jesus, what’s that glorious aroma,” Mitchell exclaimed as he stepped into the hut. “You’re going to cause a riot if you don’t tone that down.”
“We’ve got the perfect way to tone it down, sir,” Hudson said with a gleeful smirk. “In about fifteen minutes we’re going to suck up every last drop of this feast and get drunk as skunks on rice wine.”
The officers all trooped over to the stew pots and inspected the mounds of food: a huge basket of eggs serenely awaiting the frying pan, shrimps soaking in a bowl of rainwater, and pork-and-bean stew bubbling on the hotplate. There was also a spicy green papaya salad with sardines, chicken and rice soup, and bananas and coconut meat for dessert.
Clifford sauntered up the steps to Hut Twenty-nine. As he stood in the doorway, Hudson rushed over to take his hand.
“Thank you for coming. You’re my guest of honor.”
Clifford leaned into Hudson and kissed his cheek. “H-h-how could I possibly pass up such a gracious invitation?”
Hudson led Clifford to where Andrew was stirring the soup. Andrew took him into his arms for a tender hug. Their cheeks pressed together so intimately that the men around them blushed with befuddled embarrassment.
“What’s this celebration about?” Fisher asked in an overly loud voice, as if to break the sudden awkward silence.
“Good God, I’m surrounded by heathens,” Moyer said, with a merry chuckle that made everyone laugh. “It’s Christmas!”
“Wow, I had no idea,” Fisher said. “I didn’t even know it was December.”
Skeeter Banks stepped forward. “Give us a prayer, Mr. Moyer.”
Moyer beamed. “You betcha. Let’s all bow our heads.”
The men huddled around Moyer, silently staring at the floorboards. Moyer said a prayer of thanks in a solemn voice that reverberated through every heart. He told how the disciples who loved Jesus gathered around him at the Last Supper and showered him with tender love. The men gazed up to the rafters, spellbound, as if they could see their Savior floating there.
As Moyer’s voice swelled with feeling, Hudson held Clifford’s hand and occasionally said, “Amen.”
Andrew took the lid off the chicken soup as he listened to the timbre of Moyer’s voice. A cloud of fragrant steam drifted up, drowning the hut with richness. Little pools of fat globules floated on the simmering liquid. Andrew tossed in a handful of turmeric and huan and stirred the fat into the broth. He poured ten mess-cans of steamed rice into the broth, covered it, and took it off the heat. Give it ten minutes, he thought, placing a frying pan on the hotplate.
As Moyer spoke of Jesus, Andrew envisioned the Savior’s body spread against the rough wooden cross, those sculpted arms, smooth chest, blood trickling down his face like tears. Andrew felt sweat sliding down his own face and wiped it away.
Like Andrew, all the men were drenched in sweat. It ran down their faces and chests and arms, dripping onto the floorboards. No one noticed the sweat, the heat, or the flies droning overhead. They were only aware of Moyer’s reverberating voice and the magnificent fragrance of cooking meat. Occasionally they glanced at the stew pots to assure themselves this was no dream. A few carried a tinge of fear that they had died and this incredible smell was actually heaven. Either way, they knew that soon, very soon, they would eat meat.
Andrew lifted the lid off the pork stew, dipped a spoon into the bubbling liquid, and tasted. He added a pinch more turmeric, a dash of salt, and re-covered the pot.
Moyer’s quavering voice told how, during the Last Supper, Jesus showed divine love for all of his disciples, even the ones who would betray and deny him, and how he symbolically shared his body and his blood with each man equally. Moyer’s voice surged in volume as he ended the prayer. The room went quiet for half a minute. The men finished by singing two hymns: “The Old Rugged Cross” and “Just as I Am.” With each hymn Grady’s voice rose above the others. He added a jazzy intonation to the songs, like gospel singers in the southern churches.
As soon as the second hymn ended, Andrew broke eggs over the frying pan while Cocoa chopped shrimps. The men grabbed tin plates, billycans, and spoons, and lined up, inching their way down the chow line. Grady dished up papaya salad with sardines. Andrew scrambled eggs with chopped shrimp. Stokes ladled chicken and rice soup into each billycan. Hudson laid down a bed of rice on each plate and spread pork-and-bean stew over it.
It was more food than anyone had seen in one place since leaving the Pilgrim. Each man downed two or three quick mouthfuls to alleviate the pain in his gut and chewed slowly to relish each additional bite. This was not simply a meal; it became an emotional feast. They made love with their mouths to every spoonful.
The officers were served last, and Andrew divided what little was left with his unit. Before he served himself, he glanced around the room. Most of the others were still eating. Some had finished and were licking their plates. He saw all the sweating, smiling faces, and he felt a glow of brotherhood in his heart, that feeling between men who were up against something horrible, and had nothing but each other.
As he scanned the faces, his vision fell on Mitchell’s vivid green eyes staring at him. The glow in Andrew’s heart blossomed into something scorching, something painfully exquisite. He hurried to fill his plate and sit next to Mitchell.
The eggs were fluffy without being dry. The pork stew was thick and meaty; the beans had absorbed the savory tang of the pork and the juice oozed onto the bed of rice. The chicken soup was equally delicious, with chunks of meat and yellow globules of fat blanketing the surface.
Silence descended on the hut, as
if the universe were holding its breath, waiting for a verdict.
Mitchell took a voluptuous bite of pork stew and moaned. “Superb!”
“I’ve died and gone to heaven,” Fisher said.
Contented laughter and satisfied belches peppered the hut as the men ate.
“Ensign Moyer,” Mitchell said, “that was a beautiful prayer. You certainly have developed a feeling for God’s word. It’s remarkable how you’ve ripened under this hardship.”
Andrew added. “You are certainly no longer that man who talked about the Phenomenon of Darkness.”
Moyer nodded. “I spent my life looking for God in the faces of people who didn’t really care, and I never saw a trace of what I was searching for. But I came here and saw God shining in every pair of eyes. When I’m with these boys, holding their hands and praying for them to live another day, it’s as if I’m not here at all. It’s like I’ve died and all I feel is warmth flowing into them, as if the hand of God were reaching through me.” Moyer chuckled and wagged his head. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted. I had to come here to find it. This is the true house of God, not those clean, antiseptic, white-shingled churches at home.”
Andrew said, “It was always inside you. You had to step aside, to die, as you called it, to experience God. My favorite line in the Shoyo Roku said, ‘On the withered tree, a flower blooms.’”
Moyer nodded. “The Bible said, ‘Lest ye die, ye shall not be born again.’”
“Seems we’re not so different after all. I’m happy that you’ve found what you wanted.”
Moyer laughed, “Guess I’m the only one in this whole damned camp who’s glad to be here.”
Clifford stammered, “A-A-A-Andy is happy. He has everything he wants.” He nudged closer to Hudson. “I-I-I’m happy too.”
Andrew and Clifford traded smiles.
Cocoa hobbled to the cooking pots and placed the big frying pan on a hotplate. “Ho Ho Ho! I hope you bums saved room for dessert, fried bananas and coconut meat.”
