by Brian Payton
The women are gathered on the steps in ill-fitting clothes, conferring quietly. On Helen’s approach, they step aside.
“Hello,” Helen says. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m on my way home from the Aleutians, and thought I’d take the chance . . .”
One of the women turns and guides the girl away, as if Helen might be contagious, or the bearer of bad news. The woman left behind, perhaps fifty years old, avoids eye contact but nods respectfully. “Which part?”
“I made it as far as Adak.”
Her expression brightens a shade. “We’re from Atka, the island to the east.”
By now this upwelling sense of connection—proximity—is so familiar she reflexively tamps it down. “I stopped in to pray for my husband,” Helen says. “His plane was lost near Attu.”
The woman looks up and into Helen’s eyes. “The Japs got everyone on Attu. What they did with them, nobody knows.”
“And hardly anyone knows they’re missing . . .”
“I pray for them every day.”
Helen leads with her strongest card. “Ilya Hopikoff, and his boy, Jesse. Do you know them? We met in Seattle. Are they back at the camp?”
“Ilya’s wife was my cousin,” she says, taken aback, considering Helen anew. “They’re still stateside, far as I know.”
“I hope they come back to you soon.”
“They’re better off where they are.” The woman states a matter of indisputable fact. “We’re up at the old cannery. Eighty-three of us. Everyone from Atka. They dumped us out there for the duration. We just come in for the doctor and the priest.”
“My husband has been to your island. Did you happen to meet a reporter last spring? Tall man”—Helen marks his height with her hand—“lean, brown hair, thirty-eight . . . handsome.”
The woman shakes her head. “We had quite a few outsiders in the community,” she explains. “They kept asking if we’d seen any strange ships or submarines. We were all on the lookout for the Japanese.”
Helen nods.
“I’m sorry about your husband. God rest his soul.”
Helen finds herself unable to respond.
The woman says good-bye, then makes her way to the others, waiting a safe distance down the street.
HELEN TRUDGES BACK through town. Shops, gardens, a primary school—bright and cheerful sights that fail to shift her focus. But when the airbase comes into view again, she wonders which plane was hers, and what its make and model might be. Her father will want a report about each and every plane she’s flown on, as well as the kinds of bombs they carry. He’ll shake his head when she admits she forgot to take any note of the latest radio equipment.
She tells herself that the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps is no cause for concern, and yet the memory of Airman Perera’s face comes back to her. She stiffens her spine, resists the urge to glance over her shoulder.
A young man rushes up from behind then stops beside her, bent over panting, hands on knees. Thick black hair and warm complexion. He stands and reveals high cheekbones and dark, almond eyes. No more than nineteen or twenty. He wipes his mouth, then introduces himself as the son of the woman Helen spoke to back at the church.
He’s got to hear what she knows of Attu, whether she’s seen anyone, whether anyone’s managed to escape. Has the military got a plan to finally go out there and save them?
“You heard what the Japs did to civilians in China? Place called Nanking?” His throat tightens on the words. “What they did to old people and women?”
She sees and feels it, physically. Their shared anxieties. Someone else set adrift on the questions surrounding Attu, someone else left spinning endless hypotheses.
“They’re still dug in,” Helen says. “Over on Kiska, too. They’re getting bombed almost every day. But our guys are building up to something. One way or another, the war is set to break wide open—and soon.”
He has none of his mother’s reticence. He tells Helen that his father was the lay priest serving both Atka and Attu. For as long as he can remember, he accompanied him on trips between the islands, helping with the boat and church duties. On Attu, he met a girl and fell in love. She said she’d marry him.
“Then Attu’s radio went quiet. That was June seventh of last year. A few days later, we all got shipped out here. There’s been no news of Attu ’til you showed up asking questions.”
But Helen has arrived empty-handed. If only she could offer him what she seeks for herself, some fresh reason for hope, some new path for him to pace.
“I wish I had some answers for you.”
“Her father was building us a boat of our own. But he’s getting old. And she’s got no brothers. I should have been there to protect her. I should have been . . .” he says, jabbing his finger at the middle of his chest.
He does not look away, or cover his agony. He cries so hard he looses the power of speech. Helen reaches out to hold him but his body is a rigid knot. He neither responds nor pushes her away.
At last he steps aside and wipes his face. He reaches into his pocket, withdraws two dollar bills, and gestures back up the road. “Can you go into that shop up there and buy me a fifth of brandy? They won’t sell to me.”
Helen does not hesitate. She takes his money and marches back toward the store.
Around the back of the building, away from prying eyes, she uncorks the bottle and takes a swig before handing it over. He tilts the bottle to his lips and closes his eyes.
* * *
THE YOUNG SEAMAN who drove Helen to church pulls up outside the window of her otherwise vacant quarters. It’s just shy of eight o’clock in the morning. He jumps out of the jeep and jogs around to her door with a kind of boundless energy. He wishes her good morning, asks if she found breakfast in time. Grabs her bag and lobs it into the back of the vehicle before holding open the door for her. Helen steps in, feeling as if she’s aged ten years in the past few months without having gained the wisdom she’s due. He hustles back around and slides behind the wheel.
“This is for you,” he says, pulling a folded sheet of paper from a clip on the dashboard. “Came in late last night.”
She unfolds a handwritten note that is the product of several authors. The message first made its way from California with a pilot heading north to Kodiak Island. From there, it was dictated to the radioman here at Sitka.
Dear Helen,
This telegram arrived for you at the office almost two weeks ago. They tried to get it out to us, but somehow it got lost at Fairbanks. I’m sorry for this news and hope things turn out for the best. Let me know how you are when you get home.
Yours,
Stephen
And then, in tight block capitals:
HELEN EASLEY, C/O USO PACIFIC
DAD’S IN ROUGH SHAPE. WHERE ARE YOU?
WE GOT THE CALL FROM ST. BRIGID’S.
GET HOME AS SOON AS YOU CAN.
FRANK CONNELLY
In her eldest brother’s typical haste, he neglected to fill in any details. So Helen fills them in for herself.
ROUGH SHAPE . . . Did her father have another, more damaging stroke? Have things gotten worse since this note was written? Did his funeral come and go while she was asleep somewhere, or onstage singing one of her songs? She abandoned her father when he needed her most. Now, for all she knows, she is both widow and orphan.
They drive past the hangar to the very shadow of the plane’s wing. As the crew approaches, Helen excuses herself, jumps out of the jeep, and runs past them and into the hangar where she finds a desk and a telephone. She asks the operator to place a collect call to her father’s house. When no one answers, Helen asks instead to be connected to her brother Frank in Jersey City, where it is just after noon. She tries twice. When her second attempt goes unanswered, she tries the rectory of St. Brigid’s parish—where it seems no one picks up the phone outside of office hours.
She is sentenced to a new state of limbo until her plane touches down in Seattle. Helen is l
eft to reread and parse her brother’s words, make plans and contingencies, try to comprehend all that has taken place and what it could possibly mean.
If John were here with her now, he would hold her hand and tell her not to fill the void with fear. Be realistic, he’d say, but do not jump straight to catastrophic conclusions. Remember how abrupt your brother can be and the fact that there were no further telegrams. There are enough hard facts to confront each day without letting our imaginations get the better of us—without letting worry drain our real lives away.
She sets the note aside and closes her eyes, savoring the memory of him.
TWENTY-ONE
THE MORNING IS STILL SO NEW IT CAN SCARCELY BE distinguished from night. An oil lamp hangs from the post, dimmed by a too short wick. Easley opens his eyes to a sensation he has long been dreaming of. The stovepipe in the middle of the tent radiates heat, and the air inside is summer. He lifts his head to see if the others are feeling it too, but most everyone else is caught in the deepest cycle of sleep. He is dry and warm and can feel the skin of his face flush with the joy of it.
It is the heat, he is certain, that results in another sensation from what seems like a lifetime ago: an erection so stiff and full it borders on the painful. Easley looks down the blanket and sees the form of it hovering over his belly. It aches in time with his pulse. He can’t recall having had one so strong and sure since arriving in this barren place. He rolls over on his side to protect it.
The promised evacuation of wounded men has been delayed yet again. Easley no longer believes anything he hears from officers. He puts stock only in what the enlisted men are saying. They claim there are easily over two thousand Japanese concentrated in the mountains above the village. The Americans have landed more than twelve thousand men, several hundred are dead or missing, over two thousand injured or wounded. The invasion that was to have taken seventy-two hours is now stretching into its second week. Despite the determination of the Japanese, and their constant sniping from the heights above, half the American casualties result from exposure to the elements. Hundreds of men are losing their feet, others are coming down with hypothermia.
The positions are now well defined: the enemy holds the high ground, the Americans hold the lowlands and the beach. Are the Japanese waiting for some imminent rescue from the air or sea? If and when that force arrives, the Americans on the ground will be caught—exposed—in between.
Although the wounded are being fed regularly, there is never enough food for the troops. The gear they’ve brought is insufficient for the weather and terrain. It all seems patched together. Rumor is, the commanding officer of the whole operation is about to get pulled. The men wonder aloud if this change will come in time. When they discover that Easley is a journalist, they eagerly spill their guts, as if cooperation might somehow reduce their current sentence.
A familiar face enters the tent. He nods to the Greek, who looks up from counting vials by the stove. The man removes his helmet, followed by the socks from his hands. He scratches his scalp, then scans the row of litters on his left—until he meets Easley’s gaze. He winks, flips the helmet back atop his head, then sets a pot of water on the stove to boil. A cough emanates from a litter near the flap. The man grabs a wool blanket, then walks over and unfurls it over the patient.
When the water boils, he pours some into his helmet then sits down on a crate. From his pocket, he produces a safety razor and a bar of soap. He lathers his neck and cheeks and begins to shave. He lifts the little mirror from his knee and considers the result. He catches Easley’s eye in the reflection. “Pain?”
Easley nods his head.
The man drags the razor through the water, then starts in on the hollows of his cheeks. “You still have a fever. You got to keep an eye on that kind of infection. There could be complications down the road.”
“Then what? Cut it off at the hip?”
He glances at Easley, then back to the job at hand. “At that stage, we shoot you and put you out of our misery.”
Gusts shove and bully the walls of the tent.
With great effort, Easley manages to prop himself up on his elbows. His body seems to have grown weaker from lying constantly prone. “Any news?”
“More of the same. They’re starving faster than we are. The blockade is holding—for now.” Before shaving his upper lip, he pinches his nose like a diver. The man even holds his breath. On the exhale he says, “Either they can’t face the fact they’re trapped, or they know something we don’t.”
With both hands, he rubs his face. Satisfied, he opens his jacket and pulls up the front of his shirt to wipe his cheeks. “You should sleep while you can. It’s bound to get busy around here, one way or another.”
“I sleep too much.”
He now retrieves a medical bag and walks over to Easley. He pulls back the blanket and inspects the bandages and stump, then the remaining foot, where skin peels away as the swelling recedes. He pulls up a crate, swabs Easley’s weeping wound, then unrolls fresh white bandages. When finished, he sits back, frowning at Easley’s face.
He rummages through his kit and pulls out a pair of scissors. “I’m getting tired of looking at you. Time to lose the disguise. You want me to do it or do you want to do it yourself?”
Easley takes up the scissors and pulls a lock of beard. He cuts weakly, then tosses the whiskers aside. He makes two more cuts, then his arms get tired and he lies back down again.
The soldier retrieves the scissors and starts in on Easley’s beard. Once it is cut down to stubble, he gets fresh hot water, rubs the soap between his palms, and lathers Easley’s face. Easley closes his eyes, drifting in the warmth and touch.
Warren insisted they go for “proper” shaves on his brother’s wedding day. Easley felt like bolting as soon as he leaned back in that barber’s chair. Bearing his throat to some sweaty old guy with bad breath and a blade. He swore to never repeat the experience. A few months later, Easley found himself in that big soaker tub, wrapped around Helen’s fine form. Slick, soft, warm, and soapy. Lean back, she says. Relax and let me at those whiskers. And Easley says no. The mistakes we live to regret. This moves up near the top of the list of things left undone . . . And now she steps out of the tub and toward the bed. It’s the right time of the month, she declares. Time’s wasting. He manages to hoist himself up on his remaining leg, balancing, unable to move any further.
“Buddy!”
Easley awakes with a start.
“You’re swearing in your sleep.”
Easley closes his eyes again. “Can I ask something? It might seem like a small thing, given the state we’re in.”
“Don’t tell me, you want a haircut too.”
“How am I supposed to greet my wife if I ever get to see her again? I can’t even stand when she enters the room. I want you to tell me that with a good false leg and a cane I can learn to get up and around again. Tell me practice will smooth the gait. Tell me one day I can toss the cane, hold her hand, walk down the street like an ordinary man.”
“Sure. You’re rich and handsome too.”
Over at the flap, the cough starts up again.
“Since we’re on such intimate terms,” Easley says, “I think I should know your name.”
“Cohen.”
All at once, the world outside erupts with high-pitched, maniacal cries surrounding the tent, closing in. Cohen turns, looks up, then bolts outside. The disorienting charge descends from every direction. Over and over, they scream banzai! Easley’s heart leaps past wakefulness, past the choice between fight or flight, to the realization that such physical response is no longer available to him. His one fixed point of reference is the Greek, now standing like a pillar at his side.
The screaming escalates, and before Easley can raise his head to look, the flap of the tent pulls back and the enemy rushes in. The first man’s voice seems to frighten himself almost as much as his intended audience. His comrades barge in behind him. The Greek raises his arm to shield
himself as a long blade flies toward his chest. Easley tips his own litter in a pathetic attempt to flee. The bayonet thrusts, then thrusts again. The Greek steps back, topples over the litter and falls, pinning Easley to the ground.
The enemy spreads throughout the tent, moving from bed to bed, slaughtering wounded men with bayonets and swords. Shielded by the body of the Greek, Easley can see at least three pairs of Japanese trousers moving through the tent. Blood flows warm from above, soaking Easley’s shirt at the shoulder and down the back. The Greek’s right hand dangles in front of Easley’s face—life reduced to small, spasmodic tremors in thumb and index finger. The lamp goes down then all is black. English shouts and curses mix with banzai! cries until the tent is swamped with a chorus of murderous screams. Easley closes his eyes and assumes his place among the dead.
The attackers runs outside, then one suddenly stomps back in to ensure they finished the job, shouting and kicking everything in his path. A boot glances the Greek’s head. Easley holds his breath as rifle fire fills his ears.
He remains pinned beneath his camouflage as the wild attack surges and retreats. Beyond the cluster of tents, the sounds of what seems like a concerted assault disintegrate into confusion. A few minutes later, a grenade goes off in the distance. Rifle and machine-gun fire reply. Then, the sounds of battle move away.
The stillness inside the tent is disrupted by a woeful sigh. In vain, Easley strains his ears for further proof he is not alone.
After what seems like the better part of an hour, unseen men approach, panting, whispering in frantic Japanese. A new surge of panic wells up, along with the understanding that this must be the end. But then the enemy fades away.
