OUTPOURING: Typhoon Yolanda Relief Anthology

by Dean Francis Alfar

  The three women in the photograph held their baskets on their heads and watched over Marivic as she lay in bed with the men who came after Jonathan. They saw her naked, playing chess with a lover she’d met in line at a movie theatre. They saw her dance with her eyes closed, alone, the thrum of music so low it was nothing but a whisper. And once they saw her shatter a full-length mirror and toss away the shards without drawing blood. They saw everything.

  A Moment in Time

  By Charie D. La Marr

  For the people of the Philippines. Be brave. Be strong. Recover.

  People often ask me if I am a dying breed. Why do we still have photographers covering events around the world when we have television? And I tell them about moments frozen in time.

  I was still kicking around college as an art student when the World Trade Centers went down. Like everyone, I must have watched the videos of those buildings go down a hundred times. But even living here in New York, that wasn’t what got to me. For me, it was that photograph of the falling man that did it.

  I remember getting The Times the day after, sitting in a coffee shop near my apartment uptown. I turned through the pages, staring blankly; almost not believing what I was seeing was real. And then I got to page seven and saw him. The falling man. And I couldn’t look away. It was so horrible and yet at the same time, there was something so delicate and poignant about that moment frozen in time. A fragile dance of death.

  And I knew at that moment what I wanted to do with my life. I put down the paintbrushes and pastels and picked up my camera. I was a mediocre artist at best. I would never be able to capture moments on canvas the way that Goya did in The Third of May 1808 or Géricault did in The Raft of the Medusa. But maybe with my camera, I could capture them on film.

  Four years later, I found myself in New Orleans, one of dozens and dozens of photographers all vying for the same shots. I was in all the right places—at the Superdome, the airport and following the National Guard in St. Bernard Parish as they went house to house. And I got all the right pictures—a woman sitting dead in her wheelchair in the hot sun at the Dome, the Guard marking houses where they had discovered bodies. But other people were taking the exact same pictures. I wasn’t able to put my own personal stamp on my work. It was flat and lifeless. I wasn’t able to reach out and capture anyone’s story the way that Richard Drew had at the World Trade Center, and so on Friday when they announced the zero access policy regarding the media, I packed up my stuff and headed home completely exhausted.

  I spent the next couple of years travelling around the globe on a variety of assignments. It got so there were so many tragedies to cover that I went to bed at night with a fresh set of clothes to travel in set out, my passport tucked inside my camera bag and a suitcase packed and waiting by the door. I finally gave my cat to a friend because it took up valuable time finding her a temporary home. Time when I could have been on a plane heading somewhere instead.

  But my pictures still lacked that something—that essence that would bring a person’s story to life by capturing their moment. They ended up in the papers, and I got plenty of assignments, but in my heart, I just knew that something was missing.

  Then in March of 2011, I got my chance. A magnitude 9.0 earthquake occurred off the coast of Japan near Honshu and triggered a tsunami that reached 133 feet in Mikayo and moved 6 miles inland. I was on a plane and headed east as soon as I got the call.

  On my way north from Tokyo, I began learning the details of the earthquake. I learned about things like the Earth’s axis and the Chandler Wobble. The island of Honshu had actually moved 8 feet east and the Earth’s axis had shifted somewhere between 4 and 10 inches. There had been serious damage to nuclear reactor plants and the death toll would be heavy. Hundreds of thousands of people were being evacuated from the areas surrounding the plants. Somewhere out there was my assignment. Someone needed me to capture their moment and tell their story to the world.

  I found it in the form of an elderly woman sitting on the roof of what was left of a two-story building, staring out at the sea in front of her. With a little bit of college Japanese and the help of a translator, I tried to coax her down, but she refused. She told me that the hand of God had reached up from the ocean floor and taken away everyone she loved. Mother, husband, children, grandchildren, brothers, and sisters. She was afraid to come down because God would realize he had forgotten her and return. She clung to a tiny jacket that she said belonged to her granddaughter. She was holding the little girl when the water came. They clutched each other tightly, but then she saw that all she was holding was the jacket. Somehow her granddaughter had slipped away.

  As she talked, I watched her through the lens of my camera. Her skin was wrinkled and tanned like old leather. She shivered, wrapped in the tattered remains of a blanket. Tears hung in the corners of her eyes the way raindrops do in clouds before a downpour. But she didn’t let them go. She simply stared out at the sea and rocked back and forth, holding the jacket as workers raced to reach her.

  And then I saw it. Her moment in time. She looked skyward and held the jacket to her cheek. In my lens, I saw the tiny trickle of a tear slide down her face and glint in the sun for just one heartbeat. It was as though she was asking God why. In that moment, she spoke for all of Japan. I snapped. Then came the rumble of a large aftershock and I was knocked to the ground. I watched as the building in front of me swayed and then disappeared before my eyes. And she was gone.

  The rescue workers rushed forward to find her in the rubble, but it was too late. As I recorded them at work with my lens, I could feel the tears trickling down my own cheeks. I only hoped that my pictures were in focus. They found her almost two hours later, still clutching the jacket. God had reached his hand out again and this time he found her.

  I went back to where I was staying and sent my pictures back to the paper in New York. Within hours, the face of the old woman was spread around the globe. Our paper carried it with the single word headline. “WHY?” Six months later, I learned that my image had won a Pulitzer Prize. And just like the falling man, nobody was ever able to put a name with the picture. She represented them all.

  My next big job was a piece of cake. I literally walked to work. By then, I was living in Brooklyn, closer to the airport. When Hurricane Sandy hit, I walked to Breezy Point and found my moment in time in the face of a fireman openly weeping as he stood by helplessly watching 121 houses burn to the ground with a wall of water preventing them from putting the blaze out.

  This time, I was able to put a name to the face that defined a tragedy for me. His name was Mike, and he knew the neighborhood well. One of his best friends had lived there. He was a firefighter, too, and he died on September 11. Mike wept because he told me that firefighters always took care of their own, and it hurt his heart that he couldn’t save Kevin’s home.

  I went back a couple days later and took pictures of what remained of that firefighter’s home. There were plenty of photographers recording the scene. The paper hadn’t sent me there. I was covering the story in Long Beach out on Long Island. What I saw out there reminded me so much of Japan. So much of the town had been washed into the ocean. But I returned to Breezy Point to take pictures just for myself—to complete the story of Mike’s moment in time.

  Now I am sitting in a hotel room in Tokyo waiting for my moment in time to happen again. A large typhoon named Haiyan is bearing down on the Philippines. It will hit, there is no doubt about it. No one can say exactly where yet, but it will be devastating. Perhaps thousands will die, and there will be many moments in time to record and share with the world. And I will find mine. It’s out there somewhere.

  And when I get home to Brooklyn, I’m going to get another cat.

  A Gentlemen’s Agreement

  By Susan S. Lara

  “She’ll be all right. Finish your dessert and I’ll join you for drinks.” The words were muffled, reaching Oscar through the nearly closed door: Victor evidently took the time to gi
ve the door a slight shove before leading Emily to bed.

  Oscar swallowed the last mouthful of fruit salad left on his plate, then walked to the living room and stood by the window, lighting a cigarette as he did so. Seen through the haze of his cigarette smoke, the already dull October evening, heavy with the smell of rain hanging close overhead, seemed even duller. He had spent several evenings here before, yet none of them had the portentous quality of this one.

  It began pleasantly enough. Emily had whipped up a good meat dish. It was called something or other—he had asked what it was, mainly to please her, but hadn’t paid much attention to her answer. As a rule he didn’t much care what a dish was called, or how it was done, as long as it tasted good.

  Halfway through the dessert, Emily had turned pale and begun to shiver. “I think I’m coming down with flu,” she had said, trying to laugh—even her laughter was shaky. As Victor led her to the bedroom, she looked back at Oscar, a sharp frightened gleam in her eyes.

  Oscar threw out his cigarette stub and turned from the window. He liked to think his uneasiness was caused only by the chanting coming from the house next door.

  He took out his cell phone and called home. Kathy’s voice came on the line. No, she said, Mama wasn’t home yet, she called from work, said she was working on a report due tomorrow. No, she didn’t say what time she’d be home, but yes, she said she’d hurry back as soon as she could. Her Aunt Millie was helping her with homework.

  Oscar put the phone back in his pocket and took a deep breath, hoping by doing so to blow away the cloud of resentment that threatened to spoil his mood. He wished Lydia would bother to tell him whenever she’d be home late, so he could make a point of coming home early for Kathy’s sake. He doted on his little girl, and had almost forgotten that, since he and Lydia had decided early in their marriage to have only one child, he had wished for a boy.

  Some moments had passed before it came to him that he had not told his wife anything either about coming home late. The cloud drifted away and he sighed, feeling like an old fogey.

  In times like this he couldn’t help but envy his father, who never had to tame his anger, who never felt he was unreasonable for losing his temper over a missing button, or a late dinner. Oscar could even imagine his father having another woman and not feeling guilty about it.

  Well, Oscar once had a guiltless fling with a bright, articulate lawyer he met in a national lawyers’ convention. The affair, though intense, ended with the convention, and Oscar’s exhilaration while it lasted was equaled only by his sense of relief when it ended. The woman herself considered the whole affair as an earthly moment that made no claims beyond its own fleeting absoluteness.

  He had been content, after that, with exchanging innocuous banter with women he met at parties. His secretary at the law office looked like what he called a “hot number,” but he had always considered men who slept with their secretaries as somewhat lacking in imagination.

  Emily, who headed research, had treated him with a mixture of mock disdain and tolerance that she seemed to reserve for things and people she couldn’t be bothered with. Her indifference had made him curious, and it was easy enough for curiosity to evolve into a tentative fascination. Still, Oscar could have sworn nothing much would have happened had they not been thrown together by an official trip to Cebu, and billeted in a hotel by the sea. On their first evening, as stars shone mutely, their bantering friendship swung into a mind-reeling romance.

  Their minds stopped reeling as soon as their plane landed in Manila, but the affair endured, much to the surprise of them both. It was almost perfect: Emily was as guiltless as he, having suffered from Victor’s incorrigible bed-hopping, and their love was deep enough to free their lovemaking from the manacles of scruples.

  It was Emily’s guilt that clouded their affair. She fell into the habit of cross-examining Oscar about the excuses he palmed off on Lydia every time they went out, and the white lies rankled.

  “Well, for God’s sake, when I tell her where I’m going, I am not under oath,” he said. They had just bought a new black silk dress for Lydia, a wedding anniversary gift from Oscar, and were on their way to their favorite haunt, a small café called Paradiso. “And why this sudden compunction, anyway? We’re not doing anything against the law.”

  “You are not,” she said, without emphasis. “I am.”

  She was right. He kept quiet.

  “You really think duplicity is a virtue?” she said after an appreciable interval.

  “In this case it’s called kindness.”

  “Yes, sure, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. Thank God for clichés, they make self-forgiveness so much easier.”

  He bristled. “May I ask where you get your extraordinary assurance about your values? And since you seem to think you have a monopoly on honesty, why don’t you tell Victor about us?”

  “I already did.”

  He had to make a sudden movement with his hand, as if to ward off an insect, to disguise the wave of panic that washed over him. Emily stopped walking and turned to him. Her gaze slid from his face down to the ground, as if following the path his blood made.

  “Don’t worry,” she went on, “I didn’t say you’re the one, so you haven’t lost a friend. After all, he only had to know how things are, because it’s a situation that he, too, has to face. We’re not the only ones involved here, as I’ve always been telling you.” She turned away and walked toward Paradiso again.

  He did not know what to say. Making his relationship with Emily known to Lydia meant having to choose between them, and although he was not inclined to give up Emily, leaving his wife and daughter was simply out of the question.

  “I know,” Emily, without altering her pace, and Oscar wondered, with a shudder, if he had said his thoughts out loud. “I’m leaving him. I’ve accepted a teaching job in Baguio. It’s something I would have done a long time ago, if I had not persisted in the delusion that Victor would change his ways.” She gave a little laugh. “He thinks I’m going there with another man. Oh, he can think what he pleases, I’m just so tired.”

  “But what—what about us?” he stammered, his heart sinking.

  She stopped and gave him a look of hard, still gravity. Her smile perched precariously between sympathy and derision. “Someday, Oscar,” she said, “you’ll find someone who will love you in spite of yourself—selfish, underhanded, insensitive. When you do find her, hold on to her, for you may never find another one like her.”

  Before he could say anything, she was gone, leaving him in front of Paradiso’s door. Her words puzzled more than angered him. Selfish? Insensitive? Why, those were the same words she’d used to describe her husband. How could she put him in the same class as that fusty bookkeeper, who had as much imagination as a sedated rat?

  Emily had kept their communication on a professional level after that, but her bantering tone remained, making the transition back to comfortable camaraderie easy for them both. And when Victor had invited him, through Emily, to one of those occasional poker-and-drinking sessions, he had felt relieved, almost grateful.

  #

  He felt rather than heard Victor’s approach. Oscar took one look at him and thought: whatever had happened, it would never show on this man’s face. It was doubtful, really, if anything unusual could be reflected on Victor’s face, so limited was its range, so inert were its features.

  “Will she be all right?” Oscar asked. “Just what’s wrong with her? I’ve never seen her so pale, and shaky.”

  “Nothing that a little rest cannot cure,” Victor said. “She’s asleep now. I think she’s upset over the reorganization you’re having at the office. She can get all worked up over things like that, things which beer can easily settle for us. And speaking of beer,” he added, and led the way back to the dining room by way of finishing the sentence.

  Oscar balanced himself on the edge of the wicker chair, as if he were prepared to leave any time. “Drink up,” Victor said, handing him a
beer, whitely cold, from the freezer. “There’s more where it came from. I always say when a man’s extremely cautious about his drinking it’s because he can’t be trusted when he’s drunk.”

  “Thanks,” Oscar took a swill from the bottle. “But I really can’t stay too long.”

  “The ball and chain’s waiting up for you?” Victor laughed. Remaining on his feet, he poured himself a drink. The light from the capiz lamp beat upon his lean figure; the shadow of a wooden eagle hovered hugely like a black canopy over him.

  He took the seat directly opposite Oscar. There was a dry glitter in Victor’s eyes, and a firm set to his thin lips. He looked like a man who had done a lot of waiting. A creature, thought Oscar, of infinite patience. A bookkeeper’s virtue, he reflected, not without contempt. Looking at him, Oscar thought there was something old-maidenish about Victor, and decided it must be his ascetic face. He imagined that girls in college would not have given Victor a second glance, but he was now vice president for finance of a big pharmaceutical company, and even if for Oscar it was little more than a glorified bookkeeping job, the guy was earning a lot, enough to dazzle women.

  “We’re between maids now,” Victor said. “I usually entertain my guests in the living room, with Emily bringing in the drinks, but now this is more convenient. I should learn to do without her. I mean,” he hastened to add, as Oscar gave him a sudden look that was just a shade lighter than panic, “you know, she may not be feeling quite up to the mark in the next few days. I should let her rest, take it easy.” He tapped a cigarette on a matchbox and prepared to light it. “Emily can never understand the satisfaction I get out of beer and cigarettes,” he said.

  A guarded “yes” was all that Oscar could say.

  “In fairness to her,” Victor went on, undismayed by his guest’s coolness, “she makes an effort to tolerate what she cannot understand. She’s an accepting woman, my Emily.” Oscar tried not to wince at the offhand use of the possessive pronoun. “Except when it comes to other women.”