The Bungalow: A Novel

by Sarah Jio

  I felt Kitty’s hand on my shoulder behind me. “Thank you for coming with me,” she whispered. “You’ll be glad you did, I promise.”

  One by one, we walked down the stairs onto the airstrip. The breeze hit my face—warm and humid, and when I took a breath, I could almost feel steam rising in my lungs. A nurse to our right, who had powdered her nose right before stepping off the plane, now looked dewy and shiny-faced, and I noticed a bead of perspiration roll down her cheek. I resisted the urge to retrieve the compact in my handbag, reminding myself that it didn’t matter how I looked; I was engaged.

  I looked across the airstrip and saw that Nurse Hildebrand was correct—about the men, at least. A sea of dark green uniforms swarmed like hornets. The bold ones whistled; others just leaned up against trucks behind lit cigarettes, staring.

  “You’d think they had never seen women before,” Kitty whispered, batting her eyes at a soldier in the front of the crowd, who puffed up his chest and smiled at us confidently. “He’s cute,” she said, a little louder than she should have.

  Nurse Hildebrand turned to face us. “Ladies, allow me to present Colonel Donahue,” she said, turning toward a man in uniform decorated with at least a dozen medals and pins. As he crossed the tarmac, his men moved into formation. A hush came over the crowd, and the nurses watched in fascination as he approached. The colonel was about forty, maybe older, with golden skin, dark hair with specks of gray, and undeniably striking eyes. He looked powerful in uniform, and a little frightening, I thought.

  “Nurse Hildebrand, ladies,” he said, with a tip of his hat. “I would like to formally welcome you to Bora-Bora. We are grateful for the service you are bestowing on the country, and I can assure you that your work will not go without a heartfelt thanks from the men stationed on this island, myself included.” He turned to the men and shouted, “At ease,” and the men erupted in applause.

  “What a perfect gentleman,” Kitty said in a whisper, without taking her eyes off of the colonel.

  I shrugged. The sun felt even hotter now, its rays pelting us with an intensity I hadn’t noticed when we first stepped off the airplane. It radiated off the pavement, causing heat to swirl around us, unrelenting. Kitty’s body swayed slowly next to mine. At first I thought she was moving to the Ella Fitzgerald recording playing from a jeep nearby, but when I turned to face her, I could see that her cheeks had gone white, and her arms limp. “Kitty,” I said, reaching for her hand, “are you all right?”

  Her eyes fluttered just as her legs buckled underneath her body. I was able to catch her as she fell, but her bag, overstuffed with dresses too formal for the island, was the real saving grace, cushioning her head against the unforgiving tarmac. She lay in a crumpled heap on the hot cement airfield with her head in my lap.

  “Kitty!” I screamed, instinctively pulling the hem of her blue dress lower on her legs.

  “Smelling salts!” Nurse Hildebrand ordered, pushing through the circle of hovering women. She produced a green glass vial and held it under Kitty’s nose. “The sun has gotten to her,” she said without emotion. “She’ll become accustomed to it in time.”

  Colonel Donahue appeared at Nurse Hildebrand’s side. “Get her a stretcher!” he shouted to a man near the airplane. “And quick.”

  “Colonel Donahue,” Nurse Hildebrand said, “we’re dealing with a simple case of heatstroke. She’ll be fine, this one.”

  He eyed Kitty with a possessive look. “Just the same, I’d like to make sure she’s comfortable.”

  “Suit yourself,” Nurse Hildebrand replied.

  Two men appeared moments later with a stretcher and lifted Kitty, now conscious but groggy, onto it.

  “Anne,” Kitty said, turning to me, “what happened?”

  Colonel Donahue swooped in by her side before I could respond. “It’s always the prettiest ones who faint in the tropics,” he said with a grin.

  I didn’t like his tone, but Kitty beamed. “How terribly embarrassing. Was I out long?”

  The colonel smiled in return. The crowd around us was so thick I could no longer see through it. “Just long enough to miss the news that we’re having a dance tonight in honor of your arrival,” he said, phrasing the statement as if the dance might be solely for her.

  Kitty smiled, much too flirtatiously to address a ranking colonel. “A dance?” she muttered weakly.

  “Yes,” he said, “a dance.” He turned to face the crowd. “You heard that right, men, tonight at twenty hundred.”

  “Thank you,” Kitty said, unable to stop smiling.

  “My pleasure,” he replied gallantly. “I’ll just ask for one favor.”

  “Of course,” Kitty said, still beaming.

  “That you save a dance for me.”

  “I’d love to,” she replied dreamily as the men began wheeling her through the crowd.

  Kitty always knew how to make an entrance.

  The rest of the crowd began moving. I looked down at my suitcase and Kitty’s enormous bag and groaned. The men had scattered, and now I was left to carry both.

  “Can you believe that?” a woman said from behind me. I turned around to find one of the new nurses. Her soft auburn waves resembled Rita Hayworth’s in Life magazine, but that was where the similarity ended.

  “I’m sorry?” I said, unsure of her meaning.

  “Your friend pulled quite a stunt there to get the colonel’s attention,” she said, smirking. A bit of lace protruded above the top button of her dress. I wondered if the reveal was purposeful.

  A second later, another nurse, this one with shiny dark hair and a meek smile, appeared at her friend’s side with a look of agreement.

  “Oh no, no,” I said. “You’re not implying that Kitty fainted intentionally, are you?”

  “It’s exactly what I’m saying,” the auburn-haired nurse replied, clearly the alpha of the pair. “Scenes like that don’t happen spontaneously . She staged it.”

  “She most certainly did not,” I said in protest. “If you ask me, I think you’re jealous.”

  The dark-haired nurse gasped, as the other woman shrugged confidently. “You’ll thank us someday,” she said.

  “For what?” I asked suspiciously.

  “For warning you of what your little friend is capable of. I wouldn’t trust that one as far as I could throw her around any man of mine.”

  I shook my head and continued walking, as fast as I could with two heavy bags, one more so than the other.

  “How rude of us,” the auburn-haired nurse spoke up. But the apology I had anticipated wasn’t coming. “I almost forgot to introduce myself. I’m Stella, and this is Liz,” she said, pointing to her brunette friend.

  I kept walking, disregarding the introduction.

  “And you are?”

  “Anne,” I barked, marching onward without turning around.

  Our quarters in the nurses’ barracks were simple, meager at best, just two crudely constructed beds, a dressing table, and one closet for the two of us to share. The flimsy cotton drapes, discolored to a pale yellow from the hot sun, seemed inadequate to block the light or the men’s line of vision. I arrived to find Kitty standing on one of the beds, hammering a nail into the wall. “What do you think of this spot for a picture?” she asked, tilting her head a little. “I was thinking of hanging a photo of Mama and Papa.”

  I set her bag down with a thud and wiped my brow. “I think it’s fine,” I said blankly. “You’re feeling better, I see.”

  “Yes, thanks, dear,” she said. “I feel badly for leaving you in the crowd like that. But Colonel Donahue insisted.”

  I was beginning to dread the sound of the colonel’s name, but I was careful not to let it show. “I’m just glad you’re OK.”

  Kitty flitted like a spring bird around our little second-story room, chattering on about how we’d fix the place up. A spare sheet would make a perfect valance, she crooned, and we’d certainly be able to locate a coffee table, somewhere, for tea. Certainly. And the walls,
weren’t they such a lovely, soothing color? Yes, infirmary beige—very soothing.

  In my view, however, the room was dank and strange. The two navy-blue-and-white-striped mattresses were bare and speckled with visible stains. Stacks of threadbare linens sat folded in neat little piles atop each. I longed for Maxine then, even though the thought made me feel childish. She’d have jumped in and made the beds, settling each of us with a calming cup of tea.

  I was on my own now.

  “Anne, can you believe there’s going to be a dance tonight? A dance! And Colonel Donahue wants to dance with me!”

  There was that name again. Why does it affect me so? Do I distrust his intentions, or are my feelings misplaced? I remembered what Stella and Liz had said on the tarmac. They were jealous. I hated to think that I was too.

  Kitty had a way with men that I would never have. I thought of Gerard and twisted my engagement ring around my finger, which was swollen from the heat.

  “Yes, won’t that be fun?” I chimed in, working hard to sound cheerful.

  “I’m going to wear my yellow dress,” Kitty said, running to her suitcase. She looked great in yellow, especially in the dress she held up for my approval. I’d seen her wear it a half dozen times—on the last occasion with Mr. Gelfman’s arms wrapped tightly around the bodice. Funny, she’d been so heartbroken about the man when we left Seattle, but the island seemed to have erased her memory. I vowed to keep mine intact.

  Kitty looked into the mirror, pressing the dress to her body, smoothing out the wrinkles, which the island humidity would soon erase. “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe I should wear the blue one, the one we bought at Frederick and Nelson’s last spring. It’s a bit more conservative, I guess.”

  I shook my head. “No,” I said, thinking of Liz and Stella. I was determined to prove—to myself, anyway—that I was not jealous, that I was being the best friend I could to Kitty. It’s why I followed her here, I reminded myself. “Wear the yellow one. You look stunning in it.”

  Kitty would be the most beautiful woman at the dance. She’d have the time of her life. And I’d be happy for her.

  The infirmary, a white building with a red cross painted above the entryway, smelled of soap and ipecac, with a touch of rubbing alcohol thrown in for good measure. Kitty and I, the last two to arrive that afternoon, nestled into the circle of women watching Nurse Hildebrand as she demonstrated, on a nurse’s arm, the art of wound care in the tropics. Bandages were to be wrapped, she said, counterclockwise, not too tight, but snug enough to stop the bleeding. “The wound needs to breathe,” she said. “Too much or too little air, and you get infection.” She paused, looking out through the windows at the distant hills. “Especially in this godforsaken place.”

  We spent the rest of the session rolling bandages into tight little bundles, then tucking them away in crates pulled off the plane. I laid out the big bolts of taupe linen on the table, trying not to dwell on the wounds they would one day cling to. Kitty took one end, and I another. After an hour, my fingers ached.

  We worked in silence, mostly in fear of Nurse Hildebrand, for we all had plenty to say. But when she left to attend a matter in the mess hall, the women began to find their voices.

  “She’s a tough one, that Nurse Hildebrand,” said a woman to our left. A few years older than Kitty and me, she had hair the color of straw, freckles dotting her nose, and large, friendly eyes. Her smile revealed crooked teeth, which she tried, unsuccessfully, to keep hidden behind pursed lips.

  “She is,” I said in agreement. “I don’t understand—if she hates this place so much, why did she volunteer?”

  “She has a past here,” she said.

  “What do you mean, ‘a past’?”

  “All I know is what another nurse told me on the mainland.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “She was here before, a very long time ago. And something bad happened.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know exactly, but it’s some kind of scandal.”

  “You can’t mean that she’s a criminal!” Kitty exclaimed.

  The woman shrugged. “Who knows? But I wouldn’t want to be caught on Nurse’s bad side,” she said. “I’m Mary,” she continued, nodding to Kitty and me.

  “I’m Anne.”

  “And I’m Kitty.”

  Mary tucked another rolled bandage into the crate on the table. “What brings you here?”

  Kitty opened her mouth, but I spoke first. “Service to our country,” I said simply.

  Mary smirked. “Isn’t that what we all say? No, why are you really here? We’re all running from or searching for something. What’s your story?” She looked down at my engagement ring, perhaps because I was tugging at it.

  But this time, Kitty responded before I could. “Anne was engaged,” she began, but I cut her off.

  “Is engaged,” I corrected her.

  “Yes, Anne is engaged, but she delayed the wedding to come with me.” Kitty nuzzled her shoulder against mine, a gesture of gratitude. “I was in a horrible romantic mess before we left. I felt I needed to escape.”

  “Me, too,” Mary said, holding up her bare left hand. “My fiancé broke off our engagement. He came by one day and told me he didn’t love me. Now, what were his exact words, again?” She looked up at the ceiling as if to scan her memories. “Yes,” she continued. “He said, ‘Darling, I love you but I am not in love with you.’ If that wasn’t enough, he then announced that he was going to marry my best friend. Apparently they’d been seeing each other for months. I’ll be honest, girls, it almost sent me to the loony bin, that ordeal. When I was coherent enough to think about my next move, I knew I had to leave town. I wanted to go to the farthest corner of the world to dull the pain. Our wedding was going to be in the fall, at the Cartwright Hotel in San Francisco.” She looked down at her hands and sighed. “It was going to be grand.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

  “Thank you,” she replied. “I don’t mind talking about it now, not really.” She began working on another bandage roll. “We were going to move to Paris,” she continued. “He was—well, is—joining the Foreign Service.” She shook her head wistfully. “I should never have fallen in love with Edward. Mother was right. He was much too good-looking for me.” She shrugged, replacing the hurt in her eyes with practicality. “And now I’m here. And you?” She looked at me. “Do you love the man you’re going to marry?”

  “Of course I do,” I said a little more defensively than I had planned.

  “Then why are you here and not at home with him?”

  Why am I here and not home with him? Is the answer really that simple? I pondered the question for a moment. Is it adventure that I, like Kitty, seek? Am I listening to Maxine’s words and giving myself a chance to wait for something—God help me, for someone—to come along before I seal my fate? I shook my head, destroying the thought. No, I am here for Kitty. Yes, that’s it, plain and simple.

  “Because my friend needed me,” I said, squeezing Kitty’s hand.

  “That’s sweet,” Mary said. “You’re lucky, you know—to have each other. I don’t have a friend like that.”

  Kitty, ever the generous spirit, smiled warmly at Mary. “You can have us.”

  Mary’s charming grin revealed her imperfect teeth. “I’d like that,” she said, tucking another bandage into the crate. We’d rolled at least a hundred, give or take. It was a small feat, yes, but I was proud of our accomplishment. A mountain of bandages on our first day on Bora-Bora. We were doing something. We were really living.

  The nurses had two designated tables in the mess hall, a plain building with long cafeteria tables packed in rows. We were not to eat with the men, said Nurse Hildebrand. Even so, we were aware of their every move, as they were of ours. Their eyes bore into us as we ate—Spam and beans.

  “This food is awful,” Mary said, stabbing a green bean with her fork and holding it up to the light. “Look, this thing is petrified.”

 
“We’ll come home perfectly thin,” Kitty said, smiling, ever the optimist.

  Stella and Liz sat across from us, but after their comments about Kitty earlier in the day, I dismissed their presence. “Well, well,” Stella said with dramatic flair, pointing to a corner table where three men sat. “Get a load of that!”

  Mary and Kitty, unaware of my grudge, turned to see what the fuss was about. “He’s the spitting image of Clark Gable,” Kitty said in agreement. “I wonder who he is?”

  “His name’s Elliot,” Stella said. “The corporal who carried my bag today introduced us. Isn’t he dreamy?”

  Mary nodded. “Very,” she said, swallowing a bite of Spam with a strained gulp.

  “It’s too bad, though,” Stella continued. “Word is that he’s deeply in love with a woman back home. A married woman.”

  Our eyes widened in unison.

  “He could have his pick of women here,” she went on, shaking her head, “and yet rumor has it that he spends his leave holed up in his bunk writing in his journal, brooding about her.”

  “How romantic,” Kitty said dreamily.

  I nodded. “A man who loves a woman that much is very rare.”

  “Or very stupid,” Stella rattled back. She went on about her plan to capture Elliot’s attention, while I picked at my plate.

  I took another look at the table, where this man, Elliot, sat. He did resemble Clark Gable. Handsome, with dark eyes and thick ebony hair that came to a curl at the front. Yet my eyes were drawn instead to another, seated to his left. Tall, but not nearly as built, with lighter, wispier hair and sun-kissed skin with a dusting of freckles. His left hand shoveled food into his mouth while his right cradled a book, one he was clearly engrossed in. As he turned the page, he looked up. His eyes immediately met mine, and the creases of his mouth formed an instant smile. I quickly snapped my head back around. What has gotten into me? I instantly regretted the breach of decorum.

  I felt my cheeks burn as I forced a bite of Spam, trying my best to avert the gag reflex rising in my throat. Stella had seen the exchange, and she shot me a mocking glance, but I turned away, willing myself to regain composure.