The Taste of Rain

by Monique Polak

  I’ve never spoken to a coolie. I’ve never even looked one in the eye. Though they’re not prisoners, people say their lives aren’t much better than ours. I can’t think of a worse job than lugging honey pots and emptying them into some cesspool outside the camp.

  As the coolie passes, Miss E. reaches out to pat his elbow and whispers, “Xiexie,” which is Chinese for thank you.

  The coolie is so startled that he loses his footing. The honey pot lurches to one side. Without thinking, I reach out to catch it. But in the end the coolie doesn’t need my help. He regains his balance and his grip on the honey pot. Unfortunately, a little of the stinking honey lands on my forearm. I know not to wipe it away with my fingers. Instead I bend down and rub my forearm in the dirt. What I’d do for a hot bath and a real bar of soap!

  Later, when we are back in the hut, someone knocks at the window. I’m closest, so Miss E. asks me to check and see who it is. I hope it’s Matthew. But it isn’t. It’s the coolie from this afternoon. “It’s your friend,” I tell Miss E.

  “Do you mean Mr. Liddell?” she asks.

  “No, your friend from the latrine. The coolie.”

  When Miss E. opens the door, she looks both ways to make sure no one is watching. Coolies aren’t supposed to be visiting us.

  “What have you got there?” Miss E. asks with a giggle. “Oh my! What a little sweetheart!”

  The rest of us gather around to see what is making Miss E. giggle.

  When I hear a squeal, I think at first that it’s Jeanette, who has a high-pitched laugh. I elbow my way through the crowd of girls to get a better view of what the coolie has brought Miss E.

  It’s the world’s tiniest piglet. He has beady yellowish-brown eyes, a pale pink snout and the sweetest curly tail.

  Tilly puts her hands on her hips. “Is he for eating?” she asks.

  Miss E. is cradling the piglet in her arms. “I certainly hope not, Matilda,” she says. “Don’t you think he’d make a nice pet?” Then she turns back to the coolie. “Xiexie,” she tells him, putting her hand over her heart.

  The coolie doesn’t speak English. But he points to his own chest and says, “Lu.” That must be his name.

  “I’m Miss E.,” Miss E. says. “Xiexie, Lu.”

  Miss E. can only string together a few phrases in Chinese, and Lu doesn’t speak any English. But that doesn’t stop them from having a conversation with hand gestures instead of words.

  Miss E. has a question. With the piglet still in her arms, she gestures for Lu to follow her. She brings him to the back of the hut where we’ve been keeping the bucket with the two rats inside. Lu peers into the bucket, then looks back at Miss E. as if he is awaiting instructions. “Can you get rid of them?” she asks. Lu shakes his head and shrugs. He doesn’t know what she wants. When Miss E. waves her hands away from her, Lu nods excitedly. He understands that Miss E. wants him to get rid of the rats.

  Jeanette goes to her trunk and comes back with a pink baby bonnet, which she ties on the little piglet’s head. We all laugh at the sight—even Lu, who slaps his leg, he is laughing so hard.

  “Why in the world did you bring a baby bonnet all the way to Weihsien?” Tilly asks her.

  “It’s a very special bonnet. My mother sewed it for me before I was even born. I’ve always kept it close, and I brought it to Weihsien because I wanted something to remind me of when I was little,” Jeanette answers. “Doesn’t it look sweet on Albertine?”

  Tilly sighs. “Albertine? What kind of name is that for a piglet? Besides, how do you even know it’s a girl?”

  Miss E. leans over to inspect the piglet’s underside. “It is a girl,” she says. “But maybe we should vote on her name.”

  Lu grabs the bucket with the rats inside.

  “Do you think he’s going to make rat fricassee?” Tilly asks.

  “I hope he removes the whiskers. And the eyeballs,” Cathy says.

  Lu seems to know that the two girls are talking about him. He’s been looking out the window. That’s when I realize that Lu is as afraid of the Japanese soldiers as we are. He raises his finger to his lips. He’s telling us to quiet down. A Japanese soldier is passing outside the hut.

  What will happen to Lu if the soldier finds him here?

  What will happen to Albertine?

  Lu moves away from the window, pressing his back against the wall as if that will help make him disappear if the soldier decides to come inside.

  Thank goodness the soldier doesn’t stop to check on us. Albertine—the name seems to be sticking—squeals with excitement. Maybe she likes children.

  Tilly shakes her head. “She might be cute, but isn’t it too risky to have such a noisy creature for a pet?”

  Jeanette bites her lip. “Please, Miss E., can’t we keep her? Having a pet would be good for our morale.”

  Miss E.’s eyes soften when Albertine sucks on her finger. “I have a plan,” Miss E. says.

  FOURTEEN

  Albertine is asleep in a box under our pallet, her bonnet slightly rumpled. Miss E.’s plan worked. Besides the eggplant peels Albertine eats for dinner, Miss E. stirs a quarter of a crushed aspirin tablet into the piglet’s bowl. We thought Albertine might not like the bitter taste, but she wolfed down her dinner—can you say a piglet wolfs down food?—and fell right to sleep. She snores but very quietly.

  Tilly, Jeanette and I are gathered around Albertine, admiring her.

  “We’ve only had her four days, and see how she’s grown,” Jeanette says.

  “If she grows too big, we won’t be able to keep her inside the hut,” Tilly warns.

  It isn’t easy to leave Albertine. She’s such a sweet thing.

  But we can’t stay with her in the hut all day. We have roll call, work detail and visits to the mess hall. I wonder if it was hard for our parents to leave us at Chefoo. Maybe they also felt they had to—because they were doing the Good Lord’s work. Sometimes I feel angry with the Good Lord himself. Why doesn’t He put an end to this war and return us to our families?

  Lu has been bringing eggplant peels for Albertine. He leaves the scraps in the sandy clearing behind our hut.

  “Bye-bye, Albertine.” Her snout twitches when I plant a kiss on her hairy, pale-pink belly.

  We walk two by two to the mess hall. “It’s SOS for lunch,” I tell Jeanette, who’s next to me.

  “SOS? Doesn’t that stand for Save Our Souls? What kind of lunch is SOS?” Jeanette sounds excited.

  “Same Old Stew!” I tell her.

  Dot and Cathy, who are behind us, laugh at my joke, but Jeanette groans. “I was hoping it stood for something delicious. But, of course, you’re right, Same Old Stew.”

  We all line up with our plates or frying pans. Another prisoner, a woman wearing a faded dress, ladles out the stew. It’s a pale broth with two tiny eggplant chunks floating in it. When I get out of Weihsien, I know one thing for sure: I will never eat eggplant again. If I even see one at the market, I’ll look away.

  A Japanese soldier supervises from the corner of the mess hall. I bristle when I realize it’s the soldier whose dog I helped. I never told the others about what happened.

  Miss E. comes over to the long table where we are sitting on two long, rickety benches. “Doesn’t lunch smell divine?” she says.

  “Gwendolyn calls it SOS. For Same Old Stew,” Dot explains.

  Miss E. chuckles. “SOS,” she says. “How clever. And funny. It might be the Same Old Stew, but we’re glad to have it, aren’t we, Girl Guides?”

  “Of course we are,” several of us say at once.

  “A real stew with meat and potatoes would make me gladder,” Tilly mutters.

  We bow our heads to say grace with Miss E.

  There’s so little stew that our plates are empty in about a minute. Tilly drags her spoon along the bottom of her frying pan, even though there’s nothing left.

  “The human brain needs some time to register when we’ve had a meal, Matilda,” Miss E. tells her.

/>   Tilly makes a noise that is somewhere between laughing and crying. She turns to look Miss E. in the eye. “Meal?” she says. “Don’t tell me you really think that disgusting SOS counts as a meal. It’s water with some rotten eggplant in it.”

  Now I wonder if the eggplant really was rotten. It did taste worse than usual. My stomach suddenly feels queasy. I didn’t know a stomach could feel empty and queasy at the same time.

  Miss E. pats Tilly’s hand. “Girl Guides smile and sing even in the face of difficulty,” she says. “Especially in the face of difficulty.” She looks at the rest of us around the table. “Why don’t you join me in a song? There’s nothing like a little singing to improve one’s mood,” she says.

  “Can we do the chorus of ‘Chattanooga Choo Choo’?” Jeanette asks. “It’s my favorite part of the song.”

  Miss E. claps her hands. “That’s an excellent suggestion. But we mustn’t sing too loudly,” she says, glancing at the Japanese soldier.

  So we whisper-sing the chorus. Miss E. is right. Even Tilly looks less grumpy, and my stomach feels better.

  “So Chattanooga choo choo, won’t you choo-choo me home? Chattanooga choo choo, won’t you choo-choo me home?”

  Our singing is interrupted by an angry voice shouting, “Yamero!” which is Japanese for “stop.”

  It’s the soldier. At first I think he’s heard us singing and wants us to stop. But now I see that his bayonet is raised and he is yelling at one of the coolies.

  Miss E.’s face has frozen.

  The coolie is our friend Lu.

  What has Lu done to upset the guard?

  “Look,” Dot whispers. “Lu’s got a small bucket. I bet you anything he’s been collecting scraps for Albertine.”

  Lu drops the bucket, and a few meager scraps fall on the floor. He bows low to the guard, apologizing in what sounds like a mix of Chinese and Japanese.

  But the guard isn’t interested in Lu’s apology.

  When he lifts his bayonet, Miss E. jumps to her feet.

  “Don’t!” Tilly hisses, pulling Miss E. back to her spot by the bench.

  I suck in my breath. Jeanette covers her mouth. Other girls gasp. We’re half expecting the soldier to kill Lu on the spot.

  But the soldier doesn’t use his bayonet to spear Lu to death. Instead he smashes it hard across Lu’s face. Lu falls to the floor. There’s a river of blood gushing from his nose.

  The soldier isn’t finished. Before he turns away he kicks Lu in the belly. Not once, not twice, but over and over again.

  FIFTEEN

  Miss E. always tells us to look on the bright side. Things could have been a lot worse. The guard could have murdered Lu on the spot. “The Good Lord protected him,” she tells us afterward, crossing her hands over her heart.

  Tilly is not convinced. “If the Good Lord had protected Lu, He wouldn’t have let the guard beat him in the first place.”

  Miss E. gives Tilly a sweet smile. “Well, thank goodness for the black salve I brought from Chefoo,” Miss E. says. “It’s made from an Asian relative of the bloodroot plant. My uncle Edward believed in the healing powers of bloodroot. It reduces swelling and draws out infection.”

  Even worse than seeing the guard beat Lu was having to leave Lu lying on the floor of the mess hall as we filed out after lunch. If any of us had tried to help him, we would have been beaten too. But as soon as the coast was clear, Miss E. rushed back to help him. She brought him some of her black salve and applied it to his face. “I’m afraid he’ll have a scar along one cheek, but you know, it might actually suit him—it will make him look a little roguish. Besides the scar, I’m sure Lu will make a full recovery. Though he may not be strong enough to bring scraps for Albertine for a few days.”

  “The Japanese are monsters,” Tilly says when Miss E. tells us all this.

  “We’ve talked about this before, Matilda. One shouldn’t generalize. It isn’t right to say all Japanese are monsters,” Miss E. says quietly. “Though I will admit that particular soldier behaved in a monstrous way.” It’s the first time I’ve ever heard Miss E. say something bad about another person.

  Tilly says she once saw the same soldier kick his own dog.

  Miss E. shakes her head in disbelief. “Who would do something like that?” I hear her whisper to herself. Then she waves one hand in the air in front of her as if she doesn’t want to think about it. “Let’s choose a happier subject,” she says. “Which do you like better, Girl Guides—cats or dogs? I don’t know why I never thought of asking you this question before.”

  “Dogs,” Jeanette says, “especially puppies with floppy ears.”

  “But not the dogs here in Weihsien. I’m deathly afraid of them,” Dot adds.

  Miss E. wags her finger in the air. “Remember the rule. Happy subjects only,” she reminds Dot.

  “I like cats better,” I say. “They’re independent. A dog comes if you call him, but a cat, well, a cat does exactly what she wants to.”

  Later, when Tilly and I are back on cleaning duty in the mess hall, we have to mop up Lu’s blood from the floor. I swallow hard when the water in the washing pail turns brownish red.

  Poor Lu!

  This isn’t turning out to be a very good day.

  Tilly and I usually have lots to talk about after work, but today we walk back to the hut in silence. I think she is also remembering what happened to Lu—and feeling guilty that he got into trouble for stealing scraps to feed our piglet.

  When we hear a raspy voice call out “Ohayo gozaimasu,” we are so startled we stop in our tracks. Tilly’s eyes are as big as saucers, and I can feel my legs turn to jelly. It’s another Japanese soldier. This one is taller and older-looking than the others, but he has the same fierce look in his eyes as all the rest. And the bushiest eyebrows I have ever seen.

  Did we do something wrong? I can’t stop staring at the shiny bayonet hanging at his side. What if he uses it to beat us the way the other soldier beat Lu?

  “Ohayo gozaimasu,” we answer, bowing from the waist. Does the soldier notice that my legs are shaking?

  He gestures for us to follow him. Tilly and I look at each other. I can see in her eyes that she’s as nervous as I am. But we know we can’t argue with a Japanese soldier. So we follow him down a gravel path through a barren field, which has been picked clean of eggplants. I’m so scared I can feel my heart beating in my throat.

  He is leading us to the watchtower at the eastern edge of the camp. What does he want from us?

  At first I think he is taking us to the watchtower, but then the soldier makes a sharp turn, and we’re in a sandy clearing. Tilly and I stand so close to each other I can hear her breathing. The soldier looks at both of us, then crouches down and opens his arms. He cups his fingers, gesturing for me to come closer.

  I suck in my breath.

  “Oh, no,” I hear Tilly whisper. Her face is gray, and I worry she is going to faint. Don’t faint, I tell her in my head, hoping she will get the message. Don’t leave me alone with this monster.

  Because I know I don’t have a choice, I walk toward the soldier. I take tiny steps, and though he is only a few feet away, it feels as if I am covering a huge distance.

  I feel his thick arms wrap around my bony back. I am close enough now to smell his salty skin. So close that if I dared to I could touch his bayonet. I have never felt so afraid. Not even when the Imperial Japanese Army took over our school in Chefoo. Not even when we first arrived at Weihsien. Not even when I thought the German shepherd might maul me.

  I close my eyes. In my head I hear Miss E. say, Try as I might, I may not be able to protect my children.

  Miss E. was right. She can’t protect me now.

  The soldier lifts me up in the air. What in the world is he doing?

  We are close to the electrified gray stone wall, and now I wonder if that’s his plan—to throw me high up against the wall so I will end up sizzled and lifeless like Daniel.

  I squeeze my eyes tight. I try
to think about the Lord—but I can’t. Instead I think about Matthew and how it would be a shame to die without ever having experienced true love. It isn’t fair. Nothing about life at Weihsien is fair. I clench my fists, because I’m not just scared. I’m also angry.

  I half expect to feel a terrible jolt of electricity, but I don’t.

  Instead I can feel that I am being lifted higher, higher and higher still into the air. I open one eye—just a sliver. My fists unclench. From my one partially opened eye I can see beyond the gates of Weihsien. Now I open both eyes wide.

  It has been almost two and a half years since I saw anything except the miserable grounds of this prison.

  I see farmers’ fields and clumps of small shacks. In the middle is a winding gravel road that leads out toward the horizon. I see a grove of acacia trees. The most amazing thing about my view is that there are no walls anywhere. I forgot what a world without walls looks like. It’s as if I can see out to forever.

  I laugh so hard my body shakes. I’m laughing because I have not been electrocuted to death, and because for a few minutes I remember what it feels like to be free.

  The Japanese soldier laughs with me.

  Then Tilly rushes toward us and grabs hold of the soldier’s knee. “My turn!” she calls out. “It’s my turn now!”

  Though I don’t think the soldier speaks English, he understands what Tilly is trying to say. Gently he brings me back down to the ground. I land flat and steady on my feet. But in my head I’m still high, high up in the air, enjoying the taste of freedom.

  SIXTEEN

  “How absolutely wonderful!” Miss E. says when Tilly and I tell her how the Japanese soldier lifted us up so we could see over the stone wall. She closes her eyes as if she is imagining being lifted up by the soldier too. “You must remember that feeling always. And what a kind person to do such a thing.” Miss E. turns to look at Tilly. “It goes to show you, Matilda, that not all the Japanese are monsters.”

  As usual, Tilly wants to get in the last word. “If not all, then most,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest.