A Pledge of Silence (40 page)

Authors: Flora J. Solomon

BOOK: A Pledge of Silence

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Chapter 30

Little River, Michigan, November 2000

Upstairs in the old house, Margie had fallen asleep, wrapped in her long black coat, her feet tucked under one of Mama’s afghans. The cold room was faintly lit by a small lamp on the bedside table. The hatbox sat open on the floor; letters, pictures, military medals, and old jewelry lay strewn around her. The haunting strains of a Chopin nocturne, played with sensitivity and nuance, began to register in her subconscious.
Barbara?

Stirring, she saw her daughter sitting on the end of the bed with her violin tucked under her chin, arms gracefully raised. The silver streak in her dark hair fell over her right eye. Dressed as Margie had last seen her, she wore dove-gray slacks, a coral silk blouse, and diamond studs in her ears that sparked like licks of fire in the room’s dim light. Her body swayed to the rhythm of the poignant melody. When she turned, Margie saw tears on her face, evoked by her feeling of oneness with the music.

The last note faded into silence. Barbara placed the violin in its case and pushed her hair out of her eyes, turning her attention to the articles scattered on the bed. She eyed Margie’s military medals with curiosity. Picking up the Bronze Star, she inspected it closely, reading the inscription on its reverse:
Heroic or Meritorious Achievement, Marjorie Olivia Bauer.
When she spoke, her voice sounded far away, like an echo. “I didn’t know you were a hero. And in combat, too. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Margie never considered herself any kind of hero. She had scrimped, scratched, and fought with only one goal in mind—to stay alive. The struggle had weakened her, she thought, not made her stronger. She hadn’t overcome her fears; she hadn’t felt able to be open and honest with her husband or daughter. Now, compelled to right that wrong and to at last spell out her feelings about her daughter, she said, “From the minute I first held you, I loved you more than I was able to show.”

Barbara cocked her head as if listening, but didn’t respond. Feeling a stabbing pain in her heart, Margie said, “Can you hear me? I said I’ve always loved you, though I found it hard to say those words.”

As if unaware Margie had spoken, Barbara continued her examination of her mother’s medals. “An army nurse during combat,” she said wonderingly. She held up the Philippine Defense Medal and the American Pacific Campaign Medal. “What kind of hell did you go through to earn these?” She put them down and picked up the Presidential Unit Citation. “That time when I was 13—could you have been having a flashback?”

Margie kept those occurrences of madness concealed from her children, except for that one time. The torrid heat of the July night, the suffocating humidity, and the whistle from the tea kettle precipitated a flashback. Transported to Santo Tomas during the Japanese bombardment, she ducked to avoid whistling shells. Her insides tightened and her bladder leaked urine. She kicked at Max’s body she saw at her feet and cried, “Don’t put him here! You don’t know what I’ll do!” Frightened by her mother’s creepy behavior and staring in horror at the puddle of urine, 13-year-old Barbara bolted out the back door and hid in the barn until Wade came home and brought her in.

One by one, Barbara replaced the medals in their cases. “How you must have suffered! You were so afraid of loud noises. You wouldn’t come out of your bedroom on the Fourth of July. And I was so smug and self-centered while earning all those fancy university degrees … I never thought to ask you why.” She closed the last case. “I should have paid more attention.”

“No, it was me,” Margie said. “I kept a distance between us. I did it for you and for your daddy. He loved you so much. I thought it was the right thing to do.” She reached out to touch her daughter, but a chasm opened between them. “Don’t go!” she cried out in her sleep.

Unruffled, Barbara looked through the pictures strewn on the bed. Hardly able to breathe, Margie watched her, waiting for a torrent of outrage and recriminations to come—after all, her daughter’s life had been built on a lie. She heard Barbara murmur, “Rich stories to tell. Family pride and lore.” Then Barbara ran her fingers through the silver streak in her hair, staring at the photograph she held, her eyes wide with disbelief. “What the—” She turned the picture over; the note on the back read, “Evelyn and Max before our wild ride in a banca. Sierra Mountains, 1941.” She sat back, her hand covering her mouth.

Margie steeled herself for the final break with her daughter, whatever fragile relationship they shared shattering in this moment of truth.

Barbara laughed. “Lord! No wonder I never felt quite a part of the family.” She held her father’s likeness up to a better light. “That silver streak in his hair, those hypnotic eyes—I even have the same haughty expression. You chose a handsome son-of-a-bitch. Oh, Mother! Such a life you hid from me! What other secrets have you kept?”

Margie’s brow furrowed at Barbara’s assumption—“chose,” indeed! Her relationship with Max Renaldo had nothing of the consensual about it. It infuriated her that such an evil, despicable man should ever be seen in a positive light! “I didn’t choose,” she began, then stopped. Too many years had passed. She couldn’t revive the anger of the young woman beaten down by hunger and rape. Those long-ago horrors melted in the face of the goodness resulting from them—her brilliant and talented daughter Barbara; her granddaughter Jillian, an equally stunning woman now nurturing the next generation; and her passion, the Abundant Harvest Food Pantry, still feeding hundreds of hungry people.

Outside, a car door slammed. Barbara’s image vanished, but Margie could still hear the faint strains of a Brahms’ sonata perceptively executed.

The back door banged open and Gary stomped through the house and up the stairs. He burst into the bedroom. Scowling, he said, “Mother, what are you doing here?”

Margie struggled to get off the bed, her hip painful and reluctant to flex. “I couldn’t get down the stairs.”

“Couldn’t get—” He snorted, then noticed all the letters and medals strewn around. “What’s all this?”

“My things. I didn’t have time to pack them when you moved me out.” She limped over to the empty hatbox, brought it back to the bed and began to fill it.

Gary examined the four medals in their black leather cases. “What are these?”

“Nothing important.”

His brow furrowing, he put them in the hatbox. “You should have asked me. I’d have brought you over to get them. A cab driver stopped me outside your condo. He told me he’d been driving by all afternoon, hoping to see someone. He didn’t want to leave you alone all night in this house. He said he was about to call the police.”

Margie remembered the cabbie and how rude she had been. “I hope you gave him a nice tip.” She put the lid on the hatbox and tied it with the blue ribbon.

Gary handed her the silk scarf he found on the floor, and she slipped it under the collar of her heavy coat, fumbling with the buttons.

“Liz is warming up your dinner. We’d like you to stay with us for a while.” He hefted the hatbox. “You got a Bronze Star, Mother?”

“Yes. There are a few things I never told you …”

A Note from the Author

The characters in
A Pledge of Silence
are fictional, but their experiences are based on reality as documented in a variety of historical records. I did blur some details to keep the story from becoming too convoluted. For instance, army nurses like Margie and navy nurses like Evelyn belonged to two distinct groups, each with their own chains of command. In my story, I did not make that distinction. Additionally, two field hospitals operated on Luzon instead of just the one, and two main prison camps interned nurses, Santo Tomas and Los Banos.

Of the real-world nurses, 99 evacuated from Manila to Bataan. Twenty-four escaped from Corregidor on submarines or small aircraft that slipped through the Japanese blockade. The remaining 75 became prisoners of war. The average age of those interned at the beginning of the war was 31, with at least half still in their twenties. The average nurse-internee lost 32 pounds while in captivity. Though some of the nurses sustained wounds during combat, none died as a result of them, nor from malnutrition or mistreatment while in the prison camps. One question I often get from my readers is, given the starvation conditions in the camps, could a woman become pregnant? The answer is yes. Seventy-five babies were born in Santo Tomas between 1942 and 1945. The last two arrived just days before liberation, when conditions were at their grimmest.

While there are many stories to tell about these nurses, I had to pick and choose in order to keep the book at a reasonable length and to follow my heroine beyond the war years. For those readers interested in a more in-depth account, I suggest reading
We Band of Angels
by Elizabeth Norman, a comprehensive, nonfiction book that served as one of my references.
We Band of Angels
tells the nurses’ stories through historical research, first-person interviews, and the personal letters and diary entries of those brave women.

The war didn’t end at liberation, VE day, or VJ day for the nurses who spent years as prisoners of war. Many lived the rest of their lives suffering from the aftereffects of starvation, deprivation and fear. They were expected to be silent, though, about what they had seen or done, and to slip seamlessly back into society and carry on as if nothing had happened. Some managed to do just that, but many struggled like my heroine Margie.

Discussion Questions

1.

Margie thought of herself not as a hero, but a survivor, doing only what had to be done. Frank saw his actions as a medic heroic. Do you agree with their self-assessments? What is the difference between a survivor and a hero?

2.

Both Margie and Frank came home from the war physically exhausted and psychologically damaged. How did their homecomings differ? How did society’s expectations for their futures differ?

3.

Margie found release from her perceived sins in service to others via the Abundant Harvest Food Pantry. What other ways might one cope with horrific memories?

4.

Which nurse—Margie, Evelyn, or Gracie—do you think displayed the greatest strength of character? Give examples.

5.

How would women’s roles in the military today be different if the valor of the women who served during WWII had been recognized and valued at the time?

6.

Why do you think the nurses’ story remained unknown for so many decades?

7.

While hundreds of Santo Tomas internees died during internment, all of the real-world nurses returned home. Retaining their professional identities and having a purpose have been cited as reasons for their 100% survival rate. What other factors might have played a role?

8.

The suppression of opportunities for women in the 1950s following their expansion during World War II is often cited as one root of the second wave of the women’s liberation movement. Where are we now in this cycle? What might provide the next push for women’s equality?

9.

Upon repatriation, military POWS were required to sign a document stating they would keep silent about their experience in the camps. Did the purpose of protecting people and organizations in the resistance justify the psychic havoc it caused? Do you think the government could get away with that now?

10.

The principle
an abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior
was taken from Dr.Viktor Frankl’s book
Man’s Search for Meaning,
published in 1959. Dr. Frankl, an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, barely survived Auschwitz. When do you think this principle would be appropriately applied? How would you reconcile this principle with the letter of the law?

Table of Contents

Title Page

Maps

Chapter 1 -- Little River, Michigan, Nov 2000

Chapter 2 -- Little River, Michigan, May 1936

Chapter 8 -- Manila, Jul - Oct 1941

Chapter 9 -- Manila, Nov 1941