No Surrender Soldier (17 page)

A grimy little figure dressed in coarse shorts and a shirt the color and texture of coconut husks blended with the underbrush like a chameleon. He dipped something into the water and scooped it up again.

My feet inched closer… closer… until I drew close enough to see the soldier filling a canteen stamped US Army on the side. Close enough to smell the man.

Eeww. Worse than pig poop.

The Japanese soldier pulled up a poorly woven shrimp trap made from split reeds. Empty. I relaxed my grip on the rope. The soldier checked two more traps, all empty. No wonder, they needed mending.

With knuckles swollen like plum seeds, the man thrust into a coconut a crude metal object the shape of a big wooden spoon lashed with a rope to a piece of wood. I’d never seen anything like it before. What’d he have it tied to? The butt end of a rifle?

The straggler twisted the homemade tool and cracked the coconut open. He bent his head back to drink the sweet milk.

Yeah, that’s it, rapist. Keep your head back.

I gripped the knife and rope, got down on all fours and crawled slowly, quietly, toward the soldier. If I could get behind him, I could wrap the cord around his skinny neck and slit his throat.

The soldier scraped coconut meat with the metal tool. He put coconut shavings in the traps for bait.

Good. The soldier didn’t see me. Just another foot and I could… do… it…. I knew I could. I slit Simon’s throat, hadn’t I? And Simon was my friend.

The soldier lowered the traps into the river, then moved a few feet over to pull up another trap.

I quit crawling. I didn’t want him to see me.

I kept my eyes glued on the soldier’s every move. I watched the wisp-of-a-man scrounge for fallen breadfruit. He picked up a rotten one, then dropped it. I tried to imagine this puny walking stick with funny black shocks of hair sticking out in all directions committing vile, evil acts
maga’hagas
whispered about.

This is a Japanese soldier,
I thought, psyching myself up to kill him.
One who beat our tatas and raped our nanas. I’m justified in taking his life. I’m justified. He murdered our people. No one will know. No one will care.

I watched the hunched-over skeleton pluck snails from a tree trunk. He didn’t look like a soldier. I wondered what Sammy’s eating. Was he finding fresh fruit? Or was he hunting beetles, cockroaches, and rats?

The nearly starved man cupped his hand and chased a frog. The frog hopped away and plopped into the river. The straggler was in such bad shape he couldn’t even catch a frog.

It was hard to believe he was once a murderer.

The sickly old man who looked more animal than human lifted a rock and dug out white fleshy grubs to put in his sack.

Maybe he wasn’t a rapist.

I rubbed the handle of my knife between my thumb and forefinger. I squinted into the darkening boonies in the direction of my home, then back again at the straggler.

The straggler unbuttoned his shirt and pants, took off his clothes, and quietly lowered himself into the river to bathe. The top of his head above the water’s surface looked like the back of a turtle swimming. It reminded me of the stories Tatan told me about the turtle that birthed our island. It was as if I could hear my tatan calling me “Little Turtle.”

The dirty soldier lifted his head and looked past me with slanted, fearful eyes. Black marbles, glassy as a doe’s, only instead of lids, skin lay over his eyes like the backs of spoons, with an extra fold near the outer corners… like Sammy’s. Where was Sammy hiding? In a cave? In a jungle? Would some Vietnamese boy find him and kill him? Or have mercy on him?

“Another day,” I whispered to the
taotaomonas
.

I slipped back past the marshy reeds. I wove through the dense underbrush, and walked by the bamboo thicket.

Woo. Woo.
Wind called me through bamboo like the sounding of a conch shell.

I ventured over to the thicket.

Gong. Gong.
One large bamboo shoot drummed against the others.

I looked at the woven mat, then stared in all directions to see if the straggler was coming back.

Probably still searching for food.

I bent down and lifted the mat. Underneath was a hatch like on a submarine, beneath the hatch, a bamboo ladder.

I searched the thicket again for signs the straggler was near.

I’d be quick about it and out before the straggler got back. I lifted the hatch and stole down the creepy hole.

Down two steps, three, four…

The air was warm, sluggish, thick.

I’m suffocating. Like I’m sealed shut in a casket.

I strained to look below but couldn’t see because it was too dark. I lowered my rope down the shaft but didn’t feel it slack up.

Was it a bottomless pit?

I hesitated. Five, six, seven steps more…

The stench smelled of burnt coconut oil and death.

I can’t breathe! I’m suffocating!

Woo. Woo. Gong. Gong.

Wind scattered leaves on bamboo overhead, sounding like skeleton bones.

Surely
taotaomona
spirits were warning me to get out.

Like a bat spooked out of a cave, I scurried up the bamboo ladder. I stomped the hatch down and tossed on the mat. I rushed to a banyan tree and trembled among its roots.

I’d rather take my chances with
taotaomonas
than go down a shaft so deep and dark even spirits were afraid to haunt.

Scrrrape. Thump. Scrrrape. Thump. Scrrape. Thud.

I hunched down and peeked around the tree. I scaled the roots, then trunk, then branches to peer out toward the bamboo thicket.

The straggler had returned, dragging his burlap sack. Like a skittish deer, he looked in all directions.

The Japanese man peeled back the mat, opened the hatch, and lowered his sack and canteen below.

I shivered, afraid my loud telltale heart would give me away.

I climbed down the banyan and was ready to drop to the ground when the man reappeared and sat on the brink of the pit. He stripped off his filthy burlap clothes, folded them neatly, and descended again into…

Hell. That soldier lives in hell.

Does he think I did not smell him? I have become like an animal with a keen tracking nose. It must be because I am nearly blind between darkness of my cave and soot from burning coconut oil. But I smelled him. It is just a matter of time before the boy and his dog find me.

Seto sighed deeply and sunk to the floor of his cave. He lay still, as if already dead. What would he do when that day came? He was too tired and weak to fight. Instead, his back bent over like a tailor bends from too many years of sewing in dim light. Maybe it was time to surrender. What would it matter to anyone? Japan was defeated. What happened to the emperor? Is Seto’s father even alive? He thought not. Although, his father’s ghost never visited him in his cave.

He inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with the smell of burnt coconut oil and mildew from the packed dirt. He coughed in painful spasms until he curled into a ball, gasping for breath.

Maybe it was time to surrender. Seto had already proved he was a coward and could not go the way of the cherry blossoms. His stomach groaned from hunger. At least as a prisoner he would get fed.

Maybe it was time… maybe…

Seto was too tired to get up and cook the few provisions he had gathered. He was so very, very tired of it all.

I woke up suffocating, strangled in my sheet like a mummy. I felt like crap. I’d even slept in my clothes. I couldn’t have dozed off for more than a couple of hours. The alarm clock faced away from me. I was too tired to bother picking it up and checking the time. Then I remembered, and groaned—I had wanted to kill the Japanese soldier.

But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill that pathetic old man in the boonies.

What if it were Sammy? I wouldn’t want someone killing my brother in the Vietnamese jungle, or mountains, or wherever Sammy was hiding as an M.I.A. (It made me feel better to imagine Sammy hiding in a cave beside a river like the Talofofo.)

No matter how much I hated what some soldier did to my nana. No matter how much I hated what happened to Tatan to make him so bitter. I didn’t want to become what I hated. I didn’t want to live in hell.

I had to tell someone right away about the straggler living in the boonies. But who?

I fought my way out of the sheet, nearly falling on the floor. I sprung up and ran to the kitchen before taking a shower.

Tatan sat at the table drinking coffee and eating an egg and chorizo tortilla.

“Where’s Tata?”

“
Humph
, that all you got to say to me? No
buenas dias
?” Tatan asked.

Tatan acted like he forgot to take his “purple mushroom.”

“
Buenas dias
, Tatan. Now, where’s Tata?”

Tatan went back to reading
Ayuda Line
, a question-answer column in the
Pacific Daily News
, and drinking black Kona coffee. He said to no one in particular, “I see they building more hotels on Tumon. What the Japanese couldn’t conquer, they buy.”

“That’s good, Tatan. Means Sammy’s Quonset Hut will make more money.”

Tatan glared at me.

“More tourists, more sales,” I said. No response. I gave up. “Where’s Tata and Nana?”

“At work.”

“How come?”

“’Cause of all those damn tourists.”

I didn’t know what to do. Was it safe to leave Tatan home alone? The straggler had a knife, and he’d cut Bobo. Should I skip school? Should I call Tata at work?

I opened a jar, stuck my fingers in, and fished for pickled mango.

“Hurry,” Tatan said. “Or you miss the bus.”

“I’m t’inking about not going to school today.”

Tatan gave me the
atan baba
. “You go. Or else.”

I knew better than to challenge Tatan with “or else, what?”

“Tatan, if I go to school today, will you promise me somet’ing?”

Tatan scrunched, then lifted his eyebrows. “If?… promise somet’ing?”

“Promise me you won’t go in the boonies today.”

“Or else?” Tatan said. “What?”

“Just promise me. No boonies today,” I pleaded.

Tatan furrowed his eyebrows.

I flicked my eyebrows up. “Or else… I no go to school today.”

Tatan stood, pointed his finger toward the door and roared, “You go! ’Cause I say so!”

I grabbed my books and slipped on my zoris by the door. I creaked open the screen door just wide enough to squeeze out without letting Bobo wiggle in. I must’ve been so out of it the night before that I didn’t lock the shed back up. Bobo had worked the rags I’d wrapped him in down on his rump and looked like he was doing a crazy hula. I dumped dog food into Bobo’s dish and fixed the rag back around his cut. That’d have to do until I came home after school. I craned my neck toward Tatan and hollered into the kitchen, “Promise. No boonies. Please.”

Tatan was already buried back in his newspaper. He mumbled, “Deal,” then raised his head, pounded his fist on the table, and yelled, “Go to school!”

I ran down the dirt lane. It was the first time I could recall Bobo didn’t follow me. I was concerned he wouldn’t be a very good watchdog anymore either.

At school I was bursting to tell Tomas and Daphne. But they couldn’t do any more good than I could. In class I got yelled at for not paying attention. Oh, I was paying attention all right—to the clock. The hands clicked so slowly I daydreamed of smashing the glass to hurry them along. What if Tatan didn’t listen to me and went into the boonies? Why hadn’t I told Tata or someone when I first suspected there might be a Japanese solider living behind our house? How could I have been so blind to the signs someone was there? I had to get home and check on Tatan.

When school was finally out and the bus crawled home, I jumped down three steps off the bus and raced up the lane to my house. Bobo had worked the rags loose again and was licking his wound. I took the bloody rags off while rubbing Bobo’s head and telling him to leave his cut alone. I’d go through the bathroom cabinet for supplies to fix him up. But first I needed to check on Tatan.

“Tatan, I’m home,” I called as I bounded up the steps. “Tatan, you here?” I kicked my zoris off and dropped my books on the kitchen table.

No Tatan.

Please… no. He promised!

I looked in the living room. Tatan wasn’t watching TV. The bathroom door was open so I went in and got salve, gauze, and tape. Then I looked in Tatan’s bedroom.

Whew! He’s napping. Good deal.
I’d just have to keep an eye on him until Tata got home. Tata’d know what to do once I told him about the straggler.

After I tended to Bobo I fetched a carton of milk, fresh coconut, leftover red rice, tortillas, and fish from the refrigerator. That should hold me until Nana got home and fixed supper. A couple of times I picked up the receiver to call Daphne. I needed someone to talk to, I was so antsy. Once I almost dialed her number. But each time I put the phone down and told myself,
Later.
This was not a good time for a first call. I was too keyed up and jittery.

I felt too exhausted and wired to concentrate on homework, so I took my snack in the living room to eat in front of
The Partridge Family
. They were pretty goofy
haoles
, not like any family I knew. But the singing wasn’t half bad. I turned the volume low so as not to wake Tatan.

Several hours later Tata and Nana still weren’t home. I called Sammy’s Quonset Hut. “Nana? Is Tata there? When you coming home?”

“Oh, Kiko,” Nana said. “I’m sorry. I should’ve called. We’re going to be late.”

“How late?”

“I don’t know. We’re doing inventory. We have to get this done tonight. You and Tatan okay?”

She sounded dog-tired. “Yeah. Kay-o. We’re fine. Tatan’s sleeping. I’m getting ready to do homework.”