A Pledge of Silence (20 page)

Helen said, “Let’s walk along Hollywood Boulevard. I like to watch the kids play. I miss my nieces and nephews.”

At that moment, a general service announcement crackled over the camp’s loudspeakers, reminding the citizens of Santo Tomas to mind their fires; that the okra ripening in the community gardens needed volunteer harvesters; and that all trash must be deposited in the dump area.

A disc jockey shouted, “Good morning, folks! It’s a splendid day in Santo Tomas! For the next two hours, I’ll be spinning your favorite tunes. Let’s start with one we all like to hear, ‘Pennies from Heaven.’ ”

“Praise the Lord,” Margie whispered.

“God bless,” Helen answered, for the song was code for a successful Allied bombing raid.

Margie and Helen stood in one line to have their meal tickets verified, then queued up in another for a bowl of rice gruel, pineapple, and a cup of weak coffee. They joined Gracie, Ruth Ann, and Tildy at a table. Along with Boots, they considered themselves a family now, bound together by experiences few others would understand. They shared secrets, fears, food, books, and birthdays.

Gracie said, “Wednesday is Boots’ 26
^th
. Where’s she been?”

“Working nights on the TB ward,” Margie said. “It spreads like wildfire in this heat. How about a party on Friday? Can everyone chip in 50 cents for a gift? I hate to ask you, Tildy.”

“It’s all right,” Tildy said through a mouthful of food. “I can’t always be a mooch. I broke down and took out a loan like you said.”

The chaplain had introduced Miss Kermit to American businessmen, residents of Santo Tomas but still powerful, their corporations secretly backing no-interest loans to internees through their Chinese and Swiss bank affiliations. Margie explained to Tildy that her government checks deposited in the States were safe and would continue to accumulate interest even though she borrowed against it.

Tildy swallowed her mouthful before saying, “You should go into business, Margie. You understand all that stuff.”

“I helped my dad keep the books for the farm. He taught me all about debits, credits, loans, and interest payments. You’ll be all right. Borrow what you need to live and don’t worry about it.”

Gracie said, “There’s a vendor selling hand-carved combs. It’d be a nice gift for Boots, don’t you think? You know how she is about her hair.” When she volunteered to do the shopping, Margie offered to go along. She needed cold cream and soap from the camp store.

Ruth Ann ate her last bit of pineapple and pushed the bowl aside. “I’m doing laundry later. Anyone want to join me?”

Helen said, “I will. I get off work first so I’ll get in line, but I need a favor, Ruth Ann.” She lowered her voice. “Um, I had a visitor. When we lay our clothes on the grass to dry, would you help me … um, hide … you know.”

Margie looked at her watch. “Hup-to girls,”

They scraped up the last bits of breakfast, and put the bowls in their totes before dispersing to various hospital wards and clinics for their daily four hours of duty.

Margie worked on a medical ward where she treated the internees’ tropical rashes, festering bug bites, painful boils, and fungal diseases. Inadequate toilet and hand-washing facilities made dysentery a perpetual problem. Some of her patients had no awareness of the link between dirt and disease; others, accustomed to servants, had no intention of cleaning up after themselves, much less anyone else. Launching a campaign on the importance of cleanliness, the Sanitation Committee conducted mandatory classes and posted monitors in the washrooms to enforce hand-washing rules. They organized fly-swatting details and fly-killing contests, engaging even the children in the activity to control the ubiquitous blue flies that spread disease.

Margie rummaged through a cupboard, looking for something to treat a rash. She found bicarbonate of soda and added water to make a paste. They had precious few medications to treat tropical maladies. Physicians and pharmacists with access to Red Cross supplies scrounged to provide what they could. Chemists concocted teas and ointments from local herbs, barks, and flowers that helped relieve symptoms with varying degrees of effectiveness.

Dozens of unlabeled boxes were stacked on the floor. “What’s all this?” she asked Tildy.

“Vaccines for cholera, typhoid, and diphtheria. Compliments of the Japs.”

“There are no labels. It could be anything.”

Tildy sadly shook her head. “The Japanese I knew when I was a kid weren’t like this, Margie. They were my friends and I trusted them. Now …” She shrugged. “Guess ours is not to reason why—”

Ours is but to do or die,
Margie finished the line in her head. She grabbed her stomach and doubled over in pain as her body broke out in a cold sweat. Nauseated and cramping for several days, she had blamed the discomfort on constipation, the result of a diet void of fruits and vegetables. Last night, she dosed herself with castor oil.

Tildy helped Margie onto a gurney. “You don’t look so good, honey.” She beckoned a doctor over. After a brief examination, he said she was suffering from acute appendicitis, and would need emergency surgery. He ordered an ambulance to take her to the Philippine General Hospital.

All she remembered of the next several days were snatches of pain, fitful sleep, bitter medication, and gentle care from Faye Marco, her Filipino nurse.

Tiny as a pre-teen, Faye said she was 26 and the mother of a two-year-old child. She stayed with Margie through some difficult times—packing her in ice when a post-op infection caused her temperature to soar, and when fever blisters swelled her lips beyond recognition. She offered Margie cool compresses, sweet puddings, back rubs, and, as Margie improved, conversation. She talked about her husband, an American soldier stationed in Manila, now a prisoner in Cabanatuan prison camp, where men worked as slaves and died by the thousands.

Margie held Faye’s hand—a baby, a prisoner husband. “I’m so sorry. I wish I could help.”

Faye nodded and looked around before whispering, “Maybe get us information, yes?”

“What information?”

“Shh! We watch the guards. Find those we can bribe. They wave our trucks through the gate, or overlook certain parcels in the package line. Can you do this for us?”

Margie felt her heartbeat quicken. “Those you can bribe? How would I know?”

“They weak. Easy to spot. We help you learn.”

“Who is we?”

Faye shook her head. “No names.”

Caught off guard, Margie agreed to help. Later she wondered at her naïveté. What had she gotten herself into? Who was Faye Marco, really ? Who did she work for?

Recuperating back inside Santo Tomas, Margie volunteered to work in the large gardens that supplied the camp’s two kitchens. On her hands and knees among the rows of fruits and vegetables, she transported herself to another world. She held long conversations with her mother and dad, confiding her fears, asking advice, and listening for their sage guidance. She told them how dearly she loved them, how sorely she missed them, and how desperately she yearned to come home. She dreamed of Royce, feeling his caress on her cheek, the brush of his lips. She heard him say, Y
ou’ve touched me more deeply than I ever dreamed possible
. Rivers of tears dripped off her chin, salting the soil.

Helen often joined her in the garden. As they dug and nurtured young plants to maturity, they talked. Margie told Helen about growing up in a small Michigan town, her dreams of designing clothes, her years at Grand Arbor Hospital, and the crazy things she and Evelyn had done. She told stories about Abe, now flying missions out of Australia. At first, she couldn’t talk about Royce, her throat constricting whenever she said his name. Later, she babbled incessantly, describing his relaxed manner, his confident way of speaking, his skill as a surgeon, his kindness to everyone, and his tender love for her.

Helen shared her stories and dreams too, about her English mother, her American father, and brother Ian, who was somewhere in North Africa the last she’d heard. She had a large extended family in England, and hoped to return there when the war ended. “You’ll come and visit me, won’t you, Margie? You’ll love my cousin, Mabel. She’s a real stitch.”

Months passed before Helen confided about her capture at Camp John Hay. “It all happened so fast,” she said. “The Japanese started bombing right out of the clear blue sky. Nobody knew what was going on. We were told to evacuate, and me and Hattie—you met Hattie, the other nurse—”

“I remember Hattie.”

“Me and Hattie and Dr. Robb left with the cavalry, the only military unit up there. We heard that guerrillas in the mountains would hide us. We got only a short way before the Japanese came along with their tanks and killed all the cavalry guys. Tanks against horses.” Helen sadly shook her head. “We holed up like scared rabbits, sleeping in old saw mills. The Nips were everywhere, and after four days, one found us.” Helen squatted down and tugged hard at some weeds. The pitch of her voice rose. “Hattie tried to run, and he shot her! He shot her in the back! Then, he stood me up against a tree and aimed his gun at my head. I saw evil in his eyes, and I felt it all around me.” She sank back into the dirt, hiding her face, sobbing into her soil-covered hands.

Margie embraced her friend, patting her back. “I am so sorry,” she whispered.

“Only my faith in the dear Lord saved me.” Helen sniffed and dried her tears on the hem of her skirt. “They stuffed all us prisoners into one room in an old barracks—hundreds of us. I got sent here. I don’t know what happened to Dr. Robb.”

Through the Executive Committee, the citizens of Santo Tomas formed education, religion, recreation, and entertainment subcommittees to organize activities. College professors and teachers established a school for the children, grades one through 12, and classes for adults in languages, math, art, music, and history up to the turn of the 20
^th
century. Astronomy was a popular course: internees lying on their backs, gazing upward, following the movements of heavenly bodies, and dreaming of faraway places. The Japanese forbade geography classes, and confiscated all maps.

Chaplains held religious services and offered scripture classes. Basketball, baseball, volleyball, and soccer teams sprouted up, along with choirs, an orchestra, and a drama club. Vaudeville shows, sing-alongs, and plays were presented at The Little Theater Under the Stars, an open-air stage built by the internees.

Margie offered to make costumes for the drama club. While watching auditions one afternoon, she saw a man she thought she knew. His strong jaw, distinctive profile, gangly build, and Midwestern accent all came together to form a familiar image. After the session ended, she approached him. “Excuse me, do I know you?”

Brown eyes blinked from behind thick glasses. “Isn’t that supposed to be my line?”

She blushed. “No. I’m serious. You look familiar.”

“Wade Porter,” he said, offering his hand.

Even his name rang a bell. “Hi. Margie Bauer. Where are you from?”

“I’m a man of the world.”

“What does that mean?”

“I travel around a lot. I’m a journalist. Best I could do to be part of the action. Bad eyes, fallen arches.” He pointed first to his face, then his feet. “Originally I’m from a little berg in Michigan. Little River. You wouldn’t know of it.”

“Are you kidding? I’m from Little River!” She jumped for joy, clapping her hands. “Oh-my-gosh! I don’t believe it! How did you end up here?”

He leaned against the wall and folded his arms. “By lingering too long in Manila. It’s the way of a journalist—the story and the glory. I wanted to witness the Japanese coming. Turned into quite a parade.”

They spent the next hour roaming the compound, exploring their common roots. Wade grew up on a farm less than three miles from Margie’s house. Eight years her senior, they had graduated from the same high school, though years apart. He knew the farm where she lived, the stores where she shopped, and the teachers she’d had in school.

“When’s the last time you were home?” she asked.

“About four years ago. Not much there for me anymore. Mom died the year I graduated from high school, and Dad remarried. It’s not the same. I have a sister, Carol Hanson. She’s five years older than me.”

“Carol Hanson? I remember her. She worked in the library and helped me find reference material for my school reports. She was always nice.”

“That’s Carol. She married Greg Hanson and has a little girl, Julia.” Wade grinned, and Margie noticed a scar on his lip and a chipped front tooth. “I have a shack in Broadway. Would you like to see it?”

Broadway was a shanty neighborhood on the far edge of the campus, next to the stone and barbed-wire fence. Wade’s place fronted a path aptly named Back Alley. A palm-leaf roof topped the eight-by-eight hut, and woven reeds made the walls. To the right of the door sat a charcoal stove. Before entering, Wade waved to his neighbor just steps away. “Yo, Tim,” he said. “My shift.” He explained to Margie, “We guard each other’s shanties.”

Margie ducked under a thatched awning. Inside housed a cot, a bamboo table holding a typewriter, two bamboo chairs, and shelves stocked with dishes, toilet paper, books, and such. The floor was split bamboo.

“Welcome to my humble home,” he said, as he propped open a window and pulled out the chair. Taking two metal cups off a shelf, he filled them with tea from a jar on the floor.

Margie glanced around, envious of the elbow room, privacy, and his little stash of belongings. “Where’d you get the furniture?”

“A guy over the way makes it. I gave him a couple of guitar lessons.” From the corner, Wade retrieved the instrument. He strummed the strings and adjusted the tuning before launching into a spirited version of “Frankie and Johnny,” slapping the guitar and stomping his feet for rhythm.

She clapped. “Bravo! You’re very good.”

He nodded his head, strummed a few minor chords, and began a song she didn’t recognize:

I’m a rambling man for many years