When the Elephants Dance (61 page)

“I counted only ten,” Gregorio repeats.

I cannot keep myself from turning to Bartoy’s body. There is movement to my left, and I see a Japanese soldier crouched in the high grass, like a wildcat waiting to pounce. We raise our guns at the same time. A shot comes from Nina’s gun and the man falls.

A soldier runs up to our hill with a grenade. He shouts something, then Innocencio takes him down. The explosive shatters in the dirt. A shot comes from the left again; the man Nina has shot has returned fire on her. She is lying on the ground, breathing in short gasps.

“No!” I scream. I raise my rifle and finish the man. I run to Nina and take her hand. She struggles to focus. Her proud chin is dark with blood. I taste the salt on my lips from my tears. “Nina,” I cry. Her eyes roll upward, and she struggles to keep them on me. I bite my lip and hold her gaze.

“Boss, boss,” Innocencio calls out, “I need your help.”

I have to let go of her hand. But she is not yet dead. I have to let go.
Let it go. Do it now
. There are four more Japanese climbing our hill. It is as if they want to die. The Amerikanos must be winning. I take one down. Gregorio has been shot in the arm and can barely raise his rifle. I cannot see through my tears. I cannot keep from crying.

Innocencio gives a curse, and I see two soldiers coming from his right and two more in front. He takes three down, the last shoots him through the arm, and then he is down. The soldier jumps on Inno with a knife, and I shoot him. I am paralyzed without Innocencio. The expert marksman down. It cannot be. Such a simple soul. If only we had stayed in the mountains. If only I had stayed here. I reach again for Nina’s hand, and she looks at me quietly, calmly. Her face grimaces as she tries to move.

“This is to be our last fight together.” She chokes horribly.

“Be still, Nina.”

“Finish me, help the others. The warehouse,” she begs.

“I will not leave you.”

“Do not let our efforts be in vain. Please, Domingo.” Her words are slurred.

I stare at her in horror. “Do not ask me to do that. I cannot!” I shout. “Get up. I will put you behind the tree. We will take you to a doctor. You must help me. Nina, we are to have a life together, remember? Do not leave me!” I try to pick her up. “I do not want to be without you. I will die!” I hear my voice like a child’s. “Please stay.”

She stares at me, her breathing just gasps of breath now. She cannot even answer. Only the small pressure of her fingers on my hand tells me she is still holding on. I feel for my pistol and put my fingers to my eyes. I cannot do it. But I know I must. I grit my teeth, and my hands shake horribly.

“Forgive me, Nina.” I close my hand slowly around my pistol and put it to her head. She closes her beautiful eyes. I look to the heavens, pull the trigger, and scream. I sob into her chest for a long time, oblivious to the sound of Innocencio’s cry for help. I don’t know how long I stay that way. For a while I struggle not to bring the pistol to my own head. Then slowly I remember her plea. It is as if she is still near, watching over me.
Help the others
. I kiss her hand, then drop it without looking back and run to Innocencio. He lies on his back and tries to raise his head when I approach. His chest is soaked with blood. He sees my gun and nods. “Do it, sir.”

I am numb now. I cannot feel. My head feels submerged in water. Sounds reach my ears distorted. How has it come to this? When I only intended to help the others. My hand reaches out and I touch his shoulder. He is still alive. My mind screams,
There may be hope for him yet! He is delirious. He thinks he is dying, but perhaps he is not. Maybe Nina was delirious. Maybe you could have saved her! Oh God, you killed her! Perhaps you can save him still. You’ve killed them all!

“What have I done?” I shout.

Innocencio reaches out and touches my hand. “Sir, please. Not your fault. Do not want to bleed. Do not want … slow death.”

“Yes, Inno,” I choke, and bring the gun to his head. I close my eyes and fire. I hear my own ragged sobs. I have killed my people. I turn to Gregorio to see how he fares and perhaps to ask for forgiveness. He has witnessed the killings. He looks at my gun with terror, and in a panic he runs up the hillside, fearing for his life.

I have led these good people to the slaughter with my indecision. Is my coming too late? Will it be the same for those inside?

~
T
HE BACK DOORS TO THE WAREHOUSE
open with a kick from the Japanese boots. The double doors bang loudly against the wall. Everyone is silent. Something is happening outside the building. The soldiers have been running frantically in and out. Two soldiers appear, holding a body. We crane our necks to see whom they bring.

“Alejandro, make room,” Mama tells me.

We watch as the Japanese bring out Feliciano. They hold him by the armpits, with his feet dragging on the floor. They have kept him in the back room for the entire night. It was hard to pretend that nothing was happening. We could hear his screams the entire time. There would be short moments of silence, as if he fell unconscious, and then the screaming again.

“Feliciano,” Ate Isabelle cries out.

The soldiers twist their lips in disgust. “Now he will remember whose side he is on.” The soldiers throw Feliciano our way, and Papa and Roman catch him before he falls. His head falls back and his eyes roll upward. His arms fall around him like a puppet’s. They have taken off his shirt, and his chest is soaked with blood. Aling Anna is sobbing openly. Feliciano has dark bruises all along his face. His eyes cannot open from the swelling. He tries to lift his hands to his face, but I see that his fingers have been crushed. They bend in strange directions.

Isabelle searches his body frantically for his wounds. “They have carved their flag on his body!” she screams. “Animals!” she shouts to the soldiers. They watch my sister with disinterest. Mama tries to hold Isabelle back, but she twists and turns. I crane my neck to see. There are deep cuts on his chest, his belly, and his back. They have carved the Japanese rising sun on his body in three places.

“Stop it,” Mama says. She shakes Isabelle. “Be thankful he is alive. We will survive this. The Amerikanos are winning.”

A man seated next to us raises his gaze. His eyes are weak colored, not the brown I see beneath the film. He breathes deeply and shakes his head. To Mama he says, “The Amerikanos are winning, yes, but the Japanese refuse to let go. They are ready to die with us. They refuse to leave the Amerikanos anything.”
The man shudders. “Outside, the Japanese are making a suicide stand. They believe it an honor to die.” He points to the doors. “Outside they are executing the citizens. We will be next.”

Aling Anna shakes her head. “What good would it do them to harm us? You have wrong information. Do not frighten the children.”

The man looks at Aling Anna sadly. “Wipe the sleep from your eyes. They are killing us. I do not know why they keep us alive. I only know their intentions cannot be good.” He breathes heavily and closes his eyes. I want to ask him a question, but Mama shakes her head at me.

The sounds of shelling rock the warehouse like an earthquake. The Japanese soldiers look at one another and talk quickly among themselves. Most of the Japanese have left for the fighting outside.

“He is right,” Papa says. “The Amerikanos are winning. But they do not know we are inside; they are bombing our warehouse. We must escape this death trap.”

“My God …” Mama clasps a hand to her chest. She and my sister hold hands, while Isabelle cradles Feliciano’s head in her lap.

We look around the room to our only outlets. The three doors are guarded; two soldiers stand before each door. They watch us with stone faces, holding their bayonets before them, unmoved by the shells that rock closer and closer to our warehouse.

“Why have they locked us in?” Mama asks.

Roman stands and places his hands on his hips. “We must do something now. There are only two guards per door. Two against our two hundred. We can wrestle the guns from them.”

“Ridiculous,” Mang Selso sniffs, and crosses his arms. “That man does not know what he speaks of. They will not execute us. The Japanese need us to bargain with the Amerikanos.”

“Enough,” Tay Fredrico says to his son. “Selso, wake up. We must fight the soldiers. All of us, the women too. Roman is right, our only hope is to escape. Together we can fight them.”

“I will not be the first to catch a blade in my belly.” Mang Selso shakes his head.

Tay Fredrico addresses Roman and Mang Pedro. “I am an old man,” he says. “I will be the first to go forward. This door. I select this one. I see the sunlight creeping through the bottom. I want to bathe myself in its color. If it is to be blood red and gold, then so be it.”

“We must pray,” Aling Anna announces. She takes her gold rosary beads
from her pocket and kneels, while dust from the roof begins to crumble upon us with each shaking of the ground. The sound is awful to hear. I close my eyes tight against it all. Many of the women follow and kneel.

A priest who has been seated against the wall struggles to stand. “Yes, pray for absolution,” he tells the women.

“There is no time for prayer.” Mama stands. “Pray in your heads. We must attack these soldiers. God helps those who help themselves. Stand up, all of you.”

The soldiers look toward our group. “Sit down,” a soldier orders.

I raise myself on shaking legs, beside Roman, Papa, and Tay Fredrico. Ate Isabelle helps Feliciano stand, and Aling Anna looks up at us with bewilderment. She continues her prayers but struggles to stand on shaking legs. Her words tremble with each pounding of the outside guns.

At the other end of the room, women begin to scream. The soldiers are taking away the babies. A few of the men protest but are pushed away.

“Do not waste bullets,” a soldier orders.

The soldiers march toward us with their eyes fixed on Ate Lorna and baby Alma.

“No.” Mama reaches for the nearest soldier, but he shoves her to the ground. They close in on Ate Lorna. She stumbles to the middle of the floor, carrying baby Alma. The soldiers wrestle the baby away from her. The room erupts in shouts and angry faces. The other captives begin to stand. They come to her aid but cannot reach her as the soldiers slash out at anyone who approaches. Ate Lorna becomes a madwoman. She lunges at the soldiers and claws and kicks at their faces. The soldiers appear stunned at first, but then they regain their composure and begin to stab at her with bayonets. The blades are raised and brought down with such strength, a quick rhythm of silver and flesh that spins my head. I watch as Ate Lorna puts out her fingers. The bayonets slash through them. I gasp and wonder if that was truly what I saw. A soldier elbows his way through and aims for her head. Her head gushes blood like a fountain.

“Stop it, stop!” I shout, covering my ears. I hold my brother Roderick close to me.

“No, please!” Mrs. Yoshi and Mica cry out. Mrs. Yoshi tries to speak Japanese to the soldiers, but they will not hear her. They push her away, too. One of the soldiers grabs Mica by the hair and forces her to kneel at bayonet point. He spits at her with disgust, turns on his heels, and joins in the beating of Ate Lorna.

All of us are weak from lack of food. We have not been given water since we arrived, and our lungs are dry from the dust and smoke. The men gather their strength to protest, but they are pushed back with a kick of boots or a stab of the bayonet.

A soldier orders, “Let her bleed.”

Taba comes running from his mat to scream for his mother. The soldiers plunge a blade to his belly.

“Stop it!” Roman struggles with a soldier. “Help me!” he shouts to the others.

“They have guns.” Mang Selso cowers, pressing his back to the wall. “We could be killed.” A few people mumble in agreement with Mang Selso.

“We
are
being killed.” Papa stands. “Selso, we must fight. Some will die, yes, but at least some will survive.”

Soon Isabelle runs to his aid. The women stand and rush to help, encircling the soldiers.

“The building is burning!” a man screams. “They wish to burn us all.”

The flames come down the north side of the building, and the heat is tremendous. I hurry to my brother Roderick. People are running over one another, shoving and pushing. Tay Fredrico has fallen to the ground, and Papa and I rush to help him up as people kick and claw their way past us. A mortar shell shakes the ground, then another, coming closer to our building. People crowd to one side of the room. The western side of the building has collapsed, and people stumble away from the explosion. A woman gets up from the fallen wall. She walks a few steps, then turns, confused, and reveals her open backside to us. I can see through to her ribs and the bleeding flesh. She collapses, and still the shelling does not stop.

Two doors remain open, but the soldiers stand like stone statues.

“They are crazy,” I say.

“This way.” I point to a door where the flames have not yet grown so large.

“We must risk getting stabbed, or we all die,” Tay Fredrico, the old Spaniard, shouts.

Roman, Papa, Mama, Aling Anna, Mrs. Yoshi, and Mica all rush to the soldiers. Only Isabelle stays behind, holding on to Feliciano. They step closer, and the soldiers yell for them to stop. Tay Fredrico charges one of the soldiers, and the man kicks him to the side. Mang Selso shouts at the sight of his father falling to the ground. The sight feeds his courage. He shouts for the other men to help him, and together the others run and throw shoes, cantinas, rosary beads, whatever they can find, at the soldiers. The soldiers slash and stab at the
people, but it only makes us crazier. A few shots are fired, but we keep on coming. The women have joined in; they pull and kick at the soldiers. The men wrestle the bayonets from the soldiers and stab them with their own blades. The same happens at the other door.

“The doors are locked,” Mang Selso shouts. “We must find something to break them open.”