When the Elephants Dance (36 page)

I
T DID NOT
happen right away, my hearing the wind chimes in my sleep. It happened weeks after, on the month anniversary of her death. Or perhaps they sounded every night and I did not listen for them until the night of her anniversary prayers. I had almost reverted back to my old bitter self. Only now I was angry not with Cora, but at God. I had trouble sleeping; I heard those wind chimes in my sleep. I dreamed of Corazón and how she used to polish them. How she would unwind the wires carefully and bring them in whenever the weather looked bad.
I miss you, Corazón. Why have you left me?
I pondered. I did not attend her anniversary gathering. I knew it would not bring her back. I didn’t want to remember anymore. It was too painful.

The night of her anniversary prayers, around the time that the rosary would have started, eight o’clock, I heard wind chimes. The soft bells were coming from inside our house. Not unusual, unless you considered the fact that I owned none. I was in the living room, playing solitaire, when something made me sit straight. The little hairs on my arms and all over my scalp were tingling. “Go away, thought,” I said. “Just my imagination.” So I began to tap my fingers on the oak table. I stopped tapping and had pulled the next card from the deck when I realized the tapping had not stopped. I looked a few inches past my card, and there were fingers tapping. I followed them upward, already knowing, the scream caught in my throat.

There was Corazón wearing her funeral gown, her one hand held to her chin as if she were playing cards, sitting at the table and pondering her next move. I backed away from my chair; I remember it falling over. I stood, she stood. I started to choke. She approached me and put her arms around me.
“Yakapin ko kitá hanggáng—”
she said. I will embrace you until—“Forgive,” I heard her words whispered.

“No!” I screamed. I was still screaming when Matthew came running in, his eyes searching the room for an intruder.

“I saw her. Corazón, she was here, she was torturing me. I thought we had become friends,” I sobbed hysterically.

“Shh …” He enveloped me in his arms. He promised to watch me as I slept. He sent word to Ate Yu to come visit us. I think he was concerned that Corazón’s
death had clouded my thinking. I prayed that night. I asked Corazón to please not terrify me this way. Had I angered her somehow before she died? I told her that I missed her. Wasn’t that torture enough?

T
HE NEXT MORNING
I woke with a start. I had decided it was a dream. I walked out into the living room, and there was Ate Yu already in the kitchen, preparing coffee.

“Oh, Ate Yu. That smells so good. Could I have a cup, please? And one for Matthew?”

“Of course,” she said, and as I sat down she placed a cup on the table.

I looked up gratefully. “Thank you,” I said.

The wind blew at that moment, and the hair on my arms stood on end. The wind chimes that I did not own rattled. When I looked up again I saw that it was not Ate Yu at all, but Corazón. “Forgive,
ate,”
she said, and came to embrace me. My heart caught in my throat, and my cup shattered on the floor. Her cold embrace choked the breath from me.

“I forgive you!” I finally screamed out, and the real Ate Yu ran to the kitchen. My scream had woken her and Matthew.

We hurried to Ate Yu’s small apartment that day, for Matthew had business he could not cancel and she told me she would sit with me as I slept. She ordered me to sit as she began to fix me a cup of tea. She made sure to turn every few minutes so I knew it was truly her. My mind was in chaos. What was happening? I thought Cora and I had buried our troubles.

“Why do you think this is happening? Am I going crazy like Mama?”

Ate Yu placed the cup of tea before me and crossed her arms. “Does she seem angry? What does she say when she visits?”

“She says, ‘Forgive.’ I cannot understand it. We had buried our differences before she passed. I had come to love her as a sister. I miss her still. I went to her funeral. I told her I forgave her like Papa and you taught me at Janna’s funeral so long ago.”

Ate Yu was watching me. “Anna, can you not yet see?”

I glanced up in surprise, my blood pumping in my ears. I looked behind me in terror, expecting to see Corazón again.

“No, no. I mean, can you not yet understand? Think about it. What else did I tell you before?” When I still did not understand, she took my hand. “Come, you should rest. Think about what I have said. I shall read my book. I will be right beside you the next time she visits.”

Her words did not comfort me. The fact that she was sure there would be
a next time. As she sat down to read, I thought about the things Corazón should ask forgiveness for. I puzzled it over in my head. I went back to the time of my sister Janna’s death. What had Ate Yu told me then? What had my father said?
Do not let your tears fall on the dead, otherwise they will return again and again until the matter is resolved
. I had avoided that at Corazón’s funeral.
What else? What else, Cora? Please help me to remember. Have I wronged you in any way?
And then it hit me like a storm.

“Ate Yu,” I said, “would you please leave me for an hour?”

She stood in surprise. “You are sure? She may return.”

“She will return,” I said. “But I will be all right.”

Ate Yu embraced me. “Yes, you will be.”

After Ate Yu left, I did not wait for the wind chimes. I took a deep breath and called out, “Cora, I am waiting.” A cool air swept the room and the tinkle of chimes sounded. I turned and Corazón stood framed by the doorway. She looked just like a normal person standing there, only she was stiff, something in her eyes not from this world.

“Ate …”
Her voice permeated the room. Big sister.

“Yes, I have called you.”

“Forgive,” she said.

“No—” My tears overflowed at all that had passed between us. All the chances. “No, forgive me, sister,” I sobbed, and as I walked to her image with opened arms, she vanished.

“Yes …” Her answer filled the room. I felt her all around me, as if her love were embracing me. I cried for all that we had lost. All of it not my fault and yet all my fault. “Yes, I forgive,” she said like a small song, a fragrant whisper.

I had remembered now what Ate Yu had said the night of Janna’s viewing, when she lectured me on what to say to the dead. “You must tell her, ‘Sister, I forgive you for any wrong, and in turn, please forgive me if I have wronged you.’ Otherwise how will she get to heaven with so many apologies and obligations weighing her down?”

I smiled and hugged my arms to myself. The bitterness had left me, and the thought of Corazón flying free to paradise made me happy for once.

When Matthew came home that night and saw me there, he looked around our room. I could see he sensed something.

“Where is Ate Yu?”

“I told her to go home.”

“Corazón came. Is she still here?” He looked around.

“No.”

“I can smell the fragrance of her hair,” he said, coming to sit on the bed
next to me. His bags were packed, and our eyes met. “Anna, you have no use for me now that she is gone. I had hoped, but I know you do not love me.”

I began to cry again. All I could do was nod my head. He left, and I never saw him again. He went to live in the United States with his mother; he remarried.

~
A
LING
A
NNA BLOWS HER NOSE
loudly into a silk handkerchief “All those years, all the sadness I thought I had created for Corazón, I had created for myself. All these riches I have? I have never felt they were mine. I had beauty around me at all times. I had a sister who loved me, a husband, and only later, when we had wasted so much time, was I able to see that I had thrown away my chances at happiness. So I have learned to let go of anger, to never let it wrap its talons around me again.

“I should have been a mother to her son, to you, Feliciano, but instead I left you to a father who no longer cared to live. And look what happened. You grew up without any direction. You could not learn about strength from your father, Jamie, so you found it elsewhere, with the enemy.”

She looks at Mang Selso. “We must stop this fighting. This rivalry between us. There are others who need our help.”

I look away, for I know she means me.

“You remind me so much of myself, Isabelle, with this pain they have given you. It threatens your future. And at the same time you remind me of Corazón, so gentle and kind. Do you understand what I am telling you? Our experiences are different, yet they could have the same ending. Only you are young yet, you still have a choice. Do not hold this bitterness to you. Crush it and let it fly away. Both of you, start anew, leave the bitterness behind.”

When Aling Anna finishes, Mang Selso looks humbled. He nods slowly and apologizes to me with his eyes. I feel the truth of Aling Anna’s words. It is not the same, her story and what has happened to me. Yet I see that she means for me to understand about choosing to truly live or choosing to stay alive when you have died inside. I take her words and keep them in my mind to inspect later when I am alone. It is my turn to feel pity for Feliciano. He sees this, and his face reddens. I realize again how lucky I am to have a family. I realize now how hard it must have been for Feliciano to have none. Perhaps I might have made the same choices as he, if only to belong to something, to some kind of family. Something changes in my regard for him. It is not complete forgiveness, not yet, but it is as if a window has been opened. A small crack.

Feliciano has come to sit to my right. He has done so casually; no one has noticed but my mother, who looks from him, then to me, with teary eyes. He looks to his aunt pleadingly, and for the first time he addresses her with kindness. “Auntie, please, we must let Isabelle heal in her own time.” His tone is not lost to the room. The others busy themselves to give us privacy.

“You are a good boy to watch out for her.” Aling Anna regards him with pride.

“Yes, Feliciano. Thank you,” Mama says to him.

“But, I didn’t—” Feliciano begins.

Mama reaches out and places a hand on his shoulder and repeats, “Thank you for bringing my daughter back. No one else was able to do this.” She keeps her eyes on him until he bows his head and accepts her gratitude.

There is rumbling outside, so strong that the ground shakes, and I try not to sob. I feel crazed, nervous. I turn my face automatically to Feliciano, and he puts his arm around me. Domingo stands. “An hour has passed. I shall go now in search of the children.” He looks at Feliciano. “You will come with me. If this is some trick, I promise you, you will not live to see the next day.”

Feliciano glances at me, then stands. He and Domingo lock eyes. “Let us go.”

~
F
ELICIANO CLIMBS THE LADDER
up to the house while I follow behind and stare at his exposed neck. The neck of a Japanese sympathizer. It would be so easy to wrap one arm around that neck and with the other hand slip my blade behind the collarbone to the heart. But he is the key to finding my son and the others. When we reach the door I glance one last time at that exposed skin and gesture for him to again walk before me.

“Thank you,” he says under his breath, and opens the door.

My sarcasm is lost on him. I grab him roughly by the shoulder and turn him to face me. “Let us understand two things. If not for your knowledge of the Japanese encampments, I would kill you. If not for your rescue of Isabelle, I would kill you.”

He clenches his teeth, turns, and begins to walk west, toward the direction of the cordillera mountain region. My body protests immediately at the pace. My mind spins from the hunger in my belly and the weight of my obligations. It screams for me to be at ten places at once. I am walking in a nightmare.

Hurry
, my mind says. Quickly, to save my son, Taba, Alejandro, Roman, all innocents in this game of war—possibly, more than likely, dead.
Do not think that. Never think that
. I am ashamed at my failure to keep my son safe. I am a disappointment as a father. How I long to have him adore me the way he used to. Before Lorna’s family poisoned him with their words. The connection is breaking between my son and me. The war has kept us apart. When in his presence I am awkward, a stranger; I do not know who is more terrified. I fumble to put away my rifle, my knives, to hide the wounds and bloodstains that make his eyes grow large. I feel the way I do the few times I have sat down to dinner with Lorna’s family. It is a ridiculous feeling, being humbled by a six-year-old child. I feel like a leper when I hold him. I have nothing to offer.

I have become like my father, a vague figure in the life of my child. From the beginning I have not been worthy of my son. I knew it was only a matter of time before he looked down his nose at me like Lorna’s family, yet my heart aches for his acceptance. I have wanted desperately for him to love me. My body screams for me to bring him home safe, to try to form a stronger bond
with him. If nothing else, I can love him from a distance, the way I have my father.

My father … It is crazy, I know, to love a man who wishes me dead. But there it is, my secret. One that I will never admit to anyone. If only he knew the many times I could have ordered him killed. Could have killed him myself. Maybe he wonders at times how he escaped many patrols and attacks on his home, on his office. I wonder what he would think had he known my orders that he was not to be harmed. Would it have made him love me finally? A stupid game I play. A fantasy I hold. One that could come back to hurt me, for he is my enemy, and all true soldiers know you never let the enemy go once you have the opportunity. But the thought remains in the recesses of my mind. Though my father, like Feliciano, is a Japanese sympathizer, would he still be considered dangerous after the war? Or would it then be nothing more than a political preference? Would we then only be on opposite sides of a discussion table? Would I regret through eternity if I killed him, and the war and all its imaginary lines were to end tomorrow? I do not know. So he lives.