Stories from the Left Hand World

Jill Zeller

Description

A World War II army nurse experiences the invasion of Bataan in a wondrous way. The sea is rising and a young girl finds magic in a quilt. A woman struggling with depression and her aging mother finds healing via tiny dragons. Read these and Part 1 of the series The Left Hand World. Nothing is as you imagine it to be.

Sujets

• Fantasy (canción de Mariah Carey)
• Fantasy

Informations

• Publié par: Book View Cafe
• Date de parution: 20 octobre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781636320007
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Stories from the Left Hand World
Jill Zeller

www.bookviewcafe.com
Book ViewCafé edition October 20, 2020 ISBN: 978-1-63632-000-7 Copyright © 2020 Jill Zeller
A Feast in Bataan
It is a bad day, picking shrapnel out of wounds, cleaningpools of foul diarrhea, slipping on the blood of the operating room floor. Isqueeze Connie's hand. We are both famished, having just finished our shifts atthe hospital. I could barely find the energy to wash and set my hair; this jungleheat tugs my auburn curls and straightens them. Connie's blond hair is alwaysneatly combed, pulled in tight rolls. Most of the time I keep mine hidden undera scarf. It's time to leave for the dinner.
The shelling of the battalions dug in near Abucay barrio aremuted in this mountain villa. On the lanai, a sumptuous meal is spread beforethe guests. A pig, roasted slow in hot coals, the meat glistening and juicy.Deep fried crispy rolls, stuffed with bean sprouts and fish meal. Thick drinksof coconut and coffee.
Tonight because of the dinner I have tried to look like awoman again. We sit in the place of honor at the head of the long table setwith gleaming china and flatware. The air laves us with a hint of sea. We arehigh in the hills above the fighting.
Filipino servants pour water and wine. I worry for Connie;the last two days she has been shivering with dengue fever, but still hasworked beside me in the wards. She will not ask to go on sick leave. A shellslams into the mountain to the north of us, sending tiny waves through thewine. No one at the table seems to notice.
Our host is a dark-skinned Filipino. When he smiles histeeth show a white light of their own. The sun has set behind the mountain andtosses light the color of the tuna on my plate into the sky above Manila acrossthe bay, where the Japanese now are. In the encircling dusk, the host bows tome, and waves his hand across the table. It's time to eat.
Connie got us the invitations to this weekly dinner. Shenursed the son of our host, Mr. Hermosa, who was wounded when a shell punched ahole in the jungle where he was hiding. The family, having fled to theirmountain hideaway when the Japanese took Manila, brought him to militaryhospital Number 1.
The rice is rich with curry. My stomach has been unsettledlately; dysentery is a daily burden. I have recovered from a bout with malaria,and my appetite is only just returning. I can't help thinking of the junglehospital, cots and beds spread out under the trees; we walk on palm frondsbetween the patients. Their blood and stool soak into the forest floor. I thinkof the last boy whose hand I held as he died. He was younger than me.
The conversation is of the outlook of the coffee harvest,not the war. Two doctors have come with us, and they speak of the Chicago Cubs.Connie barely touches her food. She leans her chin on her hand, and herfeverish eyes take in the guests as she listens.
Warplanes buzz the mountains, circling like the hungry flieswho eye our dinner. The shelling stops just as the sun goes down. A greatweariness covers my skin, but its ache changes to warmth as I sip the sweetafter-dinner muscatel. I know the names of the wines, the foods, but Conniedoesn't. She doesn't even drink. She is a fragile girl, even though she camefrom farming country. I am stronger somehow. Our roles are reversed. I comefrom privileged, wealthy stock, and should be the weak one.
We met in nursing school and decided to join the armytogether. I was angrier then, prickly, an edge to Connie's soft compassion. Webegged to be sent to the Philippines together. I try to remember life beforethe invasion. I taught Connie to golf. One night we swam naked off the beach.
The daily barrage is over. But we hear gunfire from thenorth as the Japanese try to move down the Bataan peninsula. It sounds likepopcorn. It is very close. This time the guests cannot ignore it. A silencefalls over the table.
o0o
Connie's shift does not begin until 3, so I work withouther. Several more casualties are brought from the field. A shell falls close tothe kitchens and sends shrapnel through the cook's head.
We are all hungry. I can't stop thinking of food. They bringthe cook to the operating suite and I assist. I clean bits of his brain fromthe edges of the wound. It looks like oatmeal in a gravy sauce. As I pass theinstruments I think of the shreds of pork in paper-thin rice wraps we had lastnight at the villa dinner. My mouth fills.
Connie is dressed for work as I return to the nurses'quarters. She gives me her quiet smile as I talk about the food we had lastnight.
“My god, those thin noodles with the peanut sauce. I canstill taste it.”
I worry as she walks away. She is so thin; the coveralls weborrowed from the men balloon over her. But we are all thin. Rice and tomatoes,perhaps a shred of pork, are what we eat in mess these days. I hope we can goagain to the villa very soon.
A rumor flows through the hospital like a slow, sweet river.Some of us are to be sent home. Not all, but some. General Wainwright willchose which staff will be allowed to leave with the last two flights. Thenurses talk about it guardedly. We all want to leave, but we have pledged tohelp our patients. The thought of leaving the soldiers behind brings a numbingpain.
Connie comes into our tent after her night shift. She smilesat me as she always does, and she sits on her cot and begins to do her hair,carefully prepping it as she would an instrument tray.
I have not slept. I had a bad shift until late into thenight. Several casualties came in; boys with hands and feet blown off, suckingchest wounds, lacerations of vital arteries. Bad, bad wounds. The two boys whodied were awake until the end, watching us work, a nameless terror on theirfaces. We waited until they lost consciousness to declare their cases hopeless,and moved down the line to the next victim.
I can't get their eyes out of my mind. I am so hungry. Themorning mess was weak rice soup. Supplies have not been coming for months.MacArthur keeps telling us to hold on, do not surrender. I wonder if theJapanese would feed us better.
Perhaps that is what makes me say what I do.
“Why do you bother with your hair? Think the Japs will letyou go when they capture us because you have a beautiful coif?”
Connie pauses, her fingers on a curler. She glances at mewithout turning her head. “It makes me feel better if my hair is nice.”
Her hair is no longer nice. All of us are losing hair—it isstiff and lusterless. “Why feel better?” I say. “Why bother? You always try tomake a fantasy of everything. I hear you tell the boys they are going to bealright when nothing of the sort is true.”
She resumes her rolling. “I hear you say the same thing tothem.”
“But you believe it. I know I am lying. You have this sillyoptimism that everything is going to turn out fine. Where did you learn that,on the farm, in the dirt with the pigs?” I am cruel; my mouth has taken over mybrain.
Her fingers pause again, and this time she drops her arms.She says nothing. When Connie is mad at me, she goes silent.
I should stop there, but I am powerless to see reason. “Andthe dinners. Why can't we go back there? Can't you ask for an invitation? It'sbeen over a week.”
She sighs patiently, and I want to slap her. But somethingfinally pulls at me, and I get up and leave the tent, walk toward the shower. Iwill be late for my shift. At least I have that; I can help someone today, evenif I can't help myself. And maybe my name will appear on the list of those whocan be sent home.
In the shower, a trickle of water from a spigot under abanyan tree, enclosed by two shrouds of canvas, I think of home. My comfortableroom in my mother's house in New York. The taste of a rare steak in a goodrestaurant. The look on my father's face when I declared I wanted to go to nursingschool. It was as if I had announced I wanted to work at a brothel.
Tears clean my cheeks. I no longer bother with makeup—thereis nothing to wash away. I hate everything. My life, my luck, my big mouth. Ieven, this moment, hate nursing.
There is no time to go back to apologize to Connie. I beginmy day bathing patients. The bombing is fierce. Just after we serve a skimpymeal of rice and tomatoes, and one orange slice apiece to the patients, we areforced to run for the foxholes. A bomb falls just yards from the staffquarters.
My heart in my mouth, I want to check on Connie, who wouldbe sleeping there, but I have to help in the OR. I am so sorry for what I saidthis morning. I am faint from hunger, but I fight to stay on my feet as Isuture a leg wound.
My shift over, I walk toward the nursing quarters to findeverything intact, although shrapnel blew tiny holes in the side of our tent.Connie is not there. The tent is lonely and hot, and I lay down withoutchanging my clothes. I must have fallen asleep, for when I wake up I see Conniestanding over me.
“Get up you lazy bones. We have a date in the mountains.”
She turns away before I can grab her hand and apologize.Without words we get ready—I still have a flowery dress I bought in Manila, andthe curls of Connie's hair gleam. I brush out my dull brown locks, my stomachrumbling.
The dinner is sumptuous with roast duck and mashed taroseasoned with cilantro and lemon grass. Piles of deep fried vegetable rolls anda soup flavored with fish and noodles drenched with oyster sauce. I eat untilmy stomach bulges against my dress. Connie watches me. We have said not a wordto one another.
As before, the bombs fall close. Rifle fire pops down in thevalley. But no one comments of the proximity of the Japanese as they bear downon our refuge. It is as if a wall of clear steel surrounds us; the war cannot penetrate here .
When the dinner is over I do not want to leave. Night bringsthe jungle alive with sound—the insects have not left. Connie follows me down thetrack back to the hospital.
She speaks behind me, so low I almost do not hear. “If theypost the list of who is going, I hope you will be