Cai's beautiful voice, marred by terror, calls my name. Her name for me, "Peeta." They're pulling her away. Pulling her to them. What will happen to her?
Trying to run to her, I find my leg shattered, gashed, and bleeding. I don't feel pain in it, only the pain ripping through my chest when I hear Cai scream for me to help her.
The terrible things Gao feared and the stories we're heard come back to me. Why do human beings treat each other so cruelly? Tearing each other apart. Brutalizing one another. Waging war on each other. Our natures are not as they were intended to be.
There have been countless victims who have come before her and before me. But Cai is my wife. I cared before, but I'm heartbroken now.
"Don't hurt her. Don't take her away," I scream. How pointless. Who listens in war? Who listens when tapping into the part of them that should never be awakened? Or maybe if it has to be awakened that they wish had never been awakened. Nobody. That part of me that wished the enemies I was bombing would suffer. Would I have listened when that hatred consumed me? I retained sympathy for innocents…but not the enemy…not really. I wanted to inflict suffering because suffering had been inflicted on me, my fellow soldiers, my people, my allies, my friends. Anger. Hate. Fear. Darkness.
She is light. Or she can choose light. She reaches her hand out and before my eyes a flickering flame appears in her palm. She smiles as the blaze of glowing white light surrounds her. Nobody dares to touch her again. She is blinding, fierce, resolute…but not invincible.
She calls my name again, this time with a peace imparting cadence in her voice. I try again to get up and hear a crack as a splitting sensation runs down my leg. When Cai tries to step out of the flames to come to me she cannot. She is trapped, even if safe for the moment. She calls my name again, from further away. I can't get to her, can't wrap my arms around, and can't kiss her to let her know that everything will be okay. And she can't heal me.
She is gone. I don't know where she's gone.
/
"Hey, buddy, wake up," a deep voice says. "You're just dreaming."
I look up to see a man in a US army uniform shirt, smiling broadly.
"We're on our way home, remember?" he says. "I have bad dreams, too. But at least we aren't like those poor fellas who just stare at the ocean and can't seem to talk to anyone. I'm afraid one of 'em is gonna' jump off before we get to California. Tex said one of 'em did talk to him and told him he'd been held for three years. Three fucking years! I'd be staring at the ocean too."
I blink my eyes, trying to remember which of my cellmates he is. He doesn't look familiar. Then the grey metal walls surrounding me, the fact that he mentioned the ocean, and the slight rocking motion I feel remind me that I am on a ship.
"What do you want to eat today? That kitchen boy was asking," the man says. "They've got even more food since our last stop."
"Uh, eggs?" I ask hesitantly.
"Eggs? Come on! Pick something better," he tells me.
"Better?"
"Yeah, better. Steak. Maybe chicken. The food's improving!"
My eyes widen.
"Anything but rice is fine," I tell him.
He laughs. "Nobody wants rice," he says. "Wonder why? Heh. We all wanted it so badly not long ago."
The man certainly has a sense of humor about him. He's not alone. The trip has been jubilant for many, especially the healthiest and least "damaged" among us.
"That nurse said she'd come back about your bandages," he says. "Nobody wanted to wake you, but I figured since you were…upset. Well, I figured you wouldn't mind."
I nod and thank him.
The ship is a US Navy vessel sent to Japan to bring home POWs. It has places for sleeping, reclining in chairs, and eating proper meals. There are nurses and doctors to take care of medical needs. We former POWs talk to each other, swapping stories about our experiences and anticipating what going home will be like. Often there is laughing, card playing, and rough-housing. Occasionally you see one man talking through bitter tears he could no longer hold inside. Another man, or maybe a few others, usually hover over him, trying to soothe away the waking nightmares or the onslaught of terrible memories. We POWs understand each other.
The officers in charge assure us that our families are being informed that we've survived the war and are on our way home.
"You're quiet. You know that?" the man who woke me says to me. I can't remember his name for some reason even though he's been sleeping in the bed beside me for some time.
"Not usually," I tell him.
The man tells me he's going on deck to meet a friend and invites me to come with him without pushing too hard.
I tell him, "maybe this afternoon"
The nurse comes by to change the bandages covering the remaining wounds on my back and side.
"You should get out more," she says. "It'd be good for you. You could get some sunshine above deck."
"I know. I'm going to try."
"What do you like to do?" she asks.
"Read," I tell her without thinking.
"We've got books," she says. "Plenty of them. I'll get somebody to bring you a few."
"And maybe a Bible. Do you have one?"
"The chaplains had a closet full of them, and there are probably some left," she says.
She's looking at the paperwork enclosed in the metal folder by my bed.
When she glances up I must seem disappointed.
"And if they are all gone, I'll give you mine to read," she says.
"Thanks."
I make my way above deck and walk around a little in the sun, but the walk wears me out. Wondering how long it'll take to get my strength back I slowly descend the stairs and find my bed. It's so clean and perfect. Someone even made it for me while I was gone.
A man walks by, the clerical collar of a Catholic priest immediately identifying him as a chaplain before I note the other signs on his uniform or the rosary in his hand.
"Son, did you ask to see me," the older man says.
"I was just looking for a Bible," I tell him, sinking into my bed, my back stinging as it hits the mattress.
He reaches in his pocket and pulls out a small New Testament with a brown cover, offering it to me.
"Do you want me to pray with you while I'm here?" he asks.
"No, Sir. I'm not Catholic."
"It needn't be a traditional Catholic prayer. I am your chaplain if you want me to be," he says with a slight chuckle.
"My father is a minister," I tell him.
He nods.
"I'm sure you're anxious to see him again."
"Yes," I say, happiness so evident in my voice that I'm a bit stunned by it.
It's okay to be happy, I remind myself. Even if you don't know if Cai is alright, she would want you to be happy.
"Maybe I could read something for you then," he says.
He flips through the Bible he's holding.
"Maybe your father would choose this for you if he were here," he says. Then he reads.
For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
"Yes, Sir…my Dad might have chosen just that."
The priest gives me the Bible and offers to visit me again, an offer I accept.
I think back to my time in China as he leaves, then to my time in Japan. Heights and depths indeed.
The priest has his back to me when I call for him to come back for a moment.
"Um, Father." Even I know you are supposed to call him that. I should have before now.
He turns around.
"Will you pray for my wife? I don't know if she's safe. We got separated from each other," my voice starts to fail me. "And I'm just so afraid I'm never going to see her again."
The priest walks back over to my bed.
"The army is trying to contact your families. Your wife may already know you are coming home," he says.
"No. They won't be able to find my wife," I tell him.
"Was there a problem before you left or during a leave?" he asks. "Marital problems between soldiers and their wives are not uncommon. Maybe now that the war is over…"
"No. I met her during the war," I tell him. He turns his head, seeming perplexed. "She was with me when I was captured, and I'm afraid they killed her. I've had so many nightmares about losing her."
The priest pulls up a chair beside me so that he's facing me.
"What's she like? It might do you good to tell me about her," he says.
I'm fighting back tears when I tell him, "Her name is Cai…"
/
Japan, the place where I'd probably suffered the most difficult time in my life, was also the place I'd found the greatest moment of tangibleliberation. It came only a few days after the interrogation about the non-existent bomb, which I soon learned actually existed. It had been used the day before I was interrogated. Another had been dropped three days after the first. They were the most destructive single weapons ever known, and they were dropped out of B-29 bombers by airmen just like me. The reason? The bombs were supposed to bring a swift end to the war, saving lives on both sides.
I had to admit that although I would not have wanted to be one of the men who dropped one of those bombs or one of the poor souls who fell victim to them, I was grateful that the war ended when it did. I knew some of the men who shared this ship with me now would have died if the war lasted much longer, and I might have died also. I'd talked to a few fellas who said they'd fought on some of the outer islands approaching Japan, and they told me that an invasion of Japan would have been incredibly destructive to the armies and to the civilians. They talked about how awful the fighting was and how many men died. They told stories of women and children trying to fight without weapons and mass suicides of villagers to avoid the dishonor of capture. Still, a bomb that can devastate a city? It boggles the mind to think how terrible such a thing is.
After my interrogation and beating I slept the rest of the day away, waking only to use my private "toilet." One of the guards dropped a small ball of rice on the floor for me that night. Surprised I'd been allowed food, I crawled over to get it and ate it lying on my least sore side. I stayed still as much as possible, hoping my torn skin would heal if I didn't stretch it too much. I think they intended to punish me by putting me in such a small cell all alone, and if I had had to stay there very long I think it would have been punishment, but I only stayed a few days before being returned to the larger cell.
The guards started acting strangely a few days later. They didn't let us out of our cells at first, but they gave us more food and water when we asked. They looked at us warily if we seemed displeased with anything. When the Russian got sick one night, they sent somebody in to check on him. Daniel decided to "test" them and asked for a cigarette. They gave him three.
We hadn't seen Toshiya for a while, but as soon as he reappeared Daniel yelled his name. Surprisingly, nobody reprimanded Daniel.
Toshiya walked over to our cell, looking dejected.
"What's going on?" Daniel asked. "The guards are acting different."
"They don't know what you'll do," Toshiya said. "They're worried."
"What we'll do? We can't do anything, but I certainly think this is all better than before. How can we keep it going?"
Toshiya shook his head.
"No, you don't understand. The guards don't know what your armies will do now that our emperor…" he paused, looking over his shoulder as if to make sure nobody was listening. "…now that he's told us we will no longer fight."
I sat up, unable to believe what I'd just heard. Many believed the Japanese would never stop fighting. In fact, several of my cellmates, some of whom had died, predicted that there was no way we could survive the war simply because the Japanese would defend their homeland so stubbornly in the face of certain defeat that nothing would be left of it.
"Wait, Toshiya, you're saying the emperor surrendered?" I ask.
He didn't answer, but we knew.
"You better let us out of this cell if you've surrendered," Daniel told him, pointing his finger accusingly and kicking the barrier between us and Toshiya.
"Dan," I whispered, thinking taking things slow was best. Violence was still possible, despite an apparent surrender.
"No!" he said, he eyes angry as he turned around to look at me sternly. He turned back to Toshiya and asked for some water. Toshiya complied a few minutes later. I grabbed Toshiya's arm through the bars when he tried leave us, and he stared down at where I'd grasped onto him.
"What would they do with a Chinese prisoner?" I asked him.
"What do you mean, Peter?"
"When I was captured. My wife was there. She's Chinese. She'd been protecting me for months. What would they do with her?"
Toshiya shook his head. "There's no way to know," he said.
"Would they kill her?" I asked, frantic with the idea that I might finally be able to gather information about Cai.
"Maybe. Maybe not. It would depend on the officer in charge. This was in China?" He asked.
"Yes. I already said that!"
"The officers in China do as they please sometimes, so your wife would have been treated according to the ideas of the soldiers who captured you. Do you know if they harmed her?"
"They tried. They got…distracted."
"What the hell are you talking about, Peter. What wife in China? Have you lost your mind?" Dan asked.
I looked around, feeling the heat of rage well up inside me. Nobody was there but Daniel and the other prisoners, so I pulled hard on the neck of Toshiya's shirt, pushing his face into the bars between us.
"How can I know what happened to her! Tell me!" I screamed. "Tell me right now."
"Let go," Toshiya said firmly despite my hold on him choking off much of his breathing. "Let go, or I'll call the others."
He straightened his shirt once my grasp loosened, then stepped away to safety. I could feel Daniel staring at me all the while.
"There's no way to know what happened to a Chinese woman who harbored an enemy soldier. I'm sorry. I simply can't help you."
"Don't you have records or something?" I countered.
"Records are not kept on such a person, Peter."
Not long after my encounter with Toshiya we were loaded on a truck and taken to a new building where we met other POWs. The group was still small, probably only twenty five or so. The Japanese painted the letters "P" and "W" on the roof of our building. They brought us reasonably clean blankets and rice twice a day. It still wasn't much, but it was quickly becoming apparent to us all that there was not much to be had at this point anyway.
We were allowed to be outside, and some of the men enjoyed the sunshine after being held in darkness for so long. I enjoyed it sometimes, but not as much as the others. One day we heard the unmistakable sound of a large plane flying nearby. I ran outside, not really sure what to do. It was one of ours, American. An airman smiled and waved to us as the plane flew low over our building. Several bags were dropped from the plane at a safe distance, and one of the healthier guys ran out to see what they were. He ran back with a paper in his hand.
"They're food. Food and medicine", he said. One of the other men grabbed the note and read it.
"Be back for you soon. Take care," it said.
Most of us cheered out loud.
The waiting seemed long, but with our conditions improving we began to feel more peaceful. Our "captors" still acted wary of us, but we were no longer afraid of them. Not long after the plane dropped supplies, a truck arrived to carry us to a new location. Nobody told us where we were going. When we asked they just said, "we're going to get you all home."
After several more moves we made it to a port. I'm ashamed to say that I don't know which one. I was exhausted by then from the traveling, but I do remember sitting on a pier and waiting for a ship, ecstatic servicemen from various countries all around me. Slowly but surely they separated us into groups by country to load us onto ships bound for home.