RESURRECCION

Ilokano fiction by PETER LA. JULIAN

You and your cousin were walking down  a narrow village path. You were in colored cotton dress, a woven basket full of green mangoes on your head.

It was late in the afternoon and the sun was behind the trees in the hill where you picked the tropical fruits.

"Darasem, darasem, amangan no masalamaannata ida, " your 10-year old voice cracked when Helen fell behind by several steps. She, too, was carrying a basket full of mangoes. You could hear her inhaling and exhaling as she struggled with her load

You were in a hurry and now and then you looked back. You were alert to the sounds from the clump of bamboos that line the narrow path.

Your breaths were heavy even as you egged on Helen to walk faster. The nipa hut you have evacuated two weeks ago was still half a kilometer away.

Japanese soldiers had arrived in town and made their headquarters at the Central Elementary School in the poblacion. The garrison has deployed patrols of two or three soldiers in khaki uniform in the major streets and in the countryside.

It is them that you and your cousin were avoiding to encounter. These soldiers with sabers carried guns were known to be brutal and you were not sure those sakang who raped women were kind to young girls like you.

Months earlier in Manila, a radio operator from Laoag who worked at Mackay Radio and Telegraph in Binondo received news for the wire services about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in Honolulu on December 7, 1941. Soon after, the Japanese Imperial forces were in Manila and the provinces.

Suddenly, in the distance at the bend of the road, you saw shadows of the dreaded kempeitai. They have seen you and they were running toward you, and you turned back and embraced your cousin and you both cried and screamed and screamed. (Adda tuloyna)