“Have you got anything to eat in that pack?” asked one man, already salivating.

  “No, just the bones of my friends!” said Mingji angrily.

  “Let’s have a look.” They found themselves surrounded by several men with bayonets.

  Mingji and Masuda put down their packs without a word and showed them the white bones. An acrid smell of rotten and singed flesh arose from the bags.

  “You eat human flesh?”

  “These are the bones of our friends. Don’t you believe us?”

  “Those bastards on New Guinea ate human flesh. You bastards …”

  “I think we had better get rid of these,” said Masuda, pointing at the packs. “People think we have food. We might be robbed, or even worse.”

  “How can we get rid of them?”

  “Throw them away, or bury them.”

  “No, I promised him,” replied Mingji gloomily. Masuda saw there was no point in talking about it, so they continued on. Aoki and Nozawa scarcely spoke a word these days. Aoki also agreed that the safest thing to do would be to abandon the bones. Mingji didn’t even look at him, and Masuda said nothing.

  Renhe had been suffering from diarrhea since having eaten some mildly poisonous plants. Mingji, Aoki, and Crooked Mouth Li were bothered by malaria after entering the mountains. Masuda’s hemorrhoids were acting up. Masuda and Renhe were having the most difficulty. Nozawa was actually the healthiest of the group.

  “We have to stick together,” said Mingji. He had become aware of a new danger after the episode with the pack. “It looks like there is safety in numbers.”

  “That’s right. If we had had any food in that pack, one of those bastards might have stuck a bayonet in us.”

  “We have to stick together.”

  “We have to watch our health,” said Masuda weakly. “There is no need to go so fast.”

  For a long time now Mingji had wondered by what strange twist of fate he had fallen in with these men, especially with Masuda. He really didn’t seem Japanese. Was he unique, atypical? No, Mingji decided that he just had the wrong impression of the Japanese people. But if Masuda was a typical Japanese, what circumstances were necessary for the other kind to exist? He thought of Nozawa, a real bastard, who was stronger than anyone. He hated him. Why had such a bastard survived? Why hadn’t he been killed by the American bullets or shrapnel? Mingji prayed that Masuda would make it, that he would get safely home to Japan and father more Japanese like himself.

  At around noon that day they had crossed a large open area covered with brambles and creepers. They reached the foot of a gently sloping hill. Halfway down the other side was a group of ten stragglers. The men could see the smoke from what was probably their cook fires. It was surely safe there. They took the path down, picking edible herbs as they descended to cook when they arrived. But it was clear that there was no water on the hill. They would have to locate some water before they could cook anything.

  Crooked Mouth Li, Aoki, and Mingji took a winding path through a hollow filled with trees, then through an abandoned pineapple field in search of water. Large white butterflies flitted around them in the hollow and in the abandoned field. They saw water below and made their way down through a gully with steep walls covered with vines. It was clear no one had passed that way before. The butterflies were still fluttering around them. They worked their way through the gully and suddenly a shallow pool of water opened before them. On the other side of the pool was a rock wall about ten feet high.

  “Beautiful! What a beautiful place!” exclaimed Aoki.

  Mingji felt intoxicated by the shady stream, which reminded him of the one behind the temple in Fanzai Wood. He was still feverish from the malaria, and each time he moved his eyes he felt a sharp pain. The scene before him seemed bathed in a white mist, and there seemed to be another dimension behind everything. Was he penetrating beyond the surface of reality? It was impossible; only what was in front of him was real. The rest was an illusion, a strange and sudden apprehension of another world behind this one that could never be explained by a physics textbook.

  Aoki had jumped into the pool and was dipping water up with his helmet and pouring it over himself. He was really enjoying himself. Crooked Mouth Li, after having drunk his fill, was holding two helmets full of water while keeping his eyes peeled.

  “Mingji, are you still daydreaming?” mocked Aoki.

  Mingji recovered himself and was just about to stoop down and scoop up some water when he caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye.

  Then he heard a gunshot.

  Crooked Mouth Li staggered forward and fell with a heavy thud.

  “Surrender! Surrender!” they heard shouted at them in English.

  They were guerrillas. Four guns were trained at Mingji and Aoki. Standing still, they obediently raised their arms.

  The guerrillas could speak Japanese. They used simple Japanese and gestures to indicate that they wanted them to cross the pool and ascend the hill.

  Mingji’s throat was dry, his muscles ached, and he breathed with difficulty. He was aware that his fever had broken. His face and hands were cold and a little numb. He felt a tremor. It was over, all over. They were murderous guerrillas and not some illusion. Mingji forced himself to understand the import of what was happening.

  He seemed to float on his feet; the scene before him grew numinous. It was a dream. No, it was not a dream. He wanted to flee but knew it was impossible. He didn’t want to die. He wanted to live and return to Taiwan. He didn’t want to die in a foreign land.

  He obeyed their commands and ascended the hill. At the top, he found four guns pointed at his chest.

  “Kill!” shouted Aoki as he rushed the man before him.

  The man had no chance to fire as Aoki fell on him. Mingji saw several sudden flashes before his eyes. They entered Aoki’s back. He didn’t even have a chance to groan. His body twitched as he turned and hit the ground, where he shook with violent spasms.

  A gleaming object was pressed against Mingji’s throat. He felt a sudden heat, and something flow down his chest. He knew what it was. He was suffocating with despair. A dark cloud fell around him, and Mingji fell to the ground.

  “Who are you?” asked one of the men in Japanese.

  He nodded his head.

  “Are you Japanese?”

  He shook his head.

  “What about this?” asked the man, looking at his army pack.

  “Bones, my friend’s bones.”

  “Really?” The man talked excitedly with his companions.

  “Bones! Bones!” someone said in approval.

  “Are you Taiwanese?”

  He nodded.

  “Formosa?”

  He moved his lips ever so slightly.

  The guerrillas were discussing him as they glanced at him. They examined his eyebrows, his face, and his tousled hair. He closed his eyes.

  “Mother,” he said to himself.

  “What did you say?” asked the one who spoke Japanese, apparently having overheard him.

  They stopped talking and stared at him. The man who spoke Japanese felt his forehead.

  “Hot! Are you sick?”

  “It’s malaria.”

  “We won’t harm you, you are our prisoner.”

  “My mouth is dry; I had a fever; I need water.”

  “Move! Quickly! If you try anything, we’ll shoot you.”

  Should he move? They might shoot him as soon as he turned his back. guerrillas were known to kill without thinking twice. They were probably letting him live because he was Taiwanese, but it was unlikely that he would ever make it home.

  His feet felt heavy; it was as if he were chained to the ground. His legs shook, but his mind was clear. He felt a vague pain in a spot on his back above his heart—that was their target. He wanted to squat in spite of himself. But he continued on with the guerrillas behind him. He put on his helmet and slid down the slope. He knew they were on top of the hill with their guns trained on him.

  “I can’t walk very fast,” he reminded himself as he took off his helmet.

  The shallow pool was there. Crooked Mouth Li was lying face down on the other side; the pool of blood beneath him was congealing. Mingji thought it strange that Li could be reduced to such a heap of nothing.

  He wondered if he should try to make a run for it. The thought was big in his mind. The fever had subsided again, and his mind was clearer than ever. He felt calm and was certain he would return home. There was no way he would be prevented from making it back to Taiwan.

  He suddenly thought of the salmon. He remembered studying the salmon and its strange life cycle in school. He made his way to the bottom of the hill and walked to the edge of the shallow pool. He told himself that he was almost there and didn’t want to make them suspicious. They were watching his every move.

  He drew a deep breath and turned slightly. He threw his helmet, which he had just used to dip water from the pool, to the right, and then like a mountain goat he leaped into the reeds at the end of the pool. He landed on both feet in the water, then dove head first into the grass on the opposite bank. Bullets whizzed around him. He crawled as fast as he could through the grass up the slope. He suddenly felt a burning hot pain in his right thigh.

  He could hear the shots falling all around him. He was certain he had made his escape. He would be out of danger as soon as he put a little distance between himself and the guerrillas. Finally he took shelter behind a large drum-shaped rock. Taking his bearings, he climbed up through the abandoned pineapple field and to the right, where his companions were gathered, or so it seemed to him.

  He had escaped, and he was still alive. He felt a pang of joy and sadness. Tears rolled down his face and he smiled. Summoning all his strength, he crawled to where his friends were waiting.

  “Mingji? Mingji, is that you?” came the familiar voices of Renhe and Masuda.

  “I’ve been shot. I’m bleeding a lot.” Fear welled up inside him and he tried to remain focused. In the end he passed out.

  It had taken the men more than a month to reach another sizeable town since leaving San Jose. Wrong turns, backtracking, and avoiding the guerrillas had taken a lot of time. They weren’t sure what city it was that they had reached. They thought perhaps it was Panbac. But from a distance they could see that the Philippine and American flags flew over the city.

  In addition to Mingji, the only remaining members of the original group were Masuda, Renhe, and Nozawa. However, along the way they had picked up another eight or nine men who had stuck with them. They followed a path that ran parallel to the highway, along which lay corpses and excrement.

  In the last few days, they had also encountered a large number of well-printed propaganda leaflets containing wild assertions. One leaflet surprisingly told of how the Allies had attacked the Ryuku Islands on February 19 and had taken them on March 6. The campaign had resulted in thousands of Japanese casualties. The most frightening piece of news was that concerning the bombing of Japan itself. There was even a photo of B-29s bombing Tokyo on March 10. The caption to the photo said that 2,000 tons of incendiary bombs had been dropped on the city, destroying 40 percent of the buildings, with 130,000 dead or wounded. There were photos of the bombed-out shells of buildings.

  Mingji’s wound had healed—it was actually just a minor flesh wound. But the health of Masuda and Renhe had steadily worsened, till they could scarcely keep up. Worse yet, they were becoming mentally unbalanced; their condition had become quite obvious to Mingji by the time they reached Penablanca.

  Renhe was a strong and optimistic man, and even after he began to suffer from hunger and diarrhea, he continued to talk and laugh. One day, though, he began to talk to himself and cry, and behave strangely. Masuda would now go for days without speaking a word, and he would occasionally stumble because he walked with his head up. His face was without expression, and no one knew what he was thinking. He tripped over rocks and roots several times, but he would merely pick himself up without ever looking at his cuts and scrapes and just drag on.

  Mingji wondered why a person like Nozawa had escaped. Renhe was the only friend he had made since arriving in the war zone, and Masuda was the only decent Japanese he had ever met. He would have cried for them if he had had any tears left; now his heart was filled with poisonous flames.

  Going northeast along the highway, they reached a large open plain—was it the land through which the Cagayan River flowed? They could see the road stretching off over the wide open plain. There was no cover for them there. Military vehicles, including jeeps and tanks bearing the American flag, sped back and forth along the highway.

  In their discussions about what they should do, some suggested that they hide deep in the mountains and live off the land, while others were in favor of surrendering. Such suggestions were mere talk. Mingji and his group were like all the others that were fleeing north and looking for a route through the mountains beside the plain.

  Although it was the middle of summer in Luzon, they found the heat bearable in the forest, but they were still troubled by the mosquitoes, poisonous snakes, and daily afternoon downpour. The rains slowed their pace, and many groups found themselves mired to a complete standstill. The size of Mingji’s group also began dwindling. Two men were bitten when they tried to catch a poisonous snake. Others sat down never to get up again. And others died from eating poisonous plants.

  One day when the sun was directly overhead, the rain suddenly began to pour. Mingji and his companions quickly took shelter under a rocky overhang. There was water nearby, so they decided to rest for the evening. The rain was unusually heavy. It began out over the plain and gradually moved toward them; all they saw was a white curtain that gradually blotted out the glorious sunshine. The curtain, which hung suspended between heaven and earth, pushed toward them.

  A deep sound not unlike a sigh passed over them, and the ground seemed to tremble. A strong, hot wind rolled over the earth, making it difficult to breathe. The heavy rain continued to pour down. It was just like the spring rains in Fanzai Wood. The rain lashed the land but gradually subsided. Even after it had passed, it still seemed to echo in the ears.

  The wind died with the rain. The rain-washed sky looked more like a clear prism, making the scene vaguely unreal, like something out of a dream. Mingji came back to himself. He made sure Renhe was comfortable, then went to pick edible herbs and gather dry grass to make a fire with the others. Their foraging generally consumed half a day and also contributed to their slow progress north. They were surrounded by danger from both man and nature. Being unfamiliar with the land, they had no knowledge about which plants were edible. Mingji, having grown up in the mountains of Taiwan, had become the group expert. Whatever he picked, so did the others. Perhaps that was why Nozawa had stuck with him.

  Showa grass, red cabbage, and other bitter herbs he ate at home did not grow in Luzon. Only rarely did he encounter “sow’s teat,” which was a nourishing plant. Most often he was able to find the wuniu plant, which was common in Taiwan; it grew at the edge of the forest and on the dikes between fields at home. It was a hardy plant, deep green in color, that grew to about a foot in height. It had roundish, serrated leaves about twice as big as kulian tree leaves. It didn’t contain much salt and was tough and hard to swallow, but it wasn’t poisonous and actually made a good soup. It was now one of their principal foods.

  When wuniu was unavailable, they risked eating other plants. Mingji had a few dos and don’ts when it came to selecting them: 1) the plant had to be an herb; 2) he would eat no plant with milky sap; 3) if the leaves or stalks were tinged yellow or red he would avoid it; 4) if it had a strange smell he wouldn’t touch it; 5) if it tasted bitter, hot, or acrid, he would not pick it. The more salt it had, the better, and finally, plants that bugs and birds ate were usually tried.

  The hunger was hard to bear; they couldn’t sleep, and their guts growled and were rocked with spasms. They had to fill their bellies, or it was chaos.

  Mingji smelled a faint scent. It came suddenly and was not the smell of food; it was a smell he could not describe. It was a smell at the center of his life, and one that came to him in times of great danger or despair. He touched the thin silver ring that he wore on the little finger of his left hand. He wanted to sleep, but that scent was present. He wondered how long it had been since he last slept. He decided he had to think of something else. He thought of Renhe and reached out to touch his friend sleeping by his side. But Renhe wasn’t there. He got up.

  Renhe wasn’t there. Suddenly a dreadful notion entered Mingji’s mind. The wind whistled through the treetops, and insects and the sound of men sleeping could be heard. Where could his friend have gone?

  The lake near where they were camped reflected the moonlight, making it easy for Mingji to see in the night. He went in the direction of a cliff above the lake, calling Renhe’s name. One of the others suddenly saw Renhe on top of the cliff.

  Renhe’s silhouette could be seen ahead, but a dark hollow loomed between where he stood and the group. He must have somehow crawled across. In the dark, the rocky cliff seemed to float in the lake, but they remembered that the cliff actually stood at the edge of the water.

  “Renhe, come back! It’s dangerous there!”

  “What danger can there be when I’m at home with Axiang?” Renhe’s voice sounded calm, and they sensed a note of happiness in it.

  “That’s not your home, Renhe.”

  “Says who? There’s a light burning in my bedroom.” Renhe reached forward.

  “Renhe! Tell me how you got over there, and I’ll join you.”

  “No. You can’t come. This is my home. My wife and I are sleeping. Japs aren’t allowed.”

  “We’re not Japs! This is Liu Mingji! I’m from Taiwan. I’m your friend.”

  “Who are you trying to kid? Do you think you can trick me?”

  Mingji felt his panic rising, but he also felt hurt.

  “Quit trying to trick me. Go home and leave us Taiwanese alone.”