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He’d had nightmares where he was trying to run somewhere but his feet seemed stuck in quicksand. This was one of those, except it wasn’t a nightmare. It was real. If he didn’t get to the mouth of the tu
Their machine gu
And he was too far away. He knew he was too far away. He tried to force more speed from his poor, abused carcass, but a shuffling shamble was all it would give him. Quicksand, he thought desperately. Quick-
He was one of the leaders of the mob of POWs. He’d got within a hundred yards of the tu
“Don’t know.” Oscar heard the fear in his own voice, too. The knock came again, quick and urgent. Two years earlier, whoever it was would have just walked in. Odds were long against the door’s being locked in those days. Now… Now was a different story. Oscar’s fear swelled with each tap. Anybody out after curfew was in trouble with the Japs. Anybody in trouble with the Japs these days was as good as dead. And so was anybody who helped someone in trouble with the Japs.
“Don’t let him in,” Susie whispered.
“I’ve got to,” Oscar said. “I wouldn’t let those bastards get their hands on a gooney bird, let alone a man.”
Before Susie could start a fight-and before he could lose his nerve-he threw open the door. “Oscar,” croaked the man in the hallway. He was about Oscar’s height, but only skin and bones draped in rags. His eyes burned feverishly, deep in their sockets. A powerful stench came off him in waves, a stench that said he hadn’t bathed in weeks.
“Who the-?” But Oscar broke off with the question unfinished. “Charlie? Jesus Christ, Charlie, get your ass in here!”
Charlie Kaapu gave him a ghost of the grin he knew. “Then get out of my way.” Numbly, Oscar did. Charlie staggered past him and into the little apartment. If Oscar had ever wanted to see a dictionary illustration of the phrase on your last legs, here it was in front of him. He was so shaken, he didn’t even close the door after Charlie till Susie hissed at him.
She gasped when she got a good look at the hapa-Hawaiian. He wasn’t just four steps from starving to death. Somebody-the Japs, Oscar supposed-had been beating on him with sticks. The welts showed it: on his arms, across his face, and, visible through the holes and tears in his shirt, on his chest and back as well. He was missing some teeth he’d had when the Japs got hold of him.
He sat down on the ratty rug, as if his legs didn’t want to hold him up-and they likely didn’t. “You think I look bad, you ought to see the other poor bastards up in the Kalihi Valley,” he said. “Next to them, I’m Duke goddamn Kahanamoku.”
“Here.” Susie ran to the icebox and pulled out a couple of ripe avocados and a mackerel.
Suddenly, Charlie’s attention focused on her like a searchlight. In the presence of food, he forgot about everything else. Oscar didn’t suppose he could blame him, either. “Let me have those, please,” Charlie said, an unusual restraint in his voice. He sounded like a man holding himself back from leaping on what he wanted.
“I was going to do something with the fish-” Susie said uncertainly.
He shook his head. His hair and scalp were full of scabs, too. “Don’t bother,” he told her. “I’ve eaten fish Jap-style plenty of times. And I don’t much want to wait, you know what I mean?”
Without a word, Susie gave him the mackerel and the alligator pears. Oscar didn’t think he’d ever seen her speechless before, but she was now. Charlie made the avocados and the fish disappear in nothing flat. He ate with a singleminded concentration like nothing Oscar had ever seen. Oscar didn’t try to talk with him till nothing was left but peel and seeds and bones. If he had spoken, he didn’t think Charlie would have answered, or even heard him.
“Oh, Lord, that was fine.” Charlie looked down at his rubbish. He’d even eaten the eyes out of the mackerel’s head. “I do that for days and days at a time, I start to be a man again.”
“Won’t be easy, not till the Americans get here,” Oscar said.
“Yeah.” Charlie Kaapu nodded. “I was hoping they’d be here already-all that shooting we heard down here from up in the valley. But I see it ain’t so. Some crazy Jap motherfucker almost shot me for the fun of it before I got here. ’Scuse me, Susie.”
“It’s okay,” Susie said. “I know about the crazy Jap motherfuckers. I know more than I ever wanted to.” She shuddered.
“What did they do to you, Charlie?” Oscar asked.
“Well, they taught me one thing-I ain’t never go
“My God,” Susie said after trying to imagine that. “How come they aren’t all dead?”
“Lot of ’em are,” Charlie answered. “More dyin’ every day, too. But a hard case is a hard case, and some of ’em stayed alive just to spite the Japs. This guy named Peterson shoulda been dead months ago, but he was still breathin’ when I got away. One tough son of a bitch, you bet.”
“What the heck did they have you doing in the Kalihi Valley?” Oscar said. “I’ve been up there. It’s nothing but the river and trees, all the way back to the mountains.”
“Don’t I know it!” Charlie said. “What were we doin’? We were digging a tu
“My God,” Oscar muttered. People had talked about ramming a tu
“Can I have a bath or a shower or something?” Charlie said. “I’m filthy, and I’m lousy, too. I hope you guys don’t get company on account of me.” Oscar hoped the same thing. He automatically started to scratch, then jerked his hand down. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Susie doing the same thing. It would have been fu
“Go ahead,” Oscar told him. “I wish I had soap and hot water, that’s all. You can wear some of my clothes when you come out. Toss yours out and I’ll get rid of ’em.”
“Will do,” Charlie said. “We’re about the same size-well, we used to be, anyway. I can’t get over how fat people look.” Oscar and Susie were both ski