The Birthmark (11 page)

Yamek District
5 February 1943

Just before dawn Tepu woke to a strange sound like the buzz of a giant insect. Tarema heard it too. Together they emerged from the lean-to, stretched and looked up. The sky was a deep grey with a pink smear of light on the horizon.

The neighbours had also stirred from their sleep. Within moments everyone at Yamek camp was awake. They could all see the planes approaching, a swarm of black dots against the grey.

The droning grew louder; the hum filled the sky. Then came whistling noises, then the booming, so loud the ground shook.

Children scrambled for the protection of their mothers. Wailing babies added to the din and people's faces were tight with fear, alternately looking up then cringing with each blast. Tepu's mother knelt in the sand, holding her hands over her ears. He could see the terror in her eyes.

‘They mean to kill us!' she cried.

‘No, Mami, it's the Americans,' Tarema said, pulling at her shoulders, desperate to shift her.

‘We must hide among the pinnacles,' one of the men shouted.

Tepu helped Tarema drag their mother to cover. Although the first few bombs landed close to Yamek, the main onslaught was further away. As far as Tepu could tell, the Americans were targeting the southwest of the island: the new runway they had spent months building for the Japanese. All their work would be blown away in one morning's raid. What a waste of their suffering, but what a sweet victory. Tepu didn't know whether to laugh or be sorry.

‘The Americans have come to save us!' a neighbour shouted over the blasts.

Tepu's spirits lifted, but he could hear the big Japanese guns firing in retaliation and he doubted that freedom would come swiftly, nor without a price. He knew the Japanese would take revenge for the attack. With no Americans on Tevua, their wrath would fall on the islanders.

Anbwido
Tuesday 29 June 2004

The two girls sat in the
meneaba
beside Decima's house. A breeze cooled the sweat on their brows and necks.

‘We're going to Melbourne next week,' Decima said.

Her deft fingers wound strands of Lily's hair into a thin braid.

‘True? Poor Auntie Eide. I wish my mum was sick instead.'

‘She's still your mum, Lil, even if she is nasty,' Decima mumbled.

‘You don't get hit by her,' Lily said in a sullen tone.

‘No…I'm sorry…anyway, she's getting so sick, she needs to go for tests.'

‘So who's going?'

‘Mum, Dad, me and the girls. The boys are staying here to look after the house.'

Lily stiffened. ‘So where will I go?'

‘Oh Lily, you'll be all right.'

All right, thought Lily. How? With Decima away, there was no one to stay with. For years now they'd slept over at each other's houses, usually one or two nights a week. Now she'd have to stay in her room alone every night. The lock didn't fasten properly. Eldon knew that. Besides, he could just as easily pull the louvres out. Two were broken already. Then there was the ghost. Lily felt panic begin to beat inside her.

‘I wish you weren't going.'

‘I know, but Mum needs me.' Decima carefully combed another section of Lily's fringe and began to plait again. In the silence Lily saw a pink frangipani fall to the crushed coral from the tree beside them. Like me, thought Lily, defenceless. She looked sideways at the tree through the beaded plaits already in place. That tree had always been there it seemed. She loved the fragrance that greeted her each time she stayed here, yet she hated its rounded limbs. Branches grey and swollen like dicks, stuck end to end like old toilet rolls.

‘What's happening with Jonah?' Decima asked.

‘Nothing.'

Lily thought about how he'd stared at her in class before the holidays. There was some kind of message in his eyes, she was sure, but she didn't think it was good enough gossip to tell Decima.

‘I bet he'll be hanging round Black Hearts tonight. I told Christina we'd go.'

‘We'll be seen,' said Lily. ‘I'll be killed.'

‘No one will see us if we walk along the beach.'

Lily thought for a moment. If she stayed the night at Decima's then her mum wouldn't know. ‘Are you sure he'll be there?'

‘My brothers reckon his family do the music there. He'd have to be there.'

‘What about my face? My eye's still bloodshot.'

Decima scanned her face. ‘It's almost back to normal and anyway he won't notice in the dark.'

‘And what about your brothers, where will they be?' Lily asked.

‘At a twenty-first party over the other side of the island.'

How perfect, Lily smiled to herself. ‘Yeah, let's do it.' That night Decima called outside Lily's lounge room window. ‘Are you coming, Lil?'

Lily, her younger brother, Cyrus, and their father were on the floor eating dinner. ‘Yeah, wait,' Lily yelled back. She dusted sticky grains of rice from her fingers, crushed her soft drink can and bundled it up in the take-away paper in front of her.

‘I'm staying at Decima's,' she said to her father.

Amos was motionless in front of the DVD player. He grunted but didn't look at her.

She got up from the floor and took her rubbish. Amos pushed his papers towards her in a feeble effort to help. He lay on his belly under the fan, his head pointed directly at the screen. Lily knew he wouldn't move for the rest of the night. Cyrus sat beside him, his mouth hanging open. He was only eight years old but he was already imitating everything their father and Rongo did. She'd seen him smoking a few times. She wouldn't be surprised to see him rolling around drunk any day from now.

She threw the rubbish in a cardboard box and met Decima and Christina at the back door. Lily could tell Christina was as nervous as a cornered rat. She was chewing her fingernails again. Thankfully, she'd found a T-shirt that was big enough to cover her midriff. Decima had told her to wear dark clothes so she would be hard to spot, but her white arms and legs were so obvious. Lily swore under her breath and hoped Christina wouldn't give them away. The only consolation was Christina's short hair. People would probably think she was a boy.

‘Come on,' she said. ‘Let's get out of here before Mum gets home.'

The girls scurried down the overgrown path towards the beach. Lily had it worked out well. All she had to do was get out of the house when her mum was away. Lorelei had left for bingo earlier in the evening—good riddance, piss off and don't come back. She would never have let Lily wander about at night, but Amos thought she'd be sitting around at Decima's. He was easy to fool.

Out on the beach the girls headed east in silence. They passed the pillbox they'd visited on the weekend. Lily shivered when she saw the pale dome in the moonlight.

‘I hate this pillbox. It feels as though someone's looking at me through it,' she whispered.

‘But no one's in it,' Christina said.

‘I think Hector's grandfather's right though, don't you? I can feel someone in it, the air is different,' Lily said.

‘Creepy,' Decima whispered.

The girls headed towards the waves, giving the pillbox a wide berth.

‘You know how you think your ghost's a Jap,' Decima said. ‘Well, how do you know he is? He might be just a Chinaman who worked in one of the restaurants or something.'

‘He wears a uniform.'

‘What sort of uniform?' Christina asked.

‘He's got a coat…long sleeves and buttons…and badges. And he's got a belt…a plain brown belt. It's like he's all faded yellow...and he wears a little hat with an anchor on the front. I don't know, maybe you're right, but he seems like a soldier to me.'

He was small too, Lily remembered: bony and half-starved looking. She didn't like his face either. It was sallow and squashed, and his lips stuck out as if they were glued on as an afterthought. The bottom one seemed to hang. It was weird how those details were clear in her mind; but she didn't want to tell her friends everything. She knew Christina didn't believe her and it made her edgy. She took a deep breath and tried to put the ghost out of her mind.

‘If we stayed here one night we might see him,' Decima said.

‘Are you crazy?' Lily said. She stopped walking and glared at her cousin. She wanted to shake her and scream. Instead her voice came out all cold and low. ‘I don't want to think about it, all right. It scared me. I don't want it to keep scaring me, do you understand? I don't want to keep talking about it.'

‘OK, OK, I'm only trying to help,' Decima said. ‘Come on, let's go,' she said to Christina and the two of them walked on ahead of Lily.

Lily rolled her eyes. She wished she'd never told any of them about the ghost. None of them could leave it alone. Why couldn't they just dismiss it as something she dreamt?

If only it was all a dream. She looked back at the pillbox and shuddered. Its entrance was an alien black mouth that gaped at her. A breeze crept in off the sea. Fifty metres away waves crashed against the reef in a rhythmic chorus that spilled warm water up onto the beach, washing over her feet.

Despite the warmth, Lily felt chilled. An eerie whisper called to her from the ocean. It was a girl's voice, thin and frightened.
Egirow, Egirow
it seemed to say. Or was it just the wind? She looked down in horror as a tingling sensation flowed up her stained arm. It was as if her birthmark was on fire. Terrified, Lily gave a stifled shout then ran after the others.

They'd already reached a rocky outcrop that jutted onto the reef. It was only another few hundred metres to the beach opposite the nightclub. A single streetlight lit the Ring Road and its glare filtered down on the girls.

‘Are you OK, Lil? You look sick,' Decima said.

‘I'm fine,' she lied.

They hid from view, ducking behind the rocks as cars drove past. The nightclub's music blared, competing with the sound of the waves.

‘Listen, I think it's “Lucky Charmers.” I love this song,' Christina said.

‘They've always got good music here. They get the new stuff pirated before most people in Australia or New Zealand get to hear it,' Decima said.

‘I'd rather hear it up close than lying on the rocks like a crab,' Lily said.

‘You just can't wait to see if Jonah's there,' Decima teased.

Lily ignored her. ‘Come on, we're nearly there.'

The three of them climbed over the rocks, then scampered along the sand to the path that led to the road.

They hunched down, waiting for the traffic to clear, then darted across to the carpark and hid beside the nearest Landrover. Security lights kept the area between the carpark and the nightclub bathed in a yellow glow. Lily looked about for Jonah's brother's car. There it was, a battered, dark sedan with a white driver's side door, parked near the corner of the building. Her hopes rose. Maybe he was here, maybe she'd get lucky and talk to him.

‘Let's move closer,' she said to the others, shouting over the music. Christina looked worried. Lily tried to reassure her, ‘It's OK, kids always come and watch, see.' She pointed at the walls of the building. Every available window and doorway was crowded with boys jostling for a view.

‘Hector's there,' Decima said, ‘near the back door. Look, he's smoking with someone!' she laughed.

‘Dumb shit!' Lily said, struggling to get a good view.

‘It's Jonah, Lil,' Decima squealed.

Lily strained to see. ‘I'll have to get closer,' she said. She ran up to the front row of vehicles and sat behind a motor scooter. Decima was right, it was him. And Hector. She could tell it was Jonah by the way he held his shoulders, and the muscled curve of his arms. How often she'd daydreamed about having those arms around her. She felt a rush of anticipation. She longed to go up and talk to him, but it was too risky. Someone would see and report her to Lorelei. She beckoned to Decima and Christina.

The two girls hesitated. ‘Gutless cows,' she hissed. She'd have to attract his attention by herself. She picked up a handful of gravel and began throwing stones one by one.

eleven

Anbwido
19 February 1943

The American bombers had damaged the phosphate loading facilities, flattened administration buildings and destroyed many of the sheds that housed the Japanese food stores.

Bombs had also hit the runway, taking out three Japanese planes; otherwise the damage was minimal. The work gangs were deployed straight away to repair the surface.

The islanders' hopes that the Americans would liberate them dissolved. The bombers came without warning and vanished.

Tepu's fears of retribution were justified. The Japanese took revenge on the islanders for the Allies' attack. Weekly rations were cut to two small tins of rice and a piece of dried fish. Men were so hungry and weak that they stumbled as they worked. The marines pushed them to exhaustion and beat them when they fell. Tepu viewed the abuse as another test of his endurance. If he was truly a shaman, he would survive.