“No!” he shouted as a massive force rammed his tank, and he was tossed up in the air.
91
AIYI
A violent volley of gunshots rose, and a choking storm of smoke engulfed the metal bridge and the rows of buildings behind it. I couldn’t see the tower or the guard on the other side of the bridge. Holding my painful stomach, I shuffled along, crossing the shaky bridge, waiting for the shouts or the click of a gun that would shoot me when I least expected it.
None came.
I crossed the bridge, passed the wooden board with the sign THE DESIGNATED AREA FOR STATELESS PERSONS, and limped as fast as I could. “Evacuate, Ernest! Evacuate!” I burst into a wooden building near me, holding on to the doorframe to stop my head from spinning. It was deathly quiet inside. I staggered out, gasping, feeling woozy.
A low hum came overhead; the black silhouettes of Superfortress B-29s skittered in the sky, dropping something that looked like a string of mah-jongg tiles.
Boom. The ground throbbed beneath my feet, and all around me the bare tree stubs, the telegraph poles, the wooden buildings, and the brick walls crashed like a pile of bones. A torrent of shrapnel, flashing and whistling, hurtled by and scissored the wires above the roofs; a violent wave of heat and rubble hurled toward me.
I was thrown back and knocked into something. My face burned, my throat burned, my legs burned. I couldn’t get up, lift my hand, or scream. But how strange the world was. People seemed to be doing a jig on the bare trees, on the top of the roofs, on the broken beams, and on the crushed telegraph poles. They screamed but were unable to free themselves. From the caverns of collapsed buildings, children crawled; on the smoky street, people ran in circles.
They were foreigners, Chinese, children, men, and women. My head feverish, I scrambled to my feet.
“Cross the bridge, everyone cross the bridge!” I shouted, waving my hands, fanning away the thick smoke and dust, and pushed whoever came my way. Stunned, they went, their heads crowned with white ash and black soot, their faces splattered with blood.
But some were caught in the destructive roar. A bald old man, a foreigner, gaunt and feeble, moaned on a pile of rubble near me; a child in a gray short cotton dress bawled, crying for her mother; and a blonde woman sat on the ground with nothing in her eyes. I shoved her to walk toward the bridge; I shoved the child too.
The old man was sinking in the rubble, his groans barely audible. I climbed up to reach him. Hurry, hurry. But he was too far. I lay flat on the pile, reached farther, grabbed his hand, and pulled; he was heavier than I had expected. With some struggle, he finally crawled out, slid down the rubble, and landed on the ground. Exhausted, I had to lie there for a moment to gather some strength. Where was Ernest? I still hadn’t seen him. Was he nearby? I got up, but my foot was trapped by a web of boards. I pulled. The pile beneath me rumbled, and I sank to my waist. Frightened, I cried out frantically. “Help! Here! I’m here!”
A voice replied in the black air laced with debris and soot, but all I could see were fuzzy figures in the dusty haze, rushing around—so close, yet so far away.
No one could see me; no one could help me. My body ached, my strength was running out, and the burning heat and smoke mixed with sizzling fuel wrapped around my throat like a hot towel. Above my head came another heavy hum.
I screamed.
Silence answered, followed by a salvo of gunshots in the distance. The mound of rubble quivered again, and I tumbled deeper down to my chest, pinned between the smoldering beams, broken bricks, and coils of scalding metal. I panted for breath, to loosen the clasp around my chest, just as a thunderous sound roared near me. A shell detonated.
Before me, the entire row of wooden buildings crumbled, a crimson blaze ricocheted from behind the rubble, and then everything vanished. Everything, except the thick coat of smoke.
Something lurked in the smoke.
The vague shapes of two beasts. One was overturned, the gun motor sparking fire and the steely wheels rolling on a metal belt; the other stalled, with a running engine. Near the tanks, surrounded by the raging fire, were two figures. One I loved to see; the other I hated.
Yamazaki, the metal clips on his boots flashing like shards, was kicking Ying on the ground.
“Stop, stop!” I screamed.
Yamazaki didn’t stop—crazy, like a rabid animal, his face red in the fire. Abruptly he paused and stumbled sideways, turning to face something across from him—another figure. I could only see his back by the sputtering fire, but I would have known that back anywhere. My heart leaped with happiness.
“Ernest! Ernest!”