Because They Were Here

Part 2

The week before Christmas, the sisters had went to the market to prepare for the celebration. However, on the way home, a Japanese soldier had toyed with them. He had two terrifying hounds on either side of him. One growled at Anna and showed off its horrible teeth which also had given off a horrible smell. The other looked as if it would be ready to lunge at her at the command of its master. In response, she backed up and held onto her basket of goods closer to her stomach. He held up a hand and eyed Maria starting from her head down to her toes. In a subtle manner, she pulled her skirt a bit lower and asked if she had done anything wrong. The soldier did not say anything and seeing that he would not be budging anytime soon, Maria decided that it was best to take a detour back home. Anna followed suit, but the soldier had cut them off once again. "Yameru." They stopped on their tracks and Anna watched helplessly as the soldier raised his hand to gently trace her sister's face.

She lowered her head and kept her eyes on the floor because she could not stand to look. Tear drops dropped at a rhythm on her sister's feet. They came faster and faster until Anna snapped. She grabbed a mango from her basket and threw it at the soldier and in a split second, her hand was wrapped around her sister's and she assumed the role of older sister.

"Run! Ate hurry!" Maria's vision slowly cleared up and ran along with her. Behind them, the soldier had whistled a command at his hounds who soon chased after the sisters. They were at a good distance from the beasts but one of them had slipped and had lost time. With no choice, the sisters spotted a tree and determined that it was best to climb it. Maria lifted her sister up to the first bough and urged her to climb as she herself found footing on the trunk.

Death came closer. Anna climbed and climbed because her life depended on it. Death came even closer. Anna slipped. Her sister screamed. Luckily, she had grabbed onto the second bough which was still high from the ground. Death was at their feet. Maria, grabbed a branch and swung it at the dogs who snapped their teeth like sharks eager to spill blood. "Anna!" Anna looked up and saw a hand reaching out to her. She tried to grab it, but the dogs distracted her. She kept screaming and struggling, until Maria found a way to hoist her up to the highest bough; scraping her inner thigh in the process. With a screech, she escaped death.

They stayed up there for a few hours. The soldier had laughed at them and had brought his fellow comrades to come and watch the sick show. Maria could not stop the inevitable upskirt staring and swallowed her pride. As night fell, the soldiers left and nearby villagers took them down from the tree. One of them took them to their home for dinner and took care of their injuries and accompanied the sisters home. Their mother broke down on the feet of the good samaritan and cried to the Lord in thanks. From then on, Maria and Anna did not go to market without their mother. However, that did not stop her from her previous habits. 

This time, she had stolen a pandesal from a bakery when Maria and her mother were not looking. "Hello," a demanding voice had spoken from nowhere. Anna searched for the origin of the voice but could not find it until a girl about the same age as Anna, revealed herself from behind the bread stand with a hand on her hip. "What are you doing?" Anna recognized her as the daughter of the family who had helped her and her sister. She had a an accent that was much different from a Filipino accent that tended to stress vowels and Rs. Anna wondered if she was a refugee.

"Wala, I was inspecting the bread." She said in her best English.

"Well if you were 'inspecting'," the girl air-quoted, "Why did you take it?"

Anna's mother recognized the snooty girl too and filled her basket with goods that were way too much for her family to consume in a week and paid for it with way too many pesos. She also decided that from that day on, they would only shop for bread at that particular grocery.

"What are you making?" Anna had picked up an unusual-looking pastry from the bakery's kitchen one day, "It looks like an ahas."

"What's ahas? Yerin asked.

"A snake."

The girls continued to converse about the funny-looking pastry. Which led to the exchange of desserts that either girl had ever known of. The following week, Anna and Yerin tagged along with the latter's mother's weekly trip to Makati in Manila; where a Koreatown was located. There, they bought ingredients for the bakery and walked along the dancing streets, buying and trading street food that Yerin's family would later incorporate into their growing business.

Across the Manila Bay, another battle had begun in Bataan. It was now January, 1942 and the Japanese were advancing violently. Anna's father was a strong nationalist and strongly disliked the Americans. However, he had an even greater dislike for the Japanese. He had left for the war effort; leaving Anna and Maria in the care of Yerin's family. This came to be when their mother had left for the market one day. She never came back.