When the Elephants Dance

Isabelle, Alejandro’s 17-year-old sister, takes over the narration. An accomplished student before the war, Isabelle plans a career as a doctor despite her patriarchal culture that dismisses women’s independence as dangerous. Indeed, she has feuded that morning with her mother over her plans. At the threshold age of 17, she struggles as well with her infatuation with Domingo, the charismatic rebel leader. She is drawn by his wavy hair and fiery eyes despite knowing that his wife, Lorna, and his two children are among the cellar refugees.

Her narrative returns us to the previous day. Isabelle, scavenging for food, witnesses the Japanese soldiers rounding up both her younger brother and Domingo. Hiding in bushes, she watches helplessly as her brother is tortured. Then she sees the soldiers lead Domingo off. They first gore him with knives and then shoot him, leaving him for dead. However, Domingo is alive. Bleeding profusely, he begs anyone for help. Isabelle is conflicted: “I hate him for making me feel guilty. What has he ever done but worry his wife and cast suspicion and danger upon our house? […] Yet even as my mind thinks this, my feet are running back to him” (118). Isabelle helps the wounded Domingo to his feet, and the two head off.

Domingo wants only to return to the mountain encampment where the other guerilla fighters await his return. Without his leadership, he fears the group may splinter. Isabelle helps him along. It takes several hours, all the while Isabelle watching for Japanese patrols. When they reach the encampment, Isabelle notes how well-armed the ragtag freedom fighters are and how committed they are to a free Philippines. They tell her that they detest the Japanese but distrust the Americans even more. Isabelle is stunned to learn that Domingo is romantically involved with one of the fiercest freedom fighters, Nina, a mestiza, a Filipino of mixed blood.

His wounds dressed as best they can be, Domingo, still weak, agrees to escort Isabelle back to her family. Along the way, Domingo explains to Isabelle that he married Lorna hoping that she would join him in the cause of a free Philippines, but Lorna came from wealth. Nina, a social outcast like Domingo, shared his commitment. The walk takes it tolls on Domingo. Soon, racked by fever, he collapses. Isabelle hides them in bushes along the road. She begs him to stay quiet. His moaning, however, attracts the attention of Japanese patrols. Desperate to protect Domingo, Isabelle creates a distraction. She runs out of hiding and is arrested. She joins a caravan of women being taken to Manila. Domingo is saved, left behind.

The city is in flames. The women are directed to an occupation administration center, formerly a swanky hotel. Rumors swirl among the female detainees about how the Japanese treat Filipino women. Isabelle is put in an airless supply closet on the third floor. Escape is impossible. She can hear the terrified cries of girls coming from other hotel rooms. There is a knock at the door. It is Feliciano Bautista, a boy she grew up with who has long nursed a crush on her. Now he is a Makapili. He promises, however, he will help her. Exhausted, she moves uneasily in and out of troubled sleep.

Isabelle is awakened by leering Japanese soldiers who stink of sweat and the jungle. They attack her: “Their hands are so strong, so thick; their faces blue before me; I hear the tearing of my blouse, my skirt” (146). The gang rape is horrific—Isabelle had been a virgin. Afterwards, true to his word, Feliciano gets the traumatized Isabelle out of the hotel and tells her to head home. Along the way Isabelle, disoriented and in pain, longs for her mother and regrets how they had fought. Feliciano later intercepts her on the road and makes sure she gets home. Agonized, Isabelle blurts out what happened to her shocked family and friends. She is certain the rape defiled her permanently, that her shame will forever disfigure her and isolate her from her family. She is certain her life is over. She goes off by herself and collapses into sleep.

When she awakens, she finds Feliciano has come to the cellar. He tells her he will not return to the Japanese after what he has witnessed in the hotel. Others in the cellar, most prominently Domingo, doubt Feliciano’s sincerity. Isabelle’s mother wisely counsels that the group cannot divide against itself and cautions everyone to cool down. Feliciano’s aunt, Ana, a rich woman the others secretly despise, tells the tormented girl a story of her own long ago childhood as a cautionary tale against giving in to bitterness.

Ana was a twin. When she turned seven, Ana’s sister died from leukemia. Her parents, devastated by the loss, adopted a beautiful orphan girl named Corazón. Ana grew to detest her adopted sister, certain that her parents preferred her because Ana reminded them of their dead child. When Ana was 17, she became infatuated with Jamie Bautista, a handsome, charming neighborhood ladies’ man. Ana is crushed when her parents negotiated Corazón into a marriage with Jamie. Out of spite, Ana married a man she knows Corazón loved.

More than a year later, Corazón faced a difficult delivery. Suddenly in a panic, Ana rushed to her sister’s bedside and accepted her sister’s apologies for marrying the man Ana loved. The doctors could do nothing, and Corazón died. Over the next days, Ana was haunted by Corazón’s ghost, always dressed in her funeral gown. Ana realized that, although Corazón apologized, she herself had never apologized for what she had done. When she does, the ghost departs. Ana tells the distraught Isabelle to let go of her anger and her bitterness and to embrace the love and support of her family. Isabelle understands: “[S]he means for me to understand about choosing to truly live or choosing to stay alive when you have died inside” (206).

With tanks rumbling overhead, Domingo and Feliciano, setting aside their differences, agree to work together. They depart to search for Carlito, Roman, Alejandro, and Domingo’s own six-year-old son Taba, all missing somewhere in the chaos of the streets above the cellar hideout.