The Island of the Colorblind

When I tried to put a good-natured, genial spin on things, I was met by a blank, faceless stare – I was reminded, unavoidably, of the hateful episode on Kwajalein, the helplessness of civilians, civility, in the face of military bureaucracy. Phil had warned me that I had best say nothing, that we both had to behave in the most deferential, abject manner, or they would find reason to deny us entrance at all. I had thought, at the time, that his advice was a little overstated – but now I saw that it was not. In the event, we were kept waiting at the gate for an hour, while the guards phoned for various permissions and confirmations. At five o’clock, we were told that our admittance had been approved – but also that it was too late, because the base was now closed. At this point, fortunately (for I was about to explode with rage), a senior officer came along; we could override the regulations this time, he said – we could enter and have our swim, but we would have to be accompanied by military police as long as we were on the base.

Phil choked at this, and the feeling of supervision made me furious, but having come this far, we decided to go ahead and have our swim. Changing into our swimming gear in full sight of a jeep with four police was slightly unnerving, and an antino-mian part of me wanted to do something outrageous – but I controlled myself, with some regret, tried to put the police out of mind, and surrendered to the water.

It was, indeed, exquisite. There are more than three hundred species of coral native to Guam, and the colors of these at Sumay seemed far richer than those at Alma’s, or even those of the glorious corals off Pohnpei. A little farther from shore, we could see the outlines of the wreck of a Japanese warship, richly and strangely metamorphosed by a crust of barnacles and corals – but it would take more time, and scuba gear, to examine it properly. As we swam back in, I could see the shape of the waiting jeep shivering through the transparent waters, and the stiff figures of the MPs, distorted by their shifting refraction. As we dried ourselves in the gloaming, I seethed to think that this perfect reef was denied to the people of Guam, hoarded and locked up by institutional order.

But Phil’s anger had a deeper layer. This was the site of the old village of Sumay, he said as we drove back to the entrance of the base. ‘It was the most beautiful village in the whole of Guam. It was bombed by the Japanese, the first day they attacked Guam; then all the inhabitants were evicted or killed. When the Allies came, the Japanese retreated to those caves in the cliffs you can see, and trying to get them out, the Americans bombed the whole place into dust. That fragment of the church and the graveyard – that’s the only thing left. My grandparents were born here,’ he added, ‘and they are buried here too. Many of us have ancestors in the graveyard here, and we want to visit the graves, pay our respects – but then we have to go through the bureaucratic process you’ve seen. It is a great indignity.’

The next day, John and I set out for St. Dominic’s, a beautiful new hospital, or, as the nuns prefer to call it, Home, with gardens, patios, a tranquil chapel, perched on Mount Barrigada, overlooking Agana. Here were two more patients of John’s – both, like Roque, still in their fifties, and stricken by lytico in its most virulent form. Both had been in perfect health, seemingly, eighteen months before; both had now reached a point where the muscles of respiration were paralyzed, and mechanical ventilation was needed to help them breathe. As we approached their rooms, I heard the heavy, animal-like breathing of their respirators, and the unpleasant sucking sounds made as their throats were suctioned dry (for they could no longer swallow their own secretions and had to have these sucked out mechanically, lest they be aspirated into the trachea and lungs). I could not help wondering whether life was worth it under these conditions, but both patients had children with them – an adult son in one case, an adult daughter in the other – with whom some contact and simple communication was still possible; they could still be read to, watch television, listen to the radio. Their minds were still alive and active, even if their muscles were not, and both had indicated that they wanted to go on, to stay alive as long as they could, even if this meant being maintained on a machine. Both were surrounded by religious pictures and icons, which they gazed at with unblinking eyes. Their faces, I wanted to think, seemed to be at peace, despite the heaving, gurgling bodies below.