friends, Snowball and I, and more than friends.
It was a very strange time in my life. I wasonly seven and found myself dropped into a world that was in many ways insane. My mother and father were caught up in the whirl of being an officer and officer’s wife involved in some way with the civilian government. This, coupled with the fact that they were getting a good start on their drinking careers, meant that I almost never saw them, and when I did they were usually not sober.
We had a servant named Rom, a young Filipino man, who took care of me when he could. But he had a family of his own, and I was left alone much of the time. Or left alone with Snowball.
The Philippines had been ravaged by the war and much of the islands was still in ruins. The people had been devastated, buildings bombed and blown to pieces, whole tracts of land pitted and scarred by battle. It was impossible to walk anywhere without stepping on empty cartridge cases or seeingsome part of an exploded shell or mine. There were burned-out tanks and trucks everywhere, old Japanese fighter planes sitting on the ground, buildings blown in half and all too often a shallow grave or bulldozed trench with bodies in it.
This became my playground and Snowball became my guide.
We grew up together.
Snowball became an extension of me. I “went native,” as they said then. I wore army shorts that were miles too big for me, an old army belt holding them up, no shirt, no cap. I sunburned constantly so I had a Band-Aid over my nose to keep it from peeling all the time, and I evolved into being Filipino.
Snowball grew tall in that first year, with a thin hound look, one ear flopped down, the other standing straight up, and her tail tightly curved over her back. I took to standing on one leg, my other foot cocked into the knee,one hand holding Snowball’s back by the short fur. In many ways I think I became more dog than human.
I would see things—blown-apart buildings, old tanks, Jeeps upside down, rusting guns everywhere—but Snowball would
know
things. She would see the obvious outside way a thing looked, but then she would move to it and smell it and perhaps lick it and dig at it and look under it, and I took to doing the same things.
I would try to look inside what we were doing, follow Snowball’s lead, and in doing this I found more and saw more than I ever could have alone.
We went everywhere, including many places where we were not supposed to be.
We found a cave in the jungle full of Japanese bodies—skeletons—and boxes of Japanese money and swords, and rats almost as big as Snowball.
We moved through places in Manila where people were so poor and hungry that a whole family lived under a single overturned Jeep and had only a handful of rice a day for six mouths. Still they offered us food—even a tiny bit for Snowball—and I took to “stealing” food from home and taking it to them and we would sit and talk their language, and eat rice and sardines with our fingers, and I would hear of their lives, Snowball next to me as we squatted in the dirt, and how the war had been for them.
We watched cockfights, where men put two roosters in a dusty ring and let them go at each other. Pesos flew around the pit while the men bet money on which rooster would win.
We moved outside of town, where the farmers wore conical hats and walked through rice paddies with huge water buffalo pulling wooden plows through the mud. Once, here, Snowball saved my life.
We were walking along a trail where the grass came down next to the dirt in tight clumps. I had gotten ahead of Snowball when she stopped to examine a pile of buffalo droppings. As always, I was barefoot, and I was shuffling along. Two steps ahead I saw a pretty colored ribbon lying along the trail. Another step closer and I saw it had moved. It wasn’t a ribbon but a snake, one that—I was to learn later—was deadly. Some involuntary signal made me start to jump but I was too close. I was almost
It was a very strange time in my life. I wasonly seven and found myself dropped into a world that was in many ways insane. My mother and father were caught up in the whirl of being an officer and officer’s wife involved in some way with the civilian government. This, coupled with the fact that they were getting a good start on their drinking careers, meant that I almost never saw them, and when I did they were usually not sober.
We had a servant named Rom, a young Filipino man, who took care of me when he could. But he had a family of his own, and I was left alone much of the time. Or left alone with Snowball.
The Philippines had been ravaged by the war and much of the islands was still in ruins. The people had been devastated, buildings bombed and blown to pieces, whole tracts of land pitted and scarred by battle. It was impossible to walk anywhere without stepping on empty cartridge cases or seeingsome part of an exploded shell or mine. There were burned-out tanks and trucks everywhere, old Japanese fighter planes sitting on the ground, buildings blown in half and all too often a shallow grave or bulldozed trench with bodies in it.
This became my playground and Snowball became my guide.
We grew up together.
Snowball became an extension of me. I “went native,” as they said then. I wore army shorts that were miles too big for me, an old army belt holding them up, no shirt, no cap. I sunburned constantly so I had a Band-Aid over my nose to keep it from peeling all the time, and I evolved into being Filipino.
Snowball grew tall in that first year, with a thin hound look, one ear flopped down, the other standing straight up, and her tail tightly curved over her back. I took to standing on one leg, my other foot cocked into the knee,one hand holding Snowball’s back by the short fur. In many ways I think I became more dog than human.
I would see things—blown-apart buildings, old tanks, Jeeps upside down, rusting guns everywhere—but Snowball would
know
things. She would see the obvious outside way a thing looked, but then she would move to it and smell it and perhaps lick it and dig at it and look under it, and I took to doing the same things.
I would try to look inside what we were doing, follow Snowball’s lead, and in doing this I found more and saw more than I ever could have alone.
We went everywhere, including many places where we were not supposed to be.
We found a cave in the jungle full of Japanese bodies—skeletons—and boxes of Japanese money and swords, and rats almost as big as Snowball.
We moved through places in Manila where people were so poor and hungry that a whole family lived under a single overturned Jeep and had only a handful of rice a day for six mouths. Still they offered us food—even a tiny bit for Snowball—and I took to “stealing” food from home and taking it to them and we would sit and talk their language, and eat rice and sardines with our fingers, and I would hear of their lives, Snowball next to me as we squatted in the dirt, and how the war had been for them.
We watched cockfights, where men put two roosters in a dusty ring and let them go at each other. Pesos flew around the pit while the men bet money on which rooster would win.
We moved outside of town, where the farmers wore conical hats and walked through rice paddies with huge water buffalo pulling wooden plows through the mud. Once, here, Snowball saved my life.
We were walking along a trail where the grass came down next to the dirt in tight clumps. I had gotten ahead of Snowball when she stopped to examine a pile of buffalo droppings. As always, I was barefoot, and I was shuffling along. Two steps ahead I saw a pretty colored ribbon lying along the trail. Another step closer and I saw it had moved. It wasn’t a ribbon but a snake, one that—I was to learn later—was deadly. Some involuntary signal made me start to jump but I was too close. I was almost
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