The Eagle and the Fireflies
There hadn’t been enough time to abandon the plane. Even if there had, the Thunderbolt he had been issued had no mechanism for ejection—none of the Allied planes did. The Germans had experimented with them, unreliable and often just as deadly, but at least they existed. Cuauhtémoc wondered, briefly, whether the Japanese plane that had brought him down had such a system too.
“Im sorry, mama.”
It was all he managed before the old, sturdy aircraft tore into the waves of the Luzon Strait. The propeller bit into saltwater, and with it came a final, ironic thought: his Jarrón, as his squadron called the plane, bore a shark’s mouth painted across its nose.
“What do you mean you can’t swim, Lieutenant?”
The confused face of the American sergeant flashed through his mind as warm water crept over the canopy. Only small bubbles rose toward the surface.
No sound made it into the cockpit.
“These are the Mexican pilots they’re sending us—they can’t even swim!”
I’m going to be flying, not swimming, sir, he had thought back then in Texas.
Now, he was only sinking.
Despite the flashing memories and the pain of his beating heart, his left hand never released its grip on the canopy release. The drilling he had undergone had taught him to plant his right hand on the stick and his left on the thick metal of the release handle.
The exercises had been clear: jettison the canopy before hitting the water. But it was too late for that now. The blur of freedom above him had become a fleeting thing, sliding farther away with each second.
Warm water rushed in almost at the same time as he yanked the canopy release.
For the first time in his life, he was glad to be a short man.
The release failed underwater, only partially opening the canopy—yet the gap was just enough for Cuauhtémoc’s body to squirm into freedom.
The water in his lungs weighed him down, but his legs kept moving in a rhythm that made sense to his brain at the moment. He pushed himself toward the surface, but the fragmented sun rays above him never grew closer. They remained at the same distance until, in a matter of seconds, they began to shrink.
He was sinking again.
Out of ideas and out of strength, his legs would have been the last thing to give up—if not for his vision. Burned red by the saltwater, it caught on the bright dots above him, contrasting with the delicate blue of the ocean.
Surrounded by those lights beneath the water, his heart settled, the fear loosening its grip.
At least it’s a pretty view, he thought, just before his consciousness left him.
The narrow corridors where his father and Cuauhtémoc were working faced San Jacinto Park. Across the street, children around his age played soccer, the slap of their shoes against the pavement louder than the shouting itself.
He carried the paint tray while his father methodically brushed across the gridded words he had sketched the day before.
“We’re going to finish this up, and then we’ll pick your sister up from school, Temo,” his father said, before the memory ended.
“Xóchitl—” he murmured, the name of his younger sister lingering on his tongue.
The soles of the children running in his memory were replaced by the low thud of sandals striking sand.
Cuauhtémoc looked up.
The orange sunset framed a golden-toned figure standing over him. He might have been enthralled by her large, deep, dark eyes if not for the fireflies floating around them, glowing faintly despite the light of dusk.
“Who are you?” Her voice was soft, tinged with brightness; to his ears, it belonged to a woman.
“I’m—” he muttered, before the rasp in his throat choked the words away. “Water. Please.”
“Who are you?” the woman insisted. “Who is Xóchitl?”
“Sister—” he said before coughing, “agua, por favor.”
She held her breath. Turning toward the length of the beach, she scanned the sand in silence, tightening her lips.
Despite the large eyes set in her face and her copper skin faintly glowing, the figure still resembled a woman, made all the more so by her long, straight auburn hair. He noticed all of this while being dragged across the sand by a swarm of fireflies, pushing his body close behind her.
The natural curves of her body drew his gaze to her arms. In one hand, she carried a glass knife, her grip tight.
Just a few feet from the shore, a pathway sloped upward into a cave where he had been dragged.
Despite the shelter, the cold of his soaked uniform and skin seized his muscles in painful spasms. His only relief came from a slice of coconut, hollowed and used like a cup, from which he drank water in small, careful sips.
Unsure whether anything he did could still change his fate, he guarded his mind by keeping his gaze forward, fixed on the cave walls. There was nothing inspiring there—only fireflies resting among the stones.
“Who are you?”
Her voice resonated with the depth of the cave, lending her tone a rich, warm distortion.
“I am Cuauhtémoc Castillo Gallardo, second lieutenant in the Mexican Air Force—” he nearly made it through the introduction drilled into him before a cough cut him short, “pilot in Squadron Two Hundred and One.”
“I do not care about your people’s armies—what do you know about the name Xóchitl?”
He broke his gaze from the cave walls. Despite the shadows pooling between the stone, the woman’s skin reflected the light within, her brown skin taking on a golden glint that traced the lines of her body.
“Am I going to die?”
“You were supposed to,” she replied calmly. “But I’ve changed my mind. Now speak.”
A slow breath lifted his chest before the air escaped through his nose.
“It’s my sister’s name,” he answered honestly. There was no reason to wonder why she would need that information.
Her head tilted to the side, studying Cuauhtémoc’s body where it rested against the cave wall.
“Interesting,” she said, her tone analytical. He thought he caught the faintest suggestion of a smile on her narrow lips. “Where do you and your sister hail from?”
He had assumed she wanted information about their operations, but the mention of his sister threw him off. Unsure, he grasped for common ground with this local.
“Porac Airfield—we’re participating in tactical support missions to liberate these islands from the Axis.”
The glow along her skin brightened, frustration sharpening her long eyes. Her lips pressed so thin they nearly vanished.
“That is not what I am asking,” she said firmly. “Where are you from?”
“We are allies—we are liberating—”
His words died as the glass knife rose, stopping a few centimeters from his throat.
“I am close to done making a decision.” Her skin continued to glow; with their bodies so close, he felt heat radiating from her. “Unless you give me a proper answer.”
Despite the dampness clinging to his body, he felt warm blood rushing through his veins. Lightheaded, he kept his gaze fixed on the woman’s dark eyes as they threatened him—she hadn’t blinked once.
“I’m from—uh—Guadalajara.” He gulped, acutely aware of the knife’s presence near his throat. “Guadalajara, Mexico—where tequila comes from, sir—uh, ma’am.”
I could’ve used one shot right now, he thought, even the cheap piss-water the Americans loved drinking.
The glow of her skin subsided into an ephemeral warmth, pulses of reflected light blinking slowly, almost comfortably.
“You know Texcoco? And Tlacopan?” Despite the excitement in her voice, the knife remained fixed, steady in place.
His mind filled with the image of random streets bearing those names. There was a tortillería between Guerrero and Texcoco streets—he would always confuse his mother’s orders to bring maize tortillas and come home instead with a ten-piece stack of flour ones.
“Yes?” He couldn’t quite commit to lying.
“Yes or no.” Her eyes were the most expressive pair he had ever seen.
“I do—sir, uh, ma’am.”
He tricked himself into believing he technically knew the places she meant, fooling his own conscience by knowing only the streets named after them.
“Interesting.” Her thin lips didn’t bother hiding her smile. “Very interesting, indeed.”
There weren’t many interesting things in the old colonias he had traversed back home—at least none he could readily recall. His thoughts scattered when the pressure of the knife lifted, the blade pulling away from his throat.
She stood, leaving Cuauhtémoc in a daze, slumped against the wall.
“I will continue interrogating you. Do not move from this place. Otherwise, I can’t guarantee your safety.”
Despite the seriousness of the command, her voice carried a childlike wonder, as if she had found a new toy and was eager to play with it.
“Is there anything I could eat, ma—ma’am?” He settled on the formality as the word left his mouth.
“I can bring you something. It will be a while—so don’t move.” Her sandals echoed faintly as she exited the cave, the sun rays reflecting vividly off her skin.
The least unusual feature of her body had been her straight auburn hair, yet it was the image of those oddly large, dark eyes that printed itself in the back of Cuauhtémoc’s mind as he watched her figure disappear.
Soon, there was only the murmur of the ocean embracing his solitary self, a few fireflies oscillating in the air. He could’ve sworn he heard the delayed echoes of gunfighting drifting from the beach, far away.
