'I don't care!' cried the young woman bitterly. 'You have to care,' said Stenmark grievously, 'Even if it happened before you were born. And even then, that's only the smaller part of Kataya's anger. You lost your father, as we all lost those dear to us….. Imagine if you had lost Kalus, in the full flower of your pure and uncorrupted love for him? And not only Kalus, but the innocent life his seed had planted in your womb.' But Sylviana only wept harder, unable to feel anything but her own pain.
'She may be the last Japanese left alive,' he continued. 'And the silent suffering forced on the women of that country by their culture is beyond any power of mine to convey. Should it all be for naught? Hate the men of that time if you want; sometimes I do myself. But not the women. God love them…..
'She has the right to bear a child, Sylviana, and to choose that child's father. Think about that the next time you find yourself hating her, or despising the blessed and innocent life that now grows inside her. I don't think you'll have the heart to hate her then. Not in your worst moments.'
But it was all too much for her: too overwhelming to forgive, or even understand. She raised herself, angrily pushing away the hands that would have comforted her, and ran out of the room with a wordless cry of pain and self-loathing. And kept on running, as if the Devil ran behind her.
In time she slowed to a walk, though she could no more stop moving than deny her lungs the air they screamed for. 'Just walk!' she cried. 'WALK. Until you can't feel anything.'
But after another mile she stopped, and knelt down and wept for the third time. Because she knew that she would do it. She would betray the one she loved most. Until she made him feel her pain, thinking nothing of his own—-
'I don't care!' she cried, raging, the three words which so often precede the worst that we are. And though they were not entirely true in her case, the tragic end is often identical.
She would go through with the evil act. She would do it.
Chapter 47
That night Kalus dreamed he was alone in a dark cave, too small and dank for a man. But the light rose slowly through a stone-lipped entrance, and he saw a familiar form beside him as he sank into the wall, to watch. Kamela lay with three cubs beside her. But two had been turned to stone. He struggled to wake himself, because he knew what was to come.