The Kimono Song

THE KIMONO SONGCaptain Helen Williamson, army nurse, finds herself the only American on an old bus heading north on the island of Okinawa, searching for a town that may no longer exist and a person who may no longer be alive. It’s early September 1945. The war has ended as dramatically for her as it had begun in Manila nearly four years earlier. At every check point and stop in the course of what will be the longest day of her already eventful life, Helen will encounter a person or image which will cast her back into the war that has changed her forever. From Corregidor to the prison camp north of Manila, she will vividly recall those tortuous years at every stop. Helen must relive the captivity she endured with her nine nurse companions and those relationships born of their desperation and tragedy. Visions of the psychotic Captain Takazawa, the camp commander, will come back to again haunt her thoughts. Mostly, however, she must come to terms with her conflicted memories of the charismatic Major Ito, the American educated, second commander of the prison camp. Could Helen ever be truly free of his amazing hold on her entire being? Had it been love, circumstance, or even Fate? Who had been the real enemy there, and who had been whose prisoner in that unique world they had all created within the boundaries of the barbed wire? And what is in the package she closely guards in the seat beside her? These are all questions Helen must deal with before this day ends-if she is to find the peace she has come so far seeking. Through it all, the echoes of that hypnotic song will continually lead her memories back to places she will never be free of again.

Thomas Kuhn is a retired archaeologist and teacher who specialized in Native North America. He is also the creator of Rattler Crafts, internationally recognized for its production of museum quality reproductions of prehistoric Native American tools, weapons, and ceremonial pieces. He also served as a Marine Corps officer and held various teaching positions in several subjects during his career, both in the public schools at at the college level. He is the author of the six part People of the Stone book series, detailing the peopling of North America from the end of the Ice Age to the coming of the Spanish and currently resides and writes in West Columbia, SC.