Guilt and the Past

The novel explores the relationship between guilt and the past via Cecily Alcantara’s portions of the narrative.

When Cecily’s son Abel disappears in February of 1945, she is convinced that she is to blame. Although many other families have lost their sons to the Japanese soldiers and labor camps, Cecily believes that “Bad things happened to bad people; and she was exactly that—a bad person” (5). The surrounding chapters, set seven, eight, nine, and 10 years prior to 1945, detail Cecily’s life, actions, and decisions in the past. These narrative sequences reveal Cecily’s reasons for holding herself responsible for her family’s pain in the narrative present. Ever since working as an informant for the Japanese general Fujiwara, Cecily has felt that “all the things she had done would come for her, that retribution was always a day away” (5). She once thought...