The Storm We Made: A Novel

Abel Alcantara is the son of Cecily Alcantara, as well as one of four major perspective characters in The Storm We Made. Like his mother, he is a tragic figure whose life is suddenly upended when he is kidnapped and brought to a work camp on the Thai/Burmese border, where the Japanese military is constructing a new supply railway. Abel is selected to be taken by his former schoolteacher, a British missionary named Brother Luke. While at the work camp, Abel displays his characteristic defiant attitude, which puts him at odds with the camp supervisor, Master Akiro, who imprisons Abel in the camp chicken coop and rapes him. Later, Akiro urges Abel to murder Brother Luke as entertainment for the other boys. Though he is motivated to kill the missionary, Abel is irrevocably changed by the act of taking a life.

Abel copes with his trauma at the camp by developing an addiction to toddy, a cheap alcoholic drink. The toddy also represses his rebellious urges, allowing him to avoid the ire of the soldiers. He also befriends a boy with strong Eurasian features named Freddie, who spends his nights drawing sketches of camp life using his own blood. Abel asks Freddie to draw a sketch of his youngest sister, Jasmin, to help him remember her. Part of the reason Abel kills Brother Luke is out of retribution for Freddie, who was personally taken by Brother Luke and some soldiers from home. Later, Freddie returns the favor by capturing Master Akiro and giving Abel an opportunity to kill him. Abel begins attacking the supervisor, but leaves before finishing, giving the other boys the chance to kill Akiro on his behalf.

Abel’s narrative arc centers on Overcoming Trauma With Memory. His toddy addiction becomes so intense that he frequently blacks out and vomits, as if he were trying to purge the traumatic experiences from his body. The need to help Freddie escape shifts Abel’s attention away from his torment. For the first time, he has the opportunity to help someone in the camp rather than harm them. Freddie dies beside Abel as they hide by the chicken coop, but Abel takes Freddie’s sketches and runs for several weeks, eventually finding his way home. Trying to save Freddie’s life helped Abel value his own. For the first time since his kidnapping, he also has a purpose: to save Freddie’s sketches and carry out his wishes.

After returning home, Abel learns that his father and his sister, Jasmin, have died during his absence. He realizes that despite Freddie’s sketch of Jasmin, he can no longer properly remember her appearance. This doesn’t prevent him from honoring her memory. During the surrender of the Japanese to the British, he holds onto a can containing Jasmin’s bone fragments. His last act in the narrative is to report Fujiwara’s arrest to Jasmin’s bones. Abel’s arc shows that honoring those they have lost is one way survivors might cope with the wartime atrocities they have experienced.

Jasmin is the youngest daughter of Cecily Alcantara, as well as one of four major perspective characters in The Storm We Made. Jasmin experiences the loss of innocence in her character arc, as her idealistic views of her family are shattered by their overprotectiveness.

As a young girl, Jasmin is a target for the comfort stations built by the Japanese soldiers. Wanting to preserve Jasmin’s innocence and prevent her from suffering Abel’s fate, Cecily cuts Jasmin’s hair short and forces her to wear Abel’s clothes, disguising her as a boy to make her inconspicuous to the comfort recruiters. As an added precaution, the Alcantaras take to hiding Jasmin beneath the floorboards of their house. Because they cannot anticipate when the recruiters will conduct their inspections, Jasmin is made to spend most of each day hiding under the floor. She nevertheless appreciates her family’s attempts to entertain her, recognizing her overwhelming love for each of them. However, this experience is its own form of trauma that eventually prompts Jasmin to flee.

Sometime during the Japanese occupation of Malaya, Jasmin becomes friends with a girl named Yuki, who lives at the nearby comfort station and whose face is covered in scars. Jasmin is saddened and terrified by Yuki’s stories of sexual violence but nevertheless enjoys her friend’s company. Jasmin and Yuki are foils for each other. As Lina’s abandoned daughter, Yuki could have grown up like Jasmin had Cecily decided to adopt her. Instead, she lacked the protection Jasmin’s family gives her and suffers the fate of many Malayan girls during that time. Jasmin and Yuki’s affirmed sisterhood supersedes their possible blood relationship as half-sisters; they are potentially both Fujiwara’s daughters. Their deaths are tragic, a grim reminder that even a protective family cannot ensure a child’s safety during wartime. Their deaths also potentially symbolize a judgment on Cecily and Fujiwara’s past sins, as the girls are living reminders of that time.