On a clear day in November, shortly before the millennium: Stories for a quarter century

On a Clear Day in November, Shortly Before the Millennium Stories for a Quarter Century

GREGORIO C. BRILLANTES

Anvil

Grateful acknowledgment is here made to National Bookstore, which published ten of the storLs under the title The Apollo Centennial: Nostalgias, Predicaments and Celebrations (1980); and to the following magazines in which the stories in this collection first appeared: Philippines Free Press, Asia-Philippines Leader, Focus Philippines, Expressweek, Weekend, Mr. & Ms., and National Midweek.

On a Clear Day in November, Shortly Before the Millennium: Stories for a Quarter Century Gregorio C. Br ill antes Copyright © GREGORIO C. BRILLANTES, 2000 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of the author and the publisher. Published and exclusively distributed by ANVIL PUBLISHING, INC. 2/F Team Pacific Bldg. 14 P. Antonio St., Barrio Ugong 1604 Pasig City, Philippines Telephones: 671.1899,671.1308 (sales & marketing) Fax: 671.9235 EMail: [email protected]

Cover design by INSEKTO KONSEPTO DESIGN STUDIO Interior design by ANI V. HABULAN

ISBN 971-27-0974-4 (bp) ISBN 971-27-0928-0 (np)

Printed in the Philippines

To Rcinc Arcache Melvin, Maria Atfnes Prieto, and Fr. Miguel A. Bemad, S.J.

Contents

1

The Cries of Children on an April Afternoon in the Year 1957

15

The Quintuplets

25

Journey to the Edge of the Sea

55

The Mayor of San Felipe

65

99

The Fires of the Sun, the Crystalline Sky, the Dark Ocean, and Some Women and/or Girls, Including Napoleon Espiritu's First Granddaughter A Taste for the Fine Whiskey of the Bourgeoisie

107

Janis Joplin, the Revolution, and the Melancholy Widow of Gabriela Silang Street

137

Help

151

Excerpts from the Autobiography of a Middle-aged Ghostwriter with Insomnia

185

Stranger in an Asian City

207

A Mission for Heroes

247

The Flood in Tarlac

265

On a Clear Day in November, Shortly Before the Millennium

283

The Apollo Centennial

The Cries of Children on an April Afternoon in the Year 1957

C

ONTEMPLATE the light of this April day: first, a dazzle of the purest blue, high above shimmering clouds of leaves. In its clarity the vertical light is as flawless, abstract, and infinite as the future. But such perfection cannot hold the eye for long; consider, then, the light as it falls in small bright pools beneath the trees that shade this street and this house, in Tarlac. The leaves bend and turn in brown and yellow ripples flowing up towards the white flaring center of the light, pause and slant back, and become green again in repose. But even after each rushing fall of wind, the filtered light is not becalmed but still shifts and trembles in gleaming flakes. It is three o'clock on a Sunday afternoon, the Second Sunday of Easter, in the year 1957. On the porch of the house, which stands vivid and still in the summer light, a youth of seventeen or eighteen lies asleep on a rattan sofa. He is thin, shirtless, clad only in green basketball shorts, and sweat is beaded on his bony chest. His mouth is open, in an expression at once defiant and defenseless; his left arm, outflung in a disjointed angle, hangs touching the floor on which are scattered the pages of a newspaper, Time magazine with Dwight Eisenhower on the cover, a paperback entitled Tales of Mystery and Horror, and a clothbound copy of Why I Am Not a Christian, by Bertrand Russell. He stirs, scratches his neck, and is suddenly awake. He swings his legs down to the floor, picks up the hard-

cover book, and with a fresh cigarette moves to the rocker at the far and more shaded end of the porch. One leg flexed up on the seat and serving as a prop for the book, the other pushing against the floor to move the chair, he exhales smoke forcibly through pursed lips, blowing it away with an impatient breath audible enough to disturb anyone watching close by; but he is alone, isolated where he sits reading and flicking off the cigarette ashes on the floor. On the ox-blood tiles on which rests his foot, the toes splayed out and looking fragile, the light never ceases moving, pieces of sun wavering among shadows pale as smoke and shadows of a darker tone as the wind rustles warmly in the vine trellised above the railing. He is an agnostic this year, and on this afternoon searches the pages of the book for confirmation of his new-found faith. The love of Christ, the communion of saints; heaven and hell, and the vast and ancient theology that accounted for both: he has no more use for them this summer, and when he closes his eyes to rest them in a red-tinged darkness, he seems to hear the silence of the eternal spheres which so filled Pascal with dread but which stir in him no fear, only a desire, he reminds himself, to comprehend the accident of his own existence. The girl who owns the book has underlined entire paragraphs and in the margins of these, as though to refute any skepticism, has drawn a series of parallel lines and exclamation points. Admiringly, he nods at the calm revelations of the philosopher: "If everything must have a cause, it may just as well be the world as God. . . What the world needs is reasonableness, tolerance. It is to such considerations that we must look, and not to a return to obscurantist myths.. . What the world needs is not dogma, but an attitude of scientific inquiry." Not dogma but inquiry, he repeats to himself, scratching an armpit and glad to be in a universe shorn of all mystery, made lucid and commonsensical as a book. But even Bertrand Russell, the cadences of whose logic can make him suck on his cigarette in fierce agreement, is no match for the languor which again presses down upon him, a lassitude induced by the warm blending light and the muffled sounds of this April afternoon. He was tired and hungry when he came home this noon, after playing basketball with Alex Concepcion and Nonoy Sunglao, and he ate more than his customary fill, finishing three helpings of his mother's pochero, prompting his sister Menchit,

who is not too friendly with him this summer, to ask where he put all those calories, what an awful waste: a remark he chose to ignore, one more dismal wisecrack attempted by such as she and her gang from the Holy Ghost Institute. He can still taste the juices of the large noon meal at the back of his tongue as, heavy lidded and lethargic, without rancor or regret, and pleased to have found the consolations of unbelief, he tosses the book onto the coffee table to one side and stretches and slouches deeper in the chair. He looks down over the knobs of his knees at his feet exposed and pale against the tiles, and down the length of the veranda at the leaves twinkling in the full blaze of sunlight. The tiers of leaves arched over the front steps stop swaying and revert to their unruffled green, which reflects less light, and from where he sits, the front of the porch seems to pass into a dimmer shade. It is like a setting arranged for the longings which often flicker in his daylight dreaming, and without effort he conjures up an image of the girl who owns the book. From the hot bright screen of light in the yard she comes in his reverie into the softer tones of this house in Tarlac, the shadows gliding off her as she moves, with that purposeful gait he remembers so well, closer in his attentive gaze. How like her to yield to his fancy, how pliant and generous, as he well knows from having loved her. Her face is moist, glistening, and the mole is stark on her flushed cheek as she wets her lips and he begins to undo the topmost button of her blouse. Suddenly shy, she embraces him to avert her face and shield the small taut fairness of her breasts. The shyness, more than any word or gesture from the first evening they loved, brings a tremor of desire and tenderness so keen he catches his breath and groans, as if wounded, and twisting erect, he gropes blindly for another cigarette.

SHE IS called Leny and she is an only child. In the wide and massive house in Paco, with its empty rooms for the other children who were never born, he would come upon her alone in the sala, looking forlorn and smaller and more withdrawn among the shelves of books, the shrouded piano which she refused to play, the tall bemused portrait of her father in a jurist's robe fading on a wall. Somewhere in the house mahjong tiles rattled through the after-

noon; he never saw the players, nor did she ever mention them, unseen strangers who assumed in his mind a secrecy that belonged to her life before she knew him. Fat and preoccupied, her mother would emerge from a hallway to pass through the sala, scarcely glancing at their corner of the spacious room where they exchanged, behind a newspaper they held up as a screen, brief nibbling kisses. "Not here, Ricky, not here, please, Ricky," she would say when he pleaded for more, and she would begin to discuss Sartre and Camus, or relate, with a vague, somewhat puzzled mockery, the week's misadventures at the UP in Diliman, where she was a liberal arts sophomore. Then, with a toss of her hair, an awkward and decisive nonchalance, she would stand up and stride off and hurry down the stairs, an unlighted well in the dusk, and out to her Volkswagen in the driveway. She drove expertly, leaning shortsightedly forward, knuckles bone-white in the dashboard glow. She would park by the sea and they would start walking, going nowhere in particular. Once, they hiked from the Luneta all the way to Baclaran, following the sea-wall beside the spray of the breakers in the starlight. Back in the city for the new school term, in June, he will start seeing Leny again; but certain things will be gone, her reluctance to hurt, his spontaneous, light-hearted candor. In September they will quarrel over some trifle, caught in a spell of thick bitter anger; for almost a month, he will not call her. They will be reconciled in a fumbling confusion of tears and caresses in the Volkswagen, but it will not last; he will feel confined, oppressed by her girlish certitudes, and soon, without remorse, he will discover that he no longer loves her. One rainy evening in November, they will agree to meet in a restaurant in Ermita, to talk things over, to find out what has gone wrong. They will be formal and polite with each other, and find nothing more to say, and after their coffee, he will walk her to a cab waiting off the entranceway. She will roll the window up against the rain, and the last that he will see of her will be a blur as of a face drowning, the mouth open, moving soundlessly behind the streaming glass. Eight years later, at a party in San Juan, he will be seated by the hostess beside a large and slightly tipsy woman, who will turn out to be one of Leny's innumerable cousins from Malabon, and who will tell him that Leny is dead. The woman will not recall when it happened, but she will be certain of one or two

details: Leny's American husband at the wheel, the car plunging into a frozen lake in Michigan. Late in the morning after the party, he will wake up to the memory, coming to him clearly for the first time in years, of the silent, almost unrecognizable face vanishing swiftly behind the wet cab window in the November rain; but try as he might, he will not be able to remember her married name.

BUT ON this afternoon in Tarlac, in the summer of his seventeenth or eighteenth year, the image of her whom he loves, his shy and insatiable fellow agnostic, tender logical positivist, she of the mole on the flushed cheek and the small upturned breasts, is intimate and sharply defined, partaking, it seems, of the brightness of the April day. There is nothing in the world he would not do for her, he vows, lonely and hollow with her absence. They would marry, of course, and he would take her away from the disconsolate house and the mahjong players in Paco, and together they would slake all the thirsts of body and spirit. . . He waits for the remembrance of her to subside together with the sweet swelling ache it has aroused, before going inside the house for something cold to drink. The kitchen, tile-white and avocado green, is on the northeastern side, at this hour the coolest in the house. Here, the ceiling, angled down towards the windows under the steep slope of the roof, seems to absorb the green-stained light and radiate it back softly upon the group gathered about the table. His mother is tilting a can of milk over a bowl of strawberries left over from last week's trip to Baguio, watched avidly by the children who, this April, are among the inhabitants of this house; his brother Mike's daughter and twin boys, his sister Aida's son and three girls, come down for their vacation until their parents would reclaim them in May, after the town fiesta. Coke in hand, he pauses before the open refrigerator, the moist coolness breathing out in a fine mist. His mother looks up then, as though surprised, from the encircling heads and the chattering voices. Some instinct, retained from his own childhood, prepares him for the remark his mother is about to address to him: not to forget to bring a handkerchief, to be courteous and considerate always, to have faith in the promises of Christ. But her attention,

before it can focus on him, is drawn by Agnes, Mike's daughter, who is nine, excitable and shrill and laughing merrily now at a spill of milk on the oilcloth. "Maria Santisima, will you all keep still," his mother says. "Ramon, for the last time, stop playing with that spoon. .." She is slim, nervous, never idle, and as far as he can tell, unaware that he has lost his faith, so practiced and impervious have become the disguises which he wears around the house these days, mainly for her benefit; his father is too busy or inaccessible to care. When he will regain it, in a drained and exhausted peace such as follows a rage of fever or grief, fifteen years from now, accepting it all again like an urgent and indisputable birthright, all of it, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting, she will not perceive the change, either. The anxious line that bisects her forehead now as she presides over the children will cut deeper into the skin brittle as parchment; each day will tighten the invisible clamp on her skull, so that the crease on her brow will turn into an indentation beneath which the eyes, bright and distended, will understand only the pain spreading its roots in the loam of her brain. "Agnes," she says, and passes a hand over her eyes, "Agnes, this needs a bit more sugar, don't you think?" And the girl twirls off her stool to fetch the proper jar from a set ranged atop the china closet, the porcelain collection still intact and polished from the time before the war. Some of the square, striped containers, as he well knows, hold not cloves or cinnamon or allspice, mere words stenciled on their smooth surfaces, but old centavo coins, duplicate keys, nails, pieces of string, and matchboxes which he, as a small boy, used for the spiders from the macopa in the backyard. With a make-believe stagger from the weight of the tiny jar, Agnes brings it to the table. The children crowd about for the privilege of opening it, but Agnes will not let other hands interfere, and holds the sugar aloft, commanding her cousins to desist in a fragile mimicry of an adult's scolding voice. For a moment, Agnes holds the pose, taunting, eyes halfclosed, and watching excluded from her playful disdain, he sees the loveliness of the grown woman already sculpting the oval immature face turned full on the green-toned light of the afternoon. His mother accepts the jar, unsmiling, too, in the spirit of her granddaughter's comic pretense, and the girl collapses with a satisfied giggle on a chair.

The beauty he has espied in the child's face he will one day see shining forth in another light, the cool neon illumination of a basement room. He and Mike and his sister-in-law Ruth will sit for what seems an hour in that white sterile light, saying little, staring at the gray hollow-block walls, the steel-mesh of the ventilation slats, the green steel door with its barred observation window. He will rise every few minutes to pace the floor the same color as the walls and peer through the metal-framed window of the door at the long corridor gleaming beyond and ending in what looks like a vault crossed by swift flitting figures in white. The door will be opened by one of the white-robed figures; and led by a smiling nurse, Agnes will come into the room, freshly bathed and powdered and tall in the regulation pale blue dress of the ward. She will stand beautiful and passive while Ruth will embrace her and Mike will move as though to touch her face. Obediently, she will take one of the metal chairs, sitting erect, her face averted and hands laced together in her lap. In a strange hushed voice Mike will offer the gift-wrapped package he has brought with him; she will not move nor speak, sitting in the clean white light, smiling faintly, and Mike finally will place the box on the table and lean closer towards his daughter, his hushed strangled voice the only sound in the basement room. Then Mike will turn away and Ruth will fill the silence with an animated narration of last week's gathering of the clan, at Tita Aida's house in Singalong, and how many came this year, and who, uncles and aunts and cousins from Pampanga and Pangasinan. Agnes will not say a word, gazing entranced at the space between them, smiling faintly. He will listen to Ruth talking on and on, and he will nod encouragingly, loving them beyond utterance, Mike and Ruth and Agnes distant and uncomprehending in the cool unshadowed light. The nurse will smile, brisk and efficient, and scoop up the ribboned present and lead Agnes away past the steel door, which will close with a loud sliding click. It will be evening when they come out to the lobby, and he will zip up his jacket before sprinting out to the parked car, for it will be December and drizzling in the city.

"TITO Ricky," Agnes cries in the kitchen in Tarlac, "how dare you, ang daya\" He has just bent over and snatched up a strawberry from the bowl, releasing a medley of protests from his nephews and nieces. "Ricky," his mother begins, surrounded by the happy teasing clamor of the children. Savoring the distraction, washing down the sweet-sour paste with a gulp from the frosted bottle, he leaves them to their affectionate session, the children clustered about their grandmother like pupils eager for a glimpse of the prizes to be awarded at the end of class. From the dining room window, facing north over the graveled driveway and the gumamela-covered fence and looking across the vacant lot where a solitary goat is munching at the wilted grass, he surveys the Cabrera house with its own canopy of acacias. The house is similar to this bungalow where, as a child, he once lay unattended deep in a crib and felt the remote, interlaced leaves floating above him as on the faraway surface of a transluscent sea. Once or twice since then, the peaceful wordless buoyancy has returned in the form of a stillness suggested rather than seen in a dream, the dream itself so diffuse and featureless that it would leave no trace of its passage. In the nights, in the city, he has had other dreams, melancholy or fearful, and always vivid: the fire, he muses now, how huge, how silent it was as it flowed through the Cabrera house, and Dr. Cabrera and his wife and their son Danny rising and tumbling away skyward, and then all the other identical houses on this street beside the provincial hospital bursting one by one silently in the deep flowing fire. The safe blaze of the sun falls on the trees of the neighboring house secure on its government-apportioned lot beyond the gumamelas and the plot of parched grass, in the warm and windy afternoon. The bougainvillea along the length of the southern porch bears a scatter of crimson blossoms, as on the porch of his father's house; the trees print their shadows on the dull green roof A line of teenage shirts and pants flaps stiffly in the backyard, between the garage and the aluminum water tank on its wooden platform. He might as well be examining a reflection of the house where he stands perspiring and restive at the window, and he raises his gaze in search of some novelty. A formation of clouds hangs in the northern sky, massive

as boulders but balanced lightly, in perspective, on a spray of leaves. The topmost cloud is crumbling and flattening out like a galaxy viewed edgewise, the nucleus dark between the spreading horizontal arms. From the tennis court up the street and hidden by the Cabrera house come the faint thwack and bounce of the volleys driving over the net. He sees it all in his mind as he allows himself to be lulled by the sounds of the summer game: his father and the other doctors swinging away on the court baked to a glittering hardness; dark on white, the diagonal darting shadows reaching farther in the four o'clock sun; the off-duty nurses and attendants and passersby clapping on the sidelines. A game he cannot watch for long, much less play: something ultimately bleak and limited and tiresome, he feels, in the sport his father pursues with a fine obsession. The wind blows, sluggish now, from the stubble fields behind the green and white houses, carrying a smell of dusty brown foliage, and something else, a sourish scent of unripe mangoes. A cloud shaped like a continent drifts between the sun and the town. To the northeast, along the highway marking the far boundary of the fields, the edges of the cloud shadow curl and dissolve in the glare. Inside the house he feels the dimness fall softer than smoke; in the bathroom the enclosed dusk, partly relieved by a weak bulb and the slivers of daylight in the walls, exhales a musk of damp towels. After his shower he squints into the mirror of the medicine cabinet, studying one more fresh pimple on his chin. The children charge out of the kitchen, pushing and laughing across the sala and down the porch steps. The maids pass chattering below the windows, returning from their Sunday movie downtown. Hair moist and pomaded, neat in brown dacron pants and a mustard T-shirt which accents the lean curve of his shoulders, he eats macaroni salad, a chicken leg, and two slices of mango in the now deserted kitchen. He burps contentedly and calls Alex Concepcion on the phone. The line is busy and he is about to dial again when he hears the strumming of a guitar start out on the porch. Alex will probably call around suppertime anyway, and Nonoy Sunglao can be expected to pass by in his jeep; he wishes the long afternoon were over. He thinks of writing to Leny, of going to Nonoy's place down the street and challenging him to a round of

chess; and drawn by the guitar, he ambles out to the porch. "Go on, ladies, don't mind me," he says, and Menchit frowns, as usual; two of the girls, the Lugay sisters, mumble and shift uneasily on the sofa; the girl with the guitar, an unfamiliar face, the fairest of the four, gives him a sharp appraising glance and a highlight glints in her page-boy hair. Girls with short hair and a direct stare have little appeal for him; he knows the type: one of those frigid campus busybodies; but despite himself, he turns on his squeezed, lopsided smile, the most charming, he has decided, after rehearsals in the mirror, of the smiles he has evolved since his freshman year in college. The new girl flicks her glinting hair, her large limpid eyes unblinking and locked in his, and plucks out the first notes of "Que Sera, Sera." "Hey, that's good," he says, "that's terrific, I like that song," and he declaims, "What ever will be, will be." The girl stops, her gaze wavers, and abruptly hands the guitar to Menchit. "Ricky, how corny you are, you're making her shy," whines Menchit, fingers outspread to shoo him away. "Ricky, leave us alone, will you?" He snorts at her, then remembers to flash on his special smile: this friend of hers might turn out to be an interesting prospect, after all. A bit heavy around the midsection, a trifle chubby, but what nice trim legs, ccNot until you introduce me, pwede ba?" he says, and his sister relents, with an exasperated sigh, "0 sigue. . . Meet Mila, Miss Mila Narciso, my brother, the future attorney outlaw." The Lugay sisters giggle; Mila says, "Hello," huskily, "hello, how do you do," clearing her throat. "You must be Dr. Narciso's niece," he hears himself say, conscious of the smile lifting the side of his mouth. 4Yes," says Mila, with a hoarse, almost imperceptible inflection, "this is my first time . . ." Menchit cuts in, "0 sigue, introductions are over, now scram, Ricky." He smiles once more, uncertain now before the girl's renewed scrutiny; his body tenses, straining for a grace that eludes it, an inner balance: it is like one of those moments under the goal when one must decide, in a second, whether to shoot or pass to a less beleaguered teammate. Hemmed in, he has no choice. . . The sun reappears just then, sliding free from beneath the immense cloud shaped like a continent; the afternoon blazes up on

the porch. Exposed and baffled in the burnished flare of sun, he advances on Menchit, growling threateningly, then wheels about and stalks off to sit on the cement border of the front steps, his back to them. One after another the children come racing around a corner of the house. Agnes in the lead, running in the stiff jerky way a girl runs, one of the twins gamely trailing behind the pack, headed for the empty lot between the wire fence and the Cabrera house. Behind him the guitar tinkles anew and establishes a rhythm. Soon the girls are crooning in rock-'n'-roll tempo. "Tweed-lee, tweedlee, tweed-lee-dee, I'm as happy as can be," and he seems to hear Mila's husky inflection slipping behind and never quite blending with the other lighter singing voices.

MILA'S voice through the years will not change, on the telephone or across a room, or a breath and touch away; it will not alter its tone even in surprise or dismay or anger, as he will begin to learn when, meeting her again by chance in a friend's office the year after passing the bar, he will invite her out to dinner and fall in love with her. Ten years of marriage, two miscarriages, and four children will leave their imprint on her ample body: a pensive tiredness filming the eyes, a jut of cheekbone replacing the chubbiness, a plump softening of the once supple arms. In a fury she will brush away an entreaty with a shuddering gesture, or slam a door in his face; in their life together he will more than once try to force a locked door, to pry open her hostile silence. But his wife's voice, its serene, remote huskiness, will remain the same, even as they themselves will be transformed, by the days and nights of their lovq and their not loving. Inquiring about his work, reading to the children at bedtime, seeing them off to school, lecturing the maids, in their apartment in Quezon City, then in the rented house in Mandaluyong, later in the split-level in San Lorenzo Village: unvaryingly, she will use the same manner of speech, low-pitched, placid, unhurried, and only when one should strain to catch it, with the faintest hint of a fretfiilness held back. He will wonder more than once how can it be that neither pain nor passion can turn the way she speaks from its accustomed

pace; he will want to seize her then and shake a cry, a scream of outrage or despair from out that fair and unresisting throat. He will seek distraction from the even tenor of her voice and her seething silences, and find it in other women, delighting in their vivacious and excitable intonations. One night, in the dark, after a party, she will tell of the hate he has sown in her heart, hate so fierce and implacable, she will say, nothing can ever remove it. Disembodied, incongruous, her voice will hover above him in the dark, explaining passively, remotely, why she can no longer bear to live with him; and listening to her through a haze of drink, it will all seem to him so improbable, the words so theatrical, the voice so absurdly modulated. Two more years will pass, and she will not leave, and he will begin an affair with a young childless widow whose attractions include a lilting Visayan accent. He will come back from an extended court case in Vigan to find her note taped to the mirror of her dresser. In a drunken rage he will ransack the room for traces of her and will find a broken picture frame in a corner of her wardrobe, and the sight of its crumpled blankness will tear at him with a blinding sorrow. Two nights later, sober and contrite, he will manage to get her on the phone and her voice from her brother's place in Quezon City will be as husky and gentle and detached as it has always been, saying, "The children are all right. . . No, it's no use. . . It's impossible. . . It is too late. . The week he learns that she has gone to live with another man, an airline pilot in Paranaque, he will buy a gun. On a cool sunflecked New Year's morning, he will push a full clip into the Beretta automatic and with the pistol in the glove compartment, he will drive out in search of her, loving her more than his life, more than his happiness, and he will be in a reflective mood, resigned to the lack of reasonableness in the world, to its inescapable dogmas, its violent mysteries.

NOW in the late light of this April day in the year 1957, he watches the Lugay sisters and Menchit and Mila Narciso go out the gate and head for another house up the street. Their long shadows slant across the street from which rises a warmth of dust and melted

asphalt. A breeze pushes a flurry of dry leaves behind a passing calesa and presses Mila Narciso's flower-printed dress against her legs. Snooty, empty-headed bitch, he thinks sullenly: make her your bata and still she won't dance close enough because, mahal, it's a mortal sin. Wind, sounds, colors: gradually they are diminished, and withdraw from the fading day. Before it dips into the coconut grove beyond the hospital grounds, the sun seems to expand, goldenly and without heat, and suffuse all with its light: the identical green and white houses, the trees, the street. The far coconut fronds twinkle like tinfoil and turn gray; a mosaic of yellow and orange light trembles on the front steps and is extinguished. His father returns from the tennis court, whistling a mambo, still cheerful, vigorous, invulnerable. The children are still at play and their cries sound broken and distant in the twilight. His mother is calling out to them,4 Agnes — Patricia — Jun — come in now, I say. . ." Among the clouds of leaves overhead, the reflected glow of the sky is snuffed out, like a lamp. He wonders what he should do tonight: read Bertrand Russell, answer Leny's last letter, or drive down to the market-place with Nonoy Sunglao and Alex Concepcion for some beer and maybe get to know the waitress they saw the other night, the one with the fantastic hips and the laughing eyes. From the east, in the general direction of the highway, he hears a brief muttering roll like thunder or a passing train. The children's happy cries rise and fall in the evening light as imperfect and irrevocable as the past, and he stands in the yard of his father's house, waiting poised motionless on the frontier of the future, until it is too dark to see.

The Quintuplets

T

HE ISLAND normally was less than half an hour away by pumpboat — twenty minutes at the most on a calm sea, as I knew from previous trips — but this morning there was a ledge of white fog like another island suspended above the southern tip of Macabunga, and the cold gleaming tail of the typhoon that our Manila station said had moved out of the country last night still whipped the waves relentlessly across the channel. I had some fried squid and a beer waiting for George to come back from the municipal building, and thought how just like him to be so careful, cautious in a precise, fastidious way that irked the people around the Station. But I remembered as the waitress brought me another beer what the fishermen said about the currents in the middle of the channel, and decided that sometimes — sometimes — it paid to be working with somebody like George. He saw to it that we had the right transport and lugged along the proper gear on special coverage assignments like this, and on seeing my reluctance he had gone off to the mayor's office to try and borrow a bigger boat. "Mr. Requisition," the fat mestiza announcer from Baguio liked to tease him, which seemed only to deepen the frown on his sweating, bespectacled face. "You are with the radio station, manong?" the waitress said. She was new in the place, attractive in a naive, plodding way, and reminded me of Adiel's sister, the med-tech student in Manila. "Yes, ading," I said. "Do you listen to our programs?"

"Now and then," she said. "Whenever 1 have the chance." "Do you sing?" "Ay, no, manong, why do you ask, manong?" and she giggled and clapped a hand to her mouth, a gesture I found quite appealing. I made a mental note to come back a few nights after payday, when the others in the Station weren't likely to be around. "We have this amateur contest on Sunday," I said, turning on her my trustworthy big-brother gaze. "You might want to join it, ading. Who knows, you might —" "Ay, but I cannot sing, not really." She giggled again. "Excuse me, uh, manong," she said, and moved off to take the orders of the three old men who had just settled down at the table next to the broken-down jukebox. I drank my beer leisurely and regarded her strong brown legs and ample hips, a generous body made for childbearing, as the old men themselves stared at her with their dim watery eyes. It was past eleven when George came back with the usual solemn frown, and a raincoat-clad policeman I knew slightly, having shared a table once or twice with him at the nightclub in Nagrambacan. The policeman smiled in greeting and rubbed at his mustache as he set his black machine pistol down on the bench against the wall, beside the transceiver and the cassette recorder and the knapsack, and George said, "It's OK, pare. We'll use the police boat." "Have a beer," I said, though I knew that he seldom drank, and only in the evenings, after work, as he once informed me rather frostily. "And we might as well have lunch," I added. "It's close to twelve." "Too early for that," George said, picking up the transceiver by the straps and striding to the side door that led out to the beach. The policeman smiled and shrugged and followed, slinging on his gun. I stopped at the counter for a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Yadao said, counting out my change, "It looks like you are going on a trip, uh, Dodong?" "Just across to Macabunga, Mrs.," I said. "Why, what is going on —" "We are visiting some babies," I said. "Five of them, born the night before."

"What is that, Dodong? Five. . .?" "Quintuplets," I said. "Oy, how wonderful! Is this true? When did you —?" Mrs. Yadao's voice rose and strained with a kind of amazed exaltation, and with sudden agility she lifted her thick childless body from the stool behind the counter. "Where is this — Wait, Dodong, tell me more —" and she lifted the panel of the counter to come out, bosom heaving, hardly able to contain her excitement. "We'll be back this afternoon," I said and waved to her and went down the rocky path to the shore, zipping up my leather jacket against the wet flutter of the wind. I hurried to catch up with George and the policeman already striding up the gangplank to the blue and white police boat rocking at the far end of the pier. The earlier we finished the job, the better, I told myself, and then: But not too early, not looking forward at all to another quiet evening at home, much too quiet, with Adiel reading late into the night another of those romantic novels from her sister in Manila, hours after the Station had signed off and the only sound the rustle of the wind and the sea. THE CONVERTED trawler smelled of paint, but for all its neat, freshly overhauled appearance the boat creaked and groaned with age as we set off for the island with its hills still hidden in the mist low on the gray horizon to the west. The municipal health officer and an equally aged nurse, both dispatched by the mayor from the health center, had preceded us to the boat, and George spent the crossing talking with them. I sat one bench away from them in the pilot-house and caught snatches of their talk above the throb of the diesels and the crashing waves, about childbirth and such, the odds against the survival of quintuplets and triplets and twins, and how strange and remarkable and unexpected it all was, this news from Macabunga, after all these years. Yes, the old nurse said with an awed quaver, yes, indeed, in all her years in the service she had not heard of quintuplets being born in the region, or anywhere else in the country, for that matter. There were triplets in Camarines Norte more than ten years ago, in 2024 to be exact, Dr. Foronda said; but the girl and the two boys, baptized Maria, Jesus and Jose, lived only for a week. He remembered the details because he had made

a scrapbook from the news reports and magazine articles; he may be past seventy, he said with a cackling laugh, but his memory was still as sharp as ours, among other things, we could bet on it. Dr. Foronda and George and the nurse talked on, about the population program, what had been done in the last fifteen years, the breakthrough in 2027, with the use of ampalaya broth combined with that drug supplied by the Americans. Nothing new, I had spent a whole dismal year shortly after college writing abstracts for the Education Research Utilization Project of the Ministry of National Life and Population; and before I got too bored I left the three to their discussion and joined the policeman, who offered me his flask of gin, saying, "Gin after beer, never fear" — a fellow after my own heart. "That is pure Barako," the policeman said, "not like the adulterated poison they serve at the Sea View." He bared his gold teeth in a conspiratorial grin that lifted both ends of his thick mustache. "I did not see you there last Saturday." "I had to do some work," I said. "Your girl got into a fight with a customer. A real wildcat, that Virgie." "She is not my girl," I said. "I thought Virgie was your bata. She told me she was going out only with you." "That was before," I said, suddenly disliking him, his mustache and gold teeth, his flask of gin even as I took a swig from it. I stood to look out through the streaked plate glass of the rear window, at the wake of the boat boiling away on the heaving water towards the mainland and the town under the pearl noontime dusk of the departing storm. It began raining again, and the boat dipped and yawed, the spray blurring the windows of the pilot-house. Then the wind died down, and the boat moved into a drizzle like a lightening mist over the sea. George, the doctor, and the nurse resumed talking, George pointing, wagging a fat index finger to stress a point. The hardworking sonofabitch, probably rehearsing all the things he would say at the briefing the Station Manager might call for the media people from Manila before the week was over. He'll make SM yet, I thought, taking a swallow of the policeman's gin, and grimaced at

tht prospect of doing the same old chores at his bidding, in the same rundown, stifling, galvanized-iron shack of a radio station the mere sight of which had depressed me the day I arrived with Adiel three years ago. . . The engine throb changed pitch, slowed to a pounding beat and then stopped as the boat edged parallel to the Macabunga wharf, behind a single-masted fishing boat, one of several craft that lay about in the cove, driven there by the storm. We filed down to the dock, in the drizzling rain, and the policeman led the way up the slanting red-clay road of the fishing village to a turo-turo where, he assured us, a jeepney would fetch us before two o'clock. The jeepney, one of but two vehicles on Macabunga, had been hired for a wedding in Cainiogan, on the other side of the island, but should be back within the hour, the policeman said. As if on cue, the barangay captain's brother-in-law came in just then, the only notary public on the whole island, as he wryly introduced himself; and after vigorously shaking hands he insisted on treating us all to lunch. I had met him before, at one of those periodic civil service seminars in the provincial capital; a bald, loudvoiced old man, as old perhaps as the doctor, but still with a voracious appetite for virgins, he said laughing, winking at me and George. I had beer again with the clams, the lobsters, and the apahap, and half-listened amusedly to George reviewing for the benefit of our fellow citizens what the Regional Office of the Ministry of Mass Communications was doing to maintain the gains of the population education program in this part of the country. Outside the soft cold rain curtained the road and then lifted, and the jeepney had not come. It was all right with me, I was content to sit there all afternoon among the fly-dotted tables, feeling sluggish and drowsy from the beer, now and then rousing myself to add a note or two to George's earnest lecture. He glanced at his watch and I knew what he was thinking — he was bent on going back early enough to write his report for the 7 p.m. newscast. But he wasn't writing this particular script, his scoop would have to wait; if we were so foolhardy as to go on foot, it would probably take us about four hours to reach the settlement in the hills. At half past three the policeman and the barangay captain's brother-in-law stood up to go and check, the latter said, if the driver had been properly instructed.

They returned some twenty minutes later with the jeepney. The old lawyer got off and bade us goodbye, saying he had some pretty guests to attend to, winking, laughing merrily. I got in beside the driver and then I must have dozed off a stretch of the way, opening my eyes gradually to a damp forest gloom, a tunnel of rainladen trees. The road, more a trail actually, was soft with mud, and the driver took the ascending turns carefully in first gear, the jeepney sputtering sharply in the dusky leaf-enclosed silence.

WE CAME out finally to a grassy plateau, the road winding down to a cluster of six or seven huts framed against a stand of young coconut trees, in the cloudy upland twilight. A small black dog ran yelping at the wheels and as swiftly slunk away as we got down and walked over to a woman standing in front of the first hut. She had long graying hair and a gaunt face as of dark carved wood and without a word indicated the third dwelling, her thin outstretched arm making a wide, slow gesture. I paused to light a cigarette while the others went ahead up the low ladder into the bamboo-walled hut. The old woman with the carved impassive face had disappeared, and except for two men plowing with a carabao in the field at the far edge of the plateau, I saw no one about. It was as though some plague had just passed among the huts, and I thought I heard a small keening sound such as a wounded animal makes when it is about to die. For some reason, a wordless pity, or maybe just a twinge of depression brought on by the strange dusk, I couldn't bring myself just then to join the others inside the hut. After another cigarette, the policeman came down from the hut, together with a man who approached and bowed slightly and said, "I am the uncle of the little ones you have come to see. God reward you for coming." He spoke the dialect with a distinct formal enunciation, and I tried to reply in kind. "God be with you and your household," I said, conscious that I was uttering for the first time in years a salutation I had learned long ago, as a child in a distant town. "I wish only that the doctor had come yesterday," the man said. In the cold receding light, I saw he was old, more than sixty.

I surmised, with one eye milk-white and blind. "Two of the little ones died last night," he said. "Another one died this morning." There was nothing I could say. I offered him a cigarette and lighted it for him, his one good eye shining in the lighter flare. He said, as though offering the information in gratitude for the cigarette, "The two girls that died last night, I have had to bury. . . there. . . under the tree. The third one is still in the house. I —" and he lapsed into silence, taking quick successive puffs, the smoke curling away in the darkening air. We stood in front of the hut and I watched the small vague figures still working in the field. He said, softly, "Do you have any children?" The question startled me. The last time I had heard it asked was six years after Adiel and I had married and it seemed so strange, at once like an appeal for sympathy and a kind of condemnation, directed at me unexpectedly on this isolated rainwet settlement on Macabunga Island, in the falling dark. "I have none," I said, my voice assuming an involuntary hush. "I have no children, either," he said. "My only son —" "Dodong, the recorder!" George called down from the window. "Pare, what's the matter, why don't you come up here?" "I am sorry for detaining you," the man said. "Please go in. Our house is now your home." I went up into the hut, stepping uncertainly on the ladder, and under the gas lamp suspended from a bamboo rafter all I could see at first were the doctor and the nurse seated on their haunches, their backs to the door. I handed George the recorder, and stepping gingerly on the small yielding hollows of the split-bamboo floor, I moved around the doctor and the nurse for a look at the woman and the two surviving infants lying bundled up on the mat. The mother was breastfeeding one of the babies, while Dr. Foronda took her blood pressure and the nurse filled a medicine dropper from a dark-hued vial. The other quint lay next to the suckling one, both incredibly tiny human dolls, so small I had to bend and peer closer to make out the miniature faces and hands. The mother turned to look up then, reprovingly, it seemed, the large eyes in the pale glistening face questioning my curiosity. I moved back towards the door and almost bumped against the table where the infant that

had died in the morning now lay in a red and yellow detergent carton garlanded with leaves and flowers. George sat with three old women on a bench by the stove on the other side of the room, and he was working the switches of the recorder and asking questions. Portions of the tape he would use for his newscast, if not tonight, early tomorrow morning, before the first TV reporters started coming over. Radio was still the medium to beat, that was for sure. I had to gather some material myself, both for the news editor and my own program, and I went down to talk to the man who said he was the uncle of the quintuplets. He was inside the jeepney, with the policeman and the driver who were finishing the last of the gin. I rummaged in the knapsack for the hunter's lamp that George had reminded me to bring along, and we huddled around the light as I wrote on the notepad. His name, the farmer began at my prompting, was Fortunato Gampon, and he was sixty-three; he and his wife, Modesta, were originally from San Clemente, Tarlac. The mother of the quintuplets was his youngest sister and was called Fidela; her husband, Salvador Pascua, a carpenter-mason, was abroad, with a construction firm in Ethiopia. On her way to live with her husband's parents in Alaminos, in Pangasinan, she had decided to stop over for a few days, had been prevailed upon to prolong her visit. The labor pains began almost a month before the scheduled delivery. A neighbor, Belen Nazareno, one of the women now talking to George in the hut, helped to deliver the babies. One of the girls died soon after birth, followed a few hours later by another, and then the third girl at about five o'clock this morning. It was only after the death this morning, Fortunato Gampon admitted, his voice hardly audible, that he decided to go and inform the barangay captain in Macabunga. The barangay captain himself brought him back before noon, after sending off a message to the mayor on the mainland; a good man, the barangay captain was, and he might come back tonight, after disposing of some business in Cainiogan. Now, would his sister Fidela and the two babies have to be taken to the hospital in the provincial capital? That was all up to the doctor, I said.

I SAT with them in the jeepney, smoking, slapping at the mosquitoes, waiting for George and the doctor. In one of the huts a radio was on, tuned to the music-and-info program emceed by the mestiza from Baguio, the sound wavering and raspy with static. The policeman and the driver exchanged ribald anecdotes, mostly about the whorehouses in San Fernando, and indifferently I set my mind adrift in a stream of images — of Adiel reading late in the empty house, and the women in bikinis and boots at the Sea View, the rusted corrugated-iron walls of the Station almost as desolate as the abandoned schoolhouse in the neighborhood, George hustling to become the next Station Manager, and Adiel again, her body still supple, her belly firm and smooth, unmarred by childbearing; familiar, often tiresome, sometimes pathetic. . . . After what seemed hours George came down to the jeepney and said, 'There is only the boy left." I had switched off the lamp and all I could see of him was the dark shape of his head and the glint of his glasses in the faint light from the window. ww Dr. Foronda/ 1 he sounded peevish, almost angry, wthe tried — there was nothing he. . Fortunato Gampon muttered something and stepped down from the jeepney and went up the hut. " Tang inci" George said in a harsh whisper, faceless in the dark. "The light!" he snapped. "Give me the lamp!" He placed the lamp and the transceiver on the hood, pulled out the antenna and began calling the Station. "Team Five calling Base, Team Five calling Base. . ." He repeated the call signal, over and over, his voice getting weaker, slower. The only response he could get from the set was a faint hum punctuated by bursts of static. After one more try. loud and petulant, he slapped at the set and straightened up and announced, so forlornly that I had to check an impulse to laugh. "Can't get through. I forgot. We're on the wrong side of these hills, goddamit" After a while, George tried raising the Station again. The modulation indicator's reddish glow had become fainter and with an oath he switched the thing off. He stood there breathing hard, not saying anything, then swung the set off the hood and carried it back into the jeepney.

The policeman was telling another story, a funny one about an impotent man in a brothel. I considered going up again, maybe I should talk to the doctor and the women, make a few more notes for the network news people; but suddenly it was more than I could do, I couldn't bear to see again the shapes on the mat, the box wreathed with flowers, and so I just sat there under the roof of the jeepney, with the night deepening around us, a cold night without stars. George and I couldn't possibly make it now even to the final evening newscast; but early tomorrow morning the country would get to know about the quintuplets of Macabunga Island, and TV crews, media folk, all sorts of people would start coming over in droves and mill around Fortunato Gampon's house, noisy pilgrims at a bleak, impoverished shrine. Maybe they would insist, I reflected numbly, on being shown the small rain-wet mounds under the tree; perhaps some powerful and compassionate personage would send over a helicruiser to take Fidela Pascua and her sole surviving child to the best hospital in Manila. . . Presently the doctor came down — the nurse would be staying overnight, he said — and we drove away from the settlement, on the dark wet road leading back towards the village and the wharf, and the town across the channel where Adiel waited in the childless house, and the women at the Sea View danced with one another when there were not too many customers, and the old men sat staring at the new waitress in Mrs. Yadao's restaurant by the sea. I looked back in time to see the light in Fortunato Gampon's hut glide away and sink abruptly into the dark, and then I found myself doing something I had not done for years; I prayed, I asked God to spare the boy, to let the last child live. It occurred to me that all these years too, in all the places I had been, I had not heard, not even once, the cry of an infant; had not heard it for so long that it seemed I could not remember or even imagine the crying sound of a little child. In the village of Macabunga, there was a fine mist blowing in from the sea. Before we reached the wharf, and to my pleasant surprise, George said he would treat our group to a round of beer.

Journey to the Edge of the Sea It is better to be traveling than to have arrived. — Spanish Proverb

T

HE WAVES advanced boiling from the pale wind-roaring darkness, shattered on the hidden beach; and Marcos strained blindly towards the ocean sound, loud for a moment and fading abruptly away. An intense white sun rose over the sea, and the sea turned into a molten glitter that dazzled him in the instant of waking. The light whirled above him, slowing down and finally coming to rest, a lampshade glow beside the bed as he opened his eyes to the dark green silence and heard on the edge of it the faint breath and rush of the car down the street, receding swiftly in the quiet night. It meant nothing: one of the small sounds, the tiny movements that surrounded sleep and sank into the dreaming mind. He was staring, over the ridge of the pillow, at her empty bed next to his; seeing, as if for the first time, the embroidered dragons of her bedspread, when he caught the tap of her heels on the concrete walk outside, and he tensed into a watchful waiting. The faint rasp of her key in the lock downstairs; he reached out for a cigarette, decided against it as his hand grazed the alarm beneath the green shaded lamp — it was a quarter past two, and the clock's metal ticking seemed to grow loud in the room, in the late night stillness. She was coming up the stairs now, and Marcos turned on his side towards the wall, breathing evenly; he heard her enter the adjoining room, then her measured steps in the hallway before she opened the door. There was a wisp of perfume, a warm powdered presence as he felt her come close by the bed; a rustle of dress

unbuttoned and put away, the tap running in the bathroom. He had not seen her leave in the evening, but in thecshut darkness of his eyes he could see her as though he had risen to open the door: the hoop earrings that framed her slender mestiza face, the white stem of her neck; perhaps tonight she had worn the black satin dress copied from Vogue, with the odd flare about the hips that accented the tallness of her. The lamp was switched off, and he opened his eyes to the wall and a pattern of Venetian blinds cast by the street light; and he lay unmoving still, the rhythmic beat of the clock seeming to follow the strokes of his heart. The dryness in his mouth reminded him of the cigarette he had denied himself; he should have had one, he thought, suddenly annoyed with himself; crazy, he thought, a simple act turned into a complex gesture, inviting what unwelcome revelations. .. He should have greeted her with casual irony, cigarette or book in hand; told her he could not sleep — the fitful insomnia that had haunted him during the war; asked her about the bienvenida, or was it a goingaway party this time, and pretended gladness that she had had a fine time, heaven knows how dreary the days must be for her, the house empty, what with him at the office or out of town on his business trips, and the children away at school when they were not being hopelessly spoiled at their grandmother's. . . But, still, he could not bring himself to act out this false polite scene with her: ridiculous — at two in the morning — to be roused from a tired sleep for small talk; was Vic there, and Mitos, Ric and Helen, the old gang — while the flush on her cheeks lingered on after the evening's excitement, her expression between a secret smile and a wistfulness perhaps, dark veiled eyes that might not look into his own. . . Headlights passed down the street, oblique shadows faded off across the wall and ceiling. She had phoned in the afternoon to tell him she would not be home till late — no, she didn't need the car, her cousins were coming over to fetch her. He was lecturing one of the junior executives on the need for more initiative, more devotion to duty, and he had hung up with a curt enjoy-yourself: he had no patience with interruptions, especially if he was in the midst of a conference with the staff. In the dark room now, his mind, from habit, held back sleep to remind him of the coming day s

schedule: the press conference for the American banker, the account that had to be captured from a rival firm. There would be no respite from work: one must out-think the others, counter their moves in the right places, at the right time. The enemy entrenched, building up his reserves, waiting to mount his own attack. . . Ten years, he thought, since the night they fired their last rounds into the sky, the tracers flaming jubilantly over the sea off Baler; and the Colonel had produced a case of Scotch, courtesy of General Krueger, and they had toasted their victory and the surrender of Japan, stumbling about drunkenly, a pack of redeemed ferocious young men, on the beach that had been a battleground, and before that, a shore of darkness and crashing surf and wind and men waiting on the dunes for the wink of light that might never come on the horizon of the sea. How did it look now, that stretch of sea in the night, the dim shape of the headland to the left, the waves coming in endless formations pale in the starlight, while he and his men lay in the shadows waiting. . . Sleep was returning, he felt himself drifting, without resistance, even as the remembered names and faces hove into view briefly like lighted buoys on a darkened sea and sailed into night: the Colonel, and Narding, and Reyes, one-man army with a BAR, and Moro, the radio-man, and the soft-spoken sergeant who had killed his faithless wife; all the gaunt, haunted, sunburned men he had known in the war. He was tallying the months they had stayed in the encampment in the hills of Cawayan, the weeks in the jungles west of Bongabon, trying to shake off the punitive force sent after them; the length of the forced march up the coast to Casiguran with the supplies and the transmitters. He was counting retreats, regroupings, clashes with the enemy, his memory meanwhile growing dimmer into sleep, when with a shift so slight in his half-conscious mind that he did not notice it, he began to number the occasions Nina had come home late: last week, and at least twice in the month before that, not including the weekend he was up in Baguio for the management seminar; and when had it all started, he wondered remotely, fleetingly — was it last August, last September, when the agency gained the string of new accounts, and he had to work late in the office on budgets and proposals, seldom coming home for supper, taking time out only for coflFee and sandwiches, like a sub-

ordinate eager to impress the boss, who happened to be no one else — some joke — but himself. . . Faintly the sound of wind rising in the trees about the house came to him; like the sea, his mind whispered, the sea, as sleep rolled towards him, approached in waves closing over him; and before he thought and saw nothing, there seemed for a second, out on the dark rim of the world, the blink of the signal light he had lain in wait for through the long night.

"YOU WERE out like a log when I came in last night," Nina said as she poured his coffee. The plaid curtains of the breakfast nook ballooned in a slight breeze; sunlight sifted customary shadows on the vinyl floor. Neat in her blue and white uniform, his daughter sat finishing her oatmeal solemnly; one of the twin boys was teasing the cat with a potato chip. The radio in the living room was tuned in to the program of the voluble emcee who affected a nasal foreign twang even when he shifted to Tagalog. It was a morning like any other, except that the radio was playing more rock-V-roll than Marcos cared for; and when he thought of his waking in the night, the late hour, it had the unreality of a tenuous dream forgotten and then recalled, irrelevantly, in the prosaic day. He glanced at the front page as he sipped his coffee — nuclear test ban talks stalemated in Geneva; riots in East Berlin; graft, robbery, murder; a storm brewing in the Pacific, off the eastem coast of Luzon. He asked, carefully indifferent: "What time did it break up? Must have been some party. . "Oh, shortly before twelve. . . It was such a bore. Intellectual types yakking about the Filipino soul, and what is art. that sort of thing. . . Danny, will you stop that and finish your breakfastT She leaned across the table towards her daughter and adjusted the ribbon in the child's hair, 'i wanted to leave early, but the girls insisted that we try that place near Manila Hotel where they serve bibingka—" "Ferino's," Marcos said. The girls, he mused wryly: the young matron s-about-town, her innumerable cousins and schoolmates. who played bridge or mahjong all day when they were not out shopping, who would still go partying nights, while maids looked

after the children and taught them their absurd language. "You were up rather early," he said. "After last night —" "I went to church. First Friday," she said. "I just can't seem to get used to evening Masses. . ." She stirred her lemonade and continued brightly: "Your compadre Elo came to the despedida. Regards daw and when will you be free for a round of golf? Pining Santos showed up with her brand-new husband — a youngster who could pass for Elvis, sideburns and all. But at her age she could have done worse. Helen and Ric are leaving on a world tour. Tokyo's their first stop, the Paris of the Orient they say —" He was watching her over the paper limp in his hands; she had grown thinner — but perhaps it was only the natural contour of her finely-modeled face. . . Her eyes met his for an instant as she lifted her glass to her lips: the deep dark eyes that had drawn him to her the moment they met, the year before he resigned his commission, at an officers' reunion in McKinley. . . "You were telling me about Ric and Helen," he said. "They'll be away for at least a year — Japan, and then Europe, and the States, where Ric's brother has settled down, in Los Angeles. It's been Helen's dream — France, and Spain, by car. . . Italy, Rome. ." He said, "We'll make it, too, someday." "No, I — I wasn't thinking of that at all —" But it was time to go; he gave her a hurried kiss, glad to end the drift of their conversation, and strode out to the garage, his daughter trailing after him with her outsized bag. Nina waved to them as he eased the Oldsmobile through the cement-pillared gate. He thought of the storm approaching over the ocean far to the east. The thunderheads would be piling above the gray swell of waves and sweeping invincibly towards land, the sun fading over the Quezon coast and the jungled mountains and down to the plains, the wind-driven rains advancing on the city. But the sky remained clear but for scattered rags of cloud; it looked like another warm dry day. Rain could ruin the press conference; newsmen can be so fastidious. . . His daughter piped, "So long. Daddy," as she got off in front of the nuns' school on D. Tuason, and he smiled after her skipping away to join her grade school companions gathering for the morning assembly. Traffic was

brisk on Espafia, and he nodded approvingly at the smooth pickup of the car; he lit a filtered cigarette, pressed the radio button, and caught the brisk jingle one of his copywriters had composed for a soft drink. He listened to it critically — the folk dance tune, the smart lyrics — as he turned into Rizal Avenue; it was all right, better than the sick stuff the other agencies had been turning out lately; better give that boy a raise. . . He tossed the car keys to the attendant of the parking lot off the Escolta, and walked the block to his office, the slight limp of his right leg, which a Nambu slug had grazed in 1945, unnoticed in the rushing crowd. The luncheon conference for the visiting American executive, held at a fashionable restaurant in Ermita, was a success, to all appearances; the agency's PR man knew his business — he'd better, Marcos thought grimly. Most of the invited editors and columnists were present and asked the proper questions, encouraged, he was sure, by the Scotch and the gift certificates. Mr. Steinberg, looking ill at ease in his barong, spoke of the need for mutual cooperation and respect, his readiness to support joint ventures and new industries that showed promise; no fewer than five major clients would benefit from the projected arrangement, and Marcos began to feel a buoyant satisfaction that blended warmly with the whiskey. But later in the afternoon, the account he sought to win continued to give him no end of trouble. The art work to accompany the proposals was far from finished — hire more artists, he snapped at the personnel manager, offer them double their present wages! His account supervisor was down with the flu; and he received ominous news — a nephew of the prospective account's president was joining a young agency, an upstart crew of Ateneo boys. He lost his temper, virtually slammed the door of the conference room on his bewildered staff, and was instantly sorry. He sat alone in his air-conditioned office, chain-smoking into early evening, telling himself he must check his anger even when provoked — he was in command, here, as he had been on that journey over the mountains to the sea, many years ago, and, it seemed, in another country, a leader must control himself before he dared control others. . . He paced the carpeted floor, glancing abstractedly at the

framed citations on the paneled walls — Outstanding Young Businessman, 1953; an award for "Distinguished Civic Spirit"; an engraved scroll for services rendered a trade delegation from Japan. His secretary knocked to ask if she was still needed; no, he was leaving shortly; good night. On a shelf above his desk was propped a portrait of his wife, smiling down on his restiveness; some dozen books, volumes that mapped the strategies of advertising and marketing, as other manuals had taught him the deployment of firepower, the technique of assault on a fortified position, the finer points of war. From his main drawer he took out the .38 revolver that he kept there, a souvenir from the violent years; he fingered its compact weight, admiring the snub nose and ivory handle: a handy, simple, fatal weapon. He stood up to peer through the drawn blinds at the street six floors below: it was raining, the typhoon coming closer, and the lights of the city were streaked reflections on the black asphalt. The sight of rain, the wet evening, made him grateful for the familiar security of the room: he would stay awhile, perhaps rewrite the concluding section of the speech he had been asked to deliver at a conference of management consultants. . . He buzzed for coffee, which the janitor brought up from the canteen in the lobby, and proceeded to edit the typewritten draft. The nationalistic frontiers of economic growth: now, make it more subtle, yet realistic and convincing. . . The phone rang. He picked up the receiver and crossed out an extravagant sentence. "Mar —" It was Nina. "How's the overtime, darling?" She affected a rough sensuous voice over the phone that the line made lower, more husky. "I was all set to leave," he said. "But it's raining so hard I thought I'd —" "C'mon home soon as you can," Nina said. "I went marketing today and you have a steak dinner waiting for you." "Medium rare?" "The way you like it, darling. With all the trimmings." "I'll be there before eight," he said, tired and lonely suddenly and loving her voice. "Is it raining out there? The kids home?" "Safe and sound," she said. "There's a leak in the roof, a in one. I've put a pail under it. Nothing to worry about."

"Hope the house doesn't get washed away before I get there." "We'll hold the fort till you get home, darling." "Good girl," he said. Going down in the elevator, he smiled inwardly at the affectionate banter he could share with her; after the long day, he missed her, and she was waiting for him. It had been some time since they had talked that way; a man can get so busy; he ought to treat her to a night out — to that supper club on Dewey where she said the music was out of this world. He walked by the sheltered sides of buildings and reached his car after a mild drenching. A portion of Espana had flooded, the cars sloshing through the foot or so of water, and the rain, after a short lull, came down again in thick sprays, blurring the windshield despite the swift slashing of the wipers. He crossed the flooded area without mishap — it could have been deeper if he had tarried longer at the office. There had been rain, too, a cold midnight rain: the remembrance of the faraway shore rose out of the moving darkness before the headlights. . . The storm would make compulsory a couple of holidays perhaps, and God knows how urgent the work that had to be rushed before the week was over. But I need a breather: no use killing oneself in this kind of game. Years ago, there had been no qualifications; if there were, you had to live as though they did not exist; you did your duty, and if it killed you, that was just too bad; besides, trying to escape it would end your life with equal dispatch. Because death was omnipresent and explicit, life defined itself more simply, the boundaries became recognizable — until that night off the beach on the eastern coast of Luzon. You waited on the darkened shore, while the waves came crashing out of the night forever. . . The maid had an umbrella held out for him as he emerged from the garage. He stepped out of the rain into the bright living room, feeling the numbness beginning in his leg, the damp evening invading the once-shattered bone even as he embraced his wife and the children tugged at him in noisy welcome.

IT WAS a gray week of rain, winds, flooded downtown streets. Forced to stay home, Marcos conferred with his assistants by phone until the line went dead; dreading boredom, he sat down to fashion a new and perhaps flawless organization chart, trying a series of combinations, shifting the penciled squares around in a kind of halfhearted solitaire. Nina stayed upstairs in bed with a cold; the children finally tired of their coloring books, and led by Danny, they gathered about him for distraction. He put away the futile diagrams, and with a child on each knee, the third curled snugly against him on the sofa, he found himself telling them the only stories he could think of, not tales of legend and magic, but episodes of the war they had not seen, vignettes retouched and rendered harmless: adventures in a strange land, where the villains were bowlegged and ridiculous simpletons, and the heroes noble, invincible, and brave. But beyond the half-truths, the altered past, he could feel in the raining blowing dusk the growing presence in his mind of those men he knew who had died, the ugly pain, the weariness that was like death; and late in the night, with the children gone to sleep and the house deep in the dark rain, the tone of memory remained with him, a somber quietness that drew towards him all the sorrows of the lost time. In the bathroom he examined his face in the shaving mirror: the years had drawn the skin tighter over the cheekbones, wrinkles had formed at the corners of his mouth, like tiny gashes; the eyes stared back at him pensive and lusterless before he switched off the light. In the dark suddenly it was as if he glimpsed another face, a young man's face reflected briefly, like that quick fading of an incandescent bulb on retina and brain; and he stood still, knowing whose face it was with a start of recognition, wanting to keep it from dissolving. The image of his former face was gone, swift ghost in the dark; but it had spoken to him of a curious desolation and longing that kept him awake while the last rain fell and ceased and he heard water from the eaves dripping into the stillness. When the war began in 1941 (the time of youth, Marcos addressed the face that would not come back now in the night), he was twenty-two, working for a master's degree in business administration at the state university. A job with an uncle who owned an import-export firm had been promised him; he was also a reservist, a lieutenant in the

coast artillery. He could have made himself scarce after his unit was disbanded and nobody would have missed him in the general confusion; but he had always considered himself a man of adventure, a role encouraged by his dark good looks and a Plymouth convertible that had earned him a proud share of traffic tickets as well as a relay of girlfriends. Thus he found himself in the Lingayen area one December morning with a battery shelling Japanese transports in the Gulf; dive bombers promptly wrecked the guns and with remnants of his battalion he joined the mixed regiment that engaged the enemy at Binalonan, sniping with their Springfields at the tanks advancing across the paddyfields over the slaughtered American cavalry. New Year's Day found him dusty and starved and sick of it all, aboard a battered truck in one of the last convoys to Bataan. On the day of the surrender he was with an artillery unit defending the approaches to Cabcaben airfield, where the last of the P-40's lay crumpled in the scorched dust. He had been ill at Capas, and the tragic summer passed in a cloud of fever and chills that isolated him from despair and hope and the bodies piled like cordwood outside the sawali sheds of the concentration camp. When he came home to Camiling, in July that year, he was like one returned from the dead, the tall athletic body reduced to a stooped withered frame. His mother, upon seeing him, cried as though he had died. His father, he was told, had been killed by a strafing plane early in the war. In the first weeks of his homecoming, he sat in his room in his father's house, not answering those who spoke to him, a vacant stare in his eyes, immobile as an old man who could not remember his own name. But the young recover swiftly: he ate with a vengeance and slept till noon, and in three months he had gained much of the weight he had lost; the teasing gleam returned to his eyes; he began to move about with the old casual swagger. Soon he was playing basketball with the neighborhood boys in the plaza: he had been center-forward for his college team. Except for the presence of the Japanese who garrisoned the town — in the first months of the Occupation, the townsfolk, it appeared, had achieved a delicate balance with the invaders, based on mutual coldness — and the loss of his commandeered top-down, life for Marcos might as well have been a pre-war vacation.

He went on serenading trips with his cousins Pepe and Narding, and started paying court to the daughter of a family of evacuees who stayed at the convento. A niece of the parish priest, she was a proud puritan of a girl, outraged "by the briefest touch of hands; but her remoteness served only to fire his ardor, and Marcos began to attend Mass often in the ancient church if only to catch a glimpse of her, lovely and chaste at the communion rail. Many were the afternoons he came for the Salve, and a genteel merienda presided over by her parents, in the vast raftered dining room with its host of lithographed saints. They would sit by a high capiz-shell window, he and the girl, who was called Luz, and talk of Manila before the war, and the years of peace, while evening deepened in the plaza below them and the night came down on the mountains beyond the roofs of the town. He continued going with his cousins occasionally to serenade the girls in town and in the outlying barrios — there was no lack of pretty evacuees, and a curfew was yet to be imposed; he loved to sing, although his voice, he was quick to admit, was nothing to be proud of, and he enjoyed the leisurely walks, the wide skies, the companionship. They were walking home one night from a serenade, he and Narding and Pepe; they were about a kilometer from the poblacion, on a dirt road that led to the provincial highway, when a Japanese patrol burst out of the surrounding cogon, trapping them, and bound with wire, they were dragged to the elementary school building, where the garrison was stationed, beside the plaza. In the room that had been the principal's office, the commandant sat briskly fanning himself; beside him stood Canlas, blowing smoke rings with an Akebono, a short fair-skinned man who had been a municipal clerk before the war. A truck of the Imperial Army had been ambushed by bandits on the highway outside of town, Canlas explained placidly; five soldiers had been killed; a tragedy, Canlas said — for the three young men, and for the town. The Captain was deeply grieved, to put it mildly; the culprits, together with their friends, would be punished most severely. For some time now, said Canlas in his light singsong voice, he and the Captain had been following their nighttime excursions to the barrios with the greatest interest; and at last he and the Captain had evidence that these so-called serenades were

actually disguised contacts with the bandits, was it not so? Were not the three agents of the bandits, if not bandits themselves? How about the arms-cache in Sinulatan, how about the American who had been seen passing through Bilad? Cooperate, Canlas said in his singsong voice, tell us what you know, give us the names of those bandits, and you will be free to go in the morning. They knew nothing, Marcos said, and the Captain — he was all of six feet and reminded Marcos of some screen actor in that instant the officer lunged at him — struck him a single backhand blow that knocked him sprawling over a chair. Marcos and his cousins were separated, Pepe, who was not yet eighteen, crying they were innocent as they took him away. They pushed Marcos into one of the classrooms and bare-torsoed noncoms took turns in beating him up, alternating the flat sustained smash of the club with sessions of judo, throwing him about on the wooden floor, finally pummeling his bleeding face until he passed out. When he came to, it was morning and he was lying on the floor in a shuttered room. Pepe and Narding lay near him, and as the room brightened he saw that one of Pepe's eyes had closed in a clot of blood, and with his wounds, Narding looked like some grotesque stranger. The desks had been used for firewood by the garrison; but on the walls still hung the portraits of Rizal and Bonifacio and Mabini, and the cardboard charts on character education and hygiene, posted there for the children who had long since gone. Canlas appeared at midday with a soldier who gave each of the prisoners a tiny ball of salted rice. Last night's program was just a preview, Canlas said in his gentle singsong voice, peering at them benevolently through the smoke of his cigarette; for tonight, if they chose to be so stubborn, they would see a few tricks done with a pair of pliers; and of course, they must have heard of the water cure. . . This evening after their long siesta, the Captain would try persuasion once more; until then, Marcos would have time to think things over; he must save his life and those of his cousins, Canlas said, smiling like a kind and thoughtful uncle. . . The last sunlight slanted across the windows; the Japanese tramped in the corridor outside, calling out to one another in their rapid growling language and singing their martial songs in the yard. Across the plaza the church bell tolled the Angelus. It was Narding

who found the loose planks in the floor; there were two of them, the nails rusted away, the wood splintered by anay; and a man could ease himself through the space that they formed, once removed, to the ground below. Marcos listened to Narding's whispered discovery, his heart thudding in his throat, yes, they would make the break as soon as it got darker; they would crawl towards the side of the building that faced the public market. The school grounds were fenced with garden wire on that side; iron grilles ruled out the other sections. They told Pepe of their plan; the boy was quiet for what seemed an interminably anguished time; then he whispered that he would stay, he was innocent: they would set him free. Fool, Marcos whispered furiously, you fool, and then it was dark enough, and the soldiers were tramping back down the corridor for supper, laughing, and the three in the room were silent, Marcos' heart pounding so fiercely, thudding in his ears, that he thought the enemy would surely hear and burst in and truss them up with wire. Narding signaled to him and lifted off the boards soundlessly and disappeared beneath the floor; Marcos reached out for Pepe, but his cousin shrank back whispering no, no; and he crossed himself and swung down to the ground, in the darkness beneath the floor, groping on hands and knees over the earthen clods towards the hedge that bordered the building, fear and the hope of escape charging his bruised muscles. He reached Narding crouched peering through the hedge at the lawn before them; a window cast a square of light, on the grass; they began to crawl to the right, away from the window. His hands touched the bottom of the wire fence, lifted it, and in the same sweeping movement he was out on the street, running. He and Narding ran the three blocks southward to the river; they met no one, the curfew was on; they ran along the sandy bank, under the black foliage of bamboos. A dog came bounding after them, barking, and they turned sharply towards the water in a running dive and swam downstream, away from the town. They rested a moment on a sandbar, scooping water into their mouths, numb and shivering, before they struggled up a steep bank, pushing blindly through the tangled brush and across a field, giving a dump of huts a wide berth, across a stream and then through some more fields and into a patch of sugar cane, where they crawled

deep between the stalks, hiding there through the night and all of the following day.

"THE TROUBLE with you, Marcos," the Colonel said, "is that you carry on like a damned intellectual. You think too much." "Beg your pardon, sir," Marcos laughed, "but you're way off. If I ever think at all, it's about — when's this lousy war going to end, when do we eat, where are the girls —" "You know damn well I don't mean that at all," the Colonel said, gazing off into the forest beyond the circle of their fire. "Come again, sir?" "The why and the wherefore, existence, reality — all that bull. Can that college stuff, boy. There are no right answers, but a lot of wrong ones. I should know. And it's bad for the system. . . " "Sometimes a man can't help — thinking," Marcos said after a moment. "Maybe. But a luxury in this neck of the woods, boy. What's been on your mind, anyway?" "That fellow we had to — dispose of. In Pantabangan. I'm not sure now he was a spy. There had been rumors, yes, but —" "One can't be too careful," the Colonel said. "Don't let it worry you, boy. Damned thinkers have no business being in this war. . ." It was just the Colonel's way of killing time, Marcos decided, amused: the take-it-from-me-boy stance; as much a part of the old man as the casual "damn" he must have picked up in Fort Benning, where he had gone for an armored course after graduating with honors from the PMA and a spectacular career fighting the Moros and the Sakdals. The Colonel had escaped from Bataan, leading a ragged crew northward over the Zambales ranges; but in the firelight now, there was nothing audacious and military about him in his faded denims, squatting on the leaf-strewn ground with chubby hands clasped over knees, the thoughtful gaze, the graying hair suggesting some hacendero on an overnight visit to his farm. They had been talking haphazardly since nightfall, in the tree-sheltered gully where their fire could not be seen from the air, and in their silence the only sound was the flow of the wind faint in

the valley below them, and the murmurous voices of the men ranged about them among the shadows. Talk was a luxury, after the months dodging patrols in Tarlac, the near-disasters as they struggled westward across Nueva Ecija to join up with the guerrilla force in the Caraballo mountains. MacArthur was pushing up New Guinea, the news had come over the wireless; Halsey was in the Central Pacific, his offensive aimed westward at the Philippines; the Colonel said they would soon get the new carbines; the Colonel had learned that women were a necessary evil; he told Marcos about the blonde who had been his mistress when he was in Georgia; he had learned that the best way to fight a war was to think only of immediate, specific things, and never mind abstractions like democracy, fascism, justice, truth; the trouble with Marcos, the Colonel said, was that he carried on like a damned intellectual. . . The fire smouldered down to embers, and the night grew cold and charcoal-black. Marcos said good night and left the Colonel, memory and instinct guiding him up the invisible footpath under the tall trees, past the radio shack to the abandoned kainginero's hut on the ridge that looked out over the valley. Narding was still at the outpost halfway down to the valley and would not be relieved until dawn. Marcos lay down on his makeshift mattress of empty sacks and leaves spread on the earthen floor, his .38 beside him, the wind brushing at the thin nipa walls; he hugged his jacket about him for warmth and gradually fell asleep, dreaming vaguely of Camiling, the view of the plaza from the convento, the girl Luz, his father and mother. Abruptly he was awake, and reached out for the revolver in a reflex movement; but it was only the mountain chill that had touched him. He stared up at the stars framed by the square hole in the thatch roof, where smoke had escaped from the warm fires built long ago inside the hut; he knew he could not coax sleep again, and he lay alone and thinking of the year that had passed since he and Narding and Pepe had encountered the patrol outside town. Pepe was dead; Canlas, too, was dead — felled by an assassin's bullet during a public dance in honor of the puppet mayor; how he would have relished pulling the trigger himself... But to kill hesitantly, with compassion and regret, as he had killed that man in Pantabangan: was it possible to absolve oneself? Bits of news had

filtered up to him in the mountains: an uncle and one more cousin had been executed by the Japanese; Luz and her family had returned to Intramuros. How many of those he knew and loved would die before the war was over . . Revenge would not resurrect them; but he had felt the exultation of drawing blood for the first time, when with a force of commandos he had waylaid a motorized convoy outside Cabanatuan. They had sprayed the grenade-blasted trucks with a captured machine gun, while the last of the enemy leaped into the ditches where the men cut them down point-blank. He had come upon one of them lying on the littered road, gasping disemboweled in the glare of the gasoline flames, and he had shot him neatly between the eyes. He could still recall the confused expression on the soldier's face in that moment before he levelled the pistol; a matter of duty, he reminded himself, awake in the hut on the forested ridge, in the ice-cold night of the mountains. Light broke in the east, above the sharp-sloped ranges, and Narding came back and lay down to sleep beside him. The rains started soon after, and the Colonel decided it would be safe enough to venture into the lowlands, for the Cagayan River had flooded its banks, isolating the enemy in San Jose; their rice supply was dangerously low, and it was time to scrounge around for a new battery, for the radio. They filed down the misted mountains into the valley, and found shelter and food and devout admiration in the barrios among the foothills, as the rains fell into August and September. The enemy was surprisingly idle in the area, even for the rains, kept busy perhaps elsewhere; the men relaxed; some got married in the barrios, with the blessings of a Maryknoll missioner who had wandered down from Nueva Vizcaya. There were dances, even, for the men, at a teniente-del-barrio's house, with the rain drumming on the only sheet-iron roof for miles, and the lone blind fiddler sweating through the waltzes, and the shy barrio girls shuffling and swaying on bare feet with the bearded, lank-haired men. When they returned to the mountains, with two American fliers who had escaped from the prison camp in Cabanatuan, it was to another encampment, on another, higher ridge, and in December of 1943, the wireless received a coded message from Panay.

FOR MARCOS it was the beginning of a long journey to the sea. The Colonel briefed him, stressing the utmost importance of the mission; and with three Ilongot guides, Marcos and Narding and seventeen picked men struck eastward on a December dawn, deeper into the Mingan ranges. On the third night, two of the loin-clothed guides disappeared into the jungle; the remaining one had to be prodded with a Garand before he would consent to take them further over the mountains. Crossing a chest-deep stream, one of the men slipped and was swept away instantly into deeper water, gurgling for help as his pack weighed him down; there was nothing they could do to rescue him, in the jungle twilight. It took an entire day to cover a few miles; heat and cold, rain, fog, leeches assailed them on their tortuous way; in the humid gloom of seemingly interminable forests, they hacked out trails through the matted underbrush, accompanied by a chatter of monkeys and the cry of unknown birds. Marcos lost one more man somewhere among the rain-shrouded peaks; no one could account for his disappearance; he had simply vanished into the dark damp wilderness, like a footprint erased by the rot of leaves and rain. On the sixth day, they toiled up the incline of the last mountain, digging footholds on the rock-strewn cliff, the men tiny as insects among the boulders. A plane droned high above the next mountain, and Marcos tensed for the riveting burst of machine guns, for surely the pilot must have seen them strung out against the treeless slope; but soon the plane was a dwindling speck in the clouds, and they reached the top without mishap. At last they saw the plain of the sea, still a day's hike away; but they had made time, Marcos thought, lying on the pine-needled crest of the mountain, scanning through binoculars the gentle hills and the woods below them and the boundary of the coast. They would be on the beach on the last day of the year — the exact mile of beach pinpointed in the message from Panay — and there would be time to study the surrounding terrain. Nothing like knowing where you are, Marcos thought, surveying the land below, the unknown territory between the mountains and the sea. A thread of smoke rose over a fishing village to the north, some five miles away from the target shore. They descended before sundown and camped beside a

stream. The men caught some fish, and a python drowsing on a rocky shelf above the water, and they had an early supper and slept drugged with fatigue under the trees. Marcos was up at daybreak, disturbed by the rush of wind in the trees, and it was as though he could already hear, from this distance, the breakers on the shore. He and Narding rounded up the men, and they resumed their trek seaward, pushing again through a dense forest but the land unrolling in gradual folds now towards the sea. At noon the sea lay before them, behind a screen of coconut trees; the waves washed peacefully in the pale, quiet day. Narding and some of the men left for the neighboring village to look for a boat; the color of the sea changed from green to blue to cobalt in the late afternoon, the horizon turning gray and indistinct in the fading light. Narding returned in an outriggered banca, paddling it around the headland that jutted out to the left; he had brought food with him, and the fisherman who owned the boat, a dark gnarled man named Doro who told Marcos his son had been on Corregidor and he was proud to be of service to them. Night fell with rain, drenching them beneath the inadequate shelter of the palms. The rain lifted and the wind receded, and there was only the rise and fall of the waves in the night. For hours Marcos searched the horizon through his glasses, but no lights blinked a signal on the dark plain of the sea. The first day of 1944 rose in the east, bright over the sea. Some of the men slept, others cleaned their guns, keeping well to the thickest part of the grove that hid them from low-flying aircraft. Huge afternoon clouds sailed above them, headed towards the mountains and the plains on the other side, leaving the sky clean and empty in the early dusk. The Colonel had told Marcos to stand vigil for two nights; if nothing happened they were to go back immediately the way they had come — back over the boulder-sloped mountain and the jungled ranges, back through the fog and cold and the waiting leeches and the dark forests that struck terror even in the hearts of savages. . . A hell of a way to fight a war, Marcos reflected bitterly, watching the waves crashing endlessly on the shore, scooping up the sand in the hollow where he lay and kneading the coarse grains in his callused fingers. If he and Narding and Pepe had not gone out that night — if he had not volunteered for action

that December day — if he had never been born. . . He remembered the Colonel calling him a damned thinker, and the old boy's probably right, he thought; a man must do his duty instead of worrying about it; the rest took care of itself; reflections, regrets, second thoughts led nowhere. He polished the lenses of the binoculars and lay back in the hollow under the coconuts, while the night flowed inland and grew darker around them. The waves sounded louder in the darkness, a rhythmic boiling hiss in the starlight; Marcos stared at the sea — who was it who had called the Pacific the wink of eternity? A damned intellectual, whoever he was. . . He began to drift into a shallow sleep, the oncoming rush and the sighing retreat of the waves penetrating his mind, the dark timeless beat of the ocean, world without beginning, without end. . . Narding dropped down beside him; it was close to midnight. Marcos focused the glasses on the far edge of the sea, but he saw nothing there but the ranks of the waves advancing relentlessly towards the border of the beach. He and Narding saw the blink of light almost in the same instant, the prearranged signal. He adjusted the glasses on the light out at sea, certitude quickening his heart as he made out the smudged outline of the long low hull and the conning tower of the submarine. He cried out to the men to set fire to the coconut leaves piled on the sand, and soon their own signal light blazed up in a crackling brightness. The submarine flashed recognition; the men pushed the banca into the water, and Marcos leaped aboard as the boat slid forward, breasting the waves. They paddled furiously against the swell of the tide, the current that would draw the boat southward away from the submarine; but the man Doro knew these waters, and they reached a calmer distance from the shore. Then it was as if the banca hung motionless in the water; the submarine would disappear beneath the waves and leave them there, in a limbo of time and weather, the stars fixed forever in the sky. Marcos held his breath, feeling trapped in the stillness between the depths of the sea and the sky of unending night. But after what seemed a long empty moment the nose of the banca dipped forward; the men were paddling; they were mov,n g again, past a phosphorescence, the boat rocking, the outriggers

cutting through the waves. The submarine loomed nearer in the darkness, a black silence before them, the only sound the sharp slap of the waves against the glistening hull. Marcos discerned shadowy figures on the conning tower, and instinctively he hailed them, his voice small and lost in the ocean night. There was no answering call, and fear stabbed him then, deep and sudden in the marrow of his bones. It was like nothing he had experienced before; it came from the silence, but there were other reasons, for which long afterwards he could not quite find the nearest words: a sense of doom, of some fatal, irrevocable error; this, and the mystery of the black hulk that had risen in the night from what unfathomed depths, what darkness as vast and impersonal as time; and the instant knowledge that here was his faceless, invincible enemy, and he was helpless and exposed on the ocean. . . An answering hail came at last, and Marcos felt the freezing terror flow in a cold sweat from his body. In the starlight, men appeared on the submarine deck; a rubber raft splashed onto the water. Someone 011 the ship, a Filipino voice, was calling out inquiringly, it must be Cruz, it was Cruz, the AIB man from Australia. The Thompsons and the carbines had arrived, the transmitters for the coast-watcher stations, the cigarettes. Marcos began to chuckle weakly, waving up to Cruz on the deck, thinking, what I would give for one fresh pack of Chesterfield. . .

TOR A second, I thought they'd cut us down on the water. We were like sitting ducks," Marcos said, lighting a cigarette — not Chesterfield, but a filtered brand his firm advertised; and they sat, not in the tense shadows of a Tayabas beach, but indolently, on the terrace of a seaside club with the orchestra thumping out "Stranger in Paradise" in Latin tempo, and a girl laughing among the dim iamplit tables, and the lights of ships glimmering in the Bay. c Td never known anything like it," Marcos said. "A total — a helpless fear —" "I needed a good shot of whiskey myself," Narding said, clinking the ice around in his glass. "You fellows fighting the war all over again?" the Colonel

said, rising to steer his partner towards the dance floor. "Me, I'm going to enjoy the peace." "Take your sweet time, Colonel," Narding said. The old man was now a general in the Constabulary, but to Marcos and Narding, he was still the Colonel; it had stuck, like a nickname, evoking for Marcos, as they sat drinking, a wilderness of mountains, the violence and the tiredness, the dark edge of the sea, the waiting on the distant shore. Marcos said, "How's everything back home?" "Same old routine," Narding said. "But I've grown to like it. The farm's doing all right, even without the stuff I'm bringing back." "If you ever get fed up down there, and want a job —" "No, thanks," Narding said. "The city's no place for a guy like me. I'm allergic to ulcers, and traffic jams, and whatever else you people produce out there. . ." "Including the lady bored stiff by your side," Marcos said. The girl, sensing her cue, said, "Honey, let's dance," and they left Marcos, who finished his drink and ordered another — a Thomas Wolfe drink, Narding called it: you'll never go home again. He thought of Narding spending the quiet nights in the home town, reading Wolfe and Steinbeck and the new novelists, and his wife Mary knitting beside him, in the old house that faced the plaza. He had not visited the town in years; the old routine, Narding called it, the old wonderful life; the familiar faces, the streets with the trees arched over them, the leaf-shadowed days. He and Nina ought to go visit the place this year, the kids should get to know the old folks. Nina. . . he had called earlier in the evening, the phone ringing unanswered in the house; she must have gone out again, and the children, he knew, taken to their Lola's place. A warm pulse started to throb in his brain: time to put an end to this business, time for her to be home nights; where could she be, he wondered, another bienvenida in San Juan, another housewarming in Ermita, to hell with all the housewarmings in the world. . . He asked for one more drink. At the next table someone was speaking in a loud singsong voice. Canlas: but the traitor was dead; it was somebody else, some bureaucrat or businessman out for a night with the girls. . . "Sorry to break this up," Narding was saying, "but I have this early trip tomorrow."

"Ah c'mon, the night's still young," the Colonel said. "I have to go," Narding said. "You fellows stay —" Marcos, too, stood up. "Work in the morning," he said. "You galley slaves," the Colonel said. "Goddamit, I was just warming up —" "Don't let us stop you," Marcos said, suddenly impatient with the Colonel, with his damn's and his stateside accent. "You keep Susan company and be happy, okay?" But the Colonel had risen with a resigned shrug, and Marcos signed the chit, tipped the waiter and the hostesses. The three men crossed the dance floor to the lobby downstairs and the warm tired night outside. "When you get together again, don't forget to give me a ring," the Colonel said. "Well, it's been fine being with you guys again. Narding, a good trip," he said, "watch out for those Huks, but don't mess with them — that's my department. And Marcos, take it easy, don't let things bother you too much, like I used to tell you," and he shook hands formally with them while his chauffeur stood holding the car door open. "Next time perhaps we can stay longer, hey?" the Colonel said, and he gave them a brisk forefinger salute as he drove away. "The old boy's still in fine form," Narding said. "Fine enough for the peacetime army," Marcos said. "Nothing to do but sit on your —" He swore at the cab he narrowly missed hitting as he backed out of the club driveway. "Hey, primo, what's eating you?" "Nothing," Marcos said. "Want me to drive?" "I can manage," Marcos said. He dropped Narding at an uncle's house in Singalong, where his cousin stayed during his rare quick visits to the city. "Regards to Nina," Narding said. "And thanks for the treat. It'll be on me next time." "When will that be, you tightfisted hacendero?" "Sooner than you think, you advertising s.o.b." "Well, I'll see you. My best to Mary. Tell the folks I'll be home this May." "It's about time. You missed last year's fiesta." "I tried but couldn't get away," Marcos said.

"As the old boy said, take it easy." "Sure," Marcos said. He took Taft Avenue, and Quezon Bridge, driving across the city, the vague listlessness replaced by an alert impatience, as though he were hurrying to an appointment for which he could not afford to be late. He liked to drive moderately and feel the quiet power of the engine over streets empty of the accursed traffic at hours like this, after midnight; but on an impulse he pressed down on the accelerator, the car swinging into Espana with a shriek of tires. The gate lamps were unlit, the usually illuminated portecochere was dark; the split-level house stood silent, untenanted, as he parked the car and unlocked the front door. He switched on lights in the living room; the bare modernistic furniture, the whitetiled floor confronted him; a clock among porcelain figurines ticked at him from a shelf. He was sweating; he flung down his coat on the sofa and in the kitchen splashed water on his face and drank a glass of ice water. His hand was trembling, holding the glass, and lie sat down at the dining table and saw her note propped against the bowl of plastic fruit. Your phone was busy, have gone out with Chi tang and Inday. Chicken refregirator. He laughed soundlessly at the misspelling, the chicken part of the carelessly scribbled note; cold cuts on the house, but where's the do-it-yourself kit? He opened the windows, left a single lamp on, and slumped on the sofa, smoking. It was warm, much too warm for this time of year, and his shirt was soaked; but he couldn't bring himself to go to the upstairs bedroom to change. A dull ache began to pound in his temples, and the smoke dragged harshly in his throat; but his body was alert with the taut impatience, he felt a compressed strength rising in his chest and arms, waiting. And thinking of her, leaving the house again without his knowledge, the anger leapt and burned in his heart; the room grew warmer, and he opened the rest of the windows, but the air remained hot and still. He strode to the bar and poured himself a drink. He returned to the sofa, flicking on the radio before he realized that it was past midnight and he found only a blank electric hum. . . The tap of her heels; Marcos sat still, heard the scrape of her key, the door opening. She saw him at once, and she said, "Mar, you startled me," and she sighed and smiled brightly, stand-

ing on the fringe of the circle of light where Marcos sat. She said, "Were you back early, darling? Did you see my note? I tried calling again —" "Nina," he said. "What's going on — why so late —" He could not finish what he wanted to say: the words churned in his mind, blurring. She turned towards the stairs. "Wait," he said. "I'm not through yet." He rose and caught her arm, as if holding her fast would arrange the words, the meaning of his anger. "Mar, you've been drinking." "This going out nights — it's got to stop now. Promise me. Now." "Mar, what can I do if the girls —" "Don't give me that bullshit about the girls." "But there's nothing to fuss about, really." She released her arm, stroking the spot where his hand had locked. "There was this dinner for that lady — the hostess from Washington — it's in the papers. . ." "Till two in the morning?" "Don't shout. I can hear you." "A married woman has no business —" She laughed then. "Mar, stop being funny," she laughed, and a blind fury jerked up his arm and flung it in a backhand slap at her face. She made a small gasping sound as she staggered backward from the blow, clutching at the stair rail. Slowly, warily, she looked up at him in the soft-toned light, and with sudden sick misery — what had he done? — he saw the painful confusion waver in her eyes and harden into a proud secret measuring of him. She muttered something, and he said, "What? What did you say?" But she was on the stairs and he did not stop her but stood unmoving. Feeling faint, he sagged into a chair and stared at the wall in a stunned shrinking numbness of spent anger. Presently he noticed her handbag lying where she had dropped it at the foot of the stairs; it saddened him to see it there, something she owned thrown down carelessly — he was to blame; and he winced, recalling how he had struck her.

He closed the windows and retrieved the bag and went upstairs, conscious of a finality, the grief of something ruined and ended. "I'm sorry," he said. She lay still in the unlighted room, not answering. "Nina," he said, and touched her gently, "Nina" with despair and tenderness. He rose to leave her to her silence, but she reached out for him, whispering his name in the scented darkness.

APRIL, he would one day recall from a detached distance, was a film run too swiftly, a shifting montage of hot mornings, snarled traffic, elevators, a cigarette-stale coolness of glass rooms which he left for the oppressive dusk and the neon skyline he no longer saw; a drunken acquaintance at a cocktail party stage-whispering in his ear: "Some things you don't know about your wife, old man"; a hurried Sunday in Tagaytay with Nina and the children; phones ringing incessantly, conferences, migraine, spasms of annoyance and frustration (the advertising front fluid, wavering, with limited ground won, or lost, in minor actions, and the old campaign plans, the vision of a grand sweep to the crest — "the biggest agency in Asia" — growing savorless and improbable in the stalemate); summer flickering into May, Nina asking what is wrong, darling, and he watching her from deep within himself, aware of a change, a remoteness in her even in their embrace, but unwilling to believe in the reality of this delicate withdrawal: for he had begun to move now in a kind of inward fever, in which everything he saw and touched seemed ambiguous, unfocused, his only certitude the drive of time and the longing for a stillness, peace: the word had a strange, wistful sound, like pure lost love. In the mornings he awoke unrested, conscious of some loss he could not name, as if through the night hours an unsleeping part of him had struggled for a knowledge he must possess to be happy and it had eluded him; in the anxious fever that haunted his days, he would find himself puzzling over the spirit of his loss. Once, waking from a confused dream of sea and darkness and light, he thought he knew at last how he ^ g h t trap whatever it was he must discover: a shadow looming closer through the mist, growing more distinct as it glided over the deep waters that, it seemed to him, he could sometimes hear — a remote pressure in his ears — beneath the rush and emptiness of the summer.

In a taxicab, one night in May, the hidden fever of his unrest became external, physical at last, an actual flush he could feel rising from his body, hot vapors melting on his face and hands. The lights of the city wheeled in a wild carousel before his eyes; jukebox blare rattled from a garish corner; for a second he had the sensation of flying above the street and seeing the entire cascade of traffic below; the fever drew all lights and sounds about him and flung them into his mind, and his mind tried to absorb it all with a frantic energy that would see and know everything. The cab rose and dipped down a cobbled bridge, tires dribbling over the shattered asphalt of the street; neon Chinese characters splashed red and green on a tangle of calesas; children played tag on the sidewalk with shrill cries. Wailing and cymbals spewed out of the smoking glare of a temple, and suddenly it was dark and the street wide and smooth and rising towards another bridge, long and flat across the river, and as he hunched over the back of the driver's seat straining forward he saw the two-toned Ford at the other end of the bridge and his hands tightened on the curve of the seat, as if to restrain himself from springing out of the cab to intercept the other car. "There it is," he said, his voice low and hoarse with a bitter exultation, breathing easily for the first time since he had hailed the cab. "Not so fast now. Just don't lose it." "What's all this about?" the driver said. "She your girl —" "Keep your eyes on that car. Do your job, and you'll get yourself a tip." "Arreglado, boss," the driver said. The stream of south-bound cars slowed down for a warning light on Taft. The Ford beat the red light by a few seconds, plunging on beyond Isaac Peral. The cabbie hesitated, started to brake, but Marcos ordered him on, pushing the man's shoulder, and they shot forward past a police whistle and out between the two oncoming walls of traffic. The large round tail lights were a block away, gliding off into Padre Faura. "Easy now," he said. "Pull back a little," he said, as the cream and maroon sedan swerved left into the Boulevard. "Stay alongside that station wagon. A little to the left, there." His voice grated in his throat; the fever blazed in the sweat that drenched his

face and neck and his eyes began to hurt, and he was trembling. The Ford slowed down, tail lights glowing, and cut across the Boulevard toward the Sunrise Kitchen and came to a halt before the supper club. "What next, boss?" "Park over there, beyond those cars," Marcos said, pointing to a darker segment of the block. It was an effort to talk, to make himself heard, and he could not stop the quivering of his body. But the odd clarity of his fever remained, a heightening of the senses; sounds came to him with an amplified distinctness: a motorcycle's sputtering roar above the even hum of traffic, the slap and sigh of waves below the sea wall. His eyes smarted, but he could see, in sharp focus through the windshield of the cab, the Ford among the parked automobiles and Nina and her companion crossing the small lighted area in front of the club towards the blue dimness of the canopied entrance. He thought of following them into the club. But the fewer people he saw tonight, the better; what he planned to do needed a measure of privacy, a secret atmosphere; like love, it was not something to flaunt before a crowd. "We'll wait," he said. "I've got all night, chico," he added, and wondered why he could still sound so flippant. He had been sitting hunched forward since the start of the chase from downtown, feeling the quivering of his chest against the back of the front seat; now with conscious relish he relaxed, swung the door open as he leaned back to light a cigarette. The meter ticked and whirred softly like an incongruous clock in the darkness; from across the Boulevard blew the iodine breath of the sea, the relentless dash of the waves. Gradually his brow cooled from the constant wind, the fever receded and left his body as he sat motionless, watching the club entrance through the cab's oblique window. A peaceful, detached waiting — almost as if he were expecting an old client — replaced the frenzied activity of his brain. The night had suddenly simplified itself: a matter of waiting for a certain signal, and then a course of action as simple, inevitable, and logical. Headlights flashed towards him, and Marcos ducked; it Was the war again — the reflex movement, the abrupt tensene ss, the waiting. A car drove past, a noisy pack of teenagers. He

smiled at his nervousness, pleased that he was still capable of that automatic swiftness which had more than once saved his life . . . He sat there in the cab for a whole hour, smoking through a pack of cigarettes and sending the driver for another, until he felt choked and he wished he could take a drink to cool his parched mouth. Thinking of Nina, a tired lonely grief stirred in him but it was like the memory of someone else's sorrow; it became his own only if he allowed himself to dwell on it, and he must concentrate on other things — the club entrance, the Ford, the next hour containing the moment he must confront her and the knowledge that it seemed he had been seeking all his life. It was high tide, the wind lashed at the tree above him, and he heard the rising crash of the surf beyond the seawall; the sound recalled the beach south of Baler, the empty shore, his men and Narding keeping vigil with him, and at last the wink of signal lights on the dark horizon of the sea. Nina and her companion reappeared in the entranceway, walking close together, their hands linked; and in that moment, it was as though for Marcos nothing had changed, the sea had not changed, he was still on that faraway beach, waiting, and he could smell the subtle odor of danger and sudden death. The driver did not wait for his prodding, but started the cab as soon as the Ford drove off; and they tailed it south again on the Boulevard, towards Paranaque. Through the Ford's rear window Marcos could see Nina snuggled close to the man driving. He had made up his mind, and it received and registered things calmly: the Pasay license plate of the car ahead, and the uproar of the sea like silk ripping in the wind. She believed he would be out of town for the weekend; now would she get the surprise of her life. . . A sense of action, of a mission that had to be accomplished at any cost, flowed briskly through him; it was like the assurance finally of some happiness. The cream and maroon Ford, signal light blinking, turned into a narrow lane that led to the sea, a dirt road tunneled over with trees, and they followed it, keeping a casual distance between them and the round red eyes of the tail lights. The car swung in through a gate. Marcos told the driver to halt in the shadows of a high wall. Unhurriedly, he paid the driver, remembering to include a couple of extra bills. "Now get out of here." "Arreglado, boss," the driver said.

Marcos peered around the gate post, crouching low. The driveway was empty; a light came on in a window of the vine-clad bungalow. He sprang noiselessly towards the shadowed side of the house, took out the snubnosed .38 from under his coat, released the safety catch, and waited, listening. He heard Nina's laughter, and the low, flat voice of the man, a voice he seemed to have heard before, the tone oddly familiar; beyond the house, the sea rose and fell in the darkness. Marcos edged closer to a corner of the lighted window; the man stood there, his back to the window, the light shining on his blond hair. "A swim this time of night?" the man said in his foreign singsong voice. "Honey, the tide's in. I can think of better things to do than fool around with the sharks out here." "Like what, for instance?" Nina said. "Like this, for instance," the man said, and his back left the window. "Darling, mix me a drink," Nina said after a silence, and Marcos heard the man's good-humored agreement, the clink of glass, soft laughter. Marcos stood still, his back to the wall, in the shadows, and for what seemed a long moment, he listened to the calm beat of his heart, and the wind high in the trees, and the rise and fall of the sea. A boy came down the driveway — the houseboy — and closed the gate and returned to the house; then the wind died, and the sound of the sea faded to a murmur, and Marcos remembered the submarine suddenly, the thrill of terror that pierced his being after he had called out, and there was no answering voice, only the suck and swell of the waves against the black shape in the vast unknowable darkness. He thought of the Colonel and Narding and his loyal men — they were many valleys and mountains behind, for he had decided to go on patrol farther alone, and there was, he knew now, no turning back. But in an obscure way, he was glad there was no turning back. He cleared his mind of image and emotion, tightened his grip on the gun, and stepped out of the shadows to face the last enemy.

The Mayor of San Felipe

F

RANCISCO Mangrobang — Paking when we were in the grades, Frankie from the time we were in first year high school, after Liberation — was the one friend I had in San Felipe that I knew best. He was indeed, as is said of such people, easy to know. He not only expected familiarity, he practically demanded it, though of course he had his own secret brooding moments, such as the time in our junior year, in high school, when he believed I was interested in the girl he was courting, Nelia, who would be our class salutatorian. (Frankie was our valedictorian.) In the middle of a discussion, for instance, or the most casual rambling conversation, he would ask, in the intense mock-serious tone he affected: What are you really thinking? What are you up to, chicol Speak up! You were either annoyed or pleased by his pressing, intrusive manner, depending on the subject or how much you were prepared to disclose about yourself. He expected you to tell him about the books you had drawn from the library, how you rated your teachers, what movies you particularly enjoyed at the Cine Oriente, which girls you thought were game or hard to get, and so on, just as he was ready to volunteer similar information for your benefit. He had this talent for picking your brains, and seemed honestly puzzled when, preoccupied with something or other, you didn't respond in kind to his eager curiosity.

He was also vain, and violent. I remember how, when we were in Grade 6, during the war, he revealed both traits in a furious outburst that stunned me and other onlookers. Our classroom then was in Building 4, in Palimbo, some three kilometers from the plaza near where both of us lived, and it was drizzling that October afternoon we were walking idly home from class. A boy from the lower grades, a thin dark boy wearing an annanga, a nipa rainshield worn like a cape about the shoulders, came running by, calling out to a group down the street to wait for him, stepping in a pool of rainwater and splattering Frankie's white pants. Frankie favored white or light-colored attire even during those long rainy weeks of our boyhood, when everyone else wore khaki or maong; it lightened his skin, made him look fairer, he said. He was wearing a raincoat then, and the muddy water had spotted just the lower part of one pant-leg; but the small boy might as well have doused him with a can, the way he reacted. He shouted for the culprit to stop, caught up with him and with one swinging blow knocked him down on the wet street. As the boy lay whimpering on his crumpled annanga, Frankie gave him a kick in the ribs, cursing all the while. He paused to hitch up the spoiled pant-leg and brush off the flecks of mud, before walking off in the lightly falling rain. In high school, he figured in at least two fights; one I recall in particular, involving as it did a much taller boy called Julian, who had a reputation for brass-knuckled infighting. I had missed the start of the fight and noticed there was a brawl under way only when the yelling of the usual knot of boys around such protagonists drew me across the plaza. I ran over to find Frankie stalking Julian with a wooden picket he had wrenched off the flower-bed fence near the kiosko gate. Blood streamed from his nose, one side of his face was bruised and livid, his white shirt was torn; but he circled his foe tauntingly, holding his club at an angle like a sword, his eyes gleaming with a kind of hateful triumph. Julian lunged forward, to be caught smack on the face by the expertly wielded club, and as he covered his face Frankie swung the plank in rapid succession against stomach and shin. Julian doubled up in pain as a policeman came blowing his whistle to disperse the noisy mob. The cop pushed the two belligerents off to the municipal building, where, Frankie was to recount proudly later, the police chief, who happened to be

his mother's cousin, congratulated him on having bested his bigger opponent.

THE same tile-roofed, colonnaded municipal hall erected during the Commonwealth, where Frankie had received what you might call the very first accolade of officialdom, would see more of him, as well as more proper praise for his finer achievements. As town mayor, he was to remain in office for a total of 14 years, including the two successive terms he served before the declaration of martial law. Only one other mayor approached Frankie's record in terms of tenure — the fiery, aristocratic Manolo Quimson, who was mayor for 11 years, counting the appointive term he served during the Occupation, which town historians tended to disregard in their municipal chronicles. After my father's house it was Frankie's office in the municipal building that was my next stop, whenever I went back to San Felipe for a visit, during all those years that he was mayor. I would arrive in the town towards noon, have lunch with my parents, take a siesta — a necessity and a habit at my age — and then walk the two blocks to the presidencia, to see Frankie. We had remained close friends after high school, though we went on to different universities — he to the UP, for law, and I to Santo Tomas, for the medical course I could never manage to finish, and which I eventually gave up for a vague sort of B.S., to my father's dismay. We had double-dated, once had shared the affections, or so I imagined, of the same girl from Holy Ghost College. In his less prosperous days in Manila, he borrowed my car, my watch, my suits — the white or cream-colored ones — despite the liability of their being a size or two larger. His vanity, I was reminded often enough, permitted him to borrow other people's clothes so long as these enhanced his charms, in his view and that of the lady whose company he kept; at a restaurant table he would keep his arms folded or held at an angle to disguise the length of my coat sleeves. I suppose he never forgot such collegiate favors, which explained, in part anyway, the comradely warmth, the cordial attention, all quite sincere, I was sure, which he bestowed on me during those occasional two- or three-day visits I made to San Felipe.

Since he was about the only real friend I had left in the old town — the others in our high school group had emigrated or settled elsewhere, as I had — I could not but appreciate his company; and grateful, too, I would bring along a pasalubong to the presidencia, an imported silk tie or a book on a subject he fancied, political theory or the history of warfare, to add to his impressive library. I would go up the front steps of the municipal hall, past the policemen and clerks and the anxious citizens paying various fees and taxes at the grilled window-counters, to the winding concrete steps that led to the second floor and Frankie's office at the end of a wide short corridor. Fabian, his secretary and bodyguard, the same faithful subaltern I had met when Frankie first ran for mayor, would take me straight into the inner office whether there were any callers or not. If there were, Frankie would dart up from his executive chair for a brotherly abrazo and saw to it that I had a drink or something while he quickly disposed of the business at hand. I would sit back on the maroon sofa, sipping my coffee, watching him suavely dismissing the last caller under the flag stretched on the wall, and once more I had to remark to myself how he never appeared to change, maintaining, as far as I could tell, the same weight since college, lean with a muscular hardness, with the same youthful line of brow and cheek, the same alert calculating gaze, his movements precise and spry as ever. I had put on a lot of weight in the last fifteen years or so, unable, despite the constant prodding of my wife and daughters, to give up certain pleasures, like beer and ice cream; I was as good as blind without my glasses, and following the example of a middle-aged, nightclubbing friend in the city, I had been dyeing my hair for the last few years; but Frankie Mangrobang seemed unchanged, he looked the same as when he was in law school and we used to see the Holy Ghost girl together in the dormitory near Mendiola, and I could not help wondering how he managed it. He was younger than I by only a year, having been born in September 1933. He had, as I knew only too well, a passion for keeping fit. He didn't smoke, so disliked cigarettes that he kept no ashtrays in his office, to the discomfiture of the addicts who called on him; a story he relished recounting concerned the chain-smoking general who had to cool his heels in the outer room until he got the point. If

he drank at all, he limited himself to a single beer, which he rarely finished; more, he said, gave him a rash, which I suspected was merely an invention, an excuse for avoiding alcohol. He was especially conscientious in the matter of food, never touching anything fatty or spiced, and at the official banquets he hosted he was conspicuous in his choice of what he cared to eat — usually a few cutlets of boiled fish, a plate of beans or pechay. His favorite dish, I learned from his amused wife Mely, a lovely statuesque Pampaguena whose cooking he would not allow himself to enjoy, was saluyot stewed with milkfish, never with the pork that was customary in the predominantly Ilocano town. During his first term, in the midsixties, he took up yoga and karate, to sharpen and discipline, as he put it, body, mind, and spirit. He jogged daily, played a great deal of tennis, swam at least twice a week at the sports club he and the last congressman of the district had put up behind the municipal building. He was, in sum, a man who took very good care of himself. Yet time, I would find myself thinking in the course of a visit, ought by now to have wrought a few visible changes in the man; but except for a crease on his forehead which appeared only when he was pondering some problem, it seemed impossible to discern any alteration about him, physical or otherwise. Even the mock-serious way he assumed when he wanted me to reveal whatever it was he thought I was withholding was exactly as it had been when we were both at the San Felipe Secondary Institute. The oratorial flourishes with which he sometimes accented his conversation; the mannerisms, the forefinger stroking an earlobe, the open upraised hand chopping at the air to emphasize a point; and the brisk rhythmic swing of his walk — these he had carried over from the time we were twenty or twenty-one, and coupled with the seemingly unaging face, the unchanging physique, made me feel sometimes in his presence a sense of something arrested and incomplete, as though literally and quite disturbingly he had, since we were students in Manila, not grown at all. But I felt obliged to be fair, even in my unexpressed reflections about my friend, and wondered uneasily to what extent envy influenced my assessment of his youthful good looks. As for the vanity, and the violence of old — these too, it appeared, had never left him; the former evident in his dress, white

or cream as always, though not without a dash of color now, a red or dark blue shirt worn under the light-toned coat tailored in Manila; the latter not so casually, publicly exhibited, as befitted a man in his position. A cousin, a former journalist I had always admired for his scrupulous honesty and his distaste for gossip, had occasion once to tell me of the mayor's treatment of some prisoners in the municipal jail, particularly newly captured dissidents during the first two years of martial law. Frankie Mangrobang, my cousin said, had chosen to interrogate the prisoners himself, subjecting them to such ingenious tortures that the local PC lieutenant, a fresh PMA graduate, had to ask the provincial commander to transfer the detainees to the stockade in the next town, before they went to their graves with their intelligence secrets. From my father's neighbor, Dr. Salonga, I learned how Frankie dealt with drunks and such troublemakers picked up by the police, how he would urge them to stick to the sober and narrow path with a memorable dunking in a toilet bowl. (I gave less credence to other reports about my friend, about his involvement in an unsolved murder committed that year I was abroad; about his misuse of funds, his susceptibility to bribery. I was convinced of his honesty: if he was corrupt at all, it was about something else, not money.) The overall effect, I gathered from Dr. Salonga and the barber I patronized when I was in town, was more peace and order than the town had ever known — somewhat like the first year of the Occupation, the barber said, when looters and thieves were decapitated by the Japanese right there in the plaza. The affluent and the business-minded, I was told, were heartened to have a nononsense mayor who refused to discriminate between burglars and rebels, but taught them their lessons with equal zest. Thus, as in high school, he had his share of enemies, this time more implacable and numerous. The New People's Army, rumor had it, had targetted him for assassination even before martial law. But he was a very lucky person, Frankie assured me jauntily, and he believed it, too, to judge from his readiness, or so he told me, to go on impromptu inspection trips to the eastern barrios, where rebel bands had reportedly been sighted.

IF FRANKIE Mangrobang's lean dark youthfulness appeared never to change, the town of San Felipe did undergo a remarkable transformation under his leadership. The town had changed in so many ways it seemed only an effort of memory and will could convince me that this was the same place Frankie and I had known as schoolboys. Each visit I made revealed new aspects of the landscape, aside from the obvious constructions, the infrastructure of the ruling dispensation. The old pebbled road from the provincial capital had been widened and cemented, and so had the main thoroughfare, renamed Bagong Lipunan Avenue, and most of the principal streets. The houses in the poblacion, both the old and the new, all looked recently painted, each street or neighborhood sporting the prescribed color. (Green where my parents still lived in the old house, to which my mother, with her profusion of potted plants, posed no objections.) The iron-girdered bridge had been replaced by a concrete span with precast hollow-block railings, the massive squarish structure regularly whitewashed and looking as though it were immune to the grime and smoke of the daily traffic. In their bright blue and yellow uniforms, the OHU workers, the Ornament and Hygiene Units supervised by Mely Mangrobang bustled about all day, scrubbing, painting, sweeping away every leaf and bit of trash that violated the immaculate pavements, especially in the vicinity of the plaza, where the changes were so varied and, to me, really startling, the scene could well have been transported from another land and imposed on the original square. One April noon in 1977, Frankie and I stood in the police outpost by the municipal building gate, on the main avenue, while he pointed out, with a fond propriety air, the new structures in the plaza before us. Yesterday's grassy square with its central kiosko and borders of acacia trees had been transformed into a cemented park studded, from where we stood, with what looked like rows of small white rectangles, actually concrete modernistic benches arranged in several concentric patterns. In the center, where thirty years ago we had our high school graduation ball around the now vanished kiosko, stood a white monolith like an elevated altar with glittering rock-faced sides — a fountain, Frankie said, but that day rt was not wearing its crown of sprinkling water; the system had

broken down, a pipe somewhere was being repaired. Except for one tiny figure, a woman walking bent under a bundle propped on her head, no one was about in the park at that hour, and the vertical sun cast down its white glare on the treeless park and made no shadows among the tomb-like benches. The white brightness hurt my eyes and I was relieved when Frankie asked if I was ready for lunch and we drove down to his favorite Chinese restaurant, near the new supermarket. The following September, I was to have a closer view of what Frankie called his park project, and in a more gentle light. It was late afternoon of that year's anniversary of the New Society, and I was in town to visit my mother, who was ailing. Frankie had me fetched from the house to attend the celebration in the plaza, and as the sun waned over the church to the west, I sat in the row reserved for special guests and watched relays of performers on the wide concrete ramp in front of the revived fountain. Choral groups and folk dance troupes from the San Felipe Secondary Institute, the Concepcion Memorial Colleges, and the public agricultural high school in Malacampa; a solemn off-key quartet from the PC detachment and a roundly applauded rondalla composed of municipal employees; even a tiny band of dancers from the Aeta settlement in Papa-ac — they all performed for the townsfolk assembled in neat, obedient ranks among the concrete circling benches, while the flags and banners fluttered in the dimming light of the clear sky. After the songs and dances, the provincial commander delivered an impassioned speech, mostly about the need for constant vigilance to preserve the gains of the new order, and then Frankie went up the ramp to conclude the day's festivities. I gazed up at him standing there in his white monogrammed bush jacket and white sharp-creased pants, looking young and lean as ever on the now lighted ramp, speaking into the microphone in a conversational baritone, addressing his townspeople gently, familiarly, as a father would his children, in contrast to the scolding rhetoric of the PC colonel. Only at the end of his talk did he resort, and briefly at that, to the dramatic gestures of the open upraised hand, the old oratorical style that had won him gold medals in high school and at the state university. From the plaza we proceeded to his stately house by the

river, the massive turreted residence built during his second term where he was giving a dinner. For guests he had a dozen or so dignitaries, including a former senator now in the resort club business; a relaxed, convivial affair, as it turned out, and I quickly shed the unease of an intruder. Frankie had his boiled fish, with a green salad this time, everyone else had lechon and caldereta and such banquet fare. His radiantly beautiful wife rose every now and then to check on the serving maids, assisted in this task by one of their twin daughters, Rina, who had come home from the conservatory to attend the celebration. We lingered over the coffee and brandy, Frankie sipping rather superiorly, I thought, at his mineral water, the talk revolving around the forthcoming elections. The ex-senator turned businessman smoked his cigar and tried a wary joke about the honesty of the polls, which drew some half-hearted laughs; the colonel would regard the elections strictly as an experiment, to be judged by the outcome; the chairman and liberal arts dean of the Concepcion Memorial Colleges, Frankie's uncle, thought it was time the right of suffrage was restored, truly and completely, to the people. Freedom, liberty, justice, political rights — these were what our heroes fought and died for, Frankie's uncle declared, a man with a thick mane of white hair and melancholy eyes behind rimless bifocals, flushed with brandy. To be able, in a real election, to choose their leaders or to replace those in power with men who were more honest, more worthy — that was the birthright of all Filipinos. . . With all due respect to his Tio Pepe, Frankie interrupted, he would have to disagree. His voice was polite but taut with a hint of suppressed anger. The people had to be guided, instructed, he said; why, it was plain as day — they were like children, weren't they, yet unformed, so immature and ignorant, so vulnerable to the blandishments of those who sought the destruction of the Republic. And like children, they had to be protected, they had to be told what to do. . . His uncle, the college dean, looked at us around the table with his sad eyes, shrugged, and drank his brandy. Mely Mangrobang asked if we cared to have some music, she would play the piano and Rina would sing an aria.

FRANKIE Mangrobang died in March of the following year. The day after I got the wire I left for San Felipe. My friend's death had been as sudden as it had been prosaic, I learned from the faithful Fabian — he had slipped from a coconut-trunk bridge and broken his neck on the dry rocky stream below, while hosting a picnic for balikbayan townmates, some Japanese investors, and a group of visiting American Rotarians. Now he lay in state, in a flag-draped casket painted over to look like gold in the assembly hall of the municipal building, beneath the portraits of his predecessors, the men who had presided over the fortunes of San Felipe since the turn of the century. In death, my friend looked as young as ever, his face unlined and smooth, unchanged; if anything, he appeared even younger, frozen in a cosmetic adolescent immaturity as the people filed past the bier and the bright lights and the helmeted honor guard. I condoled with his stricken widow and his aging brothers, and left town early the next morning, before the final rites.

The Fires of the Sun, the Crystalline Sky the Dark Ocean, and Some Women and/or Girls, Including Napoleon Espiritu's First Granddaughter

L

IGHT, laughter, clarity, and strength: these, to Napoleon Espiritu, are the proper attributes of youth, which parents must safeguard zealously against all forms of ambiguity, falsehood, and dissipation; so that when his youngest daughter Marissa so much as hints that she would like to celebrate her sixteenth birthday at a discotheque which has an unsavory reputation, he has heard, as the hangout of youths of indeterminate sex, the scene, too, of a nearshooting incident, he almost hits the ceiling, as the expression goes, and prevails upon her to hold the party at home, this being a spacious two-story house on Kanlaon Street, in Santa Mesa Heights, Quezon City. Now to the dinner-dance come about twenty of Marissa's classmates at St. Theresa's, where she is in her first year A .B ., and almost twice that number of boys, none of whom, as far as Espiritu can gather, is a gate-crasher. That there should be such an excess of boys strikes him as unusual and disturbing, like some violation of a ceremonious order of things, an abuse, it seems, of his hospitality. Watching the boys, with their thick shaggy hair, tight pants and black heeled boots, doing the frug or the jala-jala or whatever it is they call dancing in these raucous and chaotic times, their partners likewise in boots and pants, or in skirts cut above the knee, in the style of band majorettes (Marissa, to his dismay, sports such an outfit, red, with op art prints); watching them all shaking and stamping to the combo's African beat, absolutely without bashfulness, without the timid, quiet niceness of previous generations,

Espiritu finds himself fearing for his daughter, fearing for her safety among boys who appear to him to be wise beyond their teen-age years but who care little if at all for honor, gallantry towards women, stable employment, and service to club, country, and people. Once in the course of the evening he actually winces at the thought that already Marissa might be in love with one of them. Girls at sixteen, he is aware, do fall in love totally and foolishly, sometimes with a doomed and desperate passion neither mothers superior nor roundthe-world trips can exorcise. He has a niece who, the year she was to graduate from the conservatory, flew off to Tokyo with her middte-aged lover, a salesman for a memorial park, of all people, and the father of five grown children, in the process causing her father, Espiritu's brother-in-law, to suffer a fatal coronary; but that is another story. This is Espiritu's and it begins, more or less, on the night of Marissa's birthday party. A word about Marissa: she has her mother's patrician features, but with a pixieish nature all her own, an attractive and humorous openness. She is also warm-hearted, trusting, sentimental, an ardent follower of Raul Manglapus, Steve McQueen, and Ilya Kuryakin; a fervent believer in the constant triumph of justice and decency and therefore vulnerable, touchingly so. The assistant secretary of her college sodality, Marissa (Maria Luisa Corazon on her baptismal certificate, the third name a grateful salutation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to whom her mother had prayed for a successful caesarean) is at that age when she can still count as one of her major achievements her success in persuading Basilio, the family driver, to allow the Church to sanctify his union with Mrs. Garcia's cook down the street. When the combo, a sideburned crew in red jackets, takes a break, she dances all the Sinatra and Streisand ballads they play on the stereo with just one fellow, notes Napoleon Espiritu: a rather chubby, unsmiling boy with a Beatle mop who has been chainsmoking and crushing his butts on the terrace floor with a swivel of his boot. He dances hunched a bit forward, as though poised to wrestle, and this only accents for Espiritu the hostile, unscrupulous stare of the boy's small round eyes. The boy reminds him of the round-cheeked young man who was in all the papers not too long ago for bludgeoning his wife in a jealous frenzy, dismembering her

and then delivering the severed parts, wrapped separately in newspaper pages, to the front door of her alleged lover. Is this the boy, Espiritu wonders anxiously, who will receive his daughter's first committed kiss? That stout, possessive arm about her waist as they dance to that imploring song about people needing people — how pure, gentle, and loyal is it? Must he touch his oily cheek to hers and hold her hand so, their fingers intertwined? Saddened and annoyed by the tone of these reflections, Espiritu leaves his post on the terrace to make himself a Scotch and soda. This he does with a twinge of guilt, his back to his wife, who has often pleaded with him to give up his drinking, if he wants to live longer, for her and the children's sake, etc; but after the first long warming sip that seems to spread outward from his chest and fill the house, momentarily, with a pleasant golden mist, such a flush of well-being charges through his body, erasing all qualms, that he decides to join his wife in the dining room. Drink in hand, and something like wit on his tongue, he approaches her and her sister, Marissa's aunt, one of those strict, spinsterish women who hover about solicitously at family parties; with them in earnest conversation at the table, which has been cleared partly to accommodate a jumble of gifts, is one of Marissa's classmates. The girl rises and smiles shyly; she is tall for sixteen or seventeen, taller than Espiritu, who is but five feet five, and as he looks up at her through his plastic-framed glasses, he has the feeling of being appraised and challenged. She is, he sees at once, pretty in a tentative way; someday she will be beautiful, when time has fulfilled the promise of her face, which at the moment is friendly, candid, and eager. Her hair is cut simply, framing her face and falling straight and curving slightly inward where it touches the shoulders of her blouse, white, with black broad stripes, in pleasing contrast to the yellow of her palazzo pants; and she has a pouty lower lip ready to be trained, Espiritu feels, in sorrow, strife or love. All these details impinge on him in the space of a few seconds, as though the whiskey he has denied himself for over a month has not only revived his aging senses but intensified their capacity for absorption. Josephine Vitug, his wife says. The daughter of Marianing Vlt ug. Surely you remember... in San Fernando... Hello, Josephine,

says Espiritu in his modulated baritone; the virile sound of his voice banishes the sense of being shorter and scrutinized by those clear level eyes. He motions her back to her chair: Sit down, please sit down; but the girl does not, and with an abrupt, awkward formality she extends her hand, and to clasp it (brittle and clammy), he has to transfer his drink to his left, and spills a drop or two on the glasstopped table. You're drinking again, Leon, his sister-in-law Chi tang chides him. I'm very glad to meet you, sir, says Josephine Vitug (a breathless lilt to her voice) and, glancing about, You have a nice home, sir, and, This is my first time here. You should be dancing and enjoying yourself, Espiritu tells her, and his wife cuts in, She doesn't dance much, she says she's too tall for the boys. The girl laughs, nodding to confirm the statement, and in the brief dazzle of her laughter Espiritu sees the two front teeth jammed together and seemingly pushed outward by the mutual pressure: to him a most appealing aspect of her charms. But these days people don't have to be the same height to enjoy dancing, he addresses her with what he considers a mischievous intonation. I am enjoying myself, really, sir, it's all right, she replies quite solemnly. He wishes she would laugh again, and show him those lovely incomparable twin front teeth. But she has sat down and, his wife is asking her something about school, about Marissa, and, dejected, he glances about for other company, espies his two married daughters and their husbands in the living room. He starts towards them but falters when he notices how engrossed they are in conversation (nothing escapes his refreshed observant eye tonight), their heads bobbing animatedly over a subject he is certain does not concern him in the least; besides, he has not been comfortable of late with Ramon, his older son-in-law, a dour, argumentative lawyer who never fails to remind him at every opportunity to take the cursillo. He replenishes his drink, carries it past Chitang's disapproving stare and his wife's anxious gaze and the girl Josephine Vitug's courteous smile, and goes upstairs, having decided to watch a little TV. Aside from the 23-inch set in the living room, he keeps a table model in what he now calls his den, his son's bedroom before the boy left two years ago for graduate studies in Berkeley.

CONSIDER him closely as, glum and overweight, he ascends the stairs and plods down the hallway to the last room which still bears the possessions of his absent son: framed photographs of a high school gang, a basketball team, a picnic, with the girls in jeans, in Tagaytay; a tennis racket; paperbacks, mostly Ian Fleming and Eric Ambler thrillers; a college pennant, science textbooks, and, in a corner, a bare shoe-tree. Espiritu surveys these objects affectionately as he closes the door to the sounds of the party and settles into the leather armchair he has installed in the room, taking care not to crumple his embroidered baro, a gift from his daughters. Eddie has not written for over a month; he wonders if anything is amiss, and his face tightens with remembrance (the earnest youth reviewing for an exam, late at night, in a haze of cigarette smoke; the banter at table; the boxing championship they went to, once, when it rained and they had to drive home through a sudden flood). But not for long; the television screen flickers into color and sound, and habit, instinct, a kind of professional reflex, rivets him to the electronic image, for he is, at fifty-six, vice-president for radio and TV of the Republic Advertising and Marketing Corporation. Now a critical gleam narrows his eyes, with their saturnine brows; his aquiline nose, inherited from his maternal grandfather, a Basque seaman shipwrecked off Luzon, seems to sniff disdainfully at the program he has chanced upon, a documentary on Vietnam. Like a school of black iron fish, helicopters swim above the paddy fields. A village burns, and a woman, her face halfhidden by a shawl and who may well be a mother in another war in Russia or France or Algeria, weeps over a dead child mutilated by napalm. A portion of his brain, that secret, compressed segment of it that once could grasp compassionately at symbols when he was, in a time he does not care to recall, a university professor of literature and rhetoric, tells him that he should feel something, shock, outrage, protest; but he is unmoved, observing only that the narrator tends to be excitable and unconvincing, that pace and continuity leave much to be desired: still, a commendable job, the photography stark and credible. Two of the succeeding commercials he recognizes with pleasure as the handiwork of his department: just the right touch of bland sophistication in one, for a tire company; a suitable amount of sensual sentimentalism in the other, for a perfume firm.

He sits through half of a Western, his attention wandering, conscious that he is less than happy, before he slides into a half sleep, the gunfire, the relentless horsehooves, and the combo music downstairs fusing and fading away. He wakes to find his glass fallen on the floor and a canned musical that he tries in vain to identify ending in a burst of choral voices and swaying gossamer gowns. By his Rolex watch it is ten past eleven. Stiffly he rises to his full height, which, as has been noted earlier, is not one of his more impressive qualities, and as though to rid his head of traces of sleep, combs a pudgy hand through his thinning hair. He switches off the TV, smooths his baro over his paunch, and emerges into the blast of rock V roll blaring through the house; and precisely in that moment when he stands poised, as it were, on a high remote point between his solitude and the party below, balanced in a neutral space in which he is perfectly alone and free of any desire, worry, compulsion or importunity, it is then, in a sort of peaceful trance, as sometimes happens in the instant of waking, that he remembers who the girl Josephine Vitug reminds him of; and the memory, so sudden, so unexpected, seems to arrest him in nnd-stride like a shout for him to stop and listen, and he stands in the hallway, mouth agape, eyes stunned in wonder. Now it is not exceedingly strange for one to be visited by a stray recollection of someone known in a faraway time; the atmosphere of all our days surrounds us even in our sleep, and in the bright sun lost voices may murmur at us from this ancient air; but certainly it is cause for wonder to be confronted all at once by a remembrance so vivid that in its light you can see, and if you reach out you think you can touch, the mole on the brow and the down on the cheek of a girl you loved, say, more than thirty years ago. This is not for Napoleon Espiritu, who regards himself as a creator and interpreter of present reality, a familiar phenomenon, and its very strangeness disarms him and draws him and swiftly, without the slightest strain, he moves in his mind from the image of Veronica Rodriguez, for that was her name, to a memory of the house where she once lived, the streets of the town when he loved hen the plaza where they walked towards a sound of bells or perhaps music or the scent of leafsmoke beneath the trees. From the sala of the Rodriguez house he could see the highway beneath an eave of

leaves, the north-bound buses making a distant hum through the quiet green and golden afternoon, and on the street below the window the calesas passed, and beyond the street was the high school with its cemented open-air auditorium that the Happy Hearts Club used for its New Year's ball. One New Year's Eve when he was twenty or twenty-one, he sat in that sala, a corsage for Veronica Rodriguez held stiffly in both hands, wanting a cigarette but not daring to light one before her mother, who disapproved vehemently of smoking, he had been told, and his throat was therefore parched, aching and taut with love, and down the street the orchestra had begun to play a tango where the strung bulbs shone like the colored lights of a fair seen from across a dark and windy field; and at last she emerged from her room in that casual way of hers, the fond questioning humor in her eyes. For a few seconds or an entire minute, he watches her approach, growing ever clearer from the far end of the high-ceilinged room of the distant house; his mouth begins to utter her name, and in that instant she is gone. Does age focus the memory, as it is supposed to sharpen the dimming eyes for a while, the earth and its roads and oceans bathed in a poignant light before the coming down of the last darkness? Astonished, fascinated, and immensely pleased that the past could still reach him here after so many journeys, roles, and disguises, he returns to the crowded terrace, to survey his domain and his daughter's guests. He is not yet completely free of the spell that has followed him, and the crowd and the chatter conjure the ground floor of that other house where Veronica Rodriguez's father who was mayor would convene his followers for sessions of rum, poker, and racy talk; the florid, laughing man would insist on offering him at least a sip from someone's glass before allowing him with an approving pat to proceed upstairs where she waited, and the day and the summer waned, the sheen of leaves reflected on the low sill by the upright piano and already the thunder of June muttered in the heat, and he thought of the storms of August and September sweeping the driveway of the colegio in Manila where she was an interna, staid and remote suddenly in the Sunday visitors' hall with its pedestaled plants and polished floor and stern medieval saints on the wall clutching bleeding hearts and crowns of thorns. The combo launches into another rocking, foot-stamping

number, and with this incongruous melody for a background, Napoleon Epiritu finds himself thinking still of the house where he carried his love like a hard-earned gift week after week for a whole summer's length, long before marriage and death would empty its rooms as ruthlessly as the disasters of war. The last time he had driven by with the family to a fiesta in the next town where his parents lay in a common tomb, the house could have been any other glimpsed from a speeding car, its single notable feature a tin signboard above the gate proclaiming it now to be a rice bodega. He had felt no curiosity, nothing except the irritated wish that the shattered asphalt street would be repaired, and he had not thought at all of the distances he had traveled from his youth, of the emotions welling up like blood swiftly at such words as love, goodbye, always, and his face against the pulse in her warm throat one evening in the car he had borrowed, an uncle's dilapidated Ford, for the half-hour trip from his home town and (after waiting on the corner, in the shadow of the high school building) for the drive to the picnic grounds near the dam in Santa Ignacia, between the low hills planted to mango, the scent of the green ungathered fruit mingling with the powdered warmth of the girl kissing him with such intolerable shyness, he would recall it all later like the last innocence while he lay, drunk and sentimental, in the arms of a blonde whore in a foreign city. The abandoned house, the lights like those of a fair across a dark and windy field, the smell of green mango on a warm night, and the face of the girl dead and forgotten all these years seem now to distill into a weight in his chest. His wife is right to worry about his drinking, but for the wrong reasons, he tells himself. Whiskey, even a modest amount, tends to expose him, to render him susceptible at his age to all sorts of fancies; the mind softens and acquires a nocturnal glow, like a solitary lamp, resisting the logic of such daytime entities as life insurance, tax deductions, and dentistry. AMUSED by this fit of nostalgia, he peers at the dancers now, searching for Marissa and her chubby, Beatle-mopped partner when his married daughters and their husbands come to take their leave. He and his wife walk them to the front door; Ditas, pretty and

pregnant, lingers long enough to tell him, in a stage-whisper of exaggerated alarm, to cut out his drinking once and for all, for goodness sake. Yes, he will, he vows with mock solemnity, if her next child is a girl; six grandsons between her and her sister should be more than enough; how about a granddaughter for a change? That's a deal then, huh, Pop? laughs Ditas and he makes as if to give her a karate chop, then rumples her page-boy hair; they are pals, as he cannot manage to be with Lissa, his elder daughter, the wife of the argumentative lawyer. Good night then, goodbye, and see you next Sunday (all is well with the world); and he turns and finds himself staring at the girl Josephine Vitug. She is in a corner of the living room, using the phone, speaking into it with such an intensity of concentration, such a distraught expression he half-expects her to burst into tears. It is as if she were addressing the mouthpiece itself, pleading with it to answer while she kneads it in both hands. Her resemblance to Veronica Rodriguez is so uncanny, so incredibly close he concludes it must be a trick of angles or light. Slowly she replaces the phone in its cradle, and for a moment she stands there biting her lip, blinking mournfully, tall and slender under the blue-gray Manansala, his golf trophies on a shelf, the photographs of his daughters. His impulse is to ask what is the matter; she is, after all, a guest in his house, and for the duration is he not responsible for her well-being, her peace of mind? What tragic message has reached her from the vast night outside this well-lighted room? Anything wrongv Josephine? he asks and her frown changes into blank surprise and then seeing who it is, she smiles and shakes her head, the way girls do, with a flip of hair from their brows, to dismiss a style of footwear or a philosophical problem. My brother can't come to fetch me, she says in a voice so dolorous it is all he can do not to touch a consoling hand to her fair grieving face. He went to another party in Karnuning, and he's supposed to pick me up here, the no-goood double-crosser, the car broke down he says, but you don't know my brother, sir, he's done this to me before, that bolero, saying the car broke down and all the time he was driving around with his barkada with some girls they Picked up at the Luneta. Her intensity is directed not so much at him as at the injustice, the callous malice of brothers and men in

general; and as she speaks, her small breasts heaving, an abstracted anger seems to glaze her eyes, and this, Napoleon Espiritu finds moving, like the hopeless protests of one destined for an excess of suffering in this life and, therefore, even before the first blow, deserving of compassion. But Josephine, he tells her, your classmates or maybe some of the boys can take you home. At once he realizes it is somehow the wrong thing to say; the look she focuses on him is hurt and uncomprehending, and, inhaling deeply, as if it were an effort not to be angry, too, with him, she explains that yes, indeed, there are some people tonight, and she nods with that characteristic toss of her hair towards a cluster of boys to one side of the terrace; some people, she repeats contemptuously, raising her voice and he shuffling closer to hear above the drums and the electric guitars, will insist on driving her home, but of course, she will not even consider going along with such a — a bunch of creeps, even if it means trouble. The abrupt haughtiness, curling the lips that earlier he thought could pout only in sorrow or love, does not surprise him at ail, although he feels that it should, and that he must show some disapproval. Well, then, he will have her driven home in his car, would that be all right with her? He has the curious sensation of standing aside, waiting and watching himself and the girl as she considers his offer. Her face undergoes another quick transformation, a portrait that some fastidious artist keeps erasing and altering: the harshness dissolves into pure relief. Thank you, sir, oh thank you, you've saved my life, really, really: and at. last (a child still, he reminds himself) she laughs, revealing the twin front teeth pressed together, and he chuckles, pleased that it is within his power to dispel her misery. Now with firm paternal authority adding more timber to his executive's baritone, a trifle too loud in the lull following a concluding crash of drums, he tells her to go on join the party, everything's going to be all right, dismissing her with solicitous pats on the small of her back; and obediently she strides across the living room to the terrace where she is intercepted by a gangling youth and led into a slow twist She goes through the jerking motions with a kind of languid disdain, chin lifted siightiy, apparently uninterested in the boy gyrating before her. Her palazzo pants. Napoleon Espiritu can

very well see now that she is "twisting, reveal the true shape of her thighs, not thin at all, as might be expected-for her height and age, but slender, yes, that is the word indeed, longish and compact, their very lines suggesting the fullness that would come in a few years' time. Now when was it he last made love to a woman taller than he? Shameless, incurable lecher, he upbraids himself, and sighing, swallowing a taste of Scotch (Ditas is right), he steps out to the driveway. A walk is what he needs, he decides, an easing of tight muscles, cleanness, air, and space. A group of boys near the gate disperse at his approach, one of them dropping behind the hedge what looks like a bottle. Boys, no hard drinks, he warns. You there, what was that bottle you were holding? They maintain that they haven't been drinking, no, sir, and sternly he waves them back to the terrace before striding out into the street. He glances skyward: a few stars drifting beyond a high wind, above the ceaseless rock cn' roil, the graceless cacophony that is like an affirmation of anarchy, a defiance of all formality, Tightness, order, and the traditional courtesies of the human heart. In this reflective mood he thinks of the music of his youth, -waltzes and tangos with courtly titles; swing numbers, too, and rhumbas. All these he had danced with Veronica Rodriguez, and once they won a prize in a ballroom contest: where? when? — but his memory, after its exertions, cannot reach that far. It is as it should be: it isn't wise to strain that faculty, and by the same token he should take care not to tire his heart, lungs, kidneys, and other organs, as well as his slow, stiffening limbs. God is the last refuge of the middleaged; one of his script writers had said that, the cynical sonofabitch. And then pieces of a poem he once knew by heart and declaimed before worshipful students make him pause: things fall apart, the center cannot hold; and it is true, he muses, all movement is centrifugal, Nawasa water draining outward in weakening trickles, the cities sprawling out to the countryside, the rockets shooting moon ward from the earth's gravity, the galaxies drifting away to the edge of the universe, and a man's daughters set on flight from the security of a father's love, conspiring with fat conscienceless young men who are capable of strangling their wives or forcing them to work as hostesses in clubs frequented by BIR crooks, smugglers, corrupt policemen, and politicians.

He goes past the line of cars to the end of the block, stands there by the lamp-post on the corner looking alternately, in four directions, at the clean, softly illuminated streets leading out to the dark boundaries of the district. Here the music from his house sounds subdued, tolerable, and he can view the excess of boys more kindly. He swings his arms, breathing deeply of the cooling air, and what he exhales he imagines as the last harmful vapors of the whiskey. His head is clear, his heartbeat normal; Dr. Cunanan would again congratulate him on his blood pressure. A lot of strength yet in the old horse: knock on wood, as Marissa would say; but there's no wood to knock on, and he snorts at the superstition. He starts back, his elongated shadow cast by the corner streetlight gliding along the concrete fences topped with steel spikes or broken glass to keep out thieves, salesmen of insect repellents and kidnappers of young girls. THE PARTY is breaking up. His wife is strict about ending parties at midnight, bless her staid no-nonsense soul, and he comes upon a feminine flurry for bags, shawls, and heaven-knows-what girlish odds and ends; joyous little shrieks and squeals up and down the stairs and out the door; repeated birthday wishes and thank you's and goodbye's, all accustomed sights and sounds to this gentle, beaming, hospitable father of daughters. Across the room Josephine Vitug sits examining her cuticles, chewing gum, and ignoring the bedlam of horn blasts and adolescent cries, the common herd roaring away in cars. Have you seen Basilio? he asks his wife. Marissa pulls him around, to inform him that Basilio drove for Ditas and Tony in the Mercedes and has not come back; should Josephine wait? Why don't they take her home in the smaller car, says Marissa, she would like to come along herself for the ride, Daddy-dums can drive for them, can't he? Of course, he assures her, of course he can, impelled by her urgency and the prospect of driving through streets cleared of traffic, for a veteran motorist like him a rare pleasure nowadays. Leon, better wait for Basilio, his wife says, but he always has his way with her in such matters of relative unimportance; giving Marissa's friend a lift is not in the same class

as, say, buying a lot in Loyola Heights, which he did recently on her advice. Hurrying lest Basilio arrive and deny him the trip on such a splendid, exciting night, he gets the keys from the beer mug on the china cabinet, crosses the lawn to the garage. He bought the Consul in 1962 for his son; since the boy's departure, he has been using it on weekends, when Basilio goes home to Pampanga. In the back seat are his golf clubs; he bends to take them out, hesitates, leaves them where they are. He backs out to the porte-cochere, where Marissa and Josephine Vitug, in that order (perfect: he won't have to watch his elbow), slide in beside him. He shifts to first, and his wife is there to his left, following the car to the gate and saying careful, Leon, careful. She has a way of stretching out the two syllables that used to irritate him, but no longer: Care-ful, she said on their honeymoon, and Care-ful, he hears it still, when he is replacing a blown fuse or carrying his youngest grandson, the anxious tone unchanged, like her faith, hope, and charity, which seem inexhaustible. He reaches out to pat her arm reassuringly, and steps on the clutch to let the car glide down from the gate. They are halfway down the block when the Mercedes comes rushing up, Basilio signaling with his headlights; and as if challenged to a race, Napoleon Espiritu speeds away, turns sharply at the corner, tires squealing. Daddy, please, don't kill us all! cries Marissa. She is not at all alarmed, he knows, but like most sixteenyear-olds she likes to sound aggrieved and melodramatic. It occurs to him that he has not bothered to find out where her friend's home is, and this he now asks, slowing down. Paranaque, sir, says Josephine Vitug, and then the two girls are giggling together. Daddy, gasps Marissa, you are funny. We're going the wrong way — all along I thought you knew\ You spoke too soon, my dear girl, he counters as he turns right into Banaue, towards Quezon Boulevard Extension and Espaiia. All the way to Quiapo the girls keep up their chatter, snatches of it distracting him now and then from the zone of the headlights: the names of boys, Ricky, Tinggoy, Alan, and, mentioned quite a few times, an apparently irresistible character named Edgar, who, alas, sayang, could not come to the party because, he said, he was down with the flu. Was it the flu, really, or Flory? says Marissa, and this last remark is trailed by more giggles,

and what he guesses to be a spirited exchange of pinches. Before Quezon Bridge he swerves just in time to avoid hitting a scavenger's cart. Daddy! his daughter once more rebukes him in that theatrical manner she affects these days. The nearmishap has interrupted their gossip, and they do not resume it, and he is aware of them leaning forward as if to watch for obstructions looming in the headlights. The exhibition of his clumsiness is like a fourth presence in the car, and he is feeling sullen, almost betrayed, until they pass the Luneta and it strikes him that, from the moment he backed out from the garage, he has been intent on impressing Josephine Vitug with his knowledge, vigor, and precision at the wheel. He has been driving with the concentration of a pilot ferrying cargo on a perilous flight over sea and mountains; the parallel is so absurd he almost laughs out loud, and an onrush of good spirits wells up in him as the wind along the Boulevard meets the car and skims over it, laden with the essence of the sea, with intimations of undiscovered shores. He asks if they would like to stop for ice cream or coffee in one of the seaside restaurants. No, sir, thank you, replies Josephine Vitug and Daddy it's late! says Marissa; and the exchange sets them off talking again, but less animatedly now, a sort of sleepy chirping, like birds nesting down for the night. The lights of the Boulevard slide away behind them, and following Josephine's directions, he turns into a tree-shrouded road with long dark intervals between lamp-posts leading to a compound beside the sea, one of those housing complexes with a central courtyard and a guardhouse by the entrance. He eases the car inside, the headlights glancing off a row of green bungalows. Her house is that one, the second from the left, with the porch light; a door opens, and a woman calls out, nasal and complaining in the brief stillness left by the receding sea: is that you, Jo? My mother, says Josephine Vitug, and Thank you, Mr. Espiritu, Happy Birthday, Marissa, good night, it's another day already, good morning pala (laughing), ba-bye, call me, Marissa, thank you! and then she is gone. His daughter falls asleep on the way back, and he reaches across to lock the door on her side. It is almost dawn of the first day of her seventeenth year on earth: ahead wait what gifts of destiny, he wonders, the rich horn, the spreading laurel tree, as

Yeats prayed for his daughter (how long has it been since he last prayed?), and also, possibly, since only a small portion of life can be under our control, the cheap, flooded apartment, bitter quarrels, incurable pain, the habits of despair. For the girl Josephine, too, laughing like Veronica Rodriguez when she was nineteen and unshadowed by the blight that would claim her gradually, first her bones, then her blood, then her brain, disfiguring her in the end like a bath of acid; perhaps for her also, a house would share the fate of others violated by war, time or commerce. Manila's empty streets, with their potholes and film of dirt, seem to illustrate the ravages of life, one's utter helplessness in the face of the destructive enemies of love, which are violence, spite, loneliness, and death. The desolation of the city reminds him of a widow he once knew, Fely, more than ten years his senior, yet in her thirties as supple and succulent as a girl of eighteen. She was a cashier in a cabaret at the end of the streetcar line in San Juan, and in the year they were lovers (did she have others?), he would sit drinking near her booth, contemplating her unbelievable young-girl face and sometimes hating himself for wanting to wait through the smoky hours for the time when they would share a cab through the silent streets to her apartment where she still kept her husband's books, his pipes, his shoes and ties, even the shirt with its rustcolored spots that had been the sprayed blood when he stabbed a kitchen knife into his throat. If she were still alive and they should happen to meet, would he be able to recognize the face that the years must have altered and ruined eventually? He gives up trying to recall her married name when he reaches his home street. The concrete facsimile of a young leafless tree, the street sign hanging from a branch, is a welcome sight after the extended drive: neat, ornamental, an emblem of the neighborhood which, by some geological good fortune, never suffers from those seasonal water crises which plague other sections of the district, so that even in the driest summer he and his fellow homeowners on the block, after enduring what outrages to soul and body in the hot, clamorous city where they make their living, can be consoled by damp green lawns and the cleansing force of a shower at dusk. His daughter rouses herself sufficiently to help him and the maids check on their bolts and locks: indeed, it is folly in these times to forget

that armed, embittered men prowl abroad in the small hours, when the true silence of space enfolds the world and reminds its inhabitants of their mortality. Thanks for the party, and the watch, Daddy-O, says Marissa, and bestows a drowsy kiss on his cheek. If a man's sons are his pride, his daughters are his joy: who was the well-loved sage who made that declaration? Perhaps no other than I, he concludes, and he yawns at the darkness, in which clocks tick and his wife, whom he loves as the extension of his being, lies asleep. In bed he thinks vaguely of God (whatever that means), and then one more recollection touches his mind. He has neglected to visit Belen these last few months: he promises himself to see her soon, and he sleeps, without dreams, until morning. THE following Monday and Tuesday pass in routine fashion: Napoleon Espiritu chauffered to the office at nine, home for lunch at one, back to the office by three, home again with an hour to spare before dinner at eight or eight thirty. On Wednesday afternoon he encounters the first of a series of unsettling incidents: coming out of a restaurant on David Street, off the Escolta, he thinks he sees Josephine Vitug before a shop window. He crosses over and calls to her: Hello. It isn't she; the girl recovers from her surprise, glares at him, and walks primly away. Later, at the agency, he finds out that Tanjangco, the personnel manager, was a witness to his embarrassment. That was a nice chick you tried to pick up, 'padre, says Tanjangco. The remark so angers him he splutters his reply. She looked like somebody I knew, and is it any of your goddam business? On Thursday evening he oversees a taping session, comes home tired and dispirited, goes to bed without reading the afternoon papers as is his wont on weekdays, and dreams of the girl Josephine Vitug. The dream begins with him as a young man; he moves with grace, power, and audacity, and he runs up a long spiraling stairway, or is it a fire escape, unmindful of arthritis or the threat of a stroke, legs and arms unflagging, heart pounding in happy anticipation. He reaches a certain elevation: a broad spacious sala such as those of old capiz-paned houses that may still be seen

standing beside the plazas of certain provincial towns. The floor of the sala becomes the roof of a building; cloud shadows pass over it, and he feels their swift passage obscuring the sun. Is it going to rain? asks Josephine Vitug. Yes, he answers, but don't worry, everything's going to be all right. She is in a ball gown, white, with a pendant reflecting the fires of the sun. In the swift, mysterious sequence of dreams, the day disappears, and it is night, and they are hurrying, fingers interlocked, and he leads the way across a field to the lights of a fair glimmering on the horizon. It is not a fair but a dance, and cool and regal she comes into his arms, and they glide in measured steps to a familiar tune, round and round an illuminated structure that he recognizes as the kiosko of the town where he was born. Rain comes without warning, the trees above the orchestra wither, shrink, shred into the ground like tissue paper, and there is a scamper for shelter, a huge crowd running. He and Josephine Vitug are driving away, in a car, some pre-war model with a vertical bar dividing the windshield being spattered by the rain. Where are we going? Josephine Vitug asks and he answers exultantly. To the mountains! To the sea! and she flicks her head to release a wet strand of hair from her brow, laughs and reveals to him the teeth forming that dear, unique angle which distinguishes her from all others, the way a tone of speech or a mannerism of passion sets a face apart from the human swarm. They ride through the cascading rain, and distinctly he hears the metronome beat of the wipers until they swing out in a wide flying curve into sunlit wind, with the raindrops left on the windshield glowing in the slanting light and streaming away like sparks behind them. They plunge down a dirt road, ballooning dust in their wake, to a wide cemented highway, faster and faster as on a dipping roller coaster; his grip tightens on the wheel as he peers in the rearview mirror for signs of his pursuer. But where are the mountains? Josephine Vitug cries. Where is the sea? Their journey is over: they are in a room with ancient furniture, a rocking chair of frail black wood, a massive wardrobe with brass knobs and carved lion heads, and directly beneath the window are the Spanish Steps of Rome, the ancient city's rust-brown walls cold and timeless in the autumn sun. He closes the shutters and in the gloom (a single shaft of sunlight on the floor, whose tiles like a polished chessboard suggest a palace or a con-

vent), he turns to where she sits on the edge of an enormous black canopied bed like a catafalque. Where is the sea you promised? and he cannot bear her accusing gaze. Yesterday, he begins. No, I mean tomorrow. . . They are waiting, she says, disdainful, imperious suddenly, they want me to go with them, but I won't, oh never! and her laughter is joyless and cruel. Who are they? he asks, panic about to smother him. Oh, certain people, she tells him, familiar again, tossing her hair teasingiy. He feels rather than sees, or perhaps simultaneously, a group advancing towards the room, a noisy, mocking pack of youths, searching for them in the corridors, throwing doors open, hostile and implacable. Do you know them? he demands. What do they want? She withholds her answer, and he starts forward but now his legs drag no matter how fiercely he wills them to move, it is as if he were struggling in a thick invisible substance, the very air impeding motion and desperately he urges his stiffening body onward, his heart faltering, across the immense and terrible distance he must travel to reach her. Expressionless, she does not speak as he touches her, and her silence seems to focus and pierce towards the inmost center of all secret and unknowable things, and from a great height he descends too with her silence. As he thrusts himself into her the stillness shatters, an outcry resounds outside, a signal followed by a confusion of numerous voices, running feet, exploding glass, fists or stones storming the door, and he wakes up. It is raining. Numb and spent, he stares at the ceiling, listens to the steady drumming on the roof, the liquid tumbling in the eaves. His wife's portion of the bed is empty: it is the first Friday of the month, and she has gone to an early Mass. A window blown open lets in puffs of rain, but he does not get up to close it; he does not dare move yet, as though the slightest gesture might betray him to his wife and his daughters, the maids and the neighbors. A full bladder finally makes him rise; at the window, before he pulls down the streaming panes, he is confronted by the dull white density of the sky, shivers uncontrollably, and the dream's power, the rain, and the dismal colors of the day meet and combine to depress him: he feels exhausted, chastened and empty as he bathes, shaves and dresses; as he munches a tasteless breakfast, as he is borne in the Mercedes through a weakening drizzle.

The feeling persists through the day, together with an uneven heaviness in his belly. When his department holds its periodic planning conference at a luncheonette on Dasmarinas, he sips tea while his companions dispose vigorously of their steaks. Have his hidden lusts, which all these years have not inflicted any discernible harm, become malevolent and injected their poison into his stomach? At his age is there a natural, inevitable link between indigestion and the wish for adultery? Having long ago decided that the notion of a divine machinery dispensing peace, torment, reward or punishment, as the case may be, was a myth evolved in a simple age, he is at a loss to explain his clinging guilt: it seems to affect even his vision, directing his eyes to the squalor and poverty that may well be its kin. After the morning rain, a dirty humid haze remains to hover above the city, and walking back to the office in its diffuse yet glaring reflection, he is sharply aware, as though for the first time, of the excavations in the wet, littered streets, the peddlers of condoms, the beggars, the sputum on the sidewalks. Manila, he has long known, is not for walking (therapy for the bewildered spirit), so unlike Paris with its broad treelined avenues, sidewalk benches for the footsore pedestrian, cafes for the thirsty wanderer. Perhaps it is time he went on a year's leave and traveled again. In the elevator he thinks of Europe where, with a kind of desperate vengeance, he squandered the greater part of an inheritance; it is too far away, so distant as to be unreal, like his youth. In his room seven floors above where an estero joins the Pasig, he does nothing to increase the profit and prestige of the Republic Advertising and Marketing Corporation, except approve a list of talent fees, initial vouchers for spendthrift account executives, and review a report on why the company's new package deal (not only radio and TV, but also billboards and movie slides) failed to dissuade the country's third largest maker of soy sauce from withdrawing its patronage. The timing, or the public relations aspect: what does it matter? The board chairman puts on a martyred air at the mere mention of bonuses, but the fact is the company's making more money than last year. Miss Torralba, his secretary, a tiny, cheerful spinster who supports a lush of a father and three brothers > dropouts from college, and who does not, incidentally, re-

mind him of any girl he has known, adds to his depression by offering to lend him Lift Up Your Heart by Fulton Sheen. He calls up Ditas in Singalong. She sounds surprised, even alarmed: he does not usually call on weekdays. Is anything wrong, Papa? Is anyone sick? Nothing of the sort, he says. I just want to — talk to you. How's the baby? You mean Joey? says Ditas. This noon he was trying to get at the goldfish — No, he interrupts, the baby, my granddaughter. Kicking a lot, she informs him in jocose anguish, exhaling wearily. Could be a boy again, Papa, the way it's been pushing inside. It's going to be a girl, he declares, I'm quite sure of it. I hope you're right, says Ditas. Papa, remember our deal? No drinking for keeps? Sure, he says, you've won already — haven't touched a drop since Saturday, and I don't intend to, ever again. Cross my heart. . . It is like talking to her when she was in high school, the half-serious kidding, the deep, implicit affection. How about Tony's trip? he asks. If he needs any help with his papers, I have connections, you know. He's had no trouble so far, says Ditas. Papa — Yes? Don't work so hard, she says. Papa, please take care. . . He leaves the office before five, wanders into a movie, a sophisticated comedy, all nuance and clever dialogue that he seems to have heard before, and leaves before the film is over. Basilio drives him home in the damp dusk. Against his will he cannot ignore the confused formations of light, the dense uproar in the streets even as the taut weight in the region below his heart draws him into himself, into his misery. Perhaps a sentence has been passed, beyond appeal: it has to do with the capacity to be happy with family and friends, and the final, precise, enormous meaning of it, he is aware in some wordless way, will be made known to him soon enough. Yet, for all the day's troubles, it takes little to comfort him finally: sometimes, indeed not too often, life allows itself to be appeased by such simplicities as sharing a sofa with wife and daughter, and with one's toes, freed from sock and shoe, basking, as it were, in the delight of felt slippers; one has left crisis or disaster downtown, among the shabby storefronts on the Avenida, the broken sidewalks. At his wife's prodding he takes sodium bicarb, and more relieved than he expects to be, spends the rest of the evening watching Art Linkletter.

IN TWO days Napoleon Espiritu is his usual self without, and this he realizes with a sort of triumph, having recourse to tranquilizers, alcohol, or some major distraction. He is once more brisk, in control at the office, generous, even capable of humor, and he rises in the morning undisturbed by dreams, resolved to be more loving with wife and children, and more compassionate to his fellow members of the board, as well as to subordinates, competitors, and the chance figures encountered on the fringes of his life, such as waiters, elevator operators, and parking lot attendants. One afternoon he goes to visit Belen in Santa Ana. The ever loyal Basilio needs no directions: his driver has long known about her, this daughter whom he had fathered before he married, his first child, as a matter of fact; his wife, he supposes, must know about her, too, although they have never once discussed the subject. Belen's apartment is one of those narrow affairs with the steep, exposed underside of the stairs slanted above the parlor, where he sits in a plastic-covered chair, spooning with deliberate appreciative sounds the syrupy coconut confection he cannot refuse from her. By the window stands a sewing machine on which is draped an almost completed dress; he has interrupted her work, and knowing how earnest she is about adding what little she can to her husband's income, he makes note to stay no more than half an hour. He is formal and diffident with her, and one reason for this is the singular cast of her features: he cannot find in her face any influence of his, it is all her mother's, thin, withdrawn, querulous, so distinct and apart from the appearance of his other daughters it is almost like a stranger's. The way she laces her fingers together in her lap, tightly, the knuckles whitening, is also, curiously, reminiscent of her mother, the pale defeated woman whom he met as a waitress imploring him never to leave her, in a hotel room in Intramuros in 1938. Has she heard from her mother in Cebu? No, says Belen, not for some time. She has her family, her children to worry about, she adds. Yes, yes, of course: what is there to say? He and his daughter may as well be talking about a chance acquaintance, and their long pauses are filled with the cries of children playing patintero in the street. Is Doming still with the drug company? Yes, but her husband won't be staying there long, he has been promised a higher-paying job at the Nawasa. And how's Rey?

Her son seems to like working for the bus company. Yes, the youngest girl has just started college. A nurse, that's what she wants to be. Doming will be home around six. Won't he wait? A man arrives: it is not Doming, but a dark broad-shouldered stranger who hesitates at the door when he sees that Belen has a guest. The man, who reminds Espiritu of Leopoldo Salcedo, tells her Rudy and Annie are waiting, and leaves without being introduced. Atty. Serrano, a neighbor, she begins to explain, needlessly, he thinks: he has neither the right nor the inclination to know more about her life. I must go, he says, and places the envelope containing money on the table, beside the plastic plate of sweets. Belen touches her cheek to his; it is like some gesture of forgiveness, perhaps for pain long ago inflicted, perhaps for passion that never cared what it would spawn in the future: the cramped apartment, the sewing machine by the window, the dark stranger at the door. Back in the car, and behind him the one-way street with the children still playing in the twilight, he has the feeling of crossing a boundary into a more familiar zone, where he can breathe more freely, speak with wisdom and authority, and act to bring joy to all those he loves. To celebrate his return to efficiency, calmness, and good humor, Napoleon Espiritu takes his wife and Marissa to a choral concert, a benefit show for retarded children, and later to dinner in a penthouse restaurant overlooking the Bay. The lavish smorgasbord, the subdued piano, the view of lighted ships in the Bay through the broad plate-glass wall: all these seem to prove that he belongs invincibly to that fortunate company of men who make wise investments and are protected from all distress and scandal. It is all an illusion, and the entire frail, airy, shimmering structure of his conceit collapses when, on the following day, he sees Josephine Vitug again. He has accompanied his wife to Mass (a chore not at all unpleasant, as he stays out on the cool shaded patio), and now in undershirt and pajama trousers, having skipped the morning's golf, he is engrossed in the Sunday papers when he hears the buzz at the door. It is not Ditas or Lissa with his grandsons as he has expected, and. such is the power of Josephine Vitug's sudden presence that a constriction grips his heart, his knees grow weak, his palms turn

cold, and something like tears pushes hotly at his eyes. The girl removes her large square sunglasses, greets him with a jaunty Good morning, Mr. Espiritu, and he blinks to clear his eyes and steps aside to let in this glowing apparition from the sunlight before he can trust himself to speak. Hello, Josephine, how are you? She is in a plaid green shirt-jac with matching Bermuda shorts, and tiny beads of sweat dot her nose and brow. Traffic was awful, gosh, but isn't it warm today, says Josephine Vitug. He nods vigorously in agreement, then remembers he is shirtless: she must excuse the camiseta. Oh that's all right, sir, look, I'm in shorts myself; and she grins widely, a happy fellow conspirator against the spirited sun. The revelation of the two front teeth pressed together creates another constricting ring around his heart; his knees are quivering in the pajamas, but somehow he manages to remain on his feet. (The lights across the dark windswept field, the rain, the mountains and the sea.) He must say something: How's college? Semestrals start tomorrow, she informs him. I've come to borrow some of Marissa's notes. I lost mine, I keep losing things, the other day I lost a bracelet and before that a pen, a Parker 21, sayang. I guess I have a talent for losing things. Do you ever misplace things, sir? Well, he says, now and then, everybody does. It is an effort to breathe: She must not look at him like that, appraising him (he holds himself more erect and tries to suck in his stomach), and why must seventeen-year-old girls with long fair slender legs traipse about on Sunday mornings in Bermuda shorts? (The cold rust-brown walls of Rome, the ancient room, and falling with her silence into the center of all mysterious things.) I've heard about your work, sir, she says, you're a very important man in that big agency, maybe after graduation you can hire me as a script writer or something, that's a long way off, but I've always been interested in radio and TV, maybe J can at feast apply, ah, sir? Yes, °f course, by all means, he answers. He catches the scent of her, a blend of sun, wind, sweat, and a fragrance as of shredded flowers, and must she look at him like that, pouting, anxious and imploring? You mean it; sir, you mean someday I can maybe work in your agency? Why not? he sa)'s. You can even have your own Pr°gram. And her face softens and glows, and with a finger she

flicks a stray strand from her brow: Gol-lee, that will be the day. Interviewing all sorts of — of celebrities! Won't that be exciting? Marissa is calling to her from the upstairs landing: Jo, Josie, c'mon up! Daddy, shame on you, put on a shirt! Jo! She whirls and skips away up the stairs, the molded seat of her Bermuda shorts bobbing, arms stiff and legs swinging in that awkward, unaccustomed, seemingly painful run so feminine, so touching to behold the vision, Napoleon Espiritu feels with rising wretchedness, would imprint itself on his brain forever. Not forever: the vision would dim, he knows, would be overwhelmed by the last flood drowning the eyes and rising higher to crush the mind; but not yet, as he steps out to the lawn, not on this day with the sun hot and resplendent on his bare pale shoulders, on the grass and the trees and in a sky that glitters so it dazzles him, and he flees to the shelter of the garage. There he begins a series of spontaneous chores: he opens the hood of the Mercedes and checks the water level of the radiator, does the same with the Consul; opens and shuts the car door, listening to any defect in the locks; wipes clean a spot of dusty windshield that Basilio has neglected; kicks the tires and discovers that one lacks air; finds a discarded shock absorber and a coil spring in a corner and carries them out and dumps them in a bush behind the garage. Perspiring unhappily he picks up tin cans and throws them into a box, tightens the stretch of a laundry wire, snaps off a decayed branch from the bougainvillea on the kitchen wall, then makes a complete round of the house, peering up at the eaves to see which sections might require the services of a carpenter. During all these exertions he is conscious of the pressure gathering in his groin, and back in the garage, unable to decide what to do next, he sits on a ladder propped lengthwise against a wall and ponders the agony of his desire. What is happening to him? Why must the sight of her stir his blood so? Is it merely because she reminds him of Veronica Rodriguez? If she were a girl encountered in a bar, if she were sensual-mouthed and full breasted and wantonthighed, he would have no qualms at all: but with one as young as Marissa, with the slender, uncompleted, adolescent body that has yet to learn the ways of love. . . Then, yes, he would teach her all the ways, yes, and his eyes shut tight against the day, he imagines

her learning from him, the industrious and humble student guided by the tireless, benevolent teacher who has sold all stocks and bonds, cars, house, lot, and furnishings, and closed his bank accounts in order to fulfill his mission, and it is dawn above the roofs and chimney pots along the Boulevard St. Michel after a night of tender lessons, or it is morning and they are in a Citroen built for two approaching the towers of Carcasonne, or it is sundown and the doves in the Piazza San Marco rise in a cyclone of wings through the hovering golden light. Is he going out of his mind? He wipes his grease-streaked hands on a rag, and returns to the house. Josephine Vitug has gone. Lissa and Ramon arrive with their four boys. He directs one of the maids to open Cokes for the children, and beer for Ramon, with whom he exchanges some unflattering opinions about Ferdinand Marcos and Lyndon B. Johnson, before Mrs. Espiritu calls them all to a lunch of almondigas, paella, and apahap con salsa amarilla. PERHAPS there exists a demon empowered specifically to wreak havoc on the lives of fifty-six-year-old men who lust after seventeen-year-old girls in Bermuda shorts; in any case, before the week is over, Zalamea, the comptroller, and Cordero, one of the account supervisors, both of them his occasional golf mates, succeed in persuading Napoleon Espiritu to ree-lax, as they put it, in a Roxas Boulevard day club: You look beat, compadre, it's time you stopped trying so hard to kill yourself. He welcomes the invitation: he has had no appetite for days, and what little he eats collects into a constipated clot he groans and grunts to expel; he sleeps fitfully, not dreaming but surrounded by the shadows and beginnings of dreams; and he has become fidgety, melancholy, brooding, and quick to anger. For a partner he is presented with an inarticulate hostess, as such women are called, who makes up for her dismal conversation by drinking enthusiastically and massaging the back of his neck and on the dance floor pressing herself to him, arching and grinding against him as far as his paunch would permit. There is neither joy nor pleasure nor adventure in the proceedings, and he wonders in the name of all that is upright, orderly, and dignified what he is doing here at this hour when other men

after a day's honest work are going home bearing gifts of wrapped pancit for their wives and wholesome self-improvement books for their children. But he drinks on, just one drink and no more, he vows, and soon it is his second glass, and his third, and their bottle is two-thirds gone: enough, and he sulks in the half-dark pierced continuously by the sensuous music, ignoring his hostess and wishing he were dancing with Josephine Vitug. Dorleng, why so sad? the woman asks, massaging his nape. Come dance, you know the jerk? He tips her and leaves his companions, steps out to meet a moist wind roaring in from the sea. Across the Boulevard and beyond the seawall, ships ride at anchor, miniature shapes set against a narrowing band of pearl gray light; he gazes at the decreasing light till it blows out on the horizon, and its extinction seems to coincide with the onrush of some dark tide lapping at his body. Where is Basilio? And he remembers that for once he has no car, then remembers that he has been drinking; at this realization tears sting his eyes. He has broken his pledge to Ditas, betrayed his unborn granddaughter; his treason will be an omen to haunt her birth. The flapping wind does not banish the fumes of whiskey, bitterness, and grief trapped in his head, and at first he does not hear what the man is saying. The man, no taller than he and all in white, shirt and pants and shoes a dusty white gleaming in the neon wash from the club, is telling him something, touching his arm: Mister, you want a girl? Very young and clean, huh, Mister? It is as if he were observing himself, soberly, from a distance, and he is not at all surprised to hear himself saying Yes, yes hoarsely and hopelessly. The good, the bright, and the joyful have been denied him: very well then, he will go to the lurid, smoky, suffocating caverns and join his own doomed kind. What is to stop him from doing anything he wants this night? Of what use are order, grace, and ceremony when these are absent totally from your life? The man is saying: The damage is fifty. Is that all right with you? Fine, he says, great, excellent! Now take me to your young clean whore before I call it a day and flights of angels sing me to my rest. He swallows back a surge of sour vomit as the cab lurches into a courtyard and under the overhanging span of a tilted door. The man in white helps him out of the cab and up a small steep

stairway; he slips and barks his shin on the steps (scuffed by how many furtive feet) but hardly feels the streak of pain. Wobbling, he is half-pushed, half-pulled to the top; his guide is panting, gasping encouragement; how nice of him, a friendly, trustworthy chap, except that he has such a desperately famished look, Espiritu thinks: poor fellow, having to pimp for a living. My dark brother in white. The room they enter is not lurid and suffocating, as perhaps such places of iniquity should be, but cool, clean, suffused with a dim fluorescent light, and primly furnished. Reclining on a divan is a girl sixteen or younger; she stubs out her cigarette and looks up passively: large brown eyes, thin nose: ah, Senor, a mestiza! Her name's Gina, the man says, she's good, she won't hurry you. Isn't that right, Gina? But the man does not wait for an answer; he slinks away just as an indifferent roomboy comes in with a frosty bottle of water and a stained ledger on which Espiritu signs the name of the agency's board chairman with a flourish, a hiccup, and a chuckle: that should screw him right, the old tightfisted bastard. Without a word the girl proceeds to the other dimmer half of the room behind a jalousied partition; Espiritu follows her, bumps against a chair, unsteady yet bouyant and uncaring and as he sheds coat, tie, shirt, and pants, a trifle amused by it all: the horizontal wall mirror reflecting the capacious bed, the blue shaded lamp, the splashing in the bathroom. The girl reappears wrapped in a towel and without much ado hops literally onto the bed. And then Espiritu no longer cares; it is of no importance whether he makes love to her or not, or falls asleep; he has come such a long way to this sanctuary and this soft yielding rest, and his eyelids droop, a lassitude spreads like a vaccine in his arms and legs. But he must try, and he strains up from his weariness towards her lips and for the first time in the quietness she speaks: No, don't kith me, I don't like |th, pleath: the lisp like a deliberate mocking parody of girlhood and uinocence. Take off your glatheth, you might break them. He caresses her: Josie, Josephine; smelling the fair fresh-soaped skin. My name ith not Jothephine, it ith Gina. Gina, he murmurs in her ear, my dear, my beautiful Gina. But his body lies tired, flabby, and inert; she is solicitous, ingenious, and patient, but it is no use: what does it matter anyway: to sleep, perchance to dream. . .

Through a pleasant blur he watches her retrieve the towel, drape it sarong-style over her breasts, light a cigarette, the lighter flare revealing a dash of freckles and the gold-plated cross of her necklace. She pads to the chair beside the telephone. Her schoolgirl voice begins to fade: Yeth, I thaw that movie, I never mith an Elvith Prethley movie. . . Okay, up to you. . . I'll call you Friday. . . When he wakes she is still curled up in the chair by the blue-tinted lamp (has it been an hour?), still cradling the phone: But not bowling, the lath time we went bowling my arm hurt for a week...That profethor makes me thick. I think I flunked that ektham...With trembling fingers he laces his shoes, pauses at the door to adjust his glasses; the girl does not seem to notice him: Have you theen Robert? she is saying. Yeth, a convertible, red, he got it from hith Daddy lath Chrithmath. . . He staggers out to the courtyard, a spacious square, the bulbs over the entrance of each compartment receding in opposite twin rows to the far dark end and creating an impression of a deserted, illuminated thoroughfare in a strange city into the depths of which he has wandered foolishly: now he has lost his way, he does not know the language, and it is night. For a moment he cannot recall where he is, and panic lodges in his throat. A cab that has just deposited a couple stops for him. He gropes his way in, relieved to think that now he would escape involvement in the dangerous, senseless drama he can sense forming between the rows of bulbs in the silent square. His house is as still when he reaches it, most of the rooms unlit and the sala without the u^ual comforting noises from the television cabinet: a portent? Mrs. Espiritu and Marissa, the maid informs him as she warms his supper, have gone to Aling Ditas. He braces himself for the shock. It is Tony who answers his call: A false alarm, Ditas is all right, Mama's just left. Nothing to worry about, Papa. When his wife and daughter arrive, he is in bed, staring up into the empty dark and listening to the slow, labored beating of his heart. AFTER a day's absence, he returns to the office with an ache in his left shoulder, a lightheadedness, a touch of dyspepsia, and a slip of paper on which is scrawled Josephine Vitug's telephone number.

The numerals like a secret and dangerous code he has copied on an impulse from Marissa's list under the glass top of the telephone table. Actually he has no explicit intention of calling the girl, although he cannot quite rid himself of the vague notion that some day soon, he may find it necessary to talk to her over the phone. He has forgotten the tiny folded slip hidden in his wallet when, four days later, he goes to a funeral parlor on Misericordia Street, to pay his respects to a townmate's daughter who has died of leukemia. The father, whom he has not seen in years, recognizes him at once and with a companionable grimness leads him to the bier and recounts the clinical details of his daughter's long and fatal illness. He is introduced to some women in black, offers his condolences, shakes hands, conveys regards, takes his leave, pleased that he has done his duty. He walks back to the office, thinking solemnly of Josephine Vitug aglow from the sun and skipping up the stairs with the small rounded cheeks of her buttocks molded by her green plaid shorts. Has she been sleeping well? Do her parents see to it that she eats enough? Does she need vitamin pills perhaps? She can do with a few more pounds: a girl that tall and still growing needs to store up energy and not use it all up going to all those parties if she is not to fall ill and waste away and die. . . In front of a theater lobby he stops to watch a girl with her height and build standing by the box office, stares at her until her date, with their tickets, rejoins her and, holding hands, they disappear into the half-lit recesses of the moviehouse. Through the rest of the afternoon Josephine Vitug's phone number flashes on and off in his pulsating mind, like those subliminal messages that used to be superimposed on a television image and erased so swiftly the eye hardly recorded their passage. At seven sharp (she should be home by now), he goes thirstily to the watercooler, lingers among the desks crumpling the paper cup into a formless wad and releasing it to fall into a wastepaper can with a neat precise plop. The office staff has left, except for one of the younger illustrators working on an ad warning mankind against dandruff and premature baldness. He smooths the hood of a hastily covered typewriter and reads the Commandments of Public Relations (Thou shalt call people by their first names. Thou shalt re-

member their birthdays. . .) enshrined on a desk top together with a postcard photo of Claudia Cardinale by a swimming pool and snapshots of a judo club, a seminar in Baguio, a sweatered foursome at Mines View Park. He spends six minutes standing vigil at a window overlooking a neon sign drenching a neighboring roof in flickering red. Then, in obedience to some obscure and irresistible cue, he locks his door, swivels around to the phones ranged behind his desk, picks up the maroon receiver for outside calls, and dials Josephine Vitug's number. It is so simple, after all. the phone in the bungalow in Paranaque rasps distantly, four, five times, before a woman answers: Yes? Hello? Is Miss Vitug in? he says, making his voice lighter, younger, and emboldened by the convincing sound of it (Espiritu, you were not a drama coach once for nothing): Miss Josephine Vitug? The woman asks: Who's calling? sternly. A friend of hers, he says. Who? A friend, he repeats. Fred? Oh, it's you, Fred, the woman says, will you hold on a minute, she's taking a bath. . . A figure moves behind the celluloid curtain of a shower stall, and a long leg streaming water appears as the curtain is pushed to one side; he turns away from the scene and it dissolves into the narra-paneled walls. He waits, and hears water whispering through a pipe somewhere behind him, a toilet gurgling, a faint tremor from the elevator shaft down the corridor, the filtered forlorn sounds of evening traffic. On a shelf rests a framed photograph of his family: wife, son, and daughters grouped formally about a man whom he recognizes as himself twelve years ago, eyes challenging the camera, mouth smug and knowledgeable: he stares at the group feeling nothing, remorseless and without hope of redemption in the bright and quiet room. Then: Hello, this is Jo. Her voice is thin, like a defective recording, not like her at all. How are you, Josephine? How have you been? I've been thinking of you. If you only knew how much I've thought of you. Fred? she says. You aren't Fred. Jimmy? Jimmy, will you stop this kidding, how corny you are. This is not Jimmy, he says, almost lapsing back to his natural voice. It's not Fred, either. But you know me, Josephine, yes, you do, believe me. We met not too long ago, at a dance, that night it rained, remember? And ever since the memory of you has followed me, a pillar of fire by night, a cloud by

day— Loco mo, what are you talking about? indignantly. You remember Rome, and the Spanish Steps, and the doves in the Piazza San Marco in Venice— Huh, what? Golly, you crazy? What's this about Rome? Who's this? Take care of yourself, Josephine, he says. Eat well. Do not worry. Sleep eight hours. I love you, he says, and it is only then that his voice trembles. I have always loved vou. I will always love you. Jo. Josephine. Josie? Hello? Hello. Hello! She has hung up. He begins to dial again, stops, replaces the receiver, and he sits there at his desk, thinking of nothing in particular, and feeling nothing but a numb progressive withdrawal into a calm so perfect, so peaceful that he is startled when Basilio, made anxious by his tardiness, comes up from the parking lot to rap on his door. One more week passes before he is felled by a stroke. It happens on a Sunday morning: he is on the golf course, at the ninth hole, about to swing at a ball snagged in a sandtrap, when it seems a gigantic hand grasps him by the neck, throws him to the ground, and his head explodes in darkness. NOW THAT is what Napoleon Espiritu remembers today: the sudden clutch at his neck, the hand smiting him to the ground. The hlow has brought a stiffness in his left arm and a slight twitch in his jaw, and his damaged heart tires easily; otherwise he is unmarked by his ordeal. He is lucky, his doctor says: a mild stroke, it could have been worse; but he must rest for at least six months. He misses his work, the duties that lighten the burden of existence and make possible the sleep of the just, who are spared the vigil of the small hours when the true silence of the night speaks to man of his loneliness, finitude, and mortality. But he is resigned and, upon reflection, quite content: one is never bereft of compensations, and these, he acknowledges with humility, are more beneficent than he deserves. Ditas"s baby is a girl, born while he lay under an oxygen tent. She is christened Maria Paz; in deference to his illness, the baptismal party is a quiet one, just a gathering of the family after the church rites. Tony leaves on his study grant, and Ditas, her three boys, and the baby come to stay with the Espiritus for the

Rodriguez, and Nina, and Fely, and Manon, and the dancer in Madrid, the schoolteacher who was also a tourist in Geneva, Sara weeping in San Francisco, the women and the girls who, each in her own separate season in his wanderings, gave him cause to celebrate even in the heart's desolation the fact of his being alive and capable of joy, anguish, fear, triumph, and the desire for an abiding certitude and peace; and their memory, he will declare to kindred souls who will listen, is one with the crystalline sky, the summer trees, the tides of the dark ocean, and the fires of the sun.

A Taste for the Fine Whiskey of the Bourgeoisie

T

HEIR HOUSE IN Little Baguio, in San Juan, has this sunken living room which seems to have been especially designed for the sort of parties Gaby and Chiqui Bautista like to give. Nothing grand, just a gathering of seven or eight people, usually familiar friends from college days, drinking Scotch and vodka and gin tonic, chatting amiably by the aquamarine light of the huge vinegar-jar lamp Chiqui found in an antique shop in Ermita, the hi-fi playing the songs of the year soft and unobtrusive in the background, their cigarette smoke wafting up towards the dark exposed rafters of the white ceiling.

At the very first of such parties, in November 1960, three months after Gaby and Chiqui's wedding, the following are present: their best man, Danny de Leon, an advertising and public relations executive; Danny's girl, Edith Ledesma, an interior decorator; Louie Paterno, a philosophy professor at Assumption Convent and De La Salle; Jules Gonzales, a CPA with Soriano y Cia.; Lucy Ongsiako, a travel agent; Poch Ayala, an Ateneo law graduate who has just taken the bar; and Maitet Tuason, who is taking her M.A. in Comparative Literature at the UP, has lesbian tendencies and is deeply attracted, starting this evening, to Edith Ledesma. Chiqui Bautista wants to practice her cooking and serves her guests the results of her valiant sally into the culinary arts: diluted clam

chowder soup, arroz a la valenciana with a much too lavish mix of chorizos de bilbao, and a more or less passable embutido reclining in an ochre sauce. Danny de Leon leads the cheers for the breathless cook, which sets the tone for the evening: good-humored, teasingly ironic. Two maids, sisters from Kalibo, Aklaxi, provided by Chiqui's mother, serve at the table, and for beginners acquit themselves rather admirably, breaking only one soup tureen between them. During dessert — mango slices topped with chocolate icecream — Jules Gonzales and Louie Paterno try to outdo each other in the prurience of their smoking-room jokes, all featuring eggplants, bananas, and similarly horticultural items. Maitet Tuason snorts in exaggerated disgust and pads down to the lower-level living room, followed by the rest, except for Lucy Ongsiako, who has a weak bladder and has to go to the bathroom. At this first party at the Bautistas' the following subjects, not necessarily in the order they are listed, occupy the group till midnight, provoking earnest declarations, solemn confirmations, affable disagreements, derisive hoots, bad puns, chuckles, unrestrained laughter, gasps and groans: 1) the wisdom of marrying early or late; 2) the rhythm method of birth control; 3) the causes of the Korean War; 4) the Berlin Wall; 5) the next NCAA champions; 6) Frank Sinatra; 7) Zen Buddhism; 8) Carlos P. Garcia; 9) haunted houses; 10) General Motors, which Gaby Bautista has just joined; 11) real estate vs. jewelry as investments; 12) nightclubs; 13) advertising agencies; 14) bangungot; 15) mothers-in-law; 16) Jose Rizal; 17) the troubles in Central Luzon; 18) rock V roll; 19) James Bond; 20) World War III. In the next five years, Gaby and Chiqui Bautista give parties similar to the above every other month, or at least six times a year. There are other affairs in the house in Little Baguio, family gatherings for the most part, the baptismal and birthday parties of the little Bautistas, three of whom have arrived on the scene in almost as many years; dinners for Chiqui's parents visiting with them from Bacolod and Gaby's father and stepmother coming over from Forbes Park; bienvenidas and despedidas, some of them in the form of extended meriendas, for assorted relations and business associates. But it's

the parties with their tested, loyal friends that Gaby and Chiqui Bautista really delight in hosting; the cheerful, voluble reunions of the group gathered for dinner in 1960. In 1966, the group loses three members but gains four regulars. Poch Ayala leaves for Harvard, Edith Ledesma breaks up with Danny de Leon and is last seen boarding a plane for Hongkong in the company of an elderly congressman, and Jules Gonzales is assigned to Atlas Consolidated Mining in Toledo, Cebu, where he promptly falls and drowns in a rain-filled excavation. The newcomers are Roger Benedicto, a Pepsi-Cola plant manager and his wife Nanette, a poet and ceramic artist; Jing-jing Lichauco, a money market consultant; and Pepot Araneta, effeminate but not homosexual, the comptroller of a unisex wear marketing company. A fifth addition to the party makes his appearance on the first Saturday of the following year, Gaby Bautista's Tarlac townmate and compadre, Philip Lapus, an accountant with Dole Philippines. He seems ill at ease, and sits off in one corner of the sunken living room, not saying much, just smiling wanly at the jokes that the rest find so uproarious. He likes Gaby's Scotch, though, and spends the evening drinking Johnnie Walker, first the Red and then the Black, and eyeing Jing-jing Lichauco, whose long legs are encased in electric-blue palazzo pants. His mahjong-playing wife has just left him for a Chinese copra trader, and Gaby has asked him to the party more out of a vague charity than an access of comradeship. Philip Lapus slowly, quietly gets drunk as the group chats away on the following subjects, not necessarily in this order: 1) the Kennedys; 2) Lyndon B. Johnson; 3) Diosdado Macapagal; 4) the cursillo; 5) sex in Scandinavia; 6) antiques; 7) UFOs; 8) communism; 9) democracy; 10) the North Borneo claim; 11) rape; 12) the scarcity of housemaids; 13) international beauty pageants; 14) Elizabeth Taylor; 15) the war in Vietnam; 16) lunchtime fashion shows; 17) the films of Fellini; 18) Sergio Osmena Jr.; 19) LSD. One night in August 1967, the party at the Bautistas' breaks up unusually early — 10:16, by Gaby's Girard Perregaux watch. This is how the unhappy turn of events comes about: Roger Benedicto

and Philip Lapus get into an arm-waving argument over labor unions, with the former implacably for management and the latter taking up the cudgels for the workers of the world, united or otherwise. Roger Benedicto, to the group's dismayed surprise, loses his cool and unleashes a torrent of full-volume abuse in Philip Lapus' direction. The long passive Philip Lapus, to everyone's stunned surprise, turns furious and eloquent, and helped along by Gaby Bautista's White Label, delivers a passionate indictment of the exploitative classes larded liberally with choice Marxist epithets about the running dogs of US imperialism, domestic feudalism, and bureaucrat capitalism. Whereupon Roger Benedicto, similarly red in the face, rises to his full five feet-eight and smashes his glass on the floor, near Philip Lapus' Valentino boots. Nanette Benedicto announces tearfully that it's about time they all left, to which twothirds of the company express awkward assent. Shaking his shaggy untrimmed head, Philip Lapus strides out of the gate, declines the offer of a lift in Danny de Leon's Mustang, and stalks off to the bus stop three blocks away. Gaby and Chiqui Bautista find they can give no more than three parties for their friends in 1968. Gaby, accompanied by Chiqui and their eldest son, Junie, goes off to Dearborn, Michigan, USA, to attend a General Motors foreign managers' conference. They are abroad for well over six months, making an unhurried tour of Europe, which includes an audience with the Pope, on their way back to Manila in October-November. They give their third and last party for the year a week after their arrival. The Benedictos in the meantime have emigrated to Chicago, and Roger Benedicto's antagonist, Philip Lapus, reappears bringing a girl, sixteen or seventeen, who tells everyone just to call her Babette, never mind the surname. Babette in katsa blouse and faded denim pants is sunburned, sullen, and pretty. She and Philip Lapus drink a lot of J&B Scotch and say little, nodding, shaking their heads almost imperceptibly, as the group chatters till well past one in the morning about, among other things, the following subjects, not necessarily in this order: 1) the student demonstrations; 2) Commander Dante; 3) the Beatles; 4) free love; 5) Italian vs.

British sports cars; 6) holdups; 7) the stock market; 8) Ferdinand E. Marcos; 9) the money market; 10) ESP; 11) life on other worlds; 12) the US bombing of North Vietnam; 13) abstract art; 14) the ghetto riots in New York City; 15) Robert F. Kennedy; 16) Communist China; 17) the corrupt press; 18) congressional allowances; 19) Imelda Marcos; 20) Ninoy Aquino; 21) the Second Vatican Council; 22) faith healers. Beginning in 1970, there are more parties at the Bautista house in Little Baguio, in San Juan, once a month, or almost, and the group has grown to fifteen, counting the hosts and Danny de Leon's newly acquired wife, Maripaz, a TV producer and director. Gaby Bautista has been named senior vice-president at GM-Philippines, and with the new post, the highest he will ever get before he is felled by a myocardial infarction or cancer of the pancreas, he has become more expansive and witty; he is also having an affair with the estranged wife of one of his subordinates, a laughing, deep-throated woman who has been mistaken for Pilar Pilapil. His new position and his affair seem at once to have generated a deeper affection for his family and his longtime friends, as if he wished to make up for the time and energy he has not devoted to them. Thus, his urging Chiqui to give the monthly dinners, at which the guests now include Armand Orosa, a banker and magazine publisher; Bobby Romualdez, a subdivision developer; Joy Tantoco, who owns a chain of boutiques; and Monching Sevilla, Gaby Bautista's poker and golfing crony, a stockbroker who commutes between his Dasmarinas Village residence and his Nueva Ecija hacienda in a reputedly bulletproof Mercedes-Benz 450 SE. In 197.1, the Bautistas adopt a hobby which furnishes them another reason for entertaining. Every so often, on weekends or holidays, they fly off to some corner of the archipelago, to collect ethnic objects, beads, masks, ceremonial vases and such, which, Chiqui Bautista explains with a kind of missionary rapture at a party, must be "baptized" before they can be installed in a Christian home. The 'baptism" would have to be commemorated with dinner, drinks, and happy talk up to the wee hours. Many a "baptism" then is celebrated by the Bautistas who return from their excursions lug-

ging wooden idols from Kalinga and Bontoc, fire-hardened spears and shields from Nueva Viscaya, brass plates and jars, musical instruments and bladed weapons from Lanao, Cotabato, and Sulu. Some they give away to their friends, most they hang up in the living room and the dining-kitchen area, so that by the middle of 1972 the house has begun to look like a museum. A week before the declaration of martial law, Gaby and Chiqui Bautista give one of the most memorable parties of their lives. They have just come back from Lanao with a sari-manok, which is a Maranaw symbol, Chiqui informs the duly impressed company, of prestige, wealth, and power. While she no longer cooks, she now exercises unremitting supervision over the competent maids in the kitchen, and from her larder issues an array of well-fashioned dishes: gazpacho, bacalao a la vizcaina, torta de cangrejo, crispy pata, and tenderloin tips in oyster sauce. After dinner they descend to the living room, where Gaby Bautista, with priestly motions and thoroughly enjoying himself, positions the sari-manok in its place of honor between two santos, one of them with a disfigured face, the other recognizable as a traditional representation of San Antonio de Padua, atop the Chinese ivory chest he and Chiqui brought back from Singapore in 1968. Already tipsy from the drinks he has had through dinner, he recites a florid toast to the stylized wooden rooster with the fish caught in its beak, invoking its blessings upon all gathered there. The other men take turns toasting the sari-manok, except for Philip Lapus, who just smiles and clinks the ice around in his second glass of Vat 69. The talk is especially animated on this occasion, frequently punctuated by squeals and laughter, and ranges over the following subjects, not necessarily in this order: 1) martial law; 2) the sex life of Muslims; 3) Ferdinand E. Marcos; 4) bomba films; 5) the Liberals; 6) aphrodisiacs; 7) last year's Plaza Miranda bombing; 8) the Constitutional Convention; 9) the Santo Nino; 10) the July-August floods; 11) Raul Manglapus; 12) Ho Chi Minh; 13) faith healers; 14) soul-rock; 15) massage parlors; 16) VD; 17) oil vs. mining stocks; 18) the 1973 presidential election; 19) Ninoy Aquino; 20) Imelda Marcos; 21) Swiss bank deposits; 22) Carmen Soriano; 23) the coming revolution; 24) golf; 25) God.

The first party they hold after the declaration of martial law, in the first week of December 1972, is quite subdued despite the amount of Scotch, gin, and brandy consumed. Philip Lapus has disappeared, and the Bautistas and their friends exchange somber notes on his possible fate or whereabouts. Louie Paterno believes the fellow was a subversive all along and has either been picked up by the military or gone north to join the New People's Army in Isabela. Pepot Araneta, who tends to think the worst of people, suspects Philip Lapus is involved in nothing so ideological but in something shoddy and pedestrian, like procuring or drug-smuggling — with the Metrocom keeping a close watch on such characters, concludes Pepot with a sigh and a shudder, the guy is just lying low somewhere with his mysterious girlfriend. Maitet Tuason, who has overcome her lesbian tendencies but is still without a boyfriend, hopes no harm has befallen Philip, who, come to think of it, she and the other ladies chorus, resembles a gaunt Joseph Estrada and can be sweet and charming if he wants to. Armand Orosa, whose weekly magazine has been closed down by martial law but whose bank is as prosperous as ever, has heard that Philip did go underground, was captured in October and is now detained in Camp Crame. Armand Orosa's report turns out to be true, and more than two years pass before the group gets to see Philip Lapus again. In January 1975, Philip is amnestied out of Crame, and in the following month, the Bautistas give him a welcome party. Gaby Bautista brings out the champagne and pours a generous glass for his compadre from Tarlac, Lucy Ongsiako and Maitet Tuason clamor for him to tell how it really was all those months inside Crame; but Philip Lapus has not the slightest desire to talk about his stay in the stockade. He has absolutely no wish tonight to remember, much less talk about the windowless room with the lone bright bulb, the narrow bench on which he was made to lie when they beat him up, the electrodes, and how Babette died. He smiles at the Bautistas and &eir friends, at their solicitude, their sincere anxious questions, their job offers, and accepts a glass of Chivas Regal, on the rocks, and listens to them talking about: 1) the new hotels; 2) the best discos; 3) condominiums; 4) rich generals; 5) Japanese tourists; the last referendum; 7) Rico J. Puno; 8) the next oil price in-

crease; 9) beach resorts; 10) misadventures occasioned by the curfew; 11) the proposed tax on bank deposits; 12) foreign call girls in Ermita; 13) multinational corporations; 14) the floating casino; 15) married ex-Jesuits; 16) the new Constitution; 17) the Mindanao fighting; 18) couturiers; 19) TM; 20) Jose Ma. Sison; 21) the stock market; 22) Ferdinand E. Marcos; 23) the house the Bautistas are buying in Dasmarinas Village; 24) the Great Gatsby motif of the house-warming in Dasmarinas. Philip Lapus listens to the animated, continuous chatter and lets Gaby Bautista replenish his drink and reaches for the sardine-andcheese canapes passed to him by Jing-jing Lichauco, who looks ravishing tonight in a see-through blouse, a black bra, and wine-red pants. His bloodshot eyes in their deep sockets survey the Bautistas and their guests, and the sunken living room with the vinegar-jar lamp and the santos and the sari-manok, the mask and shields and gongs on the adobe walls. He drinks the excellent Scotch and watches them, the enemy whose destruction, he believes with a passionate intensity, has been foreordained by the forces of history. Maybe he should start being nice to Jing-jing Lichauco. Maybe he should accept one of the jobs the Bautistas and their friends have offered him. A low profile, and parties like this every now and then to relieve the old routine, why not? He drinks slowly savoring the fine whiskey of the bourgeoisie, and nods, and smiles, taking his time. Biding his time.

Janis Joplin, the Revolution, and the Melancholy Widow of Gabriela Silang Street

T

HE LATE 1960S, and then 1970, and 1971: what of those years do we remember now? What deaths did we mourn, what disasters seared or spared us? We sold insurance, as usual, life as well as non-life: security against fire, marine and motor car accidents, bankruptcy and other misfortunes. We lost money on some mining shares but more than made up for it with a few real estate deals on the side. A demonstration tied up traffic for hours from Quiapo all the way to Vito Cruz one Saturday afternoon, and as a result we failed to keep an appointment with a prospective client, a millionaire sugar planter no less, in a restaurant in Ermita. We stayed up late one night to listen to the radio coverage of a rally downtown. The voice in the dim room, in the house where our children lay asleep, sounded distant and unreal even as it quickened to a nervous pitch, a small, urgent voice surrounded by a confusion of shouts and explosions, fading, finally erased by static, as though we had tuned in on a broadcast from another country. Over the huddled galvanized-iron roofs of Sampaloc the sirens wailed towards the center of the city. We waited — for what? for whom? — and through the grilled window we thought we could see the unseen fires of the embattled streets reflected in a low bank of clouds. The following morning, irom the bus, we glimpsed the blackened hulk of a police van on Recto Avenue, the red torn banners discarded on the corner of Mendiola, shards of glass glittering on the sidewalk. Towards dusk one hot day in March, taking a short cut through

Estero Cegado to our usual jeepney stop on the Avenida, we were stopped by a boy with a pistol. He must have been no more than fifteen, with a black headband and one blind eye pale as marble in the city twilight. We couldn't decide whether to run or grapple for the gun, which seemed to be no more lethal than the plastic toy revolvers of the sidewalk vendors. He stared up at us with his one good bloodshot eye as we stood awkward and embarrassed by our predicament in the alley, between the rear wall of a moviehouse and the kitchen of a carinderia, and he kept sniffling, as though in sympathy, as he received our Seiko watch, Parker ballpoint pen, and imitation-leather portfolio containing some three hundred pesos, copies of a brochure on group insurance coverage, a subdivision map, a novena to St. Jude, and discount cards from a massage parlor. The week of that year's first typhoon, we discovered termites had tunneled into the wooden floor beneath the kitchen sink, and rain drew a brown map on the ceiling of the boys' bedroom, reminding us of the rusted section on the roof we had long left unrepaired. On a drizzling night in July of the same year, the Metrocom raided a house a block away from ours. We woke up to the sound of truck engines idling in the dark street, a flurry of bootsteps, and a rumbling in our stomach, where the beer, the oysters, and the caldereta we had consumed at the birthday party of our unit supervisor bubbled in a thick, gaseous ferment. When we came out of the bathroom, the trucks and the troops were gone, the neighborhood was quiet save for the spatter of rain and a dog barking half-heartedly, and feeling pleasantly empty and exhausted, we went back to sleep. The raided house, we learned the following morning from the student boarders next door, had yielded one of the top leaders of an outlawed organization, his common-law wife, two or three followers, a Thompson submachine gun and a couple of carbines, a mimeograph machine, and a silkscreen, life-size, fullfigure portrait of Mao Tse-tung. About a month later we won a color TV set in a department store raffle, and to celebrate our good fortune we treated the whole family, all nine of us, including our mother-in-law, to a Chinese dinner in Binondo. Early one morning in September, not long after the year's big flood, one of the boys next door, a premed student at Santo Tomas, was found dead at the foot of Dimasalang Bridge, blood clotted like a ragged scarf on his

neck. We gave fifteen pesos to his mother, a tiny perspiring whitehaired woman from Malasiqui, Pangasinan, at the funeraria on nearby Dapitan Street. In February of the following year, our eldest daughter, Felicidad, broke up with her boyfriend, the lead guitarist of a rock group called Hope of the Fatherland, who had never learned to rise in greeting at our approach and whose cigarettes left black burnt scars on the furniture and the windowsills in our sala. Her mother shared our relief, but she was disconsolate and withdrew into a silence that saddened and bewildered us. In April, a particularly violent and clamorous month that saw the first jeepney strike, a bloody confrontation between students and police in Plaza Miranda, and a massive demo at the US Embassy, a dentist with pudgy hands that smelled strongly of tobacco pulled four of our teeth in his dilapidated clinic above a shoe store on Carriedo. He had a son employed as a plumber-electrician in Camp Crame, and he chatted affably, optimistically, about the state of the nation, while he went about his work with local anesthesia and pincers. For more than a month a mournful sort of hollowness filled our mouth and seemed to seep down to our lungs and other vital organs, distracting us from the dire rumors in a city under siege, the fire bombs and the barricades, and the heartbroken solitude into which our daughter had withdrawn. THE TIMES, surely, called for a larger, a more profound and moving response than a fretful grief over the loss of a few molars which were, to begin with, rotten beyond remedy. The crisis that had seized a country whose very foundations seemed to be shifting as from the displacement of a deep molten crust, demanded an order of feeling and emotion far more significant than that suggested by our prosaic and disjointed memories. A quality of experience such as Crisostomo Hidalgo knew: that, we should think, is far more worthy of recollection, and deserves certainly to be included in the record of those days. The history of that period, when it is finally completed, will consist in large part of the testimonies of men decidedly more knowledgeable and authoritative than Crisostomo Hidalgo could ever hope to be. There were those who directed the thrust of events and thus

possessed an overview of the battles, the skirmishes, mere fleeting glimpses of which were all Crisostomo Hidalgo could manage or was content to see, for all his avowed concern with detail and perspective. There were the participants committed to one side or the other, with their first-hand accounts of the hot center of the conflict in which Crisostomo Hidalgo was never directly involved, although his maroon Volkswagen was stoned and nearly set on fire during a rally, his head narrowly missed being cracked by a policeman's truncheon, and twice he found himself sneezing and choking from tear gas. But his own written testimony, such as it was, would be as indispensable to a full and impartial assessment of those troublous days. In some ways, his witness could be more instructive than that provided by men who held power and authority over masses of men and whose judgment most of us would accept as sufficient and final. For the benefit of his colleagues at the press club bar, some student radicals who called him friend, and a PC colonel of his acquaintance, Crisostomo Hidalgo took pains to define what he called his disloyalty both to the Establishment and those who sought to demolish it. This was not the cynical stance of a hopeless reactionary, as the activist he loved described it once in the course of a quarrel. It was rather a carefully nurtured conviction that had sprung from his fidelity to his craft. Thus, while his peers tended to identify with one extreme or another, he could write, even then, about a congressman who consulted a fortune-teller in Pandacan at the start of each legislative session, a general who read Thomas Merton and Teilhard de Chardin, a Marxist underwear manufacturer with a daughter in a Carmelite convent; he wrote about them all, the mighty and the humble, the famous and the obscure, fascinated by their common humanity. He was quite simply more interested in people than in dogmas or ideologies, and the articles he was obliged to produce at least three times a month for a weekly magazine profiled a stunning variety of characters. At first, Crisostomo Hidalgo's editor, whose allegiance, it was said, belonged to one of the Moscow-oriented factions, derided his pieces — meticulously constructed with the help of tape recorder and longhand notes on yellow ruled paper — as so much clutter, irrelevant if not downright misleading. Eventually, though,

he was allowed to write as he pleased, for another staff writer was taking care of whatever political commentary the publisher deemed necessary. Moreover, a number of readers, including the editor's wife, an Assumption graduate with literary inclinations who had authored a rhyming cookbook, had expressed their admiration for Crisostomo Hidalgo's kind of reportage. Indeed, the articles of the poet turned journalist were a remarkable species of political writing in a field dominated by aggressive partisans, as anyone so inclined may confirm from the magazine files of some libraries. Precisely because they were written from an angle of vision that represented an unwarranted departure from the prevailing mode, his magazine articles should prove invaluable to the historian of that crucial and turbulent period. What Crisostomo Hidalgo wrote, then, forms part of the record, perhaps a minor but nonetheless a valid and useful fragment. Now those of us who acknowledge his witness should find it rewarding enough, for the light, limited though it might have been, that it shed on some of the figures and events of that violent time. The fate of the nation hung in the balance, as various commentators announced in melodramatic tones. The destiny of masses of men was being decided in the countryside, in the streets of the city, in the chambers of government. Over the immediate tumult could be heard, as from an invisible and mysterious realm, the clash of vast powers and principalities. Yet private human lives endured amidst all that fury. Men still encountered their personal fate, destiny, whatever it was that singled them out and held and transformed them, individually, distinct and apart from the mass. Thus, life for each of them had a more humble measure, scaled down to the modest and the intimate, just as death, when it takes possession of a man, ceases to be an immense, terrifying abstraction and assumes a humble, familiar shape, the size and weight of a man's body. It is no small matter to be reminded of these things, as Crisostomo Hidalgo in his writings would suggest. By the same token, it should be well worth our while to consider what he never wrote about but which he lived and experienced, apart from his work during those days.

CRISOSTOMO HIDALGO as prodigal son, compulsive wanderer, convivial existentialist, occasional gambler, haunter of bars, seeker of truth and beauty and other sublime things, and ardent, ingenious lover — if there be trace or hint of him in the scores of articles he wrote during those years, he hid it so well that only the most percipient critic might be able to find it. To go back in time, for such biographical material as he himself liked to ferret out from his subjects;: the house of many rooms where he was born in 1943, the boyhood in the town in Nueva Ecija, the remote, humorless father who wanted him to be a lawyer, the gracious mother who prayed that he become a priest, the twin brother crippled in a childhood accident — of these he never wrote, not even as an undergraduate at the UP, when he composed his first poems, verse that was abstruse and symbolist, as was the fashion of the coterie of which, for a semester or two, he was the leading light. Of the life he led during those three or four years with which we are concerned — those who merely read him knew nothing. They could not have known that he was in his late twenties, for instance; that he was five feet ten, with a lean and hungry look which, softened by a quick boyish smile, not a few women found quite appealing; that home to him was a cramped apartment with broken window screens encrusted with dirt, on Mayon, near the Espana Rotonda, which he would not exchange for the furnished luxury his eldest sister, married to a rich obstetrician, had offered him in her house in Greenhills. Much less could they have known about his relations with the two women he never mentioned even to his drinking, poker-playing friends: Lualhati Layug, the activist whom he loved, and Elizabeth Magsarili, the young widow with whom he had a strange and disquieting friendship. All this and more concerning Crisostomo Hidalgo — his habits, his haunts, and the recurrent dream that disturbed his sleep, about his father locking doors and windows in the house in Nueva Ecija — his readers never guessed nor learned. The writer of those pieces teeming with images and impressions revealed nothing of himself except a way with words and a kind of inquisitive compassion. Of this talent to probe sympathetically into other lives while remaining, in his readers' eyes, featureless and unidentified, Lualhati Layug had her own judgment: that it was more curiosity than com-

passion. She delivered this verdict tearfully, her voice quivering with indignant revolutionary fervor, in a Pasay City motel room one Saturday evening in April, that same sweltering arid riotous month the dentist with the pudgy hands pulled our teeth in his decrepit clinic on Carriedo. The room that was the scene of their reunion that night was a cool sanctuary from the heat which, together with an almost palpable dread, pressed down on the waiting city. Crisostomo Hidalgo swallowed the last of the camaron rebosado, added an ice cube to his glass of beer, and reclined contentedly against the headboard of the rumpled bed; the week had turned out as he had planned, his •next deadline was days away. But Lualhati Layug shifted about and sighed unhappily, as though flushed again with disappointment over the postponed demo. Supposed to have been held that Saturday afternoon to protest the shooting of the mother and child scavenging at the Clark Air Base garbage dump, the mass action, as Lualhati Layug called it, had been moved to the following Wednesday, to coincide with the arrival of Vice-President Agnew. Swinging her canvas tote bag, sweating in her T-shirt and jeans, she had ducked grimly into his battered Beetle on UN Avenue and would not be comforted. Her all-girl Makabae group had devoted the better part of the week preparing placards and streamers, and she herself, as a principal player of the Alaymasa Theater Guild, had spent nights rehearsing a mini-drama condemning the latest atrocity perpetrated by the resident imperialists at Clark. Now they would have to change all that, at least devise new placards with messages addressed especially to Mr. Agnew. As secretary of the Makabae finance committee, she had no need to be reminded of the spiraling costs of plywood and red paint. At his remark about the sacrifices demanded by the Revolution, she had glared through her round metal-framed glasses, and had sat silent and seething as he took a circuitous route in the early dark and then drove into the courtyard of the Jefferson Lodge. Only after they had taken their shower and shared a bowl of sotanghon did she smile at his banter, settle yieldingly on his lap, and nuzzle his neck with its prominent Adam's apple, as she was wont to do when they were alone together. But after an hour or so of resolute love and related activi-

ties, performed mostly in a sort of blind, wordless trance, Lualhati Layug became grim and restless again. She vaulted out of bed, draped a towel over her hips, and lighted one of his mentholated cigarettes. Normally it was her custom to light a couple of Salems for both of them, one more endearing ritual in their intimacy. Crisostomo Hidalgo watched her fidgeting about on the edge of the bed, in the dusky light, and suddenly, almost to his surprise, her dejection touched him, stirred in his chest like heartburn. She kneaded her brow, muttering, as though straining to remember something, a text in a book, some neglected task, or an obligation demanded now by the concrete and objective situation, one of her favorite expressions. Finally she turned her large, shining eyes full upon him, eyes that looked hurt and beseeching and set wide apart without her glasses. Crisostomo Hidalgo felt bound to remain still and listen, held fast by the misery and desperation in those young-girl eyes. Bourgeois, decadent, unproductive desires — her own terminology — having been gratified for the nonce, it was time to dwell on more consequential matters. Her restiveness, the vulnerable imploring gaze meant, he knew only too well, that she was about to resume his political education. She released a furious stream of smoke, blew off a wisp of ash from her left breast which, like its twin, seemed to be staring disapprovingly at him, and began the session casually enough. "The thing you wrote this week," Lualhati Layug said. "What about it?" "Cris, it's all wrong. Nakakahiya. Nakakaasar. It doesn't present the correct analysis of the concrete and objective situation." "What else, Lu?" he said. He would hear her out, he would let her talk: it should make her feel better, this attentiveness that was an earnest of his love and tenderness. "C'mon, Lu, tear it apart, I can take it," he said. "You should," Lualhati Layug said, wistful for a second, and then stern again. "Cris, must you see things — must you write that way?" "You mean the sentences having a beginning, a middle, and —" He suppressed a burp of beer. "Makinig ka. The way you write. Medyo corny ang epekto,

what do you call it, the New Journalism? Piling on all those details, beating around the bush." On an impulse he had sneaked a hand under the towel and began working it up her warm, substantial thigh. "At least I don't trample it to —" "Tama na muna 'yan," she said, moving out of reach. "You say it's your way of making the picture clear, more interesting — Pero Cris, it's the other way around." "What, Lu?" he said, depositing his glass on the bedside table and breaking off a piece of crispy pata. "All that description, that dialogue about trivial things — it distorts the true picture. You get people to pay attention to the wrong things." "The overall picture, the effect is what counts." "Cris Hidalgo, I know a little about style and such things, you can't make bola with me. It's a matter of emphasis, 'di ba?" "Also of selection," he said. "What you once said, 'yung ano, what do you call it? Compassion, one of your pretty words." "It's a good word," he said. "Meaning pity or sorrow aroused by the distress of others." "In your case it's more a — vain curiosity," she said, her voice tearful, accusing. Abruptly she rubbed out her half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray on the dresser. "You're so interested in the superficial. Ngayon di na oobra yung human interest lamang, without regard for the correct analysis of the concrete and objective situation which, at this stage of the national democratic —" "Don't I deal with all sorts of concrete and objective —" "Ay, you know what I mean. Take your subject this time. We've talked about him, 'di ba, yung clerico-fascist na 'yon is out to sabotage the movement." "Father Butuigas is against imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat capitalism," he said, reaching out for a lumpia shanghai from among the crowded dishes on the bedside table. "And you had to quote him in big chunks, nakakainis, parang Holy Writ, Christian commitment daw. Nothing but a smokescreen for the vicious, despicable, neocolonial, feudal elements that opPose and suppress the progressive forces in our society."

"He expressed his support for the Progresibong Samahan ng-" "Words, words, nothing but words," Lualhati Layug said fervently. "Expressions of solidarity are not enough. All that talk about him and his brothers giving up their inherited land in Tarlac, pangloloko lang 'yon. It never belonged to them. The land belongs to the broad masses of our people. It is the historic task of writers and intellectuals to help the national democratic forces to smash the chains of landlordism and the feudal oligarchy which is maintained in power by U.S. imperialism which is the chief enemy of the Filipino people —" "Have a meatball, Lu," Crisostomo Hidalgo said, offering her a meatball on a toothpick, but she waved it away with an impatient gesture. She took a deep breath, enhancing her already impressive proportions, and said, more evenly, "Let's look into this Kilusang Cristiano movement of your Father Butuigas." "It seems to have racked up quite a record," Crisostomo Hidalgo said. "Remember the time his boys broke up a session of Congress and were hauled off to jail. . ." "Pamporma lang, you know how the burgis and the clericofascists love that kind of publicity. But suppression by the running dogs of US imperialism is no proof of an organization's effectiveness. Adventurism, provocative acts that make headlines, kahit na sino'y makakagawa n'yan. But goals and objectives, ibang usapan na 'yan. Their Kilusan may have an impressive record of struggle. But what are they really struggling for? Ano'ng kanilang fundamental and ultimate objectives, masasabi ba?" "They use the same terms," Crisostomo Hidalgo said, "selfcriticism, contradictions, integration with the people." "Ay, Cris, nakakaintindi ka ba, the same terms we use, but don't you see, they have an entirely different vocabulary when it comes to the most basic issues." "Like imperialism?" "Especially imperialism." "Father Butuigas is against the U.S. bases —" "Huwag ka nang magpatawa, Cris Hidalgo. Priests and politicians, landlords and bankers all belong to the same class. As Mao

Tse-tung said, everyone lives as a member of a particular class, and every kind of thinking, without ex-cep-tion," and she underscored the inflexibility of this doctrine with a vigorous nod that pointed her pink-eyed breasts at his recumbent torso, "is stamped with the brand of his class." Crisostomo Hidalgo glanced down at his rather commonplace navel, as if to confirm there the imprint of his class. "Father Butuigas is aware of the injustices in our society. Lu, he is doing what he can —" "Wala silang credibility. Biro mo, saying that the Philippines has been decolonized, that the country became really and truly independent on July 4, 1946. He and his sacristans, revolutionaries daw sila, but how radical are they? How conscious are they of the necessity to make a correct analysis of the concrete and objective situation? How sincere and determined are they in joining and waging the struggle for national liberation?" "You tell me," Crisostomo Hidalgo said, retrieving his beer from the bedside table and balancing it on his bony chest. Lualhati Layug stood up then and put on her glasses and began pacing the floor, her hair long and flowing down her sturdy back, and her tone grew more urgent, more emphatic. "The first goal of a revolution is to win power. As Padre Butuigas himself put it, napakagaling, effective political power is not offered on a silver platter, it must be seized, it is never given. Mahusay nga ang pagkasabi, gaya ng Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought, but what does he — what do they know about the strategy for the seizure of power? The usual things about social organization. In unity there is strength, sabi nila, that's all. Hindi sila makadesisyon whether to use violence or non-violence. They are against — absolutizing the means And that," she said triumphantly, glaring at him, "is their basic error. Their refusal to — absolutize the means proves the futility, the utter bankruptcy, of the Kilusang Cristiano." "How about a drink?" Crisostomo Hidalgo rolled towards the wall phone over the headboard. "A sangria or something —" "Never mind," Lualhati Layug said. "Thanks. It's because our society is semi-colonial and semi-feudal that —" "I had the impression it was colonial and feudal all the way." "It is because our society is in such a state that the present

stage of the Revolution has to take on a national democratic character," she said, pacing up and down, bespectacled, rebellious and implacable, clad only in a towel. "It is a national revolution because it seeks to assert national sovereignty against the inroads of US imperialism and its local agents. It is a democratic revolution because it seeks to fulfill the peasant struggle for land against domestic feudalism. The basic contradictions in Philippine society are those between our nation and imperialism, and those between the broad masses of our people and feudalism. . ." Lualhati Layug paused for breath and stared at the bathroom door left ajar, as though she had espied lurking there the basic contradictions in Philippine society. "The present stage of the Revolution has for its paramount objective the liberation of the broad masses of our people from the stranglehold of imperialism and feudalism," she continued in the same fervent tone. "It is a continuation of the Revolution of 1896 and the Filipino-American War. Our people suffered defeat in those struggles because of the weak and corrupt leadership of the bourgeoisie, particularly the liberal bourgeois leadership of the Aguinaldo faction. But fortunately the present people's revolution is of a different type. More than ever, the old ilustrado leadership has been fragmented into the three strata. The comprador bourgeoisie, the national bourgeoisie, and the petty bourgeoisie. Today the correct and effective leadership in the Revolution is no longer in their hands but in the hands of the proletariat." She peered through the space above his head, out beyond the dim premises of the Jefferson Lodge, into a hazy distance where perhaps she beheld the marching, advancing ranks of the proletariat, while he contemplated the curve of her neck, the glimmering cascade of her hair. She gave another of her deep unhappy sighs, then fumbled abstractedly for a cigarette. He lighted it for her and leaned closer to touch her face. She withdrew from the contact and tucked in the towel more firmly about her waist. "What are the basic problems of the Filipino people? In approaching a problem, Mao Tse-tung said, we should see the whole as well as the parts. Mao said, if a frog in a well says, 'The sky is no bigger than the mouth of the well' — that is untrue. The truth is that the sky is not just the size of the mouth

of the well. If the frog says, 'A part of the sky is the size of the well' — that would be true, for it agrees with the facts." "Clear enough," Crisostomo Hidalgo said. "A kind of frog test. Want some pancit canton? I've finished —" "How is the people's democratic revolution to be carried out?" Lualhati Layug said, blowing smoke as she resumed her barefoot pacing, up and down beside the bed. "First, it is necessary to make a general analysis of the classes in Philippine society. The landlord class, composed of the big, medium, and small landlords. The bourgeoisie, composed of —" "The three strata, you've mentioned those." "The peasantry, composed also of three strata, the rich peasants, the middle peasants, and the poor peasants." "Those rich peasants are out to get richer and should be rounded up —" "Then the proletariat, the semi-proletariat, and the lumpen proletariat. There are the special groups, like the national minorities, the so-called squatters, and the youth. In order to really know the internal laws and directions of historical development in our society, we must study these various classes, their economic status, and political attitudes. Only then can we know for sure who our real friends are, and who our real enemies are, in the revolutionary struggle against US imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat capitalism." Lualhati Layug sighed again, and sagged wearily, or so he thought, and she sat down once more on the edge of the bed. He ached to reach out and pull her down beside him, and cover her, shield her from the onslaughts of US imperialism and the other isms perhaps prowling now in the corridors of the Jefferson Lodge. As though sensing his intent, she edged down hurriedly to the foot of the bed, one hand holding the towel in place, and from that perch and through a swirl of smoke she appeared now to be addressing his thin hairy legs. "US imperialism is encouraging domestic feudalism in order to perpetuate the poverty of the broad masses of our people —" "Lu, c'mon now," Crisostomo Hidalgo said and wished he had called for another beer. "That's enough for now." "To subjugate the peasants, who are the most numerous

class, and produce cheap labor and raw materials for US big business —" "Lu," Crisostomo Hidalgo said. How lovely she looked, how young, with her hair falling just at that angle, he mused; but even as he regarded her in the lambent light she seemed to be receding, to be drifting away in a mist. A trick of the light, or the beer he had drunk; maybe he should stick to Scotch, beer had a way of going to his head. . . He blinked to focus his eyes as her voice came to him almost in a whisper. "Lu, you know something?" he said, puzzled and alarmed by the sense of her withdrawing, her diminishing in the dimness thickening there at the foot of the bed. "Lu, come here," he said and swiftly, before she could resist, pulled her down to where he lay, among the pillows. "Oh, Cris," she said. "Dear Cris." "I love you," he said, removing her glasses. "Pinakamamahal kita, Cris," she said. "For a while there, I thought, it seemed. . . You were sort of moving away. Floating in space." "I'm here. With you, Cris." "Know something, Lu? Sometimes, it's as if I — we —" "Ano, Cris?" "As if we had just met, and just beginning to know each other." "Is that good or bad?" "It's good to go on knowing... learning about each other." "Maybe I should begin all over again," she said. "I mean, telling you about myself. Like that first time. . ." He said, "You can begin with the Mabalacat High School. Not far from Clark." On his shoulder he felt the warm exhalation of her small pleased laugh. "Valedictorian ako," she said softly. "I had this strong pettybourgeois drive to excel in class. Pero hindi naman wall-flower." "I'm sure of that. And you were senior class queen and rode on a float on your Foundation Day." "Sabi ko ba 'yon? It seems like a very long time ago. . . Our class drew up a petition, to protest the noise of the American jets passing over the town. And I thought it was all so silly, a waste of time. Then, at the UP —"

"Our UP Beloved," he said, kissing her hair. "At the UP, my parents' choice siyempre, I made the honors list. There was the gang at the dorm, movie dates, parties with those hypocrites from the Ateneo, burgis talaga. But staying on the honors lists was what really counted. Then. . "I know. The teach-ins began," he said, kissing her ear. "'Yung mga discussion groups," she said. "Ideological advancement, the development of a counter-consciousness. To serve the people. Nagkaroon ako ng lakas-loob, may direksyon sa buhay... Grades and degrees weren't important any more." "You graduated anyway," he said kissing her left eyelid. "Political science, magna yet." "You should have been there," she said. "The second protest graduation at Diliman." "But before that, the strikes, the pickets," he said, kissing her sunburned nose. "Oo," she said. "The Chinese factory in Malabon. We brought food for the workers and helped in the picket line. That was where we met." "You thought I was a plainclothesman, an agent or something, huh, offering you a lift." "Okay lang sa akin, pero my companions wanted to make sure. Anyway, we rode with you up to Quezon Boulevard Extension." "I was afraid I'd have a flat. If it weren't for you, I'd just have driven off —" "Really? What made you stop? Iginuhit siguro ng — That was more than a year ago. . . Cris, if they ever find out." "Who's going to find out what?" "That we — we're like this. They'll say it's counter-productive, time spent away from the movement. And they may not approve of you at all, of our — Natatakot ako," she said and wriggled up against him. "I'll get thrown out. Or worse." He unwound the towel and pressed her warm body closer and it seemed he could feel her heart fluttering against his ribcage. "Lu," he said. "Cris," she said, "the times. Everything's changing, going so fast. We face a revolution, a protracted people's war. The country will become another Vietnam."

"Forget the revolution, forget about Vietnam." "But I can't," she said as her forefinger traced his deltoid muscle, his sternum, and his clavicle. "I mustn't.. . The people. .. We must never waver in the struggle for national liberation. We shall fight on the campuses, in the dorms, in the streets, we shall never surrender. Makibaka, huwag matakot." "Lu, the country's going to be all right. In a few years, you — we'll look back and it'll all be like a movie or a dream. We won't practice, uh, family planning, and you'll help make both ends meet by working for DAP or the Bureau of Manpower Development — " "Don't talk like that," she said. "The broad masses... The Revolution..." And then: "I'll never give you up. I'll never give up on you, Cris. . . Oo, oh, Cris." BY FIVE o'clock in the afternoon of the following Wednesday, the demonstrators, marching from assembly points on the fringes of the city, had converged on Roxas Boulevard and occupied their assigned positions, in front of the US Embassy. Their mood exultant, their banners and streamers bright red gashes in the slanting sunlight, they stood massed or sat on the grass and pavement, from the T.M. Kalaw corner of the Luneta to the Shell House parking lot beyond Padre Faura: the radical youth and student groups, the moderate reformists, the workers' contingents from Manila and suburban towns, the peasant delegations from Pampanga and Tarlac, and even a covey of schoolgirls in blue uniforms led by a trio of nuns. Their front ranks faced, across the empty half of the asphalt thoroughfare, a long line of police with white riot helmets, round wicker shields, and wooden truncheons. On their right flank, towards the Luneta, a platoon of soldiers, similarly equipped, except that they carried rectangular plastic shields, and backed up by fire trucks, kept watch over the rally. A band of tourists in gaudy polo shirts and straw hats — "German, Aleman," they kept announcing smilingly as they made their way from the plywood-protected glass frontage of the Bay View Hotel, deeper into the crowd — clicked their cameras at the streamers, at the placards inscribed with Tagalog slogans, at the thin young man speaking frenziedly atop the jeep mounted with loudspeakers and parked beside the traffic island, in

full view of a TV crew and the police by the embassy gate. The young man ended his harangue, a summary of the crimes and injustices that had been visited on the Filipino people from the day Commodore Dewey sailed into the Bay now gleaming metallic in the sunset, a backdrop for the applauding, chanting multitude and the white embassy building with its back to the sea. A dark pretty girl in denims next appeared atop the jeep, and in the same fiery manner denounced the shooting of the scavengers at Clark, the American war in Vietnam, the visit of Vice-President Agnew. Lualhati Layug's troupe had just concluded their playlet on the strip of road beside the jeep when a throbbing clatter rose from behind the ridge of buildings along the boulevard, and clenched fists bristled upward, shouts of "Canon! Himagsikan! Rebolusyon!" roared through the crowd as a helicopter swung in low, tilted and hovered for a full minute, and then flew off in a wide arc, in the dimming sky. The chopping whir receded, and the demonstrators began to sing the "Internationale," the Tagalog lyrics sounding at once angry and poignant. The sun subsided, slipped over the edge of the Bay, and the effigies of Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew, and the U.S. Ambassador, strung from a balete tree on the boulevard, shriveled and collapsed in orange flames, in the transluscent dusk. It was 6:31. The crowd was singing the national anthem, faces turned towards the bonfire on the traffic island before the embassy gate, when a commotion began in the front ranks, a torch fell in a spray of red sparks on the embassy fence. The singing voices faltered on the final refrain, "Aming ligaya na pag may mangaapi..." and then the first pillbox explosion petrified the assembly in an instant's tableau of fear and astonishment, the second and third blasts heaved and scattered it in a screaming, jostling stampede. Lualhati Layug ran the length of Plaza Ferguson, away from the boulevard and the rapid crash of gunfire, smelled tear gas, and turned right to flee down M.H. del Pilar. An explosion scooped her up with countless metal prongs and flung her to the sidewalk. She tried to rise, groping for her glasses. A club, a rock, something solid that shot out of the thunderous night bashed in the back of her head, and she felt herself falling into a long column of darkness. The speed, inexorableness, and ultimate ease of her falling so amazed

her that her broken body shuddered; incredulous, she wondered why this was so, and with a final soundless cry fell headlong deeper into the dark. At that moment Crisostomo Hidalgo was in Makati, also wondering, and feeling himself being drawn by the pull of a steep descent, but a gravity less powerful than that which claimed Lualhati Layug. He could control it, he knew, if he paced his drinking right, if he kept his cool. No need to make a scene, to mess up with this Gringo. . . But he was tense, and the hand that held his third glass of I.W. Harper bourbon, which Elizabeth Magsarili always poured out for him whenever he came visiting, shook slightly, a tremor he could not stop. What am I doing here in the first place? he wondered, putang 'na, I shouldn't have come tonight, I should've stayed on in Ermita, any place but here. Elizabeth Magsarili's airconditioned house on Gabriela Silang Street in Magallanes, which he had long thought familiar, with its U-shaped driveway, its chandeliered living room, its oval swimming pool and three-car garage, seemed inhospitable tonight, even hostile; more specifically, this room that had been the den of the late gold-mining magnate and land developer, Democrito Magsarili, whose widow now sat before the TV, sipping her gin-and-tonic, and solemnly watching Wild, Wild West, the huge bald American slouched on the sofa beside her. It was the TV that had occasioned the unease, the dull anger that still simmered in Crisostomo Hidalgo's chest. Over the rim of his glass he glanced at the American passive and relaxed in the flickering electronic light, and Hayop ka, he thought, why don't you go back where you came from, Texas or Alabama or wherever, who do you think you are, carrying on like you owned the place. With one good kick in the balls, and a chair brought down just right on that big bald skull of yours.. . Easy now, he thought, and took a swallow of the bourbon. He wished he hadn't called Elizabeth Magsarili from the bar in Ermita, and he felt the tug of the downward pull towards something vast, insidious, and fatal. The leather chair in which he sat seemed to rest on a ledge: if he so much as moved an inch, he would fall. But he allowed his mouth to move, to chew on a slice of ham, and he drank, his hand unsteady, and he thought: I suppose I'm about to get really plastered. . .

The American jerked up and laughed, a blast of amusement that cut through the television sounds — the same rich, sincere, booming guffaw with which he had responded to Crisostomo Hidalgo's suggestion half an hour earlier that they watch the demonstration, live on TV. "You mean, watch those Commies burn down our embassy?" Wilson Krapenberger had said, his large jowly face creased with that loud, ingenuous laughter. "Man alive, you must be kiddin', Mr. — what's the name again?" "Hidalgo." "Mr. Hidalgo, yeah. That your idea of prime time viewing? Demos, for Chris' sake." Wilson Krapenberger seemed to find the idea exceedingly funny and couldn't stop laughing. "Watch the demo, the man says." He shook his head merrily, swayed on the heels of his boots, and poured himself some more Cutty Sark from the same bottle he had been holding when Crisostomo Hidalgo arrived. "You wanna watch a bunch of crazies stoning our embassy, Liz?" "No," Elizabeth Magsarili said, looking at both of them with her grieving, slightly crossed eyes. "You heard what the lady said. That makes the two of us who don't go for that kind of shit," Wilson Krapenberger said, his laughter subsiding into a rasping hiccup. "And on the day Mr. Agnew comes a-visiting yet. Man alive, you people sure got fancy notions. What's a good program this time, Liz?" "How about The FBI" Elizabeth Magsarili said, sad and pale in her black velveteen pantsuit. "Naaah. Cops and robbers — that's for Michael," Wilson Krapenberger said. "Hey, where's good oF Mike? He hasn't said hello to his Uncle Willie." "He's having his supper," Elizabeth Magsarili said. "That kid of yours. How old is he? Five? Six? You mind him now 'fore he grows up to be a Viet Cong like those kids out to burn our embassy, you hear, Liz?"And Wilson Krapenberger began to laugh again, mottled pink from his drinking, his guffaw like a deep baritone cough bursting out of his mouth. "They aren't Viet Cong," Crisostomo Hidalgo said. "And they won't burn your embassy. It's a peaceful rally — Let's watch it for a while, Liz." He thought of Lualhati Layug at the demo, and

wished he hadn't left the bar in Ermita; not far from the embassy. .. "What did you say, boy?" Wilson Krapenberger said, straightening up to his full height, an inch or two over six feet. "Cris is with the press," Elizabeth Magsarili said in her soft mournful voice. "So?" "He follows these things," Elizabeth Magsarili said. "The rallies—" "A reporter, whaddaya know." A measuring look gleamed in Wilson Krapenberger's pale blue eyes. "I bet you're one of those smart-ass guys who want us to pull out of Vietnam and hand the country over to the Reds, lock, stock and barrel." Crisostomo Hidalgo said, "You'll be pulling out, whether you like it or not." "You sound like Victor Charlie yourself," Wilson Krapenberger said, squinting at him, his mouth curling ominously. "You should be in Vietnam. Right now. You'll get the proper reception out there." "Just what do you mean by that, Mr. —" "Wilson, please," Elizabeth Magsarili said. "Cris, for goodness sake." "You can drop all the bombs you've got, and all the napalm, and still you won't be able to —" "Ssshit," Wilson Krapenberger said. Crisostomo Hidalgo said, a warm pulse hammering in his temples, "Don't you read at all? I guess you don't. In your own papers —" "Oh Cris, please," Elizabeth Magsarili said, and switched on the TV She flicked from one channel to another — audio and visuals flashed on and off, Nora Aunor singing, a blazing car tumbling end over end down a cliff, a crowd waving red banners, and then Robert Conrad in a black outfit kicking down a door, sixshooter in hand — and "Hold it there, Liz," Wilson Krapenberger said, turning his back on Crisostomo Hidalgo. "That's OK. A Western that's a darn sight different. You ever watch this, Mr. — what's the name now, I can't get the hang of the names you folks've got around here. This will do you good, better'n that lousy show they're putting on at the embassy, believe you me." The baritone guffaw

began to shake him again as he settled his ponderous bulk on the sofa and stretched out his huge booted legs. . . Crisostomo Hidalgo, hearing now the same booming laugh, winced, and felt himself sliding closer to the edge of a steep fall. He must keep still, but he braced himself, and he thought, gripping his glass: If this Kano makes another stupid remark I'll throw this in his goddam face. Wilson Krapenberger said, "Well, that's it. The good guys whup the bad guys. You go for this Conrad guy same as I do, eh, Liz?" "Yes," Elizabeth Magsarili said in her gentle grieving way. "Well, I gotta vamoose," Wilson Krapenberger said, rising unsteadily. "Sure you can't make it, Liz? I can pass for you in half an hour." "Some other time. I just don't feel up to it. I mean, not another square dance." "Anything you say," Wilson Krapenberger said. "I'm sorry. Really I am, Wilson." "We'll miss you, sweetheart. Chuck and Donna and the rest of the gang." The grunting start of a laugh heaved up from Wilson Krapenberger's belly as he offered Crisostomo Hidalgo a large-boned hand: it was dry, hairy, heavy as stone, a hand that could bash in the front and back of your head. "See you around, Mr. Daligo." "It's Hidalgo," Elizabeth Magsarili said. "Mr. Ee-doll-go, yeah. Lizbeth, you stay put, I know my way out. Thanks for the booze, honey," he winked cheerfully. Out in the hall they could hear him calling out, "Hey, Charlie Brown! Mike, c'mon here and say g'night to your Uncle Willie. . . " "The guys you pick up," Crisostomo Hidalgo said. "I didn't pick him up," Elizabeth Magsarili said, shutting off the TV. "Sorry. Just an expression. By the way, who he, what does he do?" "He's with a firm making a survey of — natural resources. Something like that." "Known him long?' "He lives down the street," Elizabeth Magsarili said. "His wife's dying. A brain tumor."

"And he comes over for consolation, I suppose." "Wilson's nice," she said, "when he's not drinking." "He your—lover?" "Oh Cris," she said. 'What's come over you? It's the middle of the week." "Meaning..." "I don't see my lovers on weekdays," she said. "I forgot," he said. •'We used to — Just friends on Wednesdays, huh, Liz?" "Good friends," she said. "Who comes around on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays? You haven't kept me posted. The same congressman —" "Let's not talk about that," she said. He replenished their drinks and joined her on the sofa, sitting on the indentation left by Wilson Krapenberger. The floor lamp cast its bluish light on her shaggy Italian bob, the pale broad forehead, the melancholy eyes that had a tendency to cross, the unsmiling lips with the mole on the lipsticked surface of the lower one, a black spot like a smudge of charcoal one hardly noticed from a distance. He kissed her and it seemed he could feel the tiny knob of the mole against his lips. Her tongue flicked briefly in response and then she pushed him off gently, once more pensive and remote. He held her hands and found them so cold, as though they had just been soaked in freezing water, that he almost dropped them, almost drew away. Michael came into the room then, followed by a maid, one of four in the household. The boy was in his pajamas and held a toothbrush. "Good night, Mommy," Michael said. "Say good night to Cris." "Goodnight, Cris." "Good night, Mike. Pleasant dreams." "What's pleasant?" the boy said, squirming out of his mother's embrace. "Go on now, Michael," Elizabeth Magsarili said. "I like the way you say his name. M-chael," Crisostomo Hidalgo said. "I'm glad you called. I've been wanting to see you. To tell you something."

"Like what?" "I'm leaving," she said, gravely. "Going away. I went to the embassy the other day. I'll get my immigrant's visa next week." "Why, Liz?" "Why what?" "Why leave?" His eyes kept straying to the mole on her lip. "You're all right here." "I feel kind of lost. And everything's so — uncertain. All this talk about a revolution." "Abandon ship, huh?" "What, Cris?" "Nothing." Perhaps he had drunk one too many. It was with an effort of will that he glanced away from her sorrowful mouth. But what was wrong. . . "When do you expect to go?" "In August, September at the latest. I want to be there early in the fall." "That's about five months from now." "I've waited years and years for that visa. I never told you about my green card, did I?" "You and your deep secrets. But why the States?" "My brother is there," she said. "The doctor. Didn't you know? In New Jersey. Also some cousins, and my best friend in college, Betsy Dimaculangan, you remember her. You ever thought of emigrating yourself? Getting out while the going's good —" "No. Not really. I was born here, I grew up here, and I'm so used to —" "I hope you'll find your own country," she said. "I mean, the right place. For you. You know... Oh, the other reason I wanted you to come." "Out with it." "Danny — my brother — he sent me some cassettes. Jams Joplin. She's just fantastic." "Janis who?" he said, picking up his bourbon-on-the-rocks and another Fig Newton. "And some posters," she said. "I just love that brother of mine. Here, I'll show you. . ." She put on the overhead light, and on a wall above and to one side of the rolltop desk, the same desk at which Democrito Magsarili had sat and fired a .357 Magnum

slug through the roof of his mouth, splattering the ceiling with bits of brain and bone five years ago, Crisostomo Hidalgo saw the color posters: Jimi Hendrix with a guitar, the 5th Dimension, Blood, Sweat & Tears, and Janis Joplin singing at the 1969 Newport Folk Festival, a vivacious redhead in a glow-worm mini and black mesh stockings. "You must listen to Janis," Elizabeth Magsarili said sadly. "You'll love Janis. She's just marvelous. I've been listening to her practically all day. She's twenty-nine. My age." "I seem to have read... early this year..." The portrait of the rock superstar with hair thrown back, singing in a city in Rhode Island, USA, wavered and blurred in his vision. "She's just fantastic," she said somberly. "The feeling. The loneliness." "Something I read about her," Crisostomo Hidalgo said. "An overdose of barbiturates —" But she had turned aside to close the door. He watched her slide back a wall panel to reveal the receiver controls of the 4-channel stereo system, complete with reel-to-reel and cassette decks, a minimum power output of 160 watts per channel at 8 ohms and no more than .09% total harmonic distortion, the works, a legacy from the late Democrito Magsarili, but not the shelves of records and tape cartridges, a number of which he had heard played at least once in this room during the last two or three years: the Beatles, and Johnny Cash, Bobbie Gentry, Petula Clark, and other American favorites. Amplified drums, cymbals, the snarling twang of an electric guitar surged out of the quadrosonic speakers, vibrating in his ears, in his head, in the pit of his stomach and the bottom of his kidneys. Then Janis Joplin's raw shrieking lamentation exploded in the enclosed space of the room: They call me mean, people call me evil. I've been called much worse things around. But I'm gonna take good care of Janis, yeah, honey, Ain't no one gonna dog me down. . . As though pushed by the pulsating pressure of the music, the force of the wailing voice, Crisostomo Hidalgo, who was perfectly content to listen to bossanovas, Desafinado and such, thumped out by the piano player at the Cinco Litros in Ermita, lurched back

to the sofa. An enthralled expression came upon Elizabeth Magsarili's face above him. Her eyes were now definitely crossed, focused on a point a few inches in front of her nose, which was what always happened when she yielded to a profound emotion. Then she raised her slender arms and began to dance. She rocked, twisted, weaved, waved her arms, stamped on the carpet in a dolorous rapture, while Crisostomo Hidalgo watched befuddled and open-mouthed, and the black blues sung by the white woman beat and drilled down into his throat: Time keeps movin' on Friends, they turn away I keep pushin' so hard an' babe, I keep try'n To make it right to another lonely day. . . Elizabeth Magsarili went on with her solitary dance. She rocked and writhed around the room, not once looking at him, never pausing; shuffling and lifting her knee and swaying in a grim, cross-eyed ecstasy past the posters from New Jersey, the stuffed eagle, the decayed wooden saints and the Maranaw jar in a corner, the novels of Harold Robbins, Irving Wallace, and Jacqueline Susann on the built-in shelves, the cassette tapes and record albums, her certificate from the Rocha Riding School, and the laminated photographs from an airline calendar: the Golden Gate Bridge, Times Square, autumn in New England. Pale and slender in a black pantsuit belted with a silver chain, Elizabeth Magsarili danced to the songs of Janis Joplin, for a long time, it seemed, while Crisostomo Hidalgo sat staring through a haze of alcohol, mesmerized by the motions of her dance and the powerful sobbing American voice, as he had been held, though less importunately, by Lualhati Layug's imploring gaze, far away, in another room. But suddenly it was all too much for him, the long scorching day, the drinks, his antipathy towards Wilson Krapenberger, the multi-decibeled blasts of soul-rock. His head jerked forward as though struck from behind, the room itself seemed to rock and tilt in a contracting cloud of light pierced by unbearable shafts of sound; and as he felt himself slide and fall down a steep incline, he vomited

a pasty compound of bourbon whiskey, ham, and Fig Newtons on Elizabeth Magsarili's imported Armstrong rug. He willed himself to stand and staggered grunting and groaning to the bathroom down the hallway, trailed by Janis Joplin's husky tragic moan: I once had a daddy, He said he'd give everything in sight... He leaned retching over the washbowl, his nausea dissolving in receding waves, until he could stand quite steadily on his feet. Just what the hell am I doing here? he asked his haggard face in the mirror. He splashed water on his face, shook his head to clear it. His image in the mirror, in the green-tiled bathroom, reminded him of someone, in a dream... His father, locking doors, bolting windows... his twin brother scuttling across the floor... He sat on the toilet-seat cover, hunched forward, scoured empty of thought and feeling, hands clasped as though in prayer. Gradually, a wry confident strength flowed into the blankness within him, and he could regard himself with some amusement, sitting there like some absurd philosopher, a malnourished interloper, in Elizabeth Magsarili's bathroom, in this house in Magallanes Village, separated by a widening distance from all that he had once been. What next on the agenda, pare ko? Tomorrow and tomorrow. . . Shakespeare, the best of the old pros, a cooler cat than Dostoevsky, Kafka and the rest, a minority neocolonial opinion, that, friends and countrymen. Tomorrow he would drive down to Malolos and meet that fellow he had heard about, a visionary with strange powers. . . The den was silent, looking stark and abandoned when he returned; but Elizabeth Magsarili was still there, sucking on what appeared to be a thick, uneven cigarette, and her querulous eyes, no longer sharply crossed as when she performed her lonely dance, turned to him across the room. She inhaled deeply and said, "Have some grass. You'll feel better." He caught a whiff, a sweetish odor of the smoke she blew his way. "It's so relaxing," she said. "After Janis. . . Don't be so uptight, Cris."

He could think of nothing to say, leaning tired and bedraggled against the door. "Have you tried goof balls? Red devils? Better than booze, for a pick-up." Languidly she deposited the half-smoked joint on an antique saucer. "Liz," he said, retrieving his Salems and his Zippo lighter from the coffee table, "take it easy now —" "They say acid's the best," she said. "For turning on. Freaking out." "Liz," he said. "I've got to be going." "Why? Oh Cris." She came to him, close to him, and her cold fingers touched his face. "Please stay," she said. "Sit down. I'll make you a cup of coffee." "I just remembered," he said. "There's this man I have to see in Bulacan. Early tomorrow." "Another interview?" "Yes," he said. "A faith healer this time. I better move on." "But stay for supper," she said. "Just the two of us, like before. I have macaroni, lamb stew, chicken en casserole. And apple pie. Come," and she tugged at him with her cold moist hands. He shivered, felt numb, shivered again. "I'll take a rain check," he said. "You feeling all right? The Jaguar's back from the shop. I can drive for you. Wherever you want to go." He managed a chuckle. "Over my dead body. The way you drive, Liz. You'll end up killing both of us." Elizabeth Magsarili walked him across the blue vinyl expanse of the living room, her arm about his waist. At the door she gave him a brief kiss, just a light glancing brush of her melancholy mouth, yet it was as though he could feel the rough grain of the mole on her lip."Take care, Cris,"she said, and "Call me next week, I'd like you to meet some friends from Subic,"and Crisostomo Hidalgo started the Volks and drove down Gabriela Silang Street, with its massive bungalows and ranch houses and guard outposts, and out of the neat, symmetrical, well-lighted village named after the Portuguese explorer in the service of the Spanish Crown who had brought the West to this country more than four centuries ago, and he drove faster, impelled by an undefined dread and an impa-

tience to know and conquer it, straining to look beyond his headlights as he sped towards Manila, towards the hot, crowded, disorderly sprawl of Quiapo and Sampaloc and Tondo under a bank of night clouds suffused with a reddish hue like the reflection of a huge and destructive fire. IT IS SOME years since the proclamation of the new order. We sell insurance still: security or the illusion of it for the traveler, the investor, the risk-taker. We now live in Quezon City, and our company has moved from Intramuros to Buendia, so we do most of our commuting these days between Cubao and Makati. Around nine in the morning, we might see Crisostomo Hidalgo in his white Corolla slowing down for a red light near the new Shaw Boulevard underpass on E. de los Santos Avenue. His attache case by his side, his gray English wool coat on a hanger behind him, he would be on his way to Ayala Avenue, where he is vice-president for creative services and special projects in an advertising agency. He is thirty-five now, still with the same lean and hungry look, but more resigned somehow, more ascetic, with his long hair and scraggly mustache worn like a shy disguise. A silver wedding band can be seen on his left hand resting on the wheel: in 1973, not long after his father in Nueva Ecija collapsed and expired when shown a copy of the new land reform decree, he married Annabelle Cadocawan of Mandaluyong, Rizal. They have two boys, Jun and Boyet, aged three and one, whom Annabelle, a placid homebody who was a third-year voice student at Centro Escolar when she met and married him, sings to sleep with songs like "Kapalaran" and "ArawAraw, Gabi-Gabi." The same songs he hears on his car radio as he drives to work, and the voice of Rico J. Puno or Didith Reyes conjures up images of his family, a montage of damp diapers and laughing faces, in the chalet in the Cadocawan compound, in Mandaluyong. Enterprising cursillistas whose interests include the export of narra back-scratchers and a memorial park famed for its bronze figures of national heroes, his in-laws are kindly disposed towards him; are, in fact, demonstrably affectionate, lavish in their generosity, especially on Sundays, when the clan gathers after the noon Mass for a boisterous lunch followed by more light-hearted

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chatter about what sly, old Brig. Gen. Liberato Cadocawan (Ret.) calls the three M's: Money, Marketing, and Mahjong. Still, Crisostomo Hidalgo feels his staying on in the compound compromises his manhood, detracts from his integrity somehow, and he is resolved to move out to Sunville Homes in Paranaque next year. To complete his payments on a house he can call his own, he is going to work harder, to put in more hours than he ever did during those days on the magazine. His attache case fairly bulges with the evidence of his zeal and industry: Pert-CPM charts, the draft of a code for the Kapisanan ng mga Adbertaysing Eksekyutib sa Metro Manila (Kadeksam), a multi-media publicity program for an undertakers' convention and fashion show, a script for a documentary on population, pollution, and human rights commissioned by a federation of banana exporters, and a book, Multinationals and the Dynamics of Asian Development, which he has been reading for the MB.A. class he attends three evenings a week. About the only item that doesn't belong to the lot is a Penguin edition of the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. The light turns green and Crisostomo Hidalgo speeds on to Makati, the radio playing "Torn Between Two Lovers" and then "Ain't Gonna Bump No More," down the highway with its clearly marked traffic lanes, its freshly whitewashed curbing and border of young trees. Without his knowledge, much less his permission, for which we hope to be forgiven, let us follow him one more time, and see what else there is to learn from this man, this retired poet and former journalist and now Makati executive, who, together with the rest of us, made the fateful passage from the old to the new dispensation... He cruises down Ayala Avenue, shifts gears automatically as he turns right before the monument to the Katipunan erected under the auspices of the Philippine-American Management Association. The same dark apparition, the straw-hatted man with the pushcart, has materialized under the dead tree near the parking lot, this time joined by a thin pregnant woman and a boy in rags. It is 9:11 when he steps past a knot of garrulous Japanese in identical dark suits into the elevator which takes him up to the 15 thfloor offices of Ad Astra-Philippines, a subsidiary of the Chicagobased advertising firm that is reputedly the third largest in the world. His secretary, Monette, a cheerful Maryknoll graduate whose healthy,

half-exposed bosom is adorned with a silver cross, greets him with a mellifluous "Good morning, Mr. Hidal-go." He strides into his glass-paneled cubicle, snaps open his cigarette case for his second Benson and Hedges of the day, parts the window drapes, and, as he usually does before settling down to work, gazes out to the northwest, at Manila and the Bay and the far mountains, all arranged in a calm, sunlit composition, as on a tourist postcard. The curving sky is flawless, and bears no signs of either the past or the future. The high empty spaces of the morning and the orderly planes and perspectives laid out from the avenue below to the city on the horizon are reflected in his deep-set eyes. As he stands there looking out through the tinted glass, what alarms, what outcries still reach him with their faint vibrations through the bright and quiet air? Does he still think of the burnt wreckage of distant days scattered far, swept away as by a tidal sea? What does he remember? Some faces, perhaps; maybe snatches of words: "never give up on you" and "you'll find your own country. . ." His large Adam's apple bobs and twitches, as though caught on a spine of memory. But only for a moment. He turns to the golf and country club ad layout on his desk just as the cheerful Monette comes in with a cup of coffee, black, as he likes it, and tells him he has a call from the Banana Exporters League of the Philippines (BELP).

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HE PRIME Minister had declared that Friday a national holiday, to commemorate the Martyrdom of the Ten Soldiers of Aviles, and the following Monday was to be the homecoming of the new Cardinal, to honor whom all citizens and residents of the land, regardless of nationality, race, creed or convictions to the contrary, had been enjoined by the Queen to take leave of work-bench, classroom and office, and "participate wholeheartedly," to quote her televised message, "in the triumphant welcome for the latest Filipino Prince of the Universal Church, whose exaltation by divine decree constitutes yet another priceless jewel in the crown of our Christian heritage, the envy and inspiration of the rest of Asia": thus it was a long weekend, and the Apolonio Sibagos of McKinley Village — more accurately, Sylvia Sibago the energetic patroness of artists, intellectuals, technocrats, and such eminent and authoritative personalities; but not Pol Sibago, who had ceased to play the role of the droll and garrulous host, the clever charming young husband — didn't have to contend with the standard excuse about tomorrow being a working day, no, not even for the more industrious among the oligarchy, and so managed to gather as many as fifty guests, more than twice the number of the resolutely loyal company Sylvia could summon simply by telephone, for an extended evening of gastronomic, alcoholic and other pleasures to soothe civilized body and spirit, in the glass and brick-walled house sprawled atop the wide, elevated, tree-bordered slope of lawn along Bonifacio

Road, on the third Sunday of the third month of that fateful year the people will long remember, that year when the leaves turned red, and October rained stones of ice, and strange signs appeared in the sky at sunset. The party that night was, as usual, Sylvia Sibago's idea, and Pol Sibago's contribution, if one may call it that, was limited to a resigned shrug: after all, his wife kept a separate bank account, augmented periodically by her father, the shipping and sugar magnate, and she insisted on paying for the costs of her "dialogues with society," as she liked to call her frequent and lavish celebrations. Still, a spasm of annoyance and embarrassment flared in the vicinity of her half-exposed aristocratic breasts whenever she bothered to notice the change: Pol Sibago the poet turned stockbroker now seemed content merely to watch and listen and drink apart, wandering through the crowded house that Sunday evening with scarcely a word to anyone, lingering briefly at the edges of conversation and enlightenment, and then moving on, lean and furtive like an exhausted and melancholy spy. He finished his third and, he resolved, his last Scotch on the rocks for the night, nodded vaguely at an enormous woman in a green see-through pantsuit asking him whether oil exploration issues were still considered highly speculative, turned and weaved slowly through the intermingled voices, the cigarette haze, the burnt sweetish odor of marijuana, careful not to step on the legs, arms, bodies resting on the blue carpeted floor: and he watched them all with his sober deep-set eyes, listened to them laughing and talking above the muted cassette music in the yellow dusk of the living room, in the orange dimness of the terrace, in the lamplit dark around the swimming pool. "The adoption of the free exchange rate," Ferdie Marawot was saying, "was dictated by the fact that the nation had over-taxed its resources. We knew that development was imperative, but we refused to pay the price. Increased imports strained the total foreign exchange capabilities of the country, and when the limit was reached, the government had no choice but to introduce the floating rate to stabilize our economic position. True, prices have gone up as a result and continue to rise, but such difficulties are minor and temporary compared with the benefits that the economy has

gained in such a short period. For instance, viewed against the FiveYear Development Plan target for the current fiscal year, the GNP at constant prices when converted to a comparable fiscal year basis showed a growth of 5.2 per cent as against the 5 per cent rate called for in the program. The large deficit, which the requirements of our capital program made necessary, was turned into a cash surplus of 1.6 billion pesos, thanks to drastic expenditure cut-backs and new taxes. . "Did Sartre then reject Marxism?" Max Agsorwa was saying. "He attempted rather to retrieve the living individual within Marxism. Hegel observed that antitheses are always abstract as compared with their resolutions which are always concrete. There is no history without living individual men. A Marxian fallacy would be to maintain that technological progress alone determines all change. The structure of human societies depends as well on feelings, thought, and, as Alain expressed it, even on a kind of poetry. . ." "The crucial point is that Weber's analysis," Meldy Rormutan said, "bridged the theoretical gap between want in the economic-psychological sense and cultural patterns in the idealistic sense. In simple, radical terms, Weber's solution was that, once cultural patterns of meaning have been internalized in the personality of an individual, they define the situation for the structuring of motives. Such meaning-systems are in fact the essence of humanistic-cultural study. .." "An analysis of the paints used by Filipino sculptors would not only be interesting in its own right," said Doreen de Pogsiw, "but would shed a good deal of light on Philippine colonial painting, of which very few examples have survived. Now, regarding the small unattached heads and hands used for images in the ornate style — was the ivory brought from China and carved in the Philippines, or was it carved in China and delivered here as a finished Product?" "Nobody will dispute the fact that the Philippines and the United States," Emmy Umesbo said, "have a long-term mutuality of interest in the preservation, perhaps even the expansion, of their shared concern for politically independent and open societies in Asia. The problems of partnership stem more from the contrast in the power and obligations of the two countries than from their dif-

ferences in tradition and values. It is as important for the United States, therefore, to understand the character of Philippine nationalism and the new directions of Philippine society as for the Filipinos to see the purposes and obligations of the United States in their global context. . "Regarded as vision, flying saucers could be interpreted as archetypal images," Sonny Ducong was saying. "Anyone with the requisite historical and psychological knowledge knows that circular symbols have played an important role in every age. God, it is said, is a circle whose center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere. God in his omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence is a totality symbol. The round shining objects sighted in practically ;ill countries could be regarded as manifestations of totality. The simple round form of UFO's portrays the archetype of the self, which, as we know from experience, can unite apparently irreconcilable opposites and is therefore best suited to compensate for the metaphysical uncertainties of our age. . ." "Marxist-Leninists understand that there are objective and subjective conditions which determine choice at a given time and place," Bien Nalongsat said. "A revolution, according to Lenin, is not determined only by the will of the people or simply by slogans far removed from specific reality. Even when the objective and subjective conditions are present, a revolution is the result of major actions by workers, peasants, youth, other progressive sectors, the entire people. Going back to the Philippine situation, the MarxistLeninists point out that our society is semi-colonial, semi-feudal, dominated by the American imperialists, the comprador bourgeoisie, the landlords and the bureaucrat-capitalists. Their objective, therefore, is to establish a true national democracy, which is possible only when the control of the economy, the political apparatus, culture and education is in the hands of the masses of our people. . ." "Electric circuitry involves us with one another," Virgie Agtocaw said. "Information pours upon us instantaneously and continuously and as soon as information is acquired, it is replaced by still newer information. In our electrically-configured world, we can no longer build serially, step by step, because, as McLuhan explained it, instant communication ensures that all factors of the environment and of experience co-exist in a state of active interplay. . ."

"A Christian humanist society," said Meiinda Banglesen, "rests on the fundamental truth of the dignity of the human person. Man has dignity by virtue of his God-given destiny, his freedom, his dominion over the treasures of the earth. Love animates this society in accordance with Christ's second great commandment. Work in a Christian humanist society is accepted as a divine command, so that man may fulfill the human need to conquer the earth and to link himself through service to man, and to develop an economy in which everyone shall have the opportunity to participate in the ownership of the means of production. And so man progresses in his evolution till, as Teilhard de Chardin put it, he reaches a state of super-consciousness that will bring him to the discovery of a synthesized act of adoration, in which the passionate desire to conquer the earth and a passionate desire to unite ourselves with God will fuse at the Omega Point and raise one another to the heights. . ." "Logically the mathematical point precedes the circle of which it is the center," Romy Managulbod was saying. "Literally it also has priority, for without it nothing in the poem would move — the lovers, in order to be united or reunited, must first be separated, the woman at the center, the man at the enlarging circumference, even though the separation is further and larger union. The visual image of the expanding circle is the malleable gold, which by becoming thinner under the hammer expands indefinitely, but not into infinity. . ." HE FOUND her seated by the pergola west of the bath-house, on the outer boundary of the shadows that marked the farthest reach of the lanterns strung over the swimming pool. At his approach she lifted the long-tressed heart shape of her face from the deeper dark towards the starlight that enfolded the trees, and the way she spoke his name was as he remembered it, the single word stretched and sounding almost fretfiil and lingering a second more in the distance between them, uttered in the voice that was like no other he had heard in all his life, and still with the subtle strain of grief in it, the wise tender loving sorrow.

Pol, she said. Pol, I've been looking for you, he said. Hello again, Pol. When I heard you'd come back. . . How are you, Pol? I'm sober, alive, and well. Tonight, she said, at the door. .. It's good to see you again, he said. All day I've been thinking of you. Pol? Yes? I was thinking of you, she said. Talking to you. In my mind. Before you came. And you said. . . What did I say? What were we talking about? The day you waited in the lobby, she said. In that place near the sea. Oh, that day. You were angry, she said. No, I wasn't, really. Yes, you were, she said. I could see it in your face. Well, for a while. I thought then. .. What, Pol? Nothing, he said. I remember you saying... Yes? We had so many things to talk about, she said. I think of you, and all the things. . . There was always something, he said. There was always something new to tell each other. Until that year, she said, I don't think I knew what it was to be happy. That was a good year, he said. You made it a good year. It was you who made it so, she said. The two of us, he said. That was a great year. I wonder if it's still the same guy playing the piano. In that place you liked. I don't know, he said. I haven't gone back. The first time we went there, she said. It rained all night.

And all morning. And you stayed with me. You asked them to play all the songs about rain. Rain songs, you called them. April Showers, she said. Stormy Weather. Raindrops Falling or something like that. And that one you wanted played over and over. That Rainy Day Is Here. Yes, she said. The old beautiful rain songs. They never play those things any more, he said. There's this station. Late at night. Yes, he said. The old songs, mostly. Half a century old, at least Sinatra, and Sarah Vaughn, imagine. Last night, I happened to tune in, and I remembered. . . What? he said. All the places we went to. The things you said, and where. The book store where I used to call you at noon, he said. The building's gone. I drove by last week. There's a solar battery store there now. The city has changed, she said. I went downtown the other day. There was some trouble, people running. And I saw this man at the monorail station, bleeding and waving a gun. I felt so frightened. . . so alone. You shouldn't have done that. What, Pol? Going downtown, he said. Not these days. Yes, it was foolish — But it will pass. Maybe things will get better. I hope so, she said. All the terrible things I hear. .. The papers blow up things. To frighten people. Pol, if we could only. . . I mean, go back again. . . Yes, he said. Yes. There was that place. Near the Boulevard. With the old waiter, she said. The one who said he'd read your poems. The old lying bastard. He couldn't tell a poem from a laundry list. But he was all right. He got you all those things

you wanted to mix with your coffee. Beer and coffee. That was awful, she said. And Coke, and gin. But brandy was best. I haven't had brandy in my coffee for a long time now. What's it called now? Irish coffee. It made you more soft, and sweet, he said. And sort of giggly. And what, Pol? It made you think funny. Like what to tell your boss on the phone the next day. After that night on the beach. In Cavite. You haven't forgotten. It wasn't so long ago, really, he said. Three, almost four years, she said. I should never have left. But I did. You married him. You went away with him. A whole year. You've been away for over a year. It was going to be another life, a different one in another country. But. . . Pol, let's not talk about it, Pol. All this time, I have never stopped loving you. You love me still, Pol? You love me? Yes, he said, I love you. I love you, she said. I will always love you, Pol. I hold her, he said, we make love. And it's you I'm loving. Always it's you. He hasn't slept with me since we came back, she said. He comes home drunk, and he goes on drinking. The rest of the night. He's sick. I can't tell you. Once he hit me. For no reason at all. Where did he — Did he hurt you? Not much. Just on the arm. Here. He's at it again, he said. He won't be able to get up on his feet when the party breaks up. I can drive, she said. You taught me well. You'll help me get him to the car, won't you, Pol? Sure. Don't worry. Your hands are cold. Pol, she said. Give me a cigarette. These aren't menthols. It's all right, she said. Is it the same lighter?

Yes, he said. Never misses. I go on a trip, and come back, and I've nothing for you. I'll make up for it, I promise. Pol. . . Yes? They'll see us. Please, not here, Pol, she said. Come here then. Pol. Yes. Oh Pol. I love you, he said. My dearest one, she said. Oh, I'm so glad you came down here. I knew you'd look for me. Not there in the house. Here. Tomorrow, he said. Yes, Pol? I must see you. Where? she said. That place near the golf course. You know. Will you call me? Two thirty, no, make it three sharp. Then I'll know if I can get out. I'll call you, he said. Kiss me again, she said. Let's go away, he said. A plane over the pole to Europe. London, Geneva. We'd be there in a few hours. Oh, Pol. It has been a long time. I want to go far away with you, he said. Yes. Far away. We'll talk about it, Pol. Tomorrow. Tomorrow and tomorrow, he said. Hold me, she said. Pol. Once more. For old times' sake. My love, my dearest, she said. Pol. They saw us. They went the other way, he said. They can't see us here. Go now. She'll start looking for you. She's too busy to bother. They haven't gotten to Indonesia yet. And the loss of Lanao and Cotabato. And the new Constitution. And all that crap. Pol, go now, please. I'll call you tomorrow. This afternoon. It's tomorrow already.

It's late, she said. Pol* It's not so easy in the afternoon. Something might come up. But call and I'll tell you. You can make it, he said. Tell him you're going with your aunt to welcome the Cardinal. You're crazy, she said. I love you. One more for the road, he said. One long beautiful one. Before the end of the road. What, Pol? Yes. Oh, my darling. Go now. Please. You'll be all right here? I'll leave the cigarettes. Take care, she said. I'll follow in a little while. Goodbye, he said. Don't say goodbye. I'll see you then, he said. I love you. I love you, Pol, she said. Then he hurried up the broad sweep of lawn with its pale dispersed shadows, this time following the flagstone path between the santan hedges and past the lantern reflections in the pool, towards the house and the voices, the soul-rock music, the dancers on the terrace. Someone called to him shrilly, Pol, hey, Pol, come here a minute, but he didn't stop, he dared not pause and falter now and let the happiness shatter and dissolve and be lost again. With a sudden nimble instinct he made his way across the living room and around the chattering group spread on the stairs, and on down the hallway to the room where he could be alone, the secret exultant joy crying now is the time, now, now. In a blind furious triumph of happiness he locked the door and switched on the light and strode to the bookshelf where he had hidden the gun in a plastic sheath, and only when he felt the black oiled weight of the revolver in his hand did his eyes focus to adjust on the moment and the room, a low-ceilinged room with walls of books, a desk, two chairs, a brown leather divan. He sat at the desk, almost faint from the strong rapid welling pressure of joy, and removed the single bullet from the swing-out cylinder. After examining it he returned the magnum cartridge to its chamber. As he twirled the cylinder once, twice, a third time, his eyes strayed to the photograph propped beneath the shaded lamp on the desk: in the white frozen sunlight he and the boy

stood close together, laughing, the lagoon with sailboats behind them, the child in a cowboy suit, small, so vulnerable, his only son, dying even then during the summer in Baguio seven years ago when the picture was taken. Seeing the unchanging laughter of the two of them, himself and the dead child, in the black and white dimensions of the photograph, he began to laugh in a stillness deep within him where the happiness had collected and compressed, a pure, seething, almost intolerable mass like the innermost center of an unstable star. He shuddered from the ecstasy, the swirling silent density of joy, and then smiling as he remembered the wet tiny probe of her tongue loving him in the pale darkness among the trees, he pressed the mouth of the .32-caliber barrel against his temple. It seemed he could hear the taut whir of tiny springs as the hammer rose tenderly and the cylinder began its splendid, flawless, long-awaited turn, and he held his breath and shivered, as if amazed at the perfection of his happiness. The hammer fell with an abrupt metal click magnified by its closeness to the bone of his skull. The rapture ended, contracting, shrinking in an instant into a gray blur, then nothing. Carefully, he returned the gun to its hiding place behind the books, closed the light and pulled the door shut, and plodded down the hallway, thinking, when will I ever make it, I should've turned that thing just once, goddammit, maybe the next time around I'll be luckier. "THE GREAT problem is life," Meldy Rormutan was saying, "and the Zen solution, as Suzuki has pointed out, is not solving it at all. The not-solving is really the solving. Philosophy is itself the disease for which it offers the cure. The wise man does not pursue wisdom but lives his life, and therein precisely does his wisdom lie. This is the wisdom that Faust comes to in the end, but Zen recognizes it as the starting point. It's rather remarkable, don't you think, that Wittgenstein arrives at the same conclusion. . ." "The case of Dostoevsky," Max Agsorwa said, "raises the question of ultimate reconciliation with history. Dostovoesky is banned because the game being played by Marxism-Leninism with

history has not yet reached its limit. But when will it reach its limit? The day when Dostoevsky is recognized in his own country as one of the world's greatest writers? Or the day when Dostoevsky is no longer mentioned? The simplicity of Marxist dogmatism should be evident to one who is aware of the difference between the Marxist attitude toward art and the Marxist attitude toward religion. .." "To distinguish between the sign function and symbol function," Sonny Ducong was saying, "is to render obsolete the old biogenetic motto: Nihil est in homine quod non prius in amoeba erat. Heretofore the symbol function had been hailed by the psychogeneticists as a useful variation of the sign function, enabling man the better to adapt to his environment by serving him like a telephone exchange with its capacity to select and store messages. That it does not so operate is sufficiently attested by Ogden, Korzybski, Ritchie and the rest of the positivists. It is Ernst Cassurer who must be credited with the clearest explication of the peculiar nature of the symbol, and it is to Susanne Langer's credit to have rescued it from the toils of idealism. . ." "The US Assistance program," said Melinda Banglesen, "seeks to generate the defensive military strength necessary to enable the citizens of the democratic nations to live without interference from aggressive and belligerent neighbors. The importance of such a program cannot be overemphasized, because the rate of progress of the social, economic, and political spheres is proportionate to the amount of national effort that can be applied to internal development rather than to defense. . ." "Like his mentor Karl Barth," Bien Nalongsat said, "Vahanian opposed imanentalism and proposed restoration of the Barthian accent upon transcendence. On the other hand, Altizer, a student of Wach and Eliade, the great historians of religion, emphasized the dialectical accent of Nietzsche's doctrine of eternal recurrence. The proclamation of the death of God was also the announcement of the possibility of human existence. . ." "Let us now trace the cycle of experience as it is depicted in the Zodiac," said Doreen de Pogsiw, "so that we can get a better idea of the phases of manifestation with which we identify ourselves, according to the nature of our horoscope. The cardinal fire sign Aries represents the First Cause, God the Creator, the Resur-

rection, Outrushing Force whose impetus is irresistible. Those who identify themselves^with Aries therefore see themselves as leaders and pioneers. Taurus represents Pure Substance, Undifferentiated Matter, the Matrix which receives the Outrushing Spirit of Aries. The Matter of Taurus is conceived in the waters of Pisces, the twelfth sign. . ." "The anti-imperialist revolution and the socialist revolution have to be a single struggle," said Romy Managulbod, "because there is only one revolution, as was demonstrated in China and Latin America. This is the great dialectic truth of humanity — imperialism, and, opposed to imperialism, socialism. The result of the opposition is the triumph of socialism, the overcoming of the stage .of imperialism, colonialism and fascism, the establishment of the era of socialism and, after that, the era of communism. But we will not have communism in less than thirty years. That is the way it is in Marxism. One cannot simply bypass or leap over a historical stage, as Fidel Castro once put it. What cannot be skipped is socialism. The question is, what is the socialism we should apply? Is it the Christian socialism being propagated by certain reformists? Or is it the scientific socialism of the Marxist-Leninists?" "Despite all these difficulties," Ferdie Marawot was saying, "the government managed to exceed the reduced target growth for the past year, and indications are that it will closely match the target for the current fiscal year. The outlook appears brighter than the prospects that faced the economy last year, considering the gains achieved in solving the basic balance of payments problem, the relatively smaller foreign debt service burden, the cooperation forged among different government institutions through the activation of the financial and fiscal policy committee, and, finally, the statutory guidelines and safeguards provided for in Republic Act 8101. Meanwhile, recent developments in Southeast Asia augur well for the future, the most important development being the intensification of regional cooperation among the —" Ferdie Marawot left the sentence hanging and never had the chance to finish it that night in March, in that year the people will long remember, for it was then that a low massive reverberating thunder such as accompanies a vast shifting of the earth's crust was heard in McKinley Village. Startled, Sylvia Sibago's guests rose

in a flurry of alarm and "Look! There! They're coming!" a woman cried, and they sprang up and scampered to the spacious bay window on the eastern side with its customary view of roofs and gardens along Bonifacio Road. From where he stood Pol Sibago watched the woman he loved stop in the middle of the living room and turn to him with a look of tenderness, supplication, and regret, before proceeding finally, tall, beautiful, and unhurried, to the window; and drawn too by the reddening sky and the rising rumble, he joined them as they huddled there and stared at the multitude of torches moving on the horizon that was the highway beyond the entrance to Bonifacio Road, the flaming legion coming closer from the direction of the burning city.

Excerpts from the Autobiography of a Middle-aged Ghostwriter with Insomnia For Nick Joaquin and Dom Bernardo Ma. Perez, O. S. B.

1. SPEAK, MEMORIES!

I

N THE beginning: my father, Estanislao Managulbod, didn't make a fortune as a dentist, but ours was not a hand-to-mouth existence, by any means. He was during my boyhood the only dental surgeon, as he preferred to be called, in the fishing town of San Bartolome, Pangasinan; my mother, Josefa Agpayso Managulbod, taught Grade IV in the public elementary school. Between the two of them they managed to raise me and my three brothers and two sisters more or less in middle-class comfort up to high school; college, as far as my two older brothers Julius Caesar and Polonius and I were concerned, depended on my grandfather's generosity and whatever jobs were available for working students in Manila, my father having by then lost his three-hectare farm, not to mention his dentist's chair and drilling tools, to a monte-playing cousin from Lingayen. x x x The catastrophe seems to have visited us in the space of a single evening, and the setting must have been my Uncle Tiburcio's house near the presidencia where assorted relatives often gathered to gossip and gamble: a provincial gallery whose acquaintance would have delighted a Chekhov or a Sherwood Anderson, a vivid, fascinating company I have immortalized, as a matter of fact, in my first collection of short stories, Footnotes to Puberty (Commonwealth Press, 1940), a milestone in

Philippine Literature if there ever was one. In art as in life, the unfamiliar, the unknown, the dark side of the moon, the lives of our fathers and mothers before we were born, the essence of our existence, dreams, beauty, and death are the truths which endure and prevail even as we strive like Sisyphus to push that boulder back up the hill or, more prosaically, fill up the space of our lives with sundry noises, honors, committee meetings, commerce, and politics. Thus, because I had no direct knowledge of the crisis and the circumstances, the spirit of that distant disaster hovered over much of my youth (and still does to a certain extent over my middle age, in the nights of insomnia) with a mythical, almost infernal power like Poe's raven croaking nevermore, ever reminding me that Man Is a Child of Grief and that Dreamers Must Cry, poignant themes, incidentally, which were dramatized with singular objectivity by one of our pioneering novelists in English, Zosimo Calalang. As if worried that I might miss the point, my mother, whose instinct for the dramatic and illuminating moment I suppose I have inherited, often found occasion during my tender years to refer to That Night Your Father Gambled Away Our Lives, rolling her eyes into a frightening blindness, thin hands stretched out imploringly towards the ceiling, pleading with God to annihilate, not my father, but the present, and return us all to that happy day before her husband took leave of his senses. Pending that miracle, she had recourse to another cousin, a lawyer; but nothing short of a massacre, it was gradually impressed upon us, could cancel my father's audacious bet, the Torrens title and practically the entire clinic on Bugallon Street already lost and by the wine grieved, as I was to allude later in an epic poem patterned after "Sohrab and Rustum" that I wrote in my freshman year at the University, before I discovered Walt Whitman and Carl Sandburg, x x x My father, I can see now in the wiser perspective of the years as I set down these recollections, my father, as surely as if he had manipulated my genes, bequeathed to me, by that single, isolated action worthy of a character out of Dostoevsky, a nature alert and responsive to the sorrowful contradictions of the human condition. Character is destiny, we are told; destiny is also an accident suffered by one's person or vicariously: Jose Luis Borges, a writer whose mystic, labyrinthine constructions simply don't appeal to me, preferring as I do the straightforward, uncluttered tale

in the tradition of Maupassant and Jose A. Querrano, has recorded somewhere that he began writing short stories not long after a carriage wheel ran over his head, a mishap that led to a fortnight in a hospital and spells of insomnia and nightmares. "Santa Maria, that Night!" my mother would cry out suddenly in the midst of aimless talk at the dining table, thq pale suffering mask of her face uplifted to the sagging stained ceiling with its fresco on the Last Judgment, while my father stared at the stains of boggo-ong on his rice and I promptly conjured up a desolate, horrendous landscape where some unnamed calamity had spilled a confusion of red and violet internal organs. Was it the flickering light in the dining room that spawned such terrible tableaus in my sensitive mind? Or did the preponderance of fish in our diet, dried, fried, boiled, broiled, and sinigang, and the lack of more substantial beef and pork, result in a mineral or vitamin deficiency that made me in childhood susceptible to the slings and harpoons of cruel misfortune? As it was, only the silverplated bedpan which my mother pawned, and of course her salary as a teacher, spared us the final humiliation of having to sell our house then and there, when my father found himself literally without the tools with which to make a living, x x x While happy families are all alike, unhappy families are unhappy in their own way, says Tolstoy: a truth I not only learned quite early but lived with when I had to delay my flight to Manila for a year after high school because, as my father explained it chokingly, turning away to hide the tears shining like stars behind his bifocals, "Money is the root of all evil, my son, especially when it's not in your pocket," another profound truth I was to ponder and make my own during my unhappy youth in the 1930s and the Occupation and the difficult years after the war. x x x Three years after the tragedy, or in 1935, when I was in second year A.B. at the University and employed as a filing clerk, my father secured a loan from charitable relations in Tarlac, refurbished his clinic, acquired a bigger shingle, and regained the patients who had during the forlorn interval been taking their cavities and pyorrhea to another practitioner in Mangatarem thirty-eight dusty kilometers inland by Pantranco. But even without that gambler's misfortune which marked a turning Point in my life as explicitly as a disfiguring disease or a religious inversion might have done, I think I would have found my voca-

tion eventually in writing or some related field like PR, teaching or library science. For my early boyhood memories seem to revolve around a luminous concentration of sonorous English words, the nobly cadenced phrases of William Shakespeare no less, as the childhood images of others orbit around the bright alphabets and golden palaces of nursery rhymes. My father's preoccupation with monte was, as it turned out, a passing one, cured in short order apparently by my mother's lamentations and the prospect of having to hang on by the skin of his dentures to the last, rending fabric of economic respectability. But not his passion for the Bard, an enduring affair that may well have begun in his youth and to which he must have turned for consolation or light or a measure of peace in the same manner that other men seek surcease in astronomy, the study of bees or the cursillo. x x x He had dropped out of medical school in his freshman year: did he discover in the rich teeming splendor of the supreme playwright's world a share of that fuller knowledge and experience denied him, a breadth and depth of life beyond the infected gums and ruined teeth of his townmates? Even now, I, his son, still wonder what strange alchemy in his past bred a kinship between dentistry and dramaturgy: he who named his children after Shakespeare's characters was not one to explain, clarify, annotate the obscurity of his youth; a rather reticent man who tended to mumble cryptically to himself. He had, as a matter of fact, a small voice befitting a man his size, shorter than I in manhood (approximately five-feet-three in my elevator shoes); never in all the years I knew him did I hear it raised in alarm, exultation or anger. In that limited, asthmatic voice he read aloud from the Complete Works, a gilt-edged volume bound in red leather, with woodcut illustrations by Gustave Dore and a dedication on the flyleaf in the careful elaborate hand favored by scholars of another time; most likely a gift from a literary friend, for it was the only book of its kind he kept in a narra cabinet along with the ponderous tomes on oral pathology, therapeutics, and pharmacology: a dash of scarlet, appropriately enough, among the gray-green volumes like mildew. After supper he read Shakespeare, peering at the crowded print through his rimless glasses, reciting the famous soliloquys, the words, I imagine now, slurred and blending with the hiss of the torches on the walls, the enunciation blurred by that caressing soft-

ness Pangasinenses can never quite separate from their tongues, a sweet dense stickiness of vowels and consonants like patupat. But it was less the delivery than the existence, the presence of the words in the stale, weary, flat and fish-and-oyster-smelling evenings in San Bartolome that appealed to my awakening imagination. In deference to his memory I hesitate to reproduce the words as he distorted them, but "facts, facts, facts, not fancy," as Dickens counsels us, and, come to think of it, his manner of speech is as much mine, although perhaps not so pronounced. "Oh dot deis to to soleid fleish should meilt,/ Tow an risolb etself ento a dew!" my father declaimed, and "Dere eis a tide en da appairs op men/ Wheich tiken at da flood leids on to foorchon," and the words and their freight of mysterious meanings sailed majestically into my consciousness. By the time I graduated from high school, I had read all the tragedies and the comedies, for the most part uncomprehended as to plot and character (my uncommunicative father never recounted them to me), the language alien and archaic but in itself a delicious, spellbinding incantation, verbal shafts and reverberations and whisperings, shining necklaces of words: "And all our yesterdays have lighted fools/ The way to dusty death./ Out, out brief candle" and "Night's candles are burnt out. . . I must be gone and live, or stay and die": which about summed up my feelings about San Bartolome as I plodded home from school, past the brown sun-bleached houses and the decaying huts, the gray nets tented drying on bamboo poles, the dogs in the yards littered with clamshells, the inescapable odors of fish and brine, the perpetually muddy streets sloping dismally down to the beach, which would all form part of the geography of loneliness, the pebbled roads and the barren plazas where stray carabaos wandered, the small fly-infested railway stations of the towns strung southward to Manila, the landscape of the epic poems and the short stories of what might be called my Winesburg, Ohio, period, x x x Put down William Shakespeare then, and William Cullen Bryant, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (the other three introduced by my mother, an alumna of the Thomasites, who had her own collection of what she termed home reading built around an anthology of verse titled Heart Throbs) as among the first literary influences in the boyhood of Romeo D, Managulbod, whom the distinguished poet-critic, my compadre

Ricarte Dermatillo, once hailed as "one of the country's nine foremost writers in the universal language of the world-spirit, the globegirdling tongue brought us by Admiral Dewey," a verdict I have no inclination to dispute even now, although I wish he had been more specific about my place in Philippine writing. Given such a background, it was inevitable that my very first attempt at what is now labeled Creative Writing in college brochures should be a poem of ten stanzas, "I Shall Not Go Down to the Sea Again," a "Psalm of Life" in reverse eulogizing a boatload of picnicking municipal officials who had perished in a sudden storm off the Hundred Islands: Forget them not, our luckless elders, Life is oh! a cruel dream — For the sea that seemingly slumbers Brings nightmares that make me scream, xxxxx Its publication in the Campus Clarion of the San Bartolome Academy in July 1932 earned me an audience with the principal, Mr. Carlos F. Benifayo, who had the distinction then of being the only patron of the arts in the entire province of Pangasinan, and a passionate if ungrammatical love letter from a classmate named Virginia Morante, who also wrote poetry and who died of peritonitis after swallowing a rusty paper clip a week before graduation, thus contributing to my sense of the tragic. It also launched a literary career, or what approximates one in this country, that has since journeyed to many strange, incompatible islands amid ambiguous seas: I have since produced, aside from my collections of poetry and short fiction, an industrious amount of critical essays, book reviews, term papers (for other scholars), news reports, feature articles, columns, advertising copy, brochures, jingles, speeches, not to mention love letters (for other lovers) and letters to editors, the last under a variety of pseudonyms, x x x That first poem of mine, graduate students who have been persuaded to write their theses on my works may be interested to know, was actually pure hatred written in tranquillity, hatred of the sea as it manifested itself in San Bartolome; an intense contempt not unmixed with dread in my fifteen-year-old heart that would have seized me anyway, I am

quite certain, without benefit of the deaths which inspired its creation. The marine metaphors scattered throughout the poetry and prose I have produced have led some critics to conclude that mine is an obsessive love for the sea, which only proves the observation, to go on to another order of imagery, that generally such characters are the lies which crawl on the body of literature, or words to that effect. For it is indeed a curious kind of love that, as far back as I can remember, wanted to escape forever from its object. That initial flush of triumph I felt when, accompanied by my rehabilitated father and a balutan crammed with cash from my grandfather, I finally left San Bartolome to study in Manila, was to be repeated each time I returned to the city after a holiday visit or some familial errand, a joyful leave-taking from the silt-salt air, the sea where the streets of boyhood ended. Significantly (Freudians, take note), I didn't learn to swim or, to be more precise, keep afloat with a minimum of thrashing and water-swallowing, until late in college, in a crowded, compulsory swimming pool on the old University campus on Padre Faura: I have had dreams of drowning in sea water. On the three occasions I have been abroad, flying over immensities of ocean was an ordeal I survived only with the help of tranquilizers. The swimming pool, my swimming pool, on the surface of things an anomalous acquisition for a writer in this country, whose tribe is expected, quite logically, to remain malnourished and povertystricken, came with the house in McKinley Village. I was for buying the bungalow not too far from the main gate, but if wife and children want a swimming pool, who am I to let a little neurosis stand between them and their happiness? I swim occasionally with the children and their friends, a gallant try at shedding flabby poundage; my doctor says I must swim more often, but there are those days when the kidney-shaped pool even at midday seems to darken and deepen beneath my gaze. Last Sunday it was raining and I happened to glance at the pool through the picture window of the living room, and the water was seething, frothing with miniature waves under the rain; and what surprised me was the absence of the old tang of iodine and dehydrating fish. It is all in the mind, I know, and it doesn't bother me much, a simple matter of avoiding the water on certain days: you keep away from metaphysical drafts if your soul easily catches cold. Still, on the nights I have trouble

sleeping, I find myself puzzling it out, more as an academic exercise than anything else, for it is after all an affliction, if one should call it that, which I feel doesn't require the services of a physician or a psychiatrist, much like a minor allergy one should learn to live with, x x x There are more things in the mind than are dreamt of in any philosophy, and these I try to give a name to, a writer's habit, I suppose, during the nights when I seem to hang suspended on a high wakeful plateau above the dark, observing myself and the time from which I have come to this place, now an air-conditioned room in an adobe, glass and mahogany-paneled house standing on what must have been not too long ago a marshy field alive with dissidents and frogs. Behind the rear cement wall, in fact, begins what is left of the original field, a grassy expanse extending to the highway. Contemplating the problem of the pool, I find myself thinking at night of, among other things I shall catalogue later, this field, and the rural earth, trees, streams, paddies, anthills, vegetation still secure from the real estate developer's bulldozer; and I ask myself how my life would have shaped itself had I been born in mountain country or landlocked barrio instead of San Bartolome by the sea. Would I now be analyzing a fear of heights or a mania for skindiving? Perhaps geography is all: there may lie the unraveling of the writer's psyche. Rebelling against the native environment surely complicates matters, which was clearly not the case with my late lamented friend and UP classmate, Emmanuel Arguelles, a farmer's son and author of How My Half-Brother Leoncio Brought Home the Bacon and Other Stories, the volume that won over my Footnotes to Puberty in the first Quezon Literary Contest in 1940; nor with M. V.O. Gonzalvez, another gifted contemporary who wrote that classic about auto mechanics, A Season of Grease. Gonzalvez, one notes, was born above a garage, his family being operators of a bus company, and it appears he never developed any complexes over having to grow up surrounded by carbon monoxide, carburetors, and manifold gaskets. But I guess having for a father the lone dentist in a community of fisher folk is an altogether different proposition. x x x x Just as my father stood apart from his neighbors, an unwelcome missionary of dental salvation ignored except when extreme distress drove a few glum converts to his vestry, so too did I find myself estranged from my home town and its sea. The filial

parallel, to be sure, has literary attractions a short story writer may find worth pursuing, but the reality, I still remember with a contraction in the vicinity of my stomach, was less than fascinating. Feeling trapped, oppressed, doomed, with no friend, male or female, with whom to share my woes, I took to walking along the river late in the day and well into dusk, symbolically in the direction away from the sea, southward and facing Manila and against the movement of the rushing river below, a Filipino George Willard or is it Nick Adams lonely for another time, another country; certainly an adolescent Akakeivitch (yes, we all came out from Gogol's "Overcoat/1 as Turgenev remarked). But always I would go home again after my walks by the river, hating San Bartolome more than ever, for many of my townmates had yet to be introduced to the wonders of 20th-century plumbing, and I spent anguished moments scraping the foul paste off my shoes before I could proceed upstairs for supper, x x x As if to confirm my separateness, none of my brothers and sisters has exhibited either a disenchantment with San Bartolome or a penchant for anything remotely resembling the arts and letters. Julius Caesar was a fishing magnate in his own right and later became mayor of the town before the war broke out and the guerrillas put an early end to his career as a collaborator. Polonius, from whom I rarely hear, seems to be doing well as a pineapple grower on Oahu. My sister Cordelia still runs the restaurant in Baguio the authorities padlocked for awhile, allegedly for serving menudo of canine origin, and the youngest in the family, Bassanio, who studied but failed to finish dentistry, is, from all reports, thriving as a BIR examiner, x x x My alienation from the town, too, fed on hurts and frustrations, real and otherwise, which had to do with my height or the lack of it, a deficiency I tried to correct by having one of the maids pull at my legs while I lay flat on my back, an exercise my mother put an end to rather abruptly. "Mens sana in corpore sanoMr. Francis Burton Lawton, our elementary school principal, liked to snap at his wards; and in Grade VII, in an access of energy generated partly by a biography of Napoleon, I made a name for myself as the fastest short-stop in the Junior Interscholastic League of the Northwestern Pangasinan District. Then, in high school, fancying myself a natural-born athlete, as boys in reasonable health are wont to do, I tried out for the basketball team and

was virtually laughed off the court as my taller rivals toyed with the ball over my head. Bitter and bewildered, I swore off athletics, only to face further humiliations on the dance floor during our class socials, with the girls refusing me with cruel giggles or suddenly stricken deaf and dumb as soon as I shambled within bowing distance. x x x Another turning point, like the night my father lost his paraphernalia, and the day I didn't make the San Bartolome Falcons, was that evening in 1932 when, bruised, nay, crushed in spirit because I could never tango with the proud, statuesque beauty of our junior class, Imelda Cudalbeng, Miss Wisdom herself of the annual high school Foundation Day, I staggered away from the junior prom in the open-air plaza auditorium and sat alone and lonely on the grass an infinite distance from the lights and the music, a poignant scene I was to recreate with many a variation in the short stories I was to write at the University and afterwards: the young man grieving unheeded while the world danced the tango and the conga. I considered proceeding to the beach and straight into the moonlit sea I feared and hated, decided, after five minutes of deep thought, to deny the sea the satisfaction of claiming my seaweed-shrouded body and went home, and lived, and survived graduation and the long bleak year that followed, the year I could not go on to college, a painful period relieved only by the wretched walks on the treacherous riverbank, the evenings with Shakespeare and the works of Poe, Hawthorne, M.D. Garcia Concepcion and Zosimo Calalang, and visits to my grandfather in the neighboring town of Amputinlayag. x x x Laki Cuadrato, as we grandchildren reverently called him, had a house with an entresuelo, doves on the azotea, and the kind of furniture antique-fancying writers like Hilda Cordova Hernando now covet; and to this house I went each Sunday with a basket of bangus and shrimp in the hope of relaxing his vaunted tightfistedness. There in the old house I would sit entranced beneath a dusty chandelier, drinking basi and listening to the old man discoursing for hours proudly on his role in the Revolution and then the Coming of the Americans, how he had picked his sickliest horse for "that dictator and traitor Aguinaldo" and guided the Yanquis to Tirad Pass and later to Palanan. Indeed, Laki Cuadrato was a man among men, and if alive today he would surely be doing his bit to make this nation great again; during that year of deprivation and

loneliness I had to endure after high school, he stamped his influence indelibly on my soul, a zeal, a passion for Democracy and the American Way of Life. He it was who made it possible for me to reach Manila and learn the craft of my somewhat sullen art; and in gratitude did I dedicate my first book of poems to him, Like the Mabolo, which, I regret to say, failed likewise to win a prize in the second Quezon Literary Contest in 1941 and has since been out of print, x x x The episode of the Junior Prom was not by any means the last time I would contemplate self-destruction, nor was it the only occasion I gave myself a new lease on life. At least once during the Occupation and again after Liberation, I recoiled from the edge of the hypnotic abyss and returned to a borrowed typewriter, as did my comprovinciano Carlos Bulasin before his many illnesses finally overwhelmed him, and fired with a fierceness to live and love and write, I announced through my fever, my hunger and my fear to whoever happened to be near enough to hear: "Welcome, O life! I go to grapple once again with the reality of existence and to forge in the smithy of my psyche the uncreated conscience of Filipinas." In other living creatures ignorance of self is nature; in man, it is a vice, Boethius reminds us. Being anything but vicious and mendacious, I confess that I have not, for all my ambitions and my labors, forged the uncreated conscience of my race, as I was all too ready to proclaim during my UP days; nor do I expect to do any more forging of a meaningful sort, in literature, anyway, considering my age and present preoccupations. But this much I lay claim to and this no one familiar with the history of Philippine writing in English will begrudge me: that night the orchestra thumped out "La Cumparsita" under the blind, uncomprehending stars and I sat lost on the grass in the plaza of San Bartolome, rent by desire for Imelda Cudalbeng and suicide; that night I found the strength to opt for life, I afforded myself the chance of contributing what proved to be a substantial, indispensable share to the Period of Experimentation (1925-1941) in Philippine Literature in English, as those years are now called by anthologists and graduate school professors. Looking back on that night, it would seem providential (although, as a true-blue UP alumnus, I had for a long time no use for Divine Providence) that not long afterwards, the excursionists perished at sea and I was composing the poem already mentioned and chewing

large enigmatic chunks of Shakespeare with a vengeance. I must have resolved during the following rainy season, the most excruciating months of my discontent, to become a writer and thereby earned a niche, a little cramped perhaps, but an authentic niche just the same, in the country's pantheon of literary fame and in the process perhaps deprived Pangasinan (a province blessed with other magnificent writers like Manuel Verroy and F. Siojo Josue) of a great statesman, who knows, or a dedicated GSIS chairman, or some such favorite son. x x x I decided then to follow in the triumphant footsteps of predecessors like Zosimo Calalang, which decision meant marching together, to continue the striding metaphor, with such earnest, indomitable colleagues as M.V.O. Gonzalvez and Benedicto M. Santos, little suspecting what it all involved except that I might have to be an alcoholic like Edgar Allan Poe; a prospect not without its romantic charms to the boy that I was, thrilling to the somber music of "Annabel Lee" and "The Raven," dreaming of departure and of returning nevermore to San Bartolome, listening to my father mangling A Midsummer Night's Dream and King Lear, father and son soothed by the presence of the words separate from the fish-filled nights of the unloved and loveless town by the sea. Yes, in dreams begin what the Philistine world condemns as irresponsible abilities: in dissatisfaction with youth's disgrace in men's dispraise and women's eyes are mystics, demagogues, and writers bom. 2. A PORTRAIT OF THE FILING CLERK AND SICK LOVER AS ARTIST MY MOTHER'S cousin, Laureano Pagarigan DI, the famous painter of classical nudes, and his unmarried daughters Candelaria (Candy) and Potenciana (Poten), lived in an old red-tile-roofed house on the corner of Cabildo and Beaterio in Intramuros, a house very much like Laki Cuadrato's in Amputinlayag, except that it had been partitioned into suffocating, cell-like rooms for boarders: and to the Pagarigan house I came to live at the start of the school year in 1934. A man with a heart of gold (also diseased, as it turned out),

Don Laureano or Tio Areong, as he was fondly addressed by his young relations, assured me of free board and lodging in exchange for performing sundry daily services. These included, I soon found out, cleaning the toilets and bathrooms, husking the floors, the windowsills, and the grand stairway, assisting the cook, setting the boarders' table, washing the dishes, marketing, tidying up the kitchen after supper and killing cockroaches, this last chore with my cousin Poten, who had devised a roach-trap, an ingenious, nasty little gadget with a spring-operated swatter for which she said she hoped to find a manufacturer (she never did), x x x My household duties on top of my studies and the nights of verse-writing began to tell on my health and my grades before the first semester was over; I developed a dry cough, a glassy look, and palpitations at night (the roots of my present insomnia?). Candy, the more forbidding and fastidious of the two sisters, was reminding me for the seventh or eighth time about scrubbing the red-tile roof in anticipation of the approaching feast of La Naval when, as luck would have it, my mother arrived unannounced for a visit. No sooner had I gasped out my complaints than she dropped her load of bucayo and sought out Tio Areong in his attic studio, and proposed, in characteristic eye-rolling fashion, to pay half of the usual monthly rate for boarders provided I was released from half of my tasks, an arrangement her kindly landlord-cousin accepted without argument. So, then, I was expected to clean just the downstairs bathroom used by the boarders and polish the floors only once a day instead of twice, wash the dishes every other day and do the marketing only on Sundays, hunt cockroaches with Poten and tidy up the kitchen at night, a chore I didn't mind too much but which La Mon Lok, the Pagarigans' cook from Canton, did vehemently, when he began to miss the turrones and the slices of roast pork and sweet ham prepared especially for Tio Areong. x x x With enough time and energy left for my books, I rallied scholastically towards the end of the first semester to snatch myself from flunking (the UP then as now had the highest standards) and justify my grandfather's grudging support. His financial help, I had been made to understand, was at best a temporary measure, likely to be cut off without warning, so that it was with no little triumph that barely four months after arriving in the city, I landed a job in the Bureau of Soil Fertility & Plant Nutri-

tion (BSFPN). This initial foothold in the civil service I owe to Fernando Ongcampo, a classmate and fellow member in the UP Writers League whose brother-in-law happened to be the assistant personnel manager of the agency where I was to spend some of the happiest moments of my life. On that day I was hired as a casual filing clerk, I wrote home, beside myself with joy: "October in Intramuros! A shaft of happiness pierces my heart! But the reason has nothing to do with colonial obscurantism, the superstitious fervor of the friars and the reactionary landlord-caciques commemorating the defeat of a Dutch admiral at the hands of the Virgin Mary. I have found me a job!'" x x x Note in this fragment of a letter written in 1934 that at seventeen and after but a few months of college, I had already embraced the progressive, libertarian spirit that was the essence of the exciting intellectual atmosphere at the University, a philosophical vision so radical, so inclusive and unfettered that it would allow me and my agnostic or atheist colleagues to get married in church, send our children to hopelessly bigoted schools like the Ateneo and Assumption Convent, and champion any ism on the ideological compass, whether extreme left, far right or slightly southwest of center. Note also, in the above-quoted passage now preserved from oblivion, the stirrings of social consciousness (an intimation of the movement I was to spearhead with S.F. Lapuz later in the 1930s), the rhythm of the sentences, the vivid imagery, the touch of anticlerical jargon, all remarkable for one so young and inexperienced, x x x The experience of city life itself I was yet to seize and savor Wolfe-like to the full, and it was working at the Bureau of Soil Fertility & Plant Nutrition that started off my education in this regard. It all began in the second semester of that year, when I shifted to evening classes in order to devote the required daytime hours to the BSFPN. The Bureau at that time had its offices above the New Confucius Panciteria in Plaza Goiti, a few doors from Tom's Dixie Kitchen, and in one of its musty cubicles I filed memoranda, field reports, clippings, research papers, and such materials as had any relation to soil fertility and plant nutrition. To my surprise I found the job fascinating, not tedious at all, for here was a whole field of knowledge that was of the land, that was, in fact, rooted in the land; the hated sea and fishing town receded further in the distance. Almost without effort in the course of my

work, as I read, sorted and stapled various documents and filed them away in large manila envelopes on the cobwebbed shelves, I absorbed a wealth of invaluable information that even now, one notes, helps keep our country determinedly, proudly agricultural despite so-called nationalists insisting on industrialization as our only salvation: data on soil organisms, the economics of nitrogen use, potassium resources, soil salinity and correction. Gainfully employed thus with the Bureau, I became less shy, lonely and morose, and began to make friends, literary and otherwise. In the latter category, the most faithful, as I shall demonstrate later in these memoirs, has proved to be Serapio Servando, then a law student and a fellow filing clerk addicted to Piedmont cigarettes and the Santa Ana Cabaret. That he was no taller than I and therefore, I felt, an approachable equal, might explain why I was readily drawn to him; that, and his spendthrift ways, his debonaire manner, a suave cheerfulness I for all my nihilistic tendencies admired in other people. While I was indifferent in the matter of clothes, Ser Servando even then was a natty dresser, sporting sharkskin suits, flamboyant ties, and sharp-toed charol shoes; and as though to provide the proper background music to his life, he was forever whistling the current hit tune, "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody " or "Alexander's RagTime Band": with my memories of the 1930s come floating the songs of Alice Faye being whistled nonchalantly in a streetcar taking us back to Intramuros from a night of carousing with the girls of Santa Ana. From him I acquired a yen for dancing, and in the cabaret we never failed to visit on payday I soon established an endurance record as a tango artist, an honor I subsequently relinquished to a gigantic sailor on shore leave from the U.S. Asiatic Fleet. In that dim huge cavern of a nightclub with its suspended revolving lights, was I trying to banish the remembrance of Imelda Cudalbeng and the night of the high school prom, as I was trying to exorcise, in my first poems and short stories, the dread and dreariness I associated with San Bartolome? x x x One other quality of Ser Servando I found intriguing, and this was his mercenary attitude to the arts. It puzzled him, for instance, why I should continue writing verse when the most I could expect was five pesos for a long poem; why didn't I try my hand at, say, a movie script or at least a radio serial for KZRM and be justly compensated for my

efforts? The first time he came to the Pagarigan house (he was boarding on Calle Real) and saw the painting above the stairway, a massive allegorical painting by Tio Areong showing an unconscious woman in a torn diaphanous nightgown (Filipinas?) being carried into a forest by a man in bathing trunks who looked like Charles Atlas (America?), a shrewd, avaricious look lighted up his satyr-like features. Why didn't we get a buyer and, as he put it, "split the moola?" Tio Areong, his daughters had informed me, would not part with the painting for all the moola in the world, and this I made clear to Ser; but he would not be dissuaded. One night he came with a prospective buyer, an Italian who said the painting was just perfect for his bedroom; Tio Areong shouted them out of the house, thrusting his cane like a sword at their retreating posteriors. But Ser was not one to be easily discouraged: he approached Candy and Poten, to no avail, he kept coming back at odd hours with buyers, news of buyers, and higher offers. Once, he came disguised as a Bombay merchant, only to be chased out by Tio Areong, who, as a result of all this strenuous running about and scuffling, suffered the first of his heart attacks early in 1941. Ser inherited an island and a sugar plantation around this time, quit law school, resigned from the Bureau of Soil Fertility & Plant Nutrition, donated to me most of his wardrobe, including forty-eight neckties, and left for a roundthe-world trip. The postcards from him stopped coming when the Pacific War broke out, and I was not to see him again until some years after 1945, when he was already a congressman, x x x At the Pagarigans' meanwhile, the affable confidence I was learning from Ser Servando enabled me to feel quite at ease with my pious and rather aristocratic cousins, as well as with their boarders, whom I had studiously avoided during those first awkward, difficult days in the city. They were, I soon realized, a beguiling cross-section of humanity offering unexploited treasure to a young writer in search of material: a violinist, a defrocked priest who claimed to have built up a following in Laguna, some students and half a dozen clerks, and another young struggling writer like myself, Nicodemus Querubin, a biology instructor in nearby Letran. Nicknamed Bitoy for some reason I never figured out, Nicodemus Querubin was, like Ser Servando, one of my true mentors outside the campus: a reader of wide-ranging tastes and interests, he it was who introduced me

to the works of Erskine Caldwell, Dos Passos, and Steinbeck, authors who appear to have influenced my Proletarian Period (19381940). I also met through Bitoy Querubin the renowned editor E.A. Lintiacco, who published my first social-conscious stories in the Manila Midweek Magazine, x x x In return for these favors, I took Bitoy to one of the literary teas at the Arguelles home in Ermita, where the Guernicans, as we called our group of avant-garde writers (in honor of Guernica, symbol of human solidarity destroyed by Fascist bombs in the Spanish Civil War), congregated on weekends to discuss Life, Proletarian Literature, Stream of Consciousness, Symbolism, T.S. Eliot, Hemingway, Saroyan, Judy Garland, and Fred Astaire. Bitoy, we found out to our dismay, was allergic to tea and boiled peanuts, the established fare at Guemican gatherings; and to cap a wretched evening, he got into a nasty argument with Manuel Verroy and Prof. H.A.H. Herdonjork over Jose Garces Valdez's Roll of Honor for the year. That was the last the Guenicans saw of Nicodemus Querubin, until the 1950s; but his disenchantment with the group didn't strain our friendship the least bit, and many were the times the spirit moved us to seek the solace of beer at Tom's Dixie Kitchen, x x x After the customary five bottles, Bitoy would clamber up the bandstand to sing "South of the Border" or "Mama Yo Quiero." The management didn't seem to mind this impromptu performance, as he had (and still has) a fine tenor voice, an asset he would put to good use as a member of Lamberto Jovellanos' stage-show troupe during the Occupation; besides, the pianist happened to be his twin brother, Bing Querubin. But such spontaneous outbursts of song at Tom's were few and far between; insistent public demand could not make him budge from his seat if he didn't feel like singing. Usually we just sat and drank beer, and I would discuss the stories I was collecting for the Quezon Literary Contest, and he would tell me about the novel he was having trouble with: he could not make up his mind whether to give his central character two navels or none at all. Eventually he decided on the latter, which proved to be the happier choice: The Man Who Had No Navel, the memorable science-fiction classic, the only one of its kind in Philippine writing, won the Rockstone Award and an allexpenses-paid trip to Hong Kong and Macao sometime after the war. x x x Like Ser Servando, Nicodemus Querubin I count among

my favorite friends. I don't see much of him anymore, though; after long intervals, I would chance on him in a theater lobby (he became a fanatical moviegoer after his wife died) or at the Nile watching the floor show with three of his more brilliant disciples, the short story writer and columnist Jose A. Querrano, the poet P.T. Lacabra, and Gorgonio Diamantes, author of those rollicking tales about jeepney drivers, The Distance to Divisoria and Other Stories. I never fail to invite him over to the house for dinner, for old times' sake; but not once has he honored my invitation. The reason, I suspect, could be political: after age forty, it does not pay for writers in this country to persist in the ideological agnosticism that might have been fashionable and even rewarding in their existentialist youth, x x x By 1940 and with the publication of my Footnotes to Puberty, I felt committed to the short story more than to any other form, rather like the irrepressible, industrious Chekhov writing a spate of short fiction in Moscow, to keep himself in medical school and his parents from the poorhouse, although my father had reopened his clinic by then and could send a money order for my birthday and Christmas: more and more people in San Bartolome were submitting to dental prosthesis and oral prophylaxis, thanks to the American-style system of public instruction. Like Chekhov, moreover, I did not confine myself to the short story, much as I was enthralled by the possibilities of the form: while he pursued his other love, the drama, I continued to be a votary of verse. I had before graduating from the University in 1939 discarded rhyme and meter and what the perceptive critic Amando Matalo called "the chants of the brown man, the whining and the mold," and evolved a distinct style containing echoes of Sandburg and utilizing question marks. The revolutionary punctuation was designed to increase the ontological tension of the lines and suggest the artist forever asking questions in a hostile and incomprehensible universe, thus: Pearl? of? the? Orient? Faith? Healer? Stacker? of? Rice? Player? with? Virgins? and? the? Nation's? Fright? Peaceful? Tender? Lovely? City? of? the? Big? Shots? X xxxx

But it was the short story that engaged more of my time and creative powers, as was the case with most of my colleagues. I was drawn early to the craft, feeling, after Poe and Hawthorne in high school, that the form was familiar enough and sufficient for my needs, a more human art than poetry, which requires a kind of superhuman temperature, a consistent blaze of fire or zero-cold to transmute the base meanings of words. Traditionally, the short story is the natural voice of a man speaking quietly in a quiet room; the voice need not be raised as it recounts a tale, Flaubert's "A Simple Heart," for instance, or Joyce's "The Dead": a quiet voice yet somehow a lyric cry, Frank O'Connor has observed, in the face of human destiny. Men who care to listen to the lonely voice understand and are consoled in their humanity: they need not hurry out of the room to axe somebody or stage a demonstration. A mode of communication between human beings, as all art is or should be, and one of the earliest and most loved and most revered: the fathers of our ancestors gathered around the fire to listen to the storyteller, Maugham reminds us; beyond the warm circle of light stood the inhuman dark, and above, the stars glinted, offering no human truths. Solitary, lonely even among the Guernicans or the bailarinas of Santa Ana, I wrote some two hundred stories, counting the rejected or unpublished ones, from the time I arrived at the Pagarigans' to December 1941, each story addressed somehow to what O'Connor has termed the submerged population: suffering, obscure individuals such as underpaid employees, frustrated lovers, abandoned wives, oppressed tenants, and melancholy dreamers who wear elevator shoes, x x x As I wrote my stories and poems in longhand, lying on my stomach on the grass in the shadow of the Oblation, or composed them on Nicodemus Querubin's typewriter in the house |n old Manila, it seemed I could see my depressed audience waitm g, straining forward, smiling mournfully and nodding in somber agreement. "We must not believe in a writer's false humility," writes Mauriac. "Those who pretend that they do not care about what they write and only scribble their poems on cigarette papers do so w ith a secret hope that because they are lighter they will be carried jty the wind to distant shores." One of my stories, "The Slaughterhouse of My Father," published originally in 1937 in Fiction Manuscripts, the Guernican "little magazine" (in format it was actually

larger than a postage stamp), did get carried away by the wind to American shores. Hailed by S.F. Lapuz and Arnulfo Rofor as a "red-corpuscled piece protesting against the fate of men rendered anemic by an anti-human civilization," the story was included in Edward O'Brien's own Roll of Honor, along with Estela Agpoon's "The Naked Servant" and M.V.O. Gonzalez's "A Howl Under the Moon." x x x The high point of the literary life into which, false humility aside, I had plunged with a resounding splash in the decade before the war, was the visit in 1941 of Ernest Hemingway. He and his wife at the time, the novelist and journalist Martha Gellhorn, stopped over in Manila on the way back to the United States after touring the Burma Road and the war fronts in China. We Guernicans had read For Whom the Bell Tolls published the previous year (the copy sent by S.F. Lapuz from New York had some pages missing, mostly about a sleeping-bag, when it came my turn to keep it for a week), and of course we were all delighted with his visit and could not possibly have left the man alone. As soon as we heard that our hero was in town, we hurried to the Manila Hotel, only to be told that Mr. Hemingway had asked not to be disturbed "especially by young Filipino writers who had read For Whom the Bell Tolls." Downcast, we all repaired to Fernando Ongcampo's place in Paco and tried to cheer ourselves up with the usual tea and boiled peanuts while we plotted strategy to get Ernest Hemingway out of his room; the consensus, as expressed by Linda Arguelles, was that we would never live it down should the great novelist leave town without so much as an "Ole/" to the Filipino writers who honored him by imitating his famous staccato style. It was Prof. H.A.H. Herdonjork and Janice Wacker, a longtime friend of the Guernicans, who proved to be the Good Samaritans in our hour of desperate need. The two hosted a party for the Hemingways at the Wacker home in Mandaluyong, to which naturally all fifteen Guernicans were invited, x x x A permanent employee at the Bureau by then, I could afford to wear a de hilo suit which got smudged a bit when, on the way to the party with Mac Ramos, C.B. Pedrosa, and T.V. Agcabili, I almost fell off the tranvia in my excitement (for all my sullenness I am a very excitable fellow). We were formally introduced to the man who had written The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms, and he acknowledged each one with a grunt and a

f

bone-crunching grip where he said he kept his clothes. Was this mystifying announcement another of his celebrated understatements? I wondered as I gazed up in awe at the profusion of hair on his broad unbuttoned chest. Whatever it was, it was enough to send me and some other weak-wristed Guernicans to seek out the eversolicitous Mrs. Wacker for some Sloan's Liniment. After her ministrations, the party turned companionably boisterous, for the accustomed and ceremonious tea of our literary gatherings had been banned for the evening and in its place there was punch thickly spiked with rum, as though to mark our coming of age during the visit of the great American novelist. Hemingway himself produced perhaps from his grip a wineskin ("gift from El Sordo," he winked at us devilishly), and from this he began squirting red wine on everybody, to the delighted shrieks of the girls and the mock alarm of the boys. My immaculate suit was a mess before the evening was half over, but it was, I decided, small price to pay for the privilege of meeting the greatest living writer in the world, x x x I had been hoping all evening for a personal, man-to-man chat with him, to tell him of the novel I was thinking of writing (there is at least one novel under the typewriter hood of every short story writer); and I had all but given up being granted that unlikely favor, what with the crowd five deep around him, when abruptly he stood up to squirt more wine into his mouth, noticed my meek, imploring expression, strode towards me and then steered me out to the porch. "Hace calor," Hemingway said. "The air in thy town is very warm. It does not bother thee in thy de hilo suit?" No, it didn't, I was used to it, I said; and hurriedly, before the others could reclaim him, I said I had an idea for a novel and would he please give me his true, sincere, honest opinion? "Yes, I shall, truly," Hemingway said, and my heart skipped a couple of beats in adoration. It is about an old man, I said, a fisherman I heand about when I was but a sweet, unspoiled child in short pants in my home town of San Bartolome where the sea is the enemy. . . "Thou sayest things beautifully," Hemingway said, patting me on the head. Thank you, I said. This old man, I said, aware now of the crowd edging closer, he goes out to sea alone in his outrigger and harpoons a fish, a big fish. The fish is big and strong and pulls the boat farther out from land, I said, but the old man fights him for two days and two nights never letting go of

the line and the line does not break and the old man's heart does not break, and he conquers the fish finally and kills him and lashes him to the side of the boat. "Thy novel has a manly strength and power, truly," Hemingway said. Thank you, I said. Then the sharks come, I said, symbols of the cruelty, the malevolence of the sea, and they tear off the flesh of the fish and the old man fights them with a knife tied to the end of his paddle. But the sharks are many, I said breathing breathlessly, and the blood in the sea brings more of them and soon the big fish is nada, nothing but the bones of its ribs, nada. "Thy tale is sea-worthy and earth-moving, truly," Hemingway said. "Thy readers will say, Yes, the sea and earth moved," and already he himself seemed moved, or maybe it was only the crowd pressing close and jostling hirn. The old man, whom I shall call Tiago, I said, returns to shore with the skeleton of the big fish and he has fought a good fight and he is very tired and he lies down in his shack and dreams of tigers. "You have in thy novel the seeds of greatness," Hemingway said. "Verdaderamente. You must write it, to enrich the literature of the world. I have only one suggestion to make, hijo mio, and that is, put lions in the dream of the old man at the end of thy novel, not tigres. A dream of young lions would be a more lovely and evocative symbol, truly." Thank you, I said, a grateful lump in my throat, and the remorseless crowd encircled him and he was lost to view. I never got to finishing that novel: the war came shortly after, the years of hunger, disease, emptiness, and death. After the war I resumed work on it and turned out about a hundred manuscript pages, but other things kept interrupting the writing and in 1951 I gave up the book, which I had tentatively titled The Fish and the Old Man. Hemingway apparently never forgot our talk on Mrs. Wacker's porch, for in 1952 he published a novel similar to the one I had in mind, so I guess that would have finished it off for me even if I hadn't given it up. x x x The bombs had fallen on Clark and Nichols and Cavite. Rejected by the US AFFE, stranded in the city, I stayed with the Pagarigans, singing "God Bless America" with Candy and Poten in the blackouts when I wasn't out in the streets blowing my air-raid warden's whistle, while the forces of freedom and democracy fought on and then surrendered in Bataan and Corregidor. The house had been emptied of its boarders, who presumably had managed to go home to

their provinces; Nicodemus Querubin had lived through the Death March and was now recuperating and taking voice lessons at his sister's house in San Juan, Rizal. I had not heard from my parents since General Homma's transports were sighted in Lingayen Gulf; all the bridges were down between Manila and San Bartolome, and now I was cut off from the faraway town in Pangasinan more than I had ever wished to be. About the only Guernican left in town was Francisco Arellano, and with him I went on desultory walks around the occupied city, and we wondered what we should do, whether to stay on in Manila and if we did, how we could keep from starving. "Writers are writers in war or peace, and writers must write," Arellano told me one day as I stood intently watching the dark tempting waters of the Pasig. I edged away from the dark tempting waters and hastened to the reopened Bureau of Soil Fertility & Plant Nutrition (the Japanese were promoting cotton and soy beans), retrieved my old job and looked forward to working days and writing nights, x x x Alas, a cruel fate lay in wait for me: unable to sleep, malnourished, often hungry, I was stricken all at once with ulcers, malaria, and arteriosclerosis. In pain, wasting away, I had all the symptoms of what looked and felt like TB and might even have given up the ghost or become one were it not for the loving care of my cousin Poten, who bartered away the upright piano, most of the furniture, and some of the capiz-shell windows for eggs, carabao's milk, atabrine, and sulfathiazole. It occurred to me to ask her what Tio Areong thought of her stripping the house that way, whereupon she lowered her lashes and blushed so violently she almost tumbled into my bed. "Papa knows," Poten said. What was it Tio Areong knew? I rasped out weakly. "That I love you," Poten said. "Romy, I have loved you from the moment I laid eyes on you when you first arrived with your balutan in 1934 and my love has grown with the years my dearest cousin my darling," and the words all came in an aching rush and she embraced my shivering recumbent legs and sobbed as if her congested heart would break. I was seized by a fit °f coughing and all I could do was run my shaking hands through her Garbo bob, suddenly confused and proud and humbled by the apocalypse of her love, x x x And so we who were second cousins became lovers in the house of Laureano Pagarigan III, my Tio Areong, on the corner of Cabildo and Beaterio in old Manila, in

October of 1943. There were no festive arches, no tumor of drums and festivities in the streets, only the rattle of the buy-and-sell merchants' pushcarts and the clump-clump-clump of the Japanese patrol's boots on the cobbles; but a pang of secret happiness smote our hearts. Tio Areong kept his distance, working on his canvases in his attic studio (a colonel in the Kempei Tai had months earlier appropriated the painting above the stairs); Candy, who had taken to drinking and gaudy makeup, was kept busy attending to the needs of the male boarders who had answered her ad in the New Co-Prosperity Sphere Journal. Both appeared indifferent to the affair going on under their red-tile roof: it was as if they had resigned themselves to the knowledge that these were not ordinary times, and people could not be expected to abide by the conventional ecclesiastical morality of prewar days. Our love itself, I must admit, was unconventional and profane in more ways than one, although it had its moments of what may well have been religious rapture, x x x Poten and I were rolling locked together on the termite-splintered floor one afternoon, the fire engulfing us, yes, the floodgates opening, yes, yes, time expanding and fading always and forever and everywhere and nowhere, oh, yes, when all of a sudden she broke away, rose to her feet, adjusted her dentures and said imperiously: "Romy, if you really love me, if you truly adore me, kiss my foot!" She stood above me and in that instant was transfigured into a Venus rising from the waves. Not just her sole, she said, but the underside of her big toe; and I did as ordered, and more, kissing not only her big tender toe but the four smaller toes of her outthrust foot while I shook and swooned with the intense, immense fever of malaria. These exertions, strangely enough, brought on no relapses, and fortified by hardboiled eggs and carabao's milk, I was soon strong enough to do the marketing and some of my old chores. x x x In November 1944 my brother Polonius came to fetch me from the doomed city. I tried to persuade Tio Areong to come with us to San Bartolome; he would never leave, he said, the noble and ever loyal city of his affections. How about Poten and Candy? His daughters, he decreed, would stay with their father to the end, and that was that. Poten and I whimpered goodbye (great loves, as writers through the ages remind us, end not with a bang but with a whimper), we shook hands, she fainted and

had to be carried away from the sala by two of the boarders, I kissed Tio Areong's hand and he gave me his blessing, 1 bade Candy adieu. I paused at the head of the stairs, blinking through my tears beneath the pale empty rectangle where the painting had hung for unnumbered years, and waved farewell to the tableau of Tio Areong, Candy, and the boarders gathered in the sala. "Don't forget to bring us bucayo when you come back!" Tio Areong said in a brave attempt at casualness. and then I rode away to Pangasinan with Polonius on one of the last buses to leave the city, the old, original city also of my affections, before the Japanese came and hauled off Tio Areong, who had all this time been operating as an agent of the Allied Intelligence Bureau (he had his last heart attack in Fort Santiago, I was told later), before the bombs fell again and shell-fire engulfed Manila and its loyal citizens, among them Candy and her sister Poten, whom I loved beyond words, in the house on the corner of Cabildo and Beaterio long ago.

3.

THE CLIMATE OF INSOMNIA

IN 1947. back once more in Manila and filing memoranda and field reports for the Bureau of Soil Fertility & Plant Nutrition, and teaching American Lit. and Gregg shorthand at the Bicolandia Colleges in Quiapo, I married Shirley Agbuteg of the now prominent logging family from Pamaypayan, Surigao. Ours was what is called a whirlwind courtship and. aptly enough, we met during a particularly vicious typhoon in September of that year. A flash flood had trapped her and a companion in a restaurant on Azcarraga where, tired, lonely, and despondent. I was having my usual wanton mami after a double program at the Republic Theater. Attracted by her cute impish looks and her hoarse laugh, I offered to hoist her up onto a bench secure from the swirling waters, measured her height against mine and decided she would do, and struck up a conversation in my best Serapio Servando style. She was a B.S.E. sophomore at the Far Eastern University, majoring in English, and of course she had read my poems and short stories. When the flood subsided to a less intimidating level three hours later, she and her friend, who was

to be her bridesmaid, had finished more than a dozen siopao, which I paid for with a flourish (fortunately for me it was payday), and I waded with them back to their dormitory on Morayta Street. Smitten, I returned the next evening with a bag of lumpia shanghai and a copy of Like the Mabolo\ I called on her again the following evening with a bag of camaron rebozado and a scrapbook of my critical essays; we went on a movie date and then to the Luneta; we went to her aunt's funeral and then to the Luneta. After a couple of weeks I proposed to her as we sat eating balut on the seawall and the fabulous Manila Bay sunset suffused her chubby cheeks with a lambent orange glow I shall remember to my dying day; we got married before the year was over, with Nicodemus Querubin as my best man. My mother and my sisters Desdemona and Cordelia came all the away from San Bartolome for the wedding in Quiapo Church; my father was absent, though, having died of food poisoning (a rusty K-ration) shortly after Liberation. Our union has since been blessed, as they say, with seven children: six girls, and a boy, Douglas, named after our beloved Liberator, at twenty a celebrity in his own right, being one of the Fifteen Outstanding Dancers of the Philippines, and currently on a research fellowship from the Dallas Foundation to study tribal dances in Tanganyika, x x x To see me now lounging in my red velvet lounging robe here by the pool in McKinley Village on those placid days when the water is not so threatening, playing my nose flute or sipping chianti and looking none the worse for the insomnia, you would never think that I once had holes in my socks and nothing but luckless Sweeptakes tickets in my faded billfold. Shirley and I in the first five years rented a tiny accessoria on Mayhaligue in Sta. Cruz, Manila. As such apartments go, the roof leaked and so did the toilet and the septic tank, and our street could never quite rid itself of its mud puddles even in the driest summers. More often than not there was barely enough left over from what I earned at the Bureau and my salary as a college professor to meet the monthly light and water bills. To save on current Shirley and I had supper at six and were in bed by sixthirty, which proved expensive to me but routinely profitable to her obstetrician; to save on water I limited myself stoically to a glassful for my morning ablutions and showered in the janitors' quarters in the Bureau, x x x To supplement my income I wrote on weekends;

but I seemed to have lost the old touch, a fresh vigorous crop of writers had emerged to dominate the literary scene, talented upstarts like F. Siojo Josue, J.Z. Tubero, Fatima Corotan, and Celestino Ag. Caranasan, author of that marvelous tour de force, Don \t Beg, Be Brave, Man; and the new postwar editors were decidedly unsympathetic to a Guernican. Writers who were in their diapers when a story of mine landed on Edward O'Brien's Honor Roll were now winning all the annual prizes. Most of my poems and stories during this period were returned with the usual bland regrets; manuscripts I submitted to the Philippine Freeman Press were all rejected, with comments in the margins by the weekly magazine's literary editor, the temperamental Teodoro N. Lacson: "Horrid syntax," "Shades of Hemingway!" and "Dammit, don't you think it's about time you changed your prewar typewriter ribbon?" This was the time I began ghost-writing for a fee. love letters for officemates, the more florid the better; term papers for college students; a speech on the need to upgrade the quality of the police for the chief of police, whose querida lived next door, x x x Already I had four mouths to feed, five including my overweight and voracious wife, seven if you counted her brother Doroy and his girlfriend who made it a disconcerting habit to drop in for lunch or supper three to five times a week; and a fifth baby was on the way. Desperately I cast about for odd jobs in my spare time: besides the ghostwriting, I tried my hand at watch-repairing and journalism, pinch-hitting for a reportercolumnist on The Manila Post who had gone on leave to run for vice-mayor in his home town. I was forced to sell the musical fob watch and the volume of Shakespeare I had inherited from my father, and I acquired a slight stoop (corrected since) from walking with head bent and eyes fixed on the sidewalk, hoping to come upon a fallen wallet or some article that would fetch a few extra pesos for pablum and Lactogen. My frayed collars gave rise to an itchy rash around my neck, and I wore my old pants until the seat got so shiny it cast a discernible reflection. Yet in this impoverished state I succeeded manfully in suppressing the urge to end it all in the Pasig; in spite of the stream of rejection slips, I continued to write, to create, to grapple with the human condition; I could still utter lyric cries or more accurately lyric yelps in the face of human destiny, to my wife's discomfiture when we had company, x x x I

had ended a long educational association with the Bureau and had moved to the USIS when Serapio Servando came back to town a congressman in 1952. That year was a most auspicious one, indeed, for it also marked the start of the phenomenal upward swing in my in-laws' fortunes, Shirley's father, the famous criminal lawyer Cosme Agbuteg, known as the "Champion of the Opposite Sex" for saving, from the electric chair, a woman who had fed her husband into a meat grinder, came that year into the possession of a vast logging concession in Surigao and soon the Agbuteg cornucopia began to shower its myriad gifts upon us. Shirley and I and our growing brood said goodbye to Mayhaligue Street and set up house in a spacious bungalow in Pasay. The neighborhood abounded with mysterious goings-on after dark, sinister activities I could not help noticing in the red-lit doorways all along the street; but after the cramped foul apartment and the perennial mud puddles, it represented a great leap forward in the direction of the good life. This happy destination itself my old friend from Intramuros and plant nutrition days, Ser Servando, has more than anyone else helped me to reach. I set it down here for the record, humbly, loyally, and with eternal affection: much of what I am today and what domain I survey, I owe to this exceptional man, boon companion of my youth and my middle-age, generous, gregarious, dedicated patriot and statesman, my dear friend Ser, Senator Serapio Servando. x x x As soon as then Congressman Servando had installed himself in his office in the legislative building in 1952, he had me picked up by his bodyguards for a tearful alcoholic reunion. The emptiness caused by his long silence, the sense of impending doom that hung almost palpably over the apartment on Mayhaligue, the forbidding future: all these were washed away by the current of his familiar, confident humor as we toasted each other's health and recreated the separate meanderings of our lives since he left me his neckties in 1941. The war had caught him in the United States, and he had spent the war years as a confidant and general handyman to Carlos P. Romulo while the latter went all over the continent lecturing on Bataan and the proven loyalty of Filipinos to Mother America; from the General, it appeared, he had learned the art of persuasive oratory, which would serve him well on the floor of the House and win for him the yearly accolade of the Congressional Press Association. Subsequently

made a valet to President Osmena, he had preceded MacArthur's party to the beach in Palo, Leyte, in 1944, to procure a beach chair for the Commonwealth leader, a feat which in no small measure contributed to his election as governor of his home province in 1949. Now he was a gentleman of the lower chamber of Congress with interests in sugar, copra, and smuggling; we would, he said, and he punctuated this with his well-remembered wink, we would go places together, chico. The itinerary he would draw up I was to find rather hectic and exhausting, covering as it did three congressional and two senatorial campaigns; but it has been, all things considered, a most rewarding trip, x x x My job at the USIS (I was a deskman under Lyndon Baynes, now US consul in Haiti) turned out to be tailor-made for Ser Servando's requirements: the State Department regularly issued the policy statements of John Foster Dulles and his successors in pamphlet form, and these formed the substance of the privilege speeches, commencement addresses, and radio talks I wrote for him from 1952 on: "Beware the Atheist Hordes of Moscow and Peking," "The Free World, Matsu and Quemoy," "The Wisdom of American Power,'' "Twenty Questions for Mr. Recto," etc. A number of these speeches have been collected in a book, America and the Philippines: The Great Alliance (Freedom Printing House, 1960), with an introduction by former US Ambassador to the Philippines J. McCormack Blour; I am now editing twenty-five more pieces for another volume, x x x The other night, I started work on yet another major speech, on Vietnam, to be delivered before a convention of licensed embalmers at the Sheraton: "The forces of the Free World are in South Vietnam in response to the request of the legitimate government of that embattled country now fighting for its life against a rapacious tyranny. Are we intervening in Vietnam, as the enemies of democracy in our very midst charge we are? Are we meddling in the affairs of the long-suffering Vietnamese people? Yes, we are! Yes! And let us proclaim the truth to all the world: We are meddling, we are intervening! We are in Vietnam, ladies and gentlemen, in exactly the same way that in 1917 America intervened in Europe to stop German militarism, and again in 1941 in order to crush the serpents of Fascism and Nazism!" x x x My writing assignments for Ser, by the way, have not been confined to speeches, when he ran for senator

in 1959, it was my duty and privilege, for instance, to compose his campaign slogans, "Servando Serves You" and "Conquer with Ser," among others: I wrote the lyrics for the "Servando Mambo," which schoolteachers, municipal councilors, and barrio captains from Aparri to Jolo still dance to. In addition, I have gone more than once with Ser Servando on the campaign trail, braving the hazards of the hustings with him on most of the seven thousand islands and islets of the archipelago, dodging bullets, directing photographers, dancing the "Servando Mambo" with fiesta queens and their mothers, sampling all sorts of cooking and drinking various native concoctions (I came down with schistosomiasis after a helicopter sortie in Samar), making notes for speeches and writing letters of thanks and encouragement to the Serve-with-Servando Chapters in every city, town, barrio, and sitio we visited. Between speeches, there are the frequent visits to hospitals, orphanages, and Bayside, to distribute Ser's fabled largesse; there is the bar-hopping on slack nights, which could be exhausting, to say the least, x x x Of late, too, I have been doing some advertising and public relations work for my brother-in-law Doroy, who has likewise gone up in the world, being vice-president for PR of the Over a Cup of Coffee Cafe and board director of the Heavenly Choir Memorial Park; and there are the meetings and conferences I have to attend myself, as director and senior consultant for creative services at the Republic Advertising & Marketing Corporation now run by my compadre, Napoleon Espiritu. Such has been the need for my services that I have had to give up teaching at the Bicolandia Colleges (a decision made easier by the closure of the school for failure to install the governmentprescribed model of diploma mill); and despite a series of bonuses, PX privileges, and a Fil-American secretary who looks fantastic in a miniskirt, I have resigned from the USIS. But if Ser Servando has one fault, it is his boundless generosity. I don't get a regular salary but he takes care to send me a blank check every three months, and I am not complaining. Some of the checks have bounced, to be sure, but these, it must be emphasized, are more the exception than the rule. This arrangement has made it possible for me and Shirley to tour the world thrice. The last time we were abroad a couple of years ago, we as cursillistas had an audience with the Pope, who knighted me Defender of the Faith in the Order of Origines the

Anchorite, bestowing with this rare title enough indulgences to keep three generations of Managulbods out of Purgatory. Yes, I have returned to the faith of my fathers, which happens to be the predominant creed here in McKinley Village (the scattering of foreign Presbyterians and Baptists in the community have not made any headway): the morose little agnostic of yesteryear has come a long way, indeed. We militant Catholics must stand fast at the ramparts of the Free World and repel the godless hordes, x x x Life has been kind, in a manner far exceeding my most extravagant expectations. But ours is an imperfect earthly city, as our rollista would remind us, and the day is not without certain shadows, those moments when, with no cloud passing across the sun, the world seems to grow dim and somewhere a wind rises. There are the sleepless nights when the dark and I engage in an extended dialogue; my doctor would not recommend pills, something to do with my pancreas. I have tried warn baths, hot toddies, the Litany of the Saints, reading a textbook on the maintenance of axial-flow turbines, and counting up to a million, all to no avail: there I remain on the high plateau of my insomnia, and deep in the night the ghosts of the years file by in silent procession: my parents, my grandfather Cuadrato, Imelda Cudalbeng, Poten Pagarigan, the girls of the Santa Ana Cabaret, the Guernicans. It is as though they had all joined the submerged population whose spokesman I was, long ago, and now would rebuke me wordlessly for having abandoned them. I have not written a short story or even a line of poetry since 1953, and the Tagalog novelist Totoy Lib. Ag. S. Mat. Lakasbayan recently referred to me in an article as "that public relations man, Romeo D. Managulbod, a great loss to Filipino letters in his unrelenting apostasy." I was all set to deliver a paper entitled "The Literary Artist and the Defense of Democracy in Asia" at the National Conference of Filipino Writers for Nation-Building held in Baguio not so long ago, but my scheduled appearance was cancelled by a committee dominated by the anti-American clique of Bias Solangco de la Cruz. Then, too, there is the problem of the swimming pool, the water suddenly darkening, cold and waiting like the sea at dusk in San Bartolome But these are minor annoyances compared to the trouble I am having with Fenitchka. x x x My eldest daughter Fenitchka (named after the "young beautiful mother" in Tugenev's Fathers

and Sons) has caused me such acute distress as to make my pen falter or, rather, my typewriter's keys interlock and jam despairingly. She is, to begin with, so unlike her sisters: she has nothing but contempt for such feminine preoccupations as fashion shows and bridal showers, which she labels "bourgeois, anti-revolutionary barbarisms"; instead of John Lennon and Co., a life-size cloth portrait of Che Guevara hangs in her room, along with the lurid posters she has somehow acquired from North Vietnam and Red China. Imagine a father's consternation and anguish when I had to go to the Manila Police Department to bail her out: during that singularly rowdy demonstration her Mga Anak ni Bonifacio group staged last July 4 against the visit of the US nuclear carrier Chester W. Nimitz and the law penalizing necrophilia, she threw a manhole cover at a mounted policeman (she is rather hefty for a girl who stands barely five feet). The makeshift discus missed the policeman but hit his horse, cracking its skull and killing it instantly, and the AID-trained cops carried her off to jail for assaulting a person in authority; her picture was in all the papers the next day. (Fenitchka, dear Fenitchka, how did I fail you, where did I go wrong? Child of my heart, must you be a hostile stranger to your father just because he has chosen to stand up and be counted among the loyal sons of the Free World in which you demonstrate and move and have your being?) x x x A man seeks consolation wherever it may be found. I have learned to play "The Girl from Ipanema" on my nose-flute, and I have been rereading the great poets of 17th-century England: John Donne, John Milton, Andrew Marvell. As often as I have the time and the opportunity, I go next door, to listen to Barbara Browdas, former baton twirler of the Wallace Junior College in Lynchville, Alabama, playing Bach fugues or Mozart etudes in her gold-lame shorts (in a bikini, once, when her airconditioner broke down): one can get tired of Petula Clark and Gary Lewis whose raucous records Fenitchka's sisters love to play full-blast on our solid-state stereo. A fervent lover of the Philippine sun. Barbie Browdas is, and to receive in fuller measure the golden caressing rays, she is partial to abbreviated attire, sometimes none at all, as I discovered one morning when, unable to summon an electrician, I went up to the attic to fix a short circuit (I have since been checking on the wiring on sunny mornings). I chanced to peer through the ventilation slats

looking down on the lawn next door, and there was Barbie on a rubber mat, soaking in the sun and clad only in dark glasses; in the resplendent sunlight she was gloriously, indubitably blond. What can a red-blooded Filipino do but offer to be a slave to such an enchanting creature who looks like the mother of Sue Lyon? Her six-footer of a husband is with some chemical firm commissioned to spray crops and vegetation in Vietnam; he comes home once every two or three months. Barbara, Barbie, Barbs, I would address her, admiring her well-formed gluteus maximums and her exquisite pedal rhythm as she sits at the piano heroically interpreting Mozart's Sonata XVI (
throbbing in my chest, a flood of memories cascading towards me, a river of vast dark time beginning in San Bartolome by the sea and flowing through Old Manila and the UP on Padre Faura and the war and the years on Mayhaligue. Through a window I glimpse the pool, darkly glimmering and cold under the moon. It is another night of insomnia: I enter my book-lined sanctuary and resolutely close the door, decode the latest postcard from the CIA, and write another speech for Senator Servando.

Stranger in an Asian City

O

N THE PLANE from Manila, Juan Salvador has a window seat and a friendly American for company. He is glad for both: through the oval plexiglass facing north as the huge jet hurls itself westward, the earth with its fields of cloud, its blue-green patches of sea and land, appears more immense and beautiful than he has ever imagined, and the American, who, he thinks, can pass for Robert Mitchum, except that he is half-bald and lacks a cleft chin, seems to understand the importance and excitement of this his first trip abroad. Seven other Filipinos boarded the plane in Manila: an elegant couple who disappeared into First Class, three muscular youths in denim jackets, crane operators or perhaps diesel mechanics bound for Jeddah, and two women, whispering together nervously, flying to join a cousin working in a nursing home in London. They have little in common with him, Juan Salvador feels, glancing about the cabin through his thick plastic-framed glasses, relieved that he is not seated beside any of them. As for the rest of the passengers, none interests or appeals to him: Japanese tourists bristling with cameras, Chinese businessmen in rumpled suits, Malaysians or maybe Indonesians in flower-printed polo shirts, an Arab family, a solitary Indian reading in the aisle seat to the left of the American, whose name, he says, shaking hands with Juan Salvador as soon as they have released themselves from their seat-belts, is Ed Ronsdale. "Not the first time I've heard that," says the American

with a crisp chuckle when Juan Salvador remarks on his resemblance to the Hollywood actor. "But no one's asked me for an autograph yet. Maybe I ought to wear a wig and fool you people, huh?" "I've seen all of Robert Mitchum's films," says Juan Salvador with his soft, careful enunciation. "Yeah, I bet. You folks are great moviegoers, aren't you all." "The Way West. The Good and the Bad Guys. Cape Fear, where he played a psycho case. That was terrific. Did you see that?" "Nah. I don't go to the movies. After a hard day's work I relax by finding me some watering hole. And Manila's a great place for doing just that, huh, Juan?" "Call me Johnny." "O .K. Johnny. I been in and out of Manila enough times to know some real swinging places. All work and no play makes Ed a dull boy, as my grandpaw used to say. Well, here's to less work and more play." Ed Ronsdale clinks his glass of Scotch on the rocks with Juan Salvador's root beer, punctuating the toast with his happy chuckle. "This trip for business or pleasure? By the way, where you headed, Johnny?" Juan Salvador glances out the window, at the bright afternoon above the clouds and the slight curve of the earth far away to the north, needing the pause to assemble the still unfamiliar consonants on his tongue, though for a week before the trip he kept reading and repeating in his mind the strange, dissonant name of the Asian city. Then he pronounces it, carefully, with the accent ori the third syllable of the name that is more than a thousand years older than Manila, and laughs at his own uneasiness, "Well, whaddya know," says Ed Ronsdale, "I'm stopping over there for a few days myself. A great city too, like Manila, but don't you drink the water." "You mean the water's not safe, . .?" "Nah, just kidding, Johnny. It's just that on land I don't touch the stuff, if you know what I mean." Ed Ronsadale drains his glass and sighs contentedly. "Up in the air too, as you can see." "You've been there? How's it like, really? They say. • •

The anxiety during takeoff, pushed back by the American's convivial manner, now returns to press against his throat and shoulders. He hears himself saying, somewhat formally, "This is my first time to travel outside of the Philippines." "Is it, really, Johnny, I'd never have guessed. Smoke?" Juan Salvador shakes his head, sorry for refusing, and the American taps out a filter-tipped cigarette and lights up with a dented Zippo lighter with a military emblem on it. "Now that's a rather interesting city we re headed for, if you ask me. Been there a few times, during the war in 'Nam. But for R and R I'll take Bangkok any old time." "You fought in Vietnam?" "Worked was more like it. Strictly civilian job, for a construction firm. Flying C-130's loaded with cement and pipes and all kinds of gear from Guam and Clark." "You are a pilot. . "Re-tired but re-treaded, you might say," says Ed Ronsdale, his chuckle hoarse and subdued, as if with nostalgia, a longing for a lost war in Asia, for the controls of a transport plane touching down at Tan Son Nhut, in Saigon. "I'm still tied up to the old outfit but don't do any more flying, that's for the younger fellows. Transport consultancy is the name of the game, Johnny. Leaves you time to lay up in Manila when the monsoon gets going and holds up the jobs on the Mekong. What racket are you in yourself?" "I take care of promotions, advertising, for an agribusiness company." "So this is a business trip to Muonga-wachamacallit I can't get the name right myself But don't you work too hard now. Where you staying at?" "I don't know yet. Some people will meet me at the airport. "I'll be bunking down at the Golden Lotus, right in the center of town. You give me a ring — all work and no play, remember?" "Yes. I will. . . it's just for three days, a conference of branch managers and promotions people. I'll, be reading a paper "Come again?" "A lecture. On development communications, the mass

media and the masses in the countryside. . J u a n Salvador begins to relax again and recalls phrases from the paper written by someone else and intended for delivery by a vice-president of the firm in Manila. He thinks of telling Ed Ronsdale that until ten days ago, another man was slated to travel to the conference, that it was only by accident, literally, that he was directed to go in the man's stead, the latter having suffered a broken collarbone and other fractures when a Coca-Cola delivery truck rammed his car in a driving rain. But he decides that the mishap is not likely to impress the American, and to make him even more sympathetic, more concerned, he starts to outline the document he is to read in the Asian city. He tells Ed Ronsdale about the influence of radio as compared with television on the typical Asian village; about adult education and literacy rates and how these are related to economic factors and consequently to social and political development, while the southeastern curve of the Asian continent, a jigsaw of green and brown islets and deltas, drifts off far below the swept-back wing and the jet pods spewing bluish flame in the vast day still bright as midafternoon, though it is a quarter to six by his watch, the sun not moving down to the rim of the earth but horizontally, westward with the cruising plane. He talks about the "miracle rice" strains that a team of foreign scientists developed in his country, how these varieties have multiplied yields per hectare, and Ed Ronsdale excuses himself and returns after some time with a fresh drink, looking flushed and cordial as ever, and a stewardess comes down the aisle distributing dinner, plastic trays of tenderloin tips, chicken macaroni, and fruit salad. Juan Salvador goes on to talk about farm mechanization, crop rotation, livestock production, human resources, and democracy, and the plane plunges on through the skies of Vietnam, where the mountains and forests still bear raw gashes, streaks of napalmed and defoliated land, and then Ed Ronsdale smokes one more cigarette, burps, interrupts his seatmate's recital to say that they should be landing in Muonga-watchamacallit in about an hour, mumbles, burps one last time and begins to snore. Juan Salvador, dejected and lonely, gazes out at the northern edge of the earth: the day is fading at last, a dark band has formed on the horizon, below which, he imagines, lie the wintry depths of Northern China or Siberia. A golden powdery glow touches

the windows on the other side of the cabin where the Japanese and the Malaysians and the three young men going to Saudi Arabia are smoking and chatting quietly, and on seeing the same quality of sunlight that comes in the morning into the dining room of his house in Manila, he thinks of his wife with a desolate intake of breath and wishes she were in the plane with him, her hand enclosed in his and scratching at his palm with her forefinger, which is her way of telling him that she wants to make love. . . The pilot's voice on the intercom, British and businesslike, rouses Ed Ronsdale snorting out of his nap. "Muonga-etcetera, here we come," he says, stretching his arms and striking Juan Salvador on the temple, a light glancing blow but with enough force to knock the latter's glasses askew. "Jesus Christ Almighty, I'm very sorry, Johnny, I — Holy Maloney, I didn't hurt you, did I?" Juan Salvador removes his dangling glasses, looks them over, blinking, and puts them back on. "It's all right," he says, his mouth twitching at the corners as if about to laugh. "Sure you're O.K.?" "Yes," says Juan Salvador, "I'm O.K." "Fine," says Ed Ronsdale. "There'd be hell to pay if you busted your glasses before that lecture of yours on agri something, huh? Hey, time to buckle up. Maybe I should look after you from now on."

JUAN SALVADOR'S first impression of the Asian city is of a grid of paddy fields, brown-yellow now in the dry season like those in his own country and slanting upward in a wide arc as the plane makes its descent. Thatched huts the color of dust, wooden houses with tin roofs gleaming in the late sun, carabaos in a mud pond, bamboo groves: all in miniature and glimpsed fleetingly, they remind him of the small town where he grew up, in a province in the north of Luzon. The bright humid heat outside the cabin is familiar and reassuring, too, and when he inhales the scent of flowers, from the red and white garlands which two brown girls in purple flowing robes loop around the necks of the debarking passengers, it is almost as if he had just arrived in Davao City or Zamboanga or some such place south of Manila on a trip for his company.

But as he proceeds across the tarmac towards the airport building and glances up to confirm that the sky, too, is no different from his country's, he notices the huge rectangular sign on the roof with the Asian city's name printed on it in a script he cannot read, the loops and whorls of an alien, mysterious alphabet. Tiny figures move on the roof, under the sign: soldiers, he realizes, quickening his pace, suddenly afraid that if he stays a moment longer out in the open, the soldiers will train their rifles on him. There are more of them in the shadow cast by the building, a platoon in black uniforms deployed around an armored van, troops with brown impassive faces and Armalite rifles. An officer in a red beret stands to one side, a hand on his holster, his eyes following the Japanese, the Malaysians and the Arabs and Juan Salvador as they line up in the tube-fenced passageway leading to the passport control counter inside the building. Juan Salvador looks about for signs of Ed Ronsdale: the American is not at the head of the line nor anywhere around. He would surely know what it is all about, the presence of the troops at the airport; whether it is routine or unusual, the start of something unwelcome and dangerous. But how could he have passed through so quickly: maybe these people are awed by American actors or characters who resemble them. . . One of the three black-uniformed officers behind the counter, a bull-necked man with bloodshot eyes, asks about the purpose of his visit, regards him reflectively as if trying to place this particular visitor, smiles and finally stamps his passport. The customs inspector it is his lot to deal with proves to be more difficult: I.M. Kraikpot, as his nameplate reads, is a gaunt, taciturn civilian seemingly intent on performing for his military managers watching from an elevated glass booth. He scoops out the contents of Juan Salvador's suitcase onto a table and pokes at them roughly with his bony fingers. He uncovers ajar of pomade, sniffs at it and makes a face; a bottle of antacid and another of multivitamins get the same treatment. His last lingering scrutiny he reserves for the conference paper bound in a cardboard folder. "Ah, ha, what is this?" I.M. Kraikpot waves the folder in Juan Salvador's face. "Why are you carrying this?" "It's for a conference," Juan Salvador raises his voice, against the sounds that seem to have become louder all around him'

strangely inflected cries, laughter, a soldier calling to another across the hall, and from a hidden loudspeaker a high-pitched flow of strange singsong words like a sad, untiring complaint. "A conference beginning tomorrow," says Juan Salvador, dabbing at his face with a damp handkerchief "On communications and rural development. . " I.M. Kraikpot scans the typewritten pages and, frowning in concentration, reads out some of the headings: "Spatial Setting. Socio-Economic Patterns. Prospects and Recommendations. Ah, ha, the authorities should find this most interesting." "Mr. Kraikpot, it's not anything you — there's nothing wrong, really." The announcement from the unseen loudspeaker now seems directed at Juan Salvador, threatening him, and he wavers between an impulse to plead for kindness and courtesy, and the thought that he should assert himself, stand his ground. "Mr. Kraikpot, let me —" Someone is tapping him on the back. "Mr. Salvador?" He turns and almost bumps against the small plump man nodding and smiling up at him. "You are Mr. Salvador? From the Philippines?" "Yes, yes. Mr. Vaijotoi?" "Oh, no, not Mr. Vaijotoi. He could not come. He is very sorry. He sent me to see you. I am late, because of the emergency. There was some trouble at the university, near the office. Oh, I am Henry Ha." He pumps Juan Salvador's hand, nodding merrily, and then turning with a cackling laugh he makes a mock lunge at I.M. Kraikpot, who sidesteps exaggeratedly and breaks into a wide smile filled with gold teeth. Henry Ha and I.M. Kraikpot launch into a rapid exchange in the language of the Asian city, slapping each other's shoulders an d giggling together like schoolboys on a jaunt, with Juan Salvador looking on in befuddlement. With a flourish I.M. Kraikpot hands him the folder, grunting apologetically, and with Henry Ha's assistance arranges the articles on the table back into the suitcase before taking his leave. "Oh, today has been so warm," says Henry Ha. "This is the hottest month of the year. Is it as warm in Manila, Mr. Salvador? I hope you will enjoy your stay. That Kraikpot, he is my cousin He acts crazy sometimes. But he is a good man."

Henry Ha insists on carrying the suitcase and leads the way down a tiled corridor opening out into the fluorescent brightness of the main lobby and the clang and rattle of music that grates in Juan Salvador's ear. A sight no longer so startling, black-clad soldiers sit or lean against a wall, beneath a floodlit mural depicting their Queen, tall and radiant and surrounded by worshipful children. In the twilight outside, a tank is parked at the foot of the ramp sweeping up to the airport building, its engine idling, the long barrel of its cannon pointing at the darkening hills which mark the kingdom's border with a neighboring republic. As they pass around the tank, a soldier standing beside the turret shouts at them, and Henry Ha shouts back in the same tongue. "The curfew," he tells Juan Salvador. "Oh, it starts at eight o'clock. We have enough time. We go this way, please. My car is down there." "What's going on, Henry? The troops — the curfew. . .?" "Oh, it happens every now and then. It is nothing serious, really This morning General Pashistok said on television that he would not obey the People's Assembly. General Pashistok, he is the Supreme Commander of the Royal Ground Forces." "There's going to be trouble —" "Oh, do not worry, Mr. Salvador. Tonight Her Majesty will make an announcement. Everything will be all right tomorrow, you will see. It is nothing serious." Henry Ha's Toyota Corolla contains an odor like curry, for which Juan Salvador has a profound dislike, and a cassette player, which Henry Ha plays as soon as he has maneuvered the car onto the boulevard leading out of the airport. Frank Sinatra singing "My Way" in the evening light mingles with the curry smell and a sense of anticipation, and the unexpected boon, the happy surprise of it, is such that Juan Salvador catches his breath and cries, "Hey, man, that's Frankie!" "Oh, I knew you would like it," says Henry Ha. "He's terrific. Ole Blue Eyes. I've always liked him from way back." "I listen to him a lot. Also, I like the Carpenters, the Manhattan Transfer, Stevie Wonder. Piano by Peter Nero, Roger Williams, rock, jazz, blues, I listen to it all the time after work." "Where did you pick it up?"

"What did you say, please?" "You've always liked stateside music?" "Oh, when I was a student. In California. UCLA." "You studied in the States? What did you take up?" "Oh, I majored in anthropology. That is why I am now with an agribusiness company." Henry Ha's laughter, which has a gurgle in it, a rasp as of thick phlegm he cannot expel, seems to Juan Salvador further proof of his welcomer's intelligence and sincerity. Henry Ha stops at a checkpoint before a bridge. The bandoliered soldier who trains a flashlight on the two men is polite and soft-spoken and after a few words with Henry Ha waves them on. Sinatra is singing "I Get a Kick Out of You" and Henry Ha is saying, "That is the oldest temple in the city. Also the biggest. Mr. Vaijotoi will take you to visit the many temples north of the city. They are more than one thousand years old." The illuminated pyramid looms up beyond a park, its tiers aswarm with stone dragons, tigers, and elephants: like a grotesque cake from a mad baker, Juan Salvador thinks and instantly upbraids himself for his irreverence. Yes, he must show more respect for his newfound friend's country: he should begin to appreciate it in earnest. . . The avenues of the Asian city, designed by long departed colonialists concerned with clear fields of fire for their artillery, are far wider than any of the streets in Manila. The thoroughfares now appear even broader, more spacious, because of the scant traffic: half-empty two-deck buses, cars speeding by at irregular intervals, a few motorbike vans waiting for passengers along the tree-lined sidewalks. A file of jeeps packed with soldiers and a half-track with a mounted machine gun grind around a traffic circle dominated by a bronze figure in what looks like ancient Mongolian armor. Most of the downtown stores are shuttered, though their neon signs stream and pulse on, block after quiet block. With Angela Bofill's "This Time Til Be Sweeter" throbbing softly inside the car, Juan Salvador stares disconcerted at the luminous varicolored symbols, the strange script striking him as even more cryptic in neon. But the three-story hotel across from which Henry Ha brakes the car has Orient International Inn painted in red and yellow letters on the tin overhang of its entrance. The Arab couple

on the plane and four elderly Americans, one of them a woman chattering excitedly, sit in the narrow lobby, under the ceiling fans which scarcely stir the sultry air. "It is the favorite of visitors," says Henry Ha. "Famous authors from many parts of the world have stayed here. The room Mr. Vaijotoi reserved for you has a nice view of the river. I hope you will like it. Oh, the sunrise is very beautiful on the river. Visitors wake up early to see i t " "I'll just dump this bag and wash up and then we'll have dinner. My way of saying thanks for the ride, and Frank Sinatra." "Oh, Mr. Salvador, thank you, but I have to go. I live far, you know. Oh, I forgot to bring the program for the conference. Your talk is on the second day. The conference will begin maybe nine, maybe ten o'clock. Have a nice dinner. The Orient is the best place for lamb and beef curry. . ."

JUAN SALVADOR has a shrimp omelet, a hamburger steak, and a mug of the sourish local beer in the hotel restaurant and is settled in his room by nine o'clock. He calls the Golden Lotus Hotel: he would kid Ed Ronsdale about the curfew spoiling any R & R. An abrupt desk clerk tells him no Mr. Ronsdale has registered or made reservations. Puzzled and homesick, he turns on the TV, to find the same program on all three channels, in the singsong language he does not understand: important-looking men being interviewed in front of a fortress-like building, a crowd scattering amid puffs of tear gas, a general in an elaborate uniform, complete with sash and swagger stick, gesticulating furiously, and then the Queen reading a statement from the royal palace. With the klieg lights full on her, the Queen in close-up looks less regal and imposing than in the mural at the airport: a fiftyish woman with frizzy hair, a facial tic and a fat neck, speaking, he imagines, on peace, unity, progress and freedom to her subjects. He watches it all out of curiosity as well as a vague sense of duty to the office in Manila, to Henry Ha and Mr. Vaijotoi, whom he has yet to meet: he ought to learn what he can about the day's events in this Asian city. . . But his body sags wearily, his eyelids droop. He takes an antacid tablet, murmurs a prayer and with one last yearning memory of his wife, of her hand nestled between his thighs, falls asleep.

The knock wakes him up shortly after midnight from a confused dream about his newly married daughter, Ed Ronsdale, and soldiers at the Palace in Manila. The night is quiet save for the clicking of ivory cubes from the alley below and small muffled blasts like distant shots or a car backfiring across the river. The knock comes again, three slow, deliberate beats on his door. He lies in the pale dark, more annoyed than apprehensive: perhaps a prostitute with an arrangement with the hotel, trying her luck with a newly arrived guest. . . The knocking is repeated a third time, like a hopeful, persistent code. He gropes for his glasses and with an agitated oath pads to the door and opens it a crack, careful to leave the chain in its metal slot. In the corridor light the two young faces are smiling with humble expectancy: a boy and a girl fifteen or sixteen and breathing hard, as if they had come running over a great distance. "Mr. Salvador?" says the boy, a notch or two above a whisper. "From Manila?" "How come you know my name? What do you want? What's this —" "We wish to speak with you, sir," says the girl. "It's very important, sir. Mr. Salvador, we have to talk to you. For the sake of our people. Our country." A contemptuous impatience flares in his chest: student radicals, goddammit, teenage revolutionaries out to change the system, trouble makers all, in Manila and in this Asian city too; and now they won't even let him have a good night's sleep. He should call the front desk, the police. . . "Go on home," he tells them, i m not interested in whatever —" and he moves to close the door. The girl grips the edge of the door, her knuckles sharpboned and pale in the diffuse light. She says, still smiling, "We won't go unless we speak with you." "Mr. Salvador," says the boy, "we promise — just a few minutes. There's something we came to give you. Well tell you about it and then go." He cannot close the door without first knocking off the girl's hand, or smashing it; and he needs his sleep, he must get rid of them somehow. They won't dare make a commotion at this hour. He cannot remove the girl's hand, unless he. . . "All right

then, but make it quick." The two nod in unison, he hesitates still, sighs audibly and releases the chain. The boy with quick precise motions draws the window curtains and switches on the table lamp in a corner. The girl almost as quickly hands Juan Salvador a brown envelope. He steps back, as if to avoid any contact, holding the envelope in both hands, feeling at once resentful and vulnerable in his undershirt and striped pajama trousers. The girl, who is fair and almond-eyed, takes a deep breath, holds herself erect, as if about to recite in class, and says in a rush, "We heard about you, sir, about your conference, from our friends. We know you can help us, you are a newspaperman, you can —" "No, no," Juan Salvador interrupts her with some heat, "I'm not with any newspaper —" "As a journalist from Manila," the girl presses on, "you can help tell the world what's going on in our country. Unlike here you have true democracy, honest elections and a free press in the Philippines." She inhales deeply, a girl the height of his youngest daughter, in yellow T-shirt and blue jeans. ccYou know about the evils of imperialism, fascism and neo-colonialism. Like other friends in the press around the world. Our group, the Progressive Students Union, has put out a manifesto on the problems and needs of our people. General Pashistok wants more powers for the army. The People's Assembly is only a rubber stamp. The Queen is being misled by her advisers. Multinational companies are exploiting —" "Enough!" Juan Salvador raises the envelope, as if about to strike her with it. "All right, you've said your piece. Now go." "Please, sir, read our manifesto," the girl says in the same eager, unflustered tone. "We hope you'll write about it, in Manila. If more people in the world, in the United Nations —" "Sure, O.K., I'll read it in the morning. This your manifesto?" He drops the envelope on a chair, in the circular glow of the lamp, and glares at them: time to put an end to this absurd business. How stupid of him. . . "Get going. Isn't there a curfew?" "We are leaving the city tonight," says the boy, and the girl adds swiftly, "We have a long way to go. We could not wait, we might never see you again." Her earnestness, her alert almond eyes, the way she flicks

a sweat-tangled strand of hair from her glistening brow finally persuade him not to be too gruff with them: he should be firm, but not unkind. . . But the girl is at the door and she is saying, "Thank you, Mr. Salvador. Goodbye." "Thank you, sir," says the boy, pulling the door shut after him. Juan Salvador stands a moment in the room, still seeing in his mind the girl's imploring eyes, her brow shining with sweat. Finally, he opens the envelope and unfolds the closely typed pages: carbon copies, he discovers, the paper smudged, some of the words illegible. He scans the manuscript and lipreads some random phrases: "peasants and other oppressed classes. . . mere importers and assemblers of capitalist products. . . reactionary puppets of U.S. imperialism. .." Frowning in morose annoyance, shaking his head, he folds the thin sheets into a compact little square, pushes this into the drawer of the corner table and puts out the light.

THE GLORIOUS sunrise promised by Henry Ha occurs without Juan Salvador's witnessing it, as it is half past seven when he wakes and draws the curtains aside for his first daytime view of the Asian city, the river, the buildings on the opposite bank, and a sky already beginning to shimmer with heat. The river is twice as broad as the Pasig in Manila, with sampans crowding the banks and a ferry boat approaching the pier directly behind the hotel, its wake spreading out on the water the color of diluted chocolate. Freshly showered, feeling adventurous and confident in the embroidered barong tagalog which his wife gave him on his last birthday, he goes downstairs to a breakfast of grapefruit juice, avocado, ham and eggs. The newspaper he finds folded by his plate has only the back page of it in English and most of this devoted to the Queen Mother's recent vacation in Switzerland and the Crown Prince's specifications for an ideal wife; at the bottom of the page, between massage parlor ads, is a short item about constitutional amendments and a "continuing debate" in the People's Assembly Henry Ha comes to fetch him, as if on cue, just as he is chewing the last of his ham. The traffic on the side streets is as bad as in Chinatown in

Manila, Juan Salvador observes, but tolerantly, almost enjoying the car's sluggish crawl through the swarm of pedestrians, peddlers, pushcarts, and cargo trucks. To the strains of the Carpenters chorusing "We've Only Just Begun," which is his favorite by the singing group, they turn at last into the wide boulevard where he saw the troops and the half-tracks last night. Only a flock of doves and some monks in saffron robes share the traffic circle with the statue of the ancient warrior: a good sign; as Henry said yesterday, it's nothing serious. . . He sees no black uniforms anywhere, and the people strolling on the tree-shaded sidewalks show no signs of anxiety, let alone fear, as far as he can see. A canvas facsimile of Gregory Peck with a smoking six-shooter towers over a theater marquee and the featured film's title in the script he cannot read; next to the theater is a department store with Honda motorcycles in its display window: on this sunny, traffic-noisy, gasoline-suffused morning, it is business as usual in the Asian city. . . Mr. Vaijotoi threads his way towards them, through the mass of Japanese tourists and luggage blocking the front steps of the massive ochre hotel that is the site of the conference. "I'm shure glad to shee you," says Mr. Vaijotoi, husky and flushed with drink and his deep-set eyes examining Juan Salvador solicitously "How wash your trip? I'm shorry I coundn't meet you at the airport. I had to be at a cocktail party for Mishter Langley, from headquartersh in Chicago. Did Henry here take good care of you?" "Henry's been a great help," says Juan Salvador, releasing himself from Mr. Vaijotoi's fervent grip. "I had some difficulty at customs and Henry smoothed out things for me." "Customsh, did you sha}'?" "The inspector got suspicious about my paper" "For the conferensh? Did he think agribishnesh wash shubershive or shomething?" Mr. Vaijotoi groans and turns to Henry Ha. "Henry, you go back out there and watch out for Mishter Langley. Come, Mishter Shaivador, I'd like you to meet the othersh." In the hotel coffee shop Juan Salvador is introduced to the delegates from Hongkong, Taipei, Kuala Lumpur, and Jakarta. The man from Hongkong is quite jovial and gives him a bear hug and asks about the last film festival in Manila; the others confine themselves to the usual pleasantries. "The represhentativsh ana

obsherversh from Japan, Shingapore and Shri Lanka have probably gone up," says Mr Vaijotoi. "They're too sherioush, thosh people, too hard-working. But our meeting'sh shet for ten o'clock. Have a drink." He reclaims his seat, next to a purse-lipped woman with enormous jade earrings, and in front of a bottle of White Label. "Mish Ayathug, my confidenshal shecretary." He nods at the woman and, indicating the bottle, "It ish either half-empty or halffull, depending on your philoshophy." Juan Salvador asks for a Coke, resolved to be perfectly clear-headed and alert on this opening day of the conference. Mr. Vaijotoi tells the group that Mr. Langley will deliver the keynote speech instead of the Minister of Rural Information; the latter, Juan Salvador gathers, has just been dismissed from office by some committee, which is just as well, says Mr. Vaijotoi, as the man is "notorioush for long-winded shpeechesh." Nelson Yao, the man from Hongkong, offers to accompany Juan Salvador to what he calls "the most fantastic massage service in town," after the day's sessions. The Thai promotions manager and his Indonesian counterpart exchange notes on how inflation has affected their advertising budgets. Ms. Ayathug sits as if whistling silently at everyone around the table when she is not sipping her iced tea. Henry Ha comes puffing to announce that Mr. Langley has arrived. "Well, gentlemen," says Mr. Vaijotoi, rising, "we now get down to bishnesh by going up to the top floor." Miss Ayathug hurries out after him, earrings swinging, hips twitching in her slit skirt, taller than Juan Salvador thought, and with trim pretty legs. Not too friendly, but you never can teii: she might just agree to accompany him shopping. . . The conference room is actually one end of a cavernous restaurant on the fifteenth floor, partitioned from the rest of the establishment by teak screens hung with paintings of intertwined gods and goddesses, serpents and dragons. Among the restaurant customers turning to look at the group filing by into the conference room are three Americans in air force blues, one of them lean and half-baid, vaguely familiar. Juan Salvador wonders if he should try calling the Golden Lotus again tonight: maybe Ed Ronsdale had to go off some place else last night and only checked in this morning. . A rostrum sprouting microphones like silver mush-

rooms has been installed on a platform facing the delegates' desks, against a backdrop of a huge map of Asia; on the map are tinfoil stars marking the cities where the mother company based in Chicago has branches or affiliates. Mr. Vaijotoi and Mr. Langley and a third man in dark glasses take their seats on the platform, while long-robed girls steer the conferees to their assigned desks. They all stand for the kingdom's anthem, played on a phonograph operated by Miss Ayathug, a reedy, wailing tune ending in a spray of cymbals like shattering glass. Tall and ramrod straight in a gray suit and striped blue tie, Mr. Langley smiles down benignly at the gathering. Mr. Vaijotoi bellows out his introduction of Mr. Langley, grasping the sides of the rostrum as if about to wrench it loose from its moorings. "I am very shure," Mr. Vaijotoi intones with vigorous solemnity, "that we in Ashia shall benefit tremendoushly from hish wishdom, hish expertish in the area of mash communicationsh. . "My dear friends and associates in agribusiness," begins Mr. Langley, mild and nasal and bending forward over the microphones, "it's a great pleasure, an honor indeed, to be able to join you in this pow-wow of yours in this great Asian city. Mr. Vaijotoi, though, seems bent on giving me more work than I bargained for, asking me to give a talk this morning. I'm supposed to talk to you fellows only on the last day, but I don't mind, really. I must thank my old friend P R. Vaijotoi here for this chance to get first crack at a subject that's of the utmost importance to the peoples of Asia. .." Mr. Langley then proceeds to describe how communications satellite technology can be harnessed to advance the cause of agri-business in Asia. He has been speaking for some minutes, with Juan Salvador scribbling notes on his pad, when the soldiers, five or six of them, appear at the entrance to the conference room, a knot of black uniforms. Mr. Langley stops in mid-sentence and Mr. Vaijotoi talks to them, wringing his hands, and then turns to point at Juan Salvador. One of the troops advances on Juan Salvador, who experiences for the first time in his life both a stab of fear and a spasm of embarrassment for being the center suddenly of public attention. The soldier pulls him out of his chair and Mr. Vaijotoi is squeezing, hurting his arm and saying, sounding bewildered, "I'm sho

shorry. You'll pleash go with them — they want to ashk shome queshtionsh. . . "

TO JUAN Salvador the next few moments are like a film run too swiftly in which he is at once hapless participant and stunned spectator: the walk across the restaurant, the ride in the elevator down to the half-lit parking ramp in the basement, the soldiers ignoring his queries. He is shoved into the back seat of some vehicle, his glasses are snatched off, he realizes numbly that he is being blindfolded. The vehicle roars up an incline and the blackness under his blindfold lightens to a red-tinged haze as they come out into the sun and the sounds of traffic in the Asian city. Surely, Mr. Vaijotoi, Henry Ha, somebody, will do something, get in touch with the embassy. He cannot remember the name of his country's ambassador, a former senator, the name will come back soon enough. . . He smells, in quick succession, machine oil, melting asphalt, dry grass, flowers, and hears a dull rhythmic thudding, the tires running over steel matting or railroad ties, slowing down. He is helped out of the vehicle, the hands are gentler this time; but he receives a sharp slap on the cheek when he tries to undo the blindfold. Pinioned on either side, he stumbles up wooden steps, weak and trembling now, as if his last strength were flowing out with the sweat streaming down his neck, his arms. He is halfcarried, half-pushed into a dimness astir with the breeze of an electric fan and pressed down onto a chair. Somebody close by is speaking gently in the language of the Asian city. When the blindfold is untied, he finds himself seated in front of an office desk. On the smooth wood lie his glasses; warily he puts them on and meets the wry gaze of the slight, bemustached man behind the desk holding a phone to his ear. The man, whose brown skin perfectly matches the shade of Juan Salvador's own, cradles the phone beside the electric fan on a shelf and says, "A very hot day, like in Manila this time of year, isn't it? By the way," he extends a thin hand across the desk, " the name's Aseyit. Major Aseyit of Intelligence, Metropolitan Defense Brigade." "What's the meaning of this? What do you want —?"

"You are supposed to answer questions, Mr. Salvador, not ask them," says Major Aseyit, gentle and smiling. "Major, I came to your city to attend a conference. You have no right —" "Yes, a conference hosted by this group of Vaijotoi. I know all about that. But don't talk to me about rights, yours or mine. I invited you here to talk about something more basic, more important. The truth, for instance. . ." "You know Mr. Vaijotoi?" "Of course. Who doesn't know good old Vaijotoi. . . An old friend, a man-about-town. We are in the same trade, you might say, public relations. But for the last time, Mr. Salvador," says Major Aseyit, genially, his enunciation clear and polite, "I must remind you — you are here not to ask, but to answer questions. That's the first of the ground rules, all right? The second is that you will tell only the truth. . . Now, then, who were those people you met with last night?" "I don't understand — I didn't go to any meeting — I was in the hotel —" "Yes, in your hotel. Didn't some people visit you in your room?" The images rush at him at once: the young faces, the girl's brow shining in the lamplight, the typed sheets. He almost cries out in relief, in the certainty of his reprieve. "Yes, students, two of them, they came to my room. I didn't want to have anything to do with them. But they wouldn't go away, they — they —" "Go on," says Major Aseyit, softly. "They gave me their manifesto." Juan Salvador attempts a laugh. "The usual jargon, we in Manila have had the same kind of trouble —" "This is what they gave you, Mr. Salvador?" Major Aseyit is pressing the sheets of paper flat on his desk. "My men went up to your room this morning and found this. You know the penalty for possession of this sort of literature? During an emergency, such as what we now have on our hands, we have special laws —" "1 can explain." Juan Salvador hears his voice fading, then he hears nothing, though his lips continue to move and form words, phrases, sentences, and he feels faint. He strains to speak, willing

the clear, simple, honest explanation to issue out of his mouth. "What are their names? Those two you say came to see you last night?" He hears his voice again, above the pounding of his heart. "I don't know. I didn't ask. I wasn't interested in them, in their names." "What did they come to tell you? What was it you discussed?" "We didn't really talk. A couple of kids knocking on my door. They pressed that thing on me and left." "Think very carefully before you answer What exactly was the message they came to deliver, and from whom? Please, the truth..." "They asked me. . ." "Yes, Mr. Salvador?" "They asked me to read their manifesto. To write about it in Manila. They thought I was with the press." "And you agreed?" "I said I wasn't with any paper, that they were mistaken." "But all the same you accepted what they brought you." says Major Aseyit, courteous and gentle as ever. "This filth, this pack of lies, vicious distortions which insult and dishonor our nation, Her Majesty and General Pashistok, and the great democratic revolution he has begun. A revolution not of the right or the left, but of the center, of the heart, leading upwards... How many came to see you last night?" "Two. I already told you." "Their names?" "I don't know. I wasn't interested in whatever they —" "We'll take up this matter of their names again," says Major Aseyit, stroking his neat mustache. "This afternoon, or this evening. We'll talk some more. Maybe until late. I'm a very patient man, Mr. Salvador. But not some of my colleagues here who are rather, shall we say, crude and impulsive. So unlike true professionals, such as you and I. . ." "I can t leave vet? Haven't I cleared up everything?" "I'm afraid you'll have to be our guest for a while." "You mean I can't go back to the conference?"

"Please, Mr. Salvador, you have such a short memory. No questions, only answers, remember?" Major Aseyit stands up, his bolstered pistol seeming to pull his pants lower down on his slim waist. "I have meetings to attend myself. Two, as a matter of fact. But I'll be back this afternoon. And, please, try to remember their names. How many of them came to see you. Everything you talked about. Perhaps what you've told me is only a small part of the truth. . "He calls to the soldier standing at the door in the language of the Asian city. The soldier, a submachine gun slung barrel downwards from his shoulder, takes Juan Salvador by the hand. The soldier is joined by another, and like an exhausted and submissive child, Juan Salvador lets himself be led down an empty corridor with windows set high up along one wall and alternating squares of sun and shadow spread on the gray cement floor. Somewhere, from beneath the floor, it seems, a sound like a quickly choked scream startles him: it is only the heavy wooden door grating on its rusty hinges as the soldiers open it on a room white-washed and bare except for a cot and a stool. He sits on the stool by the grilled window facing the hot, brilliant day. His gaze is vacant, abstracted, as he ponders what has befallen him, a stranger in distress in an Asian city; but gradually his eyes, drawn by some still obscure yet insistent attraction to the scene outside, focus on details: the cracked earthen yard extending from the noonday shadow of the building to a hedge of hibiscus; on the other side of the hedge an asphalt road on which, almost out of sight off to the left, a black car is parked; beyond the road a wire fence, a cluster of brown houses and coconut trees against the gray concrete of a tall building. The angle and distance of each object, together with the bright sun, the heat smelling of summer flowers and dead grass pressing on the window, on his face: there is in all this an aspect strangely, disturbingly familiar. The need to know just what this quality might be is so urgent suddenly that he stops thinking of all else: Major Aseyit, the conference, the prospect of not seeing his family ever again fade away, and he stands the better to encompass the view and grips the vertical bars of the window, to keep from falling. How uncanny, how improbable, I must be imagining it, or

dreaming, he murmurs to himself; but he cannot deny what his eyes see and convey to his brain. It is like a reflected image or a photograph of an identical view from the porch of his brother's house, in the district of Santa Ana, in Manila; exactly like it, a vista he has long known, from the earthen yard to the gumamela hedge with its red blossoms to the coconut trees, the brown houses, the gray wall of concrete. Juan Salvador stares long at the scene: here in this Asian city, in another Asian country, it is as if he had never left home; and such is the concentration and longing in his farranging gaze that he almost fails to notice Major Aseyit and Ed Ronsdale appear from around a corner of the building and cross the yard to the black car parked on the asphalt road.

A Mission for Heroes

A

T THE MINISTRY where I used

to work, the Special Projects Group was concededly the most favored and envied section. Whether it was also the most indispensable, as the Minister had solemnly stressed to all concerned, was at best a matter of debate in the .view of personnel denied access to the 20th floor, where, it was rumored, the Special Projects Group held sway in quarters of unimaginable luxury. The debates were held in the Ministry canteen in the basement or in the New Filipino Kitchenette down the street and before they were banned by the Minister drew more people than the inter-divisional roller-skating derby. Until he was prohibited from appearing in public forums, my compadre, Fausto Damuleg, who headed his own section, Media Research and Analysis, was the most popular critic of the Special Projects Group, to judge from the standing ovations whenever he spoke in canteen or kitchenette. He would follow a tirade with a full-throated rendition of "Stout-Hearted Men," accompanied on the violin by the chief of the Entertainment and Travel Allowance Control Section; and the performance, which included an exultant tap dance when he felt he had scored a few telling points, might have accounted for much of his appeal. Be that as it may, the lunch-hour debates on the merits or demerits of the Special Projects Group attracted overflow crowds, and on more than one occasion even delegates from our far-flung bureaus and regional offices.

To Fausto Damuleg, the ban, when it came, severely cramped his style, not to say the sinews of his spirit. "To criticize and to sing, that is my vocation!" he was wont to declare in the middle of a diatribe. To be ordered to do neither was one more outrage in the catalogue of misfortunes to be contemplated as he sat overweight and sweating at his desk. Media Research and Analysis, significantly enough, operated several floors below the object of his ire, more specifically in one of the cramped back rooms on the mezzanine, a sweltering cave of an office which tended to confirm the bleak prospects he sometimes recounted to me, his chief executive assistant. He had ample time to wallow in his morose meditations, since his superiors in their mysterious realm high above our impoverished little office would have him summoned for a meeting only about once every quarter, or not more than four times a year. He would descend breathless from those rare, lofty conferences with the Minister or one of the Deputy Ministers, his expression rapt as that of a stigmatist ready to hemorrhage on schedule; and almost incoherent from something that approximated ecstasy, he would dictate the latest orders from above to me, one narrow, scarred desk away. In turn, I would relay the instructions, though less enthusiastically, to my assistant at the next desk, Gilbert Cristobal Cagsua, formerly obit page editor of a long-defunct daily and thricecrowned Poet Laureate of Bicolandia. With a martyred sigh, Gilbert Cristobal Cagsua would set aside the epic poem he was composing, an interminable opus in praise of the 1973 Constitution, and stagger over to the other side of the room, where the rest of the staff, 30 taciturn individuals, including a dozen casuals from the Minister's home town, sat three or four to a desk under the moldy, exposed plumbing. While Fausto Damuleg and I looked on with kind, supervisory smiles, Gilbert Cristobal Cagsua would brief the staff in the high-pitched declamatory style that had captivated coronation-night audiences from Capalonga, Camarines Norte, to Matnog, Sorsogon; discoursing on the relevance of the new project to martial law and nation-building, and reminding all present of the need "to maximize qualitative inputs and outputs," as a consequence of which no leaves would be allowed nor any absences tolerated. As soon as they had

recovered from that inspired briefing, the men and women of Media Research and Analysis would plunge headlong, or rather squeeze and burrow into their assigned duties, our office being of such dimensions as to discourage flying tackles or running dives. Gilbert Cristobal Cagsua, again with a martyred sigh, would return to his epic poem, writing frantically against a self-imposed deadline, the next anniversary of martial law. He was worried, he once confessed to me, as he had hundreds of quatrains more to go before he would get to what he called the "centerpiece" of his work, the transitory provisions. Now, he would have to contend with another, earlier deadline and confine himself to only a few hours' communion a day with the Muse, as the civil servants about him immersed themselves in a frenzy of activity, carting in tons of printed matter, reading through heaps of newspapers, magazines, journals, pamphlets, brochures, and annual reports; marking likely material in red or blue pencil and clipping and pasting all this on bond paper, and then putting the whole lot in folders for preliminary analysis, a chore assigned to the five Ph.D.s in our section. Their collective analysis, along with the accumulated clippings, would then be transmitted to Gilbert Cristobal Cagsua's desk, for his analysis which, true to from, usually ran to more than a hundred singlespaced pages. By this time, the remnants of the scissored periodicals would have formed a confetti-like layer about a foot deep on the floor, the stacks of folders would have reached almost up to the ceiling, threatening to cascade down on Fausto Damuleg's desk and mine, and the more rebellious of the research staff could be heard muttering subversive complaints. Gilbert Cristobal Cagsua's voluminous analysis would then materialize on my desk, for my review and analysis. An evening or two of overtime work, and then Marivic, our clerktypist, a well-endowed Cebuana with a facial tic and a trembly walk resulting from a shock inflicted by a wayward IBM Electric, would type out my one-page analysis of Gilbert Cristobal Cagsua's analysis. Finally, Fausto Damuleg, who during all these exertions would be going about patting heads, backs and posteriors and shouting out Latin epigrams to boost office morale, would settle down at his desk, to expand my analysis into 40 or 50 pages of his own. It

was this document, bound in leatherette and complete with preface, table of contents, index and ribbon marker, and liberally spiced with quotations from Heraclitus, Schopenhauer, Kafka, Park Chung Hee and Ferdinand E. Marcos, that he would deliver himself to the Minister or the Deputy Ministeiuvho had commissioned him, in some hidden sanctum many floors above his humble domain. He was, understandably, proud of our labors while they lasted, and happy to have himself and his section so engaged, even if only for a few weeks a year. The bustle, the sense of brain and brawn harnessed to an objective larger than the sum of our ambitions, kept him from his customary brooding during office hours. He would shout his cheerful slogans, sing "Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life" or "Ang Maya," even attempt a cha-cha with Marivic atop his desk; the thought of the Special Projects Group practically monopolizing the attention of the Minister, the long-denied promotion and emoluments and similar such grievances no longer irked or depressed him, and he could act the audacious general leading his experienced troops into battle. Media Research and Analysis did fight some good battles in those years I served as Fausto Damuleg's executive assistant, in that crowded, sweltering room on the mezzanine. Galvanized into intensive research and analysis by that occasional memorandum from above, we managed to deal with quite a few vital subjects, from the ablative absolute as manifested in editorials on human rights to the role of the couturier in development journalism. One research project, on the varieties of rabid zoophobia on primetime TV, we had to leave unfinished, despite dire warnings from the Deputy Minister for Planning, Scheduling, Monitoring and Evaluation, as the picture tube of the TV set loaned by the Communications Hardware Supply Section burned out after barely a week of research. Repeated appeals for a replacement went unheeded, and we abandoned the project with heavy hearts, the heaviest of which belonged to one of our Ph.D. analysts, whose dissertation had been on the impact of Joe Quirino's Seeing Stars on cultural minorities. He was so disappointed by the aborted project that he suffered a stroke, fortunately a minor one and merely the first of a series, as it turned out. We also made in-depth studies of the prevalence of onomatopoeia in front-page stories about the President and the First

Lady in the controlled press, the influence of Ilocano folklore on Supreme Court decisions, the frequency of split infinitives in rural broadcasting, and the amount of column inches devoted to dwarfs in weekly magazines. All these assignments were accomplished, as far as I could gather, to the satisfaction of Fausto Damuleg. There was no way, though, of knowing whether our efforts also pleased the Minister and the Deputy Ministers, beyond cryptic references to our section chief's "meticulous if somewhat muddled methodology" dropped by the Minister while addressing our periodic assemblies. Such cavalier treatment, indicating, it seemed, a conspiracy of the Ministry leadership to ignore Fausto Damuleg's existence and expertise, my compadre might have borne with more equanimity were it not for the fact that he, the Minister and four of the five Deputy Ministers had once formed a close-knit group in college, before martial law. As he confided it to me, he felt not only forgotten but cruelly betrayed by old friends. All six had gone through thick and thin together, mostly the latter, as could be seen in a snapshot he kept in his wallet showing them all looking malnourished and artistic in the late Sixties. The future Minister and his five friends lived then in a slightly disreputable boardinghouse near UST, where they were all enrolled in the College of Advertising and Public Relations. Emigrant students from underdeveloped provinces, they had shared dreams, textbooks, lecture notes, sandwiches, and wardrobes, but not socks, as the future Minister even then had a horror of athlete's foot. Many were the mornings when they had marched off to class, arms about each other's shoulders and singing those rousing songs from The Student Prince; as many were the evenings they had stumbled back to St. Dominic Dormitory, drunk on beer and youth and singing those poignant songs from South Pacific or Show Boat beneath the lamp-posts of P. Noval Street. During their four years at UST, they also gathered for fortnight recollections under the direction of the Rector, no less; and so infused with faith, hope and charity was their fraternity that the same Dominican educator was moved to remark on their graduation that they deserved a special award from the university for their edifying comradeship. All this Fausto Damuleg would remember with a pang and sometimes with a thud or crash, which was the case when, overwhelmed by his

sorrows while in our favorite beerhouse, he would start throwing bottles against the wall. But for some days after the completion of a research and analysis project, Fausto Damuleg could glow with success and good cheer and would treat us, not only to his repertoire of Broadway and Spanish songs, but to a merienda of pancit malabon brought up from the New Filipino Kitchenette. Take-out orders for more than a dozen persons came with entertainment, in the form of an interpretative dance performed by a scantily-clad waitress to a tape recording of "Flight of the Bumble Bee." But the pancit malabon and the interpretative dance and the merriment soon came to an end, as all good things will; and the old gloom, a compound of nostalgia, frustration and protest, would descend once more on Fausto Damuleg's plump shoulders.

HIS SQUARE, shaggy head seemingly sunk deeper than usual into those same shoulders, Fausto Damuleg appeared not only depressed but acutely distressed as I joined him at our usual corner table at the Bagong Pinoy Bistro in Ermita. It was exactly a week to the day since he had delivered another project report to the Minister, this time on scatological metaphors inspired by the last plebiscite, and just two days after the traditional merienda and interpretative dance. No sooner had I settled myself for my first pitcher of beer than he let out several groans, writhing and shuddering at the same time and sending the huge, sarong-clad waitress screaming off his lap away into the shadows. "My car! They are taking away my car!" he bellowed when he had gained some control over his emotions and could sound fairly intelligible. "They...? Your car...?" I felt obliged to match the accents of his anguish, as executive assistants are expected to. I also had to pitch my voice several octaves higher, to be heard above the rock combo and the yodelling of a Swiss tour group at the next table. "The dirty-white Toyota Crown with a.c. and stereo and side-band receiver assigned to me when I was named chief of Media Research and Analysis back in '73 , the same vehicle that earlier conveyed me to this popular establishment on Mabini. . ."He

was seized by another groaning, shuddering fit. "The Deputy Minister for Overt Projects and Covert Operations has ordered me to hand over the keys to him at the end of the month." "Why is the Deputy Minister for Overt Projects and Covert Operations asking you to hand over the keys to him at the end of the month?" I asked in a tone calculated to soothe his wounded spirit. "Why? You're asking me why I, chief of Media Research and Analysis, must give up my beloved dirty-white Crown equipped with siren and white-sidewall tires and commute to the office starting next month by bus or jeepney together with the revolting masses that Ortega y Gasset wrote about. . . You want to know why?" "Yes," I said. "I want to know why you're being asked to give up your car and start commuting on buses and jeepneys like the masses that Ortega y Gasset — " "Oh, him." He ducked under the table to rummage in his portfolio. "I don't think I've got his Revolt of the Masses with me. Maybe it's in my other portfolio. There's a passage in it I should like to read to you, about the present state of civilization and the state of mind of certain representative types, like, for instance, the Deputy Minister for Overt Projects and Covert Operations. Anyway, I recall what Sir Isaiah Berlin said, or was it Heidegger or Laotse, about. . . about. . ." His attention wandered to the fashion show under way on the stage, the same show the Metro Manila Commission had banned, except that the models, former employees of a nightclub that had burned down, now wore fishnet bathing suits under their transparent gowns. The waitress who had fled in alarm moments before reappeared with a penitent smile and another double Scotch on the rocks for Fausto Damuleg, whose attention wandered back to our table. For this I was glad, for his learned discourse, his profound and exciting perspectives on the human condition, provided him no less than his listeners with the inner strength to carry on in the face of every conceivable adversity. "You were telling me about your car," I cued him as the last of the models flung away her gown and gyrated off the stage. "That's right, the car," he said, peering around the beehive hairdo of the giant waitress deposited once more in his Sap. "It will

be withdrawn from my use and assigned to the Special Projects Group to enhance its mobility in pursuit of what the Deputy Minister for Overt Projects and Covert Operations calls a very special project, a project of the highest priority." "To enhance the mobility of the vehicle?" I had begun to think fuzzily myself, a condition to which I tended to gravitate after a pitcher of beer at the Bagong Pinoy Bistro. "No, no, no," Fausto Damuleg wailed and for emphasis grabbed a fistful of the waitress' beehive hairdo, "the mobility of the Special Projects Group, that's what. Pay more attention, will you? The memorandum was quite clear and explicit on that point." "That, at least, is a heartening aspect of the situation," I pointed out. "What exactly is this heartening aspect of the situation?" "The memorandum's being clear and explicit, as you said," I said and sort of congratulated myself on my own capacity for calm, intellectual dialogue. "You will recall that three years ago, we made an analytical study of inter-departmental memos and arrived at the dismaying conclusion that their incomprehensibility increased in direct proportion to the importance of the message; the result of, among other factors, the inordinate use of the subjunctive mood and defective carbon paper. Forthwith and most respectfully, you recommended to the Minister that such communications employ only the active voice, declarative sentences of not more than eight words and duplication either by mimeograph or offset press. It would seem that your recommendation has escaped the fate that has befallen the more intricate reports that have issued from your desk. It has, in fact, produced one clear and explicit memorandum from the Deputy Minister for Overt Projects and Covert Operations, which is cause for celebration, don't you agree?" "I agree," he said somberly and we clinked glasses. "It does make one feel that human existence is not totally absurd, that our attempts to wrest some meaning from the cosmos are not all in vain. . . What's your name?" "My name? But of course — you know that — "I wondered whether he was trying on me another of his metaphysical riddles. "I am asking her," said Fausto Damuleg. "What's your name, hija? "

"It's not hija, it's Maja," said the gigantic waitress, tweaking his nose and laughing hoarsely. "Maja, kindly remove yourself from my lap and take this other chair. Easy does it. There. Charming lass. Remind me next payday to send her some body stockings and a copy of my A Decade of Discourses. As I was saying, the universe is clearly not impervious to existential man's search for significance, as Sartre and Merleau-Ponty would remind us. Which brings us to the question of God. To Bertrand Russell and H.J. Ayer, all utterances about the nature of God are nonsensical since the only valid statements are those verifiable through the senses. To Feuerbach, religious belief is merely the expression of man's innate nobility and reflects no objective reality. However, in the transcendental Thomism of Bernard J. F. Donargon — " "It's Lonergan," said Maja, giving him a playful punch on the cheek. "The Rev. Bernard J. F. Lo-ner-gan, S.J." "How come? How did you know —" Fausto Damuleg was at once delighted and nonplussed, to say the least. "My brother-in-law is an ex-Jesuit, now teaching philosophy at De La Salle," said Maja. She gave us each a tender hug and left to sit on the lap of a newly arrived customer, whom I recognized to be no other than Col. Lorenzo de Bulalo of the Ministry's Internal Intelligence, Surveillance and Security Unit, though he was cleverly disguised as a Metro Manila Aide. "Bright girl. We must look after her intellectual development," said Fausto Damuleg. "Remind me to send her, in addition, the Minister's collected speeches and maybe a hair dryer on payday. . . Significantly, Father Donar, er — Lonergan alludes to the Augustinian concept of verbum in the works of Aquinas, arguing that it makes no difference whether the verbum has its ground in memory or in acquired knowledge. What counts is its truth, its correspondence with things as known. Verbum similium rei notae; imago eus; verbum vero de re vera, nihil de suo habens. . . This corresponds with things as known, a proposition amply demonstrated by the clarity per se of the memorandum from the Deputy Minister. Nevertheless, the style is to be distinguished from the substance, which suggests another dimension of reality altogether — the situation in which

we find ourselves in the Ministry relative to the requirements of the Special Projects Group." "A situation which demands you give up your car for the use of those working on a very special project — " "Precisely. To stand in opposition to the situation, whatever it may be, is to venture, and to venture, according to Kierkegaard, is to become conscious of one's self. It is this same consciousness, ironically, that the Marxists would invoke in justification of their denial of God, little realizing the wisdom of what Dostoevsky had Bishop Tikhon say to Stavrogin in The Possessed, that perfect atheism stands on the last step but one on the staircase that leads to perfect faith.The archetypical correlative of Dostoevsky's theme is no other than the story of Job, who wrestled all night with the angel and emerged from the terrible struggle, in the words of Daniel-Rops, ravaged and consecrated. Do you follow me?" "No, I don't follow," I said and he went alone to the men's room. He came back looking even more dejected and slumped heavily lower in his seat. The troupe of women-libbers in black jackets and riding boots were going through their paces onstage, kicking and cracking their whips, but this time he didn't join in the cheers and applause, as he normally did. I cast about in my mind for something to cheer him up. "Another positive aspect of the situation," I said, "is that the Ministry leadership, besides recognizing your capacity for self-denial and asceticism, is affording you the chance to make an in-depth study of the Metro Manila transport system, an exhilirating and relatively unexplored field which the researcher-commuter —" The wrong tack, I realized too late, as he raised his hands to his face, as if to ward off visions of the monstrous traffic jams he would soon have to brave without benefit of government-supplied car, gasoline, and driver. "You've forgotten, my dear compadre" — he addressed me thus when he needed desperately to be consoled — "that economic dislocations and inflationary pressures following the last oil price increase have compelled me to sell my house in North Forbes and now I stay with my in-laws in Guiguinto. Which means I'll have to be up before five a.m. and take at least four rides to get to the office by ten."

"Three rides is more like it. But maybe you should move closer, find a place in the city —" "I happen to like my mother-in-law's kare-kare." "You can visit them on weekends, can't you?" "She cooks it only on Tuesdays or Thursdays." "I guess you might as well learn to give up certain things," I tried to soothe him. "After all, one should travel light on the road to perfection. And as we in the civil service have been enjoined by the President, we should be ready to relinquish worldly possessions and comforts, not to say the perquisites of office, if these should stand between us and the imperatives of conscience and duty. . ." "It should be clear to you by now," he countered, sulking, "that I, the duly appointed chief of Media Research and Analysis, have enjoyed few if any such comforts and privileges as you speak of, unlike other functionaries on the same level and assigned the same box on the Supreme Reorganizational Commission's organizational chart as approved by Malacanang in 1974. To refresh your decrepit memory — have I ever been invited to join those twentyday, out-of-town seminars for division heads and section chiefs made s o p. every other month by the Deputy Minister for Seminar-Workshops, Symposiums and Community Assemblies?" "No," I said. "And in addition to every kind of bonus and allowance, those seminar participants get extras like a daily massage and whirlpool bath, as happened during that seminar held in Bangkok, didn't you know that?" "No," I said. "Speaking of comforts and privileges —" he was beginning to froth around the mouth, and I was sorry I had ever brought up the sensitive subject — "the Minister, the Deputy Ministers and some bureau directors all get a large-size lechon a piece from Mang Tomas in La Loma twice a month, didn't you know that?" I shook my head, no, not trusting myself to speak. "As for the members of the Special Projects Group, they have a choice of either pizza or tempura, all they can eat in one sitting, at least once a month, in addition to various other privileges, all at the people's expense, it should be noted. Have you heard the latest? Some of them, led by the Deputy Minister for Overt Projects

and Covert Operations, will be leaving soon for the fifth International Congress of Grassroots Catalysts and Developmental Communications in Amsterdam, They'll return by way of Rio de Janeiro, to catch the carnival. The talk is that I may be named acting Officer-in-Charge of the Group when the Deputy Minister and his favorites are abroad cavorting and carousing. An OIC without a car — can you imagine that, dear compadre?" "Yes," I said. ccNo, I mean, you're sure to get your car back when you become OIC, even on a temporary basis. Paragraph 4-F of Section 136 of the Revised Office Transport Code states that OICs, regardless of size, weight and IQ, are entitled to —" He didn't hear the rest of my reassuring statement, for an irrepressible delegation led by the disguised Col. Lorenzo de Bulalo swooped down on our table and hoisted him up on their shoulders and carried him wriggling and kicking to the bandstand. "Please, no, not this time, I'm not in the mood, really," I heard him protesting over the mike; but more cheers and clapping drowned out his demurrer and I knew he would yield to popular demand, as he had on many a night in the past. And so yielding, he hitched up his olive corduroy pants around his impressive middle and cleared his throat, and in the spotlight his face was as rapturous as a stigmatist's. He sang, in his mournful tenor: "Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away. . ."He sang: "Those were the days, my friend, we thought they'd never end. . ." He also sang the Vesti la giubba aria from Pagliacci, some Sinatra standards, a few more Beatles tunes, a couple of Rico Puno favorites and "Anak," which the crowd especially loved and clamored to be sung at least three times; and for the better part of an hour Fausto Damuleg seemed happy as he sang on wretchedly, the applause, the noisy adulation and his own faith in his talent lifting him up to a beatific realm beyond the reach of inter-office memoranda and calamitous thoughts about the Special Projects Group and the requirements of very special projects. And as on other evenings I didn't wait for him to exhaust his broad and versatile repertoire. I waved goodbye as he struggled manfully with the last agonizing refrain of "Old Man River," he waved back and I felt sorry to be leaving ahead of so excellent a friend who didn't disdain

the gestures of common courtesy even in the midst of so much public acclaim. But I had promises to keep; and elbowing my way through an incoming horde of Japanese war veterans, I stepped out into the foul smelling night of the Tourist Belt now beginning to unloosen for the delights of midnight and flagged a taxi for the ride home to my wife and six children, in Caloocan.

2. MY DEVOUT and infinitely patient wife, well aware that I needed divine assistance to be able to feed our growing family — six children in the space of seven inflationary years — had been praying to Our Lady of Perpetual Help and half-a-dozen Italian and Spanish saints for an economic miracle or even a modest facsimile thereof, and was therefore overjoyed when, on an otherwise bleary and melancholy Monday, I received a memorandum order from the Deputy Minister for Overt Projects and Covert Operations assigning me to the Special Projects Group and directing me to report to him at ten o'clock sharp the next day, to discuss my "urgent and ineluctable participation in a very special project." The prospect of working with the elite and much-envied group, on a higher floor and for higher pay, not to mention various fringe benefits beyond my most avaricious dreams, was uplifting, indeed. My wife and I celebrated this happy turn of events at a disco, where her lowest lumbar vertebra slid off her sacrum in a moment of joyous abandon. Fortunately, a Blue Lady, who happened to be a faith healer, was in the joint celebrating her birthday. She prayed over my wife hobbling painfully oirthe dance floor, and after the short therapeutic break my spouse and I were back rocking and rolling away. Less enthusiastic about my new assignment was Faustino Damuleg, who merely reminded me in a cold, abrupt tone to return his plastic lunchbox and collection of occult paperbacks when I showed up in the old office early the next day to empty my old desk. Marivic bestowed on me a fervent kiss on the nose and a scroll bearing an elaborately scripted verse penned by Gilbert

Cristobal Cagsua: "All of us will surely miss/Your presence in Media Research and Analysis. . I thanked the staff for their sentiments, shook the stiff hand of Faustino Damuleg who didn't respond to my promise that I would treat him soon to a Happy Hour at the Bagong Pinoy Bistro, and with a bouncy step went forth to keep my appointment with the Deputy Minister for Overt and Covert Operations on the 20th floor. The long-haired elevator operator on duty, a former MNLF commander who joined the Ministry security force upon his third surrender, kept his hand on his holster and his bloodshot eyes on me, his lone passenger on this momentous trip. In the building the highest floor I had ever been on was the fifth, where the Internal Intelligence, Surveillance and Security Unit maintained its interrogation rooms and detention cells, as well as an assembly room where new employees took their oath of loyalty before the Minister or, if he was not available, his papier-mache bust on a terra cotta pedestal. The realization that I could now go not only beyond the fifth floor but direct to the very top, bypassing in a single bound, as it were, all the other divisions, sections, units, and ad hoc committees of the Ministry of Public Enlightenment, combined with the rapid ascent of the elevator to make me dizzy. But the ex-MNLF commander, for all his ferocious mien, turned out to be a kindly soul, and with a vial of ammonia had me up on my feet in a minute. He also pressed on me an Opus Dei pamphlet, and I expressed my profuse gratitude by twisting his left earlobe, as was the custom, I had been told, in Marawi City. I smoothed out the wrinkles on my best barong, and with dry mouth and pounding heart strode out into the carpeted central hall of the 20th floor. Nothing in all those bleak, humid years on the mezzanine had prepared me for this moment, this dazzling shock of my arrival on the threshold of a great enterprise; I might as well have been transported to another solar system if not an elliptical galaxy. I had to lean back against the black marble wall by the elevator and remind myself that this was not the headquarters of a galactic empire but the top floor of our Ministry building, its dimensions seemingly more vast and overwhelming than they actually were only to the uninitiated. All the same, the setting was of such a startling gran-

deur I could only marvel at the soaring imagination of whoever had designed the premises. My unaccustomed eyes adjusted to the spaciousness and took in the cantilevered ceiling with banks of fluorescent panels above what looked like an indoor park, in the center of which a fountain sent up multicolored sprays of water. Around the fountain frolicked a secretarial pool, the loveliest I had ever laid my eyes on. Beyond the fountain loomed the largest mural I had ever seen, a gigantic representation of peasants, laborers, technicians, soldiers, handsome men in barong and beautiful women in baro't saya, all toiling up a mountainside, their determined faces reflecting the light from the radiant summit over which floated the levitating figures of the President and the First Lady. I had scarcely regained my breath when a vehicle like a golf cart with two female security guards aboard made a U-turn towards me. In tangerine halters, black ammunition belts and yellow shorts — the colors of the Ministry — and cradling M-19 machine pistols, they were the prettiest guards I had ever been searched by, around the building or anywhere else in the New Society, for that matter. After checking my I.D., they inquired about the purpose of my visit, and trying to sound as casual as possible under the circumstances, I explained that I was not just visiting, that I had been directed to see the Deputy Minister for Overt Projects and Covert Operations about a very special project. The taller of the two, a more hefty version of Lorna Tolentino, examined the memorandum order I held up to her, and then with a no-nonsense flick of her hand motioned me to get into their three-wheeled vehicle. Seated between the two fragrant and well-armed ladies, I was driven across the immense central court to an arched doorway between the boots of one of the colossal soldiers on the mural. I tried to strike up a conversation with my escorts, complimenting them on their unique uniform and asking how they liked being stationed on the 20th floor and so on; they just stared ahead, tightlipped and pretty. We purred down a long corridor, past high floodlit walls hung with paintings of heroic proportions and all on the same theme, the glorious ascent to the summit, the light from the mountaintop shining on the upturned faces of a reformed society;

past other guards in their attractive halters and shorts, and doors marked Restricted Area: Clearance Needed for Entry. We turned a corner, where I was asked to get off, to be searched again by a guard who somehow made me think of Vilma Santos. I considered asking for an autograph, but rather abruptly she indicated with a shake of her machine pistol that I follow her, which I did with mounting awe and excitement. From the size of the doors and the embossed bronze signs on them, I knew I was walking on ground or rather carpet on which only the chosen few in the Ministry were allowed to tread, here were the Consultants' Lounge, the Meditation Center, the Policy-Makers' Library, the Executives' Gym, the Jacuzzi Room, and the Theater-Bar. Farther down and in another corridor, the quietest and rather sepulchral area on the whole floor, were the chambers of the Minister and the Deputy Ministers. Directly across from the sanctum of the Minister was the heavy ornate door of the Deputy Minister for Overt Projects and Covert Operations. The Vilma Santos type pointed at the door, clicked her high heels and swiveled away before I could thank her. I lifted the bronze knocker and its sharp thudding seemed to reverberate down the still, bright corridor.

THE GREAT door, which seemed to have been carted entire from some medieval cathedral, swung open and to my surprise I found myself in a waiting room filled with cigarette smoke and people. Some occupied all the chairs and benches, others stood around or squatted on the floor, and they were all chatting, laughing, smoking like any crowd of job-seekers waiting to be interviewed. From their tribal costumes I surmised that they were not Ministry personnel; and true enough, I was informed by one of them, a topless maiden with lips bright red from betel nut, that they were visitors from out of town, actually a delegation from Kibungan, Benguet, come to invite the Deputy Minister to inaugurate their multi-purpose ulog. I squeezed through the delegation to present myself to the receptionist, who reminded me not so much of an actress as of a Binibining Pilipinas runner-up I once interviewed for our magazine before martial law I asked if she had ever been in a beauty contest,

but she showed little inclination for small talk as she was busy with a plate of spaghetti. I showed her the Deputy Minister's memorandum order and she stopped chewing long enough to announce me on the intercom. "The Deputy Minister's in conference right now with a couple of choreographers, but go right in," she said, returning to her spaghetti, "He's expecting you." I stepped over the legs of a pipe-smoking chieftain and pushed in the door to the inner office and was met by a blast of "Stayin' Alive." The Deputy Minister for Overt Projects and Covert Operations was stamping and twitching to the disco beat between two pantsuited ladies also engaged in the same spasmodic exercise. As he executed a jerking turn, his preoccupied gaze fell on me, glanced off and then came back as if in sober, official recognition. "That's all for now, girls," he said and glided over to the console box behind his desk to switch off the Bee Gees. Before I could give them a good second look — one of them looked like one of our researchers on the mezzanine — the choreographers had disappeared into an adjoining room. "I'm sorry, sir," I began. "I didn't mean to interrupt like this—" "Quite all right. No need to apologize." His broad, flushed, bearded face assumed a grave, ministerial expression. "Choreographic instruction has to give way to official business, right? I take it you are the man from Media Research and Analysis, is that correct? Speak up, my good man." "Yes, sir," I said. "You've been highly recommended by Personnel for this job we're going to discuss. A very special project, mind you. Take that seat, there." He sank into his high-backed swivel chair, tightened the knot of his lavender tie over his apple green vest and studied the sheaf of papers on his desk, which was three to four times as wide as the desks we had far below, on the mezzanine. For a long while he had his curly brows knitted over the papers, chuckling to himself after every two paragraphs or so, his thick dark lips stretched in a haughty, appraising smile. I glanced about, at the portraits of great

Filipinos on the panelled walls, long deceased as well as contemporary, active and dominant; the trophies and plaques from sundry organizations; the life-size Santo Nino in a glass niche, flanked by Our Lady of Fatima and an unidentifiable antique santo. In a corner a gleaming TV-stereo cabinet reposed in front of a black leather sofa. The room breathed an aura of power, style and opulence, the perfect backdrop for the low, solemn voice that now addressed me: "You have been chosen for your expertise, loyalty, experience and steadfastness for a very special project, an operation of the highest priority." I blinked in confusion and humble expectancy, gripping the curlicued edge of the Deputy Minister's massive desk. "The Special Projects Group," the Deputy Minister intoned, stroking his beard and holding me transfixed with a stare I could only describe as messianic, "the very same group that's been the object of so much envy and derision in the lower echelons of the Ministry. . . our Special Projects Group is privileged to undertake this very special project for the sake of all Filipinos — yesterday, today and in all the years to come. . ." "This very special project, sir — what is it, sir. . ." I could barely hear my own awed whisper. The fierce visionary light softened in his bulging eyes, and rather jauntily the Deputy Minister asked: "Have you ever heard of a dining-table book?" "No, sir. A coffee-table book, yes, but a dining-table. . . ?" "Coffee-table books are for small minds, the timid and the pedestrian. What we are working on is a dining-table book!" The Deputy Minister gave a booming, triumphant laugh. "A dining-table book, yes, one even larger, wider than this!" and he rose to stretch his pudgy arms out over his desk as if in joyful benediction. "A book of books, a book to end all books!" "A book about what, sir?" "What greater book could there be for us Filipinos than a book about our national heroes? Rizal, Bonifacio, Aguinaldo, Mabini, M.H. del Pilar, Jacinto, Ricarte. . . all of them. . . the noblest exemplars of the race!" He closed his eyes and heaved a loud sigh, as if he could hardly bear the remembrance of so much glory. Then he twisted around to open an ice-box hidden behind the drapes and

brought out sticks of pork barbecue and a bottle of red wine; from under his desk he fished out a couple of wine glasses. "Pontet-Latour," he said, pouring out from the bottle, "a great wine from Bordeaux. A great year, 1972! I indulge my taste for wine at this time of day — a late morning aperitif, you might say. I have some classic white wines, too, in case you're wondering — Batard Montrachet, Puligny Montrachet, Merseault-Charmes, all French Burgundies. But I find the Pontet-Latour just prfect with this barbecue. Mere mention of our very special project makes me thirsty. Come, let us drink to Project Maharlika. That's the code name, by the way, keep it under your hat. A figure of speech — I see you are not wearing a hat, but you get the point. . . To Project Maharlika!" "To Project Maharlika!" I echoed and like him raised my glass to the ceiling, where I saw painted the same heroic men and women depicted in the gigantic mural in the central hall. Fortified by the wine and more at ease now that we held identical sticks of pork barbecue, I asked with a touch of the old elan that had sometimes achieved feats of research and analysis above and beyond the call of duty, down on the mezzanine: "Kindly enlighten me, sir, on the role I am supposed to play, my urgent and uneluctable participation, to quote your words, in this Project Maharlika." He refilled our glasses before he opened the folder on his desk, and I watched his beard moving along with his slow, silent reading. "A history major, Class of '69, UP, sports editor of the Collegian, writer for Graphic Press magazine, five years in Media Research and Analysis — just the man we need," he said finally "Now, Project Maharlika aims to produce the first dining-table book on history — in all history. It's going to be primarily for the enlightenment of our people, and to this end we'll put out a popular newsprint edition. At least a million copies for the initial run of the popular edition, which will have a format smaller by just a few feet from that of the de-luxe dining-table production. We're thinking of printing just half a million copies, initially, of the de-luxe edition, for distribution to Cabinet members, the new oligarchs and other VIPs, members of the interim assembly, the embassies and our friends abroad in Washington, especially those at the World Bank and the IMF. The special dining-table edition, by the way, will be bound in

crocodile skin, and accordingly the Ministry has put up a crocodile farm on Lubang Island." He poked around in a drawer and pulled out a gold-edged ledger. "According to the latest project status report, the writing part is 97.03 percent finished. The man assigned to write the last chapter walked into an empty elevator shaft just the other day, but with you lending a helping hand —" "Yes, sir —" "With you putting your shoulder to the wheel or whatever, I'm sure we'll wrap up the project, the layouts, typesetting, printing, binding, the works, a couple of months from now, in time for the eighth anniversary of the Ministry and well before I leave for that conference in Amsterdam. But first, I must brief you before you —" and he pointed upward and away, his hand fluttering like a bird in flight. "I must give you the correct perspective, the overall picture. Come," he commanded and I followed him to the far side of the room. He tugged at a cord and the drapes dropped away to either side.

I LOOKED down through the glass wall thus revealed at a hall as high and wide as a hangar. The place contained no aircraft but hundreds of men and women in the tangerine, black and yellow uniforms of the Ministry, seated at long rows of desks as in a factory. I stood speechless before the vast, brightly illuminated chamber and heard the Deputy Minister saying as if from a distance: "Those two rows on the left, there, that's the Data Gathering Unit. Next to them is the Data Integration Unit. The Copyreading Unit's that one at the far end, under the skylight. In the foreground, about a hundred of them, are the manuscript typists. The writers are elsewhere, in the Jacuzzi Room, I believe — a fastidious lot, they say they can work better in quieter surroundings. As for the printing, we're sending off a mission next week, to canvass prices in Paris, Hamburg, and Copenhagen. To the right, there, you see those men hammering away?" "Yes, sir, they look like carpenters. . ." "Right. They produce the dining tables that go with the books, also the paddles for turning the pages. You get the picture?

"Yes, sir, I get the picture, I mean, part of it, sir," I replied, whereupon he pulled at the cord and the drapes rolled and rejoined to shut out the scene. He strode back to his chair and in a daze I returned to mine. The Deputy Minister for Overt Projects and Covert Operations poured some more of the Pontet-Latour into his glass and resumed his briefing. "Project Maharlika, our very special project, our dining-table book, has for its theme the grandest concept ever evolved by our heroes, by our history — and that —" his voice strained, seemed about to crack from historical intensity — "that is the theme, the concept, of compassionate autocracy. To celebrate, dramatize, and commemorate it for all generations of Filipinos — that's the raison d'etre of this enterprise in whose service the Ministry has enlisted the best and brightest in our ranks. I hope that you will prove yourself worthy of your commission. Being a history major, you might have had a glimpse of this profound truth, this stirring concept in the course of your studies — this great theme of compassionate autocracy that runs through the lives, deeds, and teachings of our heroic forebears. . ." "No, sir, I haven't had a glimpse, not even an inkling of this great —" His stare icily rebuked me for my confession, and I wished he would open another bottle or offer me some more barbecue. But his look softened, became abstracted, as he continued: "It was only in the last six months that the Special Projects Group, in the course of secret, painstaking and wide-ranging study and investigation, unearthed a wealth of material, evidence of a staggering volume and complexity that demonstrates beyond any doubt the scale, the zeal, the persistence with which our heroes pursued and preached, fought and died for the dream of compassionate autocracy. The earliest record on the subject dates back to a full century before the arrival of Magellan, to the time of Rajah Bangusan, great-grandfather of Lapu-lapu. That Rajah Bangusan in the 15th century could already conceive of an autocracy that seemed to contradict itself by being compassionate — the contradiction only apparent and not real, confirming the validity and dynamism of the concept — is incontrovertible proof that our pre-hispanic forefathers already had attained a high degree of civilization, a lofty level of political sophis-

tication and statecraft without benefit of so-called Western enlightenment. The concept suffered a major, though temporary, setback at the hands of Rajah Bangusan's great-grandson who, as we all know, was suspicious of any form of autocracy, especially the Spanish kind, and expressed his opposition rather violently on the shores of Mactan." The Deputy Minister paused to consult some notes, munched briefly on a fresh stick of pork barbecue, and resumed his historical review: "But the dream, as we also know, didn't perish for our people in 1521. For in the next 300 years there were all those uprisings, those rebellions — the Gaddang revolt of 1621, the Bohol and Leyte rebellions of 1622, the Cagayan insurrection of 1639, the Pampanga uprising of 1721, the Bulacan revolt of 1745, etcetera. . . our studies have shown that they were all inspired by the Filipino dream of compassionate autocracy as distinguished from the conventional, tyrannical variety. But the concept, the vision was still raw, still unrefined, a matter largely of oral tradition, though some of the more literate rebels and patriots, like Bancao in Leyte, Malong in Pangasinan, and Silang in Ilocos, did mention the idea in their coded proclamations and manifestos, all of which have been deciphered by our Historical Deciphering Unit. Strictly speaking, it was only in the 1870s that the ancient, indigenous concept was given a fuller definition, its modern political dress, you might say, thanks to Padre Pelaez, the Creole mentor of Padre Burgos. Hitherto secret archives at the Vatican, not to say in Madrid and Valladolid, have yielded a trove of letters exchanged by the two priests which amount to a lively discussion of compassionate autocracy as the rightful destiny of the Filipino nation. The archbishop of Manila at the time, Gregorio Martinez, was also a great believer in compassionate autocracy, as shown by a recently discovered diary of his. That is why he refused to defrock Father Burgos despite pressure from the friars, who were all, needless to say, for the usual, oppressive kind of autocracy. To the question, whence came the Propaganda Movement? — the answer, as our dining-table book will show, is from the faith of Pelaez and Burgos in compassionate autocracy. And our research has indeed confirmed this thesis, in letters, manifestos and other writings from that period, including long-missing copies

of La Solidaridad, which were acquired by our man in Madrid —" "May I have some more of the Pontet-Latour, sir?" I could no longer resist asking, as listening to the Deputy Minister had brought a dehydrated lump to my throat. "Why, yes, of course," said the Deputy Minister. He shook the last of the wine into my glass and continued in a soft, musing tone, almost as if he were talking to himself: "La autocracia compasiva, autokrasiyang maypuso — again and again, these terms recur in the hitherto unpublished writings of Rizal, Bonifacio, LopezJaena, Mabini, Luna and the rest. Rizal, for instance, wrote after his famous letter to the women of Malolos a longer and even more lyrical and eloquent letter to the women of Tarlac, in which he extolled his dream of autocracia compasiva para nuestra patria adorada. And Bonifacio — he had that feud with Aguinaldo over the same issue, at the convention in Tejeros, remember? He was for compassionate autocracy after the Revolution, while Aguinaldo was for imposing it during the Revolution — as a student of history, you are familiar with the tragic consequences of that disagreement. But both heroes, to their eternal glory, were one in the conviction that, regardless of the timetable and the mode of choosing the head of state, whether by secret ballot or trial by combat, compassionate autocracy was the birthright and salvation of the Filipino people. The same conviction fired Quezon and Osmena, in their campaign for Philippine independence. And today, as we Filipinos reform and restructure our society under the leadership of our beloved President. . . today, in this period of crisis and challenge. . . the dream, the vision lives again. . ."

THE DEPUTY Minister's voice trailed off into a hush disturbed only by his loud belch and an airconditioner somewhere shifting to a softer purr, as if in deference to more tremendous revelations about to be pronounced in the cool portentous air. He sighed again and shuddered, and from his thick grinning mouth issued a series of small contralto yelps, which seemed to express the joy of a still hidden and stupendous knowledge that I, too, might share if I proved to be faithful and trustworthy. Slowly his eyes focused on me with a somewhat

uncomprehending glare. Assured that I was the same person he had been addressing only moments before, he smiled, this time with a direct, confidential warmth as he pushed himself up from his chair. He glanced at his digital watch and exclaimed: "Good God, you've got less than ten minutes before takeoff!" "Before what, sir?" was all I could gasp out as the Deputy Minister stepped around his huge desk to clap both hands on my shoulders. For an anxious moment I couldn't tell whether he was going to press me back into my seat or push me off to my new assignment, my next destination, whatever it was that he in his inscrutable wisdom had decided was best for me, the Ministry and the New Society. "You are going on a mission of the utmost importance," he said, breathing a hot fume of wine in my face, which added to my confusion. "A mission that may well decide the fate of our very special project. The Minister, the Deputy Ministers, all of us, officials and rank and file, the Ministry itself — yes, all have a stake in the outcome of this supremely important mission for which you have been chosen, and on which you are about to emborg!" "Embark," I said, releasing myself from his double grip on my shoulders and stepping a foot or two away from his pungent breath and exalted gaze. "There's one chapter left to be written, about General Petronilo Senogaling," the Deputy Minister said. "You know about General Senogaling, don't you?" "No, sir," I said. "But you are a history major, a UP scholar, you are supposed to know —" Doubt furrowed his brow, but only for two and a half seconds. "General Senogaling," he boomed at me with undismayed authority, "was the last revolutionary general to surrender to the Americans." "Not Miguel Malvar, sir? Wasn't it General Malvar —" "No, not Malvar. Malvar surrendered in 1903, General Petronilo Senogaling gave up on New Year's Day, 1904, in Catanduanes. Our Data Confirmation Unit has rechecked the place and date. Listen carefully, we haven't got much time — our Historical Intelligence Unit found out only last week that General Senogaling's heirs are holding on to a trunkfiil of his papers. His-

tory was his chief hobby, after astrology, numismatics and the oboe — a man of many talents, aside from being a great soldier, a valiant hero. Indeed, an outstanding product of the Jesuit Ratio Studiorum, one of the most distinguished graduates of the Ateneo de Manila, second perhaps only to Jose Rizal. Now go get those papers of his — including, I understand, a five-act allegorical verse play on the glories of compassionate autocracy. They should prove invaluable to our historic, monumental and all-important project." He swayed, chest heaving, sucking air noisily through clenched teeth. "You will leave for Catanduanes at 1200 hours and acquire, obtain, secure, collect or get hold in any way of General Senogaling's papers and bring them here by any means and at any cost, is that clear?" "Yes, sir," I said tremulously, "that is clear, sir" and it seemed the great wing of history swung down to brush the top of my shaggy head. Having committed myself, I felt a sense of release, a rush of elation. It was not every day, after all, that one was elected to play a crucial role in a mission to ensure and enhance the honor, pride and dignity of all Filipinos, beginning with my superiors in the Ministry. But before I could fly off on that great wing which spanned the centuries, there were a few mundane obligations I had to attend to, and I said: "There are a few mundane obligations I must first attend to, sir. I have to tell my wife and pack and leave some money for her marketing and my eldest boy's orthodontia and my mother-in-law's aerobics —" "We'll inform her," the Deputy Minister said. ccYour wife will get some money, don't you worry — your increased pay, two months in advance, plus double your transportation allowance for the same period." "Thank you, sir, you're very kind." Loyal, grateful tears blurred the image of the Deputy Minister swaying and gesticulating impatiently in front of me. I could have agreed then and there to go on any number of perilous missions in and outside of the archipelago for the greater glory of the Ministry and compassionate autocracy. "You'll be needing cash yourself," the Deputy Minister said and hauled out a canvas bag from behind his chair. "Here you are, there's two hundred thousand in there. No telling what tilings you'll need to buy or pay for between now and the day you come back.

Just don't forget to bring back all receipts, for the accounting people. The new resident auditor's a pain in the heck." "Neck," I said. "It's time, c'mon, man, let's go up to the top." He pressed a button and the wall with the Santo Nino slid to one side to reveal a door marked Emergency Exit. Imperiously, he waved to me to follow and, carrying the canvas bag, I trotted after him down a passageway to an escalator. With an energetic speed that belied his bulk, he hopped two steps at a time up the moving escalator while I puffed determinedly behind him, and we came out in a run on the penthouse deck, where a helicopter, an old U-34 in the tangerine, black and yellow colors of the Ministry, sat warming up on its wheels and I cringed from the hot blasts of the rotor blades. "My best to the heirs of General Senogaling, and bon voyage!" the Deputy Minister for Overt Projects and Covert Operations shouted in my ear. He rumpled my hair and gave what felt like a squeeze and a pinch on my behind. "Remember — Project Maharlika! All for the Ministry, the New Society, the Filipino people and their posterity! Also our beloved President and First Lady! Go, man, go!" and the bag held tight to my chest, I dashed for the helicopter door and was pulled up and inside by several hands and Faustino Damuleg was hugging me and laughing: tcWelcome aboard, pare ko!" On seeing my open-mouthed befuddlement, Faustino Damuleg hastened to explain his presence: "We're both on this mission, pare. I got my orders from the Minister himself only an hour ago." Still, the sight of my old section chief in a soldier's camouflage-striped jungle suit, in the company of other similarly uniformed men, was as unexpected and unreal as the helicopter now rising with a stomach-turning lurch and sputtering roar from the roof of the Ministry building. "The Minister finally decided to give me a break, for old times' sake," Faustino Damuleg went on as we banked away from the helipad. "With all due respect to the Deputy Minister for Overt Projects and Covert Operations, I still outrank you. But don't let that get you down. I'm not one to grab all the credit. And when we get back I'll see to it that you get promoted to section chief or

something, with signing privileges at the Camp Aguinaldo Officers Club, a weekly supply of siomai, and a lifetime subscription to the Sangguniang Bay an Review." I began to say that if he didn't mind, I would rather get the Barangay Change Agents Journal, which featured community beauties in interesting poses; but the soldiers, who called themselves the Civic Action Chorale, drowned me out with their lusty version of the Bagong Lipunan Hymn. They had more ardor than artistry, and for relief, I turned to the slanting, widening landscape below, I realized this was my first time to be up in a helicopter, remembered that I was prone to vertigo and passed out.

3. A VOICE, faint but insistent, which I gradually recognized as Faustino Damuleg's, together with the taste of Scotch being poured into my mouth, roused me back to consciousness. We were still up in the helicopter but no longer over land; a gray sea streaked with the froth of tempestuous waves was all that could be seen below, and it was raining. Faustino Damuleg took one more swallow from his canteen and screwed it shut with a familiar flourish, mumbling something about vino Veritas. I thought of pointing out that whiskey was, strictly speaking, no more vino than vodka, wine being the fermented juice of grapes and other fruits and plants; but the prospect of an airborne debate with somebody who still out-ranked me had little appeal at the moment. Besides, there was far more urgent business confronting the two of us, as he himself soon announced to all hands. "In a few minutes we'll land in Catanduanes, at the PC camp at Bagalayan Point, to be exact," he announced in oratorical accents, which brought back memories of his stirring canteen speeches ages ago, it now seemed, and worlds away. "Then will commence the actual, urgent and momentous task of locating and collecting the papers of General Senogaling. As per instructions of the Minister, we are to establish radio contact with the Special

Projects Group as soon as we land and maintain the same throughout and until the conclusion of our all important mission, on the success of which —" "Mr. Damuleg —" It was the pilot, a grim, bull-necked character who could have passed for Max Alvarado, the famous actor, except that he was bald and wore bifocals. "I don't think we can land at the PC camp. They just radioed in, sir, and the message is that —" "What's the message? Anything wrong?" Faustino Damuleg had gotten up and was reaching for an overhead rack. He lost his balance and fell among the troops, knocking off the helmet of the kindly ex-MNLF commander I had met in the elevator. "C'mon, what is it? Don't be shy!" he called out as he untangled himself from the sprawl of AFP arms, legs, and M-16s. "The Bagalayan camp is under fire, sir," the pilot said. It was not just the baldness and the glasses but a protruding lower lip that, on scrutiny, set him apart from Max Alvarado. "The NPA has the camp surrounded, sir," he said, pouting grimly. "Then we land someplace nearby," said Faustino Damuleg as he planted himself erect behind the pilot's seat. "We can land in the plaza right in Gigmoto," the pilot said. "That's not too far from Bagalayan Point." "Out of the question!" In Faustino Damuleg's curt reply I detected a note of alarm if not panic. "The plaza in Gigmoto's too small and quite soggy this time of year. Besides, landing in the town would attract too much attention. The mission, the very special project, everything's classified till the Minister says otherwise. We can't afford to have Operation Maharlika played up in the controlled media before we wind it up, can we?" "No, we can't," I replied for all aboard and was relieved to see the troops, all volunteers, nodding assent. "Furthermore," Faustino Damuleg pressed on, "the man who alone can take us to the people holding General Senogaling's papers is right there in the camp — the detachment commander, Captain Alcibiades S. Cuenca. We must get to him, help him beat off the NPA, else all is lost. It's classified, but maybe, considering the circumstances, I can tell you this much — Captain Alcibiades S. Cuenca is a grand-nephew of General Senogaling. Now you see

why it's got to be the camp at Bagalayan Point or the immediate vicinity and not Gigmoto or any other place, and that's final!" "That's it, fellows, right from the horse's mouth," I said, even as I winced from a stab of envy. Clearly, my compadre, old section chief and now mission director knew more about the task at hand than I had been allowed to gather from the Deputy Minister for Overt Projects and Covert Operations. The latter's parting words — "for the Ministry, the New Society" — echoed then in my mind, a summons to serve people and country, and resolutely I shook off all resentment. Discomfiture, pique, jealously: these had absolutely no place in an enterprise of such enormous significance to all Filipinos and their posterity.

"CATANDUANES dead ahead," the pilot sang out. The island loomed up on the rainy horizon. "This is it!" Faustino Damuleg hollered at me and tipped his canteen over his mouth. He offered the canteen, which I refused with a polite shake of my head as the mission called for nothing less than absolute sobriety. We flew over the western shore of the island, over a nudist camp set up by another Ministry for Japanese tourists and over cloud-covered hills in the late gray light. In a matter of minutes, during which the only sound was the throb of the engine, the eastern coastline appeared through the rain and glided swiftly towards us. Beyond lay the Pacific, a vast stormy darkness. "We've lost radio contact with the base," the pilot said. "Then we establish visual contact with the base," Faustino Damuleg said. The helicopter dropped down for a pass over Bagalayan Point, turned around for a closer view of the PC encampment, a cluster of huts and a guard tower in the middle of a jungle clearing, all looking abandoned in the rain. "I suppose the next thing to do is land," Faustino Damuleg was saying when there was a sharp cracking sound like a hail of gravel against the bottom of the helicopter. "They've captured the camp, I think," the pilot said, seemingly unruffled, a real veteran, "and they're firing at us," and then

we were skimming almost sideways over treetops and "Pull her up, higher, higher, goddemmit!" Faustino Damuleg was shouting as another volley ripped through the chopper and it plowed lower into the trees and I saw a green wall rushing towards us before I lost consciousness for the second time on that eventful day. Likewise, it was Faustino Damuleg's voice that I first heard when I came to for the second time. I lay on a bamboo bed, my right arm and left leg encased in bamboo splints. On a bamboo bench by the bed sat Faustino Damuleg, apparently intact but for his head, which was swathed in bandages, giving him the aspect of an unusually despondent Sikh. Behind him, on the nipa wall, hung a red flag, a picture of Mao Tse-tung swimming in the Yang-tze, and some framed slogans: "Down with the reactionary fascist dictatorship! Long live the revolutionary mass movement! On with people's war for national liberation!" Outside, sunlight filtered dimly through the trees.

"WHAT happened?" I asked. "Where are we?" "In Catanduanes, where else, but in the wrong camp," said Faustino Damuleg, glumly. "Please explain," I said in the same doleful tone. "This is the Catanduanes NPA headquarters. We crashlanded or, to be more accurate, we were shot down. We are prisoners and this is our third day here. You were out cold all the time and I was beginning to think I'd be the sole survivor. But I'm glad to see you're still alive, although not kicking." "Thank you," I said. "How about our escorts?" "They won't sing again, I'm afraid, their voices forever stilled." "I am hungry," I said. "Good!" The woman's voice at my back startled me almost out of my splints. "That means you're on the way to full recovery." A lady in denim shorts was standing on the other side of the bed, an AK-47 slung muzzle down from her shoulder. "Here, this is good for you," she said and started spooning arroz caldo into my blistered and famished mouth. "This is Mrs. Alcibiades S. Cuenca, also known as Ka Loraa," said Faustino Damuleg.

Ka Loraa was pale, haggard and unsmiling, as befitted a revolutionary and a guerrilla with a six-figure price on her head, around which was tied a red scarf. Her strong, scrawny legs bulged with varicose veins and I concentrated on the arroz caldo, which was as good as that served at the New Filipino Kitchenette a block from the Ministry, back in Manila. When I had finished the arroz caldo, I asked: "Captain Cuenca is your husband?" Was I fully awake or was all this a delirious dream induced by the shock of the crash-landing and my wounds? "My husband A1 defected to the New People's Army ten days ago," said Ka Lorna. "But Captain Cuenca — the Bagalayan camp —" I turned to Faustino Damuleg for confirmation. He nodded his bandaged head gravely and said: "Yes, Alcibiades S. Cuenca, formerly of the Constabulary and now Kumander A1 of the New People's Army, has told me the whole story. A litany of government neglect and indifference, and how Camp Crame's repeated refusal to grant him R & R on Roxas Boulevard after more than three years out in Bagalayan proved to be the last straw. All that, plus a desire he had had since he was a high school sophomore, a passion to liberate the broad masses of our people from the shackles of U.S. imperialism, domestic feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism." The last-named foe of the broad masses of our people brought to mind the canvas bag entrusted to me by the Deputy Minister, and I asked Faustino Damuleg about its fate. "The money's in the hands of the NPA regional finance officer, who was kind enough to leave me a thousand for our trip back to Manila." "Are you telling me they'll set us free, they'll let us go. . . " "The proletarian armed forces," Ka Lorna inteijected, "follow a policy of fairness and benevolence toward minor bureaucrats who acknowledge the error of their ways." "I have acknowledged the error of my ways," said Faustino Damuleg brightly, "and I have pledged to contribute seventeen percent of my salary to the New People's Army. So will you, I am sure," he tapped the splint on my leg with a wooden shoe, "unless

you decide to stay on in this place.. . indefinitely." "I'll contribute eighteen percent," I said. "You are both good men at heart, hapless bureaucratic victims of the U.S.-Marcos dictatorship," said Ka Lorna. From a sideboard she produced a platter of fried chicken livers, which Faustino Damuleg and I began to gobble up with unrestrained relish. "Captain Cuenca, I mean, Kumander Al, will be arriving any minute now," said Faustino Damuleg through a mouthful of chicken liver. "He left this morning with a recon squadron for Caramoran, over on the eastern side. His cousins live there. They have General Petronilo Senogaling's papers and he'll get the stuff for us." I could hardly believe my ears, and again I wondered whether I was still out cold and dreaming. "You mean, we'll go back to Manila with those papers. . ." "I told Kumander Al we need those writings of his greatgrandfather, the great General Senogaling, for a book on the Filipino people's centuries-old struggle against colonialism and imperialism." He was looking at me straight in the eye with a strange, unblinking, almost malevolent intensity. "I've promised him a copy of our dining-table book. We'll have to send it via surface mail, a book of that size can't be sent by air without costing the Ministry a fortune in postage." It seemed he blinked one eye, but I couldn't be sure in the waning light. He glanced up at Ka Lorna hovering over my battered figure. "The book will be inscribed to you and Kumander Al, with the compliments of the Minister and the Deputy Ministers." Ka Lorna murmured her thanks and set down beside me on the bed a bilao of pancit palabok. Faustino Damuleg turned his beady eyes back on me and asked: "How soon do you think we'll finish this book on the people's unrelenting struggle against U.S. imperialism, domestic feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism?" "Barring unfortuitous circumstances, like power failures and a flu epidemic downing the entire Special Projects Group," I replied as earnestly as a mouthful of pancit palabok would allow me, "oh, I'd say about two or three months. Maybe less if we worked on Sundays and public holidays, too." "That means our friends here in this hidden jungle sanctuary of the people's revolutionary armed forces will be getting their

complimentary copy around Christmas. Here comes Kumander Al! Welcome back, Kumander!" Faustino Damuleg bounced up from the bench as a tall, athletic figure with bandoliers forming an X over his shirtless and hairy chest marched in, followed by two shabbily dressed dissidents lugging an old wooden trunk between them.

"I SEE you haven't come back empty-handed," Faustino Damuleg said as the trunk was deposited gingerly on the split-bamboo floor. "You people are indeed true to your word, a quality which I am sure will gain you more adherents in your unremitting struggle for national liberation and the triumph of Marxism-Leninism-Jomao Thought." "It took some doing," said Kumander Al, prying the trunk open with a bayonet, "but we did it." Faustino Damuleg and I gaped at the brown, brittle contents of the trunk. "My cousins were reluctant at first to part with these papers, which the family has treasured and guarded all these many years," Kumander Al continued, "but the New People's Army has a way of persuading even the most uncooperative relations, as you gentlemen must have heard. Then, we had to fight our way out of a combined PC and CHDF cordon. We lost some men, including our mimeograph operator, a former political science instructor at the UP. But it was well worth it. As I was telling the men, it's a battle for hearts and minds, and my fervent hope is that these works of General Petronilo Senogaling, our beloved Lolo Petrong, will help win the battle, nay, the people's war against colonialism, fascism and imperialism, and ensure the victory of all patriotic and progressive forces for national democracy." For all the uncompromising import of his convictions, Kumander Al spoke in a casual, almost bantering tone, as though merely informing us of ferryboat schedules between Catanduanes and Camarines Sur, and I found myself warming up to him. The man's friendly manner, his relaxed, engaging smile were most reassuring, considering that Faustino Damuleg and I were deep inside what, by any objective standard, could only be regarded as enemy territory. I was thinking of how lucky we were, of what Ka Lorna would bring us for supper and whether my leg was broken or just sprained, when Faustino Damuleg's ear-piercing cry wrenched me out of my reverie.

"It's all here, pare! Look!" He was waving one of General Senogaling's handwritten manuscripts before my nose. "Just read the title — Una ideologia para los Filipinos bravos. I know very little Spanish, but isn't this what we've come all the way for? Thank you, Kumander Al, I don't know how we could have managed it, we would've gotten nowhere without you. Now we have all we need to finish our dining-table book, a book that will bring honor and glory to all Filipinos and their posterity!" And dancing a jig, he linked arms with Kumander Al and Ka Lorna, both of whom shuffled along with him, reluctantly at first and then with rising glee. They laughed, we all laughed, Faustino Damuleg and the NPA couple and I in my bamboo splints on the bamboo bed, laughing in the jubilant camaraderie of those privileged to serve their country's cause together and in unity in the face of all and any adversity.

THE MOOD was far from jubilant, in fact it was markedly grave and dismal, with more than one portent of the catastrophic, when, three typhoons, a torturous trip by sailboat, train, truck, and tricycle, and a month and a half later, Faustino Damuleg stepped and I limped wearily into the conference room adjoining the Minister's office, to face across a round marble table a grim-looking Minister and his equally dour Deputy Ministers. The happy, zestful, nationalistic laughter that had pealed through Kumander Al's hut deep in the Catanduanes forest was a memory I now had trouble recalling, like a moment of comradely cheer in a distant, dismal season; a memory rendered even more unreal and remote by the atmosphere in the conference room, which was gray and very cold, so frigid, as a matter of fact, the result of the Minister's preference for near-zero temperatures since a skiing holiday in the Bavarian Alps, that we had come in parkas and mittens, except for the Minister, who sported a fur-lined greatcoat and sequined leather gloves. Faustino Damuleg and I clicked our heels, bowed low from the waist and recited the salutation invoking divine blessings on the President, the Minister, the Ministry and the New Society; a formula required of underlings summoned before an assembly of the Ministry leadership. The last time the Minister and the Deputy Min-

isters had gathered in this wise, it had been to sentence a section chief, found guilty of performing indecent acts with a Xerox machine, to ten years' exile on Kinapusan Island, in Sulu. I was, therefore, not unaware of the significance of such a formal audience, which of course added to my anxieties. We took our seats while the Minister continued glaring balefully at General Petronilo Senogaling's papers piled in front of him, as if they represented a particularly offensive affront to his dignity. His evident lack of appreciation for all the trouble we had had to go through to secure the manuscripts seemed to make the room even colder, and shivering, I braced myself for the worst. Had we brought back the wrong papers? Had Kumander Al and Ka Lorna seen through our ploy perhaps and, in fair exchange, given us a bunch of fake or useless manuscripts? The package-type units aroundthe room blew more icy air at us; the Minister went on glaring and curling his lips contemptuously at the manuscripts; the Deputy Ministers, Faustino Damuleg and I fidgeted and shivered in our parkas. Finally, the Minister spoke, not in the clipped, exuberant tones with which we in the Ministry had grown familiar, but in a voice so weak and dispirited, so disconsolate that I half-expected his usually jocular countenance to start spurting tears: "Gentlemen, a development of calamitous proportions may constrain us to defer indefinitely, if not abandon altogether, our very special project, the preparation and publication of our projected dining-table book on the glories of compassionate autocracy. The Deputy Minister for Overt Projects and Covert Operations has given me a full report and I would like — I —" He faltered, rolled his eyes ceilingward, raised his gloved hands as if in abject surrender, and asked "the man in charge of our very special project," as he referred to the gentleman in dark glasses on his right-to please tell us about this development of calamitous proportions. "Excellency, esteemed colleagues, gentlemen," began the man in charge, whom I recognized under the hood of his plaid parka as the Deputy Minister for Overt Projects and Covert Operations, "first, let me state this fundamental fact — these papers of General Senogaling, which were procured and transported here at considerable cost, almost at the cost, even, of the lives of two of

the most loyal, the most dedicated and courageous men ever enlisted in the service of the Ministry —" "Cut out the fancy talk, we haven't got all day!" The Minister no longer sounded tired and discouraged, but tired and profoundly irritated. "Stop beating around the bush, for goodness' sake!" He was again the alert achiever and decision-maker he was reputed to be, and I found myself admiring the man for the ease, the swiftness with which he cast away all fear and despair.

THE DEPUTY Minister for Overt Projects and Covert Operations smiled gamely, exhaled a plume of frigid air as he hugged himself for more warmth. "Well, what I'd like to point out is that these papers here are genuine, authentic. And this, as you'll see, has a bearing on the problem. In truth and in fact, they were written by General Petronilo Senogaling and by no one else." "You are sure of that?" the gruff Deputy Minister for Spiritual and Secular Enlightenment shot at him. "Positive. Our translators, textual critics, handwriting analysts, laboratory technicians—they are all agreed, the stuff is for real." "Which means," observed the sinister Deputy Minister for Quantitative Inputs and Qualitative Outputs, "we must proceed from the truth and reality of these original materials, id est, the writings of General Petronilo Senogaling." "Exactly, we must contend with what was and what is, not with what ought to have been and what ought to be." "Well put," the Minister said crisply. "Proceed, we're all ears," and he adjusted the flaps of his fur cap so his ears would be less encumbered. "The essay, more than a hundred pages long, is what should concern us more than the memoirs, the allegorical verse play, the unfinished novel, and other works of General Senogaling." "What, may I ask," asked the pugnacious Deputy Minister for Seminar-Workshops, Symposiums and Community Assemblies, "is so special about this essay?" "General Petronilo Senogaling," the Deputy Minister for Overt Projects and Covert Operations enunciated carefully, "meant his essay, entitled Una ideologia para los Filipinos bravos, to be his political testament, his definitive work, his final legacy to the

Filipino nation. While his play, his poems, and other works dealt with minor, isolated or peripheral themes, in the essay he summed up all his thoughts and ideas on history, politics, economics, social development, the question of ideology. It was his Summa Politico, his Mein Kampj.\ a soldier and patriot's synthesis of —" "No need for a jacket blurb," the Minister said brusquely. "Get to the point, for God's sake. I don't want to be late for my antique art appreciation class." "Sorry, Your Excellency, I didn't — well, to conclude, General Senogaling's essays is one long disparagement, disapprobation, denunciation of — compassionate autocracy." Gasps and groans from all present, except the Minister, who merely flinched stoically, greeted this dismaying disclosure from the Deputy Minister for Overt Projects and Covert Operations. Beside me, Faustino Damuleg tried to rise, emitted a strangled sound and then collapsed stunned in his chair. For my part, I recoiled from the cheerless future that seemed suddenly to yawn at my feet and began to whistle "Dahil Sa Iyo" in cha-cha tempo to relieve the thickening gloom. "If not compassionate autocracy," the Minister said at last, nodding at the pile of old manuscripts before him, "what then did General Petronilo Senogaling propose, propound and proclaim as the birthright, vision, guiding principle, and goal of the Filipino people?" "Your Excellency, gentlemen," the Deputy Minister for Overt Projects and Covert Operations said in a taut, almost inaudible voice, "it was General Senogaling's conviction and contention that the dream and objective of the Filipino people since time immemorial had been. . . was. . . is. . . will always be. . ." "C'mon, say it," the Minister prompted gently, resignedly, I thought. "We in the Ministry must face up to the truth, no matter how distasteful or unwelcome." "Yes, Your Excellency," said the Deputy Minister for Overt Projects and Covert Operations. He blew his nose and folded his polka-dot handkerchief back into a pocket of his parka. "According to General Senogaling, it was not compassionate autocracy, but dictatorship by referendum, that was the hope and vision of our forefathers and hence the paramount objective and abiding reality and principle of all generations of Filipinos, past, present and to

come. In fact, General Senogaling made a distinction between compassionate autocracy and dictatorship by referendum, which he said would be the perfect fulfillment of our people's truest aspirations, being more just, humane, and democratic. Here, sir, gentlemen, I have the translation of the concluding part of the General's essay," and he removed his dark glasses, revealing red-rimmed eyes, and began searching in his clutch bag. "That won't be necessary," the Minister said quietly, somewhat paternally, indicating with a slow wave of his gloved hand the typewritten sheet that the Deputy Minister was pressing flat on the marble table. "Dictatorship by referendum. . . compassionate autocracy. . . I prefer the sound of the latter. It's more, shall we say, compassionate. But personal opinions don't count at all in these matters, and we shouldn't even think of tampering in the slightest with the sacred facts of history. . ." "Excuse me, sir, Your Excellency." Faustino Damuleg had stood up and in his agitation had one knee raised against the edge of the table, as if set to spring up onto the marble top. "It just occurred to me, sir, it's just an idea, but maybe, I thought, about General Petronilo Senogaling, sir, what's his view against that of so many, from pre-hispanic times to the present century, why, he was the only one for dictatorship by referendum, all the others, Diego Silang, Bancao, Padre Burgos, Rizal, Bonifacio, Aguinaldo, Mabini, Quezon, they were all for compassionate autocracy, what I'm driving at, sir —" He was on his hands and knees on the table now. "The dining-table book doesn't have to include him, sir, we'll respect the truth, only we won't mention it, about General Senogaling, sir, I mean, so what if he was the last general to surrender to the Americans and all that, besides, the Ministry has already put so much time, money and effort into our very special project. . ." He edged back to his seat and looked around the table, happily, confidently, waiting for his superiors'judgment. "Mr. Damuleg's idea seems worth considering," the Minister said evenly. "Yes. . . yes, indeed." He leaned over towards the Deputy Minister for Overt Projects and Covert Operations: "How much of the budget for Project Maharlika has been used up?" The Deputy Minister for Overt Projects and Covert Operations sneezed, flipped open a notebook and replied: "Forty-three

million pesos, sir, give or take a hundred thousand. We'll release another million next week, for a new shipment of crocodiles to Lubang Island. And our narra and molave suppliers, for the dining tables and paddles, they haven't been paid for the last quarter and I don't think I can go on holding them off." The Minister said: "We'll take up Mr. Damuleg's proposal — my mistake, as of this minute, Assistant Deputy Minister for Overt Projects and Covert Operations Damuleg —" I clapped with the others, our applause somewhat muffled because of our mittens but no less sincere for all that. My old section chief and compadre nodded humbly in acknowledgement. The Minister said: "Assistant Deputy Minister Damuleg has a point, about General Senogaling's place and influence in our nation's history and in the pages of our dining-table book, all of which we shall discuss at our meeting next Friday, same time, same place. Now, gentlemen, if you will excuse me, I have to hurry to this lecture on porcelain urinals from the Tong Dynasty." The Deputy Ministers stayed on for the Chinese lauriat and the Betamax screening which were de rigueur at such highlevel meetings, but Assistant Deputy Minister Faustino Damuleg and I left soon after the Minister made his exit, my former boss saying he would rather have tempura and sashimi any time than all that greasy, starchy stuff, while I wasn't too keen about watching a documentary on the flora and fauna of Leyte and Ilocos Norte; and so we proceeded down the long carpeted corridor and across the vast central court with its colossal mural and multi-colored fountain and attractive secretarial pool and security guards in halters and shorts and down in the elevator to the basement garage where waited Faustino Damuleg's new Toyota Crown and driver, a dimpled, bosomy lass in the tangerine, black and yellow uniform of the Ministry, who drove us to a Japanese restaurant to celebrate his promotion and, he assured me, my impending one, not to say our glad and continuing collaboration in the service of ministry, country and compassionate autocracy; and as we feasted and drank the night away, first at the Nagoya Tempura Inn in Malate and then in half-a-dozen establishments, including the Bagong Pinoy Bistro, where we were joined by Gilbert Cristobal Cagsua and Faustino Damuleg was prevailed upon to sing "Stout-Hearted Men" and other favorites, and

finally in a roadside cabaret in Paranaque, never could we have guessed that the meeting to discuss his brilliant proposal concerning General Petronilo Senogaling and our very special project would not be held at all, for the catastrophe that historians of the New Society would later call the Great Purge of '79 struck the Ministry the following Monday, sweeping the Minister, the Deputy Minister for Overt Projects and Covert Operations, three other Deputy Ministers and about three hundred other people, including me and Assistant Deputy Minister Damuleg, out of office; sweeping, too, out to where great visions and noble enterprises die and disappear from the sight of mankind and the face of the earth, Project Maharlika, our very special project, our dining-table book as unique and unprecedented, as magnificent and monumental a task as any inspired by love of country and perhaps for that very reason fated never to see completion, as usually happens to such works dedicated to the greater glory of all Filipinos and their posterity; a dismal judgment Faustino Damuleg and I still repeat and shake our heads over, whenever we meet for an occasional lunch or halo-halo at Aling Conching's carinderia in Quiapo, where we now work, he as the registrar and chief security officer of a beauticians' school on Echague and I as the assistant manager of my brother-in-law's Filipiniana book store on R. Hidalgo; a small and modest shop, I sometimes find myself musing with nostalgic regret, that will never offer a dining-table book.

The Flood in Tarlac

A

FTERWARDS, whenever Dr. Jose Caridad tried to recall exactly how the events of the last days of that May began for him and his family, what formed in his mind was a recollection of heat, bright and oppressive, and strangely, utterly silent. The heat at the beginning had been, as Dr. Caridad would remember it, a humid glare pressing down upon the town from a white sky like a lens magnifying the shrouded glow of the sun; but the absolute stillness was merely conjured by his imagination, influenced perhaps by the vast desolation at the end. In the hot dazzle of that Sunday afternoon in Tarlac he had driven home across town, from the Rotary Club luncheon at the Central Luzon Emerald Hotel for the newly elected governor. He had not voted for the man, who had won by only a narrow margin, in his view nothing but a fraudulent upstart, a deceiver of his class, appealing to the electorate with his glib socialist pretensions; and having to listen for the better part of an hour to the politician's cordial cliches, about democracy and social justice and genuine land reform, whatever that meant, had only made him wish he had gone instead with Maripaz and the girls. After the ten o'clock Mass, they had promptly set off to visit with his in-laws in San Sebastian. That he should be driving all by himself in Bobby's Lancer, whose aircon refused to work, while they had the Mercedes and the driver, added to his ill humor. Perspiring in the jusi barong plastered to his broad, fore-

shortened body, his surgeon's fingers slippery on the wheel, Dr. Caridad steered the yellow car down the length of Aquino Avenue with its shops and restaurants, the moviehouse and his uncle's decrepit building where he had once maintained a clinic, the minibuses and jeepneys loading passengers, mostly people from the barrios — the dumb, prolific masses idolized by that goddamn demagogue — crowding half of the thoroughfare across from the church. Then past the plaza where some thatch-roofed food stalls remained more than a month after the fiesta, and beyond it to the glimmering leafshade of Romulo Street where his cousins still lived in the old indestructible houses near the stone bridge. The river, as he had noticed more than once during these dry months, had shrunk to a shabby stream between broad sand banks on which was now spread, like a vivid quilt, the wash drying in the sweltering light. In a rainy season long ago, when he was in the grades at Don Bosco, and before he learned how to swim, he had almost drowned, there, below, where women were now pounding clothes beside the thin stream. For no apparent reason another boy, a rough dark farmer's son, had pushed him tumbling into the swollen river. . . At last on the highway that looped around the poblacion and afforded a shorter route home, in Fortune Village, Dr. Caridad flicked on the radio for music, only to be greeted with a crump of static. It was the same brittle crackling everywhere on the dial, as if some malign electricity in the glittering air had repelled all other sounds. Glumly he wondered why Bobby hadn't bothered to have the set fixed or gotten one of those removable cassette players when he was so keen on playing wherever he was punk rock or whatever the young people danced to or mooned over these days. For Bobby's birthday in July, he might get him the newest thing from Sony, a disc player, was it now, if that boy would promise not to turn it on so loud as to bust your eardrums, which was what he liked to do with his stereo when he was home from college, any hour it seemed of the day or night. Nobody, but nobody, Dr. Caridad mused sadly, cared anymore for the kind of music with the sweet and yearning lyrics that he and Maripaz knew by heart during their courting days, about these foolish things reminding me of you and strangers in paradise and such; and he was reflecting on how times had changed, how different kids were from when he was growing

up, things were no longer the same, life in general, yes, here in Tarlac, certainly in Manila, the rest of the country, for that matter, when from a block away he saw the men in front of his gate. There were three of them, and the tallest one, in a narrowbrimmed buri hat, appeared to be arguing with the security guard. They had their backs to the cemented street and did not see Dr. Caridad coming up until he had slowed down before the two-story house to swing the car towards the gate. The guard, in a dark blue uniform, gestured to the men to back off, stepped through a side entrance under the bougainvillea to push open the black steel panels topped by coils of barbed wire. As Dr. Caridad eased the car into the driveway, the tall man doffed his hat, revealing shaggy hair and a haggard face, nodding and smiling. Strangers: what could they possibly want at this time of day, didn't they know he no longer saw patients on weekends . . . Then, one of the men leaned towards the car and raised a hand, as if to halt it, and Dr. Caridad thought the man vaguely familiar, he had seen him before, but where? The guard waved the men to move back and closed the gate on them with a grating metallic thump. Dr. Caridad parked beside the Toyota van with the cracked window like a glass spider-web where a stone or something had hit just last week, the evening Jocelyn and Susan came back late from that wedding party in Gerona. He should have known better than to let them go driving out there at night, in that troubled part of the province where, he had since heard, shallow graves had been found along the road to Victoria and the soldiers no longer ventured out after sundown. He sauntered out of the garage, rolling the sleeves of his drenched barong further up and squinting in the suffocating light. An ice-cold glass of lemonade, that was what he wanted; then a shower and a siesta; but Santa Maria, those inconsiderate characters at the gate, so early in the afternoon. . . The guard hurried to overtake him in the shadow of the porte-cochere. "Doctor. . . They wish to see you, Doctor." He spoke to the guard also in Pampango, unable to stifle the curt irritation in his voice, "What do they want?" The guard said, blinking anxiously, "They say they are from San Sebastian, Doctor."

"So?" "They say they have come because of a. . . question" — the guard pronounced it as if with sad distaste — "about Hacienda Margarita.. Dr. Caridad made a mental note to ask the security agency to send someone more forceful and dependable, not this anemic, probably tuberculous runt who looked anything but a sentinel, despite the .45-caliber pistol holstered at his waist. "In that case, they have come to the wrong place. If it's some business on the hacienda. . And had this fellow's brother, as agreed on, come at all today to help around the house? No sign that the lawn had been watered, most of it a powdery yellow, and littered with leaves before the miniature Lourdes grotto, under the overhanging branches of the caimito next door. "They have been waiting for almost an hour now, Doctor. They said it is very important." Dr. Caridad paused before the front door to dab at his face vigorously with a handkerchief. "Tell them to go see Attorney Tancinco. Tomorrow. He is now in charge." It was then that he heard the day's first thunder, a brief rumble like distant rocks falling, and he seemed to feel its vibration in the heated air. But what would this be about? Maybe, he should find out, at least: after all, anything that concerned the hacienda. .. He felt the pressure too of their presence, their silent waiting out in the street. "They said they would not leave until they had spoken to you." The guard now sounded more forlorn, as if shamed by his own nervous complaint, blinking at Dr. Caridad. "They said they would not take too much of your time, Doctor. They said —" "Very well then, let them in." Dr. Caridad exhaled audibly, wiping his face. "Take them to the veranda." The Gentian shepherd in its cage in a corner of the front lawn began to bark as Dr. Caridad crossed the living room and ascended the stairs towards the huge silver-framed Sacred Heart and the blasts of the Springsteen concert from his son's bedroom.

THE AFTERNOON had so darkened by the time Dr. Caridad, iced lemonade in hand, came out onto the veranda that he turned on the overhead light, along with the ceiling fan. The men rose as one, greeting him in polite accents. They were dressed almost identically, in T-shirts and denims. The tall one wore black running shoes; his companions were in rubber sandals. There was about them a kind of humble apprehension and a sourish odor of sweat, which Dr. Caridad had learned to associate with the more industrious peasantry during his stint some years ago as assistant manager on his father-in-law's plantation. They had barely taken their seats, the three men close together on the wrought-iron couch, rather like the subdued patients Dr. Caridad still allowed himself to see on occasion at the provincial hospital, when the least unfamiliar of the three stood up and said, formally, as if in class, "Doctor, I am Isidro Malabanan, the brother of your encargado in Sapang Malati, Doctor." "Ah, yes, of course. Your mother had cancer. . ." "She died last December. . . Doctor, this is my compadre, Luis Sumulong" — Malabanan motioned to the gaunt, smiling man — "and this is Placido his cousin, also from San Sebastian." "Sit down, sit down." Dr. Caridad thought of his denied siesta and the last few chapters of the Stephen King novel he had expected to finish this Sunday. And he needed to rest up for the next day as he would have to be off early, for the stockholders' meeting in Camiling. . . Thunder exploded in alternately faint and resounding bursts in the hills beyond the river, to the east, and he hoped Maripaz and the girls would come back early. As he well knew, the highway where it curved after the army camp in San Miguel could turn slick and tricky even after just a drizzle. "What is it you have come to see me for?" he said, affecting a jovial gruffness. They would have to walk some distance back to where they could catch, on the highway, a bus or jeepney bound for San Sebastian. No softdrinks let alone coffee for them — that would only encourage them to stay longer. "Let's hear it, don't waste time, It looks like rain. . ." "It is about a problem of Pareng Luis here," said Malabanan. He clasped and unclasped his hands with their knobby fingers and broken nails.

"And what would that be?" That new maid couldn't learn the simplest thing, like not putting so much sugar. This Malabanan was too fair in complexion to be a farmer himself, he was probably half-Chinese, yes, the mother was, one of his charity patients. "Speak up, we don't have much time." "Pareng Luis has a small piece of land, very small, Doctor —" "Riceland? Sugarcane?" "Sugar, Doctor. All these years he has been selling what little he produces to the Central. . ." "Yes? Go on." "There was a survey made last month, by the men of Attorney Tancinco," said Malabanan, his voice fading on uttering the name so that Dr. Caridad, as was his habit when he dealt with children, the aged and the sick, bent inquiringly forward and almost knocked the glass off the arm of his chair. "The land of Pareng Luis," Malabanan resumed, "according to them, Doctor. . ." He could already guess what they wanted, the intercession of the favored son-in-law. It would not be the first time; it would not be the last. Dr. Caridad no longer relished having anything to do with these things, not since the old man had turned perceptibly aloof, after that confused discussion they ones had, about the tractors, at the dinner with he bishops yet. . . Still, he should listen and pass on the information to Anding and his brother-in-law could take it from there. "Yes, go on about the land of this compadre of yours." The man called Luis Sumulong gestured suddenly at Malabanan, a small impatient twitch of the hand, and looked at Dr. Caridad straight in the eye and said in a clear, steady voice, smiling, "They claim this plot of land that we have been farming since before the war is part of the hacienda. They have begun to put up a fence that will enclose our land. They said the space would be needed for the new stables they are going to build, for the horses, the race horses of your brother-in-law." Dr. Caridad held Sumulong's gaze — bloodshot eyes, and wasn't that a tinge of jaundice? — until the man looked away, still smiling. Such insolence hardly befitted one who had come to beg a favor. He resolved to conclude this little dismal meeting of theirs

sooner than he had intended. He said, "You should talk to Attorney Tancinco. Manoling is a reasonable man, I am sure Manoling —" Sumulong laughed, and Dr. Caridad, his glance then on the shredded rag of dark cloud gliding closer beyond the water tank of the Rodriguezes, started at the sound like a dry cough and flushed in anger. But Sumulong sat hunched with his bony arms resting on his knees, shaking his head of shaggy hair, eyes on the floor. The pose suggested, not resentment or defiance, but a melancholy puzzlement, perhaps even anguish. Dr. Caridad said, "Have you spoken with Attorney Tancinco?" "I was able to talk only with one of his assistants. Attorney Tancinco is often away, in Manila." Sumulong reached into a hip pocket and produced a square of folded paper. "With your permission, I should like very much to show this map to you, and to Attorney Tancinco. It shows the old boundaries of Barrio Santo Tomas." Dirt smudges edged the folds of the ruled sheet, which he held up with thumb and forefinger and extended towards Dr. Caridad." The fence of Hacienda Margarita goes southward here, across this creek —" Dr. Caridad half rose and shrank back in his chair as he pushed a palm against the proffered sheet, as if it were stained by some malignant infection. "No need for that." Must this obstinate pest go on smiling that way? It was time to wind up this farce, in this stupid weather yet. He should never have allowed them in; how had they managed to come this far into the village, to begin with. Those good-for-nothing guards at the entrance . . . He said, "Let us see what can be done. These matters, you need time —" "Doctor," Malabanan said, "we would be most grateful, Doctor, if you could mention this... question... to Attorney Tancinco, and to your brother-in-law. . ." "I cannot interfere —" "Perhaps," Sumulong said, "if they will do another survey, the mistake can be corrected —" "That may be asking too much," said Dr. Caridad, then winced from a flick of lightning. It was like the cue he had been waiting for, and he stood up and spread his hands in dismissal even as the thunderclap tore open the sky, it seemed, directly above the house.

Sumulong retrieved his hat from the couch. "If your brotherin-law is told of the mistake, he might ask Attorney Tancinco to consider. . ." "We will see about that," Dr. Caridad said. "Pareng Luis requests only another survey," Malabanan said. "Perhaps by other persons, or another group, Doctor. . ." "That I cannot decide." "We hope that you will help, Doctor," Malabanan said. "Yes, yes, we will see," Dr. Caridad said. Only the third man, the silent Placido, whose right arm, Dr. Caridad saw then, bore a long diagonal scar as from the slash of a bolo, shook his hand before they strode down off the veranda. The man s palnrfelt as hard and grainy as a splinter of rock. He watched them cross the lawn, not following the flagstone path but stepping on the dead grass, the tall one in the lead, and the dog was barking again, in the hot darkened light of the afternoon. The sky above the Concepcion house across the street had turned black, except for the underside of a cloud bank which glowed red and orange from the hidden sun. A mistake, they said, how could they be so certain? There were officials, agencies they could complain to, if it had to come to thai. Dr. Caridad said to himself, more agitated than he was willing to admit. He knew these people, you surrendered a few square meters, before you knew it they had grabbed and squatted on a hundred and more, and there were so many of them, goddamit. He had gained nothing from talking with them but this headache. The sound of the approaching rain like many voices rising from the earth reached him from the direction of the river, behind the bamboo groves to the east, as he shuffled inside to get himself some Tylenol and tell Bobby to tone down that maddening, mortifying racket of the Stranglers or U-2 or whatever on that overworked stereo, for God's sake.

FOR ALMOST an hour it rained fiercely, a warm heavy rain coming straight down. There was a lull of a few minutes, during which Dr. Caridad, roused from a shallow nap by the suspension of the drumming on the roof, could hear the streaming and bubbling in the

roof gutters and drains distinct from the hum of the airconditioner. Then, preceded by a reverberating volley of thunder, the rain swept down again, with a different aspect, with wind this time slamming sheets of water, branches and leaves against the walls and windows. In the lamp glow from the bedside table, Dr. Caridad noticed one of his slippers lying in a widening pool between the rugs on the parquet floor. He came out into the hallway, to call a maid to mop up the floor. The door to his younger daughter's room was open, Jocelyn brushing her hair before her dresser and turning the pages of some magazine. Seeing her father, she skipped towards him at once, brisk and bright-eyed, still holding the brush and the magazine, and kissed him on the cheek. "Daddy, we had a wonderful time, Tito Anding said not to fail to come next Saturday, for your golf game, Tito Anding's so good and patient, I mean, giving us the nicest, handsomest horses in the lot. Daddy, are you all right, you look — so tired — how did the luncheon go, Daddy?" "Had a little headache when I got home. The heat. This rain's a relief, isn't it? Where's Mommy? What time did you get back?" "I hope it stops soon," said Jocelyn, sagging against the doorframe, "there's this party tonight I simply cannot miss. That guy from Ateneo, Tonyboy Pineda, tall and guapo, like Richard Gomez, remember him, Daddy? He's picking me up, I mean, with the gang, all of us, it's the anniversary of the Jasmine Club." "You haven't asked my permission," Dr. Caridad said with mock sternness. "I haven't, have I, Daddy? May I? Of course you'll say yes. Yes?" "If this rain lets up, yes." "You are fantastic, Daddy." Bobby's room was unlit and quiet, for once. The boy reclined in the wicker settee under the stairs, jiggling the phone, thin and morose, while the more chubby of the Concepcion twins from across the street stood by, chewing his nails as usual. "Aaah, blasted shit, the line's dead," Bobby wailed as his father passed them on the way to the kitchen. Maripaz Caridad was scolding the new maid from Cebu.

The tonta, she said, had fried the lapu-lapu in vegetable instead of corn oil, in complete disregard of her instructions given clearly and repeatedly before they left this morning. Dios mio, the kind of help you have to put up with these days. How alike they were, she and Jocelyn, rather breathless and impulsive, and with the same ironic intonation, regardless of the problem, language or audience. Dr. Caridad mentioned the leak upstairs, but she did not seem to hear, and he asked about their other daughter. "Susan stayed behind," said Maripaz Caridad. "I was hoping they'd all be home this week, before classes. After Baguio, and Hongkong, I was thinking, before she went back to the university —" "She'll keep Papa company for a few days. She's always been his favorite, you know that. By the way, Anding said to tell you not to miss your next target practice, before your shooting arm gets too rusty, he said." "Something's come up," Dr. Caridad said, tentatively. "I may have to go see him one of these days." "You sound like it's some unwelcome chore." Maripaz Caridad gave him one of her quick irate glances, such as he had once considered both distressing and adorable beyond words, an aspect of her wealth, beauty, and temper, during their long courtship. It seemed so out of character now, the resentful pride glinting across the tired, slack face. Dr. Caridad said, "Some people came to see me today. Just this afternoon, before it started to rain. They were from San Sebastian." His wife told the maids to set the table. She said, "Something about the hacienda?" He used likewise to remark on it, the quick, visible transition in her manner, from an exacting calculation, for instance, to girlish expectancy. "They had some problem which they'd want me to take up with Anding." "Have they talked to Tancinco?" Dr. Caridad made a sound in his throat, half-grunt, halfmoan, indicating either yes, no or maybe, to which sometimes he had recourse in such exchanges with his wife. "Must you take it up with Anding?"

"A small matter, really. Something about a survey, and the hacienda boundary. . ." "That's Tancinco's job. Just leave it to him, he should handle it. Was it last year, there was this group that was threatening to put up a union, imagine, at the Central, after all that we'd done for them. . ." Sighing, Maripaz Caridad directed one of the maids to call Jocelyn and Bobby to the table, they had had a long day and she wished to retire early. There was such a flapping of wind and rain now at the windows that Maripaz Caridad had to call across the dining room to where the Concepcion boy stood about uncertainly, "Nonoy, sit down there, time to eat. It's all right, Nonoy, your folks know you are here, sit down." "Won't this rain ever stop?" Jocelyn said. "How awful, how long do you think this is gonna last?" "Forever and ever, and you're not going to any party," said Bobby. "Is this a typhoon?" asked Maripaz Caridad. "It's been falling for hours. If this keeps up. . ." "There've been no storm signals," Dr. Caridad said. ''Nothing in the papers at all. Bobby, you have that radio in the Lancer fixed, by the way. . ." "Ay, we forgot," said Jocelyn. "Maybe on the TV." "Better not," Dr. Caridad said. "Not with all this lightning. Somebody remind me to get batteries one of these days, at least for the transistor —" "The phone's conked out, Daddy," Bobby said. "Ah, holy shit, I forgot. Fr. Tafiedo called when you were out. Urgent, and to please return his call." "Another fund drive, you can be sure of that," said Maripaz Caridad. "Peping, it's about time he got somebody else as devout. Like your Opus Dei friend, the fat obstetrician, what's his name now?" Dr. Caridad concentrated on the delicious warmth from his brandy Having given up smoking, he all the more savored this occasional indulgence, a small glass of Pedro Domecq before dinner, and a special pleasure indeed on rainy nights like this. "If I could only call Minet or Ching and find out/' Jocelyn

said. "If Tonyboy doesn't come by nine, Daddy, could Mang Vicente drive for me tonight, ha, Daddy?" "He's gone home," said Maripaz Caridad. "You mean you're seriously thinking of going to that affair. . ." "Lousy shit, it must be a swimming party," Bobby said. "Bobby, how many times have I told you to stop saying that word," said Maripaz Caridad. "It's so bastos." Dr. Caridad said, "Bobby can take you. But nobody goes out, unless this rain stops." "It's the first real rain, and about time too, it's been so hot and humid," said Maripaz Caridad. "But it's getting worse. Jocelyn, pass the pochero to Nonoy." Then the lights went out. "Somebody, bring the candles!" Maripaz Caridad commanded, her chair scraping back. "Anastacia! Pining! You know where they're kept in the kitchen." "There are no more, Mum," one of the maids answered tremulously. "Blasted shit, let's use a flashlight," said Bobby. "I saw a bundle in that cupboard only last month," said Maripaz Caridad. "I better go," Nonoy Concepcion whined. "How awful this rain, it had to happen tonight," Jocelyn said. "The Club planned something really, really special, for the end of summer. . ." Dr. Caridad stared into the blackness. It was as if he had fallen into an open, undefined space within the night. He groped for his wine glass on the table cloth and could not find it. He closed his eyes and sat holding himself still, he must not move lest he fall again, deeper into this unknown space; and the total darkness he beheld in his mind seemed to be one and the same as the night now filled with the relentless rain and the spray and thud of the wind against the windowpanes.

AT AROIJND half past ten, with the lights still out and the rain sounding louder in the night, Dr. Caridad at last admitted to himself that the storm was most unusual; and with a prickle of anxiety he rose from his bed to peer out through a window, searching the

darkness outside, the black depths that now smelled of wet earth, cold mud, the pulp of water-softened wood, leaves, and grass. From the other side of the house, towards the garage, he thought he heard the barking of the dog, freed to roam the grounds at night. There was nothing to see from the window, no lights or shadows anywhere in Fortune Village, only the faintest strip of gray above the bamboo groves that separated this part of town from the river. He stood there in his pajamas, disturbed by the force and duration of the rain, until he saw, in a white flicker of lightning, the halfsubmerged wheelbarrow by the swimming pool and the tin cans and planks of wood floating around it in the water below. He cursed the rise of the water outside, the failed electricity, the unending rain. His wife was beside him, and she too tried to see into the streaming dark. "What? What is there. . . ?" He said, "What's that guard doing?" and he snatched up the flashlight from where he had placed it, by the luminous clock on the night table. Jocelyn was outside her door. "Daddy, what's going on, oh, Daddy, won't this rain ever stop?" Dr. Caridad played the flashlight before him, down the hall to the staircase. He realized he could not rouse the help from there even if he shouted, and with increasing alarm, he proceeded down the stairs and the flashlight beam slanted and gleamed across the floor of water in the living room. But where were the maids? And that guard, where was he? Why hadn't they called him, how could they be so stupid. . . He stepped wincing into the water, cold about his slippered feet, and ankle-deep, this was unbelievable, why, it had only been a couple of minutes. Where were they? He could wring their necks, damn all of them. His rapid heartbeat seemed to fiise with the drumming of the rain. "Pining! Anastacia!" Dr. Caridad bellowed in the entry to the kitchen, standing in the swirling, softly tugging water. "Inday! Pining!" And with a catch in his voice, "Guard! Guard!" From out of the darkness before him cold droplets sprayed his face and chest. He directed the flashlight at the maids' room, then, with a tremor of fear, further on to the far end of the kitchen where the back door next to the gas range stood open on the outer darkness. "Anastacia? Pining? Inday?" Before he could reach the door, the German shepherd bounded inside. He patted the dog, feeling it shivering beneath the wet fur.

"Pining!" he called out once more, indignant and afraid, and withdrew from the kitchen, forgetting to bolt the door shut against the black void and the flood. How could they. . . this couldn't be. . . He made his way back to the stairs, stepping unsteadily in the water now inches deeper and seeming to suck at his feet. He discarded his slippers in the dining room. Maripaz Caridad was saying something incomprehensible from the darkness at the top of the stairs. "They aren't here," Dr. Caridad said. "What?" "The maids. They aren't in their room." The dog scratched past him up the stairs. "They are gone." "That cannot be. Impossible — they must be somewhere — " "The water's come inside. Look," Dr. Caridad panted, pointing the flashlight down over the banister at the water in the living room. It was as if the floor itself, the blue and white tiles, had been torn out to expose the churned earth underneath, now like a porridge of mud reflecting a tiny swaying light. "Oh my God!" cried Maripaz Caridad. "What shall we do? Peping, call for help! We must move the piano, the chairs, the Ming vase, my things in the study. The Santo Nino. Jocelyn, get Bobby, do something, oh God —" "Daddy," Jocelyn gasped somewhere in the hall, "what's going on down there. . .?" "Bobby, Bobby, help Daddy!" Maripaz Caridad gripped her husband's arm and would not let go. "Bobby!" The boy joined their huddle on the top landing, his own flashlight creating more clashing shadows. "I've got lots of stuff down there, shit," he snapped as he lunged past Dr. Caridad, who almost lost his balance, wavering on his bare feet. "Bobby!" Dr. Caridad shouted down the stairwell. What was it he wanted to say? He strained to remember, wresting his arm loose from his wife's grasp, and once more descended the stairs. There were wet footprints on the steps, his mind noted as in a numb, partial trance that dissolved as soon as his feet reached the waterline. Bobby was splashing around under the stairs, demanding, "Where's that video cassette? I left that thing right here by the

phone!" and then Dr. Caridad remembered what it was he had to tell his son. Maripaz Caridad was whimpering behind him, "God, oh God, why, Peping. . ." Jocelyn said, shrill and plaintive on the stairs, "Daddy? What are we going to do, Daddy?" "The switch, Bobby," Dr. Caridad began, "the main switch in there beside —" The rest of his words were lost in the massive roar rising about the house. It was like a huge runaway train bearing down on them, he was to recall months later; like a giant infernal machine attacking the house, its fury vibrating on the stairs, on the banister, in the foot of water in which he was then standing, followed by the crash of the French windows between the living room and the terrace breaking inward as the roaring, boiling waves of the flood smashed into the house and he was scampering up the stairs. Bobby was pushing behind, gasping, and Maripaz Caridad continued to scream above them amid the glancing shafts and shadows made by their flashlights. Dr. Caridad gathered his family to him and led them away from the stairs. He must protect them, in the dark and flooding house; comfort them, that was what he must do, that was all he could do, and he said, "We're safe. . . here. . . the water won't rise higher," before he gagged from the fear. He sank down with them on the sofa in the corridor and, spent and shivering, heard the rumbling, hissing high tide of the flood.

THE RAIN dwindled at dawn. Gradually, Dr. Caridad became aware of the altered sounds, of the diminished rain and wind, and the flood not pressing violently now against the concrete house but flowing around and away, slower and spread out like a vast river, like a sea. In the monotone of that ponderous flow, there began a rhythmic muttering in front him. His wife and daughter were praying the rosary, some of their Hail Mary's interrupted by sobs and sniffles. Then he too whispered his own pleas and invocations, "Save us, O Jesus. . . Lord, have mercy. . . Mother of God. . ." He crouched deeper under the blanket, in the leather armchair, dozed, woke up and glanced at the clock beside him. It was a quarter past four o'clock. They had withdrawn to the master bed-

room, at the end of the hall, where it seemed they were farthest, as on the high stern of a ship, from the frontal cleaving of the waters moving past the house. The drizzling rain fell, the body of the flood passed by, less powerful and slower now in the still unrelieved darkness. Soon, he was sure, in the morning, the waters would recede. He tried to imagine the mud, the filth, the wreckage the flood would leave on the floor below; the passbooks and time-deposit certificates and other papers, the things they had brought back from Paris and New York in the study, what a mess. The cars, the cream Mercedes underwater, the engine an absolute ruin. Was the flood as high around the casa in San Sebastian? Susan.. . Anding would come in the helicopter at first light. . . The river rising, the waters coming down from the mountains and growing, widening so swiftly in the night. But hadn't they just built that big dike — a dam? — in Santo Cristo, he had attended to some of the men smashed by the overturned crane... The fragmented images turned abstract, drifted away from him. He would confront his losses in the morning, not now, not yet; and he reminded himself to keep still, as when the lights went out, to keep from falling deeper into a black space. But he began to fall against his will, and woke up to the dog's furious barking outside in the corridor. Dr. Caridad staggered to the door, disconcerted by the cold dimness, the hour, the passage of the strange waters rustling like felled trees being dragged away in a fevered dream such as had visited him once in childhood. The guard dog kept up its barking and growling at the head of the stairs. Was there someone. . . something. . . Bobby came out with his flashlight, and he and Dr. Caridad moved forward together, Bobby saying, soothingly, "Prince, what's bothering you, easy now, Prince. . ." The flashlight showed the dog bristling and braced as if about to hurl itself down from the top landing. "Prince, come back here, c'mon, Prince," said Bobby, and the drowsy thought filtered into Dr. Caridad's mind that the dog must have come upon one of those cats that wandered homeless in the neighborhood. He glanced down over the banister, and smelled the wet acrid rot of the flood. Dr. Caridad flinched from the odor, and in that instant two images imprinted themselves almost simultaneously in his brain: in

the half-light from the tall windows by the stairwell, the flood level lapped midway up the stairs, at the twelfth or thirteenth step; and directly in front of the step awash in the water, a shadowy shape floated, long and extended like a log. Then the object swiveled so that one end of it touched the stairs at a sharp angle, and Dr. Caridad saw it more clearly then: a banca with men in it. One of them, wearing a hat, was rising and pointing, it seemed, a stick at him. It was absurd — incredible! outrageous! — a banca in his living room. The first volley cut down Bobby and the dog even as the animal sprang down and then tumbled on the stairs into the water. Dr. Caridad hesitated for a second, then ran. Another burst of automatic rifle fire ripped at the ceiling, showering down chunks of wood and plaster as he ran. He slammed the bedroom door shut. He was trembling so hard the knob rattled in his sweating hand. He tore his hand from the knob and Maripaz Caridad and Jocelyn were screaming. "Quiet!" And then, whispering hoarsely, "Be quiet. Don't make a sound." He tugged at a chair, tilted it against the door. The rocker to©, and that stool — he pushed, kicked at the furniture, building a barrier, a soundless cry trapped in his throat. The armchair, the bed —" Jocelyn, stop that, come push!" Maripaz Caridad cowered -beside her dresser and from her mouth issued a shrill, stuttering chant. They've killed Bobby, the thought thrust at him as from a distance. Dr. Caridad then proceeded to do what he knew he must even as in his heart, in the inmost center of his being, he recoiled from the lonely and despairing compulsion. These men might still spare them if he placed himself totally at their mercy. But once he removed the gun from the velvet case wedged inside the drawer, the moment he did that, there would be no reprieve, no delaying the confrontation of his own death. The pearl-handled .38-caiiber revolver had, as always, a reassuring compact weight, just right, a gift from Anding. Dr. Caridad collected the picture frames from the round table in the darker half of the room — he knew each one by heart, by feel: photographs of their wedding, of baptisms, first communions and graduations — and placed them one on top of the other carefully on the rug, beside the pail for the leak in the ceiling. Then, almost with a kind of exultation, he positioned himself on

one knee, facing the door, with the gun in both hands propped on the marble top of the table. His heart pounded, he felt a longing to weep, and he waited in the cold and the dark. The door exploded in gashes of red flame. Dr. Caridad fired at the smoking, disintegrating door, fired again at the figure suddenly framed in the dissolving dark. The man doubled up and smashed headlong into the overturned rocker, his M-16 rifle clattering and sliding on the floor. The second man, with a .45 automatic, shot Jocelyn in the breast and stomach before Dr. Caridad could turn the gun steady on the table around to the right and drop him sprawling across the bed with a slug in the back of the head. As the man rolled with a gurgling moan on the bed, a third assailant swung a bolo with vertical force down at Maripaz Caridad huddled against the dresser, slicing her face open from forehead to chin, and then shouting frenziedly whirled towards Dr. Caridad, who fired his last two shots. The slashing blade cut into the flesh of Dr. Caridad's forearm and chipped the edge of the table, then the man swayed, uttering something like a mournful query, collapsed and lay still. The sounds of the rain and the flood came back to the room, and fading away the thump of running feet out in the corridor. The rain was still falling on the flooded plain that stretched to the far horizon, a light misty rain in the pale dusk of the morning, when the amphibian tank from Camp Makabulos north of Tarlac came to Fortune Village about two hours later and the soldiers in their green raincoats, paddling their rubber raft, found Dr. Jose Caridad sitting in his blood-splattered pajamas at the top of the stairs, under the shattered frame of the Sacred Heart, looking formal and reflective with his hands clasped on his knees and his head cocked slightly to one side, staring down at the brown flood on the level of the tenth or eleventh step, at the tangled weeds and garbage and chairs and a dead dog and some chickens floating in the nearly motionless water, and saying in a gentle, wondering voice, 'They had no right. . . coming into my house that way. . . my house. . . absolutely no right. . . no. . . right. .

On a Clear Day in November, Shortly Before the Millennium

T

HIS TIME, on the drive to Tarlac, Rene Cabrera had only two of the children for company, Milagros having left for Iloilo a week earlier with the elder girl and the younger boy. So many were leaving for the provinces after the first Signs were reported at the start of October, and the ship had been shockingly overcrowded; but she had managed to share one of the last cabins on the San Pedro, thanks to a cousin's brother-in-law who worked in the shipping office. A day or two later and she might have had to give up the trip by boat; she might have tried then against all odds for plane tickets, although she was afraid of flying. No question about it, Rene explained to his mother as soon as he arrived: Milagros couldn't come, she had to be in Jaro as her parents, a brother and two sisters were buried there. Still, his father would surely want to meet her and the two children today, his mother pointed out as Rene, Mike and Alice took their lunch in the old house that he had never seen so crowded, so festive, since the wedding of his younger sister, Cely, eleven years ago. His two brothers had come with their wives and children, and his sister Belen too with her teenage daughters, one of whom was now playing a disco tune on the piano in the sala while another demonstrated some dance steps, before a chattering, squealing crowd of cousins. Tia Pepang came into the spacious, newly repainted blue and white kitchen, shaking her head, frowning at the music and the clapping in the sala: "They shouldn't be so noisy on a day like this,"

she said. "A time for prayer, for reflection, as Padre San Juan was saying during Mass this morning —" "A time to celebrate, too," Rene's mother said. "A glorious day, thanks be to God . . . Alice, Mike, go on and eat. We have barely three hours —" "Rene, you should have come yesterday yet," said Tia Pepang. "Or early this morning. Then you wouldn't have missed the best parts of the lechon. Mike, your Papa must have gotten up late again." "Nope," said Mike. "No, Lola Pepang," Rene prompted the boy. "No, Lola Epang," said Mike, "we all got up early." "Very, very early," Alice said. "We were all set to come yesterday. I had to have the car fixed. Then today, we ran into more than a couple of traffic jams." Rene had to lean toward the two old women across the table and speak louder because of the sounds from the sala. "There was this bottleneck at the end of the new expressway, and then a long one, maybe two ox three hours, near Capas." "What did yQu expect on a day like this?" said Tia Pepang in the high chidiqg tone Rene remembered from his boyhood. "What if you^had been delayed, if the car had broken down on the road. . Then you would not be able —" "Thank God you're here," his mother said, her eyes shining. "But the children must be starved. It's way past lunchtime —" "Pm not hungry," Mike said. "They had something to eat on the way," said Rene. "Hotdogs," Mike said. "And French fries." "And ice cream," said Alice. "And Cheeze Curls," Mike said. * "You call that a proper lunch?" Tia Pepang's thin lips curled disapprovingly. "At least finish your soup, and the pancit. I cooked that myself. There's no telling how long we may have to stay out there in the cemetery." "We were there for awhile this morning," his mother said. "Ay, the crowds — never have I seen so many people. . ." "Yesterday, too, and the day before," said Tia Pepang. "I wish the people were more serious, though. There's just too much noise and scurrying around, like a fiesta."

"But it is a fiesta, Pepang," said his mother in her warm, happy voice. "And everybody's looking forward to the Visits at four o'clock —" "Actually, any time between four o'clock and sunset," said Tia Pepang. "We don't know the exact hour, except that it's going to be late in the afternoon. . ." "To be able to see them again," his mother said, her eyes aglow. "No one knows when the world will be given another Day ofVisitation." "Padre San Juan said, just once or twice in a hundred years." Tia Pepang clasped her dry, thin hands as if in prayer. "The last time, Rene," his mother said, filling their glasses from a pitcher, "was when you were seven, no, eight years old. . ." "When Daddy was a little boy?" said Alice. "You be quiet," said Mike. "Yes, your Daddy was younger even than Mike here," his mother said. "Mike is ten years old,' said Alice. "You know, Mama," Rene said, "I can't remember anything from that day —" "What, Rene?" Belen sat down beside him, pulling her youngest girl onto her lap. "What's this you don't remember?" "That Day, when we were kids. I can't recall anything, except — except that Grandfather — Lolo Ponsong — wore a white suit and had a mustache. . ." "I suppose he will be the same." Tia Pepang looked at them solemnly. "They'd look the way we remember them. They don't suffer any change, ever, Padre San Juan said. The passage of time doesn't affect them anymore, in any way. Like your Tio Carlos. . " "But in eternity they don't have bodies," Rene said. "I mean, they are souls, aren't they, and so who — what — will we see .. .? "It's like they are given a — Padre San Juan told us — an appearance we can see just for today, for All Saints' Day," Tia Pepang said. "I wonder — how about those in unmarked graves?" Rene said. "Or people with their bodies blown to pieces, or cut up, or cremated? And at the Last Judgment. . . the resurrection of the body. . .?"

"Leave those problems to God Almighty," said Tia Pepang. "The Lord himself rose from the dead, and he should know what— Ay, Rene, you college professors ask too many questions." Three of Rene's nephews raced laughing through the kitchen, shoving one another, scurrying down the back steps. ccYou were telling us about Tio Carlos," said Rene. "Yes, I saw him, just his face for a moment, there, under the acacia tree." Tia Pepang closed her eyes and brought her clasped hands to her lips. "Looking as fat and pleased with himself, as on the day he had his heart attack." "That is one of the Signs," his mother said. "I've seen your father, too. Three times this month. Just his face . . . " "Three times, Mama?" said Belen, fixing the white ribbon in her daughter's hair. "That's wonderful! He appeared to me only once, and only for a few seconds. And also Manang Angeling . . ." "Oh, yes, my little girl, Angela," his mother said. "She was only six years old . . . " "Yes, the faces appearing on walls, or on the trunks of old trees," said Tia Pepang, starting to clear the table. "And also their voices at night, and the lights in the sky . . . " "Everyone in town has seen the lights, almost every night for the past two weeks," his mother said.

R.I.P. CARLOS SAGUN CONCEPCION Born—February 10,1905 Died—May 25,1960 Remembrance of his loving wife

"I've seen the lights, too. Once," said Rene. "The ones we saw, Daddy?" said Alice. "The candles in the sky?" "They weren't candles," said Mike. "They just looked like they were candles, silly." "We've seen them all," his mother said.

"The Signs have made it clear," Tia Pepang closed her eyes again and sighed, "this is the Day of the Visitation." "We'll see Lolo, Daddy?" said Alice, tugging at Rene's arm. "Be quiet," said Mike as a swarm of youngsters led by Marites who had been playing the piano tramped into the kitchen for soft drinks from the refrigerator, followed by Rene's brother Titong, waving a mug of beer and swaying, pretending to be drunk. "It's almost time, people," said Titong, huge and teasing as ever, waving his mug. Cely, who was seven months pregnant, appeared at the door behind him and tried to tickle him under his upraised arm. "Don't do that, you're spilling my beer," laughed Titong, making as if to claw her face with his free hand. "Hey, we ought to get going. We can't keep them waiting forever, can we, now?" "Titong, what a bad example you're giving the children. Titong!" Tia Pepang wrested the beer mug from him and consigned it to the sink. "Drinking on a day like this!" "But, Tia Pepang, it was just one beer!" Titong exclaimed cheerfully. "Nothing to be upset about. Tia Pepang's feeling nervous, kids — she's got so many things to tell Tio Carlos and she doesn't know where to begin —" "That's enough now, Titong," said Belen. "Mama, I think it's time," said Cely. "You come with us. Rene, you have room in your car? Tia Pepang and some of the children . . . " "Yes, sure," he said. "Of course. Give me a minute. I'll change into my barong." "Rene, don't tarry, you might have trouble parking," Titong said. "Remember, it's only the second Visitation Day of the century, and the whole town'11 be there, isn't that right, ha, Tia Pepang?" "Ay, Titong, must you drink on a day like this," said Tia Pepang.

THE NOVEMBER afternoon was cool, sunlit, with a brisk wind raising a fine spray of dust and rippling the acacias on the corner where the Galang house still stood, many of its capiz-shell

windows broken, unrepaired, since his friend Chito Galang's father died eight years ago. Driving out of the long leafy shade into the main street, he saw the sky, tinted a strange dark blue, without glare and absolutely cloudless, so unlike the dull, soiled sky of the morning. All space above the trees and the roofs of the town, above the banners, the arches proclaiming the Day of the Visitation, seemed to be filled evenly, flawlessly, with the strange blue brightness: it was the final Sign, said Tia Pepang beside him in the station wagon, this color of the sky. They passed a house he had often visited, now looking faded and without the vine-covered porch where he had spent long hours with a girl he once loved; and on another street, near the river, the house of a high school classmate, an earnest, stuttering boy with whom he served at Mass and who drowned during a summer picnic in Dagupan. Some of the streets leading to the cemetery on the southern fringe of the town had been cemented since he came for the fiesta in January; the other streets were as they had always been, the dark brown quiet houses changeless behind their San Francisco hedges or split-bamboo fences gray as dust. He backed up from a street clogged with jeepneys and carromatas, and a policeman signaled him into Osmena Street, where he parked beside a bus, on a vacant lot beside the rice mill, three blocks from the main cemetery gate. They joined the crowd hurrying under the flower-bedecked arches and varicolored bunting, a throng more numerous and, it struck him, happier, more eager than on any All Saints5 Day he had known in the town. Alice stepped on something dark and sticky in the pebbly dust of the street and would not budge until Rene had scraped it off her shoe with a stick. The pause gave Tia Pepang another chance to remind the children, including two of his brother Lito's boys and Cely's eldest boy, about the Rules of the Visitation: they should remain quiet during the Visit, and then answer only when spoken to; they must not get too close to the Visitors nor try to touch them; they must avoid sudden, distracting movements. Violating any of these might offend the Visitors and cut short their stay; anyone who didn't behave would be answerable to her, she warned them tremulously, the children looking up at her with wide anxious eyes. Music from a brass band swelled closer as Rene approached

the cemetery, Mike and Alice firmly in hand on either side of him. Roadside vendors beckoned to them, a cluster of balloons bobbed above their heads as they made way for a file of tricycles. Someone called to Rene across the street: his cousin Nonong with a little boy in a cowboy suit astride his shoulders, together with h is wife, Luning, also come from Manila for the Day of the Visitation. The brass band, in white uniforms and black, yellowtrimmed service caps, began to play a Strauss waltz on the platform to one side of the main gate. Rene saw that it was Mr. Lingasin's family of musicians on the platform built over their parents' graves. He led his children down the dirt path that cut diagonally across the cemetery to the older western section where the Cabreras had their family plot. Familiar faces smiled or spoke a greeting in the crowd milling among the tombs; he thought he saw the sister of the girl he once loved standing by a gravestone and then a tall, white-haired man whose name he could not recall stopped on the path to squeeze his shoulder and shake his hand. A small rush of wind snuffed out some candles, and the band thumped out a kundiman, the music throbbing fainter through the shifting crowd to where Rene's mother and his brothers and sisters waited for the Hour of the Visitation.

ALFONSO CABRERA Y SANTOS March 4,1895-June 2, 1978 Love and prayers from his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren

Enclosed by an iron-grilled fence some three feet high, the family plot of the Cabreras was partly shaded now by the bamboo trees that rose beyond the wall niches in that part of the cemetery. In the slant of shade like early dusk, on chairs and benches set on the strip of grass before the newly whitewashed tombs, the candles and garlands, they sat with a rather formal air, speaking in soft, expectant voices. Rene and his children found their assigned places to one side of the group, close to the cracked, stained back wall of

a mausoleum. Tia Pepang took her seat beside Rene's mother in the front row and directly facing his grandfather's elevated tomb with its silver-painted cross and twin cherubim, the roses and carnations. The two women brought out their rosaries and their "Ave Marias" blended into the vast ceaseless murmur pressing in on them from every side. Titong turned around to tell Rene he hoped the Visitors had synchronized their watches; somebody shushed him, Tia Pepang cast him an annoyed, despairing glance and one of the boys giggled. Rene gazed up at the strange dark blue sky that contained not a single shred of cloud. The sun flashed and streamed through the feathery tops of bamboo trees to the west and Rene thought of the day of his father's burial, a July day of rain and wind: he had a bad cold and kept blowing his nose through it all, his eyes itchy from grief and a slight fever. His eyes dropped to the level of the mango trees beyond the far opposite wall of the cemetery and he heard the band strike up the vaguely nostalgic refrain of a march. He tried to recall all the dead whose names he knew in their neighborhood of tombs: Cruz, Divinagracia, Salvacion, Espiritu, Apostol, de Jesus, Resureccion; their kinsfolk were waiting, too, on this cool, clear Day of the Visitation. So many — imagine the chaos, the tumult if. . . but each family, each group, would hear only the voices of its own. As Tia Pepang would say, God certainly knew His busines. . . "We should be playing mahjong instead of just sitting around like this," his brother Lito was saying. "What?" Lito's wife Remy said. "Playing mahjong at this time, here?" "What time is it?" Belen asked. "What shall we tell Papa?" asked Cely. "I bet they know more about what's going on than we do," said Titong. Mike said in Rene's ear, "Lolo's sure to come, Daddy? And the Daddy ofLolo?" "Yes," Rene said. "Just keep still, huh?' "But what's taking them so long?" "I don't know, Mike," Rene said. The boy said, after a while, "Is it because they have to come a long, long way?"

"Maybe," Rene said, noting the healing cut on the forehead and the neat part of his son's hair. "Yes, that could well be the reason." "What, Daddy?" Alice clutched at his hand. "What did you say?" "Can they fly as fast as a jet?" Mike asked. "That's a pretty dress you're wearing, Alice," said Cely. "Alice, you want some bubble gum?" asked Belen's youngest daughter, Marilen. "Don't make it pop," said Mike. "You'll make Lola Epang angry."

FRANCISCA SISON-CABRERA September 25,1898-Apri! 10,1983 In loving memory

RENE was staring unseeingly at the trampled grass at his feet, thinking of Milagros with the two children waiting too in Jaro; like all of them gathered here waiting in the cool November day under the same dark blue and cloudless sky, when he became aware of the swift fading out of sounds, a stillness in which he could hear, no longer the band playing, but only the beating, it seemed, of his heart. As he glanced up a cry broke out, a clamor of shouts rose beyond the mass of tombs in front of him, and then a multitude of voices calling, as if people were hailing one another all at once across the cemetery. The tumult receded like a sea, followed by a hissing, a murmuring wave and a spreading silence, and Tia Pepang was imploring them all to be quiet, to keep still. Titong and Lito had risen, blocking Rene's view. His brothers moved to one side and he saw the Visitors standing in the unshaded portion of the plot, close together, shoulders touching, there in the bright air between his grandfather's tomb and his father's. The figures had about them a clarity, a sharpness of outline and detail as in a moist, newly printed color photograph; they were a shade more vivid, it seemed, than the golden light of the after-

a mausoleum. Tia Pepang took her seat beside Rene's mother in the front row and directly facing his grandfather's elevated tomb with its silver-painted cross and twin cherubim, the roses and carnations. The two women brought out their rosaries and their "Ave Marias" blended into the vast ceaseless murmur pressing in on them from every side. Titong turned around to tell Rene he hoped the Visitors had synchronized their watches; somebody shushed him, Tia Pepang cast him an annoyed, despairing glance and one of the boys giggled. Rene gazed up at the strange dark blue sky that contained not a single shred of cloud. The sun flashed and streamed through the feathery tops of bamboo trees to the west and Rene thought of the day of his father's burial, a July day of rain and wind: he had a bad cold and kept blowing his nose through it all, his eyes itchy from grief and a slight fever. His eyes dropped to the level of the mango trees beyond the far opposite wall of the cemetery and he heard the band strike up the vaguely nostalgic refrain of a march. He tried to recall all the dead whose names he knew in their neighborhood of tombs: Cruz, Divinagracia, Salvacion, Espiritu, Apostol, de Jesus, Resureccion; their kinsfolk were waiting, too, on this cool, clear Day of the Visitation. So many — imagine the chaos, the tumult if. . . but each family, each group, would hear only the voices of its own. As Tia Pepang would say, God certainly knew His busines.. . "We should be playing mahjong instead of just sitting around like this," his brother Lito was saying. "What?" Lito's wife Remy said. "Playing mahjong at this time, here?" "What time is it?" Belen asked. "What shall we tell Papa?" asked Cely. "I bet they know more about what's going on than we do," said Titong. Mike said in Rene's ear, "Lolo's sure to come, Daddy? And the Daddy of Lolo?" "Yes," Rene said. "Just keep still, huh?' "But what's taking them so long?" "I don't know, Mike," Rene said. The boy said, after a while, "Is it because they have to come a long, long way?"

"Maybe," Rene said, noting the healing cut on the forehead and the neat part of his son's hair. "Yes, that could well be the reason." "What, Daddy?" Alice clutched at his hand. "What did you say?" "Can they fly as fast as a jet?" Mike asked. "That's a pretty dress you're wearing, Alice," said Cely. "Alice, you want some bubble gum?" asked Belen's youngest daughter, Marilen. "Don't make it pop," said Mike. "You'll make Lola Epang angry."

FRANCISCA SISON-CABRERA September 25,1898-April 10,1983 In loving memory

RENE was staring unseeingly at the trampled grass at his feet, thinking of Milagros with the two children waiting too in Jaro; like all of them gathered here waiting in the cool November day under the same dark blue and cloudless sky, when he became aware of the swift fading out of sounds, a stillness in which he could hear, no longer the band playing, but only the beating, it seemed, of his heart. As he glanced up a cry broke out, a clamor of shouts rose beyond the mass of tombs in front of him, and then a multitude of voices calling, as if people were hailing one another all at once across the cemetery. The tumult receded like a sea, followed by a hissing, a murmuring wave and a spreading silence, and Tia Pepang was imploring them all to be quiet, to keep still. Titong and Lito had risen, blocking Rene's view. His brothers moved to one side and he saw the Visitors standing in the unshaded portion of the plot, close together, shoulders touching, there in the bright air between his grandfather's tomb and his father's. The figures had about them a clarity, a sharpness of outline and detail as in a moist, newly printed color photograph; they were a shade more vivid, it seemed, than the golden light of the after-

noon sun shining full on them. His father was smiling and nodding, the deep gash, from the car accident twelve years ago, livid but dry on his forehead. His hands rested on the shoulders of the child Angela in front of him, the sister Rene never knew, in her First Communion dress with a blue sash, her eyes cheerful and inquiring as in the yellowish picture of her in its ornate frame in the sala. Tio Carlos, too, was smiling, rather humorous and stout in his coat and tie. His grandfather appeared as Rene remembered him from long ago, gaunt and stooped in his white suit and stroking a point of his gray mustache, while his grandmother, looking puzzled and fragile beside her husband, fidgeted with a butterfly sleeve of her rose embroidered terno. His father's eyes seemed to rest for a second on Rene, and he gripped the steel back of the chair before him. He felt the tears coming and it was as if his heart were burning in him, and Tia Pepang was saying, in a firm taut voice that didn't sound like her at all, "We're here, as you can see, to greet you . . . On behalf of the family, the children of Alfonso Cabrera, all of us who love and remember you, I bid you welcome . . ." "Must you be so serious, Pepang," his father said, adjusting the cuffs of his barong. "You don't sound glad at all to see us." "No speeches now, Pepang," Tio Carlos said, winking, patting his stomach. "I heard enough from you before my heart gave out." His father chuckled and nudged Tio Carlos beside him. "Now, now, Pepang, don't cry, you know Carlos is only joking, as usual. Hello, Meding. My dearest Meding . . ." His mother took a step forward. "Yes, dear, I'm here, how are — Angela, my darling little girl, Angge . . . " "Hello, Mama," Angela said, waving a chubby hand. The girl looked around at all of them. "Hello there." 4C You look so happy," his mother said. "I know you are —" "The children," his father said. "I hope they are all here, Meding." cc Yes, all of them," his mother answered."Titong, Belen, Lito. Cely and Rene back there.They're all here, everyone but Nitoy, Belen's husband. Titong's wife, Joy. And Milagros, she's in Iloilo." His grandfather cleared his throat. "Milagros? Who is this Milagros? Do I know her?"

"Who is in Iloilo?" his grandmother asked in her soft, quavering voice. "Milagros, Rene's wife, Mama," Tia Pepang said. "Sit down," his grandfather pointed a bony finger at the chairs, "all of you, take your seats. Don't mind us standing. I don't know about your Lola here. We don't need to sit down at all. Let me just lean back here against, ah, my resting place." "Well, Meding," said his father, "you're looking well. You watch your weight, though. You'll be sixty-seven come December, and at that age —" "Sixty-six," his mother said. "At that age, you can't be too careful. Now if Carlos here hadn't been so fond of crispy pata and adobo. . . Have the children been looking after you?" "We have, Papa," Titong spoke up. "You need not worry about that." "I stay with Cely and Ben — that's her husband there," said his mother. "In the old house, together with Pepang." "You take care of your Tia Pepang too," said Tio Carlos. "She has lost weight. You are not ailing, are you, Pepang?" "No, I don't think so," said Tia Pepang. "It's just that I don't sleep as well as I used to." "She cooks for us but eats so little," his mother said. Tio Carlos regarded his widow pensively. "Maybe you ought to see a doctor. Now, if we had been blessed with children, one of them might have studied to be a doctor." "We'll have a doctor in the family someday soon," his mother said. "Titong's eldest boy is taking up medicine." "Who's this grandson of mine who is going to be a doctor?" His father's stern gaze softened as he surveyed the gathering. "AJ here," Titong said. "Alfonso — he was named after you, Lolo. Stand up, Al. He's in his third year med. In the top ten of his class, too." "Excellent," his grandfather nodded vigorously. "Very good. You keep it up, Al. Now, any lawyers among my grandsons? My great-grandchildren? Anyone carrying on in the, ah, great tradition that I began?" "It could have been Lito,' his mother answered, "but he dropped out, Papa."

"He had a good reason, I'm sure," his father said. "So how do you keep busy, Lito, aside from siring all these children?" "Remy and I have this restaurant, here in town, Papa," said Lito. "In a good location, I must say, right across from the bus station.' "Looks like you're doing all right," his father said. "About the children — let's start with the graduates. Titong . . ." "Sylvia here's just finished commerce, Papa," said Titong. "She's reviewing for the CPA exams." "What's this CPA?" his grandmother asked. "Certified Public Accountant, Lola," said Titong's wife, Sonia. "We have a boy taking up engineering at the UP Papa," Lito said. "Stand up and take a bow, Eddie. Josie and Dan are in high school, Alex, Robert and Victor back there are still in the grades."

ANGELA BAUZON CABRERA May 10,1931-August 6,1937 Love and remembrance from Papa and Mama

"And you, Rene," his father turned to him, the soft slanting sun gleaming on the buttons of the barong, "how many children have you and Milagros added to the national population?" "We have four, Papa." He spoke through the tightness, the gladness that was also an ache in his throat. "Mike and Alice are here with me. Mike is in grade six at the Ateneo, Alice in grade four, at Saint Theresa's in Quezon City." "Hold her up so I can see her, Rene." His grandmother craned her neck and waved to Alice. "Hello, Alice," the child Angela said. "And the two who are with Milagros, what are their names?" his father asked. "Jun and Lisa," said Rene. "Lisa's the eldest, she's sixteen." "These prim and proper ladies here must be Beien's," Tio Carlos said.

"Maribel there on the right is a freshman at UST," said Belen. "Marites, Maricar and Marilen are still in high school." "Fine," his grandfather rubbed his palms together, smiling, "excellent. That about takes care of the young generation." cc Not quite," his father said. "How can we ever forget our dear little Araceli?" "She's grown up, Papa, and gotten big," said Titong. "Yes, indeed," his father laughed, pleased. "Cely, I see you've got another baby coming."
"About the town," his father said rather impatiently, "what else has changed?" "Most of the old houses on Calle Mabini are gone," his mother said. "The house of our compadre Binong Guzman burned down in a big fire a few years ago. There are concrete buildings there now, and shops. That piece of land we had across the river. The brother of Dr. Dizon bought it — we had to sell. . ." "A lot of things have changed since I left this world, that's for sure," said Tio Carlos. "In the town, the country. Maybe there's one thing that hasn't changed all this time. Politics. The politicians." "Quite a few changes there, Tio," said Lito. "The government, the elections. We have another woman President. And Congress —" "Let's not get started on that," his father said. "I can speak with some authority on that subject, having once run for mayor and lost," his grandfather said. "Back in 1940, when my good friend Eloy Resureccion asked if I could help the party —" "Please, Ponsong," his grandmother sounded frantic imploring, "there are other things — the sun is going down —" "We don't have much time," said Tia Pepang. "Yes, yes, of course," his grandfather said, suddenly subdued and contrite. "The other things. About the family, the children — tell us about your joys and sorrows, your dreams . . . "

TITONG was recounting something, his tone ironic, teasing, and his father and Tio Carlos were laughing; and then the mood changed, the bantering and the laughter ceased, and .Rene listened to them speaking of faith, hope, and love, separations and reunions, and what it meant to live the years of one's life, and what it meant to die and enter into eternal life, which is the life of God. He leaned over Titong's shoulder the better to see and listen; but soon the figures standing by the tombs began to waver and dim, as if screened by a shimmer of heat rising from the earth, although the afternoon had turned even cooler, and the voices of his grandparents and of his father and his little sister and uncle grew fainter, so that questions and answers had to be repeated: "What did you say?" some-one

pleaded, and "Yes, we're listening, tell us more about God's love," from yet another. The voices strained, reached out through the air already touched by gray shadows, and then the sun was hidden by the clumps of bamboo behind the tiers of tombs in the west, the light of the clear day and the strange sky falling, sinking into the earth, fading.

"I am the Resurrection and the Life" CESAR S.CABRERA October 15,1918-July 9,1981

"They are going!" Rene heard the cry from someone close by in the spreading dusk. "It's over, oh, they are leaving!" "Goodbye, Papa." "Ba-bye, Lolo, Lola." "So long, Carlos, I love you." "We all love you." "Goodbye, Angeling, my baby." "We will always love you, remember you." "Happy trip, Papa. Take care. Don't go where you're not supposed to." "Titong, be serious for once!" "Goodbye!" "They are leaving now, Daddy?" Mike asked. "Where are they going, Daddy?" Alice asked. "Daddy, I can't see!" Rene hoisted up his daughter in his arms and he saw them like pale smoke on a windless day. They were dissolving into the twilight, the feet vanishing first, then the legs, some invisible obscuring tide rising to their chests and shoulders, reclaiming them until, in less than a minute, only their faces lingered, smiling in the last light, in the candlelight. "Goodbye. Thank you for the visit, thank you from all of us. So long. . ." "Farewell, I love you."

"We will never forget." "We'll meet again." "God love you." "Goodbye." It was dark enough now for the candles to burn with sharp pointed flames in the empty motionless air. Rene sat still and looked at the candles, at his mother thoughtful and smiling as if to herself. For awhile he didn't move and he felt alone and was grateful for what he had seen and heard, and his heart was beating fast in his chest that was warm as if he carried a fire burning within him, like the men, now he remembered the story, on the road to Emmaus. Then his brothers and sisters began to move about, talking, calling to one another. Titong laughed softly and Tia Pepang seemed again to be scolding him; a child whimpered and another was crying and Cely was saying, "His bottle, don't you see, he wants his bottle," and Lito was asking Rene to help with the chairs. The band started to play again down by the gate of the cemetery, "Vaya con Dios," and then a spirited version, almost like a march, of "Hindi Kita Malimot," and the fireworks began, courtesy of Mayor Langit and the Camiling Chinese Commercial Association, Titong said. A pair of pinwheels blazed over the new, less crowded section of the cemetery by the eastern wall; rockets climbed up the evening sky and burst into multicolored embers that floated down and blinked out over the tombs, the candles, the crowd shifting, thinning out, streaming toward the gates. Rene helped his brothers stack up the folding chairs and he wondered how the Day had gone with Milagros and the elder girl and the younger boy in Iloilo. His mother called to him. He went to her and he saw the happiness like the warm reflection of a candle held close to her face. "Let us go, Rene," his mother said. "It's getting cold. And the children should eat early." Mike ran up to him, panting from a race around the family plot with his cousins. "I want a cheeseburger, Daddy. And a Coke, Daddy." "I want to go home," said Alice. With his daughter snug and sleepy in his arms, and his mother and Mike following close behind, Rene Cabrera led the way

across the field of tombs and candles to the gate and the band playing, the lights of the town and the streets filled with people going home.

The Apollo Centennial

W

AITING BY THE RIVER. When Arcadio Nagbuya and his two sons arrive on the riverbank, the heat has already begun, the bright humid windlessness of the July morning. It was cool going down the trail from Camanggaan through the talahib and the bamboo brakes: but here by the river the broad slope of sand lies open to the sun, and Arcadio Nagbuya can feel the warmth of the sandgrains underfoot as they stand about waiting for the raft. By Mr. Balaoing's watch it is not yet seven o'clock: they should be in the city well before nine. The thin, impatient schoolteacher, wearing an orange polka-dot necktie for the occasion, alternately shades and fans himself with a magazine, and wonders aloud what is taking Lacay Ustong so long. His English affirms his calling, a certificate of distinction which all recognize: "I tol' hem to be hearrr earrrly," he says to no one in particular, "what eiss de materr wit' dot man," waving the magazine impatiently at the miniature hills and craters of gray sand, the hollows still wet from yesterday's rain, the women washing clothes in the green water beside the posts of the ruined bridge, the bus parked on the opposite bank. As he lowers the hand holding the magazine the boys edge closer for a look: reluctantly he opens it for them, the gloss of the pages with the color photographs of the old spacecraft and the astronauts glinting in the hard sun. Arcadio Nagbuya glimpses some of the larger type of the Tagilocan text before the schoolteacher resumes his irritated fanning: "ANG NAUNANG TAO SA RABAW TI

BUAN . . . SI ARMSTRONG KEN ALDRIN. . " If he could borrow the magazine, to show to the boys: but overcome by a certain shy courtesy he merely smiles at Mr. Balaoing, grateful for the schoolteacher's brief gesture. THE RAFT. His shirt beginning to wilt moistly around his frail shoulders, Mr. Balaoing has set off for the shade of the coconut grove facing the sandy beach, and he has almost reached the slanted trunks with their fronds shredded by the last typhoon when the boys start shouting and jumping. He hurries back to rejoin the group and nearly trips on a mound, recovers his balance, then proceeds slowly, rather formally, towards Arcadio Nagbuya and the others as Lacay Ustong's nephew Pedring poles the raft closer to the riverbank. The boys are chuckling into their hands, and Arcadio Nagbuya gives the older one's hat a scolding brush, pushing it down over the boy's eyes. Being in Grade Five, Dolfo is not in Mr. Balaoing's class, and his buck teeth are curved widely in soundless laughter. His uncle's rheumatism is troubling him again, Pedring explains, digging the pole glumly into the river. Mr. Balaoing squats on the bamboos of the raft, the magazine tented over his head. "ISANG GASUT TAON TI APOLLO 11," Arcadio Nagbuya reads the white letters superimposed on the gray cratered moon above the faces of the three astronauts. And: "Imprenta ti United States Information Bureau, Southeast Asia Department, Territory of the Philippines," he reads on the black back cover highlighted by the sun, his lips moving around the words. Happily he tightens his grip on his younger son's shoulder, and he smiles inwardly at his ability to read both English and Tagilocan, at this rare morning's journey to the city, the sure gliding movement of the raft, the sun full and warm on the green river. THE BUS. The maroon Twin Sisters Bus is a converted Nakajima truck with five wooden benches behind the driver's seat. On the high rack behind the windshield rest plastic figurines of the Blessed Virgin and San Martin de Porres: on the rack itself, painted unsteadily on the peeling wood, is a Tagilocan invocation reminding these powerful advocates before the heavenly throne to protect passengers from flat tires, highway robbers, and other hazards of

the road. Behind the last bench and occupying the rest of the vehicle is a storage compartment, now filled to the roof with sacks of charcoal, bundles of kakawati firewood, vegetable crates, and chicken cages. On the platform jutting out from the rear of the compartment are piled more chicken cages, a goat with hostile bloodshot eyes, and three pigs grunting passively, bound for the slaughterhouse in the city. The bus is one of the more dilapidated units of the fleet operated by the Hashimoto sisters in the western part of the province, where they own a sawmill, a chain of videoramic theaters, and other enterprises. For a time Arcadio Nagbuya worked for the sisters, in the sawmill in San Clemente: improbable twins, one huge and laughing like a humorous sumo wrestler, the other a delicate beauty with nervous eyes seemingly being pushed outward by her goiter. He might have made foreman had he chosen to stay on at the mill and not returned to the farm in Camanggaan: but the sawdust was bad for his lungs, he recalls now as the curly-haired driver clears his throat and spits out a yellow coin of phlegm and makes one last call for passengers in a mock barker's voice. "Intayon, intayon sa buan, mga kaibigan!" The bus strains up the dusty lane away from the riverbank towards the highway, the driver keeping up his teasing chant and Arcadio Nagbuya's young sons joining in, "Intayon sa buan, intayon," and then there is only the loud throbbing drone of the motor and the framework of the bus squeaking and rattling when the wheels shudder over the waterlogged craters on the asphalt road. THE VIEW FROM THE BUS. Mr. Balaoing as usual has taken the only canvas-backed seat beside the driver. Arcadio Nagbuya stares at the frayed sweat-damp collar, the thinning hair combed across the squarish top of Mr. Balaoing's head: he thinks again of borrowing the USIB magazine, decides against disturbing the schoolteacher, and turns to watch the moving landscape. The fields are dark green where the young rice has been spared by the storm, yellow-brown in places where it lies broken in the flooded paddies: the trees on the horizon are bluish smudges like smoke, the Zambales mountains beyond a deeper blue, almost the same color as the sky. Far to the south, clouds like soiled rags smother the peaks: it seems Arcadio Nagbuya can smell the distant rain in the humid breeze. He

remembers his grandfather telling him of the time long ago when the Black Cloud rose to cover most of the sky, and the rains that came after were warm and gray with an ash which made so many vomit blood and waste away in pain. Now the sky is clear but for the remote clouds, and a couple of helidiscs humming in a wide arc over the fields. For a moment the fighter-bombers hang gleaming in silhouette against the mountains, their two-man crews visible in the bubble canopies, before rising vertically, abruptly, cut off from view by the roof of the bus. Something like the premonition of a terrible and swiftly approaching disaster alights on Arcadio Nagbuya's heart: but Andres, he assures himself, knows what he is doing, he will be safe in the interior of the forest. Children playing around the rusted remains of the armored car near Malacampa pause to wave at the bus. FROM SANTA IGNACIA TO TIBAG. The older boy is asking for a popsicle. Vendors crowd below the windows of the bus making a stopover in front of the municipal building in Santa Ignacia to take on a few more passengers: three young men and a girl with a guitar, an old couple, a man in a shark-skin suit, two priests, some more chickens, and a turkey in a wire cage which the wall-eyed conductor pushes up to the top of the bus and secures with rope. Arcadio Nagbuya buys peanut brittle for the boys, which costs less than popsicles, and promises them ice cream in Tarlac City: appeased, Dolfo and Doming sit chewing solemnly as the bus resumes the trip on the road that is cemented now, wider and smoother between the stretches of broken concrete. All of them get off at the outpost in Tibag: the soldiers with the skull-and-crossbones patch of the 17th Paratroop Brigade, and uniformly tall and lean, it seems to Arcadio Nagbuya, are polite and efficient, examining each alumiglass necktag quickly and asking no more than the customary questions, except with the three young men from Santa Ignacia. The lieutenant in command, sullen mouth and dark glasses beneath visored cap, steps down from the porch of the guardhouse and directs a soldier to search the trio and look closely at their index fingers, for the tell-tale grooves formed by the triggers of Nasakom pistols. Satisfied, unsmiling, the lieutenant signals to the driver to be on his way, and returns to his rocking chair on the porch, beneath a

large poster of the Centennial. For a second as the bus lurches past the porch, the officer seems part of the poster, a masked brown astronaut printed beside the white vertical rocket. "Robberrrss and fascistsss," Mr. Balaoing cranes his neck to peer spitefully at the receding outpost, and then meeting Arcadio Nagbuya's neutral gaze, shakes his head and slumps back in his seat. ARRIVAL IN THE CITY. "Malapit na ti buan," the dnver sings out, and "Malapiten, malapiten ti Apollo," the boys chime in, and the girl on the rear bench strums a rich staccato chord in accompaniment. The young men laugh and yell, and stomping on the floor, begin to sing the Apollo Hymn: "Prom the launch pad at Ken-nedy, Neil Armstrong bentured porth por hu-man-ity. . ." "Tama na dayta!" shouts the driver. "Hindi rocket dayto!" But the three youths pay him no heed and sing on and pound the floor with their boots: Arcadio Nagbuya notices Mr. Balaoing, the stern disciplinarian of the classroom, nodding smilingly in rhythm. The Cathedral is ringing the half hour as the Twin Sisters Bus slows down in the tricycle and calesa traffic around the rotonda with the headless statue of the Last President. Five o'clock, the driver is reminding his passengers, all those who wish to make the last trip back with him should be in front of Qui Sing's hardware store at five o'clock sharp as he is not going to wait for anyone, not even if he is the bastard son of Don Fernando the millionaire. The shameless who must sing and pound on the floor, he adds, will please, maawa cayo ti tao, take another bus. The young men respond to this last injunction with a chorus of merry obscenities insulting the driver's mother and the size of his genitals. THE DOME. The plastilium dome like a giant silver egg half-buried in the earth occupies almost half of the plaza and is twice as tall as the soaring memorial to the Heroes of 2045 on the other side of the square. Assembled at the end of June by engineers from the McDonnell Unisat Station in Mabalacat, it is one of similar domes, Arcadio Nagbuya recalls having heard on the radio, set up for the Apollo Centennial in the major cities. In the kiosko tiny and archaic beside the gigantic structure, the band has just finished playing "Pamulinawen" and is blaring out the first jubilant bars of "Deep in

the Heart of Texas" as Arcadio Nagbuya and his two sons hurry past the softdrink and halo-halo stands and merge with the crowd that has collected before the entrance to the dome, beneath a red, white, and blue banner with "Apollo 11 — 1969-2069" emblazoned on it. The grass has been trampled into a soggy mat of straw and they shuffle inside tracking mud on the floorboards, watched by a round tall American with a cigar and arms akimbo, leaning and smiling by the door. INSIDE THE DOME. They stand uncertainly in the clear white air-conditioned light, gazing up at the replica of the old three-stage Saturn 5 launch vehicle in the center of the circular hall, its pointed escape tower appearing to thrust through the apex of the concave roof A mestiza in the blue uniform of the Centennial comes to Arcadio Nagbuya with a sprightly greeting, a Tagilocan pamphlet on Apollo 11. and a simeographed floor plan of the exhibits. He knits his brows over the sketch, as if to memorize it for a test: the hall is divided into several compartments built around the replica of the rocket. Bracing himself as for a dive, a swimmer breathing deeply of the coolness of plastilium, he leads the boys to the right, to the first section with the blue-neon legend, "THE MEN OF APOLLO 11." THE EXHIBITS. The life-size dummies of the three astronauts are strapped in their quaint suits to command module contour seats. Minus helmets, the dermawax facsimiles rigid as idols grin unceasingly at the visitors, who are kept the proper distance by a contemptuous attendant: Arcadio Nagbuya has seen the man before, a clerk behind a grilled counter at the provincial capitol. Displayed on the walls are photographs of the astronauts training for the Apollo mission, relaxing at home, posing with their families, laughing, brave, and handsome a hundred years ago: "A happy Neil Armstrong shown above with wife Janet and sons Eric and Mark. He was born in the small town of Wapakoneta, Ohio, on August 5, 1930. . . Edwin Aldrin, his wife Joan, and their children, Michael, Andrew, and Janice, on a picnic before the historic blastoff on July 16, 1969. . . Michael Collins and his wife Patricia with their children, Kathleen, Michael, and Ann. Michael Jr. was to take after his father and

became commander of the Centaur 9 flight to Mars in 2018. . ." Arcadio Nagbuya comes upon his uncle Faustino from Capas in the section devoted to the moon landing located halfway around the hall. The old man, jovial and garrulous as always, reads aloud for the benefit of the boys the placard for the scale model of the lunar module and Neil Armstrong descending from it to the moon's surface: "Et was Monde, July 21, 1969. As da whole worl' wats, Armstrong steyp down prom da ladder an' da pers man on da moan made da dramatec announce-meynt: 'Dat's one smol steyp por man, one djayan leyp por mankind.'" "Marunong pala nga magbasa ti lacay," a voice taunts behind Arcadio Nagbuya: it is one of the young men from Santa Ignacia. Undaunted, the old man bends short-sightedly to read the inscription on the box which holds a plaster copy of man's first footprint on the moon: "Armstrong unbeiled a pla-que attats to won op da mow-dule's leygs. 'Here man prom da planeyt Eart' perst set poot upon da moan July 21, 1969 A.D. We came en pays for owl mankind.'" Arcadio Nagbuya exhales in relief when the old man says he must go, he has to look for his companions. The next compartment is a projection room: here the crowd is about ten deep around the cinecube, and Arcadio Nagbuya hoists the younger boy on his shoulders. Inside the cinecube Earth, a blue-green globe streaked with cloud, hangs in a black sky above the two astronauts moving in their white bulky suits with the slow tentative deliberation of children learning to walk, while the nasal soundtrack continues its brisk narration: "The lunar landscape is like pale gray sand, littered with rocks. The mountains and craters are not visible. The curvature of the moon is so sharp that the horizon is only two and a half kilometers away. . . Armstrong and Aldrin plant an American flag with a spring device to hold it upright. They deploy the equipment. . . Armstrong and Aldrin rest for six hours before beginning preparations for the return to lunar orbit. They have to link up with the command module piloted by Collins. . ." It is a fifteen-minute show, and Arcadio Nagbuya sets Doming down at the part where they came in: but the boys are insistent, and they stay on to repeat the rest of the film. From the projection room going counter-clockwise, they wander vaguely through the remaining displays: more replicas, diagrams of the Apollo flight, a cybergraph of the Eagle lunar module left on the

moon being examined by latter-day astronauts in their bodyfit space suits, a framed statement by President Nixon: "For one priceless moment in the whole history of man, all the people on Earth are one. . ." The last section they visit contains a mock-up of the command cabin of a Columbus cruiser with a simulated view of star clouds and clusters. On one wall painted to look like a rocketship's bulkhead are blown-up cybergraphs of the Magellan Space Station and its family of shuttle tugs, the American-Russian installations on the moon, the Venus sky labs, and the international crew of the Uranus mission due to return in 2071. Mr. Balaoing is contemplating a mural on the opposite wall depicting American space projects for the rest of the century, including the first starship mission beyond the solar system, a joint expedition with Britain and Germany to Alpha Centauri: "It is believed that a planet of this star nearest to Earth is the source of the first message from extraterrestrial intelligence ever received by the human race." This particular revelation is illustrated with a mathematical formula: "Look hearr," says Mr. Balaoing to the boys, pointing rapturously at the center of the massed algebraic figures, "et eisss de equation por de circumferrence op a cirrcle!" But Dolfo and Doming are now listless and hungry, and care little for mathematics or messages from other worlds. They leave the schoolteacher in rapt conversation with a short bald American in rimless glasses, the smallest American Arcadio Nagbuya has ever seen, shorter even than Mr. Balaoing. At the exit girls in blue uniforms hand them USIB pamphlets on the Centennial, medallions bearing the images of the Apollo 11 astronauts, ham sandwiches, and ice-cold Cokes. The afternoon in the plaza is gray with rain, and they wait for the downpour to slacken, munching on the sandwiches. THE RESTAURANT. It is still raining, and they are in the New Washington Cafe on Nevada Street. The younger boy wants another asado mami, but Arcadio Nagbuya has just enough money left over for the trip back to the river crossing, having bought, earlier in the afternoon, a bolo, a bottle of liniment, a T-shirt each for the boys with Apollo Centennial prints, and a couple of ice cream cones. He may have to wait till after the harvest, he reflects, before he can afford another visit to the city. The High Commis-

sioner is delivering a speech on the videoramic wallscreen between the counter and the kitchen: he is speaking of the first man on the moon and the frontiers of the universe, and the hoarse oratory and the crash of applause like static blend with the receding thunder and the steady boiling hiss of the rain. Arcadio Nagbuya tires of watching the flushed solemn American face on the wallscreen, and he glances about, as if searching for the reason for their being here, he and his two sons in this restaurant in this city called Tarlac, more than an hour away by bus from the river in Camanggaan. Posters from last year's elections remain pasted and fading by the door. One of the ceiling fans wobbles on its stem, above a table of beer drinkers. At the next table the sad tired waitress in a tight Centennial T-shirt is setting down two steaming bowls of pancit for a large family, father, mother, five boys, three girls, and grandmother or grandaunt. The restaurant opens out on the street, and bunches of flies dot the floor on the same level as the wet sidewalk: a beggar comes in scattering the flies, and a waitress shoos him away. The long vertical rain breaks with fierce little bursts on the black asphalt of the street. The boys stray off to squat before the wallscreen, which now resounds with horsehooves and ancient gunfire, and Arcadio Nagbuya wets his thumb to turn the pages of the USIB magazine. RETURN TRIP. The bus is half-empty when they board it in front of Qui Sing's hardware store. Mr. Balaoing has taken another earlier trip, and so, apparently, have the boisterous young men and the girl with the guitar: now the bus in the late rainwashed light seems a different vehicle, altered somehow, bigger and emptier, with a different subdued driver, although it is the same curly-haired man at the wheel. In the falling dark Doming snuggles against his father and is soon asleep. Arcadio Nagbuya is drowsy himself and for a while drifts in a shallow uneasy sleep, his mind never quite removed from the vibrating racket of the engine and the forward jerking motion of the bus. It is evening by the time they reach Santa Ignacia, where five men come aboard, and Arcadio Nagbuya and his two sons and the faceless strangers sit in silence in the roaring, swaying dark of the unlighted bus. He dozes again and in the dark of his closed eyes his dead wife appears suddenly and then his

father, a farmer too, born at the turn of the century and a soldier dying in the Second Asian War: he wakens to the coolness of wind on his face, and then he sees, as he has seen it at this hour for unnumbered evenings, the Magellan Space Station rising in the west, a bright solitary star among the night clouds. THE RIVER AT NIGHT. Pedring does not take everyone across all at once but makes two trips: the river has risen a few feet and the raft is too small to carry all of them gathered on the riverbank. The women and the old folks go first: a baby cries on and on, bleating like a lamb in the small orange glow of the lamp suspended in the middle of the raft, in the night astir with the croaking of frogs and the black whispering flow of the river. Then it is their turn, and Arcadio Nagbuya and his two sons squat close to the lamp, clutching their paper-wrapped bundles, the water slapping at the raft, sucking and gurgling under the glistening platform of bamboo poles. The men with them do not answer when Pedring asks where they are from: one of them, Arcadio Nagbuya notices in the lamplight, is cradling a laser rifle wrapped loosely in a raincoat. A MEETING ON THE RIVERBANK. The man with the rifle hails a group huddled around a flashlight on the riverbank. The figure with the flashlight calls to Arcadio Nagbuya: at once he knows it is his cousin from Concepcion, and the dim oppressive fear surrounds his heart as he remembers the helidiscs hunting over the morning fields. His cousin clicks off the flashlight and speaks to him, not in Tagilocan, but in the old language: "Minta ca Tarlac, Cadio?" and "Wa,Cong Andres," he replies, "minta cami para keng Centennial," and the tender fluid accents of their fathers' tongue, unheard for so long yet never quite lost nor forgotten, bring a swift rush of pride and love that pushes back the enclosing dread. "Cadio," his cousin says, reaching for his hand in the dark, "Cadio, mangailangan earning tau. . ."He can hear his cousin's breathing, smell the odors of the sun and the rain of the long day on his cousin's clothes, as they stand with their hands clasped in the quiet dark. They were young boys together once: how quickly the years pass . . . "Asahan da cayung makiabe kekame," his cousin says, his tone hopeful and confident. "Mako na cami, atin

miting potang bengi.O sigue,Cadio," and there is the rustle of feet departing across the sand."Si Tio daytay tao,Tatang?"asks Doming. Arcadio Nagbuya stares into the dark, in the direction where his cousin has gone, his heart warm and beating rapidly. Dolfo repeats his brother's question, but their father remains silent, and they start off for the trail in the coconut grove beyond the sandy slope of the riverbank. The Magellan Space Station has cleared the tops of the trees, and a smaller, fainter star is moving away from it: another nuclear spaceship going to Mars or perhaps only to the moon, now a sharp-pointed sickle in the eastern sky.

About the Author

GREGORIO CONCEPCION BRILLANTES was born in 1932 in Camiling, Tarlac, and graduated with a bachelor's degree in literature and journalism from the Ateneo de Manila. He was executive editor of the Philippines Free Press in the 1960s, editor-in-chief of Asia-Philippines Leader magazine in 1972, and has since served as editor and writer for The Manila Review, Veritas Weekly, National Midweek, Philippine Graphic, and other journals. Several of his short stories, collected in The Distance to Andromeda and The Apollo Centennial, won Free Press, Palanca and other awards, and have been anthologized in the US and translated into Spanish, German, Japanese, Indonesian, Malaysian and other languages. He received the Southeast Asia Write Award from the Queen of Thailand, the Araw ng Maynila Award, Catholic Mass Media and Catholic Authors awards from Jaime Cardinal Sin, the Tawid Award from the National Press Club, and the Alagad ni Balagtas Award from the Writers Union of the Philippines. A Palanca Hall of Fame honoree for having won at least five first prizes for his fiction and essays, he is a founding member of the Philippine Chapter of International PEN and of the Philippine Alumni Association of the EastWest Center in Hawaii. He and his wife, UP languages professor Lourdes Castrillo Brillantes, have three daughters and live in Santa Mesa Heights, Quezon City.