Orchid House (28 page)

“I thought something had happened to you and they didn't want to tell me. No one would tell me anything.”

“Everything is fine. I'm sorry you were worried.”

He wanted to tell her how he'd run to the house and found it empty. How he'd sobbed in the darkness out of such despair. And if he was with her, he'd whisper it all in her ear, and she'd cry and hold him close. But she'd never beg him to stay, though they both wished she would. They knew he might leave everything for her and the kids if only she asked. And then where would they be? Without the party, none of them had any protection at all. Manalo knew too much, and there would be no quiet retirement until something changed.

“Are you okay,
mahal kong asawa
?”

“They woke us in the night. It really scared the kids. It scared me too. I thought for sure—” Her voice broke then, and he could hear her courage dissolve.

“Baby, it's okay. I'm fine.”

“What would I do if something happened to you?”

“You won't be on your own. You'll always be taken care of.”

“I don't mean that. What would
I
do if I lost you? Even though we're apart, we are together. You are always with me, and I am always with you.”

He leaned his head against the metal of the phone booth. “
Mahal na mahal kita
.”

“Oh, Manoy, I love you too.
Mahal na mahal kita
. This scared me.”

“Don't let it.”

“We are all tired of this life, Manoy. Your children need a home. And after this last move, Akili and Rapahelo are having nightmares. Akili needs his father. He wants to join you.”

“Never.”

“Never? He needs a man; he needs you. I don't want him to join the cause, but it's his only way to know you.”

His son was seventeen years old and had such potential to do much more with his life. Manalo had been fourteen when he first tasted battle, and from there he'd become a hunted fugitive. It wasn't the life he wished for the boys. Their country was supposed to be a better place by the time his children were adults. And here the years had passed and he'd missed so much of their growing up.

“Manalo. I've never asked you to find a way to be with us. But we can't live like this much longer. And so for the first time, I'm asking.”

It shocked and thrilled him. She was desperate for him, as desperate as he felt for her. “I miss you, Malaya. Don't worry, I'm going to work this out.”

They couldn't talk long, not this time, so they made another appointment. Manalo hung up the phone and sat down on the curb, staggered under the weight of his sadness. Then he slowly rose back up as something more than his longing and loneliness grew within the memory of her voice. More than at any other time in his life, Manalo knew he must do his duty now.

Before the party, before himself, he had to save his family.

“W
HAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR US?” JULIA ASKED RAUL, HOLDING
up the newspaper at the table. The photo depicted Mount Pinatubo with a plume of smoke and ash filling the clear blue sky. Seis-mologists believed it was only the beginning.

For several months there had been volcanic activity around Pinatubo. The U.S. Clark Air Force Base had been evacuated as well as the towns around the mountain. Refugees were forced to live in camps. But that was far to the north, even north of Manila, and they were to the south. The distance looked to be about the same as that from San Francisco to LA.

“It means nothing,” Raul said.

And Julia translated his simple answers into what she thought he meant; it was a new amusement of hers. . . .
Well, Julia, it doesn't change much of anything here. And there is enough to worry about.

“Then do we need to worry about what happened at the funeral?”

“No.”

No, Julia, the men of the Barangay Mahinahon have you well pro- tected, and it will not happen again. Though we do need to discuss your departure.

She sometimes asked meaningless questions just to get his simple responses, until he frowned at her smile and Julia worried that she'd disrespected him.

“Are the Communist rebels still in the jungles?”

“Yes.”

I'd rather not tell you these things, you being not only a woman but an American as well, but Captain Morrison would want me to show you respect and so I will.

She smiled. As usual, he frowned. Julia picked up the paper and headed outside. At least she had a few days to decide what to do next.

S
OMETHING WAS WRONG
.

Bok's sister hadn't eaten for weeks. Malnutrition showed in her already bony arms and legs, and no makeup could hide the dark circles under her eyes. She reminded him of a sickly rat, though he didn't want to be mean. He felt sorry for her, actually. Her boyfriend, Artur, was missing. It was discovered he'd been doing drugs, but not excessively. But some of the gossip said that was his downfall. That maybe he had connected with dealers in Manila while he was fixing the car and was now a junkie on the streets. The rumors abounded, and Bok's sister grew thinner.

But tonight, the wails of Artur's mother were heard throughout the Barangay Mahinahon. And that could mean only one thing.

F
RANCIS MADE A TERRIBLE CUP OF COFFEE
.

The cousins teased him mercilessly when he volunteered to make another pot as they sat around the outdoor table eating.

“Stick to cooking rice,” Othaniel said. “But only if you have a rice cooker.”

They had arrived with clay pots of food for an impromptu late breakfast. Rice, eggs cooked sunny-side up, some dish that reminded Julia of corned-beef hash but with a different flavor, and fried plantain bananas were in the array of pots covering the out-door table. Small serving cups held sauces of different colors. Julia contributed a large yellow jackfruit—her morning gift on the veranda steps.

Julia suspected they had come out of worry after the shootings on the day of the funeral. Heightened security. Furrowed brows.The presence of men with guns, not just children from the Barangay Mahinahon.

A different pulse beat beneath the peace of the gentle days.

But it wasn't only fear that brought them together. Mara said the wake and funeral brought them all from their separate lives toward the closeness they'd known as children.

Now Francis and Othaniel nudged each other with their elbows and smiled widely in her direction.

“What?” Julia asked, suspecting she was the newest target of their teasing.

They solemnly tried to eat their meal as she did, instead of holding a fork in the right hand and spoon in the left.

“Hey, look at the mess you're making on Aling Rosa's tablecloth,” Julia said.

Francis gave up and picked up his spoon, laughing loudly.

“I can do it,” Othaniel said, scooping up some rice, but it fell onto his lap before it reached his mouth. “This is harder than chopsticks. Why do some people make eating so hard?”

Julia demonstrated her skill. “My father always scolded me about eating with elbows on the table. I had to have my left hand on my lap.”

“Child abuse, I say,” Mara's teenaged sister, Alice, chimed in, happy to be among the older cousins.

“You know, Alice,” Julia said, “I keep hearing about a zoo around here. Maybe you could take me one day soon?”

“Zoo?” asked Mara. She looked sweet and casual in her jeans and blue embroidered blouse, her hair in a silky braid.

“Or wherever it is that the apes live.”

“Apes? There aren't apes in the Philippines. And the only zoo I know of is in Manila,” said Othaniel.

“Maybe it's a preserve or farm. I always hear about it. Maybe not apes. Monkeys, perhaps?”

“There are monkeys in the jungle. Is that what you mean?” Mara said.

“Someone told me about an annual fiesta in the village that's in part a celebration for the monkeys or apes. Like maybe the year of the monkey or something. That you even had a village built for it. I think Lola Sita was telling me, but I couldn't really understand her English, and Lola Gloria wasn't there to translate. A monkey village. Or was it a gorilla village?”

“Gorilla village,” said Francis with a strange expression; then he smiled and burst into uproarious laughter.

Mara stared at Julia, then, as if an electric current moved from Francis to her, her eyes widened and she laughed so loudly Julia couldn't believe this was her genteel cousin.

“Gorilla village,” Mara sputtered.

Julia, with an awkward smile, looked from one cousin to another. It must be a cultural thing.

The others couldn't stop laughing or saying, “Gorilla village.”

Finally Francis put his arm around her and caught his breath. “Julia, it's guerilla village, for the World War II guerilla fighters. It was a village of soldiers that began after the war and continues even now.”

With that Julia herself was infected by their mirth and laughed with her cousins until the children of the Barangay peered at them from the jungle in wonder.

“So wait,” Julia said, finally putting it together. “Barangay Mahinahon and the gorilla, I mean, guerrilla village are the same thing?”

“Yes, exactly,” and they all fell into laughter again.

Soon Raul came from his usual morning rounds and joined their meal, but even with Mara there it was clear that something was bothering him. He did chuckle heartily as the cousins told Julia's story of gorillas and guerrillas.

“What is it?” Mara asked him as their renewed laughter died down.

“There was a death at the Barangay Mahinahon,” Raul solemnly announced.

“What?” “A death?” “How?” voices chimed.

Mara put her hand on Raul's arm. “Who is it?”

“One of the drivers, Artur Tenio. He would have turned twenty next week.”

Raul glanced at Julia in a way that made her wonder about something from when she first arrived.

“Was he the driver when the car broke down?”

She knew he almost said no, but then he nodded.

“And how did he die?” Francis asked slowly.

“That is being investigated.”

“Has the wake begun?” Mara asked.

Julia felt a weariness wash over her at the thought of another wake and funeral; then she immediately felt guilty. He was just a kid and deserved more than that.

“There will be no wake. And no funeral.”

“What? Why not?” Francis asked.

“There is no body.”

No one asked the questions on all of their minds. The possibilities were too sobering to consider.

Julia thought of Artur's family and said, “We should go and pay our respects.”

M
ANALO GROANED AT THE NEWS. SO THEY KNEW NOW ABOUT THE
kid. It was right for them to know, even without a body. But the men of the Barangay Mahinahon believed the Red Bolos should be held responsible, as well they should—even if the idiotic mercenaries were the actual killers.

He wished Timeteo would return soon. Comrade Pilo was the last person he wanted to see.

They needed either to retreat or prepare for war.

T
HE NEWLY CONDITIONED 1937 PACKARD VICTORIA CONVERTIBLE
, or “Grampa” as everyone fondly called it, growled like the old masculine car it was as Mang Berto drove it with a grouchy frown. Billows of dust plumed over the silver paint and into the clean interior as they followed with the top down behind two tricycles down the long and dusty road to the guerilla village.

Julia thought it funny how they changed cars day by day, depending on which one was running at that particular moment. Besides Grampa, there'd been Night Rider—the gorgeous black Citroen Traction Avant that they'd joked looked liked a hearse for the rich and famous, the 1938 Bugatti Type 57SC, dubbed “the Bond car,” as in James Bond, as well as other cars that Mang Berto proudly brought to the house for each occasion.

It was quite a feat for Mang Berto to keep the cars in running condition, considering that he swapped and made do with unoriginal or secondhand parts to fix them. The irony was that the cars were rarely used on the actual roads of Batangas. Their enormous value and Mang Berto's love kept them ever caged within the hacienda grounds.

As they drove, Francis leaned toward her ear from his spot in the backseat to tell Julia that her presence worked well for him. He'd had a love affair with the antique cars since he was a kid but was never able to touch them, much less drive them, because of Mang Berto's obsessive care.

“If you go anywhere tomorrow, will you let me know?” Francis said, and they both laughed at Mang Berto's frown from the driver's seat.

From time to time Julia worriedly searched the road ahead to check on her “bodyguards” on one of the tricycles, only to see their brown faces smiling back at her. Emman clung to the outside of the motorcycle's open-air sidecar, pointing excitedly for Julia to see one scenic spot after another. She shook her head, thinking how many U.S. regulations they were violating by their joy ride.

Despite her concern, it was a most amusing sight to see these precocious children riding a tricycle, packed like sardines and going over the rough terrain that bounced them into the air at times. But oh, how they loved it, from the looks on their faces.

“Don't worry about the kids,” Francis said, leaning forward again. “Raul will drive them well.”

“Raul is driving the tricycle?” she exclaimed, then laughed as she realized it was indeed Raul surrounded with children and guiding the motorcycle down the rough road. In the confusion of their departure, she had assumed he was bringing a different car or coming later.

The cousins chatted the whole time, never failing to come up with corny jokes and childhood stories and pranks that kept them all laughing—except for Mang Berto, who kept his hands clench- ing the steering wheel and his steady gaze on the road. Squeezed tightly beside him in the front seat sat Mara and Julia; in the back-seat were the other cousins, Miguel in the middle with Francis and Othaniel on either side.