The Breath of Night (38 page)

‘And when it’s not?’

‘Then the rebels retreat to their camps high in the mountains, which are hard to reach even by foot.’

‘It doesn’t make sense.’

‘Maybe not to a European. Now, do you wish to ask him
anything
else? I think that he has told us all he knows.’

Having established that he had no more precise address for Alvin than the name of the town, Philip and Benito took their leave of Gerron, who led them out into the compound where several prisoners were sunning themselves. JJ was sitting a few yards apart and, as they waited for the trusty to unlock the gate, Gerron called him over and casually pulled down his lower lip.

‘Look!’ he said to Philip, pointing at the six blue letters bathed in spit beside a row of broken and decaying teeth. ‘My name. Is secret. Look!’

After quitting the prison Philip and Benito headed for the bus that would take them back to the city centre.

‘I hope you found what you were looking for,’ Benito said.

‘Nothing short of a signed confession from the guilty priests could have done that. But it was good to hear his story. It would be even better to hear it at first hand.’

‘From Alvin Japos?’ Benito asked. Philip nodded. ‘To what end?’

‘To discover the truth, which is a pretty elusive commodity around here. I’ve been hovering on the fringes of this conspiracy for too long. It’s time to reach the heart.’

‘What if it has no heart? Just more and more skins, like one of Japos’s onions.’

‘It’s still worth a try. Do you know how far Bongabon is from here?’

‘Not offhand, why? You’re not seriously thinking of going there?’

‘Why not?’

‘And how do you propose to find Japos? There are hundreds of onion growers in the region. It’s the onion capital of the
Philippines
! And if, by some remote chance –’

‘Some miracle?’

‘You do find him, how will you gain his trust? That is, even
supposing you’re able to communicate. Or do you have someone else to go there with you to translate?’

‘Don’t you want to know what the Church is capable of?’

‘I was a priest for thirty years; I know what the Church is capable of! I also know what the army is capable of and the NPA is capable of. And, for that matter, what the landscape is capable of. We’re talking of very rough and inhospitable terrain.’

‘Then why did the Bishop allow Julian to go on retreat there? Given the terrorist activity, it’s the perfect place to commit a murder and escape scot-free. But you’re right,’ he said, afraid that Benito would come up with further objections. ‘It’s
impractical
and pointless. I only have three more days in Manila. I should lounge by the pool and work on my tan.’

After thanking Benito for his help, Philip returned to the hotel, where he asked the receptionist to make arrangements for his immediate departure to Bongabon. As he went up to his room to prepare, he had a strong premonition that however slim his chances might be of meeting Alvin, he would nevertheless learn something of consequence about Julian.

‘You’ve been here too long,’ he said, as he stared at himself in the mirror. ‘Time to go home for a shot of English rationalism.’

The receptionist rang to tell him that there was a four o’clock bus from the Victory terminal in Cubao to Cabanatuan City, from where it was a thirty minute jeepney ride to Bongabon. The only hotels in the district were in Cabanatuan although, she added primly, they were not necessarily ones that she would
recommend
. With no time to lose, Philip asked her to book him a room at whichever was the most central. Explaining that he would return to Manila on Tuesday, he appealed for her discretion should anyone enquire about his whereabouts, to be met with an affronted: ‘We never give out personal information on any of our guests, sir’. Duly admonished, he took a cab to Cubao and, in what he saw as a propitious sign, boarded the bus just as it was about to pull out. He occupied the three-hour journey by working on the preface to his novel, in which his protagonist, Philip (to be
renamed in a later draft), was sent out to the Philippines.
Arriving
in Cabanatuan, he drove through the twilit streets to the La Panilla Hotel which, for all the receptionist’s qualms, turned out to be clean, comfortable and fully air-conditioned. After a quick shower and a modest dinner, he fell exhausted into bed.

The downpour the next morning was so heavy that he feared the road to Bongabon would be impassable, but the
manageress
, as helpful as she was attractive, not only assured him that it would remain open but escorted him to the jeepney. For once he was grateful for the crush of passengers, whose composure heartened him as they drove through a landscape both
mountainous
and submerged. Alighting in the town square, he
sheltered
under the awning of a pawnshop, while three tricycles, oblivious to the rain, vied for his custom. Selecting the most sturdy, he instructed the driver to take him to the Town Hall. His words meeting nothing but a grizzled smile, he tried “City Hall”, “Municipal Headquarters”, “Mayor’s Office” and “Town Council” in quick succession, all to no avail. He was about to give up when, in desperation, he threw out “Tax”, at which the smile broadened and the driver set off, juddering over ruts and puddles, to deposit Philip outside a long green building, fronted by a row of palms so badly buckled by the storm that they seemed to be clinging to each other for support.

Shaking himself like a dog, he made his way inside, where he spoke to three officials whose grasp of English seemed to stop at the recognition of that word, before coming to a bespectacled young man, who identified himself, felicitously, as Noah.

‘How am I best able to help you, sir?’ he asked.

‘I’m trying to contact someone who lives in your
municipality
: Alvin Japos.’

‘Why, if I may ask this question, are you wishing to contact this person?’

‘I was at university with his sister. We became great friends and then lost touch. You know how it is.’ Noah, who looked as though he could recite the addresses, including postcodes, of
every one of his friends, did not reply. ‘She often mentioned her brother. He grows onions. They were very close.’

‘And the sister of this onion grower has been going to
university
in England?’ Noah asked incredulously.

‘She was a post-graduate. On a special scholarship – I think it was from the UN. She was very bright.’

Making no reply, Noah typed a sentence into his computer. A moment later he looked up with such a furrowed brow that Philip was afraid there might be a special administrative code for suspected members of the NPA.

‘Why are you wishing to see this man?’

‘I told you, he’s my friend’s brother.’

‘It cannot be the same person. This man is fifty-seven years. He has his children and grandchildren living in the same house with him.’

‘Maybe she made a mistake?’ Philip said, floundering. ‘Do Filipinos easily confuse the English for “uncle” and “brother”?’

‘Not the ones who are given special scholarships from the UN,’ Noah replied coldly.

‘Then the mistake must be mine. Now I think of it, I’m sure she said “uncle”. Why did I say “brother”? Must be because I have two brothers of my own. If you’ll give me his address, I can go and see.’

Noah’s reluctance to comply was compounded by Philip’s
inability
to produce his passport. In the nick of time he thought to show him a crumpled letter from the Bishop of Baguio, adding that it was proof not just of his identity but of his good faith. Noah studied the letter, even holding it up to the light as if inspecting a watermark, before declaring that he would consult his superiors and give Philip an answer the next morning.

‘But that’s no use! I have to go back to Manila tomorrow. Besides, surely his address is on the electoral roll? It’s in the public domain, if only I knew where to look.’

‘Very well,’ Noah said, relenting. ‘If you wish to come back after lunchtime, I will try to find out for you then.’

‘That’s really kind. Thank you. But how about I wait in the corridor? It’s far too wet to walk around town. Then, if you have your answer sooner, I’ll be on hand.’

The presence of a bedraggled Englishman, beaming broadly at everyone who passed, concentrated the bureaucratic mind and an hour later Noah came out to say that he had not only been authorised to give Philip the address but told to take him there in person.

‘That’s very kind,’ Philip said, weighing his antipathy to the man against the expediency of his offer, ‘but there’s really no need. I can get a cab.’

‘This is not Manila.’

‘Then a tricycle. I don’t want to put you to any trouble.’

‘It is not trouble; this is what I have been told.’

‘Well, so long as you’re sure.’

To his surprise, Noah led him to a small motorcycle and, neither putting on a helmet nor offering one to his passenger, told Philip to sit behind him before setting off. Philip felt as if he had stepped into a late Turner landscape, as the familiar shapes of buildings and trees and fields and mountains all dissolved in a shimmering haze. To his relief, Noah kept on course, even when the unpaved road turned into a sea of mud. All at once he screeched to a halt.

‘Now you must go on alone.’

‘What?’ Philip asked. ‘You can’t be serious!’

‘The bike will not proceed any more. It is too dangerous. You must go on your feet.’

‘But where is it? I’ve no idea where we are.’

‘The farm is only a few hundred metres up this road,’ Noah said with a gesture that disappeared into the mist.

‘And how will I get back? I’ll be trapped.’

‘This man whom you wish to see so much, he will bring you.’

‘What if I’ve made a mistake?’

‘Then you have made a mistake.’

Without another word, Noah laboriously turned his bike
round and headed back into town, leaving Philip feeling more alone than at any time since his arrival in the Philippines. Shocked by Noah’s negligence, he wondered whether he had taken against something he said or simply harboured a blanket hatred of the English. He sniffed and shuddered, uncertain how much of the moisture in his eyes and nose came from himself and how much from the atmosphere. Trying not to picture all the half-drowned reptiles and rodents that might be swept along the tide and up his trouser legs, he took several squelchy steps forwards. Suddenly, he collided with something that he took first for a gatepost and then for a scarecrow, until it pointed a rifle at his neck.

‘Don’t shoot,’ he screamed, ‘I’m English!’

Two more figures emerged from the mist, one carrying a rifle and the other, who was a head taller than his companions, unarmed. Refusing to believe that he was the victim of a second ambush or that the Vicar General’s writ would extend so far, Philip assumed that he must be imagining them – the monsoon equivalent of a desert mirage – but the cold steel on his carotid artery felt all too real.

‘Who are you?’ he shouted, as the tall figure moved to within a foot of him and removed the scarf that muffled his face. Reason disappeared as Philip stared at the man who had haunted his imagination for so long.

‘No, it isn’t possible,’ he said, tumbling backwards. ‘Not you!’

Colours so vivid and images so sharp flooded his vision that Philip felt as if he had had a bandage removed after surgery, rather than a hood pulled off after the long climb to the camp. The mountains were carpeted in more varied shades of green than he had seen even in a Rousseau jungle. Two giant
butterflies
fluttered past: one an iridescent blue with yellow and white speckles; the other striped red and purple and bordered in black, like a stained-glass window. Overhead, two birds with crimson breasts and turquoise tails soared high, either courting or fighting. The view was so resplendent that for a moment he forgot that his ankles had been lashed by
creepers
and scratched by thorns, his arms and legs devoured by mosquitoes, his shoulders wrenched by unceremonious hands, and his feet reduced to bloody and suppurating blisters by the six-day hike.

Eight bamboo and cogon-grass huts were dotted about the clearing, the kind of ramshackle structures he had passed on the road to Cauayan with a there-but-for-the-grace-of-God sigh (he did not want to think of God for the moment). Felix and Jayson, his abductors, led him to the one that had been assigned to him. It stood a short distance from the others, and its heavy lock and musty smell suggested it had served a similar purpose before. Inside, he was able to make out a blanket and pillow, a pitcher of water with a palm-leaf cover (a token of concern that he wished had extended to a mat for the roach-infested floor), a
coconut-shell
cup, and a rusty slop bucket, which set the seal on his
privations
. The two men went out, locking the door and plunging the room into darkness, which was slowly lifted by light filtering through the cracks in the bamboo. He took it as a sign of hope, until a ray fell on a red-and-black beetle with inch-long feelers crawling towards his foot.

The following morning Felix and Jayson introduced him to the remaining seven members of the platoon: Dante, Lester, Juriz, Rommel, Irene, Allen and Nina. “Platoon” was an odd word to apply to a group who, deprived of their guns, would resemble a commune of ageing hippies, but Philip’s perilous position forced him to take them at their own estimate. All appeared friendly, apart from Nina, who stood out as much on account of her permanent scowl as of the colour of her skin. Later in the day he learnt from Irene that Nina’s mother had been a prostitute in Olongapo City, working in a street that catered exclusively for black servicemen. Doubly stigmatised by having a mixed-race child, she had pimped her between the ages of five and fifteen, when Nina had escaped to join the NPA, who taught her to read and write and channel her hatred. ‘There are very many girls like this,’ Irene said, her flat tones at odds with her blazing eyes. ‘The daughters of American fathers who must survive by sleeping with American sons.’

Philip remained perplexed by Julian’s disappearance. Having been hooded throughout the gruelling journey (a precaution which, given the vastness of the terrain and the
inaccessibility
of the trail, seemed more symbolic than real), he had been sensitive to every sound: leaves rustling; birds singing; insects humming; frogs croaking; cicadas chirping; monkeys howling; not to mention the murmurs and hisses that were all the more menacing for being mysterious. On the first day there had been three voices and sets of footsteps and then, without warning, one had vanished, and neither Felix nor Jayson, whom he knew simply as the softly-spoken and the heavy-handed man, would say where he had gone.

While discussion of Julian remained off-limits, the group gradually opened up to Philip, so much so that he wondered whether, despite the lock on his door, he might be their first hostage. After two days they allowed him to sit outside his hut, and after two more they unbound his hands and feet, enabling him to roam freely around the camp. That freedom, however, was severely restricted. The walls might be wider and
the ceilings higher, but he felt as much a prisoner as Gerron in Bilibid or Julian in Baguio. The tortuous path through the trees, the treacherous bogs and briars, the poisonous frogs and snakes were as effective constraints as the toughest iron bars. Acutely aware that his life was in his captors’ hands, he set about winning them over, treading a fine line between curiosity and ingratiation as he familiarised himself with their daily routines: the cooking which, for all their talk of equality, was left to the two women; the care of the chickens and goats, whose meagre yield had been declared counter-revolutionary; the long
ideological
debates which, either as a point of principle or else to exclude him, were conducted in Tagalog.

Despite their apparent friendliness, none of his captors ever approached him unarmed. Indeed, for a camp lacking so many basic facilities, it was remarkably well stocked with weapons. The morning after his arrival he had woken to the sound of gunfire which, with his heart pounding as loudly as the shots, he had taken for an attempt to rescue him until Irene, in her first display of goodwill, had come to explain that they were trying out a new batch of rifles that Felix and Jayson had brought back.

‘Where do they get them?’ Philip asked. Irene cast him a
suspicious
glance, which she quickly relaxed, showing either that she trusted him or, more ominously, that it made no difference since he would not live to tell the tale.

‘They are coming from the local military.’

‘You mean you steal them from their bases?’

‘No, we buy them with cash.’

‘Now I’m really confused!’

‘But it is easy! The government is not paying the soldiers enough wages for them to live. So they sell us their weapons – like this M16 gun.’ She held out the rifle for him to inspect the way his mother might have held out a freshly baked cake. ‘For 20,000 pesos. They tell their chief that it was lost and buy a new one for 8,000 pesos. Then they can keep the difference.’

‘But surely the officers must be wise to it?’

‘Of course. They are the ones who are selling us the
ammunition
. Five pesos a round. They send – how do you say? – a
middleman
, with a military escorting.’