Joseph nodded some more. He turned the television off and Monique lost sight of his face. It was already going better than expected, and for that she credited her timing. Joe was having a rough year. He’d been turned down for a tenure track spot at Georgetown after almost a month of interviews, and American University halved his teaching load for the spring semester. On top of that was the incident at the faculty Christmas party. The department chair, who’d had a few too many cocktails, jabbed a pen in Joseph’s mouth like a tongue-depressor and diagnosed him with Adjunctivitus. Joe said something ugly about the clumsy art that the chair’s teenage son had pasted all over the kitchen door. Monique believed him when he said he didn’t know the kid was retarded—a word Joseph scolded her for even using—but no one else seemed to.
“You must really miss it there.” His voice was disembodied in the dark room.
“I do, sometimes,” she said. And it was true, what she remembered of the Philippines she missed intensely.
The kiss on her left cheek surprised her. “Congratulations. Whether we go or not, you should be very proud of yourself.” He kissed her again on the corner of the mouth, and again on her bottom lip. He lay on his side and didn’t say another word. Monique’s eyes adjusted to the dark and she watched him fall asleep. He always used to fall asleep first.
The next morning Joseph acted as though the decision were already made. Toothbrush poised before his mouth, he extolled the virtues of relocating to Manila. It was the perfect time to move the kids. With Shawn in sixth grade and Leila in eighth, they would both have to change schools next year anyway. And moreover it was responsible parenting. Asia was an emerging player—his exact words—and personal experience in that part of the world would be invaluable for a young person. It would broaden their perspectives like it had broadened Monique’s. He gesticulated, flecking the mirror with foamy blue paste.
Later that week she brought home the Manila Post Report and laid it out on the kitchen table. Glossy and laminated, it had pictures of the skyline, maps highlighting beaches and dive resorts and lists of restaurants and outlet stores available near embassy apartments. The children leafed through the book excitedly. They paused at a picture of the old U.S. naval base at Subic Bay. It was taken from the air on a clear day, Mount Pinatubo shimmering in the distance.
“Hey Mom,” Shawn asked, “isn’t this where you’re from?”
“Not really,” she said. “It’s where I was born.”
MONIQUE DRIED AND DRESSED ALONE. Looking good in her navy herringbone skirt suit was not overly important to her, but she was glad she did. She went light on the makeup, just some lipstick and a dusting of powder to keep from shining when she went outside and started sweating. No meetings scheduled for today so she slipped on a comfy pair of flats with gel insoles and walked out into the den. The television was still on, screaming at empty couches. The door to Shawn’s room was open, which meant he definitely wasn’t in there. He’d left his lights and air conditioner on, and from where Monique stood she could see slithering movement in his bedside aquarium. His spotted gecko pressed itself against the glass looking emaciated and intensely unsympathetic. It was one of two replacement pets, bought shortly after the family cat arrived dead in her carrier. It had been upsetting for everybody. Leila chose an African lovebird.
Monique turned off the television and went into the kitchen. Her whole family was there, sitting around a square table and eating meat and eggs on piles of thick, crusty pancakes. Amartina was at the sink washing the skillet and pretending not to eavesdrop. Monique said good morning to the room at large and sat down between her children. Leila responded with a vague greeting directed mostly at her breakfast and Shawn said nothing at all. The kids looked so much alike, and nothing like their parents. They were brown, which in racial shorthand could be called black, while Monique and Joseph were more Irish sunburned pink. This confused new acquaintances. Their reaction was always the same, rippling under their faces like brail. Did she say son? Oh. Oh. Adoption. Good for them.
“Good morning, Shawn.” Monique looked right at him and he looked right at the wall. He hadn’t spoken a word to her since she forbade his going to the prom. Not hello, or good night, or can I please have so-and-so. The worst part was that she’d said yes at first—she’d assumed it was the local counterpart of one of Leila’s middle-school dances back home. Awkward and harmless, as long as the chaperones stayed on their toes. But a few days later Shawn came home with a rock in his ear. It was a gift from his date, the seventeen-year-old who was going to take him to the senior prom. Monique took away the earring and her permission faster than it took to slam a door, and by dinnertime she’d gotten hold of the girl’s home number and had an angry conversation with her father. Shawn said she was intentionally trying to humiliate him and she laughed. That made things worse. The hole in Shawn’s earlobe still hadn’t healed. It had been joined by a fuzzy top lip and tightly braided cornrows that Joseph wouldn’t dare say he hated. Wouldn’t dare, on account of the fact that Shawn and Leila were, as far as their parents could tell, the darkest children in their new, private school. And Joseph suspected an eagerness on the part of all those rich kids to engage in racial caricature. Such a matter, he insisted, had to be broached delicately. If at all.
“Good morning, Shawn.” Still nothing. “You left everything on in your room. It’s wasting electricity. And that lizard of yours looks like it needs to be fed.”
Joseph swallowed hastily so he wouldn’t have to talk with his mouth full. “And don’t forget, son, that you still need to find someone to look after it when we go back home.”
“I’m not going.”
“You’re going,” they said in near unison. Joseph leaned over his breakfast. The fluorescent kitchen light brought out the red in his eyes and the loose way his translucent skin seemed to hang. “You are going.”
“Nope.”
Monique sipped her coffee and held the mug up, pretending to look at it. “Lights. Air conditioner. Crickets for the lizard. Now.” She put the mug down hard and some coffee sloshed onto the plastic tabletop. Shawn nodded almost immediately. Then he poured himself more juice. He did this as though it had all been one motion and the nod was happenstance. He drank his juice slowly, got up and walked out to the den.
Joseph and Leila continued eating in silence. Monique took a bite of pancake and wished she hadn’t. They were thick and slightly hard, another attempt at what Amartina clearly thought was an American breakfast. Dinners were the same story. Over-salted pork medallions and grease-dripping fried chicken, usually served alongside mashed baking potatoes. Monique would have been happy enough with tapsilog for breakfast, and a sour soup or pancit at night, but her family vetoed Filipino food. She made up for it by taking lunch breaks at the embassy gym, but a year of this cooking was starting to show on the kids, especially Leila. It wasn’t that she’d gotten fat, but she still insisted on buying outfits for the year-ago version of herself. Monique walked in on her more than once taking apart some piece of clothing with a pair of art scissors. “That wasn’t free,” she said when she caught Leila destroying the elastic waist of a miniskirt. “You could just as well be cutting up the shopping money we give you.” Leila responded coolly that the skirt cost less than a dollar at Landmark, and that her mother could “bill her.” Monique played this conversation over and over in her mind. Sometimes she imagined slapping Leila, hard. But the Leila in her mind always slapped back, and things got terrible after that.
Out in the den the telephone rang. Shawn yelled that he would get it and appeared in the kitchen a moment later looking put out. He placed the cordless on the table and left again, tossing “It’s for Monique” over his shoulder.
She picked up the phone. The voice on the other end was familiar. “Are you as horny as I am right now?” he asked. “Or are you hornier?”
“Sure thing, Chuck. I’ve got it in my bag.” She stood and walked calmly through the den and into her bedroom.
“Chuck?
That’s hot. Let’s incorporate that. Are you dressed for work yet?”
“No.” Monique closed the bedroom door. “Just socks.”
“You are very good to me.”
“I’ve got to go.”
“I need to see you before you leave. How does a king-size at the Dusit sound?”
“Can’t. Nowhere in Makati, the kids spend half their time there. Besides, you had your chance. I was at that goddamned bar for two hours last night.”
“I’m still in Davao. A friend of mine had an accident.”
“I’m sorry.”
“He’ll be all right. I won’t be if I don’t see you.”
“I’ll try.”
“Hard?”
“Don’t call on this line anymore. Next time I’ll just hang up.”
“That’s what you said last time.”
Monique hung up. He always, always did this. Flowers delivered to the apartment with ambiguous notes. Singing telegrams, which apparently still existed in the Philippines. E-mails to her state.gov address with From Your Lover in the subject line. Joseph was none the wiser, thank God, but Monique thought that deep down he might be fostering a kind of proto-suspicion. Not in his heart of hearts, more in his ego of egos. As though he was righteously primed—ready to be the injured party. And in this case, he would be. Monique, for her part, threatened to break it off if her lover didn’t quit with the risky games. He called her bluff.
She washed her face, reapplied her makeup and collected her things. With briefcase in hand she left the bedroom. Leila was on the couch in the den, doing homework that should have been finished already. Shawn’s door was closed and from behind it Monique heard his humming air conditioner and the horrible chirping sound his gecko made at mealtimes. Joseph dozed in the kitchen while Amartina cleared the table. Monique shook him awake. “I’m heading out. Are you sure you don’t want to come to work? There’s a construction crew in the annex and Jeff needs all the escorts he can get. You probably have time if you get dressed right now.”
“I told you. That’s not work.”
She was running out of things to say to this. “It might keep you up. Give you a better chance of sleeping tonight.”
“I can keep myself up. I’ll pack.”
“All right.” She kissed him on the mouth.
“Just twelve more mornings.”
“I know.”
MONIQUE BYPASSED THE LOBBY and descended a concrete ramp to the loading dock. The boxy beige minivan was late, which would have been early yesterday. She put her weight into opening the heavy armored door, said good morning to everybody and climbed aboard. Jeff, the regional security officer, rode shotgun. He turned in his seat and glared at her, jabbing a thumb at his chest. Monique looked down and saw that her badge was dangling there for everybody to see. She pinched open her blouse and dropped the badge inside. Jeff grinned and gave her a thumbs-up. “No Joe today?”
“Nope.” Instead of giving the tired errands excuse, or the more legitimate packing excuse, she just let the word hang.
Traffic was worse than usual. McKinley Road, EDSA and Roxas Boulevard were all stop-and-go. She stared out the window as they passed boarded-up nightclubs, girly bars and the tall, sooty looking Department of Foreign Affairs. The bay was calm beyond the concrete promenade. The fishing boats looked almost beautiful as they trembled in early light. She could see the embassy up ahead—a big patch of green, conspicuous among pastel high-rises. When they got closer she made out high walls and an armored jeep with a roof-mounted machine-gun trained on the street. Beyond the walls was a stretch of wet grass, weeping yellow trees and a flagpole still pockmarked with Imperial Japanese bullets. The main building, the chancery, was long and white like a plantation house. Everything else on Roxas Boulevard looked out, toward the sea, but the embassy faced inland, as though arriving from it.
The shuttle pulled up to the high walls and was surrounded by private guards. One gazed into the windows to check faces. Two more looked under the hood while a fourth circled them with a mirror on wheels, looking for bombs in the undercarriage and rims. More guards, as well as Filipino soldiers, stood behind the high electronic gates. The chancery itself had bulletproof glass, blast doors and a small detachment of U.S. Marines. It all made Monique uneasy.
“So,” Jeff’s booming voice startled her. “I assume you heard about Chuckie?” Chuck—her boss at American Citizen Services. And no, she hadn’t heard. “Ain’t that a bitch, after going through all the trouble to get an easy post like this?”
“Sorry?”
“Temporary duty yonder—they’re sending the poor boy to Kabul for the whole summer. Only gave him a week to get ready!” This information meant more than it seemed to. “I mean, my question is, why do you need someone from ACS in Afghanistan? The local YMCA needs a consultant?” Jeff grinned. He either didn’t notice or ignored her expression, and kept talking. The shuttle drove through the final gate and then up to the chancery steps. Monique looked out at the bay again. She knew at that moment, without being told, that her vacation was off. She’d be in Manila through May, and straight through to the rainy season.
Chapter 4
THE BOXER BOYS
Efrem Khalid Bakkar is asleep. He’s in his bunk, in a big tent, north of Davao City. It’s where he’s supposed to be. Skinny Vincent, his bunk-mate, isn’t there. He’s had the shits ever since the division left Basilan, and they boil up worst between midnight and dawn. The sickness leaves Skinny hollow, and grumpy, but Efrem doesn’t mind. He enjoys the extra privacy, and though Skinny is his friend, they aren’t that close. Efrem isn’t that close with anybody.
So he’s asleep, and happy, getting the bunk all to himself. But then someone shouts. More than one someone. Not yet dawn and goddamn Manileño officers are hollering. They move through camp in hollow moonlight, sounding tougher than they are. “Step it up you dreamy faggots! Brig Yapha’s back from Manila, and he wants to see the boys of Boxer Division grown into men by breakfast-time!”
The officers must mean Brig Yapha’s breakfast and not theirs. Efrem’s unit wanders into the predawn wearing pajamas of various colors. They find the mess trailer dark, stoves cold, cooks asleep on tabletop bedrolls. Returning to the big tent they dress, grumbling among crisscrossing flashlight beams. Efrem’s boots are overlarge so he stuffs rolled socks into the toes and tripleknots them. Before he’s done Skinny Vincent stumbles in, stinking awful, shouting big news. “It’s not just Brig Yapha!” he yells, breathless. “They have the man coming to see us—they have Charlie Fuentes!”
Soldiers look up from what they’re doing to stare gape-mouthed at Skinny. Charlie Fuentes? Hero of the Ocampo Justice films? Biggest action star in the republic? “Yeah, right,” someone grumbles, “quit dreaming.” And the tent gets noisy as men suggest different ways for Skinny to fuck himself.
“No dream,” Skinny insists, “and no lie. Honest to God!” He shakes a little, and goes pale. He’s either excited, or still very sick.
“How do you know?” Efrem asks, not looking up from his bootlaces.
“I heard it. Overheard it, firsthand,” Skinny says. “I’m up at the officer’s latrine and first lieutenant’s flexing in the stall right next to me. Second lieutenant runs up and says he’s got a radio call from Brig Yapha. First lieutenant says bring the radio here because I can’t quit now and won’t be done soon. Second lieutanant does but it won’t fit under the stall door, so he just high-ups the volume. They shout all about it. Brig Yapha says we have guests coming for inspection. A bunch of reporters, and Charlie-fucking-Fuentes! He says it twice—loud.”
The tent quiets down. They all come from different islands but not a one of them has ever missed an Ocampo Justice film. Charlie Fuentes stars as Reynato Ocampo, the hardest cop in the country, maybe in the whole damn world. The one and only Mr. Tough Knocks, the Dirty Harry of the Wild Wild East, old Snaggletooth himself. They’ve all been to movie houses to watch him stick up for the unstuckup for, fixing the nation one dead cr
iminal at a time. They’ve all seen him press Truth, his famous shitspilling pistol, into the foreheads of men who deserve it.
The silence stretches until it breaks into excited crosstalk, soldiers peppering Skinny with questions. Tell us what you heard again, not so fast this time. He’s coming to inspection? Fuentes? The Ocampo Fuentes? Himself? This morning?
Efrem keeps his eyes on his laces, but they won’t tie right. His fingers are shaking. He was nine when he saw his first Ocampo movie—first movie he ever saw. Back when his adoptive mother was still alive, back before he’d picked a side in the war, back before he’d switched sides. He’d been a little boy seated in the back near the projectionist. And Reynato Ocampo was the biggest man in the theater, so big they had to wheel the projector forward to squeeze him onto the screen, so bright they twice replaced the buzzing bulb that lit the film.
AN HOUR LATER the Boxer Boys stand stock still on a marching green south of camp. It’s not a proper marching green. The Armed Forces of the Philippines have leased the land from a Davao-based sugar concern and it slopes irregularly to the east. Tenant farmers tend rice some kilometers down the way, paying the soldiers no mind. A lone carabao munches reeds in a fallow paddy. A boy walks the mounds between, followed by an underfed but energetic puppy. Beyond them all is a tree line of unclaimed, cowering jungle.
Efrem’s in the front row, with soldiers spanning the green behind him and to either side. Hundreds of dirt-eaters, killer grunts, pride of the AFP. He looks sharper than usual this morning. Back straight, eyes forward, custom Tingin rifle shouldered. Beretta oiled and holstered snug. Dented helmet high. Boots tight as he can get them. The inspection’s late, but when it comes he’ll look his best.
Time passes. The sun wallows in low clouds over treetops. It’s mid-April, still very much the dry season, but tell that to this drizzle starting up. Somewhere down the line a soldier sits and the officers give him twenty kilometers of marching with a pack full of ruined cinder blocks. They promise the same for the whole division if another knee grazes ground. The drizzle thickens to rain. Most of the soldiers prefer rainwater to sweat so they leave their plastic ponchos in their packs. They whisper freely under the patter. Skinny Vincent’s story ricochets down the line. Charlie Fuentes is coming. The rumor makes it to the far end of the division and comes back an hour later as a rumor that the president’s been overthrown. Some of the men who have family in Manila start to get upset. Officers calm them down by radioing Metro Command. The president is fine. She’s breakfasting with Chinese businesspeople.
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