by Nick Joaquin
He spoke with a sad earnestness, as though defending himself. He felt the emptiness of his father’s silence. In their different ways, they had all betrayed and forsaken the old man—their mother had died; he, Pepe, had turned to horses; Tony had turned to God. They had become, as they grew older, more and more restive under the old man’s brooding monomania. They had apostatized, leaving the old man to carry on his cult alone. . . . Now the cult had abruptly come to an end; the candles had all been extinguished and removed. There was only a vacant darkness, a vacant silence.
“Oh, I should have gone along with him!” he cried aloud.
“Don’t blame yourself, old man,” said Tony. “Father wanted to go alone.”
“But only because he knew we didn’t share his dream anymore.”
“There was nothing we could have done.”
“We could have protected him from whatever it was that broke his heart. And how can we help him now when we don’t even know?”
“But, perhaps,” said Rita, rising and collecting their cups, “he’s just exhausted from the trip. Let’s give him time to rest up. Then we’ll find out what happened.”
“He won’t tell us,” said Pepe, remembering the vacant look. “Don’t you see he doesn’t even want to remember?”
“Take it easy, old man,” said Tony. “Our father’s a brave man. He’ll get over this. He got over harder heartbreaks, didn’t he?”
“I’ll take these cups out,” said Rita, “and then you boys will have to take me home.”
“I’ll go take a look at him a moment,” said Tony.
Left alone, Pepe rose and stood by the window and thought of his father standing up very straight for the Nunc Dimittis, one hand over his heart. . . . When Rita returned from the kitchen he helped her into her boots and coat; they did not say what both of them were thinking: that this might mean they would have to postpone marrying again.
Tony came back and announced that the old man was not sleeping. “I thought he was when I entered, but when I stooped over him I saw that his eyes were open. So I said, ‘Papa, Papa.’ But he didn’t seem to hear me.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t leave him alone,” said Pepe. “Tony, will you take Rita home?”
All that night, Pepe lay unsleeping in his room, conscious of his father in the next room, unsleeping too. Toward dawn he heard the old man moving about. He rose, pulled on a robe, and went to the next room. The old man was rocking himself in a chair, in the dark. Pepe turned on the light.
“You have risen early, Papa.”
“I could not sleep.”
“The rain has kept me awake too.”
“Oh, not the rain—the dust, the dust, the dust. . . .”
“We will make the boy wash this room thoroughly today.”
“And crabs. Crabs crawling everywhere. Wherever I place a foot I crush a crab.”
Pepe heard his heart pounding.
“Dust and crabs, dust and crabs, dust and crabs . . .” dully intoned the old man to the wooden rhythm of the rocking-chair.
“Would you like a sleeping pill, Papa?”
“No.”
“Would you like some coffee?”
“Thank you, yes.”
When Pepe returned with the coffee the old man was still dully rocking himself. Pepe pulled up a chair and sat in front of his father while they drank the coffee.
“Tell me about Manila, Papa. How did you find it?”
The old man was silent, rocking himself in his chair; blowing into his cup, then taking a sip, then blowing again.
Pepe slightly raised his voice. “Did you enjoy your stay in Manila, Papa?”
The old man still did not seem to hear, slowly rocking himself up and down.
Pepe put down his cup and leaned forward, placing his hands on his father’s lap to stop the rocking. “Listen to me, Papa. It is I, Pepe, your son. You can talk to me. You can tell me everything.”
The old man looked up from his cup but there was no expression in his eyes.
“Tell me what happened, Papa. Do you hear me? I pray you to tell me what happened.”
The old man leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes.
“Leave me alone,” he said woodenly. “Go away, go away . . . Leave me alone!”
And that was how Paco, too, had whimpered, lying on his face down there on the grass, thought Pepe Monson, as he walked up to the rim of King’s Park; as he paused on the rim and looked back, trying to see where he had left Paco lying at the bottom of the bowl-shaped park. But he could see nothing in the darkness; and turning around, he saw the street dazzling before him, shadows of dwarf pines lacing the edges, and cars’ headlights knifing through the fog. Across the street, behind the fog—its doorways and windows blurrily shining—stood Paco’s apartment-house, where Mary and her soup waited.
He knew now what Mary had known for some time: for both of them, though they had stepped through no mirrors, the safe glass had cracked and things from the other side had begun to seep through. Out of the fog, this morning, had come drifting the stylized girl in black furs and a black hat, with gray gloves on her hands and pearls at her throat; had come drifting the madonna-like lady belted up in a white fur jacket, with a polka-dotted scarf round her neck and gold coins swinging from her ears; had come drifting Paco in a dark-blue turtleneck sweater, with a Boris Karloff look in the eye; had come drifting his father, sprawled forward in a chair, unconscious—though his eyes were open and his mouth smiled. . . .
But you’ve got your own will! he had cried to Paco—and realized now that he had been crying to a ghost; that he was crying to a world of will-deprived ghosts.
—I’m just waiting. Sooner or later, when they call I’ll come running.
—And crabs. Crabs crawling everywhere. Wherever I place a foot I crush a crab.
—When I was a little girl I thought everybody else had two navels.
—When I was a little girl people like your father were my conscience, walking around in elegant clothes.
—Dust and crabs, dust and crabs . . .
The mirror’s cracked world was safe no longer; was perilous with broken glass, teeming with ghosts; was now the world where Paco waited for the strangle-hold and dear good Mary told lies and the cautious Rita was dazzled by dragons and Tony hid in a monastery and fathers took drugs and mothers had lost their dictionaries and young women had two navels. . . .
Pepe shivered at a sudden gust of cold wind. He tucked up his coat-collar, plunged his hands into his pockets, and hurried across the street—to the lighted doorways and windows, to Mary and her waiting soup.
GUARDIA DE HONOR
In October, a breath of the north stirs Manila, blowing summer’s dust and doves from the tile roofs, freshening the moss of old walls, as the city festoons itself with arches and paper lanterns for its great votive feast to the Virgin. Women hurrying into their finery upstairs, bewhiskered men tapping impatient canes downstairs, children teeming in the doorways, coachmen holding eager ponies in the gay streets, glance up anxiously, fearing the wind’s chill: would it rain this year? (But the eyes that, long ago, had gazed up anxiously, invoking the Virgin, had feared a grimmer rain—of fire and metal; for pirate craft crowded the horizon.) The bells begin to peal again and sound like silver coins showering in the fine air; at the rumor of drums and trumpets as bands march smartly down the cobblestones, a pang of childhood happiness smites every heart. October in Manila! But the emotion, so special to one’s childhood, seems no longer purely one’s own; seems to have traveled ahead, deep into time, since one first felt its pang; growing ever more poignant, more complex—a child’s rhyme swelling epical; a clan treasure one bequeaths at the very moment of inheritance, having added one’s gem to it. And time creates unexpected destinations, history raises figs from thistles: yesterday’s pirates become today’s roast pork and paper lanterns, a tapping
of impatient canes, a clamor of trumpets. . . .
For the young Natalia Godoy they had moreover become emeralds—emeralds from her father, to wear to the procession—a ring, a necklace, a brooch, a comb to crown the veil with, and pendulous earrings shaped like chandeliers. She was eighteen, and would march for the first time with the “Guardias de Honor” of the Virgin. And two suitors waited below with their carriages (as her father now reminded her), each anxious for the pleasure of conveying her to the procession.
“But how can I ride with both of them? And to choose one is to hurt the other.”
“My poor baby—but you have already chosen?”
“Yes, father.”
“—and not only for this afternoon—”
“For all my life.”
“Good. Then ride with that one.”
“No . . . No, I shall ride with the other. Oh, please do not laugh at me father!”
“How you girls love to kill with kindness!”
“But I feel I owe him that kindness—”
“Of course, child. Go and ride with this one you have not chosen; and I shall tell the more fortunate one that, only for this afternoon, he is unfortunate.”
“But do not betray me to him yet, father.”
“Esteban?”
“Mario.”
“But I thought that Esteban—You seemed to like him better.”
“Oh yes, yes—he is so gentle, so good; and I desire to ride with him this last afternoon. But it is Mario whom I love, father.”
Suddenly forlorn—“I love” is a door girls slam in their fathers’ faces—he speechlessly turned away. He had always expected, of course, that she would marry some day—but not that she would fall in love. It seemed years before she awoke to the silence, to his averted face.
“Father—?”
At that word the door that had slammed shut opened again; but it was not his baby, not his little girl, that he saw, but a towering, faintly familiar person, a mature woman, before the radiant nakedness of whose passion he felt shy and formal.
“Do you approve, father?” she asked, rather alarmed.
“What need is there to ask?”
“Oh, why must people have feelings!”
“But I told you, Natalia, when those young men first spoke to me, that you yourself should decide. Whatever your choice, I would have approved of it. I believe in the reasons of the heart. Is your heart happy?”
“Yes, father.”
“Enough, then—I give my fiat. Mario is a fine fellow, a man of spirit—of too much spirit, I would say; but the years will modify that. And I give you my blessing.”
She stared at him a moment, pale and breathless; then ran forward, her skirts rustling, and kissed his hand. He ruefully touched the emeralds that swung down her cheeks: he had given those emeralds to a girl; the girl had evaporated; the jewels remained—but burning now (it seemed to him) with greener fires. The green years of her girlhood now lived in those emeralds.
He said: “There, your mother is calling below. She must have lost all patience.” He and her mother and the rest of the family were driving ahead in their own coach; Natalia’s mother, a jefa of the guardias, desired to be early at the church. Natalia would have her aunt to accompany her.
He said, already at the door: “And so she is in love, too—your Aunt Elisa?”
“We have known Andong Ferrero all our lives, father.”
“I see that love is not like lightning.”
“Has Andong spoken for her?”
“He and his parents are coming tonight to make the formal petition.”
“Oh happy Aunt Elisa!”
“How this house must smell of women in love!”
“Will you tell her to run up here a moment—”
And how it transfigured them, grumbled the old man as he walked away. His old eyes had certainly been opened: I thought her a young, young child; I thought Elisa an old old maid—now I look at the two together, and I cannot tell the niece from the aunt. . . .
“—and remember to tell Esteban that we are riding with him!” called Natalia from the doorway. This last afternoon should be wholly his, she sighed to herself, closing the door and returning in front of the mirror; but, as she gathered up her great black veil, it was of Mario that she thought. Had he read into her quietness of last night? She wondered, picking up the jeweled comb and hand mirror—and suddenly her heart stopped. It will rain! she gasped, turning cold—for the room’s image in the big glass had darkened. She stood still, the veil gathered up in her arms, staring at the darkening glass, and waiting for the rain’s clatter on the roof; but what she heard, instead, were two voices—unfamiliar, unrecognizable—speaking just behind her.
—Her name was Natalia, and she was the grandmother of my mother’s grandmother and her beauty became a proverb in the family. Go on, Josie—put them on.
—How green they burn, mommy! They rather scare me. . . . Are these their old settings?
—The original ones. Natalia’s father gave them to her the day she first marched in the Naval procession as a guardia: they have remained unchanged since then. And they have been jealously preserved—through war and plague and poverty. These jewels are more than heirlooms, Josie; they are sacred: the tokens of a vow.
—Mother—
—Yes, dear?
—You feel very deeply about these things, no?
—I have a sentimental fondness for the old traditions, darling. You have made me very happy by wishing to carry them on yourself. When you came and told me that you, too, wanted to be a guardia—
—Oh, why must people have feelings!
—Josie, is something wrong? Is there anything that troubles you?
—And that is why people have hurt you so much.
—Because I feel?
—Too deeply.
—Stop talking nonsense. No one has hurt me. I have had a long full life.
—We have all made you suffer, mother.
—Well, naturally! I am not so saintly as to deserve to have saints for children. But one thing I can say for myself: I have always respected your freedom. No, I cannot say I wholly approve of the lives you lead: but I would prefer you to sin, being free, than not to sin, because I had tied your hands.
—Oh, is that why, mother?
—Why what?
—Why you lend me these emeralds.
—I lend you those emeralds because my mother lent them to me, and because her mother lent them to her—but it was more than a lending: it was an entrusting.
—Do you trust me, mother?
—Is there something you want to tell me, Josie?
—No. No, mommy—nothing.
—Then come, cheer up! This is your first appearance as a guardia de honor, remember! I may be nothing to look at now, just skin and bones—but oh, the first time I marched in that splendid procession! I felt myself growing up as I walked: I knew that I carried on my person something far more lovely, far more precious, than those emeralds. . . . But how they sparkle on you, Josie! Everybody will think you a great heiress. And then they will say: But why is she wearing only one earring?
—Do I look funny with just one earring?
—All the women of our family have walked in the Naval processions wearing that one earring.
—Because of the accident?
—Because of the miracle, Josie—it was a miracle. You remember the story? It happened on this day, the Feast of the Naval—the very day Natalia’s father gave her those emeralds. She and her aunt rode to the procession in the carriage of one of her suitors, a boy named Esteban. And then, oh, they had this dreadful accident. The horses became panicky and bolted and finally broke loose. The carriage was hurled against a wall and smashed into pieces. The aunt and the boy Esteban were instantly killed—but Natalia was saved. They found her
standing unhurt amidst the wreckage. Nothing had happened to her except that she had lost an earring. She firmly insisted on going on to the procession. She cried that at the very moment of disaster she had called on the Virgin of the Rosary, and the Virgin had snatched her away. A votive picture of her deliverance hung for a long time at the Dominicans. And forever since then, her descendants have marched as guardias in the Naval processions wearing one earring. . . .
Moveless before the mirror, Natalia Godoy watched the glass growing bright again; but in the room now reflected in it nothing was familiar save her own pale jeweled face and the bells’ clamor. Unnoticed, veil and comb and hand mirror had dropped from her hands; the voices continued behind her: she no longer listened—until the voices stopped, when she heard footsteps departing and a door closing; but knew herself not yet alone in that room whose strange image gleamed at her from the glass—an image that fluidly altered again as she turned around to face the staring eyes behind her.
“Hello there,” said Josie limply. “You must be Natalia.”
The two girls stood close together; white gowns and breathless faces almost touching.
“How you startled me,” said Josie. “I dropped my hand mirror.”
They both glanced down at the spoilt glass on the floor, between their feet.
“It was I who dropped that,” said Natalia.
“—or maybe we both dropped it,” said Josie. “We seem to be wearing the same jewels too.”
“Only, as you see, I have both the earrings.”
“But you heard what my mother said—”
“It will not happen.”
“Will not? It has not happened yet, you mean? But I thought you were—”
“No, Josie: it is you who are the ghost here. Look around—You see? This is my room; that noise of bells and ponies and carriage wheels is my world; this afternoon is my today. But you, my dear Josie, are real only for this moment.”