by Nick Joaquin
“As I said, his end is as mysterious as his beginning. One day he was there, the next day he was not. But many of those who were in his New Jerusalem believed all their lives that he would return one day and call them back to his kingdom.
“And now I come to the serious part of my story. Two years ago, a man came to visit me, here in this room. That this visitor of mine and the mysterious Baltazar, whom I knew as God when a boy, are the same person, I have not the slightest doubt. He looked exactly as I remembered him: the flowing mane, the slight limp, and that fire on the brow. Ah, but it was I now who was older than he!
“He said he had come back as he promised, under another name, Melkizedek, to start the rebuilding of his kingdom. Would I join him again? I tell you, if I were not crippled, I would have stood up that instant and followed him. But all I could do was try to remember for him where this or that survivor of the New Jerusalem had last been heard from. He thanked me and left. He has not come back. But I hear about him. I hear he has been in the provinces tracking down the children or grandchildren of those who were his followers and that many of these young ones, for whom, of course, he is a family legend, are joining him. In what? A new uprising? A new Kingdom? That, I cannot tell. But sometimes, as I sit here musing, I wonder if they are to come back, truly, again: the great days, the Revolution—and how I wish I were young again!”
• • •
“Dotage?” asked Sid, on the way to their next stop: the friar order Father Melchor had claimed.
“Not dotage,” said Sonya. “Exultant nostalgia.”
“Which an impostor took advantage of.”
“An impostor, yes, I suppose, or we’d have to posit a man who’s over a hundred years old and looks forty.”
“What would the friars say of this?”
“An imposture!” said Fray Calezón, who was young, Spanish and had a sheaf of yellowing documents on his desk. “An imposture, Mr. Estiva. I asked for these papers after you telephoned me. We had been gathering them since we heard that this Father Melchor claims to have been of our order. Yes, we had a Father Melchor, but these papers will prove that he could not be this impostor going under his name. No, impossible. Our Father Melchor lived toward the end of the eighteenth century. Look, there’s the exact date of his entrance into our order: 6 January 1776. That would explain why he took the name Melchor de la Epifania.
“Let me draw your attention to the notations on the deed, which indicate considerable correspondence on this matter. The reason was that it was rather extraordinary: this Melchor was an indigene—or, as they said then, an Indio, possibly the first to be admitted into our order. Here’s a letter from the prior at that time of our house in Pangasinan. You can see he has little information on this Melchor’s origins, no information save that he was attached to our house in Pangasinan, evidently as the personal servant of one of the fathers there, the procurator.
“When this father was assigned to our mission in Fookien he urged that Melchor be sent too, because he had shown such industry and intelligence. It was finally arranged that Melchor was to be admitted into our order as a lay brother and sent to China.
“These three documents are the pertinent reports from China, several years later, recommending that Brother Melchor be ordained priest and given full missionary scope, having shown a talent for it. The corresponding answers have, alas, been lost, but again we can deduce considerable debate. Here, read this paragraph where our men in Fookien argue for a dispensation in behalf of Brother Melchor. A dispensation was necessary, not for lack of training—apparently, Brother Melchor had already taken Latin, philosophy, and theology—but for physical reasons. Brother Melchor was a bit lame and he had an ugly birthmark on the forehead. Our rules forbid the ordination of any candidate with ugly physical features. The dispensation was granted and Brother Melchor became Father Melchor, in 1796. After this the record breaks off. All we could find is this report from Indo-China in 1800, where there is mention of the ‘Melchor scandal.’ Apparently, Father Melchor had disappeared in Tibet, after joining an esoteric Buddhist sect there.
“Here you have the documents before you, Mr. Estiva. On such evidence what else can you conclude save that this man who claims to be the Father Melchor of our order is an impostor? Unless he can prove he is over 200 years old! Yes, yes, we have heard of the limp and the birthmark. But those can be faked. Although we are a bit curious to know how he learned about them. As far as we know, all the information about the real Father Melchor is in these documents; and they are, how do you say, or used to be, ‘classified information.’
“But now I still have this book before me. It’s one of the volumes of the history of our order in the Philippines. This is personal research now. You can see I want to give you, how do you say, ‘all the angles.’ When I was told to search for these papers on Father Melchor, the description of him in one of the documents I found—about the limp and the birthmark—rang, as you say, a bell. I had read about them before—but where? I thought back and thought back and finally remembered where: in Avila, at the old convent, while preparing for the Philippines by studying the history of our order here. So I reread the history and located the passage—or, rather, passages.
“Here, I have the first one marked in the book. Read it. Fantastic, no? Yes. Our order was, but not immediately, in charge of evangelizing the Central Plain. You can see whoever was before us did not do a thorough job. There were still these stubborn pockets of paganism. That passage refers to what must have been a very stubborn resistance on the part of the old religion. But note the description of the leader of the uprising: he is a high priest of the old cult, he wears his hair long and dresses in the manner of women, he limps a bit, and he has this remarkable mark on the forehead, which his followers, mostly women, take for a sign of godhood. They believe he has been touched by God—that is, struck by lightning. This resistance to Christianity in the Central Plain—and it was an armed resistance—is suppressed; but unfortunately we are not told what happened to that stubborn high priest with the god mark. This is in the late 1500s, practically toward the end of the Conquista—or should I use that word. But there is more. Now turn the pages to the next mark I have put.
“We are now in the 1690s, a century later. Yes, that passage I have underlined. Can you believe it? Here we have another uprising, but this time not of pagans resisting Christianity but of Christians regressing to paganism. The thing here is the leader, a Christian by the name of Gaspar who claims he has all along been a high priest of the old cults. From the evidence, we must assume that the old worship had been continuing all the time, but underground, like a guerrilla movement. This high priest Gaspar declares that the time has come to restore his kingdom, and we have this revolt, again in the Central Plain—oh, quite an uprising. But note the description of the leader. Again he has long hair, he limps, he has a mark on the forehead. The good father who wrote the history, he does not know what to think of the coincidence, save that it must be the work of the devil. The Gaspar uprising is suppressed. His lieutenants are caught and executed, but again we are not told what happened to the high priest who would be king again. Gaspar. King that was and king to be. The ‘once and future king’—that is the term, no? More, there is this puzzled note that nothing seems to be known of his origins.
“What are we to assume from all this? One: that there has been a series of impostors copying the message and the appearance of a pagan original, and with a predilection for the names of the Three Kings: Melchor, Gaspar, Baltazar. Or two: that there is a man now among us who must be four centuries old: this man who poses as Father Melchor and leads a group that is beginning to call itself the New Salem. Yes, we have heard the rumor that this man also poses as a prophet under the name Melkizedek. One can see the connection he would establish.
“The Melchizedek in the Bible is also priest and king and is said to have had no father and no mother. What do we know of him? He simply sudde
nly appears in Genesis offering bread and wine, and blessing Abraham. And yet he has a rich legend. He is said to have been in charge of the body of our Father Adam, buried in a cave in Hebron. The Talmud mentions a sect of Melchizedekians who worshipped Adam’s body. Adam is the only other character in the Bible who had neither father nor mother.
“Ah, all this fascinates me. My Gothicism, it is fearful. I was in Sta. Ana when they excavated in the church there and as I watched the artifacts being unearthed my hair stood up. A Christian church standing on a pagan burial site. Heathenism emerging from consecrated ground. How do we know what else we resurrect, what else we bring back? This man who calls himself now Melkizedek, now Melchor—is he an impostor or a pagan priest of old come back across the ages? A preposterous question, no? But there are more things in heaven and earth, as your Shakespeare said. Oh, he is not your Shakespeare? Well, anyway, I like the wit of this impostor. Really audacious. Because I know what line in the Bible he is acting out. It is an awesome line, the most mysterious, I think, in Scripture:
“Thou art a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.”
• • •
The office that afternoon was an elegant igloo after the journeys in the heat of the day. This new heart of Makati was a transplant of American downtown—from tree-lined curb to penthouse’d roof—but glittered anomalously between the rank provincial decay of Manila and the lordly tin roofs of the suburbs.
Guia, in jeans and plaid, was waiting in an inner room that had drapes at the windows and a shoe-deep carpet on the floor.
“The three tables are one for you, one for Adela, and this one is mine. We should come here oftener, Sid. That side door is the executive washroom, strictly private, but it connects with Santiago’s office on the other side. We shouldn’t let him do all the work for us; all we do is collect dividendazos. And where have you been? You said four. What are all those packages?”
“Just some items I picked up. Mrs. Borja took me around the bookstores.”
“What’s up between you and this Mrs. Borja? Adela is titillated.”
“Did you bring the data?”
“Here in this folder. Aims and procedures, statistics—all the worldly information about us Christniks.”
“Drop the cool, sis. I’m on to your group’s nik.”
“Are you, Sid?”
Having dumped bundles on a table, he crossed over to the table she sat at and leaned over it, palms propped on the polished wood.
“And,” said he, “like Adela I am putting my foot down.”
She swiveled back and forth on the chair and pretended to be jawing away at a wad of gum.
“Drop the heavy, brod. What bugs you?”
“Your new gospel. Only it’s the oldest one in the world.”
“Yes.”
“Yes? Just like that?”
“If you expect me to deliver an apologia—”
“Shouldn’t you try to convert me?”
“I can’t think of anyone who needs it more. Except Adela.”
He straightened up.
“Now what is that supposed to mean?”
She sprang up from the chair and strode to the middle of the room, arms hugging each other.
“Oh, don’t be so prissy. Just what in this bothers you, Sid? You’re not a prude.”
“I’m not that alienated either.”
“Alienated. Man, are you way off. This is for bringing back people.”
“All shame burned out of them.”
“But that’s only where you start from.”
“I’ll bet.”
She was standing still, staring, parted lips breathless. Then she ran toward him.
“Oh Sid, Sid, you’ve got to understand! You’re the one outsider I had hoped would understand.”
“But you wouldn’t even show me your god.”
“Oh, is it only that that’s worrying you? An image?”
“In religion there’s no such thing as only an image or only a symbol.”
“Yes, I know; but only when you know what it means.”
“Anybody can be trained to find the most outrageous things meaningful.”
“Outrageous. Ha, ha. The first Christians thought it outrageous of God to be born a baby, in a cattle shed, among animals.”
“I’ve heard that before.”
“And that’s why it’s no longer shocking to you. And that’s why there always has to be a new idea of God so different from the old one it’s shocking.”
“Your image?”
“You’re shocked, aren’t you, just by the idea of it, without even having seen it?”
“Oh, I’ve seen it. Not there in Salem House, but I’ve seen it. I have been around. I saw it in India, in the Levantine; I saw it in Greece and Italy; I saw it in Mexico. It’s the oldest image of God.”
“But so old, so forgotten, so carefully shoved back by civilization, it now emerges as something completely new.”
“Because outrageous? But I shouldn’t be outraged, should I, unless I’m sick? All things clean save to such as think dirty. . . . Oh, for God’s sake, Guia!”
“Yes, Sid. For God’s sake. We don’t claim to have found a new gimmick. This is the longest tradition in Christianity: presenting a new image of Jesus. The babe in the manger. The suffering servant. The risen victor. And all these images were found shocking in their time. How many centuries before anybody dared put up for adoration that mangled dying body on the cross? A scandal to the classic world, but how it sent the medievals. Or take the Sacred Heart. Rather corny now, I’m afraid: a sentimental Jesus for a sentimental age. But when the idea was first broached, what an outcry of horror. How could God’s love be represented by a physical organ? And the pioneers of the devotion had to claim that Christ himself had told them that the idea of the Sacred Heart had been reserved for a late, late age of the world when the world’s heart had grown cold. It turns out they were being optimistic. We’re in a later, later age, with a colder, colder heart. We have need of a new Christ we can relate to.”
“Christ as hip turned on.”
“The carnal Christ. Why not? Take the fig leaf off the Incarnation so we can see the man hid by 2,000 years of shame. All we’re trying to do is restore to worship what was always central to it before ascetics and puritans drove it out as unclean. How else can we now express Christ as being on the side of life? And if it was all right to worship his heart, why not some other part of his body?”
“Decorum forbids.”
“Decorum has been the death of God.”
“Decorum, young lady, is what you’re going back to, like it or not. I’m giving you twenty-four hours to pack your things, say your goodbyes to Salem House, and return to Adela’s. I’m speaking as your legal guardian.”
She turned away from him, turned her back on him.
“I’m not a young lady, Sid, and it’s not decorum you’re sending me back to. It’s death. Don’t you know why I had to flee from that house? Because it’s sick. The very air is so unhealthy I had to burst out of there to breathe.”
“Oh, come now, sis. I know Santiago and Adela are squares, but they’re good decent squares.”
She looked round at him over a shoulder.
“What a withdrawn chap you are, Sid. So you don’t know about them? After their one child, he made a vow of chastity and she had to agree to it. It couldn’t have been too hard on her then, she was too busy social-climbing. But now she has got everything she wants, what she hasn’t got is making a sickness inside her. It’s hard on her now, you can see it. Have you noticed how more like Father she looks as she grows older? And Father never was easy to keep down. Oh, I’m not hinting she cheats, or he neither. I know they both behave—and that’s what’s so terrible. Whatever they’re respectively trying to keep down makes that house fester. Even their son prefers boar
ding school.”
“A man and his wife have the right to make their own private arrangements.”
“But it’s twisting them—or her anyway; he has money to fondle. After I took an apartment, there were these mysterious telephone calls at odd hours of the night. Or I’d see a car parked across the street. I only knew it was her when the family next door told me she paid them to use the room next to my wall. And wherever I have moved I have felt her hovering.”
“Isn’t that natural? She was trying to keep an eye on you.”
“No, she craved a taste of my life at second-hand. I was sore at first, until I thought of the loneliness that must have driven her to that.”
“This doesn’t change anything.”
“I am to go back there?”
“Right away. Then you’re coming with me to New York, where you can either stay in my flat or have one of your own.”
She still had her back to him. He took her by the shoulders and gently swung her around. Her head was bowed.
“Guia baby, don’t be like that, we’ll have fun, it’ll be like old times again. Listen, we’ll go biking in Central Park.”
She rested a quiet cheek on his breast.
“Give me until tomorrow night,” she said.
• • •
After Guia had gone—Sister Juana came to fetch her—Sid rang up Adela’s. A maid answered. The señora was dining out; Don Santiago was not expected back till the following day. Sid left word that he was to be contacted at Mrs. Borja’s.
Then he went through Guia’s folder and the books he had bought, mostly history and anthropology, until an employee poked a head in at the door. All the staff had left; would Mr. Estiva be staying longer?