Till The Old Men Die

by Janet Dawson

  “You’re late,” I said.

  “Sorry. Had a busy day.” He smiled coolly and indicated his stained T-shirt and faded blue jeans. “I stopped at home to change.”

  He signed in at the office, then led the way through the gate, where he shouldered one of the stepladders that leaned against the outside wall.

  “Tell me about Edward Villegas,” I said as we walked about fifty yards south of the office. “Is he Filipino?”

  “Pinoy? Definitely. American-born, though. He doesn’t have an accent.” We turned left into a row of storage sheds. “I asked him about his credentials. He claims he’s done some features for the Philippine News. He says he met my uncle last year, while Lito was researching an article about Asian immigrants and crime. Villegas says he’d liked to expand Lito’s research into a book.”

  It was a plausible explanation. Maybe Villegas really was a writer. The article he’d mentioned was the one in the history journal Dad had loaned me, published after Dr. Manibusan’s death. But Villegas’s interest in the professor’s files came right on the heels of Dolores Cruz’s appearance at the university, and that made me suspicious. A call to the Philippine News should tell me whether anyone on the newspaper’s staff had heard of him.

  “I told Villegas I’d think about it,” Alex said. “Do I just keep playing him along?”

  “For the time being. Let me know if he contacts you again.”

  The storage units at the end of the row were small units with regular doors, while those in the middle had garage-type doors. Alex stopped in front of one of these. I held the ladder while he unlocked the padlock, slipped it from its coupling, and lifted the door.

  The shed was about the size of a one-car garage. It was stacked floor-to-ceiling with cardboard boxes, with just enough clearance at the top for the bare light bulb that provided the only illumination. Between the stacked boxes were several narrow rows, wide enough for one person to slip in sideways. I touched the nearest box, labeled FILING CABINET in thick black letters, and my hand came away dusty.

  “Do you know what you’re looking for?” Alex asked.

  “A brown envelope, five by seven inches, mailed by your uncle to my dad. I don’t know what’s in it or whether it’s mixed in with all the stuff. All I know is Dad can’t find it, and I have a hunch it’s important. I guess we’ll have to look through all these boxes, and maybe haul some of them to my office. As long as I’m doing this, I’d like to look through the professor’s files, to see what he was working on when he died.” I shook my head at the contents of the storage unit. “This is going to be grimy work.”

  He laughed. “That’s why I went home to change.”

  “Are all these boxes labeled?”

  “Some are, some aren’t.”

  I sighed. “We can eliminate books, furnishings, knick-knacks. Is there any order to all of this stuff?”

  “Only that some of it is from the university and the rest from Lito’s house. I packed the things from the university. My brother Carlos helped me at the house. We were in a hurry, so we weren’t too organized.”

  “You didn’t tell me you had a brother.”

  He favored me with a slow smile. “There’s a lot I haven’t told you.”

  Alex climbed the ladder and handed boxes down to me. Most of them had the name of the room the contents had occupied in Dr. Manibusan’s house, such as kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and living room. We stacked these boxes to the right of the storeroom entrance. On the left we piled a smaller collection of cartons, labeled OFFICE and BOOKS. His uncle’s home had been full of books, Alex recalled, and he didn’t remember whether any books had been mixed in with the files.

  “I’d like to borrow your book,” I told Alex, lifting the lid on a box.

  “Book? Which one?”

  “The Karnow book. In Our Image.”

  “Doing a quick study on Philippine history?”

  “I’m not completely ignorant. After all, I was a history major. I know there’s more to it than Ferdinand Marcos, and Commodore Dewey in Manila Bay.”

  “‘You may fire when ready, Gridley,’” Alex said sardonically, quoting Dewey’s famous order. He lifted a box down from a stack and pulled off the lid.

  I saw something stuck between the file folders of the box I was looking through and pulled it out. No luck on the envelope front. It was a paperback dictionary, English and Tagalog. “Tagalog is the official language, right?” I asked Alex, waving the book.

  Alex nodded as he fanned through the file folders in the box, glancing at the labels. “English is commonly used, though. There are so many different ethnic groups and dialects. The Philippines is made up of more than seven thousand islands, about two thousand of them inhabited. Try to make one cohesive country out of such a mixture.”

  I pulled back the flaps of a box and ran my hand slowly along the tops of the folders, reading the words printed in black ink. Insurance, credit card receipts, utility bills. I shut the box and pushed it to the right, then eliminated a second carton, containing the professor’s tax records. We had gradually whittled the boxes from Dr. Manibusan’s house down to six containing papers and files. It looked like the boxes from the university were at the back of the storage unit.

  “We know your uncle wrote that article about Filipino immigrants and crime. What other subjects was he interested in?” I mopped a trickle of sweat from my face with the bottom of my T-shirt.

  “The whole immigrant experience,” Alex said, pushing another box aside. Our joint effort looking through the boxes was loosening Alex’s tongue, and I was hoping to obtain a clearer picture of the Manibusans. “And anything to do with World War Two. Lito was very young when the Japanese invaded, but he remembered the occupation vividly. Food shortages and how badly the soldiers treated the people. The town where he was born was close to the route of the Bataan Death March. It was a bad time. My mother doesn’t like to talk about it. But Lito talked about his father, Carlos, quite a bit. I think it was because of the way he died.”

  “Was he killed in the fighting?” I asked.

  “Shot by some Japanese stragglers at the end of the war,” Alex said grimly, “during the liberation of Luzon. He was a teacher, not a farmer. Lito said he’d been something of an agitator for land reform during the thirties. That made him more visible, I guess.”

  I lifted the lid off another box. “How did he become a teacher?”

  “While the Philippines were a colony, after the Spanish-American War and up through the thirties, American teachers used to come over like missionaries, educating their ‘little brown brothers.’ That’s why the literacy level in the Philippines is higher than it is in other Asian countries. So Carlos taught kids to read and write in a little one-room school in San Ygnacio.”

  “You said you’d been there once.”

  “Yeah. I was just a kid, eight or nine. We went up there for a funeral, my mother’s great-aunt or something.”

  “You’re not sure if she was your mother’s aunt?”

  “Compadrazgo.” The word rolled off his tongue. “It’s a kinship system, with roots back to the days when the Philippines belonged to Spain. It means a Filipino has blood relatives all the way down to fourth cousins, plus your godparents and all of their kin are considered part of the family. When I was growing up in Cavite, it seemed like everyone on the coast was a relative of some sort. It was kind of bewildering.”

  “Tell me about San Ygnacio.”

  “Not much to tell,” he said with a laugh. “A dusty little town off the main road, surrounded by sugar cane fields, looking like all the other little towns in the central plains. If my grandmother hadn’t left after the war, maybe I’d be there, cutting cane. I’d much rather be where I am.”

  “Dad told me Dr. Manibusan came to the States after Marcos declared martial law,” I said, rooting around in another box.

  “Yes, in 1973, about six months after the martial law declaration,” Alex said as he turned to another stack of boxes. “Lito s
aw what was going on in the late sixties and early seventies, and started working on visas several years before. It’s tough to get into this country legally. Takes a long, long time. That’s why there are so many illegals. Sometimes the wait is as long as twenty years, unless you’re immediate family, like a parent or a spouse or an unmarried kid. Sara’s brother came over years ago, and he’s a naturalized citizen. Siblings are fifth preference, so ordinarily Lito and Sara would have had to wait quite a while. But Lito had a doctorate from Cal Berkeley and a job offer at Cal State Hayward. That moved him up to third preference — skilled labor. It shortened the time.”

  “What about your family? You said last night at dinner that you came to the States when you were fourteen.”

  “Intracompany transfer. My father had applied for a visa years before. He worked for a company in Manila that opened a subsidiary here in California, and they transferred him here. Dad’s brother was living in San Jose too. Then I joined the navy. That helped get permanent-resident status. Now we’re all citizens.”

  “I’d like to talk to Sara’s brother,” I said, sitting on a box, “The one in Daly City.”

  “Pete Pascal? I have his address and phone number at home. I’ll call you.”

  I stood up and set to work again, losing track of time until an employee of the storage facility wheeled by on a bicycle and told us the place was closing in fifteen minutes. By then Alex and I had unearthed the boxes from the university and were stacking the cartons I didn’t need back inside the unit. There was no sign of the envelope. I was beginning to doubt the damn thing existed. I was coated with dust and could feel sweat beading on my face. Muscles in my back, legs, and arms ached, payment for all this exertion. Closing my eyes, I lusted after a long, hot shower.

  “Are you going to haul this stuff back to your office?” Alex asked.

  “That’s what I had in mind.” I opened my eyes. “Unless you have some objection. That way I can look through them more carefully. If I can’t find the envelope, maybe I can find something else that will give me an idea what your uncle was working on when he died.”

  “Will all these boxes fit in your car?”

  “I think so.” I mentally measured the hatchback of my Toyota. “It’ll be tight, though.”

  We put the rest of the cartons back in the storeroom, then walked to the parking lot to get my car. We managed to load ten of the twelve boxes into the Toyota. Alex wedged the remaining two boxes into his Mazda. He returned the step-ladder, signed out of the storage facility, and followed me as I drove to Oakland. Fred, the security guard at my office building, told me there was a handcart down in the basement. I fetched it, then Alex and I unloaded the boxes and hauled them up to my office, stacking them along one wall. When we were done, I glanced at my watch. It was nearly eight. I’d had no dinner and I was bone-tired.

  Alex’s Mazda was parked behind my Toyota in the loading zone in front of the building. It wasn’t quite dark yet, but the streetlights were on. The evening fog had come in, cooling the air. A breeze tunneled between the buildings on Franklin Street. It had a wet chill I could feel through my filthy T-shirt.

  “Thanks for the help,” I said. “If I find anything, I’ll let you know.”

  “It’s early.” Alex stood close. I caught the tangy scent of male sweat. “We have time for dinner.”

  I shook my head. “It’s been a long day, Alex. Hot shower, cool sheets.”

  “Sounds even better.” His eyes sparkled. “Am I invited?”

  “Not tonight.”

  “I don’t usually like to take a rain check.” He leaned forward and kissed me, taking his time, his hips pressing mine against the Toyota, his arms circling my waist. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the warm sensation that crept over me, banishing the chill of the night air. One of Alex’s hands moved to the back of my neck, ruffling my hair. The other slipped under my shirt and caressed my back.

  “Tell me something,” I murmured as his hand moved upward, toying with the fastener of my bra.

  “What?” His lips tickled my ear.

  “Why did your wife divorce you?”

  He stopped kissing me and placed his hands on my shoulders, looking at me with opaque brown eyes. “What makes you think my wife divorced me?”

  “Just a hunch.”

  He didn’t say anything for a moment. The corners of his mouth twitched. “I had an affair with someone.”

  “That’s what I thought. You move fast.”

  “I don’t like to waste time. Besides, you seem to be enjoying it,” he said. He tilted his head and kissed me again.

  He was right. I did enjoy it. My skin flushed and my nerve endings tingled. I reached up and moved his hands from my shoulders, disengaging my mouth from his.

  “I have to go.”

  I fished my car keys from my bag. He caught my hands, stalling me. “Ever been to a Filipino fiesta?” he asked.

  “No. Do they have good food?”

  He laughed. “The best. There’s a fiesta Saturday in Fremont. Come with me.”

  Saturday, I thought, tilting my head to one side as I studied his face. I needed to do laundry and clean my apartment. “I’d love to. What time?”

  “I’ll pick you up at ten. Tell me where.”

  I gave him my address. “What should I wear?”

  “Clothes would be appropriate.” A teasing note crept into his voice.

  “Thanks, Alex. That’s very helpful.”

  “Casual is fine.”

  He kissed me again, this time a friendly peck on my grimy forehead, and climbed into his red convertible. I got into my own car and started the engine. So the laundry pile got higher and I could write my name in the dust on the bookshelves. Attending a Filipino fiesta sounded like more fun than household chores. Besides, I hadn’t been on a date in ages, and I’d worked the past two weekends.

  As I unlocked the front door of my apartment, Abigail came running, her tail upright and twitching. She had a huffy look on her face, the one she gets when I’ve been away from home too much. She set up a chorus of plaintive meows designed to push all my pet-owner guilt buttons and spur me to fill the food bowl. It always works. I headed straight for the kitchen and opened a can of cat food. Then I knelt and scratched her between the ears as she ate. She purred and I knew I was forgiven — this time.

  I foraged in the refrigerator and made myself a salad for dinner, augmenting it with crumbled feta cheese and some sesame crackers. Then I took my hot shower, feeling my muscles relax under the steaming spray, turning the water off between soaping and rinsing in deference to the drought. In my oversized T-shirt I went to bed, my head filled with deliciously erotic thoughts of Alex Tongco.

  Eight

  I ARRIVED AT MY OFFICE EARLY FRIDAY MORNING and made a large pot of coffee. When I had a mug within reach, I hauled one of Dr. Lito Manibusan’s cartons down from the tower of boxes Alex Tongco and I had stacked along the wall the previous night. So far Dad had been unable to locate the mysterious envelope at home or in his Cal State office. I surmised that in the aftermath of the professor’s murder Dad stuck it somewhere in Dr. Manibusan’s office and it had been packed away when Alex and his brother emptied that space. Surely it had to be somewhere in one of these boxes. I removed the lid from the first carton and pulled out several file folders.

  Dr. Manibusan had no doubt organized his files in a logical fashion, but after his death the Tongco brothers were more interested in getting their uncle’s stuff packed in boxes than in maintaining any kind of order. As I sifted through the folders, I noted the labels and the array of subjects. In one box I didn’t see anything related to the professor’s research about crime and Asian immigrants, or the book he’d been writing on Filipino immigrants. I stuck my hand down between each folder and around the inner sides of the box, feeling for the envelope. No luck.

  I cracked open another carton. The professor had certainly been a clipper, saving articles from newspapers and magazines and journals. He and his scissors were
particularly active during the years when the Marcos regime toppled under the weight of its own corruption and the housewife in the yellow dress, Corazon Aquino, swept into her unlikely tenure as president. Manibusan had files on Cory, on her assassinated husband, Benigno Aquino, on Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile, and other notables. Besides the writings of others, the professor kept a record of his own work on an array of subjects — published articles, final copies, final drafts, and notes.

  When I was a kid I constantly got sidetracked while looking up words in the dictionary. Other words caught my eye and I would read page after page of definitions, my imagination so captured by all those intriguing words and exotic meanings that I’d forget my original purpose. That’s what happened now as I delved into Dr. Manibusan’s files. The historian took over from the detective. I sat cross-legged on the floor, reached for a folder, opened it, and began to read, fascinated by this private self-paced seminar on the Philippines.

  Lito Manibusan’s interest in his native land was vast and all-encompassing, extending from the precolonial Philippines through three hundred years of Spanish rule, to the United States’ hegemony dating from 1898, when Admiral Dewey sailed into Manila Bay and began the Pacific phase of the Spanish-American War, to commonwealth status in the 1930s, World War II, and, finally, independence in 1946. File after file related stories of rebellion, revolution, and war — Rizal against the Spanish in the nineteenth century, Aguinaldo against the Americans after the Spanish-American War, social unrest in the thirties, the Huks against the United States after World War II, and the current insurgencies of the New People’s Army and the Muslim separatists in Mindanao. There was much here about World War II and the Japanese occupation, including files on partisans, POWs, and collaborators. Names of people and places leapt out at me — MacArthur and Wainwright, Quezon and Roxas, Leyte and Lingayan gulfs, Bataan and Corregidor.