Smaller and Smaller Circles

by F. H. Batacan

  He begins to move, but Jerome’s hand tightens around his arm. “Think carefully about what you’re going to do next, Gus. Sound advice that you’re always giving me. Now I get to give it back to you.”

  Saenz says nothing for a while, and then makes up his mind. “You’re right, of course. Absolutely right.” He pats Jerome’s shoulder gently. “Okay, let’s get out of here.”

  The two priests are about to leave when they hear a voice call out.

  “Father Saenz?”

  They stop, and Jerome casts a warning glance at Saenz. Saenz nods, I understand, then steels himself to face the owner of that voice.

  “Your Eminence.”

  The cardinal approaches Saenz with both arms outstretched, ready to embrace him. But Saenz makes no move to do the same; he waits until the other man lowers his arms and instead offers his hand. Saenz takes it in both of his large hands and bends his head to kiss the cardinal’s episcopal ring. When he lifts his head, their eyes meet, and the looks they exchange are glacial.

  “Director Lastimosa is in a stable condition,” the cardinal says. “But he’s very, very weak. The doctors say the next forty-eight hours will be crucial.”

  “Will he need surgery?”

  “Eventually. But not until he’s much stronger.”

  Saenz nods. “Where’s the family?”

  “His wife and two eldest children were here earlier. Now it’s just the eldest keeping watch. I presume the others will return during visiting hours.”

  “As will we. Good night, Your Eminence. Or rather—good morning.” Saenz is already walking away when the cardinal draws his attention once more.

  “By the way, Father Saenz—I think it’s admirable how you’ve decided to help the director with his case.”

  “You just had to say something, didn’t you?” Jerome mutters under his breath, too softly for either man to hear.

  Saenz’s eyes narrow. “I do what I can.”

  “Yes, of course. I am . . . familiar with your zeal to do what you can, wherever you can.”

  Saenz goes completely still. It’s as though a hood has dropped over his head, and his face becomes unreadable, a porcelain mask. When he speaks, his voice is calm and low.

  “There are many different ways to give witness to faith, Your Eminence.”

  The cardinal smiles. “Some, no doubt, more pleasing to the Lord than others. But there are times when our hands are tied and we can only do so much.”

  “Or so little.”

  Jerome clears his throat, moves closer to Saenz. “Father,” he says quietly, but loudly enough for Cardinal Meneses to hear, “we should all get some rest if we’re to see Director Lastimosa later in the morning.”

  Neither of the two seem to have heard him, or if they have, they have both simply chosen to ignore him.

  “Come, come, Father Saenz,” the cardinal says, his tone falsely soothing. “The Holy Mother Church has ways of keeping her house in order.”

  “Sweeping dirt under the rug is not one of them,” Saenz says coldly. “Shunting the dirt around quietly in different places so that one is no longer quite certain where to look is not one of them. Not in the Holy Mother Church that I know. Not in the Holy Mother Church that fed me and raised me and nurtured me to become one of its own.”

  The smile on the cardinal’s face remains there by sheer force of will. “I see that you remain upset about Monsignor Ramirez. I can assure you—and you have access to all the documentation—that the inquiry into the matters you raised in 1983 and 1985 was conducted according to canon law, and with integrity and transparency.”

  “Indeed. An inquiry that the Church should have left in the hands of the police. An inquiry that, given the circumstances, given the individuals involved, could only have resulted in one outcome.”

  “You and I will always hold differing views on the nature of that inquiry, Father Saenz. But at the end of the day, what matters is that we acted in the best interests of the Church.”

  “The Church’s interests are not more important than the interests of the children Father Ramirez has victimized,” Saenz says, his voice a quietly menacing rumble. For what seems to Jerome like minutes, Saenz stares down at the cardinal, who stares back defiantly.

  It is Saenz who breaks the staring contest off. “But whatever allows you to sleep soundly at night, Your Eminence.” He turns his back on Cardinal Meneses and starts walking away. “Come, Father Lucero. We have another long day ahead of us.”

  It’s past 6 a.m. when it finally occurs to Peping to telephone Attorney Arcinas. If the man is annoyed at being roused from sleep, his mood quickly slides into livid after being told why.

  “Eleven o’clock. He collapsed at eleven o’clock last night, and you’re only telling me now?”

  “I called Director Mapa and Director Valdes first. Then I called Mrs. Lastimosa.”

  Mapa and Valdes are Assistant Director and Deputy Director for Administration, respectively; they would logically be the first in the organization’s call tree to be informed and mobilized in situations like this. Still, it galls Arcinas that a man he has instructed specifically to keep an eye on the director should be so lax.

  “Where is he?”

  “He’s at St. Luke’s, Attorney.”

  “And where are you? Why aren’t you with him?” he demands.

  “I’m at home, sir,” Peping stammers.

  “Since when?”

  “I . . . I got here maybe ten, fifteen minutes ago.”

  “Well, why did you leave him there?”

  “I . . . uh, there was nothing else for me to do. His family was with him, and they told me to go home and rest.”

  “Moron,” he says in a low voice, barely able to restrain himself. Then, more audibly, “You should have waited to see who would come to visit him.”

  “I . . . uh . . . I could go back,” Peping offers weakly.

  “It’s too late now,” Arcinas answers coldly. “I’ll go myself.”

  “I’ll meet you there, sir!”

  “No. You go to Mrs. Lastimosa and see if she needs the car. You put yourself at her disposal all day today and tomorrow too, if she needs it. Don’t make me tell you twice.”

  He hangs up on the driver, then falls back upon his pillows and stares at the ceiling.

  “Do I have to do everything myself?” he asks aloud, of no one in particular.

  10

  News of the director’s heart attack is splashed all over the morning papers, fodder for drive-time talk radio and talk TV. Most of the commentators focus on his age; they say that he has taken on such a demanding job—one that should be handled by a much younger man—at an age when most people are already enjoying their retirement or, at the very least, getting ready for it. Some are talking about replacement candidates, as though he is already dead and his post left vacant.

  Jerome folds up his newspaper and slams it down on the table in disgust. The tender yolks of two sunny-side-up eggs on a plate laid out for him wobble in terror.

  “Three names. Three names, and every single one of them an unmitigated idiot.”

  “Or, you could sit down and just enjoy your eggs,” Saenz says, peering at him over the rims of his glasses.

  “Unbelievable,” he continues, fuming. “You have to wonder what goes on in people’s heads.”

  “No, I don’t,” Saenz says, pouring Jerome a cup of coffee. “And I’m a much happier man for it. Come, sit, sit. No use complaining about the world’s freest press—we fought for it, we got it, now we have to live with the nonsense that it spews out.”

  Jerome sullenly takes his place at the breakfast table. He picks up a fork and pokes at the crusty brown edges of the egg whites.

  “Besides, we have more important things to worry about.”

  “Oh? Like what?”

  “Got a phon
e call from Director Mapa this morning.”

  Jerome drops the fork on the plate with a clatter and leans back in his chair. “That can’t have been good.”

  Saenz shakes his head, and Jerome notes that he is putting an excessive amount of sugar into the cup of coffee he’s just poured for him. When Saenz notices his alarm, he says, “You’re going to thank me for this third teaspoon when you hear what he had to say.”

  “Let me guess. They’re removing us from the Payatas investigation.”

  “No, but they’re thinking about it.”

  “Already?”

  “Apparently our dear friend the task force chief has appealed to the good assistant director to rethink their approach, now that Director Lastimosa is indisposed.”

  “Arcinas,” Jerome says. “He certainly moves fast.”

  “He saw an opening, and he took advantage of it. I can’t say that I wouldn’t have done the same thing in his position.”

  “No, you wouldn’t have.”

  Saenz chuckles. “Go on, those eggs aren’t going to eat themselves. We’ll head over to the hospital when you’re finished.”

  “I think I’ve lost my appetite.”

  The director is fully conscious but weak. When Saenz sticks his head through the open door, the old man lifts a heavy hand off the bed and motions for him to come in.

  The curtains have been drawn, and the lighting in the room is dim. Saenz walks quietly and carefully toward the hospital bed.

  “I won’t take long, sir,” he says in a low voice. “Just wanted to see how you were doing.”

  The director nods. “My children are convinced that I should travel to the US for surgery. I’m not so sure.”

  “What do your doctors say?”

  He swallows with some difficulty and then points to the pitcher of water on the side table. Saenz takes the glass beside the pitcher and fills it with water. He waits while the director adjusts the incline of the bed with the controls at his fingertips. When he’s in a semi-upright position, Saenz carefully brings the glass to his mouth, and he takes a few sips, then lies back on the pillows. “They’re of two minds. Traveling could put a strain on me while I’m still very weak, but the longer we put off surgery . . .”

  “Do you think you can make the trip?”

  The director closes his eyes and is silent for quite some time; for a while Saenz thinks he has drifted off to sleep, but then he begins to speak again.

  “Do you know why the president appointed me to this post?”

  It’s an unexpected question. “Because you were the best man for it?”

  He shakes his head weakly. “I’m just warming the seat for someone else, Father. A protégé of one of his major political allies. He’s much younger and still a bit green. But he’s hungry, he looks the part, and he’ll take this job when he’s good and ready.”

  “I don’t understand. An outsider? Or someone who’s already in the bureau?”

  The director nods, his eyes still closed. “Waiting in the wings.”

  “Philip Mapa.”

  “He and Ben Arcinas go way back. Arcinas is ambitious, but he’s never going to be up for the top job. Not . . . magisterial enough. But Mapa is, and so he’s happy to hitch his wagon to Mapa’s star. They’re both just waiting for me to make a mistake.” The forefinger on his right hand begins tapping at his stomach, and Saenz cannot tell if it is intentional or involuntary. “I’m in my seventies, Father, and not a young seventies either. This heart is going to give way sooner or later. I wouldn’t mind handing it all over to them first thing tomorrow, if I didn’t have this unfinished business . . .” His voice trails off again, but to Saenz, the meaning is clear.

  “Then you’ll have to do it. Get the surgery.”

  He opens his eyes. “The minute I’m out of the country, some of my people will try to make things difficult for you.”

  In his mind, Saenz says, They’ve already begun, but he holds his tongue. He’s afraid that the man is too weak to handle it.

  “We’ll manage.”

  “Jake Valdes,” he says, and then his face contorts in a twinge of pain. Saenz waits until it passes before speaking.

  “Your deputy.”

  “He’s been with the bureau a while too, as you’re aware. But I trust him.” The tubing of the IV drip lodged in his left hand trembles as he gestures weakly toward the small table beside his bed. Saenz quickly realizes that he is asking for a pen and a small notepad, and he hands it to him. Laboriously, the director writes down one series of numbers, then another, and then hands both pen and pad back to Saenz. “If you have any problems, you speak to him. I can’t promise that he will be able to override Director Mapa’s decisions, but at least he can run interference and give you access to resources and information you might otherwise not have.”

  As Saenz folds up the piece of paper and puts it into his pocket, the director lays a hand on his arm.

  “Father. The work you are doing for us . . .”

  Saenz pats the director’s hand gently. “You don’t have to tell me, sir. I’ll do what I can.”

  The sun’s come out today. I have to go to work.

  Sometimes I wonder if the people I work so hard for appreciate me enough. They come to me suffering, in pain. I do what I do and make it better. Then they go away and never give me a second thought. They pass by me in the streets, and the most that some of them can do is nod. Almost all of them fail to recognize me.

  When I think about it, though, I guess that’s okay. I don’t want them to

  recognize me. It’s really better that they don’t.

  11

  The voice assails Director Lastimosa as he drifts back into consciousness. Its owner is issuing instructions over a cell phone in a tone simultaneously languid and imperious. Ben Arcinas does not bother to take down his volume a notch even though the director is resting. A slight lift of one eyebrow is all that he can muster to acknowledge that the director is awake. He rattles off a laundry list of things for the person on the other end of the line to do.

  When he’s finally done, he turns to the director. “Oh,” he begins, “you’re still not looking so well. When are you going to be released?” As always, his aftershave is overpowering, a wall of scent so dense that one could bounce a coin off it.

  Who let you in here? the director asks, but only in his mind. “Thanks for coming, Ben,” he says instead. “Looks like your day is packed.” His smile is wan.

  If Arcinas notices that his question has gone unanswered, he doesn’t let on. He moves a bit closer to the bed. “It always is. Oh, by the way. I came here to tell you that Director Mapa has given me the green light to proceed in a parallel direction with the Payatas case.” It’s delivered with an obvious relish that borders on delight.

  “I see.” Underneath his blanket, the director clenches his fists. “He hasn’t cleared this with me.”

  “I think he’ll tell you when he drops by tomorrow,” Arcinas says airily. “Maybe he was afraid you were too sick. Anyway, he’s officer in charge while you’re away, so he—”

  “Being OIC does not give him blanket authority over critical matters such as this. He knows this. You know this.”

  Arcinas shrugs. “I just do what I’m told.”

  “What you’re told? Or what you tell Director Mapa you want to do?”

  Arcinas barrels on. “You’ll be pleased to know that we’ll be questioning suspects soon. And before you have another heart attack, I can assure you that it’s all being done very methodically. Father Saenz himself couldn’t possibly do better.”

  “Ben,” the director says, tension surging through his chest, bubbling up his throat like bile, “is this really more important to you? The recognition, the credit? Would you really put it above finding whoever is responsible for these killings?”

  “I don’t know if it’s
your medication or your sickness that keeps you from seeing this, but that’s exactly what I’m trying to do. Except that you have more faith in your priest than you do in your own people.”

  “If you move with as much”—he pauses to find a suitable word, but fails—“fanfare as I fear you will, we might lose him.”

  Arcinas steps back. He seems genuinely hurt by this, his face wearing a look that the director has seen on dogs that have just been kicked. “Fanfare,” he repeats softly.

  “You know what I mean, Ben.”

  “You must think we’re all clowns,” he says, still in that same small, quiet voice. “Why did you even accept the directorship, I wonder? You’re too good for this bureau, or any of us.”

  “Ben,” Director Lastimosa says, as gently as he can. “You’re an intelligent man. You know that certain things need to change. That the things that used to work for us before won’t always work anymore—that in fact, they’re already working less and less. You know that we can do so much better.”

  “I know it was better before you came along.” His face is shuttered now, the eyes cold. “But we’ve survived worse crises, and we’ll survive you. You’re a political appointee. If you don’t die before the next presidential election, you’ll be replaced.”

  “You’d better stop talking, Ben, before you say anything you’ll truly regret later.”

  “I’ve said all that I’m going to say. Enjoy your stay here, sir.” He turns and leaves.

  The room is still and silent now, but the director’s insides are churning. He lies back on his pillows and tries to relax, closing his eyes and taking deep breaths. But he knows it’s coming; he can feel it, that same sense that all control is slipping rapidly, inexorably away.

  He reaches for the call button and presses it while he still can.

  12

  The Monday after the director is rushed to the US for treatment, Saenz is poring over his expense records for the month with some concern. The laboratory is funded largely by grants and donations; although Saenz runs it as efficiently and frugally as possible, there are times when it overshoots its monthly budget and he has to dip into his own pocket to bridge the gap. Over the last few years, as the number of consultations has increased and the level of external funding has fluctuated, those gaps have grown larger and emerged more frequently.