“You need to further your studies,” his father had ordered. “Stop this malas writing business. I did not grow this old to bury my children.”
A post-doctorate was certainly important and prestigious, but the two of them knew why he’d really been sent away.
In his previous existence (the one he knew was his true calling), Joseph had been a writer – a man of the word, full of dreams and reckless hope. He was from the privileged class, but his Scientific Romances – The Social Cancer and The Reign of Greed – had given indios, rich and poor alike, a voice. His books, written under the nom de plume ‘Señor Laong Laan’, were printed and spread in secret by partisan friends and propagandists, stoking a movement for independence that spread swiftly across the islands, like a virulent disease.
The Church and the Spanish Crown burned over his incendiary stories. Joseph’s wealthy family had been in trouble before, and now they feared for his life. They knew that a garrote’s noose waited, if Joseph’s identity was ever discovered.
One evening, in the season of spawning catfish, his father’s men spirited him away. Press-ganged from a zarzuela performance, the young man was placed on a clipper-steamer to Europe. Sailing over troubled monsoon seas, Joseph found himself lost and suddenly alone. He had left without the benefit of a single goodbye.
Two months after he arrived, Joseph quit school and fled to Berlin. In the Prussian capital, he lived on the modest funds his family had sent, and tried again and again to write.
“Reino de España has now blocked all non-official communication to Las Islas Felipenas,” an old friend, Ferdinand Blumenttrit, warned him. “The word is that open rebellion has broken out. The adventures of a fictional hero, Jose Rizal, are the movement’s inspiration. Thus far they have not identified their true author, but beware, mein bruder.” The professor warned him that the Reino de España had eyes everywhere. The Spanish Count of Benomar and his political agents were intercepting the electro-grams and pneumatic mail of exiles.
As a noted member of the Ethnography establishment, his old friend used his influence to secure him membership at the Berliner Gesellschaft für Ethnologie. There, they used the Society’s Babbage brain to encrypt their correspondence, with a cipher of Joseph’s making.
Otherwise cut off from his old world, Joseph had grown increasingly restless and despondent, visiting every brothel and bierbrauerie that he could afford, trying to drown his sorrows, while keeping as low a profile as possible. There was a great emptiness in his heart, a gnawing that he did not, or perhaps would not, understand.
Something in the void, in the naked darkness called out to him, but his words could give it no shape. The spirit that compelled him to put pen on paper remained stilled and silent.
“THE BABAYLAN PRIESTS of the ancient indios were, in a sense, like Newtonian physicists. They subscribed to the philosophical position called determinism, which posited that, for everything that happened, there existed conditions that could cause no other event.
This was the only possible way that a babaylan’s predictions could come true. A person’s destiny had to have already been cast at birth, molded and finished from the clay of possibility. For how else could the future be correctly predicted, if men and women could affect the present to change it?”
– Joseph Mercado, The Collected Berlin Letters (1946).
AT THE SOUND of the twilight cannon, Joseph shook himself from his brooding. He polished off a bottle of Vin Mariani and left his room.
The young man rushed downstairs to catch the end of the public visiting period – the only time the Society allowed people with Class C Memberships within its premises.
“Guten abend, Signore Mercado,” his landlady greeted, as he passed her along the hallway. Mrs. Francesca von Kusiemski was the Italian widow of an Austrian lawyer, and the proprietor of the only boarding house that took in colored people. “If you are going out this late, it is best you wear protection.”
She held up to her face a gilded mask in the form of Caravaggio’s Medusa, and batted her long, goat-hair eyelashes. “The haze outside brings progress, but ugh! It smells of witches and burning rubber. Uffa! Now I must drink radium tonic for my health.”
Joseph bowed, and the wind-up mechanism inside his bowler tipped itself, bobbing like the head of a cattle egret. He thanked Frau von Kusiemski for the timely reminder, and hurried back to his room.
The young man wondered if his landlady’s eyes were on him as he walked away. He always seemed to catch her looking in his direction. His lodging mates, mulattos from Deutsch-Ostafrika, often referred to her as ‘Mrs. Hill’, after the heroine of John Cleland’s novel. They whispered that she would readily trade a week’s rent for certain manly services, and the more exotic the man, the better.
Joseph didn’t know how he felt about this. The widow was a shade past forty and by no means beautiful, but she had always been very kind to him. His funds were not being replenished, and a part of him wondered what he would do, if the rumors about her turned out to be true.
The young man returned to his quarters, and retrieved the Stenhouse Lung Protector Professor Blumenttrit had sent him. After replacing the used filter, he pulled the respirator’s elastic behind his ears. The featureless mask of plain white celluloid covered his entire face, protecting him from the foul air outside.
For a few seconds he stood in front of the mirror, contemplating his pale weiß visage. The mask’s anonymity was strangely comforting. Often, Joseph wished he didn’t have to remove his mask. Everywhere he went, people stared at him. Without his mask’s protection, the city’s xenophobic populace would peer from windows or point, as he walked past, whispering, “fremde, außerirdische, ausländer, Asiaten, Japaner, Chinesischer mann, Korean mann” – anything but his own ethnicity.
Of course, no one ever said anything. Orientals, especially the rich Chinese and Japanese, were nominally considered equals. His manners and good breeding meant he was frequently mistaken for their kind. Joseph knew, though, that in their heart of hearts, they considered all colored people untermenschen, the unmentionable ‘under-men’ of the world. He could sense the hauteur behind the eyes of every painted courtesan he slept with.
He wondered if his landlady would feel the same way, if he ever found himself in her bed. At best, he thought, she would look at him as an exotic curiosity – a meal of rice instead of potatoes – at worst, he might simply be an occasion for her charity.
“A GOLD DEATH mask, found in Oton, Iloilo, was the oldest mask ever found in the Philippines. It has been dated by archaeologists to between 1300 and 1400 of the Common Era.
Like all masks, the delicately-shaped metal face hid the identity of its wearer, but captured the culture of the tribe that used it. When worn while a person was alive, it created a new identity from the tribe’s spirit world. In death, it served the opposite purpose. The mask prevented spirits from entering the body of the deceased – thus serving, instead, to protect identity.
Because all masks function as touchstones of cultural memory, a blank mask serves no purpose, and carries no meaning.”
– Francisco Pölzl, Die Maske des Kampfes (1926)
AT THE BERLINER Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, he greeted the machine’s teletype attendant, an elderly Jew, who punched his details into the room-sized mechanical computer. Joseph was not in the mood for conversation. To avoid small talk, he stepped away and browsed the flickering displays.
The Library’s Remote Projection Kinetoscopes were arranged in a circular, flower-like shape, held aloft by a mechanism that resembled an iron octopus. The numerous postcard-sized screens cycled images from the book Art Forms in Nature, by the artist and biologist Earnest Haeckel – orchids, diatoms, echinoderms, and all manner of strange and beautiful creatures.
In the center of the iron flower, a large urn-sized screen displayed text from Haeckel’s philosophical treatise, Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte, where he elaborated on the notion that the physical characteristics of a specie
s determined its place in the order of nature.
Joseph turned away from the screen. For a second, he thought to himself that this was why he needed to return to Manila. He needed – all indios needed – to succeed as a people, and prove Haeckel and his kind wrong.
He closed his eyes to better hear the steam generator outside, growling like an Old-Testament god. That was the sound of progress, of technology, he thought. It was a sound that divided the world into two.
The ill feeling came and went. Joseph sighed deeply, and refused to feed his train of thought any further.
He left the displays, and began to peruse the junk mail on the bureaux plat. There were several catalogues for Dresden porcelain, ads for Luftbad sanitariums in Bavaria, a testimonial by Alexandré Dumàs for the coca-leaf tonic Vin Mariani, and a flyer from a store that sold nothing but maps and atlases. A cryptic message was printed on the back of its quaint, do-it-yourself map brochure:
“The lines that separate people are always artificial, as unnatural to men and women as they are to the birds overhead. As an author, what kind of country will you create?”
– Mr. Strabo, proprietor of Here Be Dragons
“Herr Mercado?” the attendant called out, interrupting his train of thought. “I believe this is what you have come for.”
The old man handed him a pile of generic advertising materials.
Joseph thanked the attendant and was preparing to leave, when a sudden roar of laughter stopped him.
“It is best that you go, jung mann,” the old man said, as he adjusted the card feeder on the multiplex Baudot teletype. “In the next room, the Society is entertaining the polygenist Dr. Karl Vogt and some American students of the late Louis Agassiz. They’ve brought with them their Human Zoo.”
The attendant re-arranged the actuators on the Brain’s switchboard, and a new set of pictures appeared on the Kinetoscopes: a pair of orangutans, a Samoan couple, a pair of Nubians, and two diminutive Aetas from Joseph’s own island of Luzon. On the big center screen was a Hottentot Venus, a young Khoikhoi woman with large buttocks and unusual elongated genitals. The unfortunate men and women were exhibited naked, in the famous pose of Vitruvian man. The orangutans, however, had been carefully dressed in the latest Prussian fashion.
“Your generic Asian features will pique their interest,” the old Jew warned. “Unless you want to be poked and prodded in the name of Science, you had best leave.”
“My family is rich,” Joseph muttered reflexively, as he walked out of the Head-End. “The rules don’t apply to those with money.”
Joseph retrieved his mask, hat, and coat, and returned to his lodgings. He disposed of the junk mail, save for a large fold-out map of Bavaria. He opened the illustrated pages carefully – at the center was a stiff card, containing the decrypted message from Professor Blumenttrit.
Mein Bruder Joseph,
As we discussed last time, I have made arrangements for you to seek refuge at the Wolpertinger Luftbad sanitarium, outside Minga. Berlin is no longer safe.
Anastasius Lebenskünstler is an old friend, and he will take you under his protection.
His freikörperkultur philosophy will seem unusual or possibly even mad, but I guarantee it will strip you of what clouds your mind. It is my hope that, after this trip, you will no longer need to hide behind your usual masks. I am sure you will find your true destiny.
The directions to his place are indicated below. Best of luck, my young friend, and keep safe. This will be our last communication until you return to Berlin.
Sincerely yours,
Ferdinand @ Litoměřice
“THERE IS AN ancient Tagalog legend about why the natives of the Philippines have short noses. It was said that Bathala, the chief of the Tagalog gods, sent a balangay boat carrying noses for every person in the world. Because the natives had short legs, they couldn’t get to the shore fast enough. They were left with the squished, flat noses at the bottom of the hold.
To this day, Filipinos feel inferior to people from other lands, because of their flat noses and their short stature. In Philippine legend, morphology equals destiny.”
– Dolores del Mundo, An Analysis of Guadencio V. Aquino’s ‘Philippine Myths and Legends’ (2010)
A FEW DAYS later, Joseph was on a Locomotive Aerostatique bound for Minga, the capital of Königreich Bayern. From there, he boarded a Rail Zeppelin to Dießen am Ammersee, a few miles southwest of the city.
The young man alighted at a tiny train station, lost in the thick of the woods. Dießen am Ammersee was a tiny hamlet near the shores of an ancient glacier lake. The Wolpertinger Luftbad sanitarium lay some distance away from the village, in the very heart of a great Bavarian forest.
The grassy path was completely deserted, save for a lonely milk cart pulled by two large dogs. During his walk, he spied no steam engines, only windmills and the giant sun-catching cones of solar concentrators, discreetly hidden among the expansive trees. The air was crisp, clean, and pure. Berlin already seemed a world away.
After hiking for three-quarters of an hour, Joseph finally reached his destination. Professor Lebenskünstler’s picture-perfect property stood by the shores of the bluest lake he had ever seen, nestled snugly between the proverbial loins of a small alpine hill.
He walked up to the front door, and pulled the bell. After a few minutes, he heard laughter and the sound of softly-padded footsteps approaching.
The door opened, and Joseph was startled to see a beautiful young woman munching a red apple. She stood in front of him, naked as Mother Eve in that fatal second when she tasted the bitter Fruit of Knowledge.
“Susmariosep! I – I’m so sorry. I must be in the wrong house. I – I will take my leave,” he stammered, as his face turned a shade three times redder than her apple. He bowed out of instinct, and his automatic hat tipped itself as usual. For some reason, the spring jammed, and his bowler moved up and down repeatedly, making a series of small, embarrassing sounds before stopping in the ‘up’ position.
He apologized profusely, and to avoid further humiliation (as well as the overwhelming visage of the girl’s perfect form), he quickly trained his eyes toward the cottage’s peaked roof.
“Guten tag. Herr Mercado, I presume?” she asked. The young woman stared at Joseph with much amusement, before looking up toward where her guest’s gaze had been strangely riveted. She craned her neck in an exaggerated manner, as if to call attention to Joseph’s embarrassment. Then she took another bite of her succulent fruit. “Welcome to the Wolpertinger Luftbad sanitarium,” she said. “The professor has been waiting for you. Will you not come in?”
Joseph stood still for a while, trying to make some sense of the situation. Did he send me all this way to clear my mind in a bordello? he wondered silently. I could have done the same in Berlin and spent far less money.
The young man nodded politely, but kept his vision trained to the rafters. He searched in vain for the discreet red lantern that beckoned lonely souls from the dark seas of continence, but there was nothing there, save for a few potted petunias in need of watering.
He stepped inside and was led to a drawing room, decorated by a multitude of statuary and paintings, all of which featured the nude as subject matter. The woman excused herself and went to find Professor Lebenskünstler.
Joseph took off his hat, and fixed its mechanism. Feeling overdressed, he removed his coat as well. As he waited, more people passed through the common drawing room: two strapping young men and a quinquagenarian lady shepherding a group of children. Despite the fact that Joseph was Oriental, all of them greeted him warmly – and, like the art on the walls, all of them were stark naked.
Perhaps this isn’t a bordello, Joseph worried. It’s a bedlam or some manner of pagan cult. Dios ko po, what manner of horror did my old friend get me into?
The young woman returned and ushered Joseph into a well-appointed study, bursting with books.
Dr. Anastasius Lebenskünstler had been eagerly expecting him al
l afternoon. Like everyone else, the sixty-year old professor was dressed in Father Abraham’s livery. His thick body was muscular and solid for his age. Apart from browned cheeks and stray liver spots, his skin was as youthfully white as pork fat.
Joseph averted his eyes once more, to avoid staring at the professor’s sehr große scrotum. He wondered if his own father’s cojones were as big and as wrinkled, realizing that he had never seen his father naked.
“Delighted to meet you, Herr Mercado,” the professor said, gripping the young man’s hand with a hearty handshake. “Professor Blumenttrit has told me so much about you. I do apologize for meeting you like this. We were on our way out.”
“Entschuldigung sie, you are going out? Like that?” Joseph asked, flustered. Despite being a doctor of medicine, he was extraordinarily uncomfortable being in the presence of so many unclothed strangers.
“Yes, we are having a swim by the lake,” the old man answered patiently. “Didn’t Professor Blumenttrit tell you that I’m a doctor of freikörperkultur? Mein Gott, you look like you’re going to faint.”
“Herr Professor, I beg your indulgence,” Joseph said. “The Locomotive Aerostatique from Berlin was very crowded, and I have come such a long way. Would you mind it very much if I just retired to my room to rest?”
“No, no, of course not,” the professor bellowed. “But only on the condition that you join us for dinner at 1800.”
“Do you dress for dinner?” Joseph asked nervously.
“Bavarians are not savages; of course we dress for dinner,” he guffawed. “Klara here will bring you to your quarters,” he said, pointing to the young woman with the half-eaten apple.
“Herr Mercado, may I present you Fräulein Klara Pölzl, of Waldviertel in Austria,” the professor said, “Fräulein Klara, this is Herr Joseph Mercado from faraway Las Islas Felipenas. Can you kindly show him to his room?”
Philippine Speculative Fiction, Volume 10 Page 27