I nodded. Only later did I learn that the general was commander in chief of the Japanese army in the country.
“General Kuroda was correct. He said this country cannot be defended—so he spent his time playing golf and chasing women.… I leave for Leyte tomorrow,” he continued. “And there I will die.” He then told me that the Americans had returned in full force, that in a matter of weeks they would be in Manila and in a few months in Tokyo. He smiled and poured the sake into the glass. “If I live through this, and I doubt very much I will, remember that I said the Americans are benevolent victors. My country won’t suffer very much.”
His talk meandered, then he paused and confronted me: “So you love Adela—you are much too young to know what true love is. What do the Americans call it? Puppy love?” He snickered.
I was extremely embarrassed. Who could have told him? Could Señora Meding have told him? But the madam seldom talked with the officers; she always stayed in the background, letting the girls do that themselves. Adela, then, must have told him and, for an instant, I loathed her for making my innermost feelings a subject of gossip. She must have cared for this officer old enough to be her father, this bald, smelly, bowlegged man with buck teeth. Why do women tell other women (or men) of their conquests? Does doing this make them proud, more sure of their capacity to ensnare?
I learned from this vivid chapter of my youth that you never, never make women too sure of your feelings, least of all express them in an endearment. Possess them, pamper them if you must, but never, never utter the word. For one, they will try to squeeze it out of you with their wiles, which are most enjoyable. Keep them wondering where their physical and other forms of affectionate expression have failed.
Colonel Masuda drank his sake. He offered me a glass. I did not want to disappoint him, particularly after he had said, “I was keeping this bottle for some happy event, but there is going to be no happy event.” He raised his glass in a toast and then thrust it so roughly against my glass I almost dropped it. “To the past and, most of all, to tonight.”
Adela was finished with her customer, an officer I had not seen before. She accompanied him to the door, a dour-looking man who, in his uniform, looked more like a hotel doorman. Now free, she went to Colonel Masuda, whose countenance had changed; he seemed more gregarious. Adela sat beside the colonel on the sofa and put her arm around his shoulders.
“Do you know?” he continued talking to me, “in spite of our great military power, we are a poor people. Our farmers sell their daughters to prostitution as a matter of habit, and thousands of our women … we send them all over Asia not just to comfort our soldiers but to earn money for Japan.”
I remembered Severina and wondered to what dismal and obscure corner of the country she had been flung, if she was in Nueva Ecija at all. A sharp stab in the heart, but it passed quickly and I continued listening to this officer holding Adela’s hand.
“I have a young daughter like her.” He turned briefly to Adela. “Thank heavens she is a girl, or she would have been conscripted into the army. College students, they are sending them to the front. Farm boys—that is what most of our soldiers are. And I, a college professor, what am I doing in this uniform?” He paused, then laughed, but his laughter was without mirth.
“It is all a game, a terrible game,” he said after a while. “The leaders, the statesmen, the generals who play it …” Then he jabbed a finger at me. “You are all playing games. Your father, I know, he is playing a game, too.”
I tensed immediately. This is what Father had asked me to be attentive to, what these officers said that pertained to him, to their plans, to our safety and future. Young as I was, I already knew how dangerous the times were, that we must use our wits to survive.
“Your father,” he said with a sneer, “will come out a winner because he senses opportunity. He dances to our tune but he would sooner stop that and dance to the American tune even before they arrive. That is how colonial elites not only survive but flourish.” He laughed derisively. Afterward, when the horrors of that war had ended, I realized how perceptive Colonel Masuda was.
Then he did something that I will never forget. He started taking off his uniform till he was almost naked but for that strip of white cloth like a G-string over his loins.
“I will teach you jujitsu,” he announced. He was really drunk and one does not argue with drunks. “Take off your clothes,” he commanded in that guttural manner of the Japanese. I have heard of jujitsu but had never seen it as practiced by the people who invented it. Like him, I stripped to my shorts. In the meantime, he had pushed the coffee table and the rest of the furniture against the wall so that there was ample space for us in the middle of the living room.
At sixteen, with my mestizo genes, I was taller and heavier than he. “The principle,” he said, “is for a smaller person to use the strength of a bigger person to defeat him.” He led me to the center of the living room. By now, the cook, Señora Meding and a couple of the maids had come out to watch; except for Adela, all the other girls were busy in their rooms.
“Imagine you have a knife,” he said. “Come charging at me.”
I thought I would simply humor him. But then, recognizing how short he was, I thought I could knock him over. It was also an opportunity for me to express my displeasure and, I suppose, much of my jealousy. I charged. I was surprised to feel myself flung in the air like a feather. I fell on my back, more embarrassed than hurt. He stood over me, grinning in triumph.
He drew me to my feet, the alcohol in his breath and that peculiar odor of the Japanese assailing me. “This is how you do it,” he said. He took my hand and had me poised, then in slow motion, explained how jujitsu worked. It all looked so simple and, indeed, it was when it was my turn to use his strength against him.
We did not put our clothes back on. In our semi-nakedness, we went back to our sake. The bottle was almost empty. He told me to pour all of it into his glass, which I did. He sighed, “But war is not jujitsu. It is not personal combat. The principle does not apply to machines. In war, what is important is who has more. Oil. Resources.” He was now speaking in a monologue. “They knew all this in Tokyo—those military men are not stupid. But the emotions ruled, the mood was for war. And if there were people who did not want it, they kept their mouths shut, like I did. That is how it is in Japan. You speak out your mind and you are shunned. The nail that sticks out is hammered down—a common Japanese proverb.”
He sat there, shaking his head, then he took Adela by the hand and together they went up to her room, the colonel swaying so on the staircase I thought he would fall. One of the maids picked up his clothes and his sword and followed them up the steps.
He stayed the whole night and was awakened in the morning by aides. Adela and I saw him off—how he had changed in the hollow of one night! Now he was stern of visage, no longer the vulnerable officer made voluble by sake. He hugged Adela, shaking his head, mumbling, “I am very sorry for you. You should not have done it.”
We shook hands firmly. He said, “Be very careful when you shake hands with the Japanese—you might be giving them a chance to throw you down. Take care of her,” he said stiffly, turning to Adela, who had begun to cry. The aides walked him to the car that would take him back to his unit, and to the fate that implacably awaited him.
With Colonel Masuda gone, I should have been pleased. Now there was no visitor to the casa who always sought Adela. The rest who came were not choosy; whoever was free was acceptable. The girls, after all, were all young and firm.
Almost immediately after the colonel left, I went to Sta. Mesa to report to Father my strange encounter. He was in the library, surrounded by all those books he would never read. I should remind the reader that it was during the war when there were no classes that I really learned to read, first the novels that opened new vistas to me, then later on the books on history, anthropology and so on. It was about ten in the morning and cool. Overhead, another flight of American planes roared over the roofs, t
heir noise drowning out all sounds, then explosions reverberating from the west as they bombed the few remaining ships in the bay.
Father was reading the Tribune, which still came out proclaiming on the front page that the Americans were being pushed to the sea in the south.
“Colonel Masuda has left for Leyte,” I told him.
He put the paper down. Father liked the colonel, maybe because he spoke English. Father often talked with him. “So they are going to put up a stand in Leyte then,” he said, appearing thoughtful.
“He also said you are playing a double game, Father.”
Father bolted upright, his face suddenly ashen. He stared blankly into the sun-flooded patio, then, after a while, his head drooped as if some tragic news had been relayed to him. He had not lost weight as had so many in Manila. With all our private resources, I am sure even our dogs were eating better than most people.
“Adela is the girl that Colonel Masuda often takes?” he suddenly asked.
“Yes, Father,” I said.
Somehow a grin came across his face. “That morena. At least that Japanese has good taste. And Adela is very good.…”
I had always taken for granted that my father tested all the merchandise before they were displayed.
“Go back to Pasay,” he said. “Ask Adela if Colonel Masuda told her anything about me.”
I would have gone immediately but Corito had seen me; she had followed me to the library and waited for my conversation with Father to end. I turned to leave, but she grabbed my arm. She was displeased—no, she was angry. Why have I kept away? There was no denying her and, meekly, I followed her to her room. While her torrent of reproach gushed forth, she tore off my clothes.
Corito released me at noon from her almost insatiable clutch.
By this time, as I said, fewer officers came—it seemed they were always moving. Whereas there was once some laughter among them, now, except when they had had something to drink, gloom seemed to pervade even their relationships with the girls.
It was late afternoon, the girls were chatting, playing cards, waiting for merienda in the living room. I headed for my room and gestured to Adela to follow. She took her time and, by the time she arrived, I had already stripped to my shorts. She fell on me in the manner of welcome I always appreciated.
At sixteen, a man’s energies are easily recharged and rekindled and I look back to those days of rapid recovery with nostalgia and longing.
“Your boyfriend may not come back,” I said.
She pinched me. “You are jealous, aren’t you?”
I nodded.
She hugged me tighter. “But I won’t miss him,” she said. “He never gave me pleasure like you do.”
She had never discussed with me the men she entertained, part of her discreet nature, I suppose, but this time I asked her what she meant. What she told me was amazing. It was my first awareness of Japanese kinkiness, something that was confirmed again and again in their fiction, their motion pictures.
Adela always seemed comfortable when she was like this, moving about in my room. I wanted her like this. She slid down from over me to my side and continued her incredible story.
“All the time we were together, he never did it!” Wistfulness, like some regret, rimmed her voice. “Always he asked me to undress, then he would look at me with such longing—I know—and he would caress me a bit, kiss me very softly, just our lips touching. At first I thought he was impotent, but there was that bulge down there. I would touch it, but he would push me away.” Then Adela laughed.
“But last night,” she continued with delighted giggles, “when he was there on my bed, drunk and half asleep, and in his G-string, I started playing with it because it was so hard and erect. I mounted him, and he responded, maybe not too consciously. And then he came—exploded inside me—it was not a trickle but a flood. And that was when he became fully conscious, and he stood up and pushed me away roughly. I almost fell off the bed. Then he stood up and started cursing me. Oh, he was really mad. He kept repeating, ‘You bitch, now see what you have done. Oh, my God, why did you do it!’ As if I had committed a mortal sin. Then, you know something, he held me tenderly and said he was so sorry, and he started to cry. Not loud like a baby, but he was shuddering and tears just came to his eyes. Now, tell me, why should a man do that. I was beginning to wonder, you know, if I wasn’t pretty enough for him, or good enough in bed. I suppose I will never know the reason now.”
Of course, I didn’t know the reason then. Only long afterward did I realize how much Colonel Masuda cared for Adela, how he had vainly tried to protect her from himself.
I asked her if the colonel ever talked about my father. She tried to think back, then she brightened up and said, “Well, this may refer to him. He said that all these wealthy Filipinos working with them—they are all opportunists just waiting for the Americans to come back. Not like those nationalist peasants.… What did he mean by that?”
I did not know enough then of the Sakdals and the peasant groups that collaborated with the Japanese out of simple conviction. I did not want to leave yet, but Father had been explicit, I should tell him immediately what Colonel Masuda told Adela.
I slept in Sta. Mesa that night. When Father and I talked, somehow, we always went to the library, as if those books encouraged profundity. Even when I was a child, Father used to lecture to me there to help me grow into maturity. As I grew older, these talks became longer; they were more monologues, for though I was not forbidden to talk back and was encouraged even to argue, I felt inadequate. “You have grown very fast,” Father said, noting that I was now taller than he. I often wondered if he and Mother knew or suspected my relationship with Corito. They had remarked quite often on how wonderful it was that, since there were just the two of us, we were very close. I suppose they envisioned no quarrels between us, particularly since we were going to inherit property; when their rich relatives died, the children swooped on their inheritance like vultures, quarreling with one another.
“You must always remember,” Father said, “that our wealth must be preserved so that you will both live always in comfort, beholden to no one but yourselves. And you, because you are a man, will be a leader—this is explicit. To lead, you must be strong—and cunning. Know people and how to control them. To see opportunities before others do, then exploit these opportunities. Even war has its opportunities, and those who grab them not only survive but profit.…”
It was not easy to understand what Father said then and, certainly, I could not see the opportunities he was talking about. Only when I started out did I, upon looking back, realize that even his brothel eloquently attested to his shrewdness.
Then Father asked, “Who do you think will win this war?”
Without hesitation I replied, “The Americans.”
He laughed aloud, then shook his head dolefully. “But it is the Japanese who rule us now, who possess the power over our very lives …” He stood up and paced the floor, head bowed, hands behind his back. He was in a white drill suit, as were most of the high officials at the time. He spoke slowly, certainly not to me in particular, shaping his thoughts deliberately. “When this war is over, as with the war with America, many will be accused of collaboration with the enemy—the Japanese. As in the past, too, many will claim patriotism. For others, it will be for sheer survival. But my father, he knew which way the wind would blow. How can the Japanese ever beat the Americans? All they have to do is look at the map! Their defeat of Russia was not overwhelming; Russia was undeveloped. But America is mighty. Still, there will be those naive individuals—pity them—who collaborate with the Japanese sincerely because they believe in them. This old man, Ricarte*…”
Father remembered him—irascible, unbending like Mabini. He is irrelevant now and may be forgiven his stubbornness and senility. My father loathed him and so did I.
“When he returned from Japan the other year, he had so much faith in the Japanese. He must be repenting now.” He stopped and turn
ed to me. “I cite him so that you will understand when I say that convictions can cripple a man. A conviction that should never be changed is the conviction of self-preservation.”
I went to Pasay, urged not by the stern demand of duty but by the seductive call of the flesh. Toward December, there were few visitors, but there was enough food stored in the house so that all the girls stayed. Each of them had some loot from her customers stashed in her room. A bottle of sake, some bean cakes, dried fish even. Some had watches—two or three each—which the Japanese officers must have grabbed from helpless victims.
I saw less and less of Father. Mother said he was attending to official business. He had considered taking us to Baguio when the whole hierarchy of government fled there. We had a house there that was well maintained, but Father said Sta. Mesa was far safer than Baguio or Manila.
I was in Sta. Mesa when the Americans arrived; Father had sent for me and told me to look after Corito and Mother. I didn’t want to, but I was very glad later on that I did return. Throughout that hellish week in February, the sound of battle reached us and, from our vantage point, we could see the city burning, the smoke darkening the sky, the fires lighting up the night. We had a moment of fear one night when the Japanese, perhaps a company or even more, marched by the house, their boots and voices ominous in the dark. But they did not bother us, nor the people down the hill. It was from them that we learned Manila south of Pasig was completely destroyed.
Father was nowhere. Mother assured me he was safe, that he had gone to the north to meet the Americans. I had the dokar harnessed and hurried to Pasay, where I learned that the Americans were already in complete control of the city.
Although it happened more than thirty years ago, the scene is still as fresh in my mind as if it was only this morning that I beheld it. Then and only then did I realize the senseless ferocity of war. Everywhere I turned in this city that was once so very familiar to me was nothing now but the rubble and blackened ruins of stone buildings. All the bridges across the Pasig were in shambles, the Escolta was burned, as were portions of Quiapo. The Americans had stretched pontoon bridges on the river and I crossed on foot, as did many weary civilians. Along the way, more ruins, the Post Office, the Metropolitan Theatre where the whole family had listened to concerts conducted by Herbert Zipper, the Legislative Building, the University of the Philippines complex and, to my right, the spires of the Intramuros churches were no more, and those thick and heavy walls were torn with huge gaps. Along the streets, the electric posts, the trees were broken and ravaged by shells; shrapnel lay everywhere and, where the dead were yet uncollected, the overwhelming stench of carrion pervaded the air.
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