Orchid House

by Cindy Martinusen-Coloma

The sisters had grown very solemn.

  “It is interesting that you have noticed so quickly. Even before the time of Don Ramon Miguel, the orchid has held an important role here.”

  “Who was Don Ramon Miguel?”

  “You do not know of him? He was your great-great-great-grandfather. Or maybe not so many greats. Maybe you know him as the One-Armed Spaniard.”

  Julia shook her head. “Uh, no.”

  “You do not know of Ramon Miguel Cancho y Guevarra?” Lola Gloria frowned.

  Lola Amor chattered to her sister, and the two suddenly burst into laughter again.

  Lola Gloria smiled. “My sister says that perhaps when Markus comes it will be like when Don Ramon Miguel met his Julianna. You should know of such stories as the One-Armed Spaniard. This is your very own family.”

  “Yes, it is my grandmother’s family. But growing up in the States, there was little said of the Filipino side of my family. My mother was distant from my grandfather when he finally came home to the States.”

  “Yes, we remember that. We were so sorry. He loved her very much, but he couldn’t leave the plantation. He felt it best for your mother to be raised where it was safer. Then President Marcos forced him out, and he couldn’t return. But regardless of those things, you must hear these stories; you are in the lineage of the hacienda.”

  Julia’s eyes moved over the back courtyard with the bubbling fountain and the vast lawn beyond and took a sip of the strong bitter coffee. Her life an extraction of all this? Her life in California mirrored nothing of the primitive or the extravagant. In view of all this, it was mediocre at best.

  Go find yourself, Nathan had said. Julia knew what he meant. Go find the woman he admired and loved once, and be her forever. And yet Julia suddenly wondered if finding herself might not shock them both in its complexity of depth and history.

  She spooned a mound of raw sugar into her coffee, then a dollop of fresh cream. She watched it swirl white into the dark liquid and, like a fortuneteller gazing at tea leaves, wished for a hint of the future to be revealed.

  Lola Gloria put her hand over Julia’s. “Ramon Miguel Cancho y Guevarra was the architect of this very house.”

  Lola Amor said something in Tagalog, and she and Lola Sitagiggled together.

  “My sister says that he was also a most handsome and dashing Spaniard, though in truth, I think he was not so much handsome as he was distinguished, just like our Raul.”

  As Lola Gloria spoke, the sisters and Aling Rosa began working with unconscious precision. Lola Gloria broke the end of a bean, then pulled the stem along the pod edge before passing the open pod to Lola Sita’s reaching hand. Then Lola Sita, hands shaking with age, slid the peas into the bowl and passed the empty pods to Lola Amor, who tore them into two halves for her bowl. Aling Rosa kept Lola Gloria’s bowl filled while picking out rotting beans and stones and tossing them into a separate bag. The elderly women were a well-oiled machine.

  “May I help?” Julia asked.

  “Of course. You can crack those casoy nuts. Get comfortable and listen to the story of your great-great-great-grandfather.”

  Julia sat on the bench seat across from the sisters and drew the wooden bowl of nuts closer. The small tan nuts required a hard squeeze before the crack that sent several shells flying across the table.

  Lola Gloria paused a moment, sending a slow ripple of delay down the line. She had a faraway look in her deep brown eyes, and she smoothed her graying bun though no stray hairs were visible.

  “Do you believe in love at first sight?”

  “Well, I suppose . . . maybe. Well, I don’t know.”

  “Ramon Miguel Cancho y Guevarra would have said no, until that day. A serious man, he was, with intense, sharp eyes and a stance that was ramrod straight. That day he waited impatiently on the dock, feeling the salty breeze off Manila Bay.”

  “This is a true story?” Julia asked with a sudden smile at the older woman’s dramatic style.

  The sisters paused midpass; Lola Sita gaped at her. “She ask true? Oo, yes, true.”

  Lola Gloria nodded with vigor. “Oh yes, yes. Except for language translation, the family histories are perfect. They are told from generation to generation. My grandfather told us, and we tell those after us. So now at last you hear one of the stories you should have heard as a nene. There are many stories of the One-Armed Spaniard, but this is the story of the day he met Julianna Barcelona—the most fateful day in Ramon Miguel’s life.”

  Julia smiled and continued cracking nuts.

  “Ramon Miguel Cancho y Guevarra stood on the docks with the salty breeze coming off Manila Bay, waiting to meet a respected businessman and landowner who wished to do business with him. As he waited, Ramon Miguel gazed upon the canvas sails of the Spanish galleons that billowed out with the wind. The great ships were docked in the harbor—not just one majestic galleon, or even two, but six or more in port that day.

  “Ramon Miguel had come from España, and surely he thought often of his homeland, how great she was across the vastness of the earth. Hundreds of galleons sailed the Spanish flag all across the world’s oceans. They were floating castles and symbols of his country’s vast wealth and power.”

  Julia was amazed at the old woman’s sharp descriptions and details.

  “The year was 1750,” Lola Gloria said, shifting in her seat as if getting comfortable for the journey ahead. She leaned forward as she worked and talked, drawing Julia into a past that was linked with her own.

  “He was a Castilian Spaniard—proud and solemn. Though he enjoyed the view of ships from his beloved homeland, Ramon Miguel was also impatient. He didn’t like tardiness, though it was as Spanish a tradition as the siestas and festivals. Ramon Miguel was a military man and could never fully relax.

  “He carried himself with an air of solid competence—stubborn, oh, what a stubborn man, to a fault. He kept his black hair a sleek shoulder-length style and maintained a well-trimmed mustache and goatee—that goatee his only affectation. His signature clothing was black military pants, high black leather boots, and a thin white shirt that danced in the humid wind. His right hand—his only hand—firmly grasped the silver hilt of his well-used sword.

  “Ramon Miguel had been a soldier, an heir of the legacy of the conquistadors before him. Through the centuries they secured by their blood an empire overseas. A soldier since he was young, he had traveled wherever España commanded. His brave leadership in battle was legendary.

  “But now the One-Armed Spaniard was a merchant of the Spanish Empire, a venture forced upon him after a battle in Morocco against his enemies the Moors. It was the battle that took his left arm. And yet, despite having to leave the military service too young, the years had not been bad to him. Having retired his military commission, Ramon Miguel focused on an overseas trading enterprise with the same relentless zeal he had exhibited as a soldier. The effort was not wasted. With partners in Spain, he had built a fortune for a man of his years—no longer young, nor yet very old—through the lucrative galleon trade that spanned the Pacific up to the Americas for silver and spices. Two of the galleons he gazed upon were his very own.”

  Lola Sita was muttering under her breath from time to time. Lola Gloria sighed and spoke to her with annoyance in her tone. “Matuto ka ngang mag Ingles.”

  Then she turned back to Julia. “My sister wants to tell the story, it seems, reminding me of parts that I’ve already said. I told her she should have learned English . . .

  “Someone called from behind him. He turned to see Don Carlos Barcelona with two women in white parasols coming behind him. Don Carlos was a man years older than himself, but he saw Ramon Miguel as an equal, if not his superior, for the success and legend of the One-Armed Spaniard’s heroism upon the seas.”

  Lola Sita interrupted the tale with a gentle pat on her sister’s arm and said something softly in Tagalog.

  Lola Gloria nodded. “Lola Sita wants to be sure you understand—if a man was called don, it meant a
man of means, a landowner, someone of wealth. Such were Don Carlos and Don Ramon Miguel.” She resumed her storytelling voice.

  “Don Carlos apologized for their lateness and explained they had been at Mass. He introduced his wife and was pleased by the respect Ramon Miguel showed her. And then the don introduced his daughter.

  “The Spaniard turned to a young woman near twenty years of age, partially hidden beneath a white cotton parasol. Revealing her face, she said, ‘Señor’ in a soft voice that struck him powerfully. Her clear brown eyes were wide and looked at him playfully.

  “Ramon Miguel was stunned by her angelic features—a perfect combination of European and Asian: heart-shaped face and a light brown complexion with angles softened by Eastern curves. She was a woman in full bloom, with touches of girlish innocence remaining. She was dressed for Mass, wearing a white blouse and a pink skirt with layers at her ankles that swayed in the breeze. Ramon Miguel couldn’t take his eyes from her. At her curving hips a white satin bandanna was tied at a triangular angle, and when Ramon Miguel realized he was staring at her hips, even he blushed.

  “Ramon Miguel felt the oddest sensation that he was falling down deep within himself. Julianna’s eyes held his with an understanding he’d only encountered in a few of his closest friends and his long dead brother. Surely it was pure imagination, he thought in discomfort. The young woman finally shifted her eyes to the ground.

  “Don Carlos was pleased by what he saw. He was a good man and wished a good marriage for his beloved daughter. The Spaniard had a reputation for being too serious and disciplined, but Don Carlos could see immediately that his Julianna would soften such edges and that a marriage would bring her the security he wished—and from what he saw between them, she might even have love as well.

  “Don Carlos invited the One-Armed Spaniard to eat merienda—a snack after lunch—and to enjoy the fiesta in honor of San Pedro with his family. Business would not be discussed that day or even the next, and when it was, it was a different kind of joint venture than either would have expected.

  “As they walked along the bay heading toward the city walls of Intramuros, Ramon Miguel felt a shift in the wind, a sudden knowing that the course of his life was about to change. On this day Ramon Miguel Cancho y Guevarra, soldier of Spain, the famous One-Armed Spaniard, was finally conquered, not by war, but by his sudden love for a woman. And never in defeat had a soldier been happier.”

  Lola Gloria had stopped the assembly line partway through the story, though Julia hadn’t noticed much beyond the vision the old woman created with her words.

  “After that day, the One-Armed Spaniard became a domesticated man, at least as much as an old soldier of the Eastern seas could be. He married Julianna the next fiesta after searching the southern Batangas to find land for his hacienda. Before he would bring his bride to Hacienda Esperanza, he built the house, the first courtyard, and gardens.

  “Their first child was born in Manila while the hacienda was being prepared. If not a labor of love for his wife, Ramon Miguel might have never left her side—so conquered he was by Julianna’s gentle softness. He first wished to name the hacienda after his wife, but at her insistence they chose instead the name of their first child, a girl who died only months after her birth. Esperanza means hope.”

  The old woman reached over and patted Julia’s hand. “Julianna and Ramon Miguel raised four other children to adulthood and lived many happy years here. The hacienda was developed, and three of the cousin lands were purchased and adopted into the grounds. It was a good time for Hacienda Esperanza—the birth and childhood of a grand estate.”

  Julia gazed up at the towering house where they sat in the growing afternoon shadow. “How did Ramon Miguel build such a house?”

  “Ah, that is a story for another day,” Lola Gloria said with a gleam in her eyes.

  The palms knocked softly in the breeze, a gentle applause for the story of a man these same trees may have known. Perhaps Don Ramon Miguel Cancho y Guevarra had planted their ancient relatives and tended their growth.

  There was silence among them at the end of the story as the women’s hands resumed their work. The creak of Spanish galleons against their lines and the whip of the wind in their sails sounded in their ears. The love of a Spanish soldier and a young mestizo girl was now a story told by old sisters . . . yet their love was here also in the pathways behind the courtyards, the design of palms along the driveway, the corridors of the hacienda house.

  “Let us make some lunch for our doña,” Lola Gloria said.

  Julia held back her smile at the idea of herself as the doña of Hacienda Esperanza.

  Raul had rounded the edge of the pathway and now walked up the back courtyard steps. “You are getting a history lesson, I see.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard the story of the One-Armed Spaniard.” Julia thought of Ramon Miguel with his quiet and confident air and thought he’d be a man much like Raul. Raul wore no wedding ring, so apparently he’d not yet found a woman to conquer him. Julia smiled at the thought. She’d have to ask Lola Gloria more about this man with the solemn exterior when time allowed it.

  “Maraming salamat,” he said, leaning down to kiss Lola Amor on the head as she handed him a pastry and giggled.

  Lola Sita said something in Tagalog, and Lola Gloria said to Julia, “I hope it is not rude when we speak our language. Lola Sita and Lola Amor always frustrated Captain Morrison for not learning English. Especially when many of the workers in the fields spoke it better than they.”

  Raul had been staring distractedly into space; now he focused, as though he’d suddenly become aware of those around him. “You are comfortable here, Miss Julia?”

  “Yes, thank you. Are we still meeting to talk today?”

  “Yes,” he said with a sigh. “I apologize for my delay. We are having some trouble near the sugarcane fields.”

  “Trouble?” Lola Gloria asked in alarm.

  He reassured the old women and turned back to Julia. “Miss Julia, let us discuss business in the study.” He walked into the house, holding the door for her to follow, then down a hallway to the study, which had been her grandfather’s long ago. The room was filled with dark wood and the smell of cigar smoke. On the wall were framed maps that looked decades old—one of the Philippines and another of Hacienda Esperanza.

  “I do not discuss business with the Tres Lolas. Until I know more of the future, I find it unnecessary to cause them worry. You saw what effect the mere mention of trouble has upon them.”

  “What happened?” Julia asked.

  Instead of answering, Raul sat at his desk and pinched his eye-brows in thought. “Julia, this is a delicate business, as you say. For many years Captain Morrison hoped to return to the hacienda. There is much at stake, more than I can easily explain. It is more than this house or your family or even the entire hacienda. There is trouble from beyond our borders . . . political struggles and dangers that we are tangled in.”

  Raul sighed as the weight of many words and thoughts burdened him. “We had a worker injured in the fields this morning, and I must check on his condition at the hospital. Could we delay the tour of the hacienda until tomorrow?”

  “Yes, of course.” Julia realized how much the lives of people she had seen upon arriving depended upon the hacienda. It was more than their jobs; it was their entire world, even their heritage and future. Raul might be the only one who realized how unsettled the future was for all of them. Julia sensed that there was even more at stake than the people and the land knew.

  And how much of the outcome would depend upon her—a girl from California who some called the doña of Hacienda Esperanza?

  AMANG TENIO WANTED TO SEE HIM.

  Emman was given the word by his cousin Abner, who kicked at him in his hammock and said only babies slept this late into the day. Emman didn’t tell him that he’d only just come in an hour ago from the plantation. This was his siesta, while Abner still poured his morning coffee.

  Why did A
mang Tenio want to see him?

  The revered leader of Barangay Mahinahon had never requested such a thing before. All the people called him “amang” or “great father” out of respect more than relationship. Emman couldn’t recall one being individually summoned before.

  He dressed quickly, then tossed his shirt into the corner of the dirt floor and went looking for something clean. Dangling from a hook in his closet was the shirt he’d worn to his mother’s funeral. The sleeves were three inches too short, but he buttoned it up anyway.

  The noonday sun warmed the mountain chill and promised a day of sticky humidity. Emman paced the dirt street instead of turning up the road that would lead outside the village and directly up the hill to Amang Tenio’s house. He’d been on the grounds many times with the other children, doing training exercises, gathering on the porch above the vast view to hear stories or receive occasional treats.

  Now his feet threatened to take him the opposite direction. He hadn’t done anything wrong . . . well, not lately, or at least nothing out of the ordinary. Finally curiosity and obedience stopped his procrastination, and Emman headed up the hill.

  One of Emman’s third cousins worked as part of the house staff and directed him to the back porch, an expression of disapproval on her face. What had he done? Unless this was delayed punishment for his short trip to the police station after he got caught sneaking into the cinema. Emman should have guessed that nothing could escape the knowledge of Amang Tenio.

  Beneath the nipa covering, the warlord smoked a pipe in his chair, his gaze turned toward the vast open view of the rolling hills and the wide blue crater of Lake Taal.

  Emman shifted by the doorway, and his feet made a creak in the wooden floorboards.

  “Come closer, nonoy. Come, come.” Amang Tenio didn’t look his way, only beckoned with one hand. “Is it not a magnificent sight? I never tire of it.”

  Dark clouds came from the western mountains beyond and over the small peak in the center of the lake. Called the smallest volcano in the world, Taal was actually a small peak within the larger crater. Scientists and villagers alike watched it lately, wondering if it would wake from its slumber as Mount Pinatubo was doing north of Manila.