The Solemn Lantern Maker

by Merlinda Bobis

  And the Child was revealed. So was hope.

  The resonances are startling. Over and over again, the same route, the same road signs. Perhaps the first star up there, the star in the hand and the star at the window are the very same hope lighting up the ribcage. “Almost there, Noland—look!”

  High in the sky is a lit pinnacle, actually the hat of Santa Claus or some other magical creature at the entrance of a blazing complex.

  “What do you think?”

  Even the talk in Noland’s head is silenced. He feels so tiny looking up at this giant mascot.

  “It’s the Star City, Noland.”

  A city inhabited by stars—is this possible?

  “It has everything, all the rides of your dreams.”

  Have they come down from heaven, all of them?

  Elvis has never seen his friend’s face this awed, and afraid perhaps. This and the way Noland hugs himself makes his chest a little tight; he doesn’t like the feeling. He tries to explain, “It’s where you have Ferris wheels, bumper cars, roller coasters, Little Mermaid, Snow White, Horror House—” Then he stops. He sees nothing but incomprehension. “C’mon then, we’ll go in,” he says, taking Noland by the hand.

  Noland doesn’t budge.

  “It’s fun. C’mon, you’ll love it.”

  Around them cars and taxis are ferrying children and more children with their parents, aunties, uncles—the whole clan!

  Children’s heaven, no less. Noland allows himself to be led.

  At the door, the guard stops them. He notes the shabby cart, thinks street kids. “Hoy, not allowed.” He blocks the entrance.

  Elvis can’t believe his ears. He threatens to push the cart forward. “I have money, I can pay!”

  The guard pushes the cart back. “Cart not allowed.”

  “I’ll pay for it too—how much do you want?” He takes out a wad of pesos from his pocket.

  Behind them the line of parents and nannies with their charges are getting impatient, complaining about being held up. A few are curious about how the altercation will pan out. There’s brief cheering for the boys. “Aw, let them in, it’s Christmas.”

  But the guard can’t be seen to go back on his word. “You don’t pay to me, you pay there.” He motions to the counter inside. “But they won’t let you in, so go away. You’re holding up the line.”

  “Just because you have a gun!” Elvis spits out his contempt. “You think your cock is bigger!”

  “You see,” the guard shrugs his shoulders at the boys’ supporters. Street kids running true to form, he almost adds, but can’t be bothered.

  “Come, Noland, we won’t argue with that motherfucker.” Elvis stomps off with the cart. He’s fuming and his chest feels even tighter—no, it’s on fire.

  40

  The Star City stands on a vast reclaimed area first developed under the Marcos dictatorship, when, as a journalist remarked, the first lady waved her hand and said, “Let there be land,” and there was land. On it grew an imposing building devoted to the arts. Close by, an international convention center also sprang up a stone’s throw from a five-star hotel. Some years later the largest shopping center in Asia will follow. How absurd that poverty exists where even the sea can be made solid with the flick of a hand.

  There are lights everywhere, even out at sea. The Jumbo Floating Restaurant is like tinsel on water, meters away from the rich toys moored at the Manila Yacht Club. The boys stare at the Jumbo, resting for a while from their furious, silent stroll.

  “People eat there, you know,” Elvis snaps at no one.

  Noland suspects the anger is aimed at him. It was his cart’s fault they couldn’t get in. He wants to make it up to his friend. He wants to tell him about the angel in the hut, that she’s awake, that she’s grown wings, that he fed her—no, he can’t tell him that, he can’t tell him anything now. His mother said not to say anything to anyone. Not about her. As if he can speak, as if he can even be understood.

  “I hate you,” Elvis snaps at the revelers ambling by. They scurry away from the crazy street kid who begins to rap and dance: “I hate you-motherfucker-you-motherfucker-you-you-you!”

  Noland retreats, alarmed. His friend has the devil in him. He has a sneaking feeling that his mother is right, Elvis is the devil boy.

  “C’mon, Noland, what’s with you? You’ve never seen good rap, man?” he screams.

  “Shut up!” someone screams back. It’s a vagrant sleeping behind some bushes. “And wash your mouth out!”

  Elvis rushes to the voice, Noland at his heels. “You wanna fight me, you wanna fight me-me-me?”

  It’s an old man curled on a plastic bag. He’s on his feet in no time, rushing away, muttering, “Your mother should whip you, boy, whip you till that rotten mouth bleeds.”

  41

  Nena can’t sleep. She’s folding laundry, her hands racing with her thoughts. Where’s that boy? Where’s that devil dragged him to this time? What’s he up to? On TV the latest adolescent love duo sway like tinsel with their glittering costumes and earnest carol. Suddenly a news update cuts in. It’s the police. Chief of Special Projects Roberto Espinosa is appealing to the public about the missing American, Cate Burns. She has a name now! Her photo is flashed on screen. Nena is transfixed. Espinosa says the American was last spotted at the scene of the shooting and possibly hurt too—maybe shot? A lantern seller and a taxi driver reported her “accidental involvement” in the Pizza Hut man mystery. She was just looking at those stars and then—the taxi driver returned her backpack too, such honesty, so fitting for this season. Let us emulate this Christmas spirit and help a guest of our country. The photo is flashed again.

  Nena turns to the sleeping woman on the mat. Dios ko, she must go, she really must go.

  The American consul comes on screen, reiterating the appeal from the Christmas party at the embassy. Colonel Lane is with her, wearing civilian clothes and his disarming smile. He wishes the Filipino people a Merry Christmas and invokes the long history of friendship between the two countries and how his grandfather fought the Japanese in the Second World War alongside brave Filipinos in the jungles of Bataan… He falters slightly here, knowing that his wife is in the other room having Christmas cake with their two girls, that she has often accused him of trotting out his grand father’s history to get the sympathy vote, but it’s my history too, for God’s sake.

  His wife fought him over Iraq; she took to the streets to protest. Home politics was bizarre, a heartbreak. Iraq shook their marriage, so he requested to be reassigned from the war zone and volunteered to make a difference in the Philippines. His grandfather loved this country with a fervor, its people, their quirky humor, their stoicism in war… Colonel Lane turns on the smile again, saying he’s here to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps by assisting the joint military exercises under Balikatan. He stresses the value of friends “shouldering the load together”—so perhaps we can do this by helping a vulnerable American, a friend. He’s rambling; too much champagne. He feels the usual heartburn coming on.

  The lone journalist hovering in the background quizzes him, very casually. “David, we know the Balikatan is also designed to combat terrorism. Do you think this abduction could be a terrorist act against the United States? Lest you forget, we’ve had abductions before in Mindanao.”

  The consul neatly intervenes, emphasizing Philippine-American friendship, which has never failed, and reiterating that her government will be very grateful to whoever helps the lost American. She says her ambassador is currently at a meeting with Her Excellency the President of the Philippines, who is extremely supportive. She doesn’t say it’s a Christmas dinner at the palace where “the issue” is being diplomatically addressed.

  Over canapés and champagne, a senator and a general secretly brainstorm the case. Who’s assigned to it? Special Projects? Are they with us? Can’t trust them, they love journalists over there, they could get “too involved.” You should mobilize your own operations, General. It
’s worse than we think. No, I don’t mean that “salvaged” journalist, I mean the American girl. The Burns family is well connected and you know there’s pressure brewing, but we’ll keep this under wraps. The ultimate solution lies with the intersection. It’s been an ongoing problem—even the mayor complains about it. Those shanties have clogged the city drain forever, so the neighboring streets flood when it rains. It’s a serious health hazard. And the criminal elements that breed in such congestion, one can’t even begin to think—it’s not just about the city, General, this is national security. Who knows, the Abu Sayyaf has now infiltrated Manila. So we must neutralize the area, let it breathe. Clean it up and relocate those poor things somewhere healthier and safer.

  There are many politic ways to approach demolition. There are many ways to kill a cat.

  Across the road from the embassy, Eugene Costa hints at a possible reward for any information on Cate Burns. He can’t come closer. A truckload of soldiers barricading the gate watch his every move.

  Nena turns off the television and crawls to the mat. She has a name now. Cate Burns. She watches the American sleep, then wonders whether she should hang the curtain again to hide her. She checks that the door is firmly shut. She’s still afraid but the thought of a reward almost lightens her spirit.

  42

  Across the tracks, Helen is watching the broadcast on the reward, while Mario collects money from the short line of film viewers. Tonight it’s a local action flick. He yells at his wife to turn on the video. He has to compete with firecrackers and carols from all directions.

  “Hoy, can’t you wait? I’m watching the news,” Helen protests.

  “News, news—how can there be news at this late hour?”

  “And we don’t have video sessions at this late hour.”

  “What can I do? People want to watch, Helen.”

  “People” is only Mikmik and her gang who have been pestering Mario that they really, really want to watch this film and they’d even pay double.

  “Double’s not enough, there’s only four of you. I’ll lose out—electricity’s so expensive these days. That wire-man’s a pain, as you know.”

  Mikmik begins to cry.

  “What now?” Mario asks, scratching his head.

  “I just want some relief, Mang Mario, my mother has forgotten me. She didn’t send anything this Christmas. For the first time she didn’t even send a Christmas card. Ay poor me, poor me.” She winks at the other girls behind her. They’ve made a bet: she insists she’ll pull this off beautifully. The man’s a muffin-heart, a softie, a regular sucker—you’ll lose your twenty pesos to me, girls. Watch this—“Mang Mario, imagine if you had children of your own and you went abroad, do you think you’d forget them?” and she starts sniffling again.

  It’s a sore point for Mario and Helen, the fact that they can’t have kids. “Ay, Mikmik, it’s very late … but okay, okay, girl—hoy, Helen, I said we’ll have a last full show.”

  As she puts on the action flick, Helen keeps hearing Eugene Costa’s voice: a reward, a reward, a reward.

  43

  Across the city, another woman is watching the news in a bed strewn with papers. She’s organizing a public campaign against her husband’s murderer. “Who is the Pizza Hut man?” When she heard it on TV for the first time, she started laughing, each laughing breath pushed out of her lungs in haste, as if she’d die if it weren’t all laughed out, and quickly. She found herself on the floor, laughing and tearing at her hair.

  Lydia de Vera hasn’t slept since then. Tonight the papers are a comfort. She finds her husband’s old files on every corrupt official in the country, and his newspaper articles that grew bolder through the years. Why did you have to be so brave? And you had to be stupid to be brave—funny, that. But it doesn’t make her laugh.

  They’d been married for only two years. They did university together; he, journalism, and she, political science. “The young activist couple,” “the radical couple,” “the idealists,” “the lefties”: the newspapers made the most of the string of labels and their photos, depending on the writer’s or the photographer’s political intent, depending on whether they were friends of her husband or stooges of the senator. The small talk about her husband was as varied. He was the enemy. He was a fool. He was a hero. To her, he is Germinio, her lost Jimmy.

  DECEMBER 22

  44

  It’s after midnight and the newspaper trucks are already on the road, ferrying the new headlines. Cate Burns’s photo has usurped Germinio de Vera’s. The lost American is the new face of the Pizza Hut man mystery. Things have moved on quickly, even at a late-night market where the boys are sitting down for a feeling-better snack.

  Elvis has simmered down. “Food cures everything,” he says, then a sip of noodle soup, a gulp of Coke, a long sigh. “Thank God for Coke, all that fish-ball is now going down smoothly… I was sort of clogged a while ago.” He offers a reason for his rage. “Would you like some barbecue?”

  Noland doesn’t respond. He sits slightly apart. He thinks of the old man stumbling away in fear.

  “Well, I’m having one—with chili sauce.” Elvis orders.

  “Sorry boy, I’ve run out,” the stall vendor answers.

  “See how lucky I am?” Elvis sighs into his noodles.

  Noland notes the shoulder sag. He hasn’t turned his cap at all, not since Star City.

  “I’m no street kid, I work,” he mutters between slurps.

  Noland sidles back to his friend, slurps along.

  At the other end of the market, Eugene Costa is also eating his noodles. His shift is done and tomorrow is another big assignment. Ah, Senator G.B. will hate him, but it’s more than worth it. He remembers how at the wake the widow led an old woman to the open coffin. She stood there staring, then tugged at the widow’s sleeve, pointing to the bunch of little white roses on the dead man’s chest. At first the widow couldn’t understand what her mother-in-law meant, but when she did, she plucked a rose and handed it to her. The old woman held it to her nose and smiled, whispering, “Pitimini,” and allowed herself to be led away. She identified the rose but not her son, perhaps not even death. Then the senator arrived with his bodyguards and the widow started screaming, going for him. The old woman stood in the middle of the room, rose in hand, looking on curiously.

  The memory makes Eugene feel tired to his bones. He’ll sleep a bit, if he can. He’ll be back around this boulevard early tomorrow—but it’s tomorrow now. Maybe he shouldn’t crash, just have a stroll, get some sea into his lungs; the city won’t sleep anyway. He misses the sea in the province, but he can’t go home this Christmas. Work. He must call his mother. She’ll be disappointed, but he’ll make it at New Year.

  He’ll sleep a bit, if he can… That man in the coffin … it could be him, it could be anyone in this business of telling the truth.

  45

  “What happened to your mouth—I mean, why don’t you speak?”

  Noland opens his mouth wide, close to the other’s face.

  Elvis clowns, “Ugggh, bad breath.”

  They laugh. Friends again.

  They’re at the other side of Roxas Boulevard now, at a park with a fountain amid giant lanterns, not just star ones but flower and fruit ones, and no one is sleeping. The park is crowded with revelers. Elvis catches two girls, aged about five and six and feral looking, trying to clamber up the cart. Their mat is spread under the tree behind the parked cars.

  “Hoy, leave that alone,” he warns. “It’s ours.”

  The girls giggle and get into the cart anyway.

  “Such cheek. Well, okay, just for a while, and don’t hurt it.”

  The boys sit by the fountain, mixing with the Christmas crowd, one eye on their cart. “Feels right, don’t you think? We’re like everybody,” Elvis murmurs and fastidiously turns his cap this way and that.

  Local carols blast from an open car. Elvis sings along, then suddenly remembers. “So, she awake yet?”

  Nolan
d shrugs; he can’t tell.

  “If she never wakes, you’re in deep shit. What if she sleeps forever in your house?”

  Noland skips a heartbeat. “Forever in your house.” It’s all he hears.

  “Yoohoo, hello Noland, knock-knock, you there? Hard to tell what goes on in there.”

  An hour later a girl about Elvis’s age strides to the cart. She has a baby on her hip and is about to lay it beside the other girls.

  “Ooops, hold it, that’s ours!” Elvis rushes forward.

  “Yours? They’re my sisters,” the girl protests.

  “Okay, out!” Elvis orders the two girls in the cart, but they won’t budge.

  “See, it’s ours!” The bigger girl stamps her foot, triumphant.

  “Okay, then,” Elvis says and begins to push the cart away, Noland behind him. The two girls scramble out while big sister hurls curses at him. Elvis turns around and comes very close to her. “I don’t normally hit girls.”

  The other backs off, still cursing.

  “Hmph, street kids,” Elvis grunts. “They’re dangerous—we’re not having any luck, are we? Maybe we should buy ourselves guns, Christmas guns. What do you think, Noland?”

  A man with toy revolvers slung around his neck has just wandered past.

  Noland pulls at his friend’s arm. Let’s leave, let’s cross the street. He can still hear the girl murmuring curses under her breath as she settles down with the others on the mat.

  46

  Two more hours and it will be the early Christmas mass. Elvis plonks himself at the church door. “Finally, peace, but of course…” He raises his arms to make a point about their location. They’re just across the park, but how quiet here by contrast, except for two security guards pacing the nearly empty car park, arguing about whether the Pizza Hut man is a real terrorist. They get distracted when the boys arrive. Look, one’s pulling out wads of pesos from his pocket. Ah, you never know what characters come here.