The Breath of Night

by Michael Arditti

  The result of all this is that I’ve been inspired to take a more active role in the liberation struggle. I was in two minds whether to mention it, but I need you to understand my position; although I know that your views are bound to be coloured by your government’s campaign against the IRA. I make no comment on the rights and wrongs of the Irish situation, but I assure you that, in the Philippines, they’re clear-cut. Moreover, I’m convinced that the axiom that today’s terrorist is tomorrow’s statesman will be particularly pertinent here. Don’t be alarmed! I haven’t started toting a machine gun, but I have forged links with an NPA unit, first conveying information and more recently giving practical help. On the night after Girlie’s funeral, I was woken by a young NPA operative of my acquaintance, whose wife had been badly wounded in a shoot-out with the constabulary. He begged me to lend him my car to drive her to a well-disposed doctor in Baguio. I’ve received similar requests in the past and always refused, but this time, whether because of the individuals concerned or the change in my own attitude, I not only agreed but offered to drive her myself, since I was less likely to arouse suspicion.

  Never have I felt more ashamed of my old jalopy than when we jounced over the unlit, potholed road. Glaiza’s heart-rending groans as she rolled on the back seat, blood seeping from her ill-dressed wounds, still echo in my ears. My apprehension proved to be justified since, no sooner had we left the poblacion than we were stopped by a military patrol, who instructed us to step outside the vehicle and show our papers. Not only was Glaiza in no fit state to move, but she’d grown delirious and was making remarks that alarmed me. Forced to extemporise, I remembered Girlie and a previous mercy dash to Baguio. I explained that my passenger was a pregnant parishioner whom I was taking to the doctor. The guard, shining his torch on her, spotted the blood. ‘She’s had a miscarriage,’ I said coolly, ‘which is why there’s no time to waste.’ ‘If it’s urgent, why not find a doctor nearer home?’ the guard asked. ‘I can’t,’ I said, floundering. ‘It’s delicate. Her husband…’ ‘Of course,’ he said, slapping me on the back, ‘I understand. Your little secret.’ It only dawned on me as he sent me on my way with a pumpkin-sized grin that he took us for lovers. When I returned the following day, after the doctor, a covert NPA supporter, had pronounced the operation a success and promised to hide Glaiza until she was well enough to go back to the camp, I found that rumours of my indiscretion had spread throughout the constabulary and that everyone, from its humblest officer to its sinister commander, regarded me with newfound respect.

  I take no pride in celibacy. Indeed, I sometimes fear that the fact that it comes so easily to me, when so many of my fellow priests face a lifelong battle to suppress their desires, points to a deficiency in my nature. But since my visit to Angeles I’ve seen the discipline in a more positive light. So it’s doubly ironic that on my first NPA mission my illusory liaison should have kept me safe.

  There you have a fairly exhaustive account of my activities since my return and one which, with Hendrik offering to post it when he goes to Holland next week, I know I can dispatch without fear of its falling into the wrong hands. You asked me, during one of our snatched conversations at Whitlock, on what authority I based my support for the rebels, given that it runs contrary to both the traditional teaching of the Church and the direct instructions of the Pope. The answer, which as so often eluded me at the time, became clear on reflection. I follow my conscience; which is not the same as having an opinion. To listen to one’s conscience is to hear the authentic voice of God.

  Your loving brother,

  Julian

  ‘Over there, look! Payatas, first turning on the left.’ Philip pointed to the sign, which a long line of refuse trucks made redundant.

  ‘Why must you wish to see only dirty parts of my country?’ Dennis asked, blasting his horn at an unsuspecting tricyclist. ‘We go to Boracay, yes? I am best tour guide to this island: beautiful sands; beautiful girls.’

  ‘It’s not a pleasure trip,’ Philip said, with a pang of sympathy for a man whose only contact with the golden beaches had been a tourist board brochure. ‘I’ve come to interview the priest who was Father Julian’s closest associate. After this, my work’s done.’

  ‘Then you go back to London?’

  ‘Yes. Max is booking me a flight for the end of next week. If I still have to finish my report, I can do it at home.’

  ‘And what about sister? She has been giving you sex. Many times sex.’

  ‘She hasn’t been “giving me sex”,’ Philip said sharply. ‘We’ve had sex. Or rather, made love, if that isn’t too innocent for you.’

  Depressed by the exchange, Philip stared out at the landscape, which was equally cheerless. Tumbledown shacks, which themselves seemed to be made of refuse, lined the road to the dump. The usual Manila smog had thickened into something more toxic. Dennis pulled up at a pagpag stand, where two naked toddlers were paddling in an oil pool.

  ‘Is this it?’ Philip asked.

  ‘No more cars allowed,’ Dennis said. ‘I go back to QC. You text me when you are over.’

  Philip, who was under strict instructions from Max not to take any valuables, patted his pocket to check on his phone and stepped out of the car into an acrid stench, part industrial waste, part human decay. For a moment he was afraid that he might choke, but he caught sight of the toddlers gazing up at him and struggled to twist his grimace into a smile. Taking shallow breaths, he walked past the queue of trucks to the site entrance, where people had gathered like refugees in a transit camp, although one couple, exhausted or demoralised or both, sat listlessly on their haunches, as if waiting for the scavengers to break them down to their constituent parts.

  He made his way to the barrier, where he was stopped by a guard. ‘You cannot enter here, sir,’ he said, as peremptorily as if he were manning the gates of the presidential palace.

  ‘I have an appointment with Benito Bertubin of the Payatas Scavengers Association,’ Philip replied.

  The guard, eager to exploit to the full the authority eking away from him, made great play of examining his clipboard, before directing Philip to the office at the far end of a row of corrugated-iron huts. He walked down a path made of impacted waste at various stages of decomposition and, to judge by the roaches under his feet, degustation. He found himself at the base of a garbage mountain whose peak, a patchwork of plastic sacks, glistened like a blanket of snow in the sun.

  He entered the cramped office, to be greeted by a bright-eyed young woman, who sported such an outsize crucifix that he was tempted to ask for Benito by his former title. ‘Ben’s expecting you,’ she said, forestalling him. ‘I’ll give him a buzz as soon as he’s finished on the phone.’

  To Philip’s relief she turned back to her work, attempting neither to engage him in conversation nor ply him with snacks. He took his allotted seat and affected interest in the wall charts. ‘Philip Seward?’ He spun round to face a small man with a shiny bald head, bulging eyes and a large scar splitting his left cheek. It looked like a knife wound, and he wondered whether it had been inflicted before he met Julian, during their association, or after his death. He could not recollect Julian mentioning it, although that proved nothing, since his overriding concern had always been for the inner man.

  ‘Thank you so much for seeing me. I know that you’re very busy.’

  ‘And you’re very persistent.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’ Benito shrugged. ‘This place is quite extraordinary. I’d no idea it would be so vast!’

  ‘Yes, the tourist board’s missing a trick; they should market it to climbers. Instead of the usual challenges, they’d face typhus and tetanus and HIV.’ He hesitated. ‘We should go next door. We’re keeping Carolyn from her work.’ He led Philip into a small room whose austerity suggested that he had not thrown off all traces of the priesthood. ‘Please take a seat,’ he said, pointing to a rickety rattan chair. ‘That was found in the refuse.’

  ‘Really?’ Phili
p said, resisting the impulse to scratch. ‘How long has the dump been open?’

  ‘Since 1973, although to be accurate, it’s no longer a dump.’

  ‘Really? I thought…’ Philip looked blank.

  ‘An easy mistake. But it’s been reclassified as a “controlled disposal facility”. Just as the squatters are now to be known as “informal settlers”. The authorities maintain that it gives people back their dignity. I can think of better ways: like decent homes, decent healthcare, decent education and decent jobs; like honest government, impartial justice and fair wages.’

  ‘Maybe the change of name’s the first step?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Philip, wary of trying Benito’s patience, was keen to turn the conversation to Julian without appearing to dismiss the problems of the settlers. He was grateful for the distraction provided by the phone, only to sit in uneasy silence while Benito harangued the caller in Tagalog.

  ‘City Hall!’ Benito said, slamming down the receiver, as though that explained everything. ‘Let’s take a walk. I need to clear my head.’

  ‘Sure,’ Philip said, bracing himself for another blast of noxious air. They passed a line of makeshift dwellings, some of them no more than canvas sheets stretched out on poles. In one, a mother was feeding her baby from a breast as dry and dusty as the earth around her, while in another, a young girl squatted beside a recumbent old man, dipping her finger into a can of water and then into his mouth. Philip felt the tears pricking his eyes, as Benito, filled with more practical compassion, strode ahead.

  ‘I’m not quite sure what you do here,’ Philip said. ‘Are you some kind of social worker?’

  ‘Social worker; aid worker; activist; legal adviser; volunteer coordinator; anything and everything that’s needed. One day – today, as it happens – I’ll be fighting City Hall, who are blocking our proposals to buy land we can use to build a school and a birthing clinic. Another, I’ll be liaising with one of the humanitarian agencies who are setting up craft workshops, or a group of overseas students who’ve come here to help. Or maybe I’ll be trying to persuade our gang masters to allow fairer access to the refuse because, believe me, corruption and intimidation are as rife here as everywhere else. “Fairer access to the refuse”: can you believe I said that?’ He turned to Philip with his eyes blazing. ‘Thirty years ago – twenty even – I could have told you exactly what I was doing. But now we’ve had our EDSA revolution; we’ve overthrown the dictator; and this is the result.’ They walked past a brazier where two men and a boy were burning scrap wood to make charcoal. ‘The tragedy is that when Julian and I and thousands like us fought – and I do mean, fought – for a fairer distribution of land, we never imagined that this would be the land people ended up with: that tenants forced off their farms would come to the city and find an even crueller, more unjust system in force, that children would grow up surrounded by pylons instead of palm trees, playing in fields of cardboard and plastic and broken glass.’

  ‘Things must improve. It’s just a matter of time.’

  ‘You sound like our president telling us that there are no quick solutions. The trouble is that there seem to be no slow ones either. Let’s go back inside. You’ve come to talk about Julian, not to listen to my moans.’

  ‘I suspect that if he were here now, he’d be making them just as strongly.’

  ‘There are moments – two-o’clock-in-the-morning moments – when I think he was lucky to die when he did. Look around you! Is it any wonder I left the priesthood? We’re living in one of the most Catholic countries in the world – perhaps the most Catholic after the Vatican – but for the people of Payatas Christmas is the most miserable time of the year. And you know why?’

  ‘Because they don’t have the money to buy gifts for their children?’

  ‘Because they don’t have the money to feed them! Over the holidays the refuse collections in the city stop. No garbage: no food! Welcome to capitalism Philippine-style.’

  They returned to the office where, after a brief word with Carolyn, Benito led Philip into his room.

  ‘So what do you want to ask me about Julian? I can’t see my testimony carrying much weight in Baguio, let alone Rome.’

  ‘I’m trying to put together as full a picture as possible of the man and his work – anything that might bolster the Positio. You knew him better than anyone. It’s clear from his letters how much he respected you.’

  ‘You should read mine! I first met him when the oil of priesthood was fresh on my hands. We worked together for more than twelve years. We gave the Church back to the people. And, as you know, we paid the price.’

  ‘Consolacion, his housekeeper… do you remember her?’ Benito nodded. ‘Credits you – though “blames” might be more accurate – for his involvement in politics.’

  ‘Consolacion never liked me. She believed that like Our Lord Himself the best priests were white.’ He laughed mirthlessly. ‘That’s why she was so fond of Julian. She disapproved of me for my race as much as my ideas.’

  ‘Yet now she goes to the Philippine Independent Church.’

  ‘Yes. I’m afraid we must have wounded her deeply.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Julian, by embracing the liberating gospel of Christ. Which was all the more remarkable when you think of where he came from. He had so much to lose. I’m not talking materially, you understand, but up here.’ He tapped his skull.

  ‘He had to adjust to a new set of circumstances,’ Philip said. ‘At home we prefer our priests to remain above politics – like the Queen, except without the perks. Whereas, from what I gather, the Church was the only effective opposition under Marcos.’

  ‘That’s certainly what it would like you to think. And if you’re talking about individual clerics – priests, nuns, even the odd bishop – it’s true. But for the Church as a whole, the case is rather different. Under the leadership of Cardinal Sin –’

  ‘I’m sorry, but the name always makes me smile.’

  ‘He played on it. That is, he made so many puns on it, you suspected it was a double bluff. Under Sin, the Church adopted a policy of “critical collaboration”, although to many of us there was too little of the first and too much of the second. True, he endorsed the EDSA revolution, but only when it became clear that if he prevaricated any longer he wouldn’t just have a stain on his conscience but blood on his hands.’

  ‘Is that why you wanted out?’

  ‘I stayed in the Church as long as I could – far longer, perhaps, than I should have, until the gap between faith and practice grew into a chasm. I could no longer reconcile the Christ who taught that He came not to be served but to serve, with a Church that rolled up its sleeves on Holy Thursday, and the rest of the year trimmed them with lace and gold thread. I refused to be part of an institution that prayed with the poor on Sundays and preyed on them the other six days of the week. Who needs Martial Law when we have the mass?’

  Philip was taken aback by the strength of Benito’s anger. ‘Did Julian know of your objections? Did he endorse them? If he were alive today, do you think he’d still be a priest?’

  ‘That’s not a question I can answer. His journey wasn’t my journey, despite everything we shared along the way. What I can say, without hesitation, is that whether inside the Church or not, he would be fighting to bring about Christ’s kingdom on earth.’

  ‘Am I right in thinking you never saw each other again once you both left prison?’

  ‘Yes, he went back to England and I was posted to Negros. The Bishop thought it would keep me out of trouble.’ Benito smiled.

  ‘So when Julian was given permission to return here, you made no plans to meet?’

  ‘By then I was spending all my waking hours – and many that should have been sleeping – organising the sugar workers. Julian, too, was busy in his new parish. But we corresponded regularly. And before you ask, the letters – at least, his to me – have long disappeared.’

  ‘So you didn’t blame him for aband
oning you and returning home?’

  ‘Blame him? Why should you think that? Blame him? On the contrary, I never admired him more than during that year – a whole year, remember – we spent in prison. You can’t imagine what the conditions were like. Yet of all of us – myself included – he was the only one who never complained. Indeed, I sometimes think…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No matter. All right then, I sometimes think that he welcomed the privations. They gave him a chance to show how far he had escaped from his past. He was no longer Julian Tremayne or, should I say, the Honourable Julian Tremayne. He was Ka Julian, a true revolutionary.’

  ‘He was proud of that reputation,’ Philip said. ‘It’s impossible to say how much he left out of his letters home. But he did boast to his brother of being on a list of NPA sympathisers.’

  ‘You’re quite wrong to suggest that he abandoned us. From the moment we were arrested, he was under huge pressure to do a deal with the authorities. But he wouldn’t cooperate. He refused any chance to clear his name that might incriminate others. He even refused to distance himself from the NPA.’

  ‘Yet in the end he accepted the presidential pardon.’

  ‘Not for his own sake, but for his mother’s. She was terminally ill and desperate to see him before she died.’ Philip winced, as he recalled Julian’s final letter to his brother. ‘Even so, he believed he’d secured cast-iron guarantees for the rest of us. After all those years he still expected the government to keep its word!’

  ‘Is that when…?’

  ‘Yes,’ Benito replied with a lopsided grin. ‘I was released and within four days I was captured – or rather, rearrested – by what was later described as an unidentified gang of vigilantes. But they were vigilantes wearing constabulary uniforms. I was used as a punch-bag and an ashtray and a urinal. I was suffocated and drowned and kicked and clubbed and burnt. Finally, I was left with this permanent souvenir.’