The Breath of Night
Page 37
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t get here sooner,’ Julian said. ‘But I’m training young men and women to dedicate their lives to the cause; I have to lead by example.’
‘I understand.’
‘I’ll do all that I can to speed up your release. Unfortunately, I wasn’t consulted on the ransom. From what little I know of my nephew-in-law, he’s not the sort of man to respond to threats, particularly financial ones. I’ll speak to the Central Committee and try to persuade them to compromise. The trouble is, with numbers dwindling, they’re frightened of doing anything that makes themselves look weak.’
‘Thank you, I appreciate it.’ Philip walked on, his eyes no longer fixed on the undergrowth. ‘Maybe it’s what they call Stockholm Syndrome, but I’ve been surprisingly happy here. After years of drifting, I know who I am and what I’m good at – at least what I think I’m good at.’
‘Which is what?’
‘Writing. Fiction – or sort of.’ He blushed. ‘I can’t pretend that there wouldn’t have been easier ways to find out; the sight of Nina with a loaded rifle isn’t the most encouraging start to the day. But perhaps that’s what it took to concentrate my mind. Just as you saw the death of the mercenary as some kind of portent, so I do my kidnap. That said, I’m counting on you to win over your comrades. I’m ready to go home.’
Afterword
Philip Seward died on 11 October 2012, during a bungled attempt by the Philippine Army to rescue him from the NPA terrorist unit that was holding him hostage. While in captivity, he wrote a long account of a visit to the Philippines, undertaken at the behest of my wife, Isabel, and myself. In view of his decision to use actual names, readers – especially those who followed the extensive reports of his kidnap during the spring and summer of 2012 – might suppose the entire account to be equally factual. They would be gravely mistaken. Had he lived to prepare the book for publication, Philip would no doubt have renamed all the characters (and not just his protagonist, as he proposes on the coach to Cabanatuan), thereby accentuating their fictional nature. His tragic death has, however, destroyed that opportunity, along with so many others. I must therefore emphasise that The Breath of Night is a work of the imagination which, while rooted in real-life events, deviates ever more widely from them, ending up in the realm of pure fantasy.
After Philip’s death, the Philippine authorities returned the manuscript to his parents with a diligence that belies the bureaucratic ineptitude that figures so prominently within its pages. In an accompanying note, Philip expressed his hope of interpolating Julian Tremayne’s twelve extant letters into his narrative, one at the head of each chapter, although whether for the sake of authenticity or contrast remains unclear. The Sewards who, understandably, wished to honour their son, sought my wife’s permission to publish the letters, of which she is the sole copyright holder, and my own permission to publish a book that contained such defamatory material. My wife, despite her horror at the depiction of her revered uncle as a Marxist murderer, showed typical generosity in acceding to the request of the bereaved parents. I followed suit, in return for this right of reply.
I flatter myself that my shoulders are broad enough to withstand the scurrilous portrayal of ‘Hugh Olliphant’, which is shot through with the rancour that Philip had harboured for me ever since my unguarded admission, ten years earlier, that I disapproved of his relationship with my daughter. From the first, I detected a weakness in his character, which subsequent events have borne out. In deference to my wife, who is by nature disposed to see the good in people, I dispatched him to the Philippines where, besides drawing a generous salary, he contrived with my former agent to run up astronomical bills. Far from thanking me, he repaid me with this gross libel.
To my relief, he is more magnanimous to my wife, who showed him nothing but kindness, although even then he cannot resist a note of ridicule. He describes her ‘elegantly sipping tea beneath the El Greco’, as if she were a languid Edwardian hostess rather than the hard-working owner of a busy estate. Moreover, he resorts as so often to phrase-making. We do not possess an El Greco. Family portraits aside, the highlights of our collection are some eighteenth-century watercolours, five Atkinson Grimshaws and a ‘school of Tintoretto’. Despite his career in the art world having ended in ignominy, Philip regarded himself as an expert on aesthetics, as can be seen in his contempt for my Filipino treasures. But whatever his right to question my taste, he had none to question my probity. Every item was acquired and exported legitimately. All the relevant documentation has been entrusted to the British Museum, to which the collection will ultimately pass. I take particular issue with the denigration of Ray Lim, who has done so much to enhance the reputation of the National Museum and who has acted for me only as an unpaid adviser. That said, Philip finds vice and venality wherever he looks in the Philippines. I am tempted to echo his long-suffering chauffeur when he asks: ‘Why must you wish to see only dirty parts of my country?’
By far the most serious of the novel’s calumnies is its portrait of Julian Tremayne. Nina Subrabas, the only one of the terrorists to have been taken alive, has recounted how Philip wrote day and night, to the wonderment of the unit. They even held a meeting to discuss the propriety of providing him with the means to work on something of which the Party might disapprove. Yet, with the exception of some over-elaborate descriptions of meals (no doubt to compensate for his meagre and unpalatable rations), the book shows remarkably little sign of having been written in confinement. It is my contention, nonetheless, that Philip was far more influenced by his ordeal than he was prepared to allow. Although we will never know what changes he would have made had he lived, I share the view of other early readers that The Breath of Night is complete as it stands. So it is no coincidence that its very last page alludes to the Stockholm Syndrome. Philip mentions that his captors excluded him from their ideological debates, yet the book is infused with radical and, above all, anticlerical sentiment, which he must surely have imbibed from them.
Meanwhile, unaware that both his parents and I had offered to pay the ransom, only to be thwarted, first by the reluctance of the British and Philippine governments to negotiate with terrorists, and then by the increasingly confused demands of the terrorists themselves, he grew convinced that the cash would not be forthcoming. Political indoctrination combined with personal anxiety to plunge him into the paranoia (his own word), which informed his characterisation of Julian Tremayne in the final chapter.
No one would deny that, in common with many priests during the Marcos era, Julian had left-wing sympathies. But to accuse him of faking his own death and becoming a rebel leader is a monstrous slur on a man who is no longer able to defend himself. Nina Subrabas has affirmed that there was no Englishman, let alone a priest, in any known NPA unit. There has never been the slightest doubt that the remains unearthed by the foresters in the Sierra Madre were those of Julian Tremayne. There is no record of any missing mercenary, and it is inconceivable that the US Embassy would have abandoned its responsibility for a fellow citizen, let alone a former marine, whatever his crimes. Nevertheless, with Julian’s body having been exhumed for the gathering of relics, my wife and her sisters have written to the Roman Curia, stating their readiness to take part in any DNA tests that might be required.
Finally, for those readers concerned with fact rather than fantasy, I am proud to report that in August this year the Congregation for the Causes of Saints found evidence that the Servant of God, Julian Tremayne, had practised both the cardinal and heroic virtues, and that the miracles of healing in the cases of Benigna Vaollota and Jericho Ilaban took place through his intercession. It therefore proposed his beatification to the Pope who, having commended the matter to God, conducted the Solemn Beatification in St Peter’s Basilica on 3 December 2012, a ceremony my wife and I had the honour to attend.
The final phase of the canonisation process is now under way and, with God’s grace, the Philippines will have its new saint.
Hugh Olliphant
County Durham
18 January 2013
Acknowledgements
I am indebted to many people in both England and the Philippines for their assistance with my research, among them Father John Ball, Edward Christopher Baguio, Chicoy Enerio, Rod Hall, Father Bernard Lynch, Garnet Montano, Father Anthony Meredith and Mark Woodruff.
Rupert Christiansen, Emmanuel Cooper, Andrew Gordon, Liz Jensen and James Kent gave me invaluable advice on early drafts of the novel, as did Hilary Sage and Ilsa Yardley on the final text.
I consulted various books in the course of writing, among the most insightful and informative were:
Dead Season by Alan Berlow
Passion and Power by Shay Cullen
The Philippines by T. M. Burley
Revolutionary Struggle in the Philippines by Leonard Davis
Leaving the Priesthood by Emmanuel R. Fernandez
America’s Boy by James Hamilton Patterson
Growing Up in a Philippine Barrio by F. Landa Jocano
Everyday Politics in the Philippines by Benedict J Tria Kerkvliet
Priests on Trial by Alfred W McCoy
The History of the Philippines by Kathleen Nadeau
Revolution From The Heart by Niall O’Brien
Seeds of Injustice by Niall O’Brien
Culture Shock by Alfredo Roces and Grace Roces
The Philippines by David Joel Steinberg
Promised Lands by Paul Vallely
Sentenced to Death by Earl K. Wilkinson with Alan C. Atkins
Trial of the Century by Earl K. Wilkinson
Marcos Against the Church by Robert L. Youngblood
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
The Celibate
Pagan and her Parents
Easter
Unity
Good Clean Fun
A Sea Change
The Enemy of the Good
Jubilate
Copyright
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First published by Arcadia Books 2013
Copyright © Michael Arditti
Michael Arditti has asserted his moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
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This Ebook edition published in 2013
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