STATE OF WAR
A Novel of Life in the Philippines
ALSO BY NINOTCHKA ROSCA
Bitter Country and Other Stories
Monsoon Collection
Endgame: The Fall of the House of Marcoss
STATE OF WAR
A Novel of Life in the Philippines
By
NINOTCHKA ROSCA
State of War -- A Novel of Life in the Philippines
Copyright @ 1988 by Ninotchka Rosca
Published by The Villarica Press
First Published by:Hardcover -WWW. Norton Publishing Inc.
Paperback --Fireside (Simon & Schuster)
Cover Design and Artwork:Betty Abrantes of Abrantes Design, California
Book Design by Hardball Press
ISBN: 978-0-9911639-1-5
Cover and interior art: Betty Abrantes
Manuscript preparation and editing: Timothy Sheard, Hardball Press
Ebook formatting: D. Bass
CONTENTS
The Book of Acts
The Book of Numbers
The Book of Revelations
The Book of Acts
1
Twelve hours after sailing from Manila, the ship dropped anchor three miles off the island of K-----, one of the thousand or so odd-shaped and odd-sized isles and islets dotting the Central Philippine Sea. Adrian Banyaga, who had watched dawn define the island with disconcerting swiftness, was roused from his contemplation of its rather drab waterfront by a volley of laughter in the ship’s lounge. Turning from the bay windows, he saw Eliza Hansen at one of the tables, cheerfully rolling down the sleeves of her blue camisa de chino, the cotton man’s undershirt which, with blue jeans and blue sneakers, had become casual costume for young adults in the last two or three years. Around her, a dozen men and women laughed, gesturing with admiration at her truly magnificent dusky olive arms. She had just bested, it seemed the last female to challenge her at arm wrestling and was inordinately pleased with herself, her laughter spilling in little bubbles from her mouth as her eyes darted among the faces about her, the tip of her tongue now and then licking her under-lip. Two tables away, in an identical costume, and with right cheek leaning on a loosely clenched fist, her elbow on the table, sat Anna Villaverde. Adrian blinked his tired eyes. Were it not for their color, the two women could have been twins. But where Eliza was of that rare fortuitous sienna skin, accidentally bred by a mingling of Caucasian and Malay blood, Anna was fair, of a golden tint that testified to an indefinable mixing of Chinese, Malay, and other strange bloods. A true child of the Philippine archipelago.
There were other differences as well. Although her reputation did not go beyond the fifty or so top businessmen in the country, Eliza was acknowledged to be a useful acquaintance, by virtue of a backdoor alliance with an equally obscure colonel who controlled the head of state’s calendar and the traffic of documents in and out of the said leader’s office. Anna, on the other hand, was among the powerless of powerless, even her daily movement subject to military audit, by virtue of certain entries in her dossier folders at the military headquarters. Her vulnerability, Adrian thought, had marked her. Even now, as the others’ laughter and raucous words broke about her, Anna remained quiet, her face without expression. She merely nodded when Eliza, mockingly flexing her biceps, threw her a boastful look. She had been watchful, quiet, the whole night—a still point in the boil of noise and mirth that constantly erupted about Eliza. She had been that way as the ship had moved, with terrific noise, from the mouth of Manila Bay and across an oily, black sea, while on the deck, under a giant canvas awning, the ship’s band had tuned up and launched into an endless stream of dance music and the passengers, rushing up from the cabins below, had crowded and jammed every inch of the deck, their bodies swaying to the music.
Eliza, tiring of the dancing, had indulged in one silly whim after another. For a few hours, she had held court at one end of the dance space, a dinner napkin about the curls of her dark brown, shoulder- length hair. She had been the Swami then, or “Her Royal Swami- ness,” as she’d insisted, grabbing hands and peering into the palms of men and women, promising outrageous fates and fortunes. Anna had stood behind her, throwing in a suggestion or two as Eliza had pretended to read this or that palm line. Not even a smile had crossed her face. By the time Eliza metamorphosed into Rosie the Wrestler, both Anna and Adrian were red-eyed and wrung out by fatigue. But dutifully, they had stayed by Eliza as she collected her inevitable retinue. By then, Adrian had given up on seeing Anna laugh. It was his peculiar fate, he had thought, to be accompanied to the Festival by two fairy-tale women. The laughing princess and the princess who could not laugh. He had wondered vaguely if anyone, anywhere in the world, had ever created a story for the two. Or for the three of them—for there was no doubting his own role as fairy-tale prince. Perhaps, the Festival would weave it for them, he told himself wryly.
The definitive title was unfair, of course. The Philippines, with its seven thousand one hundred islands, held an uncountable number of festivals throughout the year—from the May parade of flowers and women to St. Claire’s seed dance of women, to the brief dawn tree- walk of the residents of a small barrio in Laguna Province, to the evening fire dances of the mountain people. But such was the power of the ceremonies at K-----, on the windward side of the island, that whenever festivals were mentioned, K----- sprang readily to the mind. Perhaps because the Festival here was a singular evocation of victory in a country of too many defeats. Or perhaps because the first celebration went beyond the memory of the grandfather of the grandfather of the oldest grandfather at K-----, which made it no one’s and yet everyone’s personal history. Perhaps—. No matter. This year, when Adrian Banyaga, Eliza Hansen, and Anna Villaverde boarded a ship for the Festival, they had known they were joining a pilgrimage of a quarter of a million men and women.
A sharp cry from Eliza. She had risen to her feet and was fumbling with the straps of her waist pouch. With a slight lift of her chin, Anna indicated the sea outside the lounge windows and Adrian, turning, saw three flat-bottom boats crest a wave, sink, only to hover into view once more. The World War II relics were coming to ferry the passengers to the island whose harbor was too shallow for the ship. Already, the lounge was emptying as men and women made for the doorway. Adrian felt his pockets; he had his wallet, his keys, and his toothbrush—all he would need for the island where, during the Festival, every house door was flung open, every room available to the pilgrim.
There was the minor confusion of boarding the ferryboats. He and the women missed the first two, such was the crush on the deck, but they managed to make the last one, backing into it from the rope ladders down which they were guided by sun-burned sailors who skillfully soothed tremulous women and challenged the men into deft passage. Powered by a sluggish-sounding engine, the boat veered at sea and headed for the island. As it rose with each sea wave, the boat gave the passengers a glimpse of K-----: its single drab pier thrusting into the sea from a low, gray cement building and the crescent spread of white sand that horned an abrupt pile of rocks at one end of the island and thinned into a white line at the other, directly below a sudden crag which bore the weight of a grass-bearded tower which seemed to tremble with the groan of a two-hundred-year-old warning bell.
Beyond this was the Festival and the town proper had arrayed itself for it. Multicolored paper buntings had been strung overhead, straddling roads and the gaps between house roofs, while at every street corner bamboo stalls had been set up and piled high with necklaces of boars’ teeth, death masks, spears and shields, red, blue, and green skulls, and whittled bamboo whistles on leather thongs. Each intersection was guarded by a panoply of bamboo, studded with nipa fronds and flowers—red hibiscus, white
sampaguitas and jasmine, red and orange daisies, sheaves of white St. Joseph’s Cane flowers, and pink tendrils of cadena de amor. In the midst of this riot of equatorial hues and smells, the townspeople walked, themselves arrayed in palm fronds, flowers, feathers, and seashells. The men’s bare chests and the women’s faces and arms were coated with an oily mixture of soot and the juice of achuete seeds—hallucinatory masks whose black and red strips rippled and writhed in the liquid light of an amber sun as the crowd pranced, hopped, and ululated to the alternating fast and slow rhythm of pagan drums whose beat seemed both distant and near, coming now from one end of the main plaza, now from the skyoverhead, now from the central kiosk, and then again from the side streets radiating from the town’s center.
The rites were simple. In the first celebration, a local chieftain had ordered a parade of his warriors and those of his allies who had helped carry the battle one morning at the edge of time. Though he had himself long gone on to death, here were his warriors still, dressed more gaudily with the artifice of the intervening centuries, though they did their march now not in the open fields of K----- but through the paved and dust roads of the town, between desultory houses bleached by sea wind and the sun, to the town’s boundaries and back again, wending their way to the plaza whose northern end was held down by the church, a massive construction of stone and wood whose baroque facade had been so eroded by the elements one could no longer tell whether the saints or Arjuna’s army were carved there; and whose southern side was weighed down by the town hall which, as though to challenge the church’s prominence, was set on a raised cement promenade with wide terrace steps, though the structure itself was hulking and squat, its portico columns disproportionately massive. Images of a dream, Adrian thought as he steered the two women through a crowd already drunk despite the early hour.
Hand in hand, the three wove their way through the Festival, amidst the restless mass of bodies. They came upon a flock of transvestites who ambled along calmly, as though taking the sea air. They wore iridescent gowns of peacock colors, silver and gold sandals, and their shoulders were draped with lace shawls. They eyed the crowd haughtily, swinging their crocheted handbags and paper fans. Eliza’s mouth dropped open at the sight. In such a disguise, she thought, man-woman, woman-man, one could live safely in illusions and avoid all confrontations.
The mortals followed—the blue denim crowd, visitors who owed no allegiance to any tribe and were therefore designated the invaders. Though the label had been whimsically adapted from a television series, it was accurate, for the great mass of the crowd were as alien as could be. There were the Japanese, the Chinese, the Caucasian, the urbanite with his short-focusing eyes and pallid discontent. They walked quickly, with self-assurance, and it took a while before the drums subdued and merged them with the town’s rhythm.
Of the three, Eliza was the first to be snared by the Festival. Her arm was hooked by a young man waving a bottle of rum and shrieking with laughter, and Eliza ran off with him, half dancing to the drums’ four-four beat. The crowd swallowed them quickly. Adrian’s fingers tightened about Anna’s hand and he bent his head closer to her ear, telling her not to break loose as it would be impossible to find her again. No problem, Anna murmured back; she could then be a member of the lost tribe.
He did not find that funny and glanced at her face to see if her words meant anything. But a woman, blond strings of hair flying about her head, whirled out of a wall of bodies, dragging two men after her. Adrian tugged on Anna’s hand, pulling her away and the woman, body and limbs jerking in separate movement, stood in a cleared space while the two men her dancing had snatched from the crowd circled her. They slipped through the windmill slashing of her arms; their fingers dug into her flesh. She arched her back, offering them her torso and, shrieking, went on dancing. The two closed in on her.
A voice called out Adrian’s name and he barely managed to catch a wineskin which seemed to have appeared in the air. He un-stoppered it, held it aloft, and, squeezing with both hands, let the wine spurt into his mouth. His throat worked as he swallowed while a half-dozen men broke from the crowd and circled him. They began counting out the seconds as Adrian drank. Wine spilled from the corners of his mouth, down his chin and throat, and painted lilacs on his white T-shirt. Applause rang out—thinly, at first; then, in rhythm as the seconds count went up to thirty. Arriba, letran!! a man bellowed. Adrian choked. The wine spewed from his lips to the ground. Hands snatched the wineskin away and the group swerved, abandoning them for the next contender.
“Idiot,” Adrian muttered, wiping his mouth with his hand. “It was the wrong school.”
“Did it matter?” Anna asked lightly. But when Adrian held out his hand, she stepped away.
Embarrassed, he clutched at his shirt front, lifting the cloth from his skin. “Mother mine, I have purple blood,” he said. “I’m royally dead. Yecch, it’s sticky.”
“Not quite dead,” Anna said, watching as he stripped off the shirt and tied it like a turban about his head. His cheeks were flushed from the wine. “Never mind,” she went on, after a while, “you’re still the handsomest man around.”
To confirm her words, wolf whistles shrilled out and Adrian grinned sheepishly at three girls who had stopped to look at him. He struck a pose, arms akimbo. Anna shook her head, took another step back as though to examine him fully, and bumped against the man behind her. She was about to apologize when the man extended his hand, palm up.
“It’s quite simple,” he said. “Four-four beat and we’ll go around the plaza.”
He seized her left wrist and before she could say anything, they had speared through the crowd to the middle of the road. The man paused, head flung back, one arm held out, fingertips barely touching her shoulder. Then they took off, diving into the rhythm of the drums, shoulders and feet marking time as they danced down the length of the road toward the church. Instinctively, her feet found their niche in the drumbeats; she was hardly conscious of the intricate pattern they wove on the asphalt, a pattern of small steps and halts—one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two, one-two-three—while the young man twirled on his toes and danced to her right, to her left, behind her, in front of her like a moth circling a flame lick. She had the disquieting thought she was dancing the pattern of her life and though the young man followed his own choreography, somehow they managed to keep in step, obeying the drums. It was a long journey; dancers joined in, breaking loose from the line of onlookers, only to drop back again. Borne by the stream of dancing men and women, they rounded the corner and passed in front of the church where they overtook a formation of warriors. They threaded through the ranks of the bare-chested, g-stringed, and painted men who, true to the code of braves, ignored their presence. To amuse herself, Anna played catch with the tribe’s pennant, jumping to touch the red and blue crepe paper ribbons wriggling in the air. One of the warriors smiled at her and she was suddenly afraid.
“My love!” her partner called out, panting. “You dance well. Let me take you back before I collapse.”
She shook her head, shot away from the hand he held out, and crossed the street. She walked aimlessly, wedging herself through clusters of men and women who, lost in their own little festivals, sang, danced, and labored to get drunk. She looked back once and saw she had lost her partner. Still, she spent another quarter-hour in wandering through the crowd before she leaped over the foot-high cement ledge that separated the plaza’s lawn from the sidewalk. On the grass, exhausted dancers lay like scythed stalks. They called out, their hands languidly waving. “Come,” they said, “don’t be a stranger.” But she ignored them and went on walking, circling back and forth, drawing closer to the kiosk that stood white and inviolate at the plaza’s center. Abruptly, as though on a sudden whim, she turned and mounted the kiosk’s broad steps.
After the sunlight, she found the interior dim. She blinked rapidly, forcing her eyes to adjust. But a hand had already found her wrist; she was being drawn deeper into the room.
“Easy, wasn’t it?” The voice was Rafael’s. “I thought you would take longer to break away.”
“You saw me?”
“Here, there, everywhere.” He shook his head. “You are stubborn. You aren’t supposed to be here.” He squatted down and gestured for her to follow.
“Let’s not argue,” she said, tucking in her legs yogi fashion. “I hadn’t known about your plans when I made mine. Have yours changed?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“I had hoped otherwise.” She rubbed her hands together, trying to warm them. “But why are you here? If I can’t be here, why are you here?”
“To warn idiots like you. We hadn’t anticipated that some of us, of our kind, would be attending the Festival. Fortunately, you tipped us off.”
“How many are here?”
“Fifty!” He spat the words out. “Innocent souls. A man here, a woman there, a couple ... It was too late to chase after them in the city. So here I am, a reception of one.”
“And what are you—here, now?” She nearly smiled as she asked. She had known him as a priest, a traffic policeman, a professor, a pickpocket.
“Fisherman,” he said promptly. Leaning forward, he added that the Commander was expected at the Festival, on its last day. He would address the crowd.
Anna shivered. “I have to confess I’m scared,” she said.
“If it’s any comfort, so am I,” Rafael said. “And if it will make you feel better, he is here.”
She was silent. After a while, she nodded. “I feel better—yes—and yet, I don’t. Where will it be?”
“At the stage. One of the posts is hollow. The gift lies within, timed to the second. A few minutes’ allowance for the crowd which would slow down the vehicle. It won’t stop, though. It never does. As you know, the Commander is a madman for punctuality.”
State of War Page 1