Surely that couldn’t be diminished, notwithstanding this Festival of drunks, misfits, and aliens (once more love, about the plaza, which is all that’s left of our world) staggering about in a parody of celebration, no, no, no, couldn’t be diminished, not by gin and rum and Coca-Cola, nor by losing one’s self in the drum’s rhythm, pounding the earth with one’s feet, in a rage for oblivion, nor even by the shit and lies growing thicker each day as the Commander’s proclamation of power entangled itself in letters of instructions, general orders and decrees, all intended to be part of the archipelago’s constitution, said document growing fatter by the minute as more and more laws and bylaws came, all signed by one man who believed he could rule, regulate, manage, and control seven thousand one hundred shrapnels of a boisterous celebration of man, controlling these with one signature, it’s a lot of bullshit, notwithstanding his men who together and singly have decided to speak in four-syllable words, becoming more confused and confusing each day, so that a new troop of servants had to be created to tote dictionaries and define each word for the rest of us who knew only the simple language of love, freedom, and life, the same that drove our forefathers to brave the monsoon, harness the trade winds, and settle along inhospitable shores, from whence sprung the generations of the god Bathala, created from wind and water and clay, so that the bones of the archipelagic man were held together by the breath of liberation and he could not be returned to the bamboo prison from which the islands’ first man and woman came, bamboo being the only object which could ford the titan waves of the Great Flood of Gilgamesh. And if he dared touch the children, whose bones breathe the same breath, if he dared touch them, harm them, murder them—why, we would remember, we who awoke to find his curse woven in the barbed wires before our windows, held by the guards before our doors, in the cement walls which turned cold with each scream of pain wrung from a body of too vulnerable flesh, God, if there’s one, don’t let all of us die (the house! the house!), allow one to survive and wear down the eternity of the dictator; if he lives to a hundred, let us last a hundred and ten, long enough to spit on his grave and drown his corpse in the lagoon of our contempt; if he lives to two hundred, let us survive two hundred and ten, just long enough to fertilize the gardens with the shit of his memory; and if he’s thinking of living through his sons’ sons, allow us to outlive them all, just for the pleasure of being alive when he dies, before we bury him in the amnesia of our relief at his passing. After that, why, after that, there will be time for everything, time to lift this drink to one’s lips, time even to turn our faces to the sun’s fragrance in the unbearable fragility of this country’s morning.
In the Festival of memory, all Eliza could remember was how her mother, the Hansen woman as she was known then, would watch without rancor the final exit of the last lover. Then she would run to her upstairs bedroom, fling open the window shutters, and lean her torso out, her arms spread open as though to gather in the hour, the day. She would murmur, oh now, we have to do something; something has to be done; something, something . . . She never discovered the nature of this obligation, which, undischarged through the years, now roosted on Eliza’s shoulders. All the younger Hansen could think of was to wait. Wait. The word remained, an immovable boulder at the bottom of her befuddlement. She straddled the low cement hedge, her eyes passing from one soldier’s face to another, soldiers in combat uniform. There were too many; six about her now, four more over there; a flash of the same olive-green and ocher colors at street corners and intersections. The soldiers near her held out hip flasks and bottles, inviting her to partake. Drink, said one, and be merry for tomorrow you die. His English was heavy, newforged. His remark, though, amused him and he brayed with laughter, the beer bottle shaking up and down with each guffaw. Eliza took his offering, wiping the bottle’s mouth with her shirt’s hem. The others pummeled the lucky one’s shoulders, poking his ribs. Eliza drank, her eyes squinting against the sunlight. It was still morning. Time enough. Wait. Come dance, said the chosen soldier, grown bolder now. She shook her head; she had to wait. Wait. Such a trust should not be betrayed.
“There are too many of you,” she said.
We have to be here, they said.
“Why?” But they turned from her, elusive now, shrinking into their dark brown skins, their uniforms. Just then, the crowd roared. She lifted her eyes and saw how, beneath the town hall clock, which was permanently set at six o’clock, a half-dozen men had appeared, dressed in the formal barong shirt of embroidered pineapple fiber and black pants. They paused on the top step, waiting, too, it seemed, for they kept glancing over their shoulders toward the building’s interior. Each had one thing askew with his costume, in honor of the Festival: a garland of seashells, a leaf instead of a flower on a collar, a purple scarf. She recognized the mayor, the councillors, the provincial commander—the powers of K----- . As one, the crowd below the steps retreated, creating an emptiness, a path running down the center of the road through which the authorities would pass. It was the promenade.
Another roar. From the shadows of the building’s pillars came a woman, in a fuchsia, ankle-length gown with butterfly sleeves, a matching parasol held above her head by a male flunky. She paused, holding out her face—that face of one perfect, flesh-tinted oval, with deep black wing eyebrows, blue-tinted lids, mascaraed lashes, and a red, impeccably etched mouth. As a concession to the Festival, a perfect red heart had been stenciled on her left check. She held it out, that face, like a banner of challenge and from below, from the men and women straining against an invisible barrier, came a responding roar. Whether of approval or rage, it was impossible to tell. Then, slowly, she came down the steps to precede the menfolk on the promenade. The Commander’s wife. Behind her, the flunky kept a precise distance and, behind him, the town authorities. Eliza, watching the boiling at the back of the crowd, wondered what kept them from spilling over, from filling up that emptiness. Tradition, habit, fear? She didn’t know. She knew though it needed but one person to cross that divide, to violate the sanctity of authority, for all of them to be in the middle of hell.
Adrian suffered the hiss of his father’s anger. In the foyer of the governor’s mansion, with the voices within muted by walls, he kept his face still even as his father thrust his own face forward, his nose six inches away from Adrian’s nose and called his name. Adrian, Adrian! He shook his head, said once, twice, then repeatedly as the whisper turned insistent, words cascading. Adrian, Adrian! He said no again. You’re the only grandson, his father said, keeping his voice low. Adrian shook his head.
“In these times, we need protection,” his father said finally. “We do not have political power.”
The words were separate, distinct, each given its full weight. His father sighed. He stepped back, passed a hand over his face, cupped his mouth and chin, and eyed Adrian. Adrian shook his head. He could not trust his voice. His father was calling on his allegiance.
“In that case”—his father turned toward the inner doorway— “wait here.”
He was back shortly, pushing Julius before him, Julius who smiled sheepishly, foolishly, at Adrian.
“He’ll tell you,” his father said before ducking back into the living room.
“Friend, why not?” Julius asked.
“It’s not possible,” Adrian replied, offended by the other’s knowledge of a family problem.
“Because of the—? She’s...He groped for a word. “Pretty?” He made a face. “Passable?” Another grimace. A glance at Adrian’s impatient face. “Vivid. Truly vivid. Reminds me of that, uh, transcendental girl, your old passion. Though come to think of it, she resembles the Hansen woman somewhat. Now, that other one. I can understand that one, panero. I can appreciate that one.” He whistled.
But Adrian had stopped listening. Vivid. The right word, he thought; vivid. With her blue-black hair which, when loosened, fell to her hips, a sight rarely seen; and her skin of impossible colors, golden where it had not been touched by the sun, dark brown in the expos
ed areas. Her face—he remembered Transcendental suddenly, moon of disasters, and flinched with regret at his own words of denial. What did that have to do with him, he had asked. Her face. A cross between Transcendental’s (what was her name?) and Eliza’s.
“I see you never caught it, friend,” Julius was saying. “I knew it the minute I laid eyes on her. You’re obsessed with a memory. Illusion. That’s all.”
Adrian glanced away. “You tire me, friend.”
“But wait. A solution. Your father’s right. A proper marriage, a passionate side dish. Who would know? Who would care? It wouldn’t be the first such arrangement. Nor the last. For my sake, friend.” He snickered.
“I said no.”
“Never say no. Your family motto, friend. Stamped under the corporation’s flag. Never say no. She—” He jerked a thumb toward the inner rooms. “She will agree.”
“I said no.”
“The other one won’t agree? I bet you she will.”
Adrian sighed. He placed a hand on Julius’s shoulder, squeezed the flesh beneath the cloth. “Friend, you don’t understand.” He searched for the right words. “I say no. I won’t agree. I have—I have room in my life for only one passion.”
“Holy shit! That bad?” Julius stepped away from his grasp. “In that case, pal, you’d better know everything.” And he held out a brown envelope.
“What’s your stake in this?” Adrian asked, taking the envelope, turning it in his hands. It was sealed.
“A job in your corporation. Perhaps, public relations for the resort.” He shrugged. “I’m not as rich as you are, Mr. Banyaga.”
Adrian ripped the envelope open. Papers, stapled together, slid out. His eyes scanned the first words. Incredulous, he looked at Julius, who shrugged and lifted his hands, palms up. A gesture of helplessness.
“Your father thought you should know.”
“And you, too, should know?”
Julius shrugged again. Then quietly, with more decency than Adrian was willing to credit him, he left. Adrian weighed the sheets of paper in his hand. It was a report on the interrogation of one subject, female, age twenty-five, by the name of Anna Villaverde. What did it have to do with him? At once, he cringed at the familiar words and heard his grandfather’s creaking voice saying: someday, we’ll do away with the extraneous and confront the enemy. The old man’s laughter as he followed that with a question: but what if the enemy is us? Adrian dropped his eyes to the paper, willing himself to read slowly, not skipping a word of the quasi-scientific text, feeling its coldness seep slowly into his bones. The electric shock sessions; the water cure; sensory deprivation sessions; nights without sleep; days without food and water; the insane questions and answers; the psychiatric probes which had ruled out brute pain; the musical chair rapes ... In the report’s darkness, he searched for light, desperately, refusing to acknowledge his rising pity. A man could love only what he respected, not pitied. He should not have been told. Searched for and found it—the light!—in the report’s last entry: subject did not break; returned to Camp C . Truly, she was transcendental.
He flicked the pages over, throwing a pitying look at the direction of the voices within. He didn’t know what to do now, not even with the report, which he shoved back into the envelope and carefully laid on the little marble-top table holding a vase of flowers. He was sure of only one thing. No one had the right to add to that nightmare. As he walked to the front door, he wondered vaguely, uneasily, whether he would draw the soldiers in his wake.
The house was empty. Only an upended Styrofoam icebox, marked with the Coca-Cola logo, remained, to one corner of the inner room. Nothing else to show that the place had once been occupied. The guerrillas were thorough. She scanned the floor, the walls, blinking her eyes to clear them of sunlight, of memory’s vision. But there was nothing. Unwilling to admit failure, she walked out slowly. Perhaps there was a clue outside. A dislodged pebble, a twig bent in a certain direction, a flower growing where it shouldn’t grow. The hidden language. She looked around carefully, going down the footpath slowly. Nothing. The path began to lose definition, its edges gnawed by weed clumps. A gray streak appeared. Sand edging in, widening as she moved away from the town, and spreading abruptly into a low dune. She climbed it, her foot slipping, her ears filling with the lapping of waves. She stopped, catching voices in the wind. They seemed far away, those voices, and she resumed walking. Suddenly, the sea was there—spread out flat and yet restless under a sky red- orange with sunset. She was surprised to see the sun so low. It had been morning just a while ago. It still felt like morning, with an impending vast stretch of time. Without end. But even as she thought this, seeing the ships docked nearly prow to prow, clustered to her left, the sun slipped, its flames rippling forward from the horizon. In that instant, the moon bodied forth from the sea, pale orange, full. She was transfixed; the sun and moon, nearly of equal dimensions, shoulder to shoulder at the horizon. She inclined her head, half expecting a raucous cockcrow, but instead, the voices came—the irrepressible singing of three girls who ran, holding their skirts’ hems up, strands of their hair floating in the sea wind. Their bare feet marked the wet sand. They ran up to her, passed her, hardly acknowledging her presence, leaving her but a few words of their song: Ferdinand Magellan, the crazy old coot; took five ships . . . And came to a full halt a few yards away, in some enigmatic understanding of what was right.
They let go of their skirts abruptly, spilling what they had collected to the sand: seashells, coral bits, plastic beads. They squatted then, chins on knees, and began to sift through their loot. Once more, compelled by a strange sense of rightness, their singing changed and Anna found herself listening to a song about boats sailing the heavens, one of which was carrying away the woman who said no, thanks but no thanks . . . Her knees sagged; she herself sank down. For she remembered, Lord, how she remembered, the memory that had been her birthright rising to reclaim her. The bells. The rain of harp notes. The woman screaming her way to death on a sofa, as noisy as her child was quiet. The magical nosegays and rabbits. Infinity’s odor in a hot cup of cocoa. A monk’s bones, torn from their crypt by the flood of ’72, washed clean now by river currents. An omen come true. The tobacco stink of velvet skirts; the harsh scent of a distillery. Chains of female voices, emerging from the secret niches of her brain, linked her to the years, back, back, back, even to a time when the tinkle of gold anklets was a message, herald of a passing, one morning of beginnings in a still-young world of uncharted seas.
2
Sun and moon shone on Eliza who, at that instant, was wading, shoes in hand, pants rolled up, in another part of the beach. She had acquired a small backpack, a gift from her transvestite friend who filled it with all kinds of Festival knickknacks, strips of gayly colored cloth, a bottle of the local wine, saying that no woman as beautiful should be allowed to leave without mementos. Laughing, Eliza had traded a kiss for the things. Then, seized by feelings of aloneness, she had run away, cutting through the dancing. There was no place save the shore for her mood. The town was too noisy. Thus, she was on time to witness that terrifying moment when sun and moon nearly touched. She fell to her knees, forgetting the waves, and lifted her face to the twin light’s benediction. The waves splashed against her chest, soaking her, spraying her cheeks, her hair, but she did not flinch, waiting until the two orbs strayed apart—one sinking, the other rising.
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