The Breath of Night (41 page)

‘Can you remind me of the chronology? You came back to the Philippines in the autumn of 1988; you were posted to a new parish in Quezon province; then, six months later, you faked your own death and defected to the NPA?’

‘I prefer “enlisted”.’

‘But why? I don’t mean why enlist, but why then? Marcos had been deposed. Shouldn’t you have given the new government a chance?’

‘I did. They’d been in power for three years.’

‘Three years, really! I don’t wish to sound facetious, but really!’

‘It’s easy to mock, but we’d waited so long. I returned from England to find that not a single soldier had been brought to trial for his actions under Martial Law. Aquino governed in the interests of her own class – at times even her own family! When 10,000 farmers marched down Mendiola Street, demanding that she implement her promised land reforms, she sent in the army to disperse them. Thirteen were killed and hundreds were injured. Her predecessor would have been proud.’

‘So you joined the NPA out of disillusion?’

‘No, not at all. Is that what it sounds like? It’s my fault for trying to simplify. The truth is that there was no single reason. On one level I was hitting fifty and taking stock of my life. On another I’d spent two years in England, which had convinced me – if I’d needed any convincing – that it was no longer my home. My brother’s party was in power and avarice was in the ascendant. My one thought was to come back and play a part in the new Philippines. I’d hoped to return to San Isidro, but after representations from the
haciendos
the Bishop sent me instead to Sariaya, an urban parish in Quezon, where I found it hard to settle. So I came up here on retreat, to pray and to meditate, but also to visit Rommel Clemente, the son of… well, of course, you know. Although it was a military camp, I felt utterly at peace with him and his friends. Even their arguments seemed more
reasonable
and sincere than the ones I was used to in the Church. They were ready to fight – and die – for their beliefs (no, that’s too abstract!): for the people, the very people whom Christ taught us to put first, but whom the Church, with its gelded gospel and bloodless chalice, had so often failed. Rommel asked me – not for the first time – why I didn’t throw in my lot with them.’

‘But you were a priest!’

‘I wouldn’t have been the only one. You’d be amazed at how many of my fellow clerics were involved in the struggle: in the CNL, in the BCCs, in the
Chi Rho
, in the
Kabataang Makabayan.
The difference was that I was a public figure. So although I was tempted by his offer, I felt bound to refuse, not on my own account but for the many thousands of people who’d given me their love and support, especially during my year in prison. If I’d abandoned the Church and proclaimed my faith in the
revolution,
they’d have felt betrayed. They wouldn’t have seen the logic, only the scandal. They’d no doubt have felt, like you, that I was guilty of Quesada’s murder, and added deceit and hypocrisy to my list of crimes. Then, by an extraordinary stroke of luck, on the day I was due to return to the parish, news came from a nearby camp that an American hostage had been shot trying to escape.’

‘That’s what you call luck?’ Philip asked, feeling vulnerable.

‘Very well then, providence.’

‘No! I was pointing out that a man had died.’

‘He was a former marine turned mercenary, attached to one of the most ruthless right-wing death squads in the Philippines. Trust me, he was a legitimate target. And in a further stroke of luck – or what you will – he was exactly my height and build. I can’t remember who it was that first suggested I take on… what? Not his identity, not even his body, but rather his bones. But as soon as the scheme was mooted, I knew that it solved
everything.
We hid the corpse in the forest, where it was stripped clean by an army of carrion beetles and flesh flies. Then we put my ring on its finger, hung my crucifix round its neck and left the skeleton in a ditch to be discovered.’

‘Didn’t the authorities think to do a DNA test or to check dental records?’

‘We’re talking 1989. DNA tests were in their infancy, even in the West. The regional police chief had no wish to waste
valuable
resources on a case which, to his mind, was closed.’

‘But what about the mysterious light and the heavenly music, so vividly described by the foresters and the police? Not to mention the odour of sanctity? Or are we to we conclude that it emanated from the mercenary?’

‘That’s always a chance, but I don’t suppose that I – that is, the mercenary – was the only decomposing matter in the vicinity. It’s quite possible that the build-up of methane produced
will-o’-
the-wisp. And that a nearby acacia or sampaguita bush gave off the fragrance. The music is more puzzling, but our Filipino policemen have always had a weakness for a good story,
especially
one they dream up themselves.’

‘So that was all it took for you to vanish?’

‘Yes. For the first time in my life, I was truly free.’

‘But invisible.’

‘
And
invisible!’

‘What about your family? Didn’t you think about the effect on them?’ Philip asked, picturing his own family waiting
desperately
for news.

‘You said you’d read my letters; so you must realise that we weren’t that close.’

‘Was there no one you were sorry to leave?’

‘Oh yes, my former parishioners. I’d grown very attached to them over the years. I’ve had the occasional piece of news via Rommel, but it’s no longer safe for him to contact his mother.’

‘I saw Felicitas when I was in San Isidro. If I’d known, I could have passed on a message.’ Philip laughed. ‘I saw several of your other old friends. As well as your housekeeper.’

‘Consolacion?’ Julian asked eagerly. ‘Is she still alive? I’ve asked Rommel time and again but he can never tell me
anything
. Is she really alive?’

‘Well, I know that such distinctions are blurred around here –’

‘Touché!’ Julian said with a smile.

‘But in March she was in fine fettle.’

‘I always said she’d live to be a hundred. She can’t be far off it now. How wonderful! Did she mention me at all?’

‘Lots,’ Philip said, reluctant to add to the toll of shattered
illusions
. ‘That was the point of my meeting her. She told me that the years she’d spent with you were the happiest of her life.’

‘Really?’ Julian asked, his eyes welling with tears.

‘Scout’s honour. How about Benito Bertubin? Didn’t you ever want to get back in touch with him? Or maybe you have and he was being discreet?’

‘No, I haven’t seen him in twenty-five years. I expect you’ve spoken to him too. How is he? The same as ever?’

‘Well, I didn’t know him twenty-five years ago.’

‘No, of course not.’

‘He’s doing remarkable work for the families who live on the Payatas rubbish dump.’

‘I don’t doubt it. He’s a remarkable man. But it’s everything we swore we’d never do. It’s dusting the rubble after an earthquake; it’s wiping the blood off the walls after a raid.’

‘And it’s giving the dispossessed back their dignity,’ Philip said, feeling as strong an urge to hurt Julian for belittling Benito as he had done to spare him the truth about Consolacion. ‘Every day he sits at his desk and does battle with the bureaucrats. You may denounce it as collusion with a corrupt and oppressive system, but it’s a collusion that brings clean water and flush toilets and schools and birthing clinics. Isn’t that more valuable: isn’t that more
Christian
: isn’t that more truly revolutionary than hiding out in the mountains with a tiny group of fanatics blowing up saw mills and buses and mobile phone masts, along with the occasional person?’

‘Revolutions are made by tiny groups of fanatics, as you call them. Look at Christ! He changed the world with just twelve disciples.’

‘Yes, but as far as I recall, he didn’t stockpile weapons illegally obtained from the occupying Roman army, or pay for them with money extorted from Galilean farmers.’

‘Meaning what? That I’m as big a fraud now as I was as a priest? That I’m a fool for ever supposing I could do any good?’

‘Not at all,’ Philip said, disturbed by Julian’s anguish. ‘Besides, unlike the rest of us, you’ll have a chance to do good long after your death.’

‘Which one?’

‘Both. Once the
Positio
is approved and they make you a saint.’

‘In which case I’ll be a still bigger fraud. When the faithful gather at my tomb, the bones they’re venerating won’t even be mine.’

‘Isn’t that the case for half the saints in Christendom?’

‘Then at least I’ll be in good company,’ Julian replied with the hint of a smile. ‘We’d better go back. The others will be
wondering
what’s happened to us. They might suspect me of
spiriting
you away.’ Philip felt a fleeting hope that Julian would free him from the trap into which he had, however unwittingly, drawn him, but he knew that it was vain. As Julian himself had explained, the one thing that linked the priest and the
revolutionary
was obedience.

‘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.’

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
Whitlock Hall,
County Durham
18 January 2013