The Breath of Night (5 page)
Read The Breath of Night Online
Authors: Michael Arditti
They may be extreme cases, but families throughout the parish are regularly torn apart as one or other of the parents leaves for Manila to be the… I’d say rice-winner if it didn’t sound flippant. Of course, the universal dream is to work abroad, as nannies, cooks, housemaids, bar boys or chauffeurs. It breaks my heart that this beautiful people’s best hope is to turn themselves into the world’s servants.
I’ll leave it there. If you want to hear about the problems of tenant farmers, you need only take a stroll to the Gaverton Arms. Instead, I’ll tell you of one of my more exotic adventures, among people you’re unlikely to have come across even in the wilder reaches of County Durham. Last week, I drove sixty miles (see, I’ve taken on board your objections to the metric system) to the far perimeter of the parish and then hiked into the mountains to say mass for an Igorot tribe, whose ancestors have lived there since time immemorial. I felt as if I’d stepped into the pages of the
National Geographic
. They were practically naked: the men in black and red loincloths and the women in black, red and white skirts. The language barrier was firmly in place since, unlike the townspeople, none of them speaks English and very few speak or, at any rate, admit to speaking Tagalog. So I was dependent on Eddie, a local teacher, to act as interpreter. Custom dictated that, before anything else, we eat and drink together. They cooked a chicken in the age-old manner, first holding it upside down and
bashing its head several times with a stick. nb, it’s even more crucial that you don’t breathe a word of this to Isabel or I’ll lose what shred of moral authority I still possess.
After the meal, I held an open-air mass for 300 people. The crucifix on the altar bore a disconcerting resemblance to the rice gods carved on the door frames of their homes. They profess to be Catholics, but I suspect that their faith is only skin deep – and sometimes not even that: how many Catholics do you know who have their arms intricately tattooed with a mixture of plant juice, soot and hen’s excrement, to protect them from evil spirits? I’m not setting out to destroy their ancient traditions and I’m well aware that the early Church adopted various pagan rites, but I will have no truck with worship in which Our Lord is merely one god among many, a native fetish rather than the Saviour of the world.
Then again, it’s no wonder that the pagan influence lingers on when the Church has been so compromised. In recent years, there have been too few priests to tend their flocks. But all that will change, and I’m proud to be playing a small part in the transformation. I’ve saved the best until last. With Father Benito Bertubin from the neighbouring parish of the Holy Cross, I’m instituting a network of Basic Christian Communities. Father Benito, a truly splendid man, has just come back from a year in Brazil where he experienced such communities at first hand. They give people the opportunity to think for themselves, rather than always depending on their priests (which even Father must admit is in line with the new spirit emanating from the Vatican). Our most pressing task is to establish teams of lay leaders. We’ve sounded out the different
barrios
for suitable candidates, using the criteria that St Paul proposes for bishops and deacons in the First Letter to Timothy. We’re planning to start selections in the new year, and then… watch this space!
Now I must leave you. I send you all my love and prayers for the Feast of the Nativity; I can’t help feeling a pang that, for the first year since my burst appendix, I shan’t be celebrating it with
you. I’ll have to make do with picturing everyone at the
Christmas
Eve carols, Boxing Day meet, New Year’s Eve ball and, of course, Christmas Day mass. I shall be spending the day at the
convento
. I was invited for lunch at the Arriola mansion but I declined, much to Consolacion’s delight. My place is here, to welcome any waifs and strays. Besides, I’m developing a taste for bat.
Your loving son,
Julian
Philip felt as if his whole body were covered in gum. He had scarcely stepped out of the hotel, and he was already
disorientated
by the glaring sun and the swampy heat and the cacophony of car horns. Leaving for his third and, he hoped, final day at the library, he resolved to ignore the line of taxis in the forecourt and walk the short distance across Rizal Park. First, however, he had to brave the freeway on which the constant flow of vehicles bore no visible relation to the working of the lights. As he wavered on the kerb, a pedicab driver drew up in front of him, bombarded him with questions and promised him ‘the most cheapest and most comfortable ride in Manila’. Treating the polite refusals as a negotiating ploy, he repeatedly lowered his price, as though the sight of a Westerner on foot were not just a wasted business opportunity but an affront to his world view.
Trusting to the red light, Philip wove through the colour-blind traffic and, by some miracle (although, given his mission, he was wary of the word), reached the opposite pavement unscathed. After pausing to gain both his breath and his bearings, he entered the eerily empty park. A handful of joggers circled the perimeter, oblivious to everything but the music in their ears; a class of schoolgirls practised tai chi on the grass; a pair of lovers, whom he romantically – or nostalgically – identified as students, embraced beside a blaze of poinsettias; a vagrant lay sleeping on a bench, his matted hair and tattered trainers telling as poignant a story as any in the newspaper that covered him.
Philip strolled past the small crowd of tourists who were
photographing
the changing of the guard at the Rizal monument, a majestic bronze statue, which neatly concealed its subject’s lack of stature, and made his way to the library. After handing his bag to the security guard, who deflected his friendly ‘good morning’ with the same stony expression that he had adopted all week,
he climbed the cheerless concrete stairs, dotted with wilting pot plants, to the Filipiniana Division, then up a further flight to the serial section. None of the three librarians, huddled behind the enquiry desk, showed him any sign of acknowledgement, despite his having been the only reader in the department for the past two days. After filling in a requisition slip, he took a seat in what, with its shelves of maroon ledgers, piles of cardboard boxes and stacks of loose papers, resembled the accounts department of an old-fashioned family firm. He waited impatiently for the papers to arrive and struggled to summon up enthusiasm for a task that had so far proved to be both tedious and futile.
Of the three main newspapers published during the Marcos era, none was available on computer and only two on
microfiche
. The months it would take to scrutinise each issue for any mention of Julian would exhaust Philip’s patience as surely as it would Hugh’s purse. He had therefore chosen to concentrate on three key events, all of which had attracted widespread press attention: Julian’s alleged levitation during mass; his
arraignment
on the murder charge; and his violent death. Even so, there was a mass of material to wade through since, on the evidence of Julian’s letters, it was impossible to put a more precise date on the levitation than June to August 1975 or on the court
hearings
than March to November 1984. And although his body was found on 10 November 1989, comment on the case continued sporadically for several months.
After two days of strained eyes over the microfiche and stained fingers from the newsprint, he had discovered little of significance for either 1984 or 1989. A report in the
Philippines Daily Express
filled in details of the murder charge that Julian had omitted, notably that his hip flask, easily identified by the
owl-and
-halberds crest, had been found (in other words, planted) on the ridge from which the fatal shots were fired. An article in the
Bulletin Today
featured the claims of various Baguio
prisoners
that they had heard Julian and his cell mate,
Benito
Bertubin, talking about their part in the shooting. Although their
testimony was deeply compromised, it was clear that not all of his fellow inmates were as cheered by Julian’s presence as he had led his mother to believe. Finding no reference to the
miracle-working
reputation which, according to Julian, had featured in several reports of the case, Philip concluded that the reports in question must have been foreign, which made sense, given the iron control that Marcos had exercised over the press.
He was further disappointed by the sketchy accounts of the discovery of Julian’s remains in both the
Daily Express
and the
Times Journal
(the
Bulletin Today
by then having folded) and by the blandness of subsequent obituaries. Neither the Bishop of Montagnosa nor the Regional Representative of the Mill Hill Missionaries offered much beyond conventional tributes to his exemplary life, inspirational priesthood, and dedication to the poor and needy. The Regional alone praised his outspoken opposition to the abuses and atrocities committed under Martial Law, about which the Bishop was understandably reticent. But pastoral care and social protest, however admirable, did not make a man a saint, and he needed evidence of the heroic virtue and miracle cures that were crucial to the case.
A tiny librarian tottered from the stacks with six bound volumes of the
Times Journal
. The cloud of dust that arose as she deposited them on Philip’s table suggested that the summer of 1975 was a neglected period of historical research. Philip prayed that he would light on something of substance; but, although the words ‘miraculous healing’ and even ‘joyous phenomenon in Mountain Provinces village’ caught his eye, they had no connection with Julian. Moreover, given that the ‘joyous
phenomenon
’ was a middle-aged woman who, after thirty years of childless marriage, had fallen pregnant with triplets when Christ appeared to her during mass, and the ‘miraculous healing’ was that of a sixteen-year-old boy who had grown a new eye after being touched by the emissary of the king of the dwarves, it was no surprise that a priest’s levitation, which would have caused a sensation in Berkshire, was small beer in Benguet.
After a morning in which he eliminated further lines of enquiry rather than uncovering anything of note, Philip went down to the lobby to meet Max. He had texted at breakfast that he had urgent matters to discuss, although, on past form and given the reference to ‘one of my favourite eateries nearby’, Philip assumed that his primary motive was to lunch at Hugh’s expense. Anxious not to waste time, he was relieved to find that Max had already arrived but embarrassed by the
sweeping
bow with which he greeted him in front of the security guard. They made their way out into the street where a knot of men was poring over the boards and booths of a makeshift maritime recruitment agency. Clutching his money belt like a truss – and hating himself for it – he watched, both fascinated and appalled, as engineers and fitters and stewards and mates signed away their lives like the victims of an eighteenth-century press gang.
‘Is it legal?’ he asked.
‘It’s Manila,’ Max replied. ‘That’s a question you learn not to ask.’
Dragging him away, Max hailed a pedicab, even though Philip, his confidence bolstered by the earlier excursion, suggested that they walked. ‘We’re doing our bit for the local economy,’ Max said, belying the claim by haggling over the fare. ‘It makes them look at you with more respect,’ he added, as the driver looked at them with undisguised loathing.
The price agreed, Philip stepped over the gaping gutter and into the rickety sidecar, where he sat squashed against Max who appeared to relish both their intimacy and his discomfort. To his horror, the driver pulled straight out into the road, executing a U-turn in the face of the steady stream of traffic. Max patted his thigh in mischievous reassurance as they braved the tumult of honking, before waiting at the lights, where an intrepid pedlar threaded through the stationary vehicles selling cigarettes by the stick and gum by the piece. Turning down a side street, they proceeded for a couple of blocks before stopping outside the
restaurant, whose frontage was adorned with crude plastic
versions
of the rice gods in Hugh’s study. The pavement was almost as tricky to negotiate as the road. Ahead of them a man, wearing nothing but shorts, soaped himself as nonchalantly as if he were in his own bathroom. To his left, three men played cards on an oil drum surrounded by a jeering and gesticulating crowd; to his right, three women sat stirring brightly coloured stews and bubbling pots of rice while their children frolicked at their feet, perilously close to the wobbly stoves. All around them were stalls selling food, drink, scarves, T-shirts, sunglasses, lighters and pirated DVDs.
They entered the restaurant, where the maître d’ greeted them with a mixture of familiarity and obsequiousness. Feeling guardedly adventurous, Philip opted for the local cuisine and, attracted as much by the name as by the ingredients, which the waiter listed as ‘beef, anchovies, eggplant, bok choy, garlic and beans’, ordered
kare-kare
. Max, meanwhile, ordered cuttlefish.
‘Do you never eat Filipino?’ Philip asked.
‘With
my
stomach?’ Max replied, with a theatrical shudder. Having dispatched what he described as ‘the serious business of the day’, he questioned Philip about his researches, showing neither surprise nor concern at the lack of results.
‘I still have one hope,’ Philip said, as perturbed by Max’s
indifference
as he would have been by an open rebuke, ‘or rather two: the
Philippines Daily Express
and
Bulletin Today
for June to August 1975. They may make some mention of the levitation. I’ve booked a slot on the microfiche machine for 2.30.’
‘You’re a glutton for punishment,’ Max said, devouring a fistful of fried peanuts.
‘There was nothing in the
Times Journal
, which surprised me since Julian definitely mentioned reporters coming up from Manila. Either their accounts must have been censored or else the newspapers can’t have been preserved.’
