The Tesseract (5 page)

Suck.

“Number.”

Teroy reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a card. “Three six eight two two six six.”

“Three…six…eight…”

“Two two six six.”

“Two…two…”

“Six six.”

“Six…six…”

There was a pause.

“Aah. It’s ringing.”

The car breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

Jojo tuned out
Don Pepe’s conversation with Mr. Sean. He didn’t like the way Don Pepe talked with Europeans. As stubborn and pushy as ever, but with a subtly ingratiating note that made Jojo feel curiously ashamed. The mestizo never talked to Filipinos that way.

Worst of all, the subtly ingratiating note was wasted. Don Pepe’s European business acquaintances were all merchant seamen, a graceless bunch, whereas Filipinos invariably treated him politely. Even his enemies. Even the most earnest young lawyers, on the old man’s back for one reason or another, hoping to make a name for themselves or to reach an early grave. They’d say
po
as they handed over a subpoena, hold open courtroom
doors to let him pass. Unless Bubot had beaten them to it.

Always a shock, seeing a European being rude to Don Pepe. Once, Jojo and Teroy had been escorts to a meeting in which an Australian seaman, first mate of the
Mentalese
, hadn’t been wearing a shirt. Not a stitch on his chest. Jojo hadn’t known where to look. Teroy said later that he’d been of two minds whether to shoot the Australian or shoot himself.

Born loud and born rude, Jojo would have been forgiven for thinking, watching the pale faces stumbling in and out of
Angeles
bars. But there were exceptions to keep him open-minded. Mr. Sean, for example, was an exception. He’d been to the Philippines often enough to have picked up some good manners. Used
po
when necessary, and spoke Tagalog when he could.

Who had it right? Hard to say. Just about everyone deserved politeness, but sometimes Jojo felt a guilty envy when Europeans interrupted Don Pepe in mid-conversation, or raised their voices at him, or better yet, clapped him on the back. An envy that faded as the mestizo’s eyes glazed and the vein in his temple thickened.

Reminded Jojo of a story his father had often told him, back when the family had lived on Negros. In the servants’ quarters of Don Pepe’s hacienda, squatting under the cool of the stone arches, chewing on the sugarcane his dad sneaked home from the plantation.

“Panding,” Jojo muttered, half hearing his father’s voice. “Was an orphan…”

Panding was an orphan. His mother died during childbirth, and six years later he lost his father, uncle, and two aunts, trapped by an unusual bush fire during a long, hot summer. With that sort of introduction to the world, no one was surprised that the orphan reached adulthood a little mad. Not very mad, only a little. Nothing you’d pick up in conversation or over a glass of homebrew. In fact, you’d only ever see it at one time: When he had a machete in his hand.

People in the fields called it a red mist. Look hard enough and, many of them claimed, you could see it, floating around his head like tobacco smoke or steam off the workers’ backs in the early morning. Fat-Boy, overseer and whip man, used to say that he set Panding on new crops the same way he set his dogs on monkeys that strayed too far from the tree line. And just as no one would go near Fat-Boy’s dogs when they had a monkey in their jaws, no one would go near Panding while the mist was in his head. A rule of common sense: Watch at a distance.

Which meant nothing to Don Pepe. First, Don Pepe didn’t know the rule because he only ever saw his plantation from the balconies of his hacienda or from the saddle of his Portuguese horse. Second, even if he had known the rule, the idea of bowing to the madness of a cane cutter would have been as ridiculous as paying his workers’ salaries during the six months that sugar was off season, or not screwing their daughters.

The days after
a light rainfall gave Don Pepe the chance to gallop his horse—something he would never do unless the soil was softened. In the Negros heat, the earth could bake as hard as rock, and even Portuguese-born horses could break a leg in those conditions.

That day, this day, his gallop took him to the hectares supervised by Fat-Boy. A rare visit, as these were the farther reaches of his estate. So it was as much out of surprise as duty that Fat-Boy’s men stopped what they were doing, stopped stacking and slicing, and lowered their heads in the appropriate gesture of respect.

“Fine day, sir,” said Fat-Boy as his boss approached.

“Eeeh,” said Don Pepe affably. The ride seemed to have put him in a good mood. “It is. A fine day. God’s touch apparent in all we see.”

The statement did not appear to require further comment, so Fat-Boy let the silence grow while the mestizo contentedly scanned his kingdom. Then both men’s heads turned at a sudden noise. The smack of a blade. Panding hadn’t put his machete down.

“Why hasn’t that man stopped work?” said Don Pepe, adjusting the brim of his sun hat to see better.

Fat-Boy paused. Other overseers would have been quick to pull out their whips, using the ominous note in the master’s voice as an opportunity to prove their ruthlessness. But Fat-Boy wasn’t a cruel man and had no wish to see Panding unnecessarily punished, so he considered his answer carefully.

“I expect, sir,” he eventually replied, “that Panding wants to show you how keen he is.”

“Keen,” Don Pepe said. “That’s good. But I think he is too keen. I think the other workers could see his keenness as a lack of respect. So, ah, make him stop.”

“Make him stop, sir?”

“Yes, stop.”

“Stop him, sir?” Fat-Boy repeated.

“Oh. Deafness.” Don Pepe pulled out his riding crop and hit Fat-Boy across the side of the head. “Is that better?”

“Much better, sir.”

“Good. Now, are you going to stop him or not?”

“Sir, I…”

“Yes or no.”

“Yes, sir.”

Don Pepe sat back in his saddle expectantly.

It was a short distance to where Panding was cutting, but Fat-Boy made it seem long; walking slowly, eyes on the ground, shoulders slumped. Just as he was about to reach Panding, he turned around, shooting a quick glance at the onlookers and then at Don Pepe. The mestizo wasn’t even watching. His attention seemed to have been caught by the whitewashed walls of his hacienda, peering out of the jungle like a skull in tall grass…

“
Like a skull in tall grass.
”

Jojo blinked.

Moments ago, his father’s voice had been in his ear and the image of the hacienda had been clear in his mind. He’d been
hearing the low buzz of flies and the distant cracks and shouts of the plantation. And then, abruptly, it all slipped away.

He blinked again, frowned, exhaled slowly, and remembered.

This was the part of the story where he usually interrupted his father, breaking in with anxious sighs and questions. It had been, “Why didn’t Fat-Boy run away?” when he was younger. And “Why didn’t Fat-Boy explain about the red mist?” when he was older. Eventually, he gave up asking the questions altogether. His father had no answers. Just a shrug and “That was the way it was.” It made him sound like a priest.

From the seat behind, Don Pepe sucked his toothpick loudly and spat out a splinter of wood.

“
Last year the hotel was
, what,
a very good hotel.
”

He was still talking to Mr. Sean.

“
But now my associate tells me it is Jailing down already
…”

An associate, no less. A pity Teroy’s English was so limited, because he’d have been flattered to hear himself described as an associate. Jojo looked to his right, thinking he might tell him. A chance for one of their covert conversations while the mestizo was occupied. But Teroy was facing the other way, staring out of the passenger window, and, for no good reason, Jojo was sure he could feel Bubot’s eyes on the back of his head.

Slightly disconcerted, Jojo shifted position to obscure himself more fully behind the headrest.

Fat-Boy reached
swinging distance of Panding’s machete and crossed himself. Then he lunged forward.

“Fat-Boy is as crazy as Panding,” said one of the onlookers.

But Fat-Boy wasn’t crazy. A barked order would have fallen on deaf ears, and the whip would have redirected the machete toward his neck. So instead he had moved to hold Panding, pinning his arms to his sides in a fierce grip. Fat-Boy’s only hope was to hang on until either the red mist passed or his own strength faded.

For two or three minutes, the two men stood in the cane, rocking slightly as Panding tried to break free. Then, finally, the tension began to ease out of their muscles. The moment of oddly motionless danger was over. Fat-Boy released his grip, and Panding’s machete dropped straight from his hand.

“The boss,” said Fat-Boy breathlessly.

Panding looked dazed.

“He wanted you to stop.”

If Fat-Boy was overconfident when he returned to the mestizo, he could hardly have been blamed. He had faced death and lived to tell the tale. But Don Pepe was not impressed, and made a point of saying so.

“I’m not impressed with the way you control the workers,” he said.

Fat-Boy smiled. “I control them the best I know how, sir.”

“Then perhaps you should learn more about how to control them. Learn from the other overseers.”

“Or the other overseers could learn from me.”

Don Pepe’s eyes screwed up at this blunt reply. “Oh?”

“My workers cut and stack faster than theirs, and I lose less of them.”

“Really.”

“Yes, sir. The less I lose, the more work gets done.”

“Is that so?”

“It is, sir. In fact, I believe that if the other overseers were to…”

“In other words,” Don Pepe broke in, “just so that I can make this clear, you disapprove of the way I run my plantation.”

The coldness of the tone immediately returned Fat-Boy to his senses. “Oh, no, sir!” he replied emphatically. “I would never do that! I was only…I was…”

He hesitated, struggling to find the right words.

“You were only what?”

“It was that I…”

“Please go on.”

“I…”

“Mmm?”

“I…”

“Mmm?”

But Fat-Boy’s mouth was failing him. He was confused. He couldn’t comprehend how, in the space of a few minutes, he’d managed to find himself in such hazardous and unfamilar waters. So instead, made mute, he made a gesture. At different times, to different people, the kind of gesture that might mean friendliness, affection, an introduction into conspiracy, or emphasis during a debate. Or, in this instance, an appeal for help.

His hand, sticky with sweat and juice from the sugar, reached out to rest on the mestizo’s leg. He withdrew it immediately, in recognition of the mark he had overstepped, but
immediately was too late. A print remained on the cream silk, proof of the act.

Don Pepe’s white eyebrows shot up so fast and high that it looked as if they might shoot off the top of his head and fly away like seagulls.

“Aaah.” He gasped incredulously.

Fat-Boy’s face flushed, blackening with horror.

“
Eeeh
…That man will do it. He seems good with a machete.”

“Sir, if I could buy you some new trousers. Several pairs, all silk, several colors and…”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You couldn’t possibly afford it.”

“I have savings that might be used for…”

“You seem to be missing the point. It isn’t trousers, it’s principle. You can’t expect me to ignore principle. I know you understand that.”

“I understand, but…”

“Good. Now then…” Don Pepe beckoned to Panding with his riding crop. “You. Come here. I can’t spend all day over this.”

Fat-Boy stared blankly at his fingers. “Sir, please, a moment. If I am cut now, I will die from bleeding. If you permit it, at least let them be cut off tonight. We can light a fire and heat an iron, and the wound can be properly sealed.”

“You’re a physician?”

“Sir, please!” Fat-Boy’s voice was breaking. “I would not recover if my hands were cut off here.”

Don Pepe considered this for a few moments, tugging thoughtfully at the loose folds of skin under his chin.

“Very well. I shall not be able to watch because I have an engagement tonight. Aaah, dignitaries from abroad. But tomorrow, I shall check on you. Oh, and if you try to escape, I’ll feed your family to your own dogs.”

“Yes, sir.”

The mestizo nodded. Then he wheeled his horse, dug in his spurs, and disappeared in a cloud of dust.

The next day, as promised, Don Pepe came to check up on Fat-Boy, who was convalescing in his hut, tended by his wife and Panding himself. The master took a brief look at the feverish bloodied figure, and shook his head. “Hands,” he said. “I said hands. Not hand.”

Fat-Boy didn’t survive the second amputation. Panding blamed himself. Three days later, he ran amok on people rather than crops, and was cornered in the cane.

Somewhere in the recesses of Jojo’s childhood memories was an old man for whom errands were run. Eggs or water, carried to a house that sat separate from the others, on the edge of the
baranguay
. A figure in its doorway, rarely out of the shadows, bent with age, vaguely frightening from a distance. Close up, quiet and reassuring. He ruffled your hair so weakly that it felt like a breeze, and he had soft dry skin that smelled of the split husks beneath coconut trees. And he was gone by the time Jojo was five or six.