The Breath of Night (14 page)

Philip regretted his lack of experience, as he struggled to phrase his questions. He knew that she had worked in the BCC school and spoke near-perfect English, so that there should be no problem of comprehension. What worried him was the effect of asking her to recall – even to relive – the traumas of her past. Accustomed to old ladies whose greatest losses were their looks, he felt humbled in the face of one who had endured so much. He hid behind his Coke and cassava cake, whose stickiness was a further obstacle to conversation, while Felicitas pulled out a plain wooden chair and sat, poker-backed, hands clasped and ankles crossed, as if on a dais.

She stared at him with a mixture of expectancy and alarm that overrode his doubts. ‘You must miss your husband
dreadfully
,’ he said.

‘Juan died bearing witness for what he believed,’ she replied, the faint lilt adding pathos to her words. ‘No one can ask for more than that.’

‘Really?’ Philip asked. ‘I don’t want to sound facile, but shouldn’t we be able to bear witness to our beliefs in safety?’

‘Maybe in the West,’ she replied, without irony.

‘I understand that he was killed by the son of the murdered policeman?’

‘Yes, you are right. A twelve-years-old boy. Not even a man!’

‘If he’d been older, would it have made it easier?’

‘No, but it would have made it fairer. He would have less of his life still to live: less of the life that he stole from Juan and he stole from me.’

‘Do you still attend church regularly?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘And have you been able to forgive him – the killer?’

‘I pray that, before I die, I will have the heart to forgive him. Sometimes prayers can be harder than pain.’

‘Even after all these years?’

‘I believe that God gives each one of us a task in life. Mine must be to learn how to forgive.’

‘In the last letter that he wrote – or at least the last one that we have – Julian spoke of paying you a visit on his return to the Philippines. I can’t remember his exact words, but it sounded as though you blamed him in some way for Juan’s death.’

‘He has said this?’ She looked at him in horror.

‘I may have misread it,’ Philip added quickly.

‘If I made him think this, I am truly sorry. Please, you must understand that it has never been my meaning. When he came back, everything was very hard. Juan had been taken from us when so many other men – so many wicked men – were still living. But not Father! He was the best – the finest – man I have ever met. Oh my, I feel… I must have a little water.’

‘Let me,’ Philip said, standing. ‘Should I fetch some from the kitchen?’

‘My friend, the kitchen is in the yard.’ She pointed to a
cloth-covered
jug. ‘There!’ He filled the glass standing beside it and handed it to her. She drained it in a single gulp.

‘More?’

‘No, thank you. I am well now. I am sorry; it was just hearing what you said. Would Father really think that I am blaming him?’

‘No, I’m the one who’s sorry. Come to think of it, I’m not at all sure that he was referring to you. I’m pretty certain that it was one of the other widows, other wives. I got confused because he mentions Juan so often and always in such glowing terms.’

‘Juan loved Father so much. He would have given his life for him – not that he did, of course. He used to say that it was Father who made him a man. Please, you must not misunderstand me! He was forty years old with a grown-up son and a schoolgirl daughter when Father came to San Isidro, but it was Father who opened his mind.’ She moved to the dresser and took out a
photograph
of Julian and Juan, looking as ill matched as a comedy duo, leaning on axes beside a half-built bamboo hut. ‘Together, they have built our first chapel.’

‘It’s a wonderful photo. They both look so determined. It’s clear that Juan was Julian’s right-hand man in the BCC.’

‘And Father was always true to him. When they were sent into prison – Father Julian and Father Benito, Juan, Rey, Rodel and Julius – some of them (I will not say their names because they were all good men, such good men) believed that Father was going to abandon them. It would have been very easy for him. Every day there were visitors giving him a chance to be free if only he would put a distance between himself and the rest. He was making an embarrassment for Marcos, for the Church, for his Society, for his family. He would not even have to say that Juan and the others were guilty, just that he could not know that they were innocent. Perhaps I do not make the difference clear? My English is not so good.’

‘Trust me, it’s excellent.’

‘But Father would never desert his friends. He knew that they would be in great danger without him. He was their shield, just like he used to say that the Lord was his. He stayed in the prison with them for more than one year. Six men in a little room, three times as little as this.’ Philip looked around, trying to gauge the area, but faltered at the sight of the two coconut mats, which took up a third of the floor. ‘It was hard for all of them, but so much harder for Father. He had been growing up in a house like the Malacañang Palace.’

‘He told you about it?’ Philip asked in surprise.

‘Oh no, not at all. He would not like us to know. But Consolacion, his housekeeper – we were great friends together then – found some pictures from a letter he had thrown into the basket. She pulled them out and showed them to me. She made me be sure to be secret.’

‘I understand.’

‘And, after all that, he thought that I blamed him for the death of Juan?’

‘No, not at all. As I tried to explain, it was my mistake. I muddled you with one of the other wives.’

‘Does this make it better? How could anyone blame such a good, kind man?’

‘After all, he did go back to England. Even though he knew it would leave his fellow prisoners exposed.’

‘He had been sent many letters. His mother was dying! He had no choice and it broke his heart.’

‘Yes, of course. I’m not suggesting that he sneaked off to save his skin. But the fact remains that his mother recovered, while Juan and his friend, Julius Morales, died.’

‘Who knows? If Father had not gone back to her, she might never have recovered. Perhaps it was seeing him that made her well? She loved him very much. I have a son who I have not seen now for many years – perhaps almost as many years as you have been living – a son who some nights I think of with so much pain that, when I look down at my mat, I expect that it will be covered with blood. I could not even ask this son to come back to me to bury his father.’

‘Would that be Rommel?’

‘How do you know this is his name?’ Felicitas asked, cupping her cheeks in panic.

‘Julian mentions him in his letters to his parents.’

‘Father wrote to them about Rommel?’ A note of pride
displaced
the panic.

‘Certainly.’

‘Did he write about him to anyone else?’

‘Not as far as I know. The letters to his family are the only ones we have.’

‘I am sorry. Now I am the one of little faith. I know that Father would never betray anyone. He was a good man, the best man that I have ever known.’

‘So do you think that he was… that he should be made a saint?’

‘It is not for me to decide this. It is for the Bishop and the Cardinal and even the Holy Father himself.’

‘Ultimately, of course, but I’m here to canvass opinion on the ground.’

‘Father was a very humble man. He believed with his whole heart that every one of us was equal. He would never take praises for himself, instead he would always say: “It was a team effort.” I can hear him in my head speaking now. “It was a team effort.” These were his favourite words.’ She put her hand over her mouth, as if she had no right to appropriate them. ‘Would he have wished to be set apart?’

‘Perhaps if it were for the good of the Church and the people?’

‘Yes, you are right. You have never met him and you know what was important to him better than me.’

‘Not at all, I’m thinking aloud.’

‘You are quite right. Of course he should be made a saint.’

‘If it were up to me, virtue alone would be sufficient qualification, but Rome requires hard evidence. So I’m also seeking out witnesses to his miracles. Were you yourself in church to see him levitate or present at any of his cures?’

‘Yes, I was at the mass for Gener. He is a boy that I have known from the day when he was born. I can say what I have seen but I cannot swear it on the Bible since, at the same moment when Father rose in the air, a ray of light fell from the window like a golden curtain. I could see and I was blind, both at the same time.’

‘A ray of light that might have had mystic significance?’

‘I do not understand. Please to explain.’

‘Do you think that ray of light came from God?’

‘All rays of light come from God.’

‘So you don’t think this one was miraculous?’

‘I think, but I cannot be sure of my thoughts. What I can be sure is that I saw Benigna Vaollota with her neck like a bullfrog and the next day it was thin again like a swan. But was it Father who appeared to her in her dream or was it Our Lord himself? Look!’ She held the photograph next to the statue, forcing Philip to acknowledge the rudimentary resemblance between the two gaunt faces, blond heads and short beards. ‘I ask this because it can be so hard to tell, especially in a dream. And even if it
was Father who called her, was it him or was it Our Lord who cured her? I am happy that it is not me who has to decide this. For myself – just for myself – I would say to wait. Look at San Lorenzo Ruiz. He had to wait more than three hundred years, until the Holy Father came to Manila. But then who knows where this world will be in three hundred years? Perhaps it is best to take this chance now while there is still time.’

Philip sensed that she had told him as much as she knew, but the moment he stood to leave she pressed him to stay to lunch. Dismissing his offers of help so forcefully that he feared he might have breached one of the most sensitive Philippine ‘Don’ts’, she limped in and out of the room with a series of dishes, some in wooden bowls, some in polished coconut shells and some on what looked like banana leaves. With the food laid out, she summoned Dennis, who sat with uncharacteristic restraint, waiting for permission to start. It was only when she made the sign of the cross that Philip realised, just in time, that she had been saying a silent grace.

No sooner had they finished eating than Philip was distracted by a bespectacled head peering round the door. Felicitas warmly welcomed the elderly woman, along with her three companions, explaining that they were friends and neighbours whom she had invited to come and share their memories of Julian. As they wavered at the edge of the room, Philip sprang up to give one of them his seat, motioning to Dennis to do the same. While his offer was repeatedly refused, Dennis’s was immediately accepted, prompting him to retreat to the yard. With the two older women occupying the spare chairs and the two younger ones claiming to be happy on the mats, Philip leant forward and picked up his pad, taking copious notes as if to justify his privileged position.

One by one, and with a hint of rivalry, the women testified to Julian’s good works. The first spoke of his funding the building of a primary school in the
poblacion
and the second, stouter than the rest, whose every other sentence began ‘Modesty aside’, spoke of his sponsoring her son’s dental studies in Manila, which had
enabled him to work in America. Even as he congratulated the proud mother, Philip recalled Julian’s deep disapproval of such migration and felt torn. The two younger women both told
hospital
stories: the first described Julian’s arranging for her to have her intestinal worms removed, with such rapture that Philip half expected her to produce the parasites pickled in a jar; the second described his arranging for an operation on her mother’s
cataracts
. Philip wondered whether the success of these procedures, miraculous to those unfamiliar with modern medicine, might have fostered a folk memory of his healing power.

Three of the women had attended Gener’s requiem, which had clearly been an expression of communal defiance as much as of private grief, while the fourth, a birdlike woman with soft eyes, sunken cheeks and wisps of hair escaping from an
ash-grey
bun, complained bitterly that her employer, doña Arcilla Pineda, had refused to let her off work. None of the other witnesses shared Felicitas’s scruples about swearing to the
levitation
, although each echoed her emphasis on the sunbeam that had fallen on Julian to dazzling effect. Far from scenting
collusion
, Philip saw the consistency of their accounts, so long after the event, as proof of its extraordinary impact on them. Even so, the rationalist in him (which was under daily attack in the Philippines), having first ascribed the phenomenon to an
outbreak
of mass hysteria, now speculated that it might have been a simple trick of the light.

‘Thank you all so much for your testimony, your deeply moving testimony,’ Philip said, conscious of the irony that he, who had been hired to substantiate Julian’s virtue, should now be playing Devil’s Advocate, the role traditionally taken by the Promoter of the Faith when the prospective saint’s case came under scrutiny in Rome. ‘It’ll be of great value to the
investigation
. I hate to impose on you further, but I wonder if one of you might introduce me to Consolacion, Father Julian’s housekeeper.’ The uneasy silence that greeted her name left him feeling as if he had farted in church. Felicitas, acting as spokeswoman, warned
that she would refuse to see him, just as she had everyone else who had come to talk about Julian in recent years.

‘Modesty aside,’ came the inevitable interjection, ‘I think I can speak for us all in saying how hurt we have been to see her turning away from us.’

‘And from Father Julian.’

‘She will not go any more to the church.’

‘Has she lost her faith?’ Philip asked.

‘She goes to the Independent Church.’

‘Into Baguio, in her grandson’s car,’ Felicitas said, as if this compounded the treachery.