The Breath of Night (27 page)

‘Are you sure you wouldn’t be more comfortable in the front?’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it. Look at your legs!’

Resigned to the separation, Philip steeled himself for the long drive along the North Luzon Expressway. In sudden panic, he opened the glove compartment and rummaged inside.

‘What do you look for?’ Dennis asked.

‘A map,’ Philip replied, relieved to find nothing metallic.

‘We do not need map. I am knowing this way like bird.’

‘Great,’ Philip said, trusting that Dennis’s homing instinct was still alive after four years. If not, there was his hawk-eyed aunt, currently denouncing the pouting lips on a giant toothpaste poster, to keep him on track.

Two hours and several denunciations later, they left the expressway to find themselves the only car rattling along a rutted side road through a vast sweep of rice fields. The road stretched beyond the horizon, broken at intervals by unmanned checkpoints with signs reading:
Please bear with us. Your safety is our prime concern.
Philip wondered whether the lack of guards meant that the danger had passed or the concern had waned. The landscape was uncannily empty, with even the occasional farmer looking like a scarecrow, his face muffled to protect him from the heat and dust.

At one o’clock, they stopped for lunch in a town which, for all Hendrik’s caveats, might well have been twinned with
Hollywood
. The
poblacion
square itself housed the
Bread Pitt
bakery, which Philip thought it wiser not to draw to Dennis’s
attention
; the
Way We Wear
dress shop, boasting a wide range of ‘preloved clothes’; and the
Petal Attraction
florist’s, where his offer to buy Maribel a bouquet of roses was vetoed by her aunt. He began to tire of her constant carping at Dennis and was relieved when they settled in a small café opposite a church, whose narrow spires, green-tiled roof and whitewashed façade instantly identified it as Iglesia ni Christo, enabling her to direct her scorn at a sect whose Disneyland architecture belied its apocalyptic views.

‘They believe that Jesus Christ will soon be coming again to take them up to Heaven in a cloud of smoke. Pouf!’

‘What? All ten million of them?’ Philip asked.

‘But only if they are inside of the church.’

‘What if they can’t make it there in time: they’re ill in bed, say, or stuck in traffic?’

‘Then they will be left here to face the Tribulation with the rest of us,’ Hapynez said, cheerfully spooning up her pork adobo.
‘But you must not worry. These people have very backwards beliefs. They are not Catholics.’

After lunch, Philip proposed taking a short walk (‘to stretch my legs,’ he said pointedly to Hapynez), before resuming the drive. Maribel volunteered to join him.

‘You must go too, Dennis,’ Hapynez said.

‘They do not want me,’ he replied sullenly.

‘Of course they want you. Maribel is your sister,’ she said in a voice that brooked no contradiction.

Hollywood was replaced by the Bible Belt when Philip and Maribel, with Dennis dragging his heels behind them, strolled past the church to face a giant billboard featuring a maimed baby caught in blazing headlights, which had themselves been doctored to resemble demonic eyes, beneath the slogan: 
Abortion
is a choice that kills.

‘That’s disgusting,’ Philip said.

‘Is just doll,’ Dennis replied.

A derelict wall displayed the usual hodgepodge of flyers. The University of Perpetual Help announced that it was no longer taking applicants and the Superhero bar that it was
temporarily
closed due to staff sickness. An estate agent offered a house for sale ‘fully furnaced’, and a photographer proposed to ‘shoot you and your loved ones while you wait’. Philip was charmed by the advert for a ‘child-friendly’ school, but the notice that most intrigued him was for a clinic providing Immunisation,
Computerised
Eye Examination, Ear-Piercing and Circumcision.

‘Is there really so much call for circumcision in this town?’ he asked Maribel, who busily twirled her parasol.

‘In all towns!’ Dennis interjected. ‘Filipinos are very healthy people. We are most circumcised country after Arabs and Jews. But is no need for clinic. Clinic is for wussies. I have it done from OJ Murro. He is
barangay
barber, top man with razor.’

‘Come off it!’ Philip said. ‘How can you know? You were a baby.’

‘I was thirteen years,’ Dennis replied, affronted. ‘I was
becoming
man. All
barangay
has been watching.’

‘All the boys,’ Maribel said.

‘All boys, is true! This is not right place for girls. He is making me lie down on bench in front of river. He is putting this piece of wood beneath my
burat
and giving me guava leaves to chew in my mouth. Then he cuts.’ He swept his hand through the air; Maribel shuddered. ‘And I do not make squeal. I do not make one squeal!’

‘It was funny,’ Maribel said. ‘You have had to wear a skirt for three weeks.’

‘This was not skirt! This was cloth while wound is healing. You are girl; you know nothing!’

‘You are correct,’ Maribel replied, chastened. ‘It was like a bandage. I am sorry.’

‘Bandage, yes,’ Dennis said with a grin. ‘After which I am becoming man. This is not being true for everyone,’ he added, staring at Philip.

‘What do you mean?’ Philip blushed, refusing to believe that Maribel would discuss such intimacies with her brother.

‘I look when we make piss,’ Dennis replied, unabashed.

‘That must have been fun for you! Then perhaps you’ll explain the connection between circumcision and masculinity?’

‘They are silly boys,’ Maribel said. ‘They think that it is not possible for a girl to have babies if you still have your… I do not know this word.’ She giggled.

‘Foreskin,’ Philip said. ‘You might need it one day for your medical transcription. But surely that would be a good reason for them keeping themselves intact?’

Maribel looked at him, as if he had shattered her most
treasured
dream.

They returned to the café to collect Hapynez and continue their journey. Six hours later, after a brief stop at a garage, whose blazoned boast that ‘We’ve got the magic touch’ was belied by the dishevelled man, T-shirt riding over his paunch, listlessly patching a threadbare tyre in the forecourt, they arrived in Cauayan, a larger and more cosmopolitan town than Philip had
imagined. The urban trappings slid away as soon as they left the centre and by the time they reached the outlying Villaflor
barangay
pigs and hens were ambling down the road as boldly as cows in India; although their safety was ensured by inertia rather than reverence. Maribel pointed out various childhood landmarks, her excitement undercut by Dennis’s grunts, before falling silent when they turned a corner and pulled up outside a breeze-block bungalow with black-grilled windows set in a dusty garden, dominated by the palm tree that had loomed so large in her reminiscences. Philip gazed at the weather-worn sign on the tumbledown fence:
No Tresspissing. If you tresspiss, you will be bitten by the dog.

‘I am making this,’ Dennis said proudly.

‘There is no dog,’ Hapynez said.

‘He does not know this.’

‘Everybody knows.’

Philip hung back as Maribel led the way into the house, rushing straight to her mother, a slight woman in a floral print dress who sat fanning herself to one side of the crowded room. No sooner had she spotted their arrival than she plunged into a paroxysm of weeping, flinging down her fan and beating her breast, despite a friend’s attempt to wrench her hand away. The transition was so abrupt that it transcended the usual distinctions of truth and artifice, attesting to her urgent need to convey the intensity of her grief. Philip watched as she hugged her daughter and sister before falling into the arms of the son whom she had not seen for so long, tracing the contours of his face and running her fingers through his hair, as if struggling to convince herself that he was real. The strength of her emotion allowed Dennis to express his, and they clung to each other in a welter of kisses and tears.

The reunion was interrupted by a teenager, who tottered into the room on a home-made crutch and threw himself at Dennis’s back. ‘This is Angel Boy,’ Hapynez whispered to Philip. Dennis greeted his brother with uncharacteristic warmth, tapping his cheek, rubbing his head and pressing it against his shoulder.

‘He has been growing up as fast as bamboo,’ Maribel said, joining in the embrace.

‘He is becoming as big as me,’ Dennis said, with a pride Philip suspected would have been tempered had Angel Boy’s withered leg not removed any threat to his own supremacy.

While Dennis and Maribel hugged their brother, Hapynez introduced Philip to her sister. ‘I regret that she is ignorant,’ she said. ‘She is not speaking English like me.’

‘Please offer her my deepest condolences,’ Philip said, as he shook Joy’s hand.

‘She says that she is most honoured that you have come and she is most grateful that you have brought us in your fine car, even if you have been putting too much aircon into the back.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Philip said, mortified. ‘You should have told me. I’ll adjust it on the way back.’

‘It is a matter of trivial importance. What?’ Hapynez turned impatiently to Joy. ‘She says also that she is most grateful for everything you have been doing for Dennis. You are most welcome in her house.’

Her mention of Dennis rather than Maribel made Philip feel like a photographer praised for his sensitive studies of mixed-race couples when his true interest lay in their contrasting skin tones. His unease grew when Joy gathered them together to see Analyn.

‘Is the body in the house?’ Philip asked Hapynez.

‘No, she is in the garden.’

Joy led the group through a small kitchen, dominated by the precious fridge, humming loudly as if to advertise its presence, and into the back garden, which was packed with men playing cards. In the middle, a highly polished white coffin stood on trestles, with wreaths of lilies and floating candles on the lid. At the family’s appearance, the players broke off their games, greeting them with varying degrees of effusiveness. To Philip’s relief, he was ignored, apart from a few polite nods and bashful smiles. One man, however, lingered beside him as if waiting for an introduction.

‘Is my uncle,’ Dennis said. ‘He is giving me money to go to Manila. See, here is this money.’ He took a surprisingly thick wad of notes from his pocket and peeled off several hundred pesos for his uncle, who accepted them without demur. Despite the impropriety, Philip recognised that for Dennis it was
necessary
not just to pay his debts but to have the transaction
witnessed
. That done, he took his place alongside his mother, sister and aunt at Analyn’s coffin where, after an appropriate pause, Philip joined them.

Having survived the shock of Julia’s disfigurement, he had rashly assumed that death could hold no further terrors for him. Max had warned him that Analyn’s corpse would be embalmed, but, while he was prepared for the waxen artificiality of her skin, he was unprepared for her resemblance to Maribel. He suppressed the urge to scream, which would have been doubly shameful in the face of the family’s silence, focusing instead on incidentals, such as why there was a chicken perched on
Analyn’s
pillow.

‘Is that her pet chicken?’ he whispered to Maribel.

‘What?’ she said. ‘No. We put this there when some person is murdered because it is helping to make the punishment for the killer quicker.’ Then, as if prompted by her own words, she burst into tears. With a shriek, Joy dragged her away from the coffin.

‘Must she be that rough?’ Philip asked Hapynez.

‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘If someone is crying on to the corpse, it will slow down her journey into the next world.’

The family went back indoors, leaving the men to resume their games. Philip could not dismiss the feeling that they were treating the death in their midst with insufficient gravity, more like hospital visitors passing the time until a friend emerged from a coma than mourners at a wake. Uncertain whether to stay outside or return to the house, he must have conveyed his confusion to Dennis’s uncle, who walked over and asked him shyly if he would like to play a hand of
sakla
.

‘That’s very kind, but I don’t know the rules.’

‘Is possible to show you.’

‘I’ve had a long journey; I ought to go in. Maybe later?’

Back inside, Philip grappled with the sleeping arrangements, which had been exercising him ever since their arrival. Despite the nightmare of San Trinidad, he had insisted that he would be happy to stay in a hotel. Maribel, ever mindful of the
proprieties
, explained that her mother would be insulted if he stayed with anyone but them. He had assumed, therefore, that there would be more than the one bedroom, which he was to share with Dennis and Angel Boy, while Maribel, her mother and aunt made do with the sitting room. He felt wretched, even though Hapynez assured him that it was no hardship since they would be keeping a night-long vigil by Analyn’s coffin. To make matters worse, the cramped bedroom meant that he was allotted the only mattress, while Dennis and Angel Boy were to share a sleeping mat on the floor. Angel Boy was thrilled by any chance to be close to his newly returned brother, but Dennis had other concerns. ‘If you touch him, I will kill you,’ he warned Philip.

‘You are joking? Do you seriously think I’m the sort of man who’d hit on his girlfriend’s younger brother at their sister’s funeral?’ he asked, staggered by a degree of cynicism rare even for Dennis.

‘You are Englishman. You are in Philippines. Of course.’

Knocking tentatively at the door, Maribel summoned them into the garden to eat. ‘It is
pancit cabagan
. You will not have tasted this dish in Manila,’ she told Philip proudly. ‘It is a most delicious speciality of Isabela province.’

‘It’s not the only one,’ Philip said, eager to banish the memory of Dennis’s suspicions.