The Emperor's General

by James Webb

  As I spoke, the man’s eyes continually shifted, from the inside of the warehouse to my identification card to Divina Clara, who was still standing impatiently near my jeep. He was calculating. If I were lying, he would lose some face and be out a caván of rice. If I were telling the truth and he did not give me the rice, who knew? Perhaps MacArthur could seize the warehouse itself and even arrest him.

  “How do I know you are telling the truth?” he finally said.

  “Because you are a very smart man. And if I were lying you could read it in my eyes.”

  “I can’t give away rice,” he decided. “I am in business.”

  I took out an American five-dollar bill. “You’re right. You deserve payment.”

  The money, although not a great sum in the black market, would at least save him some face. He thought about it for another moment, then called inside the warehouse, speaking rapidly in Tagalog. In seconds, two men jogged outside to my jeep, each placing a heavy cloth bag of rice behind the front seats. Divina Clara started to hand over the narva box and I called to her.

  “No! Keep it! I made a deal with him.”

  And for the first time I saw something else in her exquisite, intelligent almond eyes: a surprised admiration.

  As we drove back toward the city I told her what had happened. She began to lecture me once again. “Now you own my box!”

  “I don’t own your box,” I said, beginning to laugh at her earnestness.

  “Yes, you do! And you bought it for only five dollars!”

  “I didn’t buy your box, Divina Clara, I bought rice.”

  “I can’t take your rice unless you take the box.”

  An idea came to me. “How did your horse break his leg?”

  “When the tank went by it startled him.”

  “Exactly! An American tank! And was your horse worth five dollars?”

  She looked at me, a smile slowly growing until it lifted her entire face. Its glow warmed me, and I smiled back. Now she relaxed back into the seat, and her voice took on a new, vibrant tone.

  “Thank you, Jay. Thank you.”

  Darkness was approaching. The battle in Manila illuminated the far horizon, like a wide, pulsing sunset. She was watching me as I drove and I could sense that she had decided she liked me. We passed the place in the road where the truck had been blown up earlier, and then the spot where her horse had died. And she grew melancholy.

  “My country is so cursed,” she said, looking at the ravaged landscape. “Why do my people have to die?”

  “You should stop taking it so personal,” I said, looking over at her. “This isn’t the only place where people die.”

  “That was a cruel thing to say. I think being a soldier has killed a part of your spirit.”

  “People don’t only die in wars. You’re talking about trading away your family treasures for food. My family owns nothing. My sister died when she was seven because there was no doctor. And my father died because he tried to help a black man read a contract.”

  “Where was this?”

  “In Arkansas. In America.”

  “Then America must be a terrible place.”

  “No. Terrible things can happen, but it’s a wonderful place. My mother escaped to California. I got to go to college. And now I’m an officer.”

  In front of us, Manila pulsed again from new explosions. “In the Philippines, dropping bombs,” she retorted, as if I were responsible for the war itself. “If the Americans had not made us a colony, then the Japanese would not have come.”

  “Oh, I see. Like they wouldn’t have come to China? Or Korea, or Malaya, or Borneo or Java or New Guinea or Indochina or Singapore?”

  Finally she relented, staring again at me in the jeep. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m being upset about my horse. The Japanese have been terrible. I’m glad the Americans came back. I only wish it would be over. And the rest of it, your—Arkansas. I’m sorry but it’s not my problem.”

  “Why is France my brother’s problem?”

  “I don’t know anything about France.”

  “Neither did my brother. And now he’s buried there.”

  “He died in the war?”

  “Yes,” I said. “We’ve died everywhere, you know. All over the Pacific. North Africa, France, Belgium, Italy, Germany—” I looked over at her. “In Leyte. In Manila.”

  “Yes,” she said, almost as if she were ashamed. “I didn’t mean what I said. I’m sorry I was being selfish.”

  “You’re not selfish. I think I was being hard on you.” I glanced at her as I drove. “I watched you when the plane blew up the truck. You’re one of the bravest people I’ve ever seen.”

  I felt her eyes, heavy on me as I drove. Then finally she touched my shoulder. “Since you bought the rice,” she said, as if needing to sum it all up in order to maintain some measure of control. “Then you must let us feed you dinner.”

  “But you’re feeding seven people.”

  “Yes,” she said. “But there’s enough for you. Do you like vegetables? I will mix the rice with kangkong and there will be plenty.”

  “I can’t take food from your family.”

  She was laughing warmly now. She punched me on the shoulder. “It’s your rice, Jay!”

  It excited me that she called me Jay. “I have two cans of Spam in the back of my jeep.”

  “Then we’ll have a feast!”

  I looked over and saw her grinning and I knew she was enjoying me. “Will your family like me?”

  “If I do, they will.”

  “Do you like me?”

  She thought about it for a moment. “No.” She laughed. “I think it’s more complicated than that.”

  She lived in a huge old two-story house surrounded by high walls and protected by an ancient iron gate. Inside, it had the air of a living museum that somehow connected her family to a faraway Spanish past. I walked past antique furniture through immense, dark, high-ceilinged rooms. My heels clicked on exquisite brick parquet flooring framed by thick slabs of rich mahogany. And so even before I met her family I understood the caution she had shown when I first met her on the death-splattered road. Her father, Carlos, still in the jungle with the guerrilla forces, had been a prominent businessman before the war. Her older two brothers were in the jungle with him. She was living with her mother, two aunts, two sisters, and a fifteen-year-old brother.

  The servant boy had not yet returned with the caratela, and they had been certain she was dead. They gathered joyfully around her as we entered the sitting room, hugging her and chattering as the bombs and guns echoed from across the distant river. As was their custom, they welcomed me as an honored guest. Divina Clara’s mother insisted that I treat myself to a bath as they prepared dinner. When I arrived for the meal they sat me at the head of the table and decided that as the oldest man present I should lead them all in blessing the food. I did my best, offering a stumbling Arkansas backwater Protestant prayer that nonetheless seemed to please them.

  Divina Clara watched me possessively as we ate. She had unbound her breasts, put on gold loop earrings, and combed out her hair. All of her unfolding was like a delicate flower that had gone from bud to gorgeous blossom in the space of one hot tub-soaking. I had never seen anyone so beautiful or listened to one so smart. By the time dinner was over I had completely fallen in love with her. And I knew that as long as I lived, I would never fall out of love with her.

  Yes, I know this sounds overly romantic. Yes, I was young, and I had been lonely through the dark months from New Guinea to Hollandia to Leyte. Yes, the war’s incandescent drama fed all our passions, heightening emotions and leading us to blunder in our souls from time to time. Think what you wish. But MacArthur had no trouble believing me. When I awkwardly told him the story the following morning, I saw a flash of envy in his eyes, followed by the flickering shadow of a personal memory. Then he laughed softly, teasing me.

  “Jay,” he said. “I’m serious, now. Be careful with this. You have di
scovered one of the world’s great secrets.”

  “Secret of what, sir?”

  I watched him with innocence in my eyes, as if he were my father. He had tantalized me and I wanted more. What was it that this great man knew of secrets? Was he thinking of love? Of the Philippines? Or maybe simply of war itself? Looking at his suddenly averted face I knew that he had meant something far more personal, and in my heart I wanted to yell it. Consuelo! But what? He said no more, his face quickly becoming clouded with the reality of the terrible, ongoing destruction of his most treasured city.

  And yet—it was the only time I had seen him smile for weeks.

  On February 27 the General reinstalled the Philippines’ government, turning it over to President Osmena. Pockets of Japanese resistance still fought on in central Manila. We could hear the sporadic stutters of point-blank firefights inside the high walls of the old Spanish fort Intramuros as we drove toward Malacanang Palace. In the car I watched him surveying the wreckage that surrounded us. For the first time since I had been with him he seemed weary, truly broken, even old.

  Malacanang Palace, once the residence of Spanish governors, was scarcely touched by the war. Inside, its carved narva woodwork, lush furniture and carpeting, crystal chandeliers, and historic paintings were a reminder of the elegance of prewar Manila. General Krueger and his commanders stood dutifully by, in front of a throng of Filipino leaders and a bigger gathering of newspapermen. Filipina women milled among the dignitaries and reporters, dressed in traditional butterfly-sleeved gowns hand-sewn from piña, a linen painstakingly woven out of pineapple fiber.

  MacArthur stood before the crowd, gathering himself. They grew silent, watching him. His lips shook as he began to speak. He talked about the years that had passed since he had evacuated Manila, leaving it free of military destruction, and predicted the doom of the Japanese for having so wantonly violated “the churches, monuments, and cultural centers that might, in accordance with the rules of warfare, be spared the violence of military ravage.”

  Vowing revenge for this destruction, he read the simple but legalistic words that restored governmental powers to President Osmena and the legislature. And then, as hundreds watched, the General lowered his face and wept into his hands.

  CHAPTER 4

  Father Garvey walked into my bedroom, turned on a light, and started singing. He had a nice, trilling tenor of a voice, but it was one o’clock in the morning. He was singing an irritatingly happy, bouncy prewar favorite, something about rolling out of bed in the morning with a big, big, smile and a good, good morning, and having a grin so that the sun could shine in. He was altogether too happy. I could tell that he had been drinking. I wanted to strangle him. Finally I indeed rolled in my bed, and then managed to sit up, staring vacantly at him.

  “If you weren’t a priest, Father, I’d deck you.”

  He laughed breezily at me. “And if you weren’t always so hard to wake up, I’d whisper in your ear, Jay.”

  “Have you considered that I went to bed an hour ago?”

  “Yes,” he said, laughing again. “But we have been called upon to perform vital missions, you and I.”

  Father Garvey held up a golden signet ring. He was a small, muscular man with bright blue eyes and a square Celtic face. His thick brown hair had already begun to grey. As he laughed I could see that his teeth were stained by tobacco and tea. But his voice was young and rolling, rich in a knowing cynicism that caused his words to wash over me like a calming hand. Sometimes it was the only reason I listened to him.

  “This ring belongs to Lord Mountbatten.” Conscious that as an Irishman he was not being suitably anti-royalist, he suddenly corrected himself, speaking with a polished acidity. “Excuse me, then. It belongs to Admiral Lord Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, Supreme Commander, Allied Forces, Southeast Asia, great-grandson of her majesty Queen Victoria, and a handsome, dashing ass to boot.”

  I was sitting on the edge of my bed, rubbing my face, still trying to wake up. “So why do you have this ring, Father?”

  “Because after we peons left the General’s reception, the big boys went swimming in MacArthur’s pool. And Admiral Lord—et cetera, you know how it goes—Mountbatten lost his ring. Everyone looked for it for an hour. They even had servants swimming along the bottom of the pool. And finally Admiral Lord et cetera had to return to Clark Field, from whence he will fly back to Burma tomorrow morning. Or perhaps they said India, I can’t remember for certain. The whiskey, you know.”

  I pointedly checked my watch, now teasing Father Garvey. “You mean this morning.”

  “Exactly,” said Father Garvey. “This morning. And then when the servants were removing the towels from the bathhouse, one of them found the ring underneath a towel. So congratulations, Jay. You, young captain that you are, baby of the General’s staff, have been elected to bring the lord admiral his ring. And I am coming with you. Because I—”

  “—have had a bit to drink. Right, Father?”

  Father Garvey waved a small, thick hand into the air. “Ah, well, I can’t get into that. But I have ecclesiastical duties to perform. So, let’s go, Jay! Put on a uniform. Check the shine on your shoes. The driver is waiting downstairs! The sooner we begin, the sooner we’ll be back.”

  In five minutes we were on the road, heading through dark, musty streets that would lead us out of the city and onto a narrow highway that went all the way to Clark Field. Once awake, I did not really mind the trip. It would take most of the day to travel to Clark and back, and thus I would be relieved of my other chores. And as unlikely as it seemed, over the past six months Father Garvey had become my best friend. So it was as if we were setting off together on a lark.

  We were also housemates. In March after the battle for the city ended I had moved with Father Garvey and several other officers who worked directly on MacArthur’s staff into a beautiful villa just east of Malacanang Palace, a few blocks from the Pasig River. As befitted our duties, we were just down from the General’s own temporary home, which of course was the most exquisite house still standing in Manila.

  That had been five months ago. Now, in early August, we all knew that this grand and horrible adventure would soon end. In Europe the war was already over. In the Philippines, Yamashita’s soldiers were still fighting hard in a costly war of attrition but had been pushed far back into the mountains near Baguio. Elsewhere, Japan’s empire had disintegrated. Its military was beaten, dying on the vine all over Asia. Its major cities were scorched from months of intense firebombings. Okinawa, the first Japanese population center to be attacked, was now in Allied hands. And so my daily duties had become—well, easy. No, make that embarrassingly easy.

  In the mornings I usually toured the plush mansions and exotic villas where MacArthur’s senior officers now dwelled, gathering up messages and edicts to return to the General’s office. At other times I was MacArthur’s delivery boy, reversing my route. I sometimes was asked to do follow-up interviews with the few Japanese we were able to capture alive if our interrogator-translator teams thought a prisoner might have information useful to the General’s staff. But more than any other function, since we had settled into our Manila mansions I had become, as the other officers like to tease, the General’s SLJO—shitty little jobs officer.

  Unspeaking, unhearing, unseeing, in this role I became the witness to an odd and sometimes embarrassing array of secrets. The dozen or so senior generals who surrounded MacArthur had come to trust me, not only with classified information but with all the blunt evidence of their own indiscretions. Perhaps it was the grand sense of infallible power the years of war had brought to them, or perhaps it was merely their accumulated carelessness. I did not complain, and I swore to myself I would never tell. Happy to be trusted, delighted with the comforts this trust had bought me, I enjoyed the unfettered nights of freedom with Divina Clara that were the rewards of my simple chores.

  If life had been good in Tacloban, it was heaven in Manila. As completely
as I had fallen in love with Divina Clara, I had fallen thoroughly and passionately in love with this wounded city. Manila, from its centuries under Spain and its decades with America, was not completely Asian anymore, and yet not Western at all. It was its own place, sui generis, as the lawyers liked to put it, a thing unto itself. And it was as if I had unknowingly waited all my life to find its harmony.

  But at night it pulsed and throbbed from the destruction the war had brought it. Father Garvey and I drove through miles of unlit, still-rubbled streets, past thousands of families still camped on the sidewalks and in the vacant lots where homes had stood before the February battles. People slept in the dirt, and even in crude hammocks strung from broken trees. The air was dense, filled with the aroma of flowers and cook fires. Father Garvey watched the city silently as we drove, as if taking in every scar and making it his own.

  Finally he spoke, his face worked up into a scoffing, remembering grin. “I’ve never seen anything like that reception for Mountbatten, have you? It was like some last, big hurrah—all the four-star generals preening and clucking and sulking, jealous of each other every time MacArthur noticed one in favor of the other. What are they going to do when this war is over, Jay? What do you think?”

  I chuckled, thinking of the reception, where a collection of now world-famous generals had gathered in one small room to drink wine and make small talk—the surest sign that the war was nearly finished. “Did you see General Kenney, Father? Do you think he wants this ever to end? What’s he going to do, bomb Toledo? He knows what peacetime is like. After World War One he spent the next seventeen years as a captain, except for one year when they demoted him to first lieutenant. This war catapulted him from lieutenant colonel to two stars overnight. And there he was last night, a four-star general with his very own villa, kissing the ass of Queen Victoria’s great-grandson.”