Orchid House

by Cindy Martinusen-Coloma

  That Julia had dared to eat Pop Rocks and drink a swig of Coca-Cola even though her classmates said her stomach would explode and that a kid in Kentucky had died that way. She survived and gained notoriety among the other third graders. She’d been a brave girl of dreams and stories and creativity.

  Where had that girl gone? Not so far away after all.

  There is still time, Julia thought her grandfather would say. God redeems lives and dreams again and again.

  Julia could look at who she had been and what she’d become. And flying to a land her grandfather had loved and where her grandmother lived her entire life, Julia knew she was still that girl and could be so much more. She needed help, and so she sought guidance where she hadn’t gone in years.

  God . . . mainly, I just need help. I’m not even sure what for, or what kind of help. So . . . help me, please.

  Julia knew if God was still the God of her childhood, then He’d know exactly what she prayed in those words and what more she should pray if only the future were before her eyes.

  After the flight attendant took her empty plastic cup and before dozing off, Julia felt a surprising peace encompass her. She was about to face a land and circumstances she couldn’t begin to fathom, this she knew. And yet peace enfolded her, and it was a peace to remember.

  HE WAS NO FUN ANYMORE, OR SO EMMAN’S FRIENDS SAID. THEY whispered this behind his back, not directly to him. If they did, he’d call them bakla, which would shame them, and someone would end up in a fight, most certainly himself.

  Emman grinned at the thought, at how such escalations were normal occurrences among his friends. They were barbarians, he supposed, and he enjoyed the image.

  The wide arms of an acacia tree cradled him high above the ground and within view of the grand hacienda mansion and back courtyard. Deep twilight feathered itself down to mesmerize the day-walkers and rouse the nocturnal.

  An unlit cigarette butt dangled from his mouth. It had already been burned nearly to the end, but enough remained for a few inhales. He struck a match knowing his shirt pocket was full of cigarette butts. A few even had more than half the stick unsmoked.

  As he inhaled and savored the taste, Emman watched some hacienda children play on the vast lawn while a woman pulled white sheets from the clothesline and scolded the children as they tried to hide in the folds. How different it was for the children of the hacienda compared to those of his village of Barangay Mahinahon—though they were only kilometers apart.

  These children lived on the hacienda grounds. Their parents were field-workers, maintenance staff, or housekeepers, or they worked in town but had a relative with a hacienda connection who had taken them in. They lived in the cluster of staff houses beyond the trees, a short walk from the main house. After attending school all day, these children might help their parents at their jobs or in their own humble houses or gardens. Then they watched television, for nearly all the little homes had TV sets, talked on the phone, played their games. They acted their ages. They would grow up into the same positions as their parents, except for the very few who left for universities or whose relatives sponsored them to Canada or the United States or some other nation that offered a better life.

  A lonesome feeling came over him. He strained to hear any sound from the jungle and wondered where Bok was. The boy asked to come, and Emman had discouraged him before finally relenting. Bok followed him so often Emman grew annoyed at times—but tonight he would appreciate the younger boy’s carefree presence.

  “Umuwi na kayo, dali,” the woman called to the children. She carried the folded linens to the back entrance as the children grabbed up their toys from the lawn and headed down the path toward the staff houses. One boy tagged a girl on the arm and ran off ahead, ignoring her cry of displeasure.

  The children of the Barangay Mahinahon didn’t live this way. They weren’t typical of any children of the world, at least Emman didn’t think so from the movies and shows he’d seen. They were a community of history and purpose. They were trained and disciplined to fight if needed and always to be prepared.

  History, storytelling, war strategy, and the use and maintenance of a variety of weapons, mainly guns and knives, were included in their education. Their training was focused, disciplined, and regimented. Every day they woke in the early morning and aligned themselves in neat little rows as their instructors shouted out the exercises for the day. Little of their schooling was indoors or with books and chalkboards.

  When the children of Barangay Mahinahon grew up, most remained or were hired out for specific short-term jobs. A few had left for Manila or overseas, but all had returned. No other place offered such community, they said, and they missed their simple yet honorable ways. The world changed around them, but except for some modern conveniences like vehicles and televisions and CD players, the Barangay Mahinahon remained as it had for half a century since the end of the last World War.

  But as much as he loved his village and believed in its continued heritage, Emman thought he’d be the first to leave if the opportunity arose. There was something different in him. He couldn’t find satisfaction in what the other children enjoyed. The restlessness to go beyond the mountains would not be quenched.

  He squished out the red cherry of the cigarette against the tree bark and saw the lights come on in several of the upstairs rooms. The doors of a second-story balcony were pushed open, and an older woman carried out rugs and then a broom made of twigs. The household staff was preparing the mansion for its first guests in many years.

  While the great lands of the hacienda still bustled with activity, no one had lived in the mansion for more years than Emman’s twelve—ever since Captain Morrison was forced into exile. The head foreman over the entire plantation, Raul Sarmiento, occupied the downstairs office for business use, and the staff cooked in the kitchen, but the bedrooms upstairs and grand rooms were like a dusty museum. At least that’s what Emman had heard. He’d never been inside.

  Emman caught another scent of burning tobacco. This was sweet and woodsy—Mr. Raul smoking a pipe in the back courtyard, he guessed. The crickets had awoken to sing their evening song, joined by the bullfrogs in the streams and ponds.

  Most of the kids spoke of specters and ghosts wandering the rooms at night, but Emman didn’t believe in such things—even though somebody knew somebody who had seen a ghost in the windows, and laughter could be heard on some nights from inside the house.

  Within the vast hectares of land that composed Hacienda Esperanza, there rested places worthy of true ghost stories. One was the stone remains of the old storehouse where the Japanese had massacred the men and boys during World War II. No one joked of that as a haunted area. It was inhabited by sorrow and was holy ground for the people of the hacienda, Barangay Mahinahon, and the town of San Juan.

  Emman leaned his head against the tree branch and reached into his pocket for one of the longer cigarette butts. He’d gathered them from his cousin’s porch steps, sifting through the ones with lipstick and those smoked to the filter. He’d learned this trick by watching the older boys. He knew it would be best to quit the habit. The women frowned upon it, and the other men teased him, saying his growth would be stunted or he’d never get his manly hair. But all the tough men smoked.

  A forlorn chirping echoed through the jungle. Emman saw Mr. Raul take a few steps from the courtyard to the edge of the wide lawn. The man had heard the call and would know what it meant. Emman continued to take drags on his cigarette, and hung the strap of his wooden gun to dangle on a tree branch.

  Emman heard the snap of a twig and turned to see Bok surprisingly close.

  “You didn’t hear me coming through the jungle till that one twig, right?”

  “No, you did very well.” Emman smiled at his young disciple. The boy learned quickly.

  “I have more news,” Bok said, scrambling to reach the high branches where Emman waited.

  Another bird’s call sounded from the mansion.

  “Who w
as that? It sounded different. Was it a real bird?” Bok appeared nervous.

  “It was Raul,” Emman said with a smile, watching the foreman rise from a chair with pipe in hand and return to the house. “I wouldn’t have guessed it from him, he’s so grouchy and serious all the time. As a kid, he played with my uncles and dad. But what is your news?”

  “It’s about the Americans,” Bok said, settling his small frame into the crook of the branch that cupped him like a hammock. “Captain Morrison’s granddaughter and her escort—an uncle—are arriving tomorrow in Manila.”

  “Where are you getting this information?”

  “My sister’s boyfriend, Artur, is a hacienda driver. If I do her chores, she bribes her boyfriend into answering my questions.”

  Emman thought on this a moment. “So what does Artur get in return?”

  “Ugh, it’s gross.” Bok made a gagging sound. “It’s kissing. A kiss for every question answered.”

  Emman chuckled at the image of lean and tough-looking Artur begging for a few kisses from his skinny girlfriend who wore too much makeup. Emman wouldn’t kiss Bok’s sister if she gave him a whole pack of unsmoked cigarettes. “And you have to do her chores?”

  “I’ll be feeding the chickens and gathering eggs for the next month. I refuse to wear her gathering apron, though.”

  Emman laughed until he nearly fell from the tree. But Bok’s cunning certainly impressed him. “You’ll make a good spy someday, Bok.”

  “I know,” the younger boy said with a proud grin that shone in the last light of evening. “That’s why I’m following you around at night instead of playing pusoy with Bubot.”

  Emman knew he had not been much fun lately, but he didn’t regret it. His determined agenda was directed at one goal—to be ready for the arrival of the Americans. And now he knew it was Captain Morrison’s very granddaughter who would be coming.

  Since hearing of their imminent arrival he’d increased his disciplines threefold. Today he had practiced the nunchakus with images of Bruce Lee in his head; then he sparred with Bok and accidentally gave him a bloody nose.

  “I’m glad it didn’t break,” Emman said, motioning toward the scab along the bridge of the boy’s nose.

  Bok touched his face. “It hurt so badly, I wish it had broken. Then at least I’d have a battle wound for all the pain.”

  Emman preferred to work alone, but he’d let the kid tag along for now, as long as Bok didn’t distract or disrupt his plan. Emman daydreamed scenarios for which to push his twelve-year-old body harder, faster, longer.

  He imagined modernday versions of Japanese troops invading the country like the one led by the infamous and ruthless Colonel Saeta Takada. Another surprise attack like the one the day after Pearl Harbor was attacked. Or like the followers of Marcos, or Muslim insurgents, or Communist rebels overthrowing the government and infiltrating the hacienda boundaries. Always danger came; women screamed; men cowered in fear. But not Emman.

  Sometimes in these visions Emman gave his life, dying slowly as a beautiful American woman and her sisters wept and said he was their hero. As he sat smoking in the tree now, he thought of Captain Morrison’s granddaughter. What would the woman be wearing in such a scene? The first image came of one of the bikini-clad women of Magnum, P. I. or the show his mother would never have allowed him to see—Baywatch. He felt his face flush, and he made the sign of the cross over his chest as he’d seen others do at such images mixed with the thought of one’s mother, God rest her soul.

  If he served well, if he proved his ability or saved someone’s life, maybe they’d take him back to America. He could guard their fancy house, be their bodyguard, or do whatever they wished as long as he could be in the United States of America.

  “So, do you think I’m not fun anymore?” he asked Bok.

  But the boy was asleep, his head resting against the groove in the tree branch. He looked so young in the moonlight, and Emman remembered he was only eight. In their sleep, perhaps all the children of the Barangay Mahinahon looked like cherubs—even though in daylight they trained as future soldiers.

  An American woman is coming, he thought. And I will protect her.

  THREE

  The vibration that started in the huge engine was multiplied like a rock tossed into calm water to reverberate through Manalo and his men as they tried to rest in the bed of the truck. The highway didn’t add any comfort to what might have been a soothing lullaby, with the jarring of potholes and stop-and-go of traffic.

  Manalo heard the radio from inside the cab. There was a report about Mount Pinatubo showing increasing volcanic activity. Further evacuations had begun. He was relieved that Malaya hadn’t gone to her family in San Fernando near the mountain, but instead moved to a location near the Philippine Sea.

  Manalo and his men had been riding for the past five hours. The truck continued its forward, slow, stop, forward pace through the traffic as they approached Manila.

  A knock came from inside the cab, and the head of the driver’s teenaged son peered through the back window. “Comrade, sir, my father received a radio message.”

  Manalo strained to hear the boy over the noise of the engine and tires on the road.

  “There is a situation.”

  “Where?”

  “Quiapo.”

  “Quiapo? They expect us to stop in Manila for this?” Manalo glanced at his men, who feigned rest in the back of the truck with heads leaned back or with arms on bent knees. He knew they were anything but relaxed.

  Manalo sighed. He had wished to go around Manila all together, and now they’d go straight into its heart to the old district of Quiapo. They were all in one vehicle, which was against his usual protocol, but time restraints forced such decisions. “Okay,” he said to the boy, who nodded back.

  Through the gaps in the canvas slivers of late-afternoon light, other vehicles, roadside markets, and tall factories made brief appearances. His men returned to dozing despite the rattles and bumps.

  Timeteo dozed beside him, his right-hand man—though sitting on his left at the moment. His dark face was crevassed with lines though he’d yet to turn fortyfive.

  The childlike Luis was next, leaning against Timeteo. He was the first to jump in a river with a whoop, the one who couldn’t stop from whistling or singing a tune—which had both helped and harmed them in times of danger.

  Donny rarely spoke. He took everything in and could be counted on to follow through with one word of instruction. In his inside pocket he had a photograph of a palm tree with a boy leaning his hand against it, but no one knew why. He was twenty years old, had never spoken of his family. Questions always fell to his feet with a shrug of his shoulders.

  Leo and Ton were twins and as alike as they looked. Manalo’s twin daughters had distinct personalities from each other, but Leo and Ton—both called Lon by the men—seemed alike in every way, as though they shared one identity. Thankfully they were most always together, so any conversation a man had with one was with the other. Manalo teased that they were twice the man.

  Before dawn, the truck had stopped briefly in a small village and a six-year-old boy was loaded into Luis’s arms through the canvas. It had been a year since Luis had seen his son. His wife had died in childbirth, along with a second son, and after their burial, the older boy stayed behind with another family while Manalo and his men were sent away. The family could no longer provide for the boy, and Luis needed a way to get the child to his grandparents in the southern provinces. Now Manalo watched the boy sleep with his head against his father’s shoulder, one small hand holding Luis’s dark tattooed arm.

  Manalo closed his eyes but kept his ears attentive as they continued. The highway was busy; they were coming into Manila and now would take the trafficladen streets into Quiapo, where drugs and foreign mafias mixed with religious fanatics and open street markets. A truck backfired, but the eyes of his men barely opened. They knew real danger from counterfeit.

  Luis’s son, however, wok
e with fear in his eyes. A tear trailed dirt down his cheek, though he didn’t cry out. His father slept on. The boy noticed Manalo, who motioned him to come. The child hesitated, then crawled over legs and sleeping men to a small space Manalo patted beside him.

  Small black eyes stared up at him, above cheeks that were smooth and round. Manalo felt a pang of longing.

  “I have a son as well,” he said. He hadn’t meant to speak aloud, for the boy did not understand anyway. He had been taught Ilocano, not the usual Tagalog or English. When he went to his family in the south, it would be some time before they could communicate in the same language. The sadness in the boy’s eyes stung Manalo’s heart. If his own children suffered such longing, it would be more than he could bear. Manalo wanted to turn from the child, and at the same time wanted to hold him tightly and make his life safe and happy.

  From his pocket he pulled out a piece of string. The black eyes studied him with interest as Manalo demonstrated how to tie a slipknot, winding the string around and pulling the ends for the knot to disappear. The boy learned quickly, after only several tries, and smiled proudly when his knot pulled through into a straight piece of string again.

  Manalo winked at the boy, then nodded for him to return to his place. Hesitation . . . a gaze of longing . . . ah. Manalo handed him the string. The child clutched it as though it were a costly treasure.

  The traffic grew thicker, and Manalo felt the pressing in of civilization. Exhaust and humidity stung his lungs, and beads of sweat rolled down his back. He missed the mountain air. The city felt like a death trap pressing closer around them. And he couldn’t stop watching as Luis’s son shook his father awake and demon-strated his new skill. Manalo hadn’t seen his own son since his third year. He was six now.

  Soon they’d pass Luneta Park where the statue of José Rizal stood holding his books in his hand. Though Manalo resented that it was the Americans who had pushed for Rizal to be the national hero—someone for the people to admire and see how change could come in peace—still he respected the man whose two novels sparked a revolution and cost him his life. His nation again needed words that stirred change and brought a better life for all Filipinos. Such drive and fire were too far from him now.