Orchid House

by Cindy Martinusen-Coloma

  “At night they serve as the town’s lampposts. During the Christmas season, the women and children line the globes with colored tissue paper to make it more festive.”

  Having expected fortifications and run-down quarters, Julia was happily surprised to be greeted by a rustic hamlet cut from the mountain jungles itself; a community that had achieved a refreshing balance between man and nature.

  The rows of homes beneath the trees were mostly made of wood in a traditional Filipino rural construction with rooftops made of woven dried nipa leaves. Tall wooden windows slid open and closed on indented grooves to provide a cool ventilation system. They were designed with a pattern of small square cutouts filled with the same white translucent shells that allowed soft light to pass through. Most of the houses stood on wooden pillars, about four feet above the ground. Each house had a small front yard adorned with a humble garden and protected by a simple bamboo fence.

  The farther they walked from the town center, the more undeveloped the town became. The side roads turned into brown compacted soil. From time to time they passed a troupe of chickens pecking and scratching the ground unattended, looking for food. A brown piglet surprised Julia as it suddenly appeared from nowhere—they both squealed in fright, much to everyone else’s pleasure.

  Two smiling old men shouted a warm and friendly hello from their wooden bench under a lush tamarind tree, where they sat playing checkers. Julia noticed that the wooden board was obviously homemade; the chips they used were ordinary bottle caps. Amang Tenio introduced Julia and the cousins to them.

  “Iha . . . you are so . . . maganda—you know, beautiful,” one of the men said, gawking. His thick black hair was frozen in place by a floweryscented pomade. He wore a red Hawaiian shirt and carried himself confidently. “I knew your lolo. He was the last of our commanders, and it is a sad thing that only in death could he come back. Our family visits your Lola Julianna’s grave severyarawngpatay . . . how to say . . . the Day of the Dead. We keep it clean and with flowers.”

  “Thank you, from my entire family,” Julia said. “I was told how the guerilla villagers have taken care of our ancestral graves in the absence of my grandfather. I know how much he appreciates this even now.”

  The other man gained Julia’s attention and stuck out his chest, saying, “Yes, your lolo gazes at us from heaven. Captain Morrison was good man. He was fierce as soldier and loyal friend to his men. My father fought with him.”

  “And mine did as well,” the first said again, giving her a look of charmed flirtation that made Mara nudge Julia’s arm. “We were his bodyguards.”

  “Ah, like Emman and the others are mine,” Julia said. She thought of these two older men as boys following her grandfather. She pictured Emman as an older man retelling stories of his younger years over a game of checkers with one of the other boys.

  The second man continued, “And my kumpare is right, Iha.You are so gwapa and very matangkad!”

  “Don’t bother the woman now, and hey, I am taller than you! So stop dreaming,” teased Red Shirt.

  “That so, but I’m much more good-looking than you!” countered the other.

  The group erupted into laughter at this exchange, including Julia. At home, two older men vying for her attention would have made her uncomfortable, but these two were just funny and lovable.

  Francis nudged Julia and pointed to Emman, who appeared to be sulking. He was not at all amused at the flirting older men. But seeing Julia looking at him, he immediately shook his head and smiled, as if to apologize for his two elders.

  “Do you like my home?” he asked.

  “Yes, Emman. It is like nothing I’ve ever seen. I like it very much.”

  Emman smiled proudly. The other children passed out drinks of Coca-Cola in clear rectangular plastic bags with long straws inside. Julia accepted hers from Emman with a smile that made the boy who carried a gun on his shoulder turn a bright blushing red.

  As they held the clear plastic bags and sipped from their straws, a muffled noise of people shouting diverted Julia’s eyes to the edge of town. She saw a large circular building, apparently made of bamboo, and processions of people going in and out.

  Amang Tenio noticed her curiosity. “That is our famous cock-fighting arena. Sometimes people from surrounding provinces come here to watch and bet at the competitions.”

  Emman added, “Sometimes millions of pesos are bet during tournaments. Berdugo here”—he pointed to Amang Tenio’s red rooster—“Berdugo is one of its famous champions.”

  Amang Tenio smiled proudly, nodding, as he again stroked the noble fowl. “This is actually Berdugo the Twelfth. He is from a long line of champion fighting cocks.”

  “Berdugo means ‘executioner’!” added Emman enthusiastically.

  Amang Tenio eyed Julia. “Would you like to watch a match, Iha? Many from the village will be attending.”

  “Umm . . .” Julia hesitated, not wishing to see the creatures maim and slaughter each other, but also not wishing to offend anyone in the village.

  “You don’t have to, you know,” Mara said, seeing Julia’s discomfort. “I myself do not go to such events.”

  “Well, why don’t you?” Francis countered. “You might as well, Julia, as you are already here. Chances are you won’t have the opportunity again. After all, you are in a country where this is legal. Besides, you can always say that some people forced you into it.”

  Julia suddenly wondered where Raul had disappeared to, wishing for the advice she usually perceived from his expression in any matter.

  “How violent is it?” she asked Mara. “Will you go if I go?”

  “I haven’t attended since I was a young girl. But I will go. It’s definitely a view into the more savage side of my country.”

  “Well . . . okay, I guess.”

  Amang Tenio smiled and led the way, leaning on his cane as he walked while he carried his rooster in his other arm. Emman kept looking back at Julia and smiling, barely containing his excitement at showing her his village’s main attraction.

  Julia followed, dreading and yet curious, not knowing what to expect. One thing she did know was that this village was extremely proud of what she was about to see.

  A loud roar greeted the group as they stepped inside the bamboo and wood “coliseum,” entering from one of the four side entrances. The air was cooled by a light breeze coming from the huge open windows surrounding the building, and yet it was still thick with tobacco smoke. A clamoring mass of men, and a few women, sat on circular bleachers, level upon level. When Amang Tenio sent word ahead, a row opened to let their group find space close to the front.

  Circulating at the lowermost steps were men wearing folded white bandanas around their heads, facing the spectators, shouting, “Sa pula, sa puti, sa pula, sa puti!!!” over and over again. In their left hands they held neatly folded cash between their fingers in a fanlike arrangement. Pointing from one spectator to another with their right hands, they confirmed bets by a simple nod and a hand signal. It was organized mayhem once again.

  At the coliseum’s center, on its lowest level, was dry ground in which was dug a circular fighting pit. In it stood three men, two of whom faced each other from opposite ends. In the crook of each man’s arm he held a fighting rooster, which he gently stroked, almost lovingly, from head to wingtip to tail. Both roosters looked proud and muscular, one covered in lustrous and vibrant feathers of black and orange and the other mostly white with streaks of black on its wings.

  Francis pointed out one of the roosters and directed Julia to look at its feet. Attached by leather straps to each of the bird’s legs was a blade about two and a half inches long that curved wickedly into a sharp point.

  “Those are razorsharp blades,” Francis yelled over the shouts for Julia and Mara to hear. “These birds are bred and exist only to fight.”

  The third man in the center gave a nod to each man, signaling them to lower their fighting roosters to the ground. Upon hitting the dirt, both bir
ds surged forward, straining against their owners’ hands, their attention intently focused on each other. The feathers on each bird’s outstretched neck stood upward like a cobra about to strike.

  The referee gave another signal, and one after the other, each owner squatted on his feet holding his fighting rooster in his hand while the referee held the bird’s head outstretched. The other owner then carried his rooster forward over the outstretched neck and allowed his bird to bite the other rooster’s neck.

  “It’s to make them more aggressive,” Francis explained.

  Both roosters strained again in their handler’s hands as they were returned to the ground. Slowly, the two were allowed to draw even closer. Staring, beak to open beak, the fighting cocks were a picture of forceful fury restrained.

  The referee stood in the middle with his right hand extended between the two birds. He looked from left to right, nodding to each handler, then brought down his hands suddenly, shouting, “Fight!” Simultaneously, the roosters were released from their owner’s grip and each bird rushed forward on the attack.

  The black-and-red rooster jumped high above its white foe, its bladed feet brushing its enemy’s head lightly as it crouched down on the ground to avoid the other. Rushing forward, the white bird again was beaten back as the black one jumped high above its head, its feet extended. The white bird slipped past the deadly blade, but this time followed up with a jumping charge of its own. Jump and counter charge, each rooster proceeded to attack the other in fury until the two fighters were lost in a hurricane of wrath and violence. And with each jump the audience shouted with enthusiasm.

  “Sa pula! Sa puti!”

  “That means ‘for the white, for the red!’”

  After a few moments of this exchange, the two birds started to circle each other warily. Inches from each other they came to a full stop, their necks outstretched, eyeball to eyeball, they lowered their heads, staring each other down.

  The silent appraisal suddenly erupted as both roosters jumped upward with their wings spread wide and flapping, their clawed, bladed feet extended. And with a shock, just as immediately as the fight began, it ended.

  The proud black-and-red rooster suddenly dropped to the ground, lifeless. Its neck was extended as its head lolled insensibly downward in a gruesome death pose. The shouting echoed in Julia’s ears as the losers and the winners around her bemoaned or cheered their fate.

  Meanwhile the referee grabbed the white rooster with both hands, enclosing its wings, and brought its beak to its fallen enemy’s neck, which it quickly bit. A loud applause was heard as people shouted and clapped in recognition of a good fight.

  Julia sat, stunned. A sick and fascinated horror filled her as she watched, riveted to her seat. The way the birds fought at first seemed absurd. All the shouting for two chickens jumping around seemed ridiculous. Then the fevered conflict with the attacks, escapes, and counterattacks generated a fascination in the struggle itself. Julia unconsciously even found herself rooting for the underdog. But the suddenness of the end shocked her.

  Here were not two boxers in the ring furiously hitting each other with padded gloves for recreation. Those long deadly curved blades were for killing. One could get lost at first by the two birds’ dueling interplay, like watching Samurai fence in an old Japanese or Kung Fu movie. But the all-too-real death in the end gave a rude awakening.

  Julia looked a row below at Berdugo, the red rooster Amang Tenio so lovingly stroked. She wondered if being here made the bird want to fight. A sudden, deep pain pierced her heart. Francis had told her how cherished these birds were to their owners. How could people raise them so affectionately, constantly petting them, carrying them all around town in their cages, troubling themselves to find the best foods, then subject them to such a horrible end?

  A master’s betrayal to his charge.

  Mara, whose arm was linked to Julia’s own, looked at her sadly and shook her head.

  “Does that offend you?” Amang Tenio asked, turning to watch Julia intently. She looked at him, not knowing what to say and not wishing to insult their host.

  The old man smiled a sad smile of understanding.

  “What do they do with the dead roosters?” Julia asked, unsure why she was asking.

  “Tinola!” shouted Francis, referring to the chicken broth soup Aling Rosa had cooked for Julia at the hacienda.

  “Sometimes,” said Amang Tenio. “Often the owner cannot bear to eat his slain rooster, but feeling it unthinkable to waste the meat, he gives it to friends or relatives to consume.”

  Julia felt a further shock at these revelations. It seemed like eating a beloved pet.

  “Let us go now, before our female guests lose their appetites completely.”

  Leaving the coliseum, Amang Tenio led the procession back toward the rotunda and down a different road to his home, the town’s clan house, for some merienda.

  As they walked, Julia mulled over her mixed emotions. How strange this land was compared to where she had grown up as a child. Strange, and yet she felt such an affinity for it as well, an inner familiarity. It was a land of paradox, and this small beautiful village a microcosm of that paradox. Built in such a homely and peaceful place, and yet its reputation in fighting and savagery could be felt and seen in the details.

  Julia struggled with the feelings evoked in the arena, of getting lost in the primal undulating excitement of a fight and then the jarring end, the sudden death. The guilt of having enjoyed a spectacle while feeling it to be wrong.

  Mara linked arms with Julia as they walked, and though they didn’t speak, Julia sensed her cousin’s quiet understanding and support. She knew her days in the Philippines were soon coming to an end, and though she wished to be lost in the moment and in her own thoughts, there was much that rested upon her in the next few days.

  Julia thought her heart might break in a way it never had before on the day she left this exotic land. Once you knew things, it changed you, and she wondered how she’d fit back at home again.

  Before long, the group stood in front of what could only be the clan house of Barangay Mahinahon. It stood in the center of a very large lawn littered with rows of blooming kalachuchi trees, their fragrant white flowers dangling toward the ground. The house exuded an aura of dignified authority and solid oldness. But unlike the hacienda house, the Barangay clan house had a sparse and humble appearance.

  It was half the size of the hacienda house, and its walls were bare and unpainted. It stood on strong but weathered wooden pillars that raised the home about seven feet in the air. A grand terraced staircase made of adobe and gray concrete invited visitors to the entrance upstairs.

  “Waaah . . . Lolo,” shouted three children as they ran toward Amang Tenio.

  The old man automatically extended his right hand, holding the cane, as two boys and one stout girl each in turn held the old patriarch’s hand and touched it to their foreheads. One by one, more of the children that peppered the house’s lawn followed the ritual. Having finished their greeting or blessing, Julia was unsure which, the children either darted all over the grassy expanse in a game of chase or sat underneath a big kalachuchi tree in one corner of the garden. The humble and warm atmosphere of the home dispelled her expectation of what a warlord’s abode should be.

  “These are my inaanaks,” Amang Tenio proudly said. “My godchildren.”

  Amang Tenio led the group upstairs to an open-air veranda at the back of the house. Her child bodyguards, she realized, had actually stayed behind to play with the other children—except for Emman. He had followed them inside and continued his watch of her even then.

  From the veranda, Julia saw that the entire village was built hugging the forest-filled mountainside. The veranda overlooked a tangle of tall trees and overgrown vines that marched down a steep ridge more than a thousand feet deep. Below was the far-off view of a bright blue lake with waves sparking silver from time to time. Its calm waters spanned the horizon, surrounded by the blue green haze
of the encircling hills and mountains that enclosed it. At the middle of the lake sat one small island where rose a lone volcano. It was tall and majestic in its isolation, even if small for a volcano peak, coneshaped with a wide-open crater full of blue water.

  Julia could see fishing boats, as small as toys from her vantage point, traversing the waters in a slow glide, encircling the edges of the singular island.

  “We call that ‘the lake within the lake,’” said Mara. “The mountain in the middle of the lake is Taal volcano, and inside its crater is another lake complete with its own school of fishes. The volcano is active, though it has been more than a century since it erupted and buried a whole town under its ash and rock.”

  “It’s beautiful,” said Julia in awe. It was stunning, unexpected to see a large body of water, when mountain and forest had been all she’d seen for the past few hours. She’d had no clue of what waited beyond the tree line.

  “You know, Iha, this whole land was given to us by your great-uncle, Don Miguel,” Amang Tenio said as he sat beside Julia.Don Miguel was the brother of your grandmother, Julianna, who was of course the wife of Captain Morrison. Don Miguel, Captain Morrison, and I all served under the Mabagsik guerilla group. The Captain was the official liaison of the American army to the guerilla groups in this region.”

  A tray of drinks in tall glasses was carried into the room and passed around. The cold tea had a refreshing taste of ginger, and Julia quickly drank the entire glass.

  “After the war,” Amang Tenio continued, “destruction was everywhere, and many of us had nowhere and nothing left to go back to. Don Miguel and your newly married grandparents willed this land to the surviving guerillas and helped them start over. In doing so, the whole village became as family to the Guevarra clan. And your grandfather and grandmother became the automatic ninong and ninang, godparents, to every child born in this village.”