Orchid House

by Cindy Martinusen-Coloma

  Looking behind her, Julia hoped she had ditched her everpresent shadows this time. She needed a measure of solitude, some time to think. It wasn’t just these two women with their disagreement; it was all the expectations. The respect, the smiles, the hope. That was it.

  She had become their hope.

  At the end of the rice fields, Julia looked back. Her young bodyguards were nowhere in sight. Her shoes were caked with mud. The pathway turned from the rice fields, and Julia guessed that if she could see the hacienda house maybe a mile back, she’d be walking parallel to it. She reached the back of the overgrown orchid fields and the trickle of a stream. Twice she stopped, waiting to see if she were followed. She didn’t want to return, not yet. No one came. At last, she was truly alone.

  She pushed through the brush, though her arms were scratched by branches, and kept going until she reached a giant bamboo forest. The bright green stalks were wide and tall, over twenty feet high, turning the light an ethereal jade. The confining foliage and warmth of late afternoon were like a sauna, bringing beads of sweat to her brow and making her shirt stick to her back. A wind came through the tops of the towering bamboo, fluttering the tall leaves but bringing little relief to her on the ground. Onward she went, until suddenly the trees opened and it was all sky.

  The high cliff was sharp, and she could see far below a cove of black rocks with a dark sandy beach. The aqua waters of the sea stretched out to meet the gray-blue sky. Julia hadn’t expected the sea this close to the hacienda; then she realized she’d been walking for at least an hour, maybe more.

  At the very edge of the cliff she pushed off a few pebbles with her shoe as she leaned forward as far as she could. She’d been told the sea formed the easternmost border of the hacienda, but her walks had never taken her this far. A crisp breeze of salt air mixed with a tropical sweetness cooled her face and neck.

  Far below, the waves rolled softly over the rocks and beach.Julia searched the ledge and finally saw stone steps going downward, worn down and barely visible. They’d been cut into the rock ages ago and softened in shape by the weather and erosion of time. She took one and sought the next as she wound down the cliff.

  With a jump off the last few steps, Julia reached the bottom.

  The small beach was a strange mix of black sand and then, closer to her, a creamy white. Julia sat on a rough volcanic rock and pulled off her shoes. The air off the waves cooled her face and toes. Looking across the water, she saw other islands jutting from the sea. Her arms stung and itched from the branches; red lines swelled in places. She moved around the rock and let her toes sink into the pale sand as a wave slid over her feet. As she cooled off with her feet in the water, Julia took in her surroundings.

  The small rocky beach was secluded by massive rocks, and the thick green foliage was a canvas enclosing every space between. Unless viewed by a boat coming in close or from the cliff directly above, this place was completely hidden. It must be the cove from the story of Elena the Cook.

  Julia left her shoes on the rock and hurried to the rock cliff, down along the wall, examining any flower and even the smallest plants. It didn’t take long to reach the other side of the cove. But none of the flowers she saw even closely resembled an orchid, let alone the sketch she’d seen in the recipe book.

  But at least I’ve found the cove, Julia told herself. Maybe the orchid bloomed at another time of year. Or perhaps it had all been a myth.

  Now hot again, Julia rolled up her muddy jeans and waded a few steps into the translucent water on the darker sand side of the cove. She stripped off her shirt and jeans, tossing them toward shore, then dove into the water. Instantly she was transformed. Julia wished to laugh beneath the water—laugh and breathe while diving deeper and deeper. She’d always been jealous of mermaids, but never as much as at this moment.

  Her face went from water to air, and she took a deep breath, filling her lungs. The salt stung her eyes, and Julia had to keep them closed and blink for some moments before she could see again. The thought of sharks came to her, but she cast it out. Paradise found could hold no such dangers. She thought that surely Elena and Cortinez had swum here as well, and perhaps the young native warrior and his beloved new bride.

  Her legs kicked gently, easily staying up with the buoyancy that only equatorial waters offered. A variety of tropical fish swam with her; the water became more colorful as she moved over a coral reef and the fish became more numerous. Julia wished for a mask and snorkel and thought how rare a place this hidden cove was, a tropical paradise seen by very few.

  She swam farther out, then turned back and stared up at the massive wall of the cliff. She spotted something at the end of the cove where the rocks jutted outward and down into the water—an ancient landslide had once fallen there. On the other side of the rocks was another small portion of the black sand beach.

  There was more beach, she saw, as she swam around the black rocks. The rockslide had cut off the end portion of the beach from the rest. And there, climbing up the sheer cliff, was a flowering plant with delicate pink blossoms.

  THOMAS MAGNUM, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR, HAD TIPS FOR HOW TO follow someone.

  Once Magnum was following a beautiful white woman, the wife of a client, through an airport. Emman had never been to an airport, though he’d once ridden a motorcycle down a dirt runway, but it appeared to be an exciting place. For a while, Emman had thought of becoming a pilot.

  Magnum said first of all, when tailing a suspect, always blend in with the crowd. Emman didn’t have a crowd while trying to find where Miss Julia had disappeared to, but he did have a jungle. And who knew what waited within it? He tried blending in.

  Tip number two: a good private investigator had to be constantly on guard for the unexpected.

  That Miss Julia’s muddy footprints were going so far from the hacienda house was unexpected, and so he tried to be ready for anything.

  Tip number three: act perfectly natural if spotted.

  He still hadn’t spotted Julia, so that wasn’t a problem yet. And it had become pretty natural to follow her.

  Tip number four: if spotted, look as if you just happened to be there.

  Yeah, right.

  Magnum had a secret name for the wife of his client. Code name: “Legs.”

  Emman didn’t feel a name like that would be appropriate for Miss Julia. Though she did have very nice legs, he’d noticed. It was his job to notice everything, right?

  Why didn’t Miss Julia understand the danger? Did she think it had disappeared? She was like one of those movie stars running off from their bodyguards. This was what his cousins meant when they said in exasperation, “Women!”

  Emman nearly stepped off the cliff, so deep was his frustration and so thick was the brush at that vantage point. A light disturbance in the earth showed her path to the same point, and he sud- denly worried that she had fallen. He couldn’t see down through the wall of green foliage, but further inspection didn’t indicate a fall—though he shivered at the vision of her lithe body swallowed by thin branches and air.

  Then Emman’s feet froze as he recognized where he was.

  “She found it,” he said aloud in amazement. Very few ever came to the Cove of Cortinez. Emman saw an outcropping and moved downward with sprightly movements. At a turn in the rocks, he could see the cove.

  One of the funniest parts of the Magnum, P. I. opening song was when Thomas is standing in the ocean helping a woman learn to swim. He glances down right at the view of the woman’s . . . back end. Seeing Miss Julia swim in the ocean, Emman thought he must surely have the same funny grin on his own face.

  He decided he’d better head back to the top and wait for her to return.

  Emman tip number five: if, after assessing a situation and finding it safe, always give a client her privacy . . . even if you didn’t really want to.

  JULIA ROSE FROM THE WATER AND STOOD DRIPPING WET BEFORE the sheer, vine-covered cliff. The pink flowers were delicate and small, nothing reall
y impressive compared to some of the large orchid blossoms in the fields. And yet, upon closer inspection, she was surprised at their intricate and delicate beauty.

  Julia thought of Lola Sita and Lola Amor. How excited they’d be, and yet . . . if she was uncomfortable with their hopes and expectations now, she could hardly imagine the response were she to return to the hacienda with the first true Elena orchid blossom in over fifty years.

  Part of her didn’t wish to disturb even one of the perfect blossoms, but after long consideration, Julia pulled a flower from the vine. She sat on the sand and held it in her open palm. It had only a very light scent. Julia touched her tongue to the edge of a petal, unsure why she felt compelled to do so.

  She fell asleep in the soft sunlight with the orchid in her hand. Later she woke to the shadows that had stretched like a blanket to shade her. The thin gray clouds reminded her of a world outside the cove.

  As she rose from the sand, she spoke aloud with such surprise that she laughed as well. “I’m in love with a rice farmer,”

  she said.

  TIMETEO STOOD BESIDE HIM, ARMS CROSSED AT HIS CHEST. THEY watched as Akili sparred against Paco along a grassy knoll. The boy had practiced since a child, but Manalo hadn’t thought he’d be this good. If the boy were someone else, Manalo would take him at once, as an asset to his band of men.

  But he wasn’t someone else. He wasn’t some unknown man’s son. Aliki was his son.

  There could be no changing the boy’s mind, despite all Manalo and Timeteo had said to the boy in the past hours. He was determined and stubborn, as stubborn as Ricky and more intelligent than either of them. But for all his studies, disciplines, and innate talents, Akili had longed for his father—Manalo could see it all through him. And that created a weakness in him, making him overly zealous, wanting his father’s approval.

  How, Manalo wondered, had life become so difficult? He’d gone down a path and made choices that seemed right. And here he was. Perhaps a man could not just journey down life trying to make the immediate correct decision, when a larger life plan for himself and his family was needed.

  And now his son, who could be anything he wanted, was choosing a life in the jungle as a Communist insurgent. Aliki knew nothing of what he asked.

  Manalo sought a way to change the path that stretched forth before him. He needed to end it, and soon.

  His family would only be safe under certain conditions: if they all left the country (something he could not do unless he went, God forbid, to a country like America), if he continued until his status as enemy of the state was changed, or if he was dead.

  “My friend,” Manalo said. “My brother, I need to ask you about something.”

  “What is it?” Timeteo asked.

  “I need to ask you about God.”

  They both instinctively glanced around casually to see who was in earshot.

  “Yes?”

  “Does this belief of yours go all the way to, say, Christianity, or something as bad?”

  Timeteo did not respond for so long, Manalo thought he must not have heard.

  His oldest friend finally turned toward him and shook his head in humor. “I would not have expected to say such a thing. But yeah, I guess it has come to that.”

  “How does that work with what we do . . . and who we are?”

  “It is becoming more and more my dilemma.”

  Manalo nodded gravely. “We need to talk then. For I think I have a plan.”

  JULIA FOUND THE TRES LOLAS GATHERED AS USUAL FOR THEIR late afternoon merienda in the back courtyard. They jumped up when they saw her, worried at her disheveled appearance.

  “What happened? Raul said you were upstairs resting today and not to disturb you.”

  “No, I was on a walk.”

  For a moment she paused, unsure if she was prepared for the reaction and consequences of what she couldn’t stop herself from doing.

  She placed the orchid blossoms on the table.

  There was a moment of inaction, then sudden recognition. Lola Sita gasped and covered her mouth, then spoke in rapid Tagalog as sudden tears fell down her cheeks. Then she hurried into the kitchen with one of the orchid blossoms cupped in her hand.

  “She said she’d forgotten what the flower looked like,” Lola Gloria said, picking up another. “It was in her nineteenth year that Lola Sita last made the Orchid Cake with the Elena orchid ground inside the batter. Fifty years ago. No one has brought an orchid from the cove since that time.”

  No one spoke, but Julia saw that Lola Amor stared at the flowers and tears also crept down her face. Even Lola Gloria struggled with emotion.

  “You have brought us an incredible gift, Iha.” Lola Gloria held her hands tightly clenched, and her voice shook. “You’ve returned to us our past, and our stories are made alive again with such an offering. And perhaps this symbol will be a sign of blessing for our future. We thank you.”

  Julia excused herself to shower. She was so dirty that she first sprayed off her clothes and salt-sticky hair in an outdoor shower in the back courtyard, and then she went upstairs for her bucket and tub bath.

  When Julia came out of the bathroom with her hair wrapped in a towel, Lola Amor was waiting in the hallway; her eyes red and swollen. She hugged Julia tightly and spoke long with words Julia didn’t know, but whose meaning she could perceive. Then Lola Amor kissed both her cheeks and left her.

  Julia returned downstairs awhile later to the fading light. At the back courtyard, the old women sat talking in placid tones. They motioned her over, just as Raul walked from the house with a clipboard in hand.

  “There you are,” he said upon seeing her. “Julia, I must ask that you not go out alone again. It was very difficult to keep track of you.”

  “I was followed?” Julia said, and thought of how she’d swum half-nude in the cove.

  “Emman lost you for some time; then he found you at the cove, though he didn’t go down.”

  “You know where the cove is?”

  “Of course, but I haven’t been there in decades. It’s overgrown and miles from the work. But even with your bodyguards, it is not wise right now to disappear into the jungle.”

  “What’s going on, Raul?”

  They heard a car roar up the driveway, and a moment later Markus rounded the corner from the side walkway. “You found her!” His hair was sticking up on one side, and his shirt was only halfway tucked into his jeans. “Julia, where have you been?”

  Raul, Lola Gloria, Lola Amor, and Julia looked at one another and laughed.

  “What?”

  Markus had such a confused expression—he looked to Julia like an adorable little boy trying to make sense of an adult situation.

  “What’s going on?”

  “For a big-shot Manila lawyer, you sure look funny,” Raul said. “Julia is safe and sound.”

  “There wasn’t traffic, and I drove like a madman. I got here in two stress-filled hours.”

  I love him, Julia thought with amazement. I love that sheepish look on his face, the way he runs his hand through his hair. I want years to know everything about him.

  Markus’s confused expression only deepened at the way she stared at him.

  “I think you need coffee—or a stiff drink,” Lola Gloria said, rising from the table.

  “It’s been intense in Manila as well. The storm did a lot of damage, and tensions are high in the political realm.” Markus kept glancing back at Julia as he spoke. “Someone in the Barangay radioed me that Julia couldn’t be found, your phones were still out, and they said a member of the Red Bolo group was spying on the hacienda and showed up here in the night.”

  Lola Gloria exclaimed and then translated for her sister, who covered her mouth in fear.

  All this was happening as Julia swam and napped in the cove—it struck her as funny somehow. Raul gave her an annoyed look when she chuckled, and Markus continued to appear confused.

  Julia tried to be serious. “The whole Barangay thought I w
as lost? And, Raul, did you know that guy was part of the Red Bolos?” “

  It’s okay,” Raul said to the sisters, ever trying to protect them. He appeared annoyed at Markus for worrying them.

  “Sorry,” Markus said with that same sheepish expression.

  MARKUS TOOK SOME PAPERS FROM THE COMPUTER PRINTER. “SO we are all agreed on this. The two of you will be joint owners of Hacienda Esperanza. That way, Julia retains being heir to her grandfather’s plantation, and it is legal because a Philippine citizen owns it with her. We will divide responsibilities and establish a system of checks and balances. Once a year everything will be assessed and audited. We will approach the cousins about creating an even larger cooperation with their lands with a governing board of directors. Julia must get final approval from her family, and then she can do her duties from the United States, if she wishes.”

  Raul and Julia nodded in agreement, and Markus handed over the papers for their signatures.

  When Markus went to his car for something, Julia finally had the chance to ask Raul about the two women. “Did you resolve the conflict about the pig?”

  “No. They are to do nothing for a few days.”

  “Why didn’t you take care of it?”

  “It would be better received from you. I mediate disputes with the men.”

  Julia sighed. “But if I create such a thing, what will happen when I’m gone?”

  Raul turned a page in the open logbook on the desk. “We return to the old system. But you have come up with an idea to resolve the problem, haven’t you?”

  “Why would you think that?”

  Raul’s eyes flickered to her, then back to the book. “Tell me what it is.”

  “Okay. The women could divide this litter and every one following. They each can decide whether to sell or raise the piglets under their care. If an odd number of piglets is born, the extra one can be given to one of the squatter families so it helps someone else and there’s no further argument. The sow must be kept and cared for by both of them, unless they agree to do something with it.”