Philip, convinced that even the most inept American adviser would have devised a more successful cover story, had the dubious consolation of knowing that he was the victim of mistaken identity. Whereas her comrades were full of chagrin at the confusion, Nina clearly regarded it as his own fault. ‘You are lucky to be still living,’ she said. ‘In my mind we should have executed you on the spot. Now we must bring you here and go with all the cost of feeding you.’ The Philip who was acting in the film version of his kidnap – the one that Hollywood would be hiring him both to write and star in on his release – retorted boldly that he would be happy to indemnify them for any expense, although he doubted that the squid flakes, dried sea cucumbers and rice they had served him for the past three days would amount to more than a few pesos; but the Philip who was in her custody, disorientated, panic-stricken and struggling to gain the confidence of his captors without revealing his hand, said only that he trusted the problem would be quickly resolved.
That prospect came sooner than expected when, later that afternoon, two weeks after his capture and eight days since his arrival in the camp, Felix walked into the glade where Philip was busy writing and told him, with a regret that sounded genuine, he would once again have to be blindfolded and bound.
‘Please, no!’ Philip said, eyeing the vegetation for somewhere to hide. ‘I promise that I’ll speak up for you. I’ll issue a statement saying that I joined the NPA of my own accord.’
‘Why is this?’
‘I can help with liaison and translation work. Don’t kill me, please!’
‘No one wishes to kill you,’ Felix said, looking both hurt and bewildered. ‘But we are having this meeting to talk over your fate – no, this is the wrong word, I mean your future. This is not just a matter for us to decide on our own. We have representative members of the four other platoons in our company who are coming here for this talk. It is safer – safer for you – if you see no more than you need.’
The meeting took place in the central clearing. Philip, who was permitted to observe (a concession that struck him as hollow, given that he was wearing a hood and they were talking Tagalog), sat at the back, trying to gauge the mood from the timbre of the voices. After a lengthy discussion – around two hours, to judge by the chill in the air and the tingling in his legs – the meeting seemed to break up. Shortly afterwards Irene approached, removed his hood and ropes, and offered him a scoop of water. When he had finished, she squatted beside him and described the proceedings.
‘There are many different views. There are always many different views, so you must not worry. Some say that it is our mistake that we have captured you, and so we must take you back to the lowlands and set you free.’
‘That sounds fair.’
‘But it is not possible. We do not have the people or the time. On top of that, it would not be safe. Since you have been disappearing the army has been sent to look for you.’
‘Really?’ Philip asked, trying not to betray his excitement.
‘Many of our comrades have had to escape into the mountains. Your capture gives the government the reason it is needing to massacre us all, while the world will look on and clap.’
‘So what about the other views?’ Philip asked in growing alarm.
‘Some say that we should take you into the forest and let you find your way down by yourself.’
‘But how?’ Philip asked, now more afraid of liberty than of confinement. ‘It took us six days to climb up here! We had to wade across a river! And take paths that seemed to open and close around us like something in a horror film. And how would I survive the nights? You might as well shoot me now and be done with it!’
‘It is true that there were some who thought that this would be the best solution.’
‘You mean they want to kill me?’
‘They are in a minority.’
‘How big a minority?’
‘We are a democratic organisation. Whether it is a one or it is many, it is the majority that decides.’
‘And what has it decided this time?’
‘That we are to keep you here and to demand a ransom.’
‘A ransom? How much?’
‘Five million.’
‘That much?’
‘Pesos.’
‘Of course.’ Philip adjusted the price tag with a mixture of disappointment and relief.
‘It has not been your intention, but you have brought us many difficulties. You have made us use up our small resources; we have given the enemy a clear view of where we are. It is only right that someone must pay.’
‘But who? My parents don’t have much money. And the British government has a strict policy of never dealing with foreign terror – freedom fighters.’
‘The demand is being made to the people who sent you here. You have shown their names in a letter in Bongabon.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Philip said, berating himself for having left it with Noah.
‘According to one of our comrades, they are rich. Much of their money comes from gold stolen from the Filipino people.’
‘Which comrade was that? It must be Julian! I didn’t know he was here!’
‘I cannot discuss this with you.’
‘But I know that he’s one of you; I saw him with Felix and Jayson when they captured me. Unless your legends of woodland spirits are true.’ Irene laughed. ‘No, I thought not. So why won’t he meet me? I’ve followed him halfway across the world. The least he can do is speak to me.’
‘He is a busy man. He is on the political section of the General Staff. He has responsibility for strategic planning, as well as revolutionary education and training.’
‘Revolutionary training? Julian? Father Julian?’
‘He is Ka Julian now,’ Irene said severely.
‘You’d think he’d want to see me, if only out of curiosity. We have a family connection. I was engaged to his niece.’
‘His niece?’
‘I mean his great-niece. I’m so muddled. And miserable and frightened. I try to bluff it out, but to tell you the truth I’m terrified. We’re sitting here chatting like two friends. Not that we aren’t friends. But you’re the one holding the gun.’
‘Do not give it another thought. It is just a precaution.’
‘Which means that one day it may be used. Even that threat would be bearable if only Julian would acknowledge that I exist.’
‘I understand. I promise nothing, but I will speak to him. He is now in a camp in Bicol province.’
‘So he didn’t come here this afternoon?’
‘It is a great distance away, but I will send a message to him. Until then you must be brave and not be unhappy. I am sure that when the people have received our demands they will waste no time in paying them. Soon you will again be free.’
Irene’s confidence proved to be misplaced. Ever since they had untied his hands, Philip had notched the days of his captivity on the mossy trunk of a giant laurel, at first as a straightforward record, but latterly as if it held the key to his survival. As the weeks went by with relentless monotony, he devised complex strategies to ensure that he was calculating correctly, equally afraid of missing a day as of including it twice. Boredom appeared to be as much a part of his captors’ lives as his own. Confined to the camp by the pebble-like rain, with nothing but a shortwave radio and some mildewed, broken-backed volumes of political theory to divert them, they passed the time smoking, drinking and playing cards, as mindlessly as the masses they were seeking to liberate. Philip, at least, was able to work on his novel, sitting for hours on end in the doorway of his hut, filling reams of NPA graph paper. While the rest of the platoon viewed his writing with genial indifference, Nina was as hostile as she was to any manifestation of an inner life.
‘This is paper for military purposes. Rommel has no right to be giving it to you. When this book is finished it will belong to the NPA.’
‘No way!’ Philip said, his authorial assurance emboldening him. ‘Although, if you are
lucky, I may give you a share of my royalties.’
‘You English are sick. You care for nothing but money. You even call it after your kings and queens.’
Unlike his fellow writers, whom he envisaged taking regular breaks to make coffee, read the papers and ring friends, Philip found his only diversion was to visit the goats. Watching them tethered in their pen, he felt a rush of sympathy, which he knew to be little more than self-pity. That was confirmed by his readiness to eat the goat-and-torron-root stew, which was served up to celebrate Dante’s and Allen’s successful mission to ‘disable’ an illegal wood-processing plant in Rizal. The platoon was in higher spirits than at any time since his arrival, bolstered by a copious intake of tuba, a bitter but intoxicating drink brewed from coconut sap. Philip knew better than to shatter the mood with an awkward – possibly dangerous – question; nevertheless he longed to know whether anyone had been hurt in the blast, concerned as much for the manager and security guards as for the workers: men with no knowledge of the history and function of the forest but who, when faced with the need to feed their families, would readily have turned the most venerable tree into plywood.
His scruples, numbed by the tuba, were destroyed when Rommel handed him the strongest spliff he had ever smoked. He felt a surge of love for his captors, whom he was sure that he now saw in their true light: not the ruthless killers of government propaganda but selfless eco-warriors. Their overriding concern was to preserve the bounty of nature which, with rare generosity, they were willing to share with him.
He awoke in the early hours, to find himself lying alone by the ashes of the fire, caught in the primordial gaze of a gecko. Staggering to his feet, he dragged himself to his hut which, while neither warm nor cosy, at least offered a measure of protection against the dark. The next morning he detected a greater reserve in the platoon’s treatment of him. He wondered whether he had offended them while he was stoned by singing the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ or uttering some other blasphemy. Finally, he plucked up courage to ask Irene, trusting that she, if anyone, would forgive him. After assuring him of his innocence, she explained that they had just heard news that Hugh Olliphant had rejected their ransom demands.
‘Surely he’s still willing to negotiate?’ Philip asked.
‘But he is not willing to pay any cash. He says that for this to happen, he will be putting at risk all the managers in his mines in the Cordilleras.’
‘Can’t you find a formula that allows him to deny it publicly but pay it just the same? Or is that against your principles?’
‘We have only one principle: to make the revolution.’
Philip wondered how much Max had told Hugh about the tenor of his investigations. Even in his current paranoia – compounded by the effects of last night’s dope – he refused to believe that either man had had a hand in his kidnap. Nevertheless, it was clear that having filed his report he was expendable. ‘What happens if Hugh sticks to his guns… I mean digs in his heels?’ he said swiftly.
‘I am sure he will be seeing sense soon.’
‘But what if he won’t? Do you have a plan B? It’s all very well for Allen and Dante; they’ve been away for two weeks. But I can feel the rest of you growing edgy.’
‘You must not worry about us. We are soldiers. We are used to this waiting. And I am sure that in England there will be many people who will pay for having you back.’
‘Of course! They’ll be queuing round the block at the Philippine Embassy!’ Philip said, feeling a failure even as a hostage.
‘Why must you have come here?’ Irene asked sadly.
‘I’ve told you before; I was sent to assist, to monitor, to galvanise (I no longer know myself) the official investigation into Julian’s sainthood.’
‘No, I am not speaking of why you have come to the Philippines, but why you have come to the Sierra Madre. Why must you have put your trust in Alvin Japos?’
‘I’d had my own clash with the Church and I was looking for any evidence, however slight, that Julian might have had one too. I realise now that I wasn’t thinking straight.’
‘You can never believe any words that this man is saying.’
‘Who, Japos?’
‘Yes. You must remember that he is a criminal. We have used him only in actions in which criminals must be used.’
‘Such as?’ he asked, but she did not choose to elaborate. ‘So why should he concoct such an elaborate story?’
‘He is a small man. Such men wish to make themselves bigger. And who knows? There may have been a plot like this, but it has not worked out.’
‘To think that a casual remark should have led to all this!’
‘I am sorry for you. You must be finding the life here hard. And now there is bad news to add to the pain.’
‘There’s one compensation, I suppose; the writing’s going great guns,’ Philip said, ruing another inopportune image. ‘Coming here has given an unexpected boost to my novel. I’ve had so much time on my hands that I might even finish it before I return home.’
‘Then you will have to send us a book and we will read it in turns.’
‘I can hardly put “somewhere in the Sierra Madre” on the package.’
‘This is true,’ Irene said, walking away. ‘Then you must tell us the story, so that we can read it in our heads.’
After more than four months in the camp and nearly five hundred pages of his novel, Philip gave up the daily tally of his captivity. He could no longer listen to Irene and her comrades extolling the spirit of the forest without feeling as brutish as one of the prisoners who had tattooed their names on JJ’s skin. Besides, it felt increasingly irrelevant. The notches, now well into three figures, were no longer his primary timescale. Although he woke up every morning in the mountains, he spent the rest of the day in Manila, San Isidro, Pampanga or Cauayan, with Maribel, Max and Dennis; his imagination had become more real to him than his life. His captors remarked incredulously on his good humour, but it was no act. ‘The healing power of art’, which had hitherto struck him as an empty phrase, coined by people with neither the talent nor the discipline to be doctors, had taken on new meaning. Not the dirt or the lice or the rain or the cold or the unchanging diet or the primitive sanitation could dampen his enthusiasm for his work. Suspecting that confinement had freed his creativity, he even worried that a precipitate ransom or rescue might stifle his inspiration. He wondered whether his obsession, bordering on mania, were the mark of a true artist, or whether he had absorbed the fanaticism of the platoon.
So it was with mixed feelings that he greeted Rommel’s announcement that Julian, who had been in Bicol throughout his detention, was coming to the camp on official business. After months of longing for just such a visit, Philip felt threatened. The Julian whom he had read about, talked about and written about had attained such near-mythic status that he was convinced the man himself must be a disappointment. To calm his nerves, he left his hut on the morning of Julian’s arrival, slipping into a secluded clearing where he sheltered beneath his favourite tree, its huge trunk crowned by an umbrella-like canopy of leaves, with a sheet of moss hanging from one of its lower boughs. He was perched on its buttress of roots, studying the mosaic of foliage, when he was roused by a discreet but emphatic cough.
‘I trust that I’m not disturbing you.’
‘Hardly!’ Philip replied with an unexpected burst of resentment. ‘You’re the reason I’m here.’
‘Not at my behest, I assure you. Shall we be very English and shake hands?’
‘Of course.’ As he stood to face Julian, Philip was struck by a series of anomalies. He walked with a stick (which looked to have been freshly stripped from a laurel branch), but his grip was firm. His shoulders were stooped, but his spine was straight and his stomach taut. His pewter hair was thick, but his skin was blotchy with unshaven patches on his cheeks and chin. A milky film covered his eyes.
‘Julian Tremayne, I presume.’
‘That sounds rehearsed.’
‘Only since yesterday, when they told me you were finally coming. I thought I’d got as close to you as I ever would when I visited your tomb.’
‘Ah, there you have the advantage of me.’
‘That’s not the way it looks from where I’m standing. Requiescat in Pace, according to the inscription.’
‘I apologise if you’re here under false pretences.’
‘That doesn’t begin to describe it.’
‘I’m a little confused as to why you’re here at all. My comrades informed me that you were sent out by my niece and her husband. Do you work for Hugh?’
‘I was engaged to their daughter.’
‘Really?’ Julian smiled shyly. ‘I christened her, if it’s the same one, when I was last in England.’
‘She had no sister.’
‘Then it is. How idiotic of me! I forget her name.’
‘Julia. She was named after you.’
‘Oh, yes.’ He looked wretched. ‘That must be why I’ve forgotten. But you speak as if the engagement’s over.’
‘She died.’
‘No. How terrible! I’m so sorry. But how? She was young. She can’t have been –’
‘Twenty-three.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘And I should also tell you that her brother, Greg, died at the same time. There was a car crash.’
‘Poor Isabel! My poor dear Isabel! She so longed for children. I can’t begin… Are there any other boys?’
‘No.’
‘This is one time when I feel truly dead. When there’s nothing I can say or do to comfort her: when I can’t even write.’
‘Believe me, you’ve brought her more comfort than a thousand letters of condolence. The only thing that she lives for now is to see you canonised. The one way she can leave her mark. A kind of sanctity by association.’
‘That’s sad.’
‘Under the circumstances I’d have to agree. She was so frustrated with the pace of the episcopal investigation that she sent me out here to speed things up.’
The Breath of Night Page 35
