State of War

by Ninotchka Rosca

  He thought nothing of it, merely tucking a reminder somewhere in his mind. When Sunday came, he presented himself at the door of her Ermita house, gave his name to the uniformed maid. He was ushered into an upstairs dressing room, all white and lilac, where the Eurasian waited. She handed him a glass of brandy.

  “I’m giving a party,” she said in a cold voice. “I want to inaugurate a new song at the party. Everyone who’s anyone at all will be there. It’s the chance of a lifetime. You understand?”

  He nodded.

  “I want a record made afterward. I don’t care how much it costs. Money’s no object. Drink your brandy.”

  So used was he to obeying older women, he didn’t protest. She pretended not to notice how he choked and his eyes streamed.

  “Do you like my dress? I’ll be wearing it at the party.”

  He looked at her. She was wearing something that looked like wet black paint. He shrugged.

  “Won’t it rip?” he asked innocently.

  “Perhaps,” she said, “shall we try?” And putting both hands at the high collar of the dress, she yanked with all her strength.

  Luis Carlos dropped the glass. The dress had slit open neatly, down the middle to the waist, freeing her magnificent breasts.

  “You’d better enjoy it,” she said.

  He gulped and managed to croak: “Why?”

  “Because a war is coming.”

  Two years later, when the jeeps, tanks, and armored personnel carriers of an invading force roared into the open city of Manila, in an expected but still surprising swift attack, Luis Carlos would remember this moment of discovery. Only then would its peculiarity hit him, and he would shake his head over this mingling of pleasure and death, of flesh and disaster, of beauty and blood. At the time, though, his first experience left him unmoved and when queried the following day by Jake, he said only that everything had been fine.

  Not so with the Eurasian beauty I ler memory of that night was eloquent, the seven curtain calls Luis Carlos took unforgettable, each in a manner different from the preceding, now with a long-drawn excruciating gentleness, then again with the vigor of the knowledgeable, or with the swift poetry of the very young. She pursued him henceforth, as much as she dared considering her status, from nightclub to nightclub, until, along with the American High Command, she had to be evacuated to Bataan and from thence, by submarine, to Australia and to the United States where, treated as a shameful secret by her lover who was deathly afraid of his Bostonian mother, she pined away in obscurity and narcotics.

  Luis Carlos never denied her anything, nodding calmly at her whispered request for a rendezvous except when the latter interfered with his job schedule. When it did, he was always courteous enough to suggest another day, making sure she was not humiliated. He was never familiar with her in public, always respectfully distant as befitted a young man’s demeanor toward an older woman. The problem was he also never thought of her, except in tiny reminders as to date, time, and place, for he kept a neat calendar in his head. Worse, though he made no move to be rid of her, neither did he pursue her. He just forgot her the minute he went out her house’s gate, his mind surrendering once more to music. Thus, in his innocence, he inflicted an unspeakable torment on the Eurasian beauty, one she would remember in her sojourn abroad, recalling how in his easy availability he was all the more inaccessible.

  Jake was the recipient of the Eurasian’s complaint, a role which, after a time, he found most tiring. To the woman’s ecstatic recounting of her nights with Luis Carlos, Jake’s sly answer was that, to men his age, this prowess wasn’t uncommon. The words passed like wind between them—an indictment no less cruel for its being tacit. Jake’s underlip curled; he told himself to wait, wait, until the mammoth party and the recording were over—after which he would come into his own. He had started Luis Carlos’s career, by a fluke, true, but his management of it since had been inspired. Having no talent of his own, he dreamed of owning a stable of the talented—musicians, actors and actresses, even a Eurasian beauty or two. The party, he surmised, would be as great an opportunity for his recognition as for Luis Carlos’s. Gently, then, not letting his impatience show, he prodded Luis about the new song.

  In the Binondo house, between the end of his day’s sleep and the band’s arrival, Luis Carlos sat at his desk, hunched over music sheets, his saxophone at hand. On this, he was creating Clarissa’s song, “Plump Goose”—a song which, despite his irritation at her continued absence, was still a song of fondness. Every so often, he would call the maid who had been Clarissa’s conspirator and ask her for more of the man’s words. With her memory so taxed, the maid resorted to invention, dreaming of how she herself would be addressed by a man, some man, any man.

  “Arms as white as cotton bolsters,” she said, squirming on the edge of Luis Carlos’s bed. “A torso vast as sails and as magnificent; thighs—” She hesitated, wondering if that would be too much for the boy. She decided to drop it. “Dimpled ankles, sweet as flan.”

  Luis Carlos let go his pencil. “He said these?”

  “Most assuredly, the barbarian.”

  “In public?”

  “Ay, that’s the shame of it.”

  Mayang, overhearing, concluded that Luis Carlos was persevering in the search for Clarissa. His tenacity pleased her, as did his asceticism. None of her fears about his bar work had materialized. He didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, and no woman hovered about him. A twinge of fear touched her at the last thought. She hurried to the garden. The plants were still healthy enough, though without flowers, and as she moved from pot to pot, inspecting leaves and stems, she wondered whether she should buy new ones.

  What with the indescribable noise from the trucks which rushed by nose to tail in their eagerness for the canal, Mayang could be forgiven for not hearing the gate’s creak as a man pushed it open, nor his admittedly stealthy footsteps as he circumnavigated the garden until, by a circuitous route, he reached the front-yard tree at the same instant that Mayang did. He loomed so suddenly before her that she reared back and screamed. He snapped his fingers and a paper bouquet materialized under Mayang’s nose. Her jaw fell

  “It’s him!” she shrieked.

  Her hand snatched up the coconut rib broom that always leaned against the tree trunk. Holding it firmly with both hands, she flailed at his head and shoulders, cutting off his escape and herding him toward the stairs, then up the steps, as she screamed for Luis Carlos. Cowering, the man tried to stem her rage by conjuring handkerchiefs, rings, a duckling, balloons from his sleeves, managing only to leave a colorful trail as they went up, crossed the front door and foyer, and entered the living room where Luis Carlos found them circling each other warily amidst what he construed to be a cloth peddler’s wares.

  When he learned who the man was, largely through Mayang’s incoherent tirade, he burst into such laughter that his mother was scandalized.

  “Well, aren’t you going to slap him?”

  “What for?”

  “That’s how you start a duel.”

  Such a look of fear crossed the man’s face that Luis Carlos had another laughing fit. Then, from outside came Clarissa’s frantic screech, begging her mother not to cut her husband’s throat. Luis Carlos doubled up again, laughing loud enough to raise the roof, while Mayang rushed to the window and screamed for Clarissa to come up, for God’s sake not to create a scandal in the middle of the street, there were decent people in the neighborhood. Still shaking with laughter, Luis Carlos rushed to the steps to embrace his sister, noting how her skin gleamed with happiness. Then he returned to the living room and, ignoring Mayang’s barks for him to slap the stranger who was alternately turning red, turning white, took his brother-in-law’s hand and shook it. He left them to settle everything by themselves. The truth was, a tune was playing in his mind, a companion piece to Clarissa’s song: “The Magician’s Duel,” in which rabbits, ducks, red, orange, and blue scarves, metal rings, and top hats redeemed a man’s name in honorable batt
le.

  10

  The bells. As soon as he opened his eyes, they were there, distant but insistent, an ominous whisper. Tiny bells, big bells, silver and brass bells. He shook his head, trying to rid his ears of the sound but they remained, sometimes all together at once, often petering out to one hollow note lasting for hours, mimicking a faraway belfry bell, only to be joined by another, higher note, then another and yet another, until he thought he could hear all the bells of the city softly but determinedly pealing, warning him of danger Before he did his ablutions, he checked the house warily, tiptoeing from room to room, lest he wake the specter that had disturbed the bells. In the kitchen, the cook bent over the old wood stove, her face sheathed by smoke and the sizzle of eggs and sausages. In the living room, two maids sang fat girl, you ’re everywhere—geese in the river, sails in the seaas they danced to and fro, half-coconut shells, dried and unhusked, under their right feet, polishing the floorMayangwas in her bedroom, gold-rimmed eyeglasses on her nose; she looked up from her sewing to frown a question. He smiled, waved reassuringly, and checked Clarissa’s and Pete’s bedroom. His heart jumped. It was empty. But they were merely in the garage, half of which Pete had taken over for his rabbit and duck cages and magic props. The two were bent over three large wooden boxes on the floor, studying them intently. Pete had a large saw in his hand.

  “He’s going to try to saw me in half,” Clarissa said in an awed voice.

  Gently, Luis Carlos loosened Pete’s hold on the saw.

  “Not today,” he said. “I had a bad dream.”

  “Oh, for—” Clarissa flared. But Pete stopped her. He was a firm believer in omens.

  “Tomorrow. We can practice healing today.”

  Clarissa giggled. “He thinks he can become a faith healer,” she told Luis Carlos proudly. “More money in that. So you won’t have to work so hard.”

  “It’s nothing,” Luis Carlos said hastily, for Pete looked wounded. “I like working and I don’t have much use for money.”

  “Someday, we’ll return the favor,” Pete said grimly.

  “I’m sure you will. Think nothing of it.”

  He slipped out, followed the footpath to the backyard, and here found two maids washing clothes at the faucet. They were singing out came the army of rabbits and ducks, with banners of red-blue scarves. Their movements, as they rubbed and squeezed the clothes, synchronized with the tune’s beat. Luis Carlos smiled but a silver bell cut off his pleasure and he turned away.

  It was the day of the party—the monstrous gathering promised by the Eurasian beauty, postponed many times for many reasons, not the least of which was the woman’s fear it would signal the end of her trysts with Luis Carlos. During the delay, Luis Carlos had composed half a dozen tunes she’d found unacceptable, though of course all of them, silly and perky songs, were invariably hits, making the rounds of nightclubs, corner stores, and public faucets. Luis Carlos was somewhat surprised by his affinity for music that worked on a wide range of listeners. But what truly pleased him was hearing his songs rising from the city’s nooks and crannies, sung by men and women weathered by intense labor and poverty. He couldn’t make heads or tails of the Eurasian’s desires, until, of course, jolted from sleep one early morning, he smelled the wet sky and found both words and tune for the ballad “Lovely Stranger.” It was a song for and of his neighborhood but the Eurasian surmised she was the central metaphor and took it to be proof of Luis Carlos’s affection. Thus, the plans for the party were put into operation.

  Despite the band’s noise that mid-afternoon, the bells remained in Luis Carlos’s ears, throwing a pall on the excitement. His drummer remarked on this but the bass guitarist, a man nearly twice Luis’s age, merely shrugged and whispered that the evening’s hostess must’ve been riding the boy hard. Their concern collapsed into laughter. They were in high spirits, for the Casa Espanol had been hired by the Eurasian, who’d practiced the song with Luis for months. Well, among other things, as Jake said with his wry grin. The band was to be in tuxedoes, as the beauty had demanded; they had to look first class for the five hundred or so guests, the wealthiest and most powerful individuals in Manila, including the American High Command. The military governor would grace the occasion as a favor to his mistress.

  The bells. As Luis Carlos prepared, checking the band’s repertoire (they would play only his songs this evening), listening to the entrances and exits of the guitar, the drums, the piano, the bass, sifting the roughness out of the music, he heard the bells. They would not let go, even when he called a halt to the warm-up, shook hands with everyone, and saw them off, with the understanding that they would be at the Casa Espanol an hour before the party’s official start.

  He sipped his kalamansi juice lazily, gave his mother a hug. In his room, the laundry maid was fluttering over the laid-out costume: black pants, black tails, frilly dress shirt, lavender cummerbund, lavender bowtie. Luis Carlos had to shoo her away so he could get dressed, though he found himself slowly but inexorably sinking into melancholia. The costume seemed inordinately thick and heavy when he felt the coat’s lapel. The color, morose as a funeral, repelled him. He sat on the bed’s edge and finished his juice. From outside, seeping into the sound of bells, came Mayang’s harp. She was picking the tune of “Lovely Stranger.”

  She had not heard the song before and, during the band’s practice, had been struck by its uncertain yearning. It could, it did, sound almost classical on the harp. She plucked notes out of her memory, her fingers echoing them on the harp strings, even as she wondered why such a sad song should come to her happy son or why he hadn’t shown it to her. In a few minutes, she lost herself in the tune and could almost believe that boats were once more plying the canal and that the failing light outside was a dawning, that instead of easing into night, the world was moving into morning, a morning as fragile as a dream.

  Then, a presence cut the light from the doorway to the dining room. Mayang looked up; her heart kicked against her ribs. I’m dead, she thought, my past is loose in the world. Without realizing it, she was crying silently.

  “I look that bad?” Luis Carlos asked.

  He had come to show her his costume. But what Mayang saw was Hans, dressed exactly as he had been on the nights of her thrice-held wedding, his hair slicked back from his forehead, his eyes cool as a December sea. But this was a younger Hans, tentative in his manhood, still vulnerable. She felt a sudden rush of love for her son, love which, amidst the thousand mundane details of existence, had lost its glint and been nearly forgotten. Wiping her eyes on her sleeve, she vowed that nothing short of death would separate the two of them; no, not all the disasters in the world.

  “You look so grown up,” she told him.

  But Luis Carlos sat down abruptly, with such a morose look Mayang was alarmed. “I don’t feel that way, Mama. I think I’m still a kid.”

  “Are you feverish?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “For a child,” she said, “you have so many dependents.”

  He would not be comforted. “I’m tired, Mama. I’ve been working three years straight now. Maybe, I should have a vacation.”

  “There’s enough money. Why don’t you go back to school?”

  “After this party. When this party’s over. I’ll take a week, two weeks, a month off. We can go to Bulacan. Visit Papa’s grave.” He stood up and flung his arms overhead, stretching his torso. He seemed taller than Hans. “Will you come with me, Mama?”

  “Of course,” she said. “Wherever you want to go.”

  When the Eurasian beauty’s white Bentley let him off, with his clarinet, flute, and saxophone cases, at the Casa Espanol, Luis Carlos noticed what an inordinately warm December it was. The weather, it seemed, had conspired with the chanteuse to assure the party’s success. In the clear night sky, stars as huge as a man’s hand burned fiercely and a sickle moon swam over the sea, that sea of unbearable perfumes sending out a breeze that now smelled of roasting corn, now fresh grass, an
d even hot cocoa. Crossing the Casa’s threshold with its hundred torches, seeing the glitter of chandeliers within the main ballroom and the fifty roast pigs still embracing the bamboo spits of their demise lined up like knights’ lances against the wall behind the buffet, Luis Carlos suddenly felt that he had been here before, that all this had happened before, and without exactly knowing why, his gaze swept the floor in search of some trinket, inadvertently dropped, which shouldn’t have been dropped: a tie tack, sleeve stud, or—.

  The bells. They were louder now. He heard them even as the Eurasian, resplendent in white silk and emeralds, approached and took his arm. Pleasure intensified her beauty and, for a minute, Luis Carlos had the disquieting feeling that she was not who she was, perhaps because, for the first time in public, she wore her hair loose, falling in vine curls to her hips. She steered him gently toward the stage where the other band members waited.

  “Everybody’s coming,” she whispered. “All except for that tiresome Estela Banyaga. The shrew.”

  “Who?”

  “Old blood,” she said. “Said she and her husband wouldn’t eat with the likes of me.” She laughed. “But her son's coming, though. At least, the eldest. Tiresome shrewish old blood,”

  “I never heard of them.”

  The bells. They pealed on through the band’s opening number “Skyboats,” and through all the numbers thereafter, as the guests poured in, flinging coats, hats, and canes at harassed attendants, and heading straight for the dance floor, edging into the mass of whirling, twisting couples while sweating chefs took down the roast pigs one by one, yanked out the bamboo poles, and laid the unfortunate creatures on oversized chopping boards to be reduced to edible pieces. Dancers broke away from their partners for a quick trip to the bar in the next room or to snatch a plate from a hurrying waiter so they could stand in line before the buffet and get their serving of the thirty dishes prepared for the occasion. There were basins of scalded oysters, husked; rolls of morcon; an endless stream of stuffed milkfish; en- ceimadas from Valenzuela; prawns and crabs from Cavite; chicken cuts in adobo; gallons of paella, sauteed string beans, noodles, four different kinds of sweets . . . The bells catalogued the gargantuan feast as Luis Carlos and the band hit the opening bars of “Chattering Flowers,” a favorite dance number despite its rather morbid content. Cheers broke out as the familiar tune floated over the rabble and there was a mad move toward the dance floor.