by Darcy Burke
She smelled her new neighbor before she saw him. The rooster was tucked under a bench in a nifty bamboo cage, and—if his flared neck feathers were any sign—he did not appreciate sharing accommodations. Piled on top of the cage was a thick, scratchy hemp cover, but Della would not yank it down—doing so would engulf the bird in darkness, and losing a sense against one’s will was never calming.
Their boat was underway. Holt, still the biggest cock on board, dealt with stress in his usual way: self-important tirades. At first, Della paid attention to his tantrum because it amused her. Her grandfather could work himself up over anything—he even blamed the swelling around his eyes on the climate, instead of on the time he had spent bent over the toilet in his stateroom. When Della tired of his complaints, she shut her eyes.
But she soon realized her mistake. There was much to see outside, and she poked her head around the edge of the matted roof to watch their approach into the bowels of the city. They pulled past a stone fort flying the American flag and headed into the mouth of the Pasig, a river as wide as the Potomac but ten times as crowded. Bossy American steamers, lighters heavy with food and livestock, outrigger fishing boats, and single-man canoes fought upstream for space at the north-side dock. Her boat won a place and tied up in front of a warehouse marked Produce Depot.
The place swarmed with people eager to sell trinkets to the new arrivals. Della was the first to be hauled to shore. People fought for her attention, but no one assumed she could understand their words—a freeing lack of expectations.
Her grandfather did not know what to make of the hawkers selling everything from pineapple on sticks to jasmine flower necklaces. It was not the welcome he had been expecting.
Della closed her eyes again and let her feet feel the activity of the city surrounding them: the quick strike of horse hooves, the plodding thud of horned carabao, and the irregular beat of wheels moving across uneven stones. The air was spiced with sweat, humidity, and a dash of excrement.
She opened her eyes just in time to see an escort approach. This man, indistinguishable from the other Americans in his white pants and white jacket, introduced himself to her grandfather. His eyes darted past Della as he gave a quick, awkward smile.
He extricated his charges from the disappointed crowd and led them to a line of two-wheeled carriages. Della carefully watched the driver’s hands secure the horses before she climbed in.
The entourage rode in a line through the beautiful, crowded streets. There was a strange jumble to the buildings, as if all the architects had read their instructions in different languages. What they all had in common were the large, colorful signs that advertised the wares kept inside:
Adolfo Richter, Fabrica de Sombreros.
The Central Studio, Photographers.
Singer, Máquinas para Coser.
Above the merchants’ shingles were rows and rows of windows, each a checkerboard of wood and ivory shell. All were slid shut against the heat of the day. The crowds, the colors, the textures—it was a silent symphony.
The line of carriages pulled into a large oval. They passed an ornately appointed cigar factory—a three-story building with balustrades, carved arches, and five-ball lamps on the balcony—and stopped next door. This second building was just as grand. Also three stories, it was a little less Morocco and a little more Madrid. Three large arches decorated both sides of the grand entrance. This was the Hotel de Oriente, the Waldorf Astoria of Manila.
Della watched her grandfather disembark into the small crowd gathered near the door of the hotel. Waiting there were a few obsequious bureaucrats eager to keep their funding; one or two local elites seeking favor; and a few reporters whom Holt himself had summoned with cable updates from each major port of call: Malta, Port Said, and Colombo. The pressmen were unconcerned about their shabby bows, non-existent jackets, and soiled armpits. They dressed up their words just fine under the mastheads of the important papers of Washington and New York. It was her grandfather’s job to woo them, not the other way around.
Holt turned to Della, his wrinkled face aping concern for his precious ward. It was an act, one that she was prepared to play out with him. She walked obediently to his side.
There were too many people talking at once. She wanted to ask them to take turns, but this was his show, not hers.
“Congressman,” one of the reporters said, pushing forward impatiently. Della concentrated on the man’s mouth as he spoke, but she already knew what he would ask. All the questions had been prepared and approved in advance. “You must have heard by now of the proclamation of martial law, but you still felt it safe to come to the Philippines. Do you disagree with the necessity of the general’s order?”
Della turned to watch her grandfather. He had practiced in front of her for days. “The Army’s final blow must be the hardest. It is because of General Arthur MacArthur’s order that we are closer to civil government in the Philippines.”
The reporter asked the inevitable follow-up: “You think the guerrillas are finished? The war is won?”
Her grandfather smiled, ready for his moment. “I ask you, if I had any less faith in the future of peace, would I have brought my granddaughter with me? Surely, if these islands are safe enough for a vulnerable woman like my Della, they are safe for any American. Not only is she young and naive—the girl is deaf.”
Della glanced back at the reporter, eager to see what he would make of this. He seemed to be struck dumb. The bureaucrats and hangers-on nodded their heads but looked bewildered. The other reporters gave her piteous looks, as if she were blind to their condescension.
Della shaped her features to show timidity, fear, and just the right touch of vacancy. The guise was a small price to pay for her passage. The next step would be harder.
Chapter 2
Eggs and Floods
Moss North stood by the entrance to the Hotel de Oriente, a grand Moorish building that, when paired with the neighboring La Insular cigar factory, might confuse visitors into thinking a magic calesa had transported them into the pages of Arabian Nights. The 83-room hotel made a striking first impression—both to the humans alighting from carriages out front, and to the horses who made their way around the rear to be stabled in a buffet of hay. True, the red-and-yellow striped sunshades out front resembled a circus tent more than a Córdoba palace, ruining the elegance that architect Joan-Josep Hervàs Arizmendi had been paid over a hundred thousand dollars to create. But the shades kept the customers in the dining room cool, and Moss knew who footed his bills.
A crowd had gathered to trample the manicured lawn and fountains of Plaza Calderon de la Barca. As they waited to see an actual American congressman, vendors dished up flavored ices for a cool centavo.
Moss watched Holt and his granddaughter descend from their calesa and wondered what he had gotten himself into.
“The girl doesn’t look deaf,” his boss, Seb, said.
Moss studied the young woman in question. “What does that mean?”
“I do not know,” the Filipino admitted. “She is handsome enough, I suppose.”
The young woman had brown hair, a pointed chin, and a fine nose, but there was something odd about her. Maybe it was in the eyes? “She looks like a kitten in a conference of raccoons,” Moss decided. “Makes me wonder if she has any sense at all.”
“Dumb is easy to please.”
Moss sighed. “The politician is going to be trouble, isn’t he?”
“Of course. He is an American.”
“I’m American,” Moss said.
“You cannot help it.”
Had Moss been in a better mood, he would have laughed. He had known Eusebio Lopa for almost three years, Creation itself by American colonial standards. They had met half a war, two jobs, and a hotel ago.
“Do you think we’re ready for this?” Moss did not admit his worries often, but right now he could use some reassurance. They had only taken over the Oriente the previous week.
“We are the best in M
anila.”
That was not saying much. Four days earlier the world had rung in the twentieth century, but everyone here was still cleaning up a nineteenth-century mess.
In 1898 American delivered the first blow of the Spanish-American War not in the Caribbean but the Pacific. President William McKinley had been so thrilled with Dewey’s victory at the Battle of Manila Bay that he had ordered the Army to take the Spanish guns, then the city, and then finally the whole island chain, for which he later paid Madrid twenty million dollars. Just like that, the United States of America had become an overseas empire.
But no one had asked the Filipinos their opinion. Revolutionary leader Emilio Aguinaldo harassed the American newcomers with his uniformed, then guerrilla, army. So far Aguinaldo had escaped every trap set by the pursuing Americans, and his escapades encouraged resistance throughout the islands. General Arthur MacArthur placed the entire country under martial law and pursued the so-called insurrectos without restraint. Though the capital was outwardly calm, fierce battles were still being fought only fifty miles from Manila. The intoxication of war in Cuba—“Remember the Maine!”—had left America with a three-year-long Philippine hangover.
All this instability prevented an honest hotelier from obtaining regular, reasonably priced staples for his kitchen. Most managers stockpiled supplies to guard against lean times, but the previous ownership of the Oriente had cleaned out the storeroom before they left. It was a miracle Moss had kept the dining room running at all—albeit with a painfully limited menu. As if the shortages were not bad enough, Moss now had to cater to a spoiled American politician.
If it weren’t for American politicians, though, he might not have the job at the Oriente. The new Filipino, Australian, and Scottish owners wanted an American out front to curry favor with the new regime. Since Moss had grown up in his uncle’s White Elephant Hotel—the finest establishment in St. Paul, Minnesota—he had been Seb’s choice.
Moss had never risen higher than assistant clerk at the White, but no one in Asia knew that, not even his friend. In classic carpetbagger fashion, after his enlistment was up, he parlayed his Minnesota experience into a job managing a less distinguished hotel in Manila for a year and a half before the Oriente hired him.
Now the fortunes of this hotel—and Moss and Seb—hinged on one man’s opinion: if Congressman Holt liked the hotel, other prestigious clients would follow, and the foreign investors would be happy. Moss told his staff that he would handle any problem, no matter how small—because no problem was ever small to a guest.
Thirty minutes later, Moss stepped in to help a frazzled clerk. Congressman Hughes Holt was already drumming his fingers loudly on the front desk. Moss smoothed his face over with a look of patient goodwill. It beat wearing a big, false smile. Customers are not stupid, his Uncle Carl had taught him when Moss was just six. Nor do they want the staff to be happy in their work, just efficient at it.
“Congressman,” Moss said, keeping his shoulders confident and relaxed. He offered his full name and a handshake. “I am Moses North, the manager. How may I help you?”
The politician pretended not to see the hand, so Moss let it drop. Holt’s granddaughter stood beside him. She was unnervingly attentive, barely blinking as she watched Moss’s mouth move.
“Look here, North,” the man said. “You gave us unmade rooms!”
Moss had checked the rooms himself. “What are you missing, sir?”
“Most of my bed!” Holt huffed. “Why, there isn’t a stitch of bedclothes on the blooming thing. Not even a mattress! I raised the mosquito netting and found nothing but a bamboo mat.”
Moss tried to ignore Della’s intense brown eyes. If she pulled back Moss’s lips and examined his gums, she could not have been more intrusive.
“Are you listening to me, North? This may be a joke to you—”
“No, sir, I assure you—”
“—but I’m paying ten dollars a night for more than fancy woodwork and a clay roof.”
“Sir—”
“Forty dollars, including my staff and family. I expect a fully furnished room for each. And I do not care if that room is a big as a dormitory or includes half a household’s worth of furniture—if it has nothing to sleep on, it is useless to me. The bed is as hard as the teak floor. Am I supposed to sleep on the rug? Do you treat the Army like this?”
The Army was the Oriente’s best customer. Despite several ownership changes, they continued to rent an entire block of rooms, many of which were used for the wives of high-ranking officers. It was an account the hotel could not afford to lose, and the congressman knew that.
“What may I bring for you, sir?”
“A real mattress, for starters,” Holt said, still glaring. “Two sheets. A quilt and pillow.”
If the man used all that bedding, he would boil. January was the coolest month in Manila, but no American would ever think so until they lived through April. And, in Moss’s admittedly limited experience, the rooms of the Oriente never got cold. The mosquito netting blocked any real air circulation. Worse, most guests insisted on shutting the windows at night; and while this ensured privacy, it also trapped in the day’s heat. None of these “civilized” Americans noticed that Manileños shut the windows in the day and opened them wide at night.
“I will have my man bring you another set of sheets right away, a set for each room.” He would send a man out to buy some. The few linens left by the previous owners still needed to be laundered with heavy bleach.
“And the rest?”
“A quilt, sir?” Moss did not mean to be impertinent, but he had to check. It was probably still 85 degrees at seven in the evening.
“Are you deaf, man?”
Moss could have heard the congressman’s roar from the kitchens, but what a thing to say, and right in front of his own—
Wait. Was the woman snickering—and at Moss?
“The bed is appropriate for this country,” he explained, far more patiently than the congressman deserved. “The perforated cane bottom keeps you cool. If you need more support, you can add the bamboo mat.”
“That sounds deuced uncomfortable!”
“It takes a little getting used to, sir, but I assure you it is the universal practice here.”
The congressman agreed to try the Philippine sleeping machine, as is, for a night. Moss made a mental note to commission a mattress. There had to be someone in Divisoria Market who could whip one up in a day.
“And why does everything smell of kerosene? Is the whole place set to burn down around our ears? We are in the middle of a war, you know.”
Moss knew it better than Holt. “The polish is perfectly safe. We buff the floors each morning, and our special formula protects you from insects.” If the cleaning staff was not ruthless in this duty, ants would have been the first suspects for carrying away the congressman’s mattress—and if Moss was lucky, the congressman.
“Your ‘special formula’ is kerosene,” Holt said.
“Yes, sir.”
Holt left the desk with an extra huff for good measure. Better, he took his granddaughter with him. Before she climbed the first stair, she looked back at Moss and shook her head slowly, almost sadly. Moss busied himself checking off imaginary items in his guest register.
Moss did not hear a complaint from the congressman for the rest of the night, and the young hotelier congratulated himself on his early hospitality victory. He did so far too soon. Moss walked into the dining room the next morning to find Holt screaming at one of the Chinese waiters.
“There are six different kinds of eggs on this menu, boy. Six. Boiled eggs, scrambled eggs, poached eggs, ham and eggs, eggs and bacon, omelets. I know you may be confused on that last one, but I assure you that omelets are eggs. Understand? This menu is all eggs.” Holt took a breath. “So how can you tell me you don’t have any eggs?”
Tan Cheng-sien, known inside the hotel as “Ko” because he was the eldest of the Chinese waiters, repeated his simple messa
ge. “No eggs.”
The other few customers in the dining room listened as the congressman’s diatribe carried effortlessly across the large, airy room. A few laughed.
Moss rushed to the table. “Ko, it’s okay, I’ve got it.” He passed the waiter some coins and, as quietly as possible, commanded him: “Buy eggs.”
Moss turned back and smiled as if they were all in on the joke together. “You may avail yourself of anything on the menu, ladies and gentlemen.” Everyone except the young woman gave egg preferences, and then Holt ordered for his granddaughter.
Inside, Moss raged—at himself. The White Elephant’s cook would have had eggs to order, hashed brown potatoes, lamb cutlets, codfish cakes, and milk toast. The pastry chef would have whipped up buckwheat griddle cakes and buttermilk biscuits on the fly. Not to mention, someone would have doubled the egg delivery the day before an important party arrived. Moss was that someone. Instead, he had been busy hiring kitchen staff.
After breakfast Moss had a day’s worth of peace before the next interruption. It was late in the evening when Holt’s granddaughter rushed up to his desk in her robe. “Mr. North!” she cried.
Moss stared at her.
“Mr. North?”
He composed himself, but in the scrambled eggs of his brain, he forgot her last name. “Miss Holt,” he said. “How can I help you?”
“Berget,” she corrected him. “Della Berget.”
Her voice was nasally, like she had been swimming too long. And she was a little wet. “Miss Berget, what is the matter?”
“There is water in my room!”
She occupied a suite with private bath. “Of course there’s—”
“It is pouring in,” she explained. “The pipes must have burst.”
The plumbing was perfectly sound. The previous owners of the hotel had fully fitted and updated it. “Should I ask your grandfather to help you with the controls?”
