Ilustrado (40 page)

“When we first met, you told me that you didn’t have family here. Then at dinner, you talked with my folks about your grandparents. Why’d you lie to me?”

“It was too complicated.”

“It sucks being lied to.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

Something looms far ahead. When I look, it’s just darkness. “Miguel, you can tell me anything. I won’t judge.”

“I’m really sorry.”

Something knocks on the front of the car. Tops of trees peek over the walls of nearby properties. They look like people spying.

“Can I ask you another question?”

“Of course.”

“What happens when you find Dulcinea?”

“I find the missing manuscript.”

“That’s your only reason?”

“Yeah.”

The knocking persists. The trees swoon. The rain on the roof is like a box of bones being shaken.

“Then I think you should leave her alone.”

“Why?”

“If she wanted to have anything to do with her dad, she would have.”

“It’s just not that simple.”

Something scrapes on the right fender, like someone trying to come in. A wooden banister floats alongside.

“Are you going to be seeing your grandparents?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“It’s better that way.”

“It’s just that simple, huh?” Sadie brushes my bangs from my face. “Sorry,” she says. She kisses my forehead. “Are they the reason you left Manila?”

“No.”

“Why’d you go?”

Something thuds on the bumper. A San Miguel Beer icebox bobs by. Lightning shatters the dark sky. We wait for thunder. None comes.

“I just don’t like who I become here.”

The dark mass ahead shifts, as if the night itself is stepping closer. “Is that my truck? He better not make us wade. We’ll get hepatitis or something.”

“It’s only something in the water.”

Rain crashes harder. I raise my voice to be heard.

“You know,” I say, “it’s not like I don’t want to come back and contribute. It just feels so . . . I don’t know.”

“Hopeless? Do like everyone else. Don’t worry about it.”

“I don’t want to do that, either.”

“Then just kiss me.”

I kiss her.

“Do you think I’ll do okay in New York?”

“You’d do great.”

“I won’t be shirking my responsibilities? Just leaving, I mean.”

“No.” I look at Sadie closely. “I don’t know.” I study her perfect face. Her perfect nose. Her bottom teeth are a little crooked, just to remind me she’s real.

“You’re still going to go look for Dulcinea, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow.”

*

BANG! Our car is rocked by an explosion. Sadie and I whip around. My God. Something is . . . The PhilFirst factory is aflame. Fire streaks in all directions. First one, then another, then a lot of fireworks, actual fireworks, shoot into the sky. Green. Blue. Yellow. Popping. Whistling. Hissing. Then they go off simultaneously. Then they take off in spurts. A huge orange flower wilts in the rain. A star studded with pearlescent bursts and a blue cluster in its middle lights the nearby billboard of Vita Nova. A crimson spiral winds sideways into the sign that says JESUS ALONE SAVES, shattering its neon letters in a deluge of glass. Streakers scream vertically one after the other, whizzing high until they burst into balls of sparkles like motes of white cinders. More, then more, rockets fly out. One of the factory buildings becomes a ball of fire—one second there, one second consumed,
one second gone. Its incandescent structure stumbles like a skeleton into the water. Flames spider across the river’s surface like gasoline alight, tufts of orange and yellow creeping slowly as they spread, rising steadily across the polluted water. The river is ablaze. The water burns, smells like singed hair, sulfur, scorching sugar. The low cloud ceiling, its soft rolls, seem to smolder from the chemical sun below it. Even the distant horizon is stained red with this false dawn.

*

“I’m not an addict! What are you doing?’ Dulcé yelled, pushing their arms off her. “Please, why are you doing this?”

She looked at her mother and stepdad, imploring them with her eyes. Mom was crying, Dad was shaking his head. The doctor and the male nurse forced Dulcé’s arms through the straitjacket, then buckled her tight. She couldn’t move.

“But it’s all true!” Dulcé said. Mom held the diary in her hand.

“Dulcé, dear Dulcé. Just admit it. You made up these stories.”

Dad knelt down in front of Dulcé and put his arms on her shoulders. “Babygirl, you’re sick. These men are going to take you to the hospital to cure you.”

“You’re not even my real father,” Dulcé said, knowing that those were the worst words she could say. But she was so angry with him for allowing this.

Dad didn’t bat an eyelash. “You’re my babygirl and I want you to get better.”

Mom waved the diary and pleaded: “Dulcé, please, just say those are your fantasy stories. Just say you don’t believe them.”

Dulcé didn’t know what to say. If she said what she wanted to, they would never believe it. If she said what they wanted her to, she’d never be able to believe in herself again. But maybe she could prove it to them!

She closed her eyes real tight and tried to make herself lighter than air. Just believe, she thought. Just believe.

For a second she felt herself lifting up. Her feet left the ground.

I’m doing it! I’m doing it!

But it was only the doctor and the nurse carrying her, lifting her to the bed in the back of the ambulance.

—from
Ay Naku!
, Book Three of Crispin Salvador’s
Kaputol
trilogy

*

Sadie jumps to the front seat and turns on the radio. A woman’s voice sings: “There’s a light of hope, when you light a Hope.”

“Is it safe,” she asks, “to use the car battery?”

I don’t reply. I’m transfixed by the scene behind us. The river courses with fire. Hell must look like this. “Miguel,” Sadie says. I snap out of it.

“—everend Martin addressed the crowd just moments ago before we went to station break,” says the commentator. “We now come back to you, live. Crowds are continuing to swarm over Jones and MacArthur bridges to join the rallies, while riot police have formed a barricade at the corner of Recto and Legarda, to prevent a march on the Presidential Palace. I spoke earlier on the telephone with Senator Bansamoro, who said the scene is extremely tense. One thrown stone, one gunshot could set it all off. Our reporter Danjen Adapon is on the scene. Hello Dan?! Can you hear me?”

Poo-tee-weet
.

“Read it,” Sadie says. The message says: Wen u smile the world smiles wid u. When ur down ppl will rally bhind u. But wen u fart u r alone coz ppl will never stand by u! Xcpt 4 JESUS! He died 4 our sins!

I hand back her phone. “Sadie, let’s check the radio for . . .” But she’s already busy dialing her driver’s number.

“
Fuck!
” she says. “The battery just died!”

“Shit. I left mine in the hotel.”

“Loud and clear, Rolly. Loud and clear. The scene here is difficult to describe. I’m speaking to you from the roof of the Chow King restaurant on C. M. Recto. I would say, uh, the crowd numbers as many as, uh, two hundred thousand. Maybe even five hundred thousand. It is an ocean of people. Reports do indicate that various factions have been called here to oppose each other, but from what I see, this crowd has come together peaceably. Most have been here for hours, waiting to see what their leaders will do. More arrive every minute. People are sharing umbrellas and food, many are singing songs. The atmosphere is like a carniva—Uh . . . the . . . Wait. Oh no. There is a confrontation between Reverend Martin and Wigberto Lakandula. They are exchanging words on a stage erected on the back of a truck. Oh my golly, Reverend Martin has pushed Lakandula to the floor! Um, Lakandula is refusing to fight. He is now being led away by some supporters. I recognize the elderly Congressman Respeto Reyes. He is holding Lakandula’s hand. Uh, just one minute, please, Rolly.” The reporter converses with someone off mic, their voices unintelligible and hurried. “Uh, Rolly, I now understand that Lakandula is leading his followers quietly away. Oh no, there seems to be trouble now. Someone at the other end of the crowd has destroyed a shop window. There seems to be a large group heading toward Makati. A car, no, a taxi has been turned over. They’re throwing stones at policemen. At windows with lights in nearby buildings. Oh my golly, they are throwing stones at us . . .”

*

Even as he listens, our fiery protagonist wonders if tonight is the revolution Crispin wanted for so long. He regrets not having joined the crowds.

He thinks of one option for a life. An old man soft and bent over his typewriter while the world changes without him. An old man striking keys in acts of violence without valor. An old man imagining into being a young man’s moment, like now. A stormy night beyond closed windows. The threat of mortality far, far away. Decisions to be avoided and never paid for.

*

The river surges with the sudden warmth. The Pasig’s waters move toward us, no longer possessing the flat, defeated surface of its former self. The flood in which our car sits flows backward, opposite the river’s current. There must be a break or overflow up ahead. The water rises, its level perceptible on the disappearing hood of the car. Bright flashes continue from the factory, slathering everything with color: the street is red, then black, then green, then yellow, then orange, then black, then orange. A chair floats nearer, thuds on the bumper, passes to our left. Sadie disconnects and reconnects her cell-phone battery. “Power!” she exclaims. She dials. “Shit,” she says, “answer the phone. Shit, answer, please answer, you motherfucker. Please. Aw fuck. Battery died. What do we do?”

“The safest place for us is in the car. Your driver’ll be here soon.”

The dark mass moves closer. Sadie holds her breath. She switches on the headlights, but they are already submerged. What little light they cast skims the surface of the water, as if our car sits on the edge of the moon’s broad reflection on a pond. What had been looming now arrives.

It’s one of those ice cream carts wheeled around town by bell-clanging vendors. Painted white with jaunty blue and red embellishments, the word
STARBUCKS
is stenciled along its side. The cart stops, then is moved again by a current that seems to be getting steadily stronger. The shadows behind it shift. A flash of green reveals two children perched upon the cart. A flash of blue shows them to be a girl of around ten carrying her naked toddler brother.

*

Even as he watches, he hears the keystrokes from a distant dream. An old man imagining and typing what must be said.

Poor little rich boy. A side must be taken. If you choose your own, you side with oppression, fratricide, indifference—you will never be content among your own. Rich little poor boy. If you side with the others, you choose treason, patricide, betrayal—you will never be accepted among those unlike you. Religion taught you to revere the family. Education taught you to value
the majority over the few. Something to be done, Pozzo. You cannot sit this out. The airplane has landed. The people have clapped. Take a last breath. You’re on the stage.

He sits under the lights, thinking of a second option for a life. Patience, however, is just another name for inaction.

*

I watch them float haltingly, the cart catching on the submerged street. They are less alarming as shadows than when lit up and helpless.

*

Even as he thinks, he rationalizes yet a third option for a life.

A splash is made to save the children, to hoist them the few yards to safety, to watch them scuttle back to hidden places, to be a hero engorged with hidden pride, the trumpets crying joyfully, to announce his guiltless return to America, having done his small part, to start a new life in Park Slope with the malleable young Sadie, and with the confidence that comes with being loved by a young beauty, he will sit down and finish my biography, and it will make him feel fulfilled, because he will have written with the vigor of the newly liberated, because he will have, in one single soggy act, absolved himself of our sins.

*

“If you open the door, the car will get ruined,” Sadie says. She’s crying. “My dad will kill me.”

We both turn around. The road that was just several yards behind us is now vanished under the flood.

“My driver will be here any minute . . .”

I look at the water. What if it’s too deep? I think of my father, running into the burning airplane. What if he hadn’t been so foolhardy? I don’t want to go into that flood. What if he hadn’t been so selfish to his children? No. We need the people we love to be heroes. We need to know that somewhere someone better than ourselves can save us.

“Please don’t,” Sadie sobs. She’s clinging to the steering wheel as if it were a life raft. “Nobody will see you.”

I don’t want to go. But I’m afraid of what I would become. “Sadie, come with me.”

“I can’t,” she says. “You don’t have to, either.”

The door is heavy and won’t open. What if she’s right? I lean my entire weight against it and it gives only slightly. Water pushes into the car. It’s warm and oddly comforting around my feet and ankles. I can’t open the door. I’m stuck. I don’t have to, go. I look at Sadie. She’s tucking her knees up against her chest, Manolo Blahniks in either hand, her feet stacked on top of each other. The water is rising in the recesses of the car floor. I pull the door closed. I open the window. The electric motor grinds down with difficulty. I want it to make it, but I want it to fail. It makes it. The flood is almost level to the open window. When the fireworks light, the surface is glassy, gloomily reflective. I see myself in it, like a mirror, watch myself pulling my body through the window and falling forward, my face meeting my face, into the brown, muculent filth. My feet flay for the bottom. Sadie is screaming. Maybe she’s right. I find my footing. Her pleas urge me on. The water is chest high.