The Breath of Night (35 page)
Read The Breath of Night Online
Authors: Michael Arditti
‘Is that all they do?’ Philip asked Max.
‘Patience, dear! The pants don’t come off until midnight.’
‘I can live with that,’ Philip said. ‘But I don’t see any sign of Dennis.’
‘Don’t worry, he’ll be here.’
At the end of the number the dancers jumped off the stage, resuming their gyrations beside and even on top of the tables, their pouches turning into purses in which the audience could both express their appreciation and fondle the flesh. Philip, who had abhorred every kind of audience participation since a boyhood encounter with Widow Twankey, sank back in his seat and gave thanks that the alcove was set apart. His gratitude was cut short by the arrival of a dancer, his penis poking out of his pouch like the gun in the policeman’s holster. He stood by the table and stroked himself, seemingly oblivious to the two arms, one white and one brown, stretched out to squeeze his thigh. Then, lifting his right foot on to the table, he leant forward to make himself more accessible. Max and Ray took full
advantage
of his presence before, in an impromptu move that looked better timed than any on the stage, their hands met as they
simultaneously stuffed bills into his pouch. As he drew back, Ray lowered his hand and let it rest on Philip’s crotch. Philip snatched it away.
‘Oh, I am so sorry. This is my mistake!’
‘Big mistake!’ Philip said gruffly.
‘Boasting again,’ Max said with a giggle.
The dancers returned to the stage, which had been reset during the break to reveal a backdrop of Manila Bay at dusk. Midnight must have passed, since they were now naked, but along with the licence came a new coyness as they kept one hand constantly clamped over their groins. The nudity had at least some bearing on a routine in which they soaped and showered themselves, and played with the giant bubbles that were blown in from the wings. Their repertoire of movements remained minimal: the same straight backs, swinging hips and rolling stomachs, with one arm after the other reaching slowly up their chests and into the air. At all times, including the fleeting crossover, they made sure to keep their genitals covered, giving the bizarre
impression
that these bodies for hire were as anxious to conceal their nakedness as Adam in a medieval woodcut of the Fall.
Given the lack of either erotic charge or choreographic
complexity
, Philip found that his only interest lay in watching Dennis, who had finally appeared. The narcissism of the performance perfectly matched that of his personality, as he caressed every inch of the well-toned flesh, which would be his sole means of survival once Philip returned home.
The number ended, and with it any artistic ambitions the show might have harboured. The dancers, half-coated in suds, dragged on chairs from the wings, which they lined up at the edge of the stage and, to a brassy soundtrack, sat down and began to masturbate. An abrupt silence was followed by a fevered clamour, as the audience cheered on their favourites, although it was impossible to tell whether they were applauding their dexterity or their physiques. Philip felt a mixture of disgust and outrage, and wondered if it would have been the same had
the dancers been female, until a sudden recollection of
Banana Cream Pie
both repelled and reassured him.
‘You look the way I feel,’ he said to Max. ‘Isn’t it your thing?’
‘Just a fit of the birthday blues. I’m thinking of all the nights I’ve spent at this club. All the boys. All the transactions. All as fleeting and as desultory as that.’ He gestured to the stage where one of the boys had reached orgasm, to a smattering of applause. ‘Don’t worry about me. I’ve got a touch of the “where are they nows?”, maybe married to a dash of the “what were they thens?”. I’ll be fine.’
Amel returned to the table, and for all his attempts to engage with the proceedings Philip was heartened by the presence of another straight man.
‘Enjoying yourself?’ Amel asked him.
‘Well, I’m enjoying the champagne and the snacks. The
floorshow
’s not exactly to my taste.’
‘Nor mine, my friend, I can assure you. But we’re here for Max. My father wants to give him a night to remember.’
‘This is true,’ Ray interjected.
‘I’m worried about your driver,’ Amel said, eyeing the stage dispassionately. ‘His performance is – to put it politely – a flop.’
While several of his fellows had climaxed and resumed
masturbating
as if by rote, it was clear, even through his fist, that Dennis’s penis was flaccid. As he tugged at himself in
increasing
desperation, Philip was torn between smiling at him in moral – or rather, friendly – support and looking away to spare his blushes. He was relieved of the choice when the spotlights dimmed, the music faded and a tattered tinsel curtain was drawn across the stage.
‘Is that it?’ Philip asked.
‘Now the boys will come out for a private dance.’
‘We’ve already had one.’
‘But you haven’t had Dennis. It’s only right he should perform for his friend, Max, on his birthday.’
‘His birthday’s over now. It’s 1.30 in the morning.’
‘A detail! Besides, Dennis needs to do something to earn his pay. He’s been a total washout so far.’
‘I think he may have taken too much
shabu
.’
‘I think you’re right,’ Amel said coldly. ‘Only not for his own use. What do you say, Max?’
‘So many transactions; so many meaningless transactions,’ Max mumbled.
The dancers poured through the curtain, once again wearing pouches. Dennis was heading for the far side of the room when, at a nod from Amel, the manager directed him to their table. He made his way with evident reluctance.
‘What kept you so long?’ Amel asked. ‘I told you I wanted you to give a private dance for my friend here.’
‘I am best dancer in club. Many people ask for Dennis.’
‘Is that so? Then what they see here will whet their appetites. Go on!’
Ignoring Philip’s sympathetic smile, Dennis stood over a semi-conscious Max and ran his hands up and down his own body. Max yawned.
‘You’ll need to do better than that! Look at him!’
‘He is half-sleeping.’
‘Is it any wonder? You’ve bored him to death.’
‘Please be kind, my boy,’ Ray said.
‘Well, I’m enjoying it,’ Philip said.
‘Dance for Max! Dance for my father! Doesn’t he deserve something in return for the money you stole?’
‘But is all good now. Ask Max. He is telling you. I have all this money soon.’
‘Too late, my friend. Too late. And what about the
shabu
?’
With a startled look, Dennis tried to dart from the table, but Amel grabbed his wrist and held him back.
‘I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m shattered,’ Philip said. ‘I ought to make a move. Do you think Dennis could call me a cab?’
‘Later,’ Amel said. ‘First he must dance. Dance!’
‘You are having my hand,’ Dennis said wretchedly.
‘So I am,’ Amel replied, making no attempt to release it. ‘You know, Dennis, for such a big prick, your own prick is
pathetically
small. You couldn’t even get it up before. But I’ve got
something
to help you. From one of my associates. Maybe you know him, Eric Humilde?’ Dennis started to quiver. ‘Yes, I thought so. He was waiting for a package from me, which never came. Why’s that, do you suppose?’
‘Business,’ Dennis replied weakly, as he struggled to free himself from Amel’s grip.
‘I was telling him about your little problem: how you were finding it hard to get hard. Not much good in your line of work, is it? And he gave me a special solution, just for you.’
‘No, please!’
‘You might say it’s the solution to all your problems. Father, take the bottle out of my pocket.’
‘What is this, my boy?’ Ray asked.
‘Just do it, Father,’ he said, addressing the dithering Ray sharply in Tagalog. Philip, meanwhile, looked around the
audience
, wondering whether anyone else shared his apprehension, but they were all engrossed in their private performances,
conducting
the transactions of which Max had finally tired. ‘Now open it, carefully.’ As Ray followed Amel’s
instructions
, a puff of smoke formed at the lid and a sharp, stinging smell, like industrial bleach, wafted across the table. ‘You won’t need to worry about getting hard ever again,’ Amel said to Dennis, as he picked up the bottle and poured it into his pouch.
19 November 1984
My dear Mother,
The first thing to say is that I’m in good heart. If there are any blotches on the paper, then they’re sweat not tears. I’m doing my best to keep both myself and the paper dry, but when you’re locked in a clammy cell twelve foot by ten with five fellow
prisoners
it can be hard. As you see, justice still eludes me. An
Australian
journalist put it to me that with all the ups and downs of the past year my life must feel like a rollercoaster. I nodded politely, while reflecting that a better analogy would be the Rotor. Do you remember taking us to it at the Festival of Britain? Greg and Agnes thought themselves too grown-up, but Cora and I
relished
our turn in the giant cylinder that spun ever faster, leaving us
clinging
to the wall, defying gravity. In here, I’m left clinging to my sense of self in a world that defies sanity. Visitors ask how I manage to survive. The answer is ‘with surprising ease’. Prison life is simply everyday life turned inside out and revealed in shocking – but salutary – detail.
Of course the knowledge of my innocence helps.
In my last few letters I’ve reported the charges against us and the characters of my fellow accused; it’s time to paint a picture of the prison itself –you may want to keep this tucked in your copy of Dante. It’s a square, squat building as sturdy as a church,
constructed
a century ago by the Spanish to house unruly peasants and mountain bandits, mainly the Igorot (I use the colonial term not just for historical accuracy but because it denoted several different tribes: as well as the Ibaloi, there were the Bontok, the Ikalahan, the Ifugao and others). In a bitter irony, many of their descendants are locked up here today, following disputes with
mining companies, logging companies, hydroelectric
companies
and all the other ‘lowlanders’ hoping to make a quick buck (the phrase is not idly chosen) by encroaching on their ancestral lands. For all I know, life in the wilds may have inured them to prison conditions, nevertheless the incarceration of such free spirits seems especially cruel.
Four blocks, each comprising six cells, accommodate the three hundred or so high-security prisoners. You don’t need a maths degree to work out that however cramped Benito and I and our
companions
may be, ours is the honeymoon suite compared to our neighbours’. I say cells, but in fact they’re more like cages since the inner walls consist of iron bars through which the men poke their heads like the dogs in Benguet market. There are no windows on the outer walls, but the bars let in light (shadows) and air (stench), along with the incessant,
intolerable
noise. The blocks surround a bleak stone yard through the centre of which runs an open sewer, the conduit for the entire accumulation of prison waste. Needless to say, there are no
lavatories,
just a plastic bucket in the corner of each cell. As you can imagine, this poses problems for one who drove Father to
distraction
by refusing to use the facilities in France. Of the many courtesies afforded to me by my fellow inmates, none has meant so much as their forming a human shield whenever I have to use the bucket. Propriety or prudery, it’s one vestige of my nursery training I’m unable to escape.
At forty-four, I’m one of the older inmates. I’ve yet to discover if that’s because conditions in the high-security wing militate against long-term survival, or because murder, which is what brought most of us here, is a young man’s crime. The prisoners’ youth is not reflected in their faces, which are lined, scarred, weathered and toothless before their time, either from brawling or malnutrition. They shave their heads to remove all trace of softness while cultivating wispy moustaches and beards. Their vaulted chests are blazoned with tattoos. In the sweltering heat, most wear nothing but a pair of stained shorts or a loincloth;
some, however, go to considerable lengths to stand out from the crowd. Three men, reputedly informers, as brazen about their activities in prison as their colleagues were in the parish, strut around in frayed trousers and
barong Tagalogs
discarded by the
haciendos
. Even more bizarre are the pair in the cell opposite, who sport the costumes of Roman centurions left over from an ancient fiesta, not caring that the tunics are ragged and the cloaks crawling with lice.
Anyone who arrives with clothes that are remotely decent soon barters them. In prison everything and everyone has a price. Some men sell their blood to hospitals, although given the prevalence of disease, including TB, I dread to think of the
consequences
. Others hire themselves out as assassins, the guards (and even the governor) happy to authorise their ‘day release’ for a cut of the fee. It may be iniquitous, but in this topsy-turvy world the punishment doesn’t so much fit the crime as facilitate the next one. It’s impossible to survive in here without money to pay for food. Father would have recognised the paltry daily ration of two cups of rice and three minuscule fish. Rest assured that I wouldn’t be telling you any of this if Hugh and the Regional hadn’t left me enough cash to order food every morning for myself and my co-accused.
Boredom is our biggest problem after diet. There are no work programmes and the men, blood rising with the heat, turn on each other at the least provocation. They mill around the yard exercising, sparring, playing basketball or
tong
(a Filipino version of rummy), all the time exchanging genial gibes; then, in a flash, the mood changes and what was a joke becomes a mortal insult. That flash is not merely figurative since knives, to which the guards turn a bribed eye, are plucked from the waistbands of shorts or the soles of shoes and brandished with murderous intent. Benito and I, who are regularly called on to intervene, have to trust to our priestly immunity.
In my own case there’s a further factor in play. Over the years, as I’ve mentioned, I’ve gained a small reputation as a miracle
worker, which has even featured in some of the press reports of this case – not always to my advantage, since an alibi is of limited value to a man with the alleged ability to be in two places at once. In prison, as elsewhere, this reputation is a mixed
blessing.
Overall, my fellow prisoners are cheered by my presence, taking the line that if God permits them to lock up someone whom He has so manifestly favoured… well, you can fill in the rest. The guards, on the other hand, feel threatened by it,
resorting
to taunts of the ‘You saved others, why can’t you save
yourself
?’ variety (the blasphemy is theirs, not mine). I must admit that when I’m lying awake in the small hours, a cacophony of snoring in my ears and the reek of unwashed bodies in my nose, and it’s all too easy to believe that I’ve taken the wrong path, I too am sustained by the thought that whether God were
genuinely
working through me or just prepared to let it seem so, He must have considered me worthy.
Despair is a constant danger. Any momentary reassurance about my own plight frees me to brood on that of others.
Prisoners
’ rights are an alien concept here. The guards beat the inmates as a matter of course, wielding their sticks as readily as you or I might wave our arms. One guard, who I suspect was high on drugs destined for the American airbase, cudgelled a man to death for spitting on his shoes. He was fully exonerated at the inquiry, conducted by his fellow officers, which found him to have acted in self-defence. Some of the inmates have committed appalling crimes (although I incline to Benito’s view that when asked for mitigating circumstances, they should reply: ‘My life’); many more, however, are victims of injustice. This is
exacerbated
in jail, where they can spend five, ten and even twenty years on remand since there aren’t enough judges or even courts to hear their cases. In my bleaker moments I fear that the same may happen to us – no, please ignore that last remark; I’d cross it out only I know it would alarm you.
Benito tells the story, which he swears is true, of a judge determined to prove his impartiality. ‘I want you all to know,’
he said in his opening statement, ‘that the plaintiff has given me 20,000 pesos to bring in a guilty verdict and the defendant has given me 30,000 to bring in an innocent one. I’m therefore handing the defendant back 10,000 pesos to guarantee a fair trial.’
I trust that’s made you smile after the gloom of the previous paragraph. Don’t worry, the media spotlight (and they allow
television
cameras into the courtrooms here) will ensure that this is one case where bribery isn’t an issue; I only wish it were equally effective in eliminating delays. So far we’ve made two
appearances
in nine months. Despite all the arguments presented by our lawyer, the judge ruled that the charge is too serious for him to grant bail. I gather from Hugh that Greg put pressure on the Foreign Office who put pressure on the Philippine government who put pressure on the judge, etc etc, to grant it at least to the two priests. Please assure him that I’m not ungrateful, but both Benito and I are resolved that we should resist any attempt to isolate us from the lay leaders, who would be far more
vulnerable
if left on their own.
The longer we’re held in custody, the clearer it becomes that the charges against us are politically inspired. I myself have earned the undying hatred of the
haciendos
and their allies by insisting that San Isidro was not their private fiefdom. My support for the rights of the tenants and farm workers threatens the landowners’ view of themselves as upstanding Christians. My refusal to
celebrate
a requiem for Quesada, a man whose nominal
independence
was belied by every meal he ate at their tables, every trip he took on their yachts and, above all, every peso he received from their slush funds, gave them the necessary pretext for action. They argue that my animus towards the man was strong enough to drive me to murder. If so, then surely the sensible plan would have been to celebrate the requiem in order to distract attention from my crime? Or do they consider me an idiot as well as a killer? By their logic any priest who denies a request to hold a service in his church would be motivated by guilt.
There’s not a shred of evidence to link me or any of the accused to Quesada’s death. The entire prosecution case is
circumstantial
. Two men claim to have seen my car at the scene of the crime. If they did – which they didn’t – then I wasn’t in it. A third claims to have seen me waving a rifle on the ridge from which the fatal shots were fired. His wife later told a
neighbour
that he was threatened with a murder charge himself if he refused to implicate me. When my lawyer tried to subpoena her, he found that she’d disappeared. So how can we place any
credence
in his testimony?
One of the ostensible reasons for denying me bail is that I cannot corroborate my whereabouts on the night of the murder. ‘I’m a priest,’ I said, ‘whom do you expect to vouch for me between two and six o’clock in the morning?’ Consolacion will testify on my behalf, although I had hoped to have spared her. She’s a simple woman who’s easily intimidated and I fear that her instinctive desire to please may assist the prosecution as much as the defence. If there’s any truth in the notion of the sleep of the just (and, as I lie awake in the heart of a creaking prison, I trust that there isn’t), then it’s to be found in Consolacion. Someone who sleeps through Karajan’s recording of Beethoven’s Ninth played directly underneath her bedroom would have slept through my slipping out for a midnight rendezvous with my fellow assassins. Any halfway competent lawyer will be able to pick holes in her statement. And what if he asks her whether my bed had been slept in? During restless nights I often choose to sit up in my study or stretch out in the hammock on the porch. Were she to mention that, it’d be bound to sow seeds of doubt.
Having feared that the detention of their priest would tear the parish apart, I’m relieved to find that on the contrary, it appears to have brought it together. The crowds who gather every day at the prison gates have inevitably thinned over time, although the Daughters of St Paul maintain their round-the-clock vigil. Many of the well-wishers bring food, which we’re able to
distribute to the needier inmates. There are no restrictions on visitors, whether friends, reporters or even, as last week, a party of schoolgirls brought by the Sisters of the Little Flower Convent to hear Benito preach, the only requirement being to pay the guards’ fee. Meanwhile, the BCCs, who are spearheading the protest campaign, plan to hold a mass rally next month to mark the first anniversary of our arrest, although it remains to be seen whether it will be licensed.
The international interest in the case seems to have taken the authorities by surprise. Rey Sison, the most methodical of the lay leaders, has kept a list of the sixteen countries that have so far sent either journalists or film crews. To have two priests on remand for murder is unusual enough even in the
Philippines,
especially when one of them is English and related to a man whom the
Manila Bulletin
described last week as ‘a juvenile government minister’ – don’t tell Greg but I’ve kept the cutting! Messages of support pour in from around the globe. I’ve been reunited, at least on paper, with old friends from Ampleforth and Oxford, as well as former pupils from Liverpool with names so unfamiliar that I have to take their memories on trust. I’ve received sackfuls of letters from strangers, most but not all of them Catholics, offering their encouragement, their prayers and even their cash. Needless to say, some have been less friendly, written in filth that seems doubly gratuitous given the squalor of the jail. We reply to them all, including the hate mail if it comes with an address. I say ‘we’ because, in view of the volume, the six of us act as a team. I must be the first prisoner in history whose greatest expense is stamps. The Bishop and the Regional make regular appeals for our release, the former being so vocal in his denunciation of our confinement that he has been dubbed the Red Bishop and now travels with a bodyguard as well as a
chaplain.
Benito and I have received the backing, both public and private, of a gratifying number of our fellow priests. On which note, I’d rather you didn’t write to Hendrik. I still respect his work, but our friendship has run its course. Should you wish to
get information either to me or about me, then please contact either the Regional or the Embassy, that is when you can’t ask Hugh.