Tree of Smoke (14 page)

She said, “We Westerners have many blessings. A freer will. We’re free from certain…” She stalled in her thoughts.

“We have rights. Liberty. Democracy.”

“That’s not what I mean. I don’t know how to say it. There are questions about free will.” She trembled to ask him now if he’d perhaps read John Calvin…No. Even the question was an abyss.

“Are you feeling okay?”

“Mr. Sands,” she said, “do you know Christ?”

“I’m Catholic.”

“Yes. But do you know Christ?”

“Well,” he said, “not in the way I think you mean.”

“Neither do I.”

To this he said nothing.

“I thought I knew Christ,” she said, “but I was entirely mistaken.”

She noticed he sat very still when he had nothing to say.

“We’re not all crazy here, you know,” she said.—Another one he had no reply for. “I’m sorry,” she said.

He cleared his throat carefully. “You could go home, couldn’t you?”

“Oh, no. I couldn’t do that.” She could sense him fearing to ask why. “Just because then I’d never get anything straightened out.”

This American created a silence hard to resist. She had to fill it: “You know, it’s not unusual, it’s not weird, it’s not unheard of, to go on in the middle of tragedy. Look at where we are! The sun keeps rising and setting. Each day kicks more room in your heart—what would be the word…the love is relentless, relentlessly pushing, it keeps pushing and kicking like a child inside you. All right, then! That’s enough out of me!” What a fool I am! she almost shouted.

The setting sun lowered from the clouds and struck up at them in such a way that suddenly the entire town throbbed with a scarlet light. The American didn’t comment on it. He said, “And what happens when all this is, is, is—concluded?”

“There, congratulations, you found a word.”

“Sorry.”

“You mean if Timothy’s dead?”

“If, well—yes. Sorry.”

“We don’t know what happened to him. He got on the bus for Malaybalay, and we’re still waiting for him to come back. He seemed ill, he promised he’d see a doctor at the sanitarium there before he kept any other appointments. As far as we know, nobody at the sanitarium saw him. We’re not sure he arrived in Malaybalay at all. We’ve been to every town between here and there—nothing, nothing, no news.”

“And I guess it’s been a little while.”

“Seventeen weeks,” she said. “Everything’s been done.”

“Everything?”

“We’ve contacted everybody, all the authorities, the embassy, and our families, of course. We’ve all made a thousand calls, everyone’s gone crazy a thousand times. His father came over in July and posted a reward.”

“A reward. Is he pretty well off?”

“No, not at all.”

“Oh.”

“There’s been a development, though. Some remains have been found.”

True to his midwestern origins, the American reacted to this remark by saying, “Ah,” and, “Uh-huh.”

“So right now we’re waiting for word about the corpse’s effects.”

“Mayor Luis told me.”

“And if it’s Timothy? I’ll stay for a while, and then find a new post, which is what we planned on anyway. Or, if Timothy comes back to surprise us all—which he might do, you don’t know Timothy—and if he does, we’ll probably just go on with the plan. He’s due for a change. Wanted a change, a new challenge. Meaning the same old problems in a brand-new location. And I’m a nurse, they’ll take me wherever they can get me. Thailand, or Laos, or Vietnam.”

“North Vietnam, or South?”

She said: “We do have people in the North.”

“The Seventh-Day Adventists?”

“The ICRE—International Children’s Relief Effort.”

“Right, the ICRE.” And suddenly he launched out passionately, “Listen, these folks around here will never have much better than what they’ve got. But their children might. Free enterprise means innovation, education, prosperity, all the corny stuff. And free enterprise is bound to spread, that’s its nature. Their great-grandkids will have it better than we do in the States.”

“Well,” she said, taken aback, “those are nice thoughts, those are hopeful words. But ‘these folks’ can’t eat words. They need some rice in their bellies, and I mean tonight.”

“Under Communism their kids might eat better tonight. But their grandkids will starve to death in a world that’s all one big prison.”

“And how did we get on this topic, anyway?”

“Did you know the ICRE is considered a Communist front?”

“No. Is that true?” In fact she hadn’t heard, and didn’t much care.

“The U.S. Embassy in Saigon considers them Third Force.”

“Well, Mr. Sands, I’m not a fifth column, or a third force. I don’t even know what a third force is.”

“It’s neither Communist nor anti-Communist. But more helpful to the Communists.”

“And do you folks at Del Monte spend a lot of time at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon?”

“We get bulletins from all over.”

“The ICRE is a tiny outfit. We get along on grants from a dozen charitable foundations. We have an office in Minneapolis and about forty nurses in the field in I don’t know how many countries. Fifteen or sixteen countries, I believe. Mr. Sands, you seem upset.”

He said, “Do I? You must have been pretty upset yourself the other night.”

“When?”

“In Malaybalay.”

“Malaybalay?”

“Oh, come on—in the Italian place? When the mayor mentioned Kathy Jones the Seventh-Day Adventist, the name was the same. But I sure didn’t think it was you.”

“Why is that?”

“That night you didn’t seem like any Seventh-Day Adventist.”

The American seemed to be waiting in his colorful Bermuda shorts for some word from her, though plainly there wasn’t any use. “The mayor and his family have been very good to me.”

“Well, I mean—come on.”

“We don’t always tell the whole story about ourselves, do we? For instance, the mayor thinks you’re not who you say you are at all. He says you’re on a secret mission.”

“I’m not from Del Monte, you mean? I’m a spy for Dole Pineapple?”

“Your uncle said he was from AID.”

“Did you get much chance to talk to him?”

“He’s a colorful old rogue.”

“I guess you did. Who was he with?”

“Nobody.”

“Oh. But the mayor mentioned a couple of others. A German, maybe.”

“They came around much more recently.”

“The other two? When were they here? Do you remember?”

“I left Friday. So they were here Thursday.”

“You’re saying last Thursday. Four days ago.”

“One two three four, yes, four days. Is that bad?”

“No, no, no. I just wish I hadn’t missed them. Who was the German with?”

“Let me see. A Filipino. From the military.”

“Aha, Major Aguinaldo.”

“I didn’t actually see him.”

“He’s a friend of ours. But I’m not sure about the German guy. Was he German? I’m not sure I know him. The mayor said he had a beard.”

“A Swiss, the mayor said.”

“With a beard?”

“I didn’t see him.”

“But you saw the colonel.”

“We don’t see many beards around here. That must prickle. So does that mustache, I bet you.”

He faced her in silence, as if in defiant expectation of her examination of him—no hat, sweat dripping from his drenched scalp, also from his drooping mustache…Now he allowed himself to look around, to take in the vermilion glow surrounding them just as it faded. “Wow,” he said.

“My grandmother called this the gloaming.”

“Sometimes it just knocks you out.”

“In five minutes the skeeters will be swarming and we’ll be eaten alive.”

“The gloaming. Sounds Gaelic.”

“There it goes. It was almost like liquid.”

“Makes you feel more certain of Heaven.”

“I’m not sure Heaven is really all that much to be desired,” she said.

She’d assumed this would shock him, but he said, “I think I kind of know what you mean.”

She said, “Do you travel with the Word?”

“The word?—Oh.”

“Do you have a Bible with you—I mean at the hotel?”

“No.”

“Well, we can certainly arrange to place one in your hands.”

“Well—all righty.”

“The Catholics don’t quite cling to the Word the way the rest of us do, do they?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know how the rest of you do.”

“Mr. Sands, how did I get on your bad side?”

“I’m very sorry,” he said. “That’s not the situation at all. I’m just not being very polite, and I should be ashamed.”

The apology touched her. She sought to frame some gracious acceptance.

Sands said, “Who’s this coming with Mayor Luis? The guy’s toting a spear.”

She spied the mayor and two others walking down the thoroughfare of packed mud and shallow puddles, the mayor in his white sport shirt like a muumuu over his vast belly, one of the men with him pointing a long spear toward the clouds, the other one smoking a cigarette, and instantly she knew.

“Oh, my gosh,” she said, and cried, “Mayor Luis! Mayor!”

She stood up, and so did Skip Sands. In her left hand she held his white handkerchief, on which she’d been sitting. The men turned and headed toward them. “She is here, she is here,” the mayor said. They seemed to bring the dusk on as they came. The end of the cigarette flared in the dark. “Kathy,” the mayor said, “it’s very sad.”

She couldn’t remember, at this moment, whether she’d ever really harbored any hope.

Mayor Luis seemed to be speaking to Skip: “I’m very sad to be the one. But unfortunately I am still the mayor.”

The mayor held out the ring, and in order to take it in her fingers, she dropped the American’s white handkerchief.

“Kathy, we are all very sad tonight.”

“I can’t see if it’s inscribed.”

“The inscription is there. I have such sadness bringing you this evidence.”

“So that’s it, then.”

“Yes,” Luis said.

She held Timothy’s ring in her hand. “Now what? What do I do with this?” She put it on her right index finger.

“I’ll let you folks go on,” Skip said.

“No, don’t go.” She had hold of his hand.

“It’s truly a tragedy,” he said.

“Come, Kathy,” the mayor said. “Skip will pay his sympathies later.”

The mayor’s younger companion tossed his cigarette into a puddle. “We have accomplished a long journey for you.”

Now they had to be paid. Who paid? “Am I the one who gives you the fifty pesos?” she said. Nobody answered. “And do you have, did you bring, isn’t there more?” She turned to the old man with the spear, but his face was blank, he had no English.

“Yes. We have Timmy’s physical remains at my house,” the mayor said. “My wife is beside them, keeping a silent vigil until I bring you. Yes, Kathy, our Timmy is deceased. It’s time to mourn.”

S
ands walked by Mrs. Jones’s house three or four times before he saw a light on inside. By then it was past eleven at night, but here people took long siestas and stayed up till all hours.

He mounted the steps and came under her porch light, a neon ring speckled with tiny insects. Through the window he saw her standing in the middle of her parlor looking lost. From her hand dangled a bottle by its neck.

Apparently she was able to see him, too. “Would you like a cigar?” she said.

“What?” he said.

“Would you like a cigar?”

A perfectly simple question he couldn’t answer.

“I’m having a sip or two tonight.”

He had to step back as she pushed the door open and came to sit on the porch railing. She wasn’t steady, and he expected her to fall off into the dark.

“I want you to taste this.”

“What is it?”

“It’s brandy.”

“I don’t care for the hard stuff.”

“It’s rice brandy.”

“Rice?”

“It’s rice brandy. It’s…rice brandy.”

“Are you feeling—” He stopped. What a stupid way to begin. Her husband was dead.

“No.”

“No?”

“I’m not.”

“You’re—”

“I’m not feeling.”

“Mrs. Jones,” he said.

“No, don’t go,” she said. “I asked you don’t go before, and you just left. Listen, don’t worry, I knew all along he wouldn’t make it. That’s why I grabbed your hand that time in the restaurant. I knew it was hopeless. It’s hopeless, so why don’t we all just—go to bed.”

“Jesus,” he said.

“I don’t mean right now. Yes, I mean right now. Shut up, Kathy. You’re drunk.”

“You’d better get something in your stomach.”

“I have some pork, if it hasn’t turned.”

“You’d better have a meal, don’t you think?”

“And rolls.”

“Rolls would probably—” He stopped. He’d meant to say they might absorb some of the brandy, but it was hot, his neck was painfully sunburned, and what was the point of discussing the absorbent qualities of various foods?

“What is it, young man?”

“I’m living without air-conditioning.”

She eyed him closely. She appeared more crazy than drunk.

She said, “I’m sorry to hear about your husband.”

“What?”

Her blouse was half unbuttoned, split slightly almost to her navel. Surprising tiny blue flowers patterned her bra. Sweat dripped down her belly. He himself had a hurtful irritating skin rash from his armpits to his nipples. He wanted ice against his flesh. He wished it would snow.

Mrs. Jones said, “If you come in and have some brandy, I’ll eat some food. It’s air-conditioned.”

The air conditioner was in the bedroom, and they went to bed and made some kind of love. Throughout, he felt awkward. No. Ugly. He got her hands off him immediately afterward, dressed, and walked back to the hotel with the remorse blackening his brain, gumming it up like dirty grease. A new widow, and on the very day she got the news…She, on the other hand, had afterward seemed unashamed, and not so drunk. She’d only seemed angry at her husband for being dead.

He walked by her house the next night but saw no light inside. He tried knocking and got no answer. Any louder and he’d wake the neighbors. He left.

The dry season hadn’t come yet, but it didn’t rain. Immediately after each sunset a lid of clouds pressed the heat down on Damulog and crushed the blossoms and forced its way inside everybody’s head. Slowly the whole town sipped rum. Romy, the young survey engineer, started a fistfight with some Muslims in the Sunshine Eatery and they beat him up out in the square, but nobody even left the tables to watch.