When the Elephants Dance (47 page)

“Undress,” he ordered.

“What?”

“Take pants off. Now.”

I knew the Japanese were fond of taking the wristwatches of the Amerikanos, even their shoes. My pants were tattered and wet from the river, but we were the same size; maybe he would use them later.

As I began to undo my trousers he walked behind me, and I noticed that he was unbuckling his own pants. That was when I realized what he intended to do. I cannot explain what happened next. I was weary from working, I was dizzy from hunger, but I felt all the indignity at that moment overflow. They have raped our women, they have butchered babies, and now this bastard wished to rape me? He selected me with the injured leg. He thought to take the weakest from the group. What he did not know was that this leg has taught me to fight early on in life. I became a madman. I lunged at him with all the anger and terror and shame of the last few days. I broke his nose with one punch. He dropped his bayonet and I picked it up. I became like a rabid dog. I stabbed him in the face. The feel of the blade as it tore into his skin gave me immense pleasure. I took both his eyes out. I ripped him open from his neck to his waist. I spoke no words. There was only the sound of my heavy breathing and the grunts that came from my belly. All the while my mind was screaming,
Run, run!

He tried to raise a hand to protect himself, and it only angered me more.

I yanked the scabbard from his waist and pulled out his sword. I raised it high as I had seen the other soldiers do, and I split open his skull. Blood splattered hot and salty against my face. But that was not enough. I raised it again and chopped his head. And still I could not stop. I cut off both his arms. I separated the hands from the arms. I chopped at his severed head, raising the sword again and again until his face could no longer be recognized. When I was through I was drenched with his blood. I staggered over to the barbed wire, and by the grace of the Almighty I managed to climb the fence and escape.

I lost my mind. I walked for days. I could not cool the rage that burned in me. It was only by some miracle that I saw all of you led into this place. And then a soldier found my hiding place and brought me here. I thought the Lord had deserted me, but He was with me all the time. You have survived, all of you, and I thank God a thousand times. Do not fear. He has brought us together for a reason. He will see us through. Perhaps Domingo will save us yet.

~
W
HEN
M
ANG
C
ARLITO FINISHES HIS STORY
, he is weeping. He looks at his son.

“Alejandro, did you watch over your mama?” he asks with a weak smile.

“Yes, Papa,” he answers.

“I see that you have become head of the household once again.”

“Carlito,” Aling Louisa weeps, and smiles. “If only they would let me clean your wounds. How badly are you hurt?”

Mang Carlito raises his hand. “I am fine. Only a flesh wound.”

“You have been returned to us.” Aling Louisa whispers.

“It is a sign. There is still hope for us.” Aling Anna smiles.

“You are like a mouse that survives again and again, old friend.” Mang Selso claps him on the back. Everyone is rejuvenated by the sight of him.

“You see how everyone is strengthened by his return?” Mang Pedro asks me. “You see what family does for one another? I had a family once that loved me. But I was lured away by other things.” He turns to me and says with great conviction, “Do not make the same mistake.”

“I hear your words, Mang Ped, but I have a duty, a responsibility, to fight.”

Tay Fredrico, the old Spaniard, interrupts our discussion. “But if one does not fight, then what becomes of our families? Will there be any left?” His Castilian accent still comes through, though he has not spoken the language in many years.

We watch Tay Fredrico carefully. Nearly seventy-five years old and still strong in his opinions. This last year of the occupation has taken his strength, but not his spirit. The sounds of warfare seem to have awakened something in him.

“Domingo, I asked you a question. Show some respect to your elders,” he barks.

“If there is no one left to fight, there will be no families.” This answer comes easily to my lips, for it is what I truly believe.

“Bueno
, good. We see eye to eye, eh?” He leans back and gives his son, Mang Selso, a disparaging eye, then winks at me conspiratorially. “Let me tell you about the family I had, and the second family I found. And all of you, tell me which one was the more important.”

W
HEN
I
WAS A YOUNG MAN
of eighteen, I was fast creating a name for myself as an artist of Michelangelo’s caliber. I had a great future ahead of me, but I was told by a fortune-teller that I had only one more year to live. There was a curse on our family, on the Jacinto-Basa name.

It began long ago, in the sixteenth century, when the Philippinas was still ruled by village chieftains. My ancestors descended from their Spanish galleons and took the land from the tribal chiefs. The tribes were not united, so there was no solidarity with which to fight off our superior Spanish hordes. The tribes raged against our Spanish conquistadores. In the battle, eight of the chieftains’ sons were killed, ending their legacy. We claimed the land and divided it into
encomiendas
, districts, and these districts were distributed among the Jacinto-Basas. The chieftains bowed in prayer on their stolen land, lacerating themselves and swearing vengeance on us as their blood poured onto the earth. Eight of our leading families were then cursed. The curse was this: In each generation one male would not live past his nineteenth birthday. After a total of eight died throughout the years to replace their eight sons, the curse would be lifted.

My mother forbade us to speak of it, as if by not speaking a word, she would fool the curse somehow. My brother, cousins, and I joked about it often. No one knew for sure who would be the eighth to die. We were after all a big clan, and several of us, including myself, were to turn nineteen the following year. “This may well be your last night. Live hard,” we used to say. That was our motto. It would enrage my mother to hear such talk.

There were many of us cousins, both Jacintos and Basas. The families were either Peninsulares, Spanish of pure blood born in Spain; Insulares, pure blood born on the island; or mestizos, not even pure blood, but mixed with that of the islanders. My brother, Oscar, and I were the lowest rung, the mixed blood. But even so, our status was much higher than that of the natives. We were the open sky above their dark heads.

My great-great-uncle had died one summer in Marinduque from a cholera epidemic the day before his nineteenth birthday. His father before him had died from a poisonous snake. Our father had died when he was eighteen, and he had been the youngest boy. Our grandfather had died from a landslide. Before that, a distant ancestor had drowned in a boating accident, one from turberculosis, another was shot in a hunting expedition, all before turning
nineteen. The curse also seemed to favor the youngest. So being the youngest of all the Jacinto-Basas, it seemed my manifest destiny to be the next and final candidate to complete the curse.

My brother, Oscar, would joke, “What do I care? I am the eldest. Maybe it will get cousin Edgar and we will all be happy.” We would laugh. Edgar was very feminine, and it pained my brother when Edgar accompanied us on our outings. You must understand, ours was a very manly group. We could be wetting our pants from fear, but we would never show it. I for one liked Edgar. He would rather go to the grave than spill a secret, and whenever he promised something, it could always be counted on, like rain on a suffocating day. I think secretly Oscar was quite fond of him as well.

W
HAT WAS THE
Philippinas like in 1870? You would not believe it if I told you. You must remember this was nearly thirty years before the execution of reformist Dr. José Rizal became the match to light the voice of oppression against Spanish rule. Manila in particular was so new, like a baby flower just sprouting from the dirt, but with a promise of great beauty. Spain had opened Manila to world trade and foreign investment. Everywhere one looked, great churches were being designed and baptized with Spanish names, Santa Isabela, Santa Teresa, San Pedro. Houses were being built on hillsides, with great verandas that circled the entire villa. And in Manila Bay, where the white flowers grow, you could see ships of every possible nation represented. Dutch ships, barges carrying spices from India, from Thailand, from France. Great ships arrived from Spain each month, carrying more of our people. We Spaniards owned all the land.

At the square, our women paraded in elaborate dresses. They wore the most delicate lace to cover their silken hair. The señoritas were exotic flowers adorning an already outlandish island.

Our ancestor was said to have arrived in 1521 with the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan serving under the Spanish royalty. This ancestor was whispered to be a bastard, a descendant of Philip II, the king of Spain, for whom our beautiful islands are named. Our grandmother was rumored to have been a
lavandera
, a Filipina woman who cleaned clothes. Our uncles had admitted to this on numerous occasions when they had partaken of too much wine.

To look at us, you could not tell. We looked pure Spanish. Oscar, in fact, had blue eyes. I myself have only the hazel, as you can see. Brown when I am near the earth, green when I am in a garden or forest. We were very handsome, and we were favored among the ladies of both classes, of both nationalities.
Although Oscar liked to dabble with any beautiful woman, he courted the Filipinas only in secret. He did not like to be frowned upon by his peers or turned away by the lovely Spanish flowers, who turned up their noses at the delicate Filipinas. “Why lie with the filth of the savages?” was the common saying then.

I loved only the Spanish women. I thought that nothing could compare to them. The way they looked down at you, with their straight noses, and enticed you with their dark round eyes kept me awake at night. I painted many images of them to canvas, just from memory. I thought of those arms that could wrap around your neck like clinging vines, their skin the color of cream, ah, and those bodies … ay, María.

I was very different then. I felt I owned the world. If Oscar and I were at the market, even if we had money to pay, and quite often money was literally falling out of our pockets, we would grab up a mango or
suhà
, the giant orange, and take it without paying. The merchants knew our family controlled most of their trades, and they could say nothing.

We would peel the fruits with our teeth and spit it back at them. Even as the merchants were scrambling to clean away the mess, I would kick it away. We were wild boys. What would you expect? No father, with only rich, arrogant uncles to mimic.

We lived in a large house with an upstairs and a downstairs, with more than a hundred or more hectares of land. We were of the Ilustrado class, descendants of the educated upper class. We had completed our studies in Spain. Oscar studied law, so he could “always fool the officials with their own game,” he used to joke.

I was creating a name for myself as a great artist. I had studied with the famous Spanish artist Joaquín Sorolla in Valencia. Probably only the old people know that. You know the grand mural in Santa Teresa church? The three panels of the Virgin as she beholds the Ascension of her Son into heaven, where the doves are flying around her like a halo and the angels with their great wings are bowing down before Him, the Messiah? I painted that one.

The one of large yellow orchids on the cupola of the library in Santo Tomas, that was me at sixteen. Tsk, tsk, that was a romantic one. I was very romantic as a boy. If you look closely at the corner flower, the name on the bumblebee is “Anna Lisa,” a Spanish girl I was in love with for a week. I was also commissioned to do many portraits for private families. I painted many of those, but the ones that sold for high prices were the ones I was later persecuted for.

They called me a child genius at the time. In Madrid they said I had great promise. I was their answer to Italy’s Raphael. My teacher wanted me to stay longer, but even then I had the Philippinas running in my mind. The hot
days and nights, the tropical flowers, and our lovely señoritas dark from the island sun.

I have seen a few of my paintings since then, in the homes of people who do not know that I painted them. Imagine, people turning up their noses at me and saying, “But what does a peasant like you know about art? Look, look at this … ah, but only a master could have painted such a design, no? Study the balance of this piece. Look how he captures the light; look at how the eyes of the woman in the painting seduce you.” You can imagine how I laughed inside, when I agreed, “Yes, you are right, only the very best master.” Yes, I remember now, I walked on stars then.

Painting was in my blood, the deep colors of olive, green, blue, yellow, and rust, all flowing through my veins. You cannot imagine the gaudy sunsets that our islands displayed, unmarred by the smoke and mechanical instruments of today. I can still smell the yellow paint, and with the yellow paint, the yellow flowers I had conjured in my mind. It pervaded the room, so sweet. So sweet, that time was.

I
STILL REMEMBER
the morning of Oscar’s nineteenth birthday. We woke very early, with the golden rose of the sun just breaking the sky and the cool mountain air still lingering at the base. I loved those mornings, waking up and inhaling from my window the sweet smell of a certain kind of flower we called
bella maria
, which climbed outside our house. It had the scent of jasmine, rose, and orange rinds. That is the only way I can think to describe it. Think of the fresh scent of an orange when you first peel it, add to it the fragrance of the rose, then you will be close. It was colored like a flame, deep yellow and red. My mother loved this flower, so it clung to our house, perpetually scaling to touch the heavens. That morning our house was still asleep, for our family loved to rest. First they slept, and then they rested in their beds, curling and stretching their toes beneath the silken Indian sheets.