Carriscant, or so he told me, sat impassively through the farcical proceedings simply counting the days off as they went by. He could not believe his luck that, in the huge fuss and scandal of his arrest and trial, Delphine Sieverance's 'death' had been virtually forgotten. What had happened was this: with Jepson Sieverance dead no one thought to claim or make arrangements for the coffined body lying in the San Jeronimo morgue. It was not until four days after Carriscant's arrest that Delphine's friend Mrs Oliver suddenly remembered and decided that someone should arrange a funeral. This was done discreetly and with great speed as the warm and humid weather had significantly accelerated the decomposition of the body. The funeral took place the next day and the body was buried at the Paco cemetery in a small ceremony attended by a few friends and, as a mark of respect, Mrs William Taft. Sieverance's body was embalmed and shipped home to his family where he was buried with full military honours.
Carriscant's explanation of this oversight was that it was due to Bobby's obsession. He was so convinced that Pantaleon Quiroga was the murderer of Ward and Braun that the only explanation of Sieverance's killing was that it had to have been carried out by an accomplice, and Salvador Carriscant regrettably fitted that bill. The last person seen with Sieverance had been Carriscant-talking outside the San Jeronimo. The gauze mask, the absence of an alibi and, to Bobby's mind, recollections of the testimony of the old man who claimed to have seen Carriscant out and about on the night of the Braun murder were sufficient to make the arrest. Any other route of investigation-such as the last murder not being connected to the first two-was never followed up. The death in premature childbirth of Delphine Sieverance and the murder of her husband by rebels was seen by polite Manila society as a ghastly double tragedy, a potent illustration of the white man's burden, and no-one sought to establish any connection that might have existed between the two. So Carriscant sat in court silent and unforthcoming, knowing exactly who was responsible for the death of Colonel Jepson Sieverance (although baffled as to the motive), and knowing too that any attempt to protest or establish his own innocence would have terrible consequences. As innuendo and circumstance, blustering argument and gimcrack reasoning slowly wound a skein of guilt about him so, as each day and week passed by, was the guilty party's freedom more assured. And that freedom became absolute the day he was sentenced and the case was effectively closed.
Carriscant spent eight years behind the grey walls of Bilibid prison before he was transferred to the island of Guam, to a prison camp for former unrepentant insurrectos (battles were still being waged in the hills of Mindanao as late as 1913) run by the US military. In 1919, after serving sixteen years of his sentence he was paroled and went to live in Capiz, on Panay island, where he opened a small restaurant in the main square of that pretty provincial town. He was still obliged to report to the authorities in Iloilo once a month until the full term of his sentence was up. He never returned to Manila and lived quietly and forgotten in Capiz where his restaurant, ' La Esperanza', earned him a decent living. It was only in 1935 when he bought the house of a former Portuguese manager of the sugar refinery there, and came across a stack of old illustrated magazines through which he idly leafed, that he ever thought about moving.
I asked Carriscant how he had survived his sixteen years of incarceration. 'Two things, really,' he said, 'though I have to tell you conditions were not so tough, especially on Guam. It was more like a farm there, and I ended up running the camp's kitchens.' The first was the ever-sustaining knowledge that Delphine at least was free, that she had escaped, and somewhere was leading the new life that they had both planned. 'I was the only person in the world who knew she was not buried in Paco cemetery. A big secret, that, a secret worth keeping. I was consoled by it. As long as I kept the secret she was safe. It helped to know that.'
'What was the second thing?'
'You.'
Love is not a feeling. It does not belong to that category of bodily experience which would include, for instance, pain. Love and pain are not the same at all. Love is put to the test – pain is not. You do not say of pain, as you do of love, 'That was not true pain, or it would not have disappeared so quickly.'
It was Udo Leys who told Carriscant about Annaliese's pregnancy. Udo died in 1905 and in the years up to his death he was Carriscant's only visitor in Bilibid. It was a month after the verdict that he broke the news that Annaliese was leaving the Philippines.
'She's going back to Germany,' Udo told him, morosely. 'I tell her no but she says she can't live here. The shame, the scandal. Everyone knows her as the woman married to the murderer.'
'But I wasn't found guilty of murder.'
' Salvador, I have to tell you, everyone talks as if you did it.'
'Jesus Christ… Anyway, I'm sorry about Annaliese, I knew it would be hard on her.' He thought for a while. 'I'd like to see her before she goes.'
'Ah, Salvador, she'll never see you. Never again, she say. She's even given up her job with the bishop. She stays indoors, she can't face anyone.'
'Did you give her my last letter?'
'She tear it up, before my eyes. She won't see you.'
'Poor Annaliese… I should've thought how difficult it would be for her to stay here.'
'Listen, it's not so easy for me,' Udo protested equably. 'Everybody talks about it, everybody wonders how and why, why were those men selected as victims… A cause celebre, Salvador. They'll be talking about it for years.'
'I didn't do it, Udo. I didn't do anything. I'm an innocent man.'
'Of course you are. I know that. But you'll never stop people talking.' He smiled apologetically. 'Anyway, it'll be better for the child to grow up away from this atmosphere.'
'What child?'
Udo frowned. 'Didn't Annaliese write to you? She's pregnant.'
We dined in the hotel: a mutton stew which I disliked but which Carriscant declared was among the finest he had ever tasted.
'Mutton is a coarse fibrous meat with a strong taste. This dish is not pretending to be anything else. Garlic, potatoes, carrots and cabbage, what more could you ask for?' Back on dry land his appetite had returned. The dessert was a dense flat triangle of cake, a kind of heavy sponge, served with syrup from a green and gold can. The clientele were all smartly dressed, the dining tables covered with clean linen, the silverware much used but well shined.
'I like this hotel,' Carriscant said, spooning more syrup. 'I could live here.'
Adulthood. When the prospect of physical or sensual excess is no longer enticing. Is this why I feel an adult? Is this why I feel so old beside Salvador Carriscant?
THURSDAY, 4 MAY
I sit at the pine table in my room and stare out at the street with the trams going by with a clatter and fizz. Their approach is announced by a singing of the electric wires, a kind of ghostly monotone whistle. A weak sun is shining today and new fragile green leaves flutter bravely in the cool breeze that blows off the estuary.
So: S.C.'s version goes like this. During the false period of reconciliation with Annaliese they made love. He only specified one occasion, when she came into his study, but he did say he 'reoccupied the marital bed'. It is not unreasonable to suppose that the event recurred. Annaliese became pregnant but probably only became aware of her condition after the arrest and trial. She never saw him again after he was arrested. She refused to attend the trial or visit him in prison after she was made aware of the unsent farewell letter. Then she quit Manila sometime towards the end of 1903 for German New Guinea. So let us say the child was conceived in early May 1903… It would have been born in January 1904. My date of birth is 9 January 1904.
My head fills with clamouring questions when I try to come to terms with these facts. How did she end up in German New Guinea? Carriscant said Udo Leys told him she was returning to Germany… How did she meet Hugh Paget? Was she married to him by the time I was born, or did he marry her afterwards and adopt the baby girl as his own?… The thought comes to me that Hugh Paget might be merely a convenient fiction. An old photograph of a man of the cloth, found somewhere. A handy sad story to relate to a kind fellow like Rudolf Fischer; a neat explanation for the presence of a baby daughter. My mother is no fool. Widow's weeds hide a great deal…
Hugh Paget. My English father.
