In straw hats or European bowlers, barefoot or booted, some women in those ridiculous silk-fretted shoes, the world joined in the watery mood: fisherfolk, farmers, architects, pharmacists, foreigners, laborers, and men of law. Soon enough, I too had that wastrel feeling, that abandoned concupiscence that precedes giving everything up to the Lord, or in this case the Lady, titular goddess of peace and good voyage. I joined in the singing, ate the lechon, and frankly drank too much tuba. I did not notice our growing caravan, the circle of boats swimming beside us, filled with carousing, sharp-eyed men. Cascos, bancas, simple outriggers carried, I soon discovered, a host of my old friends, as well as jackfruit, hay, and tinapâ. Was I cross-eyed from drink, or was that Agapito, still looking mournful and agitated, wearing the same funereal suit he wore the last time we parted? Was he still with his radical book club? Would he laugh when I told him I had joined a secret society, like him? Did he want to join my club? I had so many questions! I sang out his name, but he stared as if he did not know me. Maybe I was mistaken, and wine had overturned my brain. I saw companions from San Roque and a few men whom I recognized but couldn’t place. I was getting dizzy, everything unfathomable but familiar. On another boat stood Kapitan Miong, suddenly arrived from Kawit. And where was his brother, the dour Crispulo, I asked him?
—Sssh, Miong said. Crispulo has nothing to do with us.
The last I saw of Mang Crispulo in Antipolo, we had left him behind at the church, lighting up candles to his vested Virgin. Anyway, I thought, Mang Crispulo was a drag, a bit too devout for us drinkers. We called him “Father” behind his back.
But whose sweet image was grinning at me?
There, in a gauze shirt, in festive fungal green and cradling a child, next to Miong, was Benigno, el maestro!
I practically leaped out of my boat to hug him, upsetting some drinkers and getting some flak, but hey—I hadn’t seen him in years! There we were, Benigno and I, rocking and chatting on his little outrigger when we heard a shout, a loud firm voice I knew in my bones.
It was the Supremo, upright, therefore taller than all, and as usual very neatly dressed, with a kerchief at his throat, shouting the meeting to order.
Miong rapped me on my skull: For God’s sake, Bulag, shut up! The meeting’s begun!
It dawned on me, and I felt stupid.
Why had I not guessed?
What an ingenious ruse—to hide out in the open among a carnival crowd, to clump in groups next to the unwitting, praying masses.
The Guardia Civil, our lazy dupes, would not question our congregation—like the rest of the Philippines, we carried candles and were dressed for devotion. The river was so swarming with noise, fireworks, and caravels that no one would bother with yet one more holy communion.
Ah, these rebels were smart!
Some were hugging roosters, carrying rosaries—Benigno was holding up his swaddled child!—pretexts for their presence, solemn pilgrims and gambling men, out to honor Mary and plot the deaths of friars.
Even Mang Crispulo, I thought, had been our blissful instrument—a pious sodalist whose sincere purposes had provided honest cover for our sins! As Miong had explained, “Father” wasn’t one of us.
A thrill coursed through me at my tardy revelation, and I nodded at Miong and shut up, acting as if I had known all along, that we, the Katipunan of the Sons of the People, Kataas-taasang Kagalang-galang na Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan, were out to hold a riverside meeting with aims more devout than any of these murmuring souls could imagine.
And as the meeting wore on, my thoughts wandered, as they do, to the looks of the men about me, both nervous and alert, the Guardia Civil patroling stupidly on the banks in a vague mist, Benigno’s rapt gaze at the Supremo, as if listening to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and the black fingers of Polonio, the printing foreman, whose hands would never recover from their inky trade.
Polonio!
He, too, my fellow worker at the Diario!
So that’s what you’re all up to, I thought, you filibusteros: aha! Who’ve you been trying to fool with your pensive poses?
Except that I, literally speaking, was on the same boat with him.
I gazed at my nervous confrére from the printing press and recognized others from my job: Letra, Figura, et al. I winked at them, but none of the rascals got my drift. And though after all this time they were still snubbing me, I had to admire their steely gaze.
I heard a shout.
Mabuhay!
Hurrah, hurrah!
Viva!
I clapped my hands with all of them and kicked myself for not knowing what the commotion was all about.
The Supremo was saying: All right, then we must ask his advice! We will now consider who will visit him in Dapitan.
Dapitan!
My ears pricked up, my head was suddenly all clear.
Was it what I hoped? Were they going to rescue him from exile, did they vote to take him by force from the island? They say he’s writing the third novel—will we get to see the last instalment of his hoped-for trilogy, the triple-decker of my dreams?
That’s so right, I thought—why hadn’t we all thought of it from Day One?!
That should be the first act of the revolution.
Yes! Rescue the Writer from Dapitan!
My God,
