The telegraph man, Mr. Dizon, kept joking about how he could barely recognize us without the blindfolds. Ha ha, good one, but you said that already last time, and anyway, I thought, why do these people keep making fun of me, their host, but all I did was laugh.
Meanwhile no one could ignore Miong in his cloud of sorrow.
—That purser!, Miong exclaimed. Acts like a katsila just because he knows some Spanish.
—Someone insulted you on the boat? asked the Supremo.
—At the port office. I got his name and badge. Ramon Padilla. He’s just a functionary. How dare he look at me as if I were not a gobernadorcillo! He will remember me one of these days. I may not speak Spanish as well as he, but did he not see my cane?
—Ah, Don Emilio, isn’t it only to be expected?, softly inserted the Supremo. We are not masters of our destiny as long as Spaniards hold sway.
—But Supremo, Ramon Padilla is a Filipino, from Pandacan, not a Spaniard, I exclaimed.
—Scoundrel, said Miong. All the more reason to slap him.
—But Miong—, I began.
The Supremo, however, raised his hand. He shook his head with the sorrow of one who was not surprised.
—The tragedy of our circumstances is that we can only ape the corrupt manners of our superiors. We’re a bunch of beasts without redemption. Without freedom, we turn into rude animals with Spanish brutes for our models, and one day to our sadness we will turn out just like them, a brood of monstrous assassins.412 Daily, under the Spanish yoke, I fear we lose our better angels. You don’t know, my friend, how the specter of this erosion is a constant grief. Brother Emilio, do not worry. We will take care of Señor Padilla. We are not blood brothers for nothing. Anyway, we know where he lives in Pandacan.
Quoting all of the above with philosophical license, I will submit here that it’s not that the Supremo had a dull-brained empathy, eager to please, which smacks of the undiscerning. In fact, he was a calm, collected man with—and I say this with tenderness—an almost irritating lethargic demeanor.
His introspective gaze and quick disgust struck me as not so much empathic as saddened: as if the world constantly revealed actions too base for him to bear. His frank air of compassion belied, I feared, the moody nihilism that knocks like an imp at idealism’s door.
It’s this current of anguish that attracted me to the Supremo, that lashed me like hemp to his baleful ark. What optimistic dreams spurred our brotherhood, and yet from what mute pessimism did it spring forth?
I do not entangle him in my melancholy, mind you: he prompted it.
Miong’s gambit was not entirely ingenious: Miong had more self-love than he had cunning. I mention this with the regret of a kinsman. Amor propio hung like fool’s gold on his blighted chest. There was no malice in his constant calling of attention to his personal injuries, no plan to dominate our sympathies by always retelling his awful adventures.
It was just that the world according to Miong was all about him.
Only when the Supremo took on Miong’s cause with the resources of a general, calling upon his men to fetch the darned Padilla, to throw the gauntlet of a duel—the poor man’s choice of weapons, knife or nightstick—and settle the time and place of revenge, did Miong admit—that his cause was stupid.
It was then, in a flash of insight that had eluded me throughout my boyhood, that I saw Miong in flagrante for what he was—kind of a whiner. Among friends he talked like a bully, but in public he had second thoughts.
His complaint was a trifle and not worth all the fuss, really, he kept saying, while the Supremo’s men geared up to back his honor.
For one thing, his eyes said, he would much rather live.
—So, Miong, I whispered, amidst all the commotion, you got your wish. You will be fighting your enemy tonight. Are you happy now?
—Shut up, Bulag.
His face was flushed. I swear I could hear his heart beating from two butakas away. Santiago, too, couldn’t help ribbing him, but he did it loudly, because, after all, they were related, by marriage.
—Hah, Don Emilio, why’s your face so red?
Miong knew he could not get out of the mess without dishonor, and yet you could tell (from the fingers tightening on his gobernadorcillo’s cane) his rising tension as the clock ticked away the minutes to Padilla’s rebuttal.
I myself was confused by the escalation of events.
Only an hour ago we were laughing while eating old Rufino’s mediocre merienda, langka seeds as miserably undercooked as Mr. Dizon’s jokes were stale, and now here we were contemplating death.
Like everyone else, I felt both thrill and dread, relishing a fight and not wanting it to begin, rocking restlessly on my butaka. The Supremo waited for Padilla’s reply with remarkable composure, though his honor, perhaps more than Miong’s, was at stake in this challenge. In fact, the Supremo was almost glacially composed, reading a frayed copy of La Ilustración413 while taking a peek now and then at Miong’s giveaway agitation, his feet tapping and hands clenched, telltale sweat as he feigned conversation. I was not sure if the Supremo did not take some private satisfaction in the little gobernadorcillo’s unease. Our relief was palpable when the seconds arrived with Padilla’s answer—his sincere apology for his actions and best regards to Don Emilio. We all clapped Miong on the back for his narrow escape from roasting like langka, and the Supremo barely smiled though he inclined his head at his victory, as if saying to Miong and all gathered, I told you so. It occurred to me such dramatic incidents among the brothers were coded messages for those who were not as blind as I, and if I were smart I would pay attention. Instead, I took the Supremo’s magazine and
