With a devilish gleam that I could not determine was not merely the effect of his one-eyed-bandit look, he gestured us to follow.
Don Pio approached the hero before we descended. They whispered together. The hero nodded, and so I understood the mission was underway.
The doctors motioned us to go on.
Down the path we walked, Bulag and Bulag & Co., lugging our belongings beyond the water system, through bamboo, guava and acacia, through that eerie swath of baluno trees burdened with its lavish paho-bearing fruit, then up toward a gaslit pair of polygonal huts. And all the way it irked me that here I was, carrying Don Pio’s effects like a porter, while he remained behind with the writer. And I had not even had a chance to ask the man for an autograph!
So that night went.
I must say, I should have been content to have witnessed the household’s rhythms, its loyalties, rifts, and underbelly, including: the pleasant nature of the hero, but with a wit like a coiled snake’s bite—an accommodating brother whose word nevertheless was law. And then there was the sister’s possessive affection—perhaps a subtle in-law rivalry, unknown even to the duelists, that in her case blended nicely with the laws of decency, who could blame her. And the sweetheart’s situation in this ménage, loved by the brother who in this accidental life had no one else to love, and tolerated by others—adored and yet, who knows, secretly reviled. Anyhow you could tell she was the inferior creature, humble and ingratiating, and in this way, for some reason, her pathetic figure broke my heart (or at least what I believed was my heart, somewhere above the viscera, a bit occluded). And still none of this explained the Greek señora’s sadness, her mourning gowns. She had the wistful subservience of one inured to sorrow, and her freakish eyes gave away a gray despair. But what the hell. Unwedded bliss, if you asked me, had its own rewards.
And lastly, I hate to say that they creeped me out—my confréres, doubles and semblables. Those walking wounded, the one-eyed houseboy and men in bandages and others I noticed later in various recuperative stages, one obviously a noble Moro, in her flowing robes, promenading with a walking stick about the blazing bamboo groves. For I kept hearing all these rustling movements in the twinkling darkness, and Rufino, that wit, kept whispering beside me: Psst, Don Mundo—tu kababayan aki!472
Compatriots, my ass.
In my fantastic anticipation of this meeting, I had failed to envision the writer’s clinical preoccupations. These blind apparitions on the island—shadows in my vision, my bumbling brothers—presented, let’s say, an unsightly jolt. We deposited our bags among those men in limbo, and then I took Rufino aside.
—Now listen: we must follow Don Pio and the Doctor. For the sake of the revolution. Make sure Don Pio gets it right.
Obedient, nosy Rufino took my hand and led the way.
Bulag the houseboy followed suit.473
He was not one to be left out.
A bold malingerer and, it turns out, an irrepressible host, the teenage Bulag led us both down an unbeaten path, and before we knew it we reached the sea. All throughout, the young Bulag talked a reckless Chabacano streak—and between his Zamboangan cha-cha-cha and the Cavite kuracha-cha-cha of Rufino’s sister-slang, they fashioned what I could only call a twin tongue-twisting tango of Spanish Babel, marvelous and hilarious but also exhilarating, for some reason. It was as if, with history soon to unfold, the freedom of their tongues paved a magical path. In addition, Bulag was a trove of fantasy and delusion, but I couldn’t tell, in their riotous intra-translations, if his superstitions were Rufino’s embellishments or expressions of his own.
When we reached the beach, Bulag climbed a rock like some puny goat. We followed.
—Psst, Bulag said, flagging us away as we, too, climbed. Go back down. He already smelled us.
Nos ti baho!
What were we—swine?
From Bulag’s account, if the Doctor found us out, we could be turned to stone.
—Someone’s enchanted under this rock, he said.
I thought of the myths of the Greeks and the scurrilous fables of Ovid—men changed into pigs and girls into marble. I looked at the hoary mass and doubted I would find locked in it my Galatea, preferably with sad and slavish Irish eyes.
The stony promontory, dividing us from the sea at this angle, gave away nothing.
I heard a murmur—some voices beyond us.
Was that the writer or just the wind?
—How can you tell it’s enchanted? Rufino whispered.
—He’s always climbing on this rock, and he talks to it.
—In what language? Rufino asked.
—German.
—Ah. I knew it, Rufino said. He must be talking to the Siquijor mermaids. They travel, you know.
Just my luck to be stranded with mythological coconut-heads. It was enough to make me miss Don Procopio! Where did he go with the Doctor? It was so frustrating not to see!
Once, the amiable Bulag continued, he made the students jump from this rock, one by one. Each of them was terrified but still all of them jumped, as if pushed.
—Did anyone die? Rufino said with concern.
—Ah, said Bulag, he put a magic net upon the ground: he turned the earth into a pillow!
—Impossible, I interrupted.
—Hush, Rufino said. You don’t want him to get mad. The kapre474 475 might hear you.
—He’s not a kapre. He’s a—a novelist!
—Then how can you explain the magic featherbed?
—It wasn’t magic. Maybe they fell into—a pukutan!
But no one was convinced by that stupid explanation.
The voices beyond the rock grew louder as I crouched higher.
I grabbed Rufino as I crawled.
He pulled me up toward the lowering tones.
—Are they there?
—Yes, said Rufino.
—What are they doing?
—Sitting under a langka tree, eating bibingka.
What is it with these heroes, I thought—they eat rice cakes like there’s no tomorrow.
—What are they saying?
—Don Mundo, you’re blind, not deaf. I can hear what you hear, tonto—the sound of waves and cries of bats!
It’s true.
The noise of Dapitan Bay made eavesdropping the devil.
But worst of all, the screech
