TOWARDS A DISTANT SEA
John A. Bartlett
© John Bartlett 2005
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the publisher.
Originally published by Indra Publishing
PO Box 7, Briar Hill,
Victoria, 3088, Australia
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CONTENTS
11. The Woman in the White Dress
Biographical note
John Bartlett worked as a Catholic priest in Mindanao in the Southern Philippines from 1971 until 1980.
He returned to Australia and left the priesthood, working in a variety of jobs for the next 20 years before returning to his first love — writing.
John’s features and short stories have been published in a variety of newspapers and magazines and he works now as a freelance writer, editor and teacher.
John lives on the southern coast of Australia.
john@heartsongcreative.com
Acknowledgements
This book was begun almost twenty-five years ago and so there are many who have given encouragement along the way.
From the beginning, my brother Michaell with Khryssoula helped me believe I could write and kept encouraging me ever since, and in the end, it was the support and love of Stephen that gave me the opportunity to make this dream come true.
Poem in Ch 7 originally published as ‘Some God’ in ‘Love & Fear’: A Poetry Anthology, by Artary Project Space, Melbourne, 2003.
An earlier version of the chapter ‘The Volcano’, published in ‘Esque’, Small Press Publishing 2000, Gordon Institute of TAFE, Geelong, 2000.
Introduction to Part One taken from ‘The Tombs of Atuan’ by Ursula Le Guin (Hamish Hamilton 1997) used with permission of Penguin Books Ltd.
Introduction to Part Two taken from the 1860 edition of ‘Leaves of Grass’ by Walt Whitman.
Although this novel is based on real people and events, no characters portrayed here are intended to resemble real persons.
For Isidro, Eugenio, Corazon and Eking
and all those still searching after justice
Prologue
The Canticle
'Yahweh I know you are near, standing always at my side. You guard me from the foe and lead me in ways everlasting.'
He woke in the late night, during those dangerous hours when even the guarding angels seemed to have fallen into their own troubled sleep. He would have to fend for himself. Something had wakened him and now he could hear dogs barking further up the street and the sound of drunken voices gradually coming closer.
Then suddenly the pop-pop-popping noise of gunfire; drunken soldiers on their way home after a night of celebrating, firing off a few rounds from their armalites just for fun.
He knew these bullets could slash through the thin nipa of the houses and splinter the paper-thin walls — just for fun. The voices were coming closer now and he could hear the men laughing. A small worm of fear nibbled in his stomach reminding him it was there. He must find a safer place to wait.
Wearing only his underwear, he wrapped the thin malong around his shoulders and crawled along the floor toward the back steps. There was another round of gunfire and laughter. These guys didn’t have a clue what they were doing, probably drugged out of their brains too. He imagined families in the houses around him covering their children's bodies with their own trembling skin and bones and the statues of the saints too would be tottering on rocky altars in the dark corners as their occupants rushed to the rooms farthest from the road.
When were saints able to protect anyone against these bastards?
He reached the back steps and hoped the soldiers were far enough away not to notice him slip and bump his way to the bottom. There was still a glow of moonlight, sufficient for him to be noticed as it cast its blue searchlight over the sea of nipa roofs below him and there was a dull glint against water in the distant rice paddies. He could hear the soldiers laughing as they came, a sort of high-pitched cackle. They had no idea themselves how dangerous it was to be firing their weapons like this and that was the scary part. They don't know what the hell they are doing. His heart was thumping and his throat was contracting as if he were about to vomit.
There was more firing. He fell the last couple of steps to the concrete and jarred his shoulder. He scuttled across the muddy yard to the banyo like an oversized crab, dragging the door ajar and crawling inside. He hugged himself into a corner and waited in the darkness like the foetus he had become. Then he noticed the dampness. He had pissed in his underwear without noticing. So is this what he was reduced to, cowering in the dark in his own piss, quaking in the stinking shadows, waiting for them to pass. There were some more volleys opposite his house or were they further down the road? It was hard to tell in here. Then there was silence for a few minutes, although he thought he could hear a child sobbing in the house next door. Perhaps they had passed by. Then he heard their laughter further down the road near the track that led to the military camp.
Sitting upright, he fell into a troubled sleep and dreamed he was a child again, hiding in the garden and burrowed into that warm safe nest in the middle of the conifers, smelling once again the damp freshness of those clumps of spreading violets. He was peering out into the garden waiting for his mother to call him in to his tea.
His neighbour, Constanza almost tripped over his sleeping body later when she came to the banyo to wash even before the roosters had hinted at the approaching light.
PART ONE
‘What she had begun to learn was the weight of liberty. Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one. The road goes upward towards the light; but the laden traveller may never reach the end of it.’
– Le Guin, Ursula, The Tombs of Atuan, Victor Gollancz Ltd., London, 1972., p. 154
Chapter 1
BREAKING THE ICE
When Paul was thirteen, Brother Kerr had forced him to climb to the high-board of the swimming pool and walk right to the end of the springing plank, his legs trembling above the cold green water below. It was his punishment for not performing an accurate vault in the gymnasium that day and although Paul had been terrified that he might fall, he had also felt a growing excitement around the edges of his terror. What would it be like, he wondered to feel himself falling unsupported through the air, then plunging and slicing through the soft yielding water, feeling it opening and closing around him as he fell? Part of him wanted to surrender to that terror. He feels that same excitement now, the night before he is to leave Australia. Once again there is fear mixed with a sense of bouncing on the high-board above the unknown, and the excitement of plunging into new and wonderful experiences.
He stays at the seminary in Sydney that night but sleeps fitfully, listening to the mournful cackle of the nightjar echo across the oval where he had tried to play Rugby League as a student, the game that was so unfamiliar to him as a boy from South Australia. Later, he could still recall his dream and the unsettling call of the bird.
I am a patient in a psychiatrist's waiting room. I'm not sure whether to wait for him or not as I'm running out of time and have to leave soon. There is a woman ahead of me and she is in a state of collapse. They carry her into a special room.
I leave the waiting room and walk towards home when I have a sense of impending doom. I see aeroplanes above me, beginning to drop bombs and some buildings are already burning. I arrive at the house where Mum and Dad are waiting with my younger brother and sisters. We gather up a few personal belongings as the bombs explode around us. Panicking people flee by in small groups while enemy forces roam the countryside with guns looking for people to slaughter. We creep out of the house; I am carrying my baby sister in my arms and Mum drags one of my other sisters by the hand. Dad seems to have disappeared. Gabriel and my other sisters must be with him. It is up to me to bring the rest of the family to safety.
Sometimes we hide in the long grass and at one stage we get to a river and I think we can't possibly cross. Somehow, though, we do jump into the river and the current sweeps us toward the opposite bank. My little sister grips me round the neck. I have to protect her. Finally, we get to the other side. Perhaps we have passed through enemy territory. We are in a green valley with running water. It is peaceful her, and there is a feeling of safety, of having escaped from men who would destroy and pervert nature. Then suddenly I am in a church, saying the Stations of the Cross. I am doing them in reverse and it's a bit like Jesus coming down from the cross and going back to remonstrate with Pilate and asking him for a lighter sentence.
When he wakes, still feeling exhausted, Paul wonders whether the dream is a message from his God, warning him about what lies ahead, but it is too late now to change his plans.
Paul's family has come to Sydney to farewell him, his mother and father and Gabriel of course, all standing on Circular Quay in growing darkness. Miriam too has come to say goodbye. Good old Miriam, his faithful visitor to the seminary for the past two years, like a sister really. Sometimes he wonders if there is something more to her visits but she knows about the celibacy thing, knows what to expect, and anyway, it’s a bit late now with him leaving on his first assignment overseas. He notices too that everyone is talking louder now, chattering and trying to delay his departure by finding more things to say, to stuff more and more words into holes growing bigger with a sense of sadness.
'Eventually you just have to let go', says Miriam, chatting about everything and yet nothing at the same time.
She spreads her arms wide for emphasis, as if trying to hide the black bulk behind her, the 34-ton ship, the S.S. Hermes, about to take Paul away from her.
There's band music from the ship floating over the little groups gathered on the wharf and Sydney murmurs gently in the background like another orchestra tuning up for a concert.
'Lucky thing, getting to go overseas, I hope I can, someday' says Miriam.
'Anyway, as I was saying, what you should use are women's stockings … much more efficient. Not paper streamers, they break too quickly.'
Paul wouldn't be surprised if Miriam suddenly demands that all the women on the quay give up their stockings on the spot so she can prove her point. She's getting a bit bossy lately. She's just started a job in advertising and might be floating a few of her newfound pet theories to provoke a reaction.
'They start to burn your hands if you don't let go — the stockings that is.'
Her conversation ploughs on, like a ship dragging its anchor but trying to sail on regardless, the sort of conversation where one person chatters on and then discovers that nobody else is saying anything or listening. More silences appear now in the finely woven rush of words.
Paul's father is here too but he’s recovering from his recent stroke. The flesh at his neck seems a bit too loose and his hat now too big for his head, but somehow he makes a joke out of that as well. He's always finding something to joke about; that's how he's always been.
Gabriel's like his Dad too, a joker, making light of things. Now he's trying to make them laugh by giving a demonstration of what Paul will look like trying to turn over in the tiny bunk in his cabin. Gabriel's story even distracts Miriam from her streamer theory.
Paul's mother is silent, smiling a brave smile and folding and refolding her small handkerchief until it's almost the size of a matchbox. It's making them all a bit nervous. If only life could be so neatly folded and controlled Paul thinks. This departure is a slow torture for her; every small farewell always forecasting that larger loss, lurking in the background. This separation is really just a rerun of the past seven years, which has been crammed with farewells and reunions, all that to-ing and fro-ing to the Adelaide railway station year after year. A to-ing and fro-ing of her feelings too. This must be God's will after all and God knows she'd had plenty of practice for this moment.
Looking at her now, Paul remembers her mixed reaction when he announced that he was joining a church order, one that sent its members overseas to work in ‘the missions’. She was proud that God had called her son to do this work but sometimes, just sometimes, she caught herself thinking; why couldn't He have chosen someone else and left them all alone? This wasn't the first time she had felt so singled out by God.
'The time has come the walrus said.'
This is her stock phrase when something nasty has to be faced, Paul remembers, a sort of hidden code for dealing with a difficult situation. It’s easier than expressing what she really feels.
Here's Gabriel talking more quickly now as 'goodbye' comes closer. He points out to them the huge cranes of the Opera House still visible against the violet sky of twilight. He's in his second year of engineering and he needs to bring them up to date on the progress of the building.
'It'll be spectacular, as big a landmark as the Harbour Bridge they say. Etcetera, etcetera.'
Keep the conversation afloat. When will we see you again? Will we see you again? Unspoken words seem louder than their own conversation. Paul's mother has brought paper streamers. Blue. Yellow. Red. Perhaps she can keep him attached for as long as possible with these paper umbilical chords.
Paul notices the sadness hanging in the air but the smell of adventure is palpable too and he's soaking up the atmosphere of the departure, memorising information like the statistics of the ship, its tonnage, the name of the captain and then wondering whether he's on first or second sitting for dinner that night?
Two hours later, Paul stands at the railing and looks back at the lights of Sydney.
His eyes have been trying to retain the tiny white waving hands of his family growing smaller and smaller until they are reduced to minute images in the retina. He needs that memory to sustain him until he arrives on land again. It's solid land that gives him certainty and confidence, not this undulating world of foam and wave, where you're at the mercy of tide and wind.
Paul has entered a different and unpredictable world with none of the recognisable signposts of history and the passing of time. On land, history has a craggy face, displays its ruins of ancient civilisations, the remains of fossils, links to a past millions of years old. But Paul has entrusted himself to the ocean and what lies beyond it, entering a world of infinity and timelessness.
This is an ageless world belonging to people such as the Vikings, ancient mariners and explorers who once they had left land behind, truly cast themselves adrift in a sea of disappearing horizons. Paul too is at the mercy of winds and currents but as yet does not feel its pull.
The ship though moves against the swell coming through The Heads. They’re leaving behind the familiar at last and city lights gradually slide over the horizon, like water going down a plug-hole, a past that will never be retrieved now. Paul’s hands grip the railing. You're on your own now baby. He will write a letter to his parents tonight and post it in Brisbane. A letter to thank them for their sacrifices for him, to tell them that he does love them, the sort of things he could never tell them face to face.
He wonders how many people will come to his Mass in the morning and switches easily back into his role of priest. There are things to do; he has a task and must get back on track. It's like putting on a freshly laundered shirt, this priestly role he's been trained for these seven past years.
'Dear God. You've brought me to this point, to this adventure. Keep guiding me, to keep me worthy of your call. Help me to do your will, to do as much good for people as I can. You are my strength. I trust in you.'
Then it’s time to check out his cabin and prepare for dinner.
When he enters the cabin, Paul realises that it's about the size of his old room in the seminary; just space enough for two bunks, upper and lower and a tiny adjacent bathroom. The tiny orb of the porthole in the wall above is like a black moon looking down on him. This is principally a cargo ship after all, so passengers and cabin sizes are not top priority. The space reminds him of boarding school, too, with simple coarse blankets and unfussy white towels folded geometrically on the bunk. He really is on his own now and this small space will be his world for almost two weeks.
His childhood is slipping and sliding away from him. He's contained in this tiny space and adrift on the high seas, far from the familiar. He needs to grasp some of those childhood memories that are fading from him. But isn't this the very moment he's been waiting for, ever since that night in St Joseph's convent school?
That night he seemed to have some sort of revelation, like seeing the world open up slowly before him, the curtains going up on a wonderful play. He'd never seen a real play enacted before either, and suddenly other lives appeared when Grade Seven students performed their drama on the polished concrete veranda of the old school building. Another world was revealed outside that of Sister Basil’s ‘Where is God? God is everywhere' cantata, which waited in ambush for them every morning, her words rising to a shrill note at the end of each sentence as she marched up and down the rows of desks and slapped the blackboard with a big chalky hand for emphasis.
She had chilblains in the winter from washing in the convent's big steamy laundry and there was always that overwhelming smell of her freshly laundered habit in the classroom. She wore thick brown serge, rather like a uniform, a soldier in God's army, one of those 'Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war' types. The smell of carbolic soap about her was suffocating whenever she bent over Paul's desk to check his homework.
That play revealed to him that there could be other lives possible, different to the everyday life of River Bend with its wide main street running down to the river and Mr Pfeiffer, the butcher, who gave him a slice of Fritz sausage to eat every time he came into the shop.
In the play that night Paul gawked at those big Grade Seven students dressed in wildly colourful costumes with cardboard crowns covered in silver paper that glinted in the light and big hats with feathers that tickled the air. The words they spoke were not normal words, the everyday words kicked around the schoolyard with the worn football, but large words, important words that made their mouths slow down as if they were chewing toffee.
Then there was Carmel, the play's heroine, one of the 'big girls' and the daughter of his mother's best friend Delia, who lived on the other side of the wide river. His eyes had widened when Carmel entered the darkened stage, and lit a taper from a burning candle. The flame illuminated her face, captured a portrait of the girl from across the river, transformed now into the Queen of the Fairies. That scene still hangs on the wall of his imagination while the words of the play still echo in his head like another language.
It was such a simple movement, that lighting of the taper and the unexpected combustion of his imagination. In that moment, he knew that he would not stay forever in this country town. Other more complicated and unpredictable worlds had just opened up and he would always seek a life, which would leave the straight roads and search out the dark corners. Sr Basil's rhythmic spell of catechism question and answer are too simple for him now.
'Where is God? God is everywhere.
Who made the world? God made the world.'
But where is this world then? He would have to search it out for himself.
He lies down on the bunk and closes his eyes. The unfamiliar movement of the ship is comforting. It's like being held in his father's arms, falling asleep in the back of the car on the way home from Adelaide and rocked gently round the curves of the roads through those mesmerising hills. Replays of the afternoon's film fade in and out providing fantasies for the next day's play. He's high up in the almond tree in the back yard now, cracking open the wrinkled kernels of almonds with his teeth while fighting off the enemy from castle walls.
Then he's back in the car again, full of fish and chips from Beauchamp’s in Rundle Street. His eyelids are closing and he's being lifted from the car and carried to his bedroom, half asleep. He's pretending, so his father will carry him to bed. Is he just pretending now? Is this just a game too?
His mother's last desperate embrace has been a shock and he's forgotten to tell them that he loves them. Even to tell Gabriel too but that would have been stretching things a bit. Gabriel, always the joker since those first memories of him, face pressed up against his as Paul lay in his pram, blowing loud kisses in his face.
'Don't Gabriel, you'll make him cry.'
Paul's mother is there, lifting him out of the pram and there's that fresh smell of her cardigan and those big buttons he loves to pull on. The sky so blue. The air is full of darting dragonflies. Gabriel is a dragonfly too, running from side to side and flapping his arms. We're down the bottom of the garden by the twin cypresses. One on each side of the path. Mum is putting a blanket down on the grass. I hope she doesn't make me sit on it. The couch grass is so prickly. I hate it. Gabriel is still blowing wet kisses. I can't help laughing. He looks so silly.
'Gabriel, can you help me with this rug please?'
He must get ready for dinner and he goes into the adjacent bathroom to splash water on his face. A boyish face observes him from the mirror. Not a man yet. He's got the long lean face of his father and the same sudden grins fatten his cheeks too, but here's the black curly hair of his Irish grandmother, hair that refuses to lie down. This is the hair he has inherited from the Spanish sailors who visited the West coast of Ireland all those centuries ago. Paul looks a lot like his Uncle Christopher, his mother's brother — well that’s what they all said — long and lanky with a halo of floating black curls, a bit like one of those illustrations of a character from that book of Henry Lawson's short stories his mother kept by her bedside? What was his name? It was an outdoor face, and his olive skin, also inherited from those same Spanish adventurers, meant some people always asked if he had Italian parents.
Paul is really one of those outdoor dreamers, a child who has grown up in a house with a huge garden. He has come to believe that a big garden and lots of space will always be his birthright, and that nothing less than huge spaces are adequate for his dreaming.
Now the garden world of dreams is becoming even bigger, his world expanding outward. The priest runs a hand through his hair before checking that his collar is straight and then walks quickly toward the upper deck, asking a passing couple to direct him to the dining room.
‘Have just returned from spending most of the afternoon swimming (not on a rope dragging behind the ship but in the pool, ha, ha) and playing table tennis. There was a tournament but I did not get as far as the finals. I said Mass on board this morning and about twelve people attended. That's a few more than the first few days. Yesterday the voyage was spectacular. We travelled through the Whitsunday Passage with dozens of tropical Barrier Reef islands on either side of us. The ship slowed down and we had a smorgasbord on the deck with the band playing. Not a bad life! Heard news of the trouble in Manila, but it'll all be finished by the time we arrive.’
23 August 1971
Paul's cabin steward is a Filipino. Maybe Carlo can teach him a few words of dialect before they arrive in Manila; what a surprise for the others that would be.
Carlo wakes him every morning with a cup of tea and touches him gently on the arm until Paul opens his eyes. The gentle swaying of Paul's dreams merges into an earnest face just above his. 'Please wake up, sir. Your refreshment'. Carlo is shorter than Paul, with black hair swept back in a wave from his face and just the beginnings of a beard stubbling his chin. A tiny golden crucifix on its chain falls from Carlo's collar as he bends over the bunk and there are hairs appearing above Carlo's shirt collar as he bends further.
The crucifix is a gift from his mother — 'to protect me at sea'. He is the eldest of five children and this job supports them all at school. One day he shows Paul a photo of his family. His mother works in the laundry of the Maharlika hotel in Manila and his father is a jeepney driver. Suertihan, says Carlo. Lucky to have jobs. His younger brothers and sisters peer out of the photo and they all look like smaller versions of Carlo. The baby has no pants and scabby knees. Carlo is an enthusiastic worker who spends most of his day shining and scrubbing the cabins and the passageways. It's an endless circle of frenzied cleaning but somehow his white uniform remains spotless and starched.
'You work too hard' says Paul, teasing. But Carlo has plans of his own. He must work for a promotion because he needs to save money to go back to school and then on to University. He dreams of being an engineer and spends his free time in the engine room of the Hermes because he is friendly with the chief engineer. Ang Dios masayod, he always adds. 'Only if God wills it.'
Then there's the tips he gets from all the extra little jobs like shining shoes. Paul glimpses Carlo one evening on another deck stripped to his shorts and shining a pair of shoes with his muscled arms glistening in the dull light.
Paul shares the cabin with a man named Brian Derby whom he rarely sees which suits him fine. It’s just like having a cabin to himself. Brian is a real mystery, a passenger who doesn't seem to exist in the flesh. Paul meets him in the cabin on the night the ship leaves Sydney but never really sees him again. Brian is never in the cabin when Paul arrives back at night and he's always gone by the time Paul wakes in the morning. Maybe he's embarrassed sharing the cabin with a priest. What does he expect, water into wine or a visitation from angels?
Sometimes when Paul wakes in the night, he can recognise something bulky in the bunk. It might be a rolled-up blanket for all he knows, or it might be Brian. He'd like to check but he doesn't want to get caught making an inspection. Paul assumes this role of detective from a distance, noticing telltale signs that Brian has been in the cabin — spots of toothpaste on the mirror that don't appear to be his own or that single sock dropped on the floor that's definitely not his. It's a bit unnerving sometimes, like living with a phantom. You never know he might just come through the doorway unexpectedly, so Paul tries not to do anything that might embarrass Brian, like being caught lying on his bunk reading Vespers, which he does every afternoon as if he were still in the seminary.
Brian can't possibly be a Catholic; he didn't call him 'Father' as far as Paul can remember. He did see him once during the day when he passed him on the stairs on the way to table tennis. A woman was clinging to Brian's arm. She wore orange slacks and a white tight-fitting blouse with short sleeves, and big plastic earrings that dangled out of her beehive hair. Brian looked at him but didn't speak. Paul wondered if he was an atheist. The woman looked like she might be fun though.
‘All passengers are invited to come to the Ocean Room this evening and join in the fun of meeting their fellow passengers. To help 'break the ice', name tags will be worn and crepe paper is available from Miss Colgan and the Hostess for decorating the name tags.’
24 August 1971
Paul does, however, make friends with another man. Colin Michaels is a regular traveller between Sydney and Port Moresby. Big, muscled like a boxer in a hearty, backslapping friendly sort of way. He and Paul become friends when they are paired in the ship's table-tennis tournament. Their names are drawn out of the hat as partners.
'I haven't played before Father. I hope you have?'
When Paul admits it's new to him too, Colin laughs and says: ‘You’d better have God on your side then.' Colin soon gets the hang of things and blasts the table with his massive serve. Unfortunately his returns go right off the table and they are beaten in the first round.
'God, this is pretty boring, let's go and have a drink.' Colin is a businessman in import and export. He lives in Moresby with his wife and three daughters and he's a great storyteller. 'You meet some fascinating people on these trips, Father, and I should know; I must spend half my life going backwards and forwards. It's another world out here on the sea, some people say the land laws don't apply. What do you think Father? There's a moral conundrum for you.'
'Well I guess God's laws have to apply everywhere don't they, otherwise there would be chaos.'
'You don't think God has to have a little rest sometimes too, avert his eyes to give us all a break?' says Colin smiling.
‘Oh, I don't think so, Colin. He cares for us all the time and knows and sees everything,' but Paul wishes his answer wasn't so text-bookish. Why is it, thinks Paul, that people presume you want to have moral discussions, just because you're wearing a clerical collar? Colin is a former student of the Christian Brothers too, so they have that in common. They swap stories about the big black leather strap and how the humiliation was worse than the pain.
'Those bastards ... sorry, Father, but I should have smacked their faces in. Just talking about it makes me angry again ... I need another drink … my shout.'
Paul's had more beers than usual and feels like he needs to lie down in his cabin until dinner.
'I guess they did their best. Those were the times, Colin. That's how things were then.'
'Better change the subject, Father. We're not going to agree on this one, it's only going to get me more worked up.'
It's a shame Colin is getting off in Moresby, he'd be a great friend to have in the Philippines, down-to-earth and treating him like he's a normal person.
'You're gonna be a waste up there in the Philippines, Father. You'd make a great match for some woman; you're good-looking with a sense of humour and a brain. That's what they're all looking for these days, except if you have kids of course and then you need the money coming in.'
'Yes, but if I'm married I couldn't do the work I want to do, it wouldn't be fair on my wife, that's the way the Church sees it. This way I can dedicate my time to the Church's work.'
'Oh yeah, and if you don't mind my saying Father, I don't mean to be rude, but what about the stirrings?'
'I'll be so busy working, I won't have time to think about that,' says Paul and he feels heat rising up his neck and around his ears. Most Catholics he knew didn't ask him questions like this, but he did rather prefer to be treated like a friend and not as a priest all the time if it wasn't always so damm embarrassing.
On the night before the ship is to reach Port Moresby, Colin and Paul are having a farewell drink in the bar and Colin is still teasing him.
‘You know Father, when the women up there get a look at you, they won't let you alone. Perhaps I can take your place?'
'Colin, don't you think of anything else but women?' Paul is irritated by the banter and has been thinking how he might suggest Colin comes on to Manila with him.
‘Oh yes, Father, I think of lots more that you wouldn't believe. Anyway, I'm sick of this bar, let's go back to my cabin for a few drinks. I've got a bottle of whiskey. It's our last night after all.'
Paul feels that heat rising up from the back of his neck again and his hand is shaking as he reaches for his glass.
'Sorry Colin, I'm pretty tired and I have to say a Mass in the morning before Moresby.'
'God, all I'm asking is to have a drink with a mate, that's not too much to ask, is it?'
Colin screeches his chair back from the table, grips the edge and stands up unsteadily.
'I'll see you in the morning — at Mass of course.' Colin spits the last words over his shoulder as he walks away from the table.
Now I've offended him. I didn't mean to. It's easy for him; he doesn't have the responsibilities I have.
Paul leaves the dining room and starts to walk the deck, up and down through air as thick as hot custard. There’s no breeze. The sea is flat, becalmed like his emotions. I hope I haven't lost his friendship. He returns to his cabin and lies down on the bunk in his underwear but he can't sleep. He's worried about Colin; maybe he's drunk the whole bottle on his own. It's nearly two o'clock but he could go and knock on his cabin door and make sure he's alright; he's unlikely to shout at him again. Paul dresses quickly and starts walking toward Colin's cabin. What does it matter really if he's hung over in the morning. His friendship with Colin is more important.
As he is approaching the cabin, the door opens, and startled, Paul steps back into the shadows. Maybe Colin is coming to him to apologise. But it is Carlo, not Colin who steps out into the corridor and Paul moves further into the shadows without understanding why. He's embarrassed to be seen near Colin's cabin at this time of night but there's a feeling of excitement too, sticking in his throat like something delicious that's hard to swallow. I can't let Carlo see me. I didn't know they were friends anyway.
Carlo moves off in the other direction and Paul hesitates now in the corridor, unsure of his next move. Will he knock on Colin's door now he's here, or wait until morning? Anyway what's Carlo doing hobnobbing with passengers; he's meant to keep to his own quarters, especially at this time of night. Maybe Colin is feeling ill and called Carlo to the cabin for help. Yes, that's it. But why didn't Colin call him if they are really friends? Paul tiptoes now to Colin's door and leans against it with his ear up against the cool metal. He can hear nothing, not even the sound of breathing. He must look really stupid roaming the corridors listening at people's doors. What would people think if someone caught him? There’s just that gentle hum and vibration of the engines and Paul feels that if he enters this man's room, he would be crossing a threshold into something new and frightening, the sort of intimacy he’s not ready for. He walks back to his cabin and lies down on his bunk again — alone.
‘Port Moresby is such a beautiful place. The ship anchored in the harbour and we went ashore by ferry. Colin Michaels had invited me to his home for lunch and I met his wife, Marie, and three daughters. The little girls were full of life but Marie seemed very quiet. I guess it was the humidity and the liveliness of the three little girls that made her tired. Colin took me around the town in his car as the ship was leaving again at 7’o clock. Moresby is a scattered town but very colourful. The green of the coconut palms and the frangipanis contrasts with the white of the weatherboard houses on stilts, jutting out from the side of the hills. The locals dress very colourfully and are mostly smiling.
Colin gave me the address of his
flat in Sydney, and asked me to call in when I next come back to
Australia. He's a really nice guy; I think we could be really good
friends.'
26 August 1971
After leaving Moresby, the ship sails westerly across the Gulf of Papua toward Torres Strait. Paul discovers that he has a new steward and Carlo is nowhere to be seen. Miguel, the new steward just shakes his head when questioned about Carlo. Even at dinner, nobody seems to know anything about the vanished steward when he questions them. Does that mean he stayed behind in Moresby? What about his plans for going to University and becoming an engineer? Maybe Colin has contacts for him in Moresby and is helping him out? Would the two of them be sharing drinks together as he and Colin had? Colin had not spoken about Carlo while he was taking Paul around Moresby, but he did seem quieter than usual. Paul thought it was just his hangover. Paul goes to bed early after dinner. He doesn’t even feel like going near the bar now that Colin is not around.
‘Passed Mindanao this morning. Yes, we're that close. I must admit I'm starting to get excited now and I'm looking forward to docking tomorrow at 10.30 in the morning. It seems rather unreal after all this time.'
31 August 1971
At lunch, there is a rumour that the ship's itinerary has changed but the rumour is as yet unconfirmed. By mid-afternoon the Captain announces that there have been dramatic events unfolding in Manila. President Marcos has suspended the writ of ‘habeas corpus’ and has jailed a number of what the radio broadcasts describe as 'left-wing activists'. The news is still sketchy but shipboard gossip fills in the gaps. One rumour is that the ship will not be able to dock in Manila after all but will sail on to Hong Kong. Now Paul wishes he'd known beforehand and he could have stayed with Colin in Moresby and waited there to see what would happen. He feels stuck in the wrong place and the gossip is starting to get on his nerves.
Mrs. Hoi, the wife of a Hong Kong businessman at Paul's table is agitated. She says she's heard there has been a grenade explosion at a political rally in one of the plazas in Manila.
'It's dreadful. Ten people have been killed, many more wounded and taken to hospitals. It's chaos they say.' Her hand shakes as she reaches for the water container. 'It's the communists, of course. How do we know it won't happen in Hong Kong next?'
'Even some of the Senate candidates have been badly injured,' adds her husband calmly. He wipes the corner of his mouth with the starched linen serviette.' I'm not sure the communists are behind this but the situation may be considered too dangerous to land passengers. I'm glad we're travelling on — no business in Manila this time.'
Paul wonders what he will do if he cannot disembark in Manila. He doesn't really want to go on to Hong Kong; he's impatient now to leave the ship. Most of the people he has become close to have already gone and even Miguel is sulky and irritable most of the time. He's not a Carlo. There are just one or two people at his daily Masses now, usually only the very devout English sisters, Esmae and Charlotte Cunningham-Bronte from Singapore. They keep slipping white unmarked envelopes into his hand, containing folded American dollar notes, Mass offerings for their mother's death anniversary that week. The sisters wear black mantillas and carry matching rosaries, which they tell Paul, several times, have been blessed by the Pope.
The night before the ship is to enter Manila Bay is humid again. Paul lies in his bunk, which seems to have got narrower since they left Moresby. He feels like he's left something important behind there and keeps checking his bags but can't think what it is. He's sick of the ship now and longs to be on dry land. Keep pushing forward and don't look back. He needs now to prove he can do something worthwhile, get stuck into something.
First he'll catch up with his classmate Martin who works in Manila and lives with the squatters in Malate. Trust him to go all the way. He's the one who used to sneak out of the seminary to attend anti-Vietnam rallies in Sydney. While people like Paul worried about breaking the rules or getting caught, Martin was nearly thrown out of the seminary because his friends from the anti-war groups came to visit him with their dreadlocks and flares.
It was too much for the rector who thought the seminary was being overrun by hippies. Martin talked his way out of that one through his charm. A picture of Che Guevara used to hold pride of place next to the crucifix on Martin's wall. Trust him to take the Marxist approach to his ministry. Finally, Paul falls asleep as the ship surges through a gentle sea up the west coast of Luzon.
He has a headache next morning at breakfast but there is another announcement from the captain over the public-address system. The situation seems to have stabilised with the imposition of Martial Law and the ship will be disembarking passengers in Manila after all.
Chapter 2
MANILA
The river Pasig flows slowly across the plains of Luzon and meanders through a dark jungle before it empties into the wide bay. Trees crowded with chattering monkeys overhang the river and the water is bristling with the blue flowers of the nilad plant.
This river is home to the spirit of a goddess worshipped by the local natives as the Maynilad. Some say she is half fish and half human but few have ever seen her. Word is that fishermen bringing their boats from the bay up the river at dusk have seen the flash of her long black hair as she dives from the rocks at the entrance. Or the scarlet of the setting sun has caught the glint of the pearl belt and knife at her naked waist. But fishermen, as we know, are notorious for telling exaggerated stories to their wide-eyed children just to make them behave.
However, the people of the local village know she really exists because they depend on her for their livelihood. She makes the islands fertile and rich with plants and food. The seas are full of fish because of her watchfulness. The trees are heavy with her fruit because she waters and fertilises them. There are sweet and juicy papayas. Lanzones with gnarled skins and the surprise of fleshy white centres. Rambutan. Mangosteen. Durian. Siniguelas. Guava. Duhat. Their names are like prayers to the goddess. Nobody ever goes hungry because of her. Goats and pigs grow fat on the green grasses and once a year the biggest, fattest pig is sacrificed as a tribute to Maynilad. Roasted over a huge fire and devoured by her devotees. Eaten with coconut wine. Then her devotees sleep til morning. Sometimes she even visits them in their dreams. If they are blessed enough.
One day huge sailing ships creep into the bay. Full of men with metal suits. Sticks of fire. They steal the land, divide it up for themselves. They drag huge nets across the mouth of the river and at dusk catch the beautiful goddess in a ropey trap. They imprison her in their new city, Intramuros — inside the walls. Imprison her for more than three hundred years. The soldiers rape and torture her continually for their recreation. Laws are drawn up making it a crime for the townspeople to revere her as a goddess. These men have a god of their own who must be the god of the townspeople now, a superior god of stern laws and punishments. He is all-powerful and his realm stretches far beyond death and the stench of funeral pyres.
After these three hundred years, bigger ships sail into the bay, ships of metal with blazing guns. Maynilad is released from Intramuros but taken to a new city built outside the walls. Held prisoner for another forty years. Constantly raped and humiliated. Treated like a whore until she no longer resembles the beautiful fish-goddess with the long black hair and the pearl belt.
The wheels of life must keep turning and so another wave of men in ships enters the bay. These men destroy the new city but keep Maynilad prisoner in the ruins.
She is imprisoned deep in the cellars of Intramuros where the nearby Pasig River seeps slowly into her cell. Raped and dishonoured yet again for another three years.
Despite her chains, Maynilad is a goddess and has much power to call on when the time is ripe. One night under cover of darkness, the fish spirits of the Pasig swim into her cell. Their tiny teeth chew through the metal of her chains and she is released. The years of exile and humiliation are over. She reveals herself to the townspeople and together they drive those destroyers and rapists from the islands.
The city is rebuilt and renamed in her honour — Manila. She returns to the Pasig, her true home, for she is a goddess of the water not of the land. To this day, sometimes she can be seen briefly at twilight, cutting the water between Quezon and Santa Cruz bridges, near the General Post Office. Kuno. Or so they say.
Paul wakes sweating in the darkened room, panic caught in his throat making it difficult to swallow. Where the hell is he? Now he can hear twittering voices like those of small birds filtering through the open window. No, they’re not birds but the voices of children in the mid-afternoon heat. Sing-song in a language he has never heard before.
Inahan. Inahan sa langit …
He’s awake but still embedded in a dream. He can only allow the strange words wash over him and gradually draw him back onto the beach of consciousness.
His head feels thick as if he has spent the day drinking, the heat like needles piercing his body. Relentless torture. Then there is the low hum of continuous traffic in the distance, rumbling like the sea in his dream. Or is that an air-conditioner?
‘I’m here to do your will — whatever that is.’ The words come so easily to his lips. What are the words of that old prayer? ‘Make me a channel of your peace.’ … something like that, Lord, I’m here to serve you, to do your will.
Familiar words calm his anxiety and Paul rolls off the bed and wipes the sweat from his body with a towel. He walks toward the window in his underwear and observes groups of small girls in ankle-length skirts turning skipping ropes and singing in time to the swing of the rope. They do sound like little birds chirping. So here he is, projected into this new world, where everything is surprising and strange, yes and even a bit sinister. He’s more used to the ordered life of the seminary, where the sounds of bells sketch out the day’s activities. Here the streets pulse with crowds of people, sweating, gasping for survival, where every emotion is on show, ready to smack you in the face, to make you dizzy.