MacArthur's Ghost Page 21

  Griffin shifted in his chair so he could see out of a back window, out onto the shoreline. A colony of squatters lived out there, right behind the mission. At first glance it looked like a fishing village, with nets drying in the breeze. Then you saw the nets were plastic garbage bags, retrieved from dumps, emptied, cleaned and hung out to dry. Now he turned back to Olmos: bright eyes, wrinkled face, dark crew cut, and not a pound over his fighting weight. More lives than a cat, more skins than a snake. What do you have in common with the man you used to be? Would you recognize the youth who helped Charley Camper empty out a Baguio mansion? Was that a rehearsal for times to come, a revolutionary drill? Do you remember the day that Harding came out of the swamp? How about it? I come to you from Harry Roberts Harding, from out of the realm of memories and regrets. What about you? Have you left that land forever?

  “George?”

  “Sorry,” he said. “I drifted off.”

  “Perhaps we all have,” Lerner said, a hint that was impossible for either Griffin or Olmos to ignore. Lerner breathed deeply, turned back to Olmos, ready for one last try. “Since the Huk rebellion sputtered out thirty years or so ago . . .”

  “Sputtered out?”

  “Well, you were captured. So were many others. Lots of men were killed. After the mid-fifties, things got quiet. So I would say it sputtered out. Yes.”

  “You don’t understand. You like your history neat, with beginnings and ends. World War Two? It began on a single, certain day, with a shocking attack on an innocent fleet at Pearl Harbor. No? And it ended with—what do you call it—’V-J day.’ Atomic bombs. You have it all down, date of birth, date of death. You think you do. But history isn’t like that. Your colonel knows . . . things die down. They don’t die out.”

  “Ah, so you’re suggesting there’s a kind of symbolic link between the Huk movement and today’s NPA?”

  “Yes.”

  “Only symbolic?”

  George sensed it at the same time Olmos did. Lerner had been going out of his way to be argumentative, cocky, and a little dense. And it was, all of it, an act.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean your brother, sir, I mean Juan Olmos. Another name that Colonel Harding mentioned on Corregidor.” Now he turned to George, to fill him in. “It’s interesting. They announced his death five times from 1946 to 1954. They say he surrendered, brought in a whole army, all on the condition he be sent overseas with a fortune. They say he had plastic surgery, ran for office, changed his name. They say he wound up in Cuba, or that he runs a gold mine in Apayo-Kalinga or a last command in Mindanao or he smuggles drugs and guns between Borneo and Zamboanga. And some people say he’s still out there fighting. That’s the wildest rumor of all.”

  Felipe Olmos listened to all of it with a smile. “People ask me all the time.”

  “I’ll bet they do,” Lerner said. “It’s the Hollywood touch. Juan Olmos, Scarlet Pimpernel of the People’s Revolution, Red Robin Hood, guerrilla ghost, the missing link between the Huks and the NPA, the light that failed and the fire to come. I love this stuff! What became of your brother, Mr. Olmos? Not that you’d tell us . . .”

  “The movement I led”—the old man walked toward them, holding an imaginary something over his head—”was like a chalice . . .”

  Let’s get out of here quickly, Lerner’s look told Griffin. This guy’s daffy.

  “. . . which, when history dashed it, broke into a thousand pieces. Some pieces fell to the left. Some to the right. Some moved. Others lay still.”

  “Yeah, well, great,” Lerner said. “What about Yamashita and his treasure?”

  “Yamashita. He and I have something in common. Guess what?”

  “Really . . . I don’t know. George, do you?”

  “No.”

  “We were both war criminals!” Olmos shouted.

  “War criminals?” Griffin asked.

  “We lost.” Olmos laughed at that, laughed alone, and it occurred to Griffin that maybe there was something to be said for death in action, when you compared it to years of sitting on the sidelines while new wars were fought, new leaders took sides, and changed them.

  “They hanged Yamashita.” That was Lerner’s rather heavy-handed observation. “You lived.”

  “Yes,” Olmos said. “So I hear.”

  “And the treasure? Colonel Harding says it exists.”

  “Colonel Harding may be right. I heard about this Yamashita treasure. I heard about it from my brother. From some of the other Huk fighters as well.”

  “When?”

  “Toward the end of the war.”

  “What did they say about it?”

  “I’m not sure. They said they had it. Or would have it. And that it would save us all, protect us from our enemies.”

  “It didn’t. Did it?” That was Lerner’s parting shot. He got up and thanked the old man for his time. It was nothing, Olmos said. Lerner didn’t dispute the point.

  “Mr. Griffin,” Olmos said. “Do you think you could stay behind just a moment?”

  “Clifford? Okay?”

  “Sure. I’ll be downstairs. Thanks again.”

  When Lerner had gone, Olmos gestured for Griffin to take a seat. Griffin obeyed and waited. The old man went over to the window Griffin had stared out of at the squatters’ hovels, the poisoned beach, the plastic garbage bags rustling in the wind.

  “Out there,” Olmos said, without turning around, “they bury babies in cardboard coffins.”

  Downstairs, someone had turned on a radio, and there were kids playing in the churchyard. Father Murphy had the cement mixer going; he could hear it turning. And now a song on the radio. “The Tracks of My Tears.” You couldn’t miss with music in a place like this: if it didn’t complement, it contradicted; what it couldn’t illustrate, it mocked. Olmos stayed by the window till the song was done.

  “So,” he said, finally turning around. “How is my old friend?”

  “Fine. Traveling around. Working with me on this book. I guess you know.”

  “Has he mentioned me?”

  “Yes.” To forestall further questions, and longer answers, he explained Harding’s strategy of telling the story in order and visiting places where things had happened.

  “He’s not really telling the story,” Olmos said. “He’s reliving it.

  “Yes, you could say that.”

  “He wants it to come out differently this time. Poor man.”

  “Any messages?”

  “He knows about what happened to me. The war. The war after the war. The prison after that. This . . .” Olmos took a breath, then resumed. “I’m a Communist. I’m a Marcos puppet. I’m a Christian. I’m a turncoat. What does he think of me?”

  “I don’t know. He remembers you the way you were, when he knew you.”

  “Yes.”

  “And . . .” He was way out of line now and he might regret it. “I think that he’s hoping that you remember him the same way.”

  “He was something, Mr. Griffin. He was something.” From the way his voice drifted off, no formulas, no paragraphs, no protests, Griffin knew that this time Olmos had gone back to the past, broken through to the place he shared with Harding. He closed his eyes and lingered there a while. “He was something.”

  Clifford Lerner was outside, in the shade, watching Father Murphy shovel sand into a cement mixer.

  “Get what you wanted?” asked the priest, without breaking the rhythm of his shoveling.

  “Oh, sure,” Lerner said.

  “They almost won, back then.”

  “No they didn’t,” Lerner said. “They never had a chance.”

  “Oh, I see,” the priest conceded cheerfully. “If you say so.”

  “You haven’t seen Juan Olmos, have you?”

  “Looks like Felipe, only taller? No, I haven’t seen him. I haven’t seen Santa Claus either. Or God.” He mopped his brow. Red hair, freckled skin that the sun was feasting on. “But that doesn’t stop me from believing. Happy New
Year, gentlemen.”

  CHAPTER 33

  For blocks around, the streets surrounding Jun and Birdy Villanueva’s place were lined with cars. The driver offered to take Susan Hayes and George Griffin right to the front, but they decided a walk would go well, so they got out where he parked, four blocks away. Other couples walked ahead and behind, while chauffeurs lounged beside cars, bantering with security guards.

  “Birdy asked for you,” Susan said. “She asked if we were coming.”

  “I like that,” Griffin said. He liked being thought of in connection with Susan. He liked walking toward bright lights and music with her on his arm. What he liked even more was the way she’d come out of her home, tossing what had to be an overnight bag onto the front seat, a little white leather bag that had sent Griffin’s heart soaring.

  “This party is an annual event,” Susan explained. “The A-list of the opposition.”

  “ ‘Next year in Malacanang.’ Is that the slogan?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “In the meantime, this isn’t so bad.” The Villanuevas’ compound was outside Makati, in a section of lawns, walls, and mansions. If you removed a few local touches—armed guards, checkpoints, shards of glass embedded on top of walls—you could have been walking in Beverly Hills. They were a long way from Tondo, Griffin thought, and you had to wonder whether this world would make it up to Tondo before Tondo came out here to settle accounts.

  “What are you thinking?” Susan asked.

  “About Tondo. I was there this afternoon. They were beating a dog to death. Tenderizing the meat.”

  “You went by yourself?”

  “No, I was with Clifford Lerner.”

  “Why do I know that name?”

  “He’s another travel writer. He’s like me. He decided to stay around and look into things. He’s interested in Harding too.”

  “Competition?”

  “Not really. I’ve got Harding to myself. Lerner’s looking into the people Harding mentioned when he spoke on Corregidor. Who they are, or were, and what’s become of them.”

  “Is he any good?”

  “When he wants to be. Right now he wants to be. He’s still at the G-spot every night for a cold beer or two and a warm body or two. But when he’s on duty he’s formidable. Today it was Felipe Olmos in Tondo. Contreras is next. Harding mentioned him in his speech.”

  “General Contreras?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Well, let’s just say he’s saving the toughest name for last.”

  Close up, the Villanueva compound looked like the site of an old-fashioned Hollywood movie premiere, with guards, gawkers, chauffeurs, glittering entrances. Susan took a deep breath, as if to steel herself for some hectic socializing.

  “Here we go,” she said. “Let’s not stay long.”

  “Why stay at all?” Griffin said. Touching her elbow, he turned her toward him. “Why not go where we want to go and . . . so forth?”

  “What an elegant suggestion!”

  “You know what I’ve been wondering about? Those green eyes of yours.”

  “How I got them?”

  “How you use them. You’ve got a certain green-eyed look . . .”

  “All my looks are green-eyed.”

  “. . . that stops me cold.”

  “I wouldn’t want to do that.” She looked in toward the party. She was weakening, no doubt about it. He thought of kissing; she thought of it too. Then she looked one way, he the other. And the moment was ruined: suddenly they were four and someone was hugging her. Not Griffin.

  “Sepia bombshell!” It was Phil Robinson, embassy political officer, World War II buff, New Year’s celebrant. “What say you and I go mud wrestling?”

  “Phil!” Susan took his wild-and-crazy-guy act good-naturedly, winking at Robinson’s wife, a petite and probably long-suffering Chinese woman.

  “Wild women! Dream lover! Were you waiting for me?”

  “Of course not,” Susan said. “Phil, do you know George Griffin?”

  “We’ve met. Hi, Griffin. Colonel Harding back in town with you?”

  “No. He’s in Olongapo.”

  “Everything all right so far? Safe and sound?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, God bless. Shall we see what Birdy’s up to? Honey . . .” He turned to his wife. “Did you bring the orgy butter?”

  A couple of hundred people circulated around the Villaneuvas’ swimming pool. There were two open bars and there were half a dozen food stations, with lumpia and sushi, satay shrimp and beef, roast pig, cheese and fruits, salads, tarts and petits fours. A band filled the air with movie theme music, so it was easy to feel this night was special. Great scenes to be played.

  “Mr. Griffin, back from the wars, with Miss Susan Hayes for company!” Jun Villanueva was glad to see them. “At last I can relax. Birdy will be delighted.”

  “Delighted to be here,” Griffin said.

  “And how is your book?”

  “Coming along nicely. I’m learning something every day.”

  “I’m sure we will all learn something,” Villanueva suggested. That could have been a compliment or a barb or nothing at all, Griffin thought.

  “I doubt it,” he said. “You’ve all been here so much longer. What’s new to me is old to you . . .”

  “Mr. Griffin!” Birdy Villanueva swooped down in white silk trousers and blouse that Griffin thought of, vaguely, as lounging wear, a daring stroke of informality at a party where everyone else was formally dressed.

  “Happy New Year,” Griffin said. “Any resolutions?”

  “Yes.” Birdy stood next to Susan like a sports car, light and jaunty, parking next to a capacious and luxuriant Cadillac. Two such different vehicles hardly belonged on the same lot. “One resolution is to break dear Susan’s monopoly of you. May I?”

  “Promise to return him?”

  “Of course.”

  “Intact?”

  “Of course not!”

  Birdy took him by the arm and ushered him around the party. There were ambassadors, college professors, businessmen. There were lots of people who used to be journalists. Everywhere she introduced him as “the writer.” No one asked what he was writing. That was left for Birdy.

  “How is your work?” she asked when they were at the edge of the party, with only two poodles for company.

  “It goes well,” he answered cautiously. He was puzzled by this flattering intimacy with Birdy Villanueva. Suddenly, a beautiful and powerful woman was his dear friend.

  “I can’t wait to read your book,” Birdy said, and Griffin resisted a subversive impulse to ask what else she was reading in the meantime.

  “I can’t wait to see your movie,” he said. Subversive impulse after all. That perked her up.

  “What did you hear, my friend?”

  “That you and Imelda Marcos are partners in MacArthur’s Ghost.”

  “We could say that art makes strange bedfellows.”

  “We could. We could also say that bedfellows make strange art.”

  “I think you know my reasons.”

  Griffin leaned forward, waiting for her to continue. What a pair of conspirators they must look like, whispering together. It was embarrassing; he felt conspicuous. Anyone would think they were having an affair. But maybe not. Birdy transcended sex. She performed it and moved on.

  “You’re going to make me say it, Mr. Griffin? Very well then. Two words. Or three, title included. General Nestor Contreras. But of course you know that.”

  Griffin knew nothing of the sort. “Ah. Contreras.” While Birdy waited for more, Jun Villanueva returned with Susan Hayes on his arm.

  “There you are,” Jun said. “I have a joke.”

  “Jun!” Birdy protested. She was not happy that he’d come along just then.

  “No, really. Why are men like snowflakes?”

  There was a silence that affable Jun thought was the time they took pondering their answers. Birdy’s eyes said otherwise. She
went off without waiting for the punchline.

  “Because you never know when they’ll come, you never know how many inches you’ll get, and they melt before you know it.”

  Griffin forced a laugh and Susan Hayes managed an “Oh, Jun,” before taking her leave. “Ten minutes,” she whispered.

  Ten minutes with Jun Villanueva. A few more jokes, then some war recollections. Jun had spent the war in America as a very minor, very junior aide to exiled President Manuel Quezon. He was with Quezon when he died at Saranac Lake in 1944. After the war he was attached to Carlos Romulos’s U.N. mission. Eventually he served as ambassador to Egypt, France, and Norway. When Marcos replaced him with a crony, he came home to head the opposition, “to watch and wait.”

  “That’s your strategy?”

  “What is the expression you have in Las Vegas? ‘Lay it as it plays’?”

  “Actually, play it as it lays.”

  “No? Really?” Jun Villanueva took correction well. “I like my way better!”

  Susan was across the pool, talking to a striking woman who, though her back was turned, looked familiar. That long black hair! Surely not Gibbins’s girl from Club Tennessee? No, but the effect was comparable. It was one of those figures that made you dread the moment when she turned around, because either she’d be a monstrous disappointment, or she’d change your life. The conversation must have been lively; it took ten seconds of solid staring before Susan felt his eyes upon her and looked up at him. They exchanged time-to-go nods. Then she motioned him toward her.

  “I think you know Cecilia Santos,” Susan said.

  “Yes, we’ve met,” Cecilia said. The front of her was no disappointment: a dress that was black below, gold on top, and money all over. “I thought you were in Olongapo, Mr. Griffin.”

  “I’m not,” Griffin said. “I came in for the New Year. Happy New Year, Miss Santos. Let old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind . . .”

  “The colonel came with you, I assume.”

  “No, he’s still there.”

  “I thought the arrangement was that you were to accompany Colonel Harding at all times.”