"Lo siento, caballo marino," Juan Diego said, before he flushed the sea horse down the toilet.
Then he was angry--angry at himself, at the Makati Shangri-La, at the servile wheedling of the hotel manager. The fashion plate with his fussy mustache had given Juan Diego a brochure of the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, a publication of the American Battle Monuments Commission, Juan Diego had learned (in a cursory reading of the little brochure, on the elevator after breakfast).
Who had told the busybody hotel manager that Juan Diego had a personal interest in the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial? Even Bienvenido knew Juan Diego intended to visit the graves of those Americans lost to "operations" in the Pacific.
Had Clark French (or his Filipino wife) told everyone about Juan Diego's intentions to pay his respects to the good gringo's hero father? Juan Diego had, for years, possessed a private reason for coming to Manila. Leave it to the well-meaning Clark French, in his devoted way, to make Juan Diego's mission in Manila a matter of public knowledge!
Naturally, Juan Diego was angry at Clark French. Juan Diego had no desire to go to Bohol; he barely understood what or where Bohol was. But Clark had insisted that his revered mentor couldn't be alone in Manila for New Year's Eve.
"For God's sake, Clark--I've been alone in Iowa City for most of my life!" Juan Diego had said. "Once you were alone in Iowa City!"
Ah, well--perhaps the well-meaning Clark hoped Juan Diego might meet a future wife in the Philippines. Just look what had happened to Clark! Hadn't he met someone? Wasn't Clark French (possibly because of his Filipino wife) insanely happy? Truthfully, Clark had been insanely happy when he was alone in Iowa City. Clark was religiously happy, Juan Diego suspected.
It might have been the wife's Filipino family--maybe they had made a big deal of inviting Juan Diego to Bohol. But in Juan Diego's opinion, Clark was capable of making a big deal out of the invitation all by himself.
Every year, Clark French's Filipino family occupied a seaside resort at a beach near Panglao Bay; they took over the whole hotel for a few days following Christmas, through New Year's Day and the day after.
"Every room in the hotel is ours--no strangers!" Clark had told Juan Diego.
I'm a stranger, you idiot! Juan Diego had thought. Clark French would be the only person he knew. Naturally, Juan Diego's image as a murderer of precious underwater life would precede him to Bohol. Auntie Carmen would know everything; Juan Diego didn't doubt that the exotic-pet person would (somehow) have communicated with the moray. If Senor Morales had been agitated, there was no telling what Juan Diego should expect for agitation from Auntie Carmen--a likely Mrs. Morals.
As for his rising anger, Juan Diego knew what his beloved physician and dear friend, Dr. Rosemary Stein, would say. She would surely have pointed out to him that anger of the kind he'd vented in the elevator, and was still experiencing now, was an indication that half a Lopressor tablet wasn't enough.
Was not the level of anger he was feeling a sure sign that his body was making more adrenaline, and more adrenaline receptors? Yes. And, yes, there was a lethargy that came with the right dose of the beta-blockers--and the reduced blood circulation to the extremities gave Juan Diego cold hands and feet. And, yes, a Lopressor pill (the whole pill, not a half) could potentially give him as disturbed and vivid dreams as he'd had when he went off the beta-blockers altogether. This was truly confusing.
Yet he not only had very high blood pressure (170 over 100). Hadn't one of Juan Diego's possible fathers died of a heart attack at a young age--if Juan Diego's mother could be believed?
And then there was what had happened to Esperanza--I hope not my next disturbing dream! Juan Diego thought, knowing that the idea would lodge in his mind, making it all the more likely to be the case. Besides, what had happened to Esperanza--in Juan Diego's dreams and in his memory--was recurrent.
"No stopping it," Juan Diego said aloud. He was still in the bathroom, still recovering from the flushed-away sea horse, when he saw the untaken half of the Lopressor tablet and swallowed it quickly, with a glass of water.
Was Juan Diego consciously welcoming a diminished feeling for the rest of the day? And if he took a full dose of his beta-blockers later tonight in Bohol, wouldn't Juan Diego once more experience the ennui, the inertia, the sheer sluggishness, he'd so often complained about to Dr. Stein?
I should call Rosemary right away, Juan Diego thought. He knew he'd tampered with the dosage of his beta-blockers; he may even have known he was inclined to keep altering the dose, in an on-and-off fashion, because of his temptation to manipulate the results. He knew perfectly well he was supposed to block the adrenaline, but he missed the adrenaline in his life, and--he also knew--he wanted more of it. There was no good reason why Juan Diego didn't call Dr. Stein.
What was really going on here is that Juan Diego understood, very well, what Dr. Rosemary Stein would say to him about playing with his adrenaline and adrenaline receptors. (He just didn't want to hear it.) And because Juan Diego understood, very well, that Clark French was one of those people who knew everything--Clark was either all-knowing or poised to find out about anything--Juan Diego made an effort to memorize the most conspicuous information in the tourist brochure about the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial. Anyone would have thought that Juan Diego had already visited the place.
In fact, in the limo with Bienvenido, Juan Diego was tempted to say he'd been there. (There was a World War II veteran staying at the hotel--I went with him. He'd come ashore with MacArthur--you know, when the general returned in October 1944. MacArthur landed at Leyte, Juan Diego almost told Bienvenido.) But instead he said: "I'll go see the cemetery another time. I want to take a look at a couple of hotels--places to stay when I come back. A friend recommended them."
"Sure--you're the boss," Bienvenido told him.
In the brochure about the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, there'd been a photo of General Douglas MacArthur striding ashore at Leyte in the knee-deep water.
There were more than seventeen thousand headstones in the cemetery; Juan Diego had committed this figure to memory--not to mention, more than thirty-six thousand "missing in action" but fewer than four thousand "unknowns." Juan Diego was dying to tell someone what he knew, but he restrained himself from telling Bienvenido.
More than one thousand U.S. military were killed in the Battle of Manila--at about the same time those amphibious troops were recapturing Corregidor Island, the good gringo's lost dad among the fallen heroes--but what if one or more of Bienvenido's relatives had been killed in the monthlong Battle of Manila, when one hundred thousand Filipino civilians died?
Juan Diego did ask Bienvenido what he knew about the headstone locations in the vast cemetery--more than 150 acres! Juan Diego wondered if there was a specific area for the U.S. soldiers killed at Corregidor, either in '42 or '45. The brochure made mention of a specific memorial for the servicemen who lost their lives at Guadalcanal, and Juan Diego knew there were as many as eleven burial plots. (However, not knowing the good gringo's name--or the name of his slain father--was a problem.)
"I think you tell them the soldier's name, and they tell you which plot, which row, which grave," Bienvenido answered. "You just tell them the name--that's how it works."
"I see," was all Juan Diego said. The driver kept glancing at the tired-looking writer in the rearview mirror. Maybe he thought Juan Diego looked like he'd had a bad night's sleep. But Bienvenido didn't know about the aquarium murders, and the youthful driver didn't understand that the slumped-over way Juan Diego was sitting in the limo's rear seat was just an indication that the second half of the Lopressor pill was beginning to take effect.
THE SOFITEL, WHERE BIENVENIDO drove him, was in the Pasay City part of Manila--even from his slumped-over position in the limo's rear seat, Juan Diego noticed the bomb-sniffing dogs.
"It's the buffet you have to worry about," Bienvenido told him. "That's what I hear about the Sofitel."
"Wha
t about the buffet?" Juan Diego asked. The prospect of food poisoning seemed to perk him up. But that wasn't it: Juan Diego knew he could learn a lot from limo drivers; trips to those foreign-language countries where he was published had taught him to pay attention to his drivers.
"I know where every men's room in the vicinity of every hotel lobby or hotel restaurant is," Bienvenido was saying. "If you're a professional driver, you have to know these things."
"Where to take a leak, you mean," Juan Diego said; he'd heard this from other drivers. "What about the buffet?"
"If there's a choice, the men's room the hotel restaurant-goers use is a better men's room than the one in the area of the hotel lobby--usually," Bienvenido explained. "Not here."
"The buffet," Juan Diego repeated.
"I've seen people barfing in the urinals; I've heard them shitting their brains out in the toilet stalls," Bienvenido warned him.
"Here? At the Sofitel? And you're sure it's the buffet?" Juan Diego asked.
"Maybe the food sits out forever. Who knows how long the shrimp has been lying around at room temperature? I'll bet it's the buffet!" Bienvenido exclaimed.
"I see," was all Juan Diego said. Too bad, he thought--the Sofitel looked as if it might be nice. Miriam must have liked the hotel for some reason; maybe she'd never tried the buffet. Maybe Bienvenido was wrong.
They drove away from the Sofitel without Juan Diego setting foot inside the place. The other hotel Miriam had suggested was the Ascott.
"You should have mentioned the Ascott first," Bienvenido said, sighing. "It's on Glorietta, back in Makati City. The Ayala Center is right there--you can get anything there," Bienvenido told him.
"What do you mean?" Juan Diego asked.
"Miles and miles of shopping--it's a shopping mall. There are escalators and elevators--there's every kind of restaurant," Bienvenido was saying.
Cripples aren't crazy about shopping malls, Juan Diego was thinking, but all he said was: "And the hotel itself, the Ascott? No reported deaths by buffet?"
"The Ascott is fine--you should have stayed there the first time," Bienvenido told him.
"Don't get me started on should have, Bienvenido," Juan Diego said; his novels had been called should-have and what-if propositions.
"Next time, then," Bienvenido said.
They drove back to Makati City, so that Juan Diego could make an in-person reservation at the Ascott for his return trip to Manila. Juan Diego would ask Clark French to cancel his reservation at the Makati Shangri-La for him; after the aquarium Armageddon, all parties would doubtless be relieved by the return-trip cancellation.
You took an elevator from the street-level entrance of the Ascott to the hotel lobby, which was on an upper floor. At the elevators, both at street level and in the lobby, there were a couple of anxious-looking security guards with two bomb-sniffing dogs.
He didn't tell Bienvenido, but Juan Diego adored the dogs. As he made his reservation, Juan Diego could imagine Miriam checking in at the Ascott. It was a long walk to the registration desk from where the elevators opened into the lobby; Juan Diego knew that the security guards would be watching Miriam the whole way. You had to be blind, or a bomb-sniffing dog, not to watch Miriam walk away from you--you would be compelled to watch her every step of the way.
What is happening to me? Juan Diego wondered again. His thoughts, his memories--what he imagined, what he dreamed--were all jumbled up. And he was obsessed with Miriam and Dorothy.
Juan Diego sank into the rear seat of the limo like a stone into an unseen pond.
"We end up in Manila," Dorothy had said; Juan Diego wondered if she had somehow meant everyone. Maybe all of us end up in Manila, Juan Diego was thinking.
One Single Journey. It sounded like a title. Was it something he'd written, or something he intended to write? The dump reader couldn't remember.
"I would marry this hippie boy, if he smelled better and stopped singing that cowboy song," Lupe had said. ("Oh, let me die!" she'd also said.)
How he cursed the names the nuns at Ninos Perdidos had called his mother! Juan Diego regretted that he'd called her names, too. "Desesperanza"--"Hopelessness," the nuns had called Esperanza. "Desesperacion"--"Desperation," they'd called her.
"Lo siento, madre," Juan Diego said softly to himself in the rear seat of the limo--so softly that Bienvenido didn't hear him.
Bienvenido couldn't tell if Juan Diego was awake or asleep. The driver had said something about the airport for domestic flights in Manila--how the checkin lines arbitrarily closed, then spontaneously reopened, and there were extra fees for everything. But Juan Diego didn't respond.
Whether he was awake or asleep, the poor guy seemed out of it, and Bienvenido decided he would walk Juan Diego through the checkin process, despite the hassle he would have to go through with the car.
"It's too cold!" Juan Diego suddenly cried. "Fresh air, please! No more air-conditioning!"
"Sure--you're the boss," Bienvenido told him; he shut off the AC and automatically opened the limo's windows. They were near the airport, passing through another shantytown, when Bienvenido stopped the car at a red light.
Before Bienvenido could warn him, Juan Diego found himself beseeched by begging children--their skinny arms, palms up, were suddenly thrust inside the open rear windows of the stopped limo.
"Hello, children," Juan Diego said, as if he'd been expecting them. (You cannot take the scavenging out of scavengers; los pepenadores carry their picking and sorting with them, long after they've stopped looking for aluminum or copper or glass.)
Before Bienvenido could stop him, Juan Diego was fumbling around with his wallet.
"No, no--give them nothing," Bienvenido said. "I mean, not anything. Sir, Juan Diego, please--it will never stop!"
What was this funny currency, anyway? It was like play money, Juan Diego thought. He had no change, and only two small bills. He gave the twenty-piso note to the first outstretched hand; he had nothing smaller than a fifty for the second small hand.
"Dalawampung piso!" the first kid cried.
"Limampung piso!" shouted the second child. Was that Tagalog they were speaking? Juan Diego wondered.
Bienvenido stopped him from handing out the one-thousand-piso bill, but one of the beseeching children saw the amount before Bienvenido could block the young beggar's hand.
"Sir, please--that's too much," the driver told Juan Diego.
"Sanlibong piso!" one of the beseeching children cried.
The other kids quickly took up the cry. "Sanlibong piso! Sanlibong piso!"
The light turned green, and Bienvenido slowly accelerated; the beggar children withdrew their skinny arms from the car.
"There's no such thing as too much for those children, Bienvenido--there's only not enough for them," Juan Diego said. "I'm a dump kid," he told the driver. "I should know."
"A dump kid, sir?" Bienvenido asked.
"I was a dump kid, Bienvenido," Juan Diego told him. "My sister and I--we were ninos de la basura. We grew up in the basurero--we virtually lived there. We should never have left--it's been all downhill since!" the dump reader declared.
"Sir--" Bienvenido started to say, but he stopped when he saw that Juan Diego was crying. The bad air of the polluted city was blowing in the open windows of the car; the cooking smells assailed him; the children were begging in the streets; the women, who looked exhausted, wore sleeveless dresses, or shorts with halter tops; the men loitered in doorways, smoking or just talking to one another, as if they didn't have anything to do.
"It's a slum!" Juan Diego cried. "It's a sickening, polluted slum! Millions of people who have nothing or not enough to do--yet the Catholics want more and more babies to be born!"
He meant Mexico City--at that moment, Manila was forcefully reminding him of Mexico City. "And just look at the stupid pilgrims!" Juan Diego cried. "They walk on their bleeding knees--they whip themselves, to show their devotion!"
Naturally, Bienvenido was confused. He thought
Juan Diego meant Manila. What pilgrims? the limousine driver was thinking. But all he said was: "Sir, it's just a small shantytown--it's not exactly a slum. I will admit the pollution is a problem--"
"Watch out!" Juan Diego cried, but Bienvenido was a good driver. He'd seen the boy fall out of the overfull and moving jeepney; the jeepney driver never noticed--he just kept going--but the boy rolled (or he was pushed) off one of the rear rows of seats. He fell into the street; Bienvenido had to swerve the car not to run over him.
The boy was a dirty-faced urchin with what appeared to be a ratty-looking stole (or a fur boa) draped over his neck and shoulders; the shabby-looking garment was like something an old woman in a cold climate might wrap around her neck. But when the boy fell, both Bienvenido and Juan Diego could see that the furry scarf was actually a small dog, and the dog, not the boy, was the one injured in the fall. The dog yelped; the dog could not put weight on one of its forepaws, which it tremblingly held off the ground. The boy had skinned one of his bare knees, which was bleeding, but he seemed otherwise unhurt--he was chiefly concerned for the dog.
GOD IS GOOD! the sticker on the jeepney had said. Not to this boy, or his dog, Juan Diego thought.
"Stop--we must stop," Juan Diego said, but Bienvenido just kept going.
"Not here, sir--not now," the young driver said. "The checking-in part at the airport--it takes longer than your flight."
"God isn't good," Juan Diego told him. "God is indifferent. Ask that boy. Speak to his dog."
"What pilgrims?" Bienvenido asked him. "You said pilgrims, sir," the driver reminded him.
"In Mexico City, there is a street--" Juan Diego began. He closed his eyes, then quickly opened them, as if he didn't want to see this street in Mexico City. "The pilgrims go there--the street is their approach to a shrine," Juan Diego continued, but his speech slowed, as if the approach to this shrine was difficult, at least for him.
"What shrine, sir? Which street?" Bienvenido asked him, but now Juan Diego's eyes were closed; he may not have heard the young driver. "Juan Diego?" the driver asked.
"Avenida de los Misterios," Juan Diego said, with his eyes closed; the tears were streaming down his face. "Avenue of Mysteries."