Never an Empire Page 5

  ‘Your housekeeper sent me. You are late for your meal. She was worried.’

  He blessed himself, got up and stood facing her. This was the woman who encompassed his destruction, who had stained beyond repair the pure whiteness of his immortal soul. Yet all he could think of was how beautiful she looked and remember the softness and warmth of her body as he had felt it last night. He didn’t know what to say or do.

  ‘There was no need to worry.’

  ‘We should go, Father, your meal is ready.’

  ‘Yes.’

  The young woman faced the altar and genuflected then walked away down the aisle. Father Enrique watched for a moment, his thoughts unchanged, then he came to his senses, turned and genuflected to the tabernacle behind the altar, and followed her.

  As he walked his mind tried to grapple with the situation. His housekeeper and his midday meal would be waiting as usual. But the young woman was still there. What would he do? What could he say? Would she stay in the house for another night and if she did would she come to him? Would they make love again? As he reached the church doors and he automatically put his hand in the holy water stoop and blessed himself he decided that so long as she was still there the world was a wonderful place. Outside the gloom of the church there was bright sunshine and the sense of sin, shame, and degradation that had dogged him all morning was gone, his whole being almost throbbed with love and anticipation.

  He was happy.

  The afternoon passed its usual course. After his meal, served by his housekeeper and eaten alone, he had gone to his study and dealt with whatever paperwork was necessary, then to his own private room where tried to read the newspaper which came two days late from Manila. Normally he enjoyed keeping up with the news. He still regarded himself as Spanish rather than Filipino and had never been in the least interested in the political situation but he prided himself on taking an intelligent interest in all the more important aspects of the national life of his adopted country if only to be able to join in intelligently in any conversation that moved in that direction. A priest should not take sides but should be able to give advice and guidance to those who chose to do so. As a priest he had no particular position on whether the Philippines should be independent of American rule or not. As a Spaniard he accepted the validity of the treaty Spain had signed with the United States at the end of the Spanish-American war. He had felt the defeat keenly – what Spaniard could not – but his grandfather had been Irish and from both grandfather and his father he had learned that it was the duty of any free man to oppose tyranny. In their case the tyrant had always been the English Crown but he could quite understand how the Filipinos had wanted and fought for independence from Spain. And he could equally understand how those who now opposed the Americans felt themselves betrayed when they had come within touching distance of overthrowing Spanish rule only to have their victory snatched from them at the last moment. He, like everyone else, was aware that the so called Battle of Manila – after which the Philippines were surrendered by the Spanish to the Americans rather than to the besieging Filipino army – had been no more than a piece of elaborate, political play-acting.

  Well, such things happened in international affairs. So be it. That was now history. What mattered was the situation as it was being played out today and as a priest and a man of consequence and education, his views and opinions on matters secular as well as spiritual were sought and heeded. It was his duty to understand both sides of the political divide.

  He sat in his room and tried, with difficulty, to bend his mind to the latest news. The revolutionaries from the mountains had been busy again. They had raided an American outpost, killed three soldiers and four Filipino police, then taken arms and ammunition. The American governor in Manila, Henry Clay Ide, had condemned the raid as a despicable act of lawless banditry, as he always did when commenting on any revolutionary activity. He had promised that the culprits would be found, tried, and punished, as he always did when the American military suffered any kind of loss. But, despite the considerable forces deployed against him, the revolutionary army commanded by General Macario Sakay seemed to Father Enrique just as strong and active as they had been for the last few years, perhaps stronger. In fact they were strong and secure enough to have announced a Philippine Republic and formed a functioning government. Of course the newspapers in Manila could never report such a story openly: the Americans would never allow it. Father Enrique knew of it only because his housekeeper seemed particularly well informed of the situation and would repeat all the latest news to Father Enrique while he ate his meal. In fact, whenever the revolutionaries achieved some success or victory she talked at length about it and seemed to know all about it before anyone else. One might almost think she had her own special source providing her with news.

  Strangely, she had been silent about the raid on the American post, although she must have known about it. Not that Father Enrique cared. In his opinion the revolutionaries couldn’t win. They might announce a dozen republics, form as many governments, and score as many small victories, it would never amount to anything more than an annoyance to the Americans. Having got the Philippines the Americans would hold onto them. Fighting them was a useless waste of life; they were too powerful for a few idealistic dreamers to throw them back into the sea.

  He turned the pages of the paper, looking for other more interesting news but found that nothing could engage his mind because, try as he might to avoid it, his eyes kept leaving the page and turning to his bed which stood to one side of the door. Last night, through that door when he was asleep, she had come. The first he had known of it was when he felt someone slip into bed beside him and a small, soft hand was placed over his mouth and he had felt her breasts press against his back. He had lain quite still, unable to move or think while her hand had slipped from his mouth, slowly made its way down his chest, across his stomach until it came to rest, holding him, and suddenly he found himself lost in a world he had heard about only in lectures on moral theology or read about in pious textbooks. In the seminary sex was presented as a necessity created only for procreation. To Father Enrique it had seemed something vaguely unpleasant or, if performed for animal pleasure, gravely sinful. Last night his world view had been changed. Nature, in the form of the naked young woman who gently stroked him, had taken over. He had turned to her and discovered the most wonderful experience in the world, an experience for which he would willingly let his soul burn in Hell for all eternity.

  He looked at the bed and felt the stirrings of desire. She would come, he knew it, she would come and they would make love again.

  There was a knock at the door. He dropped the newspaper on the floor and hurried across. It was his housekeeper.

  ‘What am I to do about the young woman?’

  ‘Do?’

  ‘She is in the kitchen. You have said nothing. You must decide what to do about her.’

  The housekeeper stood waiting for an answer.

  ‘I will think about it.’

  The housekeeper nodded.

  ‘Yes, Father, it would be well to think about it.’

  Father Enrique closed the door, went back to his chair, ignored the newspaper, and left it where it had fallen. He looked at the bed and began to think about it. He thought about the feeling of her naked body pressed against his, of him turning to her, of feeling her softness under him, and that, he knew very well, was not at all what his housekeeper had meant.

  With an effort he decided he must do something to take his mind off what had happened. She was beginning to possess him. He felt a sense of sin seeping back and with it now a sense of betrayal. He had betrayed his Church and his bishop, he had smeared his immortal soul with the dark stain of sin and, worst of all, he had betrayed his loving saviour, Jesus, who had suffered and died on the cross for him. His eyes turned to the large, dark crucifix hanging on the wall. On the cross hung the naked, twisted body of a broken man wearing a crown of thorns and with a gaping wound in the side of h
is chest, the Christ dying for sinful humanity. All that love, all that suffering, for him and for all mankind and he had rejected it for the pleasure a woman’s body could give him and, what was worse, he knew he would do it again, do it many times. He was once again as he had been before saying Mass that morning, a lost soul, a sinner, a creature who had placed himself beyond the mercy of God.

  There was once more a knock. Slowly he got up, went to the door, and stopped. What would he say? He could not send the young woman away but nor could he let her stay. Slowly he opened the door. The young woman stood and looked at him.

  ‘Please, Father, am I to stay tonight or should I go? Your housekeeper sent me to you and says you must decide.’

  And she waited.

  ‘It is too late for you to go back to your village. You can stay again tonight and tomorrow I will decide what shall be done.’

  There was no smile of gratitude, no hint that she wanted to stay, nothing.

  ‘Thank you, Father, I will tell her.’

  She walked away and Father Enrique watched her go. Was he glad or was he sorry? He wasn’t sure. All he knew was that his whole body was a whirl of conflicting feelings and emotions. Tonight she would stay, but would she come?

  The church clock began to strike six. At six each day he was in church ready to lead the rosary. The people would be there waiting, wondering what had happened to him.

  Quickly he went to a chest of drawers, pulled one open, snatched up his rosary beads and almost ran from the room and out of the house. In the church about thirty people, mostly women, but with a few old men, were kneeling, all holding rosary beads. He hurried up the aisle, paused for a second, unsure whether he should delay even more by going to the sacristy and putting on his vestments, decided against it, and knelt down at the altar rail. Heads in the congregation turned to one another and not a few smiled knowingly. Very little went unnoticed in this small town and whatever their priest did was common knowledge almost at once.

  Father Enrique’s voice began as he made the sign of the cross. ‘In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.’

  And the congregation answered dutifully. ‘Amen’.

  Chapter Eight

  Father Enrique’s housekeeper, Maria Dolores Sanchez, had been aptly, if unfortunately, christened. Her Christian names, Mary of the Sorrows, had been prophetic. An industrial accident at a shipyard, sadly not so very uncommon, left her mother a widow without financial means and three small children to support. Maria was the eldest. From the tender age of seven all she knew was work, at first at home looking after her younger brother and sister. Then, when her mother became ill from an impossibly inadequate diet, the cares of looking after her family and overwork in the homes of others Maria had had to take over doing the cleaning, washing, serving, and anything else that paid enough to put food on the table at home. Education was denied her, as was a normal childhood. All she knew was work and want as she grew to womanhood. Fifteen, out of work and desperate, she stole a loaf of bread from the basket of a woman who was too occupied looking at dresses in a shop window to notice the theft. She continued looking at the dresses Maria couldn’t even afford to dream about but a citizen, more law-abiding than Maria, saw the theft, took hold of her and presented her to the owner of the loaf. He stood, his hand gripping the thin arm of the miscreant, awaiting his thanks. The woman, however, did not behave as the law-abiding citizen expected. She looked at Maria, her thin arms, her thin body, her sunken eyes. She asked Maria, kindly, why she had taken the loaf.

  ‘It was for my mother. She is ill and hungry.’

  The law-abiding citizen, a bank clerk as it happened, was impatient of any conversation. A theft had taken place. The girl was a thief. It was a matter for the police.

  The woman didn’t see it that way.

  ‘The girl is hungry, can’t you see that?’

  No, he couldn’t. All he could see was a crime and all he wanted was the thanks due to him. The woman begged to disagree: the child was sick and hungry, not really a thief, so the clerk let go of her arm and stormed off. What could any responsible citizen expect if the very victims of crimes, crimes committed in broad daylight on the street, fussed over the criminal instead of calling the police? The woman returned her attention to Maria who stood patiently awaiting whatever might befall her. She knew she had done wrong and would be punished, but she was so tired, so very tired.

  ‘Have you eaten today?’

  Maria made the effort to reply.

  ‘No, but I am young and strong and my mother’s need is greater.’

  A lie, of course, she was indeed young, but not strong, which she immediately proved by fainting away on the spot, partly from shame perhaps, but mostly from hunger.

  Maria came to lying on a sofa in a small but comfortably furnished room. The woman was sitting opposite and standing behind her was a young man. The young man was the woman’s son, a bright, smiling youth of seventeen. The woman explained that her son was home from university and that she lived alone, her husband having died three years ago. Now that her son was away so much she felt lonely and would like a companion to live with her. Would Maria be interested? It was as if an angel of God had appeared and asked her if, by any chance, she would like to go to heaven. What could she say? Nothing. She put her head in her hands and cried. The woman took that for an acceptance and carried on talking. Slowly Maria surfaced. She was to come and live in this fine house and work, but not cleaning and cooking. She didn’t quite understand but it seemed to her that she was to be a daughter to this woman, this angel from God. Daughter to an angel. And paid! The wages were carefully calculated so that Maria could give a small but sufficient amount each week to her family and still have enough left over to buy a few things for herself.

  ‘But of course you must ask permission from your mother.’

  Maria nodded.

  The woman nodded to her son who left the room and returned with a basket. It contained food. More food than Maria and her family had seen in weeks.

  ‘You must become strong.’ The young man smiled at her. ‘The work will not be hard but even so, there must be more of you than there is at the moment if we are to pay you so much.’

  The smile widened into a grin.

  Maria smiled. He was making a joke.

  The woman laughed.

  ‘It is settled then if your mother agrees.’

  And of course her mother agreed, so Maria moved into the fine house and became the companion of Señora Lucia Clothilde Herrera.

  Señora Herrera was not a wealthy woman but she was careful, industrious, and capable, and took great pleasure in passing on the domestic talents she had acquired to her new companion who proved a willing and apt student. As the result of a healthy diet and a civilised lifestyle Maria bloomed. A beautiful young woman slowly emerged from the frail waif who had been brought to the house. Was it a surprise to Señora Herrera that a relationship developed between Maria and her son, Alberto? Perhaps, but perhaps not. Either way he came home from university a little more often than before Maria’s arrival; they became firm friends, then more than friends, and on his graduation from university they were married. The architect of the romance, Señora Herrera, could not have been more pleased. She was not rich, she could not buy a place for her son, nor had she influential friends who would see that he was made welcome in some suitably well-paid position. Her son would have to make his way in the world and to do this he needed a reliable, competent wife beside him, one who could manage things as they should be managed, as she would have managed them herself. So many young men fell for a pretty face and figure without thought of household management. In Maria, she knew from first-hand experience, he would have a wife who would serve him well.

  Alberto Herrera was a civil engineer and had done well at university. A recommendation from that institution had secured for him an appointment to an official post. The man who interviewed him and confirmed his appointment was a senior official in a very junior
state department responsible for the financing of minor works in the rural districts. The post allocated was in the small town of San Juan Bautista and Alberto was required to oversee all municipal works in the town itself and the surrounding district: an area of several thousand square kilometres. Here, after just over a year, Maria’s daughter was born and the sorrow of her name began to return. The child contracted some sort of chest disease and despite the best medical attention San Juan Bautista had to offer, died just after her first birthday. From then on happiness faded fast. Maria’s husband, a man of strong political convictions and a fierce nationalist, had been elected lodge leader of the local Katipunan, a secret society set up to work for Philippine independence which, when its existence was discovered and suppressed by the Spanish, translated itself into a revolutionary army. Maria’s husband became an officer, the lodge members his soldiers, and they left San Juan to join forces with others to form the new Army of Independence. Her sorrow at departure of her husband was as nothing, however, when two months later she received the news of his death. He had been killed in his first engagement with Spanish troops. The fact that he had died bravely, leading his men on a charge of the Spanish position, comforted her not at all.