From his place in the tree Emman dropped the yo-yo, let it “sleep,” then flicked his wrist to bring it back. He had a long string, and it zinged far down through the branches without touching. Even in the tree he could do Loop the Loop, Hop the Fence (or rather Hop the Branch), Over the Shoulder, Walk the Dog, and Around the World. Reverse Loop the Loop he was still unable to master—which annoyed him to no end.
His mother had started his hobby, or maybe it was his father, or maybe it was just because he was Filipino. Some said the pastime came from the Chinese, others the Greeks. Others told of primitive Filipinos who sat in trees as he did and used a heavy rock on a string that “rolled up” as a weapon against enemies and as a hunting tool for food. Emman liked to think of that while yo-yoing in his tree.
His mother said his father had used his yo-yo to entertain his friends and impress the girls of the Barangay. His father died before Emman’s birth, when he was hired as a bodyguard to some diplomat from China. His box of yo-yos was saved for the son who came a month later.
Ever the soldier in training, Emman had devised a tactical signaling system he called “yo-yo code.” When he and his friends were younger, it had been great fun to use it in their games. Although Emman thought military communication by “yo-yo code” was rather ingenious, he knew the men would either laugh or scold at such antics. Now that he was a soldier, with a real gun given to him by Amang Tenio, Emman would try weaning himself from yo-yoing as his mother had once tried to stop smoking.
But not tonight. He’d be alone till after dawn and could practice his yo-yo and smoke cigarette butts to keep him awake. Then he’d get to see Miss Julia on her morning walk before he went home to sleep till noon.
Emman had seen a light in her window for some time now. He wondered what she was doing. Did she brush her hair in long, slow strokes? Was there a television in the house, and if so, what did she like to watch? What kinds of things had she brought from America?
He grew uncomfortable and restless in the tree. He dropped the yo-yo again and again, practicing his tricks until a calm returned to him. Then, as if a breeze that wasn’t there had shifted directions, Emman knew he was no longer alone. He eyed his rifle held on other branches within a swift and practiced reach.
A man came through the forest with little stealth; he was not trying to hide himself. His steps were confident, perhaps annoyed. Emman would’ve thought him a boy except for a harsh curse spoken beneath the man’s breath before he actually came within view. He was following a path that would bring him near to Emman’s tree.
The man drew closer, then stood at the jungle edge staring for a long while—a very long while, so long that Emman thought that an hour had surely passed, and still he remained.
Emman kept his gun within his peripheral vision, his sight ever on the stranger staring toward where Miss Julia slept, and his yo-yo in his hand. After a time, the man simply walked away in the same way that he came, leaving Emman with the greater knowledge that Miss Julia needed his protection. He must guard her well.
LIGHT AND COLOR.
Footsteps up the wroughtiron steps of the veranda interrupted the vast peace of the morning, filled with light and color. Julia sat drying her hair in the sunshine and gazing across the immeasurable hues and variants of the hacienda grounds.
“Well, you look lovely this morning,” Lola Gloria said as she reached the top.
The morning was lazy and calm in a way Julia hadn’t experienced since childhood at Harper’s Bay or during the few days she and Nathan had spent at the lakeside Gasthof Simony in the Austrian Alps.
When sleep had again evaded her in the night, Julia had made a list of her most pressing concerns, writing her notes and ideas in the last of Grandpa Morrison’s logbooks.
Hacienda Concerns:
—Meet with Mr. Santos about Hacienda legal matters. Do I
actually decide the future of the Hacienda? Could the land be
sold to the people who live here?
—What happened in the fields yesterday? Ask Raul.
—What preparations are needed for Grandpa Morrison’s wake
and funeral?
—What is the “secret of the orchid”? Grandfather’s musings or
something real?
But sitting on the second-story veranda after her “shower” with the pail in the bathtub, the questions and concerns encompassing the night simply fell away. The hacienda had such enchanting powers.
Lola Gloria bent down by the stairway. “Look, once again, a gift from your admirer. A mango.” Lola Gloria picked up the fruit and brought it toward her.
A teenaged Filipina girl who helped in the kitchen followed the older woman with a wide tray. She set it on the glass-and-iron table, smiled at Julia, and disappeared soundlessly down the stairs.
“That’s a mango?” Julia asked, taking the soft yellow fruit from Lola Gloria. “The ones at home are usually green and reddish and much rounder.” Around the mango was a crocheted yarn necklace with beads woven within it. “Are you sure this is for me?”
The old woman chuckled. “Of course it is for you.”
Julia gazed out across the long stretching lawn, looking for a gift giver to appear. The hacienda gleamed in brighter hues than the night before. Vibrant reflections of colors—greens from the lawns and encircling jungle; reds, pinks, and yellows from the flowers; blues from the sky.
“You like our humble home?” Lola Gloria said with a proud smile.
“It is . . . breathtaking.”
Julia put the necklace over her head.
“There were two ways to eat a mango,” Lola Gloria said. The constant twinkle in her eye spoke of a mischievous spirit. “The civilized way and the messy way.”
“It feels like an uncivilized morning to me.”
“Let me show you then.”
Lola Gloria selected a mango from the tray and set it on her plate. “Civilized” required peeling with a paring knife and cutting the mango into long connected cuts until it reminded Julia of a blooming yellow flower.
“And now, the fun way. Just put your fingers through the peeling at the top and start pulling it away.” Lola Gloria gestured for her to use the mango gift.
Julia peeled off the skin, and juice immediately dripped over her fingers.
“Peel it away and just eat it.”
At the first bite, Julia’s chin was dripping; she and Lola Gloria laughed as Julia leaned forward and drips fell over the tile floor. The sweet flavor languished in Julia’s mouth and filled her senses. Soon her hands, mouth, and face were covered with the sweet juice as she scraped the long white seed with her teeth.
“It’s delicious,” Julia said, embarrassed, and yet not embarrassed enough to stop. She found a linen napkin and shared it with the older woman, who was eating a mango of her own the “uncivilized way.”
Across the lawn, a curious sight caught Julia’s eye. Five small boys were sitting in the arms of a huge tamarind tree. They were laughing and pointing at Julia and Lola Gloria.
“Ah, the boys are pleased that, at least in eating a mango, we are as barbaric as they are,” Lola Gloria said, dabbing her fingers with a napkin.
Julia noticed that on their shoulders the children carried what appeared to be over sized rifles—she hoped they were sculpted from wood. They dwarfed the small bodies that bore them. The vision was such an oddity that it was almost comical. She went to the veranda railing for a better look.
“Those aren’t real guns, right?” The rifles looked very real, resembling stocky World War II rifles from old war movies.
Lola Gloria poured some water over their hands and found several more linen napkins for them to clean up. “No, they are wooden. The boys of the Barangay Mahinahon train with wooden guns until their coming of age. Then they get a real gun and begin their service.”
“What service is that?”
“Oh, all that will be better explained by Raul.”
One of the boys, a round, healthy-looking one wearing a red shirt, waved at her. They all stood in the branches or clung at odd angles on the tree.
“Hi, good morning!” shouted a boy in a striped shirt.
Julia waved back and shouted, “Good morning,” after which the children just stared at her, smiling expectantly, making her uncomfortably embarrassed.
I can’t very well carry on a shouting conversation from way up here, she thought. She excused herself by calling down, “’Bye.”
The boys waved with their guns on their shoulders and shouted, “Good-bye!”
The rest of her breakfast consisted of eggs sunny-side up, bacon, and rice. Julia was surprised by how much she enjoyed the white rice with the eggs, and was nearly finished when the sound of a vehicle approached the hacienda.
“That will be Markus.” Lola Gloria clapped her hands and smiled widely. “I can’t wait for him to meet you.”
“He’s this early?” Julia hadn’t expected the lawyer to arrive for several more hours. “What happened to Filipino time?”
“Markus is unfortunately a little too like you Americans. That boy is always on time or early, and he does not relax half of what he should. Come downstairs and let’s greet him.”
As she rose to follow Lola Gloria back to the railing, Julia noticed drips of mango on her yellow-and-white sun dress.
They leaned over the balcony and saw the top of Markus’s shiny black hair. He’d stopped on the pathway, and several of the boys came running across the lawn with giant smiles at the sight of him.
An older boy whom Julia had seen earlier stepped out of the jungle and stared in their direction. He wasn’t much older than the others, but his demeanor made him seem more mature. Ah, she remembered that one. He’d been with the strange old man with the rooster when she’d first arrived.
Julia’s attention returned to Markus, who was handing something to the kids. He then called a greeting to the older boy. The younger boys ran with their hands cupping what appeared to be candy. Once they reached the older boy, they all turned and disappeared into the jungle.
“We’re up here,” Lola Gloria called down to Markus.
His quick footsteps up the veranda stairs brought a surprising tremor through Julia’s fingers and the coffee cup she held. And then he was there, smiling and exuding a carefree strength she hadn’t expected from the hacienda lawyer—a relaxed sort of confidence.
“Magandang umaga ,” he said, kissing Lola Gloria on the cheek. Then he raised his head and paused long, apparently assessing her. A quizzical expression came over his face.
He was certainly good looking—she’d give Lola Gloria that—with his smooth brown skin and deep brown eyes.
“What?” she finally asked, when he continued to stare.
“I apologize. Standing there, you appear very much at home for a woman in a foreign land. I did not expect this.”
Julia felt both uncomfortable and pleased by his encompassing gaze. “What makes it surprising—because I’m an American or a woman or both?”
“Certainly both.” A smile played over his lips as he spoke. “An American woman at the hacienda is most unusual—you might be the first, in fact. For a second there, I was sure you were the true doña of Hacienda Esperanza.”
Seeing Lola Gloria watch them with such obvious delight, Julia grew more serious. She stretched out a hand and said, “I’m Julia Bentley. I assume you are the hacienda attorney, Markus Santos.”
He opened his hands and glanced down at his khaki slacks and black polo shirt. “So even though I dressed casually, I have lawyer written all over me?”
“Well, you don’t fit the look of anyone else at the hacienda. And Lola Gloria did say, ‘That will be Markus.’”
“Lola Gloria, you are always giving me away.”
The older woman laughed.
“Yes, I am Markus. At your service, Julianna. Or is it Julia?” He bowed, disregarding the proper “Miss Julia” that most everyone used with her. Yet it wasn’t arrogance that Julia sensed in him; rather, a strange and even comfortable familiarity.
“Julia is fine,” she said, though she liked the way he’d said Julianna.
“Would you like something to drink?” Lola Gloria offered.
“Does Lola Sita still make buko-pandan?”
“Of course, though you just missed my sisters. They have gone to the village.”
“Mahjong?” he said.
“Yes, my sisters are addicted. But I will go down and get you buko-pandan—I am not so inept in the kitchen as that.” Lola Gloria smiled at Julia as she descended the stairs and left them alone.
Markus walked to the railing of the veranda. “It has been a while since I’ve been to Esperanza. The beauty never fails to surprise me. I live in a world of concrete and exhaust pipes most of the time.” His eyes swept the yard toward the western orchid fields and remained there a few moments.
Julia came up beside him. “The orchid fields could be beautiful again,” she said.
“Yes. With some attention, they would flourish quickly. But the hacienda requires so much work already that Raul is unable to attend to them as well.”
Julia wanted to say more about the orchids, but the way Markus watched her as she gazed over the lands distracted her.
“Do you always stare so much, Mr. Markus Santos?” she said with humor to alleviate her growing discomfort. He had the kind of eyes that appeared to read everything about her.
“I apologize, and will apologize in advance for future staring. But no, I don’t always stare so much. I’m not accustomed to beautiful women with fair skin, light hair, and blue eyes. It is very rare to see eyes of blue in the Philippines. Anyway,” he said, suddenly looking uncomfortable himself. “Yes, I do apologize—I’m a professional . . . usually. We will discuss the legalities of the hacienda soon. First, I have one bit of unexpected news, I am sorry to inform you.”
“What is it?”
He paused, and she detected that playful smile even as he spoke solemnly. “Unfortunately, your grandfather’s body took a little detour in returning to the hacienda.”
“What does that mean?”
“They shipped him to Thailand by mistake.” Markus chuckled. “I do hope he isn’t late for his wake and funeral.”
Julia’s mouth dropped. “Uh, you are taking this rather lightly, especially for my lawyer.”
“Yes, I know. But I have heard stories of your grandfather my entire life, and these past years he and I have spoken on the phone many times. So to hear that even now the great Captain Morrison causes a stir, coming late for his own funeral . . . I must admit, I find it funny.”
Julia couldn’t help but laugh with him; then she shook her head. “You’re right. Grandpa Morrison was always late. Guess nothing has changed.”
“Don’t be too concerned. We will work hard to get him here. His wake and funeral will be quite an event.”
“You know, I think the hacienda is more a part of you than me.”
Markus thought for a moment. “I disagree. We don’t always realize what is ours until finally we find it.” Then he smiled again and quickly added, “Those wise words won’t cost you my usual lawyer fee.”
“I appreciate that,” Julia said, as they turned again to lean on the railing and gaze out over the hacienda. Through the trees, they could see miles and miles of farmland stretching out toward the distant slope of hills and a sharply protruding mountain.
“You know, this land holds a long and complex history.”
“I’m discovering that.” Julia turned slightly as Markus spoke.
“After World War II, under your grandparents’ direction, the hacienda was rebuilt from its near destruction by the Japanese occupation. Sugarcane, milling, and coconut farming alone brought wealth and political influence to the hacienda, not counting the diverse aquatic and agricultural endeavors the families were involved in.” He paused. “Did you know the hacienda clan was united under Don Miguel and Captain Morrison?”
“The One-Armed Spaniard? I thought he lived in the eigh-teenth century!”
“Oh, you’ve heard that story already. But no, not that Don Miguel. Your grandmother’s brother was also Don Miguel. After the war, your grandfather remained here to rebuild a nearly destroyed country. I think your grandmother was part of the reason as well.”
“I know very little of that time in my grandfather’s life,” she said.
“Julia, he was a great man, and that became a golden time. The annual fiesta here was a provincial event. The workers were happy and well fed, and their children were going to school. The plunder of the Japanese was a nightmare of the past as the workers and their families thrived and grew happy and content.”
Julia pictured this very house and the courtyard as it must have been. The stucco sides of the house and walled courtyards clean and vibrant instead of faded and in disrepair. The overgrown gardens neatly trimmed; the tables laden with expensive china and silver utensils. The fiestas full of celebration and food. Dancing and laughter, lives not just soothed but restored. It all came to life in her imagination.
“Julia, the people of Hacienda Esperanza are some of the best in the world. For four years, my family lived in one of the staff houses when it was dangerous for my father to live in Manila. You will find every kind of drama played out here, some of them quite comical at times. Have you met everyone?”
“Well, if the welcoming committee is everyone, then sort of.”
“I will enjoy giving insight into the backgrounds of your relatives. One of the aunties is always trying to lose weight and says a blood disease will not let her. Mang Berto will keep you trapped in his garage for an entire day showing you his vehicles. And Amang Tenio, the leader of Barangay Mahinahon . . . well, we will introduce you as slowly as possible, so as not to overwhelm.”
He turned, and the brush of his arm sent a shiver throughout her. Why did she feel such an attraction to this man? It was his knowledge of the hacienda and its people, Julia assured herself, that she found so captivating. She determined to keep up her guard, keep this friendly and professional, and then say good-bye with no regrets after her grandfather’s funeral. After all, what would be the point of an attraction to a man who lived nearly around the world?
“Are you okay, Julia?” Markus asked with concern.
“Why?”
“You appear at war in your mind.”
“Just thinking about all of this.”
“Yes, this land is enchanting. But hard to comprehend as well.”
Surely it was the exotic locale. Although Markus did have a certain charisma. People were probably always drawn to him, and she could only imagine his presence in a courtroom. But not to be married at his age—about thirty-five, was her guess—he was probably a man with many issues.
Julia noticed movement in the jungle and pointed to a few more children coming shyly toward the house. They pushed one another onward to be in front. “Is that a girl with them?”
“Yes, and I think she’s found a mentor in you. Most girls from the Barangay Mahinahon would never wear a ponytail unless they were more of the girly sort. She’s with the boys, which means she’s one tough little lady. So I wager she’s acting more like a girl for you to notice her.”
The little girl had used a twig or some part of a plant as the rubber band—it was hard to tell from that distance. It kept falling out and she’d stop to tie it again.
“Do these children live on the hacienda?”
“Not exactly. They are the children of Barangay Mahinahon—Barangay means village. It’s located some kilometers from here, but very much part of Hacienda Esperanza. There is much to explain to you, Julia.”
Julia felt impatient. Why did everyone keep saying that? She wanted to say, “So tell me!,” but Markus excused himself, saying, “I’ll be right back.”
He hurried down the stairs and greeted the children partway across the lawn. Once again the younger children surrounded him and tugged at his arm. He slipped something into their hands, and they smiled and ran off again.
The older, more serious boy had come as well and talked with Markus a little longer. Then he turned toward the jungle too. The gun on his shoulder appeared alarmingly real.
The girl waved up at Julia then, took something from Markus, and raced off.
When Markus returned he was holding an odd-looking drink. “Lola Gloria spotted me downstairs and said she’d make you some if you like it.” He took a sip and declared it perfect, then offered a sip to Julia.
“No, thanks.”
“Come on, I don’t have too many germs.”
“I don’t know that.”
“You must try the native cuisines.”
“You’re one pushy lawyer, mister,” Julia said, taking the glass.
“I’m glad you recognize that early on.”
“It is . . . good. I think. Sort of sweet, but sort of not.”
“Give it time. Buko-pandan is a concoction of pasteurized coconut juice mixed with milk and pandan leaves. You’ll get used to it, and then hooked.”
“I would’ve liked that information before trying it,” Julia said, sticking out her tongue. “So okay, what are you giving the children down there?”
“It’s a secret.”
“Not much of one. At least, all of the children are apparently in on it. So if I tug at your sleeve or follow at your heels, you’ll tell me?”
“You are quick for an American woman.”
“Excuse me?” Julia crossed her arms in protest.
He held up his hands with a devilish smile. “Kidding, kidding. Actually, children usually don’t like me, so I bribe them with candies I get in Manila. Then I also look good to the ladies. What woman can resist a guy who’s always surrounded by a flock of adoring children?”
“Oh, and this works for you, does it?”
“I don’t know. I guess I should be asking you that.”
“What do these other women say?”
“Oh, hmm . . . well, actually, no others have seen me at the hacienda. So, how’s it working on you?”
They both laughed, and then grew silent. But to Julia’s surprise, the silence was of a most comfortable sort. It even bordered on peaceful.