Entry #27
April 30 [1896?]
Pilgrimage to Antipolo. This time Miong’s stern brother Mang Crispulo takes the lead, the old servant, my old comrade Rufino Mago arriving with him and carrying the bags of all the travelers. Miong is absent. Once again they sleep in my rooms, eat my bread, and drink my barako. It’s all okay, if they told me why they were doing this—attending frivolous feasts when they should be planning for war! I mean, sure the Virgin is a good enough spirit, but the priest of Antipolo is a fat pig who is raking in money on Mang Crispulo’s misguided piety. Did no one read Fray Botod, or that wit Dimasalang’s revelatory vision of Fray Rodriguez?405 Where was our anticlerical spine: shouldn’t we be tossing rosaries into the river instead of brandishing them like sheep?
Santiago, that hypocrite, kept nudging me in the chest to keep quiet. Did he not make me swear in Trozo to get rid of the friars, and now here he was at a priestly carnival with a bunch of praying cows?
I know, I know, when I got on this banca with the traveling devotees from the provinces, I should have trusted my instincts and run away from this herd of fanatics. But I was also their host. And they did bring whole jars of tuba, red-blooded and freshly fermented, splashing amid the scapulars.
I was too polite to decline their invitation.
Out on the waters of the Pasig, our fluvial party floated with the rest of the Philippines—citizens from islands as far-flung as Capiz, towns as craggy as Cabanatuan and sleepy as Pansol. They were singing hymns, playing cards, carrying passive pigs unaware of our plots for their doom.
Fireworks deafened everyone’s devotion.
Bands marched on shore in full regalia, oblivious of our loss of hearing. For some reason a squadron of rondalla players floating right beside us seemed to me to possess the stupefying air of a passing dream. And everywhere roosters with a morbid calm sat at the helms of bancas and seemed for all the world like solemn pilots.406 They certainly looked a lot more sober than the Christians. Women protected straw bins of bibingka from the waves, children tossed marbles, old wise wives spat what looked like chewed red blood—the belch of betel—into the generous, forgiving canals. And the Chinese came in droves as usual, floating restaurants in striped trousers.407 408
In straw hats or European bowlers, barefoot or booted, some women in those ridiculous silk-fretted shoes, the world joined in the watery mood: fisherfolk, farmers, architects, pharmacists, foreigners, laborers, and men of law. Soon enough, I too had that wastrel feeling, that abandoned concupiscence that precedes giving everything up to the Lord, or in this case the Lady, titular goddess of peace and good voyage. I joined in the singing, ate the lechon, and frankly drank too much tuba. I did not notice our growing caravan, the circle of boats swimming beside us, filled with carousing, sharp-eyed men. Cascos, bancas, simple outriggers carried, I soon discovered, a host of my old friends, as well as jackfruit, hay, and tinapâ. Was I cross-eyed from drink, or was that Agapito, still looking mournful and agitated, wearing the same funereal suit he wore the last time we parted? Was he still with his radical book club? Would he laugh when I told him I had joined a secret society, like him? Did he want to join my club? I had so many questions! I sang out his name, but he stared as if he did not know me. Maybe I was mistaken, and wine had overturned my brain. I saw companions from San Roque and a few men whom I recognized but couldn’t place. I was getting dizzy, everything unfathomable but familiar. On another boat stood Kapitan Miong, suddenly arrived from Kawit. And where was his brother, the dour Crispulo, I asked him?
—Sssh, Miong said. Crispulo has nothing to do with us.
The last I saw of Mang Crispulo in Antipolo, we had left him behind at the church, lighting up candles to his vested Virgin. Anyway, I thought, Mang Crispulo was a drag, a bit too devout for us drinkers. We called him “Father” behind his back.
But whose sweet image was grinning at me?
There, in a gauze shirt, in festive fungal green and cradling a child, next to Miong, was Benigno, el maestro!
I practically leaped out of my boat to hug him, upsetting some drinkers and getting some flak, but hey—I hadn’t seen him in years! There we were, Benigno and I, rocking and chatting on his little outrigger when we heard a shout, a loud firm voice I knew in my bones.
It was the Supremo, upright, therefore taller than all, and as usual very neatly dressed, with a kerchief at his throat, shouting the meeting to order.
Miong rapped me on my skull: For God’s sake, Bulag, shut up! The meeting’s begun!
It dawned on me, and I felt stupid.
Why had I not guessed?
What an ingenious ruse—to hide out in the open among a carnival crowd, to clump in groups next to the unwitting, praying masses.
The Guardia Civil, our lazy dupes, would not question our congregation—like the rest of the Philippines, we carried candles and were dressed for devotion. The river was so swarming with noise, fireworks, and caravels that no one would bother with yet one more holy communion.
Ah, these rebels were smart!
Some were hugging roosters, carrying rosaries—Benigno was holding up his swaddled child!—pretexts for their presence, solemn pilgrims and gambling men, out to honor Mary and plot the deaths of friars.
Even Mang Crispulo, I thought, had been our blissful instrument—a pious sodalist whose sincere purposes had provided honest cover for our sins! As Miong had explained, “Father” wasn’t one of us.
A thrill coursed through me at my tardy revelation, and I nodded at Miong and shut up, acting as if I had known all along, that we, the Katipunan of the Sons of the People, Kataas-taasang Kagalang-galang na Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan, were out to hold a riverside meeting with aims more devout than any of these murmuring souls could imagine.
And as the meeting wore on, my thoughts wandered, as they do, to the looks of the men about me, both nervous and alert, the Guardia Civil patroling stupidly on the banks in a vague mist, Benigno’s rapt gaze at the Supremo, as if listening to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and the black fingers of Polonio, the printing foreman, whose hands would never recover from their inky trade.
Polonio!
He, too, my fellow worker at the Diario!
So that’s what you’re all up to, I thought, you filibusteros: aha! Who’ve you been trying to fool with your pensive poses?
Except that I, literally speaking, was on the same boat with him.
I gazed at my nervous confrére from the printing press and recognized others from my job: Letra, Figura, et al. I winked at them, but none of the rascals got my drift. And though after all this time they were still snubbing me, I had to admire their steely gaze.
I heard a shout.
Mabuhay!
Hurrah, hurrah!
Viva!
I clapped my hands with all of them and kicked myself for not knowing what the commotion was all about.
The Supremo was saying: All right, then we must ask his advice! We will now consider who will visit him in Dapitan.
Dapitan!
My ears pricked up, my head was suddenly all clear.
Was it what I hoped? Were they going to rescue him from exile, did they vote to take him by force from the island? They say he’s writing the third novel—will we get to see the last instalment of his hoped-for trilogy, the triple-decker of my dreams?
That’s so right, I thought—why hadn’t we all thought of it from Day One?!
That should be the first act of the revolution.
Yes! Rescue the Writer from Dapitan!
My God, I thought, if that’s what it’s all about, I’m so glad I joined the Katipunan!
Despite my straining to hear, I could only get a few muffled comments, the occult words “massage,” “duck,” and “proctology,” what with bandurria players and firecrackers picking away in pesty pizzicato all around us.
But when Miong spoke, I heard it loud and clear.
For one thing, he was right next to me, screaming in my ear.
—And since the honorable doctor Pio Valenzuela needs a patient to go with him, a blind man in need of help, both spiritual and medical, I offer him a perfect decoy, Bulag here—who certainly needs a good doctor’s guidance. He’s a learned and honest patriot: Don Raymundo Mata.
And he put his hand on my shocked shoulder.
What was he talking about? Was I going to Dapitan? Not me: I cannot kill a fly much less capture a man from the Spaniards. They have guns and cannons. I’ve never even caught a moth. What? Of course, you can, Raymundo: did I not read The Man in the Iron Mask? Did I not devour the Lives of the Presidents of the United States, in translation, but hey, I know what they did to the British? Sure, I can learn how to pull a gun in the name of my country. What? Pull a gun! I’m as blind as a bat in the night. Plus, I’m an insomniac, an easily distracted filibuster with a weak digestive tract. I’m a panicky Paniki, not even worthy of the name of Elias! Or Rodolphe. So help me, God. Whoever you are. I can’t even make up my mind to be a Mason!
—Don Raymundo will pay for his own passage and bring a leper, if he so chooses. I mean, helper.
Oh really? That’s asking too much of my hospitality.
Looking down, I noted Miong’s gun in his waistband and kept quiet.
The Supremo then proclaimed:
—Decided. To ask advice and guidance on the matter of war—to resolve our decision on when to revolt—doctor Pio Valenzuela will visit the honorable doctor Jose Rizal in Dapitan. The blind patient Raymundo Mata will accompany doctor Valenzuela to provide cover for the visit.
Hey, hey, I thought: I can still see. I’m only nightblind!
The Supremo yelled: Mabuhay ang Katipunan!
Then he shot a pistol in the air.
Not to be outdone, Miong took out his own secret gun and exploded it right next to me, in tandem with the fireworks of Antipolo. Oh por dios, have mercy! The explosion was so loud I almost fell off the boat.
Miong exclaimed: Mabuhay si Doctor Rizal!
—Mabuhay!
—Mabuhay!
I almost fainted, and I have no recollection of what happened after. To be honest, I’m not so sure of what happened then, pushed blindly as I was into history—yes: shoved with shotguns like a decoy duck into the blasted fray!409 410
405 Since the memoirist is unsure, let me add: “that wit Dimasalang” is Rizal. Readers at the time conflated writers with a number of personages; Rizal himself was often mistaken for some Prussian wit. (Estrella Espejo, Quezon Institute and Sanatorium, Tacloban, Leyte)
406 Comments from foreign travelers in the nineteenth century always include remarks on the pintakasi—featured cockfights during fiestas. The French found it an amusing natural phenomenon, describing human gestures as they would the plumage of birds; the Spaniards were grumpy about the childish brutality of “the natives.” Rizal himself believed any form of gambling was a waste of time, so that his fellow patriots in Barcelona avoided him because he was k.j.: killjoy! During the war, revolutionists had cockfights in between battles, and when they won battles they had cockfights to celebrate them. But let us go on and just read, hmm, Dr. Diwata? Dr. Diwata? Have you calmed down? Okay, okay. We will keep our words to a minimum from now on. Have you calmed down from your dyspeptic attack? Yes, we’ll let Raymundo speak. (Estrella Espejo, ditto)
407 My guess, given his previous wordplay: karinderya en calzoncillos. (Estrella Espejo, ditto)
408 Sssh. (Trans. Note)
409 O History! O Words! The story of Raymundo Mata’s moment in history is so fraught with alternity—from Santago Alvarez’s Katipunan to Emilio Aguinaldo’s Gunita—and this, his own narrative, has about it a confusing frisson, a watery aura of prophetic chance. (Estrella Espejo, ditto)
410 Sssh! (Dr. Diwata Drake, Dapitan, Zamboanga, Philippines)