America regarded me severely. ‘You better not have been listening at the door,’ she said. ‘You make as much noise as a whole herd of carabao.’
‘Is it about Benny? Is he Cora’s boy?’
She started laughing. ‘You’d better not start pecking at my head. You think people have nothing better to do than to explain every last thing to you?’
‘You enjoy knowing things I don’t.’
It was a mistake. I’d forgotten that America, too, was pricklier during Lola Lovely’s rare visits. Her face soured and she said, ‘Let that boy learn his own story without you crowding in on it.’ And with that she barely spoke to me for the rest of the afternoon, except to tell me what to do.
Bobble-Headed Jesus
Eddie Casama sat in the sala at the Bougainvillea, in the centre of the settee, his arms stretched out in both directions along the back of it, shirt sleeves rolled up. Close up, he was younger and softer-looking than I’d imagined. He looked like the kind of man who’d let his kids ride on his back at weekends.
He’d brought another man with him: Cesar Santiago, Pastor Levi’s brother. Cesar was a lawyer and, though he ran a public practice, everyone knew he worked almost exclusively for Eddie, leaving any other cases to his junior partner. Cesar at least was familiar; the Santiagos weren’t rich, but their family had been in Esperanza for three generations so everyone knew them.
Cesar sat in an armchair under the window. The blinds were high and the light on his face was revealing. He smiled wanly at America when she came in to ask what the gentlemen might like to drink. America nodded back at him but, unnerved by the presence of Eddie Casama, she returned briskly to the kitchen, pulling me with her. She sent me back out quickly enough with calamansi juice, soda water and peanuts. ‘Take your time,’ she said.
In the sala, Aunt Mary was leaning forward in her armchair. ‘My son Benito is at the same school,’ she said as I came in.
‘Antonio says he’s tall,’ said Eddie. ‘A basketball player.’
‘Just one of his obsessions. And how is your wife? I believe I met her at a school concert.’
‘Oh, Constanza. Eating my head about what this person or that person said to her. She thought the world of you, though.’
I looked around the room to find somewhere to put the tray, but Eddie’s cigarettes and lighter were on the side table.
‘On the piano will do, Joseph,’ Aunt Mary said.
I balanced the tray with one hand and with the other moved the photographs of Uncle Bobby off the cutwork cloth, laid them gently aside. I set down the tray and poured out mixers of juice and soda, taking care not to let any spill onto the rich, glossy wood of the piano. I glanced at Aunt Mary but she looked pointedly at Eddie. I knew how things worked and, though I wondered about giving Cesar a drink first because he’d smiled at America, I brought the tray to Eddie, who took a glass without looking up.
‘Calamansi and soda,’ he said, ‘freshly prepared. Nothing better.’ He took a sip. ‘This is probably the best I’ve tasted.’
‘Absolutely the best,’ Cesar said.
They were exaggerating of course but Aunt Mary accepted the compliment, though she was too European in her ways for imprecision and said, ‘Joseph made it this morning.’ Eddie looked surprised, as if he hadn’t noticed me up till then.
‘Excellent,’ he said, appraising me without interest, looking away again quickly.
Eddie Casama had been elected barrio captain several years ago, holding office for three years before standing down. In those days, he’d been a small-time businessman running a bakery near the basilica but, even then, he was heading for a laundromat, a chain of dry goods stores, a nightclub, a cockpit, an apartment for his mistress and a 24-hour café at the passenger-ferry terminal. Things had gone well for him, and when he stood down it was to concentrate on business.
When anyone talked about Eddie Casama, it was with a tone that implied he was meant for big things, bigger than whatever the rest of us had in store and, what’s more, that it was inevitable he would get there. It was another constant in the neighbourhood, like Abnor’s tea-stall or the mischief of the jetty boys. There was a rumour that he’d been born clutching an amulet that would guarantee him success in everything he did. Back then I believed it, too, believed that our fates were already decided, that some were simply meant to succeed and others to fail. It was a way of thinking that was deeply ingrained. My mother’s voice had always dropped at the mention of such things, as if even the words held power. My father, claiming greater rationality, had extolled only the power of physical work and a Catholic God, though after my mother died, he turned his back, for a while, on the latter. I wish I could have talked about these matters with Aunt Mary, for I’m sure that she would have been, with her overseas education, level-headed about it. I didn’t see then how these beliefs provided an excuse for inaction, though of course the amulet rumour might also have been about not having to give a man like Edgar Casama his due.
Eddie was quiet for a moment and then, afraid perhaps that he hadn’t finished with all the niceties before he got down to business, he asked after Dub and even Lola Lovely, whom he’d been told was visiting. Satisfied with the answers, he put down his glass and said, thoughtfully, ‘Progress is impossible without change, don’t you think?’
Aunt Mary said, ‘That will be all, Joseph.’
‘Anything else to eat, ma’am?’ I said. Aunt Mary looked at each man in turn. Eddie Casama raised his hands to decline.
‘America will need some help,’ she said firmly to me. And to Eddie, ‘It’s one of our foreign guest’s birthdays. He’s asked for a Filipino feast.’
‘Have you warned him he’ll be eating for a week?’ said Cesar. Aunt Mary smiled.
In the kitchen, America was standing in the slanted light from the window, like a woman from a painting in one of Aunt Mary’s books. She’d been deseeding a pumpkin and thin orange threads quivered from her fingertips. ‘So how are things in the corridors of power?’ she said. I repeated what Eddie had said about progress and change. ‘That crook,’ she said. She cupped her hands and moved over to the sink. She rinsed her hands briskly. ‘He’s up to something all right. Whatever it is, his kind always land on their feet.’ She uncovered a filleted milkfish that I’d left on a dish beside the sink, ran her finger lightly along its flesh, feeling for bones. I’d deboned it earlier with an old pair of tweezers and I knew she wouldn’t find any. She nodded and covered it over again.
I waited for Aunt Mary to call me back into the sala but she didn’t. It wasn’t until Lola Lovely came in through the front door with Benny in tow, tired from a trip downtown, that I had the excuse to go back out. Benny stayed by the door as he was introduced but slipped away quickly, loping through to the kitchen to see what he might take to eat in his room. Lola Lovely stood just inside the threshold of the room and eyed the men expectantly. They rose to greet her. She appraised Cesar, her eyes narrowing, and said, ‘You look familiar. Are you a doctor?’ She cupped a hand under the elbow of her plaster cast.
‘A lawyer, ma’am. Cesar Santiago. It’s nothing serious, I hope?’
Lola Lovely waved the cast impatiently, said ‘Oh, it’s nothing. The Santiago brothers. The lawyer. Ah, yes.’ She looked impressed.
‘Mrs Lopez,’ Eddie said, holding his hand out. ‘I’ve never had the pleasure. Edgar Casama.’
Lola Lovely smiled at him. ‘Mr Casama. Are you from round here?’
‘Greenhills born and bred.’
‘A Manila man!’
‘No, ma’am,’ Eddie laughed. ‘Greenhills, Esperanza.’
Lola Lovely looked alarmed, ‘How can that be?’