John Sayles - A Moment in the Sun

“I remember there was a celebration when you left for school,” says Bayani, deadpan. “A feast for all of Don Nicasio’s laborers, with fireworks and everything.”

“You were there?”

Bayani looks away. “I heard about it. People were very proud.”

Diosdado scowls. “Rich men send their sons to university because they’re not fit for anything else.”

“But you learned.”

“Nothing of use here.” He indicates the rocky path, the line of straw-hatted soldiers ahead of them.

“You have languages,” says Bayani.

“So have you.”

“I have the languages of ignorant people. You have proper Spanish—”

“Which my father spoke in our house. English is from our trips to Hongkong. At university I learned only Latin—”

“You know sciences.”

“The theories only. Nothing practical, like how to make gunpowder—”

“You know history.”

“So do you.”

Bayani snorts. “I know stories—”

“History is only stories written down.”

Bayani looks disappointed. “Then how do the young ilustrados occupy their time in Manila?”

Diosdado sighs. “Some drink and gamble. Some put on their frac coats and bowler hats and spend their nights attending the theater and courting young ladies. My friends and I spent most of our time trying to impress the padres with our intelligence and our cultivation,” he says, “and the rest of it plotting their destruction.”

“You wanted them to like you?”

“We wanted them to love us like their perfect children. We wanted them to respect us. But no matter how we parroted their language, no matter how much we learned from their books, we were never more than indios to them.”

“They insulted you.”

Indios sucios . It is what his father had called the majority of the people who lived in San Epifanio, people who cut his cane and processed his hemp and picked his mangoes in the orchard, indios descalzados, indios tontos, indios sinverguenzas , and Diosdado had spent his young life striving not to be anything like them. But even with Padre Peregrino, whose pet he had been at university, he was never more than a curiosity, an indio who won honors in Latin, a talking monkey.

“We were so full of hope,” he says to the sargento, “so full of energy and patriotismo . We would not become rich and corrupt like our fathers, we would fight and fight and never sell ourselves, we would never—”

“Take money from the Spaniards and run to Hongkong.” Bayani looks up the hill to the summit, speaking casually.

“That was a strategy, carefully thought out by General Aguinaldo. A chance to heal and to plan—”

Bayani turns to look him in the eye. “If the americanos had not come, you would still be there.”

They have stopped moving, as have the men behind them. Joselito runs down to them from the top of the hill.

“ Yanquis ahead of us, Teniente. On the other side.”

Diosdado gestures and little Fulanito rushes forward with his binoculars. The boy loves to carry them, the strap around his scrawny neck, bumping in their leather case against his knees. The men ahead are already sitting, eyes following Diosdado as he hurries up past them with Sargento Bayani.

The uniform shirts are a beautiful bright blue against the brilliant green of the rice paddy on the plain below. Two full companies, most resting on the side of the plantation road, a dozen standing stretched in a firing line. Diosdado twists the focus ring on the field glasses until the others come clear.

There are ten of them, in the simple white cotton with blue stripes, straw hats scattered on the ground behind them. Their arms are tied behind their backs, their bare toes curled over the stone of the low dike they stand upon, facing a shallow trench they have just finished digging. The Americans raise their weapons in unison and there is a dotted line of smoke puffs. The Filipinos have toppled out of sight into the ditch before the rifle report echoes up from the plain.

Diosdado puts the binoculars down. Sargento Bayani lies on his belly beside him, his face impassive.

“If we cut around the hill to the north we should be able to miss them. Unless you want to try an ambush.”

“General del Pilar told us to report to headquarters, nothing more.”

The sargento fixes him with a look. “ A sus órdenes, mi teniente .”

They crawl away from the top, then stand to head back to the men. “We swing to the north,” says Diosdado. “General Aguinaldo should be informed of how close they are.”

It is a hot, airless, dusty march around the hills, past noon when they reach the outskirts of Cabanatuan to be greeted by dogs in an ugly mood. There are dozens of them, scabby, ribs showing, shifting around the troop in a loose pack that seems to have no leader, snarling with their ears laid back. The men throw stones but the dogs only scamper away a few feet and then regroup. Diosdado halts the makeshift company by the first decent-looking dwelling they come to, and asks the betel-chewing old woman in front if he can go inside to change clothes.

The tunic is not so white now, hanging loose on him, buttons unpolished. His friends at the Ateneo called him flaco sometimes, and he hadn’t thought he had any weight to lose.

“ Por favor, mi teniente ,” jokes Kalaw when Diosdado steps out of the hut dressed to report to Aguinaldo. “Ask the General if we can have a week’s leave in Manila. They say the americanos have the lights working again.”

Bayani walks with him into the town. There are more dogs, growling low as they pass, and dozens of the Presidential Guards lingering in the plaza, eyeing them suspiciously.

“Something bad happening here, hermano ,” says Bayani.

Sometimes it annoys Diosdado when the sargento calls him brother, and sometimes it seems like a compliment.

“They’ve probably heard the Americans are close.”

Bayani shakes his head. “We’ve seen these Caviteños before. This is the bunch that Luna disarmed after we burned Tondo.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You can wash their faces and stick them in red pants,” says Bayani, “but they’re the same putos tagalos . You better be careful.”

“Go see if you can find the men something to eat.” Diosdado wishes there had been a mirror in the woman’s hut to comb his hair. He wonders if General Aguinaldo will remember him from Hongkong.

Scipio Castillero, wearing a spotless white suit and polished leather shoes, is lounging by the entrance to the casa parroquial next to a pair of sentries. He grins when he sees Diosdado.

“It’s Brother Argus, all dressed up like a soldier.”

Diosdado is too tired to smile. “Look who’s visiting the war.”

“I’m here with Don Felipe,” says Scipio, pointing upstairs. Don Felipe Buencamino is Secretary of War, one of the old guard who are said to be autonomistas , willing to trade Spanish domination for that of the yanquis . “How about you?”

“Reporting to General Aguinaldo.”

“Miong isn’t here.”

“We were told he was.”

Scipio shrugs. “This may not be a good day for you to be here, compa . Something in the air.”

Scipio has always been the one with the inside information, the one at school to steal the answers to the history examination, the first one in their class to start spying for the junta. He wears the smile of a man who knows what you don’t.

“I have to take care of my company.”

“The best thing you can do,” says Scipio, not smiling anymore, “is march them far away from Cabanatuan until things settle down.”