John Sayles - A Moment in the Sun

Diosdado steps past him into the building. “Politics must agree with you,” he says. “You’re getting fat.”

It is hotter, if possible, inside the casa parroquial than in the plaza, and there are flies everywhere, crawling on the walls and windows, buzzing lazily in the air, dead flies littering the tile floor. The encargado behind the desk, a nervous-looking sargento, also tells him that General Aguinaldo has left Cabanatuan, and does not know when he will return.

Diosdado sits on a bench by the wall to wait. The next superior officer who comes in can give them orders. He sits with his back straight and concentrates on keeping his eyes open, occasionally wiping at the sweat rolling down his face with the back of his hand. His stomach is making noises, low rumbling under the drone of the flies and the squeaking of the lopsided fan that turns overhead, barely managing to stir the air. Better that the supremo doesn’t see him in this state. He has developed, if not patience, the talent for waiting that is vital to a military career. He counts flies, living and dead. A Presidential Guard teniente sticks his head in the door, glares at Diosdado, then disappears. Diosdado hears some pacing upstairs. He guesses it is near three o’clock when there is a chorus of barking from the plaza, then angry shouting just outside and a slap and then General Antonio Luna stomps into the room. Diosdado jumps up and snaps to attention, but the encargado , surprised halfway to his desk with a wastebasket in hand, can only freeze with his mouth hanging open.

The general is in his usual fury. “Have none of you people been taught how to greet an officer?”

The sargento drops his trashcan and salutes. Colonel Román and Capitán Rusca step in behind Luna, looking around the room. Paco Román nods to Diosdado.

“I have come to see the President,” Luna announces.

“He is not here, mi general ,” says the encargado .

Luna yanks a folded paper from inside his jacket, waves it in the air.

“Then why has he summoned me, in his own hand, to report to him at this place and time?”

“I don’t know, mi general . I only know that he is not here. He has gone — a way .”

Luna, seething, suddenly turns to fix his glare on Diosdado.

“I was told the same,” says Diosdado. It does not seem the moment to ask if the general will give his bastard company an assignment.

Luna snorts, then steps up close to the sargento. “This is the seat of our government. The headquarters of the army of our nation. This paper says I am to head a new Cabinet. Is there anyone here who can offer me an explanation?”

“Only Señor Buencamino is upstairs, sir.”

The general’s face turns a deeper red, almost purple, as he turns to Román and Rusca. “We are engaged in desperate battle,” he says in a barely controlled voice, “and they leave a traitor in charge of headquarters.” He pushes past the sargento and bangs up the stairs. Paco Román rolls his eyes toward Diosdado before he and Capitán Rusca follow.

There has been more bad blood and trouble. Another officer refusing, at Bagbag, to honor Luna’s authority, the general pulling two companies off the line to confront him and his troops, and Bagbag falling rapidly to the yanquis .

“He was almost killed at Kalumpit,” whispers the sargento as Diosdado sits, uneasy, back on the bench. “Shot off his horse with the yanquis all around him. The say he was like this when the colonel saved him.” The encargado points an imaginary pistol to his skull. He seems disappointed by the outcome.

There is shouting from upstairs then, two voices. Luna’s is the louder, cursing. Diosdado hears the word traitor more than once. Buencamino has no place here, shouts the general, no authority. A capitán of the Presidential Guard strides into the room with a half-dozen of his men, ignoring Diosdado to look up the stairs with a tight face. Diosdado’s stomach drops as he realizes that the capitán is Janolino, whose brains were very nearly blown out by General Luna after the burning of Tondo. “Be prepared,” says the capitán to his men, “but do nothing without my order.”

The men bring up their rifles and bam! one discharges, the bullet shattering the glass of a framed photograph on the encargado ’s desk.

The yelling upstairs stops abruptly.

“ Mierda ,” hisses Capitán Janolino.

The flies stop buzzing.

General Luna charges down the stairs, livid, the summons to report clutched in one hand and the other on the butt of his pistol.

“Who fired that shot?”

Before there is an answer his eyes fall on Janolino, also gripping his sidearm.

“You. What are you doing here?”

“I am commander of the Presidential Guard—”

Just as Colonel Román appears at the head of the stairs a pair of the soldiers leap forward swinging their bolos, metal hacking into bone before the general pushes clear of them, blood spurting from the side of his head, yanking his pistol out to fire wildly, chips of stone from the wall stinging Diosdado’s face, Luna staggering out the door and down the front steps with Janolino’s men rushing after. Román and Capitán Rusca run down the stairs and out past Diosdado and then there is a ragged volley of rifle fire. Diosdado trades a look with the terrified encargado , then rises and goes to the door.

Paco Román lies splayed at the bottom of the stairs and the plaza dogs howl as at least a full company of the Caviteño guardia surround the stricken general, firing indiscriminately now, Luna still on his feet with eyes blinded by his own blood shrieking “ Cobardes! Traidores! ” and firing his pistol till it is empty and he falls to his knees and immediately the bolomen are in hacking, hacking, as the dogs bark and snarl and nip at the backs of their legs in a frenzy of excitement. Diosdado feels a hand on his shoulder.

It is Scipio, somehow inside the room now. “A very bad day for you to be here, compa . Out the back door.”

Diosdado takes a last look, Capitán Janolino yanking the bloodied summons from the dead general’s fist, then turns to hurry past the weeping encargado and out through the rear of the casa parroquial .

Sargento Bayani, running, finds him halfway back to the men.

“What is it?”

“They killed Luna.”

“ Carajo .”

“They killed Luna and Paco Román is dead and Rusca I don’t know—”

“General Aguinaldo—”

“Was not there.”

Dogs are scampering past them toward the plaza. Diosdado has never seen so many dogs in one town before.

“Luna lost his temper, as he always does, but this—”

Diosdado knows he is an officer in the Filipino Army and should not be shaking. He should be calm and clear-headed and decisive. The side of his jaw is wet and there is blood on his fingers after he touches it. He feels dizzy.

“I don’t know what to do.”

Bayani puts a hand on his shoulder. “Tranquílate, hermano . The men are all ready to march.”

“But where are we marching?”

“Home to Zambales,” says the son of Amor Pandoc, as if this has been their plan all along.

Hod is happy to sit, even if it is on the suspect’s arm. Neely arranges himself on the other arm and Big Ten across the man’s skinny legs, holding the ankles and facing himself away from the whole business. Hod is just back on the line and wants to puke from the heat and the recon march and the battle to take the high ground this morning when they hacked Major Moses’s arm near off his body. The suspect isn’t even trying to move now, just lying there with the whump of the shells they’re dropping onto Las Piñas from offshore coursing up through his pinioned body and if Hod could manage to spit he knows it would sizzle in the air and burn off before it hit the dust. The platoon is down to twenty with the injured carried back to Manila by coolies this morning, and others falling out on the side of the road and Lieutenant Manly Goat saying if we pass this way again and they’re still alive maybe we’ll pick them up. He is waving his damn cane around and acting like every fucking shitheel boss Hod has ever hated, the Lieutenant, every company gun thug with a mean streak, like a dog gone bad that somebody ought to put down and Hod would gladly volunteer only he is too jaded with the heat to raise his hand.