Ghosts of Infinity: and Nine More Stories of the Supernatural (5 page)

“He wouldn’t go back to work, so I struggled to live on the small pension they sent to soldiers after the war. What was unbearable to me was that he never mentioned our son, never asked about how he died and where I had buried him.”

“It’s true what they say,” she whispered, “that I neglected him. Eventually I couldn’t look at him in the face without wanting to spit at him, and I moved to the other wing and left him in the maid’s care. It was as if time stopped in that house. I wasn’t even aware of how many years had gone by until the morning that we found him dead in his bathroom. And even then I didn’t want to know.”

“But after the funeral, some men came to the house. Strangers from Manila, they told me what had really happened. They had been with Nando during the Death March. I had heard about the march but wasn’t prepared for what they told me—the long, torturous trek, the churning in the gut, the desperate hunger and thirst, the comrades dying in their arms.

“Nando had lied. He didn’t join the guerillas. With the other prisoners he was sent to the concentration camp in Capas, and what he experienced there, I couldn’t even imagine. We were familiar with hunger during the war, but in Capas, the prisoners lived almost like animals. One of the visitors had been with Nando on the burial detail, he said they buried corpses from dawn to dusk.”

“Ma’am, one of them said, he spoke of you all the time.”

I felt my throat burning. A shrill sound was coming out of Lola Concha’s lips; I put my arm around her as she keened. “My poor, lost Nando. A ghost before his time. I realized too late how much we had both suffered. I pushed him away.”

“Oh hija,” she cried, clutching my arm, “we had survived, unlike so many unfortunate others. But instead of moving on, I buried my heart, and wished him dead, until one morning, he was.”

Night had fallen without our noticing and we sat still in the darkness, aware that something fragile had broken open, its fragments irretrievable.

It was Lola Concha herself who came up with the finale. The house was to be exorcised and purged of its demonic elements once and for all, the site it stood on to be purified. She had put it off for so long, but now it was time. It was an idea that appealed enormously to the whole congregation of the Risen Messiah; the members had developed a habit of invoking the mighty name of Christ to banish everything from avarice to lesbianism, so why not take on this infamous house that might even possibly be the portals to hell?

Preparations were underway minutes after the proposal was brought up in the weekly meeting. Pastor Gerry quickly selected the members of the ghost-busting group—composed of no minors and seniors except for Lola Concha—and a briefing was held to re-orient them on the wily ruses and snares that the minions of evil might lay in their path. Each member was told to reread the passage on the temptation in the wilderness, as well as the fifth installment of a comics series penned by a converted Satan worshipper, divulging the tendencies of minor devils. Everyone went home grim and determined except for some of the prayer warriors, who complained about having to stay at the church during the event for remote assistance. My mother made the phone call to the new owners of the house, and triumphantly received entry permission.

I went unnoticed in the whirl of activity, though I had come prepared to give a thanksgiving speech, and to please my mother, a vague testimony of enlightenment. But just as I was about to make my way to the door, Lola Concha called out to me, inviting me to the exorcism much to the pastor’s dismay.

I feigned indifference to the operation, although by morning I was groggy from sleeplessness, and mistakenly picked up a dictionary instead of a Bible, earning a few reprimands on the way to the house.

The house stood just as I had left it four years ago, albeit with more vines creeping up its walls and a noticeable crack down its right cheek. We stood in the crisp morning air, some of the ladies shivering for effect. Presently, the current caretaker, a bent old man, unlocked the rickety gates. He scratched his head as our troop went past.

As the huge front doors were being opened, I pushed past everyone until I was standing at the front of the crowd, at Pastor Gerry’s elbow, at Lola Concha’s right. The darkness seemed to resist the intrusion of sunlight, and it took a split second before we saw the enormous grand staircase a few feet away. The broad wooden planks creaked under our feet, every inch filmed with dust.

It was as magnificent as we had imagined for years. The crown moldings on the ceiling were still intact, the wood resonant and strong. The house exuded majesty, though the high ceiling was patched with mold, the walls laced with cobwebs, and the air thick with the scent of rat droppings.

“There’s where it appears.” A hand was lifted to point to the wide staircase and promptly yanked down. Pastor Gerry turned around to address the group, describing the agreed-upon route we were to take around the house.

To our left were double doors which, when opened, revealed the parlor, a large wood-paneled room forlorn with a few scattered cane chairs and patches on the wall where the pictures used to hang. Holding his Bible aloft, Pastor Gerry led the group’s hasty prayer. After reading a few biblical passages, he raised his voice and issued the command for the demons to depart in the name of Christ. We held our breaths for a moment, and when it became apparent that nothing would materialize in objection, we broke into relieved chatter.

The group moved on, in high spirits, to repeat the process in the library and dining room on the right side. There was scarcely any furniture left, though it was easy to imagine how grandly the rooms had once been outfitted from the pale silhouettes of long-gone bookcases and cupboards on the walls.

In the kitchen, Lola Concha instructed the Pastor to wrench open a small door that hid the stairs servants used to get to the second floor. Without protest, everyone squeezed into the tight passage. Emerging from it, we found ourselves in the right wing of the house.

There were four rooms in this wing, Lola Concha explained, the biggest of which had been hers. She strode across her room while we scattered and examined the skeleton of her four-poster bed, a delicately carved night table inlaid with mother of pearl that had apparently been overlooked in the inventory, and all the other remnants of her hermit years. Pastor Gerry stood by the door, and after some minutes, cleared his throat impatiently. Immediately, we hurried back to formation, horrified at a few moments of distraction.

The rites were performed in the other rooms, leaving the master bedroom at the far end of the left wing last. The chatter, which had been rising steadily, slowly died down as we approached the door that led to where, in Lola Concha’s words, “everyone I knew in this house had died.”

The room was stifling; the two windows had been boarded up. On the floor lay debris from a part of the ceiling that had crashed down. The only fixture in the room, a tall thin wardrobe, sat in a corner, and a few women jumped upon seeing their reflections on its mirrored doors.

I looked at Lola Concha; her face was drawn with infinite sadness. She took the Pastor’s arm, and slowly pushed open the door to the bathroom, where her husband had died far from her sight.

The tiny black and white tiles were green with age, the small bathtub swathed in cobwebs. On the wooden cabinet above the sink, tiny bottles with faded labels were lined up, still in place, as though waiting for someone.

Pastor Gerry intoned the invocation; Lola Concha’s head was bowed, her lips moving with a prayer of her own.

After the ceremony was finished, we moved out of the room slowly, down the hall to the grand staircase, discussing the feasibility of a
batchoy
lunch downtown. The sun was now high in the sky; the light streamed through windows that we had opened, wiping away the shadows. Some of the members heaved sighs of relief; my mother giggled when she was teased about her fear.

Down the staircase, we could see the open front doors and the street beyond. We were at the last station. Pastor Gerry flipped his Bible open and began to read the first lines of Psalm 23.

It was then that the wind came. It rushed down the stairs, sped to the front doors, slamming them shut. The walls threw back our screams, upstairs the windows were rattling like sinister applause. The wind clutched at our clothes, our hair. One woman shrieked, “There it is!” setting the others off like dominoes.

“It’s here!”

“Look up, there’s someone there!”

I closed my eyes, hearing Pastor Gerry’s voice struggling to surface beneath the panicked noise.

“In the name of Jesus, in his holy blood, be gone!”

When I opened my eyes, everything was still. A weak light suffused the room. The women were on their knees, holding their heads. My mother clung trembling to my leg. Pastor Gerry was slumped on the step, gripping his Bible. Only Lola Concha was slowly rising to her feet.

“Pastor,” she said. “Is it gone?”

We all stared, mouths agape, as she crumpled to the ground and wept mightily. “Is it gone?” she cried.

The only answer was the stillest silence, unlike anything I have ever heard again.

This was years ago, now the house is no more. When her time came, Lola Concha died in her sleep, peacefully, they said—something I wanted so much to believe.

Things have moved on, the house has faded from the town’s memory, although sometimes I can still see its rooms and feel its weight, and wonder what it truly was that we all left behind.

Adel Gabot

W
HEN
I
PASS
dark, deserted alleys or shadowy street corners, I look, and I look very hard. It’s been nearly six years now, and I still haven’t found him; if he isn’t dead yet, I mean. And to my mind that’s highly likely, considering.

I don’t understand what happened in that jeepney on that day six years ago, and I won’t pretend to; I don’t think I’ll ever understand.

Sometimes when I sit thinking, I dread the moment I actually do find him because I don’t think I know what I’ll do. A large part of me wishes I could forget the whole thing. Perhaps I’m better off not knowing. But I can’t let it go.

On that day, several things conspired to make me a witness to something that has changed my life. It was one of those rare cusps when things come together for no apparent reason and have dramatic effects on lives. Some people win lotteries, and some have the unfortunate luck to step in the path of a stray bullet.

In my case, I rode an old passenger jeepney.

My family and I live in one of those subdivisions that straddle the gray area between urban and rural. Six years ago the subdivision was appended to the city by a series of streets that were more appropriately called wide dirt paths. During the rainy season they were so muddy and rutted as to be nearly impassable, much to the delight of my students. The route is almost two hours away by car, and a heavy downpour is enough to set me back plenty. I was told by my other colleagues in the faculty that my advisory class hunts up improved versions of Indian rain dances in their free time.

On that day, my husband’s old Corona wouldn’t start, so my daughter Elli and I had the privilege of using the public transport system. That meant leaving the house at half-past five in the cold morning, so Elli and I could have a chance of not being too late for recess.

Elli is graduating from high school next term, so that puts her at about fourth grade on that day six years ago. She studied in the school where I was teaching then, as she is studying now in the exclusive girl’s school where I am, despite my shortcomings, the new assistant principal. She isn’t impressed at all by my new position because, she says, she hasn’t gotten the slightest advantage at all from me since she started going to school anyway.

Elli saw everything that happened that day, so at least one soul could corroborate everything I saw. But even though it almost literally happened under her nose, Elli’s youth has diluted the experience and memory of that day. When I try to talk to her about it, she casually says, oh, yeah,
that
, as if I was talking about last Saturday’s lunch menu, brushing a hand through her long, beautifully straight, jet-black hair, in her dismissive Elli manner.

On that day, it was raining as if my advisory class, aided by a whole tribe of American Indians, spent the previous evening dancing their very best rain dance. On top of all that, we were a disastrous half-hour late starting. Elli and I spent nearly forty minutes waiting in that downpour for a ride, so you could imagine my mood and how it worsened when the old clunker of a jeepney that was supposed to take us to safety hove muddily into sight.

The old jeepney crawled through the puddles wearily toward us, patiently doing the tired chore that was its raison d’etre. By sheer instinct, it picked its way around holes that it could barely see for the rain; being a driver myself I know the feeling of plunging heavily into one of those bottomless pits. You get to know which was just bound to wet your tires and which would break your axle in two. This jeepney was a veteran on that score.

It was nearly full. Actually, there was just one seat left, a tight squeeze, but you couldn’t tell that from the outside; fogged-up plastic flaps kept that secret in, as it kept the rain out. But you could tell it was full by the way it set heavily into the holes that would catch it by surprise, by the height and distance of the brown splash, or the metallic grunting of the overworked chassis.