Never an Empire (26 page)

He felt almost light hearted as he walked into the garden. He had come to the back of the house in the hope that he could speak to Maria in her kitchen and possibly avoid any meeting with Carmen. He walked to the kitchen door. It was open so he went in.

Maria was sitting at the kitchen table. On the floor was Carmen. On the table, beside some part-chopped onions, was a blood-stained knife. Carmen's head had fallen to one side so that to Father Enrique, as he stood in the doorway, her sightless eyes seemed to be looking directly at him. He opened his mouth to say something but no words came. Maria sat motionless and stared at him. For a moment all was stillness and silence. Then Father Enrique found that he could at last speak.

‘My God. Maria, what have you done?'

For a second Maria seemed puzzled as to where the voice was coming from. She had her eyes open but they were as sightless as Carmen's. She had sat unmoving ever since Carmen had fallen to the floor, her mind a mass of confusion. The priest was speaking to her. He had come home. She knew he would, he wanted his dinner.

She stood up.

‘Don't worry, Father, I thought you might want a dinner so I prepared …'

She turned to the table, saw the onions, the knife, and the blood. She turned back, looked down at Carmen, and was herself again.

Father Enrique took a step forward and stopped. It was all too awful.

‘Maria, what happened?'

Maria walked past him and closed the door.

‘What does it look like? I killed the slut.'

‘But why? What happened?'

Maria came back past him to the table and picked up the knife. Father Enrique suddenly felt very afraid and very vulnerable. This woman standing so close to him with a knife in her hand had killed once for no apparent reason and might kill again. It was clear to Father Enrique that he was dealing with an unbalanced mind.

He slowly edged back to be nearer the door.

Maria saw him move.

‘Don't worry, Father, I'm not mad. I killed the bitch because she was a traitor. She was working for the Americans with her husband to betray the general. She deserved to die so I killed her.' She held up the knife. ‘With this.' Then she picked up her apron and wiped the blade, but the blood had dried. She put if back on the table. ‘I'll clean it later.' She walked over to where she kept her cooking utensils, found another knife, came back to the table and began to chop the onions again. ‘Don't worry, Father, I thought you might have changed you mind by dinnertime so I'll have a meal for you before too long, one of your favourites. Sweet lamb with nuts and rice.'

Now it was Father Enrique's turn to feel as if he was dreaming. Maria was in her kitchen chopping onions while beside her on the floor lay the dead body of Carmen whom she had murdered, and he was there, really there, watching what was happening. He was part of this horror. He looked down. The front of the red dress was still red, but at her breast the red was much darker and some of this dark red had spread from the dress to the stone floor. For a moment he felt dizzy and was worried that he might faint. Maria turned and looked at him.

‘You don't look well, Father. It must be the fast; going without food can do that. Why not go to your room and sit down? Have a glass of wine. Your dinner will be ready in no more than an hour.'

She scooped up the onions and took them to the stove. She was busy, he could see, she was preparing his meal. He made an effort.

‘Maria, I must go to the police. You killed Carmen. I must go to the police.'

Maria turned and looked at him. He hadn't seen this look before.

‘Father, she was a traitor. My husband died fighting for this country's freedom and I live for it, for its freedom. General Sakay is our last hope and that,' she gestured with the knife she was holding at Carmen's body, ‘that bag of shit was going to betray him. I will make your dinner, but if you once more mention the police I will kill you. You can be with her wherever she is now which, if there is a God, is hell. I suggest that you go to your room and take a glass of wine. I will call you when your meal is ready.' Father Enrique didn't move so Maria turned once again. ‘Well?'

He looked at the knife.

‘Maria, what shall we do? What should I do?' He was a little boy again. Things happened that he didn't understand. Now he was frightened again. He had been a bad boy, he knew that, he had done sinful things, but now he wanted to be good again. He needed to be told what to do. He stood and waited. Maria walked towards him.

‘You don't look well, Father.' She placed a hand on his shoulder.

‘Go to your room. Sit down and rest. I will make dinner and when it is ready I will call you. Go to your room and be quiet.'

‘Yes. I will go to my room and be quiet.'

‘Good boy.'

Chapter Thirty-two

Father Enrique had gone to his room and poured himself a generous glass of wine as he had been told. While he sat drinking the wine it dawned on him that he was behaving like a child. He was a grown man, a parish priest, and he had walked into his own home to find that an horrendous murder had been committed. And what had he done? Gone to his room because he was told to.

It was weakness again, weakness pure and simple. He would have to go to the police. What else could he do? But as he sat and sipped his wine and reason slowly returned he began to reflect on what else surrounded the terrible event, and when he let his mind run over recent happenings his certainty of action began to waver. It had all begun with Carmen. Somehow, out of nowhere, she had come into his life and taken over. Then there was that awful visit to the village and the kidnapping of the policemen. Thank God no one had died. But then he remembered that someone had died, later: the paho seller and her son. San Juan was a peaceful town, sleepy even, untouched by the troubles caused by freedom fighters in the mountains. At least it had been since he had known it. Could the death of that poor woman and her son be somehow connected to Carmen? Maria's words came back to him, ‘She was a traitor. General Sakay is our last hope and that bag of shit was going to betray him.' Was Carmen a traitor? How could she be? Her husband was in General Sakay's army and had brought about the release of some of his men. But Maria seemed so sure, so certain, and what other reason could she possibly have for brutally killing Carmen? He put the glass to one side and stood up. He must talk to Maria, get things clear in his own mind then he could decide what to do.

And he had gone downstairs to find Maria calmly laying the table as if nothing at all had happened. She left him standing and disappeared into the kitchen only to return a moment later with his meal. He had been about to speak to her but looked at the meal and the sight of the food made him realise that he was indeed very hungry. But he must speak to Maria. Unreal though it might seem there was a dead body in the kitchen. How could he sit and eat? But there seemed to be nothing else to do, so he sat and ate and when his plate was clean Maria came in to clear away.

Now he had to speak.

‘Maria.'

‘Yes, Father?'

‘Put down that plate, we must talk.'

Maria put the plate back on the table.

‘Yes, we must.' Father Enrique was about to begin but never got the chance. Maria sat down and began at once.

‘The body needs to go somewhere. I can't do it by myself so you will have to help me. I've thought about it and the best place is the church.'

‘Maria, stop.' She stopped. ‘Maria you have killed someone in cold blood. That is murder.'

‘No, justice.'

‘Explain to me how it is justice.'

‘She was a traitor.'

‘How do you know?'

‘She told me. She came here in her fancy new clothes and said she was leaving, going to move in with a new friend.'

‘What new friend?'

‘It doesn't matter. I wanted her gone. If she was going to hop out of your bed and into some other man's that was good news: it saved me the trouble of kicking her out so I told her to go and sell herself to whoever she liked. But she didn't go, she stayed and tried to taunt me. Stupid bitch, as if anything she could say or do could touch me. But there you see, Father, I was wrong. When she told me of her and her husband's plan to go to America …'

‘What plan?'

‘They are going to betray the general. They're being paid by the American.'

‘The American who came to see me?'

‘Of course: what other one is there? He's been behind it all, getting the slut into this house, the exchange of the general's men for the two police. He must have ordered the murder of the paho seller and my contact.'

‘Wait. Your contact? Are you part of all this?'

‘I am the general's eyes and ears in San Juan. Of course I have been able to do almost nothing because nothing happens but I am still a soldier in the general's army. When I began to suspect that Carmen was part of something I tried to get a message to the general. Carmen must have found out, and told the American and he had my contact killed.'

Father Enrique who had stood up sat down again. It was all getting too much for him.

‘Maria, why did you never say anything about this?'

‘I did. I tried to tell you when the American first came calling himself a reporter but you wouldn't listen.'

Father Enrique remembered the episode and felt a little ashamed of how he had behaved.

‘Yes, I remember.'

‘Now you know. Carmen was a traitor, her husband still is a traitor. The bitch is dead and that means the American's contact is as broken as mine. We need to get rid of the body then I must find some way of letting the general know what is happening before her husband can contact the American.' Maria looked at him. The expression on his face told its own story. ‘Father, I need your help and you will help me or as God is my witness I kill you. You know what has happened, all of it, and if you are not on my side, the general's side, then you are with the Americans and no better than that slut next door and deserve the same treatment. I have to have time to get a message to the mountains so make up your mind.'

‘But you are asking me to help you hide a murder.'

‘I am asking you to join our fight for freedom. It's a war, Father, people die. My husband died.'

‘But that war is over now; shouldn't the killing stop?'

‘I wish it could, Father, you do not know how much I wish it could, but it can't. I didn't bring the killing to San Juan. The American did that. He had the paho seller and my contact killed. The Americans kill us, Father, so we must kill them.'

‘But I'm Spanish, not a Filipino or an American.'

‘You chose to come here, to make this your country, to serve its people. Are the Americans the ones you came to serve?'

‘No.'

‘Then you must take sides or go back to Spain, but understand, if you stay you are either for the Philippines or for the Americans; there can be no middle way. If you stay you are a Filipino, one of us, and the general needs you. If we have to die then we will die but we will have done our duty.' There, she could say no more, it was time to decide for both of them. ‘What will you do, Father, stay here and help me or go to the police?'

Father Enrique looked at her sitting there so calm as she talked about killing and dying. She was like his mother, always wise, always strong, always there for him, and always calm. He was lost, he didn't know what to do.

‘Maria, I'm not strong like you. I thought I was but all that has happened has shown me that I am weak and, yes, stupid. I am not fit to be a priest and I am certainly not fit to be any kind of soldier in an army, not the general's or any other. Don't you see, Maria, I am lost. If I can't help myself how can I help anyone else?'

Maria suddenly found she was looking at something very rare: a new creation. The old Father Enrique had gone, that rather vain, self-centred young priest who had been so sure and certain had melted away and left in his place this frightened, humble man.

‘It is true, Father, that you have been weak and stupid, but everyone has their uses. And you are right that you cannot be a soldier like my husband: you are not for the fighting and the killing. But if anyone can bring some sort of peace to this troubled land of ours it will be someone like you, someone who will serve, who is humble and innocent,' she paused, ‘and kind.'

‘But I'm not innocent, Maria. You know what I did.'

‘Yes, I know. But do you? You didn't seduce anybody, you didn't get her into your bed, you didn't make use of her: she made use of you.'

‘But it was still a sin, a great and terrible sin.'

‘It was a sin, but not great and certainly not terrible. I dare say that after this is over, if you survive, you will commit plenty of sins: we all do, but none of them will be great or terrible. You are not a holy man like they all say, you came here because you wanted something and you set about getting it; I could see that. Now, whatever it was you were seeking doesn't matter, does it? Things have happened and you have learned and now I think you might even know what it is to be truly holy.'

‘You think so, Maria?'

‘Yes, because now you know that to be holy is to serve others, not yourself.'

‘But I knew that.'

‘Yes, but now you know that it has to be serving those in need not those you choose, to be holy you have to serve those that God has sent you to. You thought you should serve the town so you gave us an orphanage and a sewing school. They were great things but not what God sent you here to do. He sent you here to serve the Philippine nation. Now you can see that, so now you will help me and I will be able to help the general.'

‘But if we get caught? If someone finds out?'

‘Then we will die. Will that be so awful? Would you prefer to go back to whatever it was you came here to get?'