Diary of Mango Island
Friday October 6th 2006
Keith WarrenBetween the barangays of San Isidro and Pina, there is a track running down and west into a valley overhung with brooding mahogany trees. Eventually, the rock-strewn way ends at devilish Daragan, where there lives an old witch who can cast a spell strong enough to kill ? or so they say. We once tried to buy a hectare of land from her. Before the track arrives at Daragan, however, it passes the house of Danilo Legaspi, the only man on the island who can procure eyes from cadavers.
?Today we shall visit him,? says Totong, ?because we need to speak to him about some eyes for the statue.?
If I look aghast, she pretends not to notice. ?Tatay will come with us,? she adds. Probably just as well, I think. My Ilonggo is up to asking for a beer or paying for a jeepney ride to Jaro Plaza, but I have yet to master the linguistic switchbacks of bargaining for eyeballs.
Our jeep, The Roller Pig, is usually happy enough on the way to Pina, but now that we have forsworn the comfortable and familiar provincial road it starts to complain. Like me, it is not sure whether we have ventured into a side road or the gulley of a stream; it could be either. We lurch and roll like a ship at sea. There are squeaks, clanks and rattles where 10 minutes ago there were none; the suspension, adequate on the oozing tarmac or flaked concrete of the main road, is now frozen with fear and dread of the dark unknown. We can expect to be catapulted from the vehicle at any moment ? unceremoniously hurled into a ditch with hairy coconut shells and scabrous dogs. There are no doors or seat belts: this is a country where small boys sit astride motorbikes, just ahead of their older brothers, their only tenure a few little fingers barely closed over the handlebars; a country where people habitually ride at breakneck speed for miles on the tops of tricycles and jeepneys, clutching assorted knobbled sacks of copra or flapping bunches of coppery chickens tied at the feet. Health and safety, eat your heart out.
I am having trouble changing gear. There is an acidic, tortured, burning smell coming from the clutch. Like witches at the stake. If The Pig is acting up at our descent into the heart of darkness, should I be alarmed too? I note that even Totong's stream of consciousness has ceased and Tatay is grim-faced in the open pick-up of the jeep behind me.
Two years ago, the local priest approached us to see if we would be prepared to help with the renovation of the church. He is a fine fellow and has my absolute approval, since his Christianity is of the practical type and, furthermore, his sense of humour is able to withstand my frequent suggestions that his services are too long by at least one hour. He chuckles indulgently at my cheerful heresy whilst smoothing the impeccable white linen of his surplice. We have had many a theological discussion and he has explained to me the essentially Anglican origins of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente. I have to bow to his more intimate knowledge on this; what my scepticism sees is a flummery of popery sufficient to keep the Vatican in funny smoke signals for decades.
The services follow the form of a Catholic Mass. There is a good deal of incense ? excuse me, Father, but yer little 'andbag's on fire ? and the ringing of tinkling hand bells. True, there is an informal, happy-clappy feel about the casual comings-and-goings throughout the service, the rather jolly choral music from a kind of minstrels' gallery over the main door and the congregational clasping of hands up and down the length of the rough-hewn pews.
But there is no escaping the idolatry. As our contribution to the renovation of the church, we agreed to fund the manufacture of a statue of Christ on the cross that now adorns the wall to the right of the altar. It is more or less life size. It is our statue that is the reason for the visit to Dead-Eye Danilo. Apparently, it is felt that the eyes of Christ have a lifeless and unreal appearance. I had thought to suggest that this is not surprising since, apart from the obvious fact that they are chiselled from wood, the poor fellow has been hanging on nails for two years with nothing to listen to except Father Barredo's verbose sermons. Enough to cause a glazed expression on the best of us, let alone the great JC, whose expectations will, understandably, be higher. But I decide to keep quiet: much is considered blasphemous in this country, although, as I never tire of pointing out, hypocrisy gets a fair hearing too.
Tatay indicates that we are at the place. There is nothing to mark it out except a muddy footpath delving off to the left under the trees. I'm not sure what I was expecting: a butcher's block by the roadside perhaps. Legaspi's Eyeballs Summer Sale! Buy one, get one free. A small child appears from the undergrowth. A little girl, probably, although it is difficult to tell under the crusted grime and in the unisex tattered shorts and T-shirt. She has a severe squint. It seems she can look at all three of us at the same time. Or maybe it's six of us from her perspective. I have a bizarre mental picture of her father trying to remove one of her eyes to use in his work before thinking better of it and clunking the thing back with a chunk of bamboo, very approximately in place. That'll do.
There is a brief conversation and then we follow her down the path. An airless green gloom under the canopy of broad leaves begins to suffocate me and I can feel rivulets of sweat in the small of my back. Looping rubbery tendrils try to pull me into the treetops by my hair. Sharp vines and creepers snatch threateningly at my clothing and some odd-looking teasels have attached themselves to my sandals. Dogs in the distance start howling and barking. A voice shouts. The child yells something shrilly. I notice with some relief that Tatay is carrying a sharp bolo in his right hand.
We arrive at a clearing in the forest. In the middle is Danilo's house. It is of the standard rural design. This is a bamboo-slat floor raised off the ground by about four feet on bamboo or coconut timber legs. The walls are of woven copra mat with window openings, across which bamboo is nailed at about five inch intervals, both vertically and horizontally. There is no glazing ? you want the air to circulate. The roof will be layers of stitched coconut fronds, or, if you have the money, corrugated tin sheet.
I survey the scene rapidly, taking in the house, the tethered dogs and a scrofulous looking woman, breasts sagging under a torn blouse of some long-vanished colour. There are several small children loitering at the bottom of the rough steps leading up to the doorway. They and their drooping nanay stare at us balefully. Malevolently, even. Totong stays close by my side and mutters something to Tatay, which I take to mean, You speak to him.
Danilo is a spare, wiry man with tight skin like a crocodile's and more teeth than his mouth seems to want or need. He has a long-bladed knife in his hand and is crouching over what appears to be a corpse lying on its back with its feet towards us. I can see other feet and limbs thrown carelessly into the unspeakable dark spaces under the house.
I search the ground for evidence of dismemberment: eyelids, tangled skeins of optic nerves or slithering entrails ? perhaps even a scene like the bloody charnel house that is the butcher's stall in the market at St Rosario.
But all I see is an undernourished man, ankle deep in wood shavings. It is not a corpse: he is carving a statue. It is the Virgin Mary and he's working on her sandals. She has a benign smile so I assume he is creating a comfortable fit.
The conversation is brief and, unusually, to the point. Every time he speaks, Danilo's eyes roll a little to the sky as if he's about to have a fit, and then he clears his throat of what sounds like a quart of cloying phlegm, globules of which he expectorates into the undergrowth. Not even the scraggy chickens show any interest in this gelatinous bounty.
Yes, he can obtain some eyes from his contact. No, he doesn't want to say which hospital. Maybe it's not a hospital at all, I think. Legaspi will take eyes from someone who's last gasp has occurred. He will arrange with the priest to have the statue brought back here ? for, I discover, it was he who carved it in the first place ? and he will then install the suitably embalmed or pickled eyes into the wooden eye sockets of Christ's grateful face. The price for this grisly piece of work, including the eyes, is 5,000 pesos ? about £50.
As we return along the path towards the jeep, the late afternoon light is peremptorily switched off and it starts to rain. Tatay breaks off a glistening banana leaf to use as an umbrella. The seats of the jeep are wet and already a river of viscous mud is beginning to ooze around the tyres.
The engine will not start, no matter how I plead and coax. The Pig is punishing us for leaving it alone in this dismal place. The rain is more insistent and Tatay has to share the front seat with Totong for there is no shelter from the elements at the back. I can hear Danilo's dogs howling again and it sounds as if they're on the move. Frantically, we call Elmer, our mechanic, on Totong's mobile.
He is not keen to come out towards Daragan, he says, especially after dusk.
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