The Quiet Ones Read online

  THE

  QUIET

  ONES

  Published by BUGHAW

  Copyright © 2017 by Glenn Diaz and Ateneo de Manila University

  First printing 2017/Second printing 2018

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the Publisher.

  Portions of this book were originally published, often in radically different versions, in the following: Griffith Review , Asia Literary Review , Twenty-two New Asian Short Stories , Quarterly Literary Review Singapore , Likhaan: The Journal of Contemporary Philippine Literature 5 and 7 , Kritika Kultura , Maximum Volume: Best New Philippine Fiction 1 and 3 , Asian Cha , Plural , and Philippines Free Press . The author wishes to thank the editors of these publications.

  Title-page and section breaks photos by Vincenz Serrano (flickr.com/photos/znecniv ). Used with permission.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  BUGHAW is an imprint of

  ATENEO DE MANILA UNIVERSITY PRESS

  Bellarmine Hall, Katipunan Avenue

  Loyola Heights, Quezon City

  P.O. Box 154, 1099 Manila, Philippines

  Tel. (632) 426-59-84 / FAX (632) 452-59-09

  Email: [email protected]

  Website: www.ateneopress.org

  THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF THE PHILIPPINES CIP DATA

  Recommended entry:

  Diaz, Glenn.

  The quiet ones : a novel / Glenn Diaz. – Quezon

  City : Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2017, [c2017].

  viii, 386 pages; 20.32 cm

  ISBN 978-971-550-884-1

  1. Philippine fiction (English) I. Title.

  899.2103 PL9550.9.D5 2017 P720170272

  For Dominga Lao Diaz,

  Leonor Lappay Diaz,

  and Rosario Cruz Lucero

  They took our jobs!

  —from SOUTH PARK

  Empathize with the customer. Listen attentively to the customer’s complaint and do not interrupt.

  —AT&T MANUAL FOR HANDLING

  ALL KINDS OF CUSTOMER COMPLAINTS

  No history is mute.

  —EDUARDO GALEANO

  Contents

  Alvin and Scott

  Carolina and Reynaldo

  Karen and Brock

  Philip and Eric

  1

  T he airport’s impersonal contours and antiseptic light discouraged strength of feelings, but the regret in Alvin’s chest brooded, a petulant child. His flight was delayed. The chocolate croissant, which had looked appetizing to him behind the confectionary glass, had started to crumble and deflate, untouched. There was stillness in the airport, in little cafés and Mabuhay Lounges, where the ultimate test of character was waiting out a delayed boarding call with as little ruckus as possible, as if time passed faster in peace. Then: scrambling. Then: haste, when the stillness, the yawning idleness were hurriedly inserted into coat pockets and laptop cases, when bags were zipped closed, when once-idle hands began fumbling for boarding passes, pieces of limp paper that proved one’s right to be elsewhere. But before the rush, the airport’s foremost lesson was patience.

  It was an hour and a half before 7:25 AM, his new boarding schedule. The café where he sat was next to the row of gates that people enter for them to be whisked away. That morning, the police had arrived at his empty hotel room like tardy invaders. Used to raiding shabu dens in the slums, they surveyed the opulence with plebeian unease: the oak wall panels, the tufted settee in the anteroom, and, on the credenza, a vase of hydrangeas flanked on either side by plaster bulul statues (available for purchase, said a tiny note, kindly inquire at reception). All of it, and soon the five or six cops, were suffused with the room’s sallow sepia. The source was an antique-looking sconce on a far-off wall, next to a replica of Amorsolo’s El Ciego , the blind man in the frame looking aflame. A faint whiff of nicotine wafted from the drawn curtains.

  A muffled tune led the raiding team to the bigger of the two bedrooms. Inside (the queen size unmade by what looked to be a single disentangling motion), the music grew louder, and a brief search yielded a pair of speakers on the windowsill. Someone took the docked iPod—briefly distracted by the yacht lights strewn across Manila Bay below—and had begun to swipe at the tiny surface when the team leader cried, “Don’t!” then, in a much lower voice, “I mean, just let it play, it’s fine.” He asked the receptionist waiting outside: What time did he check out? How long was he here? Did he seem well-off? And what’s with the books? On the nightstand, the sink by the toilet, on the mat in the balcony? And what’s that music? Who’s the singer? Like Freddie Aguilar but in English, ’no?

  Maybe different but remember

  Winter’s warm where you and I

  Kissing whiskey by the fire

  With the snow outside

  The questioning would lead them to Alvin’s regular masseuse later that day, but from the receptionist they’d learn that he had left at 4:30 AM, taken to the airport by one of the hotel’s premium Camries, that he’d stayed for thirty-six days, his bill equivalent to the questioning policeman’s (legal) salary for three years. Didn’t they think there was something suspicious here? Didn’t they notice any strange behavior? Oh, but he dressed fine, the receptionist said, and he inquired in English, in inflections that sounded natural, effortless. Besides, the hotel had always put a premium on privacy, although he did overhear—just barely, OK?—the guest talking to an important-looking man once, here at this very lobby. Something about an Australian expat in Pagudpud, I didn’t really get many details. Sounded serious, too. Someone’s sister was also mentioned, but they both looked down so maybe it brought not the most pleasant memory. Oh, and he paid in cash, which was also “strange,” he supposed, and was always carrying around a black bag—the cops exchanged looks—one of those plain but really tasteful knapsacks, Adidas or Nike, but why would you be interested in bags, you’re not the fashion police, ha-ha-ha.

  Denise, the masseuse, would later shrug, waving her little imperious hands in the air. The guy in 401? Bald, big thighs, bigger eyebags? A snob of the highest order, immune to class-based guilt. Didn’t give a hoot—or, afterward, a large enough tip—while her fingers went to work on his rich, nubile calves.

  Alvin had left the TV on as he drifted to sleep the night before, preferring as always ambient noise to radio silence. Moments before the cops came, the anchor onscreen was giddily recounting the details of the day’s biggest headline: “—the last time Virginia went for a Democratic presidential candidate was for LBJ back in 1964, but now Virginia and its electoral votes, we project, will go—” In the stirring city below, in front of condemned art deco theaters and new condos called One McKinley and Kensington Place, Manileños quickened their steps, sensing a rare chill in the air. In half-filled jeepneys, they shielded their face from the bludgeoning wind, cursing the favorite pullover left at home. “—in a few seconds those states will be closing their polls and presumably we’ll be able to make a major projection. This is a moment that a lot of people have been waiting for. This is a moment that potentially could be rather historic—” On main thoroughfares, drowsy men gingerly stood on top of rickety cherry-pickers, hanging Christmas lanterns on corroding streetlamps. Dogs trawled through piles of trash, competition to the still-sleeping homeless. “—little-known US senator only a few years ago seemingly coming out of nowhere, delivering the Democratic Convention keyno
te address in 2004, all of a sudden taking off—” On vacant storefronts, families curled on the cement, meters away from freshly positioned peanut vendors, dozing security guards, the first batch of the day’s papers, front pages already outdated, hostage to Manila’s time zone.

  A phone call had startled the cold room. There was a hardened quality to the caller’s accent. “Alvin? Alvin, is that you?” That the man said his real name and not Paul, his all-around alias, meant it was no booty call (for a change), not one of the guys he had met in the last month, in the free-for-all democracy that included students and expats, a nurse and an Ecstasy dealer, two Jeffs and two Mikes, a Chester, a Dexter, an Alestair, the rich and the helplessly hoi polloi, plus, since we were being honest, a bellhop, a pizza guy, and a forty-something who lisped in between thrusts that he wasthn’t normally thith horny, you know, but it’d been crathy at work lately, with the both in town, you might know him, he’th alwayth on TV. “Is that you, hello?” the voice on the phone repeated, the urgent tone made feeble by static.

  “Who’s this?” Alvin asked, barely awake. “It’s me,” the man said, an answer which had always infuriated Alvin, and he shut his eyes, bristling, at which point he recognized the voice. “Fuck!” he screamed. “Sorry. What is it, Kuya Rey—” “They got you,” Reynaldo cut him off. “Anonymous tip. Did you tell anyone else? I told you—” “What?” Alvin asked, prompting Reynaldo to repeat, with brute clarity this time, and add, “You have one hour to get out of there, maybe two max.”

  OK-calm-down-calm-down, Alvin told himself in the first paralyzing moments, calm-the-fuck-down-Alvin. After putting down the phone, a Supreme Exhaustion washed over him, and he considered turning on the TV and ordering pizza, wait for the end like a self-immolating Buddhist. But the black knapsack on the bed caught his eye. By now it felt like an appendage. He had lugged it around, the darling weight, sometimes swung like a payday shopping bag. Once or twice he snuggled with it in bed. It was all he had now. All that he needed. What else could he lose? Running from the law could be good for his asthma. He could go somewhere nice, a last hurrah. As far away from the Muntinlupa penitentiary as possible, he thought, smiling at his own joke. He looked for his wallet and called front desk to connect him to a 24-hour airline booking service. Connected, he inquired about the least crowded flight that was leaving at the crack of dawn. Well, sir, the booking woman hummed, there’s a lot of room on our 6:25 AM flight to, hmm, Tacloban, sir.

  Yolanda wouldn’t call on Tacloban until five years later; Alvin had no mental picture yet for the city except a tall-haired sleepy-eyed woman in a stiff terno who liked shoes. The girl on the line sounded embarrassed. The dejection didn’t leave her voice even after Alvin assured her that Tacloban was perfect, window seat please, and here was his credit card number. While waiting, he imagined the tiny cubicle where the booking lady was probably stretching her neck or massaging her shoulders, tilting her face to check her makeup on a compact mirror. He was transported back to his own tiny cubicle, brightly lit and bordered by gray plastic spines, from where, until some months ago, he, too, manned the phones. “Is it done, miss?” Alvin asked, aware of the shenanigans that delayed calls like this. Someone coughed on the line, and Alvin heard the distant snap of what could only be a compact mirror being shut. The girl came back on. “OK, sir, here’s your booking reference number, sir.” “No, no, no, I don’t need that,” Alvin said, “just tell me if it’s done.” “This is very important, sir,” she pleaded. “And are you sure about Tacloban? If you’re going on vacation and not sure where to go, Tagbilaran has room, too. Laoag, Davao, Legazpi, Dipolog. Not sure where that last one is, though. But it sounds nice, Deep-all -ag. Or Hong Kong, Bangkok. Dubai! How about Dubai? But you might be too late for those. Ha-ha-ha. Sorry. Sir? Wait, OK, we were just advised that there were three cancellations on our 8:30 AM to Caticlan. Have you been to Boracay, sir?”

  A feral scream gurgled in Alvin’s throat (he checked the neon clock on his bedside table—4:23), but he also felt a deep worry for the girl, imagining a long life full of undue investments on petty things, like a stranger’s flight to stupid Tacloban. When he was new on the call center floor, he, too, had felt an inordinate amount of concern for his American callers, until about a year into the job, when the raised voices and patronizing niceties turned Empathy into nothing but a pause in the conversation, a recommended verbiage from the ring-bound Manual for UTelCo Customer Care Associates (page 5 under “Empathy”). “—our airline flies to thirty-four domestic and fifteen foreign destinations, sir, do you have a valid passport? If you want—” Alvin could almost see the girl’s cubicle covered with the usual knickknacks: a mangy teddy bear with an “I’m sorry” sign, a Starbucks tumbler, a company notepad; her monitor, no doubt covered with dog-eared Post-Its, flashed with better options and better cities, certainly better than the sonic humdrum of little note that was the Leyte capital. What was in Tacloban? “—where MacArthur landed in Palo. Remember, sir? ‘I shall return?’ Ha-ha-ha. It’s one hour away. There’s a nice hotel in Ormoc, sir. Four stars but cheap. Seven floors. If you’ll stay on the line—” She admirably marshalled all the cheer at her disposal at 4:33 AM, which pained Alvin in what he assumed was a pang of unwanted solidarity. He cleared his throat, interrupting her. “Is this really what you want to do in your life?” he asked.

  A moment of silence. “Sir?” the girl asked.

  In her station, unknown to him, she had begun to retouch her foundation in preparation for the end of her shift and so was a little slow on the uptake. Alvin took her pause as regret, maybe even misery. Done with her makeup, she shrugged off the silence and cried, “Well, enjoy, Tacloban, sir!” before dropping the call, cutting short Alvin’s Empathy, exposing its sham.

  A freshly erected Christmas tree welcomed him at the hotel lobby minutes later. It filled the concave of the circular staircase, the synthetic needles slipping through the wooden balusters. Crowding the foot of the tree was a zoo of animals, farm and forest and poultry, a kangaroo in one sullen corner. Alvin recalled a long-ago encounter with an Australian lady in Pagudpud and loudly told the phone’s dial tone that he was taking the next flight out to Sydney, yes, Sydney, the Qantas airbus due to depart Terminal 1 at 6:55. His intent was to be overheard, and true enough the receptionist would relay to the police that, thanks to his good-natured curiosity, they might just catch the young fugitive at the airport, and they’re welcome.

  On a limp piece of paper inside Alvin’s knapsack pocket, the letters T-A-C were printed below the destination column, an inch away from MNL (origin) and 5J482 (flight number). With a chance to finally pause, he took a deep breath, feeling weak with relief: the worst was over.

  It was his first time at Ninoy Aquino’s new terminal. From that morning he would always remember it as a barren place, sterile with newness, still outside Manila’s chaotic clutches (an armored van fell off the Skyway last week, the first time, the joke went, when someone stuck in gridlock actually took heed of the familiar taunt, “Paliparin mo!”). If the old terminal lumbered with hefty concrete and yellowing upholstery, this one joined the global march toward clinical modernity: glass and endless metal. Unmoving airline logos stared from overhead monitors, beneath which sat a row of potted bromeliads. “Wow Philippines!” cried a few posters.

  Alvin had just hurdled the final security check and was putting his shoes back on when he caught the eye of the man sitting across from him, also struggling to slide a bulbous sole into a shoe. Recognition did something to Alvin’s rented courage, his momentary peace. He blinked and, getting on his feet, tried to put a spring in his step, to shrug off the dread. But as he neared the boarding gates, he heard over the PA system that his flight would be delayed, and his lips curled into the frigid smile worn only by people in absolute torment. “Aircraft issues,” the sleepy voice explained. “To the passengers on this flight, we apologize for any inconvenience—” “—this may have caused you,” he mouthed robotically, apace with the announcement.
/>   Page 9 in the UTelCo Manual under “Apology.”

  There were a lot more people in the boarding area, some jostling in a nearby gate, islands of noisy Koreans in pastel beachwear (of course). Like many Manileños, Alvin intuitively derived some comfort from crowds, but here, seeing this, something congested in his chest. He craved for a smoke. Happy thoughts, he told himself. Aircraft issues? “Issues” in his schema had always recalled the embarrassing tumult of youth, the unresolved neuroses, and poor aircraft, to be saddled with those. Alvin’s was weight (he had been a chubby, irritable child), and two weeks ago, at poolside, Kuya Elmer the pool guy handed him the usual monogrammed bath towel but not before glancing, ever so briefly, at Alvin’s bare midsection. This had led him to a nearby changing room, where, in front of the hallway mirror, he lifted his hands and twisted his torso in pretzel-like positions. It’s the sedentary lifestyle, he thought, or maybe a recessive gene, the same culprit for his hair, which began to curl in unruly, uneven waves when he turned sixteen, so he shaved all of it and had stayed bald since.

  From where he sat—an elevated spot in the east wing, awaiting the sun’s sluggish, tentacular rise—Alvin had a good view of the airport’s “performance.” It had been Scott’s “term of endearment” for all things Filipino and therefore of anthropological merit. (How was he? Alvin wondered.) It was another hour before his new boarding schedule, and he reclined in his seat, feeling somewhat better. Then memory came knocking, shyly, then petulantly. Cue the split-second plunge. The Supreme Exhaustion. The regret. The subterranean panic.

  2

  U nder the steel bench where Alvin sat (the sun now about a quarter of the way out), the once reassuring knapsack lay with a bomb’s itch. The thought of abandoning it suddenly sounded irresistible. The royal blue bills: coarse and tied with nylon strings that dovetailed into neat ribbons. There were thirty-three bundles left, the thirty-fourth about a third of the way consumed; that one, in an accessible front pocket, he had designated for the sundry expenses along the way, like emergency cookies and bribes to the labyrinthine network of airport security, all of whom (he was assured) had received a prior tip from ISAFP’s Lt. Tupaz. He had started with forty-one bundles over three months ago; so did Eric, Philip, and Karen.