Desdemona by Tag Cavello (read e books online free .txt) 📖

is tilted in just such a way to bring the full effect of the sun directly upon the islands. We were ants under a magnifying glass. It tell you, boy, it burned. Sweat dripped from your body. The air felt weighty and reluctant to nourish your lungs. It was like being trapped inside of a stove. And no matter where you went that sun found a way to reach you. It gouged at my eyes. It cooked my arms brown. During my time in the tropics I came to despise anything having to do with hydrogen and helium. It hasn’t gone away. You may have noticed by now that I almost always prefer to stay indoors.

We stayed at the church on that first day, and when evening fell, we did our show. It went well despite the heat. Manila in those days was a clean city filled with respectful, decent citizens. And of course any church-goer is urbane. The priest was also very kind. He enjoyed our singing and asked us to hold over for more shows. That was a lucky break, for while we all relished the idea of flight to cooler venues, none of us were keen on more road travel, especially having just arrived from Italy.

We slept that night in the church’s stony basement, deep beneath the streets. My chamber in particular was quite set apart from the others, and possessed of a cool draft which immediately earned my gratitude, though I could never locate its source. The candle at my bedside flickered throughout the night, as did a number of pages from an open Bible, their fluttering disturbing my sleep to the extent that I was forced to rise and close the cover.

In the morning we ate a delightful breakfast with the bishop. He, too, had been impressed with our performance. It would very much please him, he went on, to have such a talented group of singers continue to display their abilities for the Catholics of Intramuros.

We rehearsed after lunch, then performed that very evening for anyone who wanted to come and hear. The nave was huge, and because of the heat the church’s massive doors were kept open, allowing passers by to see the gold of candlelight through the arches, and become entranced. Later that night I returned to my chamber. The draft was waiting. That it hadn’t decided to leave made me happy. I lay awake until midnight with a book, drowsing over the pages until at last sleep carried me off. Hours later I awoke in pure darkness. Remember we were deep in the basement, near the crypts. The rooms had no windows. But that strange draft had found a way to put out my candle.

And from across the room I could hear it: the pages of the Bible, fluttering. This was odd, since I knew I hadn’t myself opened it. I lit the candle, rose, and once more closed its cover. Then I went back to sleep.

We sang at the church for perhaps two months, drawing decent crowds even on days when there were no sermons. When not singing, I was strolling the streets of Intramuros, getting acquainted with its ancient stone walls. The sidewalks were clean, and for a time swept with a spectacular pink show of Dona Luz petals from a number of blossoming trees. I shopped in several bookstores and drank coffee at lovely cafes, many of which served brioche.

In one such café I met a barista who told me about an apartment for rent off nearby Dewey Boulevard. It had to have been June by this time, for the choir’s run at San Agustin was nearing its end. Indeed, the choir itself would soon be no more. Two of our tenors had found work at a theater in the Ukraine and were leaving soon. Two other female singers had just gotten engaged. The group’s time together was winding down. We had at best two weeks’ worth of shows left.

Soon to be in need of a place to lay my head at night, I visited the address off Dewey. Mind you I never would have bothered to do this at all, except that I, too, had been lured from the choir by a singing offer from Manila’s Lyric Theater, which often held operas. A troupe there was in need of a baritone voice, and I was in need of broader vistas upon which to let my interests frolic.

As luck would have it, the cab driver who took me from Intramuros was not familiar with the address; thus, we were forced to tool around a number of quiet, shaded barangays that looked as alien to me as the blood eye of Zeus upon a midnight desert landscape. Making things stranger still were the heavily clouded skies, rumbling with violent dreams that would soon become reality. Summer was over and the rains were near. The cabbie warned me about this in English that I found surprisingly good, when I asked to be let off so I might find the address on my own. He would have none of it. Setting his meter to pause, he said that to step out now would mean certain drenching from the deluge poised over our heads. I peered out my window to see that the skies were even darker than they’d been five minutes ago, and a wind had gotten up, bending the branches of myriad flowered trees along the residential lane.

And yet the rains held off, even as the kindly driver—a middle-aged man who introduced himself as Milo—at last located the address. It was a three-storied white house with an unkempt lawn cut through by a broken sidewalk. Dead leaves swirled on its dusty concrete porch, and its windows were all black. It didn’t look to me as if anyone were home, so I thanked Milo for the ride, then asked if he might wait a few extra minutes should my appeal at the doorbell prove fruitless. He agreed, and not wishing to waste more of his time than necessary, I hurried across the lawn and up a short flight of crooked steps.

The bell was an antique—the kind with a handle you had to twist to make ring. I did so. To my great surprise the door was pulled open after only a few moments. A very small, very old woman peered at me through enormous square glasses. Using my best Tagalog, I began to inquire about the apartment. She nodded, saying that yes, there was indeed a unit available for rent at this address, but no, she could not give me a proper showing today, as she was just on her way to a dentist appointment. I remember that her name was Mrs. Dominguez. Might I be available to return tomorrow at this same time? she asked. She spoke mostly in English, which enabled us to retreat from my own linguistic ineptitude. I thanked her and said that of course I could come back. She then gave me a quick look at the apartment, which seemed adequate. This after I informed Milo I would only be another five minutes.

I returned next day at the exact same time and under very similar weather conditions. Such is the season from June to September in the Philippines. Afternoon storms flood the streets; at midnight they flood them again. In between lie the churning, tumultuous skies which I already mentioned, at hopeless war with Apollo, yet clinging in paradox to that language of his poetry which speaks through the voice of other deities: the wind and rain, the sigh of cooled trees; fallen foliage at play down the street; garden flower scents swept away to far off places.

The landlady did not answer. Instead the door opened on a girl of perhaps twenty, small and slender, wearing a plain but rather pretty white dress that complimented her delicate curves. I stammered a bit, taken aback by her beauty, before regaining the course of my thoughts to give my name, along with the purpose of my visit. Mrs. Dominguez was out for the day, the girl informed, but that was all right, for she’d been told to expect me.

“My name is Princess,” she said, pulling the door wide. “Come inside and let’s look at the apartment.”

I was startled by her invitation, for yesterday we had not gone through the Dominguez apartment, but to a separate door—the vacancy’s main door—at the house’s far end. Still, the environment beyond Princess’ shoulder looked harmless enough; thus, I left my shoes on the wind-swept porch and followed her inside.

Her beauty continued to distract me. She couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, and forced to make a guess, I would have put her weight at around one hundred pounds. Her feet, tiny and bare, made no sound as we passed through a clean, quiet living room decorated with wood furniture, then into a shiny kitchen where hovered the faint scent of coffee and dish cleaner.

Princess opened another door which let on a long balcony connecting the two apartments. It overlooked a lawn of flowered trees, pink and red, that were just now beginning to sway with the winds of a coming storm. The door of the vacant apartment opened onto another kitchen—one I had already seen, if briefly. Only today the floors were swept, the counters polished. A window was open to invite the flowery breeze, which lifted Princess’ hair as if in attempt to lure her out to the boughs for a dance with the petals.

I checked under the sink for leaky pipes. All seemed dry. Next I looked for rotted wood along the cabinetry. Again I was satisfied. Princess then led me into the living room. She turned on a light that cast an orange glow over the cloudy-day shadows. A spacious, clean room presented itself. The ceiling was high, the floor sturdy. One thing I hadn’t noticed the day before was a flight of stairs at the archway, going down.

“Where do these go?” I asked Princess.

She smiled. “To the basement apartment, where I live. I’m a student at Mary Cause Of Our Joy College.”

“Ah!” I answered. “What do you study there?”

“Hotel management. Showing this apartment for you is actually giving me a nice little dry run in the business.”

“I can see how it would. And you’re doing a lovely job,” I added, hoping not to sound absurd.

“Thank you, Mr. Donati.” She smiled again and, to my utter astonishment, performed a lovely little curtsey. “Most Filipinas my age still live at home with family, but both of my parents are dead. I’m able to afford the apartment and school with money they left me.”

At this I had no idea how to react. I did my best to convey sympathy through tilted brows and downturned mouth, along with offering one of those tiny nods one reserves for occasions when words simply will not do.

We looked at the bedroom next. I had no complaints, and told Princess I would be happy to accept the apartment if Mrs. Dominguez would have me. The show of modesty made her laugh. “Of course she’ll have you,” she said. “She goes to the church where you sing.”

“Oh,” I said. “She didn’t tell me.”

“Come back tomorrow. Mrs. Dominguez will be here, and chances are she’ll let you move right in.”

At that exact moment a crash of thunder—the loudest I had ever heard—went off like a bomb outside, shaking the entire building. I jumped, but if Princess reacted I didn’t see. When I turned from the window, ready to laugh at my skittishness, she was already gliding down the basement steps, her black hair entwined with the shadows, and fading from view.

I caught a cab back to San Agustin and packed what few belongings I carried from venue to venue. Because of the stormy weather, the draft in my chamber no longer felt like a respite from insane heat, but chilly. I shivered in the candle-lit gloom whilst folding my shirts. As always, shadows played on the