Soul

Copyright © 2016, 2018-2020 by VeryWellAged

Back to Chapter 13

Author's note: This chapter is NOT a stand-alone...The story starts here.

The Portrait Gallery

He doesn’t. For Jacobo, the last second his wristwatch records, when his pulse is present, is a little past four forty-nine this morning. The elegant man, in his starched and pressed uniform, with his spit shined shoes, ends life sprawled out in a dirt alleyway, next to a pile of trash and a meter from a crack in the concrete from which the effluvia of city dwellers effluent rises into the air, unfiltered and unpleasant. His drawers fill with shit and piss that leak out of his lifeless corpse.

His assistants lay around him in equally squalid states. There are four of them who die this morning and with those deaths, die the memory of Erlyn’s connection to the syndicate that took the lives of her family.

But they don’t die as a means of retribution. They die because their existence threatened Erlyn. They die because others wanted them dead too. The first reason required the second reason for any summation.

Neither Erlyn nor I know of this until far later in the morning. It isn’t the two of us, who inform others. It will be Amelae, later.

All Erlyn and I know this morning, as we exit the work area, is that there is nothing from one side after about four thirty and the other side is texting about other issues later in the morning. There is nothing to tell us what transpired. We know something dramatic has occurred only because there are text from others, wondering where their guys are, who has the Shabu? There are complaints about someone not showing up.

Erlyn and I are sitting at the dining table. She is drinking Milo and I have a cup of coffee. There is a large pan of sticky rice with a brown sugar and coconut topping on the table, from which we have both been spooning mounds onto small plates. It is five thirty and the others have not awakened.

You know, I will never be pretty again? I have this bad scar now. I never walk correctly again. You still want me? You tell me before, I not permitted to go, but you not required to keep me.

Do you want me to release you?

No! Never!

Good, because as of now, I renounce my ability to release you. You must stay.

Even though I am ugly?

I smile. She is not ugly. She will never walk smoothly again from what the doctor tells us. Yes, the scar is ugly but she is not. That is something that she will never figure out. From now on, she will think of herself as damaged goods.

Erlyn, you are mine. I do not want to hear about this again. You may not leave and I will not tell you to leave. Your job is to make me happy. My job is to make you happy. Are we clear on this?

Yes, Master. Master, are you happy?

For the moment, I am as happy as is realistic, until I learn the fate of those men. I need to keep you safe.

Why that?

The fact that I do is all you need to know.

Master, why sometimes it look like you are sad?

Because we all have regrets. You have regrets, and I have mine.

Francine’s mother?

Yes.

Why you not say her name?

It is too painful.

Sorry. Sorry I make you sad now.

We drink our drinks, eat the sticky rice and are enveloped by the quiet, and the dim half-light that sneaks through the sheer drapes covering windows facing away from the sun on this overcast day.

Master, will your daughter like us? She not be angry we are here?

Francine is very happy you are here.

How it feel to you? I am her age.

Yes, you are. But you are not my daughter.

Sige, sige. Master, the nail polish, the make-up. That hers, di ba?

Why does it matter?

It not old. These colors, they like we have now. The polish still very good. The powder in the same type containers in the stores now. She the only one here before?

Erlyn, why does it matter?

Things in it for the body, not just the face. You know this?

Yes.

So?

Erlyn, why does it matter?

How you with your daughter?

I am her father. If you are asking if I am her lover, I am not.

Sige, sige. Sorry I make you mad.

I am not angry with you.

Once again silence rules as I sip more of my cooling cup of coffee. I reach out and take hold of Erlyn’s hand. She smiles. We will be OK.

Mirafe and Aina emerge from their bedroom. Both look groggy. They must have just rolled out of bed. Both make a beeline for the Milo and then settle around us, using spoons to eat the sticky rice, directly from the pan. Appreciative smiles grace both their faces as the sweet concoction fills their mouths with the soft, but chewy treat.

The warm Milo having infused some sense of life into Mirafe, the girl, glancing over the edge of her cup, asks if there is any news.

Nothing worth mentioning yet, I tell her. Erlyn’s eyebrows confirming my assertion.

I can see Aina hoping that our failure to claim success is a harbinger of news that her Jesus has saved the men. She is on edge. I smile at her. She tries to smile back but is conflicted. A smile briefly appears and is turned off as she turns her head away from me.

Ten minutes later Amelae appears. It is clear she has toileted and is fully awake as she heads straight to the coffee pot and pours herself a cup. Sitting down, tablespoon in hand she scoops up a decent size clump of the sticky rice and nibbles a piece from the spoonful she has gathered. That was a bloody mess this morning.

Excuse me? Do you know something?

You don’t, Master?

No, I don’t. What have you learned?

There is a report that the NPA attacked and gun down four PNP this morning.

Erlyn is pissed. Hindi! Wala¹ NPA!

Amelae is signaling that she understands. They have to say that. They not going to report the PNP are in a drug syndicate. Di Ba?

Erlyn is mollified. Aina asks, Any live?

Wala na.²Master? This what you hope for result?

Yes. All those who needed to die are now dead. It is over.

Amelae, looks at Erlyn, and you can see the wheels turning. This time I really do think I know what is in her mind, but it is best if she is the one to say it.

Friend, you and me, we cause many to die. Many want to kill us. I am glad it is over for you. I am not sure for me. Why so many want to kill us? We not do anything bad.

Hindi ko alam³. Without Master, I patay⁴. Maybe you are not patay, but your mother patay, di ba?

Oo, talaga. Without Master, maybe the wrong ones dead.

Sige.

Aina seems to be mortified and quietly leaves the table, and the room. The girls look at her and glances are exchanged. They wanted to like her. They wanted to have her join them. For a while they were not sure. Now they are. She, in their eyes, needs to go.

Master, I can go out now? I can look to see what the church doing, also?

Yes, you no longer need to hide.

Good. Now I will use an umbrella! I am lighter now. I want to stay this way. And Erlyn giggles.

The three of them appear happy. There is an ease in their posture and their expressions that was not there before. As they exit the house, a house they see as home, they are sure of who they are and where they belong in the world.

I still have concerns about Amelae and more seriously, her mother, but they are not in any immediate danger from what I can tell. At the moment, my attention is shifted toward the church for which the girl’s had been soliciting. Lying, as they were doing, to support a church in a manner outside the agreed upon rules.  In this, I do not have to keep my hands off, even though I am not protecting a soul contracted to me.

But I can’t do it myself. That is not allowed. My girls are not nearly numerous enough to stop what is happening. What is needed is overwhelming action. I know exactly where to get the needed forces.

There is a total lack of accountability of the funds collected in the manner required by the church of these kids. How much is going to the work of the church and how much is going into the personal pockets of the high and mighty within the church is a mystery. These churches are scams of scams. If folks want and need to believe in whatever… OK, let them. That’s the deal. That’s in the rules of our game. But stealing by deceiving kids that they are doing “god’s work” by deceiving others in a scam that steals from the end patron and stealing again from those deceived into taking the money under the false pretense… no, that is enough to really piss me off. 

I need an army. What I need is “god’s army.” Luckily they are here, all around us. They are organized, and disciplined, and able to be turned out on orders from on high. And it is somewhat fitting that they be the instruments of the demise of this sham church. The question of how I can get them to act is the challenge of the moment. I will use the Catholics. The Inglesia ni Cristo functions too much like the mafia as it is. OK so do the Catholics, but they don’t kidnap their own senior officials during turf battles. The INC does. Plus there are simply far more Catholics.

The sham church has activities throughout the islands. So one bishopric is not enough, I need the entire Philippines.

I decide to send a fax to the bishop with whom I have already had a run in. The sending number will once again seem to come from his dead priest.

You are instructed to do as follows.

Contact all in the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines. Inform them that you have received a divine command that the congregation of the Catholic Church of the Philippines shall interfere with those who are instructed by a false church to solicit funds for said church and its leaders by false claims, false premises, and subterfuge.

Each parish church, and each congregation of each cathedral shall be so directed to act without failure, and without relaxation, until all activities by such solicitors is ended by any means required.

You are instructed to say that failure shall bring with it the deaths of priests, if the failure is limited to a locale, or the death of any bishop who refuses these instructions. Deaths will commence in one week.

To talk to me directly, text the number on this fax. I will receive your messages. Leave those I protect alone. They know nothing of this.

I see the fax is received in the office of the Bishop. Within minutes a SMS text is sent to the dead priest’s cell number.

Give me time.

I send a text back from that number.

No.

An hour later I see a phone call from the Bishop to the offices of the church which I am targeting. The call ends fifteen minutes later and a new text is sent.

They refuse to stop. They tell me it is none of my business.

I answer with,

Six days, twenty-two hours and thirty-four minutes. Do not haggle. Do not anger me.

I see a fax is sent to the secretary of the CBCP. It reads as I have instructed. I see a broadcast text message that I gather includes all those in the Conference. I collect all these numbers. How very accommodating they are to provide this to me. A fax is then transmitted to all those on the list as well. I can now start connecting the dots between the bishops and their seats of operations, and to their priests.

I have done all I can for now. I know there will be strong pushback, and lots of anger. I just don’t care. These are pompous fools. Well, educated to be sure, but fools.

I need to spend some time with the girls. Mirafe has been needing attention and it is more than time to provide it. After a nice lunch of heart of palm and coconut milk, I take the girl by the hand. She looks at me, nods, smiles, and tells me, Í am ready.

I guess I am too. We go through into the locked passageway, back to my bedroom. She has not been here before. Master, may I look around?

Yes.

And that is evidently the permission she needs to look into every possible hidey-hole in the room. There is really nothing to see, except for one cabinet. There, neatly kept, and in order, are the likelinesses of each of the females with whom I have spent a life. Some are portraits. A few of the later ones are pictures. Attached to each: a lock of hair; a record, where such existed, of the birth of our child; a letter, or testament from my companion to me, of that, which she wanted me to remember of her; and the place and time of her burial.

The letters are in many different languages. A few on clay tablets. Many on parchment. Some on vellum. The last on acid free paper. As Mirafe cannot read them in most cases, she decides I need to read them. She also decides that Amelae and Erlyn need to be here too. She asks permission to have them join us. I grant it.

She goes back down the hall to allow the two through. Mirafe tells me Aina looks on with a pained expression as my three souls disappear from her view down the hallway.

Mirafe sets about the task of telling her companions what she has found. She announces, she will set out the likeness of the companion, and as it is in view, I will read aloud to them the testament.

I cannot think of a sweeter and simultaneously more painful duty. Questions frequently interrupting the reading as meanings need clarification or enlargement. Some of the letters are brief. Certainly the ones on the tablets are not very demanding of elaboration. But as we get to the parchment, time after time, one of the three has questions. Reliving all this is beyond difficult.

Amelae asks, as we have moved through the first ten or so, Why do you change locations so far?

Because I do not want to take the progeny of my progeny.

Why? There is no sin. Why not?

I don’t want to be the father of a monster. That is why.

Oh!

The reading of the letters continues, until we get to Francine’s mother. Here there is a picture, a lock of hair, but nothing else. No name, no letter, and no child’s birth record.

Erlyn is holding the photo. Master, she was truly beautiful. Maybe one of the most beautiful of all. I mean no bad things for us, but we not beautiful like her. The other two are silently agreeing with the assessment.

Mirafe asks the obvious. Master, they loved you. Some say your love kept them alive. Why you not love your daughter? Why you not love us?

Because, friend, says Erlyn, who is still holding the photo, because of her. He can’t love us until he can say her name and say goodbye to this one who he loved so much. Even then I am not sure. Love blinds. He must never be blind again. That why! … Amelae what you doing?

Taking photos of the children’s records. Maybe we can research and find Master’s heirs!

You ask the Master if he will allow this! He is right next to you. Maybe he not want this.

Why had I never cared? I am not opposed to it. I just didn’t see the point in it. This whole process has taken a toll on me. I feel exposed in a way I have not felt in a long time. Amelae, you may do this. You have my permission. And all look happy.

It is long past time for supper. Mirafe will take a rain check on the rest of this. We exit the private rooms and rejoin the rest of the house and Aina. She has been crying.

I ask my three to get food on the table and sit down with Aina.

OK, why the tears?

Don’t you know? You are a powerful god!

Are you trying to anger me?

She is just looking at me, bewildered.

Aina, I know you are angry with me, but why do you want me to be angry with you?

Why you mean to me?

I am not mean to you.

You keep me out!

You have not given me your soul. How is that being mean?

How you powerful, if you don’t know my heart?

Because humans have free will. Thoughts are transient and change from moment to moment. Thoughts tell us nothing. We don’t waste time with them. So I don’t know what you have in your head.

You heard Erlyn’s prayer! So that not true.

A prayer in time of life’s threat, of one who has given her soul, is not a thought. It is an arrow that pierces my mind. It is entirely something else from a thought. I cannot read your mind at all simply because you are not mine.

You are not powerful like God or Jesus!

If there was a God or Jesus, you would be correct. But there isn’t.

How I know this?

You don’t. How you know there is, without the answer, faith. Faith is not knowing. So how you know?

It is faith!

Yes I know you want to believe. That requires faith because you don’t know. Knowing is the opposite of Faith. You do not know there is a god or a Jesus. And I can’t help you with that.

Why you not know my heart?

Because I don’t have that power, Aina. What does your heart say?

Why I have to ask? Why you not just take me and it be over?!

Oh. I see. Yes you want others to direct you, to take control of you. Yes, I can see that in your personality. But then later you can hate and resent the person or the group that did that to you, and took your freedom away. It is somewhat how you allowed that priest to control you so entirely. Aina that is not how it works here. I will control you for life, but only if you ask me to do that. Yes, I know I could force the issue, but I will not. It is you who has to choose. Only then do you own the results.

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Chapter 15