NOVEL NEXT Chapter 2: Betrayal
The mirror in the corner showed a man who looked nothing like me. He was younger by no less than twenty years, had black hair when mine was brown, had brown eyes when mine were blue, and had light brown skin when I had been pasty white.
The foreign memories in my mind suggested something ridiculous. If they were to be believed, then by some twisted sorcery, I had entered another man's body, in another country, and gone back in time more than a hundred years.
The man's name was Martín Lardizábal, the fifty-year-old governor of the obscure province of Marinduque in the Philippines. The calendar hanging on the wall told me it was August 1898.
I chuckled to myself in disbelief as I looked outside again. The window on the second floor of the Casa Real provided a decent view of the town called Boac.
The small settlement appeared as a little island of civilization, surrounded by a jungle of coconut trees. In the distance, the blue waters of the Sibuyan Sea reflected the rays of the early morning sun. The silvery strip from much nearer was the Boac River.
In front of the governor's residence was the town plaza, a patch of well-trimmed grass with a few shade trees. Pedestrians and carts pulled by horses and carabaos dusted up the dirt roads.
The houses, including the one I was in, followed the same architectural style- thatch roofs, a wooden second floor that served as the main living quarters, and a ground floor made of stone, which was used either as a shop space or for storage.
The bell tower of the cathedral near the river loomed above the houses. Citadel-like walls surrounded the place of worship, built to serve as a refuge for townsmen in case of pirate attacks.
At once, I knew that this was not a dream. Dreams can pervert or twist stored experiences, but they cannot go beyond what is already in the mind. I knew next to nothing about 19th-century Philippines, much less the province of Marinduque, yet there I was by the window sill, knowing the place like the back of my hand.
But if this wasn't a dream, then what was it? The thought sent gooseflesh crawling over my skin.
"Papa, gising ka na ba?" A knock on the door was accompanied by a woman's voice speaking a language I should not have understood, and yet I did.
"Yes, I am awake." I responded in the same language with native fluency. The alien words smoothly left my tongue.
"Tiyo Pedro and the Capitan are here. They were wondering if you could join them for breakfast," she said.
Upon hearing the names, two faces emerged in my head. And those two individuals triggered a cascade of memories to surface. I saw the blue and red flag and the corpse of a Spanish soldier. I heard angry shouts and gunshots, followed by joyful cheers from a huge crowd in the same plaza I had been staring at.
"Yes, tell them I will join them soon."
Wearing the same clothes I had woken up in, I stepped out of the room into the hallway and into the sala. There, my two visitors sat at a wooden table, having bread and coffee.
"Gobernador!" It was the captain who noticed me first. "I hope we did not disturb your sleep."
"No… not at all."
The memories in my mind had been consistent so far. The Philippines had been under Spanish rule for more than three hundred years until the 1898 revolution. No one other than Martín, with his significant influence, had led the local struggle against Spain. Last April, they had finally expelled the last of the Spanish forces from the island.
As a reward, he had been given the title of Politico-Military Governor of the island.
The revolution was reaching its glorious end. Now, they waited for the fall of Manila, the country's capital, into the hands of Emilio Aguinaldo, the president of the Philippine Revolutionary Government. The city had been surrounded on all sides by Filipino generals, with the Americans blockading the city's ports in Manila Bay.
I hadn't realized America was involved with the Philippines this early. But it wasn't surprising. Interfering in other countries' affairs had always been Uncle Sam's vice.
I sat on the couch across from the two gentlemen. Whatever their purpose for visiting, it must have been urgent, since they were in house clothes like me.
"Is something the matter?" I asked as I took a sip from the porcelain cup. The black coffee was strong and smoky, just how I liked it.
The grim-faced men looked at each other before Captain Maximo Abad produced an envelope from his pocket. He slid it across the wooden surface toward me.
"The Americans have broken their promise—"
I spat out my coffee. "What do you mean?"
The captain continued, "The Americanos have broken their promise. They captured Manila last Sunday but refused to let our forces enter. I always thought it was too good to be true that the Americans were really helping us. I was right to doubt their intentions."
I hastily opened the envelope and took out a letter written in Spanish, in heavy cursive. Yet, somehow, I could read it with ease. It confirmed what the captain had said. The Americans, without consulting the Filipinos, had captured the capital and secured the surrender of the Spanish Governor-General in what seemed like a mock battle. Now, they refused to let Filipino forces enter, even threatening to shoot any Filipino unit that approached.
According to Martín's memory, it was America's promise of assistance that had urged Aguinaldo to return to the Philippines and resume the struggle. If the Americans had truly broken their promise, then it was a blatant and shameless betrayal, not only of the Filipinos but also of America's purported image as the champion of freedom.
Even so, I couldn't immediately believe it. I understood what the Americans in the capital might have been thinking. Revolutionaries, whether Filipino or from any other nation, tended to be vengeful. The Americans were likely holding Manila temporarily until tensions died down, trying to prevent chaos from erupting.
"What do we do next?" Pedro Madrigal, Martín's brother-in-law and a lieutenant under Captain Abad, asked.
A higher power must have made all of this possible. And I wanted to have a piece of His mind. What on earth am I doing here?
"We wait," I replied.