THE GOING
When I wake there is a small bundle beside me, and with a pang I realize Nanay has packed for me. I sit on my bed for a long time, looking at the room I have spent every night in since I was born. Notches in the door frame mark my height, from when I was just able to stand, to last year’s birthday. I wonder how tall I will be when Nanay next measures me. Probably bigger than her – she is not very high.
Nanay sticks her head into the room.
‘There you are,’ she says in a too-bright voice that means she is Putting On A Brave Face. ‘I made breakfast.’
We eat fruit in our scrubby garden, but it is hard to swallow. I want this part to be over, though I don’t want to leave. I don’t think the being gone will be as bad as the going.
Sister Margaritte arrives just as we are finishing our mango halves. Nanay goes rigid and says, ‘Wipe your face, Ami.’
I bite my lip so hard I taste the tang of blood. There must be a way of staying. I wish I had thought harder about it, knew what to do. Nanay hands me my bundle. I can feel hard edges inside and she says, ‘Your present is in there, like I promised. Habilin, for safekeeping until we see each other again.’
The parting words are coming, and she is drawing out the sentences to delay it, the way she does when she goes to see friends in the hospital who will not be going home. Sister Margaritte leads us outside.
I keep my back straight and my eyes facing forwards. There is an open cart outside with a driver – another stranger – and five other children in it, seated along the sides. They all have bundles with them too. Datu is there, and two girls from school, but most of our class are not. Diwa’s baby is not there either.
‘A cart?’ says Nanay. ‘Are we not walking them to the harbour?’
‘They are to be taken to the new port. The . . .’ Sister Margaritte wrinkles her nose. ‘The Sano port. It’s north from here, through the forest.’
‘I see.’ Nanay chokes on the words. Then she clears her throat and bends to hold me.
‘Be good. Be polite. Make yourself useful.’
‘I will, Nanay.’
She bends and hugs me tightly. ‘Make me proud. Make friends. I’ll write to you.’
She nods at Sister Margaritte, who looks as sad as I feel.
‘See you in one thousand, nine hundred and forty-five days,’ I say.
‘One thousand, nine hundred and forty-four days,’ she corrects. ‘Or thereabouts.’
I climb up and Sister Margaritte sits beside the driver. The mules start walking.
‘Wait!’
Bondoc is thundering down the road, Capuno hurrying behind. I move to the back of the cart and each of the brothers reaches up in turn to hug me.
Bondoc whispers into my ear, ‘I will take care of her, Ami. Segregation or no, I’ll visit as much as possible. And I will take care of you, as best I can. I will write to check on you, and visit when you are settled.’
He lets go and jumps from the cart.
As the mules start again, Nanay kisses both hands and blows the kisses to me. I catch them fast as falling stars and pocket them. Bondoc puts his arm over Nanay’s shoulder and I know he will keep his promise, even if he can only rarely come from the Sano area. This should make it better, a little. It should.
They wave until the cart turns off the street. My arms and legs feel heavy, blood is roaring in my ears. My fingers tingle and I clench them into the bundle. I can feel from the size and weight that it’s Nanay’s metal cooking basin. I know it is the most precious thing she had, and all because I gave her a dried up berry.
The littlest boy, Kidlat, is sniffling. He can barely be older than five, and no one goes to comfort him, so I shuffle carefully towards him and put my arms around him until he stops crying. His small warmth anchors me. We collect three more children: Tekla and two Igmes (one tall, one short), all girls I know from school but who don’t talk to me. At every door there is a mother or father or both, crying and kissing them goodbye. It is hard to watch so I keep my eyes closed until the cart starts moving again.
Our final stop is at Doctor Tomas’ house. The doctor is standing outside looking tired, surrounded by boxy suitcases. Sister Margaritte climbs down to greet him, and for a moment I think the doctor is coming instead of Mr Zamora. But then the butterfly collector looms out of the house wearing a white straw hat and holding a glass case a bit smaller than a suitcase. The sun glints off it, throwing sharp points of light that make stars shoot across my eyes, but as Mr Zamora carefully slides it on to the front seat of the cart next to the driver we all crane to look.
Inside are rows and rows of wooden sticks, set horizontally through holes in the glass like the rungs of a ladder. Dangling from each of these sticks are what look like dried leaves, ten or more on each. They sway as Mr Zamora sets it down, as though they may drop.
‘Back!’ barks Mr Zamora, and Kidlat starts to whimper again. ‘Don’t touch it!’
‘What is it?’ asks Lilay, one of the older girls.
‘They are chrysalises,’ says Mr Zamora.
‘Chrisa-what?’
‘Caterpillar cases,’ says Sister Margaritte. ‘Where they go to change into butterflies.’
‘Indeed. And they are very delicate. If you touch them . . .’ Mr Zamora drags his gaze over each of us. I look down. ‘You will be punished. It is not ideal having to transport them in this . . . rustic manner.’
‘You could use the harbour here,’ says the driver. ‘Be kinder to allow the parents to wave their children off. Most of them have never been in a boat before.’
‘That is a Leproso port now,’ snaps Mr Zamora. ‘The north-easterly harbour will be where Sano transportation is organized.’
‘Perhaps you would like more time?’ says Sister Margaritte, half sharply, half hopefully. ‘Wait until the roads are laid, and a less rustic form of transport can be brought from the Places Outside?’
‘And spend another day in Culion Leper Colony?’ He smiles as she flinches. ‘I think I made my feelings on that quite clear, Sister.’ He wheels around to Doctor Tomas. ‘When you’re ready, Doctor!’
Doctor Tomas jumps and begins loading the rest of the boxes and suitcases into the cart. There are five brown boxes in all, two up front with Mr Zamora and three at the back, each with holes pricked in the top to let in air. I bring my head down to listen but there is no sound.
Mr Zamora oversees the loading as if the doctor is a servant. When the luggage is loaded and the floor of cart is so tightly packed we can barely move our feet, Mr Zamora pulls a spotless white handkerchief from his pocket and covers the handrail he uses to pull himself on to the front seat. He lets the handkerchief drop into the dust and slowly lifts the glass case on to his lap, setting the chrysalises swinging.
Sister Margaritte goes to climb up next to him but Mr Zamora holds his hand up, right in her face. ‘No need, Sister. I’ll take them from here.’
Sister Margaritte draws herself up to her fullest height. ‘I have cared for these children for years. I’m not about to let them go with someone they barely know.’
‘You have no choice, Sister,’ says Mr Zamora in a not-sorry voice. ‘Your new charges will be arriving soon. You’ll have a whole school of leper children to worry about. And besides, I know what I am doing.’ Mr Zamora twists around in his seat. ‘The government has put me in charge of seeing to it that all you bright young people get a good start in your new lives. I’ll be running the orphanage.’
His lips peel back from his teeth in an attempt at a comforting smile. Kidlat’s mouth quivers and he nuzzles closer to me. Sister Margaritte hesitates, and steps back. She looks as if she has lost a tug of war, her shoulders drooping. She climbs into the back of the cart and hugs each of us.
‘You should be there by sunset,’ she sniffs. ‘I’ve been to Coron. It’s a friendly place, I am sure you will be happy there.’
I search her face but she seems to be telling the truth. Maybe we will be happy there, even without our families. Nanay once told me a story about a town run by children. They stayed young for ever and it was a fun place.
I hold on to this shining thought as Mr Zamora says, ‘Let’s get on with it, then.’
I watch Sister Margaritte watching us go. She has one hand on Doctor Tomas’ shoulder and they are both perfectly still. As we round a corner she is as small as my forearm, a doll dressed in black. The horses pull us out of Culion, past all the houses, the hospital and church, out underneath a new sign set high over the road between two poles:
CULION LEPER COLONY
RESTRICTED AREA
Mr Zamora doffs his hat at it, lets out a long breath and inhales an even longer one.
‘Free, children! Fresh air from here on.’