Wild Song, page 18
I tried to explain, about the Jefferson Guards, the way they talked, and how it was not safe for me to be outside the reservation. But Sadie, in her fury, was not prepared to listen.
‘I was doing you a favour! I thought you deserved better than life as a savage! I saved you! I’m not the villain here!’
I had often wondered why Sadie had chosen me. Why had she invited me into her life? Just look at the Pike, Mother, all those people. She could have picked anyone, but she picked me.
She paused for breath.
‘I … cannot … stay,’ I managed to say. ‘I need … go … home.’
‘HOME!’ Sadie threw her head back and laughed harshly. ‘From everything I’ve read – and believe me I’ve been FASCINATED, reading everything about the Philippine Islands that I can get my hands on – based on everything I’ve read, you’re not going home to much. It’s hot, stinky and stupid. It’s the armpit of the world.’
‘No!’ I cried. ‘No! No! No!’
Sadie sneered at me. ‘Looky, if you weren’t so IGNORANT you would try to think more like an American. Look for opportunity. I thought I saw something in you, but I was wrong. You’re just like the rest of the savages.’
‘I need go back!’
‘To what? Planting rice? Or maybe you miss eating puppies for breakfast.’
My heart contracted. I couldn’t breathe. For a moment everything went black.
But then I heard the swish of the tent flaps sweeping open. Bright sunshine flooded in.
Sadie staggered backwards in shock.
I heard Johnny’s voice. ‘Miss Luki, it’s time to leave.’
‘How dare you!’ Sadie raged. ‘This is a private tent!’ She reached for the nearest thing, a coffee cup and threw it at him.
It fell, harmlessly to the floor. Johnny took my arm. ‘Vamos. She doesn’t deserve you.’ His bruised face was dark with anger.
I barely managed to grab my hat and coat before he pulled me past Sadie.
‘Come back here!’ Sadie sobbed. ‘I’m not finished with you!’
‘But she is finished with you,’ Johnny said, as he marched me out of her life.
32
Heads
Eheh, Mother, my heart. It roared inside my chest like a violent monsoon. I was shaking. My feet, in their clumsy American shoes, somehow carried me away from Sadie, howling and ranting behind us like some kind of night beast. I tried to focus on Johnny’s voice – Vamos, vamos, vamos – until we reached the gate, and there was the Wild West Show barker, up on his perch, today covered in Indian feathers, his bare chest bloody with red paint again.
He flashed his teeth as we hustled past. ‘See ya tomorrow!’ forgetting to move his mouth away from his tin horn and blasting the words down the street.
‘Adiós,’ Johnny muttered.
We entered the heaving street, Johnny pulling me behind him. When Samkad and I were little, we used to catch geckos to tow them along on the end of a string. That’s how I felt, Mother, like one of those geckos, trailing behind Johnny, my feet moving without knowing where they were going.
I had thought of Sadie as my friend. But to her, I was only someone to be saved from mud huts and dog eating. She just wanted to see if I could be turned into someone else. The way Truman Hunt was trying to turn us into his idea of Igorots. What a fool I’d been.
‘Estamos aquí,’ Johnny said. ‘We are here.’
I gazed up at the red-brick building, confused. And then I remembered. Johnny had promised to meet someone at the Anthropology Building before he took me back to the village.
I rubbed my eyes, took my hat off, tidied my hair. Johnny watched me with gentle eyes. ‘Bien,’ he said. ‘You made the right decision to leave that woman.’
I shrugged and tried to smile.
‘Now, we must find Professor Kovacs,’ he said. ‘The entrance is this way, I think.’
We ascended the stone steps, entering through huge double doors into a musty room with a lofty ceiling. It would have felt cavernous had it not been crammed with cabinets and glass boxes. Making our way down a narrow alley between cupboards, we peered at the cups and bowls and plates on display.
‘Hah, people actually like looking at these things?’ Johnny said. He pointed at a sign on the distant wall. ‘It says the offices are down that way, in the basement.’
Some stairs led to a cool, tiled corridor. ‘You’ll probably have to wait outside while I speak to him,’ Johnny was saying. ‘It shouldn’t take any time at all. He will hear how good my English is as soon as I open my mouth.’
A door to one side opened. To my surprise, Bayongasan and five other Suyocs wandered out. ‘Luki!’ He smiled. ‘I thought we were the last Igorots to be measured?’
‘Measured?’
‘Ah, I forget that you work at the Pike! They have been taking measurements and tests of everyone at the Reservation. Height. Weight. Measuring the sizes of our heads and parts of our bodies. Also strength, breathing … it feels like they’ve tested everything. Is that why you’re here?’
I didn’t answer right away, still trying to process this measuring business. What for? But I gestured vaguely at Johnny. ‘Johnny just needs to talk to somebody before we go home.’
Everyone nodded politely to Johnny. They had all seen him collecting me at the gates every day.
‘Well,’ Bayongasan said. ‘Perhaps you are not too late, and they can take some measurements while you’re here.’
I tried to look agreeable, even though it sounded like the last thing I wanted to do. As Johnny and I continued down the corridor, I could feel their eyes boring into the back of my head.
We found the right office and Johnny knocked on the door even though it was open. A brown-haired woman behind a desk seemed alarmed to see us. She stared at Johnny’s swollen face and then at my tattoos. Johnny tried to smile. ‘Sorry, I had a fall the other day, I don’t look my best. I am Johnny. Professor Kovacs is expecting me.’
But the woman couldn’t relax. She kept eyeing me as she said, ‘Yes, you can go right in.’
‘I am escorting this lady to the Igorot Village. Can she wait here with you while I speak to the professor?’
The woman actually looked terrified.
Johnny bit his lip. ‘I can take her in with me, I’m sure the professor will understand.’
The woman looked relieved. ‘Oh, that’s all right then.’
She stood up and knocked lightly on another door. ‘Professor Kovacs, the boy is here.’ She pushed the door open and then leaped back to allow us to go through.
I hung back, worried that Kovacs would not want me there.
‘Ah, Loving’s boy. Johnny.’ The voice was light and pleasant. I relaxed and followed Johnny into the room. ‘Loving told me what happened. It’s a rough business, eh? So many of those guardsmen are veterans of the insurgency. You never know what men like that would do when provoked. And what have we here?’
The room was large and lit by low lamps. A thin glaze of sunshine filtered in through high windows. Behind a large desk sat a pale man whose thin face was covered by thick spectacles.
‘Yes, I am Johnny, Professor Kovacs, sir. This is Luki from the Igorot Village. She’s been working at the Pike. I am escorting her home today. Your secretary said she could come in with me.’
‘Quite right,’ Professor Kovacs said, staring at me intently with his over-large spectacle eyes. ‘Does she speak English?’
Mother, I was offended. Is that crazy? I mean, I barely spoke English. But here was a stranger talking about me and staring straight at me. I considered saying something, but after today, I just couldn’t be bothered. I left Johnny to reply, enthusiastically, I noticed, Oh yes, we have conversations, etc. etc. while I had a good look at the room around me.
Their voices subsided to a dull murmur as I examined shelves, stuffed with books and objects, teetering right up to the ceiling where, I was startled to see, a row of white faces peering down at us. I was relieved to see they were made of some kind of white pottery, with small paper labels stuck over their hairless pates. Scanning the next shelf, I was shocked to see human skulls, looking pitted and dirty next to the pottery heads.
Mother, the room was packed with heads. Even the walls were papered with pictures of them: kodaks of heads facing front and sideways, diagrams, sketches of skulls, tiny writing covering every page, like bird scratchings.
The two men continued to talk. I learned to speak English at the Music Conservatory where I was studying the piano, I heard Johnny say. There are music conservatories in Manila? How interesting! Professor Kovacs replied.
On the large mahogany table at the centre of the room were perhaps twenty more heads, life-sized ones this time, made of plaster. Their eyes were all closed, as if whoever had sculpted them had done so while they were asleep. I recognized Bayongasan from the Igorot Village. And I recognized another as a Pygmy. I had seen his picture in Sadie’s official catalogue of the World’s Fair. Sadie had been quite dismissive of the Pygmies. The Pygmies are from a place called Africa, just as backward as the Philippine Islands. But see, now I have got to know you, Looky, I think you Igorots are far more advanced – look at them, dressed in grass skirts!
But looking at the Pygmy’s head with his broad nose and full lips, he looked just like us.
Kovacs had risen from his desk and was pointing at some of the writing pinned to the walls. We’re taking measurements of everybody, including intelligence, memory, hearing, sight, movement and agility. Not just the indigenous people, but the tourists too. It’s called anthropometry. The data will allow us to compare and classify the different races.
He bent down to lift a huge glass jar from the floor to the table. It was filled to the brim with a clear liquid. Inside floated a soft-looking, greyish mass of convoluted folds. It looked like a loaf of bread, but I knew what it was. A brain.
There have been several deaths already, which is to be expected, what with there being thousands and thousands of participants in the fair. The fair hospital has allowed us to harvest specimens from the dead … like skeletons and these brains here. He bent down again, to lift up a second jar with a brain in it. And then a third. This one is the most recent. The jars had large white labels with thick black writing on them.
Mother, I had helped attend the dead many times since I was a girl. But seeing these human parts separated out from the whole, made my stomach churn. I looked away.
‘Sir, I must say adiós now, sorry,’ Johnny suddenly said. ‘I must take Luki back to the Igorot Village.’
It was so abrupt, I whirled round to stare at him. Beads of sweat trickled down his face. Were the brains making him queasy?
Professor Kovacs must have noticed it too, because he laughed. ‘It’s all right, son, I understand. You’ll get used to it. And don’t worry, your job here will be to deliver messages, not brains!’
‘Yes, sir,’ Johnny murmured. He grabbed my hand and dragged me so roughly out of the room, I thought perhaps he might be needing to vomit. But he ushered me rapidly through the secretary’s anteroom, up the stairs and out of the building. When we finally emerged, he just stood there, looking at the sky.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked.
He shook his head. ‘It’s …’ He bit his lip. ‘So many dead.’
I felt an icy gust blow on my neck. He was right. That room was a tomb.
I remembered how puzzled the ancients were when they learned that the Americans called us headhunters. They had tried to explain. We take the heads of our enemies to stop them continuing to torment us from the invisible world. It is the right thing to do, the moral thing, for the sake of our people. But the Americans told us it was disgusting. It made savages of us.
And yet here they were, splitting open the heads of the dead to possess what was inside.
Who were the headhunters now?
33
The Hospital
Johnny finally got tired of staring at the sky and turned his gaze on me. He stared at me so intensely, I had to look away. ‘Miss Luki,’ he said softly. ‘We must go somewhere. Now. I promise to explain later.’
‘Explain now!’ I said.
But Johnny shook his head. ‘I will explain when I am sure. His face crumpled – oh so briefly, I might have imagined it. And then he smoothed his expression and when he spoke again, it was to say, ¡Vámonos!
Vámonos. Vámonos. Vámonos. The word echoed in my head like a ritual chant. Johnny looked so grim, I didn’t dare press him for more explanation. But a cold dread was now sitting in my belly like a stone. A terrible thought threatened to take shape in my mind, but I pushed it away. Surely not, Mother. Surely not.
We walked across a plush green square, and then a vast courtyard of shining white stone, and then we strode past a great glittering basin, so huge the boats upon it looked like scattered leaves. Then an avenue lined with trees, their canopies tamed into neatly clipped balls. Above us, the palace rooftops were gaily decked in striped American flags.
Soon, we turned into a narrower street, with smaller, plainer buildings devoid of monumental columns and turrets and domes.
Johnny bounded up some steps and pushed the large door open.
We entered.
After the sun shining so bright and white in the sky, I was blinded by the darkness. As my eyes began to adjust, I saw that we were in a high-ceilinged lobby. The tiles were green under my feet. The woman standing in front of us in a small white cap was grimacing.
‘You should not come in here! Out! Out!’
Johnny was clutching his hat to his chest. ‘¡Lo siento! Ma’am, we didn’t know!’
The woman just glared at him. She pointed at the door. ‘The coloured entrance is down the side. You can’t miss it.’
Johnny took my arm and led me out again, hurrying me down another path. ‘That entrance was only for white people,’ he explained.
White people. A gugu holding a white girl! No white woman would be friends with a gugu. What were you doing, stepping out with this white girl? My gorge rose in my throat. But I must have looked dumb or something, because Johnny pulled his sleeve up and pointed at his arm. ‘¡Mira! Look. We are coloured. And that woman, she is white. In America, white and coloured do not mix. And so we must use this door.’
A white entrance and a coloured entrance. White and coloured do not mix. Lieutenant Loving had said something similar to us the other day after he ordered the guardsmen away. You’re going to get them killed. It seemed mad to divide the world according to skin colour.
Johnny began to push the door open. Then he stopped and turned to me, as if he was about to say something. Mother, his face was so haggard I felt a shiver of fear. Then he closed his mouth and opened the door. We entered.
There was a corridor, with an assortment of people sitting on benches on either side. The smell of tobacco smoke mingled with a sharp odour that made my eyes sting.
I recognized two men from the Chinese Village. They sat, glum and silent, their shaven heads bowed. There was a grey-haired Indian man puffing on a pipe – at least I think he was Indian, Mother, his hair was tied back in a long plait even though he was wearing American trousers and an American coat. A small boy from the Esquimaux Village sat on the lap of a woman who might have been his mother. He held up a hand bound up in a thick bandage and cried bitterly as the woman kissed his hair. The furry coats they wore at their village were in a pile beside them.
We must have looked lost because the Indian leaned towards us, tapping his pipe on the back of his hand and letting the ashes fall on the floor. ‘You looking for a nurse? There are no doctors here.’ I was surprised to hear a voice as American as Truman Hunt’s. ‘There’s a nurse in the ward over there.’ He nodded towards a closed door.
We entered timidly into a long room. Small, barred windows let in a sickly light. Crumpled figures lay in iron beds, so many of them, jammed against the walls. The smell became pungent.
Something in my belly turned. ‘This is a hospital!’ I cried.
Johnny nodded. ‘We are here to see your friend.’
I peered into the beds. Tilin? Tilin? But the dark faces that returned my gaze were strangers. Such a lonely looking place, all these strangers, each on their own in this foul-smelling room. I cursed Truman Hunt under my breath. How could he have put Tilin here, all by herself? There will be doctors, he had said. It’s the best place for someone this sick. It looked nothing of the sort, Mother.
‘What are you doing here?’ An angry woman in a white cap and white dress came rushing towards us (a white woman, I told myself).
‘Tilin!’ I said. ‘We need see Tilin.’ My heart was pounding. I was excited.
She just looked at me, uncomprehending. Johnny stepped forward. Seeing his bruised face she shied away, but he held both hands up in supplication and began to speak. An Igorot woman. A month ago now. Pneumonia. And as he spoke, she shook her head and shook her head and my heart beat louder and louder. When she spoke, I couldn’t hear her for the banging in my chest.
But I saw the blood drain from Johnny’s face.
The woman fetched a thick book filled with writing. She flicked through the pages and held it up, open for Johnny to see. And then she was pushing me, her hand hard on my shoulder. Past the beds, out through the door, and into the aching light of day.
The woman slammed the door shut behind us.
Johnny sat on his heels and covered his eyes with his hands.
‘What is it? What did she say? Tell me!’ I begged him.
Johnny stood, his head bowed. He took a deep breath. ‘The brains on Kovacs’ table, they had labels,’ he said. ‘The first two had written on them: IGOROT, MALE, PNEUMONIA. The date was soon after your arrival in Saint Louis.’
I gasped. The brains belonged to the men who died on the train! Johnny grabbed my hand and held it tight, his eyes glistening with compassion.
