EXILIUM REX

Chapter 5

The man with a bluetooth stuck in his left ear and who hasd been standing in a narrow anteroom inside the old house at Number 21 Escadilla Street for more than half an hour already raises his voice for the nth time.

“What do you mean you have her? Nobody has her! Nobody has Gemma Arguelles! Now very carefully, please listen to me. I know you wouldn’t understand it when I tell you that humans are more genetically related to chimpanzees than chimpanzees are to gorillas. So please listen to me very carefully, you big gorilla: if she says to you she’s Gemma Arguelles, then don’t believe her! Now take care of her! And this time not like you took care of the geezer at the National Archives! Quietly this time! You hear me? Quietly!”

Ex-General Panfilo Fernandez, the current Secretary of the Department of Tourism, is not a man of a few words, as well as of a few deeds. Being a former military general tasked to run a civilian government agency, however, has made him rethink that discipline is not the sole prerequisite for a government organization to run well. There are things of this world, outside of military training, which can best be described as essential to public service: an oath of service, and the trust and confidence of the one who appointed him in the first place. The oath of service will not be a difficult task for a man who virtually spent most of his grownup years as a soldier dedicated to both God and country. After all, in some circles of the military, a few would say that Loyalty in Panfilo Fernandez’s middle name. Loyalty to the flag. No ifs and buts about it. Always and forever.

However, before he accepted the appointment as head of the Tourism Department from the President, he made sure he would not be caught with his office’s red carpet to local and foreign tourists rolled up. So he read and read and read, mostly about the current projects of the agency. Some utterly alien to him, but a few came up more interesting than he expected.

This particular project with the owner of the old house of Number 21 Escadilla Street verily intrigued him. It intrigued him well enough to pay the primary proponent of this PPP government project a visit. Today, however, has been a very busy one. Particularly, this morning.

Trying to recompose himself before he returns to the main room where Fiscal Baylon and his former History student was trying to reminisce on some past unremarkable moments between a substitute professor and an outstanding batch of young Public Administration learners, Secretary Fernandez awkwardly stretches his articulators: tongue, lips, cheeks. This form of exercise somehow relaxes him, destresses him from any problematic situation, even one bordering on a national crisis.

As the President’s alter-ego walks over the opening which connects the anteroom from the room, he overhears an ongoing animated conversation between the two.

“I know, I know,” Fiscal Baylon starts with a jovial tone of voice, “I was just a legal researcher by your regular professor then when I substituted for him and his History class with you. Nobody in your class would ever forget me! And forgive me! Hahahaha!”

“Hahaha! Exactly, Sir!” Alfredo Apostol agreed. “You only substituted for one History class, but you were the one who officially approved and rejected our group thesis statements! After that, you were nowhere to be found – and the groups were all stuck with working on thesis statements which they mostly hated because they submitted them for prerequisite purposes!”

“Well, yes, I know, I was a terrible substitute professor! But, Alfred, that is not entirely true, of course…”

By this time, Secretary Fernandez has already managed to take a seat on the sofa adjacent to the glass door.

“Please go, you two, I’m just fondly listening to you two. Go on…” The Tourism secretary politely ends his own interruption of the ongoing conversation.

Alfred clears his throat and nods his head.

Sensing some awkwardness from the young messenger-clerk of the National Archives and Museum, the former History professor and now retired prosecutor Fiscal Baylon tries to explain his last remark. “I mean, you’re correct, Alfred! Most of the groups hated me for what I did with their theses. But not your group leader, Gemma Arguelles! She was the only one in your class, I think, who came well-prepared for the group thesis statement. Ah, yes, I remember the title of your group thesis… EXILIUM REX: The Suyo Islands of Palawan…”

Suddenly, an angel appears to have momentarily flown across the room as a strange silence fell inside.

Out of the three minds in the room, two are inevitably making their way through the anteroom and through the closed door, across the terrace garden and through the gates of Number 21 Escadilla Street, across somewhere, somewhen, where everything has first seemingly taken its rightful place, yet none to its rightful end.

The Suyo Islands of Palawan.

*

“What is coach’s next instruction?” The agent codenamed Jawo asked the agent codenamed Arnaiz.

“He said we have to take care of this one, too. But quietly.”

“But I still have the dead body inside the trunk of my sedan.”

“That’s not a problem at all. We’ll just hit two birds with one stone.”

From inside the minigrocery adjacent to the gasoline station where the two cars are currently being refueled, the two rogue NBI agents quietly nodded to each other and then simultaneously turned their heads to affix their lines of sight to the figure of a woman who had completely lost consciousness at the backseat of one of the cars, thanks in great part to the induced sleep of a good dose of rohypnol.

*

“Ssshhh… I know you are angry and afraid and confused… Remember, my pilgrima nga suyo, there are no accidents in our world. Only miracles. Things happen because they have to be. It shall be our emotions which will be making these things happen now. And it is you, Lerma, because you have to be. Tonight, I shall allow you to leave with Anggulyo to meet with Oflodor for your most important assignment yet for Amianan. But, first, child, show it to me please.”

The daughter-child of Langalan fondly brushes her long, straight and beautifully bonded hair aside from the buscay-decorated necklace she was wearing, and with the soft but sure fingers of her left hand reveals a half moon-shaped comb pendant made of copper with inlays of pearl, rare jade, exquisite emerald and a set of fine teeth. It conspicuously adorned her cleavage with majestic symmetry. While on its crescent shaft, symbols of a mysterious language suddenly awaken with an urgency for interpretation.

“Pray to the Lai, neither warrior of a king nor angel of a god shall erase our newly born name in its voyage to the vaults of the heavens!”