Ang Larawan

A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino-1

THE SCENES—

FIRST SCENE: The sala of Marasigan house in Intramuros. An afternoon toward the beginning of October, 1941.

SECOND SCENE: The same. A week later. Late in the morning.

THIRD SCENE: The same. Two days later. Afternoon of the second Sunday of October.

THE PEOPLE—

CANDIDA and PAULA MARASIGAN, spinster daughters of Don Lorenzo

PEPANG, their elder married sister

MANOLO, their eldest brother

BITOY CAMACHO, a friend of the family

TONY JAVIER, a lodger at the Marasigan house

PETE, a Sunday Magazine editor

EDDIE, a writer

CORA, a news photographer

SUSAN and VIOLET, vaudeville artists

DON PERICO, a Senator

DOÑA LOLENG, his wife

PATSY, their daughter

ELSA MONTES and CHARLIE DACANAY, friends of Doña Loleng

Friends of the Marasigans.

DON ALVARO and DOÑA UPENG, his wife

DON PEPE

DON MIGUEL and DOÑA IRENE, his wife

DON ARISTEO

A WATCHMAN

A DETECTIVE

TWO POLICEMEN

THE FIRST SCENE

The curtains open on a second curtain depicting the ruins of Intramuros in the moonlight. The sides of the stage are in shadow. BITOY CAMACHO is standing at far left. He begins to speak unseen, just a voice in the dark.

BITOY: Intramuros! The old Manila. The original Manila. The Noble and Ever Loyal City…

To the early conquistadores she was a new Tyre and Sidon; to the early missionaries she was a new Rome. Within these walls was gathered the wealth of the Orient—silk from China; spices from Java; gold and ivory and precious stones from India. And within these walls the Champions of Christ assembled to conquer the Orient for the Cross. Through these old streets once crowded a marvelous multitude—viceroys and archbishops; mystics and merchants; pagan sorcerers and Christian martyrs; nuns and harlots and elegant marquesas; English pirates, Chinese mandarins, Portuguese traitors, Dutch spies, Moro sultans, and Yankee clipper captains. For three centuries this medieval town was a Babylon in its commerce and a New Jerusalem in its faith . . .

Now look: this is all that’s left of it now. Weeds and rubble and scrap iron. A piece of wall, a fragment of stairway—and over there, the smashed gothic façade of old Sto. Domingo… Quomodo desolata es, Civitas Dei! (From this point, light slowly grows about Bitoy.)

I stand here in the moonlight and I look down this desolate street. Not so long ago, people were dying here—a horrible death—by sword and fire—their screams drowned out by the shriller screaming of the guns. Only silence now. Only silence, and the moonlight, and the tall grass thickening everywhere…

This is the great Calle Real—the main street of the city, the main street of the land, the main street of our history. I don’t think there is any town in the Philippines that does not have—or that did not use to have—its own Calle Real. Well, this is the mother street of them all. Through this street the viceroys made their formal entry into the city. Along this street, amidst a glory of banners, the Seal of the King was borne in parade whenever letters arrived from the royal hand. Down this street marched the great annual procession of the city. And on this street the principal families had their townhouses—splendid ancient structures with red-tile roofs and wrought-iron balconies and fountains playing in the interior patios.

When I was a little boy, some of those old houses were still standing—but, oh, they had come down in the world! No longer splendid, no longer the seats of the mighty; abandoned and forgotten; they stood decaying all along this street; dreaming of past glories; growing ever more dark and dingy and dilapidated with the years; turning into slum-tenements at last—a dozen families crowded into each of the old rooms; garbage piled all over the patios; and washlines dangling between the sagging balconies…

Intramuros was dying, Intramuros was decaying even before the war. The jungle had returned—the modern jungle, the slum-jungle—just as merciless and effective as the real thing—demolishing man’s moment of history and devouring his monuments. The noble and ever loyal City had become just another jungle of slums. And that is how most of us remember the imperial city of our fathers!

But there was one house on this street that never became a slum; that resisted the jungle, and resisted it to the very end; fighting stubbornly to keep itself intact, to keep itself individual. It finally took a global war to destroy that house and the three people who fought for it. Though they were destroyed, they were never conquered. They died with their house, and they died with their city—and maybe it’s just as well they did. They could never have survived the destruction of the old Manila…

Their house stood on this corner of Calle Real. This piece of wall, this heap of broken stones are all that’s left of it now—the house of Don Lorenzo Marasigan. Here is stood—and here it had been standing for generations. Oh, from the outside, you would have thought it just another slum-tenement. It looked like all the other old houses on this street—the roof black with moss, the rusty balconies sagging, the cracked walls unpainted… But enter—push open the old massive gates—and you find a clean bare passageway, you see a clean bright patio. No garbage anywhere, no washlines. And when you walk up the polished stairway, when you enter the gleaming sala, you step into another world—a world “where all’s accustomed, ceremonious…”

(The lights go on inside the stage. Through the transparent curtain, the sala of the Marasigan house becomes visible.)

It wasn’t merely the seashells lining the stairway, or the baroque furniture, or the old portraits hanging on the walls, or the family albums stacked on the shelves. The very atmosphere of the house suggested another Age—an Age of lamplight and gaslight, of harps and whiskers and fine carriages; an Age of manners and melodrama, of Religion and Revolution.

(The “Intramuros Curtain” begins to open, revealing the set proper.)

It is gone now—that house—the house of Don Lorenzo el magnifico. Nothing remains of it now save a piece of wall and a heap of broken stones. But this is how it looked before it perished—and I’m sure it looked just like this a hundred years ago. It never changed, it never altered. I had known it since I was a little boy—and it always looked like this. All the time I was growing up, the city was growing up too, the city was changing fast all around me. I could never be sure of anything or any place staying the way I remembered it. This was the one thing I was always sure of—this house. This was the one place I could always come back to, and find unchanged. Oh, older, yes—and darker, and more silent. But still, just the same; just the way I remembered it when I was a little boy and my father took me here with him on Friday evenings.

(The sala now stands fully revealed. It is a large room, clean and polished, but—like the furniture—dismally shows its age. The paint has darkened and is peeling off the walls. The windowpanes are broken. The doorways are not quite square anymore. The baroque elegance has tarnished.

Rear wall opens out, through French windows, into sagging balconies that overhang the street. At center, against the wall between the balconies, is a large sofa. Ordinarily grouped with this sofa are two rocking chairs, a round table, and two straight chairs. Right now, the table and the straight chairs have been moved in front of the balcony at right, its windows having been closed. The table is set for merienda. Through the open windows of the other balcony, late afternoon sunlight streams into the room, and you get a glimpse of the untidy tenements across the street.

At left side of the room, downstage, is a portion of the bannisters and the head of the stairway, facing toward rear. In the middle of the left wall is a closed door. Against back wall, facing stairway, stands an old-fashioned combination hatrack and umbrella-stand with mirror.

At right side of the room, downstage, against the walls is a whatnot filled with seashells, figurines, family albums, magazines and books. In the middle of the right wall is a large open doorway framed with curtains. Next to it, against right wall, stands an upright piano.

Embroidered cushions decorate the chairs. Pedestals bearing potted plants flank the balconies and the doorway at right. On the walls above the sofa, the piano, and the whatnot, are enlarged family photographs in ornate frames. A chandelier hangs from the ceiling. The painting entitled “A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS FILIPINO” is supposed to be hanging in the center of the invisible “fourth wall” between stage and audience. “Left” and “Right” in all the stage directions are according to the view from the audience.

Bitoy Camacho steps into the room.)

I remember coming here one day early in October back in 1941—just two months before the war broke out. 1941! Remember that year? It was the year of Hitler for the people in Europe—but for us over here, it was the year of the Conga and the Boogie-woogie, the year of practice black-outs, the year of the Bare Midriff. Oh, we were all sure that the war was coming our way pretty soon—but we were just as sure that it would not stay long—and that nothing, nothing at all, would happen to us. When we said: “Keep ’em flying!” and “Business as Usual!” our voices were brave and gay, our hearts were untroubled. And because we felt so safe, because we felt so confident, we deliberately tried to scare ourselves. Remember all those gruesome rumors we kept spreading? We enjoyed shivering as we told them, and we enjoyed shivering as we listened. It was all just a thrilling game. We were sophisticated children playing at rape and murder, and half-wishing it was all true.

(He places himself at stair-landing, as though he had just come up the stairs.)

That October afternoon, I had come here with my head buzzing with rumors. Out there in the street, people were stopping each other to exchange interpretations of the latest headlines. In the restaurants and barber shops, military experts were fighting the war in Europe. And in all the houses in all the streets, radios were screaming out the latest bulletins. I felt excited—and I felt very pleased with myself for feeling excited. It proved how involved I was in my times; and how concerned, how nobly concerned I was with the human condition. So I came up those stairs and I paused here on the landing and I looked at this room that I hadn’t seen again since my boyhood—and, suddenly all the people and all the headlines and all the radios stopped screaming in my ears. I stood here—and the whole world had become silent. It was astonishing—and it was also highly unpleasant. The silence of this room was like an insult, like a slap in the face. I felt suddenly ashamed of all that noble excitement I had been enjoying so much. But my next feeling was of bitter resentment. I resented this room. I hated those old chairs for standing there so calmly. I wanted to walk right down again, to leave this house, to run back to the street—back to the screaming people and headlines and radios. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. The silence had me helpless. And after a while I stopped feeling outraged, I began to smile at myself. For the first time in a long, long time I could hear myself thinking, I could feel myself feeling and breathing and living and remembering. I was conscious of myself as a separate person with a separate, secret life of my own. This old room grew young again, and familiar. The silence whispered with memories… Outside, the world was hurrying gaily towards destruction. In here, life went on as usual; unaltered; everything in its proper place; everything just the same today as yesterday, or last year, or a hundred years ago…