Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson Read Free Book Online Page B

you do last night?” he asked Eddie.
    “Myself? I turned in early and read James Bond.”
    “You’re kidding.”
    “Perhaps we’ll go on patrol this evening. Will you come?” Aguinaldo asked the German. “It can be quite exhilarating.”
    The German was confused. “What is the purpose?” he asked Sands.
    “Our friend won’t be coming,” Sands told Eddie.
    “I’m going farther down,” the German explained.
    “Farther down?”
    “To the train.”
    “Oh. The station. Going to Manila,” Aguinaldo said. “A pity. Our little patrols can be bracing experiences.”—As if they came often under fire. Nothing of the kind had ever happened, as far as Skip knew. Eddie was boyish, but he liked to seem menacing.
    Three weeks ago, in Manila, Sands had seen Eddie playing Henry Higgins in a production of My Fair Lady , and he couldn’t erase from his mind the picture of his friend the major overly rouged and powdered and strutting the boards in a smoking jacket; pausing; turning to a beautiful Filipino actress and saying, “Liza, where the devil are my slippers?” The audience of Filipino businessmen and their families had been swept to its feet, roaring. Sands too had been impressed.
    “What is that thing you’re practicing with?” Sands asked the German.
    “You mean the sumpit. Yes.”
    “A blowgun?”
    “Yes. From the Moro tribe.”
    “Sumpit is a Tagalog word?”
    “I think it’s very generally used,” Eddie said.
    “It’s a word used everywhere in these islands,” the German agreed.
    “And what’s it made of?”
    “The construction, you mean?”
    “Yes.”
    “Magnesium.”
    “Magnesium. For goodness’ sake.”
    “Quite sturdy. Quite weightless.”
    “Who forged it for you?”
    He’d asked just to make conversation, but was shocked to see a look pass between Eddie and the assassin. “Some private people in Manila,” the German said, and Sands let the topic die.
    Following the meal they all three took espresso coffee in tiny cups. Before coming to this remote village, Sands had never tasted it.
    “What’s going on today, Eddie?”
    “I don’t know what you mean.”
    “Is it some sort of—I don’t know—some sort of sad anniversary? Like the day of some great leader’s death? Why does everybody seem so morose?”
    “You mean tense.”
    “Yeah. Tensely morose.”
    “I believe they’ve been spooked, Skip. There’s a vampire about. A kind of vampire called aswang.”
    The German said, “Vampire? You mean Dracula?”
    “The aswang can turn into any person, assume any shape. You see instantly the trouble—it means anybody can be a vampire. When a rumor like this starts, it floods a village like cold poison. One night last week—last Wednesday, around eight o’clock—I saw a throng outside the market, beating an old woman and crying, ‘Aswang! Aswang!’”
    “Beating her? An old woman?” Skip said. “Beating her with what?”
    “With anything that came to hand. I couldn’t quite see. It was dark. It seemed to me she escaped around the corner. But later a storekeeper told me she changed into a parrot and flew away. The parrot bit a little baby, and the baby died in two hours. The priest cannot do anything. Even a priest is helpless.”
    “These people are like demented children,” the German said.
    After they’d eaten and their companion had continued in the staff car down the mountain toward the railway line for Manila, Skip said, “Do you know that guy?”
    “No,” Eddie said. “Do you really think he’s German?”
    “I think he’s foreign. And strange.”
    “He met with the colonel, and now he’s leaving.”
    “The colonel—when?”
    “It’s significant that he hasn’t introduced himself.”
    “Have you asked him his name?”
    “No. What does he call himself?”
    “I haven’t asked.”
    “He never talked of paying. I’ll pay.” Eddie conferred with a plump Filipina whom Skip believed to be Mrs. Pavese, and came back saying, “Let me get fruit