The Last Sunrise by May Navarro

A crimson hue lightly painted the early morning sky while a gentle chill seeped in the air. Only a soft hum of a Mercedes seems out of place, blending out of tune with the chirping of the birds. The figure inside the car glances at his watch. Quarter to six. Just five minutes more, he tells himself and carefully pulls a lever that slightly dips him backwards, giving him a comfortable position as he waits for her. He closes his eyes welcoming the frigid air and at the same time irritated by the assaulting stench of his new car. He touches his unshaven face and remembers the dark circles under his eyes. Minutes passed and the grating creak of an iron gate wakes him up. It was three houses down. A woman emerges, tilting on the side, carrying a pail of water to freshen the santan shrubs. He glances at her from the dark tint of his car. She doesn’t see him. The way she doesn’t even after three days.

“Hi, I’m Rose”, extending her hand coupled with a blushing smile.

” Shortcut for Rosario, I presume” , he replied.

“ No, just plain Rose”

Watching her closely, Rafael can still remember meeting her in a smoke-filled bar lovingly called Insanity, eyeing each other in the midst of the wrenching paintings that decorated the walls while half- listening to the stirring poems read on stage. After being introduced by a friend, they found themselves in a corner smoking cigarettes and looking at each other’s tattoos. Her boyish hair nicely contradicted by her blush lipstick and the delicate hoops on her ears.  He smiled as he recalled her laughter, uninhibited, no apologies. He liked that.  And inked on her wrist was a string of petals with the word fearless created with subtle intricacy. He asked her why that word. 

Her smile slightly retreated and looked down, examining the drops forming on her glass.“ I want to be fearless in life especially when I’m writing my poems ”, she said without meeting his eyes. He  looked at her intently, understanding what she meant. Whether crafting a stanza or lathering the last stroke of color on a painting, both can be fulfilling and frightening, unconsciously exposing a part of yourself. They turned silent, recognizing a kinship. Then he raised his glass. “ Let’s drink to that then, for the fearless and the fearful.. like me”  he joked dousing the sober moment. She laughed then aimed a billow of smoke towards him.

            In his mind, he waited for the nicotine-tinged smoke to part and reveal the smile that beguiled him.  But his reverie rebelled and the images flickered. His memory of Rose began to fade. Instead it revealed a barrel of a gun. He remembered this gun, he has pulled its trigger many times as he mercilessly eviscerated his target unmindful of the wry stares he attracted. Onlookers didn’t know that he conjured Napoleon Andal’s face in each shot. He wanted him to pay. He also wanted to erase that haunting image of Miguel from his memory. The grotesque corpse of his brother laid out in the morgue, face blown by a rain of bullets, waiting to be identified. After all this time, he can still hear the piercing wails of his mother echoing the walls as she saw her son and glimpse at the silent tears in his father’s  cheeks  as he hesitantly touched Miguel’s icy hand.  Deemed to replace his father as Mayor, his brother was ambushed in their town, fatally inspired by his father’s old political rival, Napoleon Andal.

            Sitting outside the morgue, everything felt surreal to him, he felt like a spectator watching someone else enduring this heinous pain.  Seeing Miguel disfigured and killed like useless prey had been almost unbearable. But he had to build an unflappable front, anchoring for his parents who were severely weakened by his brother’s death. And when relatives started arriving, offering their warm sympathies, he quietly stumbled out of the hospital and reached his car. Inside, he ferociously thumped at the steering wheel, letting loose the pain and the vicious anger. Tears came down copiously as he plotted his next move.

Rafael never liked politics, shunning it to the point of leaving their province to study in Manila. He didn’t want this life but he seemed to be thrust in it now. No longer carrying easels and boxes of paints, he now carries a briefcase of licensed firearms inside his car. If Rose could see me now, she’ll be aghast, he thought. “Hey Rambo”, she’d joke. But this is no longer a laughing matter. The Rafael she knew then was different from the one who sits in a car three houses down. She didn’t know about his brother Miguel before, the similar tattoos they carry, the one their father threw a fit over, a menacing dragon on their arms. “What are you members of a gang, part of the bilibid?” he shouted, a vein throbbing on his head. Her mother led him away and shot them a disappointed look. In their room, they laughed about the grunts each emitted while the dragon was branded on their skin. “You were almost crying, bro”, Miguel teased. “Duh, look who’s talking, you were grunting so loud, I thought you were going to pass out”, he ribbed back. He remembers that day, seared in his mind like the tattoos they both had, the same one that he identified his brother with.

That time Rose didn’t know about his political family. He didn’t want to. He thought he could escape from it, let Miguel be the one to continue it. He abhorred large crowds, meetings, ass-kissing, grandstanding. He wanted a peaceful life. Then this happened. No one has to say it but he knows he has to step up. If he doesn’t they’ll be hunted like dogs. The Andals wouldn’t stop harassing them until they got their power back.  This power can be so addictive, it can warp someone so deep it’s frightening, he thought. He fears that donning it would plunge him deeper into a greater abyss, darker than the murky streams of grief, the one where he may not stop falling into. The one that can transform him to the thing he hated.

His idea of a simple life has always included Rose, lying back on a beach, watching the stars dotting the dark sky and drinking beer on the side. She would recite poems by Neruda while he is soothed by a mild breeze and the lapping of the waves. But that is wishful thinking. They live in realities now. Their choices affect other people too. Once she confided to him about her need to go abroad for work. “Nanay can no longer fund his medicines for diabetes and Rica will be starting college soon”. I want to stay here, but I’m not sure if my call center job and writing poems on the side would be enough to pay the bills, she said softly. That time, Rafael wished he was Donald Trump and save her from going to Canada as a caregiver and leave him here. It has all changed now. He can’t stop her and he wouldn’t stop her either.

Grief softly descends like feather then slits you apart like a tip of a knife. He wanted to tell Rose of his pain as he watched her gather her now longer hair and twist it into a bun, how he once watched his mother inside his brother’s untouched room with a faded polo shirt in her hands.  How he went inside and sat beside her and watched grief engulf her. “Your Kuya Migui has left us, Rafa, he’s not coming back” she said sadly. His mothers haven’t called them in their childhood nicknames in a while and he can feel the grief slowly burrowing inside him again, shredding him within. He shared almost everything with his brother, clothes, cars, shoes and even black eyes. He stood up and held a dusty Tamiya trophy they won, remembering the high fives of their youth. He looked around and felt a hollowness enveloping the room. How can anyone think of this dastardly act, he thought ,when each one of us has a mother who will mourn our loss,  a family who will be forever altered by this traitorous act? And why can’t you fight like a man, Napoleon Andal instead of sending your henchmen to do this criminal deed? Why can’t you just slug it out in the elections than maim us with this cowardly attrition? But I guess you don’t have enough balls, to face it off with Miguel and even pull the f**n trigger. But don’t worry, I’m not a coward and I will be waiting for your downfall on election day.

Justice is for the rich and its quest a long, uncertain battle, he thought if I had my way, I will go by Napoleon Andal’s house and scorch him until his last pathetic breath. Rafael vaguely recalled an incident days after seeing Miguel in the morgue, when one of the supposed gunmen was arrested. He stormed to the police station and upon seeing the dark man escorted by the police, lunged at him. He was held back. Then in a fit of fury and a shot of adrenaline, he snatched a policeman’s firearm and pointed at the man. The crowd cowered as he pulled the trigger again and again. The safety lock was on. He was wrestled to the cold floor while he screamed invectives and handcuffs were locked behind him. He was led to the crowded jail and no one inside attempted to come near him. His eyes were burning in anger even as his father collected him. 

Inside the car, his father gripped at the wheel, a succumbed look in his face “Anak, I don’t want to lose both of you, I don’t want to visit Miguel in cemetery and you in jail, we couldn’t take it especially your Mom…besides we’re not barbarians, we have to follow the rule of law, we’ll find another way. “ Yes, we’ll find another way, he thought , Napoleon Andal wouldn’t get what he wants, I will stand by his way, I will replace Miguel.

He has hidden so much from Rose. He has kept her at arm’s length, not letting her inside his world. But she kept it in stride, even when he shuts down when she asks him about his family. “Sometimes, I feel like I don’t know you, like making love to a man I just met, a traveling stranger”, she told her once in a dingy room suffused with kinky red lights and their rapture reflected by a luminous ceiling. Rafael looked at her hurt and said nothing because how can he tell her that she may not fit in his world, a world full of deceit, and corruption with men frothing for power.  And though he adores her bracelet tattoo, her brazen short hair and her form- hugging shirts, his conservative political family may not understand. They have tolerated him, his whims at painting while becoming a vagabond of sorts but taking her there may be too much. Especially after what happened to Miguel. Maybe like Napoleon Andal I too am a coward, he thought while looking at Rose carefully removing weeds near the santan bushes. I wasn’t able to tell her the truth. But now she knows it and doesn’t want to see me anymore.

After Miguel was laid to rest, he stayed in the province and replaced Miguel’s candidacy. He never saw his father so proud of him, always putting his arm around him and often eliciting a smile. His mother’s grief abated as she saw his son preparing to take on the mantle of power he always refused.  But he knows his brother’s absence left a void in his parents’ lives, something he cannot replace, they get teary-eyed when they encounter his friends or arranges his things. He too, sometimes sits in his brother’s room, silently talking to him in his mind. He still called Rose but never mentioned his candidacy. Or that he met someone else.  Someone who can help him win and exact his revenge. 

Jasmine is the eldest daughter of a congressman in their province. So different from Rose, she was coy, simple, a provincial lass his parents approved of. But he felt no fire.  She was appropriate but he felt no passion. But she will fit the role. It all became a matter of strategies for him, putting emotions aside and crafted a roadmap to a successful bid. His phone calls to Rose became infrequent, and dwindled into nothing. He began pursuing Jasmine like another feather in his cap. The elections were nearing and the alliance with her father was vital. The goal is to win and nothing else mattered, he thought. Napoleon Andal will pay.

Rafael won in a landslide victory and the Andals have scurried away like frightened mice. Jasmine was on his side. She was a great confidante. She understood him and the challenges and expectations of a political family. And he also began to see another side of her. While Rose’s thorny exterior covered a fierce sense of affection and duty to family, Jasmine’s delicate front camouflaged a hardened and calculating iron will. Like him, she has seen it all, the corruption, the deaths, the heady taste of power.  They are alike. He can no longer face Rose and say he is still the man she met in the bar, the carefree guy who loved the beach and had aspirations of being a Renoir. His easels and paintbrushes have gathered dust in the attic together with his half-finished stabs at impressionism. How quick has fate decided for them, how easy for him to turn off all the eager promises and self-fulfillment awaiting him in his craft. Just one scene, just one event and your life stirs in another direction, he thought. I am just a character in a plot and fate a cruel puppet master in all of this.

He wanted to tell Rose everything then, about Miguel, the candidacy. After a couple of tries, she finally answered her cell phone. There was a strangeness in her voice, a distant quality he understood. They agreed to meet at the bar. But she didn’t arrive. Rafael waited and waited. At 3 am, he chucked his last cigarette in the parking lot. He tried calling her again but she shut it off.  The next morning, he picked up yesterday’s paper and glared on the side bar of the front page, it was a picture of him and Jasmine, a feature on political clans and a hint of an upcoming engagement. He can see Jasmine’s maneuverings underneath all of this, staking her claim on him. You are mine and you and I are alike. Now his secrets are blurted in a major broadsheet for Rose to see.

It’s been a year. And Rafael is sitting in his car watching her.  This will be the last time, he thought, last time I might see her.  He will be leaving tonight after three mornings of watching Rose, ending his flimsy excuse of going to a convention and finally arranging his wedding to Jasmine. Two snakes deserve each other, he thought. Rose, too will be leaving soon. Driven by her desire to provide for her family, she has accepted a caregiver position in Canada. A mutual friend mentioned it. After the blatant revelation, they never spoke again. Her wall of silence, the only way she can grieve his deceptions, his secrets. Nary a word would she give him despite his pleadings and apologies on the phone, it is over. And I deserve it, he thought. How could I say I love her if I can’t tell her the truth? She has to walk away from a spineless man like me.

The crimson shade of the sky is giving way to a more ambient light. He wonders why is he here? Why has he come back? Is it to see the reflection of the man before Miguel’s death? To recapture what he had before the tragedy? Or to see the last sunrise he and Rose will have together? Because they will no longer have a quiet sunrise in the beach like the one they had in Anilao. His sunrise have now included sounds of vehicles being readied for his transport while a team of bodyguards argues in the background and hers  will soon be on top of freezing balcony overlooking a snowy sidewalk while she momentarily taking a puff of cigarette, pausing for a minute before going inside to clean the bedpans. The paintings and the poems will be forgotten, the painter and the poet will soon disappear.

He shifted the gear to drive and boldly cruised towards her. He drove deliberately but she didn’t budge to glance at the coal-colored car driving by. Rafael felt a tint of sadness, disappointment spreading towards him. He wanted to see her but she didn’t care or didn’t notice. Does she know it was him? Or not? Dejected, he accelerated the car and raced towards the outgoing vehicles.  He didn’t look back. And didn’t notice that she finally looked up and watched the fading car.