Chapter 1417 - The Seaside Villa
After taking leave of the treasurer, the red-flag carriage traversed the garden plaza before the Governor's Palace, wound through several streets and alleyways, and at the Count's command exited through the castle's south gate, heading toward the sea. The road beneath the wheels would become, more than three centuries later, Manila's storied Roxas Boulevard. In the present, however, despite the colonial authorities treating this artery as a vital military corridor linking Manila to the fortresses at Cavite and Carmona—and despite annual appropriations for its upkeep—the road conditions remained wretched. What passed for repairs amounted to shoveling a few loads of dirt into the ruts and tossing bundles of firewood into the sinkholes.
The carriage lurched over these obstacles but did not slow. The shock-absorbing leaf springs creaked beneath the body yet held firm. They drove all the way to a small bay ringed by sand dunes, behind which sat a fishing village called Malate. Beyond the small boats beached on the sand and a cluster of shabby huts, only two brick-and-stone buildings stood near the village: a church and a two-story villa perched on a slope overlooking the bay, surrounded by a wooden fence. A former Manila city official had built it for his sickly daughter so she might breathe the healthful seaside air. After the girl died and the official returned to Spain, the fine building had fallen into slow decay. Vince had purchased it for very little.
The carriage had barely stopped when Vince threw open the door and leapt down. Shrek, however, lingered on the rear step for a long while before finally clambering down with ponderous reluctance. Vince had long known that this seemingly powerful black slave was, in truth, pitifully timid—the swaying, bouncing ride of the speeding carriage had frightened the wits out of him. Leaving Shrek standing there in a daze, Vince strode toward his new residence.
Both the garden and villa gates stood wide open. The courtyard was heaped with bricks and lime. Creepers and weeds that had smothered the stone walls had been stripped away. Carpenters and masons hired from the Parian were busy repairing years of neglect and, per the Count's instructions, giving everything a fresh coat of whitewash.
The vegetation in the courtyard had been cleared—in the tropics, plants were ruthlessly aggressive. At the slightest reduction in human activity, they reclaimed their territory with astonishing speed. When Vince first purchased the villa, the undergrowth had been so dense one could scarcely walk through it.
Apart from Mimi, who supervised the workmen inside, a young man was directing several local servants in unloading wooden crates from an oxcart and carrying them into the house. This was all Vince's luggage, a considerable portion of which consisted of the various trappings the false count required to maintain appearances—all purchased at great expense from Macao, some of it plunder from the Manila galleons.
The young man wore a newly made livery coat embroidered with the coat of arms of the Fananovoua family. His hair was cut unevenly, with short stubble sticking up at different heights across his forehead like a dog had gnawed on it—undoubtedly the result of cutting his own hair in a mirror. No local would have cropped it so short.
This was already a kind of compliance with organizational arrangements. Originally he had worn his Navy training uniform constantly, but on the matter of hair, the young man refused to compromise and persisted with this strange style.
Vince knew that this young man—so desperate to advertise himself as an "Australian Shorn-Head"—was named Ji Mide, a naturalized citizen from a Chinese merchant family residing in Tonkin. The protracted civil war in Vietnam had dragged quite a few overseas Chinese merchants into the abyss of bankruptcy, and Ji Mide's father was among them. Though they had not lost both lives and property, the whole family had been left without means of livelihood—they could not even afford passage back to their ancestral home in Fujian.
Through acquaintances, father and son found work at the Dachang Trading Post. Unlike his father, who only wanted to make a living, the exquisite Australian products ignited in the young man an almost fanatical longing for "Australia." This passion had impressed even BeikaĂŻ, the chief of the Tonkin Station, who sent a report to Lingao recommending Ji Mide's admission to study at Fangcaodi.
Thanks to his family's business, Ji Mide had learned reading, writing, and bookkeeping from childhood. Being clever and eager to learn, he needed far less effort than most refugee-origin natives to obtain a Lingao Grade B certificate. Given his age and specialty, he enrolled in Fangcaodi's commerce vocational track. Near graduation, he was selected to join the Southeast Asian Company's first Luzon trading voyage as an intern.
This coveted internship—which everyone at Fangcaodi envied—played a cruel joke on the young commerce star. He contracted tropical typhus, and the complications nearly killed him just as the fleet was preparing to return. Though the ship's doctor pulled him back from the brink, a full recovery would certainly take more than ten days or half a month.
The fleet could not wait. A sailing trade fleet had to return before the monsoon season ended. And no one could accept the enormous risk of bringing a still-convalescent infectious-disease patient aboard. Oceangoing ships were already breeding grounds for epidemics; even the strictest quarantine measures might not prevent an outbreak. In the end, it was decided to leave Ji Mide to recuperate at the Cantonese guild in the Parian. Ping Qiusheng left him a supply of medicines and silver, and gave extra gifts to the guild headman, arranging for someone to look after Ji Mide until the next trading ship could take him home.
Before setting out, Vince had learned through intelligence channels that he would "find a useful person" in Manila. After today's near-disaster of a meeting with the informant, Vince decided that this young man—bursting with enthusiasm since his recovery and "always ready to contribute to the cause of Australia-Song"—really ought to be put to work. Leaving him in the house to do odd jobs all day was far too much of a waste.
Vince climbed the steps and strolled along the veranda. Thin, dark Chinese workmen passed in and out through the open front door, carrying buckets of lime and sawn lumber into the house. He followed them inside. To increase the indoor lighting, the first-floor windows had been enlarged, and a full-height atrium space had been added—a hole had been cut in the roof, ready for a glass skylight.
The newly installed Lingao shutters were all thrown open, brightening the formerly dim living room considerably. Despite the good ventilation, the pungent smell of lime and lacquer mixed with linseed oil still made him frown. Mimi, however, didn't mind. She ran back and forth tidying up, nimbly dodging falling plaster and paint. The swirl of her skirt and her slender young waist suddenly made Vince catch a whiff of alluring youthful fragrance amid the acrid air.
He waved his hand, signaling Mimi to accompany him as he looked around. The entire villa and garden were a bustling construction site, the sounds of hammering walls and nailing wood mingling with the clamor of the workmen. His bedroom on the second floor was largely complete. The walls still smelled of fresh whitewash, and the floor had been laid with Porto cork flooring from Macao—durable, attractive, and resilient, very popular among the Elders in Lingao.
Furniture had already been placed in the room—old pieces from the original villa, warped by moisture during years of vacancy. Mimi had hired a carpenter to refurbish it all. Everything was solid, made from fine local timber.
Per Lando's instructions, the single bed had already been made up with Lingao grass mats, gauze mosquito netting, and a bamboo-bark cooling pillow. It looked refreshingly inviting.
Just thinking of how the Spaniards in Manila actually slept on mattresses made him itch all over. He wanted desperately to take a bath.
But the newly built bathroom was empty—no fixtures at all, just a few holes left for plumbing.
"The bathroom fixtures won't ship from Macao until later. And the piping too. But the people here don't know how to install them..."
"That's all right—installers will be sent along with the ship," Lando said. "Has the drainage culvert been completed?"
"The coolies won't come to work until the day after tomorrow—local coolies are in short supply right now, and prices have gone up." Mimi took out a small notebook. "The foreman says everything here is getting more expensive. Even timber."
Timber was something that could be found everywhere in Manila—as long as you could find enough workers to cut and haul it. If even that was rising in price, it could only mean labor costs had skyrocketed.
"A new bathtub has been prepared for you in the washroom downstairs—as you instructed, bought from the Japanese village. A temporary latrine has been set up in the yard. As for soap, bath brushes, and toilet paper, I found everything in the Parian. It'll be delivered shortly."
The Southeast Asian Company is doing well, Lando thought. At least he wouldn't have to write letters specially requesting the most ordinary daily necessities.
"All the windows must be replaced. These ridiculous shells must all be changed to glass." Filipinos liked to fit pearled oyster shells in their windows to block the scorching sunlight. Moreover, in earthquake-prone Manila, replacing broken shell windowpanes was far cheaper than glass. Even the Spaniards were not immune to this custom—especially since any European glass that survived the year-long voyage to Manila intact commanded exorbitant prices.
"Go to the Huang Ji shop in the Parian to buy glass. The Southeast Asian Company's glass plates are all marketed through them. And have them send a glazier over. No—I don't mean you. Have Ji Mide handle this. Remember to bring my card. And as for that fool Shrek—have him stand guard at the front gate in full gear!" He smiled. "Off you go, sweetheart."
Watching Mimi blush as she closed the door and left, Vince happily pulled off his sweltering boots. He did not lie down directly on the bed, but instead stretched out on a bamboo daybed he had bought from a bamboo shop in the Parian—he wasn't ready to strip off his dirt-and-sweat-stained clothes just yet. With the habits he had developed on the battlefield, he quickly fell asleep amid all the noise.