The Tesseract Read Online Free PDF Page B

blood, and you had simply to look at him to see that it was mixed. Not that anybody would ever dare to mention it.
    Nor, indeed, would anybody ever dare to mention his trip to the motherland. Relentlessly discussed in the buildup to his departure, instantly taboo on his return. Taboo for no reason other than the expression on the old man’s face when Jojo had picked him up from the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.He hadn’t looked sad or disappointed, or even angry. He’d looked shell-shocked. For the next few weeks, the familiar lectures had been painfully muted. Omelettes rather than Cortez. Even now, half a year later, they lacked their original length and vehemence.
    “Mr. Sean is British.”
    Jojo, who had been lost in the blinking taillights of the jeepney in front, straightened in his seat and murmured, “Yes, sir.”
    “In 1762 the British occupied Manila, returning it to our control in the 1763 Treaty of Paris. I’d imagine that most Spanish are a little ashamed that the British took their land from them, even if it was two hundred years ago.”
    “I suppose they are, sir.”
    “But I’m not ashamed. The British also were great empire builders. Personally, I respect the fact that they were strong enough to take the Philippines from us.” Don Pepe paused. “And anyway, they had it for only a year.”
    “A year is not long.”
    “Of course it isn’t. Next to four hundred years of Spanish rule, eeeeh,
it’s a mere bagatelle.
”
    Jojo and Teroy exchanged a glance. “Bagatelle?” Teroy mouthed, and Jojo gave a fractional shrug. Don Pepe frequently lapsed in and out of foreign languages. Curiously, English more than any other.
    “So,” Don Pepe continued. “There you are. The British once occupied Manila. A little-known fact.”
    Not in this car it isn’t, thought Jojo, and released the handbrake, letting the car roll forward another couple of feet.
2.
    Bubot was the
sip-sip
king, all nods and smiles and feigned interest in the mestizo’s diatribes. Practically his job description. Not that Bubot was complaining—he’d wanted to be Don Pepe’s right-hand man for as long as anyone could remember. The moment the news of Bing-Bong’s death had come through, Bubot had been falling over backward to catch the old man’s eye. People said he’d have cut his balls off if he’d thought Don Pepe would have been impressed. There had even been a rumor that the true purpose of the botched kidnap attempt had been to get Bing-Bong out of the way. Crazy rumor. Anyone who knew the
sip-sip
king also knew that he didn’t have the wit for anything so elaborate.
    The
sip-sip
king could keep the backseat. As far as Jojo and Teroy were concerned, the front seat was the place to be. At least they had their backs to their boss. Like kids in the corner of the classroom, they could let the teacher’s voice fade to a background murmur. They could gaze at girls walking down the street and exchange sly winks. They could even have conversations. With plenty of time to practice, they had perfected the art of talking at a level that was just audible between them but that didn’t carry beyond the leather headrests. And when conversation failed, perhaps suppressed by a sixth sense thatDon Pepe was listening a little harder than usual, Teroy had his gun to polish—the shiniest pistol in Luzon—and Jojo had his jeepneys to study.
    It was, Jojo often reflected, a mystery. The wildly customized mini-buses chugged down every street of every barrio. Jeepneys were like the faces of your family or the feel of rubber sandals on your feet. Jeepneys were like the taste of
rice.
Who’s aware of the taste of rice? But Jojo was aware of jeepneys.
    The catalyst had been glass. Lack of glass in the windows of the jeepneys, and mirrored glass in the windows of the Mercedes. For some reason, cruising through Quezon City one morning, this had occurred to Jojo, and it interested him. The fact that he was provided with a slide show of lives