Elaine and Susan, both of whom had stayed home, had begun to worry about their men’s safety and sought each out for comfort. On occasion, because Elaine’s parents still lived in Forbes Park and Susan taught at the International School in Makati, they went shopping together in the States-side supermarket. By birth and upbringing Susan was a doomsayer, and by inclination and choice, Elaine was normally the opposite. In a chapter of her journal, later published, Susan said that the whole time Nick and I were traveling in Pampanga she couldn’t sleep. She claimed that during that week that she talked to Elaine every day, hoping that she had heard something from the boys. As it turned out, we were in good hands and that there was no need for all the worry. For the record, she spent at least one night with Elaine over at her apartment. Elaine had taken her home in Ermita, not far from Taft. There they spent the time reminiscing about the States. Both of them became homesick for a country they both loved and even more forlorn than they had been before. They commiserated with each other. The fact that they could said a lot about them. Again, normally Elaine wasn’t a worrier, but since her father showed her the photograph of her with Nick at the demonstration in front of the Congress building she had begun to worry. She suspected the CIA. She knew the CIA lurked in the shadows. She knew the CIA and her father could steal her happiness, but she wasn’t as concerned for herself as she was for Nick. Nick then meant everything to her; he was her friend, her soul mate, and her lover.
Out on the dusty plains with all that tumbleweed and sagebrush I felt at home; my family lived there when I was growing up, my sense of place undisturbed. Then said an inner voice, “there had to be more to life.” It seemed as if my parents never hugged me. And so when I had before me college I chose to go away, so far, far away. And then, before my eyes there stood my dream, not on a horse as I imagined, but on the seat of a blue 1953 Chevy convertible, the King of the Homecoming Parade and Editor of the campus newspaper, waving at the crowd. Wherein my heart missed a beat, and I shivered, and I decided right then to change my major to journalism. Enough, honestly. I didn’t deserve someone like Ted, King of the Homecoming Parade and Editor of the Tiger Rag. (And as a bonus he drove a blue 1953 Chevy convertible.) Oh, my! I cried. Why in the world would he ever notice me? That tall, handsome hunk. Take pity Lord, or I shall die before I’m eighteen.
Low and behold, I saw her…but didn’t just see her but asked her out for a date…that proved that she never really needed to fear that I wouldn’t notice her. It was not so easy for her to accept the fact that she was beautiful, because, as she described it, she basically grew up in a “sand lot”, where the sun and the wind and the sand, much like sandpaper would, damaged her skin.
It was hard to know why Susan was so negative. She rarely talked about her childhood, which hadn’t given her the confidence she needed. People who knew her could hardly believe that she would allow me to take her half way around the world to the Philippines. She did, however, have some adventurous blood in her. Running, in fact, was her idea, and if you asked her, she would admit it. ”I prized my husband’s life,” she’d say. “What I prized most was being close to him, which gave me strength. It’s like a strong tonic that you gulp down all at once. You close your eyes and gulp it down. It doesn’t need improvement, though it can upset your stomach, and it burns for a while even though you’ve grown a tolerance for it.” How much longer did she have to be away from home before she realized it was addictive?
Although Susan knew about Nick’s Maoism, she was reluctant to talk about it. She and Elaine avoided the subject, even though it concerned them both greatly. Elaine had listened for hours to Nick talk about the movement, though he knew she could’ve been a “spy” for the CIA. Both of them should’ve been more cautious.
Nick a Huk
Compartmentalize it
Loose lips sink ships
(The CIA often recruited an asset who was a lover of someone they wanted to spy on.) I saw Elaine coming from around the corner, from the back of the Rizal Theater, where she parked her car, to where Susan and I were standing. As soon as she saw us, she waved.
She said immediately that she didn’t want to see a movie but wanted to go somewhere and talk. I was used to Susan’s neurotic mood swings, so Elaine changing her mind about seeing a movie…her request and her demeanor…didn’t overly alarm me. (Something must’ve come up with Nick to keep him from coming.) She suggested we go to the polo grounds, where her father had taken her when she first landed in Manila, and took us there in her car. O n the way, she asked us if we’d seen or heard from Nick. She was obviously distraught; her driving told us that as we zoomed passed the swimming pool, the tennis courts, golf driving range, equestrian grounds, gym, squash courts, bowling lanes, and badminton courts. She screeched to stop and back into a parking spot. ”I’m worried,” she said, and told us for the first time about the confrontation she had with her father over the photograph of Nick and her. “Now I can’t find Nick, though I’ve checked everywhere, and as you know we were planning to see the move, the four of us, together.” By then it was clear that she was very upset. That made me curious and wonder what she knew that I didn’t.
Randy Ford
