“There are no more, Mum,” one of the maids answered tremulously. “Blasted shit, let’s use a flashlight,” said Bobby. “I saw a bundle in that cupboard only last month,” said Maripaz Caridad. “I better go,” Nonoy Concepcion whined. “How awful this rain, it had to happen tonight,” Jocelyn said. “The Club planned something really, really special for the end of summer…” Dr. Caridad stared into the blackness. It was as if he had fallen into an open, undefined space within the night. He groped for his wine glass on the table cloth and could not find it. He closed his eyes and sat holding himself still, he must not move lest he fall again, deeper into this unknown space; and the total darkness he beheld in his mind seemed to be one and the same as the night now filled with the relentless rain and the spray and thud if the wind against the window panes. At around half past ten, with the lights still out and the rain sounding louder in the night, Dr. Caridad at last admitted to himself that the storm was most unusual; and with a prickle of anxiety he rose from his bed to peer out through a window, searching the darkness outside, the black depths that now smelled of wet earth, cold mud, the pulp of water – softened wood, leaves, and grass. From the other side of the house, towards the garage, he thought he heard the barking of the dog, freed to roam the grounds at night. There was nothing to see from the window, no lights or shadows anywhere in Fortune Village, only the faintest strip of gray above the bamboo groves that separated this part of town from the river. He stood there in his pajamas, disturbed by the force and duration of the rain, until he saw, in a white flicker of lightning, the half – submerged wheelbarrow by the swimming pool and the tin cans and planks of wood floating around it in the water below. He cursed the rise of the water outside, the failed electricity, the unending rain. His wife was beside him, and she too tried to see into the streaming dark. “What? What is there…?” He said, “What’s that guard doing?” and he snatched up the flashlight from where he had placed it, by the luminous clock on the night table. Jocelyn was outside her door. “Daddy, what’s going on, oh, Daddy, won’t this rain ever stop?” Dr. Caridad played the flashlight before him, down the hall to the staircase. He realized he could not rouse the help from there even if he shouted, and with increasing alarm, he proceeded down the stairs and the flashlight beam slanted and gleamed across the floor of water in the living room. But where were the maids? And that guard, where was he? Why hadn’t they called him, how could they be so stupid… He stepped into the water, cold about his slippered feet, and ankle – deep, this was unbelievable, why, it had only been a couple of minutes. Where were they? He could wring their necks, damn all of them. His rapid heartbeat seemed to fuse with the drumming of the rain. “Pining! Anastacia!” Dr. Caridad bellowed in the entry to the kitchen, standing in the 130
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