Photo: Nina Zumel
“When a house is empty for a long time, the enkanto — the fairies — come to live there.”
Dad was warming to our ghost story conversation.
“I know this is true, because it happened to our house in Saraat, during the War.”
He meant World War II. The Philippines was not a happy place, during that war, but my father’s memories of that time are surprisingly pleasant. He was only about eight or nine years old when the Japanese occupation began, the youngest of his siblings, by far — what they call an “afterthought child”. When the Japanese came, I think some of my uncles ran to the mountains, to join the resistance, and much of the town evacuated as well. My grandfather chose to stay.
