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Simoun couldn’t recall the exact moment he had died.
He does, however, remember the soft cushions beneath the bed—Father Florentino’s own, if he recalls correctly—enveloping him as the poisons, in their lethality, began to take effect. A habit he picked up from Europe years ago, the study of chemicals, was at first just a simple hobby to feed off his curiosity, but they had by now become a twisted mechanism he perfected for the sole purpose of his plans.
Now foiled, he assumed, because of the blind trust he had put in that boy. Begrudgingly, he found out rather quickly that didn’t have the strength in him to feel any resentment towards Basilio, despite him having ruined his carefully planned vengeance now nothing more than a revealed plot. A small part of him, even, was almost grateful.
One look at the labelled bottles near his bedside told him that they would do. It wouldn’t be instantaneous, but by the looks of it, the combined poison would kill slowly enough to deliver his will, right before the civil guards came to arrest him.
Dead or alive, they had said. And Simoun preferred the former.
And so as he spoke his final words, hearing the lulling voice of Father Florentino in response, Simoun watched as the view from the window, the sea and the sky both, dissipated and blurred together in a mix of colour. The world before him grew to a shuddering white, and before he knew it, Simoun felt the heaviness fade from his eyes.
He had died.
Death was less cold than he had imagined. It seemed to bring him warmth to the tips of his fingers, hardened and callused from the heat of fresh gunpowder searing his palms. Instead of the burning resentment he had choked down for years, he felt nothing but a numb sort of peace, soothing and calming all the more. He thought now of childhood memories running in green gardens, Maria Clara next to him grinning from ear to ear, his mother and her soft kisses on his cheek, his father and the stories he used to recite from his study—
The eerie sense of calm he felt now was something foreign to him. More than a decade he had spent allowing himself to bathe in anger, and yet now, he couldn’t even remember the feeling of bitterness in his throat.
Simoun looked down, taking a moment to let it all in, and as he did so he had to hold in a gasp. His arms, unscarred and unscathed, were nothing like the thick gashes he had spent years cutting into his skin, years of self-hatred and resentment bearing dark scars across the length of his forearms.
No, they were pale, and they were soft and supple with no cuts or bruises and as he held it up to the light he saw that they were just as they were thirteen years ago.
He felt his face. The beginnings of stubble forming on his jaw. He ran his fingers through his hair. Short and styled the way he had learned in Madrid. He spoke, and as he did so the thick, heavy accent he had forced as a front for so long was now soft and fond, the makings of a young man in his youth.
He was no Simoun. He was Crisostomo.
Simoun did not cry. Simoun did not pity. Simoun did not weep for others, the only exception being the day Maria Clara passed. He had let himself cry then, the knife dragging along his skin as the blood fell down in lines of red, shouts resounding around him, deafening and yet hoarse all the same.
If the years had taught him something, it was that to show emotion was to show weaknesses. If he was to commit his vengeance, he was to push down his conscience, harden his heart, and move forward without mercy.
But Crisostomo was no Simoun. The Crisostomo thirteen years ago had used to laugh at jokes made by the alcalde. The Crisostomo thirteen years ago had looked back at Elias, shell-shocked as he exclaimed, ”I have enemies?” in his study in San Diego. The Crisostomo thirteen years ago had used to loathe the tulisanes, unable to fathom their pain, their sorrow, the agony in their lives.
And so as he, Crisostomo, felt tears form in his eyes, he let them fall down his cheeks, eyes stained red as he allowed himself to release the pent up frustration of years of repression—
—only to have them widen as he felt a blow, a sharp stinging pain on his right cheek, force him from his thoughts as he stumbled back. Crisostomo had barely registered the hit, much less the person who had given it. The punch was a heavy one, leaving his pale skin marked with a sickening purple that only grew as the seconds ticked by.
He looked up, unsure of what to say to the now panting Elias, whose teeth were gritted and fists clenched tight.
“How could you?” he said through panting breaths, forcing Crisostomo to look him in both eyes. The look Elias was giving him would have sent shivers down his spine, had he not heard the same bone-chilling voice haunt his dreams as Simoun. “Señor Ibarra, how could you do such a thing?”
Crisostomo frowned, placing his fingers to the growing bruise, soft and tender to the touch. “Rather difficult, I suppose, to keep a straight moral conscience when everything and everyone has been taken from you, I assume?”
“I, Señor, if you haven’t already forgotten,” Elias kept his fists tightly wound into his palms, inching closer to him, standing still amidst blank white walls, “am not unfamiliar with the feeling of loss. I have lost my family just as you have lost yours. I have lost everything, same as you, for you have lost the love of your life, your hopes, your dreams, your ambitions—“
He gave one last, sorrowful look at him before continuing.
“—and, as it appears, your sense of conscience.” He lowers his head, and the familiarity of the gesture makes him shiver. “What little humanity you had by the time I liberated you from prison seems to have died alongside me, lost among the waters.”
“Elias, good friend,” Crisostomo lowers his hand, unable to look at him without the regret pooling inside his gut at an alarming rate, “do not tell me that you have waited thirteen years to deliver that blow to my face.”
Elias’ face remained stone cold. “Do not joke with me now. I may have waited thirteen years, but even now I am not the least bit satisfied with a mere bruise.”
He felt his jaw clack back into place, moving it a few more times to ensure it had been thoroughly fixed. Elias, watching from nearby, kept his lips pressed into a thin line.
“If I recall correctly,” Crisostomo crossed his arms in the same manner he had done as Simoun, far more tense and arrogant than usual. He felt that it suited the situation best. “You’d prefer that the hand of God strike down the unjust?”
Looking back at him, Elias’ passive features were ignited with what almost resembled pent up fury. “And it seems as though what I have said has come to pass.”
Crisostomo lowers his gaze, and as he did so his chest heaved with a pain he had not noticed until now. It was suffocating, forcing its way to his lips, clawing at his lungs.
“I—“ his lip trembled, and Crisostomo found that he could not get the words out coherently, “I—I do not know what became of me, Elias. At the time, I had felt so assured that all would be fine, that the accumulation of evils was the one, true way to liberate the islands—“
The look that Elias gave him then was inquisitive, eyes squinted together as his arms were crossed one over the other. The same strong, muscular arms, preserved even after his death, glimmered in the white light.
“—I agree with what Father Florentino said, then, before you passed.”
Crisostomo glanced back at Elias, eyebrows scrunched together as through scrutinising the contemplative look on his face. “Do forgive me if I am unable to recall what Father Florentino said; after all, I was slipping in and out of consciousness.”
That was a lie. Crisostomo Ibarra had heard every word. Crisostomo Ibarra had realised, then, just how deeply his vengeance had blinded him. Crisostomo Ibarra had felt shame.
Elias turned his attention to him. “And you too would forgive me, Señor, to tell you that you are lying.”
Crisostomo sighed. Elias had always understood; if not Maria, then he would, at least, unravel his hidden thoughts, the deepest crevices in that mind so changed from years of suffering. Maria was sweet nothings whispered into ears, lovesick letters by dusk candlelight and bittersweet bickering on an azotea. Elias was fiery passion, steel resolve, and debates on calm waters in wooden bangkas.
“What use is independence,” Elias said, taking a step forward in that empty expanse. His eyes glimmered with a fire, passion intertwined with deeply burning hatred and fury. “If the slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow.”
He glanced back, distaste seeping past the bile in his throat. “Even if you had succeeded, you would have found the country in a state of anarchy, the people scattered and newfound tyrants ascended to power to take over the old.”
With a heavy heart, Crisostomo bent his head low, unable to refute the words now spoken from his mouth. “What would you say then, my good friend? To what I have done, the greed I incited—“
“I would have let you perish in that bangka,” he mumbled coldly, without hesitation. His voice was ice, sharp at the edges and dripping still with venom. “Perhaps even, I would have thrust that knife into your heart the moment I saw the name Don Pedro Eibarramendia on that paper.”
Crisostomo flinched, but Elias continued, hands thrusted upwards as though to condemn him. “I trusted that you would spearhead the liberation of the Philippine people from injustice, but instead you’ve sown the seeds for revolution at the price of innocent lives!”
He stared at Crisostomo now shaking, eyes wide open in madness; thick hands clasping Crisostomo’s shoulders so that he would be forced to look him in the eye, fingers sinking deep into his flesh, so deep he held in a sob of pain.
“The innocent lives lost to your cause!” he cried aloud, his voice booming in his ears. “The innocent lives that were desecrated, the souls wailing for justice to be served, and you think yourself a saviour!”
“You left me, Elias!” Crisostomo screamed aloud at last, pushing him to the side. “I know this does not atone for my actions, but by God! You were the last person I had left; Maria, my only consolation, gone!”
It was his turn to push Elias now, and he nearly tumbled over from the weight of his shove, eyes still unmoving. “Do you not understand the grief you’ve caused me? I needed you then, Elias, and if you had lived perhaps I would not have become that bastard of a man—“
“I died so you could live!” Elias cried aloud, feet planted into the ground as though they were roots intertwined with the soft soil. “I ignored your family’s history, I ignored that optimism and stubbornness you so desperately clung onto, and despite my own family’s suffering, tore you from those prison bars and died in that lake for the sake of our country!”
Both men were panting by now, neither one willing to relent. Thirteen years of hidden hatred and unsaid words came flowing in a torrent of bitterness, hopelessly released in that white expanse.
“Could you not see the fire burning in me that night?” Crisostomo screamed, throat hoarse. “Elias, you heard my plans, you should have known what I was capable of!”
He merely paused. “I did not take you as a man of resentment.”
Crisostomo glared back, anger coursing through his veins, choking his words still. “The suffering I experienced will have changed any man regardless of how they were prior—“
It was like that for a time, until at last the both of them grew out of breath, the unspoken becoming spoken, the anger fading to weariness, the fury abating to past regrets. Shouts died in their throats, bloodshot eyes turned glassy, and as they let the silence envelop them, at last Elias spoke.
“I regret having trusted you, Señor.”
Crisostomo was silent for a time, thinking of a response amidst the silence, unsure of what to say that could address those thirteen years of guilt. A man who was skeptical by nature having his little trust shattered by the man he had bargained all his hopes on was, certainly, no experience easily forgotten.
“We both couldn’t have known what was to come.”
There was more silence on behalf of Elias, still staring into the distance, hardened fists clenched until his knuckles turned pale white.
“…”
“…”
Crisostomo sighed, looking at Elias seated now beside him, eyes distant and face scornful. Hesitantly he sat on the place next to him, taking care not to stare, and allowed the comfortable silence to nestle in between them.
“What now?” he asked, against his better judgement. Crisostomo was leaning against his legs, head still stippled with thoughts.
He wondered then what became of the revolution, now that he was gone, and what would happen to the little that remained of his army. Some part of him ached to feel that burning vengeance, something so reminiscent of the past years, but what was left now was a numb shell of what he had considered as Simoun.
Simoun was only ever a tool for revenge, Crisostomo knew. Simoun was harboured anger and endless resentment, and as he looked back on it now, regardless of what his intentions were, in the end it was all for nothing. He was dead now, and Simoun had died with him.
Absentmindedly his mind wandered to Basilio, keeping in mind to check on him later—Kabesang Tales and the apology he was owed (the poor man was most likely dead already)—Placido Penitente and his unwavering resolve, the fire in his eyes that reminded him so much of—
Elias, eyes quite not so distant anymore, turned to look at him. Elias had always reminded him of fire; he saw it in the eyes of the revolutionaries, the tulisanes in the mountains, Basilio that day of the wedding, Placido in his house on the Escolta, but while theirs was an untamed fire seeking vengeance, Elias’s was only ever untainted, pure passion.
“Move on, Señor,” he said, softly. “You deserve that much.”
And, to Crisostomo, he decided then that he quite liked the sound of that.