The Leper Spy Read Online Free

down past her dark eyes to her shoulders. Her pedigree did not match his. Born on August 5, 1917, Josefina Veluya grew up outside Manila, to the southeast, in the rural province of Lucban. Her name meant “God shall add.” As a child, the girl they called Joey idolized Joan of Arc.
    She’d read the story of the young warrior in a book, and it awoke in her a powerful defiance. She used to pretend to be the martyr saint, pretend she could hear the voice of God, comforting her and commanding her in battle. She got bored pretending and asked her brother if he could pretend to be the voices, which always made her laugh.
    Earnestly, she prayed each day that God would let her be a nun and live a cloistered life in service and reflection. When her parentsboth died unexpectedly, the Good Shepherd Sisters convent seemed like a natural place for her, but her body was attacked by tuberculosis and the nuns did not have the capacity to give her care.
    She was taken in by her grandparents, who owned a coconut plantation, and she soon regained her health. She was then sent to live with an uncle in Manila for schooling, and he enrolled her in studies at the nearby convent, where her new classmates were children from wealthy families. She was well read, spoke proper English, and adored all things beautiful—art, poetry, and especially music. When her inheritance ran low, she started working to pay her own tuition. At the convent, she was a member of every athletic team—swimming, baseball, basketball. She was elected president of the student council.
    Renato Maria Guerrero was a rising medical student, a scion of one of the most distinguished families in the Philippines, with deep roots in intellectual society in the city. He came from painters, lawyers, poets, journalists, and doctors, many of them revolutionaries as well. His father, Manuel Severino Guerrero, was the most renowned doctor of his time. People said he had a clinical eye, because he could diagnose a man’s illness simply by studying his outward appearance. He taught medicine at the University of Santo Tomas, wrote for
La Republica Filipina
and
La Opinion,
and published a short story collection on the side. His reputation connected him to Manila’s elite, men and women whose names would live on the city’s infrastructure, its signposts and buildings, long after they were gone.
    The doctor gave his children all the comforts his wealth afforded. He bought them the latest gadgets from shops like La Puerta del Sol, white rolls of linen, silverware of all kinds, wine and chocolates and Piña hams. The family lived in a two-story house facing Plaza Ferguson and owned two cars and a horse. In the summers, the doctor rented a large nipa house in Antipolo, not far from the church. He bought his children one of the first gramophones in the islands, the kind you had to wind by hand after each record. The childrenwent to sleep at night listening to Caruso, Chaliapin, Tetrazzini, Wagner, Beethoven. Young Renato, the eldest of the children, studied piano and practiced until he became a brilliant player. His favorites were the Debussy pieces.
    The family was the wealthiest of all the Ermita Guerreros, so refined that the children were forbidden to eat with their hands, which was customary in the culture, or to converse in Tagalog, the native tongue.
    They were pious, too, and each child was baptized almost immediately after birth. The elders used to ask the children, “Why were you born?” And the answer they expected was “To know, serve, obey, and love God on earth and be happy with Him in heaven.” They learned the catechism, memorized Our Father, Hail Mary, and the Apostles’ Creed, and took Communion daily, rain or shine.
    Their father had a quirk, though, in that he was terrified of germs and communicable diseases. He rarely opened doors unless he had a handkerchief or napkin, and he was constantly washing his hands.
    When he fell ill