NANKING STORE

by Macario D. Tiu

hometown. Sometimes I stayed overnight with

them.
I liked going there because she pampered me,
feeding me fresh fruits as well as preserved
Chinese fruits like dikiam, champoy and kiamoy.
Peter was fun too, making me ride piggyback.
He was very strong and did not complain about
my weight.
Tua Poy, that's what she fondly called me. It
meant Fatso. I called her Achi, and Peter, Ahiya.
They were a happy couple. I would see them
chase each other among the furniture and into
the rooms. There was much laughter in the
house. It was this happy image that played in my
mind about Peter and Linda for a long time.

2001 by Copper Sturgeon

I WAS only three years old then, but I have vivid

memories of Peter and Linda's wedding. What I
remember most was jumping and romping on
their pristine matrimonial bed after the wedding.
I would learn later that it was to ensure that their
first-born would be a boy. I was chosen to do the
honors because I was robust and fat.
I also remember that I got violently sick after
drinking endless bottles of soft drinks. I threw up
everything that I had eaten, staining Linda's
shimmering satin wedding gown. Practically the
entire Chinese community of the city was
present. There was so much food that some
Bisayan children from the squatter's area were
allowed to enter the compound to eat in a shed
near the kitchen.
During their first year of marriage, Linda often
brought me to their house in Bajada. She and
Peter would pick me up after nursery school
from our store in their car. She would tell Mother
it was her way of easing her loneliness, as all
her relatives and friends were in Cebu, her

I was six years old when I sensed that

something had gone wrong with their marriage.
Linda left the Bajada house and moved into the
upstairs portions of Nanking Store which was
right across from Father's grocery store in Santa
Ana. The Bajada residence was the wedding gift
of Peter's parents to the couple. It was therefore
strange that Linda would choose to live in Santa
Ana while Peter would stay in Bajada, a distance
of some three kilometers.
In Santa Ana where the Chinese stores were
concentrated, the buildings used to be uniformly
two storeys high. The first floor was the store;
the second floor was the residence. In time
some Chinese grew prosperous and moved out
to establish little enclaves in different parts of the
city and in the suburbs. We remained in Santa
Ana.
One late afternoon, after school, I caught Linda
at home talking with Mother.
"Hoa, Tua Poya. You've grown very tall!" Linda
greeted me, ruffling my hair.
At that age, the show of affection made me feel
awkward and I sidled up to Mother. Linda gave
me two Mandarin oranges. I stayed at the table

in the same room, eating an orange and

pretending not to listen to their conversation.

"I have eaten. Go home. Tell Mother I'll follow in

a short while," he said.

I noticed that Linda's eyes were sad, not the

eyes that I remembered. Her eyes used to be
full of light and laughter. Now her eyes were
somber even when her voice sounded casual
and happy.

I stayed on and watched the game although I did

not understand a thing.
"I said go home," Father said, glowering at me.
I did not budge.

"I got bored in Bajada," Linda said. "I thought I'd

help Peter at the store."
That was how she explained why she had
moved to Santa Ana. I wanted to know if she
could not do that by going to the store in the
morning and returning home to Bajada at night
like Peter did. I wished Mother would ask the
question, but she did not.
However, at the New Canton Barbershop I
learned the real reason. One night Mother told
me to fetch Father because it was past eight
o'clock and he hadn't had his dinner. As a family
we ate early. Like most Chinese, we would close
the store by five and go up to the second floor to
eat supper.

"This is how children behave now. You tell them

to do something and they won't obey," he
complained to his opponent. Turning to me, he
said, "Go home."
"Check," his opponent said.
"Hoakonga!" Father cried, "I turn around and you
cheat me."
His opponent laughed aloud, showing toothless
gums.
Father studied the
chessboard. "Hoakonga! You've defeated me
four times in a row!"

The New Canton Barbershop served as the

recreation center of our block. At night the
sidewalk was brightly lighted, serving as the
extension of the barbershop's waiting room.
People congregated there to play Chinese
chess, to read the Orient News or just talk. It
was a very informal place. Father and the other
elderly males would go there in shorts and
sando shirts.

"Seven times."

He was playing chess when I got there. He sat

on a stool with one leg raised on the stool.

"You beat me in chess, but I have six children.

All boys. Can you beat that?" he announced.

"Mama says you should go home and eat," I

said.

Father's laughter was very loud. When he had

had a drink he was very talkative.

Father looked at me and I immediately noticed

that he had had a drink. The focus of his eyes
was not straight.

"See this?" he hooked his arm around my waist

and drew me to his side. "This is my youngest.
Can you beat this?"

"What? You're a big cheat and you know that.

Certainly five times, no more!"
It elicited another round of laughter from the
toothless man. Several people in the adjoining
tables joined in the laughter. Father reset the
chess pieces to start another game.

The men laughed. They laughed very hard. I did

not know what was funny, but it must be
because of the incongruous sight of the two of
us. He was very thin and I was very fat.

"A bad stock," the toothless man said, shaking

his head. "Ah Kong has no bones. But Peter is a
bad stock. A pity. After four years, still no son.
Not even a daughter."

"Well, I have I seven children!" the toothless

man said.

"It's the woman, not Peter," said a man from a

neighboring table. "I heard they tried everything.
She even had regular massage by a Bisayan
medicine woman."

"Ah, four daughters. Not counted," Father said.

"Ah Kong! Ah Kong!" somebody said.
The laughter was deafening. Ah Kong lived
several blocks away. He had ten children, all
daughters, and his wife was pregnant again.
They laughed at their communal joke, but the
laughter slowly died down until there was
absolute silence. It was a very curious thing.
Father saw Peter coming around the corner and
he suddenly stopped laughing. The toothless
man turned, saw Peter, and he stopped
laughing, too. Anybody who saw Peter became
instantly quiet so that by the time he was near
the barbershop the group was absolutely silent.
It was Peter who broke the silence by greeting
Father. He also greeted some people, and
suddenly they were alive again. The chess
pieces made scraping noises on the board, the
newspapers rustled, and people began to talk.
"Hoa, Tua Poya, you've grown very tall!" he said,
ruffling my hair.
I smiled shyly at him. He exchanged a few
words with Father and then, ruffling my hair once
more, he went away. It struck me that he was
not the Peter I knew, vigorous and alert. This
Peter looked tired, and his shoulders sagged.
I followed him with my eyes. Down the road I
noted that his car was parked in front of Nanking
Store. But he did not get into his car; instead he
went inside the store. It was one of those nights
when he would sleep in the store.

"It's sad. It's very sad," the toothless man said.

"His parents want him to junk her, but he loves
her."
When Father and I got home, I went to my First
Brother's room.
"Why do they say that Ah Kong has no bones?" I
asked my brother.
"Where did you learn that?" my brother asked.
"At the barbershop."
"Don't listen in on adult talk," he said. "It's bad
manners."
"Well, what does it mean?"
"It means Ah Kong cannot produce a son."
"And what is a bad stock?"
My brother told me to go to sleep, but I
persisted.
"It means you cannot produce any children. It's
like a seed, see? It won't grow. Why do you
ask?" he said.
"They say Peter is a bad stock."
"Well, that's what's going to happen to him if he
won't produce a child. But it's not really Peter's
problem. It is Linda's problem. She had an
appendectomy when she was still single. It could
have affected her."

Somehow I felt responsible for their having no

children. I worried that I could be the cause. I
hoped nobody remembered that I jumped on
their matrimonial bed to give them good luck. I
failed to give them a son. I failed to give them
even a daughter. But nobody really blamed me
for it. Everybody agreed it was Linda's problem.

Later she began to serve customers directly as if

she were one of the salesgirls.
Then her personal maid was fired. Gossip
blamed this on Peter's parents. She lived pretty
much like the three stay-in salesgirls and the
young mestizo driver who cooked their own
meals and washed their own clothes.

That was why Linda had moved in to Santa Ana.

But the problem was more complicated than
this. First Brother explained it all to me patiently.
Peter's father was the sole survivor of the Zhin
family. He had a brother but he died when still
young. The family name was therefore in danger
of dying out. It was the worst thing that could
happen to a Chinese family, for the bloodline to
vanish from the world. Who would pay respects
to the ancestors? It was unthinkable. Peter was
the family's only hope to carry on the family
name, and he still remained childless.
But while everybody agreed that it was Linda's
fault, some people also doubted Peter's virility.
At the New Canton Barbershop it was the
subject of drunken bantering. He was aware that
people were talking behind his back. From a
very gregarious man, he became withdrawn and
no longer socialized.
Instead he put his energies into Nanking Store.
His father had retired and had given him full
authority. Under his management, Nanking Store
expanded, eating up two adjacent doors. It was
rumored he had bought a large chunk of Santa
Ana and was diversifying into manufacturing and
mining.
Once, I met him in the street and I smiled at him
but he did not return my greeting. He did not
ruffle my hair. He had become a very different
man. His mouth was set very hard. He looked
like he was angry at something.
The changes in Linda occurred over a period of
time. At first, she seemed to be in equal
command with Peter in Nanking Store. She had
her own desk and sometimes acted as cashier.

Members of the community whose opinions

mattered began to sympathize with her because
her in-laws were becoming hostile towards her
openly. The mother-in-law made it known to
everybody she was unhappy with her. She
began to scold Linda in public. "That worthless,
barren woman," she would spit out. Linda
became a very jittery person. One time, she
served tea to her mother-in-law and the cup slid
off the saucer. It gave the mother-in-law a
perfect excuse to slap Linda in the face in public.
Peter did not help her when it was a matter
between his parents and herself. I think at that
time he still loved Linda, but he always deferred
to the wishes of his parents. When it was that he
stopped loving her I would not know. But he had
learned to go to night spots and the talk began
that he was dating a Bisayan bar girl. First
Brother saw this woman and had nothing but
contempt for her.
"A bad woman," First brother told me one night
about this woman. "All make-up. I don't know
what he sees in her."
It seemed that Peter did not even try to hide his
affair because he would occasionally bring the
girl to a very expensive restaurant in Matina.
Matina was somewhat far from Santa Ana, but
the rich and mobile young generation Chinese
no longer confined themselves to Santa Ana.
Many of them saw Peter with the woman. As if to
lend credence to the rumor, the occasional night
visits he made at Nanking Store stopped. I
would not see his car parked there at night
again.

One day, Peter brought First Brother to a house

in a subdivision in Mandug where he proudly
showed him a baby boy. It was now an open
secret that he kept his woman there and visited
her frequently. First Brother told me about it after
swearing me to secrecy, the way Peter had
sworn him to secrecy.
"Well, that settles the question. Peter is no bad
stock after all. It had been Linda all along," First
Brother said.
It turned out Peter showed his baby boy to
several other people and made them swear to
keep it a secret. In no time at all everybody in
the community knew he had finally produced a
son. People talked about the scandal in
whispers. A son by a Bisayan woman? And a
bad woman at that? But they no longer joked
about his being a bad stock.
All in all people were happy for Peter. Once
again his prestige rose. Peter basked in this
renewed respect. He regained his old self; he
now walked with his shoulders straight, and
looked openly into people's eyes. He also began
to socialize at New Canton Barbershop. And
whenever we met, he would ruffle my hair.
As for his parents, they acted as if nothing had
happened. Perhaps they knew about the
scandal, but pretended not to know. They were
caught in a dilemma. On one hand, it should
make them happy that Peter finally produced a
son. On the other hand, they did not relish the
idea of having a half-breed for a grandson, the
old generation Chinese being conscious of racial
purity. What was certain though was that they
remained unkind to Linda.
So there came a time when nobody was paying
any attention anymore to Linda, not even Peter.
Our neighbors began to accept her fate. It was
natural for her to get scolded by her mother-inlaw in public. It was natural that she should stay
with the salesgirls and the driver. She no longer
visited with Mother. She rarely went out, and
when she did, she wore a scarf over her head,

as if she were ashamed for people to see her.

Once in the street I greeted her--she looked at
me with panic in her eyes, mumbled something,
drew her scarf down to cover her face, and
hurriedly walked away.
First Brother had told me once that Linda's
degradation was rather a strange case. She was
an educated girl, and although her family was
not rich, it was not poor either. Why she allowed
herself to be treated that way was something
that baffled people. She was not that submissive
before. Once, I was witness to how she stood
her ground. Her mother-in-law had ordered her
to remove a painting of an eagle from a living
room wall of their Bajada house, saying it was
bad feng shui. With great courtesy, Linda
refused, saying it was beautiful. But the motherin-law won in the end. She nagged Peter about
it, and he removed the painting.
When the Bisayan woman gave Peter a second
son, it no longer created a stir in the community.
What created a minor stir was that late one
night, when the New Canton Barbershop was
about to close and there were only a few people
left, Peter dropped by with his eldest son whom
he carried piggyback. First Brother was there.
He said everybody pretended the boy did not
exist.
Then Peter died in a car accident in the
Buhangin Diversion Road. He was returning
from Mandug and a truck rammed his car, killing
him instantly. I cried when I heard about it,
remembering how he had been good to me.
At the wake, Linda took her place two rows
behind her mother-in-law who completely
ignored her. People passed by her and
expressed their condolences very quickly, as if
they were afraid of being seen doing so by the
mother-in-law. At the burial, Linda stood stoically
throughout the ceremony, and when Peter was
finally interred, she swooned.
A few weeks after Peter's burial, we learned that
Linda's mother-in-law wanted her out of Nanking

Store. She offered Linda a tempting amount of

money. People thought it was a vicious thing to
do, but none could help her. It was a purely
family affair. However, a month or two passed
and Linda was still in Nanking Store. In fact,
Linda was now taking over Peter's work.
I was happy to see that she had begun to stir
herself to life. It was ironic that she would do so
only after her husband's death. But at the same
time, we feared for her. Her mother-in-law's
hostility was implacable. She blamed Linda for
everything. She knew about the scandal all
along, and she never forgave Linda for making
Peter the laughing stock of the community,
forcing him into the arms of a Bisayan girl of an
unsavory reputation and producing half-breed
bastard sons.
We waited keenly for the showdown that was
coming. A flurry of emissaries went to Nanking
Store but Linda stood pat on her decision to
stay. Then one morning, her mother-in-law
herself came in her flashy Mercedes. We
learned about what actually happened through
our domestic helper who got her story from the
stay-in salesgirls. That was how the entire
community learned the details of the
confrontation.
According to them, Linda ran upstairs to avoid
talking to her mother-in-law. But the older
woman followed and started berating her and
calling her names. Linda kept her composure.
She did not even retaliate when the older
woman slapped her. But when the mother-in-law
grabbed Linda's hair, intending to drag her down
the stairs, Linda kicked her in the shin. The old
woman went wild and flayed at Linda. Linda at
first fought back defensively, but as the older
woman kept on, she finally slapped her motherin-law hard in the face. Stunned, the older
woman retreated, shouting threats at her. She
never showed her face in Santa Ana again.
While some conservative parties in the
community did not approve of Linda's actions,
many others cheered her secretly. They were

sad, though, that the mother-in-law, otherwise a

good woman, would become a cruel woman out
of desperation to protect and perpetuate the
family name.
Since the enmity had become violent, the break
was now total and absolute. This family quarrel
provided an interesting diversion in the entire
community; we followed each and every twist of
its development like a TV soap opera. When the
in-laws hired a lawyer, Linda also hired her own
lawyer. It was going to be an ugly fight over
property.
Meanwhile, Linda's transformation fascinated
the entire community. She had removed her
scarf and made herself visible in the community
again. I was glad that every time I saw her she
was getting back to her old self. Indeed it was
only then that I noticed how beautiful she was.
She had well-shaped lips that needed no
lipstick. Her eyes sparkled. Color had returned
to her cheeks, accentuating her fine complexion.
Blooming, the women said, seeming to thrive on
the fight to remain in Nanking Store. The young
men sat up whenever she passed by. But they
would shake their heads, and say "What a pity,
she's barren."
Then without warning the in-laws suddenly
moved to Manila, bringing with them the two
bastard sons. They made it known to everybody
that it was to show their contempt for Linda. It
was said that the other woman received a
handsome amount so she would never disturb
them again.
We all thought that was that. For several months
an uneasy peace settled down in Nanking Store
as the struggle shifted to the courts. People
pursued other interests. Then to the utter horror
of the community, they realized Linda was
pregnant.
Like most people, I thought at first that she was
just getting fat. But everyday it was getting
obvious that her body was growing. People had
mixed reactions. When she could not bear a

child she was a disgrace. Now that she was

pregnant, she was still a disgrace. But she did
not care about what people thought or said
about her. Wearing a pair of elastic pants that
highlighted her swollen belly, she walked all over
Santa Ana. She dropped by every store on our
block and chatted with the storeowners, as if to
make sure that everybody knew she was
pregnant.

"Twelve," I said.

There was no other suspect for her condition but

the driver. Nobody had ever paid him any
attention before, and now they watched him
closely. He was a shy mestizo about Peter's
age. A very dependable fellow, yes. And goodlooking, they now grudgingly admitted.

"Tomorrow, I'm going to Iligan to fetch Oliver.

Then we'll proceed to Cebu to visit my parents.
Would you like to go with me?"

"Naughty, naughty," the young men teased him,

some of whom turned unfriendly. Unused to
attention, the driver went on leave to visit his
parents in Iligan City.

"So tall," she said.

One night, I arrived home to find Linda talking

with Mother.
"Hoa, Tua Poya! You're so tall!" she greeted me.
"Here are some oranges. I know you like them."
I said my thanks. How heavy with child she was!
"How old are you now?"

"Hmm, you're a man already. I should start

calling you Napoleon, huh? Well, Napoleon, I've
come here to say goodbye to your mother, and
to you, too."
She smiled; it was the smile I remembered when
I was still very young, the smile of my childhood.

I looked at Mother. She was teary eyed. Linda

stood up and ruffled my hair.

That was two years ago. We have not heard

from Linda again. Nanking Store remains
closed. The store sign has streaked into pastel
colors like a stale wedding cake. First Brother
says it is best for Linda to stay away. As for me, I
am happy for her but I keep wondering if she
had given birth to a boy.

1999 by Macario D. Tiu