Preludes

By Daryll
Delgado A man died singing. He had sung a total of three songs before he heaved
his lastbreath and collaps"d o.r u chair. It happened at the Municipal Hall. The time
was three in theafternoon-. The sun was high. Heat seeped into people's bones.
Tuba warned their blood evenmore. Someone's ninth death anniversary was being
celebrated. Another man's life in that partyended. It ended on a high note. At that
very moment, Nenita the wife, was at home, picking leaves for
a medicinal brew. Earlierthat day, Nenita had been lying on the sofa, slipping in
and out of an afternoon sleep she shouldnot have heeded, embracing Willy
Revillame in her dreams. She had had n-o plans of taking anap. She had just wanted
to catch a glimpse of Willy after she sent off her grandson for the city, just
before she resumed her cooking. At the sala, she opened the window to let
some breeze in. But the air was so dry. Outside it wasvery quiet. Everyone
was at the Hall, to attend the ninth death anniversary of the juez. Most ofthem bore
the judge a grudge, but they were all there anyway, eager to see what kind of feasthis
children had prepared. The children had all come home from America and Europe for
thisvery important occasion in the dead man's journey. Nenita herself did not mind the
judge really,even if she had always found him rather severe. It was the wife whom
Nenita did not feel verycomfortable with. There had been some very persistent
rumors involving the judge's wife thatNenita did not care so much for. As soon
as Nenita was certain that her grandson had left, she positioned the electric
fan in frontof her, sat on the sof4 and turned on the TV to catch the last segment of
her favorite show. Thenext thing she knew, Willy Revillame was pulling her into his
arms, soothing her with words ofcondolences, before handing her some cash and
offering his left cheek for a kiss. There was ahuge applause from the studio audience,
even if they were all weeping with Willie, shaking theirheads in amazement.Nenita
forced herself out of the dream and the motion brought her entire body up and out of
thesofa. She found herself standing in the middle of the sala, face-to-face with a teary-
eyed Willy.Her heart was beating wildly. Her armpits were soaked in sweat. Her hair
bun had comeundone. She looked around guiltily, she thought she heard her
husband swear at her. She felther husband's presence in the living room with her,
even if she knew he was at the deathanniversary parry. She quickly turned off the TV
and made her way to the kitchen.She should not have taken that nap, Nenita berated
herself. There was an urgent order for tendozens of suman she had to deliver the
next day, for the judge's daughters who were leavingright after the anniversary. There
was already a pile of pandan leaves on the kitchen table,waiting to be washed and
warmed, for wrapping the sweet sticky rice rolls with.She had spent all night until early
morning boiling the sticky rice and mixing it with anise,caramel and coconut milk, until
her hands trembled and the veins swelled. By the time she wasalmost done, she had
to prepare breakfast and brew a special tea concoction for her grandsonwho had
spent all night drinking. Her grandson had very barely made it home-drunk as a
fish,crying out a woman's name like a fool
—
early that morning.
Nenita then remembered that she also had to prepare the medicinal tea her husband
needed totake with his dinner. She had yet to complete the five different kinds of
leaves, Ampalaya,Banaba, Bnyabas, Dumero, Hierba Buena; the last one she
purchases from a man who onlycomes to town on Thursdays. She was getting ready
to pick Ampalaya and Bayabas leavesfrom her garden when she heard her
husband's voice again his singing voice. She realized thatthe sound was coming all
the way from the Hall. The sound was very faint, but more thanperceptible, and
certainly unmistakable to her.It was the only sound she could hear when she stepped
out of the house and started picking theleaves. Everything else around her was quiet
and still .It seemed as though the entire town-thedogs, the frogs, and the birds
included-had gone silent for this very rare event her husbandsinging again.She had
not heard her husband sing this way in a very long time, ever since he became ill-
whenthe sugar and alcohol in his blood burned the sides of his heart, almost getting to
the core of it.Since there he would get out of breath when he sang. And he also easily
forgot the lyrics,especially to the Italian classics, and some of the Tagalog Kundiman
he used to be very wellknown for.Nenita herself never understood all the fuss about
her husband's singing, and the fuss hisbrothers and sisters made when he stopped
singing. She could not even understand half of thesongs he sang. They were mostly
in ltalian; Spanish, and Tagalog. He rarely sang Bisayasongs, the ones she could
understand, and actually liked, even if she herself could not carry atune to save her
life. Thankfully, their grandson was there to indulge her husband in music talk.She
was happier listening to the two of them talk and sing, and strum guitar strings, from
thekitchen.She used to feel slighted whenever her siblings-in-law recalled with such
intense, exaggeratedregret, the way their brilliant brother squandered his money and
his talent and oh, all the wrongdecisions he made along the way. Including, though
they would never say directly, his decisionto marry Nenita. They liked to remind their
brothel, themselves, and anyone who cared to listen,of what their brother used to be
what he could have been, whom he could have been married to.Nenita ceased to
mind this, and them, a long time ago. She had forgiven all of them. They wereall dead
now save for one brother who lived in the city. She never stopped praying for
theirsouls, but she was not very sorry that they died.Nenita knew that her husband
was happy the way he was. She never heard him complain. Hehad nothing to
complain about. She took him back every time his affairs with other womenturned
sour. She took care of him when he started getting sick, when the part of his heart
thatwas supposed to beat started merely murmuring and whistling. Thankfully, her
friend, theherbalista, had just the right concoction for this ailment. Even the doctors
were delighted withher husband's progress.Nenita took her husband back again
when, with the money her in-laws sent for his medicationhe went away to be with one
of his women. People say her husband went to Manila with the judge's widow.
Nenita never confirmed this. Nenita never asked- She just took
her husbandback. Nursed him back to health again. After that, tough, Nenita noticed
that he spent more andmore time alone, in the toilet. And when she asked if he
needed help with anything, he would just mumble incoherently. So she let him
be.
She could have prepared him then that other brew her herbalista friend had
suggested at thetime, the one that would make his balls shrink, give him
hallucinations, make his blood boil untilhis veins popped. But she didn't, of course.She
did buy and continued to keep the packet of dried purple leaves said to be from a rare
vinefound only in Mt. Banahaw. She didn't even know where Mt. Banahaw was, only
that it was upthere in the North. She did know that she would never use the herbs,
even if she wanted tokeep, see, touch, and feel the soft lump of leaves in her palm,
every now and then. She derivedsome sense of security, a very calming sense of
power, in knowing that she had that littlepacket hidden in one of the kitchen
drawers.She listened more closely to her husband's singing. She closed her eyes
and trapped herbreath in her throat, the way she did when she listened to the beats
and murmurs of herhusband's heart at night. Listening to the air that carried her
husband's voice this way, shealmost caught the sound of his labored breathing, and
his heart's irregular beating.He was singing a popular Spanish song now about
kissing someone for the last time. Nenitaremembered being told by her husband that
that was what it was about. Kiss me more, kiss memore, that was what the man
wanted to tell the woman he loved. Nenita found that she couldenjoy this one; the
song was recognizable. She laughed lightly as she found herself swaying inslow,
heavy movements, to the music of her husband's voice.She started imagining herself
as a young woman, dancing with this beautiful dark man whoeventually became her
husband. And then she heard him choke, heave a breath before hesang: Perderte.
Long pause. Perderte. Another Pause. Despises. And then there was applause,in
which Nenita joined, still laughing at her silliness. After that, all was quiet
again.Nenita gathered the leaves and went back inside the house. Just as well,
because it wasstarting to be very, intolerably, hot outside. Certainly hot enough to boil
an old man's blood andpop his veins, she thought