1 I don't expect your benevolence.
I have
A BLANK BLUE sky shimmers outside your
window. The white lace curtain is pushed to the
side to make way for the Ocean breeze. The
smell of it feels clean and crisp. The radio is
turned down, but I can still hear the news. A
storm is coming in two days, but there's no sign
of that right now. I can hear the ocean from far
below pummeling sand and rocks with
consistent frenzy. I have never known it to be
calm in the first place. Outside is an image you
can find in any still life painting. Meadows on
top of each other with yellow-green grass.
Water buffalos and cows chewing and flicking
their tails in companionable silence. They chew
as if they knew there is nothing else they're
meant to do. The white lighthouse all the way
across to Sabtang Island looks so small from
where l'm sitting, I could fit it between my
thumb and forefinger. It's a wisp of smoke from
this angle, undulating under the midmorning
Light. A few meters from the window is the
garden with its white metal chairs and frame of
orchids. Across the garden is the stone road
leading to town. On the other side of the road is
yet another cliff. Ferdinand is standing on this
cliff, his tall frame wrapped in a black coat,
double-breasted with oversized buttons and
lapels. More appropriate for winter than for a
cool breeze. His hands are shoved into the
pockets, the hoodie draped loosely over his
head. He's looking down at the ocean, auburn
hair nearly covering his eyes. He needs a
haircut. Sometimes, I pretend that l'm really
here for a holiday to write beside the ocean
with nothing but the indulgence of time. But
you are here, and your presence weighs like a
boulder on the otherwise bland whiteness of
this room. I would stare at the trees in the
garden, but I could still see your blanketed form
from the corner of my eye like a specter with an
outstretched hand.
returned to face your judgment like a runaway
child slinking back into her parents' house
house and entering through the second-floor
window. At night, I listen to the whoosh of the
wind swooping outside, rattling against metal
gates and thatched roofs. | watch the shadows
of trees shake, casting dark blotches across my
bed. l imagine them assuming your form. The
branches become your hands digging its way
beneath my In daytime, I look at you under the
benediction of sunlight. Once I was beside the
window and I thought you move your head. I
spun around, but your eyes were still closed;
your face was a field over which morning was
spreading itself. The soft lines across your
forehead looked like little streams. I rubbed my
eyes, squinted back at the sun, and drank a
glass of water. saw sheets, breaking into skin
and veins and a lurching heart.
I feel my heart tiptoeing up endless creaking
stairs. It will be caught any moment now.
SOMETIMES, I WANT to shake you into
consciousness.| want to tell you everything in
one breath and then run away as fast as I can to
the end of this island. l'd even walk on water
just to keep going, but I am ye of little faith. So
here I remain by the shorelines, staring out into
the ocean. | envy its writhing, the self-
assuredness in which it sweeps itself acrosS
Such an expanse. It must be doing all the
screaming for the entire world. Afterward, I
would go back to your room, properly chastised
and licked cold by the wind, returning to the
solace of writing by your window. With these
flimsy words, I seek to reconstruct the juncture
where all our lives met. Ghosts, cobwebs, sickly
metaphors. I take them out and line them alL,
turn them this way and that, and wonder how
such wispy things can hold up an entire decade
of recollection.
I would delete pages because I would imagine
you reading them. I'm afraid that you would
laugh when would be serious or you would cry
when I would be trying to cheer you up. I have
such lousy timing. Remember how it was when
we played the piano? You would tell me, count
in your head. Feel the beat. Analyze the meter.
And I would close my eyes and try to feel the
force and end up being too fast or skipping a
rest, lunging at the nearest note like a snapping
turtle. You would circle the rest on the music
sheet with a pencil. "Next time, ha? Next time,"
you'd say.
There was never enough time. What I'm not
prepared for is for you to wake up and not
remember me at all. Or for you to open your
eyes and all | would see is contempt, because
maybe you have figured everything out by now.
Maybe time has told you all secrets. So when
my throat tightens and my Words disembowel
themselves, Would look out the window and
watch Ferdinand sit by the cliff. He told me the
churning of the ocean comforts him. He looks
like a shadow with that coat. I can imagine him
falling off. An accident, a little slip. Isn't life
sometimes made up of accidents? Or
serendipity. People prefer that word. One
stumble and Ferdinand would be gone. And I
won't be here, and you won't have to wake up.
Sometimes, I look at the mirror and wonder
who this woman is. IN THIS COUNTRY, the
turning point in people's lives mostly involves a
natural calamity: storms, floods, volcanic
eruptions. Mine was an earthquake. When you
live on an island, you are aware of fragility and
smallness. God has a habit of concocting a
grand show for the benefit of one human.
That's what I remembered from Sunday School.
God has impeccable showmanship--the parting
of the Red Sea, the Pillar of Fire, the visions of
Throne Rooms and Abominable
Creaturesall these are characteristics of his
nature for flourish. If you get to be the most
powerful Being to exist, it is necessary to
unleash that power with style; enough to put
the humans in line, enough to show them that
they control nothing with their rockets. Theirs is
an open window of a planet, susceptible to
meteor passersby, and only the kindness of a
Greater Being prevents them from
disintegrating. I
Suppose this is why God can afford to feel sorry
for such small creatures; these creatures so
easily swept away by famine and tsunamis and
yet have the temerity-no, the lunacy-to step on
the moon. It must be heartbreaking to be God;
to know all these mortals, to see so far ahead
what becomes of them, of those dreams, of
their inherent sadness as species. This is how I
visualized my fate unfolding: God sent an
earthquake to bring me to another country. It
was the trigger button that ended with you
lying on that bed. But then again, maybe I think
too much of it. Maybe he sent an earthquake to
remind us once again how the great mysteries
of this earth are beyond our reckoning. The
reasons don't matter. We could only agree that
it was an ominous start. Before the great '90
earthquake came, I lived in the Philippines my
whole life; in Manila, in an old wooden house.
The day l was born was the day I Lost my
mother. Sure, she went home with me and
spent the week staring at the bedroom
windows. She would have appreciated billowing
curtains, but we had blinds instead. And then
she left. She was only 20 years old and was no
beauty queen based on a faded photograph.
She didn't name me, Dad did. He called me
Crisanta, in a fanciful effort to prophesy my
martyrdom. Because my mother clearly was not
eligible for it. Aunt Ramona swore though that
my mother had the voice that could snatch a
soul from hell and into the whipped cream
bosom of angels. She was a member of the
church choir, and that's where she and Dad
met. The alto and the tenor. It was a musical
love affair, which fooled them into thinking that
they could hum and Sway their way into a
blissful life. They were too young to understand
the gravity of marriages. They believed the
lilting melodies of kundimans, which are only
two minutes long, three if you're lucky, but
must have sounded eternal to those dew-
drenched hearts.
My mother took one look at me and decided
that she wasn't ready for this. She didn't expect
it to be so hard when she started giving birth in
the middle of the night and was still giving birth
by dinnertime. I was breech at the last minute.
Or as Aunt Ramnona would say, I was tending a
little potato garden in my mother's womb and
was waiting for it to grow at all cost. They had
to perform an emergency C-section. a water
buffalo for 20 hours just so Come to think of it,
if I had to labor like that they could cut me up at
night, I would run away too. There was no note,
no last caress, no hauling of luggage while Dad
pleaded with her by the porch. He woke up and
she...was just not there.
I know I could have asked him why she'd gone.
Was she dying of an illness, was she going off to
another country, was she secretly married to
another man? The theories evolved as I grew
older. I asked him once but it was under duress,
and that didn't end well. | never asked again. I
grew up watching Dad stare outside windows or
fiddle with his wedding ring that he never took
off. | knew then that it didn't matter why she
left. saw her picture, which remains there to
this very day, on his bedside table. Torment isa
universal fire and when I had enough
experience of the varying depths of its scorches,
I could acknowledge its presence in my father's
eyes.
There wasn't any woman in my Life until |
turned three and then Dad's sister came to live
with us. The way Aunt Ramona took care of me
and loved me and exasperated me, she acted
like she was the one who got cut up so l could
live. I grew up quite your ordinary child, the
kind who bought small spiders from street
vendors to enter them in Spider Combats. Every
three in the afternoon, right after Aunt Ramona
would fall asleep from trying to persuade me to
take my naps, Would sneak out of Our window
and join the Insect Mafia. We owned that
neighborhood, the ten or so of us. We'd do
whatever we deemed was amusing such as the
aforementioned spider fights, climbing
precarious trees, and riding car tires down the
street straight to the gutter. Broken teeth and
scraped skin were our source of pride.
At night, I would go home to my pets, a set of
mother and two ducklings dyed pink. They were
the saddest, most displaced creatures on the
planet at that time, wading around a small basin
of water and shedding pink feathers. After an
entire day of pulling wings from dragonflies and
pouring salt on unsuspecting snails, watching
Mother Duck preen her offspring was a return
to tenderness. It was quite a big house which
Dad inherited. He was born in it and he spent
most of his childhood playing in the backyard.
He liked constructing little worlds on a tin can: a
patch of moss to resemble grass, twigs for
trees, small animal toys, which came with the
cereal, for fauna. | tried to imagine that solitary
boy with his shorts and grimy shirt. He didn't
look like the type who would tie a thread
around a dragonfly and tug it around like a kite.
I asked him if he sang to birds and other
woodland creatures. Did they gather around
him to dance under the pale moon? He shook
his head, told me I had a creepy imagination.
Our house had two floors. Made
from Cedars of Lebanon, Dad said while rapping
on the walls. I didn't understand the joke until
we got to The Psalms in Sunday School. That
was one of the reasons why I resolved to read
the entire Bible. I just couldn't let Dad have the
monopoly of Biblical allusions.
The house had huge windows that didn't have
rails or screens as most houses have now. It was
the kind of window that you could jump from if
you want to knock yourself out or to injure
yourself long enough to get out of school for a
week. My favorite was the one facing the
backyard, right across the gnarled mango tree.
That tree was so old you'd think that one kick
was all it would take to send it crumbling to the
ground. Aunt Ramona told me that a kapre who
lived in it fell in love with her when she was in
her 30s. | wasn't well-versed with folklore back
then so the first thing | imagined was a
tikbalang and not a kapre.
"Tsk! It's a kapre!" Aunt Ramona said. "| saw
him smoking his tobacco once. l wouldn't have
seen him if it wasn't for the smoke coming out
of his mouth. He was filthy, that one. So dark.
Just like in the books."
"How'd you know he was in love with you?" "He
left mangoes in the refrigerator."
"What? In the ref?" That's how they woo
humans. By putting food in the ref."
"How'd you know it wasn't Dad who put them
there?" Aunt Ramona was chopping potatoes at
warp speed on the kitchen counter. "Don't
arque with me, child!" She turned around,
waving her knife. "I know what's in there all the
time. Those are mangoes from his tree."
"Then what happened?" "Of course, I rejected
him! He's a maligno for heaven's sake." "Where
is it now?" She shrugged. "Must be in another
tree in another city. God knows where these
things go."
Dad later told mne that Aunt Ramona was
engaged to a young mustached lawyer when
she still wasn't "bigboned" and had long, wavy
hair. But she found out that he was sleeping
around with tWo other women. She Wouldn't
have minded that much if one of them wasn't
her best friend. It sOunded like a story from
those Dr. Love programs you hear on the radio,
complete with soundtrack. If you ask me, our
house was really made of books, not Cedars of
Lebanon. Books everywhere. Dad never threw
one out and let the books disintegrate by
themselves. Law books that belonged to my
grandfather, C.S. Lewis from my grandmother.
Outdated encyclopedias, yellowing dictionaries.
Books in every room, spilling from shelves or
lodged behind doors and cabinets. Under beds.
Sherlock Holmes in a box in the basement.
Hobbits and dwarves in kitchen
cupboards. It became a little game for me to go
from one room to another and search for
books, pretending that I was a pirate looking for
maps that Would lead me to Treasure lsland.
Our house was in the middle of what was
considered ar unpredictable neighborhood. The
street was lined with medium-sized houses,
cozy solid, painted with pastel colors. It was a
quasi-subdivision with no proper garages.
People parked their cars on the street and
threw fabric car covers over them. Like that
would discourage the thieves. The street was
bookended by two squatter communities. Once
a year, the mayor would send bulldozers and a
truckload of men with vests, sticks, and tear gas
to remind the legal residents that he still cared
about the city's problems. But the Squatters
would lie down in front of their shanties, kicking
at anyone who attempted to move them,
throwing anything they could get their hands
on-slippers, firewood, galvanized iron, their
children.
Sometimes the men in vests would win and the
houses would be razed to the ground. I could
hear the sobbing from my bedroom window on
the second floor. I thought of my playmates;
their similar-looking faces, angular and bony,
their hands and feet that never seemed to be
clean, the ease in which they give and receive
violence. I wondered if their mothers were
clutching them to their chests along with what
was left of their possessions. But after a month
or so, they would reappear like mushrooms or
grass. I'd see their familiar faces, although I
never bothered to know most of their names.
That's how we coexisted in the neighborhood. If
you could wade through the congregation of
barefooted children, past the women doing
laundry by the gutter and the men drinking
watered-down rum, you'll reach our relatively
quiet abode. Dad didn't forbid me to play with
the children who would gather round the large
acacia tree near our house. Aunt Ramona used
to hang out by our white gate to ensure that |
wasn't being "mauled." She saw street kids as
knife-wielding, solvent-sniffing hoodlums, but
my playmates were scrawny. | could have
huffed and puffed and blown them down the
street, easy. But we learned to watch our back,
nonetheless. At noon, our school bus la van
really, but they painted "School Bus" on its
sides) would sometimes swerve away from a
stone thrown out with a slew of curse words
from a window. We also had our resident stray
dogs, which had formed a pack of their own.
They would huddle in a corner, a display of
spotted brown, black and white creatures,
limping from broken legs and ribs jutting out,
nearly resembling the wild dogs of Africa. But
they never harmed us when we passed them by
in a rough rush of childhood. All they ever did
was defecate and then crawl back to their
respective corners,chests heaving with
exhaustion. They died one by one and we, well,
we grew up.
They said that after the War, our barangay
became a cemetery for some of the civilians
that the Japanese massacred in the wake of
their mad exit from the island. A road of
unmarked graves. Soon, houses were built, new
roads were made, and the cemetery was buried
deeper to make way for the living. The dogs
would howl at night and Aunt Ramona would
tell me to come home by six in the evening,
because she said ghosts wer about to rise. But
sometimes we stayed up late to play patintero
especially if the moon was bright. We figured
no ghost would attempt to scare kids who
mutilated insects for fun. But we were wrong.
We were playing under a full moon that time,
the most conducive for these kinds of
encounters. It kept hiding behind clouds,
reappearing once in a while to cast a dull light.
Isabel, who
lived right next to my house, complained that
she could barely see the chalk marks and called
a time-out so we could reapply the lines. When
we got back to our positions, the moon had
vanished, drowned behind the clouds. For a
minute, all we could see were each other's
silhouettes. When the moon came out, a boy
was standing at the end of the farthest line
from Us.
"Totoy! Come here!" Isabel yelled at her
younger brother.
Silence.
"Want me to beat you up?" The boy stood as
still as the acacia tree.
Isabel dashed toward him, hands clenched. But
just then, someone emerged from the side of
the road with a sheepish grin. It was Totoy. He
just finished peeing on Aling Gloria's santan
bush. We all turned back to the dark fiqure, but
all we saw was lsabel staring at the empty spot,
her fisted hands now open and slack, her mouth
agape. She wouldn't come out of their house
for a long time after that. She would peer from
their gate, but would shake her head whenever
we invited her to join us. Her mother said that
for months after the encounter, she would find
Isabel sitting up on her bed at night mumbling
in the dark. One afternoon, Isabel walked past
the mirror hanging beside their living room
window, caught her reflection, and gave a
Scream. We all heard her from where we were
crouching around the acacia tree to pour water
on an anthill. Isabel's mother ran to her side
and found the child yelling that she was covered
in blood, could somebody please take away all
the blood. Aunt Ramona said that lsabel
probably sawa doppelganger, maybe one of the
kids who were bayoneted during the War.
Father Tomas, the parish priest, at the behest of
the residents, came to sprinkle holy water on
our street. Some came out to kiss his hand
and receive his blessing. He sprinkled holy
water at the gates, too. Dad and I were
Protestants, but we went outside to watch him
read out lines fromn a little red book and pray.
He stopped when he reached
"Julian," he said.
Dad nodded. "I hope all's well with your
house?" Dad nodded again. Father Tomas's dark
hair was plastered to his head as if it were
airbrushed on him. He had an approachable
face, deeply tanned but with light brown eyes.
They were the only part that looked out of
place on his face. He looked like he was Dad's
age. Father Tomas was about to speak again
when he finally noticed me and fell silent, his
eyes lingering on me. Dad turned away and
gently steered me back toward the house. It
was years and years later, when Dad was on his
deathbed and Aunt Ramona had to go out of his
room sobbing, that Dad told me about Father
Tomas. About a friendship. About my mother
walking out of the house and melting into the
night (or early morning); why she left without
barely glancing at my face. My mind made a fast
rewind to certain occurrences that used to
baffle me; the whispering among the elderly
ladies in the church that would quiet down
whenever Dad and I walked by, the softening
glances bestowed upon me by the old women
at the sari-sari store, Dad's resolute face as he
held my hand. I wanted to be angry with him
then for withholding this piece of history from
me, for making me guess my whole life when he
could have easily answered all my questions.
But I think I understand him now.
2
I MUST HAVE told you this when I first came to
your house. Dad made me choose between
piano lessons and ballet lessons. He was so
middleclass. He probably thought that if all
things failed, at least I could peddle my artistic
wares on the streets. I appreciate what he did, I
really do, but I wouldn't be so crazy as to
encourage my kids to be artists. They'd look
impressive and be quite a delight as long as
they're talented, but that's a hard road. That
road can nourish a man's Soul one minute and
then ax-murder it the next.
The idea of me wearing a tutu was just too
unbearable to even imagine, So I went ahead
and cast my lot with the pianists. I was
surprisingly not bad, maybe because I was quite
amused with my first piano book. lt showed
little chicks hatching every time a note was
introduced. "Hi, I'm Do!" a chick would say, with
an eggshell still on its head. And then Re
would hatch and so on. I liked seeing the notes
emerge from their little shells. | was qlad that
Do was no longer alone. I had lessons with Mrs.
Gonzaga, who also moonlighted as church choir
director. She was a tough one. She didn't go as
low as those teachers who struck their students'
fingers with a wooden ruler. But the contempt
in her eyes every time I botched a measure is
equivalent to a hundred rulers descending upon
my head. Sometimes, she would walk out. I
thought I was so bad that she couldn't take it
anymore, but then I peered outside our window
and saw her smoking near the clump of
bamboos. I suppose she took my mistakes as
cigarette breaks. I was never good enough for
Mrs. Gonzaga even when I thought I really
nailed a waltz. There was always a comment; I
didn't have enough feelings, or I had bad
posture, or l was too fast, too slow, too
moderate. I wanted to tell her, what does that
say about
you O Teacher of Mine? Why can't you fix me?
But then I guess she would have really used the
ruler on me then. I told Dad one day that I
wanted to quit. He was reading a newspaper on
the rocking chair by the stairs. He folded it away
when I approached him. "Why?" he said.
"I don't like her." "You don't like her or you
don't like playing anymore?" I stepped on the
chair's base, attempting to make it swing. Dad
put his foot down. I shrugged. "Maybe both?"
He peered at me as if he were seeing another
child.
"She smokes by the bamboo," I said after he
just kept peering at me. He shook his head.
"That's not your concern, what she does with
her
lungs."
"But Pastor Ryan said that..." I
trailed off when deep indentations started to
appear on his forehead, a sure sign of danger.
He sighed.
"Listen, Crisanta, life is too short to do
something you don't want to do, but making
emotions your basis for decisions? That's the
worst. You can end up doing all sorts of crazy
things. Things that would make you want to
tear your eyes out from shame every time you
remember them. So how about we make a
deal? No more piano lessons with Mrs.
Gonzaga. No more piano lessons at all, if that's
what you want. But one day if you want to try
again, you can always tell me, all right?"
He picked up his newspaper held it up to his
face again. "And don't believe everything you
hear in church." You never question the wisdom
of parents. Okay, maybe you do; you have to.
They're more liable to lead you along the wide
road to ruination than the next person. They
carry with them the weight of more years and
may act as if the regrets of their own damaged
Lives are your inheritance. But I did tell him
after I heard you play that maybe |wanted to
try again. Dad and | settled into our respective
roles. He took me to piano recitals and school
plays and field trips. He became the Dad who
would take his kid with him on errands and
allow her to ride supermarket carts. He was the
parent who pinned ribbons on my dress at
commencement exercises and the one who got
called to the principal's office. He once stopped
an escalating and deadly street brawl. The other
girl and I were locked in hair-pulling combat
with our own fair share of foul-mouthed
supporters.
When he was able to disentangle us, he shook
his head at me. Be the kid who walks away from
fights, he said. Be the last good kid on the
planet when I was 12 and publicly humiliated
and missing clumps of hair. I looked at him and
said, "Where's my mother? If | were good
would she show up?" Dad was clutching my arm
and we were frozen in that tableau for a long
time, needed. or at least it seemed to me. The
group of playmates had slowly dispersed by
then, tiptoeing around us as if we had strapped
bombs on our chests. Dad released me and
walked back to the house. | sat on the sidewalk
and only went home when Aunt Ramona called
me in for dinner. I got over my mother's
absence the way one gets over a missing
favorite doll. When your father consoles you by
saying that maybe Dolly went to Hollywood to
become a movie Doll, you accept it in your
young mind. Of course, Dolly went to
Hollywood. She was a free spirit, that Dolly, and
she belonged entirely to hers
I MUST ADMIT I wasn't an easy child. I might
have driven Dad up the wall a couple of times.
And in the gloom of his bedroom, he must have
deliberated for years how he was going to
figure me out. wasn't trying to be difficult. I just
came out that way. But between the two of us, I
thought he was the more difficult one, honestly.
One time, he locked me out of the house. The
wind was staging a high-pitched concert in our
backyard, right beside the bamboo. With the
near complete darkness and the creaking of a
thousand bamboos and the wind and the
howling of stray dogs right outside our gate, it
was a night designed to frighten twelve-year-
old. Death
would have been a welcomed companion. But
there was no one, except for my four-year-old
dog, Princess, who was named thus not for
beauty or elegance but because l'd always
wanted a princess fora dog. I never did figure
out her breed. She looked too complex to be
anything but stray. Good old Princess didn't join
the chorus of sinister hounds and lay beside me
as I sat on her mat just outside the front door.
She put her black-and-white head on my lap. I
told her she was my only friend and she looked
at me A few hours earlier, | was in the barangay
fair, gambling away my steadily.
allowance, tossing 25 cents on square boards. I
won a can of Minola Cooking Oil and imagined
how responsible I'd look if I brought it home to
Dad. I lost track of time, and hence the trouble I
was in. | came home to a darkened porch and
Dad's voice from the front window telling me
that "no one is home," and "proper young
ladies don't come home at midnight," and other
variations of such. I pleaded with him and
showed the cooking oil, but he only looked at
me as if I was a random street child looking for
shelter. "You can't leave me out here all night!
If a manananggal eats me, you'd be sorry!" He
scoffed. "Your cooking oil might come in
handy." And so | found myself waving
mosquitos away and stroking Princess's snout
until two in the morning. Determined to show
Dad that proper young ladies don't sob by the
doorstep either, I reined in the tears of
frustration that threatened to spill from my
eyes every hour. I thought that I would really
make him sorry, that I would run away to the
country fair and audition in that freak show act
where a man ate a chicken whole. I could be the
assistant who would give him his daily dose of
live poultry. And we would live a very eccentric
but artistic life. The door creaked open and the
porch light turned on. Princess shot up and
wagged her tail, whining softly as soon as she
saw Dad's face. She jumped up at him and put
her front paws on his knees. So much for an
only friend, that dog, what a regular canine
traitor. Dad petted Princess's head and told me
to go to my room. I held my head high and went
inside before he changed his mind. My legs
were riddled with mosquito bites and my hair
was sticky from all the running around and
riding on bumper cars and merry-go-rounds.
But I could not possibly go out of my room after
I delivered that very dramatic door slamming.
So, I spent the rest of the
night scratching my legs and head until pure
exhaustion took over. In the morning, I went to
the breakfast table hungrier than a castaway.
Instead of Aunt Ramona, Dad was the one
frying the eggs. By the kitchen counter, my
cooking oil's lid was pried open, the edge
catching a sharp glint of sunlight. I don't believe
either of us ever said sorry. I mean, I don't
expect parents to ever apologize at any rate.
That would be relinquishing power, that's
almost like an invitation to be treated as an
equal by their children, which| don't think any
parent could properly afford. But now | look
back at that Scene with fondness, realizing just
how lousy we are at expressing love, even more
when it's to our own flesh and blood.
Our hearts are too much of a treasure and a
burden that we can't bear to entrust it even to
them. When I held Dad's hand on his last day on
earth, that's when I felt it the most. ALL that
unspoken love. I realized what a bright and
powerful thing it
was, and how it had rooted itself in my Life that
it became the walls and roof of my existence.
Dad loved for two, after all. I barely noticed how
he had propped me up until he faded away in
that hospital bed. That's when I started to feel
wobbly, as if I was just learning to walk and the
hands that were keeping me upright suddenly
let go.
I don't even remember the last thing we ever
told each other. No one really takes out a
notepad to write down last words. They just
come out, and they could be the most
ridiculous things like "don't forget to water the
orchids," or life-affirming, "Tm proud of you."
But they are never enough; poor substitutes,
frail method of farewell. By the time they are
uttered and have left a hollow trail, you have
already forgotten because grief swoops down
with its heavy cape, smashes through windows
and makes a Somersault against the walls. Grief
takes everything, even the words left unsaid.
| WAS EXACTLY fourteen years and one week
old when the earthquake happened. I
remember because I bled on my birthday and
walked out of the bathroom, pale and
trembling, but resigned to the fact that maybe
Death had come for me. Aunt Ramona assured
me as I stared at my stained shorts that it was
no big deal. I just became a woman, that's all. I
wasted a lot of time staring at my face in the
mirror, trying to see if I was losing the softness
around my jawline and if my cheekbones would
suddenly emerge from the surrounding flesh.
But | looked the same: small oval-shaped head,
button nose that Aunt Ramona used to pinch on
the bridge when I was a toddler in an effort to
elevate it to better heights. Wide brown eyes,
mouth with a thinner upper lip. Where is the
woman in all of that? After concluding that
becoming a woman was no different from being
a girl, | rejoined my playmates after hiding in
the house for a week.
Aunt Ramona was sleeping on the sofa when |
rushed into the house bright-eyed and streaked
with dirt from playing Chinese garter. I
wasscreaming because telephone poles were
falling left and right, and cracks had started to
appear on the road. But she needed to be
shaken to wake up.
"Auntie! Rapture has come!"
"Wha-?" -you know, the one they say in church.
The world dies and the Lord comes back to take
home the faithful few?"
"Don't say that, child! We're still here!"
She grabbed me and we stumbled our way
outside amidst the shaking of the entire island.
We joined the throng of people who had
forgotten the stoning of their husbands and
were now clutching their children whom they
would normally berate for being out so late. It
was the first time that I truly experienced the
great equalizer that is a natural disaster. We
suddenly love our loved ones only when the
earth is threatening to swallow them whole.
Aunt Ramona was praying under her breath.
"Where's your dad? | hope he's okay."
Dad was a doctor, but he was not a doctor with
a permanent clinic and all that. He was a social
worker and community developer, and
sometimes he taught at universities. I never did
really figure out what he did. Most of the time, I
just told my classmates that my dad was out
patching up the planet. But at that moment, the
world was threatening to break apart and he
was nowhere to be found. The ground calmed
down and everyone was as fidgety as animals
around a waterhole. And then the shaking
began anew. "Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be Thy name..." Aunt Ramona
whispered again. "...give us this day Our daily
bread-"
"-Auntie, we're not eating!"
"Don't scream, you'll break my nerves!"
The ground rumbled a sound that seemed to
come from Earth's very core and we all thought
that this was it, the island's last gasp before it
collapsed into the ocean. But the cement road
pulled itself together with mighty shudder and
then everything stood still.
"Wooho0, grabe!" a young man shouted, taking
a swig from his beer Everyone sagged against
each other in relief; our houses didn't collapse
entirely, a fire didn't break out. We walked
down the splintered roads like people returning
from exile. Aunt Ramona and I went inside our
house only to find everything in darkness. But
of course, the electricity would be off. We
stayed out on the porch, Aunt Ramona fanning
the both of us with old newspapers and I
swiping at the cloud of mosquitoes, thick
enough to fill my hand. We could hear the
sirens of bottle.ambulances and fire trucks off
the main avenue. Now that the immediate
danger was gone, we had nothing else to do but
clean up after Nature's mood swings.
Dad arrived by dinnertime, hopping across split
cement before entering the porch. He peered at
our gate which was slightly unhinged so that it
stood like a half-hearted arch. When he was
able to locate our faces in the dark, he smiled,
showing all his teeth. "Pack up, Crisanta, we're
moving." Aunt Ramona sto pped fanning and
gaped at him. "Where?" I said.
"Bangladesh." I'm going to be honest. I had no
idea where that was. I nearly thought it was one
of our islands. We have more than 7,000 and it
was possible. I looked at the jutted road beyond
our gate, the water tubes breaking through
cement like a badly hatched eqgg. It was time,
anyway.
3 sundress. I flinched.
BATAN ISLAND IS beautiful at night, too. But |
suppose could say that about most places. This
is the magical property of darkness, the ability
to coax out beauty from ugliness, to soften the
harsh lines of potholed pavements, to artfully
drape shadows on trees. I could see the
lighthouse, the Sweep of its beam falling on the
far shore. Batan has its own magic, too. It looks
weightless, a quiet shapeshifter. It feels like you
could sleep through the night and wake up to
realize that the island has moved to another
patch of water, like a sea god playing a prank on
his minions. In the early mornings, a curtain of
light-speckled mist covers the island like a veil.
When the sun scuttles up Mount Iraya and
perches on the peak, the island looks ghostly as
if it were discovered a long time ago and then
abandoned. You feel an undercurrent of silence
when you step on its soil. You know you tread
on something that will more than outlast you,
that doesn't even feel your footsteps. The
greens and blues of grass and sky have
hardened as if no turbulent weather could
smudge them. Perhaps it was that very violence
that melded them into the earth's bones. All I
saw of Batan the night we arrived was the faint
shimmer of the sea foam and the lighthouse. In
the morning, I looked out my window and saw
the meadows peppered with thatched stone
and straw houses, like something from a
children's nursery rhyme. I must have stared for
a long time. Nothing moved but the water
buffalos chewing grass until a small girl went
skipping down the road toward me. She was
wearing floral shorts and a faded yellow shirt
printed with what Looked like Mickey Mouse,
but the ears were t00 elongated and the eyes
too round. She was carrying small baskets of
flowers. She would stop once in a while to pick
wildflowers and toss them into her baskets.
Soon, she passed very near my window. She
stopped when she saw me, her dark eyes
sweeping across my face and down my
"Hi," I said.
The girl blinked at me. Her hair was a
sundrenched brown. Her eyes darted to my
dress before quickly refocusing on my face. She
held up her baskets. "Buy one?" "Oh. Sure." |
took out some money and gave it to her. She
shook her head. "Too much." "No, that's okay.
You can have it." She shook her head again.
"Too much." She pulled out a fifty-peso bill from
my outstretched hand, and handed me a
basket. She abruptly turned and ran. | stuck my
head out and watched her progress up the road
and turn into a corner. I wanted to jump out
and follow her, see what secrets of the islands
she could unveil to me. I imagined her a young
sprite jumping over rocks and sandbars, sliding
along the slopes leading to the water, free and
lovely. Thirty minutes later, she was back
outside my window, sniffling. A faced woman
was by her side. The woman's face softened
when she saw me. "I'm sorry to bother you,
Ma'am. But my daughter is here to return your
money." I was too confused to answer properly.
"For the flowers," the woman clarified. "They're
not for sale. Theresa picks them every day for
the church
altar."
I looked down at the little girl, who was still
rubbing her eyes and sniffling. "She sold it to
mne because she saw that I was a tourist?"
The woman looked down. Tm sorry,
Ma'am."
Theresa's little hand shook when she gave me
the money. "What were you going to buy?"I
asked her.
She said in a small voice, "A dress.
Like yours."
After making Theresa apologize to me, the
woman roughly grabbed the girl's hand and
dragged her down the road. Theresa stumbled
and trotted along to match her mother's strides,
no longer the carefree sprite. After breakfast,
Ferdinand and walked around. Basco is situated
at the very tip of Batan so we could see a long
stretch of cliffs from the inn's front yard. We
saw the formation of cliffs down south toward
Valugan Bay, following the island's bend. The
cliffs gradually sloped down nearer and nearer
to the sea. They looked like a large crocodile
with its head halfsubmerged, guarding the
island. l appreciate that Basco is not trying hard
to be picturesque or pastoral.It just unfolds its
hills, accepts the tempestuous climate inherent
in its land. The roads tend to narrow either into
a cul-de-sac or into an open plain. The small
fenced farms on top of the hills seem carved
from the stones. Aling Tasing, our elderly
innkeeper, said that tourists think of Batanes as
a gentle land. She assured us that it wasn't. It
made all its inhabitants work for sustenance,
either from the choppy ocean or from the
unwieldy cliffs. "You have to earn the right to
live in these parts," she said. "It's certainly
photogenic though, isn't it?"
The Pacific Ocean is a tenacious thing trying to
gain foothold on the rocks in its desire to reach
up and overturn the island. After spending
Some time looking at serene buffalos, we found
the hiss and splash of the water shocking. I
could imagine all the coolness underneath it,
the calm that oceans reserve only for their
darkest depths. Ferdinand was silent when he
first took in the scenery. He stood by the cliff
gazing at the empty stretch of blue-green
water, broken once in a while by a small island
or two. He looked Like he was trying to come up
with something to say. "Where are we?" he
finally said.
| understood him. After the clank and whirr of
Manila's buildings and roads, this must be to
him something Like Paradise Lost.
"I don't think I really know," I told him as |
looked at the gradation of greens across the
meadows. The ones directly under sunlight
looked overblown, but those that were nestled
under taller hills had a deeper shade, the kind
that soothed the eyes; the green of rainforests
writhing with hidden life.
Ferdinand took one last look at the water and
the hills spreading out like mounds of butter
under the steady ascent of the sun, and then
turned to me.
"Let's go."
| realized then that no beauty or splendor could
deter him from finding you.
'IM WRITING THIS in the dark. If people would
come across me with the laptop screen
illuminating my face, they would think l'm
involved in some sort of witchcraft. And come
to think of it, writing is a kind of voodoo. You're
weaving a spell, most of it backfiring on you,
because you're the one who's ultimately lost in
your labyrinth. That's what I think of my job
right now. A backfire. I'm a ghost writer, an
outsourced essayist. Paid weaver of words. Only
my writing has none of the quiet dignity of that
Isabel Allende story about a girl who went from
village to village selling customized news and
secret words. Instead, I work for college kids
who can't be bothered to read Pride and
Prejudice or nouveau riche kids from third-
world countries who want to get into first-world
universities. They want good entrance essays
that show they have perseverance and
determination; that they'll do whatever it takes
to succeed in life. But these are wily kids, they
know their limits. Don't overdo it, an e-mail
from a client would say. My professor knows
me by now. These kids have managed their
expectations well. Wish I were that mature
when I was their age.
| haven't talked to Ferdinand the whole day.
We're still having a spat, I suppose. He said
things, I said things, none of it made sense. And
now we don't know what to talk about. I see
him a short distance from where l'm sitting. He
would step toward me and then turn around,
like a schoolboy. We're too old for this, I realize;
too old for the night and all the inconstancies of
youth. But we can't help being young, too. No
matter how many times the world trains you to
grow up, you're young when you're young.
We're a little clumsy and more than graceless. I
hope you won't take it against us if we often
talk to you through silences, or if we catch each
other's eyes over your swaddled form and then
look away, because we hurt each other just by
existing.
We are young. That's not an excuse. It's a
context, and we apologize nonetheless. DHAKA
IS THE capital city of Bangladesh, said the travel
booklet | read on the plane. I expected it to be
like Manila, with busy pedestrians and honking
cars and general disrespect for the laws of the
road. My expectations were met. Upon exiting
the airport, I found myself in a tug-of-war with a
porter who said that my bag looked heavy and |
needed his help with it. "No, it's okay,"l said
over and over again, my voice climbing a
decibel each time, until Dad asked the porter,
calm and slow, to let go of the bag. The porter,
ambushed by the sight of a smiling man patting
the head of a hysterical child, released the strap
and blinked at us. When we were in the van,
Dad winked at me. Nothing fazed him. If a Royal
Bengal tiger appeared out of nowhere and sank
its fangs on me, he would have ambled toward
the beast with his hands clasped behind his
back and asked it to let go. I wouldn't put it past
him. Every intersection in Dhaka was a circle,
which made me feel like we were doing eights
round and round the city. Rickshaws weaved in
and out between cars with the confidence of
ten-wheelers. I rather liked looking at
rickshaws, with their tall wheels and colorful
bodies, like lean and lanky men with a penchant
for neon-colored clothes. At first sight, they
looked quaint, even delicate, like a carriage.
That is until you ride in one, and the wallah
doesn't slow down as he pedals around a corner
and you find yourself gripping the roof and
screaming your head off while the thin wheels
skid to one side. During flood season, the
wallahs just guessed where the potholes could
be. There was an eighth grader who felL into
the floodwater after their rickshaw toppled
over. She said she had to bathe in scalding
water and had blood work done just to make
sure. From a distance, a voice chanted a prayer
from the outdoor speakers of a mosque. Ravi,
our driver, had to step on the brakes every five
minutes and cast glances at the overhead
mirror to see if we were still on our seats. We
got stuck at one intersection when a bunch of
cows had to cross the road. The herder strolled
amidst the burst of screechy horns and humans
screaming curses. The cows walked with even
en steps, looking straight A bus, crammed with
people in every single space available, zoomed
past us. Ah, that was familiar. It was like the
MRT on the road. One of the guys hanging by
the door smiled at me and spat on my
windshield. Well, hello to you too, sir. I looked
at Dad. He was so young back then, without
white hair, sprightly, looking outside the
window with the same kind of concentration he
reserved for movie watching. I wished to God
he knew what he was doing.
I FOUND OUT that the reason why we were
there was because Dad got inducted to Doctors
Without Borders. ahead, indifferent to the rage
directed at them.
That's where he met Tito Diego, but you know
that already. I remember how I met you, or
rather, when I first heard you. It was during the
morning church service. Dad and I were invited
by Mr. and Mrs. Michel. You remember them?
UNICEF folks who lived across our apartment?
They were already quite old back then and very
French. It was embarrassing how Dad
introduced me to them as "my daughter who's
learning French in school, why don't you show
them, Crisanta, say hello in French." Dad and I
had an argument back at the apartment over
that. He said it's natural for parents to be proud
of their children.I said it's natural for parents to
humiliate their kids.
"No one was asking if I could speak
French, Dad!" "Why're you so upset? It's no big
deal. They were amused." "Remember those
crazy things you said that would make me want
to tear my eyes off? Well, this is one of them!"
He gave a crisp laugh. "Hardly!" | clutched my
head and walked straight to my room and did
what all melodramatic teenagers did when they
wanted to make a point: refuse to eat dinner,
hurting no one but themselves. But afterward, I
wanted to go to Dad's room and knock on his
door, tell him that| just wanted him to
understand me. Why was it so hard? | wanted
him to be on my side, to help me out a bit. I
wanted to flatten my brain and spread it on the
floor and teach him that this is how it works:
when you say A, I think B. Don't do C, if you
don't want me to go D. I just wanted him to
reassure me that it was okay to fall on your
face, and be afraid, and maybe even overreact;
that there was nothing wrong with all these
hybrid feelings birthing inside me.
The Michels took us to Dhaka Christian
Community Church, which was a few miles
uptown. We cruised along roads hedged by
overgrown fields until we had to turn a sharp
corner where the road ended right by the
church gates. I liked how unexpected that was.
The church was painted sheer white, and was
the most utilitarian building you could ever find.
Back home, | look with envy at the curves and
stained glass of our Catholic churches, how they
were built to inspire reverence and history.
Protestant churches, on the other hand, are
very modern. We invade the malls and the
cinemas and just about any commercial space
we can find. We go where the people are, Dad
said, because they're not as sentimental about
buildings as we are. When we got to the
reception area, Mrs. Michel just about dragged
me to the corner where teenagers stood in a
circle. With teacups. I wanted to run away.
"Mingle, mingle!" Mrs. Michel whispered to me
after introducing me. But why? Like most
adults, kids don't have this superpower of easily
making friends. Some parents think that they're
teaching their kids to be assertive and confident
when they push them into a ring of strangers.
It's the most terrifying thing, actually. Every
time Dad sent me away to Bible Camp, he was
really the one who was taking a break. The
counselors would always make us do these "ice
breaker" things ike group games, where some
kid eventually stepped out as a leader and a
hyper-competitive one at that. Those camps
just confirmed to me that I am frightened by
sanguine types, the way they train their
overshining eyes on you and practice their
"leadership skills."
"This is what we're going to do! First, we gather
firewood and then build a fire!"
They always use we when you could clearly
hear the tall "I behind it. Anyway, I was too
nervous about my floral teacup to really make
eye contact with anyone. Why did it have such a
small handle? A redhead turned to me while
sipping from her cup, a circle of dark brown
stain on her saucer. And where're you from?"
"Philippines."
"Wheres that?"
"Southeast Asia."
"Oh. Is that near Japan? Or...or
Thailand?"
"More Thailand than Japan." She nodded and
took another sip and kept looking at me with
her green eyes. She looked like a mermaid. It
made me more nervous, as if | were Alice
talking to the Cheshire Cat.
"We're a group of islands," l added. "Oh!
Islands! How charming!" Her voice had that
falsetto in it that sounded very forced and Old
Hollywood. I expected her to add, "How
marvelous, dahling, simply marvelous." She
turned away and chatted with another girl
about her family's summer vacation in Greece. I
didn't speak to anyone else after that. I wasn't
about to ingratiate myself to these teenagers
and earn their contempt.
The one thing that most kids can't tolerate, well
people in general, are those who try too much;
those who want to completely eradicate the
awkwardness of being strangers. They put their
hand on your arm, they start shortening your
name, they expect you to bring them with you
when you go to the coffee area or to the
restroom. | say the best thing to do in front of
strangers is to just accept the prolonged and
extremely pregnant silences of people who
can't think of anything to say to each other.
That Sunday morning, there were just too many
foreigners in one room, enough to last me a
lifetime and a reincarnation, and too many
languages; too many people who knew each
other for years and eating crumpets and
laughing at old anecdotes. The kids left me
alone after | just looked at them for ten
minutes. They said they were going to the Teen
Bible Study, but no one invited me to come with
them. I sat next to Dad on one of the wooden
pews in the middle. He was smiling, but he
stuck close to me. At one point, he patted me
on the shoulder. | thought that he was just
trying to comfort me, but now I realize, he was
probably clueless, too. In Manila, we went to a
small church. And when I say small, I really
mean it. There were just about fifty of us,
including the kids. Our hall was squeezed
between two hardware stores by the highway.
Everyone knew each other. They knew who was
dating whom. In prayer meetings, they would
post the concerns of everyone-those who were
jobless, owed debts, had cancer, had spouses
who cheated on them on a regular basis and
children who were either taking drugs or
pregnant. We knew things even before God did.
Our Sunday School teacher said you don't
inherit your parents faith. You were supposed
to get one of your own. That's why you're "born
again," because the first birth just wasn't right.
No, Dad said when I told him that, the first birth
is the flesh birth, the second birth is the
spiritual birth. I nodded just so I could go back
reading my books. | think you can't help but
inherit your parents faith a bit, if only to get
things started. Most of the time, you don't
understand anything anyway. | mean, I went to
Sunday School for the stories, not because I was
concerned for my soul. When you're a kid, the
"soul" is this disembodied thing above your
head and, therefore, doesn't share the daily
turmoil of your life such as when dinner is
because you're just about dying of starvation, or
what excuse to tell your father for going home
with a lumpy head. I went to church for the
parting of the Red Sea, the David and Goliath
showdown, Esther saving an entire nation by
being beautiful, Jericho's walls defenseless
before trumpets, Jonah and his pet whale. I was
basically an Old Testament fan. The wars and
history fascinated me, those prophets
wandering in the desert and proclaiming doom.
God was this voice in the mountain, this
thunder, this force that could swoop down on
you in full Wrath. I supposed I liked the
grandeur of it, and perhaps even the cruelty. I
thought it was realistic.
So, I grew up believing in a God who made
things happen. I read the Children's Bible, with
its clean-lined, Disney illustrations. I prayed for
forgiveness every time we went on a lnsect
Torture session because | remembered being
told that they were God's creation, too. But we
were a group of seven-year-olds, and we
justified what we did by saying that insects
were too small and too many, and what was
five less dragonflies in the world? We didn't
really understand that this was the exact
sentiment that tyrants had when they were
killing an entire race of people. Perhaps they
started as insect murderers themselves,
because the road to perdition doesn't announce
itself via a neon sign and a big band. Okay,
maybe it does. But what I mean is that it's a
road that slopes down gently, and the shadows
lengthen small increments. One minute you
were walking in the woods and the next you're
sinking in a bog. | was consumed with quilt afte
these sessions so I figured my conscience was
still working just fine. But the following
morning, we'd be systematically prying off a
caterpillar's legs with tweezers. I suppose that
was really my first experience with moral
struggle. I even thought about it at night, why it
was so hard to do the right thing, to let things
be. I always felt that God gives humans too
much credit. Every time he puts them in a
situation and expects them to choose to be
good, he just sets himself up for
disappointment. Imagine having to deal with
billions of humans who disappoint you on a
daily basis. It must feel like always being chosen
last for basketball teams. No wonder he just
unleashed a flood and got it over with that first
time.
That day in the Sundarban jungle, when hell
kind of really broke loose, I wasn't angry with
God. It felt like something he would do. It felt
like | was in the midst of some Old Testament
story; the rain, the mud, the Swelling river
worthy of the one in Jordan. T0o bad l was
there when it unfolded, was all. Was he not
God? Was he not free to walk away? Was not
the entire earth his walking ground? If a human
was left alone in the aftermath of a disaster,
was it not just one human compared with, say,
the scores of starving children in Africa? It was
within his right.
I couldn't pray for myself afterward. I prayed for
Dad, for Aunt Ramona, for you, for everyone
else l could think of. Until this very day, I can't
ask for God's kindness without wondering if
that was too much to ask. Anyway, compared to
Our small community church, the international
church in Dhaka was this mega-thing. It was a
huge building with a huge parking lot. And they
had "senior pastors" and "associate pastors,"
they had specific people in charge of the youth
and they had dozens of committees and all in all
it sounded like this one stable institution.
As Dad and | were looking around for anyone
who even remotely looked Filipino, someone
started playing Amazing Grace on the piano.
Everyone quieted down as the first strain
tinkled its way in. I'm sure you understand
when I say this, but hymns are quite the
tearjerkers. They're just so simple and sincere,
and have neat little rhyme schemes, and they
remind me of a time and place where people
really believed what they sang about, because
who else was going to back you up when you
were surrounded by the Black Death or Wars or
when tuberculosis still wasn't curable? All I
know is the moment | recognized the music, |
was swept away when | really had no reason to
be. We sang hymns in our old church, too. None
of those jumping up and down kind of songs. It
was easy enough to conjure the lyrics in my
head. I suddenly remembered all my former
churchmates, even those kids in Sunday School
who couldn't even color the activity sheets
properly. I realize there were a lot of things in
Manila | was going to miss. Even the God I
knew in Manila.
After you played, I felt better. You made me
believe that God could save a wretch like me. I
looked up at Dad, he smiled at me. Not the type
that was tight on the edges like the one he had
been sporting since we entered the building,
but a real one. And | knew we'd be all right.
4
WE LIVED IN an expatriate block in the Gulshan
suburb, where everything else seemed to be.
Do you remember how it was surrounded by
the Banani Lake on the west and the Gulshan on
the east? And they cramped everything in
between? Shanties on one side, embassies and
commissaries and sports clubs on the other.
Every year, more and more houses were built
on our street. Bigger apartments with spacious
backyards. The city was trying to accommodate
us all, the foreigners who had been sent to
"improve" the country. It was trying to keep up
with hot shower lifestyles and garden tea
parties. Specialty shops were everywhere, the
French boulangerie, the German butcher, the
Korean supermarket. I looked from our balcony
at the women crouching and pounding bricks at
the construction site next door. The humid and
sticky air reminded me of Manila. The women's
saris were hiked up to reveal bony knees. One
woman had wrapped her toddler with a piece
of cloth, which she tied to her back. The sun
struck the toddler directly on the face, but he or
she, I couldn't tell, was asleep. The mother
stopped to wipe her brow and looked up. She
had the dark face of one who had been under
the sun nearly all her life. She closed her eyes
for a while before loosening her sling to check
on the child. It was a girl. She touched the
child's hair before planting a hurried kiss on her
forehead. She rewrapped the child and
repositioned the toddler at her back. She
grabbed another brick and began pounding. I
watched them for a long time. The sleeping
child, immune to the sun and to the sound of
brick crumbling, even to her mother's kiss; the
mother pounding and pounding, as if everything
depended on it.
SCHOOL WAS STILL out when we arrived in
Dhaka. I had time to take things easy, or so I
thought. Dad had
other ideas, such as taking me to the wet
market one Saturday morning. While he drove
us there, he gave me specific instructions, which
could be summarized in one word: Run. Dad
parked the car and turned the engine off. He
nodded at me and signaled with his fingers.
One, two, three...
We scrambled out. And then we ran. We ran as
if we were action movie stars, dodging
vegetable carts and bewildered people. Women
with resplendent saris stared at us: two brown-
skinned foreigners fleeing like they were
Bollywood celebrities who were about to get
mauled by fans. | was about to ask Dad why we
had to be so dramatic like this when I looked
behind me. They had spotted us! Four of them
on foot and one on a makeshift cart.
I glanced around, looking for a way out. The
market was small. My sneakers stepped on red
plastic bags, vegetable peels, and the
Occasional human spit. Everywhere vendors
were Screaming at passersby, trying to lure
them into their stalls. The air was replete with
the smell of raw meat and Curry.
I looked back again; they were gaining ground.
One of them made a
supernatural leap over a cart of fruits and was
sOon running alongside me.
"Madam, madam! Money, please.
Look!"
A man showed me his empty left eye socket and
a heady combination of fright and shock rippled
across my body. Dad grabbed my arm and
dragged me up the stairs to the second floor.
The beggars gave up their pursuit when they
saw two Caucasian tourists get out of a car.
Those guys were trained to smell new prey from
miles away. I glared at Dad while gasping for
breath. Waking up a teenager before lunch time
on a weekend is like breaking one of the Ten
Commandments. Making them exercise is just
plain heresy. Dad told me over the dinner table
that local beggars would sometimes maim
themselves in order to get more money. Some
families would even blind their own children
just so they could be "more effectively." I
recoiled from my plate. "What's this place?" I
told him. "Is this what you meant when you said
we're going on a great adventure, like the Swiss
Family Robinson?" "Well, isn't this fun? This is
better than books, right?" He began with a
smile, but upon seeing my blank face promptly
gave up. "It's not so bad.
You'll see."
I had my doubts then.
| leaned on the stairwell trying to remember
how to breathe. Dad was clutching his side.
"This is what you need-an exercise! You're going
to have arthritis before you know it!" "T'd
rather have arthritis than run a marathon with a
pack of crazy beggars behind me."
"Hoy, don't be like that!" "Opo, opo, can we just
vegetables already home?" buy those we can go
Dad shook his head at me. He had this idea that
if only he could get me out into the downtown
streets, he Would make a social worker out of
me yet.
We finally reached the produce stall at the end
of the corridor. A tall man sat in the middle of it,
surrounded by piles and piles of eggplants,
tomatoes, lettuce, string beans, et cetera. I had
never seen so many infernal vegetables in my
whole life. "Oi, suki!" The man yelled at Dad,
and I did a double take. "Rajesh!" Dad greeted
him cheerfully.
"T told you to call me Raj!" The man replied
with a thick accent. "But I like Rajesh," Dad said
with a laugh.
Raj stood up and waved with a flourish toward
his goods. "What is it
today? Talong, some kamatis?" They both He maneuvered the car like one of those James
laughed. "You're getting good with Tagalog!" Bond movies he was so fond of, and then we
Raj looked pleased. "Well, so many Filipinos were out of the market and into the open road.
here, I have to learn! This your daughter?" He
I slumped, clutching at my seatbelt.
slightly bent do to peer at my face.
He winked at me.
"Hello," I said automatically.
"Tomorrow's another day, eh?" If there's
Dad gestured at me and winked at Raj. "Tm
anything that I never forgot about Bangladesh,
introducing her to Bengali life."
it would be that market fiasco. That and, of
Raj laughed as if he were drawing it up from a course, Stevan.
well somewhere in between his lungs. "If she
I'VE ALWAYS TRIED to remember Stevan's face
survives today, then she can survive life!" Dad
without the aid of pictures. I Swore I could have
certainly took his time choosing the vegetables
erased everything through sheer will, except for
and chatting with Raj on the side. The corridors
his face. It intrudes in my thoughts sometimes
were busy with people, mostly women. Flies
when l'm sleeping, sometimes when I'm riding
were buzzing at a nearby fish stall, indifferent to
the bus to work. His face flashes like a light bulb
hands swatting them away. Two toddlers played
blowing out from a power surge, and l'd flinch
on the wet, muddy floor while their mothers
before blinking the vision away, refocusing my
haggled with buyers. Most of the local patrons
eyes on the crowd outside and the Godzilla-tall
would stop and look at my sneakers, my hoodie,
buildings along Ayala Avenue. | can't quite
and then my face. They would then transfer
remember his eyes, though. Were they really
their scrutiny to Dad with his walking shorts and
that dark as my memory makes me believe? |
running shoes. I tried to arrange a smile on my
remember his curly hair, the way he would
face, one that | hoped looked benign. I stepped
comb them furiously in a mad effort to tame
closer to Dad and told him that maybe it was
them. He had a dimple on his left cheek, a deep
time to hit the road. He paid Raj, we waved
one, as if God indented it using his thumb. He
goodbye, and walked back to the stairs. Dad
was nearly as tall as Ferdinand. You told me you
handed me the plastic bag with the tomatoes.
were glad he got his height from Tito Diego's
"Your goal is to keep these safe until we get in
side of the family. I was grateful that at least |
the car."
reached his shoulders. Was he lanky? | thought
"Not again!" he was a bit medium-built, but you know how
the school made us do the Mile Run every
He led the way to the bottom m of the stairs,
Tuesday and the Swim Class, SO I guess
and then we were running. I dodged man with a
everyone wasn't allowed to be obese. Our P.E.
broken arm, the bone sticking out from the skin,
teachers trained us as if we were entering the
while Dad hoisted the plastic bags over the
military. They must have been paid really good
heads of children clutching at his shirttail. I
to be so committed in keeping kids slim. I've
yanked the car door open and threw myself in
always wanted to ask you, if ever I was given
the passenger's seat along with the tomatoes.
the opportunity to meet you on the street-
My goal was to get out of there alive, really.
perhaps we' d bump into each other in the
Dad started the engine as children and adults
supermarket-if you remember his face, too.
Surrounded Our Car and knocked on the WHEN | FIRST saw the international
windows.
school from the outside, I thought it was a
fortress. It was surrounded by high brick walls,
steel gates, a few shrubs by the side. The
landscaping looked too severe and simple, as if
telling outsiders to keep moving there's nothing
to see here. Different flags lined up on top of
the walls. My eyes zoomed in on the Philippine
flag, the only one I recognized immediately.
Well, I did recognize the American flag, to0.
How could you not when it had too many stars
for its own good. I studied the others, all the
stripes and half-moons and stars, a few trees;
all those symbols borne out of that eternal
struggle between repression and overthrow,
probably a legacy of the first revolt in heaven.
As I passed our flag, I recited to myself: red is
for war, blue is for peace, the sun rays
represent the eight provinces that fought in the
Revolution, three stars for Luzviminda. English-
There Were several speaking schools in Dhaka,
but the largest was the American International
School, which is a contradiction in terms, like
good morning. There were a few of those in the
city-there were the British International School
and the School.
Canadian International When I was already in a
university in Manila, I got into a debate with my
boyfriend then. He was a Fine Arts student and
would sometimes sneak me out of my dorm so
| could keep watch while he sprayed
antigovernment graffiti on an abandoned wall
by an abandoned field, which didn't make sense
because who was going to see it? But he was
passionate about fighting for the rights of the
laborers and farmers, and | wasn't about to be
accused of being indifferent, although I couldn't
really imagine what it was like being so dissent
Christopher and I often argued about that. As if
it was my fault that I was raised in a community
that had no franchised severe deprivation. It
didn't mean | didn't care. I just couldn't
internalize. He told me that there is no privilege
in being trained in an international school, that
it's basically a mind control camp for the future
migrants to first-world countries, the basin
where all the Philippine brains would converge.
He said that the idea of an international school
is a façade, a little trick, because weren't we
trained to think like Americans, to say gonna"
and "wanna" instead of the more grammatically
correct equivalents, to aspire for the American
way of life? I can't remember what I said to
defend myself, but I realized I got defen sive
because it stung a bit. How was supposed to
realize these things back then? When you're a
teenager all you really care about is not getting
judged or mauled or ostracized. In college, you
could maybe start to ponder ab socio-political
hegemony or being Other or any other terms
they tell you. But in high school, all school, all |
really understood was that prom night was just
around the corner and | had no idea where I
was going to get a dress in a country where
there were no malls. No malls! Until now, I can't
believe it.
Christopher had always looked at me with that
combination of wonder and disdain, as if he
couldn't understand how he ended up with
someone So stubbornly subdued when his guts
were firecrackers that never petered Out. One
night, when we were in the
midst of his graffiti gigs, I realized that
| couldn't pretend anymore that I cared. And
what was I going to do for the rest of my life
with him, lie down in front of cars and
government gates and spend most nights in
jail? How is a life of incarceration going to
alleviate poverty? After graduation, I received
an email from him. We hadn't talked for ages
ever since | left him in the middle of that field.
He was in New York on a full scholarship to
NYU. I could have said I told you so, or that
you're a fake, or that you've got foot-in-mouth
disease, but there was just too much cruelty in
my life already, and I couldn't bear to inflict
more of it. Anyway, I was glad that the
international school did not come with a fancy
name or even an ominous one. No Bradbury or
Brooklyn Valley or Oxford shire the way some
academics pass off their institution as some
ancient bastion of Wisdom. It simply was
American International School. Direct, practical,
easy to remember when a stranger stops you in
the middle of the road to ask for directions. If
you went up the roof of the main tower, you'd
see just how precise the placement of buildings
was. They were all rectangular, no concentric
angles or slanting roofs or glass walls. The
school looked like it was built to withstand
various methods of attack, either from man or
nature. Nearly all expatriates' children in the
city were sent to the international school-
offspring’s of diplomats, businessmen, NGO
officials. | can't even begin to tell you how it felt
to enter the corridors, surrounded by all these
teenagers. I thought I could handle it when I
went to church, but it was different. We were
all young and those kids didn't look like they
attended Teen Bible Study. They looked like
they came straight out ofa teen movie. I was
expecting people to start making out by the
corner and, behold, the thought had barely
passed my mind when a couple did just that.
They didn't do it by the corner either. It was
right there at the lobby staircase for everyone
to ogle at. People are quick to turn their noses
up when they think that you stereotype people.
What can you do when they're not even trying
to fight it?
I looked at all the faces, the giggles and hugs of
old friends. | could tell who was new; the ones
who stayed close to the wall. When | was able
to locate my locker, I didn't really know
what to do with it. It was a lot taller than me.
Was it for stashing books or bodies? That's
when I met Ferdinand Turner.
You notice his eyes the most, the glazed, rich
gray of them. His hair back then did not seem to
be as auburn as they are now. It was more dark
brown. He was as tall as his locker, which was
right across mine. He was with Miguel and
Byron, but I rarely called them by their names.
Over the years, Stevan and I called them
Ferdinand's Handmaids and it just got stuck.
They were laughing while Ferdinand opened his
locker to reveal a poster of Metallica and a
Playboy cover. He took some books from his
bag and threw them in before closing the door
without locking it. Then he noticed me and
stopped talking.
He looked at my shoulder-length hair (| had it
cut before we left because we were told that
salons in Dhaka are nowhere near as good as
those you find on every barangay street in
Manila). Then he looked down at my faded
jeans and black sneakers and then back up my
face, like a king who knew his subjects very well
and was aware that a stranger had come to
town. He then slung his backpack ove his
shoulders and resumed walking with the
handmaids. | realized | was trying to breathe
evenly, expecting something awful to happen
the way it always does in those movies. I
remembered Ferdinand's eyes sweeping across
my face. He had formed his opinion of me then,
I could tell.
He told me later, when we were on the plane
going to Batanes, that he couldn't remember
seeing me for the first time.
THE CAFETERIA IS one of those places that make
you feel alone even though you are surrounded
by scores of people. When you sit by yourself
on a large table, it feels like you've been
penalized for being leprous, or an aggressively
yellow spotlight is trying to melt you. The
chatter around you seems to be coming from a
loudspeaker. You think of finding a long table
and sitting at the very end of it just so that it'd
look like you belonged to the group of friends
sitting farther down. Basically, you wish you
could skip lunch altogether, you wish there
weren't such a thing as starvation. I skipped it
on my first day. I was too nervous and too
weirded out to do anything else but go to the
library and hole myself at one of the corner
tables. Surrounded by the familiar covers of
Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of 0z, I felt
like this was where all lost people should go; to
the library, I mean, so that they didn't have to
feel bad about the strangeness of their days or
the ambivalence of their feelings. If you ever
feel the need to be affirmed as a human being,
just grab one of those books, and you'll realize
that having all these scary and uncomfortable
things is part of life, even encouraged. By the
time I went to my afternoon class, had to go to
the bathroom every ten minutes because my
broiling stomach was louder than a brick wall
collapsing. So the following day, I went ahead
and sat at one of the cafeteria tables, accepting
my lot and resenting God's idea of character
development. The international school canteen
is perhaps not as easily decipherable as one
would like to think about high school canteens.
There aren't really any jock/cheerleader groups
you can identify as reference. What you have is
a conglomeration of future world savers. Or, at
least, that's what parents would like to think of
these kids they have brought across the sea to
learn about the "real world." And it's true, if you
look at the statistics, most of these kids end up
following their parents footsteps. They go into
the UN or any NGO; they go into international
relations, because it's the world they know
most about. It's the world they feel they could
navigate without looking much like a fool. It's
the world that they'd like to believe they're
turning into a better place. So these kids were
either your future business tycoon magnate or
Mother Teresa. But some groups did stick out,
because they were always composed of the
popular and the richest. I suppose these kinds
of students had to gravitate toward each other,
to seal the status if nothing else. To prove a
point that it didn't matter which country you
went to or were from, you did flock together
when you were known for something-music and
sports and spelling bee prodigies, the stars of
the school plays, student council members,
heirs of trust funds People like Stephanie Barth,
who had been our class president since Day
One. She with the shining blonde hair, which
she always styled in a high ponytail so she could
whip and bob it with obscene amounts around
like an eager hand. Honestly, after three years
of enduring her Ebony and lvory speeches,
people started hankering for a little spice in
their lives. Like maybe a hammered finger in art
class, heatstroke during the Mile Run, getting
run over by a rickshavw. You know, small things
like that.
Then there was Siddhartha Lahiri, who was
branded The Scientist when he built a solar-
powered miniature car using recycled Coke
cans. He embraced his genius, but didn't allow
himself to be poster boy for the nerds either.
He wore leather jackets and No Fear T-shirts
with sneakers, and got accepted into the Soccer
Team (or football, depending on which side of
the planet you came from, although for
goodness' sake the way some students went on
and on about it, they made it look like they
were arguing over Something Important). Sid
sort of tried really hard to bulletproof himself
from ridicule.
One look at Ferdinand's table and | knew he
belonged to the popular crowd. There were the
Bengali business tycoon kids and a smattering
of diplomats' children, but it was not even their
parents that defined them. It was how they
acted. Loud, arms waving in big gestures,
carefree to the point of insolence, kids who
pulled their parents' strings on a regular basis.
I sat next to the window expecting to see the
street outside, but all | saw was the brick wall.
We had curry with pita bread for lunch that day.
At the first swallow, I choked. It was spicy the
way God intended it to be spicy, not the kind
that Aunt Ramona would cook, which just
happened to be yellow. I gulped in water, but
no one told me that it only made things worse. I
was certain that | was going to die then. Death
by curry, when you think of it, is probably one
of the most humiliating and pointless ways to
expire. The kids near my table gave me
unruffled glances while I coughed and chugged
more water, as if | were a caged animal they
were observing for Biology Class. I could hear a
few controlled giggles from the back. Ferdinand
and his friends stared at me fascinated by my
gagging and reddening. "Here," a boy in dark
glasses with unruly black hair gave me his milk. I
tore open the carton and tipped it in my mouth,
some of it escaping at the corners and spilling
on my T-shirt. I coughed a few more times
before the pain in my throat eased and the
burning in my face simmered down. I turned to
the boy. "Thanks. I'll replace it."
He shook his head. "It's all right." | Looked
around. No one was staring at me anymore.
Well, at least not openly. But I felt like running
out of the canteen into the burning sun just the
same. "T thinkI saw you in church last Sunday.
You Filipino?" the boy said.
I opened my mouth, struggling to form an
answer in my own language, hesitant about the
words that used to come to me as easily as
breath.
"Oo. lkaw?" Stevan smiled.
5
ONE SATURDAY, I woke up to the sound of the
mosque. The chanting pierced right through the
electromagnetic wall of haze in my brain. As if
on cue, Dad rapped on my door. I rolled off the
bed and stumbled to the door. He was already
dressed in his favorite jeans and Doctors
Without Borders shirt. So loyal. So sartorially
predictable. | leaned on the doorframe and
tried to clear my face of hair.
"You always make me look like I don't care
about things." Dad smirked at me, "You don't." I
told him to not be too punctual because that's
just messing up with Filipino tradition, but he
just launched into a tirade about how we should
change that perception. Sometimes, Dad really
couldn't see a joke when it was right there
pawing at his face. He of the Cedars of Lebanon
notoriety. I trailed after him toward the kitchen,
still battling with a forest of hair.
"What happened to you?" he asked as he put
my cereal bowl in front of me.
"You used to be such a wild child," he
continued.
Well, I didn't expect he was fond of that. I told
him I could commit arson if he wanted, but he
said that he wanted me to be adventurous, not
stupid. Be excited when he took me to places
and showed me around. Be curious. I knew then
that he was never going to forgive me for
bringing books while we had that cruise down
the Shitalakshya River en route to the old
capital of Sonargaon. I'm sorry, but after I saw
the corpse of a water buffalo a few minutes into
it, I figured it was just Manila Bay all over again.
An elderly couple shook their heads at me (with
a tender smile, I grant them that) when I
attempted to open my English class workbook
after lunch on the deck. I don't get it why adults
always accused teenagers of being histrionic.
Obviously, adults are more easily affronted.
They are affronted by vocabulary textbooks.
It wasn't until I saw the Gangetic dolphins that I
forgot about reading. River dolphins, which I
didn't think existed. They followed our boat,
their glistening brown bodies jumping out of
the water from time to time. I wondered if
anyone ever took them seriously when all they
ever did was jump and smile. They acted like
they were expecting the cameras and the waves
of tourists, though. I leaned out of the rail and
watched them swim alongside us, reaching my
hand out as if it were really possible to touch
them. I realized rivers could have dead buffalos
and smiling dolphins at same time. | munched
on my soggy cereals. I wanted to tell Dad that |
had enough adventures at school, but I didn't
want to spoil his morning so I just promised him
that l'd be bright-eyed and quivering with
excitement when we get to Dr. Chowdhury's
house. He scowled at me. I could do no right
with that man. Dr. Chowdhury, who was Dad's
colleague, had thick dark hair and large red
spectacles. He told us, when we were finally in
his car and going down Banani Road, that he
grew up in Cox Bazar, the coastline province in
the south. His father was a fisherman, and s0
was his grandfather. He said he could tell which
fish was which at the age of six. His father
expected him to take up his own net someday
and follow the call of the sea, but Dr.
Chowdhury had had enough of gills and the
same blank eyes staring up at him from his
plate day in and day out. He got a scholarship to
Oxford University. He took his mother and
father, and his two sisters and reinstated them
in his two-story house in Banani. He barely
served fish.
"My father is very proud of me, he says," Dr.
Chowdhury said with the slightest hint of British
accent, stepping on the brakes to avoid the
rickshaw which swiveled into our lane. “The
first doctor in the family. But I still think he feels
betrayed."
Tradition," Dad said. "Especially in a country like
this. We're such a young country with a very
violent past. You'd think, after all that, we'd be
a bit more open to change." It was Eid-ul-Adha,
the Feast of Sacrifice, done in commemoration
of Abraham's willing sacrifice of his son Isaac.
Dad told me to keep quiet if I had nothing nice
to say and eat all the food they'd
give me. He acted like I was the one who could
potentially embarrass him. Along the road,
people were walking home from the open fields
where they had communal prayer. Everyone
was dressed in mostly white muslin, while the
women wore their arsenal of red and orange
bangles. It was time to celebrate. They were
pulling cows and goats behind them. The
animals wore garlands of different colors and
trotted along the road staring around with their
large eyes, looking very much like blissfully
doomed creatures.
Dr. Chowdhury told us that some of them had
to be brought over from India. There had been
skirmishes on the border between the cow
traders and the Indian guards. The guards felt
that they simply could not look away while the
sanctity of cows was being compromised. How
curious, isn't it, for one object to suddenly lose
its power upon crossing territorial lines. This
here ends your divinity, the border says. No
more holy cows. In this Bengali soil, you are
stripped of your ability to reincarnate. Here you
are mere meat.
When we turned to the road where Dr.
Chowdhury's house was located, all the houses
seemed to buzz with merry voices and the
clanging of assorted pans. Beggars, mostly
women with restless children and two or three
babies tied to their backs, were clumped in
groups outside the gates. The children ran
around and yelled at each other, unconscious of
the smudges on their faces, and their joy.
It wouldn't be long now-they would be given
their share of meat. A few of them glanced at us
as the car honked for passage. There were
tourists with various cameras who had wrestled
their way among the crowds, prepared to use
the power of telephoto lens and quick shutter
action, ready for their lifestyle shots or
whatever they needed to submit to National
Geographic. Even God must be hovering near,
waiting for the spectacle to occur. People were
generally more jovial. Well, more jovial than I
wanted them to be after receiving a few winks
from the men. I tried to smile brightly whenever
Dad glanced my way. I stared at everything and On our way home, Dr. Chowdhury continued to
everyone, careful to remember this revelry for explain the importance of the festival to Dad,
blood. but | knew he was half listening. Somewhere in
his doctor brain, he was rebelling against the
When we finally reached the house, Dr.
loss of life. When we reached home, he went
Chowdhury's ayah and driver opened the gate
directly to the kitchen to get water. I got my
for us. He led us to the backyard where the
own qlass and sat across him. After a moment,
family and some relatives were already
he gave me a tight smile, shifting his gaze to the
huddling around a young but robust cow
ground. It was a humbled smile. It was those
wearing an orange garland and a pointed cap
glimpses into Dad's gentleness that I miss the
that looked like it was nicked from a children's
most. I suppose this is what made him a good
party. I was stunned into horrified silence while
doctor and social worker, because he was never
the cow stood there looking very much like a
immune to the horridness of pain and death. He
disgraced clown. I wanted to cry right there and
was never one to lose temper either, at least he
then. Dr. Chowdhury's father was doing the
always made an effort to control it even when
honors. He looked very eager for a 70year-old.
he was playing the full Old Testament Patriarch
He shifted his weight from one leg to the other,
Mode. Thou shalt not stay out late. Lie not, lest
waiting for everyone get settled. Dad, Dr.
you be grounded for two weeks. Even when his
Chowdhury, and | stood by the side and
rage was so complete it seemed to be the very
watched this old man, most of his teeth missing,
rage of Moses when he saw the Israelites
beam at us. To him, this hulk of flesh was
dancing around a golden calf, he would never
infinitely bigger than fish, was infinitely more
strike me in anger or utter a harsh word. It must
satisfying to subdue. Dr. Chowdhury frowned
be the result of his early training: the parents
slightly at his father, but smiled when he saw
who died young, the wife who left, the child
me looking at him. The old man was given a
who exasperated him. Maybe he had had
butcher knife and some of the male relatives
enough of cruelty, too. | thought back then that
pinned down the cow. The air suddenly
I would have more adventures with this father
drowned in a pool of squeals from various
who would take me to places even though
animals being slaughtered in the neighborhood.
there was risk of traumatizing me, just to teach
I could barely hear our cow's screams anymore.
me to be brave, and always, to remain good in
The iron smell of blood rose from the ground
spite of it. If it weren't for him, I would never
until I felt suffocated. The cow gave weak kicks,
have recovered from what happened to
pouring down the libation from its throat,
Pobrito.
watering the parched brown grass. Its mouth
opened and closed very much like a caught fish, SOMETIMES IT TERRIFIES me to think that I
the eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets. I would eventually forget her, that she would be
could hear the beggars cheering outside. I was pushed into a cobwebbed corner of my mind. I
surprised to feel Dad's hand traveling across my fear for my memory, for the way things seem to
face, trying to find my eyes. He was staring at be haphazardly thrown in there. I imnagine my
the gasping creature. He looked pale and mind to be this storage room where there are
queasy. His palm was damp against my eyes, things scattered on the floor and nothing is
which he had finally covered. I grasped it and where it's supp0sed to be. But Pobrito? How
pressed it hard until all | could hear was the could I ever forget her? She was my first real
triumphant squelch of blade against wet flesh. heartbreak. Pobrito was only two years older
than me. Dad met her when he was visiting one
of the orphanages downtown. She would be
sweeping our kitchen floor by seven in the
morning and would leave just after I came
home from school. Her mother had died when
she was 12, and her father abandoned her and
her six siblings. They lived with their
grandmother in a downtown shanty after that.
Since then, she had considered herself an
orphan. She and her siblings joined the
hundreds of street children begging and running
after tourists. They were taken in and educated
by the orphanage. She had the longest pair of
eyelashes | had ever seen in a woman. | hated
her for it. And her eyes were deep-set and
glimmered with years that were beyond her
age, as if they had been reincarnated for
centuries. They were also pitch black, like those
of Bollywood actresses who frolicked around in
the rain doing massive musical numbers.
"What do you want to be when you're older?"
Pobrito didn't reply and I thought she didn't
understand. I stopped playing and turned
around. "I don't know."
"Teacher? Doctor?" "T like kids," she said
haltingly, before resuming with her cleaning.
"You,
Madam?"
I frowned at her. "No way are you calling me
Madam. That's so 40 years old." I idn't expect
her to understand, but she laughed anyway.
"You play piano beautifully." she said, before
going to the kitchen to cook for lunch.
Pobrito and I didn't get along at first. When she
did our laundry for the first time, some of the
buttons of my favorite blouse went missing. The
girl burst into tears when I asked her about it.
Apparently, back in her village, they would slam
the clothes against the rocks by the river to get
rid of the dirt. Pobrito confessed that the wall in
the laundry room might have been her
substitute for the rocks.
She clutched my hand and begged for
forgiveness, she being the only one who was
working in the household, and what would
become of her siblings if she were to lose this
job, how would she buy her grandmother's
medicines. | panicked after seeing such abject
desperation. I wrenched my hands from hers, as
gently as I could, and told her that it was all
right but she should know better next time.
Pobrito, overcome with joy, cried harder. I had
to lie down in bed after that scene. Dad laughed
when | told him about it.
"How come if I cry like that, you don't give me a
break?" I asked him. "You don't have her eyes.
Pobrito was true to her word. Nary a button
was ever lost again after that incident. Dad
decided to introduce the Filipino culture and
taught Pobrito how to cook adobo. When
Pobrito tasted a spoonful, she was silent for a
while before turning to us and saying, "T like it."
She really didn't. I caught her chugging down
nearly the entire pitcher of water in the kitchen.
One Saturday, Dad bought a local pop CD for
yet another lesson in Bengali Culture 101. The
strain of extremely highpitched female voice
blasting from the speakers nearly wrestled me
off my piano chair. I braced myself against the
piano and tried to restore my bearings. Dad
attempted to execute a dance he'd seen in the
local channel, amusing Pobrito who had
stopped mopping the floor to gape at this
ridiculous, ridiculous man.
Dad grabbed Pobrito's arm and asked her to
teach him a Bollywood dance. Pobrito could
only laugh and shake her head but upon seeing
Dad make a clumsy impersonation of one of the
dance moves, decided that perhaps a little
lesson wouldn't hurt. They were at it for almost
an hour, Dad trying to copy Pobrito, who was
turning round and round, her yellow sari
ballooning around her and the bangles on her
arm clinking with every whirl. I have to admit, I
endured the screeching if only to watch Dad
almost fall flat on his face.
I thought of Aunt Ramona then, and
how she would have laughed with me. I
Wondered how she was, if she were hunting
some other kapre in some other tree. Pobrito
and Dad grabbed each of my arms and pulled
me into their midst. For the first time since I
stepped on Dhaka, I felt at home.
On weekends, Dad would take me to excursions
to the real Dhaka," as he would call it. I would
get out my Calculus textbook and he would tell
me to drop it So we could visit another social
institution.
"I know the answers are at the back," he said
while I tied my sneakers longer than usual.
"Have you been going through my bag again?"
"I saw you look at the back and copy
the answers the other night." "Oh...about that,
Dad, I really worked out the answers, anyvway. I
was just checking."
"Right."
"I HAVE AN idea!" | told him while he was
parking the car. "My English teacher said that
prostitution here is legal. We should totally go
to a brothel! That would be the 'real Dhaka!"
Dad gave me a sideway glance, "Don't tempt
me. I might register you; earn
Some money on the side."
"What's this place, anyway? It turned out to be
a halfvway home for acid burn victims. The
director, I think her name was Mrs.
Pachagounder, opened the front door for us.
Her sari had a purple sheen and she smelled like
freshly cooked curry. She shook our hands and
smiled brightly at me. We went to the main
living room where the residents were weaving
intricate designs on silk.
I stopped in my tracks. All of them had half of
their faces gone, wiped out into a blank patch
of lumpy skin. I clutched
Dad's arm. He gently urged me forward. "What
happened to them?" I whispered to Mrs.
Pachagounder. "Usually, a man from the same
village would propose and if a girl says no..."
"Then what?" My lips were trembling. "Acid
costs only five takas in the market. They usually
attack at night." We stopped in front of a girl
about my get. Mrs. Pachagounder said
something to her in Bengali, and the girl looked
at us and attempted a smile, before quickly
looking back down at her work. I looked at the
empty eye socket, the melted skin that used to
be one of her cheeks, a scar that was half her
lips. I tried not to stare, but my eyes would run
across the scars, would try to reconstruct her
face in my mind.
Dad crouched down and said hi. The girl didn't
speak. He pointed at me. "This is Crisanta, but
she prefers to be called
Cris."
"No, not really," I whispered to her. The girl
looked up at me again. I held out my hand. She
took it and we shook hands briefly. Mrs.
Pachagounder ushered Dad and me forward,
and I took one
last glance at the girl. She was looking at me,
what was left of her eyes scanning my face.
I was quiet on the way back home. Another
local pop song was merrily shrieking out of the
old-fashioned car radio. Dad was saying
something about how he
Would have me wear a statement shirt from
now on that said, "Reserved," so as to warn
suitors, but stopped when he saw my face.
"Hey, kid..." He put his hand on top of my head
and turned it toward him. "You okay?"
| blinked a couple of times. "Sure. It's the real
Dhaka, right? Maybe the brothel doesn't seem a
bad place after all now, does it?"
Dad glanced back at the road and then at me.
The world is an evil place sometimes."
I turned my head toward the window and
watched a bunch of cows cross the road.
"Yeah." That night, that half-burnt face would
recur in my dreams, and I woke up, staring at
the glow-in-the-dark star stickers that Pobrito
and I stuck to the ceiling using a chimney
broom. I barely noticed that my pillow was
damp.
6 "No other work. Must feed children."
IN NOVEMBER THAT year the temperature
dipped lower than my tropical body was used
to. Also, Pobrito turned 17. She didn't tell us it
was her birthday, but Dad read her records
from the orphanage and noted it down. Dad
and I baked a chocolate cake, although between
the two of us, the kitchen was our place of
dread. The icing was too sweet even for the
ants and half of the cake sagged. Pobrito was
quite moved by the spectacle. She said she had
never been given a cake for her birthday, her
voice breaking.
"I wish you stay here always," she said. I was
playing a Chopin Etude, and had to stop and
turn around to stare at Dad. "But we're not,
right?"
Dad pulled my jacket hood over my head.
"Don't rain on Pobrito's parade." "Really? l
thought after that cake, well, anything goes."
That afternoon, Dad sent Pobrito and me to the
grocery store. There was no use arguing that I
had to read The Scarlet Letter for English Class
or that I had to memorize the timeline of
Napoleon Bonaparte's ascent for European
History. He didn't believe that I had stressful
school life. As we walked the three blocks to the
store, pedestrians stared at us. 0ne girl in full
sari mode and the other wearing faded jeans
and a hoodie. It was ridiculous that they would
warn us expatriates about wearing sleeveless
shirts and above-the-knee skirts when their
local women could parade around in midriff sari
tops. But | didn't want the unnecessary
attention. hated being stared at by those deep-
set eyes. Even the men there had longer
eyelashes than me. We passed a building that
was still under construction. We looked at the
Women. The women gazed back at us.
"Why are they working here?" I asked
Pobrito.
"Where are their husbands?"
"Working in other buildings."
We walked in silence for a while. I was
contemplating the things | had to do once I got
home. Go to the Internet, read reviews of The
Scarlet Letter, and
improvise from there. I was about to tell Pobrito
to walk faster when she spoke.
"I don't want to be like them."
"Like what?" "Them." She was still looking back
at the women. MY FIRST DHAKA summer was
truly infernal. Everything seemed to
spontaneously combust under the Bengali sun.
The birds would sit still under tree canopies, the
pavements looked brittle and smoke would
seem to rise out of them. That last part could
have been hallucination kicking in.
Pobrito would go in my room and wait for me to
get up so she could tidy the bed, but I was a
fixture until lunch time. Dad would draw the
curtains to one side and throw my towel at my
face. "This is the last time l'm telling you to get
up, young lady. I didn't bother replying. There
was no use trying to explain to him why sleep
was necessary for someone young and full of
life.
But once, Dad and I woke up early and went to
the rooftop just to see what a Dhaka sunrise
would look like. Would it be a blossom of fiery
oranges and yellows as the one in Manila Bay?
Somehow, it was different. It was more a
combination of pale orange, gold yellow, and a
tinge of red on the outer rim. And as the sun
rose, the chanting in the mosque rang out
across the city, the low voice solemn,
pirouetting the notes up and down along a
steady hum. I inhaled the newness of the air
and imagined myself standing in the middle of
the Mughal Empire. Yonder river could be the
Brahmaputra and not the algae-infested
Gulshan Lake. The shadowy houses below could
be made of earth and not concrete. In the
afternoons, I would turn the dial of the air
conditioner in my room to the maximum and
refuse to leave. School was out so I could lie
around in bed the whole day if I wanted to. But
Dad decided that I would not spend my summer
vacation just rolling around in sloth, so he made
me do the laundry with Pobrito and help her
cook lunch. "He should pay me." | told her
while hanging the clothes at the rooftop and
securing them with a clothespin. The heat had
chased the summer breeze away.
"Your father is so nice, Crisanta." "Of course,
you'd be biased. He doesn't understand the
mechanisms of having a teenager."
Pobrito could only shake her head.
"Don't understand." Water dripping on the
concrete floor was the only sound for a while.
"How come you're still not married?" I asked
her while I squeezed water out of Dad's jeans. I
was sure she was past the marrying age there.
Bengali parents would arrange their children's
marriage as early as, well, birth.
"No dowry," she said. "See, I don't get that.
You're paying the men to marry you, and then
you're the one who gives birth, and takes care
of our husband while he goes home, kicks off
his shoes, and watches TV?" "What? Slower,
slower." "Never mind, Pobrito. It's better you
can't afford to marry. You don't want to be an
unpaid permanent maid." She stopped hanging
the clothes and looked at the ground. I looked
at her face.
"What's the matter?"
She shook her head and laughed, "Let's go.
Lunch time already." We hur riedly went inside
and closed the door on the glowering heat.
I REMEMBER THAT day very well because I
woke up to Dad's trembling hands shaking me.
"Crisanta!"
I could recognize his voice piercing my
subconscious, but there was something behind
the voice that I was uncertain of, something
that sounded like...terror. I abruptly opened my
eyes and expected the house to be on fire. It
was still dark outside. Dad had turned on the
lights in the room and was looking at me with
tears running down his face. It was the first-
time l saw him cry.
"What is it?"
He opened his mouth, but no words came. My
heart felt as if it were slowly sliding down my
chest.
"We got a call."
Dad told me that two men broke into Pobrito's
shanty and threw acid on her
face. Her siblings and grandmother were
unharmed, but Pobrito was in the hospital
fighting for her life. I sat there and tried to
understand what he just said, my brain refusing
to process the information. I thought it was a
mistake, that maybe it happened to another
person. I stared at the wall and the image of
dark eyes flashed in my mind. Beautiful eyes
like polished glass. I hugged Dad and, also for
the first time, cried with him. TWO WEEKS
LATER, I could barely move my feet as we
approached the door to Pobrito's hospital
room. Dad put his hand on my shoulder, "You
don't have to go in if you don't want to."
We went in. There she lay in her hospital gown,
her whole head swathed with heavy bandages.
Her grandmother sat on a chair next to the bed,
and held her hand. I stepped nearer to the bed.
Only Pobrito's left eye remained unbound. I
gripped the bed's metal rail, thinking of what to
say.
"Hi." It was all | had. Pobrito didn't move, but
her eye focused on my face. She held out a
trembling hand. I took it with both of mine. The
dark eye was suddenly wet with tears that were
immediately absorbed by the bandages. I
thought of the days ahead when she would
eventually remove the bandages and see
herself. Would she remember what she looked
like? How her eyes had once brightened at the
sight of a lopsided chocolate cake? How somber
they were when we looked at the women
hammering bricks? Would she think that she
would rather be a permanent maid rather
than... this? I was the first to leave, making an
excuse that | needed a drink of water. I went
out the door, but Dad caught me just as l was
about to sprint out. "I want to go home." | said
without looking at him.
"All right, I'll take you back." "How far back?" He
didn't reply.
That was the last time l saw Pobrito. She died a
week later. During the funeral, they didn't open
her coffin. It lay there, all dark and final. I felt
sorry for Dad; he spent all his time asking me if I
was all right while I silently stared at the wall
above the coffin.
Looking back, I wished I said something that
would have stirred her back to living, even with
half a face, even with her whole future reduced
to the stench of burnt skin. But I was 15 and |
was afraid.
What | never told Dad about were the
nightmares that went on for months after she
was gone. They were always the same scenario.
Were on the rooftop and l'm telling her, "Don't
do it, Pobrito. You don't want to be an unpaid
permanent maid" and then it would dissolve
into her hospital room where she would clutch
my hand and whisper from behind the
bandages, "You did this to me." And | would
wake up and stare at the glow-in the-dark
stickers, barely breathing. DAD AND I SELDOM
talked about Pobrito, even after so many years.
She was a subject that we would only reminisce
about now and then. And when the memories
turned painful, I found myself unable to seek
the solace of our shared experience.
One weekend, in my junior year in college, I
went home to visit Dad. While Aunt Ramona
was cooking dinner, I went up to my room and
sat on the bed looking around. There was a pile
of old photo albums on the bottom shelf of the
bookcase. I crouched down and was about to
carry them back to the bed when I noticed the
cover of the album at the top of the pile. A
rickshaw decked in bright red and orange paint.
I took the album back to the bed and ran a hand
across the cover. Dust clung to my fingers. I
opened it just as Dad went in to tell me that
dinner was ready. He sat next to me and peered
at the pictures while adjusting his eyeglasses. I
turned to a photo of us in the living room. We
were all crowded around my piano. Dad was
barely in the shot. He must have run after
setting the camera timer on, but wasn't fast
enough. Pobrito was there, standing on the side
with a shy smile on her face. Dad looked at me.
"Tm sorry, Crisan-
ta."
"For what?"
"I only wanted you to know how the
world really is. I mean, it is evil, but not every
time and not everyone." I was still looking at the
picture. "| think I might have killed her." He
peered at my face. "Unless you were the one
who hired those men, I don't see how." I gave
him a small smile. "| told her not to get
married."
He put a hand on top of my head and, for an
instant, it reminded me of a Screeching radio
and cows crossing the road. "You give yourself
too much credit. For all you know, she just
didn't like the guy. She was beautiful, you know,
old
Pobrito."
I gazed at his slightly older face, the crow's feet
that had grown at the corners of his eyes while I
spent the years walking around campus trying
to figure out my life. He still reminded me of
wet markets and Bollywood dance moves. For a
moment I was 15 again, and tomorrow could be
another excursion to real Dhaka.
Yes, yes she was."
FERDINAND CAME TO MY room a few
minutes ago. There was a soft knocking, but I
was already buried underneath the comforter.
When he knocked again, I knew | had to open
the door. He was still wearing his coat. He took
a step back when he saw me, as if he wasn't
expecting me on the other side. Tm sorry, were
you asleep?" On any other day, I would have
reminded him that this is a moot question
because even if I were asleep, I'm awake now,
am I not? But it had been a long day, so I just
shook my head. He shoved his hands into his
pockets and shifted his feet. I tried to
remember the teenaged Ferdinand, always
brimming with confidence, even when he was
at fault. He walked the corridors of high school
as if he were certain that he was going to more
than survive, he was going to succeed. I envied
him then for his unwavering belief in his good
fortune. But now, he looked like a man who had
gorged on too much food and was now sickly
and pale, and the sorrow in his eyes reminded
me of Dad's. I’m sorry for what I said earlier."
"Which part?" I said.
He gave a small smile and looked down at his
shoes. "All of it." He looked so young then, as if
we were 16 years old again, staring at the wild
churning of a Sundarban river.
I leaned on the doorframe. "Was I wrong to
drag you all the way here? Do you want to
leave?" he said. Ah, yes, running away. The
entire world is large enough to accommodate
two more fugitives. But memories are all
narrow trails, most of them leading to dead
ends.
"If you want to leave, Ferdinand, then leave.
But don't pretend it's because of me."
His eyes widened. "I didn't mean--" -no," I
shook my head, trying to keep my voice low and
calm. "You didn't mean a lot of things, did you?"
He flinched as if I had slapped him. He turned to
walk down the corridor to his room. I watched
him grow smaller and smaller under the weak
porch lights seeping through the windows. He
paused outside his door and turned to look at
me, his face not quite settling into an
expression.
Come on, lash out at me. Insult me until tears of
anger prickle my eyes. But he closed his mouth
firmly and went inside his room. | stood there
until nothing made a sound. I waited for it, for
that viscous feeling that sneaks up on me,
pulling my body down; the same kind of feeling
I would always have every time l remember
Pobrito and Stevan: regret.
7
DAD WOULD ALWAYS tell me, choose your
friends. But surely, he remembered high school,
didn't he? Sometimes, you don't have the
luxury of choice. You just grab whoever even so
much as looks your way. You're not going to
strut down the corridors and think that you're
the Captain of Your Ship, and the Master of
Your Soul, and to hell with everyone who
doesn't want to get on board. No, when you're
young, loneliness is this island you don't want
to be exiled to. Sure, some people could
pretend that they don't really care. But who
wants to be alone when you can't even
understand what's happening to your body?
When there are days that feel like some
parasite is breeding inside you, turning you into
another person you can't even get along with
most of the time. When your self-esteem is this
eggshell vase sitting at the very edge of a table?
Have you ever been left alone in a restaurant
because everyone decided to go outside the
garden and take photos while you were in the
restroom? And no one bothered to stay behind
to wait for you or even leave a note? And you
spent an hour wandering around the hotel
thinking that everyone had gone home or they
left you or, worse, they didn't even know they
left you. If you occupy space, wouldn't you want
to be noticed if only so that no one accidentally
steps on you? This is not to say that | became
best friends with Stevan because I had no
choice. Of course, I did. There are some people
who are not worth giving up the solitary life for.
But Stevan remembered who Shaider was; he
grew up watching Batibot and Sineskwela,
watched endless Tagalog soap operas with his
yaya and would sometimes re-enact vase
throwing scene with me. He remembered Star
City with its Haunted House rides and would ask
you to cook adobo We found comfort in our
very nameS. He said we were the perfect
examples of how children are named in the
Philippines. Exhibit A: Crisanta. Suffused with
religious romanticism and our country's affinity
with numerous saints who have specialties in
life: saints for the lost, for every day.
the downtrodden, for the seafarers; hundreds
more that could rival the Hindu gods.
"Do you think humans are just not meant to
stick to one thing in general? I mean, we're
supposed to have one God, but we find that too
simple," Stevan mused., "We need saints
because, apparently, God can't multi-task."
"Saints are backups. In case God's too busy to
listen at the moment," I added. And then we'd
imagine God standing with a list in a podium of
cloud and assigning jobs, "You there, Saint
Elizabeth of the Visitation, take care of the
expectant mothers. And thou, Saint Cecilia,
keep the musicians in line, for they tend to care
more about wine than music." And wed laugh
and laugh at this. I was surprised at Stevan,
really. In church, everyone always thought of
him as a nice kid-impeccably polite, always
solicitous towards the elderly, carrying your
music sheets for you. Cherubic curls and gentle
eyes. If only they knew how irreverent he could
get.
Speaking of which, Exhibit B: Stevan. Butchering
a foreign name via change of spelling. No, the
Spanish Esteban will not do. Too parochial, too
Filipino even, like Luzviminda or Pedring. On the
other hand, there's Stephen, which is too
Caucasian and also, let's face it, reqular. The
perfect compromise? Stevan. Unique and
familiar at the same time. Filipinos are good at
this, at reorganizing and inserting letters.
There's Jhon or Jhoy or Vheejhay. Anything, to
make their kids stand out. I wonder if this is our
national subconscious trying to assert its own
identity: our educational and political systems
may have come from Spain and America, but
we will name our own children the Pinoy way,
damn it. This is how we would spend our hours,
Stevan and I, dissecting everything we
remembered of home. It was not intentional. It
was merely something we had in common, a
comfortable starting line we could always
return to at the end of the day. Perhaps we
laughed too much and made jokes too much,
but I suppose it was easier to make fun of
something that's part of you; when you know
that it wholeheartedly accepts even your
cruelty.
Since Stevan had been in the school a year
longer, he basically took me under his wing. He
told me which teachers were just plain crazy,
where were the best places to hide, and whom
to avoid. He told me that Ferdinand was bad
news right from the start. We were dissecting a
frog and I had to hand over the scalpel to him
because during my first try, I sliced off a leg. It
was an accident. My hands were shaking a bit. I
thought that it would be easy since l'd been
slicing slugs and earthworms for about five
years before l came to Dhaka. Butl guess there's
a certain kind of pressure when you level up to
more complex creatures; that and the smell of
the formaldehyde nauseated me. "Ferdinand's
the cute guy with the gray eyes, right?"
He shook his head, "Yes, the one who looks like
a witch's cat. And with a Porsche parked at the
back of the school. Plays for the Cricket Team."
He shrugged. "Guess that's what you ladies
like."
I frowned at him then. "Do you even
understand that game? What are they trying to
do with that ball? Why do they stand around so
much?" "It's sports. Anyway, his dad works for
that huge sports clothes company. The one that
has this factory downtown?"
"Really, you can't say Nike?"
"It's Fila."
"Oh."
Stevan started slicing along the frog's chest. He
drew a shallow line before placing the scalpel to
the side. He bit his lower lip as he peeled the
layer of skin flesh, exposing the innards. He
opened his notebook before he resumed poking
the intestines with his scalpel, lifting them to
look at the other organs. The more he
dismembered the frog, the more I remembered
how this used to work.
"So, what's wrong with Ferdinand, aside from
he's rich?" | said while | took the other scalpel
and did my own poking. "He runs his own
government. He has these induction parties
where they give you weed and beer. They tie
you in bed with just your underwear and then
they upload pictures on Angel fire." "You're
kidding. The school knows about it?"
"No one really complains. It's just a ceremony, I
guess? And you don't want to piss him off."
"Why?"
But Stevan was now concentrating on writing
notes and sketching the frog's respiratory
system, which, I had to admit, was pretty good.
He then closed up the skin, took out the tacks
that pinned the legs to the wooden board, and
placed the frog gently on its tummy. "You know
it's dead, right?"
"Doesn't mean you can't be kind to it." I smiled,
still looking at the frog. "You're going to be a
doctor. Or a morgue assistant." It was only later
in the year that admitted to me that he got
inducted." And when he confronted Ferdinand
about the pictures, they stole the sculpture he
spent sleepless nights trying to finish for the Art
Festival. He didn't have evidence to support his
claim, but when he caught Ferdinand's eyes just
as Mrs. Gregory asked during a class meeting if
anyone knew where the sculpture was, he felt a
telepathic kick in his gut.
Stevan had done many artworks through the
years, but that sculpture was a favorite. Not just
by him either but by Mrs. Sorensen, our Art
teacher. Do you remember it? Stevan told me it
was a man from the shoulder up, looking at the
sky, his face contorted in extreme agony.
Stevan was able to capture even the veins that
stuck out on the neck as the man made his
soundless plea to an invisible sky. They had high
hopes for that one, but when the janitors came
in to bring it to the auditorium, they claimed it
wasn't there. The Monday after the festival,
Stevan opened his locker and a heap of
grounded plaster fell on his shoes. There were
sniggers, of course, and Stevan was quiet, as
usual. But he had never forgotten, as I found
out later on. "It was Ferdinand," he told me.
"You don't know that."
"It's always him."
If I were to look back and break down the
events before the Sundarbans, I think this was
the seed. It was to be the start of a quiet,
unacknowledged battle between Stevan and
Ferdinand. One that they couldn't let go, and
one that ultimately betrayed both of them.
IASKED FERDINAND when we were on the plane
to Batanes if he remembered his parties. "Wish
I didn't."
He was on the window seat, but he kept the
shade down. I tried to see if he was sporting a
small smirk the way he used to when he was
showing off, but he was concentrating on the
safety procedures sticker on the seat in front of
him.
The sticker was peeling off.
"Why'd you have them?" I said. He tried to
press the stickers back in place.
"They were fun?" he said.
"Oh, that's familiar. | think I might have used
that line with my Dad a couple of times."
He smiled and fell silent. I picked up the
airplane magazine browsing. and started "T had
nothing to do," he said, after a while. "Nowhere
else to go. I put the magazine down and looked
at
him. "That's familiar, too."
THE TUESDAY MILE RUN was every new
student's Mount Doom. Well, I suppose every
new student who didn't grow up in a rigorous
boot camp. I could argue that I spent a good
portion of my childhood playing outdoors;
however, tag and langit-lupa-impyerno, and
open-thebas-ket, though competitive games in
their own right, were no match for running
around a football field seven times. Under the
burning sun. While the coach sipped soda under
the soothing shade of the bleachers and yelled
"Pick up your
I used to think that the Mile Run was the P.E.
teachers' way of amusing themselves or
exacting revenge for the same students who
would baptize them with unglamorous
nicknames and unflattering impersonations. Or
maybe it was just in their nature to inflict pain. I
endured it, totally did it for the grades, but
every Monday night, I struggled as I lay on my
bed watching the clock tick closer to Tuesday
morning. It was like waiting for Death. Well,
actually, there was one main reason why I
hated the Mile Run. I was pace!"
pray for a rainstorm, but the coaches would just
transfer everyone into the airconditioned
basketball court, where you would have to run
24 rounds to complete a mile. They turn up the
air-conditioner full blast so that soon, you were
not only struggling against exertion but against
your lungs freezing. One simply didn't conspire
against these coaches; downpours were
opportunities for them. After completing my
sixth round, I started to feel very lightheaded as
if I had just inhaled every single helium in the
atmosphere, and was about to float away. I
could hear the wheezing that coming out of my
drowning lungs. The sun watched me fight for
every breath with a nonchalant glare. After a
while, I slowed down to a brisk walk, clutching
my side. Mrs. Smithy noticed and approached
me. "What's the matter, Cris?" she said in that
thick European accent of hers. "Tired already?
Here, let me run with you." I dragged my heels
after her in a combination of hop-jog-walk. I
was the only remaining student in the field.
Everyone else was catching their breaths under
the comfort of a roof. Mrs. Smithy kept clapping
her hands and saying things like "Almost there!"
and "You can do this!" Every word was like a
slap on my flushed face. I wished she had just
kept silent and let me concentrate. The field
was becoming blurry fast, as though seen
through a rain-splattered window, and then
suddenly, I found myself sprawled on brown
grass. The last thing I remembered were rubber
shoes gathering around me. When I opened my
eyes, our school nurse, Mrs. Remington, was
hovering above me like a huge cloud. Her voice
sounded far away, as if she were down the hall,
"Feeling better?" I could only nod as l adjusted
my eyes to fluorescent lights. I later found out
that Mrs. Smithy and some of my classmates
had carried me to the school clinic on an actual
stretcher. The thought of my unconscious body
being paraded along busy corridors made me
want to relocate to Mars.
It had been quite a story around the school for
a while-the story of the new student
succumbing to the hazards the Mile Run.
Someone took a blurred photograph of me lying
on the stretcher and turned it into a Ban the
Mile Run Movement poster. The first time I saw
one pinned to the corkboard on the second-
floor stairwell, I felt numb. Students were
gathering around me and laughing, but I wasn't
about to give them another thing to talk about.
I climbed ahead to the third floor and went to
French Class. Later, Stevan found me sitting
against mango tree. "| didn't think you'd want
to hang around the soccer field of all places." "T
hate it here."
"It will pass."
"How'd you know?" He looked at the field
looking molten green under the sun. "Tm
surviving, aren't 1?" He gave me a grin. "It will
pass."
And it did pass. There were still a few snickers
whenever I went through hallways, and on
drunken sessions in one of the houses, people
still told my tale as if they were recounting
horror stories around a bonfire. But it soon
quieted down into urban legend.
One morning, I opened my locker and a pink slip
of paper fell. I knew what it was even without
picking it up: an invitation to Ferdinand's party.
8
THERE WAS SOMETHING dismal about
Ferdinand. I couldn't pinpoint it back then
because he always sauntered down the halls as
if he knew he was going to inherit an empire.
I've never actually seen him in any fistfights or
shouting matches. There were drug tests where
teachers would call some students out of their
classrooms. Always hush-hushed, but word
traveled faster in an expensive small village
where people had more time to idle chatter in
cocktail parties and Bible Study groups. The few
times I saw him wait outside Mr. Richardson's
office; he always had this vacant expression on
his face. No fidgeting, no creases on his brow,
no sign that he knew he was in trouble. He
looked like he had accepted the frequent trips
to the principal's office as a fact of life.
He was always calm and composed. He looked
like he contemplated things, even if they were
nefarious. But there was a sheen of emptiness
on his face. I couldn't imagine him in any form
of joy whatsoever, and I wondered if he found
satisfaction in all his sprees, if any self-esteem
he had battered had given life in his eyes.
Perhaps I could have understood better if he
found pleasure in tormenting others. But he
didn't look like he found pleasure in anything at
all. He was sophisticated for a bully, Ferdinand.
He didn't often resort to physical violence or
strapping people in toilet bowls, although he
didn't discount such crude methods either. He
preferred messing with people's minds. He'd
invite you to his parties, make you feel like he
was really interested in you, and then ignore
you the following day, or take compromising
photos or spread rumors. He took the parasitic
route of attack; he'd worm his way into your life
and then poison your innards. What happened
to Ramirez was the story that people would tell
to encapsulate the grandeur of Ferdinand's
madness.
Oscar Ramirez was the son of a UN official from
Spain. He and Ferdinand spent middle school
together and stuck closer than brothers, to
quote the Proverbs. They were more or less
alike athletic, of average academic
intelligence but highly astute when
came to maleficence. Until in eighth grade
when Oscar became, well, good. He went to
church more, joined the Teen Bible Study
group. He started sharing Gospel tracks, and
sailed through the crowd of sniggering
classmates as if he were walking on water. No
one dared to do anything against him, though,
knowing that Ferdinand got his back. Ferdinand
did go with him to these Bible Studies, and
everyone thought that the Reign of Terror was
finally over; that sometime in the night, they
had been sprinkled with Angel Dust and woke
up whiter than snow. No more backstabbing.
No more missing students that eventually
turned up in the storage basement behind
boxes of tissue paper. Ferdinand held a party in
honor of this new life, and invited 0scar and
some of the church kids. He spiked the brownie,
and got all of them drunk and vomiting on the
floor. Took pictures. Put them on his website.
And just like that, he took down the future of
the church generation. Everyone was either in
supreme awe of his gumption or supreme fear
of
his lunacy. Oscar moved back to Spain after his
grandparents heard news of their grandson's
Great Fall, and, determined not to lose his soul
to the world, had him enrolled in a Catholic all-
boy boarding school somewhere in the Alps.
Rumor, probably of Ferdinand origin, was that
he turned gay in those mountains.
That was how Ferdinand's rise to legend
started. He was a snake lying in wait, some
students would say, and if you were not careful
where you were stepping, he'd bite your calves
off. It was fascinating to see him go to church
with his parents even after all that reputation,
like seeing a creature observing the water hole,
stalking its prey. They would sit in the back pew.
Jacob Turner was this tall, tall man with gray
eyes just like Ferdinand's and, unexpectedly,
sideburns. He looked like a kid who got stuffed
into formal clothes and was now itchy at all the
wrong places. Ferdinand, on the other hand,
was the very picture of meditation with his
head inclined to one side, looking at the Senior
Pastor behind the pulpit. It was discomfiting to
see him meek and mild, and much harder to
judge, really. No one paid as much attention to
him as I expected after | heard of the Ramirez
Massacre. Maybe the church really did believe
in second chances.
Claudia Turner, though, was frail and thin. Pale,
with a constructed kind of beauty. Her face
looked like it was carefully planned, didn't it?
With the planes and angles jutting out just
enough to cross her into the "beautiful"
territory. If her nose was just a smidgen smaller
or bigger, or her eyes spaced slightly farther
apart, perhaps she would not look as arresting.
I remembered meeting her for the first time.
We just finished a lesson and I was packing all
my books. You went into the kitchen to get
cupcakes and lemonade. Then she came into
the room. She was wearing a red sleeveless
dress with heart prints and her hair was tied in
a low ponytail. She looked like a teenager. She
stopped short when she saw me. "Oh, so it was
you playing." She gave me a close-mouthed
smile. "You go to school with Stevan?" see him
meek and mild, and much harder to judge,
really. No one paid as much attention to him as
I expected after | heard of the Ramirez
Massacre. Maybe the church really did believe
in second chances.
Claudia Turner, though, was frail and thin. Pale,
with a constructed kind of beauty. Her face
looked like it was carefully planned, didn't it?
With the planes and angles jutting out just
enough to cross her into the "beautiful"
territory. If her nose was just a smidgen smaller
or bigger, or her eyes spaced slightly farther
apart, perhaps she would not look as arresting. I
remembered meeting her for the first time. We
just finished a lesson and I was packing all my
books. You went into the kitchen to get
cupcakes and lemonade. Then she came into
the room. She was wearing a red sleeveless
dress with heart prints and her hair was tied in
a low ponytail. She looked like a teenager. She
stopped short when she saw me. "Oh, so it was
you playing." She gave me a close-mouthed
smile. "You go to school with Stevan?"
She was so pale. It made that necklace of black
pearls around her throat look like droplets of
blood.
I nodded.
"You're very good.
I found my voice. "Thank you."
"You've been playing long?"
"Since I was si."
Your mother taught you?" | shook my head. "T
lost my mother when Iwas young.
She looked down at the piano. "Im
Sorry to hear that."
She played a scale on the keys, her fingers
lightly trailing over them as if she wasn't putting
much thought to it. "Do you think I can still
learn?"
"Oh, you're here for lessons?"
"Is it so surprising?" She smiled at me, a wider
one this time, and looked even younger.
I told her that anyone can learn. It's all about
self-discipline. I felt very mature saying that,
because I knew I was already trying to impress
her without really knowing why, taking hold of
that instance when a child knows more than an
adult. She didn't reply and played more neck.
But the thing was chirping from the top of its
lungs. Ferdinand stopped it from tottering off
his palms a couple of times. He put it in his coat
pocket and started to climb the tree. I watched
his progress from limb to limb, acknowledging
that he was quite an athlete. He clambered
from one branch to another as if he could
predict the most efficient route to the top.
When he found the nest, he scooped the bird
out and placed it in the middle, rearranging the
leaves to form a small wall around it. He
dropped back to the ground in a few minutes,
breathing hea ily with beads of sweat on his
brow. Our eyes met. I wanted to bolt right there
and then but was unable to move. He looked at
me steadily. For a moment he even looked
relieved. It was just me, after all. He brushed
some leaves off his coat and walked in the
opposite direction.
A FEW HOURS later, I sat in European
History Class seething and wishing that God
would strike Ferdinand with lightning. Or me,
for being stupid. A few minutes earlier, I was
sitting by the lockers scribbling in my journal,
because Stevan was sick that day and there was
no one I really wanted to talk to. Gloria, whose
locker was next to mine, was a nice girl, but l
got put off when she approached me during
Biology Class and asked me, quite directly, if she
could sit beside me during the exam and copy
my answers. | blinked a couple of times,
wondering if I heard that right. She acted like
she was The Godfather giving me an offer I
could not refuse. Or it must be some kind of
experiment to observe how people react to
preposterous situations. Anyway, I wanted to
tell her off, but I really suck at confrontations. If
I'm angry with a person, I'd rather tell him via
email or a note delivered in the guise of a paper
plane rather than look him in the eye and tell
him that I hate his guts. To inflict pain behind a
curtain, however flimsy, just seemed
more...benign. So, I told oria that l'd do it and
then changed seats the last minute. One tries to
do the right thing at all costs. I figured a
deception cancels a deception, and the status
quo would be reinstated. But Gloria approached
with the same proposition for South Asia
History, and that was when I decided that
sometimes you just had to be cruel to save
someone's soul. I went to Mrs. Gregory and told
her that Gloria planned to copy my answers for
the exam and she got suspended for a week.
That was what| was mulling over while I was
writing in my journal. I was trying to calm the
rage in my conscience, most of it directed at me
of all people. I, who had tried to restore the
moral compass in this double-crossing world,
was being tortured by existential woes and
philosophical musings about whether I had
done the right thing. resorted to asking What
Would Jesus Do? | had no idea. Feed the five
thousand? Now, that journal was nothing to be
ashamed of. It was not filled with idle chatter
and crush gushes. I was quite fond of reading
back at my entries, as I thought that I did try to
filter out my emotions, like what Wordsworth
would say, so that | could be clearer minded. It
beat the purpose of being a record of my inner
thoughts. I censored even my inner thoughts.
But, still, imagine my indignation when
Ferdinand snatched the journal, as calm as you
please, and held it high over my head. I couldn't
put up much of a fight. I would not sink so low
as to actually jump up and try to get it back so I
just stood there, stunned, while Ferdinand
walked on toward class. He sat in his usual seat
and did not even look at me when l entered the
room, even when I trained my eyes on him,
conjuring all my brain energy so that I could
produce a laser beam to toast his evil heart
with. All right, I thought, as I tried to go over in
my mind what I should do. All right. If Ferdinand
wanted a fight so bad, he'd get it. Let him tear
all my artwork, my stick figure paintings. I had
no artistic value to lose. And I did retrieve my
journal during his party, but I knew I was too
late.
THE FIRST THING I saw when I entered
Ferdinand's house was a large fountain in the
middle of the living room. A garden fountain
complete with statues of nude nymphs. A few
students were splashing around fully clothed
and throwing water at each other. Or bo0ze. Or
any liquid that was handy at the moment,
really. The party was maturing when | got in,
the air filled with sweat and cigarette smoke
and general hormones. Music was blaring out
from the three-tiered speakers mounted on the
walls and the chandelier was dimmed. It looked
quite sleek and elegant, the gold-plated metal
carved into loops and swishes, the crystal
glimmered in the semi-darkness. I nearly
tripped on someone sprawled face down on the
carpet underneath it. I nudged the body with
my sneakers, but it remained lifeless.
Everything looked too much, as if this was a
scene from those slasher Movies. Someone was
going to be murdered in one of the rooms or
drowned in the pool. Everyone seemed to be
trying So hard to fulfill their own roles as drunk
and wild things. There were loud laughs as a
boy crawled his way to the bathroom. Even the
couples who had found their own shadowed
corners looked like a Greek tragedy. I wondered
what they felt in the morning when they looked
around blearily and saw themselves in bed with
someone they had been laughing at in school. I
wondered if anyone was even really having fun.
Miguel came toward me and flung an arm
around my shoulder. "The special guest," he
said. "How'd you like the fountain? Genius, isn't
it? Wow, you're short." I wanted to tell him that
it looked like | had stumbled into a badly acted
scene from The Great Gatsby. He reeked of beer
and sweat. He held the bottle he was carrying
to my lips. I took a swig and spat it out as soon
as he turned away to high-five someone. I
wasn't about to get drunk and get tied down to
a bedpost. | looked around and peered at the
faces, looking for Ferdinand, but I couldn't see
him anywhere. I entered another hall and saw a
wide flight of winding stairs. For some reason I
imagined Ferdinand waiting at the top with his
dead eyes. I was surprised they didn't have a
butler standing at the bottom m of it. I had to
step over an unidentifiable couple on my way
up. They remained enmeshed as if they were
two growths sharing a mouth. My footsteps
were muffled by the carpet. When I reached the
landing, it was empty. I turned toward an
unexpectedly narrow corridor. There was a
generic painting or two on the walls, the kind
that was sold on Manila sidewalks with their
blurred scenery, over bright colors, and mass-
produced lines. I passed a room with an open
door and then backtracked. Ferdinand sat on
the window sill, one leg hovering outside and
the other planted on the carpeted floor. He
held a lit cigarette. He saw me immediately. The
room had all the evidence of hosting an
adolescent boy: band posters, a black desktop
computer, caps hanging by the closet door, his
pug Bullfrog dozing in the middle of the bed
with its chin between its paws. Except the room
was too orderly. I was quite ashamed of my
Own room after. His books were arranged in a
slim bookcase. No shirts lying on the floor. His
study desk even had a penholder. Even his
skateboard was propped on the wall, away from
the probability of breaking someone's neck. The
simmering fury I felt over his theft ebbed when
he trained those eyes at me, and I was tempted
to turn around and go home. He must have
sensed my flight because he called out in a soft
voice. "Come in." I entered and stopped a few
paces from him. He saw me looking out at his
dangling leg. He said that he wasn't planning on
jumping if that's what I was thinking. I told him
that I didn't really care what he did with himself
as long as he gave back my journal. He laughed
and then his face fell into a blank expression.
"What journal?" "Cut the crap. He swiveled his
other leg into the room and stood up. He
stepped closer. I stepped back, glaring at him.
Be a cockroach, Crisanta, | reminded myself.
Someone tries to step on you, you rush at them.
They won't be expecting both the stupidity and
the gumption. "What would you do if I don't
give it?" Ferdinand's eyes Swept down my face
and back up. Tm going to tell Mr. Richardson."
"Oh, do tell. He's always expecting me."
He went to his desk and pulled out my journal. I
nearly grabbed it, but restrained myself. That
wasn't the time to suddenly lose it. "I didn't
read all of it."
"Yeah, of course."
"I'm not interested in your thoughts."
"Then why take it?"
He shrugged. "Leverage."
I blinked at him. He tossed the journal on his
bed, missing Bullfrog by an inch, and resumed
his position by the window sill. I reached out
and slowly lifted the journal, watching the dog. I
had seen Bullfrog around school a few times,
propping its head out of Ferdinand's knapsack.
It looked harmless, but you never knew with
Ferdinand. Maybe he trained Bullfrog the way
Hades trained his three-headed dog. Ferdinand
lit his cigarette.
"It's stupid for people to keep diaries.
They're just asking to be blackmailed. Unless, of
course, they really want to be read." He nodded
at my journal, which | had clutched to my
chest. "Yours look like something you want to
hand out at corridors. All those big words.
Polished sentences. Musings about society.
Boring as hell. D'you ever have fun, Crisanta?
"Yeah, well, my idea of fun doesn't include
crime."
He smirked. "Crisanta. What a name. You're a
polished sentence yourself, aren't ya? That
pansy Stevan ever got under your shirt?" I
refused to raise my hackles. He was not the only
one who had mastered the look of placidity.
"It's surprising the way you could actually carry
a conversation, Ferdinand. I thought you just
spend your time hunting and pillaging."
Ferdinand chuckled, looking as pleased as a
child who had received a new toy. And then,
just as suddenly, his face fell. It was alarming
how it could swivel into something cold and
dead, as if it were a separate creature he could
not control. "You think you got it all figured out,
don't you?" His eyes flicked at my journal. "All
the judgment you wrote there. Even God would
blush. I'm kind of flattered I took up a lot of
pages. What was it you said about me? The brat
who's going to live on his dad's cash for the rest
of his life."
"Aren't you?" He gestured outside his door.
"lsn't everyone?
"Not me." He flicked the cigarette ash out the
window. "I don't understand why the poor
would want to live." "Why are you not at your
own party,
Ferdinand?"
"You can't tell anyone about the bird." He said,
looking out the window as if he hadn't heard
my question. "Why not?"
"It's not what people expect from me."
"You're thinking of your reputation?" "Tm
thinking of people's peace of mind. Kids like me,
we don't save birds." "Don't you get tired of
being cruel all the time, Ferdinand?" "Ah, yes,
the lost soul syndrome. Wait, I think you said it
kind of fancy." He looked up the ceiling, his
mouth soundlessly moving, as if he were
browsing through the pages in his mind. "Oh
yeah, | remember now. Ferdinand feeds on
people's pain." He chortled.
My mouth went dry. He lied; he read
everything. He remembered everything. When
he recovered from his mirth, he dropped his
half-burnt cigarette on the carpet and stepped
on it. I cringed. Here was a boy who dared his
parents to find stains in his room. He stretched
out his long legs. "Why did I take a lot of pages
there, Crisanta? Do I fascinate you? You're not
one of those girls who think they can fix bad
boys, you?" He smiled slowly, "Coz you don't
want me fixed, not really. I mean, do you really
want me to be your regular Saint Stevan?
Obviously, he's not as interesting, is he? Does
he know, by the way?" I blinked at him and
swallowed. “You’ll never be like Stevan. You'll
never be decent in your life." "Don't need to.
You're decent enough for the entire world. Your
little eulogy for your maid?" He put a hand on
his chest. "Touching. Bet you barely remember
her anymore though. Come on now, be honest,
was she really a friend? Or was there always
that line between you and her? The line that
made you think,
Thank God, I'm not her.'" I'm pretty sure I
stared at him the whole time. The level of
incredulity I must have felt. So, this was how he
played his celebrated mind games. This was
how he broke people down, by making them
think the worst of themselves. He was trying to
level the playing field, trying to make me
acknowledge that at the very heart of it, I was
just as vile and wretched as he. He was the argument via whispers. I was getting annoyed at
brave one, for being honest, for daring to him. Stevan could be too frank sometimes. The
assume the bestial state of Man the whole time. truth is rock-hard enough as it is. No need to
For a brief moment, I contemplated pushing turn it into a granite bat to bash my head with.
him off the window and saving the world. | took He did agree with me that the bird episode was
a step forward. "I’m going to write another odd. "Thing is," Stevan said, "why did he even
entry in this journal. About how you're dressed- care about what you would tell anyone? It's not
up garbage, Ferdinand. That's why you hate like you're an influential person in school."
Stevan, don't you? Because he proves you "Thanks, Stevan." "No, no." He held up his
wrong every time. Coz he reminds you that hand. "You know I don't mean anything by it. I
you're a piece of shit." just mean that the lengths he had to go through
just to make sure that no one would know
His face was blank. “There you go, Crisanta. You
about it." By that time, I was irritated with him
finally sound human. Isn't it nice to be honest
for deducing everything at the expense of my
for a change?" I turned around and walked out
self-esteem. | told him that it was also possible
of the room. Behind me, I heard the dog give a
that Ferdinand might really have wanted to talk
hesitant bark or two. The stairs were mercifully
to me. I wasn't such an abomination. Stevan
empty. I took two steps at a time, walking
took a deep breath. "Crisanta, I| know you're
briskly, and then running past the swaying
not. Could you just...stop overreacting? I'm just
bodies of the next generation of world savers. It
trying to understand what happened." I peered
wasn't until I got out of the front door that |
at him. "Why do you care too much about
realized my hands were shaking. I sat on the
Ferdinand? Why does it matter so much what
marble steps and peered in the warm darkness,
he does?" Stevan looked at his sneakers. "I
feeling a prickling that was shame or fear or
could ask you the same question." | looked
anger, but | could not determine which. I could
down at my blank notebook page. I wanted to
not look at my journal without shuddering. It
tell him everything, wanted to tell him all that
felt like Ferdinand had put his cold hands all
Ferdinand read in my journal. I didn't want to
over me and branded me. But something else
give Ferdinand further ammunition against him.
bothered me, too, like a thumbtack in the sole
But | looked at Stevan's somber eyes, the
of my shoe. I realized that he lit the cigarette
creases on his forehead, and knew | could not
without taking a single puff.
hurt him this way. "He basically told me I'm not
I TOLD STEVAN about the party when he had human, if that's some comfort to you."
recovered from his flu. He shook his head at me
He studied me then, as if | were the formula to
in disappointment, but I told him that I had to
arsenic poisoning. I felt his hand circle my wrist
get back my journal. "You know he's got it
gently. "He's not human," he said, giving my
photocopied. It was useless getting it back." We
wrist a firm shake. We turned back to our
were in the library researching arsenic
books, but I could tell he was still thinking about
poisoning for Chemistry. Mrs. Greenwich had
what I said. I wished now that | had told him
taken her role as Strict
everything, told him every single
Librarian to heart, ringing the desk bell and
sentence ever uttered between Ferdinand and
saying, "Silence please!" whenever she heard so
me so that there would be no doubt in his mind
much as the rustling of pages. She had warned
where my loyalty lies.
Stevan and me, twice now, that we were talking
too loudly, but it was hard to conduct an 9
YOU MUSN'T GET the idea that school was a
daily torment, even with Ferdinand on the
loose. It wasn't. Most of the time, what we
really had to grapple with was the steady
humdrum of academic life. The yearly
laboratory experiments and solving word
problems and bake sales and the obligatory
Saturday community service. Even Mr.
Stevenson had to read The Brothers Karamazov
to us in different voices SO we wouldn't drop
unconscious on Our desks. By the time | got to
eleventh grade, I did have my own group of
girlfriends. I can't remember when we started
hanging out together, but when you spend
years with the same group of people, the days
just melt into each other. You don't really
remember the first time you talked to each
other or the first time you started eating lunch
together. There was only so much you could do
in Dhaka. School, the clubs, church. There
wasn't any kind of night life but the parties that
people threw in their houses. You're just going
to have to make do with each other.
Zara, Anina, and Maryam. One Bengali, one
German, one Pakistani. You might think that we
were vying for the United Nations Friendship
Award, but we became really close only
because we had to spend three hours painting
the backdrop for the school's adaptation of Into
the Woods. For one week, we inhaled every
chemical known to man. When we managed to
survive, we earned each other's respect.
We were going to have a sleepover at Maryam's
to watch Titanic, because seeing it once in the
school auditorium for movie night wasn't
enough. Also, distracting. Most students cried
and screamed even with popcorn on their faces.
We were supposed to board Maryam's school
bus, but we missed it because she had to stay
behind for play rehearsal. Aside from scenery
painter, she had the minor role of Lucinda, the
eldest Evil Stepsister. She had to practice
slapping Louise, who played Cinderella, for
nearly an hour. Maryam slapped like one who
was high on paint solvent, freely and a bit off-
centered. Also, | had the suspicion that she had
taken it upon herself to avenge the common
folk by manhandling Louise's face. Louise, who
was British-Japanese, had windswept red-
blonde hair and a fit body, a direct result of
being captain of the Hockey Team playing first
violin in the band. She and Ferdinand had been
a couple during ninth grade until they realized
they didn't want to be overshadowed by each
other. My only personal encounter with Louise
was outside the school gate where was carrying
her violin case and hockey stick at the same
time. She asked if | could hold one while she
tried to unlock her bike. I chose the hockey
stick. "Seriously, you're biking all these homes?"
I said. I stood the stick next to me and propped
my arm over the top. I fooled some passersby
into looking at me admiringly. Louise rather had
a tender and very ladylike smile, the corners of
the mouth slightly pursed as if she were trying
to make a man guess if he had really made her
happy. "If Mr. Stevenson could come to school
with a cup of coffee while riding a unicycle, I can
bike these home, no problem," she said. I
laughed with her. It had become a minor tourist
attraction to watch Mr. Stevenson through our
school bus windows balance himself on his
unicycle every day. At exactly 7:30 in the
morning, he would be crossing the Gulshan
Bridge with a steaming mug of coffee in his left
hand, waving at the cheers and shouts of local
pedestrians. Rumor was that Mr. Stevenson
used to work for the circus, until he got into an
accident and thought he could settle down to
the safer environment of high school students
who are not susceptible to hormones and self-
made angst. I watched Louise pedal away, the
violin case and hockey stick strapped around
her back like a double-edged samurai sword,
and realized that she won at life. Also, that she
So it wasn't really a joy watching Maryam slap
Louise as if they we in a silent movie. I
suggested to Zara and Anina that we pass the
time by reading Archie comics in the library. We
were good girls, wholesome girls, although
when we got to the was a nice girl and of our
junior year, Zara realized that she could get any
boy she wanted by wearing provocative clothes.
She thus started her career as Dominatrix,
where she wore leather all the time and pierced
her tongue. Frankly, she looked like she
exchanged her soul in the bowels of hell. But
before all of that, we were tween clothing
catalogue material. When Maryam finally joined
us, she thought it would be fun to go to her
house in a rickshaw because she only lived a
few blocks down the road. So, we hailed one,
which was painted with what looked like a
Scene from a Bollywood movie, big bosomed
woman and mustached man dancing on a field.
The wallah pushed back the pleated roof, like a
convertible's. Zara and Anina sat the seats,
Maryam and I on the folded roof behind them.
We looked like we were trying to get into an
accident. The wallah started pedaling, breathing
heavily, trying to get the rickshaw to inch along.
We crawled down the road, and most
pedestrians stared at us. Some of the men
shouted at us and smiled. A Benz honked at us
and a window rolled down to reveal The
Handmaids, sans Ferdinand, waving and
winking at us. "You girls need a ride?" The
delusional fools. We ignored them and kept
chatting. Zara opened a box of croissants her
mother bought from the newly opened French
bakery. We all tooka piece. "Yuck," Zara
sputtered, spitting out. "This, my friends, is not
French croissant."
Maryam and Anina agreed with her, putting
back their pieces in the box as if they couldn't
stand one more minute of them. I thought the
croissant was fine, but when the girls turned to
me, me, l put back my piece. Zara handed down
the box to a little girl who was running after us
and calling out. She didn't have any shoes on
and was wearing a threadbare salwar kameez.
The girl took the box and stared at it, and then
said something else, still holding out her hand.
Zara just shook her head at her. We watched
the girl finally grow tired of running after us.
"Geez, do you also have choosy beggars in your
country?" Zara said. I gave her a general nod.
We had come to a point where we couldn't
really discuss the social problems of Bangladesh
anymore, because we had no answers. I mean,
if | had anSwers, l'd go tell the Philippine
government first.
Once, our class went to an orphanage in
Mithpur for the Saturday community service.
The building was located near a slum and had a
peeling pale blue paint. The director warned us
that most of the children
had disabilities, and we should keep smiling at
them and never look at them with pity. Some of
the girls, Zara, Maryam, and Anina included,
smilled and cried at the same time.
sweethearts," "The poor
Stephanie said while looking down at a crib
where a blind toddler tottered her way to the
Sound of her voice. The girls gathered in a tight
circle in the backyard afterward and shared
sobs and pats on the shoulder. The boys could
barely hide their eyerolls. Maryam asked me
why I sat there with a dry eye, and so I conjured
the image of double decked beds in which six
small children with frail wrists and distended
bellies squeezed to fit themselves. I felt the first
tear slide down my cheek. Maryam was quick to
pat me on the shoulder. I felt like I had been
knighted or something. Wondered if there was
something fundamentally wrong with me for
having to induce myself to feel for the suffering
of these children. But what could crying do? We
had orphans in our country, too, with just the
same state of neglect. But they were tough,
especially the street kids in Manila.
"God made the poor strong," said
Aunt Ramona when we went to Luneta Park
and watched the children splash and swim in
Manila Bay littered with windblown plastic bags
and paper, and cat corpses. "Those kids will
outlive you."
I wondered if Death had a way of training its
crossfire at those who clutched their lives to
their chests like a chalice, who went to the
doctor four times a year and had updated
vaccinations and drank fish oil in gallons and ate
oatmeal in the morning: those who tried to
corral their lives into longevity. But maybe the
poor die more frequently, after all; they die
quietly in the night amidst the water lilies, and
all they could do to commemorate their dead is
to put upa makeshift tent in the middle of the
street and gamble Stephanie was still wiping
her eyes with her sleeves. "Why do they not
have birth control? And did you see how
cramped the rooms were? Why doesn't the
government budget for social welfare?"
Stephanie was from Switzerland So I supposed
that must all have been shocking to her. She
looked at us, trying to find the answer on our
faces. I had a feeling she wasn't getting the kind
of answers she wanted when I just blinked at
her, the solitary tear already dried out from my
eye. Some students were already pulling out
their cellphones to call their drivers. The boys,
except for Stevan who had hovered nearby, had
gone to a corner for a quick and videoke their
sadness away.
smoke. We finally reached Maryam's house. Her
father was the ambassador to Pakistan and so l
expected the place to be huge. It was, but it
also looked like a citadel. The gates were made
of thick steel which rolled back a few minutes
after Zara pressed the doorbell. The ayah came
rushing out to greet us, wondering why we
weren't in the school bus.
The house had the usual trappings of
chandeliers and heavy brocade curtains. But I
was surprised to find it nearly bare. There were
a few chairs and sofas, as if only certain parts of
the house were occupied or it could be
abandoned in an instant.
Maryam's mom, Mrs. Hasni, was Pakistani but
raised in America nearly her whole life. She had
her hair in a pixie cut and preferred floral
dresses to salwar kameez. Her accent only came
out when she was talking and doing other
things at the same time such as pouring sodas
in our glasses or putting popcorn in bowls. But
when we had her full attention, she spoke like
an American.
"How's it going, you guys?" She said when we
bolted through the front door, sweaty and
disheveled from our rickshaw ride. I liked her.
We spent a few hours playing Doom after Anina
typed in a cheat code so we could enable God-
mode. We took turns collecting chainsaws,
double-headed axes, and doublebarreled
shotguns as we descended into a Hell that
looked a lot like a Nazi concentration camp with
the barbed wires and voices screaming from
shadowy cells. We slashed and hacked our way
through ghouls, witches, and monsters, and
walked through walls unscathed. We quit
playing only when Zara walked through a vault-
like door that would normally require a
passcode, and couldn't get back out. We spent
an hour trying to find a chink in the
programming by trying to walk through other
walls and doors, but finally gave up when all our
character did was run around the enclosure,
armed to the hilt, but trapped. Mrs. Hasni
watched the movie with us, and was crying by
the time the credits rolled, consoling the
equally distraught girls. I stared at them. How
could they scream obscenities while hacking a
zombie and be this heartbroken when a man
died of hypothermia? We settled into preparing
for sleep. The girls talked for a bit, but | was no
longer participating. giving in to the pull of my
eyelids. They were determined to keep me
awake. "Hey, Crisanta," Anina began, pulling
away the comforter that | was starting to
cocoon myself with,
"what's the deal with you and Stevan?" "What
do you mean, ´deal?" "Ugh," Zara said who was
putting black nail polish on her toenails. "Don't
act clueless, fool." Sometimes Zara talked like a
rapper. "You quys have been hanging out for
two years like conjoined twins. Spill!
You had sex with him?" This made me sit up.
Whoah, okay. Put a leash on it, Catwoman.
Stevan's like a brother." Maryam, who was also
trying to snuggle into the comforter, laughed.
"Defensive, aren't we?"
You guys asked a question, I was just
answering." Anina was still looking at me
though. Are you sure nothing's going on
between the two of you? Boys and girls can't be
just friends, you know. When Harry Met Sally,
hello."
Zara and Maryam nodded at this as if that
movie were Gospel-truth. "Well, we' re an
exception, then.
Guess we're breaking all the rules." Zara was
fanning her nails with her hand. "If you say so."
Thankfully, they quieted down, but I caught the
looks that Anina had been giving me and the
hesitation on her face, as if she wanted to pull
me to a corner and talk to me. And that's how |
started to become matchmaker.
WHEN NEXT I opened my eyes, Mrs. Hasni was
shaking us while putting a finger to her lips.
"Come," she whispered. Maryam shot up like a
deer and gestured at us to hop to it. We went
to the basement where Mrs. Hasni opened a
door that led to what looked like a panic room.
There were shelves all around us, filled with
canned goods and other preserved food. A
wireless phone
the walL. It looked more like a bomb shelter.
Maryam hopped up to sit on the counter,
grabbing a pack of Twizzlers. We munched on it,
looking at Mrs. Hasni, wondering if she would
ever tell us what was going on.
Maryam swung her legs. "Another
terrorist attack?"
Her mom shook her head. "Just a
precaution, dear."
"A bomb threat?" Mrs. Hasni gave us a tight
smile. "Most of the time, it's nothing. It's just
better to be safe, you know." She rubbed her
face and yawned. She checked her watch and
stared at the phone.
After a while, it rang. She picked it up, said a
few words in Urdu. She nodded at us and led us
back up. Maryam slumped back to bed with a
muffled thud and there was nothing else to do
but arrange ourselves around her.
The following morning, while we were on the
school bus, Maryam said that her dad got a
phone call last night. No one answered when he
picked it up, but someone could be heard
breathing on the other line. For most people,
they could midnight prankster, but not for
ambassadors. It wasn't until learned about
Bangladesh's birth as a nation did | fully
understand what it meant to be Pakistani in
Dhaka. I suppose no one really forgot about the
systematic mass murder of Bangladesh's
intellectuals in an effort to quell their desire to
break free from Pakistan. No one forgets as long
as there are 30-year-old ghosts of teachers,
students, doctors standing at ev public square
and universities where the blood splatters had
been covered with flesh-toned paint are it off as
some wave I thought of our country then, of
whether we still harbor our own grudges
against Spain or America or Japan. But we have
always been a forgiving nation, Il suppose. And
too poor to remain indignant for too long. I
thought that Bangladesh Would also get over
their dead the way we did. But a part of me
wished that they never do. Maybe there should
still be blood when they turn their soil over, if
only to remind them what kind of foundation
their country had been built upon. The incident
at Maryam's house made me appreciate her
friendship with Zara; the reality that the new
generation of Pakistanis and Bengalis could
indeed be reconciled. But they had the privilege
of being educated, of being raised in a
community where one is taught to be more an
international citizen than to have undivided
loyalty to one's country And it's true,
throughout the years, we did learn to let go of
home in some ways. For as much as Stevan and
I still reminisced about Manila, as much as we
were still riveted when we watched the CNN
and BBC cover the unfolding of People Power 2,
we couldn't help but feel as if the Philippines
we knew were long gone; that one day, we'd
step on Manila and feel that we had
disembarked on a different city by mistake. The
following morning, we would forget the sea of
people we saw congregated in front of Malaca
ñang Palace with their placards of Erap Get Out!
Everything was more immediate, more pressing
for the state of our well-being, than our
country's Concerns-dates and names for
European History, announcements of labor
strikes throughout Dhaka, even our menu for
lunch. One night, Dad and I ate our dinner in
front of the TV to watch Erap relinquish the
highest power in the land by floating down
Pasig River aboard a getaway barge. Trust a
movie star to stage his exit like some elaborate
action sequence. Every time the camera panned
the crowd, there would be cheering and waving
as if the country had just been celebrating a
grand fiesta instead of ousting a president.
I went to bed with unease. I felt like there
should be a proper reaction to what | just
witnessed. I should be relieved, | should be
proud that we had once again shown the world
the power of a peaceful demonstration, but all I
thought as I stared at the ceiling was: what of
it?
10
I TOLD YOU before not to think that we were
tormented in school all the time, but come to
think of it, maybe end is just part of daily life,
anyway. Just in varying doses. Someone could
be tied to a tree about to be eaten by a lion
while another gets to prance around a bed of
wildflowers. Maybe some students did get
humiliated more than usual. Maybe some had
to spend a lot more time in the dark. That's
what happens when you release your kids into
the wild. You can't control how the world treats
them. What you can perhaps do is prepare
them for it. Don't give them a whole lot of talk
about how the stars are within their reach and
they could be whoever they want to be if they
follow their heart. That's just cruel. If you're
going to tell them that, don't forget to add that
the stars cannot guarantee self-fulfillment. You
could very well hold your dreams in your hands
and weep from disappointment. When you
fence a bunch of kids together for a long time,
they become each other's best friends and
Worst enemies. There was no one else but each
other. We were completely dependent on the
benevolence of our parents who had their own
agenda in being there. How else were we going
to survive? We couldn't very well run out into
the streets and hitchhike our way to Some
other town. There were no So, whether
Christian or not, we were forced to love our
enemies. That didn't necessarily mean that we
had to think that they were nice people or that
we had to feel good about them. It just meant
getting along, having that ability to coexist in
peace when the situation called Hemingway et
al. in Gay Paree happening among our lot.
for it, forgiving people for breaking your
artwork or stealing your journal or stuffing you
in the back of the school bus. What else could
we do in a small enclosure? We couldn't be
forever circling each other. We either attack or
retire to our respective corners, and sometimes
we did both at the same time. Some, like
Cooper, a huge man-boy from Texas, opted to
write poetry, which had all these ellipses at the
end of the lines:
The rain around you. It drowns everyone...
The rain.
When he read one of his Works for the Poetry
Festival, he trailed off at the last line and stared
over our heads as if he were seeing his pain
blossoming into a vision along the walls. We
had to respect his angst. So, we forgave and
understood and endured. Whenever Ferdinand
his handmaids needed a spare person to play
soccer with them, they would ask Stevan even
though just the day before Stevan nearly
drowned because Coach Hudson threw him into
the deep end of the pool and they all laughed at
him. And Stevan would go off with them to play.
Of course. That was just how things worked,
which was why what Stevan did surprise me.
That one thing that he did out of sheer spite,
Ferdinand almost worthy of a scheme, and one
that | never told anyone else, until now.
PEOPLE IN SCHOOL got used to Stevan and me
wandering around school together. At first, they
teased us that we were a longstanding married
couple, until they grew tired and let us be. If it
vexed Stevan that he was being ridiculed about
having a girl-wife at the tender age of 16, he
didn't show it. He would sometimes do things
that would fuel the fire such as giying me
flowers and chocolates for Valentines. He said,
"| know you don't believe in International
Hallmark Day but take these anyway." Later on,
I realized that it was because almost everyone
in school got something for Valentines, and he
didn't want me to be left out. Stevan, who
agreed with me whenever | lamented the cliché
of being young or the neediness of insecurity
and saw through all my posturing. It was a
special quality of his, to do things out of sincere
fondness as though they were a matter of
course or were absolutely no trouble at all.
Once, I passed by his room on my way from the
kitchen and his door was open. I wouldn't have
gone in if | didn't see the charcoal sketch that
he was trying to finish on his easel. Stevan
wasn't in the room. His violin
was lying face down on his bed right next to the
music sheet. His art supplies-crayons, tubes of
oil paint, and various brushes-were piled on
another corner of the bed. Textbooks were
scattered all over his desk. A corner of the
poster of Munch's the Scream had lost its
double tape and was now hanging like a glossy
tongue. The sketch was not even halfway done.
Only up to my eyes. Our class yearbook, opened
to my profile page, was in the corner of the
easel. "You have the hardest eyes to draw,"
Stevan said behind me. I whirled around to see
him looking at the drawing and then at me,
assessing his handiwork. I couldn't think of
anything to So I started with the obvious, "Is
that me?"
"No, it's your twin sister." Sar-
casm was not a good color on Stevan, but |
knew he was just trying to ward off the air of
awkwardness. "Iť's supposed to be for your
birthday," he said, looking away. The silen ce
returned. | didnt mean to be quiet, I was just
contemplating about how he was the most
thoughtful person | ever knew. I remembered
all those hand drawn cards on your piano
mantel for nearly every occasion, starting with
the same salutations--Dear Mom and Dad; the
formality warring with the abstract, almost
cubist illus
There was a heaviness in my chest that day,
because | realized how reliable and
comfortable Stevan's love was and I was afraid
that I would inevitably take it for granted as all
steadfast things are condemned to be. I
grabbed his desk chair and sat in front of his
easel. "Oh," Stevan stammered, "that's not
necessary. Yearbook's fine." | tried to fix my
collar. "That's not trations colored with neon oil
paint.
my best angle, and you know it." We were
having merienda in your kitchen one day when I
pushed my plate to the side and put my elbows
on the table, all Mafia-like. "Listen, what do you
think of Anina?" He was halfway to putting a
waffle in his mouth and paused. He looked like l
just reached over and punched him. "Why you
asking?" "She might have the hots for you."
"If you spend too much time with Zara, you're
going to sound like Eminem gone wrong. "Are
you not listening to me?" | leaned closer to
him. "A girl likes you. Like for real wants to date
you. How 'bout it?" He put the fork down. "You
don't want to hang out with me anymore?"
"What? No! | come as a Mes-
senger of Love, that's allL." Stevan was still
staring at me like he just got news that he had a
terminal disease. "And you're okay with this?"
"Listen, homie-"
"-| Swear to God-" "-okay, okay." I said, putting
my hands up in surrender. "AlL I'm trying to say
is go out with her if you want to, don't go out
with her if you don't want to. That's all, Stevan,"
He leaned back, still looking at me with a
furrowed brow. He fiddled with the edges of
the checkered tablecloth. When he looked back
at me, his forehead had smoothened out. "Al
right," he said.
"Really?"
He smiled. "Sure, why not?" THEY DATED FOR a
month and then two months, and then a full
year. An eternity for sixteen-year-olds. We
thought they were as good as mar-
ried. Cross-cultural relationships in school were
considered a virtue. It was supposedly a
testament to the universality of love. They even
wrote an article about it in the school paper,
interviewing the senior couples about how they
"manage and overcome cultural barriers,"
which everyone just interpreted as phemism for
sex. Soon, people were asking out the most
unlikely persons they could think of. The more
offbeat the better, like Cooper went ahead and
dated Molly Netnuanyai who barely reached his
armpits and looked like she would break into
pieces as soon as he would embrace her with
his tree-arms. People went crazy with each
other for a while, and everything looked like
some messed up advertisement for World
Peace. I have to admit I succumbed and dated
Francois Bertrand, who was German-French but
more French than German. He asked me out, in
between harried breaths, while we we’re
running together during the Mile Run. Smooth. I
broke up with him after two weeks when he
took me to the only bowling alley in the city and
then tried to overcome cultural barriers at the
"massage parlor" upstairs. I went home
trembling with disappointment, at myself most
of all, for thinking that | could fit in without
having to tear my eyes out. But I thought mostly
of Stevan and how he had split personality
when it came to Anina. One minute, he seemed
to be genuinely fond of her and the next he
would act like she didn't exist. We still hung out,
but only during the merienda after my lessons.
Sometimes we'd eat at the ice cream shop, but
Anina would "happen" to pass by. I wanted to
assure her that I was no threat, that | came in
peace, but decided that I was through justifying
my actions to anyone. There were fewer
opportunities to hang out with him in school,
too, even if just between classes. One morning,
Ferdinand strolled across and leaned against
Gloria's locker. "I heard you've been widowed."
I didn't look at him. I didn't trust how my face
would look when it came to him. Ever since the
incident at his party, it had become harder and
harder to gauge Ferdinand, especially since a
blank expression was his default reaction to
anything. I had a feeling that although I did not
tell anyone about his little messiah act, he was
determined to punish me, anyway. A few times,
whenever we had curry for lunch, he would buy
a carton of milk and drop it on my lunch tray as
he passed by. He did it so smoothly, like a magic
trick.
He would not even deign to glance at me. I
couldn't figure out if the whole thing was an
insult or an olive branch or an olive branch
dipped in insult.
"It's hard to get used to it again, isn't it?"
Ferdinand continued, slinging a backpack strap
on his shoulder.
I finally looked at him because the bell was
about to ring in five minutes and I knew he
wasn't going to let up until he had forced a
reaction from me. "Being alone," he finished
when all I gave him was the blankest stare l
could muster. "What do you want me to say,
Ferdinand?" He fiddled with his backpack strap.
"You're avoiding me. "Everyone kind of avoids
you." "You weren't afraid before." "You" | took
deep breath. "Why do you have to be so
confusing all the time? Why can't you just say
He shrugged. "l'm just sorry about you and
Stevan, is all." "You're sorry? You're sorry?
What what you want?"
are you playing at?"
"I know it's difficult to lose... something." "Lose.
You don't lose, Ferdinand." A small frown
appeared on his mouth. I pressed on. "Isn't that
what you want to hear? That you're the best?
That you're clever? That you're fascinating?" |
slammed the locker door shut and met his gaze.
"Look how much I care, Ferdinand." I turned
and walked down the corridor just as the bell
rang. I joined the students who trickled down
the corridor like water following their own
gutter trails. When I got to European History
Class, Stevan was already on his chair, Anina's
backpack on the chair next to his. I moved to
the back row and refused to meet his eyes
when he looked back at me. Mr. Miller came
into the room and unleashed a nasty quiz on us.
I tried to concentrate on the worksheet, but my
eyes would stray to Ferdinand's chair in the
corner, where it remained empty for the whole
period. STEVAN AND I never did talk a lot about
his relationship with Anina. Sometimes in
church, where Anina would miraculously not be
around for once, he would sit next to me and
give me frequent glances that turned mildly
irritating. I wanted to turn to him and tell him to
just say whatever it was he wanted to say, but I
didn't want to solve his problems for him. |
wanted him to take the initiative for once. | had
found him a girlfriend, what else did he want? A
few weeks before 11th grade was officially over,
Anina's father was assigned back to Germany. If
Anina was inconsolable, she sure was good at
hiding it. We had to have drinking sessions at
Maryam's (she would sneak Out Some
champagne from the panic room) to pat Anina
on the shoulder and tell her that maybe she and
Stevan could go to the same college, and that
long-distance relationships are very possible
although we knew that there was no chance in
hell it was going to work out now. Stevan had
proven himself a loyal boyfriend when they
were at the same place, but he was a man after
all, and an absent girlfriend is almost like a non-
existent girlfriend no matter how a man swears
to all the Hindu gods that he will never love
another but her. I never drank any alcohol
during the sessions, mostly because when I
tried it a few times, red lumpy patches
appeared all over my body in the morning.
Maybe God did intend for me to become a
martyred saint.
To Anina's credit, she didn't carry on about it
like she was Cleopatra and threw herself on
rugs and couches. She was a professional, after
all, having moved to four countries before she
could even read. And maybe that Germanic
blood in her did give her nerves of steel. We
slept early, because Maryam and Zara had
finished the bottle between them. When I woke
up to use the bathroom a few hours later, Anina
was already inside and wash"Sorry." I said,
backing away.
"No, Crisanta, wait."
I stopped and looked at her. "Listen, I... l'd like
to thank you for what you've done, for Stevan
and me. You know, I was really jealous of you
even when Stevan and I were gether. He was
with me all the time, but he would be talking
about you. He really does think the world of
you. All that cross-cultural crap, | don't think he
was a fan of that. He dated me because of you,
because you asked him to." ing her hands in the
sink.
"Of course not. 'm sure he loves you."
"Love? At this age?" Anina chuckled. "I doubt it,
Crisanta." I couldn't think of anything to say,
mostly because I really had to use the
bathroom. "Harry was right though. Boys can't
be friends with girls. I think you know it, too."
She eased past me and stopped just by the
doorvway. "Take care of him." I looked at the
resignation in her dark blue eyes, the hint of a
smile on her lips. I wanted to have the same
courage and maturity someday, to be able to
stand in the face of Life's drawbacks with a dry
eye and, at most, a long sigh. "I will." She was
just another name in the long list of persons I've
failed. CRICKET AS A SPORT baffles me till this
very day. I know it was the UK's fault, so | don't
really blame Bangladesh for this perplexing
sport. Dad, Tito Diego, and Dr. Chowdhury
brought Stevan and me once to a game in the
Bangabandhu
National Stadium. It was against Sri Lanka,
which had quite the reputation as the team to
beat. Basically, it was baseball except you make
the ball bounce to the ground and not Soar
across the air. Most of the time, the players just
stood at the corner and waited for the ball to
come their way. I must have fallen asleep within
the first 30 minutes, because Stevan nudged me
awake, which | did not appreciate.
Now Ferdinand, with his long limbs and lean
build, could have done soccer/football or
basketball as what you would expect from him,
but he chose cricket. Everyone thought he was
just trying to be dif ferent, but he stuck to it. He
would never miss the practices and would jog
around the city with the rest of the guys every
Saturday morning. That's how you know a
teenager is serious about something, if he
sacrifices sleep for it.
Soon, people came to accept that perhaps there
was something that Ferdinand loved, after alL.
He was the best player in school, beating even
the locals and even befriending some players of
the national team. That year, the school was
hosting the Sports Festival for the first time. It
was usually a great time when we had crossover
festivals like this with other international
schools in South Asia. While students would
normally nder along the halls in catatonia, they
would suddenly be buzzing and hopping a few
weeks before the festivals. It was like being in a
room full of stationary toys that awoke at night
to do a flash mob. Families were signing up to
host athletes. Our own students, who from
these other schools at some point in their lives,
were looking forward to meeting old friends
again. Everyone forgot about grudges and
annoyances. Even Ferdinand was too busy
practicing to oversee his torture chamber. You
could see him yelling at his guys mostly came
from Two days before the first cricket game
against the India International School,
Ferdinand did not show up at school. There
were hushed whispers which diffused through
the walls of classrooms. They found marijuana
in his locker, and that did it. Even the cricket
coach couldn't do anything to save him. No one
saw Ferdinand for the two weeks of the festival.
He didn't go to the clubs. No parties in his
house. When he came back, everyone gave him
a wide berth, well, wider than usual, expecting
him to do some crazy thing to avenge himself.
We around the soccer field.
even thought he was going to lock us all in and
burn the school down. But he went back to
class, sat on his usual seats, horsed around with
the handmaids at their lunch table. He didn't go
to cricket practices after that. In fact, he never
played again. THE WEEK AFTER the festival,
Stevan intercepted me just as | was about to
head out from your house. It was just about
three weeks into our senior year. He and Anina
had been exchanging e-mails a few months
earlier, but Stevan admitted that they hadn't
written to each other for quite some time now.
They simply didn't know what to say anymore.
"Talk to you for a sec?" He nodded toward the
kitchen and| followed him. He poured
lemonade in two glasses and set one in front of
me. "What, no cookies?"
"You know where they are."
| shook my head at him and went to the
counter and took back the cookie jar with me to
the dining table.
I braced myself for whatever em tional turmoil
he would unburden. It was about time he talked
to me about Anina's departure. | was starting
to really believe that he didn't care that she was
gone. I was munching on my third cookie before
the silence grew uncomfortable. "Something
you want to say? You did bribe me with food."
He was staring at his glass as if it was the most
interesting artwork he had ever seen. "I put the
marijuana in his locker."
The cookie slipped from my hand.
"Where did you get it?"
"There's this guy Everyone knows about him."
downtown. It took me some time to process
what he just said Over the
thundering of my heart. "What were you
thinking?"
He told me what had been bugging him for
years now. He said that he had always wanted
to get back at Ferdinand for what he did with
his Sculpture. It was this tiny hook in his gut
that kept digging and digging in, until he felt a
dull pain. He tried to put it all behind, tried to
be the bigger person, but then he started
wondering, why should he? Why should
Ferdinand be spared? Maybe he needed to be
taught a lesson about humility, maybe for once
he needed to have the tables turned on him.
"Again, you don't know if it was, he who did it!"
"Who else would do it, huh,
Who else is crazy Crisanta? enough?" Everyone
can be crazy enough!T mean, look around you,
we' re just a bunch of kids. Anything could set
us
off."
"Except for you, right? You're rock
solid."
"What's that supp0sed to mean?" "You're
biased when it comes to him."
So now suddenly it was about me. "I'm not
taking sides, Stevan. This is disturbing because
this is too low for you."
He stared back at me then looked down at his
glass. When he spoke again, his voice had that
quiet in it, the kind that skims the skin.
"T know you like him."
"I don't!"
Stevan gave a small smile, still not looking at
me. "Everyone likes him. That's what's weird.
People like that are charismatic. They make you
hate them and admire them too, because they
don't have any sense of boundaries. Or fear.
Because they're free." remembered the night of
Ferdinand's party when I had raised Stevan to a
pedestal. I imagined Ferdinand laughing at me if
he found out, and asking me what | thought of
Saint Stevan now. It was the first time I
resented Stevan. "Can't you see that this is
what Ferdinand wants all along? For you to be
like him.' Stevan just shook his head. "You think
you can have all these principles your whole
life? Wait until something is taken from you,
something important, something you have put a
lot of yourself into. You'd start wondering too, if
people should be allowed to do things just
because they can.
"Listen, if this is because of Anina-"
"-this has nothing to do with Anina! Don't you
think I feel bad that l'm not as sad about her
leaving as everyone thinks I am? l want to sad
about it, Crisanta, I want to do
the whole heartbroken thing. But all I feel is
relief."
"Why did you date her then?"
Stevan shifted his gaze at me. " wanted to give
myself a chance with Someone else."
| knew where this was all going and I felt my
heart scramble away from its chair, overturning
it in its haste to get away, recoiling from the
inevitable. I thought that this was trouble, as
things usually are, when two people are not on
the same page. "Im going to leave, too, Stevan.
Someday, l'm going to pack my bags and you're
going to have to watch me go, too." He lowered
his eyes again. "| know." There was silence for a
while and when he spoke, his voice was clearer,
fueled by a gathering courage "How do you do
it?" he said, his dark eyes probing into mine, his
face drawn tight as if I were a frog on a wooden
wooden slab. "Be so untouched? So...so put
together, passing through life as safely as you
can. I felt the threat of tears gathering at the
corners of my eyes, a strange piercing in my
chest. My damp hands slightly shook as I
clasped them on the table. I was stunned by the
swiftness in which he had turned against me.
How could he ever think that I wanted to hurt
him? I couldn't trust myself to speak without
my voice breaking. "You're the cruelest person I
know," he said, his own tears rolling down his
cheeks, unashamed. He was finally crying for
whatever it was that he lost. We sat there with
a crumbled cookie under my chair and his half
empty glass, and couldn't think of anything
more to say to each other.
11
THE STORM IN Batanes is drawing near. You
don't see it in the sky, which remains as blue as
ever, but you smell it in the air, a combination
of driftwood and pebbles. The dark clouds on
the far horizon clumping together like
horsemen arranging themselves for battle.
Ferdinand wakes me up by five in the morning. I
hear all the incessant knocking on my door and
think I must be dreaming, but then maybe
there's news about you. I fling my comforter
and open the door. are "Morning!" He smiles
widely at me, wearing his baseball cap.
"You're kidding, right?"
"Let's go."
"Where?" "Biking. If you move real fast, we
might make it by sunrise. I stand with my mess
of a hair and barely have the energy to scowl at
him. "Come on, Crisanta, what's the point of
being in a beautiful place if you're not going to
see it?" "I see it from the window!" He clasps
my shoulders and turns me around. "Tm giving
you 15 minutes!" he calls before closing the
door.
I know there's no point diving back to the warm
bed. I won't put it past him to get the key from
the reception and barge in if I'm not out in 15
minutes. I change into jeans and put on my red
coat, and open the door just as he's about to
knock again. The chill in the air has a certain
bite to it when we finally head out to where the
bikes are parked. Mine is hot pink with a wicker
basket. All it needs are tassels on the
handlebars to look like something that belongs
to Tour Guide Barbie. | glare at (O Ferdinand.
"You did this on purpose.
"It was the only one available, I
Swear." I follow his lead, and we go south,
passing by the Basco Airport and reaching
Valugan Beach, which is carpeted by pastel-
colored stones. The shoreline is covered with
mist that wafts all the way from the sea,
reaching out for purchase like gray tendrils.
There's no one there but us, or at least if there
is, we can't ee themn through all that haze. We
spend a few minutes hopping across stones,
wandering near the water and allowing the
heavy fog to turn into ghosts. Ferdinand tries to
skip stones, but they fade into nothingness as
soon as they are released.
I crouch and look at the pebbles, squinting to
observe the varied shapes and textures. When I
look up, Ferdinand is gone. | feel my heart
double-flip even as I walk to
where he was standing a few minutes ago. I
open my mouth, but no sound comes out. I
clear my throat.
"Ferdinand!"
My voice rings through the water, fading into
the same nothingness where the stones went.
The cold permeates through my coat, which
wrap tighter around me. I try to breathe evenly,
fending off the slight edge that l'm certain my
voice will have if| speak. The mist is everywhere
now so that I no longer can discern where the
shorelines end and the ocean begins.
"Ferdinand!" Hollow ringing.
A figure emerges a few meters in front of me,
wispy until it gets near enough for me to finally
make out a dark coat. "Sorry, sorry," Ferdinand
says, catching his breath. "I walked ahead and
saw these huge boulders. They Olook like ruins!
Sorry, I didn't mean
to worry you." | wait until the lines of his face
cease to be blurry, not quite believing the voice
that sounds like his. I force my heart to resume
its normal beating. "It's fine," I say, grateful for
the curtain of haze that hangs between us. I'm
relieved that my voice sounds calm. It’s okay. I
wasn't...it's fine."
We go down the National Road and stop once in
a while to snap photos. We barely see any
vehicle. There are a few bikers on the other
side, looking very much like tourists with their
telephoto lenses and general paleness. We can
feel the morning ripening. The clouds are
forming into small magenta and orange clumps
rising from a dark sky. Without a word, we
pedal faster, compelled to see the sunrise if
only to get things done as planned. The road to
the village of
Mahatao is narrower, perhaps too narrow even
for a small car. | try to keep my bike in the
middle and refuse to look down the cliffs. But
when I do, there are groups of boulder
splattered along the shoreline as if giants had
thrown them from ver the sea. The sky is
lightening considerably. The cool air rushes at
my face and I blink away the dust that has
gotten into my eyes. Ferdinand swerves from
the road and goes up a low, grassy hill.
"Shortcut!" he huffs, without looking back at
me, and I wonder how he knows. It's harder to
pedal through grass because some of them get
caught in the chain. My pedals ar caked with
loose earth from my sneakers as I trudge
through the dirt. Ahead of me, Ferdinand
pedals with the same ease he had on the
smooth roads. He slows down once in a while to
allow me to catch up and flashes a boyish grin. I
resent
him a bit. We hit the brakes when three young
cows emerge from the top of the hill just as we
are preparing to go over it. They barely look at
us and proceed to trot past us, the bells around
their necks jingling at every step. I can't help
but wave at them. We get to the base of
Chanarian View Deck just in time. The sun looks
like an orange eyeball about to open, a sliver of
its light had spilled ver the horizon. We sprint
up the sharply winding stairs cut into the side of
the cliff. Whern we reach the summit, the sun
looks like a sea monster, rising out with its
tentacles from the gray waters. We don't talk,
which is fine with me. Aside from the fact that
I'm gasping for breath, I don't want to tell
Ferdinand that he's right for dragging me along.
He's serious about this biking thing.
because he's brought
sandwiches with him and a thermos of coffee. I
have no idea what he had to do to get Aling
Tasing to go through all that trouble. He
probably just winked at her. We retreat to a
clump of trees after the sun finally plasters itself
like a seal on the sky.
He bites around the edges of his sandwich, in a
circular fashion, working his way toward the
middle. This is the proper way to eat
sandwiches," he says, like you mean it." There's
silence for a while except for the occasional
crash of waves on the sand below. Do you still
play Cricket?" I ask him, taking a huge bite out
of my sandwich. When he pauses and glances at
me, I want to take the question back. He
resumes eating. "Nope."
"Why not? You were pretty good." "Pretty
good? I was excellent," he says with that old
smirk. "Was it because of what happened
at the sports fest?" He swallows his last piece
and shields his eyes with a hand. He watches
the progress of an unidentifiable bird across the
water. "I loved playing cricket. You know, like
really loved it, not how you women love
everything that's cute," and when he says that
last word, he makes air quotes. "Shoes and bags
and Chihuahuas." He glances at me to see if l'm
going to argue, but my mouth is stuffed with
too much sandwich. "It was the best part of my
high school, if | were to be honest. For once, I
was good at something that mattered. I thought
that was what | was meant to do. It must be, if
all the parts of your body cooperate with you."
l'm tempted to say that if your body cooperates
with you while you're stealing, that doesn't
mean you're destined to be a thief. But I
know by now when to shut up. He picks up a
stone and throws it over the edge. "When I got
suspended from the team, I suppose I was
depressed. It wasn't the imaginary teen
depression either. I felt judged. I said to myself,
if they think I'm the worst person around,
maybe should go all the way. Maybe I should
blow things up. But thinking about that
Scared me, because | knew I could easily go
that way. When I got back to school, I tried to
play it cool. But | would go home and just stare
at the ceiling fan for hours. It scared me, just
how consumed I felt. I couldn't believe that
something like that Could affect me so
completely. I think that's when I decided not to
love anything like that again. He squints out at
the silver sea."| didn't like being controlled, by
anything."
When I look at him, he's already
looking at me as if he's expecting it. "Was that
why you...what you did to Stevan, was it
because he took something important from
you?" "He found a weakness. He got me there
pretty good." | look out at the sea again. "He
wanted to get back at you for messing with his
sculpture."
| see him nod from the corner of my eye. "It
was Miguel and Byron's idea. They thought that
would keep Stevan in line. I thought it was a
good idea though. I didn't know they were
going to smash it." He sighs. "It was a really
good sculpture." My eyes water with the sheer
brightness of the sea. "Isn't it strange? How we
could destroy each other for all these things
that don't matter in the end?" "It matters a lot
at that moment. Everything matters a lot when
you're young. | resume eating, and there's
silence again. Ferdinand turns to me, "I'm sorry,
Crisanta. For Stevan. I can't imagine... mean,
you must have loved him very much." I swallow.
"Someone told me that you don't know how to
love at that age." "That's not true, is it?"
"No, it's not."
WE ARRIVE AT the fishing village of Diura a few
hours later and see a crowd huddled near the
shore. A woman is wailing. I skid at the edge of
the crowd and let my bike fall away. I weave
through until I'm at front. They're trying to
revive a child. It's a small boy wearing only
faded brown shorts, his hair reaching nearly to
his shoulders. He's turning black-blue. An old
man is listening to his chest, thumping his little
heart to life.
The child's mother is screaming
and clutching at a man I assume is the father.
Children are gathering around in their own
small circle, staring at their fallen comrade who
must have been laughing and splashing water
on them just a few minutes ago. | feel
Ferdinand cupping my elbow. I shrug his hand
away, still looking at the child. An old phrase is
forming in my head against my will, amidst the
mother's weeping and the crowd chattering
among themselves even as death unfolds in
front of them. Please God, please God. It leaves
me cold, this ghostly prayer, this doddering
hope for a miracle. A small hand once again
extending to an unseeing sky. No, I shake my
head as if clearing away an apparition.
glance at Ferdinand, he's now staring at the
boy, too. At that moment, I know, we are both
16 again.
His lips silently move. Hes praying. too.
Then, as if by the combined desperation of our
stares, the boy sputters and turns over to the
side to vomit clear liquid. He retches and
coughs, his chest rising as if it's about to
explode. He blinks away the sand that had clung
to his lashes, and is suddenly swept into the
embrace of his mother whos weeping louder.
The child lays his head on her shoulder. When
she picks him up, he turns his head and his eyes
meet mine. They have that groggy, glazed film
on them, but he trains them at me steadily for a
minute before they slowly close. I'm breathing
hard, remembering now to draw air. | turn
toward my bike and, without looking back at
Ferdinand, pedal my way up the slope. I barely
see anything on the way back. At one point, I
turned at the wrong corner and we had to
circle the path to get back to the intersection.
Ferdinand follows behind me without a word.
When I pull up into the inn's front porch, I hear
him skidding to a stop beside me. I lean my bike
by the rail and take two steps at a time up the
stairs. The thick curtains in my room are still
covering the windows. The darkness and
disheveled sheets comfort me. I try to pull off
my Sneakers, but my hands are clammy. I
realize that sand is all over my clothes. I finally
give in to the shaking of my knees, and sit on
the floor with my back against the bed. I don't
hear the door opening, but I know Ferdinand is
standing at the threshold. I hear the scrape of
his Own sand-covered shoes. They're all I see
when he finally comes to where l'm sitting. He
sits next to me, his shoulder touching mine just
so. "Whom are we trying to save here,
Ferdinand?"
I look at him, but he's staring at the curtains
backlit by sunlight. We see the outline of the
trees outside. "What are we trying to do here?"
I say.
"What we should have done a long time ago.
"How is it going to help anyone? If Tita Graciella
wakes up today and we tell her, how is it going
to make her life any better?" "Im just trying to
do what God wants me to do."
"Is this his plan, then? To kill Stevan so you
could be this new man? So you could come here
and then, what, save us? We're not some little
birds you found on the wayside,
Ferdinand."
He closes his eyes and | see his jaw tighten. I try
to keep my voice even, to rein in the scream
that's bubbling up like bile. | rem that night in
his room, when he casually threw my journal at
me, and I told myself "Don't grab it! Don't.
Don't let him see how bad you want it."
My throat burns. "Why do you have to find
meaning in Stevan's death? There isn't any.
People just die every day." "You can't believe
that. You don't. You wouldn't be this angry if
you do."
| hear the tears in my voice although my eyes
are scraped dry from the heat and exhaustion.
"Why is he such an angry God?"
"He isn't."
"Look around you. At that sea. At that little boy.
At Tita Graciella matose and alone on this
island. Look at what it took to get us here. How
can you believe that he's not seething
somewhere?" "If you don't believe that he is
good, then you will never understand his heart.
How can we even want to know why he allows
things
to happen? How can we even take it if he does
reveal everything to us? There's only so much
even the brightest of us could understand. And
maybe in the end, it's not our business to know,
only to trust." "Every day we wait for Tita
Graciella to wake up so we can kill her." l close
my eyes and try to control my breathing. "You
tell God it's a lousy plan."
Ferdinand is quiet for a long time. When he
finally speaks, he sounds far away, as if he was
outside the window. "| care about you. I didnt
come here because | was guilty. That was
given. Back in your house, when you opened
that door and you looked at me like I was a
nightmare come to life, I saw the same despair.
I know where you're going, Crisanta. You're
trying to look for rock bottom, to that part of
yourself that could no longer feel pain. But
there is no such thing as rock bottom. As
long as there is something left to destroy in you,
you'd do it. We always feel the need to sink
ourselves because we keep being intolerable,
because if we're suffering then maybe people
would give us a break for all the shameful things
we do. You think you could impose your oWn
penance, but it never goes away, does it? That
kind of deadening that's worse than actual
dying. We had a choice back then and we still
have a choice now." "We made that choice a
long time ago. You left, and | cleaned up after
you."
The breeze finally comes, making the curtain
flutter and rise half-way. Sunlight enters the
room briefly before the curtains come down
again. I watch them fall tenderly into place each
time, like a caress. A stream of light throbs in
the room until I feel a dull ache in my forehead.
I hardly notice that Ferdinand is no longer
beside me.
 12
THE STORM IS here at last. The trees scrape
against my window. They sound like they want
to get in. I hang around the window for a
moment, wanting to see how a storm ravages a
small island like this. I pay dearly for my
lingering. l'm soaked in seconds. AlL | see is a
haze of water, and the smeared green of
helpless trees and vegetation. pull the window
panes shut and
take a few steps back, feeling the water climb
down my clothes to the floor. A few rumbles of
thunder. I sit by my desk and stare at the
shadOWs of trees, shaking ferociously. I hear
the leaves scattering down the stone path. It
rained that day too. In the jungle, I mean. Also
an angry rain, but more oppressive, with so
Little room to maneuver among the trees. This
storm is freer. There's an entire expanse of
ocean and
meadows to pour out its wrath. I want to open
the windows again and look at all that
destruction. But I've seen it before, and there is
no eye behind those dark clouds. No glimpse of
any living thing behind it.
Just an eternal rain. l'm feverish by night time,
confused as to how being exposed to the
Batanes rain can wear me down. Ferdinand
knocks to check on me because I didn't go down
for dinner. He thought I was still in a sullen
mood and got a key from the reception. When
he finds me buried underneath the sheets, he
touches my cheek, says I'm burning up. I can't
tell anymore whatI feel. He feeds me soup,
which tastes like water, and puts a cold
compress on my forehead. It's discomfiting to
see him bustle around like a nursemaid. He sits
next to my prostrate form on the bed, his back
resting against the headboard, a long leg lay
parallel to my shivering body. Once in a while,
he turns the compress over as if he were frying
fish.
We don't speak much because the medication is
making me too drowsy for anything. But then
he starts talking about his childhood, and it jolts
me a bit. Good Lord, a possible explanation for
the madness within. His voice helps me to
concentrate on something other than my
insides, which feel like they are being
systematically boiled.
He grew up in the American
South. In a cotton plantation in Georgia. It starts
sounding like
Southern Gothic to me, and I glance up at his
face once in a while to see if he's pulling my leg.
His mother was the rich one, the plantation
heiress. Jacob Turner came into town one day
with his denim jacket and slightly rugged face,
looking every bit the Mysterious Stranger blown
in by the wind. It was as if he
was just wandering down the highway and
decided to take a turn when he read the
signage pointing to the small town. But he
didn't look like a homeless person, and he had
enough money to actually rent a cottage by the
river. Everyone wondered who he was and
where he came from, but after a few months,
people got used to seeing him fly fishing until
they nearly forgot that he just sauntered into
town one quiet evening. Plus, he was easy on
the eyes as some of the ladies would say, and
although people would repeatedly tell you not
to judge others based on appearances, things
are more likely to fall into place for those who
are blessed with high cheekbones. He was
certainly charming enough, as Claudia had
pointed out to Ferdinand when they were just
the ones on the dining table. The allure of the
Mysterious Man, the cringeworthy penchant of
women to figure them out. Claudia told him
that Jacob charmed his way into her parents
conservative graces. The belle and the ranger
finally met in one of those New Year parties
that her parents always had at the plantation.
The torches were lit, and there were twinkling
lights, leftovers from Christmas, twined on the
backs of chairs and tables' legs. A few paper
lanterns hung on tree branches. All in all, it
looked like a set from A Midsummer Night's
Dream, which probably facilitated the romance,
framed by champagne and the wheedling
combination of soft lights and creamy stars. The
romance was not whirlwind though, as most
people would like to believe back then. He
courted her a full year, something that Claudia
w very proud of. "I made him work hard for it,"
she said. "| may be from a small town,
but I wasn't a dumb heiress." No one knew how
Jacob sustained his fly-fishing lifestyle. All they
knew was that he would cash in checks from
the bank every month. Where the checks came
from, not even Claudia knew. It had long been
assumed that he must own a business
somewhere, but who runs a business from the
middle of nowhere? There had been some talks
of illegal stuff, but no real evidence, not enough
to keep her parents from consenting when he
finally asked her hand in marriage. They started
moving around when Ferdinand was four years
old. Jacob said that he knew of some business
opportunities in Asia. Claudia, growing up in the
plantation her whole life, was swept away by
the idea of an adventure. For all her insistence
that she knew better, she obviously didn't,
because she allowed her husband to pack them
up, put them
on a plane, and land on India. They stayed there
for ten years, wherein she and Ferdinand barely
went out and could not speak a phrase in Hindi.
Jacob though, became fluent, and rich, and
charmed his way into the garments industry.
Ferdinand first met his half brother when he
was eight. Jacob took him out for a drive to the
countryside one day and brought him to a
bungalow where he met a local woman. She
was carrying a boy, a toddler, who had her eyes
but had fairer skin. Jacob didn't introduce them
to Ferdinand, but they stayed for a few hours.
Ferdinand sat at the edge of a wooden bench,
his back aching from being too rigid. He stared
at the crawling, nameless child, who had taken
a fancy to his brown leather shoes. Jacob and
the woman talked with low voices in the
kitchen. He never saw the child, or the woman,
again.
Ferdinand told Claudia about it when they were
alone. Jacob was off to Dhaka negotiating a deal
and left them for two weeks. Claudia nearly
dropped her for, but she caught herself and
looked down at her plate. But Ferdinand saw
the slight hardening in her eyes, and knew that
she didn't know.
When his father came home, he heard them
fight, but it was a subdued one. Their voices
were hushed but hard, as if they were barely
repressing the urge to throw furniture at each
other. He heard Claudia's soft weeping soon
after when he crept downstairs and saw her
drinking a bottle of wine by the kitchen island in
the dark. It was to be the beginning of a string
of half-siblings. None that he met, but Claudia
would tell him in one of her wine-laced
anecdotes. She was never really drunk in front
of him, but he could tell if she just
drank. She would stroke his hair and kiss his
cheeks even though he was nearly thirteen then
and would rather die than be hugged by any
Woman.
"You're the special one, because you're made
out of love," she told him, clutching him to her
silk-robed chest. And the others, he thought?
What were they made of? He felt affirmed even
as his head spun from her perfume, which
smelled like dried wildflowers.
Ferdinand couldn't tell whom he hated more,
his father for fooling around or his mother for
allowing it to go on for so long. A year later,
they relocated to Dhaka, and it looked like
Jacob had stopped his womanizing. But it was
too late. Claudia had drunk herself to steely
disposition and Ferdinand couldn't shake the
feeling that his father was satisfied with it. It
was like he had been given a mission, and he
had
fulfilled it with flying colors. Sometimes, they
looked like a normal couple, especially during
the dinner parties they hosted. They would
have the easygoing, intimate aura of a long-
established union. And there were no more
hushed fights and weeping in the dark. They
were a painting done over the years, the colors
had sunk in, the lines etched, the blank smiles
setting into the canvas. After nearly two
decades of expatriate living and a parcel of
bastards emerging from behind the curtain,
they finally got the hang of marriage. It wasn't
until he turned sixteen that Ferdinand found
out why his mother endured it all, a few weeks
before we had the class trip to the Sundarbans.
And by that time, his heart was a flint ready to
erupt into a fireball, and anyone could have set
it off.
WHILE FERDINAND IS telling me all this, my
mind is reconstructing the Scenes like a
storybook. For a moment I forget the squelch
and crash of rain outside and hear the soft
whispers of cotton stalks. I imagine a brick
house with corridors and rooms you can get lost
in, and an open field backyard where you can
run without meeting a wall or a dead river.
"Was your house old and huge?" Ferdinand
takes the compress, dips it into the basin of ice-
cubed water and puts it back on my forehead
without wringing it properly. I feel the cool
water run down my temples.
"I guess. It was big enough for me to hide into
when it was bath time."
"Did you have scullery maids?" Ferdinand
laughs. "One or two. Are you going to ask me if
my father slept with them?" "Did he?"
He sighs. "No. In books and movies, they're
young and pretty. In real life, they're middle-
aged with wide hips from popping out too many
children."
"Did you have Negro slaves in your plantation?"
He looks down at me, "Are you serious right
now?" "Im on the brink of death. Does that
count as serious?" He uses the compress to
chase the water trails down my temples. We
had some, but they were laborers, not slaves,
and | don't think cuffed them or lynched them."
"How very nice of you. Go on."
"What else do you want to know?" "Did you do
all those things in school because you wanted
to get even with your dad?" He shrugs. "I doubt
he felt entitled to moralizing. I did it for my
mom, actually."
| shift my head so I can look at his
face. "You bullied people on behalf of your
mother? Were you sacrificing blood on her
altar?" Ferdinand looks down at his feet. "At the
start of middle school, | didn't hang out with
anyone. I read, played computer games, spent
most of my time in my room. She got worried.
She thought I was keeping my anger in. She
wanted to bring me to a shrink."
"At that age? Why do Americans think that
shrinks could solve all their problems?" "It's not
just us, you know. Anyway, I didn't feel like
talking about my feelings to a stranger. I got
into my first fight at gym class and got called to
Mr. Richardson's office." Thing is," he runs his
tongue oss his lower lip, "thing is, when they
called my parents in, and they saw me sitting
there with a split lip, they looked..." He pauses
and frowns at the ceiling, trying to catch the
right word from the air. "Relieved. Like they
expected it to happen anytime soon."
"The fistfights?"
"Yeah. When I kept to myself, they worried
about my mental health. But when I
started...hurting others, they slackened a bit. I
think it was because | was now a measurable
problem. Now I was officially a troubled child
who was just expressing his confusion through
violence. Suddenly I was explainable, you
know?" "So, let me try to understand this. They
actually preferred if you went out and gave
everyone hell?"
"I think so."
"Is that why you kept doing it? To get yourself
out of shrink time?" I’m not sure. There were
times when I felt really good about myself
because | could mess people up. So...so most of
the time, I did enjoy it. Maybe I did need help,
after all." He shrugs. "I've been doing it for so
long, it didn't really matter why anymore." Then
I remember. The orderly room, the lit cigarette
that remained uninhaled. The reason why he
was not at his own party. That was the real
Ferdinand I saw that night. He straightens the
comforter around me. "We're a pretty messed
up family, aren't we?" "Oh yeah. You're making
me feel better about my life, actually."
FERDINAND WAS MILDLY drunk when he got his
mother's old pistol from the top of the kitchen
cupboard. He was back home for Thanksgiving
during his senior year in college. A nice
Princeton boy is what he became. He took up
Business Administration like his father
instructed him to do. He was about to graduate
on time, defying all expectations, even his own.
The boy mellowed down, he overheard Jacob
saying to Claudia one summer night. He thought
it an odd description. Mellowed down. He felt
anything but subdued. There was a steady and
dull buzzing just under his skin. He thought it
was perhaps rage that had simmered down to
indignation over the years. He was no longer a
teenager who had to dominate. Now, he was
just another angry man in a sea of angry men.
He realized the dullness and ordinariness of his
rage. In Dhaka, he could pretend that he was in
a special group of lost boys, the children who
were ripe for angst, because they were
supposedly rootless and had no sense of
identity. He could bring in the strangeness of
the places he'd been, the grimy and wrinkled
faces of the poor he had only glimpsed at from
outside his car window, and emerge from all of
it feeling that he knew pain and disillusionment.
But in Princeton, he saw all these
young men who were barely living their own
lives, too, who spent the days flashing their
dimpled smiles and their sunkissed skins, and at
night would drive in hordes to the nearest bar
to forget themselves and their fathers'
expectations. They looked like identical
brothers. He went with them a couple of times,
until he found himself throwing up at the back
alley, holding his stomach, heaving and heaving,
as if he had never puked before, as if that was
the only time that he would ever let out
something real and raw. He realized this was
what he felt back then in the Sundarbans, when
he was pummeling Stevan to bits, this rage that
seemed to be his inheritance. The rage that his
father must have had when he unleashed
himself inside his mother. He staggered home,
and didn't go to another bar again. That
Thanksgiving night, he
waited until they all had their traditional toast
around the dinner table. After a couple of
drinks, they turned in for the night. He took out
a bottle of wine from his backpack and had his
own session in his bedroom. It was wine he
bought at the nearest 7-Eleven. It was bitter
and tangy and smelled like it was made from
plastic grapes. He contemplated writing a note,
but realized that it wouldn't matter in the end.
It wasn't going to help anyone, least of all his
parents who had settled into comfortable
civility with each other. The AMT Hardballer
was his mother's precaution against intruders
because according to her, the kitchen would be
the last room they'd barge into. As if all men
were afraid of pots and pans. He thought it odd
how comfortable the qun felt in his hands.
Maybe he was an intruder in those stone brown
walls, and the polite polish of the wooden
panels of the rooms. He checked the barrel.
Two bullets. Two chances. So he finished his
wine, walked out the front door, and spilled
onto the porch.
He didn't know where he wa going or why. He
inserted the gun in his back pocket, after
checking that the safety was on, because he
was not drunk enough to mistakenly blow up
something else instead. He walked along the
chilly dirt road, turning toward the field of
young cotton stalks barely reaching his chest.
He thought that he had to do it soon, because
the cool air was slapping him to sobriety, and
what was he going to do with a gun in his right
mind? So he cut across the field and went to the
river. He thought it was the perfect place. A tad
cliché but symbolic. But when he finally
emerged from the field, there was no river. He
must have taken a wrong turn.
There was a small white church a stone's throw
down the road. It reminded him of the Dhaka
church, with its whitewashed façade and solid,
proper lines. He looked at the large signboard
next to it.
Open 24/7
-God He chuckled. He imagined God sweeping
his arm toward the doorway like an eager
salesman. He realized he wanted to go in and
pray first.
"It's true," he said, glancing at "At the end of
your life, you just kind of wanna make sure you
got your bases covered." That's where he met
Reverend
Peterson, who was small, slim, and African-
American. It was two o' clock and the Reverend
was sitting on a pew as if it were a regular
Sunday morning. "Hey, man," was all he said to
Ferdinand by way of greeting.
Ferdinand hovered by the doorway. He was
nearly convinced that this was another crazy
man who had wandered in, ushered in by the
indifference of the cool air. The Reverend kept
smiling at him, "You look surprised. Were you
expecting an empty church?" "Hoping for one,
actually." For a small man, the Reverend had a
deep voice. "You must be in some kind of
despair." "Is that the only reason why people go
to church?" "At this ungodly hour? Probably."
The Reverend had not stopped smiling.
Ferdinand was tempted to turn and run. Won't
you come and sit beside me?"
Ferdinand found himself sitting on the pew
across the Reverend's. He could not look at the
man's face and suffer that smile hovering on his
lips.
"It's the real people who come in at this hour,"
the Reverend said. The kind to whom even
mere
breathing is intolerable. They co to either curse
or seek God. Either way, they come." Ferdinand
opened his mouth but found his mind blanking.
He didn't need to justify himself to this man,
anyway. "You must think | don't know what's
keeping you up at night. You must think we're
so different. But | know. Everyone knows
despair. Isn't that why people jump off bridges
or drown themselves? Anything, really, to
escape being human." The Reverend paused
and shifted his gaze to the altar. "And how did
you plan to escape?" This finally made
Ferdinand look at the other man, and what he
saw was an open face but hard at the edges; a
strip of mustache, and dark eyes that seemed to
exist merely to look. Ferdinand took out his gun
and cradled it in his hands, suddenly ashamed
of his weakness, of his cowardice, as if it were
his heart that he was holding out to this dark
man in this dark church. The Reverend merely
looked at the gun. "If l were to tell you that God
sent me here to talk to you, would you believe
me?" Ferdinand shook his head. "He wouldn't
do that."
"Why not? I'm here now, am I
not?"
"Did he tell you I was coming? Did he tell you
my name? The color of my shirt?" The Reverend
suddenly laughed, booming across the hall. "T
am no fortune teller, son. I don't claim to see
the future, or a burning bush for that matter.
No, he didn't say your name nor that you're
even a man. See this old leg?" Here, the
Reverend tapped his left knee with his large,
pale palms. "Arthritis. I woke up to this pain
shooting up my nerves. I tell you, I nearly swore
at everything when | first felt it. Couldn't go
back to sleep. Limped my way here to pray
instead. What else could an old man do?"
Ferdinand shrugged, "A coincidence then." The
Reverend smiled again. "Even you don't believe
that. You should have been dead by now, but so
thing has kept you from pulling that trigger, has
led you here where a preacher with arthritic
knees had been sitting to pass the pain."
Ferdinand found that he couldn't Swallow the
lump that had suddenly formed in his throat. He
didn't know what to do. He looked at the gun,
which had become heavier, and felt useless.
"There are some people you shouldn't save," he
said.
"Oh, but not you, son. You're here, after alL. I
knew the moment you came in, sticking close to
the walls with that look on your face. You
thought that maybe here at last, at the brink of
your young life, perhaps for the first and last
time, God would finally reveal himself to you."
Ferdinand felt the first fevw drops of tears, and
hated them; their cool, slow descent, and the
slightly salty tinge at the corner of his mouth.
He wanted to crawl out of his skin and leave the
husk of himself on the pew. "T killed a man," he
said, looking at the Reverend's eyes. Then don't
kill another."
The Reverend got up and limped his way to sit
down next to him. "Do you know that you being
here with that gun in your hand is more
wondrous than the parting of the Red Sea? For
someone like God, it would be easy to
command the skies, the
waters, the rocks. But to change a man's heart,
for a man to choose to come here and
acknowledge his helplessness; now, that is the
province of miracles."
FERDINAND FINISHED COLLEGE
and entered a theological seminary right after.
His parents were shocked into silence. Jacob
couldn't meet his eyes for a year, as if
Ferdinand was his dirty little secret. Claudia had
taken to touching Ferdinand's face every time
he came to visit them. She was trying to
make sure that he had not lost his mind. There
was no great rejoicing in the family for the loss
of the Black and Only Sheep. For a long time
they edged around him, stared at him when
they spent quiet nights in the living room. om.
Ferdinand allowed them to get used to his
Greek and Hebrew Bibles, to his list of
important Biblical terms, his collection of
Scripture
Commentaries. He thought his parents were the
ones who were losing their minds over him.
After two years of Bible School, Ferdinand
gathered his family around the dining table
again and told them about what really
happened in the Sundarbans. Claudia's hands
shook while she refilled her wine glass a few
times. Jacob looked down at his clasped hands
on the table and nodded once in a while.
They didn't say much. It had been too long ago,
after all. For them, an old schoolmate of
Ferdinand had died, and Ferdinand was there to
witness his death. That was all. They couldn't
twist their faces into a proper reaction.
Ferdinand then told them that he was flying to
the Philippines to look for us. This was the part
when Claudia rose from her chair and grabbed
his hand.
"But what if they press charges? You could go to
jail. Doesn't matter how long ago it was."
Ferdinand smiled at her. "Tl take my chances."
That night, when he was packing his bags, Jacob
went to his room and sat on his bed to watch
him. Ferdinand glanced at his father and as
surprised to realize for the first time how old
and tired his father looked, as if he had been
dragging his life behind him like a sack of
stones. They were in pinprick silence until
Ferdinand finally zipped his luggage close and
Jacob cleared his throat. He looked at
Ferdinand's eyes, and Ferdinand knew it took
Jacob Turner all his effort to not look away. "Im
half the man you are, Ferdinand, and that
makes me glad."
13
I FEEL LIKE my old self this morning, although
my throat still aches. But I'm no longer feverish.
I open my eyes and Ferdinand is no longer
beside me. I watch the room lighten with the
approach of day. | get dressed and decide to
walk to the hospital. Aling Tasing says that
Ferdinand has wandered off to his own
excursion a few hours earlier. l'm relieved
because | don't feel like facing him today
without a wet press between us. The storm has
completely left the island by now, and the sun
has dissolved the black edges of the sky. The
grass is still wet in some places but apart from
the tree branches and leaves strewn on
backyards, one can hardly imagine a storm
where everything has returned to its old quiet.
The nurse at the reception smiles
at me. Her name is Elaine and she grew up in
these islands. She goes to the same church as
you do, and she told me that you could still sing
and play the piano very well. She said you were
one of Basco's treasures. She asked me the first
time | visited you if I were one of your children.
I told her no, and she seemed to deflate when
she heard that. She said she felt sorry for you,
because you had no one after Tito Diego died.
Elaine told me that he died from a car crash.
That it sped across the cliff. And there were
whispers of whether he really did lose control
of the steering wheel or if he...l'm sorry. It's
really none of my business. I wish I remember
Tito Diego as vividly as I remember you, but I
suppose | never did see him that much. I take
my usual seat between you and the window. I
look at the steady beating of your heart
monitor. I listen to the whirr of your mechanical
ventilator, scrutinize the knobs and blinking
lights that enable you to keep breathing.
Sunlight has returned to its full form in a clear
and strong haze, but it feels taunting.
Everything seems to taunt me; the freshness of
the air, your closed eyes, the sheet wrapped
tightly around you as if you were in danger of
falling off the bed. | watch the steady blankness
of your face and try to remember what your
eyes looked like. Stevan's eyes. I remember
your hands the most. How could | forget them?
The gentlest hands I've ever known. Not just
when you were on the piano, but when you
fixed my hair or the collar of my shirt.
Do you remember that time when Dad and Tito
Diego left for a village in Chittagong and stayed
there for a week? When Dad deposited me at
your doorstep with my backpack, I
felt like | was six years old. On the way to your
house, he went over with me the Dos and
Don'ts of being a house quest as if I were
Dennis the Menace or the Tasmanian Devil.
Stevan opened the door before Dad could
knock again. He high-fives Dad, carried my bag
to the spare room, showed me how to Work the
hot shower, as if | hadn't been to your house at
all. When Monday morning came, as I sat on the
kitchen counter still running my hands against
my droopy eyes, I watched you bustle around
the kitchen. You cracked eggs with one hand
while the other prepared sandwiches. It was
odd seeing them do something else besides
play the piano. I had thought of you as this
Solitary artist who never had to do any menial
work. See how I romanticize everything. Even
now, sometimes, I keep falling into the same
trap although I should know better.
That morning, Stevan sat next to me with his
head on his arms, too sleepy to even pretend to
be awake. | imagined what it would have been
like if | had grown up in that household. If I had
grown up with you gently shaking me awake in
the morning and fixing my things. What would it
have been like if I had spent my days trying to
solve Calculus homework while listening to you
and Stevan practice a piece in the music room;
the weeping notes of Stevan's violin mingling
with the steadfastness of your piano. As the
days overlapped each other, it wasn't hard to
imagine all these things because they were
really happening. ln the evening, the three of us
huddled around the TV like orphans, and
watched Tagalog movies. Those unlikely love
teams of Fernando Poe Jr. and an actress young
enough to be his daughter. The romantic
comedies that would end up in a musical
number by the beach. We'd say how ridiculous,
how ridiculous, but would laugh and laugh at
the cheap jokes and at pe0ple slipping on wet
floors. Very vaudeville. | watched your slender
fingers grab a fistful of popcorn and try to fit
them all in your mouth, surprised to see you
morph into this person. At church, you were
very much a lady, always with the right kind of
Sunday dress, and the right amount of make-up
and the right kind of closed shoes. Everyone
bene gentler when they talked to you, their
voices softened to match your own. But there in
front of these old icons of Filipino tinsel town,
you laughed as loud as any child and clapped
your hands when you found the scene too
funny. The same gentle hands that caressed the
piano would ruffle our hair and slap our
shoulders till they throbbed. A popcorn-
shoving, shoulder-slapping mom.
Before going to bed, you would gather us at the
kitchen table for a glass of lemonade and a
group prayer. Your prayers ranged from our
schoolwork to our future spouses and our
future jobs. I was glad that somebody other
than Dad treated my life as if it mattered for the
good of mankind.
At night, you'd visit me in my room to check if I
needed anything or if the air-conditioner was
too cold. You asked me about my mother, and
I told you that she left, and you said, "Never
mind where she went, you concentrate on what
you have. You have a good man for a father.
You have a nice school. You have us."
When the week was over and Dad was back at
your doorstep, it startled me, as if he were an
aberration. I took my backpack from you, waved
goodbye to Stevan. You linked arms
with me and told Dad that I was a fabulous
house guest, that I shared in the household
chores and that | was welcome to stay again
anytime. Dad beamed at me, probably relieved
that I remembered all his Dos and Don'ts. In the
car, I stared at your receding house through the
rearview mirror. It was odd, what | felt that
day, as if | had just experienced the turn of a
century. The end of an era. I'VE ALWAYS
L0OKED forward to ur piano lessons. Okay, I
looked forward to it only when I practiced. You
know, those lessons saved me. The first two
years in Dhaka were the hardest for me. | was
still clutching air by that time, waiting for
everything to settle down. It took longer than I
expected. But those lessons every Monday
afternoon distracted me from the rest of the
week.
| | did advance rather quickly, didn't 1? I
thought that I had really found something good
in my life too, just like Ferdinand. I really
thought I was going to be a professional pianist.
You made me believe that | could make it. And
it wasn't your fault when, eventually, | lost
interest.
I will confess another thing to you. Do you
remember that night when you talked to me
about how you noticed I was not practicing as
hard as | used to? You said that you were
disappointed. I apologized to you, but when I
got home, I cried really hard in the bathroom. It
broke that I had let you down. I remembered
how you used to spend more than an hour with
me, just trying to catch me up for conservatory
level. You'd tell the student after me to wait
fora minute while we polished sonatina. All
those voice lessons you'd thrown into the mix
because you thought I was going to follow in
your footsteps. | couldn't tell you this then
because I was ashamed, because I thought that
I had lost your respect. I have that disease, that
Quitter Disease. I quit so many things in my life,
you'd be horrified. I quit the French lessons
when it got too complex and I got too confused
with which words were male and which were
female, thinking it odd that language should
have gender. I quit the theater when all T ever
got were the small parts, like the one where I
had to pretend to cross the street behind the
main character while she belted out a song
about how she was going to make it to the Big
City. And now, I even quit God. Well, not really,
I guess one does not unlearn all those years of
Sunday School complete attendance. I quit
believing that my happiness is on his to-do list.
I told myself I was never going to quit piano. I
figured four years of putting all that effort,
going through all those recitals even when |
had massive stage frights. I thought all that was
enough to keep me going. I did fight back for as
long as I could, but I felt my motivation slipping
away. I watched myself helplessly as | started
practicing for only two hours instead of three,
and then an hour. Until | barely opened the
piano. Dad noticed the eventual silence in my
room when he knocked on my door and asked
me if | had
finished practicing for the day. And I would lie. I
saw the concern in his eyes, as if he was waiting
for me to tell him that | was going to quit.
Again. It was nothing personal. I was just a
restless child. And perhaps I am meant to be
lost. Perhaps a part of me really hated
permanence of any kind even before we went
to Dhaka.
When I got into university, the first college l
visited was not my own, but yours. | cut Psych
101 class and strolled down University Avenue,
peering at each building and reading the gold-
plated names on the roofs and walls. The
College of Music was nestled on a low hill,
facing the avenue. I didn't have to read the
name. When I heard a vocalist's rolling Rs and
Latins waft across the grounds, I knew | was at
the right place. The one that you always told me
about when we would have merienda. You told
me of your Italian teacher who was so strict
that you would practice until eight in the
evening trying to please him, the batchmates
who were now big people in theater and
television. You told me they weren't that good
when you were all still in your freshman year.
You said everyone flounders and no one is ever
born a star. I had imagined going into the
conservatory so many times. I imagined having
my own Italian terror teacher. I imagined the
concert halls.
You told me how it was the goal of piano majors
to stage their first concerto at the Tanghalang
Nicanor Abelardo in the Cultural Center. You
said that's the caliber of music students that the
university was training: performers for the large
crowds and the three-tiered spotlights and the
applause and standing ovations. But you
married early and had Stevan a year later, and
then you got too busy trying to play out your
new roles until the concerto hall in your mind
emptied out. I wonder, is that why you played
like that? I mean, in church, for the prelude.
You would play those hymn arrangements that
sounded like they were written in Mount Sinai;
the boom and thunder of chords sounding like
God, in the form of a cloud, descending. Were
you still thinking of the large crowds? Were you
thinking of an entire nation? I must tell you
something else. I saw you that night. In the
music room, I mean, playing with just the table
lamp and the music sheet in front of you. It was
nearing midnight, I think, and I was going to the
bathroom. I was surprised to hear the piano a
bit muffled and realized you must be stepping
on the soft pedal. I peered around the door and
there you were playing Beethoven's Ode to Joy.
Your shoulders were hunched, looming above
the keys. You were playing the last bit, the third
movement, where the chords progress up the
octaves toward the song's majestic climax. |
watched you tense, drawing back a bit to make
way for the momentum, preparing for the final
descent of your fingers...
You hit the wrong note.
| flinched because the sound echoed across the
room. You missed by a half-note, the discordant
tone rising from the orderly chords around it
until the last shrill dissolved into the air. Your
fingers froze on the keys, and you looked like
you were staring right through the music sheet.
When Saw the tears roll down your face, I
pulled back and leaned into the wall, shocked.
For a few minutes, I stood there and didn't
know what to do, until I found myself running
silently back to my room and burrowing under
the covers. I squeezed my eyes shut until the
next thing I knew was you were gently shaking
me awake in the morning. IFOLLOWED THE
operatic voice into the auditorium. It was a
recital. There weren't that many people. I sat at
the very back. A woman, with her hair in a tight
bun and wearing a black dress, was on the
piano. The vocalist was a young man in barong
Tagalog, his arms bent and his hands clasped in
front of his stomach. He was staring at the
spotlight, oblivious of the crowd, although I
know that you can't really be oblivious of the
crowd when you're stage. You are always aware
of them, the people sitting in the dark watching
you, listening for the slightest error in your
notes. | shifted my gaze back to the pianist and
imagined you sitting there, young and hopeful. I
thought that if she turned her head even for a
fraction, it would be your profile that | Would
see. The small nose, the wide lips. That's when I
stopped imagining because it got too real. At
that moment, I missed you like l'd never missed
anyone before, not even Stevan. I wondered if I
didn't waste your time. I hoped that every time
you would remember me, you would not
regret having taught me. I hoped that for as
long as I was your student, I made you proud.
But it's a futile hope. Because whatever trust
you ever had in me is now long squandered.
Even now that I am sitting next to you and can
touch your hand, those gentle but firm fingers, I
feel a wide canyon between us that no apology
could bridge. I look at you and know that| shall
never deserve you. | have to keep going with
my tale. I have to rehearse my performance. I
shoulders,
have to square my straighten my back, curve
my fingers on the piano as if I were holding an
invisible ball. I have to inhale and exhale deeply,
twice, and count to three. I have to clear my
mind. I have to let go. The spotlight and the
burst of camera flash are waiting for me, the when tragedies happen. They don't know how
curtain is ascending, and the only audience that hard it must be to plan for tragedies, much
truly matters now is you. more so than to plan for happiness. It takes a
lot of contemplation, of stepping back to
IF THERE WAS anything the school was really
admire your handiwork, of spotting loopholes
good at, it was the cross-country field trips.
and weak links, of anticipating everything that
When I stood on a hill to watch the cloud-
could possibly go wrong. For tragedies, perhaps
covered summit of the Himalayas, I shivered
he has more decisions to make. What calamities
not from the cold wind but from the realization
are appropriate for such a situation, which one
that | was staring at Mount Everest. This
will provoke the targeted results? Like Job, for
mountain that | had only ever seen in National
example, take away his flock first, then his
Geographic when I was a grade-schooler was
servants, then his house and his children, and
nowa white silhouette against a spectacularly
finally, himself. Call in the help of a few friends
still and gray sky. Beside me, Stevan's face was
who are wishy-washy and a hysterical wife for a
frozen into the same combination of disbelief
touch of drama. And observe how the man
and wonder. We rode elephants across a river
passes or fails. Every player should be in place,
in Thailand, took our shoes off before we
the unfolding of events at a well-appointed
entered the Taj Mahal. We Swam in one of the
pace. Everything must go according to plan or
Andaman Islands where a blue luminous fish bit
else the human will run for the hills and never
my thigh and a swarm of jellyfish nearly
be found again. And then there's this question
electrocuted a few of us to death. A decade
that God would have to ask of himself every
later, when a tsunami crashed over Indonesia
time. When is much too much? How far can this
into India, it sideswiped the Andamans and sank
fellow go? How long till his heart splinters and
some of the islands. I wondered if one of those
he turns against his Creator? And when he
was our island. | remembered that stupid fish,
does, how long does He allow him to be in the
the ocean spreading from gray to blue at dawn.
dark? How Long until God switches on the light
When| heard about what happened in the
and says, "Sit down. I'L tell why."
news, l cried more for those submerged islands
than for anything else. I imagined the fish Perhaps for s, the time for that is now.
swimming through abandoned houses, from
14
one room to another, the seaweed wrapping
through the trees. I look at pictures of the THE MOON EMERGED, a white button on a
Andamans in the Internet once in a while, but I dark fabric, as we glided down the Bay of
can't bring myself to trust the pictures. Did they Bengal. I looked up from where we sat on the
really look like that? Was there really a tree like boat and followed its ascent. One of those
that? Who could truly know now? indulgent moons, the kind that would wink at
you when you stare hard enough. We were on
There was only one field trip that we took
our way to Tin Kolna Island. The surrounding
within Bangladesh itself and that was the
forest was quiet, too quiet. Our tour guide,
wildlife park in the South, the Sundarbans. Well,
Abhishek, put down his sitar and beckoned us
here we are. I've tried to put it off as long as I
closer. "T will tell you a story about the
could, but there is only one road that this story
Sundarban tigers." He said with his deep voice.
has been following all along, and it leads right
Tired of playing cards, charades, and reading
here. I realize how lonesome and difficult God's
the required books for English Class, we
job is. People are quick to turn against him
shuffled near, dragging our mats and blankets
behind us, swiping at the large mosquitos on
our way. "These are not your ordinary tigers.
These are hunters who attack men and steal
children at night. Some villagers believe that it's
Dakshin Ray himself, the qod, who leads these
creatures their nightly excursions." Abhishek
whispered, no doubt for full effect. Maybe it
was because he looked mystical with his olive
skin, deep-set eyes, long hair
like a ghost. We all looked around in a mixture
of anticipation and fear. What if it appeared
from behind the trees? The mangroves were
still as quiet as ever. A branch started to sway,
and another, and then another, until a row of
trees leaned to one side as if pulled by a
magnet. But it was only the breeze finally
catching up with us. We looked at the three
circles pressed on the dust and watched as the
wind blew each one away. Did that tiger feel
the dust brush against its whiskers?
Did it close its eyes on the first gentle pat of the
wind against its fur? Only the ancient
mangroves had the pleasure of watching.
I looked at Stevan, the slack "0" of his mouth. I
felt that if he looked back at me, he would have
seen the same expression on my face. Nature
has that way of Scraping off every preconceived
beauty we ever have of the universe. That was
the last time I saw Stevan in pure wonder. In
twenty-four hours, he would be gone.
worse things."
"No, they don't."
Sanje burst out running from a clump of trees
and yelled for Mr. Gupta and Abhishek. We all
froze. The three of them huddled and then
went back a few meters from where our trail
ended. We watched them disappear into the
shrubs, talking with one another in Bengali. Mr.
Gupta must be tired with all the chemicals and
lab work, and was now looking for mortal
danger. I was failing his subject, anyway. After a
few minutes, they surfaced and asked all of us
to come with them. The group of teenagers
looked at them with blank eyes. Mr. Gupta
waved us all to him with a knowing smile, and it
was sheer curiosity that made us get up to
follow him. After a few meters' walk, Mr. Gupta
signaled for us to stop and gather round The
ground was crisscrossed with sneaker imprints,
but on top of the last imprint, still quite fresh,
was a paw print. We stared at it in communal
awe: a solitary paw print. This tiger had woven
itself through the forest and followed us him.
"Look at that!" he said with a grin.
one side looking straight ahead. I had to go to
the other side of the cage just so I could see its
face. It couldn't even raise its head. Those eyes
stared at me without blinking though, the tail
swishing slow and snakelike. I peered at it for a
long time until it closed its eyes. I felt
suffocated.
Stevan and I soaked our aching feet into the
water. It was cold and clear, and we wanted to
wade in. Ferdinand and Byron tried to skip
stones, which would not even pretend to float.
Stevan was about to walk deeper into the river
when a stone plopped very near his knee.
"Hey!" he shouted. Ferdinand smirked at him.
"You walked near it. Besides, you don't know
how to swim, remember?"
Byron giggled. "I can't do it! Help me,
Coach, I'm sinking! Glub glub glub." Byron
clawed at the air while Ferdinand pretended to
choke him. Stevan stared at the water as if he
wasn't hearing anything. He took a deep breath
and turned back to the shore. He was pretty
much level-headed, that boy. "lgnore them," I
said. "Bet they suck at
filled out. Even his eyes looked older. plucked at
the grass near my feet and watched the wind
blow them away from my opened palm. I didn't
want to admit it, but | was underwhelmed by
the entire trek. I expected golden eyes between
trees or at least a striped skin from among the
bushes. But then again, it wasn't a big deal, I've
seen lots of tigers from a respectable distance,
mostly in cages or on a leash. They all looked
the same. Well, almost.
When I was ten, Dad brought me to Manila Zoo
for the first time. They just acquired a brand
new elephant from Pakistan. When we got
there, the proanimal folks were clamoring
outside the gates. They said that the poor thing
should be returned before it died under the
negligent hands of the zookeepers. wasn't that
invested to free the elephant, because I was
there to see the big cats. I tell you, by the time
we got to the tigers' cage, I nearly went out to
join the proanimal people. Return all the
animals, l'd say. The zoo's lone Bengal tiger was
older than Methuselah and just unkempt. It was
shedding its fur. It lay on
school hates us," I said. He shrugged,
dismissive, assuming an air of worldweariness
that didn't suit him at all. I
wish I could say that we had moved on from
that argument we had in your kitchen. In some
ways, we did, but only by not talking about it. It
was an undercurrent in our conversations,
hiding just behind polite inquiries and
discussions of things that we wouldn't normally
talk about, such as Bollywood. Sometimes, I
missed the Stevan I knew four years ago; the
frog-slicing Valentine Stevan. The Stevan who
had seen me as a new friend and ally anda
reminder of home; when he didn't ask for a lot
but companionship and understanding, when I
could look at him and not worry about what he
might read in my eyes. But l suppose you have
to grow and change, that no one makes time
stand still unless you were Joshua leading the
Israelites in an ancient battle. | wanted to hold
Stevan back a bit, wanted to tell him, "Don't
grow up just yet. Don't leave me behind." But
there was no stopping the changes in his face,
in his voice, the way the sinews of his arms had
gradually
ballerina. We could still see its head with every
leap farther and farther into the trees. I sagged
against Stevan. "That was close."
He stared at me, "Why? What was Bambi going
to do?" Abhishek put down his rifle. He
resumed walking. "Where there is spotted deer,
there are tigers."
We moved on, a human train on a dusty track.
The encounter with the deer seemed to revive
everyone, or it could be impending starvation
that made us walk faster. My senses seemed to
have sharpened with every passing hour. My
ears picked up the smallest sound, and my eyes
were quick to zoom in on anything that was not
green or still. After what seemed like days of
endless walking, looking at shrubs and trees and
beetles and sly monkeys, we finally reached a
clearing. We could see The Prison, which moved
to the other side of the forest while we were
trekking, anchored a few miles away. We had
never been happier to see that floating dregs. It
looked very much like home.
Stevan and | sat near the river. "The
stillness. Abhishek positioned the rifle on his
shoulder and squinted. The air was thick with
bated breath. I began to ponder about
transcendent things, as I usually do when I'm
experiencing a combination of fatigue,
dehydration, and terror. Take for example, right
then, I thought about my existence. Why was I
there with fellow helpless kids, walking along
that path frequented by tigers? What ridiculous
creatures we humans are, doing dangerous
things because we want the shiny badge of
courage that goes with death-defying stunts.
What could twO rifles and a bunch of screaming
adolescents do against an ambush of 480-
pound, 310centimeter trained predators, with
claws the equivalent of hunting knives? Also,
with teeth. No wonder the school asked our
parents to sign a waiver form. And our parents
signed, too.
But there was no time to ponder some more.
Something leapt out of the grass and landed on
the trail. No one even had the time to react. The
brown spotted deer looked at us with blinking
eyes before skipping away, nimble as a
I looked at my watch: 11. My stomach started
to protest its lack of sustenance. I drained the
last drop from my water bottle. Whoever said
that the trek would take only two hours
deserved to be shot with the rifle. Stevan and I
moved closer to Abhishek. If there was anyone
who knew what he was doing in this jungle, it
would be him. At the very least, he could
distract the tigers while we ran away. Abhishek
strode the ground with even steps, often
pointing at birds or insects that we could have
missed. "Abhishek, can you speak to animals?"
Stevan whispered. We flinched when Abhishek
laughed, the sound slicing through the air.
"Everyone can speak to animals." "T tell our
neighbor's dog to stop barking at me and he
just ignores me." A few meters ahead, the grass
suddenly writhed. Abhishek raised a hand and
everyone stopped. We peered from behind his
shoulders. He looked back at Sanje and gave a
quick nod. I clutched Stevan's sleeve. Dear God.
Isn't this what we came here for? The grass
shook anew, rejuvenated by the apparent
In the middle of the trek, Siddhartha spoke up,
"Are we safe here?" Oh, Sid.
Everyone glared at him. "Yes, quite. The tigers
are afraid of this. They know what it does."
Abhishek waved his rifle. l comforted myself
with the fact that I was scrawny, so if the tigers
decided they wanted to have a United Nations
feast right there and then, I would be the last to
be pounced on.
"The tigers are quite clever though," Abhishek
continued, "they go after the weak, lame, and
the small ones."
We marched on, wiping our faces with our
hands. The breeze had decided to stay away
from us. It felt as if the forest was smothered by
haze or in a pause. Even the flap of the
kingfishers' wings sounded subdued. The grass
along the trail bent over us like a Welcome
Arch. We continued plodding on as quietly as
we could, wanting to see the tigers but hoping
that they would not jump out from yonder
shrubs to say hello. Zoos were invented to solve
conundrums such as this. But the trail looked
deserted enough.
of something between the trees, but they
turned out to be small monkeys, lining up to
watch us parade in such finery of baseball caps,
floral shorts, and plain trepidation. Abhishek's
voice was calm, soothing, very much the same
mystical voice he used last night. Sanje was
silent, but his eyes scanned the horizon and the
shrubs. He rested his rifle on his shoulder and
looked nonchalant, but his calmness felt like a
taut string. Sometimes birds would fly across
our path, blue ones. Abhishek told us that they
were blue-eared kingfishers. Their bright orange
bodies were easy enough to spot without the
help of binoculars. They seemed to follow us,
hopping from one tree to another, head cocked
to one side. | looked behind me to watch their
progress from tree to tree. Ferdinand was also
observing them, brows furrowed. He looked like
he was painting them in his memory. But then
he stooped to pick a small pebble and threw it
at the nearest bird, which dove into the bush as
quick as breath. Ferdinand chuckled and
nodded, as if he had just proven something.
and clung to our rubber shoes like clay. The sun
seared through shirts and shorts as we started
to plod across sand and mud, and farther
inland. We stopped at the edge of the forest.
Abhishek started forward with his rifle and
unlocked it.
He smiled at us, "Shall we?" We formed a line
and began walking. The trail was narrow,
hedged by shrubs and tall grass. The early
morning stillness was the kind that could get
under your skin. The crunching of pebbles
beneath our shoes sounded like a crash. It was a
dry day, too. Dust rose with our every step. Our
clothes felt as if they were on fire, and after a
while, we started praying with the earnestness
of Sunday School children for clouds to block
the sun.
Abhishek was in front, describing the history of
the forest, which was declared in 1997 by
UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. We dared not
say it aloud, but all we could think of were man-
eating tigers. Another Indian, Sanje, positioned
himself at the very end of our line. He, too, had
an unlocked rifle. Once in a while, we would
catch sight
around their waists, the boatmen moved only
their arms, slicing the water with their oars,
steady as cogs. We were distributed four per
boat and were warned that anyone who fell
into the water Would be crocodile fodder. The
usual cacophony died at this warning. There
was a sound of rustling trees nearby and we all
turned our heads toward it like synchronized
swimmers. Stevan whispered behind me, "Is it
tigers?"
We looked hard into the shadows hoping for a
glimpse of stripes or rustcolored coat. Nothing.
They're not going to come out in the open," said
Abhishek. "They're scared of us."
The mangroves loomed taller and taller as we
approached them from the river. We reached
the bank and disembarked, stretching our knees
and hopping from one foot to the other. Mr.
Gupta spoke to the boatmen as we huddled in a
tight circle. I imagined we looked like ants
carrying particles bigger than ourselves as we
struggled with our backpacks. The soil was
damp and soft,
toward me, but l couldn't see its eyes. And then
it turned back toward the forest and flew away
as if summoned. It circled the sky above the
boat before disappearing behind a clump of
mangroves. Dawn had completed her
transformation into a golden-haired creature,
staining the water and everything around it
with a muted yellow. The breeze came and the
mangroves swayed their arms as a greeting. Mr.
Gupta's megaphone suddenly wailed like a
demented siren. "Damn it! Somebody throw
that thing in the water!" The chorus of petulant
teenagers erupted. "Wake up, before | feed
you to the crocodiles! Get ready within an hour.
We want to start early." Mr. Gupta's voice of
gloom boomed. The day before, Ferdinand and
the handmaids boasted that they were able to
toss the megaphone's batteries into the water.
Apparently, the geniuses forgot to steal the
spares. Within an hour, we were saddled with
backpacks and water bottles. We stood on the
deck and watched the approach of small
wooden boats. Perched on the bows of their
vessels and wearing a lungi
probably slept only an hour ago. I squinted at
my wristwatch: 6 AM. I went to the nearest
railing to stretch but stopped when I saw the
view. There was a dark green shoreline in all
directions. Mangroves. Thousands and
thousands of mangroves looking as
impenetrable as a granite wall.
"Sundari trees. That's why they named it the
Sundarbans." Abhishek was suddenly by my
side. I wanted to believe right then the rumors
that he could teleport. He tied his hair in a low
ponytail and leaned over the rail like a dog on a
tight leash straining to dive into the rabbit hole.
The Sundari trees seemed to be under a spell
themselves; not a single leaf moved. But there,
to our left, a solitary duck flew across the river
and landed on the shore, skidding on the water
light as an errant leaf. It shook the moisture out
of its wings and settled down, looking around
with its jerky head. I waved at it. It seemed the
proper thing to do, to acknowledge a fellow
biological being in this humid womb of the
Sundarbans. The duck turned its head
kids. We went to bed at almost midnight amidst
the soft hooting of owls and the moon trailing
us, a large and bright eyeball.
Dawn came and took a tentative dip in the Bay.
The Prison sat like a white statue on the
unmoving water. On my small cot in the corner,
something marched toward my big toe and
chomped on it. I kicked, the needlepoint pierce
of the bite forced me to sit up. Everything spun
for a while before settling into one cohesive
image. To my right, Stevan lay with his clasped
hands on his stomach as if under a spell. I
reached down to inspect my toe. A scarlet patch
was starting to grow. I searched for the truant
among the sheets and found a large, swollen
red ant scuttling away. I stepped toward the
deck, almost colliding with a dangling arm from
the roof. Ferdinand and his band of pirates
stayed up late last night to frolic around like a
bunch of bonfire-dancing maidens. There were
muffled screams as some of the girls found the
boys peeping into
their room windows while hanging upside down
from the roof. They had
head wrapped in a black cloth was too much a
provocation. Barely-repressed giggles twittered
in the auditorium in spite of the faculty's glares
from every Corner.
But right there on the creaking boat, Sid looked
at Abhishek as if he were two years old and had
just discovered dinosaurs. Of course the tigers
can swim. Don't you watch Nat Geo? They can
swim for miles when they need to catch prey."
Stephanie whispered from the back row,
readjusting her ponytail. Abhishek didn't seem
to notice the little squabble going on, so
focused was he on recalling titillating tales
about the
Sundarban wildlife. Soon enough, the stories
evolved from rapacious tigers to forest ghosts,
which appeared like flickering lights on the
shore. He said that the lights appeared only
when boats passed by, luring mesmerized
passengers onto the shore, into the forest,
never to come out again. We tried to Scoff it off,
but our chuckles were halfhearted. We stole
glances at the shadowy shoreline. I suppose
Abhishek was proud of himself for frightening
the city
had a feeling that he knew the answers, but he
just wanted to ask anyway just for the heck of
it. But it was hard to be angry at Sid, too, mostly
because he really was just talented and self-
effacing at the same time. For the Poetry
Festival, he recited Song XII from Rabindranath
Tagore's Gitanjali collection, and played the
sitar as background. He shed the leather jacket
and the sneakers and wore his Brahmin turban
and a lungi. He sat cross-legged and barefoot on
the stage with that glazed look on his eyes,
probably trying to project his namesake,
Siddhartha Gautama Buddha.
We had been mesmerized in spite of our initial
discomfort at seeing Sid look Like he just snake-
charmed himself. It was all working well, until
Mr. RichardSon joined him on the stage, also
wearing a turban and a lungi. He sat next to Sid
and uttered the poem's English translation
alongside the original text. He even grew a
goatee for the occasion. The entrancing mist
evaporated as if someone turned on an
industrial fan. Seeing Mr. Richardson's pale and
hairy legs through the lungi, and his balding
food, but some of the forest dwellers were
forced to defend themselves. The villagers
claimed that the tigers would attack them while
they were chopping trees for firewood or
collecting honey, so they made masks that
resembled human faces and put them at the
back of their heads to deceive the tigers. But
those hunters are a quick study. Abhishek
further explained that nature taught the tigers
to appreciate human flesh. Every monsoon
season, the excessive rains cause the bay to
overflovw and flood the whole swamp, carrying
the houses of the forest dwellers toward the
river and spewing out drowned carcasses along
the way. The tigers had learned to feast on the
corpses and soon acquired the fine taste for
dead human meat, so much so that they went
out at night to snatch sleeping children. "Can
they swim?" Sid interrupted. People turned
their heads to stare at him. Surely that was
easier to figure out than solar-powered Coke
cans? But Sid was the Grand Inquisitor.
Sometimes, it was hard to believe that he would
ask just about anything under the sun. We
splashing mineral water on its side [the boys
sprinkled urine.) It was a poor excuse fora
tourist boat. Its only advantage over Huck Finn's
barge was that it had a roof. The white paint
was crumbling off and the floorboards were
dingy. I saw two rats stroll across the deck as if
they were Lord Vishnu walking across the
universe he had created. Abhishek assured us
that by tomorrow morning we would arrive at
the edge of the forest. "You will be amazed!" he
said, Scanning our faces with narrowed eyes. I
wasn't aware back then of how massive the
Sundarban Forest really is. It's shared by both
Bangladesh and India, but the greater part of
the park belongs to Bangladesh and had been
the country's pride for decades. But the jewel of
the Sundarbans is the nearly extinct Royal
Bengal tigers. We had heard notorious stories
about the forest; stories about how the
crocodiles would spring out from the river and
attack boats, and how the tigers would pounce
on a person drinking water from the river. It
was declared a criminal offense to kill the tigers,
either for their fur or for
1,700-kilometer swamp forest to meet tigers in
their natural habitat. There was poetry in that
for sure, it screamed acculturation and
environment awareness. But also a sliver of
malice. I looked at Mr. Gupta, our Chemistry
teacher and chaperone, from the corner of my
eye. He sat on a chair by the side and smiled at
the almost tribal oracle Scene in front of him.
Or perhaps he was just daydreaming of luring us
deep into the forest and abandoning us. He had
several motives for this. We might have
impersonated him one time too manyhis
Bengali accent and his hoarse voice that
sounded like gravel rolling down.
And then there was The Case of the Blown-Up
Lab, which involved chemicals that were not
meant to be mixed together. "Saboteurs!" he
called us. The way he went on and on about it
in front of Mr. Richardson, it seemed that death
was too good for us. The truth was he
mislabeled the beakers. Mr. Gupta Would not
admit this to this very day. The boat emitted a
meek creak as it followed the undercurrent of
the bay. We dubbed that contraption, The
Prison,
Indian accent, but we found all 30 of us sitting
around him, enraptured against Our wilL.
I knew a thing or two about the royal Bengal
tigers. Do you remember that ten-year-old boy
in The Bangla Times? | think his name was
Amal. They had a blurred picture of him on the
front page. Amal thought it would be fun to
jump over the fence around the tigers' cage in
Dhaka Zoo and repeatedly hit the bars with a
stick. A three-year-old adult tiger extended a
paw and took a curious swipe at the boy's head,
and the head promptly fell.
Needless to say, the whole zoo was in a furor.
Some people blamed the useless fence, and
others pointed fingers at Amal's parents for not
looking after the boy. No one wanted to blame
a decapitated child for doing something stupid
as taunting the tigers. Regardless of what's
what, the point remains that one should never
tease a royal Bengal tiger. They don't believe in
second chances. This is why it still astounds me
that for our field trip, the school thought it
would be appropriate to send us to a
waves hurl against the rocks, spilling over my
feet. I press my back against the pebbled wall,
flattening myself against its recesses as the
ocean swirls in front of me. I need help in my
remembering. I need the uncompromising
viciousness of this sea and this quicksilver sky. I
need a setup for these tears that are coming,
slow but determined.
That's where Ferdinand finds me, after
searching for me all over town; going up and
down the promenade, peering inside various
establishments. His coat is sufficiently wet,
fluttering like a scarecrow's. He's carrying an
umbrella that has one of its steel frames poking
through the fabric. He can barely open it against
the wind. He puts it over me and wraps an arm
around me, silent as night. In that moment, he's
comfort like l've never known.
15
WE SPENT THE rest of the day near the river,
splashing our faces with the cool water and
resting under the mangroves. By mid-afternoon,
Mr. Gupta called a meeting.
"All right. It's time for the annual Sundarban
Special. Who wants to enter their names for the
Lookout Draw?" The Lookout Draw gave five
"lucky" students the chance to spend the night
in a tree house in the middle of the forest,
armed with night vision goggles and..a death
wish. Supposedly, you could see the tigers in
action and you could observe the nocturnal
animals as they emerged from their lairs. But
those were not as important as being
considered part of the elite group of students
who had survived the jungle overnight. It was
the ultimate Badge of Courage. The five
students always returned to school as minor
celebrities. They were the ones who got
interviewed for the school paper and got to talk
about the experience to anyone who would
care to listen. There are some things you do just
though mud started to squeeze its way inside
my eyes and nose. Stevan turned me over and
wiped my face. I looked up at him, over his
shoulders, at the leaves framing him.
"We're going to die," I said.
He shook his head. "No."
"Tm sorry, Stevan. For everything."
"Don't be."
He hauled me up on his lap while he sat against
the tree trunk. The forest seemed to contract,
shrinking with us, until we were two small
fiqures in a waterglobe.
| THINKI UNDERSTAND now why Ferdinand
likes watching the emptiness of the Pacific
Ocean from the cliff. So much open space, so
much blank sky and equally blank waters. I had
to get out after wrote that last bit. I couldn't
breathe in the room. Everything was coming
alive: the walls, your bed, you. There's a drizzle.
Maybe the storm decided to turn around and
have another go at the island. I stride toward
the base of the cliff near the rocks, unable to
stop the memories from coming after me. The
We all turned and ran.
I REMEMBER HOW a branch cut across my
cheek. It seared like nothing I had ever felt
before. I don't remember feeling the blood
trickling down. Al | remember is the rush of
foliage, the Scattering of mud as we plunged
into it, and crying. Yes, I remember crying.
Stevan dragged me by the hand and we ran
uphill, away from the trail. I couldn't see the
others. "Oh, God," was all he said. The rain
came again, relentless. We slipped. Stevan
grabbed an overhanging branch and stopped us
from slipping farther. He hauled me up, and we
kept running. We ran for a long time. We
couldn't look back. We couldn't. Things don't go
well for those who look back.
My teeth chattered, from fear or from the cold I
couldn't telL. I didn't know which was rainwater
or which were tears. Everything looked the
same; the trees standing still, watching us slog
through, and the endless black sky. I stumbled
on a cluster of roots and fell on my face. |
couldn't move again even
He went back the trail and disappeared around
a corner. Al we could hear was the rain
slamming on leaves. And then a yell. A squeal,
like a wild boar's.
We froze.
There was stillness again. Gloria started to cry
beside me. "Oh no, oh no," she said.
The world spun slowly as we stood and waited.
Five minutes, ten minutes. I muttered, "Please,
God. Please, God," Over and over again, like an
incantation, trying to summon Abhishek to
appear. And then we heard it. The low growl
from the bush a few meters from us. A low
growl. The air was a cold finger going up my
spine. The grass slowly parted, just like in
documentaries, to reveal two yellow eyes and
then the bright orange head of a Royal Bengal
tiger. Water was rolling down its coat, which
seemed to gleam even under the rain. In spite
of ourselves, we stared back at it.
The magnificent beast. Stevan clutched my
sleeve. "Run," he said. And then as if shaking
himself from a spell, he shouted, "Run!"
thinking of all the insects that were now sticking
to my legs. In front of me, Gloria coughed a few
times. No animal came out to look at us from
the treetops or from the bushes. Behind Stevan,
Sid stared at the rivulets of mud that followed
us down the trail. For some reason, I could hear
him thinking, "Are there snakes in the mud?"
Ferdinand shoved his hands into his
windbreaker pockets, blinking away rain and
concentrating on his steps. Behind him,
Sanje...was not there. I blinked. He was still
missing.
"Ferdinand!" | called out. He didn't hear me. I
tapped Gloria's shoulder and she looked back,
confused. And then she remembered and
quickly tapped Abhishek. He looked back. He
knew immediately what was wrong. We
stopped. He told us to stay together on one side
and face outward. "You can't leave us!" Gloria
said. Abhishek shook his head, still looking at
the empty spot behind Ferdinand. "I have to
find him. I won't go far. Just stay together. I'll be
back, okay? It's fine." We could barely hear his
low voice.
us, frowning.
"Al right, let's move out." We formed a line and
started walking, Abhishek in front and Sanje at
the end. For quite some time all l could hear
was the squelch of our sneakers as we trudged
through the mud. Our windbreakers were
absolutely useless; they only weighed us down
as they got Soaked. | looked around the forest.
Our trail was cut through the hill, surrounded by
an elevated ground that inclined toward thicker
clumps of mangroves in all directions. It must
have been used as a trench before or hunting
ground. All the mangroves looked the same
with their network of roots spreading out like
dried vines. You could imagine them moving like
knobby fingers as soon as you turn your head
away. I shuddered. Abhishek looked back at us
once in a while. I looked at Stevan behind me;
he grinned in spite of the rain running down his
face and gave me the thumbs up.
The rain started to ebb down after a while,
which gave us hope. I was already shivering
from the wind and from
meant to stay for two days. I could hear him
talking to Mr. Gupta on the radio. We huddled
at the base of the tree, waiting for Abhishek to
come down. Leaves clung to our legs like
leeches. We blinked away the rain from our
eyelashes and peered around like lost children.
Ferdinand was busy carving something on the
trunk with his pocket knife. It looked something
like "Ferdinand was here." Yes, original.
Gloria looked pale.
"You okay?" I asked her.
"I don't feel too well." Abhishek finally joined us
and gathered us to him. "Okay, this is going to
take longer because we have to walk slower.
Everything's muddy. Look, I've been on this trail
lots of times, I grew up in this forest. I'U get you
home, all right?"
We just nodded. "If someone needs to stop, just
tap the person in front of you, and then that
person will tap the person in front of him until it
reaches me. No shouting, okay? Any
questions?" We looked at Sid. He looked back at
monsoon was gone, the island never came out
again." Abhishek shrugged."It was just the sea
taking back what it OWns.
"It's no one's fault, Abhishek," Gloria said. "lt's
just how things are." I looked at Gloria and
wondered why she had to cheat on exams.
"I say kill the tigers when they attack," said
Ferdinand. "There are no clear rules when
you're trying to survive." Abhishek looked at us
then, as if he just realized something. "Just the
same, it's all a field trip to you. Just anoth field
trip, isn't it?"
He looked like he wanted to say something
more but decided against it. He looked outside,
at the tree branches helpless in the wind, at the
ash-painted sky.
AFTER LUNCH, ABHISHEK decided to head back
to the main camp. The rain was still falling hard
enough to drench us through our windbreakers,
but he was worried that we wouldn't be able to
get back to Dhaka in time. Also, we were
running out of food, because we were not
prey they could attack and those they couldn't.
But sometimes, there are certain abnormalities,
especially when humans are in their territories."
Then why are we here?" | was surprised to
realize that / was asking the question. "Why are
we in their territories?"
"Because we have nowhere else to go. This is
our land, too. It belongs to our fathers. Why
should we give it up for anything? The tigers can
kill and get away with it because supposedly
they don't know any better. It's not their fault if
people intrude. We're not allowed to kill them
even though they come back, night after night,
for our children. We can't kill them, because
they're nearly extinct, they're a national
treasure, whereas there's so many of us
villagers who live in these forests. It's our fault,
because we are poor and had nowhere else to
go when our islands sank." "Sank?" Gloria said.
"My family was from Lochabar Island on the
Indian side. It was the monsoon season and we
had to leave because of heavy flooding. But
even after the
havoc. And now, nothing but a hunk of flesh. In
spite of myself, I stared at the broken body, and
wished for daylight. IT RAINED THE following
morning. Rained really hard, the kind of rain
that seemed to be making up for lost time. The
entire world was behind a waterfal.
Abhishek prepared our food (canned
tuna and bread) and watched us wolf down
everything he set before us. He laughed.
"You kids act like you haven't eaten for a long
time." "Feels like it," Ferdinand said. After the
meal, we resettled ourselves underneath
blankets and jackets. No one was really
speaking because who could compete with the
torrent outside? After a while, Sid said, "Can
tigers climb trees?"
Abhishek smiled at him. "Yes." We were
surprised when Sid didn't have a follow-up
question. "What you should know," Abhishek
continued when no one spoke for a while, "is
that even wild animals are trained. They are
trained to know which
"Don't move," Abhishek said. The tiger stared at
us, making a low noise at the back of its throat.
And then it bared its fangs before biting the
boar at the neck. The tiger shook its massive
head to tear chunks of bright red meat. We
couldn't hear anything for a while but the
crunching of bones, the growl of the tiger, and
the ripping of flesh. I turned away, feeling the
bile rise up my throat. I looked at Stevan and
Ferdinand. They stared with mouths partly
open. That must have been all their video
games coming to life. The blood and gore,
creatures masticating each other in the name of
survival and dominance. We watched the tiger
eat until it finally stopped to look at us, snout
wet with dripping blood and a piece of meat
hanging from a corner of its mouth. It licked its
lips once, yawned, and with a slow blinking of
its eyes, turned away and disappeared into the
forest, leaving the carcass alone with its innards
exposed and half-gnawed. Nearly all limbs were
gone, and there was a large red mess where the
snout and the face used to be. Half an hour ago,
it was a live pig, wreaking its own
blinked my eyes a couple of times, adjusting the
glare of the goggles. The bush moved again. A
boar emerged from it and walked to an anthill.
It sniffed around, looking for cracks on the
earth. It started plowing through dirt with its
tusks, looking for his evening meal. I wish I
could tell you how it all happened. I wish I was
able to capture it all in slow-motion in my mind
so l could tell you everything frame by frame.
But there was no time for that. A solitary tiger
jumped from behind the tree and sank its fangs
into the boar. The boar couldn't even make a
proper reaction aside from a loud squeal. Bats
scattered away from the trees.
The boar was now lying on its side, eyes wide
and bulging, blood pooling around its neck
while the tiger sniffed at the blood and licked its
lips. I felt my mouth going dry. It was a fully
grown tiger, standing with its legs apart on its
kill. Its eyes shone like two fluorescent lamps. It
sniffed the air, making soft mewling noises, tail
stiff and alert.
It looked up at Us. I nearly dropped my goggles.
him off just so we could have peace and quiet.
We looked like aliens with our oversized green
goggles. There was the occasional whirring as
someone adjusted the zoom of their goggles or
binoculars. Mosquitos started to come out and
prepared themselves to feast on young flesh. I
knew better this time. | covered my legs with
the blanket, although I could feel their
occasional sting through the fabric. Everything
was ruthless in this jungle.
Abhishek wasn't in the mood for storytelling. He
sat on the banister with the rifle on his lap. I
didn't think he was the hunting type, but there
he was with a grim expression on his face,
looking very Heart of Darknes. He wasn't
looking through goggles. He scanned the forest
with his naked eyes as if memorizing all the
trees and the animals he saw. I was about to get
up and join Abhishek when he suddenly threw
himself among us. Gloria yelped but Abhishek
put his hand over her mouth and pointed down
to a bush a few meters from the tree. The bush
was still. Abhishek held up his hand. WNe
stared at the bush. It moved. I
surprisingly roomy for seven people. There
were mats at the corner, and you could pull
down flaps on the sides to protect yourself from
wind and rain. VWe waited until the sun finally
dipped behind the mountains. Ferdinand took
out his night goggles and put them on. He lay
on his stomach and started to look around the
forest, all businesslike. Everyone took their cue
from him. We spread out the mats and
prepared ourselves for the task ahead. I felt
that it was going to be a long night. But it
wasn't. We barely saw anything. There were a
few owls near our tree looking at us with their
gleaming eyes. They did not move that much.
Whenever we heard rustling below, it turned
out to be wild boars, pushing their snouts
against dirt and tree trunks. By nine o'clock, I
was ready to call it quits, but I didn't want to be
the first one to fall asleep. I perched my chin on
my hand and tried to stay awake. The monkeys
came out to chitter chatter for a while but
eventually became silent.
No one spoke. Not even Sid, which was a relief,
because we didn't want to push
backpacks and prepared to head out. The entire
class commemorated event by throwing river
water at us. the
"If there was pee in that I'm going to kill you
guys!" Gloria said as she wiped her face. "Let's
go before it gets dark," Abhishek said. We
started walking through the Sundari trees. After
a few minutes, I turned to look back, but there
was no more river and no more waving
classmates. There were only more trees. We
had gone deeper into the forest.
THE TREE HOUSE looked solid enough. It was
sitting on a mangrove on top of a small hill. The
lookout was located a mile in the southeast. We
climbed the steps up the tree. From the top we
could see just how wide the forest was. So this
was how Bilbo felt when he climbed the tree in
7The Hobbit, and gave up. I mean, who
wouldn't? It was just endless trees-trees that
seemed to be determinedly alive but silent as
the dead. | placed my backpack on a corner and
peered around. The lookout was
shouted from the back. "His parents didn't sign
the waiver!" "Oh, right," Mr. Gupta said as he
drew another paper.
It was mine. | knew it was mine even before he
announced it, because I used a purple gel pen
and it bled through the back of the paper. Of all
the times for me to finally win in a raffle, this
had to be it.
Lousy timing, as always. With that, our fate was
sealed: Ferdinand's, Stevan's and mine. It was
just the way of the world. It was just God
pushing the final chess pieces across the board.
I tried to imagine what would have happened if
Haneul went instead of me. But that was a futile
exercise, as | came to realize over the years. He
wasn't there, I was. I remembered how we
finally looked at each other, Stevan and I, as
soon as my name was called. We both saw our
pupils dilate, but we quickly looked away. It was
a privilege, I told myself, even as I placed my
hands on the ground to stop them from
shaking. As soon as the glittering of the sun
between the trees weakened, the five of us plus
Abhishek and Sanje hoisted our
because it's tradition, and dropping your name
in that glass jar was one of those things. So
everyone did it. I always had such bad luck
when it came to raffle draws, anyway. When
everyone had dropped their piece of paper, Mr.
Gupta made a show of shaking the jar and
raising it high. He was always one for theatrics.
He drew the first paper: Ferdinand. Yes, of
course, everything had to include him. He high-
fived with Byron. Second paper: Siddhartha. Oh,
great. An entire night of Q and A, because that's
what everyone needs when they're in jungle
lookout.
Third paper: Stevan (!!!) I felt him stiffen beside
me. We didn't look at each other. I was too
busy waiting to see who else would get
selected. Fourth paper: Gloria. Squeals from the
back of the room. Not clear if out of joy or
horror.
And then for the last name. The entire class
hushed. Mr. Gupta drew from the jar.
"Haneul," he said. It took some time before
someone
alarms, fanning them with folded-up drafts of
my articles, Ferdinand helping me, stepping in
without being asked. It was just like him to
barge in. Just like him to start a fire.
16
STEVAN AND I walked for an hour, two hours.
We were beyond tired and starved. My watch
was cracked and permanently pointed at 2. I
didn't want to take it off. I didn't want to leave
anything in that infernal forest. We fout small
path where there were no shrubs and tall grass.
Stevan led the way, covered in mud. We both
were, even though we had been under the rain
for hours. There was no washing away that
thick paste of dirt that clung to our hair and
skin.
Stevan signaled for me stop. My heart leapt up
my throat, and I had to swallow hard.
"Listen," he said.
| stared at the ground and concentrated. There
was the sound of water. Not the steady batter
of rain but a sloshing kind. Moving water.
"We're near the river!" Stevan said, suddenly
animated. He walked faster, almost running,
and I trotted behind him, trying my best not to
slip. We burst out from the trees into a
riverside, gushing
me alone to wander in the corridors looking like
a young widow. I was glad that I never saw his
face again, but to leave me all alone after
everything we've been through? After what I've
done? To not even have the decency to look at
my face for the last time? But what would you
expect from scum like him, I told myself. What
would you expect from a coward? I said this
over and over again, even locked myself in the
girl's bathroom on the second floor, staring at
the mirror and looking at the small trail of
eyelinertinged tears on my cheeks. It was good
to see the tears, their dark stain, spreading on
my face. Like a stamp. I realized I was crying
because I was a coward, too. I was frying eggs
when Ferdinand knocked on my door a decade
later. | didn't recognize him until | looked at his
gray eyes. No, I lied just now. I recognized him
as soon as I opened the door, just as I would
recognize Stevan if he were to appear before
me now. One minute I was clutching at the door
trying to fend off the dark edges that had
threatened to engulf my mind. The next minute,
I was going around the smoke
have to be pried from this opened can. I
thought of how even Stevan in his death would
not escape judgment. And also, even then I
knew, I pitied Ferdinand. Hated and pitied him.
Hated and pitied his messed up life, angered
that I could afford to pity him when he couldn't
even pity himself. He told me once | was decent
enough for the entire world. If he expected me
to do the right thing then, he was in for an
awakening because | was going to sink
spectacularly, lower than he did, lower than
what he thought 'd have the guts for. So I said
enough. Let everyone move on the best way
they can. Or let us not move on together. And
that's exactly what I did. I stole the choice from
you. I threw back all the responsibility to God.
Let him explain himself to you, because I have
no answers. So l said yes, it was an accident.
Yes, Stevan slipped. Yes, there was nothing we
could do. And in my head, I saw him float down
the river again, extending an unconscious arm,
and I turned my back. Ferdinand was sent to a
boarding school the following week. He had left
decision. It was fear and love, all at the same
time. No, don't grimace here. Don't turn your
face away. I know it's a very cowardly thing to
say. To delegate all this gravity to mere
emotions, to blame the heart for staging a
revolution and driving away all your ability for
rational thought. What else could be done
when one is made up of a physical body, when
one is as puny as leaves being swept away
down the gutter? I feared for my own role in
that confrontation by the river, and | loved you
the way one who has not known a mother
loved-fumblingly. despairingly. thought of what
would happen if I were to say that Ferdinand
nearly beat Stevan to death. I thought of all the
times we Would have to face each other in
front of tribunals and lawyers and committees
and Board of Directors. You and I and
Ferdinand, trying to put the blame on
something, trying to make it all worth Stevan's
death. But there was no one to blame, because
everyone was guilty. In the end, we simply hurt
each other be| thought of all the worms that
would cause we can't help it.
"We talked to Ferdinand yesterday." I searched
his face, trying to anticipate what Ferdinand
might have said. "He said it was an accident.
Stevan slipped, and there was nothing the two
of you could do." | felt the dryness in my
mouth, my heart floundering from the rush of
too much blood. He had left the final decision to
me, after all. He had left his fate to me. This is
what it must have felt like for Stevan after he
got Ferdinand suspended, this total control, the
ability to impose upon another's life so
completely. God-mode. This is why Ferdinand
transformed himself into a monster every day,
for this kind of lonely power. I realized then
what a hollow state it was to be in, because for
everything you destroy, it adds nothing to you.
It steals whatever capacity for compassion you
have, taking away what's left of the best in you.
I glanced around at the other adults. Dad
looked at me and nodded. It's all right, he
seemed to say, l'm I have thought long and hard
about that morning, about what led me to my
here. You can tell the truth.
kind of grief for Stevan. Just the same grief that
has gripped mankind for centuries, which time
would inevitably ebb into a notch in one's skin
or a small limp in the way one walks or a bottled
memory that would only resurface some nights.
And soon, you'd struggle to remember how that
person talked or how that person used to
occupy a customized space in your life. And you
dont want to forget, but you don't want to
remember either, and there seemed to be no
place where you could just exist. A WEEK AFTER
my discharge from the hospital, I was called to
Mr. Richardson's office. When Dad and I got
there, you and Tito Diego were already sitting
on the cOuch. My legs felt as heavy as boulders
when I saw your hunched shoulders, your face
that looked like it hadn't slept for a lifetime.
When you gave me a smile, I wanted to run
away. Mr. Richardson's face looked as ashen as
I imagined mine would look. He cleared his
throat and grasped my hand, telling me that he
was very happy to see me.
us, we had vanished, not leaving even a single
footprint. A few meters from the trail, they
found Gloria squeezed under a root and Sid on
top of a tree with a huge gash on his leg. Dad
wouldn't speak any further, but | begged him.
After a few days, he relented. That's how I knew
that some fishermen found Stevan's body
washed to the shore the following morning.
And that a tiger took a bite of his face before it
was driven away. | spent the rest of my time in
the hospital staring at the walls that would
seem to be melting. Speaking became too much
an effort. I barely recognized the faces of those
who visited me and wished that people would
stop coming through that door with pity in their
eyes and an awkward silence in their wake. At
night, with only the bedside lamp on, I would
pretend to sleep and listened to Dad's muffled
crying in the semidarkness, wishing that | could
cry like him, that I could bring Stevan back from
the dead by the strength of my tears. But they
were regular tears carving the same slicing-hot
trails down my cheeks, and in the end, I could
not summon a distinct
even bother climbing one for safety. And,
anyway, I thought of nothing after. My mind
was a blank white wall where nothing could be
written.
Mr. Gupta was among those in the search party,
carrying a high-powered flashlight. I could
barely open my eyes when a tracker dog barked
at us and howled, and the the men trained their
beams on our faces. I thought I was in another
dream. When I wake up, I would I don't
remember the journey back to camp. I don't
remember the journey back to Dhaka. All T
know was that I slept for a long time and when I
woke up, I was in the hospital and Dad was
asleep on my bedside. I didn't see the others,
not even Ferdinand, who was confined in the
same hospital. Dad didn't want to tell me
everything at once, but information trickled in.
Everyone got back safe, even Abhishek and
Sanje. A tiger attacked Sanje from behind and
dragged him in the bush, but he was able to
stave it off until Abhishek came and shot it.
When they returned to be back on the lookout,
and we'd be dry and warm. And Stevan would
be there.
leaves, and one boy half-sprawled on the bank,
first taking his legs, then his torso, his bloodied
head, his arms, and finally, his hand.
It was all | could see bobbing up and down the
water as Ferdinand and | stumbled up,
horrified. Before we found ourselves running
along the river, shouting his name. Or maybe
we were just
screaming something unintelligible, anything
really to make a human sound in the jungle, to
offer one last libation to the sky.
A few meters ahead, the river dipped steeply,
like a small waterfall, and there was a wall of
mangroves on our path, the roots spreading out
like a net. I peered between them, at Stevan's
hand bobbing up once before sinking.
Ferdinand and| stood for a long time among
those trees, clutching at branches, letting the
roar of the river rush past us, seeing nothing.
The rain poured and poured, the kind that sank
islands. We watched the river, until it was
nothing more than a river. THEY FOUND US by
night time, asleep against one of the trees, too
fatigued to
"Ferdinand," I croaked, "please." He looked at
me and stopped, as if
realizing for the first time that I existed. He was
trembling or maybe it was from the effort of
holding Stevan's head in the water. "Please.
The wildness in his eyes ebbed, and he
loosened his grip on Stevan. He turned Stevan
over so that he was half-lying on the water.
Stevan's chest rose and fell slowly, blood still
coming out from his mashed nose. Alive.
Ferdinand stared at Stevan's face and then
crawled away from the river like a beaten-up
dog. | heard a sob and a squelch as he
collapsed on mud, finally giving in to his rage.
| SEE IT in my mind. A few kilometers upstream,
a dam breaks, splintering as the surge of water
rammed against its walls. The water moves
forward, consuming everything in its path,
moving rocks and sediments along with it,
driven by desire to unleash into the sea. It takes
everything, sucking things into itself like a
narrow vacuum: wood, fish, clay,
at him, trying to stand up. But the ground was
too slippery and all I could do was stare at them
as Ferdinand punched Stevan once in the nose,
and then again, blood starting to gush out, and
grabbed him by the collar of his shirt toward the
river. Stevan was clawing his way out of
Ferdinand's grip, kicking his shins, like a wild
animal trapped. But When Ferdinand got to the
edge of the river, he dunked Stevan's face in the
brown water. Stevan sputtered, clutching at
everything he could grab, Ferdinand's hair, his
jacket. But Ferdinand was gone. In his place was
this figure, like the embodiment of every child's
nightmare. His mouth was an ugly gash on his
face, screaming, Who's a mess now?! Who's a
mess now?!" I should have done something. I
should have crawled to them. | should have
screamed from the top of my lungs. There were
so many things could have done but sprawl
there in the mud, my mouth open but silent,
watching Ferdinand become the person that
everyone always thought him to be. Ferdinand
had him in a headlock.
impotent as we think. You know what Anina
said at my party? She said you barely touched
her." He stepped toward Stevan. I tried to push
him back. Stevan clenched his fists at his side. "I
got you kicked out of your little cricket team.
How's that for impotence?"
Ferdinand stopped. "What?" "Stevan..." I
pleaded with him. "You know, my mom said to
try to understand you, because you come from
an unhappy home. I guess if my mom cheated
with the cook and my dad cheated with
everyone else as revenge, I'd be Such a mess,
too." Ferdinand's face was as frozen as marble.
"What did you say?" he said, real quiet. A qust
of wind blew and I shivered.
Ferdinand took a step toward Stevan.
"Take that back." Stevan was fighting back
tears, looking more tired than ever. He stood
still and looked Ferdinand in the eye. I knew he
wasn't going to fold up. He had waited for this
for four years. "It won't make it any less true."
Ferdinand pushed me away and rushed at
Stevan. "Stop it!" | screamed
"Look. There's no need to panic. Let's just try
that."
"Those damn tigers," Ferdinand said, staring
into the water and then looking out into the
trees. "They're everywhere. They could be
looking at us now for all we know." He was
stuttering, clamping his teeth together, fighting
the cold. "Ferdinand. Just..pull yourself
together," Stevan said, his voice shaking. I knew
he wanted to give in to his fear, too.
Ferdinand's head snapped up, and scowled at
him. "Don't tell me what to do! The hell do you
know? You told us to
run!"
"I..l thought..." Stevan said.
"You weren't thinking!"
Something sparked in Stevan's eyes then.
Defiance. The worst time for it. "Why did you
run then? Why didn't you stay and get eaten?
Why are you crouching there now like a little
girl?"
Ferdinand stood up. I stepped between them.
"Guys, please! Let's just follow the river. Come
on!" "AL right. Let's have it," Ferdinand said.
"Let's have it, then. You're the brave one now,
aren't you? No longer as brown water that
churned against rocks, carrying wood, leaves,
and mud downstream. And there was
Ferdinand huddled under his hoodie, sitting
sprawled to one side. "Ferdinand?" Stevan said,
approaching him. The figure didn't respond. I
went up to him and put my hand on his
shoulder to shake him. Ferdinand turned to
look at me and | had to step back. His gray eyes
were clouded over, glazed, terrified. Perhaps for
the first time in his life. And then slowly, he
came back, recognizing our faces. "Where are
the others?" "I don't know," I said. He nodded,
still not moving from his crouched position. I
looked at Stevan; he was staring at Ferdinand,
as if he didn't recognize this boy caked with
mud, looking just as lost as we were. "We
should have a plan," Stevan said. "We could
follow the river. They usually lead to a village."
"How'd you know?" Ferdinand said. "Abhishek
said he knew this place inside out, and where is
he now?"
17
WE CAME BACK to the Philippines soon after, a
few months before senior year was over.
Recoiling. Isn't that the gut reaction when you
encounter extremes? Too hot or cold. Too ugly
or beautiful. We were ants scattered under
bullet raindrops, looking for cracks to disappear
into. It was futile, because more than wanting
to leave places or people behind, what I really
wanted was to be able to leave my very self,
strip out my skin, douse it with acid, hang it
under the sun to dry.
Manila looked like any other city from the
airplane window. I looked at the small buildings
and houses below as the airplane approached.
When we got through the airport, I felt oddly
alone when no porter came to manhandle my
bags. Dad and I quietly wheeled our strollers to
the taxi stand.
Outside, the billboards had women who stare
knowingly while holding bottles of beer, or
women giggling at the poolside of some swanky
real estate that no one could afford. The cars
screeched.
That's nothing, pare. I killed two men..." They
never mean anything. They never mean to get
married at such a young age and conceive
children as easy as breathing. They never mean
to rob. They never mean to kill. They don't hide
behind business suits and overpriced dresses.
There are no artificial trees to bless them on
their morning walks. They carry their
frustrations and helplessness on their bare
sleeves. Can you believe it, they seemed to say,
can you believe this life? Their eyes have a
permanently perplexed gaze, expecting dead
ends. I got out of the tricycle and paid him.
"Kuya, adjust that roof, will you? You can kill
someone with that." The ring of his laughter
traveled along the barren river.
figured themselves out, and soon we were
passing the intersection into an empty road.
The tricycle shot through as if we were on a
wide highway, and we turned to the street
along the Mandaluyong River. The brown water
seemed to fit in with the smog hovering above
it. Water lilies covered nearly the entire river,
looking as solid as a green carpet. They looked
fresh but also invasive. There was no design in
their placement, in the way they greedily
thrived under mud and dirt. A few old men
standing in line by the side had been trying to
catch fish with their wooden poles. That's
stubborn hope for you and maybe a dollop of
wishful thinking. This side of town is full of dead
things. I find it comforting. People in this town
have no idea that they're saying something
inappropriate. They just say it to pass the time,
like the way the tricycle driver spoke as if I were
one of his drinking buddies and he was trying to
regale me with the strange and brave things he
did as a young man.
"Check this out, Il killed a man." And the
drinking buddy would say.
for funeral than hospital bills. So, anyway, I was
working all night, going around Quezon City.
And this old man suddenly crossed the street. I
swear to God, I didn't see him. I just heard him
when he went under my left wheel. He just felt
like a huge hump that you had to go through
sometimes, you know those do-it-yourself
humps that people put on the road? I stopped
for a second, and looked back. He was still alive,
groaning a bit. And then he tried to get up and |
knew it was now or never. If he got up and
walked away, I was done for. He would tell
somebody. And I remembered the HR telling
me, you just got to do it. You can't expect the
company to pay for your carelessness. So I
backed up the car and rolled over him again.
When I heard this loud crack, I knew that should
do it."
He glanced at me to see if I was registering
anything. I didn't know what he was expecting.
Shock, disgust? I wanted to tell him, I
understand you. This life, it makes you do things
you thought you'd never do. Life makes it
impossible for you to live. But the vehicles had
finally
comb their hair, expecting nothing more out of
life but for their husbands to not come home
drunk. To not force their love on bodies that
had spent the entire day washing other people's
underwear. And the men, like this tricycle
driver, middleaged, wearing jersey shorts that
he probably used yesterday to play street
basketball. Red-eyed from too much drinking
the previous night, red-eyed from all the
smoking and six-children responsibilities. Of
course, you'd kill, I thought. Of COurse.
I was still irked because his tricycle
compartment was so loW and cramped that I
hit my head while getting in. Imagine that, at
my height and all. I could still feel the throb
where the tin roof nearly scalped me.
I had no choice, the tricycle driver continued
while we watched the traffic enforcer make
vaque waves with his hand, looking as helpless
as a little boy in this sea of knotted vehicles. "I
was a taxi driver. And they told us that if you
run over someone, you got to go back and finish
them. Cheaper to pay
couldn't.
| KILLED A MAN once, the tricycle driver told
me on our way to the MandaluyongMakati
Bridge. We were stuck in an intersection near
an elementary school. Everyone was trying to
cross the roadchickens, cars, children, bicycles,
stray dogs. Tricycles had squeezed themselves
into every available space, making it impossible
for larger vehicles to maneuver. It was a regular
Monday morning. I should have taken the bus. I
should have taken the road that led to the
polished glass buildings on yala Avenue and the
trees that were planted along it to make it look
like our cities still cared about Oxygen. I should
have opted for the urbane view of people in
business suits and women in ridiculously high
stiletto heels walking down uneven cement.
Instead | chose this back road; this road littered
with shanties and stray
dogs that looked too starved to even give a
pretentious snarl. The housewives sat outside
their makeshift homes with cigarettes on their
lips and a kid on their breast. Women who
couldn't bother to
block. Her eyes were hazy and shifty, her shirt
hung open to reveal her frayed black lingerie.
Her mind had finally caved in to the nights of
soiled sheets, the eternal parade of unknown
bodies, cold and warm and quick. She screamed
about how the government was lousy. How
people were lousy. How she was the only one
who made sense in the entire world. The Burgos
Police congregated in one corner and stared at
her in their faded yellow uniforms, smirking,
shaking their heads at each other. Some
foreigners sitting at the bar opposite took out
their phones to snap a few pictures, faces
masked in miserable satiation. A few passersby
stopped to look at the girl, at her smudged
mascara. The girl screamed and ranted and
stomped, and we all gave her a wide berth, we
all huddled in the corners, fascinated against
our will, pulled into watching desperation leak
out in tattered underwear and unintelligible
words. We wondered how it must feel to let it
all out, to scream into the streets and tell
everyone to go to hell, like we'd always wanted
to do, but
We float downstream in no particular hurry.
There is nowhere else we need to go but right
there, where we could join a silent parade
under a clear sky, where God might be
watching. THIS NEW MANILA DISROBED in front
of me without preamble, abruptly reacquainting
me with its bedraggled body. On my way to
work one day, I passed by the sanctified Padre
Burgos Street under the opening sky. The trails
of leftover debauchery could be seen
everywhere; the slow whirl of overhead fans in
bars that still hosted a few patrons, sober-drunk
in the early morning; the prostitutes sitting on
the curbs, faces streaked with strong makeup,
garish now that the dim lights were gone, and
cigarette smoke curling out of their slack
mouths. Their stiletto shoes flung carelessly
beside them with straps all haywire and
overused. They were all staring at their
coworker, who was pacing around in the middle
of the nearly empty street, gesturing to the
world, voice raised to a decibel that could be
heard to the next
been; if the years had been kind to her. The
wind came and a few leaves from the acacia
tree scraped down the road and over my shoes,
like cracked fingernails raking over my skin. I
stood up and went inside. The ghosts were
about to rise. | feel the slight crumbling off the
edges of my bones, although when I tell people
that, they give me a nervous laugh. What a
ridiculous thing to say for a young lady, they
would say, before changing the topic to
whether l'm dating anyone new. They don't
really want me o go down that path, don't want
to hear whatever existential crisis I might be
pulling out of my sleeves. This is just fair, really.
I mean, I wouldn't want to be Someone's diary
either. Which means, this might be unfair to
you, after all, whatever this is I'm trying to do. I
realize that I amn offering to you the dregs of
my youth, which I often picture as a corpse
bobbing up alongside Stevan's, regurgitated by
the river's belly. I clamp my hand on Stevan's
wrist, although the river is not dark brown or
frenetic but the gentle waters that that are
often promised in The Psalms.
brakes and we'd be squished to one side, and
the passenger would have to walk back a block
to his intended destination. I disembarked one
block away from our street, sparing the driver
the trouble. I watched the jeepney's mud guard
getting farther and farther away: In God We
Trust, All Others Pay Cash. I walked the rest of
the way, the beat still ringing in my ears, the
lights still intermittently going red, blue, and
yellow in my head until I was afraid I was going
to go into seizure. I missed the corner where I
was supposed to turn toward our street
because there were no shanties there. It was as
clean as dawn. Aunt Ramona said they finally
relocated the squatters to a nearby province.
They had not returned. lt waS frighteningly
silent, that long stretch of pristine street. No
children yelling and playing patintero. The sun
sank by the time I reached our house. I looked
at the uncloaked cars on roads where all the
cracks have disappeared. sat on the sidewalk
across our house and watched Aunt Ramona's
shadow through the windows. Suddenly, I
wanted to go up to her and ask her how she'd
seats felt like volcanic eruptions. The garish
interior light bulbs changed colors according to
beat, which I must admit was pretty nifty and
also reminiscent of motels and bars where you
could get STDs just by entering the door. The
English rap music screeching from the speakers
was swearing at every other word, a guy singing
about how his girlfriend is a whore and now
he's just going to find another girl to rock the
night away. A small child, grimy and barefooted,
hopped inside and started Wiping passengers
shoes with her equally grimy rag. I felt her small
hands as she made a quick swipe on my
sneakers. My skin crawled. No one paid
attention to her when she was done and started
asking for money. The passengers looked all
drawn and sleepy, wishing only to get home as
soon as possible and free themselves from this
sensory train wreck. Once in a while, one of
them would cue the teenaged driver to stop,
but he would be so engrossed with bobbing his
head to the beat that other passengers would
join in the yelling. And then he would hit the
stage time in my life. There are days when I feel
gnawed at, as if they'd been fighting over my
carcass like hyenas, and l'd slink back to my
room after snapping at Aunt Ramona for the
most inane reasons. Was there enough room
inside me for all these Crisantas, with all their
conflicting thoughts and aggressive worldviews,
with the brutality in which they bring each
other down? What if they all decide to go away
one day, finally tired of each other, realizing
even over the din of their arquments that l'm
not worthy host in the first place? What would
be left of me? This terrifies me. I grasp at the
seethrough threads. Something must remain to
grieve over Pobrito and Stevan and Dad.
Something must remain to remember you. I
must keep myself afloat. I am the keeper of
memories now. The keeper of truths. This is a
job that no one wants to have. This is a job that
I deserve.
THE FIRST TIME | rode the jeepney again, I felt
assaulted. The bass booming through the
speakers underneath the
Past Crisanta to go away. She was the bedeviled
green light at the end of the dock that every
human being must have in order to feel the
helplessness, and the privilege of being mortal.
She was cultured. She was open-minded. She
was, as Ferdinand said, a polished sentence.
There were times that I thought I could get it all
back. | could turn my life around. I could take
advantage of globalization, of the first-world
countries' indulgences. I could subscribe to the
Let's Educate the Third World paradigm and get
further education abroad in one of those
renowned institutions.| could pretend that Im
there for selfimprovement so that I could return
to my own land and contribute to the
betterment of my people. But I will never come
back. Why come back to this empty house, and
this Manila with a strange face; the one l never
knew? ALl those lonely islands. They will keep
afloat The Past and Present Crisantas hate each
other. Every morning, they have a battle as to
who would possess me for the day: who
deserves to have more without me.
and the river has never stopped flowing. and
perhaps never will.
I BECAME A WANDERING soul after college. I'm
trying to make this sound like I've moved from
one place to another in an elaborate montage,
but that wasn't so. Every morning was just a
struggle, is all. This Past Crisanta, with her
drivers and caviar and champagne, rises from
the floor in the morning, an awkward ghost if
you ask me. No concept whatSoever of
dramatic entrances. And she hovers above this
Present Crisanta lying on her standard bed, in
her standard room in the emptiness of her
standard wooden house that used to be
everything to her all at once; 0z, Middle Earth,
Narnia, Wonderland. Now, with my aging eyes, I
see how the walls could never have been made
of Cedars of Lebanon and how my
grandmother's wardrobe is only going to have
mildew instead of snow. Growing up served as a
cleansing palate for my overstimulated
imagination. Everything's smaller; decrepit
instead of whimsical. There are nights I never
wanted the
through the window, at the mango tree.
It was still standing.
My last months of high school were spent in
homeschool. Sometimes, Dad would pause
from our lessons together and touch my hand.
And then I would realize I haven't been turning
the page. He sometimes got as far as the end of
a chapter before he noticed that I wasn't
following. He would ask me if I was all right, if I
wanted to take a break. But | didn't want to
spend the hours by myself. Nights were the
hardest. It's when the mind is settling down
from the indignities it suffered throughout the
day; regrouping. reforming. Nights are when
you remember things the most. So I told Dad I
was okay every time he asked because he had
his own fair share of demons, and there's only
so much a person could endure in this life. I
tried to manage. I had shrink time. I went back
to playing the piano. I passed the college
entrance exam. I resumed life as best I could.
And when all that effort wasn't enough, I would
let the memories come, because what else
could I do? In some chamber in my mind, it's
still raining,
The traffic lights were confused. The city
exuded all the chaos that made it a
cosmopolitan city. The buildings looked like
they came from the future with their glass
windows and lean metallic lines. Everything was
more solid and cold and quietly alive. I
squeezed my eyes shut. The taxi driver chatted
with us, asking Dad where we've been. I
thought, don't talk to him Dad, he's doing it to
get information. He'll scam you. When the taxi
driver didn't ask for additional money and
lugged our baggage inside our house, I felt
slapped. Shame on you, the air seemed to
whisper, shame on you. Aunt Ramona seemed
more big-boned than ever. I was taken aback to
see the gray hair coiled on her nape. She
dropped the pan she was holding when she saw
me by the kitchen door. "Oh! Your father said
you were coming in tomorrow. Your father..."
Her voice trailed when she saw me smiling at
her. She swept like a small ship across the
Ocean of spices and garlic and onions and
hugged the wind out of me. "Oh, look at you.
Look at you," she kept saying. I looked over her
shoulder her
18
WE HAVE BEEN in Batanes exactly five months
and one week today. The days stroll past us in
these parts. I hardly remember a time when I
didn't know the little roads that lead to town, or
I didn't feel the ocean at our feet every
morning. We have thrown ourselves to the
island's quiet enchantments and its calm
acceptance of everything the sea and sky pitch
at it.
We go to your church every Sunday. It's a small
one, as most community churches are. Pastor
Rene welcomes us by the door. He's barely
taller than I, an Ivatan who finished his Bible
school in
Manila. The first time we visited, he and
Ferdinand were deep in conversation
immediately, as if they were long-lost friends. A
woman, wide everywhere, approached us after
the service. When she smiled, her eyes crinkled
to little slits. She asked me if I knew Stevan
because she thought she saw a picture of the
two of us in your house. I said, yes, I knew
Stevan very well. She told me to call her
Tita Estella.
I wanted God to make a miracle out of it.
I wanted to come out of it a better person, but I
couldn't." "The way I see it..." Ferdinand clears
his throat, "The way I see it is that God never
comes to us as a magician. He doesn't use
smoke and mirrors, no tricks up his sleeves. He
just comes. And it's quiet. And if you're not
watching for it, you could miss it. Like being lost
in the moors and passing by this small cottage
on the hillside because you were too busy
looking at the trees or at the moon. Too busy
being afraid. He scales down for us. You're
looking for a burning bush, and you find an old
preacher instead. You can't...you can't look for
God in the clouds or in the thunder. He's not
there anymore." | look down at the letter in my
hands and try to smooth out the wrinkled
edges.
"What do we do now," he asks.
"We can try living, for a change."
"You don't have to be composed,
Crisanta. You don't have to hide behind
Words all the time." I look up at him and he's
crying, too. At this moment, we are as real as
we can ever be.
WE SIT NEXT to each other on the bed
after. I feel ancient, like l've been reincarnated
various times into the same person. lI'm still
holding the letter, the black inka bit smudged
now. "You were right. There was nothing we
could have done." Ferdinand turns to me when
I speak.
His eyes are more red than gray now. "No
matter how many times we look back at it and
think of ways we could have saved him, we'd
still lose him. | think... think we knew that all
along, and that's what was wretched about it.
That we couldn't change a thing." Ferdinand is
silent, looking as lost as that day when he
crouched by the river's edge, the certainty of his
youth deserting him.
"You were right," I continue, "I did want
Stevan's death to mean something.
kind of faith, Crisanta. I hope you'll learn to
drive your roots into a deep earth so that the
fullness of your life will depend on no one, not a
mother or a best friend.
This is a rather long letter, isn't it?
That's what happens when you allow time to
pass you by. Time, I have too much of it now.
Do come visit an old woman. We have a nice
house here in Batanes. Diego was assigned here
for six months, but we ended up staying for
good. When you come here and see the ocean
and the hills, you'll understand why. I never
thought l'd ever know peace again.
ljust realized now, Crisanta, that when I see you
again, what you will only remind me of is
everything true and pure and honorable in
Stevan.
With love, still,
Tita Graciella
Ferdinand hands me the letter. It startled me to
realize that he had finished reading. I take the
letter and fold it again. I press it into my eyes
until I feel the dampness seep through the
pages. Ferdinand takes my hands and peels
them away from my face.
the Children's Bible to Stevan every night. How I
used to tell him that God is merciful and loving.
That bad things can happen in his life, but he
should never forget this basic truth. Stevan
believed me then with the unconditional
acceptance of a child, because I was his mother
and because he trusted me. To have turned my
back on my faith would have been a betrayal
not just to God but to Stevan. I didn't want to
face Stevan again someday as a bitter and
cynical old woman. / want him to remember me
as the mother of his childhood. | couldn't bear
the thought of him floating down that river
under a sky that has God.
So you see, I had to make a choice. How do I
want to live the rest of my life? I didn't want a
driftwood kind of faith, one that depended on
calamities or death or happiness. | wanted a
faith that stands on its OWn even if it seems
that God has snatched back His hand and no
longer remembers my name. The kind that
made you feel helpless and broken but hopeful,
because for once you're putting everything
you've got into something greater than
yourself. I hope you'll aspire for the same
under sun and rain. I want you to know that you
don't owe me anything; that you don't have to
earn my approval, or forgiveness. I remember
what you told me about your mother, how you
thought she left because you didn't meet her
expectations. Do you want to know the truth
about mothers? About parents in general?
They're more afraid of failing their children than
they're afraid of their children failing them.
Because when you judge someone, you also
judge the people who raised him. That's how it
is when you hold your own child for the first
time, you think l can't mess this up. But we do
damage our children in some way. What comes
with having flesh and blood is the ability to
hurt. So the more likely explanation why your
mother left was because she was afraid that she
wouldn't meet your expectations. Another
confession. | wanted to be angry with God.
wanted to turn around and walk the other way.
You know when Job said though He slay me, yet
I will trust Him?" I couldn't bear His slaying, I
couldn't trust anymore in His kindness. But then
I remembered how I used to read
Crisanta, I have a confession to make. I needed
you, too. I think I tried to relive my life through
you. This is why I was too hard on you, why l
pushed you too much on the piano. I think l
passed on to you my own frustrations about not
being a concert pianist. You reminded me of
myself when you played, the way you always
secondguessed yourself and refused to believe
that you could be good at anything. You were
always so surprised whenever you played
beautifully. But now I know it was selfish of me
to control you this way. And cOwardly, too. I
want you to know that you are free to be who
you want to be, to explore the World on your
own terms. I want you to always have a choice,
though sometimes you might wish that you
don't. For in every choice, there is responsibility
and consequence, and judgment. It is a trigger,
a step of faith or the risk of losing faith. But you
must learn to face choices nonetheless,
Crisanta, especially the hard ones. I have to tell
you this while you're still young, while there's
still time. You must never betray yourself by
running away. You must learn to stand your
ground
worst in us? But maybe grief also brings out the
best in us, for now that pain has thoroughly
schooled me, I want to see you more than ever.
I want to clarify a lot of things. I realize I may
have lost Stevan, but need not lose you, too. I
regret not being at the airport that day to hold
your hand and assure you that you'll always
have my love.
Before he met you, Stevan was lost in his own
world. I think he built one to distract himself
from the loneliness of being an only child and
being so far away from everything he ever
knew. He threw himself in his artwork, in his
violin. Sometimes, I would look at him and feel
his resentment. | felt helpless.| was sure that I
would never understand what he was going
through. There were nights when Diego and I
debated on whether we had done the right
thing for Stevan by dragging him to Bangladesh.
And then you came, and suddenly Stevan found
someone like him. It wasn't that the loneliness
left him completely, but that it was much easier
to bear with you. You accepted him, stood by
him, and allowed him to share his life with you.
You were exactly what he needed.
long to write to you. Im sorry I wasnt there to
send you off when you flew back to Manila. I
was unable to get out of bed.| hurt
everywhere. I thought it would never end.
This must be how it feels to live through a war.
You get rained on with bullets, blinded by
smoke. At night, all you hear are voices that are
not your own. Voices of the dead. You
concentrate on survival. This İs how you live
every day until one morning, the haze lifts.
Before you know it, there is only silence and
ruins, and the responsibility of rebuilding. Only
then can you afford to recollect your thoughts.
That's when you start remembering comrades.
That's when | thought of you. I thought, but
what about Crisanta? What must she have felt?
What did her war look like? And by then, you
were long gone. Julian gave us your address
before you left for Manila. I should have written
sooner, but I was afraid. I was afraid that you
might come here and then I would really
remember. I didn't need any further help in
remembering. l didn't want to face you and be
reminded that you lived while Stevan died. See
how grief brings out the
center and my heart forgets to beat for a full
second. The envelope is stamped with
RETURNED TO SENDER. I look at the address, it
has the wrong street. This letter was mailed,
and returned, four years ago. I look at Tita
Estella, unable to move or say anything.
She pats my hand and smiles. FERDINAND IS
SITTING on the garden bench when I got back to
the inn. "Aling Tasing is worried about you." I
nod at him. He gestures at the space beside
him. I shake my head. "Let's go up to my room. I
want you to read me something." He's sitting by
the desk and I'm sitting at the edge of the bed
across him when he opens the envelope and
takes out the letter.
"You sure you don't want to read it yourself?"
| shake my head and shift my gaze to the space
above his head. Dear Crisanta, I imagine you
must be surprised to receive this letter. I'm
sorry it took me this
at Sid and told him to hurry up, as if the
mountain was going to pick up its skirts and run
away. You can't see it on the photo, but we
were internally screaming. I walk over to the
reading chair by the window. There's a book
lying face down on the seat. I tilted my head to
look at the cover. Mere Christianity by C.S.
Lewis. Tita Estella says they found you
unconscious by this chair. I wonder if they
found you clutching that book. Il fold it and put
it aside, and sit down just as she comes back
with a glass of water. | drink everything in one
go and feel my mouth become drier than ever.
"Where's Ferdinand?"
"Praying."
"He's a good man." | look outside the window
and see the garden. Is that a cabbage patch?
Tita Estella sits on the chair across mine, a small
box on her lap. "I meant to go to yOur inn
tomorrow morning as soon as I was finished
here. | was going through her documents and |
thought you might want to have this." She takes
out an envelope and gives it
to me. I see my name and address on the
I want to say that I'm okay, but I shake my head.
She comes out and puts her hands on my arms,
which are still clasping my elbows. "Come in,
drink some water." This is the first time l enter
your house. I imagined what it would be like
when we first landed here in Batanes. | played
the scene over my head, the way you would be
wearing a summer dress with your hair pinned
into a bun behind your neck. You would look
very surprised. Perhaps you would even hug
me. I don't know why I stayed away all this
time, maybe because I wanted us to go home
together.
It's cozy, your house. Very cottage-like. I make a
beeline for the piano and look at the pictures on
top of it. Mostly of Stevan, one or two of Tito
Diego. I see the picture of Stevan and me with
the Himalayas as our background. I was wearing
the ugliest shade of yellow jacket, and my hair
was struggling to stay under my woolen cap. He
had put an arm around my shoulders and the
other was stretched toward Mount Everest. |
remembered how we shoved the camera
exist and what do I write this for? Perhaps for
people like me, there is no redemption, only an
eternal regret. Maybe God has run out of
patience for people who can't even be honest
to themselves. I want to go back and ask
Ferdinand to tell me how to accept it, to teach
me to not break apart, because it feels like
that's what I've been doing most of my life,
trying to freeze myself so I would not
disintegrate. I can imagine myself walking along
a road and then suddenly spilling onto the
ground like a toppled pillar of salt, all my parts
trying to crawl away from me. Can one get
more real than that, Stevan? I walk down the
shore. | leave footprints behind me, which the
sea washes away as soonI make them.| feel the
awkwardness of my gait, the heaviness of my
sloshing sandals, as if | were a windup toy. I end
up outside your bungalow. Tita Estella is inside
trying to stuff books in boxes and she stops
when she sees me outside the living room
window. "Hija, have you been standing there all
this time? You're all wet! Are you all right?"
"How do you believe?" He looks at me and
takes my hands.
"You lay down your arms and sur-
render."
I know lI'm crying, too. "Go."
"Come with me."
"I can't right now, but you go. Pray for Tita
Graciella. And tell God, tell him...tell him to
have mercy, even just this once." Ferdinand
brushes away the hair that is caught at the
corner of my mouth. "It's mercy that brought us
here." He steps back and enters. I watch him go
deeper into the church until I can no longer
distinguish him from the shadows. I WALK BACK
TO THE INN and see Aling
Tasing sweeping the front yard. She waves at
me, and my hand trembles as I wave back. She
must have seen the expression on my face,
because she stops waving and looks like she's
going to approach me. I quickly turn around and
walk toward the seashore, my hands grasping
my elbows. I watch the water wash over my
sandals and feel them sink into the sand. This is
it; this is where | fade now, because soon you
will cease to
efforts at keeping distances, but | hold on to his
arm. I hold on to it as if I were in the middle of
the ocean and he were driftwood.
And so we walk like this, with him half-dragging
me. I know he's crying. I knew it all along. Even
when we were inside Dr. Vasquez's office and
his face had settled into a smooth wall, I knew
that there were tears somewhere, trying to find
even a little crack where they could seep
through. We reach the Catholic church of Santo
Domingo, the one we always talked of visiting
whenever we passed it. The bright white paint
sears my eyes. It's dark inside, the lamps are
still unlit and no beatifying sunlight filters
through the stained glass windows. Stevan
hesitates by the carved door and then makes to
go in. I hold him back.
"No. I can't go in there." "Please, Crisanta, I just
want...l need to pray. It doesn't matter where. I
need to do something." How are you sure hes
going to listen?" "ljust believe that he will."
a decision on behalf of the public good. There
are other patients who need the
hospital's...resources," he says with a frozen
expression, like he doesn't want to betray a
wince or a flinch. Ferdinand looks at Dr.
Vasquez the entire time, his face a blank canvas,
giving an occasional nod. He keeps his eye
trained forward, careful not to look at me.
Dr. Vasquez pauses, waits for us to say
something. But what more can be said? In a
world where you only get to have one measly
vote, how do we summon a miracle?
Ferdinand is silent when we walk out of the
hospital. I'm suddenly aware of just how
ridiculous we look with his thick black coat and
my red one against an overbright sky. We look
like we're still caught in a storm. I'm suddenly
walking alone. Ferdinand
is going ahead at a brisk pace as if his life
depends on some unclear destination. I jog after
him, unable to call his name out, still too
suspicious about what my voice will sound like. I
reach his side and he tenses up, about to renew
his
the hospital. This time we are ushered in Dr.
Vasquez's office. He tells us that he's glad we've
come because he doesn't know whom to talk
to. There's no family who ever comes to visit,
just friends. I tell him we aren't family, but he
says that people who travel across oceans for
someone should be close enough to that.
It's nice of him to think that. He says that the
hospital is taking you off the ventilator. He
already talked to Pastor Rene and the rest of
your closest friends. He tells us that he's sorry.
All over sticky the while his hands skim notes
and memo pads. The photo frame of two
children, a boy and a girl, on his desk keeps
slipping off its metal stand, and he arranges it as
best as he can until it finally gets too distracting
and he lets | can't look at his face while he
talks, too afraid of what my eyes might do. They
might cry, or worse, not cry. I don't want him to
feel the need to elicit the right reaction from
me. He says he has consulted with the hospital's
Board of Directors, and since there's no family
left to preside over the matter, they have made
it lie flat, face down.
us now is friendship, an odd one, but still a
friendship.
And thus we pass the time in Batanes,
commemorating new lives but never forgetting
that we're also preparing for a homecoming. I'm
sitting by the garden and writing when
Ferdinand approaches me one aftern0on. He
says we have to go to the hospital right away. I
clutch the
front of my shirt, thinking that it's bad news.
Ferdinand says that he doesn't know, but we
have to go now. Dr. Vasquez meets us in your
room. His head is covered with almnost
seethrough white hair, and he's wearing thin,
frameless eyeglasses. With his fair Spanish
complexion and his white coat, he can very well
blend with the hospital walls. He says that your
lungs collapsed last night and you are now
completely dependent on the ventilator. I can
feel my heart going round and round a vaulted
room, trapped. Before we leave, I hold your
hand and whisper in your ear, "Don't go." Did
you hear me?
A WEEK LATER, we are called back to
conversation opener. I fished out a hundred-
peso bill from my pocket and handed it to her.
She stared at it, then shook her head.
"Come on, take it. It's not stealing if someone's
giving it to you willingly." I winked at her.
"Besides, if your mother didn't look so upset
about the whole thing, I would have let you get
away with it. Those were Some pretty smooth
moves you pulled back then." Her lips twitched.
She glanced at the money before taking it and
shoving it into her pocket. "Don't tell your
mother, though, we'll both be in trouble." She's
smiling now, a proper one.
"Thank you, Ate. We watched her walk down
the road. I could feel Ferdinand looking at me.
"Do I want to know why you're handing out
money to random children?" I shook my head.
"T think l just ushered her into a life of crime." |
turned to look at him, "Forgive me, Monsignor."
We looked at each other with widened eyes,
before sharing a laugh. It startled me to realize
that what we have between with thick black
hair springing out of his head like an explosion.
We gathered around the beach near the church
for the ceremony. "Anyone who is joined to
Christ is a new being: the old is gone, the new
has Come," " Pastor Rene read from the Bible.
Then the baby's father pinched the baby's nose
and quickly submerged the child. When he was
lifted up, his hair was heavily plastered to his
head. He wailed loud enough for fifty babies,
the poor shivering thing. He was immediately
wrapped in a thick woolen cloth, family
heirloom I was told, and everyone clapped, the
wail of the child muffled by all the cheering.
We were walking back to the inn one Sunday
afternoon when I saw Theresa, the flower
sprite, again. She wasn't carrying anything. She
stopped wh recognized me and was about to
cross to the other side of the road when | called
her. She hesitated but waited until we got near.
I smiled at her.
"No flowers?" She flinched as if I had sharply
pulled her hair. Maybe that wasn't the best
We go every Sunday and chat with your friends,
hoping that we can resume your life a bit for
you, just enough for people to feel as though
you have just gone on a long vacation. I play the
piano a few times, for the prelude. They ask if
Ferdinand and | are married. We set the record
straight right away, but most of them seem
unable to accept our nonrelationship. I suppose
everyone does really subscribe to the When
Harry Met Sally paradigm. The teenagers gather
around us after the service when we're having
coffee in the garden, attracted by our city
clothes and slim cellphones. "Did you meet on
the Internet?"
"You're going to have good-looking kids. Filipino
blood is like magic, it works with everything.
They look at us as if we're a fairy tale come true,
but it only makes me feel very old.
Ferdinand seems to be having fun with it.
"We're childhood sweethearts," he says and I
nearly chortle.
We have been invited to birthdays and
weddings. We attended the baptism of Tita
Estella's newest grandchild, a boy
endures. When it lasts for a long time, it
becomes less real and more an obligation. Il am
obligated to no one now. The ghosts can all rise
from the ground and visit me.
19
WE REQUESTED THAT they turn off the
ventilator at sunset the following week. They
wanted to do it in three days, but we want
more time to send you off properly. The week
passes by in a hurry, the way time usually is
when it knows how badly it is wanted. But now
the day is upon us, springing onto our doorstep.
We change you into a yellow dress I found
covered with plastic in your closet. It's made of
taffeta and silk, something that you could have
worn in a wedding. hope this is okay. The
nurses are very gentle with us. They don't say
much, only that they are very sorry. It is
lunchtime already when we are finished with all
the preparations. Ferdinand holds your hand
while he recites Psalm 23. His face looks brittle,
as if he could easily weep at the mere mention
of your name. Pastor Rene, Tita Estella, and
some of your other churchmates gather around
your bed to say their farewells and short
prayers. They try not to cry too much; they say
you won't want them to.
that's more reminiscent of dreams than the
purgatory. It's how | feel whenever | think of
the Sundarbans, too, and perhaps always will. I
think I will stop writing to you now. I will let you
finally get your rest. I will let the road unroll
itself on my path and leave you and Stevan
here, right in these pages, reunited. I will
remember the ocean and the white sheets and
the sunsets, and | know that one never really
leaves anything behind. ButI do have to be
sincere about goodbyes. I said I was going to
give you a proper farewell, the kind that I
wasn't able to give Stevan. Now I realize there
can be no proper farewells, just a lifetime of
remembering. Memories need not be so bad all
the time.
I think of my mother nowadays. I think maybe I
should try to find her. I wonder if she ever
thought of finding me. Maybe | have met her in
the streets without knowing it. Maybe I sat next
to her in a jeepney. Maybe she stood by the
acacia tree one night and peered up my
window. I want to tell her that it's all right.
There can be no bitterness that really
| think. She cooks up a barrio fiesta whenever
he's around and has started to call him "hijo."
She lingers by my doorway at night to ask me if
Ferdinand is going to stay permanently. She has
the subtleness of mothers whenever they're
playing detective. They choose carefully their
line of questioning. They start in general terms
(so as to not alarm the grazing deer) before
pouncing. "Do you love him?" She finally asked
one night. And I told her, "T don't know," and
that's as honest as I could get. I don't know. I
think I haven't really known since I was
fourteen. Sometimes I would catch him looking
at me when I'm typing away on an afternoon
that he would visit. It's still pretty hard to read
what's on his mind. He had practiced that blank
stare for far too long. I wouldn't be surprise it
turns out to be his biggest asset in life, the
ability to fend off being judged or surmised. His
eyes remind mne of the Batanes ocean and
cliffs at dawn. We will always feel Batanes as
something light and cold scurrying behind Our
necks, that state of in-betweenness
of months, doing mission work among the
Ifugaos. He said he's learning to weave. I don't
even know if he was kidding. When we got back
to Manila, he didn't contact me for a month. No
texts, no e-mails, as if he had disappeared
again. I started wondering if I only imagined the
past year. But then one night, I received a text.
Good night, was all he said, and then he showed
up the following morning with coffee and
pandesal. We don't really talk about Batanes.
We don't really talk about you, but sometimes
there would be a lull in our conversation and it
would usually peter out. But we knew what the
other was thinking. It felt enough to honor your
memory with silences. You know, I havent
shown him this, although he keeps asking if he
can read this. I didn't want to at first, but the
more I think of it, the more | want to show him
this. He read my journal before without my
consent, now I want him to read this on my own
terms. I want to ask him if l sound more human
now. Aunt Ramona has gotten used to seeing
him appear at random hours outside the gate.
She has fallen in love with him,
see anything but the lighthouse, consistent and
reliable, sweeping the inky sea with its powdery
light. I feel Ferdinand put his arm around me.
Together, we stagger to the shore.
I'M SITTING ON the rim of the Sunken Garden
right now. It's quite a serene weather we're
having today. Not too cloudy but cloudy enough
to shield sun. Its in the middle of summer so it's
quite surprising we have only mild heat today.
Normally, Manila heat could start a fire in your
brain. It's been nearly half a year since we got
back from Batanes, since we buried you in the
cemetery overlooking the Pacific Ocean. For
two months, I had debated whether I should go
back to school, beCome a proper writer" as
Ferdinand would say. In the end, I decided l'd
had enough of cowardice. I realized that I need
to find out for myself if this is my road, not
through some reimagination of what my life
could have been when l'm already sitting on a
rocking chair with Ferdinand is off to Baguio for
a couple arthritic knees.
at him.
"How many times do you think we should go
under?" He stares at me.
"How many times?" The suspicion in his eyes
gradually withdraws, and| see the hint of a
smile creeping at the edges of his mouth.
"Seven is a biblical number."
"So is 40, but yeah, let's try seven?" He nods
and holds my hand.
We walk a bit further into the sea until the
water nearly reaches my chest. The cold
dissolves into our skin and lodges itself well into
our bones. My teeth start to chatter. I turn to
face Ferdinand and he takes my other hand. He
searches my eyes under the waning light.
"Ready?"
I try to see my legs underneath, and nod.
We plunge. The rush of water closing over me
feels like someone opened my head and poured
a bucket of ice into it. It took my breath away. I
start coughing at the fourth dip. But Ferdinand's
hands feel warm and solid in mine. When we
finally emerge from the ocean, we can't
get to work. The ocean quiets down the best it
can, giving way to the explosion of hues above
it. No, not really an explosion, but a blossoming.
The sky is always beautiful in the throes of night
as it brews a concoction from all the colors of
day. A nightcap. One for the road. There's still a
bit of light left, a small patch in the sky that has
not succumbed to the night's coaxing. I find
myself walking down to the beach instead.
Ferdinand stops and watches my progress down
the stony hill into the fine brown sand.
"Crisanta!"
I look back at him and watch the wind ruffle his
hair. Even from the distance | can feel the
tiredness in his bones. He looks at me with
furrowed brows, too exhausted to deal with
whatever craziness Imight be springing on him. I
keep walking into the ocean. I hear him clamber
down the rocks after me and plop onto the
sand. His hand loosely encircles my wrist,
gently. "What are you doing?" I feel the waves
clamp around my ankles, entering my closed
shoes. I look up
down until it becomes silent, and we watch
your heartbeat on the screen settle into a
straight line. And just like that, you're gone. I
don't let go of your hand for a long time. I
watch your face, which remains unchanged
throughout the day. I'm surprised to see my
tears fall because can't feel any.
Ferdinand and I walk back to the inn.
We don't talk. He has his hands thrust into his
coat pockets, and | have my hands wrapped
around my elbows, mindful of the cool breeze
that's starting to settle down with the sun. I give
him sideway glances, noticing how his hair has
gone past the nape of his neck. He really needs
a haircut. His face is now tanned. Stubbles have
formed around his chin. This must be how Jacob
Turner looked when he sauntered into that
Georgia town.
The sky above us is undergoing a beautiful kind
of death. A death in colors. Purples and pinks,
oranges and reds. Darkness waits at the
periphery like stage hands in the theater wings,
anticipating the curtain to descend so they can
be going to the restroom. We would stop short,
sidestep each other in the same direction, and
laugh nervously. I have never seen him so
awkward and shy, as if his limbs were too
unwieldy for him. Our bodies are not
cooperating. The last time we met outside your
room, he put his hand on my arm just as I was
turning the knob to go in.
"Crisanta." He took a deep breath,
"We can do this." I forced myself to look in his
eyes and tried to hold back the same fear I saw
in them. "T hope so." Five o'clock now. The
shadows of the trees start to lengthen, and the
sunlight through the windows fades into red
orange. Dr. Vasquez comes into the room and All My Lonely Islands is her first novel, which
gives us all a small, blind smile. I hold your hand started as a writing exercise in her MFA Fiction
while Pastor Rene holds the other and he utters Class.
one last prayer. I lean down and whisper to you,
acknowledgments Mom, Dad, Clarence, and
"Say hello to Stevan for me." Hello, Stevan.
Beryl, for all the support and love. My MFA
Goodbye, Tita Graciella. These are the only
professors, for all the wisdom. My thesis
words that time can accommodate. Dr. Vasquez
adviser, Katrina Tuvera, for all the guidance and
goes up to the machine and, after a short
support.
pause, turns some knobs and encodes numbers.
God-mode. The engine hums Normiross and Jophen, for graciously beta-
reading my manuscript. Palanca Awards Judges,
We have a simple lunch where we Swap stories
Susan Lara, Benjamin Bautista, and Dr. Shirley
about you. They tell me about the Christmas
Lua, for the humbling honor. Nellie and Kristina,
cantatas, and how you patiently gathered the
for fifteen years of true friendship and
children for the whole month to practice with
encouragement. All the writers who grew me
them. I tell them of the small Christmas
up with their magic.
celebrations we had back in Dhaka where there
were no parols or Christmas lights or children And to God, for everything. Thank you so much.
with tansan tambourines who bravely sang "0
Holy Night," and faltered when they reached "0
night divine..." I tell them of that one time when
| froze during a piano recital and had to go off
stage. You told mne to go back out there or I
would regret it for the rest of my life. So I did,
not because l was afraid of regrets, but because
I didn't want to disappoint you.

Ferdinand and | try hard not to look at each

other for reasons we both know, but can't really
explain. I would look in his eyes and not really
look in them, too. T look at their corners, never
at the center, and every time he shifts them to
fully gaze at me, l glance away. We met each
other along the hallway outside your room a
couple of times. I would be coming from Dr.
Vasquez's office or he would

about the author

VJ Campilan is a business writer by day and

novelist by night. She was first published in UP
Diliman's literary journal,

Likhaan, for her short story,"Real

Dhaka."
What sets Ms. Campilan's award-winning novel and Book design by Jordan Santos (cover) and
from the work of her peers is its incisive, Marielle Tayóna (interior) ISBN 978621 4201679
poignant take on the experience of young (e-book) Version 1.0.1 For Mom and Dad,
Filipinos struggling to find their place in the
for all the adventures.
world. Crisanta, raised in a foreign land by
parents who chose to work abroad, comes back
and finds herself having to reintegrate to the
local culture. All My Lonely Islands delves into Contents prologue
this Filiipina's psyche, and seeks an Swers to 1
difficult questions of identity and belonging.
2
-KATRINA TUVERA-QUIMBO,
3
author of The Jupiter Effect "[A] very fine
jade..." 4

-BENJAMIN BAUTISTA, 5

2015 Palanca Awards Judge and author of 6

Stories From Another Time, The Market 10
Monitor
11
All My Lonely Islands VJ Campilan
12
Copyright to this digital edition 2017 by VJ
Campilan and Anvil Publishing, Inc. 13

This book is a work of fiction. Names, 14

characters, places, and incidents are products of
15
the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual events or locales or 16
persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
17
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
18
reproduced in any form or by any means
without the written permission of the copyright 19
owner and the publisher.
Acknowledgments about the author
Published and exclusively distributed by ANVIL
Prologue
PUBLISHING, INC.
O Sea, gloriously wrathful creature
7th Floor Quad Alpha Centrum 125 Pioneer
Unfathomable tomb. Liquid garden. Life-bearer
Street, Mandaluyong City
and murderer I must stop. I can always tell
1550 Philippines Trunk Lines: (+632) 477-4752, when an ode is not working. You must excuse
me, I have a strange habit. I am standing on a
477-4755 to 57
cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, see, and
Sales Marketing: salesdanvilpublishing.com Fax every time l encounter a body of water, l always
No.: (+632) 747-1622 www.anvil publishing.com have to stop and address it with a lamentation
or salutation. Sometimes | dig up memories of your room with a broom like a housewife
old poems, sometimes I make stuff up and | throwing out a pair of rats that had managed to
feel the water just getting angrier. My favorite, sneak in at night. You should see the
though, is confrontation with oceans and my desperation in our eyes every time we come
go-to text for such an occasion is Frank 0'Hara's visit you. You'd turn your face away. It's that
"To the Harbor master." Iť's just begging to be object. When people have nowhere else to go
recited when the waves are wide fingers trying but the edge of a cliff, they have few choices.
to reach up to where you're standing and wipe Some cling to the rocks, taking to heart all that
you out, Old Testament style. I don't say my raging against the dying of the light. Some let go
odes out loud though when there are fellow because that's where everyone ends anyway,
seastarers around. | dont want to debris in the valley of death. And some, like me,
sit down and write, because we're not brave
preempt their assumptions of me. Let them
enough to live or die. We try to manage
think that l'm a Romantic Figure of Tragedy with
burdens by delegating the weight to a word,
my salon-brown hair flapping in unison with
transferring it to a blank piece of paper,
everything the wind orchestrates to move. Let
squeezed into familiar letters and corralled by
them guess the reason for the longing in my
margins. Like an insect you put under a
eyes. Am I remembering an entombed lover in
magnifying lens. You pull a wing out or a tail,
the depths? Am | some mad creature at night?
see if it bleeds too much Words. Depending on
Or I could just be a Nature Lover. Whatever
what you believe, they're either empty air or a
floats their boat. The reason | am standing on
prophecy that shall come to pass. We try to
this cliff in Batanes, the northernmost patch of
demystify ourselves through Words so we could
the Philippines, is because of an American. He
dismantle our bones and rebuild ourselves into
has swooped down like a gray-eyed eagle and
something less monstrous. Yesterday, I was
snatched me from my quiet apartment in
walking along my favorite path down the sand
Manila with entreaties of This is the right thing
when I was caught in a sunshower. I love those,
to do, Crisanta. This is God's will." I should have
although my Aunt Ramona would always tell me
told Ferdinand Turner to go to heaven without
that they bring unnatural illnesses, because
me.But desperation is desperation. It is a
various creatures are being mnarried around
permanent smudge on my eyeballs. The
the world. Monkeys, jackals, foxes, tikbalangs.
perpetual pea under my saggy mattress. I'm
My favorite explanation for is that the Devil is
sorry that I speak to you this way. I don't know
beating his wife because, apparently, even the
how else to approach you. I feel like you're
Devil's bedeviled by a wife. But why should
Aurora before she became Sleeping Beauty.
sunshowers be unnatural? Who says the sun
You're in the woods and you are surrounded by
and rain are not supposed to share the sky?
a supernatural light, and you're singing a
Sunshowers fit these islands; these islands that
spectacularly robust song about Dreams
seem to be part of nothing but the sky and sea
Coming True. And | am a squirrel hiding from
around them. They float calmly on a moody
behind a tree, mesmerized by you. I'm waiting
Pacific Ocean, which often extends its fingers
for other woodland creatures to surround you
whimsical attempt to reach the sky and tear it
so I could slip among them and be unnoticed.
off like wallpaper. When we first stepped here
But there is no one else at your bedside. There
on Basco, one windy March Saturday, our 30-
is only me and Ferdinand Turner. And we have
seater charter plane wobbled down a short strip
no right to be in the same space as you. I you
of runway bookended by the sea. Quaint. That
were only awake, you'd probably bat us out of
should keep the pilots extra vigilant. We came
under the unreliable night and moved with the
furtiveness of people with sealed letters, heavy
and fat with significance, in their jackets. Except
we are the sealed letters. We have come to be
delivered. We lay in our beds that night with
the coiled anticipation of a jack-in-the-box. We
were ready to spring out onto your doorstep
with our faded, button-like eyes; his seagull-
gray, mine a kind of hazel. The morning only
brought us to a hospital bed. You have been on
it a month, Dr. Vasquez said. A month later, and
we still flock to your bedside; thick, slow, and
unfulfilled. Now I sit by your window and think
of how we nearly sailed across the world so we
could find you here on the very edge of the
country, one foot almost out the door. I've
come to understand why you chose to settle
here, though I have often wondered why we do
it. Up root ourselves, I mean. Why we feel the
need to travel and wander into strange soil.
Why we can't leave things alone. It must be the
world calling to us. After all, they said it had
been one giant continent once. Maybe this is
why we feel drawn to each other, to the lands
we cannot see. We think of new places as
opportunities to build new lives, but all we're
really doing is trying to find our way back.
It's how I feel every time I watch the sun
outside your window retreat behind the hills,
surrendering to the blank comfort of night. For
a few minutes, I can forget a river all frothy with
dark brown water where a hand sticks out
before submerging. Or the principal's office. It
had gray paint, Mr. Richardson's office. Gray
walls, a desk lamp, a large wooden coffee table
with a glass top. A vase of sunflowers with
slightly wilted petals. We evenly sat around the
table like sunbeams: Mr. Richardson, Dad and I,
you and Tito Diego. You were wearing a plain
blue dress with the hemline cutting across your
knee. t was an awkward cut, as if the lines of
your body were ruptured. Tito Diego was a
blurred figure beside you.
You had your hair in a low bun. You reached
across the table and took my hand and told me
that it wasn't my fault. It was an accident, you
said. You were crying, but | could hear you
speak slowly as if you were talking to a toddler,
each word is deliberate, an offering of comfort.
And I took it because I couldn't give you any in
return. You can't give what you don't have, Dad
used to say. I clasped your hand although it was
cold and shaking. It was as small as mine, and |
remembered how they had glided across piano
keys like swans on an early-morning lake. I
thought of truth back then as supple, something
that has room to grow. Now it's just an old man.
Cranky, balding, petulant; the jail warden who
would happily open your cell and escort you to
the edge of the cliff. I smooth out the sheets
around you, wrinkling them in the process. I
watch you sink into another life where there is
no remembering. Some words have the power
to resurrect, but all | have are these that have
managed to claw their way out, disheveled and
emaciated. Look how they falter, their
seethrough shapes, the loose spaces between
them. These words will not guarantee a rebirth.
The minute started writing them down, all I felt
was a methodica l emptying. These let- ters,
nothing but a wisp of someone's hair you catch
disappearing around a corner just as you were
coming into view. Sometimes, I look at the back
of my hands to see if l'm still solid. If | could
enter these pages and not get lost, or die.
Maybe this is a song to call you back. I am
beside you now to ask you to come back out of
the depths. Let us jump off this cliff together.