The young cook only tossed back his head in answer, clearing the thick fringe off his brow.
“Talking to yourself again, of course.” Yaya Conching was both curious and amused. “So, what’s your secret?” She suspected some furtive sorcery in all this whispering. But definitely good magic, what with Don Miguel’s delight over his excellent cooking. A true genius, this boy —and so young, too. “Hoy, baya, what spell are you invoking this time, ha?”
The task was getting more strenuous, almost back-breaking, as the sweet mixture became a paste so thick, the heavy pestle nearly stuck to the mortar. But he did not wish to rest; he felt strong. He smiled with secret pleasure at the sticky blend clinging to his pestle, which he raised with an exultant heave, all the while luxuriating in the delicious broadening of his shoulders and arms, the tightening of his ribs which held back all the longings of the heart.
“Padaba, padaba, padaba…beloved, beloved, beloved …” Such was his chant to each yam, to the slivers of coconut meat, to every ingredient of this special dessert, wooing each one to be in its best flavour for his Clarita, the mistress of the house. She who will be forever fifteen in that portrait at the head of the table.
“Yes, you’re mad, mad indeed,” Yaya Conching tut-tutted back to her chores, seeing that the young hero of the pestle-and-mortar was not going to let her in on his culinary secrets.
No madder than you or Don Miguel or this house that believes its daughter is alive, is still sitting at the head of the table as she had always done since her mother abandoned her for America—sacked, packed and ready to fly, Manolito could not help but recount to himself the story which had become his own. The kissing, the whole of Iraya referred to it, the tragedy of the kissing. Caught in the act after dessert. The wild Asuncion and the dashing Amerikano, and the cuckolded Don who was even more devastated when his Clarita died of tuberculosis three years ago.
Manolito took one last look at his cramped room and the bamboo bed, the only one that knew his fever. But I am no American and I have nowhere to fly to. And, of course, my beloved—even if she loves me, too, or even if she loves my cooking, so that she almost loves me, too—would never be able to walk out of her father’s canvas sitting at the head of the table. And, worse, our lips never touched. I only nearly kissed her.
What dish could make the dead eat again, Manolito had asked as he stirred the chicken and papaya into the coconut milk that night of the alleged crime of passion. What flavour would make a portrait come alive, he wondered while squeezing green lemons into the cosido soup as if seeking inspiration from its milky rice-wash. What culinary spectacle would move those berry lips to open so she could partake of my love. Manolito felt the heat from the stove flushing his face, spreading to his breast and settling in his loins which burned like his hot ensaladas.
Tenderly spooning his linupak special into a big bowl, he thought of the hundreds of “beloveds” he had uttered before the pestle and mortar that afternoon as he worked every muscle in order to prepare this dessert. Yes, hundreds of failed endearments, because the Señorita will never be able to know the taste of my affection. So good was the dish that Don Miguel praised it in one of the rare moments when he addressed his cook. So good, it could even make me forget my name, he belched extravagantly before retiring to the balkon for his last cigar.
So good, it will even make you forget that you’re dead, Clarita, Manolito whispered as he offered her the bowl which held the remains of his one hundred endearments. Dinner was over and only a few candles were left spluttering in their tiny flames. Manolito had never felt so bold. He had never come this close to her portrait before, never gone past the flickering candles that fenced her, never faced her with this much courage. Just the two of them now and their shadows, his own merging with the rigid, rectangular headstone on the wall. But she would not look at him, her eyes still gazing down to the left as if waiting for another miracle from his stove, as if searching for one more vow of love. And with lips half-smiling as if eternally pleasured, or perhaps amused by her cook’s exertions to outdo himself each day for her sake. Seeing her this close, Manolito was beside himself with desire.
But you have to know it, taste it, this thing that has seasoned the most fervent courtship of all, Señorita, this fire in the stove, yes, its heat which would shame even the hottest spice in the pantry—please, let me tell it to your mouth. Mad Manolito then scooped some linupak with his forefinger and sucked it, after which he intoned his hundred endearments to her lips. So good, beloved, it will even make you forget that you’re dead.
The kissing, the kissing, Don Miguel screamed as he pummelled the startled lover with his fists, until, like a tired mother, Yaya Conching hushed him down into weeping. Get out of my house, American bastard, the cigar-smoking shadow cried, shrinking into his chair, while the other shadow with the hill-on-her-back gathered the broken man. Thirteen years ago, Don Miguel did not lay a finger on his wife’s lover who was two heads taller than him. He had remained civil. Please, get out of my house—and take the whore with you.
Saying goodbye to his kitchen, Manolito tried to locate the seat of the ache, where the cut flesh seemed seared by the juice of green lemons rolled in salt. Is it in the lips, that unhealable gash of the face, that wound for food, speech and tender things? Must be in a forgotten slit in the heart, drawn by God from our birth, that which we remember only at sixteen, the most intimate cut. Or, perhaps, it rests in the smarting eye of the loin, wide awake at night and weeping. The sun in my house must not rise on your face, you hear? The Don had made this clear to him. I want you out of here tonight, ora mismo!
It was nearly midnight when Manolito shuffled through his kingdom. Before the stove, he let his bag fall to his feet—ay, Madre, what a fate! But he could not imagine life without cooking for the Señorita. There were only two things in this world that he could do well, cook and love, and tomorrow both of these would be impossible. For the first time since the almost-kissing a few hours ago, he realised that, away from this kitchen and Clarita, he would be useless.
If only I had really kissed her. At least, I would have something to take away with me. But he could perhaps leave with the taste of the actual kissing and the after-taste of history, why not?
Tiptoeing towards the dining table, he felt again the queer sensation around his lips, this time with renewed elation. The comidor was a tomb. The candles had died and the headstone shadow had been swallowed by the walls. The cook scanned the darkness with his hands as if brushing away all the cobwebs that had buried an old story. I know she’s been waiting ever since dessert, after the Don had withdrawn to the balkon for his cigar. Suddenly I am strong and tall, very tall, two heads taller than the master of this house. And I will prove him right in his accusation.
As a carved tendril of the cadena de amor grazed his hips, Manolito shivered with anticipation. Reaching out, he found the arm of the head chair—this is it, the cabisera! Raising a hand with utmost care, lest he knock down his beloved, he attempted to braille her features. Those lips, those berry lips, his fingers tingled in their frantic search…air…nothing but air? What—where —wrong chair?
Like the earnest “it” in a blind man’s buff, Manolito circled the table, arms outstretched—left? Gone? With the ghost of her mother and the American. Also after dessert, without even tasting my famous linupak special, crooned into perfection by a hundred endearments— and, santisima, not a soul knew, much less cared. Ay, the tragedy of the kissing is mine, mine alone, Manolito sank into the empty chair at the head of the table and wept.
The next day, with a big ache in the hill-on-her-back, Yaya Conching had to cook dinner. As a side-dish to the leftover chicken and papaya of the night before, she opted for some banana heart in a hot ensalada. Running the tap on the heart, she kept seeing the lost look on the boy’s face as he dragged his feet to the door. He had left after midnight, a somnambulist whispering some incantation which sounded strangely like the spell that he uttered over the pestle and mortar—I say, brilliant coo
k, though a trifle crazy, but, haay, salamat sa Dios, now it’s all over. And it was about time that the master returned that portrait to its proper place in the sitting room. All in a night’s work that sudden enlightenment, a return to sanity at last. What blessing, this second kissing, she nodded to the banana heart on the wooden board—but poor Manolito. Knife poised before the magenta velveteen skin, she wished him luck. Ay, he’ll find another job soon, silly kid. A pity though, he was such a good cook, she sighed, cutting the heart in half.
The Review
Eighty-year-old May pegs the blanket on the line; the writer has her first coffee. Eleven o’clock. May breathes them in. At last, clean chrysanthemums, pink and white. The writer sips her instant brew—where’s the fucking thing? She thumbs through three Saturday papers.
“Each time I reap the last wash from the line, I bury my dead a little bit more,” May murmurs the ending of the writer’s first book as she stoops to pick up the laundry basket. When she first read it, she imagined that it was specially written for her, handed to her like a gift. And that, since then, she has always held its final words in her hands, cupped like a chalice. Do not clutch; let them breathe. “Never hidden like soiled clothes, but washed and hung out to dry. Air it, air it.”
The writer can’t find it—for God’s sake, half a year now after her wretched book came out! Don’t you bank on him, a friend had cautioned her. At the launch, a critic said he was interested to review her first book. She was thrilled. She even asked him over for coffee—bloody awful coffee! Perfect punctuation for another week’s futile wait.
The futility of soiled retro shirt and pants, with pink and white hearts, and the red socks, his fire-socks. So today, May washed them finally along with the blanket. During the last days at the hospital, her only son Elmer preferred to use his own things; he even asked for his “retro stuff”, complete with a belt of crystals. If one must go, let it be in style. A New Ager swaddled in a pink and white chrysanthemum blanket, freshly ironed and Cold-Power scented. Beat that. But when he was born, she had wrapped him in plain blue. Well, I’m in my floral phase, Mum, pink floral, he whispered, laughing and coughing painfully all at once, after she told him about her “ancient” colour coding. Between giggles, his face paled, contorted into a white scowl, then his body clutched itself into a foetus. He wishes to return to me, she thought holding him, helping him find his next breath among the pink and white chrysanthemums which inevitably bloomed into wet, yellow patches.
The writer scans the newspaper. Something on Margaret Atwood here, one on Michael Ondaatje, a bit on Linda Jaivin and a long one on Gail Jones…Rosario Diaz, where are you? Diaz, Diaz—Diaz who? The writer manages a self-deprecating chuckle as she scours even the fine print at the edges. Nothing.
“The resurrection of nothing.” Oh, yes, the book’s first chapter. What unhinged her, May remembers now as she goes inside the house. “Doing the laundry is a vain act when we think we can wash them clean, free of history—but how to resurrect the past nonentity of a lover’s dress, once merely merchandise in a shop window. As yet clean and uninhabited, no ghost of limbs…” May recalls her first unbridled grief upon reading that first page.
It begins after a war, peacetime, as the writer puts it ironically, May reckons now while returning the extra pegs to the cupboard. Everyday, a shell-shocked guerilla washes the dress of his missing wife in the river. He found her blue shift, bloodied and mouldy, three months after she disappeared. “This punishment of hands, this tenderest frenzy of knuckle against knuckle, the marked cloth between…all hoping they come out clean…”
May sensed the book was written for her, even if Esther, her hairdresser with whom she shared the novel, kindly observed that May’s own story was not really as bad. Australia is not at war, lucky for us, and—But grief is grief in whatever country, in whatever time, May retorted, cut to the quick. Esther didn’t know then that his blanket and retro ensemble, stained with sweat and urine, were still in the closet; May could not bear to wash them. I’m not in a grief competition, Esther. Her hairdresser apologised and made her a cup of tea.
Earl Grey or English Breakfast? Ah, a big decision, of course—better than this shitty coffee! Here in Australia, the writer learned how to swear, yes, sweet release! Fucking critic and your bloody empty promise—but he didn’t really promise, did he? Fucking wog writer, behave yourself! Remember, this country does not owe you, a Juana-come-lately, anything, she used to remind herself when a poem or a short story was returned with a rejection slip. But, please, couldn’t it be different now after a major publication? Well, who decides what’s major— you, wog?
I might be presuming too much, May sighs to herself, putting the kettle on. Last month, while retrieving her laundry, she was seized by a desire to write to her. My dear, would you like to come for afternoon tea? I make the best treacle scones in my street—I just want you to know I cried myself to sleep with your book and my son’s chrysanthemums. You see, I used to sleep with his blanket. Would dinner suit you instead? I don’t know any Philippines dishes, but I have an Asian cookbook that I’ve been wanting to try…silly old woman, she censured herself then. Even the urge to let her hairdresser in on the plan was eventually tamed.
May has never acted on this plan since its conception, though at times she thought she might. Especially that night when she stopped using the blanket, then when she hid it in the closet along with his dirty clothes, or the day she began sorting out his things for St Vincent’s, and early this morning when she decided to finally wash the remnants of those last three weeks at the hospital. I could write her tonight or tomorrow or right now, why not, May debates over a cup of tea. My dear, unlike your poor soldier, I only washed them once today, a year after the funeral. Strange, I did not even cry. I have stopped fretting about stains—NapiSan makes them extra clean, you know, like freshly laundered diapers.
“Similarly, the idea of a man washing his dead wife’s dress everyday, in order to remove its bloodstains and thus exorcise his loss, is both poignant and sinister. Diaz’s story—” The writer is saved from her bitter musings. At last, ay, salamat sa Dios, thank god. On the last page of the Saturday Herald’s review section and at the tail-end of the article on a “remarkable” collection of stories on death by another writer, “a brilliant” young Australian, the long awaited acknowledgement of her work is found. “Diaz’s novel is ambitious; sadly, its emotional prose does not live up to its aspiration. This writer, who hails from Southern Philippines, could learn from the austere, unsentimental…”
The resurrection of nothing—the first line of her book was a blur as the writer searched for the supposedly excessive lines, the soppy turns of phrase. Her eyes felt hot as, pen in hand, she marked all those that might need amputating. Fuck you, critic, fuck you, book. In Australia, she learned how to swear; but, in moderate Australia, she must also learn how to geld her verbal outbursts. Fuck, why was I born in a land of big emotions?
Twelve o’clock. The writer and May are both having tea, each with a copy of the book. The writer pores over it; she is crying. May closes hers, finally. For the first time in twelve months, her eyes feel clean, as if newly washed, and really dry.
Pina and the Flying Cross
When Grandmother-in-the-knees saw her first plane, she crossed herself several times and sang the “Te Deum”. She mistook the American fighter for a flying cross. It was the end of World War II and, in the small village of faraway Iraya somewhere in the north of the Philippines, everyone was waiting for a miracle. Salvacion from the retreating Japanese army, but not in the sense that the young pilot from Tennessee understood as he gawked through binoculars at the crowd of kneeling natives and flew on, feeling good and big and strong and as spiritually airborne as a white god.
The drone of the flying cross was sweeter than any “Te Deum”, Grandmother-in-the-knees thought and everyone agreed as they rose from their prostrate stupor. And did you see that smoke? Hesusmaryahosep! A flying, burning cross! It’s a sign! A sur
e sign from heaven that the war is really over! We should tell Padre Biya at once. We should have a thanksgiving mass—no, two masses, don’t you think so? Oh, I can die now! He has revealed himself to me. We must be the chosen ones, Lola Conching, don’t you think so? Grandmother-in-the-knees was trembling as she brushed the red earth from her homesewn saya, while the others waited for an answer. She was the oldest among the crowd of women who saw the flying cross. She should testify to the parish priest—the Santo Cristo was revealed to a group of women, imagine!
Grandmother-in-the-knees began to weep quietly. The women gathered around her, making noises about her being as overcome as they were, but that she was not very healthy, and each one offered to take her home, while reminding her of a godly responsibility. Speak with Padre Biya as soon as possible, she must!
“I’ll take her home myself.” Pina hugged her great-grandmother’s legs protectively, her solemn eyes not missing the now arched brows of the beatified crowd.
Everyone had forgotten her. Ay, yes. The holy cross was revealed to a group of women—and a young girl, too? Pina, Lola Conching’s six-year-old great-granddaughter, was very lucky indeed. To be so privileged at such a tender age, what blessing! All the women wished they had their daughters with them.
“So, you saw it, too, Pina, ha?”
“Yes. And it was not only burning. It also had eyes of fire.” Pina had taken a good look at the American fighter, while all the women bowed their heads in prayer. She had seen the plane’s glass windows catching the noonday sun. Ay, baya, burning so, such a gaze could have scorched the bamboo hedge lining the road.
“Yes, it had eyes.” Pina hugged her grandmother’s legs tighter.
There was a chiding hush in the crowd. Even Grandmother-in-the-knees choked between tears and censure.
“I saw them. The eyes made it look like a giant dragonfly,” Pina whispered conspiratorially.
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