He cared even less for tidying up. Music littered every corner of the house.
His landlord threatened to evict him, so he embarked on a general cleaning and swept all the music into his closet, which he locked afterwards. The notes were indignant and threatened to self-destruct if he did not let them out. But he kept the closet locked anyhow, until, one day, the music made good its threat. The closet exploded.
In the morning, he was found collapsed on the floor, clutching at his chest, crying about needles all over his heart. Doctor’s diagnosis: severe angina. He died the following night.
When the landlord cleaned his flat for the next tenant, he discovered the mess. Strewn everywhere, the half notes, quarter notes, eighth and sixteenth notes were all looking fat and healthy, but missing their stems.
Shoes
The little girl, about five, is hopping about and half-running behind the man with a large jute sack on his back. He is in his mid-twenties, but seems older. Occasionally, he puts his load down and squats beside her. She whispers something, he nods, and they’re on their way again.
The asphalt road is burning. It smells and sticks to one’s soles. She hops about in her new white shoes and blue poplin dress with a faded Donald Duck on the bodice. She is sweating heavily like him. She keeps hopping. Passers-by, who are going home to lunch, smile or frown to themselves. How can one play in this unbearable heat?
High noon and there are no trees. Just a long road under construction, lined with a motley of shops teetering between age and imposed newness, and looking quite startled by this state of affairs. A once sleepy town being rushed into progress.
The blue dress is soaked in sweat. Donald Duck looks limp. Running to catch up, she nudges his leg with a finger. He stops and bends towards her. She whispers; he nods and lays down his sack. She sits on it and wipes her shoes with the hem of her dress. Meanwhile, he heads for a corner store a few metres away. He comes back with Coke in a plastic bag and two straws.
They sip it quietly in the middle of the half-constructed road.
She whispers to him again. This gesture of conspiratorially bending towards an ear somehow looks more intense than normal, as if the girl were telling him the major secrets of the world.
He takes off her shoes, bought especially for this outing. The soles of her feet are red, promising heat blisters. He examines the shoes, knocks at the soles. Thin plastic; inside, cardboard. He sighs and takes out a frayed rag from his pocket. He tears it in two then lays each half inside the shoes. They were a bargain from the street market.
She puts them back on and walks around the sack. Tight, but better now. She almost smiles. She has stopped hopping.
He proceeds to unpack the pouch tied to his side. Six boiled sweet potatoes, two pieces of dried fish and a coconut sweet for the girl. He spreads them on the sack beside the girl. They eat quietly.
The sweet is nibbled slowly, while she beats the sack with her heel in time with some silent rhythm. He makes a soft remark; she pops the last of the sweet into her mouth, then hurriedly stands up, brushing her dress. He rises, too, after packing and looks around, shading his eyes with a hand. Almost deserted now, the unfinished road seems endless.
He cocks his damp brow to the side, as if querying the still air, then shakes his head. He addresses her, she responds, softly again; expectedly, he nods. They walk towards the corner store to inquire—
“I CAN’T HEAR YOU—” The voice is too loud and gruff from behind several bales of hemp at the doorway.
“Please, may I ask—” His soft enquiry is drowned by a baby’s wail from the adjacent house.
“TALK LOUDER, WILL YOU?”
“Please, where’s—”
The baby screams with fervour.
“QUIET THERE!”
Its crying grows fainter, as if it were moved to the far end of the house.
“What do you want?” The voice emerges, a rotund septuagenarian munching a piece of pork fat. His short, sweaty singlet does not quite cover a beer-belly in progress.
That navel peeks rudely at me, the girl thinks and stares at her shoes instead. She squats behind a bale of hemp, trying to hide from the sun.
“I said, where is Mr Jose’s house, please?”
The old man takes a while to speak. “Why?”
Silence, except for the continuous munching and a slight burp.
The man shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “We have business.”
“What business?”
“We are—visiting.”
“And just who are you?”
“Nestor. Nestor Capili, and I want to know where—”
The wrinkled face squints at the younger man. “Visiting, eh?”
The little girl shuffles her feet; the shoes are getting tighter, what with the rag padding. The old man notices her for the first time.
“And she’s visiting, too?”
“Yes—we have something for him.”
“Have you?” The old man moves to the half-opened door that leads to the adjacent house. He closes it before saying, “I’m Mr Jose.”
“Oh—” The syllable is barely audible, just a breath dangling.
“And you have something—for me?” The old man seems to choose his words with care.
“Yes, sir, sweet potatoes here, a sackful, very good ones from your farm, sir.” The gaunt face is trying to smile at the host, revealing bad teeth.
A slight hesitation. “Come in then.”
Nestor drags the sack inside. The girl doesn’t budge from the doorway. Her feet hurt.
“You come in, too.”
She follows hesitantly, looking up for the first time. She makes out a cavern crowded with more bales of hemp, sacks of rice, an antiquated counter with a few jars of candy and biscuits, and a large, shining, obviously brand-new refrigerator, the only brightness in the store. The place is dark and musty. And too warm, it can curdle your thoughts.
She sits on the sack, which her father laid on the floor, and stares at her new shoes. They’re not as white any more; the frill around the toes is limp and dusty. Ay, still pretty though tight.
“I know you don’t know me, sir, because it’s Manoy Nito who actually takes care of your farm, I’m his brother-in-law, by the way, and I’ve helped him with the planting and things since we moved to your land after the flood, and we’re very grateful to you, of course, and I dug these sweet potatoes myself, you have good land, sir, very good, and I do help regularly, sir.” The man’s breath is running after each word. He keeps on wiping the sweat off his brow with the back of a grimy arm.
“You do?”
“Ay, yes sir, and I’ll help again during the harvest… then I’ll rebuild our old house once the water ebbs from the valley, then we won’t have to impose on your kindness which we truly—”
“A farm on a hill is paradise, I say.” The host rubs his belly contentedly, raising the short singlet even more. “So, you think I’ll have a good harvest, eh?” The rude navel stares around the room like a moist eye.
“Of course, sir, it’s very good land, very good…and safe.” He wants to speed through the small talk and catch the right words for his real intention, even if Manoy Nito, his brother-in-law, warned him against saying it. He even strongly discouraged this visit.
“Nito’s a good worker.”
“Certainly, sir. And his sister, too, my wife—”
“You like a Coke, girl?” The old man leans against his shining fridge. “It’s terribly warm in here, I know.”
She shakes her head at the shoes. They seem to be getting smaller, pushing the toes and heels into a painful curl.
“My wife, sir—Trining—we’re also visiting my—” There, he’s said it.
The little girl looks up expectantly at the mention of her mother’s name. For once, the indistinct face comes alive, acquiring a sudden personality, perhaps, even an incoming smile.
“I wonder—we’re wondering—she still hasn’t finished her job here?”
> “She’s not home at the moment.”
The small face withdraws its engagement. Again, she crouches over her aching feet.
“Four months ago, she wrote—only once. Said she was coming home last month, sir.” This fervid demeanour makes him look even more gaunt, bones pushing out, cheeks tight.
“The new maid hasn’t arrived yet as promised, so Trining has to stay—a little longer, Nestor—Nestor, isn’t it?”
“Yes…” His face sags. He runs a hand over it, less to wipe off the sweat than to stay this facial collapse, so characteristic of wretchedness.
“How about a biscuit, girl?”
She’s not interested. She’s trying to undo the buckle of a shoe.
“She hasn’t seen her mother for almost a year now— can we wait till she comes back?” The plea is both lame and desperate.
Her little fingers cannot quite get the shoe off.
“She sends you her pay regularly, doesn’t she?” The old man goes to the counter, takes out a candy from a jar, then offers it to the girl. “Here.”
She does not even look up, her face bowed intently over the unruly shoe.
Mr Jose tut-tuts and pops the candy into his mouth. “Trining’s on an errand in town. It will be a long day there for her.”
“A long day…?” Nestor surveys the seventy-four-year-old landlord of Manoy Nito, his brother-in-law.
After the flood, Nito offered his sister, Nestor’s wife, as a housemaid for the master in exchange for her family’s temporary shelter on his farm. And “temporary” became forever, because the floodwater would not ebb from the valley.
“She’ll take a while yet, so you’ll miss your boat if you wait.”
The lie chokes him, as if it were shoved into his mouth. He feels tight around the throat. He can’t tell him he knows, that he has always known so, softly, he echoes, “Yes, we will miss the boat.”
His daughter stands up from the sack of sweet potatoes. She tugs at her father’s pants. Again, the intense series of conspiratorial gestures—he stoops down, she whispers, he nods.
“What’s her name?” The old man asks as he returns to rummaging behind the bales of hemp at the doorway. He has killed enough time with the visitors.
“Nining—well, tell her—tell her, please, to write, at least,” Nestor can’t quite uncurl the words in his throat.
“What did you say?” The landlord asks, without looking up from his task.
From the house, the baby wails as if in response.
Nestor listens, holding his breath, then lets go.
“You were saying—?”
The small hand tugs more urgently.
“Nothing. Come, Nining.”
But she wouldn’t leave the doorway, so he bends down towards her, again with fervent care, as if he were receiving another major secret of the world. She whispers, he nods, then squats. He takes off her shoes, wraps them in the pouch at his side, and hoists her up on his shoulders, then strides off. The asphalt road is too hot to walk on, but they cannot miss the boat home.
Triptych
Watching
Waiting
Waning
The crook of your shoulder, a boat. I am sinking into a boat, I am rocking. When you shrug & my eye switches to slow-mo, so your left shoulder lifts always higher than the other in that soft odd way—then I think of sailing.
Sails promise to keep the appointment at 3:00 in this morning pillow, who cares? Look, I billow half-hearted, ventricle not quite unhinged even as the water deepens bluer than the sky still under the lids. Nudge them, beg me leap, unfurl as if life were only about setting out to sea. Willing to be Ahab’s whale, or else we drown in land.
Wind on a diet. This desire growing thin. Breath settles on a scale that registers zero & I think me saved from a tempest— duress is beautiful. Run aground the flutter in the lungs. About not feeding the air to push a longing, such is my conviction
as she longs & watches as he waits & longs as she wanes all longing to a halt. At a boating party, Martha hopes Martin will turn around, return her
look, even vaguely, while he believes his wife, Mary, will hold him again, she who must stop wanting Martha. What soap opera, this doomed triad,
but a non-event, really, I read in your shrug as you turn away, unaware of how I unfurl like a mast. As clean as the white of my eyes, O look. & come.
Sand & pebbles, I eat them but think wet between my legs, fumble of half-heartedness. Make me whole & full like a prow. Head of an eagle almost alive again, potent statement against the sky.
& quickly starve. No fasting could be sweeter & more profound. I am fashionably thin, thighs so lean—flush tingle ache in them even leaner now. No more launchings or moorings. No wind, just that, no wind,
as we launch a trilogy. One hopes each story reads accurately on its own, even as these three plots of certainty sail into each other, reading so ambivalently. Martha, Martin, Mary. You can read them vertically or horizontally. Grounded on two feet—land is always steady after all. Or stretched like the earth itself, all the bumps & hollows more visible, body always uneven & vision blurred. & today, Martha, Martin, Mary are caught just like that. Supine. Stranded
on the edge, such is the only way to come. On a wish on a shoulder, I sail out, out to fuck the horizon, Martin, my name is Martha, listen.
A supplication: Mary, be my captain astride the prow. Before the bed sinks—the twenty year old golden band much heavier now & gravity more keen. This eagle, it cannot fly to save me.
No trace of fat. Such redemption after all the nights of being wedged between duty & desire, gorgeously corpulent. Now disarmed, deflated, made anorexic, Martha. I am safe & O so light
for champagne—Mary celebrates on the upper deck. Her back to Martha & Martin. At the wheel, he still imagines waking under Mary’s fingers, while Martha tries to catch his ungenerous eye. Everyone has gone. Boating party over & anchor down as
I stare, mast of my eyes white as wished-for come. Whole orbs gloriously coated blind—& you vanish just like that. Don’t!
Weight of wait: whale & eagle both, but only in a yearning so sharp, cuts a hole on the bed. I sink through & you don’t even know, my love.
That fades—the one longed-for, as longing loses all wind & long-ers fizzle out. All made thin, perspective pushed to a vanishing point.
Border Lover
Wore it on a tree
after my long flight
Right after my long flight,
I wore it on a tree,
under the banana leaves
Right after my long flight,
I wore it on a tree,
under a canopy of green flags,
my banana heart,
magenta velveteen and just
beginning to open…
There, Grandmother, this should make you happy. I’m now breathing Western air, flying back to my “White Land”, as you call it, yet I’m still your tropical baby, trust me. What with all these doodles about the banana flowers just outside your window—
“Puso ki batag, banana heart. I’ll cook you one in coconut milk with enough chilli to make you cry. Wasn’t that your favourite dish, ha?”
What a welcome, you brandishing the wooden ladle under my nose! And still inquiring whether they ever feed me rice, cooked properly, back there in my Australia.
“Ay, siyempre, Gran, of course, Oz is—multicultural!”
“Inday, Inday, come home, please/Even if you kill me /I’ll never do it again”—ah, you had to sing that ditty again, something about infidelity—but, Granny-O, I do come home every year to visit you, don’t I? But you’d grown funny this time. You said you stared hard at my plane’s bum, wondering whether it would ever touch ground.
I, too, wondered about how it is to really land. Three weeks ago, as the plane descended on our province, I marvelled at the different shades of green—deep on the fronds of coconuts, shimmering on banana leaves, cool on the stretch of grass and monochrome on the various shrubs I coul
d not even name—now, with the Sydney vegetation rushing up to greet me as I touch down, same thing…eucalypt, eucalypt, and…eucalypt…? Yes, I don’t know how it is to land and not land, my wings rearranging themselves for home and not home.
“Daeng problema. If you lose your way home, because of the tricks of the spirits, just turn your dress inside out.”
“And I’m supposed to find my way, really?”
Okay, I’ll try it sometime, Gran. Turn my heart inside out, like a wallet, and shake out all its failed currency, its futile medium of exchange. Peso, dollar, peso, dollar, peso…she loves me, she loves me not, she loves me, she loves me not—she who keeps her money close to her heart, wrapped in an old handkerchief that smells of Tiger Balm, all that “loose change” for the rainy days pinned under her blouse, with her puso ki batag, ay, her banana heart. It shoots forth a red, oh, no, a magenta velveteen—
Flirting, three layers of heartskin
flying in the air
My petticoated flirt:
three layers of heartskin unfurled
in the air,
à la Monroe flashing
not pale legs,
but tiny yellow fingers
strung into a filigree of topazes.
“Hoy, anong gusto mo—what would you like it cooked with—dried fish or shrimp paste?” Grandmother had just prepared the heart for the wok.
“Oh, I don’t know. Up to you, Gran.”
Me of the banana heart with its tell-tale fingers drumming at the seams—I was getting pretty restless in her kitchen then and suddenly inspired into a serious chat with the wall—yeah, yeah, I’ve got a banana heart for my head and, each time I unfurl, I wear a different face speaking a strange tongue. My dialect Bikol, then Filipino, then English, all mixed up, broken into an almost infantile blabber—akin to Kristeva’s semiotic? Ah, these little epiphanies. Not bad after three years of postgrad meanderings in Australia.
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