I do not know my paternal great-grandfather’s name, or my great-grandmother’s. I’ve been told she was Chinese from Macao, that Uncle Cristobal burned the only photographs of her so there is no remaining evidence. And where was my maternal grandfather from? Somewhere in the Midwest, my mother shrugs and tells me. I am ashamed at having to invent my own history.
The only thing I know for sure is that my mother’s grandmother was the illegitimate and beautiful offspring of a village priest. My mother can never remember her name, and Lola Narcisa refuses to disclose it. The only thing lola has reluctantly told me is that her mother had blue-gray eyes, in startling contrast to her brown skin. The father of my blue-eyed great-grandmother was a Spanish missionary, and to speak his name was absolutely forbidden in my Lola Narcisa’s house.
We are in the bamboo garden, my Lola Narcisa and I. She points out the fragile, transparent snakeskin shed at the base of the bamboo grove. I am fascinated by its pale, ghostly texture, the ridges of serpent vertebrae so clearly etched in the abandoned shell it makes me shiver.
On the terrace above us, the women huddle over their elegant lunch. My mother Dolores, the guest of honor Joyce Goldenberg, Isabel Alacran, Mimi Pelayo, and Congressman Abad’s wife, Sylvia. Mrs. Goldenberg laughs too loud and chatters non-stop throughout the entire meal. The servants balance platters of grilled bangus, artfully arranged on beds of fresh parsley and sliced kalamansi. “Is it true,” Mimi Pelayo is saying to Isabel Alacran, “that your husband’s bringing over Anita Ekberg to do the new SPORTEX campaign?”
“No, no! Isn’t he bringing over that other one, Claudia Cardinale?” my mother Dolores says.
“Who’s Claudia Cardinala?” Joyce Goldenberg wants to know.
“Cardinale,” Isabel Alacran corrects her again. Her voice is steady, soothing, filled with authority. A hush falls over the women as she speaks. I shut her out, picking up the snakeskin to examine it more closely. Lola Narcisa bends toward me, making one of her interested sounds. Since my grandfather’s death she talks in sentences only when absolutely necessary. Otherwise she groans and clucks, hisses or chuckles very softly, to imply pleasure or amusement.
“RIO!” my mother shouts, alarmed. I look up, distracted. “What’s that you’ve got in your hand?” She makes a move to get up from the table, a frown on her face.
“Snake,” I answer, without thinking. Joyce Goldenberg squeals in terror; the other women stop eating. My mother stands up, but doesn’t come any closer.
“What in god’s name are you doing?” She glares at her mother, angry now. Lola Narcisa gazes calmly at her.
“It’s only skin, Dolores. It can’t hurt anyone,” Lola Narcisa says in careful English.
My mother keeps glaring at her, but speaks to me. “Put that thing down right now and wash your hands,” she commands, before going back to her food.
1960. Joselito Sanchez’s younger brother Tonyboy brings me back stacks of records from America: 45s, 78s, 33 LPs. Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Ritchie Valens, Chubby Checker, Joey Dee and the Starliters. I’m in bliss. Tonyboy teaches me the latest dances. The Madison, the Twist. Even though he’s dark, Pucha thinks he’s okay because he’s so rich. He shows me how to slow-drag, rubs his groin hard up against my crotch. Or we join Raul and watch television, the big box of dreams my father brings home one day as a surprise. Tawag Ng Tangbalan, I Love Lucy. When my brother’s out of the room, Tonyboy asks if I need a lesson in French-kissing. I ply him with questions based on material I’ve gathered from my treasured Photoplay and Silver Screen magazines. Pucha and I have just seen Imitation of Life. Is it true about Lana Turner’s daughter killing that gangster? “When I grow up, I’m moving to Hollywood,” I announce to Tonyboy. “Oh yeah sure,” he murmurs, burying his face in my neck. I’m impressed with his American accent, the way he says “Oh yeah sure” with such confidence.
“I can see it now,” Tonyboy says, with a hint of sarcasm, “giant billboards in Quiapo advertising INDAY GOES TO HOLLYWOOD, starring Rio Gonzaga. We’ll get Tito Severo to produce it as a musical—” We are slow-dragging expertly to something mournful by Frankie Lymon. Tonyboy makes a clumsy attempt to fondle my nonexistent breasts. I slap his hand. “Stupid—you don’t believe me? I’m going to make movies, Tonyboy. Not act in them!” I look at him angrily.
“What an imagination!” Tonyboy laughs, sticking his tongue in my ear.
Maybe 1960 or 1961.West Side Story plays to a standing-room-only audience at the Galaxy Theater. Pucha and I are seated in the balcony. Rosemary Garcia and her sister Belen are sitting in the row in front of us. We are chaperoned by a sullen Raul, who would rather see his idol, Jack Palance, starring in Bazooka! at the rat-infested theater in the Escolta; he would rather be anywhere but here. He is embarrassed and bored by our movie, making loud wisecracks every time Natalie Wood opens her mouth to sing. “Look at those fillings! The girl’s got cavities!” He hoots in the darkness, he curses at the screen, calling the lithe, dancing actors a bunch of baklas. The audience titters at my brother’s remarks. I sink lower in my seat. Someone in the orchestra section yells at Raul to shut up. “Come and get me, you bastard!” Raul yells back, enjoying himself now. “Dios mio, Raul—” Pucha mutters, making faces at me in the darkness. Defiantly, Raul lights a cigarette. A timid usher shines a flashlight in our direction, but makes no move to stop him.
This is how my brother meets his first love, Belen Garcia. She turns around and gives him a withering look. She is very pretty, with long hair and freckles on her nose. My cousin Pucha finds Belen’s freckles strange and repulsive, but I have long ago stopped taking her opinions too seriously. “You’re ruining the movie for everyone,” Belen Garcia says to Raul. “Why are you so rude?” She seems to feel sorry for my brother, which confuses and intrigues him. He has never been confronted so directly by anyone so attractive. He is silenced, and apologizes to her quietly when the movie is over.
Belen Garcia becomes Raul’s first wife. They marry young, but so does everyone else we know. She bears him three children in rapid succession, all girls. My parents argue: Females will be this family’s curse. Girls are fine. Girls are a burden. This isn’t China! No, it’s worse. My brother and Mikey are often stopped for breaking curfew. They joke with the soldiers who stop them; they bribe them with cash to avoid being sent off to Camp Meditation. Mikey gets sent there once, arrested for drunken driving and speeding with Joselito Sanchez. “It wasn’t so bad,” Mikey brags to my brother. “They had us pulling weeds and mopping up toilets.” My father bails Raul out of several sticky situations during martial law; he threatens to disown Raul, but my brother doesn’t take him seriously. Belen Garcia gives up and leaves him, taking her babies with her. My brother meets another woman, named Erlinda. She bears him two more girls, and they are married in a civil ceremony. “They are living in sin,” Tita Florence says to my mother, who doesn’t respond. The names of Raul’s daughters are: Filomena, Raquel, Josefina, Esmeralda, and Dolores, after my mother.
Abuelita Socorro dies in Spain. She goes into a coma, and never gets to say goodbye to anyone. No one is sure what really ailed her. Maybe her insides just gave up after all the rich foods she ate. No greens in her long life, no fruits or vegetables. My father retreats into his bedroom and weeps privately. Uncle Cristobal flies her body back to Manila, so she can be buried next to her husband. Her funeral is more lavish than Abuelito’s.
My mother has been right all along. Abuelita Socorro leaves everything to her priest and her church. She is buried wearing her black dress and matching pumps, her strands of pearls, and her black rosary wrapped around her wrist; her brilliant emeralds dangle from her ears.
Mr. Goldenberg and his wife survive Saudi Arabia. Years later, my mother receives a letter. Mrs. Goldenberg has divorced her husband and manages an art gallery in Florida. Trixie Goldenberg has married twice and is infertile. Mr. Goldenberg has retired from his diplomatic career and lives in New York. He is writing a book of memoirs, and is often nost
algic for Manila.
“How are you and Freddie?” he writes my mother. “I miss your wonderful dinner parties, and all that incredible food. I assume Pacita is still with you…And what about your son, Raul? Is he working yet? Last but not least, your daughter Rio, and that wild cousin of hers, Pucha…”
Pucha’s first wish is granted. She marries Boomboom Alacran as soon as she graduates from high school. Tita Florence and Uncle Agustin are elated and orchestrate an elaborate wedding which my father helps pay for. Pucha starves herself for a month and manages to lose ten pounds. She squeezes into a frilly white gown even though she is no longer a virgin. Chiquiting Moreno is sent for to do her hair. I am one of her bridesmaids, dressed in a dreadful concoction of pastel pink chiffon and lace. Pucha insists on a pink and white wedding—we’re straight out of one of her storybook fantasies, and she cries with happiness.
It is a terrible marriage, which barely lasts a year. Boomboom is insanely jealous, and locks Pucha in the bedroom before paying his daily visit to the Monte Vista, where he sits around all day drinking and gambling. Because he is an Alacran, he never has to work. He accuses Pucha of countless betrayals, he beats her frequently. With the help of her terrified servant Ramona, Pucha finally engineers an escape one night while Boomboom is out getting drunk with his friends. Clad only in her nightgown, Pucha and Ramona hail a taxi to Uncle Agustin’s house. The scandal that ensues drags on for weeks, with Boomboom threatening to kill himself on Pucha’s front lawn. Mikey comes home from Bicol to defend his sister’s dubious honor. Pucha never speaks to Boomboom again. My cousin is forced to get her foreign divorce in the end, but she continues to use the name Pucha Alacran.
My mother begins painting shortly after her fiftieth birthday. Except for occasional drawing lessons with Horacio, she has had no formal training in art and is ignorant of its history. She paints and paints; with furious energy, she covers immense canvases with slashes of red, black, yellow, and mauve. She uses the same colors in different combinations. “My bleeding bouquets,” she calls them. She moves into Raul’s now empty room and converts it into her bedroom-studio. My father acts as if everything were normal, even when Uncle Agustin says, “Your wife has slapped you in the face.”
Without warning, she cheerfully announces she is sending me to school in America and moving there with me for an indefinite period. I am ecstatic, at first. Everyone else is stunned. My father cannot stop her—my mother has inherited money from her father and pays for our passage to America. We settle first in New York, then Boston. I convince myself I am not homesick, and try not to bring up my father or brother when I speak. My mother actually sells a few paintings. The months turn into years. “Are we going to stay here forever?” I finally ask her. She looks surprised. “I don’t know about you, but I love the cold weather. Go back to Manila if you want. Tell Raul I miss him more than he could ever imagine.” She smiles one of her cryptic smiles. “But he’ll have to visit me here if he wants to see me—” her voice trails off.
Raul writes me letters in red ink, polite letters quoting from the Scriptures and inquiring about my health. He achieves local fame as a spiritualist healer and preaches to his followers in the countryside. Erlinda and the children follow close behind, his loyal family of believers. He distances himself from the rest of the Gonzagas, who are ashamed of his newfound fundamentalist Christian ministry. Only Pucha, of all people, visits him regularly. She writes me notes on Hallmark greeting cards:
Oye, prima—que ba, when are you coming back? Tonyboy asked about you, I saw him at SPORTEX boy he still looks grate! I think he left his wife you dont know her shes a forinner from Austria or Australia you know he told me you really broke his heart when you left plus you never answered any of his letters, pobrecito naman! WOW! I saw Raul yesterday at that new apt. of his I brought him new clothes for the kids, theres so many! Erlinda’s pregnant again. I didnt stay two long, he was in one of his moods you know how Raul gets. Hes always complaineing you dont write anybody and its true. Write him, okay? And send your mother my regards I hope shes not mad at me. Thanks be to God my parents are okay. Uncle Esteban had another operation, in case you didnt here. Mommie says HELLO! She and Papi had merienda with your father last Sunday. Mikeys getting married. AT LAST. Why dont you come to the wedding?
Love & prayers,
PUCHA
When I finally come home to Manila to visit, my father warns me not to bother visiting our old house. “You’ll be disappointed. Memories are always better.” Smiling apologetically, he tells me reality will diminish the grandeur of my childhood image of home. I take his picture with my new camera, which later falls in the swimming pool by accident. The camera is destroyed, along with my roll of film. I decide to visit our old house in Mandaluyong anyway, borrowing a car from Mikey. Pucha goes with me; she loves riding around in cars and doesn’t need any excuse. “After that, let’s go to the Intercon Hotel and have a drink,” she says, a gleam of mischief in her eyes. “Put on some makeup,” she bosses me, “you look tired.” I laugh. Pucha is up to her old tricks. She applies thick coats of blue eyeshadow on her heavy eyelids, studying her face in the mirror with rapt concentration.
My father is right. The house with its shuttered windows looks smaller than I remember, and dingy. The once lush and sprawling garden is now a forlorn landscape of rocks, weeds, and wild ferns. The bamboo grove has been cut down. “Let’s go,” Pucha whispers, impatient and uninterested. An old man with bright eyes introduces himself as Manong Tibo, the caretaker. He unlocks door after door for us, pulling aside cobwebs, warning us to be careful. Rotting floorboards creak under the weight of our footsteps. “My bedroom,” I say to the old man, who nods. I am overwhelmed by melancholy at the sight of the empty room. A frightened mouse dashes across the grimy tiled floor. Pucha jumps back and screams, clutching and pinching my arm. “Let’s go,” she pleads. “Wait outside. I’ll be there soon,” I say, trying to conceal my irritation. I am relieved finally to be alone, in this desolate house with only Manong for company. He studies me with his bright eyes. “You live in America?” His niece is a nurse in San Francisco, California, he tells me with pride. Someday, he hopes she’ll send for him.
I stay another hour, walking in and out of the dusty rooms in a kind of stupor. The shutters in the windows of the kitchen, Pacita’s kingdom, are hanging from their hinges. The gas stove and refrigerator are gone. “Thieves,” Manong shrugs, when I ask him. Broken glass is scattered on the floor. He tells me the house will be torn down within the month and a complex of offices built in its place. The property and the squatters’ land adjoining it have been bought by the Alacran corporation, Intercoco.
I say good-bye and thank the old man. “See you in America!” Manong Tibo says, waving farewell. Pucha is slumped down in the front seat of the car, irritated, hot, and sweaty. “I wouldn’t do this for anyone but you,” she grumbles without looking at me, then peers into the rearview mirror. “Look at my makeup!” She gives me an accusing look. I slide into the driver’s seat, fighting back tears. Suddenly, I grab her hand. She stares at me, puzzled. “Are you okay?” It seems an eternity, but I pull myself together. Pucha hands me her lace handkerchief, drenched in perfume. “Watch out when you blow your nose—okay, prima?” She teases. She squeezes my hand, uncomfortable with our display of affection. I start the car, turning to look at her before we drive away. “I really love you,” I say, to her utter amazement.
My cousin will find happiness with a man, once and for all. He is a stranger to us, a modest man from a modest family, someone we never knew in our childhood. The Gonzagas breathe a collective sigh of relief. Pucha lives with her new husband, childless and content; she never leaves Manila.
My Lola Narcisa lives to be a very old woman. She is the main reason for my frequent visits to Manila; I dread not being there when she dies.
I return to North America. I save all Raul’s letters, along with my father’s cordial birthday telegrams and Pucha’s gossipy notes, in a large shopping
bag labeled FAMILY. I move to another city, approximately five thousand miles away from where my mother lives and paints. We talk on the phone once a week. I am anxious and restless, at home only in airports. I travel whenever I can. My belief in God remains tentative. I have long ago stopped going to church. I never marry.
In my recurring dream, my brother and I inhabit the translucent bodies of nocturnal moths with curved, fragile wings. We are pale green, with luminous celadon eyes, fantastic and beautiful. In dream after dream, we are drawn to the same silent tableau: a mysterious light glowing from the window of a deserted, ramshackle house. The house is sometimes perched on a rocky abyss, or on a dangerous cliff overlooking a turbulent sea. The meaning is simple and clear, I think. Raul and I embrace our destiny: we fly around in circles, we swoop and dive in effortless arcs against a barren sky, we flap and beat our wings in our futile attempts to reach what surely must be heaven.
Pucha Gonzaga
PUWEDE BA? 1956, 1956! RIO, you’ve got it all wrong. Think about it: 1956 makes no sense. It must have started sometime around 1959, at the very least! You like to mix things up on purpose, di ba? Esta loca, prima. Que ba—this is cousin Pucha you’re talking to…Doña, we grew up together like sisters, excuse me tang! I’m no intelektwal as you’ve pointed out loud and clear, but my memory’s just as good as anybody’s…
Dogeaters Page 25