She recalled trying to talk to him at dinner one night that week, but he’d brushed her questions aside.
“Sometimes, when you’re around sick people all day, you just want to rest your mind. I don’t feel like talking all the time,” Manolo had said.
So they had eaten in silence. It hadn’t been a comfortable silence, the kind two people share when they’re close enough to know each other’s ways without the constant need for words. This kind of silence heightened small sounds, making the quiet even louder. At first, she thought he might’ve disliked the meal—a new interpretation of lugaw made with the palpable addition of cilantro—but then his spoon scraped the bottom of the bowl and she sensed her husband’s agitation in those sharp clinks.
Tala was even more hurt when, the following night, Manolo’s parents had joined them for dinner. With Andres and Iolana in their company, it was easy for Manolo to avoid her. She wondered if Manolo had persuaded his parents out of the private dinners they shared in their bedroom. Andres and Iolana usually set up trays on a small table in front of the television. They sat together on the bed, yelling out answers to the game show they watched every night at that hour.
By now the smell of salt and smoke crept into her bedroom, wafting in from the crack underneath the door. Soon, even the bedspread wrinkled up against her cheek would contain her mother-in-law’s cooking. But the prospect of sitting with Iolana cheered her. Tala placed her fingers on her cheek, remembering the press of her husband’s recent kiss. Since his moodiness had passed, she could safely predict the sentiments that would accompany his homecoming: hunger, fatigue, an undeniable brightness in his eyes when he found her again. Though her husband was selective about the amount of affection he showed, she knew his love, his hunger and his need, knew it because she shared it, helped feed it, and fed from it in turn.
She got up to begin her day.
On the second night, the stranger spoke.
He’d left the night before without breathing a single word. After he had gone, she’d slept at the bottom of the riverbed, strangled by dreams. She dreamed it was her wedding night, that the riverbed was her marital bed with the man in the water. They needed no clothing, no blankets to keep warm. The water covered them completely, like a layer of skin or sleep, a shared womb. She turned to embrace her man in the water but he had no face. Before she could gasp in horror, the faceless man became the stranger, his eyes full of life. The impact of the stranger’s eyes sent her body shooting to the surface, where the cold air shocked her into waking.
After waking, Tala had felt restless. She’d never been to the river during the day. In the light, it felt like a different world. The trees had color. Everything had color. And a brighter set of sounds replaced the night sounds. An endless chirping emanated from the trees’ boughs, where the lightest of feet made a constant commotion.
But Tala was alone. She wondered if her sisters would return when the sky grew dark. She waited for the light and shadows to change, searched for the man in the water in every gleam of light bouncing from the wet canvas. She thought of her many nights with the man in the water, and his sudden disappearance fell on her like a stone.
That night, Tala looked up at the sky, searching the stars, missing Ligaya’s laugh. Her sisters did not come. She felt sure her man in the water would return with the moonlight. After her frantic splashing that day, she walked the bank in the evening feeling more subdued.
Hours later, the man in the water eluded her still and disappointment stung her chest. She wondered why the man in the water had abandoned her just when she’d given up everything she knew to be with him. Tala felt as if nothing could console her.
In the fullness of night, the stranger returned. She was surprised at the way her heart lightened at the sight of him. Like her, he was drawn to the river and carried himself with the weight of something pressing against his heart. He seemed to know her sorrow, to share it, and somehow, he lifted part of it away. She felt as if together, their sorrows could be unloaded, passed into the river’s arms for another place and time.
Joined by the stranger, Tala kept her head down, grazing the surface of the water with her eyes. Then he spoke.
“Did you lose something?” he asked.
Her father-in-law was already seated at the table, eating a plateful of garlic rice, eggs, and fried fish. He invited Tala to sit by pointing at the table with his chin.
“Good morning, Daughter,” Iolana said. She sang the words, the notes getting higher with each syllable. Tala met the same enthusiastic greeting from her mother-in-law every morning. Unlike her son’s, Iolana’s moods were consistent and predictable, and Tala was grateful.
“Good morning.”
“Eat now,” Andres said.
“It looks good. Such a good cook, Ma.” Tala was grateful that her mother-in-law was always quick to man the stove when she felt like sleeping in.
“Why do you think I’m so fat?” Andres clutched the generous rolls of his belly. “I didn’t look like this when I first met her. Now, I spend all my time adjusting my belt—tight in the morning and a notch looser after every meal.”
“You’re still a movie star.” Iolana touched his arm and looked at Tala. The shine in her eyes concealed a wink.
“I tell you she did this to me on purpose. So the other women would stop fighting for me.”
“Ha, you stuff your mouth and blame me.”
Every one of Iolana’s words was equivalent to a smile. She reminded Tala of the pleasure of morning. There were the smells and the feeling of good things. Her mother-in-law was always cheerful, always dressed up. Today she wore a gold necklace with a flat jade pendant shaped like a rose. She wore earrings to match—smaller jade roses that dangled just beneath her lobes on delicate gold stems. Her blouse had short sleeves and buttons, a scoop collar. It was tucked in neatly beneath her skirt. Her face was rather plain, Tala thought, but still, Iolana was pretty. And yet, it would’ve been a homely face on a woman without Iolana’s poise.
“When I met her, I was as skinny as Manolo.”
“I feed you to keep you happy.”
“You feed me to keep me fat.”
They bantered this way, but Tala did not sense bitterness in their words. Instead it always seemed as if Manolo’s parents were having fun. Tala realized that the food in her mouth made her stomach turn. She felt hungry, but the idea of swallowing made her throat revolt. She quickly washed the first bite down with water, wanting to empty her taste buds of the strong flavors. The water made her want to gag. Out of politeness to Iolana, she swallowed her own sour bile.
“What’s the matter, aren’t you hungry?”
“It’s all so good, Ma. Maybe it’s just too early for me to eat.”
“Aren’t you feeling okay?”
“I’m fine. The two of you are too much. You spoil me with attention. I’ll have breakfast in a little while.”
But as soon as she got up the nausea swirled. She ran to the sink to vomit.
Iolana pampered her for the rest of the morning. She brought a pillow to the sofa so Tala could rest there. She made hot ampalaya tea and left her alone to recover, checking in on her every once in a while to see if her appetite had returned.
Luchie was already stationed in the living room, fanning herself on the rocking chair. Tala had noticed the maid sitting in the same spot the past several days.
“I think it’s about time,” Luchie said. “How long have you been married now? I’ve been with you for almost a year.”
“What do you mean?” It wasn’t typical of Luchie to initiate conversation. And now that she had, Tala thought, her words were like a puzzle.
“And your menses? Have they stopped?”
At Luchie’s question, Tala realized why Iolana seemed more excited than worried about the sickness that came over her at the breakfast table. The hope had not crossed Tala’s mind until that moment. It came suddenly, and everything around her transformed, taking on the shape of her joy. Her senseles
s bickering with Manolo seemed so trivial then, and she felt silly for giving it so much weight. Her husband was entitled to fluctuations in mood. Indeed, it would be senseless for him to behave otherwise, like some automaton who experienced each day just as the last. She wanted to laugh out loud. She adored the light that filled the room, the cozy spaces it enveloped, the sounds of familiar voices she had grown to love, and even Luchie, whose silver and black hair grew from the mole on her chin. The hair moved whenever the maid talked.
“In any case, we’ll soon find out.” Luchie was the picture of contentment. She propped her feet on the edge of the coffee table, pushing against it with the balls of her heels. The slightest effort on Luchie’s part initiated a steady rhythm of rocking.
Tala got the urge to get up and embrace the maid like a long-lost aunt. She wanted to ask her all the questions she had never been brave enough to ask her, like, did she have any children of her own, or, where was her extended family? Luchie seemed different now, different from Luchie, as if she might be more receptive to Tala’s questions.
Before Tala could act on the impulse, Iolana returned.
“Oh good, getting up already!” Iolana said. “Let’s go next door to Camcam’s.”
The lie came quickly. “Yes, I’ve lost a necklace.”
“Let me help you.”
The stranger took off his shoes and rolled the bottom of his pants up to his knees. He began walking along the lip of the water, where it saturated the sand with kisses. His feet got wet first, then his ankles. Spots of water darkened the color of his pants.
They searched different areas, crisscrossing here and there. She held her breath during the moments they were side by side.
“What does it look like?”
“It’s a . . . gold, with a heart-shaped pendant.”
He walked closer and closer to the center of the water. By now his pants were drenched and the water covered him waist-high. Neither of them spoke. She circled the edges of the river in the opposite direction. At one point she felt as if they were walking a labyrinth, reaching closer to the center then out again, passing one another at different points along the journey.
There was something deliberate about the way he moved. She enjoyed watching him kneel or reach, watching the slow extensions of his body. He was careful with his hands, attentive with his fingers.
The stranger seemed intent, focused, as though finding the necklace was something important. He made her feel important, too. She wanted to know what motivated him to help her, and if any part of his motivation was a desire to please her.
He stooped down, picking up an amber-colored stone then tossing it away.
She realized she had him searching for a necklace she hadn’t lost, one that didn’t even exist. Suddenly his concentration was absurd, silly. He squinted his eyes and wrinkled his brow while he searched.
A loud splash broke as the stranger reached down, dropping his hand into the water like a spear, as if he’d found something promising that might swim away at a moment’s hesitation. But he’d merely speared another pebble. Tala couldn’t suppress a chuckle. The sound made him look up, and his inquisitive expression made her laugh all the more. And then she couldn’t stop laughing.
He did not laugh but watched her, smiling. She had never seen anything as beautiful as his smiling face.
They stopped searching and sat together on the long, flat stone.
Shut away in Camcam’s bedroom, without their husbands or children, Iolana, Camcam, and Lourdes became girls again, each of them bursting with words. They talked rapidly and their conversation was like a dance; as one took the lead, the others were eager to follow. It was a meandering dance, circling from place to place, even across time. Iolana took the others back into the morning and her conversation with Andres, how he blamed her for how well he ate, too well. How he complained about the girth of his stomach while swallowing another bite of rice.
The others went back further, into girlhood and back again, revisiting schoolgirl crushes and chaperoned dates. They danced in the cities, in their bedrooms, in dreams of being overseas, always returning to the moment. The music was in their voices—rising intonations, low, serious tones, always punctuated by laughter. Laughter in shrieks, wails, tears, barks, bells. Their music was loud. They danced, celebrating life.
Among them Tala felt forgotten, perhaps because her mind wandered away from the circle of women, and part of her felt she wasn’t there at all. She felt lost in her own bubble, and she floated above the women’s heads, watching them talk and gesticulate. Then she was flying again.
In her mind, she flew farther and farther away. She felt her back against the ceiling and lingered there before hovering over the rooftop, over many rooftops, over trees, then high enough to see the landscape, the rice fields, the banana fields, the river winding like a snake, the mountains in rows and ringlets, up, up, into the sky.
She was in two places at once. She feared the strain might tear a hole in the sky, send her pummeling across space to a void where she’d cease to exist. Tala placed her hand upon her womb and knew she needed to make a choice.
She listened for the murmurs, the women’s voices in the wind, like a code at first, indistinguishable from the buzz of insects, then louder—fleshy, warm, alive. The women carried her back. She rode the vibrations of their laughter, floating down upon their wave of sound.
For an instant, she wasn’t sure if she had really returned. The way they chattered on, as if she weren’t in the room. Then she saw the boy.
She remembered him, Camcam’s grandson. He did this every time she came to visit, appearing suddenly from behind the folds of a curtain, the other side of the sofa, even between the protective stalks that were his grandmother’s legs. Camcam had explained the reason why he hid from her.
“Datu has a crush on you. He can already spot a pretty girl.”
But Tala was not so sure. The boy peeked at her now from the hallway. She couldn’t see his eyes, but recognized the outline of his hair and cheek. She knew he watched her and couldn’t imagine if rapture, fear, or something else altogether provoked his fascination.
She reflected that no one in the barrio questioned her about her background. They had learned her story through Manolo and his mother. How she had run away from home, escaping the tyranny of an abusive brother, the indifference of her mother. How finally, she ran to save her life when they wanted to give her away, sell her body to strangers, foreigners whose intentions weren’t clear or trustworthy.
Tala did not know this girl, this runaway.
The boy was right. He avoided her as if she were a ghost, something deceptive and fearful, stranded between two realities, neither a part of one nor the other. She wanted to earn her place among the circle of women, lift her child into the brilliant sway of their dance. For her, the steps always led to Manolo. The steps could traverse distance and time, and surrendering to the rhythm, she would fly all the while.
“I thought you were a ghost.”
They’d been talking for nearly an hour, like two old friends, when he confessed this first impression of her. His eyes were still sad, she thought, but calm.
“Do I look that bad?”
“It’s not the way you look. It’s the river. No one comes here. They say it’s haunted.”
They sat close without touching.
“I’m not superstitious,” Tala replied.
“You’re the only one in the countryside who isn’t, then.”
“Are you? Superstitious?”
“I guess I am.”
“Then why did you come to the river?”
“To find a ghost. Or the devil.”
Tala thought she understood. That he wasn’t merely having fun with words. Earlier in their conversation she learned that he’d just found out about a compadre. That Palong had been a good swimmer, and how ironic it was that he died in the water. It made him angry, he had told her, as if the devil were taunting him, laughing at his weakness.
&nbs
p; So she wasn’t surprised at his motive for coming to the river. She already felt she was getting to know him. She celebrated that trickle of knowledge and the sensation that she would soon be saturated, saturated with Manolo and everything there was to know about him.
“I think in a way all of us are ghosts,” she replied. She thought of the solitude when her sisters had left, when she walked the bank alone. “No one can ever really know another person. Not completely.” As she said this, she realized how the words conflicted with the hope she’d just had to know everything about this man in front of her.
She didn’t know just how close two people could be. But sitting with him that second night, she wanted more than anything to find out. Tala wanted to convince Manolo to stay with her beside the river forever. She knew it was an outrageous idea, one she could not say to him out loud. Once again, she felt alone, only with Manolo right beside her, it was a loneliness that went beyond any she had ever felt.
In her despondency, she caught his stare. He watched her without reservation, in a way she had never seen him do before. It was as though he’d already memorized her features and needed something more, deeper than the eyes or lips. His face was before hers, as close as her own reflection. Only there was no mirror, no glare to blind her, no waves to rob her of looking.
The Hour of Daydreams Page 6