Fish-Hair Woman

by Merlinda Bobis

  Luke is repulsed. He turns away, his eyes seeking her out, but she has disappeared.

  ‘Hola, General Lucio! Thank you for coming, cumpadre, despite your busy schedule. It’s so very good to see you. Now you must meet Mr Luke McIntyre … son of my friend, the Australian writer, remember him?’ The doctor is gesticulating with the ear.

  The general stares, as if he’s seen a ghost, then quickly collects himself. ‘I remember, I do remember.’ The handshake offered is too firm. Another signet ring flashes. ‘Nice meeting you, Mr McIntyre. Welcome. I hope you like my country.’

  Suddenly applause from around the piano where the woman in aqua has seated herself. She runs her fingers on the keys before announcing, ‘This is my welcome song for a very dear friend.’

  There’s ribbing from all corners.

  ‘I hope your heart is fully recovered now, Francisco,’ she says and begins to sing a Filipino serenade.

  ‘Ah-ah, that good woman is teasing me again, Luke — listen to her song… “In my life / Suffering is great / No more heaven / For my heart in love … ”’ Dr Alvarado translates for his guest while waltzing around the room with an imaginary partner, much to the others’ delight. They egg him on and he obliges, doing a fancy turn towards the singer — ‘Bueno, amiga … I’ll go for the ride!’ Amidst more applause and teasing, he sings with her in his baritone so deep, his old flame feels she could drown in it if she’s not careful.

  Chapter 33

  It is three in the morning when Adora comes into his room. She offers him a drink, some hot stuff that sets his throat on fire, and his lower regions. He imagines he is found again, saved from a story without an ending. He pulls her to the bed, kissing her mouth, her shoulders, his hand quickly inside her nightgown, at once finding the small breasts, the concave of belly, he wants her, it almost hurts, he wants her to be his first time, now!

  She has a good grip. Her hands peel him off, push him against the wall. She carves the air, crisscrossing her hands before him in explanation, then settles them on her breast. Her eyes plead for him to understand the urgency of her errand. Again he is confused, the hoped for conclusion pulled from under his feet as if he were meant to stumble out of desire, just like that, as she beckons for him to follow her out of the room, through the dark corridors, her finger on her lips — silence!

  Suddenly he’s in another room, how did he get here? The room is unlit, but he recognises the voice on the phone when he rang from Sydney to ask for his father.

  ‘So … this is the son … ’ Pauses or sighs in between: a single sentence overcome by a gale at every turn.

  Clumsy with his erection, he nearly trips as he wades through so much rustling detritus. Again Adora’s hand. She leads him through the room, sits him on a couch or what feels like one. Jesus, the room smells, what is it? Dead air, musty. Like something just let out of a box that has been damp for a long time, or like ancient garments, its mildewed seams. Perhaps rotting paper, made brittle by rat urine. The smell clogs his nose, it’s difficult to breathe. Later he will think of coffins.

  ‘Why did you come?’ the woman’s voice asks in the dark.

  ‘Who sent you?’ The voice is an accusation.

  ‘Does your father know … about me?’ She’s so close now.

  ‘Does he still … believe in me?’ She exhales her words to his face.

  ‘And you … what do you believe in?’ Each word is a gust of assault.

  ‘God, love, death?’ Each word is dead air.

  It goes on and on. The even cadence of the interrogation lulls him. After a while he can breathe again, with her, but cannot respond. Each query is answered by another, hers, as if she has reached an understanding with the boy on the couch. He must not speak; her pauses will accommodate breath, not answers. His lids grow heavy. He curls on the couch, gripping its arm above his head. Then he hears the rustling from the floor, weaving in and out of her questions. His lids finally shut. He begins to see.

  Adora is groping for something on the floor. She finds it, picks it up, freeing it from under piles of books and papers as the questions continue. She coils it around her wrist and moves around the room, groping, retrieving and again coiling the next metre and the next, saving it from so much literature strewn all over the wooden parquet. The grey whorl about her wrist grows thicker, heavier, as she comes closer to the woman who sits behind the desk in the furthest corner of the room, mumbling her questions. Adora retrieves more grey at the woman’s feet, and coils the last metre off the floor, coiling up, up, finally reaching the bowed head. The queries stop. Adora receives the pair of scissors from the now silent woman — then she cuts, a very neat cut, close to the nape.

  He is at sea with Adora. He has just shampooed his hair when they set afloat in what looks like half a boat. No, it is a couch with a sail. They reach the middle of the sea where the water is clear and still. He wants to wash off the shampoo from his hair, but there’s only salt water and it won’t do.

  He asks, ‘Does my father know about me?’

  Adora does not answer. She jumps off the boat and disappears. He is suddenly alone, holding a little bucket. The sea is so clear, it will suffice. He dips into it with his bucket and pours the water on his head to wash off the shampoo. His head begins to itch. He scratches it, but it itches even more. The itch is growing bigger, the itch infects his fingers. He looks at them — there are maggots under his nails! His hair is full of maggots! He must wash them off, so he dips for more water, but it’s no longer clear. It has dimmed with maggots. He panics. He must wash his hair, he must! But each time he dips into the water, the maggots multiply. He begins to howl. Then he feels a faint tickle in his ear.

  It is a maggot whispering, ‘Does your father know about me?’

  The tickle flutters like wings. It flies out, a streak of light.

  Chapter 34

  Does your father know about me? It was an interrogation. But who was asking whom? There was a gale in that room, no, it was dead air, and what’s dead air? And that voice and all that hair being cut, he saw things, heard things, he sailed out to sea in some boat, but of course she spiked his drink … Adora came into his room, did she not, she gave him something, she lay on his bed, and then —

  Luke rolls to his side, his cheek crushing the newspaper on the pillow. The fresh newspapers smell of kerosene as if news were ready to be set alight, but the room resists conflagrations. The boy sleeps on. The Philippine Daily News is pushed away, it falls with the sheets and lies buried there, to be later rescued by the maid. Luke will never read it, and even if he does, will he turn to the Lifestyle section with a photo of him enclosed in a bear hug? Proof of kinship —

  Dr Francisco ‘Kiko’ Alvarado welcomes son of dear friend, Australian writer Tony McIntyre.

  The caption enthuses into a brief article about the doctor’s grand welcome bash. ‘Dear’ and ‘welcome’ are repeated twice before the speculation, or was it a snipe, that the doctor might just return to the profession closest to his heart, politics, now that he’s finally settled home after years in Hawai’i with his daughter Stella.

  Somewhere there’s the sound of water thrumming the room awake. Sprays reach the sleeping boy. Reluctantly he opens his eyes and reaches for his glasses, half dragging himself from the bed to close the window. Down below, Adora is in a garden of gardenias, trying to avert the hose from his direction. The water makes patterns in the air. Her thin blue shift, a sleeveless voile, is made thinner by the sun. Her hair is wet, her feet bare.

  ‘Adora, about last night … ’ he calls out.

  Her mouth opens into an O then closes, lips pursing upwards, again that directional exercise. From her now it seems so alluring. He looks up to the object of her lips. Nothing there but a yellowing sky. ‘I’m sorry … I don’t understand,’ he says.

  She sighs and shakes her head, then draws both palms to her breast: gathering the ether into her heart, a gesture he will always identify with her.

  23 September 1997

&n
bsp; She is beautiful.

  Chapter 35

  ‘Just got up?’ The lidded eyes survey his dishevelled appearance. ‘Are you okay, my boy, really okay?’ In his maroon silk robe, Doc Kiko presides like royalty over a sixteen-seater mahogany. The main dining room is another showcase of expensive hardwood.

  ‘Tranquila, Luke. You must relax. You see, I’m terribly worried about you.’ The bushy brows converge as he waves him to a seat. The signet ring winks its ‘K’ of diamonds. The heirloom looks solid with tradition.

  ‘All this will pass, all this passes. I knew a boy once who screamed every night — do you always have loud nightmares, my Luke?’

  It’s really back. The somnambulist will of his lungs, his throat to howl. Since he began reading ‘those letters’, since he began remembering, and all the way here — Luke feels caught out, betrayed by his history.

  ‘Poor boy, maybe you ate too much at the party. One word of advice: digest. Don’t sleep before digesting all the intake of the day, both gastro and psycho, if you know what I mean … ah-ah, the stomach and the mind must never be in a state of agitation before your head drops on the pillow … Maybe you should see my doctor? He can give you something for those terrible, terrible dreams — now, where are those girls?’

  Amber, burnished amber hugged by a chartreuse tank top with matching slacks and nails. She’s a fashion plate with a slight American accent and a manner marked by agitation. Her movements are as sharp as her voice. Occasionally she fluffs the wisps of hair at her nape irritably. Hers is a very short cut, like a boy’s, with grey streaks here and there, but her face is young and unlined.

  ‘So this is our guest, Papa?’ The black eyebrows are thick, almost growing towards each other. Very pale brown eyes flick over the nervous guest. ‘Why have you come?’

  ‘Stella, how rude!’ the doctor intervenes.

  ‘Why, Mr McIntyre?’ she insists.

  ‘Err … holiday … ’

  ‘No. Why are you here?’

  ‘Hoy, Stella, stop this now!’

  But she continues. ‘So?’

  Fuck you, you should know — you interrogated me last night — or did she? Luke looks to his host for help.

  ‘Ignore her, hijo, she’s having one of her sideshows.’

  ‘Of course, Papa, I’m not the main performance,’ then she returns to the guest. ‘Simple question seeking simple answer, Mr McIntyre — Why have you come to my country?’

  Doc Kiko stares at him, as does Adora, both suddenly curious about how he’ll respond. A pause. All seem to be waiting.

  ‘My father.’ He regrets his response. ‘I mean — ’

  ‘That’s better.’ She smiles at her own father triumphantly. ‘Coffee everyone?’ She sits down and pours herself a cup.

  ‘Listen, Stella, the boy is my guest — ’

  ‘Like his father. Of course, Papa.’

  Luke looks to the father then the daughter. ‘So he’s away?’

  The daughter giggles. ‘Away is a good word.’ The giggling grows louder, a touch hysterical —

  ‘Shut up!’ The father’s voice is softly menacing.

  She shuts up but keeps checking her hair, neck, arms, her edginess contagious. The coffee spills, Adora gets up to wipe it.

  ‘Yes, he’s away, my boy, but will be back soon — so all’s areglado — shall we have breakfast?’

  She’s mad, mad and dangerous. That crazy interrogation last night. And what about the hair? He notices the faint spots on her arm — needle marks? He hears her again, the stretched pauses in his ear now filled by her father who has opened his palms to heaven.

  ‘O kindest Lord, we thank you for what we are about to receive today and for bringing us all together with our Luke. His father will be very pleased that his son is welcomed with love.’ Eyes closed, the patriarch turns supplicant. ‘O what is your message for your humble servant today, Lord?’

  The pause that follows is theatrical.

  Luke holds his breath, riveted by the show.

  Slowly, the doctor takes out the little good book from his robe’s pocket and thumbs through it, saying, ‘Tell me, Lord, speak to me.’ Then the thumb stops, flicks the page open and he begins to read: ‘O strengthen me with raisin cakes, refresh me with apples, for love makes me sick! His left hand is under my head; his right arm embraces me. I beg you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles and hinds of the field, do not arouse or stir up love before her time has come. Song of Songs, Chapter 2; Verses 5 to 7.’

  What is this? Is he real?

  ‘O thank you, Lord. We shall heed your words, we promise. O bless this table again, Lord, and my family and my special guest Luke, and keep our hearts good and grateful forever and ever, amen.’

  Adora piously nods while Stella chuckles, ‘Good and grateful forever and ever.’

  ‘Forgive my daughter, Luke. She’s a heretic. So, hijo, what would you like — an American or a Filipino breakfast? Your father loved Filipino “brekkies” — ah-ah, I still remember. Brekky for breakfast, right?’

  ‘Forget the preamble,’ the daughter waves her father off, regaining control of the table. ‘What he means is do you like bacon and eggs with hash browns or garlic fried rice with longanizas, meaning sausages, or daing na bangus, that’s dried milkfish, or tapa, the cured beef. Pick your choice.’

  Two maids have suddenly appeared, awaiting orders.

  Luke can’t find his voice, having been ambushed by one emotion after another, and now this demand for normalcy. He looks around the table, mouth open.

  Again, Stella giggles. ‘It’s just breakfast.’

  Yes, it’s just breakfast. ‘I — I — ’ he stammers —

  ‘American, good,’ one of the maids suggests. ‘You like?’

  He nods, dumbly.

  ‘Bueno, Luke, American it will be,’ the doctor waves the maids away, gearing for another ‘breakfast conversation’. He turns to the only silent figure in the room. ‘Uhmm … my Adora is beautiful — you agree?’

  ‘Leave her alone, Papa!’

  ‘You like her, Luke?’

  Do not arouse or stir up love before her time has come …

  ‘I — ’ he begins again, then shuts his mouth, mesmerised by the pudgy fingers tracing the congenital flowers.

  ‘My adopted daughter, my foundling, my angel … ’

  ‘You see, my father adopts angels with battered wings.’

  Luke hears Stella’s contempt, it cuts the air.

  ‘Don’t mind her, hijo.’

  ‘He fixes wings with Epoxy glue — my father’s a fixer, numero uno!’

  ‘Puñeta, Stella!’ He thumps the table, sending cutlery and napkins flying — ‘Shut up, shut up!’ He’s now on his feet, bellowing in the local tongue, or is it Spanish? Luke wonders, frozen in his seat. The father-daughter melodrama grows more bizarre. Bloody hell, they’re raging cuckoos!

  When the master of the house finally settles down, Adora goes around, picking up the fallen cutlery, napkins, but he motions for her to return to her seat, which she does quickly. And he begins again: ‘Your host is an honourable man, Luke. Whatever happens, don’t you forget that. Onra — honour is something to die for!’

  Stella cackles, then checks herself. Her father is on a roll. The signet ring glints in the air. ‘My credo’s simple, Luke, simple and precise: Desperar, despachar, dispensar, descansar — despair, dispatch, seek forgiveness, rest. And rest honourably.’

  ‘Bravo, Papa!’ she raps her cup with a teaspoon.

  ‘Stellaaa!’ her father screams and the teaspoon slows down, like the tolling of a bell.

  Chapter 36

  24 September 1997

  The doctor said Tony McIntyre will return next week. Tony McIntyre will return.

  Tony fancied himself an epicure. Asia: a Thai stewardess, a Malaysian doctor, a Hong Kong socialite. He was well on the road. Then in 1986, two years after he left, his wife drowned herself. His family did not know how to locate him. He was somewhere on the banks of the Me
kong, in a temple making peace with the Buddha. Then he moved to the Philippines, still unaware of the tragedy. He began documenting a revolution. He fell in love. He wanted to marry. He remembered his wife. He wrote home.

  Perhaps this is how to tell Tony’s side of the story, from ‘the little truths’ (how true?) doled out by Uncle Josh, like small change claiming more than its worth. Perhaps this is how to extend the sent manuscript or ‘the longest love letter in the world’: with grander claims or disclaimers. Luke reviews the pages strewn around his room of gardenias. The stories have gone to his head and Adora has gone under his skin. He cannot leave. Each day his vase and his longing are replenished.

  ‘This is your father’s,’ his uncle and aunt both said about ‘the longest love letter’, each with a contentious tale of attribution. ‘Have a read, Luke, go on.’

  Fish-Hair Woman. Sub-title: Beloved. So, a novel in progress, or a love letter — as always, romancing the truth, Tony. Try that with mum’s story.

  ‘My beloved Australian with the solemn green eyes — solemn, my foot!’ Uncle Josh quoted a line to his wife, contempt in his voice.

  Your father wrote it. No, your father’s lover wrote it. Uncle mocking, Aunt earnest. It’s fiction. No, a love letter. A literary letter then. But what about her other letters? To my beloved brother, why yes, of course.

  They argued about the manuscript and the other love letters, but no dates or details on how these got to them, just speculations floating around. Tony and Estrella: lovers. No. Tony is Estrella, and Tony’s staging one of his love stories. No. Estrella is searching for Tony. With her hair — ha-ha! Then the banter, domestic and sad, always armed with a hidden knife. Aunt teary, Uncle vicious. She’ll always believe in love stories, and he’ll never ask: How could you have fucked my brother?

  ‘My kid brother is found, or allowed himself to be found, how about that?’ Uncle Josh is his brother’s half-hearted keeper. ‘And after thirteen years, voilà! He invites his son for a holiday — you going, Luke?’