“Please, what’s a ‘woman with loose molars’?” I asked my mistress.
Violeta Valenzuela could not answer. Her face was torn between laughter and guilt, neither of which I understood. Loose morals. She could not enlighten me about my confused consonants. She searched my face for any sign of accusation. She prayed more novenas. She even took me to church to pray with her, on occasion. Once as we knelt before the altar, she gripped my hand and cried out in a voice full of torment, “Ay, Nining, my heart is running away from me. Dear Mother of Perpetual Succor, help me catch it, please!”
How I wished I could make her feel better again. She began to lose her appetite and quickly lost weight. I applied myself to my cooking with even more ardor. Perhaps she would eat a little more tomorrow or the next day or the next, if I tried harder.
“Help me catch it, please!” If only the heart were a ball we could dribble and hurl anywhere or flippantly pass around, certain that it had enough rubber to bounce back into our breasts.
I tended my mistress with all the passion of my young heart, which I secretly hoped my mother would catch. Tomorrow. Soon. Even if I knew that it would always be hurled back not to my breast, but to these incapable hands, leaving them clumsy, criminal. I never did things right by her, I always let her down, I stole her dignity.
twenty-nine
Chicken barbecue: the way of all flesh
Just what would Mother say if she knew? What’s a good girl to do after falling?
I burnt my ragged knickers.
My mistress asked why I was building a fire as I heaped dry coconut shells over the quickly disintegrating scrap of shame. I said I was making coal for the barbecue, which I had promised her yesterday, or had she forgotten.
She looked anguished, so I wondered whether she saw the thing catch fire, but why should that upset her? I ended up apologizing for the marinade. “Maybe I made it too salty, Señorita VV?”
She stared at me, no, she stared through me, at the fire that lit the early evening in the backyard.
Did she see that it was grey, like dirt, but it was not dirty, oh no, I washed it all the time. Mother said cleanliness is dignity and dignity is a must in our most intimate apparel.
I turned to my mistress again, arguing for the marinade. “I added beer and lots of garlic and chili, and even a bit of lemon, just as you like.”
It was she who sighed.
Beside the soy marinade, the chicken legs looked white and sickly.
My ears perked up to all the noises of that evening, or perhaps for my mistress’s next sigh. Then to the hushed voices from inside, her parents worrying about her, then the doctor talking again about the American who’s arriving soon and perhaps he’s getting over his tribulations, ay, poor Ralph, but such is life…and the cicadas began to hum.
Soon the coconut shells glowed. I fanned them. Tiny stars leapt up.
I had washed my knickers and mended them: the loose elastic, the fraying crotch. Then I hid them under my clothes, but only for a while. I kept seeing my skirt flying up to my face and my face would grow hot in bed. I kept seeing how he saw them: made from rough cotton sack used for sugar, and old. Then I heard him laugh in my dream and I couldn’t breathe.
“Does…does your face ever grow hot?”
My mistress didn’t hear. She was pouring the marinade on the chicken, kneading the meat. “I need to keep busy,” she whispered to it.
“But you’re always busy at the hospital, Señorita, and there’s your college—”
“I mean, thinking is hard, so…” Her voice trailed away.
I thought about this for a while. We understood the same thing, we did! Thinking is hard, thinking is hard.
I took the chicken from her, I kneaded. Together we listened to the crackling fire. Then I said, “You’ll like this, Señorita. It will be very good, I promise.”
So much to say and ask that night. So much to think about. Inside me, words smoldered like the coconut coal ready for the meat. Thinking of him is hard. Thinking of Mother is hard. Thinking of him-Mother-him-Mother is harder. Thinking of falling is hardest. So I burnt my knickers. And promised to buy two nice pairs with my first pay. Maybe with pink embroidered flowers like my mistress’s? And when Mother looks at me again, she’ll see. She’ll see.
Again, the sigh. “Do you like Mr. Alano?”
“He sings…uhmm…very well.”
“Yes, he does, doesn’t he?” she asked, as if unsure.
How the pale meat gasped as it landed on the barbecue, tightening into itself, then yielding to the fire, opening its pores, dripping its juices, then sizzling and slowly turning brown, gaining color.
Burning flesh is an undeniable smell. Burn, burn, burn.
I thought even harder. That insolent finger aimed at my shame, that cruel laughter rushing away in the chauffeured car. Of course, he was only hitting back because we saw. Two guavas, two guavas! I began to giggle, I couldn’t help it.
“What’s the matter, Nining?” For once, I had my mistress’s full attention.
“The chicken.” What was I to say? “It’s…it’s burning.” Then I was laughing.
She frowned for a moment then began giggling too, as if she had caught up on a joke. “It’s burning, it’s burning, it’s burning.”
Quickly I turned the meat, trying to behave myself. “Better when slightly burnt, toasted, the outer skin, I mean. Crisp.”
“Crisp,” she giggled even more. Then, “Delicious magic,” prodding the meat with a fork.
Magic, so she can find her appetite again?
“Try some, Señorita VV—you’ll like it.”
“I’ll like it.” She laughed, but strangely.
I was really lost by now, but couldn’t say. I offered her a leg instead.
She held it close to her nose and sniffed it all around. “Will you come with me to the jam session tomorrow?” Then she offered me back the leg and left quickly.
Gladly I ripped the flesh off the bone. It was good, it was very good.
thirty
Leche flan, lechero! (Milk cake, milkman!)
When Mr. Alano crooned “All I Have to Do Is Dream” through such incredible pipes, his band was convinced that among them breathed the one and only Filipino Roy Orbison.
And of course, his leading lady was equally a star.
It was a back-to-back show. Roy Orbison and Patsy Cline went through most of their popular repertoire. They even improvised, doing duets in perfect harmony, as if they shared only one set of lungs and vocal cords. It was the best jam session ever.
“When musicians start smiling, then the jam is gelling,” Roy said. Then, cigar breath on the ready, he growled “Pretty Woman” too close to her ear and “Only the Lonely” inspired a gesture that brushed her shoulders. In turn, Patsy went all rosy and breathless through “I Fall to Pieces.” I saw most of the action in close-up while eagerly awaiting Mrs. Alano’s afternoon snacks.
Ay, yes, her confectionery sessions went on despite the upside-down epiphany on that fateful first Saturday. But she never came out of her kitchen again to listen to the three-hour performances and she wore cotton wool in her ears. I peeked and saw. Later I suspected that sour and bitter condiments began to stray into her mixing bowl. Perhaps she was trying out contrary tastes. An added pinch of salt here or drops of lemon there, and even an afterthought sprinkling of bitter nuts, gave a fresh nuance to her pies, muffins and cakes.
And what about her melt-on-the-tongue leche flan, a sweet dish with that exquisite texture between a mousse and a crème brûlée? This traditional flan had a slight bite from the burnt caramel, poured over it before serving. But this edge was no longer enough for Mrs. Alano. Suddenly tradition became too bland, like an excuse for a sweet, so she added grated lemon rind to her own mixture. And later, a touch of chili, not to burn, but to remind the palate that it cannot live on sweet whims alone.
Nowadays I sometimes speculate, perhaps erroneously, about the name of this dish: leche flan, a milk cake. Bu
t what about lechero? It’s a swear word, which I often heard among grown-ups then. Lechero ka! Meaning, “You milkman!” Or what about, “You lecher!”
These speculations come from my memory of that afternoon when I was asked by my mistress to chaperone her. At snack time, it was Mr. Alano himself who served her the biggest slice of cake on a breakable plate with a design of red roses. The rest of us had only small helpings on plastic saucers. I saw how he came too close, as if the cake were meant to sit not on her hands, but on the front of her blouse. His hands accidentally slipped here and there, and his breathing grew funny, just as hers did. Then they disappeared from the room for some five minutes before the band reconvened.
Suddenly my cheeks grew hot and even other parts of me. I puffed air around, as one did to cool off. But I didn’t know why I puffed more air into the front of my dress. I only knew I wanted more cake.
I couldn’t sleep that night; it was too humid. Even the pictures in my head were sweating. They flashed as if in a peep show, in monochromes of red and always with two guavas dangling from a tree. I saw that I died and went to heaven, and God asked me what I wanted as a reward for being good. I shifted from one foot to the other, feeling too hot despite the perfect heavenly clime.
“C’mon, child, I don’t have much time.”
My eyes dropped to the flat front of my dress.
“Breasts for cake, Lord.”
He scratched his head and thought deep thoughts. I realized He could not understand me. What did He know about cake? I was wrong about dreaming of feasts in the afterlife. Surely He ate rice gruel with fish sauce every day. As the priest said every Sunday, “God is our long-suffering Father.” I felt contrite. It was not fair to bother Him with my silly ambitions, so I said goodbye and kissed His hands. Ay, I could not help but smile. Magic. In those holiest hands, I caught a whiff of our common poverty, pungent as fish sauce.
thirty-one
Hidden treasures: whitebait and candied sorrow
Magic. Making strange what is familiar. The most subversive human invention. Like cooking.
A week before I stirred serious magic in a pot, the Calcium Man was picking sour iba and Nana Dora was sweetening her sorrow. The iba, a green berry the size of a plump thumb, was face-crumpling sour. Her sorrow, the coconut that was picked too soon, was “no good, no good.”
So I would later tell myself this story, in order to explain its consequence.
He wrapped the iba in malubago leaves. She grated the coconut and cooked it in palm sugar. Then he felt the sharp pain in his chest; it felled him for a few days, kept him tied to his bed, what a nuisance. She was exhausted, but there was much more to do for tomorrow’s snacks. The candied coconut simmered, its sweetness steaming her face. He replenished his lamp with kerosene. She began to pound her sticky rice.
A young moon kept an eye on each of them, in their own huts a town away from each other.
By midnight, he was in a boat with the young fishermen who could have been his sons. They tolerated the old man who tagged along to pick the shells or seaweed that got caught in their nets. He always brought his own pail, a small net, more like a sieve really, and a little lamp. Tonight, he was “lighting” for bolinao, or whitebait, those finger-thin fishes that looked like a swirl of silver worms just below the surface of the water. He was slower than usual, but the other men did not notice; they were waiting for big game. With whitebait in season, big game came to feed.
She was falling asleep on her rice, her pestle always missing the mortar, but she kept on. This business of feeding, of assuaging hunger, was all-consuming. Her ten fingers made sure her customers were more than pleasured by her afternoon delights. Never mind if she had to prepare her ingredients till the wee hours of the morning. And she always cooked from scratch—nothing off-the-counter in her snacks.
For probably a hundredth time, he ruminated over his much-delayed stratagem. She sighed and refused to think. The young moon tried to pursue her thought and undo his delay. It disappeared from the sky earlier than usual. Day broke too soon.
I am speculating about the night before they finally caught up with each other under her hut. Magic. Because he unwrapped his sourness and she candied her sorrow.
Tomorrow, I’ll see her, he’d promised himself, or the next day or—he never had the courage to time his meal with her arrival in the hut. But today was different. He set his lunch on her working table: steamed whitebait and iba berries wrapped in malubago leaves, and rice, of course. The malubago is a tree with yellow flowers, much like hibiscus. Its heart-shaped leaf is the perfect size for a fistful of whitebait and sliced iba, which, in its sourness, tempers the fishy taste. Steamed, the malubago leaf feels rough on the tongue. Slightly burnt, it gives the dish a quaint smoked taste. Sour, fishy, smoked: the palate is pushed and pulled by these impressions, inspiring ambivalence.
Face-crumpling sour or tongue-coating smoked, and even rough not just on the tongue but on all his vulnerable parts? How did it taste twenty years ago? How will it taste now should they meet again? He remembered her thoroughness, her meticulous hands that always smelled of some sweet thing. Again he pressed his chest.
Meanwhile in a JCM bus coasting a few streets away, Nana Dora sat uneasily with her three large baskets. She’d had this kaba in her gut since last night. Something might go wrong today, what with this thing curling and uncurling inside her like a restless animal. Again she lamented about her candied sorrow. Those pathetic coconuts! Too young, they ended up limp and watery in the palm sugar. Aysus, what measly filling for my cakes!
These cakes were my favorite of all of Nana Dora’s snacks. A simple dish with no oil, no bothersome condiments. Just pounded rice filled with candied coconut and steamed in half a coconut shell. I remember how my first bite was always full of expectations, of a secret sure to be revealed, sweet and crunchy in that just-right way.
The JCM bus had never felt this stuffy, Nana Dora thought. She opened the window behind her. Someone protested that her hairdo was getting seriously damaged, but Nana Dora shut her ears. So hard to make an honest living these days.
Under her hut, the Calcium Man could not breathe. Someone kept grabbing at his heart again and again. Ay, if I had sons, I would not be slaving in my twilight years. Such was his last thought before he slumped over his lunch.
This was how she found him.
thirty-two
Mung bean thick soup (and those that we can’t see)
“‘I have grown old and feeble negotiating for my heart.’ Believe me, Chi-chi, that was what he said when he came to at the hospital, and that was what caused the attack, well, I’m sure that was what he said, I was there, she asked me to come with the doctor—”
“Yes, the doctor,” Chi-chi began, but I had more to say.
“He saved him, Chi-chi, rushed him to the hospital, I’m talking about the Calcium Man who—and you won’t believe this—” Here my voice dropped a note lower, low enough for the listener to strain in attention. “Yes, the Calcium Man who is the husband of Nana Dora!”
“Is he in?”
“Now, isn’t that the weirdest thing?”
“Nining, is the doctor in?”
Finally I caught up. “No—why—but he’ll be back for lunch, come in, and whatever happened to you?” Finally I noticed the dark smudges under her eyes, like accents on a bad paint job. “Haven’t seen you for a week.”
She shook her head, then, “Mama collapsed, so Father can’t go to work and we’re all stuck at home.”
“But I knocked at your door.”
“It’s very hard, Nining, it’s very hard.” She began to cry.
Disaster is worse on an empty stomach, so I sat her down at the table of the Valenzuelas, feeling like a culprit host. Yes, this is not my house, but this is my cooking. Suddenly I felt big and grown-up, like the richest patron of all the empty stomachs in the world. Come all ye that hunger into my opulent abode.
“Have plenty,” I egged her, spooning more mung bean sou
p into her bowl. Then to lighten the air, I continued my story about the long-estranged couple and the origin of my soup (now this is even more incredible), shuttling from one tale to the other. “Stop, stop,” she begged, “one at a time!” The tale or the food, what did she mean? Who cares? I dished out both with abandon.
“You know, my soup was made with the help of the ghost with big ears,” I boasted.
This story grabbed her. She stopped crying, she even stopped chewing, but only for a while. “You really, really saw him?” she asked. Chi-chi would never have the courage to walk into Boy Hapon’s kingdom.
“‘If you want, ask,’ he once said, and I did. I have plenty of courage, you know,” I boasted, feeling omnipotent, but I couldn’t tell Chi-chi the full tale. That I knew Boy Hapon’s secret, though I couldn’t let on that I knew. He was just beginning to get neighborly with me. But I made sure my eyes wandered to every corner of his garden, seeking some sign of the eloped lovers.
He watched me for a while and said, “How to see through so much spleen in the air?” Then he gathered bittermelon leaves for my soup. I imagined he meant the spleen of Tiya Miling, so I wanted to say, but there’s more than her wrath going around our street, and why don’t you come out and find out for yourself? He couldn’t, of course he couldn’t lose his way in the thick of the spleen inhabiting our neighborhood.
Strange that what’s meant to clean the blood creates bad blood, muddies it, and then we lose our way. So how to find our way through so much resentment? What to do to clear the air?
When I grew older, at each New Year, I always made the same resolution: to be a little less resentful. It’s a hard one. As you try to reduce spleen for each day of the year, new cause for it arises; it operates like debit and credit. In the end, you find yourself with three hundred and sixty-five fresh entries in your account book. The air might even be thicker than before, so you can’t see the heart of the matter.
Mung bean soup is so thick, you hardly see the bottom of the dish, but Chi-chi gorged and quickly saw it. I watched, my mouth echoing her mastication, tasting the magic of my green mung beans sautéed in garlic with dried shrimps and strips of pork, thickened with coconut milk, topped with bittermelon leaves and flavored with fish sauce. Then served to alleviate grief.
Banana Heart Summer Page 11