Letters to Montgomery Clift

by Noël Alumit

  •

  I awoke to a dark sky, a purple sky with shimmers of light in the distance. Day was coming.

  I stood by the entrance to the marketplace, a large clearing near the city. I was there at six in the morning and watched as the merchants set up their wares. Baskets of mangos and bananas, apples and pears, cabbage and lettuce littered the ground. Sacks of rice, different colored rice: red, brown, and white—long grain and short—leaned against tent poles. The smell of fish permeated the air, a punishing stench from dead sea carcasses forced from ocean to land. Shelves were being loaded with local craftwork like cups, penholders, necklaces. On one table, miniature men sat inside barrels; remove the barrels and erections bigger than the men themselves sprang into view.

  I watched buses come, carrying women with wicker bags, a flood of women, indistinguishable women. Would one of them be my mother? Late in the morning, a group of women descended the steps of a bus. Most of the women were plump, like hobbling brown pears. One woman, though, in the back, was thin, wearing a pink T-shirt and badly fitted jeans. There was something familiar about her. She seemed like she could be my mother, but I couldn’t be sure. As she passed me, I couldn’t look at her, afraid to be rude, afraid to lay all of my longing on a stranger who wouldn’t be her.

  I followed her, watched her chat with the hobbling brown pears, giggling at some joke. I followed this woman I wanted to be my mother. She separated herself from the plump women, wandering toward a mound of cantaloupes, stacked like a pyramid. She thumped the top cantaloupe, the tip of the pyramid, with her palm. She decided not to get it, rising to her feet, massaging her knees in the process. She went to a bin of broccoli across from the cantaloupes, placing a stalk into her bag. She picked up a plum, sniffed it, bought it, then ate it as she wandered through the maze of the marketplace.

  She stopped at a booth selling fabric, fingering the yards of multi-layered cloth. She seemed to like a green, a forest green material. I was close enough to see embroidered rabbits hopping on it. Silver threads lined the path the rabbits were hopping on. She dug into her pockets and pulled out small crumpled bills. She counted them. She didn’t have enough money to buy the fabric. She laid the rabbit-hopping cloth down and patted it with resignation.

  I wanted to speak, find words to bridge us. But it seemed I couldn’t. If I spoke and it wasn’t her, I didn’t think I could search for my mother any longer. It had been so long since I’d seen her, and I didn’t think I had the energy to continue looking. Maybe it would be best never to find her and simply let it all alone. Perhaps it would be best if I remembered her young and vital.

  “It’s pretty,” I said, caressing the fabric. I spoke in Tagalog, fully aware of my American accent. I was amazed I said anything.

  She ignored me and walked on. The wind blew her scent my direction: it was an antiseptic smell of baby powder and Ajax. I tried to remember what my mother smelled like, but I couldn’t. And not knowing the odor from her pores made me sad, reminding me of my purpose: find her, know what happened, seek her out. She was six feet away from me when I said, “Pardon me…”

  She turned, facing me. I stared into her face. Yes, it was my mother. Yet, it wasn’t. She would have been only 48, but she appeared older. Her once tar-black hair, rich with oil, was faded and gray and brittle. And her face…her face: riddled with lines upon lines crossing one another to form little crucifixes. Her moist skin had become flaky and had a dusty look. But in that face, I saw mine staring back at me; my reflection in a cracked mirror.

  I wondered what she saw when she looked at me? The scars from my accident had healed considerably, but they were still there: long tiny grooves stretching from my temple to my jaw.

  She tilted her head, her eyes wandering over me. She lifted her bag, shielding herself, it seemed. Her eyes widened, her mouth opened. She knew it was me…and she appeared scared. Then she dropped her bag, the bag carrying the broccoli, and pulled away, tentatively at first, then assuredly, walking backward, eventually turning around, stepping away, away from me, walking quickly, briskly, then running. She ran. She ran from me.

  “Wait—” I followed her. “Wait. Please stop.”

  She turned the corner and was gone. I ran around the corner. I saw her board one of the buses, her small body disappearing into its metal mouth. The folding doors closed. I watched her make her way to the back, sitting by a window. I ran to her, looking up, yelling at the window, “Do you know me? Do you know who I am?”

  She nodded, placing her hand against the glass as if doing so would shut out my image.

  “I had to find you.” I was breathless, trying to keep up with the departing bus. “I had to…Please wait.” The bus picked up speed. “I came all this way—all this way. Why won’t you talk to me?”

  She stared straight ahead. I screamed into the window. “How do I find you? Please talk to me. I’m at the Pine Hotel. The Pine Hotel. Room 21.”

  The bus sped away. She was gone. Just like that. The second time in my life my mother went away from me.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  To Quell the Pathetic Tears of a Child

  I don’t want to leave my room, having meals brought to me. I showered with the door open in case my mother should knock. I wanted a reunion. I wanted hugging and tears, long awkward embraces, not knowing where to place your hands, yet knowing your hands belonged somewhere on this stranger. I wait for her.

  I waited for Monty. I tried summoning him into my world, closing my eyes, willing him to come to me. When I opened my eyes, he hadn’t visited. I hoped he hadn’t gone away, too.

  I think I knew Montgomery Clift better than I knew Mama. I thought of all I’d read, all the movies I’d seen. I thought about Monty’s role as Noah in The Young Lions. Noah: the American Jewish soldier in World War II, forced to fight in Germany. Noah who loved Hope Lange, an American gentile girl. Noah who had seen two worlds: love in one country and the slaughter of his people in another. Eventually the war ends, Noah leaves the dolor of Germany, and returns home. Home is not where his people are, united by religion, or race, it is where he belonged, where his heart and soul felt most comfortable.

  I am Filipino, but I didn’t belong in the Philippines. If I had been raised in the Philippines, if I had memories attached to the roads and buildings, the turn of the seasons, perhaps I would have the need to stay, but all I have are my first eight years—most of them I don’t remember.

  Home. Where Logan is. And Amada. Mr. and Mrs. Arangan. Home is where I’m wanted.

  My mother doesn’t want me. That’s why she never came. She ran from me like a gazelle from a lion. All of my years yearning for her seemed to be a waste. I’m forced to question my memories of her, my memories of childhood. Did she really love me? Did she really intend to join me in America? Or did I reconfigure events to my liking?

  When she put me on that plane, did she want to send me away for good? Only telling me she would join me to quell the pathetic tears of a child. Perhaps it was her intention to leave me.

  I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  People Who Come and Go

  There was a knock. I answered the door. It was Mama. I invited her in. She sat in a chair by my bed. She sat with her hands clasped, her legs crossed, her gaze to the ground, a forlorn gaze as if praying.

  What do a parent and child say after all this time? The silence spoke for itself. I looked at her, then at the floor. I wanted to tell her so much. I wanted to tell her I held her close to me for all these years.

  I sat across from her, waiting for her to speak. I knew enough to let the parent speak first. I hoped she’d say, “I’ve dreamed of you” or “I wished we were together” or simply, “I love you I love you I love you.” But she didn’t. Instead, she said, “I tried to find work at this hotel, but they wouldn’t hire me.”

  “Oh,” I said. Then more silence. A long deep silence. If unfulfilled years, unspoken conversations, uncelebrated birthdays and holiday
s had a sound, this would have been it—a dead sound—nothing moving, nothing said, not a single inhalation of air, just stillness.

  Out of nowhere, she began to clean my room, fussing around, emptying the ashtray, folding my jeans, hanging up my shirts, dusting the table, picking up crumbs on the floor. She went into the bathroom and I heard her flushing the toilet. “The family I work for,” she yelled, her voice reverberated from the white tiles of the john, “have the messiest children.”

  Her voice had changed. When I was a boy, her voice was melodic. Whenever I heard it, I knew comfort was not far away. Now it was jarring, tinny.

  She came out of the bathroom carrying a plastic bag of refuse. “You don’t have to clean,” I said. “You’re not a maid.” I realized my mistake; she was a maid. She was a maid when I was a boy; she is a maid now. She looked away.

  I wanted to tell her that I didn’t care what she did for a living. I wanted to tell her, You could be a scuba diver for all I cared. After all, what was I? A professional extra. My existence reduced to filling in the background while the real action, what really mattered, occurred in front of me.

  “You don’t have to clean up right now,” I said. “Don’t trouble yourself.”

  “It is no trouble, sir.” Sir? “I mean,” she said, “please let me do this.” She continued to clean. What else could I do but help her? She wiped the window vigorously, as if she were trying to erase the view. I was on my hands and knees, digging out whatever was under the bed, finding dust balls, lint, scraps of tissue, strands of hair, coins. We rearranged furniture, adjusted the angles of pictures on the wall, blew away dust from the lampshade by my bed, fluffing pillows on the couch, straightening the creases on my bed sheets. And when the room was to our liking we stood side by side.

  I didn’t realize how small she was. As a child, my head reached her chest, easily falling between her breasts when I hugged her. Now her head fell below my shoulders. It used to take both my arms for me to embrace her. Now I was sure I could encompass her with just one.

  “Do you know about your father?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Bong?”

  I was startled for a moment. I was so accustomed to being Bob that I had to realize she was talking to me.

  “Bong,” she said, “I meant to find you. I really did.” With that, I heard tears ready to erupt in her voice, and I wanted to cry, too, to burst with relief: I found her or she found me. But I didn’t cry; neither did she.

  We laughed, laughed! It came from deep within my belly. She giggled, then ripped loose an ear-splitting guffaw. And we fell onto the bed, writhing with delight. That laugh. It was the same. Everything had changed but her laugh was the same.

  “Tell me, anak,” she said. “Tell me, child. Tell me all about your life.”

  I blushed. I actually blushed! My mother was in front of me. I wondered if I could actually tell her all of my life. What child tells a parent ALL. I suddenly became embarrassed. I certainly couldn’t tell her about Amada’s abortion or my self-mutilation. I certainly couldn’t tell her about my sexual activities.

  I had rehearsed my life story over and over, thinking of my letters to Monty tucked away in my carry-on luggage. I wondered how much to reveal. She sensed my apprehension.

  “After all I’ve been through,” she said, “there is nothing you can tell me that would shock me.”

  “My life has been kind of strange,” I said.

  She cupped my face in her hands and said, “I have been deprived of you for twenty years. Let me be your mother. I’ll take you any way you are.”

  I thought of Mrs. A. I thought of how I argued with her, disagreed with her. The way a parent and child would. Who let go of me in the chalk circle?

  I pulled out my letters to Montgomery Clift. She read the first one and I said, “I didn’t start seeing Montgomery Clift immediately. I didn’t start to depend on him or adore him or desire him or touch him until later…”

  She read all of the letters. She had some difficulty with the English, asking me what certain words or phrases meant.

  As she read the letters, I filled in the parts in between. She apologized about Auntie Yuna. I told her that wasn’t necessary. She shook her head when she read about the foster homes. She put her hand to her mouth when I explained the letters referring to Amada’s abortion. She bit her lip, tears ran down her cheeks when I told her about how I hurt myself. She held my hand when I talked about my motorcycle accident, my hospitalization.

  I was worried when she read about Logan and the other men in my life.

  “Logan sounds like a good person,” she said.

  “He makes me happy,” I said, implying that I loved him, needed him. I waited for her to respond.

  “Maybe I can meet him someday.” She looked at me. With that look, she let me know it was okay; it didn’t matter that I preferred men. I was relieved. I laughed some more.

  I told her all of my life. When I was done, and the view from my window was painted black with night, I said: “Tell me about you. Tell me what happened? Tell me everything.”

  She did. I wasn’t prepared for it. This is what she said…

  “I will never forget you crying,” she said. “Do you remember crying when I put you on the plane? Do you remember that? I fixed your hair before you left. So you would look good when you landed in the States. It was soft hair.

  “I put you on that plane and you flew away. I watched the plane jet away, getting smaller and smaller, until it disappeared, becoming the sky itself.

  “I found some friends in Manila who were part of the anti-Marcos movement. They hid me away in an apartment in Tondo.

  “I had given the name of your father to a priest. His name was Father de la Merced. He located men and women who were detained by the government. There were over twenty detention centers throughout the Philippines. I knew it might take some time finding him.

  “I stayed in that little apartment for three days until Father de la Merced told me your father could not be located. He was probably taken to a safehouse, or an unknown prison facility, somewhere near Baguio City. This would make it more difficult to find him. I went from one hiding place to another. During that time, I helped with the anti-Marcos movement, helping others hide like myself.

  “I wanted to join you in the States, but I had to know what happened to your father. I knew you would be safe in America. I could not easily surface. I became known as a subversive, someone known for underground activities. The police could identify me.

  “One night, someone pounded on the door. Seven men dressed in civilian clothes forced their way in carrying guns, ransacking the apartment, throwing books and furniture around. Then I was driven to Camp Crane, a detention center.

  “They told me to tell them what I knew about the Communists. I told them I was not a Communist. They told me that I was only a peasant, and no one would miss me. They said they could just kill me and no one would care. The man interrogating me slapped me across the face. He ordered me to lie on the concrete floor, and told me to take off my clothes. I thought he was going to rape me, but instead they placed a block of ice on my body. They ordered me to hold the ice with my arms.

  “The block of ice was on my body for hours. It melted, freezing me so I could not move. My arms were frozen around the ice, numb. I stared at the light bulb above me, praying that my husband was all right. Praying that my son was all right. Asking God why this is happening.

  “The ice slowly dissolved, leaving my arms to hold only myself. The melted ice formed a lake around my body. And I wanted to drown in it. But I thought of you. Brushing the hair away from your face, wiping the dirt from your cheek. I knew I could not die.

  “We were taken to Fort Bonifacio, outside Manila, and placed into the Butican detention center. Butican is both a maximum and minimum security detention center. Suspected subversives were taken there. Suspected subversives could be anyone: Men, women, children, professors, students, journalists, peasant
s, celebrities, clergy—anyone who was suspected of being against the government. A fellow detainee told me at least 50,000 people had been detained in centers like these throughout the country.

  “I was placed in a room with twenty other women. The room was tiny with rows and rows of bunk beds. A nun greeted us and showed us to our beds. It was pleasant to have a nun comfort us. I asked her if we could pray, and she said yes. She unfastened the rosary beads from her waist and we traced the wooden beads up the flimsy string repeating Our Fathers and Hail Marys, praying for a quick trial and speedy release.

  “The nun got up, and I asked if she would return the next day so we may pray some more. She smiled and said she would be here tomorrow and the next day. She said she had been here for the last two months. The nun was arrested for suspected subversive activity as well. Her crime was leading a prayer before a civil rights demonstration.

  “I worried about you. I promised I would join you soon, and my heart broke thinking of you hating me for breaking my promise. I would explain it all to you when I am free, I kept thinking to myself. Somehow I’ll find your father and we’ll be together again.

  “I cleaned the bathrooms and mopped the floors. As a maid, I was familiar with such chores. There were some women who were not. They were proud women from prominent families. They had had servants all of their lives, and I had to teach them how to clean. Because they were from wealthy families, less harm came to them and they were often quickly released.

  “One wealthy woman, named Diane, asked me how was my English. I told her, ‘It is all right. I speak it well enough.’ She said, ‘Learn to speak it better. Whenever you speak to the guards, speak to them in English. They’ll think you’re educated. They’ll respect you more.’

  “I took her advice and spoke only English to the guards. I often had to think what the next word would be or how the sentence should sound, but I did it.

  “Father de la Merced visited me in prison and told me that your father had been executed. When he said those words, I drifted away. I wanted to cry because Father de la Merced said he had been dead for several months already. If I had known that, I would have left the Philippines and joined you. Unfair. It was unfair for me not to know.”