by Noël Alumit
She became still. Quiet.
“I stayed in prison. They do terrible things to women,” she said. “Terrible things.”
She could not tell me what happened exactly, but I knew. I bowed my head. I didn’t want Mama to see what I was thinking. They did things to her. Those fucking monsters did things to my mother. A little piece of my insides atrophied and died.
I wanted to touch her, but I couldn’t. She was less than a foot away from me, but she seemed so far away. Inconsolable. She was a woman I had never known. We developed new lives, new personalities, new beings. Yet she belonged to me. I belonged to her. No matter how many years separated us, we were still each other’s. She was my family.
I pulled her close to me and I remember her holding me like that as a boy, that feeling of warmth. She was—is—my family. She sobbed into my chest, a maelstrom of tears at my torso. That was what I was looking for. Someone to give herself to me. Someone for me to give myself to.
I cried. Not just for her, but for me. I thought of Amada and Logan and Mr. and Mrs. A. They gave themselves to me. I didn’t realize it at the time, but they did. I was foolish.
“When I left prison,” Mama said, “I was not right. Not right in the head. I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid all the time. I knew I had to find you, but I had no job, no place to live. I had nothing.
“I saw American children in Manila, tourists or children of soldiers, and I knew they would be taken care of. I felt America would be best for you. I thought Auntie Yuna would be taking care of you good. I watched American movies, and saw how happy they were, so rich. What could I give you? I had nothing to offer you. I wrote letters to Yuna asking her how you were doing, but the letters kept coming back. I had no way of reaching her. I believed you were safe with her.
“I worked at different jobs in Manila, cleaning houses, but it was not steady work. I moved back to Baguio City a year later, and saw Yuna working in a restaurant.
“I asked her where you were. She said that she was deported, and she didn’t know where you were. I almost killed her in the restaurant. I went crazy. I could not believe she didn’t know where you were. She didn’t seem to care. I was put in a hospital, because I almost killed her.”
A long smile spread across her face like a road on a map. She started to giggle. She shook her head, and said, “You know our family has always been a little nuts in the head. Your Uncle Virgilio was known to sit for hours, days and just look out, staring at nothing, then he would snap back to life. Just like that.”
When she told me this, an incredible peace came over me, caressing me like a velvet cloth.
Her smile turned sour, her lips trembling like a shivering child. “I wanted to die,” she said. “My own child somewhere in the States, all by himself. The thought made me sick. I was in the hospital, not well. I was in the hospital, afraid to leave. I would stand in the corner and look out into space. I would watch TV for hours. Sometimes, a nurse would rent a movie for us to watch. American movies. Sometime in my second year, a nurse rented a movie, a scary one. I had seen a lot of scary movies, but I was not scared. I sat there.
“In one movie, I thought I saw you. I thought I saw you in the background. If it was not you, he looked just like you. Or maybe how I thought you would look if you’d grown. You would have been in your late teens. You looked so happy, so healthy. You went to school, and you were so happy…” She went to her bag by the door, pulled out a videotape. It was Blood Prom at Hell High.
“I stole this,” she said. “I stole it from the hospital. I watched it every chance I could. I knew you were okay. This was a sign you were okay. I knew you were leading a life that I could never give you. If I worked twenty-four hours a day, cleaned every house on Luzon, Mindanao, and Visaya, nothing I could save or buy could ever come close to what you were getting in America.
“Forgive me for not finding you. I thought you would have more to lose if I did.”
I will never know how my life would have been different if I grew up with her. I will never know. I just know she was with me, and from that point on, she will always be with me.
I thought of all the people who have disappeared from my life: my father, my childhood friend Robert, my handsome neighbor J and his wife Baby Bounce Belinda, the different foster parents. I guess there will always be people who come and go. Never to be heard from again. There are a few who stay like Amada, the Arangans, Logan. They don’t disappear, giving me foundation, giving me strength. Then there are people who disappear who must be found, forcing them to reappear like the sun in the morning. They must be found because they were there when you were—a bookend, keeping the middle from falling away. Like my mother, like my Mama.
EPILOGUE
Dear Monty, February 7, 1998
I haven’t had the need to write. Then again, I haven’t seen you in awhile either.
I’m arranging my mother’s transportation to the states. I think she’ll like it here. I told her all about Los Angeles. It feels a lot like Baguio City, actually, cool and by the Pacific Ocean. Logan and I are looking for a bigger place so my mother can have her own room. We’ll probably live in Silverlake, it has that artsy feel that Logan likes so much. I love the homes resting on the hills, reminding me of Baguio. It’s odd that I traveled so far to live in a place so similar.
Logan is still writing movies, and got hooked up with some grants. He’s made some short films with the grant money, and started entering them into some film festivals. He still teaches on the side, but he likes it.
Amada said she’ll help us decorate our new home. She’s still doing theater in town, but wants to go to school. She’s thinking of getting a degree in arts education or something. Mr. and Mrs. A are thrilled that Amada wants to go to school. Mr. A got a job as head accountant for a small chain of Chinese restaurants, he offered to pay for some of Amada’s school expenses. She said no. Mrs. A thinks Amada should let them help her. Mrs. A got a part time job in a jewelry store. Her first job in America. She said if we ever want a discount on a diamond, go see her. I told her diamonds, even with a discount, aren’t in my budget.
I don’t want to do extra jobs anymore. Unless it’s in one of Logan’s movies. I tell Logan that maybe one of his movies could really help someone out. Your movies helped me. I wondered why you haven’t visited. I was rather depressed that you hadn’t come.
Finally, you spoke to me through one of your movies: Indiscretion of an American Wife. I caught it early one morning. You looked fantastic in the movie; love will do that to you. You played an Italian pursuing Jennifer Jones, a wife with a husband in America. You rendezvous with her, meeting her. Both of you love each other, but know a life together could never be. She has her life in the states with her family, and you have another life to tend to.
I wept at the end of the movie. I wept for us. I love you, Monty. I want the very best for you, too.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My first novel required the assistance of many people. Thanks to Ayofemi Folayan for encouraging me when I barely had 5 pages. The novelists Aimee Liu and Peter Gadol for reviewing my book. Thanks to PEN Center USA West. (I vowed I would pursue this book to the very end if I were granted PEN’s Emerging Voices fellowship.) With Mona Simpson, Cheryl Britton, Jenoyne Adams, Ellery Washington, Sally Weigold-Charette, Sarah Jacobus, Asha Parek, Cynthia Leyva, Harriet Doerr, Judith Searle, Linda Venus, and John Rechy, I was able to establish a firm foundation. A great group of writers: Karen Wallace Sorenson, Lynne Williamson, Linda Bishop, Matthew Rowland, John Polacio, Charles Beals, Alexis Rhone, Mike Gaeta, and Phyllis Gebauer. The staff at Skylight Books: Kevin Awakuni, Christine Berry, Charles Hauther, Courtney Martell, Tim Morell, Kathy Parkman, Steve Salardino, Garret Scullin, Kerry Slattery, Luis Bauz, Karine Rosenthal, Angela Leazenby. Special thanks to Joe Baker with Amnesty International and Brian Garrido. Some books that gave me better insight: Montgomery Clift by Patricia Bosworth, Monty by Robert LaGuardia, The Films of Montgomery Clift by Judith M. Kass, Mothe
rless Daughters by Hope Edelman and A Bright Red Scream by Marilee Strong. Susan Aranetta, Carol Ojeda-Kimbrough, and Erick Villagran. Al Zuckerman and Fay Greenfield at Writers House—a million thanks! Thanks to my editor Pat Walsh for giving me a chance to share this book with others. Others at MacAdam/Cage I wish to thank: David Poindexter, John Gray, Avril O’Reilly, Dorothy Smith, Scott Allen, and Melanie Mitchell. Joy, Jessie, John, Adele Bayless, Amber Luke, Sandra Zane, and Kim Carver (Ken Rutman). My colleagues at the Asian Pacific AIDS Intervention Team. Lastly, to Montgomery Clift, wherever your spirit may soar, Salamat Po.