Mango Seasons

by Michelle Cruz Skinner

  “Should we keep something of his?” Marisa asked, after we were done.

  I thought about it and swallowed. “No. I think we have enough.” And Marisa cried. We were sitting on the floor and I put an arm around her. Finally we went to sleep.

  When Tita Connie and Tito Gil got here, we offered them soft drinks and juice and the four of us sat talking. Actually, they sat in the two chairs and Marisa and I stood so they wouldn’t feel bad about taking the only two chairs. We used to have a couch, but a leg on one side came loose so we gave it to a friend of Marisa’s who wanted it and said he could fix it. We never liked the couch much anyway. It was an ugly flowered vinyl with a big rip that had been sewn closed. The couch was never replaced because none of us saw much point to it. We weren’t planning on staying here.

  So, Tito Gil and Tita Connie and Marisa and I sat and stood around the table and talked about family and school. They made us eat the peanut brittle they brought, but they refused to eat any themselves.

  “Have you heard about the robbery at the bank?” Tito Gil asked. He likes to be the first with news. “Three men held up a customer outside the Magallanes branch. Shot him too.”

  “Were they caught?” I asked.

  “Not yet.”

  The room was silent, so Marisa and I reached for a little more peanut brittle.

  “We should have a party when you finish,” said Tita Connie.

  “Why do you want to go back to Olongapo?” asked Tito Gil. “Stay here, you’ll have more opportunities. I’ll call a few of my engineer friends.” I realized I was going to be the beneficiary of contacts he’d been saving for Ric. I didn’t want them any more than Ric would have. “They’ll know of some work. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “Ay, Gil,” said Tita Connie. “He hasn’t even finished yet.”

  “No difference.” Tito Gil waved her away. “No difference.”

  “We’ll have the party at our place,” Tita Connie decided. She sipped from the glass of kalamansi juice, no sugar. She never drinks soft drinks because she is always watching her weight. “Should we have it on the day of your graduation or a few days later?”

  “Whichever would be best,” I said. If Ric were still alive this party would have been for him, and me. She would have said it was for both of us and everyone else would have acted as if it was. But for Tita Connie, it would have been for Ric. He was her youngest. I suppose the least I could do would be to agree to the party.

  “Why not the day of the graduation?” I said and she smiled.

  “You come by this weekend,” she said, “and we’ll plan this. Besides, you two haven’t been by in so long. We’d forgotten what you looked like.”

  “Naku, Connie, he’s got enough to worry about without you bothering him,” said Tito Gil. “You just go ahead and do the planning. I’m sure he’ll like anything you do. Hindi ba, Emil?”

  “Yes, siyempre Tita Connie,” I said. She smiled a faded smile aimed at the door. This was why Ric hated to go home, why he would bring Marisa and me with him when he did. For protection. This is why Ric moved in with us, away from his father who answers his own questions. Tito Gil speaks for everyone.

  “Well,” said Tita Connie, looking at her husband, “they have to study.”

  I helped carry the boxes—Tito Gil wouldn’t let Marisa carry any—down to their car. Tita Connie took Marisa’s arm and talked to her about party plans. Mostly Marisa nodded. As we were saying goodbye, Soly rode up on her bicycle. Her books weighed down her backpack and she was sweating a little from the ride and she was beautiful. She had pulled her hair back into a ponytail and wore a white polo shirt tucked into her jeans. I wanted to kiss her and hold her against me. Instead I ran my hand through my hair and introduced her to Tito Gil and Tita Connie.

  “This is Soly Tañada.”

  “Very pleased to meet you,” Tita Connie said graciously. “You’re a very lovely girl. You must come to Emil’s graduation party.”

  “She’s graduating too,” said Marisa.

  “Congratulations,” said Tita Connie.

  “Congratulations,” said Tito Gil. “Are you related to Silvino Tañada?”

  “He’s my uncle.”

  Tito Gil nodded. “I know him. Very good man. Tell him I said hello when you see him next.”

  Tito Gil shook my hand, winked in a way that made me want to hit him, and finally, thankfully, left.

  * * *

  “Not a day goes by that I don’t think of Ric,” Tita Connie says in the sad, proud way she’s come to talk of him. Mama and Tatay are sitting with us amidst the heavy furnishings of Tita Connie and Tito Gil’s living room. We feel we have to sit with her a while since she is giving me this party. We all nod.

  “He was your youngest,” says Mama. She’s trying, but she can never think of anything to say to Tita Connie. “She and my brother,” Mama has said, “they’re both alike. Always talking, talking.” Mama hates people who talk a lot. Tita Connie doesn’t exactly talk a lot. But she only talks about things she’s interested in and ignores everything else. Tito Gil too. It’s as if they don’t hear half of what’s said to them.

  I hear a car horn at the gate and jump up. “Excuse me,” I say.

  “That might be Gabby,” says Tita Connie. “He said he’d be a little late.”

  It is indeed Kuya Gabby. His wife Pia hugs me and kisses me on both cheeks. He hugs me too and pushes an envelope into my hands. I know it contains money and I’m struck suddenly by the sense that I’m with Tito Gil instead of his son Gabby. This makes me a little dizzy so I wave them in. When the door finally closes, I sit down on the steps.

  Nilo sits down beside me. He’s smoking a cigarette and I have a craving for one that I fight because I quit a year ago. At times like this the idea of being through, finished with cigarettes doesn’t seem real. “Want one, pare?” Nilo asks.

  “Son of a bitch,” I say and he laughs. He knows I quit.

  “Where’s Soly?” he asks.

  “Her parents had a party for her.”

  “Oh. Is she going to pass by here?”

  “No. I already went to their place for a while.” I wish he’d finish with his cigarette. It’s almost short enough to burn his fingers.

  “So have your parents met her yet?”

  “We’re not getting married,” I say irritably. I watch him blow his last mouthful of smoke and stub out the cigarette.

  “Oh, you’re not?” His eyebrows are raised, teasing.

  “I mean not yet. Maybe. We haven’t talked about it.”

  “And what have you done?” He looks at me with those eyebrows raised, then laughs and falls against me as he does. I realize he’s a little drunk. “Come on.” He jerks his head toward the door. “Let’s go join the others.”

  We sneak past the older people in the living room and go upstairs to the master bedroom where for some reason the younger cousins and my friends have congregated. I guess because there’s a television in here. I lie down on the bed and prop up the pillows so I can see the TV. I wish Soly was coming by.

  But I know she can’t leave. Her parents are giving her a party and her whole family’s there. She looked beautiful in her red dress. And she held my hand as she introduced me to her parents who smiled and seemed happy; I hope they were happy with me. Soly’s face was flushed from the heat, the way she looks when she’s been riding her bicycle. I wanted to pull her into a room and kiss her and hold her with my hands on the small curve of her back. I wanted to cup her breasts in my palm, make love to her and it’s all impossible now. Instead we held each other in the dark of the hallway, away from all the other people. Tomorrow I leave and I’m not sure I’ll get a chance to see her before then.

  I place my hands over my face, trying to wipe away that thought. I look around and only the children in the room are watching TV. Everyone else is talking. Nilo is sitting next to Gemma whose legs are crossed in a way that makes me realize she’s a beautiful woman. Her hair shines in the light and I know if I
were to see her from far away, across the lawns of the university, I would think her lovely. Ric would point her out with that tilt of his head. My throat hurts so I close my eyes and swallow. I wish she weren’t so lovely and didn’t have shiny hair or a smile that encourages people like Nilo to talk to her, someone they don’t even know. If I think too much about this, I know I’ll get scared.

  “Do you want a drink?” I ask Gemma.

  “What?”

  “I’m going downstairs for a drink. Would you like one?”

  “Yes. Get me a Sarsi.”

  Nilo gets up. “I’ll go with you.”

  I suppose he’s going to be chivalrous and get Gemma’s Sarsi for her. And indeed he does and tries to get me to talk about her as we walk back upstairs. “Will she be going to UP too?” he asks, trying to figure out how old she is.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “She’s got one more year.”

  He stays beside her the rest of the evening. Later in the car, Gemma tells me he asked her to see a movie with him. “But I told him I couldn’t because we’re all going back to Olongapo tomorrow.”

  I know I could make things easier for Nilo by inviting him to visit us sometime but I don’t feel like doing this.

  “Did you want to?” I ask.

  “What?”

  “Did you want to go to a movie with him?”

  She looks at me as if this is a question I’m not supposed to be asking. I’ve never asked her about boys or men, her loves, before. She has always been so young to me. When she looks away, I think she’s decided not to answer.

  “No,” she says. “I don’t like him.” She stares straight ahead as I start the car. “I might go just to go. I’d like to see more of this city. I mean, besides Lolo’s house and all.”

  I drive us out of the subdivision, past the guardhouse with the uniformed man who doesn’t look up from his newspaper. His radio is tuned to a fight and I wonder who could be boxing at this hour. We drive between the skyscrapers downtown and keep going until we are far, far across town from Kuya Gabby’s, where we’re all staying this last night. Gemma has fallen asleep and her head hangs loosely to her side, rolling as I turn corners. Like a child, she still can’t stay up late. Mama and Tatay are probably at Kuya Gabby’s by now, expecting us to follow at any moment. If we don’t show up soon, Mama will worry that we’ve been in an accident, like Ric. Tatay and all of them will think this, but they won’t say it.

  I’m tired and my throat hurts, but I don’t want to go home yet. So I drive down by the bay. Gemma wakes up as we enter Intramuros and she watches the old, stone buildings slide by. “Muebles Españoles” on a sign and beyond it iron gates to protect the store.

  I remember a class trip I took here once, long ago when we still lived in Manila. We saw the fort where Jose Rizal was held and his cell. And they told us that when the sea came in the cells underground flooded. Or maybe that was someplace else. I’m not sure. But I remember hearing about flooded cells and prisoners drowning.

  Gemma points to the fort. “Isn’t that where they have the dioramas?”

  “The what?”

  “The dioramas. You know. The miniature scenes with the houses and people and trees. Even some battles.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I think so,” she says. “And Jose Rizal’s cell is in there. It was just a cell. It didn’t look different from any of the others except he stayed there. What if he had stayed in a different one?”

  “Then that would be the one they would show us,” I say. And at the same time I see what’s troubling her. Things are so random and impermanent, even in this old Intramuros. “When did you come here?” I never knew she had been to this part of the city.

  “Ric brought me,” she says quietly.

  I don’t know what to tell her. I almost say “I’m sorry,” but that would be no good. The soreness in my throat is melting and my nose and eyes feel watery.

  “He took me to see Jose Rizal’s cell and told me about the building. He was better than the guide.” She sounds as if she’s about to cry. She folds her arms across her chest and leans back into the seat. I hear her take a deep breath. “This used to be the center of the city, you know. This used to be the city. It’s prettier at night when there aren’t so many people.”

  I look over and she’s watching everything slide by the windows. Her way of watching has always been careful. Sometimes I mistook it for sadness. But she’s not as troubled as I thought.

  “I think people died in here,” she says. “Cruelly. Still it’s beautiful.”

  Two

  Prayers

  for the

  Living

  I: NOVENA FOR NICK

  At times like this, I remember Reuben. I have tried to drive his memory from me, but he appears anyway, bringing with him Danny, both of them crowding the space with Nick. Their names run through my blood in bad times so that I’m afraid to open my mouth for fear of what will come out.

  Marisa wipes sweat from above her eyes, tries once again to sit on the bottom of the two bridge railings. I hold Gemma to me although the day is hot. We are fifty or more here, all waiting for every word the military feeds us. We live on these because not to means falling completely.

  Two days ago, although it seems many more, we got the call about Nick. “There’s been a hold-up,” said a man. And I wondered why didn’t my brother call? Gil is one of the vice, presidents of the bank, yet this man with the practiced voice is calling me. “Your husband is one of those still in the bank.” He spoke rationally, slowly to dissuade me from becoming hysterical. I could have told him hysterical is exactly what I should be. And hold-up is no good word. It doesn’t say guns and people’s lives are on the precipice and the worst part is they know it. Nick is dying every moment he’s in there. And after two days, I’m afraid what he will be when he gets out.

  “Ma,” Gemma says and extricates herself from my arms. She reaches for one of the bottles of soft drinks Emil has brought us.

  Marisa rises from the bridge railing, which is never comfortable, but like the rest of us, she’s tired of always standing and nothing coming of it. I don’t know how Nick and I have arrived at this. At times I’ve thought if I could have only the children with me, I would be happier. That was years ago.

  Now, waiting here, I want to see his face again. None of the children looks much like him, or like me either. Sometimes I think I can identify which part of them—the neck, a smile—is me or him. Then they’ll stand in a different light, say something unexpected, and I’m not so sure any more. They are such a mix of us.

  Emil talks using his hands, which is something from his Lolo, and from me I suppose. He’s talking to one of his co-workers who is leaving the base, done for the day. The man looks down at the ground a lot, so as not to have to see the rest of us.

  Both the Filipino soldiers and the American have tried to make us move, have told us to go home. “We’ll call you when anything happens,” said one Filipino soldier, trying to look stern. He was too impressed with himself to know nothing would come of that tone. “When anything happens” could mean when they’re dead. That’s what all of us waiting thought and the soldiers didn’t know better.

  “We won’t leave,” Marisa had said softly.

  We sat down again after the soldiers left. “Your Tito Gil didn’t even call,” I said angrily. But the children already knew this. They know enough about him.

  We stayed the entire first evening—last night. It was like a dream and the ache of my feet turned to numbness when I stood still. I tried not to move, to hold onto the numbness. I told the children to go home. But they refused. So we all stayed the night, falling asleep standing or, finally, sitting on the sidewalk. The nightclub lights flickered off around us and the city grew quiet as we had never known it.

  I dreamed of our trip to Los Baños. It was before I entered the university and Nanay was dying. I remember she was sick, but in my dream I never saw her. Instead I felt her death hanging over the c
ottage Tatay had rented. So I left. I walked down from the cottages to the hot springs, which were deserted, and I lay in the hottest one, floating on my back, letting the water scorch me.

  When I awoke, light was seeping into the darkness of the bridge around us and Emil stood next to me with his eyes half-closed. I touched the back of my neck, where I had been burned in my dream. My neck was hot, but when I touched it I felt no pain.

  Standing and lying here, we startled the early morning workers coming on the base. Everyone walks far around us because no one wants to accidentally brush up against such misfortune. Anything can happen to anybody, I could tell them. No matter whether you touch us or not. I am sure in India, a woman’s husband is dying. In Italy, a woman is mourning. And I would rather be anywhere else right now than facing this.

  Rueben, Danny, Nick run through my head again and I don’t say anything so as not to hurt the children. Sometimes I tell Rueben, Danny to just leave. Leave me alone. But I’m left with them. Sometimes I try saying Nick’s name over and over.

  We eat the sandwiches Emil and Gemma bought since we are finally hungry. Marisa says, “The river doesn’t smell so bad now that we’re used to it.” The sandwiches are tasteless and we take a long time finishing them.

  These people whom I only saw at parties looking their best, are now sitting around us haggard and unbathed. It would be funny if we could laugh. If we knew what to do.

  My Nick may not be alive anymore. I start crying and the children look alarmed.

  “’Nay,” Emil says. He lays a hand awkwardly on my shoulder. More than twenty years and I’m his mother and he still does not know what to do. He just rubs my shoulder. Sometimes he is so much like his father I don’t know whether to be proud or alarmed. Both, I suppose, depending on the situation. I wipe my tears with my fingers but can’t stop crying.

  “’Nay,” Emil says again. Gemma moves closer and hugs me.

  “It’s OK,” I tell them. “I’ll be all right. I’m just tired.”

  Marisa looks like a sleepwalker, stunned with her eyes open. She’s supposed to be at UP, but she came as soon as we called her. I believe her professors will be kind and understanding. But I don’t know how she will be after all this. She’s crying too, quietly.