Riverrun

by Danton Remoto

  We had no classes for a week. That day, my fingers touched the windowpane. Cold, covered in mist. With my forefinger, I traced my initials. From my initials the world outside began to form.

  Our duhat tree seemed to be getting a thrashing. Its small round fruits and leaves whirled on the twigs, and the branches seemed to have gone mad. They convulsed violently, and then came a sound that made my skin crawl. A low, loud moan, then a gust of wind that blasted against our duhat tree. Our tree tried to hold its ground, to weather the dervish wind, but I heard something snap. I hurriedly brushed away the mist on the windowpane, and saw that the tree had been split cleanly in two, around three feet from the base. The tree—fruits, leaves, and all—lay on the wet ground. I remembered the hot summers when I climbed this tree, its dark and sweetish fruits rubbed with salt and popped swiftly into one’s mouth, and felt a pang run through me.

  When my father turned on the TV, there were widespread appeals for relief goods and aid. The whole of Central Luzon—those five provinces that were the country’s rice bowl—was deep in floodwaters. An Air Force helicopter with media men inside took a pan of the area—water everywhere! When the choppers came closer, there were houses submerged in the flood, with only the roofs showing. And on top of those roofs, like the inverted arks of Noah, huddled shadows. No, blackbirds, flapping their wings. But as the helicopters came closer, the figures changed to people, clothes sticking to rain-drenched skin. Not waving, but drowning.

  And the reports flew thick and fast.

  Of a woman whose whole family was completely wiped out (“I tried to save my children when the floods came at night, but their hands slipped from my grasp, and suddenly there was only water”). She was saved because she happened to be near the huge Styrofoam box that contained the soft drinks they sold in their small variety store. When the floodwaters came, she grabbed the box, turned it upside down, and ran to the room where her children slept.

  Of a town whose inhabitants were completely wiped out. Pabanlag (population: 5,000) was a town between the mountains and an estuary that drained off to the sea. The mountains had been dutifully denuded of trees, thanks to the mayor who had found an ally in the provincial military commander and the corpulent governor. There was gold in the hills, really, except they weren’t the kind could be beaten into the sheerest filigree, but hardwood whittled down and shaped into tables and cabinets and chairs, especially now that there was a rage for “modern antique,” furniture newly carved but lacquered and painted to look like heirloom pieces.

  So when the rains came, no trees stood with their mighty roots, to hold the water. The flood slipped down the mountains, like vomit. By that time, the river’s estuary had been swelling and swelling. It had been raining for three days and the river had overflowed its banks. The town was now under three feet of water.

  When the water rushed down the mountain, it cascaded like a great waterfall. The people said they heard the sound of a thousand hooves, louder and louder by the second, making the blood run cold. And then, complete darkness. The people were borne away by the water, holding on to coconut trees, doors, windows, the very water.

  When the darkness lifted, the whole town was gone.

  Houses were wrenched away as if by the roots, and scattered miles and miles away. A broken window, a door, a wall. And everywhere, the dead. In the backyard of what was once his house, a man lay, his fingers in a half-curl, his eyes staring blindly at the sun. On the street lay a mother embracing tightly her baby. And swept out into sea, an old car with the whole family trapped inside. Around the car floated men and women with torn clothes and torn skin, their bodies bloated, floating in the luminous blue of the sea.

  Oh, there were the usual recriminations against illegal logging. The President promised a thorough investigation that would spare nobody. The First Lady chaired Task Force Yoling, which gathered plastic bags of rice, sardine cans, salt, mung beans, and soap into cotton bags with their design of faded flowers, recycled from B-Meg Poultry and Pig Feeds, and stamped outside, “GIFTS FROM THE FIRST LADY AND FAMILY,” the words blazing in her favorite color: fuchsia.

  Old Woman on a Bridge About to Crumble

  IN THE AFTERMATH of Typhoon Yoling, Papa and I did the marketing on Saturdays.

  I knew Ate Helen, my mother’s suki, her trusted and long-time vendor of fruit and vegetables, meat and rice. Into the labyrinth of the wet market my father and I went, with each of us carrying a wicker basket. We ended our walk in front of Ate Helen’s stall spilling over with vivid reds and yellows and greens. The yellow flowers of the squash. The green leaves of sweet potatoes. Mountain ferns whose ends curled like commas. Ginger shaped like toes. Lemongrass with roots hanging like ancient beards.

  Then we went to the fish section and looked for the young shark’s meat that my father loved to simmer in coconut milk.

  Kinunut

  (Guinutay na pating or shredded shark)

  INGREDIENTS

  1 kilo of pating meat

  ½ cup coconut vinegar

  Milk from 2 medium coconuts in 1 cup water

  3 cloves garlic, crushed

  1 medium onion, chopped coarsely

  1 thumb ginger, shredded

  1 teaspoon peppercorns, cracked

  4 pieces finger pepper, cut to ¼-inch lengths

  50 grams kalunggay (malunggay) leaves

  Salt to taste

  Kinunut is the Bicolano word for shredded. Here it refers to the method of preparing shark meat, this being the only recipe where fish is shredded.

  Shark meat is sold cut across in slabs.

  Put the fish in a pot with enough water to cover it. Over high heat, bring to a boil. After five minutes, remove from heat, then pour the water out. This process removes most of the strong odor of the fish. With a knife, scrape off the scales (these have the looks and consistency of rough sand), and wash the meat. Shred the meat with a fork or a knife. Set aside.

  In a kawali (wok) over high heat, boil the coconut milk, garlic, onion, ginger, and peppercorns. Stir constantly to prevent curdling. When the oil oozes out of the coconut milk, add the fish and the vinegar. When the fish is almost done, add in the finger peppers, then add the malunggay leaves. Do not stir because the leaves will just turn bitter.

  This dish is also favored as pulutan (finger food) for lambanog (palm wine) or ice-cold beer by the men in the provinces.

  My father knows that last sentence only too well.

  We finished in good time—under two hours—and I asked my father for my treat: some coins to buy my Chocnut.

  When we got out of the market, the sky was already the color of bruises.

  “Oooppps,” Papa said, “we better hurry up. The rain might fall again.”

  So I clambered aboard the jeep and helped Papa arrange the two big wicker baskets of food on the back. And then the rain did fall, huge buckets of water pouring down. Papa drove slowly. Wind whipped all around us, and Papa had to stop on the shoulder of the road so we could put the trapal, plastic flaps that we buttoned down the jeep’s sides to deflect the rain.

  Grayness was all around us. We could not see anything. Papa had turned the headlights on, and the lights tried to bore holes into the walls of the rain. We moved as if in a crawl.

  When we reached the old wooden bridge, the river began to roar. In the dark we could not see the river, but we could hear its deep, low sound. My hands began to sweat, and I wiped them on my shorts to dry them.

  Suddenly, our headlights flashed on what looked like a dress flapping in the wind. A brown dress, and then the stooped back of an old woman in the shape of the letter C.

  She was all alone in the rain.

  “What does she think she’s doing!?” Papa said.

  But the woman did not seem to have seen us. She just stood there, on the wooden bridge that could crumble any minute now, looking far away, into the river and the rain.

  Papa stepped out of the jeep and ran to the old woman. His lips opened and shut, his thumb jerked ba
ck at our jeep, but the old woman did not even so much as look at him. Her hands just rested quietly on the railing of the bridge.

  Finally Papa gave up, and he ran back to the jeep. He backed up, swerved to the left, and then we moved away slowly, away from the old woman looking at the river swelling before her, her face impassive and fixed, just staring at a world that was beginning to end.

  Sssssh

  AHHH, THAT SOUND, how can I forget that sound?

  Dusk had fallen by then, and we were home. Papa always told us to be home as soon as the chickens had roosted on the star-apple trees in the yard. Ludy explained to us why, in her gentle Bicolano accent, her diphthongs rising and falling: “You should be home before dark. Otherwise, you would get in the way of the spirits, who would be abroad by then, hala!” Then she would enumerate all these spirits as if they were her childhood playmates.

  And so we would be home by six, sitting cross-legged in front of the TV set Papa had bought. We were watching our modern-day gods. Shazzan with head shaven, except for a ponytail sticking out from the top of his head. The caveman Mightor with the mighty club, which vibrates and emits waves of energy and light. The Japanese robot Gigantor, his body the size and shape of a ref, heaving himself from earth to air in an instant.

  But once a week, the lights would suddenly go off as soon as darkness fell. And then the sound would come.

  It was something we first felt rather than heard. A heavy gurgling in the air, water swirling in the throat of a giant. Then it would come nearer, louder, what sounded like trucks lumbering blindly in the darkness. I never knew what they were from either Papa or Mama. From the gossip that Ludy exchanged religiously with Nova, the housemaid next door, I knew that they were the six-by-six military trucks again.

  The day after the blackout, the chapel would be filled again. There would be stands of calachuchi flowers and throngs of people. Sitting in front would be the widows, girls really, in black. Their young children wore strips of black ribbons on their chest. And lined in front of the altar would be the twenty coffins of the young soldiers, draped in the tricolor of the flag. The blue seemed so deep and the red, so fierce.

  “Who died?” I would ask Ludy in the middle of the Mass. Ludy sat beside me, while Mama conducted the choir. With every movement of her wooden stick (I secretly called it her magic wand), the voices of teenagers would rise and fall, become louder and softer, glide or float. Papa would be with his friends, fellow military officers, standing near the door, talking about their roosters and the cockpits, who was stealing from whom this time, clocking Padre Pelagio’s sermon with their watches.

  But Ludy would answer my questions with a gesture. Forefinger on her lips. Sssssh, telling me both to shut up and to remind me never to ask the same question again, ever. Years later, whenever I saw a motel chain called The Queen Victoria, I would remember Ludy. Above the blazing neon sign is the figure of a young woman with big, wondering eyes, forefinger over her luscious lips. (Sssssh.)

  Wings of Desire

  LIKE ME, MY cousin Ramon was also the first-born child of my Uncle Conrado and his wife Emilia.

  Papa woke me up early that summer. He told me to wash my face because we would go to Manila. My heart jumped with delight, especially when I saw that some of my clothes had already been stuffed in my Papa’s blue overnight bag.

  Papa’s eyes were sad. He kissed Mama goodbye, and then we were gone. We took a pedicab to the gate. The young soldier on duty gave my father a crisp salute. Behind him stood the statue of a pilot cast in concrete, his eyes raised to the sky. Soon we were aboard a jeep bound for Guagua. As usual, the driver maneuvered the jeepney as if he were on the Indianapolis 500. His jeepney zipped through the barrio road, the town’s main road, and finally the highway at the same suicidal speed. Huts and wooden houses, buildings and sticks of sugar cane blurred before us. It always frightened me.

  I closed my eyes and dredged my mind for prayers. Miss Honey Joy Tamayo of Catechism class said that if you died with a prayer on your lips, you would go to Heaven straight away. So I began praying the rosary, over and over again, the three mysteries repeated for the nth time from Floridablanca to Guagua, a distance of 20 kilometers, using my fingers to count the Our Fathers, Hail Marys, and Glory Bes. If I did not go to Heaven, I thought, at least I’d be good in Math. The driver would suddenly step on the brakes, then rev the engine up again, swerve here and there, weaving in and out of our lane, a king of the road.

  Above him, a strip of mirror ablaze with decals. Basta driver, sweet lover. Jingle lang ang pahinga (I only rest when I piss). And directly in front of him, two women. On the left was a decal of a vamp, her overripe body spilling out of her glossy, red bikini; The other was the Blessed Virgin Mary, wearing layer upon layer of white clothes, a blue sash around her waist.

  After 45 minutes, the jeepney swung around the big plaza of Guagua. Then we got off and waited for the bus bound for Manila. Usually they were air-conditioned Victory Liners, rare in those days, and once we had settled in our seats and paid for the tickets, Papa would begin to sleep, or rather, snore. I would be terribly embarrassed, but nobody seemed to mind, for almost everybody would fall asleep as the morning sun climbed higher in the clear sky of summer.

  I would also try to close my eyes, but from behind my shut eyelids, I could see the tiny red spots formed by the sunlight. So I would open my eyes again, then open the window and watch the world blur past me.

  Three big covered carts pulled by a bull traveled slowly on the shoulder of the road. The carts contained wicker chairs and small tables, mirrors and hammocks, palo china tables and wicker baskets. The farmers from the North traveled down after the harvest was over and the fields would lie fallow for months. Down south they hoped to sell the things they wove and plaited. They were framed by a billboard advertising the many legendary bounties of the country: the Banaue Rice Terraces and the Mayon Volcano, the swift-sailing vintas of Zamboanga and the Santo Niño of Cebu City, luring the tourists to this calm and peaceful country.

  The other billboards were from Filoil and B-meg Feeds, Warren Briefs and Ajinomoto Vetsin, Vitarich and the Mobil gas station with the red flying horse. Rice saplings newly transplanted from their seedbeds, the young leaves stirring in the wind. On the left would rise Mount Arayat, a mountain shaped like a stump, smothered by the whitest of clouds. The fields would give way to nipa huts alive with the laughter of barefoot children with big bellies. Yellow rice grains left to dry on the sides of the road. White hens cackling. The morning melodrama from a transistor radio with its volume turned up so everybody could hear other lives endlessly twisting and turning. The new wood-and-cement houses built for their parents by young men and women working in the Middle East, the abandoned mansions of the sugar barons, their dry fountains and wide gardens choked by weeds, the heavy wooden doors now closed forever. And then the baroque churches, covered with moss and lichen, cratered by wind and rain. And in the air, the heavy, cloying smell of molasses from the mills of Pampanga Sugar Development Corporation (PASUDECO), inducing me finally to sleep. Ahhh, such lethargy, such a sweet, sweet smell.

  Manila burst like a bucket of icy water thrown on the face. The Bonifacio Monument loomed (the proletarian hero in a voiceless scream), the bus deftly circling the rotunda, and down we went to EDSA, the unbearable smell of the Cloverleaf Market, the diesel fumes darkening the air. We got off in a Cubao that still had no shopping malls, just small specialty shops and a row of movie houses. Then the jeepney ride to Sta. Mesa, so very fast, the miniature steel horses on the hood seemingly clop-clopping in the wind, the thin plastic strips of many colors flying, the jeepney swerving, going up and down a bridge. Then here we were.

  My uncle lived in his in-law’s house on a strip of government land behind the motels of Old Sta. Mesa. Gardenia, Seven Seas, Rose Tattoo, Exotica—I still recall their names in a breathless rush, these places where supposedly illicit love happened between people not married to each other. Down we went, down, down the rough steps h
ewn out of stone. The wooden houses seemed to breathe into each other. One’s kitchen ended where another’s bedroom began. The alleys coiled round and round, like intestines. And when the rainy season came, everything turned muddy and a perpetually green slime covered the ground for days.

  After Papa and I had turned this way and that, poking into someone else’s living room and scanning another’s open bedroom, we reached the place—a one-story affair at the foot of the stairs of an old wooden house.

  Even at noon, bright lights burned in the living room. The candelabra’s fingers glowed. Under the lights, the coffin of my cousin Ramon.

  My Aunt Emilia broke down at the sight of Papa. “Manoy, Mon is gone. What will I do?” Sobs tore from her chest, and the old women around her also began to cry. They were all in black. Like a flock of crows. Papa let her go on. She babbled that if she only knew Mon would sustain a bad fall after a game of basketball and bash his head, her son who was torn away from her by the doctor’s forceps—

  “I shouldn’t have allowed him to play basketball the previous afternoon. Manoy, should I tell Conrado?”

  Silence. Papa seemed to weigh his words very carefully. Then, looking straight into my aunt’s eyes, actually looking through her, he said: “I think it’s best not to tell Conrado. I know my brother very well. He’ll take it badly. He might—” Papa sighed deeply. He suddenly looked tired, and very old. “He might even jump from the ship if he hears about it.”

  My aunt sank silently on the sofa. She cried wordlessly. It was painful to look at her. I stood up and walked over to the coffin of Ramon.

  Atop the glass was his photograph taken a month ago, so very young, his eyes like clearest water. The gold First Honor medal shone on his white polo shirt. Leis of white jasmine buds and yellow-green ylang-ylang flowers were hung around the photograph. And then, I looked down at him slowly.