CSF: creative semi-fiction

Sad, as in “also”


My mother would have been sixty today. She was born in 1948 in a town called Matalom, in the southern part of Leyte. Stories have it that when my mother was young, she would often get ill, suffer strange, undiagnosed, incurable symptoms, the only remedy for which was to bring her back to the town where she was born. At the time, it took almost an entire day to travel from Tacloban, where their family eventually settled, to Matalom, which they visited only once every year, or depending on how often my mother became ill.

My mother had six brothers and sisters, but she was the only one who was born in Matalom, her mother’s hometown. This, her siblings used to say, explains why she took after their mother the most. And, they would always add, also the reason why she took after their mother in the worst ways possible; that is, in terms of mood and disposition.

I never really knew their mother; hence, I find it difficult to relate to her, to even refer to her as grandmother. But, I shall try. Their mother, A___, was a tall, buxom woman, with a polished look about her. In the photographs hanging on the walls of the old house in Matalom and in Tacloban, she is always the tallest among everyone, man or woman, and she always carries herself with a combination of grace and ease; with a skilled, concise execution, which can only be described as stylish in a military way. Most people, however, thought that she was, on the whole, in look and manner, rather severe. Again, I have no direct, personal recollection of her severity or grace. I also do not recall any story about her being demonstrative in her care and affection for her children and her husband, or for anyone, for that matter.

The stories I retain of A___ are, on the whole, inconsequential: how tiny her waist was despite her full figure, how her height and her low, somber voice commanded attention, and how stubborn she was in her refusal to learn any other language but Bisaya. For some reason, people also referred to this language as Kana (the Bisaya term for “that one”, or perhaps the Bisaya pejorative for “Americana”). I have some very curious memory of that voice applied to what I thought was a peculiar language.

I also sometimes remember her smell, which was, invariably, a combination of fresh laundry and sweet-sour fruits. (This was how my mother smelled, too, on Sundays, without the scented lotion and expensive perfume).

A____ died thirteen days after I celebrated my third birthday, a month after my mother turned thirty.

***

It is always of these that my memory of that day is made up: tall men and women, in black and white, milling about, standing in corners; dark figures slumped, arms sagging against reddish-brown wooden seats. A glass is thrown violently to the deep-red, concrete floor, and stepped on by many grieving, angry feet shod in leather. A string of white rosary beads is pulled apart, and the round, tiny crystals slide swiftly off the string and scatter themselves on the floor, under the furniture, and under people’s soles. And then we are being lined up in front of the coffin, arranged according to some logic I could not understand. From being carried in someone’s arms, I am, against my will, settled on the floor next to my siblings and my cousins. My baby brother, who is only a few months old, takes my place in the coveted cradle-arms of some aunt or uncle. There is lightning in my face, and I am temporarily blind. I think it is at this point that I start to cry. But nobody sees.

Nobody hears, either. There are too many languages being spoken all at the same time. And my grandmother’s language is spoken the loudest by more voices than I have ever heard it spoken before. “Kana! Kani! Kana sad! Kani sad!” (which, I thought, translated to “That one! This one! That one is sad! This one is sad!” only to find out, very soon enough, that “sad” only meant “also”, or “too”). And the controversy had merely to do with flowers – over which ones to bring to the chapel, which ones to throw away, or burn.

Nothing of the nine-day wake should be left behind, a nameless grandaunt says emphatically. Unless you want a member of the family to follow suit, another one adds. Very quickly, it is settled. No one dares argue. Bouquets, wreaths, and vases of dried up and decaying flowers are thrown into a sack to join the pyre. Brighter, fresher ones are arranged atop a long, black hearse which, like its passengers, looks “sad sad”, as it waits there, strikingly odd in the otherwise car-less street.

The funeral took place at high noon and I remember the heat.

I cannot ignore the heat. It bears down on us as we walk in a solemn procession from the gates of the cemetery to the small clearing where there is an empty tomb and several priests waiting, their white frocks stiff in the windless air. A____ is the first to stake her claim in the family lot. Eventually, as the years would pass, that clearing would disappear, as it is crowded with more of her family members following her lead, despite the careful adherence to superstition. It becomes too crowded that it would not even accommodate my mother who, on the very day I turn thirty, would be, as some would say, “laid to rest”, away from her family.

At the burial, I cannot take my eyes off my mother’s face, as she watches the cement inevitably applied to the square opening of the gray tomb, sealing the niche (and her mother) off, finally, from the rest of the world. There are several broken flowers strewn all around us. The candles are melting quickly before the harsh heat of the sun. The kids are starting to surreptitiously gather them to form balls of wax. I am slumped against the chest of someone whose face I cannot see. I cannot stop staring at my mother’s face. There is so much going on in it. She has on an expression I have never seen before. I am looking and looking but not understanding the meaning behind it. And then it strikes me: it is almost the same expression she has after dabbing on “White Flower” liniment onto her temples and after inhaling the vapors. It is the look of someone disappearing, fading away. It is a look that is focused on something beyond my ken. It is a look that worries me no end.


***

Matalom, in Bisaya, means sharp. When I think of Matalom, on the contrary, the images are framed in soft light. In my mind, sometimes, I see the houses, the municipio, the plaza, the old church, the ancient trees, the coast and the sea beyond it, neatly arranged, in quaint stillness, underneath a layer of mist. Perhaps this is because my first vivid encounter with the place was through sleep-heavy, glazed eyes, encountering early morning sunlight coming at me in tiny broken streams, through intertwined foliage.

I probably slept through much of that first trip. I only remember that, when I woke up, the car we were in was slowing down, bringing the excited chatter to a hush. When I looked up, we were under a canopy of acacia leaves and branches that were tangled in a complex embrace. I would soon learn to treat the magical welcome arch, as a marker, an unmistakable sign, that we had entered the town proper, if not a different time zone altogether. As a matter of propriety and practice, everything slows down, therefore. In a minute, the plaza starts to loom to our right, and, to our left, the cathedral and the town’s patron saint, San Jose, facing the municipio and the country’s national hero, the other Jose.

My grandmother’s house is located on the same block as the church. Its “dirty kitchen” faces the small, square, black windows of the church rectory. When attending afternoon novena masses, we pass through the backdoor, from the kitchen, and enter the church compound via the rectory. We sometimes see the priests, off duty, strumming guitars, grooming gardens, meditating.

I have heard that, in every generation, at least one of the Tías carries on an illicit conduct with some young Pádre, in the much too short, tree-lined path between the women’s earthly kitchen and the men’s holy ground. It is probably not true, but not hard to imagine. I imagine this: A___ herself as a product of the prohibited passions between a Spanish man of the cloth and an otherwise pious native girl. A____’s mother is fourteen and he forty. She is much too tall for her age and her kind, while he is much too lay for his order and for his own good. It’s all very, very easy to imagine, in fact.

As soon as we passed the church, the driver took a quick left and there it was, the house where my mother was born. There is nothing remarkable, or imaginative, about the house, which, like all the others, looks like a girl’s dress, with concrete walls for a skirt, wooden and capiz windows for a top. The house would be quite easy to miss, save for the bougainvilleas, that climb wildly all over the front of the house, adhering brightly colored papery bracts, that persist for a long time as to be permanent, on the walls.

The car pulled up under the colorful vines. And as soon as the rusty door of the car was opened, before we kids could even get off the orange Ford Fiera, we were untangled from the arms of our yayas, lifted over bags and boxes, and ensconced in the warm hugs and kisses of a hundred Tías. Then the rest of the contingent spilled out of the car, and there were even more combinations of tearful embraces, as the decibel of “Kana! Kani!” chatter rose higher and higher.

“Kana sad! Kani sad!”

No, no one was sad, everybody was happy. They were actually just giving instructions on which bags to unload, which ones to leave behind. That was just how everybody was: nothing was ever not a cause for excitement.

In those times, many, many years ago, we only ever traveled in big, noisy, highly-excitable groups. We filled buses, or rented big vans, even if some of the families had their own private cars. The only time there would be a semblance of silence during the trip was when we passed the steep, winding roads, by the sides of mountains; the chatter would then turn to prayer. As soon as the most challenging part of the road to Matalom was passed, the adults instantly recovered: they sang cheesy songs, told tired old stories, and then passed around the miniature “White Flower” bottle, whose oil they dabbed on their temples, and the vapors they inhaled, like junkies, through their noses.

The last time I was in Matalom was with a much smaller, quieter contingent: my two brothers and two sisters, all of whom I had to baby-sit, without my knowing it. My brothers, who were the real junkies, were then both hooked on mind-altering substances and eardrum-busting sounds. My older sister was trying not to depress herself, while waiting for the results of her board exams. My baby sister was, well, still a baby at the age of twelve. We did not know the real reason for our overextended stay in Matalom, until ten days later when, despite the long distance calls to our parents, they still would not come for us or send us money for bus fare back to Tacloban. We eventually realized that hieing us off to Matalom was Mother’s idea of rehabilitation and spiritual exile for her children, as much as for herself, I suppose.

My baby sister was a mere foil, or an accessory, it turned out: for as long as she was with us, no one had the heart to pull the rug from under our feet, even when we older kids started depressing the hell out of everyone with our posturing. Everybody was charmed by my baby sister’s crystal clear singing voice, and entranced with her almost translucent complexion, not to mention the fact that she was named after my mother, decidedly their favorite among A___‘s children .

I, on the other hand, had just graduated from UP then, had no job, and was forever in black, agonizing over the fact that I could not, had no excuse to, be with my boyfriend who was a journalist in Manila. Before we arrived in Matalom, I was bent on showing everyone that this was all a waste of my time, and that I was there against my will. Of course, I was not able to maintain my position for long. Given the situation, I could not exactly complain about being forced to take a “vacation with my siblings in a seaside town, right across a white-sand resort island”, as my mother put it.

Mother literally packed us off, drove us to the terminal, and paid the bus driver who had already been instructed over the phone, to reserve the first row of seats for us, for the four-hour trip to Matalom. Against our will, she convinced us to go to Matalom at the pretext that it was a matter of obligation.

By then, most of my mother’s brothers and sisters had stopped going to Matalom, or, when they did, they would rather rent rooms at the only beach resort in town, than accept the hospitality offered by their cousins who were then caring for the house. We somehow gathered that there was some dispute over the old house beside the church, and over the land on which that house stood. Perhaps it was because my mother was born in that house that she could not let anything or anyone sway her from staying there or from maintaining ties with her mother’s sister, and her cousins.

We all noticed, moreover, that, indeed, Mother never had severe migraine attacks for the rest of the year, after being in Matalom for only a few days. She, therefore, had a well-founded reason for believing that a two-week stay in the place would cure us of our ills as well.

***

Mother was right, as always. We returned to Tacloban, after being deported to and forcefully rehabilitated in Matalom, healthy, happy, and detoxified, with new haircuts to boot. Our Tías cried, probably with as much relief as with sadness, as we waved to them from the bus. Half of the bus passengers were annoyed, the other half amused, that we had overloaded the bus with all sorts of items we accumulated in our two-week rehab-vacation in Matalom: corals, shells and stones from the beach, funky retro clothes from the ukay ukay, big jars of fiesta food, a sack of fruits, and several old photographs and stolen library books. We promised ourselves that we’d go to Matalom at least once every year, and preferably with the entire family. Even with the whole clan, just like old times!

We are still talking about going to Matalom. One of these days, one of these days, we say. Of course, it never happens. If it ever does, it would only ever be as a very small family that we would go, as it would be as a family without my mother. And, without her, I need to be convinced that we can go back to the way things were, with her siblings and their families, like in the old times, traveling together in one big happy pack.

What we never thought would happen, happened. We lost our mother; the migraines were not just migraines. The ties to her family were severed, not strengthened. And I, for my own little, insignificant part, cannot bear to be anywhere near anyone who has hurt her. My older sister, who is kind and generous, once suggested that we should reach out, be the ones to repair the damage. But I refused. I told her that I am still trying to be angry rather than hurt, at everyone who hurt but never angered our mother. For now, I am content to keep these images of my mother’s life and those who peopled it, underneath a film of vapor; content to condense everything onto paper.

I can not even enter the house in Tacloban, where mother grew up, and where we used to live for years, when my grandfather started to get sick, and until he expired. I hear the house is falling apart. The plants have died, the vines have dried up and detached themselves from the walls, and are now hanging limply like skeletons in the air. I hear the piano is missing, and can no longer be found, while the rest of the furniture have been divided senselessly among the siblings – a ten-seater dining table with only four chairs in one house, a platera without the platos in the other, an aparador without the mirror left behind.

I sometimes see unrecognizable men and women, dark sagging figures on wooden chairs, drinking tuba or cheap rum, and getting drunk in the afternoons, throwing up all over the porch, unmindful of people passing the street. I sometimes see faces, peering at the window, from behind dust-encrusted curtains. Most of the time, though, I just look away whenever I sense movement behind the curtains.

***

A____ was already dead, when I took my first trip to her hometown. Since A____’s death, my mother made it a point for us to visit Matalom as often as we could, perhaps as a way for us, her children, to know and remember A____ more. What I do remember is that as soon as we reached Matalom, everyone spoke differently. My own mother’s tongue shifted swiftly from Waray to Kana, and my poor father, who never acquired the facility for the language, was forced to speak an even more foreign language – Tagalog.

I think I only realized the import of my grandmother’s death, and a little bit of my mother’s sense of loss, when I noticed that no one spoke my grandmother’s language in the house in Tacloban. Not even my mother or her brothers and sisters spoke it, when they were in Tacloban. It was a silence that could not be ignored, especially after I had been to Matalom, where Kana was the only language spoken. And, that was when it hit me: A____was the only with that voice and that language, after all, and it was a sound that I would never ever hear, ever again.

Was this also why my mother had on that expression again, when people started speaking to her, in her mother’s tongue, when we arrived in Matalom?

One afternoon, in the old house in Matalom, while everyone was down in the sala, examining yellowed documents, and sepia photographs, I went up to A____’s room, and forced myself to cry. I dabbed on the strong mentholated liniment at the corners of my eyelids until they stung. I forced my eyes to remain open, even when they were tearing uncontrollably, so I could stare at my face in the mirror, to see how well I could imitate my mother’s expression. This was a few years after A___’s death. I don’t know how, in all those years, I had convinced myself that menthol vapor was all it would take.

A____ died when I was three, my mother thirty. My older sister was four, my younger sister had not yet been born. Of course we were all too young, my mother included, to understand what it would take to complete the numbers game: for me to reach my mother’s age when her own mother died, for my older sister to have her own three year old daughter, and for our baby sister to have to play the role of mother, in our almost-abandoned household.

***

Mother would have been sixty today. At sixty, she would have been happily retired from managing her office and would now be applying Oprah-style, positive management, self-help techniques on her husband who always obliged her, and the rest of the household who were helpless against her. At sixty, she would have been a beautiful young grandmother, and still very much a mother.

I see her through the mist: she is still relatively slim, young-looking for her age, and elegant even in her green Hawaiian-print, housedress. I see her tending the garden– or, at least, supervising someone on how to tend the plants and the vines starting to climb all over the front of our house. I see her trying, again, to change the colors of the wall, the location of the door, of our still-unfinished house, inspired by something she saw in a magazine, or in a dream about the old house in Matalom. I see her at the dining table, which she and my father sometimes liked to use as worktable. She is making “thing to do” lists, plans, inspirational prose, reminders and notes for her children, who have started their own families, and need her now more than ever. She is seated next to my father who, at the age of seventy-six, is still writing pleadings for his non-paying clients; is bent on saving other people but, without my mother, cannot function on his own. I see the two of them being torn away from their work, by the kids – not us, but our children! – who are doing something silly, looking so adorable, making a mess of Mother’s make up, breaking some jewelry, perhaps, wearing my father’s oversized leather shoes, trying to run in them, and falling all over their faces. My mother’s expression softens. This is the kind of chaos that appeals to her, and against which she has no power or a single management skill.

It is her sixtieth birthday. We have already been to church for the six a.m. mass. We are taking a trip to Matalom, A____’s hometown, the place where Mother was born. This was her idea, she made arrangements for everyone and everything. It is a beautiful day, just the right amount of sun and wind; a perfect day to travel with the entire family, indeed. And, of course, because it is my mother we are talking about, family means not only us – who are all home for the occasion—, but also friends, cousins, nieces and nephews, uncles and aunts, and grandaunts, too. Of course, she has forgiven and forgotten past misdeeds, everyone looks to her now to keep ties bound, just like they deferred to A____, her mother, to settle family matters.

Of course, too, every now and then, she remembers A_____, her own mother, who did not even live long enough to reach the age of sixty, who barely knew her grandchildren— all beautiful and bright in their own right, although some of them have to be taught how to be happy, sometimes. She cannot help but think of herself, and how she made it without A____. Has it really been three decades? Why, every time, every single time she remembers, it puzzles her that it still hurts, it still stings, no matter how long it has been. It clutches at her heart, and it induces her to fervent prayer, mindless of the three year old granddaughter who is alarmed at the change in her grandmother’s expression. Oh God, may her children never know such sorrow, may she not have to leave this little one yet, kana sad, kani sad…

It is all very, very easy to imagine, in fact.

***
My mother would have been sixty today. And I am alone in an apartment, in a house that has no history. My husband and I live and work in a noisy, wet city, whose language has adopted us. We surround ourselves with people who do not know anything about us, whom we do not know enough about. Sure, we exchange bits and pieces of ourselves, of our families, sometimes; we highlight certain events, we hide others, we mention the colorful characters, we obliterate the rest. We have degrees in language, in cultural studies, in history. We convert to discourse and fiction and poetry what we have inevitably cut ourselves from. It has become a matter of survival.

I am looking for an excuse to celebrate my mother’s life in this city that has nothing to do with her, except that this is where she died, this is where she left us. And, wherever my mother went, she did bring home with her. I am always looking for excuses to round up old friends and whatever family we can pull in from the vicinity; to gather different tongues in one table and let them speak their language, as long as never about it. Kani sad, has become a matter of survival.

Quezon City
September, 2008