“What are you muttering there, hoy?”
The “semiotic” as opposed to the “symbolic” which defines identity—a rationalised self-representation? Well, who am I anyway—?
“Aysus, buzzing to the wall again, like a mosquito— who are you? Of course you’re my granddaughter, who, after flying to your Australia to write—what’s it again— a tisis? Sounds like an affliction of the lungs to me, tisis!”
“Thesis, Grandmother.”
“Whatever—and now she comes home with a strange tongue which she practises on her poor Grandmother. Ano ka, you turning up your nose on me?”
Six-thirty p.m., past the Angelus, and Gran was sulking. In the tropical dusk outside, her banana orchard came alive with hearts minted into red-gold, fake-gold petticoats unfolding, the rest of them still closed. Ay, the smell of dry leaves burning, the murmur of dialect, the occasional chirping of the first nightbird, the comfort of tropical domesticity…and the time it took to prepare a meal there—from scratch!
I walked to my poor, stooped Grandmother slaving before the stove and hugged her from behind, playfully lifting her thin frame—she was oh-so-sweet with coconut milk, fish sauce and lemon grass.
“Hoy, pagparakaraw-karaw baya—put me down! Put me down!”
I told her it was not a put-down when I spoke to her about what I learned from the West. Look at me, Gran, I made it—there in White Land. Western thought has allowed me entry into their arts, their academies.
“Their thought? What about your thought, our thought back here? Aber daw, are they interested in what I have to say as well, ha?”
“That’s beside the point, Grandmother. Look, Western thought can be so—so empowering. How to explain— yes, for instance, feminism had saved me—”
“Ano? Pimini—piminisim? Just what are you saying, you silly—”
“Oh, yes, Gran, here’s a perfect example. Feminism had saved me from the enslavement of the kitchen and had opened inspiring and once unimaginable doors for me—and it could have saved you, too, you know, from all this toiling before your old bloody stove, if only—”
“Anong pakiaram ninda—I love my stove. LEAVE MY STOVE ALONE!”
Tough customer, of course, my Grandma who seemed to cook forever. I never broached the subject again, my “silly piminism”, she called it, not after she said I had gouged out her heart with strange talk. Yes, of course, none of that stuff and, if she were here, certainly none of these fancy squiggles on paper, this in-flight poetic gush about her banana heart—why not put it in the wok instead, child?
Yesterday, Grandmother plucked it,
desecrating aesthetics and romance,
this sacrilegious twist
But yesterday,
Grandmother plucked it,
stripped it to the core,
desecrating aesthetics and romance,
and cut it in two—
See, Gran, here’s the proof of my loyalty. I’m due to land in Sydney, but I’m still writing about your banana heart and your irrepressible kitchen discourse, naturally—
One half she served fresh,
dressed in vinegar;
the other, she cooked in coconut milk and chilli
while humming about young girls
who fly to learn strange ideas
in a stranger tongue.
“Necessity, Grandmother. Where I’m at, I need to speak this tongue, but the mouth is still your granddaughter’s, of course—hilinga baya—yes, just take a look—”
“Ay, my clever, foolish one,” she said, pulling my chin in that familiar affectionate gesture. “You are no longer you, and you know that—here—” she knocked at her heart then went about preparing the coconut. She would not look at me.
“Hey, Gran, give me that. I’ll grate it.” I could smell a sulk a mile away.
“What would you know—?”
She had stuck to the old ways. For years, I had advised her to get an electric coconut grater, but, no—it still had to be a tedious job on what we call a “horse”, a makeshift, low and very narrow rectangular seat with a fringed steel blade at one end.
“Haven’t done this for a long time, but I’m still quite good at it—see?”
Of course, a knowledge in the bones, like the taste and smell of home cooking, as sharply etched in the memory as dried fish frying. The whole house smogs over with the delicious stench and you know you’re home again, in the bones.
“Hoy, make it fine, baya. No, not that way…too big, those shreds…ano nang…,” she scolded.
“I know, I know. Nasa buto, Grandma. Grating a coconut is a knowledge in the bones—trust me.”
But something strange stirred in them, the marrow was changing colour. I heard it, saw it, smelled it. My English she considered un-Filipino and my “accented dialect”, she found even more strange—“siguro, you now have a new heartbeat as well, and we’re all out of step here”—then, in her banana orchard, the memory of the white light of Australian winter, pale as a naked pear, and all the shades of Oz crept in. And the fragrance of fish and chips with vinegar impinged on the sharp sourness of her fish soup, rose-coloured with young, sweet potato leaves—
“Hoy, what are you daydreaming about, ha? You want to grate your hand, too, you, silly girl?” She called out while shredding the banana heart. “Quickly now with that grating or we’ll be eating at midnight—ay, too slow, too slow—”
Later, plying me with more rice,
she said, “Here. Two dishes
from one heart.”
It was a quiet last meal together. But I’ve grown accustomed to this. Every time I arrive for my yearly visit, she’s all chatter, then, at the end of my stay, she cooks all my favourite dishes, fusses and scolds. And during the meal, which begins with her urging me to eat more, eat more, you skinny girl, her speech is reduced to monosyllables. Then she clams up. The next day, she always refuses to take me to the airport—
Later, plying me with more rice,
in the dialect, she said,
“Honi. Duwang putahe hale sa sarong puso.”
“Here. Two dishes from one heart.”
I could not eat,
not on a hollow growing,
peculiar in my breast.
Flight PR 278, Sydney Airport,
10 June 1996
A poem at touchdown, how about that, Granny-O? Yes, I have gouged out your heart all right, your banana heart now duly transformed into fancy squiggles on paper. Of course, everything is a bloody grist for the mill, really, everything—trust me.
The Sadness Collector
And she will not stop eating, another pot, another plate, another mouthful of sadness, and she will grow bigger and bigger, and she will burst.
On the bed, six-year-old Rica braces herself, waiting for the dreaded explosion—
Nothing. No big bang. Because she’s been a good girl. Her tears are not even a mouthful tonight. And maybe their neighbours in the run-down apartment have been careful, too. From every pot and plate, they must have scraped off their leftover sighs and hidden them somewhere unreachable. So Big Lady can’t get to them. So she can be saved from bursting.
Every night, no big bang really, but Rica listens anyway.
The house is quiet again. She breathes easier, lifting the sheets slowly from her face—a brow just unfurrowing, but eyes still wary and a mouth forming the old, silent question—are you really there? She turns on the lamp. It’s girlie kitsch like the rest of the decor, from the dancing lady wallpaper to the row of Barbie dolls on a roseate plastic table. The tiny room is all pink bravado, hoping to compensate for the warped ceiling and stained floor. Even the unhinged window flaunts a family of pink paper rabbits.
Are you there?
Her father says she never shows herself to anyone. Big Lady only comes when you’re asleep to eat your sadness. She goes from house to house and eats the sadness of everyone, so she gets too fat. But there’s a lot of sadness in many houses, it just keeps on growing each day, so she c
an’t stop eating, and can’t stop growing, too.
Are you really that big? How do you wear your hair?
Dios ko, if she eats all our mess, Rica, she might grow too fat and burst, so be a good girl and save her by not being sad—hoy, stop whimpering, I said, and go to bed. Her father is not always patient with his storytelling.
All quiet and still now. She’s gone.
Since Rica was three, when her father told her about Big Lady just after her mother left for Paris, she has always listened intently to all the night-noises from the kitchen. No, that sound is not the scurrying of mice— she’s actually checking the plates now, lifting the lid off the rice pot, peeking into cups for sadness, both overt and unspoken. To Rica, it always tastes salty, like tears, even her father’s funny look each time she asks him to read her again the letters from Paris.
She has three boxes of them, one for each year, though the third box is not even half-full. All of them tied with Paris ribbons. The first year, her mother sent all colours of the rainbow for her long, unruly hair, maybe because her father did not know how to make it more graceful. He must have written her long letters, asking about how to pull the mass of curls away from the face and tie them neatly the way he gathered, into some semblance of order, his own nightly longings.
It took some time for him to perfect the art of making a pony-tail. Then he discovered a trick unknown to even the best hairdressers. Instead of twisting the bunch of hair to make sure it does not come undone before it’s tied, one can rotate the whole body. Rica simply had to turn around in place, while her father held the gathered hair above her head. Just like dancing, really.
She never forgets, talaga naman, the aunties whisper among themselves these days. A remarkable child. She was only a little thing then, but she noticed all, didn’t she, never missed anything, committed even details to memory. A very smart kid, but too serious, a sad kid.
They must have guessed that, recently, she has cheated on her promise to behave and save Big Lady. But only on nights when her father comes home late and drunk, and refuses to read the old letters from Paris—indeed, she has been a very good girl. She’s six and grown up now, so, even if his refusal has multiplied beyond her ten fingers, she always makes sure that her nightly tears remained small and few. Like tonight, when she hoped her father would come home early, as he promised again. Earlier, Rica watched TV to forget, to make sure the tears won’t amount to a mouthful. She hates waiting. Big Lady hates that, too, because then she’ll have to clean up till the early hours of the morning.
Why Paris? Why three years—and even more? Aba, this is getting too much now. The aunties can never agree with her mother’s decision to work there, on a fake visa, as a domestic helper—ay, naku, taking care of other people’s children, while, across the ocean, her own baby cries herself to sleep? Talaga naman! She wants to earn good money and build us a house. Remember, I only work in a factory… Her father had always defended his wife, until recently, when all talk about her return was shelved. It seems she must extend her stay, because her employer might help her to become “legal”. Then she can come home for a visit and go back there to work some more—
The lid clatters off the pot. Beneath her room, the kitchen is stirring again. Rica sits up on the bed—the big one has returned? But she made sure the pot and plates were clean, even the cups, before she went to bed. She turns off the lamp to listen in the dark. Expectant ears, hungry for the phone’s overseas beep. Her mother used to call each month and write her postcards, also long love letters, even if she couldn’t read yet. With happy snaps, of course. Earlier this year, she sent one of herself and the new baby of her employer.
Cutlery noise. Does she also check them? This has never happened before, her coming back after a lean meal. Perhaps, she’s licking a spoon for any trace of saltiness, searching between the prongs of a fork. Unknown to Rica, Big Lady is wise, an old hand in this business. She senses that there’s more to a mouthful of sadness than meets the tongue. A whisper of salt, even the smallest nudge to the palate, can betray a century of hidden grief. Perhaps, she understands that, for all its practice, humanity can never conceal the daily act of futility at the dinner table. As we feed continually, we also acknowledge the perennial nature of our hunger. Each time we bring food to our mouths, the gut-emptiness that we attempt to fill inevitably contaminates our cutlery, plates, cups, glasses, our whole table. It is this residual contamination, our individual portions of grief, that she eats, so we do not die from them—but what if we don’t eat? Then we can claim self-sufficiency, a fullness from birth, perhaps. Then we won’t betray our hunger.
But Rica was not philosophical at four years old, when she had to be cajoled, tricked, ordered, then scolded severely before she finished her meal, if she touched it at all. Rica understood her occasional hunger strikes quite simply. She knew that these dinner quarrels with her father, and sometimes her aunties, ensured dire consequences. Each following day, she always made stick drawings of Big Lady with an ever-increasing girth, as she was sure the lady had had a big meal the night before.
Mouth curved downward, she’s sad like her meals. No, she wears a smile, she’s happy because she’s always full. Sharp eyes, they can see in the dark, light-bulb eyes, and big teeth for chewing forever. She can hardly walk, because her belly’s so heavy, she’s pregnant with leftovers. No, she doesn’t walk, she flies like a giant cloud and she’s not heavy at all, she only looks heavy. And she doesn’t want us to be sad, so she eats all our tears and sighs. But she can’t starve, can she? Of course, she likes sadness, it’s food.
Fascination, fear and a kinship drawn from trying to save each other. Big Lady saves Rica from sadness; Rica saves Big Lady from bursting by not being sad. An ambivalent relationship, confusing, but certainly a source of comfort. And always Big Lady as object of attention. Those days when Rica drew stick-drawings of her, she made sure the big one was always adorned with pretty baubles and make-up. She even drew her with a Paris ribbon to tighten her belly. Then she added a chic hat to complete the picture.
Crimson velvet with a black satin bow. Quite a change from all the girlie kitsch—that her mother had dredged from Paris’ unfashionable side of town? The day it arrived in the mail, Rica was about to turn six. A perfect Parisienne winter hat for a tiny head in the tropics. It came with a bank-draft for her party.
She did not try it on, it looked strange, so different from the Barbies and pink paper rabbits. This latest gift was unlike her mother, something was missing. Rica turned it inside out, searching—on TV, Magic Man can easily pull a rabbit or a dove out of his hat, just like that, always. But this tale was not part of her father’s repertoire. He told her not to be silly when she asked him to be Magic Man and pull out Paris—but can she eat as far as Paris? Can she fly from here to there overnight? Are their rice pots also full of sad leftovers? How salty?
Nowadays, her father makes sure he comes home late each night, so he won’t have to answer the questions, especially about the baby in the photograph. So he need not improvise further on his three-year-old tall tale.
There it is again, the cutlery clunking against a plate —or scraping the bottom of a cup? She’s searching for the hidden mouthfuls and platefuls and potfuls. Cupboards are opened. No, nothing there, big one, nothing —Rica’s eyes are glued shut. The sheets rise and fall with her breathing. She wants to leave the bed, sneak into the kitchen and check out this most unusual return and thoroughness.
That’s the rice pot being overturned—
Her breaths make and unmake a hillock on the sheets—
A plate shatters on the floor—
Back to a foetal curl, knees almost brushing chin—
Another plate crashes—
She screams—
The pot is hurled against the wall—
She keeps screaming as she runs out of the room, down to the kitchen—
And the cutlery, glasses, cups, more plates—
Big Lady’s angry, Big Lady’s hungr
y, Big Lady’s turning the house upside down—
Breaking it everywhere—
Her throat is weaving sound, as if it were all that it ever knew—
“SHUT UP—!”
Big Lady wants to break all to get to the heart of the matter, where it’s saltiest. In the vein of a plate, within the aluminium bottom of a pot, in the copper fold of a spoon, deep in the curve of a cup’s handle—
Ropes and ropes of scream—
“I SAID, SHUT UP!”
Her cheek stings. She collapses on the floor before his feet.
“I didn’t mean to, Dios ko po, I never meant to—”
Her dazed eyes make out the broken plates, the dented pot, the shards of cups, glasses, the cutlery everywhere—
He’s hiccupping drunkenly all over her—
“I didn’t mean to, Rica, I love you, baby, I’ll never let you go—” His voice is hoarse with anger and remorse.
“She came back, Papa—”
“She can’t take you away from me—”
“She’s here again—”
“Just because she’s ‘legal’ now—”
“She might burst, Papa—”
“That whore—!” His hands curl into fists on her back.
Big Lady knows, has always known. This feast will last her a lifetime, if she does not burst tonight.
Before the Moon Rises
Because I am deaf, they think I cannot hear. These men in green bark words past, above, around, but never towards me. It is all very sad, the blankness of their eyes, the tightness of their lips and their knuckles as white as eyeballs. Move, move, they urge everyone with the butt of their guns. I sit on my bamboo stairs and watch them oversee the villagers filing past with their meagre possessions. Everyone is leaving home while the chickens roost, because the government does not believe in chickens roosting. Not even in lighting the evening fire to boil the rice. Nor in gathering for the evening meal. It only believes in catching rebels. The soldiers said so when they ordered the whole village to evacuate. Away, away, the guns waved towards the forest. Quick, before the moon rises. And no one must come back.
White Turtle Page 11
