“I’ll have you know, this is Isabel Alacran’s favorite shade,” Salvador informs him.
“It’s still tacky,” Uncle Panchito says. He is not fond of Isabel Alacran, whom he considers overrated. He holds up another page from Vanidades so everyone can see. I stop trying on my mother’s perfume and look over to where they are sitting. So far, I’ve put on “Mystere de Rochas,” “Shalimar,” “Joy de Patou,” “Mitsouko,” and “Fleurs de Rocaille” by Caron.
“Now there’s a woman!” Uncle Panchito exclaims. Anita Ekberg is poised with her mouth open, her head with its mane of blond hair tossed back in an arrogant gesture. She is a lioness; she is obviously not ashamed of her enormous breasts, which threaten to pop out of the plunging, heart-shaped cleavage of her strapless evening gown. She’s been photographed by the paparazzi at the premiere of a scandalous new movie, La Dolce Vita. Rita Hayworth is at the same party, standing in the background with some man, whose face is obscured by Anita Ekberg’s voluminous hair. “Oooh,” my mother croons, “let’s go see this when it comes to Manila—”
“Puwede ba—maybe in five years, if we’re lucky,” Salvador says, applying the first coat of silver polish on my mother’s nails. “That movie will never make it to Manila. Didn’t you hear? It’s been condemned by the Archdiocese.”
“Put that down before you break it!” My mother warns, her eyes flashing. I had just begun sniffing her latest acquisition, something musky and awful by Coty.
Uncle Panchito comes to my rescue. “Rio, do you want me to fix your hair? I’m an excellent haircutter—”
“I wish you would do something with that straight hair of hers,” my mother sighs. “I’ve been thinking of taking her to Chiquiting Moreno’s for a permanent.”
I look at Uncle Panchito, aghast. “Permanents are tacky,” he says to my mother, “there’s nothing a little trim won’t fix. Come on, Rio—how about the Audrey Hepburn look?”
Salvador starts in again. “I knew you’d say that. There’s nothing wrong with permanents, Chito. Little girls look adorable with curly hair.”
“I am not a little girl,” I remind him.
“Your idea of a little girl ended with Shirley Temple,” Uncle Panchito adds, in my defense. They all start laughing while he rummages around my mother’s mauve rooms, making a mess of her beautiful things, practically knocking over her precious perfume bottles in a futile search for a pair of scissors. My mother keeps laughing and doesn’t seem to mind.
High Society
WHEN MY FATHER’S MOTHER Socorro Pertierra Gonzaga visits from Spain, we all have to put on our crinolines and white shoes and be on our best behavior. We call her Abuelita; she is a widow like my mother’s mother, Narcisa Divino Logan, whom we address as Lola.
My parents host bienvenida parties in Abuelita’s honor, and the entire Gonzaga clan in Manila attends: Uncle Agustin and Tita Florence, Pucha and Mikey, my father’s other brother, my antisocial Uncle Esteban and Tita Menchu with their grown-up sons, my cousins Eddie, Ricky, and Claudio, who we call “DingDing.” Plus Eddie’s wife Nena and Ricky’s wife, Cristina. Nena smokes too many cigarettes, is painfully thin, and is considered one of the best-dressed women in Manila, second to Isabel Alacran. She survives on a diet of ice-cream and TruColas, which she has for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Ricky’s wife Cristina is a warmer person, very pretty and fleshier than Nena, but not very smart. My mother calls her “Nena’s shadow.” Cristina clings to her side at parties, smiles brightly, and never says a word. She keeps trying to get pregnant. Cousin DingDing is in his early twenties, always comes alone to our parties, and leaves early. He entertains my mother with obscene jokes. My father avoids him. Everyone in the family suspects he likes boys; no one discusses it openly. Uncle Esteban isn’t close to any of his brothers. We only see him when abuelita is in town, which is usually during the Christmas holidays.
Sometimes Uncle Cristobal accompanies Abuelita Socorro from Madrid and stays and stays, driving my mother crazy. Sometimes he travels alone to Manila for one of his many operations. He’s the richest Gonzaga, and also the most frugal. He prefers making the long journey to Manila, halfway around the world from Spain, just so he can save money on hospitals and doctors. He’s never married, the bane of Abuelita Socorro’s existence. My mother says he doesn’t like boys, he just can’t bear the thought of sharing his fortune with anyone. He adores his mother, and like most people I know, is infatuated with mine. My mother is the only one who seems to touch the soft spot in his heart. Once, to everyone’s amazement, he actually brought my mother a pasalubong gift from Spain. In front of everyone, my mother opened the elegantly wrapped box to find a large ceramic ashtray with a matador and bull painted on it, and the words “TOLEDO ESPAÑA.” “Thank you, Bitot,” she said, calling him by his nickname. “Just what I need for the living room! How did you guess?” Uncle Cristobal blushed with pleasure. My mother never once lost her composure.
My relatives make me sick sometimes, kissing and fawning over Abuelita Socorro like they do. Tita Florence and Uncle Agustin think Abuelita Socorro will die soon and leave them her sizeable fortune. My mother, who’s the only one who treats her like a regular person, says none of it matters. She predicts abuelita’s going to die when she’s good and ready, and when she does, she’s going to will all her money to the Church. As for Uncle Cristobal, he’s going to arrange for his money to be buried with him.
Abuelita Socorro and Uncle Cristobal usually stay at Uncle Esteban’s house, which is twice as big as ours and boasts a round swimming pool which no one uses. Every day at noon, mother and son show up without fail at our house, inviting themselves for lunch and usually staying for dinner. Uncle Cristobal calls Pacita “the best cook in Manila.” He keeps trying to hire her away from my mother, and makes no attempt to hide it.
At our Christmas parties, Pacita cooks sumptuous feasts under my mother’s direction. Abuelita Socorro prefers rich foods covered with creamy sauces; she loathes vegetables and fruits of any kind, and never eats anything raw or green. “I feel like a cunejo,” she says, waving away the bowl of salad which Aida mutely holds out to her. “All that lettuce gets stuck in my throat—” Abuelita Socorro makes the sign of the cross, makes clucking sounds with her tongue at her own revelation. Everyone at her guest-of-honor’s table, especially decorated with a red tablecloth and a Christmas-tree centerpiece of blue tulle sprinkled with fake snow, falls silent. My abuelita seldom speaks, and then almost always in the lisping Castilian Spanish Uncle Cristobal has to translate for us: this time she has spoken in English, and it sounds bizarre to us. My father pats her on the arm to reassure her. “Enjoy yourself, Mama—eat whatever you want,” he says to her in Spanish. He is the only one, along with my mother, who does not call her “Mommie Darling.” “That’s right, Freddie—Mommie Darling can eat whatever she pleases,” Uncle Agustin chimes in.
When abuelita’s in town, Pacita roasts baby lechon and bakes three-tiered cakes oozing custard, guava jelly, sugar, and cream. She calls them “Gonzaga cakes.” Pacita also makes the best leche flan in the world—not too sweet, not too eggy, but firm with the bittersweet flavor of her burnt sugar syrup as the perfect counterpoint. Abuelita Socorro practically swoons when she eats it. Leche flan’s all I can stand to eat at these family parties. I help myself to three or four servings. I refuse to eat leche flan in other people’s houses; I never order it in restaurants. After Pacita’s ethereal concoction, all the rest is a disappointment.
“You’re crazy,” Pucha says, piling her plate high from the buffet table with thick slices of pork lechon, crispy pork skin, mounds of rice with lechon gravy, and more pork. “Why don’t you eat real food?” she asks me. What she doesn’t know is that when most of the guests have gone home and only the older family members sit out on the candle-lit terrace reminiscing over coffee and cognac, I will say goodnight to all of them, including Pucha, and go to the little room behind the kitchen for a secret midnight feast with Lola Narcisa. We’ll eat with our hands: rice
, lechon, kangkong adobo, and more leche flan.
The Gonzagas are a carnivorous family. My mother says so, sipping her Johnny Walker Black on the rocks, smiling her brittle smile as she orders the servants to bring out more and more food. My mother doesn’t eat; she nibbles. She sips her drink, elegantly poised in one of her taffeta cocktail dresses, some Balmain replica Uncle Panchito has copied from one of her foreign magazines. A silk cabbage rose is pinned to one side of her waist. To appease my father, she pushes the food around her plate, anticipating every wish of Abuelita Socorro’s and acting absorbed in Uncle Cristobal’s rambling conversation. She knows how to give great parties—warmer and more intimate than the extravagant spectacles organized by Isabel Alacran, and just as memorable. There is a photograph of her sitting at Abuelita Socorro’s table, her head cocked slightly to one side. She is smiling what seems to be a genuine smile. My abuelita is looking down at the food on her plate. There is a man with a twelve-string guitar serenading their table; his eyes are covered by dark sunglasses. Behind the singing man are four more men dressed in identical barong tagalog shirts and sunglasses, playing guitars and bandurias. They are singing something sweet and romantic—I can tell by the look on my mother’s happy face. The musicians are all blind; my mother hires the same blind musicians every year. Abuelita Socorro requests “La Paloma” and “Malagueña.” The blind musicians know all the Spanish ballads, they sing in impeccable Spanish, even Uncle Cristobal is impressed.
Abuelita Socorro has silver hair. She drenches herself in “Maja” perfume, wears her perpetual black widow’s dresses with sheer black stockings and black suede pumps. She has thick ankles, a thick waist, and always wears two strands of pearls. Sometimes she puts on her tiny emerald earrings, the ones her husband gave her, which Tita Florence covets. Abuelita applies a bit of red rouge on her thin lips, and constantly fans herself with a scented, white lace fan depicting hand-painted flamenco dancers in ruffled red dresses. She fans herself and prays. She prays before eating, after eating, and when there is a lull in the conversation and she forgets we are all there. She makes the sign of the cross as an exclamation, or to ward off the devil. She mutters to herself in Spanish and what my mother swears is Visayan. When everyone is talking at once and she is temporarily forgotten, Abuelita Socorro pulls out her miraculous rosary, the kind with beads that glow in the dark. Under her black dress, she wears a scapular pinned to her brassiere, with a remnant from the Shroud of Turin blessed by the Pope. She’s the only Gonzaga who’s ever been to the Vatican. My father says she was very pretty when she was young, a mestiza born of landowning parents in Cebu. I wouldn’t know. There are no pictures left from her youth. All her photo albums were destroyed in a mysterious fire which burned down the original Gonzaga mansion, right before she and my grandfather left Manila to settle in Spain. “It’s a sign from God,” was all she said to my father after the disastrous fire in which nothing was left. My abuelita is a woman of few regrets.
You’d never know it, but Abuelita Socorro is Filipino just like my Lola Narcisa is Filipino. My father’s father, Don Carlos Jose Maria Gonzaga, was born right here in Manila, near Fort Santiago. But he and his wife considered themselves Spaniards through and through.
We used to call him Abuelito, before he died of emphysema. Abuelito scared Raul and me to death when he was alive. He had a scornful face and chain-smoked cigars. That’s probably what killed him. He only spoke Spanish, and never smiled. He came back to Manila to die—which some people thought was strange. Abuelito was buried with great ceremony at Manila Cemetery, in the Grecian-inspired Gonzaga mausoleum. Everyone came to pay their respects: Severo and Isabel Alacran, Jaime and Jacinta Oliveira, General Nicasio Ledesma without his wife. At the funeral service, my brother and I sat with my mother. All the Gonzagas sat together. My father looked like he was about to cry, but never did. My mother cried just a little. She cries when anyone dies, even someone she dislikes. My brother and I were dry-eyed and unsure how we were supposed to feel. We pinched each other to stay awake. As far as we were concerned, an unfriendly stranger had died.
Abuelita makes an effort, but she is a foreigner to me, just the same. She treats me with gingerly affection, and is much warmer toward my brother. She always insists Raul give her a big kiss. “Like you mean it,” she will say. She drags us with her to Baclaran Church for her boring Wednesday novenas. She prays for all our souls. We are polite; we try to please her. Sometimes Pucha comes along. I don’t think abuelita is too fond of her, but she pretends to be, for Uncle Agustin’s sake.
When abuelita kisses me, I always think of funerals. Maybe it’s her overpowering Spanish perfume, watery eyes, pearls, and black dresses. Maybe it’s the miraculous rosary she clutches in her hand. I don’t exactly look forward to her visits. Every year, it’s the same. Sometime around Christmas. “Be nice,” my mother Dolores hisses, “otherwise your father will blame me, as usual…”
Surrender
LOLITA LUNA IS ON her knees. She is trembling, trying hard not to scream. It is always more exciting when she restrains herself. Nicasio Ledesma stands over her. He holds her head up by her mane of unruly hair. He loves her hair—its weight and coarse texture alive in his hands. He dreams of making love to her hair, but doesn’t risk offending her by confessing his dreams. You could never tell with Lolita. She would act as if everything was a joke; she would boast of being game for anything. Then, without warning, she’d turn on you. Act just like a prim schoolgirl from a convent run by nuns. Act just like his wife.
The General gazes at her hardened young face, the face he worships. She is still beautiful, her body still firm and voluptuous in spite of years of abuse. His favorite image of her: flushed like a flower in bloom, coming toward him where he waits in the dark shadows of her bedroom.
It is excruciating. Lolita’s scalp aches with the pressure of her hair slowly being pulled. She shivers. “Enough! You’re hurting me.”
They play this game often. The General arrives after lunch, unwraps the balut covered with brown paper, and pours himself a shot of rum from the cut-glass decanter Lolita keeps filled for him. Lolita is alone—it’s part of her arrangement with the scrupulously discreet General that when he is expected, her servant Mila is always given the day off. Lolita watches him crack open the first egg, sprinkling a little rock salt inside. She grimaces as he swallows the balut juice, then chews and swallows the duck embryo. “Ay, you’re making me sick—” Lolita whines, turning away. “How can you eat that? You’re really baboy.” “Pure protein,” the General chuckles. “You must try one, hija.” Lolita shudders at the thought. “I wish you wouldn’t bring that stuff in my apartment,” she pouts. “Who pays the rent?” the General snaps. He never lets her forget she is a kept woman.
The General takes another balut, pours himself another shot of rum. When he is finished fortifying himself, he asks her to sit on his lap. The potent rum affects him immediately. He is not a man who drinks; he only drinks around Lolita. Lolita starts to sit on his lap, then jumps up as a thought occurs to her. “Wait! Let me put on some music first.” She can never do anything without the proper ambience, the music piped in at just the right level. Everything for her is a scene from a movie: zooms, pans, close-ups, climaxes and confrontations followed by whispered clinches. The General finds her habits greatly amusing—“What costume are you putting on for me today?” he wants to know.
She fiddles with her Japanese stereo system, a gift from another admirer. It is a constant reminder to the General that he is not the only one. If he had his way, he’d throw the damn machine out the window and execute his rival. But his rival is a powerful friend, and he’d surely lose his Lolita. With her, he must always stay one step ahead, must never reveal the real depths of his jealousy.
Lolita flicks a switch and the music fills the room, something old, sad, and sexy by Dinah Washington. Then she disappears into the bathroom. “I’ll be right back,” Lolita promises, blowing him a kiss. She locks the door behind her and stays inside a
long time. The General knows what she is doing and it infuriates him. What a waste of a girl, he thinks to himself. “Hoy, Lolita! Come out right now before I shoot down that door!” he shouts. The door finally opens. The General seethes with anger, but gasps when he sees her standing in the doorway. Lolita Luna is definitely high—her eyes are cloudy and there’s a curious leer on her face. She is also gloriously naked.
Sometimes he slaps her around just a bit, enough to lightly bruise her complacent face or the insides of her ample thighs. He makes her promise to be faithful, and she readily agrees. She means no when she says yes. She enjoys it when he weeps in front of her, a broken-down war hero, a broken-down old man with a young man’s body, too many moles on his face and a reputation as an expert torturer that intrigues Lolita. “Tell me about it,” she pleads, a child begging for a bedtime story. “Is it true what they say? Do you like it? What else do you do in that camp of yours?”
The General is horrified by her perverse fascination. “It’s wrong,” he tells her, “absolutely wrong. Why do you ask these morbid questions?” Lolita, he warns her, you must be careful. You must try to be more discreet. It is the only time she is genuinely afraid of him. He senses this, and regrets the change in her mood. He compliments her on her latest movie, which he has just seen. He insists that she promise not to accept any more gifts from Severo Alacran. “It’s all too incestuous,” the General complains. “Don’t you have any respect?” Lolita giggles. She asks him to pay for a dress she has ordered. “You’ll like it,” she assures him, “It’s very tight and very French. I’ll let you fuck me while I wear it.” The General is annoyed; he dislikes it when she talks this way, but agrees to give her the money. Sometimes he feels like she is the daughter he never had.
“And how is your wife?” Lolita Luna asks, too high to care or remember that he has forbidden her even to mention his wife’s name. The General frowns. “Putang ina,” he curses softly. “What have you been snorting and smoking? Let me see your arm—” He lunges at her, but Lolita pulls away. “Come here,” he commands. She starts to retreat to the sanctuary of her bathroom, but the old man is too strong and too fast for her. He grabs her in his arms, staring fiercely into her sleepy eyes. She crumples beneath him. They thrash on the floor, the old man on top of her. “I love you,” the General finally reveals to her. She wonders how it will all end, and when.
Dogeaters Page 10
