The Hour of Daydreams

by Renee Macalino Rutledge

  She was young again. Naked beside Andres. She wrapped her arms around him and he tightened his embrace, both of them fighting to be closer. Then, nothing but the need existed, each kiss fueling the need for more kisses, their tongues searching for the source of that need, stoking it, again and again, until she disappeared into the flames, neither dreaming nor waking, everywhere and nowhere at once.

  She lived with him there for years, dreaming an endless dream, never losing the need for his skin, his smell, his taste. But all along she remembered someone else, Manolo, her son. She could not stay in the dream without him. And so the lovemaking changed, fueled by a different kind of need: to conceive her son and give birth to him again. Become the mother of her dreams.

  No conception followed. She remained barren. She grew older, forgetting to wake up. Worrying that she would lose Manolo forever. He became a memory, a secret, not for her dreaming world to know. Her son was someone she had dreamed in another life, buried and almost forgotten. Sometimes she couldn’t distinguish his having lived from history or myth, dream or reality.

  One day, Iolana considered that perhaps she wasn’t barren after all. Perhaps Andres was the defective one. Iolana considered this possibility and the lengths she was willing to take to make Manolo real. She called upon the gods, night after night, begging for a son. She cut her hair, which had grown to the length of a blanket, sweeping against her feet. She sent the strands up into the wind as an offering to the gods.

  In her dream she dreamed of a beautiful winged man, youthful and rippling, with shiny, raven feathers. He came for her at the window when Andres was sleeping. She climbed upon his back and flew with him to the doors of heaven, into the rooms within.

  When she awoke from the dream within her dream, there was a single black feather on her pillow. She quickly looked at Andres, afraid he would see the feather, learn her betrayal. She placed the feather on her tongue and swallowed it. Afterward she began to grow, in roundness and in happiness, knowing that her son, Manolo, was finally on the way. She vowed to guard her secret, the secret of Manolo’s true father, through every layer of life. She would keep Andres’s trust intact, their love whole.

  Iolana’s birthing pains were so powerful that they woke her from the dream. She sat up in bed, drenched in sweat, still aching within the depths of her abdomen. She touched it—a loose pouch, not the bursting belly of her sleep. She looked at Andres, sleeping peacefully, then searched above and beneath her pillow. No feather.

  Iolana got up from bed and walked to the living room, certain to find nothing but what had been there the day before, a shelf with Tala’s silly stones, dried flowers, bamboo-leaf figurines, candles on rickety little stands. What she saw was impossible, the box of her dreams, sitting on the shelf, small and red, its key attached like a finger curling, inviting her in.

  She felt the heat rise along with her desire, an ecstatic nightmare, reminiscent of winged men and heaven’s rooms.

  Iolana could not tell if she was awake or dreaming. Only the secret was real. It had followed her in life, in dreams, in the sleep of dreams, in their waking confusion. She would guard her secret through every layer, each as real as the last.

  Since he was a boy, Andres had enjoyed women, not just their looks and smell, but their things. Like this new red box, so pretty.

  He remembered trying on his mother’s high-heeled shoes, her lipstick, and her clothes, all the while feeling closer to her laugh, holding her softness against him like fabric.

  After he married Iolana, he liked opening a drawer and seeing her barrettes and brushes arranged side by side with his comb and razor blades. He relished the sight of beaded necklaces hanging from the opening of her jewelry box, the makeup scattered on the counter. He found it comforting to live in the company of a woman, to be surrounded by the essence of her femininity.

  While Tala was out and Iolana was napping, while Luchie was in the yard scrubbing clothes, he lingered before the living room shelf, finding traces each had left behind—three butterflies shedding wispy cocoons. Andres thought of Manolo. His son had always been a serious boy, never one to stop and observe the little things around him. So caught up in his thoughts. Andres himself had never been a man of conflict. Perhaps this difference between the two of them was the reason they had never gotten close—unlike father and son, more like acquaintances living under the same roof.

  Life was simple, he wanted to tell Manolo now. Meant to be enjoyed. Women were meant to be enjoyed. Women were, by nature, complicated beings, but this alone was no reason to complicate a marriage.

  He put the box down and picked up the shell Iolana had kept on the shelf for years, taking pleasure from the shape and weight, the spiky edges that warded off intruders, the beautiful coral and white colors that attracted admirers. Part of a vast, impenetrable ocean. He could only listen to its echo from the opening, catch a hint of its mystery. This, to him, was enough. Manolo, he thought, always wanted more. Would not be satisfied until he had plunged headlong into the deep, captured the source of that mystery for himself.

  Perhaps that was why his son had chosen to become a doctor.

  Andres liked the cleanliness of the shelf, Luchie’s work. No more dust building on memories. Tala brought new things to the shelf, miniature bouquets of flowers that she had dried, delicate enough for fairies. Bamboo leaf patterns he turned over and over in his hands. Candles. So pretty. He sniffed each one. They smelled good. And the red box with a key. He held it again, turning it over in his hands. Lovely craftsmanship, made for an angel—a woman.

  Andres wanted to tell Manolo to take the time to look at it, the box, for instance, look at the things inside his house. The workings of his woman.

  Marriage was, after all, like the shelf in the living room: You let a woman in and then you share it. Reorganize, reshuffle, leave room for the barrettes and the jewelry, the makeup and the pretty red boxes.

  Andres had always enjoyed his Iolana, how soft she was to the touch, how easily she laughed. How obviously she loved him. Even the way she fought with him or among the other women, because of him.

  Manolo needed to let go of his hang-ups, loosen up when it came to Tala. She was just a girl. She would grow old, and so would her beauty.

  Andres enjoyed touching the surface of the box. He didn’t bother opening it, imagining and then believing in the image of its hollowness. Objects were simply objects, men were men, women were women. It was all so simple and for now—for the simple here and now—so divine.

  5. Ghosts

  Tala placed her secrets in the box. In dreams, the box would open, spilling her secrets into the world.

  They began—the secrets, the dreams like mist and muddy water. They began with a man in the water.

  When she’d swum at the river with her sisters all those nights before, as her lover watched, she had seen him looking up from the river’s depths—a man in the water. At first, she thought he was a reflection from above. She had looked up, seeing nothing but trees, their limbs reaching down for a taste of the river, and beyond them, a patchwork of stars. Then her younger sister Ligaya began splashing along the river’s edge, inviting wave after wave, and the man faded into a billowy mass. She dove beneath the surface, expecting to find him there, holding his breath and waiting to share a secret with her. She re-emerged, unsatisfied.

  Afterward she stayed in the water night after night, long past her sisters, hoping to see the river deity’s face looking up at her from the bottom half of the world. Each night, her wish was fulfilled.

  She looked into his eyes, certain he looked back at her. He returned her smiles. Every now and then a leaf fell from the trees up above, landing on his countenance and disfiguring it with a succession of spirals. When the water settled, his face returned, constant as the moon. He never spoke.

  Tala spent her days waiting for the flight to the river. She spent her time at the river guarding his image, knowing he revealed himself only to her. Her sisters never saw her man in the water, and
Tala’s love grew with the knowledge that the fates danced just for the two of them.

  One night she vowed never to leave him. She would languish for an eternity by the riverbank, faithful to her one true love. That same night, her sisters flew away without her. It would teach her a lesson, they had said, and she’d learn what it felt like to be left alone, with only herself for company.

  Only Ligaya’s wingtips had drooped; she was reluctant to leave Tala behind. Tala comforted her with her biggest smile. In response, Ligaya’s wingtips perked up slightly. Her smile was not a real smile, but a summons to be brave for Tala. At her younger sister’s concern, Tala had considered giving in and flying home. She watched Ligaya’s small frame soar into the night till she could no longer distinguish her from the stars.

  After her sisters left, Tala felt the sting of their disapproval. But she wandered barefoot on the damp earth and enjoyed the feeling that ensued—as if the minutes and seconds belonged to her. She walked with her arms crossed on her chest, embracing herself. When she discovered that her wings were gone, Tala was not surprised. She had willed it so.

  She searched for the man in the water and waited, trusting in his arrival. As she searched every corner of the glassy surface, she heard footsteps approach and turned to see the river deity himself. No longer a deity, but a man. She greeted him with a calm suffused with joy, believing she had willed him to life, thankful that her lover was no longer cursed, no longer imprisoned by his own likeness.

  Well before her mother-in-law fried milkfish and garlic rice for breakfast, filling the rooms with salt and smoke, Tala loved morning and its distinct smell. It was an earthy smell, of skin that had breathed into linen over the course of a night. She learned her own smell through the morning sheets, now tinted with the musky hints of tobacco smoke that Manolo carried into bed with him every night.

  She was lying in bed with her eyes closed, pretending to be asleep. Breathing in the morning, but without her habitual pleasure. Manolo was not so distant now, no longer leaving for work without bothering to wake her as he’d done all the previous week. But the presentiment stayed with her, the worry he would relapse into a dismissive withdrawal without her knowing why.

  She listened now as he rustled around the room. A drawer slid open then shut, followed by the light flap of clothing, the heavier thud of shoes. For a moment the sounds disappeared. She felt his soft lips press against her cheek and opened her eyes. She reached for his hand and squeezed, and he kissed her once more before leaving.

  She had wanted to show him the box much earlier, at her first opportunity. But the day she brought it with her, he’d gotten home from work especially early. Tala had been thrilled to see him, showing him the things she bought from the market, one by one. He had not indulged her as he normally did, but looked at her purchases with something like disdain. She thought the box might shake the unusual cloud dampening his spirits, but she’d chosen to wait for just the right moment to present it.

  It was a perfect square, a shade of red comparable to lava. The sides were engraved with alibata script, the strokes resembling pictures rather than words—here a bird, there a hand in gesture, expressing a song or state of being. A key extended formidably from the lock, brass-colored, not burnished like gold, but distinguished and ornate. It seemed like a key that had outlived the centuries, one that could have opened the first door ever built.

  She’d found her opportunity nearly a week later. Andres and Iolana were out visiting Iolana’s brother, Little Roland, two barrios north, and Luchie was napping in the living room. Tala’s husband had been in a reflective mood, unoccupied and sitting in one corner of their bed with the Manlapaz Bulletin. He’d enjoyed an early break from work to sip iced tea and relax in shorts and bare feet. Up until then she’d been skirting around his temper, a quiet collaborator to their invisible quarrel. She knew better than to get defensive; prodding him with complaints, simply to get his attention, would only make him more sour. With his guard down, it was a good time to charm him into a better mood. She approached him nonchalantly with the box in one hand.

  “Promise not to open it,” she had said. “There’s a surprise in here for you, but it’s not ready yet. Promise you won’t spoil the surprise?”

  Manolo acquiesced easily. He glanced at the box without interest and seemed to forget it in the next instant.

  “Don’t bother me with surprises. I prefer to know what’s coming.”

  “In any case, I’ll put the box on the living room shelf. No peeking. I’ll know if you do.”

  Manolo linked his hands together and placed them behind his head. He leaned back against the pillows and looked at her. While his body seemed worn by exhaustion, every sign of fatigue had left his eyes.

  “When I get you presents, I let you pick them out yourself,” he said. “Then I know for sure you’ll like them. I never understood surprises.”

  “This one you’ll like.” She joked with him. “Like a good wife, I know what you like even more than you do.”

  “If you say so.” He moved to where she sat on the edge of the bed, speaking the words near her, as if he wanted her to hear them with her lips rather than her ear, words so close to her mouth she could’ve spoken them herself. She thrilled at the warmth of his breath against her face, realizing how many days it had been since they’d last made love. Her body tensed with anticipation as he began to kiss her neck, slowly unhinging her with his lips, tuning her like an instrument to the exquisite sensation of his hands. He cupped her breasts and cradled the nape of her neck, guiding her onto the mattress as she abandoned her body’s weight. At the gentle probing of his tongue, any possibility of resistance melted away. She pulled him in, with every part of herself seeking every part of him—seeking, needing, loving—forgetting all else.

  And each day since, she’d watched him walk past the box. It might as well have been the wall on which the shelf was propped, something he took for granted, not needing to look at twice because he already knew it was there, supporting the foundation of the house. She wasn’t sure this was the reaction she had hoped for. If he had wanted to know what was inside, if he had been the least bit curious, he would have shown stronger proof of his resolve in agreeing to keep whatever hid beneath the lid a mystery.

  He was not the man in the water, but a stranger. By now, the man in the water knew her well enough to meet her eye to eye. He would have approached her directly. Her first instinct toward the stranger was suspicion. Then she saw that he averted his eyes in embarrassment. If he intended to speak, the words couldn’t get past his quivering chin. Even his hands shook.

  He had the type of face that seemed younger than his years, betrayed by a few strands of gray beneath his ears. He was slender, with contours that signified a man’s strength. Sadness showed in his eyes, but not a defeated sadness. She sensed that his timidity wasn’t merely cowardice—that he was a man full of feeling.

  She decided to let the stranger be. She knew he wasn’t going to harm her. They were together by chance, two anonymous callers paying homage to the river.

  She continued searching for the man in the water. He’d kept her waiting all night, so she was surprised at how calm she felt. She waded knee-deep, navigating the periphery of the river with her head and shoulders bent, looking in. Here the river swelled to the width of a narrow pool. Only at the very center was it deep enough to tread water in. The path from the fields led to one bank; the other bank ended at the edge of a tall slope leading to a thicker grove of trees that gathered at the foothills. It slowed to a trickle where there was nothing but pebbles and stones, then swelled again farther along its path. On the other end the water disappeared beneath a mass of reeds.

  She swam toward the center, diving in and up again. Her dress clung to her like scales. It bunched between her knees, dripping water over her bare legs when she waded the shallows.

  The stranger had found a flat boulder to sit on. Ligaya had used the same boulder as a stove, bed, or operating table, depend
ing on the game she was playing.

  As she searched she realized the stranger’s presence never left her. She was surprised at this. He was quiet and kept to himself. She’d expected to forget he was even there. Instead she sensed him in every motion of her body, imagining his sad, engulfing eyes watching her every move. It was a strange feeling, but more and more she realized she liked having him near. She felt comfortable in his presence. That sense of comfort around another person, a stranger, was a new feeling, a nice feeling. Her curiosity began to flutter like dragonflies in her belly, their wings gaining momentum and speed.

  She couldn’t help but glance his way. She saw that his chin quivered a little less and his gaze had begun to settle away from the shadows and treetops. It was as if he were in his own room with the lights off, and his eyes had finally adjusted to the darkness.

  Now he sat with his legs propped up and an arm resting on each knee. His hands dangled from his wrists like sleeping fish. The sight of his hands relaxed, no longer shaking, made her happy.

  But she came back to herself with the impression she had forgotten something. The man in the water, still missing, distracted her. She thought of the stranger on the rocks as she circled the edges of the water, from deep to shallow and back again. She was conscious of his posture, the particular sounds that caught his attention—a stone tumbling, a lizard slipping across the weeds.

  He caught her watching him and she saw that this time, he did not look away. His eyes were full of life. She felt a million points of contact on her skin from his eyes alone. Her throat felt stuck, as if the air could no longer reach her lungs.

  Then she only pretended to search, but the man in the water had become a billowy mass, elusive and fickle.

  Tala stayed in bed, thinking with her eyes open. The box could not be a test of honesty and resolve if her husband did not feel tempted to open it. She reflected upon his aloofness following the day she brought it home. She delved into possible reasons for his displeasure, allowing the tiniest prick of guilt to stab her conscience. She kept much from Manolo—this she knew. The long afternoons with her sisters at the stall, when they traded news and gossip, sending Baitan to buy them snacks while they fanned their feet and waited for customers. The growing interest she’d taken to healing herbs, oils, and flowers and her budding hopes to join her sisters’ work. And, of course, the knowledge of those sumptuous nights long before, when the river buzzed with fireflies and her body’s undeniable static.