When these rituals disappear, like water from a spent river, their markings are left on the sand bank, evidence of their passing through the thickness of time. Those who remember make stories from the river’s impressions, and the stories give the rituals fresh life, born anew with each retelling—another kiss from a forsaken lover, another bow to the god of strength or the goddess of beauty, another howl for revenge beneath a high full moon. The stories themselves change shape, passing through many mouths, forming alternate impressions. Some become children, born into life, a cultural gene and ritual offspring; others become fairy tales—the exotic and wistful yearning of those who no longer remember and never believed, except in some distant realm of the imagination.
Before the seven sisters seeped into this abstract world of the what-ifs and the never-were, they made a series of distinct impressions, years of silhouettes cemented into countless moist-eyed witnesses who stumbled upon humid nocturnal visions. There was the married farmer, rushing to the field to harvest the generous fruits of his lover. She was not a young and innocent, wide-eyed beauty—she was older than his tender-aged wife. Widowed and experienced in bed, her body pliable and responsive to his touch, she showed him the strength of his body’s vibrations when matched with her own unhindered release. On his way to meet her, the eager farmer saw the sisters for the first time—first a light from a shooting star, colossal as a falling planet. Followed by another, then another, remarkable enough to stop the lustful visions that had possessed him since dawn. By the fourth star, time had slowed, enough for him to see a woman’s shape diving into a cluster of darkness beyond the open field, enough for him to wonder if the fall of women would go on to eternity, if it had in fact, been raining this way for all time.
There was the woman living alone at the edge of a long brown fence that bordered one side of her entire neighborhood, the woman they’d labeled an “old maid,” all day sewing dresses for her long visit to death’s house, when she would be the most polite visitor of all, pleasantly at home, never once complaining about the draft or the dirty spoon. She had never been bitter or beautiful, was rarely happy or unsatisfied—she’d walked always on a straight line in one direction, expecting no more or less than to be, and one night she decided to walk out of bed and out her front door in house slippers, slippers that soon grew wet, then soggy, then muddy as she stepped across night slugs in the dark alleys and animal feces in the fertile grasses, realizing after a time that she had made it finally to the other side of that long brown fence, feeling night air on her skin, hearing hooves and tapping, bats screeching and distant monkeys squealing, strange melodies of the night, more cacophonous than she had imagined. Her hair fell out of its neat pins, reaching down to her waist, and her nightdress felt like a shimmer of silk against her bare body. She reached the edge of a small forest, where she found the sisters and watched them bathe, then undressed herself to join them. Years of physical neglect peeled away with her gown, and her body felt young again; enveloped by their swimming subtle forms, she wished never to emerge. But as she drifted to sleep in the whirlpool, they left her for the stars, two then two then two then one with a backward glance, and after they disappeared completely, she decided she would not stay. Once she decided, the fear overtook her, the darkness grimaced with demons, and her return to the other side of the fence was racked with threats from malevolent ghosts.
There was the boy posse, young hotshots who clashed with their parents and left home with curses regularly, only to return like hungry little lambs. These boys banded together during unsheltered nights, still delicate and growing in body, but hearty as stallions in spirit, especially with the company of other foolish members of their kind. They smashed windows and stole food, climbed trees and hid from landowners, bullied cows with sharp rocks and slept in the shops they broke into. One night it was a game of daring, to cross the countryside and the mountains, to walk until their shoes tore, until the world finally changed around them. Beyond the distant farms the river started as a trickle, and they followed it to quench their thirst. They listened for the deeper water, sensing its sound through the brambles and thorns and the sharp edges of leaves, into a glowing circle of nude women, unbelievable women—all curves and skin and hair and eyes. Without thinking they entered the pool, four erections leading the way for their wild beating hearts as seven women watched, each in a different mood and with a different power to inflict; the luckiest boy reached the most willing and adventurous sister, the unluckiest reached the least tolerant, with a lesson to teach—each boy left the thicket at a different hour, with his own scars and story and only vague notions of his compadres’ fates.
By the time the seven sisters disappeared, first six then one, the era of their river spent, these impressions had been carved and cemented, filling the space of absence and time, of flesh and years, the stories passed on and taking the sisters’ place altogether, the river itself left alone, unremarkable as the words or the myth’s magic—something too fantastic to be believed, too wonderful to neglect. The seven sisters transcended into fairy tale.
No stories were spun for the six who had learned the barrio’s most intimate secrets. In them, lies buried in locked chests beneath the ocean had found escape; the chests cracked open and the lies floated up in bubbles, popping at the surface to set the lies free to fly to the other side of the fluttering curtain in the dead-end market stall. Normally proud demeanors slumped under the fear of aging or failure—only these women saw the breakdowns, when the shell of perfection cracked under the back-breaking guise of pretending, forgetting, pretending, and dismissing. Then there were the hopes, little burning candles offering light at the end of long dark tunnels, tunnels too long to traverse during the course of a lifetime, and yet, that flicker alone was enough to drive them mad and rushing to the stall to ask for something to bring the warmth closer, anything to help them taste those enduring tips of fire licking skin.
These women knew what wives, brothers, mothers, husbands, fathers, compadres, lovers, and children did not know or avoided like some dark and dangerous alley on the clean and busy streets of their daily lives. They’d given herbal pills and avocado oil rubs to the man who needed help with arousal, who could not make love to his wife because another man was always on his mind. They’d unloaded jars of aloe, cucumber, and citrus-based jellies to middle-aged women who couldn’t prevent the lines from deepening on their foreheads or on each side of their frowns, regardless of how much money they possessed or how many different butlers drove them from albularyo to albularyo. They’d sold wooden and stone amulets in the shapes of sea turtles, dogs, fish, and birds—the animal forces that granted wisdom, bravery, prosperity, or freedom—whatever was most essential and most lacking in the lives they counseled. And so, when they were there one day and gone the next, no one made a fuss or alerted their families and neighbors as to the curious and sudden disappearance, out of protection for their unleashed secrets, those only the albularyos knew and carried away with them on the mysterious flight that they hoped would be a permanent one.
This silence was just what the albularyos needed to cover their tracks, to disappear as completely as if they had never set foot in a useless mountain crevice called Manlapaz. For years they had banded together like sisters, their sisterhood bound solid by flight—a common need to escape, a common instinct to distance themselves from the source of terror and shame.
When this source came dangerously close once again, reaching them with the quiet of smoke in the shape of a man, deceptively solitary, with a larger network of unscrupulous errand boys at his beckoning, they packed their things without too much haste or carelessness. They had learned to control panic and avoid mess-ups. As women with strong minds and few choices, they had already formulated alternate plans, various routes leading to one destination—peace of mind.
Together, they were too conspicuous—six unmarried girls traveling in a group attracted more attention than they could afford to risk now. In their work as healers and through
the course of wandering over the past year, they’d come to know and trust a scattered group of individuals. Dalisay fled to the home of a middle-aged couple who lived right there in Manlapaz. He was a farmer, she a housewife, cooking for the farmhands and doing every imaginable chore around the farm, like feeding the chickens and collecting their eggs, and of course, keeping the interior of the house running like clockwork—the laundry always clean, the dishes always washed, the lampshades always dusted and the floor mats swapped out regularly. The couple had no children.
Dalisay had met the woman in the market—they had each reached for the plumpest, reddest tomato in the pile, and the woman insisted Dalisay take it. After the incident, they recognized each other instantly among the stalls whenever they happened to meet. Throughout the course of their polite but enthusiastic conversations that Dalisay always enjoyed, they inevitably pointed out the day’s good buys to each other, like in which stall to find a sparkling aqua scarf they each admired on a passerby or how low to bargain for the eggs sold across the way. She always took the woman’s advice on the price of the eggs and later discovered that they in fact came from her husband’s farm, and that the woman herself had collected the eggs each morning. (During her stay with the couple, Dalisay ate fresh omelets every day.)
Though her friends had long ago ceased to be an intimate couple, they stayed together willingly, out of a regard and preference for order. If the wife knew that her husband snuck away some nights to lie with another woman out in the fields where he toiled in quite a different manner during the daylight hours, she did not show it. Dalisay was a welcome distraction from the everyday habits the couple held sacred. In taking them away from a disciplined routine to entertain her, they had the pleasure of returning to their chores and the rewards of their hard work with renewed vigor. With pride, they spoiled Dalisay and recharged from her appreciation of the home they’d built with their own sweat. Here, Dalisay found warmth and companionship, and more importantly, a house where she could eat, sleep, and wait, without ever leaving the front door.
Imee stayed with a young man, her junior by a few years. She had met him at some past juncture that she never felt the need to explain. Though he was at a good marrying age and attracted flirtatious smiles from the pretty dalagas wherever he went, he remained single, and she was right in suspecting that he lived for the rare moments she decided to surprise him with a letter, phone call, or unexpected visit. He lived two hours away from Manlapaz by bus. And the prize of winning her in his tiny bachelor’s apartment for an unspecified length of time made all the past waiting worthwhile.
Ligaya, Sampaguita, and Alma, the youngest of the six, stayed together, convincing their sisters that if they combined their ages they would be the oldest sister of all. These three chose to room with Nanay, a woman whose name meant “mother,” yet who had no children and would never bear a child because she lived most of her life in fear of people, particularly the male sex, with whom she behaved like a reticent teenager whenever she was unfortunate enough to come across them. Ligaya, Sampaguita, and Alma were the exception to the rest of the world. These three she treasured like pure living dolls—the idealized children she would never bear, the marriage she would never consummate, the repressed but inchoate love she had never had the relief to loose from her chest in heaping rainbow-colored waves.
They’d met Nanay two years before, on a boat taxi between islands. Nanay had long and thick salt-and-pepper hair that she wore in a fat bun behind her neck. She wore cropped pants with comfortable rubber shoes and a burgundy shawl draped over a cream-colored, long-sleeved shirt. She was neither adorned nor plain in aspect, and even her face, without a discernible expression, was the kind that fell “in between.” In between old and young, pretty and ugly, rich and poor. Sitting on the boat, Nanay had been preoccupied with her own conspicuous existence and its lack of belonging outside her own home, where she was anxious to return as soon as she finished this latest of bi-monthly excursions that she willed herself to take in order to keep from going mad. (As much as she disliked being out, these small outings helped her fend off strange, night-soaked dreams and a terrible loneliness that caused her to chatter to herself too extensively.) Attempts by others to engage her during these outings usually ended up with uncomfortable results, but that day on the boat taxi surrounded by a gaggle of girls was different. Young and moon-faced, with their skin’s natural perfume, salty breath, and awkward grace, they initiated something entirely unexpected—a two-way conversation. As Nanay heard herself making jokes and posing observations with the girls, it felt like the most natural thing in the world—to talk and to listen. She did not question a thing in the process. Even though the smallest girl had begun the exchange with nonsense—“You have no handbag,” she’d observed. “Did you forget it at home?”—to her own surprise, Nanay had answered. “Money and makeup, the things inside handbags, would weigh me down. I like to float. That’s why I’m taking the boat taxi today.”
During their stay at her home, Ligaya, Sampaguita, and Alma could have gotten away with all manner of childish manipulations. But they preferred to spend their time chitchatting with Nanay. The words Nanay said made sense—she saw the world for all its absurdities.
Florencita found solace in Keebo’s home. Both with shy dispositions, they shared small talk before quietly pursuing their own interests. They often sat together on the back porch, where she read her books while he carved his latest walking stick. Keebo was his parents’ eldest son, who looked after his younger brothers and sisters in his childhood home. His father had died in a fishing accident; his mother passed the hours in her bedroom completing crossword puzzles. His siblings were loquacious by nature, forever seeking willing ears, so Florencita and Keebo never lacked for conversation. Florencita had enchanted Keebo from his first glimpse of her at the market stall, where he’d sought ointments for his mother’s arthritis. She showed up at his door unexpected, hoping for his kindness and embarrassed at her intrusion. He quickly and humbly offered his welcome.
The boy, Baitan, was the first to notice. The albularyos—they’re all gone. First it had been Tala, absent from one day to the next like a missing rainbow when the earth is dry. He continued his daily routine: scrounging, selling scraps, looking in on his mother, eating whatever he could get his hands on. Finally he decided to visit with the albularyos—without Tala. It was then that he discovered the booth had been wiped clean, nothing but dry wooden slats nailed hastily together. The bottles filled with spices, flowers, and roots were gone, the shelves decorated with carvings, stones, and piles of mismatched bowls dismantled. The curtain separating the front half from the back had been taken down, and without its many adornments or the irreplaceable combination of smells he had grown to love, the stall did not seem bigger, but empty and small, half the size of his own shack. Squatters had already laid claim to the sheltered space within, their soiled blankets strewn across the bare ground, empty soda cans, dirty take-out boxes, newspapers, cigarette butts, mismatched socks, and tattered clothing scattered about. As he looked in on the mess and the hapless people sleeping comfortably in the middle of it, he wondered how long ago the albularyos had fled and felt a shadow fall over him.
“What are you looking for, boy?” The man’s face was alarmingly sharp, his cheeks pierced with the edges of bones, his expression hard to decipher.
“Nothing, po.” Baitan wasn’t sure why he used the term of respect so readily with this stranger. He had little respect for adults he did not know and who had not had a chance to earn it. Something about this stranger made him feel uneasy and unsure. As a boy who spent his days out on the streets, he was usually adept at reading personalities. He could see through a liar posing as an innocent, identify the softie camouflaged beneath harsh words. This man seemed ugly and unpleasant on the outside, but Baitan knew better than to judge by appearances alone. Something always spoke from the inside, hinting at a person’s character, but from this emaciated stranger, all Baitan heard was a looming sil
ence.
“I’m looking for someone,” the man said after peering into the shack window, turning away, and spitting, as if the image he’d seen had left a bad taste in his mouth. “A young lady—pretty, if you like plain, round faces. Nothing special if you like more defined features, like mine.” He laughed and touched his cheek, and Baitan could not tell if he was making fun of himself or prone to self-flattery. “She calls herself Tala.” With the last word, the faintest trace of a smirk shone on the stranger’s lips.
Baitan’s senses sharpened at the mention of his friend’s name, and he knew his reaction had betrayed him. “I don’t know her,” he lied, sensing that it was too late, that the stranger had already deciphered a connection in the flash of his eyes.
“I see. We look nothing alike, I know. But I’m Tala’s brother. Lost the scrap with her address on it. Don’t know her, huh? I’ll be around if you happen to run into her.” The man walked away, trailing miles of silence, and Baitan hurried back to his mother’s mat.
The next day, he saw the stranger again. This time, he came to Baitan’s mat. He held a skewer of grilled, marinated pork in one hand, an oily brown bag in the other. Baitan had only shared a couple of figs with his mother that morning. The grease from the pork made the stranger’s lips glossy.
“So we meet again,” he said between bites, waving the hand that held the bag as he spoke and swayed like a drunkard. “Did you know that your friend Tala is married to a fancy doctor? Oh, that’s right, she’s not your friend. I’m surprised I haven’t bumped into her yet. I found out she buys groceries at these stalls at least two days a week. Usually, with a monkey of a boy as her sidekick.” He paused and scratched his head, freeing one of the fingers from its grip on the bag. “Hah, that’s funny, the description of that boy reminds me an awful lot of you! But I guess monkeys grow on trees around here.” He gazed around and above him, as if he expected to witness the phenomenon of monkeys jumping out from the sky at any moment. Baitan observed that the sky was a clear, bright blue.
The Hour of Daydreams Page 13