Fish-Hair Woman

by Merlinda Bobis

  Chapter 15

  Forgive me, beloved. I had been stalled again by the old landscape, its rancid sweetness slowing the fireflies. I heard their intoxication, the folding of wings, the keener fire: somnambulist light! It settled on my hair, cheeks, arms, breasts, now as redolent.

  ‘Keep going!’ The sergeant ordered, but his words held little conviction. We had reached the end of the ravine. Close by, the stream that led to the river. This stream ran between my father’s coconut plantation and the coffee grove famous for its dark tales. Our legs refused to go any further. Into this stream instead, still clear, still tasting like water. Here my mother bathed when the river became too public for their trysts. And the master grated coconuts from his own estate to shampoo the hair of his maid, while the copra’s fragrance besieged the wind and the wind made her swell.

  Sergeant Ramon unstrapped his rifle, scanning the kogon grass for his men. We were suddenly alone, drugged by scent and light, swallowed up by another time. I waded through the water, clear water, but still running to my final appointment: the river, death, and lemon grass.

  ‘You hit me in your hut, only because the others were there?’ His eyes fogged, almost hiding their redness.

  ‘I can’t go back to that river, Ramon … ’

  The hand that claimed my breast never understood, not even when a crown of fireflies lit his brow. A different fire burned his pouting lips, it found a nipple. He moaned little tender phrases, I heard another voice, another time, and my hair kept growing, meshed with desire.

  ‘I like you dark, without light.’

  ‘And you’re paper-white, Tony,’ I countered. ‘Like my father, a ghost … ’

  His lips travelled down. Between my legs, it was midnight.

  The river’s womb is pitch-dark at night. So how to search the riverbed for you, my lemon grass lover. How to draw you out of the water with my memories, when they can only rise as dead fishes with scales that peel then float like a beautiful, silver alphabet. How to trust language that can only make the disappeared appear as lovely.

  ‘Not to the river, please.’

  ‘Not yet, Estrella,’ the sergeant begged, clutching my hair to his chest, charting my skin, exploring every hillock, every declension, willing the Fish-Hair Woman to become real in his arms. Curse me then, but I could not leave the stream where my mother had conceived me. I had to become her, and the boy with the rifle had to wear my father’s face. I wanted to betray, to outwit death in the womb of the water. I wanted a change of heart, a confusion of ventricles.

  ‘You taste … ’ he sighed. ‘Your nipples smell … ’

  I couldn’t turn away, caught in the night’s rancid air and suckling the enemy who kept muttering, ‘You want me too, don’t you — don’t you?’ His breath came and went, hot on my skin, like tiny bursts of gunfire. His fingers were soon inside me, pushing hard. ‘Ahh, you’re smooth … did your white man tell you that, did he touch you this way, did you come in his hands?’

  An owl called, I jumped, but he, all hand and crotch, locked me in. Ay, the horror of that tingling in my skin.

  ‘No, please, no!’

  ‘You, prick-teasing bitch!’

  Suddenly a hundred pouts branded me.

  ‘C’mon, this is better than a white cock, that Australian spy, why don’t you say it, say you want this more than your preening lefty, you double-faced cunt!’

  I wound my hair around his neck, tight, tighter, choking his coming cry.

  Chapter 16

  When death is certain, love might just begin. The village gossips make sympathetic noises about the deceased. They must break the embarrassed hush around the table. I hear them again, their voices pulling me back to a birth and a death, this cacophony entangled in my hair.

  ‘You’ve finished, haven’t you?’ Mamay Dulce’s singsong is at its coolest. She confiscates the plate from Manay Sabel, the church singer who was whispering speculations about ‘the father’s identity’ in between mouthfuls of pork crackling.

  Pilar watches her mother perform. Immediately the censured guest makes a move to leave.

  ‘But you haven’t finished yet,’ Pilar points at the singer’s pocket.

  Earlier Manay Sabel slipped some pork crackling in. Ay, a rare chance. It’s not everyday that one tastes lechon in Iraya.

  ‘Hoy, what’s that bulge in your pocket?’ Pilar insists.

  ‘Bones, just bones.’ The church singer scuttles to the door, a mouse trapped by all the eyes around the table.

  It seats twelve, like the table of the Last Supper poster on the wall behind the cabisera. On this ‘head chair’, Pay Inyo ‘undeservedly’ sits — imagine enthroning the gravedigger! ‘A special friend, so I hear,’ a toothless man conjectured earlier, giving Mamay Dulce a knowing look.

  Bum shifting, cutlery clunking, vigorous chewing and ceaseless fanning. It is a very humid meal, heady with the smell of food and sweat. The dining room can hardly breathe. Around the table twelve heads are bowed to full plates while the rest, mostly family and friends and some hangers-on, squat everywhere on the floor. There’s barely any room to move. An air of resentment adds to this sense of suffocation, as the ‘lesser relations’ or those who have fabricated some kinship with the deceased, at least for this big dinner, have commandeered the table.

  Someone from the floor quickly takes the vacated seat. Another giggles at the bulge in Manay Sabel’s pocket. ‘Take-away bones for her dog, of course. If she had a dog.’

  ‘Serves you right, chismosa — you gossip,’ Pilar whispers to the departing church singer. ‘Be thankful you’ve scored some extra grace in your pocket.’

  In this corner there is a fleeting change of heart. The six-year-old is in her element again, the heartbreak under the guava trees eased by gustatory pleasure and her Sunday best. The flowered blue dress and blue hat with a plastic rose squat over a plate of lechon, menudo, afritada, chopsuey, adobo, and large scoops of rice piled mountain high. She keeps mixing the lot with reverent intensity.

  ‘Hog’s food,’ Manay Sabel sneers. ‘And what’s with the silly hat — you Amerkana or something?’ She’s unable to resist the parting shot.

  Pilar retorts with a derisive squeal then ceremoniously shuts the door after the woman leaves, and returns to her plate, resuming her pleasure. She will not be fazed in the midst of this rare feast.

  The table comes alive.

  ‘But where’s the new grandmother, that poor thing?’

  ‘Ay, pity the poor woman. Lola Trining collapsed in the bedroom, I hear. She looked like death herself during the funeral. Dios ko, what misfortune for a family — now, isn’t the menudo delicious?’

  ‘Yes, yes, but what a sad occasion, it breaks my heart — the chopsuey is overcooked, though. I make better chopsuey, you know, with plenty of liver and real meatballs … ’

  ‘Hush or you’ll be next to walk out of that door. By the by, can we see the poor thing? The baby, I mean.’

  ‘Yes, of course, how’s the child — what’s her name again? Edna or something?’

  ‘No, Estrella.’ For the first time, the gravedigger speaks. Pay Inyo is barely eating. Food and sorrow cannot mix. He’d rather help Dulce in the kitchen, but she insisted that he sit with these hopeless meddlers, so he could rein them in.

  ‘You’ve seen her already, really?’

  ‘Yes.’ Pay Inyo is digging at his rice with a spoon. He imagines the grains are turning black. Earth, more earth, shovel after shovel. Must return that fallen angel to the earth, so its spirit could fly out and up again. Shovel after shovel after shovel. Must hide that anguish lying on a bed of hair.

  ‘Who does the baby look like?’

  ‘She’s — beautiful, truly-truly,’ the gravedigger murmurs.

  ‘No, not like her mother at all.’ It’s Pilar from her corner.

  ‘What do you mean?’ All eyes turn to the girl.

  ‘She’s ugly and bald and — ’

  ‘Shut up, Pilar!’ Mamay Dulce has just walked in wi
th a pot of rice. Her banter restores normalcy. ‘Now where’s that Bolodoy? I sent him an hour ago to fetch water from the river — sige, eat up all, and be grateful to the owners of the house for this rare gift of pork crackling, the best yet in Iraya.’

  ‘By the by, Dulce, what will happen now to the poor thing?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Mamay Dulce fiercely replenishes an empty plate.

  ‘The baby, this Estrella.’ A sigh from the end of the table.

  The midwife stares at the heartbroken guest.

  ‘So what will happen?’ The sigh-er is hungry for detail.

  ‘We’ll take care of her.’

  ‘Who is — we?’

  ‘Don’t talk when your mouth is full. It’s disrespect for the dead.’ With a flourish, Dulce gives the interrogator the full view of her back.

  The baby whimpers. All eyes turn to the bedroom door. Lola Trining is holding Estrella, who’s just waking up.

  Shovel after shovel after shovel.

  ‘I want to present the daughter of my daughter, and to say — to say that I’m very proud of her.’ Lola Trining looks shrunken, as if someone has crumpled her limbs. Her usually tidy topknot is undyed, half done, she’s a shock of grey, she’s sagging like her skirt. She rocks the bundle, begging the room for some understanding. ‘Very proud, even if — ’ A twig snaps in her throat.

  ‘Don’t you apologise for her.’ Dulce rescues the baby from her grandmother, who’s now completely undone. Her sobbing silences all.

  Lola Trining is catolico cerrado, a closed catholic. The grapevine in Iraya attests to this. Believe me, she nearly disowned her daughter at the early stage of pregnancy, if not for the interference of the fat godmother who, it’s common knowledge of course, had her children out of wedlock herself. Now that Carmen’s buried, do you think the husband’s shadow would surface in Iraya? Of course not, poor baby. In a small village that so fears its God, one can never bury the unfinished tale of a woman’s indiscretion. And such telling, like the drone of flies. So who will claim the baby now? The other half of the sin must declare himself, don’t you think? God knows him and he’ll burn in hell surely — but who can he be?

  It is only after dessert when someone asks the question that will fuel the grapevine for years. ‘Dios mio, where’s the hair?’

  ‘What’s it to you?’ Dulce shields the newborn from the church singers who are determined to have a closer look.

  ‘You’re right, no hair — not even a hint of it, santamaria!’

  ‘What about a hint of respect for the dead, big mouth?’

  ‘Aysus, Dulce, we’re just wondering in the name of the Holy Lord, because as we know the mother had glorious — ’

  ‘Like Maria Magdalena — I mean, the hair — ’

  ‘How dare you —?’

  ‘But, Dulce, she repented and the Lord loved her — ’

  ‘Shut up!’

  ‘We do feel for this poor orphan, so let me bless it — ’

  ‘Step back, you holy-holy devil!’

  ‘Ay, that’s no way to speak to a funeral guest — ’

  ‘Don’t worry, Dulce, the Lord loves it and will punish the father — most definitely — so who’s — ?’

  ‘Get out — out all of you!’ the midwife screams at the sorrowful gossips, her fury incandescent.

  Little Estrella feels the heaving, the steadfast thud-thud. She stops whimpering. She rubs her baldness against her very own Mamay Dulce.

  Chapter 17

  The hush after a funeral tiptoes like a ghost, mouth perpetually open, ready to swallow any sound that might shatter the imposed composure in the house. The dining room is calm and clean. The air, the table are cleared, all swept away. Even human sweat has been dispatched, vapourised. It’s cooler now.

  On the spot where the roast pig lay a few hours ago, Estrella is sleeping. Still in her blue dress, Pilar is on the table too, keeping watch over the baby. Mamay Dulce is washing the last of the dishes, and Lola Trining has retired to the bedroom. ‘She’s not herself so we can’t go home yet,’ Dulce told her children earlier. ‘We must keep her company, maybe for a week or so.’

  Lola Trining fainted again during the expulsion scene. A vivid storm of emotions, quite impressive, as Dulce cast out the wagging tongues, baby in one hand, waving washcloth in the other. Much like Christ driving the merchants out of the temple.

  ‘Some kind of exchange from heaven, this baby for my daughter,’ the new grandmother tried to explain before she passed out.

  You mean, this bald thing for my best friend? Then heaven has cheated us. On the table, Pilar examines the sleeping child. She remembers the litany of dark conclusions as the funeral guests shuffled out.

  Nasîno: death caused by the river spirits which Carmen had probably hurt unknowingly in all that swimming before, or she didn’t ask permission from them, didn’t say please-may-I-pass before she went into the water, or perhaps those unseen water-dwellers got jealous of her hair, who knows. But then again, it could have been a case of paligsok, might have combed her hair in the evening with the nit-comb and thus died. No, slept with her hair still wet then went crazy and thus died. No, no, was punished by God for getting pregnant without a husband and thus died.

  You’re all wrong. Was scared to death when this ugly, bald thing popped out of her. Pilar nudges the reddish brown scalp with the tip of a finger. So soft. Then she runs a hand over her head, with sores just beginning to heal, and sticks out her tongue at the sleeping infant. She feels the urge to kick it but checks herself.

  Self-hate. It fuels a colossal capacity for resentment against those who mirror our deformities. We gaze at them and see ourselves preening-cringing back. We eat our souls with this fatal recognition.

  Hatless now, Pilar’s head is tufts of ungainly hair. Earlier it was scalp sores, so her mother shaved her. It’s because of the heat, Mamay Dulce is convinced. Not malnutrition, an alien concept to the impoverished. ‘Too much playing outside the house even during high noon, see what you get.’

  The girl picks up the kerosene lamp, searching for the angle where the bald head would look ugliest, but she is the one exposed and the light is unkind. Uneven sprouts of hair on scabbed scalp, low brow, eyes overly large on a thin face, pug nose, a determined chin so sharp it could cut through any resistance, and an expression of ill omen. And on the wall her shadow is a little devil cursing the newborn. Pilar confronts it with a raised fist, it shakes its fist back at her.

  ‘What are you doing, demonyita? Give me that lamp at once — you’ll burn the baby, ay, watch out!’ Mamay Dulce has just walked in.

  ‘She’s really prettier than me, Mamay?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Is her bald less ugly?’

  ‘Silly girl — ’

  ‘Do you love her more?’

  ‘Jealous, are you?’

  ‘Yes, you love her more,’ and the six-year-old begins to cry. ‘And I wanted to come to the funeral, I wanted to see Carmen for the last, last time, but you didn’t let me, and you love this ugly thing more, yes you love her more.’ Pilar is wailing now, beating the table with her fists and baby Estrella awakes, wails even louder, and Mamay Dulce feels her heart breaking for all of them but she must hush this surge of grief by scolding tenderly, so tenderly, ‘Ay, don’t be stupid, girl, of course I love you all, now give me that lamp, careful now, and enough of the tears,’ even as she herself sniffles, cajoling, ‘sige, let’s take off this nice dress, so you don’t soil it,’ then cuddles the newborn, ‘Eya, Eya, hush now, Eya.’

  Here they are, both in her arms, her eldest and her youngest daughter.

  She rocks them with her affectionate singsong into the deepening night.

  The hush returns.

  The world is all right again for little Pilar. Mamay’s lap like a carabao’s back, rocking her to sleep, to dream.

  A strand of hair is flung out of the window. It gets caught in the wind. It’s a tightrope hair, a bridge held at the other side by nothing. It urges P
ilar to tiptoe out.

  From afar, the owls call to each other: a stupid girl has gone sleepwalking on air!

  At the other end, a door appears. Someone, whose face she can’t see, pushes a coffin in with a huge crown of flowers. ‘My gifts of sympathy,’ the bearer says mournfully. ‘I have felled three dita trees from the river so I can make this coffin of three layers: one to keep out the cold, another to ward off the gossip and the third to seal her forever from my kisses, lest they make her cry. For a year, day and night I worked to build this little house carved with sorrowful angels. See how they’ve folded their wings like her? And I brought flowers too, look here. I stole them from every garden in Iraya, because no one would give up a rose for her.’

  ‘But your gifts are too heavy, sir, can’t you feel her hair sagging? Ay, you must not walk any closer or else her hair will snap and I will fall.’

  The girl and the coffin bearer stare at each other from both ends of the tightrope, trying to make out the other’s face.

  The owls warn of broken bones.

  The coffin bearer retreats and the door shuts, and opens.

  ‘What now, sir? What’s your gift this time?’

  Still she can’t see his face but the gift is as clear as day. ‘Ay, a golden chalice with one hundred pesos inside — in fifty-centavo pieces!’

  ‘No, child. These are sacred hosts, bits of my flesh, so let me through. I must give her Holy Communion. She must eat my body, then she’ll sleep and go to heaven.’

  ‘But a coin can’t melt on her tongue and you’re so heavy, her hair will break and I will fall, so go away.’

  But the hands insist. They walk the tightrope with the sacrament. The hair snaps!

  Chapter 18

  At ten in the evening a coffin arrives. The balcony protests, its floorboards creaking as two men, both very young and thin as reeds, enter with the heavy load. No, it’s not made of dita tree from the river, the traditional source of coffins. This is hardwood, dark and ornately carved with cadena de amor. Bronze angels, serving as candleholders, cling to the four corners of the lid.