Fish-Hair Woman

by Merlinda Bobis

  ‘My father left us when I was six, sir. My mother killed herself because of this. He never came back for me.’

  The old man slowly collapses on his haunches. He opens his mouth, shuts it. He hugs the light to his chest.

  ‘Where did you find him, sir?’

  They have reached the deepest part of the river where it collects its passions into a large basin, barely rippling.

  ‘Did you find him?’

  ‘Sorry, sorry, I not know your mother, I not know, sorry, sorry … maybe he crying for her, he heartbreaking on the rock … ’ Ay, too much to apologise for. It was late December, before Iraya had dismantled its Christmas trees, when he found the body. One shot in the head, a clean execution.

  ‘He was not a good man, sir. He was just — my father.’

  The old man turns off the light. He is silenced, wringing his hands. Ay, how to say, loved ones must be allowed to fail. How to say, often the heart is in the right place, but when it gets misplaced, another hand could return it to its old home. Here in this river, maybe the white man’s heart found its way back, when he saw the bodies from the water, when he fell in love with the dead … But his English is not enough and the pacifist is ashamed.

  In the middle of the river, the arcs of another light are so low. Any lower and the firefly might sizzle in the water, a circuit extinguished. They watch. There’s nothing left to say.

  Adora hears the shots first, she sprawls to the ground, Luke covers her, the old man runs behind a tree stump. Something jumps into the water! They hear the strokes and men’s voices arguing, they can’t see, there’s no moon. Another shot is fired. The river grows still.

  Under the water a body descends. None can see the open arms or the hair that cannot stop growing. Only a firefly sees with its own light.

  Epilogue

  2 April 2011. Canberra, Australia.

  Yesterday, close to midnight I wrote the final sentence. I hope I’ve done justice in finishing her story with my own. ‘Finish it, I know how mine ends,’ she said.

  After they found her in the river there was an inquiry, but its fervour petered out. Case closed. The officers were only trying to inhibit her escape from police custody and the parricide was a ‘family matter’. Well-placed officials in the military, the police and the government explained it that way. A year later, Pay Inyo died of a broken heart.

  To this day I ask my wife Adora, did her hair really grow a handspan each time she remembered? Adora smiles, indulging me I think, and draws arcs in the air. One time I asked her whether she had any inkling that Stella would kill her father. She did not smile for days. I never asked again.

  We have a six-year-old daughter now. Addie: Adora Estrella, our adorable star. We took her to the Philippines while I was researching this book. I travelled back to Iraya and its neighbouring villages that were once militarised, and to the city of Rodriguez, then Manila. I even went to Hawai’i and saw the old bungalow. On the road many storytellers came to my aid, fed me with food and tales. Humbly, I thank them again with all my heart. This story would not have been finished without their kindness.

  I read her manuscript countless times: Beloved and Iraya, her ‘love letters’ not to my father alone but to all who care enough to listen. Like you who read this now. Perhaps.

  I lived with her stories for years before I began to write. I tuned in to her voice, hoping my own telling could be imbued by it. How I listened. Even so, I know I can never capture the currents of her river, her village, her history, and most especially not her grief. True, I have been undone by it, and in finishing this mesh of our lives, I’m simply making sense of that undoing. In my own grief. I am and will always be an outsider.

  Last year I visited Iraya only with our daughter. Adora does not want to go back anymore. She does not like me telling stories about ‘back home’, which she sums up in one gesture: an arc in the air that never comes full circle. Only once did she touch the manuscript, then her scars. I sensed censure and a thousand questions that I know I can never answer, not even in a lifetime. Forgive me, my darling.

  For the record, I must sketch what I saw in the village that last time my daughter and I visited. ‘Eco-tourism’ was the catchword everywhere. The riverbank regained its trees! Amazing trees, but not dita. They have something more ornamental, lush, complete with birds. Iraya’s Beloved River has been restored. It is now a theme park, a project of the newly elected mayor and a Japanese investor.

  FISH-HAIR WOMAN PARK. BEST FISHING IN THE WORLD!

  I could not get over the sign painted in startling blue. My guide told me that on nights without a moon, they have sightings of a woman with hair as long as the river. Her hair grows as the desire for good fishing grows. She is the Fish-Hair Woman, a blessing to all fishermen. The village has been breeding game fish in the river for a year now, and the eels have returned. The fireflies especially are a dependable crowd-drawer, even on days when the fishing is not particularly satisfactory. Iraya is now on the tourism map. It is hoping to become a city. It is one of the few places in the Philippines where fireflies still thrive in multitudes. The Japanese investor is proud to be regenerating them.

  On our last night, Addie and I camped in the park to see the fireflies. ‘I’m not going to sleep, daddy. I’m going to see them all. Do they really have fire in their tails?’ At dusk I took her beside the deepest part of the water, where the old rock stood. ‘Where do they live, daddy, what do they eat, where do they come from, how do they light their fire, what are they lighting?’ I thought of the dead and the Fish-Hair Woman, of eyes that wished to see clearly. When Addie grows up, I will try to answer her properly, but that night I only managed to say, ‘They live in the trees and they eat … leaves maybe. They come from the air, they light their fires with the moon, they’re lighting the water.’ ‘It’s dark now, daddy,’ she whispered, snuggling close to me, but not for long.

  First a wink of light on the other side of the bank, perhaps on a leaf. I heard my daughter catch her breath. Then more leaves lit up, and more trees. She broke away from my arms and ran to the edge of the water. The lights began to move, to lift. They gathered over the river, towards the rock where they swarmed, still for a while. Then the swarm broke up and flitted everywhere. We stood very quietly, we hardly breathed as they crossed to our side. They were flying low, as if wanting to extinguish their fires in the water. Addie was too close to the edge, looking down at them and into the river, now shimmering. Careful, Addie, careful, I wanted to say. I heard it again, Pay Inyo singing about how we looked into the water, this collective pool of grief, to search only for our own, as if we could cleave water from water — then his advice.

  Take a pail to the pool of grief

  Make sure it has holes

  Take a pail to the deepest pool

  And leave it there

  Suddenly she looked up, hand outstretched. A firefly had arced towards her, it hovered over her palm. Another followed, then another, and more, my daughter was enveloped in light! Then she turned to me, whispering, ‘Like Christmas, Daddy … ’ My heart leapt. Pay Inyo is right. There is also a pool of joy. Collected now in my daughter’s face, it is hers, it is mine, it is ours.

  Acknowledgments

  My deepest gratitude

  To the disappeared and their kin

  who took me back to Iraya, the wellspring

  To all who trusted and humbled me with their stories

  more moving than any I could ever write

  To all the storytellers who came before me

  and paved the way to light

  To all who welcomed and fed me during my research

  as if I were their kin

  To Mama Ola, Tiya Dulce and her neighbours,

  the cook of hinagom, Tiya Ebang, Tiyang para-Ingles

  Tiya Elo and husband, the kapitan, the Tiya

  who taught me with her silence

  The teachers of Estancia Elementary School,

  Tiya Violet, Uncle Til, Auntie Aden


  To the village of Estancia and the old family house in my dreams

  and how they helped me come home to story

  To Sol and Doods Santos, Becky Torres, Elmer and Maris Casillan,

  Mafe, Leny Felix

  Sotero Llamas, Rene Harque

  and the gentlemen soldiers of Camp Aguinaldo

  Patty A, Mauro L, Danny Gerona, Judith Salamat,

  Merito Espinas, France Clavecillas

  May Imran, Becky Marquez, Father Nap, Lolo, the storytelling taxi driver

  To the first readers of this long story

  Gail Jones, Helen Gilbert, Brian Castro, Jen Webb

  Sharon Bell, Ophie Dimalanta, Lau Siew Mei

  who helped me see it with faith and a clearer eye

  To all who succoured me in the difficult years especially Jaquie Lo

  Annie Parmentier and Anne Brewster

  To Annette Ward, Mailin Locsin, Joi Barrios Leblanc

  To John B who encouraged the early writing years

  To Elynia Mabanglo, Teresita V. Ramos and Belinda Aquino

  who shed light to Hawai’i beyond the bougainvillaeas

  To Deb Snibson, Ariel Dalisay, Palmer Higgs

  Valerie Chan and the Legaspi writers

  and all the hands that made this book possible

  with such tender dedication

  To Fran Bryson who wisely made me ‘kill my darlings’

  To Susan Hawthorne, Renate Klein, and Stephanie Holt

  who helped me revive-revise this story

  after years of hibernation, and to Karina Bolasco

  who facilitated its return home

  To the New South Wales Ministry for the Arts

  University of Wollongong, Australian National University

  University of Canberra and Australian Defence Force Academy

  University of Santo Tomas

  for their generous support of the writing years

  To all the writing rooms in Australia through seventeen years

  of this story-making

  To each hand who held mine in all departures and arrivals

  To my family, their gifts of certitude and love

  To Reinis Kalnins who keeps inspiring the happiest years.