With the package of food safely inside the plastic bag, I thanked them both again and left. I thought about what Lola Mercy had said while I climbed down steep wooden steps to the ground below. Jojo’s home was one of a whole row of shanties built on top of a building of honeycombed tombs. It was an old structure. Hardly anyone was buried there anymore. All of the shacks were made with a colorful assortment of scrap wood, corroded metal sheets, and broken cement blocks. How had Jojo gotten up these steps with me on his back? I shook my head in wonder. He and Lola Mercy seemed to really care about Mama and me. All of a sudden, I didn’t feel so alone anymore.
Lola Mercy had said that it was good to have options, so why wait? I would tell my uncle everything that had happened and maybe, just maybe, he would help us, and Mama and I could leave this place.
But first, I had to try and find her, or someone who might know anything about where she might be. The rapid sound of footsteps came up behind me. I didn’t even have to look to know who it was.
“Hey, your place is that way,” said Jojo. He fell into step beside me, pointing in the direction of my grave house.
“I know.”
“So you’re not going home to wait for your mother?”
“Nope.”
“I didn’t think so. That’s why I’m coming with you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“The last time I didn’t accompany a friend, something bad happened. So yeah, I want to go with you.”
I jabbed my elbow into his side and ran ahead of him. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing how glad I was to have him with me.
Chapter Ten
Jojo talked me into making a stop at my grave house to drop off the food wrapped in banana leaf. There was a tingle of hope in my chest that maybe Mama might be there, but she wasn’t. My body felt heavy. Despair made me weak. I leaned against Papa’s tomb to steady myself. A sense of calm and purpose came over me. His spirit was here and he wanted to tell me to be brave.
Watch over me now, Papa.
We spent the afternoon sweeping out the grave house, repacking all the baskets, and watering my sweet potato plant. Everything looked tidy with our belongings hidden behind the tomb to keep them safe. The grave house looked empty but for the small plastic table by the wall, and my plant, whose leaves had begun to turn brown at the edges. Even our mats were tucked away, rolled up into tight cylinders. I changed into a pair of capris and a shirt, and tucked the balisong into the secret pocket inside my waistband. I was glad Mama had insisted on sewing these hidden compartments into all my clothes. Then I packed a few things to take with me to Lola Mercy’s place later on.
“So,” said Jojo, as he rubbed his hands together. “Where shall we go looking first?” He was making it sound like we were going on an adventure.
“I’m not sure.” I thought back on some of the things Mama had said in the last few months about her gambling. This was going to be more difficult than I thought. I’d always tuned her out when she talked about the when, who, and what of her daily mahjong games. This was annoying. What a rotten time to be forgetful. I should’ve paid more attention to what Mama talked about.
Jojo stood with his hands on his hips, his face expectant. “You don’t know, do you?”
I ignored him and wished he would keep quiet while I tried to think. My eyes bored into his, hoping he’d take the hint. Then I shifted my stare to his ear and past it to a calendar Mama had hung on the wall. It said Mercado in big red letters on top.
Mama had brought the calendar home only last week. She had said something about how nice “Rosie” was, and that she was a good mahjong partner. From what I could recall, Mama had begun playing at Mercado Funeral Home after she met this woman. There had been a string of all-night vigils at this place for the past three weeks. The visitors played cards or mahjong in order to stay awake. I always thought it was just an excuse to gamble. As if a dead person would care that someone stayed up all night to watch over them.
Jojo quirked an eyebrow up and asked, “Well?”
“Let’s start with Mercado’s,” I said, and headed out the door. I looked at Jojo’s clothes. He was in a tank top and shorts as usual. “Don’t you think you should at least put on a T-shirt?”
He looked down at his clothes. “Nah, no one will care. Besides, I like to save my T-shirts for special occasions.”
I rolled my eyes and said, “Oh, all right. Let’s go before I lose my nerve.”
I asked Ernie to watch my grave house, since I couldn’t lock it. Then Jojo and I headed for the cemetery gates.
* * *
The funeral home was a gray cement building with wide-open double doors in front. There were other kids around our age milling in and out of the entrance. I glanced down at my shirt and capris. It was a good thing I had changed my clothes. I hoped no one would pay too much attention to Jojo and me.
The front room was large, and in it was an open coffin laid out on an ornate platform between two blazing electrical lamps. Pews had been set up in front of the casket for visitors. Groups of people were sitting there, praying the Rosary. Others were gathered around a table loaded with sandwiches, stir-fried noodles, and eggrolls.
I ignored the saliva pooling in my mouth and followed a clacking noise that sounded like someone shaking a bag of marbles. The door opened onto a patio that held two tables and chairs, and a long wooden bench against the wall. One of them was empty, but at the other sat four women mixing a pile of mahjong tiles. There was a guy in jeans and a T-shirt standing nearby, watching the women play.
The mahjong tiles were jade green on one side and creamy white on the other. Pictures of flowers, balls, or Chinese characters flashed in and out of view as the pieces were mixed. I watched as a woman made rows of tiles stacked in neat green lines.
“Come on,” whispered Jojo. He tugged me away from the door and pulled me toward the coffin. “We should at least look like visitors and pay our respects.”
“Hey, but we don’t know this guy.” My hand flew to my mouth. There were people around us, but luckily no one was paying attention. Jojo dropped my wrist and right in front of me was the peaceful face of a dead man.
He was old, dressed in a Barong Tagalog of fine ivory cloth. The gauzy pineapple-leaf fabric was covered with elaborate embroidery in the same color. His hair was as white as the satin pillow his head rested on. He looked like he was sleeping. Papa had looked the same way, his brow smooth, and the crease that had always been there was gone. Unlike this old man, Papa’s hair had been black and thick, combed in a different way to hide the ugly gash made when the roof collapsed on him. He had also been dressed in a Barong, but a much simpler one. The memory made my eyes blur. I blinked and tears dripped down to my chin and dropped onto the glass that covered the opening of the coffin.
There was no time to think about Papa now. I had to concentrate on finding Mama. I wiped my face and stole a quick glance outside. It looked like the women were finished playing mahjong. I had to be fast if I wanted to ask them if they knew anything about my mother.
“Jo, let’s go talk to those people outside before someone figures out we’re not supposed to be here.” A hand rested on my shoulder just then, and I knew we were caught. Would they make us leave before I had the chance to find anything out?
“Oh, you must be my husband’s students! Your classmates were here earlier and said that a few of you would be late.” A woman with short silver hair smiled at us and offered me a tissue from the pocket of her black dress. “It’s a blessing for me to see how well-loved he was by his students.”
“Oh, we’re not…” But before I could finish my sentence, Jojo pulled me behind him and murmured something about condolences while I wiped my eyes in confusion. Then to my surprise, the widow led us to the food table, encouraging us to eat as much as we wanted.
Jojo wasted no time. He heaped noodles and eggrolls onto a plate and shoved it into my hands. I walked out onto the patio, hoping the mahjong players ha
dn’t left yet. To my relief, three of the women were still sitting at the table. The guy I’d seen earlier was now playing.
Jojo followed, handing me a bottle of orange soda. Royal True Orange, my favorite. The sweat on the bottle sparkled like diamonds. I couldn’t remember the last time I had had one.
The empty table was set for cards or mahjong, not for eaters, but we sat there anyway. Mahjong tiles were stacked neatly in piles in the center. The players at the next table paid us no attention at first.
Then one of them glanced up from her tiles and said, “Hoy! Alis! That table is for mahjong players. Go sit over there.”
She pointed to a bench where a few people were already sitting, chatting and eating. There was room on the bench, but none of them moved over. They ignored us and acted as if we weren’t there. Jojo shrugged, and signaled me to follow him to the planter next to the mahjong table. We set our drinks there and sat cross-legged on the patio floor.
The smell of the food filled my senses with a need so powerful, I soon forgot about the mahjong players and the snobs sitting on the bench. Concentrating my attention on the people next to me was completely smothered by my need to eat. I squeezed slices of calamansi over my noodles and shoved a forkful into my mouth. The rich flavor of pork and soy sauce, and the tartness of calamansi juice, exploded on my tongue.
It reminded me of birthdays at home. Mama would make pancit canton, a pan-fried noodle dish with tender pieces of meat and crunchy vegetables. She’d let me invite my friends over after school to have some. The next mouthful was in my mouth almost as soon as I swallowed the first one.
When I had scraped the last of the noodles off my plate, I found Jojo staring at me while he slowly chewed his food.
Blood rushed to my face just then and made me look away shamefully. I must’ve looked like a dog eating the leftover scraps from its master’s plates. Mama had always warned me about eating too fast. She always said it was bad manners to eat like you were starving to death. That was before we lived in the cemetery, before the fire. She didn’t say it anymore, but I still felt ashamed.
“That was good,” I said, taking a sip of orange soda.
“Ya-ar, am-am,” said Jojo through a mouthful of noodles. When he tried to swallow, he choked. He was fine after I smacked his back a few times.
“Thanks,” he sputtered. He had a noodle stuck to his chin. “You hit pretty hard for a girl.”
“It’s a good thing I can or you would’ve choked to death.”
Grinning, Jojo stuck his tongue out at me. Then he drained his bottle of orange soda in a few gulps. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and went inside to get more food.
I sipped my soda slowly, waiting for the right moment to interrupt the game and ask questions.
The mahjong players were silent except for the occasional “Pong!” One of them picked up a tile with a grin of satisfaction. He tilted his row of game pieces onto their backs to signal his win. The women clucked their tongues and handed over their bets.
Mama had learned the game of mahjong from Papa, who used to play with his cousins when we visited them on New Year’s Day. A couple of years ago, when I was ten years old, there had been a bad typhoon. Our neighborhood streets were flooded. School was canceled. Even Papa had stayed home from work.
Rain hammered down on our thin roof, drowning out the sound of our small television, making it impossible to enjoy any of the shows. Later in the afternoon, the sky grew darker, the wind louder, whistling through gaps between the walls and windows of our home. When the electricity went out, Papa lit candles in our small kitchen and set a flat, rectangular box down on our table.
“What’s that, Papa?”
“I’m going to teach your mother a game.” He opened the latches and lifted the lid. Milky-white blocks etched with red, blue, and green pictures lay in neat rows. Each one had a different design. Some had Chinese characters, and others had bamboo sticks or circles with numbers on the corners, like playing cards.
“Mahjong! Can I play too, Papa? Please?”
He ruffled my hair. Then I felt my mother’s hands on my shoulders.
“You can, but don’t tell anyone. Other grown-ups consider playing mahjong a bad habit, especially when played for money. We will only play for fun and when the weather is bad,” said Mama.
I rested my head on her chest and looked up at her. She smoothed back my hair and then kissed my forehead.
Papa showed us how to form lines of tiles, facedown, stacked two rows high. Then we each chose a line of thirteen pieces. He explained we had to get a pong, kong, or chow, and what it meant. It was like getting three of a kind, four of a kind, and a straight in cards. Papa said if we had four of these plus a pair, we would win the game.
We played for an hour, and then we had dinner. Mama had wanted to play some more, but I didn’t, and just watched them. I had fallen asleep to the sound of the tiles clicking together as Mama and Papa played into the night.
A voice pulled me out of my memory so fast, it felt like someone poured cold water over my head.
“Rosie just got through taking our money. Now you’re doing it!” said a woman with short dark hair and silver-rimmed glasses.
Mama’s friend. She was here! I almost dropped my soda bottle. My hands shook a little when I set the bottle down in front of me, trying to listen but pretending not to.
“It’s too bad she couldn’t stay,” said a woman with a ponytail. “Too busy at home, I guess. Strange. And her friend hasn’t been coming around either.”
“That’s Lorna you’re talking about. I can’t say I’ve missed her. She always brings too little money and ends up borrowing from me to keep playing,” said the woman with glasses.
“Really? She owes me money too. Those two are like peanuts in a shell lately. Always whispering. We have to keep an eye on them. They might be trying to cheat us,” said the third woman, and pushed her tiles to the center. “So why do you think she was in such a hurry this afternoon?”
“Who? Lorna?” asked the guy in jeans, pocketing his winnings.
“No, silly. I meant Rosie,” said one of the women.
“She said something about waiting for a phone call from Lorna when she got up to leave.” He scraped his chair back and stretched.
A low buzzing filled my ears and blocked all sound.
Lorna. Mama. Rosie is waiting for a call from Mama.
I stood up so fast I knocked my drink over. Orange soda bubbled onto the patio floor, but I didn’t care. All I could think about was this woman, Rosie, and that she might know where Mama was.
“Sir?” The man ignored me. I tugged on his sleeve. “Sir, please! Tell me where I can find Rosie. I have to talk to her.”
He looked at me like I was crazy. “And why should I tell you?”
“Because I’m Lorna’s daughter and I want to know where she is.”
Chapter Eleven
It was almost dark. The streetlights flickered on hesitantly, as if waking up from a long sleep. I felt the same way. Rosie had become my glimmer of hope. My body felt full of energy; my spirits had lifted.
We didn’t leave the funeral home until Jojo finished his second round of food. It took about that much time to convince those mahjong players who I was, and how important it was for me to talk to Rosie. I didn’t tell them the whole story. In fact, I didn’t tell them anything at all because they never gave me a chance.
“Look, before we tell you where to find Rosie, I want you to know how much money your mother owes us, so you can remind her when you see her again.” The other mahjong players looked on, allowing this woman with glasses to humiliate me. “She owes me, Puring, one hundred pesos; she owes Cora seventy-five pesos; she owes Norma over there three hundred pesos; and finally, she owes Charito two hundred and fifty pesos. Now repeat it, so I know you were listening to me. Repeat!”
I did. It took all I had to stand there and listen to what they had to say, just to find out where Rosie lived.
I co
uldn’t even think about the amount of cash Mama owed without cringing. It made me wonder if, all this time, the ‘winnings’ she’d brought home were pesos she had borrowed. Maybe she intended to pay an existing debt, but had spent or gambled it away instead. Mama used to believe in making her own money, not asking other people for it. What had made her so desperate? Was this what gambling did to a person? When I saw her again, I would tell her to stop all of it. I would remind her that I could help her, and together we could stay alive. If I see her again. Strangely enough, knowing about her debts didn’t make me angry with Mama. It just made me feel sad.
“Which street did she say it was?” asked Jojo. We stood at a corner a few blocks down the street from the funeral home.
“This one.”
The sign said Santa Inez St. The street was so narrow we had to press ourselves against the fences to let a car pass.
Some children were playing on the pavement and we asked if they knew Rosie. They nodded, pointing to a two-story pale green house with a red fence.
The gate was open. There was a woman standing just inside, talking to a skinny guy in a blue baseball cap with matching blue sneakers. The woman gestured wildly with her hands as she spoke. The man began yelling at her, pointing a finger within an inch of her face. She slapped his hand away. The guy grabbed her wrist, leaning close. Then he let her go and left.
There was something familiar about the guy. It was the malicious set of his mouth, the hooded eyes, the pale patches on his skin. He looked at me and smiled.
Him.
Tiger had the baseball cap pulled low over his face. He sauntered toward us. The very sight of him made my stomach churn. A tingle of fear electrified my whole body, making my hair stand on end. Papa’s watch gleamed on his bony wrist. It made me want to knock the stupid hat off his head.
Jojo must’ve recognized him, because he grabbed my elbow and pulled me to his other side, placing himself between Tiger and me. There was a scowl on his face that would’ve made anyone under the age of fifteen run away in fear, but not Tiger. If anything, his smile got bigger as he looked from me to Jojo and back again.
Everlasting Nora Page 7
