Anyway, this was the first time I’d had a proper look at Bernardo.
And what I saw was a boy.
Just a boy.
And something more.
His face was soft, not yet a man’s face or even something in between, like Rocky, whose cheeks plunged down in hard planes but without the broad jowly edges of an older man.
His eyes were soft too, beseeching puppy-dog eyes, searching, always searching. I could see Mum’s short snub in his nose and the tilt of the other Bernardo’s Chinesey eyes in his gaze.
But I realized with a start that our eyes were the same colour – hazelly, browny, with a sunburst of dark streaks and black pupils that magnified to deep black wells and shrank to tiny pinpoints with the changes in light.
Since he came, I had been conscious of Bernardo watching me when he thought I wasn’t looking. It was creepy and annoying, but looking at him now, I realized with a start that he was waiting for something.
From me.
What was it? What did he want?
I knew things about Bernardo that Mum had told me over the years. That he broke his arm when he was four. That he loved pork crackling. That Star Wars was his favourite film.
I’d even talked to him on the phone once or twice a year. Hi, Bernardo. Happy Christmas. Happy Birthday! How are Auntie and Uncle?
But I didn’t really know him.
I decided I should make an effort to get to know my big brother.
After school, I would ask him stuff about himself.
There was so much I didn’t know.
26
Bernardo
I thought my heart would burst.
We talked from school gate to front door, from front door to kitchen table. We made a pizza, had some supper and then went upstairs to Andi’s room and talked. The years of being apart seemed to fall away. I thought my heart would burst.
Andi asked me if I had any idea that I was going to grow so tall.
To answer the question, I had to tell her about Bernardo Carpio.
I had to tell her about Old Tibo, about how giants came to be.
I had to tell her about San Andres.
I had to tell her about Mad Nena.
And I had to tell her about Gabriela.
I was just thirteen and the smallest in my class.
That is not much of an excuse.
In fact, it wasn’t an excuse at all because what I did next was stupid in the extreme. Jabby would have been horrified if he knew. But I didn’t tell him about it until afterwards.
All I knew was that I wanted to get back at Gabriela for what she and her gang did to me. Or maybe I was so upset that I wasn’t going to London after all that I needed to take it out on someone.
I decided that I was going to take the wishing stone from Gabriela the way she and her gang had taken the packet of shells from me.
I was stupid with rage.
Gabriela and her mother lived several blocks from school, in a small house, its concrete walls finished to imitate adobe brick, its windows arched like terrified eyes. It stood out amongst the dull grey houses on the street because it was the only one with a coat of paint – thanks to Ruben the painter who thought his kidney troubles would return if he didn’t do what Nena ordered him to do. So the house shone like a beacon, its gleaming whiteness concealing the blackness within.
Gabriela always parted ways with her gang at the school gates and always, always went straight home. Three days in a row, I followed her home but turned back at the last minute. On the fourth day, I steeled myself. I had to do it. If I didn’t get on with the task, I never would.
Outside was a sign, Beware of the Dog. I gritted my teeth. I’d forgotten about Judas, Gabriela’s vile pet.
Under Beware of the Dog was another sign, Trespassers Will Be Punished – I don’t understand why they bothered with the sign. It was like underlining the obvious.
Nobody in San Andres would dare cross their threshold uninvited.
Nobody would risk Nena’s wrath.
Well, almost nobody.
I licked my lips. My saliva tasted bitter.
Nena had drawn a chalk line on the pavement around the house. At each corner of the chalk line she drew an upside-down cross. The message was clear. Anybody who crossed the line would be struck down by some unspeakable curse.
Did I believe it? If someone had asked me at the time, I would have puffed out my chest and said, no, it was pure superstition. The nuns at Sacred Heart were always lecturing us about avoiding false notions, like not washing your hair before going to bed for fear you will wake up a lunatic. Or never stepping over a sleeping child to avoid misfortune. Or witches and black magic.
‘Just say no to superstition,’ Sister Mary John warned. But it had always been easy to see that the nuns were as afraid of Gabriela and her mother as the rest of the barrio.
On the day, I did not allow myself to think. Revenge. I was going to have my revenge.
I edged around the side of the house and peeked in through one of the wide, arched windows. It was shuttered with a mosquito screen and the thick curtains within were drawn. I couldn’t see anything.
But I could hear. There was a voice, raised and sharp. Nena. Gabriela’s voice replied, calm and cool. They were arguing about something.
I pressed my face against the mosquito screen, my nose flattened against the mesh, trying to make out what she was saying.
Nena’s voice kept on, slightly hysterical, high and insistent. Gabriela answered back, her replies cold and low, unfazed.
A door banged shut within.
Then silence.
I pressed my ear against the mosquito screen, cursing the curtains that prevented me from seeing what was going on inside. Had they left the room?
Suddenly the curtains opened wide.
I was so shocked I didn’t even try to move away.
There was a flicker of surprise in Gabriela’s eyes. But only a flicker.
She stared down at me coolly as I finally stumbled backwards from the window. I forced myself to glare at her, pretending a courage that I hoped would harden into some semblance of real nerve.
But my defiance shrivelled in her unblinking stare. My muscles tensed into knots. Run, Nardo, they said. RUN!
But I couldn’t move.
Her gaze locked me in a thrall. I couldn’t look away.
‘Gabriela, did I hear you open the curtains?’ Nena’s voice was muffled. She was elsewhere, in another room. ‘How many times have I told you to keep those curtains shut?’
A smile played on her lips. Run, run, my body screamed. But still I couldn’t move. It was as if my feet had suddenly grown long roots that tethered me to the ground under her window.
‘Putris!’ Her mother’s harsh voice rang from the next room. ‘I said shut those curtains!’
‘Yes, Mother.’
But instead of drawing the curtains shut, Gabriela pushed the mosquito screens wide open and reached out. Before I could move away, she grabbed me by the shirt and dragged me over the low sill into the room.
I struggled, but she was stronger and bigger than me. She flung me to the floor, and as I knelt there, dazed, she quickly shut the screens and drew the curtains. Then she held me by the shoulders, a malicious smile on her face.
‘Let me go!’ I whispered.
Gabriela shoved me so hard that I tumbled backwards onto the floor. When I tried to get up, she slapped me on the cheek, contempt etched on her face. ‘Stupid boy!’
She was whispering, which was a small comfort. She clearly had no intention of alerting her mother.
There was a thick odour.
Perfume?
No, incense.
An elaborately carved altar leaned against one wall, with fat candles burning on either side of a massive statue of Christ with one hand outstretched, on his bosom a heart wrapped in thorns. This Christ did not wear the tragic expression so customary of the statues that lined the walls of any parish church. This was an angry Chri
st – his eyebrows drawn together in a scowl, a snarl twisting the aquiline nose and a sneer curling his lips. The cold blue glass eyes embedded in the plaster face gleamed.
Hanging from the ceiling and along the walls were braids of garlic and all manner of herbs. There were whips woven from abaca and jars filled with multi-coloured powders, seeds and liquids.
A cold finger traced a path down the back of my neck.
These were the tools in trade of a witch.
‘Yes, Bernardo, as you can see you’re in big trouble.’ Gabriela simpered.
Frantically I looked around for a way out. As if she could read my mind, Gabriela let go of my arm and closed the window latch.
Trapped! I edged away from Gabriela, who loomed over me like an evil shadow.
‘Did you want those shells back?’ She continued to advance as I backed away.
‘Let me out of here.’
‘I thought I fancied them but then I realized that I didn’t.’
‘Please.’ My head bumped on the edge of a table and I realized that I had backed into the altar. The angry Christ scowled at me from above.
‘I threw them away!’
She threw them away? I should have exploded with anger but I was too terrified.
In the distance, I heard a sharp yelp.
‘Bernardo, Bernardo. I wonder why you have come.’ She clenched her fists and, without warning, drew back an arm to hit me.
I cowered and shut my eyes, raising my arms to block her blows. But they never came.
‘Ah, maybe you’re here to make a wish? Is that it?’
Slowly I opened my eyes.
‘Is this what you want?’ Gabriela stood there, swaying her hips, like a girl flirting with a boy. She toyed with the wishing stone that hung from her neck. ‘Did you want my stone?’
I gasped. How did she know?
She lifted the wishing stone from her bosom on its chain and swung it like a pendulum. Malevolence twisted the pretty face.
‘Idiot!’ Her eyes flashed. ‘You thought you could sneak in here and steal the stone! What were you going to do? Hold me down and rip it off my neck?’
I did not trust myself to speak.
‘Or maybe you wanted to make a wish!’ She thumbed the stone and grinned.
‘I know! You obviously think you’re some kind of hero. Some kind of Bernardo Carpio.’ She closed her eyes and pressed it against her heart. ‘Stone, let this pipsqueak turn into a Bernardo Carpio!’
Bernardo Carpio!
My mouth dropped open. She would have me turn into a giant? She was mad.
Suddenly the door flew open. Nena stood in the doorway, an ugly smirk on her face.
‘Putris! Who is this?’
I saw the glimmer of alarm on Gabriela’s face as she whirled towards her mother.
‘You insolent girl!’ Nena snatched one of the whips from the wall and advanced on Gabriela, fury etched on her face.
‘Ma, I can explain!’ Gabriela let go of the wishing stone and backed away. I realized with surprise that, domineering, outrageous and vicious though she was, Gabriela feared her mother.
This was my chance.
My only chance.
I leaped up, bumbling into the statue behind me. The angry Christ teetered, and for a moment I thought it was going to fall on me.
In my haste to get out of the way, I blundered into Gabriela.
But the statue, weirdly, didn’t fall. It righted itself.
‘Grab him!’ Nena screamed.
Gabriela snatched me up against her in a tight embrace. I found my face pressed against the black stone dangling from her neck. My hand closed around it and I pulled it hard as I lunged away from her clutches. The necklace snapped off with a tiny ping.
‘No!’ Nena’s face was livid. ‘Gabriela, he’s got the stone!’
‘Give it back, you little monster!’ Gabriela, her eyes angry and staring, her teeth bared, looked more beast than beauty.
I ran for the front door.
There was a howl and I remembered with horror the sign on their front door. Beware of the Dog. Judas! Oh please oh please oh please. I could hear the dog’s toenails clattering on the tiled floor behind me, its heavy panting interspersed with a ferocious growling.
I reached the door and my numbed fingers fumbled to undo the massive latch. Suddenly Gabriela was upon me, her long fingernails digging into my arms as she tried to tear me away from the door. We tumbled down to the ground, me trying to get away, Gabriela’s nails biting into my hand.
Then the dog’s wild barking was suddenly closer. It leaped on us and I could smell the stench of its breath, feel the heat of its body.
Gabriela screamed and let go of me. I didn’t wait to see what had happened. I yanked the door open and ran out.
As I stumbled away, I looked over my shoulder. Gabriela’s arm was caught fast between Judas’ slavering jaws. The witch was there, frantic, pulling at the dog’s collar. But the dog was not letting go. Gabriela screamed, struggling to get away. There was a mad, unseeing look in the beast’s eyes as it shook the limb from side to side, the saliva foaming from its mouth stained crimson by Gabriela’s blood.
I ran.
And as I ran, my courage shrivelled and turned black like a rotten banana.
Because after all that, I had failed.
I was such an idiot.
In the struggle, I had dropped the stone.
27
Andi
‘I have sorry. My English is … barok.’
Barok. Baroque? Broken?
‘It’s OK, Bernardo, I understand everything.’
How many times had Bernardo apologized for his English? I couldn’t seem to make him understand that it really, really was OK.
In a funny way, I think I do get a lot of Tagalog. Language is just like a film soundtrack. I’ve heard Mum and Dad say, Hey, that piece of music was the soundtrack of my childhood! Well. Bernardo’s barok English was just him singing his soundtrack in another key. Not his key. My key. When I thought about it that way, it wasn’t the funny, broken English that I heard but the story he wanted to tell.
And what a story it was.
It was so strange and wonderful and terrible and awful at the same time. It was so unfair. Poor Bernardo, the smallest in his class, just a boy. Going through all that. And us, his family, who should’ve been there with him, out here on the other side of the world.
How lonely he must have been. How he must have missed being with a mum and a dad – and a sister.
And I felt a sharp pang. Because I should have been there with him, shouldn’t I?
The funny thing is that Bernardo and I have more in common than anyone would think.
And the truth is, even though I didn’t know him, I have missed him just as much as he has missed me.
28
Bernardo
So I ran.
Ran from Judas, his sharp teeth sunk into Gabriela’s white flesh.
Ran from Gabriela, screaming and fighting to free herself from the evil dog’s grip.
Ran from Nena, the witch, trying to pull the dog off her daughter.
I ran all the way home, and that afternoon Auntie returned from the shops in a frenzy of gossip about how Gabriela was bitten by her own evil dog. How the neighbours had struggled to force the dog to let go. How instead of thanking them for their troubles, Gabriela and Nena had rushed back into the house, slamming the door behind them. How the dog was left outside the house, crazed and bloodthirsty. How everyone had fled into their houses as the dog had howled and snapped. How—
‘Enough, enough, Auntie,’ I cried, unable to bear the horror of it all. ‘I don’t want to hear about it!’ I ran upstairs to my bedroom.
I did not emerge for supper and stayed in my room until well into the next day. ‘What is the matter with you?’ Uncle shouted through the door.
‘I don’t feel well,’ I replied. ‘Please leave me alone. I just want to sleep.’
I was waiting, waiting for
the police to come. Isn’t that what Gabriela and Nena would do? Wouldn’t they command the police to fetch me and put me into jail? But nobody came.
When I finally did venture out, I pretended that I had a splitting headache. Auntie gave me a Panadol and sent me back to bed.
And I waited.
And still nobody came.
After three days, Auntie made me go back to school. Of Gabriela there was no sign. She didn’t turn up at school but that wasn’t unusual. Gabriela took holidays whenever she felt like it, and everyone – the nuns, the teachers, the children – was always happier for her absence. I avoided all talk about the witch and her daughter. Whenever Auntie started, I walked out of the room. I didn’t want to know because if I didn’t know, I couldn’t be held responsible.
But still I was afraid.
It was a month before I realized what was happening to me. A month! I had no idea. And by the time I noticed, it was too late.
One day I saw a house lizard above the old wardrobe in my room. Auntie hated house lizards; the sight of them sent her into hysterics. Without thinking, I had plucked the lizard from the wall and released it to a tree in the back yard. It was only when I returned to my room that I began to think. To fetch the lizard high up on the bedroom wall, I had not needed to stand on a chair. To release it, I had merely reached up to a tree branch.
I had grown a foot taller.
‘But it must be normal,’ Uncle said. ‘Boys his age grow fast. I remember when I was his age, one moment I was a small boy, the next I was a teenager!’
I overheard Auntie on the phone to Mama. ‘Hello? Hello? Mary Ann? Oh, that Bernardo, he’s growing so fast.’
Everyone in San Andres acted like there was nothing strange about it. ‘How you’ve grown, Nardo,’ they said. But I lay awake at night, listening to my bones creak like bamboo as they lengthened. Wasn’t that the way with giants? Had not Old Tibo told us over and over again? You needed to stand back. Up close you couldn’t see them. Giants were the landscape.
I did not need to see a doctor. I knew what had happened. I was cursed.
I decided that I had to go back. I had to apologize. Then the growing would stop.
Tall Story Page 12
