The Magical Imperfect
Page 6
She looks at it for a long time,
circles around me three times,
making noises, Mm-hmm, uh-huh,
over-exaggerating each sound,
almost like she’s talking to a whole group.
She glances at the trees, then back to the picture.
Well, she says, stepping up on the rock,
gesturing to the trees surrounding us.
It’s unanimous.
I look around.
We love it!
It’s just right.
Flyer
We sit in the small clearing
near the stream, and she tells me
about how she tried go to school,
but her skin kept getting sick,
and then “the incident” happened,
so now she goes to school at home.
She doesn’t really go anywhere
except sometimes to her cousins’ houses.
I want to ask her about the incident, but I stay quiet.
It’s hard to imagine that life.
I flip through the notebook
and in the breeze a few papers fly out,
and the red flyer floats into the air,
sails back and forth, and settles faceup.
Talent show? Malia says, picking it up.
I stand near her,
point to the word singing on the flyer.
You could sing, I say quietly, smiling.
She pulls the blanket
tighter around her face.
We stand in silence,
the water from the stream gurgling slowly past.
She looks at me. I will have to consult with the forest.
She wraps the blanket, which she calls Blankie,
so that a treble clef rests where her mouth should be
and walks off into the towering trees.
Ripples in the Water
Wind through branches
and fern leaves,
quiet water over smooth stones.
Malia’s voice softly singing to the trees.
I hold the green bareket.
If my grandfather found this for me,
I wonder if he could help Malia, too?
Maybe there is a stone that can help her skin?
Then her voice stops,
a sudden quiet,
like someone turned everything off.
I see small ripples in the pool,
like an invisible stone
dropped in its center.
And then, all at once,
the trees begin to sway
back and forth,
except there is
no wind at all.
Then, a rumble in the ground,
a sudden jerk,
the foot of a giant
stepping down.
I look for Malia.
The trees shake faster,
the tops of their trunks bend and sway;
in the distance, I hear a loud crack
like everything
breaking
all at once.
Then
suddenly
it stops.
Silence.
The birds begin again.
I stand there, frozen,
trying to find the courage to look for her,
feeling the unstoppable words rise into my mouth.
I shout her name and start toward the woods.
My arm catches on a sharp branch
and I feel the bark scrape my skin.
When I look down, drops of blood are already forming.
I cover it with my shirt sleeve
because suddenly I see her running toward me,
but she looks different. The blanket is gone.
The Face
What did I expect to see?
An actual creature, a monster?
Instead, I see her,
long black hair, the deep brown eyes.
On half her face, the side usually covered by her blanket,
the skin is red, bumpy, scaly,
almost ripped open, the skin around
her eye swollen to twice its size,
making her eye hard to see.
I hear Martin’s voice in my head,
The creature…, but I ignore it.
She throws her arms around me,
buries her face on my shoulder.
I hug her
the way I like to be hugged when I need it.
I’ll never get used to that, she says.
It’s like the only solid thing,
the only safe thing,
the earth itself
is coming apart.
She jerks back, like she’s forgotten something.
No, she cries, no …
She tries to cover her face and
searches the ground for Blankie.
I follow her to the stream
where Blankie floats
at the edge of the shore.
She picks up the sopping blanket,
and together we squeeze out the water.
Sometimes You Don’t Need Words
I try to make Malia feel better.
It’s okay, I say.
She scowls, her eyes tighten.
I’m just glad you
yelled my name.
Does it take an earthquake
to bring your voice to life?
We squeeze the blanket one more time,
get our stuff, walk back up
the path toward her house.
On the way, Malia touches the bark
of every tree on the path,
and so do I.
It’s Okay
When her mom sees her,
she runs to us, full speed,
wet-faced with tears,
and Malia starts to cry, too.
Her mom puts out a hand for me to come.
I feel her arm on my back
pressing me close.
Malia, what were you thinking!
I told you not to go down there.
Then more hugging, and by now Lola joins us.
Come, she says, and takes
my hand, and we all walk back inside.
Broken Glass
Lola looks at my arm,
the scratch is deep.
You okay?
For some reason when she asks me,
the words pour out.
Yes, it was kinda scary.
Lola smiles.
Inside, the paintings on the wall are sideways,
and in the kitchen, cabinet doors
are flung open and glass is shattered
on the floor.
We walk in with our shoes on.
Lola cleans off my arm, puts a Band-Aid on it.
Malia’s mom hands us brooms and dustpans,
and we sweep.
I’m good at sweeping. I’ve helped out Mrs. Li
and everyone else on Main Street.
It feels good to help.
When we are done cleaning,
we each take a glass of mango juice,
and Lola carries a basket of soft rolls
outside to an old picnic table.
Malia’s blanket is once again
wrapped around her.
Right as we sit down,
I feel words rising up,
unstoppable like exhaling:
Thank you.
You are welcome, Etan! Lola says.
Malia stares at me with one eye.
I think she’s impressed.
Pandesal
I eat at least five of the fluffy bread rolls,
some with cheese baked inside, some with raisins.
Lola says, You like the pandesal?
Yes! I mumble with
bread in my mouth.
We laugh.
Hey, Etan, show them a mailbox picture!
Oh yes, please,
her mom says, sipping her tea.
I take out the notebook,
open to some sketches of
the mailbox,
and they point out the different textures,
the way the dragon curls.
Malia flips through pages of doodles,
and I see one from my mom,
a baseball with flowers growing out of it.
Eventually, Malia gets
to the picture of the river,
and her mom and Lola take their time
to read each word, follow every waterline
along the inky banks.
I look at Malia, and I notice
she’s scratching her arm inside her blanket.
I hadn’t realized it
because it’s been hidden,
but I can see the way her arm moves.
She has been scratching almost the whole time.
Etan. I look up at Mrs. Agbayani.
This is very poetic, about your words
and where they go.
I smile. I don’t know how to react.
Her mom flips the page,
and the red flyer unfolds itself.
I reach out and hold it up.
Hmm, a talent show?
I push the flyer toward Mrs. Agbayani.
Oh well. She wraps her arm around Malia.
Malia whispers, He wants me to sing.
We’ll see, her mom says,
but I know what it means
when a parent says We’ll see.
It usually means
I don’t want to say no right now,
but it is no all the way.
Malia smiles at me,
raises her eyebrow up and down
like she’s hatching a plan,
like she has it all
under control.
Just before Mrs. Agbayani gives me a ride
back to my grandfather’s shop,
Malia walks around the front yard with me,
constantly scratching her arm,
and I can’t ignore it.
Is your arm okay?
What? Oh. Yes.
She looks up at the branches of a tree near the road,
gently touches its bark.
Maybe she’s listening to it.
Do you really think I can sing? she asks.
Yes! I say, you’re so good …
She looks back at the tree
and I stare at it, too,
our bellies full of pandesal.
It feels like we both
have run out of words.
Sometimes silence
is just what you need.
A car passes by slowly;
Malia waves. Then she turns to me
with a sideways smile
and punches my arm
just enough to hurt.
Good singer? she says.
I’m a great singer.
We look at each other,
silence,
then we laugh.
Etan, it’s not the singing.
I can’t because—I mean—well, this.
And for the second time,
she removes Blankie slightly,
lets me see her full face.
Oh, I say. I want to tell her
that it doesn’t matter.
She should be herself,
but I know the truth is not so easy.
Pumpkin
Before I get in the car,
Malia runs up to me.
Oh, Etan, you forgot something.
I look at her,
think of the bag of pomegranates.
My pumpkin?
I forgot. I whisper. Next time?
But the best part
is now
I have a reason
to come back.
Grown-up Talk
Mrs. Agbayani talks to me,
but she doesn’t ask me any questions,
and that makes me feel safer.
Grown-ups like to ask questions that are impossible to answer.
I’m so glad for you, Etan;
Malia is so happy when you come.
I look at her, and now it’s me who wants to ask the questions
about her skin, and her eye, and being allergic to the sun.
But I don’t know how to ask,
so I just say, Is she going to be okay?
I feel the car slow down
as we come into town.
Mrs. Agbayani stares
straight ahead, wiping her eyes.
We are trying everything, she says.
There is a new cream at the hospital
that’s supposed to bring some relief.
Her father will bring some home soon.
To me, it sounds like she is talking to herself.
Mrs. Agbayani parks in front of my grandfather’s shop.
I see him through the window
in the warm light,
tinkering or something.
He looks up, sees us, his face
unfolds into a smile.
He unlocks the door and comes out fast,
hugs me.
She smiles.
We’re okay.
Just a scratch on his arm.
He’ll be fine.
More earthquakes
than I can remember
in a long time.
He nods.
This is a good boy you have here, she says.
I don’t know, my grandfather replies,
I think he’s hiding something.
She laughs,
but then, something else.
She walks over to my grandfather,
and he hugs her, tight.
Like only he can,
like she’s family.
It’s been too long, he says.
How’s your mother?
They talk for a while,
then she walks across the street
to where Mrs. Li
is closing her storefront.
They hug and then walk
together arm in arm.
Come inside, Etan, my grandfather says.
Have you eaten?
Not Hungry
My grandfather slides me a plate
of pickled herring and a giant slice of pumpernickel,
then he goes back to wiping off an old board
with a special cloth covered in slick oil or something.
The smell of herring mixed with the oil
makes my stomach feel weird.
It’s good to see Mrs. Agbayani.
I look at him. I know
they came here on the Calypso,
but he never really talks about them.
The Journey
My grandfather tells me:
Malia’s mom, Mrs. Agbayani, is the daughter
of Emelita and Enrique Urbano.
Enrique was an inventor—and a good one!
He came a few years earlier,
on a different ship
before all of us.
While he was waiting for Lola,
he was working, inventing.
But in the years of saving money
the laws changed, and it wasn’t easy for them to come anymore,
so the only way to make it was on one of the last boats. The Calypso.
We met Emelita when the Calypso stopped in the Philippines.
Enrique had sent for her.
He coughs. It was such a long journey.
My grandfather stares at me.
I try to listen the best I can.
Lola
He can see the surprise on my face.
I think about all the people from the Calypso
at our family gatherings, even Shabbat dinners,
but I can’t remember the Agbayanis being there.
How come we don’t see them more? I ask.
He closes the jar of oil,
folds the cloth over the top of it,
takes a deep breath.
It was hard for us when we came over,
but it was even harder for them.
Not everyone was treated
the same way.
Emelita always kept to herself.
She used to come to our meetings
before you were born.
She even helped watch your father sometimes
when he was small.
I don’t think he remembers.
They moved out to 1401 Forest Road.
It’s a very old house, so they fixed it up over the years.
That’s where Emelita had her children
and where her family lives now,
including your Malia!
She spent a lot of time in the Philippines after Enrique died,
but I think she’s back here for good.
She wants to be with her family,
and I’m glad.
A Day of Awe
Tell me about your day, Grandfather says.
Where were you when the earthquake happened?
I take a bite of the brown bread,
push the plate away.
I was okay. I had this.
I hold up my green bareket,
then try to tell him everything I can,
words here and there,
about the Agbayanis
and the forest and the pool
and about Malia,
and Blankie and pandesal.
I don’t stop until the brown bread
is all nibbled away.
My throat feels dry from talking so much,
and I can see my grandfather is surprised because he’s nodding and smiling
with his lips pushed out.
He grabs my face with both of his giant hands.
This is great, Etan, perfect timing for Rosh Hashanah.
We have much to be in awe about.
We look inward, and rejoice outward!