After eating, Fray Villalobos and I spent the rest of the day singing Church hymns with the old woman before riding back to the misión. All I could think of was the possibility of adding a little sugar to help neutralize the ampalaya’s lingering bitterness.
Pinakbet
some oil
some ginger
some garlic
some onions
some nice ripe tomatoes
some bagoong isda
a little okra
some ampalaya, cut lengthwise (which is the proper way to do so)
some eggplants, cut like flowers (which, it seems, makes it more appealing)
*
I REMEMBER THE Saturday when we visited the small Tsino village near the sea. It was a dreadful morning, with a constant light drizzle, but no amount of persuasion could dissuade Fray Villalobos from his planned itinerary.
“Could we not stay and minister to the supplicants who have come to the misión?” I asked him as he rooted through the pantry for some spices.
“We are almost out of everything!” he suddenly exclaimed, standing straight with an expression of pure horror. “I thought that the supplies from Ciudad Meiora had already arrived! What will we share with the Indio? What shall we cook with?”
“Did you not hear that the supplies, along with the mail, are delayed a few days because of the rains?” I reminded him.
“I don’t suppose historians of your order customarily keep a secret cache of food hidden somewhere?” he asked me half-seriously. I could not respond to the absurdity of his question.
“Well, we’ll simply have to throw ourselves at the mercy of others,” he said with finality. He paused at the pantry door. “Come, come, Monja Barraquias. We’re visiting Tiang Shen.”
While I suppose that everyone was equally deserving of the saving grace of the Tres Hermanas, the Tsino from the mysterious lands north of Hinirang’s archipelago did not figure at all in the Ispancialo plan of conversion, being foreigners themselves to these lands. Yet their numbers seemed to be slowly growing; in fact, they preceded our arrival in Hinirang by many years. They were merchants down to the last sleepy-eyed child, notorious for their unsavory living conditions, their ear-splitting tongue and their penchant for crooked bargains. That Fray Villalobos wanted to consort with them, and perhaps even eat their questionable food, was a strain for my normally open mind to accept (I had heard that, like savages, they ate anything that moved).
We rode to their village called Tiang Shen, and it was akin to entering a different world. Their homes were festooned with a variety of colored buntings, and idols reminiscent of my dear friend in their stoutness filled every conceivable crevice. The Tsino themselves ignored us, rushing about their business as if their lives depended on it. The air hung heavy with transactions, as if everyone was buying and selling. In the midst of this cacophony, Fray Villalobos glided serenely on sandaled feet, splashing through the mud and rain, unerring in the knowledge of his ultimate destination.
We reached the small quay where a stunning variety of fish, crabs, and shells were unloaded and sold in the light rain. We caught shelter under the eaves of a large wooden building, which I took to be a brief respite but was actually our final goal. Four long benches and a counter ringed a pair of Tsino men who were moving so quickly that they seemed to be in a battle rather than cooking. Shrimp and vegetables flew in the air, were caught in giant ladles, and shoved into boiling oil.
“Leung ko luglug,” Fray Villalobos shouted out in what I realized was the Tsino tongue, extending two fingers. One of the men grunted his understanding and we wrestled to sit down among the fishermen. When we were seated, I asked him above the commotion if he intended to preach to these people.
“Who said anything about preaching? We’re here to eat pancit luglug!”
“But what about their immortal souls?” I almost shouted above the rabble.
“They’re just as hungry as everyone else,” he replied.
I took this to mean that we were there simply to eat. So with a sigh, I resigned myself to watching how they made pancit luglug, which in itself was a fascinating process. They began by soaking some annatto seeds in a little boiling water for a few minutes, then squeezing the reddish-yellow color off the seeds which they then discarded. Next, they boiled shrimp heads and shells, strained the salty liquid through cloth. Then, in a deep pan, they toasted garlic in oil until it was lightly brown, quickly added onions, pork, and shrimps and let it cook it for a short time. In a frenzy of motion, they mixed in shrimp stock, annatto water, pork broth, bits of fried tofu, a dash of fish sauce, and a sprinkling of salt and pepper, bringing the whole mixture to a boil and letting it simmer for a few minutes. On one cook’s signal, the other man added tapioca and blended the new ingredient in constantly until the sauce thickened. When that was done, they boiled rice noodles in a pot of water, drained it, and quickly dipped it in cold water.
We were served the pancit luglug in a bilao (which is a shallow round tray made with dried palm tree leaves) with banana leaves. The noodles were placed on the leaves and the savory sauce was poured over it, and finally the toppings were sprinkled on. Some tza in exquisite blue porcelain cups accompanied the meal, and for an instant I was lost in the brushstroke swirl of fish, flowers, and the flavors of another land.
Pancit Luglug
some rice noodles
some oil
some garlic
some onions
some shrimp juice
some boiled pork
some shrimps
some fish sauce
some tapioca
salt and pepper
Toppings
dried fish flakes
deep-fried pork rind
hard boiled eggs
some scallion stalks
some shrimps
some calamansi
fish sauce
TO MY SURPRISE, after that unexpectedly fine meal, Fray Villalobos dragged me to the edge of the quay where apparently he knew some of the fishermen. In their language, they exchanged stories all afternoon. I assumed my friend took the opportunity to teach a little catechism.
I watched from the relative dryness of an upturned boat, and wondered just how recipes begin. After all, someone, somewhere, must have decided that some things tasted better with other things, if prepared in a certain way. Someone tried things out until they were just right, and then wrote it down for others to follow. I remember thinking how life would be so different if only we could control all the aspects of our existence like we select our ingredients and prepare our meals. If only we had recipes for more than food. If only.
II
I SUPPOSE WHAT happened to us one Saturday on the outskirts of Banay-banay was unavoidable. The Mother Church had no illusions about the enormous task of converting all of Hinirang to the saving grace of the Tres Hermanas. The road to the Indios’ salvation was long, arduous, twisting, and fraught with many a pitfall for the unwary, the unprepared and the faint of heart. After all, these people already had in place various false gods, spirits, ancestors, and otherworldly beings that they feared, loved, and worshipped.
None of us historians bothered to collate the complicated net of relationships between their assorted pantheons and divinities — made all the more confusing by the fact that every little tribal grouping had their own gods, in addition to the spirits they held in common with the other tribes in other places.
Our clergy had their work laid out like the imagined final image of an empty mosaic. Theirs was the responsibility of putting each tiny piece of glass together with the hope of creating a new nation of devotees, for the glory of the Tres. With each part of the picture completed, we historians would send word across the sea to the Mother Church, for their edification and praise.
We expected the Indios to be grateful. After all, our motivation was the redemption of their pagan souls. In some areas, our clerics were successful. In other places, there was fierce resistance.
&nbs
p; What seemed inevitable was that Fray Villalobos and I, on one of our culinary expeditions, would encounter a priest of the savage gods.
We were riding long into the night, returning to the misión after a full afternoon of making bibingka. Our hearts were full of praise for the Tres, and our bellies were bursting with cassava and coconut milk when an Indio priest suddenly blocked our path, frightening our horses with his crazed appearance. He screamed something at the top of his lungs and waved some sort of feathered stick in his hands. The tattoos that covered his arms and upper chest decorated parts of his hideous face as well — a pair that resembled snakes framed his mouth in a most unsightly way.
Once again, he shouted something. I turned to Fray Villalobos and, maintaining an outward calm, asked him what the dreadful man was saying.
“He’s a wandering priest from somewhere in the south,” Fray Villalobos told me grimly. “He’s challenged me to a duel.”
I looked at him in astonishment. “A duel?”
Fray Villalobos nodded and dismounted quietly.
“Wait, wait,” I told him, trying to hold him back. “Why don’t we just offer him some bibingka? Or wine? I know we still have some in my bags.” I myself did not understand what I was trying to say. There was something in me that told me that something horrible was about to happen.
“I don’t think that would do anything,” Fray Villalobos replied, planting himself firmly on the ground. “Monja Barraquias, perhaps it is best if you leave now.”
“Leave you?” I asked him incredulously. “If this pagan wants a fight, then smite him with the power of the Tres! You have Faith! Show him a miracle and let’s go home!”
“I would if I could,” he looked at me strangely, “but we are very far away from any Church demesne. This is their territory.”
“Then decline and let us be off,” I worriedly told him. “Please.”
“No. I cannot decline. I will not decline. He has blasphemed against the Tres,” he turned to me for a moment. “Go.”
“I will not leave you.”
“Then pray for me.” He turned to face the Indio priest again.
I felt my heart sink as the priest bared his teeth and began walking towards us. I found myself retreating to keep the horses from bolting away. Part of me screamed at the injustice of the situation, at the unfairness of the ambush, for what Fray Villalobos said was absolutely true. Within the sphere of Church influence, the most powerful of our clergy, the ones with the greatest Faith, could work wonders and miracles, pull lightning from the sky and draw water from stone. But outside of the Church lands, Faith could barely spark a flame or produce a dewdrop. Outside, the spirits of Hinirang held sway. Outside, the vile things rode storms and ruled the rivers.
“Leave us alone!” I shouted, as I felt an unearthly heat begin to form around the area. “Leave us alone!”
The ululating voice of the Indio priest rose in volume and power, causing winds to thrash the ground into a frothing layer of dust, stone and leaves. His outstretched hands contorted into painful positions, fingers splaying out in unnatural configurations. The feathered stick he carried glowed with an unnatural sheen of colors, and the tattoos that emblazoned his body seemed to move fluidly, crisscrossing, intersecting, breaking and reforming in bizarre patterns.
Fray Villalobos kept his eyes closed as the winds whipped his robe and habit around him, trying to find the calm center of Faith within himself. He chanted prayers to the Tres, raising his voice to counteract the singsong of his wicked adversary who began to call out to his heathen gods. With steady hands, he raised the symbol of the Tres Hermanas above his head and bellowed out a powerful prayer, intoning the Holy Names of the Pio Familia, trying to create a small flame of Faith to safeguard him.
Above the cadence and rhythm of the competing voices, I heard a new sound, like a low moaning noise that originated from the evening sky. I saw a cloud of thousands and thousands of insects racing towards Fray Villalobos, commanded by the will of the Indio priest, who had sung them into an organized frenzy. I did not realize that I was already screaming as loudly as I could, screaming at the top of my lungs for this to just stop, for the horror to simply end, for this wicked, wicked man to just leave my friend alone.
At the moment before they struck him, Fray Villalobos opened his eyes and screamed, abandoned by the power of the Tres, unable to muster Faith, unable to do anything but be covered in the mass of insects that bit and clawed and devoured him in an eternal instant, reducing my friend of endless charm and collected recipes into nothing, nothing, nothing at all.
I fell to my knees, heedless of the horses, weeping from the depths of my soul, finding no comfort in rage and helplessness. The terrible sound suddenly subsided, the insects dispersing to the four winds as the earth calmed and the Indio priest examined what remained of my friend. I watched him mutely as he kicked the bones before walking towards me.
“Umuwi na kayong lahat,” he told me.
Go home.
Go home.
Go home.
III
WHY DID MY friend’s faith fail him? Where were the Tres Hermanas when he needed them? Why are they selective in whom they hear, when they hear, where they hear?
What is the value of faith if there are no guarantees to its consistency? Which should matter more — what you believe in, or where you are when you exercise your faith? The Word tells us that faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains, but what happens if the mountain refuses to move? Or if someone else is on the mountain? Or if the mountain already belongs to someone else?
Everything I know about faith I learned from Fray Villalobos, as we crossed the culinary lines between ourselves and the Indios. Those subtle lessons were not wasted on me, and yet now I find myself lost, asking the empty sky just what do I do next. For if my dear friend ever mentioned what the recipe for faith was, I must have not heard it at all.
I have found that grief is a real thing. It claws and bites like a cloud of insects with no less intensity, only much slower, much quieter, much more deliberate. When I tried to face it, it embraced me instead. It had the consistency boiled rice noodles, the smell of sugar and vinegar, and the bitter taste of ampalaya.
*
DURING THE FIVE years in which I searched for the nameless Indio priest, I stopped collecting recipes. My loss of interest in writing down formulas however did not deter me from continuing to occasionally sample various Indio dishes. I suppose I did that in memory of Fray Villalobos, for I had ceased to enjoy anything to do with the land of Hinirang. Puto, ginaatan, sinigang, laing — all these native delicacies tasted like ashes.
But what my friend taught me was that the key to understanding these people was somehow in sharing their food, so I did, for there was much that my soul yearned to understand, and one particular thing I wanted to do.
I resolved to cook a Hinirang recipe one last time, to celebrate the day when I found the murderer. Nothing special, just my need to put an end to things — put everything that was Hinirang behind me. I wanted to see that tattooed monster one last time. And then I would cook one last time, and if I was left alive, sail back home.
Go home.
*
IN THE WEEKS that followed Fray Villalobos’ death, the mission went into a righteous frenzy, nearly provoking a war of attrition. The Church organized a manhunt and sent powerful clerics armed with holy relics into the mountains and seasides, the jungles and hidden places. They carried their demesne with them, accompanied by guardias and soldados from the nearby towns and a small cuerpo du espada from Ciudad Meiora itself.
More than one life was lost during those days. They did what they could, striking fear into the hearts of every Indio in the province. They burned and punished and fought and spat and prayed and failed to find the murderer.
In the end, the Guvernador-Henerale himself called for an end to the bloodshed, perhaps fearing that any more provocation would upset the delicate balance of things. Within two years, life was b
ack to normal. Within three, you could almost believe that one side or other had either forgotten, or forgiven.
As soon as it was deemed safe for the Ispaniola to go around unaccompanied again, I began to look. I found that many of the Indios were just as appalled at the death of my friend, and that they remembered me as well. For that reason, I evaded whatever distrust they held for all of my race and religion, the incongruity of an Ispancialo woman asking questions never occurring to me. Perhaps to their eyes, I was just trying to carry on the tradition set into motion by Fray Villalobos. But after every meal of ashes, after every brief but tortuous attempt to converse, I would just sit back in silence, rather than raise a hymn to the Tres.
*
WHEN I FINALLY found him, it felt like the anticlimax to a story that should have gone in several other directions. I found the Indio priest asleep in a small hut near a river. There was no mistaking his identity — every detail of his face was burned into my head; even if his tattoos decided to dance, he could not hide who he was. I thought of something to say to him, but every word I knew shied away.
I struck him eighty seven times with the bolo I carried. Of course he stopped gasping for life long before I was finished with him, but there was a proper way to do things, a correct way to cut. I had everything I needed.
After I finished my preparations, I prepared my last recipe, cooking for as long as was prescribed, and gorged myself until my stomach could hold no more. It tasted exactly like I imagined it would. After all, the secret to successfully recreating recipes is a commitment to finding the proper ingredients. All you need is patience.
And a little faith.
Dinuguan
some soft pork, cut into fat cubes
some pork blood
some vinegar
some salt
some water
some oil
a few onions
some garlic
some fish sauce
some chopped peppers
The Kite of Stars and Other Stories Page 4
