Forgiving Imelda Marcos, page 4
In any case, I think names usually play a bigger role in shaping who we become. Isn’t it funny that the two people I keep bringing up here—Mrs. Aquino and Mrs. Marcos—both have names that reflect their personalities, if not their whole lives? Mrs. Aquino was Maria Corazon, which means something like “the heart of Mary.” And Mrs. Marcos, of course, is Imelda, which, I discovered after some prying, means “powerful fighter.”
And then we have you, José Antonio.
I don’t know which surname you’ve chosen to keep for yourself. Sometimes I even wonder if you’ve retained the classic Spanish name, or perhaps you’ve changed it to something like John Anthony. Life would probably be much easier there with a name like that.
But did you also know that you were named after your grandfather—my father? I wonder if your mother has ever told you. He’s dead now, bless his soul. But I realized I kept going on and on about his life the other day, for no particular reason. I’m sorry about that. Once I finished writing, I couldn’t understand why I’d brought him up in the first place. Now I seem to know and remember.
Son, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you, something I’ve never asked anyone before. I admit that this time you’ll be doing me a favor, as I may never have the chance to tell you about it ever again. If you allow me, this thing will make sense only if I first share with you another story. It is not a very long story, thankfully, though it is rather a complicated one, and for that I apologize. But I promise you, in the end, everything will come together.
3
IT ALL STARTED with an egg.
At least, that was what my father told me, a few days after he met Ka Noel in the mountains of Zambales. Ka is short for kasama, or “comrade,” and it is what Ka Noel preferred to be called rather than the name he once used as a priest.
“Here,” he said to my father, handing him the brown egg. “Hold it tight.”
My father hesitated. He had just stumbled upon the rows of nipa huts in the jungle that evening and didn’t yet know what to make of the guerrillas. And, of course, he didn’t want to make a mess of an egg.
“You have a lot of fear in you,” Ka Noel said. “And hatred.” My father gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. “Harder,” Ka Noel said. “Give it all you got.”
The man is an old fool, my father thought. And yet there he was, surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands, of Ka Noel’s followers. They all carried guns. My father had traveled with nothing but a knapsack of food supplies, which had run out by the time he found the village. So he’d thrown it into a ravine and had come as himself, with only a watch and his round spectacles to his name. Perhaps the villagers thought he was the crazy one.
“You can let go now, brother.”
“What?”
“This,” Ka Noel said.
My father looked down and realized that his fists were turning blue. Inside one of them was the egg, unbroken.
“When I heard what happened, I was very sad,” Ka Noel said. “My men go down to Moncada once in a while to sell our crops. We know we’re being watched, but we don’t have a choice. If I’d known, however, that…” He breathed in deeply. “I’d have insisted we all go hungry instead. Brother, trust me. We would never hurt ordinary people, because they’re just like us. We are the people.”
At this, my father’s wrath only intensified. Before he could restrain himself, the egg in his hand flew out and up toward Ka Noel’s face. But it bounced right back and landed on my father’s feet. It was still whole, my father swore to me, and because they were sitting outside the camp, the egg not only took on the glow of the fire, but also seemed to glow from within.
My father was about to pick up the egg when a familiar knife flashed in front of his eyes. It was the butterfly knife he had hidden and strapped near his shoes. In a moment he thought he was going to die. And that was all very well, for it was what he had expected, showing up by himself this way. It was secretly what he had wished for. He prepared to close his eyes when the blade was turned around to face him hilt-first.
“You have come to seek justice,” Ka Noel said. “And there is no better justice than to meet the man responsible for the death of your wife. You have come to kill me, brother, this I know. So kill me.”
* * *
In almost every religion or organized belief system, there is a tradition of telling one’s conversion story. Usually it involves extreme opposites: from profligate prince to enlightened ascetic; from drug addict to doting parent; from criminal to saint; from Paul to Saul. Embellishments and exaggerations not only abound but are to be expected. Though the listener can take the story with a grain of salt, even spoonfuls of it, that doesn’t matter. What matters, and what cannot be contested, is that, in the mind and heart of the convert, the spiritual experience did occur. The encounter is genuine and supremely felt. Therefore, when he or she tells you the story, the convert is not just doing it as a favor, extending you the invitation, so to speak, to experience your own. Rather, every time the story is retold, the convert relives his ecstasy.
I had just entered high school when my father told me his story. Of course, back then I didn’t view it so abstractly. Instead, I was rather amused, at first, that a grown man could narrate such a wacky tale. I thought it possible that he was kidding or teasing me. But I soon realized that he was very serious. Then I thought maybe he had just gone off the deep end. This amused me, too, because by that time, I didn’t care much about him anymore. In my dreams, I had fantasized that my father was already dead.
You have to understand the mentality of not only a teenager here, but a teenager who has been abandoned again and again. So consumed was my father by his search for my mother’s killers that, when I was growing up, it was not uncommon for him to disappear without telling me or anyone else. For days, I’d have to fend for myself. There would be food inside the fridge, mostly soup and viands from the carinderia, along with store-bought bread. There’d be some money left on top of our piano, and in the beginning, a note stapled to the bills—I’ve forgotten the exact wording, but there was always some excuse about leaving on urgent business and not wanting to wake me up, and so forth. But after a while he stopped leaving even those notes. I had a feeling that even he was embarrassed about lying so often to a child.
Though my father’s disappearances had become quite common, I still knew, somehow, that they were not normal. Perhaps I realized it when my teacher sent us home with our report cards, and, rather than tell the truth of my situation, I forged my father’s signature. I got caught because my penmanship was too poor to pass for an adult’s. My father was called in. I was so sure that I’d be reprimanded and suspended.
Instead, he made a scene about being insulted for his bad penmanship, and how dare my teacher accuse his son—me—of being anything but an upright student. That secret wink, no matter how perverse, was one of the few moments of bonding that I recall between us.
I admit that sometimes being left alone at home, with a stash of corn chips and chicharrones by my side, and the promise of endless hours of TV and no homework, did not bother me so much. In fact, it’s possible that I even looked forward to my father leaving on these occasions. When days had passed since his last trip, and I’d get the sense that he was making preparations anew, I’d start to behave my best. I’d make a big show of doing all my assignments while he could still serve as witness, as if to tell him, “See, nothing to worry about, I’m a big boy.” And then when that glorious morning came, unannounced, the bills on top of the piano, the fridge filled with food, I’d accept it all as my “reward.” I wouldn’t invite any friends over—not a single soul—not so much out of concern for protecting my father’s secret, but because I was greedy. Maybe this is how introverts are born.
In any case, one day I had been watching Tom chase Jerry over and over when I heard a knock outside. I knew it couldn’t be my father, because he had keys. If it had been him, I’d have heard the clatter of the gate being opened and his car sliding into the driveway. Besides, he rarely came back when the sun was still up, as if he were trying to make the most of his trip. I ignored the knocking at first. Then it became relentless enough that I couldn’t continue watching TV. So I put on my slippers.
This woman, standing by the iron rails, I knew to be my aunt.
Strange sentence, perhaps, but it expresses precisely our relationship up to that point. She had on large sunglasses, her hair was neatly combed though not styled, and she always spoke softly, as if she were preserving her voice for choir. I’d met her only once or twice before in my life. I believe now that she was indeed my father’s sister—many years later, she’d appear again at his funeral. Back then, she could have been anybody that my father wanted me to call “aunt.” Anyway, this aunt said rather grumpily that she’d been knocking for a long time. She asked me to let her in. As soon as I complied, she took it as permission to barrage me with a million questions.
“Where’s your father?”
“Out on business.”
“Where to?”
“Not sure.”
“Anyone else here?”
“Nope, just me.”
“This happen a lot?”
“Sometimes.”
“How long is he gone for?”
“Don’t know.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
“You sure?”
Somehow, this last question, though merely iterative, had a different force, perhaps ending in a higher pitch, perhaps accompanied by a raised eyebrow, because it knocked me silly. I started to cry.
“Does he ever hurt you?”
“Whaa-t?”
“Does he punch or kick or slap you?”
I shook my head.
“Does he shout at you? Call you names?”
I shook my head.
“Does he ever smell?”
“Whaa-t?”
“Like he’s been drinking. Lord, I don’t know how to describe. Something yeasty. Stale. Maybe smells like pee?”
“You mean alcohol,” I said.
She laughed and wiped her eyes. And then this aunt who always spoke so softly suddenly wrapped her arms around me. It felt weird at the time, you know, like she was trying both to suffocate and comfort me. I was eight years old, I remember. And I had just received my first hug.
* * *
Not long after she left and my father returned, he agreed to put me up in a boarding school for boys located in the next town. I think he was talked—or rather, threatened—into it by my aunt, because she also gave me her phone number, and said that I should call her if ever I found myself in trouble. In any case, my father and I never had a serious conversation about my transfer, as if it had always been part of his grander plan.
Now, when I say “boarding school,” I don’t mean to evoke the version that you might have there in the States. You know, wealthy parents sending their kids to private schools that offer posh accommodations. Ours might actually have been a case of mistranslation, or even misguided ambition, because “boarding for a school” is perhaps closer to the meaning. My boarding school was a cheap dormitory not connected with the nearby school whose students it supposedly served.
In fact, I think most school boards would be appalled if they knew the conditions at our boarding school. The two-story house was tucked at the end of a blind alley and its foundations were slowly being squeezed out by the roots of a monstrous talisay tree. To save on bills, electricity was switched off after nine o’clock every night and the galley kitchen locked up. Of course, this did not deter the boys from finding their own fun. Each room shared a long, dusty balcony, from which we could leer at the passersby below. On evenings when the rain had cleared and the moon had come out, our neighbor’s water buffalo would show up for a bath. No sooner would he have dipped into his pothole than his hot flank would be pelted by paper arrows from the slingshots of the little devils above.
Still, a few good things came as a result of living at the boarding school. For one, I always found company in the form of my roommate, who, although he spent most of his time sleeping and never once cleaned his part of the room, calmed me down with the mere sound of his snoring. Then there was the utter lack of TV, which was painful in the beginning, but eventually forced me to seek out other kinds of entertainment. Newspapers appeared first, for they were cheap and sometimes could be gotten for free, if I hung out long enough with the vendor on our street. Then at some point magazines and comics became a thing for the boys. Most wouldn’t let me borrow their collection, but once in a while I could trade in a few favors—chores, food, spare change—to browse through the pages in installments. Finally, when my reading skills improved enough that I no longer had to rely on pictures, I was able to borrow books from the school library. This coincided with the time when I grew to appreciate language. Certain words stood out to me. Even if I didn’t necessarily know their meaning, their sounds enticed me to consider them as keepsakes. But I’ve already told you about that episode of my life.
I had been living at the boarding school for about five years and had mostly lost touch with my father, when, just before school was about to start up again, he appeared out of the blue and asked if he could take me to breakfast. You can imagine that I didn’t want to talk to him. I didn’t even want to be seen talking to him, because then I’d have to answer pesky questions from the other boys, who might even tease me. But my father insisted. I thought perhaps it might be better, if he was going to be such a pain about it, to be anywhere else but at the boarding school, so we went to a café by the park.
That was when he started to tell me his conversion story.
“Do you want to know what I did to Ka Noel?” he asked.
I just sat there staring at him, sipping on my cappuccino. I’d resolved not to talk to him, no matter how much he bribed me with food and drink. In lieu of a response I just sipped louder.
“Well, I didn’t kill him,” he said. He sighed, as if by saying those words he had forever relinquished that right.
It was too much for me to take—the magic egg and the flashing knife—all told by a father I had come to detest, who had grown older since I’d last seen him, his hair and beard like unkempt shrubbery.
“Of course you didn’t,” I said, unable to resist. “You don’t have the guts.”
He seemed unmoved. But I could tell from the way his blinking slowed that it had affected him internally, and the quiver of his lips told me that he was experiencing some pain, like a variant of the five stages of grief compressed into a few seconds. Finally he smiled that stupid smile.
Because I guess he had been victorious, in a way, by making me talk. I vowed not to let him have the pleasure again. For the rest of that morning, I just listened.
* * *
He did not kill him. He did more than not kill him. He forgave him. And at once, my father said, a great weight was lifted off of him—the weight he’d been carrying since my mother died.
Ka Noel invited him to stay for supper. It was Begnas, a ritual for a good harvest, and the villagers had brought chickens and a wild boar to slaughter. Around the fire, dancers swayed with their arms outstretched like birds. Instruments that sounded like kulintang maintained the same metallic riffs, shifting in tempo only to match the dancers’ feet. My father began to shiver, so he moved closer to the fire. Ka Noel sat next to him and offered him a cup of basi. All night long they drank and chewed their way through the tough boar meat, and when the boar was all gone they ate the chicken, and when the chicken was all gone they improvised and grilled some monitor lizard, and when that, too, was all gone they moved to the civet, and when the civet was all gone they caught some frogs, on and on until my father stopped asking what they were eating or drinking. At some point, when the orange of the flames turned red, Ka Noel brought out two carved mahogany sticks. He brandished them near the fire with their ends pointing up—as if displaying a scroll without the parchment—and then he began to talk, my father said, Ka Noel began talking to the fire.
He took three questions from the villagers that night. Each time he’d pause before he spoke to the fire in a chanting drawl. In turn, the fire would respond by bending to one side or the other, or flickering even if there was no wind. Ka Noel would then interpret these signs for the questioner. The first question was about a young girl’s pregnancy: What gender would the baby be? The fire flickered and Ka Noel said it was hard to tell. Somebody joked that perhaps the kid would also grow up confused about being a boy or a girl. The second question was about harvest, and Ka Noel said there would be enough rain, not too much but not too little, so they could anticipate an ordinary year. Finally, the third question was about their upcoming raid on a food distribution warehouse.
Judging by the men’s faces, this question seemed to have broken an unspoken rule. Nevertheless, Ka Noel went along and passed on the question to the fire. It would be a success, he said. A hard-fought one, but still a success. The men cheered. Ka Noel looked exhausted afterward, as if talking to the fire had drained all his energy. But just as he seemed about to retire, he pointed at my father.
“This is your chance,” Ka Noel said. “We don’t usually allow an outsider, but I’ll make an exception for you. Because of what you have gone through.”
My father said he didn’t even hesitate, for there was only one thing he’d always wanted to know. Up toward the stars he addressed his question: Is she happy?
Ka Noel lifted his two sticks for the last time that night and waited for an answer. The fire leaned to the left, then to the right, before settling back to the left. Ka Noel whispered to the fire and waited a moment to see if it would change its mind. But it didn’t.
“Brother,” he said, “I’m afraid the answer is no.”
* * *
My father stayed for a few more days in Ka Noel’s village. As tired as he was from his travels that first night, he could find no sleep. The crickets abused the thick mountain air to carry their coded messages, and the damp ground seeped through cracks on the earthen wall of the hut. The blankets that the villagers had lent him provided some warmth. But every time he was about to fall asleep, my father thought of the fire. How it had leaned to one side and then the other. How it reminded him of the way his wife, when ordering off a menu, would rest her chin on the well of her palm and lean this way, then that way, before making a decision.
