PINATUBO Ch.13 - Stoning A Girl

THIRTEEN

Stoning A Girl

         Standing at the mouth of a long tunnel, I see a mysterious woman at the other end, her hand outstretched, beckoning me. I saunter toward the woman and as I take her hand, we are instantly transported into another dream dimension. Lush green grass carpets the landscape with towering trees, surrounded by jasmines, lilacs, sampaguitas and rosals. The sun is rising over the hills, while the birds chirp a lovely melody. Nearby is a building where a flagpole rises from the center of the playground, flying the red, white and yellow flag of the Philippines. I recognize the architecture. It’s my old elementary school, with the familiar sound of children playing.

         One girl is jumping the rope with her arms crisscrossed. Two other girls are watching her jump and chanting to the rhythm of the jumprope slashing the hard dirt.

         "Red, white and blue. Stars over you. Papa said, Mama said, I love you."

         The jumping girl stops suddenly and looks up. I see my own face staring at me. She is me! And I’m looking up at another girl who’s alone and standing under a banana tree. She seems to be communing with nature, feeling the warmth of the sun on her face.

         The two girls walk toward her and start yelling: Anak nang puta," daughter of a whore, they chorus, and start gathering small rocks from the ground. They continue the vicious chant as they march toward the girl, then they start throwing the rocks at her.

         The strange girl stands undaunted, blood flowing from her forehead where a rock had hit her. She stares motionless at the two girls.

         The school bell rings, and the two girls quickly vanish. I run toward the injured girl but she holds out her hand to stop me, fixing me with a piercing stare that makes me shudder.

         And I wake up shuddering.

         “Hey, Mary, wake up.” It’s my sister Malia’s hand shaking my shoulder gently.

         I open my eyes and instantaneously squint at the brightness of the room.

         “Where am I?” I say, feeling dazed and disoriented. I blink to clear my vision, looking for familiar things in my bedroom in Cincinnati.

         “I think you were having a bad dream.”

         With my senses barely following the awakening of my mind, I realize I’m not in Cincinnati. I sit up and massage my temples. “What time is it?”

         “It’s about noon.”

         “Noon?” I quickly rise and start making the bed. Malia fluffs my pillows. I can’t remember the last time I slept in so late. “I was dreaming that Pinatubo erupted again . . . No. I was dreaming about a strange girl . . . the kids were taunting and throwing rocks at her . . . I was there. I tried to help her.”

         Malia laughs. “Boy, you really cannot handle Benadryl, can you?”

         “Benadryl? Was that Benadryl you gave me. No wonder. But why did you give me Benadryl?”

         “Because, my dear, you were so shaken up last night. Dado practically had to carry you inside the house. I had to calm you down and put you to sleep.”

         My awareness has now fully ebbed back into my organism; life and energy now coursing through my veins. “Pinatubo’s eruption? Oh, my God, yes! I wasn’t dreaming. It was real! Oh, how exciting!”

         “Exciting, my foot. You were scared. The woman who never got scared, the woman known to be a volcano lover, was terrified! And it was only a minor eruption that lasted a few seconds.”

         “It didn’t seem minor. I remember Dado and I falling on the ground.” I examine my legs for any bruises. “We were on our knees . . . I must have a cut somewhere . . .” I don’t find any.

         “It probably was worst where you were. The tremor rattled some dishes on the cupboards, other than that, it was uneventful.”

         “I feel embarrassed. All my life I wanted to get caught up in the midst of a huge volcano eruption, and now, I panic at the slightest blast.”

         “Well, don’t be embarrassed,” Malia says. “We’ve just gotten so used to it, it has become a part of our daily life.” She picks up the clothing I wore yesterday and drapes them over her arm. “You have any more dirty clothes? Nanay is doing the laundry today.”

         I go in the closet and pick up a few dirty clothes and hand them to her. “In the States, I do my own washing. I don’t have a live-in maid there like you do here. ”

         “We don’t treat Nanay as our maid, you know that.”

         “Yes, I know.”

         I grab my toiletry bag and a towel from the closet. “What did Dado say?”

         “Not much. He was in a hurry. He said he had an urgent call from his Commander, I think.”

         “What else is new?” I say, remembering all the interrupted dates we had had because high-ranking officials would always summon him for an official duty. “He must think now that I’m such a sissy.”

         “Why is it so important to you that someone might think you are not the strong and tough cookie that we all know you are?”

         Her words stun me. “I don’t think that.”

         “Well, you are acting like it. But don’t worry; we don’t think less of you now just because you got scared last night. You climb mountains, you skydive . . . we know you’re adventurous, brave and tough. You’ve been that way since you were a little girl, and you’ll always be.”

         “Now, you’re making fun of me.”

         “Me? Making fun of you? Wait till Johnny and Lisa hear what happened last night. I can’t wait to tell them.”

         Malia rushes out of the bedroom to avoid my long fingernails. “You’re going to regret this!” I scream at her.

         In the shower, a huge bucket of warm water is already waiting for me. Malia had warned me that the hot water has not been working for a while. I feel guilty that Nanay prepares this for me every morning by boiling a pot of water and pouring it down into the bucket half-filled with cold water. I can handle the cold shower; in fact, after the initial shock, I welcome it in this heat and humidity. But no matter how many times I tell her to stop pampering me this way, she doesn’t stop. She’s spoiling me.

         I come out of the shower with a towel wrapped around my body. I feel rejuvenated. The bathroom is right outside my bedroom so I take a few steps and I’m in there. My sisters’ voices halt me from going inside my room. I turn around and I trace their voices outside the house, in the dirty kitchen, doing what they love to do most: cooking. I am feeling hungry, so I rush back to my bedroom and replace the towel with an oversize man’s shirt—my favorite to wear around the house. I buy them for me. I like them because they’re very comfortable. I grab my hairbrush and proceed to join my sisters.

         I slowly and stealthily open the door to the kitchen to surprise my sisters. Malia and Lisa stop their conversation right away and spin their heads around to my direction so quickly they almost snap. It’s clear that I totally caught them off guard.

         “Hey guys, what were you talking about?”

         “God, you scared us!” Malia exclaim.

         “That was my intention,” I say laughing. I pick up a hot pandesal from the basket and quickly take a bite of it. These famous Philippine hot rolls are smaller than what I remember, but they’re still quite delicious. They’re like Starbucks in the States; you can find them everywhere, and always hot.

         “We were just talking about your experience last night with the minor eruption,” says Lisa. She seems so serious. I thought for sure she’d be mocking me by now. I'm positive that Malia had already related to her my embarrassing experience last night with Dado.

         “Well, I swear it didn’t feel or sound like a minor eruption to me,” I say. Malia hands me a cup and I grab the pot from the coffeemaker, pouring the hot beverage into the cup and quickly take a sip. “Hmm, this is good coffee.”

         "Sorry, we don’t have Starbucks here.”

         “This is better. Is this the famous blend from Batangas?”

         “Yes.”

         “Got to bring some of this back to the States with me.”

         “I’ll have Leo bring home some before you leave.”

         “Two pounds, beans only, please. I’ll pay for it.”

         “You don’t have to. Christmas gift.”

         “In that case, five pounds, please.”

         Curiously, they don’t react to my joke. I look at them quizzically. “Smile! You’re on candid camera.”

         Malia pulls a chair and motions me to sit down. I raise an eyebrow. “Wow . . . are we being serious this morning. What’s up?”

         Lisa quietly continues with her chore—chopping amd slicing various kinds of vegetables: bitter melon, okra, eggplant, tomatoes -- looks like the ingredients for pinakbit. Yum.

         “We were talking about your dream last night.” Malia begins.

         “Pinatubo? But we’ve decided it wasn’t a dream. The eruption was real.”

         “No, about the girl in your dream.”

         “You were interested in my dream about that girl? Why?”

         Lisa stops chopping and looks up at me. “Don’t you remember that you used to talk about a strange girl in your school?”

         My curiosity heightens. My sisters are acting stranger by the minute. “You can’t expect me to remember that . . . it was a long time ago. More like another life for me. I can’t even remember my schoolteachers’ names, much less a certain girl in school.”

         “This was different,” says Malia. “Think hard.”

         I pause and ruminate for a moment or two . . . but nothing comes to mind.

         “I’m sorry, but I still don’t remember,” I say, shaking my head from left to right. “Maybe if you’d just go ahead and tell me what this is all about, it would save us a lot of time.”

         Malia gets up from her chair, walks over to the stove and stirs the pot of boiling coconut milk. She adds malagkit--a type of sticky rice, stirs it again then lowers the heat from high to low. She grabs an aluminum pan from the cupboard and lines it with wilted banana leaves where she would later pour the mixture in, then bake in the oven. She is making one of my favorite Philippine desserts called Bibinkang Malagkit. I can’t wait to have a slice of it for my late breakfast. I wonder how many pounds I’m going to gain this time. No wonder Rob always comments at how I always come back from the Philippines looking like I’ve eaten well here.

         Malia reclaims her seat and starts what I think is a revelation of some kind.

         “Try to remember,” Malia begins. “You came home after school one day very upset about this girl in school. You called her the strange girl. You said she was constantly harassed by other kids because she was different.”

         I stare at Malia’s face as if therein lay the memories of the girl that I can just pluck one by one.

         “What else did I say?”

         Malia goes back to the stove and stirs the mixture again with a large wooden spoon then turns the heat off. “Don’t you remember the time when the girl’s mother came to your school and grabbed the girl from your room, and you never saw her again after that?”

         She seems to remember it clearly. Why can’t I remember any of it? “This is starting to make me feel light headed,” I say. “Nothing is coming to me.”

         I get off my chair and help Malia by grabbing the pot by the handles and pouring the malagkit in the pan. She spreads a can of rich coconut milk on top of the malagkit and sprinkles it with anis seeds. Traditionally, live coals would be placed on the cover over mixture until it browns. But most people now bake it in an ordinary oven and finished off by putting it under the broiler to brown the topping.

         Watching Malia maneuver around the kitchen, bending down to grab heavy pots from the lower cabinets, carrying heavy serving bowls and plates filled with foods, hacking and chopping huge pieces of meats, is nothing short of amazing. It’s nice to see her looking so strong. This is the woman who was paralyzed from the waist down for two years when she was thirteen. And the doctors said she’d never walk again. Boy, did she prove them wrong.

         Lisa puts the knife down and sits back, but not relaxed. She seems to be holding back some emotions.

         “Okay, enough of this mysterious talk,” I say. “Obviously, there is something very important going on here, so let’s just get straight to the point, shall we? Who is this girl? What’s her connection with me?”

         Lisa puts away the knife, pushes the chopping board and the vegetables aside and adheres her arms flat onto the table and leans over, her face close to mine. “You know those girls in your dream who were throwing rocks at the strange girl?”

         I give her a confused look. “Yes . . . what about them?”

         “Well . . . one of those girls was me.”

         “That’s ridiculous. It was just a dream.”

         “It wasn’t just a dream. It happened in real life. How can you forget such a thing?”

         “I don't know. But assuming it's true, why would you throw rocks at the girl? What did she do to you?”

         “Nothing.”

         I blast off my chair and throw my arms up in the air. “Now that makes real sense. You are not that kind of girl. I’ve never seen you bully anyone at all when we were young.”

         “But I did and you saw it happen. That’s why you were so upset when you came home that day. But you didn’t tell Ma and Pa because you were afraid they would punish me.”
         Lisa is now on the verge of crying. And I still don’t have any idea what this is all about.

         “But why? Why would you do a thing like that?”

         A dreadful silence hangs in the air.

         Lisa pounds the table with her fist and shoots me an expression I had never seen in her before.

         “Because . . . because she was my friend . . .”

         “You are not making any sense. Friends don’t stone each other like that.”

         “She was my friend before I found out.”

         “For goodness sake,” Malia interrupts. “Just say it, Lisa.”

         My heart is pounding now. I have a suspicion that I am going to hate whatever I am going to hear next.

         “Because she is our father’s daughter!”

         All her pent-up emotions have been released. Lisa is now crying. Malia comforts her with a hug.

         I feel as if all the oxygen has been sucked out of me. My breath is caught up in my throat and stays there. I remember feeling this way when I was hiking Mount Rainier in the State of Washington. I thought I was having angina. The altitude was getting to me. My heart felt like a brick in my chest.

         "It is true then. . ." I say under my breath. "Pa had other children besides us."

         As I lower myself to the chair, everything starts coming back to me.

         I cannot remember her name, but she was in my class. Everybody made fun of her in school because she always acted and looked strange. She could have been pretty behind the long scraggly hair, and the teeth that always looked in dire need of a good brushing. The wide gap between her two upper front teeth made her even more self-conscious, always covering her mouth with her hand when she flashed her very rare smile. She wore only second-hand clothes, it seemed, and most of her clothes didn’t seem to fit her, and those that did she wore over and over, never looking ironed or washed. She was always pulling and stretching her dress, as if doing so would make it looser and longer.

         Illegitimate children in the Philippines are always treated like outcasts. Often I witnessed the meanness and cruelty of young people and their vicious words tore at my heart. Nevertheless, the strange girl remained fearless and never spoke or complained of the scorn and brutal treatment she received.

         What exactly happened on that day she disappeared remains a mystery to me.

(End of Chapter Thirteen)

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PINATUBO Ch.14 Pandora’s Box  (E) Mary's sisters reveal the truths about their father's other women and children.. . #1140293 by writeartista