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Scribe
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 54
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into the night : 2nd of (still undetermined) parts
Into the Night
Now as the leader of the keeners drew her lungs out for the final bravura, mother pulled out her pristine handkerchief, and in the middle of that pestiferous sonata, she blew her nostrils off, making it all the more vexatious to all spirits dead or, half-alive lurking there in the deepest part of our out-flung barrio; the housemaid who appeared from behind the heavy maroon drapery that divided the keening room and the pantry, now teetering bashfully on some imaginary beeline with a tray full of locally-brewed ales and home-baked cookies, was gloriously, gloriously affrighted by the cacophonic orchestration of the keener's eerie elegy and mother's grating nose-blow - the tray tilted to the left, glasses glided to that side, of course, disturbing the equilibrium, in an instant, the whole place was a mess, clinking glasses, girlish shrieks, and the sibilant susmarioseps of the elderly. I closed my eyes. Mother half-aware of her little part in the melee tried to conceal her embarrassment by folding her handkerchief and nervously dusted off the droplets of liquid on my repellent jacket. But when she tried to wipe my face with the defiled hanky, I looked at her with a knowing look. She relented and whispered, "We'd better be going before the bamboo grove gets too dark."
After an intermittent series of leave-takings with the folks who came mostly not to pay their respects to the dead lady but, to catch up on the latest thread of controversy surrounding the cause of the lady's death, we trekked into one of the many mysterious a night in our lives as denizens of a remote barrio in Siquijor.
"What can you say about the dead lady's outfit? Don't you think it's rather outmoded? I mean, I will not be caught dead wearing that lacy frock!"
"Mother, how could you not be caught dead wearing an outmoded outfit like that when you are dead already?"
"River, I am telling this to you, you being the eldest of my children, for you to have a conscience with your choices of clothes for your dead folks."
"Ma, look!" I hang on tight to her skirt hem as a cold wad of wind wafted by with cold hands of death that lingered at the tip of my nape. A howling dog broke into the silence. The bamboo grove creaked and while mother quickly pulled something out from her bag, the tallest of the clump bowed down before us.
"We can trace our steps back and take the federal road if we want but, as God is with us, we can pass by this witched place safe and unharmed." She said with a firm voice. The wind grew harsh.
She opened her Gideonite Bible. And before she could commence with her litany, the grass now as if moved by a higher order, lifted herself up and before us was a silver-white wood coffin with a candle at its head. I hugged her and I closed my eyes.
"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want..."so she began.
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By any standard, ours was the poorest. We lived in a small nipa hut built from folk beliefs and rituals in the middle of a coconut plantation. Then we had a small outhouse and a lumber room. The first was a one-and-half square meter space for comfort, the other was, of course, for lumbers, fire woods actually, where we also kept the aging sow, a goat and the green-eyed gecko.
I never got to see the last one but, if I was lucky, I would sneak out of bed during siestas just to see it. But mother would often catch me halfway down the squeaky bamboo stairs. With a deleafed guava twig for a whip in hand, she would then collar me back to my assigned spot.
Afternoons were always like that. Mother gathered us around her after finishing up whatever staple provision was set on our plastic plates. So there was Virgie, adopted older sister, Levis, younger half-brother and, me, River, son by my mother's first marriage - wiry all three like impoverished praying mantises as she led afternoon prayers before commanding us to sleep.
But that was long before I discovered that the world had two dimensions---the divine and the diabolic.
The first, pure and sacred, memories of it were set against a white backdrop of white shirts, my stepfather's white leather shoes, Virgie's frilly white dress and those white ribbonets, Levis' white belt, and mother's church hymnals covered with white paper which she recycled from those large waxy Chinese calendars.
Saturday was the official day of that divine plane with Jesus Loves Me as its theme music score which, to my childish cerebration, sounded more elegiac than panegyric. I guess it was due mostly because mother's vocal gymnastics teetered along the untuneful pentatonic octave - tintinabulatingly sopranic at its best and, gravellingly basso at its worst.
"Children, human beings are the only creatures gifted with a lot of faculties for praising the Lord...if you know you have that gift, hone it, then use it for His greater glory."
"Mother, there is no greater glory in singing without a gift."
"Look here, River, you would know you had the gift just looking at how others close their eyes when you sing. I mean, have you often wondered how enrapt the whole parish had been since I started singing on top of my lungs especially at vespers?"
"Yes, like they wished some people realized that some talents were not meant for public shows."
"At least I am giving them a classical side show with my sopranic renderings."
"So you actually admit that you have the talent for a spiritual side show?"
"Hush, you giftless boy...okay, kids, let's move on to our next exercise on blending...You see..."
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- River
