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Scribe
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 54
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Brothers On A Stormy Sea
AT THE BEHEST of the younger of her two sons, Virginia looked remorseful after she approved their trip to the island. That was on a Saturday evening while listening to a flash report on the radio about the weather surprisingly calming down in the usually stormy month of November. Lester, the older, watched his mother’s face turn grave after hearing herself say “yes” to Levis’ incessant pleadings.
“Sure you can’t say no now…that’s your radio telling you this time, dear mother.”
“You know how tricky the weather can be. I wouldn’t be this scared if you will only have to travel by land…but that…you will be crossing high seas intawon my son…”
“Land or sea, nobody is safe from the manipulations of your God, mama!” He turned his back and headed to a chair by the window when he suddenly felt a twinge of pain on the plaster-cast arm.
“Look at me!” Virginia ran to his side.
“Hush it. So shall you go on that trip…you and your Manoy.” She rubbed his back gently. God knows how she prayed for the pain to torment her instead of him. In a moment she called out to Lester for a tureen of hot water and face towel then proceeded to give Levis a warm sponge bath.
Virginia withdrew to a dark corner in the room where she kept on a small table a handy King James Version and some religious pamphlets and brochures she and Lester had collected from the church. She felt a lump of sadness as she turned to Psalms 91. Her constant invocations, which became more and more frequent after the younger kid had an accident, contained nothing but that her sons, especially Levis, foremost of all recovered quickly and that they did not stray from the narrow path to Life.
Lester found her asleep beside the small table with the Bible in hand. She looked battered as the old blanket bunching up on her feet. He wanted to kiss her like old times but held himself back when he recalled Levis calling him sissy for that gesture.
There was another flash report on the weather. This time a new storm was coming in from the Pacific Ocean. The eastern part of the island of S- was now experiencing its deleterious rage. A special committee for national disaster was formed to aid the victims... Lester reached for the volume but the touchy radio crackled until only a sibilant hiss was heard which was eerie like a gust of wind. He shuddered at his own thought: if the storm by some force of evil luck decided to go just a tiny fraction of a mile straight toward that part of the region where their island was their scheduled trip was fatal.
At the church, it was Lester’s idea for the three of them to sit at the back near the exit. He told his mother it was for the convenience of Levis who this time had managed to plaster a smile on his gaunt face when an old friend greeted him.
Virginia silently celebrated with a heart brimful with joy for the triumph of shepherding her boys together to the service at last. She was stealing admiring glances at them especially Levis sitting beside her. Suddenly moved by some maternal compulsion she went on to check Levis’ temperature by placing the back of her hand on his neck.
“Why I am sitting here with all these dreamy people I couldn’t comprehend, mama...but treating me like a child makes Jesus all the more complicated…” He hissed in her ears. She quickly drew her hands when he stared her down.
Earlier that morning, Virginia woke up to a clangor of tins and pans. Levis on his sleeping spot at the opposite corner was still asleep. Right below where she slept, Lester was heating the left-overs of last night’s meal except for Levis who was going to have a glass of hot milk and two pieces of bread.
She reached for the radio. It was dead. The battery had run out of energy. Later, she thought, after the church service she would drop at Mrs. Gonzales’s house. The old lady owed her seventy-five pesos for the printed cotton dress she had cut and sewn last week. As soon as the old lady paid her, she would also rush to the general merchandise store to buy the batteries and, then to the drug store for Levis’ pain relievers. And then too if her purse would allow, she might dash back to the store to buy chorizo, Levis’ favorite.
Sister Sorinna, irrepressible with her brand of bubbly affectation and more so by the second-hand designer gowns and gaudy jewelry she wore to church gave Levis a tight hug at the end of the service. She rattled on how she had meant all those times to tell the little brother how much, and now with a pinch on the cheek, he was missed at fellowship meetings. Levis only stared at the speaker not knowing what to say. She then proceeded to reach for Virginia’s hand inconspicuously and whispered, “This isn’t much, I know. But please take it. You can share it back with anybody in need as soon as you are able…” Then with a repressed giggle, she added, “But of course, if it’s not too much to ask, Sister Virgie, you can start by remaking the new Versace gown I got from yesterday’s shopping…at the ukay…”
The radio sounded like new again as she carefully placed it on her cutting table. Then she turned to the stack of fabrics in a corner and pulled out a luxurious stretch of dark-colored silk. Within a couple of hours, heart and spirit on the craft of dressmaking, with measuring tape in hand, her hungry shears snipped through yard after yard of cotton, linen, georgette, denim and, silk until she sensed she had snipped enough to pay for her sons’ tickets.
UNDER translucent ash-blue skies, the high waters of Siquijor Channel looked calm like a sheet of black silk heaving with dangerous secrets underneath…while miles and miles up north, inside one of those makeshift shacks in the heart of the slums of Manila, Virginia was pouring a thick stream of black coffee into her tin cup, her third actually, but the rush to get on with her sewing still eluded her. She just stared blankly at the silver froth swirling in her cup like the eye of a storm.
Lester helped Levis to a seat by the window that afforded a hazy silhouette of the small island. When the ferry rocked mildly, Lester couldn’t help but think of it as rather undersized. Of course, the vessel smelt and looked like new - whiff of fresh paint and those shiny new bolts and nail-heads and those pristine white leatherettes casing the cushions of the seats. His fear was momentarily allayed by the idea that new sea-crafts had knots and knots to traverse before surrendering to the sad facts of marine voyage.
They were pulling away for the island in fifteen minutes. Lester thought he still had enough time to check out the bustling new port of Dumaguete City. He traced his steps back up the gangplank and stopped to watch a family of sea-nomads, sun-baked and wiry all, perhaps from the only source of living that was rather too risky for toddlers – diving for loose coins thrown by passengers of the commuter-vessels docking there – super-liner, ferry or pump-boat. How his heart sank when the smallest member of the swimmers took a long plunge underneath.
When Lester saw the toddler waving at him, egging him on to toss a coin down, he fished out a shiny five-peso coin from the pocket of his denim jacket and threw it straight to their raft. That way, he thought, the family had a sure catch. He tried to fish for more change but Levis called out – “Manoy, come, let’s play cards.”
“Watching those kids only sickens me more…Here, give me the best of your talent at piyat-piyat, bro…” Lester sensed a glint of excitement in his brother’s voice as he challenged him to a game of cards but he knew there was something behind those big oil-black eyes – deep, clear and impenetrable like the sea of self-loathing his mind had been trying to navigate away from since the accident. He reached for the fiber-glass window shutter and pulled it down. The sky was turning dark slowly, morose like mama’s face whenever a scowl took over her usually serene countenance.
Suddenly, the ferry rocked again. This time it rocked like a hammock at the tug of a strong arm. Levis turned his back on the walling to free the broken arm. Lester quickly pulled out something from under his seat and tossed it to Levis. Everyone inside the craft hung in midair as if caught between a brilliant plan and an unsolicited wave of objection.
Lester to his left saw an old woman down on her knees as soon as lightning pierced through the black skies. Torrential rain followed. Levis closed his eyes and slid the pack of cards back inside his pocket.
M/V Olympia was now sailing blind miles toward the island, puny and powerless like a paper-boat on a giant basin of black water ruffled by an angry hand.
Levis suddenly realized that Lester had given him a life jacket. His eyes darted back at his elder brother questioning in muted tension what in hell was he holding that thing for. When Lester sensed how his reaction had seemed to his ruffian of a brother, he laughed.
“You’re not supposing…I would swim for us both, right?” Lester did not mean to scare himself but he realized he did exactly not only that but those around him too...
Virginia switched to local radio. It was fifteen minutes since she last felt an errant beat had tugged at her heart like a sudden blast of wind on the beaten mast of her motherhood… “A new storm is heading towards the center of…” the report went on “…all sea trips have been cancelled by the port authority…except one...” and then the words drowned inside Virginia’s head as she raised her eyes and whispered, “Father please guide the boatman to his shore…”
She reached for her Bible but the lights went out.
“Susmaryosep!…Inahan sa Kanunay’ng Panabang!…I-ampo mo kami!…” The woman behind Levis was saying her prayer loud enough the minute M/V Olympia’s engine had throttled off first into a whir, then a drone, and into an abysmal silence.
A blinding blackness followed.
Suddenly as if breaking from beyond the soul’s uncharted frontiers, a woman’s voice broke into a chilling cry that sounded more like keening. Levis felt it scraping off the skin of his innards. He felt like throwing up but no, there was no need for that.
The luminous hands of Lester’s watch told him it was half past the eighth hour in the evening. “God! We have been on the sea for three hours…we ought to have made for our port about a couple of hours ago.” He whispered to Levis who stirred in his seat. A fistful of the seething ocean had slammed against the window shutter like a giant hand meaning to slap a face. Levis was stunned.
“Everybody stay calm… Our engine conked out because water had suffocated its main valve. We are doing our best to pump it out. Meanwhile, I advise you to put on your life vest located under your seats… Do not attempt to hassle too much…crews have been dispatched to their respective posts to keep this vessel balanced on the hilt…Please don’t panic, this is your captain speaking…I repeat, don’t…” There was a quiver on the voice of the speaker as the battered ocean took another deep heaving. Boxes and parcels and cargoes were toppled down and strewn across the aisle as if a big arm had swiped them off. Women and old ladies alike were doubling up vomiting while children cried woefully thinking of home as an uncharted, unreachable destination.
Lester closed his eyes and said a prayer in silence. Somewhere deep down below him, on a spot in the engine casing where water had passed to choke the turbine and then the main valve, a wood panel had cracked. First a tiny strand of water had darted right through it. In an instant the raging arms of the ocean had forced its way into the vulnerable body of the vessel.
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VIRGINIA thought she knew exactly where she placed the esperma yesterday after ironing Sister Sorinna’s dress but a stubborn teardrop had kept blurring her vision. In the dark, her hands combed their way on top of the cutting table, stacks of fabrics and clothes, behind the mirror, and beside the radio. She felt darkness stinging her eyes as she groped her way to the pile of books behind the mirror. Indeed her mind was set on lighting a candle but her heart was in a rush to get to some place else, a place where it was more useful for all its maternal worth… protecting, nurturing, pacifying …
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…The Lord…” Her mind was feverish with the same psalmodic chant.
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THE OLD SHACK on the island they abandoned decades ago after papa died looked ridiculously small now as Lester walked up the rickety bamboo stairs. He remembered he used to sit on the landing during those mandatory siestas - listening for signs of his mother behind before he would gingerly teeter on the noisy pebbles toward the door praying mama would not catch him with a deleafed twig for a whip.
The whip which could have been his mother’s too, or her grandmother’s, or great-grandmothers, or any body down the family of matriarchal disciplinarians, or puritans – to put it irreverently, was any humble shrub’s legacy, but heavens forgive, could very well be the most miraculous of all healing agents. Well, at least according to mama. “The whip is symbolic of the Lord’s stake of torment… It can redeem lost souls…and has power enough to change the course of one’s life…”
From where he was sitting, he could see and feel his brother at the far end of the room…with his mother smiling and waving at him…before they vanished into a lake of tears...
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“YOU JUST DO as you please Levis!…try me if you will…go on with your mindless pursuits…you know mother would not be too pleased with this…”
“If you are telling me to make a pass on the audition in favor of the crusade, which by the way can take place forever until the next deluge and as long as there are grandstands and stadiums on earth I am sorry but…”
Lester no longer had to wait for Levis to wind up his rebuttals that were getting surprisingly crude with their every disagreement since the latter had started to hang out with a group of young musicians. He raised his arm and gave his kid brother the first hard blow ever. Levis stormed out of the house.
Later when Lester narrated the whole story to his mother, the jury of the symbolic stake of torment had decided in favor of the lost sheep.
Later too, at the crusade in the afternoon, while Lester was nursing the sting of the lashings he received on account of defending the faith, and while Virginia was blissfully cupping her palms ready for the downpour of spiritual blessings, Levis twanged his guitar for the last time as his left foot slowly slipped off the stage.
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“THE LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want…” Lester began. Halfway through his silent prayer, while the ocean was slowly overpowering him with a tight embrace, he knew he felt his brother’s cold, cold hands desperately reaching out to him…begging him to hang on for the last time.
Lester knew he wanted to reach out too but it was too late as he felt the weight of something enormous pulling down his feet. He kicked off, paddled with his hands and tried to wriggle himself free. One last fight for another chance but then he knew he had to let go.
Then he opened his eyes and saw himself for the first time gracefully dancing among the babies and their mothers and the old women and their old men underneath the stormy sea. Into the black bars deep down the ocean floor.
- END -
__________________________________________________ ___________
1 Earnest plea
2 Big brother
3 Hand-me-down clothing store
4 Local poker
5 Jesus, Mary and, Joseph…Mother of Perpetual Help…Pray for us!
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