Post by ernesto thaddeus m. solmerano on Jun 13, 2007 20:29:04 GMT -5
Continuation of Regal as a Queen...
The sound of the clothes paddle filled the kitchen. A shaft of sunlight lanced through a hole in the roof and fell on the clothes in the flat thin tub before her. Mrs. Salvadora Baylon pounded and rubbed and soaped until the tub foamed in clouds of froth that turned the sunlight into streaks of radiant shimmer. From time to time she nudged away with a soapy arm the threads of hair that overhung her eyes. A root of pain in the small of her back slowly sent out filaments of ache over a wider area. She felt she needed to rest and when her consort turned to her and gallantly seated her on the throne she was grateful and winsomely smiled at him. Then she shyly pulled snug the long glove on her left arm while applause like the boom of waves filled her ears. Then she was slowly moving forward, nodding and smiling. She snapped her head back from a nod and there was the flat tin tub before her whitely iridescent with minute soap bubbles so that her eyes sang with color. She moved her tub away from the sunlight, shut her eyes, and when she opened them again she bent forward and continued washing.
In a low rack beside the stairs Janet placed her brothers' shoes and wooden slippers in the arrangement her mother had long ago insisted she use. Then she took the broom and started sweeping, taking care to make only the least noise lest Gloria wake up and annoy her mother. And when she was annoyed, Janet knew, her mother vented her feelings on any of them and for the least reason. She could not understand why her mother was more often the scold more than she was the quiet bantering parent like her father. Toward her mother she had a grey neutral feeling tinctured with dislike. She disliked her most of all when for no reason that she could see her mother's voice, hoarsely strident, flared in irritation like fish spitting in hot lard.
She heard Tarzan break into a series of staccato yelps and alarmed lest the noise stir Gloria from her sound sleep she moved to the door and quickly belabored the dog's flanks with the broom, shushing it to stop. Then she became aware of Mrs. Rosario Karasig who now stepped forward from the guava tree where she had taken refuge beside Lorenzo. Janet held the dog's leash while she asked the caller to step inside the house.
Mrs. Rosario Karasig dropped on a chair and exclaimed: "What monster of a dog you have!" Then when she had sufficiently regained her composure she said, "Janet, is Mother home?"
"She's washing," Janet said. "Excuse me a moment while I tell her you're here."
Janet stood behind her mother and saw how her kimona in thy course of her labor had hiked up, baring the pale brown skin of her midriff. When she told her mother that Aling Chayong was wanting her, her pale drawn face appeared unable to make out what she'd just said so Janet was moved to explain that Arnolfo's godmother-- Aling Chayong -- was in the sala awaiting her.
"Aling Chayong?" her mother echoed. Then, "Have her come in. I'll be out as soon's I rinse my hands." She wrung soapy water out of a shirt and plopped this on a basin filled with thick hawsers of wrung-out clothes that she would soon take out and spread in the sun to bleach. She rinsed her hands and rose, pushing on her long bony flanks. However, instead of taking out the basin of garments to be bleached she dried her hands, hitched her skirt tighter around her waist and followed Janet out into the sala.
"How are you, 'Mare," Mrs. Salvadora Baylon said, extending a hand toward her visitor.
"Jesus!" Mrs. Rosario Karasig said, shaking hands distractedly. "Doray, that dog of yours... he gave me a fright." They seated themselves on chairs in the small sala.
Janet watched them from the top of the stairs where she cuddled in her arms, after changing her wet diaper with a fresh one, the now wide-awake Gloria nibbling at a thumb. She listened to them inquire after the state of their respective families after which Mrs. Rosario Karasig said: "Doray, I look after the Santacruzan in our place on Friday and we have for our queen Elvira Medina... you know, the daughter of Councilor Pascual Medina of the City Hall. She's very pretty... my, they're saying she looks like Norma Shearer and she does too, especially when she smiles... and so, as I was saying, this is to be a gala affair... the best Santacruzan if we can help it... and we want our queen to be the most elegant this season... and so I thought of you and your wonderful terno... you remember... the one you wore when you were queen? I have the picture you gave me and it was there I remembered how truly elegant it is... just the perfect terno to bring out Elvira Medina's beauty. I was wondering if you could let me borrow it... seeing as how you're not putting it to any use lately," she finished, laughing lamely.
Mrs. Salvadora Baylon remained still for sometime as if she needed all those seconds to have her visitor's words seep through the cotton batting that seemed to have shrouded her mind like wares in a case stamped fragile. She rubbed one arm with the other. Then she managed a wan smile and said, "Of course. Come on up. Only," she explained as they moved toward the entresuelo, "I’m not certain it's still beautiful after all the years it's been kept. Most likely the moths have been at it. Or the cloth may have weakened. But we'll see." She preceded her visitor into the bedroom.
"So this is Gloria!" Mrs. Rosario Karasig said. "My, but she's fat. Is she heavy? Come, nene, come," she said as she slid the child from Janet's arm into her own. The baby gurgled softly like purring cat and waved chubby arms aloft trying to focus its efforts into catching hold of the visitor's nose which was busy poking into its face in a rain of kisses. "How many months is she?" the visitor asked, making faces and cooing gibberish into the baby's face.
Mrs. Salvadora Baylon lifted the stack of pillows from the top of a large heavy trunk with a humped lid onto the bed.
"Ten," Janet who was helping her mother said.
Mrs. Salvadora Baylon and Janet now strained at the heavy trunk to pull it away from the wall and facilitate its opening. "Yes, she's rather late," Janet's mother said.
The visitor walked the infant about, jiggling her arms so that the baby kept slightly bouncing as on a cantering horse. Upon making a turn by the bed she noticed the picture in the wide carved frame on the wall. "Why, there you are!" she said. "I'd forgotten you had this enlargement. In that lovely terno Elvira Medina will be as pretty as you were. By the way, did you keep the coronet?"
Kneeling before the opened trunk Mrs. Salvadora Baylon started lifting its contents to the floor. "No," she said, "it wasn't mine." Already beside her on the floor was the flat top tray of the trunk with spools of bright silk thread, embroidery hoops, perfume bottles and fancy powder boxes all empty but with the ghost of their fragrance still sweet about them, strips of ribbon, a picture album with a broken back, high Spanish combs with here and there a blind spot where a rhinestone had been lost, a peacock feather fan with spokes of ivory, odd bits of lace, pins, buttons, studs, an antique brooch with a broken clasp.
Janet became lost in admiration at the array of treasures. Tentatively lest her mother snap at her, she fingered the strips of ribbon, the high Spanish combs, the broken brooch, but as her mother appeared to tolerate her she took heart and lifted the peacock feather fan and languidly sent a stream of cool sweet air spice with the ghost of an old perfume across her sweaty face while she idly leafed through the ancient pictured album. The sharp pungency of mothballs now permeated the room as her mother began moving from the bottom of the trunk her husband's old suits, the ternos she seldom had occasion to wear, her overskirt in lace or tulle ornate with beads and sequins, her petticoats. Then she raised an oblong white box tinted with a yellow patina. She laid the box on the floor before her and removed the lid. "Here it is," she said.
Janet received Gloria from Mrs. Rosario Karasig who sat quickly on the clean brown box floor and tenderly lifted the soft blue camisa from the box. "Why," she exclaimed, "it's in good condition... maybe the sleeves are a little bit limp but they can be easily stiffened... There's a small tear here... no matter... that can easily be repaired." The skirt upon appraisal revealed more tears in a series of tiny perforations and the color in spots had faded to a paler blue. Lifting the long heavy train with its wide erect neckpiece in white velvet to simulate ermine, she stood before the mirror and draped the flowing silk against herself to better view its possibilities.
Preening before the mirror, she said, "Magnificent, Doray. Still magnificent despite the years. I can remember when you wore this... Ah, Janet," she turned to face the girl who was listening raptly. "You should have seen your mother in that long parade from Azcarraga to the Luneta and the waves and waves of applause that rose continuously as her float passed by. I remember the stiff balloting and how in the very last moment Aquilino rushed in and handed a thousand votes for your mother making her queen over such wealthier rivals as Lourdes Romualdes and... the other one, Doray? ... yes, and Monina Ancheta. They were pretty but not half as beautiful as your mother who had all the men crazy about her." She started to fold the long heavy train. "I remember one who was very sweet on you, Doray. In fact we all thought you would m---, we thought it was him. Dr. Ernesto Tiongco. You recall him, Doray?"
Mrs. Salvadora Baylon, with her back turned and intent on putting back the contents of the trunk, paused and deftly knotted her hair resting her weight on her heels. She secured the knot with a comb and started to laugh. "Yes! The flowers he sent, his berlina trailing us all to Cavite where we had dinner in the mayor's house, and that evening at the ball in the Club Filipino... he'd never leave my side, wrote his name down for all the waltzes in my program... why, he was even sore at the Governor-General because he'd danced with me twice... but there were the others I had to dance with, naturally... my consort, the committee, my election leaders... he... he particularly did not wish me to dance with the latter... he'd particularly taken a violent dislike to Aquilino..."
"Yes," Mrs. Rosario Karasig said, "and Aquilino him."
"And then we were dancing again and the band playing La Golondrina..." Her voice faded away and they could see something in an inner recess. She continued moving the clothes back in silence. Watching her friend's back arched over the trunk, Mrs. Rosario Karasig blinked her eyes and busied herself in folding and placing the terno in the box. Quickly, in a bright hearty voice, she said, "Doray, come to the house on Friday and see our Santacruzan. Take the children along. You can stay the night or better still... why not stay over for the weekend. We'd love to have you all. I'm sure Aquilino won't mind. Stay over till Monday. We'll find room for everybody in the house. Think you'd like the idea, Janet?"
"Oh, sure," Janet said.
"Then put Gloria down and go call that naughty godchild of mine. And when you come up will you take some old newspaper to wrap this box in?" As soon as Janet had left them Mrs. Rosario Karasig said as she moved toward her friend, "Lorenzo would have made the perfect Constantino. Such a sweet-looking boy." When Lorenzo's mother turned to face her, shifting her body to a sitting position on the floor, she perceived how unnaturally large her eyes appeared in her pale drawn face now slightly askew in a wry smile. She laid a hand on her friend's arm. "Doray," she said. "You're tired. You work too hard. You're not," she paused and rephrased the question. "Are you... pregnant?"
Mrs. Salvadora Baylon passed one arm against the other, staring at their roughened redness and the blue ropes of veins that seemed to bind her fingers together and without which they would all fall apart into ten separate tiny members like unlinked sausages. When she spoke her voice sounded like sluggish water moving over stones. "Tekla says for me to take everyday after breakfast what she'd prescribed-- a potion of bitter herbs." "You be careful, Doray," Mrs. Rosario Karasig said. "You ought to see a doctor. You may be ailing and not knowing it. Ask Aquilino to take you to a doctor. Is he still with the Bu--?"
Again the same wry smile twisted Mrs. Salvadora Baylon's fine shaped mouth. "Yes, he's still with the Bureau..." She lowered her eyes and stared at her hands. "We manage. God helps. Right now he's busy with politics. He's a leader in his section. He's been working hard for the party... speeches night after night. You know, he's always had a way of persuasion, from way back." A soft bubble of laughter escaped her lips. "He's been promised a better position--"
"If they win the election," Mrs. Rosario Karasig said.
"Yes, when they win the election," she said dully. All at once she was giving her visitor a glazed hard stare. "You forget," she said, "how good he can be at swinging last minute votes"-- and before she had all those words out she had burst into a splutter of giggling. She became convulsed with uncontrollable mirth, and bending over was suddenly weeping great shuddering sobs that tore past her compressed mouth in rending moans. She muffled her mouth with a wad of her skirt and willfully tried to stem the onrush of tears but they would not cease and continued to flow as if they geysered from a vast deep well of grief within her. Mrs. Rosario Karasig threw her arms about her and so wild were the gusts of her anguish that both of them were shaken in heaving spasms.
Janet with Rody and Arnolfo stood by the door wide-eyed and frightened. For the first time in her life she seemed to see her mother in a new stark perspective intrinsic with a vast terrifying knowledge. Vaguely, she had a desire to ease her mother's grief but not knowing just what exactly she would do she descended the steps and wandered into the kitchen with the abstracted manner of a sleepwalker. Then the sight of the basin with the wrung-out clothes for bleaching that only a while ago her mother's hands had touched, drove home to her the impact of this dark nameless knowledge and raising the basin to her hip she walked out the door with her head lifted high because a strange new sorrow she hadn't known before had swiftly gone clean through her and now lay quivering in her breast embedded there like a sword.
The sound of the clothes paddle filled the kitchen. A shaft of sunlight lanced through a hole in the roof and fell on the clothes in the flat thin tub before her. Mrs. Salvadora Baylon pounded and rubbed and soaped until the tub foamed in clouds of froth that turned the sunlight into streaks of radiant shimmer. From time to time she nudged away with a soapy arm the threads of hair that overhung her eyes. A root of pain in the small of her back slowly sent out filaments of ache over a wider area. She felt she needed to rest and when her consort turned to her and gallantly seated her on the throne she was grateful and winsomely smiled at him. Then she shyly pulled snug the long glove on her left arm while applause like the boom of waves filled her ears. Then she was slowly moving forward, nodding and smiling. She snapped her head back from a nod and there was the flat tin tub before her whitely iridescent with minute soap bubbles so that her eyes sang with color. She moved her tub away from the sunlight, shut her eyes, and when she opened them again she bent forward and continued washing.
In a low rack beside the stairs Janet placed her brothers' shoes and wooden slippers in the arrangement her mother had long ago insisted she use. Then she took the broom and started sweeping, taking care to make only the least noise lest Gloria wake up and annoy her mother. And when she was annoyed, Janet knew, her mother vented her feelings on any of them and for the least reason. She could not understand why her mother was more often the scold more than she was the quiet bantering parent like her father. Toward her mother she had a grey neutral feeling tinctured with dislike. She disliked her most of all when for no reason that she could see her mother's voice, hoarsely strident, flared in irritation like fish spitting in hot lard.
She heard Tarzan break into a series of staccato yelps and alarmed lest the noise stir Gloria from her sound sleep she moved to the door and quickly belabored the dog's flanks with the broom, shushing it to stop. Then she became aware of Mrs. Rosario Karasig who now stepped forward from the guava tree where she had taken refuge beside Lorenzo. Janet held the dog's leash while she asked the caller to step inside the house.
Mrs. Rosario Karasig dropped on a chair and exclaimed: "What monster of a dog you have!" Then when she had sufficiently regained her composure she said, "Janet, is Mother home?"
"She's washing," Janet said. "Excuse me a moment while I tell her you're here."
Janet stood behind her mother and saw how her kimona in thy course of her labor had hiked up, baring the pale brown skin of her midriff. When she told her mother that Aling Chayong was wanting her, her pale drawn face appeared unable to make out what she'd just said so Janet was moved to explain that Arnolfo's godmother-- Aling Chayong -- was in the sala awaiting her.
"Aling Chayong?" her mother echoed. Then, "Have her come in. I'll be out as soon's I rinse my hands." She wrung soapy water out of a shirt and plopped this on a basin filled with thick hawsers of wrung-out clothes that she would soon take out and spread in the sun to bleach. She rinsed her hands and rose, pushing on her long bony flanks. However, instead of taking out the basin of garments to be bleached she dried her hands, hitched her skirt tighter around her waist and followed Janet out into the sala.
"How are you, 'Mare," Mrs. Salvadora Baylon said, extending a hand toward her visitor.
"Jesus!" Mrs. Rosario Karasig said, shaking hands distractedly. "Doray, that dog of yours... he gave me a fright." They seated themselves on chairs in the small sala.
Janet watched them from the top of the stairs where she cuddled in her arms, after changing her wet diaper with a fresh one, the now wide-awake Gloria nibbling at a thumb. She listened to them inquire after the state of their respective families after which Mrs. Rosario Karasig said: "Doray, I look after the Santacruzan in our place on Friday and we have for our queen Elvira Medina... you know, the daughter of Councilor Pascual Medina of the City Hall. She's very pretty... my, they're saying she looks like Norma Shearer and she does too, especially when she smiles... and so, as I was saying, this is to be a gala affair... the best Santacruzan if we can help it... and we want our queen to be the most elegant this season... and so I thought of you and your wonderful terno... you remember... the one you wore when you were queen? I have the picture you gave me and it was there I remembered how truly elegant it is... just the perfect terno to bring out Elvira Medina's beauty. I was wondering if you could let me borrow it... seeing as how you're not putting it to any use lately," she finished, laughing lamely.
Mrs. Salvadora Baylon remained still for sometime as if she needed all those seconds to have her visitor's words seep through the cotton batting that seemed to have shrouded her mind like wares in a case stamped fragile. She rubbed one arm with the other. Then she managed a wan smile and said, "Of course. Come on up. Only," she explained as they moved toward the entresuelo, "I’m not certain it's still beautiful after all the years it's been kept. Most likely the moths have been at it. Or the cloth may have weakened. But we'll see." She preceded her visitor into the bedroom.
"So this is Gloria!" Mrs. Rosario Karasig said. "My, but she's fat. Is she heavy? Come, nene, come," she said as she slid the child from Janet's arm into her own. The baby gurgled softly like purring cat and waved chubby arms aloft trying to focus its efforts into catching hold of the visitor's nose which was busy poking into its face in a rain of kisses. "How many months is she?" the visitor asked, making faces and cooing gibberish into the baby's face.
Mrs. Salvadora Baylon lifted the stack of pillows from the top of a large heavy trunk with a humped lid onto the bed.
"Ten," Janet who was helping her mother said.
Mrs. Salvadora Baylon and Janet now strained at the heavy trunk to pull it away from the wall and facilitate its opening. "Yes, she's rather late," Janet's mother said.
The visitor walked the infant about, jiggling her arms so that the baby kept slightly bouncing as on a cantering horse. Upon making a turn by the bed she noticed the picture in the wide carved frame on the wall. "Why, there you are!" she said. "I'd forgotten you had this enlargement. In that lovely terno Elvira Medina will be as pretty as you were. By the way, did you keep the coronet?"
Kneeling before the opened trunk Mrs. Salvadora Baylon started lifting its contents to the floor. "No," she said, "it wasn't mine." Already beside her on the floor was the flat top tray of the trunk with spools of bright silk thread, embroidery hoops, perfume bottles and fancy powder boxes all empty but with the ghost of their fragrance still sweet about them, strips of ribbon, a picture album with a broken back, high Spanish combs with here and there a blind spot where a rhinestone had been lost, a peacock feather fan with spokes of ivory, odd bits of lace, pins, buttons, studs, an antique brooch with a broken clasp.
Janet became lost in admiration at the array of treasures. Tentatively lest her mother snap at her, she fingered the strips of ribbon, the high Spanish combs, the broken brooch, but as her mother appeared to tolerate her she took heart and lifted the peacock feather fan and languidly sent a stream of cool sweet air spice with the ghost of an old perfume across her sweaty face while she idly leafed through the ancient pictured album. The sharp pungency of mothballs now permeated the room as her mother began moving from the bottom of the trunk her husband's old suits, the ternos she seldom had occasion to wear, her overskirt in lace or tulle ornate with beads and sequins, her petticoats. Then she raised an oblong white box tinted with a yellow patina. She laid the box on the floor before her and removed the lid. "Here it is," she said.
Janet received Gloria from Mrs. Rosario Karasig who sat quickly on the clean brown box floor and tenderly lifted the soft blue camisa from the box. "Why," she exclaimed, "it's in good condition... maybe the sleeves are a little bit limp but they can be easily stiffened... There's a small tear here... no matter... that can easily be repaired." The skirt upon appraisal revealed more tears in a series of tiny perforations and the color in spots had faded to a paler blue. Lifting the long heavy train with its wide erect neckpiece in white velvet to simulate ermine, she stood before the mirror and draped the flowing silk against herself to better view its possibilities.
Preening before the mirror, she said, "Magnificent, Doray. Still magnificent despite the years. I can remember when you wore this... Ah, Janet," she turned to face the girl who was listening raptly. "You should have seen your mother in that long parade from Azcarraga to the Luneta and the waves and waves of applause that rose continuously as her float passed by. I remember the stiff balloting and how in the very last moment Aquilino rushed in and handed a thousand votes for your mother making her queen over such wealthier rivals as Lourdes Romualdes and... the other one, Doray? ... yes, and Monina Ancheta. They were pretty but not half as beautiful as your mother who had all the men crazy about her." She started to fold the long heavy train. "I remember one who was very sweet on you, Doray. In fact we all thought you would m---, we thought it was him. Dr. Ernesto Tiongco. You recall him, Doray?"
Mrs. Salvadora Baylon, with her back turned and intent on putting back the contents of the trunk, paused and deftly knotted her hair resting her weight on her heels. She secured the knot with a comb and started to laugh. "Yes! The flowers he sent, his berlina trailing us all to Cavite where we had dinner in the mayor's house, and that evening at the ball in the Club Filipino... he'd never leave my side, wrote his name down for all the waltzes in my program... why, he was even sore at the Governor-General because he'd danced with me twice... but there were the others I had to dance with, naturally... my consort, the committee, my election leaders... he... he particularly did not wish me to dance with the latter... he'd particularly taken a violent dislike to Aquilino..."
"Yes," Mrs. Rosario Karasig said, "and Aquilino him."
"And then we were dancing again and the band playing La Golondrina..." Her voice faded away and they could see something in an inner recess. She continued moving the clothes back in silence. Watching her friend's back arched over the trunk, Mrs. Rosario Karasig blinked her eyes and busied herself in folding and placing the terno in the box. Quickly, in a bright hearty voice, she said, "Doray, come to the house on Friday and see our Santacruzan. Take the children along. You can stay the night or better still... why not stay over for the weekend. We'd love to have you all. I'm sure Aquilino won't mind. Stay over till Monday. We'll find room for everybody in the house. Think you'd like the idea, Janet?"
"Oh, sure," Janet said.
"Then put Gloria down and go call that naughty godchild of mine. And when you come up will you take some old newspaper to wrap this box in?" As soon as Janet had left them Mrs. Rosario Karasig said as she moved toward her friend, "Lorenzo would have made the perfect Constantino. Such a sweet-looking boy." When Lorenzo's mother turned to face her, shifting her body to a sitting position on the floor, she perceived how unnaturally large her eyes appeared in her pale drawn face now slightly askew in a wry smile. She laid a hand on her friend's arm. "Doray," she said. "You're tired. You work too hard. You're not," she paused and rephrased the question. "Are you... pregnant?"
Mrs. Salvadora Baylon passed one arm against the other, staring at their roughened redness and the blue ropes of veins that seemed to bind her fingers together and without which they would all fall apart into ten separate tiny members like unlinked sausages. When she spoke her voice sounded like sluggish water moving over stones. "Tekla says for me to take everyday after breakfast what she'd prescribed-- a potion of bitter herbs." "You be careful, Doray," Mrs. Rosario Karasig said. "You ought to see a doctor. You may be ailing and not knowing it. Ask Aquilino to take you to a doctor. Is he still with the Bu--?"
Again the same wry smile twisted Mrs. Salvadora Baylon's fine shaped mouth. "Yes, he's still with the Bureau..." She lowered her eyes and stared at her hands. "We manage. God helps. Right now he's busy with politics. He's a leader in his section. He's been working hard for the party... speeches night after night. You know, he's always had a way of persuasion, from way back." A soft bubble of laughter escaped her lips. "He's been promised a better position--"
"If they win the election," Mrs. Rosario Karasig said.
"Yes, when they win the election," she said dully. All at once she was giving her visitor a glazed hard stare. "You forget," she said, "how good he can be at swinging last minute votes"-- and before she had all those words out she had burst into a splutter of giggling. She became convulsed with uncontrollable mirth, and bending over was suddenly weeping great shuddering sobs that tore past her compressed mouth in rending moans. She muffled her mouth with a wad of her skirt and willfully tried to stem the onrush of tears but they would not cease and continued to flow as if they geysered from a vast deep well of grief within her. Mrs. Rosario Karasig threw her arms about her and so wild were the gusts of her anguish that both of them were shaken in heaving spasms.
Janet with Rody and Arnolfo stood by the door wide-eyed and frightened. For the first time in her life she seemed to see her mother in a new stark perspective intrinsic with a vast terrifying knowledge. Vaguely, she had a desire to ease her mother's grief but not knowing just what exactly she would do she descended the steps and wandered into the kitchen with the abstracted manner of a sleepwalker. Then the sight of the basin with the wrung-out clothes for bleaching that only a while ago her mother's hands had touched, drove home to her the impact of this dark nameless knowledge and raising the basin to her hip she walked out the door with her head lifted high because a strange new sorrow she hadn't known before had swiftly gone clean through her and now lay quivering in her breast embedded there like a sword.