Post by ernesto thaddeus m. solmerano on Aug 16, 2020 6:48:42 GMT -5
Breathe
by Alessandra G.L. Gonzales
“The trick is to keep breathing.” He looked at me and smiled with his blue eyes and crooked teeth. I would see his face and sing his favorite Garbage song in my head long after he disappeared into the gale of people catching flights to who-knows-where.
He would call as soon as he arrived home in Austria to tell me the flight was too long and he wished I had suffered with him. It’s not fair that I am the only one with a backache and sore ass, jamdida! He was laughing but his voice sounded sad. I could not speak without hearing my voice crack. Froggy, he whispered, I am paying a lot of money just to listen to you snivel, you know what that means?
I knew, yet, I would not follow him.
He would write again, snail mail several times, e-mail often. He would tell me about his mother and send me her regards. He would talk to me as if we were two old people sitting together in a park bench remembering old times and sipping coffee from Styrofoam cups. But the handwritten letters would eventually stop arriving in my mailbox in the office. The e-mail would trickle to once a month or two. His work at the university was taking up all his time now, his last e-mail said.
Dearest Katherine, I have booked my flight. You will fetch me from the airport, yes? Only this, no other favors. We shall leave all else to fate. Wish me Gluckliche Reise! Flight details later. Kisses and stuff, Isaak.
Isaak. Cancel trip. I cannot take a leave from work. I will be on line again later. Let’s chat? K. P.S. Please tell your Mama that I mailed the literature on acupuncture this morning.
K. Re: Acupuncture booklet; Mama says Danke! Re: Your suggestion about my trip; I say, Shut up! Re: Your leave; I think this is just an excuse and you are growing feathers. Re: Chat; I will contact you through your handy instead. 9 p.m. your time. Ok? Auf wiedersehen, Isaak.
Dear I., I’m glad you called. This chicken suit is suffocating me! Thanks for helping me peel it off. You are right. We cannot stay in the ether forever. To fate. Much affection, K.
As I sit in the test kitchen waiting for my supervisor to arrive with the dressed chicken we are going to cook this morning, I stare at the sparkling tiles of the kitchen counter I have just scrubbed clean. The smell of scouring powder and ammonia assaults my senses. My hands hurt. These days, I try to concentrate on these raw hands and nothing else.
Mrs. Vera Perez must have bumped into Mrs. Silva in the hallway again. Small talk always keeps her from arriving on time to work in the test kitchen. Today, we are going to cook Oregano Chicken in Lemon Butter Sauce. I have already cooked this dish at home once. This is my own recipe.
On the day he arrived, I cooked dinner and introduced him to my family. He was nervous. Sweat maps crept up and around the armpits and back of his black shirt.
My mother said two sentences to him in halting English, unsmiling. You do not look like your picture. Too tall in person. You have good, safe trip back to Europe.
My younger sister was excited to meet him finally after talking to him online thrice and reading some of his funny e-mails to me. She asked him about his work, his family and his shitzu, Ingrid. My older sister nodded to him once at their introduction and spoke only to my grandfather and mother at the end of dinner before taking her leave, ignoring him pointedly.
Qing si bo an le to tsia! my grandfather cursed, looking at him scornfully. He turned to me and said the chicken tasted like old shoes even though he had merely jabbed a plump leg with his fork and not taken a bite of it. He asked the maid to fry him two eggs instead. We ate in silence.
He and I held hands under the table. My sisters and my mother chewed and swallowed without pause. The gravelly sound of my grandfather’s snorting and coughing punctuated the air. Only the chicken’s neck and one wing were left on the oval serving plate at the end of the meal but no one verbally contradicted my grandfather’s strong displeasure with my cooking.
On his bed in the hotel, we lay together like pretzels. I watched him sleep in the dark and learned the rise and fall of his chest with my open palm spread like a fan across it. I knew then that his eight days with me were all we would ever have. He spoke quietly in German whenever I said something about what would happen to us at the end of his visit. I did not understand his words, but I understood him. And I quickly moved on to more pleasant things.
We took snapshots of ourselves. Our hands. His navel. My cleavage. His eyes, mine. Our feet. Him, stepping out of the shower. Me, shaving my legs with his mint shaving cream. Him, sitting next to Ronald McDonald. Me, on Ronald’s lap. Us and Taal Volcano’s jagged mouth gaping behind us. Him, waving in front of the caged tigers. Me, haggling with the woman selling pineapples. Us, kissing and making faces in a Foto Me booth.
At the Chinese restaurant along Wilson Street, above the din of voices shouting orders, spoons and forks clanging against thick plates, he asked me to fly home with him and I pretended not to hear him. I waved to a waitress to refill the squat teapot although it was still half full. You like the steamed dumpling? I asked, popping one into my mouth with two wooden chopsticks. He pushed away my hair from my face and said, Yes, it is delicious. But I fear it has something in it that makes people deaf? He poked my ear with the fat end of his chopsticks and grinned. Or did you forget to clean your ears, jamdida?
Every night at seven-thirty, I would leave him at 7-11 convenience store down the block from the apartment compound where my family lives, and go home to light joss sticks and pray at my grandmother and father’s alter. I would ask both of them for guidance, but each night, the dead would keep their silence, I would leave again at eight to pick him up and we would take a cab back to his hotel.
You have defied your grandfather now. Why would coming with me be different, he asked. I held him in my arms as we sat on the bed facing each other. I could not tell him that I loved my family more than I loved him.
We packed his things together. Dirty socks, boxers, shirts and pants, and a few books.
He bought a Lonely Planet travel guide to the Philippines. Learn to swim next time we can go to Boracay, he said. I ran to the bathroom and locked myself for half an hour and wasted a roll of toilet paper. He went down to the hotel lobby to smoke a pack of cigarettes he had kept sealed since his arrival.
I had given him my Kafka because he only had the original and wanted to read the short stories in English. I had also given him my Neruda because he had never heard of him until I read him the love poems. How could he know how I feel for you?! he screamed and lifted me from the frayed carpet and swung me around. He tripped, we fell to the floor and made love for the last time.
On some nights, I see him online but he does not see me. I am on invisible mode because I do not know what to say to him. I imagine him meeting someone new, someone with blue eyes like him. Perhaps she lives in the same town and will take the bus to meet him a week after they bump into each other on the Net. Perhaps she will sit in his room and her eyes will search his shelf of books and find Neruda, and she will ask him to read out aloud a poem or two in Spanish. He will take her hand and lead her to the window.
K., The weather is getting colder. Brrr! Even the ducks are wearing knits and fur-lined boots (made in the Philippines, I am sure!) Myself, I wear two shirts and a jacket, and clench my teeth when I go outside. I am trying to translate Neruda’s “Tonight I Can Write The Saddest Lines” into German. I think I cannot do it. Arghh. A student has come for consultation. I shall write again later. Bye, Isaak the Icicle.
I hope someday you will change your mind, he said. I did not answer as I pulled the knob of the door leading to his hotel room. The door hinge was loose, the wooden frame warped, and it was hard to close the door properly. Just leave it, he said. He enveloped my hand with his and we walked down the dimly lit hallway.
At the airport amidst strangers who were sending off their own people with endless goodbyes and take cares, my tears turned his light blue shirt dark and wet at the chest. I am not dead yet, please hush, he said. But I would not and my nose clogged and I could not breathe through it. His long fingers weaved through my short hair and ruffled it. Then he picked up his luggage and left.
It is ten to eleven. Mrs. Vera Perez is very late, the morning almost gone. The hours tumble into the next, the days dissolve into other days. I am not sure what day it is today. Only that we have to cook my chicken and prepare for the next cooking demonstration at the mall in North EDSA. Tomorrow, we test Lasagna Verde with Béchamel Sauce. The day after that, Pork Barbecue in Hoisin Sauce.
I stick my finger into the bowl of melted butter and stir the liquid round and round. The yellow liquid swirls and spills out of the glass bowl. I inhale and exhale heavily, stirring faster and faster.
Ten months and so many days after, and still, I find it difficult.
I reach for the wet sponge to scrub the tiles once more.