“It’s now or never,” said Marie, who’s in her mid-twenties, with a rugged face, vivacious and full of urgency. She took her friend’s right hand and almost dragged her out of the seat. But her friend Ana Dimalanta was less enthusiastic. Ana was holding a piece of fabric, sewing it and arranging the threads of her sewing machine. She sighed and glanced at Marie’s face, utterly restless, yet with complete enthusiasm. Here we go again, Ana mumbled.
“I need to think of it, Mars…I can’t afford to fall in any trouble again,” Ana replied.
“Think? It would be our only saving grace, Ana. Think of it as a one-stop for an opportunity. Everyone dreams of the taste of the rich life abroad, to work overseas…we are hitting stars here.”
There was an air of serenity in the silence between the two women, opposite of the chaos of the world around them. Both were stuck in the canvas of the past and still at the height of terror like a fresh wound surgically opened yesterday. Who could have thought that Ana and Marie went through such terror and yet, here they were—planning and taking another risk to survive life? Certainly not her, but it was Marie this time, bold and brave—not thinking twice before taking another leap. Her friend would indulge herself in any situation, regardless of the consequences for the sake of money, “for I can’t afford to starve myself and my children to death.” Although Ana heard those words only once, those words came to her vividly like the bright colors of the fabric she was holding.
This could be the fifth time that Marie approached her, suggesting another racket to pursue, and who knows where and to whom her friend got the information. It was an easy-to-go-travel to Japan: “A nightclub needed female entertainers, either with or without experience, obedient and diligent, and could communicate well; the rate was 450 Japanese yen, with free food and apartment.” Marie was temped at the rate of an overseas salary per night. Easy money. She assured herself, however, she wouldn’t fall into the same trap again.
Not again.
Just three months ago, both were involved in a police raid at a nightclub where both worked as prostitutes. They pleaded at the police station, begging to be spared despite knowing the consequences of the trouble they got into from the very beginning. Those men’s eyes lusting after each woman in the club, the vigorous music that awakened tension and libido, the scent of alcohol and cigarettes…Never had she forgotten these scenes, continuously played inside her head at different rhythms, sometimes melancholic, more often a pip-squeak fragment of her life. But that night was the longest night of their lives.
How could they forget that happening? It was a happening conceived only by those of her kind. Not once did the men she slept with remembered, even less her name, and, in return, with hopes that these men would at least remember her face in each different phase of the night. The fragility and pain—an inherent mess that society offers at their expense, in the age of turmoil.
It was too late to say “Sorry, I love you, Happy birthday.” Marie chose her family, her husband Paul, and her daughter Marianne, their home in the slums of Pasay, a place she had never imagined.
If you looked at Ana, you would see her house, ponderous, ram-shackled, and cold. If you looked at her now, she no longer resembled that innocent girl she lost decades ago. She no longer resembled a house.
Ana never saw it coming.
It was a typical day for a woman like her. A wife, a mother, bare-handed, and penniless. Ana would indulge herself in the old and rotting habits of every woman in the slums – the neighborhood chit-chats, gossip, talk-of-the-town, and inevitable catfights. These habits within this area were out of her reach. Probinsiyanang hindi makabasag pinggan, she heard once while walking down the neighborhood. Here, she had the life she never imagined. Far from the idyllic and vibrant life she had in the province.
Marie came to her rushing one Monday morning. Disturbed and dispirited, fear was visible in her friend’s face, then whispered: “Ana, you’ve got to see this.”
“To see what? You’re scaring me.”
“Not for me to tell, but it’s Paul…”
Ana found herself riding a tricycle. Sweat streamed down her face, she was trembling with sadness and rage at the anticipation of a confrontation. Absent-mindedly, Ana and Marie stood at the entrance of Rose Motel. Once, Marie dreamed of being in a beautiful place with her husband, a paradise or somewhere to feel warmth, joy, and comfort. But not this place, of all the places her husband went to.
Ana felt a warm hand caressing her right arm. Sympathetic and determined, Ana saw Marie’s face.
Marie got the room’s key from her friend who worked as a utility in that motel, Room B18.
She sighed and walked slowly, her legs weak. Marie took the courage to open the door, quietly like a thief, horrified that the two people behind the door would notice the sudden intrusion and surprise. Now, her almond eyes stared at two individuals on the bed, naked, sharing pleasure. Paul, with his wide arms open for a much younger woman, a girl, and bliss was evident on the girl’s young face. That bliss I had the first time I met you! And there is no greater pain than to scream inwardly at the fact that bliss once belonged to her.
The two in bed were wide-eyed, ludicrously looking for something to cover the mess. Cover what? Ana saw everything, though.
It would be a normal instance when she would go ballistic and physically outraged by the scene. A confrontation often seen in telenovelas—an inevitable confrontation between a wife and her husband caught red-handed, cheating. Then, the intense rivalry between wife and mistress. There was the girl, looking younger than Marie, prettier, energetic, and naïve. Ana felt nothing about this confrontation except sadness and disappointment. Cold and detached from the truth.
Ana did not expect Marie’s silence. Marie was calm and passive, she did not raise a hand nor her voice nor did she cry. Her body was stiff and still like a doll. No brawl at all. No drama.
Silence.
Marie stormed out of the room, never wanting to hear any of her husband’s words.
“Marie! Let me explain…” And then, it is not what she thinks? She thought after hearing the words from a television show she watched years ago.
Her eyes were cold dead, empty, staring back at Paul when he grabbed her right arm: “I am sorry, it is my fault for falling into this mess.”
No matter what the circumstances are, a man would always fall for the trap. A mess. Like what her husband did. For the excitement and thrill, the lust and desire, perhaps.
Marie fell in love with Paul when they first met at the public market. Paul was different and far more mature than the other boys she had met before. He had a face of rough upbringing, yet possessed the most charming brown eyes. His warm and gentle smile. He would hold her hand with love and sincerity. She used to believe that everything about him would last forever. But this time, her eyes could never look the same way at him again.
“Look at yourself in the mirror, shame on you,” Marie said in a flat tone, then strutted out of the place. With self-control, she stopped the urge to tilt her head. She never looked back even when Paul called her, begging to be heard.
She could not face him nor her daughter. How could she face her daughter after what Paul did? “I can’t go home, Ana, not yet.”
“Right, I know a place, we could stay there for a while.”
The sudden waves of memories came to her unwillingly between the silence and mechanical noise of the sewing machine.
After the confrontation, she expected Paul to return and come home that same day. But Paul did not show up, no apologies, not even his shadow appeared in their house.
The same day, she never looked at the mirror again. Her face, at the age of twenty-five, appeared to be much older. Lines of wrinkles were drawn in that once, youthful and chaste face. Her eyes now looked narrow and exhausted. Her body got thinner and smaller.
She lost appetite for both food and life. Everything now was crass, gray, and under a dark cloud. Marie later did not talk about the incident, not to Ana or her daughter. Not a day passed that she did not think of telling the truth to Marianne, of how she felt all these years. Yet, things were getting complicated as her daughter was getting more and more upset, demanding the answer to the question she raised after the day of confrontation. “Where did Father go? Why isn’t he coming home? Is he dead? Does he love us?” Silence, Marie chose not to answer. What should the answer be?
Marianne became distant the moment Marie fell silent. The moment her husband left, she knew that her daughter would slip out of her hands. This nightmare was hurting them both.
Now she walked like an empty vessel. Like that of a sandpiper at the shore, continuously looking for something that might fill the gaps—for something to love.
“I heard what Ana said,” a voice interrupted her thoughts. Aling El walked inside with a conspicuous look on her old face. The old woman was in her fifties, wearing a floral duster, her wavy, white hair bounced, dancing as the soft breeze entered the open window of the sewing boutique that afternoon of May. It was quite a relief for her to see the old woman’s smiling face. Aling El had gone easy on life despite the odds, she mumbled, looking at her fixing the stuck thread on the needle.
“Yes, I know,” she said, almost back to her nonchalant state earlier with her friend.
“You should consider the offer; I think she’s right. What’s keeping you here, anyway?” Aling El asked in a warm tone, sounding motherly with a slight sense of humor.
The sudden jolt of an image, of her mother, that sullen and exhausted feature, that empathy in her eyes, reappeared in a haze, then disappeared like a specter. No days went by that she did not think of the same image of her mother from the old and good childhood days.
She told Aling El again of thinking about the offer. After tasting her own medicine three months ago from the “happening” she could reconsider the thought of taking another leap without any assurance. Consequences would always be risky in that kind of job. The moment she would step on the edge of the cliff, the possibility of falling was certain, dragging her precious jewel with her.
“Do I have a choice?”
“Your husband left years ago. I can’t think of any reason for you to stay here.” The old woman sat in the corner, arranging the stack of clothes.
Waiting was getting more and more unbearable, now when she thought of her daughter coming of age. The silence, rebellion, the madness of her disquieting child.
“You should get going, tomorrow is another day,” Aling El said and added, “It’s quarter to five.”
“Okay. I’ll go now, see you tomorrow,” she replied in a distant voice.
She thought that men committed themselves to anything half-heartedly. And infidelity was one of the features of their nature. Her husband was one of those men who took risks, yet would cowardly run from the consequences of their actions.
The sky outside was as gentle as she thought it would be. Silent despite all the tumult beneath. It was warm and gentle—traces of yellow and orange light streamed on the blue canvas. That afternoon was too beautiful that she felt like walking in the meadows, like it was back in her childhood days, full of serenity.
Two streets from the boutique, a black smoke rose. The soft breeze carried an acrid smell of burning plastics and woods filled her nose.
“Burning?” she muttered. Her feet began to wander, walking, then slowly running past the first two streets, then to Magday-Pillar Street. The sight of the people, here and there, running hurriedly numbed her for a moment. Some were holding half-full water pails, running towards the burning houses.
“My house! My house! It was caught on fire—”
“The fire is spreading fast! Quick! Fetch more water!”
“My son and daughter, they are still in the house!”
Numbness made her deaf, shocked at the heat emitted by the fire, like a wild beast out of the cage, raging and turning all things in its path to dust. She saw the agony of young and old women on the corner crying, watching the fire devour their own houses, and her daughter was out of sight.
She became pale and almost forgot to breathe at the thought. Her feet moved slowly at first, then a cold sensation ran down her spine. Numbness left her body, as she started to move in shock, running towards the pool of men with the municipal firefighters trying to put out the fire.
“My daughter! Marianne! She must be there!” she screamed, synchronizing with all the other women on the corner.
One man stopped her, pushing her violently away from the fire. “No, please! I beg you! I need to…”
“Mamay! Mamay! What do you think you’re doing?” and with all her strength, Marie turned to where the scream was coming from. It was Marianne, running towards her, unscathed from the fire. Seeing her daughter relieved her. Desperately sobbing, she hugged Marianne tight, to assure her she was still sane.
“Thank God you’re still here, anak! I would die if something happened to you,” she confessed.
She heard no response from Marianne who cried like a baby. There was no greater miracle, despite all the chaos and trouble she had for the past years, than to see and hold her daughter in her arms like the first time after giving birth – a cry of a miracle.
The night was cold, still, and silent now. Marie no longer felt empty, and hoped to move forward.
The fire was quelled, but some lives were lost, and all turned into nothing, including memories of each house. But to her, it seemed quiet and more peaceful. In her mind, however, was the start of a new beginning. No reason to return. No more reason to stay. She felt little droplets of rain on her bare arms. Then the droplets became heavier. She smiled for the first time, and she reminded herself it was the first rain of May, blessing the earth to make things new like a mother that showers her infant with love.
Both of them walked toward the waiting shed, seeing the warm yellow light of the lamppost at the end of the street, holding each other’s arms to shield themselves from the coldness of the rain, never looking back. She walked past the memories and past her sadness in the slums, remembering the life she once had in the province. With her daughter, she felt like going back to her youth.