Leafing through the brittle pages and reading the short story again and again, Cassandra seeks the rhyme and rhythm she thinks necessary for it to flow water-like into the mind’s nooks and crannies, and thereby gather sufficient momentum to push itself forward, whether smoothly or, like life, hesitantly, and ultimately find the logic and vehicle upon which it should reach its conclusion.
The story is adventurously titled “Sea Bride.” It emerged in the course of Cassandra’s decluttering of her workspace—a relic of youthful exertions at narration and, in her current estimation, a poignant example of an early work requiring rework. She found it just when a project on which reasonable returns were expected demands her attention, but she is loath to cast it aside like a simpering child. And although its framework of class lines and rural longing seems to her promising, she is mindful that its value and meaning are also predicated on the reading experience, as Eagleton reminded: “For literature to happen, the reader is quite as vital as the author.”
Reluctantly, she takes up the task of rereading and rewriting, primarily to please herself—that is to say, the reader and writer. What depths of discipline she is required to plumb, especially at a time when the Olympic Games are unfolding in the City of Lights and producing such heady triumphs as the Philippines’ own, as well as Algeria’s Kaylia Nemour and Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo becoming the first ever Africans to respectively win the gold in gymnastics and in the men’s 200m—and in imperialist France yet…
AT THE stroke of five on the clock, Corazon opened her eyes as though a hand had touched her heart: Come. It is time. She slipped out of bed, glancing at her mother’s supine form by the window, and by force of habit swept up her hair and knotted it into a bun.
Downstairs her sister Felicidad stood over the brewing coffee, forehead furrowed in the glare of the naked lightbulb. The house, large and unwieldy, crouched tightly over its inhabitants. It had been built haphazardly, the inner walls torn down and put up elsewhere, and various annexes and lean-tos erected whenever there was money to spare—and there always was money to spare; they lived simply but were never financially short—so that the whole house seemed wrong, the ceilings were inordinately low, for instance, bestowing on it brooding darkness and, in the summer, brutal heat.
The table was set. Corazon was an early riser, but Felicidad, a sullen woman who never seemed to need any sleep, was always up before anyone else. The sisters ate in silence, chewing methodically on rice and fish, their minds already dwelling on their market stall and the possibilities of the day’s sales of dilis, tinapa, patis, bagoong—only some of Cavite’s famed bounty from the sea.
They left the dishes in the sink for Adoracion, the youngest sister, to wash.
Upstairs again, Corazon mechanically prepared to leave the house. She unloosed her hair but stopped in the middle of brushing it to stride across the room and make her mother’s bed. The old widow Aling Gracia had risen and was now padding downstairs, complaining of stiff joints. Hurriedly, Corazon rose on tiptoe to undo the strings that held up the mosquito net, folded it, and plumped the pillows. And then she saw her: a slim woman in a white camison, long dark hair flecked with gray hanging down her back.
She stared. Is that me? she wondered, coming close and touching the lips in the mirror. How strange, she thought. A little past 40 and moving like clockwork and all she had to show were graying hair and a pallid face. She groped at her neck and observed the veined hand dropping to her chest. Under her slip her breasts swelled, breasts that had never known the mouth of man or infant—
“Corazon!”
She was startled by the sound of her name booming from downstairs. With marionette movements, she pulled on her dress.
In her mind Cassandra warily circles the portrayal of Corazon as a woman past her prime, fully aware that these days, 60 is the new 40. But she wants to convey that her fiction is set in quite another time and place where men and women grew old quickly, and which would perhaps be familiar to urbanites who, when they were children, spent summers away from the city, chilling and tanning in coastal villages peopled mostly by fishermen and their families who lived and died in the place of their birth, yoked to the seasons and, as is said rather patronizingly, set in their ways.
Cassandra ponders whether China’s current aggression in Philippine waters, or indeed the oil spills frightening in their frequency, threatening the livelihood of fishermen and the very environment that feeds the general public, should figure in the story. She decides not, vaguely recalling Gordimer’s view that “writing with a direct cause in mind” means “writing propaganda”—a “fatal” prospect for a fiction writer, the South African radical warned. She, Cassandra, means to paint with her words, as though it were an original idea, a long-ago time when life on its face was kinder and gentler and, under the surface, thrashing furiously like a trapped bird’s wings…
ALL DAY Corazon was engrossed with the image in the mirror. But true to her nature, she behaved as required, and not once was Felicidad prompted to prod her to offer tinapang Salinas to a potential customer lingering abstractedly in front of their stall.
The stall was little more than a cubicle. Surrounded by trays of dried fish and bottles of fish sauce on tidy counters, the sisters sat stonily on wooden stools, each evoking the “lady madonna” of which the Beatles sang, but no children at their feet.
Yet it was not as though the planet had all this time been spinning exclusively toward their sad ending. When the sisters were young, they were pleasant children laughing and happy at play. Their parents owned some of the biggest fishing boats in the town: Want was an unknown element in the house near the sea.
In Corazon’s blossoming a few young men made tentative gestures of wooing, tentative because they were her social inferiors to whom her mother was naturally inhospitable. Tentative, also, because there was Roman.
A fisherman employed by her family, Roman managed one of the big boats that sailed as far as Bicol when the moon was in hiding and the fish came up in droves. He laid claim to Corazon with a searing gaze that made her heart beat fast and brusquely doused the other men’s budding interest. On days when the boats were docked, Roman would sit mending the fishing nets piled in small black mounds in front of Aling Gracia’s house, and his gaze would arrow toward Corazon’s window and pierce the thin curtain behind which she stood thrilled and quaking.
How handsome he looked, Corazon told herself, how strong. His boat always had the biggest catch, and he delivered his reports to her mother in the manner of a man unfazed by authority and confident of his capabilities.
But when he formally called at the house, dressed in clothes that sat awkwardly on him, Aling Gracia accosted him at the door. “What do you want,” she said.
“I came to visit Corazon,” he said.
A thin laugh from the widow. Then: “She is not for visiting.”
Corazon, flushing crimson, stood meekly beside her father’s rocking chair. Roman’s eyes flashed angrily in her direction and stalked off.
In her adolescence and early teens, Cassandra loved summer vacations with family relations who lived far from the city. It was an altogether different world that she inhabited for about three weeks in a year, marked with what she now remembers as numbing daily routines occasionally broken by scandals involving matters of the heart and conflicts over land. She recalls that she once missed a summer and that, returning a year later in time for the town fiesta, she happily looked forward to seeing her friend again. She was then 14, her friend Merly a year older.
Cassandra was told that her friend would be waiting in the plaza. She soon located Merly standing off the side of the basketball court, waving. Coming closer, she was astonished by what she was seeing: Merly was pregnant!
It was, she eventually realized, no big deal. In the sleepy town she loved and in other towns as well, early pregnancies were not extraordinary. A hoyden like Merly gleefully acing a game of patintero or tumbang preso could in a month or two be swept by youthful passion into eloping with a swain and thereafter settle down to years of childbearing and unremitting toil.
After a few words casually explaining her new status, Merly led Cassandra to a hut near the beach and strained to get her up the bamboo stairs. The hut was bare. In the middle of it, on a straw mat on the floor, were three covered dishes of food—meat, not the customary fish paksiw or pinangat that served to slake local appetites; it was Merly’s spread for the fiesta. Both of them now seated on the floor, her belly getting in the way of her ministrations, Merly proceeded to serve her prodigal friend.
But what of it? Cassandra thinks now, conceding that the acutely remembered vignette may illustrate the stark gaps and absences between her world and the world of others, and possibly Corazon’s world and Merly’s, but is ultimately irrelevant to her narrative…
ROMAN BESIEGED Corazon with a controlled vehemence, suddenly appearing at bends in alleyways when she walked from house to church, from house to botica. Nights, he stormed her window with his eyes until, timid but elated, she flung it open and looked out on him as he stood in the moonlight.
She was mystified. She shrank from his burning gaze but she pursued preposterous errands primarily intended for their paths to meet, and then would recoil at sight of him. Back home, exhausted, she murmured his name and imagined being in his arms, living with him and sharing his bed.
Corazon had grown up in a manless house. Her father was lost at sea when she was a child. There were two brothers but she hardly knew them. One had sailed with the boats since as far back as she could remember; he was found in the cabin one morning, quite stiff, hands clenched as though in unnameable pain—bangungot, they said, tongues clucking. The other had joined the U.S. Navy and married an American woman—fairly lost to his family and his motherland.
The widow Aling Gracia kept her daughters to herself like a mother hen would shield her chicks. But this shielding precluded tenderness; she was aloof, forbidding, averse to physical contact beyond allowing her children to take her hand and raise it to their forehead as a blessing.
Hurrying home one evening from the botica, Corazon turned a corner and watched, her heart lodged in her throat, as Roman detached himself from the shadows and strode toward her.
“Corazon!” he said, seizing her elbow.
“No, no!” she moaned, pushing him away.
“I know you love me! I know!”
“No!” (Exchange in rhyme, madness in verse.)
“Come with me. We will go away!”
“But my mother—“
“Damn your mother! Go home, get your clothes, and come to me here. I will wait for you. Come with me. We will go away. I know you love me!” Still murmuring, he released her and melted into the dark.
Corazon stumbled home, propelled by her pounding heart. But all fluttering ceased once she was inside the door. Her mother sat by the window on her father’s chair, calmly rocking. Her sisters sat, awaiting the proper moment to retire. She waved the jar of Vicks Vaporub in the air, indicating the nature of her errand, and calmly went upstairs.
Panicked, she walked to the aparador where she kept her clothes, and then swerved toward the window. Do I go? Do I dare fly? Does he love me? The leaden sky declined to answer. She paced the room, close to weeping, unable to make the crucial choice.
At last, the sky fell apart and rain descended in a torrent. Corazon stood resignedly, as though the matter had been decided. Wearily, she got into her nightgown, hooked up the mosquito net, and crawled into the gray cocoon. It rained all night.
In time the big fishing boats but one were sold off. With one son dead and the other setting roots in a foreign land, Aling Gracia saw no reason to keep the family enterprise going. For her daughters she set up a market stall in which they could spend time—for surely they needed something to do—and the lone boat she put under a nephew’s management.
Routine etched itself firmly on their days. They continued to live in the comfort to which they were accustomed.
And Corazon? She efficiently went through the motions of forgetting. Any rip in the fabric of her life would be lost on the inattentive observer halfway curious about her melancholy form. She endured the memory of Roman like she would a dull ache—a rigid defense except for occasional twinges that scraped her nerve ends.
Roman had left town with the sacristan’s daughter who had long been crazy for him. Through the village gossip, the stories filtered into Corazon’s resisting ear: He took the woman to Palawan where he had relatives. Their first child was a boy. They were happy. From afar, the woman’s parents forgave them for their elopement. The second child was another boy. The woman died in her third childbirth but the infant, a girl, survived.
Time flew. Corazon got up one morning and espied herself in the mirror while making her mother’s bed. Past 40 and moving like clockwork: She could dispense daeng and make change with her left hand; she could rise with the sun and, still redolent with sleep, set the household’s cogs and wheels in motion—a marvelous machine running according to habit and a polished skill.
One fateful day she made her way downstairs and noted that no coffee was brewing on the stove. She went back upstairs and found Felicidad still in bed doubled up in pain — an old kidney ailment recurring. Serenely, she made and ate her breakfast, drank her coffee, got dressed, and was shortly on her way to the market. She stopped at the corner and waited for the familiar chugging sound of the tricycle.
“Corazon!”
Her name shafted through the air: pure sound. She turned her head and her blood froze, for it was he, dark eyes blazing and blurring all else. A cloud seemed to wrap her head; dizzy, she reached out to steady herself.
Roman took her hand and at once she recovered. He asked how she was: “Kumusta ka?” The tricycle arrived. He helped her in, got in beside her, and they made their way to the market. He left her at the stall after handing over her baskets.
Whirlpools of emotion assaulted Corazon. The fine self-consciousness she had nurtured through the years threatened to snap and she sat hunched on her stool, her face a twitching mask. Shortly after noon she sensed the walls of the stall moving to choke her. After much fumbling she managed to lock up and fled homeward.
Her mother impaled her with inquiring eyes.
“Business is slow. I don’t feel well,” she mumbled. Then, with grace, she mounted the stairs.
By some sleight of hand, the days became fluid and one: Sunlight fused into moonlight. Mornings Corazon glowed in the ardor of Roman’s smile; evenings she was soothed by the stars in his eyes. But at odd moments she was suffused with guilt at her happiness, and she wondered when this magic would end, when the universe would right itself again.
Walking home with Felicidad, she hugged her guilt like she would a dark secret. And then from afar, she would see his familiar form, her mouth would flower into a smile, and the magic would fill the air like the essence of roses.
Over breakfast one morning, Aling Gracia cleared her throat and announced that henceforth, Adoracion would go with Felicidad to tend the stall; Corazon, because she had been looking pale lately, would stay and mind the house. Flustered, Adoracion nodded and ran to get dressed, followed swiftly by Felicidad. Soon they trooped downstairs and left.
Corazon sat, afraid to make a sound. The day lay in shards around her. Nervously, she watched her mother rise slowly and leave the table. Does she know? Is she punishing me? Fearful of what it could all mean, she began collecting the dishes.
When the two sisters returned in the twilight, they found their mother alone in the living room, on the rocking chair by the window. Corazon was not in attendance as she should have been. She was in bed with a fabricated headache, mutely pummeling the air with bitter thoughts: She who had lived her life in filial obedience, she who had served her mother all her life, was she to be denied this chance at happiness? She loved him, oh, how she loved him, and he’s back now, free now! Was it a crime to feel this way, to want to be with him?
Overcome by anguish, she leapt out of bed and combed her hair, then got down on all fours to find her slippers. She drew a deep, shuddering breath and clattered downstairs. Her mother and sisters raised their heads and eyed her silently. Without looking at them she walked to the door, saying loudly: “I’m going to the botica.”
Outside now in the fragrant evening, Corazon flew on winged feet in search of Roman.
Cassandra is convinced that in the high emotion enveloping certain moments in life, it would be pointless to demand reasons why men and women behave the way they do. She recalls reading that every human being is born with all the wondrous gifts that the five senses can make possible—imagine it!—except that in time these gifts fade to the “manageable” level necessary for a woman or man to live “normally” with and among others, lest one be trapped in a constant state of stupefaction at beholding the universe
She examines the weight of the moment that Corazon finally arrived at, anxious that her words would do justice to a journey of realization. The journey, belated, was arduously begun. Corazon was not, like Merly, armored by the boldness of children, but a grown woman who took the leap, barely realizing how much it would be a life-altering act…
IN THE END Roman decided to take Corazon to Palawan, away from the town and all that it held. On the morning of their journey, he guided her over the narrow plank that was suspended grimly between time and eternity onto the ship’s deck. She sat sideways, pale face washed with sunlight, looking out to sea.
The past weeks had been hell for Corazon: deadly days that sapped all sweetness. The morning after she had come to him filled to the brim with love and fright, she decided to return to her mother’s house to seek absolution. She would go alone, she insisted, hushing his angry remonstrations.
The door to the house was locked and the windows closed. To Corazon, standing with upflung chin, the house seemed contemptuous, derisive. Her knees were shaking when she raised her hand to knock. At once the door was pulled open and Aling Gracia emerged.
Corazon cowered in the terrible gaze, hands held up as though warding off a blow. “I-nay,” she stammered.
With a violent movement, Aling Gracia silenced her child. She reached behind her, produced a bag, and tossed it outside. Corazon’s clothes spilled to the ground. Then she withdrew, pulling the door shut.
Gossip gripped the town’s nosy households, making of Corazon’s love story fresh grist for the mill of their ennui. Bravely she held the fort of her dignity, walking from Roman’s shack to the market and attempting to assist her sisters at the stall. But when Felicidad and Adoracion repeatedly cut her on the street and elsewhere, she buckled, grew timorous. Misery clothed her like a shroud.
“Do you want to go away?” Roman said, his voice thick with pity.
“Go away? But this is my home!” she said, outraged, her frail arm sweeping the air. “My family is here!”
She took to going to her mother’s house and sitting on the step. Aling Gracia would come out to sweep the yard and regard her child absently. Then, her chore done, she would walk back into the house, her skirts brushing Corazon’s face, and slam the door.
In his shack at day’s end, Roman waited until Corazon shuffled in. She watched him soundlessly when he finally packed their stuff, too weak to protest.
In Palawan Corazon seemed to regain strength. Roman’s young children accepted her like a stranger come to stay, and she ran the hut’s daily doings almost like the way she did at home. But she was pensive and withdrawn. The milk box that held her worldly goods sat unpacked, as though she were only stranded in some port buffeted by a storm.
“Hang up your clothes,” Roman would say gruffly.
“But why?” she’d say, her eyes wounded and watering. “We’re going home soon.”
He’d stomp out and go off in his boat. Out at sea, the water calmed him.
Antsy, Cassandra wrestles with points of technique. She hopes that the steady upstairs-downstairs movements by Corazon and her family and the daytime-nighttime segues will serve to present the monotony of a life upended by something approaching a Greek tragedy. She is caught in the intensity of the moment and casts about for a Greek chorus to show Corazon hearing, like Clytemnestra, “only her own frenzied thoughts.” But she wisely gets a grip, chooses low-key over extravagant, and offers an exit she thinks best to represent love’s delicate and awesome transformations…
CORAZON WAS DREAMING when Roman awakened her one early morning. When she sat up still clutched by sleep, she was squinting against the glare of the waves, but it was only the lamp. As always, he felt as though drowning in the browning of her eyes.
Softly he called her again: “Corazon.” And then she was awake, politely smiling, rising slowly like the air around her was still asleep and should not be roused. When he moved toward the batalan, she was sitting by the open door, combing out her hair and crooning a tuneless song, rather like musical breathing.
What did it matter now? Roman thought as he tried to get a fire going. The wood was damp, the spark would not catch. First there is a raging, and then regret, he mused. When he realized that Corazon was lost, that she had retreated somewhere he could not reach, he knew he could not go on raging forever. He ransacked his heart—and could find nothing deeper than surprise.
At last, a spark held, flickered, and ate at the wood. Roman filled the coffee can with water and set it atop the fire. Leaning against the post, he looked out at the fading dark and lighted a cigarette. Shortly a faint sputtering nicked at his thoughts. The kapeng barako had boiled over in brave spurts, its aroma soaking the air. He filled a tin cup, waited a bit for it to cool, then drank noisily. When he was through, he filled the cup again and headed back to where Corazon was sitting.
She was not there.
Orange was streaking the horizon when Corazon tottered down the steps. She watched the sunrise indifferently and stepped quickly over the stones lining the dirt path. Soon she felt the sand under her soles.
Gingerly she walked into the water. The waves were playful and made welcoming sounds around her legs. How lovely the water felt, she thought, smiling, even as she shivered from the cold. As though in response, the sun shot up, anxious to warm her.
When the sea was up to her shoulders, she stopped in her progress to admire strands of seaweed undulating on the surface. But her dress was weighing her down and, annoyed, she plodded on. The sea was now grasping and turgid; it emitted a sensual smell.
Before the water closed inexorably over her head, she heard Roman as though through a mist: “Corazon!” She tried to turn but the sea would not let her, and she surrendered to its embrace, lulled by thoughts of home, blessed by the absolute sky.
