They connived with the dark shadows, the family who lived in a house full of glass windows and graven saints. Toraja invited me to their family dinner in Baguio City to commemorate their matriarch’s third death anniversary. That morning, five black pigs were butchered already and wines were served to the guests. The family has exhumed the bones of their dead and as in the ritual transferred them to a wider plot. Aunt Sebuja led the ritual of cleaning the bones of the dead. This was believed to bring prosperity to their clan. She was holding a scalpel and together with her sister, they skinned the bones, scraping the bones of the residue of dried muscles like dead trunks of trees until the whitish bones appeared. They laid the bones in a white cloth, arranged it, and counted it twice to make sure, nothing was missing. Dogs and children were kept on the sides, they watched from the window of the house. The severed head of the pigs hung on the stairs going to the attic. The whole house is engulfed in heavy smoke coming from the kitchen and it reeked with the metallic smell of animal blood and elongated eyes and mouths we could not make out of the faces the smoke tried to create.
I met Toraja a year ago at a conference on indigenous dances in the university. That night, they had a cultural presentation and Toraja danced around the bonfire for a limited viewing of the sacred ritual. He was wearing only a black and white striped loin cloth on his broad torso, naked with snake bones, old coins, and beads hanging on his body. His body was graceful, and his eyes were flames through the night. When the courtship dance continued, I was volunteered by my colleagues in our department and gave a courtesy dance. Toraja was holding a red cloth as he eagerly ran and danced towards me to tie the cloth to my flying hands. He was tireless in his tayaw and I began to breathe heavily as the smoke rose with heavy ash, at one turn I was surrounded by the approaching shadows of black buffaloes with the hoofs of their feet hurried by the sound of the gongs. Toraja caught me from the back and the loud uproar of my colleagues brought me to my senses. I made love with Toraja that night, we ran to an old cottage near the pine trees. We could see from there our friends and their shadows watching an indie film projected on the wide wall of the classroom. It was so dark that I wasn’t sure now if I made love with Toraja or with something evil that night.
After the bone ritual, the family relatives were in high spirits as they began to dip their fingers in the bowl of pig’s blood and press it to the foreheads of their children. They got some leaves of tiger grass and sprinkled water on everyone who attended. I was quietly watching and getting exhausted with the event. I thought of how we do the cleansing rituals in the place I come from. We also butchered pigs and dogs but we did not touch the dead’s bones, it was just being prayed over by the high priest. Toraja came and gave me a reassuring smile, and I smelled the strong scent of mixed alcohol and betel nut from his lips. The lime powder was often stronger it burned the leaves the men chewed, when the weather got cold in the city.
I remember that I took a short nap in that house, where there were graven images of saints. Tall pine trees outside the wide glass windows eclipsed the view from the outside. We were alone in the house, the guests have gone home. It was already midnight, and suddenly there were shouting and screaming in the courtyard. I went down to the house to look for Toraja. He was screaming at the top of his hoarse voice. “Stop, Mama, stop!” The glass table was broken and wine bottles were scattered. The children were crying, and Aunt Sebuja was wildly smashing the face of her sister Aunt Semjan. The drunk men were trying to separate the two women from each other. I was held back so as not to interfere as the matters became too personal for their family.
“I never told Mama that you were imprisoned. I made all the alibi and looked after your young children! But I never heard any, any thankful words from you! Shame!” Aunt Sebuja howled at her sister.
“Same with you, same! Your first husband should have left you sooner. Where did you put all his money, you were there, I saw you with someone and it was not even your husband now!” Aunt Semjan replied.
A slap on the face, smack on the lips, and then a wild crying.
“I let you scoop rice from our family pot when your children were hungry and just this moment, you cannot shut your mouth?” Aunt Sebuja was shaking with anger.
I ran quckly and held Aunt Sebuja to calm her down. Hoping my soothing voice and presence would calm them. I tried to prevent the crying children from going with their mother Semjan. Her husband came to help and ushered them outside the gate. Toraja was still holding his mother, keeping her from following the crying Aunt Semjan.
I picked up the pieces of broken glasses on the floor and cleared the path for Aunt Sebuja. She was wild, her hair was flying on her sides, her dress was torn and her face was filled with tears. They were all drunk from the wine. I was hoping that this altercation would stop when I saw that Aunt Semjan was still there at the gate. Why are they still there? Toraja was hugging her Mom, babying her in his wide arms. I saw uncle, and his stepdad drunk and crying at the door.
I took a small umbrella, went out the gate, and told the Aunt Semjan to get a cab quickly and go home. “Uncle, bring Aunt Semjan to your home and you can settle this matter tomorrow. For your children’s sake! Let’s go!” We began to walk on the steep road and out of the subdivision. We had just barely made it halfway to the top when the children suddenly started crying.
“It has started, it has started already!” Uncle shouted at me. It began to rain a bit. It was too dark and the neighborhood was already asleep. “What has started, Uncle?” I was confused, barely seeing his face, the crying children just a few steps from us. Then he pointed at Aunt Semjan who was stricken on her spot. Her body was heavy from the fight, her head was lifted in the rain, and there was a strong gurgling coming out from her mouth, her eyes turned her body was shaking.
“What is happening? Auntie, are you okay?” I approached her and touched her body. It was soft and tender for a mother of three young children. Uncle whispered something to me, “Her body is now possessed by evil!”
I tried to console Aunt Semjan and protect her with the umbrella I was holding. But I was stricken with the horror of what happened next. There was a dark shadow approaching us. Flaming with wild hair, she hurled Aunt Semjan and they rolled down the road. Two sisters like a bag of meat thrown in the air!
The crying of the children got louder. I ran back and ushered the children out of the subdivision.
“It’s, okay, don’t cry, adings. Your mom will be okay.” I said to the youngest.
“Why are they fighting? I saw them, they were very angry!” the girl replied.
“Don’t worry, I will look after your Mom. You go first and find a taxi,” I asked their eldest to lead the way.
When I went back, they were trying to command the evil spirit that had possessed Aunt Semjan. They also poured holy water on her and made her drink it. The Bible was already tied to her body!
“Stop, Mama, stop!” It was Toraja. He pulled the two sisters aside and the two uncles came to the rescue. Aunt Sebuja hugged her sister and cried.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry…I didn’t mean those words. Please, come back to us, please!”
I could not figure out what was happening, but I saw Toraja running inside the house and when he came back, he was holding a rosary and two wooden crucifixes. They hang them on Aunt Semjan who was still lucid and shaking unable to be lifted by the drunk uncles.
“She is so strong, this is something different,” one uncle complained, their senses coming to them as they know the hopelessness of the situation. The two sisters were bruised from their fall, they were wet from the rain.
“Who are you? Leave her!” Aunt Sebuja is now exorcising her sister. I couldn’t believe what was happening. The neighbors could not help. The dogs kept barking.
“Goddamit! What do you want? Do you want the mother, the son, the saint?” Aunt Sebuja was spitting poison at the devil as they desperately called for Aunt Semjan to come back.
I wanted to assist by covering them with the umbrella I was holding. My mouth was trembling and saying my prayers. I mumbled words I could not understand as I watched them while keeping my distance. Toraja ran in and out of the house, getting anything that could help him assist his mother. The evil spirit laughed at our prayers. Aunt Semjan was very strong and her body was so heavy that three strong men could not lift her from the ground.
“What is your name? Are you the old man who took her? Is it you, why did you follow her up here?” One uncle was also doing the questioning.
Then the evil one spoke, “I am Zarothustra. I am Zarothustra!”
“She is still possessed by that man, the man who conquered her youth!” Aunt Sebuja is wrestling with the strong might of her sister. Then she asked me to pray.
“Asther, please, can you pray for us, please pray for your Aunt Semjan, please!”
“Yes, Auntie, I will,” I replied hesitantly. My heart beat fast.
I began to speak words I could not understand. “In the name of the Father, Lord, help us in this time of need. We call on you, you have the power to command the devil to get out of Aunt Semjan.” I lay my left hand on the possessed while my right hand held the umbrella.
Then suddenly the possessed turned her head to me, her face white and violet from crying, her eyes filled with unspeakable anger they pierced me. Fear started to consume me, I lowered the umbrella and hid from her. I continued praying and recited Psalm 23:4
“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…for Thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff comfort me.” I continue to pray with what I remember I learned from my religion subject in the university. I recall them highlighting these verses in the Bible. When the clock struck, we would stop in our tracks in the hallways, in the classrooms, in the playground, we heard the loud bell, and then we waited and felt the gentle feet of the angels passing amid our worldly selves.
“Who is Asther?” The Zarothustra suddenly spoke and we heard him. I stopped my prayer and a heavy weight inside pulled me. I let go of the umbrella and my hands were pulled to my sides. The rain fell on us.
Aunt Sebuja answered. “It’s Asther, she is the girlfriend of Toraja, your niece. It’s her, she is very pretty!”
“Yes, yes, it’s Asther. Hija, answer her, he might like you!” One uncle said.
The eyes of the possessed held me. Everything around me darkened. Am I being sold by this family to the devil?
“Toraja, where are you?” I felt it in the ground. Something strange pulled a heavy weight within me. It’s a dark matter, with the face I could not make out in the darkness. From where I was standing, I could see light from the window of the house. They were the graven images, are those saints watching a film, watching me?
“Toraja, Toraja, where are you?”
Then from the darkness, I saw an evil mammoth rising from black flames, its eyes attached to its large horns, the black torso wider than Toraja’s. His sound was otherworldly and poured out to me his breath stronger than the smell of betel nut and wine pressed from sugarcane. He poured a black one to me. I was meant to dance with the mammoth, this is not Toraja. I am dancing with the Zarothustra.
I opened my eyes in the house filled with glass windows with the graven images around. The pine trees outside were filled with sun rays. The rainy season was over as birds made their nests in the trees.
“She is awake, she is here!” I heard the voice of the youngest girl, she was one of the girls I remembered finding a cab one evening, so they could go home. Now she was lying on a bed, her body filled with tubes, she was away from a very long dream.
Then a man opened the door. He had a very handsome face. He smiled at her; it was Toraja. He was holding a bundle of red cloth in his hands.
“I caught you, finally you are awake! Look, you gave birth!” He showed her a baby wrapped in red cloth.
She was confused and the heavy weight of darkness was barely leaving her mind and body. She managed to ask “Who is that babe?”
“He is Zaroasther, he is our son!”
When she heard the name, she was not interested anymore. She looked at the birds that gathered their nests in the pine trees. The rays of the sun gave them warmth and by looking at them, it gave her a distant feeling, a life she embodied before, a thought she tried to name…was that memory?
