Ilustrado (28 page)

—from the biography in progress,
Crispin Salvador:
Eight Lives Lived
, by Miguel Syjuco

*

Things had been strained since they returned from their day trip to the little isthmus off the island of L——. That rendezvous differed vastly from those carefree trips they’d taken last year. Nineteen fifty-eight was a tremendous year, he thinks now, both for that case of Chateau L’Arrosée and for our love.

Pipo watches her brush her teeth. He’s always loved observing her when she wasn’t looking. As now. His eyes are like a film camera, capturing forever the architecture of her ankles, the way she rises on the balls of her feet to bend like a lily’s stem over the basin to spit, the way her arches curve like bows, the way her heels come down to touch the tiles gently, like a kiss. Sadie shakes out her long blond hair and ties it in a chignon. She tightens the towel around her, returns to the bedroom, and looks at him sitting in the leather armchair, pretending to read the three-day-old edition of
Le Canard en chaîné.
Has it really been, Pipo wonders, that long since they’d left the room?

“As I was telling you . . . ,” Sadie says. He’ll miss the way her British accent makes her enunciate the
s
and
t
sounds. It makes her sound impetuous. “. . . you know well that I’m the sort who stares at a storming sky and thinks ‘this rain shall stop, and soon.’ And that I believe I will one day return to all the places I have loved, and that the world is small and I shall see you again, inevitably. I know that this something we share will not have ended the next time we meet, even if I don’t know what it is that we have. Do you at all understand?” She lets the towel fall around her ankles and lies down on the bed, turning onto her side to look meaningfully at Pipo. He studies the dip at her waist, the deep curve like an autumn valley amid wintry mountains. He catches her eyes with his, then forces her to look at him look away. He doesn’t want to say what he’s going to say.

“You act as if I should be happy with that.” He pauses a moment, for effect. He softens his voice, because he wants to. He knows he shouldn’t. “The problem is one doesn’t realize what love looks like until you see others who have it, and you realize that you don’t. You see lovers—in the street, at a cafe, in photographs for heaven’s sake—and you
think
: that is what it should look like. Ours looks nothing like that. Sometimes it does, then you go away again. You return to your Spanish aristocrat.” Pipo spits out the last word. “Then I don’t know what I see. That’s all.” But that isn’t all. Yet he holds his tongue.

He stands and looks at her among the big square pillows Europeans love but he could never understand. She sits up, draws her legs against her chest, and rests her chin on her knees, like an origami bird being folded. Sadie stares back. Challenging. Then she studies her hands, turning them over, inspecting them as if they were new. As if this wasn’t the end.

Pipo hesitates, in this moment which he realizes will last forever in his mind. Even now he loves how she is a woman who likes to be looked at, even photographed, without drama, not hamming it up, ever, merely displaying, honestly. He has always loved that honesty, even if it meant she refused to decide between him and the Extremaduran count. Then Pipo’s hesitation passes and he turns away. The door doesn’t make a sound as he leaves.

He knows it isn’t over.

The End.

—from
Vida
, Book III of
The Europa Quartet
, by Crispin Salvador

*

At dinner, Dr. and Mrs. Effy and Raqel Gonzales are welcoming. Joined by their son, Toofy, several years younger than Sadie, we sit in their sprawling dining/living room. Raqel catches me admiring a finely painted screen across one wall. “Late Edo period,” she explains. “The dealer told me it depicts popular Hokkaido myths.” She systematically turns the lazy Susan so that I partake first of every dish as the family watches me fumble with the serving cutlery.

I get this nauseating feeling of déjà vu. But when I look at their faces, I see only strangers. Effy, a graying bear, straight from work in an office barong with a Mont Blanc clipped inside the placket, smelling of cigarettes and Paco Rabanne. Raqel, well preserved by regular sessions at the Polo Club gym, is in stylish Anne Taylor–style linen slacks and tailored cotton blouse. Sadie’s brother, Toofy (his name meaning “Effy Jr.” or “Effy too” or even “Effy two”—I didn’t catch the finer points of Sadie’s explanation), is slight and possesses the habit of playing with his lower lip. He didn’t shake my hand and seems to shrink from the dinner table.

Sadie sits beside me. I feel her foot rub up against mine under the table. I stare at the linen napkin folded into a swan beside my plate. She keeps rubbing her naked foot against my ankle. Finally, she kicks me hard. I look up and she’s staring at me, irritatedly. She leans over to whisper. “Don’t forget to ask my mom about Dulcinea.”

“No need to whisper! Don’t be shy,” Raqel says from across the table. “Feel at home. We’re so glad you could join us! Really, so glad. Isn’t that nice, Daddy?” Her husband is oblivious, busy rolling up his sleeves.

An old man in pajama pants, terry cloth house slippers, and a too-big yellow T-shirt that says “Don’t worry, be happy” shuffles out of the kitchen and circles slowly around the dining table. He’s grumbling quietly to himself. Nobody seems to notice. He’s holding a spoon.

Raqel continues: “So, Miguel, you’re from New York? But you grew up here? Ateneo or La Salle? . . . Ah, good, good.”

“Well, I went to La Salle,” says Effy.

Raqel: “That’s not your fault, dear. But, Miguel, you know, Toofy here is going to Southridge, getting a good Opus Dei education. Did you learn Latin at Ateneo? When did they stop teaching it?
Well, then, Toofy will have to recite some original Thucydides for us later, won’t you, Toofs?”

Toofy (reaching for the rice, mumbles): “Thucydides is Greek.”

Effy: “This rain is really something, no? That’ll stop those Muslim zealots.”

Raqel: “I know! I was stuck in traffic nearly two hours, coming home from my Friends of the CCP lunch in Manila. I thought it was another roadblock. There’s so many these days. I was relieved it was just a flood. That stupid Bonifacio almost stalled the car passing through it. I was worried you’d have to send your driver with the four-by-four.”

Sadie: “Global warming. Maybe all our cars should get those engine snorkels like the four-by-four.”

Effy: “That’s ridiculous. I don’t believe in global warming.”

Sadie: “Because you work for Petron.”

The old man shouts out: “Listen! It’s happening. We must be vigilant.” He wields his spoon as if it were a knife.

Effy: “Pop, the war’s over. The Japanese surrendered.”

Raqel (turning to me): “Don’t mind my father-in-law. He’s un-well. The maids feed him in the kitchen, but he likes to walk around between spoonfuls.”

Toofy (leaning in like a spy in a crowded souk): “We call him Spooky Lolo.”

Raqel: “Miguel, excuse me for asking, I’m curious. Who are your parents?”

I tell her.

Raqel: “Ah, I knew your mother from Assumption. She was a few years older. We knew of your dad. They should never have gotten on that plane.”

Effy (glaring at his wife): “It was a real tragedy. The country would have been so different.”

Me: “Thank you, sir.”

Raqel: “I still think it was the CIA. Bobby Pimplicio was too much of a nationalist senator for their liking.”

Effy: “The people called him ‘Bob Hope.’ I still remember his campaign jingle. ‘Don’t cast your dreams down the drain, cast a vote for Mr. Hope.’”

Sadie: “In history class we learned that anyone could have sabotaged the engine. The administration, the big corporations, even the commies.”

Me: “All the explanations never really interested me. All that mattered was that my parents were gone and I never knew them.”

Toofy: “Bet it was a spiteful God.”

Me (smiling at Toofy): “I tend to agree.”

Effy: “How about your lolo, how’s he doing? I used to see him at Manila Golf. Haven’t seen him in a while, though.”

Sadie: “I thought you said you didn’t have family here?”

Me: “My lolo is well, sir. Still the firebrand.”

Raqel: “How many children are you?”

Me: “We’re six, ma’am. My parents kept having kids until they had one they actually liked.”

Raqel: “What number are you in the family?”

Me: “Number five.”

Raqel: “That’s funny! Isn’t that funny, Effy?”

Effy: “We’re lucky we had a girl, then a boy. We could stop trying.”

Sadie: “You know, Miguel is a writer. A damn fine writer, too.”

Toofy: “Have you even read his work?”

Raqel: “Oh! What do you write, Miguel? My daughter is a big reader. She inherited her worldly inquisitiveness from me. I used to read her the—”

Effy: “Tell me, how do you earn a living, Miguel? I guess your rich grandparents support your hobby.”

Raqel: “Effy!”

Sadie: “Dad!”

(Toofy drops his cutlery on his plate.)

Spooky Lolo: “I taught you better than that. I remember when you killed your puppy because I got angry with you.”

Effy: “No, Miguel, I’m just curious. Really. If that’s what my daughter wants, that’s what she gets, right? I just want to know how much to save for her inheritan—”

Sadie: “Daddy, please.”

Raqel: “You must excuse my husband. His art is making money.”

Me: “It’s a hard art to master, ma’am. Actually, I make enough to support myself. Freelancing and what have you.”

Effy: “You can’t do that here in the Philippines, no? There’s not enough money in it. Maybe in the States yes, but here . . .”

Raqel: “I wanted to be a writer, too, you know. Then I got pregnant and there were so many things keeping me busy. A household to run, my work at the Chosen Children Foundation, Christmas bazaars, Pilates, et cetera.”

Sadie: “My mom used to hang with poets and Maoist revolutionaries.”

Effy: “You know, speaking of revolutionaries, someone at the office told me he knows the rumors are true. About Sexysexygate. Vita Nova has a videotape that will implicate the president.”

Raqel: “That’s an example of in flagrante derelicto.”

Sadie: “Eew!”

Toofy: “It’s
delicto
.”

Effy: “The poor bastard, betrayed by his new mistress.”

Sadie: “I heard Reverend Martin’s backing him anyway. Despite all that ‘morality’ stuff.”

Raqel: “Why can’t Filipino men stay monogamous, I don’t get it. Like dogs on the street.”

Effy: “Because of their wives, that’s why.”

Raqel (ignoring her husband): “That’s the problem with a charismatic order like Reverend Martin’s. They’re unsanctioned by the Church, but they get away with almost murder . . .”

Sadie: “They deliver the votes.”

Effy: “I think they give people hope.”

Raqel: “Well, how many millions belong to the El Ohim? Ten? He’s a kingmaker. But no matter how populist you are, what kind of Christians are you if the Pope doesn’t recognize you?”

Spooky Lolo: “I’m telling you, Satan came as Jesus.”

Effy (sounding long-suffering): “Papa. Don’t blaspheme.” Sadie: “Mom, Miguel is doing the biography of Crispin Salvador. He’s one of your favorites, no?”

Raqel: “Well, just one of my favorite
local
ones. He’s no Paulo Coelho.
The Alchemist
changed my life. But it’s great that you’re writing Salvador’s biography. How wonderful for you. Finally, someone’s doing it.”

Sadie: “Mom, did you know that Crispin—”

Effy: “My wife was once in love with him, Miguel. She had his photograph in her locker at school.”

Raqel: “It was a wonderful photo. Salvador looked like a silent-era film star. But Dr. Gonzales exaggerates. I was taking photography at the time, and my teacher at Assumption, the famous Miss Florentina, she asked us to replicate the lighting for our portraiture project.”

Effy: “But after that, you went and read all his books.”

Raqel: “Oh, you’re so funny. Sadie, isn’t your dad funny when he’s jealous? Well, it’ll be a good biography. Salvador was quite the character. I saw him once on campus, giving a talk. Very magnetic. You know, there was always something melancholy about him that—”

Me: “I’ll be interviewing Miss Florentina.”

Raqel: “Oh! Do give her my regards. If she remembers me. It was so long ago. She was a real dynamo. With her poetry and her travels and her men. She had a joie de vivre that made
us
students feel old. And she was as clever as a mousetrap. She always played the fool in order to control us.”

Toofy: “I read on a blog that Salvador, like, offed himself.”

Sadie: “Mom, listen. Did you know—”

Raqel: “Did he? Oh my. How sad.”

Toofy: “That’s why you should read the papers, Ma.”

Effy: “Wasn’t Salvador a homo?”

Sadie: “Dad!”

Toofy (throwing his fork onto the plate again): “May I be excused?”

Raqel: “No, you may not. We’re not halfway through dinner.”

Sadie: “Mom, let him go. He’s got so much homework.”

Effy (looking at his son): “What’s the problem? Are there homosexuals here? Of course not.”

Raqel: “Toof, stay put. Pray tonight for a coup if you don’t want to go to school.”

Spooky Lolo: “In the end, somebody else will be telling the truth, and it will all be different.”

Raqel (mildly raising her voice): “Papa, please! It’s time for your next spoonful. Why don’t you go into the kitchen?”

Effy: “Miguel, where did you receive your education?”

Sadie: “Miguel went to an Ivy League school for his master’s. For creative writing. Bet you didn’t know Ivy League schools had creative writing programs.”

Effy: “I went to Harvard for my master’s, then to Princeton for my PhD. MBA, then doctorate in economics. And you?”

Raqel: “My husband used to spend his tuition on trips to New York, staying at the Plaza and blowing his parents’ money on blond hotsipatootsies.”

Me: “Columbia, sir.”

Effy: “That’s not true. I did that
one
semester. My last. I’d earned a scholarship for students from the Third World, so my tuition money was a bonus.”