fiction

Reunion
by Herminio S. Beltran Jr.

"DIOS MIO! What has happened to this generation? They don't even slice tomatoes properly anymore!"

Lola Susing's bluish round eyes glare from across the dining table and all sitting around there share secrets smiling.

"Come on, Strel dear, go on with the slicing," the girl's mother touches gently the shoulder of her daughter who has dropped the knife on the chopping board. "Show your Lola you can someday be the best cook in the world." Aunt Lenny smiles again and the fourteen-year-old girl, my cousin who dreams of becoming a doctor, resumes her own way of slicing the tomatoes.

But the old woman, sprightly and sharp of vision at age seventy-five, rises up from her chair at the head of the table and goes to the opposite end where the girl is sitting. "My dear apo , you are not to mash the tomatoes, can't you see they're greenish yet, the best in the market, and you are going to spoil the pakbet with them?" Her hands rough and lined with varicose veins, wet and smelly with vinegar and soy sauce, garlic and onions, pass from behind the girl. Holding the knife, she adds, "Here, I'll show you, my sweet donya , so your future husband will not leave you with those clumsy hands."

Lola Susing picks up a tomato from the large bowl in front of them, places it carefully on the chopping board, and slices with the sharp blade across the tomato through its side. "See, it opens.and has the shape of a flower."

The girl, embarrassed, stands up from the chair. "I'd better take a bath first," she says and leaves. Aunt Rening, mixing the soy sauce, lemon juice and pepper with the ground pork, sways her head and looks at me seated beside her. 'That's what I had been saying all along, Junie. It really takes years to know your Lola. You must have read all what I have been saying in my letters?"

I laugh. "What was it you told me, auntie? She of the exact kitchen and the bladed word is our parliament.She of the greenest bush in our ancestral garden is heaven-sent. For she is our future and our present, the mirror of our ways, the Milaños temperament!"

The members of the audience do not clap after that recitation, what with hands wet over some concoction or ingredient on the dining table. They can only jeer, " Yehey , author, author!"

"Not me, of course," I say. "Let's give proper credit to the poet here," I bow slightly towards Aunt Rening whose gums show as she smiles in acknowledgment.

"Serenata Milaños Marciano," I raise my voice, "the poet who would rather be called a housewife and teacher par excellence!"

Aunt Rening, now laying carefully ground meat on pieces of lumpia wrapper, says, "I'd like to clap my hands, hijo , the poem appears to be good when recited by a good performer."

Aunt Rening is one member of the family I'm proud of. We have been writing letters to each other since I was in the grades. It is from her letter that I was encouraged to read Shelley, Keats, Byron, Shakespeare. Milton, Thomas Gray, aside from my father Diosdado Mayo Sr. She can recite selections and lines that she calls "mellifluous." She says she teaches her students to recite them in school programs. She also writes but she'd rather call them "verses, not really poetry yet." She has a reputation of being a eulogist as she is often called upon by a civic league or a church organization to deliver lines in honor of the dead when a prominent member of the community is laid to rest. She sings, too, and can read notes, but changes the lyrics of a kundiman when, requested to sing on birthday parties, the occasion calls for a fresher metaphor. But no, she says, she is not a poet, not like my father who had made a name in the 1930s as a perennial winner in campus literary contests. Her letters are almost all in verse, lines that if not altogether hers are culled from poetry books she reads between her laundering, feeding the pigs in the sty, preparing lesson plans, watering pechay and eggplants and cabbages in the backyard, supervising a school project. She is very much like my mother, but Mama does not write. She only sings love songs and hymns and recites love poems she teaches in school. Mama says they grew up together and are alike in many ways except that Mama loves simpler dresses and never went out with her to parties when they were young women. Mama is older by one year and is, she claims, more responsible about home chores.

"And you call the poetry?" Lola Susing brings the platter of cubed papayas to the stove where the chicken broth is steaming. "You should have seen me deliver my lines in my day."

"Here we go again," says Aunt Lenny. "We never run out of superstars in this house."

Lola Susing seems not to hear as with dexterity she drops the cubes into the boiling kettle. She puts back the cover on the kettle. In a minute, she is doing some dance steps on the floor.

"Here's how we do the tercera eccena ." She places her right palm as if holding a fan over her breast, swings her left hand to the side and sings:

Ti ayat ti maysa a lakay
Aglato no agkabaw
Napait, napait,
Napait a makasugkar.

(The love of an old man
Especially when he is senile
'Tis bitter, bitter,
Bitter as it is loathsome.)

Her face dims, her eyes curl, her lips twitch, her voice wavers, and just as she is about to end a successful tremolo , she croaks and coughs. The children laugh.

"That's enough, superstar," says Aunt Rening. "Who will ever forget you were a zarzuela queen?"

"No one, but no one among you has followed my footsteps," Lola Susing says. "Who among you here can command an ovation by simply standing on stage just as the curtain opens?" She exits as she goes to the stove to check on the tinola .

" Nanang , dear, but zarzuela are passé nowadays. People would rather go to the movies and be some Cristina Gonzales or Ruffa Gutierrez," says Aunt Lenny. "It's no longer talent but the body."

"Lenny!" Aunt Rening frowns at her younger sister. "The children shouldn't hear these things."

"The children, yes, where are the children?" Aunt Lenny changes the topic.

Mama, with her husky voice, sitting while listening at one corner of the table, says, "Hey Junie, tell them to come, it's late. What time is it?"

"It's 8:45, Ma."

"Leave them alone," says Aunt Rening. "Let them play together and discover they're cousins. It's Christmas Eve and it's good to play in the streets at this hour."

"Oh, when we were kids," Aunt Lenny says, "we'd climb every tree, drive away every dog that gets in our way as we go caroling from house to house. Let's leave them to experience that, too. These cousins haven't been together for years. It's only during times like this that."

"Oh, it doesn't rain here on Christmas Eve anymore?" Mama asks. "We used to carry large umbrellas to church on Christmas Eve."

I open the door and am met by the cold December wind. I go out the street to listen to the sounds of Christmas in the village.

Napunit. So this is the village where my mother grew up. When I was young, on Christmas Eve, Mama would tell us, her children, about her childhood Christmases in Napunit. She'd say people would sing folk Christmas songs from house to house even under the rain. Now I hear the stereo from the neighbor's house. Michael Jackson. A rock and roll Christmas song. I try to identify the children's voices in the dark beyond the streets where electric posts stand, in some neighbor's yard where carolers are strumming guitars, beating drums, shaking maracas. But I am annoyed by the barking of dogs. I smell roasted pork from a neighbor's kitchen. I go back to the yard. There is one thing I seem to be missing. Where is the scent of ripening langka in the yard? Mother had made me imagine trees in this yard. Langka branches heavy with meter-long ripening fruits at this time of year. But not one langka tree stands in the yard. I can hear cicadas whistling, and see fireflies hovering above the avocado trees near the well. Mother had told us about this, too, how they in their youth would catch fireflies in the dark. But how now, when the trees are so tall? And the fireflies gathered on the leaves so high are beyond reach?

So this is Mama's hometown, the abode of her memories of youth. It took us all of two days and two nights to reach this place. The Rabbit bus followed zigzag roads, balanced itself as if on a tightrope on a long narrow strip of God-forsaken road along the Patapat from the border of the Ilocos to the tip of northern Luzon. At times weary of all the long hours seated on the bus, we would complain. And Mama would simply say, "I never told you to come." But wild ferns and orchids and waterfalls on the way would excite us no end and we'd point at them as we'd catch our breath as the bus would negotiate a right angle between a huge tree and a deep canal which appeared to us like branch of the fabled Cagayan River meters below. Papa, with his camera ready, would take a shot of the scenery. I thought he had another poem coming. I'd be reminded of the metaphor of woods being "lovely, dark and deep." And this jungle I had imagined from what I had heard from Mama and Papa and from what I had read in schoolbooks, appeared more mysterious than any of my wildest imaginings. Who is it that told us that centuries ago, travelers would meet elephants, lions and snakes on the way? They are very much around, Papa would say. I did not care to find out whether he meant that as a fact or as a metaphor. Perhaps both? We would look up through the window and face to face with the broad side of the Sierra Madre, the cold wind would pinch our noses. When we'd look down, it was the deep blue sea and the ancient rocks black and brown below where the steaming waters rushed and sprayed. I felt them rushing to my face against the mountain wind atop this strange country. Look at what my mother's generation had to put up with to go to school in the city, I thought.

Some forty years ago, they would pass this road to get to a convent school or normal college in Laoag.

My mother became a teacher: just as soon has she had graduated, she went to Pangasinan to apply for a teaching post in a new school founded by my father. My father was then a young lawyer, rich with dreams of his hometown San Juan. That was after the war. They had told us how even on horseback they would go to school.

My mother could not have become a teacher were it not for a childless uncle of hers who, before the war broke out, rode on a ship to the United States, with a young man who was to become a famous novelist, Carlos Bulosan.

My grandfather on my mother side was a laborer who went to Guam and Hawaii, one of those adventurous Ilocanos from Sinait, but never came home with riches. He came home poor as ever. And my grandmother who was disappointed with him kept to her cooking.

She was a chief cook in the first restaurant in town owned by a Chinese-Filipino businessman, and that was how she kept her family alive. My grandfather was a butcher besides, and sometimes they worked together in that restaurant. He, my Lolo Tonyo, died with his failures and secret triumphs during the war. He was shot by a Japanese soldier while sleeping in a hammock tied onto chico trees in the yard. Mama had said he was an expert in mathematics and that explains why Uncle Gusting and Uncle Manding were tops in their classes. Uncle Gusting became a pilot because he loved to fly. Even as a child, he played with toy planes. My Uncle Manding would have become an engineer but he became an "engine" instead as what my Aunt Lenny used to say: "When your Uncle Manding was in high school, he invented an engine that ran boats with salt water for fuel." I knew she was joking. These two uncles of mine are self-made individuals; they finished college on scholarships. Uncle Gusting was black and blue after he went through the initiation rites, my mother once said. But now, he is a colonel in the Air Force and is easily the richest in the family. My Uncle Manding, despite his not finishing his engineering course, earns enough as an assistant to the manager of a logging company, but spends most of his income on drinking. He is detailed in Maconacon, a place in Isabela that has the reputation of being an island, but it is not an island, simply that it could not be reached by land.

"The people are not around," I announce at the kitchen. "Maybe they have gone caroling in the poblacion ."

"My goodness, go find them!" Mama is suddenly panicky. "Drunkards there might fool them."

" Sus , leave them alone," Aunt Rening reassures. "Charlie is with them."

Charlie, Aunt Lenny's eldest, grew up in this town. He studied in the elementary school here until my Aunt Lenny finally obtained an education degree in a college in Pangasinan.

Aunt Lenny stayed with Mama shortly after Mama and Papa got married; she attended high school in Papa's hometown. She topped the entrance test to a nursing school in Manila but on the day that she was to check in the dormitory for nursing students, she eloped with her high school sweetheart, my Uncle Ross. They were only eighteen then. Uncle Ross was taking pre-medicine. After their hasty wedding in Pangasinan, they were sent by Uncle Ross' mother to take up teaching in a provincial college. Aunt Lenny gave birth to a boy eight months after the wedding, and put the boy in Lola Susing's care. Now a grown man, Charlie is on vacation. He has worked for three years and a half in the U.S. navy. He is simply the richest among us cousins. He has dollars to show around, and with a flick of his fingers can gather all his younger cousins for a party at the beach. He loves to eat vegetables raw, and that's what the younger ones cannot stand. He drinks whiskey, and even the girls love to drink with him. They'd gurgle with perfumed water just before they show up in the house. They'd look red however and my mother would notice. But they'd laugh it away saying, "It's the wind in Napunit , it makes us look like radishes."

We have been gathered here since two days ago. We have learned about each other's ways. The Mayo family, my family, is fairly well-represented. Only my sister, a teacher who got married last year, could not come because she has a one-month-old baby and has to stay with her husband in Zambales. My younger brothers Salvador and Emmanuel would not stay in Pangasinan despite Papa's offering them an increase in school allowance starting January.

Buddy is a junior in veterinary medicine while Noel is a freshman economics student. Buddy would have wanted to take up medicine but Papa said he could not afford medical school. Appointed by President Roxas after the war as justice of the peace in our sixth-class municipality in Pangasinan, Papa retired recently after thirty-four years of service. He received a lump sum enough only to fund the repair of our house he inherited from his parents. He is a notary public and is bothered by his conscience when has to collect more than fifteen pesos from a client.

"Papa is not a good lawyer," once said Buddy. "He doesn't know how to make money. He can only play the violin and write poems."

That made me think twice. Papa and I have almost the same interests: music, books, justice, beauty, truth ? not money. And when I think of the possibilities in theater, I become afraid. I'm not sure whether I, a budding theater person, can raise a family of my own.

The Marciano family has been with Lola Susing since Aunt Rening and Uncle Sebio married in 1958. She teaches in the elementary school while he, a stout bald man, works in the municipio as a tax collector. They have five kids ? Rita, Hannah, Gina, Serenata (her mother's namesake) and Viola - all are of the size of a kuribot . They are a family of stout and stout-hearted people. They prepared a huge pig and chickens for the occasion. They say the cost of education is so high they can hardly afford to send three of their daughters to college. They make up by raising pigs in the backyard.

Uncle Gusting and Aunt Cely who are supposed to arrive on a Mercedes, bringing boxes of apples and grapes, reside in Pampanga, at the air base. But they have yet to arrive. They should be here before 10:00 tonight as they promised. They should be here with their only daughter Tricia who studies in Paris. I can hardly wait for Tricia to tell stories about the theaters, museums, churches and fashions in France. She used to send postcards.

The Rimorins are here except Aunt Lenny's husband Uncle Ross who works as a clerk in Saudi Arabia. Charlie, named after Charlton Heston who was Aunt Lenny's favorite actor after watching "The Ten Commandments"; Leoxie or Leosendo, after Leonila and Rosendo, a strange combination of their names, now sixteen and such a thin tall fellow; Strel or Estrella, Uncle Ross' mother's namesake, which name my aunt would have objected to had it not been that Aunt Lenny loves stories of Estrella D. Alfon; Sweetie, whose real name is Richard Neil after Richard Burton and Neil Armstrong, a late baby, some nine years younger than her elder sister - they, too, are all here.

Uncle Manding's wife Meding and her four boys named Robin, Rico, Reynald and Rupert, born one year apart in that order, are all here too, except that Uncle Manding himself, the youngest of the Milaños brood, is not here yet. He promised in a letter to Mama that he would come for the holiday. His sons are now all dying to see their father.

"Don't forget to bring out all the gifts, and put them under the Christmas tree just before we go to church at 11:00 tonight." This must be the ninth time since this morning Mama tells me that. I have written the dedications on the three gifts she had wrapped: "To Lola Susing, Outstanding Mother and Grandmother Who Stands Tall on Top of the World, From Your Beloved Mayos;" "To Nanang-Soldiers of the Home Never Die, From Dadong and Nena;" and "To Doña Jesus Aguirre vda. De Milaños; Happy Birthday! Still the Fairest of them All! From the Milaños Clan."

On top of that, Lola Susing is in for more surprises: a luminous rosary blessed by the bishop of Manaoag where the Holy Shrine of the Nuestra Señora is located, a terno made of embroidered jusi , and a framed reproduction of an old picture of Lola Susing which Papa found one day under Mama's yellowing wedding dress in an aparador . Mama, Aunt Rening and Aunt Lenny who have been preparing for this special day wanted to surprise their mother who is used to letting the 24 th of December pass like any other Christmas Eve in her life. Mama's instruction was clear: Lola Susing must not see those gifts with dedications until we have come home from church for the Noche Buena.

"Why is Manding not here yet?" Lola Susing asks. "He should have taken the trip with his family. Why does he allow his wife and children to travel alone?"

"Didn't Meding tell you?" says Aunt Rening.

"He has yet to wind up an important business. Don't worry, he'll be

knocking at the door within the hour."

Everyone knows Uncle Manding is Lola Susing's favorite - right or wrong.

"You may leave the kitchen, Nanang," says Aunt Rening.

"We'll take care of the salad. Everything is through. Take a rest so you'll

look beautiful tonight."

"Tonight. tonight.," Aunt Lenny sings in jest to the tune of the song in

"West Side Story." "There won't be any night."

"Rest, rest," Lola Susing, annoyed, mocks the word. "What rest are you talking about? All my life, I have not known what that word means. I have not taken rest except when one has to retire at night. Despite that, don't I look beautiful just the same?" she stops to pose with a proud look and a high-pitched voice.

Aunt Lenny and Aunt Rening laugh again. "Who says she could no longer deliver those punch lines?" Aunt Lenny remarks.

"But of course, Nanang, you always look beautiful. You've always been

beautiful." Mama says as she beats the egg whites in a plastic bowl. "Is this okay now for the icing?"

"Yes, Manang ," Aunt Rening says. "And will you help Nanang put on the gown? It's in the old aparador in her room."

Mama stands up to wash her hands at the sink.

"I'll never wear that gown!" I'll never wear somebody else's gown," she waves her hand adamantly. "What do you think of me, a beggar?"

"Nanang, that is your gown. We bought it for you," Mama says. "It's yours and it suits you perfectly."

"I like my own gown, the one I wore in my zarzuelas, the one with white feathers on the sleeves and collar," the old woman insists.

"You may wear that old one again some other time, Nanang, but this time, you should wear a new gown," Mama pleads.

"My God, she has been wearing that gown year after year, it's been reduced to tatters," Aunt Rening mutters.

"Your new gown has white feathers on the collar, too. Nanang, and you have a white feather fan to match," Mama gives her best at persuasion. "We're all eager to see you wearing it."

"Never!" she states with a tone of finality. "I'll look for my own." She proceed to her room.

"My God, she's crazy about that museum piece," Aunt Rening sighs exasperatedly. "How will she ever find that gown now? I've kept it in my traveling bag," she whispers.

"She might exhaust herself looking for it," Mama is worried.

"I'll take care of this," Aunt Lenny says as she follows to the room Lola Susing who is wiping her face with a towelette.

After five minutes, Aunt Lenny comes out of the room clipping her diamond earring onto her right earlobe. " Pacencia , she simply won't budge," she says. "She refuses to wear even diamond earrings, what can I do?"

"I'll be the one to manage that." Mama, Lola Susing's eldest daughter, speaks with determination. "This old woman of ours is simply hard-headed."

As Mama enters Lola Susing's room, Aunt Lenny recites the costs of her jewelry: her earrings, her rings all five of them on four fingers of a hand and one on the other, her necklaces made of thick gold, her pendant she calls Spanish tambourine, her bracelet she claims to be of 18 th century vintage - all dangling from her or wound around her body, as she walks to the dining table and sits looking like a Christmas tree on a chair. For several minutes, everyone around the dining table is silent. There is only the sound of falling boxes and bumping drawers from inside Lola Susing's room.

"If only your Uncle Gusting were here," says Aunt Rening, "he's the only one she obeys in this house." Uncle Gusting is the eldest son.

'What might have happened to them?" I say. "They should be here by now."

"And that Uncle Manding of yours, he should be here now, too," says Aunt Lenny. "He should realize he is very important on this occasion."

"Will you see your Aunt Meding, Junie," Aunt Lenny says.

"She must be enjoying this occasion with us. She shouldn't be boring herself to death waiting in the room."

I go to knock at one of the doors. I am met with silence. I knock again. Nobody answers.

"She must be asleep," I report. Aunt Meding has earned the reputation of being a martyr in the family. "That woman is a martyr. I couldn't be anything like her," aunt Lenny once said in a family gathering in Olongapo where her family resides.

Aunt Meding takes care of her four young sons. Since she left her husband in Maconacon, she has never seen him again. Neither have the children seen their father. It has been three years now that she has been writing to him, but she has never received a reply. Neither has she received money from him. She prays the novena every evening. She hopes that someday her husband will "reform," as she calls it, and will come back to his family a good husband and father, filled with love and regret for his neglect. Her sisters-in-law would console her. My Aunt Lenny would say, "If I were married to such a man, I'd leave him immediately, as fast as I could."

Not one in the family, except Lola Susing, admires Uncle Manding. He drinks too much with his barkada , and when he's drunk, he'd beat up Aunt Meding and the kids. Aunt Lenny congratulated Aunt Meding after she finally left him to teach in her hometown in Bicol. Aunt Meding's family would chide her for playing a "martyr" but the woman would only cry and pray to God her husband would one day come back to her. Aunt Lenny would sometimes call her " gaga " behind her back.

Expecting to see her husband, Aunt Meding brought all her kids with her. But it's been two days since the day Uncle Manding was supposed to arrive yet he still has to show up. Coming all the way from Bicol, Aunt Meding and her kids were the first to arrive in Napunit.

When Strel, my sister Luisa, and Hannah, Aunt Rening's second eldest daughter - who are of the same age - come out of one of the rooms, they are holding a bundle of tape cassettes and a tape recorder playing in full volume. I recognize the voice: it is Uncle Ross'.

Aunt Lenny laughs. "Listen, I always find that funny."

Strel sits on a chair behind the piano, turns the volume down, and hides the tape recorder. But the words can be heard clearly: ".George, you remember Tito George? The one you met at the airport? He is again looking at the pictures in his album. After five minutes, I know, he is going to drink beer, and then he'll get drunk. Lucky if he goes to sleep after that. He'll cry. Isn't that shameful" (silence) I don't like men crying. I would rather laugh. Like Santa Claus, like this: ho- ho- ho- ho- ho. Or like Micky Mouse, hi- hi- hi- hi- hi, see? .How are you, hija?"

"It's Monday evening here and the people in the quarters are preparing for a few rounds of drink before they retire for tomorrow's work. I'm tired (silence). Oh, I am already yawning. But I feel good talking to you, hija. How are your brothers? How is Leoxie? Is he doing good in school already? He promised to be good before I left. Tell him I'll buy him a wrist watch, the best kind, when I'll come home for vacation in April. But he must show me he's doing good in school. He must stop wasting his time with that barkada of his. He must make good his promise. How about you, hija, how are you faring in school? Someday you'll be a doctora . Don't be like your brother Charlie, he'd rather join the navy. He should have been a medical intern by now. At least, it's good enough he had made up his mind. at least, he shares some of his earnings with you and your Mama. So study well. Wait. wait a while, hija.it's my turn to go to the CR.excuse me.."

The sound of recording turned off can be heard, but as the playing continues, a part of a drunken conversation without sense or context, is aired. Perhaps that part was taped in a previous drinking bout, a proof that the recording just heard was superimposed on an old recording.

Aunt Lenny laughs. "Ross has taken on a new hobby. It seems to me he talks to a tape recorder every night after work. I wonder what his friends there think of him. He sends tapes to us, dated and numbered. We play them in order. We'd laugh till our stomachs ache. That uncle of yours, Junie, doesn't he have a sense of humor? Let them hear side B, Strel, that one is more funny!"

"Never mind," the girl pouts, "that's not funny to me."

"C'mon, Strel," Aunt Lenny sighs.

"I do not find this funny," Strel mutters insolently as she turns off the tape recorder. "This is just a waste of batteries."

If you do not change your ways, Strel, your hair will be white before you turn twenty," the mother casts an angry look at her. Strel stands up and goes back to the room. We hear loud knocking at the door.

"We're home! Look at what happened to Sweetie!"

I open the main door, and the kids rush in talking noisily.

"Sweetie fell," one of the girl says. The five-year-old boy manages to smile as with his hand he brushes away the sand on his hair and wipes drying blood on his left cheek.

"What happened to Sweetie?" Aunt Lenny comes and pulls the boy by the arm. In the light, in fear, he stares at his mother.

"He climbed a labig tree at the shore," the stout girl who earlier mentioned a fall gives a detail of her report.

"That little rogue just won't stop," says one of the older boys.

"Where is Charlie? Didn't you come home with Charlie?" Aunt Lenny's voice is high-pitched now. "He is still with his barkada."

"Didn't he go with you when you went to the seashore?"

"He didn't."

" Por Dios por santo! You could have drowned there. Where is Charlie now?"

"He is with his barkada at Bebang's. He saw his old friends there and treated them to beer and azucena ," says Leoxie.

She holds Sweetie's face up under the light to see the bruises. " Torpe , that's what you get!" she spanks the boy's behind with her hand. The boy remains quiet.

"Strel!" she calls. "Go get a basin of water and wash your brother's face. Find the bottle of merthiolate in my manicure set."

Strel comes with a towel and a cake of soap.

"All right, all of you, go wash up and get dressed for church," Aunt Lenny, a barrio school head teacher that she is, commands.

"But there is no water in the bathroom," says one of the boys.

"Then go and fetch water in the well," says Aunt Lenny. "In places like this, don't expect to be served. Be a scout," stresses the teacher who has flaunted several times that she has received dozens of certificates for outstanding performance in scouting jamborees.

"Shit!" Leoxie curses. "What kind of a house is this?"

Lola Susing comes out of her room, crying, almost mad. "Who could have misplaced my gown? I couldn't find it anywhere!"

"Her room is all topsy-turvy now," says Mama as she follows her from the room. She approaches Aunt Rening and whispers, "We better bring out that old gown. There's nothing we can do."

"I wouldn't come to this house again," complains one of the boys. "It's so difficult to fetch water from that blasted well! It's so far away from the bathroom!"

Lola Susing hears. "Don't you ever come to my house again," the old woman points her forefinger at the boy who sidles to avoid the grandmother on a war path. "Not until you've reached the age of fifty, little idiot!" She pursues the boy. "Your mother drank from that well, she was nourished by water from that well, and you, little demon, condemn that well?" Her voice wavers between anger and panic.

A long silence.

Aunt Rening comes to pat the boy's back and in a low voice says, smiling, "Say sorry to your Lola, hijo. Common, be nice to your Lola."

The boy runs to the kitchen, out into the yard, back to where his cousins are playing with water, exchanging banter.

"Who are the parents of these little demons? I hear one more complaint around here and I'll drive you all out to the street!. My gown, my gown, who could have taken that gown away?"

In the midst of her fury and panic, all she can do is brush her tears with the back of her hand.

"The gown is nowhere to be found, Nanang," says Aunt Rening to Mama's surprise. "You must have given it to Nana Sela. You have given away some old clothes to your lavandera , didn't you?"

Aunt Rening looks intently at Mama and Aunt Lenny. Her sisters get the message.

"Yes, Nanang, you did, I remember now. You gave it to her for her son's wedding last March or wasn't that April?" she winks at her sisters.

Lola Susing, seated on a chair, deep in thought, faces the Christmas tree where small light bulbs are blinking. "How could have I given the gown to that stupid woman? How could have I made a serious mistake? Why should I be giving anything to that liar when she is never true to her promise? She never came on two Saturdays she was supposed to launder the curtains for this occasion?"

"But you even told her, her son's marriage would not prosper if the bride's mother did not wear a gown on her wedding. You told her that it's Nanang, I remember now," adds Aunt Rening.

"Did I now?"

Aunt Rening winks at me. The home run is done.

"Yes, Nanang, don't you remember?"

Lola Susing sits in silence, as if alone, looking at nothing in particular.

"All right then," she relents softly as her eye winks uncontrollably. "I'll wear that gown of yours. On one condition."

She raises her forefinger. "Promise me one thing and I'll wear that gown of yours."

Aunt Lenny laughs. "That's a smart woman. She should never settle for anything without conditions."

"All right, Nanang," says Aunt Rening, amiable radiance still on her face, "state your conditions."

With her fingers, Lola Susing brushes up her hair covering her eyes. She wipes her forehead with one end of the kerchief around her neck.

"I want to visit your Uncle Istib in Mindoro. I want to bring him home. He grew up here. He is going to die here," she declares and for emphasis pounds the armrest of the chair on which she is sitting. "I'm going to end the foolishness of that brother of mine."

"That's a smart woman!" cheers Aunt Lenny.

"But he does not want to live with you. He says he cannot leave his lands and the fruits of his labors in Mindoro," counters Aunt Rening.

"No, he will, he must," Lola Susing is adamant. "His children have all gone abroad. He is living there alone. What's an old widower going to do with wealth? Can he bring them to the grave?"

"Let's schedule the trip then," smiles Mama. In my mind, Lola Susing is not going to make any trip.

"How can she?" whispers Aunt Rening. "She doesn't even have control of her urination anymore."

"All right then, maybe we can set the trip during the summer?" says Mama. "Let's all go visit your beloved brother Istib in May. Would that be all right?"

"All right, let's mark that in the calendar. In May this coming year, off we all go to the land of promise," says Aunt Lenny emphasizing naughtily the word "promise."

"So, to the dressing room, please," Aunt Rening holds Lola Susing's hand as she motions her to stand up.

Lola Susing is all smiles and false teeth gleam like gems under the fluorescent lamp. She walks toward her room in slow small steps and Mama and Aunt Rening follow from behind.

"Hurry, children!" Aunt Lenny tells the children shouting at each other in wanton glee as they take turns pulling up the pail from the bottom of the well. They splash water into each other's face as they carry the water pail by pail to the drum in the bathroom.

"Don't wet yourselves out there in the cold," says Aunt Lenny. "You'll catch pneumonia."

When the drum is full, the children, one by one, or two by two, wash up or take a bath.

"Let's clean up this table," Aunt Rening, who has quickly changed into an embroidered dress made of what appears like jusi, suggests. She is combing her hair. "Everything must be ready before we go to church."

Strel, who has dressed up, brings a rag to wipe the table. I get the large kettle of arroz caldo out of the fire, and bring the bowls, canisters and casseroles filled with food to the big cupboard.

"Junie, please take off the covers," Aunt Rening says. "So that the food won't spoil until tomorrow. But keep the cupboard locked. The cats might steal."

"What might have happened to those Millañoses?" she wonders aloud.

"If they don't arrive at 10:00 tonight, they will not be arriving anymore," says Aunt Lenny.

"But it's already a quarter past 10:00," I say.

"Their car might have conked out on the way," Aunt Rening mutters.

"Or Uncle Gusting might have been called to an emergency meeting," I say. "With his position, and that kind of job, things could come up at the most unholy hour."

"I knew it, they won't be coming," states Aunt Lenny.

She tastes the potato salad. "I knew they could not come.in that situation. Where's the salt?"

Aunt Rening who is wiping the plates in the kitchen comes with a jar of salt.

"Why, what do you mean? What were you saying?" she asks, intrigued.

Aunt Lenny opens the jar, gets a pinch, scatters the grains on the surface of the salad. She repeatedly digs a ladle into the salad and turns it to further mix the potato cubes, mayonnaise, cheese, and carrot strips in the bowl. She tastes the delicacy again. "Perfect!" she exclaims and covers the bowl.

"How's that, Lenny, you said Gusting is not coming?" Aunt Rening arranges the plates on one end of the table.

"I dropped by their house in Pampanga the other week," Aunt Lenny says.

"I was on my way home from Manila where I attended a seminar. I just thought of paying Manang Cely a visit after her operation. One of her breasts was removed, as you already know. She was doing fine. But what do you suppose I discovered?"

Mockery begins to take shape on her lips.

Aunt Rening does not notice what Aunt Lenny is suggesting with her lips as she arranges the cups on the table.

"You know how that sister-in-law of ours talks," Aunt Lenny continues. "Everything that pops out in her peanut-sized brain comes out through her mouth."

"Why, what is she complaining of this time?"

"Well, I'm not exaggerating, but this is exactly what she told me," and Aunt Lenny starts to imitate Aunt Cely's manner of speaking. She extends her chin and half-closes her eyes, ".now that that demonyo has sucked everything out of me, my one doodoo is not even there anymore,' and she places her right hand on the left side of her chest where a breast once was, 'he gets another woman for a querida , a slave in bed who wants only his money, so he buys for her a house, jewelry.that man is shameless.at this my age, he has the gall to do that to me? What does he think of me, tanga ? He thinks I wouldn't find out? I'll leave him, that's for sure, I'll go to the States, to be with my own family." Then Aunt Lenny imitates an uncanny manner of crying.

"Poor Cely! What has happened to the rich people on earth?" Aunt Rening is pinning on her dress a fancy brooch with the shape of an orchid.

"I could not tell her this, but I was thinking," Aunt Lenny continues, "what does she have to worry about? She is the legal wife after all. She has everything. She has money, she has a house that is well-furnished, she has toured around the world, she doesn't have to look after her daughter because Tricia can live by herself abroad, she gets the best medical attention she needs, what more does she want? She should thank God she's got a good provider for a husband!"

"Lenny, I can't believe you're telling me this," says Aunt Rening, upset. "Cely certainly deserves kinder words."

"I suppose those two are now living in turmoil" Aunt Lenny sighs in a hushed voice.

Aunt Rening notices three kinds are still playing in the bathroom. "Go get dressed now," she tells them. "We are leaving in a few minutes."

"Strel, take care of your younger brother," says Aunt Lenny.

"Will that Manding be arriving at all? The way it looks." Aunt Rening mutters.

".another broken promises," Aunt Lenny teases.

The scent of ylang-ylang spreads in the air. In a moment, a room opens. Out comes Aunt Meding exuding fragrance, wearing a black satin dress, a white belt with a big buckle, pearl earrings, hair neatly bundled on her head. Her fair complexion shows, her eyes are red, her eyelids swollen. She looks tall and thin, thinner that the first time I saw her on her wedding day.

As she comes to the light in the dining room, she greets, "Merry Christmas! So we're all dressed up and ready," her voice is as always, soft and reserved. She proceeds to the bathroom.

"She must have been crying," Aunt Lenny whispers to Aunt Rening.

When Aunt Meding comes out of the bathroom, she is holding a soap dish and a face towel.

"Did you happen to see a necklace hanging from the faucet?" she asks. "I left it in the bathroom this morning, together with these," and she shows that she is holding. "I do not see it there anymore."

"The kids were all there a minute ago," says Aunt Rening, with a look of concern. "Someone must have taken it for a plaything."

I go to each of the rooms where the kids are. They are wearing pants, powdering their faces, combing their hair, putting on shoes, looking at themselves in the mirror. "Did anyone see a necklace in the bathroom?" I ask.

Back in the sala, I report, "Nobody has seen the necklace, or so everyone says."

Aunt Meding goes to her room. She comes out carrying a white leather bag. Under the long fluorescent lamp which has the brightest light in the house, she brings out all the contents of the bag: a cake powder, a prayer book with stampitas inserted between its pages, a scapular, old receipts, pictures, tablets, seeds, a small purse with colored chicken feathers, folded sheets of paper in a transparent plastic envelope, letters in opened envelopes, a rosary, hairpins, needles, a spool of white sewing thread, a handkerchief. No necklace. She put everything back into the emptied bag.

"Did you find it?" asks Aunt Lenny.

"It's not there either, Auntie," I answer.

"Where is Leoxie? Where is Leoxie?" Aunt Lenny is suddenly frantic. From the sink where she washed her hands, she rushes to their room. "Is Leoxie here?" Her voice is high-pitched now.

"He went out a few minutes ago," I heard Strel say.

"Where did he go?" Aunt Lenny asks.

Nobody answers.

"Robin," Aunt Meding calls her nine-year-old son, her eldest. "Will you, hijo, look for a necklace on the floor in the bathroom?"

The boy, busy putting on a belt, goes.

"Was that the one you showed me just yesterday? The one Manding gave you for an engagement present?"

But Aunt Lenny is not asking Aunt Meding. Maybe, she is only concealing her embarrassment. "Jesus Christ! I should have warned everybody earlier."

But Aunt Meding is just as embarrassed.

"Keep your money, your precious belongings, all of you," says Aunt Lenny. "That son-of-a-bitch steals," she curses. "Things would get lost in the house. The earrings his Daddy gave to me, he brought to the pawnshop. I discovered the loss too late. I wanted to kill that son-of-a-bitch, cut him to pieces. Next thing I'd discover: he is into drugs." Her voice wavers.

Aunt Rening and Mama have come to find out what the commotion is all about.

"Drugs," mutters Aunt Rening. "Drugs," she repeats in frustration.

"No wonder that boy is so thin, and his eyes.I suspected something's the matter with that boy," Mama says.

"Poor boy, he's living in darkness," mutters Aunt Rening.

"That boy will see!" Aunt Lenny threatens.

"When he comes home, he'll see!"

"Never mind, Manang," Aunt Meding consoles Aunt Lenny. "The necklace will come back to me, I know," she assures. "If it's really meant for me, God will bring it back to me."

"And may the angels bring back the boy to the light," says Aunt Rening.

It is thirty minutes to 11:00 when I go back to our room. As I dress up, I hear loud knocking on the main door. I recognize Papa's and Uncle Sebio's voices. They have come from a visit to the parish priest, an old friend. When I get out of the room, Charlie, unkempt and smelling of liquor, is slumped, face downward, on the sofa. He is surrounded with the kids, all well-groomed, laughing at him. Papa is saying they saw him drunk and all alone at the corner store near the church. Uncle Sebio says he was singing a scandalous song. Charlie suddenly turns over and begins to sing out of tune or utter words he can hardly pronounce. The kids snicker. O my Mama/ How could you be so cruel? O my Papa/ What pain must you bear . He repeats. And repeats again, as the kids giggle. She's playing with fire/ Chu-wa-chu-wa/ She's playing with fire / Chu-wa-chu-wa .

I find the sight so distasteful I volunteer to guide him to their bedroom. Lola Susing shouldn't see him like this or we'll hear another sermon even before going to church.

Aunt Lenny meets us. "What was the drunkard saying?" she asks.

"Nothing," I say. "He was singing."

Back in our room, I prepare the camera for the family picture. I go back to the sala, open the piano and play "You're All I Want for Christmas." The older kids sing as I play. Mama comes out of the room carrying the gifts she had wrapped. She arranges them under the Christmas tree.

"What are those, Auntie Nena?" the curious kids ask.

Mama does not answer.

I play "Whispering Hope." The kids sing.

Mama announces, "Little children, go get your socks. Put them on the Christmas tree. Santa will give gifts to those who are good." I know Papa had prepared chocolates and candles secretly for the occasion.

The older ones giggle. "I know who Santa Claus is," Strel teases the little ones.

"Oh yeah? So where is he?" The kids laugh and scamper to their rooms. Somebody comes back with a big bag, one with a box, another with an envelope, yet another with a basket.

"Those are too big," Mama smiles. "Where are your socks?"

"We're wearing them, aunt Nena," the kids answer.

"I know where Santa is," Strel teases again. The little boys look at her and make faces at her. "Yes, I can ask him not to give anything to Sweetie and Rupert."

Sweetie and Rupert kick at her and run away. I play "Silent Night." The kids sing again.

Out of her room comes Lola Susing joining in the singing with the Iloko version of the song. She is dressed in a red gown with embroidered piña from her waist to her breast, small red beads on the sleeves, an accent of white feathers on the collar, black lace from her knee to her feet. Her white hair gather to a round bundle at the back of her head. Her sampaloc earrings dangling from her ears are matched by a sampaguita -shaped pendant hanging from her necklace. Her black hair and short height, fair complexion and bluish eyes tell of a mixture of Ibanag and Spanish blood. As she sings, she beats with a fan of red and green feathers. She, the mirror of our past, stuns us all. Her voice gives life before our eyes to the picture of a zarzuela queen in times past. For a while, the kids, as if in worship, stammer with their lyrics as they look at the matriarch walking in precarious steps-which could have been gliding footwork in her prime-to the center of the sala, singing " Naulimek a Rabii ."

When the song is over, I play a birthday song and everybody joins the singing again, clapping cheerfully. At the end of the singing, the aunts and uncles go to kiss Lola Susing. I continue playing but Lola Susing motions me to stop. Lola Susing whispers something to me.

"The superstar has something so say," I announce, I hear "Speech! Speech!" from the audience.

"My beloved children, my apos . how many are you all?" And everyone laughs.

"I must say something to everybody. The Milañoses.where is Manding?"

She looks around. "He has not arrived?, she asks.

"Gusting and Cely, where are they?"

"They might appear when we are all in church," someone answers.

".the Mayos," she continues.

And Papa says loudly, "Everybody present."

".the Marcianos, the Rimorins, where is Charlie?" she looks around again.

"Sleeping," Uncle Sebio says.

"Drunk," one of the kids teases in a whisper.

"Foolish child, why should he be sleeping at this hour? At this hour, redeemers are born," she states heroically.

The older folks get the joke and laugh.

".I must thank you all. And I must take this occasion to tell you, my apos, that it won't be long." and she shifts to the heroic tone again, ".when I pass away into God's paradise. At this hour on this day seventy-five years ago, I was born. Anyone who is born will one day pass away. But before I pass away, I want you to remember one thing. We, your grandfather and I, and your parents, worked hard to keep our family whole and united. We never forgot to pray through many years of hardships and trials.we even went through a horrible war.your grandfather died in that war. We went through many difficulties you never went through. We were poor but we worked hard. And we kept our dignity as human beings, we kept our dignity as a united Milaños family. We trusted God, we trusted ourselves. Now we are proud and happy because we are respectable. People respect us. We must remain respectable. That is very important. All will pass away. The Holy Bible says, 'As there is a time for birth, there is a time for dying.' If we are good in this life, we'll see each other in heaven. So there is only one thing I ask of you: Keep the family together, work hard, respect each other, keep the dignity of the Milaños clan. So let's go to church now to thank God."

Everybody claps. Lola Susing must have known of the preparations for she went towards the Christmas tree and said, "Thanks for these gifts which you," and she looks at Mama and Aunt Rening, "had been wrapping since four days ago. I know everything that you had been doing, what do you think of me?" Beyond, the church bells ring. And as we get out the door, I realize I forgot to take a picture with my camera. I am afraid not only for those who missed out on an important performance but for us all.

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