Dogeaters (21 page)

She wears a floor-length white veil crowned with a wreath of garlic. “I insist!” her beautiful mother insists, hanging a necklace of garlic bulbs around her daughter’s neck for additional protection. “You can’t be too careful nowadays,” the sinister groom says to the bride, flashing his canine teeth.

It’s the pungent vinegar perfume of pork and chicken
adobo
the weeping bride smells, the pungent vinegar perfume a man rubs against his skin before pressing a woman closer to him. Taxi dancer, whore, blondie—a man’s home away from home. “What’s the matter, blondie? Can’t stand my cologne?” the President laughs, rubbing more garlic and vinegar behind his ears. His bodyguards laugh with him. He’s definitely one with a taste for blondes—although he likes them all, actually. Dark or fair, fat or thin, nubile or matronly. His personal physician’s put him on a strict diet, and it’s all for his own good. No pork, no cake, no women. It’s all just a memory to him now, some image he pulls out of the night while he strokes himself down there, all dry and crusty between the legs.

The weeping bride wonders if her father will outlive the President.

Senator Domingo Avila has been shot dead.

Mourned by his stoic wife Luisa, by his missing daughter Daisy, the beauty queen rumored to have fled to the mountains with her guerrilla lover, and by his bewildered teenage daughter, Aurora; now mourned by his resentful brother Oscar, Oscar’s wife Delia, and his only legitimate daughter, the artist Clarita; now mourned too by the weeping bride, Rosario “Baby” Alacran, who has married Oswaldo “Pepe” Carreon. She does not know why she married, or mourns.

She is not a political person. She is not someone who knew the Senator well. She is not someone who knows anyone well. Baby recalls the Senator’s kindness to her once—no, maybe twice in her brief past, when she was a solitary child. Some generous gesture on his part, some friendly comment which even she finds hard to remember—but it happened, just the same. It’s the essence she holds on to as she mourns his death at the hands of unknown gunmen, in spite of herself.

In spite of herself, she had longed to invite him to her spectacular wedding, and made the mistake of mentioning it. She was ridiculed, as usual. She was dismissed. The weeping bride knew better, of course. It was impossible. It was silly. She had no control over the situation. Even if he had been invited, the Senator wouldn’t have shown up.

The wedding banquet never stops. A nauseating feast for the eyes, as well as the belly and the soul. Ox-tails stewed for hours in peanut sauce, egg custards quivering in burnt sugar syrup, silver tureens filled to the brim with steaming hot, black
dinuguan…
It’s the black blood of a pig she pours on her head, the black pig’s blood stew she bathes in, to mourn the death of a man…

“Imagine,” she once confessed to her cousin Girlie, “I’ve been eating and enjoying
dinuguan
for years, never even considering—
dugo
is
dugo
,
dugo
means blood! My god, it’s the black blood of a pig. My mother laughed when I told her—my mother doesn’t eat
dinuguan.
Now I can’t eat it anymore, without feeling sick—”

“You’re making a big deal over nothing,” Girlie Alacran said to her younger cousin, with no understanding but some sympathy.

Senator Avila has been shot dead by unknown assailants. The weeping bride has been in bed for the past week with a mysterious illness: aching bones, lack of appetite, occasional chills, and frequent nightmares. “Maybe it’s the flu,” she tells her mother on the telephone. The weeping bride apologizes for being ill, as she apologizes for most things in her life. Her mother says nothing. She is more annoyed than concerned with her only child’s precarious health. Her daughter immediately senses this, and gets off the phone.

She has not said anything to her mother about her skin. The tiny, itchy, watery blisters that have suddenly reappeared on her fingers after so many years. She tries not to think about it, and applies more ointment from a tube she keeps under her pillow. Her furtiveness is unwarranted. Her husband is never home. He makes flimsy excuses, blames it all on his new job. Somehow, she thinks he may be telling the truth.
His job
, he has told her with pride,
is his whole life.
She never forgets anything anyone says. Her brain is a file cabinet, stuffed with snatches of conversations and vivid memories.

She remembers her servants. How quietly they enter and exit, bringing her hot
kalamansi
juice, chamomile tea, aspirin, icebags for her headaches, hot water bottles for her sore muscles. They take turns massaging her, saying very little. They pretend not to notice the blisters on her hands. She has the whole house to herself, ghostly servants on tiptoe, at her beck and call. She imagines they must mourn the dead Senator, and wonders if he is their hero. She is ashamed of feeling connected to them, and somehow feels unworthy. She tries, once again, to think of something else.

Her husband has been gone for two days this time. She isn’t sure, but she suspects something ominous is occurring, something to do with this new husband of hers and the General. She picks up the remote control, turns on the color TV. It’s, time for her favorite daytime show,
Maid in the Philippines.
The jovial face of the host appears on the twenty-seven-inch screen to the familiar, comforting sound of a noisy laugh track and live applause. A servant named Lorna is telling the host her troubles, all about the family she has to support back home—“My
nanay,
my
tatay,
my three younger sisters, and one brother who wants to enter college.”
Enter college
, that’s exactly what she says. “Tell us what you’re going to do for us in the talent competition,” the host inquires with professional concern. The female contestants, all servants, are judged by the audience on the basis of their sad stories and showbiz talents. “I’m going to recite my favorite stanzas from
Florante at Laura
by Balagtas,” Lorna informs him. The host whistles through his teeth. “Wow, Lorna
naman
are you kidding?
Bilib na bilib kaming lahat
!”

If her mother knew she was addicted to this show, she’d make another one of her snide comments. Talent shows and Tagalog soap operas are something the weeping bride has learned to watch and enjoy in secret. A furtive, innocent life—that is how she spends her afternoons, lying in bed.

Someone else starts to sing, someone named Naty, a ballad of unrequited love in Tagalog. The audience claps and claps, it looks like Naty might win. The weeping bride is unable to concentrate and finds the TV images suddenly depressing. It’s all so sad and vulgar, just as her mother always said. Why doesn’t she listen to her mother? She is suddenly afraid. She does not want this baby. She wonders if it is too late to see a doctor. She fantasizes phoning her worldly cousin Girlie. Surely Girlie knows a competent abortionist. If not in Manila, maybe Tokyo or Hong Kong. Money is certainly no object. The weeping bride chokes on her tears, turning off the noisy TV. Lying back against the sweat-drenched pillows, she closes her eyes. The weeping bride invents a cleansing ritual for herself. She makes it up as she goes along, this movie starring herself, this movie that goes on and on, this movie that is the only sure way she knows to put herself to sleep.

Senator Domingo Avila has been assassinated.

Dinuguan
—it’s the black blood of a pig the weeping bride pours on her head, the black blood stew of pale pink pig entrails she bathes in, mourning the death of a man she never knew.

T
HERE ARE NO TRAFFIC
lights working on this wide avenue, only an angry policeman gripping a whistle tensely between clenched teeth. Holding one arm rigidly out, he barely keeps the mess of honking cars, glittering jeepneys, pedicabs, and lopsided tin buses at bay. His other arm waves the jostling crowd along, a parade of bright colors crossing the boulevard. A few pedestrians are wearing battered straw hats, while others hold up flowered nylon umbrellas to shield themselves from the blazing noonday sun. It’s exactly twelve noon on a sweltering day, the worst possible time for a nervous policeman to be directing traffic at the busy intersection. He is new at his job, and curses continuously when he is not blowing his whistle at the crowd rushing by him.

Romeo Rosales steps off the curb on his way to SPORTEX to meet his girlfriend Trinidad Gamboa. As usual, they are going to share a hasty lunch of salted
balut
and warm Cokes, or barbecued cubes of meat-on-a-stick from a street vendor, the sort of food Trinidad claims to abhor but devours heartily. “They always tell you it’s pork,” she complains about the barbecue, “but for all we know, we could be eating dog meat.” He shrugs. “It tastes pretty good. Anyway,” he teases her, “I like dogs better than pigs.”

Romeo hurries to keep up with the brisk pace of the crowd. He sees the impressive façade of SPORTEX looming from a distance, promising air-conditioning, escalators, seductive displays of imported merchandise, and innocuous, piped-in Muzak. The bored salesclerks intimidate Romeo, with their crisp black and white uniforms and polished black shoes. The employees are not allowed to wear any jewelry except watches. It is part of their job to reflect the SPORTEX image of austere elegance, a concept which Romeo finds alien and disconcerting. “Why can’t you wear what you want to wear?” he asked Trinidad when she started her new job. “Everyone looks like they’re going to a funeral,” Romeo pointed out, perplexed.

He hated being in the store. He always dreaded meeting Trinidad in the dingy employee’s lounge located in the dark and dirty recesses of SPORTEX’s vast, subterranean basement. The store never failed to make him feel poorer and shabbier than he actually was, especially when the salesclerks seemed to make a point of ignoring him the few times he ventured into the men’s department. “You’re so paranoid,” Trinidad said, irritated, “no one’s making
irap
to you—they’re just busy!” “If they’re so busy, why are they just standing there, staring at their nails?” Romeo argued.

Trinidad loves her job, holds dear the small prestige associated with being an Alacran employee. She works long hours without any breaks, isn’t paid overtime, rushes through her lunch in less than forty minutes, and gratefully accepts her meager salary. There are no fringe benefits or medical insurance attached to her job, aside from the twenty-percent discount on “all SPORTEX items purchased.” For her, the discount is valuable and the job is fulfilling, keeping her in constant touch with the amazing lives of the rich and their wives.

“Mrs. Alacran was in the store yesterday, making one of her surprise inspections. Imagine, she called me by my first name!” Trinidad imitates her boss’s famous wife by lowering her voice. “‘Trini, how are you?’
Naku!
She was wearing a genuine Oscar de la Renta, I almost fainted it was so beautiful! It’s a good thing I just got a perm and manicure and my counter was spic and span.
A lam mo na
, I’m always wiping away with my rags and my Windex! They fired Nora last week for having dirty nails. Mrs. Alacran had a fit when she saw them—she screamed at Nora in front of the customers, it was horrible
talaga.
Poor Nora, I don’t know how she got careless like that, she worked at SPORTEX longer than any of us…
Ay
,” Trinidad sighs with exaggerated relief, “Mrs. Alacran hinted I might be getting a raise this Christmas as a reward for my big sale to the
Hapon
—”

Romeo is unimpressed. “You deserve a bonus and a raise for waiting on those Japs,” he grumbles. His father, grandfather, and uncle were all tortured by the Japanese soldiers during the war, a fact Romeo has never forgotten. “Why don’t you ask for a promotion? It seems like you’ve been working at that place forever—”

“Forever? I’ve only been here a few months. And what will they promote me to—department manager? No thanks, I’d rather die. If stuff doesn’t sell, you get blamed for everything. Whatsa matter with you, darling? You’re in one of your moods
nanaman
.” Oblivious to Romeo’s mounting anger, Trinidad tells him about her plan to study conversational Japanese under Mrs. Alacran’s sponsorship, so she can sell more goods to the hordes of Japanese tourists who shop at SPORTEX. “Look at Carmen. Last month, she was voted Miss Sportex, and she got a real Seiko as a prize for selling more than anyone else in the entire store!” Trinidad’s eyes are glowing. Romeo nods, not really listening to her chatter. He interrupts suddenly to ask her to start meeting him outside the store’s main entrance. Trinidad is baffled by Romeo’s insistence. “Okay, okay, but why? Don’t you like coming inside and seeing our latest displays?”

“We never have enough time together,” Romeo answers. “This way, if we meet outside, it will save us precious moments.” Trinidad smiles warmly at him, flattered.

On this sweltering day, Romeo wonders if there’s a painless way to tell her he can no longer see her. The sight of SPORTEX up ahead makes his stomach queasy. Romeo has never loved Trinidad, but he respects her enough to want to leave her with some semblance of dignity. He does not want to be late for their last appointment.

Perhaps he’ll tell her he finally got a bit part in a movie with Tito Alvarez and he’s leaving immediately to shoot on location in Hong Kong. She’d never believe him of course, and if she did, Trinidad would manage to borrow the money and invite herself along. If he was more of a bastard, he wouldn’t explain himself at all; the most he’d do would be to write her a good-bye letter before disappearing completely from her life.

Romeo has decided to do the best he can; he has purposely chosen this brief lunch period in which to tell the gold-toothed, loyal sales clerk the relationship is over. She will be furious and upset, but he knows her well by now and is sure she will not have hysterics in front of her beloved SPORTEX.

His conscience nags him, tells him he may be a fool, may be giving up a sure thing; he hears his mother’s bitter voice ringing in his head. “The only stability in your life has been that woman. Don’t end up like your father—wasting his life chasing after empty dreams! Who do you think you are, my son?” His mother had broken down and wept during his last visit with her. “Enough of your big city kalocohan! Trinidad is a devoted woman—I can tell from everything you’ve told me about her, you’ll never find anyone else like her, believe me…” His mother had pleaded with him. For the first time in his life, Romeo felt repelled by the sight of this old, terrified woman.