W
HEN MY FATHER’S MOTHER
Socorro Pertierra Gonzaga visits from Spain, we all have to put on our crinolines and white shoes and be on our best behavior. We call her
Abuelita
; she is a widow like my mother’s mother, Narcisa Divino Logan, whom we address as
Lola.
My parents host
bienvenida
parties in
Abuelita
’s honor, and the entire Gonzaga clan in Manila attends: Uncle Agustin and
Tita
Florence, Pucha and Mikey, my father’s other brother, my antisocial Uncle Esteban and
Tita
Menchu with their grown-up sons, my cousins Eddie, Ricky, and Claudio, who we call “DingDing.” Plus Eddie’s wife Nena and Ricky’s wife, Cristina. Nena smokes too many cigarettes, is painfully thin, and is considered one of the best-dressed women in Manila, second to Isabel Alacran. She survives on a diet of ice-cream and TruColas, which she has for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Ricky’s wife Cristina is a warmer person, very pretty and fleshier than Nena, but not very smart. My mother calls her “Nena’s shadow.” Cristina clings to her side at parties, smiles brightly, and never says a word. She keeps trying to get pregnant. Cousin DingDing is in his early twenties, always comes alone to our parties, and leaves early. He entertains my mother with obscene jokes. My father avoids him. Everyone in the family suspects he likes boys; no one discusses it openly. Uncle Esteban isn’t close to any of his brothers. We only see him when
abuelita
is in town, which is usually during the Christmas holidays.
Sometimes Uncle Cristobal accompanies
Abuelita
Socorro from Madrid and stays and stays, driving my mother crazy. Sometimes he travels alone to Manila for one of his many operations. He’s the richest Gonzaga, and also the most frugal. He prefers making the long journey to Manila, halfway around the world from Spain, just so he can save money on hospitals and doctors. He’s never married, the bane of
Abuelita
Socorro’s existence. My mother says he doesn’t like boys, he just can’t bear the thought of sharing his fortune with anyone. He adores his mother, and like most people I know, is infatuated with mine. My mother is the only one who seems to touch the soft spot in his heart. Once, to everyone’s amazement, he actually brought my mother a
pasalubong
gift from Spain. In front of everyone, my mother opened the elegantly wrapped box to find a large ceramic ashtray with a matador and bull painted on it, and the words “TOLEDO ESPAÑA.” “Thank you, Bitot,” she said, calling him by his nickname. “Just what I need for the living room! How did you guess?” Uncle Cristobal blushed with pleasure. My mother never once lost her composure.
My relatives make me sick sometimes, kissing and fawning over
Abuelita
Socorro like they do.
Tita
Florence and Uncle Agustin think
Abuelita
Socorro will die soon and leave them her sizeable fortune. My mother, who’s the only one who treats her like a regular person, says none of it matters. She predicts
abuelita
’s going to die when she’s good and ready, and when she does, she’s going to will all her money to the Church. As for Uncle Cristobal, he’s going to arrange for his money to be buried with him.
Abuelita
Socorro and Uncle Cristobal usually stay at Uncle Esteban’s house, which is twice as big as ours and boasts a round swimming pool which no one uses. Every day at noon, mother and son show up without fail at our house, inviting themselves for lunch and usually staying for dinner. Uncle Cristobal calls Pacita “the best cook in Manila.” He keeps trying to hire her away from my mother, and makes no attempt to hide it.
At our Christmas parties, Pacita cooks sumptuous feasts under my mother’s direction.
Abuelita
Socorro prefers rich foods covered with creamy sauces; she loathes vegetables and fruits of any kind, and never eats anything raw or green. “I feel like a
cunejo
,” she says, waving away the bowl of salad which Aida mutely holds out to her. “All that lettuce gets stuck in my throat—”
Abuelita
Socorro makes the sign of the cross, makes clucking sounds with her tongue at her own revelation. Everyone at her guest-of-honor’s table, especially decorated with a red tablecloth and a Christmas-tree centerpiece of blue tulle sprinkled with fake snow, falls silent. My
abuelita
seldom speaks, and then almost always in the lisping Castilian Spanish Uncle Cristobal has to translate for us: this time she has spoken in English, and it sounds bizarre to us. My father pats her on the arm to reassure her. “Enjoy yourself, Mama—eat whatever you want,” he says to her in Spanish. He is the only one, along with my mother, who does not call her “Mommie Darling.” “That’s right, Freddie—Mommie Darling can eat whatever she pleases,” Uncle Agustin chimes in.
When
abuelita
’s in town, Pacita roasts baby
lechon
and bakes three-tiered cakes oozing custard, guava jelly, sugar, and cream. She calls them “Gonzaga cakes.” Pacita also makes the best
leche flan
in the world—not too sweet, not too eggy, but firm with the bittersweet flavor of her burnt sugar syrup as the perfect counterpoint.
Abuelita
Socorro practically swoons when she eats it.
Leche flan
’s all I can stand to eat at these family parties. I help myself to three or four servings. I refuse to eat
leche flan
in other people’s houses; I never order it in restaurants. After Pacita’s ethereal concoction, all the rest is a disappointment.
“You’re crazy,” Pucha says, piling her plate high from the buffet table with thick slices of pork
lechon
, crispy pork skin, mounds of rice with
lechon
gravy, and more pork. “Why don’t you eat real food?” she asks me. What she doesn’t know is that when most of the guests have gone home and only the older family members sit out on the candle-lit terrace reminiscing over coffee and cognac, I will say goodnight to all of them, including Pucha, and go to the little room behind the kitchen for a secret midnight feast with
Lola
Narcisa. We’ll eat with our hands: rice,
lechon
,
kangkong adobo
, and more
leche flan.
The Gonzagas are a carnivorous family. My mother says so, sipping her Johnny Walker Black on the rocks, smiling her brittle smile as she orders the servants to bring out more and more food. My mother doesn’t eat; she nibbles. She sips her drink, elegantly poised in one of her taffeta cocktail dresses, some Balmain replica Uncle Panchito has copied from one of her foreign magazines. A silk cabbage rose is pinned to one side of her waist. To appease my father, she pushes the food around her plate, anticipating every wish of
Abuelita
Socorro’s and acting absorbed in Uncle Cristobal’s rambling conversation. She knows how to give great parties—warmer and more intimate than the extravagant spectacles organized by Isabel Alacran, and just as memorable. There is a photograph of her sitting at
Abuelita
Socorro’s table, her head cocked slightly to one side. She is smiling what seems to be a genuine smile. My
abuelita
is looking down at the food on her plate. There is a man with a twelve-string guitar serenading their table; his eyes are covered by dark sunglasses. Behind the singing man are four more men dressed in identical
barong tagalog
shirts and sunglasses, playing guitars and bandurias. They are singing something sweet and romantic—I can tell by the look on my mother’s happy face. The musicians are all blind; my mother hires the same blind musicians every year.
Abuelita
Socorro requests “
La Paloma
” and “
Malagueña
.” The blind musicians know all the Spanish ballads, they sing in impeccable Spanish, even Uncle Cristobal is impressed.
Abuelita
Socorro has silver hair. She drenches herself in “Maja” perfume, wears her perpetual black widow’s dresses with sheer black stockings and black suede pumps. She has thick ankles, a thick waist, and always wears two strands of pearls. Sometimes she puts on her tiny emerald earrings, the ones her husband gave her, which
Tita
Florence covets.
Abuelita
applies a bit of red rouge on her thin lips, and constantly fans herself with a scented, white lace fan depicting hand-painted flamenco dancers in ruffled red dresses. She fans herself and prays. She prays before eating, after eating, and when there is a lull in the conversation and she forgets we are all there. She makes the sign of the cross as an exclamation, or to ward off the devil. She mutters to herself in Spanish and what my mother swears is Visayan. When everyone is talking at once and she is temporarily forgotten,
Abuelita
Socorro pulls out her miraculous rosary, the kind with beads that glow in the dark. Under her black dress, she wears a scapular pinned to her brassiere, with a remnant from the Shroud of Turin blessed by the Pope. She’s the only Gonzaga who’s ever been to the Vatican. My father says she was very pretty when she was young, a mestiza born of landowning parents in Cebu. I wouldn’t know. There are no pictures left from her youth. All her photo albums were destroyed in a mysterious fire which burned down the original Gonzaga mansion, right before she and my grandfather left Manila to settle in Spain. “It’s a sign from God,” was all she said to my father after the disastrous fire in which nothing was left. My
abuelita
is a woman of few regrets.
You’d never know it, but
Abuelita
Socorro is Filipino just like my
Lola
Narcisa is Filipino. My father’s father, Don Carlos Jose Maria Gonzaga, was born right here in Manila, near Fort Santiago. But he and his wife considered themselves Spaniards through and through.
We used to call him
Abuelito
, before he died of emphysema.
Abuelito
scared Raul and me to death when he was alive. He had a scornful face and chain-smoked cigars. That’s probably what killed him. He only spoke Spanish, and never smiled. He came back to Manila to die—which some people thought was strange.
Abuelito
was buried with great ceremony at Manila Cemetery, in the Grecian-inspired Gonzaga mausoleum. Everyone came to pay their respects: Severo and Isabel Alacran, Jaime and Jacinta Oliveira, General Nicasio Ledesma without his wife. At the funeral service, my brother and I sat with my mother. All the Gonzagas sat together. My father looked like he was about to cry, but never did. My mother cried just a little. She cries when anyone dies, even someone she dislikes. My brother and I were dry-eyed and unsure how we were supposed to feel. We pinched each other to stay awake. As far as we were concerned, an unfriendly stranger had died.
Abuelita
makes an effort, but she is a foreigner to me, just the same. She treats me with gingerly affection, and is much warmer toward my brother. She always insists Raul give her a big kiss. “Like you mean it,” she will say. She drags us with her to Baclaran Church for her boring Wednesday novenas. She prays for all our souls. We are polite; we try to please her. Sometimes Pucha comes along. I don’t think
abuelita
is too fond of her, but she pretends to be, for Uncle Agustin’s sake.
When
abuelita
kisses me, I always think of funerals. Maybe it’s her overpowering Spanish perfume, watery eyes, pearls, and black dresses. Maybe it’s the miraculous rosary she clutches in her hand. I don’t exactly look forward to her visits. Every year, it’s the same. Sometime around Christmas. “Be nice,” my mother Dolores hisses, “otherwise your father will blame me, as usual…”
L
OLITA LUNA IS ON
her knees. She is trembling, trying hard not to scream. It is always more exciting when she restrains herself. Nicasio Ledesma stands over her. He holds her head up by her mane of unruly hair. He loves her hair—its weight and coarse texture alive in his hands. He dreams of making love to her hair, but doesn’t risk offending her by confessing his dreams. You could never tell with Lolita. She would act as if everything was a joke; she would boast of being game for anything. Then, without warning, she’d turn on you. Act just like a prim schoolgirl from a convent run by nuns. Act just like his wife.
The General gazes at her hardened young face, the face he worships. She is still beautiful, her body still firm and voluptuous in spite of years of abuse. His favorite image of her: flushed like a flower in bloom, coming toward him where he waits in the dark shadows of her bedroom.
It is excruciating. Lolita’s scalp aches with the pressure of her hair slowly being pulled. She shivers. “Enough! You’re hurting me.”
They play this game often. The General arrives after lunch, unwraps the
balut
covered with brown paper, and pours himself a shot of rum from the cut-glass decanter Lolita keeps filled for him. Lolita is alone—it’s part of her arrangement with the scrupulously discreet General that when he is expected, her servant Mila is always given the day off. Lolita watches him crack open the first egg, sprinkling a little rock salt inside. She grimaces as he swallows the
balut
juice, then chews and swallows the duck embryo. “
Ay
, you’re making me sick—” Lolita whines, turning away. “How can you eat that? You’re really
baboy
.” “Pure protein,” the General chuckles. “You must try one,
hija
.” Lolita shudders at the thought. “I wish you wouldn’t bring that stuff in my apartment,” she pouts. “Who pays the rent?” the General snaps. He never lets her forget she is a kept woman.
The General takes another
balut
, pours himself another shot of rum. When he is finished fortifying himself, he asks her to sit on his lap. The potent rum affects him immediately. He is not a man who drinks; he only drinks around Lolita. Lolita starts to sit on his lap, then jumps up as a thought occurs to her. “Wait! Let me put on some music first.” She can never do anything without the proper ambience, the music piped in at just the right level. Everything for her is a scene from a movie: zooms, pans, close-ups, climaxes and confrontations followed by whispered clinches. The General finds her habits greatly amusing—“What costume are you putting on for me today?” he wants to know.