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TakaThis story may contain adult content. |
| Written by Nathaniel Cayanan | |
| Friday, 30 May 2008 | |
When Anthony Pasqual rode the metro line from Nanjing Station back to his hotel on Siping Rd., he thought about the words his mother said countless times, when they moved from city to city. "We're actually very lucky you know. We're going to have a better life." As he looked out the window, at the passing island of glowing neon buildings, which tourists called "The Bund," a spectrum of gold, pink and purple that faded into starless Shanghai night stared back at him with dull and listless eyes. Above the aluminum double doors across from him shouted, with pride, a banner where a cartoon fish, panda, flame, Tibetan antelope and swallow boogie over the red text, "Beijing Welcomes You." The Olympics would come in less than a year. A young woman, wearing a white dress that faded into her porcelain skin, stared at him from across the train. As he glanced back, she looked away, heated red. "Do you work here?" he said in perfect Chinese. "Visiting." "How long?" "One more week." "Do everything you wanted to do?" "I suppose." A passing train zoomed by, throwing a gust of air that pounded the wall like a sack of dirt. A jolt of energy went through her and made her heart race. He took her to his hotel room that night. As she slept, he sat by the window, holding a doll that he found in his armrest about three years earlier. The doll, no bigger than his hand, was supposed to be a peppermint candy, spiraled with red and white strips; parts of white were turning gray and parts of red were turning pink. It had traveled thousands of miles with him and reminded him of sitting on smooth velvet, the smell of purple syringa and smooth citrus peel. Then a familiar ache in his stomach came, which translated to a tenseness in his throat, which ended as a tear in his eye. Then, he felt the abyss, collapsing inside him. "Taka. Taka!" it called, a name only his family called him. For a moment, he forgot where he was, until he stopped and convinced himself that he belonged. This was what echoed most in his winter drenched memories. The next morning, he made two phone calls from the pay phone on the corner of Siping and Dalian Rd. The first call was to his girlfriend, Vanessa, back in Chicago. "Hello?" she said. "It's me." "Are you okay?" "Yeah. Yeah." "Where are you now?" "China still." "Are you going to come home soon?" Pause. "I don't know." Another thought. "Listen, don't wait for me okay?" Most would be angry. But, perhaps, Vanessa knew the night that he left, when she found him lost in that space in time. As a matter of fact, she pitied him. So instead, she took in a breath of air, nodded her head and said, "Okay." And that was that. He took another moment before he picked up the receiver again and tapped the keys, which rattled as they bounced back out. There were four rings until she answered. "Hello," she said. He never spoke. He only stood there, listening to the intonations of her voice. "Are you going to tell me your name yet?" Sometimes, she waited for him to hang up. And once in a while, she even talked about a random topic. "I had some really delicious yogurt today. They opened a new self-serve place a few blocks away," or, "I started listening to this new band. My friend bought me a CD," she said. His chest would soften, and a feeling of relief would set it. But, at the end of every conversation, he'd go back to his hotel and lie in his bed, staring at the stucco ceiling, building constellations from the bumps. The tenseness in his throat would return. "Lara. Lara." September came and so did the annual monsoon. He sat in his hotel room, watching a Wong Kar Wai film, cooking Ramen and thinly sliced beef in pre-boiled water. Fat floated to the surface of the water in his steel bowl, which meant the meat was ready. He tossed a few pieces into his mouth, while Tony Leung whispered into a tree, when the bellhop knocked on the door. "Do not disturb!" Taka said, before the bellhop slipped a letter under the door. The envelop was jumbled with stamps and dust from several cities: Paris, Morocco, Tokyo, Seoul. The return address read Walnut, California, "home." Inside, he found a blue paper, a letter from his Tito Roy, dated August 4th, 2007, which read, "Your mom is sick. Cancer. Come home." His legs began to weaken and his breaths became long and drawn out. He remembered the last time he saw his mother, when he fought with her third husband. She grabbed Taka's face and tried to throw him, saying "Do you want him to leave us too?" She lied in bed that night, staring up at the ceiling, tissues scattered on the floor waiting for another man who would not return, which meant another town, another home. That night, he walked the ten-mile commercial strip of Nanjing Rd., watching the pimps ask tourists, "Do you want massage?" a performer singing a Chinese version of a Peter Gabriel song, Gothic architecture, golden fascia, commanding advertisements of tea and soda, all of which bore solitude into his chest, as he lost himself into the masses, until the abyss fell to a lull, floating, drifting, until the next morning, when he took the fourteen hour plane ride back home. California was gray and thick with mist. At dusk, the sun would set and the sky would turn pink from pollution. The roads and sidewalks were wet with dew and smelled like hot garbage. Tito Roy picked him up and dropped him off at his mother's house before taking him to the hospital. Taka's room was still walled with posters of the Corleone family, Van Gough, and a map of the world. The shelves were filled with foreign language books and films by Fellini and Kurosawa. His bed laid against the corner, still sheeted in dark green. She hadn't changed a thing. The house was still a intertextual composition of crystal and ceramic dolphins, petrified seashells, paintings of tropical fruit and photos of beaches, all of which she bought because they reminded her of her home in Manila. And in the living room, a black leather chest lied, edged with golden hinges. Growing up, the only thing he came to know about this chest was that it was the only thing she took with her from Manila and that pictures of her husbands over the years, mementos from their travels, notes, cards, memories resided there, locked away and disregarded. And that was that. Only one person was allowed in the ICU. "I'll wait in the lobby," his uncle said. The aisle was laced with suffering patients, who stared at Taka, as if he were a delinquent. "May Pasqual? She's at the end," a nurse directed him. His shoes tapped against the gray linoleum floor, as his hands shook and his shoulders tensed. The sound of the pumping respirator and the beeping heart monitor grew louder and louder until he came to the edge of her bed and saw the tubes and wires weighing her into her white bed. Silence. She was pale, almost gray, her hair was at her shoulders, and her cheeks were sunken in. There was this feeling as if he had discovered something sacred, something he should revere, making him want to turn away from his expedition. But, then, his heart fell to his stomach and he began to weaken. He took the chair next to her, staring at her dying body, and remembered the day his father left. From the doorway of his room, Taka, seven years old then, stared down the hall, into his parents' room, where they were arguing profusely. "How could you do this? What about Taka? What will happen to us?!" his mother shrieked. The sound of shattering glass made him leap back into his room, before he peaked back out, finding his father scurrying down the hall, May weeping behind. Taka ran to the window, as his father got into his midnight blue Camaro. The engine roared for a moment before becoming a soft purr, mist rising from the tailpipe. His father put the car into reverse when he looked up and found Taka staring back down. His father's almond shaped eyes began to darken. They were father and son one last time, until he backed away and drove off into stone cold morning. Taka walked down the hall, to his parents' room, and peaked through the door crack, where his mother lied in her bed, almost engulfed by it, bore down by dejection and capitulation. Tissue and shattered jade crystal shards, remnants of the vase his father gave her for their anniversary, scattered across the floor. She turned her head, hair jumbled over her drenched eyes, staring at him. The abyss called out. His mother's groan awoke him from his reminiscing, as she reached out, fingers spread out, reaching the unreachable. He stayed still, staring back, then, looking away. She whimpered. He closed his eyes and listened to buzzing incandescent lights, before he surrendered and laid his hand on hers. She passed away the next morning. According to tradition, she was to have a wake that would last three days, with each day a mass for her soul. The first mass was at St. Matthew's, where her pine wood coffin waited at the alter, beneath a hanging Christ. Her favorite flower, the daisy, lined the edges of her casket, while a picture from her twenties stared back at her relatives, friends and acquaintances. There were almost a hundred people there because, to Filipinos, a hello was enough justification for friendship. But, though there were many hellos, there were also many goodbyes. Her four husbands were there as well, the last of them being Chuck, who passed Taka, staring with remorse and sympathy. They shook hands and left all grudges behind. The reception was held at his mother's house. His family considered death an event that should be briefly mourned, but overall celebrated. So, his uncles played Texas Hold 'em in the garage, the aunts cooked and gossiped about family in the Philippines in the kitchen and the rest lined danced and sang karaoke in the living room. "She was so beautiful," his Tita Cheryl told Taka, pushing her magnifying glass spectacles to her face. "And popular," added Tita Ping, still as thin as a schoolgirl. "She would dance and sing and people would throw money. There was never a dull moment with your mom. Oh! And your father! So handsome. Such a beautiful couple." But, then, like every other time his father was mentioned, they would suddenly give a blank smile and move onto another subject. Taka didn't know much about his father. The only thing he really knew, because one day, Tita Ping let it slip, was that his father went back to his first family. And that was that. May often told stories about her youth back in the Philippines. "I had so many suitors. They bought me so many nice things and took me to the fanciest places." Her fondest memories were those about the hotel that her family owned, Pasig Bay, where she stared at the passing boats, as American sailors waved at her, the sound of the charging and retreating waves, the coconut filled palm trees, the smell of sweet mangos, that melted in her mouth, the warm humidity that felt like a current, the house all of her brothers and sisters lived in, his father. When she reminisced, she was at peace, like a yellow leaf in cool autumn. But, then a sudden winter chill came and she would look into a blank space in time and say, "But, that's gone now." Taka sometimes found her sitting alone, staring at that blank space in time, lethargic, until she awoke herself in subdued weeping. He would stay up at night when he found her that way, lying in his bed, staring up at the ceiling, building constellation, until the sweet mangos, the waves, his father faded away, as he meandered into sleep. His mother was cremated and placed into a pale green urn. He placed it over the fireplace, the dolphins rising next to her. Before the wake, he took his peppermint candy doll and placed it in the leather chest, holding it down, as though it would escape, until he remembered how he came to be where he was. Taka met Lara in a café, on the west end of town, where she was studying Japanese, and he, French. "Ohaio," he said. "I'm sorry?" "That's hello in Japanese right? I'm not mistaken?" "Oh no. You're right." And that was their hello. That night, they talked about books, movies and their studies. She dreamed about standing before the statues in Rome, studying them, roaming around the world. But, instead, she followed tradition and studied optometry. He told her about studying foreign languages, wanting to travel also, to go far and meet the masses. "Perhaps, I'll take you," he joked. They went on until the café closed. He dreamt of her that night and every night until they met the following Saturday, when they drove to Huntington Beach, where they dodged the charging waves and felt the sand pass between their toes. He found himself staring at her, remembering the burn on her left arm, right above the elbow, which she got from being too close to a firecracker, the freckles under her eye, which she was embarrassed of and the reason why she stayed away from the sun, and the way she covered her teeth when she smiled. "Don't stare at me," she said once, which made him look away in enamored shame. Most evenings ended with them staying up into the late night, in her living room, sitting on red velvet, talking about the abstract. He told her about his stepfathers and how the last one despised him because he wasn't his son. She told him that she was always fortunate, but regretted never being able to choose the path she wanted to follow. Then, she would stare into a space in time and avert her eyes. "Do you think everything's planed out for us?" she asked. "I don't think so. I mean, we make our own choices." "I wish I could be as idealistic as you. But, it's not that easy I think." "Well, we can't control everything. But, in the end, we choose how we react to things." She fell silent and gave a light smile, meaning she wasn't easily swayed. "I want to take her far away," he said to himself. But, he dismissed his romanticisms as childish idealism. One evening, they drove to the orange field a few cities down, she looking at the passing trees. The sun fell into a black silhouette of buildings. The smell of the orange blossoms and fresh syringa came closer and closer. "Don't fall in love with me," she said. And, from then on, the smell of citrus broke his heart. They didn't speak of her words for the rest of the evening, as they ate at a drive thru restaurant, down the street. She got a kid's meal because she couldn't eat a full meal. "What toy d'you get?" he asked. "A doll," she said. "Can I leave it here? I'll pick it up next time," and she left it in his armrest. A week later, she was gone, to New York, where she would finish her studies. Several months passed, he was accepted to the University of Illinois. After he graduated, he stayed in Chicago, where he met Vanessa, during a symphony, where a mutual friend of theirs conducted. He developed a quiet charm about him, something he thought was one of the only traits he inherited from his father. His technique for his pleasant demeanor was simple: "Stand up straight, look them in the eye, speak with confidence," he thought to himself. In a short time, he became a personal translator to the assistant Vice President of an international finance corporation in downtown Chicago. Often times, he would wake up in the middle of the night, while he was abroad, in a cold sweat because the abyss followed. He would panic and feel disoriented, until he took a few breaths, convinced himself who he was and that he belonged. Sometimes, he would wander around the new city he was in, until he felt at peace. But, the best way to quiet the abyss was to lay his head on Vanessa's lap or holding her as she slept. Winter came again, and Vanessa went to Milwaukee to see her sister for the holidays, leaving Taka behind for work. "Will you be okay?" she asked. "No, but I'll live," he said before she kissed him on the cheek and left for two weeks. The next morning, as he spoke to a client in Paris on the phone, his secretary brought in a note, which said, "Heard you were in town. Dinner? I'm at the Hyatt," and ending with a name that made his throat tense, "Lara." He canceled all of his appointments and conference calls and went home, called the Hyatt and set up dinner for seven. They met at the front of the Hyatt and had dinner at a bistro down the street. He told her of his travels and she, her fiancé, another optometrist. "And how about you?" she asked. He mentioned his condo at the west end of town, his busy schedule, Hong Kong, Tokyo, but not Vanessa. They walked down to Buckingham fountain, where they watched the water rise into the heavens. Syngria flew in the wind, stemming away from their garden home, as they continued to talk about the abstract. As the water settled, her eyes meandered. "You're lucky. You get to see so much," she said. "You can too if you really want." "Not how I want." He took out a cigarette and smoked. The ash rose to into the night and faded away, as he let out a cloud of smoke. "You're not missing much," he said, throwing the cigarette to the ground, letting it roll down the steps. He looked to her and she to him before he pressed his lips against hers, her tongue reaching in, her hand lying on his chest. "I don't want to be alone tonight," she said. They went back to the Hyatt, but did not sleep together. Instead, he just held her, in the soft bed, trying to sleep, both of them tense and scared. He felt her milky silk hand, which made his heart race. She felt his breath on her ear, which was warm and gentle and brought a calmness, like autumn's crisp breeze. The next morning, he walked her to the subway. She was to go to the airport and fly back to New York, where her fiancé waited. "Let me take you away," he said. "Don't be childish." "I'm not being childish. I can take you. Anywhere." "Anthony." "How about Rome? We can see the statues." "It's not that easy Anthony. There are obligations some of us have. I'm engaged." "You don't love him." "I don't love you. There are some things that just are the way they are. And you can't change them." Then, the smell of citrus returned, and his chest collapsed and fell into the abyss, as she got on the train, leaving him, angry, staring at her, hating her. He walked up to the surface, punching his hand, until he found an alleyway, hit the wall and coughed out so fiercely that he almost puked. Vanessa came home a week later with stories about her sister and her new baby. Life goes on, he thought. But, as he laid his head on her lap, the abyss did not cease. He held her, but couldn't find the peace she once gave. Instead, he felt an unbearable stain of a nomad and couldn't fight off the tugging call for an expidition. One evening, as she washed dishes, he came behind her, embraced her, took her hand, following it into the warm water and kissed her neck. She began to feel warm, as he pulled her away, kissing her, pushing her against the wall. He looked as if he would devour her, as she moaned out. As she slept, he sat next to the window, watching the Chicago skyline turn from twinkling white to fading purple. "Come back to bed," she said. He laid next to her and felt her soft hand. "I wish I could give you more." She smiled and said, "You give me more than enough." He lost herself in his eyes, that were so deep in thought that she found her self in unfamiliar territory. So, she buried her head in his chest and fell asleep. The next morning, he took the early flight to Paris. He imagined Vanessa finding the closet nearly empty and the note on the kitchen table saying, "I'm sorry." He watched the clouds split into piles of cotton and the plane's window fog up from the high altitude. His carry on was a small bag and the doll that hid in the side pocket. In each city he arrived, Paris, Tokyo, Seoul, etc., he discovered another truth: "There are some things you can't change." "There are no rewards for the idealistic." And, as he lied in his bed in Shanghai, building constellations from the stucco ceiling, as he remembered Vanessa, his mother, whom he left behind, his father, he came to his last conclusion "Perhaps, I deserve this." After the third day of the wake, Taka bought a ticket to Manila, where he would give his mother's ashes to his Tita Amy, as May stipulated in her will. He placed the urn on the mantle of his aunt's living room, as Amy took out a box of pictures of her mother. "I gave your mother this purple dress for a party once. Here it is," she said, taking out a picture of May, draped in a lavender nightgown, which trickled down like water. "With a body like that, no wonder your dad fell for her." He rummaged through the rest, finding pictures of his mother with a famous Filipino actor, posing in front of a Mercedes, with his father, arm in arm, laughing, happy. In every picture, she was the center of attention. She was royalty then. And, to her family in the Philippines, she still was. His family in the Philippines wasn't much different from his family in America. They both mourned for a short moment, and celebrated for longer. But, Taka didn't celebrate with them. He sat in the living room, with his mother, saying goodbye. It seemed to him that he was isolated again, alone, staring at the urn, which gave a fade glare, as the candlelight shined next to it. Suddenly, the celebration outside came to a hush, which made Taka turn out. His aunt was shaking hands with a tall man, wearing a brown shirt, and golden watch. When the man came in, Taka stood and froze. He still had almond eyes that retreated into his drooping skin. "You're big now," his father said. "Time does that." His father walked to the mantle and touched the urn gently with the tips of his fingers. "Was she in pain?" "No," a lie. The celebration continued outside, as Taka and his father sat at the kitchen table, making formal banter. "What do you do now?" his father asked. "Used to translate. Not anymore." "Your aunt says you travel a lot. So do I." "Where to?" "All over. Hong Kong, Bangkok. Export." Silence. "Did she ask for me?" "I wouldn't know." "I'm sorry." Silence. Taka looked at him, as he tried to lift up his eyes and take out a cigarette. "You're forgiven," he darted back. "You're like your mother. You can kill just by staring," he chuckled. "I have some money for you," he said as he laid an envelop on the table. But, Taka only stared back. "I know it's not much. But, if you don't want it, give it to your Titas here. They can use it." Taka paused for a moment before taking the money. The smoke rose into the air, clouding the room. "Do you have someone?" his father asked. "Not anymore." "Find somebody, somebody to take care of you. To go home to." "Like your first wife?" "Who told you that?" But, Taka didn't answer. "Your mom was my first wife." The crickets began to chirp. "Does she still like dolphins?" "Yeah," making his father laugh out loud and smile. But then, his father looked at a blank space in time. The smoke rose up, twisting into itself. Taka saw where he was looking at. It was a time, before he was born, there, in Manila, where she watched Americans wave back at her. Then his father looked to the ground and remembered where he was and convinced himself that he belonged. "There are some things you can't change," his father said before taking one more drag from the cigarette. Taka saw a man who had traveled far from his vices, as his father's eyes fell black again, like the day he left. "You have sisters, back in the states. They have kids," he said, handing Taka a picture of two young women, staring back, grateful for a full and generous life. His father then stood and walked to the mantle, where he took off a silver chain from around his neck, and hung it off the handle of the urn, before kissing the lid and saying something in Tagalog that Taka couldn't make out. "I will see you," his father said, as he clutched Taka in bear's embraced, before he faded away into Manila's darkness. Taka went back to the urn. At the end of chain, a dolphin charm, that jumped out of a wave. And that was that. Later that night, Taka had his cousin drive him to central Manila. "It's not safe to walk around here," his cousin said. "I'll be fine," he responded before running off into the city. He found a payphone at an intersection, which shared a lot with a hotel. Like the one his family used to own? Who knew? One last call. And then a goodbye. He dialed the numbers. Four rings. "Hello?" she said. He took in every intonation. "You called late this time." He smelled citrus again and flying syringa. The hole in his stomach began to suck him in again, as he remembered the touch of silk. A few more seconds, then goodbye, he thought. The stars didn't come out that night. And the humidity was chilly. The city was surprisingly quiet. And the sound of the people was left to a whisper. "I didn't marry him," she said, which made him halt. "I'm sorry about your mom too. Did you go home yet?" He heard static, as she exhaled. "I'll be going home at the end of March. Will you be there?" He then remembered his stolen mementos of her: the scar on her arm, the freckles under her eye, the way she covered her smile. There were no words. Only a calm silence, until he laid the receiver to rest. He looked at the hotel again and remembered the story May told him of when she first fell in love with his father. "We both worked at that hotel. He was only a clerk then. I passed him everyday. One day, the driver was gone, and I needed to go to the bank. So, I commanded him to take me. Ai na ko. I was so handsome. He bought me dinner and had crabs, before he took me to Pasig Bay. He said he wanted to take me far, to America. He stared at me, with those eyes and kissed me there. And that was that." The next morning, he asked his cousin to stop by Pasig River. As his cousin waited at the road, engine running, Taka walked to a patch of earth, where a couple of trees grew green, fluttering in a southern wind. He swam through the humidity and overlooked the bay, smelled sweet mango and heard the charging and retreating waves, as he knelt down and brushed away the pebbles below him and placed the urn on the earth, to ponder over the river, so she could hear the river's calm song and wave to the passing sailors. "Let's go to the airport," Taka said. "Going home?" The coconut filled palm trees and the sun that looked like a white hole in the sky was engraved in his memory. "Not yet." As they pulled out, granite crunching below, the sun blinded Taka, making him close his eyes. Again, he was seven years old, hearing what his mother said, countless times, when they moved from town to town, "We're actually lucky you know." Copyright 2008 Nathaniel Cayanan |
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