Banana Heart Summer Read online

  Of course, she could sing, but does she know any other song? Almost everyone had heard her “Yellow Bird” countless times. “She could learn, she’s a natural.” Basilio leapt to her defense, hoping to ingratiate himself with his heart’s desire, and to save the day, of course. “That crooner’s a good two hours late now, and VV’s heard this song so many times, I’m sure she’ll do it beautifully—please, VV?”

  The song in question was the radio program’s theme. In fact, it was Basilio’s love letter to his beloved student nurse, whom he had met at a friend’s party and impressed with his deep-as-a-pool voice. After that meeting, he always signed off his program by playing the love letter: Patsy Cline’s “Crazy.” Now, its lyrics suddenly materialized from under his shirt (what, he even wore them?) and were handed over to the flustered captive as the band meandered through their introductions. It happened so fast, we were not quite ready for what followed.

  In the kitchen, Mrs. Alano stopped short before her oven, cake tin in hand. Is that the singer from Manila? Is that a record? She rushed to the lounge, uncooked cake still in hand. She sat in a corner. She rested the cake on her lap. She could not return to her kitchen now. A tiny strangeness had curled in her stomach. Something was turning upside down in her house, its innards revealed, pale and waiting for the inevitable teeth marks to show. Brow furrowed, she stared at her husband, playing his guitar too close to their flushed eighteen-year-old neighbor. It was one of those moments of illumination.

  He has never looked at me that way, not even on the day we were married.

  Tu-dum-tu-dum-tu-dum.

  Quickly Patsy Cline found her voice. Patsy Cline grew crazy. Patsy Cline flaunted her incredible throat, rich with slurs and quavers and never-before-heard vibratos. She was a natural indeed, a sweet crazy. Mrs. Alano was certain her performance was sweeter than the caramel at the bottom of the tin.

  eighteen

  Biniribid: the twisted ones

  Begin with black rice: maragadan. It is as dark as its name. Maragadan: like death. Pound this to powder. Mix with brown sugar, not-so-young coconut meat and a bit of water. Mix till it becomes a thick paste. Now take a handful: stretch, fold, twist. Deep-fry in very hot oil. Then roll in sugar. Serve.

  This is perhaps true of all of us. Stretch the patience, fold the spirit, and the disposition gets twisted. But it is never served sweet like Nana Dora’s biniribid, the twisted ones. Another snack which is like pretzels in appearance, before pretzels became too ornate. The biniribid is of a wondrous consistency: crisp on the outside and soft and sticky inside with strips of coconut surprising the teeth. Its aroma is that unforgettable earnestness of deep-fried sugary things. And the taste? Pure delight. I miss it.

  Nana Dora, however, had a way of dampening delight. “Pag nagkaon ka ki odo kang saday, matitipsikan ka—maturon iyan!” she explained.

  In the dialect, it hits the perfect eschatological timbre: “If you ate feces when you were a baby (something that some babies do unwittingly, of course), you’re bound to get burned by hot oil when you grow up!”

  “Aysus, cooking biniribid has its risks, you know.” Nana Dora showed me the dark-brown spots on her chest. “Burns,” she explained. “I must have been a naughty baby.”

  I could not get over her culinary aside. How can a delicacy bear tales that make the stomach turn? How can it hold so much portent? Delicacy and darkness—or delicate darkness?

  The hot oil hissed, the black-rice-like-death twisted.

  “Don’t dismiss it, it’s true, and don’t look at me like that.”

  I laughed to cover up my doubt, or was it discomfort?

  “Hoy, it’s not funny, Nenita, I wear the scars on my chest.”

  I was back at Nana Dora’s hut under the blooming banana hearts. I had to tell her about the strange musical event across the road and the fate of my earlier business venture, concluding right outside Mr. Alano’s house. That was the last Saturday afternoon of my free life.

  I craved for sweetness to mark the event.

  Chi-chi and Bebet had tagged along. I felt encumbered. I could probably score only one free biniribid, but the twins’ eyes went this way and that, and I knew the look. I wondered how much their combined esophagi had stretched by then, and whether the distance they covered was at all measurable. I would have to share my loot then (if I was successful, of course).

  I foresaw good tidings the moment we arrived. The look on Nana Dora’s face promised a hundred percent success rate. “Dios mio, what happened to you, Nining?” Nining, not Nenita: a hundred percent and no less. “Ay, ay, what happened, child?”

  “I fell from the sky.”

  When she cupped my face rather brusquely, I nearly spilled the story of my back and my bruises and the strange, funny way I conducted my limbs. But it was only a five-word tale. I could not give Chi-chi and Bebet the satisfaction of seeing tears. “I fell—”

  “As the cross is your witness?” Nana Dora asked.

  Towering above our heads, it perched like an admonition on the burnished dome. I could not swear by it.

  We stayed that way for a while. Nana Dora looked me in the eye, I looked back, didn’t flinch one bit. You see, I never lied, I only told stories. When she finally released me, she humphed and harrumphed before saying, “Okay, help me twist.”

  We understood each other, we understood dignity. I’ll earn my stomach’s keep with honest labor and surely Mother will approve. So I positioned myself as far as possible from the spitting wok and began to stretch, fold and twist. The twins followed suit. We all earned our twisted repast that day.

  Thus ensconced in a hundred percent success rate, I could finally tell Nana Dora the story. But a hungry queue trickling from the event across the road drowned out my intention in a cacophony of gossip.

  “Ay, that Miss VV has the voice of an angel.”

  “I didn’t know Mr. Alano could sing.”

  “Did you see the look in his eye?”

  “Did you see the look in Mrs. Alano’s eye?”

  “What about Basilio Profundo?”

  “Ay, isn’t he such a he-man na he-man?”

  “And that deep, deep voice, santamaria, I could listen to it forever!”

  I must clarify this grapevine, before it cramps my own storytelling. This was how it went: Patsy Cline met Roy Orbison.

  The student nurse, in her white uniform that so became her, crooned to the microphone and to Basilio Profundo (or so he thought) and to the guitar-playing Mr. Alano (or so he also thought) and to the whole band (or so they all thought), even to Mrs. Alano, who felt her life was summed up in that first line.

  Ay, to grow crazy “for feeling so lonely”—what a curse.

  After their children grew up and went to study in Manila, leaving their parents in separate bedrooms, all loneliness was sweetened in Mrs. Alano’s kitchen. Here, she cared not for the grief of opera divas, but for getting the egg whites to stiffen in her homemade ice cream or for making sure the chiffon cake rose on time and the muffins browned just so.

  Then Patsy Cline declared the possibility of love, albeit eventually lost.

  At this juncture, Mr. Alano drew even closer with his guitar. Patsy had to focus extremely hard on her performance to refrain from giggling, so she played along to his amorous chords, fluttering her eyelashes at him (or so he thought).

  But then, of course, the departure “for somebody new” followed in a Patsy sigh.

  Suddenly Basilio Profundo was filled with foreboding. He saw the performers’ little flirtation. Was that departure someday meant for him? He grew hot around the collar, his gut twisted. He wanted to call off the recording. He wanted to punch Mr. Alano!

  When the song concluded, Mr. Alano said, “How about a male voice then, another love song to add to your repertoire?” The events were escaping from Basilio’s hands, he could not say no to his host. So Mr. Alano took center stage and began “Falling” in true Roy Orbison style. It happened so fast, I couldn’t make sense of it.


  Roy even decided to kneel before the sofa where Patsy sat, unable now to restrain a giggling fit.

  Outside we went crazy. We didn’t know they could sing so well. Our palms smarted with too much clapping. Ay, we felt proud. They were our neighbors.

  Then the pall descended before Roy and Patsy could attempt a duet. The recording broke up on the wrong note. I smelled the discordant air.

  Mrs. Alano disappeared into the kitchen, the cake unsteady in her hands. Mr. Alano returned to his piano, but not to finish Gershwin’s rhapsody. Basilio Profundo steered Miss VV out of the house, but with a most morose face. His hair curlicue had lost its bounce, his frown was exposed. His gut could not untwist itself.

  Outside Miss VV saw me and stopped in her tracks. She looked me over, especially my back, and my life was never the same again. She said she would talk to my parents. She said I could start work the following day.

  nineteen

  Piko-piko, sinanggarito, pinalupag, cinusido (Piko-piko, the chiled dish, the coconut dish, the soup)

  The day I became the maid of the Valenzuelas, Mother stopped looking at me. I swear her smooth forehead developed a crease which, like everything else, she wore with grace. I couldn’t bear to watch the humbling of my parents.

  In the tiny square of our one-room house, my father looked even more tiny and angular. But my mother stood tall and poised, though she could not do anything about the angles; she was just built that way, all sharp edges. Señorita VV, with her gentle persuasion, softened the air. I fell hopelessly in love with my new mistress then. Not with her beauty, everyone had already fallen for that, but with something I couldn’t yet comprehend. From the corner of my eye, I did not see an eighteen-year-old who giggled and blushed before the falling Roy O. I saw someone older, more composed, knowing, and the voice I heard was rich and rounded, like life that had come full circle. Kindly, it asked my mother, “So when is it due, Manay Maring?”

  “End of summer.”

  “My father knows a midwife who makes house calls, we can get her for free, I’ll talk to her—”

  “No, thanks.”

  “It’s—it’s rather small.”

  “I know.”

  Father turned to the wall, staring at his hands. The devil had eaten his words again. He imagined the women’s voices were heavy with accusation. A seventh one? His face burned.

  No wonder she sweated more miserably that summer. How could I have missed it? How tight did she bind it? Perhaps I wanted so much to miss it. We were all of six already and we were always hungry. But fate was designed by Elvis. What did the old folks say? “A baby who sucks his toes means his mother will soon be pregnant again.” Elvis always sucked his toes, ay, stupid, stupid Elvis.

  “Sige, pack all your clothes, Nenita,” Mother said.

  “But she can come home every weekend.”

  “No, keep her.”

  There was a pause in the room. Do you know that the heart can actually pause? That there are pauses between heartbeats?

  Then Señorita VV sighed, and my father left the house, as always, silent.

  I went to the ceiling to pack. They were all there, ordered to stay put until the conference downstairs was over. My siblings stared at me, opening their mouths and closing them again, as if all the words they conjured inside were not worth airing. I could tell that they already knew.

  “Hoy, don’t look at me like that, I’ll just be next door.”

  “I’ll work too, you’ll see, and I’ll get rich before you do, just you wait, I’ll be better than you are, and I’ll be eldest now, ta-da-da-da-dah, and you can’t boss me around again!” That was Gable Junior. Magenta: wicked blood.

  “What will you buy me when you get rich, Nining?” Nilo: ocher for optimism.

  Claro was more than somber sky. He was all snot. Meantime, my only sister followed me around with siren songs in her eyes and air through her missing front teeth. “You vithit, I vithit, you vithit—”

  “Of course I’ll visit—don’t be stupid, Lydia! Hoy, listen up all of you, I’m just next door!” I looked at them, crumpled and faded like hand-me-down children.

  “Pa-taw, pa-taw.” Elvis was tugging at my dress, six fingers raised.

  Palitaw: floating faith. Faith always floats, keeps you afloat. Well, Elvis got it right that time. I assured him Señorita VV could spare six pieces from Basilio Profundo’s regular offerings (if he would still offer them after yesterday’s event).

  “And more than palitaw, I’ll bring you much, much more,” I said, suddenly inspired. “I’ll score you pochero, lechon, mechado—”

  “And even fried chicken, beefsteak, and lots and lots of it?”

  “Sure, lots and lots.”

  “And Lab-yu?”

  “Of course—sige, tell me more, tell me more,” I chattered, launching into our usual food game of piko-piko, where the leader invites all the players’ forefingers to dip into her open palm as she intones a folk rhyme:

  Piko-piko

  Sinanggarito

  Pinalupag

  Cinusido…

  Meaning, piko-piko, the chilied dish, the coconut dish, the soup…and it can go on and on. The other players chant additions to the list of dishes, until the leader quickly shuts her palm as she calls out, Pusit! (Squid!), hoping to catch any forefinger not agile enough to withdraw in time. Of course, the players can hold back her concluding “squid” by reciting a culinary litany.

  For a long time that afternoon, Junior kept my palm from shutting, kept me from packing my clothes, kept all our hungers at bay with his chant of mains to desserts to snacks, remembered from visits at Aunt Rosario’s in the city, and now echoed by every mouth in the room, amid much laughter and teasing—

  morcon

  pork roll with chorizo, egg and raisin stuffing

  tilmok

  hot shrimp, crab and young coconut parcels

  afritada

  thick, spicy tomato beef stew

  estofado

  beef in spicy liver sauce

  otap

  thin sugarcane biscuits that crackle in the mouth

  barquillos

  milky crispy biscuit roll

  linukay

  palm sugar sticky rice with sweet anise

  hinagom

  toasted corn balls with young coconut strips

  kalamayati

  sticky rice with coconut milk and honey

  I was not allowed to end the game with such unimaginative fare as squid. We wrapped our tongues around so much food that day, we feasted. So when Mother told me to hurry because Señorita VV was waiting downstairs, we were in good spirits again. Our mouths had pooled together—the soup of stones, but very soon, minus the unsmooth red with black ridges. They’d be all right, I assured myself. They’d do better without the fire with the promise of burning.

  twenty

  Green mango salad

  Pregnant women ask for sour things. Pregnant women ask for stolen sour things. Pregnant women must not be let down. It is bad for the baby.

  I blamed the myths. Before that summer ended, I blamed my stupid faith in myths. Pregnant women must not be let down? But what if the touching ground, that ungraceful nosedive, came before pregnancy? But myths break a fall, they keep us afloat.

  Faith, or is it fatalism? Ditch responsibility; blame it on the pregnant body, as in the case of the myth of lihi, which conspired with unripe mangoes and the crowing habits of Boy Hapon’s chickens. This configuration came to pass after almost a month of my being the “most hardworking maid ever.”

  My employers were more than generous. Dr. Valenzuela treated my back, Mrs. Valenzuela and her daughter, my heart. It grew fat with their constant praise. “Ay, Nining, your smoky coconut chicken is number one!” “You’re such a hardworking girl.” “The garden is looking absolutely neat and the plants are happy, thanks to you.” “I have never seen floors this shiny.” I didn’t know what to do with too much approval. At the end of the day, I always felt replete but restless, like
when you eat too much dinner and can’t quite digest it. I couldn’t digest all the meals anyway. For the first few weeks my trysts with the toilet came with painful constancy. My little stomach was perhaps shocked with such abundance or was constantly fretting about the other five next door.

  I missed their racket—Junior’s wicked teasing, Claro’s whining, even his snot, Lydia’s demands for attention, Nilo’s endless queries (What’s for lunch? What did you bring me? What are you chewing?)—and the smell of Elvis’s toes. I missed the way Father looked at me, at us, always closely and with unequaled attention, as if nothing in the world mattered except the moment of looking. And insane as you might think it, I missed Mother’s heavy hands landing on me, especially the change of heart that followed as she sat me down. “We hit you because we love you.”

  Mind you, I charged her rage to libi. A pregnant woman can irrationally like or dislike someone or something which is the object of her libi. This dislike can be extreme, mercilessly splenetic. Like, on the other hand, can be almost amorous. Usually it is an obsessive desire of the palate for mostly sour things. She must have them, even if you have to steal them; she might even prefer that you steal them. Once, rumor had it that Tiyo Anding stole a green mango when Tiya Asun was pregnant with Chi-chi. “Certainly not!” Chi-chi protested when the story was told. “Father bought the mango and Mother knew from the taste that it was bought!”

  See, there’s a “bought taste” and a “stolen taste,” and these knowing women can tell the difference. Such acuity of the palate.

  “And she ate it and it didn’t hurt one bit. Look, I came out okay.”

  “No, you didn’t, Chi-chi. You’re always grazing among the fruit trees.”

  That summer I was twelve, libi made sense. Mother vented her spleen on me because she was pregnant, and she couldn’t help it. Today, twenty years later and so far away from home, I understand, and I forgive.

  And the green mangoes? They’re number one in a pregnant woman’s list of desires, or so the myths said. Well, actually, one doesn’t have to be pregnant to desire them with that irrational pooling of the mouth. Green mangoes, even just the mention of them, made our mouths water. We ate them plain with salt or shrimp paste, or in a salad with tomatoes, onions and again shrimp paste or fish sauce. This salad is the best partner for greasy dishes. The crisp sourness combats the fat, cleans the tongue.