Against Dressing

January 2006; July 15 2008.

“The most beautiful word on the lips of mankind,” said Gibran “is the word ‘Mother,’ and the most beautiful call is the call of ‘my mother.’ It is a word full of hope and love, a sweet and kind word coming from the depths of the heart. The mother is everything--- she is our consolation in sorrow, our hope in misery, and our strength in weakness. She is the source of love, mercy, sympathy and forgiveness. He who loses his mother loses a pure soul who blesses and guards him constantly…And the mother, the prototype of all existence, is the eternal spirit, full of beauty and love.” From Anthony R. Ferris, Austin, Texas May 13 1959 in his Introduction to “Kahlil Gibran A Self-Portrait”

For my mother on her 60^th

For my family

Maya didn’t know if she should begin dressing, or what she should wear, or if she should even dress at all.

She went over her packed clothes in her traveling bag and then through her sisters’ clothes in their traveling bags in the next bedroom. As she went from one dressing figure in the mirror to another she felt anxious and helpless once more--- like when she woke up a long time ago from that Iriga City Jaycee’s Christmas party.

She remembered eating while waiting for the raffle of gifts in that party that night then waking up to morning realizing she fell asleep. She didn’t get what she wanted--- a Sanrio powder container--- one of the gifts that she saw her mother had wrapped for the raffle. Then she had begun wailing: the party was over and she didn’t understand why Daddy, why Mommy, why Manay, why, why, why couldn’t that morning be the night before so that she could be awake for the raffle and get the gift that she wanted? She did not even think that she might not get that Sanrio powder container at all because it was a raffle after all.

Maya felt anxious and helpless and angry this time as she watched everyone dress carefully, just like that time seven years ago that she had watched her dressed mother, older sisters and only brother go inside that house in San Roque where her mother’s relatives were gathered. She had dithered outside that house in her shorts, t-shirt, and slippers, feeling naked, wishing that she had stayed home with her youngest sister and their father instead.

She had silently begged them to tell her what to do then, screamed in her head not to go to them, not to go inside, and wanting, oh wanting to go inside to kill and scream her outrage to all. Or strangle her grandmother who went outside to where she was smoking to talk to her---- But they always had to look and act their best when they step outside of their home, as her mother had said and shown them.

Nothing must be said wrong of their family, nothing wrong, not then and not now even when everything went wrong for a long time. They were happy--- the children had done well and the parents were proud. They would see that life had finally gone easy on this family and it had become beautiful for them.

Never mind the past for life was a matter of dressing up and trying to get along and moving on.

In one mirror, Maya saw her Manay Ipil wearing her classic white blouse, blue jeans, black flats, and silver accessories: she looked like a younger Che-Che Lazaro only she was in the art business. Maya was sure nobody would even understand what her Manay did for a living to where they were going. They only understood that the eldest grandchild who was treated as their youngest child got to socialize with the old, new, powerful rich, and they would nod and smile and only ask why she wasn’t married yet.

Maya didn’t really know for sure what went on in her Manay’s life or if her Manay still cared what they thought of her. There was a time that her Manay did care but not anymore. They had already offended her sensibilities and her devotion turned into suplada though she remained diplomatic with them.

Aren’t you getting dressed? her Manay Ipil’s reflection asked her through the mirror.

Should I? Maya thought but didn’t answer. Maya thought that her Manay always smelled good even when she never used a deodorant in her life and was devoid of perfume most of the time.

She went to the next room, watched her Manay Gigi and thought that their little Doña Chinita always smelled of lotion and perfume. She watched her Manay straighten her white, flowing tube top over her short denim skirt then clip chunky pearl earrings on her earlobes. Her Manay Gigi was one of the hottest copywriters in Manila, the way everything that creatively generated money and awards were “hot” according to all those in the advertising business, these agencies and executives with all their acronyms and “chuvas”.

While growing up her Manay Gigi was always relegated to the second because she came in second to Manay Ipil after all and they had ignored her. Nobody could ignore the fashionista lola now but to where they were going she would still be pointedly ignored and always called fat and maldita to her back. After all, she never stayed politely silent the way the young should be when elders would insult her parents or her siblings. She couldn’t care less about what those people thought or said about her, that’s for sure.

Her Manay Gigi only glanced at her through the mirror, a question on her face that was never asked, and then quickly returned to applying make-up. Her second Manay understood her perfectly most of the time.

Wear whatever you want, her Manay Gigi called to Maya’s back as she turned to leave.

Maya went to another room and watched her youngest sister hurriedly slide into low-rise jeans then into a white blouse that was now snug across her breasts as she slipped her feet into colorful abaca slippers. Maya was still uncomfortable about how people now considered going out in public just wearing slippers as acceptable, at how everyone casually bared their toes uncaring if they were clean or riddled with dark dead skin. Maya and her siblings grew up believing that they should wear shoes when they would go somewhere.

Maya looked at her youngest sister’s slim clean toes as she listened to her give the two yayas hushed instructions about baby bags and carriages and other baby stuff. Maya tried to imagine those toes swollen on her last trimester just two months before and chuckled as she thought now the family baby has two babies.

Maya had stayed away from their home in Naga in the early months of her youngest sister’s pregnancy because she had been angry at her for getting pregnant again so soon and for some other things. But she went home after her youngest sister hesitantly asked for her through their sisters, Is Manay Maya still mad at me? Please tell her I miss her and that I love her. She always asked for her Manay Maya’s presence when she was pregnant though did not demand it.

Maya always made her laugh with her silly stories like that time she named the penguins in her youngest sister’s violet comforter as they snuggled together in bed when she was first pregnant. Her youngest sister kept on giggling to Maya’s, This is Cris, he’s gay… That one’s Sydney, he doesn’t like the cold, definitely doesn’t like ice cream, thinks he’s not a penguin…That’s Shanika, she’s a girl. Yeah, I know these penguins all look like guys. Now that one, well, the penguins just call him Mofo because he’s a badass motherfucker but Shanika really likes him. But he is actually Cris’ secret boyfriend. Uh-huh, Cris told me but they are quiet about it because Mofo’s mama doesn’t know that…

It still felt unreal to Maya though she was happy seeing her youngest sister as a devoted mother, an obedient daughter, a diligent student and not the way she had been for ten years. “Juvenile delinquent” seemed too tame to describe someone who had always run away and gotten kicked out of schools; hustled money in billiard halls; involved in brawls; used and pushed drugs; and pawned most of their mother’s jewelry, the television in one of the bedrooms and even their father’s cameras.

Her youngest sister even thought of stealing and selling the family van one time but thankfully she had changed her mind about that because they wouldn’t know where to reclaim that, too. She and her Manay Maya would sometimes joke about those things, Kasi naman ang laki nun van! Di mabitbit nang ganun ka simple, di ba!

When Maya was in college, she and their mother found her one time in an apartment owned by a Bicolana and her Caucasian partner supposedly generously sheltering runaways who were maybe turned into prostitutes in Naga City. Their mother twisted her ankle that afternoon: she didn’t see where she was going for she was crying because her youngest daughter wouldn’t come home with them. Maya wanted to cry too but she only helped her mother up and wiped her mother’s tears as she soothed, It’s okay, Mommy, It’s okay, Let’s go home, You should rest, I’ll come back here and take her back home, I’ll take care of this, Don’t you worry.

At another time while they were still living in their Kalayaan apartment in Quezon City, Maya, her Manay Gigi and their father found the small apartment where she was hiding out in the inner streets of Tondo. Pasensya na po, andito po noong isang araw pero wala na po siya dito, the mother of her friend had apologized to their father’s humble “po”. Her Manay Gigi had mumbled why does she want to stay in places like these as they noted the kites that crashed onto electric wires in a place crowded with electric posts and the wakes at almost every garbage-ridden corner. Maya wanted to answer, Because this is where she feels she deserves to be, with the dirt, but she kept quiet and just constantly palmed the hidden knife on the waistband of her jeans that whole night while their father remained calm, so calm in their futility that night. Her Manay Gigi forbade Maya, Don’t you come back here to look and wait for her, you hear me?

And then there was one time that her youngest sister had returned to their home in Naga, dirty and thin and crazy and calmly telling their father as she held a gun that she was going to kill someone. There were too many of those times and the “times” had become blurred through time.

They all knew why her youngest sister was like that.

She told them as if it were nothing wrong when she was in Grade 4 and Maya saw her father’s eyes close while he bent as if he could not breathe. Maya felt it, too, felt that she had failed her sister. But they never talked about it again, never really told anyone else, except they just spent less and less time with their mother’s family. Maya was relieved and they just went about with their altered lives.

Maya and her youngest sister used to be as close as twins, one light and the other dark. But nobody seemed to notice that both burned from the same darkness until it burned out Maya that summer seven years ago and she woke up to her mother praying the rosary in a room in the Mother Seton hospital. Bright and strong Maya had tried to kill herself and it did not make sense. Her nervous breakdown and relentless attempted suicides after needed explaining because her family did not understand why. The doctors in Naga and then Manila had to pry it out of her silence with this and that treatment through the following months to get her to talk.

Maya finally cried to her parents, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t want this to happen, You weren’t supposed to know, I’ve tried to hold on, to keep it all in but it’s all just pouring out… struggling the whole time to cover and smother the howls coming out of her mouth as she shook and shook.

They were all afraid that whole time that one day Maya would not even try to kill herself but would simply stop, go to sleep and never wake up. To save Maya, the doctors in Manila told them, the closeness that binds the two sisters need to be cut because they’ve become mental and emotional barometers of each other. As long as Maya feels responsible for her sister then she won’t get well. They need to be separated. It was killing Maya and she was killing herself more and more because she would rather die than choose herself over her sister and lose her.

But Maya was saved and her youngest sister had become more lost.

It was difficult to think of it as real that only five years ago her youngest sister was actually drugged by their parents with the help of their family doctors to sleep so that they could take her to a rehabilitation center that cost about 50 000 pesos a month. Maya had been so angry at their parents at that time, In rehab?! She will feel that you’ve given up on her because you don’t know what to do with her! Then after eight or so months from being released her sister seemed to be fine for a year, disappeared from them the next, and then came back to them one Christmas. And that a year and a half ago was pregnant and married.

It was all yesterday.

By that time Maya was saved from the confusion and violence of her sister’s life because she had learned to become cold to it. At times she was grateful that she was no longer responsible for her sister’s life but then the guilt would overwhelm her once more. She had become a fragile and feared guest in her family’s lives, someone who simply watched and would leave to blind herself with gin or simply go far away in her head when she couldn’t watch anymore. She would wonder then if she were saved.

Is that Mommy’s blouse? Maya asked her youngest sister now.

Ompo. It fits me now.

Her youngest sister had just finished dressing Lakay, her one-and-a-half-year-old son and he looked like a little man in his jeans, yellow shirt and brown leather shoes. He had a smile that was angelic one minute and a duende’s the next. Now it was angelic as he happily sucked on his bottle. In the crib Maya saw Iman, her one-month-old niece, in a pink dress and a pink hair band that both looked pretty and absurd on that little sleeping head.

Why are you going? Maya asked.

Because I want them to see my beautiful children, her youngest sister answered and added, Better not let Lakay see you or else he would want to play again.

Maya turned to see that happy smile turn naughty and she slipped out of the room before he could hit her with anything he was holding--- probably the big plastic spoon his Mama now but their Mommy first gave him for Christmas. Maya was glad for the excuse not to be alone and talk more to her sister at that time, afraid of what else she might say that would awaken her sister’s memories.

She went to the sala and saw her only brother Boy dressed in jeans, the long-sleeves he was wearing rolled to his forearms in the current style and one leather-slipper shod foot propped on his knee, watching the Discovery Channel on the television. He had taken a sabbatical from law school and their mother was still not talking to him because of this.

Well, what did he expect, really? Maya thought, That was half a million from their mother’s retirement money all down a basket with a hole.

He was convinced that he needed to be in law school because the family needed a lawyer to defend and protect them and Maya had asked him one time that what if, what if law school wasn’t meant for him?

Sometimes she would get really angry at him too for he was spoiled and ambivalent and can he at least please do some household chores since you’re not doing anything else? And he had retorted that he had been good all his life, that he didn’t give the family any problems unlike you Manay and our youngest sister and can I just have this break and not be responsible and good just this once.

Boy didn’t even look at her. He preferred not to mind about anyone else’s business and she knew that he would rather not ask questions when he wouldn’t like the answers.

Beside him their father was dressed too and was waiting quietly but impatiently for everyone to finish dressing. His clothes were probably chosen by their mother or her Manay Ipil once again because he was color blind.

Maya had done that too and still did sometimes. How many times had she packed his clothes when he needed to go out of town for work? Or took off his socks and shoes and gave him his slippers when he would come home from work. Or brought him coffee immediately after or when he was drunk or endured his slaps and beatings of frustration. How long had she and everyone lived afraid of what this fierce man could do?

Maya had stopped being afraid even of him seven years ago that she did not hesitate to tell the truth when one night he had asked her, What can I do…What can I do to keep you alive?

Drugged, she had calmly answered, I want him dead. Only then this will stop.

She saw how her father had feared her dead eyes that said Do you think it matters if you don’t? I’m dead. I have nothing more to lose. If you don’t get him killed, I will with my own hands.

He had nodded and seeing that her father meant it she began crying once more, Don’t kill anyone, Daddy, Please don’t, You’ll go to Hell, I don’t want you to go to Hell. Besides, her mother would never allow that sin on her husband and children’s souls the way Maya never allowed any of those who love her to kill him. And her father couldn’t even hug her that night while she was crying because she wouldn’t allow anyone to touch her, Don’t, Don’t, You now know I’m dirty, I’ll taint you, It’s all my fault...

Where’s your Manay Embet? her father asked her now.

She’s resting. She got her period. She’s not going, Maya answered.

He nodded and that was all he or anyone could do when it came to her third Manay. Nobody could make her do anything that she didn’t want to do and it had always been like that.

Yaya, mig-iba ika, Igin? he asked her gently if she were going.

Inda, Daddy, Maya replied her indecision to him, grateful for his bluntness.

He just nodded once more, Go talk to Mommy.

As Maya walked towards her parents’ bedroom she wondered about this wanting to go to Santiago to see her dying grandmother. It was probably because of Ma’am Pacita’s death weeks ago; they said she died a day or so after her birthday. They said she was happy and excited about the planned Christmas party and she was dead the next day.

Maya wished sometimes that Ma’am was her own grandmother. She wished that she kept her appointment for that last conversation after their class about how life was beautiful. She wished that she called and spoke to her before she died so that she could tell her about what went wrong in her life and why she was the way she was. After all, Ma’am Pacita asked and no one had asked her about that in a long time, seven years to be exact.

Now it was too late, too late because she didn’t have time and she couldn’t even bring herself to go to the wake or the funeral or cry or think why she wanted to cry for a dead professor or for an estranged dying grandmother.

She had been dreaming of Ma’am for the past three weeks and in her dreams Maya was so happy to see the professor alive. In her dreams they were talking and Ma’am had told her why life was indeed beautiful, only Maya couldn’t remember what her professor told her every time she woke up.

As she opened the door to her parent’s bedroom she was soothed once more by how everything in this room smelled better, looked softer, and how the air was cooler. Her mother turned to look and smile at her and returned to looking down on her hands as she applied lotion. She was wearing a white blouse that camouflaged the size of a belly that bore six children, red slacks, and red shoes. Then her mother turned to the mirror and smoothed cream over the blackened areas on her face, burned by menopause and the sun. Maya sat on the bed to watch her mother as she applied make-up, just as she always had when she was young, always in half-awe, wondering when she would be able to do the same.

Mommy, does Mama ever ask about me, about us? Or is her sole concern still just her other grandchildren? Maya asked her.

She looked at Maya through the mirror, surprised and wary that she asked about her grandmother, Yes, she’s been asking about you. Then more softly, I told her that time that she was hospitalized and almost died that she lost my children’s love for her.

Maya remembered that it was just last year: her mother had asked her when she would be returning to Manila because she was bringing Mama from the Mother Seton hospital to their home so that she could nurse her. She couldn’t bring her to their home as long as Maya was there because they wouldn’t really take the risk of Maya’s flaring up and doing something. Maya wanted to cry and scream at her mother then because she felt like she was being sent away from her own home. But Maya understood and left.

And Maya thought of the times in the past seven years that her mother would always go to her mother and how she always felt abandoned and betrayed because it seemed that her mother always chose her mother and relatives over her own daughter and family.

She thought of how her mother asked them to go to that grand reunion two years ago. Maya asked how her mother could still think of bringing her children to that reunion after all that had happened. Maya had cried to them in her fury, Why are we even discussing this? If we go then it would be as if nothing happened!

Her father and siblings understood what was unsaid and had asked, If you really don’t want us to go because you think that we’re choosing them over you then we won’t go to the reunion. But Ma needs to go…

Maya, her youngest sister who was pregnant with her first child, and her Manay Embet chose not to go. Her father, Manay Ipil, Manay Gigi and Boy had gone with their mother because of course they could not let her go alone to face her relatives’ condemnation and whatever else would happen. Boy told Maya when they returned to Manila that he got involved in a confrontation in that reunion with him who had dared to censure her brother on his disrespectful demeanor towards him. Her brother had fearlessly said to him, Uno? Dapat tay kang irespeto dahil gurang ika kanaku? Uno gigibuwun mo kanaku?! Uno! Kaya mo KO?!

Maya told their father about it and he cursed in frustration, He should have told me. Badilun kong adtung masimut na da supug na adto!

And that was why her brother didn’t bother to tell their father then. Maya knew that her father kept a gun in the car and shook her head at him, Bayda. Kaya nga sinasabi ko don’t associate with those people anymore. Her father knew that if she was there and she saw him, she would have gone for the nearest sharp object and stabbed him. Or grabbed whatever she could to slam him. Or walked back to the car and got the gun.

Then Maya had quietly laughed to her father, I definitely can kill him just with my hands but to touch him? Yuck, Dad! Kadiri! You know, they really should hide that motherfucking animal because if I see him…Maray sana kung talakan ko sanay ya. Her father had laughed at the idea of his daughter berating someone to death.

Her mother had explained every time Maya had asked why they dress up and go that she was just being a dutiful daughter to her mother. And that it should never be said of her, her husband and her children that they weren’t good people and that they didn’t do their duty to her family. Her mother explained that she wanted to show them that her children were not defeated and turned out all better despite the past.

Maya didn’t understand why they needed to show this to those people though she understood that it was something that her mother needed to do, and that her mother needed to go every time because she loved her mother.

What did Mama say to that? Maya asked her through the mirror now.

She cried, her mother replied.

Maya thought of the last time she spoke to her grandmother in San Roque seven years ago. She saw her grandmother cry then but then it was just a granddaughter’s love seeing those tears that said that her grandmother was sorry.

Her grandmother did not cry when Maya had told her what her precious grandson did to her and her sister. She told her how he had done the same things to most of her younger cousins, granddaughters and grandsons alike. Maya told her that most of her cousins would turn out like her or her sister then or worse in the future if something wasn’t done.

Maya told her that it was wrong, so wrong, please help us, what are we going to do? Mama you have to do something. Her grandmother was the matriarch and everyone did her bidding.

She believed then that if she told her grandmother what happened then what was done could be undone and the wrong would be set to right. He would be punished and so was every adult who had been blind to it, the mothers and fathers who couldn’t protect their children, the mother who had born and cosseted him, and the grandmother who was God but was not omniscient after all.

Maya believed then that she herself should be punished, especially her for failing to save her sister; for not saying anything sooner that could have saved all of them; for being afraid that nobody would believe her; for being terrified that she would be blamed; and for say something that would mean losing their Mama, their aunts and uncles who were like second parents, and their cousins who were almost like sisters and brothers. She believed that she should be punished for revealing something which she had already seen hurt and almost destroyed her own family when her youngest sister was in Grade 4.

Her grandmother had only said to Maya that night seven years ago, Forgive and forget… Just understand because you and your siblings are smarter than your cousins and you’ve had better opportunities…That your cousin has lost his father at a very young age while you have both your parents so he and they should be loved more…Just understand…Just forgive and forget…

And that was when Maya stopped crying, stopped trying, stopped respecting, stopped loving them. Maybe it was the drugs that finally worked and made her still. Maybe it was from a fractured mind that finally understood that there was no hope, no retribution, the past cannot be undone and that she couldn’t have what was lost. Maybe it was from a granddaughter’s broken heart that understood she and her siblings were not loved by her grandmother or by any of them.

Maya started screaming at her grandmother, Forget?! Don’t you think that I want to forget, too? I live with the memory everyday! They’re in my head everyday! And you are lucky that you would die soon and maybe then, maybe then you can really forget what happened!

Maya kept on screaming, Because this time I AM the one saying it! I am older and I know I am not stupid! I know what happened and it happened for years! Why don’t you ask your other grandchildren? They know! Pray that they are as stupid as you are and as you think they are and that they would never realize what was done to them! And do you really think that your God will forgive you and your other children for not doing anything knowing this now?! You really think that you would go to Heaven when you’re all dead?!

There was no miracle remedy to make Maya forget unwanted memories, not even time, so Maya did not forget. And it all would keep on happening in her head asleep or awake, forever, until she was finally dead.

Nothing was done, not even when her mother and father wanted to file a case seven years ago but Mama stopped them because it would shame the family name and just make things worse. It happened a long time ago anyway, Mama and her mother’s family had said, and what would the court say? And what good would that do?

Nothing was done even when her own mother had cried to her mother so many times …My daughter has hidden this for fourteen years and is killing herself because of this! Gusto nang magraan ka igin ko! Ginuguraan niya sadiri niya ta abu na niya kining buhay niya! Abu na niya ka nasa payu niya! Siisay man Ma gustong mabuhay na arug kan! Diyos ko Ma…Diyos ko Ma…Nagsirbi ko ka ninyo Ma… Mga igin ko di Ma and you won’t help stop this and the pain they’ve been feeling for so long!

Nothing was done and her mother’s siblings whom Maya and her siblings had all loved and thought cared for them had said that how dare Maya disrespect Mama, that she was crazy anyway, that she and her sister lied, and then said that she and her sister had wanted those things that he did to happen to them. These elders who were once their second parents said that Maya at six until she was twelve had asked for it from him.

I fought him, Maya thought, But he said that if I refused and told anyone then he would do it to my baby sister…

One of her mother’s brothers did ask his sons after that night in San Roque if it were true and his sons denied it. Five years later and just after that grand reunion, one who was the same age as her youngest sister ran away from Iriga City and her youngest sister had asked them if he could stay with them in their Masikap apartment in Quezon City. Their mother was against it, knowing that this would invade her children’s privacy and anger her family more. But Maya had quipped to her, You and Dad taught us well about being helpful and kind.

While staying with them, that boy had hesitantly said to Maya then, Manay Maya I’m sorry that we lied when they asked us. We knew that if we told the truth it would hurt our Mama… And Papa will… Besides, he was still…still threatening us…

Maya had only replied, I know, knowing that it was too late, seeing how damaged that boy was.

Nothing was done and everyone tried so hard to forget.

They forgot because it was easy to forget something that they wanted to believe never happened. They pretended that nothing happened in that house in Santiago and San Roque. Maya had scoffed through the years, Keep on hiding the dirty secret and pretending but why then are you so angry at us and why when the wrong was done to us?

They all went about with what was left of their lives for what else was there to do?

Lucky, lucky Mama, old and forgetful and dead soon, Maya thought now. She thought of seeing her grandmother once more and telling her that she came not because she asked but because her mother asked and she was a dutiful daughter---- but that she would never forgive her or any of them because she does not forget.

She thought of telling her grandmother again the same story she told seven years ago, thought of watching her grandmother’s eyes close and tears spill from the details. She thought of twisting that knife of guilt until her Mama was crying blood. She thought of telling her about her sweetest nightmare several nights ago--- of her stabbing him again and again and again and her Mama and them burning in Hell. She thought of telling her grandmother how she cursed her and him and them a very painful life and slow death.

Maya sighed, perhaps it would be better, perhaps it would all be better if she dressed and went to Santiago.

She could go to her grandmother, hug her and kiss her. They would instead speak of all the good things in her life. She thought of asking her Mama to tell her good stories about Santiago before it all happened. They would talk and pretend that nothing happened. There will be peace and they can all be a happy family again before all these happened.

These thoughts brought sweet relief from the rage and pain that had been dulled through the years and that would only assault her every time they all dressed carefully to go.

She wanted this to end.

You should get dressed, her mother said.

Maya looked at her mother in the mirror for a time.

Then she looked at herself in the mirror wishing that she would see her mother’s goodness in her.

She looked and saw that she would break her mother’s heart.

“No,” I said to my mother and I stood up, turned around, and left my parents’ bedroom.