Chinita Dilemma

The lazy afternoon sun had hidden behind the gray clouds ever since our fieldtrip bus reached Paete, a rural town that was well known for its woodcarvers. The weak sunlight inundated the inner friezes of the local church and lent an ethereal glow to its cobblestone walls. I pulled out my mobile phone and checked the time; a quick glimpse at my humble Nokia 3310 told me that I had a good half-hour before our bus� scheduled departure, when the church�s afternoon services will start. Gray curls of cigarette smoke drifted upwards from my lit cigarette as I brought it to my lips for another puff.

A cool breeze from Laguna bay wafted through the belfry window, bearing away the ashen haze that permeated the room. I had been standing alone inside the topmost room of the belfry for the past half hour; the antiquated church bell served as my only company. A steep, narrow, and rather dark flight of stairs, the only passage between the bell and the room below, served sufficient to deter most of my classmates at the state university from examining my temporary sanctuary. They were worried for their safety, believing that the slightest misstep would send them crashing down below with numerous broken bones; I alone braved the darkness and the dust to enjoy the beautiful scenery from the summit.

The amusing sight of my rambunctious classmates down below beckoned to me from the low recessed window. I took a seat on the moss-covered cobblestone to see them herding like ants around the church�s front courtyard and displaying the wooden carvings that they had bought for souvenirs. The instructor in my Visual Arts class had organized a fieldtrip for the entire Saturday throughout the various towns of the southern province; our required reaction paper for the fieldtrip demanded a thorough description of each town�s native arts, crafts and tourist attractions, including Paete�s quaint, Spanish-era church.

My eyes caught a slight movement in the crowd, and I squinted to see Maricar Palanan, one of my classmates, waving and smiling at me from down below. �Hey, Tano!� Her voice carried my sobriquet high up to the window ledge where I sat. She then disappeared from my field of vision when she entered the church�s stone archway.

I had only become acquainted with Carrie, as she was called by her friends, this semester despite our similar junior standing. I knew next to nothing about her except for the fact that she pronounces the plural of the word �gray� with an �s� sound instead of a �z�; we hardly approached each other save perhaps for the trivial greetings and questions regarding requirement deadlines in our Visual Arts class. Notwithstanding the fact that we had never been formally introduced, she always greeted me with the smile that only she could give, showing off those prominent yet adorable dimples that formed part of her irresistible charm.

In order to become more familiar with Carrie, I asked a mutual friend, Rom, about her over a beer-drinking session. He had looked at me with suspicion before asking: �You have a crush on her, don�t you? Admit it.�

I had then chosen to take his remark in jest. �Come on, Rom. Why would I have a crush on her? You know my type; the girl must be chinita, kind, and humble enough to eat isaw. Carrie�s definitely no chinita, right?�

�I don�t know much about her.� His hands dipped into the plastic case and drew out another bottle of ice cold Red Horse. �She�s a speech communications major in your course, right?�

�I don�t know. You tell me.�

�I think she�s from Lumban. She�s an assistant stage manager for a theater production this semester.� His subsequent giggles of mirth annoyed me somewhat. �By the way, her batch�s two years behind yours. You�re too old for her, Tano. You should have graduated already. You should be going after those co�otic chicks in Makati.�

�Who said anything about courting her? Why do you keep thinking that?�

He patted me on the back with the all-knowing yet irritatingly erroneous mien of an old friend. �You don�t have to deny it. It�s obvious that you like her.�

�Why the hell do you keep saying that?�

He stared at me drunkenly, enjoying my uneasiness at his line of questioning. �That�s exactly how you reacted when I asked you about that chinita chick from La Salle. I know you too well, boy. What happened with you two, anyway? You were courting her, right?�

I shrugged in silence and swallowed my own mouthful of beer.

�Busted again, huh?� His drained body leaned back on the couch upon seeing my dejected gesture. �I told you to never go after those La Salle chicks. They�re too co�otic for their own good.�

The wisdom of his slurred words had marked a bulls-eye on my wounded heart. Just last month, I had been head over heels in lust over Abby, a certain BS Psychology student of De La Salle University at Dasmari�as. For me, she was the image of perfection, with her chinita eyes, her cream-colored skin and luscious curves. She alone had countered my every argumentative thrust about literary metaphors, parrying each attack on J.D. Salinger�s �Catcher in the Rye� with a riposte of her own. In admiration of such exceptional beauty and intellect, I had courted her for several weeks, despite her expensive preference for date venues and upper-class distaste for lower-class diversions.

One fateful afternoon in Manila brought my enterprising courtship to an end. We had taken a short walk along Taft Avenue from Burger King to visit her sister in St. Scholastica; the smoggy yet otherwise romantic atmosphere of our leisurely stroll failed to interest her in her haste to see her sister�s violin performance. The goddess of fate must have looked upon me with interest, for we chanced upon one of my kababayan street vendors, carrying a basket full of balut. Her chinita eyes squinted in displeasure upon my purchase of what her aristocratic sensibilities called �unclean food�; her haughty protests did not deter me from sucking on my balut with glee and relish. The final straw broke the camel�s back, however, when she keeled over and vomited on the sidewalk in her disgust as I chewed on the slimy yet crunchy feathers.

That single incident brought my arduous courtship to a decisive end. After that incident, her long list of derogatory labels for me included words such as unrefined, coarse, provinciano, jologs, and unborn-chick murderer. Since then, I had been careful enough to screen future courtship prospects with my three conditions, to prevent wasteful investment of my time, energy and money.

I had long believed that the process of finding a suitable relationship with a partner possessed many similarities with solving a jig-saw puzzle. When faced with that single cavity standing out in middle of the puzzle, one must analyze the remaining pieces to find the appropriate missing puzzle fragment. One may discover that some sides of a trial piece fit within the curvature of the puzzle gap, but, unless all sides have corresponding curves, the piece simply won�t fit. I held the same precepts for women; the only girl for me had to fit all my standards of beauty, kindness, and appreciation for the simpler things in life, before I would even consider undergoing the actual pursuit.

My senses returned from musings of my former life as I put out my cigarette against one of the stone wall�s crevices. The possibility of Carrie gagging at the sight of isaw was remote; her rural upbringing distanced her from Abby�s high social standing. To my horror, I realized that I had been checking her against my triad of prerequisites, in accordance with Rom�s predictions. �Absolutely not, absolutely not...,� I mumbled my mantra several times just before Carrie�s flinty voice suddenly called out to me from within the belfry room, startling me from my survey of the courtyard. �Hey, Tano!�

With my breath caught in my throat, I turned around, away from the open window, before responding to her light-hearted greeting. �Hi, Carrie. How long have you been here?� The depth of my introspection had probably deadened my ears to the sound of her footsteps until she called my name. I wondered whether she had seen me mumbling to myself and had declared me insane. She stood at the head of the stairwell, with the pale afternoon sunlight shedding its glow on her fair complexion, blissfully unaware of how she rattled my nerves with her unexpected arrival.

�Oh, just got here.� As if on cue, another gentle breeze punctuated her curt explanation, fanning her bangs to one side. She smoothed her neck-length tresses with a quick and graceful movement of her hand, letting her straight, raven-black hair drape across her ears and hug her nape. �I wasn�t expecting you to be all alone up here. Did anybody else come up besides us?�

I shook my head wordlessly. The fact that she had just surpassed the trial of the precipitous staircase left me speechless and impressed by her audacity, a trait uncommon among her peers down below. She started walking up the rickety ladder that bridged the old wooden rafters and the dusty stone floor, towards my seat on the window ledge.

�Hey, Tano, you have a light?� Her slender fingers placed one of her cigarettes between her full, red lips. I handed her my lighter as I took out my pack of Marlboro Menthol Lights, and watched her take the first puff in the silence of the belfry. She stared at me with those lovable doe eyes while I lit my own stick. To me she looked positively gorgeous; she only lacked those chinita eyes to be perfect.

�What do you think of the field trip so far?� I scooted over the window ledge in case she wanted a seat; the wide window ledge had enough room for two people. �We still have to visit that Spanish house in Pila before our trip home.�

She accepted my unspoken invitation. �I don�t think we�ll make it, you know. It�s getting dark and I think it�s going to rain. Ma�am wants us to be back at Los Ba�os by seven, you know.�

�Thank goodness. I'm rather tired from all that traveling that we did today.�

"Chinita Dilemma", part two

Chinita Dilemma

Related Links