PEARLSHA ABUBAKAR | Limbo Years

PEARLSHA ABUBAKAR

Limbo Years

THE AUTHOR HOLDS THE COPYRIGHT TO THIS STORY. THIS IS POSTED WITH PERMISSION FROM THE AUTHOR.

My name, like certain cusswords in current usage, never fails to startle me.

�So, Miss Kerimeh Zubaira,� Eric Martinez began, rolling the r�s as if reciting a tongue-twister. I sat up in attention, a force of habit acquired from roll call. �If my memory serves me right, you are the first Muslim woman ever to set foot on these hallowed halls.�

I was squatting on the newly-waxed brick floor of the Collegian office, along with three other probationary writers � �probees� like myself. There was Kimmy, a perpetually-grinning lass who could have been no more than 12. She had attended high school at Makiling and wore yellow socks. Although she was quiet and reserved, she threw occasional one-liners that made us laugh. Meanwhile, Lester was a rather flamboyant Comparative Literature major who kept bringing up dead guys like Adorno and Nietzsche. He had long hair that fell just past the shoulders, and would tuck stray wisps in his ear whenever he emphasized a point. Then, there was Vinci, a short guy with a self-effacing humility that would astound even the obsequious Japanese. He spoke in a profound, flowery kind of Tagalog, but it was too soft and tentative to be truly annoying.

�Ah, excuse me, but I�m not Muslim,� I muttered, and laughed away incredulous stares. �I try my best, though.�

�So I assume you�ll be using a similarly confused voice in your future articles for this paper?� Eric said without batting an eyelash.

Was cultural identity part of the deal? I was barely 17, a college freshman who knew better than to throw away a piece of newsprint she was sitting on. I discovered the school paper that way, and before I could diminish Eric�s self-importance by telling him, he cut in.

�We liked your name that�s why we took you in. Make no assumptions about your literary prowess. Our reasons are quite stupid,� Eric explained. �Come to think of it, you are actually quite exceptional. You don�t wear a veil. In fact, you don�t wear much else,� he said, looking me over, at my sleeveless white blouse and stretch denim pants.

�Cut it out, Eric. You�re scaring us!� Kimmy cried in mock terror.

Eric was the reason people stayed or didn�t stay in the Collegian. He infuriated people. He was this squint-eyed, scraggly guy who had a goatee he scratched not infrequently whenever lost in space. He was neither ugly nor handsome, just the right blend of brotherliness and irreverence to repel scantily-clad women like myself, but with a sharp mind that immediately drew them back in. He had made the school paper an excuse to exceed his maximum residency at the university, having been a student for eight years now. He wore his dirty rubber flip-flops to his Business Administration elective classes, as some sort of fuck-the-establishment gesture.

Later, it was agreed that Eric would be lending each of us his Red Book on Maoist thought on a round robin basis, as well as treatises of Edward Said and Michel Foucault that he had bulky photocopies of somewhere, so that we could work them into our articles whenever necessary. �You all lack substance, my dears,� was our editor�s parting shot.

On the jeepney ride on the way out of campus, Kimmy and I exchanged stories while our hair flew. �What are you reading?� I asked her.

�Kurt Vonnegut. He�s funny,� she chuckled as she shifted her feet. Her yellow socks peeked from beneath her jeans.

I had never heard of Vonnegut. The only books I remembered reading with relish back in high school were �Flowers in the Attic� by VC Andrews, Harlequin romances, and novels by Sidney Sheldon, and they were so vigorously passed secretly around that their leaves would fall out. Suddenly, I felt I had missed out on something huge and important, and a stab fell right through the heart.

�Can you lend me a book? Anything by this Vonnegut guy?� I asked. She nodded and mumbled something like �Sirens of Titan.� Then, we fell silent, stunned by the wind and Madonna suddenly issuing forth from the speakers.

FOR MY FIRST ARTICLE, Eric had me analyze editorial cartoons. The piece was called �Editorializing the Cartoon� and it was a disaster. Actually, it was fantastic, because Eric The Great ended up writing much of it. I was stuck on noting the aesthetics; he wanted the political aspect, the fact that it was not an accurate depiction of the masa sentiment, but merely the representation of an elite, the all-important newspaper publisher.

�Must there always be an oppressor?� I asked, exasperated.

�We live in a capitalist system which is oppressive, to say the least,� he explained, exasperated.

The constant rewriting of this debut article kept me awake for many nights, to the ineluctable dismay of my mother. �Look at what you�re doing to yourself! You won�t be able to finish college, and you�re going to be a vegetable before you even begin to earn money to pay for your hospital expenses!� she snickered.

I hadn�t told Mama about my stint at the school paper, afraid that she would blow up and have a heart attack on the spot. She didn�t want me to have anything to do with extra-curricular activities, especially after the night of the Incident, when I didn�t come right home from school and went with Aya instead to attend a party at her house that lasted until the wee hours. To prove that what I had attended was a harmless gathering, I had to accompany my parents to Aya�s house the following morning. They and Aya�s folks talked for quite a bit about the restlessness and recklessness of today�s youth.

When we got home, my father blew up and said he wouldn�t pay for my education anymore. But when I passed the exam for the only university I applied for, he became too proud to remember any of his harsh words. Since she was also proud, Mama conveniently forgot everything. But now, every misstep, no matter how small, had the effect of magnifying the Incident into unbearable proportions.

So I kept quiet about the school paper, and explained away my weekly articles as assignments or research papers.

And then I had to wake up early in the morning to join my father and mother in the Subuh (or was it Isa?) prayers. I had to do it for a total of three months a year, whenever my father was in Manila. The rest of the year he spent in Sulu with his first family. I was kind of blas� about the whole thing -- the praying, I mean, not the first family. It was something that I had already dealt with � the first family -- and easily too, since the two families were separated by several bodies of land and water. I had two brothers and one sister from that family. Since they�d gotten married and created problems � families of their own --they seemed to have stopped caring about where my father was at certain times of the year.

Out of sight, out of mind.

After the prayers, my father, who made me call him Aba, after the Arabic, would adjust his kantiu which had inadvertently loosened at the waist from all that bowing and standing up, and read Koranic passages to me and my mother, a former Catholic turned second wife. His favorite text was the one that said �Go and be a foe unto one another.� It was the statement that made a lot of sense, given the context of his life. A few years ago, he hatched a plan to get his two wives to live under one roof. His great grandfather had 37 wives who all lived together peacefully, and he only had two. So he invited Mama and my stepmother to dinner, to talk about �things.� The two women ended up unearthing precious details about my father�s womanizing and money-squandering years, and according to Mama, my stepmother was so furious she hit Aba with her leather bag in front of many people at the restaurant.

However, his frustrations with his wives made him a patient teacher. He started giving me lessons in Islam when I was in grade six. He made me memorize Arabic paragraphs full of sibilants, which later turned out to be prayers. Sometimes, I fell asleep just by reciting them. They had a hypnotic, open-sesame quality that opened my heart to the possibilities of being a Muslim, but failed to slice my mind open. Knowing this, my Father dished out the best of Islam, much like what singers do with their Greatest Hits compilation, and wooed me and my mother to his side with a deep baritone that shook the walls, the side effect of many years of being a Sulu councilor. He explained to me the beauty of having more than one wife. �Love is all about multiplication, not division,� he chuckled. He had a lyrical philosophy revolving on the beauty of altruism, on offering a self to a collective other for a higher purpose, the nature of which can only be gleaned after death. I had a taste of this philosophy while he was going over his credit card billing statement one day.

�Look at the unjust banking system of the non-Muslim world,� he said in his characteristic booming voice, as if he had hundreds for an audience. �They charge interest at such usurious rates. In Islam, that�s not allowed.�

�That�s why Islamic banks easily go bankrupt,� I quipped.

�That�s the most unintelligent thing I�ve ever heard you say,� he said. �Look at Saudi, Brunei, Malaysia, Kuwait. These are all Muslim nations, and they�re all blessed by Allah with many riches,� he explained. With his droopy brown eyes and thick moustache, Aba looked like Saddam Hussein on uppers. He would wildly gesticulate to stress a point, bringing out an innocence that endeared me to him on a soul level, while repelling me on the cerebral. He looked like a little boy with uncombed gray hair. Suddenly, I felt I had better things to do than argue with a child, even if I knew Bangladesh and Somalia were Muslim nations too, yet they were dirt-poor.

UP TO THIS POINT, university life had been a bore. My teachers were young, not the gray-haired heavyweights I expected. They had just graduated from college, earning their MAs and PHDs to pay for some vertical mobility. The negligible age gap between teacher and student gave me a reason not to care about my studies. I read on my own. I read Kurt Vonnegut and laughed. I read the poems of Ogden Nash and laughed. Eric lent me his Playboy magazine, and I pored over its feminist essays while fleshy cunts eyed me from the next page.

Whenever I introduced myself to people, I stressed the Keri in Kerimeh, and expressed my surname in an incomprehensible stream. I didn�t want to entertain too many questions about my ethnic identity, since I felt I didn�t have one to begin with.

I did have a character for a teacher, though: an aging opinion columnist for a widely-circulated broadsheet who taught Media Ethics. He sort of congratulated me for making it to the Collegian staffbox. �So you�re in the Collegian,� he told me wryly after class, not even expecting a reply. It was enough to send my heart doing somersaults.

There were only two types of men I wanted to please: gray-haired professors and Eric.

After my classes, I would go to the office on the fourth floor of our student affairs building, exchange a few words with Mang Carding, the unofficial office help who hung around at the office to clean and floor wax the premises, and who hoped to finagle a few pesos from anyone who made the mistake of loitering around. Then I would see if any of my section mates were around, and invite them for lunch. Vinci, our soft-spoken colleague, was the favorite victim of Mang Carding, and that particular Wednesday, I caught a rare glimpse of the poet�s indignation.

�Is this the way to live a life, Mang Carding? Don�t you have relatives?� Vinci ranted by the door as Mang Carding stretched out a palm to ask for money. Vinci looked at me looking at him, then took out ten pesos from his wallet and gave it to the old man. Mang Carding hastily scurried away, like a squirrel with a nut.

�You�re too kind,� I told Vinci over lunch.

�You�re beautiful, Keri,� he said.

�Now what has gotten into you today?� I smiled.

�Nah, I didn�t think I was your type,� he said, and a new assertiveness was coming out that hadn�t been there before. His voice was somewhat louder and less tentative, especially now that he was no longer justifying frameworks of analysis to Eric.

�You have to meet Ambon.�

�Forget it,� I laughed. �My parents already have plans of setting me up to this bloke I haven�t even met.� It was true. Aba brought it up after the Incident. He said that if I didn�t take my studies seriously, then he might as well just marry me off to someone he knew, to save him from further headaches.

�I just want you to meet him,� insisted Vinci. �He�ll come by tomorrow during the secmeet to wait for me. We�re going together to our aunt�s exhibit.�

Back in my exclusive Catholic high school, there was such a dearth of males that we feasted our sights on anyone who looked like one. And of course, Aba was always in the back of my mind, stoking the embers of my guilt with such unbelievably cinematic lines like �We raise you, take care of you, send you to the best schools. We plant the seed, watch the tree grow, only for the fruits to be enjoyed by someone else! We won�t allow that! We�re the ones who planted the seed! We get the fruit first!�

�All right,� I told Vinci forcefully, trying to blot my father out of my mind.

MY FATHER TALKED about men with distaste. He tortured me with stories of jinna, a grave sin in Islam, in which you consort with a man other than your husband, thus making you impure and disallowed from Heaven. He told me about his aunt Nona, who let a man sneak into her dorm room, let him into her heart and soul, only for him to squeal on her to his other dorm mates, until they started forming a queue right outside her door. Aunt Nona later married a drunkard who had no respect for her, and she died of a heart attack while washing her husband�s briefs.

You don�t want that to happen, do you? my father warned. So be like Myra. Myra was a cousin who got married to the son of the Sultan because she was, by all accounts, pure -- although by another cousin�s account, she played around whenever she was on vacation in Europe. The more women were pure, the more valuable they became over time, not unlike a piece of land or jewelry (so the more their husbands didn�t touch them, I said.) My mother always agreed with whatever my father said. After all, she was pure when she and Aba were married. Hell, they were 16 years apart! Aba had already plucked the flower of my mother even before she had the chance to grow into a fruit! So I always carried in me this insane self-righteousness, this feeling that I was special. I was not going to be just a fruit, but a legitimate tree with poison fruits growing out of it, so that no one would dare eat me.

Thus, I found myself promptly dismissing Ambon at the back of my mind. He would be just as interesting as his cousin Vinci, who didn�t interest me at all. He would be so intimidated by me and by my social and ethnic background (which I would claim to have even if I didn�t have one) that he wouldn�t dare see me again.

However, when we came out of the room after the secmeet that night, it hit me. Something hard pummeled me in the stomach, and Ambon caught me red-faced and reeling.

�What�s the matter?� he asked nobody in particular as I doubled over. My colleagues looked at me strangely.

�Nothing.� I hissed.

This was how Ambon looked.

He looked like a light bulb, lit. A halo of light surrounded his head, as if some inert gas was leaking from him and reacting to the charge of that moment. The only explanation I had for this was that the fabric of the universe must have ripped for an instant, letting some lightning pass, causing that chemical reaction as well as some damage to my eyes, because seconds after, I started seeing things in slow motion. I saw a pencil drop to the floor. I had visions of blankets billowing on a clothesline in a field of Bermuda grass. I saw that he had craters on his face, but the light made them look agreeable, like scars of war.

The glare I received from that strange illumination effectively put Ambon�s physical features in question. Later, I would relentlessly interrogate Vinci as to how his cousin really looked like. Did he have pimples? Large nose? Did he have the same elf-ears as Vinci�s? I couldn�t tell. Vinci brought me photographs and I marveled at the huge discrepancy between the ideal and the reality.

Ambon was one of those geniuses I�d never heard of before. He was the president of Pluma, a writers organization on campus. He wrote feature articles for newspapers, and contributed an occasional poem or two. His mother, Alunsina Esteban, was a respected dance choreographer. His father was the famous printmaker Romulo Ledesma, who did a print of the Sulu sea, with a lone vinta breaking the waves and with Mt. Tumantangis, the Mountain of Tears, looming in the background. According to Aba, the mountain was so named because it was the first thing the Suluano saw when he arrived, and the last one when he left.

Because of this one tiny detail about his father, I became convinced that I was connected to Ambon by some karmic bond. Eventually, all of my section mates learned of my growing infatuation with Ambon.

Kimmy poked fun at me every chance she got. �Ambon didn�t make the prints of the Sulu Sea. His old man did. I therefore conclude that -- �

�Shut up!� I retorted.

Lester was more helpful. One of Ambon�s ex-girlfriends was Rina, a former classmate and a good friend of his. After the break-up, Rina flitted from one troubled relationship to the next. She was self-destructing, in no small way due to Ambon.

�He�s dangerous, Keri,� Lester told me, smoothing his hair with his fingers.

I didn�t see Mr. Danger again for two months. I kept busy with the paper.Eric had gone mad after reading one of my drafts on the ongoing rift back then between the National Commission for Culture and Arts, and the older Cultural Center of the Philippines.

�Why don�t you write about where you come from instead?� he asked through
gritted teeth.

�I�ve never been to Mindanao,� I told him. �I don�t think I�m qualified to write about anything even remotely Muslim.�

Eric chortled and scratched his goatee at the same time. �I�m a political science major but I write about the Philippine economy. It�s the only luxury that we have, Kerimeh. We�re allowed to be students and writers at the same time.�

When I came out of the room after that horrible secmeet, Ambon was waiting outside.

�Vinci�s absent,� I said, throwing it over the shoulder like dog food.

�It�s raining very hard outside. Can I take you home?�

�Where?�

Ambon caught himself and smiled, bringing out the dimple on his left cheek. �Yours, of course. I�ll save mine for later.�

�I�m really sorry,� I said as I walked away. �If you have to do this, then you have to come by the house and meet my parents.�

�But I already offered to take you home.�

I didn�t say another word. He followed me down the four flights of stairs to the street. �Can you just let me take you home please? I�m harmless.�

�Oh really?� I said, remembering Lester�s words. �I know how you put the damage on.�

�What?�

�I know what happened to Rina.�

I sensed Ambon freeze while I walked on to the terminal. The rain had turned into a feathery shower. People were falling in line to get their rides, but since the jeepneys were rare, the queue just kept getting longer and longer.

�You don�t know my side of the story. You don�t even know me,� he said.

After an interminable silence, I turned to face him. His hair and face were wet, and his lips were like cherries. �I�d like to know you,� I said.

He smiled, took my hand, and led me to his car.

THAT WAS HOW INNOCUOUS it seemed to be at the start. Ambon began to take me home everyday. I always insisted on getting off at the street before ours, and walking the rest of the way home. I told him I wasn�t ready to introduce him to my parents, that they had cruel words to say about men in general, and that they were crazy. Ambon, an only child caught between two brilliant but unhappy people at home, understood.

I was a flower in the attic, in full bloom. I started combing my fine limp hair more. I spotted any car that looked like Ambon�s shiny yellow Beetle on the road more and more often. I talked about Ambon every chance I got, read and re-read all his published articles in the newspapers, which I had filed and stashed away in my locker at the office.

After our hearts and minds made contact, Ambon and I began to make love, one body part at a time. It was his idea. First, hands, just our fingers touching the whole night. When it became too intense, we stopped. Then, the following night, we touched and kissed each other�s ears, just ears. Then lips, and we would review the body parts we had previously learned. Ambon would park his car in an empty lot and roll up the tinted windows. Whenever we kissed, I would open my eyes and find his closed, as in prayer.

One night, I drew back. �Is it always this easy?�

�What are you talking about?�

�Courting women and doing it in the streets.�

�Would you like to come with me to my house then, where it�s more�formal?�

I fell silent. Then, �That would be nice.�

�But when?�

�Never mind.� I didn�t want to think about it anymore, awash as I was in strange, slippery sensations. I pulled his face close to mine and squeezed all my remaining strength into the kiss.

IT HAD BEEN FOUR MONTHS since I joined the paper, and the probees were getting ready to become staffwriters. They were reading more and talking less. Aside from a substantial measure of prestige, the new staffwriter also obtained a raise in his honorarium. But first, he had to go to hell and back.

There was a rite of passage that had changed very little over the years. The probees were herded off one by one into the conference room, where only the light of a candle is allowed. All the editors would be present, including alumni. Before them were photocopies of the probee�s works along with a brief report from the section editor. The editors had the power to ask each probee a question. Anything, including the most personal. They would then deliberate the merit of the probee�s answer, and when it didn�t measure up, it fell to the section editor�s shoulders to tell the probee the bad news � that four months of hard work didn�t dent the Collegian universe, that it was better off without him.

Eric came to me prepared. �Kerimeh, here�s a letter for your parents. You will have to spend the night here next Thursday for the exam. They have to sign the waiver.�

I slumped back in my seat. �They don�t know.�

�What?�

�That I�m writing for the paper.�

�So?� he raised his chin. �What are you going to do?�

I didn�t know, but he did. He asked for my home number. He wanted to see if he was any good as a politician (an activist one, he stressed, specializing in Labor Law).

In just a few minutes, Eric was already laughing on the phone talking to my mother, lapsing into Ilocano, my mother�s native tongue, every now and then to win her affection. It was an amazing performance.

Now, it was up to me to fill in the gaps between Eric�s words when I got home. I would tell my parents that I had just made it to the Collegian: it was announced that afternoon. And that I had submitted an article about the sarimanok, and it was published in the paper. I would show it to them, beautifully laid-out, with spectacular artworks and photographs, and magnificently edited, like my lies.

BY THURSDAY NIGHT, MY palms were leaking sweat. I had barely eaten anything the whole day. Eric, who lived in the office and woke up late, was missing. None of the editors were present, so I didn�t have a facial or behavioral barometer of their assessment of me.

Then, at around eight in the evening, they came in droves. Apparently, they had dinner together somewhere and were full with shared memories � especially about the blue sofa in the conference room, which I overheard them recounting with much excitement as they arrived. They looked at us politely, but not longer than a second, as if their eyes would betray all that they knew.

Lester was the first to go in. Kimmy, Vinci and I hung out at the stairwell, smoking fat kreteks with no filters.

�I don�t think they like me,� I confessed. �The NCCA article has to be the most mangled article in history. Seventeen revisions!�

Kimmy shooed away my fears with a flip of a hand. �Oh, you weren�t here when Eric and Lester had this big fight about The Lake,� said Kimmy. I raised my eyebrows for her to continue.

�We all know the great Theo Olazo is Eric�s mentor, right? Well, Dr. Olazo writes this short story for this coffeetable photography book. Lester writes a critique of the short story, saying it�s more style than substance, and that it�s a bourgeois production. Eric insists that style is substance, and nearly socks Lester in the jaw. Good thing I was there to prevent them from clawing each other�s eyes out.�

�So Lester is in great danger right now,� concluded Vinci.

At this point, Lester came out of the room, looking tired and haggard. �Kimmy!� Eric called out from inside the room but it was I who jumped up in surprise.

�Here goes nothing,� Kimmy grinned, Jailbird tucked in her armpit like some charm as she went inside the interrogation chamber.

Nervous, I went over to the phone and dialed a number, while glancing at the other probees milling about at the office. There were ten other hopefuls from the other sections littered about, in various states of distress.

�Baby,� I whispered into the receiver. �Can I see you tonight?�

THE LEDESMA HOUSE didn�t look like a house lived in. It looked more like a gallery. Paintings and prints were suspended on either side of the wall with nylon cords tied to a moveable steel beam. Upstairs, oak shelves were lined with books, mostly hardbound. There was a mezzanine where Ambon�s room was. A flat screen computer monitor looked seemingly suspended on a massive table of tobacco finish. In front of the table was a bay window of clear glass. Here on this table, Ambon hunched over his work and looked up to a breathtaking view of the Ortigas skyline.

�God, what am I doing here?� I asked nobody in particular as I pored over his book collection. �Or should I say, Allah, what am I doing here?�

Ambon smiled and switched off the light. The flickering images on TV became the only source of light. He gently touched my face and kissed me. For a long time, there was no sound other than muffled music from the TV mingling with our labored breathing.

SEVERAL VERSIONS OF how Eric reacted came out. Kimmy said that Eric tore up all my articles in front of the other editors and vowed not to talk to me ever again. Vinci said he was actually quite calm, and even told him he was expecting it. He smoked a cigarette the whole time he was talking to my mother on the phone. Lester said Eric looked for me all over campus, thinking that I had simply taken a walk to calm my frazzled nerves. I didn�t know what happened myself. The sensations had become a blur, piled on top of one another. Only the new sensation mattered. The feeling of hair on his arms, the silky smoothness of his back, and the moist, but not wet, cherry lips sucking my kisses back. Not the past, or even the future, mattered then.

When Ambon dropped me off at the office at half past midnight, Mama and Aba were standing by the door, waiting for me. Again, the fabric of the universe tore apart and swallowed me whole. For many months, I convinced myself that I was on the wrongside of the things. I�ve since found myself in a place where women wore veils and men brought their guns to weddings. But I�ve slowly discovered that the wrongside has more interesting textures. Shortly after the Great, Great Incident, I was asked to quit school and help teach in a public school in Aba�s province. The poor kids don�t have uniforms, and since there�s no running water, they simply shit in the streets.

I�d never seen my mother cry like that before. �We trusted you,� I heard her say over and over. But my father thinks there�s still hope. He�s planning a marriage for me this summer, to a son of a wealthy businessman. Edward. What a foolish name!

And Ambon? I didn�t know if he had already recovered from the slap my father gave him that night. Lester called me long-distance yesterday because he was thinking of doing some research here. He dutifully reported that Ambon was seeing another girl, a singer. �I don�t know why girls like to choose their own poison,� he said. Some nights, I still cry, knowing that we are cosmically connected, that it was he who had actually brought me here.

But the good news is, I�ve climbed dense mountains and talked to rebel leaders in Talipao. I�ve met my half-brothers and sisters. They�re actually quite nice. They call me Kerimeh and I�m no longer startled. I am full of recent memories of wrinkled, coffee-colored folks teaching me how to fish and plant mangoes, not to mention the right way to speak the vernacular. I think I�m quite happy with the way I look. The veil makes me feel like Jackie O and Audrey Hepburn all in one.