Love on the Road 2015 (12 page)

On a large billboard, a fat man, fifteen metres tall in his chef ’s hat, licks his lips, surrounded by blackened meat, under the orange-and-black inscription ‘Gerry’s Grill … meat for everyone!’ Another up-lit poster, several stories high, proclaiming ‘Manhattan Garden City’, rises above the dirty grey of real life below.

Without ceremony, the shacks subside, replaced again by the apartment blocks of the families of overseas Filipino workers, ‘OFWs’. This neighbourhood looks more like mine. McDonald’s, Jollibees, Dairy Queen, and KFC fill the district with the red lights of progress and money from abroad. Behind the many windows, incomplete families are cooking and doing homework and waiting for letters, phone calls, emails and money from far away.

The taxi dives down from the overpass into a tunnel. Michael continues to sit beside me. I try to understand his silence. Without the city to focus on, my hair prickles. My ears are now filling with the whoosh of the tunnel. My mind still feels empty and full, like when you’re a kid and you put too much rice in your mouth, so you can’t swallow. The tunnel glows sparse yellow.

A decorated jeepney passes. In the back, visible through the open doors, a blue-ribboned girl sleeps, slung forward and prone across her father’s lap. Although the van is full, the pair are in a separate world; the father’s hand, protective, rests between the child’s shoulder blades. The jeepney bounces in a pothole, but still she sleeps, in complete trust, across his knees.

I realise I wish me and Michael were still holding hands. It had been reassuring. But something stops me from reaching across.

Leaving the tunnel, the taxi manoeuvres off the main road. It putters to a halt in an isolated corner of a vast car park. Overhead, an airplane climbs, shrinking until it is just the blipping of its wing lights.

The driver steps from the car and leans back against the closed door, lighting a cigarette.

Michael takes a manila envelope from his inside pocket, unfolding it. He places it on the seat between us. It takes me a few seconds to realise it’s a signal, and I hand him the roll of bills without looking at his face. It’s the money I took from the bank account Dad set up, the ‘university account’. I dug the paperwork from the desk drawers Saturday night after getting back from the Old City. Mom didn’t even notice.

I’m embarrassed to hand it over at first. It’s nowhere near enough to cover everything but, on Saturday, Michael had been so happy when I’d said I would come that he’d hugged me and reassured me that I could easily pay off the rest with my first pay cheques. He’d laughed when I’d said I felt bad taking the money meant for José.

‘You’ll fill the account ten times over with dollars, long before José finishes school.’

Now, I’m worried he’ll have changed his mind. That he’ll be cross.

But he isn’t. He takes the money, counts it and puts it in his inside pocket. He doesn’t say anything. I don’t know what to do, so I turn my attention back down at my hands.

Michael touches my arm. I flinch. It’s a gentle touch but
it doesn’t feel how I expected. In the back seat, the intimacy is stifling. I shift my weight slightly and look between the scuffed plastic back of the seat in front me and my knitted fingers. It doesn’t feel like it did in the Old City.

‘When you arrive, you’ll be met by Mr Tang. He’s the one you’ll be working for. I’ve got to finish some business here first.’

It’s the first time he’s spoken since we got in the car. His voice sounds foreign and smooth like before. Each word hangs in the air, weighted evenly. I’d assumed we’d be travelling together. I don’t ask how I’ll recognise Mr Tang. If I speak, I might break down. I don’t acknowledge his words at all. Instead, I’m desperately thinking of the weekend, of his smile. The only thing that’s the same is the feeling of being in a film.

Then Michael reaches right over me, so that his chest hovers over mine. I can feel his heat and smell his body underneath the perfume. He takes my right shoulder in his left hand, turning me slowly and firmly to face him. I can see stubble beginning to form on his neck. The skin there is looser than I remember.

‘I’m only saying this ‘cause I’m looking out for you,’ he says.

In his voice is a conspiratorial smile. I raise my eyes slowly to take in his face again. The smile sits only on his lips. His eyes seem cold. I shiver. Had they always been like that and I just hadn’t noticed? As soon as the thought occurs to me, though, I forget it.

He goes on.

‘I’ve heard
such
stories about what happens to people who get found with false papers. You’re lucky. Your visa’s
the best. No one will know unless you tell them. Stick with me and Mr Tang, and we’ll look out for you. But find yourself talking to the police or anyone like that, and you’re on your own, and wuh …’

He shakes his head solemnly, then adds:

‘God help you!’

He crosses himself with his spare hand. The movement is awkward. His body is still spread across my side of the car. His weight falls briefly on my shoulder. For the second time in so few days, I am doing all I can to hold back the tears.

Inside the airport, winding queues are leading everywhere. There are uniforms and activity along the edges of the massive high-ceilinged hall, brightly lit and busy after the darkening night. The snakes of people shuffle slowly, swatting bugs and stirring clammy air with the large brown manila envelopes of OFWs. A group of foreign tourists stand awkwardly in one of the queues, unnaturally tall, with big luggage and thongs on their feet. Some people in darker uniforms patrol among the crowds. Sometimes they make marks on their clipboards. Sometimes they give instructions to the people around them.

Why did I bring my Holy Communion Bible instead of the Tagalog history book I won at the ceremony? The Bible’s extra weight cuts into my shoulder. I fold my arms across my chest, around the manila envelope of documents. Truth is, I have to keep clutching it like that to stop my hands from shaking. I try to stand straight, to look like the woman Michael saw in me at the weekend. To try to feel like her too.

Michael’s standing close behind me, and I reassure myself that this fast heart, this lack of breath, this pain in
my chest, it’s normal. It’s just how love feels. To keep myself from running away, I concentrate on a pair of guys directly in front of me. They’re older than me, but not much. They have sports bags at their feet, which they push along the ground as the line moves. One is done up with brown parcel tape. Either side of the tape, the broken zip sags. Their voices are quiet, like in a church, so I can’t hear what they say except to know that they’re from another island. They wear ironed shirts and baseball caps. The high ceiling makes them seem small, though they must both be taller than me by at least a head.

Focussing on the other travellers makes me feel calmer but, suddenly, Michael’s hand is on my shoulder, directing me towards a desk that has become free. I tell myself his grip is reassuring. Behind the desk, a woman looks down. She is dressed like all the other women behind the desks to the right and to the left: red hat, white veil hanging from one side. The woman’s smile is drawn on with perfect red lipstick that matches her hat. Her black eyeliner is immaculate.

‘Your tickets, ma’am.’

I make to hand her the envelope. Once my hand has left my chest, it shakes freely and the envelope flaps at the woman, who snatches it, manicured nails tlacking against the paper.

The nothing inside now fills me in waves that threaten to make me black out, and I put my hand, empty of envelope, on the desk for support. Michael still stands behind, though now a few steps back. I can’t tell if I miss his presence or feel relieved at the space. The woman with the perfect red lips takes an eternity to examine the contents and raises one of
her perfect eyebrows when I confirm that my school bag is my only bag.

Stepping away from the desk, manila envelope again gripped to my chest, I almost fall into Michael, who takes my shoulder tightly and directs me around the winding queues. I nod and shake my head and reassure him that I don’t have cold feet, and he kisses me gently on the forehead. It makes my heart beat even faster. I want to shout or hide, but don’t know if it’s from love or fear or something else entirely. I wish Mom had said something before I left.

Soon, we reach a pair of glass doors, sliding back and forth only slightly as each person passes through, never closing completely. He turns me to face him.

‘We’ll embrace goodbye here. When we next meet, we’ll be in New York and we can start looking for your dad!’

He smiles again with his rubbery lips which have touched mine and pulls me to him. I turn my face aside and put my hands around his body in an embrace I’ve never given José, that I’ve dreamed of giving Dad. But I don’t squeeze. I hold my breath against the exotic perfume under which I can now also identify nicotine and stale smells from the noodle shop. The rough lapel of his suit jacket pushes against my cheek and the unexpected bulge of his belt buckle feels uncomfortable against my stomach. It doesn’t feel like they say in the magazines. To be honest, by now I just feel numb.

It’s a long time before he loosens his arms enough to lean down and kiss me, this time wetly, on my closed lips. At the touch, something finally slices through me. I tell myself it isn’t fear, that I’m too old to be so childish. This is love. It must be. He releases me. I walk like a drunk into the flow of
people moving through the glass doors, and hear him saying he’ll miss me, that we’ll soon be eating pizza in New York, and that I’ll introduce him to Dad. I don’t turn.

Standing in the mass, the swaying light-headedness begins to subside, and I look around at the unsympathetic whiteness of the hall. The young men from before are a little ahead of me. Above them is a large plastic sign, swinging, with letters big and proud, ‘OFW’. I wish I could just smile and be one of them, but something is holding me back. At the other end of the hall are more desks, and people fan out from the queue to stand at them, handing over their envelopes. Each desk has ‘OFW’ written across the top of the glass that separates the officials from the crowd. At the far corner, an identical desk invites, in multiple languages, ‘all other passport holders’, and a scanty line of foreigners wait by it, looking out of place.

I wish I could tell José about it. I’m surprised by how urgently I wish it. He’ll be at home now. Wondering where I am. Maybe he’s gone into my room to look for me. I wish I had left a note.

It is with this in my mind that I hand over the manila envelope for the second time. The official frowns and points to a small sign that asks passengers to take their documents out of their envelopes before coming to the counter. He clicks his tongue against the top of his mouth as he spreads the papers across his desk, shaking his head. I think of Michael crossing himself and the dizziness returns. I grab the side of the counter. The official looks up, but only for a second. As he focuses again on the papers, I try to interpret what had been in his eyes.

Finally, he gathers everything together, hands it back in
a pile with the envelope at the bottom, and tells me to go to gate T-3-4. Able again to breathe, I leave the desk, reciting ‘T-3-4-T-3-4 …’ to myself, looking desperately at the many signs suspended from the plasterboard ceiling, with arrows pointing here and there. I pass shops selling bags and bracelets and cigarettes and a big wooden mural map of the world. I stop only briefly to breathe the glorious, fresh saltiness of a noodle shop, and then continue again to follow signs, down some steps, under a blue billboard on which a happy woman in a northern city from a postcard declares, ‘Non-bank remittance services you can trust’.

Relieved to be through the security checks, I start to feel anxious about Michael. I feel bad for mistrusting him even for a second, and I hope I still managed to say a proper goodbye. I hope he’s not cross or upset, that he doesn’t feel like I used him to get to go to New York. I resolve to buy him a present once I’m making money, in time to give to him when he comes. I wish he could be with me now, holding my hand.

Down the stairs, more kiosks sell snacks and I finally find myself at T-3-4. Someone lets me through a rope barrier into a seating area, where rows of plastic seats face a see-through plastic hoarding. In front of it stands an enormous flat-screen TV, flanked by glowing blue and white ‘Samsung’ hoardings. My jeans are sticking to the backs of my thighs.

At home, we’ve had cable TV for ages now, and I recognise the fast pace and commentator patter of an NBA game. Every few minutes, the game stops for American infomercials for slimming products or muscle enhancers. In some weird way, it reminds me of church, Father Patrice speaking
about paradise or hope or something, with everyone facing the same way, feeling uncomfortable in the plastic seats. Like at chapel, I snatch glances at the people on either side of me. Some stare at their hands. Others talk urgently into mobile phones. They speak more openly than they usually would in public. In their voices, the same weight that hangs in the air over the pews.

My mind is filling with evenings without José, of conversations un-pursued with the girls at school, the teachers. There’ll be no more awards ceremonies. And Mom will now lie alone, without a daughter to cook or talk to her. A chill is spreading through my belly and across my forehead. I try to remind myself about Mr Tang, and Dad, wherever he might be, and about Michael, who’ll help me find him.

But, however much I try to be calm, what I’m doing suddenly seems enormous and I feel Dad, a decade ago, himself the child of an OFW, sitting in this seat, the same sweat sticking his jeans to his thighs, not knowing whether he would return. He hasn’t.

The world feels heavy and inevitable. It’s too late to change my mind.

People start passing by, on the other side of the hoarding in front of us. I try to see their faces through the thick plastic but I can’t. Soon, the ladies in red hats with identical bright red lips start to float between the plastic seats, summoning groups of people by ticket numbers.

I stand stiffly when my number is called. There’s nothing else I can do. I follow the others through the open gate to the hot tarmac, towards the metal steps. And so it is, uselessly looking around for a familiar face, that I take my last steps from the city.