When the Elephants Dance (29 page)

My brother nods, his face still turned halfway in toward me, as if Aling Anna will pull her face off next.

She reaches out a hand to Feliciano, but he moves away. She looks at him for a long moment, then her shoulders sag in defeat. “I have failed in my care of you. But this story concerns your mother and your father, so you must listen.”

At the mention of his parents, Feliciano glances up sharply. He never met his mother; she died soon after childbirth. His father is a stranger to him, the village drunk. Feliciano told me once how he wishes to be everything that his father is not. In this regard, and in many other ways, he is similar to Domingo.

Aling Anna looks again to me. “Do not hold on to the bitterness, Isabelle, it will eat at your body like worms, and you will ruin your future because of it. I was not always this unhappy. I know what people call me behind my back, cheap, stingy, rude. Once, long ago, I was happy. I had many dreams, too. But I became bitter, and by the time I realized it, I had almost wished my whole life away.”

I
T HAPPENED ON THE EVE OF OUR SEVENTH BIRTHDAY
, this tragedy, when the great monsoon arrived, chasing out the dry climate and ushering in the tempestuous rainy season. My mother was like that wind system; she altered the course of my fate that night, the evening my twin sister, Janna, died.

As the season went from parched to wet, I too changed inside, from innocent to bitter. It was fitting that the sky was weeping; it should mourn every time a child dies and the well of a mother’s love turns empty. They called that one Monsoon Minang; they did that even then, named the storms and floods that wreaked havoc after people who had similar temperaments. There was a young soprano at the time by that name; she was known to throw tantrums at the slightest flutter of a butterfly’s wings. They should have named that one Monsoon Mirabelle, after my mother.

That evening when my destiny changed is a tattoo needled into my soul. I shall never forget it. The wind was already shifting, yet the night was thick with heat. Clouds rolled across the sky, illuminated by the moon. No one moved unless it was necessary. My aunts sat on corner chairs, fanning themselves with rolled-up newspapers, too exhausted from the heat even to play a game of
sungka
. Our windows were tied down to keep out the gales, but still the steaming gusts of air managed to get under the bamboo and nipa shutters and bang them against the house, like something wretched demanding to be let in.

I sat anxiously at my sister’s bedside, but I was told not to bother her.

“She is resting, Anna, for your birthday party tomorrow. Let her sleep, so that she will be strong and refreshed,” Mama said.

I remember the exhaustion in Janna’s eyes and the warm rag that smelled of sukang illoco pressed against her brow. The rice wine, Papa believed, would chase the ills away. Janna’s hair was a matted clump, like the energy around her.
It hovered like a low mist in the jungle, that badness surrounding her. It carried the scent of the graveyards, of wild weeds and dankness, and it swirled around us, chilling me.

I
N THE MORNING
the crow of the rooster intruded into my sleep, and along with it came the crooning cries from Mama: “Janna, come back. Come back to me.”

Her sobs pierced my slumber. I dreamt that a rooster had flown away with Janna, and Mama was chasing after it, calling, “Come back, come back.” When I awoke, excited for our party, I was told there would be no celebration, Janna was dead. All of her blood had vanished, the leukemia had claimed her. She lay stretched out on her bed, next to the brown, rosy-cheeked doll she loved so much.

“My beautiful baby,” Mama sobbed.

I saw no beauty, only a gray version of myself.

I
CLUNG TO
Papa’s legs, moving aside for Mama’s skirts as she paced the floor in a trance. I trembled as the black of the padre’s mournful robes floated by in a swirl of smoke and funeral incense. The cloud of smoke was housed in a silver vessel, which he swung from a chain as he recited prayers that sounded more like incantations.

Janna and I had always been given matching dresses, matching shoes, and matching hairstyles; would it be the same with the sickness?

“Papa, am I sick, too?” I begged to be comforted.

“Shh,
hija
, it is time to be quiet.” Papa patted my head distractedly as he swept up pieces of a broken vase he had thrown in his sorrow.

“Mama, what happened?” I tugged at her skirts, but I could have been a fly on her back.

The padre pulled me aside. “Your mother is grieving, child, be still.”

“But what about me?”

No one answered; I had been forgotten. I should have been put to sleep each night like a treasure, with my favorite blanket tucked in on all sides. I should have been comforted and sung to sleep. Instead, I became a ghost child myself.

Mama was inconsolable. Having twins had made her special. Without the set she was just a rice farmer’s wife with rotting teeth and clothes to stone clean
in the river. She had nothing to separate her from the other women in our village of stilt houses along the Rio Grande.

T
HE EVENING BEFORE
my sister’s burial, we had the “viewing” in our
salas
. It was not much of a living room, but still we called it that. Janna’s body was placed in a wooden coffin lined in pink satin. Chairs and mismatched boxes had been borrowed from the neighbors and arranged as seats in neat rows in front of the body. Even now I hate the feel and look of pink satin. I cannot even have a cup of coffee in my front parlor without the taste of death surrounding me. It curdles my skin.

During the rosary, in between the beads of Hail Mary and Holy Mary, Mother of God, I tried to avoid the coffin. I could see the outline of Janna’s body with her hands folded atop her blue dress. The only dress I would not have a matching set to. Looking at that coffin was to see myself lying there. It is not true what they say about the dead, that they look as though they are asleep. She looked strange, far from sleep, a wooden carving of my sister, with waxen face and bright orange lipstick striped across her lips. Her mouth was a beacon in a sea of pink satin. I prayed that the lips not turn up in a smile.

In all the chaos there was no one to console me. Thankfully Ate Yu saw this and sat beside me. She was my mother’s only true friend. She lived with us, free of rent in exchange for her help around the house. She was full-blooded Chinese but had been raised in the Philippines. She spoke fluent Mandarin and Tagalog. She held in her hand a statue of Kuan Yin, the Chinese goddess of mercy, carved in white jade, and on her neck she wore a crucifix.

“Why do you have both?” I asked.

“Ai-ya
, don’t you know me by now, little pig? I wear both to cover double the prayers for your sister’s ascent into heaven,” she explained, brushing my bangs away from my brow. Her name,
Yu
, meant “jade,” and since her statue was made of it, I thought of her as the goddess Kuan Yin herself, or Sister Jade.

“You are ready now to say good-bye to your sister?” Ate Yu asked. “It is our turn before they close the box and lock her away forever.”

I felt as if I were choking, and my mouth trembled to stay calm. I could not get enough air. I had seen how people were saying good-bye, touching Janna’s hair, her hands, kissing her on the cheek. I did not want to do those things.

“Why are they touching her, Ate Yu? What if they catch her sickness?” I asked.

She put her hand on my shoulder. I felt myself steady under her touch.
“That sickness does not pass to others. It is internal.” She pointed to her chest. “What they do, when they touch her, they are saying good-bye. They are asking for
tawad
. You know what that mean?”

“Forgiveness,” I said.

“Yes, you smart girl. You must tell her, ‘Sister, I forgive you for any wrongs, and in turn, please forgive me if I have wronged you.’ Otherwise, how will she get to heaven with so many apologies and obligations weighing her down? She will be like a bird with an anchor bound to its feet, unable to fly to paradise.”

“But why must I ask for forgiveness? I did nothing wrong.”

“I know, little pig. Do it out of respect.”

“Out of respect.” I repeated these words like a prayer, trying desperately to keep my breathing normal. I began to cry when I saw my sister’s face.

“Oh, look how she misses her twin,” an older aunt commented. There was a murmur of agreement in the room. I was not grief-stricken, as everyone thought. I was terrified.

Ate Yu took my hand and fed the words to me. I followed, repeating what she said in between gasps of breath.

“Janna”—gasp—“forgive me”—gasp—“as I … No, I can’t”—choke—“as I forgive you.”

“Now touch her,” Ate Yu urged.

I was paralyzed. “Touch her,” Father urged.

“Touch her,” Mama hissed.

“Touch her, touch her,” the room chanted.

I reached out my hand and quickly tapped hers. I was shocked at how cold Janna’s hands were. My aunts later told me that I had screamed out, “This is not my sister!” but I only remember being led to one of the chairs and watching as Mama stepped up loudly.

It was like one of those dress-up shows, an opera. Mama wore the red dress that Janna had admired so much. It was hideous, and so was my mother’s face, with her hair like a bird’s nest and her eyes swollen with shock. The room quieted and my mother began to moan Janna’s name over and over again. I covered my ears and let the tears fall. My mother crumpled into a ball, making great sobbing noises from her chest. It was an awful sound, as if someone were kicking her in the stomach. She fainted once, and twice she fell to her knees.

Papa had to pull her up. “Contain yourself. People are staring, Mirabelle.”

“I do not care. My baby, my baby, oh, Janna.
Ako na lang sana
.”

People gasped at her last words and made the sign of the cross. It was very bad luck, what she said, to wish that it had been she who had died instead.

“Janna, Janna, patawarin mo ako. Janna anák,”
Mama begged for forgiveness.

Father hushed her sternly and warned,
“O Mirabelle, huwág mong ipatulò ang luhà mo sa mukhâ niya
.”

“Why does Papa tell her not to let tears fall on Janna?”

Ate Yu bent closer. “Very bad. Tears must not fall on dead. Otherwise spirit not able to rest. Janna will be bound to earth by tears, and spirit will return again and again to owner of tears, until matter is resolved.”

Mama did not care. She kissed my sister’s face again and again, the tears falling on her brow, her hair, the blue dress. When I saw this, how Mother’s tears were raining on Janna, weighing her down, I panicked.

It was then that I heard my two aunts talking. They were like two clowns, always giggling and whispering. Tita Lulu and Tita Babelyn were my father’s two older sisters. They both lived with us in our cramped three-room house. Ate Yu kept her belongings in their room but slept in the
salas
at night.

My aunts did not share in the housework, but they contributed greatly to all of the village gossip. They had fake faces, showing Mama kindness and calling her
ate
, “big sister,” but once they were alone, I heard the snide remarks they shot like an arrow in her direction. They had no shame. On that day of our deepest sorrow, the two of them snorted, elbowing each other while Mama writhed in agony on the floor, her red dress bleeding color onto the ground.

“Psst, Lulu …” Tita Babelyn took her two fingers and slid them quickly across Tita Babelyn’s shoulder. “You know, I spoke with the
mangkukulam
, and she claims that Janna’s blood was weak. Anna has all of the strength, but her spirit would not share any of it. And that is why Janna died, she ran out of blood.”

“What if my blood is weak also?” I asked, giving them a start.

“Oh, Anna, we are just talking. I only meant that this will not happen to you since you are much stronger than Janna was. You know, she was always
ubó-ubóhin
.” She poked Tita Lulu’s thigh and gave her a conspiratorial wink.

“But Janna was not
ubó-ubóhin
. I never saw her cough once.” I frowned.

“Oh yes, I saw her cough a lot. Here, always here.” Tita Babelyn slid her fingers insistently down the front of her neck. “Go play now.” She canted her head. “What?” she said to the air. “Oh, Anna, your mother is calling you.”

“She is not. You always do that when you want me to disappear.”

“Anna, ha! Go away, then,” Tita Babelyn said, growing tired of me.

Tears welled in my eyes. “I’m telling Papa what you said.”

Tita Lulu became like a hawk. She glanced quickly to my father and
mother. “Anna dear, do not cry. Your
tita
Babelyn does not know what she is talking about. Here, I will choke her.” She pretended to choke Tita Babelyn. “You feel better now? You want to choke her yourself?”

“Ay! Lulu, ha!” Tita Babelyn choked back a giggle. “Jesus mariajosef, look at your mama’s gown, it is too bright. She should not have worn that. How embarrassing,” she exclaimed.

She was trying to bait me, I knew, but I could not resist answering back, “I like it.”

Tita Lulu shuddered. “I am shutting the door tonight. You know the spirits are allowed to walk the earth for the next three days until their bodies realize they have died. You remember how Janna liked to play with your handbags, Babelyn.”

“Ay, let me sleep next to you,” Tita Babelyn pleaded.

T
HE NEXT DAY
, I watched as Mama lit a candle by the window and said a long prayer. She then turned a glass upside down on a board of letters. My aunts tittered in their corner perches. When Mama raised her hand over the glass, it jumped under her hand and whipped from side to side. It frightened me how her eyes pulsed with excitement. “Janna, are you cold,
anák?”
she asked the room.

No answer; the glass stayed put. “Come visit me,” she pleaded. “Tonight, I will place your doll out.” Still no answer. She sighed heavily, and I crept back into the shadow of curtains. She glanced up quickly at the sound.