When the Elephants Dance (30 page)

“Anna, oh, good. Come sit with me. The
mangkukulam
said that Janna’s spirit will have a stronger bond if you sit with me.”

I grabbed my belly, feeling the urge to go pee. It did not comfort me to know that the neighborhood witch doctor had instructed Mama on this game. She was a frightful woman with sharp eyes.

“Come, come …” Mama patted the chair beside her.

I crept to her. I could hear my aunts murmur that Mama had lost her mind. It straightened my back and my confidence. I sat in the chair and looked at the board.

“Place your left hand on the glass,” Mama instructed. I did so, but the glass did not move. Mama put her hand over mine and said, “Janna are you here?”

The question made me sit straight. My attention was caught by the glass as it pulled our hands forward and spelled out “yes.” I stared at the board in horror.

“Is she here? Is her spirit in the glass?” I whispered.

The glass circled the board, pulling our hands back again to spell “yes.”

“Oh, Anna, she is with you,” Mama breathed in awe. The glass wove back and forth across the board.

“I don’t want to play.” I stood, disrupting the flow of the glass. It toppled and shattered to the floor with the force of someone throwing it.

“Look what you have done. Janna, come back,
hija!”
Mama screeched. Her face was crumpled into an ugly mask. Where was the beautiful mother I had known? In my haste I tipped over the chair and ran out of the room. Papa grew angry at these games, and he left the house more and more.

Mama became a sleepwalker. She was no longer aware of those around her. She immersed herself in mah-jongg. During one game, she managed to win a place for Janna’s body in a rich opponent’s mausoleum. It did not matter that Janna would be among strangers.

“At least she will not be cold,” Mama said.

The first night Janna was moved into the crypt, we could not find Mama, and in the morning Papa found her asleep on the cold mausoleum floor. After that, Papa rarely came home.

Thank goodness for Ate Yu; without her I would have been a filthy child, for Mama had stopped caring for me. I was helping her one day in the kitchen to peel the seam off a basket of peas and cut off the ends.

“Not like that, too slow. Like this …” She leaned close and showed me how to pluck one end off and then start the strip from that end to the other. I nodded, but not before she turned up her nose. “What that smell?”

“What?” I said, continuing to peel.

She sniffed around our general area, scrunching up her nose in distaste. “That, that smell.” She raised her head, leaned the other way, and then she came closer and closer, until she sniffed at my head. She blinked and stared at me in disbelief. “Oh, Anna, you smell like poo-poo. And oh! Look at your neck, covered in rash. Wait, that not a rash.” She spat on her hands and rubbed my neck. “My God, when last time you take bath?”

I shrugged, my eyes stinging.

“Oh no, baby, come here.” She hugged me. I could see her eyes hurt for me, and I pushed her away. “Come on, we peel those later, first we peel you.”

I followed her and she scrubbed me as I sat in a clear tub of water that soon turned a dark gray. I did not lift a finger to help. It had been a long time since someone had cared for me. I was raw with emotion.

“Little pig, I cannot always pay attention. You need to care for yourself, understand?”

I nodded; of course, I did not do what she said. Several weeks passed before I reached the same level of filth. I had been walking indoors and out in my bare
feet; afterward I would put the same dirty feet in my school shoes in the morning. One day I was sitting in dance class with my legs crossed. Our teacher, Mrs. Peralta, had us warm up by doing several kicks like marching soldiers. When it came time to practice the
tinikling
, she told us to take off our shoes. My feet by now were drenched in sweat, and when I took off my shoes you cannot imagine the stench that filled the stuffy room.

“Ewww, what is that smell?” asked Jeanette Agbayani, the school beauty.

“Yuck,” I spoke up, scrunching my nose. That was my first mistake. Children are smart, and soon the entire class was staring at me. “Anna stinks like cow dung,” Jeanette had the girls chanting.

I was pent up with self-pity and unspoken emotion; before I knew what I was doing, Jeanette’s nose was bloody and a good clump of her thin hair was in my fist. I had made a terrific bald spot in the front of her head. It was a bright red, and Jeanette was screaming. This time Papa was called to school. When I saw him my heart swelled with gladness.

“Anna, ha, your mama is already losing her mind, and you decide to cause more trouble?” He stood there, the glare of the sun on his wonderful face, and I felt very far from him, very small.

I
WAS TERRIFIED
at night, in the room Janna and I once shared together. I thought certainly her spirit could not rest from all the tears Mama had let fall upon her body. I thought of how cold her hand had felt. I had
bangungot
at night, and no matter how I tried, I could not break free from those nightmares. Without Janna, I became ordinary. Even my name, Anna, became plain. As Janna and Anna we were “the twins.” “So lucky” my mother was to have been blessed with us, people would say. They believed we felt the same things. When Janna got the flu, people would say, “Anna does not look so well. She is feeling her sister’s sickness. They feel the same things.” And I would get soup or tea, just like her. I missed my sister so much, my heart felt like a rock in my chest, but when night approached and the room grew dark, my imagination turned her into something cold and scratching against the windows. I imagined Janna like a vampire coming back for more blood, my blood.

I
T WAS MANY
months before Mama could even speak of her death. For a long time she phrased questions and discussions as if Janna were still alive. She would say, “I shall take the girls with me,” not, “I shall take Anna.” It made me feel sad and forgotten. She kept to her bed for months without speaking.

~

I
T WAS ONLY
a year later when the dark cloud began to lift. Papa slowly came back to us. In fact, we had all grown accustomed to Mama not speaking, as if she no longer lived in the house. So it was like a miracle. One morning Mama had awoken and she was lively again, chattering and charming at the marketplace. She made small talk with the fruit vendors. She took my hand and swung it in hers. I was finally able to breathe again.

“Anna, I have a surprise for you when we get home,” Mama confided.

I could not believe my ears; to have months with no words from Mama and then suddenly to be in the warmth of her presence was like standing in a ray of sunlight. When we arrived home Mama gathered Ate Yu, my aunts, and Papa. Papa seemed pleased he already knew the secret.

“Well …” Mama clapped her hands nervously. “I was not sure until today, but you know my friend Mang Daniel at the embassy? The one who has connections to the orphanage?”

I was confused; I had imagined a party or a visit to my
lola’s
house. Mama rarely visited her own mother, but the orphanage?

“Mang Daniel told me about a woman by the name of Karasova; her husband was Russian, but he had abandoned them. She died recently, and her daughter was orphaned.” Mama looked directly at me, and I smiled back unsurely. “She is your age, Anna, her name is Corazón, and she is coming to live with us. Anna, you will have a new sister. Just think, you will have someone to play with. You can wear the same clothes. You can walk to school together.”

“Like I used to do with Janna?”

“Don’t you want to be happy again?” Mama snapped. Then she gentled her voice. “Corazón is eight years old, just like you.”

I ran to my room and looked at myself in the mirror, pretending to talk to my sister. “Janna, they want me to forget you,” I cried.

If my name was any plainer without Janna, it now became ridiculously so next to Corazón.
Corazón
in Spanish means “heart.”
Anna
in Spanish or any language means “Anna.”

N
EW SISTER CAME
in holding Papa’s hand and looking down at the floor. I hated her immediately. She had brown hair with gold colors that sparkled like the sun on water. She had fair skin that turned a glowing tan; mine would just turn a dull brown. She had doe eyes—“hazel,” my aunts cooed; “the color of leaves,” my mother bragged. She was very shy. When Father introduced her and
urged her forward, she turned to him in a panic and grabbed on to his waist, hiding her face.

“Crybaby,” I whispered under my breath.

“Ay, ang gandá,”
my
tita
Lulu breathed. How beautiful. “Come here, darling. Don’t be shy. This is your home now. Come meet your new mommy and sister.”

I glared at Tita Lulu, but she pretended not to notice.

“This is your sister, Anna.” My mother spoke in a scary singsong voice, the intensity of her eyes frightening to me.

I walked up to new sister and simply stared. We were the same height.

“Anna, say hello,” my mother chided, giving me a push.

I couldn’t speak. I thought they would mourn my sister’s death for a lifetime. I was shocked to find it took only a year.

A
T BEDTIME
I pretended to read my book as Corazón changed into a silk pajama pants and top. The set was a deep emerald silk, with pale pink lilies embroidered around the mandarin collar and around the legs, like clinging ivy. She had matching slippers. I thought someone must have loved this girl very much.

“My mama bought this on a trip to China. We have our own trade business in China, Malaysia, and Singapore. When I get married it will all be mine. Until then, my lawyers are to care for the running of the stores. I am to receive a generous allowance each month.” She walked into the room and sat on the edge of Janna’s bed. She took her suitcase and opened it on the bed. “I have three of these, see? White, red, and this one. I bet they would fit you. Would you like to have one?”

I looked at the smooth silk of the pajamas on her and the others folded neatly in her suitcase; they were so lovely. The white one was embroidered with cherry blossoms and a small bridge. The red had a yellow dragon with a gold-and-purple tail. Each set had matching silk slippers that were stuffed into the folded shirts, with the heels sticking out. I felt like a traitor to Janna’s memory.

“Why would I want to look like your twin? I already have one. You are going to sleep in her bed, and at night her ghost will come and sleep next to you.”

“I am not afraid of ghosts. My mother said they can’t hurt you. Only the living can. My mother has been dead for two weeks now, and even though I pray and pray for her to visit me, she never comes. What was your sister like?”

I got into bed and pulled up the covers, looking over my nose at her.

“My sister was the best girl in the world. She looked just like me. We told secrets and played games. We have a treehouse. Only the two of us know where it is.”

“Can I come to your treehouse?”

“Maybe,” I mumbled in an attempt at kindness.

She smiled and got into Janna’s bed. “Anna, I hope we will have secrets together, too.”

I pretended to be asleep.

S
HE WAS THE
perfect angel, my aunts exclaimed. I was sadly finding that this was true, until a week later, when Corazón’s clothes ran out. Her maids had forgotten to send over the rest of her clothes. I have never heard such a shriek come from a girl. I ran to our room. Corazón was standing with the back of her palm against her lips, crying. She was in her underwear. Ate Yu was standing back, holding the top of her head where Corazón had yanked at it.

“Ma,” I called gleefully, “Corazón pulled Ate Yu’s hair!”

My mother came running in. I thought, Now she will get a good spanking. But to my disbelief, she swept up Corazón in an embrace. “What is it, darling? What’s wrong with my little girl?”

“My clothes! I don’t want to wear those.” She pointed to Janna’s clothes. “I-want-my-clothes.” She stamped her feet, her face contorted. She sneaked a teary glance my way, then hid her face in her two hands with shame. “My mama said to always dress like a lady,” Corazón sobbed.

I was fascinated at the dramatic display. I sat on my bed and snickered.

“Is that all, sweetheart? So easy to fix. We will send for your clothes today.” My mother embraced her again. I felt the absence of her arms. She had not held me in months.

Corazón struggled out of her grasp and threw herself theatrically on the bed. “I want my mama!”

O
N HER FIRST
day of school, I avoided Corazón. I would walk and she would follow me like a shadow. I would sit and she would sit two feet away. I would stand and she would do so quickly. In a suffocating frenzy, I dodged through the others until I lost her and slipped into class. It was only when Jeanette Agbayani, Miss Popular, tried to pick on Cora that I took notice and gave Jeanette a black eye to match the bald spot I had given her previously. But I
didn’t like the feeling. It reminded me too much of how I used to protect Janna, and I didn’t want to feel that vulnerable ever again. So I decided the best thing was to get rid of her.

After school, I told Corazón that since we were now sisters I would take her to the secret clubhouse. I took her to the main
kalesa
stop. She was so excited, chattering unstoppably as we waited for the one horse- or donkey-drawn cart. Behind us a woman at the corner was selling bibingka, the sticky rice cakes with a layer of brown sugar on top. Beside her a boy was playing the
kulintang
, pounding the kettle gongs with wooden sticks and calling out, “Pandesal, bibingka …”

“Here’s the
kalesa
now.” I pointed.

“Oh boy, is it far? Should we send word to
Inay
and tell her we will be late?” She had taken to calling my mother
Inay
now.

“No, do not worry about it.” I waved down the man. He stopped, looking at me suspiciously. I leaned forward and whispered that I would pay for the entire ride to take Corazón to her house.