Puerto del Cielo

Chapter Six

2006-04-12T00:58:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER SIX

The next day, I woke up early to help out Kawayan in his studio. He wasn’t up yet, so I decided to clean up a little first. I noticed that the box I brought for him was still where I left it, unopened. I picked it up and placed it on the shelf near the paints, where he would be sure to see it. I brought in a bucket of soapy water and a rag, dusting the windows, then cleaned the brushes, lining them up by size. It was what I used to do for my grandfather. There were also several unfinished paintings of seascapes scattered around the studio, and I stacked them up in a corner.
I also noticed a bulky mass, probably a sculpture, covered in a moist blanket. When I uncovered it, it was a deformed clay sculpture of a woman. It looked like Amihan’s mother. It was then that Kawayan made his entrance. He spoke from the entrance of the studio, the first time I’ve ever heard him talk. His voice was a deep baritone.
“What are you doing?” he asked. He sounded angry with me.
I let the blanket fall back, startled by the sharpness in his voice. “I was just cleaning up a bit…”
“I never told you to clean up here.”
I didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry sir.”
Kawayan stared at me sharply for a few moments and then brushed past me to cover up the unfinished sculpture. He went to the current sculpture he was working on, selecting a hammer and a chisel.
There were so many questions I wanted to ask him. Why didn’t he ever leave his island? Was a guy like him—a famous painter and sculptor—sick of life in the city? Maybe he disliked the ugliness in the urban world, or did he think that he could concentrate on his art more if he lived in Puerto del Cielo? Maybe it was like what Paul Gauguin did when he left Paris and lived in Tahiti for a while. Did he want to protect Amihan and Ishmael from the outside world? Who knew? But he wasn’t going to talk to me today. Not yet.
He gestured to a huge lump of clay in a nearby table and told me to knead it to get the air out. He left me there for about an hour, while I perspired, kneading the clay, and then he returned with Amihan, who seemed as confused as I was. She looked like she had just bathed and was dressed in a white, gauzy and lacy ballerina dress, something out of a Degas painting.
Kawayan laid out a mat on the floor in the center of the studio and then plunked Amihan down on it. “Come,” he said to me.
I went closer. Kawayan adjusted Amihan’s pose as if she were no more than a doll or a mannequin. He kept doing that for several minutes until Amihan cried out after he pulled her arm to hard. Kawayan ignored her and went on trying to get the position he wanted.
“Are you all right?” I asked Amihan.
Amihan nodded quietly. It seemed like around her father, she was serious and never laughed. She let Kawayan adjust her some more, and when he was finished, I realized it was the exact same pose as the unfinished sculpture that he didn’t want me to touch. Kawayan stood back and looked at Amihan from different angles. Amihan had been placed in an awkward half-lying position, her arms splayed. I knew how hard it was for models, trying to maintain a position like that for hours.
“You can start now,” Kawayan said to me.
I blinked back at him, opening my mouth, but no words come out. “But”—
Kawayan didn’t seem to hear me and left the studio without glancing back. I looked at Amihan for a moment, and then got some paper and a pencil from the shelf. I crouched in front of her, and not knowing what to do, I started to draw her. I’d seen grandfather do this before he sculpted anything. He made plans and sketches. But truth to be told, I didn’t know what I was doing.
“I think he wants you to make a sculpture…” Amihan whispered.
I frowned. “But I’m only staying here for a few days. There’s no way I’d finish a sculpture…”
Amihan tried to shrug as best as she could in her awkward position.

When Amihan got tired, she decided that we should go to the beach. So I put aside my sketches and plans for her sculpture, and cooked some rice in their earthen stove, while Amihan prepared some fresh fish, chopping up onions and tomatoes to stuff the fish with, and then packed them in banana leaves. Later, she grilled them in a fire she made by the shore, and we had lunch under the trees. I asked her what Ishmael was doing that day, and she said he was busy working and didn’t want to be bothered, so it was just the two of us for the day. I brought my camera with me, and some sun block.
After lunch, Amihan collected shells, and hoarded her finds in her skirt, holding up the hem. While I cleaned up, she stood by the shore, watching the waves lap at her feet, and then she would run backwards as the waves approached, and then run after the waves as the water fell back to sea. I took her picture several times. She could be on the cover of a fashion magazine—she was that beautiful, despite not changing her clothes or taking a bath. Her hair definitely looked like it needed shampooing and combing. It was a pity. But she was just a kid. Maybe she would wise up to it in time.
I helped her collect shells for a while, and then I dozed off under the sun. When I woke up, she was making a huge sand sculpture of a woman, about ten times larger than she was, with seaweed for hair, red flowers for lips, shells for earrings and a necklace and white stones for eyes. When she was finished, she danced around her sculpture for a while and sang a strange song. I didn’t know what language it was, probably German or something. I could tell without asking that the woman she had made was her mother. I watched her as she ended her dance by lying in the arms of the sculpture, and I scaled some rocks to get a birds’ eye view picture of her. It looked like she was being cradled by the sand woman to sleep.
When I came down again, she was still lying on her sculpture. She looked up at me as I stood beside her head. I was standing on the chest area of the sculpture.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked me.
I shrugged.
She sat up slowly. “Do you want to go home that badly?”
I smiled and sat down next to her. “Actually, I hadn’t been thinking about that for a while…” I was starting to appreciate this kind of life; there were no deadlines, and nobody was waiting for me to do something and expecting me to get my act together. It was around two in the afternoon by my guess, I’d stopped checking the time. I’d even put away my watch. In this kind of place, I didn’t need to know about the time. Nobody cared.
“Maybe you’d like to stay longer?” Amihan asked hopefully, smiling a tiny smile.
I smiled back at her. “Would you like me to stay longer?”
Amihan brushed the sand off her elbows. She nodded earnestly. “There’s the sculpture you have to do for my father…and Ishmael enjoys talking to you…and you might be a good influence on father…”
“But I’ve only talked to Ishmael once, and your father doesn’t talk much, does he?”
She scrunched up her face. “I guess not.” She looked at the sea.
“Was he always like that?”
She shrugged. “I never noticed…” She picked up some sand and let it sift through her fingers. I watched her do this for a while.
“Hey, shall we have a race?” she suddenly asked me, brushing her hands off.
“A race to where?”
“To the Atlantic Ocean.”
“What?”
“You know—the Atlantic Ocean? The Pacific joins with the South China Sea, and then we go down the Palawan Passage, through the Java Sea, then the Indian Sea, then the Atlantic.” She seemed serious about it. “I want to be the only person who has swam all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.”
“Why do you want to do that?”
“Just to see if it can be done.” She smiled at me. “I’ve been practicing.”
“But I thought you never want to leave your island?”
“I don’t…” She paused. “It’s not the same. It’s the sea. I won’t go ashore.”
“But if we swim to the Atlantic, we’re leaving Puerto del Cielo.”
“No, I won’t. I will be in water all the time, so it’s not like I’ve even left. It’s like I just went for a really long swim.”
I laughed. “It will be a long swim all right…”
Amihan seemed to find it strange that I laughed at her. “You don’t think I can do it, do you?”
“But you won’t make it. You’ll get tired. The sea is really big.” I couldn’t help chuckling. Amihan really was just a child.
She got testy. “But have you tried it?”
I hesitated. “No….”
“Then how would you know if you haven’t tried it?” she asked.
“I don’t have to try it to know”—I tried to think of something to dissuade her from her crazy plan, but decided it was a lost cause. Let her believe what she wanted to believe. Maybe in her child’s mind, it was something that could be done. In her logic, it was possible. I decided to play along with her.
“So what about it?” I finally asked.
“What about what?”
“You said you wanted to race”—
“But you don’t believe me.” She looked upset and wouldn’t look at me.
“But I haven’t tried it yet, so I wouldn’t really know…” I tried to smile at her and reached for her hand, while I removed my camera from my neck with the other. “Come on, we’ll swim together.”
“I know we won’t make it. Ishmael and I tried,” she said in a tiny voice, as she took my hand. “But it’s nice to think that maybe we can. That maybe we’re not just strong enough, right?”
I nodded solemnly and put my camera on the sand. I gripped her small hand in mine. “Shall we?”
“Thank you.”
She squeezed my hand back. There were grains of sand between her fingers.
Together, we ran towards the shore and then jumped into the water.
“Yaaaaah!!!” Amihan shouted, laughing.
The water splashed on my eyes, and it stung. I tasted salt. I threw my head back, sending an arc of seawater in the air, and I laughed with her. We started swimming toward the horizon and it looked as if the sea would never end, behind us was Puerto del Cielo, and although for Amihan, it might look like there’s only sea for many miles—she had never seen other places—but I knew San Cristobal was just ahead.
Amihan swam ahead of me. She was really a good swimmer. My muscles burned and my heart constricted with the effort, and my eyes were smarting from the salt, but I didn’t want to stop. I savagely pulled myself forward trying to reach Amihan.
“Manuel!” Amihan yelled.
I lifted my head out of the water, looking around me. Amihan was just a tiny blob in the distance, and from where we were, I could still see Puerto del Cielo. I felt a little relieved. Amihan waved to me and slapped her hand on the water, sending it spraying towards me.
“Hey!” I yelled, and sprayed some water at her too.
“Hurry up!” Amihan yelled, laughing. “We have to make it to the Atlantic in time for dinner!”
I looked back at Puerto del Cielo. I was just going to swim to her, and then we’re swimming back. I realized I’ve never swam this far before. I suddenly felt uneasy. What if I didn’t have enough strength for the swim back?
She started to swim towards me as well, and when we reached each other, she took my hands in hers and intertwined her fingers with mine, and then she grinned at me. I grinned at her, breathing fast.
Amihan got a gleam in her eye, and then without a word, she submerged herself, dragging me down along with her. Underwater, her hair whipped about like long and skinny black snakes. It was weird. Here with her, it was so quiet, it was like we went to hide in our secret place, and we were safe from everything. Everything moved in slow motion and I tried to take in as much as I could. It was like we have fallen from the world for one minute, and when we come back, it would be right where we left it.
I didn’t know she did it, but Amihan was smiling underwater. I had enough trouble trying to breathe. I smiled back, but I smiled too wide, and before I knew it, I was swallowing water. I tried to resurface, but she was holding me down. She came closer and I saw that she had lost her smile. She seemed incredibly sad all of a sudden, and she might have been crying, but I couldn’t see her tears. She came closer to me until our noses were touching and our bodies were pressed together, and she said something in my ear, her lips were right against my ears, but I couldn’t hear her.
Suddenly, she was swallowing water too, and we came up for air, gasping, sputtering and laughing. It was starting to get dark when we resurfaced, and it seemed like the world had changed totally, as if I had just imagined everything that happened underwater.
“Shall we go back?” I asked her.
Amihan looked toward the coastline of Puerto del Cielo. “The Atlantic Ocean will still be there tomorrow, wouldn’t it?” she asked in a mournful tone.
“Yes.”

She smiled at me, a sad smile.

Amihan wanted to show her shells and rocks to Ishmael, and we went up to his room when we returned to the house. I lifted the blanket covering Ishmael’s door for her, as Amihan was carrying the shells and pebbles in her skirt and couldn’t manage it herself. Ishmael seemed to be working on a sculpture before we came in, and he hastily covered it up as we entered the room. Before he was able to cover it completely though, I saw that it was neither their mother nor Amihan. It was some other woman.
Amihan spilled the shells and rocks into a bucket and sat cross-legged on the floor and started cleaning her finds with water and a rag. I sat beside Ishmael. “What are you going to do with those?” Ishmael asked.
“I’ll make a necklace…” She stood up. “I’ll be back…” She took her bucket of shells and stones with her when she came out.
I went over to their shelf of records and looked at the labels. No Beatles or any normal music like that…just piles and piles of classical Italian opera. Listening to that stuff made me think of Italian restaurants and pasta and ravioli. I decided I’d go to Italianni’s as soon as I got back to the city and eat all the ravioli I wanted.
Meanwhile, Ishmael was preparing a pipe for us. He handed it to me and lit it up. While I was puffing away, Ishmael uncovered his sculpture and started working on it.
“Who’s that?”
“When I was a child…she used to come here to Puerto del Cielo to play with me and Amihan. I don’t see her that much anymore…But I think she would look like this now…”
I watched him for a while, then asked, “So people used to come to your island?”
But before he could answer, Amihan came back, and Ishmael hastily covered up the sculpture. She was now wearing different clothes. Her head was covered in a blue heard wrap, and she has whitened her eyebrows with make up. She stopped in front of me, striking a pose with her back to us, her head inclined to look at us. She was wearing pearl earrings.
“What are you doing?” I asked, amused. But Amihan said nothing. I turned to Ishmael, but he merely smiled at me. I turned my gaze back to Amihan. She stood there, unmoving.
In my mind, a famous painting slowly superimposed itself over Amihan. Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring.’
“You look like Vermeer’s ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring…” I said slowly.

At my words, Amihan’s face broke into a huge grin and she danced around the room, skipping about and waving her arms, tugging on my sleeve. I smiled at her, confused but pleased.
“You’re wonderful! You guessed it! You guessed it!” She hugged me and then let go, a delicate frown on her face. “But maybe that was too easy…”
She grinned at me with her maddening smile and went to Ishmael and started whispering something into his ears.
Then they made me close my eyes while they prepared something. When I opened my eyes, Amihan’s feet were flat on the floor, with her torso lifted, her arms supporting her. Ishmael was on his back, on Amihan’s legs, his legs bent at the knees, hanging off the bed, his arms stretched backwards to enclose Amihan. Amihan raised her right hand at an angle and was touching her left temple.
I stared at them hard, thinking of all the art I’ve studied in the past. It looked like a Rodin, but it wasn’t The Kiss, or Paolo and Francesca. It looked a lot like—
“‘Fugit Amor’,” I said, grinning slowly. “Auguste Rodin.”

Slowly, Amihan and Ishmael resumed normal positions.
“Am I right?” I asked.
Amihan exchanged a serious look with Ishmael. “Ishmael, what do you think?”
Slowly, they both smiled. I didn’t get it.
Amihan took out a necklace made of tiny shells from her pocket. It looked just like the one she and Ishmael were wearing.
I sat up, curious.
“We’re going to make you our brother…And we will give you a new name,” she told me. “You don’t have a nature name, like we do. I’m Amihan, and Ishmael’s Tubig Ulan…”
“But I don’t like that name, so you have to call me Ishmael,” Ishmael interrupted.
“Don’t disrupt the ritual!” Amihan cried.
“I’m sorry, Magdalen,” Ishmael said, smiling.
“Magdalen?” I repeated.
Ishmael shrugged. “Her real name’s Amihan Magdalen Seer-sha. S-A-O-I-R-S-E.”
Amihan, I realized was the kind of girl who left out important things like their real names. “That’s a pretty name. What does it mean?”
“It means freedom.”
“Wow.” I nodded. “Can I choose my own name?”
Amihan merely smiled her maddening smile at me, and then put an arm around Ishmael and whispered something to him, which made him laugh. After their conference, Amihan went back to me, holding out the necklace like it was some sort of sacred relic.
“We really thought long and hard about the name that will describe you, the essence of who you are…It will be your name from now on. We will call you by that name…Please close your eyes.”
I was starting to feel ridiculous, but I decided to just play along. I felt Amihan’s lips whispering strange words to my ear, and then there were two pairs of hands on my head, barely touching, Amihan’s and Ishmael’s. Then Amihan slipped the necklace over my head.
“From now on, Manuel delos Angeles is no more. You are now Manuel…” she paused with dramatically. “…Bayawak delos Angeles.”
“Bayawak?” I opened my eyes.
Amihan and Ishmael burst out laughing, and then she hugged me tight and danced around me, singing something in German, to which Ishmael sang along to. I was the only one who didn’t understand. These two had a secret, strange bond between them that nobody was allowed to penetrate, but today, they seemed to let me get a glimpse of what it was like, but still, only for a moment. Were they just children, or was what I was seeing something else, something special and extraordinary? I never had anything like this with anybody, this kind of human experience, and as I sat there and watched them, I realized I wanted very much to be a part of it.

Chapter Five

2006-04-12T00:57:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER FIVE

I woke up sometime around three am, and it took me a full minute to realize where I was. I was in Puerto del Cielo. Or more accurately, I was stuck in Puerto del Cielo. I looked out the window. I couldn’t see anything but trees for miles. I could hear the sea, and for some reason it comforted me. There was also a distinct smell I would come to associate with this place. I couldn’t describe it, but I liked it.
I tried to remember everything I did the day before. How did I get here and why did I wake up with a terrible headache? My throat felt scratchy, and the taste in my tongue was sour, as if I’d smoked grass or something.
Come to think of it, I think I did…
I couldn’t go back to sleep, so I took the lamp beside my bed and made my way out of the room. I didn’t know what I was looking for exactly as I roamed the house, shining my lamp on the sculptures and paintings in the hallways. They all seemed lonely in the shadows for some reason. It was the kind of thing I could never manage in my work, infuse feelings into inanimate objects. I don’t know why.
Finally, I found myself going up the stairs. The flickering light didn’t help much as I groped along. I thought, these stupid kerosene lamps weren’t much help. If Kawayan was so rich, why doesn’t he have electricity installed around here? In fact, why didn’t they live somewhere more glamorous like the Italian Riviera or Barcelona or something? I wouldn’t have minded going there. Italian and Spanish girls are hot.
I realized where I was heading towards—Ishmael’s room. I got confused for a minute, and then almost turned back to explore somewhere else, but since I was already there, I thought they wouldn’t mind if I just take a look in here. After all, we already shared a pipe of weed, and his sister sort of kissed me. I considered it my invitation to snoop around.
I parted the curtains, and was glad to find out that the door was left unlocked. A few hours before, I remember stumbling out of the room looking for the bathroom, which was an outhouse in the back next to the cow shed. I never made it and peed onto a tree trunk instead. Somehow, I found my way back to my room and fell asleep there. I never found out what Ishmael or Amihan did after that.
In the dim light from my lamp, I saw in the center of the bed that Ishmael wasn’t alone. There was Ishmael, fast asleep, without his shirt on, and beside him, Amihan, clasped in each other’s arms. I blinked. What was going on here? I wanted to go away, but I couldn’t tear my eyes off them. I went closer and looked through the mosquito netting. There was Amihan, sound asleep, her mouth partly open, her beautiful, delicate ears uncovered. Her chest rose and fell gently as she breathed. The outline of her small tight breasts showed through the thin fabric of her dress. There was a faint smell of sweat, weed and the sea.
I suddenly wanted to touch her, and I realized I was shaking. Suddenly, my vision blurred, and I gripped the handle of my lamp tightly. I realized I was breathing too quickly, and I was fighting it, desire was swelling and hardening inside my pants and I tried to stop it so hard tears came to my eyes.
Amihan stirred and made something like a purring sound right then, and in alarm, I blew out my kerosene lamp. At that instant, there was total darkness, and the sounds outside were magnified—I only sensed night insects, the sea wind whistling through trees, and the distant sound of the sea in the pitch darkness. I took deep lungfuls of air and then when my eyes had adjusted to the dark, I groped my way back to my room.

When I woke up that morning, a strong wind was blowing right into my ear. But it was only Amihan.
“What are you doing?” I asked her, backing away.
She drew back and smiled. “I’m waking you up. Ishmael and Father allows me do this every morning. Do you want to eat breakfast now?”
“Sure…I’ll follow in a while…”
She smiled at me and turned to go. The soles of her feet were blackened with dirt. As she closed the door behind her, I stared ahead, there was definitely a bulge there. I lifted my blanket carefully, peered in and made a face. This wasn’t supposed to happen to me anymore. I was twenty-two years old!
Before joining Amihan for breakfast, I cleaned myself up and stashed the bed sheet in the closet in my room. When I came out for breakfast, Amihan had made some coffee for me. I gulped it quickly.
I learned that Ishmael never came down for breakfast, and neither did Kawayan. Amihan had to bring it to them or they would forget to eat. She never cleaned up either, and finding nothing better to do, I cleaned up the table, which was still messy from last night’s dinner.
After that, I explored the front yard again. There was an attempt at some sort of landscaping, but it wasn’t maintained. The few flowering plants that still survived seemed to struggle among the weeds. What kept these people so busy they had no time to tend to a garden? Kawayan was one of those artists who probably worked on paintings all day and not much else. My grandfather sometimes had a phase like that. I was used to it.
Amihan was probably off doing her chores. She told me she had to feed her pets, the chickens, the cows, the pigs, and a few birds. I helped her out for a while, and then got bored. Amihan asked me to go somewhere else after a while because I just got in her way. This kind of life just wasn’t for me. I amused myself at the beach and took pictures, and then I came back around lunch, and found Amihan eating by herself in the outdoor dining area.
I asked her when she could take me on a tour of the island, but she said she was busy that day and couldn’t accompany me.
“Busy with what?”
After lunch, she showed me a hut with a tiny kiln where she made tiny clay sculptures, the size of her hand. Every afternoon, she made clay sculptures. She made them out of mud, which didn’t come from this island, but brought from somewhere else, probably by the “helicopter” they were talking about.
I picked up several of them. She made figures of dolphins, fishes, seahorses and other sea creatures. The details were exquisite. I tried not to be surprised she was so good. I figured her father had taught her how to make these sculptures. She was quiet the whole time she was making them, and I amused myself by creating a mermaid. It wasn’t half-bad, although it had lopsided breasts. Amihan laughed and pointed them out to me, adding nipples and a cleavage. I realized, she really was just a kid.
“What do you do with these?” I asked her.
“I give them to my mother,” she replied.
Her mother. I had almost forgotten about her mother. I hadn’t seen her around. She should be managing this household and making sure the house was cleaned and that Amihan took a bath regularly and wore underwear and didn’t go around skipping about in a flimsy dress. Basic things like that.
“So where is she?”
“Do you want to see her?”
It wasn’t like I had anything better to do. So I said sure.
After Amihan had baked that day’s batch of clay sculptures, she picked up ones she had made days before and carried them using her skirt. I tried not to look at her long legs as she walked holding the hem of her skirt like that. We made our way through the woods, with Amihan skipping up before me while I tried to catch up with her. I was trying my hardest to avoid disturbing any of the creatures hiding in the rock crevices or under fallen logs. When a small reptile came charging out, Amihan yelled, “Gonydactylus philippinicus!” as if it were a magic incantation. It seemed to work because the reptile or the lizard or whatever it was scampered away hastily.
Later, when a frog came out of its hiding place, she yelled something different. “Rana macrocephala!”
“Rana what?”
She laughed. “Rana macrocephala. Balbag or tukak,” she said matter-of-factly.
“I don’t get it…”
Amihan laughed. “It just means, it’s a frog.” She explained to me that she and Ishmael used to have a game when they would call out the scientific names of the animals in their island. Apparently, they knew every species of flora and fauna in their island. It was amazing. So, OK, it wasn’t that amazing, and their game would be pretty lame elsewhere, but it seemed like the kind of thing a girl who had lived in an island ever since she was little would do.
After about thirty more minutes learning about the scientific names of random animals, plants, ferns and trees, we came to a fenced-in clearing in the far end of the island. We were standing at the center of a farmland.
Amihan gleefully turned to me and said, “Cannabis sativa.”
I turned to her, opened my mouth to say something, then closed it again. So the stories were true after all. There were marijuana plantations around here. What could I do at a situation like this but laugh?
“This is unbelievable,” I said, after I got over my initial shock. Nothing should surprise me anymore in this place. Maybe for Amihan and Ishmael, smoking pot was part of their meal, like drinking milk before going bed or something. It was only a big deal to me because it was outlawed in the city. But I suppose, in this island, laws like that weren’t binding. But I couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed by the size of this farmland, rows and rows and rows of marijuana plants…enough to last the entire population of my art school for ten years or so. It was that big.
But Amihan was impatient to go on. “Come on, let’s go to my mother’s cave already. I’m hungry!”
Her mother lives in a cave? I didn’t want to ask why. Maybe it was another “game” of hers. Knowing her, it probably was.
The cave was just a few minutes walk from the marijuana farm. I didn’t even get a chance to ask who tended it, but I was also curious to see Amihan’ mother. It was dark inside the cave, but there was a kerosene lamp just inside, by the mouth of the cave, which Amihan lighted with matches she brought. Together, we descended into the cave, Amihan before me.
“Be careful, it’s slippery,” she whispered to me.
I squinted, trying to see into the cave, and as we went lower, bats flew around us. It was cooler inside the cave than outside. Amihan expertly led the way, guiding me. After maybe a 20-minute walk, we ended up at a pool inside the cave. The area around it was surrounded by Amihan’s tiny sculptures, dominated by a sculpture of a woman who looked a lot like Amihan. Just like the paintings in Ishmael’s room. So this was her mother.
There were candles all around the pool as well, and Amihan lighted them. I sat on a rock and noticed that Amihan was praying to the statue. When she was finished, she turned to me.
“My mother’s name is Adele. Isn’t she beautiful?”
I nodded. “She looks like you…”
Amihan smiled with pleasure. “Really?”
I nodded. “Where is she now?”
I wasn’t sure if she heard my question, but she said, “When she comes back, she will be pleased with my sculptures…”
I didn’t ask her again where her mother was. Obviously, she had died when she was younger. Maybe Amihan didn’t have a concept of what a mother is like. She prayed to a statue in her mother’s likeness in this cave, and maintained this “shrine” for her. This is maybe the closest thing Amihan has for a mother.

When we came back to the house she went off somewhere again and left me by myself. She said something about gathering some specimen for her collection; I didn’t ask her what she meant by that and decided to rest for a bit under some trees, thinking about the work that waited for me in Manila. It depressed the hell out of me. It made this whole situation of getting marooned on this island slightly bearable.
I wandered to the backyard near Kawayan’s studio, and saw him hard at work on a sculpture. He was smoking a pipe. I didn’t know if he also smoked marijuana, but who knew? Maybe he was that kind of guy. And it wasn’t as if they’d ever run out of the stuff. I couldn’t tell yet what he was sculpting. It was just a huge block of marble he was slowly chipping away at. It looked like he was starting a new one. I came closer and saw that the box from my grandfather was right where I left it, and still unopened.
I coughed so that he’d notice me, but he didn’t look up from his rock at all. He just kept on working. I noticed there was a special way that Kawayan handled his tools and touched the block of marble. He seemed very gentle, almost affectionate. He ran his fingers and palms on the surface of the rock carefully. I didn’t know what that was for, but I watched him, mesmerized, waiting to see what special technique he had that he became such a great painter/sculptor, even better than my grandfather ever was.
Finally, he took notice of me and gestured for me to hand him one of the tools on the table. I didn’t know what he wanted, but I made a guess and handed him a chisel. He touched the handle delicately, closing his eyes.
Then I handed him a hammer, and he shook his head. I gave him the proportional caliper, which was a very precise ruler. He nodded. I began to think that maybe Kawayan wasn’t so hopeless after all. It may take me a while, but maybe I could get him to open up. For some reason, I felt like smiling.
I guess this was where my apprenticeship with Kawayan started.

Chapter Four

2006-04-12T00:56:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER FOUR

The boat bumped gently on the sand and rocks as we reached the shoreline of Puerto del Cielo. From where we were, the water was still high. Lito jumped off the boat with ease, and with a piece of rope, he tried to pull us closer to shore, after which, he tied the rope around a huge rock. I looked at the water—it was clear blue, and the waves crashed ferociously against the sand and rocks. The sand was cream white and immaculate. No footsteps or anything, as if nobody lived on this island at all.
Aling Lusing steadied herself as she stood up by holding on to the side of the boat, lifted the hem of her skirt, and then waded into the water. Lito went back to the boat to retrieve the supplies. I stared after Aling Lusing, unsure; my stomach felt suddenly very queasy, and before I could stop myself, I was leaning over the boat and throwing up. Lito chuckled at me. I wiped my mouth, and took out a bottle of mineral water from my bag, gurgled with it, and then spat out the dirty water. I rolled up my clamdiggers up to my knees and took off my shoes. As soon as I tried to stand up, I staggered and fell. Lito came to my side to help me up.
“Are you OK, Kuya?” he asked. He took my bag from me, then helped me alight from the boat. I was soaked past my knees instantly. I waded out of the water, and stood in the hot sand. I curled my toes and couldn’t help but smile despite myself. I was standing on Puerto del Cielo. I could hardly believe it. Just a few days ago, I was in my room in Antipolo staring at the map and wondering if this island existed at all.
In front of me was an expanse of dense forests and plants. There were cliffs, and Aling Lusing told me there were caves there. I noticed a tree with about twenty bats or so hanging upside down. Beyond that, I couldn’t see Kawayan Villegas’s house from where I was standing. Aling Lusing explained it was on the other side of the island. I didn’t think Puerto del Cielo would be this big. I always pictured it simply as an island with a house in the middle of it, and that was it. It was even better than I thought. I couldn’t wait to go exploring.
I felt like taking pictures, but there was no time. Aling Lusing and Lito seemed to be in a hurry to get to Kawayan’s house. Lito advised me to put on my shoes after he’d finished unloading the boat. He said the path was rocky and I might hurt my feet. I noticed he himself was still barefoot. For a second, I felt insulted, as if he was implying I was a wimp. But the path was probably really rocky, and anyway, who cared what an island boy thought about me?
He handed me my backpack to carry. I figured I would be up for it now. At least I was on land already. He himself hoisted two baskets laden with food onto his two shoulders. I couldn’t imagine how he could have carried all of that. He was so scrawny. Aling Lusing was carrying another basket and walked ahead of us.
I lurched as I followed her up the path which had turned to soil as we go further up, with Lito in the rear. They were both tireless despite their heavier loads. Aling Lusing would turn to look at me once in a while to check how I was doing. I was scratched-up from the tree branches, the grass and the ferns, and my calves were burning and my back was killing me from climbing up for about 30 minutes; I’d lost track of time, but the sun was shining vehemently more than ever. There was a strange smell, maybe from the damp earth, and rotted wood, the leaves. Whenever I looked up at tree branches, there was always a bird or two staring back at me. Insects and worms crawled away as I stepped on them. My sneakers were caked with mud, and sometimes I’d get stuck. It made the climb up more difficult than it already was.
Finally, when I felt I couldn’t take it anymore, we arrived at a clearing. There was a stone house up ahead, with a thatched roof, in the style of old Spanish houses. It had capiz windows, some of which were broken, and a garden in front, overrun equally by plants and weeds. There were several sculptures of prepubescent girls in languorous poses around the courtyard, gathering moss, some with missing arms or heads. As we stepped into the yard, I had the sense of being in a different time and place. It was the kind of place that my grandfather loved to paint. I tried to push the thought away. Every time I remembered my grandfather I felt something that wasn’t exactly guilt, or anger, or annoyance. It was something like that, but
I couldn’t explain it. I hated to talk about my feelings.
Aling Lusing told me to stay in the yard, and proceeded to the back door, followed by Lito. I dropped my backpack on the front stoop by the main doors, and wandered around the garden, inspecting the moss-covered sculptures. There was a well, and a pond filled with water lilies and frogs, and trees surrounded the house. There was something strange about the light around the area, like the whole island was covered in a mysterious greenish mist.
I sat by the well and turned to look at a sculpture of a girl. She was standing on her tiptoes, her head upturned, as if she was looking at me. As I stared at her, for a split-second, I thought she moved and became a real girl. I remembered that I had seen her before. She was the girl in the painting hanging above Aling Lusing’s shelf.
“Manuel.”
I glanced over to the voice. It was Aling Lusing calling me, and she was standing by the front door, and beside her was a man with graying hair, dressed in a ratty button-down shirt, pants, sandals and a khaki fishing hat. This man was Kawayan Villegas.
I felt self-conscious as I stood in front of him. I felt like bowing in front of him or genuflecting or something. I’d read so much about him, and now here he was, and he was dressed like that. It was sort of disappointing, but what was I expecting anyway? He was a guy who voluntarily lived by himself on an island. I felt like he was sizing me up too; the expression in his face seemed to say: “So this is the successor of Salvador delos Angeles.” He didn’t seem impressed with what he saw either.
“This is the boy. Manuel delos Angeles…”
I swallowed hard. He kept staring at me, his stoic expression unbroken by Aling Lusing’s announcement of who I was. “My grandfather is Salvador delos Angeles…”
Kawayan merely looked me up and down, and then turned around and entered his house. I looked questioningly at Aling Lusing, and she gestured that I should follow her inside. I hoisted my heavy bag onto my back again, and tried to brush off my feet before I went inside.
The soles of my shoes made squishy sounds as I walked into the house. There were dry leaves, sand and small stones on the dark hardwood floor. Aling Lusing was right, the house was a mess. But still, I couldn’t help gawking at the interior of the house. From the foyer into the living room, there were ornate mirrors mounted on the stone walls, as well as paintings, and sculptures standing in every corner. It was just like grandfather’s house, but this one had more art in it, probably because Kawayan never sold his stuff. If you’d ask me, I was really impressed with the guy. He totally shunned the crass commercialism of the art world and had enough guts to live away from it, unlike my grandfather, who was sort of a sell-out, if you really think about it. Not that I wasn’t guilty of the same thing, but in an ideal world, where people didn’t need fame and money, I might have lived like this guy and raise a family this way. Well, maybe not to that extent that I would raise a family in an island all by myself, making up my own rules. I liked gadgets and girls too much.
The furniture was antique, covered in white blankets, and from the huge open windows hung white gauzy curtains which fluttered in the cool sea breeze.
Aling Lusing led me to a dusty room where everything was covered in white sheets. There was a closet with a huge mirror, a writing desk, a chair, and a lamp. There was a view of the sea at the window.
I set my bag on the bed and took out my gadgets, spreading them on the surface. Next, I retrieved the box from my grandfather. I found Aling Lusing cleaning up in the living room and asked her where I could find Kawayan. She directed me to the back of the house, where Kawayan worked. For all she knew, he could’ve have been a carpenter. Perhaps she never asked. And Kawayan seemed like a guy who didn’t like to talk about himself.
I made my way across the halls, to the back of the house. The house seemed smaller from outside. But I counted several doors, and I haven’t even been upstairs yet.
At the back of the house, in the kitchen, I heard sounds of a chisel or maybe a hammer hacking on marble or some other kind of stone. I followed the sound until I ended up in the backyard. There was a chicken coop, and ducks. Chicks ran freely, pecking on the ground. Further beyond was a pen with what sounded like pigs, and a bamboo shed for white cows. I imagined these animals being ferried to the island, and then herded across the path we just came through. How did they manage it?
The studio where Kawayan worked adjoined the kitchen, but could be accessed only by going out of the house. The door to the studio was slightly ajar, and from where I was standing, I saw Lito handing over a stack of books to Kawayan. I couldn’t make out all of the titles, but I thought I saw Immanuel Kant in the pile.
As Lito turned to leave, he saw me and nodded at me. “You can go in now.”
I took a deep breath and pushed the door open. The studio had shelves with bottles of paint in them, brushes, stacks of canvas, tools for sculptures, everything an artist would need. I thought maybe he probably brought all of these things here when he decided to live here for good. There was no other way he could have accumulated all his materials.
Kawayan appeared to be working on a big mass of marble. He didn’t turn around to look at me. I decided to just tell him what I was doing here and get it over with.
“The reason I came here, is to bring you a package from my grandfather…He—uh—he died last week…”
Even after I said that, Kawayan still didn’t react. I waited for him to acknowledge me, but he went on working. What a weird guy. I decided to just leave the box on the worktable by the door.
“I’m just going to leave it here on the table…” I said, trying to make my voice louder to be heard above the chipping. He still didn’t turn around. I stared at his back for a few moments. I called out, “Sir? Kawayan?”
Still no reaction. “Well, I’m going now,” I said loudly. He didn’t turn around. I shook my head, flustered. What a weird guy.

I decided to return to the room where I left my bag. It would be an understatement to say I was bothered by my encounter with Kawayan. Was he angry with me? Or was he so used to being alone that he wouldn’t even talk to me? I honestly didn’t know what to make of him. Well, at least I didn’t have to deal with him anymore. I’d be going home in a while.
Somebody had cleaned up the room while I was gone, and the white covers had been removed. I sat on the bed and removed my shoes, my wet socks, and changed into a fresh shirt and surf shorts. There was a fresco of underwater sea life covering the walls. It would have been out of place in this white-washed Spanish style house, but it seemed just right and appropriate somehow. The colors used were bright and vivid, the style of the colorful fishes, corals, seagrass and other creatures were whimsical, as if done by a child. Perhaps this was a child’s room before. Maybe Kawayan’s children had even used this room.
I lay down on the bed, intending only to rest for a bit before heading back to San Cristobal, but I didn’t realize how tired I was and I felt drowsy as soon as my head hit the pillow. I fought to stay awake, but I couldn’t help it and before I knew it, I was dreaming.

***
I was swimming underwater, and as in dreams, I didn’t worry about whether I could breathe underwater or swim that well, just that I was swimming, and the water was sparkling and schools of colorful fish darted around me. The corals and the seabed gleamed. I felt afraid, but I felt compelled to keep going.
Behind a huge rock, I saw something bright and swam towards it. It was a mermaid, with long black hair which floated all over her face. She was smiling at me and beckoning me to come closer with her long brown arms. She had a delicate face, pretty green eyes flecked with gold, and a long fish tail with scintillating silvery scales. She seemed familiar and safe, and I was enchanted by her. I wanted to have her more than anything else.
***

When I woke up it was dark outside, the backs of my eyeballs hurt and felt stung, and my stomach was making growling sounds. But other than that, I couldn’t remember where I was. My eyes absorbed all the available light in the room, and it was then that I noticed the flickering light from a kerosene lamp. A human being dressed in white approached my bed and leaned over, then sat on the bed.
My eyes widened, confused. It was a girl, much younger than I was, very thin, long-limbed and slight; she was tanned, but I could tell she was very fair despite that; her hair, which was long and black, was a tangled mess around her shoulders, framing her face and reaching to her waist. But it was her eyes that kept me staring, all radiant and bright and green, her tiny mischievous mouth which seemed to move in all directions. She was wearing nothing but a flimsy white camisole which reached barely above her knees. The fabric seemed to just hang off her, as if she had no need for clothes, and was more comfortable without them, as if she needed them only for propriety’s sake. Around her neck, she wore a necklace made of tiny white shells held together with a string. She was very beautiful. I have never seen anyone like her before. The way I liked her wasn’t the way I liked other girls when I checked them out. When I liked other girls, I measured my liking for them on the basis of whether they could be someone I could sleep with. But this one, I liked her very much, but it never crossed my mind that I wanted to have her. Maybe that would come later, but at that moment, I just wanted to keep on looking at her. She was very beautiful.
The girl plunked herself onto my bed, pulling her bare feet, which were dirty and sandy, onto the bed, and then tucked them beneath her.
I blinked at her and drew back, sitting up and pulling my blanket around me in protection. Who was this person?
She laughed at me as I gripped my blanket. “I am Amihan,” she said. Her voice had a strange lilting quality to it. She seemed to be singing, the way she spoke. I liked her voice. She had a strange accent as if the language she spoke wasn’t her real language, as if she had a more primitive language that she was more conditioned to speak, but a language other people have already forgotten.
I blinked again, then swallowed to get my bearings. “I’m—I’m Manuel,” I said, trying to smile.
She smiled. “I know.” She stood up nimbly. “Let’s eat!” She bent down without bending her knees to retrieve her lamp. I saw for a millisecond that she wasn’t wearing an undershirt. I sat up straighter. This was Kawayan’s daughter? I couldn’t connect the concept of the stoic, unsmiling Kawayan, and this beautiful—creature.
She bounded to the door ahead of me, and when I hesitated to make the bed, she came back and pulled me alongside her. Her hands seemed fragile, and so was everything about her, but she her grip when she held on to me was strong and firm. Her skin was smooth and pink, and she smelled like the sea.
“Leave it! I’m hungry!” she cried, laughing.
I let her lead me out of the room; she was still holding my hand, pulling me along, while I lagged behind, half-stunned. The hallways were lit with indoor gas lamps, and the sculptures threw shadows on the walls.
Amihan would smile back at me once in a while, tugging my hand so that I would go faster. She was practically running. I stared at her bare feet padding on the cold stone floor. I’ve never seen such tiny and pretty, albeit, dirty feet. She led me to their outdoor dining area, which was surrounded by a copse of narra and acacia trees. We were canopied by the branches and leaves; the moon above was a sliver of bright light, and the stars, equally luminous, dotted the sky around it.
The table, which was a huge block of wood wedged into the sand, was laden with a feast of fruits and two kinds of fish, and humongous red crabs. I sat at one end of the table, and she sat at the other, gracefully, as if sliding into her chair. She lighted two kerosene lamps and placed them between us.
She had prepared banana leaves for plates, but there were no utensils. She washed her hands with a pitcher of water, and I followed her example. I waited as she served me, and then herself. It fascinated me to watch her. She ate with abandon, like a child, with her tiny hands and long graceful fingers, huge handfuls crammed into her tiny mouth, but maintained a sort of refinement at the same time.
I tried not to stare at her too much and then struggled with the claw of a crab I was trying to tear apart. The best part for me was the meat inside the shell, but I couldn’t open it, try as I might. My fingers had cuts from the attempt, and then the claw flew off my plate onto the sand.
Amihan laughed at me.
“Don’t you know how to eat a crab?” she asked, still smiling. She walked towards me and picked up the claw, brushing it on her dress. She didn’t seem to mind the sand stuck to the front of her dress. And then, without ceremony, she picked up a stone from the ground, and started pounding on the claw while I watched. I laughed. A bit of the shell hit my face. And while she was pounding on the crab, every time she raised her hand I could see through the armholes of her dress. I guess she never heard of brassieres or undershirts.
When she was done, pounding, she picked out the meat, and placed it on my plate.
“Thank you,” I said, grinning.
Amihan simply laughed in answer, skipping back to her place.
“What about—your father…Isn’t he eating with us?” I asked hesitantly after a few moments of silence.
“He likes to eat alone…” Amihan told me. “And he doesn’t like to be bothered if he’s working in his studio.”
“Oh.”
We continued eating, and I couldn’t help staring at her again. It was amazing to watch her eat a fish. She expertly pulled out the bones of the fish from her mouth and then lined them up on the banana leaf plate. As for me, I would often have to spit out a chewed up mouthful of fish and bones and rice. I never really became good at eating fish. Once or twice she would catch me gazing at her and frown. I thought she might think I was weird, so I avoided looking in her direction for as long as I could. When I was halfway through with my food, she stood up, cracking open a red crab, and then selected pieces of fruit from a tray.
She washed her hands, and then without a word to me, she entered the house, carrying the plate with the food on it, a pitcher of water and a glass.
I half-stood on my chair, hastily wiping my hands. “Wait…” I called. She didn’t stop.
I followed after her. Inside the house, she paused at the stairs, where I caught up with her.
“Hey, help me with this, will you?” She handed me the pitcher and the glass. Then she climbed up. I went with her.
The upstairs had dark wood flooring, and like the downstairs, it was also dirty, and sandy. It was the kind of house where nobody cared, really.
Amihan stopped in front of a door tucked in a corner at the end of the hallway, which was covered in a woven red, black and yellow Dumagat blanket. Amihan knocked three times, and then we heard three muffled sounding knocks from inside, her cue to enter. She opened the door and went inside.
I paused, unsure, then shrugged and followed her. I parted the blanket aside, and peered through the door, which Amihan left slightly ajar.
Inside, I saw Amihan lying on a huge bed, curtained with a mosquito net, beside a frail and delicate-looking boy, who looked young, but I would later find out was actually 20, a year and a few months younger than I was. He was wearing pajamas and a simple shell necklace like the one Amihan was wearing. From looking at him, the expression on his face, I could tell he was sensitive and intelligent.
He was eating from the plate that Amihan brought him, while beside him, Amihan read quietly from handwritten pages. Her eyes scanned the pages back and forth, and sometimes she would smile and then laugh. I looked around the room. Like my room, its walls were painted with seascapes and colorful fish, starfish and seahorses. There were wall hangings of native woven cloths, and ceremonial ethnic swords, paintings of a woman which looked a lot like Amihan, probably their mother. Another wall was filled with paintings of Amihan, there were a lot of her, and they all looked slightly different from each other. I realized that they had a sequence. It was a set of paintings of Amihan growing up. There was a shelf of books which filled the entire wall, a table with a recordplayer on it, a shelf of LP’s, a work table of art supplies, a covered bust sculpture, a half-finished painting of Amihan on an easel.
I didn’t know how long I’d been standing there just staring into the room when the boy finally noticed me. I drew back, but Amihan sat up and waved to me, laughing.
“Manuel…” she said.
As I entered, the boy sat up straighter and regarded me warily.
“I’m sorry…” I mumbled. Amihan laughed and then ran to me, and half-dragged me closer to the bed.
“Ishmael, this is Manuel,” she said.
I nodded at Ishmael, and I had the distinct feeling he wasn’t looking straight at me.
“Hi…uhm, my name’s Manuel delos Angeles.”
“He knows…” Amihan said. She skipped towards the bed. “And my brother’s called Ishmael Tubig Ulan Kawagi Villegas. Kawagi means dagger.”
Amihan stood there beaming at us both, while Ishmael and I continued our staring match. What a strange name. But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Their father was named Kawayan, after all. And then there was Amihan herself.
“Sit down,” he finally said, lifting the mosquito net for me. I entered and sat down on the edge of the bed. I noticed framed black and white photos by his desk. They were of Amihan, Ishmael and Kawayan standing on the beach. Ishmael and Amihan were younger, perhaps they were nine and ten years old at the time. In another photo, Amihan and Ishmael stood holding each other close as if telling each other a secret.
“I want to know why you’re in Puerto del Cielo,” he said gently, seriously.
I shrugged. “I was sent by my grandfather to give something to your father.” I paused. “He died a few weeks ago…He was your father’s teacher before.” Ishmael nodded somberly. Amihan was sitting by the antique recordplayer, which she was winding up. I was momentarily distracted. They didn’t make those things anymore. She selected an LP and something which sounded like an Italian opera played.
“Where are you from?” Ishmael asked.
“Antipolo, well, that’s near Manila…”
“Oh.” He nodded.
I got sidetracked again, by the paintings of Amihan. Ishmael must have painted them. They were exact copies of her. I assumed that Kawayan must have taught him how to paint also. He was almost as good as I was, and there was something more to it too. When I turned to him again, he had pushed away his food and was reaching into a carved wooden case. It looked like weed and a pipe. I glanced at the pipe, telling myself, nothing was strange about all this. Amihan joined us on the bed, and helped Ishmael fill the pipe with weed. While she was filling it up, the tip of her pretty pink tongue peeked out, and there was a delicate crease on her forehead. I didn’t think she was aware that she was beautiful.
Ishmael took out matches, and then Amihan lit up the pipe and handed it to Ishmael, who took a long drag, and then passed it to Amihan, who took a drag too. The smoke smelled like cinnamon and roses. It was a familiar scent to me, but this one seemed more potent and distinct than all the weed I’ve tried before. This was high grade stuff. I didn’t even want to ask where they got it. When she was done, she passed the pipe to me.
I looked at it questioningly, and they stared back at me. I had never been into drugs, exactly, but I didn’t see anything wrong with it. Anyway, it wasn’t like marijuana had any effect on me. I shrugged and took the pipe from Amihan’s fingers, took a quick puff. As the smoke filled my lungs, I closed my eyes.
When I opened them again, Amihan and Ishmael were staring intently at me. Ishmael took the pipe from me and took a puff. Amihan curled up beside Ishmael, her head on his lap, while flipping through pages of what looked like poetry. They passed the pipe between them and excluded me, seemingly forgetting I was in the room with them at all.
I coughed and spoke up. “Do you know where Aling Lusing is?”
“She left already,” Amihan answered nonchalantly after a few moments.
“What?” I didn’t understand what she was saying. “How will I get home?”
Amihan and Ishmael looked at each other, unconcerned. I noticed their eyes were getting a bit glassy and dewy, and their smiles were a little too loose and easy.
“But she will return. You can go home then…” Amihan said blithely.
I felt relieved. “Oh…when is she coming back?”
“I don’t know…maybe in a week or so…” she answered merrily.
I could feel the blood draining from my face as the information dawned on me. Amihan laughed at me again, passing the pipe to me. Ishmael was separating seeds from another batch of weed.
“Can I call her or something?” I addressed the question to Ishmael. I wouldn’t get anywhere if I talked to this girl. All she did was laugh at me. And as expected, she laughed again.
“Why?!” I asked, my voice rising.
“There are no phones in this house,” Ishmael said simply.
Amihan laughed again, and Ishmael smiled mischievously.
“Why?!” I asked in panic, laughing nervously.
“Well, there used to be a telegraph but father got rid of it…” Ishmael went on. “I had a transistor radio before too…but father found out…so that’s gone too. There’s no electricity either…This is an island, Manuel. How would you install cables and telephones?”
I swallowed hard. I won’t let this get to me. Was the weed taking effect so fast? I was feeling choked up. I thought of other ways to get off the island. “Maybe you have a boat…”
Amihan shook her head, seemingly enjoying my confusion.
“How do you guys get off this island?! How do you go to other places?”
“We just don’t go,” she answered simply, smiling. Her smile drove me crazy.
“What?”
She shrugged, bored with the conversation. “We haven’t left Puerto del Cielo all our lives, since father and mother brought us here to live. Father said I was two years old.”
I didn’t get this at all. I was getting more confused by the minute.
Ishmael turned to me. “But if you really want to leave this island, Manuel, there is a way…” he began seriously.
Ishmael turned to look at Amihan, who seemed to find the entire conversation very amusing. She looked like she was straining not to burst out laughing again.
With a straight face, Amihan said, “You can swim.”
I thought about it carefully, hardly believing what they were telling me. It couldn’t be true. Were there still places like this in the world? It was a mystery how these two were talking normally. They ought to be like that Jodie Foster film, Nell.
“What are you saying?” I asked. “Are you saying I’m stranded here?”
Amihan nodded enthusiastically, grinning. She sat up and bounced on her heels. “You’re have to stay here until Aling Lusing comes back.”
“How do you live here?!” I asked incredulously. I knew I was yelling, but I couldn’t help myself.
They didn’t seem to be affected by my sudden burst of temper. It was like nothing concerned or bothered them at all. These two were so laid back they were practically horizontal.
“Like this…” said Ishmael nonchalantly. “Puerto del Cielo is very interesting, and there are lots of things to see. It takes about five hours to go around the entire island on foot.”
Amihan was laughing again.
I’d bet the expression on my face must be amusing her to no end. I was getting a bit hysterical, which was rare for me, because I was usually so easygoing and calm. But then, I wasn’t usually made to smoke high-grade marijuana and then told I was marooned on an island. I tried to calm down and think everything that was happening to me was cool. I took the pipe from Amihan or maybe it was Ishmael and took long deep, puffs. “Really…” I mumbled, after I’d had my fill.
“There are many things to see…” Amihan repeated.
I nodded absently. “But there are a few things that are bothering me about this whole situation, you know? How do you eat? What if you need medicine? Where do you buy your”—I paused, looking around the room—“your art supplies?”
“Somebody brings the art materials to us in a helicopter or by boat about four times a year. Father has made arrangements for us before we came to live here,” Ishmael said matter-of-factly. He paused. “Aling Lusing comes here weakly to cook for us and clean the house. Sometimes, we eat eggs or vegetables and fish—and we have chickens too.” I couldn’t speak for a long time. “Chickens?” I paused. “You kill them yourselves?”
Ishmael considered the question. “Lito does when he comes. Amihan knows how to boil the eggs.”
“Eggs…” The idea of Amihan boiling eggs suddenly struck me as hysterically funny. I laughed, and for a second I wondered why Amihan and Ishmael didn’t get it—the idea that Amihan boiled eggs was so hilarious. Just thinking about it made me start laughing again. I thought maybe I was stoned now. I probably was. Who cared anymore?
Amihan was talking. “We’re happy here,” she said. “Everything we could ever need is right here.”
“But what about school?” I asked slowly. I was having trouble imagining the two of them growing up here just by themselves and never going to school.
Ishmael shrugged. “Our father doesn’t believe in institutions—I mean, the entire concept of institutions. Our mother and father had taught us everything we know.”
“Everything you need to learn, you can learn from books,” Amihan added seriously.
I shook my head. “But it’s different if you study with other kids…It’s different when you study in the real context of life…” I felt like a hypocrite for a second, remembering I had dropped out from college a sem before graduation.
Amihan and Ishmael looked at each other, and I was afraid they were going to laugh at me again. Amihan merely swiped the pipe from me.
“But my father said, a person can learn a lot just by reading a book…It doesn’t mean that just because we didn’t study in a real school, we don’t know anything about how to live…” she said thoughtfully.
“But doesn’t reading those books make you want to go out and see those things for yourselves?” I asked.
Amihan shook her head automatically.
“Are you sure?”
“Don’t you want to see what a big city looks like?”
Amihan shook her head again. “No. My father said it’s dangerous out there. It’s better if we stay here.”
I looked at her carefully. She seemed to be just repeating what somebody had told her, and I suspected it was her father, Kawayan. I saw that her belief in his words was unshakeable, and I knew I had no business meddling with how they were raised, but at the same time, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for them. What he had done to them, keeping them here, was wrong.
“How would you know if you’ve never been there? You might like it,” I said.
“Do you like it over there?” Ishmael asked.
I thought about it. I remembered that the reason I got myself into this mess in first place was because I was sick of Manila and wanted to get away for a while. “Well, yes, I do. I have my life back there.”
“And what was your life back there?” Amihan asked, lying face down and propping her chin on a pillow.
“What do you do there?” Ishmael asked.
I paused for a long time. “I had a job, I had a band.” I felt like I had to explain everything to them. “My job, I make designs for companies—to advertise—to make people know about what they’re selling. To make people buy things…”
“Why?” Amihan asked.
“Because companies have to earn—to get money.”
“But the people lose their money?”
“Yeah…I guess so…”
“But isn’t that bad?” Amihan asked.
“What’s bad?”
“To make people buy things and make them lose their money.”
“No, it’s not like that”—
Ishmael interrupted. “It’s like what Marx says, remember? There are people who own the machines and the money to make things, and then there are poor people with no money who work for them and make the things, and then the rich people sell them back to the people with no money…”
“So the people you work for are bad,” Amihan decided.
Truth to be told, I never thought of it that way. “What?” I didn’t know whether I ought to laugh or try to explain it. But the way they explained it in their own way, they made sense.
Ishmael coughed. “So, you have a band, you play music, yes?”
I nodded. I thought I could explain this one better. “Yes. I play an electric guitar.”
“What kind of music?”
“You know—funk? It’s like a fusion—a little bit of techno and we have turntables and synthesizers. We play in bars three times a week.” I stopped, thinking maybe they didn’t understand a word of that. “There are these instruments that you plug in, and we would use old records and make scratchy noises using a machine…”
“Hmmm…” Amihan said doubtfully. “You can make music by scratching records?”
“Yes.”
“So what else do you do?”
“I skateboard.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s when you ride a board with wheels, and you can do tricks with it.”
They didn’t seem to get that either.
“What else?” Amihan asked again.
“I play computer games…” I said. Thinking about it now, my life seemed pretty boring and empty. I guess I really didn’t do much. I had a job, I had hobbies, I had a band, I slept with girls. That’s pretty much it. “It’s a machine where you can do lots of things? Like, write and play music, and”—
“We know what a computer is!” Amihan said snappily.
I blinked.
“We do have books here, you know…” Ishmael reminded me, chuckling.
“So, are you happy with your life back there?” Amihan asked again.
It was a difficult question. “I guess not.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know…” I muttered.
“But what do you want?” Amihan asked earnestly, her forehead creasing delicately.
I didn’t know either. I shrugged.
“You don’t know what you want?!” Amihan looked at me carefully.
“No, I don’t.” I turned to them. “What do you want?”
“But we don’t want anything,” Amihan said, laughingly.
“But everybody wants something…” I said, confused for a minute.
“We just want to stay together like this,” she said simply. I wish I could answer that sort of question the way she did, with conviction and certainty. But I didn’t have an answer. I guess I didn’t have an ambition; I didn’t really want our band to become famous, or for me to have my own advertising agency like most guys I worked with. I didn’t have any ambitions of writing the greatest Filipino novel ever and have it published, nor marrying the most beautiful girl in the world. What did I want?
Amihan passed the pipe to Ishmael, who took a puff, then passed it to me. “You’re much too serious, Manuel,” Ishmael remarked, clapping me on the back gently.
“But think about it from my point of view, I have never met anybody who would willingly live away from civilization…No malls, no movies, no cell phones, no TV, and no McDonald’s.” I shook my head slowly.
Ishmael chuckled.
Amihan frowned. “What’s that?” she asked in wonder.
“But there are a lot of people like us,” Ishmael pointed out. “Like the Dumagat, Mangyan, Igorot, Ifugao, T’boli…I mean, everyone lived like this before.”
“But… I might not last here.”
Ishmael chuckled. I knew I sounded ridiculous, but I couldn’t help it. It was true. A guy can go crazy in a place like this. “But it’s only for a few days. It’s rare that anybody from Manila would visit us here…and it’s your school vacation, right?”
I shrugged, defeated. In a way, what he was saying was making sense. He was right. What do I have to lose if I stay here for a week? I might as well enjoy it. It might be nice for a change. But for the moment, I had to face it. I was stuck here.
Suddenly, Amihan leaned closer to me and took the pipe from me, inhaling smoke, and then, she covered my mouth with hers and for one instant, for one second, I felt her soft, moist lips on mine and before I realized what she was doing, she had passed the smoke into my mouth. I sat there, motionless, taken aback. Ishmael didn’t seem to think anything of it.
Amihan sat back calmly, puffing on the pipe. She looked especially beautiful with the smoke curling around her head lazily. I stared at her, still stunned, then I started coughing as I swallowed the smoke. Ishmael and Amihan laughed at me yet again. But this time, I laughed along with them.

Chapter Three

2006-04-12T00:55:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER THREE

I left before anybody woke up. I didn’t leave a note or anything. Let Camille think I was a bastard. I thought it was better that way. I took a jeepney to head for the town of Sabang. The pilot of the plane had told me I could take a boat there to go to San Cristobal, at the pier. He added that there were daily trips by boat to the islands.
During the jeepney ride, I snapped pictures of the mountains to amuse myself. In a marketplace I saw an old Dumagat man with kinky white hair, dressed only in a bahag selling fish. I took his picture as well. The old woman next to me in the jeepney, clutching a buri bag of vegetables, and a man with a rooster, smiled at me, pleased that I seemed to be enjoying the scenery of their village.
At the edge of town, I had to walk on foot to get to the coastal town of Palanan where the pier was. It was about 45 minutes away from the resort where I left Camille and the others. I took more pictures on my way. There were huge billboards announcing structures that will be built or are being built by the coastline. There was an ad for a factory, a shipping yard, a bunch of beach resorts. It was hard to imagine this beautiful and peaceful town bustling with the kind of activity those structures would bring. It was as if no place was sacred anymore. For example, there were always annoying banners of Smart or Globe, everywhere I’ve traveled in the Philippines, even in Sagada. Of course, not to mention a McDonald’s. Well, this area didn’t have any of those yet, but I’ll bet in a few months or so, Globe or Smart would be building a cell site here, and then a McDonald’s or a Jollibee would be built in the town square. It surprised me that there wasn’t either one of them yet around here.
It was late afternoon when I reached the wharf. I was pretty hungry by then, and made do with some Tostitos I swiped from the bags of grocery in our room. They already tasted a little stale. A lot of dark brawny men approached me offering to carry my bag for me, asking where I was going. There was an area where all the passenger boats were, and their “barkers” or perhaps the pilots themselves, were shouting out the destinations of each boat. To the side was a fish market; men were always coming and going bearing yellow crates of fresh fish and all sorts of seafood. I snapped more pictures.
I approached one of the men by the boats.
“Excuse me.” I stopped to take out my grandfather’s map out of my bag and showed it to him. “Would you take me to this place?” I asked, pointing to the drawing of San Cristobal.
The man looked at me uncomprehendingly, his eyes on the map, then back at me, then back at the map again. When he finally spoke, his voice was heavily accented, and he spoke brokenly. “Where?”
“San Cristobal…”
“Oh…that island is very far from here.” He paused. “There are boats here which go to San Cristobal, but the last trip just left…”
I looked down, thinking. It would be a drag to have to stay here and wait for the boat. I took out my cell phone, intending to call my father, but there wasn’t any signal. “Isn’t there any way I can go to that island?”
The man paused, thinking. Then he looked at me meaningfully.
I didn’t get it at first, then I said, “I have money.”

The man charged me a thousand pesos to go to San Cristobal, which I would learn later, was a rip-off. It took us about three hours or so to get there, on his small motor boat which sometimes sputtered and died, but the boatman, who went by the name Mang Pilo, always managed to get it going again. When it got dark, Mang Pilo lighted a gas lamp, and fish followed by the side of the boat, slapping against the sides and looking at me with their cold fish eyes. I was half-sick by the time we reached land, and the only thing that kept me going were the tiny lights from what I presumed was San Cristobal Island. From afar it looked like a birthday cake with lots of festive lights.
I felt better as I plodded my way to the first small sawali hut restaurant I saw. It had a jukebox at the front which was powered by a noisy generator. Several men and women in swim suits or sarongs who were probably tourists stood around it and were singing or drinking.
I went straight for the bathroom, which the Dumagat janitor informed me was at the back. Afterwards, I walked back to the front and ordered some food. I was surprised to find that the menu had sisig, sinigang and other regular food which you could buy in any restaurant in Manila. I didn’t know what I was expecting to find in the menu. Maybe turtle soup or shark or something. I ordered both dishes and had a bottle of Cerveza Negra.
After my meal, I looked around the restaurant. The first thing I had to do was look for a room, and find a way to get to Puerto del Cielo. I didn’t know who to ask among the people in the restaurant. Obviously, those tourists wouldn’t know. I guess my best bet would be the girl at the counter. I was lucky. She happened to know someone who knew a woman who could take me to Puerto del Cielo.
“Excuse me…” I said, nodding at her. “Do you know where I could get a room around here?”
She smiled at me. “Let me check if we have something available.” I noticed that she was well-spoken, although she had a faint accent. But I guess she had to be because of her job. She took something from a small desk, a ledger, and gave it a cursory glance. “It’s 800 a night. How many days are you staying?”
“Uhm, just tonight, actually. I’m really going to Puerto del Cielo,” I said casually. “Do you know where that is?”
The girl’s eyes widened. I didn’t know if that was good or bad. “Puerto del Cielo? If you don’t mind my asking--why?” She paused. “Why do you want to go there?”
I shrugged. “I know someone who lives there.”
“Really?” She frowned. “You know the old man who lives there?”
I hesitated. They called Kawayan “the old man.” I suppose he was famous around here. I didn’t think it was strange that he was well-known around here. It was just the kind of thing which happened in places like this. “Sure…his name’s Kawayan Villegas, and I just have some business with him…He’s—he’s an artist.”
“What?”
Upon hearing me mention Kawayan’s name, an older woman, and a man, who wore a heavy gold necklace, who appeared to manage the restaurant with the girl, came over to join us.
The man’s face had darkened. “It’s dangerous to go there, boy. That man’s crazy.”
“What?”
“To be living alone on that island…” The woman shook her head.
“He lives alone in Puerto del Cielo?”
The man shook his head at me. “Why are you going there for? He shoots anybody who sets foot on his island without permission.”
I didn’t know how to react to what the man said. I could only laugh. Really, it would have been funny if somebody else was having this experience. It was ridiculous. But the guy I was talking to seemed offended and shook his head again. What kind of person has Kawayan become? “But my grandfather who knows him, sent me…” I said, trying not to get flustered. “I just have to give him something. That’s it.”
“Well, maybe there are people who can take you there…” the woman said slowly. “But they won’t be responsible for whatever happens to you,” she said ominously.
I raised my eyebrows, trying not to laugh. But when I went back to my seat, I felt slightly put off. I thought it was all very simple—I find this island, Puerto del Cielo, deliver a package to Kawayan, maybe chat with him and then share a few drinks, and then go home. I could even be back before my birthday, which was just in a few more days.
The girl came to my table in a while. “Do you still want the room?”
“Sure, I guess.”
She smiled, and then sat on the chair across from me. “Listen. I know somebody, Lolo Selmo, who knows the woman who cleans the house in Puerto del Cielo. Maybe he can help you.” She glanced back at the woman, who was probably her boss. She was talking to a customer. The girl smiled at me reassuringly. “Don’t believe everything they say…sometimes people exaggerate.”
I kind of knew that—small town folks were all the same—but I didn’t say anything. “Thanks…”
“I get off in an hour. I can take you to Lolo Selmo after work…Can you wait for me until then?”
“Thank you.”
She smiled back and went back to the counter.
While waiting for her, I checked out my map again. It seemed so easy and simple on paper. Of course, I didn’t know then that people on San Cristobal Island thought Kawayan was crazy and that he was rumored to shoot anyone who came to his island. I tried to think positive. In a few more days, I’d be in back in Manila and then I’d be telling a friend this story during a drinking session and we’ll just be laughing about it. There was no way that Kawayan would actually shoot people who land on his island. That was just a rumor, and people who live in a small island like this would try to make up silly stories about people who were a little strange. They were just exaggerating. I was getting stressed out over nothing. I tried to reassure myself that I’ll be OK. I’m just going to give him the box and then leave. How hard could it be?

The girl’s friend, Lolo Selmo, was the town alburalyo. The girl once brought her younger brother to his hut for treatment after being bitten by a snake. His bamboo and nipa hut was filled with books. Apparently, he went to a university in Manila before and he wasn’t a native of this island at all. He says he’s originally from mainland Isabela, in Divilacan. I think I flew over that the day before. Anyway, he looked old, about 70 years old, maybe, but had a strong constitution. He didn’t seem to mind at all that we were disturbing him at this late hour. It was only 9 pm by my watch, but I assumed it was pretty late by their town’s standards.
While the girl went on home, Lolo Selmo and I made our way to the house of the woman who cleaned and cooked for Kawayan in Puerto del Cielo. He walked briskly and didn’t seem to need the lamp we were carrying, which was a reused cheese spread bottle with a handle fashioned out of tin filled with kerosene. He was familiar with the path, and knew all the twists and turns, while I, who was supposedly younger and healthier, was stumbling and straggling after him, but then, the streets were dark and damp, and sometimes we would be going up, and then down, plus there were lumps of stones in the path. I guess people in this place never heard of asphalt, nor did they care for it. Aside from that, I was also carrying about a hundred pounds of luggage, gadgets and comic books, so I really wasn’t to be blamed for being a bit of a klutz.
The woman’s name, according to Lolo Selmo was Aling Lusing. She was the sister of the barangay captain, and had six children, four boys and two girls. She had been widowed just last year. Before Lolo Selmo could tell me the reason why, we had arrived at the door of their house, a sawali with big windows, yellow curtains, a flimsy bamboo fence, lighted by continental lamps. In the yard, there were salted fish let out to dry, as well as an overturned wooden fishing boat, and nets. To the side was the outdoor kitchen, with blackened pots and pans in a makeshift bamboo shelf, as well as a stack of firewood beside the earthen stove.
Lolo Selmo easily opened the gate and made his way in. I followed him. He called out to the house in Ilocano. I figured he said, ‘This is Lolo Selmo, and someone from Manila is here to see you.’
In a few seconds, a kind-looking matronly middle-aged woman came out of the back of the house with a basin of laundry at her hip.
She spoke in Ilocano to him too, and then she noticed me.
Lolo Selmo began the introductions. “This is”—
“Manuel delos Angeles, ma’am,” I put in.
“He says he needs to go to Puerto del Cielo. His grandfather sent him,” Lolo Selmo said. “I thought it best if you accompany him there…”
She smiled at us, and without further questions invited me inside her home. Lolo Selmo said goodbye and went on his way.
Their house was modest but well-kept. The first thing I noticed in the living room was the huge blown-up picture of a man (most probably Aling Lusing’s late husband) placed on top of a shelf of books. He had deeply set eyes, and in the picture, he looked tired and serious. He was dark, and his cheekbones were prominent, and he had creases on his forehead. There were flowers and candles in front of his picture.
Beside the photo of the man was a smaller painting of a beautiful young girl, who didn’t seem like she was from around these parts. She looked like a foreigner, actually. The small painting was realist and skillfully made and I wondered who in town could have made it. As I looked at it, I felt more and more like I’ve seen her before, and it drove me crazy that I couldn’t remember where exactly I’ve seen her before. She had an unforgettable face, diamond shaped, very pale and fair; her eyes were dark green with golden flecks, her black hair in disarray, framing the sides of a delicate face.
On the bamboo floor were hastily rolled up mats and beddings, as if people were sleeping here right before we came in, which wasn’t far from the truth. In the doorway hung with curtains of tiny shells strung together with string, three young dark-skinned sleepy-looking boys, aged around seven to twelve peered at me curiously.
“Belen!” Aling Lusing called.
A girl about my age, deeply tanned, slim, sturdy, pretty, with straight long black hair, walked in with a tray of coffee and pan de sal. She shared some features with Aling Lusing; she must be her eldest daughter. As she set down her tray on the wooden coffee table, she smiled at me shyly. I nodded at her politely.
“You traveled a long way to get here,” Aling Lusing remarked.
“I know, ma’am…I was asked by my grandfather to visit Kawayan Villegas before he died,” I explained. “My grandfather is Salvador delos Angeles…He was Kawayan Villegas’s teacher.” I saw that she didn’t recognize my grandfather’s name. I had a feeling that she didn’t even know that Kawayan Villegas was also an artist. However, she had misgivings about taking me to his home with her.
“He will be angry with me if I bring you there without his permission…”
“If we tell him that my grandfather sent me, maybe he wouldn’t mind…” I argued feebly. “He knew my grandfather.”
I didn’t know what else to say to convince her to take me with her to Puerto del Cielo. If she didn’t agree to take me, I guess I could hire another boat to take me there. If Kawayan shoots me, then that was just too bad…I was running out of ideas. Or if no boatman wants to take me there, I’ll go back to Manila and tell my parents I wasn’t able to go to the Puerto del Cielo because of “unforeseen circumstances”. Less hassle for me, plus I get to spend their money and travel.
But then, Aling Lusing said, “Well, I suppose he wouldn’t mind then...if he knew your grandfather…You can go with me tomorrow, and I will explain it to him first before I introduce you to him…” But she still sounded unsure.
It was strange how it was all working towards my favor. I was already mentally preparing myself for her refusal and I was almost ready to accept that I had failed. I smiled at her gratefully. “Thank you, ma’am.”
She paused, looking at me with concern. “Do you have a place to sleep for the night?”
“Well, I was going to rent a room…” I began. I didn’t want to trouble her, but Aling Lusing waved a dismissive hand.
“But we have lots of room for you…That is if you don’t mind sleeping on a mat…”
I didn’t know that Filipino hospitality was as real as ever. It felt strange to be at the receiving end of it, and I couldn’t help wondering there must be a catch somewhere. Why was everything suddenly going in my favor? I was really lucky to end up at that restaurant, where there was a girl who knew someone, who knew someone who could take me to Puerto del Cielo. Coincidence? I didn’t know. “How much do I have to pay?” I asked carefully.
She smiled at me. “Oh, don’t you worry about that,” she said. “Why don’t you rest now…we’re leaving early tomorrow morning.”

Aling Lusing’s son, a dark-skinned 14-year old boy with a slight build named Lito helped me set up my mat beside his. Aling Lusing and her two daughters, Belen and another young girl, were in a room further inside the house together. Lito’s three other siblings, all boys, were also setting up their beddings again. I took out my Ipod, PDA, cell phone and digital camera. I could feel them gawking at me as I arranged my things.
Lito handed me a coarse, threadbare blanket. “Here you go, Kuya.”
“Thank you.” I offered my hand to shake his. I saw him glancing at my alibata tattoo.
“I’m Manuel.”
Lito glanced at my hand and shook it clumsily. His hand was hard and rough. “I know, Ate Belen told me.” He paused. “I’m Lito.”
“So…Lito…”
“How do you know Kawayan Villegas?” he asked me, before I could ask him.
“Well…I don’t really know him. But my grandfather knew him. I have never met him before in my life.” I stopped. “But at the restaurant…they said he was sort of—crazy.” I chuckled, but he didn’t join me.
Lito snorted. “But you know that’s not true. The only people who say that are those who don’t know him very well. Around here, if a person is slightly different or thinks in a different way, they already assume that there’s something wrong with that person’s head.”
“So you know him then? What’s he like?”
Lito nodded, then shrugged. “Not really. He doesn’t talk a lot, and he never leaves his island. There isn’t much opportunity to get to know him, if you know what I mean. I only see him about once a week, when I take mother and sometimes my sister there. But that doesn’t make him crazy, does it?”
I let myself be reassured by Lito’s words. He was right, people liked to talk. Maybe they really were exaggerating. I shouldn’t be surprised. After all, this was a rural area. Maybe people around here thought that way. But this boy, Lito, I knew he was smarter and more mature than he looked. And I trusted him. It was weird, with most people I meet, it takes me about a whole year of being acquainted with them before I could trust them, sometimes more. And they had to really risk their necks for me before I believed they were my true friends.
We chatted for a while, and I found out he had stopped school to help out his mother with work, and he sometimes helped out with the fishing fleets. His sister Belen had just graduated and was looking for a job in the mainland as a maid or waitress. His other siblings were all in school, and that his uncle, the barangay captain, sometimes helped them with expenses, although his mother hated to ask for help. I tried not to be too worried about Lito. He seemed like he was determined and strong enough. I knew he could take care of himself.
He asked a little about me as well, what I did, and where I studied. He himself wanted to study science, perhaps biology. He said he liked science, and was Best in Science in their elementary school. I told him I could help him out if he was serious about it, and gave him my address in the city. This time I didn’t invent a fake one.
I said good night to Lito and lay on the woven mat, but tired as I was, I couldn’t sleep. The quiet sounds of the island kept me awake—the rustling of tree branches, the wind, the insects, the sea. The other boys were already sleeping, but I noticed that Lito was also awake. He seemed to be reading a book.
I sat up. “What are you reading?” I asked.
Lito looked up at me, startled. He showed me the cover of his book. The Gulag Archipelago, by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Now that was a strange book for a kid his age to be reading. And it seemed out of place in this island—it was thick, hardbound and well— serious. My professors were always trying to get me to read books like that, but I simply preferred graphic novels and low-stress reading, like comics and Fangoria magazines.
“Is it yours?”
“It was my father’s,” Lito said, then gestured towards the makeshift altar upon which his father’s picture was placed, beside the painting of the beautiful girl. “Those are his books. Some of those, I borrowed from Lolo Selmo and Manong Kawayan.”
“Oh.”
Lito frowned. “I know what you’re thinking. I don’t look like someone who’d read a book like this.”
“I didn’t mean anything like that”—I said hastily.
“But you were thinking it.”
“Well, what is it about?”
“A Russian political prisoner.” Lito scrunched up his face, then smiled. “It’s actually a bit boring. But there’s nothing else to do to amuse yourself around here…”
I glanced at the shelf. Most of the titles of the books were leftist texts, political treatises, and books on philosophy. I didn’t know what to make of it.
“Why don’t you move?” I asked.
“It’s not that easy,” Lito muttered, looking away.
Of course it wasn’t. I felt like an idiot telling this kid to move somewhere else. Where? Manila? When they get there, they’d end up living under bridges and begging for money at the MRT station.
“I’m sorry if I’m bothering you from your reading,” I said lamely.
“I was just about to sleep anyway.” Lito put away his book, and blew out his lamp. The living room was instantly plunged in darkness. I could hear Lito trying to get comfortable on his mat, and then before long, the only sound I could hear from him was even breathing. He was already asleep.
I lay back down and stared at the ceiling, trying to sleep. But I couldn’t. I wasn’t thinking of anything in particular, but I couldn’t sleep. Maybe I’m not used to total quietness. Maybe I needed to hear a distant car, or a dog barking, or someone’s radio. Anything but this unbearable silence. It made me wonder about the things outside that I couldn’t see, things that could come to me in my sleep. I don’t know. I thought of my parents, Angge, grandmother. They’re all probably asleep in their beds right now. The thought of them safe at home made me feel relieved. I wondered for a moment if they were worried that I haven’t texted or called all day. I thought I might look for a phone somewhere on this island before we leave for Puerto del Cielo, but thinking back, I didn’t remember seeing any phones in town when I landed on San Cristobal, not even at the restaurant. Maybe they have a post office at least. I decided I’d just write my family a letter in the morning.

I didn’t get any sleep the night before, but when Aling Lusing came by to wake me up around four am, I didn’t feel tired at all. I was packed since the night before, and only had to take a quick bath, and change my clothes. I managed to scribble a letter hastily, and Aling Lusing said that Lito would take care of mailing it for me. I tried to give her some money but she politely refused it. When she wasn’t looking, I slipped a five-hundred peso bill under the flower vase in front of the picture of Aling Lusing’s husband.
In another hour, I was sitting on the prow of Lito’s small fishing boat, my hair a mess, windswept. It was still dark when we started out, but gradually, the sun rose and then it was warm and bright again. The wind against my face was sharp, and I had to wear my shades. The sun was that intense. I felt my face cracking from sunburn, but I didn’t care. I was finally going to Puerto del Cielo. The sooner I get there, the sooner I can go home.
Lito was barefoot, manning the boat expertly. He said he had learned when he was eight. His father, who was a fisherman, taught him. I thought of what I was doing when I was eight. I think I was drawing with chalk on the streets in our town. Nothing could compare to learning how to sail a boat.
Overhead, sea birds were squawking at us. I tried to take pictures but I was afraid I might drop my camera into the water. Hoping against hope, I took out my cell phone to try and text mom or Angge that I was close to Puerto del Cielo, but there wasn’t any signal. I decided to just turn it off. It was totally useless around here. It frustrated me that I had all these gadgets, but they won’t work or will stop working once they run out of batteries. The kind of living the people did here must be like how people lived in the olden times.
Behind me, Aling Lusing inspected the goods she was bringing with us to the island. She explained to me that she did the marketing for Kawayan’s family, buying essentials like rice, canned goods, salted meat and fish, fruits, vegetables and sea food. She would then cook meals which would last them a week, do household chores like the laundry and some housekeeping. The house, she said, was always in some kind of mess. They never cleaned up when she wasn’t around. I wondered who “they” was. Then I remembered that Kawayan had a wife. Of course, they could have had children as well. I suddenly got curious about what kind of children he had, the way he raised them.
Lito spoke little during the ride. He sometimes told me the names of the birds which flew above our heads, and gave me updates that we were close to Puerto del Cielo. Whenever he said this, I thought for sure, I would see it in a few minutes or so, but there would be nothing but sea. By the end of an hour, I had amused myself with my PDA instead.
After finishing three games, I looked up. This time, Lito wasn’t lying. I saw a mass of land at the horizon. I shielded my eyes, and inexplicably, my heart started beating fast. Without Lito or Aling Lusing telling me, I knew. We had finally reached Puerto del Cielo.

Chapter Two

2006-04-12T00:54:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER TWO

That night I couldn’t sleep. I glanced at the clock on my bedside table and saw that it was almost past two. I was not to leave for two more days, but there was nothing else I could think about but my trip. I imagined long bus rides and the rolling countryside. I was actually looking forward to getting away, even if it would be on an errand for my grandfather. I was determined to enjoy myself on this trip. I made a mental list of the things I would bring: my digital camera, Ipod, maybe a sketchbook, pencils, a worn out Haruki Murakami novel I’ve been meaning to reread, my Gameboy in case I get bored during the bus ride, which I hear would take me about the whole night. There would be beaches there too, so I had to bring a bunch of board shorts and my snorkeling gear. My parents would probably reproach me for thinking of having fun at a time like this, but they didn’t have to know. Once I was there, I’d do what grandfather asked, and there was really not much they could do about it if I decide to stay there for a couple more days or so to explore the islands.
In the dark, I could make out Kawayan’s painting, which I had hung up on the wall in front of my bed. I threw off my covers and sat down, turned on my bedside lamp, and picked up the map that came with my grandfather’s letter. I really had no idea where I was going to go. I was having a mild anxiety attack about the idea of traveling that far. I felt that I had to know the exact place where I was to board the plane going to Palanan, and then the boat to San Cristobal Island, and another to Puerto del Cielo. The directions didn’t specify the exact places where I could get on the plane or the boats, just general instructions that after going to Cauayan, Isabela for example, the next stop would be Palanan, then San Cristobal Island, then Puerto del Cielo. My father assumed that it had to be a plane ride from Cauayan since there was no way any land vehicle could cross the Sierra Madre. I had to admit, I was afraid of getting lost there, and it would be hard to contact any of my family for help in case that happens. I would be on my own out there. I was getting really stressed out about it. But I traveled all the time. I’ve been to Sagada and Marawi, although not as far as the Pacific Ocean by myself.
I paced my room for several minutes, then decided to find a map. I figured if I could see those places in a map, I could imagine where they were exactly. I knew I was being ridiculous, but I had to set my mind at ease.
I remembered my father had a book of maps in his study downstairs; we used that book of maps when we went on trips with grandfather usually, before he got sick. Sometimes he would teach me and Angge how to drive. He mostly did the navigating. He was amazingly good with directions. As for me, I only knew how to get to a place by gut-feel, which could be unreliable at times. Once we were supposed to go to Baguio to attend the Flower Festival, but ended up in Mt. Samat instead. I think grandfather knew I was taking us in the wrong direction, but he wanted me to figure that out on my own. However, by the time I realized it, we had already taken the wrong exit and were too far away to turn back.
In the bookcases, there was a worn-out looking Philippine atlas. It was just as I remembered it. The cover was rumpled from being shoved into the glove compartment, and the edges of the pages were dog-eared, with some scribbles and doodles, relics from my childhood. I went straight for Region II, past the map of Cagayan Valley and on to Isabela.
There was a short article about the Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park. And it said there that it was located between 16 deg 40’—17 degrees 35’ East and 122 degrees 00’—122 degrees 30’ North. Of course, I had no idea what that meant. It mentioned that only 10 per cent of that is primary forest, which meant, only 10 per cent of the forest was left untouched by human activity, and that the original settlers there were the Dumagat or Agta, whereas the non-Agta were descendants of loggers in the 60’s. The article also described the surrounding areas, like the municipalities of Palanan, Maconacon, Divilacan, and portions of San Mariano, Tumauini, Cabagan, San Pablo, Ilagan and Dinapigue. I referred to the map to look at those places. There was also a river to the north of it, called Dikayatan River, and another in the south, called Disabungan River. Of course, there was the Cagayan Valley to the west, and the Pacific Ocean to the East. It also said that the area was 80 per cent land area and the rest were coastal towns. It even had trivia about endangered animals there, that there were 556 known species of birds, 180 species of land mammals, and 293 species of reptiles and amphibians.
But what I wanted to know about were the islands off the coast of Palanan. I tried to look for any island that even looked remotely like San Cristobal and Puerto del Cielo, but the two islands must be so small that they were deemed too insignificant to be included in the map. There was a small speck in the Pacific Ocean near the coastline of Palanan called Honeymoon Island and a bunch of other unnamed islands dotting the area around it, but no San Cristobal or Puerto del Cielo. I thought maybe they could be either one of those unnamed islands.
I began to wonder what kind of man Kawayan Villegas was for living in a place like Puerto del Cielo, so far away from civilization, from the city where he once lived. From the stories my grandfather used to tell me, he was quite famous. How did he walk away from it all? And most important of all—why? He seemed like he certainly had the talent, and enough ingenuity to survive the art world.
I realized how little I really knew of him. Sure, grandfather used to talk about him all the time, and I knew he was famous all over the world, but there must be a reason why he gave all that up and went to live in an island which wasn’t even named in official maps. It didn’t make any sense.

Grandfather kept his book of clippings in the bookshelf in his studio, in the bottom shelf. I went through them the next morning right after breakfast, intending to research on Kawayan Villegas. Grandfather had religiously collected everything about Kawayan and their rivalry. I wasn’t too interested in them before because grandfather was always telling me about them anyway, and how Kawayan has “dishonored” him, and that he had no “utang na loob.” On days when he would get all heated up thinking about their falling out, he would share with me, whether I wanted to listen or not, that when Javier (Kawayan) was a boy of 19, and he was about to quit his studies because of financial difficulties, he, Salvador delos Angeles, then the Dean of Studio Arts and his professor, took him aside and convinced him to stay on. My grandfather offered to pay for his tuition, during a time when he himself had many expenses, with three children and another child on the way and all.
I picked up the box of clippings and took it with me to the living room. Before I opened it, I glanced at Grandfather’s portrait, a sketch done by his friend H.R. Ocampo. He was looking at me sternly, as if he didn’t want me going through his clippings. I said to him mentally, “But you’re dead now.” I shrugged away my apprehension and continued.
The first clipping on top was about a successful sale of Kawayan’s works at a show in New York. There were several of these articles proclaiming his successful shows, as well as short biographies, accompanied by a black and white photo of Kawayan. The magazines or newspapers always used the same picture. I guess Kawayan was the kind of guy who hated to have his picture taken. It looked like a picture for their college yearbook; he was wearing a toga, with his hair smoothed back. He had what people would call an interesting face. He was not a handsome man—at first, but if you kept on looking at him, there was, I don’t know—something—that made him seem like someone you’d like to get to know better. He was on the thin side, and had large eyes and a stern jaw. I think the picture was taken more than 30 years ago, if he was in college in the picture. According to Dad, Kawayan was only older than he was by five years, so he must be 54 right now.
The mini-biographies, written mostly in the 80’s, pretty much had the same information. One magazine profile described Kawayan as a laconic man who valued his privacy, and shunned the academe and the media. But friends who were interviewed about him would say of him, that he was just a regular guy who liked to eat pork sisig with beer. The article went on to say, his style was much like his mentor’s, National Artist Salvador delos Angeles, and that at the time, he was in the shadow of his teacher, getting commissioned work through my grandfather. I could definitely relate to him. However, the writer was quick to add that even then, Kawayan was already going in a different direction. While my grandfather’s paintings of representations of nostalgic idyllic town life remained suffused with colors, Kawayan’s were becoming more somber and social realist. I learned in the articles that he was also part of a group of college students in the 70’s who frequented Kamalig, an old Spanish house in Recto converted to a restaurant/bar/art gallery/souvenir shop to discuss art, philosophy and art collaborations or projects, as well as social issues. Eventually, most of the group joined the Leftist movement, where Javier Villegas adapted the name Kawayan, and created art steeped in social realism, which he used as a form of protest against the Marcos government. He moved on from painting and sculpture and tried his hand at mixed media, installations and abstract art. It was here, according to the articles, that the separation of mentor and protégé was complete. He had developed a worldview of his own. He became political and reactionary, destroying the idyllic paradise that realist painters like my grandfather, Salvador delos Angeles, created.
Another article told of how Kawayan only had one show in the Philippines of his new paintings with relief sculpture, as well as collages of photos, tabloid headlines, text from banners used in rallies, and other materials. The show was a failure. Nobody understood him, or accepted what he made. Critics and other artists who were still under the school of realism maintained that a true painter was one who aimed to depict the beauty and perfection in nature in their works, and called his works “ugly monstrosities.”
In other articles, Kawayan was called other names, such as “mutilator” and “deformist.” In a major publication at the time, grandfather was quoted as saying, “Abstractions and other so-called revolutionary media are for people who could not draw and are merely covering up bad art as meaningless conflagration by means of post-modernism and as a disguise for lack of talent.”
Whoa. Was grandfather really so offended that he said this to his own, albeit, former, protégé? I was used to my grandfather’s sharp and biting criticism when it came to my work, but this was different. The quote was published in about six local newspapers and magazines, and in two international papers and another magazine. It seemed like a really big deal to them. I could imagine how Kawayan was publicly disgraced because his own mentor denounced him. I supposed this was one of the many things that caused the rift between them.
But at least, Kawayan had a group of supporters, fellow “rebel” artists like himself, who retaliated by issuing a statement that they were sick of painting like their teachers, and that if their idea of art was limited only to copying beauty and perfection, which only required artists to use their technical skills, then perhaps photography should be considered the highest form of art. For some reason, I mentally cheered these guys. Even if they were considered upstarts with no names to speak of in the Philippine art scene at the time, they sure had a lot of backbone. They argued that the current times called for more than just mere imitation and a different way of expressing. They also reviled the “rigid and obsolete academicians” who were resisting the inevitable change in the Philippine art scene, and enjoined other artists to “break free from the slavery to mere imitation of life.” This debate went on for years, chronicled in several magazine articles and news features.
The truth is, I never really thought much about this split between traditional and modern art. The way I created art, I guess I could say I had one foot in tradition, and another in modern art. But unlike Kawayan, I was never censured by my grandfather for trying other forms of art beyond what he was teaching me. Sure, I always felt like he wasn’t really enthusiastic about my experiments, but I would like to think that at least he tolerated them.
But what Kawayan did before was admirable, I had to admit. In a way, Kawayan opened the door for other artists like himself, much like Edades did during his time. To this, grandfather had an ambivalent comment on the comparison of Kawayan to Edades, whom grandfather worked with on several occasions in the past. When he was interviewed about this, he simply said, “To each his own.” This ambivalent, vague and neutral statement finally ended the long debate.
Other articles in grandfather’s collection were dated a few months later, to report that Kawayan had left the country to avoid imprisonment for his involvement with the resistance. It wasn’t mentioned how he did it, but he must have had friends in high places for him to be able to escape.
Two years after, the articles said, Kawayan resided in many cities in Europe and had art shows there, becoming famous and quite wealthy for his paintings of bleak New York tenements, dilapidated houses, and dreary street life. He was being commissioned by prominent Europeans to create sculptures for them as well. News of this reached the Philippines in the early 80’s, and he was being asked to return to his country, but he wouldn’t. I guess he was still smarting from his wounds. Admittedly, he was treated terribly while he was still here, and his teacher’s denunciation might have been what caused him to stay away. I think Kawayan was misunderstood because the Philippine art scene wasn’t ready for the kind of art he created, but everywhere else in the western world, that was the current movement, and so he had no trouble fitting in. But soon after he made a name for himself in Europe and the US, other artists in the Philippines had also begun exploring other techniques beyond what was being taught to them at school.
Under the newspaper cutouts and magazine clippings, there was a slim volume on some of Kawayan’s paintings and sculptures. The paintings, the booklet said, were all created in the late 70’s till the late 80’s, when Kawayan was abroad. Subjects ranged from strikes and rallies done in mixed media to festivals and carnivals in Europe in oil painting. It was much like what he was doing when he was back here in the Philippines, when he was still under the tutelage of my grandfather. For his clay sculptures, he had a phase where most of the figures were pregnant women, or women and infants. There was something distinctive about the model he used for the sculptures. It was the same woman all throughout. She had Caucasian features, was very stately and graceful, even in the uncomfortable, contorted poses of the sculptures. I would learn later, that the woman was his wife.

Two days later, on the bus on the way to Cauayan, Isabela, where I was to board the plane going to Palanan, I was still thinking about Kawayan and the box grandfather wanted me to give to him. I had placed it snugly among the clothes in my bag right before I left our house. I felt strange, and I would have lost any sort of concept of time I had, if it were not for my wristwatch, which would inform me of the time with its hourly beeps. There were several stopovers, and once or twice I thought of calling home, and then stopped before I could do so. What was I doing anyway? I have been living away from them for more than two years, and then here I was, just days apart from them, and I was homesick. It was ridiculous. But it was hard not to get lonely out here. I didn’t know anyone and haven’t spoken to anyone for more than eight hours aside from the conductor and the ticket girl, who both didn’t count. Basically, all I knew about my life right then was being confined inside a bus, and being let out ever so often at depressing stopovers, with strangers who were always in a hurry to go to the bathroom, or were too busy calling up somebody in their cell phones. I felt some kind of inexplicable loneliness when I looked out the window of the bus. The view was great, although marred by an occasional abandoned logging area. Here and there were rotting logs, and rusting discarded logging equipment. It upset me more than anything suddenly. I was usually an insensitive guy about a lot of things, but I couldn’t get the image of those fields with rotting logs scattered about out of my head.

Isabela’s one and only airline was Cyclone Airways, which had 6-seater Cessnas which ferried people and cargo to the coastal towns of Isabela every day. I was a little relieved that there were at least some traces of modernity in the area. However, I heard from the other passengers as I lined up for my ticket that sometimes they cancelled trips altogether with any sort of weather change. The gregarious old man next to me in the waiting area jovially informed me that sometimes they made the passengers wait for hours, or even days for their flights. He was obviously a veteran when it came to Cyclone Airways. I looked at the sky to reassure myself. It seemed pretty sunny and clear out, so far. But Philippine weather was so unpredictable, you never really know what to expect. But so far, the weather seemed to be in my favor.
It was around noon, and oppressively hot. I wondered if it was me, but the sun seemed brighter out here than in Manila. I had already divested myself of my huge camping backpack; I was perspiring like mad. There were other teenagers in the waiting area, looking at the Cessnas and taking group pictures. The boys were dressed in Hawaiian shirts, surf shorts, Havaianas; the girls in tank tops, shorts and Havaianas. They also had sunglasses on and were listening to their Ipods or talking in their cell phones. I realized that they looked just like me, except those guys were wearing baller ID’s and I was wearing mountaineer thread bracelets.
Two of the boys and one of the girls nodded at me and smiled, and then the girl came over to where I was sitting and bummed a cigarette from me. She looked very nice holding the cigarette from between her slim fingers, and her mouth formed a little O as she took a drag.
“You’re also going to the beach, right?” the girl asked, lowering her sunglasses. She was tiny and cute, with fair skin and Spanish eyes. Her smile was mischievous.
“Um, yeah…” I agreed. I figured they were from Manila like me and this was a summer outing.
The two boys she was with walked over to us as well. One of them took out his phone and frowned at it.
“Damn, no signal,” he muttered. He took off his cap and fanned himself with it.
“You’re from Manila aren’t you?” the other boy said.
I nodded again and mentioned my school. I didn’t add that I had just dropped out.
They seemed to be impressed. The boy said their group was mostly from Ateneo and UP. Two of them were HRM majors, one was in Business Management. One of them was taking up Philosophy in UP, and another was a Creative Writing major in Ateneo.
“Are you meeting someone?” the boy asked. “I’m James, by the way. This is Eric, and this is Camille…” Camille grinned at me. She gestured to the two girls by the snack bar. And that’s Julie Ann and Arianne…”
I checked them out discreetly. Those two were cute too, in a conventional kind of way. They were the kind of girls that when you first looked at them, they were just nice to look at. They were petite, with fair skin and straight long black hair. Typical. “I’m Vincent.” Usually, when I was in a place like this, like Boracay or Puerto Galera or at a bar, I’d always use a fake name. I didn’t know why I did it. I just did it. Usually, I made up a complete history about myself too. It’s not that I was a pathological liar or anything like that, I just enjoyed pulling someone’s leg. They shook hands with me. “Where are you guys going?”
Camille shrugged. “We’re trying to figure it out too…I guess we’re heading for Palanan first, then we’re going island hopping, or wherever we end up. It should be fun…” She leaned in conspiratorially. “I heard that in one of these islands, there’s a marijuana plantation or something…We want to find it.”
“It’s like in that Leonardo di Caprio flick, ‘The Beach,’” James said, grinning.
I think I saw that film in high school. I didn’t think it was that good, although the French girl there was pretty hot. Couldn’t remember her name though. “Yeah, that sounds cool,” I said anyway. I thought it was corny that they thought they’d find a marijuana plantation out here. I mean, there were probably marijuana plantations but NPA’s were more likely the ones who owned the farms. Truth was, marijuana didn’t really excite me anymore, as I had a constant supply of the stuff from classmates who acquired their supply from the townies. I even ate it in brownies and cookies. After a while though, I’d notice that it didn’t have an effect on me anymore. It’s easy to get bored with that stuff after a while. The people who were still curious about it were people who thought they were cool if they smoked marijuana, mostly posers. These guys were probably posers, but they seemed OK. This girl Camille wasn’t half-bad.
“But, the book was much better than the film,” I went on. Camille’s eyes glowed when I mentioned that I knew about the book. She was that kind of intellectual-artsy-rebel type who thinks she’s weird and no one will ever understand her kind of girl. Really vulnerable and susceptible. She was out there, and if I show just the slightest bit of interest…really, it was just too easy.
She smiled at me. “You know that there’s a book,” she said, pleased.
“Yeah, Alex Garland wrote it, right? I went to Thailand when I was 14 and everyone I met over there was reading it…” Fortunately the Thailand trip really did happen, a gift for my sister’s birthday, except all I could remember about that trip was that I rode on an elephant and it hurt to ride it, plus we bought these weird spicy candies. “I felt left out so, I read it. But I don’t really read that much or anything. I just watched the other film version of his book, 28 Days Later, which I would have to say, is much better than ‘The Beach.’”
“Yeah, I know…” She smiled, nodding. She paused, glancing at her friends. “You know what, why don’t you go with us or something? You’re by yourself, right?”
I said that I was. “How long are you guys staying?”
“A week or so…” James said vaguely.
“All right…” I nodded, smiling. “I just have some errands to do before”—I stopped. “Can I just text you or something?”
Camille and Eric exchanged a glance, amused. I didn’t know what was so funny. “I don’t know, man,” Eric said. “I don’t think they have any signal where we’re going. We don’t even have any signal here.”
“What?” I wasn’t sure I understood them.
“Dude, this is the Sierra Madre. I don’t think there are any cell sites around the area…” James said.
Camille cocked her head to the side. “What if we just meet you at a resort in Palanan, like, in two or three days? Let’s talk about it in the plane…” She paused. “But you can have my number just in case…”
James winked at me, and Eric laughed. Camille pretended to get mad. I smiled good-naturedly. We exchanged numbers. “Which resort?” I asked. “I might not be able to find you.”
“There’s only one resort there, so you won’t miss it,” Eric assured me.
I shrugged, thinking about it. Maybe I could put off going to Puerto del Cielo for a couple of days. It wouldn’t make much difference if I was a couple of days late, and I had a lot of money on me, thanks to Dad, so there wasn’t anything to worry about really.
Camille smiled at me. “Come on, you want to meet the girls?”
I shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

I was relieved that there were kids my age to share the plane ride with. They seemed comfortable with each other, as if they knew everything there was to know about each other. It was fascinating to observe their group dynamic. Eric, I found, was the one they always picked on and teased, and Eric allowed that in his good-natured way. I was right about Camille. She was the rocker, the ‘outcast;’ she could relate more to the guys than to the girls. Julie Ann and Arianne were best friends, and Julie Ann was James’ cousin. He looked after her. Actually, it was Arianne’s and James’ idea that they go on this trip, since Julie Ann had just broken up with her boyfriend, and they were hoping that the trip would help her forget about her ex, who, from what I could gather, was a jerk who cheated on her. I found that hard to believe since Julie Ann was so pretty. She was the kind of girl whom the guys always noticed at once, but she insisted that he cheated on her, and then I thought about my relationships, if they could be called that. I guess these things really do happen. I dated a great girl for about ten months, my second girlfriend, who studied theater arts in the same school I went to. She wasn’t the prettiest girl in the world, but she and I looked good together. I liked her for her honesty, like she confessed that she initially liked me for my nose, and I said I liked her because the first time we met, she told me my tattoo of alibata characters on my arm was pretentious and that I was a poser for having such a tattoo. In her exact words, she asked me, who did I think I was, Brandon Boyd or somebody? She and I could talk about anything and she was really good at giving advice. If it weren’t for her, I would never have had enough backbone to quit studying under my grandfather. I guess I could say I was really happy when we were together. But what could I do? I’m a guy, I’m an artist, I have a band, girls are always throwing themselves at me and it’s not polite to step aside. I know that’s a lame excuse, but maybe I’m really just an insensitive asshole. Anyway, the gist of it is, she broke up with me. I haven’t heard from her lately, but I heard she was dating a jock from a university for rich kids. Not exactly a step above me; she could definitely do better, but maybe she was tired of dating egotistical artist types. Who knows what she could be thinking about?
Anyway, I talked a lot to Camille, who was into bands. Naturally, I talked a little about my band. She’s never seen any of our performances—the set we played to was a different crowd from hers. But we made plans to see a show when we got back to Manila during the summer. I didn’t really intend to actually meet her in Manila or anything like that, but I enjoyed talking to her, and the way we talked with each other so easily reminded me of my ex-girlfriend. It was weird. She got animated and her eyes shone brightly as she talked. I could barely hear her anymore. I was only conscious of our knees and shoulders touching as the plane shuddered forward. As I looked at her, I thought to myself, maybe I would sleep with her.

Without much persuasion, I decided to postpone my “errand” for two days and spend time with Camille and her friends. They had rented two rooms at the resort—one for the girls and another for the guys, and James didn’t mind if I parked with them for a while. We made a stopover in town right after landing in Palanan and bought two cases of beer, cigarettes and all sorts of junk food and things to barbecue.
The resort was painted white, and there was a depressing looking restaurant at the front, but we could cook our own food if we wanted to—there were grills, and someone had enough foresight to buy charcoal and lighter fluid. There was also a tennis court in the back, but nobody was into tennis. There weren’t many people around, just a group of noisy Japanese tourists in identical white shirts, khaki shorts and orange hats. They kept to themselves mostly. The beach all in all, looked just like any beach I’ve been to. Same sand, same trees, same wind, same sun, except this was cleaner and there were less people.
The guys and I played Frisbee and swam while waiting for the beer to cool, and the food, which the other two girls prepared. Camille walked along the beach, taking pictures. Later, after lunch when we were all just sitting around the beach and smoking, or drinking beer, she showed me the pictures in the LCD display of her camera.
“These are pretty good,” I told her, taking a drag from my cigarette.
“You think so?” She smiled with pleasure.
“Sure.” I took her camera and peered into the viewfinder at her. She was wearing a bikini made of shiny red material. It looked good on her, even if she was on the thin side. I snapped several pictures before she could react, and she put her hand over her face, laughing.
“Vincent...”
I continued taking her picture.
“Vincent!”
I stopped for a moment, and then realized she was talking to me. I forgot that I made up a name for them. “What?”
“Can we have a picture together?” she asked earnestly.
I thought about it for a moment. “But I hate having my picture taken,” I said. For some reason, I always come out not looking like me in pictures. It was strange. It would be the same nose, same, eyes, same forehead, same mouth, but it wouldn’t look like me.
“Oh come on, just one picture!” She ran up to me and took the camera, pressing her face to mine as she held the camera away from us. I’ll bet somewhere, I’ll encounter this picture of myself in the internet, in Camille’s Friendster account, like an accusation. But for the moment, I was just any normal guy hanging out with a pretty girl on the beach. There were many possibilities. Behind us, the waves lapped at the shore gently. I put an arm around her obligingly. I could feel the bones of her shoulders, and I liked that they were so smooth and frail. I slid my arm down to her bare waist. She flinched a little, but if she was uncomfortable, she didn’t say anything. She turned to me and grinned. I tried to smile as the camera clicked.

That evening we ate at a seafood restaurant by the waterfront. There was a huge charcoal grill at the center of it where huge crabs, lobsters and all sorts of fish cooked away on the iron grate. We ordered a lot of food, and had about five rounds of beer, and throughout dinner, I remembered that there was some kind of conversation, but I couldn’t remember any of it.
After dinner, one of the guys, I think it was Eric, suggested looking for a bar to get drunk in, but the two girls wanted to go back to the resort and get some sleep. Camille went with us.
The bar we found had a reggae band playing, and there were ants in the wooden seats. There were makeshift huts, with a thatched roof scattered around the stage. We were served an awful concoction of rum and Coke, which Camille tried to fix by mixing in some lambanog she brought. Later, when the band stopped playing, they played some bossa nova from the speakers, then Camille leaned her head on my shoulder and told me she was sleepy.
“OK,” I said. I told the guys that I will just take Camille back to the resort and come back later.
Camille was pretty drunk, and she was humming Astrud Gilberto’s The Girl from Ipanema, which was the last thing that was playing in the bar as we left. She leaned against me a lot, and then I held her hand, and she squeezed back. Whatever happened later, she asked for it.
At the foot of the stairs going to her room, she turned to me and whispered, “I don’t really want to go to our room yet.”
“OK.” Our room was downstairs and I fished in my pockets for the key to our room. I had a hard time opening the door because there weren’t any lights in the hallway. It didn’t seem like there were people in the other rooms either.
Our clothes were still in our bags, and we didn’t bother to unpack anything, except our towels and swim clothes, and there were a bunch of wet shirts or pairs of shorts scattered on the floor. Camille absently avoided stepping on them in the dark, then we sat on the bed, and wordlessly, I reached for her and kissed her deeply. It was not wrong to kiss somebody you didn’t feel anything for. If I really wanted to enjoy this, I could just imagine she was my ex-girlfriend, who still got me hot after all this time. I don’t know why. I slipped my tongue between her teeth and she bit the tip of my tongue gently, and then her arms were all over me, and she was straddling me, taking my shirt off, and pulling at my hair, as she kissed my face everywhere. For a millisecond, I thought that maybe this was a bad idea. She was a nice girl. But she smelled so nice, and her skin was so smooth and white, and she was right there.
“Am I pretty?” she asked, as I paused.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Vincent…” she said softly, leaning towards me and kissing me delicately.
I almost stopped right then, but then she kissed my ears, and once anyone kisses my ears, I go nuts. I almost tore her clothes off, fighting with the knots of her bikini top and her bottom, which she wore under a short skirt.
I climbed on top of her carefully and kissed her breasts gently. They were smaller than my ex-girlfriend’s, and she was tinier and her pubic hair was light and sparse. I imagined she was my ex-girlfriend and for one second, it worked, this girl whom I hardly knew became my ex-girlfriend. It was all the motivation I needed. I slipped a finger into her vagina and found that it was wet and slippery. She flinched and tried to push my hand away.
“Stop, stop…”
“What?”
“I don’t like that”—
She touched me, and smiled at me in the dark, and then I placed my palms over her face, she kissed my hand, and then I slipped my penis inside her, but it was difficult to get inside at first. As I pushed and pushed myself into her, I saw that she was squeezing her eyes shut, and biting her lower lip to keep from crying out. I realized she was a virgin. I tried not to come inside her and pulled out before I did. Then I wiped myself with the blanket, which I saw, had bloodstains. I touched the space between her thighs. When I withdrew it, I had blood on the tips of my fingers.
I gave her the blanket, and she covered herself up, and then I lighted a cigarette.
After a while, I said to her, “Why didn’t you tell me”—
She smiled at me tremulously. “It’s all right…”
“Does it hurt?” She nodded that it did. Of course it would hurt. My first girlfriend said it hurt like hell, and then my second girlfriend, the one who reminded me of Camille, said it was like knives cutting into her. They both said, right after it happened, that they never wanted to do it again, ever, but they both changed their minds about a week later and called me up to do that “thing” again.
I don’t know, I had a thing about doing it with virgins. I didn’t want anybody’s first time to be with me. It was too much pressure. But it seemed like for some reason, I always get virgins. I thought, all of those girls will remember me as the guy who had taken their virginity. Thinking about it made me shudder.
I stroked Camille’s hair slowly, then I handed her her underwear and clothes. We dressed in silence.
After we were dressed, I asked her, “You want to go back to your room now?”
She nodded silently. I held her hand as we made our way out of the room; she still smelled like sex, she smelled like me. Together, we carefully walked up the stairs. I knew it must still hurt her to walk.
Before she closed the door, Camille leaned in towards me and held on to my shirt, grasping it with her tiny hand.
I waited for her to say something. She didn’t. “Well, good night,” I said lamely. I suddenly couldn’t wait to get away from her.
After I left her, I took two cans of beer from the cooler in our room and went walking by the beach.
I sat by the sand dunes and stared at the water, drinking my beer and smoking. Before I could finish the first can, I vomited, throwing up that night’s dinner and everything else I ate before that.
When had I last vomited after a drinking spree? I couldn’t remember. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and went to the water. For no good reason, I suddenly thought of grandfather, and my family back home, waiting for me to come back from my errand. I felt guilty for enjoying myself on this resort as if my grandfather hadn’t just died. What was I thinking, hanging out with these people? It wasn’t right. And anyway, I hated the inevitable conversation I’ll have with Camille in the morning.
As I washed my hands in the sea water, I thought to myself, I was going to leave first thing in the morning.

Chapter One

2006-04-12T00:53:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER ONE

The summer of my twenty-first year, something happened to me that would change my life forever. I didn’t know this then at the time, of course. I was just a kid then; exactly twenty-one years, eleven months and two weeks old. My name is Emmanuel Juaniyo Tinio delos Angeles, and if someone were to describe me in a few words, it might be “not fully here” or someone who “doesn’t want to be.” I still don’t get what those words mean exactly, although they are very apt descriptions of my condition during that time. Anyway, thinking about it now, I’m still not sure whether that summer was good or bad, and whether I would undo everything that had happened if I could. All I know is that summer had changed me.
It all began with my grandfather’s funeral.
It was a splendid funeral; I’m sure even my grandfather would have agreed. It did not rain that day; the weather was perfect for flying kites, a picnic, a day at the beach, but instead, here I was, dressed in a suit and tie, with a new haircut. The entire family, grandfather’s close friends and some politicians, including the president and his family, were in attendance. It might seem strange that such prominent people would be attending my grandfather’s funeral, but then my grandfather wasn’t an ordinary man. He wasn’t a hero, or a war veteran. But close. He is the Salvador delos Angeles who has about two paragraphs dedicated to him in our history textbooks, alongside other National Artists like Fernando Amorsolo, Carlos “Botong” Francisco and Victorio Edades. As a National Artist, he was entitled to have the president and other prominent politicians attend his funeral, where he was conferred state honors, capped off with a twenty-one gun salute. Flags all over the country were flown at half-mast during his funeral, and a period of mourning was declared. He was going to be buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani at Fort Bonifacio.
Meanwhile, we had to listen to speeches by the president and pose for the TV crews filming the funeral, and then make small talk with other prominent people (mostly grandfather’s patrons like the Sedeños, the Madrigals, and the Zapatas), as well as relatives from my father’s side who my father himself didn’t know very well. They flew in from the States with chocolates, I Love New York T-shirts (made in Taiwan), thick comforters to be kept in the top shelf of cabinets for moths, and half-breed kids who did not speak any Filipino. I was polite and civil to them. I would like to think that it wasn’t that I was anti-social or socially inept; I just didn’t know them very well to act warm and close. Two of my aunts remarked that I was taller since they last saw me (the last time they saw me was at Christmas when I was six), and that I was a dead ringer for grandfather. I conceded that we both had a slight build, but I figured grandfather got that way because of old age. In his pictures with his artist friends, he seemed healthy and even athletic. As for myself, I had been skinny and lanky all my life despite my mother’s practice of making me drink milk with raw eggs as a child. I thought I got my eyes from my grandmother, as well as my light coloring, although I would have to admit, my haughty nose and strong jawline were definitely from grandfather. But everything else was totally different. Really, the only reason they’re saying I look like him might be because I was an artist like him. As far as I was concerned, I had no resemblance to grandfather whatsoever, but still, my relatives insisted that I looked like grandfather and that was that.
I tried to remember where I was when my father called to tell me that my grandfather had died. I think I was at a gig in a bar called Saguijo, with my band. We played funk rock, like Jimi Hendrix and early Red Hot Chili Peppers, with lots of synthesizers and turntables. Grandfather used to say when we were still speaking, “Why funk of all things?” He was a blues man himself. He used to make me listen to his Charlie Parker and Duke Ellington records all the time, telling me that that was “real” music. Everything else, in his opinion, was just noise.
My phone had rang when we were about to play our first set. I almost didn’t answer it because I couldn’t hear it; it was noisy inside the bar. Salindiwa, strictly a show band, in my opinion, was playing at the time, and girls were dancing to them. I didn’t know if that was good or bad. Anyway, my father had to repeat himself twice before I understood what he was telling me. I had to run to the parking lot to take the call. My father never called me for anything. If he did, it might be two things: it’s either my grandfather had died or somebody else in the family did.
When I was finally able to take the call, he told me haltingly, my grandfather was dead. I didn’t cry then; I just went back inside where my bandmates were setting up their instruments, and prepared my pandora’s box, which is this really nasty gear I just recently bought, which can change the way my guitar sounds in so many ways. So, like I said, we went on with our gig, and played two sets of four songs each. We got drunk that night, like most nights when we played, and I went home with some girl I met there, a half-Japanese groupie of Sandiwa. At her place, we smoked some pot, had sex as a matter of course, after which she told me she was just seventeen, and then I went home on a cab still high and drunk. Later, in the bathroom at my place, I stared at my face in the mirror, my eyes bloodshot, my skin pasty, my hair stuck to the side of my face. I remembered at that moment, my grandfather was dead. But, I felt nothing. I might have been forcing myself to cry, but I just couldn’t.
That morning, I decided to go home for the first time in two years.
I still didn’t cry even after the funeral. I knew that my grandfather was going to die eventually because he was sick for about a year before he finally died. We were all more or less prepared for it. He was eighty-three when he died, and if he’d lived for two more months, he would have been eighty-four. I only tried to visit him once, early in his illness. He was asleep when I came in, and I remembered thinking about how my father would have a hard time taking home all of the flowers and the fruit baskets in grandfather’s room. There were so many. When grandfather awoke, he seemed strong enough, strong enough to tell me to get out and never to come back. I didn’t try to visit again after that first and only visit, but a week later, my mother told me grandfather had another heart attack, and that it had put him in a coma.
Sitting in the front pew at the cathedral beside my mother and sister, enduring this funeral mass, I wondered if I was supposed to feel guilty. I was sure if everyone knew about the story, they would put some of the blame on me, as if I was responsible for his heart condition, his old age, and everything else. I guess I was partly responsible. He was already sick, and by doing what I did, I just made it worse. Either way, I felt self-conscious being there with my family. I haven’t been in the same room with them for a long time, maybe more than two years since I left home. In a way, I had exiled myself, although my family only lived in Antipolo, and my mother and sister sometimes came to help me do my laundry, clean my room and cook for me.
I was living alone in a flat in Tandang Sora Ave. near the private art school I used to attend, where I studied Visual Communications in the College of Fine Arts. The year before, I had shifted from Studio Arts, where I majored in painting, and I was supporting myself by editing student films and making Flash presentations and 3D art for ad agencies. And then a sem before I was to graduate, I dropped out and worked full time. In that kind of job, I found out it didn’t matter whether I had a degree or not. What was important was experience, and I had lots of it. I had to admit, it was boring doing all those company websites and it was a bit disheartening to be editing amateur student films, but I didn’t really mind being a sellout. I was able to buy a Canon SLR camera, a digicam, an X-Box, a Mac G4, an Ipod, and I was finally able to collect everything that Neil Gaiman ever wrote. In a few months, I was planning to buy my own car. I was set and happy. Well, not exactly as “happy” as I could be, but I would like to think I was contented with that kind of life. I didn’t paint anymore, but I thought that kind of situation was better than when I was still living at home and being trained by grandfather.
I’m not saying it was—bad—living at home. Actually, I just didn’t think about it anymore. But nobody would understand what it’s like to have a National Artist for a grandfather. He was like God, a living legend, and he just lived two blocks away from us, and he was my grandfather. He was also my teacher, and as a teacher, he was somebody else entirely. To call him a slave driver would be an understatement. I put up with that for a long time, and then when I couldn’t take it anymore, I said to my grandfather, “I’m not doing this anymore. I quit,” and then I left. I’ve done that a few times before actually, but the last time, I meant it. My parents thought it was just like the other times when I’d quit for a while, and then come back apologizing to my grandfather, but I had made up my mind. They thought it was because I’ve been hanging out with activists and attending rallies, but it had nothing to do with it. I just knew I was not going to be a National Artist like my grandfather.
I’m going to be honest, it’s not that I didn’t want to become an “artist”—I just didn’t think I had the strength for it. Maybe I never believed I was good enough. I had learned everything I could from my grandfather, but something was still missing from my art. I knew it, and I knew that my grandfather knew this as well. My paintings were pretty to look at, but they weren’t beautiful. I was too embarrassed to be around grandfather, to be taught by him, and have him waste his energy on me, and for some reason, everything I tried to create was always lacking “something.” Everything I did had no spirit. They just felt like nothing to me. I just knew I couldn’t be an “artist” this way. I didn’t know. But I was through deluding myself that I could be as great as grandfather. I was tired of the pressure, and suddenly, creating art wasn’t making me happy anymore, so I just stopped painting.
Sometimes, I think I might have been too rash. After all, not many young artists had the same advantages that I had; I was giving up a lot by ending my apprenticeship with my grandfather. But at the back of my mind, I always thought one day, I could go back, and we’d go on as if I hadn’t really left, like before…I always felt comfortable that I had that as a safety net, but then, he’d gotten sick, and he died.
I didn’t think of grandfather solely as a teacher who pushed me too hard. That started later, when I was older, but when I was younger, I thought grandfather was just a regular laid-back grandfather who brought presents all the time. But I guess the presents—watercolor, paint, paintbrushes, art books, sketchbooks and pencils should have clued me in to what he was planning for me. But when I was a kid, I just thought he gave me lots of presents because I was his favorite grandchild and that he was pleased that I liked to draw like he did. That label “National Artist” meant nothing to me then. I never thought it was strange that my grandfather would always have visitors—rich-looking people who had shiny luxury cars, and bought the things my grandfather made, which, for me, were only pretty objects to hang on our walls or furniture to sit on.
I even remember in our history class at school, when I was in the third grade, when our class was studying the National Artists that I was a bit surprised to find my grandfather’s name among them. I didn’t know yet about my grandfather being a National Artist; my family has always taken it for granted and never took the time to inform me about it and what it meant. It sounded pretty important though. Of course, my classmates didn’t believe me when I said that Salvador delos Angeles was my grandfather, and at first they did not believe me to be the grandson of a National Artist. But all of their doubts were soon put to rest when our teacher, Ms. Dolores Salang, an old maid who used to be a nun and often took us on nature hikes, and ardently believed that her boyfriend is Jose Rizal, casually mentioned that I was indeed Salvador delos Angeles’s grandson.
For my classmates, at the moment of that revelation, the mystery of my winning all the poster-making contests, drawing contests, mural making contests and other art contests was now solved. I simply had it in my genes. From then on, I was always approached whenever the school was invited to art contests outside school. Contests for road paintings, wall paintings, frescoes, murals provided me with enough prize money to maintain my expensive pastime of collecting Marvel and DC comics, computer games, skateboards and gadgets. The school sponsored my art supplies until graduation as long as I kept bringing in glory to the school. They even gave me special privileges such as allowing me to miss some classes whenever my artistic talents were required for school programs or shows. When I graduated the tenth of my class, in addition to a Fifth Honorable Mention medal, I also got the Salvador delos Angeles Artist of the Year Award, which included a scholarship to the art school he helped establish in the 50’s. It would seem in bad taste that I, Salvador delos Angeles’s descendant would be the recipient of this award but nobody could complain that I was indeed the best, if not the only “artist,” in my class.
I suppose I have never really understood how famous my grandfather really was. Sure, his awards, laminated plaques and framed certificates were displayed in a large glass case in the living room at the ancestral house in Antipolo. I grew up with stories of how he brushed elbows with the rich and famous. As proof, mother would show me photos of grandfather at gallery openings, social gatherings with prominent people and parties at the Malacañang. In these circa 1950’s photos, I imagined him drinking champagne with these distinguished-looking men and women, dressed in a suit with slicked back hair, perhaps smoking a cigar, while in the background, a band would be playing bluesy music.
Everybody else, even father himself, seemed star-struck about these facts about my grandfather, and encouraged me to follow in his footsteps, perhaps thinking that if I did so, I would enjoy the same kind of prominence as my grandfather, as if it were that easy. But I didn’t mind; I loved to draw anyway. My parents, to their delight, discovered my artistic talent early. I was two years old and I had “spruced up” the newly painted nursery walls with my undecipherable scrawls and squiggles using crayons that my then four-year old sister, Angge, had left lying around. Everyone was anxious to find an artistic heir to my grandfather. I guess in every family, even ones who say they’re modern, the father always expects an offspring to follow in his footsteps. So in their reasoning, it might as well have been me. There was nothing I could do about it.
Father himself, to grandfather’s dismay, had no inclinations towards art. His marks in grade school and high school art classes were so-so, but he was sensible and studious and had a head for numbers. In college, he took up Business Administration and Accountancy and now ran a small-scale company. Not too bad, but it left grandfather disappointed.
The task of propagating the delos Angeles tradition finally fell to me. Actually, Angela, my older sister, had also inherited grandfather’s talent for drawing. But her skill lay in copying the exact likeness of the muscular and the cardiovascular system, and other drawings for science class, like the cross-section of a leaf or the human body. She liked coloring them too. Sometimes, if you looked at them at a certain angle, they could pass for abstract Kandinsky type of doodles, but she never went in that direction. She was also very good with portraits and cartographic sketches. If she was serious about it she would have found herself a lucrative career in the police force drawing portraits of wanted criminals, but she opted to go into medicine instead.
When my family decided that I would be an artist, I wasn’t sure about what that meant at first or what the implications were. But in a way, I realize my life had been orchestrated to appease my grandfather, who desperately needed an heir to pass on the “craft.” Thinking about it now, I was not sure if I would have decided to be an artist if it weren’t for the prodding of my parents or the constant hints that my grandfather would be very pleased if I decided to be like him. Everyone in the household was in awe of him for some reason. They were worried about his every frown, every twitch in his eyebrow. They walked on eggshells around him, because he was an “artist” and grandfather was known for his temper and strange behavior whenever he was working on something. I think they were all afraid of him because it was truly extraordinary how one person could create so many beautiful things.
But he was also a regular grandfather who took walks very early in the morning and bought the morning paper, bringing a brown paper bag of hot pan de sal when he came back. Everyone in town knew him, and he liked to chat with the neighbors when he walked his dog. He enjoyed reading the comics page and the sports page, and liked to watch reruns of John en Marsha after lunch, which he would take outdoors by the two acacia trees. He also had a coin purse which never seemed to run out of money. As children, my sister and I used to snitch from his purse when he was asleep to buy ice cream in the afternoons. I never really thought he was asleep, and he always hid his coin purse in places which were easy to get to. And he liked to eat prawns, dipped in calamansi and fish sauce. And every meal had to have a banana at the end. He enjoyed Jackie Chan films too, and listened to Charlie Parker and Frank Sinatra records before his siesta. He tried to get me interested in “serious” art for a long time, giving me top of the line art materials and art books on my birthdays. I was five when I received a set of paints which I used to create a masterpiece on my mother’s carpet. For my next birthday, he gave me a hardbound pictorial history of Greek art. For a while, the art books became coffee table books which visitors who were not versed in art liked to go through while waiting for coffee or tea to be served. The expensive art materials grandfather gave me were wasted in sketches of superheroes and supervillains, studies for murals or posters for school, sketches of a girl who has caught my fancy at the moment, and my sketchbooks were filled with caricatures of my boring teachers, solutions to complicated Algebra problems, science notes, and comic strips about a wise-cracking dinosaur who often got into trouble, and his pet turtle who provided a sensible, philosophical foil to the headstrong hero. I was ten at the time.
When I showed my doodles to my grandfather, he seemed to appreciate them, although I always knew he was disappointed that I wasn’t the “heir” he was expecting. Why wasn’t I like him, who at a young age, or so his biographies said, had already dabbled in sculpture and painting like his idol Fernando Amorsolo? I would rather play videogames than study his art, which at the time, to my young untrained eyes, were merely interesting and intricately carved furniture scattered haphazardly in our yard or pictures of beautiful scenes of rural life hanging in our living room. I thought that grandfather’s work was making magnificent fixtures for the homes of wealthy people. I didn’t understand what “art” really was yet.
He seemed to let me go on my own direction until I turned twelve, when he again renewed his efforts to get me to study art seriously. He dangled the rewards of being an artist in front of me—through stories of the prestige, respect, and high regard I will receive if I become like him. It was difficult not to be attracted by something like that.
So, before my first year of high school started, I had given up extra-curricular sports for art sessions with grandfather, learning how to use a palette knife, making egg tempera and knowing that “impasto” is not a sort of pasta dish. Boys my age spent their summers swimming, going to the movies and learning to kiss girls and smoking their first cigarettes. I became my grandfather’s apprentice. All throughout high school, when my friends had tried to figure out what they wanted to do for the rest of their lives, I was already taking the steps towards what I was going to be. They joined basketball teams and soccer teams, science quiz bees and dated girls. I was well on my way to becoming a “real” serious artist. I learned a lot from grandfather during those years. I began to understand that what he was doing wasn’t merely décor for his rich patrons; how his work was used was out of his hands.
My grandfather was a man who loved the quiet solitude and grandeur of nature, and in his paintings he was able to capture a kind of stillness in his surroundings that gave them a sort of timelessness. His favorite subjects were the simple people around him, our neighbors—simple folk who ploughed the fields, made papier-mâché horses, wooden toys, going about their daily lives. He was from this same background, and he never really lost this affinity with common folks even when he studied under Fabian dela Rosa and Fernando Amorsolo. I think it had a lot to do with his selection of the local wood for his material for sculptures of women, religious figures and interesting furniture. He was just like any other town craftsman. Sculpture was something I never got into, but my grandfather never forced me to be an expert in it as much as he was. He saw that my talent was solely for painting and seemed satisfied with the thought.
As a teacher, he did not use complicated art terms. He was not well-versed about the “isms,” and never went for any of the new movements. His paintings sprung from within. First and foremost, he was a craftsman and I admired him for this. His paintings were straightforward, uncomplicated and easy to comprehend. A person could view them for pleasure; he didn’t impose his political views or social commentary on the common folks who were his subjects. His concern was to record the rural small town life of Antipolo, where time seemed to stand still. I sometimes found it difficult to find the same scenery that grandfather always depicted in his paintings; whenever I searched for subject matter, I would realize that our town had changed a lot from grandfather’s idyllic depiction of it. But even with the encroaching urban world, his affection and nostalgia for the simple ways of his town sustained his art. I realized he was looking at our town with different eyes. Some critics say that he was in denial and chose to ignore reality, but I think that his paintings told their own truth. His art was a window through which one could view the past suspended in an idyllic and peaceful landscape. That was his art. I painted like him, but I knew I wasn’t like him. I never was. I copied him but I didn’t really feel for the subjects I painted. I felt more like drawing comics more than painting scenes of town life. But I never told my grandfather this. Maybe that was my mistake.
Although grandfather was not eloquent about art, he was the kind of artist who knew exactly what kind of color he wanted for a certain sunset and found it. He was very precise and sometimes, when he was not happy with a painting or sculpture, he would destroy it after working on it for months. He was a very strict teacher and was especially hard on me. I wouldn’t show up for lessons for days sometimes, swearing that I was through with art, and not even my mother could convince me otherwise. I’d spend the days away from grandfather’s studio catching up on what I thought were typical teenage activities; I’d go to the movies, play the latest computer game, or hang out with friends, but I couldn’t stay interested in their conversations for too long. They all still seemed like they didn’t know what to do with their lives, and their lack of concern alarmed and distressed me. It made me think about how my choice had been made for me. Later, I couldn’t help trudging up to my grandfather’s house, shamefaced and repentant. The longest that I’d “quit” my grandfather’s special art lessons was about three days. He never scolded me for failing to show up. Without any fuss, he would hand me paintbrushes to clean or plans for a sculpture to study, but he’d double my work as punishment. I didn’t know how I was able to stand it for so long, but I did. I guess it was slowly building up, or maybe I never really thought I was cut out to become an artist.
At the time, grandfather was retired from teaching at the art school and was no longer accepting commissions, so all of his attention was focused on teaching me. He was preparing me for the ‘artworld.’ He would sometimes introduce me to some of his high-profile friends. I never knew who they were exactly, and there were just people with certain names, and my grandfather knew them, and I could see he was held in high regard among them, and could extend the same treatment to me as Salvador de los Angeles’s grandson. I even sold a painting to one of grandfather’s friends, an American who talked loud and laughed heartily. He seemed important. The money from the painting (I was doing fishing villages at the time), was spent on my computer upgrades and PlayStation2. I think grandfather was trying to fix me up with his contacts as well. I had wanted to ask if he was paving the way for me should he pass on, but I already knew the answer. It upset me to know this, but it also made me happy to see him so energetic and purposive, as if I were his last project.
Being his “protégé” had its benefits. When he was invited to art shows abroad he would sometimes take me with him. The last place we visited was Holland, before he got sick. I remembered that we bought stroop waffles, which were these really thin waffles from a vendor who was selling them on the street and planned his 84th birthday while we walked to a church. A guy standing by a newsstand called out, “Ni hao!” to us as we passed by. At that moment, grandfather and I had shared a sideways glance and smiled at each other. Most North Europeans, according to him, didn’t even know where the Philippines was, and assumed all Asian-looking people were Chinese. Some other time, grandfather would have been offended but then, he seemed beyond anger. Perhaps he was just glad to be walking down the street with his grandson, eating stroop waffles and having lived eighty-four years.
The last time I talked to him, it was when I told him I didn’t want to be his student anymore and that I wanted to do other things.
“What other things?” he asked me impatiently. It wasn’t the first time that we’d had this conversation, and again, I couldn’t give him an answer that would satisfy him. He would say, I had no direction, and I didn’t have a plan. By the end of the conversation, I would be his student again. He was good at this. “’Lo, this is really hard for me. I—I can’t explain it. But I can’t do this anymore,” I said helplessly.
He shook his head dismissively. “What is there to decide? You know what you want.”
“You know what you want for me,” I muttered. “I want to do something else.” I knew we were going back to where we started, but I didn’t know what to say anymore.
“Yes, you’ve already said that. What do you want to do?” My grandfather’s voice became more empathic.
I hung my head helplessly. “I’m sorry.”
After that, I left grandfather’s studio, his house. Then I told my parents I was moving out and refused any financial support from them. I felt I didn’t deserve it after walking away from everything they had planned for me. But also, I wanted to prove that I could take care of myself.

After the funeral, I joined my family at grandfather’s house. Relatives sat around the patio or the living room talking about grandfather and the famous people they’ve seen at his funeral. The maids were serving coffee and there was a buffet in the dining room. I went to the kitchen to get a drink, and as I was getting a pitcher of orange juice, my father followed me. He had a look on his face, like he wanted to have a serious father-son talk with me. He’d changed a lot since I last saw him. He didn’t have a paunch before, and he didn’t have so many gray hairs. I suddenly felt sad. He was getting old. I had trouble reconciling this man with my father, who used to help me with my Math homework as a child and played tennis with me on Sundays.
“Manuel…” he began.
I waited for him to continue. I didn’t close the refrigerator door; I was still holding the pitcher.
“How—how are you holding up?”
I shrugged. “I’m all right, I guess.”
He nodded absently. “How’s work?”
“Good,” I said noncommittally. The way we stood there by the open refrigerator talking, we could have been strangers who met at a party, talking about the weather. I shifted my weight uncomfortably.
“What are your plans?”
“What do you mean?” I shrugged. “I’m going back to my place later…”
“No, I mean, are you going back to school?”
“Oh.” Since he’d heard from Angge that I’d quit school, both he and my mother had been pressuring me to rethink my decision. At first, they had tried reasoning with me, then threatening me; when that didn’t work, they made do with just reminding me once in a while to go back to school. I thought about it. I didn’t really see any reason to go back to school anymore, and told my father so.
“But what will you do?” he asked. It was unthinkable for a man like him that his son would intentionally quit his studies. He must be wondering where he went wrong in raising me. Although, the truth was, grandfather was more my father than he ever was. But I didn’t hold it against him.
“I guess I would still be doing what I’m doing now.” My father didn’t know what I did for a living, but Angge must have told him about the work I did on the side for ad agencies. “You know, graphic design, video editing…” I went on.
He nodded, although I was sure he didn’t have any idea about what I just told him. “OK, that’s good…” he said. He patted me on the back, and then went back to the living room to join our relatives.

Before I could leave, my mother asked me to sort out grandfather’s things the next day. There was going to be a will reading too, and although I didn’t really want to be a part of it, my mother insisted that I attend.
After all the guests and relatives had left, I changed to a T-shirt and basketball shorts and went to shoot some hoops in the backyard. I wasn’t that good, but I was a decent player. I wondered if I could have been good enough to be in the varsity basketball team at school if I weren’t too busy trying to become an artist. I’ve been told that I had the build for it. Mostly, I only played for fun. Sometimes, when I couldn’t stand to be cooped up in grandfather’s studio anymore, I’d go to the backyard and play basketball by myself. The kind of exhaustion you get from playing basketball is a good kind of exhaustion compared to sitting inside a studio, racking your brain for inspiration or arguing with a teacher who was also your grandfather.
After about thirty minutes of playing, I was pretty tired, but I didn’t want to sit around in my room, where my mother, or my father or Angge could barge in any time and force me to talk to them. I didn’t know what to say to them. I hardly knew anything about them and they about me.
But Angge came out an hour after I’d started playing, carrying a pitcher of water and a towel.
“Hoy, that’s enough!” she called. She was smiling at me.
I drank one long gulp straight from the pitcher and then poured the rest over my head. She hated it when I did that, but today said nothing. Then I sat on the bench beside the makeshift basketball ring, and Angge sat next to me, covering her legs with the towel she brought for me.
I didn’t know what she was thinking, and I was waiting for her to say something, but she didn’t.
“We don’t have to talk,” she said softly. “If you don’t want to.” She smiled at me gently.
“But you want to, right?” I shrugged. Angge and I hadn’t been really talking lately, but when we were kids, we always played together. We were close; we even had a secret language, complete with our own set of letters which used to drive our parents crazy whenever we talked in it, or passed notes during dinner time. And even when we grew up, we didn’t drift apart like other siblings of the opposite sex do. During puberty and adolescence, we became even closer. I was lucky because she was four years older and she could be counted on to be mature and helpful when it came to a lot of things. We helped each other out. I bought her her first sanitary pad, and I told her about my first wet dream.
She smiled gently. “I’m worried about you, Manuel.”
I bit my lower lip. “Worried about what? I’m fine.”
She nodded. “OK…”
I thought that was the end of it, then Angge said, “You know, Lolo was calling for you right before he became unconscious.”
I clenched my jaw. What did she want me to say to that? “But I was in Manila…I tried to come as soon as I could.” I was present all throughout the wake, three days before the burial. I hardly had any sleep since then. But apparently, that wasn’t enough.
Angge smiled again. “I know.” I don’t think she really agreed with what she said, but she was too nice or too tired to fight with me over it.
After that, we sat there in silence, staring at the sky. There were a few stars out, and a sliver of moon. The night insects were getting louder, and we would have stayed there longer save for the mosquitoes.

Grandfather’s lawyer arrived early next morning for the will reading. I wasn’t attentive, but from what I could understand, he left most of it to grandmother, and then my father and then to myself and my sister. I excused myself a few times to sneak a smoke. Nobody in my family knew I was smoking, so I had to be very discreet about it. They probably couldn’t care less if I smoked, but I got too used to hiding the fact from grandfather that I hid my smoking from everyone else out of habit. I even brought along air freshener whenever I came home to spray my room so that they wouldn’t figure out that I was smoking. Anyway, when I came back, Angge told me I was to inherit the studio and my grandfather’s art equipment, and that I now own part of the copyright to his works. As for grandfather’s house, I was supposed to inherit it after grandmother’s death. The house they lived in was the ancestral home of the delos Angeleses, a traditional Spanish house with huge capiz windows, with an orchard in the backyard, where it joined with the river. It was pretty old, but was well-maintained.
Our clan had lived in Antipolo about four generations since my grandfather. They came from Davao originally and moved to Antipolo before the 1900’s. They bought a house in Manila too, during the American occupation, and my grandfather grew up there and that was the time he became famous among the art circle, when, as a young boy of fifteen, he joined an art contest abroad and won. There was no artist in the family before him. There was a poet but he wrote in dialect; so basically it was just grandfather among a family of merchants, lawyers, doctors, priests and teachers.
That being said, I wasn’t sure if I wanted the house. Grandmother wouldn’t be living in it anymore. It was decided that she would move in with my family, and in the meantime, the maids and the gardener would go on taking care of it and cleaning it, maintaining the garden and feeding the pets, and we could continue coming over since we live just a block away. They didn’t talk about whether I should continue to study painting, since in school, I was already studying to become a visual artist/graphic designer/filmmaker, not the traditional artist that grandfather had intended me to be.
“Manuel?” My father was looking at me.
I blinked at them. “What?” I hadn’t even noticed that the lawyer had already left, and it was only myself, my sister and my father in the living room.
“Grandfather left something for you,” Angge began. She gestured to a white envelope on the coffee table. There was something inside it. She pushed it towards me.
When I picked it up, I saw that there was a key inside it. It was an ordinary-looking key, well, a modern kind of key, not like a key that would open a treasure chest or something like that. I held the key in my hand, unsure.
“What does it open?” I asked.
Angge and father exchanged a look. “But we thought you would know,” Angge said.

Of course, nobody knew what the key was supposed to open, but I found a safe behind a bookshelf later that afternoon when Angge and I were cleaning up grandfather’s studio. Grandfather had the studio constructed separate from the house, behind a copse of bougainvillea and ilang-ilang. The studio, with its white walls and bay windows, faced an expanse of mango and sampaloc trees which were part of the de los Angeles land. I used to play there as a child, running after grandfather’s old dog, or helping grandmother harvest the okra or tomatoes, which she would then boil for lunch with grilled tilapia. We sometimes had lunch in the backyard, and grandfather would tell stories of the days when he was very famous, or we would play cards, with real money. Grandfather would always cheat, and I always lost, but after a while, I figured out a mannerism of his that gave him away: a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth, or an unconscious squinting of his left eye. Last time we played, he owed me a fortune.
Anyway, grandfather didn’t try too hard to hide the safe. Of course, even if I used to work in the studio everyday, I never noticed that safe—only now, two years or so later, cleaning up his dusty books. It was sort of disappointing. Angge called father before I opened it, but the contents seemed pretty ordinary…there was a framed painting which was covered in brown paper, and a briefcase which contained plans and drawings for future sculptures and paintings. It made me a little sad though to look at the drawings. I was thinking, these paintings and sculptures will never be made.
Angge tore off the wrapping from the painting, and then I peered over her shoulder to look at it.
It was an oil painting, a seascape, and at the center of it was a beautiful woman in a white sheath dress standing on the beach, carrying one toddler, while another young child was seated on the sand. I thought at first it was grandfather’s work; it had the same style, the realism he was known for, but the signature on the lower right corner read “Kawayan.”
“Who’s that?” Angge asked.
I didn’t recognize the name either.
Dad gave me a look, then said, “You remember that guy your grandfather keeps on talking about?” He paused. “Javier Villegas.” He handed me the painting.
I would learn later that Kawayan was a name Javier Villegas adopted after his falling out with grandfather. Grandfather often talked about him. Instead of bedtime stories, he was the one I heard about. He was one of grandfather’s protégés, and he was the best among them. People said that the value of his paintings increased as time passed. There were rumors about him joining the NPA during the Martial Law, and that was where he got the name Kawayan, and the name stuck. He used the name even after he left the country and became famous in Paris and New York. My grandfather once showed me clippings from newspapers he collected proclaiming headlines of how Villegas was commissioned by some European aristocrat to do a sculpture, or that his exhibitions have met with success. His paintings were being sold at Sotheby’s and art magazines based abroad were writing articles about their falling out. What it was about, grandfather never told me, but when I was younger, I was fascinated by the fame of this man, my grandfather’s protégé, who was now his rival and had even surpassed the accomplishments of my own grandfather, his teacher. I think grandfather was very bitter about it, although he never admitted it.
Before I came along, Javier Villegas was supposed to be the successor of the legacy. My father shared that Javier Villegas was older than he was, and he was closer to grandfather more than he himself was. For grandfather, he was the son that he would have wanted. But it seemed like in his later years, they hated each other.
“So, he came here and gave this to grandfather?” Angge asked.
Dad shrugged. “There was no news that he had come back…and if he did, I don’t think anybody really knows where he is anymore. He became a recluse and wouldn’t see anybody.” Dad rubbed his hands together to brush off the dust from his palms. “Well, I guess that’s it. Just put it back and I’ll go see about the other rooms…”
While Angge continued sorting the art materials, I kept staring at the painting. There was something about the woman’s eyes that I liked. She was smiling, but she looked very sad at the same time. I decided to take it with me and put it up in my room.
I went back to the safe to close it, arranging the sheaf of papers in the briefcase, and dusting the contents. There was something further inside the safe that I had missed. It was a medium-sized rectangular wooden box with a lock. There was sealed letter on top of it addressed to my grandmother. I retrieved the box from the safe and brushed off the dust, placed it next to my ear and shook it. I couldn’t hear anything inside.

* * *

We opened the letter in the dining room. It was from my grandfather. We sat around the table, waiting to see his message as grandmother unfolded it. It said:

Please tell Manuel to deliver this box to Javier Villegas after my death. It is important that he deliver it to him personally. This is my last request.

And that was it. There was no explanation why or what was inside the box, only that I must deliver it to Kawayan Villegas personally. On a separate sheet of paper was Kawayan Villegas’s current address and instructions on how to get there. It said there, from Manila, a bus ride to Isabela, and then a plane ride over the Sierra Madre to get to Palanan. After that, I must go to an island called San Cristobal, and then on to Puerto del Cielo, where Kawayan lives.
There was an attached hand-drawn map. Looking at it, San Cristobal seemed much larger than my destination, Puerto del Cielo. The name sounded intriguing and mystifying, a place to write stories or legends about. Grandmother said it meant, “gate of heaven.”
It didn’t surprise me that grandfather would pick me for this task, despite everything. But for some reason, as soon as I heard about what grandfather wanted me to do, I felt angry with him. Grandfather was dead, but here he was controlling me from the grave. He still had that much power over me. I didn’t want to do what he wanted, but at the same time, I wanted to get away for a while, and this trip was a good excuse as any. Even as I argued with myself, I knew then that the answer was yes, I was going. I was going to do what grandfather asked. If it were only to find out what was inside the box, and why it was so important that I personally deliver it to Kawayan, I wanted to go and make the trip.
Understandably, my parents were a little uncertain about the idea. They were stupefied, wondering what grandfather could’ve been thinking.
“Wow, Sierra Madre,” was all Angge could say.
I picked up the piece of paper with Kawayan’s address on it and the map going to his house. I knew it was drawn by someone else. It could’ve been Kawayan Villegas himself. “It’s not in Sierra Madre, it’s farther than the Sierra Madre,” I said slowly. “It’s in an island in the Pacific Ocean.” I couldn’t comprehend yet the distance I would have to go through, and it scared me to think about it, but I knew that now, I was going. I was already imagining the island, the sand in my feet, the pictures I could take to upload in my photoblog. I would just deliver the package and go sightseeing right after. No problem.
“Be careful, Manuel,” she whispered.
“Aren’t you coming with me?” I stopped and read the letter again. The letter only mentioned my name. I wondered when the letter was written and checked the date. February 18, 1981. I thought about it and realized what was wrong about the date. I wasn’t even born yet when my grandfather wrote this.
Later, when everyone had retired to the living room, I sat at the dining room table alone, drinking coffee, thinking about what my grandfather could have been thinking when he wrote that note. I repeated the words of the letter in my head over and over again, trying to guess grandfather’s feelings when he wrote this letter, but I couldn’t think of a reason why he would do this. For him to have written that note before I was born (I was born a year later on April 22), he must have been up to something. Whatever it was, I didn’t know. But my grandfather—he’s cunning. He had me exactly where he wanted me.

Puerto del Cielo Plot Synopsis

2005-12-07T20:51:00.000-08:00

After his National Artist grandfather, Salvador delos Angeles dies, a 16-year-old artist, Emmanuel, is sent to search for a former protégé of his grandfather’s—a man named Javier ‘Kawayan’ Villegas, a reclusive painter/sculptor who far exceeded his grandfather’s success, gaining acclaim and notoriety not only for his art but also for his leftist political activities.

Emmanuel goes on a journey to Puerto del Cielo, an isolated island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, East of the Sierra Madre to Isabela, to bring Kawayan a keepsake from his grandfather. However, Kawayan’s reception of Emmanuel is less than friendly, although he is befriended by Kawayan’s daughter Amihan and her sickly brother Ishmael, both of whom are around his age, and have never left the island in their entire lives. When Emmanuel finds himself stranded on the island with no means of transportation or communication, (no radio signals, or cellphone signals, no electricity), he resigns himself to his fate, becoming Kawayan’s apprentice and obsesses over the childlike and beautiful Amihan, and discusses art and politics with Ishmael.

Emmanuel is subsumed into the whimsical and magical life of Amihan and Ishmael as they live their isolated existence of an extended childhood playing not-so-innocent games and dreaming and yearning. But their idyllic, secluded life is threatened to come to an end by real life on the outside world as people from the neighboring islands and the mainland contend with NPA-military clashes, the imminent urban sprawl and environmental devastation.

“Puerto del Cielo” is a coming-of-age love story chronicling the painful transition from adolescence to adulthood set in an inescapably changing world.