Mango Seasons

Mango Season-2

In my room I take off my shoes and lie on the bed. I didn’t see Danny. Or Dolores. A slight breeze lifts the dusty, chiffon curtains on the windows. It’s cooler here than in Manila. Still, I can feel the sweat lying on my forehead and neck and the dampness of my dress pressing against my back.

Rueben’s hands have pressed against my back in this way. In this way, he has pulled me towards him. His fingers against my back make me dizzy. He frightens me because I know he does not love me, although, in the hidden corners of my home, he has said he does. And I have let him touch me.

I close my eyes and when I open them everything is blurry for a moment. The blurriness does not last much as I wish it would.

I get up and look out the window, beyond the wall. No one is outside. No one is waiting for me under the mango tree by the river, nor in the shadow of the neighbor’s wall, nor any of the other places I look. No Danny. My imagination fails me for the moment.

In the evening we go to one of my aunt’s, Tita Lucy’s, house for dinner. Tita Lucy slurps, coughs, chews noisily, and spits fish bones onto her plate. She is too old to care about discretion. Marisa, who cannot bear for the different foods on her plate to touch, sees everything. Emil seems disturbed by the chewing and coughing, but he and Gemma are able to eat. Marisa chews on some rice, then asks to be excused.

I continue eating so as not to offend my aunt. But I eat slowly because I’m not hungry. In the kitchen, her maid is burning katol to keep away the mosquitoes. The sweet smell is making me ill.

“Do we have to eat there again?” Marisa asks on the way home.

I don’t answer but I do sympathize. I run a hand over her hair and she doesn’t move away in irritation. She’s sleepy. At least the dinner has secured me a yard man. Tita Lucy promised to send her yard man over tomorrow.

When he arrives we discuss price. His name is Elpidio, but I may call him Pedring. He agrees to twenty pesos a day. I take him out into the yard to show him what must be done although that is quite clear from looking at it. He looks at the guava tree which has dropped its leaves into the patches of grass and dirt. He fingers the banana leaves which are brown around the edges. We sweat in the yard, the grass tickling our legs. Pedring listens politely and nods. He agrees to work on Wednesdays. He will be back tomorrow.

As he walks out the gate I stop him. “Mang Pedring!” I walk down the steps of the porch toward him. “Do you think the fountain can be fixed?”

I point to the fountain between us. It is chipped and discolored. One of the sides has a large, jagged crack in it and the plumbing, I have discovered, no longer works. We walk toward it and stand on either side. He studies the fountain.

“Perhaps,” he says. “I could not fix it but I may be able to find someone who can.”

“Please do,” I say.

He promises to let me know tomorrow. We say goodbye and this time he leaves.

I sit on the edge of the fountain. Once the yard has been tamed, and the fountain repaired, the place will look almost as I remember it.

When I was fourteen we came here, as usual, to spend the summer and Dolores came to the house with her mother, Aling Zenaida. Her mother measured me for dresses, as she did every summer. Then she proceeded to measure my mother, grandmother, and baby sister.

Dolores and I sat outside on the fountain and talked although we didn’t know what to say to each other. Sitting, talking to her I began to feel that we would never quite be friends again. She, I knew, realized this also. I have felt this distance many times since, but my first awareness of it was sad and frightening.

Dolores’s mother stepped outside the door of the house with her bag and called to Dolores. Dolores stood and waved.

“Where is Danny?” I asked before she could leave.

“Oh, he couldn’t come today.”

For the first time, talking to Dolores, I felt embarrassed. I looked at the driveway and the wall behind her and spoke quickly so her mother, who walked toward us, wouldn’t hear. “Tell him I said hello.” Days later he came to the house with a few of the dresses his mother had completed. As she completed the others he brought them to the house also and we avoided looking at each other until I walked him out to the gate. He had dark brown eyes, the eyes of a million other people. He said I was pale, and later, beautiful.

Once my brother, Gil, walked with us to the gate. Afterward he told me “Don’t be so friendly with him.” My face grew hot. I couldn’t look at Gil. He was twenty then, and loud.

I stand up and walk away from the fountain, toward the house. My face is hot from sitting in the sun.

The next day Pedring brings two other men with him. They are dark and look like brothers. They begin by walking around the fountain, measuring it. Later, I hear them chipping away at the plaster and concrete, then banging on the pipes as they work, and I can’t help but feel ridiculous, as if repairing the fountain will make everything all right.

When I go outside to call them in for lunch I see that the two repairmen have dug a neat trench in the lawn in order to unearth and repair the pipe leading to the fountain. Around them lie piles of grass clippings and the branches of sampaguita and gumamela bushes.

All three come in and wash their dusty hands in the kitchen sink. Their shirts stick to their bodies and their necks are also covered in dirt. They look at me anxiously to see if I am going to have lunch with them. When I leave the kitchen I hear them talking, joking lightly with the maid.

The week passes with the noises from the fountain marking the hours and days. First they repair what plumbing they can repair. They tell me they will have to replace some of the pipes and that they will have to call in someone else to do the plaster work. I pay them and give them mangoes to take home. I want to be sure they will return on Monday.

The children and I greet their father when he arrives late Friday night. He is driving the car this time and yes, he has the curtains, and yes, he did remember to bring some of the children’s toys and also candies for them. Gemma climbs onto his lap and falls asleep. It is very late for her and for the other children so we put them all to bed.

I get in bed and lie with my hands clasped on my stomach. My nightgown sticks to the sweat on my legs, so I pull it up to my stomach and lay my palms on the fabric. My hands are warm. The smell of insect repellant hangs in the room but my husband doesn’t seem to notice.

“Gil and your tatay want to rent this house out,” he begins.

I’ve heard it all before. They know I’m against the plan, but they’ll probably do it anyway. My husband notices I’m not listening and becomes quiet.

The fan spins steadily overhead. He reaches up and pulls the silver cord once to bring the fan down one speed. His arms, I notice, are still long. So are his legs. He has not yet grown stooped or heavy and he is tall for a Filipino. Years ago, shortly after we first met at the university, he told me he wanted to play basketball professionally. He was on the courts every afternoon after classes and he played for hours, not even noticing when I arrived and sat in the bleachers. He played with a smile on his face, even during competitions, as if everything was funny.

Lying in bed, I watch him walk to the door and flick the light switch. My palms are sweaty, my legs itch with sweat. A few moments later, in the darkness from his side of the bed, he says “good night.” I want to kick the sheets off, my body is so warm.

The next morning my husband walks around the yard to see what the yard man has done. I stand at the door and call him in for breakfast. He is by the fountain and doesn’t hear me at first, then he looks up as if I have startled him or caught him off-guard.

Over breakfast he tells us news from Manila. “Your sister is pregnant,” he says.

“She’s pregnant?” I’m surprised and I look in his eyes for the first time in weeks. We both look away.

“Yes,” he says quietly, “eight weeks.” He sips from his cup of coffee and regains his composure. Rumors of martial law are running through Manila. He and my brother have talked about it and think a presidential decree would be a good idea. Something needs to be done about all the shootings. He glances at Emil who is drinking his Ovaltine.

“I thought you didn’t like that.” He points to Emil’s glass.

Emil pauses with chocolate on his lips. “I like it,” he says and continues drinking.

My husband is silent. His hand is on his chin as if he is thinking about the Ovaltine. He sticks his fork into his ham and resumes eating.

“You’re fixing the fountain,” he says.

“Yes.”

The children save us from the silence by asking him a question. They want to take a walk down the river to the rice paddies. They have never been this close to them before. “It’s hot and wet out there,” he says. “And there are a lot of mosquitoes to bite your plump bodies.” I also say no, for my own reasons. I do not want them retracing the steps of my memories. Marisa looks unhappy. She is not plump, she says and pouts.

We have dinner with Tita Lucy again, except for Marisa who stays home with the maid. This time the other aunt, Herminia, is also present, but she’s so old she doesn’t understand what’s going on around her. She doesn’t recognize us, doesn’t know where she is, and refuses to eat dinner although Tita Lucy tries to coax her. She sits at the table frowning at us all as we eat. Her eyes confront me. I become angry and drop food from my spoon. I calm myself, stare at my plate, and begin deliberately eating.

“Will I see you in church this Sunday?” Tita Lucy asks, accusingly.

I want to tell her last week we went on Saturday, in Manila. Don Bosco church. But instead I say “yes.”

At home, while we are dressing for bed, my husband asks if I am liking it here. “Yes,” I say. It is cooler, less dusty. I breathe easier. Then he says he’s not sure if he can come next week. I pause for a moment, not sure of what I should say.

“You see,” he continues as if I have raised objections, “they are giving me a lot of work. I brought some of it with me but haven’t had a chance to do it. I just can’t work here. Too many distractions.”

“It’s all right.” I watch in the mirror as my hair moves with the brush, then settles around my face.

“How are the children?” he asks. “They seem to like it here. They seem to be enjoying themselves.”