EXILIUM REX

Chapter 14

Days and nights of space for Gemma. And for her lover, Mike. Nights of finally woman-spreading herself on the queen-sized bed. Breathing fragrant air once again. No more of the horrible smell of used socks, sweaty undershirts, and all those foul medications and healing ointments prescribed by Angelo’s doctors for his recurring arthritis. Finally, she covers herself in the soft, comfortable blanket of freedom. Lost. Lost in such space called herself again. She only has to think of her small garden. Now, more than ready to be tilled again. The loam ready to be cultivated. Fresh water sprinkling on the dainty cheeks of her countenance. A shivering and shattering yet calming event. She only has to think of her first weekend – with Mike.

Mike.

Her hands left her open breasts for awhile to scoop her exposed nest. She clutches a handful of hair and lets it fall wherever she liked. What the years have scattered like sleeping pill bottles in a medicine cabinet, Gemma’s present situation has gathered in one swift swoop of her nursing hand. Her being; and, now, with Mike, her becoming. It is, after all, precisely as she has planned it. As they have planned it, in their oh so little, so dangerous, so desperate space then.

“Listen, Gemma, darling. I have a good friend in Manila who would be very interested in buying your precious necklace. What do the natives call it – Comb of Lerma? I’m not really sure where I’ve heard that, but I bet you it be more than double!”

Double what, Mike?

“Double of the amount anybody would dare offer for it! You see, my friend, well actually, he’s sort of my boss, too, Secretary Fernandez of the Department of Tourism, he kinda have a thing about relics. He always told me that if I ever need a grant for my archaeological explorations or if I have any relics I would like to show him, well, he wouldn’t directly buy it since that would be y’know illegal, but he did promise to give a substantial amount of funding for my research foundation. And, come to think of it, your NGO would very well use some of that funding, too. Don’t y’think, bhebhe?”

You know what, Mike! I don’t really care about this necklace being Angelo’s gift to me. I’d soon as break into pieces this, this so-called Comb of Lerma with my own bare hands tomorrow if I have to! But…

“But what, Gem? I mean, our monthsary is coming up, y’know… Think of it! We can spend some quality time far from Suyo islands…”

“Well, now that you mentioned it. And you do have to settle some quality time with me, like two weeks, I think…

Mike pressed his exposed, well-chiseled abs on the bare backside of his paramour and laughed with a puff of his Philip Morris.

“You know what, Gemma? That’s why I fell in love with you…”

Gemma laughed with her lover. She could sense the mentholized cigarette smoke spiraling through her nostrils; deep, deep, down to the very tailbone of her slender spine as they lay entwined yet scattered together on their secret love-nest. Breathing fragrant air once again. Entangled vines, quivering like gossamer at every breath of the poisonous fume; entangled vines which have chosen to creep, belly-crawl, and climb over the trunk and branches of a dream’s nasty outgrowth; strangling it with their own united fear, to conspire – once and for all – against their own despair.

Inside Gemma’s mind, two things are swirling around: first and clearly, the old tree shall go down; second and more importantly, the Comb of Lerma must go.

It is. after all, as she and Mike had planned it.

The design of her own peace and development. Post-Angelo del Mundo

The justification of her solitude.

The perfection of her space.

*

A gardener, or anyone else for that matter, could not just imagine calling the small Arguelles-del Mundo backyard a garden. The fact that the only sole living thing standing on it is the old caimito does not justify any person to call it – a garden. Why, everyone would agree that the tree could bear the mythical fruit of righteousness itself and, still, most people would have a real problem calling the entire Arguelles yard as a garden. It would easily be the most boring place on earth, with so much space, so much freedom, and nothing to see but the old hierarchy scattering its leaves to no end.

Who would want to call a forsaken yard with a single, old, and barren giant of a tree standing in the middle of the ground, forever shedding leaves and exhibiting for all to see the etched evidence of a union of love which seemingly was not to be – a garden?

It is, therefore, natural for Gemma Arguelles to re-imagine the design of her small Subanon garden without the tree as a bitter reminder of a past marriage, and to re-imagine it with as much variety as possible. With as much passion, too, or even more: a spread of wonderful and well-manicured grass, a spring of flowers, of fiery wild bushes, a virtual orchid wall on the eastern and northern walls of the yard. A phalanx of native trees guarding the walkway to the porch. And acacias! Not unlike those from the Amianan highlands of Suyo. And right at the very center of the Arguelles yard, Gemma could just imagine a gazebo where she and her fellow NGO social workers would meet daily for their group’s peace and development projects for the Suba tribe.

A gardener, or anyone else for that matter, could not just imagine calling the small Arguelles-del Mundo backyard a garden. Except, of course, for Mang Kanor. Fifty years ago, when the ascendants of Angelo del Mundo (who was merely a figment of Angelo’s father’s imagination then) planted the seed of the tree, it was meant to be symbolic rather than anything else. It was to be the centerpiece of the del Mundo’s family’s deeply-rooted affection for the home province they involuntary left somewhere southeast of the Suyo islands. Mang Kanor was just a young boy of seven then, but he was more than an eye-witness to the old caimito’s significance to the place. For the gardener, the tree, though no longer bearing any fruit as before, has built its own provenance for such a dearest, dearest space in such a very long time.

The old gardener could not help it, but a few questions keep cutting in and out of his tender mind.

“Oh, my poor Señora Gemma! That long a time alone in that house built by their love for each other have clouded her sense of priorities. Would not she instead think first of merely moving to a smaller yet more conducive part of the house? Or if that’s not possible, she should have someone else she could fully trust stay with her. Perhaps, a spinster aunt. Or a Subanon niece from the lowlands. Oh, the place is just too much for her. Too much. And she should not be left alone in that house. Why, if I was God and that place was my heaven, I would as soon invite inside the devil himself to keep me from going crazy!”

Mang Kanor recalled the time he toured Angelo and Gemma in the preserve. How he narrated to both of them the legend of the Lai Mabinta-Nong. The old man recalled how he and Manengkal were able to parlay the camera given to them by the young couple into a small business. And how Angelo del Mundo gave the relic the two of them – he and Angelo – had found in the Subanon forest. The Comb of Lerma.  

With a heavy heart, Mang Kanor is trying to sleep the whole of Wednesday afternoon and evening to take his mind off from the task he never thought he would be doing, even as his two sons are starting to prepare all the implements for the forthcoming execution.