Nodding, Father Emilio smiled. “Occasionally Che would donate one or two of your jars to the nuns. They treated it like a holy relic. It would take them a year to eat one jar.”
It made Larissa wish she could buy a boxful of it right now. There had been rows and rows of it at King’s, ye olde market.
The kitchen was splendid and empty except for the two silent nuns in the corner preparing something sour-smelling in a big pot on the stove. The rectangular bright room had three floor-to-ceiling windows that had southwestern exposure and faced the green park-like grounds at the back of the church. Larissa wanted to sleep in this kitchen, wake in the mornings on the long wooden table in front of the sunny windows.
“They have Nutella in America?”
“Oh, yes,” Larissa replied. “They’re swimming in Nutella.”
Giggling, repeating, “They’re swimming in Nutella!” Nalini peeked at Father Emilio for tacit approval and then took Larissa’s hand, pulling her to the large stainless steel refrigerator. “Sometimes we have cut up mangoes with our lunch, little pieces,” Nalini said, taking two large mangoes out of the fridge. “Little pieces because there are so many children here.”
“I’ll cut them up for you. Here, let me,” said Larissa, taking the mangoes out of the girl’s hands.
“Just disinfect the skin first with vinegar, Larissa,” said Nalini. “Before you peel.”
Shaking her head in confusion, Larissa carefully put down the mangoes. “Many children are nice,” she said. “Noisy.” She turned to Father Emilio. “Do you have room for me, Father? Sixty children, twenty nuns…”
“There’s always room. After service and lunch, Nalini will show you to your quarters on the second floor.”
“Come, Larissa,” Nalini said, pulling her by the hand. “First I show you the chapel. We’re going to be late if we don’t hurry.” She nodded. “Children are nice. But so noisy. The little ones won’t keep quiet during service.” She smiled up at Larissa. “Are you a mama, too?”
Glancing back at Father Emilio, Larissa took deep breaths, of Australia, and America, and Micronesia, of the Atlantic and the Pacific, of Jindabyne and Madison and now Moonwalk in Paranaque. “I used to be a mother,” she said in a voice not hers, yet only hers. “But not anymore.”
3
The Play
The imposition of someone else’s routine, while stifling, was also soothing. Every morning Larissa simply got up and did as she was told. The daily rituals of the nuns and the orphans comforted her by taking the responsibility of decision-making away from her. She got up at six, sat half asleep through lauds; oh, if Maggie could see her now. Helping Sister Mary and Sister Miranda, she cooked oatmeal or shaped together brown rice cakes for the children, and afterwards she washed the floors of the kitchen and the dormitory; on her hands and knees she scrubbed them, and remembered other distant floors, and sneakers, and rubber balls, pencils and gum wrappers, empty cups, newspapers, and drink holders, and straws, and a napkin of doodles from the blond-curl artist, a drawing of a woman holding a child’s hand, and two arrows. One arrow: “Me.” The other arrow: “Mom.”
From the get-go, Nalini was a big help to Larissa. “No, Larissa,” she would say, “you’re putting too much brown sugar in the rice cakes, and the coconut shavings don’t go inside, they’re sprinkled on after the rice cakes cool.”
“No, Larissa, you can’t just freeze the water, you have to boil it first. Freezing won’t take the bad stuff out of it.”
“No, we don’t eat raw fish here at San Agustin, we have to cook it, or marinate it in vinegar for like two days. Let me show you where the vinegar is. You can make sinigang for lunch if you want. Boiled sour soup with vegetables.”
“How come you don’t cross yourself at Mass, Larissa? Is it because you don’t know how?”
But Larissa had things of her own to show Nalini when she wasn’t pickling the fish in vats of vinegar. “Do you know how to play hopscotch?” she said to her one early afternoon when they were ambling around the courtyard. Nalini was never much for the imposed siesta.
“No,” Nalini said, jumping up and down. “But it has the word hop in it, so I already like it.”
“Very good. Also scotch, which means a scratched line. Now where’s my chalk?” Pulling it out of her jeans pocket, she drew the hopscotch court with just six squares, to teach Nalini. They found a centavo, threw it on square 2, and Larissa hopped on the rest of the squares. At first Nalini kept hopping on all the squares, but very soon got the hang of it, so soon that Larissa had to draw another two squares and then two more. They spent the afternoon hopping the course until the flood from the sky came and washed the white chalk away. The next day in the morning, the first thing Nalini said to Larissa after lauds was, “Can we play hopscotch?”
“We can, but first you have to show me how to make halo-halo.” Halo-halo was a Filipino fruit salad. “You’re not really supposed to put vegetables in fruit salad, are you?”
“We don’t have anymore pandesal bread, Larissa,” Nalini told her. “It’s all been eaten. We should make that first. Then we’ll play hopscotch.”
Father Emilio always made a point of coming into the kitchen in the morning to say hello to Larissa and to have a cup of coffee in her presence, and after the noon service, he ate lunch with her and the children in the orphanage dining room. During the siesta, he took a few minutes away from his work to walk with Larissa and Nalini. Sometimes he would sit on the bench and watch them play hopscotch.
If she could’ve, Larissa would’ve lived in that kitchen. The room she had been given to sleep in was spartan, and the only reading material in it was the Bible, and of course she had brought no other books with her. So she spent her days in the large kitchen, marinating the chicken for the adobo stew, cutting pandesal for bread pudding, constantly boiling and cooling water. She volunteered to go to the market in the mornings while the children were having their lessons, to buy the fresh guava and mangoes and bananas from the local vendor. It made her feel closer to Che, remembering her friend’s attachment to the market. She wished she could buy Nalini a floral sundress, something delightful. It was sad to see the child in the beige frock day in and out.
Two days after she had arrived, Larissa asked Father Emilio if she could use the phone. Apparently the only phone was in the rectory. While the priest stood outside the open door to give her an illusion of privacy, Larissa dialed the number Kai had given her for Billy-O. It rang and rang. No one picked up. What time was it there? Plus two and a half hours? Or minus two and a half? It was either early morning or the middle of the day. They were probably working. She’d try again. In the meantime, she asked and was given some stationery and envelopes and wrote Kai a letter. And another. And another. Father Emilio gave her stamps, the postman came, took her mail. After a week had passed, she started asking the postman if anything came for her, care of the parish church. She had not been able to reach anyone at Billy’s house. And of course Billy had no answering machine, as though he lived in medieval times. Every night, since there was nothing to do in her room after compline, Larissa wrote Kai long expansive letters about their years together, about Che being gone, about wanting to return earlier; how did Kai feel about that? Was there perhaps more room in Billy’s house than was originally indicated?
Soon her letters became plaintive. Kai, I haven’t heard from you. And I can’t reach you by phone. Please write me. Every morning she waited for the postman outside the narrow side door leading to the street. Anything today, Macario? Not today, Miss Larissa. Who is this child by your side? Oh, that’s Nalini, Che’s daughter. Nalini stood in the mornings with Larissa, holding the stick horses, also waiting for a letter. Anything today? No, Miss Larissa. What about me? Nalini asked brightly. Anything for me today? What are you waiting for? the postman asked. A letter from my mommy, she replied. Not today, Miss Nalini. And Nalini smiled, like a big girl, and the next day stood at the door, looking down the street waiting for the postman.
Che was missing, Lorenzo was dead. Kai was not answering the phone, not replying to her increasingly desperate missives. Only the girl remained. And Nalini followed Larissa around like a puppy. She washed the floor with her and prepared lunch with her; she shadowed her, barely speaking; she crossed herself and showed Larissa how. It’s easy she said, to make the sign of the cross, it’s like this. Nalini looked inside her own drink before taking a sip as if searching for her own answers there. She stood on the church steps in front of Larissa and was now the first one to say, “Anything today, Macario?”
“She’s becoming very attached to you, Larissa,” said Father Emilio, holding Nalini’s hand as they walked down the corridor out of the chapel.
“She is a good sweet girl,” replied Larissa, touching the back of Nalini’s silky black hair. “Where do you take her in the late afternoons? I notice you’re both gone for a few hours each day.”
“For our neighborhood walkabout,” said Father Emilio. “There are some people who want to but cannot come to church—too sick, or too old—so Nalini and I go to sit with them for a few minutes. We visit different homes each day. We alternate. Right, Nalini?”
“Right, Papa. I like the beautiful blind lady.”
He smiled. “Yes. Dimagiba just turned ninety-seven and is bedridden, and she can’t see through the cataracts, but every time Nalini comes, the old woman somehow sees her.” He ruffled the girl’s hair. “You just like her because she gives you chocolate.” He continued to Larissa. “We go, we read Scripture to them for a few minutes. I give them the Host. Nalini helps me; she’s my little helper, right, Nalini?”
“I hold your Bible for you, Papa,” she said, making galloping motions with her two stick horses. “Soon I will be able to read with you.”
“Well, you already know so much by heart.”
“Yes! Are the consolations of God small with thee? No, very great!”
“She is quoting from Job,” Father Emilio said, placing a pleased hand on Nalini’s shoulder.
It was true. Larissa noticed that the child was able to mouth the recitations of a number of very long passages during the daily services. Well, sure, from hearing them five times a day. Larissa, when she rehearsed The Tempest, also knew it nearly by heart.
“Why do you take her?” Larissa asked, making a subtle face of distaste. “I mean, for a small child, to see all that unpleasantness, sickness, and such…she has it hard enough, don’t you think?”
Father Emilio lightly shook Nalini’s shoulder. “How do we answer that question, Nalini?” he asked. “We say, of course, it’s not so beautiful as a garden of flowers or a park with birds, but…”
“It might not be as beautiful,” Nalini said. “But it’s more holy.”
The children have never performed on the stage, Father Emilio told Larissa. Are you staying through Christmas? Maybe we can do something? Che had mentioned you loved theater. Perhaps a small play?
Like Twelfth Night?
Father Emilio studied her with gentle curiosity.
The Tempest perhaps? Now my charms are all overthrown, and what strength I have’s mine own. Which is most faint. Larissa wondered if he was appraising her, wondering perhaps how good her kidneys were, whether she should be asked to volunteer to donate one, or three. Maybe old habits died hard with him. Now ‘tis true, I must be here confined by you. Too much time on her hands, despite the near constant obediences. The stillness, the quiet, the lyric chants of the nuns, the repetition of the psalms, the boiling of the water, the disinfecting of all fresh fruit, the pervasive vinegar smell mixed in with tamarind leaves, flowers, and the heavy sweet smell of brown sugar and coconut, the scouring of the soup pots, and the incense permeating all, the solitude hours spent not in prayer but in remembrance, as Larissa checked the window screens at the orphanage for holes the awful dengue mosquitoes could get through, while composing letters to Kai in her head.
“Well,” Father Emilio, after minutes of contemplation, finally replied, “Tempest is good. But I was thinking more along the lines of a Nativity play.”
“A what?” And release me from my bands, with the help of your good hands…
“Maybe you could write it for us, and we could rehearse it to get ready for Christmas?”
“I’m not staying through Christmas, Father,” Larissa hastily reminded him. “I’m going back in October. Plus I don’t think I know what a Nativity play is.” She shrugged. “I’ve never done one.”
“Children don’t perform Christmas pageants in America?” he asked. “As I recall, it was quite a popular thing to do in the Essex schools.”
“Pageants? You mean…like about the birth of Jesus?”
“Yes,” he said. “Like about the birth of Jesus.”
Now I want spirits to enforce, art to enchant. “You know I’m not very familiar with that. When I was a child, my mother never took me to one. She believed I should judge for myself, decide for myself—but only when I got older. So it’s just not in my background.”
“Did you?” he asked. “Judge them for yourself when you got older?”
“No.” And her kids didn’t either. She passed that on to her own children, the nothingness. And my ending is despair unless I be relieved by prayer…which pierces so that it assaults mercy itself and frees all faults. Mouthing Shakespeare by rote, not feel.
Larissa wanted to defend her mother on this rainy afternoon inside her favorite place—the kitchen overlooking the lawn. There were plenty of other things she taught me. She taught me to be polite—to strangers and my family. Not to be too demonstrative. To have good manners. I have very good manners. I learned to stay calm through crisis because of my mother. I am not a histrionic like Che. I can handle anything. Skinned knees, broken bones, bee stings, dog bites.
Obviously there is something she had not given me. But my mother was always a libertarian and proud of it! Live and let live was her motto. All our friends envied me for her laissez-faire parenting, for all the books I was allowed to read, for the no-limits approach to any adult material. Find your own way. Teach yourself. Play music, or not. Read, or not. Believe, or not. Whatever I wanted was fine with her.
But there was one thing. At the very end, when Dad was leaving, it was the only time I saw a chink in what I now know was my mother’s armor. I heard her all the way from upstairs, screaming at him, and I had never heard my mother scream before; it was so guttural and jarring. I heard it only for a moment before I slammed the pillows against my ears. I lived my whole life only for you! And other things. It went on and on and on. It was unbearable. It was as if Dad had taken a crowbar to her.
The bitterness that flowed from the black end to their thirty-five-year union never dried out, which is another reason I couldn’t visit my mother too often, because it hurt me to look at her. Dad died soon after and we never got an answer to our question that, like rhetorical cyanide, remains in my mother’s heart and in mine: what was so completely missing in him that he couldn’t see, blinding him to the scales on which all of us were outweighed by one pretty stranger twenty years younger?
I thought that a scruffy boy from the wrong side of Maui who extended his hand to me made me blind. But what if I, too, like my father, was always blind, and just didn’t know it?
Larissa blinked, came out of it, smiled blankly at Father Emilio. “Come on,” he said cheerfully. “You do theater, we do Jesus. Let’s muddle through the Nativity play together. It’ll be like the blind leading the blind.”
“Uh, okay.” Larissa glanced away from him, trying to shake off her reverie. “Does Shakespeare do nativity?”
The priest laughed. “You tell me, Larissa. You’re the drama expert.”
“May I use your phone, Father? I’m going to try…try to call Kai one more time today.” Morning, evening—why didn’t he ever answer the phone? Though in Kai’s defense, the rectory was closed after compline, at 8:30 and that was 11:00 p.m. in Pooncarie, so perhaps they were out drinking. She didn’t know. The phone just rang a
nd rang.
Nalini wanted to be one of the Wise Men. But you’re not a boy, Nalini. I can be anything I want, said Nalini. Why can’t I be a Wise Man? I want to bring myrrh.
“How about if before you bring myrrh, you and I go to the market and get us some fabric so we can make costumes? We need cloaks for the Shepherds, and robes for the Wise Men, and a dress for Mary. We need ornamental rope to use for belts, and silk or satin scarves to tie on heads. Plus we’ll need some thick paper and paints, because we’ve got to make crowns.”
“For Jesus?” Nalini squealed, jumping up and down.
“No, not for Jesus. For the Wise Men. Jesus is not a king.”
“Of course He is,” said Nalini, puzzled. “He’s the King of kings.”
“I meant,” Larissa corrected herself, “he’s just a baby inside the manger.”
“Yes! We should get Him a halo. And Mary too. And Joseph.”
“Joseph needs a halo?” Larissa didn’t know if she was going to be up to this.
Nalini laughed. “You’re so funny. You’re joking, right?”
“Yeah. Sure I am. Well, if we get gold foil, we can make some halos.”
They made sheep and goats out of cardboard. The orphans painted them in rainbow colors. They shaped an angel out of white clay. Father Emilio suggested they build a cave. They got wood, and nails and hammered boards together. They ripped grass out and when it dried, they had hay. They got Christmas lights and hung them around the wooden structure so it lit up like a Christmas tree. The afternoon rehearsals morphed into morning rehearsals, and evening rehearsals. All the children who could walk and talk wanted to participate, all thirty of them. Larissa made it happen. The Narrator, Joseph, Mary, King Herod, three Wise Men, three Shepherds, and twenty angels dressed in white sheets with silver halos. Jesus was played by Benji, a severely cleft-palated three-month-old, born without any left limbs, who lay in the manger through the rehearsals.
Larissa stood by the door to the common room watching them. So simple to teach them, yet so hard for them to learn. First, to teach them to be someone else, to be other people.