39 A few notes on hero’s paternal grandparents (his maternal ancestors being unaccounted for), not mentioned in the memoir nor gleaned from files in Sevilla, Spain; Valladolid, Spain; and the Departmental Archives of the Basque Pyrenees, Spain—instead, a bountiful harvest comes from family interviews: in Binakayan, Cavite; Quinapundan, Samar; and Vacaville, California; and from telltale gaps in the hero’s account, not to be ignored:
Raymundo’s grandfather, Raymundo Mata Eibarrazeta, was said to be a soldier (half Basque, all bravado) whose ancestors hailed from the Spanish Pyrenees. Storytellers of Kawit, Cavite, narrate that the elder Raymundo had a checkered career in the Spanish militia and retired with his temper intact in the environs of Cavite’s ports, married to a Chinese vendor of lamp oil. True, none of this is corroborated in documents in Sevilla or Valladolid—no mention of one Raymundo Mata Eibarrazeta of Jaca or Kawit occurs in official lists—worse, the memoirist’s Chinese ancestry is completely erased, as usual. For authenticity, we rely on the hero’s recall and the [dubious] accounts of inflammatory Caviteños. (Estrella Espejo, Quezon Institute and Sanatorium, Tacloban, Leyte)
Entry #1
love my father’s yellow stream buttnaked green coconut open to surprise cuckoldroaches-dancing-in-a-cone Porkrind-Chronicles saltweep of fish Emilia [sic] Christmas lights Padre Mariano Gomez (r.i.p.) my gonads! indios Jorge Raymundo Mata scabs lanzones deeply ripe mangoes navel-orange thighs40 41 42
40 Raymundo Mata begins his diary with gibberish. This can only be Katipunan code, the secret weapon of the secret society. The list’s complete meaning remains a mystery, though one discerns the name of one of the three martyr priests—Mariano Gomez—friend of the Mata family and beheaded by Spaniards in that incident that foretold the revolution, the Cavite Mutiny of 1872. The priest’s name occurs almost in the same breath as that of the future general’s father, Jorge Raymundo Mata. Thus, this opening refers to the family’s connection to the Cavite Mutiny. Town lore proclaims that the Mata brothers, priest and actor both, had been involved in the uprising, using dramatic disguises to foment revolt. (Estrella Espejo, Quezon Institute and Sanatorium, Tacloban, Leyte)
41 Katipunan code or not, there is method in this madness. Globular shapes are classic imago of the pre-mirror stage: the maternal mangoes, not to mention the direct reference to navels, show the general awash in vagitus—“the infantile cry” way before the mirror stage—“the first stammerings of speech” [vid. Mürk, “Message to the Antibes Plenary,” 1953]. Of course, the reference to the father is an obvious (and, to be honest, banal) allusion to The Father. (Dr. Diwata Drake, Kalamazoo, Michigan)
42 The text begins with the following list: “ama rillo, bukong nabuko, cucurachas, chicharon de Chirino, daing ng daing, Emilia [or Emilio, handwriting unclear], faroles, Padre Gomez, etc etc . . .” My guess is that General Mata, a child at the time as the clumsy handwriting shows, plays an abecedary game (a is for amarillo, etc.) lifted from school exercises and common to bored children. His alphabet is unfinished; the last word is naranjitas. His game is marked by ingenious, though childish, puns—hard to translate. He code-switches, as in “ama,” which means “father” in Tagalog but ‘she/he loves’ in Spanish; “Rillo” is a town from Castile-La Mancha, studded with little streams, or rills. Amarillo, of course, means the color yellow. My rough translation of his trope, ama rillo, connotes the crudeness of his humor. Similarly, the wholly Tagalog bukong nabuko may be interpreted as personification (nabuko denoting chagrin, uncommon to buko, young coconuts) or rhetorical emphasis (as in “chagrined chagrin,” an annoying tautology). An occult allusion to Russian aristocrat Nabukoff is abject and must be avoided. However, the vulgar imagery of the surprised-open coconut is inescapable in the phrase. In this case, I made compromises but kept the ambiguity intact (I think). My own favorite translation is “saltweep of fish”—daing ng daing in the admittedly more accomplished Tagalog. I consider my phrase a fine evocation of the young Mata’s wit. I could not duplicate its lyrical malady. (Trans. Note)
Entry #2
January 20, 187243 44 45
Miong, Idoy, and I46 went off to the banyan grove. We played the game Guess What the Branches Look Like, Tanga! Stumps of gnarls and tangled crosses. Corpses, scimitars, and rocking chairs.
Buta ka, buta! Butaka.47 48 49 50
We went to the river—our usual games. Tuktukan again—Miong’s favorite sport. God, Miong has huge eggs like a dinosaur’s, an auroch’s. Where does he get them? I lost at tuktukan again. My eggs are always too—weak. Then we went on a hunt for wild guavas. We shot all the green ones into the water. They made plopping noises like shit. Then Miong took off his pants under the sampaloc trees.51 52 We’re like that—nature is our arousal. We raise our butts in the air and watch insects flower under our shadow for hours. Shadow under our flower for hours.
I guess you could call it Eden.
I followed shit. I mean suit.53 54 55 56 57 Shitting is like yawning. Transitive compulsion, mathematical. Yawn and the world will yawn with you. Shit, ditto. I took off my shorts. Schoolboy style with the front buttons, no strings for me. Karsonsilyos58 59 are for old men and babies. When I got my pants with buttons and snapped one shut—it was better than holy communion! Now it’s kind of ordinary, a habit. I mourn the world’s changes, especially my own. I pulled my pants down.60
I sat silent. Still. What freedom. What colors and shapes and dragonflies like embroidered signatures on a handkerchief. What cool wind, dapping at my butt like a Saint Peter, fisher of men. I could not help but sing.61
Bird who has freedom to fly. Cage it and it cries. How much more for country so pretty. Who should not wish to go beyond? Pilipinas whom I love like a lady. Nest of my tears and sorrow. My goal, to see you really really free.
Entomological fulmination in immobile rectitude. Wings absorb my scientific stupor—thoracic addenda, luminous. Sputter and spiral, tiny hallucinations of God. I
