106 A typo? Biscay is on the wrong continent, a site in Iberia. Or does he mean Biscay’s Filipino ‘sister,’ the province of Nueva Vizcaya—capital: Bayombong? My vote: Bisayan—an allusion to Raymundo’s lamented mother, a talented Waray actress. (Estrella Espejo, ditto)
107 i.e., perhaps Bul-anons (as in Boholanos—a notoriously vagabond, lovely people). (Estrella Espejo, ditto)
108 i.e., lechon manok. [sic! I know, I know, you Spanish-language nerds—chickens do not have mammary glands! It’s a Filipino joke!] (Estrella Espejo, ditto)
109 Don Felipe Enrile: Raymundo’s revered maestro at the Escuela de Niños. Also lauded for his kind heart and intelligence by Miong, i.e., Emilio Aguinaldo, in his Gunita (though the learned maestro seemed not to have done the dropout Aguinaldo much good). Precocious Raymundo dedicates his ingenious labors here to his teacher. That he shows his esteem by burning him to death only reveals a boyish sense of humor. (Estrella Espejo, ditto)
110 Schoolboy humor: comic allusion to two classmates. (Estrella Espejo, ditto)
111 This lively section was a challenge to translate from its decrepit original. The antiquated, convoluted syntax (e.g., “they were never incommoded with the sun,” bad passive-voice habit of Romance languages, when all he meant to say was, damn they froze to death); outmoded details, which I kept intact (e.g., sanbenito, garments worn by criminals sentenced to burn by the medieval Inquisition); and other obsolete ingredients tested my poor powers. I hope I have not added nor detracted from the oracular ideas that glimmered in this section. (Trans. Note)
112 I note the translator’s disclaimer above—as if you could not tell this apart from Chapter Six of Voltaire’s Candide, translated into English and easily downloaded from Google! As for my esteemed colleague, I will have to point out that Estrella Espejo’s ejaculatory interpolations on this text are wrong once again—wrong, wrong, wrong!—serial misreadings of a woeful kind. Inexplicably, the young Raymundo’s manuscript inserts Voltaire’s Candide word for word, except for substitutions of random names in the manuscript [Don Felipe for Pangloss, Miss Di-Ganda for Cunegonde, etc.]. Yes, he is precocious—but a precocious plagiarist! However, “oracular,” the translator’s term, is, in my view, also correct. It would have been impossible for Raymundo, a sensitive boy in late nineteenth-century Philippines, not to see the parallels to his country’s condition in the anticlerical satire he’s writing down word for word; just as it is impossible for Estrella not to read Raymundo in the paragraphs from Voltaire. You will find translations of Candide, a.k.a. Candido, even in Pangalatoc or Ilocano in Manila’s antiquarian bookshops (Estrella’s errors, on the other hand, need not proliferate). Thus, despite herself, Estrella’s “misreadings,” her anachronisms, are accurate. It could be, who knows, a reading that did ring in Raymundo’s bones. “Anachronism is to the unconscious what honey is to bees or sounds are to syllables—we read in desire, not in time” (Drake, Dux, and Ménårdsz, Eds., Readings of the Rhizome: An Annotation of Claro Mürk’s Parable IV [The Garden], page 21). (Dr. Diwata Drake, Vence, France)
Entry #6
Finished Cand. Volt. is a genius, Narrative has just discovered Steam Locomotion. Gave me the Shivers, my heart raced, Reading the book. Even now I remember Lines and images, my nerves on Fire. A Bludgeon, a Lashing—the rage and magic and fury of Words. I fell into a Fever, I read it over and Over again. Many good lines, esp. Martin. I like Martin. Did Cand. pass Manila? Seems trip from Paris to El Dorado, Venezuela, back to Germany via Span. vessel could go Manila galleon route—will trace map. Tio U. angry. My eyes, cost of Kerosene, not good for Health, bla bla bla. I know he is only concerned. His concern breaks my heart, but I ignore it. He put a poultice on my eyes, Threatening. You will go blind, he said. Mabubuta ka, buta. Blind from ecstasy, I thought I would Vomit. But I am already blind, I said! I cannot see at night! Still, Tio U. keeps leaving Books around, as if Forgetful. Looks at me, I think with a Wink. Now, he left Cerv. Cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme. Burn the books of my foolish youth, oh ye of good faith, the noble Gentleman said in delirium. I remember his face bloated by whiplash, tortured by the Span. I remember every day. How many days to heal his burns? How many mornings and nights did we press the oil and herbs on Tio U.’s sick and tortured don quiXote Face? How long did we pray to his indifferent G.? My mind fails at the measures of our fear. I fill with hate. Coños! Then I open up a page—we hauled everything back, every ruined and mauled thing; and it is as if nothing happened, I’m sipping barako and falling in love with a paper girl, Cunegonde. Ms Di-Ganda. Damned son. Damned nephew. I’ll burn in hell.
This Cerv. is funny. Can you believe—113 114 115
113 Entries #5 and #6 are clearly contiguous, but they appear on separate sheets, so I made them separate entries. These sections are faithful to the physical sequence of the papers: but it is I who numbered each separate piece of the manuscript. (Trans. Note)
114 However, on the back of #6 are some crossed-out paragraphs, perhaps a discarded section for another typical school essay, “Mi Familia” (see #9). I append it in its entirety below. One understands why the writer trashed this piece: it presents details just to get them over with, in dull declaratives (“He did . . . he came . . . he was”). He does not seem inspired by the particulars of his father’s life, though I would like to know what happened to his joyous great-uncle Jorge Luis, “el vagamundo de Jaca!”
“Everyone called Papá el genio Jote. His full name: Jorge Raymundo Mata Eibarrazeta. When Papá was born, he had a big head, like Napoleon and also like his great-uncle Jorge Luis, a fiddler and a man of ill
