256 Here’s one more structure of colonial neurosis for you, you hairy mongrel: Footnote-within-Footnote—[“hairy mongrel”: mestiza-balbon]! (Estrella Espejo, ditto)
Entry #20
Dear Q—,
Until now I am not forgetting the labor of yours, that on waking at morning is your rising with litheness, your making the cross, your getting on knees and praising God, thanking him that you he kept from common danger . . . God is the first sound from your lips, the first thought of yours.
I see your form enchanting, the kindness and modesty that is shining through your walk and your entire conduct, that is seen in your churchgoing and your listening to the sacred sacrifice.
Today I see that your bosom is open, and I gaze at your clean heart, that is following the sacrament to which you are boiling the rice with full love, the God of love that you hold in your hand, that offers to the powerful Father remembrance, respect for his high power that He is wielding over the world . . . 257 258 259
Until now I do not forget your industry,260 how you wake in the morning and at once rise with eagerness, with the sign of the cross, genuflecting and praising God, thanking him for keeping you from harm and giving you life to serve his love on that morning and every morning God is the first sound on your lips as God is your first thought.
I see your charming figure, the goodness and grace that shines through in your walk and your whole demeanor, as when you sit in church and listen wide-eyed to the Sacred Sacrifice. Now I see how your heart is open and I look at your pure soul, and what is that which you hold in your hand—it is the God of Love—throbbing with high power that He wields over the world—and to which you offer your remembrance and honor.
What is that which you hold in your hands—a god of love throbbing with power, the majesty he wields over the world—to which, in my dreams, you offer tender memory and respect. I keep seeing your bodice open, your pure chest, rising and falling,261 262 as you sit in my church, wide-eyed, mouthing a holy sacrifice. Now I see your enchanting form, your goodness and grace shining through your gestures, your shy walk towards me.
In my dreams.263 264 265
Why should God be the first sound on your lips and the first thought in your heart? Open the day, Q—,266 in another way. Your holy gestures are wasted, eagerness lost on air: making the cross, genuflecting, sighing and thanking—a Ghost. Think of a different Body—that which sighs, thanks, kneels, and rises up in eagerness: to be with you, double-you. Your charming body, grace and goodness in your entire demeanor, your shy walk. Walk towards me. Bless me, E—. Be good to me, R—. T—, shed your grace. Oh Y—, why not?
Until now I think of your industry, your litheness, as you get up and grasp it as you would the cross—lateral and literal benediction; then you genuflect, you pray, you kneel, o dios, the first words on your lips (you lick your lips), o dios, the first thought on your mind (you close your eyes).
It’s like church: a holy sacrifice. You the devout devour the mass by heart, the pauses, parts, and breaths, the unspeakable and righteous act. You shame the grace of an angel, you fit the form of shyness, as you hold it, the god of love, in your hands . . . 267
257 Raymundo shifts to pure Tagalog for no clear reason in this unfinished paragraph. This formal language, quite different from the casual language of the early entries of Part I, occurs nowhere else in the text and is reproduced below. Raymundo’s original, in straight, stylized Tagalog with hispanized spellings and the Tagalog’s trademark verbal indirection, full of Predicates but no Subjects and too many Gerunds reads (and I translated literally and faithfully above):
“Magpahanga ñgayo’y, di co nalilimutan ang casipagan mo, na pagca guising sa umaga’y, malicsing babañgon, sasandatahin ang cruz, maninicluhod ca’t, magpupuri sa Dios, magpapasalamat at iniadya ca sa madlang pañganib at pinagcalooban nang buhay na ipaglilingcód sa caniyang camahalan sa arao na iyon Dios ang unang bigcás nang labi mo, at palibhasa’y Dios ang unang isip mo.
Aquing natatanao ang cauili-uiling anyó mo, ang cabaita’t, cahinhinan na nagniningning sa iyong paglacad at boong caasalan, na ipinaquiquita sa pagtuñgo sa simbahan, at ipinaqui-quinyig nang Santo Sacrificio. Ñgayo’y, naqui-quita cong bucás ang dibdib mo, at natatanao co ang malinis mong puso, na naquiquibagay sa sacerdote na inihahain mo nang boong pagibig, ang Dios nang pagibig na hauac sa camay, at iniaalay sa di matingcalang Ama, alaala’t, galang sa mataas niyang capangyarihan, na ipinag-hahari sa sangdaigdigan.” (Trans. Note)
258 Mimi C.! This literal overlay of Tagalog’s gerund-orientation onto English syntax is an astonishing commentary on the ordinary anguish of translation—or its impossibility. Almost as bad as Nabokov’s unreadable Eugene Onegin, your “translation” willfully ignores rules of English to give Tagalog’s verbalism its prominence. This is an inversion of the norms of translation—when originalism is the goal, not clarity. Versions of the self, as one can see from any “translated” text, are thus often subversions: if it’s in language we reveal our Self to an Other, we are mutated, broken, mis-presented when we code-switch, in our attempt to be heard. (Dr. Diwata Drake, Clyde, Ohio)
259 Mimi C.! Goddamnit, do your job already: be polite! I just want to understand: if you need English, use English. (Estrella Espejo, Quezon Institute and Sanatorium, Tacloban, Leyte)
260 This second passage seems a tentative translation, in Spanish, of the first, except that towards the end, once again, Raymundo surrenders to juvenile vulgarity, which I deplore. These pages could be a copybook: a diligent, schoolboy
