She was his favorite sister, Dr. Pio had confided to me about Doña Sisa, as if he were intimate with the writer’s affections. So why, I thought, had he named his madwoman character in the Noli after this ordinary woman carrying an abaniko like everyone else? Why burden a favorite with the symbolism of deranged Motherland? Beats me. Doña Sisa, with her fattish waist and love for garlic, looked about as ready to fall into suicidal depression as Don Procopio was to speak the truth. She did not look like the image of the degradation of Islas Filipinas but more like a portrait of a pious eater of pork. As we approached the shoals, I reflected on a writer’s reasons for confusing identities to useless ends, and so missed the thudding moment of our arrival. We got off the ship onto a pilot’s banca, to negotiate the shallow waters of this edenic coast.446 447
439 Mata de lampaso. I get it. Raymundo uses another pun on his name [mata de pelo means mop of hair; lampaso means, among other things, coconut husk]. Right, Mimi C.? (Estrella Espejo, ditto)
440 The declension of vegetables (gulay) that occurs in the text makes no sense, as none of them rhyme with “novel;” the American-era pun extends the mystery. Don’t you think so, Ms. Translator? (Estrella Espejo, ditto)
441 That joke is so nineteenth century. I would add the ninth: karaoke! Personally, I prefer mah-jongg over cards; it has a most salutary effect on the senses, the clack of tiles like the sound of om. (Estrella Espejo, ditto)
442 An interesting discrepancy occurs in two versions of Valenzuela’s memoirs. In Appendix A of the Minutes of the Katiupunan, Valenzuela states: “. . . Under the assumed name of ‘Procopio Bonifacio,’ I embarked on the steamship Venus . . . accompanied by Raymundo Mata, a blind man, and Rufino Magos [sic], both residents of barrio Binakayan, Kawit, Cavite . . .” In the later edition, Valenzuela’s biographer uses the same language but adds to the facts: “He traveled under an assumed name, ‘Procopio Bonifacio,’ and was accompanied by Raymundo Mata, a blind man, and Rufino Magos [sic], Mata’s young aide.” The truth of Raymundo’s memoirs asserts Rufino Mago [not Magos] was an old man while he was the young patient. In addition, while they were both from Binakayan, Kawit, they were residents at the time in Manila: further proof of Valenzuela’s notoriously unreliable testimony. (Estrella Espejo, ditto)
443 ¡Que rico las pulgas de paniqui de puquis—entonces: las alas de la viuda de espadañas! ¡Que dios berdugo te bendigo! The spate of spite here progresses incoherently. (Trans. Note)
444 Ah, Mimi C. You’re back. Welcome! I knew you’d reappear with the nasty words! The faithful reader will note the allusion to the character from the Noli, the fraudulent “Spanish” matron, la viuda de de espadañas [sic], Doña Victorina, Rizaline quips increasing as the ship nears Dapitan. (Estrella Espejo, ditto)
445 May the wrath of God the executioner fall upon you: the ultimate oath, perhaps an ancient Chabacano screed. (Estrella Espejo, ditto)
446 Is this another of Raymundo’s cunning allusions to the hero’s poetry, of which he seemed to have intimate knowledge? Was Dapitan also Raymundo’s “nuestro perdido eden,” etc. etc? At this point, it is hard to tell apart the hero’s words from the reader’s mind, a symbolic gambit of a sort. What do you say to that, Dr. Diwata? Are you still there? Or are you expelling your quack exhalations on some other text? (Estrella Espejo, ditto)
447 Dear Estrella, contrary to rumor, I have been reading these entries carefully and formulating some interesting—“symbolic gambit of a sort,” is that what you said? I will admit, I have been bemused—I will keep in touch, I am in the middle— (Dr. Diwata Drake, Saint John’s, U.S. Virgin Islands)
Entry #32
June [1896]
We arrived before sunset. Rufino, Dr. Pio, and I rowed out on one banca and the women in another. I had already made my goodbyes to Segunda in the galley, where her husband, that gifted cuckold, shook my hand with affable innocence. The heat was sultry but not withering though the sun still blazed: a tribute to the town’s mild clime, due perhaps to its open posture against the Sulu seas. I carried my cane, my banig, plus a rosary just for effect. Rufino, even on the banca, was already crossing himself as if at a saint’s canonization, muttering prayers of novena. I realized only later that, unlike myself, Rufino had the wit to be scared about the outcome of our journey.
After all, we were visiting an exiled man.
Dr. Pio—that is, Don Procopio—paid a porter to carry his valise and other effects. No improvised suitcases for that suave Bulakeño. The porters mangled their backs carrying his mendacious equipment, that heavy medical bag, a useless burden, if they only knew. He shouted when they almost dropped it into the water—but what was the point? He had not come to cure any ills. I must say he cut a dash—quite cosmopolitan in his fashionable trilby and his European shoes, which the porter took and tied with care to a pole. Don Procopio put to shame the likes of me, with my single camisa and pitiable chinelas sloshing in the banca’s shallow flood. Oh, that I spend all my money on filthy novels and smuggled pamphlets! I had the spendthrift ways of a cowardly filibustero, and all I could show for them were my dumb decoy eyes and wet feet. As we rode the precarious
