Why not?
A reader has as much to say about a book as an author, if not more, I thought, crossing my fingers in the gliding banca, ready for shore.
That avid bunch that greeted us on shore portended our importance, or their boredom. How many of them swarmed at our arrival I couldn’t tell—but it seemed a whole village of young boys appeared to wave us toward land. They took our bags, our balot, our burdens—then they all disappeared toward the huts, a few meters from land, that accosted our gaze with a tidy welcome.
—So this is Talisay, Dr. Pio, a.k.a. Don Procopio, exclaimed.449
—He built it all, with the help of his students, said informative Doña Sisa.
—Can you believe, all this from a lottery?,450 exclaimed funny Angelica.
—You must see his clinic, doctor, said timid Josefina.
—No, Josefina, let us eat first, interrupted rude Angelica.
—He eats only what he plants, offered tender Josefina.
—Though he doesn’t harvest pigs, countered clever Angelica.
—Well, he also has poultry, a piggery, and cows for pasture, asserted proud Josefina.
—Plus cacao fields, a coconut grove, and acres of abaca, added agronomical Doña Sisa.
And that is enough of characterization via epithets, my clumsy rendition of insights frayed from my hunger. What distressed me was this altogether mundane illustration of my hero—what, he was a pigsty owner, chicken cooper, and cowherd, too? O Eumaeus!451
What blasphemies await poor readers who gain proximity to their writers!
It was as if, the closer you came, the more gall you collected, this unsolicited information about their lives filling up not a holy grail but a tin-can chalice of murky wine. I don’t know how I had imagined him—on some lofty cloud scribbling phantom masterpieces at a desk? From Doña Sisa’s details, he may as well join my retired uncle in his reverence for the wet season!
Numerous adjustments to my preconceptions confounded me as we moved toward his house. The women chattered about the land’s improvements with nonchalance, not knowing they were shattering my illusions. He had planted the langka trees near the beach: the locals told him they wouldn’t grow so close to the sea, but look—like a miracle their roots have dredged deep enough to clutch the soil! He has a green thumb, they agreed. You don’t say, I thought, looking at the lush earth—he’s a goddamn green digital giant! Check out that mango tree: he loves its sour white meat. Ditto the cashew plants, green peanuts, and lanzones. He also loved tinapâ, mango jelly, and guavas, and he kept asking for kesong puti, but only from Laguna, and bagoong, but only from the Ilocos, which they used to mail to him even when he was in Europe.
My God, he was a veritable pig!
And do you remember his obsession over the stockings—his competition with the Chinese vendors to sell European-style hosiery in Dapitan? The ladies laughed, even the loyal Josefina. Oh please, do not add vile mercantilism to his sins of gluttony, I cursed to myself. I mean, will I learn he dreams of trading like a bombay next?452 453 His first project, said Doña Sisa, had been to import fishing nets from Calamba, to improve the catch in Dapitan. They can’t make fishing nets here? I asked. Gee whiz, I thought, what did the people of Dapitan do without him—flap their hands in the ocean? No—they used sakag, about the width of a little rice basket, so he asked us to mail large woven nets from Laguna, the largest pukutan money could buy.
Sadly, she said, he didn’t get it.
What darned ache and pain in that information—he only wanted a fishnet and he did not get even that?
I see in my heart a miserable apparition—the flailing arms of a drowning man, flapping at fish.
The twisted irony of that cruel question, quite unrhetorical in his case: if you were cast away on a desert island, what ten things would you take? Not even to include in the list: 1) the dreams of Rousseau, 2) the pamphlets of Voltaire, 3) the sciences of Rost and Jagor, 4) a pen, 5) one musical instrument, 6) postage stamps, 7) an unfinished manuscript, please to forward from Hong Kong, 8) secret perfumed letters from innumerable lost women, 9) a half-whittled wooden figure, yet untitled, 10) desire.
No, not even that.
Instead. Number One: goddamn pukutan, a fishing net from Laguna.
How the turn of fate had made him—well, human.
And look at that chicken coop—see? Against the hill of lanzones trees. He designed it himself. His patients pay him with poultry. He designed that water system, too—over there, beyond the outhouse. He took two months to figure out how to rig it to reach his home. I ooh-ed and ah-ed as they expected, but privately, my heart was breaking. My God, I thought, when the hell does he have time to write his third novel if he’s busy dredging up drainage systems for his kasilyas?454 455 Worse, what did it mean if his own beloved sister did not mention—not once, of her own volition—that first principle, his writing schedule? Was it in the morning, after the milking of the cows? Or between noon and twilight, when the pigs and the poultry and the household help were deep in siesta and finally he was all alone, catching words with dismal fishing
