Room With The Secret Door

Interior Spaces

When it's dark, look for stars. - Oscar Wilde

I'm thirteen. I now have my own room. It's a scanty nine-by-eleven foot space reclaimed from the dining area. 

Outside, above its doorway, is an unframed color print, faded and dusty, of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. The deity is offering an eternal prayer on my behalf, I've concluded vaguely but contritely. I find it comforting, given my discordant piety.

Entry is through a two-panel, saloon-like door made of particle board that stands full height and swings inward only. Just like in a bar, Carpenter Islao explains, his lips flattening into a two-dimensional smile. I open my mouth to respond, but then snap it shut, forcing a chuckle instead. He should know. He's a regular at the corner tuba palm-wine stand. I've chosen to keep one of the panels stationary, leaving only the other free to open. 

The floor creaks, I say softly, as I walk on it. But better than the 'Three-Bunk Room,' I whisper gratefully. The walls, like all others in the house, are washed in one coat of light green. Para mas mura. Cheaper that way, Mum mumbles. It's her austere plan of saving on the Boysen paint expense. 

Immediately against the right wall is an aparador, vibrant in orange  shellac. It's an innovative all-in-one structure consisting of a closet that steps down into a mirrored dresser with drawers underneath. Neatly hung in the wardrobe space are handed-down dresses from Aunt Luz that Mum has re-styled to my petite size. They fit perfectly? she asks gently. I grin, nodding approvingly as I plant my elbows firmly on my tocador dresser, tossing my head toward the Pond's cream and Kokuryu powder that promise the 'super fabulous natural look' purported in Metro magazine. 

A twin bed fits snugly, next and perpendicular to the aparador. Like domino pieces, I comment to myself playfully. The bed's cross arms are made of tightly-woven cane on top of which I've set a colorful mat. Removable corner rods hold up at nighttime the mosquito net. The latter is otherwise folded and tucked under a bumpy, kapok cotton-filled pillow and a rumpled blanket on the head of the bed.

The back wall is a partition made of tempered hardboard. It does not quite reach up to the ceiling. For ventilation, Mang Islao glibly reasons out, as though he were blowing a trumpet fanfare. I don't try to hide my smile. Its headrail, like a balance beam, has become the house lizards' favored spot to go traipsing around. 

On the left wall, a window with shell-paned frames is almost always open, as the wood rails across secure it from outside entry. Its only backdrop is the sky. I like how the light plays through the window, I mutter to myself. 

I delight in the privacy of my space, but what I love most is the small door that is set about a foot above the floor on the corner of the partitioned wall. It is a tight squeeze for a large adult, but is perfectly-sized for me. 

Its use has puzzled me at first. What's that? I ask our carpenter, tilting my eyebrows. A secret door, he answers, gesturing extravagantly with a twinkle in his eyes. I shudder, or pretend to. He lets out an odd, choked laugh. With grudging respect, I tell him, I know. A back way to the kitchen and bathroom and out of the house.

Inwardly, I'm impressed. What a drunken, inventive spark of artisanship! I've tacked a nail on a strategic height above it, such that a hung vestida dress hides it from view. I can 'disappear' from my room when I choose to, and no one will be the wiser. I smile sheepishly at the ingenuity of my covert contraption. 

At night, as I drift in and out of fitful sleep - my dreams an annoyance, like buzzing flies - I look at my secret door and murmur, To infinity... and beyond! (Okay, I know Buzz Lightyear comes several years after, but I like the bravado of his words, plus his catchphrase sounds pretty close to what I may have said at the time).

I imagine how it will lead me, not to back rooms but out into the night, soft as cashmere. The path will be unending, stretching peacefully like a blanket settling in around my shoulders.  

My 'Room With The Secret Door' will be my gateway to the stars, looking like diamonds that dot the hemisphere, soothing me with their steadiness like pinpricks of hope. 

Three-Bunk Room

Interior Spaces 

Great Spirit, help me always to remember the peace
that may be found in silence. - Cherokee Prayer

I'm twelve. The 'Room Of Three Mats' is no more. With Dadee's bonus as Erlanger's new manager, we're able to add a room to accommodate all six older children. Last Brother has taken his place with Mum in the heretofore only bedroom in the house.

The new space is blissfully plain except for a closet that's set against the front wall to hold our sundry wear. Next to it is a calendar, a promo from the corner Caltex gasoline station. Cafe-style curtains, salvaged from Erlanger, hang across the windows from a taut wire tacked to nails. In a corner are six pairs of shoes, black and brown (how dull is that?) and a wood container the size of a shoebox filled with assorted junk. The room's central area awaits the three double-decker beds from Homewise Furniture that are being delivered today.

We're brimming with eagerness. Are they here yet? Eldest Brother purrs, clasping his hands in delight.

After a seemingly unending vigil, we blurt out, Nandito na! They're here!

Bolting and chasing each other across the expanse of the room, we gasp in barely-contained chaos. Already, we've staked our spots and know who's bunking with whom. 

Third Brother and I always pair together. Being the most alert among the siblings, we always manage to get the choicest of anything. We've claimed the right side of the window that faces the front yard for our bunk's location. Eldest and Fifth Brothers' bunk will be against the far wall, also with a window. Second and Fourth Brothers feign disinterest. They get the leftover area by the left wall facing the back yard for their bunk.

After fattening ourselves at dinnertime with boiled rice and string beans sauteed with a sprinkling of ground pork, we get ready for bed and rush to our respective bunks. The arrangement looks rather neat, the tall beds taking up most of the height of the room. We cackle excitedly. The mosquito nets hanging overhead, one on top of the other, look like double-stacked translucent boxes rising up from wood floors to the white-washed ceiling. 

As usual, chatter pops and cracks irrepressibly even after the lights are out. Third Brother and I exchange stories of magic and witches in whispers. Remember that one with dark men turning into wolves?  I feign a choked panic. The other brothers are stomping and shouting with a cacophony that gives a combined effect somewhere between the Second Coming and Hannibal Crossing The Alps By Elephant. 

But as Dadee comes by to sleep with two-year-old Fifth Brother and hushes us softly, all becomes quiet on the Three-Bunk front.

Wrapped in a blanket, I cover my mouth with a slight flourish of my hand to hide a yawn. I gaze into the darkness, relishing the intimacy. I sense the camaraderie, the connection. I feel like I belong here. I roll over and watch my sleeping siblings. No one is stirring, not even the pesky mice that daily visit for their ration of crumbs under the dinner table. 

The long night has come in perfect peace.

Room Of Three Mats, Part II

Interior Spaces

Everything you can imagine is real. - Pablo Picasso

At exactly 8 pm, the radio is turned on. In curious expectation, we crane our neck, some of us embracing a pillow to our knees. A voice comes like a serrated edge in the silence of the room. DZBB Super Radyo presents...

We wait for the ominous fanfare. The announcer lets out the breath he has been holding, then continues dramatically - The stories of Lola Basyang!

A wind has come up. No one is talking.

Noong.Unang.Panahon. Lola Basyang starts to speak through clenched teeth, coming to a full stop after each word. Once.Upon.A.Time. Her garrulous voice complements the scraping of the alagao branches against the house. 

Tonight, the story is that of a half-man, half-horse. A tikbalang monster! we say, mesmerized. The air is brittle with silence as we cower in fear, dry-mouthed. 

Lips curled in a sneer, it comes galloping with pounding hoofbeats in search of human prey. In his basket, frail women, already captured, peek furtively. Others, still on the ground, are running, but it is like being in a wet bog, their every step an effort. They're calling for help with fluttering voices, Saklolo! 

What's going to happen? we ask breathlessly, swallowing hard. We try to catch our breath and slow our hearts thundering in panic. 

Lola Basyang weaves the story on and on until the moon falls between the rooftops. On nights like this, it is said that the gods are asleep. We keep hoping they've changed their schedule this year and are awake, worrying about the children.

Then comes out the winged goddess. Serena! we say with a relieved grin. She battles the tikbalang. The warfare lights up the skies. The dreaded enemy is defeated, and the prisoners set free. We draw a deep breath and slowly exhale simultaneously.

Tune in tomorrow for another adventure in...

The stories of Lola Basyang!

The last notes of the program's musical theme hang in the air, as if God were saying an Amen.

Tulog na, Mum's voice drifts, enjoining us to sleep, as the radio dial is clicked off. We sound out a peal of disappointed groans as the fluorescent light is dimmed. We reluctantly pull down the side flaps of the mosquito nets and lie down. But in the half-light, we chatter determinedly on.

On the First Mat, Third Brother and I continue to talk in hushed tones. He pulls out a matchbox filled with 'piglet' bugs. No, let's not play with those, I protest, fearing they may crawl out. Basa na lang tayo. Let's just read, I suggest in a conspiratorial whisper.  I pull a Pilipino komiks from behind my shorts pocket and start reading to him, squinting, our heads side by side.

On the Second Mat, we can hear raucous movements. Eldest Brother is tickling Second Brother. The latter protests, emitting a sharp, strained laugh, Stop it! I afterward hear them comparing shooter marbles from the small drawstring bag that they each carry around like a prized possession.

On the Third Mat, Fourth Brother wails for Mummie to lie down with him. I have to stay with Fifth Baby Brother, she answers from across the only bed in the adjacent room. Shh... Dadee shushes him, neatly tucking net flaps underneath. I'm right here with you, he says in a voice that sounds sleepy.

The secret whispers, private laughter, the babbling continue for a while, then fade away. Only a tranquil half-moon lights the dark sky. We're snuggled on the mats and sheltered under mosquito nets, surrounded by the prayers of the saints, safe from monsters hovering in the night.

Room Of Three Mats, Part I

Interior Spaces

This series recreates the sleeping areas in the house I grew up in on Fountain Street. The house still stands, remodeled, and has become Fourth Brother's residence in his adult years. In this entry, I'm ten years old, eldest of six siblings at the time. Last Brother, the final one in the brood, will be born two years after. 

The living room is small and sparse. 

Narra hardwood chairs with cane-covered seats and a glass-topped table are on its central space. On a floating shelf on the right wall is a Philcoa radio. On the adjacent wall are a small bookcase and a glass estante for showcasing a plate service inherited from Lola Maria. The latter's lower pane is cracked and badly mended with tape. The top-half of the opposite wall consists of a partition with shelves on which climbing philodendron in water-filled glass bottles thrive indoors year-round without complaint. 

Dadee has just gulped a cup of his after-dinner tsaa with an embarrassing slurp. Six children have been fed, a few curses said, hurts nurtured, dishes put away, and personal libations completed. 

Thereafter, the transformation begins. The living room becomes the 'Room Of Three Mats.' 

After shoving table and chairs aside, Dadee orders jovially, Get the mats, will you? Eldest Brother dutifully assents with a prim nod over his shoulder. He retrieves the rolled woven banig standing like sentinels from the corner of the room. With appropriate flourish, Second Brother and he spread them out - one, two, three! - on the wood floor, each arrowing toward the radio.

Mum offers lumpy pillows like a prize. Please put this blanket by Fourth Brother, she says softly to me. It smells like him.

Mosquito nets, looking like rectangular parachutes, are held up on each of their four corners. With pointy lips toward a nail on the wall, Eldest Brother tells Third Brother, articulating with precision, Hang this over there.

The netted sides are afterward temporarily rolled up, forming canopies. Underneath, in small groups on the mat, we sit like spectators in a theatre box or figures around a campfire about to reenact some ancient, complex ritual.

Is it time yet? we ask all at once, exchanging small anxious glances. Soon, Dadee says, with an airy wave of the hand. I fold my arms, leaning against him.

Then, we wait for the magic to begin. 

(To be continued)

Water Puppets

It's Show Time!

I'm viewing the stage expectantly.

Slits of illumination flicker out, casting odd beams through cracks between the boards of the simple structure of wood, bamboo and cloth standing in the midst of what looks like a rice paddy submerged with water. Beyond the pale circles of dim lighting, the room remains dark and obscure. 

Presently, colored floodlights focus center stage. They bathe the surface of the liquid foreground making it shine like a newly-varnished painting. Vocal pyrotechnics and a cacophony of drums, gongs, cymbals and bells from musicians seated on either side of the pool fill the air. 

The show has begun at the Thanglong Water Puppet Theatre in Ha Noi.

In a flush of anticipation, I crane my neck to look at the dazzling scenery that unfolds. The water begins to tremble with jerky movements from disparate wooden characters awash in vivid magenta, pink, purple, and gold.

It's all color and shape, seemingly caught in a pool of glass. In this 800-year-old form of folk entertainment, puppets are controlled using long bamboo rods and string mechanisms hidden beneath the water's surface. The apparatus extends behind the stage curtain to the unseen puppeteers who stand in waist-deep water.  

I exhale a long, slow breath as my eyes bug out at the strange sight. Radiance looking like twinkling diamonds shines upon the hand-carved puppets. The women, in bright head scarves, are working on the farm. The hay stacked beyond is an eerie hump in the darkness. In the distance, a soft-eyed water buffalo pulls a plow. 

Dozens of sampan boats, small and large and painted in a variety of bright hues, shortly bob in unison like a chorus line on the water. My eyes narrowing, I look up at the illumination emanating from the intricately-sculpted wooden house in the background, creating an eerie glow against the soft current.

An ensuing scenery unfolds a mythical earthly paradise populated with gods and demigods and other outlandish creatures. Vietnam's so-called 'descendants of the dragon fairy' fight with tigers, dance with umbrellas, and court with pan-pipes even as they trample huge waves of the Eastern Sea underfoot.

I puff out my lips, continuing to watch with my head tilted at an angle. My eyes are taking in so much that is not even there.

Like so many water bugs, various other character puppets ranging in height from 12 to 40 inches and weighing up to 30 pounds each, are either coming or going. A vendor touts his wares. A bean-curd maker pushes a wooden cart. My gaze sharpens as I watch the life-sized marionettes bouncing gently in the water, as if touched by soft, invisible breaths - rising and falling. Spotlights shine on them, lighting them up like at Christmastime.

The performance is dreamlike, but delightful in its detail. From a distance, it looks like the gleam of a string of watercolors dancing in a foggy mist.

The water sloshes as the puppeteers come out in the end to take a dripping bow. I wait a beat, arch my eyebrow, then continue in almost a squeal.  

Người đi ám sát. Bravo!

In Summer!

It's Show Time!

Sometimes I like to close my eyes and imagine 

What it’ll be like when summer does come. 

Bees’ll buzz, kids’ll blow dandelion fuzz. - Song lyrics, In Summer!

It's Olaf the Snowman's fantasy song from Disney's 2013 animated feature film Frozen.

Yes, I've watched the movie and find it delightful. Totally. The lyrics are nimble and the simple premise stays fresh. It's like getting a warm hug from your favorite snowman.

Thinking of Olaf, the friendliest snowman in Arendelle, I can envision him. Drink in hand, he's relaxing in the lovely sun, its long yellow rays lying like honey on the sand. He's getting gorgeously tanned. The wind from the sea has stayed away, and the air that usually feels like nothing wraps itself around him, thick and warm.

Just imagine how much cooler I’ll be. In summer! he croons. 

For sure, there is something darkly comical and sad about Olaf's naivete. As Kristoff, the Sami iceman tells him, I’m guessing you don’t have much experience with heat. 

But youthful optimism makes Olaf’s weather delusion sound and look deliciously delirious. I can hear him murmuring back, a smile of wonder breaking over his face.

Winter’s a good time to stay in and cuddle, 

but put me in summer and I’ll be a happy snowman! 

He continues to grunt a laugh, as he sings:

Da da… Da doo! A bah bah ba baba boo! In summer!

Kristoff thinks of letting Olaf know that every single thing that he dreams of doing will only make him melt faster, but Anna stops him, Don’t you dare!

I agree with Anna. Let Olaf sing of summer's joy. I'm unperturbed, for I have a sneaking suspicion that despite the expected demise, he's not ending up a goner. I can imagine him giving me a conspiratorial wink, as we wait and see...

... In winter!

To that I say, Máistte! Cheers!

Hot Diggity Dog!

It's Show Time!

This Father's Day, I fondly remember one of Dadee's creative ventures.

It is twilight, my favorite time of day. I call it the magic hour. Barefoot, hair still damp from our baths, we run to the living room sala for one last moment of play.

Tonight, Dadee has a surprise for us. 

Seated on the rattan sofa, we're stretching our neck to have a good view of his latest innovative project. I recognize the box - it's Uncle Greg's empty Elpo shoebox. Inside is a four-inch wide strip of white bond paper that is rolled around a longer, thin wood spindle. The outer edges of the 'film holder' protrude through a hole on the side of the box so they can be cranked. On the exposed face of the paper, I can see several images drawn in pairs that only minimally differ from each other. 

With a grin spreading across his features, Dadee begins to move the reel in rapid succession, mimicking the illusion of motion and change. It is a pre-cinema animation of sorts using a hand-crafted movie 'projection' system.

Let me see, First Brother squeaks. But it's my turn, I counter, peeking from behind Second Brother who's sitted on my lap. 

We're jockeying for the most strategic position in front of the miniscule carton viewer. Then, our eyes widen. Mickey Mouse! 

We laugh, our brows arched in delight. We know him by sight because of his red shorts with the two big buttons on the front, large yellow shoes, and white gloves that contrast with his black hands and body. He's at the helm, rhythmically changing the angle of the rudder to change the direction of the ship.

Besides being the projectionist, Dadee also voices Mickey. Hot diggity dog! he says in emulation of the latter's famous little falsetto and high-pitched voice. First Brother giggles. The excitement and enjoyment are contagious. 

Dadee gives us a small appreciative nod. Then, he continues with Mickey off-handedly saying, Oh, boy! We all bark a laugh. Make him say that again, Second Brother squeals. He gets off on the floor and tries to look for the cartoon character behind the table. We all chuckle.

I'm seated closer now, elbows on the table, chin resting in my upturned palms, and staring at the show unfolding. This is what Dadee does best. He makes even the smallest moments feel larger than life.

I follow Mickey's repeated antics with my eyes. He seems to have come alive, romping around within the narrow confines of a shoebox.

I don't believe we have ever smiled so much in our life. We applaud the show.

Sige pa! Encore!