In which Adriel gets better acquainted.

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After supper I went up to my room and looked out my window. Everything was much too quiet and I didn’t like it. I went to my music collection and after much consideration selected a tape I hadn’t played much recently. When the rebellious western rhythms of Bon Jovi’s “Blaze of Glory” filled the room it made me feel better. I half-expected Allain or Ian or Averill to come pound on my door, but none of them did. Maybe they felt the same way as I did.

I took Bubblegum and drifted out on the balcony and curled up on the settee amid the gaily-colored cushions Mom had put there. She had made it into a sort of boudoir, with hanging plants and bright fabrics. It was warm and cozy, but it was too open, too near to the right outside—too still, too hushed, too alien and scary. Behind me the music swelled likes a symbol of the real world, something only a few steps away, but out of reach at the moment. The defiant sound made me think of Mike, and I looked towards their house. There were no lights there. It was completely, totally dark in comparison to the cheery twinkling lights from the barrio lower down.

Quite suddenly the whole thing scared me. I knew it was irrational, but I retreated into my room, into the magic circle of the music, as if nothing could touch me there. Once again I stretched out on the floor to think.

I must have fallen asleep there, for the next thing I knew, I woke up with a snap, a bit disoriented, wandering what had woken me up and why was it so cold, where was my blanket? Then I realized that what had woken me was the sound of someone screaming his head off—the echo still lingered in the night. It couldn’t have been the TV—nobody ever turned it up loud enough to be heard upstairs especially at night—or the stereo, because that had already been off for sometime. Then I realized where I was and that it was cold because I had forgotten to close the window. I ran to it and leaned out into the night. Lights were flashing on in houses down below.

As previously mentioned, my position afforded a clear and proximate view of the Flores house. As I watched, a light flickered into view. The kitchen door slowly opened. I strained to see as a figure entered. Goosebumps blossomed when I registered that it was a figure in white, carrying what appeared to be a lighted candle. I didn’t wait to see more, but shut the window and barred it securely, then jumped into bed and huddled deep under the covers in the middle of all my pillows. The next thing I knew, Mom was knocking on my door and asking why I hadn’t turned off my lights. I stuck my head out to look at my watch. It was ten in the morning and all of a sudden I felt warm.

Sheepishly I opened my windows, turned off my lights, put on a tape, made my bed, bathed, dressed, and ran downstairs for breakfast. And then I didn’t know what was the matter with me.i kept going to my bedroom, then to the balcony, then down to the kitchen, the living room, out to the garden, and all over again, like I had something urgent to do but I hadn’t the faintest idea what it was. Allain, who was blissfully strumming away sprawled on the living room sofa, even put down his guitar once or twice to stare perplexedly at me. Finally Mom complained I was making her dizzy and would I help her in the garden if I had nothing better to do, and I quickly beat it back to my room. But even Boyzone couldn’t make me relax, so I snitched some of Ian’s tapes and put them on. At least they were more recent than Allain’s Elvis, Beatles, and Simon and Garfunkel Collection. Ian was hooked on Air Supply, Bread, Chicago, the Eagles, Led Zeppelin, Jefferson Starship, and other ‘70’s, ‘80’s, and early ‘90’s bands. I actually found some heavy metal, and for once the chaos made me feel right at home. Ian stuck his head in once or twice to comment on my choice of sounds, but after I hit him with a couple of pillows he didn’t come back and I was left to my sounds and my own churning thoughts.

To my surprise, Myra turned up around eleven-thirty and went straight to find me.

“Love, have you heard?”

“Heard what?”

“The white lady walks again! Didn’t you hear someone yelling around midnight last night? It just about woke up the whole barrio!”

“Yeah, I heard it, and?” I asked cautiously.

“Weeell. . .” Myra said. “There were two men coming from a wake over at a farm beyond this hill, okay, they had had a bit to drink, but they weren’t drunk yet, their wives are real naggers. Anyway, they met a woman in white on the lane, carrying a candle. She just walked past them as if she didn’t see them at all! They didn’t hesitate, I tell you. They ran for your lives, screaming at the top of their lungs. Can’t say I blame them, too. Although I do have a pretty good idea as to who that woman was.”

“Who?” I asked, though I was pretty sure I already knew the answer. I hadn’t forgotten my own experience of the past night, either, though I wouldn’t tell Myra for the world. I remembered the opening statement of my First Year Science teacher on our first day in high school. “Superstition breeds fear. To know things, you must overcome this fear in order to search for the truth. That is where science begins.”

“Who else?” Myra asked. “Mike’s mother, of course.” She shuddered elaborately. 

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Myra,” I said. I had had just about enough of her shudders. “You ought to be worried about her sleepwalking. She’s liable to get hurt if some drunk takes a shine to her!’

“Yeah, and what if she takes it in her mind to start a fire instead?” Myra retorted. “Or what if—what if she’s. . .?”

I snorted.

In the bright and sane light of midday I could even laugh at myself. I could laugh at the past night’s fear and dismiss them. What is it about the bright daylight that makes you feel safe and protected? What is it about the night time that makes you feel scared? Is it because the combination of darkness and pale moonlight turns the ordinary into the spectral? Or is it because the dark has always been the symbol of evil and malevolence.

Perhaps in the city I was not so scared. There are cutthroats, thieves, and criminals there, true, as there are in any city, but these are known elements, these are human. And the buildings are closer together there, and there are more people. It is perpetual day; cities never sleep. There is no night, in effect, so the things that go bump are absent. This is not so in the country. There and nowhere else, the night is really the right—beautiful, quiet, but strange and a bit scary because it is so lonely and eerie. . .

“Really, Myra,” I said. “I know what you were going to say. “Let’s not jump to conclusions, okay? Let’s look for a scientific explanation. There has to be a logical explanation somewhere!

“You and your scientific theories,” Myra said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were falling for Mike,” she accused suddenly. “I know he’s cute, if you forget his attitude.”

And if he were my cousin, I shouldn’t be interested in him. That would be incest. I’m not stupid.

I wondered why she was so allergic about him. Mike was only probably my cousin. But if that were true, that would make him doubly Myra’s cousin. I gave her a look that said quite plainly, “Are you nuts?” she left soon afterwards, saying she still had some errands to run and she had only come over to update me on the latest events.

I wondered. . .

* * *

I decided to go down and say ‘hi’ to Mrs. Flores, if only to make amends for upsetting her the other day. I went out to the garden to see if I could bring her anything. When I saw Mom’s pots of cattleyas, vandas and dancing ladies, I remember Mrs. Flores’ garden and her few pots of dendrobium. Mom’s cattleyas needed repotting, anyway, so I scrounged for coconut husk and twine. I knew cattleyas were pretty expensive, but Mom’s plants were just increasing, not multiplying, but by the factorial!

I regarded myself with some amusement as I walked down the lane. Almost without thinking about it, I had put my favorite pink maong shorts and sleeveless top and tied my hair back with a pink ribbon. My walkman was plugged into my ears and pounding out the “Blaze of Glory”.

Mrs. Flores sat on the bench beside her little garden, looking a bit lost and faraway when I arrived. I slipped off my ‘phones and approached her. 

“Uh—good afternoon, Auntie.”

She turned and after a while her eyes focused on me and seemed to register. She stood up.

“Oh! Good afternoon!—Arianna?” she said my Mom’s name happily. I shook my head.

“No, Auntie, I’m Adriel. Arianna’s daughter?” I said gently.

“Oh,” she said. “I thought—you look very much like Arianna did at that age. She was so much younger than I was, of course, but she liked plants. Sometimes she would come to our house and help with my garden…” She broke off suddenly. “But why are we standing here?” she turned towards the house. “Mike! We have a visitor. Bring a chair!”

I held out the plant. “I know you like flowers, so I brought you this. I hope you like cattleyas.”

“Oh, child, you shouldn’t have…” she said as she took the plant. “Cattleyas! They must be terribly expensive”.

“Yeah, I keep telling Mom she could make a fortune out if her plants since there are so many, but she never gets around to repotting them,” I said. “I know she’d like you to have that, and if you have time I hope you could come to our house. I know Mom would love to talk to you about gardens.”

“Thank you…  Adriel. Perhaps I will one of these days. I’d like that very much.” She looked and sounded normal now.

Mike came hurrying out with a chair, but slowed down and scowled when he saw who the visitor was.

“This is Adriel, she lives in the big house on the hill. This is my son Mike,” Mrs. Flores introduced us cheerfully.

“We’ve met, Nay,” Mike said, eyeing me resentfully. He put down my chair then went back, got another, and sat down too. He wasn’t going to risk my upsetting his mother again if he could help it. I sighed inwardly.

“What year are you in now?” Mrs. Flores asked.

“I’ll be in first year college in June,” I told her.

“I’m going to enroll in biology.”

“Biology?” she asked, puzzled.

“Study of animals, plants and other living things,” I explained. “It can be preparatory for medicine.”

“Won’t it be terribly expensive?” she looked at her son. “Mike’s taking up Electronics but he’s had to stop because we can’t afford his tuition anymore.”

“Oh, not where I’m going,” I accused her. “M.S.U. is a public school, so its tuition is only about P150.00 per semester, around P500.00 if you count the miscellaneous fees. Allain will be second year in Agriculture there in June. There will be three of us in college then, but Mom’s more worried about allowances than tuition. We still have a house in the city, so we don’t have to worry about where we’ll stay.”

“P150.00 per semester?” Mike spoke up for the first time. “That’s just for one unit where I go to school! Maybe Celine can go there. She just graduated, too.”

“Has she taken the SASE?” I asked.

“The SASE?”

“The entrance exam.”

“I don’t know. We’ll have to ask her.” He went to the door and disappeared inside.

“And maybe she could stay with us!” I said excitedly. “That’s right, then I’ll have another girl my age to be with. Myra won’t be with us since she’s going to the Notre Dame. If Celine gets enrolled in M.S.U., can she stay with us, Auntie?” even though I scarcely knew them, I meant it, I realized. There was something about the Floreses that touched me. I read somewhere that some people can arouse either love or hate, sometimes both, but nothing in between. Maybe they were like that. Not to mention, of course, that one of them may be my cousin!

“Oh, no, Adriel, surely we couldn’t impose on you,” Mrs. Flores said.

“It wouldn’t exactly be imposing,” I said.

“There would be another girl in the house, and I’d really want that. Please, please, please? She’d be someone from home, and we could go home together on vacation.”

Home. That was what I’d said, wasn’t it? I recalled my words. Yup. Maybe I was beginning to think of Silang as home after all!

Mike came back with Celine and Ciarra. Beside them I began to feel the same way a native necklace might feel beside a gold and a silver chain. They were so simple and provincial but so pretty! As I’d suspected, both were painfully shy, but where Celine was withdrawn and timid, Ciarra was proud and aloof. I found myself regarding Mike with new eyes. Was it possible his arrogance was yet another defense mechanism?

Yes, Celine had taken the SASE, borrowing money from friends for the testing fee and later paying it back out of her already meager allowance. She had passed, but had been reluctant to approach her mother and brother because she knew why Mike had stopped going to school.

“There, see? Please?” I asked Mrs. Flores.

“What’s that about?” Mike butted in.

“Adriel wants Celine to enroll in M.S.U. and stay with her at their house in the city,” Mrs. Flores explained. Celine’s eyes lit up and she looked at me.

“Really, Adriel? You mean it?”

“I mean it, and then I’d have a girl my age around.”

“Inay?”

“We’ll see. Your brother and I will have to talk it over,” her mother evaded.

I was already wondering what Mom and Dad would say. Or Ian for that matter. But I supposed my parents wouldn’t object much, after all, they’ve known the Floreses longer. And Allain? I had a feeling Allain would love my idea.

Mrs. Flores seemed almost normal today except for the time she’d called me Arianna. I partly suspected it was because of all her children being there to remind her of the real world.

I was dying to ask about Linda, Guiller, and Uncle Freddie, but I held my tongue. No use risking a relapse just when Mrs. Flores seemed well.

Anyway, talking about school had sort of loosened them up. Now the barriers were down, it was easy to make conversation. They were in school thanks to educational plans which Mr. Flores, who had been a teacher, had taken out for his children. Supplementing these were the benefits his family received after his death. Even then, it was hard.

Ciarra would be in third year high school in June. Like Celine she was an honor student but she had few extracurricular activities because they couldn’t afford extra expense. Weekends they sold vegetables at the market to earn money; at harvest time they worked as harvesters and even winnowed the chaff to get the few grains that had escaped the sheller. Mike lacked only six units to get his Electronics diploma. He was moonlighting as an electrician, repairman and sound system technician to earn enough money so he could go back to school. I felt guilty when I found out that what he earned for a week could scarcely cover my allowance. I knew it wasn’t my fault, but when poverty comes up close to you and hits you in the solar plexus it can be a shock somehow even if it doesn’t directly affect you. I wanted to consult my family to see if we could help.

For someone who hadn’t wanted to come to Silang in the first place, I had become pretty involved in things I ordinarily wouldn’t have given a second look, let alone come near!

Mike insisted he walk me to our gate. We left his mother happily discussing her new plant with her daughters and planning where to put it. I mentally resolved to bring her a rosebush next time if it would help.

I plugged my phones back into my ears. My walkman was acting up again. I thumped it once or twice and fiddled with the cord. Usually that did the trick, but today the whole darned thing refused to cooperate. I had even put in new batteries that morning, I thought ruefully as I thumped it again, then jerked my hand away. It was burning hot. I flipped the switch quickly.

“Problem?” Mike asked.

“My walkman’s being temperamental again,” I complain. “Ian would say it needs to be replaced. I know I should’ve taken it to be repaired before we left the city. Now I can’t do a thing with it.”

“Here, let me have a look. You forget I’m an electrician.” He held out his hand. Reluctantly I unhooked the walkman from my belt and gave it to him.

“I think it overheated,” I said sheepishly.

“Looks like it,” he agreed. “Let me take it home and fix it, and you’ll get it back tomorrow, okay?”

“Sure, great.”