And so I would run out to the backyard, looking at the play of shadow and light on the leaves of the aratiles tree. Then I would climb the tree heavy with its globes of small, red fruit. From the highest branch, I would pretend I was jumping from the edge of a cliff down to the ravine, which was really our roof – a soft bed carpeted with green, serrated leaves.
From that height nothing seemed to touch me. Nothing seemed to move me.
And from that height I could eavesdrop on the chatter of adults without being found out. So that summer, while busy eating aratiles on the rooftop, who would cool themselves on the shadow cast by the tree but my two aunts, who were visiting from the province? That day, my mother’s unmarried sisters, Tita Bella and Tita Zeny, were having snacks: A merienda of glutinous rice cakes topped with grated coconut meat and cold glasses of Coke.
Raising their heads and looking around ever so subtly, and noticing that there was nobody around, the two sisters began their stories.
"Our Nuestra Señora de Guia y Buen Viaje in Antipolo Church is more powerful than your Virgin Mary in Baclaran Church," Tita Zeny began.
"That may be true," answered Tita Bella, "but tell me, how can you hear Mass in Baclaran when around you would be the squealing of pigs being butchered for the lechon?"
Tita Zeny, who loved to tell a tale, would answer: "Bella, have you heard the story of the two young lovers in Baclaran?"
"No."
"Well – well, then, listen. A pair of teenagers would tell their parents they would hear Mass at the Baclaran Church on a Sunday afternoon just like this. But really, they would just go to a seedy hotel across from the church and do it there, while all along, the pigs squealed in the butchers’ stalls and the Dutch priest intoned the Sursum Corda in an accent that nobody understood. These young people, madre de Dios, oh mother of God, are such beasts."
"They are, Zeny, they are," Tita Bella said.
"Anyway, these two teenagers told this lie for three consecutive Sunday afternoons, but on the fourth Sunday, did you know what happened?"
"What?" Tita Bella said, and I know her fork must have been frozen in midair, between the plate and her mouth.
"On the fourth Sunday afternoon, in the fever of their lovemaking her vaginal muscles just suddenly locked. Locked. He couldn’t withdraw, much as he would have liked to, because she was squeezing him so tightly. And the pigs squealed for their lives and the priest raised his golden ciborium and the two young lovers, God did not bless them, oh they were beginning to turn pale."
"And then?" was all Tita Bella could mutter.
"And then, she began to scream and scream and scream. The room boy in his white uniform wondered why she was screaming her lungs out, for the couple had been there three times before. She was not a virgin after all. But when he heard him scream, he knew that something was wrong. So the room boy grabbed the keys and ran to the room of Mr. and Mrs. Angeles (the names they wrote on the guest book with its oily synthetic-plastic cover), and found the couple, indeed, joined to each other. The room boy gasped, ran down the stairs, and fetched the old, white-haired doctor who lived down the block."
"Hay, salamat naman," Tita Bella sighed her thanks.
"Well, it turned out that this old doctor was a Born-Again Christian. He was scandalized the moment he pushed the door. After raining down a mountain of curses on the naked couple, he injected a muscle relaxant on her. And then the doctor continued giving them the sermon of their lives. The young couple was dying from shame because the medicine was taking so long to take effect and their organs were already very sore. But when the medicine did take effect, he quickly withdrew and put on his clothes as fast as he could. She also covered herself modestly with a white towel, grabbed her clothes, said ‘Thank you’ softly, shyly, to the doctor, and then walked to the bathroom. When she came out, wearing a white cotton dress that was cut way down her knees and a blue sash wound around her waist, the doctor told them the wisest thing would be to go to church that afternoon, confess their sins, and attend Mass. And so, ushered by two angels shimmering in white – the white-haired doctor and the room boy in white – our young couple finally went to the Mass they had, uh, missed for the last three Sundays."
After hearing this tale, I just bit into my aratiles. Its small, white, and moist seeds lay scattered on my palm.