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Memories & Sketches #2 by Cecilia Brainard — Talisay

September 2, 2021 by admin Leave a Comment

I con­tin­ue my blog­ging about my mem­o­ries with sketch­es … and also old pho­tos. Copy­right 2021 by Cecil­ia Brainard

TALISAY
Cecil­ia Brainard

My father had been an engi­neer­ing pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the Philip­pines in Mani­la. He and my moth­er lived in a big house on Geor­gia Street, in the Malate Dis­trict. There they had their first two two chil­dren — my old­est sis­ter and broth­er. When World War II broke out, my father entrust­ed the Mani­la house to his nephew Nand­ing. He brought his fam­i­ly by boat to Min­danao, and there he worked for the guer­ril­la move­ment — I have fic­tion­al­ized some of their war sto­ries into my first nov­el, When the Rain­bow God­dess Wept (aka Song of Yvonne).There they stayed for four years. My oth­er sis­ter was born “behind some bush­es” while a Japan­ese patrol walked by. My moth­er lost a baby boy there, a mis­car­riage. My father would dis­ap­pear for days with­out my moth­er know­ing where he went, only to dis­cov­er lat­er on that he had trav­eled with the Amer­i­cans to Aus­tralia or some oth­er place.

When the war end­ed, my par­ents had to decide where to rebuild their lives. My father’s house in Mani­la was com­plete­ly destroyed. Between the Japan­ese Kamikaze pilots crash-bomb­ing and the Amer­i­cans bomb­ing Mani­la dur­ing Lib­er­a­tion, post­war Mani­la was in ruins. The decom­posed body of a St. Paul’s nun was even found on my father’s prop­er­ty. They buried her right there in the yard, and her ghost was report­ed­ly seen flit­ting about, now and then. I nev­er saw her, but I heard sto­ries about her appari­tions from my broth­er and the ser­vants. When­ev­er Mama heard that her ghost had appeared, she would hur­ry off to Malate Church to have a Mass said for the unfor­tu­nate nun.

Back when World War Two end­ed, it must have been a dilem­ma for my father to con­sid­er trans­port­ing his wife and three young chil­dren from Min­danao to war-torn Mani­la. My mother’s Cebuano fam­i­ly how­ev­er had resources and a strong net­work to help them get start­ed in Cebu. My mother’s father, Mar­i­ano Jesus Cuen­co, was a sen­a­tor; her broth­er Manuel was the gov­er­nor of Cebu. This uncle had a beach house that my fam­i­ly could live in tem­porar­i­ly. My father found work as a dis­trict engi­neer. And so they stayed in Cebu, in Tal­isay, near the sea. Their tem­po­rary house was a two-sto­ry wood­en struc­ture with thatched roof. My broth­er and two sis­ters attend­ed the local pub­lic school.

I was born two and a half years after Lib­er­a­tion. In 1947 new­ly born, and new­ly recov­ered from my beri-beri, I was brought home to Tal­isay. There I breathed in salty sea air. The first sounds I heard were of waves and ven­dors call­ing out their wares: caramelized bananas fanned out, skew­ered grilled fish, and “hearts” of rice nes­tled in woven coconut leaves. There were walks along the seashore, sight­ings of fish­er­men in their boats, bril­liant red sun­sets, chil­dren swim­ming, fish­ing, dig­ging up clams — per­haps I sat on the beach and helped my sib­lings dig up clams. At night the crick­ets made their saw­ing rack­et and some­one strummed the gui­tar or told a sto­ry about war days, or about witch­es and enchant­ed beings. The sto­ry­telling could have gone like this: It is evening; the cook is prepar­ing sup­per, and the ser­vants are gath­ered around a rough­hewn table. Strong smells of gar­lic, vine­gar, and bay leaves waft about. A man pulls out a gui­tar and strums some notes. He hums. While the cook is busy stir­ring caul­drons and pots, the ser­vants sit back, lis­ten to the music, and then some­one begins, “I heard the witch walked by the neighbor’s coconut grove.”

Some­one gasps. “No, not the witch The seño­ra there is pregnant.”

As she walked under the coconut trees, the coconuts start­ed falling to the ground, even the young nuts.”

“No! What about the seño­ra? Did the witch get her?

“No, for­tu­nate­ly she was at her mother’s house.”

Sto­ries of witch­es were pop­u­lar: witch­es had long tongues that they used to suck out unborn babies; witch­es could turn into dogs or hors­es; dying witch­es could pass on their witch-con­di­tion by hold­ing anoth­er person’s hand. Every com­mu­ni­ty had a local witch, who was prob­a­bly just an ordi­nary woman but some­how end­ed up the tar­get of the night­time gos­sip — so and so ran into a strange black dog, and he hacked it with the machete; the next day this par­tic­u­lar woman had a huge cut on her arm.

There were also sto­ries of man­anang­gals, crea­tures that at night­fall detached their heads and entrails and float­ed about, some­times get­ting tan­gled in trees. One could put bee­tles in their body cav­i­ties so the man­anang­gals could not reat­tach to their bod­ies. There were enchant­ed giants who lived in old trees and who could cause sick­ness even death on peo­ple who dis­pleased them. The naughty duen­des (gob­lins) made things dis­ap­pear and reap­pear; they were also famous for wrap­ping clothes around house posts. Oth­er types of for­est encan­ta­dos could kid­nap peo­ple who dis­pleased them. Ghosts and spir­its could appear in the form of but­ter­flies or birds; they could also com­mu­ni­cate via dreams. Dev­ils could pos­sess peo­ple, espe­cial­ly dur­ing Lent. There were san­tel­mos, lit­tle tongues of light that would mys­te­ri­ous­ly appear in creepy places at night.

I grew up polite­ly say­ing “Excuse me,” to unseen crea­tures at night in the gar­den or on the road, so as not to offend them because I knew that if I acci­den­tal­ly hit them or their belong­ings, some­thing bad could hap­pen to me. My sib­lings and I spent evenings observ­ing trees, hop­ing to see the agta, a gigan­tic being who lived in old trees.

There was even a sto­ry of how a big black dog climbed our stairs, entered the bed­room and head­ed straight for me the infant. It was under­stood that this was not an ordi­nary dog, but some­thing malev­o­lent that would harm an infant. For­tu­nate­ly some­one saved me from the dog.

*

I have a fad­ed black and white pho­to of me with my three sib­lings in Tal­isay. My old­est sis­ter is car­ry­ing me in her arms. She is twelve years old. My eight-year old broth­er has a brown­ie cam­era in his hand. My oth­er sis­ter, four years old­er than me is hold­ing her doll. I am smil­ing. We four are on a ham­mock, look­ing healthy and hap­py. In the back­ground, my father’s Buick sits, cov­ered by tarp, a prized pos­ses­sion after the war. This is the only sur­viv­ing pic­ture of me as an infant.

Dur­ing this time, my father was con­struct­ing our fam­i­ly home in the city, behind the Capi­to­lio. There my father cre­at­ed his dream house, two-sto­ry Span­ish-style with bal­conies and veran­dahs, mar­ble floors, crys­tal chan­de­liers, hard­wood floors and cab­i­nets made from nar­ra and oth­er fine wood.

Then the Great Flood happened.

My broth­er told me that while we still lived in Tal­isay, there was a very strong typhoon. The clouds were thick in the sky, and the wind blew so hard it snapped off branch­es, knocked down trees. When the rain fell, the prin­ci­pal at school decid­ed to send the chil­dren home so they would be safer. But by the time my broth­er left his class­room, the heavy rain had flood­ed the roads and the water had risen so high, he had to swim home. He was eight or nine years old then.

It may have been coin­ci­dence, but some­time after the Great Flood in Tal­isay, my par­ents com­plet­ed our house in the city and we said good­bye to our Tal­isay home.

###

For more infor­ma­tion about Mag­i­cal Years: Mem­o­ries & Sketch­es, click here

https://ceciliabrainard.com/book/magical-years-memories-sketches/

 Read also

Mem­o­ries & Sketch­es #1 by Cecil­ia Brainard — San­to Nino de Cebu

Tags: #Philip­pineau­thors #Fil­ipinoau­thors #Fil­ipinowrit­erst #Philip­pinelit­er­a­ture  

 

Filed Under: Nonfiction, Uncategorized Tagged With: blog literature Cebu Philippines, Cebu sketches

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Welcome!

I am a daugh­ter of the Philip­pines and an adopt­ed daugh­ter of Amer­i­ca. I have also trav­eled to many places so I am also a daugh­ter of the Earth. My expe­ri­ences have found their way into my sto­ries, which try to depict char­ac­ters caught in impor­tant moments in their lives, sit­u­a­tions that force them to act, make deci­sions, change. I try to see the world from my own point of view, not the dom­i­nant West­ern one, thus my inter­est in his­to­ry, cul­ture, and set­ting. But my char­ac­ters car­ry my sto­ries; they are the most impor­tant in my sto­ry-telling. I have to dive deep into them to under­stand their human­i­ty – their good­ness as well as their bad­ness, their beau­ty as well as their ugli­ness. Just like us. Just like each of us. I need to know where they came from, where they are now, so I under­stand where they are going. Just like us.

Please read my full biog­ra­phy here

 

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