(seven)
Maria Josefa Escaping
With a plastic glass of orange juice in one hand and her weathered bible in the other, Majo Larosa went through the crowd, searching through the lingering devotees for a welcome face. At nine o’clock in that sultry Sunday evening, blue-haired ladies, town matrons and a few lost war veterans milled about while their grandchildren shot around the church square, delirious to be let out after a two-hour mass. She could hear snatches of their conversation—Lupe’s nephew from Texas and his funny accent, Jojo’s prize chicken, Aling Rosa’s post-menopausal baby—and she let it all drift pass her, as she’d done most of her life.
She didn’t go unnoticed. Almost all that she met as she walked broke off from their own conversations to incline their heads reverentially at her, as though she really were a saint. There were murmurs of “Maria Josefa” by the elders and wistful nods from the few adolescent girls that were present. Little kids held on to her legs momentarily before continuing their playing. But she walked on determinedly, her stride making it clear that she needed to go somewhere and had no desire to be detained, although her face, so clear, so pure, so utterly virtuous, said otherwise.
She stopped in front of the church doors. Inside, relics and saints and scarred wooden benches shone amidst the stark whiteness of the walls. The floor was decorated with dizzying black and white squares. The center aisle led to the massive stone altar, which had a lace runner atop it, displaying the attempt at softness. Above it all, overlooking everything, was Jesus—wounded, bloodied and wearing nothing more than a loincloth.
Many times, Majo had wondered whether the ladies ever thought of the near-nude Christ as man, flesh and blood, without a powerful Father backing him up.
She entered the church, her sensible heels silent against the chessboard floor. When she reached the sculpture of a little cherub carrying a huge bowl of holy water on his back, Majo tugged at the hair she’d arranged into a bun at the nape of her neck to loosen it. She put the bible on the ledge of the bowl and took a sip from her plastic glass. Then, closing her eyes, she let the voices outside turn into mere humming.
Where was Manuel?
She bent her head in frustration and pursed her mouth, preventing the expletive from ever coming out. Anyone looking on would have thought she was praying.
At the staccato click of high heels, Majo opened her eyes. As she waited for her mother to reach her side, she gazed at her vague reflection in the murky holy water.
“Maria Josefa, darling!” Myrna Larosa exclaimed then, as though they’d just met. Never mind that they’d been living under the same roof for twenty-nine years.
“Not so loud, mother.” Majo turned to face her. What remained of the orange juice fell to the bowl in drops. Mother and daughter watched as the color spread and after a while, seemed to rest on the greenish bottom, where people imagined their sins were left when they rubbed their fingers against it.
“Well,” Myrna said. She reached for Majo’s bible with hands of lacquered nails, as though it, too, might fall and contaminate the holy water. “The apostolate is looking for you.” She’d said the word ‘apostolate’ with a slight curling of her
Majo stifled the sigh but not the immediate thought of They are always looking for me. Another conversation about what color the church flowers ought to be or what kind of skirt they should wear for next week’s prayer meet. Things like what bible verse the second graders should memorize or what kind of shoes Mrs. Castillo’s soon-to-be-married daughter should wear for the walk down the aisle. Things she, Maria Josefa Larosa, the town’s first daughter, resident saint, revered spinster, should know.
She held back another sigh, which this time threatened to turn into a growl, and pursed her lips. Duty called. She looked at her watch. All because someone decided to live out to his town role, tonight of all nights.
She opened her mouth to bid her mother goodbye but she was cut off with a wave of the older lady’s hand. “I told them you’d gone home.”
“You didn’t have to—”
“I just figured it was my motherly duty to send you home.” Mryna pried the empty glass from her daughter’s hands. “After all, they’ve set the town drunk loose again.”
Majo looked at her mother, dressed in wild pink, big hoops of gold on her ears, holding an old Bible and a slightly crushed plastic glass.
“Everyone else is wondering why you insist on taking on that poor boy as a charity case.” She shrugged daintily. “But of course, childhood sweethearts… It’s the stuff of fairytales, isn’t it, honey?”
Majo looked back into her distorted reflection in the bowl. She hesitated for a moment before saying, “I am withering away, mother.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” she retorted. “All this sighing and running around making committees no one needs.” Shaking her head, she laid a hand on Majo’s arm and squeezed softly. “Whatever it is you wish to do…”
“Manuel is—”
“Go on,” Myrna Larosa said cutting her off and smiling a little sadly, if Majo wasn’t mistaken. “I’ll handle the old dragons for you.”
Slowly, Majo nodded. Her mother leaned in to kiss her cheek, leaving a red imprint of her lips. Myrna giggled and rubbed at the lipstick, smearing at a little on her cheek. She put her fingers on her lips, getting more rouge, and rubbed it to Majo’s other cheek.
“You need color.” Myrna stepped back and admired her handiwork, ignoring the studied blankness of Majo’s expression. “The keys are under the red vase, if you ever need them.”
And then she sashayed away. Majo heard her calling to Mrs. Magbanua, her fellow mahjong lady.
She did not want to dwell on the sudden insightfulness of her mother, who, for as long as she could remember, had spent her days hopping from one salon to the next, looking at jewelry, playing mahjong and, of course, recklessly dallying with the men the Mayor, her father, worked with. All she knew was that her mother did not not approve of whatever she would choose to do tonight.
And anyway, it was all too late now to change her mind. She was past the point where it still mattered what other people said. She knew she should have passed that long before but she was glad nonetheless that she got to it. She was, in fact, hurrying to make up for precious lost time.
She had made her decision and it was time to do something about it. About her life. No matter what anyone would say.
Roughly a year ago, she’d said the same things to herself. She’d made a decision then, as she’d made one know. She’d thought about changing her life. She’d been so ambitious—she’d wanted to change her very existence, to disrupt the way she’d been living for almost thirty years.
Maybe that was why she’d failed. Too much, they said, too soon. A person couldn’t change in one night; a person couldn’t suddenly stop everything and wish to end it all and just change.
She’d been stopped when she actualized those lofty desires. Bold and far too naïve, she’d aimed for something too finite. Too desperate.
She had stood there, facing the beckoning sea, letting the cold evening winds whip her face. She could still feel the way the frothy waves licked her ankles, the way the sand crunched between her bare toes. Even the heavy and rich feel of the balmy sea air in her lungs when she took a deep breath. And then she’d taken a step forward, the wet sand shifting, a tiny seashell getting caught beneath the sole of one foot. She’d been so ready—she’d raised her arms without knowing that she did so and she’d raised her head arrogantly, facing that sea, daring it.
And then she’d been stopped. And by Manuel Bartolome, of all people, who, she’d learned later that night, had returned from an eleven-year gamble in
After hearing a strangely girlish scream, Majo had turned, only to see the blurry vision of something running towards her. The next thing she knew, an obviously drunk and thoroughly hysterical six-foot-tall man was wrestling with her, shouting, “Mermaid ghost! Mermaid ghost!”
She hadn’t dared since then, not because Manuel, who had been a childhood friend, would try to stop her again. Manuel had in fact, once he was sober, made it clear that he didn’t mind at all whatever it was she wanted to do, only that she do it when he hadn’t been drinking. There were still other factors to think about and everyday, they were always at the back of her mind. However, consciously, she’d thought about that one act that could free her from this town, from this shell they’ve pushed her into. With every bossy inquiry of a matron or the stale hugs of little children, she’d thought and thought. When her father coerced her into joining another committee and when her brothers introduced her to their girlfriends or showed her blueprints of a new house or apartment, she’d thought. When she met her mother’s eyes as she danced and openly flirted with a man ten, twenty years her junior, almost all of them up and coming politicians, she’d thought.
And after a while—after a year—she’d decided that if she wanted to change her life, she’d want to wake up the next day, having felt it.
Tapping her foot, she thought for a while about her next move. She couldn’t do anything without Manuel’s help, she knew that much. Drunk, he made interesting conversation. But he was much more able and useful sober, a condition she’d been gingerly then domineeringly demanding of him, if not for his health, then for her own selfish reasons. If she still wanted to go through with this wildness she’d been planning, then she’d need his help.
That was a big if. If she wanted to. And when she woke up tomorrow and confronted Manuel for his failure to meet with her, would she still want to do it? It was too wild, she knew, and completely unnecessary. But. But—she needed to do it. Something once in a lifetime, before it was too late.
She wanted to feel what it was like.
She needed to get out of this life right now. Even just for a night.
What was it that Manuel had said? They had been inside his shack by the beach, their heads automatically turned to the sunset as they’d talked. “Couldn’t you have chosen a saner way to get over your midlife crisis?” Oh, but wasn’t she sane already? Wasn’t she sane, practical, sensible, no-nonsense, Miss Manners-Pillar-of-the-Community? Of what use would an adventure be if it was just as monotonous as her day-to-day life? As pathetic as the existence she wanted to get away from?
“I’ve created a monster,” Manuel had said with a groan, when she’d told him of the plan that had come to her as she listened to another of Father Paterno’s torpid sermons. She’d taken his beer bottle away when he continued to protest. Still, the man had whined, telling her it was too dangerous, not to mention stupid.
“Don’t be a prude,” she’d said. It had given her such a lift to have said that herself.
“A prude? You crazy woman, your father will skin me alive for this. Then he’ll hang me from a mango tree. Then he’ll set a pack of rabid dogs for me, all aiming for my balls! Then the rest of the town—”
“Spare me the fantasies, Manuel!” Although, she’d known then, as she knew now, that all he’d said, and then some, were probably true.
But she had gotten him to agree. It had taken a lot of pitiful pleadings, in which she’d had to toss most of her pride to the ground. Then she’d given a tirade of all the injustices in her life, the bleakness of her present and the blankness of her future. She’d also resorted to tossing in some blackmail regarding Connie Esteban, college junior.
In the end, though, all she’d needed to do was try to answer his question: “Who are you doing this for?”
She’d only stared at him and, for the life of her, not knowing what to say.
It was then that he’d nodded and said yes.
“You’re using me, you know that,” Manuel had muttered, taking a swig from the bottle he’d reclaimed from her. Their eyes had met above the bottle, his remote yet annoyed, hers fiercely determined.
“It’s high time I did.”
At that, Manuel had thrown back his head and laughed, spilling more than half of the bottle’s contents on his shirt.
That had been two days ago.
He had dared her to meet him after the evening mass, figuring she’d back out with the entire town looking on. Shakily, she’d said yes. If she was going to take a walk on the wild side and make another attempt to change her entire person as everyone knew her, why shouldn’t she start it right and parade her insanity in front of everyone she knew? After all, this time, she had no intention of failing.
Tonight, she was ready. Tonight, finally, she could free herself, however momentarily.
But, seeing as the idiot was late, it might have been he who’d lost his courage.
She needed him.
Lost in her thoughts yet her body moving by instinct, she avoided the crowd at the church plaza and slipped to the other side of the church, towards the rectory. The little yard in front of it was illuminated by a single lamppost and an open window in the stone building. At the distance, just outside the town border, she could see the blazing lights of the town beerhouse. If she tried hard enough, she’d be able to hear the out of tune singing of one drunk karaoke enthusiast.
Manuel might very well be in that beerhouse. He might even have a microphone in his hand and one Connie Esteban on his arm.
She removed the band that held the bun in place, so that her dark hair fell to her shoulders in soft waves. She tugged at the blouse that efficiently hid the willowy body underneath and paced the front of the rectory, drifting like a dandelion, listening to the way her shoes crushed the grass.
She stopped in her tracks when she saw a man, wearing a stark white shirt, walking towards her. She huffed and stepped aside to let the man pass, thinking he was one of the seminaristas. When he neared her though, without changing his direction, she squinted into the night and recognized the man. Before she could say something, Manuel extended his arm to point a finger at her.
“You’re still here!” he accused.
Ignoring him, she leaned forward and sniffed. “Are you sober?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Good.” She gave him a winning smile. “That’s helpful, surely.”
“We can’t say for sure,” he said with a shrug. “My father was most probably drunk when he mounted my ma.”
She gasped and slapped him. He didn’t even flinch.
“How crude,” she told him curtly.
“Aren’t you even bothered, Maria Josefa?”
“Of what? Why should I be? Let’s go.”
“Majo—”
“Let’s go now.”
“No.” Manuel wrenched his hand away from her and put it in his pocket. His other hand stroked the shadow of a beard that was perpetually on his jaw. The gesture was an indication that he was about to say something serious. She waited, not too patiently, for him to say something.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked her, finally. “About all this?”
She looked at him, his once-handsome face and that close-mouthed little smile. The shirt he’d given him last Christmas brightened his face, almost eclipsing the red-rimmed eyes and the ruddy cheeks. A cigarette stick was tucked behind his ear, almost hidden by his too-long hair.
“You look good in that shirt,” she told him.
He stared right back at her. Slowly, he shook his head, the smile widening, opening, until she could see his yellowed teeth and the tooth she’d permanently chipped when, thirteen years ago, he’d groped her in one of his adolescent hormonal rushes. She’d had to push her elbow into his face, she remembered, not without fondness.
She saw his eyes roam over her, from head to toe and back again, once or twice settling on the almost indiscernible curve of her breasts or the dip in her waist or the flare of her hips, all hidden by clothes meant to be worn fifty years ago. She tugged at the hem of her blouse, pulling the material taut over herself.
Manuel reached for the cigarette and lighted it. “Want a puff?”
She wrinkled her nose and waved her hand to ward off the smoke that he blew straight to her face.
He laughed sardonically, almost to himself. “You mean, Maria Josefa wants to become this great degenerate and she can’t even bear a little nicotine?”
The look she gave him was clearly made to make him feel like a scolded schoolboy.
His cigarette hung from his lip. Tentatively, he reached out and cupped her cheek. She could feel the hard surface of his palm and the calluses on his fingers. She closed her eyes momentarily, sharply, as though a great pain sliced through her, only to have it pass.
“I’m so glad you came,” she said abruptly, putting her hand on his wrist and giving it a little squeeze before letting go. She was fighting to rein in her impatience and excitement. Tonight was going to be the night. Manuel hadn’t failed her.
His hand moved from her face to her shoulder, brushing her hair from her neck. “There are other ways, Majo.”
“I want this one.” Sheer control kept her from stamping her foot. How could he not see how much she needed this escape? Tomorrow, she’d be Maria Josefa Larosa again and then, most likely, ever after. Tonight—just this one night, a tiny little detour, an escape from everything—she could be someone else.
“One night,” she whispered. She reached out and took his hand, as she had when he’d retched over his window, or into the beach, or wherever it was convenient, over the past year. Like when she held his hand that first night, trying to convince him that she wasn’t a mermaid nor a ghost, merely the Majo Larosa whose braids he’d twisted into knots. Like she’d held his hand all those years ago—almost a different life, it seemed to her—when he would be trying hard not to cry because of the whipping he’d gotten from his father.
After a short pause, in which all sorts of emotions she did not care to read flashed across Manuel’s face, he sighed deeply.
Majo laughed quietly. “Is that a yes?”
Fully clothed, they lay side by side on his narrow bed, looking up at the ceiling that was badly in need of repair. There was another cigarette between his lips, as there had been since they’d left the rectory. As her eyes had long since adjusted to the dark, she’d taken to watching the smoke curl. He had one arm behind his head and his other cradled Majo. She was curled up beside him, fitting comfortably, her head resting on his shoulder. She could hear the sea, the waves lapping at the shore, and she could smell it too, that salty, almost metallic scent.
For most of the night, they’d stayed there, only getting up once or twice to go to the outhouse. She hadn’t had a drink after the orange juice and she’d not seen Manuel holding a bottle in his hand since they met earlier. She opened her mouth and her tongue snaked out, tracing the outline of her parched lips.
He shifted in the bed and fancifully, Majo thought he could feel her tongue.
“Damned mosquitoes,” he said.
She giggled and, slowly, as though she dared not dispel the way the air hung about them, she put a hand to his chest.
He took a deep drag from his cigarette then sighed. She watched the sharp exhale of the white smoke mingling with his breath. “This isn’t your great adventure, Majo,”
“It will be,” she said, confident, sure. “Later.”
He shifted once more so that he loomed above her, blocking what little light there was streaming from the moon outside. She couldn’t see his face—just dark edges and deep shadows. The red pinprick of his cigarette was like a beacon, raised above them, away from her face.
“There are other ways,” he murmured.
“I already told you.” Imagining that he held that cigarette between her lips, she inhaled deeply then let it out, tilting her head so that her breath could ruffle the hair that fell across his face.
Without any warning, he reached down between them with his free hand and held one breast in his hand, still covered by the layers of utilitarian underwear and her plain blouse. He held it as though he wasn’t sure it was there at all, small and heavy and warm in his hand.
She tried to move her shoulder to ease the beginnings of a crick.
After a while, his hand fell away and, laughing, he rolled off her, lying once more beside her on his bed. He puffed on his cigarette before throwing it to the dirt ground.
“That was like groping my sister.”
She smiled. Earlier that night, they’d both sat on that bed, looking at each other, trying to ignore the sudden awkwardness they were both feeling. Hers was mainly caused by his. Who would have thought she’d ever feel awkward around this man and he with her? But there they had sat for the better part of an hour. She’d removed her shoes and had placed them beside the bed, looking like sentinels. Only once had she moved the hands resting calmly on her lap and it was to undo the top button on her blouse. He had faltered when she’d done that—the rhythm of his dragging and exhaling had been jarred. But still they had sat, waiting for a conductor to start beating in front of them, waiting for everyone else in the orchestra to take up their instruments and start playing.
“I’m sorry,” he said now, quietly. He reached for her hand and held it, their fingers laced. “I can’t give you what you want. I’m not the person you need.”
She gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. “Oh, Manuel.”
She’d taken to watching sunsets all her life. There was simply no time for the sunrise—there was always a sick child to attend to or a saint’s clothes to change; her father had always beckoned and she always never needed to listen to herself.
That morning, having gotten out of the shack with Manuel leading her, almost dragging her, by their clasped hands, she sat still yet relaxed on the sand, alone for the moment, hugging her knees to her chest. Her bare feet dug in the sand, the toes hidden, her soles soothed. Lazily, with a finger, she drew circles on her ankle. The wind slapped at her face, strong, rousing. The waves slid over the sand like a body on satin sheets, trying to reach her and failing.
Majo took a deep breath of the sea then slowly exhaled. She fixed her gaze on the violet and orange streaks in the sky, rioting with the clouds and the heavens that had been an inky blue mere moments before. The sun was yet to come out. She waited for it.
Once, she had thought this was too finite. Too desperate. But she’d decided, as she had lain on the bed beside Manuel, her breast carrying nary a tingle from his touch, that nothing was too final now that everything else in her life was starting to tie itself into little knots.
Slowly, she straightened, not bothering to brush off the sand that clung with almost humanlike desperation to her skin, her clothes. With deliberate motions and steady fingers, she undid the buttons of her blouse one by one. The material slid to the sand, followed by her skirt. She stepped out of the bundle of clothes and stepped closer to the sunrise that was about to begin. She felt the waves submerging her feet, lapping at her calves.
The cold was relentless against her skin, covered only by her serviceable underwear that was under a muslin slip. But she paid it no attention.
Manuel came up behind her; she could feel the heat of her body as he approached.
“I need to get away,” she said.
He didn’t answer her. His arms went around her, resting comfortably under her breasts. Momentarily, she felt warm, with the length of his body pressed close to hers. But then the cold won over. With a sigh, she let her head lean back so that it rested against his chest, and her hands closed over his.
“I can’t stay here,” she continued.
Still, he was quiet.
“I think… I think I’m going away and go look for… something.”
He dropped a kiss on her bare shoulder. “You don’t look lost, Maria Josefa.”
The laugh was cool and bitter. “Oh, you don’t know me at all, darling.”
He turned her, wanting to look, but she gave him no chance to see, not yet. Tipping her head up and pulling his down by his nape, she kissed a man for the first time. She could feel his lips, surprisingly gentle, curve into a smile. His hands skimmed over her body, flitting here and there, almost as if he, too, were looking for something: caressing almost-bare skin with detached warmth, pressing against flesh never before touched, with hands that, in its search, forgot to be selfish. And then they settled. He cupped her face and tilted her head farther. She tasted the beer fresh on his tongue and the cigarettes lurking beneath it.
She put her hands on his chest and gently, insistently, pushed him away. She smiled up at him and took a step back.
Manuel walked away, backwards too, so that he could still look at her, wondering if he was trying to carve her face into memory. “You kiss really well, you know.”
She tucked her hair, riotous now because of the wind, behind her ears.
He stopped and took a deep breath. He took a step forward, towards her. “We can still—”
Majo shook her head firmly, no. “There are other ways,” she whispered, her eyes limpid.
Manuel looked at her, the peeking sun creating a halo around her hair. He squinted against the growing light, suddenly unable to see her face. Finally, he broke into a lopsided grin. “Get a lover.”
She smiled brightly, a short huff of a laugh escaping her body. “I think I will.”
“I’m not going to stop you this time, Majo.”
Manuel turned away and walked towards the embankment where his shack squatted like a forgotten beggar. He took the bottle he’d dug into the sand beside his cooler and took a swig, downing the contents with no pause.
Her calm, uninflected words, two—or was it three?—nights ago, inside that very shack, returned to him, feeling almost like self-punishment: “I want to have an affair with you.” He shook his head and reached for another bottle.
Behind him, Majo turned to the sun, closed her eyes and raised her head, feeling the first of the sun’s rays against her face. With a half-smile, she took the first steps against the wet sand, the edge of the sea floor, until the sea made the next and last ones for her. She walked until she looked as if she walked into the sun itself.
Labels: General Fiction
posted by Sasha Martinez @ 9:17 AM
0 Comments
