Monsoon Mansion: A Memoir(61)

Mama got back in the van, started the engine, and followed the woman’s Mercedes. We trailed behind her in the deafening and vision-skewing rain, hunching over the dashboard and squinting to not lose track. After passing through two checkpoints, we entered an exclusive gated community and parked outside a house half the size of ours, but as majestic and shiny as the mansion had once been.

“We’re sleeping here tonight,” Mama said, shifting the gear to park.

“At her house? In these clothes?”

“No, outside. We’re parking here and sleeping here. Now change into something dry while we wait for a maid to come out. She said she’d have a meal sent out to us.”

“We’re going to live in the van?”

“We have nowhere else.”

“But . . . we can look for Papa. Or Paolo and his dad. Or maybe you have other friends who’d let us live inside . . .”

“Stop! I have nobody, so you have nobody,” she said.

“You don’t have anyone, but I do. Paolo loves me. He’s just taking his time to get well. Papa will get back on his feet and get me. I know it! You have no one, but I do! They left you, not me!” I said, yelling at my mother who’d progressively shrunk from five foot big to five foot small.

She murmured with her forehead and hands on the steering wheel, her muttering rumbling within the walls of her wet hair. “I’m sorry, but please shut up now, please.”

I crawled to the back of the van, changed into fresh clothes, and read. The food came and I ate, while Mama refused the meal and continued to sob. Her weeping and the ceaselessness of the rain befell and became our song for the night. I read and then slept.



I woke up to a break—moonlight assuaging the cadence of the rain and Mama’s crying. Mama let up for a minute, then opened her door and ran out. She left the door wide open, so I crawled to it and jumped out. The rain hadn’t eased and I couldn’t see.

“Mama! Mama!” I yelled, running barefoot. I couldn’t find her, but kept at it, running in a circle and trying to detect any semblance of my mother: her form, her scent, or the sound of her sobs or close-lipped singing. Then moonlight grazed the ground once more and led me to a smallness, a shape, the profile silhouette of her high-bridged nose, and the rest of her, quivering.

“Mama, let’s go back inside the car,” I said, this time reaching my hand out for hers.

“I want to dance,” she said.

“Mama, it’s raining hard and it’s dark out. Please, let’s go. Take my hand, Mama.”

She grabbed my hand. And she twirled me.

“Mama, what are you doing?” I said as she swung my arm forward and back in a series of half circles—my lips hesitant but slowly curling into a smile.

She said nothing and kept dancing, tiptoeing from puddle to puddle, finally letting go of me and enjoying herself in the rush of adrenaline and the pour from the sky. The clouds kept giving and she kept receiving, arms wide open like a Hallelujah! to her second baptism, in the name, not of the Father or the Son or the Holy Ghost, but of La Ni?a.

“No more!” she yelled. “Goodbye, mansion! Goodbye, Norman! Goodbye to this fucking life! Pu?eta kayong lahat!” Fuck you all.

The storm accompanied her declaration, inclining me to join in on this newfound manifesto.

“No more! Goodbye!” I said, dancing and twirling, this time not under a puzzle of mirrors, but an overhead sea of bursting crystals—a kaleidoscope in a black night.

We chorused. “We will build a new home—with electric power! With water! With food! All you co?os can go to hell!”

“I hope you die, Norman!” Mama exclaimed. “Pu?eta!”

“Pu?eta!” I echoed my mother’s favorite word.

She said it again with her arms held up as if to catch a rain cloud, her legs flitting about, her body windswept, and her dress falling off one shoulder and exposing a breast. And we laughed.

Laughter became our new refrain.

But as the winds grew stronger and the storm wilder, I thought it best to run back to the van. I reached out for Mama’s hand again, inviting her to take shelter with me. But she kept dancing, losing herself to the gales of La Ni?a.

I stayed and I watched: my mother, the tempest, the prevailing wind.

As my eyes beheld her every move, I gave requiem to the things I had seen: Aqua Net hair. Unfinished house. Ten bedrooms. A garden party. Pistachio shells. Goblets of wine. Towers of champagne. Rollerblade Barbie with lighters for skates. Swollen ankles. A dead baby. A wailing woman in the moonlight. Stars. Orion’s belt. A gold mirror and red lipstick. Heels against pearl-and-oyster marble. Stay out of the sun. Too dark. A crinoline petticoat dress. Those ignorant and superstitious people. The masses bowing down, a sea of them. Swan diving into the pool in her red Valentino one-piece swimsuit. Me falling, my body paralyzed. Her hair in my face. Jade urns. A crater. A knife in hand and my father running. Away. Still. White rattan peacock chair. Orange peel and ripples around a tea bag. Ana?s Ana?s. Her fingers leafing through Vogue and Elle. Magazines. Books. Words. Prêt-à-porter! Recherché! She’s gifted! I kept you alive! The basement for a closet. Little black dress. Little brown girl looking up at her mother, dancing. Orchids in the garden. Coins in a Crayola coin bank. Makeup in the built-in organizer. Primer, powder, bronzer, and blush. Mr. Albrando. Tassels. Twirling beneath a kaleidoscope ceiling. Twirling the spindle on the Rolodex. Debutantes and belles. Dancing. Swirling. A flood. Floodwater throughout and through-in. Aerobics shoes, Dior heels, workout videos. Filling the air with her fast laugh and cocking her head back at a quick joke. Keys jangling. Motor running. A car door opening. A brown bag with a yellow chick inside. My dead Tweetie. Cockfighting. Animals disappearing. Animals dying. Shit everywhere. Children everywhere. Guns everywhere. Red nails and commies. Bang-bang. Her manicured hand pushing my face down on the floor mat. Her manicured hand flailing in the wind with a gun. A shower of bullets. Of perfume spilled.