The Last Karankawas(4)
In the months since, as she drifted away, she has left off the Vitalis, the drinking, but apparently not the clothes.
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The Mass, for all its extra trappings to make it special, to make it Santo Ni?o, runs just over an hour. To the tune of Maligayang araw at oras ng pagdating (clap clap), bilang pasalubong sa Santo Ni?ong giliw (clap clap clap), we proceed with our husbands, brothers, children, children-in-law, grandchildren, and friends across the lot to the parish center. We emerge from the cold air of the church and step into the heavy warmth of Galveston; it only lasts the length of the parking lot, but our children complain. Ew. It’s so gross out here. Our skin beads with sweat. Above our heads the palms sway. The air-conditioning, the orderly street signs, and the uncracked asphalt beneath our feet the only things separating this new home of ours from the old one.
Inside, the parish center is a flurry of color and movement: streamers of red and gold swaying from every stationary spot; disposable white-tissue tablecloths we bought from Walmart’s clearance section; a disco ball casting dappled light across the still fully lit room. We swarm into the hall and claim spots at the tables. With the priest’s help, we bless twenty-six trays of pancit, sinigang, chicken and pork adobo, kare-kare, menudo, and seven tubs of steamed white rice. We eat too much and drink Coke and Big Red mixed with the whiskey and vodka we sneak from the coolers in our cars. Every half hour or so one of us gives the traditional call—Viva Santo Ni?o! Mabuhay ang hari ng mga hari!—and we cry out the response—Viva! Mabuhay!
“What does that mean, Mama?” Carly asks.
“Long live the king of kings,” her mother replies. “Mabuhay means—”
“Mama!” Carly interrupts. “What’s that?”
At their spot against the wall, Maharlika is sipping a Coke and adjusting the belt around her pants. But Carly has turned to face the other children and is staring, eyes round, as they bring in the poles for the tinikling dance.
The older boys carry them in, two to each pole—ten-foot-long beams of bamboo worn silk-smooth by many hands. Two children carry the blocks of wood that the ends will rest upon, to keep the poles elevated, and to make sure the boy at each end will have room to move his hands during the dance. They lay the poles in parallel fashion, side by side, each resting on two blocks of wood.
The children will not dance for some time, not until everyone has settled and is ready to watch performances. While we mill around, Maharlika takes Carly by the hand and leads her to where the tinikling poles wait their cue. Maharlika explains how the traditional dance works: Two people, one on each end, take both poles in hand and clap them on the ground, then bring them together with a swift slide and crash. Timed to the beat of the music—clap-clap-CRASH clap-clap-CRASH clap-clap-CRASH clap-clap-CRASH.
Within those counts, when the poles are separate entities, clapping on the ground for two beats, the dancers dance. A young man and woman (we have been her, in our day, long ago) step over and in between the poles, facing each other, facing away, twirling around—always lifting their feet out of harm’s way before the poles crash together. Step-step-OUT, we told ourselves in our heads, step-step-OUT step-step-OUT.
Maharlika was the best of us. She does not say this, but we think it. She performed every year before she had the child. We had forgotten the memory.
There is no music. Everyone is talking, laughing, shouting as the fiesta carries on. In the din and the noise, we somehow notice, we turn to watch her—just us—as she shows Carly the steps.
“Here,” she tells her daughter. “This is how my inay taught me.”
Inay. Since she does not address Maharlika this way, we expect Carly to be unfamiliar with the word. But we blink our surprise when she nods. When she says, “Your mama.”
And Maharlika begins to dance.
As she moves, she sings the familiar tune. Carly picks it up and joins in, mangling our words but carrying the notes well. She claps in time to her mother’s feet, darting in and out of the spaces between the still, heavy poles.
Maharlika raises her hands gracefully; she forms beautiful shapes in the air as she steps and twirls. Her bearing is straight, not hunched or rushed. Her face is flushed, and she is laughing. She, like us, remembers dancing the tinikling as a girl, when we learned its rhythm the hard way. Skirts hiked up above our knees with our hands. The crack of the poles on the block, keeping time, or smashing the frame of a careless foot between them. Crunch. We yelped, gritted our teeth, kept dancing. We didn’t stop. Yes, we think now, that is how it happened to me, too, just like that. Maharlika raises her face to the ceiling, not watching the poles as she jumps in, out, spins, knowing where they are by heart. She is smiling, eyes closed, head tilted back.
Carly jumps between the poles with her. She lifts her arms, laughing. “Show me, Mama. Show me.”
As one, we let out a sigh, a release. We feel the moment break apart. Maharlika lowers her chin, opens her eyes to her daughter, and takes her hands.
“Step-step-out,” she says, slowing her movements from fluid pace to a choppy crawl. “Step-step-out.” Her smile has brittled, ready to crack.
And suddenly, as if there were not miles of space between us, we know exactly what she is thinking—we are thinking it, too. We think: We are not ready for this, to be the elders, the teachers, the mothers. We are still daughters and sisters, girlfriends and wives. We have partners who love us, yes? Parents with years yet to pass their words, their stories, down to us. We can still be the girls who dance the tinikling, yes, yes. We will never be old, or we already are.