Dogeaters
A Novel
Jessica Hagedorn
for John and Paloma
and
in memory of
James Emanuel McCall
(1889–1962)
and
Tecla Ibañez McCall
(1889–1969)
Her Eminent Ascent into Heaven
President William McKinley Addresses a Delegation of Methodist Churchmen, 1898
Avila Arrested in Human Rights Rally Dispute
One Christmas in a Mountain Lodge up in Baguio, Date Unknown
Excerpt from the Only Letter Ever Written by Clarita Avila
The President’s Wife Has a Dream
Coconut Palace
They have the greatest respect for sleeping persons, and the greatest curse they can pronounce against anybody is to wish that he die in his sleep. They can not abide the idea of waking a sleeping person, or when they are obliged to do it, it is always done as gently as possible; they carry this repugnance so far that one can hardly expect them to wake up a priest or doctor to come to the aid of a sick person.
—Jean Mallat, The Philippines (1846)
1956. T
HE AIR-CONDITIONED
darkness of the Avenue Theater smells of flowery pomade, sugary chocolates, cigarette smoke, and sweat.
All That Heaven Allows
is playing in Cinemascope and Technicolor. Starring Jane Wyman as the rich widow, Rock Hudson as the handsome young gardener, and Agnes Moorehead as Jane’s faithful friend, the movie also features the unsung starlet Gloria Talbott as Jane’s spoiled teenage daughter, a feisty brunette with catlike features and an innocent ponytail.
Rock Hudson’s rustic gardener’s cottage stands next to a frozen lake. The sky is a garish baby-blue, the clouds are ethereal wads of fluffy white cotton. In this perfect picture-book American tableau, plaid hunting jackets, roaring cellophane fires, smoking chimneys, and stark winter forests of skeletal trees provide costume and setting for Hollywood’s version of a typical rural Christmas. Huddled with our chaperone Lorenza, my cousin Pucha Gonzaga and I sit enthralled in the upper section of the balcony in Manila’s “Foremost! First-Run! English Movies Only!” theater, ignoring the furtive lovers stealing noisy kisses in the pitch-black darkness all around us.
Jane Wyman’s soft putty face. Rock Hudson’s singular, pitying expression. Flared skirts, wide cinch belts, prim white blouses, a single strand of delicate, blue-white pearls. Thick penciled eyebrows and blood-red vampire lips; the virginal, pastel-pink cashmere cardigan draped over Gloria Talbott’s shoulders. Cousin Pucha and I are impressed by her brash style; we gasp at Gloria’s cool indifference, the offhand way she treats her grieving mother. Her casual arrogance seems inherently American, modern, and enviable.
We compare notes after the movie, sipping our TruColas under the watchful gaze of the taciturn servant Lorenza. “I don’t like her face,” Pucha complains about Jane Wyman, “I hate when Rock starts kissing her!” “What’s wrong with it?” I want to know, irritated by my blond cousin’s constant criticisms. She wrinkles her mestiza nose, the nose she is so proud of because it’s so pointy and straight. “
AY! Que
corny! I dunno what Rock sees in her—” she wails. “It’s a love story,” I say in my driest tone of voice. Although I’m four years younger than Pucha, I always feel older. “It’s a
corny
love story, when you think about it,” Pucha snorts. Being corny is the worst sin you can commit in her eyes.
“What about Gloria Talbott? You liked her, didn’t you? She’s so…”—I search frantically through my limited vocabulary for just the right adjective to describe my feline heroine—“interesting.” Pucha rolls her eyes. “
AY! Puwede ba,
you have weird taste! She’s really
cara de achay
, if you ask me.” She purses her lips to emphasize her distaste, comparing the starlet to an ugly servant without, as usual, giving a thought to Lorenza’s presence. I avoid Lorenza’s eyes. “She looks like a cat—that’s why she’s so strange and interesting,” I go on, hating my cousin for being four years older than me, for being so blond, fair-skinned, and cruel.
Pucha laughs in disdain. “She looks like a
cat
, aw-right,” she says, with her thick, singsong accent. “But if you ask me,
prima
, Gloria Talbott looks like a
trapo.
And what’s more, Kim Novak should’ve been in this movie instead of Jane Wyman. Jane’s too old,” Pucha sighs. “
Pobre
Rock! Everytime he had to kiss her—” Pucha shudders at the thought. Her breasts, which are already an overdeveloped 36B and still growing, jiggle under her ruffled blouse.
It is
merienda
time at the popular Café España, and the tiny restaurant is quickly filling up with more customers flocking out of the Avenue Theater across the street. I am acutely aware of the table of teenage boys next to us, craning their necks and staring lewdly at my cousin Pucha. Pucha plays with her hair, affecting a coy pose as she, too, suddenly becomes aware of the boys’ attention. “Psst…pssst,” the loudest and largest of the boys hisses lazily at my cousin, who makes a big show of pretending not to hear. I glare at him angrily. I want Lorenza to save us, pay our bill, escort us out of the crowded restaurant, and take us home in a taxi.
Lorenza catches my eye. “Señorita Pucha,” she murmurs to my cousin, who refuses to acknowledge her. Pucha is flattered by the hissing boy’s grossness and has other plans. She orders another round of TruCola, including one for the frowning Lorenza, who pointedly does not drink it. In her loud voice, Pucha professes to still be hungry and orders a second slice of
bibingka
, which she eats very slowly. She is a changed person, smiling and chattering about Rock Hudson, Ava Gardner, and her latest favorite, Debbie Reynolds. She is suddenly solicitous, oozing sweetness and consideration. “Don’t you wanna eat something,
prima
?” She asks me. “A sandwich, maybe? Some cake? Is okay—I got my allowance.”
The teenage boy starts to hiss again. Then he starts making kissing sounds with his fat lips. I am disgusted by his obscene display and the giggling reaction of my flustered cousin. I stick my tongue out at him, this flat-eyed snake who makes a fool out of Pucha in public. He is oblivious to me, his shining flat eyes fixed on my dim-witted cousin. His friends are laughing. I am powerless; I am only ten years old. I remember to this day how I longed to run out of the fluorescent Café España back into the anonymous darkness of the Avenue Theater, where I could bask in the soothing, projected glow of Color by De Luxe.
“I’m not hungry, and I think we should leave,” I mutter through clenched teeth. The gang of boys nudge each other with their elbows, making faces at us. My overripe cousin bats her pale eyelashes at their leader the snake while she sips her drink with a straw, lost in thought. He leers at her; she smiles back, blushing prettily. Lorenza starts to get up from our table. “
Tayo na
, Señorita Pucha. Your mother will be very angry if we stay out too late,” she threatens Pucha gently. Pucha is visibly annoyed. She gives Lorenza one of her contemptuous looks. “What about my dessert?” she whines, then turns to me. “Lorenza is your
yaya
, Rio—not mine. I’m too old for a
yaya
,
puwede ba
.” I glare at her. “Senorita Pucha, your mother ordered us to bring you home early,” Lorenza insists. Pucha ignores her and keeps eating. “I have to finish my dessert,” she repeats, her voice louder and more impatient. “Pucha,” I say with some desperation, “let’s get out of here. What are you going to do—give him your phone number? You mustn’t give him your phone number. Your parents will kill you! Your parents will kill me,” I start blithering. “He’s only a boy. A homely, fat boy…He looks like he smells bad.” Pucha gives me a withering look. “
Prima
, shut up. Don’t be so
tanga
! Remember, Rio—I’m older than you, and you better not say anything to anybody!” She turns to Lorenza: “Did you hear me, Lorenza?” Lorenza sits back down, defeated. Pucha turns to me once more and speaks in a whisper. “I don’t care if he’s a little
gordito
, or
pangit
, or smells like a dead goat. That’s Boomboom Alacran, stupid. He’s cute enough for me.”
The cashmere scarf is gracefully draped around Jane Wyman’s head to keep her warm. In her full-length, mahogany sable coat, she drives her dependable dark green Buick, the color of old money. It is how I remember the movie: a determined woman alone in the winter, driving a big green car on a desolate country road, on the way to see her young lover.
Pobre
Rock, indeed. A woman like Jane Wyman baffles Pucha. Why does she choose to drive her own car, when she can obviously afford a chauffeur? Pucha wants to know. And who plays Jane Wyman’s spoiled son and Gloria Talbott’s brother? Pucha insists he’s Tab Hunter, her second favorite after Rock Hudson. I shake my head and don’t have the heart to argue with her. The role of Jane Wyman’s son is a minor one, completely forgettable. The character’s name is “Ned”—that much I remember. Ned Nickerson is the name of Nancy Drew’s boyfriend in those books the American Consul’s wife gives me the following Christmas. Now, after all these years in America, I have yet to meet a man named “Ned” or anyone with the surname “Nickerson.”
1956. Long before my mother Dolores leaves my father Freddie and takes me to North America. Long before my brother Raul decides to stay behind, renounce his worldly possessions, and become a faith healer. Long before my father Freddie Gonzaga, out of fear, announces he is moving to Spain for good. He makes pronouncements but rarely lives up to them, according to my cynical mother, who should know. She envisions him a recluse, living out his last days in some rotting villa in Manila, abandoned by his mistresses and surrounded by all his packed belongings. Bulging suitcases reinforced with rope, sealed cartons the size of refrigerators stuffed with obsolete Betamax machines, rusting tape recorders, and unused Japanese microwave ovens. “Any day now!” he’ll say. “I’m packed and ready to go!” He waves his passport defiantly at anyone who challenges him. Rumors abound: My father suffers from a terminal disease, my father has a few months to live. Much to everyone’s surprise—including his doctors’ and his own—he lives to be a very old man.
It’s been years now since my cousin Pucha reported in one of her numerous letters to me, spelling errors intact: “RIO—I wish you never left us but if God wills I will perhapps be joineing you soon over there,
primma.
I need a US divorse,
sabes ya
—its still not okay here its a mortal sin. Well maybe I could do it in Honkong and go shopping too but I rather the US we could go shopping together! Or maybe Reno ITS MORE FUN plus with you there
primma
it wont be so lonley! Your Papi is not so good he just came out of hospital again why dont you come see him? Hes always joking you know how he is, life of the party,
pobre tambien
! Raul was with him everyday, thanks be to God your brother is here. Write to me why dont you I always do the writeing its not fair. I miss you LOVE always, PUCHA.”