Three Kisses

Ma. Elena L. Paulma

T
hese mornings, Nina awakened not just from the cold
that numbed her nose, but also from a deep sense of loss,
of something missing or forgotten, the cause of which
took her some time to remember, perhaps because she
did not want to. The cold, although still unbearable,
she had learned to live with, but this new sadness which
greeted her even before she opened her eyes bewildered her, so that her first
consciousness was always that of confusion.
On this her first morning back from the hospital, she wondered at
how this bed she was lying on and the gray ceiling above her had remained
unchanged. Slowly, so as not to awaken the sleeping man beside her, she
turned her head a little so that her eyes just made out the closed door, next
to which stood the walnut wardrobe, brought all the way from the old house.
Inside would be clothes, his on the left side and hers on the right, neatly
folded and hung, carefully arranged according to their colors. Facing the
bed was the window. Outside, the flower shrubs that lined the path toward
the entrance of the apartment building would be covered with December
snow by now, for the flakes had begun to fall last night as they were coming
inside. The half-light of the early morning filtered through the coral blue
curtains which she had chosen for this room, half-drawn across the window
to satisfy both her need for it to be pulled back completely and his desire for
it to be fully drawn. Ruben had packed the old beige curtains from the old
house, but she had insisted that they buy new ones for the apartment.
Paulma 57

She turned her head away from him, sleepily aware of the hazy outlines
of the nightstand to her left, on which resided a lamp and a small picture
frame standing a little askew. She had dusted and looked at this picture
so many times before that she could remember each detail even without
looking at it. In it was a photo of a couple during happier times, the younger
version of herself smiling up at the man who now lay beside her.
The glass surface of the picture reflected some of the glow from the
nightlight which was plugged behind the nightstand. Both of them could
not sleep in the dark. She had discovered this on their first night together in
the old house at Kessel-lo.
“Can we keep this on?” she had asked, pointing at the lamp that stood
on the nightstand, and speaking slowly, for he was just learning how to speak
in English. She had been dismayed when he shook his head, “Nee, nee.” He
bent down behind the nightstand, and there was a click. The sudden glare
from the nightlight made his hair look whiter, tracing the smaller wrinkles
on his lined face. He turned off the lamp on the table, casting his face in
shadow, and for a moment, she had wondered if she had done the right
thing.
That had been all of two years ago, she realized with some surprise.
When they first met, she had been 62 years old and about to retire from
her third managing stint in another dying hotel in Cebu. The daughter of
Mrs. Borromeo, owner of The Penthouse, had already begun scolding the
staff about the baduy arrangement of the seats in the lobby, asking who on
earth had told them to put bougainvilleas on the steps leading toward the
entrance. Next, she had complained about the bottomless iced tea in the
menu. Later, it was the way the napkins had been folded during a wedding
reception. The staff had wanted to protect Nina, but they were helpless
against the irate questioning of Miss Boromeo.
“Madam Nina told us to, Ma’am,” they had to say.
She had been in a similar situation before. The wife, or sister, or
daughter would note how well she got along with the owner and the staff,
and how much power she was given over the hotel, and the complaints
would begin. She had always been offered a job by one or another of the
hotel owners who had become her friends, but at her age, she was not sure
anymore if she would still be offered another job in the same position. Nina’s
friends, hoteliers like her, had set her up with Ruben, who was a friend of
the husband of a friend of a friend now living somewhere in Europe. One
58 likhaan 5 ˙ short story / maikling kuwento

day, she had received a letter from a Ruben Peeters, from 15 Stratenhaus,
Kessel-lo, Belgium.
“We gave him your address!” They had all exclaimed at the emergency
get-together that had been arranged on account of the letter.
“And your picture,” added Susan, the one closest to her. Nina was
meticulous with her looks, making sure to dye her short curls and to dress
in the smartest outfits. It was mostly her vivacious warmth, however, that
drew others to her.
“He must have been bowled over!” cried another one, and everyone
had laughed.
“You shouldn’t have!” she had scolded, looking at the fair-skinned,
white-haired, blue-eyed man in the picture that had been included in the
letter.
“Dear Saturnina,” she had read to her nieces gathered around her bed,
and they had giggled at the way she read her full name with a grimace. One of
them had grabbed the picture and said, “Hmmm, not bad. And he’s young,
Auntie, only seventy years old.” And everyone had burst into laughter as
the picture was passed around. His English had not been perfect but she
had answered the second letter, thinking it wouldn’t hurt to have a Belgian
pen friend. Susan’s daughter had married a German. She had sent Susan
enough money to renovate their house. All of Susan’s friends, including
Nina, had gone to the house blessing, where Susan made sure everyone
saw the numerous pictures of her daughter in front of beautiful castles
and gardens all over Europe. Said daughter had come home looking very
glamorous in her European clothing and make-up, handing out lipstick and
perfume, and treating everyone to a night at the Casino.
Nina was drawn to the Casino. She loved riding up to the Cebu Plaza
Hotel with her friends, alighting at the glass doors and taking the escalator
that led them to an arched entrance on the second floor where, in their
pearls and georgette blouses, they would stand in excited anticipation as
they surveyed the ballroom sized Casino, the green carpet on its expansive
floor muting the clinking of trolleys that held chips for the card games
and coins for the slot machines over which hovered a haze of smoke. Nina
preferred the slot machines, even when the round tipped metal lever that
made a satisfying growl at every turn evolved into the red and green buttons
that one could press at a higher speed. The excitement was the same, as
the images rolled on the round screen and the boxes fell into place, the
Paulma 59

ding ding as the credits multiplied every time two or three of the images
matched. She often ran out of coins, and spent more than she had planned,
but she always came back for more because who knows, the next roll might
hit the jackpot, and she wasn’t one to miss her chances.
Ruben had replied to her first letter, and began calling her long distance
after three months. Somehow, she had gotten through the conversations,
feeling exhausted after listening closely to Ruben’s thickly accented
Flemish-English. When he sent her a ticket to Belgium, her friends had
shrieked in delight and inundated her with outfits, her nieces giggling as
she modelled them around the bedroom.
He looked shorter than she had imagined as he stood waiting for her at
the Brussels airport terminal, holding a placard that clearly spelled out her
name: Saturnina Dimaculangan. She winced at the unglamorous vowels,
but gave him her dimpled smile nevertheless. They shook hands and she
had turned on her famous charm. Ruben’s face was red from laughing when
they arrived at his house. Some of his friends were there, with their Filipina
wives, to welcome her.
“Hallo!” They all gathered around her, shaking her hand. Some of the
wives laughingly showed her the Belgian kiss. Once, on the right cheek,
another on the left, and yet another one on the right cheek again. She was
delighted at their niceness, especially when she discovered that some of
them also came from the outlying towns of Cebu. After a while, Ruben had
taken her away from the excited Bisayan babble, and shown her around his
house, which was a sprawling bungalow with large bay windows that looked
out onto the green grass that surrounded it. She had been dazzled by the
perfectly mown front lawn lined with well-trimmed hedges. She had looked
in wonder as he showed her the back of the house, the grass as perfect as
the front lawn’s. Tall cypress trees marked what Ruben said was the edge of
a mini-forest. She had fallen in love.
The next day, he took her around Kessel-lo, showing her the lovely
bluegray-roofed Arenberg castle which stood stately pink amid the rolling
green university grounds. He took her for a walk around the Provincial
Domein, a huge park with tree-lined paths and white ducks swimming in
clear, green ponds. She was enchanted.
“Will you marry me?” Ruben had asked on the fourth night during
dinner at the hotel where she was staying. Nina’s thoughts often came in
images, floating about, following no particular order, and she pondered
60 likhaan 5 ˙ short story / maikling kuwento

on Ruben’s proposal this way. She thought of the faded old house left
behind by her first husband, its windows perpetually closed to keep out the
unrelenting dust and smoke from the busy highway next to which it stood,
its first floor well below street level after several highway constructions. The
house would be flooded at the merest rainfall for it sat next to a creek. She
thought of growing old all alone there in that house, for her son now lived
with his wife and four children, and her nieces and nephews would soon be
marrying and starting their own families. She thought of having to hunt for
another job and the slim chance of her ever getting work again on account
of her age. She thought of living on the pittance that would be her SSS
pension. Then she thought of living in Ruben’s sprawling house with its
romantic mini-forest right there in their own backyard. They would sit in
the red bricked patio, drink hot chocolate at night, and breakfast on hot
coffee and rolls in the morning. During weekends, they could stroll around
that nice huge park with the white ducks swimming in the clean ponds,
the tall trees waving above their heads. She thought of coming home to
the Philippines from time to time in her glamorous new look with huge
balikbayan boxes, and how she would show her friends and family, and yes,
even Mrs. Borromeo’s daughter, pictures of herself standing in front of that
castle Ruben had shown her, or in the middle of one of the gardens which
she would surely be visiting around Europe. Last but not least, she thought
of not being alone anymore. She had been a widow for close to twenty years.
Having someone nice like Ruben to talk to in the evenings and sharing these
growing-old days with was not a bad idea. Not a bad idea at all.
“Yes, I will,” she answered. Laughing, he had told her he had practiced
this question over and over again in English.
She had laughed with him, saying again, “Ja, I will marry you.” And he
had been delighted at her use of the Flemish word for “yes.”
He did not make any protestations of undying love, and she liked that
about him. She thought they understood each other better this way. It was
honest. These days, and at their age, it made sense to just be practical about
things. Rather than living alone apart, why not grow old together? She
vowed to use all her hotelier skills in cooking and housekeeping at Ruben’s
home. He would not be able to live without her after he tasted her special
lumpia.
Ruben had packed his bags and come home with her to the Philippines.
They got married at the Cebu City Hall, with Susan and her husband as
Paulma 61

witness. Her only son had been nonplussed, her friends delighted, her
relatives surprised but pleased, and she had been happy and excited.
Everyone was rolling on high expectations because a better life for one
meant a better life for all. This was tradition. There had been a round of
despedida parties after that.
“Why are you always so lucky? Congratulations and happy trip!” her
friends had cried, hugged, and kissed her on both cheeks, a touch of envy in
their eyes. “Find us another one like Ruben!” they had cried half-jokingly,
half-seriously.
“We will miss you, Madam Nina!” her staff had written on a streamer,
some of them in tears as they gave their farewell speeches.
Her son and daughter-in-law, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, brothers,
and sisters had gone to the Mactan airport to send them off. There was a lot
of crying and hugging and kissing at boarding time, Ruben included. He,
too, had been moved by the excess of affection all around, so different from
the Belgian way. He told Nina, when they were on board the plane, that he
would like to come back and visit again. His eyes were moist when he said it.
“We love you, Lola! We will miss you, Auntie! You take care and write
to us often.”
As she lay on her marital bed on this cold Belgian morning, Nina
swallowed the familiar lump that rose in her throat every time she
remembered her big, noisy family. She now turned her head to the right,
and watched the sleeping face of her husband. He looked old and tired. It
had been a long time since she had watched him like this. He was always
the first one to awaken, from a habit of waking up early for his daily duty
as a policeman. She was used to waking up early herself, but these Belgian
mornings took a little getting used to, not even after two years. Their first
quarrel had been about the heater.
“Turn it up!’ she had taken to using simple phrases so he could
understand, gesticulating and pointing at the thermostat on the wall next to
his side of the bed. “Nee, nee!” he would answer, shaking his head.
She would get up in silence, put on more clothes, get back to bed, and
lie on her side with her back turned to him. Sometimes, he would sigh,
get up, and turn the thermostat up. But sometimes, for some unnameable
reason, he wouldn’t. These were the times when she would silently cry
herself to sleep, feeling like an unwanted guest in a stranger’s house, wishing
she was not so far away from home.
62 likhaan 5 ˙ short story / maikling kuwento

There was, however, a time shortly after they had flown back to Belgium,
when she dared not cross him in any way. This was after their visit to the
bank. She and Ruben had gone to the bank to check the safety deposit box
which held all of his savings. She had gone with him into the inner room
where there were rows of cabinets with rows of little numbered drawers.
There he was with his key before one of the drawers, telling her how he had
looked forward to finally enjoying the money he had been saving all these
years, boasting a little about the bank’s security system. He slipped the key
into the slot, and drew out the box. When he opened the lid, it was empty.
She could still remember his face, red creeping up from his neck as he
swore, she was sure, even though it was in Flemish. It was the first time
she had seen him lose his politeness, and it scared her a little. Ruben had
told her how much was in the box, and the money amounted to more than
a few million in pesos. First, he called to the bank officer standing outside
the door, and spoke rapidly, gesticulating. The officer shook his head,
also speaking rapidly. She had followed Ruben as he stormed into a room
marked “Manager”, but after another fiery Flemish exchange, the manager
shook his head apologetically. Then they had gone to the police station.
Ruben had looked exhausted by this time, and the police, some of whom
were his friends, had patted him in the back, and spoken to him quietly
until he clamed down. He almost filed a case against the bank, but the bank
people had said that the safety deposit box could only have been emptied
by a legitimate holder of one of the keys. Only his previous wife held the key
and she was dead.
Nina, too, had been devastated. She had just gotten married and the
whole clan back home had already seen pictures of her nice new home and
her lovely new life. The images in Nina’s mind mocked her: the balikbayan
box filled with Belgian chocolates for her grandchildren, European scarves
for her sisters, shirts for her brothers, and trinkets for her nieces, the dinner
of grilled, boiled and sautéed seafood with the whole clan at Sutokil, her
treat. She sighed. There was always the balut at the Fuente plaza.
Ruben barely ate nor slept for a long time after that. Sometimes, he
would walk around the house opening drawers and closets, boxes and
bags, tapping on walls and floors. Sometimes, he would sit in the living
room without moving, just staring out the window. When he spoke, it was
always about what had happened at the bank, beginning in English, and
progressing to angry Flemish. Nina would learn that, owing to a deprived
Paulma 63

childhood, Ruben had tried to live a well-planned and well-executed life, in

command of everything, from his career to his first marriage, right up to his
retirement savings. She learned of it slowly.
“Don’t wear make-up anymore. You’re just wasting your möney and
eet’s not healthy anyway. Not goodt.” She had said, “Ja,” and had stopped
wearing make-up, to humor him at this time of misery.
“You should eat less vlees and more groente. Eet’s healthier. Vlees not
goodt.” She had said, “Ja,” and had stopped eating meat, to placate him at
this difficult time, consuming more vegetables than she had ever eaten while
growing up in her father’s small farm in Liloan, Cebu.
She could not buy any food for herself anyway. Belgian husbands, she
discovered, did not let the wives handle the money. She had married into
the wrong nationality.
He was very impatient with her while he taught her the Flemish
language. “Goeiendag” was easy to learn for that’s what he would say every
morning while nudging her awake at exactly seven o’clock, which was the
worst part of the day in her opinion. Soon, she was able to say, “Nee, nee”
in perfect Flemish fashion, with an irritable “Alstublieft” (please) when he
would persist and she was still sleepy. The phrase she liked best was “Ik
begrijp het neit” for it shut him up. It meant, “I don’t understand.”
Nina looked upon herself as a very patient and fairly tolerant and
forgiving person. But this individual she was living with would not let her be.
He was everywhere she was, telling her what to do and what not to do, from
the time she woke up to the last conscious moment before she turned to the
merciful blankness of sleep. She turned to her rags, wiping the windows,
the divan, chairs and tables in the living room, each crystal droplet on the
chandeliers, each rung, armrest and foot of each wooden chair in the dining
room, the surface of the formal dining table, the four carved legs of the
dining table, crawling down on all fours to wipe the surface under the table.
She wiped the top of the kitchen sink, the sides of it, the grooves between
the tiles, every can, bottle, and canister she could find in every cupboard.
Ruben would follow her around, thrusting the Windex spray for surfaces at
her face and saying, “Use this! Use this!” to which she would reply, “Ik begrijp
het neit,” turning away from him to wipe the kitchen table all over again. He
would shut up with a perplexed look because he had spoken in English.
Sometimes, she would stand by the window and watch the silent, empty
street outside, missing the jeepneys, the smoke and the dust, even the stray
64 likhaan 5 ˙ short story / maikling kuwento

dogs that plied the busy highway she had once wanted to escape from.
None of those who had married foreign husbands, even Susan’s daughter,
had spoken about the long, cold days that seemed to stretch and stretch,
one day merging into the next in a perfect pattern of sameness that mirrored
the uniform hedges lining the immaculate streets. Ruben was a prostate
cancer survivor. His doctors had told him to take it easy after his trip to the
Philippines, so aside from the few trips to nearby Leuven City, they seldom
went anywhere beyond the town limits of Kessel-lo. It was not long before
she stopped taking pictures of the single castle or watching the ducks as
they swam in the park pond, a perfectly bored look on their beaked faces.
It took Ruben a long time to get over his loss. There was not a speck of
dust in the house, and all the cupboards sported perfectly aligned cans in
alphabetical order.
“I worked hard and scrimped and saved – and now the money is all
gone, just like that,” he would moan in broken English, smattered with a
lot of Flemish, only a few words of which she could understand. Then, he
would call the bank and swear into the phone, in Flemish, but she could tell
from his tone. She felt his agony, oh how she felt it like it was hers. This went
on until she told him one day, “Ruben, I am learning more curse words
every time you call the bank.”
“Really?” he asked, using the English he had learned from her. “Really,”
she replied, and she proceeded to curse him in perfect Flemish.
Things had gotten better after that until the day they visited his daughter.
Ruben seldom saw his son and daughter, and they rarely called. The family
came together only for Christmas dinner, and the gatherings were always
minus the son. On Christmas day, a few months after the discovery of the
empty safety deposit box, they had gone to Ida’s place. Ruben and his son-
in-law were drinking after-dinner beer in one corner of the living room
when Ruben stood up, so suddenly, that everyone turned to look at them.
“My wife gave the key to my son?” Ruben had spoken quietly, his face
slowly reddening.
His daughter started to step out of the room, but he turned to her and
said, “And you split the money between the two of you?” Ida glared at her
husband, but she did not deny her father’s accusation. Then, as if making
up her mind, she turned to her father, showing all the bitterness she had
been hiding behind her polite smile. “We had to. Otherwise, all of it will
go to your new…wife.” she had said in English, not looking at Nina. “That
Paulma 65

is our money, too…and….and so is the house! You better sell it. We want
our share. You better sell it or we will sue,” so saying, she had stomped out
of the room. Nina could not remember all that was said. Ruben did not say
much, but his face had been very red. He just looked at them all, and they all
looked back at him in silence. And she just knew it was time to go.
“I will face them in court,” Ruben had fumed that night, cursing again
in Flemish. Nina’s pride was hurt. She was not going to let them think that
she had married this Belgian for his money alone. “Ruben, going to court
would be such a waste of money and effort on our part. We cannot maintain
this place anymore, anyway. Why don’t we just sell it, and give them their
share. Besides, it is too big for the two of us. We can always stay in a smaller
apartment. Easier to clean.” Nina suddenly felt too old for all the excitement
that was happening. All she had wanted was a nice, quiet life.
“Let us just get this over with and let us live in peace,” she had said
to Ruben.
She had cried inside when the last of their belongings had been packed
into the moving van and they drove away from the place she had fallen in
love with. The apartment in Heverlee was smaller, just one among many
in a building which was occupied mostly by old or dying Belgians. With
this second loss, things in the Peeters household went back to what had
become normal, with Ruben following Nina around carrying his spray and
muttering in Flemish, as the apartment glowed from all the cleaning. Time
was the only thing Nina had in abundance. That, and a cranky old Belgian
husband. Too much time, in her opinion, for it made her think. Nina had
grown up believing in commitment and in saving face. Going home a
divorced woman, a poor divorced woman, at her age was unthinkable. It
had a ring of defeat to it. And Nina had always been a winner, the one with
the better life than all her siblings, the manager of hotels in the city, the wife
of a dollar-earning seaman, the generous giver of gifts. No, there was no way
she could go home now. But the thought was there, peeping at her from
behind her husband’s white hair, lurking in the shadows of their bedroom
closet, beckoning to her in broad daylight as she stared out the window
like a caged bird. Ruben and Nina perfected their politeness, to each other
and to the world outside. Often, Ruben’s friends would invite the couple to
their homes for early evening avondmaal. Whenever this happened, Nina
put on the clothes she had brought from the Philippines, and the women
would go ooh and aah, asking her where she had gotten such nice clothes for
66 likhaan 5 ˙ short story / maikling kuwento

there was not much to choose from in quiet Heverlee. She quickly became
friends with the Filipina wives who started calling her Ma’am Nina even
before a new arrival from the Philippines recognized her.
“Madam Nina!” Claire had exclaimed.
“Why, it’s Claire! Kumusta?”
Claire had turned to the others and proudly said, “Madam Nina was
my manager at the Hotel Miranda.” All the others exclaimed at this for most
of them came from the barrios of Cebu. Nina shushed them, saying, “Let’s
have none of that here.” She had meant it. Unofficially, though, she became
their Ma’am Nina, the one they turned to every time they had problems of
any sort. Nina obliged, used to a role which had always been hers from way
back home.
After one such party, Brent and his Filipina wife, Pacita, brought Nina
and Ruben home. She had told Pacita that she missed eating meat and
Pacita had wrapped a piece of biftek, placing it into Nina’s “bring-home”
bag. Ruben politely asked them into the house for an elixir, but he was in
one of his moods, Nina could tell. She was grateful to whoever had invented
the unfailing politeness of Belgians, for it gave her some respite from his
picker-snicketing. But she found she had concluded too hastily. Ruben had
followed her into the kitchen after settling their visitors in the living room.
“Why do you have to take home food! It does not look good! Do you
want them all to think that we don’t have food of our own?” he began. Nina
was regretting having taught him so much English. She was beginning to
understand him.
“It is a Filipino custom to give food to your guests after a party. It’s
called “bring-home,” she had said, holding it up. He grabbed the paper
bag and opened it. Lifting the meat from the wrapper, he held it close to
her face.
“I told you not to eat vlees anymore,” so saying, he flicked on the disposal
chute in the sink and looking at Nina, threw in the meat, bag, and wrapper.
Nina gaped at him, unbelieving. She turned and walked out of the
kitchen, calling to Pacita who stood up from where she was seated in the
living room. Taking Pacita’s hand, Nina pulled her towards the kitchen.
Ruben had followed her out, but he had to stay in the living room with
his guest because it was impolite to leave him alone for too long. Nina felt
like telling her husband where he could stick his politeness. As soon as the
kitchen door swung close, Nina turned to Pacita.
Paulma 67

“I wan to get out of here!” she whispered fiercely. Pacita reached out to
hold her hands, saying, “Ma’am Nina, what’s the matter?”
“Di na ko! Di na jud ko!” she continued, using Bisayan in both relief
and exasperation.
“Is it Ruben?”
“I cannot understand him at all! Di na ko!”
“Why, what happened?” Pacita asked, drawing Nina towards a kitchen
chair.
Nina pointed to the disposal chute. “Thank you for the biftek. At least
one Belgian cockroach family will be happy tonight.”
“Hesusmaryosep! What has gotten into Mr. Ruben! But you know, my
first husband was like that also, Ma’am Nin. Okay, what can I do?”
“I don’t know. I can’t think.”
“Listen,” Pacita began, “Brent is coming over tomorrow.” And they had
hatched a plan in the kitchen, the first of many.
Nina did not speak to Ruben that night, and he was quite eager to
welcome Brent when he came back the next day. Pacita winked at Nina
as they entered the apartment. The two women went immediately to the
kitchen, leaving the men in the living room.
“Are you ready ?” Pacita asked excitedly.
“I am! But first, let me get my millions.” Nina rolled her eyes at Pacita
as she reached up and opened the corner cupboard which held the coffee
beans. She took out a can marked Anheuser Busch InBev, a brewing
company in the city of Leuven, where Pacita and she were planning to go. It
was a major city two miles from the town of Heverlee.
“I had to fish this out of the garbage bin, you know. That husband of
mine is garbage crazy!” She pried open the can with a spoon and reached
inside.
“Tadaaa!” she cried as she proudly held out a hand filled with rolled bills
and some coins saved surreptitiously after market days. Pacita clapped her
hands, singing, “Let’s go shooopping!” And they stepped out of the kitchen.
“We’re thinking of making Tomates aux Crevettes!” Pacita sang as the
kitchen door swung close behind them. Both men in the living room simply
raised their hands and gave a thumbs-up sign because it was a favorite
Belgian appetizer.
“Problem is, we’re out of fresh tomatoes and shrimps,” Pacita
continued.
68 likhaan 5 ˙ short story / maikling kuwento

“I think we have some in the refrigerator,” Ruben said, his eyes directed
somewhere between Pacita and his wife.
“We checked them and they’re almost spoiled.” Nina confirmed,
looking between her husband and Brent. She had made sure to place them
way at the back of the freezer for she could not bear to dump them down the
disposal chute, which had been their first wild idea.
“Then let’s buy some,” said Brent, turning back to Ruben. Ruben said
nothing.
“So drive me to the shop,” Pacita told her husband.
“You know how to drive, don’t you?” Brent responded.
“You know I can’t drive when I’m alone in the car. It makes me nervous,”
said Pacita. “If you don’t want to take me, perhaps Ruben can?”
“Brent and I are not finished yet. Why don’t you and Nina go,” Ruben
replied, beginning to sound impatient.
“Is that okay with you, Nina?” Pacita asked innocently.
“Okay,” said Nina, her voice calm and cool, as if she couldn’t care less
if she went or stayed, as if her heart was not beating fast.
They walked slowly past their husbands as Pacita said, “Oh, I hope
there will be some fresh tomatoes and shrimps at the town market!’
“I know. Last week we had to go to Leuven,” Nina said loudly, putting
on her coat. “I sure hope we don’t have to do that!”
Pacita opened the door. “Brrr, it’s so cold outside!” Pacita shivered,
intimating that she would rather have stayed inside. The men could see
her from where they were seated. She stepped outside, then suddenly, as if
she had forgotten something, she turned and called to her husband, “Oh,
Brent, we might have to go to Leuven for the shrimps! We’ll be back soon!”
and she shut the door, before anyone could say anything.
They hurried to the car and got in. Turning to each other, they did
high fives and cried, “Yes!!!”
The minute the car turned toward the main road, Nina and Pacita let
out a whoop. Nina lifted her arms and waved her hands at the sky, loving
the brown road, the wide expanse of green on both sides, the occasional
trees and buildings, the sheer absence of the insufferable man she was stuck
with.
These brief get-aways occurred more than once, especially during
the times when Nina felt the urge to run as far away from her husband as
possible. Pacita, who was two decades younger than Nina, became Nina’s
Paulma 69

accomplice. They enjoyed the planning and subterfuge as much as the trip
itself which had to last for but a few hours, with Ruben waiting for their
return. For Nina, these were reminders of earlier times when she could just
get up and go without having to ask another person if it was okay that she
step out for a while, without being asked, where are you going? for how
long? with whom? why? what are you going to do? why?
Midway into the second year of their marriage, Nina’s grandson had
called to tell her he was graduating from High School.
“He begged me to come home for his graduation,” she told Ruben.
“You will go home only for the graduation?” he asked, hinting that it
was not that big of a deal.
“It is a very important occasion for us Filipinos,” she continued.
“Okay, we will go,” Ruben relented after two days.
The next day over rolls at breakfast, Nina began, “The graduation is in
April, which is a summer month,” she had paused for it to sink in.
While they were eating lunch later that day, she said, “It is very hot in
the Philippines during summer, you know. I hope they will think of putting
up a tent.”
“Why, where is it going to be held?” he asked.
“Graduations are usually held in the open fields because there will be
many, no throngs of people coming in to attend,” Nina knew Ruben had
developed rashes in the heat the last time he was in the Philippines, and he
hated huge crowds.
Holding out a plate of strawberries, Nina added casually, “The
program will surely start a little past noon time, maybe around 2pm because
graduations usually last for several hours.” She glanced at Ruben who was
beginning to look worried.
“I’m just worried about your health,” she told him with some concern
in the afternoon, as she was peeling potatoes for the frites.
“Maybe we should not go anymore,” Nina suggested as she bit into
her egg at dinner time. “Do you want more wine?” and Ruben had silently
handed her his glass, deep in thought.
“Why don’t you go, and I’ll stay. I don’t think I can bear the heat and
the crowd. It’s only going to be for two weeks, anyway,” Ruben had said as
he climbed into bed that night.
“Of course not. I won’t go without you,” Nina said before turning off
the lamp for the night.
70 likhaan 5 ˙ short story / maikling kuwento

The next day, Ruben bought a round-trip Brussels-Cebu ticket for one
Mrs. Saturnina Peeters. And that was how Nina was able to visit her family,
without him. Nina could hardly sleep in the weeks that followed. She cooked
enough food for Ruben to last for a month, even though she was only going
to be in the Philippines for two weeks. Perhaps a part of her wanted to
believe that she was not coming back for a long time, or maybe she did not
want to think about what would happen once she stepped on the plane that
would take her home. She kept herself busy with her packing, careful not
to show too much eagerness lest Ruben think that she was excited to be
leaving him. She was conscious of these thoughts, but less conscious of the
fact that she was concerned about what he would feel.
It was only when she was on the plane to the Philippines that she allowed
the thoughts she had only been vaguely aware of while in Belgium. Her
mind took wing even as the plane lifted off from Belgian soil. She realized
that she did not have to go back to Belgium. She could leave Ruben for
good. These thoughts came and went as she slept through half the trip and
attended to which gates and which flights she was supposed to be in during
the long, long way home. They lay half-forgotten at the back of her mind as
she was embraced and fussed over by her friends and family waiting at the
arrival area of the Mactan airport.
She ate all the lechon, afritada, and adobo prepared almost every night
for her. She hardly slept from all the midnight conversations, and the visits
to the Casino. Ruben called everyday from Belgium, and Nina found herself
clearing her schedule around three in the afternoon, which was the time he
called. She thought she did this from a sense of duty, ignoring the sense of
anticipation that accompanied her waiting for his call.
Sometimes, Ruben could not get hold of her through her cell phone.
“Uncle Ruben called!” a niece would tell her.
“He called on my phone, too!” her sister would say.
“And in mine!” her son would pipe in.
“Hallo! How are you?” Ruben would begin every time he got hold
of her.
“I’m all right. And you?” Nina would reply.
“Oh, I was wondering how to heat up the lumpia?” He had many
excuses for calling – he could not find his glasses, he wanted to know how
to heat up the ensaymada, he wanted to know how the graduation went,
and so on and so forth.
Paulma 71

After one such conversation, she had decided that it was not fair to
Ruben if she was to desert him this way. The man was just helpless without
her. She was also beginning to realize how she had gotten too accustomed
to the neat Belgian life. She now found the Philippines too crowded and too
noisy, its streets too congested and its houses lacking in the amenities she
had gotten used to in Belgium. At least, this was what she thought as the
main reasons for her desire to go back to Belgium. At unguarded moments,
however, she would recall with perplexity the way she had felt when Ruben
handed her that ticket for home.
He had gone to Leuven and come back in the afternoon. As soon as he
came in, he had handed Nina an envelope.
“What’s this?” Nina asked, opening the envelope. Inside was
her ticket.
“I told you I did not want to go to the Philippines without you,” Nina
said, and had been surprised at what she felt inside. She had meant it.
Although she tried to dismiss it, she would recall this feeling again
when she came back to Belgium, on one of her get-away trips with Pacita.
The trips had become less frequent after her return from the Philippines,
her need for it having become less desperate. She attributed this to the long
break she had just had.
It was but a regular moment in an ordinary day at Leuven, but because
of its singularity, she remembered that a little boy and his mother had
been walking by when it happened. She remembered the exact spot down
the layered, cobbled street where she and Pacita had been standing. She
remembered that a street sign on a corner signpost had spelled Munstraat.
She remembered how the afternoon sun had shown on a building marked
Oude Markt, the shadow of a nearby roof sharply outlined on its walls. She
and Pacita were on their way to their car, carrying their purchases, talking
about another Filipina whose Belgian husband had just died.
“Ma’am Nina,” Pacita always spoke in their Bisayan language whenever
they were alone, “are you going to sell the apartment when Ruben, you
know, goes?”
“When he goes?” Nina repeated, as much to herself as to Pacita,
surprised at the strangeness of this thought.
“Yes when he goes,” Pacita continued, oblivious to the sudden stillness
in her friend’s face. “You know, it is very difficult for Brent and myself right
now. His siblings are contesting the will my first husband left behind. His
72 likhaan 5 ˙ short story / maikling kuwento

father gave me a share of the property, you know.” Pacita had married the
son of her first husband.
Nina replied absently, “Well, I noticed that most Belgians live to a nice
old age. Did you notice that? In our apartment, almost everyone is aged 90
years old and up. I think Ruben will live up to a hundred.”
It was the thought which came after her words that Nina would often
recall for its oddness every time she was alone in the bathroom or when
Ruben was asleep, which were the only times she had to herself. She had
wished it were so - that Ruben would live to a hundred.
The man in her thoughts began to stir beside her, and Nina closed her
eyes, wishing to still be alone with her thoughts. She sensed him looking at
her, felt him moving away from her to the other side of the bed, very slowly.
His side of the bed inclined a little as he sat up, slid his feet to the floor, and
bent down, and she knew he was putting on his loafers. The mattress shifted
and was still as he left the bed, all these done with a minimum of movement.
There was a moment of silence as the carpet underneath muffled his steps.
Then she heard the door opening and closing softly. She was grateful that he
had not tried to wake her as he normally would, recalling another morning
about three months ago. His nudging had drawn a yelp from her. From the
wrist down, her right hand was burning with pain.
“What is it?” he had sounded scared.
“My hand hurts. I can’t move the fingers.” She held out her hand
awkwardly. Ruben had gone to the closet and started getting dressed.
“Where are you going?” she had exclaimed.
“We are going to the doctor,” he replied.
There was one thing that Nina did not like. It was going to doctors
while she was in pain, for they only made it worse with their prodding and
poking.
“No, I’m all right, really. Please do not let us go to the doctor.” But
Ruben had insisted. As it turned out, she had needed an operation for a
vein had literally frozen from the cold. Ruben had done all the chores while
it was healing.
She moved to look at that hand now, but another pain stopped her.
As if it could not help itself, her left hand moved from where it had been
lying on the mattress. It crept across her stomach, up towards her chest,
and as if afraid of what it might find, it stopped. But she already knew, of
course, even as her fingers found the edges of the bandage that covered
Paulma 73

the area where her right breast used to be. The truth startled her still,
every morning.
Had it only been two weeks since that first phone call? She pondered
at how such a significant loss could happen in so little time, and so quietly.
The doctor had called after their annual medical check-up.
“Nina, this is Hans. Is Ruben home?” Hans did not normally call after
a check-up.
“Ja,” she replied and silently handed the phone to Ruben who had
come into the kitchen.
“Hallo?” Ruben spoke into the phone. There was a moment of silence
as he listened to Hans on the other end. Nina had taken a seat in the kitchen
table, pretending to be busy mixing the eggs and cream for their lunch a la
flamande.
“Hans, are you sure?” Ruben whispered into the phone. Then he
nodded. “Ja, I will tell her. She’s right here.”
Nina watched as he slowly placed the handset onto its base. His
expression scared her. She did not want to hear what Ruben had to say,
whatever it was, and began to rise from her seat.
“Am I dying?” Nina joked. She wanted to be her usual cheerful self.
Ruben was silent. He looked like he was unsure of how to say what he
had to say. Finally, she whispered, “What is it?”
Ruben drew close and held her shoulders with his hand, as if to keep
her from falling. “You have breast cancer.”
Nina had felt her limbs go limp, as she dropped back to her seat. Ruben
sat down, too, and reached out his hand, as if to comfort her.
They had gone to the hospital where Nina underwent what the doctor
had termed a “simple mastectomy”. Simple. She almost smiled at the word.
Had it already been a week since that first morning after the operation? Each
morning since had felt unreal, six mornings of awakening with this strange
body and its missing part. There was something terribly funny about her
situation, on top of everything else, but she could not remember the joke.
The bedroom door opened slowly, and a wooden tray hovered in mid-
air through the gap. On the tray were arranged two cups of coffee, a plate
of steaming rolls, and a small slab of her favorite Namur butter. Next to
the butter stood a thin vase on which resided a single stem topped by a
perfectly yellow tulip, also her favorite. Above the tray was a face with a
tentative smile.
74 likhaan 5 ˙ short story / maikling kuwento

“Good morning,” he said.

“Goeiendag,” she said.
Nina watched as Ruben came forward carefully balancing the tray, her
eyes following his every move as he deposited the tray onto the nightstand
to her left. She tried to raise herself, but he was there before she could move,
lifting her bodily but gently, so she could rest her back against the pillows
which he hurriedly propped up behind her. She didn’t have to stay in the
hospital for a week, but Ruben had insisted that they wait until the drain
from her incision was removed from her body.
“I can still move, you know,” she said, trying to sound light-hearted,
“but dank u.”
She could not raise her right arm for her nightgowns and had slept in
her robe. She tugged at its edges now to hide her lopsided chest. He bowed
his head to allow her the slight movement, picking up the tray from the table
and gently placing it in front of her. He poured coffee onto the two cups and
held one cup toward her.
“Dank u!” she said, smiling at the cup.
“Zonder dank,” said he, raising his cup before bringing it down to
his lips.
Placing his cup on the tray, he picked up a knife and buttered a roll. He
handed it to her, then he buttered another one for himself.
“You remembered,” she said, lifting her eyes from the tray and smiling
at him, her left cheek dimpling.
“Hunh?” he said, chewing faster to clear his mouth.
She fingered the lace on the white cloth that covered the tray, her eyes
on him, the smile still on her face. She had told him to always place a cloth
over the breakfast tray.
“Oh, hmm, hmmm,” he nodded vigorously several times, still chewing,
raising his eyebrows at the cloth on the tray, and rolling his eyes toward her.
The slight movement juggled the tray a little and he steadied it.
“Oooops!” he exclaimed, eyes widening, looking at her, and she
laughed with him.
They finished eating in familiar silence. Afterwards, he lifted the tray
from the bed and placed it on the nightstand. Then he stood up. Nina
thought he looked tall from where she was.
“Bath time,” he said, smiling, in imitation of the nurse who had assisted
Nina with her baths in the hospital.
Paulma 75

“What?!”
“Bath time.”
“Nee!” She looked at him, shaking her head “Nee, nee!”
“Ja, ja.”
He sat down next to her, and looked her in the eye.
“It’s okay,” he said.
She bowed her head, fingering the edges of her robe. When she looked
up at him, he had not taken his eyes off her.
“It’s okay,” he said again softly, lowering his head, and looking at her
steadily.
Still looking at him, she gave an almost imperceptible nod. He stood
up, and bent down to gently help her up, as she slid first her left foot, then
her right, onto the floor. They slowly walked towards the bathroom door,
her left hand on his right arm, as on that day they had walked towards the
judge, and gotten married.
He sat her on the closed toilet bowl, turned toward the bathtub and
twisted the knobs. Nina concentrated on the sound of the running water.
Ruben turned to her. Nina was holding on to the edges of her robe, but
Ruben took her hands and lay them down on her lap, first one, then the
other. He began to unravel the silk knot that held her robe together and
again, she lifted both her hands to cover the ugliness of her chest. But he
gently placed his hands over hers and drew them down again. He drew
open the edges of the robe as Nina bowed her head, afraid to see the look
of disgust in his eyes. Her left breast hung old and wrinkled, the right part
of her chest covered with white bandage. She watched as Ruben slowly
removed the tapes that held her bandage and winced as her wound was
finally revealed. She lifted her head for she could not bear to look at the
drying blue-black tissues, the Frankenstein sutures on the puckered flesh
still red from the recent trauma.
Ruben met her lifted face and kissed both her moist eyes. He kissed her
right cheek, then her left, then her right again, in Belgian fashion, until she
smiled because it was ridiculous to be exchanging polite kisses there in the
bathroom with her seated on the toilet seat, one wrinkled breast hanging
between them. Then he kissed her on the lips, softly, and it was his turn to
smile for she kissed him back.
Nina’s eyes were on him as he knelt on the bathroom floor and bent
his head, the soft light from the bathroom lamp turning his white hair
76 likhaan 5 ˙ short story / maikling kuwento

into silver, gentling his blue eyes and casting a golden glow onto his
lined face.
He kissed her left breast. Then very gently, he moved his head to place
soft little kisses around her scar.
The water continued to gush from the faucet, both hot and cold streams
mingling in swirls at the bottom of the tub, as the steam began to rise.