Aurea (English)

By Marissa Reorizo-Redburn

I was in Grade Five, and had no idea what marriage was all about when we heard that
Aurea’s parents had married her off. Our slightly overaged classmate, Aurea, was a wedded
wife.

We were close, Aurea and I. She was often absent, as her home was quite far from
town. Sha had to walk five kilometers very day to get to school. She dropped out of school every
so often, which was why at the age of 15, she was only in Grade Five. You see, she had to help
her parents earn a living. She peddled root crops, vegetables, bananas, sweet potatoes, and
corn. She carried them in two large baskets hanging from the ends of a yoke slung over one
shoulder or lugged a huge buri (palm leaf) crate full of the produce on her back. It was amazing
to see her balance all that bulky merchandise, probably double her weight. It made me wonder
how she could manage to walk properly that entire length of the road to town.

She was diligent, although she did not fare too well academically. She did quite well in
Home Economics though, as all our lessons were practical, planting, cleaning, cooking,
embroidery, sewing. The heavy tasks always fell on her shoulders. She was a big woman, and
on the plump side. Her thighs and upper arms were rounded and muscular. Her curly hair fell to
her waist; her skin was the color of brewed coffee. She was fun to talk to and kept no secrets
from me.

Two weeks after we learned that she had been married off, she appeared once more in
class. I was glad to see her. Our classmates pestered her with their questions about her
marriage to which she responded only with a smile.

I waited for our class in Home Economics. As usual she was assigned to clean the room
while everyone else is weeding the garden at the back of the classroom. I volunteered to help
clean the room. It was my turn to question Aurea. Was it true that she was married?

“Who? Where from? What does he look like?”

Aurea simply smiled mischievously. But I kept at it until we found ourselves chasing
each other around the room. Her skirt fell off from all my tugging. Safety pins had kept her skirt
fastened as the zipper was broken. A row of five big safety pins hooked together the gap in her
skirt.

We sat in the corner of the room. She started to tell me her story in a low voice, in case
someone suddenly came in. She didn’t want anyone else to hear what she had to tell me.

“Yes. Papay married me off to that mongrel jerk of a carabao buyer from Lucena. I can’t
stand him; he’s so old, and besides her is not my boyfriend. Antonio has been my boyfriend
since last year.”

Antonio. Son of a fisherman in the next barrio near the sea. Often absent, just like
Aurea. Dropped out of school that year. He was 16.
 “So why’d you let them do that to you? Why’d you let them marry you off? Why didn’t
see you have a church wedding?” I continued to ask.

“How could I say no to my parents; they would’ve stuck my neck in a garrote! Plus that
stupid asshole gifted them with a carabao and a thousand bucks,” Aurea said angrily.

“So where did you get married?” I asked again.

“Not in church, that’s for sure. I’m underage you know. It was a kasal kasugot, a mock
wedding, where the barangay captain or a councilor performs the ceremony. The kind where
you invite the whole barrio for two nights of dancing, with the groom providing wedding clothes
for the whole family, the father, mother, siblings including the grandmother. In fact, the wedding
ceremony and feast were held only in our yard.”

Kasal kasugot, not a real wedding but with all trappings of one, was a common practice
in the area, especially among Visayans who served as tenants in the big landed estates on our
island. Aurea’s parents, Visayans, were such tenants.

Then the question I had been wanting to ask, “Have you slept with him?”

Aurea chuckled. “That aged cretin hasn’t been able to do anything; every time he gets in
bed with me, I prick him with my biggest safety pin. I also wear my tightest denim pants at
night.”

“But why?” I asked in surprise.

“Because I cannot stand him. It’s Antonio I want.”

“You’ve slept with Antonio!” I heard my voice suddenly rise.

“Shhhh! Not so loud! Yes, of course!” Aurea replied tightly. “That afternoon when he took
me home, among the guava trees. Antonio is the only man I want to marry.”

“Ay, hala ka! Watch out. What if your husband finds out you’ve slept with someone
else?” I said worriedly.

“I don’t care. I’d be happier if he left me because I could never ever love him. I’d never
exchange his carabao stench with the fishy sour smell of Antonio’s armpit.”

We couldn’t stop giggling. She had found someone to keep her secrets safe.

Aurea attended class for only one more week after that, she disappeared. I later heard
that she eloped with Antonio.

After a few days I learned that her parents had recovered Aurea and returned her to her
fifty-year old husband. But Aurea was as slippery as a flighty cat. She ran off again. No one
knew where she had gone off to. Her husband tired of searching and waiting for her and went
home to Lucena.
 When I was still a child on our island, it took more than three hours by boat to get to the
Pasacao coast and the road to the city. Very few came to visit us. As soon as a newcomer
stepped foot on the pier, everyone knew him or her.

After I graduated from grade school, I went with my aunt to Davao to study. I forgot all
about Aurea.

In December, I went home to the island. I liked to relax on a bench under the star apple
tree outside our house by the side of the road. I was seated there early one morning when
Aurea’s father, mother, and young unmarried sister walked by. I was stunned. They looked very
different.

I couldn’t wait for sunset to ask Mama about Aurea. Mama said that Aurea had been
away for a long time. Then she suddenly showed up last year. She looked very different and
seemed quite prosperous. She also looked very sexy. She always wore shorts and a loose, see-
through, sleeveless blouse whenever she walked around town. Her jewelry sparkled, her fingers
sported multiple rings. Even her feet glittered with anklets.

Aurea stayed for one month on our island. There was feasting everyday in the new
concrete house she had built. She had also bought decent clothes for her family. Her parents
and siblings likewise gleamed with jewelry. They wore rubber shoes when they came into town.
They were the talk of the whole town. Aurea had gone to Japan. I remembered the rumors
about the Yakuza and a sudden anxiety for Aurea gripped me. But perhaps that wasn’t her
problem since I could see that she was rolling in cash. Perhaps she had hit it big over there.

One early Sunday morning, people were in a hurry to leave their farms and nearby
barrios to catch the seven o’clock mass in town. I heard the loud clanging of the antique bell as
early as 6 in the morning. Mama was looking out the window. I was sipping my coffee while
Papa let loose of the fighting cocks in the yard. Mama called me.

“Hurry, look who’s coming!” She pointed to the woman strutting by. I looked out the
window.

“Nana Vacion, makiagi po, just passing by!” The woman in shiny black skinny jeans said
loudly in greeting. Her smooth straight hair was a reddish gold and fell down to her waist. Her
thin sleeveless red blouse was loose and sheer. Her rounded breasts were propped up by a
black bra visible through her blouse. Mocha complexion. Skinny. Pink cheeks. Lips the color of
tambis, ripe watery rose apples. Cosmetic penciled-in black arches for eyebrows. Long way
eyelashes. Boots. With flowers embroidered on the heels. Leather shoulder bag the color of
café latte, the hollow of which could probably fit in a pot, pan, plate, hammer, and whatever
else.

I stared at her for a long while. No, I didn’t recognize her. Who was this outsider in our
barrio?

“Aaaaay! Marina! You witch you, how are you! It’s me your gorgeous friend! Aurea!” she
shrilled from the roadside.

I was dumbfounded.
 “Aurea? Is that you?” were my first words.

We exchanged notes on how we’d both been doing all the past years. Naughty stories, a
lot of painful pinching and shrieking, all that clowning around. So many stories.

Among them the stories of our childhood. Her two-week love affair with Antonio. How her
old husband had raped her before she ran off with Antonio. The nightly battering, she suffered
from her husband when he wanted to have sex. Her escape to Manila with a recruiter of
domestics. Being molested by two young men, her employer’s own sons. Living on the road and
sleeping on the sidewalks. Applying as a cultural dancer in Japan. Her offer of nightly pleasure
to passing men to fund her application to Japan.

I wonder how she could continue to smile as she told me her story, with nary a sign of
sting or hurt. She talked about it as if it were all a joke.

She gave me an imported red wallet and 500 yen, saying I should use it as a seed
money and make it earn. She wanted to give me lipstick and perfume, but I had no use for
them. She pinched my bottom hard when she bade me goodbye before running off, laughing
and hooting gleefully. She was once more the Aurea of my childhood, my rowdy playmate. Her
hips swayed as she walked to the town center. The aroma of her perfume filled the air. Howls
soared from the men she passed.

I could no longer see her yet I could still hear the mischief, as well as, the tension in her
voice. I felt the sting of her pinch slither up to my chest.

“Yes, I make a lot of moolah in Japan because I give it my all when I dance on stage…
and in bed!”

“In Japan, I go by the name Mikaela. Mikaela San Jose. I don’t use my real name
because I don’t have a birth certificate anyway. All my papers are fake. Made in Recto.”

“Thing is, I haven’t saved a cent because my family is just too costly to maintain. All they
do is ask, ask, ask me for money. If they only knew… my cunt’s rotting away!”

“I’m not scared to be in Japan; my body’s battered and miserable anyway!”

“Of course I want to be married properly. But I’d prefer an old Japanese man. I’m tired of
all this.”

I was troubled by all the talk and couldn’t sleep for several nights. What could I do to end
Aurea’s wasting her life? I longed to see and talk to Aurea again. But her barrio was too far. It
was the rainy season. The path was covered in tall wild grass, rocky and muddy. I watched out
for her, hoping to catch on her next visit to town. But it was an elusive hope. We missed each
other every time and never got the chance to talk again.

Mama handed me the short note she had left for me.

Marina dear,
 Here I go running off again. I’m all cleaned out. I’m afraid I might lose even the
money for my fare to my drunken sot of a brother who I just know is likely to steal it out
of my wallet. I love you to greet the New Year.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year.

See you next time. Muah!

Aurea

I lit a candle for Aurea in our old church. I implored God to watch over and guide her. By
the time I finished praying, my knees were stinging. The candle had burned out when I opened
my eyes. Another four years went by. I started teaching in the city, rarely went home to our
island, and hardly heard any word about anyone back home. But the story reached me when
mama came for a visit; Aurea had not been sending money to her family for several months.
The family could not write her because no one knew how to write. None of them had finished
grade school.

Six months ago, I had seen a news feature on TV, about five cultural dancers who were
found dead in Japan. Their bodies were full of burn marks and bruises, their faces
unrecognizable. No family member came to claim them. I thought though I didn’t breathe a word
of this to Mama, Aurea, my friend could be one of them. – Translated by PVM Santos