As if the rain could read
my mind.
I stepped out to a roaring
downpour that instantly turned the Pinaglabanan Shrine into a shallow pool of
dirt and mud that almost seemed unreal now, almost unrecognizable from the
earlier scene of a bustling and breezy urban park under the scorching midday
sun when I quietly walked in, unnoticed by anyone in the crowd about an hour
ago. That scene and the crowd are now completely gone. Perhaps, I figured, the
rain alludes to my own drastic mood swing from one of quiet purpose to complete
emotional chaos and the message from the rain could only be one of two things –
either it sympathizes with my sorrow, or it actually mocks my misery.
I said purpose because I
just made a promise to myself earlier today that my search for Rosalie would
end now. Not tomorrow, not tonight but now. Right here, right now. And then sad
to say I got my wish.
I reached out to my
briefcase and held the paper in my hand, scanning carefully every entry – the
dates, places, numbers, notes, punctuation marks included – and still I can’t seem
to come to grips with the reality of my heartbreak, if only people knew what I am going through and what
all of this meant to me. For the past
several weeks, the thought of Rosalie consumed me. Without any exaggeration, it
was already a matter of life and death to me at this point.
The case of Rosalie was
referred to me by a friend, through an innocent phone call that unexpectedly
came while I was cruising EDSA on another rainy afternoon in mid-July. I
vividly remember hesitating whether or not to take the call, wary of accidents
that occur most of the time from the slightest distraction. Atty. John was
almost frantic, struggling to catch his breath on the other end of the line while
narrating the story of this family fortune that now lies at the center of a
bitter and protracted lawsuit. And this is where Rosalie comes in. If we can
prove that she is still alive, we might as well take a bite from out of all that
bounty.
And so during the next few
weeks, I live, eat, and think of that single thought and in fact even in my
dreams, I dream of Rosalie. How is she now, how does she look like, and most of
all, where can I find her. Every single day and every single hour of those past
few weeks, I agonized over these thoughts, completely consumed by the great
desire to know the answers to my questions. It was like a seed had been planted
to the core of my soul. It was causing me so many sleepless nights. It was already
eating bits off my health and I was sincerely terrified it might just be a matter
of time before it robs me of my sanity.
Long hours of research and
visits to government offices, meeting people, asking around, losing my way to where
I am going, finding my way back again to where I’ve been, spending the last
cent of my money, borrowing someone else’s money and spending it to the last
cent, skipping several meals, and missing important appointments, I have to
deal with all of that, which is really bad but not as bad compared to the fact that the
progress of my search had been excruciatingly slow. Only bits and pieces of
information would come out of the blue which do not even remotely compensate
for the enormous amount of energy I was already expending.
This much I have learned.
She was born sometime before the war. Married in the 50’s and after that,
disappeared without a trace. And now, I need her with the urgency and
desperation of one who lives his life for the moment that he finds the missing
map to the hidden treasure, the one elusive piece of the puzzle that I will
never ever forgive myself if I should let it elude me. That’s how obsessed I was.
I remember early this morning, my conversation
with Mr. Horror Movie. He was at the stockroom of the census office in Times
Street, and immediately upon seeing him I was prompted to relate the experience
to something about movies. You know what, I have this habit of automatically connecting
people, events, and experiences to the movies I watched or books I’ve read at
some point in my life and on that particular moment, my reaction to the sight
of Mr. Horror Movie was obviously unflattering. But what am I supposed to do?
That meeting turned on the hidden switch. I couldn’t think of any other image
or sentiment that would connect me to him except for the Nightmare on Elm
Street. One of these days, I would have painful karmic lessons from having this
aberrant behavior.
But there he was, in what I
would call the dungeon of the census, a place that reeks of the stench of
decay, the dim light mood does not help in any way to assuage my morbid mixed emotions when I walked in. As I turned left to one of the isles in between rows of
bookshelves, he was there, smiling a wicked smile that almost made the hair on
my neck stand stiff. But in fairness, he went about his work with the absolute dedication
of the man who seems to honestly want to have nothing else to do with the rest of his life
than this. I wouldn’t be surprised if his last wish is to get buried somewhere here.
I mentioned to him first the
full name of Rosalie making sure I pronounced it right and gave the few details I have gathered about her life from
all my adventures and just like that, Mr. Horror Movie immediately went to work
scanning across piles upon piles of documents that connect to the past, frozen
in time.
I was surprised to be left
alone in the dim-lit room with the mixed scents of noxious fumes, dead things,
the leaking sewer, and the unforgettable smell of paper mill that never fails
to take me back in time to my old job as proofreader at the old Evening Post. I
tried looking behind my back from time to time, expecting some rabid voracious
beast to leap out of the dark and devour my intestines. In that brief interlude
of time somewhere underneath the bowels of this scary old building, amidst
shadows and secrets, I fought fear by retracing my steps back to that dark rainy
afternoon in July when I received Atty. John’s phone call while driving in the
middle of Edsa. One day, I was in Sta. Rosa Laguna, and the next day, I was
flirting with the thought of taking the last plane trip to Davao but decided
against it after a friend tipped that someone at the Civil Registry in Mandaluyong
holds the key to my fortune. One moment I was at Quiapo underpass looking at magic amulets, and at the South Cemetery
the next. And then there was that drinking binge with forgers, fixers and plain
crooks during yet another typhoon-ravaged evening at some stinky bar in Claro
M. Recto, when I had grown so desperate, too desperate that I seriously
considered breaking the law if that is the only way to get what I wanted.
The introspection was cut
short by Mr. Horror Movie’s sudden appearance from the dark, carrying a huge
book that let loose a mighty spray of dust when he abruptly opened its pages.
And there it was. Everything that I wanted to know about Rosalie. That yes indeed,
she walked the aisle as a 21 year old bride in 1957. I wonder what gown she
had, the scent she wore. Was she pure and untouched at the altar on that day? Afterall, those
were the days.
And then, finally, I got
the fact that I wanted to know. The one answer to my question, the one I've been waiting for. Immediately, I
wanted to scream, I wanted to tear this building apart, I wanted this place to
burn to the ground, tell it to bring its secrets to hell, and never come back again even in my memory. My instinct was to bid my
farewell to Mr. Horror Movie, but as if on cue, as if to read my thoughts, he
offered his hand, not saying a word, but I fully understand that what he meant
was his job was done and I should be going. I accepted the handshake and it
felt cold, like shaking the hand of a body that’s just been taken out from the
morgue. When I turned my back and headed for the sunlight, I had to squint and
blink to adjust to the sun until I realized I was in tears.
If my discovery from the
dungeon with Mr. Horror Movie this morning was not enough to bring me down to
my knees, my next quick stop – here at Pinaglabanan crushed my spirit beyond
resurrection, by this time, the sun had absconded and left the whole of the heavens
to the rain. So this is where the journey stops, I said to myself. Rain-drenched Pinaglabanan. As I
held the paper in my hand – a reproduction of the microfilm entry that
officially validates the record I just found at the dungeon – I was consumed
with a totally different, incomparable kind of emptiness that I have never felt
before in my entire life. Rosalie has become more than a ghost from the past. I
realized she has taken her place somewhere in the deepest corners of my
consciousness, a place that takes only the worst of emotions to enable me to sink deep
enough to recognize that it actually exists.
I wonder what they made
Rosalie wear at the funeral, her own funeral. I wanted to know if the mortician
did a good job to conceal the ravages of tuberculosis that led to her untimely
death at the tender age of 24, three years after her wedding. Maybe she was a
beautiful woman, a lovely bride, but how was she when she laid there lifeless.
Cold. Dead. It is almost unfathomable that someone I have never even met,
someone I would never have the chance to know, someone who was there long
before I came, and left already long before I had my turn to come to life,
someone who is not and never will be a part of me except perhaps for a passing
memory, or if not an obscure image in time, a speck in space, indeed unfathomable is
the only word I can think of to describe the short, very short and anonymous
life she lived and in the mysterious confluence of events that she found me, or
rather that I found her, and then how one thing led to another until here I am
questioning my purpose, my being, my own faith. I was grieving for someone I
never came to know, someone from another generation far removed from the day
the great force behind the order of things commanded that I come to life.
I am a man who had lived
through many episodes of pain and grief but here, right here under the rain, while
holding the paper that is already beginning to wilt in my hand, the suit I was wearing
already a complete mess, and my spirit broken, and as I stood defiant under the
rain, and completely soaked to the bone, I knew I had fallen down a new depth where
I have never gone before. Another heartbreak like this would probably kill me.
Rest in peace Rosalie…
