Tin-tin has become bored this summer. In the city, there is nothing for her to do. Her best friend Raquel has gone to spend the week with her grandparents in a northern province, and Tin-tin is too shy to make friends with the other children who sometimes play in the park when the sun is setting and the day begins to cool down. She cannot even accompany her mother on her daily errands and shopping trips. All the malls and stores are closed, and her mother has been staying home all day herself. No movies are shown at the theaters, and the T.V. stations air their worst and oldest programs. The radio that the maids listen to while they prepare the family' s meals broadcasts nothing but the story of Christ's life. Nearly everyone has been given the week off, and already the other Manilenyos have made their mass exodus out of the city. Some have gone to visit relatives in their hometowns. Still others have gone to Hong Kong for their annual shopping trip. Tin-tin's parents have told her that she is still too young to take abroad, and when Tin-tin tells her mother that she wants to ride the horses in Baguio, her mother responds that the roads to the north have been destroyed by mudflow. Tin-tin's mother reminds her that she is one of the lucky children who did not lose her home in the floods this past monsoon season. Tin-tin's family decides that this Holy Week will be spent at the family's beach house instead. This morning, Tin-tin is woken and dressed,
pillow-marks on her soft cheeks. As she whines softly at the early
hour, her yaya pulls her favorite t-shirt on-- the one with her name written
in big, rainbow-colored letters across its chest. Yaya Auring
reminds
But Tin-tin does not hear her nanny's promises. A quick glance out the window tells her the sun is not out yet, and she decides to go back to sleep. She feels Yaya pick her up and carry her out into the car. Still an only child and the youngest of eight
cousins, Tin-tin is pampered and indulged, but too quiet and well-behaved
to ever be called spoiled. She has the fair skin of a Spanish mestiza,
and her mother is determined that it will stay that way. Her curly, light
brown hair is the cause of much ooohhing and aaahhing and good-natured
When she awakes, Tin-tin sits up and peers out of the car window. The sky is a cloudless blue and the sun is warm on her face. The heat shimmers up off of the black asphalt road and to Tin-tin it looks like pools of silver water from a distance. The wind blows over the rice paddies, rustling the bougainvilla plants that cascade madly over the walls of provincial houses. The palm trees outside sway slowly from left to right, like hands waving goodbye as the car whizzes past them. Tin-tin's parents ask her and Yaya Auring if they are hungry, and when Tin-tin says yes, they decide to take a break. The village that their car pulls into is bustling, and the traffic is heavy. In the village square, old ladies sit at a table reading the Pasyon in high, nasal voices. Amidst goats and dogs, vendors sell rosaries and scapulars with elaborate engravings of Joseph, Mary and the child Jesus. Tin-tin recognizes the Holy Family from the storybooks her mother reads to her and from the statues and paintings they have in their own home. On the roadside, men kneel on the ground, bare-chested, flogging themselves with whips to which pieces of broken glass have been tied. Tin-tin's father tells her that these are bad men who are trying to earn God's forgiveness by punishing themselves. Tin-tin nods and continues watching. "Que barbaridad!" Tin-tin's mother says, shuddering visibly. She orders Tin-tin to close her eyes and turn away from the bloody sight, but Tin-tin's father says, "Tin-tin, look at that." He points out a procession to her. A man wearing a crown of thorns drags a wooden cross over the ground. When he gets to the village square, he lays his cross down on the parched earth and allows himself to be nailed on to it. "Forgive them, Father," he cries out to the audience assembled to watch the holy drama, "they know not what they do." * * * Back in the car, eating their french fries, Tin-tin and her father begin to play the game that they reserve for long car trips. Her brown eyes quickly scan the landscape, and she and her father begin to count the water buffalo used to pull the plows through the rich muddy fields. The game keeps her occupied for hours, and every so often her father pretends to lose count. "Eight, Daddy!" Tin-tin corrects him, "That's the eighth carabao!" "But we were at seven before that, so it should be nine," her father says. Tin-tin fills the car with her gurgling laugh. She knows her father is joking. "No, no, it's eight. After seven is eight!" Her father smiles at her in the rear-view mirror. "You're absolutely right, princess. After seven is eight." As they drive the air turns wet and salty and to the east, past the fishermen's small nipa huts, the sky begins its graceful downward arc to rest on the smooth blue ocean. There are no more carabaos on the coastline-- they mostly live further in on the islands where the soil is a fertile brown and the green grass is not coated grey with dust. It does not matter to Tin-tin now, for she is crying out excitedly. She thinks she sees a small bangka bobbing along on the waves. On it she imagines a bare-chested fisherman, his sun-bleached hair so much lighter than the near-blackness of his skin, pulling in a net of wriggling, big-eyed fish. Her father promises her that he will pay a fisherman to take them out on his boat with him. When they get to the beach house, a swarm of children clamber out of hammocks slung between coconut trees and rush to the car to greet them. Tin-tin's uncles follow a few steps behind their children, having taken time to set down their San Miguel beers on the veranda. Inside, the women are adding the final ingredients to their lunch and the scent of garlic and grilling seafood mingles with the salty ocean breeze. Tin-tin wants to change into her swimsuit and play in the ocean. No, her mother tells her, she must have some lunch first. Lunch is a tumultous affair of spilled food and drinking glasses full of ice-cold water knocked over. The children are ordered to try and sit still, but one cousin never eats sitting down, and the other one will not eat unless he can play with his toy car, and yet another one will not eat at all. Every now and then one of the older cousins pinches Tin-tin's cheeks and asks for a kiss, a request that Tin-tin is happy to comply with. The women roll their eyes as the men talk of stocks and shares and business in big booming voices and one of Tin-tin's aunts finally exclaims in exasperation, "Kayo talaga! We came here on vacation. You're supposed to be relaxing!" At that the men settle down and begin heaping food onto their plates once more. The men eat like men, with plenty of rice to go with the rest of their meals. There is crisp, fried lumpia with garlic and vinegar, and boiled crab and grilled prawns with lemon butter sauce, and a stew of pork and chicken. As one of Tin-tin's cousins puts some of the stew on her own plate, her mother cries out. "Naku, Michelle! Don't eat the adobo! You're supposed to be abstaining!" Michelle is reminded that she just turned thirteen and can no longer eat meat during Holy Week. "Maila," Tin-tin's father snaps, "don't overreact. What's a little bit of pork? If the girl wants some, let her have some. She can do a good deed instead." "'A good deed' instead of abstinence during the Holy Week? What kind of bola is that?" Tin-tin's mother makes a face. The gold charms on the bracelets around her wrists jingle lightly like chimes. "You can eat meat if you do a good deed for the day instead." He sees that his wife does not believe him. It was Father Cruz himself who told me this. Father Cruz," he insists. Tin-tin's mother ignores him and turns to Michelle. "Don't eat it unless you're going to confess it at Mass on Sunday," she tells the girl. Michelle tells Tin-tin's father, "It's okay, Tito, i'll just make the sacrifice." She looks apologetic. With a clattering of silverware and china, the adobo is spooned onto Tin-tin's plate instead and her yaya feeds it to her with some of the garlic rice. After finishing her meal, Tin-tin asks again if she may play on the beach. Her mother says no. The sun is too hot and even her older cousins are staying indoors for a few hours because they do not want to get dark. Instead, Tin-tin's cousins teach her how to play Chinese jackstones on the dining room floor, and although the little beanbags are too big to hold all at once in her tiny hands, her cousins allow Tin-tin to cheat. "Are you looking forward to starting school in June, after summer's over?" one of her older cousins asks her as they play. Tin-tin is fascinated by how quickly the older girls juggle the beanbags in the air. Tin-tin does not answer her cousin's question. She has seen St. Catherine's school and been interviewed there by a stern-faced nun who wouldn't take her to see the classrooms when she asked. "You will disturb the other children," the Sister had told her, shaking her head. Tin-tin had been fascinated with the nun's white wimple and wondered what her hair looked like underneath it, but she had been too afraid to ask. When the Sister took her out of the office and led her down the hallway to the waiting room where her mother was, she caught a glimpse of the dusty brown classrooms. The walls were green, and children sat stiffly in their chairs, all facing the blackboard. But her parents have decided she is to go there. It is a good Catholic girls' school, one of the top ones in the country. Her female cousins all attend St. Catherine's, and so do the girls from the best families in Manila. At least her best friend Raquel will be going there too. "Naku Sandra, you should have seen her when we were measuring her for her uniform! She was so excited to wear it, just like her big cousins! 'No, Auring?" Tin-tin's mother says. Yaya Auring smiles vaguely and murmurs something from the kitchen which Tin-tin's mother takes as assent. Yaya Auring is a small person, very thin and shorter even than some of Tin-tin's cousins who are only fourteen years old. Yaya Auring herself is all of eighteen years. Her hair is rough and curls closely to her head. She has a wide grin and a mole on her left cheek, right below her eye. "What a big girl my daughter is already!" says Tin-tin's mother. "Maila, it's your turn," Tin-tin's uncle calls her mother's attention back to their card game. "Ha? Oh." She hurriedly scans her cards and drops a straight down onto the table. "The tide's going down," one of Tin-tin's cousins points out. Tin-tin's father gets up from the card table. "Come on, Tin-tin. Time to change." Tin-tin jumps up eagerly off the floor. Her yaya picks up Tin-tin's bag and starts to follow into the bedroom Tin-tin will be sleeping in with her parents, but Tin-tin's father takes the bag from her and smiles kindly. "It 's okay, Yaya Auring, I'll take care of her. Go rest." Tin-tin's yaya sits back down and resumes chatting with the other servants in the jerky southern dialect Tin-tin does not understand. "Don't forget the sunblock, ha, Mon?" Her mother calls out before he shuts the door behind them. Tin-tin's father helps her disrobe, takes off her favorite t-shirt and her purple shorts, strips off her cotton flowered underpants. Tin-tin stands naked before him, nervously shifting her weight from foot to foot. Her father rummages in the bag through towels and baby powder for her bathing suit. He pulls it out. It is pink and ruffled with pastel-colored fish swimming on it. Tin-tin's father helps her into it and she starts to scamper out the door. "Wait," he says, "we're not done yet." Tin-tin watches as he pulls out a bottle of sunblock and squirts some on his hand. He slathers the cold lotion on her soft shoulders, her arms, her back, her legs, going up to her small thighs. His warm hands glide over her slippery skin, smoothing more lotion on. As he lifts the little bathing-suit ruffle to rub some more sunscreen onto her bottom, Tin-tin pushes his hands aside and bolts out the door to play with her cousins. The water is a clear blue-green and laps gently at her feet. Tin-tin digs her toes into the wet sand as the waves pull away from her, frothing. A tiny crab darts in front of her, making a wild dash for the ocean. She chases after it, splashing knee-deep into the water. "Tin-tin, don't go deeper into the water. Come here na lang and make sandcastles with Paolo and Carlo," one of her older cousins tells her from the shore. From the veranda her aunts and uncles keep an eye on them, playing Chinese poker and drinking cold beer as they do. The older girls are tossing a frisbee around, and her two male cousins are busy building a fortress in the sand. She helps them dig a moat and goes to fetch water to pour into it when they tell her to. When the boys start placing little green plastic soldiers on the castle walls and playing war, she loses interest. A few feet away from the castle, Tin-tin forms a mountain of sand and pats it down tightly. "What are you making?" her cousin Paolo asks her when he tires of his game. "A crab." There are now six spindly legs sticking out of eiher side of her mound. Two small bulbous eyes sit on top of it. "That's not a crab! It doesn't even have claws to pinch you with!" "It's a crab," she insists. Carlo eyes the sculpture like an expert. "It looks more like a spider." A flash of inspiration hits him. "It's one of those big black hairy tarantulas!Let's build a spider web!" He and Paolo pile up thin lines of sand around the crab, and Tin-tin thinks maybe it did look more like a spider after all. But she is tired now of playing in the sand. Tin-tin's older cousins are going into the water and she goes with them. When the water goes above her head, she puts her arms around her tallest cousin's shoulders and clings to her as the water bobs them around like children's toys in a bathtub. The saltwater stings her eyes, making her blink furiously, and her cousins tell her to try and keep her head above the waves. The sun begins to sink into its ocean bed, spilling soft, orange light onto the beach. The fishermen's bangkas are coming back to shore for the evening, and the chugging of their diesel motors grows louder. Tin-tin' s aunt calls the children inside for dinner. Yaya Auring is preparing some fish bought from the fishermen, and fresh fish tastes best when eaten still hot from the pan. Yaya Auring comes from a fishing village down in the southern islands, and the whole family agrees she makes excellent fish. Dinner passes more quietly than lunch. The children are tired and this time they are hungry enough to sit and eat without too much fuss. The sun has made them hot and sleepy, and Tin-tin's skin is pink and stings slightly. Her mother berates her father for not putting more sunscreen on her; what if she gets freckles? Tin-tin is bathed and powdered and dressed in a sleeveless white sando. "Come sleep between Mommy and Daddy," her mother calls to her from the big bed in their room. "I'm not sleepy," Tin-tin says, suddenly not wanting to go to bed yet, "I want to play jackstones some more." She takes the little beanbags her cousins gave her, and sits on the floor to practice the game so she can play better against her cousins tomorrow. "Tin-tin, that's enough," her father says, "it's time to go to bed." Tin-tin looks up at her father's face and sees his stern expression. She climbs up on the cot that Yaya Auring made up for her. Her mother smiles at her from the big bed. "Don't you want to sleep here with us, Tin-tin?" Somewhere in the house, a loud clucking sound can be heard. "What's that sound?" Tin-tin asks. It frightens her, and so she willingly climbs up on the bed between her parents. "That's a tuko," her mother tells her sleepily, giving Tin-tin a wet kiss, "it's a kind of lizard." "Like a butiki?" Tin-tin asks, referring to the small yellow house lizards that she has seen climbing around the ceilings and walls in their home. "Like a butiki, but much bigger." "It's in the house?" "It might be under the house, or on the roof," her mother tells her. Her father laughs softly when he sees Tin-tin is distressed. "Don't worry, princess," he says, "it won't bite you if it sees you're sleeping with us." Tin-tin stiffens as her father puts his arm around her sun-warmed shoulders. "Did you say your prayers?" Tin-tin's mother asks her. Tin-tin shakes her head. "Angel of God..." she recites. Her parents say the prayer with her. Her mother snuggles into her pillow and soon Tin-tin can tell from her even breathing that she must be asleep. Tin-tin stays awake. In her mind, she sees a hideous green lizard twice her size. She imagines its sharp claws scratching against the wooden floor and its heavy tail thrashing around as it prowls the house in search of her. Slowly, her father's hand begins stroking her hair. Sometimes, during the tedium of Sunday mass, she puts her hands in her father's and he massages them, rubbing her small hands and wrists in the manner she likes. His hand moves under her sando, caressing her back lightly. Tu-ko, tu-ko, a lizard calls from somewhere in the darkness around them. His arm comes around her body, and the probing
hand becomes firmer, rubbing her belly, her chest. Beside her, her
mother makes a sound, half-snort, half-snore. The stroking stills
abruptly. Her mother takes an audible breath and rolls over onto
her side. Carefully, the gentle massage resumes. Tin-tin is silent,
watching her mother slumber beside her. Outside, the moon shines
white on the obsidian ocean and the tide is turning, dark rippling
waves creeping higher and higher up onto the shore like black spiders.
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