Dogeaters Read Free Page B

on the radio. My yaya Lorenza is terrified and cowers in the kitchen every time the thunder crackles and explodes. She is tearfully cleaning grains of rice, picking out the tiny pebbles and white worms before the rice can be cooked by Pacita. “ Dios ko , dios ko , dios ko ,” she mutters, biting her lip and making signs of the cross. She will be the last to join us in my grandmother’s room, where we are all concentrating hard on the story inside the radio. My parents and brother seem distant and harmless, although they are only a few rooms away. My mother has forgotten all about me and assumes Lorenza has put me to bed. I am curled up under the crocheted bedspread on my lola ’s bed. Lola Narcisa rocks in her chair. Aida, Pacita, Fely, and the chauffeur Macario sit or stand in various corners of the room, straining to listen.
    I try to blot from my mind the image of my grandfather Whitman sick in the hospital, the shabby American Hospital with its drab green walls, drab green smells, and the hovering presence of the hospital’s supervising staff of melancholy American doctors. Like my grandfather, they are leftovers from recent wars, voluntary exiles whose fair skin is tinged a blotchy red from the tropical sun or too much alcohol; like his, their clothes and skin reek of rum and Lucky Strikes. It is not an unpleasant scent, something soothing I associate with old American men and my grandfather Whitman, whom I love.
    My Lola Narcisa claims that her husband is the first white man stricken with bangungot. She seems almost proud of his nightmare sickness, a delirious fever in which he sweats, sleeps, and screams. Most bangungot victims die overnight in their sleep. It is a mysterious illness which usually claims men. My grandfather’s case is even stranger than most—he’s been sick like this for weeks. At first, the American doctors diagnosed malaria. After a week, they patrolled the corridor outside my grandfather’s private room, consulting each other worriedly and coming up with more, far-fetched theories. Bangungot is ruled out of the picture by the chief of staff, Dr. Leary, who dismisses the tropical malady as native superstition, a figment of the overwrought Filipino imagination.
    I have been to the hospital only once, with my lola and the cook Pacita. My parents have forbidden me to go back; when I ask why, my father replies, “You are much too young to be around sick people.
    “It’s best to remember your grandfather as a healthy man.” What they don’t seem to understand is that unlike Raul, I’m not afraid.
    When Love Letters is over, the servants file out of the room, murmuring good-night and thanks to my grandmother. Lorenza even comes back with another bowl of snacks for Lola Narcisa: minced red salted duck eggs dabbed with vinegar, more rice with crunchy dilis. Happy and lost in her radio reverie, my grandmother nods and smiles at no one in particular. Lorenza turns to give me one last warning before leaving the room. “Rio, if you don’t go to bed in your own room, your mother will chop my head off.” I grin at her and put my finger to my lips. “I won’t tell, Lorenza. Promise.”
    My grandmother dabs her eyes with one of my grandfather’s oversized handkerchiefs. The Love Letters theme song is playing, a saccharine instrumental melody replete with organ and violins. The somber voice of the male announcer intones, “Tune in for the next episode of Love Letters at the same time tomorrow night. And so, until then…”
    Hunching her bony shoulders, Lola Narcisa leans in closer to the radio, as if by doing so she can prolong her precious drama one more second. An eerie, high-pitched sound is followed by the voice of the same radio announcer, this time more cheery and impersonal. “This is DZRK, Radiomanila, signing off for the evening. At the sound of the tone, it’s exactly twelve midnight, in the Blessed Year of the Family Rosary. Remember: The family that prays together, stays