by M. Evelina Galang
From the collection in progress, Strength is the Woman

Soledad massaged Lola E’s forearm, ran her thumb through the thick of the old lady’s yellow skin. The wrinkles were fine. And there were constellations of freckles—little moons and stars and planets that dipped and turned around the bend of the elbow. Lola E closed her eyes.
          “I used to take care of my Lola Lola in just the same way, you know,” Lola Epang said. “I had strong little hands like yours.” The old woman mewed like an alley cat. “When you get old, every little thing hurts, Nini.”
          Soledad pressed down but not too hard. She liked to imagine Lola E was her grandmother. The child’s skin had been kissed by the sun and washed in the sea almost every day. Her dark fingers moved fast, kneading the arm over and over. “Ganito, po?”
          “Perfect, Nini. I love you best.”

*

Soledad’s parents were the caretakers of the Mayor’s house, a mansion that stood at the top of their little fishing village. Just below the three-story house, the sea roared in spurts. The Mayor’s children were grown and living in America so the only people in the house were Soledad and her little brothers, Washington and Edison, her parents, the Mayor, his wife, and his mother Lola Epang.
          Soledad was too little to cook, but she was quick and ran errands for her mother, went fishing with her father, and after school, she was always allowed to go into Lola Epang’s bedroom to sit in air conditioning and watch the telenovelas from Korea.
          “Look at her throwing herself at him,” Lola E said, pointing to the pouty white-faced lawyer. “She should have more dignity.” 
          The whole thing was dubbed in Tagalog. The voices of Filipino actors and actresses whined over the unemotional bass of the Korean characters. 
          “Pero, La, tingnan mo – gwapo yan. They call him Romeo.” Soledad’s mother took a wet hand-towel and bathed Lola E, starting right at the top of the old woman’s forehead and washing down the nape of her neck, gently rubbing at the bony shoulders and the sunken dib-dib just under her duster. 
          “Ikaw naman,” Lola E said. “Smart women don’t need men like that, no matter how handsome.” 
          The sun was high and the room was hot, even with the noisy window air con. Soledad looked up at her mother. The washcloth swabbed at the nub where Lola E’s foot once was. Soledad craned her neck just a little when she got to the other leg, infected where the toes used to be. 
          Downstairs the door creaked open and Mrs. Mayor was singing, “Hello! Hello!” She plodded up the stairs and called, “Bring my tsinelas, Soledad!” 
          Lola E closed her eyes. She rolled her body away from the door, and pulled the covers up to her neck. 
          “Soledad!” called Mrs. Mayor, “Where are my tsinelas?” 
          Mrs. Mayor stumbled right into the room, talking quick like a commercial interrupting the telenovela. She turned the screen off, turned the air con off, pulled the curtains shut. “Wasting electricity.” 
          “M’am it’s too hot,” said Soledad’s mother. “Kawawa naman si Lola.”
          “So draw the drapes and turn off all these appliances and when the sun goes down it will be cool.” She peered over Lola E’s shoulder, pulling the sheet taut as if she cared. 
          Lola E winked at Soledad, put her finger to her lips. “Mama, you sleeping? Let me see, Dora, what are you doing?” Mrs. Mayor looked at the infected foot. “Put the wet towel on it.”
          “But M’am the doctora said ...” “Doctora, doctora. What does she know? Let’s keep the foot moist and see how God will fix it. Soledad, my slippers, anak. How many times must I ask?” 
          Soledad ran from the room and across the narra wood floors, in search of Mrs. Mayor’s bamboo slippers.

*

When the sun began to slip down into the sea, the Mayor entered the house and an orange glow spilled all over, painting the dark furniture and its ornate carvings—the day bed with its thousand pillows, the two narra wood thrones before a giant wall of ancestors. Throughout the top floor, the wide-open windows invited the evening light, the branches from the trees and the wind. Soledad set the dining room table, counting the silverware in her hands, but now and then, she’d watch the Mayor standing at Lola E’s door, watching his mother sleep. He stood there until the sunlight set. He stood like he was standing at the beautiful stained glass window in the corner of their church in town, studying the lines and colors, the shape of Mama Mary and her arms, holding up her son, the only One, lying dead in her arms. After a while he called out to her. 
          “Ma, kamusta ka?” 
          His shoulders drooped and his voice was small. She probably doesn’t hear him, Soledad thinks. Her hearing is not so good. 
          “Ma! Gising ka? It’s me, Sonny boy. How was your day?” If she doesn’t answer you, she is sleeping, Soledad thinks. She only pretends with Mrs. Mayor. You, she loves.

*

At night, curled next to her brothers on a cot just outside the kitchen, Soledad dreamed of aswang creeping out from under the beds of the house, feeding on the blood of Mrs. Mayor. The wife had eyes that glowed Jello-green, she schemed with all the witches, found ways to make Lola E’s life miserable. Soledad hated her. Soledad wished her dead. She opened all the windows wider, she invited the moon to come in and drink all the evil out of the house. She asked the angels to hover over Lola E. “She is old,” Soledad said in her dream. “She can’t fight for herself, and Mrs. Mayor is an aswang.” 
          When she woke, her mother was holding her and wiping the tears from Soledad’s eyes. Edison and Washington growled like wild pigs to slaughter. The moonlight was everywhere. 
          “Dream lang, anak,” her mother said. “Wake up. Okay ka. Dream lang.” 
          She couldn’t distinguish the day from night. She couldn’t tell if her mother’s arms were real. It took her a while to feel the kisses on her forehead. “Ina,” she told her mother now. “We have to help Lola E.” 
          “Shhh, anak. We help her every day.” 
          Soledad’s wailing burst from the walls. She was lost and the only one who saw what was happening. Out in the streets the bedroom lights broke open like stars, one at a time, wondering where the cries were coming from. 
          “From the Mayor’s house,” said a neighbor. 
          “From the kitchen,” whispered a child. 
          And in the morning, the Mayor spoke with Soledad’s father. Told him that he would have to control his daughter. “It’s not that we mind her crying,” said the Mayor, “But the whole village can hear her.” 
          “Op, po,” answered her father. 
          The whole village heard and knew.

*

Soledad and her brothers were just climbing out of the motorboat when the Americana stepped out of the van. The children ran up the hill to see her long legs, her thin white arms and a pair of sunglasses sitting so big on her tiny nose Soledad figured she had to be a movie star. 
          “She so large,” said Washington. “She’s a man?” 
          “No stupid,” she told him. “She’s American. Americans are gigantic from all the vegetables they eat. I hear she eats no meat. Gulay lang.” 
          She was not too pretty to be a man. Cher, the town transvestite, was glamorous in his blonde wig and thick pancake makeup, but his colors were brighter than the Americana, more glittery and flashy. Come to think of it, Cher, was skinnier than the Americana. She was round and Soledad could tell, soft. She wore no makeup save a little bit of lip balm. Not a man. 
          “Who is she?” asked Edison.
          
“Pinsan ni Mayor,” said Washington. 
          “Daughter of Lola Letty,” Soledad said. Edison’s small brown face stared at her blankly, 
          “You remember, she was the Lola from Chicago, the one who married the man from Davao?” 
          “Oh, she’s pretty too,” Washington said. “Chinese eyes. Remember her visit last year?” 
          “Aha,” said Soledad. She thought about that Americana who was much smaller than this Americana, but white like her and elegant and old. “She is the daughter of that one.” 
          The Americana was as tall as the palm trees, lifting shopping bags and other supot out of the back of the Mayor’s van. The children watched her from just behind the wheel of a red pick up truck, their feet still sandy and wet from the dagat. Over their shoulders they rested three fish they had caught.           
          “Will she stay long,” asked Edison. 
          “Will she swim with us?” 

*

Soledad handed the fish to her brothers. “Take these to Ina,” she ordered them.     “I’m going to help.” When the Mayor saw Soledad running from behind the truck he waved her over.
          “Help Ate bring her bags up,” he said. “Be careful not to fall.”
The Americana squatted down to meet Jolin eye to eye. “So beautiful,” she said. “And look at this little sundress! So sweet. Ano ang pangalan mo?”
          Her words were broken up, like shells that had been crushed and scattered in the sand.
          “Soledad, po,” the little girl answered.
          “Sige, Soledad, take me to my Auntie Epang.”
          “Si Lola?”
          “Take her, but don’t wake Lola E up, Soledad,” said the Mayor.

*

Americana barreled into the room with her arms out, calling, “Auntie Epang, it’s me!” Then, to Soledad’s surprise, Americana crawled into the bed and and kissed her Auntie’s face. “Auntie Epang,” whispered the Americana, “It’s me your namesake, your Josie, its me.” She pulled Lola E’s hair off the forehead and kissed there too. The old woman’s eyes were shut tight like she was in a deep sleep and maybe dreaming. But even this did not stop Americana. And when the old woman opened her eyes and saw Americana’s face shining over her like a full moon, the old woman cracked a smile. A smile! She took Americana’s face into her bony hands and pulled her to her and kissed her back. And then she snapped her head back and said, “Ha!” She pinched the Americana’s skinny arm. 
          “Auntie!”
          
Lola E made a face, pouted, pinched Americana again. “Didn’t I tell you?” 
          “I tried! There’s no one!” 
          “Didn’t you promise me?” Lola E pulled away and then to Soledad she said, “I told her to settle down. She says, O, po. And then she comes back. Walang asawa. You are not a dalaga anymore, Josie. Sana you get married na!” 
          “I am not an old maid either,” laughed Americana. “Auntie,” she said, running her hands up and down the old lola, kissing her hands and laughing. “No one marries in the States.” 
          Americana leaned over the bed and from her supot she revealed a handful of chocolates covered in shiny gold tinsel. “Your favorite,” Americana said, unwrapping a piece. Lola E winked at her then and opened her mouth and stuck her tongue out. Americana laid a piece of chocolate there as if it were the Host itself. 
          Lola Epang smiled big and wide, her false teeth sparkling in the afternoon light. “I love you best, my girl. I love you best.” 
          “Po,” Soledad said, “Lola E is not supposed to eat sugar.” 
          “Silly girl,” Americana said, placing a chocolate in Soledad’s hand. “Now and then. It’s not going to kill her.” The cocoa melted in Soledad’s mouth and filled her up with sweetness, but all she could taste was bitter. She loves me best, Soledad thought. She loves me.

*

Ina fixed Lola Epang’s tray of lugaw, the broth so transparent there seemed to be no trace of rice, of fish, ginger or kamatis. She placed a tasa of calmansi juice and a little saucer of pills on the saucer on the tray. She finished off the tray with a little flower vase. 
          Americana was looking over Ina’s shoulders. “Wow. That’s a lot of medication. Does she need all that?” 
          “For the pain, po. For the infection in the foot.” 
          “And those pink ones?” 
          “For the diabetes.” 
          “Once a day?” 
          “Three times, po.” 
          Outside the children were parading in the streets. A big bass drum and horns and little bells. Holy Thursday, school was getting out. The whole town was getting ready for the Last Supper. In the middle of the parade, twelve disciples, and a man to play Jesus. 
          Americana turned to the open back door, high above the street and waved at the parade. “Are those your boys?” she asked Ina. Washington and Edison were in a kazoo band, waving their arms to the sky, jumping up high as if to leap to the window. 
          Ina called to them and when the two were not looking, Mrs. Mayor came to the kitchen and took the tray to Lola Epang. 
          Soledad followed the Mayor’s wife, as she always did. She studied Mrs. Mayor’s crooked back, the way it snaked up her shirt and turned in circles back down her spine. She stood in the hallway, just far enough away to see Mrs. Mayor placing the tray down on Lola E’s dressing table, swiping the saucer of medicine and tossing the pills into her purse. 
          “Come on, Mama, wake up!” said Mrs. Mayor, “Let me subu you this lugaw.” She placed a tissue under Lola E’s chin, and carefully, she spooned the soup up to the old woman’s lips. Lola E refused to open her mouth. 
          “Please, Mama, you need her strength.” She pried the old woman’s lips open and shoved the spoon in fast. Lola Epang spat the food out, spewed rice all over Mrs. Mayor’s silk white dress. 
          “Dora!” called Mrs. Mayor. “There’s been an accident!”

*

After siesta that day, Americana slipped back into Lola Epang’s room and the two of them made tsimis, spinning stories of all the aunts and uncles, of the lolas and lolos and all the cousins they called family. The television sat cold, the telenovelas silenced. Soledad watched from a porch window, just across from Lola Epang’s bedroom. What about Romeo, thought Soledad. Doesn’t she want to know? Americana was always touching Lola. Always bending down to kiss her hand. She was a tease. All afternoon their voices rose up and down, teetering like the cicadas in the trees. At sundown, the Mayor stood at the door, watching as he always did. Silent. He didn’t interrupt them. He let them whisper to one another. He let them fall asleep, lying in the bed like that. He watched them and from where Soledad sat, she saw that he was crying.

*

When the priest arrived that night, to put his cool hand on Lola E’s head, to bless her and pray with her, to give her a taste of the Host, Americana sat on a chair, holding Lola’s hand. Mrs. Mayor closed her eyes; chanted Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be louder than the priest. Her voice carried high above the clatter of the children bouncing basketballs on the streets, rattled through the house like a lost set of marbles. Everyone closed their eyes.

*

Sitting on the balcony, Mrs. Mayor entertained the priest and the Americana. Soledad served them miniature rice cakes with sweet orange soda, pretended she wasn’t listening. She could see Lola E in her bedroom, head back and stirring, pain welling up and releasing from her in little moans. 
          “I don’t know what to do,” said Mrs. Mayor, “It’s good that you come every day. My husband’s heart breaks every time he enters this house. We are grieving already, you know.” 
          “Her heart seems strong,” the priest said, “her faith too. What do the doctors say?” 
          “Malapit na,” she whispered, leaning over her dessert plate. “Death is near.” 
          Americana answered fast, “Not true. I spent all day with her today. She was fine – all things considered.” 
          Not true, thinks Soledad. Not true. You mean old witch. You aswang. Not true.

*

Because it was Holy Thursday, the whole town stayed awake, making preparations for Good Friday. Soledad and the Americana walked the priest back to the cathedral through the village where the houses were on hills and the streets wound in lazy loops. The women in the church had already begun singing and the voices called to them. All night they would sing to Jesus, the Lord. Keep him company as they washed his full-sized body, lying in the glass casket. He was made of the same stuff as dolls, but large with wounds in his hands, his feet and side. Tonight was the night of His suffering and all the town’s women would sing to him. Tonight the moon was nearly full. 
          They arrived just as they were pulling the Lord out of the glass casket, pulling him by his bloody feet. The church smelled of rosewater and each of the dozen women were busy washing the legs and the arms and the torso, swabbing each wound with the holiest water. They dressed him in a purple garment. They zipped his pants and buttoned up the coat. If he weren’t dead already, he’d die of heat, thought Soledad. The oldest manang, Charing, brought the special Christ wig out of its box—blond like Cher’s but long and full of ringlets—and placed it carefully on his head. She kissed Jesus’ cheek. 
          Soledad sat in a pew next to Americana, watching her head bowed and swaying, watching her breath move in and out of her chest. The shoulders were caved downward. She placed her brown hand on Americana’s back. She patted her. She rubbed her smooth arm. Americana sighed. Soledad saw the tears coming down. She closed her eyes and said a prayer. If I tell you, she wondered, would you save her?      
          Soledad thought about it all night long, through the prayers of the town women, through the dawn when the two walked back to the house, followed by stray kittens and errant chickens. She took Americana’s hand, she led her up the stairs, and into Lola E’s bedroom. And there the Mayor’s wife stood, over the old woman’s bed, her body rocking as if pushed by the wind, her voice humming low, her hands gripping the old woman where her feet used to be.

About the Author
M. Evelina Galang is the author of HER WILD AMERICAN SELF (Coffee House Press, ’96); the novel ONE TRIBE (New Issues Press, ’06); and ANGEL DE LA LUNA AND THE 5TH GLORIOUS MYSTERY (Coffee House Press 2013). She has edited the anthology, SCREAMING MONKEYS: Critiques of Asian American Images (Coffee House Press, ‘03). She is currently writing LOLAS’ HOUSE: WOMEN LIVING WITH WAR, stories of surviving Filipina WWII “Comfort Women” and is at work on a new novel, BEAUTIFUL SORROW, BEAUTIFUL SKY. Galang teaches in and directs the Creative Writing Program at the University of Miami, is core faculty for VONA/Voices: Voices of Our Nation Arts Foundation and has been named one of the 100 most influential Filipinas in the United States by Filipina Women’s Network.