By
Art Villasanta
Saints long dead
I
ON WHAT SHOULD have been another pointless day,
he found himself consumed by an intense surge of joy that bent the noonday
light into a magical sphere enclosing them as they walked.
Inside this sphere that shut out the world, he
heard nothing save the wondrous echo of her voice as it sang in his mind. They
talked the mundane chatter of careless college students: the exam they hated;
the Carpenters and Smokey Robinson; their graduation just months away.
Even the impending sadness of parting from
her--perhaps forever, if he let it--seemed a pointless fear at this singular
moment as she walked with him, seemingly his shadow.
He knew he could now tell her. He could, if he
could keep his madly pounding heart from battering his brain senseless, making
him an idiot powerless to speak those beloved words he had always wanted to say
to her this past year.
He knew this was the last chance. He knew . . .
he knew Fate would abandon him completely unless he bravely seized this
singular moment.
The realization frightened him no end and, on
this bright and magical day, made him more aware of the unworthy monster he
knew he was.
She was the brightest girl in class and, to his
spellbound eyes, the loveliest. He drowned happily in joy again and again as he
stared at her so close beside him.
She turned that lovely face to him, saying
words that shattered in the air before reaching his ears. He smiled modestly
and saw nothing else on what should have been another pointless day save her
delicate face whose cheeks were a bloom of pink; her lips an inviting crimson
line.
Inside the university museum, their talk turned
to the dank and musty surroundings. He stayed close beside her, wanting to hold
her hand but afraid she would take offense and run away.
She paused before the cabinets housing stamps
from centuries past, and asked him in a tone both surprised and hurt, why he
disapproved of the way she dressed.
The shock of this unexpected remark struck a
deathblow to his already senseless brain. He stood mute and bewildered, groping
for words that would not forever destroy this singular moment.
She saw his confusion, turned her back to him
and walked ahead towards the statues of saints centuries old, half hidden in
the shadows. He followed like a wounded dog, commanding his numbed brain to
compose a reply that would not add to his humiliation.
She turned that lovely face to him and asked if
he would make the honors list this year.
No, he replied, but he knew she would.
Congratulations, he said.
She smiled modestly and suggested that perhaps
their adviser could help his grades further along. She would talk to her if he
wanted her to; she was her favorite.
"You shouldn't do these things for
me," he pleaded. "I don't have the right to ask anything of you . . .
"You look marvelous in a mini, except that
. . . other boys keep ogling you . . . and that hurts," he stuttered.
She gazed at him, surprised by his chaotic
replies. But she at last knew he did feel strongly for her. And that this
confusion was another of his muted ways of conveying the similar emotion she
had long felt for him but which she had kept in check.
She drew closer to him and let her right hand
touch his glistening forehead. She ran her warm fingers slowly along the side
of his face and over his scarred cheek.
He flinched, ashamed, and fought off the
consuming urge to lift her hand away from his face.
"I understand," she gently told him.
"And I don't care."
He embraced her tightly, suppressing his tears.
She parted her lips and they kissed
passionately in the faint light--amid statues of saints long dead staring
grimly at them.
A million miles away
II
SHE WAS GORGEOUS. I walked up to her the day
after I first saw her at the utilities office and introduced myself.
“Hi,” she replied in turn. “I’m Millie. So,
you’ve got business with my boss?”
I’m trying to sell him advertising, I told her.
“You’d be better off selling pencils at the
street corner,” she said with a laugh. “We don’t have money for advertising.”
I gotta try. Nothing ventured. Nothing gained,
I replied.
“Deep but corny. You must be, what, a writer or
something?” she shot back. “Because you sure don’t look like a salesman.”
If you’re not that busy, we could have lunch.
“Not today. I’ve got to get my ass back home.
But I’ll take a rain check on that.” She
was smiling at me as she left.
You’re on, I said.
I kept my eyes on her as she rounded the corner
to her office. I was getting the hang of American assertiveness.
We dated a week later. We often phoned each
other and met on weekends.
Millie and I were walking along a deserted
ribbon of beach late on a Saturday afternoon. We stopped by a sandbar whose
waters were a breathtaking riot of magnificent blues and bewitching turquoise.
I took off my shoes and socks and rolled up my
slacks. I’m going for a walk on the sandbar, I told her.
Millie sat cozily on a strip of grass, her
dress edging upward as she adjusted herself. She smiled and placed my shoes by
her side.
The water was wonderfully warm as I strode
forward. I was facing west, towards the Philippines a thousand miles from here,
trying to imagine what was happening in my home beneath the sunset.
I shut my eyes, slowly inhaling the bracing,
unsullied air. It was marvelous swallowing air you couldn’t see.
I’d be an overnight billionaire if I could
export this island’s pristine air to the Philippines, I thought jokingly.
I awoke with a start as Millie took my left
hand. She looked up at me. We embraced.
She snuggled closer, her lipstick smearing my
shirt.
“I love you,” she whispered softly.
I held her closer but kept staring towards the
west.
My fiancé was a million miles away.
Waiting for Audrey
III
AUDREY TOOK A long sip of the Australian pinot noir chardonnay, firmly holding
the champagne flute by the stem. She closed her eyes as she savored the
sparkling wine. She opened her eyes and stared at him.
“Well?” he asked impatiently.
“Il a le
goût . . . sour grapes . . . and sweat!”
She let out a shriek, covered her lips with her
right hand in feigned modesty and burst out laughing. He laughed along with
her.
“My God, you know I’ve never had a nose for
wine,” she said playfully as she placed her hand on his. “You’re the
oenophile.”
“Sshhh,” he said. “The sommelier might overhear you and evict you for being a rowdy and
drunk ingénue.”
He cupped his right hand over her left,
enclosing her hand between both of his. He ran his fingers over the very same
softness that thrilled him in his youth.
“Beautiful young hands. Unchanged,” he said.
She smiled modestly and held his hand.
“The same soft hand I used to kiss,” she said.
He leant over the table and they kissed in full
view of the other diners.
“We should go,” he told her.
“Yes . . . but can we first take a walk? The
hotel has a lovely garden.”
They sat at one of the quaint kamagong chairs at the far corner of the
faintly lit garden adorned, oddly enough, with antique statues of unsmiling
saints made of scarred wood and pitted stone.
As he embraced her, he became aware of white
hibiscus flowers glinting in the darkness and the sweet, strong fragrance of
unseen sampaguitas. They kissed
gently and she nestled against him.
“We should get a room,” he said. “We’re no
longer teenagers.”
“I’m not going to bed with you,” she said.
“Then why are we here?” he asked in
astonishment.
“I’ve missed you so,” Audrey told him. “Please,
please don’t be angry. I know you understand me.”
He sighed and tightened his embrace. She
responded by pressing her body closer to him.
“Tell me you love me,” she said.
He hesitated.
“If we were in bed together, you’d be saying
you love me until you were blue in the face,” she said in reproach.
“Do you love me?”
“Yes,” she answered emphatically. “I love you
the way I loved you before.”
Audrey reached out to kiss him. As their lips
met, he slid his hand onto her breast. She let his hand linger and moaned as he
lightly squeezed. Half hidden in the darkness, they lay in each other’s arms.
Richie stared at his great love cradled in his
arms again while bitter memories re-surfaced in geysers of searing pain. He
didn’t want to return to the love they had decades ago. That was what tore them
apart.
He smiled as he thought of their many marvelous
moments of happiness—once when only their pure love mattered.
But his immaturity set in and he let Millie
enter his life. Millie became pregnant and Audrey was furious.
“Why couldn’t you wait!” she yelled at him.
“I’d have been yours if you’d waited! You know
that! I promised you that!”
She never spoke to him again. Friends had kept
him informed about Audrey. He knew she had quickly become a star at the bank
she worked for. He also knew she had gotten married.
That was the last he had heard of her until she
called a few months ago. Delirious with happiness, he talked to her for over an
hour, staying rooted at a small sliver of heaven at the garden along Ayala
while the rest of the world walked past him.
They became online friends and he saw pictures
of the still lovely woman he adored. She had also changed. Her face was
pinched; her eyes lonelier, but she still had that powerful self-confidence he
found so fascinating. Then he saw a picture of her husband. Richie cursed and
wished he were dead.
He had never made love to Audrey. She wanted
him to wait until they married.
This was the old fashioned in Audrey. Her
relentless refusal both amused and angered him, but Richie agreed to wait
because he was too madly in love with her. Anything for Audrey.
Now, Audrey wanted them to return to the
self-sacrificing love that had kept them together in those younger, wonderful
years. They would resurrect a spiritual romance that should have died decades
ago, a love that had endured because it was never truly physical.
Richie was astonished at the irony of his
surreal plight. He would have Audrey but he would never truly have her. But
perhaps Fate would this time be a friend.
He would wait for her.
“Audrey.”
She looked up at him and smiled.
“I love you.”
She took his hand from her breast and kissed
it. She parted her lips and they kissed passionately in the faint light--amid
statues of saints long dead staring grimly at them.
--O--