Dear Readers,
For your weekend reading, I'm sharing a chapter from my novel, Magdalena -- "Talking About the Woman in Cholon."
Magdalena is my second novel, and when I started writing it, I thought it would unfold as my first novel, When the Rainbow Goddess Wept did, that is in a more linear fashion. When the Rainbow Goddess starts at the beginning of World War II and ends when that war ends.
When I insisted on writing Magdalena in a linear fashion, it got boring; even I got sleepy while working on it! At some point I gave up and decided I didn't have a novel, and I tried to salvage parts of the manuscript by turning them into short stories. After I had several of these "short stories" I realized these could be chapters of a novel after all --- and thus did the novel Magdalena come about.
The novel Magdalena received strong reviews, including a book review by Kathleen Flanagan in World Literature Today, and another by Luisa Igloria for Melus (Vol 29, No. 1) Magdalena inspired the playwright Jocelyn Deona de Leon to write a stage play, Gabriela's Monologue, which was produced in 2011 by the Bindlestiff Studio in San Francisco as part of Stories XII! annual production showcasing original works for the stage by Pilipino/Filipino American Artists.
Magdalena is described as "a powerful novel about the lasting effects war has on people’s lives. Playing with time and point of view, multi-award author, Cecilia Manguerra Brainard, explores the loves and secrets of three generations of women in the Philippines from the time of the Philippine American War, World War II, and Vietnam War."
Enjoy this chapter from my novel, Magdalena. ~~~Cecilia
Talking About the Woman in Cholon
He watched quietly by
the nursery’s doorway. Sunshine was streaming through the open window and a bit
of light hit the back of her hair so it shone like ebony. She was playing with
the baby. It was a pleasant scene and it evoked happiness in him. More than
that it culled up deep feelings of longing to be with her always.
He did not call her;
he took in the sight of her whispering nonsensical words to the infant, telling
him how sweet he was, sweeter than cane sugar, sweet enough to eat. The baby
gurgled and reached up to touch Magdalena’s nose. Magdalena pretended to bite
the baby’s fingers; the baby laughed. Magdalena laughed, throwing her head back,
and then she saw him. “You’re here,” she said, smiling. “Come in.”
She got up to meet
him, the baby still in her arms. She swung the child in front of her; the baby
laughed. “He’s just being silly,” Magdalena said. “He’s not hungry any more.
He’s just playing.”
She glanced around,
and seeing no one around, gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Sit down,” she said.
“I’ll be done in just a second.” She put the bottle on a table and placed the
baby on his belly on a mat on the floor. She patted the baby’s back to quiet him
down. Two other babies were sleeping, one of them snoring softly.
“I’m glad you’re
here,” she said when the baby settled down.
“I have to leave
soon.”
“Oh,” she said,
dejected. “Guam?” she continued, in a hopeful tone.
He shook his head.
“Nam.”
“And you can’t tell
me where in Vietnam you’re going,” she said in a resigned tone. She sat down
beside him and glanced out the window at a bougainvillea vine struggling to
survive the city’s polluted air.
“Top secret.” Nathan
could not say he would be part of a forty-plane strike into North Vietnam, to
the Haiphong harbor, where Russian and Chinese ships docked and which was
therefore a major military supply source. He could not tell her that after a
briefing, he and his squadron would leave, and then in Nam they would be joined
by a number of fighter planes. Some of the fighter planes would fly ahead to knock
out SAM sites that might affect the B-52s. Early in the morning, the forty
planes would launch against heavily defended Haiphong to hit truck parts, SAM
sites, AAA emplacements, storage areas, and other military targets.
“Do you want something cold to drink?” she
offered.
He shook his head and
glanced at his watch. “I can’t stay long.”
“When will you be
back?”
“I’ll try and get
back Thursday for your birthday.”
“I hate it when
you’re gone,” she said.
“I’ll be back soon.”
“I always imagine the
worse. All the news about Vietnam, I can’t help it. But you will be back
Thursday — won’t you?”
“I’ll try.” He had
been hiding the small package, but now he handed it to her. “This is for you,
in case I don’t make it back.”
She turned the small
package in her hands. It was wrapped in red shiny paper with a large gold bow
that had been squashed.
“Open it.”
“Now?”
“I want to see if you
like it.”
She removed the ribbon
and peeled off the wrapping and opened a jewelry box. Inside lay a gold
bracelet with little animal charms. She smiled and lifted the bracelet so the
charms dangled and swayed. She had the sensation of being a child and looking
at a new toy for the first time.
“Try it on,” he said.
“It’s not too young
for me?” Her eyes sparkled with delight at the little gold animal charms.
“Absolutely not,” he
said. “The charms remind me of you. See the goldfish? It’s jointed. And there’s
one of a monkey. Of a turtle too. I thought of you when I saw the bracelet. The
children will love it,” he said, looking at the sleeping infants on the mats on
the floor.
The goldfish wobbled
and caught the sun’s rays. She sucked in her breath. “It’s pretty,” she said.
“Where did you find it?” She put it on her left wrist; he helped her with the
clasp.
“Near the Cholon
district.”
She lifted her left
arm in the air and shook the bracelet so the charms scattered little shards of
sunlight all around them.
“The last time I was
in Saigon, I saw a woman wearing one just like it.”
“Where?” she asked,
looking at him from the corner of her eyes.
“At the Cercle de
Sportiff Club. We were with some USAID guys, talking shop.”
“I see.”
“Aren’t you going to
ask what we talked about?”
“Okay, what did you
talk about?”
“We had this heavy
discussion about why, except for the Civil War, why the United States fights its
wars in other people’s backyards. Important stuff like that.”
“ And the woman, was
she part of your group?”
“Oh, no. She was with
another woman. They were having lunch. We were all out on the terrace, near the
pool.”
“So that’s what you
do when you’re away? Having lunch by the pool of a club.”
“No, that’s not what
I always do when I’m away.” He laughed, chucking her chin.
She smiled,
embarrassed at his gesture of intimacy. “So what happened?”
“To what?”
“The woman . . . the
bracelet.”
“Nothing. She and her friend were
eating and I noticed her bracelet.”
“You were looking at
her.”
“Just her bracelet.”
“Was she pretty?”
“One question at a
time. You asked what happened. When they were having their coffee, I went to
their table and asked her where she got it.”
“You did not.”
“I introduced myself
first.”
“She may have thought
you were picking her up. Was she pretty?”
“Slender, with hair
down to her waist. She was wearing a red oa dais.”
“A red oa dais — how
exotic. Was she pretty?”
He paused, puckered
his lips as if in deep thought. “If I answer that question, I could get in
trouble.”
“She was pretty
then.”
“I was interested
only in her bracelet. I went up to her and said, ‘I’m sorry to bother you and
your friend, but I couldn’t help noticing your bracelet. Do you mind if I ask
where you got it? I’d like to get one for my
fiancee.’”
“Was she . . .
beautiful?”
“I’m not going to
answer that question.”
“Did you really say
‘fiancee’?”
“Yes, I did. She
spoke French. Her English was not too great, but we managed to communicate. She
figured that all I wanted was the name of the store. That same day I went to the
Cholon district. Do you like it?”
She lifted her left
arm and moved her hands back and forth so the charms clicked together. “It
makes me feel sixteen.”
“Good.”
“I’m not sixteen. Do
you know that in the Chinese way of counting, I’ll be twenty-seven? How old was
the woman in the red oa dais?”
“Older than you.”
“And pretty, she was
pretty, wasn’t she? That’s why you won’t tell me.”
“Not pretty at all.
She had warts all over her face.”
She made a face and
laughed. “What’s Saigon like? Tell me what it’s like.”
“Saigon is . . .
Saigon. It’s a city, and it’s crowded. There are motorbikes, jeeps, trucks,
taxicabs, and xich-los. You have the Cercle Sportif Club where you can have an
elegant chateaubriand meal; and then you have the Thanh-Bich Restaurant where
you can eat com be tet, brown fried rice and a small piece of steak with a
large egg over the top, mixed vegetables, a bowl of greens, and nuoc-mam fish
sauce to pour over everything. It’s just Saigon.”
“Is it safe there?”
“As safe as Ubec.”
“Not that safe then.
You have to know where to go and where not to go.”
“It’s safe enough.”
“I’ll wait for you
Thursday.”
“Don’t wait for me. I
may be late.”
“I will wait for
you.”
“Has anyone ever told
you how bullheaded you can be?”
“What time,
Thursday?”
“I’m not sure. Late,
if we leave that day. But I may have to go to Bien-Hoa, so don’t wait for me.”
“Thursday, then, on
my birthday. I’ll see you on my birthday.”
“I’ll try. I’ll see you when I get here. I love you. Do you love
me?”
“You know I do. Don’t kiss me, someone may see us. But I love you.
I’ll wait for you.”
Nathan left, carrying with him the image of Magdalena seated by
the window, holding the baby. It was the last image that stayed with him even
as the North Vietnamese fighter planes hit his B-52.
~end novel excerpt~
1943: Tiya Octavia
Read also
The Importance of Keeping a Journal and My Pink Lock and Key Diary
The Importance of Sensual Writing
Vintage pictures that help me write my novel - Paris, Barcelona, Ubec
How to Write a Novel #1
How to Write a Novel #2
All for now,
Cecilia
Read also
The Importance of Keeping a Journal and My Pink Lock and Key Diary
The Importance of Sensual Writing
Vintage pictures that help me write my novel - Paris, Barcelona, Ubec
How to Write a Novel #1
How to Write a Novel #2
All for now,
Cecilia
tags: Philippines, Philippine, Filipino, fiction, literature, fiction, novel, book, author, writer, Vietnam War
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