BY REIL BENEDICT S. OBINQUE
WHEN the jeepney driver started his vehicle’s engine, Ondong was thinking about the bar of chocolate. Through the tiny spaces between his fellow passengers’ heads, he glimpsed the towering buildings outside. He wondered when he and his mother would be able to come back to the city and buy a bar of chocolate again. Maybe after a year or two. Or maybe even after a decade.
He did not need to look around to know how crowded the jeepney was. The smell of sweat, of feeds for domesticated pigs and chicken, and of kerosene, among others, already told him that the vehicle was accommodating passengers way beyond its maximum capacity. It was larger than the regular public utility vehicle in the city, but its size had been shrunk by the passengers. Children like Ondong were already standing, and some were even sitting on the roof with the sacks of rice, pieces of farming equipment, and large bags of groceries tied onto the vehicle with a rope. The jeepney creaked when it began to move. As if the oppressive heat and the unpleasant mixture of odors were not enough, the uncontrollable wailing of infants filled the vehicle. It temporarily stopped only when the jeepney left the terminal after an hour and a half, and the December air managed to slither through the slim spaces left inside the vehicle.
Ondong went with his mother to the city to get their annual pinaskohan from the city government a week before Christmas. They had to wake up at dawn, travel for almost three hours, and stay in queue for more than half an hour to finally get a pack of spaghetti and macaroni pasta, spaghetti sauce, graham crackers, evaporated and condensed milk, canned sardines, instant noodles, two kilos of rice, and three pairs of slippers, all wrapped in green water cellophane with a greeting card. The card prominently showed the mayor wearing a vest made from lumad textiles in an attempt to imitate what she supposed was the daily attire of indigenous peoples, like Ondong and his family.
Ondong’s mother held the pinaskohan close to her chest, as though anytime someone might snatch it from her. With her hands calloused by doing the laundry every day and occasionally harvesting, peeling, and washing kamoteng kahoy, she would occasionally smooth the creases of the water cellophane. Once home, she would use it to make a parol.
It took Ondong an hour of wailing and days of fighting with his four younger siblings to convince his mother to take him along with her. More than the pinaskohan they were going to receive, he was looking forward to the sight of the city and the emotions evoked by the tall buildings, the unusual smell of aircon exhaust, the crowded city hall, and the different sizes and colors of vehicles stuck in traffic. His mother could afford to bring only one of them, and she brought Ondong, being the eldest, along with her. Ondong could still imagine the faces of his younger siblings: the two little ones, not yet five, waving from the window, and the two others standing by the door as one of them was yelling to remind Ondong of the chocolate he promised.
Now, as the jeepney was leaving the city, Ondong, his hands clutching the iron bar above his head, was staring at the pinaskohan, which was the only remembrance they brought from the city, along with a very special snack he insisted his mother on buying: the bar of chocolate.
“This just tastes like tablea, anak,” his mother said earlier.
“But it does not look like a tablea, ‘Nay. Look at the wrapper,” Ondong tried to convince her. “We saved for it, ‘Nay, please, let me buy it. Here, here are my savings.”
Ondong fished out from his pocket coins which he and his siblings earned from alternately helping their neighbor in attending to his sari-sari store customers for one peso per hour. That was enough to convince his mother.
Inside the jeepney, Ondong kept glancing at his mother’s side bag where she put the bar of chocolate. Some of the passengers were already asleep, or fanning themselves, while those who knew each other exchanged rumors about whose daughter was impregnated by who or what family tried to hide sigbin inside their house. Ondong sighed, looked outside, and saw fewer buildings, fewer vehicles.
“’Nay, ‘Nay,” he poked his mother whose eyes were already drooping. “’Nay, are we there yet?”
“Not yet, anak,” his mother responded with a headshake.
“T-the chocolate, ‘Nay?”
“It’s here, don’t worry,” she answered as she began smoothing the water cellophane again.
“Can I help you make spaghetti, ‘Nay?”
His mother nodded hesitantly.
“Mango float?”
“Yes.”
The nod made Ondong a little unconfident because the year before, his mother sold the pinaskohan to the sari-sari store owner and used the money to buy their supply of rice. They always looked forward to Christmas because that was when they could taste the sweet condensed milk mixed with cream, or the sourness of the spaghetti sauce (eating of which was the only time they would be able to use forks). That Christmas his mother sold the pinaskohan, his father made them cassava cakes to compensate for the mango float and spaghetti they were not having that year. He would try to comfort them by saying that Christmas became part of their tradition only when Christian missionaries came. Before, they did not get to taste all the fancy food they nowadays serve during the celebration.
Ondong almost fell the moment the driver suddenly hit the brake, interrupting his daydreaming. They reached the checkpoint area, where military men were staying to wait for vehicles coming in and out of the city. His mother immediately pulled from her purse her voter’s ID—the only ID she had. Ondong felt his grip weaken as his mother tried to relax her trembling legs, trying not to make eye contact with the military man who was checking the vehicle.
“To where?” he asked the driver aggressively.
“Sitio Suawawan, Sir,” the driver answered.
“From?”
“D-downtown, Sir.”
The military man eyed the passengers suspiciously. Ondong was afraid of them. Just the sight of their green uniforms made him tremble. He recalled his father scurrying back to their hut to tell everyone that the military were on their way, with their guns and angry faces. They took the sack of rice he was carrying after interrogating him from and for whom it was. When he said he worked as a kargador and that the sack of rice was for his neighbor’s sari-sari store, they did not believe him. They suspected his father was carrying it to an NPA hideout. When the military asked if he wanted his head shattered or the sack of rice handed to them, his father, of course, chose the latter.
“Those bastards will never run out of supply for a month,” he growled to Ondong when he came home.
“Sige, larga,” the military man shouted after minutes of carefully checking the jeepney. When the vehicle drove off, Ondong glanced at the military man as he checked a private car very briefly so that it was able to overtake them.
“’Nay,” Ondong called his mother again. “’Nay, are we there yet?”
“Ondong, we’re still far,” she said.
“How far, ‘Nay?”
“Very far.”
“The chocolate, ‘Nay?”
“It’s here, anak,” she said, gesturing to her side bag.
“We’ll give one to Kaloy, too, ‘Nay, ha? And Doydoy and Liway and Tina, they haven’t tasted one, ‘Nay. I’ll let them taste. ‘Nay, ha?”
His mother nodded. There was only one bar, barely enough to make every one of them have a piece.
Ondong looked at the side bag and imagined the chocolate. It was not something he could buy from the small and only sari-sari store back at their place. It was larger and sweeter. Ondong could still remember the first and last time he tasted one, when they were briefly evacuated from their sitio after an encounter between the military and the NPA rebels broke out. A barangay official gave him a piece when she saw him watching her enjoying her bar of chocolate. How it melted in his mouth, how it tasted a lot sweeter than tablea, how the crushed walnut was stuck between his teeth. Everything tasted so good, he did not want to swallow the small piece, so that he could hold it on his tongue longer in the hope that its sweetness would stay there.
“’N-nay, are we there—”
“Ssh, Ondong, we’re still far,” said his mother, growing impatient. “Why don’t you sleep?”
But how could Ondong sleep when he was standing? The road was also getting bumpier. An infant started crying, his mother struggling to shush him, while the rest were already napping, the chatty ladies earlier no longer talking out of exhaustion. The smell was getting worse; so was the dust. Outside, Ondong started to see only trees and distant houses, and on the other side, the sight of a vast pineapple farm replaced the view of tall buildings.
Ondong looked at his mother’s side bag again. She had already closed her eyes, but her hands were still holding the wrapped pinaskohan on her lap tightly. Ondong tried to secretly unzip the bag in the hope of seeing the chocolate. He just needed a glance, just a look at the reward he and his siblings would get after that exhausting trip. After Ondong had finally unzipped the bag, his mother swatted his hand and he jolted in surprise.
“What are you doing? You’ll eat this when we arrive home, OK?” his mother reprimanded him.
“I just… I just wanted to see it,” Ondong said.
“Later.”
He did not want to argue with her. No one of his four other siblings would. She was mostly gentle with them, but it was a rule to never talk back, for children their age knew nothing about life yet, as she liked to say. And Ondong would think it was fitting of her to say that because she seemed to be a mother who knew how hard life could get. He remembered when she lost her twin brother a few years back, and she almost never shed a tear. She was the one who went all the way to the city to buy everything they needed for a decent funeral despite that she barely knew how to add numbers. After the burial of her brother, she went to her room and Ondong heard her muffled cry. She was so courageous, she was among the very few in their sitio who dared to get a voter’s ID, for she knew that without it, the military would consider them rebels. She tried to show Ondong and his siblings that she was not suffering, but the excessive wrinkles on her forehead, the spasmodic hands, and the hunched back told Ondong otherwise.
“’Nay, ‘Nay, are we there yet?” Ondong asked for the last time after almost two hours of standing, his hands red from gripping the iron bar. He was growing as impatient as the other passengers. He started imagining his siblings enjoying the chocolate, each having a square piece. He wanted them to taste what he tasted on that distant afternoon at the evacuation center.
“Few minutes,” his mother responded.
After several minutes the jeepney halted. Quite a few passengers were left when Ondong and his mother stepped out of the once-crowded jeepney. Then he immediately felt the humid air, the sound of leaves brushing one another, the sight of the hills seemingly knifed in half by the clouds. Ondong breathed in as deeply as possible, as if diving into an abyss, as he imagined the terrain they had to trek to reach their sitio, a place one-peso fare away from heaven, as people used to joke.
They did not speak as they walked, with Ondong staring only at the side bag as it swung back and forth from his mother’s shoulder. He wanted to ask, “’Nay, are we there yet?” but he was so familiar with the path, narrow enough to fit one person, the same path they traversed when they had to sprint away from the sound of bullets. He was familiar with the sharp edges of the grass brushing against his legs as the sweat and mud on his soles made his slippers come off his feet. He was aware of the hissing of the snakes and the noise of the cicadas. The fear of running away and the fear of staying. He knew so well how far they were from home, there was no use asking if they were there yet.
“Dong,” his mother nudged him, “what are you doing there? Walk faster.”
Ondong was staring at the patch of soil where he could have possibly stumbled upon that night. He inhaled and continued walking, as their house—a small nipa hut slightly veiled by a large, old mango tree—was already in sight.
When they arrived, his siblings, who were waiting by the window, stretching their necks to see if they were already nearby, gathered around them. Her mother placed the pasalubong on their table and unwrapped it carefully, smoothing the water cellophane and folding it into half. His siblings looked at the contents with awe as his mother placed the cans of sardines, the condensed and cream milk, among others, out of reach.
“’Nay,” Ondong said, gesturing to the side bag.
His mother smiled and took out the chocolate, to his siblings’ amusement. When she started unwrapping it, however, Ondong realized something he had not thought of since they bought the chocolate: it had melted. There was no way he could cut it piece by piece and divide it among themselves. Instead, Ondong decided to pass the chocolate around. They dipped their fingers in it and enjoyed tasting it from them in between “Thank you’s” and “Wow’s.” They huddled around the treat, heads pressing against one another as each one tried to have a taste. When it was Ondong’s turn to taste, he was only left with the wrapper, with a dash of melted chocolate slathered on it. He made one quick lick and for a little while made it stay on his tongue, hoping the taste would last.
“Kuya, how was it? How was the city?” one of his siblings asked.
“Unforgettable,” Ondong said, getting ready for the things he was going to describe to them. Smiling, he folded the chocolate wrapper and tucked it in his pocket.
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