The sun was climbing to its peak when Endel escorted me to Mike Paler, who supposedly met my parents in Upper Balagatasa. The lanky elderly entertained me at the wall-less extension of his low-laying house that served as a kitchen and dining area. His squat wife served me instant coffee.
“We have fifteen children,” Mike said when asked about his family. “Of the eight boys, seven enlisted in the army. Two of my soldier sons died in action.”
An Army detachment was strategically deployed in the town to keep watch of the volatile peace and order condition. The sight of men in uniform must have enticed young men to enlist in the army.
“I was told you knew my parents.”
“Yes. Maybe I was 15 years old when I met Nong Miguel. I cannot forget him because I used to come to him at night. Your father tutored me in Math and English.”
“What year was that?”
“Let’s see. Maybe 1948 or 1949. I was a working student of Mr. Nuñez,” Mike said, looking up as if expecting some revelations from the metal roof. He was 75 years old.
“What were the crops my father planted?”
“Corn, cassava and papaya. The cassava and papaya were chopped and cooked in big drums for the piggery of Mr. Nuñez.”
Somehow this information activated my latent memory of the landowner’s two-storied farmhouse, the upper floor for human habitation and the ground floor for livestock, corralled at nighttime. Fleeting and hazy pictures of oil barrels and pigpens floated in my mind.
“How about food?”
“Corn grits, vegetables and fish. Salted fish, dried fish, fresh fish.”
“Any fish in particular?”
“Gisaw, tamban, bolinao, tulingan,” he enumerated, then, hastily added, “There was plenty of lato.”
Lato are bright green seaweeds with grape-like formations attached to a thick stem and eaten raw. When you bite into lato they pop in the mouth and release a salty liquid.
One of my childhood recollections in that upland village was about eating fish, the main source of protein in our lean diet. Our place was far from the public market, so the fish were procured mostly from the itinerant peddlers who sold or bartered fish. The favorite fish menu was inun-unan since it would stay unspoiled up to the last morsel if warmed daily. An ample quantity of fish, seasoned with vinegar, garlic, ginger and salt, was simmered in a clay pot over coconut shell embers. The pot of inun-unan was stowed away in a rattan basket hanged over the hearth beyond the reach of preying cats. My parents kept a number of cats to put the rat population in check. Ginamos was also a common fare, served as a viand or side dish. With vinegar and hot pepper, this fermented anchovy was a great appetizer.
“This is Goying,” Mike’s wife introduced the boy who was on his way out of the house.
The young adult acknowledged my presence with a timid smile. He was of regular built, with fair skin and apparently not fully endowed in the head.
She then narrated a story about their adopted son. The story turned out to be a gem in the bedrock of the humdrum life of my simple hosts.
“His mother threw him into a shallow open well when he was barely a month old. Luckily, a child saw the incident, pulled the sinking infant, laid him near the well and ran to inform the infant’s father. The child’s father is Mike’s brother.” Mike’s wife was almost in tears as she related the incident. “We adopted our nephew. It was only by miracle that he survived. His navel was infected and suppurated. His ears were filled with water and the infection had left him with an impaired hearing.”
It was past lunchtime. I bade farewell to my hosts and walked back to my sister’s place.
