Feelings
Pearls
By Emmanuelle
IF there were five hundred Feelings stories, this true story would be among the first ten or twenty ever written. The subject was told of the publication of her life story by a friend; the subject never got to read it in print. Thus, this story, retold, is for her.
There are many among us who still believe that life has no gray area; either one is black or one is white. Let me dispute this; let me retell this one true story.
Louela was born to a poor family. Her parents were tenants to a rich landowner; the soil they tilled through the years, from dawn to dusk, is not theirs to claim their own. With twelve children to feed, and with the harvest not wholly theirs to keep, more often than not, the family would go to sleep at night with hungry rumblings inside their bellies. There was one ritual, though, that the parents insisted on: that before they rest their weary selves for the night, the family must go down on their knees and, with one voice, pray to God for mercy and deliverance. They fervently believed the truly meek shall inherit the best place in heaven.
One child, Louela, the most pale of the lot, grew up fast. As soon as her wings were dry, she flew the coop. At sixteen, she married an equally pale suitor. They went on to produce their own prolific brood of eight – six girls, two boys – all of them pale but, surprisingly, all of them good-looking.
However or from whomever she got the bug, Louela at forty plus years, suddenly got the itch. Not satisfied with the conjugal bed, she hopped from lover to lover. Disgusted and shamed, the husband left to live as far away from her as possible. He didn’t leave her empty-handed though. He left her all their eight kids.
With no definite source of income, and haunted by early memories of rumblings in her belly, Louela went on a cleaning and decorating frenzy. Overnight, she turned her house into the neighborhood dancing hall! Tickets were sold at the door of Louela’s cabaret for three-minute worth of music and dance. And undisguised fumblings in the dark. Offered along with other belles, were the prettiest in the barangay, nay, in the whole baley – Louela’s own five elder daughters.
The youngest and the most brainy of her girls, Pearl, was still in first year high school. Thus, for the meantime, she was spared the bunions of her dancing feet.
Upstairs, separate from the two family bedrooms, were two narrow cubicles for those who were willing to pay for more than a swing around the dancefloor.
As soon as the colored blinking lights switched on, Pearl would rush to the room she shared with her sisters. She would lock tight the door, then she would open her books and study. She was determined to finish high school, even to go on to college. Not included in even the most remote of her future is dancing on her mother’s dancefloor.
Now, Louela was running out of fresh flesh to trade. One night, having drunk with the clients one glass too many, she offered the key to her daughters’ room to the highest bidder. The son of a prominent family won the bid.
“This will be easy”, he must have thought, “just a mere slip of a girl”. He went quietly up the stairs and opened the girls’ room with the prize key. He must have had the biggest shock of his life when what he thought a simpering kitten was, in fact, a growling, clawing, biting tiger! Pearl fought like all hell broke loose, at the same time screaming her head off. When the shocked guy was down, his face bitten and arms scratched, she jumped through the window, ignored a bad break from the fall, and limped as fast as her bare feet would allow to the police station.
With free legal assistance, Pearl sued the guy for attempted rape, and her mother for child abuse. This oh-so-wonderful child then petitioned the court to grant her the status of ward of the state.
Today, the child is a woman, a wife and a mother. Pearl and her husband are both elementary school teachers. They have three not so pale children, ordinary looking but very intelligent. They go to church on Sundays. And before they sleep at night, the family go down on their knees. With one voice, they thank God for His mercy and deliverance.
They fervently believe that not only the truly meek shall inherit the best place in heaven; the good and the brave ones, too.
From black . . . gray. From the gray, a white pearl bursts forth to cast its startling brightness.
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