Indak

By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo

 

IN my early years in Quezon City, I leased a property for ten years at Teachers Village at the corner of Maginhawa and Mahabagin Streets. This was mainly because we were a big family and I had to find a place for my growing brothers and sisters who came to study in Metro Manila. There were four big rooms and the fifth room which I occupied was the smallest, but strategically overlooking a wide space which I converted into an orchid garden.

Eventually, as my hobby grew, people wanted to buy the orchids and flowers, which transformed my hobby to a part-time business, supplying offices and houses with orchids and driftwoods and arranging flowers in weddings and other occasions. Over the years, it became a pre-occupation for all my siblings, where we also attracted many friends.

One of these friends was a little boy named Indak, the youngest son of one of my neighbors. Indak was about four years old and he liked to go around the garden and put flowers in his hair. His mother often dressed him as a girl for reasons I did not explore. His name, Indak, is a Tagalog word for a swaying motion, a graceful rhythm of the fleshy parts of women, at the back of the hips.

At his baptism, his first name was Luis Fernando, after his illustrious grandfather who became governor of a province in northern Philippines. As he grew, his grandfather often reprimanded his mother to “discipline” her child, and to make him into something “normal and respectable”.

“You must raise him as a God-fearing Catholic!”

“Catholic? He is more Catholic than both us, Father. He confesses and makes the sign of the cross!”

Over the years, he would visit, not only to adorn his hair with flowers, but to eat newly baked bread at my table. He was gifted with a good sense of smell, and he could tell, a few kilometers away, when and where good bread was being baked.

Gradually, his visits were less often. He would come, wave his hands, and leaves as fast as he could, always in a rush. One day, on an evening walk, I saw him with someone, his head leaning on his shoulders, his left arm calmly resting on the other’s right thigh. He was, to me, at that moment, the picture of happiness and torment.

 

The cross

often, he crosses his arms over his chest

to protect his own heart

to calm his breath

then gradually, he uncrosses his arms

gropes with his left hand

and finding it, throbbing

in strong physical rhythms

he succumbs, in total abandon

and with his right hand

makes the sign of the cross

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