The grey skies were now nothing but history as Belinda walked out the back entrance of the dark and sand-swept old cottage by the sea to the open macadam road winding down the direction of the sleepy town of San Mateo.
She walked slowly, treading on the pebble-encrusted road, unmindful of the eyes watching her every move, as they followed her tracks with silent sighs and garbled murmurs behind her back.
She ignored the subdued staccato of strange voices in her ears, while avoiding the prying and questioning eyes of curious people along the way. She continued her own reverie as her bare feet continued their assault on the unpaved road. The sun was up and she could now feel its heat prickling her soft brown skin while her mind traveled to a not-so-distant past…
It was almost four and a half years ago when she met Leonardo while attending the 18th birthday celebration of the town mayor's only daughter -- her classmate in high school -- at the town’s plaza, that was transformed overnight into an enormous and elegant social hall by the proud father for his lovely daughter’s coming of age.
Maristela, her best friend since they were young kids running around half-naked by the seashore collecting seashells for their collections, introduced her to Leonardo. After the usual and awkward “hi” and “hello”, they retreated to their own inner circles and spent the night away. That was the last time she had seen him until about a week ago, when he suddenly showed up at their house in Santa Misericordia one early afternoon, while she was out in the yard sweeping some dry fallen leaves from the towering mahogany brought about by the unpredictable weather at that time of the year.
He told her that he was on his way home, after visiting some old friends from the adjacent barrio, when he passed by their house and saw her, remembering her as the one introduced to him many years ago, and decided to drop by for some friendly talk and reminisce about the past. He told her that he had just arrived from Manila for a brief vacation to escape the heat and recharge his battery. She noticed that he now looked different and much better-looking than the last time they had met in the summer of ’76. She could distinguish between the person standing right in front of her and the skinny boy that she met a long time ago.
The aura of the young man was bursting with self-confidence, with a swagger to boot -- one that signified excess self-confidence most barrio folks would attribute to a certain arrogance characteristic of people hailing from the big city. They'd have that thought in the back of their minds that most of their fellow San Mateo residents would probably spend the rest of their miserable lives wallowed deep in poverty in their backwards world without seeing the glitz and glamour of the capital, Manila.
She offered him some Calamansi juice and putong puti while they talked about their common friend Maristela, who was now a registered nurse in an American hospital after passing the state board in New Jersey just a while back. After an hour of small talk, he bade her goodbye and boarded his white Ford sedan, speeding off in the general direction of the next town, Santo Domingo, where his relatives lived. She learned during their conversation that he was a now a medical representative working for a multinational company based in Pasig City.
Two days later, Leonardo was back at their house with a Toblerone chocolate bar and a bunch of her favorite White Roses in hand. He invited her for dinner that night, an invitation that she found hard to resist, for she found it fascinating and entertaining in talking with Leonardo, who in her keen observation has gained a lot of experience and insight on many things in his dealings with the big city people. She was awed by his endless stories about the way of life in the city -- the cars, the nightlife, the movie stars -- and a plethora of miscellany that she could only hear through the hyperactive voices of the anchors at DZRH from her own battery-operated transistor radio.
They drove off to the cottage by the sea, owned by his family and left in the hands of the caretaker when they migrated to Manila about four years ago, that now serves as a rest house whenever they would come back to Santa Misericordia every now and then for a brief stay.
It was already dark when they reached the place, and she was surprised at the opulence inside the cottage, a curiosity that hounded her for years, dating back to her childhood when she and her playmates would pass by the beautiful cottage on their way to the beach on Sundays. The cottage was beautiful and well maintained by Mang Ambo, the caretaker. Leonardo led her to the living room and asked her to sit on the sofa, as he proceeded to the corner of the spacious living room, scanning and picking up some old vinyl records from the heap. He then dusted the covers and played it on the Akai phonograph. It was a violin concerto by the famous German composer, Mendelssohn.
While she sat there listening to the beautiful and haunting melody coming from the old stereo, pretending to read some excerpts of a particular story on an old Liwayway magazine, Leonardo was busy preparing and cooking something in the kitchen for their dinner. She could tell from the aroma floating in the air that it was something rare and extraordinary.
It was half past eight o’clock in the evening when he finally emerged from the kitchen and asked her to join him for supper: fresh seafood that he bought at the Aplaya early in the morning. On the table was a wide array of the bounties of the sea-grilled pusit, steamed crabs and prawns, sweet and sour Lapu-Lapu and fried blue marlins, that made their mouth water in anticipation of a great feast. Truly, she was quite impressed with his culinary skills, which he admitted with great pride that it was taught to him by his grandmother when he was still a lad of ten, mastering it to perfection through the years.
Outside, the rain came in trickles, and then poured heavily on the ground, drowning out their conversation and laughter in the process. He poured her some orange juice and that was the last thing she could remember…
Her thoughts were jolted back to the present when a warm blanket was wrapped around her naked body by a concerned old woman that she only knew by face, whom she recognized as the one who used to frequent their barrio when she was a child, selling cheap beauty products from China from household to household, that rescued her from the ogling crowd.
She woke up the next morning to the smell of antiseptic in her hospital bed, and the sight of a burly policeman who tried to ask her something that she had no recollections of whatsoever. She was told that Leonardo was found dead in his bed with multiple stab wounds in several parts of the body, and that his sex organ was mutilated on the day that she was seen walking naked and aimlessly on the road leading to San Mateo.
She looked out the window and stared without seeing to the horizon, as her memories began to come back to her, and as rivulets of tears began to cascade from her sad black eyes down to her cheeks, just like the waters that overflowed from the rivers that swelled after a heavy rain.
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