Dogeaters (15 page)

Si, si, si.

—Florence Gonzaga

O
UR COUNTRY BELONGS TO
women who easily shed tears and men who are ashamed to weep. During the days following her extravagant coronation, something peculiar happens to Daisy Avila, something which surprises and worries everyone in her family except for her indomitable mother. Each morning, as Daisy struggles to wake from her sleep, she finds herself whimpering softly. Most of her waking hours are spent crying, or trying in vain to stop. Her eyes are continually bloodshot and swollen. The once radiant beauty cannot pinpoint the source of her mysterious and sudden unhappiness. “It will pass,” her mother says curtly, in a clumsy attempt to calm her daughter. Meanwhile, the Avila house is besieged by increasingly aggressive fans and the press. With a nose for scandal, Cora Camacho attempts to bribe the Avila chauffeur Celso and Daisy’s former
yaya
Candelaria (now Celso’s wife) to give her firsthand information, but to no avail.

Daisy shuts herself in her bedroom, where she can avoid her younger sister’s morbid curiosity, her father’s pained and pitying glances, and her mother’s sharp, I-told-you-so looks. Daisy dreads falling asleep. She is terrified of the weeping which begins while she dreams. She tries to stay awake, swallowing bitter, black Batangas coffee along with the tabs of yellow amphetamine she begs Candelaria to steal from the secret desk drawer in her father’s study. In spite of these potent stimulants, Daisy somehow manages to doze off just long enough to wake up once again, drowning in misery. “What are you crying for?” her sister Aurora grumbles, impatient and unsympathetic. The star-struck teenager is envious of the attention lavished upon Daisy—the phone never stops ringing, movie deals are offered, flowery love letters and proposals of marriage are sent by prosperous strangers. “If I were you, I’d think I died and went to heaven,” Aurora says.

Nothing cheers Daisy up. In desperation, she makes a mental list of her attributes. She may not be artistic like her cousin Clarita, or brainy like her parents and clever sister, but surely she has much to be proud of! Daisy reminds herself that to be considered exceptionally beautiful in a country overrun with beautiful women is a personal triumph. She has attained her goal. Why then is she so unhappy?

The phone continues to ring day and night. When Senator Avila attempts to have his number changed, the PLDT representative tersely informs him that there is a long waiting list, then coolly adds that he is lucky to have a phone at all. The Avila party line shamelessly listens in on every phone call, interrupting some conversations with bits of advice for the Senator and his wife to pass on to the celebrity beauty queen. “Tell Daisy
naman
to stop being such a killjoy! Tell Daisy
naman
that Ed and Augie are die-hard fans who want to marry her!” Male voices giggle on the crackling wires, while roosters crow and dogs bark in a distant background chorus. “Go back to the jungle!” Maria Luisa Avila snarls into the receiver before banging the phone down on her party line’s ears. Senator Avila winces and retreats into the privacy of his study. He too, has become a prisoner in his own house.

Sponsors of the beauty contest are worried and furious at Daisy Avila. Her stubbornness has already cost them millions of pesos. A scheduled whirlwind tour of the provinces is indefinitely postponed, and Daisy’s cameo role in the upcoming Tito Alvarez-Lolita Luna disco-dance drama
Loverboy
is canceled by Mabuhay Studios. Emissaries are sent from Malacañang Palace and the Alacran Corporation to persuade the ungrateful beauty queen to come out of hiding. They are met at the gate by Daisy’s irate mother. “My daughter is indisposed. GO BACK TO THE JUNGLE!” she shouts at the intruders. The press dubs Daisy’s mother “One Tough Doña.” “
Excuse me lang
, but what is this about a jungle?” Cora Camacho inquires on her TV show,
Girl Talk.
“Does our foremost nationalist family consider us common
Pinoys
nothing more or less than a bunch of savages?” When Senator Avila politely turns down Cora’s insistent demands for an exclusive interview, Cora is outraged. “
Aba
! Who does he think he is?”

The First Lady appears that same week as Cora’s special guest. When Cora sweetly suggests taking away Daisy’s crown and title, the First Lady’s eyes, as if on cue, fill with tears. She stifles a sob and pulls out a handkerchief, which she dabs carefully at the corners of her eyes. “
Walanghiya
!” Senator Avila scowls at the extreme close-up of the First Lady’s anguished face. “Daisy Avila has shamed me personally and insulted our beloved country,” the First Lady sobs. She blows her nose. The camera discreetly pulls away. Aurora Avila runs up the stairs to knock on the closed door of her sister’s room. She is shrieking with laughter. “Daisy! Daisy! Come out and see! You’re going to hell for sure—you’ve made the Iron Butterfly break down and cry!”

The hungry pack of journalists, photographers, and fans maintain a twenty-four-hour vigil on the sidewalk outside the gates of the Avila property. Daisy cringes at the thought of confronting them. “Don’t worry—even this will pass,” her mother repeats, sighing. The weariness on both her parents’ faces disturbs Daisy and makes her feel twice as guilty. Candelaria warns her that bets are being placed by the bored predators outside the gates. Who will be the first among them to spot the reclusive beauty queen through the drawn blinds of her windows? Who will capture her tarnished image with the powerful zoom lenses of their Japanese cameras?
Tsismis
quickly circulates in Manila: Daisy Avila is pregnant with Tito Alvarez’s baby, Daisy Avila is secretly married to the President’s only son, Daisy Avila is a junkie, Daisy Avila is a junkie slowly dying of a sexually transmitted disease.

Through the partially open blinds of her bedroom window, Daisy squints at the African flame tree, the garden of plumeria and bougainvillea bushes growing below. She cannot remember the last time she has been outside in the sun. Overwhelmed by the dazzling light, Daisy hastily draws the blinds before crawling back under the covers of her damp, rumpled bed. She shuts her eyes and tries to force herself to submit, finally, to the uncertain refuge of dangerous sleep. She lies perfectly still, a corpse stupefied by the tropical weather. Her eyelids flutter, the only sign of movement in the ovenlike room. Though the obsolete air conditioner drips and hums at full blast, the heat won’t let her escape into sleep. Daisy sits up in bed and looks tentatively around the room. It is darker now than when she first lay down. She waits; she waits for what seems an eternity. Nothing happens. Daisy waits some more, but no tears fall. She is wide awake, dry-eyed, and restless.

O
N HER BIRTHDAY A
week later, Daisy Avila makes a significant decision. She grants Cora Camacho an exclusive interview on her live television special
At Home with a Beauty Queen.

The entire country tunes in, even those in the remote reaches of our tropical archipelago, places where one battered TV is shared by an entire village. Cora promises an intimate look at Daisy’s life, loves, and wardrobe.

The moment Cora asks her first question, Daisy seizes the opportunity to publicly denounce the beauty pageant as a farce, a giant step backward for all women. She quotes her father and her mother, she goes on and on, she never gives the visibly horrified Cora a chance to respond. She accuses the First Lady of furthering the cause of female delusions in the Philippines. The segment is immediately blacked out by waiting censors.

Everyone in the country is elated by the new and unexpected scandal. Daisy refuses to grant any more interviews. “
Hija
, you surprise me,” the Senator compliments his daughter. “She doesn’t surprise me at all,” his wife says.

Daisy becomes a sensation, almost as popular as her father. The rock band Juan Tamad records a song dedicated to her, “Femme Fatale.” Banned on the radio, the song surfaces on a bootleg label, Generik. It is an instant underground hit. Condemned as NPA sympathizers, band members are rounded up by plainclothesmen from the President’s Special Squadron Urban Warfare Unit. They are detained at Camp Dilidili, a brand new complex of buildings with all the best in modern conveniences: hot and cold running water, toilets that flush, and clean, windowless cells for solitary confinement.

A foreign banker named Malcolm Webb calls Daisy on the telephone. “I saw you on television with that gruesome woman,” he says. “Would you like to go out to dinner with me?” Against her better judgment, Daisy immediately says yes. She has never before been out without a chaperone. “How did he get our number?” her mother wants to know. He turns out to be so charming, however, that even the steely professor softens when she meets him. “How can I help but fall in love with your brave daughter?” Malcolm Webb says to Daisy’s mother. “A handsome shark,” Daisy’s father calls him, but he is charmed just like his wife. Daisy is smitten by Malcolm Webb, in spite of
tsismis
that the playboy banker is an old boyfriend of Lolita Luna’s, and may even be the father of her blue-eyed son.

The furor over Daisy’s TV interview dies down slowly, as other scandals usurp the limelight. Juan Tamad members are released from incarceration on condition that the band never plays again. “That means you can’t play in other bands either,” the General’s tough special assistant informs them. “If I catch any of you in any type of public gathering, and gentlemen—I use that term loosely,” Pepe Carreon pauses for effect, “if I catch any or you even fingering a guitar, I’ll…” He was inventive with his threats, and always polite with his victims. He offered them cigarettes and coffee, even chilled bottles of TruCola. “I am sorry we’re out of straws—you’ll have to drink straight from the bottle,” he apologizes, with a look of genuine concern on his face.

Daisy marries Malcolm Webb in a quiet ceremony with only her family in attendance. She gladly abdicates her title to runner-up Girlie Alacran. There are those who welcome the news of Daisy’s marriage with relief. “She’ll finally settle down,” they predict. “Besides, she’s probably pregnant.” Tabloids publish unsolicited photographs of the storybook couple, dubbing them “The Rebel Princess and Her Playboy.” “How long can this marriage last?” Cora Camacho speculates cattily on
Girl Talk.

Hounded in public by autograph seekers and other fans, Daisy Avila retreats once again to the safety of her family home. “Fickle Daisy in Hiding!” is the title of a
Celebrity Pinoy
item. Malcolm Webb soon tires of the hysteria and no longer finds the publicity useful. He blames his naïve wife for turning his life upside down; she retaliates by asking him to leave her once and for all. Malcolm Webb returns to England. Daisy now becomes the butt of many jokes.
ANO BA, CAN’T SHE MAKE UP HER MIND?
scream the headlines.

T
IRED OF BEING COOPED
up in her family’s house for weeks, Daisy decides to visit her cousin Clarita. Daisy and Clarita are like sisters; their mothers are childhood friends and maintain a close relationship, even though their husbands have been feuding off and on for twenty years. “I’ve never trusted him,” Domingo Avila once said about his brother Oscar, “he’d sell his own family down the river for the right price.” Oscar Avila, on the other hand, had this to say when asked about his famous brother: “Fuck a saint who thinks his shit doesn’t stink.”

Clarita’s father was a gambler, a small-time con man oozing with charm, a fussy, handsome man too vain to sweat or dance. When he felt the need to be legitimate, he supported himself and his family with odd jobs he obtained by using his brother’s name. Domingo Avila had washed his hands of him years ago, when Daisy and Clarita were still infants. The Senator was always kind to his niece however, and helped out with her schooling and medical bills whenever necessary. Sometimes Clarita called the Senator “Papa.” There was even a time when Clarita lived with Daisy’s family, right after her father ran off to Pampanga with one of his mistresses and her mother Delia was institutionalized. Clarita moved back to her own home when her father returned and, shortly afterward, her mother was released from the hospital. Clarita’s father swore, for the umpteenth time, he would mend his ways. Everyone knew better.

Clarita Avila began painting when she was six years old. Her Uncle Domingo paid for her sketchpads, her watercolor sets, her charcoal pencils, her brushes. On her twelfth birthday, he bought her a more durable easel, and paid for drawing lessons with the old painter Horacio. Clarita lived for the afternoons spent at the old man’s studio near Mabini. She would later describe her childhood and adolescence as relatively happy times, in spite of everything.

Her mother Delia was a woman who had suffered so much she seemed to be physically shrinking away. She spent long afternoons chatting with her daughter while she painted. Delia Avila would talk about the incessant heat, the oncoming Christmas holidays, and the latest book she was reading. She would describe each chapter as if she were reading the story aloud to an enchanted audience, discussing each character as if they were real people in her life. “Poor Cathy,” she would sigh, going over one of her favorite English novels, “she should really let her feelings show for that pitiful Heathcliff.” She read voraciously anything she could find; she said books helped her maintain some semblance of sanity. Her daughter brought them for her as presents: novels in Spanish and English, anthologies of Tagalog poetry, spy thrillers, westerns, historical romances, and biographies. The Brontë sisters and Jose Rizal were Delia Avila’s current favorites.

Although they were the same age, Daisy Avila sometimes felt younger than her cousin. Perhaps it was her tragic life and her talent that impressed Daisy so about Clarita, Clarita with the waist-length black hair, sallow complexion, stocky body, and twinkling eyes; serene Clarita with the sly sense of humor, who painted shocking miniature landscapes of bright yellow demons with giant erect penises hovering over sleeping women. Perhaps Daisy equated Clarita’s great talent with her suffering. She wasn’t sure, but she knew it was something powerful that drew her away from her own privileged life.