BRECIL KEMPIS | Report Card with translation by Timothy Montes

BRECIL KEMPIS | TRANSLATED BY TIMOTHY R. MONTES

Report Card

THE AUTHOR HOLDS THE COPYRIGHT TO THIS STORY. THIS IS POSTED WITH PERMISSION FROM THE AUTHOR.

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At ten-thirty in the morning, standing outside the Third Year Sampaguita classroom, I was stuck in the middle of a long queue. From that spot, I had to pass by five classrooms with termite-eaten windows, a conference hall now occupied by goats, and a waiting shed with plenty of dog shit before reaching the building where I would find, on the second floor, the principal’s office. It was safe to say that the principal’s office was the only building that looked new in our school. The windows-- glass windows-- were intact; the walls were newly painted. In contrast, all the other rooms in our school looked dilapidated; in fact some of the windows were broken or missing, and the paint was peeling from the walls. The queue seemed a kilometer long. I was sweating profusely, my blouse sticking to my back.

I looked behind me and saw the sweat-drenched faces of my fellow students. Their eyebrows seemed to have collided in anger, their lips pouting as they grumbled and groaned under the heat of the sun. Maybe it was because of the long wait. The line went all the way to the Audio-Visual Room. From where I stood, you had to pass by two rooms with dilapidated windows, three classrooms turned into a faculty office, a stage with peeling wooden backdrop, a library (with a few books from the Marcos-era) which also served as equipment storage for military training, and two mango trees-- before you would reach the Audio-Visual Room where you would find a rusty Karaoke inside.

“Allah be praised! She’s through!” Upon hearing this I turned around again. I saw a girl coming down the stairs from the principal’s office. I recognized her as the girl whose father was running for Vice-Mayor in our town. She was holding in her right hand a report card. This piece of paper was the reason why we had been standing there for hours under the heat of the sun. Our teachers should have been the ones to give us our report cards but they had told us to get them from the principal herself for she had something important to say to each one of us. Because it was the principal’s wish, we had no choice but to follow her orders. I noticed that the girl’s eyebrows were also colliding with each other, and her eyes, which were a little red, looked straight ahead as she passed us by. I did not need to be smart to know she had been crying.

“Hey, Noraisah, what did Ma’am say?” the girl ahead of me asked her, but Noraisah walked on as if she has not seen or heard anything.

“What could have happened?” the girl in front asked me, but I just shrugged my shoulders.

I looked at the schoolgrounds. The canteen in the corner of the principal’s building had a damaged door and the windows made of wood had been eaten by termites. I remembered those times in our Home Economics class when our teacher ordered us to clean the canteen. We really enjoyed those times when our teachers did not hold classes. In front of the school canteen was the basketball court. It was unique because it was a basketball court without a ring. The wooden tapping board was also rotten, with a gaping hole in the middle of it. Behind the basketball court was the tennis court. This was also a unique tennis court because it had no net and the cogon grasses had sprouted around it.

“Hey, move on. It’s almost your turn.” I was shoved by the student behind me. I realized that there were only two students ahead of me.

My watch said it was already 11:30. I realized that I had been waiting in line for an hour. Already my skin hurt from the heat of the sun. Tired of standing, I squatted for a while to rest and hide from the sun. I crouched behind the one in front of me so I wouldn’t get roasted in the heat of the sun. After a while, I saw another student coming out of the principal’s office. Like Noraisah a while ago, the boy was also frowning and he did not seem to see us.

“I wonder why they look like that? All of them coming out of the principal’s office look angry.” The student in front of me, while saying this, sighed and wrung her hands.

“Is that so?” I asked trying to stand up. She nodded and continued wringing her hands. I, too, became nervous. My hands were suddenly cold and clammy as my heart started dancing the rigodon. What had the principal told the students to make them come out of her office angry or looking like they just had been crying?

“Hey, stupid, it’s your turn!” The student behind pushed me again. The one before me was coming out of the principal’s office. When we met on my way up the stairs to the second floor, I noticed that she was also angry.

“What did she say?” I asked her, but she did not bother to answer and just walked past me. This made me more nervous. When I reached the door, I knocked courteously. As I entered the room, the cold air from the air-conditioning unit hit me like a blow. I became more nervous when my feet sank into the softness of the carpet.

“Take off your dirty shoes. I just bought that carpet,” the fat old woman sitting in the corner said.

The Principal.

I had no choice but to take off my shoes for I was afraid of her oily face and large eyes that bulged all the more when she scolded me. After taking off my shoes, I sat down on the cushioned seat in front of her.

“Ma’am, may I now get my card?”

“Tell your father he should vote for my husband as Vice-Mayor on election day.” She wagged a finger to my face as she spoke.

“Ma’am, I have to leave for MSU-Marawi this afternoon for the College Bridge Program. I would like to have my card,” I still managed to say. My eyes were on her table and I noticed that there was a Qur’an on one side.

“I don’t have a Bible here for you to swear on so that your father will vote for my husband.” Her eyes were bulging again.   “Tell your father to come here this afternoon so we can talk. And tell the next student that my consultations will resume tomorrow because I’m already tired.”

“Yes, Ma’am. Ah, what about my card, ma’am?” I said.

“Your father should be here by two-thirty,” she commanded while waving her hand. I felt like a fly being shooed away.

“But Madam, this afternoon is the deadline for the enrollment into the College Bridge Program. Without my card, how can I get into the CBP?” I complained. But I only felt like a madwoman as she turned away and ignored me. For she was now talking to someone on her 7250 cellphone. Silently I went out of her office. Now I understood why the others could not see anything when they came out of the office. Now I felt just like them. I walked straight to our classroom to get my projects. Our adviser was there arranging her things. She was wrapping them slowly with a bag she had brought along.

“Did she give you your card?” our teacher asked, a book held in midair.

“No,” I say.

“Sorry, there’s nothing I can do about that. I’m just an ordinary teacher here.” And she continued putting the books into the bag.

“Ma’am, why does she force people to vote for her husband?” I asked. “She already has the money to buy votes.” And I started putting my projects inside a cellophane.

“You must know by now that she has deducted 2,000 pesos from our teachers’ salaries for her husband’s campaign funds. We cannot complain because we will lose our jobs. She has asked you to swear on the Bible or the Quor’an so she’ll be sure her husband will win,” my teacher said sighing.

“I can’t get my card unless Papa himself comes for it,” I said. I had finished packing my projects. A classmate entered the room, her eyebrows also knotted. Our teacher shook her head and sighed once more while watching the two of us.

“Ya Allah. This is too much,” my classmate whined. She covered her face with her hands.

“We’re all on the same boat, Joharie,” I said patting her on the shoulder.

“Ma’am, Joharie, I’ll go now. I have to tell my father about this.” And clutching my things in hand, I left the school. I took a motorcab to the tailoring shop of my papa.

My father’s tailoring shop had four sewing machines and two tailors--- my father being the third working man. He was the master cutter and owner of the shop. When I arrived, I saw several customers talking among themselves while some were listening to a radio soap opera.

“Good afternoon, papa,” I greeted him. I took his hand and, as a sign of respect, let it touch my forehead.

“God bless you,” he said. And he stooped down to kiss me on the forehead. “Well, how did it go in school today? Were you able to get your report card?” he asked. When I didn’t answer, he stopped cutting a piece of cloth and got a chair for me to sit on.

“Pa, the principal did not give it,” I confessed.

“Why? Is there a fee we haven’t paid yet? Do we still owe the school something?” he asked.

“No, I have paid everything. The principal just said you have to go see her at two-thirty this afternoon.” And I explained the situation to him. I was about to tell him the other things the principal had said to me but I stopped when I noticed that the radio has been switched off and the customers had stopped talking. It had suddenly become silent inside the shop. When I turned around I saw the town Mayor. He had entered carrying a large cellophane bag full of pants for repair. I noticed that he was wearing branded jeans: Guess. And his polo shirt, Calvin Klein, had cigarettes sticking out of the breast pocket. He started walking towards papa and me.

“Psst… I want these repaired,” he ordered my father. And he plopped down the cellophane bag filled with jeans on my father’s working table. “I want them tomorrow morning. My nephew will pick them up.”

“Yes, Mayor. No problem,” father replied in a state of panic.

“But Pa, there’s so many of them. Can you finish that today? There’s so much…” Father’s hand clamped my mouth shut.

“Tomorrow morning, all right?” the mayor repeated his command. He left throwing an angry glance at me.

Challenged, I also followed him with my eyes. I watched him get into a red car all the while noting that it was named Intercooler. The month before he was using another car. It was called Crosswind, and I wondered why it had another name now. The Mayor had so many cars. The past year he was using a Tamaraw FX.

“Roselle,” my father was now saying, “don’t ever do that again, all right?” The radio had been switched on and the customers had started talking once more.

“Remember two-thirty this afternoon, the principal said.” I didn’t like to be reprimanded, and I spoke to Papa without hiding my resentment.   “She won’t give me my card unless you will go there. I’m going home, pa. I’m hungry.”

“All right. Here’s your pedicab fare. Take care.”    And he stretched forth a hand with twenty pesos in it. I took the money and went straight out of papa’s tailoring shop. On my way out, I looked back and saw my father shaking his head.

I was not able to get a ride right away because the motorcabs that passed by were full of passengers. So I walked slowly toward the bakeshoppe. I decided to buy bread for I was already hungry. While walking I passed by a huge mound of garbage right beside the road and clogged canals with fetid water. I saw many people who were either riding motorcabs or walking like me who covered their noses when they passed by the trash scattered near the road. The garbage was watery. A lot of flies were buzzing over it. In the canal were bottles, discarded plastic, dead frogs, worms, leeches, mosquitoes and other insects. They all got mixed up in the black, stagnant water of the canal. I walked on, past the new monuments built by fraternities and sororities with names like Alpha Sigma Phi, Alpha Gamma Rho and other such names for monuments. Finally I arrived at the bakeshoppe. I was about to enter the bakeshoppe when I saw a poster on the wall of the bakery. “Mabuhay! 110th Anniversary of Malabang” was written on the poster.

I went in and bought chicken bread. I decided to eat my bread inside the bakery. I had eaten half of the bread when I heard gunshots. I went on eating because I had been used to hearing the sound. More gunshots followed. The other people in the bakery went on as if nothing had happened. They went in to buy bread and the others continued eating without flinching. When I finished my bread, I went out. I learned from the people outside the bakeshop that someone was killed. This did not alarm me for I had grown up in Malabang where gunfights were a part of life. A day was not complete without gunshots ringing in the air.

I flagged a motorcab and was able to get a ride home. It was full of passengers who gossiped about the recent killing.

“It was a Christian,” the driver announced.

“Really, bapa?” I asked. “I thought it was another Maranao caught in a raid.”

“The poor man was just a market vendor and somebody asked for money from him and since he wouldn’t give any he was shot,” the passenger out in front joined in.

I fell silent while I continued listening to the gossip. Somebody said that the one who killed the vendor was a relative of the Mayor. And then the conversation swerved toward the topic of the coming elections.

“The mayor and his vice will be giving away money at seven o’clock tonight,” the driver said.

I remembered that our principal was the mayor’s cousin and her husband was the vice-mayor. I wonder how much they will give to each voter in our town? I asked myself.

“I heard it will be 1,500 per head,” said the driver.

“Only here, bapa. Here’s my fare. Thank you.” I got down and went straight to our house. I found my mama cooking lunch. I touched her hand to my forehead as a sign of respect.

“God bless you, my child. But where is your card? Didn’t you go to school to get it? Jalilah was here this morning. She said you will leave together for Marawi at one o’clock.” She was stirring the chicken tinola while talking.

“The principal did not give it to me,” I said. I put down the projects I had brought home from school on the kitchen chairs. I told mama everything that the principal said to me.

“And do you think you will still be able to enroll in the CBP this afternoon?”

“Yes, Ma. The enrollment will be until five o’clock. It only takes one hour to travel to Marawi, so I think I will still make it,” I replied. I started wiping clean the surface of our dining table.

Just as mama had finished cooking, papa arrived home from the shop. Mama immediately prepared food on the table.

“Lunch time, everyone. Food is ready,” mama called to my father and two sisters. My father ate fast and told us he was going back to the tailoring shop right away to try to finish repairing the pants of the Mayor.

“I’m going now,” he said to me. “Roselle, prepare your things for your trip to Marawi this afternoon.”

I was left at the dining table with my mother and two younger sisters. My sisters had perspiration on their noses as they went on slurping the chicken tinola. After eating, I went up to my room to check my things. I rested for a while and then took a bath under the watertank.

At three my father arrived with my report card.

“Child, your card’s here. Come down right away because the jeepney is already waiting outside,” Papa called. “I got one for you so you won’t be delayed.”

“The principal must have asked you to take an oath on the Bible that you will vote for her husband. Right, Pa?” I asked him.

“Roselle, your education is more important than my principles,” he replied. He got my bag from me.

“Pa, in that case everyone in our zone will vote for him because the people here will choose whoever you vote for.”

“Roselle, let’s go. You might not get to enroll on time. I have to go back to the shop to finish the Mayor’s pants.” And my father led me off to the jeep waiting outside.

“Bye Mama. Bye Pa.” I waved to my mother and father standing by our fence as they watched the departure of the small jeepney.

Inside the vehicle I prayed, asking God to give my father enough time to finish repairing the Mayor’s pants. I didn’t care if the Mayor wouldn’t pay for it as long as he wouldn’t slap my father’s face for not finishing his order on time.

“Roselle… Roselle… Wake up.” My companion shook me awake. Her cold hands were trembling.

“Why? What’s wrong?” I asked. She pointed out with her lips the scene outside the bus. Looking out, I saw the armed men whose faces were covered with bonnets. They stopped our bus, slowly approached us, and ordered everyone to get out including the driver.

There were nine of us in the jeep, and the driver was the tenth. Four of the men told us to stand by the roadside, their guns pointed at us. The other three were going through the contents of our luggage inside the jeep.

“Can’t you do it faster?” one armed man, pointing his gun at us, shouted to his companion who was checking out our things. His voice sounded familiar to me.

“Roselle,” my companion spoke in a whisper, “I think I know that man. He sounds like Abdul, one of the bodyguards of the Mayor.”

“You’re right,” I whispered under my breath. “He was the one who scolded us for watching them through a hole in our neighbor’s wall when he delivered shabu. Look at his gun, it has a Rancho sticker.”

“You’re right, those are the Mayor’s men. We know them by those Rancho stickers,” she whispered back.

“Boss, we already have the valuables,” shouted one armed man whose gun also bore the Rancho sticker.

“Listen, all of you. I want you to take out all your money and jewelry and I want you to do it fast,” the one in front of us gave the order. The barrel of his gun was pointed straight at us. All of us passengers began to get money from our pockets. Some started taking off their rings, necklaces and watches.

“Here.” I gave them my two hundred pesos while smirking and raising my eyebrows.

“Why only two hundred? Hand over everything!” The man pointed the gun to my side.

“You don’t understand my---“ I was not able to finish my words because a passenger started fighting one of the men.

“Ya Allah! Give me back my purse! You’re an animal!” he shouted at one robber. “My child is sick and I need the money to pay the hospital in Iligan!” He tried to punch one of the men but he only struck air and then we heard gunshots ringing in the air. The bullets tore at his abdomen, splattering blood on the face of the armed man in front of him even as he continued holding on to the bloody wallet. The passenger looked like a dying chicken, convulsing, blood frothing from his mouth. I silently watched him until his dying spasms stopped.

“Quick! Give me your money!” The armed man shouted again at me.    Mesmerized, I continued to stare at the blood coming from the body of the man who had resisted. The armed man got my wallet from my back pocket. I did not resist.

When they got all our jewelry and money, the men disappeared quickly like birds in flight. I continued to look at the dead body. He was now bathed in his own blood.

“Roselle, let’s go,” my companion dragged me away. “We will have to walk back to town. The bastards punctured the tire before they left.”

“Let’s get moving before it gets dark. This is not a safe place.” I heard the driver speak again.    He was one of those who carried the body of the dead passenger. They had started walking like a funeral procession.

We all walked back to Malabang because not one of us had any relative in the nearby villages. I think we walked through a three-kilometer stretch. The men took turns carrying the body of the dead man. Their faces were all bathed in sweat; on their arms sprung streams of perspiration. They used their shirts to wipe their dripping faces until their perspiration and the blood from the dead body mingled in them.

“Faster, it’s getting late,” One passenger shouted at us.   “It’s dangerous here at night.”

We walked faster. I now felt chilly from my own sweat. My calves were hurting and I wanted to rest but it was getting dark all around us. We never stopped walking until a cargo truck came along. Our companions flagged it and the driver allowed us to ride at the back. The truck had copra as cargo and I had no choice but to ride on top of a sack. I suffered through the rancid smell of copra all the way.

The sky was already dark when we reached our town. It was already eight o’clock. The truck had a flat tire along the way and it took us a long time to get back to Malabang. I went straight to our house. On the street, I could already hear the hum of my father’s sewing machine.

“Pa, good evening,” I paid my respect to my father when I entered our house.

“Why are you back?” Papa asked. “It’s already late.” He could not believe his eyes when he saw me. He stood up and stopped working on the pants he was sewing, a pair of pants that looked like the one the Mayor had given him.

I showed him the report card that I had brought back with me. “We were robbed. This was the only thing they did not bother to take away. They were the Mayor’s men and they killed one passenger,” I blurted out to Papa.

“What? Where did this happen? What time?” Papa exclaimed. I noticed his nostrils were flaring. His eyebrows seemed to have collided into each other.

“In Bara-as. At around four o’clock,” I said weakly.

“Were you hurt?” Papa asked. One hand on his hip, he used his right hand to cover his face in exasperation. He took off his eyeglasses.

“I’m all right. They just took our money and our things. They might as well have taken the report card. They can use this, you know. They can erase my name here and then they can go to college right away. They didn’t know what they were missing, they could have gone straight to college and they wouldn’t have to pay to have a card made.” I was talking fast.

“Thank God they did not hurt you,” my father said. His voice did not sound tense anymore and his nostrils went back to their normal size. His eyebrows disengaged themselves from each other. I saw him sighing. “Roselle, the passenger was killed because he fought back. Right?” Papa asked. He went back to his seat and started moving the pedals of the sewing machine.

I did not answer. Like a movie being replayed, the events that afternoon flashed again in my mind. I saw the blood gushing out of the body of the man who was gunned down, his moans, his last gasp.

“Am I right, Roselle?” Papa asked again.

“Ha? Ah… yes, pa,” I was panicking as I replied. I sat down on the sofa.

“All right,” my father spoke. “You’d better have supper now. It’s late.   There’s food in the kitchen.”

“Pa,” I said. “Will you be able to finish those tonight? You still have to work on a lot of pants.” I moved in front of him and watched his deft hands stitching. He was working on the left side of the trousers. He was having a hard time with the tough cloth of the maong pants. He broke several needles for stitching, and he had redone some pants several times because they were not straight. He kept on making errors. But later he has able to do it right when he used a big needle while holding down the cloth to keep the run from going astray.

“I’ll try to finish this,” Papa answered while pedaling faster.

I kept on watching his sewing. The past events came back to me again. I just watched my father. The faster his feet moved, the faster the sewing wheel turned. The turning of the sewing machine looked like the dizzying spokes of a bicycle wheel. I couldn’t count anymore the number of times the wheel turned because my eyes could not follow the fast movement. My father was really bent on finishing the Mayor’s sewing order. I wonder what the Mayor will do to him if he won’t finish repairing those pants? The face of the dead passenger that afternoon came back to me. I became afraid. Please, God, don’t let it happen.

“Roselle, what’s wrong with you?” Papa asked.    “Why do you look pale? You’d better eat, you must be hungry.”

“Ah, nothing Pa…” I said. “Ah, Pa, I’ll just be the one to remove the old stitches so you won’t get tired. That way you’ll finish the work faster.” I kept on looking at him as I spoke. My heart seemed to be dancing a rigodon.

He stopped in his sewing and looked at me. “Are you sure?”

I nodded. He shook his head while smiling at me.

“You’d better eat first,” he said. He went back to his work. He pedaled furiously at the sewing machine.

I had turned around to go to the kitchen when he called me back.

“Your card,” he said, pointing at my report card. “Don’t just leave it there. Do you want the cat to shit on it so you won’t be able to go to college?”

I stared at the card. I had left it on the chair beside the one I had sat on a while ago. Once more I remembered the suffering I went through in the long queue just to get it, the face of our principal, and the face of the dead passenger. And then I looked at Papa. Hunched on the sewing machine, he was pushing at the foot pedal hard.

“I’ll just leave it here for the meantime,” I said to him. “I will eat first and help you afterwards.”   As I was about to leave for the kitchen, I saw my father sigh again, and smile at the same time. It seemed he was saying something but I could not understand it because his voice was too soft for me to hear.

Once again he sighed.