Buhawi

It was a hot summer day, the kind where the sun seared your skin and made you sweat as soon as you stepped out of the bathroom. Esther was very self-conscious. She’d already changed outfits twice. Would Rod like the pink miniskirt or the white dress better? She looked good in both, although the white dress showed off her tan arms and legs. But they were meeting at Luneta. What if they sat down on a bench? Then her dress would be ruined. She would have to bring a shawl, or at the very least, a piece of paper, something to keep her dress from getting dirty. She looked back at the pink miniskirt spread on her bed, then shook her head. She’d take the risk. After all, it wouldn’t rain today.

Two streets over, on the Alinan eskinita, Kristel had just woken up from her nap. She was six years old, with gangly limbs and hair that refused to lie flat. “Be a good girl and stay inside,” her mother said. “I’m just going to see Auntie Niña.”

Kristel nodded. She took out her red ball and began to play. The heat inside their one-room shanty was stifling, so she opened the door, just a crack. She began to bounce the ball over and over against the rough concrete wall.

Twenty minutes away, Gene Romero strode through Moriones gate. Today was the day. He was sweating heavily, partly because of the heat, but mostly because of the fear and excitement thrumming in his veins. His heart was crashing against his chest. He looked out into the endless blue of the sea. The sun glimmered on top of the waves, making them sparkle. It was such a pretty sight. He’d planned everything down to the last second—he would fill his pockets with stones and walk slowly into Manila Bay. After that, he would let the waves carry him away.

If you saw Gene in a crowd, you wouldn’t remember his face. He hadn’t left his house in three months. He had his groceries delivered. It used to be enough, logging in to Facebook every day, posting quotes from Rumi and liking his friends’ posts. But yesterday he woke up and realized that he was all alone. No one cared whether or not he was still alive. Why not end it? What else was there to live for?

Esther finally slipped out the door. She was alone in the house, so there was no one to ask where she was going, whom she was meeting. She was only fourteen, her father said, too young to date. “Finish your studies first.” But there was something about Rod’s brown eyes, the way he looked at her, that made her shiver. She liked the slight crookedness of his front teeth, the tender way he took her elbow whenever they crossed a street.

They were always careful to keep to the shadowy corners, to avoid holding hands where anyone could see them. Yesterday she had let Rod kiss her cheek. Today, she decided, she would let him kiss her. She felt a thrill just thinking of it. He smelled of Bench Atlantis. It didn’t have the tang of salt and sea, but she thought that the vaguely masculine scent suited him.

She hurried along Roxas Boulevard, skipping the last few steps, waiting for the traffic light to turn red so that she could cross the street. There he was, waiting at the bench by the statue of Rizal, just as he’d promised. He was standing in a ray of sunlight, smiling at her. She resisted the urge to fling herself into his arms. “Hello,” she said instead.

It seemed to Kristel that she’d been bouncing her ball forever. What was taking Mama so long? She gave it an impatient bounce. The ball slid through the opened door and rolled down the eskinita. Kristel chased after it. Papa had given her that ball. It was her most precious toy because she only saw him once a year, whenever his ship docked in Manila. She wove around the feet of her neighbors, her eyes intent on her toy. The streets were quieter than usual, filled with women and children, but almost empty of men and boys. It had been that way ever since Tokhang had started. In two months, four men had been killed in Alinan. Pusher, wag tularan, said the hastily scrawled cardboard sign next to their bodies. None of the men had sold drugs. Only two of them had used them. The other two—a man and his son—were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“O yung bata, yung bata,” Aling Suming said, as Kristel ran past her, but no one paid the old woman any mind. 

Gene began to fill his pockets.

Esther and Rod had just clasped hands when they felt the wind begin to rise. It tousled Ester’s hair and began to lift her skirt up. “Ay,” she said. She let go of Rod’s hand to push her skirt down.

The wind picked up Kristel’s ball and rolled it out of Alinan and into Moriones street. It turned right and sped down the street towards the gate that led to the sea. She ran after her ball, oblivious to everything else.

Gene paused as he felt the wind whip through his body. Was he really doing the right thing? He’d been so sure when he’d woken up this morning, but now he began to feel the first twinges of uncertainty. He looked out towards the ocean. On the horizon, a grey mass had begun to take shape.

“Look at that,” Rod said. Esther turned away from her skirt and followed his finger.

“What is it?” she asked. Before their eyes, a tendril snaked from the clouds into the water. It grew bigger and bigger by the second. The tendril turned into a whirling buhawi. “Maybe it’ll dissipate,” Esther said.

The buhawi showed no sign of getting smaller. It rushed from the ocean into Manila Bay. Everyone on Roxas Boulevard stopped what they were doing and turned to gaze at the waterspout. Everyone, that is, except Kristel, who only had eyes for her ball. The wind hurled it over the sea wall and onto the sand.

A red blur sped past Gene. It was followed by a small swift figure. “Wait,” he said, “there’s a buhawi coming,” but the child paid him no mind. Even though his pockets were still heavy, he ran after her.

Kristel lunged for her ball but a wave came and took it. She splashed after it, but before she could go any deeper, thin wiry arms reached for her. She struggled. “Ano ba, yung bola ko!”

Gene said nothing. He hoisted Kristel to his chest and began to run. The stones fell out of his pockets as his feet pounded the sand. Over his shoulder, she saw a spinning column of water. It was big. It was terrifying.

The sky unleashed a torrent of water. The other couples shrieked and ran for shelter, but Rod and Esther stayed beneath the trees. They forgot about the buhawi. He looked down at her just as she looked up at him. Their lips met in the middle.    

They kissed and kissed beneath the downpour. They were the only ones still under the trees. It was glorious. Esther didn’t think about the fact that her dress was now ruined. She kept her arms around Rod and her lips on his.

Gene reached the sea wall, vaulted over. He turned to look. The waterspout had reached the middle of the sea, but it moved no further. Around him, there were people shooting video beneath their umbrellas. They all paused for a few minutes to watch the waterspout whirl away in the middle of the bay.

The buhawi was gone almost as soon as it had appeared. But not before it had upended their lives, gale-force winds spinning Esther and Rod together, dropping Gene and Kristel into each other’s lives in their time of utmost need. 

“I was swept away by a buhawi just like that in Subic,” a man beside Gene said. He was tall, with a face that drooped like a bulldog’s. “I nearly drowned.”

Most of the stones had fallen out of Gene’s pocket in his rush to reach Kristel and get her to safety. There was only one left in his left pocket. He shifted her weight to his right arm so that he could free his left hand. He put his hand in his pocket, felt the stone’s rough contours. He had come so close. He took the stone out and flung it from him. Then he wrapped his left arm back around Kristel. 

She raised her head from Gene’s shoulder. He smelled of the sea, wild and briny. Kristel sniffled. “Yung bola ko,” she said. “Bigay pa ’yun ni Tatay."

“I'll get you a new ball,” Gene said. Here was something he could do. He’d just saved a child. Maybe he wasn’t so useless after all.

Tears had already started to fall down Kristel’s face, but she wiped them away with a grimy hand.

“Promise?” she asked Gene.

“Yes.” He made another unspoken promise to himself.

“Salamat,” she said. “Baka nalunod ako kung ’di mo ko sinagip.” Now that the buhawi was gone, her heart felt too big for her chest. She burrowed into him, let her tears wet his shoulder. His briny smell reminded her of her father.

Gene patted her back. “Where do you live? I’ll take you home. Then your mom can go with us to buy a new ball.” As she opened her mouth to reply, he held her fragile body against his. He felt the rapid pounding of her heart.

***

Author’s Biography

Isa Lorenzo’s fiction has been published in PRISM International, Mud Season Review, Outpouring: Typhoon Yolanda Relief Anthology, and the W&N website. She has an MA in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) from the University of East Anglia, where she was awarded the Malcolm Bradbury Memorial Bursary and won the UEA Orion Short Story Prize. She has attended national writing workshops in Silliman and Iligan. Isa has just started to learn calligraphy. She also climbs mountains whenever she can.