Ilustrado Part 12

"Good writing makes anything interesting. Besides, I love contemporary American lit. Call me colonial, but I'm all about it."

On a small table, beside a vase of mums, rises a monolith of Crispin Salvador books. "Yeah," Sadie says, eyeing the pile. "It's like Close Encounters of the Verbose Kind."

"Speaking of aliens, are you sure I can be in your room?"

"Chill out. When I turned twenty-one they eased off on the rules. They're enlightened. Sometimes I think they were like swingers in the seventies. Eew, that was a gross image. Anyway, they said that they'd rather have me be open at home than go off somewhere with something to hide. Whatever. Besides, nothing's gonna happen."

When she turns to look for her poetry diary, I check if my fly is zipped. Whatever thrill I had from being so unexpectedly close, from soon being on the receiving end of one of her poems, all that has suddenly evaporated. Nothing's going to happen? I wipe the inside corners of my eyes to check for eye boogers. I guess now's not the time to kiss her.

"Hey," I say, studying a poster. "I love love Steely Dan." Steely Dan."

"Yeah, me, too."

"I like that guitar part in 'Bad Sneakers.'"

"Which guitar part?"

"You know, uh, the part with, um, the guitars."

"Oh."

"Yeah." s.h.i.t. How stupid did I sound? I should've said something about loving Donald f.a.gen's clever lyrics. d.a.m.n spirit of the stairs.

"Hey!" Sadie says, "speaking of Salvador ..." She sits at her desk to riffle through the mess on it. "I just remembered, my mom was a student of his aunt, at the a.s.sumption. I bet dear old Mummy knows something about that love child you were telling me about in the car. You know how Manila is, everyone knows everyone ... but where the f.u.c.k f.u.c.k is my poetry diary?" is my poetry diary?"

"Is it the h.e.l.lo Kitty one in front of you?"

"That's my dream diary."

"How about the one with Fabio on it?"

"That's my diary diary."

"What's the poetry diary look like?"

"It's green and, um ... oh, here it is! I was sitting on it. Hehe." She opens it and leafs to the end. "You ready? Aw, I hope you like it. Um, I don't know. Be totally honest with me about what you think, okay? Be nice, though, 'kay? Anyways Anyways, here goes nothing."

She takes a deep breath and reads the poem in a sort of desperate voice that does not become her. She says each word as if it were heavy: "Night falls / like an overwrought theme; / in comes the tide / of a sea of bad metaphors. / O flower, / O rain, / O tree. / Ow! Formulaic poetry! / Will my great epiphany come at my last sentence? / Or is denouement but demented pretense? / What if revelation / has come and gone / and I missed it / while watching television?" Sadie falls silent. She looks like she's going to cry. All the praise I give does nothing to convince her I liked the poem.

The four boys don't recognize Cristo when he holds each of them. Narciso Junior squirms, the three younger ones cry. Maria Clara scolds them. She puts her hand at the small of Cristo's back. "Maybe after you've shaved your beard," she says.

In his room, beside the steaming basin, he strops his razor. He peers into the mirror. His face is obscured by a bushy beard streaked with hair of the most vibrant red. Should I, he wonders, be ashamed of my relief at being home? He wets his face. Tonight I will sit at the table and eat a proper dinner. He froths the soap in his cup. Maybe Maria Clara will give me a song. He brushes the lather onto his face. Maybe the boys and I can walk around the estate. He shaves his left cheek. We can look at the stars. He rinses his razor. At least the constellations will still be familiar. He shaves his right cheek. But what shall we do, now that we've lost? He rinses his razor again. My old friends have already ingratiated themselves with the Americans. He shaves his chin, carefully around the curves. Even the ones who'd fought so stalwartly against the Spanish. He shaves beneath his nose. He studies himself in the mirror. Who is this man? he asks. He looks like someone I once knew.

After dinner, Cristo walks with his wife and children. The cool night air is far more comforting than the warmth of the house. The boys are still wary of him, though Maria Clara is lively and lovely. She jokes easily with the children and makes them laugh. He is envious.

On the path home, Cristo sees his house, the windows lit brightly, the boys running ahead. Maria Clara holds his hand. He tells her: "Let's have one more. Let's try for a girl."

She stops and embraces him tightly.

"We will become American," Cristo says. "Our children will learn to speak American. When they are ready, we will send them to America to be educated. Just as I was in Europe. All this land will be theirs when they return. They'll return to make a difference."

"You can finally cease the war inside you," Maria Clara says.

"Yes," Cristo says. "Perhaps."

-from The Enlightened The Enlightened (page 270), by Crispin Salvador (page 270), by Crispin Salvador *

I remember just before it ended, it had been bad for weeks straight. "What would we do without each other?" Madison demanded. I watched my ice cream melt in the bowl.

For so long we'd made plans. Being in love is all about making plans. Or maybe it was just us. Everything was outlined, researched, and refined. Our nonreligionist wedding ceremony. Our ecofriendly funerals. We wanted to be wed somewhere sacred, yet not under the eyes of any G.o.d except our love, our selves, and, as Madison said, the wonderful communion of the humanity close to us. We wanted to be buried outside of cemeteries, under trees, in muslin shrouds, close to the earth that would easily reclaim us; we wanted our relatives to avoid carbon emissions and instead hold secular memorials for us in the cities where they lived. We planned the sound track of our lives (Lakme's aria for her matrimonial march; the bridge in Eric Clapton's "Layla" for my funeral cortege). We talked about adoption as the only moral choice for the world today, and debated about which country we'd rescue an orphan from. Sometimes, though, Madison would say: Maybe I'd like to have one of our own; or, Maybe it would be nice to be married in a cathedral. To which I'd reply with logic and reason.

I looked up from my melting ice cream. "What would we do without each other?" she repeated, this time tearfully. I could answer it honestly and say we'd both be okay. Or I could answer it dishonestly, the way she wanted, and say we'd both be okay. I remember she reached across the table to hold my hands. The sleeve of her white shirt got stained by a glob of ketchup and I watched it soak in. We loved differently. I felt we were blessed by every day together. She took for granted we'd be together forever. "We ... I mean us," she said, "we'll be fine. I have faith."

Both Madison and I were brought up as Roman Catholics. Our atheism was something we explored together. We led each other through the stubborn questions. How could there possibly be no creator? How could our lives just stop when we die? This struggle toward rationality vulcanized us. Our families, with their inspirational text messages and their shrill e-mails against our decision to be on the organ donor list, made Madison and me feel more alone, and therefore more together. We spent many evenings developing our system of belief, and the only times I ever doubted it was when I was wracked with happiness; I simply couldn't accept that there was no higher power to thank for it.

"Can you just say it? Just say that we'll be okay," Madison demanded. The waitress came to fill up our iced teas but turned on her heel when she saw Madison crying. "Shh. Sweetheart," I said, a bit loudly. "It's fine," I said, hoping people could overhear. Madison never gave a s.h.i.t about such public displays. We were best friends in a lonely world, and that's all that mattered. "Promise me we will," she said. Often we have to lie to people to make them happy. Yet I told her: "I can't promise." I said the line as if I'd rehea.r.s.ed it for my first role in a soap opera. Something inside me was happy when she cried.

After I'd moved out of Trump Tower and snipped the ap.r.o.n strings, and allowance, that tied me to my grandparents, Madison and I learned to find perverse pleasure in parsing and paring our lives to the barest essentials. Our frugality-a privileged paucity exclusive to cities like New York-drove us to reject the religion of capitalist consumerism. This was difficult, particularly because we lived in the United States-we loved too much the awe of standing in the aisles of Whole Foods, our minds overloaded by the abundance of varieties of mustards and refreshing beverages. Society, it seemed, tempted us into hypocrisy. I imagined that was how Muslim sleeper cells must feel. We had only to turn on the television, open a magazine, log on to the Internet. But like breaking our dependence on caffeine, shuffling off our tendency to buy things we didn't need came only after two years of necessary cheapness and ontological pondering. Madison, however, still enjoyed going to the shops, to look in the windows at the season's latest, and she'd return home with wistful eyes. I'd accuse her of manufacturing desire. Inversely, Madison could not understand my dedication to meat, and constantly reminded me of the amount of methane emitted by livestock, or how much water, land, food, and cruelty it took to raise a cow for the cheeseburger I was about to go have with Crispin. She started serving tempeh sausages at breakfast, and tofu mince in our low-carb wraps, convinced I wouldn't notice. I didn't.

Madison rubbed my hands. "Why can't you see," she said, "that whatever you're looking for is right in front of you?" It was her familiar mantra, as if our success relied solely on me. A little boy in the booth behind her kept peeking over the seat back. He'd torn off one end of a straw's paper cover and had the straw in his mouth. He squinted over Madison's head, aiming the wrapper at me like a blowgun. "First I thought it was because you're a guy," Madison said. "Uncommunicative. Then I thought you were lost and needed to be found. I don't know what to think anymore."

Like anyone, we were filled with the justifications made to cope with the guilt that comes with failing to adhere to personal aspirations. We couldn't afford now to eat healthily as well as ethically. We didn't have enough time yet to volunteer. We skirted the dread-locked Greenpeaceniks on the street with their flyers about whaling off Antarctica or the dirty oil-sand mining in Canada-this was New York City, who had time to stop and talk?

"Maybe that's it," Madison said. "I mean, maybe it's New York that's eating us. We have to be so cool, so on, so alive, that we deaden other parts of us." The boy made faces above her head. Madison shook my hands. "Why don't we just go?" she said, hope filling her face like seltzer pouring into a gla.s.s. "Grab our pa.s.sports and take off," she said. "Tonight. We'll go to Penn Station and hop on whichever train is leaving and we'll see where we end up. Europe. Asia. Africa! I've been trying forever to get us there," she said. "We can make a difference."

In the two years Madison and I were together, what we came to believe in most was the potential of humanity, by way of our faith in each other. We found joy in being free from fatalism. We relished whatever synchronicity allowed us to be alive together for as long as we had been and might be.

"Come on," she begged, "Liebling." Tears streamed down her face in earnest. I wish I knew the moment when we stopped trying to impress each other. But something made me say: "Our problems will follow us." I think there are a limited number of phrases we all use interchangeably for fights. We say the same old things to different new lovers. Maybe I didn't know the words that would've made things right. I watched her cry.

Her tears always told me I mattered. When you're young, a lovers' quarrel is the sharpest thing in the world. And I loved it. I twisted things around, milked her anguish, to be on the receiving end of her regret. I wish I knew the moment when sympathy died. If I did, I'd write it down, so we could all make sure that it never happens again.

"So, what will we do?" she said, withdrawing her hands, raising herself up in the seat. I looked at her, my Madison. She was about to go from soft to hard, and I had to act decisively or lose my advantage. "We'll keep trying," I said. "Don't stop believing." I could hear that old Journey song in my head. I wanted Madison to take my hands again. Holding someone's hand reminds you where you are.

A week later, while making tea, she ended it. I was adrift.

Bebot remembers it well.

It was 1955 and Dolores was readying herself before her first summit. He came into her room. I thought you were ready, she told him. I am, he said, I just need to have my barong pressed. That's not being ready, she snapped. When she finished applying her makeup, she went out front to the car. Elmer had the Impala idling, the electric fans whirring full blast. Where's my husband? she said to Elmer as she got in. I don't know, ma'am. Dolores leaned over to the steering wheel and held the horn down until Bebot came rushing out. He sat beside her without a word. As they neared the memorial, he asked her, Are we going to the dinner after? I'm going, she said. Did Leslie telegram from Madrid? he asked. Dolores didn't say anything. I hope her voyage went well, Bebot said.

When they arrived, the sun was low in the sky. The light glinted harshly off the bra.s.s of the band near the stage. Two bare flagpoles flanked the covered monument. The crowd was already gathered at their seats. I told you, Dolores said, I knew it. Bebot didn't reply. They walked side by side down the long path through the new lawns. Bebot looked at her intently. It will be okay today, he said. It was a long time ago. Dolores looked at him as if he'd just insulted her. My brother and mother were killed, she said. I know, Bebot said. I know.

The couple rushed to take their places reserved at the front. Dolores's secretary, Tadio, was there. Good afternoon, Congresswoman, good afternoon, sir. Here are your programs. Dolores made Tadio sit between her and Bebot. Tadio looked like he wanted to disappear.

Somebody announced over the loudspeaker, Please stand for the national anthems. Everyone stood. The Filipinos in the crowd put their hands on their chests. The Philippine flag was raised slowly by two soldiers in dress uniform as the band played the "Lupang Hinirang." When the song ended, there was an odd silence. Everyone watched the flag flap at half-mast. Bebot looked over at Dolores. She was staring at a long line of ants making their way over a flag-stone in front of her.

Dolores was remembering. She thought of how she and her brother Manito would manufacture wind chimes with the spent bullet casings they collected near their house on Jorge Bocobo Street. And every day, to build strong muscles for fighting, they lifted the large bags filled with the new banknotes, the Mickey Mouse money (one sack bought a cup of rice). Sometimes they even studied their vocabulary for the next day's cla.s.s, reciting the strange words with eyes made narrow and voices made shrill.

That was how we maintained our innocence, she thought now. When she looked up, the j.a.panese flag was already near the halfway point on the pole and the band was arriving at the last few bars of the "Kimi Ga Yo."

When Bebot glanced at his wife, he saw that she was weeping.

-from the 1973 short story "Manila Banzai Blues," by Crispin Salvador *

In Barcelona, Salvador lived in a studio in the Barrio Gotico. The years spent there for his schooling were significant for two vital but different relationships: that with Gigi Mitterand and that with Max Oscurio. He recounted their first encounters, at the same picnic party, in Autoplagiarist Autoplagiarist.

Of Oscurio: "At the entrance to the park, beside Antoni Gaudi's mosaic-scaled lizard straddling the staircases, I saw the two Berties, Roberto Pascual and Edilberto Dario, whom I'd not seen since Manila. Pascual was excitedly telling about a strip-teaseuse strip-teaseuse he'd seen in Paris, a Montrealaise who had simulated s.e.x with a black swan on-stage. It was good to share laughter with them again. They introduced me to their older companion, who, despite unkempt hair and sunken cheeks, drew one's interest with his enervating eyes. They seemed to have the blackness of Rasputin's. He leaned against the banister, stroking the lizard's blue head as if it were his pet. This fellow brightened when I greeted their group and he immediately proffered his hand for me to shake. His fingernails were long and painted like a woman's, Tyrolean green. When I tried to shake his hand he grabbed mine firmly, brought it to his lips, and planted a kiss upon my knuckles. I was so taken aback I could not resist. 'Max Oscurio, my beautiful boy,' said he. 'How is it a prince like you has not yet joined our coterie?' Instantaneous was my repulsion." he'd seen in Paris, a Montrealaise who had simulated s.e.x with a black swan on-stage. It was good to share laughter with them again. They introduced me to their older companion, who, despite unkempt hair and sunken cheeks, drew one's interest with his enervating eyes. They seemed to have the blackness of Rasputin's. He leaned against the banister, stroking the lizard's blue head as if it were his pet. This fellow brightened when I greeted their group and he immediately proffered his hand for me to shake. His fingernails were long and painted like a woman's, Tyrolean green. When I tried to shake his hand he grabbed mine firmly, brought it to his lips, and planted a kiss upon my knuckles. I was so taken aback I could not resist. 'Max Oscurio, my beautiful boy,' said he. 'How is it a prince like you has not yet joined our coterie?' Instantaneous was my repulsion."

Of Mitterand: "Trumpets today, and trumpets and more trumpets sounding joy. She was alone, enjoying a cigarette away from the crowds of picnickers. Her hair reminded me of bra.s.s just before it tarnishes. Trumpets! She spoke Spanish with a French accent, having difficulty rolling her r r's, dragging them on the ground as only the French have the right to do. How do such flaws become beautiful in the right person? She was sitting sidesaddle on the long bench shaped like a Mediterranean kraken, its mosaic matching her ruby earrings as if a prescient Gaudi had intended this very moment. How did I not guess instantly that she was a violinist, with fingers so long, so slender, they were chopsticks of ivory pinching her red-stained cigarette? I found my heart beating so rapidly I felt my lungs would collapse. I asked if she liked the park. She said the survival of Gaudi's work is 'a reprimand to Franco.' Which struck me as one of those strong, stupid opinions that are endearing in their way. But her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were monumental in her low-cut blouse, her figure rangy almost to the point of awkwardness. Her white trousers were short above her tanned calves, her ankles of such slightness I wanted to circle my fingers around them, to marvel that they could support her. She explained that the dip in the bench, rolling as it does from the wall and sparkling with tile like the hollow of a wave, was molded to the posterior of a naked workman whom Gaudi had made sit in the wet clay. I of course did not believe her. She pulled me to sit at her side and we wiggled into the bench's curvature. She smelled of oranges and pastis. Then, standing and looking around, she pulled her trousers down and sank her naked, milk-white posterior into the recess. 'See!?' she declared, taking my flabbergasted expression as a sign I conceded my disbelief. I averted my eyes politely, staring instead into hers, which smiled with magnificent infantile coruscation. She hadn't even given me her name when I silently pledged my heart to her. What a cruel moment that afternoon when she introduced me to Raoul, her Spanish fiance, an Extremaduran count no less!"

-from the biography in progress, Crispin Salvador: Crispin Salvador: Eight Lives Lived, by Miguel Syjuco *

Things had been strained since they returned from their day trip to the little isthmus off the island of L--. That rendezvous differed vastly from those carefree trips they'd taken last year. Nineteen fifty-eight was a tremendous year, he thinks now, both for that case of Chateau L'Arrosee and for our love.

Pipo watches her brush her teeth. He's always loved observing her when she wasn't looking. As now. His eyes are like a film camera, capturing forever the architecture of her ankles, the way she rises on the b.a.l.l.s of her feet to bend like a lily's stem over the basin to spit, the way her arches curve like bows, the way her heels come down to touch the tiles gently, like a kiss. Sadie shakes out her long blond hair and ties it in a chignon. She tightens the towel around her, returns to the bedroom, and looks at him sitting in the leather armchair, pretending to read the three-day-old edition of Le Canard en chaine. Le Canard en chaine. Has it really been, Pipo wonders, that long since they'd left the room? Has it really been, Pipo wonders, that long since they'd left the room?

"As I was telling you ... ," Sadie says. He'll miss the way her British accent makes her enunciate the s s and and t t sounds. It makes her sound impetuous. "... you know well that I'm the sort who stares at a storming sky and thinks 'this rain shall stop, and soon.' And that I believe I will one day return to all the places I have loved, and that the world is small and I shall see you again, inevitably. I know that this something we share will not have ended the next time we meet, even if I don't know what it is that we have. Do you at all understand?" She lets the towel fall around her ankles and lies down on the bed, turning onto her side to look meaningfully at Pipo. He studies the dip at her waist, the deep curve like an autumn valley amid wintry mountains. He catches her eyes with his, then forces her to look at him look away. He doesn't want to say what he's going to say. sounds. It makes her sound impetuous. "... you know well that I'm the sort who stares at a storming sky and thinks 'this rain shall stop, and soon.' And that I believe I will one day return to all the places I have loved, and that the world is small and I shall see you again, inevitably. I know that this something we share will not have ended the next time we meet, even if I don't know what it is that we have. Do you at all understand?" She lets the towel fall around her ankles and lies down on the bed, turning onto her side to look meaningfully at Pipo. He studies the dip at her waist, the deep curve like an autumn valley amid wintry mountains. He catches her eyes with his, then forces her to look at him look away. He doesn't want to say what he's going to say.

"You act as if I should be happy with that." He pauses a moment, for effect. He softens his voice, because he wants to. He knows he shouldn't. "The problem is one doesn't realize what love looks like until you see others who have it, and you realize that you don't. You see lovers-in the street, at a cafe, in photographs for heaven's sake-and you think think: that is what it should look like. Ours looks nothing like that. Sometimes it does, then you go away again. You return to your Spanish aristocrat." Pipo spits out the last word. "Then I don't know what I see. That's all." But that isn't all. Yet he holds his tongue.

He stands and looks at her among the big square pillows Europeans love but he could never understand. She sits up, draws her legs against her chest, and rests her chin on her knees, like an origami bird being folded. Sadie stares back. Challenging. Then she studies her hands, turning them over, inspecting them as if they were new. As if this wasn't the end.

Pipo hesitates, in this moment which he realizes will last forever in his mind. Even now he loves how she is a woman who likes to be looked at, even photographed, without drama, not hamming it up, ever, merely displaying, honestly. He has always loved that honesty, even if it meant she refused to decide between him and the Extremaduran count. Then Pipo's hesitation pa.s.ses and he turns away. The door doesn't make a sound as he leaves.

He knows it isn't over.

The End.

-from Vida Vida, Book III of The Europa Quartet The Europa Quartet, by Crispin Salvador *

At dinner, Dr. and Mrs. Effy and Raqel Gonzales are welcoming. Joined by their son, Toofy, several years younger than Sadie, we sit in their sprawling dining/living room. Raqel catches me admiring a finely painted screen across one wall. "Late Edo period," she explains. "The dealer told me it depicts popular Hokkaido myths." She systematically turns the lazy Susan so that I partake first of every dish as the family watches me fumble with the serving cutlery.

I get this nauseating feeling of deja vu. But when I look at their faces, I see only strangers. Effy, a graying bear, straight from work in an office barong with a Mont Blanc clipped inside the placket, smelling of cigarettes and Paco Rabanne. Raqel, well preserved by regular sessions at the Polo Club gym, is in stylish Anne Taylorstyle linen slacks and tailored cotton blouse. Sadie's brother, Toofy (his name meaning "Effy Jr." or "Effy too" or even "Effy two"-I didn't catch the finer points of Sadie's explanation), is slight and possesses the habit of playing with his lower lip. He didn't shake my hand and seems to shrink from the dinner table.

Sadie sits beside me. I feel her foot rub up against mine under the table. I stare at the linen napkin folded into a swan beside my plate. She keeps rubbing her naked foot against my ankle. Finally, she kicks me hard. I look up and she's staring at me, irritatedly. She leans over to whisper. "Don't forget to ask my mom about Dulcinea."

"No need to whisper! Don't be shy," Raqel says from across the table. "Feel at home. We're so glad you could join us! Really, so glad. Isn't that nice, Daddy?" Her husband is oblivious, busy rolling up his sleeves.

An old man in pajama pants, terry cloth house slippers, and a too-big yellow T-shirt that says "Don't worry, be happy" shuffles out of the kitchen and circles slowly around the dining table. He's grumbling quietly to himself. n.o.body seems to notice. He's holding a spoon.

Raqel continues: "So, Miguel, you're from New York? But you grew up here? Ateneo or La Salle? ... Ah, good, good."

"Well, I went to La Salle," says Effy.

Raqel: "That's not your fault, dear. But, Miguel, you know, Toofy here is going to Southridge, getting a good Opus Dei education. Did you learn Latin at Ateneo? When did they stop teaching it? Well, then, Toofy will have to recite some original Thucydides for us later, won't you, Toofs?"

Toofy (reaching for the rice, mumbles): "Thucydides is Greek."

Effy: "This rain is really something, no? That'll stop those Muslim zealots."

Raqel: "I know! I was stuck in traffic nearly two hours, coming home from my Friends of the CCP lunch in Manila. I thought it was another roadblock. There's so many these days. I was relieved it was just a flood. That stupid Bonifacio almost stalled the car pa.s.sing through it. I was worried you'd have to send your driver with the four-by-four."

Sadie: "Global warming. Maybe all our cars should get those engine snorkels like the four-by-four."

Effy: "That's ridiculous. I don't believe in global warming."

Sadie: "Because you work for Petron."

The old man shouts out: "Listen! It's happening. We must be vigilant." He wields his spoon as if it were a knife.

Effy: "Pop, the war's over. The j.a.panese surrendered."

Raqel (turning to me): "Don't mind my father-in-law. He's un-well. The maids feed him in the kitchen, but he likes to walk around between spoonfuls."

Toofy (leaning in like a spy in a crowded souk): "We call him Spooky Lolo."

Raqel: "Miguel, excuse me for asking, I'm curious. Who are your parents?"

I tell her.

Raqel: "Ah, I knew your mother from a.s.sumption. She was a few years older. We knew of your dad. They should never have gotten on that plane."

Effy (glaring at his wife): "It was a real tragedy. The country would have been so different."

Me: "Thank you, sir."

Raqel: "I still think it was the CIA. Bobby Pimplicio was too much of a nationalist senator for their liking."

Effy: "The people called him 'Bob Hope.' I still remember his campaign jingle. 'Don't cast your dreams down the drain, cast a vote for Mr. Hope.'"

Sadie: "In history cla.s.s we learned that anyone could have sabotaged the engine. The administration, the big corporations, even the commies."

Me: "All the explanations never really interested me. All that mattered was that my parents were gone and I never knew them."

Toofy: "Bet it was a spiteful G.o.d."

Me (smiling at Toofy): "I tend to agree."

Effy: "How about your lolo, how's he doing? I used to see him at Manila Golf. Haven't seen him in a while, though."

Sadie: "I thought you said you didn't have family here?"

Me: "My lolo is well, sir. Still the firebrand."

Raqel: "How many children are you?"