The Sadness Collector (Merlinda Bobis)

And she will not stop eating, another pot, another plate, another mouthful of
sadness, and she will grow bigger and bigger, and she will burst.
On the bed, six year old Rica braces herself, waiting for the dreaded
explosion
Nothing. No big bang. Because shes been a good girl. Her tears are not even
a mouthful tonight. And maybe their neighbours in the run down apartment
have been careful, too. From every pot and plate, they must have scraped of
their leftover sighs and hidden them somewhere unreachable. So Big Lady
cant get to them. So she can be saved from bursting.
Every night, no big bang really, but Rica listens anyway.
The house is quiet again. She breathes easier, lifting the sheets slowly from
her face a brow just unfurrowing, but eyes still wary and a mouth forming
the old silent question are you really there? She turns on the lamp. Its girlie
kitsch like the rest of the decor, from the dancing lady wallpaper to the row of
Barbie dolls on a roseate plastic table. The tiny room is all pink bravado,
hoping to compensate for the warped ceiling and stained floor. Even the
unhinged window flaunts a family of pink paper rabbits.
Are you there?
Her father says she never shows herself to anyone. Big Lady only comes
when youre asleep to eat your sadness. She goes from house to house and
eats the sadness of everyone, so she gets too fat. But theres a lot of sadness
in many houses, it just keeps on growing each day, so she cant stop eating,
and she cant stop growing too.
Are you really that bid? How do you wear your hair?
Dios ko, if she eats all our mess, Rica, she might grow too fat and burst, so be
a good girl and save her by not being sad hoy, stop whimpering, I said, and
go to bed. Her father is not always patient with his storytelling.
All quiet now. Shes gone.
Since Rica was three, when her father told her about Big Lady just after her
mother left for Paris, she was always listening intently to all the night noises
from the kitchen. No, that sound is not the scurrying of mice shes actually
checking the plates now, lifting the lid of the rice pot, peeking into cups for
sadness, both overt and unspoken. To Rica, it always tastes salty, like tears,
even her fathers funny look each time she asks him to read her again the
letters from Paris.
She has three boxes of them, one for each year, though the third box is not
even half full. All of them tied with Paris ribbons. The first year, her mother
sent all colours of the rainbow for her long, unruly hair, maybe because her

father did not know how to make it more graceful. He must have written her
long letters, asking about how to pull the mass of curls away from the face
and tie them neatly the way he gathered, into some semblance of order, his
own nightly longings.
It took some time for him to perfect the art of making a pony tail. Then he
discovered a trick unknown to even the best hairdressers. Instead of twisting
the bunch of hair to make sure it does not come undone before its tied, one
can rotate the whole body. Rica simply had to turn around in place, while her
father held the gathered hair above her head. Just like dancing, really.
She never forgets, talaga naman, the aunties whisper among themselves
these days. A remarkable child. She was only a little thing then, but she
noticed all, didnt she, never missed anything, committed even details to
memory. A very smart kid, but too serious, a sad kid.
They must have guessed that, recently, she has cheated on her promise to
behave and save Big Lady. But only on nights when her father comes home
late and drunk, and refuses to read the old letters from Paris indeed, she
has been a very good girl. Shes six and grown up now, so, even if his refusal
has multiplied beyond her ten fingers, she always makes sure that her nightly
tears remained small and few. Like tonight, when she hoped her father would
come home early, as he promised again. Earlier, Rica watched TV to forget, to
make sure the tears wont amount to a mouthful. She hates waiting. Big Lady
hates that, too, because then shell have to clean up till the early hours of the
morning.
Why Paris? Why three years and even more? Aba, this is getting too much
now. The aunties never agree with her mothers decision to work there, on a
fake visa, as a domestic helper ay naku, taking care of other peoples
children, while, across the ocean, her own baby cries herself to sleep? Talaga
naman! She wants to earn good money and build us a house. Remember, I
only work in a factory... Her father had always defended his wife, until
recently, when all talk about her return was shelved. It seems she must
extend her stay, because her employer might help her to become legal.
Then she can come home for a visit and go back there to work some more
The lid clatters of the pot. Beneath her room, the kitchen is stirring again.
Rica sits up on the bed the big one has returned? But she made sure the pot
and plates were clean, even the cups, before she went to bed. She turns of
the lamp to listen in the dark. Expectant ears, hungry for the phones
overseas beep. Her mother used to call each month and write her postcards,
also long love letters, even if she couldnt read yet. With happy snaps, of
course. Earlier this year, she sent one of herself and the new baby of her
employer.
Cutlery noise. Does she also check them? This has never happened before,
her coming back after a lean meal. Perhaps, shes licking a spoon for any
trace of saltiness, searching between the prongs of a fork. Unknown to Rica,
Big Lady is wise, an old hand in this business. She senses that theres more to

a mouthful of sadness than meets the tongue. A whisper of salt, even the
smallest nudge to the palate, can betray a century of hidden grief. Perhaps,
she understands that, for all its practice, humanity can never conceal the
daily act of futility at the dinner table. As we feed continually, we also
acknowledge the perennial nature of our hunger. Each time we bring food to
our mouths, the gut emptiness that we attempt to fill inevitably
contaminates our cutlery, plates, cups, glasses, our whole table. It is this
residual contamination, our individual portions of grief, that she eats, so we
do not die from them but what if we dont eat? Then we can claim self
sufficiency, a fullness from birth, perhaps. Then we wont betray our hunger.
But Rica was not philosophical at four years old, when she had to be cajoled,
tricked, ordered, then scolded severely before she finished her meal, if she
touched it at all. Rica understood her occasional hunger strikes quite simply.
She knew that these dinner quarrels with her father, and sometimes her
aunties, ensured dire consequences. Each following day, she always made
stick drawings of Big Lady with an ever increasing girth, as she was sure the
lady had had a big meal the night before.
Mouth curved downward, shes sad like her meals. No, she wears a smile,
shes happy because shes always full. Sharp eyes, they can see in the dark,
light bulb eyes, and big teeth for chewing forever. She can hardly walk,
because her bellys so heavy, shes pregnant with leftovers. No, she doesnt
walk, she flies like a giant cloud and shes not heavy at all, she only looks
heavy. And she doesnt want us to be sad, so she eats all our tears and sighs.
But she cant starve, can she? Of course, she likes sadness, its food.
Fascination, fear and a kinship drawn from trying to save each other. Big Lady
saves Rica from sadness; Rica saves Big Lady from bursting by not being sad.
An ambivalent relationship, confusing, but certainly a source of comfort. And
always Big Lady as object of attention. Those days when Rica drew stick
drawings of her, she made sure the big one was always adorned with pretty
baubles and make up. She even drew her with a Paris ribbon to tighten her
belly. Then she added a chic hat to complete the picture.
Crimson velvet with a black satin bow. Quite a change from all the girlie
kitsch that her mother had dredged from Paris unfashionable side of town?
The day it arrived in the mail, Rica was about to turn six. A perfect Parisienne
winter hat for a tiny head in the tropics. It came with a bank draft for her
party.
She did not try it on, it looked strange, so diferent from the Barbies and pink
paper rabbits. This latest gift was unlike her mother, something was missing.
Rica turned it inside out, searching on TV, Magic Man can easily pull a rabbit
or a dove out of his hat, just like that, always. But this tale was not part of her
fathers repertoire. He told her not to be silly when she asked him to be Magic
Man and pull out Paris but can she eat as far as Paris? Can she fly from here
to there overnight? Are their rice pots also full of sad leftovers? How salty?
Nowadays, her father makes sure he comes home late each night, so he

wont have to answer the questions, especially about the baby in the
photograph. So he need not to improvise further on his three year old tall
tale.
There it is again, the cutlery clunking against a plate or scraping the bottom
of a cup? Shes searching for the hidden mouthfuls and platefuls and potfuls.
Cupboards are opened. No, nothing there, big one, nothing Ricas eyes are
glued shut. The sheets rise and fall with her breathing. She wants to leave
the bed, sneak into the kitchen and check out this most unusual return and
thoroughness.
Thats the rice pot being overturned
Her breaths make and unmake a hillock on the streets
A plate shatters on the floor
Back to a foetal curl, knees almost brushing chin
Another plate crushes
She screams
The pot is hurled against the wall
She keeps screaming as she ruins out of the room, down to the kitchen
And the cutlery, glasses, cups, more plates
Big Ladys angry, Big Ladys hungry, Big Ladys turning the house upside
down
Breaking it everywhere
Her throat is weaving sound, as if it were all that it never knew
SHUT UP !
Big Lady wants to break all to get to the heart of the matter, where its the
saltiest. In the vein of a plate, within the aluminium bottom of a pot, in the
copper fold of a spoon, deep in the curve of a cups handle
Ropes and ropes of scream
I SAID, SHUT UP!
Her cheek stings. She collapses on the floor before his feet.
I didnt mean to, Dios ko po, I never meant to

Her dazed eyes make out the broken plates, the dented pot, the shards of
cups, glasses, the cutlery everywhere
Hes hiccupping drunkenly all over her
I didnt mean to, Rica, I love you, baby, Ill never let you go His voice is
hoarse with anger and remorse.
She came back, Papa
She cant take you away from me
Shes here again
Just because shes legal now
She might burst, Papa
That whore - ! His hands curl into fists on her back.
Big Lady knows, has always known. This feast will last her a lifetime, if she
does not burst tonight.
Aguila, Augusto Antonio A., Joyce L. Arriola and John Jack Wigley. Philippine
Literatures: Texts, Themes, Approaches. Espana, Manila: Univesity of Santo
Tomas Publishing House. Print.