The Legend of the Banana-trunk Girl

Sonata was the most beautiful girl in town. She was benign. She was a Maria Clara, an epitome of a perfect Filipina. She had captured the hearts of all the boys in town. The rich boys from the neighboring towns would visit her regularly to court and lay their love on her. She was a daughter of a gobernadorcillo who was a Draconian. No boy could talk to her outside the house. Townsfolk knew that to be able to talk to her, one should pay her a visit and ask first for her father’s approval. Her father, Don Luisito, was a descendant of a powerful Spaniard, who was a confidante of Governor-General Miguel Lopez de Legazpi. That meant she was untouchable. A Spanish firing squad would execute anyone who dared touch her.

In the late summer, Sonata and her family, along with his father’s Spanish guards, went on a vacation to the beaches of Calbayog. They spent the entire night there. Her father and the guards were drinking wine fresh from Acapulco. Their inebriety made them fall asleep in the cottage facing the calm sea. At midnight, Sonata and her chaperone, Vida, who was very close to her, wandered on the seashore. They didn’t consider the possibility that there were Moros or pirates hiding around. Perhaps because Sonata was anxious about wanting to take a walk without fear of being scorned by his father.

They promenaded under the moonlit sky and chilling breeze, dancing around them, caressing their sensitive skins. They walked like a cat along the seashore, never minding the waves touching their expensive wooden sandals. About half a kilometer away from the cottage, someone grabbed Sonata and Vida into the bushes. They tried to shout for help, but huge hands cupped their mouths. They couldn’t make out who they were because of the dark surroundings inside the bush. But in Sonata’s mind, she knew they were Moros.

Two men wearing nothing but a loincloth and a bandanna tied around their heads appeared in front of them. They had a bolo strapped around their waist. “Say a word, and I’ll cut your throat,” said the first man in his native tongue. “Tie them up,” he instructed his companion.

Sonata and Vida trembled in fear. Vida didn’t let go of her sobs, and she wetted. But Sonata tried to tame the men with her silence. And if the moonlit struck her face, she would subdue them with her beauty.

The second man pulled the rope hanging around his broad shoulder. He tied the hands of their captives. Sonata felt pain as the rope fibers sunk into her delicate wrists.

“Please don’t kill us,” Vida pleaded, embarrassed she smelled of urine.

“Quiet!” said the first man. “I can kill you now. I only want your señorita.”

Vida zipped her mouth. She could feel drops of urine come out again.

“Please don’t kill her,” said Sonata. Her voice was calm and pleasing to the men’s ears. “I will give you whatever you want.”

The first man punched Vida in the face. She collapsed down to the ground. He shook her, but the blow was so heavy that it made her unconscious. He turned to Sonata and stripped down her luxurious gown. Had the moonlit shone on her ivory legs, the men’s craving for flesh would have reached the top of the pedestal of lust. Sonata tried to recede when the first man touched her legs. He tried to spread her legs. And when he took off his loincloth, someone knocked him from behind. The second man had fled like a cheetah.

Sonata cried and pushed the unconscious culprit off of her. She looked up at a silhouette of another man standing a few steps in front of her. The man stepped closer to her and hunkered down. He untied her hands. He picked her up and pulled her out of the bushes.

“Wait,” she said. “Vida.”

He didn’t listen to her. He kept on walking.

“Hey!” Sonata hardened and fixed her feet on the ground. “My friend is there. We must wake her up.” She then noticed the man wearing strange clothing, the one not found in her time. It was slick, seemed thick like rubber, and stressed the man’s body muscles. She touched his shoulder. She felt the smoothness and hardness of the strange clothing.

When the man turned to her, she saw he had pointed ears. She thought he might be a fairy or an elf. She pulled her hand away from him and took aback. “Are you an elf?”

The man didn’t say a word. Although the moonlight could hardly shine on his face, she knew he was handsome. He smiled an infectious smile and she could make it out. And, at that moment, Sonata’s heart galloped like a horse behind the two unexplored mountains. At last, the man spoke in a clear deep voice, “I’ll be here waiting for you.”

Sonata didn’t understand what he meant. “Why?”

“Your friend is awake,” he said.

Sonata looked at the bushes. When she looked back at the man, he had walked away through the night.

From that day on, Sonata no longer entertained suitors. She told Don Luisito that she would never marry, and that was absolutely fine for him because he had two sons who could continue his offspring. The mysterious man had imprisoned her heart.

Every weekend after summer, Sonata would visit the beach where she had met him. Nobody knew what she was up to every midnight except Vida. When her family was already asleep and her father and his guards were drunk, she would ask Vida to go with her. Upon reaching a big rock on the seashore, she would tell Vida to wait for her there for an hour or two. Vida wouldn’t complain, although she feared that there might be Moros again. When Sonata came back, Vida could see her smile tinged with so much love.

On the night Sonata was last seen, she and Vida went to the beach. The night had no moon, and the air was warm. Overjoyed, Sonata met the mysterious man again. As usual, she left Vida on the big rock.

After over two hours, Vida could sense that there was something wrong because Sonata hadn’t come back yet. She rushed to where Sonata had gone, at the edge of the cliff. Green lights seeped out through a long opening down the cliff. She ran toward it. But before she could reach the cliff, the green lights had vanished. She then saw Sonata’s lifeless body lying on the sands.

Don Luisito interrupted the entire province of Samar when his men searched every household to look for the culprit of Sonata’s death. But nobody was guilty. Nobody killed Sonata. He cried and cursed in front of Sonata’s coffin. After the friar blessed the dead, he requested to open the coffin so he could embrace his lovely princess for the last time. And when they opened the coffin, what they saw stupefied them. The body was not hers. It was a banana trunk clothed in a luxurious gown.

From that moment on, every time someone disappeared without a trace, townsfolk would call it the missing person is now a banana trunk.

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