The Soothing

“He’s not dead,” the albularyo said, taking the almost-finished cigarette away from his mouth. “The body in the coffin is not him. It’s a banana trunk.” His eyes flashed through the smoke wafting across the young woman’s face. “You are having a vigil for a banana trunk, not for a dead body.” He glanced at the window and smirked. “His sister came to me last week asking to cure him.” He puffed one last time, flicked the cigarette butt outside the window, and struck her with a sharp stare. “Look, miss, the vigil is nonsense. You bury it tomorrow.”

A pool of tears streamed out from the woman’s eyes and made it hard to discern her frown. “Why do we see his body in the coffin if it’s a banana trunk?” asked her.

“It’s a phantasm,” he snapped. “It’s a way to trick everybody who knows him. The goal is for all of you to believe that he’s dead.” He reached for the match and lit up the candle on the table. “To accept the death of a loved one is difficult. But that difficulty will dwindle eventually.” The wind blew the candle and its light winked.

“Where’s he now?” she asked, trying to control the sobs.

“The diwata took him to her realm,” he said, looking at her sunken cheeks struggling to glow against the candlelight. Three days of mourning and vigil had made her thinner.

“Will you come with me and show us that it’s just a banana trunk?”

“I can’t,” he said, shaking his head.

She touched his arm. “Please?”

He felt her smooth, young hand and it soothed him. When was the last time he had been touched? A long time ago? He couldn’t remember. As warm blood rushed under the skin of his arm, he flinched away and she receded an inch. “If I do that, it will be me who will suffer the consequence,” he said.

“What consequence?”

“The diwata will punish me. I can’t fight her. She’s a powerful one.”

“I will fight her. I will do everything to get him back,” she said with feverish haste.

He pursed his dark purple lips. “You cannot fight someone who you cannot see. You cannot fight someone who doesn’t exist in our world.”

She gasped as she wiped her tears with a handkerchief.

“Bury it tomorrow before three in the afternoon. That’s the best thing you can do for everyone’s peace of mind. And don’t speak to anyone about what I’ve said.”

She stared through the window at something far away and he thought what he had said went in one ear and out the other. She heard the whispers of her forlorn heart asking not to give up. “Why did she take him?” she asked, turning at him.

He looked away. He didn’t want her to see him lie.

“Why did she take him? Tell me please?” Her voice trembled with emotions.

“She loves him,” he said and the words slapped her face. “If he doesn’t like her, she couldn’t take him.”

“What do you mean? He has an affair with the diwata all this time?” Her eyebrows raised.

“You know what I mean, miss. Diwatas can’t take anyone who doesn’t go with them.”

She felt so much pain that it churned her empty stomach. “Is there a way to take him back?”

“That, I don’t know. I’ve never known anybody who is taken by a diwata and returns here. You accept that he’s no longer coming back. You pretend that he’s already dead.”

“I just can’t let him go.” She sniffled. “Can’t you do something? I’ll pay you how much you want,” the woman implored in between sobs.

The albularyo looked at her with an intent to see her capacity to pay him for a first-time tremendous service he would probably do. He knew she belonged to a rich family in town. Her desperation would help him to renovate his rickety hut. He turned to the window, his eyes fixed on the looming twilight, and pondered for a moment. The poor state of the town crossed his mind. No jobs had made him earn money except healing for donations.

Not a single tear came out no matter how she cried. The heat produced by the candlelight had parched her cheeks like cracked earth in a drought. “I’m begging you. Please help me get him back. Please, please, please.” Her voice, which had become gruffy and inaudible for crying, touched his heart.

“Miss, I’ve never tried taking someone back here in our world from the diwatas. But, I somehow feel your misery. I will do whatever I can, but you have to pay me enough. My life will be at stake.”

The young woman embraced him. He smelled like a burrowed ground.

***

The next day, the family of the departed took the coffin with the phantasm to the church and the parish priest blessed its eternal repose. Afterward, they buried it in the cemetery before three in the afternoon. The albularyo watched all of this from a distance.

An hour before midnight, the albularyo went to the cemetery, a red bandanna wrapped around his head, and an amulet necklace made of bullet cartridge with a concoction in it slung in his rumpled neck. He watched around, looking for observers, through the dark night. He didn’t expect that an aswang would go there to feast on the fresh body of the dead, because any aswang would know if it was a real dead body. Upon certainty that he was alone, he walked toward an above-ground grave. He drew out a flashlight and pointed it to the concrete cover of the grave. Using a spade he found by the grave, he pulled the plaque with the name of the dead attached to the cover. He tugged the cover off the grave. The smell of fresh roses sprang out. He pulled the coffin out of the grave. He opened it, pointed the flashlight, and saw a banana trunk covered with Barong Tagalog and black pants. He dug out a small bottle from his breast pocket and sprinkled a concoction over it. And, he uttered chants in an archaic Visayan tongue.

On the seventh time he repeated the chants, light rays seeped out from a long crack across the banana trunk. It formed into a portal that looked like a big round mirror. And, a beautiful diwata in a green silky gown came out of the portal, floating in the air. “You have the stomach to disturb me,” she said, eyes scorning at him.

Shaking, he raised the amulet to defend himself.

“You cannot fight me,” she said. “I can stop your heartbeat right now if I want to, but I’m not who you think I am.”

He felt his power had no match with hers. In his innermost thoughts, an idea that would benefit both of them popped up in a snap. “I have a deal,” he stammered. “To keep everything the way it is right now.”

“And what’s the deal?” She grinned a killer smile. “Make sure I’ll be happy with it.”

He slowly put down his amulet and tapped the coffin. “His lover came to me to ask for help. I know you won’t let her take him back.”

“Then why did you call me through your futile ritual?”

“I have thought of something which both of us can benefit from.”

“What is it?”

“Make me him,” he said with confidence. He had heard of a story a long time ago of an ugly albularyo who fell in love with a beautiful woman who didn’t love him back. He asked a diwata friend to change his face and body and make it desirable for her. The diwata granted his request with the condition that the change would only happen at night.

The diwata giggled. “I like your wit. I can agree with that.”

The albularyo beamed a smile of success.

The diwata glided in the air to him. She placed her hand over his head and lights showered through him. In a few moments, his face and body transformed into the man she loved. “You are now him,” she said.

“Thank you,” he said.

“But you will only look like him at night.”

The albularyo nodded.

***

The next morning, the woman arrived at the albularyo’s rickety hut. He led her inside and offered a wooden stool.

“I did the best that I could,” he said. “But, she wouldn’t let him go.”

She frowned and tears started to flow out from her tired eyes.

“But, she pities you and will let you have him every night.”

She gazed up, a mix of wonder and grief across her face, and there was a soothing feeling beginning to bathe her.