Breathe

By Alessandra GL Gonzales
    “The trick is to keep breathing.” He looked at me and
smiled with his blue eyes and crooked teeth. I would see

Breathe his face and sing his favorite Garbage song in my head

long after he disappeared into the gale of people catching
flights to who-knows-where.
   He would call as soon as he arrived home in Austria to
tell me the flight was too long and he wished I had
suffered with him. It’s not fair that I am the only one with
a backache and sore ass, jamdida! He was laughing but
Breathe his voice sounded sad. I could not speak without hearing
my voice crack. Froggy, he whispered, I am paying a lot of
money just to listen to you snivel, you know what that
means?
Breathe    I knew, yet, I would not follow him.
   He would write again, snail mail several times, e-mail
often. He would tell me about his mother and send me
her regards. He would talk to me as if we were two old
people sitting together in a park bench remembering old

Breathe times and sipping coffee from Styrofoam cups. But the

handwritten letters would eventually stop arriving in my
mailbox in the office. The e-mail would trickle to once a
month or two. His work at the university was taking up all
his time now, his last e-mail said.
  Dearest Katherine, I have booked my flight. You will fetch
me from the airport, yes? Only this, no other favors.
Breathe We shall leave all else to fate. Wish me Gluckliche Reise!
Flight details later. Kisses and stuff, Isaak.
   Isaak. Cancel trip. I cannot take a leave from work. I will
be on line again later. Let’s chat? K. P.S. Please tell
Breathe your Mama that I mailed the literature on acupuncture
this morning.
   K. Re: Acupuncture booklet; Mama says Danke! Re: Your
suggestion about my trip; I say, Shut up! Re: Your leave; I

Breathe think this is just an excuse and you are growing feathers.

Re: Chat; I will contact you through your handy instead. 9
p.m. your time. Ok? Auf wiedersehen, Isaak.
   Dear I., I’m glad you called. This chicken suit is
suffocating me! Thanks for helping me peel it off. You are
Breathe right. We cannot stay in the ether forever. To fate. Much
affection, K.
  As I sit in the test kitchen waiting for my supervisor to
arrive with the dressed chicken we are going to cook
this morning, I stare at the sparkling tiles of the kitchen

Breathe counter I have just scrubbed clean. The smell of scouring

powder and ammonia assaults my senses. My hands
hurt. These days, I try to concentrate on these raw hands
and nothing else.
   Mrs. Vera Perez must have bumped into Mrs. Silva in the
hallway again. Small talk always keeps her from
arriving on time to work in the test kitchen. Today, we are
Breathe going to cook Oregano Chicken in Lemon Butter Sauce. I
have already cooked this dish at home once. This is my
own recipe.
     On the day he arrived, I cooked dinner and introduced

Breathe him to my family. He was nervous. Sweat maps crept up

and around the armpits and back of his black shirt.
  My mother said two sentences to him in halting English,

Breathe unsmiling. You do not look like your picture. Too tall
in person. You have good, safe trip back to Europe.
   My younger sister was excited to meet him finally after
talking to him online thrice and reading some of his
funny e-mails to me. She asked him about his work, his

Breathe family and his shitzu, Ingrid. My older sister nodded to

him once at their introduction and spoke only to my
grandfather and mother at the end of dinner before taking
her leave, ignoring him pointedly.
  Qing si bo an le to tsia! my grandfather cursed, looking at
him scornfully. He turned to me and said the chicken
tasted like old shoes even though he had merely jabbed a
Breathe plump leg with his fork and not taken a bite of it. He
asked the maid to fry him two eggs instead. We ate in
silence.
     He and I held hands under the table. My sisters and my
mother chewed and swallowed without pause. The
gravelly sound of my grandfather’s snorting and coughing

Breathe punctuated the air. Only the chicken’s neck and one wing
were left on the oval serving plate at the end of the meal
but no one verbally contradicted my grandfather’s strong
displeasure with my cooking.
    On his bed in the hotel, we lay together like pretzels. I
watched him sleep in the dark and learned the rise
and fall of his chest with my open palm spread like a fan
across it. I knew then that his eight days with me were all

Breathe we would ever have. He spoke quietly in German

whenever I said something about what would happen to
us at the end of his visit. I did not understand his words,
but I understood him. And I quickly moved on to more
pleasant things.
    We took snapshots of ourselves. Our hands. His navel.
My cleavage. His eyes, mine. Our feet. Him, stepping out
of the shower. Me, shaving my legs with his mint shaving
cream. Him, sitting next to Ronald McDonald. Me, on
Breathe Ronald’s lap. Us and Taal Volcano’s jagged mouth gaping
behind us. Him, waving in front of the caged tigers. Me,
haggling with the woman selling pineapples. Us, kissing
and making faces in a Foto Me booth.
  At the Chinese restaurant along Wilson Street, above the
din of voices shouting orders, spoons and forks
clanging against thick plates, he asked me to fly home
with him and I pretended not to hear him. I waved to a
waitress to refill the squat teapot although it was still half

Breathe full. You like the steamed dumpling? I asked, popping one
into my mouth with two wooden chopsticks. He pushed
away my hair from my face and said, Yes, it is delicious.
But I fear it has something in it that makes people deaf?
He poked my ear with the fat end of his chopsticks and
grinned. Or did you forget to clean your ears, jamdida?
  Every night at seven-thirty, I would leave him at 7-11
convenience store down the block from the apartment
compound where my family lives, and go home to light

Breathe joss sticks and pray at my grandmother and father’s altar.

I would ask both of them for guidance, but each night, the
dead would keep their silence, I would leave again at eight
to pick him up and we would take a cab back to his hotel.
       You have defied your grandfather now. Why would
coming with me be different, he asked. I held him in my
Breathe arms as we sat on the bed facing each other. I could not
tell him that I loved my family more than I loved him.
  We packed his things together. Dirty socks, boxers, shirts
Breathe and pants, and a few books. 
   He bought a Lonely Planet travel guide to the Philippines.
Learn to swim next time we can go to Boracay, he
said. I ran to the bathroom and locked myself for half an
Breathe hour and wasted a roll of toilet paper. He went down to
the hotel lobby to smoke a pack of cigarettes he had kept
sealed since his arrival.
      I had given him my Kafka because he only had the
original and wanted to read the short stories in English. I
had also given him my Neruda because he had never
heard of him until I read him the love poems. How could
Breathe he know how I feel for you?! he screamed and lifted
me from the frayed carpet and swung me around. He
tripped, we fell to the floor and made love for the last
time.
  On some nights, I see him online but he does not see me.
I am on invisible mode because I do not know what to say
to him. I imagine him meeting someone new, someone
with blue eyes like him. Perhaps she lives in the same
town and will take the bus to meet him a week after they
Breathe bump into each other on the Net. Perhaps she will sit in
his room and her eyes will search his shelf of books and
find Neruda, and she will ask him to read out aloud a
poem or two in Spanish. He will take her hand and lead
her to the window. 
  K., The weather is getting colder. Brrr! Even the ducks are
wearing knits and fur-lined boots (made in the Philippines,
I am sure!) Myself, I wear two shirts and a jacket,
and clench my teeth when I go outside. I am trying to
Breathe translate Neruda’s “Tonight I Can Write The Saddest
Lines” into German. I think I cannot do it. Arghh. A student
has come for consultation. I shall write again later. Bye,
Isaak the Icicle.
  I hope someday you will change your mind, he said. I did
not answer as I pulled the knob of the door leading to
his hotel room. The door hinge was loose, the wooden
Breathe frame warped, and it was hard to close the door properly.
Just leave it, he said. He enveloped my hand with his and
we walked down the dimly lit hallway.
    At the airport amidst strangers who were sending off
their own people with endless goodbyes and take cares,
my tears turned his light blue shirt dark and wet at the

Breathe chest. I am not dead yet, please hush, he said. But I would

not and my nose clogged and I could not breathe through
it. His long fingers weaved through my short hair and
ruffled it. Then he picked up his luggage and left.
     It is ten to eleven. Mrs. Vera Perez is very late, the
morning almost gone. The hours tumble into the next, the
days dissolve into other days. I am not sure what day it is

Breathe today. Only that we have to cook my chicken and prepare

for the next cooking demonstration at the mall in North
EDSA. Tomorrow, we test Lasagna Verde with Béchamel
Sauce. The day after that, Pork Barbecue in Hoisin Sauce.
  I stick my finger into the bowl of melted butter and stir the
liquid round and round. The yellow liquid swirls and spills
Breathe out of the glass bowl. I inhale and exhale heavily, stirring
faster and faster.
  Ten months and so many days after, and still, I find it
Breathe difficult.
Breathe  I reach for the wet sponge to scrub the tiles once more.