A Raven in love and death

Not many people knew the late Hilario Francia, maybe not even his friends. Mang Larry, even in the closest company, managed to be elusive as ever, like his art.

Tall, lanky and pale, he had an aloof, aristocratic air, complete with the occasional raised eyebrow during conversation that very often rubbed people the wrong way.

He came across as taciturn, and rather ornery and a bit impatient with foolish greenhorns especially in his older years. But the fact was that this was a way of keeping his distance, so important to him as an artist, and his aura could well have had a sign that read: Distancia, amigo! If there was anyone who guarded his solitude jealously it was Mang Larry, but his solitude was the type that was selfless, which made it all the more unique.

Some wondered whether he was gay because he was an old bachelor, but he wasn’t, at least not from where I sat, which impression made him break the old stereotype – not that it would have been a point against him if he were. I know that he had girlfriend once, a much younger woman who was an assistant of a fellow Raven, then again, that is all chismis under the bridge. Whenever I saw them together at gatherings eons ago, it struck me that theirs was a "stormy relationship," as the tabloids like to put it. He was like Humbert Humbert with his Lolita, and so they too suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune.

Mang Larry took it well and persisted in his craft, and his books have become handsome keepsakes and works of art themselves down to the binding. Two of the most treasured books in recent years that found their way to the small family library have the Francia imprint – Parliament of Giraffes, his translations of the poems of Jose Garcia Villa compiled in what appeared to be a children’s book, and Ravens in Love, the third volume of works by the ’60s writers’ group edited and designed by Mang Larry.

I had been assigned more than a year ago to write an article on the Ravens, or was it Ravens 3 when the book came out circa Valentine’s Day last year. I called up Mang Larry who was then teaching at De La Salle Taft.

On the phone, his voice had an edge of impatience, as if to say, "Do your research first, boy!"

"I think you should look at the first two Ravens books first so you can have an idea," he said, and he was right. Problem was, those two Ravens books released a decade or two before Ravens in Love were somewhere in the basement in the old homestead on Maginhawa, most likely covered in the uniform manila paper and their only identifying feature being the titles scrawled shakily by my father on the books’ spines.

For some reason the article never got written, though Anvil had sent me the book along with a press release of the launch and a photo of the surviving Ravens who attended it, as well a random memory of that conversation however brief with Mang Larry on the phone.

Next I saw him was at the wake of my father at the UP chapel, and he arrived early evening with fellow Raven Virgie Moreno. He was with his trademark briefcase and was quite surly, most likely because of the death of his friend, Franz.

I tried to make conversation with him but he seemed more sullen than usual, as if I was supposed to be the one to be consoling him and not the other way around. Thinking back on it now, it may have been just a manner of masking his grief: My father, the last of the writers group, the Veronicans, was a kindred spirit of the Ravens, the band of writers that followed his generation born in the belle époque.

The last time I saw Mang Larry was at the book launching of The Essential Arcellana at PowerBooks Makati last February, and he said a few words of tribute to Erpats, and read, too, a translation of one of my father’s poems.

The manuscript he read from was a faded paper, and the words of which Mang Larry had trouble deciphering, as he was hunched over the microphone in a kind of tragicomic performance art.

When it was my turn to speak for the response, I, too, stumbled on my erratic handwriting, and paused and groped awhile, leading my eldest brother to comment afterwards, "Akala ko ginagaya mo si Francia."

It’s hard though to imitate Mang Larry, loner par excellence. One might even venture to say that the guy’s aloneness was terrifying. In my case, imitating him would be the sincerest form of plagiarism.

There was a reading once at the now shut down Café Caribana along Nakpil St., where Mang Larry was paired with a much younger fictionist. I remember asking him a question during the open forum afterwards, which went something like, "Are there some things in Tagalog that you can’t say in English, and vice versa?"

He said "Of course," and more likely than not we can rephrase that to say there are some words in life that can’t be expressed in death, and vice versa. Though in rare cases like Mang Larry’s, genres and contexts get blurred and the word like love itself bursts forth from the ashes.