Life in an apartelle

Fifteen years ago, I lived in an apartelle in Cubao. “Apartelle,” of course, along with “bed spacer” and “senatoriable,” are words that only Filipinos can understand.

My apartelle unit was on the fourth floor, and it was shaped like a small cube. As Kerima Polotan wrote of apartments in the 1960s, the greedier the owner, the smaller the apartment space. My apartelle space was small, but at least it was new when I took a lease on it. I abhor living in places that other, untidy people have inhabited, scrubbing the walls and cleaning the toilet bowls that the Neanderthals have used.

I began filling my apartelle with things that I needed. First, I borrowed my father’s double-decker bed made of sturdy steel, the same bed I had slept in as a child growing up in a military base in Pampanga. I was around 10 years old and I used to occupy the top deck until one night, I just fell flat on the floor. The noise woke up my brother, who asked what happened? I quickly answered, while down on all fours, “Oh, I’m just looking for my ball pen.” Right, at four o’ clock in the morning.

But after a few months, my double-decker began to sag, and I had to replace it. I bought a mattress and slept on it for months until I began to feel back pains. My therapist told me to buy a bed, since the coldness seeping from the floor had begun to leave “lumps” and “knots” on my back. So I bought a black sofa-bed which I had to pay on a 12-month installment using my credit card.

I also began stacking piles of books around me, like walls in a fort. The piles just grew and grew that I had no choice but to bring them back to the office. Now, my apartelle unit is like the nest of mad librarian. I sit on a red swivel chair surrounded by wooded shelves crammed with periodicals and books. A copy of a sexy magazine sent by somebody from Anvil Publishing lies beside a book on modern readings of the Doctrina Christiana, the first book published in the Philippines.

My friend, Danny Reyes, who is now happily the chair of the English Department of the Ateneo de Manila University, concocts the strangest tales this side of Twilight. He has thought of a scenario. When the next big earthquake comes, my walls of books will tumble down all over me. After the rubble has been cleared by the rescue team, they will find me writing the first page of my novel. The first line would read: “I was born a woman. . .”

The apartelle also has a cocktail of characters, some of them staying there as transients. Whenever I tell the cab driver to stop in front of my apartelle, he would look at the mirror, a wicked glint in his eyes, and then ask: “Magkano ba d’yan? (How much is it there?)” Obviously, we meant the short-time rates offered by motels, including the two-hour “shower rate” or “washing rate.” I do not know of people who need two hours to wash or to shower, but there you go.

But I would just smile at the driver, a wicked glint I am sure also in my eyes, then step out of his cab.

Indeed, the apartelle offers 12-hour rates, or overnight rates, and the transients stay in the first three floors. The fourth is for residents like me. Since we are near three bus stations, the transients are mostly big families going home to the provinces. With five bawling children and 10 bags in tow, the parents would climb the stairs to their rooms.

I am sure that some of those who stay overnight are lovers, but it’s none of my business. Our building is fully booked every Valentine’s Day. One of our janitors told me he could hear the whole building creaking every night of Valentine’s. The only time I glared at the lovers was when I saw what looked like a pair of 16-year-old kids checking in. My sharp eyes and thick eyeglass lenses must have reminded them of their strict aunts, for they immediately bowed their heads and never spoke to each other again until their Auntie Matilda has left the reception area.

The resident in the fourth floor included Alma, who is married to a devoted Japanese guy who drives a truck in his country. He visits her once a month; he also dotes on their only child. I like the, except that when out of loneliness perhaps, the woman would play her karaoke and sing loony tunes about love that lasted for only a week, and other such classics.

Farther down, there is another woman married to another Japanese guy, who visits her and their son every quarter. The last door is occupied by two brothers: one is a lawyer, the other is a painter. The door in front of me was occupied by a woman who then must be almost 50 years old. She had hennaed her hair to a blazing orange and wore makeup that made her face look like espasol. She also wore dresses with plunging necklines and short skirts that hugged her buttocks. The cockroaches in the stairs wisely avoided her sharp, stiletto heels.

I met her two or three times on the stairs. I smiled at her, and her ruby-red lips also curved into a shy, tentative smile. I heard she was an auditor in a private corporation in Ortigas, but the boys in the building made fun of her behind her back. Of course, they could not do it in front of her, since the men in this country are always afraid of women with spirit.

My neighbor on the right side was a semifinalist in a national beauty contest. She worked as a guest relations officer in a night club and her gay brother kept house. The brother had curly hair and curly eyelashes as well, and he would tell me funny stories about movie stars (male) whenever we saw each other on the stairs. He was not there one time when his sister quarreled with her boyfriend. The nasty man had taken away all her clothes and she had to run down the four flights of stairs with only a white towel draped around her.

I left the noise and pollution of Cubao for the calmness of a condominium unit in bourgeois Loyola Heights. At least, I did not have to commute anymore and snap at all those rude cab drivers every day. But in the middle of my green and quiet oasis, I sometimes miss my apartelle — and its cast of characters who had guts and gumption, and real character as well.