It’s a beautiful trap

This Week’s Winner

Percival S. Gabriel is a professor at the University of the East with the Department of International Studies and History. He finished his Masters in International Studies at the University of the Philippines. Besides the academic papers that he writes, he also writes short stories. He also teaches at the Philippine Women’s University.



 

I was in college when I was first was able to grab Jose Landy’s book Insight: A Study of Short Stories. It was 1988. I never took Kerima Polotan’s short story "The Trap," which was in the book, too seriously. In fact, I did not even read the story when we were asked to. I thought they were just calling out my name in class during discussion, and it was good enough that I was not called on to recite. Little did I know that I would be reading my life in that short story when it was time for me to teach school.

"The Trap" is the story of a young girl who migrates with her family from Tayug to Cabuyao. She resumes her studies in the middle of the school year and finds herself in the class of Mr. Gabriel, a small, thin and stooped man. Though he may have been a lot older than her, she finds herself beginning to like him. He is gentle of speech, and there is something in his eyes that she begins to love — for his eyes had a way of "laughing though his mouth did not." It was not strange for a girl like her to develop a fondness for a man older than her for she looked a lot bigger and matured for a 14-year old.

Thus, comes a time when the students need to weed the school grounds. She is swinging her scythe, but instead of hitting the grass, it catches her leg. Blood flows to her knee. Mr. Gabriel comes to her rescue, and at once takes her to the clinic. But there is something that the teacher suddenly feels. This young girl, with the body of an adult, is all alone inside the clinic with him. As she is about to raise her skirt to show him the gash on her leg, Mr. Gabriel finds himself fingering and playing with the keys inside his pocket, a little reluctant to continue. The young girl raises her skirt and her legs are exposed to his full view. Suddenly Mr. Gabriel’s face flushes red. It takes quite some time for him to wipe her inner legs of the blood and clean the wound with iodine. After he bandages it, the flush in his face disappears.

This act of kindness draws her more to her. When she gets sick, she writes to a classmate that she misses school. However, out of innocence and with the compulsion of unbridled passion, she lets out in that letter that she loves Mr. Gabriel. News of the contents of the letter spreads around the campus. The Monday when she returns to school, she was amazed to see written on the board her name with Gabriel as her surname. She was so embarrassed by the incident that she decides to go home, but passion forces her to run back to school and ask for Mr. Gabriel’s forgiveness. Alone with him in his room, she instead finds herself falling on her knees and declaring, "Mr. Gabriel, Sir, I love you."

Unfortunately, Mr. Gabriel is petrified by her declaration. In utmost shame, she bursts into tears. Like a wind that catches them in a trap, they find themselves standing close to each other in the corridor. Mr. Gabriel utters, "Run home, Elisa, run home."

But what do you know. My name really is Mr. Gabriel. I am also a teacher now. I am thin, a little stooped and quite small relative to the young teenagers who might have grown up drinking large doses of infant formula. Polotan may have written the short story sometime in the 1950s. I was not yet born then. But I am Mr. Gabriel, and before me in my class is a beautiful young girl whose shapely legs I cannot help but take a quick glance at before her classmates catch me staring at them. Her name is Lois, sounds almost like Elisa, if we pick it up from Loisa or Eloisa. The fact is, Lois also has a nubile body, the body of an adult, tall or even taller than I am when she sports her two-inch shoes. She is also a terrific singer.

One day, I was tasked to help in a program and coach her singing, even if she doesn’t need coaching for she knows her notes so well. But the Dean gave me the task of seeing to it that the program gets on smoothly, for I also know how to play the keyboard. The amazing part is, we ended up alone in the conference room. I was fingering the keyboard when I realized we were alone. Suddenly, the air became warm and I was sweating, knowing that she was so close beside me. I never knew it, but the keys I was fingering began to miss the tempo and sometimes my fingers even missed the keys. She, too, could not vocalize so well. I imagine my fingers jumping out of the keyboard into her hands, her arms and her shoulders. But before I got lost in my thoughts, I said, "You’re not taking this seriously. Let’s just suspend this for next time." And we separated ways.

One day, she wrote me a note and left it in my belt bag while I was at the canteen. Then, later in the day, she whispered to me she left a note for me. Suddenly, there were powerful poundings on my chest. My heart was leaping like a frantic bullfrog out of a pond. I was hesitant to open the belt bag. But there was something inside of me that was shouting out loud that I had to open the bag and read the letter. And so I did. I slowly picked the neatly folded stationery and read the line that said, "Please help me stop this absurdity… Honestly, I can’t help falling for you. Call it insane but I don’t know what to do…."

"My goodness," I exclaimed to myself. I folded the letter back and tucked it in my belt bag at once, telling myself nobody should read this except me. But what could I do. I couldn’t say no, for I didn’t want her to go away. I already cherished the nights when I would take her to the bus stop, so she could safely take a ride home to Novaliches. How I cherished the times we would spend late nights decorating for the school exhibits. But I could not also say yes. I would get in trouble with the school officials should they find out we have a relationship.

The moment of truth came and I had to confront the issue. In that class, I asked her to remain together with another student who had another problem. It was just a façade. I dealt with her classmate first and then her after her classmate left the room. I didn’t know how to begin until she opened up and asked me, "Did you read it?" I said yes, and told her if we could instead preserve our friendship. The moment I said that, she cried. I tried to appease her. I asked why, but she didn’t answer back. She cried even more. I wanted to hold her, but I could not. There were already students walking by and trying to peep in to find out what was happening to us.

I could have said, "Run home Lois, run home." But I did not.

Days passed, and she became aloof for she thought I was not giving our relationship a chance to blossom. She thought I was shoving her away when I mentioned the word friendship. This time, I was the one looking out for her until she began to miss classes. She moved on though, attended classes again, and kept up her standing in the honor roll.

But before graduation came, her close friend and classmate confronted me and asked what I have been doing. She said that I have to be honest with her and with my feelings for I have been showing signs that I cared for her yet I have been saying we were just friends. It was about time that I tell her what I really felt. And so I did.

One week before graduation, I asked her to wait for me in the library. I thought she would not come. But at exactly 6 p.m., there was that young lady with the nubile body standing by the door of the library waiting for me.

I was planning to go some place romantic until we ended up at the most romantic of places… Luneta. I could still remember the glimmering lights of the book ship Doulos anchored at the South Harbor while we were sitting on a bench, and I was holding her hand. The long conversation ended up with that short, sweet statement: "I love you." My heart was throbbing then like a bullfrog leaping out of a pond.

The point is the trap worked. It was even beautiful. We got married in 2004 and now have a beautiful baby girl. I have two babies now: one big and the other still small. Come to think of it, I am 15 years older than her. I was in fourth year high school in 1981 when she was only a year old and still learning how to walk. I was already a teenager learning complex-compound sentences, while she was still mumbling her first few words. If by chance I met her back then, I would have seen her still in diapers and panties. I could have even babysat her, pinched her cheeks and wagged my pants if she urinated on me. She was still in Grade 3 in 1990 when I was taking my masters at the University of the Philippines. She is my big baby actually.

Life is not just like a novel, but life has its own unique episodes. It is like a short story or several short stories in a collection of short tales where the seemingly unconnected plot is woven in the life of one who finds himself enmeshed in its uniqueness. And where the short story ends, all the more life begins.