Piety by Prospero E. Pulma Jr.

Philippine Graphic
May 15, 2006
Vol. 16, No. 49

PIETY
By Prospero E. Pulma Jr.
Dominic Pedrosa had a panoramic view of the dining hall from his perch on the rostrum. Circular dining tables were ranged before him, each illuminated by a lamp that magnified the effulgence of the overhead chandeliers, and occupied at that moment by bigwigs in business and social circles-mainstays of well-publicized ritzy affairs-that comprised the guess list of the benefit dinner. On the far end of the grand room were tables loaded with gourmet food, complemented by bottles of wine. But satiating the gallery's craving for ambrosia did not encumber him. Rather, he was saddled with speaking in a modulated voice, not in the uninhibited method of spreading their advocacy in the streets, in a posh hotel-shielded from tear gas, water cannon and truncheons. And he had to implore the effete personages for largesse for their programs, which would guarantee longevity to their projects, like the many occasions where he presented papers on environmental degradation before deaf ears.

He wished that his audience were dour riot policemen instead of pompous socialites. But his associates in the Animal Welfare Foundation, who embraced the presence of the well-heeled guests, had selected him as key speaker for the gala. They expected him to charm the audience in the same way that he sweet-talked his way to political and economic conferences to publicize their cause and cautioned him against drastic action if entreaties failed.

But it had become obvious to him that he was faltering. While the assemblage had attuned their ears to his rhetoric, their eyes had been darting around the room, mentally appraising their peers from their attire that bore the signature stroke of a couturier to the jewelry that embellished their perfumed bodies and comparing them to their own. He ignored their vanity and maintained his pace with the beaming of images from an LCD projector of an envisioned sanctuary and its prospective occupants - feathered, winged, finned, furry, and scaly - as he progressed in his speech.

Dominic punctuated his address with an entreaty, not with caustic words that marked his fiery speeches, and the audience rewarded him with generous applause; but he would appreciate it more if they applauded with their checkbooks drawn. He acknowledged their warm response before he descended to the presidential table at the foot of the stage.

On one table sequestered by matrons sat Elizabeth. The company that she kept betrayed her advancing age despite her utilization of surgery and cosmetics to impede the relentless advance of age. She had heard a grade school valedictorian deliver a more passionate and eloquent address, but she still joined in applauding Dominic. She then reclaimed her seat, half-absorbed in the latest gossip broached by a companion as her mind conjured the fates that would befall on the endangered creatures if the proposed sanctuary would not materialize. But the check that she had prepared even before the environmentalist began rambling would somehow make a part of the vision tangible.

Elizabeth had always craved for meat until she witnessed a butcher swipe a knife over the throat of a pig, revealing pink flesh and the first drop of blood. The swine convulsed violently, screamed in its death throes as blood gushed like a fountain, pooling in a crimson lake bounded by the brims of a basin. Later, she merely gazed at a native dish of prime cuts of the pork and vegetables, the moribund porcine still vivid in her memory. She finally yielded to her stomach's whims, but not before she segregated the meat from the garnishing with heaps of fruit salad supplementing her meager fare.

Elizabeth soon weaned her appetite from meat-based viands. She even abjured seafood, despite its promise to deliver less flab while nourishing her. She finally settled for the earth's green bounty - vapid but guilt-free.

While Elizabeth regarded Dominic's speech as a shadow of his usual rhetoric on television peppered with vitriolic words and profanity, her eyes were riveted to the slideshow presentation. An image of an eagle patrolling its domain captivated her, but the next picture that showed the bird of prey with its feathers matted in blood left her crestfallen. The ponderous silhouette of a whale shark streaking beneath the sea enthralled her, but fishermen butchering the docile giant in the next scene tore her from her enchantment. The other photographs, depicting animals in varying stages of magnificence in the wilderness and humiliation and death in captivity, that were shown stirred a mishmash of emotions in her. The stunning visuals did not only leave her breathless and elicited audible gasps from her and the other squeamish spectators at scenes of carnage, it also rekindled her loathing for man's penchant to mete gruesome ends to both untamed and domesticated creatures for necessity and leisure.

Stella, a plump woman of sixty, nudged Elizabeth and guided her sight to a regal-looking lady in the presidential table. “Look at Ynes. She is all smiles, as if the whole world does not know what she had done to those poor maids”.

The controversy that had embroiled Ynes, who owned a mansion a block away from Elizabeth's own palatial abode, stemmed from charges of physical abuse filed by her former servants. Under the guise of discarding the garbage one night, the servants, who bore fresh bruises and scars of past assaults, slipped past the village guards. They headed directly to a kinsman of one of the young women who escorted them to the police where they narrated their ordeal in the hands of Ynes, the president of the local animal rights group, a fixture in fund-raising socials and the brains of the night's gala. Elizabeth pitied the woman who exuded with warmth in their encounters, especially when she convinced her number of times to adopt some of the animals that she had found wandering in the streets.

The media predictably sensationalized the scandal for the story embodied the age-old feud between the oppressive rich and the downtrodden poor. “I am impressed with her gumption to show her face here” Aurora, a sixty-five year-old and waif-thin woman seated on Elizabeth's right flank, chimed in.

Elizabeth did not reply. The husbands of the two women, playing the role of reluctant escorts, also remained silent, their eyes roaming the room, hunting for entirely different reasons. She had seen Stella pull the hair of her maids, slander them with foul names and leave the imprint of her hand on their faces. Aurora seemed to have forgotten the scandal that erupted nearly a decade ago after she was caught in the arms of a dance instructor thirty years her junior. The sixty-five year old also shared Stella's intense disdain for bumbling servants and possessed the same fervor in meting comeuppance for what she deemed to be asinine acts by her house help.

Elizabeth's mind wandered to Luisa, her spunky Shih Tzu, after the speech ended and her friends continued with their diatribe. Her pint-sized and shaggy pet had two episodes of vomiting and diarrhea that rendered it lethargic to even nibble at its favorite dog biscuit. The malady had manifested hours before. It resembled poisoning and she already had a primary suspect. But retribution had to wait and her favorite canine had to languish while she primed herself for the soiree. In the meantime, the mutt's endearing spunk slowly slipped away as the poison raced in its bloodstream while Elizabeth was absorbed with the night's gaiety.

The assemblage dispersed past midnight in a fleet of chauffeured vehicles. Stella left with her husband while Aurora hooked up with a waiter after her spouse ensnared a comely usherette. Elizabeth departed alone; ensconced in her sedan, she nursed a throbbing pain in her head induced by spirits. Her cellular phone lay untouched in her purse, the plan to follow-up her instructions to Rosing, her chief maid, on the care of her ailing pet were shelved by inebriation. But the success of the fund-raising dinner and the promise of a columnist to plaster her photographs of the charity event on his society column were just rewards for the headache. Dominic Pedrosa also smiled at the princely amount collected.

When Elizabeth's car swerved into the driveway; a menagerie of animals had massed at the door to greet their mistress. The earnest rubbing of fur against her legs, the excited yelps and purring and the fluttering of wings from the mynahs stirred by the commotion were unrequited as she rushed to her bedroom. A litter embroidered with the name Luisa in bold letters filled a dim corner, unoccupied by the Shih Tzu. The empty basket lifted the inebriety from her mind like the wind dissipating the morning mist.

In the morning of the charity dinner, Elizabeth heard the tiny mutt barking in the master's bedroom. She sauntered out of the room's walk-in closet, where she had been preening in front of a full-sized mirror, and saw that her pet had shrunken to a corner, trembling and whimpering at the shadow of Elena, the new maid, who brandished a broom like a battleaxe. She dwarfed Lourdes, another servant, who tethered her with her arms locked around the bigger woman's waist. She advanced, dragging Lourdes who dug her feet deeper into the carpet and tilted her body at an odd angle as she pulled.
“Elena!” Elizabeth shrieked.

Lourdes and Elena jumped at her voice. Lourdes unlocked her arms, giving Elena space to hide her improvised club behind her back in a flash with its shaft protruding from her shoulder like a sword. Lourdes tiptoed to the door, gently closing it in her wake. Elizabeth ignored her; her attention was pinned on Elena.

“Ma'am, look what that devil did to me!” Blood oozed from her ankle where several shallow wounds were arrayed in a semi-lunar configuration.

“Did she bit you?”

Elena nodded, tears staining her livid face. “I was in the garden, watering the plants. I thought that that I had stepped on a snake, but it was your dog!”

“Did you step on Luisa?”

“I did not see her, ma'am. She blended with the plants.”

“Idiot! You could have killed her!” Elena's flushed face turned pallid. “You ignorant mountain girl don't know how much I treasure her.”

Elena knew that she was telling the truth. On her first week at the mansion, her jaw dropped when she saw black dogs with barrel-like bodies, called Rottweiler by the guard, feasting on meat - a rare treat in her hinterland village - while the lapdogs subsisted on expensive dog food. And the pets also had a steady supply of vitamins, soap and shampoo and were regularly seen by a veterinarian. The other animals were equally pampered as well. Sometimes, she would fantasize about switching the animal's food with the cheap canned food that was their staple in the maid's quarters. Once, she thought that she would enjoy more privileges if she were a pet in the opulent household than a servant.

Blood trickled from Elena's wounded ankle to the beige carpet beneath her feet. “You are soiling the carpet!” Elizabeth shrieked again like a banshee. “Get out!”

“Ma'am, what about rabies?” Elena had seen a mad dog bit a neighbor; both beast and man succumbed to rabies. Luisa was not frothing at the mouth when it snapped at her, but she remembered that the doctor who visited their village after the attack on the villager said that dogs harbor the disease.

“Don't worry. She had her rabies shot.” Elizabeth eyed the lass. The young woman appeared like somebody who had encountered every vermin in the boondocks, unlike her pet that had lived in a pristine environment all its life. “What about you? Did you complete your vaccination?” The young woman did not answer. “See? You are dirtier than Luisa!” The red stain had spread. “Get out now! Go to Rosing and have your wound cleaned.” Elizabeth shoved her servant out of the room.

The Shih Tzu emerged from its sanctuary wagging its curled tail. “Did she hurt you, Luisa?” She scooped it with one hand and ran the other through its thick coat. “But mommy won't let her hurt you. But I don't want to hurt Elena, even if she had been mean to you!” She tickled its underside and profuse beard. Luisa gave a delighted yelp. “Yes, my baby! I will tell Lourdes to give you another bath and brush your coat.”

“Rosing!” Elizabeth's voice blared from the intercom. “Rosing, come to my room!” A minute passed before the head servant appeared, rubbing her eyes and yawning.

“Have you seen Luisa?”

“Ma'am?” Rosing yawned again.

“Luisa is not in her litter. Where is she?”

“She's in her litter!” The head servant rubbed her eyes and brushed her tousled hair.

“Would I be screaming if she is in that litter?”

That woke Rosing. “We-we'll find her, ma'am!” She stormed out of the room and roused the other maids. She even conscripted the driver who had barely shed his uniform and the lone watchman into the search party. Except for Lourdes who was the first to spring from her bunk bed, they all left their beds grumbling; the head servant immediately quashed dissent by describing Elizabeth's very foul disposition over the disappearance of her cherished pet.
Elena egressed from her bunk hobbling from the wounds that Rosing had cleansed, swabbed with iodine and plastered with gauze. She applied crushed garlic to the bites, which her folks believed would suck the rabies out; it gave a burning sensation to her flesh, somewhat diminishing the pain. Besides, she had to wait for the dog to become mad to determine if the traditional remedy was potent. She presented herself to Rosing whose eyes wandered to her swaddled ankle before she sent her to the garage.

The party searched the garden, garage, rooms, the pool and cabinets, trailed by the resident canines and felines, sparing only the bedrooms of their masters, long vacated and sealed with the death of Elizabeth's husband and the migration of their children abroad. But the band performed its urgent task only with cursory glances and slight shifting of clutter in the crevices that it had searched, unlike Elena and Lourdes. Elena scoured the garage and maintenance shed, probed and swept the bellies of the parked cars and shelves with an intense gaze and sieve-like hands.

Elena knew that all fingers would point to her if the Shih Tzu would not turn up alive and well. Rosing had told her that Elizabeth had never manhandled a servant, but she had banished several erring maids to the streets deep in the night. It made the absence of kith and kin in the city filled the young woman more with dread than the wrath of her mistress.

“Luisa's dead!” The voice came from the backyard.

The words severed Elena's flimsy thread of hope; she stared at the gate, seeing the forbidding streets beyond, before she shuffled off to the backyard. They all converged at a thick pocket in the garden.

Estelito, the driver, emerged from the bushes with the limp body of Luisa in his arms. Froth covered its mouth, its shaggy coat was soiled and it smelled rank. He laid the Shih Tzu on the ground where the other canines were circling warily, whimpering when they sniffed the dead dog.

Rosing advanced to the front of the knot of servants and tapped the dog's dirty coat with the sole of her sandal. “It's really dead,” she spoke softy, “I'd better get ma'am!”
“Serves that pest right! It ate better food than me!” the portly cook spoke half-smiling.
“What a way to die for a small demon,” Estelito said. “I wonder what killed it.”
“Vetsin probably did it!” opined the laundrywoman.
Elena began to retreat to the periphery of the group; she had a hint where the exchange was headed.

“But Luisa was cuddly,” Lourdes sniffled. She squatted and brushed some of the earth off Luisa's shaggy coat. She was young like Elena, but she had none of her harrowing brushes with dogs. She had nurtured a number of canine mongrels, but she had always coveted the Shih Tzu and other toy dogs since childhood. “Who could have killed it?”
The question burst in Elena's ears; the collective weight of furtive glances began to bear on her.
“Where is she?” Elizabeth's shrill voice rang in the yard. The rank parted to let her pass; Lourdes melted into the group. Elena drifted farther.

Luisa lay prostrate, lifeless and filthy, ringed by servants and its mistress who hurled herself into the earth to retrieve her pet, cradled it to her bosom and keened. Rosing and her band lowered their eyes; Elizabeth needed seclusion amidst their physical presence.
With Luisa secure in her embrace, Elizabeth straightened her crumpled figure, dividing the phalanx of servants again with her passage. Only one, immobilized by trepidation, remained in her path. Their eyes met, flickered, and then Elizabeth's eyes darkened.

“Murderer!” Elizabeth hissed. The other servants flinched at the words.

“Ma'am, I did not kill her,” Elena's voice hovered near a whisper; the prospect of traversing the forbidding streets now loomed the largest. “She could have eaten the toadstools that I saw there.” She pointed at the patch in the garden where she trampled on Luisa in the morning. Heads followed her hand, but they espied no mushrooms.

Estelito knew the spot well. The garden was his secondary domain, after the garage, before its upkeep was relegated to Elena, leaving him only with the task of trimming the plants. But he uttered not a word about the mushrooms thriving on decomposing branches. After a fortnight of procrastination, he discarded the twigs before he chauffeured Elizabeth to the party. He had a family, while Elena only had herself.

“Liar! Luisa bit you and you poisoned her! Estelito, Javier, throw this criminal and her things out of my house!” The watchman was the first to seize Elena's arm; Estelito followed, pressing her flesh lightly.

“Ma'am, I did not poison her,” her tone bordered on a cry; her arms combated the grip of the two men, but their hands maintained their clasp. They tugged her, their muscles laboring from the opposing pull of her body. “Please let me stay, even until morning!”

Shielded from Elena's pleas by the servants who had massed around her, Elizabeth led the procession to the mansion, still cradling Luisa, stroking its hair, wetting its coat with her tears. Tomorrow, she would don black, and after she had Luisa cremated, she would ask Ynes for some of the puppies that she had rescued from the streets. Nursing the mutts would fill her thoughts and keep her son from sending his children to bond with their grandmother.

The gate yawned open and shut to discharge Elena. Lugging her tattered bag packed by Lourdes, she was plunged into desolation. She could see the harsh glow of the streetlights and feel the ponderous inkiness of the streets. Turning her head, she espied jagged wood protruding from black bags piled on the side of the driveway; bathed in light were the mushrooms carpeting the rooting twigs.