Catanduanes Forum

Thank you SB for reminding me as I have long planned to reprint the following here but I forgot. So, here, I am reprinting two stories about Espie by Pablo Tariman.

From London to Virac: A Mother’s Tale of Woe
By Pablo Tariman
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 23:01:00 05/09/2009
http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net/sim/sim/view/20090509-204090/From-Lo...
Filed Under: Family, Children

THE WOMAN continues to haunt town plazas and the church belfry in the dead of night, probably reminiscing about the house she had saved for by working abroad, but which some relatives had reportedly appropriated for themselves. She might also be thinking of her lost love – her British lover with whom she had a son.

Her son, Tarik Khan, whose story was featured in SIM in January this year, has recovered from his sad past. But the mother still needs help, the main reason for this sequel. As far as can be gathered, hers is a story of unrequited love compounded by what she considers as betrayal by family.

Her real name is Esperanza Tresvalles, and I met her some 15 years ago while I was mounting a voice recital near a historic church by the river in Bato, Catanduanes. It seems providential that I would always see her everytime I was preparing for a concer ton the island.

Eight years ago, after a concert in the capital town, I set out to visit my mother’s grave at 5:30 in the morning, just before my flight back to Manila. On board a tricycle to the cemetery, I saw her huddled by the church patio, munching some shriveled bread and staring into nowhere. The face was gaunt and weather-beaten, the hair disheveled and spiked with dried twigs, the faded dress made of discarded sack and torn at the sides. I thought she had aged considerably.

I first saw Esperanza in the summer of 1992, when I flew to the island province to check possible concert venues. Emerging from the airport terminal, I caught sight of her chasing butterflies on a dusty road. I quickly dismissed the sight, knowing full well that every town in this archipelago has its village idiot, the madwoman immortalized by Sisa in Rizal’s “Noli Me Tangere.”

I saw her again later, walking across the plaza. There was something about her carriage that aroused my curiosity. She walked with a certain royal cadence despite the dirty hair and the faded clothes. Imagine my surprise when I heard her chatting with the convent errand boys and carrying on what sounded like witty, even intelligent conversation with them, and later, with a friend who was coordinating a concert. I joined them and was jolted to find her speaking British English and even acting like the bloody English.

When the concert materialized a week later, the woman actually showed up at the very moment that soprano Luz Morete (accompanied by Najib Ismail) was singing Sisa’s aria from Felipe de Leon’s opera, “Noli Me Tangere.”

My God, what if she disrupted the opera? I could just imagine the headlines the next day: “Mad scene in De Leon’s opera interrupted by real-life madwoman!”

My fears, it turned out, were unfounded. Esperanza entered the concert hall discreetly and quietly settled on a seat. The sight of her in a concert hall caused a ripple among the townsfolk who knew her mental state. But watching her seemingly enjoying the Handel aria, I thought she looked like an African royalty seated in the front row of Covent Garden.

In the reception at the town convent, to which Esperanza had also been invited, I learned that she had a son, Tarik Khan, from her British lover. With help from two music lovers, also her friends, I set out to unravel Esperanza’s life in London through a clandestine interview that looked like a casual get-together.

I learned that the woman left Catanduanes for Manila in 1973 and that after serving several households in Forbes Park, she decided to go to London sometime in 1979. She passed a short course in English and later worked in the household of one Charles Miles.

“I am not sure if my memory will serve me now,” she said, sounding like Vanessa Redgrave. “But this is all I remember about that sojourn. My trip to London was like a fairy tale. In that Miles household, I did a lot of haute cuisine like lamb curry and… I am sorry I lost my memory. But I remember the beautiful house, the carpets, the high ceilings, the exquisite furniture, the lovely mansion.”

In another household, she worked with a certain Mr. Fane, a filmmaker whose house reminded her of a film by Alfred Hitchcock (her own description). Later, she worked as a hospital attendant in the Royal National Hospital.

It was while working in another English hospital that she met the future father of her son, Tarik, a British guy of Iranian descent named Tarik Homayou Khan. Esperanza described him as “the most handsome guy in Europe.”

The romance bloomed with frequent meetings at Piccadilly Circus and later at Leicester Square. She could not describe how the romance ended. All she knew was that her son Tarik was three when she returned to Bato, Catanduanes in the early 80s, only to discover that her dream house didn’t exist. That was probably when she started her slow descent to madness.

For a while, she and her son settled in the town lodging house. When they decided to go back to London, Esperanza couldn’t find her passport. But life went on, and while her London earnings lasted, she donated a lot to the parish and helped neighbors put up capital for sari-sari stores. “You can’t carry all that money with you to your grave,” she would say when asked about her excessive generosity.

But staying in the lodging house for some time and giving money left and right drained her savings soon enough. One day, the folks of Virac found the once prosperous OFW and her 6-year-old son reduced to penury, roaming the streets of the town aimlessly.

Violent fits followed, with Esperanza going to her siblings’ house and threatening to burn it. She then started living in the belfry of the town cathedral, becoming the object of mischief of young boys in the area. Early in the evening, they would imitate the voice of a lost child and call out, “Mommy, Mommy, where are you?”

When Esperanza heard this, she would hastily get up and call back, “Son, is that you son?” Realizing it was just a prank, she would curse, hurl stones at the boys and stray bottles at everybody else.

Residents living near the church would tell stories of how the woman would start wailing at the altar at two in the morning, moaning, “Oh, Lord, give me back my child.” This was the time when Tarik was adopted by the town’s couturier, who had taken pity on the child roaming aimlessly with his mother.

It is Mother’s Day again and one can’t help but think of how, despite her addled mind, Esperanza’s maternal instincts still prevail. Like a modern-day Sisa, this woman lives solely for her child.

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A Son’s Story
Pablo Tariman
Philippine Daily Inquirer
January 16, 2009
http://services.inquirer.net/mobile/09/01/25/html_output/xmlhtml/2009011...

THE story of Tarik Hamayon Khan, 32, can put the plot of most telenovelas to shame.

The only son of an OFW from Bato, Catanduanes, who worked in London for many years, Tarik was born on December 4, 1976 in England and was baptized at the St. Thomas More Church in Swiss Cottage, London.

Before leaving for London, Tarik’s mother worked as a cook, household help, and later as hospital attendant. Among the big families in Manila she had worked for were the Velascos and Rochases of Forbes Park, and the Roceses who owned a publishing house.

It was in London that Tarik’s mother met his father, Tarik Hamayon Khan, a British national of Iranian descent. All those years she was in London, she sent money to her brothers and sisters in Catanduanes, with instructions to build a house for her and her son.

After many years in England, Tarik and his mother returned to Bicol, hoping to find a new house where they could retire. It didn’t happen. Instead of building the Khans’ dream house, their relatives diverted the money, which had been sent them regularly, also dividing the household items sent by ship among themselves.

Tarik’s mother had a hard time coping with this betrayal in the family. Mother and son had to move from one lodging house to another, and ended up in the town plaza and church patio when they ran out of money.

One time his mother gathered religious images and hurled them at the waves, while sobbing bitterly at her fate, Tarik recalled. Then 4, he embraced his mother and pleaded with her, ”Don’t take it so badly, Mommy. You still have me!” At about this time, the young boy realized that his mother had descended into madness.

Tarik was later adopted by a couturier, who took care of his early schooling. He was in good hands until he was run over by a Manila-bound bus while on his way home from school. The boy ended up in the Orthopedic Hospital where he stayed for several months until his guardian could no longer foot the hospital bills. He couldn’t even take the boy back as he had no legal adoption papers.

Tarik ended up in foster homes and found a German foster dad who sent him to a good school. But the past haunted the boy, turned him rebellious and restless, until the foster families tired of him and he wound up in a shelter for migrant children managed by Fr. Ben Villote.

But one family who never gave up on him was the family of Mrs. Carmencita Protacio Herman and Dr. Tony Protacio of the Protacio Hospital in Paranaque, who became his parent-figures.

Explained Tarik: “The Protacios, particularly Tita Baby, have been the most patient of all people in dealing with me. They just never gave up on me. I’ve been the worst a person could be, and yet they continued to shower me with love, always understanding, and always hoping that someday I would change for good. They somehow knew that the rage in me was caused by a wound that simply needed to heal. It was their love that saved me.”

One year before finishing his college studies, Tarik quit his part-time job, left Manila and went back to Albay. He found his first foster father—couturier William Urbano, known in the city as Willi de Legazpi—who gave him his birth documents. Tarik decided he would start all over again.

He intimated: “In the past, I was always in search of my life’s meaning. I had so many questions and found very few answers. Suddenly, it dawned on me that one way to fix my life is to be at peace with my past. So with only P500 in my pocket and nothing else, I took a bus bound for Bicol, which I consider my home. I discovered that my hatred for my past was not justified, and that my past was not to blame for everything that happened to me. In Bicol, I fell in love with the place, with the people, and with a girl. I soon got married.”

These days, Tarik has his hands full with several jobs that keep him busy. He spends three days in Manila and four days in Bicol, where he chairs an organization that provides research services to call centers, as well as human resource, training and consultancy services related to online and other e-business services. “We provide jobs for fellow Filipinos, allowing them to earn substantially without the need for them to go abroad,” he added.

What did he learn from his past that radically changed his life for the better?

Shared Tarik: “I learned that life is not perfect, nor is it fair. I realized that I could not go on forever hating my past and blaming it for the monster I’ve become. Instead, I could start embracing my wounds and learn to play the cards that I was dealt with. Life now has more meaning for me. I am now able to understand fully why ‘bad’ things in the past had to happen.”

(Author’s note: For personal reasons, I cannot divulge the name of Tarik’s mother, who makes it a point to watch classical concerts on the island. The first time I saw her, she was watching a voice recital in a civic hall in Catanduanes. She entered at the exact time soprano Luz Morete was singing “Awit Ng Gabi ni Sisa” by Felipe Padilla de Leon which was inspired by the madwoman in Rizal’s “Noli Me Tangere.”

She entered with flowers and vines in her hair and wearing clothes made of handkerchiefs she had found in the church after every mass. Tenor Gary del Rosario once paused in his rehearsal when he realized that Tarik’s mother—gawking at the concert hall windows—knew the melody of the German lieder he was singing. For all the sadness she went through—a missing son and a lost love—I now know why Tarik’s mother savors every poetic line of Schubert’s Serenade. But that’s another story.)