By Prof. Danton Remoto
Penguin Random House Southeast Asia has published “The Heart of Summer: Stories and Tales,” my book of short fiction, in August of 2023. I am now writing a new book of short stories, culled from memories in my long life of people I have met and places I have been to.
For memory, as National Artist for Literature Dr. Jimmy Abad said, is the “mother of all writing”. We embellish our memories, combine the qualities of several people, change scenarios and settings when we write our stories. One of the stories I have finished writing is about a resort hotel on a tropical island in the Philippines where strange events happen. There is also a gallery of characters.
One of them is Mando, a young businessman and widower stays in a hotel room with two beds. He goes on vacation to heal his grief after his beloved wife dies. He still remembers how he met the woman who became his wife, how he courted her, how they made love on the first night of their honeymoon. Unfortunately, she died from childbirth. That is why he deemed it necessary to take a leave from running the family corporation and stay in a resort hotel on a beautiful island in the south.
But he was surprised upon waking up the next night, when the other bed is unmade up, as if someone has slept in it. He decides to keep awake and see for himself what happens. After the clock has struck twelve, a young and beautiful woman appears and walks toward the other bed. Afraid but enamored by her beauty, he stutters and strikes up a conversation with her.
She is Clara and claims she was poisoned many years ago, because she was supposed to marry the rich young man whose family owned the hotel. The relatives of the rich young man poisoned her, and he was sent to live overseas. She has since looked at the faces of every male visitor in the hotel, looking for her lover.
The widower and the ghost become fast friends, and as the nights pass, they strike up conversations and begin to fall in love with each other. When they finally kiss, she assumes human form and flesh once again.
Gibbs is another character. One summer, a young gay painter goes to the resort hotel to recharge his batteries. He just had a successful one-man show and all his paintings were sold out. Surprisingly, the money that came with it left him pressured to produce more paintings that would sell well, surpassing his first show.
During his stay in the resort hotel, he meets a young bisexual fisherman named Cardo. The fisherman lives a simple life with his family on the island, but he also has aspirations. He is studying at the university in the province and saves his money to pay for his tuition and fees. Gibbs and Cardo become friends. Cardo teaches Gibbs how to swim, how to float in the sea and to let go of his worries and fears.
He also meets Cardo’s family and re-learns the time-honored values of simplicity and gratefulness. Gibbs then paints a portrait of Cardo in his hotel over several days. The finished portrait looks like one of the paintings in the hotel, a portrait of the owner’s uncle who was banished into exile overseas for being gay. They have great conversations and later fall in love with each other.
The next day, the uncle in the portrait comes home to reclaim his inheritance. He meets Gibbs and Cardo. He commissions Gibbs for some paintings and gives some money to Cardo for his tuition and fees. Then he vanishes again, as quickly as he came. Is he a real person or just a figment of the two lovers’ imagination?
Mando, Clara, Gibbs and Cardo meet one morning at the resort hotel. Clara informs Gibbs and Cardo that the old uncle, indeed, was also sent to live overseas, but he died in exile while living in America. So the person whom they had met was just his spiritual self, or a ghost. But she has returned to life, and is happy to have met and fallen in love with Mando.
Mando then commissions Gibbs to paint landscapes of the island to be hung in the building that their family owns in Makati. The four of them go swimming and enjoy the white beach and the stunning blue sea. This concluding part of the story features scenes of the lovely island visited by the four, which include waterfalls, a cave, and a flower farm. The four characters enjoy themselves immensely.
Later, Cardo offers to bring all of them aboard a boat and they sail one late afternoon into the sunset, which is as golden as their dreams fulfilled.
I have framed it as an entertaining story. But isn’t one function of fiction to entertain, enthrall us with the delights of life?
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Danton Remoto’s books, Riverrun: A Novel and The Heart of Summer: Stories and Tales, have been published by Penguin Southeast Asia. He also translated classic Tagalog novels into English for Penguin. They are available at www.acrephils.com and Fully Booked Online.