By Professor Danton Remoto
National Artist for Literature N.V.M. Gonzalez said: “There is no mystique to the actual act of writing. The mystique lies in the thinking out of what to write.’
I asked him to explain what he meant. He said that in 1968, along with a group of Filipino artists, he was invited to travel to India. They were taken to Ajanta, which was an hour away from Bombay. It was a beautiful valley sitting on a mountain shaped like the shoe of a horse. A quiet stream flowed peacefully down the valley.
In the mountain, the monks had carved 30 unique prayer halls and temples. The work began in 200 B.C. and must have continued for a long time. The monks carved in that mountain with their hands.
Our National Artist recounted the tale to me as if it only happened yesterday. “I went into a cave, walking through a waterfall, to get there, and there was the Buddha at the end of this cave. The sun piercing through an aperture gave the Buddha a particular kind of smile. Our guide explained that the Buddha’s smile would differ, depending on the light and time of the day. Can you imagine 30 of these temples, all different, and the monks patiently carving away at that mountain?”
The cave was discovered when a hunter, so the story went, was going after a tiger, when it suddenly disappeared into the mountain. It had gone into one of the temples. The hunter went to take a look. And that was how he discovered the caves, each different, each painstakingly carved and painted by the monks over many years.
N.V.M. said: “That is what writers do. Reality is the mountain that writers dig and dig to create a celebration of life.”
Indeed, he dug deeply and well because his fiction, poetry, and criticism were published widely not only in the Philippines but also overseas. His novels were translated into German. Malay, and Russian.
I asked him what made a writer like him happy—someone who has lived long and has won an auditorium of awards.
“That once in a while, I run into people who remember what they have read of my works. Two events strike me as worth remembering. Once, I was going to the toilet at the San Francisco airport when I noticed a man following me. When I stepped outside and saw him, I knew that he didn’t mean any harm so I paused. He asked, ‘Sir, are you N.V.M. Gonzalez?” I said, ‘Yes, I am. Can I do anything for you?’ He answered, ‘I remember the poem that you wrote. I think it was called ‘My Islands.’
He also recalled the day that his wife, Narita, came home from a teachers’ workshop. She told him that one young teacher had a slip of paper that contained the poem of N.V.M. called “Song.” The teacher thought that it would be good if her students could memorize the short poem. So she pulled out the slip of paper and began reading the poem. She said: ‘Please listen to this beautiful poem.’ But somebody among the school children began laughing and said, ‘But, Ma’am, we already know that poem.’ That is the kind of thing, I think, that makes you feel good as a writer. One little thing like that is enough.’
N.V.M. Gonzalez was proud of his distinguished career as a writer and professor. But he was, perhaps, even more proud of his marriage to Narita Manuel.
Mrs. Gonzalez was a woman with a face always wreathed in smiles. She first met N.V.M. in a literary soiree. “After the party, he asked: Can I bring you home?’ I said, ‘Yes,’ so along with two other friends, he brought me home. That was the beginning. From then on, he began lending me books. We were friends for three years. When the Second World War came, my family evacuated to Binangonan, Rizal. N.V.M. used to come and visit me every Saturday. He had to take eight carretela rides to reach me, but he never failed to visit me every Saturday.”
But one day, Narita’s father said that were running out of funds and they had to return to their hometown in Zambales. When N.V.M. learned about it, he proposed marriage. The first thing that Narita’s mother asked was: ‘How will both of you manage?’ N.V.M. was only a clerk then and he was the only one in his family who was working. But he said, ‘We will manage.’
They got married on August 22, 1942. Narita made her own wedding dress, somebody baked a turkey, and that was it. The Gonzalez family have four children, two boys and two girls. In 1964, their youngest daughter was having a bad case of asthma so the family had to relocate.
“N.V.M. had a Rockefeller grant to go to Italy,” Narita said, “so we were going to be a house divided. I was supposed to bring my daughter to Baguio, which has a better climate, so she could recuperate. But then, we decided to go for broke. We all wanted to be together, so my children and I joined N.V.M. in Italy on a ‘fly now, pay later plan.’ Only my son, Nim, who was then studying at Ateneo, was left behind. My youngest daughter was going to be 12 years old so we said, ‘Aha, we better hurry and go abroad now before she pays the full fare, since 12 is the age limit for the half fare.”
In Italy, the children learnt to play the guitar, and our National Artist learnt to play it as well. When N.V.M. later taught at Ateneo, I organized an early dinner party at the end of the semester. The party was held at the house of the Olaguer family in La Vista. We prevailed upon N.V.M. Gonzalez to play the guitar and so he did. The smile on his lips reached his eyes as the lovely notes floated on that bright summer.
Danton Remoto’s books include Boys’ Love, Riverrun, and The Heart of Summer. He also published the English translations of three Tagalog novels as part of the Southeast Asian Literary Classics series. They were published by Penguin Random House SEA and available at Fully Booked Online and www.acrephils.com