Thornton
Wilder is the author of the Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey. This is an account of what happened
today, Sunday, when I decided to read each chapter of the book at five
different places. This is an account of how to spend your money wisely.
Part 1: Perhaps an Accident
Jutz Café, 12:35 P.M. The first time I
visited the place about two years ago, a poetry reading took place in that
small space cleared off by the owner, also
a Filipino, in order to give way to a few performers – a small band that played
the guitar and the congo drums, and of course, the readers of poems. The wooden
tables and chairs set on the sides had been festooned with lighted candles which
doubly served as dimmed lights and the tables’ centrepieces. But most of all,
these tables had once been occupied by writers luminaries and humble beginners
like me, all gathered in the name of music and poetry which was to leave, now
that I recall it, a clear and perhaps nostalgic imprint.
Today I
sit at a table inside, by a long wood-framed glass window overlooking the
street on a sunny afternoon. Except for the bossa nova playing audibly enough over
the speakers, the restaurant is quiet, a stark contrast to the bustles of the
cafeteria just across the road. I am the only customer at this hour and a
familiar face here. In such case, I feel at ease, like we all are at places we
frequently visit. I order breaded porkchop and a glassful of iced tea and open The Bridge of San Luis Rey I chanced
yesterday at the book sale for seventy-five pesos (Harper Perennial’s 1986 paperback
reprinted edition which looks as good as new). The seven page chapter “Perhaps an
Accident” opens with a third-person narrator telling the exact date that the
bridge broke and how a certain Brother Juniper, a Franciscan, witnessed the
death of five people when the accident took place: “On Friday noon, July the
twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five
travellers into the gulf below.”
I look up
from my book as, minutes later, the waiter, a man who could be in his late twenties
stands beside me and settles the food on my table. When he finally leaves, I put
the book down and eat.
Part II: The Marquesa de
Montemayor
Casablanca Delicatessen, 1:30 P.M. I am sitting outside, at one of their tables set up right
at the corner of the block where only a meter away to my left stands erect a
wooden electric lightpost, this table where only two persons can occupy. The
mantle is bare until I signal the young waitress for their menu. I choose the
seat that faces the blue undulating sea, where my view of that long lovely
stretch of the boulevard lies unobscured. At a table next to mine, an American guy
wearing a pair of dark shades, perhaps in his early forties, is talking to the
young waitress, the smoke from his cigarette going off his mouth in all
directions, and I wonder minutes later if I had interrupted their ‘small talk’.
“You looking for a girlfriend, sir?” the young waitress in her maroon-color
uniform had giggled.
I feel
like drinking coffee, and the name ‘Café Correto with Grappa’ amuse me, so I order
one. There is a warm sea breeze, typical during hot afternoons, and I settle
comfortably on my chair and begin to read the rather quaint character, Dona
Maria, Marquesa de Montemayor and her story. Stripped
off her power, she’s simply a mother of a child who loves too much. I wonder if
that kind of love is repulsive, or to press the matter even further, if such
love exists. The daughter, Dona Clara grows up, marries, then chooses to stay
away from her and “saw to it that four thousand miles lay between them”, Dona
Maria in Peru, and Dona Clara in Spain. It is a baffling thing, like all loves
are.
The
waitress approaches and lays the coffee on the table. To my dismay, it’s a small
goddamn coffee, like an espresso. I read the chapter again and order another
cup of coffee, this time a Frozen Cappuccino at ninety-five pesos.
Part III: Esteban
Bogart’s Bar, 3:50 P.M. I am thinking of having
a light beer. Bogart’s,
which is just a block next to Casablanca, and in fact just one lot away is
where I head next. The waitresses know I order the same beer, brand, flavor. They
smile when they see me approach the bar. I order one light beer,
apple-flavored, and sit at a high-rise cushioned bamboo chair outside, the
boulevard in plain sight.
Another
American guy in a red polo arrives. He shoots me a smile, and I nod. He orders
a beer and sits at a table. “You have lovely hair,” he says, referring to my
curls. I give a hearty laugh to this.
In the chapter “Esteban”, the twenty-two-year-old is struck with grief by the passing of his twin brother Manuel. Both are orphans, left at the doorstep of a convent called the Convent of Sta. Maria Rosa de las Rosas. What inevitably struck me here as poignant is the part when he goes into a burst and weeps, “I am alone, alone, alone”. The repetition of the word “alone” bears a conundrum, and a kind of pitiful surrender. To this, Captain Alvarado, whom the twins had great respect, says, “We do what we can. We push on, Esteban, as best as we can.”
I sit for a few minutes and stare at the sea to pass the time. When my drink is over, I stand up. Before I leave, the American guy in red polo says, in a jocose tone, “Don’t cut your hair.”
“I won’t,”
I say, and smile.
Part IV: Uncle Pio
Coco Amigos, 4:52 P.M. I tell the beautiful waitress to give me a Schnitzel Sandwich. It’s in their menu. I have no idea what a Schnitzel Sandwich is in the first place so that I want to see and taste one. In her well-rehearsed American accent, she says, “Okay, sir. Schnitzel Sandwich coming up.” There’s something in the way she says “Schnitzel” that impresses me (others would definitely mistake the “i” for an “e” as in “egg” or the “e” as “i” as in “hill”) but what I really wonder is, why does she have to do that.
Coco Amigos, 4:52 P.M. I tell the beautiful waitress to give me a Schnitzel Sandwich. It’s in their menu. I have no idea what a Schnitzel Sandwich is in the first place so that I want to see and taste one. In her well-rehearsed American accent, she says, “Okay, sir. Schnitzel Sandwich coming up.” There’s something in the way she says “Schnitzel” that impresses me (others would definitely mistake the “i” for an “e” as in “egg” or the “e” as “i” as in “hill”) but what I really wonder is, why does she have to do that.
I am in
the company of white people. Most of the tables are occupied by foreigners. I look
around and feel like a pretentious sprat lifting a Thornton Wilder book, and for
a minute, I notice I am just reading the same sentence over and over again. I put
the book down.
The beautiful
waitress comes back. “Sir, we don’t have available Schnitzel Sandwich.” There’s
the “Schnitzel” again.
“Okay,”
I say, looking at the menu. “What about a Salami Sandwich?” Seventy-five pesos.
“Okay,
sir. Salami Sandwich.” She smiles, then leaves. I pick the book again and read
on.
What is
love for Uncle Pio?
“He regarded love as a sort of cruel malady through which the elect are required to pass in their late youth and from which they emerge, pale and wrung, but ready for the business of living.”
I think
about this for a while. But then the beautiful waitress with the well-rehearsed American
accent comes with my Salami Sandwich, and I thank her for that. I’ll have that
Schnitzel Sandwich some other time I guess, and eat.
Part V: Perhaps an Intention
Nevas, 5:45 P.M. I decide to order a
green salad with a Thousand Island dressing. For forty-five pesos, you get
loads of cabbage, strips of carrots. chunks of cucumber and tomatoes, and the
deceptive dressing. I say, it’s OK if you’re not particularly picky when it
comes to salad.
I always choose the second floor of the restaurant
where the lights have a soft touch of yellow and there’s good airconditioning. Right
now, there are quite a handful of people. On my left there’s a group of college
students – three girls and one boy, a Korean. One of them is saying, “What’s
the Korean for ‘good afternoon’?” I look at her, this girl speaking now, and I stop
what I’m doing (which is eating). I look hard at her and I couldn’t believe my
eyes. She looks a lot like my college schoolmate. Holy shit. No kidding. I study
her face furtively. I pretend to look around, at the two noisy kids talking
about how they love to eat pizza, to their mothers who are also eating pizza,
to the family at the next table, and so on, and I always end up looking at her.
I don’t believe in dopplegangers, but right now, I think I do.
The last
chapter of the book sounds like an epilogue. A new bridge has been built to replace the old,
and Wilder, like Chekov’s “gun in the wall” technique, finally harnesses his
penultimate symbol, the bridge, and shoots us point-blank by saying, “Even
memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of
the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.”
But my
eyes keep darting back to the girl at the next table. I am convinced she looks
a lot like my college schoolmate – the same pronounced cheekbone, the same hair
style parted sideways, the same make-up, the eye-liner, the lips, the eyes. I
am drawn to her eyes. I want her to look at me and see from them a faint recognition.
But she doesn’t look at me. I glance at her once in a while until I make up my
mind that it’s not my college schoolmate. I pay the bill and climb down the
stairs and out, and the day's over.
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