Brave Filipino Women

By Reine Bautista Mercado

A bundle of two novels and two short stories by bestselling author, Reine Bautista Mercado

 

The bundle includes:

• Felicia Calayan, Defender of Women--a short story about a feisty Filipino lawyer who made it her life mission to rescue abused women from the violence of men. This acts as a prelude to the novel, From the Ribs of Adam
• From the Ribs of Adam, a psychological legal thriller about the effects and complexities of the battered woman syndrome. It delves into the mind of an abused woman suffering from the heavy hands of her husband and asks: what would you do in her place?
• The Lipstick General--a historical war fiction that takes place during the world war two Japanese occupation of the Philippines. A veteran of the war tells her story about how she transformed from a beauty queen into a general in fabulous style.

Bonus:

The Birth of a Babaylan

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Meihudie Publishing
• Release date: Oct 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393262442

Reine Bautista Mercado

Reine Bautista Mercado is a devoted writer of feminist literature and a vehement advocate of women's rights, LGBT equality, and social justice in the Philippines and in Southeast and East Asia. After acquiring her degree for languages at the prestigious University of the Philippines with honours, she has been avidly volunteering for many organisations that support her advocacies and uses her skills for languages to connect with many people in Southeast and East Asia. Herself a transgender woman, she devotes her writing to literature that empowers women and members of the LGBT, as well as other minorities in Asia.

Book preview

Felicia Calayan:

Defender of Women

A short story by:

Reine Bautista Mercado

Felicia Calayan: Defender of Women

by Reine Bautista Mercado

Published by:

Meihudie Publishing

Format: eBook

July, 2018

Copyright © 2018 Reine Bautista Mercado

Related Literature:

From the Ribs of Adam

by Reine Bautista Mercado

ISBN 978-1721837625 (Paperback)

All rights reserved.

All characters in this short story are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

Case File #232

It was already half an hour past nine in the morning, but Miss Felie had just arrived in her office to start the day’s work. She entered the office main door while being evidently stressed out as she intelligibly cursed the hellish daily commute of Manila. It was funny, she thought, how the Manila traffic could still irk someone every time when it had been happening to them for their entire lives spent in the city. One would think that one had gotten used it.

She was greeted by her assistant sitting behind her newly-bought wooden desk as she continued to curse. She only stopped when her assistant had informed her that she had a guest—a possible client, perhaps.

Unabashed by her recent display of profanity, she glanced around the lobby of her office and saw a pregnant woman sitting on one of their wooden and cushion-less waiting lounge sofas. She immediately noticed the woman’s striking beauty for it was of the sort that most Filipinos don’t particularly consider beautiful.

The woman was what she labelled ‘true Filipino brown’—no mixture of any other race could be traced in her complexion; her face was perfectly oval; and her hair was long and leathery black and it appeared to be silky smooth as well. She was a far cry from the usual beauty standard in this country: mestizas or chinitas with unhealthily pale white skin.

‘Hello. Good morning!’, she greeted while still unapologetic of her profanity that was certainly witnessed by her guest a while ago. ‘How can I help you?’

‘Good morning, Attorney Calayan’, the woman responded as she got up from her seat and walked towards Miss Felie. ‘I just want to have an affidavit of loss done.’

As soon as her guest had stated her business, Miss Felie’s attention had been instantaneously diverted towards a particular spot on the woman’s body as if Miss Felie’s eyes had been specially trained to do just that. They fixated their gaze on the woman’s right breast which showed a bluish discolouration on the upper portion that led to her cleavage. The beacon was lit. Miss Felie was summoned to war.

‘I lost my passport’, continued the woman with the intention to interrupt the lawyer’s uncomfortable staring at her breast. Being aware of the fact that her bruise was visible and Miss Felie was now looking at it uninvitedly, she felt ashamed.

‘Yes, dear’, said Miss Felie as she removed her gaze from her client’s bruise and directed it towards her face with a sly smile. ‘That’s unfortunate. Come into my office and we’ll draft that affidavit.’

Miss Felie proceeded to lead her client to her mini-office which was a mere subdivision of the huge room space she was renting. It had no doors and contained nothing but her basic necessities: a desk, her rolling chair, two client’s chairs, her computer, a book shelf containing her law books, and a file drawer. She commanded her client to sit down as she, herself, went to her own chair. She didn't sit down.

‘So’, Miss Felie said, ‘he is beating you. Tell me about it’.

This took the woman aback.

‘W-what?’, she stuttered as she asked the lawyer while still unsure of how to react.

‘Please, Miss. Don’t try to deny what is obvious’, Miss Felie said.

‘I-I don’t know what you are talking about, attorney’, the woman argued.

‘Okay’, Miss Felie, apparently having decided to withdraw from battle this time, said and continued, ‘but if this happens again and it gets worse, here’s my number’.

She handed the woman her business card as she blatantly pointed her left index finger to the woman’s bruised breast. The woman felt embarrassed, tried to cover her bruise by pulling her blouse up, and accepted Miss Felie’s business card. They ended their first encounter with Miss Felie writing an affidavit for her lost passport.

The woman introduced herself as Jonalyn Turner. Judging by her last name, Miss Felie felt sickened by the thought that a foreign man came into her country, probably with the sole intention of finding a desperate Filipina who was burdened by extreme poverty to marry, only to displace his masculine insecurities and anger on her fellow Filipina. He was lucky that he got himself a pretty girl, but it made Miss Felie angrier as she imagined him beating her on a regular basis.

She never saw Miss Turner again for three long months, until, one day, she returned to her early in the morning panting and crying with her beautiful face severely deformed by swellings and bruises. Jonalyn Turner was already heavily burdened by her pregnancy, but she was carrying an even heavier emotional load in her right hand.

In it, Miss Felie uncovered a handgun wrapped in a scarf. The sight of the possibly illegal firearm brought Miss Felie into panic, but only for a brief moment. Her experience had long tested her for these kinds of situations. She instructed Miss Turner to enter her office and take a seat as she confiscated the weapon and proceeded to give orders to her assistant who was an elderly woman six months short of retiring from her post.

After she had accomplished everything that was needed to do for this type of case, she joined Miss Turner in her mini-office and sat down on her rolling chair.

‘The police are coming soon. They will arrest you. Don’t deny that you did it. I know you did it. You killed your abusive husband, but don’t worry—’, she explained with a tone of assurance that she would handle everything and put things in order, ‘I will get you out of jail. But, first, you need to tell me what exactly happened.’

Jonalyn Turner proceeded to cry and wail as loudly as she could. Miss Felie and her assistant tried their best to console her, albeit in vain. Even though the imminent arrival of the police to arrest Miss Turner threatened her advantage of having an initial defence strategy by having known the story before the police interrogated her client, she still allowed her to cave in to her trauma.

When Miss Turner had been evidently quiet and her wailing had seemingly ran out of fuel, Miss Felie reiterated her request to be informed about what had exactly transpired. She needed her story first to gauge the extent of her crime.

Her client sobbed a little bit more before wiping her eyes and blowing her nose with a piece of tissue paper.

‘He came home really drunk last night’, she began, ‘I was watching television in the living room. He told me to fix him dinner for he was hungry. I just told him that there was some adobo on the dining table and there was still some rice in the rice cooker.’

She sobbed once more as she paused telling her story. Miss Felie handed her more tissues.

‘I don’t know what happened, attorney. After that, he just proceeded to punch me in the face. He didn't stop. I was screaming hard and loud, but he didn't stop. He punched me many times. He punched me everywhere. He kicked me and shoved me towards the floor. I couldn't stop him! He was unstoppable, attorney!’

Her rapid and emotional recounting of her husband’s madness reminded Miss Felie of a machine gun firing non-stop. She ordered her assistant to fetch a glass of water for their client, and, as her old assistant disappeared into their pantry, she decided to interrupt her client’s narration of the gruesome details.

‘Okay, he beat you hard’, Miss Felie said, ‘now tell me how you killed him. Did you use this gun?’

She slightly removed the scarf wrapping the handgun to show some of it while avoiding to touch it and taint the fingerprints on it with her own.

‘Yes’, Miss Turner replied, ‘but it was his own gun.’

‘How did he acquire it?’, Miss Felie asked.

‘I don’t know. He was friends with a policeman. I don’t know his name. I have never met him.’

‘So how did you do it? Did he try to use it on you first and then you snatched it from him? Did he point the gun at you and threatened to kill you? If so, you need to tell me his exact words, Jonalyn.’

‘No, that’s not what happened, attorney.’

Miss Turner paused and thought twice. Still uncertain if it would help her case, she opted to tell her lawyer the rest of her story. After all, Miss Felie had been advertising herself as the ‘Defender of Women’ as written on the sign on the wall beside their office’s main door. She would defend her, she thought, but the question was: would she defend her successfully?

‘While he was continuously punching and kicking me’, Jonalyn Turner continued, ‘he was yelling and telling me to go to the kitchen to fix him dinner. My body was already aching badly at that point, but I managed to shout and tell him that I would do what he wanted.’

Miss Felie gazed at her client intently. Her story was turning out to be not what she had expected. She leaned forward and rested both of her elbows on her desk as she listened attentively to the rest of her client’s tale.

‘Then he stopped beating me, attorney’, Miss Turner continued. ‘I was lying on the floor and my body was severely aching. I felt pain all over, especially on my belly. Attorney, I was afraid that I would have a miscarriage right then and there!’

She sobbed again and Miss Felie handed her the glass of water that she had ordered her assistant to fetch as she consoled her with reassuring words about how she would defend her in her trial. They all waited for Miss Turner to calm down so she could carry on with her story.

‘Then what happened next?’, Miss Felie asked as soon as she had deemed her client ready to talk again.

‘I didn't go to the kitchen, attorney. I was so afraid of what he would do to me. I was so afraid of him. I was scared for my baby. I didn't go to the kitchen, attorney!’

She was wailing so intensely as she was saying this that her words could barely be understood.

‘Okay, calm down, Jonalyn, and tell me what you did’, Miss Felie told her as she stood up from her rolling chair to approach her client and comfort her by holding her hand.

As soon as Jonalyn could utter comprehensible words, she yelled, ‘I shot him, attorney! I shot my husband! I shot that bastard!’

She cried once more as she rested her head on Miss Felie’s chest. The lawyer then wrapped her arms around her distraught client in an attempt to comfort her.

‘How did you do it, Jonalyn?’, Miss Felie asked, but she didn't wait for her to calm down this time for she knew that the police would be arriving soon. She needed one more important piece of information before she would hand her over to the custody of the police. ‘Where was the gun before?’

‘In our bedroom’, she replied while still crying uncontrollably. ‘It was hidden in one of his drawers. I know where he hid it because I saw him get it once.’

‘So you just went to your bedroom, got the gun, then shot him?’, inquired the lawyer.

‘Yes, attorney!’, she answered. ‘He told me to go to the kitchen, but I didn't go to the kitchen, attorney! I didn't go to the kitchen! I went to our bedroom to get the gun and then I came back to the living room and shot him! I didn't go to the kitchen, attorney!’

Jonalyn was unconsolable at that point, but Miss Felie was unfazed by her display of trauma. Time was of the essence and she needed one last piece of information.

‘What was he doing when you shot him?’, she asked her client as calmly as her embattled voice would allow.

Confused by her lawyer’s question, Jonalyn Turner suddenly stopped her crying and answered her attorney with a matter-of-factly tone in her voice.

‘Nothing, attorney. He was just sitting on our sofa.’

‘Coming from your bedroom with this gun in your hand, you went back to the living room, saw your husband sitting on the sofa, then shot him, is this all correct?’, the lawyer inquired.

‘Yes, attorney.’

‘Very well, Jonalyn. The police will be here soon. They will take you and lock you up. They will also take this gun. But don’t you worry, darling. I will get you out and that’s not a promise. That’s a fact.’

She stood up to prepare everyone for the police’s arrival but she had some last words to her client: ‘And, Jonalyn... you may call me Miss Felie.’

From the Ribs of Adam

Reine Bautista Mercado

From the Ribs of Adam

by Reine Bautista Mercado

Published by Meihudie Publishing

Hong Kong, 24 June 2018

Copyright © 2018 Reine Bautista Mercado

First Printing, 2018

ISBN 978-6219607001 (Hardcover)

ISBN 978-1721837625 (5.5 by 8.5 Version)

ISBN 978-1722214449 (6 by 9 Version)

All rights reserved.

All characters in this novel are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

WARNING!

This novel deals with domestic abuse, violence against women, and rape. As such, some scenarios described in the book that depict the above-mentioned issues may be traumatising to some readers.

Chapter 1

A Black Eye

The moving hand of the clock ticks loudly in the silence of the night while matching the rhythm of Cecilia’s pumping heartbeats. In the living room of their small two-bedroom house, she paces in an irregular speed back and forth towards the direction of the front door while suffering from an unmistakable uneasiness within her. Her thoughts run excessively wildly as the imagination of what is to come envelops her entire mind; her eyes dart frightened looks at the wall clock and the door while she agonises over not knowing which will arrive first: the first hour of dawn or her husband; and her chest suffocates through the constricting anticipation of what is decidedly upon her.

At least her son is asleep now, she thought. She had promised herself that she will just cover her mouth with one of her hands or just press her lips tightly together in order to not make a noise that could wake up a light-sleeper. ‘And the noises he will make?’, she pondered worriedly as she devices a plan to lure him into the kitchen first before he will be able to clench a fist.

She has done it many times before and her son never seems to be bothered in his slumber. After her husband’s many episodes, as she calls them, she always goes to her son’s room to look at him while being uncertain if the deed is to check if his sleeping has been disturbed or whether it calms her down and gives her some sort of clarity after harbouring dark thoughts or both.

At first, she does it to check on him. Then, she notices that it also eases her terrified anger. Now, she doesn’t know anymore. It just became a habit that she so religiously follows that she would feel incomplete if she doesn’t do it. Only after opening her son’s bedroom door and having a peek will she be able to finally feel at ease to enter the bathroom to clean her messed-up face and join her husband in their bed.

There have been a couple of times in which she did not join her husband in their bedroom. But she has long decided that it was not a good idea for he would wake up feeling insulted and the episodes would occur once more. She did not like starting her day with those.

However, she has another thing chaotically bewildering her troubled thoughts tonight and it is something that she has not done before. She intends to tell him—no, not tell—she will try to beg him to stop.

She never did that during the previous episodes. The idea never came into her mind. Perhaps, it was because she was so afraid that it would somehow make things worse. Perhaps, it was because she didn't know how to. But, now, she will beg.

Miss Felie suggested that she should do so. Well, not exactly that, she told herself while in her silent soliloquy. ‘She actually commanded me to do something else, but it is, in effect, similar to that’, she explained aloud this time around. Astounded by the realisation that her mouth has produced a sound while being the only one in the living room, she panicked even more and concentrated harder on concocting the best possible manner with which she should do what she was about to do.

She will tell him tenderly, she decided, like before when he used to woo me when we had just started dating and I would ask him to do things for me. He always does things for me, she thought, or at least used to.

There was an episode in which he slapped me in front of Ian and then left the house, she recalled. When he returned, he gave me a box of chocolate snails—the same ones he gave me on our first date and told me he was sorry for what he did. He also did it in front of our son during dinner. He then kissed me and told me he loved me so much. With that memory, she built the foundation of her foolishly blind belief that her husband was just going through something emotionally and that she should always be there for him to support him. And support him, she did. For a number of times equal to the number of crayons inside a huge crayon box, she had been of the colours black and blue.

After the day on which that memory occurred, her husband hurt her again by smacking her in the face so hard that her nose began to bleed. It was because he was mad that they had the same meal as the day before and he complained that the money he had worked for went to nothing. She insisted to herself that he had a point as she obediently picked up the broken pieces of china scattered on the kitchen floor after having been smashed by her whinging husband. He then kicked her lightly—as she remembers it— on her back while she was crouched down on the floor picking up the shattered plates and that caused her to fall face first towards the shards. Fortunately, she raised her arms in time to defend her face and that only resulted in minor cuts and wounds on her wrists and elbows.

All throughout that ordeal, their son, Ian, was quietly doing homework in his bedroom. That thought oddly gave her a sense of peace as she cleaned herself up before cleaning the kitchen as well. It was a good thing she made her son eat dinner first, she realised. He had a lot of homework that night and he shouldn’t stay up late on a school night, so she mandated that he have supper alone before his parents do, so that he could finish his assignments early. ‘Ian loves my cooking’, she asserted, ‘and I don’t want him to hear that his father doesn’t like my cooking anymore’.

The day after that, she went to her priest—a strictly devout Catholic clergyman whose hair and scalp along with his skin and eyes betray a most advanced and, to Cecilia, wise and experienced age. She asked him if he knew what had been happening to her relationship with her husband. His mere analysis was that she, as a woman, was not doing what I was supposed to do as a wife. I am failing my duties and should understand my husband more and have compassion towards his afflictions. Cecilia forgot the priest’s exact words for he gave a full sermon that lasted an hour and a half, but she was convinced that that was the gist of it for she sincerely agreed with him. It was just unfortunate that she is now unable to ask the same priest again for he had been assigned to another parish in a province within the Bicol region.

Nevertheless, his words stuck to her. ‘I am failing him’, she said. ‘I am failing our family. Something must change and may the Lord Jesus and the Blessed Virgin guide me’.

Every time she thinks she’s failing—while having a body painted with blue and black spots—she goes to a priest to ask for guidance. She hates that her marriage is changing. This is not how God wants it to be, she thought. What am I doing wrong? And for every time she had questions about her marriage, her priest had the answers. They were always the same answers. She must improve herself as a woman and become a more dutiful wife. She agrees with them; however, she can’t seem to pinpoint exactly what it is that she should do... until she met Miss Felie.

Then, as abrupt and startling as a lightning bolt violently illuminating a dark and cloudy sky, her quiet and outwardly tranquil yet internally chaotic reminiscing of the past was interrupted by a rather loud revving of a car engine and a scandalous honking of the horn. Her husband has arrived and was driving into their garage to park the car. She remembered that that day was the last day they could use it for its new owner will be fetching it tomorrow. They had to sell that beloved car, which they excitedly saved for after they got married, due to their shrinking pockets.

Cecilia braced herself as a car door clicked open and then closed again with a loud bang. She straightened her hems and took a huge gulp from the glass of water standing on the coffee table as the doorknob turned and the narra door swung open. She mustered a gargantuan amount of strength and fought back the wild tingling of her nerves as she opened her mouth and spoke.

‘I want to tell you—’

BLAG!

A knuckle collided heavily with her eye and the impact caused her to fall sideways as she grimaced in a familiar kind of pain—something that she had felt many times before. What is it for this time, she wondered.

‘WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN SPENDING MY MONEY FOR?’

And then came another punch, then a kick followed by a pull of her hair. They were all done with an excessive exertion of effort so that he could make sure that his point was delivered properly.

‘WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING WITH MY MONEY, YOU BITCH!’

Her husband, who is understandably upset that they were running on a tight budget and who loves the red sedan they both had worked hard for, is now bellowing thunderously at Cecilia who is pitifully curling up the floor trying to avoid the second, and third, and fourth impact. She knows what to do in this kind of situation because she has done it many times before: listen, guard the vitals, try to avoid massive damages, and wait—no... have patience. Have lots of patience. Having patience has helped her... well, survive.

Chapter 2

A Daydream of Reality

The little stain on one of the wooden feet of the living room centre table on which Cecilia’s gaze has fixated itself seems to become clearer and clearer as her back and her belly meet the sole of her husband’s size twelve shoe and as her ears absorb the worst of his insults, which are now, to her, have become just like the sound of cars driving on the road in front of their house at night. That kind of noise may bother one when one has just moved in that house, but, as time goes by, one learns to sleep soundly despite such noise.

‘YOU’RE SO GODDAMN STUPID, YOU BITCH!’

It may have been caused by the orange juice that spilt on the floor, she wondered, when her son, Ian, knocked the glass over out of excitement while sitting cross-legged on the floor and watching a program on television. She fails to remember what show it was, but Ian just suddenly jumped up and down out of sheer delight. He was so ecstatic as she cherishingly reminisced.

‘WHY CAN’T YOU DO ANYTHING RIGHT? HOW ARE WE GOING TO SURVIVE, YOU FUCKING BITCH!’

It can also be because of the little drops of coffee that spilt from her cup that one Monday morning when she unwittingly tried to take a sip while having forgotten that the cup was still searing hot. She had just brewed a fresh batch of barako and she was distracted by the morning entertainment news relaying that one of her favourite actors had come out as a homosexual man. She managed to yell, ‘I knew it!’, even before she was able to relieve the pain from the burn by putting the burnt spot under running water. ‘There were obvious signs’, she declared and that was why she was so sure he was gay.

‘SO STUPID!!! SO STUPID!!! SO FUUUUUUCKING STUPID!!!’

Then again, the staining probably happened during that one time when her husband was sick and had to stay home. He was lying on the couch feeling drowsy and cold and Cecilia cooked some hot chicken and ginger soup called tinola, his favourite chicken dish. She delivered a bowl to him, crouched down by his side, scooped up some soup with a spoon, blew air on it to cool it down a bit, and hovered the spoon towards his mouth. He refused it with a wave of his left hand. She insisted that he eat something in order to heal and proceeded to offer the spoon again.

Cecilia can’t remember now how hot the tinola she made for that day was, but she is certain that the soup hit the foot of the table when it spilt out of the bowl after having slipped from her hands and landing on her lap. Was I not holding it properly?, she wondered. It doesn’t matter, she thought, for, even though the hot soup burnt her inner thighs, it was what her husband yelled at her that branded a blistering memory of that day onto her mind:

‘I SAID I DON’T WANT TO EAT!!! Jesus, why did I even marry you? You can’t make any man happy. You’re an embarrassment for a wife! I DON’T EVEN WANT TO BE SEEN WITH YOU!’

The very first statement startled her causing her to flinch and accidentally let a finger holding the bowl of soup loose, which then also gave her a jolt realising that the hot soup could spill, which ultimately resulted to the entire bowl slipping out of her hand and falling upside down between her legs. The contents splashed down on her thighs and scattered in all directions with some splats.

Perhaps, this was how the stain was produced, she pondered. Nonetheless, no matter how hard she tries to remember the burn from the soup on that day, the memory of the sensation remains elusive. It can be because she had felt the pain of burning many times before brought upon by her daily duties in the kitchen and that had acclimatised her skin to the experience or it can be because of something else entirely. Right now, however, she is certain that she cannot be bothered to care anymore.

‘YOU FUCKING STUPID BITCH! FOR ONCE, DO SOMETHING RIGHT!!!’

Miss Felie was right, she thought. ‘That nosy lawyer was absolutely right.’

The last time she saw the criminal justice lawyer, she was in her office kitchen slicing some red onions for her salad. She doesn’t usually see her clients beyond the waiting lounge or her office, but Cecilia had become a regular—a beloved regular—to Miss Felie, that they even meet outside her consultation hours and in some less formal places. Indeed, they have gone out once for a couple of bottles of beer together with her friendly and vivacious assistant, Junjie. Cecilia doesn’t drink, of course, so both bottles were only for Miss Felie and Junjie.

On that day, inside the small yet well-equipped pantry, Cecilia confided in Miss Felie a secret that, before that moment, only she and her doctor had known. The attorney just paused her slicing for a brief tense moment, stared at Cecilia with disappointed yet sympathetic eyes, and then carried on with her activity. Cecilia prepared to open her mouth to ask a question or declare a statement, but her mind was not able to summon a word and that caused