fiction by Roger B Rueda
Mary was standing near my classroom. She was talking to a colleague.
‘Hello Pax,’ she greeted me. Mary was the only friend who called me Pax. All my friends would call me Pas (short for Paciano).
‘What’s that?’ I asked. I then opened the envelope. I looked at her and congratulated her. ‘I’m happy for you, Meyr.’ She smiled her thanks.
She then left my room. I knew she was too busy.
***
The last time I met Mary was at Sbarro before she left for Korea. She treated me and my friends to some pizza.
‘So what would happen to your case,’ I asked.
Her lawyer smiled. ‘I’ll handle it.’ He was handsome and very young.
I lifted my glass and poured myself some lemonade.
***
Mary was a tutor at a Korean school in Makati: She was abruptly let go of the school managing director, Vil, because she had got married to her ex-student. Vil had imposed the rule that no teachers should engage in such a relation. To her, that was unethical. I agreed. Everybody agreed. There must have been some who didn’t agree, but what could they do? What could they do was to murmur or knit their brows when no one was around.
In Mary’s case, however, it was difficult to know if it was Mary’s thoughtful doing or not. Well, how could I? Only Mary knew what really had happened. For one, she was Mary and I was I. The point was it was difficult to tell whether Mary was telling the truth or not. That way, in my opinion, was a thing I could not consider or weigh. The basis of it was out of sight for it was in the minds of the two persons involved – in Mary’s and her husband’s. Only the two of them knew the truth of everything. But not telling me or anyone was their right, perhaps, to protect themselves – or because there was really nothing to tell.
I understand why Vil was against Mary’s marriage. She had suspected Mary then and had been vigilant about her, yet the thing she couldn’t accept was she failed to stop the relation. For years, she had been successful in stopping all relations which she thought unethical, un-Korean. But in Mary’s case, she failed to. That made her extremely upset and irrational. The rule that she had made was useless, so it made her resort to some unfounded actions, using her power. She let go of Mary although it was illegal to do so. Technically, Mary couldn’t be fired because she had never violated any school rule. The rule was clear and a Grade One student can almost understand that being a current student is different from an ex-student. And I’m sure about it, no dictionary will agree with it. The concept is very elementary.
Mary got married to her ex-student. What was wrong about it? The rule was clear that a tutor could not get married to her/his student. But Mary didn’t marry her student. She got married to her ex-student of two years ago. If there was something or someone to blame for that, it should have been the rule or the one who had made the rule. It was all her/his fault. She/he should have anticipated such a problem. The case of Mary was a slur to his/her astuteness, if she/he had.
The reason, for me, why such a rule was made is very hypocritical. Vil was a Christian and all she wanted was a Christian image. A Christian image to her was her life. What she had was because she was a Christian. She received supports from Korea because she was a Christian even only by name. All her actions were obviously to promote her image as a Christian, but not because she really wanted to help or to be kind and charitable. Actually, if Vil had a choice she wanted to be a Satanist, but in Korea being a Christian meant a lot. If Vil had not been a Christian, she couldn’t have been chosen as managing director of the school. I was not stupid to notice that kind of behaviour.
If Koreans had known what Mary did, her school reputation would have become unpopular. That was her reason why she was upset about Mary’s marriage. But it was her fault why a lot of people knew about Mary’s marriage. She made it big. Her reaction was too much that even those people who hadn’t known about Mary wondered about Mary. So the marriage of Mary to her ex-student became the talk of the town. So, whose fault was it? Mary’s?
Vil was an envious woman. I knew her well. So, another reason I could speculate was that she was envious of Mary. Her ex-boyfriend was a Filipino and was far much handsome than her husband, who was so ugly, inside and outside. Perhaps, she married him for money. She was poor and at the end of her tether. So it was her envy that could have been the cause of all her annoyance and difference.
She didn’t like people to be happy. She came from a broken family in Korea, so seeing people happy, especially a family, would hurt her. She lived her life in sullen, resentful silence. She lived her life paradoxically, in lies. Her mother was in a mental hospital. Her father was a beggar. She didn’t want to help them, so how could she be kind to others when she could close her eyes to her own parents.
I decided to support Mary because Vil was attacking Mary based on the cause which I could not see and which she could not see, either. There was no clear evidence that Mary had violated the rule. For lack of evidence, I think my decision was right. We can only judge someone or something based on significant information or proofs. How could I judge Mary then? What rule should I use? None so far. What I could do was speculate. But, legally, speculating is unacceptable. No sound person can accept any foolishness when it comes to presenting an argument sensibly. One doesn’t need to be a lawyer to understand this.
Mary sued Vil.
Some of my colleagues supported Mary. Some didn’t. Most of them were fraidy-cats. It was obvious that to them money was everything. If a person didn’t have money, to them she/he was rubbish, and what should they do with rubbish? They acted fool and stupid just to justify their decision. They even forgot their friendship with Mary. Some of them attended Mary’s wedding. Seeing themselves in the pictures of Mary’s wedding was an embarrassment they kept in themselves because the pictures were the proofs of their treachery and spinelessness. Those were ridiculous photographs. They even posted them on Facebook. Actually, what they wanted about the photographs was for social reason. One of Mary’s friends had an illusion that she had a Japanese boyfriend. She didn’t know that people around her were laughing at her obvious lies.
Some of Mary’s colleagues were envious of Mary. Mary was far much smarter and prettier than them. Some were obviously not Mary’s friends for some reasons. So it was justifiable why they didn’t support Mary. Their competence was dubious and only they could be seen without Mary. No students would like them unless the students would have no choice.
One gay, the most senseless gay I had met, hated Mary because he was not even invited to Mary’s wedding. Pitiful, right? How could Mary invite him? He thought he was Mary’s friend when in fact never did Mary consider him as a friend. Well, for me he didn’t exist, anyway. Most friends of mine told me he was not worth my attention and time, but I didn’t listen to them. Well, my friends were right. He was useless. In the world of friendship, he was a UFO. When someone needed help, never could he help him/her. He was literary and virtually useless. He existed for himself, not for anyone else. He hated people for no reason at all.
It took weeks for me to decide whether I should support Mary or not, in my case. I had been working for the school for almost a decade, so I thought I needed to be loyal to Vil. But how could I be loyal to her? Her actions were obviously selfish. She didn’t value loyalty. She didn’t even value competence. To her, what were important were herself and her pride. She hated people who were far much better than her, who were far much prettier than her. She hated people who complained against her. She would rather choose politics more than capabilities and abilities just to preserve her power, which is wrong, which is inconsistent to why there is a school, why a teacher teaches.
If a Christian, the one we see in church every Sunday, doesn’t want to pay the right taxes of her/his worker, do you think that that Christian is a real Christian? Vil didn’t like to pay the right amount of taxes. She told me that taxes went to the pockets of corrupt officials. She had a terrible opinion of Filipino politicians and the Philippine government. Her husband told me that most Chinese Filipino businessmen in Makati didn’t pay the right amount of taxes, neither did he, when he confronted me one time. I was shocked to hear it. And I didn’t know how he could say that. I told him that it was his speculation, but he told me it was true. Really? If so, the government needed to investigate it, I told him. He changed his tone. He changed the way he confirmed it, it was a bit uncertain then.
Vil was a proud woman. She would lie to protect and save her power. She made use of Korean language to destroy her tutors. If the tutors were incompetent, she would promote them. If the tutors were very competent and were brimming with skills, she would criticise them in front of students. One time, Vil told me that my student didn’t like my class anymore, and she told my student that I didn’t like him anymore to be in my class. I was shocked to know that. When I confronted my student, he told me what Vil had told him, so I also told him what Vil had told me. Vil even told some students that I didn’t like to study at 4 PM because it was my rest time. Two students told me that Vil had told them that. See how terrible Vil at manipulating the truth and changing it to her lie.
The tutors who supported Mary were let go by Vil. To protect her reputation, Vil thought up a lie to hide her wicked doings. She always told students that the tutors she let go were bad. I was very upset when some students told me about what she told them about me and the other tutors. I realised how Vil manipulated everything. The worst was she even manipulated the owner. The owner was like a stupid owner who followed what Vil told him. He didn’t even know what happened. All he did was believe Vil. To him, Vil was an angel. So I looked at the owner of the school as the stupidest owner I’d ever known. Perhaps, he knew what Vil was doing, and he really liked it because his image was kind and charitable and Vil did the bad thing for him, to save his angelic reputation. Or he was just really stupid. Or he didn’t care about other people for all he cared was money and money and money.
All the close students of mine told me about what Vil told them about me and my friends. At first, it was shocking to know that, but as time went by, I realised how wicked Vil was. What she thought was wickedness endlessly. I thought she deserved to be called the daughter of the devil and Vil hated that fact. So every day, when I chatted with my ex-students, we would talk about how wicked Vil was. They told me that they would tell all their friends how terrible Vil was and her husband.
I thanked Mary for being a bold woman. I also appreciated my colleagues who supported Mary. I disdained the tutors who were liars, and chicken. I hoped they would be happy in the hands of a devil feeding them every day. I didn’t understand why they hated us when what we did was nothing against them. The best thing they should have done was to keep quiet. So I called it stupidity or lack of wisdom.
My prayers were for Mary. I hoped that Vil would be punished by God for her wickedness.
When I was alone, I would look at the souvenir, a crystal flower, which I got on Mary’s wedding day. She got married in Bulacan. Mary was from Bulacan and all her family attended her wedding. It was a memorable wedding to Mary and some of my colleagues.
I lost my job, but I was happy. God opened another opportunity for me and my friends. And so I told them we should plant the mango pulps and wait until they bore fruits.
No one understood me. For then, yes. But later I said they would.
‘Hello Pax,’ a friend called out my name. I turned my head left and right. I couldn’t believe my eye. Mary was back with her daughter in pram. We kissed each other hello.
I would go to Ayala Triangle Gardens when I wanted to distance myself from the everyday hustle bustle when I wanted to relax, unwind, and get in touch with nature.
Mary and I sat on the bench and nattered away.
