From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant: A Novel Read online

  Marianna was right. There wasn’t a lot of time for us. I didn’t know it then, but our love would last only that one weekday afternoon and the coming Saturday.

  “You’re right,” I said. “You’re so smart.” I placed her delicate hand in mine. I was using what I had learned from her a moment ago. This was a skill that would come in handy much later as an immigrant in America.

  My touch was all it took. Marianna rebooted her libido and forced herself upon me. We kissed. She sucked my lips, and I felt her teeth brace mine. She slid her tongue in my mouth as far as it could go. She kissed as if she knew our love would last only half a week. I reciprocated, battling her tongue, twirling figure eights in her mouth, all the while watching Romey, her driver, out of the corner of my eye.

  We left the arcade holding hands. Everywhere I turned it seemed like other people were holding hands too, gazing into each other’s eyes, tickling each other’s palms, secretly transmitting their carnal desires to do it, right now, right away, right there in Megawing 4.

  The following Saturday, Marianna DeSantos invited me over in the late afternoon for merienda, or snack hour halfway between lunch and dinner. I hadn’t been invited to a proper meal, and so my feelings were a little hurt, but still I thought, this was it, no more waiting. I was going to lose my virginity during merienda.

  Our family driver, who was actually my cousin twice removed, dropped me off around four. Marianna lived in a gated fort in Pasay City by the American Memorial Cemetery. Her home was a mansion plus detached servant’s quarters. A ten-foot concrete wall laced with barbed wire surrounded the property. Romey stood guard at the front gate with a shotgun slung over his shoulder. All of this high-end security made me jealous. Why didn’t our driver have a firearm? My family should at least have pretended like we had old money that needed to be protected, even if our five-bedroom in Tobacco Gardens and the Mazda MPV I was driven up in screamed middle-class.

  Once in the house I was instructed by one of several maids to go straight up. I took off my shoes by my foot heels and ran up the marble staircase that spiraled around the foyer in a great display of wealth. Then I burned carpet toward Marianna’s bedroom, where I imagined her sprawled out on all fours across a daybed, waiting for me. She wasn’t. She was on the carpet, lying on her stomach with her legs in the air. But what legs, kicking back and forth like some lazy Pilates trainer. I noticed something was different in her voice when she told me to close the door. She seemed preoccupied. In front of her, spread out like giant trading cards, were the glossy publications that would become my life. Thick and thin, text-light and image-heavy: Elle, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, W, Jalouse, I.D. If memory serves me correctly, Marianna was flipping through the September issue of American Vogue, a five-hundred-page extravaganza. I remember the breadth of it, the weight. It looked almost biblical in its heft. She flipped through the pages at an incredible speed, skimming text and absorbing labels. And when a dress caught her eye she would slow down, hold the page still, and take a moment to consider why it spoke to her, a moment that transcended price and brand and the particular waif who wore it. It was between the individual and the clothes. All else meant nothing. This moment of catharsis is what we in the industry refer to as “in the zone.”3 It’s when a designer takes it to the next level to create something fresh and hot and unforgettable. This may sound very subjective, but there’s a definite logic to it. In fashion one gets that je ne sais quoi feeling.

  “Pop a squat,” she said.

  I put down my tote bag and sat Indian style at the bank of the great pool of fashion magazines, next to my Marianna. She continued to flip through Vogue, basically ignoring me. The overwhelming number of heels and Gucci handbags in front of her had somehow sedated her libido. And this was fine by me, because I was excited to dig in myself. I chose an issue of W—what looked to me like an oversized comic—and sat there, reading.

  Oh, dear fashion, if I could only remember exactly what I was feeling at that precise moment and re‑create it here for the reader. But I can’t, technically.4 It was like a perfect dive, where the swimmer’s focus is precise, his mind clear, his body controlled, the wind right, and so quickly he becomes one with the pool! That kind of Olympic utopia was a bug that hid deep in between the lines of W, and I caught it. There wasn’t one designer or dress that turned me on. It was the whole, not the individual parts. It was the highbrow celebrity culture interspersed among endless pages of ads for Givenchy and Dolce & Gabbana that appeared to be selling sex with androgynous models—the occasional nipple, the see-through underwear, the beauty of young life that seemed so unattainable yet so close, because you could reach out and touch it, it was right there! How could a young boy look at women’s fashion magazines, you ask? How could he not? There was desire and fulfillment on every page. Action reaction. I don’t know what I want; it tells me what I want. In that magazine alone were eighty pages of images—photos of beauty—broken by the occasional celeb profile, short and brief, followed by more beauty.

  Fashion is not only a job, or a pretty face, or a dress that’s so next level. It is a lifestyle. It is the only art form that we wear, head to toe, and the only one that automatically projects an image of the self, true or false—who’s to say? It is how people see us. It is how we want to be seen. And in the end it is how we will be remembered; otherwise we’d be buried naked rather than in our best suit. “Look at him. He was an asshole, but what a dresser.”

  I devoured each magazine with a feverish hunger, and Marianna suddenly became concerned. “Are you okay? You’re sweating,” she said.

  “Sorry, I get hot easily.” I quickly changed the subject. “These magazines are great. Where did you get all of them?”

  “They’re fashion magazines. Duh? I got them at the fashion store.” Even though Marianna had been born in Manila, she spoke English with the same California rise I had picked up from television.

  “Where’s that?” I asked.

  She looked at me like I was contagious.

  “Boy, you’re an idiot. There’s no such thing as the fashion store. I made it up. Duh? I was testing to see how stupid you were. FYI, you passed. Stoo-pid.” She rolled on her back with the weighty Vogue, the bible, the one I wanted, and she continued to ignore me. It was strange to see her this way, very unlike the Marianna I knew from school and from our first date, when she had slipped me tongue in the arcade. What had I done to deserve this?

  Rather than act out, I withdrew in kindness. Her treating me like shit gave me the urge to please her even more. How could I help myself? I loved these fabulous creatures! Girls gave me a sense of purpose.

  “What are you looking at?” she said. She could feel me staring at her.

  “I’m just looking at how beautiful you are?” I turned it into a question right at the end by adding the California intonation, unsure of myself.

  “Really? You don’t sound so sure, stupid. Are you sure? Or are you just being stupid?”

  “I’m being sure.”

  “Of what? And how can you be so sure of it?”

  “You’re beautiful. It doesn’t take a genius. Duh?”

  This spoke to her. She put down the copy of Vogue and rolled over on her elbow to face me. “You’re sweet. Want to make out?”

  And like that I was on top of her, just like I had seen in the movies. Marianna was receptive to my moves. We kissed with the same intensity we had established in the arcade. Only now she placed my hand over her chest and added a sensuous thrusting. For the next fifteen minutes we dry-humped our way out of adolescence.

  We never had our snack that night, and we never would. Something had transpired between us that broke us for good. Maybe it was that we had gotten too close too fast, but by Monday I was like a stranger to Marianna. She told me at lunch that she couldn’t see me anymore; her mother wouldn’t allow it. I asked her to run away with me to Cebu, where we could start anew living with my uncle. We could transfer schools, finish our studies, and still get into a good univers
ity. At this suggestion she told me, quite frankly, to stop being stupid.

  By the time Marianna dumped me, my uncle had shut the doors to his shop in Cebu. He’d inherited all of my auntie’s debt, and with no one to collect for her, Tito Roño was forced to give his business over to one Ninoy Sarmiento, a ruthless collector who’d floated my auntie whenever she needed the capital. I found out later that he had been one of my uncle’s clients. I’d even held the ashtray for him on more than one occasion. Crime has no compassion, not even for the dead. What ruined my uncle completely, though, was the fact that he blamed himself for his wife’s death.

  I, on the other hand, turned what had befallen me into a minor victory.

  That same week that Marianna broke it off, I begged my parents to subscribe to as many fashion magazines as possible. They

  looked at me like I was nuts, like I had spent one too many summers with Tito Roño, but they were accustomed to giving me whatever I wanted. W, American Vogue, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, I.D.—these would now be mine for the perusing. Whatever I couldn’t get—Women’s Wear Daily and a few other publications—I had to settle for their Asian counterparts. Soon I was rolling on my bedroom floor in my own pool of glossy high fashion: establishment icons Chanel, Dior, Karl Lagerfeld, Saint Laurent, Prada, Valentino, Versace, Givenchy; the new stars, like John Galliano, Vivienne Westwood, Marc Jacobs, Alexander McQueen; and the Japanese avant-garde, like Rei Kawakubo, Yohji Yamamoto, and Issey Miyake. It was like teaching myself a new language. I began sketching simpler silhouettes and bodies, much less detailed than my earlier comic book endeavors. I gave up supermen for supermodels. I sketched Linda Evangelista, Claudia Schiffer, Kate Moss, Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell. This was the nineties, remember, the heyday of the supermodel. Soon my room became a shrine to high fashion. Every nook and crevice was covered with my sketches and spreads of fashion editorials hurriedly torn from magazines. I had pictures of the designers in action. Diane von Furstenberg dressing little Kate Moss. Karl Lagerfeld at work in his atelier. I remember very clearly one photo of John Galliano in a cerulean pirate’s outfit. His heroic twirled mustache danced with the large feather in his cap as he stood arm in arm with five or six seminude models in a Vegas chorus line. Their breasts were covered with sequin pasties. Whorish black eyeliner masked their eyes. This was an extravagance beyond my wildest dreams! It spoke to me. It said, There are no limits to what Man can accomplish. (And I use “Man” in that all-encompassing sense.)

  I remember the first look I put together. It was for my mother, who was a wonderful dresser with an impeccable sense of style. She was never afraid to wear color, and the palette of her closet was my introduction to bright, lush, crisp garments. I took a sleeveless dress and paired it with a lavender summer scarf—both of which she already owned. To this I added an accessory for her. It was a white hat, a beach hat made of straw paper with a wide, floppy brim—an ordinary style that could be found anywhere in the Philippines. But when I saw a similar hat on Christy Turlington on the cover of Vogue in 1992, I copied it. I tied a deep purple ribbon around the top, inserted a long white feather, a swan’s feather, which I had dyed pink with a highlighter, and I manipulated the brim to take the same shape Christy wore on the cover of Vogue. I was able to create an exact replica of Christy Turlington’s hat, and it was this hat that I paired with my mother’s outfit. My mother, of course, was rather pleased with what I had done. As I said, she was unafraid to take chances. She wore this look to mass on Easter Sunday. And what did she get but compliments tall and large from all of her friends in the congregation.

  It was by imitation that I was able to uncover my passion. And it was a constant desire to please others, to win them over, to woo, which drove me.

  1. Operation Iraqi Freedom.

  2. It was.

  3. A phrase first used by Yves Saint Laurent to Karl Lagerfeld. Paris, circa 1975.

  4. See chapter, “On Memory.”

  Love in a Time of War

  Today I wore my sleeveless top outside in the yard. The younger men did not react well to my choice of outfit. Once they saw that I had altered my uniform, they immediately began shouting: “Hamar!”1 “Kafir!”2 The few who could speak English called out: “Hey, foggot! Look here, foggot.” Like animals in a cage, these men. One kept yelling out over and over, “Wat don’t he hev no slivs? Wat don’t he hev no slivs?” He stomped around the communal cage, kicking the dirt with his white plimsolls. “Wat don’t he hev no slivs?” The commotion only lasted a minute before the guards managed to quiet them down with threats of non-injurious acts.3 But for me, it was too late. The prisoners had gotten out all they wanted to say. I walked circles in my cage. No longer tempted by the fresh air and the rays of sun, I simply wanted to go back inside.

  This is not the first time I have been branded a homosexual, oh no. I am quite aware of what I represent to these men. They are completely repressed. Their notion of masculinity is being challenged by my presence. I wish to tell them that in a democratic society, like in New York, all men are of equal standing no matter their race, creed, gender, sexual orientation, etc. Even religious fundamentalists are tolerated to a point. Once I was back in my cell I flipped through my Qur’an, looking for a passage about all this—men, equality, something to come back at these animals with, something to say, “Look, you imbeciles. Look what it says so right here in your blessed book!” But I couldn’t find an appropriate passage. However, I did find a chapter that mentions homosexuals, and it was a straw man’s argument:

  Do ye commit lewdness such as no people in creation committed before you?

  To that I answer yes. In Western society ye may practice lusts on other men in preference to women, because ye are free to do so, proudly, heroically, and with multiple partners. Someone should drop these men in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan just to teach them a lesson. Would they be shouting, “Hey, foggot wit no slivs!” at everyone who passed? I doubt it. If they did, along would come a moment of reckoning. Perhaps a great big bear named Stephen (a stylist I once knew from Rhode Island) would come along, put down his gym bag, and rip out their awful throats.

  To set the record straight once and for all, I am a lover of women! Let there be no mistake. From Marianna DeSantos on, I was in for life. I had many girlfriends too, right up until I left for America. Rachel in Cubao, Marlene in Malate, Elisa in Pasay, Filomena in Makati. I had fallen for each of them completely, but it was always so hard for a man like me to keep relationships together. In fashion, where one is surrounded by so many beautiful women, it is impossible to prevent those inevitable jealousies from occurring in the mind of the one you love. So I found that when I arrived in America, I told myself, no longer would I wear my heart on my sleeve, no longer would I swear by love and openly abuse its name. I didn’t want a repeat of the hurt I had felt over my ex‑girlfriends, or the hurt I had inflicted upon them. Love had burned before, and it would only burn again, and America was my chance to start anew. I would devote myself to my craft without love getting in the way. Sure, I would need sexual fulfillment of a kind—I wasn’t a priest—but it would be different now. I imagined myself as someone older, someone more skilled at moving in and out of bedrooms discreetly, someone who could love as much as he wanted and not be held accountable for his haphazard nature.

  But then I fell in love.

  It was October, the start of a season known only to me for its brooding colors and warm accessories on the runway. Coming from the tropics, I had never before experienced anything like the fall of the Northeast, with its autumnal color palette and ravishing foliage. The farther north you went the more ravishing, and so many New Yorkers christened the season with an annual drive up the Palisades Parkway. What an exciting time in America! It’s all right out of a J. Crew catalog. Everyone returns with bushels of organic apples, miniature pumpkins for their offices, and driving moccasins by Cole Haan. I had delivered Ahmed’s two suits, and I didn’t expect to have any more contact with the man outside of the
occasional hello in the hallway. I had money, but not the kind of money where things came easy. Vivienne Cho rehired me around this time to fill in for a stylist who was down on account of some gallbladder stones. Working closely out of her studio on West Twenty-seventh, we quickly became friends. She was young, brilliant, successful, and willing to help me out whenever the time came for me to launch my clothing line. With a day or two a week devoted to her, and with the money I’d made from Ahmed, I could work on my collection most afternoons and take a Saturday off to frolic.

  I made my first autumn excursion away from the city with Olya and her Turkish boyfriend, Erik, a Harvard man, on one such Saturday in mid-October. Erik drove us in his Saab across the George Washington Bridge, and then up the Hudson. We had planned to spend the day at Dia: Beacon, the former Nabisco factory turned museum, and then hit one or two organic fruit stands on the way back. Olya was in a terrible mood, because Erik, her boyfriend of only a few months, was leaving for boot camp in the Turkish army in two days’ time. Could you imagine? He was a Harvard graduate and an American citizen, in fact. He even had a semi—Long Island accent. But for him to retain his dual citizenship, he needed to complete the three weeks of boot camp.

  (Let the record state that I would be happy to surrender my Philippine passport in order to become a proud U.S. citizen. Not that that means anything, since there are millions of people the world over who would do the same. And I suspect some of them are right here in No Man’s Land.)

  When Olya wasn’t sitting on Erik’s lap on a bench in the museum, soaking up every last bit of him, she was brooding to me in an aside over losing him to Turkey.

  “Fall in love, and they go off to die for their country,” she said. “This is what happens during wartime.”