The NUNO who loved CHOCOLATE CRUNCHIES
New
Year’s Day found Donita in the porch of their ancestral home in Jaro, in the
province of Leyte. It was the same year in and out, spending New Year’s at the
family home. The house was old and stately. It was the typical, eclectic
“American colonial house” and its construction dated back to the 1900s. The
porch had stately columns of Grecian style that revealed the family status—the
Sonderas were the rich, Buena Pamilia of Jaro. The windows, were of sliding,
grid shutters with capiz shells, now yellowed and weather-tempered and below
those windows were ventanillas, where in Donita, as a kid, peered through to
see who came a-visting in their home. The house also had a gabled roof which
showed an American influence at the time it was built, and now with age, had
wild vines there growing on its eaves.
But
it was not only the ancestral house that made the Sondera estate imposing. It
was the huge dalakit (Balete) tree in the front yard that Donita never failed
to visit when returning home for a much needed rest and relaxation from office
work in Makati City, Metro Manila. She always took time in the early mornings
to sweep off the dead leaves that fell to the ground in a slight breeze, or
just sit on its sturdy roots every mid-afternoon to daydream..
This is also why Donita loved coming home to her
hometown in the summer month of May. She looked forward to it for it held
vignettes of her childhood. Her parents, though gone now, left memories of
happiness and family bliss that meandered in the rooms and the sala. Yes, she
was a “Unica Hija” (an only child), but in this home she felt she belonged to a
big family. It was a feeling that told her that she was never alone and always
with people. Her Mother was the town’s social matron and threw parties,
get-together sessions with musicales or tertulias. Her Father was the town’s
Alkalde and he always had visitors every day, even during Sundays after mass,
her Mother had to put chairs and tables outside in the yard under the dalakit
with tuba and "sumsuman" (bar chow), for the Konsehales who would
come for Sunday relaxation and talk shop.
Everything has changed now. Donita, now in her golden age, CEO of a Food
Corporation in Makati, took a respite from the hub of the flour mills, cookie
factories, packaging centers, refrigeration and warehouses of her workplace to
the silent music of her ancestral home again in the idyllic part of the town of
Jaro. That late afternoon she strolled around the expanse of the yard checking
on the ornamental plants in flower pots in the toolshed, which she hoped she
could replant in the garden. She was thinking of fixing some parts of the
house, especially on the roof and posts that were riddled with mold and decay.
Perhaps, she thought, she could find some organic plaster or resin to clean
them too, she did not want to renovate, but “conserve” its antiquity instead.
She remembered Lola Panyang used to clean the banisters and the window sills
with “Is-is” leaves to make them shiny and bright for the social occasions.
Taking a seat in one of the “marmol” (marble) stools under the century-old
dalakit, she started to examine the aerial roots that hang from its branches.
They were like long hands eagerly waiting to clutch the ground. She thought of
trimming some of them so they won’t get wider and become like a second trunk.
“You
have aged like me, “ she said, whispering to the tree. “We had good times,
don’t you think so? The parties, the barbeques, the front yard picnics…and the
Japanese lanterns we used to hang on your branches on Fiestas! I wonder where
they are now?” A slight zephyr rustled on its leaves and Donita felt as if it
was answering her.
“Ah well, we are still around..” she says, pouring coconut water to her glass
on the garden table and sipping it. “They have all gone now..Tatay and Nanay
are in heaven, even Lolong, the gardener who used to sweep of the dead leaves
from your roots has gone to Slumberland…yet here we are..resilient.”
She was at this soliloquy, when a diminutive old man
climbed up the marble stool just right in front of her. Donita was in for a
surprise, she almost fell off her stool, blinking her eyes to see if the little
man was real. He wore a peaked hat of soft bunot (coconut bark) and was dressed
in green moss. He had pointy galoshes, a ruddy bearded face with glasses and
fat cheeks. As he stood atop the stool, Donita surmised his height was about a
foot tall.
“You’re a duwende!” (Dwarf) she shrieked, “Where did you come from?” The little
man now climbed up to the table and laid down on it as if it were some sort of
lounging pad. “Oh, just around, just nearby, my castle..there!” he said,
pointing to the Dalakit tree. “We’ve been neighbours for a long, long time!
Even before you were born!”
“But I never saw you before!” said Donita, toning down her shriek. “This place
has been my home for fifty years..”
“I see,” said the dwarf, “call me Tatang, that’s how you called me when you
were two and a half years old.” he said, running his fingers on his beard.
“You..you..you mean to say, we already met? I don’t remember!”
“Of course you would not remember! Years and being grown-up has erased those
memories. Look!” He beckoned for her to come closer and pointed to the pitcher
of coconut water. “Look in there!”
Donita stared at the hazy water in the pitcher and
suddenly an image of the old house appeared. It was the house, still bright and
newly painted. The Grecian columns were as white as shirt of a handsome man
with a bigotillo (thin moustache) and well-pomaded hair who came out of the
door. “Donita!” he called, “Donita! Baby!..where are you?” He was followed by a
lovely young woman and a housemaid. The woman was her mother, at her twenties,
with an anxious look in her mestiza-like features. She said to the maid at her
side: “Are you sure you saw her come out to the yard, Panyang?” The maid was
undoubtedly her Lola Panyang, her Yaya (nursemaid) who became the family
housekeeper when she left for an exclusive school in Cebu in her teen years.
“Yes, N’yora! She was so fast..I mean, she walked so fast outside as if
somebody was calling her! I called for her to come back, but she didn’t. It was
too fast for her to walk like that when she has just learned to walk.”
“There you are, Baby!” as the image in the water was
like a movie, the scene panned to the roots of the Dalakit tree where a toddler
was gathered to the arms of her father.”Whew! You had us worried! You walked so
fast! As if you were running!” said the young father, hugging the toddler with
wispy curls and big, wide eyes. She was the image of her mother and Donita knew
it was her as a little girl.
“Tah..tanng..Tahtang!” she said as she pointed to the tree and the cookie she
was holding in her hand.
“Crunchies, Baby..Crunchies!” Her father laughed, “and they don’t grow on
trees. Mommy bakes them!
“Nah..nayy” says little Donita, as she pointed to her mother with the cookie.
The pretty woman beamed and collected the baby in her arms..”Ahh,” quips Ramon,
“she prefers our native tongue. It’s your influence, Panyang! He slightly
smiled as he looked at the Yaya.
“Shush, sweetheart” says Rose Sondera, “Nanay” is a great term of endearment to
call a mother, it shows that we are Filipinos thru and thru, even though I
still have that three-fourths “Americana” blood in my veins, and you Ramon,
one-fourth Chinese.”
“Suits me fine, darling...so ‘Nanay’ and ‘Tatay’ it shall be!” They laughed at
each other as they entered the stately house followed by Panyang.
Donita gasped. The image in the coconut water was a
vignette from the past! True enough, this little man was from another world! An
illumined world that swirled around the Dalakit tree like numerous lamps of
gossamer..of neon-like chameleons and fluttering elves and fairies! “Tatang!”
says Donita,
”Yes! It was because of Rose Sondera I opened the Crunchie Food Corporation,
Inc. She was a great baker and pastry cook. Nanay handed down those recipes to
me when I was sixteen and we opened our first bakeshop in nearby Taboan City.
We started with Hot Pan de Sal and went to cookies and cupcakes! It was called
“Donita’s” then..”
“Ah, yes Anak!” said Tatang stroking and smoothing his beard, “I
was there when you had your first profit. While your girlfriends were buying
lipstick and vinyl records, you bought pots and pans and an ice cream machine!”
“It was a popular “sorbetes” around Taboan City, Nanay bought 5
ice cream carts then and a peddler team sold them down the grid streets of the
city. “Donita’s” became a handy kitchen word in ‘merienda’ and snacks. “Hayyy,
yes! Those were the days..” sighed Donita, as she went into a smiling daydream.
Donita spent the afternoon talking to Tatang till the
sun readied his repose in the nearby Amandewing hills. A troop of fireflies
with their lamps came hovering atop Tatang’s peaked cap that he yawned and
said: “Oh. Here comes my “sundo” (fetch). I hope we meet tomorrow, we have many
things to talk about, and I have a proposition to make..”
“What proposition?” said Donita, cutting herself away from her
daydream...
“Tomorrow! We can talk about it tomorrow.” He said and winked as
he vanished near the big tree with the fireflies following his disappearing
trail.
__________
As soon as the dawn peered its first rays in the
Dalakit branches, Donita kept glancing furtively at the glistening tree in
front of the yard..he will come, she thought, would it be this morning or this
afternoon? Ah well, no use of getting excited, but it was the first time she
encountered a “Duwende”!
She planned to make her simple recipe of “Chocolate
Crunchies” for Tatang to savor when he visited. It was Nanay’s “espesyal”
recipe. The nutty bits were of local Cacao fruit seed, toasted in the sun and
oven baked, mixed with melted “tableya” chocolate, butter, honey, flour and
grated coconut flakes…voila! It was the best tasting Chocolate Crunchies in the
planet, she amusedly surmised. She remember how she trained the bakers in the
factory in Crunchie Food Corporation, she always had Rose Sondera’s voice
ringing in her ear: “The taste is refined in the Aroma and the Crunncchh! And that
would be a Perfect homemade cookie!”
In the mid-afternoon, Donita found herself in the
yard, with a plate of chocolate crunchies, and a cold pitcher of coconut water
on top of the Marmol table of the yard’s garden furniture, “I hope he comes
while the Cookies are still warm” she said, glancing up the thick branches and
aerial roots. She took pains in wrapping up each cookie in gold foil, just like
they do it in the Factory. This was a special batch, she made them herself.
There was a sound of flutter of tiny winging light.
Little moths with iridescent wings swarmed atop the table carrying Tatang with
them, and while the little man alighted, his eyes stuck on the gold wrapped
cookies. ”Aha!” he cried in glee, “my favorite!” While he said it, the swarm disappeared.
Eagerly he unwrapped a crunchie and ate it with relish. Finished with one,
smacking his lips, he proceeded again to unwrap a second one.
Donita poured coconut water in a porcelain toy cup she had since
a child and handed it to Tatang. “Now what is that proposition?” said she, her
curiosity lingering in the twangs of impatience.
Silence. All but Tatang munching on a crunchie. He
finished about four, then five…Donita could not count, all she knew was a
crunchie was as big as a “bilao” (flat basket), about two feet in diameter to
him and she wondered where all that went in his little belly…Drinking the water
with one gulp, she looked at Donita with his smacking and whistling lips.
“What are you going to do with this house?” he said at last.
Munching a crumb and sipping coco water, “I know you have something in your
mind.”
Surprised, Donita’s eyes glowed but then were a bit moist with
tears awaiting to fall. “I guess you read my daydreams, my hopes..and my
nostalgia..”
“Yes, I know. You want to renovate the house, restore it to its glory during
its heyday. Its capiz windows whitened and old wood polished, the wrought iron
grills in the porch de-rusted and painted, and the terra cotta roof brushed out
of moss and mildew..”
“But I don’t have enough..” interrupted Donita.
“Yes, you need all the profit you earn from the factory..but it seems that will
not be enough, you have to pay taxes and maintenance, flour, honey, cacao and
other ingredients, not to mention the salaries you pay your workers.
“Oh my…”gasped Donita.
“You visualized a Café in the yard, amidst this Castle of mine. A rural Coffee
shoppe where motorists can drop by and savor your baking goodies…”
“How did you…?” she gasped again.
“Yes, and you are still toying around with that Bed and Breakfast idea..” he
continued.
“It’s not a bad idea either, and oh, yes…you can open up a branch in
Robertson’s Mall in highly urbanized Taboan City.” Tatang popped a crumb in his
mouth and continued in between chews.
“Oh, but you don’t have enough…you don’t have enough..”
Donita checked herself. Tatang knew what was inside
her heart, and also inside her mind. She indeed wanted to expand her business
and prayed so hard in the Church everytime she had these “Expansion Dreams” She
knew it would entail lots of money and she also wanted to maintain the
ancestral house. The house was her connection to her childhood, and the
beautiful memories that transported her to the life she had now…the
gregariousness of her Tatay and the creative instinct of her Nanay, and other
members of her “unica hija” family life…she sighed with nostalgia. Ah, yes but
after all these years, she does not have enough…
“A peso for your thoughts…now here’s my proposition.”
“I have been waiting for you to tell me. I hope I can handle it.” Said Donita in
her contrite moment. But in the back of her mind she remembered Lola Panyang
warning her of the denizens of the Dalakit tree. “Do not get into a bargain
with them!” She said “Stop playing with them, else they’ll carry you to their
realm!” Her voice echoed in the rustling of the leaves and the slight, gentle
swaying of the aerial roots..
“You’ll have enough, as long as you feed me this chocolate
crunchies in the Eve of a Full Moon in the May month in this table. Curious
eyes will question you, just tell them it’s for the birds. Take care of my
Castle, trim it always. Rake the ground of dried leaves that fall..and stack
them in sacks for the oven kindling. Thus goes the cycle of the Crunchie!” he
quipped with a smile, “Oh you know how I love Chocolate Crunchies!”
“Tonight! Tonight’s the Eve of the Full Moon! And it’s May!”
chirped Donita, excited with the thought.
“Yes!” A group of fireflies now hovered on his cap, “here come
my Fetch…” Tatang drew a long yawn, “It’s time for me to skedaddle back home,
my gossamer cobweb bed is waittttinnnng…” The last word was a long fading echo
as he disappeared into the setting sun.
“Wait!” cried Donita, “you said I’ll have enough! What do you
mean?” Then on she kept calling his name, begging him to come back to explain.
Donita stood in contemplation as the darkness set in
the yard, she turned on the garden lights and sat once again in the marmol
stools. Espying the plate of crunchies, she thought of bringing it inside the
house. But wait! There seem to be a lot of cookies here, and she counted that
Tatang ate more than a dozen. She reached out for the plate, but it was not
cookies! They were stones, golden stones! Nuggets! She was in for a big
surprise! She whispered to Lola Panyang, and in her soliloquy said: “I believe in
Magic, Lola Panyang! I believe in Tatang! I thank God for this beautiful Earth
and its Denizens!”
So that was it, every Full moon eve of May, Donita fed
the “Birds” chocolate crunchies. Her “Donita’s Café was getting popular in
these parts of Leyte, and her Bed and Breakfast fare was enticing as the
House’s ancestral charm. In far off Robertson’s Mall, her store branched out as
a Baker’s supermart. And in the Big City, her factories went to export to
different cookie-loving cities all over the world.
Copyrighted 2017
by DULZ CUNA
Photo: "Utoy, the Hungry Dwarf