Ye Old Filing Cabinet...

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