A Song in the Daylight. Paullina Simons

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      Dear Larissa,

       I’ve decided to keep your Christmas gift. Thank you. I want to get a manicure and buy new sneakers but I think I’ll just pay my three months’ back rent, if it’s all the same to you.

       You want to know about my day? Okay, I’ll tell you about yesterday. What you do is, you take yesterday and multiply it by 365, and you’ll get the picture.

       I woke up at seven, because the outdoor market was opening at eight, and I had to go get the fruit baskets from Father Emilio. I got to him by 7:30, but he made me go to Mass first, which is okay, but Lorenzo and I have been fighting so much I didn’t think I deserved communion for all the nasty things I kept yelling, but when I told Father Emilio this, he said that was my pride talking. He said to me, “You’re going to keep yourself away from God’s sacrament because you think you’re not perfect? When do you think you’ll ever be perfect enough, sinless enough, to receive the Eucharist?” So … I went to Mass, and felt a little better about things, and then carried thirteen bushels, one by one, of mangoes and tomatoes and pears and spent till noon selling them, and when I got back home, having made a thousand pesos, I found Lorenzo still sleeping! And you know, we’re so broke, and he needs to work, ride a rickshaw in Manila, which he hates to do, so instead he goes out drinking with his derelict radical buddies and then sleeps till noon, and, like I said, we haven’t paid the rent for three months, living hand to mouth (without the rent).

       We had a fight that lasted till one, but then made up nicely, till two, and he got hungry, so we went to San Agustin and had lunch with Father Emilio and his orphans, for free, and then made copies of our leaflets at the mission because Father Emilio lets me use the copier, for free, and afterward went to Manila City Hall Square and distributed them at a joint rally with the Manila Police and the Philippines Motorcycle Association in support of our current president. Imagine us in a joint rally with the police. It ended peacefully at 6:30, and we met up with some friends and went out drinking but I left because I didn’t want to hang out with his loser friends, and besides, I was three days late and wanted to take a pregnancy test. The test cost me 750 pesos. It was negative. I took it at 9:00 p.m., and then cried until Lorenzo returned at eleven, too drunk to care that we weren’t having a baby, but he did get blazing mad that I spent 750 pesos on a stupid test. Oh, to think that once upon a time, I avoided the test like the Black Death, and now I spend money I don’t have to take it randomly throughout the month, just in case.

       So … we had another fight, this time till well after midnight, when the neighbors finally called the police because it was getting ugly, and the cops we had rallied with wanted to arrest Lorenzo, but I said no. After they left, I left too, and went to sleep in one of the rooms at the orphanage. Father Emilio keeps telling me that I can come and live with him. He doesn’t have enough hands to take care of the kids. But I said being around so many unwanted children would make me feel even worse about my life, if that’s even possible, because there I am, wanting a baby, and unable to have one. Lorenzo came to get me at three, and we lay in the twin bed together, and had sex under God’s eyes at San Agustin. I wondered if Father would still think I was worthy of communion. To test him, I came to him this morning, and challenged him with the truth of last night. And you know what he said? God never turns away from you. СКАЧАТЬ