Junjisan

I always knew him as Junjisan. It wasn’t until I got older that I found out that san was an honorific; his name
was really just Junji. But all the same, he would always be Junjisan.

After Tita Mela’s death, he died, too. As if all those times we spent with him was just one fragrant and
beautiful dream. Tita Mela’s cancer was treated too late, and she stayed in a charity ward, at that. The only
consolation—if it could be called one—was that she was childless.

Junjisan didn’t come to see her, nor did he show up at her funeral. Somehow we silently accepted his absence.
Japan lay there, out there: a faraway land we would never set foot on. Disappointed as we were, there was
nothing we could do about it.

“Baka ganun talaga sila.” I barely heard Kuya Ricky as I was busy smoothening the palochina for the parol
frames we were making. A drop of sweat trickled down his temple as he held up to inspect the frame he had
just finished.

It was the fortieth day after Tita Mela’s death and at the same time a few weeks before Christmas. We had
nothing prepared since most of the money (her savings mostly) went to her hospital bills; we barely had
money for a proper funeral.

“Baka ganun sila magluksa sa kanila.”

My father worked under Junjisan at that time. He had been calling regularly over the past few weeks to check
up on Tita Mela, squeezing the calls between what little free time he had. According to him, Junjisan took a
leave a week before and hasn’t come back since.

“Bakit, kamusta ba kayo dyan? May nangyari ba? Kamusta si Mela?” Our silence filled the gaps.

“…Kailan pa?”

Mother texted me earlier that day. Wla n c mela it said. No further details; there was no need for them. I was at
home, sweeping the yard, assigned to wait for father’s call while mother, Tita Fely, and Kuya Ricky were all by
Tita Mela’s side. Tita Mela had steadily deteriorated and there was nothing else that could be done but to
watch her waste away. And so the rest of the family (or what was left of it) came over to the hospital to help
in any way they could, even if it meant taking turns sleeping and eating only one or two meals a day.

Lola chose not to go since she did not like long trips to the metro, and could not stand to see her daughter
suffer. She just stayed at home, the quiet woman that she was. During those days I would go to her house in
the morning to sweep her yard and help her clean and cook, and talk to her.

“Wala pa rin ba talaga si Junjisan, ‘tay?” I cut classes just to wait for the call.

“Wala pa rin. Hindi ko rin naman matanong: nahihiya ako at saka ‘di ako marunong mag-Hapon.” There was
a sigh at the other end, and then the horn of a train and the rattling of metal. “Magkano ba ang kailangan
daw?”

“Hindi pa ho sinasabi ni nanay e.”

Father paused a long pause before talking again. “Sige. Tatawag nalang uli ako sa makalawa.”

-
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It was 2002 when Tita Mela first came back from Japan to celebrate Christmas with us after working there for
the past seven years. Apart from the occasional padala and the phone call that came once in a month or two,
we didn’t have any contact with her. She wrote us letters, but the post office would always be two weeks
delayed in delivering them: not enough manpower to deliver the mail, let alone up in a mountain
neighborhood. Thus, when Tita Mela called one day and announced she would be arriving in two weeks, on
Christmas Eve at that, everybody grew ecstatic.

We hadn’t prepared a feast that big before; I remember going with Kuya Ricky and my cousins to borrow
kitchenware from our neighbors and also to try and haggle with the vendors at the market.

Mother, lola, and Tita Fely decided that noche buena be held at lola’s house. It was badly in need of repairs.
The walls were creaky and the paint was peeling; the ceiling had leaks and the cheap wood was slowly starting
to give way. With lolo long dead, the house grew shabbier and shabbier as the years wore away, but with
Christmas fervor and the enthusiasm that Tita Mela’s return was the start of something good for us, we
managed to clean and decorate it for her arrival.

Usually, our noche buena was just spent at home. Father would buy a loaf of Christmas ham and pansit on
his way home from work and mom would cook her wonderful fried chicken. That was it. Some of our
neighbors would come over and give us a plate of whatever they had prepared and we would give back in
return, sometimes more. Sometimes, too, father would not have enough for Christmas ham and would buy
bibingka and puto bumbong instead; all the same, we enjoyed it. But this year was different. Lumpiang
shanghai (which I helped roll), pansit bihon, Christmas ham, adobo, and hotdogs on stick lined up our
makeshift dining table. We dressed in our best clothes, not minding the strong smell of naphthalene.

And then we waited.

A month passed, and then two. Junjisan finally showed up for work, yet would not talk to anyone, not even
to father, and father was too polite to disturb him. Junjisan was, after all, the supervisor and also the main
reason why father got his job—got to fly to Japan—in the first place.

According to father, he was kind. He wasn’t the type to (try to) make friends with everyone, but he generated
a positive mood for the workers as he strolled behind them, clipboard in hand. Sometimes he would treat all
twenty of them on Friday nights to dinner and beer. Now, though, he refuses to come out of his office, and
instead lets the other supervisor do the job for him. On the rare occasion that he steps out to inspect, he
would make sure to do it quick and with the least amount of interaction possible. The door that had always
remained open was now locked shut.

Two weeks later, Junjisan would file his resignation. Why, father didn’t know.

The taxi was caked with dust and mud. It was quarter to nine in the evening when Tita Mela finally arrived.
The lights we had assembled twinkled in harmony, small colorful vines. On the tree branches hung our
homemade parols, the shabby cellophane almost torn by the wind.

The taxi was a white Corolla adorned with red letters: what else could have been more appropriate? Kuya
Ricky went out to help with the luggage and we stepped out clad in our jackets. We watched Tita Mela get off
the backseat. Saying that she looked different would be an understatement. Tita Mela’s legs were bare: her
skirt so short that I was the one who felt cold for them. Her orange top matched her hair, which glimmered
from what I could imagine was a ton of hair products.

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And from the other door of the backseat emerged another passenger: it was Junjisan. He was wearing a
simple checkered polo, denim jeans, and white rubber shoes. “Aba, may kasama si Mela.” My mother
wondered.

Tita Mela introduced Kuya Ricky to the man and Kuya Ricky with his usual antics bowed, and then bowed
three more times. Tita Mela fished out a golden purse from her bag and paid the driver. After the driver had
left, everything was quiet again: up here, there wasn’t much to do after dinner and most were either asleep or
watching TV. A cold gust of wind blew that made the man tuck his head and place his hands on his pockets.

“Aaaaaay! HELLO!” Tita Mela’s voice roused the neighborhood awake. She reeked of some perfume that
stung my nose. Tita Fely came and hugged her and she looked at Tita Mela from head to toe, a dazzled look
all over her face. “O ang laki-laki mo na!” She patted me on the head, her touch oddly soft and tender. And
then I saw her heels, they must have been three or four inches high, with every step it was like she was
stabbing the earth. No wonder she looked taller. Tita Mela stooped down and kissed lola on her cheek and
lola, despite her wrinkles and creases, smiled like a young girl. We still could not believe she had returned;
mother was close to tears as she wrapped her arms around her.

“May papakilala pala ‘ko sa inyo. Ito yung sinasabi kong surprise!” Tita Mela announced, along with her
arrival, that she would be bringing home a ‘surprise’. We kids initially thought it was a balikbayan box filled
with those strangely delicious chocolates, or toys.

“Junjisan!”Kuya Ricky bellowed from behind her, still lugging their valises. The man emerged from behind
him and we all looked at him.

We had never seen a foreigner before. Sure, TV programs always featured foreigners: we’ve had our dose of
Mexican, Chinese, Europeans, and of course Americans. But seeing one in person and right in front of us at
that was a wholly different experience. He was lanky and had to wave away the little parol we hung in the
doorway as he entered. He was in his late thirties, though I could not be sure; for all I knew they aged
differently from us. He had a decent perfume on: it was sweet and for some reason made me feel at ease; they
must really like perfumes in Japan. A golden watch was wrapped around his left wrist. His thick hair
undulated with the wind. His nose stood up straight and it was as if someone took a brush and slit two lines
above it. I bet if he smiled his eyes would disappear. And finally he was white: he was as white as those
skincare product models on TV and whiter than our playmate Mikaela, the self-proclaimed “anak ng Kano”.

“Tao ba ‘yan?” My cousin Jerome whispered in between two missing front teeth.

He gave a smile. “Good evening.” He had a peculiar accent but I was still able to understand what he said. He
made a low bow afterwards like the one Kuya Ricky did, what it was really for I didn’t know. He was, to put it
simply, different—back then I couldn’t comprehend him or his presence. And I knew that I never would. It
was as if a meteorite just crashed into our front yard and instead of putting the fire out first, we stared at it.
And I was sure the others felt the same way.

“Ano ba Ricky! Nako anyway, ito si Junji. Boyfriend ko: nakilala ko sa trabaho.” All talk suddenly stopped,
and then our shocked facades slowly turned into jubilant smiles.

“Junjisan!” Kuya Ricky vigorously shook Junjisan’s hand while repeatedly doing those low bows.

“Ricky-san!” Junjisan’s laugh was even one I haven’t heard before. It was loud and boisterous. The occasional
tourist from the metro was almost always snobbish and in a hurry, in their wheeled metal prisons. The
foreigners, often backpackers, were kinder and more polite, but still pretty much kept away. Junjisan though,
broke barriers minutes—just seconds really—after setting foot here, in a foreign land, with a smile
and two words.

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Junjisan would get his first taste of adobo and finish two servings of rice in one sitting. He asked Tita Fely for
its recipe and Tita Fely obliged with glee. Even if we had trouble understanding each other, using a medium
that had always been alien to us, the family warmed up to Junjisan; he the flame.

Tita Mela decided to fly back since medical care in Japan was expensive and she wasn’t really a citizen yet. For
some reason Junjisan was not with her and whenever that came up, Tita Mela would shrug us off.

"Nag-away ba kayo?" mother asked.

"Hindi. Ewan. Magulo e, intindihin niyo nalang. Sabi niya tutulong naman siya. Ewan ko ba. May konting
ipon naman ako e." Tita Mela noticed a swelling in her right breast some three months ago and so she flew
back here to start treatment immediately, if indeed it was cancer. She was recommended for immediate
chemotherapy but she hesitated. She asked for a second opinion but there was none. Still, her stubbornness,
and also since the idea of having cancer terrified her, caused her to seek out and burn almost half of her
savings on herbs, hilot, other "alternative" medicine. Of course, they did her no good, and the cancer spread.

And it was at that point that Junjisan drifted away from us and faded. He knew she was sick and that was why
he didn't come. But we heeded Tita Mela's words and tried to understand him. Cancer was a scary thing, yes,
and maybe he was scared, too. But we hoped, in the back of our heads, that one day he would appear on our
doorstep and fix everything.

Junjisan and Tita Mela stayed until a week after New Year’s.

By then he had already known all of our names as well as some of the neighbors’. He liked karaoke
apparently, and wasn’t shy when it came to singing; he spent New Year’s Eve in the company of the
neighborhood drunks in the barangay hall where a karaoke machine was set up for the festivities. As we
played with our watusi and kuwitis, watching them break the misty mountain night, he belted out Tom Jones,
Sinatra, and The Beatles. Kuya Ricky and the local tanod Mang Ramon had to carry him back to the house
afterwards. His cheeks were flushed, he was mumbling incoherently and would chuckle after a sentence or
two; my cousins and I drew a big dot on his face using a marker.

Tita Mela was already asleep then. I had expected her to always cling by his side but that wasn’t the case at all.
Junjisan’s fumbling and staggering roused her and she groggily watched Junjisan change clothes and settle
beside her. The bed creaked like a rusty poso negro. Immediately, she put an arm across his chest, mumbled
something in Japanese and rested her head on his shoulder. Junjisan eased his head on the pillow and leaned
against her. He took a long, deep breath and meandered away to dream land, possibly with her.

I woke up late the day they left. The house was empty save for lola quietly cooking in the kitchen: mother had
asked her to come over and cook breakfast for me as she and Tita Fely accompanied Tita Mela and Junjisan
to the airport. The first thing I saw upon waking up was a jacket by the foot of my cot: I hadn’t had any of
that kind before. The cloth was soft, snug, clearly imported. It was green, too: my favorite color.

Junjisan would always leave presents for us everytime he visited, without fail. Watches, Gameboys,
sweaters—that we would all proudly show off to our classmates.

A month after Junjisan’s resignation, the apartment my father and other Filipino TNTs were staying in was
raided. All of them were immediately deported. While his papers were being processed, father decided to
4
settle things with Junjisan; he was leaving anyway. He was angry at his irresponsibility, his distance, and what
he saw was his cowardice. Father knocked furiously at the door of his flat in Shibuya. And when he entered,
he was greeted by an apartment bare and lifeless.

Junjisan was clad in a loose worn jacket, jogging pants, and tennis shoes. His bulky clothes only served to
highlight his gaunt and lanky figure. Father made his way inside. The bedsheets were all neatly folded on top
of the bed with the curtains and pillow cases. Two large valises and a duffel bag lay on the floor, all set and
ready to go. Five big boxes containing goodness knows what were in the small kitchen, which had been
cleared of any semblances to being a kitchen. All that remained in the apartment were its white-washed walls
and the heavy, wistful air that seeped into everything else.

Junjisan looked at him wearily and his lips twisted into a wan smile. A big swollen mark on his left cheek
could not have been anything else but a bruise. He bowed a tired bow.

“Where are you going?” Father angrily asked in the little English that he knew.

Junjisan took a while to answer. Father looked around, exasperated. The sun beat down on them through the
curtainless windows. “What happened?” Junjisan still didn’t talk, his disheveled figure leaned against the wall.
He had not been thinking straight the past few weeks: weeks spent alone walking the streets at night, a bottle
of alcohol in hand.

“I go back to Philippines. With you.” As confused as he was, and still angry, father conceded. Turns out he
didn’t have a choice anyway: Junjisan had bought a ticket almost six months before, it just so happened that
father’s deportation coincided with Junjisan’s trip.

And it was no trip, apparently.

Junjisan stayed in our house and he wasn’t planning on returning to Japan anytime soon. I offered my room
for him to sleep in and I slept near the kitchen instead. He would wake up early, really early, and I would
often see him perched on a seat in our dinner table, staring outside sipping a cup of hot tea.

We did not really know what he intended to do here. We would see him outside walking along the
neighborhood, greeting everybody good morning, and then return home and do nothing. Conversations were
limited to the weather, the food, things about the neighborhood and the Philippines in general, and the
occasional happenings; they usually did not last more than ten minutes. Oftentimes he would read a book,
one that he had brought with him, or write something in those characters we could not bring ourselves to try
to understand. We thought it best to not ask and just leave them as they are.

Junjisan washed and ironed his own clothes. He gave us most of his things: the big boxes contained both old
and new clothes; miscellaneous objects like clocks, mugs, even small appliances. Only one of those boxes he
didn’t open, I guess he still wanted to keep something should he return to Japan. If he would return to Japan.

“What level in school are you?” Junjisan’s English and Tagalog were getting better and better.

“Third.” I held up three fingers. Junjisan nodded and took a sip from his beer. It was a hot March evening;
tomorrow was my last day as a junior in high school. We were on the backyard, fronting the forest, the
verdant blanket cradling the mountains.

“Is school hard?” Junjisan’s question was half-hearted.

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“I try and do my best,” I said. But Junjisan wasn’t listening to me anymore; his eyes were off to the forest. It
was pitch-black but he penetrated the darkness. A group of fireflies twinkled as they flitted around us, tracing
lights like airport runways.

He loved her, he had said. And as he spoke he had a glint in his eyes, unmarred by the deep creases on his
face and forehead, the oil on his nose, his chapped lips, his greasy hair.

Junjisan refused to tell any more stories about how he and Tita Mela met; Tita Mela was always busy talking
about other things that she couldn’t be bothered. We knew that they had met in a maze of yatai: those food
carts where you could buy anything from noodles to octopus stuffed inside batter. It was the summer festival
and Junjisan was out alone while a hesitant Tita Mela was being dragged around by the arm by her friend
Grace (whom we never got to know); a date.

That was when it started, and also where the storytelling ended. And we never really doubted the veracity of
the story.

I waited for Junjisan to say more, to continue. But as always, he kept the rest to himself. He downed the beer
and when he looked at me again, the glint in his eyes had disappeared.

That was the last serious (if it could be called that) conversation that I had, that anyone had, with Junjisan.
Everyday he steadily withdrew from us. And I didn’t get it. Whatever it was that he couldn’t find or make
sense of in Japan, I doubt he would find or make sense of here. Every night while doing homework, I would
see him staring deep into the forest. He would fall asleep on the chair and I would slip a blanket onto him.

September came. Father got a job in the metro and was often away: he worked construction and only came
home for about a few days a week. Junjisan, by now almost hermetic in his silence, was still here; it wasn’t a
problem for us if he stayed, as long as he did his laundry and helped clean the house (which was a menial task
anyway). But by then he was nothing but a husk, going about his daily tasks without any vision, without
anything in tow.

This was the year typhoon Milenyo hit the country, leaving many dead. In our neighborhood, a jeep slipped
as it headed down the mountain: the crude road was only mud and rocks. No one survived.

The jeep’s wreckage lay at the foot of the mountain, not too far away; the strangling overgrowth and the
typhoon rendered any recovery impossible. News of the accident travelled quickly and for a night, the
neighborhood held a vigil at the village’s chapel; six of the victims had been from our neighborhood. We
placed food and flowers and then lit candles at the spot where the jeep skidded off, to be washed away by the
wind and rain.

We didn’t mind the torrent as we all gathered to pray. Hats were removed, umbrellas raised and heads were
bowed in silent lament. They were family to us; people we saw and talked to everyday, shared part of our lives
with. Mikaela was one of the victims; she was about to turn fourteen in three days. She was on her way to
school that day. She left her mother alone in the world, her mother who was down on all fours near the edge
of the road, staring at the drenched greenery that had become her daughter’s grave. She was a cripple; left
with almost nothing by her American lover after their hushed sojourn. Her walking stick lay at her feet,
thrashed by the downpour, as she cried in anguish.

We were preparing to go back when Junjisan suddenly made his way towards the mother, who was still on the
ground, now kneeling and sobbing. I nudged Kuya Ricky but he was quiet. Junjisan mumbled something to
6
her, Aling Paz did not seem to hear him. Junjisan picked her up by the shoulder and then carried her in his
arms. Aling Paz curled up like a makahiya, her shoulders shaking violently. Water gushed down Junjisan’s
now shoulder-length hair, we watched him carry her through the muddy road and into the village. His bones
jutted out from his soaked camisa. Thunder roared and the rain pelted the sodden mountain road.

Afterwards, he returned to the house, took a bath, and then slept.

Junjisan’s cot was empty the next morning. On it instead was the box left unopened. It contained
photographs, and assorted paraphernalia that we realized were gifts: Junjisan to Tita Mela and Tita Mela to
Junjisan. For once I saw what Japan really looked like, all those high buildings, higher than the ones in the
metro, the streets were clean and filled with people; at night, the city glowed with an ardor nothing like what
we usually saw on TV. There was a photo of them kissing in front of a glowing tower that resembled that
famous one in France. And I wondered why Junjisan left Japan; it seemed such a nice place to live in.

At the bottom of the box we found a series of letters mostly in Japanese, some in English. One of them read:

Mela, you are my sunshine, I do not know how to go on if you are gone. I cannot see another life without you. I will be in a forest,
a far away forest, a dark forest.

Most of them were either long monographs that slowly lost sense as the words stretched on or short pieces
like the one above. Obviously, he needed to work on his English but it was incredible how he could spin
basic words like those into a composition. His writings revolved around Tita Mela and that cold, dark forest.
These were fragments of their life together. But now, discarded, they had lost all color; the words faltered as
the one who wrote them did. The papers could have been blank and it wouldn’t make any difference.

We returned them into the box and just then Mang Ramon came up to our door and told us that Junjisan was
spotted by some villagers entering the forest. Despite their attempts to pull him back and talk to him, he
pushed forward, even physically asserting himself. He didn’t have anything else save for the clothes he was
wearing.

At the road which led to the town proper, where the densest part of the forest was, people had already
gathered. Milenyo had dissipated, cracks of sunlight had erupted from between the gray clouds. One of them
said he saw Junjisan first visiting Tita Mela’s grave, bringing her a bunch of wildflowers while another one
said they weren’t flowers but stalks of grass; in his delusions, maybe Junjisan saw them as flowers.

Junjisan did not return, nor would the various attempts at finding him succeed. We had kept his things in
hopes that he would but after a month, we decided to give them all away. The last box we burned in our
backyard.

We did not, and would not understand him, his silence, why he came here. In the end he was another tourist.
But all the same, he would always be Junjisan.