Ato’ Matai
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By Esther Sablan
“Pork, pot fabot,” Mar said as she unrolled a sweat-wet five-dollar bill and pushed it up onto the high counter. The deli man nodded and set about tonging five salted chunks of lechon kawali onto a wax paper sheet. His round figure momentarily blocked the light from the kitchen, causing Mar’s reflection to sharpen in the display case. Hers was a short, skinny, disheveled, seven-year-old reflection, diluted like dry grass, distorted by dirty handprints. Mar looked beyond her uncomfortable image and focused instead on the steaming pans behind the glass. They were full of fresh, dense red rice and shiny tinned tamåles. The deli always smelled like a fiesta.
With her forefingers, Mar scraped the sandy insides of her shorts’ pockets. She did not have a single stray coin for titiyas. The deli man double wrapped the pork in another wax sheet, hiding the mottled bloom of hot fat stains. He handed it over the counter to Mar, who mumbled in appreciation and carried the precious package out to the street.
Mar righted and mounted her bicycle. One hand on the handlebars and pork in the other, she rolled off the curb to the left. But the drop of her wheel caught and snapped, and she spilled off awkwardly onto the asphalt. The pork packet flew forward, unwrapping as it rolled into the street. A hairless boonie dog, who had been lounging near death nearby, darted up with its last hope and devoured the meat.
Still tangled in bicycle, Mar pushed up on her searing raw forearms and inhaled deeply. It was a deep and stuttering breath, with an involuntary flutter of fear, like the receding gasp before a tsunami of tears. Mar tasted blood roll down her throat with the river of air. As she breathed in, she inhaled the time and trauma of the preceding minutes like a record in rewind, until she stood in front of the glass case watching the deli man hand over the wax-papered pork.
“In a bag, pot fabot,” Mar nodded in appreciation and carried the precious package out to the street. She righted and mounted her bicycle, hung the bag off the left handlebar, and rolled off to the right along the sidewalk. She pedaled around the side and back of the deli until the concrete disappeared under a grassy mat of trail. She rode home without regret, with no memory of the curb or the crash or the boonie dog.
Mar recalled only the tamer version of events, the entirely unremarkable task of purchasing lechon kawali from the village deli on a Saturday afternoon. And like so many other routine acts, that memory would not survive to be recollected afterwards. The misfortunate incident of spending her mother’s last five dollars on pork for her uncle’s dinner, only to fall and lose it to a stray dog, had not merely been forgotten, it had been overwritten.
Mariana San Nicolas, a seven-year-old bastådo from Inalåhan, could reverse the passage of time. She did this involuntarily, by entirely spontaneous impulse, as if withdrawing her hand from a hot stove. As if flinching from a thunderclap. And she did this so absolutely that she had no memory and no awareness of being able to do so. Her subconscious retained only just enough unease to instinctively change her mind. Adjust her path. Avoid catastrophe.
And so, in this way, for all her days, time proceeded and retreated at the whim of Mar’s autonomic nervous system. Sometimes she would loop around lightness and laughter, savoring sweet moments like candy on her tongue. But most of the time, and all too often, her impulse to reverse was one of recoil, a fearsome reaction to horror or defeat. She would swallow shock and tears, change course, and repeat. And the time she consumed flattened and folded within her so tight and so tiny as to be no more consequential than a singular black fleck in her brown eyes.
Mar balanced her bicycle against a concrete block fence and carried the hot pork to a tin-sheltered patio in the backyard. Uncle Boy’s house was small and plain, but sturdy and useful. It was elevated above the ground. It had a high-pitched roof. When Boy took in his pregnant niece, Mar’s mother, he enclosed the ground floor. Her children grew up playing in the thick-walled bodega, a dark basement-like space that was cool and comfortable even in the afternoon sun. Next to Boy’s house was the longest and straightest section of the two-lane main road. It stretched for half a mile before disappearing around a blind curve. Cars flew past like bullets.
“Biba Mariana!” Mar’s mother raised the open package to her nose and inhaled the salty, crispy scent. “Uncle Boy, Mariana brought home your favorite for your birthday.”
Mar’s mother distributed the pork around the plates set out on the patio table, placing the meat next to neatly apportioned scoops of white rice and coconut-creamed greens. Two pieces for Uncle Boy, and one piece each for herself, Mar, and Mar’s five-year-old brother, Neno. Mar kindly swapped her slightly bigger chunk of pork with Neno’s, whose cheeks burst with delight, his dimples bright as diamonds.
“Biba Marianas-hu,” Uncle Boy said with a lisp through a wide smile of small gray teeth. He tapped playfully on the pork skin with his dark leather fingers. “It’s crispy today. Yum! Yum! You are a good girl and a kind girl, Mariana. Si Yu’os ma’åse’.”
“Happy Birthday Uncle Boy,” Mar nodded deeply in respect. They ate their meal plate-clean, and the children cleared the table. Then they sat outside in the night air, sheltered by its peace and calm, as Uncle Boy sang and strummed on his prized guitar. Mar drifted off, her head resting in her mother’s lap, as Boy’s deep voice flowed sleepily into her ears like warm, soft taho.
Mar’s childhood at the bodega house was modest but serene. She and Neno walked to and from school each day along the two-lane road. Mar always made sure they left home at the right time. A little early on some days, a little later on others. They could not afford bags, but it never rained on the way. And they never forgot their lunch or their library books. On weekends, during the rising tides, they threw nets with Uncle Boy. Boy taught Mar to clean and salt and fry the fish. Mar was very fast with a fillet knife and a very good cook. Uncle Boy would wake before dawn to drive Mar to the flea market to buy herbs and vegetables and spices and seeds. Boy sold his motorcycle, then his tackle box, and then the generator. He bought Mar a fine set of knives.
Late one evening, a truck crashed into the bodega house. Fortunately, Mar and Neno and her mother and Uncle Boy were still in the backyard, under the covered patio, listening to Mar play the guitar. Mar played the guitar well, better even than Uncle Boy, whose thick, wide fingernails were perfect picks. That night, Mar played the long song, Boy sang the hymn, Neno stood up with the music book, and Mar’s mother directed the flashlight. Screeching tires interrupted the melody and the family watched, untouched, as a thick truck slammed into the bodega and erupted in fire. Heat pushed against their faces as they witnessed the pitched timbers collapse into the basement. A piece of white window frame tumbled across the yard and bounced to a stop on the patio tile at Neno’s feet. Neno cowered into Uncle Boy’s arms and cried.
The family left the ruined bodega and moved into public housing in Dedidu. Uncle Boy built another patio behind the new house, with a raised stage area and a music stand. As before, Mar walked Neno to school each day, sometimes early, sometimes late, sometimes the long way. At 14, however, Mar started ninth grade and could no longer walk Neno to his middle school. But on some days, as a special treat to him, she would skip her morning class, make Neno’s lunch, and walk with him. When he was ill, she stayed home with him so her mother could work.
Mar did not have to do this for long. Within a year of starting high school, Mar graduated. The island paper published a feature story about her achievement and her award of a college scholarship. The attention was short-lived but fruitful. A local car dealership gifted her a car so she could drive to classes at the university. With it, she was able to take Neno to school every day and help her mother and Uncle Boy with the shopping. When Uncle Boy’s truck broke, she drove him to the fishing beach and the bingo hall. With his catch and his winnings, Uncle Boy bought Neno a computer and built Mar a shed for growing mushrooms.
Mar grew up healthy and strong with a freckle-free face of creamy coffee skin. Her shapely knees had neither scar nor stain. She was poor, but content and uncomplicated. Her days were routines with round edges. She read for her studies, helped Neno with school, and cooked for her family. At least this was her understanding, her conscious knowledge of living. All her days continued to roll forward and retreat at the whim of her autonomic nervous system, which swallowed back all her mistakes and misfortunes. But Mar’s muscles remembered what her mind suppressed, and her body performed with the precision of ten thousand practices.
Then one day, while she was still at the university, Uncle Boy borrowed money to rent a boat and went out to blue water. He fished for two nights, and on the third morning, he hooked a beautiful hundred-pound bluefin. He came straight in and brought it to the manager of the restaurant he supplied fish for.
“I’ll give you this tuna for free if you let my niece Mariana cook it for you,” Boy boasted as he exposed the bright metallic cheek of the fish and slapped its skin with a playful clap.
The manager readily agreed, after all, it was a glorious tuna with chocolate red meat and smelled as fresh as salt air. At Boy’s behest, Mar prepared the fish magnificently. The manager was so impressed, he hired Mar as his commis chef. It was a fine but rural restaurant built inside the rustic eco-resort overlooking Pati Point. The resort catered to wealthy tourists from the sea mineral-rich nations of Palau and Kirabati. Not too long passed before Mar became sous chef, then head chef. Every day, she prepared Uncle Boy’s fresh catch and grew basil, mint, and rosemary in the restaurant’s roof garden. Mar’s mother worked as the restaurant’s hostess.
By the age of 21, Mar was restaurant manager in charge of ordering supplies, hiring staff, and organizing special events. The business thrived. It was recognized as a one, then two, then three-Michelin-starred restaurant. The most talented island farmers and fishers supplied ingredients for locally trained chefs, and the service, overseen by Mar, perfectly catered to a long list of loyal patrons. Mar and the restaurant and the resort were featured in international travel magazines and television shows. Mar married the hotel’s general manager and they lived on the fifth floor of the resort, overlooking the ocean. Neno received a college scholarship for aviation by Marianas Unidos Airlines and moved to Tinian for flight training.
On her 28th birthday, Mar’s husband, mother, Uncle Boy, and Neno were beside her bed as she woke up from a coma. They gently placed her newborn daughter, Neni, into her weak arms. Neno, handsome and smart in his pilot’s uniform, held Mar’s hand and explained she had been asleep for two months. She had collapsed at the restaurant just before Christmas dinner service and was taken to the island’s new Cleveland Clinic. She was stabilized and supported for weeks by a care team that eased her condition and helped her carry the baby to term. She delivered Neni by caesarean only the day prior. Mar looked up from Neni, past her swollen ankles, to the foot of the hospital bed, where her trembling, tear-wet, exultant husband held his face with both hands. Uncle Boy patted him on the back and rejoiced in song, “Biba! Biba!”
After Neni’s birth, Mar and her husband purchased a ranch overlooking Luta near the abandoned Air Force Base. He continued to manage the nearby eco-resort, but Mar remained home with Neni and focused on the ranch’s orchard, which supplied mango and breadfruit to the restaurant. Mar also raised horses, tilled their manure into the fields, and taught Neni to ride. From the roof of the ranch house, they could see the sunrise and the sunset and Uncle Boy’s best beach for throwing nets. Neno would often fly low overhead and tip his wings. He would crane from the cockpit to see the silk streamers posted like sentinels over the ranch’s gardens. Red streamers meant Uncle Boy caught emperor snapper for dinner, Neno’s favorite.
When Mar was 35 years old, Uncle Boy suffered a heart attack while throwing nets. He underwent bypass surgery at the Cleveland Clinic, and Mar arranged for him to be treated with the most modern blood-scrubbing nano magnets. Mar also hired a nurse, and together with her mother, the three women cared for Uncle Boy around the clock. When his condition worsened, Mar moved Boy into the wide-windowed guest room at the ranch house. She opened the curtains for the sunrise and let the cool orchard breeze flow in each afternoon.
The nurse carefully monitored Uncle Boy’s oxygen, blood pressure, and kidney functions. His doctor visited frequently, each time adjusting his medication to minimize pain. Mar massaged Boy’s feet and wrapped blankets around his shoulders. He had good days and bad. Until one day, as Mar played him the long song on guitar, and Neno sang the hymn, Uncle Boy’s heart stopped. Mar and the nurse could not resuscitate him. Neno fell to his knees and cried.
“Sinko tamåles gisu, in a bag, pot fabot.” Mar unrolled a five-dollar bill and pushed it up onto the high counter. The deli man tonged five foil-wrapped tamåles into a plastic bag and handed it over the counter. Mar nodded politely and carried the swinging white package out the deli door. She righted and mounted her bicycle, hung the bag off the handlebar, and pedaled off to the right. She rolled along the sidewalks the short distance to the house.
“Biba Mariana!” Mar’s mother placed the plastic bag against her cheek to feel the warmth of the tamåles. “They’re still hot!” She called out, “Uncle Boy, Mariana brought home hot tamåles gisu for your birthday!”
Mar’s mother distributed the tamåles onto plates on the patio table, placing them next to ice cream scoops of white rice and coconut-creamed greens. Two tamåles for Uncle Boy, and one tamåle each for herself, Mar, and Mar’s five-year-old brother Neno. Mar unwrapped her tamåle and scooped up the white half with her spoon. She deposited it on Neno’s plate. His cheeks burst with delight, his dimples sparkling like diamonds.
“Biba Marianas!” Uncle Boy exclaimed with a lisp. He tapped a long fingernail on the hot thin foil. “I hope it’s extra spicy today. Yum! Yum! Is it pork? Bacon? Mannok?”
“Åhe’, Uncle Boy, no meat. They’re out. Dispensa yu’.”
“Lanya, Mariana! Sa håfa? I hate these kind. Hate them. Ai adai, I’ve told you that. Båba Marianas-hu!” Uncle Boy got up from the table without eating the tamåles and went into the house, slamming the door behind him.
Elsewhere in the Virgo Supercluster, more than two million light years away, an astronomer compared two dark images and made a timed, dated note in an old and thick logbook. The little spiral galaxy had reset again. Of all the universe’s mysteries — black holes and dark matter and rapid radiation bursts — this was the only galaxy known to reverse itself. Like a celestial automata, it had been winding and rewinding for as long as any astronomer had ever been watching, which was, as the logbook indicated, at least the last ten thousand years. The astronomer typed a short message and sent it.
The message notification illuminated the broad bridge of the starship. The communications officer turned to the Captain to relay it, “It reset again, Matatanga.”
The Captain nodded and adjusted her posture, “Maolek. Maolek. That’s expected. We’ll be able to witness it ourselves, soon. We’re almost there.”
Esther Sablan is a mother, engineer, veteran, and history fan who lives and works in Guam. She writes poetry and science fiction stories about people, places, pasts, and futures inspired by Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.
