To Catch a Gust of Wind [COMPLETE]

Chapter 3 - Silay after Dark [#7]

Rafael and Thea Marie left the cemetery before the sun had set. The cemetery changed to something else after dark. You don't want to stay in the cemetery far longer than what is necessary while still alive. The cemetery, in some sense, would be your home for all eternity if you have lost the will to live.

They took a tricycle back to downtown Silay along J. Pitong Ledesma street. Upon reaching the intersection at Rizal street, Rafael motioned to the driver to stop. They walked the short distance north to No. 118 Rizal street, the address of a two-storey ancestral house. On its ground floor was the El Ideal Bakery and Restaurant. The venerable structure still stood proud. The façade, concrete at the bottom and wood and iron grills above, exuded an air of antiquity belonging to an age long past gone. It had survived for four generations and it could still do so for a hundred years more. Even if the exteriors badly needed a fresh coat of paint.

If there's one thing he really would like to do in Silay upon reaching the city proper it was to go to El Ideal for a taste of batchoy. He ordered batchoy for both of them. There's something Proustian about the batchoy. Or about the fresh lumpiang ubod (spring rolls), buko pie and piaya (flatbread) for that matter. He would not want to miss El Ideal when the smell of batchoy and freshly baked pastries brought back memories of a time spent in school at Silay Institute.

They chose to sit in a corner of the restaurant. While waiting for the food to arrive, Rafael took time to gaze around, especially at the kinds of bread and delicacies, classic Ilonggo cookies, displayed on the shelves: biscocho, broas, kinihad, sinambag, pan gasiosa, bañadas, lubid-lubid, angel cookies, masa podrida. "This place is still going strong," Rafael told Thea Marie quietly. "In spite of the fact it's a hundred years old already, first opened in 1920."

"How do you know?" Thea Marie asked. Her face showed nothing of the anxiety and emotion-filled expression she displayed earlier at the cemetery. No trace of the tears she had shed. She's back in her old self, Rafael noted.

"I googled it," he replied, with a wry smile. After all what he said to her at the cemetery, he could afford to smile. I hope she would not think of me as cruel, he thought. But to his surprise, Thea Marie smiled effortlessly at his reply. Rafael couldn't miss the folds of Aphrodite on her face. What did he see in her in the first place that captured his heart? The way her cheeks arranged themselves when she smiled. That pair of soft creases which formed on both sides of the mouth running from the nose downward in a somewhat sloping arc. The curving lines framed her cheeks in a way that enhanced the smiling face of one who had suffered enough yet still looked innocent. 

"This place was founded by Cesar Ledesma and his sisters," Rafael continued. "In fact, this is a National Heritage Ancestral House, built in the style of bahay na bato wherein the ground floor, where this bakery is, is made of concrete while the upper floor is built of wood."

"How was this place able to survive through the years? You said this was built in 1920," Thea Marie asked, turning her head around. The floors were shiny bare concrete and the walls reflected a minimalist touch. Old-fashioned fixtures hung from the ceiling.

Rafael thought for a while. "When business is good, there would be no problem with the upkeep. It is said El Ideal was set up during Silay's heyday to provide snacks to gamblers who wouldn't want to cut off playing their favorite pastime. It has survived World War II and is still in good shape."

Yes, it was and still serving, not only to cater to the gastronomic needs of loyal customers but also as a focus for other people, like Rafael and Thea Marie, to move on because El Ideal in one way or another played a part in their lives. For Rafael, it was more like a ubiquitous by-stander, a mute witness to his life as a student in Silay Institute during the times after school when he passed by the place for a long walk to the waiting station to take the bus home...