Time of the Eye

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About the book

Set in the town of Sagrada in the Bicol region, Time of the Eye follows the story of the Nueva family over sixty years as their lives become entangled with events that have come to shape the history of the Philippines. The novel focuses on three characters from different generations: the matriarch Selya, who clings to the long-gone golden days of their family; her daughter Nene, who constantly finds herself in crossroads parallel to the experience of the country itself; and Nene’s son Boboy, who inevitably gets caught up with the family’s haunting past despite not knowing its darkest secrets. Their stories are narrated by Esteban, the local folk healer who witnesses the plight of each generation. 

Awards and Press 

Winner of the Philippine National Book Award for a novel in a Philippine language

Rights available 

World English  

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Translation extract

Burial of a Banana Stalk 

 

Alvin B, Yapan 

translated by Christian Jil R. Benitez 

 

To the shock of the entire town of Sagrada, Estela died with a rope round her neck, coiled like a snake, hanging from a wooden beam in the Peñas’s unfinished bungalow. 

Her mother was hysterical when she found her. She had come to wake Estela as usual, to remind her that breakfast was waiting. When her husband arrived, she was already tugging at her daughter’s feet. She pulled so hard the rope left a mark on her spirit’s neck. If not for her husband, she would’ve yanked Estela’s body down and left her head up there, caught in the rope, as if almost entirely swallowed by a python. 

Hours before she took her own life, I saw Estela walking home with her usual gait, her step sure and slow, her dark shoulder-length hair dancing in the wind. She even took my hand and pressed it to her forehead; she had a smile on her face. But when I turned again to look at her, her body no longer had a head. I knew then that Estela was going to die. I ran after her. I wanted to put the straw hat I was wearing on her headless neck to stop the inevitable. But I was too late. When I finally caught up, her head was already back on her body and suddenly – there by the concrete road of Sagrada where tall acacias and ylang-ylangs used to stand, now replaced with Casureco power poles where mayas would perch – dogs began to howl. 

That night, after they buried Estela’s body, I saw her sitting in front of their house. The entire neighbourhood could hear the wailing of her mother, her grief finally overcoming her shock. I sat beside Estela and asked her why she had taken her own life.   

‘Boboy’s right. You can talk to the dead.’ 

The people of Sagrada knew me as an albularyo. That’s what they called me, a spirit healer. They didn’t understand that I wasn’t the one who cured them. I’d simply ask wiser entities for help; all I ever did was gather the leaves, herbs, and fruits they told me to. It was the spirits and the other creatures of the earth whom they should really thank rather than fear, but that was difficult to explain.

I asked Estela again why she took her own life. She simply looked at me and stood up.  

‘Where are you going?’ 

‘To the forest.’  And to the forest of Sagrada she went. It was a different forest from the one Nene walked into after she bade goodbye to her mother, her son, and the people of Sagrada.  

Nene was one of the reasons why I left Sagrada for Manila – left Bicol and its forests. I’d long mourned Boboy’s death. I was hoping I could still save his mother here in the jungle of Manila. Unlike Estela, who has been another victim of the venom of my story. I couldn’t have known how deadly Oriol’s venom was.   

Her name was Nene. Maria. Nene. A name I hadn’t uttered for a long time. I was still hoping to save her, to spare another from  my story. When I told Nene the history of the Nueva’s, and Boboy the story of Ibalon, more lives were taken. The venom was potent and cunning, I would never know exactly how many were claimed by it. So I swore to never tell the story again – until now, until I came to Manila.  

In this city, on the second floor of an old building that still had wooden floors and walls separating the rooms, unlike the surrounding buildings with spaces rented out to a beauty parlour, grocery store, laundromat, clinic, and law firm doubling as a notary public, all enclosing the building where I stayed, holding it together and keeping it from collapsing to the ground. Here, on the second floor, where one could see branches of Petron and Shell, McDonald’s and Jollibee, Dunkin’ Donuts and Mister Donuts, BPI and Land Bank, National Book Store and Merriam & Webster Bookstore, and other pairs of stores that seemed always to sprout right across each other in the vastness of Manila. Here, inside a rented room, as jeepneys, tricycles, and vans went on honking outside, sitting on a rocking chair and listening to the landlady’s family downstairs watching TV, amusing myself by recalling stories I swore to never tell again.  

I remembered a legend: the legend of Ibalon, of a chieftain whose life was spared because of a promise; the promise to never let the story of Ibalon die with his bloodline. The same legend that compelled me to write everything down, because every time I’d say it out loud, someone would end up dying. I hoped that by writing it down on paper, I’d be able to take the venom out of the story.   

But I didn’t want to begin the story with a crying newborn. I didn’t want to search a body for a mole or cowlick that would explain its fate. Nor did I want to meddle with predictions made by fortune-tellers. Instead, I’d rather begin with a death, which is a chance for many possible lives to be born again. And so, with Estela I began the story.  

* 

 The morning after Estela’s death, word began to spread that two lives were lost when she hanged herself. Estela was carrying a child. Her mother couldn’t believe it. I imagined her tugging Estela’s body down the day before, not recognising the stranger’s face on her daughter’s body. Estela’s father feared that his wife really wanted to decapitate their daughter so she could replace it with a face she’d recognise. But, in the end, Estela chose to die rather than change her face back just to please her mother.  

Where else could Estela go but to the forest. The forest surrounding the town of Sagrada. The forest the town has slowly pushed to the fringes. The forest, lingering, to remind all that Sagrada used to be a small town. The forest that once cradled the Agtas. The forest that had claimed the part of the mountain where I built my hut when the Japanese came. The forest halved by the road leading to Manila. The forest believed to be where lost souls went and many kinds of spirits dwelled. The forest where Boboy and Estela once met to say goodbye before he left for Manila to study.  

I had witnessed their final meeting; I had followed Boboy to the forest. Like him, I walked through the hanging vines, excusing my passing by to the kapres smoking tobacco up on thick branches. I felt small before the gigantic trees. I continued – washing my lungs with the moist forest air, sharpening my ears for the sound of geckos, resting my feet on the softness of the earth – until finally I could see the torch Estela carried in the darkness. At first, I thought it was a santelmo, a lost soul trying to find its missing corpse. But the fire didn’t move or jump around, and it was carried not by a chopped hand but Estela’s. Upon seeing the fire, Boboy shouted the name of his beloved at once. 

‘Estela!’ 

The sound rang through the darkness of the forest, rippling like a wave off the giant tree trunks, waking the sleeping deer and making daytime diwatas turn in their sleep, until it was answered with his name. 

‘Boboy!’ 

There, in the forest, in the dark, in the company of lost spirits, they made promises to each other.  

‘Just four years, Estela!’ Boboy reassured her. 

‘But can you wait?’ 

‘After four years, I’ll come get you.’  

‘We’ll go to Manila.’ 

‘Wherever you want to live.’ 

‘Not in a bungalow or an old house,’ she joked. 

‘In a mansion.’ 

‘You’ll be a lawyer.’ 

‘And you, a doctor, my wife.’ 

Each town has an oldest and newest house to boast. In Sagrada, these two stood right beside each other. Boboy’s family owned the oldest one. A traditional two-storey stone house dating back to the Spanish colonial era. A house full of memories. It still had its narra door, its hinges squeaking with rust. Its capiz shell windows were already riddled with holes. The moulds covering the house could no longer catch the grime and dirt that now stuck to the thick stone walls, turning them black. The first floor – where chickens used to flock, rice grains were stored, and guerillas once hid from the Japanese – was now filled with cobwebs and dust. Some of the railed windows on the first floor have been converted into a sari-sari store. The silent living room at the top of the molave staircase once witnessed feasts, weddings, and baptisms; such were the memories that lived inside the house. Even the molave, narra, and yakal had lost their verve, it has been so long since they were last polished. Sometimes, the shadow of an Agta could almost be seen in the corners of the house of memories. From the outside, the stone house looked as if its hand was resting under its chin. After countless earthquakes and storms, the house leaned to the left.  

The memories dwelling in the house made Selya a stubborn, strict woman. Especially towards her grandson. As far as anyone knew, Boboy’s mother Nene was somewhere in America. When Boboy was accepted at the University of the Philippines to study law, his Lola saw this as an opportunity to restore the house and family to a glory for which it could now only yearn. 

Estela’s parents didn’t want their house to end up like the old Nueva mansion. They prohibited their daughter from seeing Boboy. Though their bungalow was only single storey, the Peñas hoped that when Estela became a doctor she would add another floor. She’d furnish the house with appliances, from TV to gas range, and cover the walls with medals and certificates. She’d place a bed and aircon in each room, fill each cabinet and cupboard with fragile and expensive china and figurines. 

Boboy and Estela, with no place of their own, agreed to meet in the forest instead. I left them kissing. Only their lips were touching; they were still too shy to use their hands. They didn’t know how to kiss with their flesh, to be so close that their bodies would become one. When the surrounding spirits saw them kissing, they all turned away from the light of Estela’s torch, embarrassed, vanishing into the darkness of the forest.

Boboy learned of Estela’s death from a childhood friend and returned to Sagrada, taking the overnight bus from Manilla to Bicol. He told his Lola he was taking a quick break before finals. It was October, a week before the semester ended. I saw him get off the airconditioned bus. From the sari-sari store where I stood, Boboy looked cold. He was probably adjusting to the fog that welcomed him home. Perhaps it was hot when he left Manila, or it was too cold inside the bus. Or perhaps, with the death of his beloved Estela, he felt as if his body was now naked to the wind.

No tears were shed. Boboy was welcomed home by his Lola and their house of memories. But with their neighbour’s grief, Selya couldn’t celebrate. So Boboy came home quietly. Selya doubted whether her grandson really returned to Sagrada for vacation, but she couldn’t blame anyone for him learning of Estela’s death.  

Later that evening, I saw Boboy visit the Peña’s with Selya. I followed them to offer Estela’s parents my condolences too. Just as I was about to cross the fence, I saw a manananggal on the roof of the bungalow. How upsetting it was to see that, even in death, Estela was still being robbed of her own body.  

I threw pebbles at the creature, the tiny stones making noise as they hit the iron roof. Estela’s mother came out shrieking, begging whoever was throwing rocks to stop in case they woke her daughter. I told her some children were aiming at bats with their slingshots and that I’d already told them off. Estela’s mother beckoned me to come inside. When I looked up again, the manananggal was gone.  

Boboy was sitting down when I entered the living room. He was as quiet as the steam rising from the cup of coffee on the table. Before taking my seat, I went to see Estela’s coffin. When I looked down, I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or be furious. The manananggal had succeeded in stealing Estela’s body. In its place was a banana stalk made to look like the young woman.  

I didn’t tell Estela’s parents that their daughter was gone. I let them cry and mourn over a banana stalk. Even if I told them about the creature’s crime, they would’ve insisted it was still their beloved Estela. 

I didn’t listen to the mass or walk with the procession; I headed straight to the cemetery for the funeral. Everyone wore black. The grave, the coffin, and the carriage were all lavish. When the coffin was placed in the grave, I saw her spirit. She joined in mourning for the burial of the banana stalk. She went to Boboy, embraced him, and put her head on his shoulder. It took a while before she moved again. Before she finally went back to the forest, she kissed Boboy’s lips. The crowd didn’t see any of this. Instead, they saw a black butterfly resting on his lips. Boboy was perhaps too deep in his grief to bother shooing the butterfly away. He probably didn’t even feel it touching his lips. 

Three days after the banana stalk was buried, Boboy went missing. It was only then that I saw Selya feverishly worried. She brought out the fan her American suitor, who pitied her beauty sweltering in the tropical heat, gave her long before the Japanese came. I didn’t have any fan to give Selya then, except ones made from anahaw. She’d always open and close it swiftly, the motion causing it to tear over time. It was now more adhesive tape than fan, but Selya wouldn’t let it go; it was too hot in the Philippines. She didn’t want to buy a new one, fearing it might be a cheap copy. Her fan, she was certain, once waved in the cold air of America.  

She brought her fan with her as she pestered the entire town in search of her grandson. He was supposed to make their family rich again and bring her to America, unlike her ungrateful daughter who still hasn’t returned to get her. Before the rooster had even crowed, she had brought her fan with her to the police station, frantically waving it in the faces of the ten officers she begged to comb through the entire town. 

When she finally ran out of places to go, she fanned off the flush of shame now growing on her face and decided to break a promise she made long ago; to never again ask for my help. It has been so long since she was compelled to make this promise, too long. Perhaps she was still ashamed; breaking her word reminded her of her disgrace and was an admission that everything that happened was of her own doing and not mine. We were the only living souls who knew this secret; Bino, her husband, was dead. 

‘Esteban – Boboy’s missing!’ 

I told her to go home and give her fan a break. I asked the surrounding spirits. They couldn’t answer me. We’ll never find someone who doesn’t want to be found. But the spirits gave me a hint. Where in our little town do lost souls go? To the forest, I thought, to the forest where there were no streets needing to be named, where everyone who entered had to beat their own path through the thicket. 

Estela’s spirit had gone into the forest, so it was no surprise that it was there that I found Boboy. It had already grown dark by then. I first saw the santelmo that reminded me of the torch Estela used to carry; Boboy would’ve easily mistaken it for Estela’s too. I was right. Not long after, I saw Boboy stalking the fire. Despite the chopped hand holding the torch, he followed it. To his eyes, it was Estela’s hand, her body, that carried it. It angered me to see the santelmo play with Boboy’s grief, how it made him go around in circles in the forest, making him lose his way. I berated the santelmo and, afraid of getting caught for its mischief, it immediately put out the fire it was carrying. Boboy was swallowed by the dark.  

I began to hear his cries. Boboy was calling out Estela’s name. Calling out her name to the forest. But no response came this time. I brought Boboy back to the house of memories, back into the arms of his grandmother.  

Selya held a banquet for anyone willing to eat. Now that Estela’s wake was done, she could finally celebrate her grandson’s return. Despite not having gone to the church for a long time, Selya answered the queries for her lavish feast with a Bible verse: ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost silver coin!’ 

Meanwhile, her coin remained in bed, where his grandmother had laid him after I’d brought him back from the forest. Days passed, and Selya couldn’t wake him. Calling his name wasn’t enough to rouse his spirit from the well of slumber it had fallen into.  

I thought I was able to bring Boboy back to Selya, but he’d left his spirit somewhere in the forest. On the sixth day of his sleep, Selya sought the help of another albularyo. I had already failed her before. And now I had failed her once again. She must have blamed me for everything that had happened. I could’ve done something; I could’ve changed things. She told herself this, I thought, so she didn’t have to carry the burden of a secret. She didn’t want my help anymore. Her fan could no longer whisk off the shame she felt, especially as she’d already broken her promise. Selya knew the other spirit healers in our town thought of me as competition. They never understood that what I healed was simply misunderstandings between humans and spirits.  

When the other albularyo came, he immediately placed a betel on Boboy’s forehead, which burned with fever. Selya invited me to the ritual, perhaps to show me how unreliable I’d been. She wanted to prove why I shouldn’t be so arrogant; I wasn’t the only albularyo in the town of Sagrada. When lime didn’t work, the albularyo decided that Boboy’s fever wasn’t normal.  

‘It’s the kind of fever that afflicts the possessed.’ 

The albularyo brought out a rosary and a stingray tail. He uttered an oración over Boboy’s body, commanding whatever was possessing it to leave. Nothing happened.  

The albularyo became more violent. He pressed the rosary all over Boboy’s body, but instead of thrashing with the possessing spirit burning, his body remained lifeless, still deep in slumber. When the albularyo finally ran out of patience, he hit Boboy with the stingray tail. Selya almost passed out from witnessing her grandson being whipped, but there was nothing she could do. The beating left welts on his body, as if a snake crawled all over his skin. The healer was about to hit him again when Boboy suddenly woke. The albularyo was overjoyed, claiming proudly that the demon that dwelt in Boboy’s body simply needed a good beating. 

‘What’s your name?’ 

‘Miguel Nueva. Boboy po.’ 

‘Liar!’ The albularyo struck him again. 

Selya could no longer hold back her tears; she asked the albularyo to stop. 

‘He’s not your grandson – that’s the spirit possessing his body! Don’t be fooled. The spirit’s too strong. It’s telling us lies!’ 

There was nothing Selya could do but believe the albularyo, who went on questioning Boboy. He explained to Selya what would happen next. The spirit was too strong and wouldn’t confess its true name, so he was going to play along to catch it in its lies. 

‘If you’re really Boboy, how could you have slept for six days without eating?’ 

‘I was tired, sir.’ 

‘Tired from what?’ 

‘I probably had a nightmare. I couldn’t wake up.’  

‘What did you dream about?’ 

‘So many things. I couldn’t understand. There were so many of them. I saw myself in a cemetery. I was walking toward Estela’s grave. It was dark but it wasn’t quite nightfall. I knew it wasn’t nightfall. But it was dark. Then I felt myself digging Estela’s grave. The cement was still wet, so I was able to take out the gravestone. I was so strong. I was able to take out Estela’s coffin from the grave on my own. I opened the coffin but Estela wasn’t there. Estela wasn’t there. She wasn’t there. Only a banana stalk was inside. I started crying. My tears kept falling. They kept falling and falling until I felt someone touching my shoulder. I turned to see Mama. I said, “Mama, Mama, Estela turned into a banana stalk.” But Mama didn’t say anything. She tried comforting me with her hands, which were covered with letters, words tattooed on her skin. When I looked again at Mama, her whole body became just that, covered with so many letters, so many words. I could read some of them, My dear son, My dearest Boboy, they were letters for me tattooed on her body. I asked her why there was writing on her skin, but Mama didn’t answer me. She just smiled at me sadly, and then I saw that even her teeth had writings on them. I was horrified. I took an eraser – I didn’t know where it came from – and I asked Mama to smile again so I could erase the writings on her teeth. But I erased her actual teeth, and I couldn’t stop myself – her lips disappeared, her face – until Mama disappeared. I was so terrified that I screamed but no one could hear me. Until Lola came. Lola. Lola asked me why I was crying, I told her it was because Estela turned into a banana stalk, because I erased Mama’s face. But my Lola couldn’t hear me, she kept saying it was too hot, and I tried telling her it was not. Demons came – creatures, aswangs – there were so many of them, I didn’t know what to call them, but they all rushed at Lola, who was still screaming it was too hot. They stripped her naked as she still screamed. Legions of demons came, with slanted eyes and bowlegs, golden hair and white skin, and they all carried a giant fan, and they began to fan at Lola, fanning her strong and it only got stronger and stronger until the wind they fanned became a storm that blew Lola away. She was blown away by the wind, like a storm coming from the giant fan, but she still kept screaming “It’s hot, so hot!” and she was blown away. Suddenly I ran into Tiyong Esteban, and I asked him if he saw Lola get blown away by the wind. He said yes, he said he even saw where Lola fell. I asked him where, he said there, I said where there, he said again there, and there was nothing I could do but ask him where over and over because he wouldn’t say anything but there, there…’ 

‘Liar!’ screamed the albularyo. The stingray tail hit Boboy once more. He fell back on the bed. The albularyo explained that Boboy was again sleeping, and once he woke up, they’d probably get to talk to the real Boboy at last. But Boboy knew every single one of us. He even looked at me when he mentioned my name.  

I went home certain that Boboy would sleep again for quite some time, and Selya would be forced to fan off her shame and ask for my help once again. I already knew what afflicted Boboy, but I couldn’t tell Selya about it just yet; I didn’t want to embarrass her.     

Another day passed and Boboy still didn’t wake. The albularyo called for a feast. The spirit possessing Selya’s grandson was too strong. He couldn’t get it out of Boboy’s body by force, so he would offer food to the spirit. In the feast, they would ask the spirit for forgiveness so it would finally leave Boboy in peace. Selya took some money out of the bank. The feast had to be lavish enough to coax the spirit out of Boboy’s body. Selya had three pigs and a cow slaughtered. Ten 45-day-old chickens were not spared. The market almost ran out of vegetables. Selya recruited the most popular rice cake makers in Sagrada. When the night of the feast finally came, the sheer volume of food needed a table much longer than those used for weddings, even longer than the presidential table during the mayor’s oath-taking.  

The albularyo was already drooling at the mere sight of the food. He immediately began praying over the offering. With a benediction, the healer marked the territory of his power. He advised the people joining the ritual to never cross the drawn border, lest it opens their third eye. Spirits, after all, were more likely to possess those who could see them. He also ordered them to not smell the food because it’s what the spirits fed on, resulting in everyone gathered holding their breath out of fear. After all these preparations, the albularyo finally invited the surrounding spirits to come. In front of the table, on a mat on the floor, Boboy’s body lay lifeless.  

I came late to the ritual. I didn’t want the albularyo to close my eyes, and before he could even stop me, I entered the territory marked by his benediction. I saw the arrival of the spirits. The healer warned me that it would be on me if I became possessed.  

‘But they’re friends,’ I told him.  

And there they were, feeding peacefully with utensils they had brought with them – the spirits that have always helped me to heal people. There were spirits that appeared as skeletons. Some had their eyeballs coming out of their eye sockets. I didn’t expect to see Severino’s spirit, who still smelled like rice wine, and Lope’s, whose hands were still muddied and teeth and gums still red from chewing betel nut even after death. Even Benjamin’s spirit came. His chest was bloody where he had been shot. The three of them were there, circling Boboy’s sleeping body instead of joining the feast.  

Benjamin greeted me. ‘Help him, Tiyong Teban. You have more power. You’re still alive. We’re just spirits now.’  

‘You know I can’t do that until Selya lets me.’

The ritual ended without a demon leaving Boboy’s body, without him waking up. The spirits and demons went home, and the people who joined the ritual prepared to feast on their leftovers. It seemed as though nothing had been eaten, but the spirits had finished it all. I was not surprised when people began complaining that the food didn’t taste of anything. I left as they devoured the food, whining and complaining. The next day, Selya paid me a visit. Boboy was still asleep. She broke her promise a second time.  

I should’ve stopped her then. I should’ve held her to her promise, at least then what shouldn’t happen wouldn’t have happened, but there was nothing I could do but listen. When it came to Selya, there was nothing I could do.  

I promised her that I’d try to heal her grandson, but with a few conditions – I would take Boboy to a hut near the mountains, to an area claimed by the forest surrounding Sagrada. I’d heal him there. No one could go with us. No one should visit him. I asked Selya to fully entrust Boboy to my hands. Selya agreed at once. There was nothing she could do but listen. 

‘But why near the mountain?’ 

I didn’t answer Selya then. I didn’t tell her that I wanted to take Boboy out of this place – where parents wanted to change their children’s faces, where creatures prowled to steal corpses. Whatever it was afflicting Boboy, I couldn’t explain it to her. I told her that the albularyo she paid got it wrong, that nothing had possessed Boboy’s body. How could I tell her that Boboy was probably another of Oriol’s victims? The welts left by the healer appeared like scales of a giant snake, reminding me of the serpentine rope that took Estela’s life.