The Antique Shop Without A Name (Volume 1)

A Cyberspace Book by Tony Perez

Saturday, July 6, 2013

Welcome to this cyberspace book!

Welcome to The Antique Shop Without A Name (Volume 1), the first, serialized, Filipino anthology of short fiction in cyberspace!

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Other Cyberspace Books by Tony Perez:

The Replacement
The Pamela Quests: Ella (Volumje 2)
The Pamela Quests: Pam (Volume 1)

THE ANTIQUE SHOP WITHOUT A NAME

The First, Serialized, Filipino Anthology of Short Fiction in Cyberspace

By Tony Perez

Authored July 2013 –

Posted in cyberspace July 2013 –

Classification: For General Reading Public

Category: Fiction

IPR of Tony Perez

Important Notes:

This is the only legitimate, electronic version of this cyberspace book.

This cyberspace book does not exist in any other format.

This cyberspace book may not be reproduced or adapted in part or in whole without the written or electronic permission of the author.

2013

Photo by Jefferson Sano Solayao, 2012

Preface

There is a shop, a decidedly peculiar one, whence all the objects in this book were purchased. It is extremely hard to find. It bears no sign, and is tucked away in a side street several hundred meters from the main thoroughfare. No one in the neighborhood has complete knowledge about it, for its proprietors, if there are any, are never seen. To the passersby the frontage appears an abandoned thrift store with a grimy glass window, through which one can make out shelves half-heartedly filled with nothing but old knickknacks.

Yet, it is this very shop that yields the most amazing holdings of all. It is said that no one ever deliberately plans to visit it or seek it out on a whimsical adventure. Rather, one finds oneself gravitating towards it at some point in one’s life, as though led to it by instinct. Such was the circumstance by which everyone in this collection of stories came upon it—The Antique Shop Without A Name, is what they call it—and oddly, but not surprisingly, none of them were afterwards able to locate the shop again.

The Manchurian Bangle

The last thing he recalled of that wee shopping spree was his reflection in the pane of glass, in the window outside the shop, after he pulled the creaky iron gate behind him and right before he turned into the street. It was an impulse. Maybe he wanted to make sure it was his own image, under the sunshine, rather than a ghost’s looking out at him from within. Maybe a twinge of vanity made him want to know whether he looked all right, at this time of day, on a cloudy surface. Maybe he was curious to see what his expression was like at the moment, whether he was chagrined at having spent some money on a piece of antique jewelry or victorious over what he knew was a good bargain.

He’d come to renew his license at the LTO branch in Cubao, and detoured through a parallel street to avoid the traffic. It was then that he saw, looking to his right above the wheel, what looked like an old but exotic shop. He pulled over because his favorite niece, Katrina, had been on his mind the whole morning, and because her birthday was fast approaching. It was always difficult to buy gifts for her. She was 18, disinterested in men, and enrolled in a degree course in Cultural Heritage Studies. Sometimes he’d give her money folded and sealed in red paper, like the Chinese did, instead of anything particular. In fact he was thinking of doing that again this year. But when he happened upon the shop, or was it the shop that happened upon him, he knew that he would find something nice in there for Katrina.

There was an old man inside the shop, looking congruous with his antiques but not with the rest of the metropolis outside. The old man allowed him to browse through everything, and assisted him only when he stopped at a wood-framed, glass case with a lid that opened on hinges. The bottom of the case was lined with plush, dark velvet, against which a myriad of antique jewelry glowed in the lamplight.

“This one,” he said, pointing to a silver circlet with engravings all round it. Already he could see Katrina wearing it.

“The Manchurian bangle,” the old man said. “Sterling silver, and dates back to the Manchurian calendar’s equivalent of the Chinese Song Dynasty.”

He went through the usual process of gentle haggling, then whipped out his wallet and paid for it because, indeed, he wanted it. The old man wrapped it carefully in mulberry paper, placed it inside a white paper bag, rolled the top of the bag thrice over, and sealed it with a round sticker.

Katrina was having dinner at his place this evening, as she usually did on Fridays. It was a standing invitation to his few immediate relatives in the neighborhood. Katrina’s mother, his sister, lived three townhouses away. Their other siblings were in Melbourne and Guam. None of them had ever stood at ceremony for anything, exchanging Christmas presents as early as November and sending birthday gifts long before and sometimes long after their due dates. The timing was typically right, as Katrina’s birthday was but a few days off.

Cygne, Katrina’s special friend, would also be there for dinner, as she had always been of late. She’d been his niece’s special friend for the past five years. Cygne was deputy director of an NGO that put together conservation proposals for funding. Four years older than Katrina, Cygne always managed to look like a handsome young man at first glance. She preferred to sport men’s haircuts, pomaded and combed. She wore men’s designer clothes and shoes, and, on formal occasions, expensive jackets minus ties, tailored so finely that men would stare at them in admiration.

“Pardon the cliché, but, Surprise!” he announced after they had all sat down at table. “Or is it more appropriately, Happy Birthday?”

He set the packet demurely on Katrina’s plate as the maid was pouring cranberry juice into their glasses.

“Oh, Uncle!” Katrina squealed with relish, “I know I’m going to love this!” He grinned with the wisdom of how young adults melt into children once again under certain circumstances.

She carefully opened the wrapping as his mother, Cygne, and he looked on. When the bangle emerged, it glowed with a satin sheen under the twin incandescents of the billiard-table lamp above them. Katrina held it up for everyone to see, slowly turning it round, while a reverent silence filled the room.

“Awesome!” Cygne gasped.

“It looks terribly expensive,” Katrina’s mother commented.

“I do love it!” Katrina exclaimed. She rose from her seat, went over to him, and gave him a hug. “I love you, Uncle! Thank you for this marvelous birthday gift!”

“Anything for my baby,” he fondly cooed.

Katrina and Cygne, who were both of conservators’ mindsets, studied the bangle carefully as the consommé was served.

“It has the twelve animals of the Chinese Zodiac on the front,” Katrina annotated , “in the not-usual sequence: Pig, Dog, Rooster, Monkey, Goat, Horse, Snake, Dragon, Rabbit, Tiger, Ox, and Rat. That locates the Horse and Snake in the center,” she said to Cygne, “which we are!”

“Synchronistic!” Cygne grinned. “Unless Uncle had it commissioned by a secret craftsman?”

“Oh no, I assure you, it’s authentic antique!” he laughed.

It was Cygne who discovered the two, tiny, Chinese characters inscribed on the inner band of the circlet. “There was fluid, cultural exchange between Manchuria and China,” she informed everyone, “somewhat like between Pampanga and Bulacan, but, of course, on an infinitely more massive scale.” The two young women briefly went through an inventory of contacts who had expertise in Manchurian-Chinese heritage. “We must find out what those two characters mean. It’s probably the silversmith’s signature.”

Katrina concurred, slipped the bangle onto her left wrist, and extended her forearm to observe how it suited her. “This is one piece of jewelry that shall always be on me,” she primly declared to herself. “It’s priceless enough to age with, and to wear forever.”

“Even to bed?” Katrina’s mother asked, incredulously.

“Why, yes, Mama,” her daughter replied. “I might even dream about it.”

And so, that night, she did.

She’d worn the bangle into the shower late that evening to cleanse it somewhat, lathering excess shampoo all round it and polishing it softly with an old toothbrush. After binding her hair in a baby-blue, absorbent bonnet she crossed the top-of-the-staircase foyer into her tiny, teal bedroom with all-black furniture, plopped herself comfortably on the leather-upholstered daybed, and tuned in to a history channel, which had a long feature that night on Alexander the Great. Just a long-enough wait for Cygne’s good-night call to come through her cell phone, indicating that she had arrived safely at her own townhouse in Pasig and was herself ready to get into bed.

“You’re wearing the bangle,” Cygne guessed before saying goodbye.

“You know me so well,” she remarked and then went to bed herself, but not before moving her leather folder, which contained her dream journal, and her pewter-encased pen to the center of her writing desk, which was located parallel to her single-size bed, so that she could sit on the edge of the mattress and write on her desk rather than have to invest in a space-occupying desk chair. She knew that she would dream about the bangle that night. For at least a year now, after attending Professor Silva’s workshop titled “Exploring Your Dream City,” she’d faithfully been keeping a dream journal, and had filled up ten notebooks already.

Entry from Katrina’s dream journal, written 3:00 AM at dawn the following day:

“Received antique, Manchurian bangle for my birthday from Uncle. Went to sleep with images of ancient India in my head, which had nothing to do with the dream that followed.

“I am not sure whether I am awake or half-asleep. I take off the bangle from my right hand, where I prefer to wear my jewelry because it is my dominant hand, and I move it, instead, to my left hand. I sense a voice, a female’s voice, within me, telling me that the bangle should be worn on my left wrist rather than my right. After I transfer the bangle I sink into deep sleep. It is like falling backward in high-speed into a fragrant lake, but the feeling is pleasant.

“I am sitting on the edge of a lake. I bend over and look into the ice-blue water. I see that I am a maiden with long hair parted in the middle and pinned into lush coils on both sides of my face. I am weeping. I can see tracks of tears on my cheeks. I hear someone, a woman, calling me from a distance behind me. I cannot recall the name being called, but it is exotic and foreign-sounding. I blot off my tears with a white, cotton handkerchief that I pull from within one of my sleeves. I am in a long, brown dress with a colorfully-embroidered, yellow apron over it. I hastily turn from the lake toward the source of the woman’s voice.

“A path leads through copses of trees, and then through a garden. There is a huge mansion beyond it. The woman is standing at the steps to the back door of the mansion. She is older than I am. She has a kind face. She tells me, in a foreign language I can comprehend because this is my dream, that she has been looking for me, and that it is getting quite late. I feel that I am some sort of young servant and that the woman is some sort of senior majordomo. We are both wearing silver bangles on our left wrists. I begin to understand, intuitively, that the characters inscribed inside our bangles are the surname of the rich family we work for. I also understand that the designs on the employees’ bangles indicate what we do, and what we are being paid for.

“I explain to the woman that I have been collecting different varieties of flowers beyond the garden. I actually produce several of these flowers from within my sleeve. I explain that it is for the day’s lesson. I am, apparently, a teacher or governess for the rich family’s children, and that it is time for their afternoon session.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tony Perez in Gota de Leche Heritage House, Manila, in 2013. Photo by Jefferson Sano Solayao.

TONY PEREZ is a creative writer, playwright, poet, lyricist, painter, portraitist, fiber artist, and psychic journalist and trainer. He is one of the 100 Filipino recipients of the 1898-1998 Centennial Artists Awards of the Cultural Center of the Philippines. His other awards include the 13 Artists of the Philippines, the Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas from the Writers Union of the Philippines, four National Book Awards from the Manila Critics Circle, a FAMAS Award for Best Story, five prizes from the Cultural Center of the Philippines Playwriting Contest, the National Fellowship for Drama from the Creative Writing Center of the University of the Philippines, the Irwin Chair in Creative Writing from Ateneo de Manila University, and a prize in photography from the Children’s Museum and Library, Inc. He was a member of the first official Philippine delegation to the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in Bali, sponsored by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, in 2010.

Some of Mr. Perez’s works in Filipino have been translated into English, French, and Polish. His artworks have been showcased in 21 individual and group exhibits curated by Marian Pastor Roces, Nonon Padilla, Bobi Villanueva, Judy Sibayan, Lalyn Buncab, Nilo Ilarde, Ernie Patricio and Jun Veloso, Chari Elinzano, Reverend Father Loy Divino (CICM), and Raven Villanueva.

Mr. Perez holds an A.B. in Communication and a Cand. M.A. in Clinical Psychology from Ateneo de Manila University, an M.A. in Religious Studies, magna cum laude, from Maryhill School of Theology in New Manila, and certificates in Publication Design and Production from the Department of Journalism at the University of Wisconsin and Fundamentals of Graphic Design from the University of California at San Francisco. His master’s thesis, titled Pagsubok sa Ilang: Ikaapat na Mukha ni Satanas, was awarded the National Book Award for Theology and Religion by the Manila Critics Circle in 2006.

In 2013, Mr. Perez decided to post all of his new and old works in cyberspace so that they could be available not only to Filipinos but to the entire world.

Mr. Perez has been working as a full-time Cultural Affairs Specialist at the Public Affairs Section of the Embassy of the U.S.A. in Manila since 1979. He conducts workshops titled “Writing from The Heart”, “Writing from The Creative Unconscious”, “Dramatherapy”, “Community Theater”, and art classes nationwide.

Mr. Perez has two sons, Nelson I. Miranda and Chito I. Miranda, and four granddaughters, Angelique Pearl Miranda, Nielsen Tegelan, Aubrey Rose Miranda, and Chevy Keith Miranda. His daughters-in-law are Agnes Tegelan and Ivy Vercasion. They live in Cubao, Quezon City, where Mr. Perez has resided since 1955.

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