I feel the tightening of my chest, the heat building up behind my eyes, then the tears welling up, and finally the familiar wetness on my cheeks as the tears rolled down my face. Surely, I am not the only one who experiences this? This emotional connection?
I can’t help myself. I find myself crying every time. Whether it’s the big screen or the small screen, the storytellers suspend my disbelief and, in that moment, I am the act getting a golden buzzer on a popular talent competition; I am the abandoned son learning his father is the man behind the dreaded black mask; I am hiking through the alps escaping the nazis.
Growing up many a day and night was spent trying to hold back my tears and hiding my face as I watched the scenes unfold before me. My brothers sniggering in the background, while my parents rolled their eyes. “It’s only a story, make believe”, my mother would say. “Don’t be fooled by the storytellers”, she would add.
I was probably about eight years old. I was staying at my grandmother’s for the school holidays. I loved this time of the year. We would start the day early, go down to the local bakery and buy freshly baked bread. After enjoying a warm drink and sliced warm bread, she would turn on her radio which played her favourite music as we did the daily chores. Around midday, after consuming a lovely homecooked meal, we would sit side by side on the front porch. Me, enjoying the soft breeze on a hot afternoon, while my grandmother folded the freshly washed clothes while we listened to her favourite radio dramas. And like clockwork, as the radio dramas reached the climax in their story, I would look up to see my grandmother’s lower lip quivering, her eyes looking at the distance, tears rolling down her eyes. She sniffs and pulls her handkerchief from the depths of her bra and gently wipes her tears away. I would hold her hand, we would smile at each other and know everything would be alright.
“Grandma?”
“Yes?”
“What did you used to do with your grandma when you were on school holidays?” I asked her one day.
“Oh dear one, I never met my grandparents. They were all gone when I was born. And I never had school holidays. We were too poor to go to school.”
I sat quietly, trying to understand how someone as lovely as her didn’t get lovely days with her grandparents, like I did with her. And she didn’t have to go to school? I was still pondering the last point when she started telling me her story.
“I grew up during a war. We needed to survive and make sure we kept hidden from the enemy. I remember walking along the side streets of old Manila, away from the main street. I had been walking all day, searching for food. We learnt to walk quickly and quietly to avoid the Japanese soldiers patrolling the city streets. My mother had been able to secure a room in the only livable section of town, and as the oldest daughter, I would go out early in the day to scavenge the rubbish bins for scraps and leftovers.” She paused, as if reliving those days in her mind.
“One day, as I rounded a usually quiet corner, I was met by three men in uniform. As I had been taught, I didn’t make eye contact. I didn’t speak their language, but I did know some English. I knelt and bowed my head.”
I hadn’t noticed until that point, but I had tightened my hold on her hand, and I felt myself breathing rapidly.
She continued her story, still looking at a point in the distance. “The soldiers approached me, and I think they were trying to ask me questions in Japanese. Without moving my bowed head, I moved my hands to my mouth, in an eating gesture. ‘Hungry… food… my family’. I kept repeating. The soldiers said nothing. Just stood there, I could feel three set of eyes on my head. I closed my eyes, still repeating the eating gesture. It felt like forever. Then as if by some miracle, I saw the soldiers’ feet move on. Leaving me kneeling on the ground, by myself. I quickly got up and made my way home. I was able to find some vegetables that were just on the turn but still edible. I got home safely, and busied myself in the kitchen making soup, while my mother got my brothers cleaned and changed.”
She looked at me and squeezed my hand. This too became a part of my yearly visits. Each time, she would tell me a bit of her life before I came into hers. She was a wonderful storyteller.
“Do you want to join us for drinks later?” a colleague of mine was saying as I was shutting down my computer for the day.
“Raincheck? I’ve got a previous engagement…”, I trailed off. This was my standard answer at the end of the week, every Friday afternoon. I often wondered if my colleagues would eventually stop asking me, but after 10 years in the same office, with the same acquaintances, the question was almost like part of the furniture.
The 45-minute commute from the central business district on a Friday afternoon was busy as usual. With people of all shapes and sizes sitting shoulder to shoulder on the train seat which had seen better days. As I got out of the train, walking through the double sliding doors, watching the gap between the train door and the station platform, the slight breeze on this the winter solstice was a relief. I walked down the hill from the station exit, my shoulders relaxing at last. It wouldn’t be long before my commute and walk home would again be done in the daylight. For now, I mindfully listened to my heavy boots on the concrete pavement, as the streetlamps turned on. From time to time, quiet voices could be heard behind closed doors from the houses that lined the hill on my way down to my apartment.
TV on a Friday night was part of my end of week routine. It was like letting my hair down. Each host of a TV show, each character in the weekly TV series I was currently following, like an old friend. As I set up my reheated dinner on a cushioned tray, I settled down in my overstuffed easy chair. Making sure my remote was in easy reach, while having programmed my TV to automatically change channels based on the TV schedule. I made myself comfortable and took a sip of my orange juice. I laughed, I cried, I gasped. The emotions and connections with the storytellers helped me forget. They call it the suspension of disbelief. The stories are told in such a way that the viewer believes that the story unfolding in front of their eyes is real and human.
It has been over 30 years since I heard the last snigger of my brothers, and my mother’s exasperated exclamations that I was being taken in by the storytellers. It has been over 40 years since I started collecting my grandmother’s stories. As my day job feed, clothe, and shelter me, the stories I was now writing on my grandmother’s experiences feed my soul, my heart, and my mind. I have become one of the storytellers. Each week, I was one step closer to completing her story and with a publisher waiting on the wings, the storytellers live on.