Do orchids bloom in the moonlight?
I believe they do. The truth comes from this old tango music I am listening to.
The music takes me to the old house behind the ancient church, with sturdy vines bent around the old massive posts. It is 1 o’clock in the afternoon. The lunch is over. The two helpers are out in the kitchen cleaning up: one of them will be with us to tell stories about men who look like horse and whip their mane against the breast of women and, forever, keep them under enchantment.
A radio so big, it could contact distant stations when the typhoon has just passed over the small island airs songs about broken vows and promises made with daggers in front of the sacred altar. Soon, the music is played about orchids blooming in the moonlight. My grandfather, Elpidio, rises from his chair and goes to my grandmother, Emilia, busy drying her set of spoons of different sizes. She is going to bake some cake, which will be brought to the Chinese baker who is going to put them in his wide oven.
The merienda can wait. Elpidio and Emilia dance, as if the world is theirs and theirs alone. We are all looking up from the floor. They just do not dance for a few seconds; they finish the music.
There is no modifier for that age than to call it “golden”. The world in those years moved slow, because there was no desire to go fast.
No one knew when change was coming. The earth was at a standstill; only the music moved
our world.
Soon, we had to leave the island. My older brother and I discovered in the quiet city we moved to a territory that was moving to where we do not know. Except for the moviehouses that brought a universe of gods and goddesses, spies and secret agents, and men and women who burst into songs, there was nothing in our new place to amuse us. Well, there were the carnivals and circuses that featured wild men and women who ate live rooster, I still remember one of these feral beings, “Gamuga”. The next morning Gamuga scared the hell out of us, we saw somebody like him, without the scary countenance, tending to a coop of chicken.
In the small city, we experienced the fun of subscribing to magazines and getting free copies for inspection. One magazine particularly attracted us. It carried the name The Plain Truth. It had news on religion, but also news about science and development. We never thought that an institutional religion was behind the magazine that came to us free.
Even in the city, the years did not seem to rush headlong to any point. You could feel the grass growing under your feet. The world remained benign. Even the presidents elected appeared good and ideal.
Soon, we gave up The Plain Truth.
There were only truths that remained in my heart: That grandfathers and grandmothers love forever, and would dance to the dark and sad tango songs. It followed that I always believed orchids do bloom in the moonlight.
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Image credits: Jimbo Albano