VERY early in the morning of the third day of the Valentine-Luke romance saga, just a little after 3 a.m. EST, Valentine woke up with an urge to take a leak. He went to the bathroom, and ambled back to bed, but he couldn’t get right back to sleep. He tossed around, and tossed around a lot thinking of Luke Paclibar in Talisay City, Cebu, Philippines.
He also thought of Luke before going to bed the night before.
Actually, he thought about them: Luke and himself — in terms of Don Quixote and his Dulcinea!
How did that happen?
Valentine had a modest dinner of grilled porkchop, steamed asparagus, and baked potato. He had two glasses of his expensive Kosta Browne Sta. Rita Hills Pinot Noir with his meal. It was a lonesome dinner, all lonesomely prepared by himself. Lonesome, but not lonely, he smiled as he mentally made the distinction.
He read a little poetry, some modern Japanese tanka edited and translated into English by Makoto Ueda. The tanka is a form he learned to like after reading much about it from the works of the Filipino poet Peter Solis Nery, who he greatly admired, and now doggedly followed on Facebook, since their chance meeting in Milan a few years ago.
That night, he stayed with the tanka of Shaku Choku. And when he had a full heart that could sing of love and impossible things, he decided to wash up, brush his teeth, and just lay in bed.
But he wasn’t really ready to succumb to slumber, so he streamed an old film on Netflix, one of his favorites, and one that he hasn’t seen in a long, long time. It was Man of La Mancha, 1972, directed by Arthur Hiller based on the 1965 Tony Best Musical of the same name, book by Dale Wasserman, music by Mitch Leigh, lyrics by Joe Darion.
The film starred Peter O’Toole as Don Quixote, the titular Man of La Mancha, and his playwright-creator and author Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra of 17th century Spanish literature. There was also the beauteous and voluptuous Sophia Loren as Aldonza the whore, who, in the eyes of Don Quixote, is the Lady Dulcinea.
The film also made popular its principal song “The Impossible Dream.” And the song’s popularity in the Philippines became rather notorious as many Filipinos have killed each other over the rendition of it in karaoke brawls, which actually led to its ban to be sung in karaoke and videoke joints for sometime between 2009 and 2013.
And for a little bit of Philippine history, Valentine remembered how the song became a symbol of assassinated Antique Province’s governor Evelio Javier’s sacrifice for democracy that contributed to the peaceful overthrow of Ferdinand Marcos by Cory Aquino in the People Power Revolution of EDSA in 1986.
The song was Javier’s favorite, and the governor, a Cory supporter, was shot on February 11, during the counting of ballots of the February 7 snap election that pitted the widow Aquino against the ailing dictator Marcos.
Javier’s dead body was paraded in Manila where he studied (and where he had many friends and supporters), and the much-publicized event gained much sympathy and rightful anger over injustice and political oppression in the country.
Eleven days after his death, on February 22, the Filipino people, having had enough of terror and corruption, started protesting at EDSA over the tampered results of the election. The rally and mass demonstration steadily grew in number of protestors and sympathizers, people came in groups wearing the unmistakable yellow of Cory’s campaign, until the Marcoses fled to Hawaii on Feb. 25, 1986.
But on that night of porkchop and the movie, Valentine had no interest in history and politics. He was in love with Luke, and he was hoping Luke could see the La Mancha movie, too; and perhaps begin to understand where Valentine was coming from.
Valentine is a romantic, a poet, quixotic, and starry-eyed like Don Quixote de La Mancha.
And Luke, what about Luke? In the two days they have known each other, Valentine could see that Luke is pretty much like Aldonza — so practical, so realistic. But also so sad, so poor, so wounded and hurt, so angry with the world.
Valentine wished he could show Luke how he sees him. How he saw possibilities for him, for them; and how he envisioned a much better future for Luke — with him! Beside him!
Alone and lovesick on his bed, he wished he was holding Luke’s hand over the lines of Miguel de Cervantes from the movie: “I’ve lived for over 40 years and I’ve seen life as it is. Pain. Misery. Cruelty beyond belief. I’ve heard all the voices of God’s noblest creature. Moans from bundles of filth in the street. I’ve been a soldier and a slave. I’ve seen my comrades fall in battle or die more slowly under the lash in Africa. I’ve held them in my arms at the final moment. These were men who saw life as it is, yet they died despairing. No glory, no brave last words, only their eyes, filled with confusion, questioning ‘Why?’ I do not think they were asking why they were dying, but why they had ever lived. When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams — this may be madness; to seek treasure where there is only trash. Too much sanity may be madness! And maddest of all — to see life as it is, and not as it should be!”
For the umpteenth time, Valentine cried again over those words. He has read them in the play script, he has heard them in the play, he has heard them again through Peter O’Toole, and he was crying, thinking, could he quote the words in the future novel he was going to write? Would a detailed attribution excuse him from copyright infringement? He wouldn’t pass the work off as his own, that much he was sure of, so he knew it wouldn’t be plagiarism.
He was thinking about these things — intellectual property rights, his future novels, the possibilities of 21st century novels and literature, but he was also watching Sophia Loren as Aldonza embracing her possibility as Dulcinea. In Aldonza, he was seeing Luke embracing his possibility as consort to Valentine, the quixotic dreamer, the 21st century romantic.
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(You may also follow this story on Wattpad under the account of @PeterSolisNery.)/PN
