Forgiving Imelda Marcos by Nathan Go

Author:Nathan Go
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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This was to become my new modus with Ka Noel.

Whenever I didn’t understand a word, a concept, or a theory, we’d stop, and he’d guide me toward the answer rather than telling me outright. He liked to ask: “What does that word sound like? Does it remind you of anything? If you have to guess, what do you think it means?” He was a very patient man, and gentle, too. He never became upset with me, or anyone, for that matter, as far as I ever saw.

Once, after lending me the Bible and The Communist Manifesto, he said, “These two books, Lito, are the only two books you’ll ever need in your life. Commit as much of them as you can to memory.”

I told him, “I don’t believe in memorizing. I heard Einstein never memorized anything he could just look up. A waste of effort, not to mention brain storage.”

“Well,” he said with a wink, “if you could prove to me that you’re using your brain as much as Einstein, I promise I’ll leave you alone.”

I sat down at my desk one evening with the books Ka Noel had lent me. I grudgingly tried to read and memorize passages, first from The Communist Manifesto and then from the Bible, as the former was several folds skinnier, though not much more entertaining, in my opinion.

As I pored over them, I remembered the day my father and I went to the café by the park, when he took me from the boarding school and first told me about Ka Noel. I remembered how my father had clutched the same two books, stopping every now and then as he read to mark some pages with a pen. I wondered what had been so interesting to him. Did he have to endure the same set of questions, and what were his answers? I started to feel a lump in my throat as I wondered about where my father was and how he was doing. I needed to be more like him, I thought, so cool and composed. I picked up the books again and continued reading. When he comes back, I vowed, I’ll have a real conversation with him. I’ll talk to him about the books we’ll read and I will make him proud.

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