THE LOST DREAM OF SELF

Diana R. Agbayani

The title “Sounds of Sunday” is a negation. There are no real sounds of Sunday. The
story is a negation of a blissful home life. It is actually the story of a shattered marriage.

Kerima Polotan is an adroit writer. Hers is the mastery of various literary techniques.
Among these are: flashbacks, juxtapositions of the past and present, symbolisms,
characterizations, dialogue, contrasts, irony, parallelisms, negations, imagery, subtlety, and
episodic compositions.

The Sounds of Sunday ​ is a tale of two cities - Manila and the obscure Tayug. It is
also the tale of two couples - the Gorrezes and the Rividads.1

Characterization is definitely Kerima’s forte when it comes to technique. Like a

surgeon’s scalpel, the author's pen encises and lays bare the hearts of her characters, and
feeble mortals that we are, feel like shadows from the outside looking in.

Through the warp and woof of the story, she weaves the flashbacks conveniently,
integrates related events to reinforce a facet of a character’s personality, or through the
innuendo in the dialogue. She concretizes an idea she wishes to convey about her narrative.

Her principal character is Emma Gorrez. The story begins at the Martinez’s kiosk with
Emma reminiscing the time when she first met Domingo Gorrez. Then, their most recent
quarrel is flashbacked. The narrative goes back to the kiosk. Here the stream of
consciousness technique is used. Through this technique the author reveals Emma’s longing
for her husband Domingo…

“She thought that if he returned, if she should see him suddenly looming in the
doorway, if he strode in, loving her or not, she would run to him, and it would not
matter that they had hurt each other terribly.”

In the same paragraph, rain is used as a symbol to express pain and sadness. At the
same time, the rain is also used symbolically to foretell the hopelessness of their
relationship…

“But only the rain fell outside the kiosk entrance.”

1
Leonard Casper, “Desire and Doom in Kerina Polotan”. Philippine Studies. (Januaru, 1969).
 Much later, the imagery of an unopened letter hinted at Mr. Rene Rividad’s (an old
suitor of Emma) refusal to get hurt again. Through their dialogue, the author paints the
relationship of Emma and Rene today and yesterday…

“‘Will you take me back?’ She asked. ‘In all ways.’ he smiled.”

Thus, with the use of “in all ways”, Rene Rividad’s unchanging love for Emma is
made manifest, and so is his desire to have her.

Though subtlety, the writer furnishes the personality of Norma Rividad, the bitchy
wife of Rene Rividad…

“She met Norma Rividad too, swinging her potent hips up the street.”

There is the precedence of symbolism. There is the snake and the deer. The first
symbolic of betrayal, the latter of innocence. The deer were described as “looking up with
accusing eyes” at Emma-- a foreboding of Emma succumbing to Rividad.

There are a lot of parallelisms between the town of Tayug and the Gorrezes. For
instance, Domingo Gorrez’s climb from poverty to opulence is paralleled with the progress in
Tayug…

“The shanties in Tanedo had been torn to give way to sturdier buildings and now
lifted their falsely modern facades to the sun.”

Then, the “sonorous declarations of love and anger” which “stranded the town” are
also parallel to the mixed feelings Emma now has for her husband. Emma became more
aware of these emotions that is why she “shut the window”.

The absence of the sun is another symbol in the story. It forebodes the death of the
Gorrezz’s marriage and the despair that goes with it.

“She looked up the sun, but the sun was not there, only a vague, diffused terror.”

BALANI Volume 9 (August 1995), 29-32

1
 Through an adroit use of dialogue, Kerima Polotan reveals the contrast in the
personalities of Emma and Doming. Notice the contrast in their letters. This one is Emma’s

“What does a man work for? Is it not for a corner and a moment tender in? Outside
the door, beyond the gate. There is always a rush somewhere. Where there is finally
nothing. We spin like tops straining for that will maim and sear us. We think we know
what we want and we choose it, but when its hood falls off, it is the macabre face of
death. ​I have left you because I cannot live without you​. That is a statement that
should do your department at quality, proud. You turn out platitudes like that
assembly-line speed, but do you honor them? You buy and sell beliefs, you buy and
sell sensibilities, and of course, in the final analysis, you buy and sell people.”

Here is Doming’s reply:

“His answer was full newsy bits. He might trade in the car for a two-toned-mauve;
mauve was the latest hue of success. They were panelling the conference room at
last. There was a sale of pin-striped Van Heusens at his favorite store.”

Notice also the irony in Emma’s letter - “I have left you because I cannot live without
you.” Emma left her husband because she cannot accept the emerging personality of
Doming. Doming, the weak-willed husband of Emma was a good man until his spirit gave
way to the lure of heady brew power and money.

The corruption is laid bare piecemeal in a series of events which the author vividly
describes. The first time Doming Gorrez pays off a man whose daughter refused to succumb
to the lust of her boss and was found in an elevator. There were also times that Domingo
Gorrez was privy to his boss’s “naps” with several of the office girls he fancied. The other
employees had to go on strike for higher pay and he did not have the courage to speak up
for the increase although he knew “quality stocks were up a hundred percent, provincial
outlets were now better, public relations was going great, a few raises would not hurt.” note
the very revealing dialogue…

“I shrugged my shoulders,” he told Emma later. Emma pushed him away.

“But don’t you see?” he had asked.

BALANI Volume 9 (August 1995), 29-32

2
 “I should ask you that.” she said. “Everything led to that moment, Doming. You could
have done the right thing. But the shrug is a smart reflex: it comes with half-a-dozen
others in a handy kit they distribute among today’s bright boys.”

There is a preponderance of subtlety in this short story. For instance, the writer did
not directly say that Testa (the one who led everybody on strike) wanted to kill everybody at
Quality. The author simply narrates that Testa came to the party and greeted everyone -
Salutamus de Salutamus.” there was also a case when the author did not categorically say
that Doming slapped Emma. Rather she wrote…

“Emma felt Doming’s blow even before it landed on her cheek.”

Later in the story, recent events are juxtaposed with past events. An event that
happened forty years ago is flaskbacked. Here the author portrays the character of Rene
Rividad, the complete foil to Domingo Gorrez. The writer goes back to Tayug during an
abortive insurrection, when Rene Rividad was a fourteen-year-old boy. He saw his parents
gunned down by the military. And they would not even let him bury them.

And how did Rivida react to this beloved infidel of a wife Norma? The author portrays
patience, the forbearance of this man and it is almost pathetic to note his act of kindness as
she meets her at the bus station after one of her flings.

A facility with language, an adherence to a code of honor; these are apparently,

hallmarks of Mrs. Tuverra’s heroines, and Emma Gorrez is not wanting in these.
Nonetheless, as we read between the lines, heroines are also human. Though strong and
strong-hearted, Emma later succumbs to temptation.

In the following lines, we note a disintegration of character in Emma. The growing

and deepening passion Emma has for Rene Rividad is unfolded…

“Her own sons would be at home, waiting for her, but here she lingered at the face of
this old friend.”

Here are some more revealing lines…

“Emma was summoned to that table every Saturday at sunset by a voice greater
than her wisdom.”

BALANI Volume 9 (August 1995), 29-32

3
 Then, there is gradual onanism. Emma knows that she is leading herself to
self-destruction. But that is the only fulfilling act she now knows of…

“I am on safe ground but i do not wish to go ashore.”

And finally, the loss of selfhood…

“Perhaps, I love him already, she thought, over the edge, ah! Down the precipice,
and sweet disaster.”

In the following dialogue, we note the same disintegration in Rene Rividad…

“‘Em,’ Rene Rividad gad never called her that before.’I would like to wait for you,’ he
continued softly, ‘here and in all the places you can possibly think of, for all the hours
life will allow me.’”

And then again, the eternal woman is confronted with…

“‘You remember saying once, ‘the sounds of Sunday joy…’ he nodded, smiling
suddenly,

‘Yes, but there are other days in the week. And other sounds.’”

Finally, Emma and Rene succumb to their loneliness. In their loneliness, they turn to
each other, even if it means being inconsistent with their own wills, their own personalities…

“The joys of Sunday seemed far away now. The licit sounds -- happiness slid past
her. She had loved Domingo Gorrez with everything that she had been, but they had
been careless like this - sipping coffee in exile, vulnerable and tremulous, because in
this wayward inn, someone had said a warm and tender thing.”

BALANI Volume 9 (August 1995), 29-32

4
 Kerima Polotan sees through her characters, delineates them with the expertise of
one skilled in her craft. Her stories are always interesting reading because she dexterously
juxtaposes flashbacks with oftentimes bold, sometimes restrained dialogue, until the person
is revealed and discovered through piecemeal narration of his moods, actions, speeches,
and his thoughts.

The theme of “The Sounds of Sunday” is the loss of selfhood. All the three characters
-- Domingo Gorrez, Emma Gorrez and Rene Rividad, disintegrate in character/ As one writer
puts it, the short story is an “angry elegy for the lost dream of self.”2

2
Ibid.

BALANI Volume 9 (August 1995), 29-32

5