My Grandmother and The Talking Pig.

A childhood story.

When I was a child and felt so young, my grandmother told me stories about the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. I solicited these stories, usually at bed time, at times when she was sick and I thought a good distraction was needed, and often over her oily and delicious home-cooked meals. This form of storytelling between me and my grandmother was the closest to a literary childhood I could get. In a small province, we lived in a straw but solid hut that lay between the sooty squatter areas and the people who lived better off. We floated somewhere in between, and the little money that we had was spent on the essentials. Needless to say, I didn’t grow up around many books. Apo, my grandmother, solely relied on her fantastic(al) stories about her life to satiate my hunger for stories.

There was that story with the talking pig.

In the middle of the night, my grandmother and my mother ran away from the Japanese. Apo described it as an exodus of people running stealthily to the mountains to hide from an army who looted, killed and raped women.My grandmother and my mom, alongside the other villagers, left their home from imminent danger. Away from the main roads, they had to the walk up a path where the grass grew tall and brown. And that’s were they met the talking pig who would not let them through.

As a child, I don’t think I was very gullible. I think I was pretty damn analytical and critical of whatever story I was told. I remember asking her: Is this true? You’re lying, Apo. Was there really a talking pig? Why didn’t it want to let you pass? Why was it talking? I bugged her until she told me the truth (or maybe a half truth). A part of me didn’t believe her story, but the susceptive child in me listened in fascination.

Her eyes would widen and look at me affronted by an inquiry that questioned her integrity. “Uwa, tutu!” Yes, it’s all true, she would say.

The pig wouldn’t let them through, according to Apo, because there was an army on the crossroad. If the pig had let them through, my grandmother, my mother, and the others hiding behind the tall, brown, grass would have been captured — and probably killed or abused — by the Japanese.Once the group of soldiers passed, the pig released a guttural oink and let my grandmother and the rest run safely up to the mountains.

My Apo told (and retold) this story to me as a little boy. It’s not quite The Riddle of The Sphinx. But the story did its job: It put me to bed when I couldn’t go to sleep. It passed time whenever there was a blackout and I was frightened of the darkness that surrounded us in our hut.

It kept me asking for more stories, real or not. Anything to stimulate my imagination. Most importantly, it became a means for me and my grandmother to connect. Storytelling brought us closer together. In my mind’s eye, her life stories vividly replay themselves. Forever, I will remember Apo’s stories and the warm, gentle voice that told them.