We arrive at a set of double glass doors. Inside, on a marble pillar, hangs the sign we saw the day before. We step forward. The doors whoosh open. We’re in.
Greenbelt air is cold, the coldest air ever, and why are the shoppers’ faces so narrow and pointy and white? Back and forth across the shiny rows of shiny stores, up and down the escalators, these are the whitest Filipinos we have ever seen. No one regards us when we pass, as if we are the ghostly ones, not them.
We don’t know where to go, not at first, so we follow a group of teenaged girls not much older than us. We whistle at them, make catcalls, and though they keep their distance we stay close, and finally they lead us to a store whose name we have seen before but never said aloud — Louis Vuitton. The girls walk through the doors, but we stop just short of them, surveying the scene inside: skinny men with slicked-back hair stand behind long display cases full of leather bags and wallets, some so special they require their own glass encasement; women coo over them, like nurses in a room full of newborn babies. Light comes from every corner, giving the entire store a butter-colored glow, and when we finally step inside, we seem to light up too.
One of the skinny men, safe behind a row of leather briefcases, welcomes us with a meaningless nod. A woman who could be his twin sister approaches, heels clacking against the floor like a ticking clock. “Can I help you?” she asks.
We shake our heads no.
“Is there nothing I can help you find?” she asks. It may be a trick question; her eyes shift toward the security guard standing by the door.
We tell her we’re looking for a present, something special for our aunt, and before she can offer phony customer service we disperse, spread ourselves throughout the store, upstairs to the Men’s Universe, downstairs to the Women’s Universe, and we even infiltrate a room called the Private Salon, where two of the skinny men show a set of leather wallets to an old woman sitting in the middle of a three-person sofa, a teacup in her hand. The skinny men look up, their faces full of dismay. “Can I help you?” they ask together, but it’s the old woman who tells us to leave. In another reality, Auntie Fritzie would be this woman on the sofa. Though she scolds, belittles, and hits us constantly, it would be nice to see her sitting in something pillowy and warm. Such a moment might soften her; perhaps she would be easier for us to please.
“I said leave,” the woman repeats.
We do not move, not for several moments. Not until we’re ready.
Finally, we go.
We exit the Private Salon, return to the main floor. We gather at a corner display of what a sign calls “weekend bags.” They are leather bags with long leather straps, with buttons, buckles, and rivets, all gold, everywhere. The price of even the smallest ones startles us. We have no idea what that kind of money could buy, how much of it, but the possibilities seem endless.
A few of us walk to the front of the store, pretend to accidentally knock over a rack of coin purses. Diversion created, the rest of us unzip our satchels and pull out plastic bags containing the bodies of small dead birds. We had heard that an aviary once stood on the land Greenbelt occupies now; imagine all those homeless birds, how they aimlessly flew, how swiftly they perished. Where we live, dead birds are everywhere: on the ground and in mounds of trash; they even make their way, somehow, into Auntie Fritzie’s daily collections. The bodies are ashen, gray with death, dirt, dried-up blood, and exposed organs. Some crawl with fleas and lice. Carefully, without touching them, we drop a bird into the smallest compartment of each travel bag, one by one by one. When we finish, we slip out of the store, as easily as we entered.
We walk away twenty paces, then turn back toward Louis Vuitton. We imagine the people who will find these birds, how they will first mistake them for balls of thread or yarn, wads of unexpected dust. But when they look closer, they will blink several times, shudder, then scream at the thing they hold in their hands.
We leave Louis Vuitton behind, continue through Greenbelt 4, passing stores with nonsensical names — BVLGARI, BOTTEGA VENETTA — and others that sound like a sneeze — GUCCI, Jimmy Choo. Whole families drift in and out of them — what small boy needs Norwegian perfume? What stink could he possibly possess to require so expensive a scent? We might be angered if we weren’t so baffled, so for a time we simply ride the escalators and observe the wastefulness all around us. We ride up, we ride down, over and over, and sometimes glimpse ourselves in the mall’s many mirrored surfaces. In certain moments, one wall reflects another, multiplying us as we ascend and descend, ascend and descend, as if there are hundreds of us, maybe thousands, seemingly everywhere, going nowhere.
From Greenbelt 4 we go to 5. On an empty bench we find a promotional pamphlet, with a customer testimonial that says, Greenbelt 5 — it’s like you’re not in the Philippines! We crumple it up, toss it in the trash, then peer through a storefront window and watch a white-faced Filipino couple purchase jewel-tipped shoes and a gold-framed oil painting in the same transaction, while their small daughters play games and send text messages on their hi-tech phones. We leave this scene and walk down a row of stores, then stop at one we recognize, Kenneth Cole, because Auntie Fritzie once found a barely scuffed coin purse bearing a tag with the same name, a prized possession even now. But their window displays perturb us: each features a group of silver mannequins dressed in black and gray evening wear, some lounging about in twisty wire chairs, other posed to look as if they are in midconversation. But they’re all headless, and we don’t understand this. So we step inside the near-empty store, and find a tiny-bodied salesgirl folding black satin shirts into perfect rectangles. She looks up, startled. “Can I help you?” she asks, a question we are already so tired of, but this time we say yes, and we ask: Where are the heads? What did she or her manager or Kenneth Cole himself do with them, and why are they not connected to their bodies? She blinks, shakes her head, says, “Excuse me?” We repeat our questions and she answers, “You need to leave.” We do not. Instead, we come closer, catching sight of ourselves in the concave security mirror in the upper corner of the ceiling: a circle of black figures surrounding one small girl, closing in, no chance of escape. Does she know how often we feel this way, between our cardboard walls, beneath our low corrugated roofs? Does she understand?
“Please go,” she says.
We are done here, so one by one we uncircle the girl, exit Kenneth Cole single file, and en route to the door we clear our throats and spit out loogies on a row of leather gloves displayed palms up.
We charge through the rest of Greenbelt 5, entering and exiting any store we choose. Our presence baffles every salesman and woman; we never make our intentions clear. In Banana Republic, we stand in a line, trying on the same safari jacket one at a time, then leave it rumpled on the floor. In Prizmic & Brill, we take turns sitting on every chair for sale, but quickly, so as not to become too comfortable. We insert ourselves among the crowd of pregnant women inside Havin’ a Baby, then gather around an empty white cradle, which we rock back and forth as we remember dead babies we have known. At Spex, we ignore the glasses on display and simply look at ourselves in the lit-up mirrors, the mysteriousness of our dark glasses, our facelessness beneath. Then, when we pass Rolex, we pay our respects: not long before, a group of armed men robbed the store, smashing and smashing with the ends of their guns every glass case of watches. Most escaped, but one was shot dead by Greenbelt security. The news reports said he was someone like us, a man who tried to change his life. We imagine him splayed on the store’s doorstep, his blood congealing on the ground beneath his dying body.