“I’m leaving,” I began. Teresita was washing the dishes and now she wiped the soap suds from her hands. “I’ll go to the city tomorrow to study. Father is sending me there.”
She said nothing—she just looked at me. She turned and walked to the window that opened to the banks of the river and the fields.
“We’ll soon leave, too,” she murmured, her hands on the windowsill. “Your father sold this place, you know,” she said without emotion.
“I’m very sad.”
“There is nothing to be sad about.”
“Yes, there is,” I said. “Many things.”
She remained by the window. Outside, the night was alive with crickets.
“Won’t you go to school anymore?” I asked after a while. She did not reply, and I did not prod her for an answer.
“What course are you going to take?” she asked.
“I’m not very sure,” I said. “Maybe I’ll follow your advice.”
“Please do,” she said. “Please be a doctor.” With conviction, “You can do so much if you are one.”
I did not know what else to say.
“Don’t write to me when you are there,” she said.
“But I will.”
“Nothing will happen,” she insisted. “Besides, it will not be necessary. Thank you very much for coming to see me.”
“I have to,” I said.
She followed me to the door. The bamboo floor creaked under me. She called my name as I stepped down the first rung, and I turned momentarily to catch one last glimpse of her young, fragile face, and on it a smile, half-born, half-free.
“Please don’t write,” she reiterated, raising her hand. “It’s useless, you know.”
“But I will,” I said, and in my heart I cried, “I will, I will!”
“I’d be happier, and so would Father, if you didn’t,” she said. “And besides, I wouldn’t be able to answer your letters. Stamps cost—”
“I’ll send you some,” I said.
The smile fled from her face. “You cannot buy everything,” she said.
I headed for the gate. The children who played nearby stopped and looked at us. And in the other houses, though it was very dark, I knew the farmers and their wives watched me leave, knowing how it was going to be with us, how I would leave Teresita and thus make Father happy, how I would forget everything—the orchids I gave her that now adorned her window and that, I am sure, would someday wither, the books I lent her, which she rapaciously read, the eager laughter that welled from the depths of her. I would forget, too, how we hummed to the music of the town’s brass band and walked one sultry night from the high school to Carmay.
The night was vast and the stars were hidden by clouds. In the blackness I could not see banabas along the path, but I could imagine the purple of their blooms.
CHAPTER
17
On the morning that I left, Sepa came and thrust into my hand pieces of pan de sal with coconut syrup. The syrup had oozed, and the paper bag with which she had wrapped the bread was soiled.
“For the trip,” she said, attempting a smile.
I went down to the yard, where one of the boys had the jeep waiting. The air was heady, compounded with the clean tang of morning. The sun was mild, and one could drink it and never feel that the body was full. It touched the fading grass and gave it a tinge of jade. It glinted, too, in the leaves of the coconut palms and transformed them into a thousand blades gleaming and unsheathed. It was a beautiful day, but not for me.
Father was at the gate. When I kissed his hand, he held my chin up and said: “You’ll be all right in the city. But that’s not important. It’s the learning that counts, and the growing up.”
He dug out his gold watch from his waist pocket. “You have plenty of time,” he said. “Now listen. You are young and you don’t know many things, but do remember this: you are alone on this earth. Alone. You must act for yourself and no other. Kindness is not appreciated anymore, nor friendship. Think of yourself before you think of others. It’s a cruel world, and you have to be hard and cruel, too. They will strangle you if you don’t strangle them first. Trust no one but your judgment—and even then don’t trust too much.”
He laid a hand on my shoulder and smiled wanly. “Son,” he whispered. He had not spoken the word in a long, long time. “Be good.”
I wanted to fling my arms around his neck, tell him that I loved him, but my throat was dry. I only said, “I’ll remember, Father.”
I boarded the jeep, and we drove out into the street. I did not look back.
It was early evening when I reached Tutuban Station. The jostling crowd in the giant, gloomy building baffled me, but I had no difficulty because Cousin Andring was on the platform to greet me. When we emerged into the lobby, Old David came forward from the nameless phalanx of people. He had aged so much. I did not want him to carry my suitcase, but his grip was strong and determined.
We hurried to Cousin Andring’s jeep, which was parked outside the station, then we drove off to the suburbs. The long trip did not tire me, but in the jeep, watching the brilliant neon lights and the depressing huddle of tall buildings, I felt lost and tired.
My first days in the city were restless and uneventful. In the mornings, I’d wander around the shops or see a movie. I’d return to their house in Santa Mesa shortly before lunchtime. Tia Antonia seldom talked with me, and Old David did not have the time, either, for he was always busy in the garage or in the garden. I imagine that he purposely avoided me and busied himself whenever I went near.
Tia Antonia’s children—since most of them were already grown-up—were correct but not friendly, and, if they talked with me at all, they asked the most asinine questions.
I was very glad when, one morning, Cousin Pedring telephoned and said he would come in the afternoon to pick me up, so that I could stay in his house in Cubao until classes started. It had been ages since I saw him last, when he and Clarissa got married, and I was very glad he had not forgotten.
He had changed a lot. His girth was wider and so was his forehead.Clarissa, too, looked different from the young girl I used to know. Her cheeks were plump, and she moved about with a matriarchal dignity rather than the gay sprightliness that was her. She had three children now, the youngest a darling girl about two years old. Clarissa hummed incessantly as she prepared the supper table.
In the early evening Cousin Pedring and I got to talking about the old times, and we would have talked far into the night if he did not have a poker session with friends. He kissed Clarissa at the door, as if he were going on a long journey.
I was alone with her, and as she served me a second helping of ice cream we talked about Rosales and how it was. “That was the most beautiful wedding I have ever seen,” I said, recalling theirs.
“In a short time yours, too, will come,” she said. “And then you’ll be raising your own family. But you men never know the trouble women go through.”
I remembered the secret I had kept and decided that now was the time to get it off my chest.
“It was good you came to Rosales that vacation,” I said. “I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t come.”
“What do you think would have happened?” Her eyes lighted up.
I remember the letters postmarked Cebu, which I showed Father first, then burned. “Well,” I said, “you might have ended up marrying that fellow from Cebu and not Pedring.”
“Why do you say that?” she asked, the laughter drained from her.
“After all, he wrote to you so many times when you were in Rosales. He was very insistent, you know.”
“He did write to me?” She was incredulous.
“Yes,” I said. “But you never knew it, did you? Father told me never to tell you. As a matter of fact, I burned the letters myself.”
Her face became blank. “And I thought all along he had decided to forget. I was all wrong,” she mumbled, a faraway look in her eyes. And then her head drooped,
and her body shook with silent sobs.
“Clarissa.” I went to her. “Is there anything wrong?”
She kept sobbing for some time, and I stood before her, not knowing what to do. She looked up at me and hurriedly wiped her tears.
“Tell me,” I said. “Does Pedring beat you?”
A smile bloomed again. “Foolish!” she said, rising from her chair. She tweaked my ear. “Of course, he treats me well. He doesn’t beat me at all. Whoever gave you that idea?”
“Why are you crying, then?”
“You don’t understand,” she said. “You are too young.”
“Tell me,” I urged her. “I won’t tell your secret.”
She turned away. A trace of sadness lined her voice. “I was thinking of all those letters … and it seems as if it was only yesterday …”
“You’ve not grown up,” I said, but she did not hear, for the baby had started crying and she rushed to the crib, baby talk gushing from her lips.
Then June, and I was in college at last, engrossed with botany, zoology, chemistry, and a host of other subjects for preparatory medicine. College was an exhilarating experience, and for a time the old nagging aches were soothed and I was immersed in new interests.
Until one October afternoon: I was in the college cafeteria drinking Coke, when one of my classmates rushed to me white-faced and asked if I had seen the evening paper.
I shook my head. He thrust the front page in front of me and asked if the photograph before me was that of Father.
I could not believe what I read, how he was brought out of our house the evening before by men who were armed. The soldiers had gone after his kidnappers, so the paper reported, but they had returned empty-handed.
I rushed to the dormitory, and at the lobby I met the father dean. He must have read the story, too, and had come to tell me about it. He held my shoulders, and his cool blue eyes gazed into mine.
“You have to be brave,” he said.
I went to my room and shut the door. No tears came; a tightness gripped my chest, and I could not breathe. I lay on my cot and could not think.
At dusk Cousin Marcelo and Tia Antonia came mouthing platitudes. “Maybe,” they said, “the men did not harm him.” Cousin Pedring came, too, with Clarissa. He said he would leave for Rosales the following morning.
I did not go down for supper. My roommate came in shortly before lights-out and brought me a glass of warm milk and crackers.
After Three Days, Cousin Pedring came, the grime of travel still on his face. There was no news at all about Father. Then, after a week, a tenant stumbled upon Father in the delta. He had died terribly, said Cousin Marcelo, who came with the news. The body bore more than a dozen bolo wounds. The day they found Father, they buried him beside Mother’s grave.
“You do not have to go home,” Cousin Marcelo said. “There’s nothing you can do now.”
“But I’m going home,” I told him, suddenly aware that it was now my duty to look after his ledgers, the farm. “I’d like to look at the papers.”
“Yes, of course,” Cousin Marcelo said. “Now you have to study a lot of things and make decisions.” He looked ruefully at me. “And you … so young and not even through with school.”
But it would not do for me to stay in Rosales anymore; everywhere I would turn, there would always be something familiar, yet alien.
“You’ll be free now,” Cousin Marcelo said. “You must not be like your father. He was a slave to what he owned. You must begin again—that is most important.”
Words meant not to be heard, a few drops of rain on parched ground.
We arrived at the station at dusk. No one met us but the baggage boys, who recognized me at once. They gathered around, and one got hold of my canvas bag, while another hurried down the platform to hail a calesa. They did not speak much.
Even the calesa driver did not speak until we were close to home. Cousin Marcelo placed a salapi in his palm, and as we got down, he turned to me and said he was sorry about what had happened. Sepa could not contain herself when she saw me coming up the stairs. She waddled down and exclaimed: “You are so tall!” Then she broke down and cried. Cousin Marcelo held her shoulder, then freed me from her. I did not cry; for a long time now I have not tasted the salt of tears. Darkness fell quickly, and since it was too late to go to the cemetery, I hastened to my old room and unpacked.
The supper that Sepa prepared was excellent—roasted eggplant, crab and meat stew—but I had no appetite. I went to the azotea. Sepa followed me; she had lighted her hand-rolled cigar.
“Tell me,” I asked after some silence. “What has become of the people in Carmay? Who did it? Surely you have an idea.”
“I do not know,” she said feebly. She leaned on the azotea ledge and turned away. “I’m just an old, worthless woman imprisoned in the kitchen. All I know is this: death hides now, not only in the delta but in Carmay as well.”
“Will they kill me, too?”
“Drive the thought away,” the old woman said. “You are young and good, and you have no enemies.”
“And Father was old and bad and he had a hundred?”
Sepa flung her cigar away. In the soft dark I could make out her face. Her voice was sharp, “Your father was good. He was not seen clearly, that’s all. Now don’t let such thoughts grow lush in your mind. Drive them away quickly.”
Silence again.
“Tell me, what has happened to the people in Carmay?”
“There are a hundred people there,” she said, “and all of them are still alive.” Then she must have guessed what I wanted to know. “You are asking about Teresita?”
“I wrote to her many times,” I said. “She never answered. Not even once.”
“She died last month,” Sepa said softly. She shifted her weight on the ledge. “The old sickness in her family …”
I could not speak for some time. The old woman prattled on: “It wasn’t much of a funeral. I wanted someone to write a letter to you, but I couldn’t find anyone I could trust.”
“Maybe,” I said after another uneasy silence, “it’s better this way. She won’t suffer anymore.”
Sepa grunted: “Yes, death is a blessing. People who grow old should remember that. How is David?”
“I didn’t see him when I left,” I said. “Tia Antonia must be taking good care of him. He’s well, I suppose. I visited Tia Antonia often. But Old David, he always seemed busy. He avoided me. At first, it was difficult; I couldn’t understand. I do now.”
She grunted again.
“You have no news about Angel? Where is he now?”
“He’s lost,” Sepa said without emotion. “He is a soldier. But he is no problem, really, the way she is.”
“Who?” I asked, leaning over to hear her every word.
“Your father’s woman. It must be very sad, being cooped up in that house by the river, unable to show her face …”
“How did you know?” I asked. Sepa did not answer; she stood up shaking her head and left me to the night.
Morning came to Rosales in a flood of sunlight. I woke up, a stranger to my old room but not to the happy sounds of morning, the barking of dogs in the street and the cackling of hens in the yard. Cousin Marcelo was in the sala, waiting.
“I know my way to the cemetery,” I said.
He pressed my arm. “All right then, if you want to go alone. But be sure to be back as soon as you can. We have many things to talk about. You are an heir, remember.”
Breakfast was waiting. I took a small cup of chocolate, then went down to the street. Day was clear, and the sky was swept clean and blue with but wisps of clouds pressed flat against its rim. The banabas along the road seemed greener maybe because my eyes had so long been dulled by the dirty browns and grays of the city. Housewives were hanging their wash in their yards, and their half-naked children played in the street, their runny noses outlined in dirt. The day smelled good with the witchery of October, the tingling sun. Tomorrow, it would probabl
y rain.
It was a long walk to the cemetery. The morning etched clearly all the white crosses and the gumamela shrubs that the grave watchers tended. I walked through narrow paths between the tombs, past the small chapel in the center of the cemetery, beyond which was Mother’s tomb, and now Father’s, too.
A woman was bent before the white slab of stone, and, as she turned I caught a view of her face. I was not mistaken—it was Father’s woman. When she saw me, she stood up and walked swiftly away. I followed her with my eyes, until she disappeared behind a sprout of cogon that hid the road.
I went to the tomb and picked up the bouquet she had left—a simple bundle of sampaguitas—then placed it back on the slab. It was not yet completely dry, and the gray cement that the masons had left unleavened still cluttered the base.
I remembered my first visit, Father’s quavering voice again: Nena, I’ve brought your son to you now that he is old enough.
I must see her, tell her it’s useless harboring ill will. I hurried from the warren of white crosses and headed for the river, down a gully, and along the riverbed until I came to another gully beyond where she lived.
The footpath was widened by carabaos that went down to the river to bathe, and beyond the bank was her house. It looked shabby from the outside, with its grass roof and buri walls already bleached and battered. A bamboo gate was at the end of the narrow path. I pushed it open.
Within the yard, I called: “Man. There’s a man. Good morning.”
No answer. I went up the bamboo stairs. From the half-open door I could see the narrow living room furnished with three rattan chairs, a coffee table with crocheted doilies, and some magazines. A Coleman lamp dangled from the beam above the room. In a corner was a table clock and a sewing machine. A vase with wilted gumamelas was on a mahogany dresser near the open window.
“Man. There’s a man,” I repeated. Still no answer.
In the room that adjoined the sala, someone stirred.
Don Vicente Page 18