They now traveled in the daytime, following the dusty road, just like the other carts leaving the Ilokos, carrying settlers like themselves, looking for land, free land. Land! What a melancholy and elusive word!
Sometimes they would come across a telegraph pole that had leaned and the wires were within reach. If there was no one to witness it, Ba-ac lashed at the wires with his bolo till they were sundered. “Don’t tell them about us,” he would say hoarsely.
In many places, the road was nothing but a swath of dust which swirled up like a funnel when the day was hot. These funnels sometimes loomed ahead, and once they were caught in one and could see nothing as dust enveloped them, and with it, this hot wind that seemed to suck everything. What a sea of mud the road would be in the rainy season! In some places, however, were cobbles of brick, but these only covered brief stretches of the road. Before the approaches of a town, they would head toward the nearest village instead to spend the night there, using the wells and the stoves of kindly Ilokanos.
It finally rained a week after they had raced down that hilltop. Every afternoon, the clouds had gathered and darkened but no rain fell. Now, gusts of wind tore down upon them and the clouds that had thickened on the rim of the sky loomed—a black and massive wave about to engulf them. Raindrops, big as pebbles, thudded on the dust and shook the grass. Then it came in slanting sheets, covering everything, and they could no longer see what lay ahead, the shapes of trees, the paths that now turned into rivulets of brown.
They had stopped to put up the detached palm frond doors of the carts, but the wind lashed against the doors, against the walls of the carts, and sent the rain through the tiny slits of bamboo siding, through cracks in the disheveled roofs. The children asked if they could go outside and bathe, and were quickly given permission.
It was May at last, and the first rain had a special magic. They must bathe in it, wash their clothes in it, drink it. Mayang laid her pots outside till they were full, and after the children had bathed, the older folk went out, too. Istak went out without his shirt, his ribs protruding. An-no and Bit-tik were with the girls who had joined them and he could see them through the rain, laughing and joking. Maybe An-no had already forgotten Dalin.
Dalin was close by, bathing the bull, scrubbing its white hide. She was wet and her hair came down behind her in dripping strands. Her wet blouse clung to her body and in the rain he saw her breasts, the nipples dark and distinct. She turned to him briefly and smiled.
He gazed at her, at the skirt that clung to her legs. He admired her, seeing for the first time the fullness of her body. A pleasant sensation coursed through him—desire, just as he had once desired the daughters of Capitán Berong when they would bend before him so that he could see their breasts. Then they would face him while the blood rushed to his face, smile at him, and he would stammer, unable to continue with his teaching.
But the daughters of Capitán Berong were beyond the compass of his imagination. He was from Po-on and they were fair of skin, unreachable; the men who could claim them would not be brown like him.
Dalin was brown.
They stopped that night in a mango grove close to the road and a village where the women went to cook. The firewood that they had strapped behind the carts was drenched and would not kindle. It stopped raining shortly after sunset and the smell of earth blessed with rain, the leaves still dripping, was about them. The whole world was alive and breathing.
They gathered the carts in a semicircle and put the cambaos and the bull within the are, and while the men talked the women prepared their meal or hung their wet clothes on the maguey twine which they strung from cart to cart. They cooked rice and vegetables for the next day’s breakfast as well so that all they would have to cook in the morning would be the coffee to warm their stomachs before they started out again. They had one more mountain to cross and the trails through the forest would be tortuous and slippery, but thank God, they were now free from the land of the Bagos.
Earlier in the evening, An-no had found a kutibeng in one of the carts and was strumming it. Ever since Dalin had taken Istak into her cart, An-no must have concluded it was no longer possible for him to possess her. It was just as well, for there was this girl Orang. She had a younger sister, but Orang was more mature, although flat-chested, and her eyes were always bright. Now, in the dark, Istak could hear his younger brother singing an old ballad, and the words were meant for Orang.
Since his recovery, Istak no longer slept in the cart but beneath it. Tonight, however, the ground was wet and Dalin told him to come up. He had demurred. “They are already saying many things about us, how I have been taking care of you,” she said. “Would it matter if we slept together now?”
He did not go to sleep at once. She sat before the cart looking out into the night, listening to the laughter in some of the carts, the mooing of carabaos. Cicadas called from the black shroud of trees around them, and beyond the shroud, in the open field, fireflies winked at them. The cooking fires of the houses beyond the grass kept them company as well.
It was cool, not like in the past when he was forced to take off his shirt, and this he had done with great difficulty because the wound, though healed, did not allow him easy movement. He needed a blanket now. Dalin faced him and their legs touched.
“Soon you will get back all the strength that you lost. I am happy,” she said.
“You will really go with us wherever we go?”
She did not speak; he could not see her eyes but knew she was looking at him. Then she turned and lay down beside him. She had turned on her side and so did he.
“I will decide when we get there,” she said.
“Suppose I asked you to stay with me …”
“You are not a farmer,” she said quietly. “I knew that from the very beginning. I do not think you can stay long on a farm. Not that you will not work.”
“I cannot be anything now but a farmer.”
“You can teach. You know many things we don’t know.”
“There is no place for people like us except the farm, Dalin,” he said. “Or the road, or the sea.”
She asked him how his arm was. He lay on his back and extended it to her. He could move it but the shoulder reminded him of a greater pain each time he lifted his arm.
She felt the scar with her hand. He liked the feel of that hand on his shoulder and impulsively, he turned and held it.
She understood. “You are not yet strong,” she said. “There are still many things you cannot do.”
He could feel himself stirring, the blood rushing to the tips of his fingers.
“I am not a virgin anymore,” she said with some sadness.
“You will be my first,” he said.
He kissed her, but she pushed him away tenderly.
He could not leash the animal stirring, he could not stop. His hands groped for her, found her warm and trembling, but she would not let him. “You are not yet strong,” she whispered into his ear as she half rose, looming so close, her face almost touching his. Then she kissed him and he tasted her lips, felt her tongue probe into his mouth.
“Don’t move then,” she told him. “I will do everything for you. And then, when you are strong …”
“You are the first,” Istak said again, then there were no more words.
So this is how two bodies melt into one, a communion, a celebration. This is what he had longed for and would have missed had he entered the seminary. He was a weakling after all, unable to withstand the devil call of the flesh. They were not even married—this was what he was taught, this was what he knew. Yet, within his deepest conscience, this was not wrong. It was bound to be, not temptation, but fate that brought them together, not just her stumbling into Po-on but her going back to the village to take him away from the avid clutch of death. She had given him life, now she was giving herself to him as well.
He slept well afterward, then woke up to the twitter of birds and the scurrying all around him, the boys hitching the ca
rts, the women collecting children, animals, and clothes, getting ready to move. The pots had all been washed and he had slept through it all. He pretended sleep when Dalin went inside the cart and looked at him. The cart started to move, the solid wooden wheels squeaking. The children were talking about the falling star that night. Think of your birthday—and your wish will come true.
The air had a freshness to it; clean and washed, it flowed inside the cart. Dalin’s back was before him and he remembered how he had embraced her, felt the smooth fall of her shoulders, the softness of her breasts.
“Dalin,” he whispered.
She turned to him, her face radiant as morning.
“Thank you,” he said gratefully.
“Are you hungry?”
He nodded.
“There is rice in the pot—it is still warm and the coffee is still hot. There is also a piece of dried meat on top of the rice.”
He rose, squatted behind her, and ate. Occasionally, she turned to him, still holding the bull’s lead, and watched him. They were in the middle of the caravan and his mother was walking up ahead. The grass was wet and the ground was still solid, but in many places mud had already formed and the prints of carabao hooves on the mud were indistinct now. One more caravan like theirs and the road would turn into a quagmire.
He got off the cart when he was through eating and caught up with his mother, who had lifted her skirt to her knees so that it would not be soiled.
He wanted to tell her about Dalin. She must have expected it. Before he could speak, she asked, “How is Dalin?”
“Why do you ask, Inang?”
She turned to him briefly, her face burned by sun and lined by years of work, the eyes sharp and sad at the same time, streaks of white on the hair knotted at her nape.
“She is good,” she said quietly. “This I must say—in spite of all my forebodings. You cannot find a better woman. She works very hard. She has done so much for you at a time when I could not look after you. Your father, he is old and tired and very angry. Do you know what I am trying to say?”
He nodded slowly.
“Dalin is good for you. Take care of her,” his mother said, “and she will reward you.”
It rained every afternoon and they stopped in the villages until the rain passed. Ba-ac was often seized by fits of anger, and as if he were mad, he would shout his curses to the wind: Cunts of your mothers, you are evil like lightning. What have I done to you? Why are you doing this to us? You will have your time, you will pay! And not just with your blood. We will chop you bit by bit, your balls and your penises, we will throw them to the dogs. Cunts of your mothers!
Mayang did not stop his ranting anymore. She would just wait until he quieted down, his breathing heavy and tired, his eyes wet with tears. Seeing him like this, Mayang often cried. The children were too young to understand, but the other farmers and their wives understood. They were silent, for the old man’s anger was also theirs; he was just giving shape to the emotions that flamed in their hearts but could not burst out—neither words nor deeds nor yet light in their minds to show them how they could truly be themselves and not be hounded—helpless creatures that they were.
There were more towns now and every time they approached one, they would circle away from it. An-no, Bit-tik, or their uncles and the older boys walked ahead of the caravan. The road had become muddier as the days lengthened into a week.
Then, one morning, the Guardia came upon them—eight mounted soldiers with a Spanish officer, their rifles slung on their shoulders. They descended upon them from the rear so quickly they seemed to have appeared like phantoms from the grass. The men were brown like them, except for their officer.
Ba-ac, who was in the lead cart, happened to be asleep; he had stood guard the night before and was about to rise at the shout of “¡Alto! ¡Alto!” but Mayang quickly pushed him back and covered him with a blanket.
Istak was holding the leash of the bull out front when the Spanish officer rode past him and, briefly, their eyes locked. Capitán Gualberto did not recognize Istak, although Istak knew him at once. Who could miss his short-cropped hair, that aquiline nose, and those eyes that seemed to burn with perpetual hate? But Istak was no longer the acolyte who had served him in the kumbento in Cabugaw; he was now emaciated and pale as if he had just been snatched from the grave.
The Guardia had apparently been riding for some time; their blue uniforms were dirty and their horses were panting and wet with sweat. In his heavily accented Ilokano, Capitán Gualberto asked Blas, who was nearest to him, where they came from. Ba-ac’s cousin meekly told the truth, “Candon.”
And where were they going? “To the valley.”
“Your cédula, your cédula,” the Spanish officer barked.
From the wall of the cart, Blas took a small pouch and within was a piece of paper carefully wrapped with cloth; he presented it with trembling hands to the Spaniard, who glanced at it, then handed it back.
Istak felt his chest caving in, his knees giving out. Now the officer would ask for the cédulas of the others, now they would be found out and most probably killed right there.
But Capitán Gualberto did no such thing; one cédula seemed enough. He ordered them to dismount—all of them—and when they had dismounted, he rode to each cart and peered within. At the lead cart, he paused briefly to look at Ba-ac covered with a rough blanket, the face haggard, the eyes closed in sleep. “He is very ill,” Mayang, who stood by, told him.
Not one of the Guardia had dismounted; they formed a line beside the caravan while Capitán Gualberto continued his inspection. There was nothing of value in the carts, just the usual provisions of poor farmers, until his eyes rested on Blas’s two girls, first at the younger, then the older; his eyes widened and a grin crossed his face.
He asked Orang to step out of the line, and when she did, he looked at her again, her youth, her good limbs. The soldiers knew what to expect next and they were laughing boisterously. Blas was now livid with fear and anger, but a soldier drew a gun on him. His wife started to cry, and so did the younger sister. An-no, who stood by, knew what was going to happen, too, and though the darkest thoughts rushed to his mind, if he as much as moved a hand he would be shot, as Istak had been.
Dismounting, the Spaniard took the frightened girl’s hand while the other soldiers kept guard over the caravan. He led her across the empty field stubbled with grass to where a patch of cogon sprouted. The soldiers joked and laughed and made obscene remarks; they were Ilokanos, too, but to Istak, they were no longer men but beasts; it was they who had burned Po-on, who had left him for dead. He heard himself repeating his father’s curses.
CHAPTER
7
They were at the dusky rim of the jungle again. The tall razor grass was greener now and would no longer ignite as easily as it did during the height of the dry season. This portion of the road was rarely used, for in the last town most of the travelers stopped and from there they boarded the boats to the coast of Pangasinan, its towns rich with coconuts, fish, and salt.
The girl, Orang, did not want to join them anymore. She was sixteen and could read the alphabet and write her name, Leonora, that was all. All of them, they were going to learn to read and write with Istak teaching them. But now she wanted to kill herself, to drown in the first river they would cross, or to stay behind and work in any village as a servant, but not to go with them with her shame. The women—Mayang more than the rest—stayed with her through the night, soothing her, telling her it was not her doing, that no one among them could have stopped the dastardly deed.
When they started out the following morning, she was gone. She had slipped away in the night and they searched for her in the gullies, behind the mounds and the tall grass, shouting her name, their shouts echoing in the morning stillness. Orannggg … but the only answer was the sighing of the wind.
They could not leave without her.
It was An-no who found her weeping bitterly in the shade of a culibambang t
ree up the rise of ground where the foothills lifted. He had heard her and when he appeared, her weeping turned into a loud sobbing. He put his hand on her shoulder to comfort her. She shuddered and stiffened.
An-no rushed back to the caravan and told them she was all right, that he would bring her back. When he returned she was no longer weeping, but tears still streamed down her face and her eyes were swollen. She wore a shapeless skirt and blouse which her mother had woven.
“You must leave with us,” An-no said, kneeling before her but not touching her.
She looked away. “And you will all regard me as if I were dirty and you would not want me among you. All of you …”
“Why do you say this, Orang? Haven’t we suffered enough? Look at mc, don’t you think I feel so small because I could not help you? And if I did would I be here today? Begging you to come back? Manong Istak—he did not even raise a hand against them and they shot him. He can speak Spanish, I told you. He pleaded with them. Did they show him any mercy?”
“I cannot face anyone.”
“Look at me, Orang,” An-no told her. “Look at me or I will hold your face and force you to look at mc.”
She turned to him slowly, sorrow in her eyes.
“You are a woman now,” An-no said. “If I ask that you live with me when we reach the valley, will you do that? I will protect you and pray that no evil will happen to you again.”
“You will not take a soiled rag,” she said. “You will want something clean.”
“You are not soiled.”
“I am now.”
“Not to me. Not to me. You are pure and you are going to be my wife …”
She turned away again, but this time she was no longer crying.
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