The Devil Flower

by Emigdio Alvarez Enriquez

  May came laden with flowers. The days were hot with the breath of summer, but the evenings were cool and heavy with sampaguita and ylang-ylang perfumes, and when the moon shone, the open wharf with its potted plants and park benches was gay with people—the young women wearing blossoms in their hair or around their necks, the young men walking beside them strumming guitars. It was the time of the year when young hearts were softest, and Ercelia often fancied Larry among the men, heard his voice in their voices, his laughter in their laughter.

  But it was June when Larry came. He came at the season of fruits—with the juicy mango and juani, the meaty marang and the smelly durian. And he did not come to her at her home, nor at the schoolhouse where she expected him. He took her by surprise, coming suddenly upon her where she had no thought of his coming.

  It was on the feast day of St. John the Baptist—the day the town turned out for a wetting. All along the beaches, in swimming pools, and in the rivers were people making merry. Ercelia chose to go to the Pasonanca River, far away from the town, seven kilometers into the hills. She could not swim in the pool in the park because she did not dare put on the modem swimming suit that left the body exposed. She would swim in the river in her native wrap-around, the loose garment that covered her from her armpits to below the knees.

  She never learned how Larry knew where she was, but suddenly there he was, alighting from a car at the foot of the staircase to the resthouse. He was a ridiculous sight-drenched to the skin and dripping with water. The khaki suit he wore clung to his lean frame like a rubber glove. Children on the roadside along the way had given him a dousing. Ercelia’s heart skipped at sight of him. How handsome he looked, how manly! But when she caught Larry’s eyes on her, the laugh froze on her mouth and she darted in among the guava bushes like a frightened mouse. Then, recovering from her childish impulsiveness, she pretended to hunt for guavas.

  She heard him coming; the twigs breaking under his heels sent shivers through her body. She spied a big yellow fruit overhead and was reaching for it when his arms shot out and grabbed it for her. “I have it,” he said, looking down on her, and as she looked at him, her eyes melting into his, his arms drew her quickly to him and his lips came down on her mouth.

  For a moment she was helpless and she let him kiss her, then she pushed him away. “Please, Larry, I am a teacher. People may come by any time.”

  “You can stop being a schoolteacher and marry me,” he told her.

  “I cannot go with you, Larry, I told you why. Did you need to come and make it hard for me, for us both?” She spoke hurriedly, in one breath, as if someone were running after her.

  “Because I don’t understand why it need be so, Ercelia. You are better with me. I heard about your father’s death and the manner in which he died. I know why you changed your mind.” Touching her face and looking down at her, “Why did you not tell me, Ercelia? Didn’t you think I loved you enough? I have been told about Don Miguel. Everybody knows what kind of a man he was, and I should be the last to doubt you, if that was what you were afraid of, because I know it is me you love, not him. How could you for one moment doubt my faith, Ercelia?”

  His arms went slowly around her body, softly, tenderly, caressingly. “But now, you will come with me, Ercelia. You will, won’t you? Say you will, Ercelia.” He brushed his lips very lightly against her cheeks.

  She felt the long, strong muscles of his body gather her to him coaxingly, and her flesh lifted with desire to meet his body. Then she began to shake in his embrace. “No, Larry,” she said hoarsely, “I cannot go with you. I must stay here. I am needed here. I did not doubt you, Larry. I did not mention my father’s death to you because—it had nothing to do with my reasons for not going with you, and I did not want to make it hard for you to leave me.”

  A frown suddenly creased Larry’s forehead, and his arms relaxed from around her. Pushing her to arm’s length and looking into her eyes, he said severely, “You are a stubborn, spoiled child, used to having your own way; you are capricious and cruel. You made me wait two long years, and I have gone through all the torture of waiting, and for what?” She felt his hands closing like a vise on her wrists. “I will not let you get away with it, do you hear? I won’t. I won’t let you play with me.” Then drawing her fiercely to him, he kissed her angrily on the mouth, a hand wrenching loose her wrap-around and grabbing her breast.

  “Larry, what are you doing?” she gasped, awkwardly trying to cover her exposure. “You are hurting me.”

  “I am going to hurt you. I am going to ruin you,” he said, tumbling her to the ground with him. “This is what you need. This is what you have been asking for.”

  His hands were all over her, seeking her body like hungry men scavenging in a dark back alley. But he did not frighten her. The rough contact of his hard body against her, his lusty kiss only kindled her body into flames. He was magnificent in his passionate anger. How she loved him and ached for him to take her! She loved everything of that moment, his brutal strength, her helplessness, his vengefulness. The clothes on his body clung to his skin wetly, and his swollen body made him feel naked against her.

  “Scream, Ercelia,” he whispered hotly in her ear, pinning her down with his legs and body. “Scream, and let people find you here with me like this,” he said tauntingly.

  Her body stiffened, and she clenched her fists, grabbing the earth to keep her from throwing her arms around him. He dug a hand farther under her loosened garment, reaching down to her soft navel, down to her sensitive belly, until his fingers found her. At his touch her resistance almost fell. She was seized with a violent spasm. She closed her eyes tight and a little moan escaped her lips involuntarily as she trembled on the verge of collapsing.

  “Don’t be afraid, Ercelia, I love you. I shall be very, very gentle. I only want to marry you and make you happy—”

  Suddenly her eyes flew open, her body was chilled; it was as if cold water had been splashed over her. She had no right to be happy! She had no right to marry Larry, ever! “I can’t, I can’t marry you, Larry,” she gasped, frantically trying to squirm from under his weight.

  “Oh, yes, you can,” Larry said, tightening his hold on her determinedly.

  But Ercelia looked squarely into his eyes: “I cannot fight you, Larry. You are very strong. But if you ruin me a hundred times, I will not marry you. I won’t, I promise you I won’t!” She spoke the words with passionate and deliberate force. Larry stared at her for a moment. Then slowly his arms relaxed, the strength flowing out of them like water from a rubber bag. A strange look came into his face. His mouth twisted and his lips became as white as if he had drunk vinegar. For a moment there was only his heavy breathing between them, then he rolled off her body and sat on the sod beside her in silence.

  She could almost feel him trying to pick out the loose ends of his thoughts from his crowded mind. Then, as if giving up, he got to his feet and walked rapidly away without once looking back.

  And that was the last time she had seen him—walking away, his broad shoulders resolutely squared, his lean body as tight in his clothes as his feelings must have been. Her heart had followed him, her thoughts had clung to him, and her flesh had cleaved to the memory of his touch, but she had watched him go, without a cry, without a sob. Only in dreams had she called to him, only in dreams had she felt him enfolding her, shutting off the world around her.

  His letter in July had filled those dreams with brilliant colors:

  “My shame is unspeakable,” he wrote. “At first I felt very bitter. I had schemed madly how to make you come with me, even as I did once before and failed. Trusting that you loved me, I felt that this time I would succeed. I shall not ask you to forgive me for attempting it a second time. I love you so desperately and if I knew there was a chance I would succeed, I would try it again. But loving you, I cannot do anything that might make you lose your love for me, or cause you to be ashamed of yourself. Your happiness is above all that I cherish. I cannot bear that you shal
l wilt in my clumsy hands. I have been selfish. I know now that the test of proving my love rests with me—although you have never demanded it. Rather than try to uproot you from your loyalties, I should surrender because I love you. I love you with your fragrant boughs and your dews, with the treble of bird songs in your throat and the harvest dance in your steps. I will desist but I shall come back to you. I shall come back and we shall five here together. I too belong here. I too am a Filipino and belong under these skies. I belong by these seas although my skin is light and my eyes are brown. I will come back to you. I will, Ercelia.”

  She had shivered with passion as she read this. She had always known, she told herself, that he was so sensitive; that under his laughing, reckless banter he was fine and kind and tender!

  He had written her from Shanghai, and then from Kobe and Honolulu and San Francisco—all the way to Colorado. His letters had been enthusiastic and ardent. The new world was fascinating in every way, “but ‘sweet are the hours in one’s native land,’ my Maria Clara, and my heart is attuned to your harp strings,” he had said. “The women of America are lovely, far lovelier than I expected. But they do not have your kind of charm, your sweet, modest charm, your charm that clings shyly and makes a man feel he is master, that makes him carefully tender because his woman is frail.” His letters had trembled in her hands as she read them, each one giving her something to build a dream on.

  But she had never dared to write back. She had hardened herself against her longings even as she had hardened herself while lying helpless in his embrace. Annoyed by her silence, he had written: “Remember how I held you in my arms in the schoolhouse? Last night I dreamed of you, and again you were close. I can still feel your hand upon me, touching shyly my burning body while I breathed in the fragrance of your breasts. How can you forget me?”

  But fire could continue only when there was something new to bum. With nothing to feed on, Larry’s fire had slowly died to embers, to ashes. And the ashes of his love, she had collected to build her dreams, piling them higher and higher.

  All these years she had dreamed—all these eleven years that had gone past her like the hours of a single day because of their sameness—she had been content with building. But now that her pile of dreams had collapsed and she was looking reality in the face, she had to find Larry and tell him why she had turned away from him. Even if it was too late, even if he was not the same person any more, or if already he belonged to another, she had to find him. Since the dream had fallen, she had to clear her mind of all the debris. One could not build safely on the ruins of the past; one must have a firm and solid foundation. There must be some record of Larry in the central office in Manila; he must have relatives who knew about him. He was somewhere in the world, she knew—healthy and full of life, she was sure. The very thought of him made her feel his presence; she could almost feel him breathing in the room with her.

  She looked about the schoolroom. The silence was frightening. Even the mouse in the roof had stopped burrowing. Only the incoming tide, as it crept up the beach, sounded faintly in the distance.

  The bright glow on the horizon had now become gray, and over the sea a big shadow had fallen as from a huge black wing or an enormous umbrella. A small wind had lifted out of the waters and was whiffing in through the open door and window. The chill air started an itching in her throat. She coughed from deep down to relieve herself completely, but one cough fetched another, and another fetched another. She coughed and coughed, loudly, raucously. It felt good to cough openly—without restraint. She pressed the flannel scarf to her throat and coughed again—then again and again-as if there were pleasure in coughing.

  Suddenly her throat constricted, and there was an ache in her breast. Some strange hand was gripping her heart tightly, tightly—sending a sharp pain across her breast—and there was the sound of bubbling waters from deep within her. It was like water in a deep, dark cave springing up to her mouth. She felt it coming, carrying her breath in its tide, filling her whole being, stretching her wide, wide, breaking her breast apart, tearing at her throat, closing her windpipe. She struggled to her feet; she had to find some air. She took several steps toward the door, but her knees gave beneath her, and she slid to the floor, clinging to the wall.

  In the darkening room, a patch of yellow sunlight fell on the floor through the open door as when the sun was brilliantly setting. She gazed at it in fascination. Many times in her dreams she had seen Larry Leyden’s figure darken that door, throwing a shadow on the floor. That rectangular patch of sunlight was for her a doorway to a joy.

  Her breast began to rise and fall excitedly and a slow warmth ran into her limbs as she watched it. She was not surprised to see the shadow there when it came. It fell on the yellow patch of light like a gigantic paper cut-out on a slab of gold. Suddenly, as suddenly as the waters had come, the waters receded. The tight hand on her heart released its grip and again she was well. She felt weightless, as if with wings. It was marvelous to see Larry again!

  How young he looked, she thought. Was America a fountain of youth? He was dressed exactly the way he was the last time he came to the schoolhouse—all in white, looking so clean and handsome.

  She sat up on the floor where she had fallen and leaned her head against the wall.

  “What are you doing there on the floor?” he asked in his selfsame way with a teasing laugh, standing over her with legs spread apart, his hands on his hips.

  “You haven’t changed a bit, Larry,” she said, trying to match his laugh. “I’m just a little weak and have found some comfort on the floor. Let me catch my breath.”

  His nonchalance disappeared and a frown puckered his brow as he fell on one knee beside her. “What’s wrong, Ercelia? Are you sick?”

  “Alas!” she said with a little sigh. “I am, Larry. I am a tubercular.”

  She felt his eyes on her face; then his hand touched her chin, tilting her face to his. She looked into his eyes bravely.

  “You speak as if you have become something dreadful, abominable. What is a disease of the body? There are sanatoria that can take care of you. Let me help you, Ercelia. In America—”

  “No, no, you cannot help me,” she said, looking away.

  “And why not, Ercelia?”

  “Because I am sick”—and she met his gaze again bravely, almost defiantly—“not only in the body, but also in the spirit.”

  She could not bear the look on Larry’s face. For a moment she felt unnerved and she hesitated. Then, gathering strength, she went on. “I have a confession to make, Larry. I am not as pure of heart as you supposed me to be.” She trembled and raised her hands to her face.

  “I had unholy desires,” she continued in a firm voice. “My body was in constant conflict with my spirit. The spark you kindled in me never died with your going. It grew and grew. It fired my imagination and in confusion, feeling my way between dream and reality, I exposed myself to the desire of a married man—Don Miguel. I—I desired him too, Larry. I did. He was not all to blame for what happened between us—“ and she told him everything, without sparing herself, as if she enjoyed her extreme humiliation. “I am not crucifying myself for love of the sacrifice. I have played martyr to myself long enough. I want you to look at me as I am—a woman with all a woman’s weaknesses, not what the town thinks I am.”

  “And why are you telling me this, Ercelia?” His voice was as of one awaking in the morning with sleep still clinging to his eyes.

  “Because I love you, Larry, because I have always loved you and have never really loved anybody else, and want to come to you as myself, not as another.”

  She heard him laugh, and his laughter was the triumph of waters skipping over large rocks. “That is all I want to know, all I want to hear,” he said, sweeping her into his arms, pressing her close against his body, putting swift little kisses on her face.

  “No, no, Larry,” she protested, “I am sick.”

  “So you are, but you are no different, not the less s
weet. It is the sickness of the spirit that repels, that makes people unwanted. Your spirit is honest and healthy and clean,” and to show her how much he meant it, he covered her mouth with his. His kiss was irreverent. His strong teeth grated against hers, leaving her with the salty taste of blood on her lips. “You are oh, so brave,” he told her, brushing his mouth against her cheek. “I am happy you have come to me at last. I am happy to have you, Ercelia. Never be afraid or be ashamed before me to be what you really are. I need a woman to love and be loved by—not a pasteboard ideal for my mantel piece.”

  “You don’t mind at all that I have desired another man—that other hands have touched my body, Larry?”

  “Don’t be foolish. Desire is not love. It is a faculty of the flesh. Nothing more. Your body is not a bit less lovely or less sweet for his touch.” He kissed her, and she felt his fingers touching her like a sculptor’s trying to infuse life into his masterpiece. “It is your love that I have and his hands never reached that. Only my hands reach you, only my hands touch you, because you place your heart in my hands.” And then he was very tender: “Reach for me, Ercelia, touch me, gather my soul in your hands.”

  Her hands trembled as she followed the lines of his body with her finger tips.

  “Are you afraid, Ercelia?” His voice was husky.

  Her heart was too full in her throat and her answer was a hot, dry whisper: “No, Larry, no. I can only die.” Suddenly clutching at him desperately, she pressed her face against his chest—“Larry, I want to die.”

  She felt his heart make a sudden lurch. His arms tightened around her. “It is best to die, Ercelia. Death can be life when life is death. Its agony can be sweet if you receive it with love,” he whispered happily. “Let us die.”

  The room had suddenly become very dark and she could not see his face or figure: he seemed to have vanished with the light. Yet she felt his hands upon her, lifting the clothes from her body piece by piece until she was naked to the skin. For a moment she thought she heard her father’s voice in the distance, but it was lost in Larry’s heavy breathing. She felt the majesty of mountains in the muscles of his back as he bent above her, cradling her head between his palms, and she clung to him to borrow strength from his hugeness as a sharp sliver of pain began to enter her body—slowly growing bigger, more intense—sounding her depths—deeper and deeper—filling her full. The voice of whirlwinds was in her ears as she bore the brunt of the fire raining on her flesh—and her body gathered salves and ointments from the everness and allness of their being together. Pain and sweetness commingled in her soul like poetry and song. The rhythmic beat of rollers upon island shores was in the sweep of his clean limbs, the bubbling fall of swollen rivers over a dam was in the movements of his lean hips as he carried her free of the earth—free of its dust and eternal pull—and together they climbed higher, higher, and yet higher—rising—rising—until she struck the needle point of a suspended second and exploded into a million bits. There was oblivion—there was nothingness, as condensing into dew, she began to fall drop by drop, bead by bead, into the thirsty mouth of death.