I am home. I am home. This is the place honored in the mind and sanctified in the heart. Although he had been away, the sounds and smells were always with him—the aroma of newly harvested grain, the grass fresh with dew, the mooing cattle, the young herder’s call for his water buffalos, the cackle of hens, the rustling of bamboo in the wind, and most of all, the tones of his language, for there was in Ilokano the aura and the mystery of things left unsaid. There was the past, too, that did not have to be relived, which must be escaped because it spelled perdition and all the bog and swamp of his muddied beginning. How was it then, how were the hours, the moments at the river, in the water-lilied ditches, the taste of newly harvested rice? Bring back the strum of guitars, the children’s eager voices—all the happiness that ended on a night like this!
It was high noon that day, that year, when his father’s tractor came. After a hurried lunch he had snatched his buri hat from the deer-horn rack—a relic of his grandfather’s hunting days—and gone to the kitchen, where his mother was washing the dishes. Victor followed—Luis was the leader, and Vic was his only follower.
Can we join the others in the road? his younger brother said.
It is hot, his mother said, pausing; see how the land heaves in the heat.
The old man was knitting fishnets by the window. He drew the shiny bamboo shuttle into a loop. Let them go and see how a rich man farms, he said.
His mother turned to them and bade them leave. They rushed down the stairs, into the white powdery road. They did not join the crowd at the bridge or the boys under the acacia trees. They sat on the dying grass by themselves, in the shade of a camachile sapling up the road.
Before long, a rumble came down the road and they saw it—the tractor with a puff of dust behind it, its infernal noise growing louder, its red paint gleaming in the sun. The men stood up from their haunches, and the two brothers joined them. The tractor rumbled closer, and then it was upon them like a snorting bull. Santos saw Luis then, and he beckoned to him. He asked if he was Nena’s son, and when he said he was, the caretaker asked him if he wanted to sit beside him. It was something he could not refuse, and much later he remembered that he should have asked Victor to join him, too.
The engine roared again, and its dark fumes almost choked him. The driver flipped a lever forward, and avoiding the bridge, the tractor loped down the shallow ditch, then clambered up the other bank, tearing huge chunks of soil as it made for the open field. It went straight, followed the path, and obliterated the deep ruts wrought by bull-cart wheels and sled runners. The iron treads etched their deep rectangular pattern on the path. More children came from beyond the dike and formed a procession behind the machine. On the seat beside the caretaker, Luis felt his chest bursting.
The dike did not stop the tractor. The machine went up the incline faster than a carabao and roared into the village, which had never felt the tread of an engine. As they roared by his home his grandfather appeared at the door. Luis could not look at the old man as they passed. Somehow he knew that his grandfather did not like this intrusion, and he was glad when they finally passed the house and headed for the edge of the farmlands, where the grass grew lush and tough. There the caretaker alighted and dispersed the children who had gathered before the engine. To the tractor’s rear the driver attached the plowshares, and then he drove into the tangle of grass and weeds. As it reached the high grass, the machine paused, and into the ground, deeper than an animal-drawn plow could pierce, the steel shares sank, ripped the sturdy soil into clean furrows, and upturned the tough dry earth now moist and rich brown. Behind the newly plowed earth and the prostrate grass they walked and followed the caterpillar as it moved on, unimpeded by rocks and roots of dead trees that had long defeated the wooden plows. Near the river dike the sticky soil where the amorseco grew wild yielded, too, and this patch of land that could never be planted would now be ready for seed. The tractor moved on until it reached the river.
It was late afternoon when Luis went home. The excitement had worn off, and the children who had crowded around him asking how it was to be on the tractor had stopped pestering him. He had somehow expected this moment when he would be acknowledged as his father’s son. He had seen it in the women from the town who often went to his mother to have the panuelos of their ternos starched or their Sunday clothes mended. They had appraised him, then talked in whispers. He lingered at the dike until the sun went down, then he went up to the house. He greeted his mother and his grandfather in the ritual that he was brought up in. It was dusk and it was quiet, but Vic broke the silence with questions: Where had he been after the tractor had gone?
Supper. They sat on the bamboo floor around the low dining table that held a plate filled with steaming rice and a shallow coconut bowl that contained roasted green pepper and mudfish.
His grandfather’s eyes were on him. It was a busy day for you, Luis, he said; I saw you on the tractor.
It was wonderful, Grandfather, he said; Mr. Santos asked me to join him.
The old man turned to his mother. At least the boy knows what it is to be strong. I think the time has come when everything must change. We must all learn our lesson, and Luis, you had one today. There was a time I knew. There were no trucks then, and even on a fast horse it would take two days to go to the provincial capital. Now just a few hours. The hills were thick with trees and game, and Bagos came to trade with us, bringing venison and woven baskets in exchange for our rice and our dogs.
Father, do not start talking again like you always do, his mother reminded the old man.
But it is true, the old man said sadly. He pinched salt from the platter and sprinkled it on his plate. He continued: The Bagos from the mountains, when this land was not cleared, we talked with one another in a language we understood, and we said, surely there will come a time when men will fly like the hawk, when guns will replace spears and arrows, and wisdom will not be ours to use but will be for the strong …
His mother stopped eating. Times have changed, Father, she said, but it has not been very difficult.
The old man did not answer. Time was when a silence like this that now came over them was a bond, time when his grandfather, Victor, and he sat in the shade of the tallest buri palm by the road, after which, with their loads of firewood on the ground, the old man would recall other times, when rains were gentle, when the sun shone and the grasshopper sang, and blessing of blessings, this land was his. The old man turned and gazed upward at the dingy roof. Smoke from the kitchen stove vanished into the sooty cobwebs and the old fishnets hanging there. Were these all that one could keep?
Vic had stopped eating, too, and his dark face was pensive as he listened to what the old man said: We felled the trees, big trees, which men with their arms outstretched couldn’t embrace. The Bagos came with their spears and brought ubi and tugui as big as jars. I had a bow and a spear, too, and we were friends, although I knew that they adorned their dwellings with the skulls of their enemies. We met in the yard and hastened beneath the house where the basi was fermenting and where my richest and biggest tobacco was curing. We opened the jars and we rolled cigars, and our laughter reached out to our neighbors, who came and joined us. Ah, those were happy days, and the Bagos were not strangers as people today are strangers, learned men who came from the north with their books and their machines.
That was fifty years ago, Father, his mother said, putting away the dishes; fifty years—you must understand that!
So it was—fifty years! The old man sighed ruefully. But what happened? They stretched the roads across the fields and dammed the creeks, so that the water could flow only to their farms. They built the railroad, too, right across the dikes we built, and finally they brought their lawyers and these learned men said: This land is ours, and this spot, which is just wide enough for your grave, is yours. And we said nothing and did nothing, because they were learned. Of what use is a bolo before a gun? Like the Bagos, we were raised in God’s futile ways …
His mother stood up and went
to the squat earthen stove, held the sooty rim of the pot, and emptied its contents onto the chipped porcelain plate on the table.
Isn’t it so, Nena? the old man asked.
But what if it is so, Father? she asked with a hint of displeasure in her voice. She took the empty plate and placed it in the basin of water beyond the dining table. His grandfather sighed. When his mother returned, her face was troubled.
And now the tractor is here, the old man said; every day we are driven farther from our homes. Can you not see what this means? With the tractor we will not be needed anymore, and where will we go? To the farthest hills like the Bagos? They will follow us there, tear away the wilderness that will hide us. They will strangle us with their roads, and we will go on seeking the forest, because there we might find some peace …
But, Grandfather, Luis said, you did not see how much easier the tractor can rip a mound apart!
The old man turned to Luis. In the yellow glimmer of the kerosene lamp he could not tell if the old man’s eyes were misty or on the verge of tears. The old man turned away and said: Luis, you must speak like this. It is in your blood, and someday, very soon, you will leave this house, because you do not belong here and because it is also in you to be strong.
Outside, the crickets whirred and the blooming dalipawen tree in the yard sent its heavy scent into the house. From the direction of the buri palms a boy herding his work animals hummed an old ballad—Dear, dear raft, come to me, save me before the whirlpool sucks me …
His mother rose from the water platform and said in a voice tinged with sadness: Father, how many times have I told you never to bring the child into this?
The old man did not heed her. Someday, he said, turning to Luis again, you will leave us just the same.
You do not know what you are talking about, his mother said; what do you know about the future? So many things about us are unsure. You never went to school, and that is why they made a fool of you. But my boys, they will get educated and they will know how to avoid the mistakes you made. They will have something even if my hands bleed getting them an education.
His grandfather did not speak. He stood up, holding his knees as if he would totter, then walked out of the kitchen, down the stairs, into the dark yard. The cicadas chirped, and a work animal in a corral down the path called its young. His mother went about her chores; she placed the empty dishes on the earthen basin, then scooped the leftover rice from the big plate and returned it to the pot. She spread the rolled buri mat on the floor and brought down the caseless kapok pillows from a shelf on the wall.
Vic sat by the open window. Where do you think Grandfather went? he asked no one in particular. Luis went down the stairs and scoured the yard and the dark approaches to the house. He returned and asked his mother: What was Grandfather trying to tell me, Mother?
She lay on the mat, her eyes on the ceiling, and spoke softly, as if she were afraid that the night, the house, and all of Sipnget were listening to a dreadful secret she was about to break: The ways of people are strange, but bear this in mind—we have done no one wrong.
Why was Grandfather angry, and where did he go?
His mother dispelled his anxiety: Father has nowhere to go. He will come back when he is no longer angry.
Through the open window the April sky was cloudless and the stars burned bright. His mother drew the blanket over her bare feet. The two boys unrolled their mat close to the stairs, and in a while, wordless, they too lay down. She stirred later at the snorting of pigs in the yard. Vic was snoring, but Luis tossed. In the sallow light of the kerosene lamp that dangled from the roof, he saw his grandfather slowly open the kitchen door. Even after the cock crowed on its perch in the madre de cacao tree beside the house, Luis was still wide awake.
The next afternoon, when he and his brother arrived from a bath in the river, they came upon his mother and Santos, the caretaker, talking in the yard. Her voice was pitched low, and she left the caretaker when she saw the boys. She went up to the house with them, not bothering to ask the caretaker to follow. To Luis she said simply: Now you will see your father.
It was as if he did not hear. He went to the small room, got his books, and leafed through them. She followed him. Well, don’t you want to see your father? He gazed out of the small window and saw his grandfather seated with the menfolk, talking at Tio Joven’s store.
Don’t you want to go? Like your grandfather said, this has to come sometime. The decision is yours. You are old enough now to have a mind of your own.
She would get angry again, so without a word Luis put on his battered rubber shoes and his only shirt, which was stiff with starch. When he was ready she bade him stand before her. This is how it has to be, she said quickly. He knew that she was angry, not with him but with the man in the big brick house, he whose name she always told him to spit at whenever it was mentioned, the man he was going to see, the man whose blood, she said, was in his own veins.
It was late when Luis returned to Sipnget. A rooster crowed, the stars were out like jewels in the deep bowl of the sky, the air was sultry and dust was thick on the deserted lane. Were there people peeping through the close windows into the dark maw of night?
It hardly mattered then whether he went back to Sipnget or not. Now he knew what was within the red house, the brightness and the spaciousness, the piano, the table laden with apples and oranges shining with the luster of soft gold. Vic and he tasted apples and oranges only once a year, at Christmas. His mother would unwrap the frayed kerchief she always had tied to her skirt strings, and after she had counted carefully she would hand him and Vic a few coins and say: This is Christmas. And they would buy apples as gifts in exchange for apples they would get during the Christmas party in school.
The lamp in the house still shone, so they would be awake, waiting for him. He went up the stairs slowly and heard the steady whirr of the sewing machine. When he reached the door the whirring stopped. His mother called out to him: Draw the ladder up and don’t forget to bolt the door. He did what she told him. It was as if she were afraid a giant hand might slip past the door to snuff out their lives, but there was no such hand and they never had visitors except the women who came to have their clothes mended—and the man from the big red house with whom she argued in the yard.
The small sala was littered with pieces of cloth, as usual, and in the center was the old sewing machine with his mother hunched before it. She would be there until it was almost dawn, sewing until she could hardly see.
Her face was expectant when she turned to him: Did you kiss his hand?
I did, Mother.
She seemed relieved. I thought you’d forget, she said; you always forget what I teach you.
The machine whirred again. He took off his shoes and squirmed out of his shirt carefully, so that the slight tear on its back, which had been mended, would not run. Vic was still awake and was looking at him from across the room.
In the big red house, what where they saying now? You will not regret it—that was what Santos, the caretaker, told his father. With his hand upon Luis’s shoulder Santos had added: And there is a good head on these shoulders.
The great man—his father—looked at Luis, then the porcine head nodded and smiled—he whose name he must spit at every time it was uttered, he whom his mother had cursed. But Luis could not look at him, nor could he spit at him, so he stared at the polished floor and at his dusty rubber shoes. He could not look at his father, who was all smiles and solicitation.
Yet he went to him, and as his mother had said he should, he held the white hirsute hand and kissed it, knowing as he did that someday, if he grew old and fat and powerful, perhaps he would look just like this man. He would have been glad if he had known this man when he needed him most; he would have been proud to kiss his big fat hand and would have wanted to live in his big red house—but why had his father waited? Why did he not come when he was in the cradle or when he was six or eight and was teased in school—or when they had nothing t
o eat but rice gruel and leaves of camote and marunggay? There would not have been those bitter moments when his mother would not talk with him, moments when he knew he was not like Victor, nights when she would toss and weep. There would not have been the anguished look on her face when he asked her for the first time: Mother, what has my father done and where is he? My father is not Vic’s father—I know that now …
He was eight years old then, mud was thick on his feet, his hair unruly, but his skin was fair—fairer than anyone’s in the village, although he swam in the river, too, and climbed the camachile trees and like everyone else was exposed to the rage of the sun.
You bear an honorable name! his mother shrieked. She dropped her sewing and towered before him. Her hand fell across his face, its sting sharp on his lips. He stared at her in utter surprise, feeling the pain spread across his face, but he did not cry. He did not move, and he could feel something warm trickling down his mouth, and when she saw this she ran to the kitchen and with a damp towel wiped the blood off his lips. It was not she who had done him wrong: it was his father, and though he could not understand why she had slapped him, he was not angry with her, though always, the memory of her hand across his face and the taste of his own blood would be imperishable in his mind.
December—she had many clothes to sew, but they were neither for Victor nor for him. January—and the harvest would be in, but they would have none of it. Cold mornings—and she would rise before the sun and in the white mists hovering over Sipnget would go to town to get more sewing to be done and through the night, the whirr of the infernal machine in his ears. In March, Luis finished grade school, while Vic, who was younger, had one more year to go. Then April—and the man from the big red house came and said, your father who is visiting from Manila wants to see you. He would have been glad, but he was thirteen and it was enough that there was this frail, sun-browned woman who had slapped him, this old man who loved to talk of days gone by, and his brother—much, much darker than he, who looked up to him, as if he were the only holder of knowledge and virtue.
Don Vicente Page 23
