He could not sleep that night. Carmencita had actually invited him, teased him, and he was shocked and at the same time ashamed of his feelings—he was a teacher and he had betrayed Padre Jose’s trust. He need not have worried more about temptation and lust and his own willful proclivity for sin. The following day, the young priest arrived, and upon seeing the three sisters that afternoon, he forbade Istak to teach them—he would do that himself now, and when the old priest was transferred to Bantay, the young priest moved the classroom for Capitán Berong’s daughters to the room upstairs, beside his quarters.
And it was there one afternoon that Istak had gone, and as was his custom with the old priest, he did not knock on the door; it was there that he saw just the legs—the white, creamy legs and between them, the hirsute legs of the young priest. They were behind the high cabinets where many of the records were filed. Istak did not close the door—he ran down the stairs and on to the church, where he knelt and prayed, telling himself that he did not see anything. And that evening, the young priest called him after the Angelus. He asked no questions, he merely told Istak his services were no longer needed.
The wheels of the cart, built of solid wood, were not oiled and they squeaked at every indentation in the path. Here was a woman, here was temptation again, and yet it was no longer the old temptation. It seemed as if he had known Dalin for a long time. Here was kinship, as strong as any that could bind two people together. She had listened passively at first, but now she seemed engrossed with everything he had to say. He told her of that inscrutable world whose fringes he had reached, the darkness—or was it light?—that had enticed him, the compulsion to know more, not just about faith and God, but of men, what made them what they were. He told her of his numbing sense of frustration when he was driven out of the kumbento, and how he would live in Po-on, to which he had become a stranger.
He marveled at how easily and quickly he had revealed himself to her, but this new kinship would surely go to waste, for very soon they would part.
The river was far behind them. They neared the fork of the trail, where she was to leave him. Clouds of dust whirled ahead and a man on horseback was cantering toward them.
Istak reined in the bull and pulled the cart to the side of the path. It was only the wealthy or Guardia Civil officers who rode on horses, and as the rider drew near, Istak recognized Capitán Berong in his finery, white coat and silver-studded squash hat.
The mestizo stopped.
“Good afternoon, Apo,” Istak said, bowing in greeting.
Capitán Berong’s father, a Peninsular, had settled in Cabugaw after serving in the Spanish army and acquired large tracts of land which he had passed on to his children from a union with a mestiza from Vigan.
“So it is you, Eustaquio,” the capitán said, recognizing the teacher of his daughters. “How fortunate that I should meet you on my way to your village. Now I don’t have to ride that far …” He wiped his face, burnt to a reddish pink. His leather boots were dusty. “I have been riding since morning, visiting barrios—not just yours. I don’t like going around with the bad news, telling people of the misfortune that has befallen them …”
So what his mother had prophesied was coming true. But how could he believe in auguries after the many years during which he had learned from Padre Jose that much of the suffering in this world was man’s own doing?
Capitán Berong appreciated beauty whether it was in horses or in women, even if they were the lowly daughters of his tenants. His eyes were on the young widow. “I have not seen you before,” he said. “Who are you?”
Istak answered for Dalin. “She has just been widowed, Señor. She is staying with us …”
“It does not concern her then.” The mestizo dismissed her, although his eyes were still on her. “It is about you, your family—and that sitio where you live.”
“Yes, Apo.”
Capitán Berong stroked his wisp of a beard and turned away as if he could not tell the young man the bad news to his face. “You have to leave the sitio, Eustaquio, you and your whole family. The new priest has been studying his books. He thinks the yield of the land is very low. He wants to give the land, in fact, all the land in your sitio, to a new set of tenants. Tenants he likes.”
The words sank deep. “You are sure that this is what he wants, Apo? I cannot believe that this is so,” Istak said, his throat gone dry.
Capitán Berong turned to him and nodded. “Yes, Eustaquio. These were his words. If it may comfort you—you are not the only ones. In the other villages—there will be changes, too. Some families he does not want …”
Istak wanted to say more, but Capitán Berong looked at him with great severity. “I do not speak rashly. You can stay in your village the rest of your life. You can keep the accounts for me and teach my children and the children of my children. It is better this way. Your fate is still yours to change.”
“What should I do then, Apo?”
“Go see Padre Zarraga. Perhaps you can dissuade him.”
“And if he refuses to see me?”
Capitán Berong seemed vexed with him. He pulled at the reins of his horse and wheeled around. “Tell the others in your village. Their fate is the same, only your family goes first. The rest can go after the next harvest season.” In a while the chestnut horse and its rider had disappeared in a swirl of dust.
The sun was hot. Istak steered the cart to the shade of a camachile tree. This was where he would leave her and he would then walk back to his village to bring the news.
“But why should the priest send you away?” Dalin asked.
“For many reasons,” Istak said. “Maybe he Does not like us.”
“But why now?” She was persistent.
Istak did not reply. Yes, there was reason for the priest to send him away from the church and though he was never told, Istak knew it was because he had seen. But to banish all of them, there must be a more stringent reason other than guilt, for Istak was an unerring witness to a mortal sin the new priest had committed; he was a debaucher, the way Padre Jose could never be. He recalled again his mother’s warning that Dalin was a foreboding. He coveted the oval face, the dark, inquiring eyes. She was truth, she was life—but she had been cast adrift, without moorings, as he, too, had been. If only they could go together wherever the wind would blow them.
CHAPTER
3
“Are you really going to leave Po-on? Where will you go?” Dalin asked as Istak got off the cart. It would be the last time he would see her.
“If this is what God wills …”
“It is not God’s will,” Dalin said.
“There is always land for those who want to clear it,” he said.
“Is that what you will do? Look for new land? I have told you what I have seen.”
“And it is so far away,” Istak said, but quickly there flashed in his mind the vast valley well beyond Tirad and across many ranges. What Dalin had seen would not be much different. Would he have the will to leave Po-on or Cabugaw itself? And how would he tell his father, who had poured his sweat into the little plot he did not even own?
Dalin continued evenly, “I can go with you. Part of the way. Then I won’t have to travel alone.”
Istak turned to her—dark eyes beseeching. He smiled, and in a leap, he was beside her on the cart again. Yes, it was the right thing to do, the kindly thing to do—she would go with them since she had nowhere else to go. Where would it lead? There seemed to be no way he could elude what he himself had wanted to escape, this Po-on to which, like most of his people, he had been chained. But she was here, flower to the eye, and this was not good-bye.
He told her then how it was more than ten years ago. It was as if he were on the same cart, only he was not returning to Po-on, but leaving it instead. Padre Jose had come to say Mass, as he had done twice a year for many years, and after the Mass he had performed the rituals of confirmation on the children—many of them well into adulthood. The old priest had picked him out because he wa
s the smartest, the most alert. That was the beginning and Istak did not disappoint his benefactor, although afterward, when he was older, Istak knew that the barriers to his ambition were higher than the Cordilleras. He had heard of what had happened in Cavitc, and Padre Jose was not one to deny or gloss over it—how three native priests were executed “for leading a revolt” and one of them was from Vigan, an Ilokano like him. The disturbing knowledge had lodged deep in his mind, grown with him, merged with his flesh, and become an oppressive afterthought; he knew his place, he had accepted it. Perhaps it was possible … but he did not let the thought consume him. The ways of the world were set; he was not going to be a thorn. He was a man of peace and would turn the other check as Christ had done, to teach people to love others if they cannot even love themselves. He could have gone to the seminary in Vigan; he had visited there with Padre Jose, had seen the classrooms, the library shelves with so many books he would have loved to touch, but it was all over now—and it was God’s will, perhaps, that he was not meant to be a priest, that he and his family would always be with the land. If this was so, then he should not fret too much. Thoughts of Dalin beside him, sometimes their arms touching, lulled him. He would have someone like her, and again, the shame and wonder—how it was with Capitán Berong’s daughters, how they teased him, always leaning forward at the table so that he could peer down into their white blouses to the rise of their breasts.
When they reached the village, only Ba-ac was at home. Istak’s mother was in the creek washing and his brothers were out in the fields. They waited at the foot of the stairs till Ba-ac came down with a large wooden basin filled with warm water. He strained down the flight, his left hand pressing the heavy basin against his waist.
When they were through washing, Istak told him what Capitán Berong had said. The old man listened calmly; he was easily given to anger, but now there was stoic patience in the shrunken face. After a while, Ba-ac said dully, “I will go to town and beg the new priest to let us stay for another year. If we move out now, how will we live? We have but little grain left. If it could be the next harvesttime, we might prepare.”
“He wants us to leave immediately, Father.”
“One more year will not make a difference,” Ba-ac said. “We wall be able to bring along some chickens and we will be able to uproot this house properly. And your mother can weave some lengths of cloth. Don’t tell your brothers, or your mother.”
“Let me come with you,” Istak said. I can speak his language—he wanted to add, but did not.
“You stay here,” Ba-ac said. “I do not think the new priest likes you, else he would have retained you, is that not so?”
Istak did not reply. His father had confirmed what had long lain in his mind. And yet it was so obvious in the manner with which the priest spoke to him, as if he were a mindless child good only for kitchen chores. As the new priest had said, he had had his fill of “la sopa boba.”
The old man hurried to the house, and when he emerged he wore his white starched pants and white collarless shirt. He even seemed to be in good humor. “I will also ask him to take you back,” he said brightly.
“He will not permit it, Father.”
“I will beg,” Ba-ac said. “Beggars cannot be proud. I will get on my knees …” His voice trailed off.
It was a long walk to town—a full three miles of April dust and a sun which bore down on everything. The catuday and marunggay trees along the trail were powdered with dust. At this time of the year, the frogs found refuge in the deep cracks in the earth, where they were sought and speared with barbed hooks.
Ba-ac reached the town shortly before dusk had settled. Soon they would be indistinct—the grass-roofed houses in yards enclosed by bamboo fences, the old houses of stone with tiled, high-pitched roofs and sash windows—the homes of Cabugaw’s rich—and at the edge of town, the big church, its limestone walls painted creamy yellow, its belfry higher than any tree in the village. The streets were empty, save for a few stray goats and pigs. Near the church, across the wide plaza scraggly with dying grass, was Capitán Berong’s big brick house. His daughters were seated in the iron chairs on the wide lawn over which stood an old acacia tree, its trunk huge. The sisters would probably grow into spinsters unless they went to Vigan, or unless some rich trader came and saw them, for there were no young men in Cabugaw rich enough or intelligent enough for them.
The churchyard was not yet cleared of the litter of the revelry which marked the new priest’s birthday, the palm leaf and banana wrappers of rice cakes, the orange peels and frayed paper wrappings of candies, the blackened remnants of rockets and firecrackers. At the door of the kumbento, a young acolyte was scrubbing the tile floor. He recognized the old man, so he let him in.
How many times had he been here when Istak still served in the sacristy and yet had never set foot beyond the tile porch into the sanctum within. This massive building—his grandfather and his father had helped build it; they had fired the brick for its walls, and the lime that set the mortar, they had gathered it from the sea. He had seen the scars on his father’s back, what the bull-whip had etched permanently there, like harsh lines drawn by the harrow on the land, and though he was very young then, he could never forget, and remembering it, Ba-ac felt a loathing for the building slowly coil in him. He pushed the heavy wooden door and stepped into an alcove, dimly lighted by an oil lamp. In a while, night would engulf the town and soon, one of the acolytes would climb the belfry to toll the Angelus.
Beyond the alcove, as the boy at the door had told him, were the stairs, and up the stairs of huge solid planks were the priest’s quarters, forbidden to all of them unless they were called. He went up the flight, apprehensive that no one had announced his coming. The walls were lined with heavy velvet drapes, broken only where a sash window was open to the oncoming evening. He was in a sala with some cane furniture, and beyond it, another door. In a voice which quavered, Ba-ac announced himself. “There is a man, Apo. There’s a humble servant entreating you for an audience …”
No reply. He wavered, wanting to return downstairs to the porch to ask the boy to announce him, or wait there till the priest made his appearance. But gathering more courage, he pushed the door ajar; it opened to still another room, better lighted than the alcove below. The last light of day shone on the mahogany floor and washed the walls with tawny light. A tall cabinet of shining wood with a glass front stood in a corner, a monumental piece of carpentry, exquisitely carved. On the walls were huge pictures of priests in various postures of supplication, their faces upturned and swathed with holy light. This is where my son lived, he told himself; he saw this every day, this splendor, and for a moment, he wondered if Christ would be comfortable here. He felt smaller now, and when he rapped on the door, he did it quietly lest he disturb the opulent silence. Barely above a whisper, he spoke in Ilokano, knowing that all the Augustinians could speak the language. “Señor, one of your lowly servants is here to beg a favor from you …”
No stirring beyond the heavy door. Then a voice called from within. “Come in—since you have already gotten this far.”
Ba-ac pushed the door ajar and peeped in: another room except that the floor seemed shinier. Statues of saints—he recognized San Lazaro immediately—stood on pedestals. Barefoot, he barely lifted his feet so that he would not make any noise. A chandelier dangled from the rose-colored ceiling adorned with cherubs in pink, and as a slight breeze blew in from the open window, the many-faceted glass prisms tinkled.
The young priest was kneeling before a low cabinet; he was not wearing his soutane but was dressed only in long-sleeved underwear. On the floor were a silver crucifix and the chalice which he was cleaning with a stained piece of cloth. Ba-ac knelt before the priest, grasped his hand, and kissed it. He did not rise, he could not rise until the young priest commanded him to.
“Who are you and what do you want?” the young priest asked in heavily accented Ilokano. He was muscular; his hirsute arms and his neck were pa
le, as were his hands; his face, which was exposed to the sun at times, was ruddy; there was a quality of malevolence in his eyes, and as he stood up, he lifted the big crucifix and appraised it in the fading light. The silver gleamed.
“I am the father of Eustaquio, Apo,” Ba-ac said, still kneeling, his voice quavering as recognition came swiftly. His old eyes were not mistaken. This was the same young priest who had condemned him to his fate, who had—although he did not wield the knife—cut off his hand. It was the same face, deceptively young and kind in countenance; in the past five years—had it really been that long?—he had not aged one bit. There was something youthful about him, perhaps eternal as Satan is eternal, and now Ba-ac was face-to-face with him again, and this time he was again begging as he had done in the past, proclaiming his innocence in a frightened and distraught voice which was not heard. Yet it was possible that a man could change, as men everywhere have changed when confronted with the evil of their ways or a superior moral force. Perhaps, this was a new man—a vain wish, knowing it was he who had sent Istak away—his poor, patient, ever-forgiving son.
“And who is Eustaquio?”
“Your acolyte, Apo,” the old man said. “He tried to serve you as well as he could, but …”
The young priest turned to him. “I know. And I suppose that you think he has become a Christian because he served here, don’t you? And that you are one, too?”
“I am, Apo,” Ba-ac said, bowing. “By Mary’s breath, and Joseph’s and Jesus’, too.”
“How gratifying! And your son Eustaquio. He is in your house now, among his carabaos. Did he really think he was bright enough to be a priest?”
“It was Padre Jose, Apo,” Ba-ac said. “The old priest, he told me he wanted Eustaquio to be a priest …”
The young priest paced the floor. It was now nearly dark, but Ba-ac could still see everything clearly, the white underwear, the brute hands.
“Soon, they will be aspiring for membership in the order. Then they will want to be bishops—vicars of Christ. Soon, they will grab the habiliments not just of the Church but of temporal power. There is no ending to that. Soon—” He sighed and turned to the old man who was still kneeling before him. “Do you really think that you Indios are educated enough to understand the meaning of government or of God?”
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