My mother wanted to turn her head to see what happened to it, but could not because she would have spilled the rice in the basket. Slowly and carefully she climbed up the rise, holding her head high and straight, digging the toes of one foot after the other into the mud and clutching the bank with her left hand. When she reached the level of the road, she heaved the basket to safety.
The jar was floating down the river. My mother slid down the mud, rushed into the water, and came back to the footpath wiping the undamaged jar with her skirt. When we arrived home I told the story to my brother Macario, who burst into laughter.
“Allos, stop that now!” said my mother.
* * *
—
My mother and I had another experience, a sad one, in a village called Cabolloan, where the poorest peasants lived on a barren land. The women asked for credit, or if refused, paid very little. When Saturday came around and our debtors saw us walking into the village, they started hiding in their empty granaries or pretended to be sick.
One woman came down from her grass hut trembling and looking very hungry and ill.
“I have not tasted boggoong for a long time,” she told my mother.
“You can taste it now,” said my mother, pretending not to know that the woman wanted credit.
Finally the peasant said, “I have nothing to barter because I am all alone and I am sick.”
My mother did not say anything. She was thinking of the next payment on our land.
Then the woman said pathetically, “Cannot I even dip my hands into it?”
“What good will it do you, old woman?” I said, noticing that her hands were cracked in places. “You know that the boggoong will hurt your hands the moment you touch it.”
The woman looked at me blankly; then she ran into her house and came back with a small earthen bowl half-filled with water. Quickly she put her hands into my mother’s can of salted fish, and taking them out as quickly, she washed them in her bowl of clean water. There was agony in her face. When the water had reached the deepest recesses of the cracks in her hands, the woman looked at me with forgiving eyes. Suddenly she lifted the bowl to her mouth and drank hungrily of the water where she had washed her hands that had been smeared with salted fish. When it was empty she scraped the sediment in the bottom of the bowl with her forefinger; then she rushed into her hut to look for rice.
I wanted to laugh because it was so comical, but my mother looked at me with angry eyes.
“Someday you will understand these things,” she said, looking up at the house. Then she knelt on the ground, lifted the basket, and put it expertly on her head.
I followed her slowly down the road.
CHAPTER V
I had come upon another world that was to become a foretaste of my later struggles for a place in the sun. Selling boggoong and salt with my mother gave me an opportunity to meet many people and to become a part of their lives. I became intimate with the obsession for food, and this, too, was to become a part of my life. Many of the peasants were starving, but like my family they were full of pride. They promised to pay their debts at a certain time when they knew well enough that they could not afford to pay. But my mother was a patient and trusting woman; even when our profit for a day’s work was only twenty centavos, or ten cents, her interest in our business never diminished.
I do not know now why we began going to the town of Puzzorobio. Early one morning my mother woke me up and told me that we would go there to sell beans. The town was much nearer than Binalonan to Dagupan, where salted fish was the principal product, so my mother figured that beans would bring us more profits there than at our public market. Like my father, she could not read or write, but her practical sense was sharper than most of those who had learned to read. Her common sense had kept our family going for many desperate years.
It was five in the morning when we started with big baskets of beans on our heads. The overland highway had just been finished on our side of the Kataklan River, but beyond it and on to Puzzorobio it was still muddy. We waded through this dangerous road, holding onto each other firmly to keep from falling; and sometimes in our intimate grasp we communicated a rare and lovely understanding. Maybe it would be only the sudden tightening of my mother’s thumb or forefinger on my arm, but the delicate message would be transmitted and it would linger in my memory. Sometimes it was the frantic trembling of her arm, when her foot would slip and the basket almost fall from her head, and she would stifle a cry of sudden fear. And I would feel it, the unmistakable cry for help between two suffering people.
When we arrived at our destination we knew at once that we would have a good day. It was always raining there, a warm, gentle rain. While my mother sat in the booth, behind her two baskets of beans, I stood on the cement pavement and watched the buyers going by. They were more elegant there than in our town. The marketers were dressed in immaculate white dresses. The women were agile in their leather slippers. Sometimes they came by caromata, or horse-drawn, flimsy cab, and leaped upon the pavement as expertly as trained dogs.
My mother brightened up when the more well-to-do citizens came with their servants. When she dished out the beans with a polished coconut shell her hands trembled and the beans spilled over the pavement. She did not pay too much attention to her work, but was admiring the delicately embroidered dresses of the rich women, their smooth, silk handkerchiefs, and the way they carried themselves in the market. For the first time I realized that mother, always in rags, noticed how people wore elegant clothes and walked royally in the crowded place.
A young girl who came into the market with two women servants attracted general attention. I knew immediately that she had not come to buy anything, but to display her elegant dress and obedient servants. She walked like a queen between the long rows of cloth dealers, poking at the merchandise with her tiny silk umbrella. Then, having poked every roll of finery, she turned and came to our side of the market; and the traders of beans and rice looked up from their baskets, trembling with envy and admiration for the beautiful creature. She was walking very fast and her servants were hurrying to catch up with her. She was like a fawn dancing before the doe when taken for the first time to the bright meadow at the edge of the forest.
My mother looked up enraptured, not believing that all loveliness and wealth could be so bestowed upon one person. Her hands lingered absently in the basket of beans. The wonderful creature with the dainty agility approached our booth and noticed my mother’s shining curiosity and envy. She stopped abruptly in front of my mother, her lips trembling with contempt.
“What are you looking at, poor woman?” she asked, raising the silk umbrella in her hand.
My mother was dumfounded by her elegance. Suddenly the girl struck the basket of beans and dashed off, leaving my mother with startled eyes. The basket toppled over on the pavement and the beans were scattered. My mother crawled on her knees scooping up the beans into the basket.
“It is all right,” she kept saying. “It is all right.”
I knelt on the wet cement picking out the dirt and pebbles from the beans. It was another discovery: my first clash with the middle classes in the Philippines. Afterward I came to know their social attitude, their stand on the peasant problem. I knew where they stood regarding national issues. I hated their arrogance and their contempt for the peasantry.
I was one peasant who did not crawl on my knees and say: “It is all right. It is all right. . . .”
Our trips to Puzzorobio were always successful. We were inspired to awaken earlier on weekdays. We went to the peasants in the villages and traded with them. We piled the beans and rice in our house, but when Saturday came we went to Puzzorobio.
Then a great misfortune came upon us. It had been raining all day, and the better customers would not come to the market because it was too wet for their beautiful clothes. Only the poor people came with a few centavos to buy a pinc
h of salt. Toward five o’clock our baskets of beans were still untouched, and we started the long journey homeward.
When we came to the river it was beginning to flood. I stood at the edge of the embankment wondering if we would be able to cross it. It was the same river which had swept me away some months before when I had been working on the highway. I kept thinking of our basket of beans.
My mother started for the water, holding the basket on her head with both hands. She no longer cared about her skirt. I followed close behind. It was easy for the first few yards; the water was still shallow and slow. But when we came to midstream it reached my mother’s neck. Suddenly she stopped and ordered me to go ahead. I raised the basket as high as my hands would go and circled around. I looked like a floating mushroom. My head was completely submerged, but I reached the other side of the river safely.
Then my mother proceeded to cross: she had gone past the danger zone when her foot caught on a stone in the bottom of the river. I saw the basket of beans disappear into the water and then, in a little while, it came up and floated down the river. My mother turned about and dove into the water, trying to scoop up the beans that were being swiftly carried away by the strong current. When she realized that it was impossible to save anything, she swam after the basket and came back with a handful of beans. She stood on the river bank for a long time watching the rising water.
This incident ended our trips to Puzzorobio.
* * *
—
My father had taken back our farm, but he still had several more payments to make. He had finally given up the stony ground which belonged to my grandmother. Sometimes he came to town with a sack of vegetables, and after picking out the choicest tomatoes and eggplants, my mother sold the rest in the public market. Sometimes my father came with a sack of peanuts, which I would roast in a pile of heated sand. My mother would also sell the roasted peanuts. After a while we had saved enough money to pay for the next installment on our land.
It was during this period that my mother and I began going to San Manuel, noted for mongoes or yellow beans. Harvest season came in the middle of summer, long after the rice was put away. We went to San Manuel on Mondays and picked mongoes, returning to Binalonan on Saturdays with our share. We left my sister Irene in the care of my brother Macario, who took her to school with him.
In San Manuel we worked in the mongo fields on shares. Out of every five pounds of mongo seeds we harvested and threshed, we got one pound. I helped my mother pick the black pods and put them into the baskets we used for carrying beans and rice.
On one occasion we were unusually successful. We had worked fast, had made more money, and my mother was very happy. She did not want to go back to Binalonan right away. She told me that we would go to the public market of San Manuel. We walked slowly in the muddy road and, when we reached the town, I was surprised to see the plaza covered with tall grass. There were pigs and goats in the yard of the presidencia, and carabaos feeding in the school yard.
There were many Igorots in the market place, come down from the mountains to trade with the lowlanders. They walked among the people in their G-strings with their poisoned arrows and dogs. They had long black hair like mine, but while they knotted theirs and stuck brightly polished sticks through the knots, I tangled my hair like a bird’s nest and put a straw hat on it to keep it from falling over my face. The lowland people did not even bother to look at them or at their dogs, when they went around offering their wild honey, rattan, and medicinal herbs.
I had never before seen the Igorots. They were a peaceful people, bent only on hard work, and religious in their own way. They came to the lowland villages once a year to trade their products, sometimes staying over for one season to help the farmers with their plowing and harvesting. Then they would leave for their tree houses in the mountain villages, dragging their dogs with them and raising the dust as they passed from view.
When my mother had bought what she wanted for my sister Irene—a piece of cotton cloth with polka dots—we started for Binalonan. She had paid more than one peso for it, she said, but it would make a beautiful dress for my sister.
“And if I have a little left,” said my mother, “I will make you a handkerchief.”
One peso was an exorbitant sum to my mother, but she had been planning on it for a long time. She had also a plan for me.
“What is it, Mother?” I asked.
“You can go to school now, son,” she said.
School! The stars gleamed brightly. There was a gentle breeze in the trees. The moon was rising out of the east, and it shone in my head. Everywhere in the fields the crickets were chirping melodiously. Why not? The prospect of going to school made the whole night enchanted. My bleeding hands were forgotten. The long and weary road to Binalonan was as nothing. Yes, even the hard work with my father in the village was also forgotten.
“I would like to be a doctor,” I said, thinking of our relatives and friends who would have lived if there had been a doctor to take care of them.
“Doctor, son?” said my mother, and stopped suddenly, considering. “I thought you would like to be a lawyer. The lawyers and politicians at the presidencia have nice offices and soft chairs. Wouldn’t you like to be with them?”
“Maybe I will change my mind,” I said.
My mother put her hand on my neck affectionately. I pushed aside the tall grass that rose in our way. When we arrived at our house it was already twilight and the shadows of the trees in the yard were long and bizarre. My sister Irene was sick in bed, very quiet and uncomplaining. She lay quietly on her grass mat, following my mother with her eyes. She smiled when my mother showed her the polka dot cloth; then she held it weakly in her hands and went to sleep.
Toward midnight Irene began to cry. My mother took the oil lamp and prepared some herbs, while my brother Macario and I stood near, trying to assist her. Irene was calm for a while, weakly fingering the cloth and asking my mother what she would do with it. Suddenly she screamed with pain, rolling over on her stomach and beating the floor with her fists. My mother pressed Irene’s stomach with a little bag of hot ashes. Irene screamed again, jerking her knees up to her chin, then relaxed, her face white as paper.
Then blood began to pour from her nose, choking her. My mother ran frantically for cloths, but the blood kept coming. Afterward it started pouring from her mouth and ears. There was nothing we could do for her. In a few minutes she died like an animal that has been strangled with a rope. My mother looked at us helplessly. Then she knelt beside Irene, holding the polka dot cotton cloth.
For a long time I heard my mother weeping softly on her mat. I decided I would work hard and become a doctor.
CHAPTER VI
After the death of my sister Irene one misfortune after another fell upon our family.
We were eating lunch one day when a young girl came to our house and sat in the living room waiting for my brother Macario. She had brought a large trunk with her, which I helped my mother carry into the house. I rushed to the schoolhouse and told my brother.
He commanded me to wait. When classes were over we ran to our house. The girl was still waiting. My mother and I went to the kitchen and pretended to be washing clothes. My brother and the girl were arguing in English. After dinner, while my mother was busy washing the dishes, they began arguing again and kept it up far into the night. My mother blew out the oil lamp and lay on her mat.
I sat in the darkness watching my brother and the strange girl moving in the room. Then I went to sleep quietly, but was awakened by the girl’s soft weeping. My brother accompanied her down from the house and out to the gate. I went to the window and saw them waiting for a caromata to take the girl away.
But it was not long before the girl came back. She brought all her possessions with her: a large trunk of clothes, a green lamp, two pairs of shoes, and a little cat.
“Why did you come back whe
n we had already agreed that you should wait for another year?” asked my brother Macario, casting furtive glances at my mother.
“I like this house,” said the girl. “I shall never leave it again.”
And it was true. She stayed on. One day my brother threatened to throw her out, and she defied him. When he struck her, she struck back. My brother was furious. The next day he moved to the house of a cousin. Then the girl went to the school principal, and before we knew it my brother was asked to resign his job. There was only one alternative for him: to marry the girl. But he did not want to marry her. He went to the presidencia every day and played dominoes or checkers with the policemen and other men who had no work.
Macario had one important reason for not marrying the girl. He knew that if he married he would have to give up helping us pay the installments on our land. He took the civil service examinations hoping to get a place in the tax department, but there was no opening for him. My father was becoming desperate. He came to town and stayed on for weeks, neglecting his growing corn and other farm duties.
Then my mother began to grow big in the belly again. She could hardly walk about any more. I could not go alone to the public market. It was then that my brother Amado came back from the sugar cane plantation in Bulacan and got a job in the public market. It was an easy job, collecting tickets from the traders. He was helping toward the next installment.
It was also at this time that the copra industry came to Binalonan. Several agents of the copra companies in Manila came to the provinces, and one of them came to our town. I began climbing the coconut trees for other people, cutting the nuts with a compay, or sickle, so that they fell to the ground with a solid thud. One out of every five that I cut was my share. It was a very dangerous job, climbing the tall coconut trees. Sometimes they were one hundred feet high; sometimes their trunks were too big for my short arms.
America Is in the Heart Page 7
