tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37358805364141284332024-02-20T13:12:54.733-08:00Philippine LiteraturePauline Fernandezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07841137807568692883noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3735880536414128433.post-74972320963192547662010-04-18T03:07:00.000-07:002010-04-18T03:11:04.542-07:00My Brother's Peculiar Chicken (Alejandro R. Roces)My brother Kiko once had a very peculiar chicken. It was peculiar because no one could tell whether it was a rooster or a hen. My brother claimed it was a rooster. I claimed it was a hen. We almost got whipped because we argued too much.<br /><br /> The whole question began early one morning. Kiko and I were driving the chickens from the cornfield. The corn had just been planted, and the chickens were scratching the seeds out for food. Suddenly we heard the rapid flapping of wings. We turned in the direction of the sound and saw two chickens fighting in the far end of the field. We could not see the birds clearly as they were lunging at each other in a whirlwind of feathers and dust.<br /><br /> “Look at that rooster fight!” my brother said, pointing exactly at one of the chickens. “Why, if I had a rooster like that, I could get rich in the cockpits.”<br /><br /> “Let’s go and catch it,” I suggested.<br /><br /> “No, you stay here. I will go and catch it,” Kiko said.<br /><br /> My brother slowly approached the battling chickens. They were so busy fighting that they did not notice him. When he got near them, he dived and caught one of them by the leg. It struggled and squawked. Kiko finally held it by both wings and it became still. I ran over where he was and took a good look at the chicken.<br /><br /> “Why, it is a hen,” I said.<br /><br /> “What is the matter with you?” my brother asked. “Is the heat making you sick?”<br /><br /> “No. Look at its face. It has no comb or wattles.”<br /><br /> “No comb and wattles! Who cares about its comb or wattles? Didn’t you see it in fight?”<br /><br /> “Sure, I saw it in fight. But I still say it is a hen.”<br /><br /> “Ahem! Did you ever see a hen with spurs on its legs like these? Or a hen with a tail like this?”<br /><br /> “I don’t care about its spurs or tail. I tell you it is a hen. Why, look at it.”<br /><br /> The argument went on in the fields the whole morning. At noon we went to eat lunch. We argued about it on the way home. When we arrived at our house Kiko tied the chicken to a peg. The chicken flapped its wings and then crowed.<br /><br /> “There! Did you hear that?” my brother exclaimed triumphantly. “I suppose you are going to tell me now that hens crow and that carabaos fly.”<br /><br /> “I don’t care if it crows or not,” I said. “That chicken is a hen.”<br /><br /> We went into the house, and the discussion continued during lunch.<br /><br /> “It is not a hen,” Kiko said. “It is a rooster.”<br /><br /> “It is a hen,” I said.<br /><br /> “It is not.”<br /><br /> “It is.”<br /><br /> “Now, now,” Mother interrupted, “how many times must Father tell you, boys, not to argue during lunch? What is the argument about this time?”<br /><br /> We told Mother, and she went out look at the chicken.<br /><br /> “That chicken,” she said, “is a binabae. It is a rooster that looks like a hen.”<br /><br /> That should have ended the argument. But Father also went out to see the chicken, and he said, “Have you been drinking again?” Mother asked.<br /><br /> “No,” Father answered.<br /><br /> “Then what makes you say that that is a hen? Have you ever seen a hen with feathers like that?”<br /><br /> “Listen. I have handled fighting cocks since I was a boy, and you cannot tell me that that thing is a rooster.”<br /><br /> Before Kiko and I realized what had happened, Father and Mother were arguing about the chicken by themselves. Soon Mother was crying. She always cried when she argued with Father.<br /><br /> “You know very well that that is a rooster,” she said. “You are just being mean and stubborn.”<br /><br /> “I am sorry,” Father said. “But I know a hen when I see one.”<br /><br /> “I know who can settle this question,” my brother said.<br /><br /> “Who?” I asked.<br /><br /> “The teniente del Barrio, chief of the village.”<br /><br /> The chief was the oldest man in the village. That did not mean that he was the wisest, but anything always carried more weight if it is said by a man with gray hair. So my brother untied the chicken and we took it to the chief.<br /><br /> “Is this a male or a female chicken?” Kiko asked.<br /><br /> “That is a question that should concern only another chicken,” the chief replied.<br /><br /> “My brother and I happen to have a special interest in this particular chicken. Please give us an answer. Just say yes or no. Is this a rooster?”<br /><br /> “It does not look like any rooster I have ever seen,” the chief said.<br /><br /> “Is it a hen, then?” I asked.<br /><br /> “It does not look like any hen I have ever seen. No, that could not be a chicken. I have never seen like that. It must be a bird of some other kind.”<br /><br /> “Oh, what’s the use!” Kiko said, and we walked away.<br /><br /> “Well, what shall we do now?” I said.<br /><br /> “I know that,” my brother said. “Let’s go to town and see Mr. Cruz. He would know.”<br /><br /> Mr. Eduardo Cruz lived in a nearby town of Katubusan. He had studied poultry raising in the University of the Philippines. He owned and operated the largest poultry business in town. We took the chicken to his office.<br /><br /> “Mr. Cruz,” Kiko said, “is this a hen or a rooster?”<br /><br /> Mr. Cruz looked at the bird curiously and then said:<br /><br /> “Hmmm. I don’t know. I couldn’t tell in one look. I have never run across a chicken like this before.”<br /><br /> “Well, is there any way you can tell?”<br /><br /> “Why, sure. Look at the feathers on its back. If the feathers are round, then it’s a hen. If they are pointed, it’s a rooster.”<br /><br /> The three of us examined the feathers closely. It had both.<br /><br /> “Hmmm. Very peculiar,” said Mr. Cruz.<br /><br /> “Is there any other way you can tell?”<br /><br /> “I could kill it and examined its insides.”<br /><br /> “No. I do not want it killed,” my brother said.<br /><br /> I took the rooster in my arms and we walked back to the barrio.<br /><br /> Kiko was silent most of the way. Then he said:<br /><br /> “I know how I can prove to you that this is a rooster.”<br /><br /> “How?” I asked.<br /><br /> “Would you agree that this is a rooster if I make it fight in the cockpit and it wins?”<br /><br /> “If this hen of yours can beat a gamecock, I will believe anything,” I said.<br /><br /> “All right,” he said. “We’ll take it to the cockpit this Sunday.”<br /><br /> So that Sunday we took the chicken to the cockpit. Kiko looked around for a suitable opponent. He finally picked a red rooster.<br /><br /> “Don’t match your hen against that red rooster.” I told him. “That red rooster is not a native chicken. It is from Texas.”<br /><br /> “I don’t care where it came from,” my brother said. “My rooster will kill it.”<br /><br /> “Don’t be a fool,” I said. “That red rooster is a killer. It has killed more chickens than the fox. There is no rooster in this town that can stand against it. Pick a lesser rooster.”<br /><br /> My brother would not listen. The match was made and the birds were readied for the killing. Sharp steel gaffs were tied to their left legs. Everyone wanted to bet on the red gamecock.<br /><br /> The fight was brief. Both birds were released in the centre of the arena. They circled around once and then faced each other. I expected our chicken to die of fright. Instead, a strange thing happened. A lovesick expression came into the red rooster’s eyes. Then it did a love dance. That was all our chicken needed. It rushed at the red rooster with its neck feathers flaring. In one lunge, it buried its spurs into its opponent’s chest. The fight was over.<br /><br /> “Tiope! Tiope! Fixed fight!” the crowd shouted.<br /><br /> Then a riot broke out. People tore bamboo benches apart and used them as clubs. My brother and I had to leave through the back way. I had the chicken under my arm. We ran toward the coconut groves and kept running till we lost the mob. As soon as we were safe, my brother said:<br /><br /> “Do you believe it is a rooster now?”<br /><br /> “Yes,” I answered.<br /><br /> I was glad the whole argument was over.<br /><br /> Just then the chicken began to quiver. It stood up in my arms and cackled with laughter. Something warm and round dropped into my hand. It was an egg.<br /><br />Aguila, Augusto Antonio A., Joyce L. Arriola and John Jack Wigley. Philippine Literatures: Texts, Themes, Approaches. Espana, Manila: Univesity of Santo Tomas Publishing House. Print.Pauline Fernandezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07841137807568692883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3735880536414128433.post-87581311820442180172010-04-08T07:09:00.000-07:002010-04-08T07:12:49.601-07:00Woman With Horns (Cecilia Menguera - Brainard)Dr. Gerald McAllister listened to the rattle of doors being locked and footsteps clattering on the marble floors. The doctors and nurses were hurrying home. It was almost noon and the people of Ubec always lunched in their dining rooms their high ceilings, where their servants served soup, fish, meat, rice, and rich syrupy flan for dessert. After, they retired to their spacious, air rooms for their midday siesta. At three, they resumed work or their studies.<br /><br /> His assistant, Dr. Jaime Laurel, had explained that the practice was due to the tropical heat and high humidity. Even the dogs, he had pointed out, retreated under houses and shade trees.<br /><br /> Gerald could not understand this local custom. An hour for lunch should be more than enough. He barely had that when he was a practising physician in New York.<br /><br /> He reread his report about the cholera epidemic in the southern town of Carcar. It was an impressive report, well written, with numerous facts. Thanks to his vaccination program, the epidemic was now under control. This success was another feather in his cap, one of many he had accumulated during his stay in the Philippine Islands. No doubt Governor General Taft or perhaps even President McKinley would send him a letter of commendation. Politicians were like that; they appreciated information justifying America’s hold on the archipelago.<br /><br /> He glanced at the calendar on his ornate desk. It was March 16, 1903, a year and a half since he arrived at the port of Ubec aboard the huge steamship from San Francisco. Three years since Blanche died.<br /><br /> His head hurt and removed his glasses to stroke his forehead. When the headache passed, he straightened the papers on his desk and left the office. He was annoyed at how quiet his wing at the Ubec General Hospital was, as he walked past locked doors, potted palms, and sand – filled spittoons.<br /><br /> In front of Dr, Laurel’s office, he saw a woman trying to open the door. She looked distraught and wrung her hands. She was a native Ubecan – Gerald had seen her at the Mayor’s functions – a comely woman with bronze skin and long hair so dark it looked blue. She wore a long hair so dark it turned blue. She wore a long blue satin skirt. An embroidered panuelo over her camisa was pinned to her bosom with a magnificent brooch of gold and pearls.<br /><br /> “It is lunchtime,” he said. “His Spanish was bad and his Ubecan dialect far worse.<br /><br /> Dark fiery eyes flashed at him.<br /><br /> “Comer,” he said, gesturing with his right hand to his mouth.<br /><br /> “I know its lunchtime. It wasn’t, fifteen minutes ago.” She tried the door once more and slapped her skirt in frustration. Tears started welling in her eyes. “My husband died over a year ago.”<br /><br /> “I’m sorry.”<br /><br /> “I’m not. He was in pain for years; consumption. I have been coughing and last night, I dreamt of a funeral. I became afraid. I have a daughter, you see.”<br /><br /> “Dr. Laurel will return at three.”<br /><br /> “You are a doctor. American doctors are supposed to be the best. Can you help me?”<br /><br /> “I don’t see patients.”<br /><br /> “Ah,” she said, curved eyebrows rising. She picked up her fan with a gold chain pinned to her skirt. “Ah, a doctor who doesn’t see patients.” She fanned herself slowly.<br /><br /> Her words irritated him and he brusquely said, “Come back in a few hours; Dr. Laurel will be back then.” She stood there with eyes still moist, her neck tilted gracefully to one side and her hand languorously moving the fan back and forth.<br /><br /> “It was nothing.” Jaime said. “I listened to her chest and back. There are no lesions, no TB. I told her to return in a month. I think she is spectacular; she can come back for check – ups forever.” With mischief in his eyes, he added, “Agustina Macaraig has skin like velvet; if she were not my patient –“<br /><br /> “Jaime, your oath. You and your women. Doesn’t your wife mind?” Gerald said.<br /><br /> “Eh, she’s the mother of my children, is she not?” Shrugging his shoulders, he fixed the panama hat on his head.<br /><br /> It was late Friday afternoon and they were promenading in the park, trying to catch the cool sea breeze. The park was in front of an Old Spanish fort. There was a playground in the middle of the benches were scattered under the surrounding acacia and mango trees. Children led by their yayas crowded the playground. Men and women walked or hudddled together to talk about the day’s events.<br /><br /> As he walked by the playground, Gerald was surprised to see Agustina pushing a girl of around five on the swing. When the child pleaded to do the pushing, Agustina got on the swing. He watched her kick her legs out and throw her head back, her blue – black hair flying about. She was laughing, oblivious to the scandal she was causing.<br /><br /> “The people don’t approve of her,” Gerald commented when he noticed women gossiping behind their fans, their eyes riveted on Agustina.<br /><br /> “There is a saying here in Ubec, ‘A mango tree cannot bear avocados,” Jaime continued.<br /><br /> Gerald shrugged his shoulders.<br /><br /> “Look at her. Is she not delectable?” Jaime said. “People say she is wicked, like her mother. She has a very mysterious background.”<br /><br /> They sat on a bench next to a blooming hibiscus bush where they could see her. The child pushed her hard and Agustina’s infectious laughter rose above other sounds.<br /><br /> “I can see why the people would despise a widow who carries on the way she does,” Gerald said.<br /><br /> “But, friend, you don’t understand. We love her. She is one of us. It’s just that Ubecans love to gossip even when she patiently nursed her husband. They said she had lovers but for five years, she took care of him. The people of Ubec like to talk. Over their meals, they talk; after eating, they talk; outside church after worshipping God, they talk; during afternoon walks, they talk. Just like we’re talking, no?”<br /><br /> “I did not come here to gossip. I was perfectly content planning my bubonic plague campaign when you –“<br /><br /> “Friend, you don’t know how to enjoy life. Look at the sun turning red, getting ready to set spectacularly. It is a wonderful afternoon, you walk with a friend, you talk about beautiful women, about life. Now, let me finish my story. People say her – mother a simple laundry woman – jumped over the seminary walls and behind those hollowed walls, under the arbol de fuego trees, she bedded with one of Christ’s chosen.”<br /><br /> “Ridiculous!”<br /><br /> “Ridiculous, nothing,” Jaime replied as he pulled out a cigar from his pocket and offered it to Gerald. “Tabacalera, almost as good as Havanas.”<br /><br /> Gerald shook his head. “Thank you, but I don’t smoke.”<br /><br /> “You don’t smoke; you don’t have women; you are a shell. Bringing you here was a chore. Are all American doctors like yourself? If they are, I wouldn’t be caught dead in your rich and great country. You look like a god from Olympus – tall, blonde with gray eyes. You’re not forty, yet you act like an old man.”<br /><br /> “Jaime, skip the lecture and get on with your story.” Gerald watched Agustina loll her head back. She was biting her lower lip, afraid of how high she was.<br /><br /> “If you were not my boss, I would shake you to your senses. Anyway, the story goes that Agustina was born with horns.”<br /><br /> “Horns?”<br /><br /> “Like tor, yes.” Jaime put his fingers to his forehead. “At noon, her mother went to the enchanted river to do her wash. The spirits roam at that time, do you know what?”<br /><br /> Gerald shook his head at this nonsense. “I swim almost daily at your so – called enchanted river and I have seen nothing but fish and an occasional water buffalo. Filthy animals.”<br /><br /> “Well, maybe there are or aren’t spirits, no? Who are we to say there are none? The people say that her mother had – ah, how do you say – an encounter with an encantado, a river spirit. And Agustina is the product of that brief encounter.”<br /><br /> Gerald watched her jump off the swing, her skirt swirling up, her shapely legs flashing before his eyes.<br /><br /> “Her mother bribed a carpenter to saw off her horns when she was an infant.”<br /><br /> “She doesn’t look much like a river spirit’s daughter, Jaime,” Gerald said with a snort.<br /><br /> “Beware, you can never be sure.”<br /><br /> She took the girl’s hand and they ran into a group of women. Agustina carried on an animated conversation then waved goodbye. Before she turned to leave the park, she looked briefly at Gerald. He caught her gaze but she quickly lowered her eyes and walked away as if she had not seen him.<br /><br /> On the way to the Mayor’s house, Gerald thought that attending social functions was part of his job. He was not only Ubec’s Public Health Director, he was also an ambassador – of – sorts for the United States. The truth was, he didn’t really mind social affairs at all. They kept him occupied. When he was busy, he didn’t have time to think about the past, to feel that shakiness, that pain that had possessed him after Blanche died.<br /><br /> During the day he was fine; he worked, lunched, swam, went on promenades, had rich frothy chocolate with the men. Later he dined; sipped after – dinner brandies and liqueurs, and chatted until way past midnight. It was when the servants locked the doors and the house was still, when the only sound was the lonely clatter of the night watchman, that he would feel his composure slip away. His heart would palpitate and an uneasiness would overcome him. He would try to cram his mind with thoughts – health education campaigns, sanitation programs, quarantine reports – but the disquiet would stay with him.<br /><br /> The mayor of Ubec, a small, round man, greeted Gerald warmly. He introduced him as the great American doctor who was wiping out cholera, smallpox, and bubonic plague from Ubec. The people knew him of course and they shook his hand heartily. They congratulated him on his recent success in Carcar and inquired about his current bubonic plague campaigns. Rats, Gerald explained, transmit the disease; therefore, getting rid of the pets by traps and arsenic poisoning would eliminate the problem.<br /><br /> When the food was served on the long dining table with tall silver candelabras, the Mayor teased Dr. McAllister for his squeamishness at the roasted pig. The women giggled demurely, covering their mouths with their hand painted fans or lace handkerchiefs, while the men laughed boisterously. The Mayor’s mother, a fat old lady with a moustache, tore off the pig’s ear and pressed it in Gerald’s hand. “Taste it, my American son,” she said. Laughing and clapping, the people urged him until he finally did.<br /><br /> When he later went to the verandah to drink his rice wine, he saw Agustina standing there, gazing at the stars. She looked different, not the frightened woman at the hospital, not the carefree girl at the park, but a proper Ubecan window in black, with her hair done in a severe bun. Curiously, the starkness enhanced her grace and beauty, calling attention to the curves of her body.<br /><br /> “You did not like the lechon?” she asked softly, with an amused twinkle in her eyes.<br /><br /> “I beg your pardon? Oh – the – pig?” He shook his head, embarrassed that she had witnessed that charade. They were alone and he hoped someone would join them.<br /><br /> “What do Americans eat, Dr. McAllister?” She was studying him, eyes half – closed with a one – sided smile that was very becoming.<br /><br /> Gerald pushed his hair from his hair from his forehead. “Pies – cherry pies, boysenberry pies – I miss them all. Frankly, I have –“<br /><br /> She drew closer to him and he caught a warm, musky scent coming from her body.<br /><br /> “– I have lost ten pounds since I’ve been here.”<br /><br /> “In kilos, how many?”<br /><br /> “Around four and a half.”<br /><br /> “Santa Clara! You must get rid of your cook. She must be an incompetent, starving you like that. It is a shame to the people of Ubec.”<br /><br /> Gerald watched her, aware of his growing infatuation.<br /><br /> “I like you,” she said suddenly. “You and I have a kinship. Come to my house and my daughter and I will feed you.” Pausing, she reached up to stroke his face with her fan. His cheeks burned. “Nothing exotic,” she continued, “just something good.” Her eyes flashed as she smiled. “You know where I live?”<br /><br /> He hesitated the shook his head. His knees were shaking.<br /><br /> “The house at the mouth of the river. I see you swimming during siesta time. I like to swim at night, when the moon is full.” She looked at him, closed her eyes languidly and walked away.<br /><br /> After dinner, Gerald hurried home and paced his bedroom floor. He should have been flattered by Agustina’s advances, but instead he was angry and confused. She was enchanting and desirable and he was upset that he should find her so.<br /><br /> Once he had been unfaithful when Blanche was bedridden. The surgical nurse who laughed a lot had been willing, and he had wanted even for just for a few hours to forget, to be happy. Blanche had known, just by looking at him. “Oh, Tiger, how could you? How could you?” After her death, he had not given this side of himself a thought. Yet now, he found himself recalling that indescribable musky – woman scent emanating from Agustina.<br /><br /> There was something else. It bothered him deeply that Agustina, widowed for only a little over a year, would laugh, be happy, even flirt outrageously with him. Why was she not consumed with grief? Why did she not sit at home crocheting white doilies? Why did she not light candles in the crumbling musty churches, the way proper Ubecan widows did? He was outraged at her behaviour. He condemned her for the life that oozed out of her, when he needed every ounce of his strength just to stay sane.<br /><br /> He strode to his desk and stared at the album with photographs, which he had not looked at in years. The wedding picture showed a vibrant smiling girl with a ring of tiny white flowers around her blonde curly hair. His face was unlined then, and his moustache seemed an affection. Anxious eyes peered through round eyeglasses, as if he knew then that the future would give him anguish.<br /><br /> He studied the other pictures – serious daguerreotypes – that unleashed a flood of emotions. He found himself weeping at some, smiling at others. He remembered Blanche’s soft voice: “Oh, Tiger, I adore you so.” Blanche in bed, waiting for him. And later, Blanche in bed, pale, thin, with limp hair. She had been eaten bit by bit by consumption; she had been consumed, only a skeleton, that coughed incessantly and spat blood remained. Gerald did not believe in God, but he had prayed for her death, just so it would end. When she died, he was surprised to feel another kind of grief, more acute, more searing.<br /><br /> After her funeral, his mind would go on and on about how useless he was – a doctor whose wife died of consumption was a failure. And always the soft voice: “Oh, Tiger, how could you?”<br /><br /> Returning from his work each night, he had found himself waiting for her voice: How was your day, Tiger? He saw slight women with curly blonde hair and he followed them. He plunged into a depression – not eating, unable to work, to think clearly, to talk coherently. He stayed shut up in his room with wine – coloured drapes. At times he thought he was losing his mind. When he pointed a gun to his forehead, a part of him panicked and said: NO. That part had taken over and started running his life again. Eat, so you will gain weight; exercise, so your body will be healthy; work, so your mind will not dwell on the agony.<br /><br /> It was this part that led him to the Islands, far away, from slight women with curly blonde hair. It was the same part that now said: Blanche is dead, you are alive; you have the right to laugh and be happy just as Agustina laughs and is happy.<br /><br /> Gerald struggled within himself but would not allow himself to surrender his mourning. He decided not to see Agustina; he would not allow her to corrupt him.<br /><br /> Governor General William H. Taft’s handwritten letter from Manila arrived the morning and Gerald reread it several times, trying to absorb the congratulatory words. He felt nothing. He would have not cared if the letter had never come. He realized he didn’t really care, nowadays. Work was predictable; there was a little risk. He applied himself and the laurels came. But the successes, the commendations did not fill emptiness. He picked up the conch shell that he used as a paper weight and tapped it, listening to the hollow ring that echoed in his office.<br /><br /> Gerald went to Jaime’s office to show him the letter. Jaime appeared cross; he sat erect and immobile as he listened quietly.<br /><br /> “Well?” Gerald asked after reading the letter aloud.<br /><br /> “The letter – it’s a fine letter, don’t you think?” he hoped for an enthusiastic reply that would rub some life into him.<br /><br /> “The Mayor’s mother is dead.” Jaime said. “She choked on some food.”<br /><br /> “Too bad. Well, at least it wasn’t typhoid or anything contagious,” he said.<br /><br /> Jaime’s black eyes snapped at him.”You bastard!” he said. “All you can think about is work. You have no soul.”<br /><br /> Gerald could not work the rest of the morning. He felt a growing restlessness, a vague uneasiness that he could not pinpoint. No soul. Had he indeed lost his soul? Was that why he could not feel and why he didn’t care about anything? In trying to bring order to his life, in restructuring it after Blanche died, had he lost a vital part of himself – his soul?<br /><br /> Funerals, Gerald thought as he walked into the Mayor’s house, were dreary, maudlin affairs, where people wore long faces and tried to sound sincere as they dug up some memory of the deceased.<br /><br /> He braced himself when he saw mourners in black and the huge black bow on the Mayor’s front door. Inside, he was surprised to see the number of people crowding the place. Some wept; others laughed and related stories about the old woman. A rather festive air filled the place.<br /><br /> The Mayor hugged Gerald, saying, “What a tragedy, what a tragedy! She was eating pickled pig snout when suddenly she choked. It was over before any of us could do anything. She loved you like a son and worried that you were too thin.”<br /><br /> “I’m sorry,” mumbled Gerald.<br /><br /> The Mayor brought him to the casket in the living room. “Mama chose her own funeral picture,” the Mayor said as he pointed at the huge picture of a slim, young girl, propped up next to the coffin. “She was a vain woman. The picture was taken almost half a century ago.”<br /><br /> The mayor continued, “Her mind was not clear. She wanted to be buried in her wedding gown but it was far too small. I had to hire three seamstresses to work all night. They ripped and stitched, adding panels to the cloth of the dress. It was still too small. Finally we decided to clothe her in another dress and to lay her wedding gown on top, pinning it here and there to keep it in place. Family deaths can be trying,” he said.<br /><br /> The old Spanish friar said a Latin Mass and spoke lengthily about her goodness and kindness. “She had a rich and long life,” he concluded. Six men picked up the casket and carried it downstairs. Near the hearse, an old man riding a horse stopped them. He was dressed in revolutionary uniform with medals hanging on his chest, and a gun on his right hand which he fired once. Gasping, the mourners stopped still. The old man ordered the men to open the casket. He got off his horse, bent over the casket and planted a kiss on the corpse’s lips. Then, he got back on his horse and galloped off.<br /><br /> It took a while for the mourners to compose themselves and continue to the cemetery. A pair of scissors was placed under the satin pillow; family members kissed the body; the priest blessed the coffin and she was finally buried.<br /><br /> Everybody returned to the Mayor’s house for a huge banquet. Jaime tried to explain the revelry by saying that the person was feted on his birth, his marriage, and his death. “It’s the end of a good life, my friend,” he said.<br /><br /> Agustina, who was there, walked up to Gerald. “It was a beautiful funeral,” she said.<br /><br /> “I’ve never attended one like it,” he replied and laughed. “I guess it was.”<br /><br /> They were near a window and she looked out, “Ah, the moon is full.”<br /><br /> From his room, Gerald watched the large moon rise, shining on the starapple and jackfruit trees in his backyard. It was a warm night, even with all the windows open. He waited for even the slightest breeze to stir the silvery leaves, but there was no wind and a restlessness grew in him.<br /><br /> At last he decided to go to the river. Silence and oppressive heat dominated Ubec as he walked the cobblestones. He reached the path leading to the river and the sea. The moon was so bright that the air seemed to vibrate as he followed the trail that widened, then narrowed, then widened again, until he reached the riverbank.<br /><br /> After leaving his things under a coconut tree, he walked to the water and saw how clear it was. Little gray fish darted between colourful rocks. In the distance the river and sea shimmered brilliantly.<br /><br /> The water felt cool and silky. Gerald swam back and forth, marvelling at the brazenness of the fish that brushed against him, some even nibbling his toes. He spotted a bright green rock and wondered about it. Diving at the river bottom, he fetched it. When he surfaced, he saw her standing next to his things. He was not surprised; he knew she would be there.<br /><br /> Moonlight bathed her, making her glow. A green and red tapis was wrapped around her, exposing golden shoulders and neck, showing mounds of flesh.<br /><br /> Gerald felt life stirring in him and, holding his breath, he waded to the shore. She walked toward him. The water splashed and the small gray fish skittered away when she slipped into the water. He watched the river creep higher and higher as her tapis floated gracefully around her, until they fell into each other’s arms.<br /><br />Aguila, Augusto Antonio A., Joyce L. Arriola and John Jack Wigley. Philippine Literatures: Texts, Themes, Approaches. Espana, Manila: Univesity of Santo Tomas Publishing House. Print.Pauline Fernandezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07841137807568692883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3735880536414128433.post-86299528616817173932010-04-07T22:11:00.000-07:002010-04-07T22:22:51.421-07:00My Father Goes To Court (Carlos Bulusan)When I was four, I lived with my mother and brothers and sisters in a small town on the island of Luzon. Father’s farm had been destroyed in 1918 by one of our sudden Philippine floods, so several years afterwards we all lived in the town though he preferred living in the country. We had as a next door neighbour a very rich man, whose sons and daughters seldom came out of the house. While we boys and girls played and sang in the sun, his children stayed inside and kept the windows closed. His house was so tall that his children could look in the window of our house and watched us played, or slept, or ate, when there was any food in the house to eat.<br /><br />Now, this rich man’s servants were always frying and cooking something good, and the aroma of the food was wafted down to us form the windows of the big house. We hung about and took all the wonderful smells of the food into our beings. Sometimes, in the morning, our whole family stood outside the windows of the rich man’s house and listened to the musical sizzling of thick strips of bacon or ham. I can remember one afternoon when our neighbour’s servants roasted three chickens. The chickens were young and tender and the fat that dripped into the burning coals gave off an enchanting odour. We watched the servants turn the beautiful birds and inhaled the heavenly spirit that drifted out to us.<br /><br />Some days the rich man appeared at a window and glowered down at us. He looked at us one by one, as though he were condemning us. We were all healthy because we went out in the sun and bathed in the cool water of the river that flowed from the mountains into the sea. Sometimes we wrestled with one another in the house before we went to play. We were always in the best of spirits and our laughter was contagious. Other neighbours who passed by our house often stopped in our yard and joined us in laughter.<br /><br />As time went on, the rich man’s children became thin and anaemic, while we grew even more robust and full of life. Our faces were bright and rosy, but theirs were pale and sad. The rich man started to cough at night; then he coughed day and night. His wife began coughing too. Then the children started to cough, one after the other. At night their coughing sounded like the barking of a herd of seals. We hung outside their windows and listened to them. We wondered what happened. We knew that they were not sick from the lack of nourishment because they were still always frying something delicious to eat.<br /><br />One day the rich man appeared at a window and stood there a long time. He looked at my sisters, who had grown fat in laughing, then at my brothers, whose arms and legs were like the molave, which is the sturdiest tree in the Philippines. He banged down the window and ran through his house, shutting all the windows.<br /><br />From that day on, the windows of our neighbour’s house were always closed. The children did not come out anymore. We could still hear the servants cooking in the kitchen, and no matter how tight the windows were shut, the aroma of the food came to us in the wind and drifted gratuitously into our house.<br /><br />One morning a policeman from the presidencia came to our house with a sealed paper. The rich man had filed a complaint against us. Father took me with him when he went to the town clerk and asked him what it was about. He told Father the man claimed that for years we had been stealing the spirit of his wealth and food.<br /><br />When the day came for us to appear in court, father brushed his old Army uniform and borrowed a pair of shoes from one of my brothers. We were the first to arrive. Father sat on a chair in the centre of the courtroom. Mother occupied a chair by the door. We children sat on a long bench by the wall. Father kept jumping up from his chair and stabbing the air with his arms, as though we were defending himself before an imaginary jury.<br /><br />The rich man arrived. He had grown old and feeble; his face was scarred with deep lines. With him was his young lawyer. Spectators came in and almost filled the chairs. The judge entered the room and sat on a high chair. We stood in a hurry and then sat down again.<br /><br />After the courtroom preliminaries, the judge looked at the Father. “Do you have a lawyer?” he asked.<br /><br />“I don’t need any lawyer, Judge,” he said.<br /><br />“Proceed,” said the judge.<br /><br />The rich man’s lawyer jumped up and pointed his finger at Father. “Do you or you do not agree that you have been stealing the spirit of the complaint’s wealth and food?”<br /><br />“I do not!” Father said.<br /><br />“Do you or do you not agree that while the complaint’s servants cooked and fried fat legs of lamb or young chicken breast you and your family hung outside his windows and inhaled the heavenly spirit of the food?”<br /><br />“I agree.” Father said.<br /><br />“Do you or do you not agree that while the complaint and his children grew sickly and tubercular you and your family became strong of limb and fair in complexion?”<br /><br />“I agree.” Father said.<br /><br />“How do you account for that?”<br /><br />Father got up and paced around, scratching his head thoughtfully. Then he said, “I would like to see the children of complaint, Judge.”<br /><br />“Bring in the children of the complaint.”<br /><br />They came in shyly. The spectators covered their mouths with their hands, they were so amazed to see the children so thin and pale. The children walked silently to a bench and sat down without looking up. They stared at the floor and moved their hands uneasily.<br /><br />Father could not say anything at first. He just stood by his chair and looked at them. Finally he said, “I should like to cross – examine the complaint.”<br /><br />“Proceed.”<br /><br />“Do you claim that we stole the spirit of your wealth and became a laughing family while yours became morose and sad?” Father said.<br /><br />“Yes.”<br /><br />“Do you claim that we stole the spirit of your food by hanging outside your windows when your servants cooked it?” Father said.<br /><br />“Yes.”<br /><br />“Then we are going to pay you right now,” Father said. He walked over to where we children were sitting on the bench and took my straw hat off my lap and began filling it up with centavo pieces that he took out of his pockets. He went to Mother, who added a fistful of silver coins. My brothers threw in their small change.<br /><br />“May I walk to the room across the hall and stay there for a few minutes, Judge?” Father said.<br /><br />“As you wish.”<br /><br />“Thank you,” father said. He strode into the other room with the hat in his hands. It was almost full of coins. The doors of both rooms were wide open.<br /><br />“Are you ready?” Father called.<br /><br />“Proceed.” The judge said.<br /><br />The sweet tinkle of the coins carried beautifully in the courtroom. The spectators turned their faces toward the sound with wonder. Father came back and stood before the complaint.<br /><br />“Did you hear it?” he asked.<br /><br />“Hear what?” the man asked.<br /><br />“The spirit of the money when I shook this hat?” he asked.<br /><br />“Yes.”<br /><br />“Then you are paid,” Father said.<br /><br />The rich man opened his mouth to speak and fell to the floor without a sound. The lawyer rushed to his aid. The judge pounded his gravel.<br /><br />“Case dismissed.” He said.<br /><br />Father strutted around the courtroom the judge even came down from his high chair to shake hands with him. “By the way,” he whispered, “I had an uncle who died laughing.”<br /><br />“You like to hear my family laugh, Judge?” Father asked?<br /><br />“Why not?”<br /><br />“Did you hear that children?” father said.<br /><br />My sisters started it. The rest of us followed them soon the spectators were laughing with us, holding their bellies and bending over the chairs. And the laughter of the judge was the loudest of all.<br /><br />Aguila, Augusto Antonio A., Joyce L. Arriola and John Jack Wigley. Philippine Literatures: Texts, Themes, Approaches. Espana, Manila: Univesity of Santo Tomas Publishing House. Print.Pauline Fernandezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07841137807568692883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3735880536414128433.post-85796117347908413312010-04-06T00:24:00.000-07:002010-04-06T00:31:22.466-07:00The Sadness Collector (Merlinda Bobis)<span style="font-family:arial;">And she will not stop eating, another pot, another plate, another mouthful of sadness, and she will grow bigger and bigger, and she will burst.<br /><br />On the bed, six – year – old Rica braces herself, waiting for the dreaded explosion –<br /><br />Nothing. No big bang. Because she’s been a good girl. Her tears are not even a mouthful tonight. And maybe their neighbours in the run – down apartment have been careful, too. From every pot and plate, they must have scraped off their leftover sighs and hidden them somewhere unreachable. So Big Lady can’t get to them. So she can be saved from bursting.<br /><br />Every night, no big bang really, but Rica listens anyway.<br /><br />The house is quiet again. She breathes easier, lifting the sheets slowly from her face – a brow just unfurrowing, but eyes still wary and a mouth forming the old silent question – are you really there? She turns on the lamp. It’s girlie kitsch like the rest of the decor, from the dancing lady wallpaper to the row of Barbie dolls on a roseate plastic table. The tiny room is all pink bravado, hoping to compensate for the warped ceiling and stained floor. Even the unhinged window flaunts a family of pink paper rabbits.<br /><br />Are you there?<br /><br />Her father says she never shows herself to anyone. Big Lady only comes when you’re asleep to eat your sadness. She goes from house to house and eats the sadness of everyone, so she gets too fat. But there’s a lot of sadness in many houses, it just keeps on growing each day, so she can’t stop eating, and she can’t stop growing too.<br /><br />Are you really that bid? How do you wear your hair?<br /><br />Dios ko, if she eats all our mess, Rica, she might grow too fat and burst, so be a good girl and save her by not being sad – hoy, stop whimpering, I said, and go to bed. Her father is not always patient with his storytelling.<br /><br />All quiet now. She’s gone.<br /><br />Since Rica was three, when her father told her about Big Lady just after her mother left for Paris, she was always listening intently to all the night – noises from the kitchen. No, that sound is not the scurrying of mice – she’s actually checking the plates now, lifting the lid off the rice pot, peeking into cups for sadness, both overt and unspoken. To Rica, it always tastes salty, like tears, even her father’s funny look each time she asks him to read her again the letters from Paris.<br /><br />She has three boxes of them, one for each year, though the third box is not even half – full. All of them tied with Paris ribbons. The first year, her mother sent all colours of the rainbow for her long, unruly hair, maybe because her father did not know how to make it more graceful. He must have written her long letters, asking about how to pull the mass of curls away from the face and tie them neatly the way he gathered, into some semblance of order, his own nightly longings.<br /><br />It took some time for him to perfect the art of making a pony – tail. Then he discovered a trick unknown to even the best hairdressers. Instead of twisting the bunch of hair to make sure it does not come undone before it’s tied, one can rotate the whole body. Rica simply had to turn around in place, while her father held the gathered hair above her head. Just like dancing, really.<br /><br />She never forgets, talaga naman, the aunties whisper among themselves these days. A remarkable child. She was only a little thing then, but she noticed all, didn’t she, never missed anything, committed even details to memory. A very smart kid, but too serious, a sad kid.<br /><br />They must have guessed that, recently, she has cheated on her promise to behave and save Big Lady. But only on nights when her father comes home late and drunk, and refuses to read the old letters from Paris – indeed, she has been a very good girl. She’s six and grown up now, so, even if his refusal has multiplied beyond her ten fingers, she always makes sure that her nightly tears remained small and few. Like tonight, when she hoped her father would come home early, as he promised again. Earlier, Rica watched TV to forget, to make sure the tears won’t amount to a mouthful. She hates waiting. Big Lady hates that, too, because then she’ll have to clean up till the early hours of the morning.<br /><br />Why Paris? Why three years – and even more? Aba, this is getting too much now. The aunties never agree with her mother’s decision to work there, on a fake visa, as a domestic helper – ay naku, taking care of other people’s children, while, across the ocean, her own baby cries herself to sleep? Talaga naman! She wants to earn good money and build us a house. Remember, I only work in a factory... Her father had always defended his wife, until recently, when all talk about her return was shelved. It seems she must extend her stay, because her employer might help her to become “legal.” Then she can come home for a visit and go back there to work some more –<br /><br />The lid clatters off the pot. Beneath her room, the kitchen is stirring again. Rica sits up on the bed – the big one has returned? But she made sure the pot and plates were clean, even the cups, before she went to bed. She turns off the lamp to listen in the dark. Expectant ears, hungry for the phone’s overseas beep. Her mother used to call each month and write her postcards, also long love letters, even if she couldn’t read yet. With happy snaps, of course. Earlier this year, she sent one of herself and the new baby of her employer.<br /><br />Cutlery noise. Does she also check them? This has never happened before, her coming back after a lean meal. Perhaps, she’s licking a spoon for any trace of saltiness, searching between the prongs of a fork. Unknown to Rica, Big Lady is wise, an old hand in this business. She senses that there’s more to a mouthful of sadness than meets the tongue. A whisper of salt, even the smallest nudge to the palate, can betray a century of hidden grief. Perhaps, she understands that, for all its practice, humanity can never conceal the daily act of futility at the dinner table. As we feed continually, we also acknowledge the perennial nature of our hunger. Each time we bring food to our mouths, the gut – emptiness that we attempt to fill inevitably contaminates our cutlery, plates, cups, glasses, our whole table. It is this residual contamination, our individual portions of grief, that she eats, so we do not die from them – but what if we don’t eat? Then we can claim self – sufficiency, a fullness from birth, perhaps. Then we won’t betray our hunger.<br /><br />But Rica was not philosophical at four years old, when she had to be cajoled, tricked, ordered, then scolded severely before she finished her meal, if she touched it at all. Rica understood her occasional hunger strikes quite simply. She knew that these dinner quarrels with her father, and sometimes her aunties, ensured dire consequences. Each following day, she always made stick drawings of Big Lady with an ever – increasing girth, as she was sure the lady had had a big meal the night before.<br /><br />Mouth curved downward, she’s sad like her meals. No, she wears a smile, she’s happy because she’s always full. Sharp eyes, they can see in the dark, light – bulb eyes, and big teeth for chewing forever. She can hardly walk, because her belly’s so heavy, she’s pregnant with leftovers. No, she doesn’t walk, she flies like a giant cloud and she’s not heavy at all, she only looks heavy. And she doesn’t want us to be sad, so she eats all our tears and sighs. But she can’t starve, can she? Of course, she likes sadness, it’s food.<br /><br />Fascination, fear and a kinship drawn from trying to save each other. Big Lady saves Rica from sadness; Rica saves Big Lady from bursting by not being sad. An ambivalent relationship, confusing, but certainly a source of comfort. And always Big Lady as object of attention. Those days when Rica drew stick – drawings of her, she made sure the big one was always adorned with pretty baubles and make – up. She even drew her with a Paris ribbon to tighten her belly. Then she added a chic hat to complete the picture.<br /><br />Crimson velvet with a black satin bow. Quite a change from all the girlie kitsch – that her mother had dredged from Paris’ unfashionable side of town? The day it arrived in the mail, Rica was about to turn six. A perfect Parisienne winter hat for a tiny head in the tropics. It came with a bank – draft for her party.<br /><br />She did not try it on, it looked strange, so different from the Barbies and pink paper rabbits. This latest gift was unlike her mother, something was missing. Rica turned it inside out, searching – on TV, Magic Man can easily pull a rabbit or a dove out of his hat, just like that, always. But this tale was not part of her father’s repertoire. He told her not to be silly when she asked him to be Magic Man and pull out Paris – but can she eat as far as Paris? Can she fly from here to there overnight? Are their rice pots also full of sad leftovers? How salty?<br /><br />Nowadays, her father makes sure he comes home late each night, so he won’t have to answer the questions, especially about the baby in the photograph. So he need not to improvise further on his three – year – old tall tale.<br /><br />There it is again, the cutlery clunking against a plate – or scraping the bottom of a cup? She’s searching for the hidden mouthfuls and platefuls and potfuls. Cupboards are opened. No, nothing there, big one, nothing – Rica’s eyes are glued shut. The sheets rise and fall with her breathing. She wants to leave the bed, sneak into the kitchen and check out this most unusual return and thoroughness.<br /><br />That’s the rice pot being overturned –<br /><br />Her breaths make and unmake a hillock on the streets –<br /><br />A plate shatters on the floor –<br /><br />Back to a foetal curl, knees almost brushing chin –<br /><br />Another plate crushes –<br /><br />She screams –<br /><br />The pot is hurled against the wall –<br /><br />She keeps screaming as she ruins out of the room, down to the kitchen –<br /><br />And the cutlery, glasses, cups, more plates –<br /><br />Big Lady’s angry, Big Lady’s hungry, Big Lady’s turning the house upside down –<br /><br />Breaking it everywhere –<br /><br />Her throat is weaving sound, as if it were all that it never knew –<br /><br />“SHUT UP – !”<br /><br />Big Lady wants to break all to get to the heart of the matter, where it’s the saltiest. In the vein of a plate, within the aluminium bottom of a pot, in the copper fold of a spoon, deep in the curve of a cup’s handle –<br /><br />Ropes and ropes of scream –<br /><br />“I SAID, SHUT UP!”<br /><br />Her cheek stings. She collapses on the floor before his feet.<br /><br />“I didn’t mean to, Dios ko po, I never meant to –“<br /><br />Her dazed eyes make out the broken plates, the dented pot, the shards of cups, glasses, the cutlery everywhere –<br /><br />He’s hiccupping drunkenly all over her –<br /><br />“I didn’t mean to, Rica, I love you, baby, I’ll never let you go –“ His voice is hoarse with anger and remorse.<br /><br />“She came back, Papa –“<br /><br />“She can’t take you away from me –“<br /><br />“She’s here again –“<br /><br />“Just because she’s ‘legal’ now –“<br /><br />“She might burst, Papa –“<br /><br />“That whore - !” His hands curl into fists on her back.<br /><br />Big Lady knows, has always known. This feast will last her a lifetime, if she does not burst tonight.<br /><br />Aguila, Augusto Antonio A., Joyce L. Arriola and John Jack Wigley. Philippine Literatures: Texts, Themes, Approaches. Espana, Manila: Univesity of Santo Tomas Publishing House. Print.</span>Pauline Fernandezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07841137807568692883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3735880536414128433.post-74835443104977995592010-04-06T00:02:00.000-07:002010-04-06T00:29:19.208-07:00Mill of the Gods (Estrella Alfon)<span style="font-family:arial;">Among us who lived in Espeleta – that street that I love, about whose people I keep telling tales – among us, I say, there was one named Martha, and she was the daughter of Pio and Engracia.<br /><br />To all of us, life must seem like a road given us to travel, and it is up to Fate, that convenient blunderer, whether, that road be broad and unwinding, or whether it shall be a tortuous lane, its path a hard and twisted mat of dust and stones. And each road, whether lane or avenue, shall have its own landmarks, that only the traveller soul shall recognize and remember, and remembering, continue the journey again. To Martha, the gods gave this for a first memory: a first scar.<br /><br />She was a girl of twelve, and in every way she was but a child. A rather dull child, who always lagged behind the others of her age, whether in study or in play. Life had been so far a question of staying more years in a grade than the others, of being told she would have to apply herself a little harder if she didn’t want the infants catching up with her. But that was so dismal thing. She had gotten a little bit used to being always behind. To always being the biggest girl in her class. Even in play there was some part of her that never managed to take too great a part – she was so content if they always made her “it” in a game of tag, if only they would let her play. And when she had dolls, she was eager to lend them to other girls, if they would only include her in the fascinating games she could not play alone.<br /><br />This was she, then. Her hair hung in pigtails each side of her face, and already it irked a little to have her dresses too short. She could not help in her mother’s kitchen, and could be trusted to keep her room clean, but she was not ready for the thing her mother told her one night when she was awakened from sleep.<br /><br />It was a sleep untroubled by dreams, then all of a sudden there was an uproar in the house, and she could hear her mother’s frenzied sobbing, and it was not sobbing that held as much of sorrow as it did of anger. She lay still for a while, thinking perhaps she was dreaming, until she could hear her father’s grunted answers to the half – understood things her mother was mouthing at him. Then there were sounds that was clearly the sound of two bodies struggling in terrible fury with each other. She stood up, and like a child, cried into the night. Mother?<br /><br />She wailed the word, in her panic finding a little relief in her own wailing, Mother? And she heard her mother’s voice call her, panting out, saying, Martha, come quickly, come into this room!<br /><br />Martha got up and stood at the door of the room, hesitating about opening it, until her mother, the part of a terrible grasp, said Martha! So Martha pushed in the door, and found her mother and her father locked in an embrace in which both of them struggled and panted and had almost no breath left for words. Martha stood wide – eyed and frightened, not knowing what to do, just standing there, even though she had seen what it was they struggled for. A kitchen knife, blade held upwards in her mother’s hand. Her arms were pinioned to her sides by her husband, but her wild eyes, the frenzy with which she stamped her feet on his feet, and kicked him in the shins, and tried to bite him with her teeth, these were more terrible than the glint of that shining blade. It was her father who spoke to her saying urgently, Martha, reach for her knife, take it away. Yet Martha stood there and did not comprehend until her mother spoke, saying No, no; Martha, your father deserves to be killed. Then it was Martha who realized what she was to do, and slowly, hesitantly, she went near them, her fear of both of them in this terrible anger they now presented making her almost too afraid to reach up for the knife. But reach up she did, and with her child’s fingers, put her mother’s away from the weapon. And when she had it in her hands she did not know what to do with it, except look at it. It wasn’t a very sharp knife, but its blade was clean, and its hilt firm. And so she looked at it, until her father said. Throw it out of the window, Martha and without thinking, she went to a window, opened a casement and threw it away.<br /><br />Then her father released her mother, and once her mother had gotten her arms free, she swung back her hand, and wordlessly, slapped him; slapped him once, twice, three times, alternating with her hands, on alternate cheeks, until her father said. That’s enough, Engracia. And saying so, he took her hands in his, led her resisting to the bed, and made her sit down.<br /><br />And Martha was too young to wonder that her father, who was a big man, should have surrendered to the repeated slapping from her mother who was a very small frail woman.<br /><br />Her father said, “Aren’t you ashamed now Martha has seen?”<br /><br />And immediately her mother screamed to him, “Ashamed? Me, ashamed? I’ll tell Martha about you!”<br /><br />Her father looked at Martha still standing dumbly by the window out of which she had thrown the knife, and said, “No, Aciang, she is just a child.” And to her: “Martha, go back to bed.”<br /><br />But now her mother jumped up from the bed, and clutched at Martha, and brought her to bed with her. And deliberately without looking at Martha’s father, she said, Martha you are not too young to know. And so, the words falling from her lips with a terrible quiet, she told Martha. The words that were strange to her ears, Martha heard them, and listened to them, and looked from her mother to her father, and without knowing it, wetting her cheeks with her tears that fell. And then her mother stopped talking, and looking at her husband, she spat on him, and Martha saw the saliva spatter on the front of the dark shirt he wore. She watched while her father strode over them, and slowly, also deliberately, slapped her mother on the cheek. Martha watched his open palm as he did it, and felt the blow as though it had been she who had been hit. Then her father strode out of the room, saying nothing, leaving them alone.<br /><br />When her father had gone, Martha’s mother began to cry, saying brokenly to Martha, “It is that woman, that woman!” And making excuses to Martha for her father, saying it was never completely the man’s fault. And Martha listened bewildered, because this was so different from the venomous words her mother had told her while her father was in the room. And then her mother, still weeping, directed her to look for her father and Martha went out of the room.<br /><br />Her father was not in the house. The night was very dark as she peered out of the windows to see is she could find him outside, but he was nowhere. So she went back to her mother, and told her she could not find her father. Her mother cried silently, the tears coursing down her cheeks, and her sobs tearing through her throat. Martha cried with her, and caressed her mother’s back with her hands, but she had no words to offer, nothing to say. When her mother at last was able to talk again, she told Martha to go back to bed. But it wasn’t the child that entered who went out of that room.<br /><br />And yet the terror of that night was not so great because it was only a terror half – understood. It wasn’t until she was eighteen, that the hurt of that night was invested with its full measure. For when she was eighteen, she fell in love. She was a girl of placid appearance, in her eyes the dreaming stolid night of the unawakened. She still was slow to learn, still not prone to brilliance. And when she fell in love she chose the brightest boy of her limited acquaintance to fall in love with. He was slightly older than herself, a little too handsome, a trifle too given to laughter. Espeleta did not like him; he was too different from the other young me n on the street. But Martha loved him. You could see that in the way she looked at him, the way she listened to him.<br /><br />Martha’s pigtails had lengthened. She now wore her braids coiled on the top of her head like a coronet, and it went well with the placid features, the rather full figure. She was easily one of our prettier maidens. It was well that she was not too brilliant. That she did not have any too modern ideas. The air of shyness, the awkward lack of sparkling conversation suited her Madonna – like face and calm. And her seriousness with love was also part of the calm waiting nature. It did not enter her head that there are such things as play, and a game. And a man’s eagerness for sport. And so when she noticed that his attentions seemed to be wandering, even after he had admitted to a lot of people that they were engaged, she asked him, with the eager desperation of the inexperienced, about their marriage.<br /><br />He laughed at her. Laughed gently, teasingly, saying they could not get married for a long time yet; he must repay his parents first for all that they had done for him. He must first be sure to be able to afford the things she deserved. Well turned phrases he said his excuses with. Charming little evasions. And if she did not see through them while he spoke them, his frequent absences, where his visits had been as a habit; his excuses to stay away when once no amount of sending him off could make him stay away; these but made her see. And understand.<br /><br />And then the way neighbours will, they tried to be kind to her. For they could see her heart was breaking and they tried to say sweet things to her, things like her being far too good for him. And then they heard that he had married. Another girl. And they saw her grief, and thought it strange that a girl should grieve over an undeserving lover or so. She lost a little of the plumpness that was one of her charms. And into her eyes crept a hurt look to replace the dreaming. And Espeleta, with all the good people, strove to be even kinder to her. Watched her grief and pitied her. And told her that whatever mistakes she had committed to make her grieve so, to make her suffer so, they understood and forgave. And they did not blame her. But now that she had learned her lesson, she must beware. She knew her own father as much as they knew about him. And it was in the Fates that his sins must be paid for. If not by himself, then by whom but she who was begotten by him? So, didn’t she see? How careful she should be? Because you could, they said it to her gently, kindly, cruelly, because she could if she were careful, turn aside the vengeance of the implacable fates. And she believed them kind although she hated their suspicions. She believed them kind, and so she started, then, to hate her father. And that night long ago came back to her, and she wished she had not thrown that knife away.<br /><br />Espeleta saw Martha turn religious. More religious than Iya Andia and Iya Nesia, who were old and saw death coming close, and wanted to be assured of the easing of the gates of heaven. Espeleta approved. Because Espeleta did not know what she prayed for. Because they saw only the downcast eyes under the light veil, the coil of shining hair as it bowed over the communion rail.<br /><br />Yet Martha’s mother and father still lived together. They never had separated. Even after that night, when she was twelve years old and frightened, and she had called for him and looked for him and not found him. The next day he had come back, and between her mother and him there was a silence. They slept in the same bed, and spent the nights in the same room, and yet Martha and Espeleta knew he had another bed, another chamber. Espeleta praised Martha’s mother for being so patient. After Martha had fallen in love, when she began hating her father truly then also she began despising her mother.<br /><br />You did not know it to look at Martha. For her coil of braided hair was still there, and the shy way of speaking, and the charming awkwardness at conversation. And Martha made up her earlier lack of lustre by shining in her class now. She was eighteen and not through high school yet. But she made up for it by graduating with high honours. Espeleta clapped its hands when she graduated. Gave her flowers. Her mother and father were there, too. And they were proud. And to look at Martha, you would think she was proud too, if a little too shy still.<br /><br />Martha studied nursing. And started having visitors in her mother’s house again. Doctors this time. Older men, to whom her gravity of manner appealed, and the innate good sense that seemed so patient in her quiet demeanour. Espeleta was now rather proud of Martha. She seemed everything a girl should be, and they cited her as an example of what religion could do. Lift you out of the shadow of your inheritance. For look at Martha. See how different she is from what should be her father’s daughter.<br /><br />But what they did not know was that all of these doctors Martha had to choose someone slightly older than the rest. And where the girl of eighteen that she had been almost a child unschooled, now she was a woman wise and wary. Where the other nurses knew this doctor only as someone who did not like their dances as much as the younger ones, who did not speak as lightly, as flippantly of love as the younger ones, Martha knew why he didn’t.<br /><br />Between the two of them there had been, form the very start, a quick lifting of the pulse, an immediate quickening of the breath. From the very start. And where he could have concealed the secrets of life, he chose the very first time they were able to talk to each other, to tell her that he was not free. He had a wife, and whether he loved her or not, whether she was unfaithful to him or not, which she was, there had been the irrevocable ceremony to bind them, to always make his love for any other woman, if he ever fell in love again, something that must be hidden, something that might not see light.<br /><br />She was a woman now, Martha was. Wise and wary. But there is no wisdom, no weariness against love. Not the kind of deep love she knew she bore him. And as even she him, she found within herself the old deep – abiding secret hate. Against her father. Against the laws of man and church. Against the very fates that seemed rejoiced in making her pay for a sin she had not committed. She now learned of bitterness. Because she could not help thinking of that night, long ago, when her mother had sat on the bed, and in deliberate words told her just what kind of a father she had. It had been as though her mother had shifted on to her unwilling, unready shoulders the burden of the sorrows, the goad of the grief.<br /><br />Espeleta, that was so quick to censure, and to condemn; even Espeleta had taken the situation in Martha’s house as something that could not be helped. And as long as there was no open strife, Espeleta made excuses for a thing that, they said, had been designed by Fate. Martha’s father came home. Acted, on the surface, the good husband. And since he was married to Martha’s mother, so must Martha’s mother bear it, and welcome him home again. Because she would rather he came home, then went to the other one, wouldn’t she? Espeleta cited heavenly rewards. For Martha’s mother. And Martha went to church regularly, and was a good nurse. And still called her father, Father.<br /><br />You have heard that one of course, about the mill of the gods, how they “grind exceedingly fine, and grind exceedingly slow.” Espeleta hadn’t heard that one, nor had Martha. But Espeleta of course would have a more winded version of it. Anyhow, one day at the hospital, Martha was attendant nurse at an emergency case. A man had been shot. There were three bullets through his chest, but he was still alive. Martha laughed queerly to herself, saying I must be dreaming, I am imagining that man has my father’s face.<br /><br />It was the doctor she loved who was in charge. With a queer dreaming feeling, she raised her eyes to meet his, and was shocked to see him drop his gaze, and over his face steal a twist as of pain, as of pity. They were instantly their efficient selves again, cloaking themselves in the impersonal masks of physician and nurse. It was as if he who lay there beneath their instruments and their probing fingers was any man, the way it could be any man. Not her father. But all while, training and discipline unavailing. Martha said to herself, but it is my father.<br /><br />He died on the table. He never gained consciousness. Martha drew the sheet over his face and form. And watched as they wheeled him out of the room. She still had the instruments to put away and the room to put in order. But this did not take long and when she went out into the corridor, she found her mother weeping beside the shrouded form on the wheeled table. There was a policeman beside her awkwardly trying with gruff words to console the little woman over her loss. Beside the policeman stood also the doctor, who passed an arm around the shoulder of Martha’s mother, saying simply, we tried to save him.<br /><br />Martha joined them, knowing that she should be in tears, yet finding that she had none to shed. It would ease the tightness within her, would loosen the hard knot in her heart to cry. But you cannot summon tears when you feel no grief, and the pain you feel is not of sorrow but of the cruel justness of things. She could not even put her arms around her weeping mother. When the doctor told her that she would be excused from duty the rest of the day, that he would arrange it for her, she did not thank him. She did not say anything for indeed she no longer had any words, nor any emotions that required speech. Or should be given speech. For one cannot say, how right! How just! When one’s father has just died.<br /><br />Her mother and she took a taxi together to accompany the hearse that took her father home. There was a crowd awaiting them. Espeleta in tears. Espeleta crying condolence and opprobrium in the same breath. It was from them – their good neighbours, their kind neighbours – that Martha learned how “God’s justice had overtaken the sinner.”<br /><br />Colon is not as intimate as Espeleta. For it is a long street and broad street. But where the railroad crosses it, the houses group together in intimate warmth and neighbourly closeness and its families live each other’s lives almost as meddlingly as Espeleta does. And is as avid for scandals as Espeleta is. Among the people in Martha’s house were some from Colon. And it was they who supplied the grimmer details, the more lucid picture.<br /><br />In that other woman’s house – and Martha did not even know the other woman’s name there had existed the stalemate state of affairs that had existed in Martha’s house. Only where in Martha’s house it had been a wife who was patient, in that other woman’s house it had been the husband who had bided his time. And yet the neighbours had thought he had not cared. For indeed he had seemed like a man blind and deaf, and if he raised his voice against his wife, it was not so they could hear it. Yet today, he had come home, after he had said he was going away somewhere. And had come upon Martha’s father in the house, and had, without saying anything, taken out his revolver, and shot at him.<br /><br />Martha heard all these. And thought you know often life seems like an old – fashioned melodrama, guns and all. And yet the gun had not gone off. It had jammed, and Martha’s father had been able to run. And running, even as he seemed far enough from the house to be safe, the gun in the husband’s hand had come right again. The man had gone out in the street, aimed at the fleeing figure. That explained why the bullets had gone in through his back and out through his chest. They said that the street was spattered with blood and where he fell, there was a pool of gory red. The killer had surrendered himself at once. But everyone knew he would not pay with his life he had taken. For the woman was his wife and he had come upon them in his own home.<br /><br />Martha stayed with the kind condolers only a while. She left her mother for them to comfort as best as they could. They would have praises like “The good God knows best;” they would have words like, “Your grief is ended, let your other grief commence.” She went to look at her father lying well arranged now in his bier. Already in spite of the manner of his death, there were flowers for him. Death had left no glare in the eyes that the doctor at the hospital had mercifully closed, over the features lingered no evidence of pain. And Martha said, Death was kind to you.<br /><br />In Martha’s room there hung a crucifix. Upon the crossed wood was the agonized Christ, His eyes soft and deep and tender, even in his agony. But as Martha knelt, and lighted her candles, and prayed, in her eyes was no softness, and on her lips no words appealing for pity for him who had died. There was only the glitter of a justice meted out at last, and the thankfulness for a punishment fulfilled. So she gave thanks, very fervent thanks. For now, she hoped, she would cease to pay.<br /><br />Aguila, Augusto Antonio A., Joyce L. Arriola and John Jack Wigley. Philippine Literatures: Texts, Themes, Approaches. Espana, Manila: Univesity of Santo Tomas Publishing House. Print.</span>Pauline Fernandezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07841137807568692883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3735880536414128433.post-68285320682668481692010-04-05T23:49:00.000-07:002010-04-06T00:23:23.111-07:00May Day Eve (Nick Joaquin)The old people had ordered that the dancing should stop at ten o’clock but it was almost midnight before the carriages came lining up to the front door, the servants running to and fro with torches to light the departing guests, while the girls who were staying were promptly herded upstairs to the bedrooms, the young men gathering around to wish them a good night and lamenting their ascent with mock signs and moanings, proclaiming themselves disconsolate but drunk already and simply bursting with wild spirits, merriment, arrogance and audacity, for they were young bucks newly arrived from Europe; the ball had been in their honor; and they had waltzed and polka – ed and bragged and swaggered and flirted all night and were in no mood to sleep yet – no, caramba, not on this moist tropic eve! Not on this mystic May eve! – with the night still young and so seductive that it was madness not to go out, not to go forth – and serenade the neighbours! cried one; and swim in the Pasig! cried another; and gather fireflies! cried a third – whereupon there arose a great clamour for coats and capes, for hats and canes, and they were presently stumbling out among the medieval shadows of the foul street where a couple of street – lamps flickered and a last carriage rattled away upon the cobbles while the blind black houses muttered hush – hush, their tile roofs looming like sinister chessboards against a wile sky murky with clouds, save where an evil young moon prowled about in a corner or where a murderous wind whirled, whistling and whining, smelling now of the sea and now of the summer orchards and wafting unbearable childhood fragrances of ripe guavas to the young men trooping so uproariously down the street that the girls who were disrobing upstairs in the bedrooms scattered screaming to the windows, crowded giggling at the windows, but were soon sighing amorously over those young men bawling below; over those wicked young men and their handsome apparel, their proud flashing eyes, and their elegant moustaches so black and vivid in the moonlight that the girls were quite ravished with love, and began crying to one another how carefree were men but how awful to be a girl and what a horrid, and chased them off to bed – while from up the street came the clackety – clack of the watchman’s boots on the cobbles, and the clang – clang of his lantern against his knee, and the mighty roll of his great voice booming through the night, “Guardia sereno – o – o! A las doce han dado – o – o.”<br /><br /> And it was May again, said the old Anastasia. It was the first day of May and witches were abroad in the night, she said – for it was a night of divination, a night of flowers, and those who cared might peer in a mirror and would there behold the face of whoever it was they were fated to marry, said the old Anastasia as she hobbled about picking up the piled crinolines and folding up shawls and raking slippers to a corner while the girls climbing into the four great poster beds that overwhelmed the room began shrieking with terror, scrambling over each other and imploring the old woman not to frighten them.<br /><br /> “Enough, enough, Anastasia! We want to sleep!”<br /><br /> “Go scare the boys instead, you old witch!”<br /><br /> “She is not a witch, she is a maga. She was born on Christmas Eve!”<br /><br /> “St. Anastasia, virgin and martyr.”<br /><br /> “Huh? Impossible! She has conquered seven husbands! Are you a virgin, Anastasia?”<br /><br /> “No, but I am seven times a martyr because of you girls!”<br /><br /> “Let her prophesy, let her prophesy! Whom will I marry, old gypsy? Come, tell me.”<br /><br /> “You may learn in a mirror if you are not afraid.”<br /><br /> “I am not afraid, I will go,” cried the young cousin Agueda, jumping up in bed.<br /><br /> “Girls, girls – we are making too much noise! My mother will hear and will come and pinch us all. Agueda, lie down! And you Anastasia, I command you to shut your mouth and go away!”<br /><br /> “Your mother told me to stay here all night, my grandlady!”<br /><br /> “And I will not lie down!” cried the rebellious Agueda, leaping to the floor. “Stay, old woman. Tell me what I have to do.”<br /><br /> “Tell her! Tell her!” chimed the other girls.<br /><br /> The old woman dropped the clothes she had gathered and approached and fixed her eyes on the girl. “You must take a candle,” she instructed, “and go into a room that is dark and that has a mirror in it and you must be alone in the room. Go up to the mirror and close your eyes and say:<br /><br />Mirror, mirror,<br />Show to me<br />Him whose woman<br />I will be.<br /><br /> If all goes right, just above your left shoulder will appear the face of the man you will marry.”<br /><br /> A silence. Then: “And what if all does not go right?” asked Agueda.<br /><br /> “Ah, then the Lord have mercy on you!”<br /><br /> “Why?”<br /><br /> Because you may see – the Devil!”<br /><br /> The girls screamed and clutched one another, shivering.<br /><br /> “But what nonsense!” cried Agueda. “This is year 1847. There are no devils anymore!” Nevertheless she had turned pale. “But where could I go, huh? Yes, I know! Down to the sala. It has that big mirror and no one is there now.”<br /><br /> “No, Agueda, no! It is a mortal sin! You will see the devil!”<br /><br /> “I do not care! I am not afraid! I will go!”<br /><br /> “Oh, you wicked girl! Oh, you mad girl!”<br /><br /> “If you do not come to bed, Agueda, I will call my mother.”<br /><br /> “And if you do I will tell her who came to visit you at the convent last March. Come, old woman – give me that candle. I go.”<br /><br /> “Oh girls – come and stop her! Take hold of her! Block the door!”<br /><br /> But Agueda had already slipped outside; was already tiptoeing across the hall; her feet bare and her dark hair falling down her shoulders and streaming in the wind as she fled down the stairs, the lighted candle sputtering in one hand while with the other she pulled up her white gown from her ankles.<br /><br /> She paused breathless in the doorway to the sala and her heart failed her. She tried to imagine the room filled again with lights, laughter, whirling couples, and the jolly jerky music of the fiddlers. But, oh, it was a dark den, a weird cavern, for the windows had been closed and the furniture stacked up against the walls. She crossed herself and stepped inside.<br /><br /> The mirror hung on the wall before her; a big antique mirror with a gold frame carved into leaves and flowers and mysterious curlicues. She saw herself approaching fearfully in it; a small white ghost that the darkness bodied forth – but not willingly, not completely, for her eyes and hair were so dark that the face approaching in the mirror seemed only a mask that floated forward; a bright mask with two holes gaping in it, blown forward by the white cloud of her gown. But when she stood before the mirror she lifted the candle level with her chin and the dead mask bloomed into her living face.<br /><br /> She closed her eyes and whispered the incantation. When she had finished such a terror took hold of her that she felt unable to move, unable to open her eyes and thought she would stand there forever, enchanted. But she heard a step behind her, and a smothered giggle, and instantly opened her eyes.<br /><br /> “And what did you see, Mama? Oh, what was it?”<br /><br /> But Dona Agueda had forgotten the little girl on her lap: she was staring pass the curly head nestling at her breast and seeing herself in the big mirror hanging in the room. It was the same room and the same mirror but the face she now saw in it was an old face – a hard, bitter, vengeful face, like a white mask, that fresh young face like a pure mask than she had brought before this mirror one wild May Day midnight ten years ago...<br /><br /> “But what was it Mama? Oh please go on! What did you see?”<br /><br /> Dona Agueda looked down at her daughter but her face, did not soften though her eyes filled with tears. “I saw the devil,” she said bitterly.<br /><br /> The child blanched. “The devil, Mama? Oh... Oh...”<br /><br /> “Yes my love. I opened my eyes and there in the mirror, smiling at me over my left shoulder, was the face of the devil.”<br /><br /> “Oh, my poor little Mama! And were you very frightened?”<br /><br /> “You can imagine. And that is why good little girls do not look into mirrors except when their mothers tell them. You must stop this naughty habit, darling, of admiring yourself in every mirror you pass – or you may see something frightful some day.”<br /><br /> “But the devil, Mama – what did he look like?”<br /><br /> “Well, let me see... he has curly hair and a scar on his cheek –“<br /><br /> “Like the scar of Papa?”<br /><br /> “Well, yes. But this of the devil was a scar of sin, while that of your Papa is a scar of honour. Or so he says.”<br /><br /> “Go on about the devil.”<br /><br /> “Well, he had mustaches.”<br /><br /> “Like those of Papa?”<br /><br /> “Oh, no. Those of your Papa are dirty and graying and smell horribly of tobacco, while these of the devil were very black and elegant – oh, how elegant!”<br /><br /> “And did he have horns and tail?”<br /><br /> The mother’s lips curled. “Yes, he did! But, alas, I could not see them at that time. All I could see were his fine clothes, his flashing eyes, his curly hair, and moustaches.”<br /><br /> “And did he speak to you, Mama?”<br /><br /> “Yes... Yes, he spoke to me,” said Dona Agueda. And bowing her graying head, she wept.<br /><br /> “Charms like yours have no need for a candle, fair one,” he had said, smiling her in the mirror and stepping back to give her a low mocking bow. She had whirled around and glared at him and he had burst into laughter.<br /><br /> “But I remember you!” he cried. “You are Agueda, whom I left a mere infant and came home to find a tremendous beauty, and I danced a waltz with you but you would not give me the polka.”<br /><br /> “Let me pass,” she muttered fiercely, for he was barring her the way.<br /><br /> “But I want to dance the polka with you, fair one,” he said.<br /><br /> So they stood before the mirror; their panting breath the only sound in the dark room; the candle shining between them and flinging their shadows to the wall. And young Badoy Montiya (who had crept home very drunk to pass out quietly in bed) suddenly found himself cold sober and very much awake and ready for anything. His eyes sparkled and the scar on his face gleamed scarlet.<br /><br /> “Let me pass!” she cried again, in a voice of fury, but he grasped her by the wrist.<br /><br /> “No,” he smiled. “Not until we have danced.”<br /><br /> “Go to the devil!”<br /><br /> “What a temper has my serrana!”<br /><br /> “I am not your serrana!”<br /><br /> “Whose, then? Someone I know? Someone I have offended grievously? Because you treat me, you treat all my friends like your mortal enemies.”<br /><br /> “And why not?” she demanded, jerking her wrist away and flashing her teeth in his face. “Oh, how I detest you, you pompous young men! You go to Europe and you come back elegant lords and we poor girls are too tame to please you. We have no grace like the Parisiennes, we have no fire like the Sevillians, and we have no salt, no salt, no salt! Aie, how you weary me, how you bore me, you fastidious young men!”<br /><br /> “Come, come – how do you know about us?”<br /><br /> “I heard you talking, I have heard you talking among yourselves, and I despise the pack of you!”<br /><br /> “But clearly you do not despise yourself, senorita. You come to admire your charms in the mirror even in the middle of the night!”<br /><br /> She turned livid and he had a malicious satisfaction.<br /><br /> “I was not admiring myself, sir!”<br /><br /> “You were admiring the moon perhaps?”<br /><br /> “Oh!” she gasped, and burst into tears. The candle dropped from her hand and she covered her face and sobbed piteously. The candle had gone out and they stood in darkness, and young Badoy was conscience – stricken.<br /><br /> “Oh, do not cry, little one! Oh, please forgive me! Please do not cry! But what a brute I am! I was drunk, little one, I was drunk and knew not what I said.”<br /><br /> He groped and found her hand and touched it to his lips. She shuddered in her white gown.<br /><br /> “Let me go,” she moaned, and tugged feebly.<br /><br /> “No. Say you forgive me first. Say you forgive me, Agueda.”<br /><br /> But instead she pulled his hand to her mouth and bit it – bit so sharply into the knuckles that he cried with pain and lashed out with his other hand – lashed out and hit the air, for she was gone, she had fled, and he heard the rustling of her skirts up the stairs as he furiously sucked his bleeding fingers.<br /><br /> Cruel thoughts raced through his head: he would go and tell his mother and make her turn the savage girl out of the house – or he would himself to the girl’s room and drag her out of bed and slap, slap, slap her silly face! But at the same time he was thinking that they were all going up to Antipolo in the morning and was already planning how he would manoeuvre himself into the same boat with her.<br /><br /> Oh, he would have his revenge, he would make her pay, that little harlot! She should suffer for this, he thought greedily, licking his bleeding knuckles. But – Judas! – what eyes she had! And what a pretty colour she turned when angry! He remembered her bare shoulders: gold in the candlelight and delicately furred. He saw the mobile insolence of her neck, and her taunt breasts steady in the fluid no fire or grace? And no salt? An arroba she had of it!<br /><br />“... No lack of salt in the chrism<br />At the moment of thy baptism!”<br /><br /> He sang aloud in the dark room and suddenly realized that he had fallen madly in love with her. He ached intensely to see her again – at once! – to touch her hands and her hair; to hear her harsh voice. He ran to the window and flung open the casements and the beauty of the night struck him back like a blow. It was May, it was summer, and he was young – young! – and deliriously in love. Such a happiness welled up within him that the tears spurted from his eyes.<br /><br /> But he did not forgive her – no! He would still make her pay, he would still have his revenge, he thought viciously, and kissed his wounded fingers. But what a night it had been! “I will never forget this night!” he thought aloud in an awed voice, standing by the window in the dark room, the tears in his eyes and the wind in his hair and his bleeding knuckles pressed to his mouth.<br /><br /> But, alas, the heart forgets; the heart is distracted; and May – time passes; summer ends; the storms break over the rot – ripe orchards and the heart grows old; while the hours, the days, the months, and the years pile up and pile up, till the mind becomes too crowded. Too confused: dust gathers it; cobwebs multiply; the walls darken and fall into ruin and decay; the memory perishes... and there came when Don Badoy Montiya walked home through a May Day midnight without remembering, without even caring to remember; being merely concerned in feeling his way across the street with his cane; his eyes having grown quite dim and his legs uncertain – for he was old; he was over sixty; he was a very stooped and shrivelled old man with white hair and moustaches, coming home from a secret meeting of conspirators; his mind still resounding with the speeches and his patriot heart still exultant as he picked his way up the steps to the front door and inside into the slumbering darkness of the house; wholly unconscious of the May night, till on his way down the hall, chancing to glance into the sala, he shuddered, he stopped, his blood ran cold – for he had seen a face in the mirror there – a ghostly candlelit face with the eyes closed and the lips moving, a face that he suddenly felt he had seen there before though it was a full minute before the lost memory came flowing, came tiding back, so overflooding the actual moment and so swiftly washing away the piled hours and days and months and years that he was left suddenly young again; he was a gay young buck again, lately come from Europe; he had been dancing all night; he was very drunk; he stopped in the doorway; he saw a face in the dark; he cried out... and the lad standing before the mirror (for it was a lad in a night gown) jumped with fright and almost dropped his candle, but looking around and seeing the old man, laughed out with relief and came running.<br /><br /> “Oh Grandpa, how you frightened me!”<br /><br /> Don Badoy had turned very pale. “So it was you, you young bandit! And what is all this, hey? What are you doing down here at this hour?”<br /><br /> “Nothing, Grandpa. I was only... I am only...”<br /><br /> “Yes, you are the great Senor Only and how delighted I am to make your acquaintance, Senor Only! But if I break this cane on your head you may wish you were someone else, sir!”<br /><br /> “It was just foolishness, Grandpa. They told me I would see my wife.”<br /><br /> “Wife? What wife?”<br /><br /> “Mine. The boys at school said I would see her if I looked in a mirror tonight and said:<br /><br />Mirror, mirror<br />Show to me<br />Her whose lover<br />I will be.”<br /><br /> Don Badoy cackled ruefully. He took the boy by the hair, pulled him along into the room, sat down on a chair, and drew the boy between his knees.<br /><br /> “Now, put your candle down on the floor, son, and let us talk this over. So you want your wife already, hey? You want to see her in advance, hey? But do you know that these are wicked games and that wicked boys who play them are in danger of seeing horrors?”<br /><br /> “Well, the boys did warn me I might see a witch instead.”<br /><br /> “Exactly! A witch so horrible you may die of fright. And she will bewitch you, she will torture you, she will eat your heart and drink your blood!”<br /><br /> “Oh, come now Grandpa. This is 1890. There are no witches anymore.”<br /><br /> “Oh – ho, my young Voltaire! And what if I tell you that I myself have seen a witch.”<br /><br /> “You? Where?”<br /><br /> “Right in this room and right in that mirror,” said the old man, and his playful voice had turned savage.<br /><br /> “When, Grandpa?”<br /><br /> “Not so long ago. When I was a bit older than you. Oh, I was a vain fellow and though I was feeling very sick that night and merely wanted to lie down somewhere and die. I could not pass that doorway of course without stopping to see in the mirror what I looked like when dying. But when I poked my head in what should I see in the mirror but... but...”<br /><br /> “The witch?”<br /><br /> “Exactly!”<br /><br /> “And did she bewitch you, Grandpa?”<br /><br /> “She bewitched me and she tortured me. She ate my heart and drank my blood,” said the old man bitterly.<br /><br /> “Oh, my poor little Grandpa! Why have you never told me! And she was very horrible?”<br /><br /> “Horrible? God, no – she was beautiful. She was the most beautiful creature I have ever seen! Her eyes were somewhat like yours but her hair was like black waters and her golden shoulders were bare. My God, she was enchanting! But I should have known – I should have known even then – the dark and fatal creature she was!”<br /><br /> A silence. Then: “What a horrid mirror this is, Grandpa,” whispered the boy.<br /><br /> “What makes you say that, hey?”<br /><br /> “Well, you saw this witch in it. And Mama once told me that Grandma once told her that Grandma once saw the devil in this mirror. Was is of the scare that Grandma died?”<br /><br /> Don Badoy stared. For a moment he had forgotten that she was dead, that she had perished – the poor Agueda; that they were at peace at last, the two of them, her tired body at rest; her broken body set free at last from the brutal pranks of the earth – from the trap of a May night; from the snare of a summer; from the terrible silver nets of the moon. She had been a mere heap of white hair and bones in the end: a whimpering withered consumptive, lashing out with her cruel tongue; her eyes like live coals; her face like ashes... Now, nothing – nothing save a name on a stone; save a stone in a graveyard – nothing! – nothing at all! All that was left of the young girl who had flamed so vividly in a mirror one wild May Day midnight, long, long ago.<br /><br /> And remembering how she had sobbed so piteously; remembering how she had bitten his hand and fled and how he had sung aloud in the dark moon and surprised hi heart in the instant of falling in love: such a grief tore up his throat and eyes that he felt ashamed before the boy; pushed the boy away; stood up and fumbled his way to the window, threw open the casements and looked out – looked out upon the medieval shadows of the foul street where a couple of street lamps flickered and a last carriage was rattling away upon the cobbles, while the blind black houses muttered hush – hush, their tiled roofs looming like sinister chessboards against a wild sky murky with clouds, save where an evil old moon prowled about in a corner or where a murderous wind whirled, whistling and whining, smelling now of the sea and now of the summer orchards and wafting unbearable Maytime memories of an old, old love to the old man shaking with sobs by the window; the bowed old man sobbing so bitterly at the window; the tears streaming down his cheeks and the wind in his hair and one hand pressed to his mouth – while from up the street came the clackety – clack of the watchman’s boots on the cobbles, and the clang – clang of his lantern against his knee, and the mighty roll if his voice booming through the night: “Guardia sereno – o – o! A las doce han dado – o – o!”<br /><br />Aguila, Augusto Antonio A., Joyce L. Arriola and John Jack Wigley. Philippine Literatures: Texts, Themes, Approaches. Espana, Manila: Univesity of Santo Tomas Publishing House. Print.Pauline Fernandezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07841137807568692883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3735880536414128433.post-24286982997801546532010-04-05T23:28:00.000-07:002010-04-06T00:16:09.684-07:00Mats (Francisco Arcellana)<span style="font-family:arial;">For the Angeles family, Mr. Angeles’ homecoming from his periodic inspection trips was always an occasion for celebration. But his homecoming – from a trip to the South – was fated to be more memorable than any of the others.<br /><br />He had written from Mariveles: “I have met a marvellous matweaver – a real artist – and I shall have a surprise for you. I asked him to weave a sleeping – mat for evry one in the family. He is using many different tools and for each mat the dominant colour is that of our respective birthstones. I am sure that the children will be very pleased. I know you will be. I can hardly wait to show them to you.”<br /><br />Nana Emilia read the letter that morning, and again and again every time she had a chance to leave the kitchen. In the evening, when all the children were home from school she had asked her oldest son, Jose, to read the letter at the dinner table. The children became very much excited about the mats, and talked about them until late into the night. This she wrote her husband when she laboured over a reply to him. For days after that the mats continued to be the chief topic of conversation among the children.<br /><br />Finally, from Lopez, Mr. Angeles wrote again: “I am taking the Bicol Express tomorrow. I have the mats with me, and they are beautiful. God willing, I shall be home to join you at dinner.”<br /><br />The letter was read aloud during the noon meal. Talk about the mats flared up again like wildfire.<br /><br />“I like the feel of mats,” Antonio, the third child, said. “I like the smell of new mats.” “Oh, but these mats are different,” interposed Susanna, the fifth child. “They have our names woven into them, and in our ascribed colours, too.”<br /><br />The children knew what they were talking about: they knew just what a decorative mat was like; it was not anything new or strange in their experience. That was why they were so excited about the matter. They had such a mat in the house, one they seldom used, a mat older than any of them.<br /><br />This mat had been given to Nana Emilia by her mother when she and Mr. Angeles were married, and it had been with them ever since. It had served on the wedding night, and had not since been used except on special occasions.<br /><br />It was a very beautiful mat, not really meant to be ordinarily used. It had green leaf borders, and a lot of gigantic red roses woven into it. In the middle, running the whole length of the mat, was the lettering:<br /><br />Emilia y Jaime Recuerdo<br /><br />The letters were in gold.<br /><br />Nana Emilia always kept that mat in her trunk. When anyone of the family was taken ill, the mat was brought out and the patient slept on it, had it all to himself. Everyone of the children had sometime in his life slept on it; not a few had slept on it more than once.<br /><br />Most of the time, the mat was kept in Nana Emilia’s trunk, and when it was taken out and spread on the floor the children were always around to watch. At first there had been only Nana Emilia and Mr. Angeles to see the mat spread. Then a child – a girl – watched with them. The number of watchers increased as more children came.<br /><br />The mat did not seem to age. It seemed to Nana Emilia always as new as when it had been laid on the nuptial bed. To the children it seemed as new as the first time it was spread before them. The folds and creases seemed always new and fresh. The smell was always the smell of a new mat. Watching the intricate design was an endless joy. The children’s pleasure at the golden letters even before they could work out the meaning was boundless. Somehow they were always pleasantly shocked by the sight of the mat: so delicate and so consummate the artistry of its weave.<br /><br />Now, taking out that mat to spread had become a kind of ritual. The process had become associated with illness in the family. Illness, even serious illness, had not been infrequent. There had been deaths...<br /><br />In the evening Mr. Angeles was with his family. He had brought the usual things home with him. There was a lot of fruit, as always (his itinerary carried him through the fruit – growing provinces): pineapples, lanzones, chicos, atis, santol, sandia, guyabano, avocado, according to the season. He had also brought home a jar of preserved sweets from Lopez.<br /><br />Putting away the fruit, sampling them, was as usual accomplished with animation and lively talk. Dinner was a long affair. Mr. Angeles was full of stories about his trip but would interrupt his tales with: “I could not sleep of nights thinking of the young ones. They should never be allowed to play in the streets. And you older ones should not stay out too late at night.”<br /><br />The stories petered out and dinner was over. Putting away the dishes and wiping the dishes and wiping the table clean did not at all seem tedious. Yet Nana Emilia and the children, although they did not show it, were all on edge about the mats.<br /><br />Finally, after a long time over his cigar, Mr. Angeles rose from his seat at the head of the table and crossed the room to the corner where his luggage had been piled. From the heap he disengaged a ponderous bundle. Taking it under one arm, he walked to the middle of the room where the light was brightest. He dropped the bundle and, bending over and balancing himself on his toes, he strained at the cord that bound it. It was strong, would not break, would not give way. He tried working at the knots. His fingers were clumsy, they had begun shaking. He raised his head, breathing heavily, to ask for the scissors. Alfonso, his youngest boy, was to one side of him with the scissors ready.<br /><br />Nana Emilia and her eldest girl, who had long returned from the kitchen, were watching the proceedings quietly.<br /><br />One swift movement with the scissors, snip! And the bundle was loose.<br /><br />Turning to Nana Emilia, Mr. Angeles joyfully cried: “These are the mats, Miling.”<br /><br />Mr. Angeles picked up the topmost mat in the bundle.<br /><br />“This, I believe, is yours, Miling.”<br /><br />Nana Emilia stepped forward to the light, wiping her still moist hands against the folds of her skirt, and with a strangely young shyness received the mat. The children watched the spectacle silently, and then broke into delighted, though a little conscious, laughter. Nana Emilia unfolded the mat without a word. It was a beautiful mat: to her mind, even more beautiful than the one she had received from her mother on her wedding day. There was a name in the very centre of it: EMILIA. The letters were large, done in green. Flowers – cadena – de – amor – were woven in and out among the letters. The border was a long winding twig of cadena – de – amor.<br /><br />The children stood about the spread mat. The air was punctuated by their breathless exclamations of delight.<br /><br />“It is beautiful, Jaime; it is beautiful!” Nana Emilia’s voice broke, and she could not say any more.<br /><br />“And this, I know, is my own,” said Mr. Angeles of the next mat in the bundle. The mat was rather simply decorated, the design almost austere, and the only colours used were purple and gold. The letters of the name Jaime were in purple.<br /><br />“And this is for you, Marcelina.”<br /><br />Marcelina was the oldest child. She had always thought her name too long; it had been one of her worries with regard to the mat.”How on earth are they going to weave all of the letters of my name into my mat?” she had asked of almost everyone in the family. Now it delighted her to see her who name spelled out on the mat, even if the letters were a little small. Besides, there was a device above her name which pleased Marcelina very much. It was in the form of a lyre, finely done in three colours. Marcelina was a student of music and was quite a proficient pianist.<br /><br />“And this is for you, Jose.”<br /><br />Jose was the second child. He was a medical student already in the third year at medical school. Over his name the symbol of Aesculapius was woven into the mat.<br /><br />“You are not to use this mat until the year of your internship,” Mr. Angeles was saying.<br /><br />“This is yours, Antonio.”<br /><br />“And this is yours, Juan.”<br /><br />“And this is yours, Jesus.”<br /><br />Mat after mat was unfolded. On each of the children’s mats there was somehow an appropriate an appropriate device.<br /><br />At least all the children had been shown their individual mats. The air was filled with their excited talk, and through it all Mr. Angeles was saying over and over again in his deep voice:<br /><br />“You are not to use this mats until you go to the University.”<br /><br />Then Nana Emilia noticed bewilderingly that there were some more mats remaining to be unfolded.<br /><br />“But Jaime,” Nana Emilia said, wonderingly, with evident trepidation, “there are some more mats.”<br /><br />Only Mr. Angeles seemed to have heard Nana Emilia’s words. He suddenly stopped talking, as if he had been jerked away from a pleasant phantasy. A puzzled reminiscent look came into his eyes, superseding the deep and quiet delight that had been briefly there, and when he spoke, his voice was different.<br /><br />“Yes, Emilia,” said Mr. Angeles, “There are three more mats to unfold. The others who aren’t here...”<br /><br />Nana Emilia caught her breath; there was a swift constriction in her throat; her face paled and she could not say anything.<br /><br />The self – centred talk of the children also died. There was a silence as Mr. Angeles picked up the first of the remaining mats and began slowly unfolding it.<br /><br />The mat was almost as austere in design as Mr. Angeles’ own, and it had a name. There was no symbol or device above the name; only a blank space, emptiness.<br /><br />The children knew the name. But somehow the name, the letters spelling the name, seemed strange to them.<br /><br />The Nana Emilia found her voice.<br /><br />“You know, Jaime, you didn’t have to,” Nana Emilia said, and her voice was hurt and sorely frightened.<br /><br />Mr. Angeles jerked his back; there was something swift and savage in the movement.<br /><br />“Do you think I’d forgotten? Do you think I had forgotten them? Do you think I could forget them?<br /><br />“This is for you, Josefina!”<br /><br />“And this, for you, Victoria!”<br /><br />“And this, for you, Concepcion!”<br /><br />Mr. Angeles called the names rather than uttered them.<br /><br />“Don’t, Jaime, please don’t,” was all that Nana Emilia managed to say.<br /><br />“Is it fair to forget them? Would it be just to disregard them?” Mr. Angeles demanded rather than asked.<br /><br />His voice had risen shrill, almost hysterical; it was also stern and sad, and somehow vindictive. Mr. Angeles had spoken almost as if he were a stranger.<br /><br />Also, he had spoken as if from a deep, grudgingly – silent, long – bewildered sorrow.<br /><br />The children heard the words exploding in silence. They wanted to turn away and not see the face of their father. But they could neither move nor look away; his eyes held them, his voice held them where they were. They seemed rooted to the spot.<br /><br />Nana Emilia shivered once or twice, bowed her head, gripped her clasped hands between her thighs.<br /><br />There was a terrible hush. The remaining mats were unfolded in silence. The names which were with infinite slowness revealed, seemed strange and stranger still; the colors not bright but deathly dull; the separate letters, spelling out the names of the dead among them, did not seem to glow or shine with a festive sheen as did the other living names.<br /><br />Aguila, Augusto Antonio A., Joyce L. Arriola and John Jack Wigley. Philippine Literatures: Texts, Themes, Approaches. Espana, Manila: Univesity of Santo Tomas Publishing House. Print.</span>Pauline Fernandezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07841137807568692883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3735880536414128433.post-59363917655440550562010-04-05T20:19:00.000-07:002010-04-06T00:16:56.920-07:00Elements of Chinese Thought in the Filipino Mind (Alfredo P. Co)<span style="font-family:arial;">Before Magellan rediscovered the Philippines, the Filipino natives had long enjoyed relationship with China, historical records of the Sung Dynasty show that the people of Mai – I visited Canton in 982 A.D. The Sulu Archipelago was mentioned in the Ming Dynasty Annals in 1410 A.D. The historical visit of Sultan Paduka of Sulu to the Imperial Palace of the famous Emperor Yong – lo can be found in the Ming Dynasty Annals, Volume 325.<br /><br />The Chinese came to the Philippines primarily to trade, but their cordial encounter brought about the development of a more intimate relationship between the two countries. The two nations have come a long way since. There were intermarriages between Filipinos and Chinese and their descendants proved to have contributed handsomely to the history of the Filipino people.<br /><br />Today those seeds of friendship have flowered and their descendants have significantly contributed to the forming of a basic Filipino identity and fundamental Filipino psyche. A cursory view of some of the more prominent Filipino thinkers and statesmen reveal the case in point. Jose Abad Santos, Emilio Aguinaldo, Jose Burgos, Gregorio del Pilar, Mariano Gomez, Emilio Jacinto, Teodoro Kalaw, Juan Laya, Apolinario Mabini, Francisco Makabulos, Roman Ongpin, Doroteo Onquinco, and Jacinto Zamora have all played important roles in both early and recent Philippine history.<br /><br />Let us not forget that the first and only Filipino saint Lorenzo Ruiz is half Chinese while our national hero; Dr. Jose Rizal was a descendant of Chin – Co and Zun – Niu, both of whom were Chinese. Again our former President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino is a descendant of a Co clan; her great grandfather was Jose Cojuangco. Former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Claudio Teehankee’s father is Chinese, and so is the father of Jaime Cardinal Sin.<br /><br />Filipino social lexicon reveals Chinese roots. Ate (elder sister), ditse (second elder sister), kuya (elder brother), diko (second elder brother), sanko (third elder brother) is among the social appellations voluntarily used in the Filipino language. Food lexicon cannot be complete without the use of such Chinese words as lumpiya (shredded vegetables wrapped in dough paper), mami (noodle dish), petsay (Chinese cabbage), siomai (steamed dumpling), taho (beancurd), tokwa (hardened beancurd), toge (bean sprouts), and many more.<br /><br />The Chinese have taught the Filipinos many skills that in time have become an integral part of Filipino culture. For instance, the Chinese introduced the cast – iron plow – head, the production of sugar from cane and such arts as carpentry, masonry, smith crafting, weaving, dyeing, and soap and candle making. Even processing and preserving foods like miki, misua, bihon, and taho were taught to the Filipinos. The Chinese introduced wood – block printing to the Filipinos quite early. Filipino business, trade and commerce cannot be conceived without tracing its roots to the Chinese.<br /><br />Can it be said that Chinese culture must have seeped so deeply into Filipino culture that it has remained there, potent and unquestioned? Could it be possible that when we speak of the Filipino mind, a part of the Chinese philosophical spirit also works unconsciously there? Perhaps so, and it seems that at this point the task of pursuing such inquiry falls right on my lap. With the given time frame, however, I can only pursue this project with circumspection for the paucity of my data may not warrant any valid conclusions. Moreover, I cannot at the moment, come up with a foolproof methodology with which to proceed with such a comparative study.<br /><br />Allow me, then, at this moment to present this project by demonstrating my comparison in thesis form. Each thesis may not appear immediately connected with the ensuing thesis but it may be expected to throw light on the issue being posed.<br /><br />The Filipino Mind Shares the Inductive Mode of Thinking of the Chinese Mind<br /><br />The Filipino Mind tends to think in terms of the concrete rather than the abstract. It seems to esteem the data of sensory experience, i.e. those that are carried to him through perception, especially visual perception. As in Chinese Philosophy that abounds with reflections that point to particular instances, the Filipino Mind prefers to give examples rather than define the essence of such reflections. A common classroom discussion will readily show the operation of a Filipino mode of thinking in terms of particulars. Ask a student to define a concept and he will usually request that he give an example instead. This mode of reflection clearly shows that both the Filipino and Chinese minds were little interested in the Universals that comprehend or transcend a particular experience. It is quite possible, of course, that they may at times express, or suggest, a variety of abstract notions, but there are no indications of any logical connections among them. Could it be possible that both languages are quite poor for expressing abstract thought?<br /><br />Their standpoint, which relies solely upon sensory qualities, has made them especially sensitive to a complex variety of phenomena instead of the laws and abstractly conceived unity of things. Here we know quite well that diversity rather than similarity characterizes the realm of phenomena. Consequently, the Filipino and the Chinese minds, which depend upon the perceived world of particulars, are naturally sensitive to the multiplicity of things. They rarely attempt to think about the universal validity of laws that regulate this multiplicity of things, as thought commonly by the Western mind.<br /><br />This mode of thinking from the particular reflects a unique mode of philosophizing, namely, the method of induction. But, induction has to stop in order to give way to a more philosophical deduction, or so, at least, the western thinkers believe. Where do the Chinese and Filipino Mind proceed from here? They both normally proceed to look for inspiration from aphoristic sayings. The Chinese may then draw theirs from the classics, while the Filipinos may draw theirs from biblical quotations or from some folk sayings.<br /><br />The Filipino Mind Shares the Chinese Anthropocentric Thinking<br /><br />The Filipino Mind tends to consider all things anthropocentrically. As such it belabours itself with the problems of Man, his place in society, the meaning of life, the essence of good life, the problem of human relations – in short, the problem of society and ethics. A common serious talk among Filipinos could focus on his such issues as utang na loob, a find of unquantifiable, indefinable indebtness; hiya, a sense of cooperation, or an attempt to live in harmony with others, very often at the expense of what may at least be considered reasonable; karangalan, a kind of self – esteem, or a sense of dignity, which is founded. But no matter where these ethical discourses may lead him, he always falls back upon the basic moral, axiom of the Ginintuang – Aral, or the Golden Rule, “Huwag mong gagawin sa iba ang ayaw mong gawin sa iyo” (Do not do unto others what you do not want others to do unto you).<br /><br />This Golden Rule of Kong Zi (Confucius) precisely explains anthropocentric moral philosophy. For it presupposes first of all Man’s “being there,” and that there is such thing as a “human nature” true to all men. What I therefore think is good for me must also be good for others, and vice – versa, inasmuch as what I think is evil for me must also be evil for others, and vice – versa.<br /><br />Consciousness of human others becomes the very moral founding – block of both Filipino and Chinese moral philosophy. Man becomes the centre of philosophizing rather than the cosmos. Kong Zi was emphatic in saying that philosophy should centre on man. He was right, because only man needs to philosophize. God, who is the repository of truth, does not need to philosophize, while the birds and the beasts cannot philosophize. Only man, because of his doubts, because of his uncertain – ties, needs to philosophize, philosophy is a domain purely of man, by man and for man.<br /><br />The Filipino Mind, Like the Chinese Mind, Is Devoid Of Epistemic Truth<br /><br />Ask a Filipino what Truth and Falsity is, and the first thing that dawns upon him is the ethical notion of Truth and Falsity. The absence of epistemic truth in the Filipino Mind illustrates the fundamental fact that Filipinos have not developed a system of logic.<br /><br />We know that western thinkers tend to build their philosophy in terms of logical structuring. A system of logic is formed, and then philosophizing ensues. Their philosophical discourse begins with formal logical reasoning, and then ventures into material reasoning. But this western fondness for what they call truth is an offshoot of Plato’s early attempt to distinguish “doxa” (belief) and “episteme” (certitude or knowledge). And what was in the beginning of a formal distinction became a real distinction. In time, Greek, and eventually Western, philosophies became problems of “belief,” “knowledge,” “opinion,” “judgment,” “proposition,” etc. All these elements of philosophizing point to an ideal goal of attaining certitude for acquiring epistemic truth.<br /><br />The Chinese, and in effect, the Filipino, approach to wisdom proceeds in a different mode. From the very beginning, they have always been concerned with the problem of understanding man in the world rather than merely analyzing it; of learning to live life rather than challenging it in terms of language and polemics; of learning how to glide with nature rather than conquering it. In effect, this kind of mind is more interested in the problem of the importance of living meaningfully in this world.<br /><br />The Filipino therefore place great importance on propriety in their utterances and behaviour. Like the Chinese, they believe that true wisdom is “knowing – to” and not “knowing – that.” The Chinese, however, went further in declaring that “knowing – to” finds itself a paragon, a morally perfect gentleman.<br /><br />In the absence of epistemic and semantic truth, we find predominance of practical moral and pragmatic truth.<br /><br />The Filipino language, like Chinese, is marked by the pragmatic focus on whether an idea is able to transform man and not just to inform him. Language then becomes a signpost for a man to experience the good life rather than merely allowing man to know truth or create truth about it. It is in no wonder that in almost all literary works, we find the language consistently reflecting on the practical and action – guiding message. Could it then be that this almost deliberate refusal to discover epistemic truth reflects a particular temperament for creative power and intuition? This leads us to another thesis.<br /><br />The Filipino Mind Shares With the Chinese Mind an Intuitive Approach to Reality<br /><br />When we speak of great systems in Philosophy, what comes to our mind are Western thinkers of the likes of Plato, Aristotle, Rene Descartes, Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel and others. For indeed the West is noted for system building. With a system properly laid down, Westerners proceed to construct a philosophy. Such a system enables them to come up with a long treatise, or a discourse on an idea. Such method doubtlessly accords the Western thinkers the ability to demonstrate their thought discursively and dialectically.<br /><br />Alas, such method is absent from the Chinese and Filipino minds. Their thinking starts with a contemplation of things unfolding before their eyes, and they allow their mind to outflow with their immediate and unspoiled impressions of reality. Streams of consciousness flow right from their hearts, giving no time for artificial censure of whether such impressions of them in this space – time continuum are. Indeed, in such a very private encounter with reality, every impression is always as valid as anyone else’s impression.<br /><br />There is, however, a difference between the Filipino – Chinese intuition on the one hand, and the Indian intuition, on the other. While the latter consciously withdraws its sense faculty form the external world in order to give way to an inner – version of the highest truth, Filipino – Chinese intuition focuses on the very phenomena unfolding before one’s very eyes and in the process it becomes connatural with phenomena. Here its understanding of the world is also its immediate impression of the world. While the Indian would therefore become silent about the highest truth attained in his mystical intuition, the Filipino – Chinese would give a series of interpretations about the world in many poetic expressions.<br /><br />The Filipino Mind, Like the Chinese Mind, Is Devoid Of the Notion of Contradiction<br /><br />We have, in our previous thesis, claimed that the Filipino Mind as well as the Chinese Mind does not think in absolute terms. They consider reality unfolding before their own eyes as real and natural occurrences. Thus far they think that nothing should be viewed as contradictory with one another, their minds do not think in the common Western mode of a two dimensional logic, neither do they think in “either – or” as they find it most comfortable to think in terms of “both – and.”<br /><br />This reconciling and harmonizing tendency may deprive them of discovering the absolute in things, but it also affords them to see light from both sides. The lack of the notion of absolute makes them take the notion of evil so lightly, for they cannot see the absolute goodness and absolute evil in things. To them there is always something good in evil things inasmuch as there is always evil in good things.<br /><br />This attitude of the mind also affords their will to rest comfortably as they seldom have scruples. They usually acknowledge the individual significance, not only of every human being but also of each kind of philosophy as a thought of possessing some degree of truth (or falsity) in it.<br /><br />When a Westerner argues with a Filipino or a Chinese, he will usually find him nodding his head in apparent agreement, but when the Westerner leaves, the Filipino or the Chinaman will fall back on his original posture on the issue just taken. For he nodded to show his respect for the other’s point of view, but at the same time, such courteous gesture should not destroy the view he so dearly treasured for so long.<br /><br />When the Chinese depict two people arguing, they use pictorials of two smiling old folks under a tree gracefully sipping tea against the backdrop of a majestic mountain. For example, a colophon of such a Chinese painting may read: “Once a duck was flying in the sky. Someone saw it and said that it was a pigeon, while another said it was a mandarin. A duck is always a duck; however, only men distinguish things from each other.” Along this similar spirit, a Filipino is not interested in whether the Americans will call a form of payment aid or rent for the use of the bases; what really matters is that the money is delivered. This sort of intuitive imagery always seems to satisfy the Filipino and Chinese. Let the Westerners tackle the problem of semantics and the jargon of polemics.<br /><br />The Filipino Mind, like the Chinese Mind, Surrenders to Higher Power or Force to Work through Man’s Life<br /><br />Both Filipino and Chinese have always considered life and the world as eternally mysterious and unfathomable. They struggle to work their way through life, but a certain junction, when they can no longer course their life through obstacles, they surrender to a higher power to help them get across. “Bahala na”, a Filipino will say.<br /><br />On a carefree day a Filipino will normally dream, struggle through life; he may plan for his future, but once confronted with a problem, he surrenders everything to God or to Bathala – let God finally decide on my future, “Bathala na.” For this all – knowing God will never leave him at a time when he needs Him most.<br /><br />The Chinese notion of Wu – Wei (literally, non – action) in the Daoist Philosophy speaks of a natural course that is also considered the right path of life. A man may have his desires, dreams, and wants, but there is only one path that can deliver him from harm – the path of the Dao. In Dao everything comes naturally, effortlessly, and unmistakably. A man who lives along this path surrenders everything to the Dao to work through his life. He glides along the Way of Nature – forever simple, unaffected, sincere, and non – artificial.<br /><br />This surrender to a higher force allows the Filipino as well as the Chinese to keep him intact and forever assured of a comfortable place under the sun. Because Bathala cannot abandon him in his time of need, “Bathala will protect him from all odds, and in time, the nightmare will pass away, the storm will be over and he can continue his smooth sailing again. While allowing the path of man to course itself along the path of Dao, man is also assured of the smooth road that leads to inner; serenity and peace.<br /><br />As can now be gleaned, there seem to be many similarities between the Filipino and the Chinese Minds, and we will discover more of them. If we dig more deeply into the workings of both, this is just an initial attempt to draw such comparison. This project should be continued because history has shown significant collaborations between these two peoples. Moreover, a deeper Filipino understanding of the workings of Chinese Mind in him may in the future awaken his Dragon Spirit that has made Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Hongkong, Singapore, and lately, Thailand and Malaysia, assert themselves courageously in building their nations for the twenty – first century.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Co, Alfredo. Across the Philosophical Silk Road: A Festschrift in Honor of Alfredo P. Co (Volume 6: Doing Philosophy in the Philippines and Other Essays. Espana, Manila: University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, 2009. Print.</span>Pauline Fernandezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07841137807568692883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3735880536414128433.post-45304604995711117652010-04-05T20:08:00.000-07:002010-04-06T00:21:27.342-07:00Dead Stars (Paz Marquez Benitez)<span style="font-family:arial;">Scene 1</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Through the open window the air – steeped outdoors passed into his room, quietly enveloping him, stealing into his very thought. Esperanza, Julia, the sorry mess he had made of life, the years to come even now beginning to weigh down, to crush – they lost concreteness, diffused into formless melancholy. The tranquil murmur of conversation issued from the brick – tiled azotea where Don Julian and Carmen were busy pattering away among the rose pots.<br /><br />“Papa, and when will the ‘long table’ be set?”<br /><br />“I don’t know yet. Alfredo is not very specific, but I understand Esperanza wants it to be next month.”<br /><br />Carmen sighed impatiently. “Why is he not a bit more decided, I wonder. He is over thirty, is he not? And still a bachelor! Esperanza must be tired waiting.”<br /><br />“She does not seem to be in much of a hurry either,” Don Julian nasally commented, while his rose scissors busily snipped away.<br /><br />“How can a woman be in a hurry when the man does not hurry her?” Carmen returned, pinching off a worm with a careful, somewhat absent air. “Papa, do you remember how much in love he was?”<br /><br />“In love? With whom?”<br /><br />“With Esperanza, of course. He has not had another love affair that I know of,” she said with good – natured contempt. “What I mean is that at the beginning he was enthusiastic – flowers, serenades, notes, and things like that –“<br /><br />Alfredo remembered that period with a wonder not unmixed with shame. That was less than four years ago. He could not understand those months of a great hunger that was not of the body nor yet of the mind, a craving that had seized on him one quiet night when the mood was abroad and under the dappled shadow of the trees in the plaza, man wooed maid. Was he being cheated by life? Love – he seemed to have missed it. Or was the love that others told about a mere fabrication of fervid imagination, an exaggeration of the commonplace, a glorification of insipid monotonies such as made up of his love life? Was love a combination of circumstances, or sheer native capacity of soul? In those days love was, for him, still the eternal puzzle; for love, as he knew it, was a stranger to love as he divined it might be.<br /><br />Sitting quietly in his room now, he could almost revive the restlessness of those days, the feeling of tumultuous haste, such as he knew so well in his boyhood when something beautiful was going on somewhere and he was trying to get there in time to see. “Hurry, hurry, or you will miss it,” someone had seemed to urge in his ears. So he had avidly seized on the shadow of Love and deluded himself for a long while in the way of humanity from time immemorial. In the meantime, he became very much engaged to Esperanza.<br /><br />Why would men so mismanage their lives? Greed, he thought, was what ruined so many. Greed, - the desire to crowd into a moment all the enjoyment it will hold, to squeeze from the hour all the emotion it will yield. Men commit themselves when but – meaning to do so, sacrificing possible future fullness of ecstasy to the craving for immediate excitement.<br /><br />“What do you think happened?” asked Carmen, pursuing her thought.<br /><br />“I supposed long – engaged people are like that; warm now, cool tomorrow. I think they are oftener cool than warm. The very fact that an engagement has been allowed to prolong itself argues a certain placidity of temperament – or of affection – on the part of either, or both.” Don Julian loved to philosophize. He was talking now with an evident relish in words, his resonant, very nasal voice toned down to monologue pitch. “That phase you were speaking of is natural enough for a beginning. Besides, that, as I see it, was Alfredo’s last race with escaping youth –“<br /><br />Carmen laughed aloud at the thought of her brother’s perfect physical repose – almost indolence – disturbed in the role suggested by her father’s figurative language.<br /><br />“A last spurt of hot blood,” finished the old man.<br /><br />Few certainly would credit Alfredo Salazar with hot blood. Even his friends had amusedly diagnosed his blood as cool and thin, citing incontrovertible evidence. Tall and slender, he moved with an indolent ease that verged on grace. Under straight recalcitrant hair, a thin face with a satisfying breadth of forehead, slow, dreamer’s eyes, and astonishing freshness of lips – indeed Alfredo Salazar’s appearance betokened little of exuberant masculinity; rather a poet with wayward humour, a fastidious artist with keen, clear brain.<br /><br />He rose and quietly went out of the house. He lingered a moment on the stone steps; then went down the path shaded by immature acacias, through the little tarred gate which he left swinging back and forth, now opening, now closing, on the gravel road bordered along the farther side by madre cacao hedge in tardy lavender bloom.<br /><br />The gravel road narrowed as it slanted up to the house on the hill, whose wide, open porches he could glimpse through the heat – shrivelled tamarinds in the Martinez yard.<br /><br />Six weeks ago that house meant nothing to him save that it was the Martinez house, rented and occupied by Judge del Valle and his family. Six weeks ago Julia Salas meant nothing to him; he did not even know her name; but now –<br /><br />One evening he had gone “neighbouring” with Don Julian; a rare enough occurrence, since he made it a point to avoid all appearance of currying favour with the Judge. This particular evening however, he had allowed himself to be persuaded. “A little mental relaxation now and then is beneficial,” the old man had said. “Besides, a judge’s good will, you know;” the rest of the thought – “is worth a rising young lawyer’s trouble” – Don Julian conveyed through a shrug and a smile that derided his own worldly wisdom.<br /><br />A young woman had met them at the door. It was evident from the excitement of the Judge’s children that she was a recent and very welcome arrival. In the characteristic Filipino way formal introductions had been omitted – the judge limiting himself to a casual “Ah, ya se conocen?” – with the consequence that Alfredo called her Miss del Valle throughout the evening.<br /><br />He was puzzled that she should smile with evident delight every time he addressed her thus. Later Don Julian informed him that she was not the Judge’s sister, as he had supposed, but his sister – in – law, and that her name was Julia Salas. A very dignified rather austere name, he thought. Still, the young lady should have corrected him. As it was, he was grandly embarrassed, and felt that he should explain.<br /><br />To his apology, she replied, “That is nothing, each time I was about to correct you, but I remembered a similar experience I had once before.”<br /><br />“Oh,” he drawled out, vastly relieved.<br /><br />“A man named Manalang – I kept calling him Manalo. After the tenth or so, the young man rose from his seat and said suddenly, ‘Pardon me, but my name is Manalang, Manalang.’ You know, I never forgave him!”<br /><br />He laughed with her.<br /><br />“The best thing to do under the circumstances, I have found out,” she pursued, “is to pretend not to hear, and to let the other person find out his mistake without help.”<br /><br />“As you did this time. Still, you looked amused every time I –“<br /><br />“I was thinking of Mr. Manalang.”<br /><br />Don Julian and his uncommunicative friend, the Judge, were absorbed in a game of chess. The young man had tired of playing appreciative spectator and desultory conversationalist, so he and Julia Salas had gone off to chat in the vine – covered porch. The lone piano in the neighbourhood alternately tinkled and banged away as the player’s moods altered. He listened, and wondered irrelevantly if Miss Salas could sing; she had such a charming speaking voice.<br /><br />He was mildly surprised to note from her appearance that she was unmistakably a sister of the Judge’s wife, although Dona Adela was of a different type altogether. She was small and plump, with wide brown eyes, clearly defined eyebrows, and delicately modelled hips – a pretty woman with the complexion of a baby and the expression of a likeable cow. Julia was taller, not so obviously pretty. She had the same eyebrows and lips, but she was much darker, of a smooth rich brown with underlying tones of crimson which heightened the impression she gave of abounding vitality.<br /><br />On Sunday mornings after the mass, father and son would go crunching up the gravel road to the house on the hill. The Judge’s wife invariably offered them beer, which Don Julian enjoyed and Alfredo did not. After a half hour or so, the chessboard would be brought out; then Alfredo and Julia Salas would go out to the porch to chat. She sat in the low hammock and he in a rocking chair and the hours – warm, quiet March hours – sped by. He enjoyed talking with her and it was evident that she liked his company; yet what feeling there was between them was so undisturbed that it seemed a matter of course. Only when Esperanza chanced to ask him indirectly about those visits did some uneasiness creep into his thoughts of the girl next door.<br /><br />Esperanza had wanted to know if he went straight home after mass. Alfredo suddenly realized that for several Sundays now he had not waited for Esperanza to come out of the church as he had been wont to do. He had been eager to go “neighbouring.”<br /><br />He answered that he went home to work. And, because he was not habitually untruthful, added, “Sometimes I go with Papa to Judge del Valle’s.”<br /><br />She dropped the topic. Esperanza was not prone to indulge in unprovoked jealousies. She was a believer in the regenerative virtue of institutions, in their power to regulate feeling as well as conduct. If a man were married, why, of course, he loved his wife; if he were engaged, he could not possibly love another woman.<br /><br />That half – lie told him what he had not admitted openly to himself, that he was giving Julia Salas something which he was not free to give. He realized that; yet something that would not be denied beckoned imperiously, and he followed on.<br /><br />It was easy to forget up there, away from the prying eyes of the world, so easy and so poignantly sweet. The beloved woman, he standing close to her, the shadows around, enfolding.<br /><br />“Up here I find – something –“<br /><br />He and Julia Salas stood looking out into the she quiet night. Sensing unwanted intensity, laughed, woman – like, asking, “Amusement?”<br /><br />“No; youth – its spirit –“<br /><br />“Are you so old?”<br /><br />“And heart’s desire.”<br /><br />Was he becoming a poet, or is there a poet lurking in the heart of every man?<br /><br />“Down there,” he had continued, his voice somewhat indistinct, “the road is too broad, too trodden by feet, too barren of mystery.”<br /><br />“Down there” beyond the ancient tamarinds lay the road, upturned to the stars. In the darkness the fireflies glimmered, while an errant breeze strayed in from somewhere, bringing elusive, faraway sounds as of voices in a dream.<br /><br />“Mystery –“ she answered lightly, “that is so brief –“<br /><br />“Not in some,” quickly. “Not in you.”<br /><br />“You have known me a few weeks; so the mystery.”<br /><br />“I could study you all my life and still not find it.”<br /><br />“So long?”<br /><br />“I should like to.”<br /><br />Those six weeks were now so swift – seeming in the memory, yet had they been so deep in the living, so charged with compelling power and sweetness. Because neither the past nor the future had relevance or meaning, he lived only the present, day by day, lived it intensely, with such a wilful shutting out a fact as astounded him in his calmer moments.<br /><br />Just before Holy Week, Don Julian invited the judge and his family to spend Sunday afternoon at Tanda where he had a coconut plantation and a house on the beach. Carmen also came with her four energetic children. She and Dona Adela spent most of the time indoors directing the preparation of the merienda and discussing the likeable absurdities of their husbands – how Carmen’s Vicente was so absorbed in his farms that he would not even take off to accompany her on this visit to her father; how Dona Adela’s Dionisio was the most absentminded of men, sometimes going out without his collar, or with unmatched socks.<br /><br />After the merienda, Don Julian sauntered off with the judge to show him what a thriving young coconut looked like – “plenty of leaves, close set, rich green” – while the children, convoyed by Julia Salas, found unending entertainment in the rippling sand left by the ebbing tide. They were far down, walking at the edge of the water, indistinctly outlined against the gray of the out – curving beach.<br /><br />Alfredo left his perch on the bamboo ladder of the house and followed. Here were her footsteps, narrow, arched. He laughed at himself for his back canvas footwear which he removed forthwith and tossed high up on dry sand.<br /><br />When he came up, she flushed, then smiled with frank pleasure.<br /><br />“I hope you are enjoying this,” he said with a questioning inflection.<br /><br />“Very much. It looks like home to me, except that we do not have such a lovely beach.”<br /><br />There was a breeze from the water. It blew the hair away from her forehead, and whipped the tucked – up skirt around her straight, slender figure. In the picture was something of eager freedom as of wings poised in flight. The girl had grace, distinction. Her face was not notably pretty; yet she had a tantalizing charm, all the more compelling because it was an inner quality, an achievement of the spirit. The lure was there, of naturalness, of an alert vitality of mind and body, of a thoughtful, sunny temper, and of a piquant perverseness which is sauce to charm.<br /><br />“The afternoon has seemed very short, hasn’t it?” Then, “This, I think, is the last time – we can visit.”<br /><br />“The last? Why?”<br /><br />“Oh, you will be too busy perhaps.”<br /><br />He noted an evasive quality in the answer.<br /><br />“Do I seem especially industrious to you?”<br /><br />“If you are, you never look it.”<br /><br />“Not perspiring or breathless, as a busy man ought to be.”<br /><br />“But –“<br /><br />“Always unhurried, too unhurried, and calm.” She smiled to herself.<br /><br />“I wish that were true,” he said after a meditative pause.<br /><br />She waited.<br /><br />“A man is happier if he is, as you say, calm and placid.”<br /><br />“Like a carabao in a mud pool,” she reported perversely.<br /><br />“Who? I?”<br /><br />“Oh, no!”<br /><br />“You said I am calm and placid.”<br /><br />“That is what I think.”<br /><br />“I used to think so too. Shows how little we know ourselves.”<br /><br />It was strange to him that he could be wooing thus: with tone and look and covert phrase.<br /><br />“I should like to see your home town.”<br /><br />That was the background. It made her seem less detached, less unrelated, yet withal more distant, as if that background claimed her and excluded him.”<br /><br />“Nothing. There is you.”<br /><br />“Oh, me? But I’m here.”<br /><br />“I will not go, of course, until you there.”<br /><br />“Will you come? You will find it dull. There isn’t even one American there!”<br /><br />“Well – Americans are rather essential to my entertainment.”<br /><br />She laughed.<br /><br />“We live on Calle Luz, a little street with trees.”<br /><br />“Could I find that?”<br /><br />“If you don’t ask for Miss del Valle,” she smiled teasingly.<br /><br />“I’ll inquire about –“<br /><br />“What?”<br /><br />“The house of the prettiest girl in the town.”<br /><br />“There is where you will lose your way.” Then she turned serious. “Now, that is not quite sincere.”<br /><br />“It is,” he averred slowly, but emphatically.<br /><br />“I thought you, at least, would not say such things.”<br /><br />“Pretty – pretty – a foolish word! But there is none other more handy I did not mean that quite –“<br /><br />“Are you withdrawing the compliment?”<br /><br />“Re – enforcing it, maybe. Something is pretty when it pleases the eye – it is more than that when –“<br /><br />“If it saddens?” she interrupted hastily.<br /><br />“Exactly.”<br /><br />“It must be ugly.”<br /><br />“Always?”<br /><br />Toward the west, the sunlight lay on the dimming waters in a broad, glinting streamer of a crimsoned gold.<br /><br />“No, of course your right.”<br /><br />“Why did you say this is the last time?” he asked quietly as they turned back.<br /><br />“I am going home.”<br /><br />The end of an impossible dream!<br /><br />“When?” after a long silence.<br /><br />“Tomorrow. I received a letter from Father and Mother yesterday. They want me to spend Holy Week at home.”<br /><br />She seemed to be waiting for him to speak. “That is why I said this is the last time.”<br /><br />“Can’t I come to say good – bye?”<br /><br />“Oh, you don’t need to!”<br /><br />“No, but I want to.”<br /><br />“There is no time.”<br /><br />The golden streamer was withdrawing, shortening, until it looked no more than a pool far away at the rim of the world. Stillness, a vibrant quiet that affects the senses as does solemn harmony; a peace that is not contentment but a cessation of tumult when all violence of feeling tones down to the wistful serenity of regret. She turned and looked into his face, in her dark eyes a ghost of sunset sadness.<br /><br />“Home seems so far from here. This is almost like another life.”<br /><br />“I know. This is Elsewhere, and yet strange enough, I cannot get rid of the old things.”<br /><br />“Old things?”<br /><br />“Oh, old things, mistakes, encumbrances, old baggage.” He said it lightly, unwilling to mar the hour. He walked close, his hand sometimes touching hers for one whirling second.<br /><br />Don Julian’s nasal summons came to them on the wind.<br /><br />Alfredo gripped the soft hand so near his own. At his touch, the girl turned her face away, but he heard her voice say very low, “Good – bye<br /><br />Scene 2<br /><br />Alfredo Salazar turned to the right where, farther on,, the road broadened and entered the heart of the town – heart of Chinese stores sheltered under low – hung roofs, of indolent drug stores and tailor shops, of dingy shoe – repairing establishments, a cluttered goldsmith’s cubbyhole where a consumptive bent over a magnifying lens; heart of old brick – roofed houses with quaint hand – and – ball knockers of the door; heart of grass – grown plaza reposeful with trees, of ancient church and convent, now circled by swallows gliding in flight as smooth and soft as the afternoon itself. Into the quickly deepening twilight, the voice of the biggest of the church bells kept ringing its insistent summons. Flocking came the devout with their long wax candles, young women in vivid apparel (for this was Holy Thursday and the Lord was still alive), older women in sober black skirts. Came too the young men in droves, elbowing each other under the talisay tree near the church door. The gaily decked rice – paper lanterns were again on display while from the windows of the older houses hung coloured glass globes, heirlooms from a day when grasspith wicks floating in coconut oil were the chief lighting device.<br /><br />Soon a double row of lights emerged from the church and uncoiled down the length of the street like a huge jewelled band studded with glittering clusters where the saints’ platforms were. Above the measured music rose the untutored voices of the choir, steeped in incense and the acrid fumes of burning wax.<br /><br />The sight of Esperanza and her mother sedately pacing behind Our Lady of Sorrows suddenly destroyed the illusion of continuity and broke up those lines of light into component individuals. Esperanza stiffened self – consciously, tried to look unaware, and could not.<br /><br />The line moved on.<br /><br />Suddenly, Alfredo’s slow blood began to beat violently, irregularly. A girl was coming down the line – a girl that was striking, and vividly alive, the woman that could cause violent commotion in his heart, yet had no place in the completed ordering of his life.<br /><br />Her glance of abstracted devotion fell on him and came to a brief stop.<br /><br />The line kept moving on, wending its circuitous route away from the church and then back again, where, according to the old proverb, all processions end.<br /><br />At last Our Lady of Sorrows entered the church, and with her the priest and the choir, whose voices now echoed from the arched ceiling. The bells rang the close of the procession.<br /><br />A round orange moon, “huge as a winnowing basket,” rose lazily into a clear sky, whitening the iron roofs and dimming the lanterns at the windows. Along the still densely shadowed streets the young women with their rear guard of males loitered and, maybe, took the longest way home.<br /><br />Toward the end of the row of Chinese stores, he caught up with Julia Salas. The crowd had dispersed into the side streets, leaving Calle Real to those who lived farther out. It was past eight, and Esperanza would be expecting him in a little while: yet the thought did not hurry him as he said “Good evening” and fell into step with the girl.<br /><br />“I had been thinking all this time that you had gone,” he said in a voice that was both excited and troubled.<br /><br />“No, my sister asked me to stay until they are ready to go.”<br /><br />“Oh, is the judge going?”<br /><br />“Yes.”<br /><br />The provincial docket had been cleared, and Judge del Valle had been assigned elsewhere. As lawyer – and as lover – Alfredo had found that out long before.<br /><br />“Mr. Salazar,” she broke into his silence, “I wish to congratulate you.”<br /><br />Her tone told him that she had learned, at last. That was inevitable.<br /><br />“For what?”<br /><br />“For your approaching wedding.”<br /><br />Some explanation was due her, surely. Yet what could he say that would not offend?<br /><br />“I should have offered congratulations long before, but you know mere visitors are slow about getting the news,” she continued.<br /><br />He listened not so much to what she said as to the nuances in her voice. He heard nothing to enlighten him, except that she had reverted to the formal tones of early acquaintance. No revelation there; simply the old voice – cool, almost detached from personality, flexible and vibrant, suggesting potentialities of song.<br /><br />“Are weddings interesting to you?” he finally brought out quietly.<br /><br />“When they are of friends, yes.”<br /><br />“Would you come if I asked you?”<br /><br />“When is it going to be?”<br /><br />“May,” he replied briefly, after a long pause.<br /><br />“May is the month of happiness they say,” she said, with what seemed to him a shade of irony.<br /><br />“They say,” slowly, indifferently. “Would you come?”<br /><br />“Why not?”<br /><br />“No reason. I am just asking. Then you will?”<br /><br />“If you will ask me,” she said with disdain.<br /><br />“Then I ask you.”<br /><br />“Then I will be there.”<br /><br />The gravel road lay before them; at the road’s end the lighted windows of the house on the hill. There swept over the spirit of Alfredo Salazar a longing so keen that it was pain, a wish that, that house were his, that all the bewilderments of the present were not, and that this woman by his side were his long wedded wife, returning with him to the peace of home.<br /><br />“Julita,” he said in his slow, thoughtful manner, “did you ever have to choose between something you wanted to do and something you had to do?”<br /><br />“No!”<br /><br />“I thought maybe you had had that experience; then you could understand a man who was in such a situation.”<br /><br />“You are fortunate,” he pursued when she did not answer.<br /><br />“Is – is this man sure of what he should do?”<br /><br />“I don’t know, Julita. Perhaps not. But there is a point where a thing escapes us and rushes downward of its own weight, dragging us along. Then it is foolish to ask whether one will or will not, because it no longer depends on him.”<br /><br />“But then why – why –“ her muffled voice came. “Oh, what do I do know? That is his problem after all.”<br /><br />“Doesn’t it – interest you?”<br /><br />“Why must it? I – I have to say good – bye, Mr. Salazar; we are at house.”<br /><br />Without lifting her eyes she quickly turned and walked away.<br /><br />Had the final word been said? He wondered. It had. Yet a feeble flutter of hope trembled in his mind though set against that hope were three years of engagement, a very near wedding, perfect understanding between the parents, his own conscience, and Esperanza herself – Esperanza waiting, Esperanza no longer young, Esperanza the efficient, the literal – minded, the intensely acquisitive.<br /><br />He looked attentively at her where she sat on the sofa, appraisingly, and with a kind of aversion which he tried to control.<br /><br />She was one of those fortunate women who have the gift of uniformly acceptable appearance. She never surprised one with unexpected homeliness nor with startling reserves of beauty. At home, in church, on the street, she was always herself, a woman past first bloom, light and clear of complexion, spare of arms and of breast, with a slight convexity to thin throat; a woman dressed with self – conscious care, even elegance; a woman distinctly not average.<br /><br />She was pursuing an indignant relation about something or other, something about Calixta, their note – career, Alfredo perceived, so he merely half – listened, understanding imperfectly. At a pause he drawled out fill in the gap: “Well, what of it?” The remark sounded ruder than he had intended.<br /><br />“She is not married to him,” Esperanza insisted in her thin, nervously pitched voice. “Besides, she should have thought of us. Nanay practically brought her up. We never thought she would turn out bad.”<br /><br />What had Calixta done? Homely, middle – aged Calixta?<br /><br />“You are very positive about her badness,” he commented dryly. Esperanza was always positive.<br /><br />“But do you approve?”<br /><br />“Of what?”<br /><br />“What she did.”<br /><br />“No,” indifferently.<br /><br />“Well?”<br /><br />He was suddenly impelled by a desire to disturb the unvexed orthodoxy of her mind. “All I say is that it is not necessarily wicked.”<br /><br />“Why shouldn’t it be? You talked like an – immoral man. I did not know that your ideas were like that.”<br /><br />“My ideas?” he retorted, goaded by a deep, accumulated exasperation. “The only test I wish to apply to conduct is the test of fairness. Am I injuring anybody? No? Then I am justified in my conscience. I am right. Living with a man to whom she is not married – is that it? It may be wrong, and again it may not.”<br /><br />“She has injured us. She was ungrateful.” Her voice was tight with resentment.<br /><br />“The trouble with you, Esperanza, is that you are –“ he stopped, appalled by the passion in his voice.<br /><br />“Why do you get angry? I do not understand you at all! I think I know why you have been indifferently to me lately. I am not blind, or deaf; I see and hear what perhaps some are trying to keep from me.” The blood surged into his very eyes and his hearing sharpened to points of acute pain. What would she say next?<br /><br />“Why don’t you speak out frankly before it is too late? You need not think of me and of what people will say.” Her voice trembled.<br /><br />Alfredo was suffering as he could not remember ever having suffered before. What people will say – what will they not say? What don’t they say when long engagements are broken almost on the eve of the wedding?<br /><br />“Yes,” he said hesitatingly, diffidently, as if merely thinking aloud, “one tries to be fair – according to his lights – but it is hard. One would like to be fair to one’s self first. But that is too easy, one does not dare –“<br /><br />“What do you mean?” she asked with repressed violence. “Whatever my shortcomings, and no doubt they are many in your eyes, I have never gone out of my way, of my place, to find a man.”<br /><br />Did she mean by this irrelevant remark that he it was who had sought her; or was that a covert attack on Julia Salas?<br /><br />“Esperanza –“ a desperate plea lay in his stumbling words. “If you – suppose I –“ Yet how could a mere man word such a plea?<br /><br />“If you mean you want to take back your word, if you are tired of – why don’t you tell me you are tired of me?” she burst out in a storm of weeping that left him completely shamed and unnerved.<br /><br />The last word has been said.<br /><br />Scene 3<br /><br />As Alfredo Salazar leaned against the boat rail to watch the evening settling over the lake, he wondered if Esperanza would attribute any significance to this trip of his. He was supposed to be in Sta. Cruz whither the case of the People of the Philippine Islands vs. Belina et al had kept him, and there he would have been if Brigida Samuy had not been so important to the defence. He had to find that elusive old woman. That the search was leading him to that particular lake town which was Julia Salas’ home should not disturb him unduly yet he was disturbed to a degree utterly out of proportion to the prosaicalness of his errand. That inner tumult was no surprise to him; in the last eight years he had become used to such occasional storms. He had long realized that he could not forget Julia Salas. Still, he had tried to be content and not to remember too much. The climber of mountains who has known the back – break, the lonesomeness, and the chill, finds a certain restfulness in level paths made easy to his feet. He looks up sometimes from the valley where settles the dusk of evening, but he knows he must not heed the radiant beckoning. Maybe, in time, he would cease even to look up.<br /><br />He was not unhappy in his marriage. He felt no rebellion: only the calm of capitulation to what he recognized as irresistible forces of circumstance and of character. His life had simply ordered itself; no more struggles, no more stirring up of emotions that got a man nowhere. From his capacity of complete detachment he derived a strange solace. The essential himself, the himself that had its being in the core of his thought, would, he reflected, always be free and alone. When claims encroached too insistently, as sometimes they did, he retreated into the inner fastness, and from that vantage he saw things and people around him as remote and alien, as incidents that did not matter. At such times did Esperanza feel baffled and helpless; he was gentle, even tender, but immeasurably far away, beyond her reach.<br /><br />Lights were springing into life on the shore. That was the town, a little up – tilted town nestling in the dark greenness of the groves. A snubcrested belfry stood beside the ancient church. On the outskirts the evening smudges glowed red through the sinuous mists of smoke that rose and lost themselves in the purple shadows of the hills. There was a young moon which grew slowly luminous as the coral tints in the sky yielded to the darker blues of evening.<br /><br />The vessel approached the landing quietly, trailing a wake of long golden ripples on the dark water. Peculiar hill infections came to his ears from the crowd assembled to meet the boat – slow, singing, cadences, characteristic of the Laguna lake – shore speech. From where he stood he could not distinguish faces, so he had no way of knowing whether the presidente was there to meet him or not. Just then a voice shouted.<br /><br />“Is there abogado there? Abogado!”<br /><br />“What abogado?” someone irately asked.<br /><br />That must be the presidente, he thought, and went down to the landing.<br /><br />It was a policeman, a tall pock – marked individual. The presidente had left with Bridgida Samuy – Tandang “Binday” – that noon for Santa Cruz. Senor Salazar’s second letter had arrived late, but the wife had read it and said, “Go and meet the abogado and invite him to our house.”<br /><br />Alfredo Salazar courteously declined the invitation. He would sleep on board since the boat would leave at four the next morning anyway. So the presidente had received his first letter? Alfredo did not know because that official had not sent an answer. “Yes,” the policeman replied, but he could not write because we heard that Tandang Binday was in San Antonio so we went there to find her.”<br /><br />San Antonio was up in the hills! Good man, the president! He, Alfredo, must do something for him. It was not every day that one met with such willingness to help.<br /><br />Eight o’clock, lugubriously tolled from the bell tower, found the boat settled into a somnolent quiet. A cot had been brought out and spread for him, but it was too bare to be inviting at that hour. It was too early to sleep: he would walk around the town. His heart beat faster as he picked his way to shore over the rafts made fast to sundry piles driven into the water.<br /><br />How peaceful the town was! Here and there a little tienda was still open, its dim light issuing forlornly through the single window which served as counter. An occasional couple sauntered by, the women’s chinelas making scraping sounds. From a distance came the shrill voices of children playing games on the street – tubigan perhaps, or “hawk – and – chicken.” The thought of Julia Salas in that quiet place filled him with a pitying sadness.<br /><br />How would life seem now if he had married Julia Salas? Had he meant anything to her? That unforgettable red – and – gold afternoon in early April haunted him with a sense of incompleteness as restless other unlaid ghosts. She had not married – why? Faithfulness, he reflected, was not a conscious effort at regretful memory. It was something unvolitional, maybe a recurrent awareness of irreplaceability. Irrelevant trifles – a cool wind on his forehead, far – away sounds as of voices in a dream – at times moved him to an oddly irresistible impulse to listen as to an interest, unfinished prayer.<br /><br />A few inquiries led him to a certain little tree – ceilinged street where the young moon wove indistinct filigrees of fight and shadow. In the gardens the cotton tree threw its angular shadow athwart the low stone wall; and in the cool, stilly midnight the cock’s first call rose in tall, soaring jets of sound. Calle Luz.<br /><br />Somehow or other, he had known that he would find her house because she would surely be sitting at the window. Where else, before bedtime on a moonlit night? The house was low and the light in the sala behind her threw her head into unmistakable relief. He sensed rather than saw her start of vivid surprise.<br /><br />“Good evening,” he said, raising his hat.<br /><br />“Good evening. Oh! Are you in town?”<br /><br />“On some little business,” he answered with a feeling of painful constraint.<br /><br />“Won’t you come up?”<br /><br />He considered. His vague plans had not included this. But Julia Salas had left the window, calling to her mother as she did so. After a while, someone came downstairs with a lighted candle to open the door. At last – he was shaking her hand.<br /><br />She had not changed much – a little less slender, not so eagerly alive, yet something had gone. He missed it, sitting opposite her, looking thoughtfully into her fine dark eyes. She asked him about the home town, about this and that, in a sober, somewhat meditative tone. He conversed with increasing ease, though with a growing wonder that she should be there at all. He could not take his eyes from her face. What had she lost? Or was the loss his? He felt an impersonal curiosity creeping into his gaze.<br /><br />Gently – was it experimentally? – he pressed her hand at parting; but his own felt undisturbed and emotionless. Did she still care? The answer to the question hardly interested him.<br /><br />The young moon had set, and from the uninviting cot he could see one half of a star – studded sky.<br /><br />So that was all over.<br /><br />Why had he obstinately clung to that dream?<br /><br />So all these – since when? – he had been seeing the light of dead stars, long extinguished, yet seemingly still in their appointed places in the heavens.<br /><br />An immense sadness of loss invaded his spirit, a vast homesickness for some immutable refuge of the heart far away where faded gardens bloom again, and where live on in unchanging freshness, the dear, dead loves of vanished youth.<br /><br />Aguila, Augusto Antonio A., Joyce L. Arriola and John Jack Wigley. Philippine Literatures: Texts, Themes, Approaches. Espana, Manila: Univesity of Santo Tomas Publishing House. Print.</span>Pauline Fernandezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07841137807568692883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3735880536414128433.post-58940050184868119692010-04-05T19:53:00.000-07:002010-04-06T00:19:50.140-07:00Denken Ist Danken: A Tribute To Leonardo R. Estioko SVDWhile the Societas Verbi Divini (SVD) celebrates with joy and gratitude its 100th year of missionary presence in the Pihilippines, it solely mourns the passing of one of its illustrious sons, Fr. Keonardo Estioko, philosopher and educator. Some space as allotted here in his memory thanks to his colleagues in the academe and the editors of this respected journal.<br /><br />Not a few thinkers, Fr. Estioko included, contend that biographical anecdotes, while perhaps of personal interest, reveal nothing of philosophical consequence. Human interest stories such as contracting malaria in the bush mission, falling into a ditch, working in a monastery as a gardener, owning a pet dog, falling head over heels in love, working in the slums, rubbing elbows with the powers – that – be, or becoming mentally deranged, are the domain of the biographer or the historian – maybe even the intellectual historian – but not of the philosopher. Martin Heidegger drove to this point home by starting his lecture on Aristotle with three laconic sentences: “He was born. He lived. He died.” Finito. End of story. Obviously Heidegger was exaggerating here the ahistorical aspect of thought. I wonder though if we can fully understand his jargon of Angst, Eigentlichkeit, Enstchlossenheit, and Geschick apart from his personal life, his amorous dalliances and his political entanglement. But that is digressing a bit too much.<br /><br />Let’s turn back to Fr. Estioko, whom his confreres, students and friends fondly called Fr. Nards. He was born. He lived. He died. Just like Aristotle. Just like any mortal being. I think Fr. Nards would have probably favoured such a terse description for his epitaph, knowing his proclivity for brevity. As our mentor in Christ the King Mission Seminary he repeatedly reminded us of the KISS principle – Keep it short and simple – as we were struggling with our term papers and theses. Gifted with a keen sense of humour he jolted us with flashes of insight that made the unbearable lightness of being a student slightly more bearable: “A treatise could be likened to a skirt of a lady: it should be short enough to arouse curiosity, and long enough to cover the subject.” Wading through the thicket of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason many of us aspiring thinkers complained to him, “We can’t understand Kant”! To our consolation he recounted Avicenna’s futile attempt at reading Aristotle’s Metaphysics – 40 times, without understanding it – until he found illumination from the little commentary by Al Farabi. Presenting Wittgenstein’s Tractatus to his senior class Fr. Nards quipped that concise and clear sentences demand more serious thinking than convoluted ones. In a manner of, a persistent refrain he quoted the sober line of the Viennese philosopher, “What we cannot speak about, we must consign to silence.”<br /><br />He was born. He lived. He died. Truth to tell, I have the nagging feeling that this sanitized formula does injustice to a life lived in full like that of Fr. Nards’. I hope he will not squirm in his grave when I breach the telegraphic formula and fill in the spaces with biographical anecdotes interwoven with the lives of his grateful confreres and students. What we cannot consign to silence, we may speak about, with due apologies to the author. As an educator and a preacher, Fr. Nards must have appreciated the pedagogical value of stories oozing with life. “Lives of great men all remind us, we can make our lives sublime, and departing leave behind us, footprints in the sands of time,” as Longfellow waxes poetically in the psalm of Life. Indeed, life is far too complex a psalm to be summed – up in three amputated sentences.<br /><br />Fortunately there is such a thing as an obituary, which does not fall under the genre of a philosophical treatise. An obit, to wit, allows a glimpse of the Lebenswelt of the man behind the thought. After all, it is the lived – world of common human experience with its lights and shades that serves as the seedbed for reflection. Primum vibere, deinde philosophari. We join herewith the battle cry to rehabilitate the doxa of the Lebenswelt and to salvage it from the cold rationality of epistemic discourse.<br /><br />It was in the Lebenswelt of Urdaneta, Pangasinan that Fr. Nards was born on November 13, 1944 to Marciano Estioko and Leonor Reasonda. Growing up in a large family with 10 brothers and 3 sisters, Fr. Nards sensed at a tender age the call to serve God’s people as a priest. After finishing high school in Urdaneta he entered the SVD – run archdiosecan seminary in Binmaley. Inspired by the dedication of the German missionaries, he decided to join the SVD and transferred to Christ the King Mission Seminary in Quezon City in 1963. It was in Lebenswelt of a religious missionary community that he nurtured his interest in philosophy and education. The regimented Teutonic curriculum and the communal spiritual exercises such as the celebration of the liturgy, consciousness examen, meditation and retreat strikingly echo the practices of ancient philosophical schools. As Pierre Hadot, the eminent French scholar on classical antiquity, puts it, philosophy – understood in the classical sense as a Way of Life, rather than as a salaried profession – demands a constant conversion and care of the soul. Such a way of life can be cultivated and exercised propitiously in a community of wisdom – seekers.<br /><br />Fr. Nards’ religious formation led him to the major seminary in Tagaytay which may well be called the “Hochburg” (stronghold) of German philosophy and theology in the Philippines in the 1970’s. There he wrote his master’s thesis on Heidegger’s being – towards – death. In the course of his philosophical journey Fr. Nards must have realized that philosophy as a way of life is learning the ars moriendi, the art of dying gracefully. Later, the theme must have taken on an existential import as he wrestled with the possibility of the absolute impossibility of his Dasein. Towards the end of his battle with cancer he seemed to have mastered the art of befriending the inevitable, still teaching philosophy with his natural humor and Socratic Gelassenheit.<br /><br />The SVD school of theology overlooking Taal lake and volcano became home to Fr. Nards until his ordination and onwards. It is the school that has produced contextual thinkers and theologians who have impacted the Philippine academia and society in general: Mercado, Miranda, Miranda Beltran and Pernia, among others. The same school proved to be a seedbed – indeed, a seminary in the truest sense of the word – for radical ideas mobilizing students to opt for the grassroots, to work with the Federation of Free Farmers and to join the underground struggle against Marcos dictatorship. The names of De la Torre, De Mesa, Balweg and Ortega come to mind.<br /><br />In 1072, the turbulent year of the proclamation of martial law, Fr. Nards received the sacrament of ordination. While some of his fellow confreres were sent to foreign missions, Fr. Nards was asked to remain on his home turf, the Divine Word Seminary of Tagaytay, to teach philosophy from 1972 to 1975. Thereafter, he was sent abroad by his superiors to work on his doctorate on John Henry Newman titled The Reasonability of Religious Belief at the Gregoriana in Rome. Cardinal Newman, whose story of conversion deserves another article, wrote an apologia for religious faith against the background of British empiricism. In his An Essay in Aid of the Grammar of Assent he sought to answer the questions: Can I believe what I don’t understand? Can I believe what cannot be absolutely proven? These and other questions occupied the mind Fr. Nards for the next three years in the Eternal City.<br /><br />After successfully defending his dissertation in 1978, Fr. Nards returned to Tagaytay to serve as Dean of Studies at the major seminary until 1982. Subsequently he was transferred to one of the oldest schools in the country, the University of San Carlos in Cebu City, wherein he served as Vice President for Academic Affairs until 1988. In this capacity he immersed himself in the administrative side of education and forged friendships with educators from different faculties and universities. Open to all disciplines, his predilection though had always tended towards liberal arts education. His philosophy of education was deeply inspired by Newman’s The Idea of a University, a series of discourses, which reinvented the idea of a Christian university in the 19th century and continues to spark discussions today. A university, according to the Oxford scholar, must cover a broad range of subjects, advancing from the purely technical to the philosophical and theological. Some issues that Newman raised – the place of religion and moral values in the university context, the competing claims of liberal and professional education, the character of the academic community, the cultural task of literature, the relationship between religion and science – have found their way into Fr. Nards’ Essays on Philippine Education. His concern about the misguided priorities of the Philippine educational system saw print in his History of Education – A Filipino Perspective, a work which highlights the influences of previous systems and theories of education on the current Philippine situation and challenges the Catholic Church to maximize ‘its potential to spearhead reforms that could lead to more humane educational institutions. It is momentous that Fr. Nards pursued this agenda to the very end in his last work, published a few weeks after his death, entitled Philosophy of Education – A Filipino Perspective.<br /><br />After the university stint Fr. Nards was assigned in 1988 to Christ the King Mission Seminary, back to the cradle of his SVD vocation. As soon as he took office as Dean of Studies he upgraded the quality of personnel and faculties of the school, seminary colleges in the Philippines. Aside from being a professor, he also held other positions such as the Rector of the mission seminary and Director of the Arnold Janssen Secretariat. About his different functions he said in a jest, “Everybody can become a rector, but not just anyone can be a teacher”. Teaching philosophy, playing a midwife to the birthing of our own questions, was a passion he readily shared with other institutions of higher learning in Manila. Fr. Nards knew well how to draw out the best from his students and accompany them in their own search for meaning. Despite his illness he once left the hospital before finishing his chemotherapy treatment and rushed to attend the thesis defence of a graduate student. To his friends he admitted that his dream was to die in the classroom teaching philosophy, a dream, which did not materialize as he passed away during the semestral break. While still alive, he was conferred the award as “The Most Outstanding Filipino – SVD Professor of Philosophy” in August 2008 on the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee celebration of Christ the King Mission Seminary in recognition of his indefatigable efforts to enhance the quality of the philosophy department of the mission seminary. With his natural humility Fr. Nards accepted the accolade while in a wheelchair.<br /><br />On a lighter side, Fr. Nards sought diversion and comfort in the company of his dog Sacra for whom he had a soft spot. That dogs and philosophers click is anything but new in the history of philosophy. As we know, the Cynics were so called – kynikos means dog – like in Greek – because of their affinity to dogs. The first Cynics, beginning with Diogenes of Sinope, embraced their title: they barked at those who displeased them, disdained Athenian vanity and hypocrisy, and lived from nature, independent of the luxuries of civilization. In this sense, there was something cynical, or prophetic if you may, about Fr. Nards’ outward simplicity, a kind of gentle protest – bark he never did – against the trivial pursuits of the world. Of course, the presence of the dog in his office and in the premises raised some eyebrows. I am sure Fr. Nards would agree with most canine lovers when they say, “Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole. We give dogs time we can spare, space we can spare and love we can spare. And in return, dogs give us their all. It’s the best deal man has ever made.” For the love of his pet he wrote Gone to the Dogs, a phenomenology of the dog’s life touching on sexuality, birthing, parenting, growing, playing, communicating and parting. The book was a smash hit.<br /><br />It must be said, however, that Fr. Nards’ affection for his dog is secondary only to his love for the Divine – Word – made – flesh. The Divine Logos Incarnate was his raison d’être, the source and summit of his SVD vocation which he lived out in his commitment to scholarship (Scientia), his humanness and humour (Virtus) and his missionary spirit of self – giving (Devotio). When he took over the Arnold Janssen Secretariat it was for him like journeying back to our SVD mother house in Steyl and drawing primal water from the spiritual wellsprings of our finding generation. In his 2 – volume work, Witness to the Word, Fr. Nards reflected on the humble beginnings of our religious life and our missionary activity in the Philippines. With Fr. Nards, we SVDs look back with gratitude on the last 100 years of our missionary service in the country. Indeed, there is much reason to give thanks, to remember, to rejoice and to renew our commitment. As Fr. Nards marched into the Great Beyond to meet his Creator in the afternoon of October 21, 2008, he also advanced, so to speak, into the SVD Hall of Fame joining those sterling Witnesses to the Word worthy of emulation. We, his confreres and students, are ever thankful to him for his exemplary life, for playing the midwife to our fledging thoughts and for passing on to us the wisdom of the ages. As we grapple with our own life’s questions, we cannot but thank and honour Fr. Nards, our mentor, along with those Witnesses ahead of us who paved our way, “Denken ist Danken”, if I may borrow the pietist slogan which Heidegger loved to quote. To think is to thank.<br /><br />Fr. Nards was born. He lived. He died. He will be raised up on the last day. So be it.<br /><br />Philippine Academy of Philosophical Research. Karunungan: A Journal of Philosophy. Espana, Manila: University of Santo Tomas Publishing House. Print. 2009. Print.Pauline Fernandezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07841137807568692883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3735880536414128433.post-74500961452285023622010-04-05T19:47:00.000-07:002010-04-06T00:19:12.759-07:00The Wedding Dance (Amador T. Daguio)<span style="font-family:arial;">Awiyao reached for the upper horizontal log which served as the edge of the head – high threshold. Clinging to the log, he lifted himself with one bound that carried him across to the narrow door. He slid back the cover, stepped inside, then pushed the cover back in place. After some moments during which he seemed to wait, he talked to the listening darkness.<br /><br />“I’m sorry this had to be done. I am really sorry. But neither of us can help it.”<br /><br />The sound of the gangsas beat through the walls of the dark house, like muffled roars of falling waters. The woman who had moved with a start when the sliding door opened had been hearing the gangsas for she did not know how long. The sudden rush of the rich sounds when the door was opened was like a gush of fire in her. She gave no sign that she heard Awiyao, but continued to sit unmoving in the darkness.<br /><br />But Awiyao knew that she had heard him and his heart pitied her. He crawled on all fours to the middle of the room; he knew exactly where the stove was. With his fingers he stirred the covered smouldering embers, and blew into them. When the coals began to glow, Awiyao put pieces of pine wood on them, then full round logs as big as his arms. The room brightened.<br /><br />“Why don’t you go out,” he said, “and join the dancing women?” He felt a pang inside him, because what he said was really not the right thing to say and because the woman did not talk or stir.<br /><br />“You should join the dancers,” he said “as if – as if nothing has happened.” He looked at the woman huddled in a corner of the room, leaning against the wall. The stove fire played with strange moving shadows and lights upon her face. She was partly sullen, but her sullenness was not because of anger or hate.<br /><br />“Go out – go out and dance. If you really don’t hate me for this separation, go out and dance. One of the men will see you dance well; he will like your dancing, he will marry you. Who knows but that, with him, you will be luckier than you were with me.”<br /><br />“I don’t want any man,” she said sharply. “I don’t want any other man.”<br /><br />He felt relieved that at least she talked: “You know very well that I don’t want any other woman, either. You know that, don’t you? Lumnay, you know it, don’t you?”<br /><br />She did not answer him.<br /><br />“You know it, Lumnay, don’t you?” he repeated.<br /><br />“Yes, I know,”<br /><br />“It’s not my fault,” he said, feeling relieved. “You cannot blame me; I have been a good husband to you.”<br /><br />‘Neither can you blame me,” she said. She seemed about to cry.<br /><br />“You, you have been very good to me. You have been a good wife. I have nothing to say against you.” He set some of the burning wood in the place. “It’s only that a man must have a child. Seven harvests is just too long to wait. Yes, we have waited long. We should have another chance, before it is too late for both of us.”<br /><br />This time the woman stirred, stretched her right leg out and bent her left leg in. She wound the blanket more snugly around herself.<br /><br />“You know that I have done my best,” she said. “I have prayed to Kabunyan much. I have sacrificed many chickens in my prayers.”<br /><br />“Yes, I know.”<br /><br />“You remember how angry you were once when you came home from your work in the terrace because I butchered one of our pigs without your permission? I did it to appease Kabunyan, because like you, I wanted to have a child. But what could I do?”<br /><br />“Kabunyan does not see fit for us to have a child,” he said. He stirred the fire. The spark rose through the crackles of the flames. The smoke and soot went up to the ceiling.<br /><br />Lumnay looked down and unconsciously started to pull at the rattan that kept the split bamboo flooring in place. She tugged at the rattan flooring. Each time she did this, the split bamboo went up and came down with a slight rattle. The gongs of the dancers clamorously called in her ears through the walls.<br /><br />Awiyao went to the corner where Lumnay sat, paused before her, looked at her bronzed and sturdy face, then turned to where the jars of water stood piled one over the other. Awiyao took a coconut cup and dipped it in the top jar and drank. Lumnay had filled the jars from the mountain creek early that evening.<br /><br />“I came home,” he said, “because I did not find you among the dancers. Of course, I am not forcing you to come, if you don’t want to join my wedding ceremony. I came to tell you that Madulimay, although I am marrying her, can never become as good as you are. She is not as strong in planting beans, not as fast in cleaning jars, not as good in keeping a house clean. You are one of the best wives in the whole village.”<br /><br />“That has not done me any good, has it?” She said. She looked at him lovingly. She almost seemed to smile.<br /><br />He put the coconut cup aside on the floor and came closer to her. He held her face between his hands, and looked longingly at her beauty. But her eyes looked away. Never again would he hold her face. The next day she would not be his any more. She would go back to her parents. He let go of her face, and she bent to the floor again and looked at her fingers as they tugged softly at the split bamboo floor.<br /><br />“This house is yours,” he said. “I built it for you. Make it your own, live in it as long as you wish. I will build another house for Madulimay.”<br /><br />“I have no need for a house,” she said slowly. “I’ll go to my own house. My parents are old. They will need help in the planting of the beans, in the pounding of the rice.”<br /><br />“I will give you the field that I dug out of the mountains during the first year of our marriage,” he said. “You know I did it for you. You helped me to make it for the two of us.”<br /><br />“I have no use for any field,” she said.<br /><br />He looked at her, then turned away, and became silent. They were silent for a long time.<br /><br />“Go back to the dance,” she said finally. “It is not right for you to be here. They will wonder where you are, and Madulimay will not feel good. Go back to the dance.”<br /><br />“I would feel better if you could come, and dance – for the last time. The gangsas are playing.”<br /><br />“You know that I cannot.”<br /><br />“Lumnay,” he said tenderly. “Lumnay, if I did this it is because of my need for a child. You know that life is not worth living without a child. They have mocked me behind my back. You know that.”<br /><br />“I know it,” she said. “I will pray that Kabunyan will bless you and Madulimay.”<br /><br />She bit her lips now, then shook her head wildly, and sobbed.<br /><br />She thought of the seven harvests that had passed, the high hopes they had in the beginning of their new life, the day he took her away from her parents across the roaring river, on the other side of the mountain, the trip up the trail which they had to climb, the steep canyon which they had to cross – the waters boiled in her mind in foams of white and jade and roaring silver; the waters rolled and growled, resounded in thunderous echoes through the walls of the steep cliffs; they were far away now but loud still and receding; The waters violently smashed down from somewhere on the tops of the other ranges and they had looked carefully at the buttresses of rocks they had to step on – a slip would have meant death.<br /><br />They both drank of the water, then rested on the other bank before they made the final climb to the other side of the mountain.<br /><br />She looked at his face with the fire playing upon his features – hard and strong, and kind. He had a sense of lightness in his way of saying things, which often made her and the village people laugh. How proud she had been of his humour. The muscles where taut and firm, bronze and compact in their hold upon his skull – how frank his bright eyes were. She looked at this body that carved out of the mountain five fields for her; his wide and supple torso heaved as if a slab of shining lumber were heaving; his arms and legs flowed down in fluent muscles – he was strong and for that she had lost him.<br /><br />She flung herself upon his knees and clung to them. “Awiyao, Awiyao, my husband,” she cried. “I did everything to have a child,” she said passionately in a hoarse whisper. She took the blanket that covered her. “Look at me,” she cried. “Look at my body. Then it was full of promise. It could dance; it could work fast in the fields; it could climb the mountains fast. Even now it is firm, full. But, Awiyao, Kabunyan never blessed me. Awiyao, Kabunyan is cruel to me. Awiyao, i am useless. I must die.”<br /><br />“It will not be right to die,” he said, gathering her in arms. Her whole warm naked breast quivered against his own; she clung now to his neck, and her hand lay upon his right shoulder; her hair flowed down in cascades of gleaming darkness.<br /><br />“I don’t care about the fields,” she said. “I don’t care about the house. I don’t care for anything but you. I’ll never have another man.”<br /><br />“Then you’ll always be fruitless.”<br /><br />“I’ll go back to my father, I’ll die.”<br /><br />“Then you hate me,” he said. “If you die it means you hate me. You do not want me to have a child. You do not want my name to live on in our tribe.”<br /><br />She was silent.<br /><br />“If I do not try a second time,” he explained, “it means I’ll die. Nobody will get the fields I have carved out of the mountains; nobody will come after me.”<br /><br />“If you fail – if you fail this second time –“ she said thoughtfully. Then her voice was a shudder. “No – no, I don’t want you to fail.”<br /><br />“If I fail,” he said, “I’ll come back after to you. Then both of us will die together. Both of us will vanish from the life of our tribe.”<br /><br />The gangsas thundered through the walls of their house, sonorous and far away.<br /><br />“I’ll keep my beads,” she said. “Awiyao, let me keep my beads,” she half – whispered.<br /><br />“You will keep the beads. They came from far – off times. My grandmother said they came from way up North, from the slant – eyed people across the sea. You keep them, Lumnay. They are worth twenty fields.”<br /><br />“I’ll keep them because they stand for the love you have for me,” she said. “I love you. I love you and have nothing to give.”<br /><br />She took herself away from him, for a voice was calling out to him from outside. “Awiyao! Awiyao! O Awiyao! They are looking for you at the dance!”<br /><br />“I am not in a hurry.”<br /><br />“The elders will scold you. You had better go.”<br /><br />“Not until you tell me that it is all right with you.”<br /><br />“It is all right with me.”<br /><br />He clasped her hands. “I do this for the sake of the tribe,” he said.<br /><br />“I know,” she said.<br /><br />He went to the door.<br /><br />“Awiyao!”<br /><br />He stopped as if suddenly hit by a spear. In pain he turned to her. Her face was agony. It pained him to leave. She had been wonderful to him. What was it in life, in the work in the field, in the planting and harvest, in the silence of night, in the communing of husband and speech of a child? Suppose he changed his mind? Why did the unwritten law demand, anyway, that a man, to be a man, must have a child to come after him? And if he was fruitless – but he loved Lumnay. It was like taking away half of his life to leave her like this.<br /><br />“Awiyao,” she said, and her eyes seemed to smile in the light. “The beads!”<br /><br />He turned back and walked to the farthest corner of their room, to the trunk where they kept their worldly possessions – his battle – axe and his spear points, her betelnut box and her beads. He dug out from the darkness the beads which had been given to him by his grandmother to give to Lumnay on the day of his marriage. He went to her, lifted her head, put the beads on, and tied them in place. The white and jade and deep orange obsidians shone in the firelight. She suddenly clung to him, clung to his neck, as if she would never let him go.<br /><br />“Awiyao! Awiyao, it is hard!” She gasped, and she closed her eyes and buried her face in his neck.<br /><br />The call for him from the outside repeated; her grip loosened, and he hurried out into the night.<br /><br />Lumnay sat for some time in the darkness. Then she went to the door and opened it. The moonlight struck her face; the moonlight spilled itself upon the whole village.<br /><br />She could hear the throbbing of the gangsas coming to her through the caverns of the other houses. She knew that all the houses were empty; that the whole tribe was at the dance. Only she was absent. And yet was she not the best dancer of the village? Did she not have the most lightness and grace? Could she not, alone among all women, dance like a bird tripping for grains on the ground, beautifully timed to the beat of the gangsas? Did not the men praise her supple body, and the women envy the way she stretched her hands like the wings of the mountain eagle now and then as she danced? How long ago did she dance at her own wedding? Tonight, all the women who counted, who once danced in her honour, were dancing now in honour of another whose only claim was that perhaps she could give her husband a child.<br /><br />“It is not right. It is not right!” she cried. “How does she know? How can anybody know? It is not right,” she said.<br /><br />She suddenly found courage. She would go to the dance. She would go to the chief of the village, to the elders, to tell them it was not right. Awiyao was hers; nobody could take him away from her. Let her be the first woman to complain, to denounce the unwritten rule that a man may take another woman. She could break the dancing of the men and women. She would tell Awiyao to come back to her. He surely would relent. Was not their love as strong as the river?<br /><br />She made for the other side of the village where the dancing was. There was a flaming glow over the whole pace; a great bonfire was burning. The gangsas clamoured more loudly now, and it seemed they were calling to her. She was near at last. She could see the dancers clearly now. The men leaped lithely with their gangsas as they circled the dancing women decked in feast garments and beads, tripping on the ground like graceful birds, following their men. Her heart warmed to the flaming call of the dance; strange heat in her blood welled up, and she started to run.<br /><br />But the flaming brightness of the bonfire commanded her to stop. Did anybody see her approach? She stopped. What if somebody had seen her coming? The flames of the bonfire leaped in countless sparks, which spread and rose like yellow points and died out in the night. The blaze reached out to her like a spreading radiance. She did not have the courage to break into the wedding feast.<br /><br />Lumnay walked away from the dancing ground, away from the village. She thought of the new clearing of beans which Awiyao and she had started only to make four moons before. She followed the trail above the village.<br /><br />When she came to the mountain stream she crossed it carefully. Nobody held her hands, and the stream water was very cold. The trail went up again, and she was in the moonlight shadows among the trees and shrubs. Slowly she climbed the mountain.<br /><br />When Lumnay reached the clearing, she could see from where she stood the blazing bonfire at the edge of the village, where the wedding was. She could hear the far – off clamour of the gongs, still rich in their sorousness, echoing from mountain to mountain. The sound did not mock her; they seemed to call far to her; speak to her in the language of unspeaking love. She felt the pull of their clamour, almost the feeling that they were telling her their gratitude for her sacrifice. Her heartbeat began to sound to her like many gangsas.<br /><br />Lumnay thought of Awiyao as the Awiyao had known long ago – a strong, muscular boy carrying his heavy loads of fuel logs down the mountains to his home. She had met him one day as she was on her way to fill her clay jars with water. He had stopped at the spring to drink and rest; and she had made him drink the cool mountain water from her coconut shell. After that it did not take long for him to decide to throw is spear on the stairs of her father’s house in token of his desire to marry her.<br /><br />The mountain clearing was cold in the freezing moonlight. The wind began to sough and stir the leaves of the bean plants. Lumnay looked for a big rock on which to sit down. The bean plants now surrounded her; and she was lost among them.<br /><br />A few more weeks, a few more months, a few more harvests – what did it matter? She would be holding the bean flowers, soft in the texture, silken almost, but moist where the dew got into them, silver to look at, silver on the light blue, blooming whiteness, when the morning comes. The stretching of the bean pods full length from the hearts of the wilting petals would go on.<br /><br />Lumnay’s fingers moved a long, long time among the growing bean pods.<br /><br />Aguila, Augusto Antonio A., Joyce L. Arriola and John Jack Wigley. Philippine Literatures: Texts, Themes, Approaches. Espana, Manila: Univesity of Santo Tomas Publishing House. Print.</span>Pauline Fernandezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07841137807568692883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3735880536414128433.post-43369878658487762852010-04-05T19:41:00.000-07:002010-04-06T00:15:39.982-07:00The God Stealer (Fransico Sionil Jose)<span style="font-family:arial;">They were the best of friends and that was possible because they worked in the same office and both were young and imbued with a freshness in outlook. Sam Christie was twenty – eight and his Filipino assistant, Philip Latak, was twenty – six and was – just as Sam had been at the Agency before he assumed his post – intelligent and industrious.<br /><br />“That is to be expected,” the official whom Sam replaced explained “because Philip is Ifugao and you don’t know patience until you have seen the rice terraces his ancestors built.”<br /><br />“You will find,” Sam Christie was also told, “that the Igorots, like the Ilocanos, no matter how urbanized they already are, entertain a sense of inferiority. Not Philip. He is proud of his being Ifugao. He talks about it the first chance he gets.”<br /><br />Now, on this December dawn, Sam Christie was on his way to Ifugao with his native assistant. It was last month in the Philippines and in a matter of days he would return to Boston for that leave which he had not had in years.<br /><br />The bus station was actually a narrow sidestreet which sloped down to a deserted plaza, one of the many in the summer capital. Sam could make out the shapes of the stone buildings huddled, it seemed, in the cold, their narrow windows shuttered and the frames advertising Coca – Cola above their doorways indistinct in the dark.<br /><br />Philip Latak seemed listless. They had been in the station for over half an hour and still there was no bus. He zipped his old suede jacket up to his neck. It had been four years that he had lived in Manila and during all these years he had never gone home. Now, the cold of the pine – clad mountains seemed to bother him. He turned to Sam and, with a hint of urgency – “One favour, Sam. Let me take a swig.”<br /><br />Sam and Christie said, “Sure, you are welcome to it. Just make sure we have some left when we get Ifugao.” He stopped, brought out a bottle of White Label – one of the four – in the bag which also contained bars of candy and cartons of cigarettes and matches for the natives. He removed the tinfoil and handed the bottle to his companion.<br /><br />Phil raised it to his lips and made happy gurgling sounds. “Rice wine – I hope there’s still a jar around when we get to my grandfather’s. He couldn’t be as seriously sick as my brother wrote. As long as he has wine he will live. Hell, it’s not as potent as this, but it can knock out a man, too.”<br /><br />Sam Christie kidded his companion about the weather. They had arrived in the summer capital the previous day and the bracing air and the scent of pine had invigorated him. “It’s like New England in the spring,” he said. “In winter, when it really gets cold, I can still go around quite naked by your standards. I sent home a clipping this week, something in the Manila papers about it being chilly. And it was only 68! My old man will get a kick out of that.”<br /><br />“But it’s really cold!” Philip Latak said ruefully. He handed the bottle back to Sam Christie, who took a swig, too. “You don’t know how good it is to have that along. Do you know how much it costs nowadays? Twenty – four bucks.”<br /><br />“It’s cheaper at the commissary,” Sam Christie said simply. He threw his chest out, flexed his lean arms and inhaled. He wore a white, dacron shirt with the sleeves rolled up.<br /><br />“I’m glad you didn’t fall for those carvings in Manila,” Phil said after a while.<br /><br />A Grecian urn, a Japanese sword, a Siamese mask – and now, an Ifugao God. The Siamese mask,” Sam spoke in a monotone, “it was really a bargain. A student was going to Boston. He needed the dollars, so I told him he could get the money from my father. Forty dollars – and the mask was worth more than that.”<br /><br />Now, the gray buildings around them emerged from the dark with white, definite shapes. The east was starting to glow and more people had arrived with crates and battered rattan suitcases. In the chill most of them were quiet. A coffee shop opened along the street with a great deal of clatter and in its warm, golden light Sam Christie could see the heavy, peasant faces, their happy anticipation as the steaming cups were pushed before them.<br /><br />The bus finally came and Sam Christie, because he was a foreigner, was given the seat of honour, next to the driver. It was an old bus, with woven rattan seats and side entrances that admitted not only people, but cargo, fowl, and pigs. They did not wait long, for the bats filled up quickly with government clerks going to their posts and hefty Igorots, in their bare feet or with canvas shoes who sat in the rear, talking and smelling of earth and strong tobacco.<br /><br />After the bus had started, for the first time during their stay in Baguio, Sam Christie felt sleepy. He dozed, his head knocking intermittently against the hard edge of his seat and in that limbo between wakefulness and sleep he hurtled briefly to his home in Boston, to that basement study his father had tidied up, in it the mementoes of his years with the Agency. Sam had not actually intended to serve in the Agency, but he had always wanted to travel and, after college, a career with the Agency offered him the best chance of seeing the world.<br /><br />Soon it was light. The bus hugged the thin line of a road that was carved on the mountainside. Pine trees studded both sides of the road and beyond their green, across the ravines and the gray socks, was shimmery sky and endless ranges also draped with this mist that swirled, pervasive and alive, to their very faces. And Sam Christie, in the midst of all this whiteness and life, was quiet.<br /><br />Someone in the bus recognized Philip and he called out in the native tongue, “Ip – pig!” the name did not jell at once and the man shouted again. Philip turned to the man and acknowledged the greeting and to Sam he explained: “That’s my name up here – and that’s why I was baptized Philip.”<br /><br />Sam Christie realized there were many things he did not know about Phil. “Tell me more about your grandfather,” he said.<br /><br />“There isn’t much worth knowing about him,” Philip said.<br /><br />“How old is he?”<br /><br />“Eighty or more.”<br /><br />“He must be a character,” Sam Christie said.<br /><br />“And the village doctor,” Philip said. “Mumbo – jumbo stuff, you know. I was taken ill when I was young – something I ate, perhaps. I had to go to the Mission Hospital – and that evening he came and right there in the ward he danced to drive away the evil spirit that had gotten hold of me.”<br /><br />“And the doctor?”<br /><br />“He was broad – minded,” Philip said, still laughing. “They withstood it, the gongs and stamping.”<br /><br />“It must be have been quite a night.”<br /><br />“Hell, I was never so embarrassed in my life,” Philip Latak said, shaking his head, “Much later, thinking of it,” his voice became soft and a smile lingered in his thick – lidded eyes, “I realized that the old man never did that thing again for anyone, not even when his own son – my father – lay dying.”<br /><br />Now they were in the heart of the highlands. The pine trees were bigger, loftier than those in Baguio, and most were wreathing with hoary moss. Sunflowers burst on the slopes, bright yellow against the grass. The sun rode over the mountains and the rocks shone – and over everything the mist, as fine as powder, danced.<br /><br />The bus swung around the curves and it paused, twice or thrice to allow them to take coffee. It was past noon when they reached the feral fringes of the Ifugao country. The trip had not been exhausting, for there was much to see. Sam Christie, gazing down at the ravines, at the geometric patterns of the sweet – potato patches there and the crystal waters that cascaded down the mountainsides and the streams below, remembered the Alpine roads of Europe and those of his own New England – and about these he talked effusively. “See how vegetation changes. The people, too. The mountains,” Sam Christie said, “breed independence. Mountain people are always self – reliant.”<br /><br />Then, at turn of a hill, they came, without warning upon the water – filled rice terraces stretched out in the sun and laid out tier upon shining tier to the very summit of the mountains. And in the face of that achievement, Sam Christie did not speak.<br /><br />After a while he nudged Philip. “Yeah, the terraces are colossal.” And he wished he had expressed his admiration better, for he had sounded so empty and trite.<br /><br />The first view of the terraces left in Sam’s mind a kind of stupefaction which, when it had cleared, was replaced by a sense of wastefulness. He mused on whether or not these terraces were necessary, since he knew that beyond these hand – carved genealogical monuments were plains that could be had for the asking. “And you say that these terraces do not produce enough food for the people?”<br /><br />Philip Latak turned quizzically to him. “Hell, if I can live here, would I go to Manila?”<br /><br />Their destination was no more than a cluster of houses beyond the gleaming tiers. A creek ran through the town, white with froth among the rocks, and across the creek, beyond the town, was a hill, on top of which stood the Mission – four red – roofed buildings – the chapel, the school, the hospital, and residence.<br /><br />“That’s where I first learned about Jesus Christ and scotch,” Philip Latak said. “They marked me for success.” Another peal of laughter.<br /><br />The bus shuddered into first gear as it dipped down the gravel road and in a while they were in the town, along its main street lined with wooden frame houses. It conformed with the usual small – town arrangement and was properly palisaded with stores, whose fronts were plastered with impieties of soft – drink and patent – medicine signs. And in the stores were crowds of people, heavy – jowled Ifugaos in G – string and tattered Western coats that must have reached them in relief packages from the United States. The women wore the native gay blouses and skirts.<br /><br />The two travellers got down from the bus and walked to one of the bigger houses, a shapeless wooden building with rusting tin proof and cheap, printed curtains. It was a boarding house and a small curio store was on the ground floor, together with the usual merchandise of country shops: canned sardines and squid, milk, soap, matches, kerosene, a few bolts and twine.<br /><br />The landlady, an acquaintance of Philip Latak, assigned them a bare room, which overlooked the creek and the mountain terraced to the very summit.<br /><br />“We could stay in my brother’s place,” Philip Latak reiterated apologetically as they brought their things up, “but there is no plumbing there.”<br /><br />Past noon, after a plentiful lunch of fried highland rice and venison, they headed for the footpath that broke from the street and disappeared behind a turn of hillside. The walk to Philip Latak’s village itself was not far from the town and wherever they turned the terraces were sheets of mirror that dogged them.<br /><br />The village was no more than ten houses in a valley, which were no different from the other Ifugao homes. They stood on stilts and all their four posts were crowned with circular rat guards. A lone house roofed with tin stood at one end of the village. “My brother’s,” Philip said.<br /><br />“Shall I bring the candies out now?” Sam asked. He had, at Phil’s suggestion, brought them along, together with matches and cheap cigarettes, for his “private assistance program.”<br /><br />Sadek, Philip’s brother, was home. “You have decided to visit us after all” he greeted Philip in English and with a tinge of sarcasm. He was older and spoke with authority. “I thought the city had won you so completely that you have forgotten this humble place and its humble people.”<br /><br />Then, turning to Sam, Sadek said, “I must apologize, sir, for my brother, for his bringing you to this poor house. His deed embarrasses us...”<br /><br />“We work in the same office,” Sam said simply, feeling uneasy at hearing the speech.<br /><br />“I know, sir,” Sadek said.<br /><br />Philip Latak held his brother by the shoulder. “You see, Sam,” he said, “my brother dislikes me. Like my grandfather, he feels that I shouldn’t have left this place, that I should rot here. Hell, everyone knows the terraces are good for the eye, but they can’t produce enough for the stomach.”<br /><br />“That’s not a nice thing to say,” Sam said warily, not wanting to be drawn into a family quarrel.<br /><br />“But it’s true,” Philip Latak said with a nervous laugh. “My brother dislikes me. All of them here dislike me. They think that by living in Manila for a few years I have forgotten what is to be an Ifugao. I can’t help it, Sam. I like it down there. Hell, they will never understand. My grandfather – do you know that on the day I left he followed me to the town, to the bus, pleading with me and at the same time scolding me? He said I’d get all his terraces. But I like it down there, Sam,” he threw his chest and yawned.<br /><br />Unmindful of his younger brother’s ribbing Sadek dragged in some battered chairs from within the house and set them in the living room. He was a farmer and the weariness of working the terraces showed in his massive arms, in his sunburned and stolid face. His wife, who was an Ifugao like him, with high cheekbones and firm, dumpy legs, came out and served them Coca – Cola. Sam Christie accepted the drink, washed it down his throat politely, excruciatingly, for it was the first time that he took warm Coke and it curdled his tongue.<br /><br />Sadek said, “Grandfather had a high fever and we all thought the end was near. I didn’t want to bother you, but the old man said you should come. He is no longer angry with you for leaving, Ip – pig. He has forgiven you...”<br /><br />“There’s nothing to forgive, my brother,” Philip Latak said, “but if he wants to he can show his forgiveness by opening his wine jar. Is he drinking still?”<br /><br />“He has abandoned the jar for some time now,” Sadek said, “but now that you are here, he will drink again.”<br /><br />Then the children started stealing in, five of them with grime on their faces, their feet caked with mud, their bellies shiny and disproportionately rounded and big. They stood, wide – eyed, near the sagging wall. The tallest and the oldest, a boy of thirteen or twelve, Sadek pointed out as Philip’s namesake.<br /><br />Philip bent down and thrust a fistful of candy at his nephews and nieces. They did not move. They hedged closer to one another, their brows, their simple faces empty of recognition, of that simple spark that would tell him, Ip – Pig, that he belonged here. He spoke in the native tongue, but that did not help either. The children held their scrawny hands behind them and stepped back until their backs were pressed against the wall.<br /><br />“Hell, you are all my relatives, aren’t you?” he asked. Turning to Sam, “Give it to them. Maybe, they like you better.”<br /><br />His open palm brimming with the tinsel – wrapped sweets, Sam strode to the oldest, to Philip’s namesake, and tousled the youngster’s black, matted hair. He knelt, pinched the cheeks of the dirty child next to the oldest and placed a candy in his small hand. In another moment it was all noise, the children scrambling over the young American and about the floor, where the candy had spilled.<br /><br />Philip Latak watched them, and above the happy sounds, the squeals of children, Sadek said, “You see now that even your relatives do not know you, Ip – pig. You speak our tongue, you have our blood – but you are a stranger nevertheless.”<br /><br />“See what I mean, Sam?” Philip Latak said. He strode to the door. Beyond the betel – nut plams in the yard, up a sharp incline, was his grandfather’s house. It stood on four stilts like all the rest and below its roof were the bleached skulls of goats, dogs, pigs, and carabaos which the old man had butchered in past feats. He had the most number of skulls in the village to show his social position. Now new skulls would be added to this collection.<br /><br />“Well, he will recognize and I won’t be a stranger to him. Come,” Philip Latak turned to his friend, “let us see the old man.”<br /><br />They toiled up the hill, which was greasy although steps had been gouged out on it for easier climbing. Before going up the slender rungs of the old house Philip Latak called his grandfather twice. Sam Christie waited under the grass marquee that extended above the doorway. He couldn’t see what transpired inside and there was no invitation for him to come up. However, some could hear, Philip speaking in his native tongue and there was also a crackled, old voice, high pitched with excitement and pleasure. And, listening to the pleasant sounds of the homecoming, he smiled and called to mind the homecomings, he, too, had known, and he thought how the next vacation would be, his father and his mother at the Back Bay station, the luggage in the back seat, and on his lap this wooden idol which he now sought. But after a while, the visions he conjured were dispelled. The effusion within the hut had subsided into some sort of spirited talking and Philip was saying “Americano – Americano.” Sam heard the old man raise his voice, this time in anger and not in pleasure. Then silence, a rustling within the house, the door stirring and Philip easing himself down the ladder, on his face a numbed, crestfallen look. And, without another word, he hurried down the hill, the American behind him.<br /><br />Philip Latak explained later on the way back to the town: “I had asked him where we could get a god and he said he didn’t know. And when I told him it was for an American friend he got mad. He never liked strangers, Sam. He said they took everything away from him – tranquillity, me. Hell, you can’t do anything to an old man, Sam. We shouldn’t have bothered with him at all. Now, tell me, have I spoiled your first day here?”<br /><br />Sam objected vehemently.<br /><br />“The old man wants a feast tomorrow night. My bienvenida of course.”<br /><br />“You will be a damned fool if you don’t go,” Sam said.<br /><br />“I’m thinking about you. You shouldn’t come,” Philip said. “It will be a bore and a ghastly sight.”<br /><br />But Sam Christie’s interest had been piqued and even when he realized that Philip Latak really did not want him to come he decided that this was one party he would not miss.<br /><br />They visited the Mission the following day after having hiked to the villages. As Philip Latak had warned, their search was fruitless. They struggled up terraces and were met by howling dogs and barebottomed children and old Ifugaos, who offered them sweet potatoes and rice wine. To all of them Sam Christie was impeccably polite and charitable with his matches and his candies. And after this initial amenity, Philip would start talking and always sullen silence would answer him, and he would turn to Sam, a foolish, optimistic grin on his face.<br /><br />Reverend Doone, who managed the Mission, invited them for lunch. He was quite pleased to have a fellow American as guest. He was a San Fransiscan, and one consolation of his assignment was its meagre similarity to San Francisco.<br /><br />“In the afternoons,” he said with nostalgia, “when the mist drifts in and starts to wrap the terraces and the hills, I’m reminded of the ocean fog which steals over the white hills of San Francisco – and then I feel like I’m home.”<br /><br />They had finished lunch and were in the living room of the Mission, sipping coffee, while Philip Latak was in the kitchen, where he had gone to joke with old friends. Sam’s knowledge of San Francisco was limited to a drizzly afternoon at the airport, an iron – cold rain and a nasty wind that crept under the top coat, clammy and gripping, and he kept quiet while Reverend Doone reminisced. The missionary was a short man with a bulbous nose and heavy brows and homesickness written all over his pallid face.<br /><br />Then it was Sam’s turn and he rambled about the places he had seen – Greece ans the marble ruins glinting in the sun, the urn; Japan, the small green country, and the samurai sword. And now, an Ifugao God.<br /><br />Reverend Doone reiterated what Philip had said. “You must understand their religion,” he said, “and if you understand it, then you’ll know why it’s difficult to get this god. Then you’ll know why the Ifugaos are so attached to it. It’s a religion based on fear, retribution. Every calamity or every luck which happens to them is based on this relief. A good harvest means the gods are pleased. A bad one means they are angered.”<br /><br />“It’s not different from Christianity then,” Sam said. “Christianity is based on fear, too – fear of hell and final judgment.”<br /><br />Reverend Doone drew back, laid his cup of coffee on the well – worn table and spoke sternly. “Christianity is based on love. That’s the difference. You are in the Agency and you should know the significance of this distinction.” Reverend Doone became thoughtful again. “Besides,” he said, “Christianity is based on the belief that man has a soul and that soul is eternal.”<br /><br />“What happens when a man loses his soul?” Sam asked.<br /><br />“I wish I could answer that,” Reverend Doone said humbly. “All I can say is that a man without a soul is nothing. A pig in the sty that lives only for food. Without a soul...”<br /><br />“Does the Ifugao believe in a soul?”<br /><br />Reverend Doone smiled gravely, “His god – he believes in them.”<br /><br />“Can a man lose his soul?” Sam insisted.<br /><br />“You have seen examples,” Reverend Doone smiled wanly. “In the city – people are corrupted by easy living, the pleasures of senses and the flesh, the mass corruption that is seeping into the government and everything. A generation of soulless men is growing up and dictating the future...”<br /><br />“How can one who loses his soul regain it?” Sam came back with sudden life.<br /><br />“It takes cataclysm, something tragic to knock a man back to his wits, to make him realize his loss...”<br /><br />“They are all human beings. But look what is in this mountain – locked country. It is poor – let there be no doubt about it. They don’t make enough to eat. But there is less greed here and pettiness here. There are no land – grabbers, no scandals.”<br /><br />Going down the hill, Sam decided to bare his mind to Philip who was below him, teetering on the sleepy trail, he said with finality. “Phil, I must not leave Ifugao without that god. It’s more than just a souvenir. It will remind me of you, of this place. The samurai sword – you should have seen the place where I got it and the people I had to deal with to get it. It’s not just some souvenir, mind you. It belonged to a soldier who had fought in the South Pacific and had managed somehow to save the thing when he was made prisoner. But his daughter – it’s a sad story – she had to go to college, she was majoring English and she didn’t have tuition money.”<br /><br />In the comfort of their little room back in the town, Sam brought out his liquor. “Well,” he said as he poured a glass for Philip. “At least the hike did me good. All that walking and all these people – how nice they were, how they offered us wine and sweet potatoes.”<br /><br />“You get a lot better in cocktail parties,” Philip Latak said. “How many people in Manila would feel honoured to attend the parties you go to?”<br /><br />“They are a bore,” Sam said. “And I have to be there – that’s the difference. I have to be there to spread sweetness and light. Sometimes, it makes me sick, but I have to be there.”<br /><br />Phil was silent. He emptied the glass and raised his muddy shoes to the woollen sheet on his cot. Toying with his empty glass, he asks the question Sam loathed most: “Why are you with the Agency, Sam?”<br /><br />He did not hesitate. “Because I have to be somewhere, just as you have to be somewhere. It’s that simple.”<br /><br />“I’m glad you are in the Agency, Sam. We need people like you.”<br /><br />Sam emptied his glass, too, and sank into his cot. Dust had gathered outside. Fireflies ignited the grove of pine on the ledge below the house and farther, across the creek, above the brooding terraces, the stars shone.<br /><br />After a while Philip Latak spoke again: “We will be luckier tomorrow, I know. You’ll have your god, Sam. There’s a way. I can steal one for you.”<br /><br />Sam stood up and waved his lean hands. “You can’t do that,” he said with great solemnity. “That’s not fair. And what will happen to you or to the man whose god you will steal?”<br /><br />“Lots – if you believe all that trash,” Philip said lightly “I’ll be afflicted with pain, same with the owner. But he can always make another. It’s not so difficult to carve a new one. I tried it when I was young, before I went to the Mission.”<br /><br />“You cannot steal a god, not even for me,” Sam said.<br /><br />Philip laughed. “Let’s not be bull – headed about this. It’s the least I can do for you. You made this vacation possible and that raise. Do you know that I have been with the Agency for four years and I never got a raise until you came?”<br /><br />“You had it coming. It’s that simple.”<br /><br />“You’ll have your god.” Philip Latak said gravely.<br /><br />They did not have supper at the boarding house because in a while Sadek arrived to fetch them. He wore an old straw hat, a faded flannel coat and old denim pants. “The butchers are ready and the guests are waiting and Grandfather has opened his wine jar.”<br /><br />The hike to the village was not difficult as it had been the previous day. Sam had become an expert in scaling the dikes, in balancing himself on the strips of slippery earth that formed the terrace embankment, in jumping across the conduits of spring water that continuously gushed from springs higher up in the mountain to the terraces. When they reached the village many people had already gathered and on the crest of the hill, on which the old man’s house stood, a huge fire bloomed and the flames crackled and threw quivering shadows upon the betel palms. In the orange light Sam, could discern the unsmiling faces of men carrying spears, the women and the children, and beyond the scattered groups, near the slope, inside a bamboo corral, were about a dozen squealing pigs, dogs, and goats, all ready for the sacrificial knife.<br /><br />Philip Latak acknowledged the greetings, then breaking away from the tenuous groups, he went to his grandfather’s hut. Waiting outside, Sam heard the same words of endearment. A pause, then the wooden door opened and Philip peeped out. “It’s okay, Sam. Come up.”<br /><br />And Sam, pleased with the prospect of being inside an Ifugao house for the first time, dashed up the ladder.<br /><br />The old man really looked ancient and, in the light of the stove fire that lived and died at one end of the one – room house, Sam could see the careworn face, stoic and unsmiling. Sam took in everything; the hollow cheeks, the white, scraggly hair, the horn hands and the big – boned knees. The patriarch was half – naked like the other Ifugaos, but his loin cloth had a belt with circular bone embellishments and around his neck dangled a necklace of bronze. To Sam the old man extended a bowl of rice wine and Sam took it and lifted it to his lips, savoured the gentle tang and acridness of it.<br /><br />He then sat down on the mud – splattered floor. Beyond the open door, in the blaze of the bonfire, the pigs were already being butchered and someone had started beating the gongs and their deep, sonorous whang rang sharp and clear above the grunts of the dying animals.<br /><br />The light in the hut became alive again and showed the artefacts within: an old, gray pillow, dirty with use, a few rusty – tipped spears, fish traps and a small wooden trunk. The whole house smelled of filth, of chicken droppings, and dank earth, but Sam Christie ignored these smells and attended only to the old man, who had now risen, his bony frame shaking, and from a compartment in the roof, brought out his black and ghastly – looking god, no taller than two feet, and set it before the fire before his grandson.<br /><br />Someone called at the door and thrust to them a wooden bowl of blood. Philip Latak picked it up and gave it to the old man, who was kneeling. Slowly, piously, the old man poured the living, frothy blood on the idol’s head and the blood washed down the ugly head to its arms and legs, to its very feet and as he poured the blood, in his crackled voice, he recited a prayer.<br /><br />Philip turned to his American friend and, with usual levity said: “My grandfather is thanking his god that I’m here. He says he can die now because he has seen me again.”<br /><br />Outside, the rhythm of the gongs quickened and fierce chanting started, filled the air, the hut, crept under the very skin and into the subconscious. The old man picked up the idol again and, standing, he returned to its niche.<br /><br />“Let’s go down,” Philip said. They made their way to the iron cauldrons, where rice was cooking, and to the butcher’s table where big chunks of pork and dog meat were being distributed to the guests. For some time, Sam Christie watched the dancers and the singers, but the steps and the tune did not have any variation and soon he was bored – completely so. The hiking that had preoccupied them during the day began to weigh on his spirits and he told Philip Latak who was with the old man before newly opened wine jar, that he would like to return to the boarding house. No, he did not need any guide. He knew the way, having gone through the route thrice. But Sadek would not let him go alone and, after more senseless palaver, Sam finally broke away from the party and headed for the town with Sadek behind him.<br /><br />The night was cool, as all nights in the Ifugao country are and that evening, as he lay on his cot, he mused. In his ears the din of gongs still rang, in his mind’s eye loomed the shrunken, unsmiling face of the Ifugao. He saw again the dancers, their brown, sweating bodies whirling before the fire, their guttural voices rising as one, and finally, the wooden god, dirty and black and drenched with blood. And recalling all this in vivid sharpness, he thought he smelled, too, that peculiar odour of blood and the dirt of many years that had gathered in the old man’s house. Sam Christie went to sleep with the wind soughing the pines, the cicadas whirring in the grass.<br /><br />He had no idea what time it was, but it must have been past midnight. The clatter woke him up and, without risking, he groped for the flashlight under his pillow. He lifted the mosquito net and beamed the light at the dark from which had paused at the door. It was Philip Latak, swaying and holding on to a black, bloody mass. Sam let the ray play on Phil’s face, at the splotch on his breast – the sacrificial blood – and finally, on the thing.<br /><br />“I told you I’d get it,” Philip Latak said with drunken triumph. “I told you I’d steal a god,” and staggering forward, he shoved his grandfather’s idol at his friend.<br /><br />Sam Christie, too surprised to speak, pushed the idol away and it fell with a thud on the floor.<br /><br />“You shouldn’t have done it!” was all he could say.<br /><br />Philip Latak stumbled, the flashlight beam still on his shiny, porcine face. He fumbled with the stub of candle on the table and in a while the room was bright. “What a night,” he crowed, heaving himself in his cot. “No, you don’t have to worry. No one saw me. I did it when all were busy dancing and drinking. I danced a little, too, you know – with the old man. He is going to give me everything, his terraces, his spears, his wine jars. We danced and my legs – they are not rusty at all.”<br /><br />Philip Latak stood up and started prancing.<br /><br />Sam bolted up, too, and held him by the shoulder. “You’ll be waking up everyone up. Go to bed now and we will talk in the morning.”<br /><br />Philip Latak sank back on his cot. The air around him was heavy with the smell of sweat, rice wine, and earth. “He will be surprised,” he repeated. “He will be surprised – and when he does he will perhaps get drunk and make a new one. Then there will be another feast to celebrate the new god – and another god to steal...”<br /><br />“You are lucky to have someone who loves you so much. And you did him wrong,” Sam said sullenly. He sat on the edge of his cot and looked down at the dirty thing that lay his feet.<br /><br />“He did himself wrong,” Philip said. “He was wrong in being so attached to me who no longer believes in these idols. Sadek – you have seen his house. It’s different. And not because he has the money to build a different house. It’s because he doesn’t believe in the old things any more. He cannot say that aloud.” Phil whacked his stomach. “Not while he lives with a hundred ignorant natives.”<br /><br />“It’s a miserable thing to do,” Sam said. “Take it back tomorrow.”<br /><br />“Take it back?” Phil turned to him with a mocking leer. “Now, that’s good of you. Hell, after my trouble...”<br /><br />“Yes,” Sam said. “Take it back.” But there was no conviction in him, because in the back of his mind he was grateful that Philip Latak had brought him this dirty god, because it was real, because it had significance and meaning and was no cheap tourist bait, such as those that were displayed in the hotel lobbies in Manila.<br /><br />“I won’t,” Philip said resolutely. “If I do, I’ll look bad. That would be the death of my grandfather.”<br /><br />“I’ll take it back if you won’t,” Sam said almost inaudibly.<br /><br />“He will kill you.”<br /><br />“Don’t frighten me.”<br /><br />“Hell, I’m just stating a fact,” Phil said. “Do you think he would be happy to know that his god had been fondled by a stranger?”<br /><br />“It’s no time for jokes,” Sam said, lying down. “That isn’t funny at all.” And in his mind’s resolute eye, there crowded again one irrefrangible darkness and in it, like a light, was the old man’s wrinkled face, dirtied with the mud of the terraces, the eyes narrow and gleaming with wisdom, with hate. He wished he knew more about him, for to know him would be to discover this miserly land and the hardiness (or was it foolhardiness?) which it nourished. And it was these thoughts that were rankling his mind when he heard Philip Latak snore, heard his slow, pleasant breathing and with his hand, Sam picked up the taper and quashed its flame.<br /><br />At the same time Sam Christie woke up it was already daylight and the sun lay pure and dazzling on the rough pine sidings of the room. It was Philip Latak who had stirred him, his voice shrill and grating. Sam blinked, then sat up and walked to the door, where Philip was talking with a boy.<br /><br />“I’m sorry I woke you up,” he said, turning momentarily to him, “My nephew,” a pause. “It’s grandfather.” His voice was no longer drunken. “I have to leave you here.”<br /><br />“Anything the matter?”<br /><br />Philip had already packed his things and the boy held them, the canvas bag and the old suede jacket. “My grandfather is dying, Sam. He collapsed – an attack.”<br /><br />When Sam found words again, all he could ask was, “Why... how...”<br /><br />“Hell, that should be no riddle,” Philip said. “The feast last night. The dancing and the drinking. It must have been too much for his heart. And at his age...”<br /><br />“I’m sorry...”<br /><br />“I’ll be back as soon as I can, but don’t wait, whatever your plans are.”<br /><br />After the two had gone, Sam returned to the room and picked up the idol. In the light he saw that the blood had dried and had lost its colour. The idol was heavy, so Sam quickly deduced that it must be made of good hardwood. It was crudely shaped and its proportions were almost grotesque. The arms were too long and the legs were mere stumps. The feet, on other hand, were huge. It was not very different, Sam concluded lightly, from the creations of sculptors who called themselves modernists. And wrapping it up in an old newspaper, he pushed it under his cot near his mud – caked shoes.<br /><br />The next day, Sam Christie idled in the town and developed the acquaintance of the Chief of Police, a small man with a pinched, anonymous face that gained character only when he smiled, for then he bared a set of buckteeth reddened from chewing betel – nut. He was extremely hospitable and had volunteered to guide him to wherever he wanted to hike. They had tried the villages farther up the mountains. It was early afternoon when they returned and the mist, white as starch in the sum, had started to crawl again down into town. The Chief of Police had been very helpful almost to the point of obsequiousness and Sam asked him to come up for a drink. After the Chief had savoured every drop in his glass, he declaimed. “Indeed, I am honoured to taste this most wonderful hospitality, which should be reserved only for important people...”<br /><br />The party could have gone further, but it was at this moment that Sadek arrived.<br /><br />Philip’s brother did not waste words. “It’s about my brother,” he said. He looked down self – consciously at his shoes – they were a trifle big and Sam saw immediately that the pair was not Sadek’s but Philip’s. He saw, too, that the jacket which Sadek wore was Philip’s old suede. And as if Sam’s unspoken scrutiny bothered him, Sadek took the jacket off and held it behind him.<br /><br />“How is he?” Sam asked. He did not wait for an answer. “Come, let’s have a drink.” He held the Ifugao by the arm, but Sadek squirmed free from his grasp.<br /><br />“I still have a half bottle of scotch,” Sam said brightly.<br /><br />“It’s the best in the world,” Sadek said humbly, but he did not move. “Nothing but the best for Americans.”<br /><br />Sam did not press. “When is Phil coming back?” he asked.<br /><br />“There was nothing we could do,” Sadek said. He did not face the young American and a faraway gaze was in his eyes. “Our grandfather...”<br /><br />“He is dead?”<br /><br />Sadek nodded.<br /><br />Sam took the news calmly. He did not find it, its finality, depressing and he was surprised even that the death of someone who was dear to a friend had not affected him at all. In the back of his mind, he even found himself thinking that, perhaps, it was best that the old man had died, so that his passing would seal, forever, as far as Philip Latak was concerned, the family’s concern with the idol’s dubious grace.<br /><br />“And Phil?” Sam asked.<br /><br />“He isn’t going back to Manila,” Sadek said simply, smiling again that meaningless grin of peasants.<br /><br />“And why not?”<br /><br />Sadek did not speak.<br /><br />“Tell me more,” Sam insisted. “Does his decision have something to do with burial customs and all that sort of thing?”<br /><br />“It’s not matter of custom, sir!”<br /><br />“I must see him.”<br /><br />Sadek faced the American squarely now. “Mr. Christie, you cannot do anything now. You must go back to Manila.” And wheeling round, the Ifugao walked out in the street.<br /><br />Sam followed him, rifled by the unexpected show of rudeness. “I cannot leave like this, Sadek. I’m sorry about what happened to your grandfather. In a time of grief I should at least be able to express my... my condolence.”<br /><br />“You have already done that, sir.”<br /><br />Sadek paused again. “All right then,” he said sharply. “Do come,” then softly, supplicatingly, “Please, please don’t think we are being unreasonable – and don’t make me responsible for what will happen.”<br /><br />Sam Christie was now troubled. “How did the old man die?” That was the question he wanted to ask and when he did it seemed as if the words were strangled from his throat.<br /><br />Walking slowly, Sadek glanced at the stranger keeping step behind him. “It happened in the morning after the feast. He had a lot of wine.”<br /><br />“Of course, of course,” Sam said. “I saw him gulp it like water. A man his age shouldn’t have indulged in drinking like he did.”<br /><br />“But it wasn’t the drink that did it, sir,” Sadek said emphatically. “It was the loss of the god. It was stolen.”<br /><br />“It was not the god,” Sam said aloud and the words were not for Sadek alone, but for himself that he was not involved, that his hands were unsoiled. And a pang of regret, of sadness, touched him. “No,” he said. “It wasn’t the god. It couldn’t be as simple as that. The liquor, the dancing, the exertion – these did it.”<br /><br />Sadek did not answer. They went down the incline and at the base of the terraces the path was wide and level again. Then, softly, “My grandfather always love Ip – pig – Philip – more than anyone of us. He wanted to see Ip – pig before he died. He died in Ip – pig’s arms.”<br /><br />Near the hill on which stood the old man’s house Sadek paused again. “We buried him there,” he pointed to a new digging on the side of the hill, “and we held another feast this morning. Two feasts in so short a time. One was a welcome to a youth gone astray, the other a farewell to him who gave us blood in us...”<br /><br />At the edge of the hilltop the open pits which had served as stoves still smoked and the dried blood of the butchered animals stained the earth. Sadek faced Sam. “My brother... he will not starve here, but he will no longer have the pleasures that he knew. Will that be good to him, Mr. Christie?” He did not wait for an answer and he droned, “As long as he works... but he is no longer a farmer of course. We are not learned like him and we have never been to Manila. But my brother...” and, shaking his head as if a great weight had fallen on his shoulders, Sadek left the young American.<br /><br />Now there was nothing to do but go up the Ifugao hut, this flimsy thing of straw hat had survived all of time’s ravages, this house that was also granary and altar, which had retained its shape through hungry years and was, as it stood on this patch of earth, everything that endured.<br /><br />And as he approached it, Sam Christie found himself asking why he was here, among these primitive monuments, when he could very well be in his apartment in Manila, enjoying his liquor and his books and, maybe, a mestiza thrown in, too.<br /><br />“Phil?” Sam Christie stood in the sun, crinkling his brow and wondering if he had spoken a bit too harshly or too loudly to disturb the silence within. “Phil, are you there?”<br /><br />No answer.<br /><br />“Phil,” he repeated, raising his voice.<br /><br />“I heard you,” Philip Latak’s reply from within the hut was abrupt and gruff.<br /><br />“I thought you would forget. Remember, tomorrow morning, we are leaving. I’ve already packed and I was waiting. You didn’t even send word. We will still shop, Phil. And that woven stuff and the utensils – do you know if we can get them before we leave tomorrow?”<br /><br />“You can’t mean what you say,” Sam said. “Come on, we still have many things to do. But if it’s against the custom – that is, if you have to stay here for more weeks after the burial –“<br /><br />The words exploded from the hut with a viciousness that jolted Sam: “Damn it. I’m not coming!” It was no longer voice. It was something elemental and distressing. “I’m not going back, do you hear? You can bring the whole mountain with you if you care. The god, my grandfather’s god – isn’t it enough payment for your kindness?”<br /><br />The words, their keenness, their meaning, bit deep. “Let us be reasonable,” Sam said, his voice starting to quiver. “I didn’t want you to steal the idol, Phil.”<br /><br />“You would have gotten it anyway,” the voice quieted down, “because you are always curious and determined. I could forgive myself for having stolen it, but the old man – he had always been wise, Sam. I killed him because I wanted to be free from these... these terraces, because I wanted to be grateful. I killed him who loved me most...” a faltering and a stifled sob.<br /><br />“Don’t blame me Phil.” Sam choked on the words. “I didn’t want to steal it. Remember, I even wanted to return it? Besides, I could have gone on searching until I found one I could buy...”<br /><br />“That’s it!” the voice within the hut had become a shriek. “That’s it! You’ll always find a way because you have all the money. You can buy everything, even gods.”<br /><br />His face burning with bewilderment and shame, Sam Christie moved towards the ladder. “Phil, let’s talk this over. We are friends, Phil,” he said in a low, anguished voice.<br /><br />“You are not a friend,” the voice within the grass hut had become a wail. “If you are, you wouldn’t have come here searching for gods to buy.”<br /><br />“We are friends,” Sam insisted, toiling up the ladder and at the top rung, he pushed aside the flimsy bamboo door.<br /><br />In the semi – darkness, amid the poverty and the soot of many years, Sam Christie saw Philip Latak squatting before the same earthen stove aglow with embers. And in this glow Sam Christie saw his friend – not the Philip Latak with a suede jacket, but a well – built Ifugao attired in the simple costume of the highlands, his broad flanks uncovered, and around his waist was the black – and – red breech cloth with yellow tassels. From his neck dangled the bronze necklace of an Ifugao warrior.<br /><br />Philip Latak did not, even face Sam. He seemed completely absorbed in his work and, with the sharp blade in his hands, he started scraping again the block of wood which he held tightly between his knees.<br /><br />“Leave me alone, Sam,” Philip Latak said softly, as if all grief had been squeezed from him. “I have to finish this and it will take time.”<br /><br />Sam Christie’s ever – observant eyes lingered on the face. Where he had seen it before? Was it Greece – or in Japan – or in Siam? The recognition came swiftly, savagely; with waterly legs and trembling hands, he stepped down and let the door slide quietly back into place. He knew then that Philip Latak really had work to do and it would take some time before he could finish a new god to replace the old one, the stolen idol which he was bringing home to America to take its place among his souvenirs of benighted and faraway places.<br /><br />Aguila, Augusto Antonio A., Joyce L. Arriola and John Jack Wigley. Philippine Literatures: Texts, Themes, Approaches. Espana, Manila: Univesity of Santo Tomas Publishing House. Print.</span>Pauline Fernandezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07841137807568692883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3735880536414128433.post-83531042928976847042010-04-05T19:19:00.000-07:002010-04-06T00:14:53.202-07:00My Own Theory of Devolution (Jessica Zafra)<span style="font-family:arial;">You’ve heard of the theory of evolution; if you haven’t, there is a serious gap in your education. There was a major fuss when Darwin came out with it in the last century. In this century, even evolution remained controversial in a little town in America, a teacher was put on trial for mentioning it to his students. Apparently, their mommies and daddies were not pleased to hear that they were distantly related to the apes. Mercifully, the apes were unable to express their opinion.<br /><br />But let’s not go into that. In fact, let’s talk about the exact opposite of evolution; that is, devolution. If evolving means moving up to a “higher” life form, devolving means deteriorating to a “lower” life form.<br /><br />See, I have this theory about alcohol. The more you drink, the lower you go down the evolutionary ladder. When you start swigging the vodka for the poison of your choice, you’re recognizably human. A few shots later, the change begins.<br /><br />Your vision blurs. The room appears to be shining. Slowly, at first, then you feel like you’re inside a blender with some oranges and ice. Your face feels lopsided, and you ask your drinking companions if one side of your face is larger than the other. And when you have to go to the bathroom, walking upright makes you nauseous. You sort of slouch over with your arms down to your knees and do an ape – like shuffle... and that’s when you’ve gone APE. Monkey. Simian. You’ve just rejoined our distant relative.<br /><br />But you don’t stop drinking no no no. What, and be a spoilsport? You go on swilling the drink of depressed Russians, the stuff they imbibe because it takes a long to line up for Cakes. Soon, you can’t even stay on your feet anymore. Your legs turn into vestigial appendages (meaning they’re there. But you can’t use them). And if you have to travel to another part of the room, you crawl over. You slither on your hands and stomach. You even make a crashing noise that resembles hissing. Bingo. You’re in the REPTILE stage.<br /><br />If you’re the talkative, hyperverbal sort, you will find that imbibing alcohol not only loosens your tongue, but charges it electrically. First there is a noticeable rise in the volume of your voice. Soon, you’ve got a built – in megaphone. Not only do you insult your friends in a voice that carries all the way to the next block, but you also reveal your darkest secrets to people you just met two hours ago. You stop talking, and you start speechifying. You get pompous. Eventually you stop making sense. A sure sign that you’ve developed to the POLITICIAN level, a stage closely related to reptiles, particularly crocodiles (buwaya). It is here that you are at your most obnoxious.<br /><br />Fortunately, the politician stage passes, although the duration varies from person to person. Some verbose types can go on for hours, in which case it is necessary to force – feed them some bucks through food old honest blackmail.<br /><br />You keep on drinking, and the alcohol content of your blood continues to rise. Your brains are getting pickled. If you should insist upon driving yourself home, you will make things really easy for the mortuary people. They wouldn’t have to embalm you anymore, they can just stick you in a jar and put you under bright lights for your grieving relatives. You can’t even crawl anymore, so in your warped state of mind, you attempt to swim on the floor. This is either the Sammy the Sperm phase in which you regress to the time you were racing several thousand other sperm cells to reach that egg, or the FISH phase, fish being lower down the food chain.<br /><br />Soon your body refuses to take any more pickling, and goes to sleep on you. You pass out on whatever surface you happen to be on. Hopefully, you land on a surface that is not conducive to pneumonia. (This is why you must make sure friends are present when you drink. If you get smashed, you can be reasonably sure they won’t leave you on the street to get run over by a truck). When you’ve lost consciousness, you’ve gone as far down the evolutionary ladder as you can. You’re not even a living organism anymore, you’re a ROCK.<br /><br />The next morning the process of evolution starts up again. You wake up, and you ask, “How did I get here? Where am I? What’s your name?” Your mouth tastes like toxic waste, battery acid, or something you forgot to put in the refrigerator that developed green spots. Your head is being bludgeoned at regular intervals with an invisible bag of shot.<br /><br />You mouth vile things – You’re a politician. You crawl toward the bathroom – you’re a reptile. You stand on your legs to reach the sink – you’re a monkey. You throw up, and between heaves, you swear never to touch the Vodka from Hell again. You’re making resolutions you know you won’t keep. Congratulations. You’re human again.<br /><br />Aguila, Augusto Antonio A., Joyce L. Arriola and John Jack Wigley. Philippine Literatures: Texts, Themes, Approaches. Espana, Manila: Univesity of Santo Tomas Publishing House. Print.</span>Pauline Fernandezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07841137807568692883noreply@blogger.com