BEST PHILIPPINE SHORT STORIES: THE OLD WOMAN OF THE CANDLES

THE OLD WOMAN OF THE CANDLES
by Kevin Piamonte

HOLY Thursday.

The house loomed over the street. Massive. Windows gaped open like mouths. So this would be summer for me. There were other houses nearby, but not as big and old as this one. As I stood outside the rusty iron gate, Doray came running out of the heavy wooden door. It was almost sundown.

"You're finally here. I've been waiting since morning." She kissed me on the cheek.

"The bus broke down," I sighed and gave her a hug.

She brought me inside the house. The basement was dark. A familiar scent filtered through my nose. I sneezed.

"It's old wood, remember?"

SHE had brought me to Ibajay, Aklan, a year ago for her Lola Conching's 90th birthday. We stayed for a couple of days.

Doray and I usually spend summer at beaches. She suggested that we spend this particular one in her Lola Conching's house. I declined at first, but couldn't bear the thought of going to the beach without her. So we made a deal. An hour's ride from Ibajay was a white sand beach.

"I promise." She held up her hand. "We'll go to Boracay after. You just have to see how they spend Holy Week in my Lola Conching's town."

"But I'm not even a practicing Catholic," I protested.

"Don't deny it Burt Macaraig," Doray pointed her accusing finger at me." Once I saw you lighting all the candles in church so that Rona would live."

Ask and you shall be given. I thought that was the doctrine of the Church. Rona died of abuse three years. ago. She was one of those deaf children we took care of in the Center. The twelve-year old girl was suddenly missing one day. When we finally found her in a cemetery, her body had been battered. She lingered in the hospital for two days. The pain was deeply etched on her face. Even her pleas for comfort had ceased to be human.

"All right, all right." I gave up. "We'll go to your Lola Conching's house first, purify our souls during Holy Week and burn them after in Boracay."

Doray and I have been the best of friends since college. We were drinking buddies. Everybody on campus thought we were a couple. In a way we were, since we were always together. After college we went on to do volunteer work for the deaf. We thought we would be serving the best of humanity. But the truth was we were both reluctant to get an eight-to-five job. We called that a straitjacket.

For some reason I wasn't able to make it on the day Doray and I were supposed to leave for Ibajay.

"You'd better follow, mister," she warned, her hand balled to a fist.

SAN Jose Street, Ibajay. Doray told me that on Holy Week the townspeople follow a certain tradition. Her Lola Conching owned a Santo Entierro, the dead Christ. It had been with the family for years. Every year, during Holy Week, they would bring out the statue and everybody would participate in the preparation. Some people would be in charge of dressing up the statue while others would take care of decorating the carriage that would carry it through the streets.

"What's so exciting about that?"

"It's a feast, Burt, a celebration."

I thought it was ridiculous celebrating death. There was something eerie about the whole idea.

"Lola Conching, do you remember Burt?" Doray asked as we got to the landing.

The old woman sat on a chair carefully lighting candles on the altar in front of her. Her lips reverently moved in silence and her gaze was strange as if she wasn't looking at any of the images in particular. It was this same sight that greeted me a year ago.

"The old woman of the candles," I whispered to Doray on our first visit.

"He's here to help in the activities for the Holy Week."

"It's good to see you again, Lola Conching."

"Did you have a good trip? Perhaps you need to rest."

The old woman stared at me. Her face looked tired. It sagged with wrinkles. But I could see there had been beauty there ages ago. The fine line of her brow softly curved to gray almond eyes. Her nose suggested not Spanish descent. Beside her was a wooden cane bedecked with shells intricately embedded, forming a floral design.

"Come." Doray led me through the living room. Carved lattice frames on walls complemented the chandelier made of brass and cut-glass.

"Where is the rest of the family?"

"They'll be here in the morning," Doray said as she opened the door to the bedroom.

I stepped inside.

"You'll sleep here." She indicated. "That's the washroom."

"And the other door to the right leads to your room," I recalled.

Lola Conching was blind. She suffered greatly at the hands of the Japanese. This I came to know last year. Lola Conching was a comfort woman. She had to give in so her parents could be saved. At first she resisted. Then the Japanese hit her on the head with a plank of wood. She became blind. Then she got pregnant.

Was it her story or was it for want of a grandmother that somehow had drawn me to her?

"I think I'll rest for a while," I said quietly.

"Yes, do," she replied as she opened the door to her room. "We'll have dinner later."

The room was replete with old wooden heads of saints. Some had no eyes, but they looked real. I shivered--a familiar feeling. In front of my bed was a cabinet with glass casing. It was empty. The whiff of camphor from the wooden heads made me dizzy and I fell asleep. Soundly.

I WOKE up to the sound of voices. A soft stream of morning light seeped through the gauze of the mosquito net. I hurriedly washed and dressed. Then I opened the door and stepped out of the room. There were people moving around, talking.

"Burt Macaraig?" An elderly woman looked at me knowingly.

"Yes. Burt, you've met Tiya Basyon," Doray began. "And Tiya Patring, Tiyo Lindo, my cousins Ted, Joey, Ina, Elena, Nicky and Damian."

"Well, I'm back." I didn't know what else to say.

"Let's have breakfast." She tugged at my arm. "Everybody has eaten."

The combination of dried fish, scrambled eggs and fried rice sprinkled with chopped onion leaves made me very hungry.

"Nobody here eats meat on Good Friday," Doray explained as we sat down. "It's the belief."

I was too hungry to mind whatever Doray was trying to say.

"I didn't bother to wake you up last night," she said between bites. "You were snoring and I took care not to wake you when I put up your mosquito net."

"I fell asleep as soon as I hit the pillow."

"Did Burt have a good sleep last night, Doray?" Lola Conching asked as she walked into the dining room.

She sat on the chair at the head of the table. It was uncanny how she could move with just a cane. She seemed to know every inch of space in her house.

"Good morning," I greeted her.

"Ah, there you are." Her head followed the sound of my voice. "Did you sleep well last night?" "Yes, I did."

"You should. You will be doing many things today."

After breakfast, we went downstairs. The light from the bulb coated the basement in amber. I sneezed. In a corner was the carriage. Black. It was lined with leaves of silver. On the carriage was a casing whose sides were made of glass. Angels with dark faces adorned each of the upper four corners. The carriage looked ominous, like a hearse. Tiyo Lindo and Tiya Patring came in.

"Boys, let's do this together." Tiyo Lindo went to the carriage and started pulling it out from the corner. All of us did our share. The wheels creaked.

"It needs oiling," Tiyo Lindo said.

We positioned the carriage under the bulb.

"Why don't we just open the door?" I suggested. "Then we can have light."

"No, don't," Tiya Patring said. "It's a tradition. Nobody should see the Santo Entierro until everything is done."

I helped polish the carriage, shining the leaves of silver lining. With agility Ted climbed the carriage and dusted the wooden top of the casing. Tiyo Lindo wiped the inside of the glass. No way would I go in there, I thought. It would be like going inside a coffin.

"We're ready with the Santo Entierro," one of the girls called out. They had been cleaning the body.

The dead Christ was laid out on a mat. My stomach tumbled over. I felt like I was looking at a corpse in a morgue.

"Are you all right?" Doray approached me. She had been arranging the flowers and leaves of palm.

"Look," I said quietly. "I don't know what this is all about, but I'm not at all comfortable."

"What is it?"

"The dead Christ. I just don't like it." I sneezed. "And this scent of old wood, it's driving my nose nuts."

She laughed.

"What is so funny?" I looked at her squarely.

"That's what you get for being a heretic." She brushed my face with the bouquet she held in her hands.

"Oh, stop that." I wiped my face. "I think I'd better go upstairs for a while and rest."

"Don't be so lazy. Lola Conching won't like that kind of attitude."

"Well, she's not my grandmother in the first place." I made my way up.

Lola Conching was sitting by the altar when I got to the top of the stairs. The subtlety of light coming from the candles caressed the features of her tired face.

"Are you done?"

I was startled.

"No, Lola Conching."

"Who are you?" Her voice was stern. "Ah, you're Burt."

"Yes, Lola Conching." I was relieved that she recognized me.

"What are you doing up here?" she curtly asked.

My throat went dry.

"I want to rest for a while. I'm feeling quite sick because of the smell of old wood."

"I light candles for the Santo Entierro because it is most precious to us. It is our indu1gencia," declared Lola Conching. "It protected us during the war. Doray's father was a baby then."

I sat down in front of the old woman.

"You mean the Santo Entierro has some kind of power?" My curiosity started to grow.

"Yes, it does." Lola Conching confirmed. "It protects us from the evil of Good Fridays. Aswang."

I almost snickered. But in her voice was the weight of her belief. Aswangs, witches were myths to my knowledge. They would fly at night using their huge bat-like wings. Their hands had claws for fingers, and their teeth were razor sharp. They would look ghoulish, eyes gleaming bright red. But at daytime they were beautiful.

My gaze was transfixed on the old woman's face. I searched for the delicate features that used to be there.

"They come out on the eve of the death of Christ." Her voice slightly quivered. Was it fright I heard? Or a threat?

I was getting edgy on my seat. Faith, belief, knowledge boiled up, blurring my mind.

"You'll see on Good Friday. When the moon rises, all windows are shut in houses except ours," she proudly declared. "Windows in this house are left wide open."

It dawned on me. The Santo Entierro was not the family's iindulgencia. It was hers--for all the fears she kept inside.

"I thought you went to sleep." Doray had come upstairs.

"No, I was talking to your Lola Conching," I stammered. Cold sweat dripped down my forehead.

"I told him stories about the Santo Entierro," the old woman said with an air of accomplishment.

"Let's go." I grabbed Doray's arm.

For the first time I felt afraid. Yet I could not understand why. I raced downstairs. Doray came after me.

"Wait," she called.

Everybody stared at me blankly when I got to the basement. I turned around and faced Doray. We almost bumped into each other.

"Can we go for a walk?" I panted.

We went to the plaza in front of the church. We were both quiet. I pondered why she brought me to this strange place. I felt she had done it on purpose. I never questioned events, phenomena. I always took them as though they were a natural order of the cosmos, like birth and death. True, I did light candles for Rona, but the girl died nonetheless. I felt humiliated. That menial task was my turning point. Never again did candles burn.

"This is where the procession ends," she said as we sat on a concrete bench. We were facing the church. "The procession goes around, through several streets and it ends here at about seven in the evening."

"Do you believe in your Lola Conching's stories about the Santo Entierro?"

Doray looked lost in thought. She groped for words.

"I don't have any answers, Burt. But this is what I can tell you." Her eyes brightened up. "What I saw was the crowd surging toward the Santo Entierro as it got to the door of the church. It was a mad scramble. Everybody wanted a piece of the Santo. They say its hair or any part of its clothing can be used as an amulet, a protection against evil spirits."

Another mythical explanation.

"I'm hungry." I stood up and we went back to the house.

Lunch was quick. Everybody was rushing to finish the morning's activity for the procession in the afternoon.

I went to sleep. In the first place, vacations were meant for naps. Besides I felt I had done my share already with the carriage.

"Burt." I heard Doray's voice through my slumber. "It's time to get ready."

"Hmmm," I protested. I was too tired to do anything.

"Wake up, sleepyhead." She sat on the bed. "You've been sleeping for hours. Come on." She gave me a gentle slap on my face.

"All right." I rubbed my eyes and got out of bed.

"Call me when you're ready." She stood up and went inside her room.

When Doray and I went downstairs, I gasped at the sight that greeted me. There was the Santo Entierro inside the glass casing of the carriage. Asleep. Its long golden brown hair was spread out like a fan. Its body covered with the richness of white and red velvet was adorned with beads of gold. The carriage was bedecked with sprays of palms and flowers, the ones used for funerals. Trinkets of lights illuminated the whole presentation. Death never had this brilliance.

"Well, we're ready," Tiya Patring said.

The boys--Ted, Joey, Nicky and Damian--opened the door and pulled the carriage out. A small crowd stood outside. They applauded as we made our way into the street behind the image. They made the sign of the cross and followed us. As we neared the church, I could see other carriages lined up, each one carrying a different image representing Lent. We were made to position somewhere at the end of the line. And the procession began. The band with scant composition of trumpets and drums lazily accompanied our strides. I snickered.

"Shhh," Doray warned.

When the sun came down, some people started handing out candles.

"Want to light one?" Doray slyly offered.

The procession went on for about two hours. People lined the streets. There were old people sitting on wheelchairs. Soon they would drown in the shadow of the evening. I thought of Lola Conching left alone in the house seeing the whole procession in her mind as she prayed for her soul. In her house candles burned like tired spirits.

When we neared the end of the procession, the carriages were brought inside the church.

"Let's go." Doray pulled me.

"Where?" I thought this would be the most awaited event of the day.

But her clutch slipped off my arm.

Then I saw a throng of people rushing towards us. Joey, Nicky and Damian struggled to pull the carriage to the entrance of the church. On top of the carriage were Tiyo Lindo and Ted brandishing wooden canes like warriors. Everyone was trying to get near the Santo Entierro. I was trapped. I couldn't get out from the sea of bodies. The wave threatened to crush me. I couldn't breathe. I was drowning. Some people had tears streaming down their faces, sobbing. Others screamed as Tiyo Lindo and Ted hit their hands with their wooden canes.

"The hair," someone shouted. "A strand of hair."

"No, don't!" I could no longer hear myself as I went down, pressed by the rush of wave.

Suddenly Tiyo Lindo and Ted were pulling me up. I slumped on the wooden top of the carriage, catching my breath. Below, the maddened faces of people receded as we entered the portals of the church.

We jumped off the carriage. Sweat pasted my shirt on to my skin. I felt we had gone through a siege. But the carriage was intact. The glass remained unbroken. The leaves of silver lining still glistened. Everything was in place. The rest of the boys, Joey, Nicky and Damian, volunteered to stay behind while we went home for dinner.

"You were lucky you didn't get crushed," said Ted.

I did not bother to say anything. I had not seen raw madness before.

"Is he all right?" Lola Conching asked me as we got to the top of the stairs.

"Burt," Doray came towards me. We need not say anything to each other. Tears were about to fall from my eyes.

"It's all right," I held her hands tight. "I'll be fine."

Later that evening we stayed in my room and drank whiskey.

"I'm sorry, Burt, I tried to get through." She recalled what happened earlier that evening.

We were silent for a while.

"It was so weird. They were scrambling. Those people were fanatics."

"The first time I saw it I thought I would go down on my knees." She smiled in disbelief.

Doray left at midnight to sleep in her room. I tossed in bed. I kept thinking about the mad rush of the crowd towards the Santo Entierro. What awesome power for one made of wood to draw the tide toward himself. My mind reeled. It was Black Saturday. The day of the dead Christ.

In the haze of alcohol, I got out of the room and cautiously made my way down the stairs and out of the house. I went out into the street and walked to the church. The moon had risen, big and bright. Its color oozed beyond its shape and bled the sky. The street was silent. As I neared the church, I heard its door open. It moaned. In the dimness of the surroundings I saw four men coming out of the church. They were carrying something wrapped in white sheets, like a dead man. It was the Santo Entierro! Oblivious of my presence, they struggled with its weight. Slowly I took several steps back. I turned around and cautiously walked back to the house. Then I saw that the windows of the other houses were shut. Tight. I remembered what Lola Conching said about the witches. I ran towards the house, racing against the pounding in my chest. Then I swiftly ascended the stairs. When I got to my room, I threw myself on the bed. At a surprising rate, I tucked the mosquito net in and closed my eyes. The Santo Entierro was stolen, the Santo Entierro was stolen! This I kept repeating to myself. I wanted to get up and tell Doray. But I was feeling too heady. I felt I was going to throw up. I closed my eyes and cascaded down into a labyrinth of darkness. Then I heard a flapping on wings. Wak, wak, wak. It flapped in the breeze blowing through my window. Wak, wak, wak. There it was again. I bolted up, charged with a current of electricity running through my veins. The mosquito net plunged down. I struggled against the mesh of its gauze. Then I saw the Santo Entierro! It stood inside the glass cabinet in front of my bed. I screamed. The shrillness shot through the stillness of San Jose Street.

"Burt," Doray rushed in. I screamed again. She peeled the mosquito net away. Then I felt her hands, her arms holding me close. I was drenched with sweat.

Someone knocked on the door.

I looked at the glass cabinet in front of my bed. It was empty.

"The Santo Entierro was stolen." I breathlessly whispered to Doray.

"The what?" She barely heard me.

"The Santo Entierro." I punctuated each word.

Doray stood up and opened the door. Lola Conching entered the room.

The Santo Entierro was stolen!" I cried. "It was stolen."

Lola Conching covered her face, fingers digging into her skin. Her breathing came in spasms. The rest of her kin stood behind her. I got out of bed.

"Where are you going?" Doray asked.

"To the church."

I grabbed Lola Conching and carried her in my arms as if she were a child. She weakly struggled against my strength.

"Leave her alone!" Doray cried. The rest of the family encircled us like the crowd that earlier surged towards the Santo Entierro.

"No!" I stared at them.

And we all marched down into the darkness of the street, all the way to the church. Lola Conching buried her face my chest. Her resistance was drowned in her sobbing.

The door of the church was open when we got there. Some people had left it open. We made our way through the carriages inside the shadow of the church's belly. Images loomed. Near the altar stood the black carriage with leaves of silver lining. I Set Lola Conching down on the floor She grappled with my feet, whimpering.

"Here." Tiya Patring offered me a candle. I took it.

"Light all the candles, Burt," Doray's voice quivered.

I numbly walked around the church and lit all the candles I could find. My hands shook. Lola Conching wailed Then I saw it. It was there. The Santo Entierro glistened inside the glass casing of its carriage.

"It's here, Lola Conching." My lips trembled. "The Santo Entierro is back!"

We all looked at Lola Conching, still slumped on the floor. She had stopped crying.

"Put out the candles," Lola Conching commanded.

Nobody moved. For a while everybody had stoned expressions on their faces.

"Put out the candles." This time her voice came undaunted.

One at a time her kin blew out the flames. Their somber faces were ghosts extinguished with the past. The Santo Entierro faded into darkness.

I sank to my knees with the last candle in my hands. Lola Conching rose. Layers of tormented skin peeled off her face that came to the light. I saw her real beauty. Immaculate, a flower whose petals would wither with a careless brush of fingers. I saw a girl of eighteen whose face was as fine and gentle as the hair of the wind. Then the features slowly changed with the diminishing flame. And between light and darkness was Rona's face completely devoid of pain.

The light of the candle in my hands flickered and died as Lola Conching's blind eyes gave way to tears that had welled through the years. In the darkness of the church I bowed my head as I convulsed with my own truths. Lola Conching held on to my arms as I held on to the candle. I could smell the pregnant whips of smoke rising from the faint orange glow of its wick.

Black Saturday. And now, Easter Sunday.

BEST PHILIPPINE SHORT STORIES: A NIGHT IN THE HILLS

A NIGHT IN THE HILLS
by Paz Marquez Benitez

HOW Gerardo Luna came by his dream no one could have told, not even he. He was a salesman in a jewelry store on Rosario street and had been little else. His job he had inherited from his father, one might say; for his father before him had leaned behind the self-same counter, also solicitous, also short-sighted and thin of hair.

After office hours, if he was tired, he took the street car to his home in Intramuros. If he was feeling well, he walked; not frequent­ly, however, for he was frail of constitution and not unduly thrifty. The stairs of his house were narrow and dark and rank with charac­teristic odors from a Chinese sari-sari store which occupied part of the ground floor.

He would sit down to a supper which savored strongly of Chinese cooking. He was a fastidious eater. He liked to have the courses spread out where he could survey them all. He would sample each and daintily pick out his favorite portions—the wing tips, the liver, the brains from the chicken course, the tail-end from the fish. He ate appreciatively, but rarely with much appetite. After supper he spent quite a time picking his teeth meditatively, thinking of this and that. On the verge of dozing he would perhaps think of the forest.

For his dream concerned the forest. He wanted to go to the forest. He had wanted to go ever since he could remember. The forest was beautiful. Straight-growing trees. Clear streams. A mountain brook which he might follow back to its source up among the clouds. Perhaps the thought that most charmed and enslaved him was of seeing the image of the forest in the water. He would see the infinitely far blue of the sky in the clear stream, as in his childhood, when playing in his father’s azotea, he saw in the water-jars an image of the sky and of the pomelo tree that bent over the railing, also to look at the sky in the jars.

Only once did he speak of this dream of his. One day, Ambo the gatherer of orchids came up from the provinces to buy some cheap ear-rings for his wife’s store. He had proudly told Gerardo that the orchid season had been good and had netted him over a thousand pesos. Then he talked to him of orchids and where they were to be found and also of the trees that he knew as he knew the palm of his hand. He spoke of sleeping in the forest, of living there for weeks at a time. Gerardo had listened with his prominent eyes staring and with thrills coursing through his spare body. At home he told his wife about the conversation, and she was interested in the business aspect of it.

“It would be nice to go with him once,” he ventured hopefully.

“Yes,” she agreed, “but I doubt if he would let you in on his business.”

“No,” he sounded apologetically. “But just to have the experience, to be out.”

“Out?” doubtfully.

“To be out of doors, in the hills,” he said precipitately.

“Why? That would be just courting discomfort and even sickness. And for nothing.”

He was silent.

He never mentioned the dream again. It was a sensitive, well-mannered dream which nevertheless grew in its quiet way. It lived under Gerardo Luna’s pigeon chest and filled it with something, not warm or sweet, but cool and green and murmurous with waters.

He was under forty. One of these days when he least expected it the dream would come true. How, he did not know. It seemed so unlikely that he would deliberately contrive things so as to make the dream a fact. That would he very difficult.

Then his wife died.

And now, at last, he was to see the forest. For Ambo had come once more, this time with tales of newly opened public land up on a forest plateau where he had been gathering orchids. If Gerardo was interested—he seemed to be—they would go out and locate a good piece. Gerardo was interested—not exactly in land, but Ambo need not be told.

He had big false teeth that did not quite fit into his gums. When he was excited, as he was now, he spluttered and stammered and his teeth got in the way of his words.

“I am leaving town tomorrow morning.” he informed Sotera. “Will—”

“Leaving town? Where are you going?”

“S-someone is inviting me to look at some land in Laguna.”

“Land? What are you going to do with land?”

That question had never occurred to him.

“Why,” he stammered, “Ra-raise something, I-I suppose.”

“How can you raise anything! You don’t know anything about it. You haven’t even seen a carabao!”

“Don’t exaggerate, Ate. You know that is not true.”

“Hitched to a carreton, yes; but hitched to a plow—”

“Never mind!” said Gerardo patiently. “I just want to leave you my keys tomorrow and ask you to look after the house.”

“Who is this man you are going with?”

“Ambo, who came to the store to buy some cheap jewelry. His wife has a little business in jewels. He suggested that I—g-go with him.”

He found himself then putting the thing as matter-of-factly and plausibly as he could. He emphasized the immense possibilities of land and waxed eloquently over the idea that land was the only form of wealth that could not he carried away.

“Why, whatever happens, your land will be there. Nothing can possibly take it away. You may lose one crop, two, three. Que importe! The land will still he there.”

Sotera said coldly, “I do not see any sense in it. How can you think of land when a pawnshop is so much more profitable? Think! People coming to you to urge you to accept their business. There’s Peregrina. She would make the right partner for you, the right wife. Why don’t you decide?”

“If I marry her, I’ll keep a pawnshop—no, if I keep a pawnshop I’ll marry her,” he said hurriedly.

He knew quite without vanity that Peregrina would take him the minute he proposed. But he could not propose. Not now that he had visions of himself completely made over, ranging the forest at will, knowing it thoroughly as Ambo knew it, fearless, free. No, not Peregrina for him! Not even for his own sake, much less Sotera’s.

Sotera was Ate Tere to him through a devious reckoning of rela­tionship that was not without ingenuity. For Gerardo Luna was a younger brother to the former mistress of Sotera’s also younger brother, and it was to Sotera’s credit that when her brother died after a death-bed marriage she took Gerardo under her wings and married him off to a poor relation who took good care of him and submitted his problem as well as her own to Sotera’s competent management. Now that Gerardo was a widower she intended to repeat the good office and provide him with another poor relation guaranteed to look after his physical and economic well-being and, in addition, guaranteed to stay healthy and not die on him. “Marrying to play nurse to your wife,” was certainly not Sotera’s idea of a worthwhile marriage.

This time, however, he was not so tractable. He never openly opposed her plans, but he would not commit himself. Not that he failed to realize the disadvantages of widowerhood. How much more comfortable it would be to give up resisting, marry good, fat Peregri­na, and be taken care of until he died for she would surely outlive him.

But he could not, he must not. Uncomfortable though he was, he still looked on his widowerhood as something not fortuitous, but a feat triumphantly achieved. The thought of another marriage was to shed his wings, was to feel himself in a small, warm room, while overhead someone shut down on him an opening that gave him the sky.

So to the hills he went with the gatherer of orchids.



AMONG the foothills noon found them. He was weary and wet with sweat.

“Can’t we get water?” he asked dispiritedly.

“We are coming to water,” said Ambo. “We shall be there in ten minutes.”

Up a huge scorched log Ambo clambered, the party following. Along it they edged precariously to avoid the charred twigs and branches that strewed the ground. Here and there a wisp of smoke still curled feebly out of the ashes.

“A new kaingin,” said Ambo. “The owner will be around, I suppose. He will not be going home before the end of the week. Too far.”

A little farther they came upon the owner, a young man with a cheerful face streaked and smudged from his work. He stood looking at them, his two hands resting on the shaft of his axe.

“Where are you going?” he asked quietly and casually. All these people were casual and quiet.

“Looking at some land,” said Ambo. “Mang Gerardo is from Manila. We are going to sleep up there.”

He looked at Gerardo Luna curiously and reviewed the two por­ters and their load. An admiring look slowly appeared in his likeable eyes.

“There is a spring around here, isn’t there? Or is it dried up?”

“No, there is still water in it. Very little but good.”

They clambered over logs and stumps down a flight of steps cut into the side of the hill. At the foot sheltered by an overhanging fern-covered rock was what at first seemed only a wetness. The young man squatted before it and lifted off a mat of leaves from a tiny little pool. Taking his tin cup he cleared the surface by trailing the bottom of the cup on it. Then he scooped up some of the water. It was cool and clear, with an indescribable tang of leaf and rock. It seemed the very essence of the hills.

He sat with the young man on a fallen log and talked with him. The young man said that he was a high school graduate, that he had taught school for a while and had laid aside some money with which he had bought this land. Then he had got married, and as soon as he could manage it he would build a home here near this spring. His voice was peaceful and even. Gerardo suddenly heard his own voice and was embarrassed. He lowered his tone and tried to capture the other’s quiet.

That house would be like those he had seen on the way—brown, and in time flecked with gray. The surroundings would be stripped bare. There would be san franciscos around it and probably beer bottles stuck in the ground. In the evening the burning leaves in the yard would send a pleasant odor of smoke through the two rooms, driving away the mosquitoes, then wandering out-doors again into the forest. At night the red fire in the kitchen would glow through the door of the batalan and would be visible in the forest,

The forest was there, near enough for his upturned eyes to reach. The way was steep, the path rising ruthlessly from the clearing in an almost straight course. His eyes were wistful, and he sighed tremulously. The student followed his gaze upward.

Then he said, “It must take money to live in Manila. If I had the capital I would have gone into business in Manila.”

“Why?” Gerardo was surprised.

“Why—because the money is there, and if one wishes to fish he must go where the fishes are. However,” he continued slowly after a silence, “it is not likely that I shall ever do that. Well, this little place is all right.”

They left the high school graduate standing on the clearing, his weight resting on one foot, his eyes following them as they toiled up the perpendicular path. At the top of the climb Gerardo sat on the ground and looked down on the green fields far below, the lake in the distance, the clearings on the hill sides, and then on the diminishing figure of the high school graduate now busily hacking away, making the most of the remaining hours of day-light. Perched above them all, he felt an exhilaration in his painfully drumming chest.

Soon they entered the dim forest.

Here was the trail that once was followed by the galleon traders when, to outwit those that lay in wait for them, they landed the treasure on the eastern shores of Luzon, and, crossing the Cordillera on this secret trail, brought it to Laguna. A trail centuries old. Stalwart adventurers, imperious and fearless, treasure coveted by others as imperious and fearless, carriers bent beneath burden almost too great to bear—stuff of ancient splendors and ancient griefs.



ON his bed of twigs and small branches, under a roughly contrived roof Gerardo lay down that evening after automatically crossing himself. He shifted around until at last he settled into a comfortable hollow. The fire was burning brightly, fed occasionally with dead branches that the men had collected into a pile. Ambo and the porters were sitting on the black oilcloth that had served them for a dining table. They sat with their arms hugging their knees and talked together in peaceable tones punctuated with brief laughter. From where he lay Gerardo Luna could feel the warmth of the fire on his face.

He was drifting into deeply contented slumber, lulled by the even tones of his companions. Voices out-doors had a strange quality. They blended with the wind, and, on its waves, flowed gently around and past one who listened. In the haze of new sleep he thought he was listening not to human voices, but to something more elemental. A warm sea on level stretches of beach. Or, if he had ever known such a thing, raindrops on the bamboos.

He awoke uneasily after an hour or two. The men were still talking, but intermittently. The fire was not so bright nor so warm.

Ambo was saying:

“Gather more firewood. We must keep the fire burning all night. You may sleep. I shall wake up once in a while to put on more wood.”

Gerardo was reassured. The thought that he would have to sleep in the dark not knowing whether snakes were crawling towards him was intolerable. He settled once more into light slumber.

The men talked on. They did not sing as boatmen would have done while paddling their bancas in the dark. Perhaps only sea-folk sang and hill-folk kept silence. For sea-folk bear no burdens to weigh them down to the earth. Into whatever wilderness of remote sea their wanderer’s hearts may urge them, they may load their treasures in sturdy craft, pull at the oar or invoke the wind, and raise their voices in song. The depths of ocean beneath, the height of sky above, and between, a song floating out on the darkness. A song in the hills would only add to the lonesomeness a hundredfold.

He woke up again feeling that the little twigs underneath him had suddenly acquired uncomfortable proportions. Surely when he lay down they were almost unnoticeable. He raised himself on his elbow and carefully scrutinized his mat for snakes. He shook his blanket out and once more eased himself into a new and smoother corner. The men were now absolutely quiet, except for their snoring. The fire was burning low. Ambo evidently had failed to wake up in time to feed it.

He thought of getting up to attend to the fire, but hesitated. He lay listening to the forest and sensing the darkness. How vast that darkness! Mile upon mile of it all around. Lost somewhere in it, a little flicker, a little warmth.

He got up. He found his limbs stiff and his muscles sore. He ­could not straighten his back without discomfort. He went out of the tent and carefully arranged two small logs on the fire. The air was chilly. He looked about him at the sleeping men huddled together and doubled up for warmth. He looked toward his tent, fit­fully lighted by the fire that was now crackling and rising higher. And at last his gaze lifted to look into the forest. Straight white trunks gleaming dimly in the darkness. The startling glimmer of a firefly. Outside of the circle of the fire was the measureless unknown, hostile now, he felt. Or was it he who was hostile? This fire was the only protection, the only thing that isolated this little strip of space and made it shelter for defenseless man. Let the fire go out and the unknown would roll in and engulf them all in darkness. He hastily placed four more logs on the fire and retreated to his tent.

He could not sleep. He felt absolutely alone. Aloneness was like hunger in that it drove away sleep.

He remembered his wife. He had a fleeting thought of God. Then he remembered his wife again. Probably not his wife as her­self, as a definite personality, but merely as a companion and a minis­terer to his comfort. Not his wife, but a wife. His mind recreated a scene which had no reason at all for persisting as a memory. There was very little to it. He had waked one midnight to find his wife sit­ting up in the bed they shared. She had on her flannel camisa de chino, always more or less dingy, and she was telling her beads. “What are you doing?” he had asked. “I forgot to say my prayers,” she had answered.

He was oppressed by nostalgia. And because he did not know what it was he wanted his longing became keener. Not for his wife, nor for his life in the city. Not for his parents nor even for his lost childhood. What was there in these that could provoke anything remotely resembling this regret? What was not within the life span could not be memories. Something more remote even than race memory. His longing went farther back, to some age in Paradise maybe when the soul of man was limitless and unshackled: when it embraced the infinite and did not hunger because it had the inexhaustible at its command.

When he woke again the fire was smoldering. But there was a light in the forest, an eerie light. It was diffused and cold. He wondered what it was. There were noises now where before had seemed only the silence itself. There were a continuous trilling, strange night-calls and a peculiar, soft clinking which recurred at regular intervals. Forest noises. There was the noise, too, of nearby waters.

One of the men woke up and said something to another who was also evidently awake, Gerardo called out.

“What noise is that?”

“Which noise?”

“That queer, ringing noise.”

“That? That’s caused by tree worms, I have been told.”

He had a sudden vision of long, strong worms drumming with their heads on the barks of trees.

“The other noise is the worm noise,” corrected Ambo. “That hissing. That noise you are talking about is made by crickets.”

“What is that light?” he presently asked.

“That is the moon,” said Ambo.

“The moon!” Gerardo exclaimed and fell silent. He would never understand the forest.

Later he asked, “Where is that water that I hear?”

“A little farther and lower, I did not wish to camp there because of the leeches. At daylight we shall stop there, if you wish.”

When he awoke again it was to find the dawn invading the forest. He knew the feel of the dawn from the many misas de gallo that he had gone to on December mornings. The approach of day-light gave him a feeling of relief. And he was saddened.

He sat quietly on a flat stone with his legs in the water and looked around. He was still sore all over. His neck ached, his back hurt, his joints troubled him. He sat there, his wet shirt tightly plastered over his meager form and wondered confusedly about many things. The sky showed overhead through the rift in the trees. The sun looked through that opening on the rushing water. The sky was high and blue. It was as it always had been in his dreams, beau­tiful as he had always thought it would be. But he would never come back. This little corner of the earth hidden in the hills would never again be before his gaze.

He looked up again at the blue sky and thought of God. God for him was always up in the sky. Only the God he thought of now was not the God he had always known. This God he was thinking of was another God. He was wondering if when man died and moved on to another life he would not find there the things he missed and so wished to have. He had a deep certainty that that would be so, that after his mortal life was over and we came against that obstruc­tion called death, our lives, like a stream that runs up against a dam, would still flow on, in courses fuller and smoother. This must be so. He had a feeling, almost an instinct, that he was not wrong. And a Being, all wise and compassionate, would enable us to remedy our frustrations and heartaches.

HE went straight to Sotera’s to get the key to his house. In the half light of the stairs he met Peregrina, who in the solicitous expression of her eyes saw the dust on his face, his hands, and his hair, saw the unkempt air of the whole of him. He muttered something polite and hurried up stairs, self-consciousness hampering his feet. Peregrina, quite without embarrassment, turned and climbed the stairs after him.

On his way out with the keys in his hand he saw her at the head of the stairs anxiously lingering. He stopped and considered her thoughtfully.

“Pereg, as soon as I get these clothes off I shall come to ask you a question that is very—very important to me.”

As she smiled eagerly but uncertainly into his face, he heard a jangling in his hand. He felt, queerly, that something was closing above his hand, and that whoever was closing it, was rattling the keys.