Professional Documents
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Enriquez:Asocena/P1
1) Title – Asocena
2) Author – A. R. Enriquez
3) Author’s Bio –
A. (Antonio) R. (Reyes) Enriquez born and raised in Zamboanga City and educated at a
local Jesuit school, Ateneo de Zamboanga –an all-boys institution then –is the author of
several books of short stories and novels. He has been published in his homeland, the
Philippines, and abroad. His short stories have been included in anthologies and translated
into Korean and German.
It was his fearful and unforgettable experience in Liguasan Marsh in Mindanao that likely
started his career as a novelist. Liguasan Marsh was the setting of his first novel, Surveyors
of the Liguasan
Marsh, 1981. Other novels: The Living and the Dead, Giraffe Books, Philippines, 1994;
Subanons, University of the Philippines Press, Quezon City, 1999; most recent work:
Samboangan: the Cult of War, (epic novel), University of the Philippines Press, 2007.
However, his “happiest and memorable times” in his grandfather’s land in Labuan, 35
kms. northwest of Zamboanga City, and the last coastal village reachable by land from
there, which prodded him to write about farmers, fishermen, and the rural folk. Labuan
village is the setting of his
stories in the collection, Dance a White Horse to Sleep and Other Stories, 1977. The
aforementioned novel and story collection were published by UQP Press, Queensland,
Australia. Other short story collections:
Spots on Their Wings and Other Stories, Silliman University, Philippines, 1972; The Night I
Cry and Other Stories, New Day Publisher, Philippines, 1989; The Unseen War and Other
Tales from Mindanao, Giraffe Books, Manila, 1996; The Voice from Sumisip & Four Short
Stories, Giraffe Books, Manila, 2003.
He is a much awarded writer, among the notable awards: UMPHIL –Writers Union of the
Philippines –; University of the Philippines National Fellow for Literature lifetime award;
S.E.A. Write Award; Hawthornden International Retreat for Writers Fellowship; and Don
Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for the short story and its grand prize for the novel.
He and his wife Joy, with their five grandchildren, now live in Cagayan de Oro City.
4) No. of pages - 7
5) No. of words – 3,709
A.R.Enriquez:Asocena/P1
ASOCENA
By A. R. Enriquez
Like most of the boys in Labuan, a coastal barrio in Zamboanga, Chu had a farm dog. He called
him Leal, which in the Chabacano dialect means loyal. It was always fun to watch Leal chase the big
monkeys in the cornfield, for as the dog passed under the low branches of the trees on the slope of a small
hill above the kaingin—swidden farm, the monkeys hanging by their tails from the low branches would
reach out and pull Leal’s tail. This always enraged the dog and he would bark at the foot of the hill until
the monkeys, bored, left for higher branches. Chu could not think of anything funnier happening to a
farm dog.
Early one morning Leal was missing, and Chu went up to the kaingin to look for him. “Have you
seen Leal, Pa?”
“No,” said his father. “I thought he was with you when I left the house.”
“I hope nothing has happened to him,” the boy said.
The father noted real worry in his son’s voice. His boy was taking it badly. He was too young to
worry like this. He said, “Maybe he’s in the house.”
“Don’t worry, Chu,” said the father. “He’s just around somewhere.”
“Do you think, Pa,” Chu said, “that anything has happened to him?”
There was that worry in his voice again, the father noticed. Chu looked bad trying to hide his
worry, not knowing how to handle it. “You are a big worrier,” he said. “Why do you not look for him at
the river? He loves to flush those wild palomas—pigeons, along the river bank.”
The sun was still very young in the morning. Chu walked barefoot along the footpath, coming
down the slope of the hill through the meadow in front of the house. The path was smooth and the dew
was cool under his bare feet. He passed the house and went around the back and on to the long bank of
the river, his feet wet in the mud clay, and then went up the river to a clearing below the woods where the
wild pigeons came down every morning. But the palomas were quietly feeding in the black sand, pecking
at the small pebbles, lumping low and short-legged on the river bed. If Leal were here, he would come
between them and the clearing, and once they flushed they would come whirring at him, some rising
steep, others skimming by his head, before they angled back down into the brush. And so Chu went on,
around the clearing, taking the longer route back to the house.
At lunch Chu would not eat anything. He sat at the table staring at the food on his plate. He had
that worried look again, the same one as at the kaingin, staring at his food without touching it.
His father said, “Don’t you want to eat?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“The tapa is wonderful.” The father picked up Chu’s plate, put a piece of fried sun-dry venison
on it, and, setting the plate down in front of the boy, he said, “You try it, hijo—son.”
Chu’s mother reached for a knife on the table and cut the venison into slices. Then she set the
knife down beside the meat. She said, “Try a tiny piece, Chu.”
“I don’t want to eat anything,” said the boy.
“Chu,” said his father, “that’s not the way to talk to your mama.”
“It’s all right, Ingo,” the woman said. “He did not mean it. Did you, hijo?”
“No,” said Chu, without looking up from his plate.
“What is really the matter, Chu?” the father asked.
“Nada—Nothing, Pa,” he said. “Nothing.”
“Go on, tell me,” said the father. “You can always tell your papa.”
A.R.Enriquez:Asocena/P3
Chu kept gazing at the food on his plate. He was trying hard not to cry, his face strained and
looking sadder every minute. “They killed Leal, Pa.”
“Who killed your dog.?”
“Tomas and his friends,” Chu answered.
“No!” said his mother. “How could anyone be so beastly?”
“They are beasts!” said the boy.
“Are you sure of this?” said the father. He had not gone with the boy to search for his dog earlier
that morning. He had thought nothing of it then. Anyway, the plowing of his kaingin had to be done first,
for he had seen signs in the sky that told him the rainy season was coming earlier this year.
“Tomas always bragged they’d kill my dog for asocena,” said Chu.
“Oh, no!” Chu’s mother cried, imagining that maybe now the dog was already on someone’s plate
as asocena—dog’s meat cooked like Spanish casserole.
Chu sprang up from the table, tilting over his chair, and ran out of the house. The farmer stood
up, and his wife said to him, “Don’t do anything rash, Ingo.”
“I’ll just see if Chu is all right.”
His wife said, “Remember, Ingo, that you won’t gain anything quarreling with that sort of man.”
Ingo walked out of the dining room, through the sala, and down the steps. He found his son
under the camias tree wiping his tears on his soiled shoulder sleeves. Poor Chu, he thought. He did not
look a bit like a boy of nine with that sad look on his face. Poor Chu. He had been waiting to cry since
early this morning. Pobrecito Chu.
“Stop crying, hijo.”
The boy said, “I want to go with you.”
“What——” said Ingo. Then he said, “Go with me? You mean that … “
“Si, Papa.”
Ingo was quiet for a while. He could not look at his son. “We’ll see Tomas later,” he said. But
the boy started to cry again, and that same sad look came over his face and the small shoulders rose and
shook. So he said, “Bueno—Good. But you must stop crying.”
The boy said, “I’ve stopped crying already, Pa.”
The two of them went around the house and across a stream below the shed, where the river
narrowed before it widened again and emptied into an inlet near the sea. Then they climbed over a fence,
their feet wet and muddy, and through the coconut lot, coming out suddenly onto the long shoreline of the
beach. It was a little after midday and the sun was high in the sky. Already there were men drinking as
they boy and his father passed the tuba-an—coconut wine stores along the beach. The two o’clock
autobus was parked in front of the tuba-an. The driver was waiting fort the fishermen to come in with
their catch, so he could take it to the city market.
Tomas Dayrit and some other men were drinking at a table by the window, with squat glasses of
tuba in front of them. They had been drinking since early that morning, the half-empty plates of
caldereta—casserole beside them. There were some fish buyers standing outside the tuba-an store, or
sitting inside at the tables as they waited for the fishermen to bring in their night’s catch from the small
islands of Balug-Balug and Sangbay.
Ingo went into the store while the boy stood outside with the fish buyers by a window. When
Chu saw the asocena on a table, his stomach turned but he bravely stood there by the window and waited
for his father.
Tomas Dayrit said, “Do you wish an invitation yet?”
“No,” said Ingo. “I don’t eat dog meat.”
“This is not dog meat,” said Dayrit. “It’s goat meat.”
“You cannot fool me,” said Ingo, going over to the table. “No matter how you cooked it, I can
see it is dog meat.”
Dayrit said, “Are you calling me a liar, Ingo?”
He was a huge man, dark and nearly bald, with broad shoulders, and his idea of fun was to get
into a fight. He was an Ilocano, one of the few who had come south to this small coastal barrio in
Zamboanga.
The other men at the table had stopped drinking. They were watching Chu’s father.
A.R.Enriquez:Asocena/P1
“No, I don’t think so, Ingo,” said `Ñor Pedro. He paused for a moment, shifted his weight to one
leg, and his sinewy muscles rippled up his limbs. “But what can I do to help the boy?” He did not want
anything to hurt the boy. He knew that if he had a son he would not want him hurt.
“Could I now get the puppy you promised me?”
The two of them rose and walked around the house. Underneath, in a dust hole, the little puppies
lay with their paws pressed against the bitch’s swollen paps. Once in a while, their small, fluff-covered
heads jerked back as they made suckling sounds with their tongues. Now the two farmers bent down
under the low bamboo floor of the house. `Ñor Pedro said, “The puppies are too young to wean.”
“It’s important that I have the puppy now,” said Ingo. “You understand, of course.”
“Si,” said `Ñor Pedro. “Maybe it will help the boy to forget, hah?”
“He’s a very sensitive boy, `Ñor Pedro.”
Then the father called, looking toward the orchard. “Oh, Chu, come over here. I have a surprise
for you.”
The boy came over from the orchard. He went under the house and looked down into the dust
hole where the puppies were suckling.
`Ñor Pedro said, “Which one do you want, Chu?”
The boy said nothing.
“Do you want that brownish one?” his father asked.
Still he said nothing.
`Ñor Pedro leaned down and took one of the small puppies. The bitch rose, and the puppies hung
desperately on to her paps and some fell back into the hole. The bitch watched `Ñor Pedro for a while
and then lay down, and the puppies scrambled back and began suckling again. Setting the puppy in the
boy’s arms, `Ñor Pedro said, “It’s a male.”
“Are they eating already?” asked Ingo.
“Not yet,” `Ñor Pedro replied. “You can give him milk with boiled rice.”
“Chu will take care of him,” he said. “Won’t you, hijo?” Ingo passed a hand down the puppy’s
back. The puppy was soft and small under his calloused hand. “He’s nice, no?” Then, “Say thank you to
your tio—uncle.”
“Muchas gracias, tio,” said Chu.
Then the three of them went back to the front yard, the boy following behind with the puppy in
his arms. Ingo stood beside the empty cart in the yard. Behind it, `Ñor Pedro’s carabao was tied to the
scarred trunk of an old guyabano fruit tree. And beside the tree was old dung which was caked dry on the
top and lay on the ground like tiny crusted anthills.
“You must come more often,” said `Ñor Pedro. “And Chu, you also.”
“Si,” said the boy. “I’ll come with Papa.”
“Come here any time you want another puppy.”
`Ñor Pedro smiled at the boy. But there was nothing in the boy’s face to tell what was now going
on in his little mind. He wished he could help him.
“We’ll go now,” said the father. “Say ‘good-bye,’ Chu.”
“Adios, Tio Pedro.”
“Take good care of your puppy, Chu,” said `Ñor Pedro.
“Yes,” said the boy. Still there was nothing in his face, not even in his voice.
The father and his son left the yard, smelling the fresh, warm dung, and then went down the hill
the same way they had come. Then the father felt it. He felt it, somehow, without the boy saying
anything. He felt it while going down the slope and turning around the mountain and going easily down
the footpath, as he felt the wind blowing on the top of the trees and down in the brush below the small
forest.
“Don’t you want the puppy Tio Pedro gave you?” he asked.
“Pa,” said the boy. “Papa——” and he stopped speaking.
The farmer felt it again, now feeling it and hearing it clearly in his son’s voice, quiet and soft, not
even rising above a whisper. “Qué pasa—What is it, hijo?”
“Is he a brave puppy?”
“Valiente—Brave?”
A.R.Enriquez:Asocena/P3
End