Juan Manalaksan

Narrated by Anicio Pascual of Arayat, Pampanga, who heard the story from an
old Pampangan woman.

Once upon a time there lived in a certain village a brave and powerful datu who had only
one son. The son was called Pedro. In the same place lived a poor wood-cutter whose name was
Juan Manalaksan.

Pedro was rich, and had no work to do. He often diverted himself by hunting deer and
wild boars in the forests and mountains. Juan got his living by cutting trees in the forests. One
day the datu and his son went to the mountain to hunt. They took with them many dogs and guns.
They did not take any food, however, for they felt sure of catching something to eat for their
dinner. When they reached the mountain, Pedro killed a deer. By noon they had become tired
and hungry, so they went to a shady place to cook their game. While he was eating, Pedro
choked on a piece of meat.

The father cried out loudly, for he did not know what to do for his dying son. Juan, who
was cutting wood near by, heard the shout. He ran quickly to help Pedro, and by pulling the piece
of meat out of his throat he saved Pedro’s life. Pedro was grateful, and said to Juan, “To-morrow
come to my palace, and I will give you a reward for helping me.” The next morning Juan set out
for the palace. On his way he met an old woman, who asked him where he was going. “I am
going to Pedro’s house to get my reward,” said Juan. “Do not accept any reward of money or
wealth,” said the old woman, “but ask Pedro to give you the glass which he keeps in his right
armpit. The glass is magical. It is as large as a peso, and has a small hole in the centre. If you
push a small stick through the hole, giants who can give you anything you want will surround
you.” Then the old woman left Juan, and went on her way.

As soon as Juan reached the palace, Pedro said to him, “Go to that room and get all the
money you want.” But Juan answered, “I do not want you to give me any money. All I want is the
glass which you keep in your right armpit.” “Very well,” said Pedro, “here it is.” glass, he hurried
back home. When Juan had received the Juan reached his hut in the woods, and found his
mother starving. He quickly thought of his magic glass, and, punching a small stick through the
hole in the glass, he found himself surrounded by giants. “Be quick, and get me some food for my
mother!” he said to them.

For a few minutes the giants were gone, but soon they came again with their hands full of
food. Juan took it and gave it to his mother; but she ate so much, that she became sick, and died.
In a neighboring village ruled another powerful datu, who had a beautiful daughter. One day the
datu fell very ill. As no doctor could cure him, he sent his soldiers around the country to say that
the man who could cure him should have his daughter for a wife. Juan heard the news, and,
relying on his charm, went to cure the datu. On his way, he asked the giants for medicine to cure
the sick ruler. When he reached the palace, the datu said to him, “If I am not cured, you shall be
killed.” Juan agreed to the conditions, and told the datu to swallow the medicine which he gave
him. The datu did so, and at once became well again. The next morning Juan was married to the
datu’s daughter. Juan took his wife to live with him in his small hut in the woods. One day he went
to the forest to cut trees, leaving his wife and magic glass at home. While Juan was away in the
forest, Pedro ordered some of his soldiers to go get the wood-cutter’s wife and magic glass.
When Juan returned in the evening, he found wife and glass gone. One of his neighbors told him
that his wife had been taken away by some soldiers. Juan was very angry, but he could not
avenge himself without his magical glass. At last he decided to go to his father-in-law and tell him
all that had happened to his wife. On his way there, he met an old mankukulam, who asked him
where he was going. Juan did not tell her, but related to her all that had happened to his wife and
glass while he was in the forest cutting trees.

The mankukulam said that she could help him. She told him to go to a certain tree and
catch the king of the cats. She furthermore advised him, “Always keep the cat with you.” Juan
followed her advice. One day Pedro’s father commanded his soldiers to cut off the ears of all the
men in the village, and said that if any one refused to have his ears cut off, he should be placed in
a room full of rats. The soldiers did as they were ordered, and in time came to Juan’s house; but,
as Juan was unwilling to lose his ears, he was seized and placed in a room full of rats. But he had
his cat with him all the time. As soon as he was shut up in the room, he turned his cat loose.
When the rats saw that they would all be killed, they said to Juan, “If you will tie your cat up there
in the corner, we will help you get whatever you want.” Juan tied his cat up, and then said to the
rats, “Bring me all the glasses in this village.” The rats immediately scampered away to obey him.
Soon each of them returned with a glass in its mouth. One of them was carrying the magical
glass. When Juan had his charm in his hands again, he pushed a small stick through the hole in
the glass, and ordered the giants to kill Pedro and his father, and bring him his wife again. Thus
Juan got his wife back. They lived happily together till they died.

Juan the Poor, Who became Juan the King. Narrated by Amando Clemente, a Tagalog,
who heard the story from his aunt. Once upon a time there lived in a small hut at the edge of a
forest a father and son. The poverty of that family gave the son his name,–Juan the Poor.

As the father was old and feeble, Juan had to take care of the household affairs; but
there were times when he did not want to work. One day, while Juan was lying behind their
fireplace, his father called him, and told him to go to the forest and get some fire-wood. “Very
well,” said Juan, but he did not move from his place. After a while the father came to see if his
son had gone, but he found him still lying on the floor. “When will you go get that fire-wood,
Juan?” “Right now, father,” answered the boy. The old man returned to his room. As he wanted to
make sure, however, whether his son had gone or not, he again went to see. When he found
Juan in the same position as before, he became very angry, and said,-”Juan, if I come out again
and find you still here, I shall surely give you a whipping.” Juan knew well that his father would
punish him if he did not go; so he rose up suddenly, took his axe, and went to the forest. When he
came to the forest, he marked every tree that he thought would be good for fuel, and then he
began cutting. While he was chopping at one of the trees, he saw that it had a hole in the trunk,
and in the hole he saw something glistening. Thinking that there might be gold inside the hole, he
hastened to cut the tree down; but a monster came out of the hole as soon as the tree fell. When
Juan saw the unexpected being, he raised his axe to kill the monster. Before giving the blow, he
exclaimed, “Aha! Now is the time for you to die.” The monster moved backward when it saw the
blow ready to fall, and said,–

“Good sir, forbear, And my life spare, If you wish a happy life And, besides, a pretty wife.”
Juan lowered his axe, and said, “Oho! is that so?” “Yes, I swear,” answered the monster. “But
what is it, and where is it?” said Juan, raising his axe, and feigning to be angry, for he was
anxious to get what the monster promised him. The monster told Juan to take from the middle of
his tongue a white oval stone. From it he could ask for and get whatever he wanted to have. Juan
opened the monster’s mouth and took the valuable stone. Immediately the monster disappeared.
The young man then tested the virtues of his charm by asking it for some men to help him work.
As soon as he had spoken the last word of his command, there appeared many persons, some of
whom cut down trees, while others carried the wood to his house. When Juan was sure that his
house was surrounded by piles of fire-wood, he dismissed the men, hurried home, and lay down
again behind the fireplace.

He had not been there long, when his father came to see if he had done his work. When
the old man saw his son stretched out on the floor, he said, “Juan have we fire-wood now?” “Just
look out of the window and see, father!” said Juan. Great was the surprise of the old man when
he saw the large piles of wood about his house. The next day Juan, remembering the pretty wife
of which the monster had spoken, went to the king’s palace, and told the king that he wanted to
marry his daughter. The king smiled scornfully when he saw the rustic appearance of the suitor,
and said, “If you will do what I shall ask you to do, I will let you marry my daughter.” “What are
your Majesty’s commands for me?” said Juan. “Build me a castle in the middle of the bay; but
know, that, if it is not finished in three days’ time, you lose your head,” said the king sternly. Juan
promised to do the work. Two days had gone by, yet Juan had not yet commenced his work. For
that reason the king believed that Juan did not object to losing his life; but at midnight of the third
day, Juan bade his stone build a fort in the middle of the bay. The next morning, while the king
was taking his bath, cannon-shots were heard. After a while Juan appeared before the palace,
dressed like a prince. When he saw the king, he said, “The fort is ready for your inspection.” “If
that is true, you shall be my son-in-law,” said the king. After breakfast the king, with his daughter,
visited the fort, which pleased them very much.

The following day the ceremonies of Juan’s marriage with the princess Maria were held
with much pomp and solemnity. Shortly after Juan’s wedding a war broke out. Juan led the army
of the king his father-in-law to the battlefield, and with the help of his magical stone he conquered
his mighty enemy. The defeated general went home full of sorrow. As he had never been
defeated before, he thought that Juan must possess some supernatural power. When he reached
home, therefore, he issued a proclamation which stated that any one who could get Juan’s power
for him should have one-half of his property as a reward. A certain witch, who knew of Juan’s
secret, heard of the proclamation. She flew to the general, and told him that she could do what he
wanted done. On his agreeing, she flew to Juan’s house one hot afternoon, where she found
Maria alone, for Juan had gone out hunting. The old woman smiled when she saw Maria, and
said, “Do you not recognize me, pretty Maria? I am the one who nursed you when you were a
baby.”

The princess was surprised at what the witch said, for she thought that the old woman
was a beggar. Nevertheless she believed what the witch told her, treated the repulsive woman
kindly, and offered her cake and wine; but the witch told Maria not to go to any trouble, and
ordered her to rest. So Maria lay down to take a siesta. With great show of kindness, the witch
fanned the princess till she fell asleep. While Maria was sleeping, the old woman took from
underneath the pillow the magical stone, which Juan had forgotten to take along with him. Then
she flew to the general, and gave the charm to him. He, in turn, rewarded the old woman with
one-half his riches. Meanwhile, as Juan was enjoying his hunt in the forest, a huge bird swooped
down on him and seized his horse and clothes.

When the bird flew away, his inner garments were changed back again into his old wood-
cutter’s clothes. Full of anxiety at this ill omen, and fearing that some misfortune had befallen his
wife, he hastened home on foot as best he could. When he reached his house, he found it
vacant. Then he went to the king’s palace, but that too he found deserted. For his stone he did
not know where to look. After a few minutes of reflection, he came to the conclusion that all his
troubles were caused by the general whom he had defeated in battle. He also suspected that the
officer had somehow or other got possession of his magical stone. Poor Juan then began walking
toward the country where the general lived. Before he could reach that country, he had to cross
three mountains. While he was crossing the first mountain, a cat came running after him, and
knocked him down. He was so angry at the animal, that he ran after it, seized it, and dashed its
life out against a rock. When he was crossing the second mountain, the same cat appeared and
knocked him down a second time. Again Juan seized the animal and killed it, as before; but the
same cat that he had killed twice before tumbled him down a third time while he was crossing the
third mountain. Filled with curiosity, Juan caught the animal again: but, instead of killing it this
time, he put it inside the bag he was carrying, and took it along with him. After many hours of
tiresome walking, Juan arrived at the castle of the general, and knocked at the door. The general
asked him what he wanted. Juan answered, “I am a poor beggar, who will be thankful if I can
have only a mouthful of rice.” The general, however, recognized Juan. He called his servants,
and said, “Take this wretched fellow to the cell of rats.” The cell in which Juan was imprisoned
was very dark; and as soon as the door was closed, the rats began to bite him. But Juan did not
suffer much from them; for, remembering his cat, he let it loose. The cat killed all the rats except
their king, which came out of the hole last of all. When the cat saw the king of the rats, it spoke
thus: “Now you shall die if you do not promise to get for Juan his magical stone, which your
master has stolen.” “Spare my life, and you shall have the stone!” said the king of the rats. “Go
and get it, then!” said the cat. The king of the rats ran quickly to the room of the general, and took
Juan’s magical stone from the table. As soon as Juan had obtained his stone, and after he had
thanked the king of the rats, he said to his stone, “Pretty stone, destroy this house with the
general and his subjects, and release my father-in-law and wife from their prison.” Suddenly the
earth trembled and a big noise was heard. Not long afterwards Juan saw the castle destroyed,
the general and his subjects dead, and his wife and his father-in-law free.
Taking with him the cat and the king of the rats, Juan went home happily with Maria his wife and
the king his father-in-law. After the death of the king, Juan ascended to the throne, and ruled
wisely. He lived long happily with his lovely wife.

“Edmundo.” In Villa Amante there lived a poor widow, Merced by name, who had to work
very hard to keep her only son, the infant Edmundo, alive. Her piety and industry were rewarded,
however; and by the time the boy was seven years old, she was able to clothe him well and send
him to school. Her brother Tonio undertook the instruction of the youth. Edmundo had a good
head, and made rapid progress. (7-41) One day Merced fell sick, and, although she recovered in
a short time, Edmundo decided to give up studying and to help his mother earn their living. He
became a wood-cutter.

At last fortune came to him. In one of his wanderings in the forest in search of dry wood, he
happened upon an enormous python. He would have fled in terror had not the snake spoken to
him, to his amazement, and requested him to pull from its throat the stag which was choking it.
He performed the service for the reptile, and in turn was invited to the cave where it lived. Out of
gratitude the python gave Edmundo a magic mirror that would furnish the possessor with
whatever he wanted. With the help of this charm, mother and son soon had everything they
needed to make them happy.

At about this time King Romualdo of France decided to look for a husband for his
daughter, the beautiful Leonora. He was unable to pick out a son-in-law from the many suitors
who presented themselves; and so he had it proclaimed at a concourse of all the youths of the
realm, “Whoever can fill my cellar with money before morning shall have the hand of Leonora.”
Edmundo was the only one to accept the challenge, for failure to perform the task meant death.
At midnight he took his enchanted mirror and commanded it to fill the king’s cellar with money. In
the morning the king was astonished at the sight, but there was no way of avoiding the marriage.
So Leonora became the wife of the lowly-born wood-cutter. The young couple went to Villa
Amante to live. There, to astonish his wife, Edmundo had a palace built in one night. She was
dumfounded to awake in the morning and find herself in a magnificent home; and when she
asked him about it, he confided to her the secret of his wonderful charm. Later, to gratify the
humor of the king, who visited him, Edmundo ordered his mirror to transport the palace to a
seacoast town. There he and his wife lived very happily together.

One day Leonora noticed from her window two vessels sailing towards the town. Her
fears and premonitions were so great, that Edmundo, to calm her, sank the ships by means of his
magic power. But the sinking of these vessels brought misfortunes. Their owner, the Sultan of
Turkey, learned of the magic mirror possessed by Edmundo (how he got this information is not
stated), and hired an old woman to go to France in the guise of a beggar and steal the charm.
She was successful in getting it, and then returned with it to her master. The Sultan then invaded
France, and with the talisman, by which he called to his aid six invincible giants, conquered the
country. He took the king, queen, and Leonora as captives back with him to Turkey. Edmundo
was left in France to look after the affairs of the country.

Edmundo became melancholy, and at last decided to seek his wife. He left his mother
and his servant behind, and took with him only a diamond ring of Leonora’s, his cat, and his dog.
While walking along the seashore, wondering how he could cross the ocean, he saw a huge fish
washed up on the sand. The fish requested him to drag it to the water. When Edmundo had done
so, the fish told him to get on its back, and promised to carry him to Leonora. So done. The fish
swam rapidly through the water, Edmundo holding his dog and cat in his breast. The dog was
soon washed “overboard,” but the cat clung to him. After a ride of a day and a night, the fish
landed him on a strange shore. It happened to be the coast of Turkey. Edmundo stopped at an
inn, pretending to be a shipwrecked merchant. There he decided to stay for a while, and there he
found out the situation of Leonora in this wise. Now, it happened that the Sultan used to send to
this inn for choice dishes for Leonora, whom he was keeping close captive. By inquiry Edmundo
learned of the close proximity of his wife, and one day he managed to insert her ring into one of
the eggs that were to be taken back to her. She guessed that he was near; and, in order to
communicate with him, she requested permission of the king to walk with her maid in the garden
that was close by the inn. She saw Edmundo, and smiled on him; but the maid noticed the
greeting, and reported it to the Sultan. The Sultan ordered the man summoned; and when he
recognized Edmundo, he had him imprisoned and put in stocks. (314-350) Edmundo was now in
despair, and thought it better to die than live; but his faithful cat, which had followed him
unnoticed to the prison, saved him. In the jail there were many rats. That night the cat began to
kill these relentlessly, until the captain of the rats, fearing that his whole race would be
exterminated, requested Edmundo to tie up his cat and spare them. Edmundo promised to do so
on condition that the rat bring him the small gold-rimmed mirror in the possession of the Sultan.
At dawn the rat captain arrived with the mirror between its teeth. Out of gratitude Edmundo now
had his mirror bring to life all the rats that had been slain. (351-366) Then he ordered before him
his wife, the king, the queen, the crown and sceptre of France. All, including the other prisoners of
the Sultan, were transported back to France. At the same time the Sultan’s palace and prison
were destroyed. Next morning, when the Grand Sultan awoke, he was enraged to find himself
outwitted; but what could he do? Even if he were able to jump as high as the sky, he could not
bring back Leonora. When the French Court returned to France, Edmundo was crowned
successor to the throne: the delight of every one was unbounded. The last six stanzas are
occupied with the author’s leave-taking.

Groome summarizes a Roumanian-Gypsy story, “The Stolen Ox,” from Dr. Barbu
Constantinescu’s collection (Bucharest, 1878), which, while but a fragment, appears to be
connected with this cycle of the “Magic Ring,” and presents a curious parallel to a situation in
“Edmundo:”-”… The lad serves the farmer faithfully, and at the end of his term sets off home. On
his way he lights on a dragon, and in the snake’s mouth is a stag. Nine years had that snake the
stag in its mouth, and been trying to swallow it, but could not because of its horns. Now, that
snake was a prince; and seeing the lad, whom God had sent his way, ‘Lad,’ said the snake,
‘relieve me of this stag’s horns, for I’ve been going about nine years with it in my mouth.’ So the
lad broke off the horns, and the snake swallowed the stag. ‘My lad, tie me round your neck and
carry me to my father, for he doesn’t know where I am.’ So he carried him to his father, and his
father rewarded him.” It is curious to see this identical situation of the hero winning his magic
reward by saving some person or animal from choking appearing in Roumania and the
Philippines, and in connection, too, with incidents from the “Magic Ring” cycle. The resemblance
can hardly be fortuitous.

ALL OVER THE WORLD

by Vicente Rivera, Jr.

ONE evening in August 1941, I came out of a late movie to a silent, cold night. I shivered a little
as I stood for a moment in the narrow street, looking up at the distant sky, alive with stars. I stood
there, letting the night wind seep through me, and listening. The street was empty, the houses on
the street dim—with the kind of ghostly dimness that seems to embrace sleeping houses. I had
always liked empty streets in the night; I had always stopped for a while in these streets listening
for something I did not quite know what. Perhaps for low, soft cries that empty streets and
sleeping houses seem to share in the night.

I lived in an old, nearly crumbling apartment house just across the street from the moviehouse.
From the street, I could see into the open courtyard, around which rooms for the tenants, mostly a
whole family to a single room, were ranged.
My room, like all the other rooms on the groundfloor, opened on this court. Three other boys, my
cousins, shared the room with me. As I turned into the courtyard from the street, I noticed that the
light over our study-table, which stood on the corridor outside our room, was still burning. Earlier
in the evening after supper, I had taken out my books to study, but I went to a movie instead. I
must have forgotten to turn off the light; apparently, the boys had forgotten, too.

I went around the low screen that partitioned off our “study” and there was a girl reading at the
table. We looked at each other, startled. I had never seen her before. She was about eleven
years old, and she wore a faded blue dress. She had long, straight hair falling to her shoulders.
She was reading my copy of Greek Myths.

The eyes she had turned to me were wide, darkened a little by apprehension. For a long time
neither of us said anything. She was a delicately pretty girl with a fine, smooth. pale olive skin that
shone richly in the yellow light. Her nose was straight, small and finely molded. Her lips, full and
red, were fixed and tense. And there was something else about her. Something lonely?
something lost?

“I know,” I said, “I like stories, too. I read anything good I find lying around. Have you been
reading long?”
“Yes,” she said. not looking at me now. She got up slowly, closing the book. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t you want to read anymore? I asked her, trying to smile, trying to make her feel that
everything was all right.
“No.” she said, “thank you.”
“Oh, yes,” I said, picking up the book. “It’s late. You ought to be in bed. But, you can take this
along.”
She hesitated, hanging back, then shyly she took the book, brought it to her side. She looked
down at her feet uncertain as to where to turn.
“You live here?” I asked her.
“Yes.”
“What room?”
She turned her face and nodded towards the far corner, across the courtyard, to a little room near
the communal kitchen. It was the room occupied by the janitor: a small square room with no
windows except for a transom above the door.
“You live with Mang Lucio?”
“He’s my uncle.”
“How long have you been here? I haven’t seen you before, have I?”
“I’ve always been here. I’ve seen you.”
“Oh. Well, good night—your name?”
“Maria.”
“Good night, Maria.”

She turned quickly, ran across the courtyard, straight to her room, and closed the door without
looking back.

I undressed, turned off the light and lay in bed dreaming of far-away things. I was twenty-one and
had a job for the first time. The salary was not much and I lived in a house that was slowly coming
apart, but life seemed good. And in the evening when the noise of living had died down and you
lay safe in bed, you could dream of better times, look back and ahead, and find that life could be
gentle—even with the hardness. And afterwards, when the night had grown colder, and suddenly
you felt alone in the world, adrift, caught in a current of mystery that came in the hour between
sleep and waking, the vaguely frightening loneliness only brought you closer to everything, to the
walls and the shadows on the walls, to the other sleeping people in the room, to everything within
and beyond this house, this street, this city, everywhere.

I met Maria again one early evening, a week later, as I was coming home from the office. I saw
her walking ahead of me, slowly, as if she could not be too careful, and with a kind of grownup
poise that was somehow touching. But I did not know it was Maria until she stopped and I
overtook her.

She was wearing a white dress that had been old many months ago. She wore a pair of brown
sneakers that had been white once. She had stopped to look at the posters of pictures advertised
as “Coming” to our neighborhood theater.
“Hello,” I said, trying to sound casual.

She smiled at me and looked away quickly. She did not say anything nor did she step away. I felt
her shyness, but there was no self-consciousness, none of the tenseness and restraint of the
night we first met. I stood beside her, looked at the pictures tacked to a tilted board, and tried
whistling a tune.

She turned to go, hesitated, and looked at me full in the eyes. There was again that wide-eyed—
and sad? —stare. I smiled, feeling a remote desire to comfort her, as if it would do any good, as if
it was comfort she needed.
“I’ll return your book now,” she said.
“You’ve finished it?”
“Yes.”
We walked down the shadowed street. Magallanes Street in Intramuros, like all the other streets
there, was not wide enough, hemmed in by old, mostly unpainted houses, clumsy and unlovely,
even in the darkening light of the fading day.
We went into the apartment house and I followed her across the court. I stood outside the door
which she closed carefully after her. She came out almost immediately and put in my hands the
book of Greek myths. She did not look at me as she stood straight and remote.
“My name is Felix,” I said.
She smiled suddenly. It was a little smile, almost an unfinished smile. But, somehow, it felt
special, something given from way deep inside in sincere friendship.
I walked away whistling. At the door of my room, I stopped and looked back. Maria was not in
sight. Her door was firmly closed.
August, 1941, was a warm month. The hangover of summer still permeated the air, specially in
Intramuros. But, like some of the days of late summer, there were afternoons when the weather
was soft and clear, the sky a watery green, with a shell-like quality to it that almost made you see
through and beyond, so that, watching it made you lightheaded.
I walked out of the office one day into just such an afternoon. The day had been full of grinding
work—like all the other days past. I was tired. I walked slowly, towards the far side of the old city,
where traffic was not heavy. On the street there were old trees, as old as the walls that enclosed
the city. Half-way towards school, I changed my mind and headed for the gate that led out to
Bonifacio Drive. I needed stiffer winds, wider skies. I needed all of the afternoon to myself.
Maria was sitting on the first bench, as you went up the sloping drive that curved away from the
western gate. She saw me before I saw her. When I looked her way, she was already smiling that
half-smile of hers, which even so told you all the truth she knew, without your asking.
“Hello,” I said. “It’s a small world.”
“What?”
“I said it’s nice running into you. Do you always come here?”
“As often as I can. I go to many places.”
“Doesn’t your uncle disapprove?”
“No. He’s never around. Besides, he doesn’t mind anything.”
“Where do you go?”
“Oh, up on the walls. In the gardens up there, near Victoria gate. D’you know?”
“I think so. What do you do up there?”
“Sit down and—”
“And what?”
“Nothing. Just sit down.”
She fell silent. Something seemed to come between us. She was suddenly far-away. It was like
the first night again. I decided to change the subject.
“Look,” I said, carefully, “where are your folks?”
“You mean, my mother and father?”
“Yes. And your brothers and sisters, if any.”
“My mother and father are dead. My elder sister is married. She’s in the province. There isn’t
anybody else.”
“Did you grow up with your uncle?”
“I think so.”
We were silent again. Maria had answered my questions without embarrassment. almost without
emotion, in a cool light voice that had no tone.
“Are you in school, Maria?”
“Yes.”
“What grade?”
“Six.”
“How d’you like it?”
“Oh, I like it.”
“I know you like reading.”
She had no comment. The afternoon had waned. The breeze from the sea had died down. The
last lingering warmth of the sun was now edged with cold. The trees and buildings in the distance
seemed to flounder in a red-gold mist. It was a time of day that never failed to carry an
enchantment for me. Maria and I sat still together, caught in some spell that made the silence
between us right, that made our being together on a bench in the boulevard, man and girl,
stranger and stranger, a thing not to be wondered at, as natural and inevitable as the lengthening
shadows before the setting sun.
Other days came, and soon it was the season of the rain. The city grew dim and gray at the first
onslaught of the monsoon. There were no more walks in the sun. I caught a cold.
Maria and I had become friends now, though we saw each other infrequently. I became
engrossed in my studies. You could not do anything else in a city caught in the rains. September
came and went.
In November, the sun broke through the now ever present clouds, and for three or four days we
had bright clear weather. Then, my mind once again began flitting from my desk, to the walls
outside the office, to the gardens on the walls and the benches under the trees in the boulevards.
Once, while working on a particularly bad copy on the news desk, my mind scattered, the way it
sometimes does and, coming together again, went back to that first meeting with Maria. And the
remembrance came clear, coming into sharper focus—the electric light, the shadows around us,
the stillness. And Maria, with her wide-eyed stare, the lost look in her eyes…
IN December, I had a little fever. On sick leave, I went home to the province. I stayed three days.
I felt restless, as if I had strayed and lost contact with myself. I suppose you got that way from
being sick,
A pouring rain followed our train all the way back to Manila. Outside my window, the landscape
was a series of dissolved hills and fields. What is it in the click of the wheels of a train that makes
you feel gray inside? What is it in being sick, in lying abed that makes you feel you are awake in a
dream, and that you are just an occurrence in the crying grief of streets and houses and people?
In December, we had our first air-raid practice.
I came home one night through darkened streets, peopled by shadows. There was a ragged look
to everything, as if no one and nothing cared any more for appearances.
I reached my room just as the siren shrilled. I undressed and got into my old clothes. It was dark,
darker than the moment after moon-set. I went out on the corridor and sat in a chair. All around
me were movements and voices. anonymous and hushed, even when they laughed.
I sat still, afraid and cold.
“Is that you. Felix?”
“Yes. Maria.”
She was standing beside my chair, close to the wall. Her voice was small and disembodied in the
darkness. A chill went through me, She said nothing more for a long time.
“I don’t like the darkness,” she said.
“Oh, come now. When you sleep, you turn the lights off, don’t you?”
“It’s not like this darkness,” she said, softly. “It’s all over the world.”
We did not speak again until the lights went on. Then she was gone.
The war happened not long after.
At first, everything was unreal. It was like living on a motion picture screen, with yourself as actor
and audience. But the sounds of bombs exploding were real enough, thudding dully against the
unready ear.
In Intramuros, the people left their homes the first night of the war. Many of them slept in the
niches of the old walls the first time they heard the sirens scream in earnest. That evening, I
returned home to find the apartment house empty. The janitor was there. My cousin who worked
in the army was there. But the rest of the tenants were gone.
I asked Mang Lucio, “Maria?”
“She’s gone with your aunt to the walls.” he told me. “They will sleep there tonight.”
My cousin told me that in the morning we would transfer to Singalong. There was a house
available. The only reason he was staying, he said, was because they were unable to move our
things. Tomorrow that would be taken care of immediately.
“And you, Mang Lucio?”
“I don’t know where I could go.”
We ate canned pork and beans and bread. We slept on the floor, with the lights swathed in black
cloth. The house creaked in the night and sent off hollow echoes. We slept uneasily.
I woke up early. It was disquieting to wake up to stillness in that house which rang with children’s
voices and laughter the whole day everyday. In the kitchen, there were sounds and smells of
cooking.
“Hello,” I said.
It was Maria, frying rice. She turned from the stove and looked at me for a long time. Then,
without a word, she turned back to her cooking.
“Are you and your uncle going away?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Did he not tell you?”
“No.”
“We’re moving to Singalong.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Well, anyway, I’ll come back tonight. Maybe this afternoon. We’ll not have to say goodbye till
then.”
She did not say anything. I finished washing and went back to my room. I dressed and went out.
At noon, I went to Singalong to eat. All our things were there already, and the folks were busy
putting the house in order. As soon as I finished lunch, I went back to the office. There were few
vehicles about. Air-raid alerts were frequent. The brightness of the day seemed glaring. The faces
of people were all pale and drawn.
In the evening, I went back down the familiar street. I was stopped many times by air-raid
volunteers. The house was dark. I walked back to the street. I stood for a long time before the
house. Something did not want me to go away just yet. A light burst in my face. It was a
volunteer.
“Do you live here?”
“I used to. Up to yesterday. I’m looking for the janitor.”
“Why, did you leave something behind?”
“Yes, I did. But I think I’ve lost it now.”
“Well, you better get along, son. This place, the whole area. has been ordered evacuated.
Nobody lives here anymore.”
“Yes, I know,” I said. “Nobody.”
DEAD STARS
by Paz Marquez Benitez

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 puttering away among the rose pots.
"Papa, and when will the 'long table' be set?"
"I don't know yet. Alfredo is not very specific, but I understand Esperanza wants it to be next
month."
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."
"She does not seem to be in much of a hurry either," Don Julian nasally commented, while his
rose scissors busily snipped away.
"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?"
"In love? With whom?"
"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--"
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 moon 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 perfervid imagination, an exaggeration of the commonplace, a glorification of insipid
monotonies such as made up 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.
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.
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 half-meaning to do so, sacrificing possible
future fullness of ecstasy to the craving for immediate excitement. Greed--mortgaging the future--
forcing the hand of Time, or of Fate.
"What do you think happened?" asked Carmen, pursuing her thought.
"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--"
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.
"A last spurt of hot blood," finished the old man.
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 humor, a fastidious artist with keen, clear brain.
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.
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.
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--
One evening he had gone "neighboring" with Don Julian; a rare enough occurrence, since he
made it a point to avoid all appearance of currying favor 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.
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.
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 greatly embarrassed,
and felt that he should explain.
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."
"Oh," he drawled out, vastly relieved.
"A man named Manalang--I kept calling him Manalo. After the tenth time 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!"
He laughed with her.
"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."
"As you did this time. Still, you looked amused every time I--"
"I was thinking of Mr. Manalang."
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 neighborhood
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.
He was mildly surprised to note from her appearance that she was unmistakably a sister of the
Judge's wife, although Doña Adela was of a different type altogether. She was small and plump,
with wide brown eyes, clearly defined eyebrows, and delicately modeled hips--a pretty woman
with the complexion of a baby and the expression of a likable 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.
On Sunday mornings after 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.
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 "neighboring."
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."
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.
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.
It was so 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.
"Up here I find--something--"
He and Julia Salas stood looking out into the she quiet night. Sensing unwanted intensity,
laughed, woman-like, asking, "Amusement?"
"No; youth--its spirit--"
"Are you so old?"
"And heart's desire."
Was he becoming a poet, or is there a poet lurking in the heart of every man?
"Down there," he had continued, his voice somewhat indistinct, "the road is too broad, too
trodden by feet, too barren of mystery."
"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.
"Mystery--" she answered lightly, "that is so brief--"
"Not in some," quickly. "Not in you."
"You have known me a few weeks; so the mystery."
"I could study you all my life and still not find it."
"So long?"
"I should like to."
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
willful shutting out of fact as astounded him in his calmer moments.
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 Doña 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 time off to
accompany her on this visit to her father; how Doña Adela's Dionisio was the most absentminded
of men, sometimes going out without his collar, or with unmatched socks.
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.
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 black canvas footwear which he removed forthwith
and tossed high up on dry sand.
When he came up, she flushed, then smiled with frank pleasure.
"I hope you are enjoying this," he said with a questioning inflection.
"Very much. It looks like home to me, except that we do not have such a lovely beach."
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.
"The afternoon has seemed very short, hasn't it?" Then, "This, I think, is the last time--we can
visit."
"The last? Why?"
"Oh, you will be too busy perhaps."
He noted an evasive quality in the answer.
"Do I seem especially industrious to you?"
"If you are, you never look it."
"Not perspiring or breathless, as a busy man ought to be."
"But--"
"Always unhurried, too unhurried, and calm." She smiled to herself.
"I wish that were true," he said after a meditative pause.
She waited.
"A man is happier if he is, as you say, calm and placid."
"Like a carabao in a mud pool," she retorted perversely
"Who? I?"
"Oh, no!"
"You said I am calm and placid."
"That is what I think."
"I used to think so too. Shows how little we know ourselves."
It was strange to him that he could be wooing thus: with tone and look and covert phrase.
"I should like to see your home town."
"There is nothing to see--little crooked streets, bunut roofs with ferns growing on them, and
sometimes squashes."
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.
"Nothing? There is you."
"Oh, me? But I am here."
"I will not go, of course, until you are there."
"Will you come? You will find it dull. There isn't even one American there!"
"Well--Americans are rather essential to my entertainment."
She laughed.
"We live on Calle Luz, a little street with trees."
"Could I find that?"
"If you don't ask for Miss del Valle," she smiled teasingly.
"I'll inquire about--"
"What?"
"The house of the prettiest girl in the town."
"There is where you will lose your way." Then she turned serious. "Now, that is not quite sincere."
"It is," he averred slowly, but emphatically.
"I thought you, at least, would not say such things."
"Pretty--pretty--a foolish word! But there is none other more handy I did not mean that quite--"
"Are you withdrawing the compliment?"
"Re-enforcing it, maybe. Something is pretty when it pleases the eye--it is more than that when--"
"If it saddens?" she interrupted hastily.
"Exactly."
"It must be ugly."
"Always?"
Toward the west, the sunlight lay on the dimming waters in a broad, glinting streamer of
crimsoned gold.
"No, of course you are right."
"Why did you say this is the last time?" he asked quietly as they turned back.
"I am going home."
The end of an impossible dream!
"When?" after a long silence.
"Tomorrow. I received a letter from Father and Mother yesterday. They want me to spend Holy
Week at home."
She seemed to be waiting for him to speak. "That is why I said this is the last time."
"Can't I come to say good-bye?"
"Oh, you don't need to!"
"No, but I want to."
"There is no time."
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.
"Home seems so far from here. This is almost like another life."
"I know. This is Elsewhere, and yet strange enough, I cannot get rid of the old things."
"Old things?"
"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.
Don Julian's nasal summons came to them on the wind.
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."

II
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, and 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 on the door; heart of grass-grown plaza reposeful with trees, of ancient
church and convento, 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 colored glass globes, heirlooms from a day when grasspith
wicks floating in coconut oil were the chief lighting device.
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.
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.
The line moved on.
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.
Her glance of abstracted devotion fell on him and came to a brief stop.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"I had been thinking all this time that you had gone," he said in a voice that was both excited and
troubled.
"No, my sister asked me to stay until they are ready to go."
"Oh, is the Judge going?"
"Yes."
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.
"Mr. Salazar," she broke into his silence, "I wish to congratulate you."
Her tone told him that she had learned, at last. That was inevitable.
"For what?"
"For your approaching wedding."
Some explanation was due her, surely. Yet what could he say that would not offend?
"I should have offered congratulations long before, but you know mere visitors are slow about
getting the news," she continued.
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.
"Are weddings interesting to you?" he finally brought out quietly
"When they are of friends, yes."
"Would you come if I asked you?"
"When is it going to be?"
"May," he replied briefly, after a long pause.
"May is the month of happiness they say," she said, with what seemed to him a shade of irony.
"They say," slowly, indifferently. "Would you come?"
"Why not?"
"No reason. I am just asking. Then you will?"
"If you will ask me," she said with disdain.
"Then I ask you."
"Then I will be there."
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.
"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?"
"No!"
"I thought maybe you had had that experience; then you could understand a man who was in
such a situation."
"You are fortunate," he pursued when she did not answer.
"Is--is this man sure of what he should do?"
"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."
"But then why--why--" her muffled voice came. "Oh, what do I know? That is his problem after all."
"Doesn't it--interest you?"
"Why must it? I--I have to say good-bye, Mr. Salazar; we are at the house."
Without lifting her eyes she quickly turned and walked away.
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.
He looked attentively at her where she sat on the sofa, appraisingly, and with a kind of aversion
which he tried to control.
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.
She was pursuing an indignant relation about something or other, something about Calixta, their
note-carrier, Alfredo perceived, so he merely half-listened, understanding imperfectly. At a pause
he drawled out to fill in the gap: "Well, what of it?" The remark sounded ruder than he had
intended.
"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."
What had Calixta done? Homely, middle-aged Calixta?
"You are very positive about her badness," he commented dryly. Esperanza was always positive.
"But do you approve?"
"Of what?"
"What she did."
"No," indifferently.
"Well?"
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."
"Why shouldn't it be? You talked like an--immoral man. I did not know that your ideas were like
that."
"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."
"She has injured us. She was ungrateful." Her voice was tight with resentment.
"The trouble with you, Esperanza, is that you are--" he stopped, appalled by the passion in his
voice.
"Why do you get angry? I do not understand you at all! I think I know why you have been
indifferent 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?
"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.
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?
"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--"
"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."
Did she mean by this irrelevant remark that he it was who had sought her; or was that a covert
attack on Julia Salas?
"Esperanza--" a desperate plea lay in his stumbling words. "If you--suppose I--" Yet how could a
mere man word such a plea?
"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.
The last word had been said.
III
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 defense. 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.
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.
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.
The vessel approached the landing quietly, trailing a wake of long golden ripples on the dark
water. Peculiar hill inflections 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.
"Is the abogado there? Abogado!"
"What abogado?" someone irately asked.
That must be the presidente, he thought, and went down to the landing.
It was a policeman, a tall pock-marked individual. The presidente had left with Brigida Samuy--
Tandang "Binday"--that noon for Santa Cruz. Señor 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."
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."
San Antonio was up in the hills! Good man, the presidente! He, Alfredo, must do something for
him. It was not every day that one met with such willingness to help.
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.
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.
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 as 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 insistent,
unfinished prayer.
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.
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.
"Good evening," he said, raising his hat.
"Good evening. Oh! Are you in town?"
"On some little business," he answered with a feeling of painful constraint.
"Won't you come up?"
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.
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 he 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. The girl must have noticed, for her cheek darkened in a blush.
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.
The young moon had set, and from the uninviting cot he could see one half of a star-studded sky.
So that was all over.
Why had he obstinately clung to that dream?
So all these years--since when?--he had been seeing the light of dead stars, long extinguished,
yet seemingly still in their appointed places in the heavens.
An immense sadness as 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.
This is the 1925 short story that gave birth to modern Philippine writing in English.
 Suan ,The Good Guesser

There was once an old woman who had an only son named Suan. Suan was a clever, sharp-
witted boy. His mother sent him to school. Instead of going to school, however, Suan climbed up
the tree that stood by the roadside. As soon as his mother had passed by from the market, Suan
hurried home ahead of her. When she reached home, he cried, “Mother, I know what you bought
in the market to-day.” He then told her, article by article. This same thing happened so
repeatedly, that his mother began to believe in his skill as a diviner.
One day the ring of the datu’s daughter disappeared. All the people in the locality searched for it,
but in vain. The datu called for volunteers to find the lost ring, and he offered his daughter’s hand
as a prize to the one who should succeed. Suan’s mother heard of the proclamation. So she went
to the palace and presented Suan to the datu. “Well, Suan, tomorrow tell me where the ring is,”
said the datu. “Yes, my lord, I will tell you, if you will give your soldiers over to me for tonight,”
Suan replied. “You shall have everything you need,” said the datu.
That evening Suan ordered the soldiers to stand around him in a semicircle. When all were ready,
Suan pointed at each one of them, and said, “The ring is here, and nowhere else.” It so happened
that Suan fixed his eyes on the guilty soldier, who trembled and became pale. “I know who has it,”
said Suan. Then he ordered them to retire. Late in the night this soldier came to Suan, and said,
“I will get the ring you are in search of, and will give it to you if you will promise me my safety.”
“Give it to me, and you shall be safe,” said Suan.
Very early the next morning Suan came to the palace with a turkey in his arms. “Where is the
ring?” the datu demanded. “Why, sir, it is in this turkey’s intestines,” Suan replied. The turkey was
then killed, and the ring was found inside it. “You have done very well, Suan. Now you shall have
my daughter’s hand,” said the datu. So Suan became the princess’s husband.
One day the datu proposed a bet with anyone who wished to prove Suan’s skill. Accordingly
another datu came. He offered to bet seven cascos of treasure that Suan could not tell the
number of seeds that were in his orange. Suan did not know what to do. At midnight he went
secretly to the cascos. Here he heard their conversation, and from it he learned the number of
seeds in the orange. In the morning Suan said boastfully, “I tell you, your orange has nine seeds.”
Thus Suan won the whole treasure. Hoping to recover his loss, the datu came again. This time he
had with him fourteen cascos full of gold. He asked Suan to tell him what was inside his golden
ball. Suan did not know what to say. So in the dead of night he went out to the cascos, but he
could learn nothing there. The next morning Suan was summoned into the presence of the two
datus. He had no idea whatever as to what was in the ball; so he said scornfully, “Nonsense!”
“That is right, that is right!” shouted a man. “The ball contains nine cents.” Consequently Suan
won the fourteen cascos full of gold. From now on, nobody doubted Suan’s merit.

From Filipino Popular Tales by Dean S. Fansler