“LIKE THE MOLAVE” by Rafael Zulueta Da Costa
The youth of the land is an epic tragedy-comedy,
1.
Not yet Rizal, not yet. Sleep not in peace:
There are a thousand waters to be spanned;
There are a thousand mountains to be crossed;
There are a thousand crosses to be borne.
Our shoulders are not strong; our sinews are
Grown flaccid with dependence, smug with ease
Under another’s wing.
Rest not in peace;
Not yet, Rizal, not yet. The land has need
Of young blood -- and, what younger
than your own,
Forever spilled in the great name of freedom,
Forever oblate on the altar of
The free?
Not you alone, Rizal.
O souls
And spirits of the martyred brave, arise!
Arise and scour the land! Shed once again
Your willing blood! Infuse the vibrant red
Into our thin, anaemic veins; until
We pick up your Promethean tools and, strong,
Out of the depthless matrix of your faith
In us, and on the silent cliffs of freedom,
We carve for all time your marmoreal dream!
Until our people, seeing, are become
Like the molave, firm, resilient, staunch,
Rising on the hillside, unafraid,
Strong in its own fibre; yes, like the molave!
2.
The youth of the land is a proud
and noble appellation,
The youth of the land is a panoramic poem,
The youth of the land is a book of paradoxes,
The youth of the land is a pat on one’s back,
The youth of the land is a huge canvas
of spectral colors,
The youth of the land is a crashing symphony,
The youth of the land is a child grown old
in tears,
The youth of the land is an old man laughing
through a perpetual infancy;
A bastard child of a thousand dreams,
masquerading and dancing,
The youth of the land.
3.
Twenty thousand young men march
flags unfurled heads lifted high!
One two three four!
Twenty thousand young men halt
at the martyr’s monument
Ha-alt! one two!
Silence and the President begins:
My fellow countrymen.
The youth of the land listens,
shifts uneasily, nudges his fellow youth of
the land: Say look at that dame, some
number, not bad at all.
The youth of the land listens: Christ, I hope he
cuts the blahblah short, I’m getting fed up;
say, some legs; hell, it looks like rain!
The youth of the land listens, stands erect,
nudges his fellow youth of the land: Say,
that sonofbitching corporal’s got his eye on
us, one more demerit and I’m done for.
The youth of the land listens.
The President ends: We shall fulfill their dream,
Applause.
Twenty thousand young men march
One two three four!
Compane-e dismissed!
Hell, that’s over; Christ, some dame!
4.
We, the Filipinos of today, are soft,
easy-going, parasitic, frivolous,
inconstant, indolent, inefficient.
Would you have me sugarcoat you?
I would be happier to shower praise upon
my countrymen...but let us be realists...
let us strip ourselves...
Youth of the land you are a bitter pill to swallow.
This is a testament of youth borne
on the four pacific winds;
This is a parable of seed four ways sown
in stone:
This is a chip not only on the
President’s shoulder;
The nation of our father shivers
with longing expectation.
Shall we, sons and daughters, brother youths
of the land,
Walk up now and forever knock
the flirting chip off?
Or will the nation of our fathers be forever
and forever
Lighting candles in the wind?
5.
The answer is tomorrow and tomorrow
We shall give you our lives, tomorrow.
Today? this hour? this minute?
We are secure under the Stars-and-Stripes.
I went to a movie today gosh I cried.
I went to a movie yesterday gee I laughed
I bought my laughter and my tears.
My horse gave dividendanzo yesterday.
My new dress is the latest note
My parents gave me the best of education.
I speak English and Spanish and French.
I speak foreign languages without accent.
I can lisp a little Tagalog.
I think the conga is divine, don’t you?
I think Szostakowics is brilliant don’t you?
We Manilans are really cosmopolitan.
Was not Franco the word divine made incarnate?
Were not those leftist reds atrocious?
Federico Garcia Lorca? Never heard of him.
Punctually we remember our dead once a year.
Punctually we worship God on Sunday morning.
We are the only Christian nation in the Orient.
I donated a new organ to my parish.
I made a novena to Saint Anthony.
I give regularly to our missions.
Our missions cleared the jungle dark.
Our missions hoisted God upon
the mountain-top.
Our Igorot child says give me money.
At the outskirts of the town
the schoolhouse inspires.
The children inspire.
Philippines my Philippines.
When Washington was a boy
his father gave him a hatchet.
We must not tell lies. We have no money
for education.
6.
My American friend says:
show me one great Filipino speech to make
your people listen through the centuries;
show me one great Filipino song rich with the
soul of your seven thousand isles; show me
one great Filipino dream, forever sword and
shield --speech eloquent and simple as our
Of the People by the People for the People
song grand, foreverlasting as our My Country
‘Tis of Thee dream age-enduring, sacred as
our American democracy!
Friend, our silences are long but we also have
our speeches.
Father, with my whole heart I forgive all.
Believe me, your reverence.
Speeches short before the firing squad, and yet
of love,
I want our people to grow and be like the
molave.
A new edifice shall arise, not out of the ashes
Of the past, but out of the standing materials
Of the present.
Speeches short, blooming with hope
on the threshold of the sun.
I want to be a plain Juan de la Cruz.
Speeches short, of a man remembering
a man long and long.
Friend, our songs are legion but all songs
are one.
Land of the Morning is but one;
the others are a kaleidoscope of tunes
rimmed by the pentagram of the Pacific --
of Luzon, of Visayas, of Mindanao,
songs lush with brown earth
and the tides of tears and laughter,
and all songs are one.
Friend, our dreams are rooted in the earth,
but all our dreams are wings;
rising in the first sweep of sunrise
tumultuously abovethe hills,
in the sinking wake of sundown
swift along the curve of shore,
from the hollows of dark silence
soaring up the astral solitudes;
and all wings are dreams,
and all dreams are peace.
7.
My American friend continues:
you are a nation being played for a sucker;
you are susceptible to lachrymal inducement;
a man comes to you with a sobtale and soon
you are a poor fish swallowing
hook-line-and-sinker.
And I answer with parable of analogy:
one adventured into port and called brothers;
we fed him with the milk and honey
of the land;
he filled his pockets by the sweat
of the little brown
brother and packed for home,
taking with him but one song for souvenir:
O the monkeys have no tails in Zamboanga.
The lady visitor wishes to study Filipino
culture and life: our museums are open, our
history rich with generations; under her
nose at every turn the vital life of a child-
nation beating its hopeful beat with eager
avian pulse, giving her tokens: a mestiza
dress, a bamboo flute, a song.
She gives something in return: she pays an
urchin to undress and pose climbing a
coconut tree for the folks back home.
Over and over returning parable.
Friend, are these the ways of the West?
Friend, this is not the American Way.
The little brown brother opens his eyes
to the glorious sound of the Star Spangled;
dreams to the grand tune of the American
dream; is proud to be part of the sweeping
American magnitude; strains his neck upon
the rising skyscraper of American ideals,
and on it hinges faith, hope, aspiration;
sings the American epic of souls conceived
in liberty; quivers with longing brotherhood
of men created equal; envisions great visions
of the land across the sea where dwell his
strong brothers.
And then the fact. The crushing fact of a world
no longer shining through the exalted word;
the world where the deed is, the intolerable
deed.
Across the sea the little brown brother is no
longer a creature terrorized by hatred,
shamed by contempt and the sting of
prejudice: he is a child fondling the smashed
remains of a toy given by mother and by
mother shattered;
he is a child wondering, questioning, are
these the ways of a mother? he is a child
perplexed and hurt, yet fondling the ghost of
a toy; hoping and hoping mother will mend
the toy.
The repatriate returns sullen and broken: he is
that child. Weknow the story, the black
looks, the scowls, the placards in the
restaurants saying: Neither Dogs nor Filipinos
Allowed; the warning at the fair: Beware of
Filipino Pickpockets; the loneliness, the
woman denied.
Yet what say you, repatriate?
America is a great land.
Dear child, hoping and hoping
mother will mend the toy.
The emigrant thinks: surely if we welcome the
big white brother blasting the gold out of our
hills, surely, the little brown brother will not
be grudged the picking of lettuce leaves from
his fields.
Dear child, hoping and hoping.
The Shanghai refugee arrives:
this is the new home.
The Jewish refugee arrives:
this is the new home.
The Hongkong refugee arrives:
this is the new home.
Philippines, you are not a sucker.
Philippines, you are the molave child,
questioning, wondering, perplexed, hurt; the
molave child hoping and hoping mother will
mend the shattered toy.
8.
The Philippine canvas is flushed
with heroic hues;
The Philippine canvas is not one vicious daub
of machinations, politics, pot-bellied
softnesses and youth gone waste.
Our dead heroes have been mummified
into books for youth to read and say, some
guy!
Our dead heroes have been pigeonholed into
dates we make public show of remembering.
What are dead heroes if from the wells of their
lives we draw not the water to slake our long
thirst?
What, if from the springs of their spirits we drink
not of faith and the strength of our days?
Where are the living heroes? Who are they?
Close your books and come with me where tread
unsung heroes, great men and women
standing up to the challenge of life.
Not in books alone are gods; not in newspapers:
the rotogravures do not reckon them of
human interest.
The newspaper must portray Miss Social
Satellite picking an olive with finger-tips in
the latest nail-tone;
The newspapers must depict Mrs. Social Service
mahjongging for the fleeing in the city of
Whocares:
They are of human interest; they are big business
to be splashed across the pages for the
veneration of the faithful
Some day, some enterprising publisher will
visualize the business possibilities of human
concern in the humble, and resolveto uplift,
inspire, elevate the people with a rotogravure
of the man in the fields at his noonday
tomato and rice; the fisherman hauling his
net; the policeman beating his beat; the
teacher bent over lesson plans; the hospital
doctor and the nurse asking not: race?
color? creed? the clerk at his constant
figures; the workers waist-deep in mud; the
miners choking in the gold-dust, -- yes, the
living heroes, bluepenciled, wastebasketed,
heaped on dumping ground.
Only, I have an inkling such newspaper items
would be circused in some special tent;
really, an amusing sideshow.
9.
From the hinterland holes and seacoasts, barrio
wastes and city slums they come;
From profound darknesses they come rubbing
their eyes in the light of government.
You in whose hands is government,
We charge you with the people:
Are your hands holy for the
sacred trust?
Blaze fiercely, government; you
are the way
Out of the wilderness
of withered institutions.
From schoolrooms, factories, offices,
mine-holes and sewers they come;
From pits of drugged sleep they emerge
remembering wild dreams and angry winds;
On the tide of dark and light they stand
with brave assertions:
Once you struck fear in our hearts.
We can no longer listen to you.
We have no faith in your
vacuous promises.
From pulpit and pedestal shout
yourselves red in the face:
The sapling you would bend
is grown like the molave;
Yes, like the molave.
10.
“Guilty!” said the judge, adjusting his glasses,
to the man who had helped himself to
an ounce of gold.
And, taking them off, he smiled an appeasing
“good-morning” to the man who had
pocketed tons of it.
11.
Brother poets, what is your lay?
I know the story well, the twofold struggle
with riches of soul and hunger of body, yet
you sing.
What is your message?
Because you would mobilize starved dreamers
against too much money in too few hands,
wrong hands, are you charged with waving
red flags in your poems?
In Pampanga they wave little red flags
and they are not poets.
Because you would write flesh-poems,
do they snarl?
Have they forgotten flesh is loving tabernacle of
soul, and to sing of flesh is to sing of soul?
In covert wilds and cloaked fastnesses
they also know and are no poets.
Do you blush because you could pour your
faith, your hope, your blood, into a poem,
and tremblingly lay it at a woman’s feet?
And do exalted poems confuse you at first, and
finally become embodiments of light?
After the tremendous impact of a poem with
soul, have you not felt a benediction released
as from eternity?
Would security -- a steady job, an insurance
policy, a bankbook, a pension -- bribe you
into smugness and finally buy you off into
silence?
If tomorrow heaven and all under it, earth and
all over it, were offered you in barter of a
single poem, would you trade it?
Could you forsake home and loved ones to
forever dedicate your dreams to earth and
the supreme goodnesses thereof?
Does every object you touch, every sight you
see, every pulsation and breath, every sound
and every silence become a pang, a joy, and
at last a poem uttered and lesson shining, or
unsaid yet inwardly shining?
Do you not hear the haunting accents of the
perfect poem still to come from you?
Would it not be the grand epitome of all breath
crystallized into credo, the magnific utterance
of you striding the earth, gathering centuries
gone and aeons to come, cupping the
bittersweet of a thousand lives and a
thousand deaths, a clinging armful of
woman?
And, having written, would it not be your last?
And, having written it, would you not surely die?
And, would death startle you more than the
perfect poem, being the poem beyond
perfection, uttered in the silence of
becoming?
12.
Not the poet alone nor the poem:
remember the artist and his canvas.
The soul of the canvas is not art;
the body of the canvas is not art;
Body and soul are one prophetic surge of
wave on wave dashing across oceanic
solitudes laden with Sargasso of tidal
dreams.
The canvas is not life nor its delineation:
The canvas must be alive with the throb
of boundless intimations.
And the artist who intimates beyond spirit
paints beyond the boundaries of sense;
And no frame can contain the infinite
extensions of art; wave mounting on
wave, height upon height.
What do you perceive behind the finished
painting and beyond?
I see man standing up to the challenge of
centuries, head flung skyward, proud,
pushing darkness back with the fire of a
single candle;
I see man naked and unshivering in the four
winds, defiant and arrogant in the clamoring
blast, warm with the fire of his single candle;
In him I see a multitude of long accumulations
and great prophecies hastening into
fulfillment;
In him, the sinews of a billion years and divine
energies poured into the rearing of edifices
not built of stone and steel, and not with
hands alone;
In him, illimitable horizons extending beyond
and on.
Poets, philosophers, painters, musicians, --
artists all, your time is always and ever!
Your place is wherever and everywhere!
In you, advancement and regeneration!
In you, the sacred fire of a single candle magnified
into a nation!
In you, precipitations of the individual into
people,
Strong as the molave!
13.
The building is a landmark of progress.
The last stone has been laid, the last bolt
riveted.
The big boss beams; the architect, the engineer
smile.
Handshakes. Pretty speeches. The noble dedication.
The shining placard: Erected A.D. 1940.
Who records the history of an edifice?
Who tells the story from cornerstone
to ceremony?
Who peers into the humanity
of daily-wage earners?
Who rehearses the drama of diggers,
pale-drivers, riveters, masons,
wood workers and painters?
Who investigates their motives?
Who speaks the tongue of myriad
interpretations?
The government builds for progress.
The capitalist builds for more capital.
The architect builds for achievement.
The engineer builds for enterprise.
The holy one builds for the glory of God.
What does the worker build for?
In the year before Christ there
were whips.
In the year of our Lord there
are also whips.
Other than leather.
14.
They also count the masses:
buffeted and baffled, steady in routine,
wing-clipped somewhere in flight, and now
unconscious, unconcerned over wing beat
beyond the senses; lost, lost, lost.
They also count, these poets, philosophers,
artists in the nameless way that is the
people’s: little drops? Somehow, I think, the
ocean; and in the swollen waters of the
people’s faith, found, found, found.
15.
Out of the tangled threads of multicolored dreams
the land weaves intricate and undecipherable
designs;
Upon the margin of forever shifting sands flesh
fluctuates with mute interrogations.
The city lights flare up, and from the sanctuary
of shelter we emerge with faces avid for the
night-time mystery, poised for the unexpected
flight.
Who sells wings? Ten centavos a pair.
The orchestra explodes and there is flight.
Who sells wings? Two bucks a pair.
What do you say, hah? How about it, hah?
Who sells wings? Ten bucks a pair.
I want them highclass and hygiene, see?
Who sells wings? Fifteen bucks a pair.
Plus drinks.
I gotta try a white some time, don’t I?
Who sells wings? A pair for every pocket.
The kitchen fires light up. Let us pray.
The radio barks. Spain, China, Africa, Finland,
Holland, Belgium, France. Time for a glass
of beer.
Weep generous prayer. Join the Red Cross.
Fair weather generally with passing showers
and Thunderstorms. Catalog novenas
and te deums
Who sells wings? A pair for every pocket.
From sun to morning star , in Quiapo church
there is great praying every Friday.
Molave Christ, give me wings.
Forgive me my trespasses as I cannot
forgive others.
Give me this day a little more than bread.
Make my husband a Saint Joseph with others.
Give me a child, boy or girl, but if possible.
Give me a raise and I will offer a candle.
Forgive me the sins by which I earn my living.
Black Nazarene, give me wings.
In Antipolo every May there is also great praying
before the dancing and the lovemaking.
Holy Mother, make him dance with me.
Holy Mother, a yearly pilgrimage
I promise if only.
Holy Mother, I am not worth of the grand prize.
Holy Mother, only a small prize and I promise.
Holy Mother, a good husband.
Holy Mother, more profits for more candles.
Holy Mother, give me wings.
The orchestra conductor raises his baton.
Give us wings.
The train careens into the night.
Give us wings.
The autocab speeds, the bus, the tram.
Give us wings.
This is my own native land.
Give us wings.
On the threshold of enchantment youth stands
graduate with vision:
Where is the immutable scroll?
Where the unscalable altitude?
Give us wings not only for the heights,
Wings also for the depths and the descent.
Wings for every pocket:
Who sells wings for the pocketless?
16.
For the pocketless, Elementary Psychology:
It is easier for a camel to pass through the
eye of a needle.
For the pocketless, a resonant voice;
My countrymen the day approaches.
For the pocketless, the darkglasses of $ and ₱
For the pocketless, Higher Psychology:
Yours is the promised land of Canaan.
You will inherit the earth.
Come follow me.
Children, if you behave well, a glorified
lollypop.
17.
Let the words fly and boom and crash.
Let the centuries spin and calculate.
The mathematical certainly endures:
Philippines minus (Spain plus America) equals
MOLAVE
Who will decipher the Philippine hieroglyph?
Who, unravel the intricate formula?
Who, enter the jungle, mount the steep,
And find molave proud, knowing no death?
18.
They say the molave is extinct
But they are blind or will not see.
Stand on the span of any river, and Io!
Relentlessly to and fro, cross and recross, molave!
Yes, molave strike roads into the darkest core!
Yes, molave builds seven thousand bridges in blood!
Bagumbayan planted the final seed.
Balintawak nurtured the primal green.
Molave, uprooted and choked, will not succumb.
Molave presses on and will not be detained.
Let Spain speak.
Let America speak.
19.
Not yet, Rizal, not yet.
The glory hour will come.
Out of the silent dreaming,
From the seven-thousandfold silence,
We shall emerge, saying: WE ARE FILIPINOS,
And no longer be ashamed.
Sleep not in peace.
The dream is not yet fully carved.
Hard the wood, but harder the blows.
Yet the molave will stand.
Yet the molave monument will rise.
Gods walk on brown legs.
“Wedding Dance” by Amador Daguio
Awiyao reached for the upper horizontal log which served as the edge of the
headhigh threshold. Clinging to the log, he lifted himself with one bound that
carried him across to the narrow door. He slid back the cover, stepped inside,
then pushed the cover back in place. After some moments during which he
seemed to wait, he talked to the listening darkness.
"I'm sorry this had to be done. I am really sorry. But neither of us can help it."
The sound of the gangsas beat through the walls of the dark house like
muffled roars of falling waters. The woman who had moved with a start when
the sliding door opened had been hearing the gangsas for she did not know
how long. There was a sudden rush of fire in her. She gave no sign that she
heard Awiyao, but continued to sit unmoving in the darkness.
But Awiyao knew that she heard him and his heart pitied her. He crawled on
all fours to the middle of the room; he knew exactly where the stove was.
With bare fingers he stirred the covered smoldering embers, and blew into
the stove. When the coals began to glow, Awiyao put pieces of pine on them,
then full round logs as his arms. The room brightened.
"Why don't you go out," he said, "and join the dancing women?" He felt a
pang inside him, because what he said was really not the right thing to say
and because the woman did not stir. "You should join the dancers," he said,
"as if--as if nothing had happened." He looked at the woman huddled in a
corner of the room, leaning against the wall. The stove fire played with
strange moving shadows and lights
upon her face. She was partly sullen, but her sullenness was not because of
anger or hate.
"Go out--go out and dance. If you really don't hate me for this separation, go
out and dance. One of the men will see you dance well; he will like your
dancing, he will marry you. Who knows but that, with him, you will be luckier
than you were with me."
"I don't want any man," she said sharply. "I don't want any other man."
He felt relieved that at least she talked: "You know very well that I won't want
any other woman either. You know that, don't you? Lumnay, you know it,
don't you?"
She did not answer him.
"You know it Lumnay, don't you?" he repeated.
"Yes, I know," she said weakly.
"It is not my fault," he said, feeling relieved. "You cannot blame me; I have
been a good husband to you."
"Neither can you blame me," she said. She seemed about to cry.
"No, you have been very good to me. You have been a good wife. I have
nothing to say against you." He set some of the burning wood in place. "It's
only that a man must have a child. Seven harvests is just too long to wait. Yes,
we have waited too long. We should have another chance before it is too late
for both of us."
This time the woman stirred, stretched her right leg out and bent her left leg
in. She wound the blanket more snugly around herself.
"You know that I have done my best," she said. "I have prayed to Kabunyan
much. I have sacrificed many chickens in my prayers."
"Yes, I know."
"You remember how angry you were once when you came home from your
work in the terrace because I butchered one of our pigs without your
permission? I did it to appease Kabunyan, because, like you, I wanted to have
a child. But what could I do?"
"Kabunyan does not see fit for us to have a child," he said. He stirred the fire.
The spark rose through the crackles of the flames. The smoke and soot went
up the ceiling.
Lumnay looked down and unconsciously started to pull at the rattan that kept
the split bamboo flooring in place. She tugged at the rattan flooring. Each
time she did this the split bamboo went up and came down with a slight
rattle. The gong of the dancers clamorously called in her care through the
walls.
Awiyao went to the corner where Lumnay sat, paused before her, looked at
her bronzed and sturdy face, then turned to where the jars of water stood
piled one over the other. Awiyao took a coconut cup and dipped it in the top
jar and drank. Lumnay had filled the jars from the mountain creek early that
evening.
"I came home," he said. "Because I did not find you among the dancers. Of
course, I am not forcing you to come, if you don't want to join my wedding
ceremony. I came to tell you that Madulimay, although I am marrying her,
can never become as good as you are. She is not as strong in planting beans,
not as fast in cleaning water jars, not as good keeping a house clean. You are
one of the best wives in the
whole village."
"That has not done me any good, has it?" She said. She looked at him
lovingly. She almost seemed to smile.
He put the coconut cup aside on the floor and came closer to her. He held her
face between his hands and looked longingly at her beauty. But her eyes
looked away. Never again would he hold her face. The next day she would
not be his any more. She would go back to her parents. He let go of her face,
and she bent to the floor again and looked at her fingers as they tugged softly
at the split bamboo floor.
"This house is yours," he said. "I built it for you. Make it your own, live in it as
long as you wish. I will build another house for Madulimay."
"I have no need for a house," she said slowly. "I'll go to my own house. My
parents are old. They will need help in the planting of the beans, in the
pounding of the rice."
"I will give you the field that I dug out of the mountains during the first year
of our marriage," he said. "You know I did it for you. You helped me to make
it for the two of us."
"I have no use for any field," she said.
He looked at her, then turned away, and became silent. They were silent for a
time.
"Go back to the dance," she said finally. "It is not right for you to be here.
They will wonder where you are, and Madulimay will not feel good. Go back
to the dance."
"I would feel better if you could come, and dance---for the last time. The
gangsas are playing."
"You know that I cannot."
"Lumnay," he said tenderly. "Lumnay, if I did this it is because of my need for
a child. You know that life is not worth living without a child. The man have
mocked me behind my back. You know that."
"I know it," he said. "I will pray that Kabunyan will bless you and
Madulimay."
She bit her lips now, then shook her head wildly, and sobbed.

She thought of the seven harvests that had passed, the high hopes they had in
the beginning of their new life, the day he took her away from her parents
across the roaring river, on the other side of the mountain, the trip up the
trail which they had to climb, the steep canyon which they had to cross. The
waters boiled in her mind in forms of white and jade and roaring silver; the
waters tolled and growled,
resounded in thunderous echoes through the walls of the stiff cliffs; they were
far away now from somewhere on the tops of the other ranges, and they had
looked carefully at the buttresses of rocks they had to step on---a slip would
have meant death.
They both drank of the water then rested on the other bank before they made
the final climb to the other side of the mountain.
She looked at his face with the fire playing upon his features---hard and
strong, and kind. He had a sense of lightness in his way of saying things
which often made her and the village people laugh. How proud she had been
of his humor. The muscles where taut and firm, bronze and compact in their
hold upon his skull---how frank his bright eyes were. She looked at his body
the carved out of the mountains
five fields for her; his wide and supple torso heaved as if a slab of shining
lumber were heaving; his arms and legs flowed down in fluent muscles--he
was strong and for that she had lost him.
She flung herself upon his knees and clung to them. "Awiyao, Awiyao, my
husband," she cried. "I did everything to have a child," she said passionately
in a hoarse whisper. "Look at me," she cried. "Look at my body. Then it was
full of promise. It could dance; it could work fast in the fields; it could climb
the mountains fast. Even now it is firm, full. But, Awiyao, I am useless. I must
die."
"It will not be right to die," he said, gathering her in his arms. Her whole
warm naked naked breast quivered against his own; she clung now to his
neck, and her hand lay upon his right shoulder; her hair flowed down in
cascades of gleaming darkness.
"I don't care about the fields," she said. "I don't care about the house. I don't
care for anything but you. I'll have no other man."
"Then you'll always be fruitless."
"I'll go back to my father, I'll die."
"Then you hate me," he said. "If you die it means you hate me. You do not
want me to have a child. You do not want my name to live on in our tribe."
She was silent.
"If I do not try a second time," he explained, "it means I'll die. Nobody will
get the fields I have carved out of the mountains; nobody will come after me."
"If you fail--if you fail this second time--" she said thoughtfully. The voice was
a shudder. "No--no, I don't want you to fail."
"If I fail," he said, "I'll come back to you. Then both of us will die together.
Both of us will vanish from the life of our tribe."
The gongs thundered through the walls of their house, sonorous and faraway.
"I'll keep my beads," she said. "Awiyao, let me keep my beads," she half-
whispered.
"You will keep the beads. They come from far-off times. My grandmother said
they come from up North, from the slant-eyed people across the sea. You
keep them, Lumnay. They are worth twenty fields."
"I'll keep them because they stand for the love you have for me," she said. "I
love you. I love you and have nothing to give."
She took herself away from him, for a voice was calling out to him from
outside. "Awiyao! Awiyao! O Awiyao! They are looking for you at the dance!"
"I am not in hurry."
"The elders will scold you. You had better go."
"Not until you tell me that it is all right with you."
"It is all right with me."

He clasped her hands. "I do this for the sake of the tribe," he said.
"I know," she said.
He went to the door.
"Awiyao!"
He stopped as if suddenly hit by a spear. In pain he turned to her. Her face
was in agony. It pained him to leave. She had been wonderful to him. What
was it that made a man wish for a child? What was it in life, in the work in the
field, in the planting and harvest, in the silence of the night, in the
communing with husband and wife, in the whole life of the tribe itself that
made man wish for the laughter and speech of a child? Suppose he changed
his mind? Why did the unwritten law demand, anyway, that a man, to be a
man, must have a child to come after him? And if he was fruitless--but he
loved Lumnay. It was like taking away of his life to leave her like this.
"Awiyao," she said, and her eyes seemed to smile in the light. "The beads!" He
turned back and walked to the farthest corner of their room, to the trunk
where they kept their worldly possession---his battle-ax and his spear points,
her betel nut box and her beads. He dug out from the darkness the beads
which had been given to him by his grandmother to give to Lumnay on the
beads on, and tied them in place. The white and jade and deep orange
obsidians shone in the firelight. She suddenly clung to him, clung to his neck
as if she would never let him go.
"Awiyao! Awiyao, it is hard!" She gasped, and she closed her eyes and huried
her face in his neck.
The call for him from the outside repeated; her grip loosened, and he buried
out into the night.
Lumnay sat for some time in the darkness. Then she went to the door and
opened it. The moonlight struck her face; the moonlight spilled itself on the
whole village.
She could hear the throbbing of the gangsas coming to her through the
caverns of the other houses. She knew that all the houses were empty that the
whole tribe was at the dance. Only she was absent. And yet was she not the
best dancer of the village? Did she not have the most lightness and grace?
Could she not, alone among all women, dance like a bird tripping for grains
on the ground, beautifully
timed to the beat of the gangsas? Did not the men praise her supple body,
and the women envy the way she stretched her hands like the wings of the
mountain eagle now and then as she danced? How long ago did she dance at
her own wedding? Tonight, all the women who counted, who once danced in
her honor, were dancing now in honor of another whose only claim was that
perhaps she could give her
husband a child.
"It is not right. It is not right!" she cried. "How does she know? How can
anybody know? It is not right," she said.
Suddenly she found courage. She would go to the dance. She would go to the
chief of the village, to the elders, to tell them it was not right. Awiyao was
hers; nobody could take him away from her. Let her be the first woman to
complain, to denounce the unwritten rule that a man may take another
woman. She would tell Awiyao to come back to her. He surely would relent.
Was not their love as strong as the
river?
She made for the other side of the village where the dancing was. There was a
flaming glow over the whole place; a great bonfire was burning. The gangsas
clamored more loudly now, and it seemed they were calling to her. She was
near at last. She could see the dancers clearly now. The man leaped lightly
with their gangsas as they circled the dancing women decked in feast
garments and beads, tripping on the ground like graceful birds, following
their men. Her heart warmed to the flaming call of the dance; strange heat in
her blood welled up, and she started to run. But the gleaming brightness of
the bonfire commanded her to stop. Did anybody see her approach?
She stopped. What if somebody had seen her coming? The flames of the
bonfire leaped in countless sparks which spread and rose like yellow points
and died out in the night. The blaze reached out to her like a spreading
radiance. She did not have the courage to break into the wedding feast.
Lumnay walked away from the dancing ground, away from the village. She
thought of the new clearing of beans which Awiyao and she had started to
make only four moons before. She followed the trail above the village.

When she came to the mountain stream she crossed it carefully. Nobody held
her hand, and the stream water was very cold. The trail went up again, and
she was in the moonlight shadows among the trees and shrubs. Slowly she
climbed the mountain.
When Lumnay reached the clearing, she cold see from where she stood the
blazing bonfire at the edge of the village, where the wedding was. She could
hear the far-off clamor of the gongs, still rich in their sonorousness, echoing
from mountain to mountain. The sound did not mock her; they seemed to
call far to her, to speak to her in the language of unspeaking love. She felt the
pull of their gratitude for her
sacrifice. Her heartbeat began to sound to her like many gangsas.
Lumnay though of Awiyao as the Awiyao she had known long ago-- a strong,
muscular boy carrying his heavy loads of fuel logs down the mountains to his
home. She had met him one day as she was on her way to fill her clay jars
with water. He had stopped at the spring to drink and rest; and she had made
him drink the cool mountain water from her coconut shell. After that it did
not take him long to decide to throw his spear on the stairs of her father's
house in token on his desire to marry her.
The mountain clearing was cold in the freezing moonlight. The wind began to
stir the leaves of the bean plants. Lumnay looked for a big rock on which to
sit down. The bean plants now surrounded her, and she was lost among
them.
A few more weeks, a few more months, a few more harvests---what did it
matter? She would be holding the bean flowers, soft in the texture, silken
almost, but moist where the dew got into them, silver to look at, silver on the
light blue, blooming whiteness, when the morning comes. The stretching of
the bean pods full length from the hearts of the wilting petals would go on.
Lumnay's fingers moved a long, long time among the growing bean pods.
“Tanabata’s Wife” by Sinai Hamada
I
FAS-ANG first came to Baguio by way of the Mountain Trail. When at last she
emerged from her weary travel over the mountains, she found herself just
above the Trinidad Valley. From there, she overlooked the city of Baguio
itself.
Baguio was her destination. Along with three other women, she had planned
to come to work on the numerous roads that were being built around the city.
Native women were given spades to shovel the earth from the hillsides, and to
make way for the roads that were being cut.
They had almost arrived. Yet Fas-ang knew of no place where she could live
in the city while waiting to be taken in as a laborer. Perhaps she would stay in
the worker’s camp and be packed with the other laborers in their smelly
quarters. She had heard a lot about tiered beds, the congestion in the long,
low-roofed house for the road work¬ers.
It was mid-afternoon. The four women and three men, new immigrants from
Bontoc, walked on the long straight road on the Trinidad Valley. They had
never before in their lives seen a road so long and straight. After the regular
up and down journey over the hills, the level road was tedious and slow to
travel on.
Plodding along, they at last left the valley behind, passed through the narrow
gap of the Trinidad River, and entered Lukban Valley. All along the road, the
sight was a succession of cabbage plots, more and more.
And when they passed Lukban Valley and came to Kisad Valley still there
were rows and rows of cabbage.
But now the sun was sinking low behind the brown hills in the west. And the
company thought of their shelter for the night. For they had one more steep
hill to climb before the city laborer’s camp. So they had been told. And their
feet ached painfully. Was there no door open for them among the thatched
homes in the valley?
It was then that they came to the house of Tanabata-san. The Japanese
gardener was looking out through his tiny window as they were about to pass
on. He halted them.
“Are you looking for work?” the gardener called in his broken dialect.
“Indeed we are, my lord,” one of the strangers replied.
“If you like, I have work for two women, in my garden,” Tanabata offered.
The men looked questioningly at the women. “Which of you would like to
stay?”
One man asked.
Only Fas-ang was willing to consider the gardener’s offer. She stepped
forward.
“How much would you give me?” she demanded.
“Ten pesos.”
“Ten Pesos?” Fas-ang asked for twelve, but Tanabata would not agree to that.
Fas-ang reflected for a moment, and then confided to her compasions, “Guess
I’ll stay. There is but a difference of two pesos between what I’ll get here and
my wage if I become a road worker. Who knows? My lot here may even be
better.
One of the remaining three women was also persuaded to stay after Fas-ang
had made her decision. Tanabata was smiling as he watched the two make up
their minds.
The rest of the company were going on their way. “So you two will stay,” the
eldest of the group said, affecting a superior air. “Well, if you think it is better
for both of you, then it is alright. You need not worry over us, for we shall go
on and reach the camp early tonight.”
In this way, Fas-ang first lent herself to Tanabata. She was at the height of
her womanhood then. Her cheeks were ruddy, though not as rosy as in her
girlhood. She had a buxom breast, the main charm of her sturdy self. As she
walked, her footsteps were heavy. And anyone would admit that she was
indeed pretty.
II
Tanabata had had no wife. For a long time now, he had been looking for one
among the native women, hoping he would find one who might consent to
mary him. But none did he ever find, until Fas-ang, guided by fate, came. He
had almost sent for a Japanese wife from his. homeland. He had her picture.
But it would have cost him much.
Would Fas-ang, perchance, learn to like him and later agree to their
marriage? This was only a tiny thought in the mind of Tanabata as he sat one
evening looking wistfullv at Fas-ang. She was washing her feet by the water
ditch in front of the house. Every now and then, she lifted her skirt above her
knees, and Tanabata saw her clear, bright skin, tempting him.
After a time, Fas-ang herself would watch Tanabata. As they sat before their
supper she would cast furtive glances at him across the low, circular table. He
was bearded. Sometimes, he let his beard grow for three days, and his
unshaven, hairy face was ugly to look at. Only with a clean countenance, and
his blue suit did Fas-ang like him at all
Well-dressed, Tanabata-san would walk on Sunday to the market fair. Close
behind him follow one of his laborers, carrying two heavy baskets over his
shoulder. The baskets overflowed with the minor produce of the garden:
strawberries, celery, tomatoes, spinach, radishes, and “everlasting” flowers.
Fas-ang, in her gayest Sunday dress would trail in the rear. She was to sell
garden products at the market.
In the afternoon, the fair would be over. Fas-ang would go home with a heavy
handbag. She would arrive to find Tanabata, usually drunk, with a half-
emptied gin bottle before him on the table.
Fas-ang would lay the bag of money on his crossed legs. “That is the amount
the vegetables have brought us,” she would report.
“Good.” And Tanabata would break into a happy smile. He always said
gracias after that, showing full trust in Fas-ang. He would pick out two half-
peso pieces and give them to her. “Here, take this. They are for you. Buy
yourself whatever you like with them.” For he was a prosperous, generous
gardener.
On weekdays, there was hard and honest work in the garden. The other
native woman had gone away when she saw that she was not favored as Fas-
ang was. So, Fas- ang, when she was not cooking, stayed among the cabbage
rows picking worms. All that Tanabata did was to take care of the seedlings in
the shed house. Also, he did most of the transplanting, since he alone had the
sensitive fingers that could feel the animate sense of the soil. He had but little
area to superintend, and only three farm hands to look after.
New life! Fas-ang liked the daily turns that were her lot. Little by little she
learned to do the domestic chores. Early in the morning she rose to cook.
Before noon she cooked again: And in the evening likewise. She washed
clothes occasionally, and more when the laundress came irregularly. She
swept the house and, of course, she never forgot to leave a tea kettle steaming
over live embers. Anytime, Tanabata might come in and sip a cup of tea.
III
Immediately after noon on weekdays, when the sun was hot and the leaves
were almost wilting, Tanabata like to stroll and visit his neighbor, Okamoto-
san. They were of the same province in Japan, Hiroshimaken. Okamoto had a
Benguet woman for a wife. Kawane was an industrious and amiable
companion. The only fault Okamoto found in Kawane was her ignorance. She
had no idea of the world beyond her small valley.
One afternoon, Tanabata as usual paid his friend a visit. This was a great
conse-quence, for he had a mind to ask Okamoto if he thought Fas-ang could
be a fit wife for him. Tanabata was slow in broaching the subject to his friend,
but he was direct:
“I think I shall marry that woman,” Tanabata said.
“Which woman — Fas-ang?” Okamoto said.
“Yes”
“She is good woman, I think. She seems to behave well.”
“I have known her only for a short time. Do you think she will behave well al-
ways?” Tanabata asked earnestly.
Okamoto was hesitant and would not be explicit, “I can not tell. But look at
my wife. She’s a peaceful woman,” he answered simply.
“There, my good friend,” Tanabata reminded his neighbor, “you forget that
your wife is of the Benguet tribe, while Fas-ang is of the Bontoc tribe.”
“Yet they are good friends — as much as we are,” was Okamoto’s bright
rejoinder. And they both laughed.
IV
Two days later Tanabata proposed to Fas-ang. He had frequently teased her
before. But now he was gravely concerned about what he had to tell. He had
great respect for this sturdy native woman.
He called Fas-ang into the big room where she heretofore seldom entered
except to clean. It was dimly lighted. Fas-ang went in, unafraid. It seemed she
had anticipated this. She sat close beside him on a trunk. Tanabata talked
carefully, convincingly, and long. He explained to her as best as he could his
intentions. At last, she yielded. Without ceremony and without the law, they
were wedded by a tacitly sworn agree¬ment between themselves.
As before Fas-ang did not find difficult to tend the truck garden. To be sure, it
was sometimes dull. Now and then she would get exasperated with the
routine work. But only for a short time. Ordinarily, she was patient, bending
over the plants as she rid them of their worms, or gathering them for the sale
in the market. Her hands had been trained now to handle with care tender
seedlings, which had to be prodded to grow luxuriantly.
When the sunbeams filled the valley, and the dewy leaves were glistening, it
was a joy to watch the fluttering white butterflies that flitted all over the
garden. They were pests, for their chrysalids mercilessly devoured the green
vegetables. Still, their advent in the bright morning could stir the laborers to
be up and doing before they, themselves, were outdone by the insects.
In time, Fas-ang was introduced to Japanese customs. Thus she learned to
use chop¬sticks after being prevailed upon by Tanabata; they had a zinc tub
outside their hut in which they heated water and took a bath in the evening;
Fas-ang pickled radishes after the Japanese fashion, salting them in a barrel;
she began to use wooden shoes, though of the Filipino variety, and left them
outside their bedroom before she retired; she became used to drinking tea
and pouring much toyo sauce in the viands; mattresses too, and no longer a
plain mat, formed her beddings.
A year after they were married they had a child, a boy. The baby was a
darling. Tanabata decided to celebrate. He gave a baptismal party to which
were invited his Japanese friends. They drank sake, ate Japanese seaweeds,
pickles, canned fish, etc.
But Fas-ang, in all this revelry, could not understand the chattering of her
guests. So, she was very quiet, holding the baby in her arms.
The men (there wer no women visitors) had brought gifts for the baby and
the mother. Fas-ang was very much delighted. She repeatedly muttered her
gracias to all as gifts were piled before her.
Then the men consulted the Japanese calendar. The child was given the name
Kato And the guests shouted banzai many times, tossing glassfuls of sake to
the ceiling They wished the mother and child, good luck.
Tanabata was most solicitous toward Fas-ang as she began to recover from
the emaciation caused by her strenuous childbirth. He would now allow her
to go out. Sh< must’Stay indoors for a month. It was another Japanese
custom.
At length, when August had passed, Fas-ang once more stepped out into the More and more, Fas-ang liked to attend the shows. The city was two miles
sun shine, warm and free. The pallor of her cheeks had gone. She was alive away. But that did not matter. The theater was fascinating. Moreover, Fas-
and young again. Her usual springy steps came back and she walked briskly, ang admitted, she often met several of her relatives and townmates in the
full of strength and passion, it seemed. theater. They too, had learned to frequent the cine. Together they had a good
time.
V
Tabanata asked Okamoto what he thought of Fas-ang’s frequenting the
But what news of home? Fas-ang yearned to hear from her people back in
shows. Okamoto, being less prosperous and more conservative, did not favor
Besao Bontoc. Had the kaingins been planted with camote and corn? Her
it. He advised Tanabata to stop her. But Tanabata was too indulgent with
kinsmen had heard of her delivering a child, and they sent a boy-cousin to
Fas-ang even to intimate such a thing to her. Though inclined to be cautious,
inquire about her. He was told to see if Fas-ang lived happily, and if her
he loved her too much to deny her any pleasure she desired.
Japanese husband really treated her well. I not, they would do him harm. The
Bontocs or busol are fierce. Thus Fas-ang, after the day’s duties, would run off to the show. Tanabata had
grown even more lenient. He could never muster courage to restrain her,
The cousin came. Tanabata entertained the cousin well. He bought short pant
much less scold her. She never missed a single change of program in the
for the Igorot boy and told him to do away with his G-strings. The boy was
theater. Tanabata did not know what to do with her. He could not understand
much pleased. After a week, the boy said he would go back. And Tanabata
what drew her to the cine. For his part, he was wholly disinterested in screen
bought some more clothes for him.
shows which he had attended but once long ago, and with which he had been
Fas-ang saw her cousin off. Tanabata was then in the shed house, cultivating disgusted. Still Fas-ang continued to attend them as devotedly as ever.
th seedlings. Fas-ang instructed her cousin well: “Tell Ama and Ina I am
VII
happy here they must not worry about me. My husband is kind, and I’m
never in want. Giv them this little money that I have saved for them. You see, One night she did not come home. She returned in the morning. Tanabata
I have a child, so I shall live here long yet. But I do wish to go home sometime asked where she had slept, and she said, “With my cousin at the Campo
and see Ama and Ina. Often feel homesick. Filipino,” She had felt too lazy to walk all the way down to the valley, she said.
She wept. And when her cousin saw her tears, he wept too. Then they parted. That whole day, she remained at home. Tanabata went out to the garden.
Fas-ang rummaged among her things. She tied them into a bundle which she
VI
hid in the cor-ner. She dressed her child.
It was no hidden truth that Tanabata loved his wife dearly. In every way, he
Then, at midnight, when Tanabata as sound asleep, she escaped. She carried
tried to show his affection. Once, he had not allowed her to go to the city to
her child and ran down the road where her lover was waiting. They would
see the movies. But he repented after wards and sent her there without her
return to Bontoc, their native place. The man had been dismissed from the
asking.
military post at Camp John Hay.
Fas-ang soon became a cine addict. She went to shows with one of the garden
Fas-ang left a note on the table before she left. It had been written by the man
boys Sometimes, she took her baby along. She carried the baby on her back.
who had seduced her. It read: Do not follow us. We are returning home to
They had to take kerosene lamp with them to light their way coming home.
Bontoc. If you follow us, you will be killed on the way!
They would return near midnight.
When Tanabata had the letter read to him he dared not pursue the truant
Tanabata, alone, would .stay at home. He sat up late reading his books of
lovers. The note was too positive to mean anything but death if disobeyed. He
Japanese novels. When Fas-ang arrived, she would be garrulous with what
was grieved. And for three days, he could hardly eat. He felt bitter, being
she had seen. Tanabata would tuck her under the thick blankets to warm her
betrayed and deserted. Helpless, he was full of hatred for the man who had
cold feet. She would then easily fall asleep, and after she had dozed off, he
lured his wife away.
would retire himself.
Okamoto, faithful indeed, came to comfort his friend. He offered to come
with his wife and live with Tanabata. But Tanabata would not consider their
proposition. Nor could he be comforted. He politely begged his friends to
leave him alone. He had suddenly become gloomy. He sat in his hut all day
and drank much liquor. He shut himself in. The truck garden was neglected.
Months passed. The rows of cabbage were rotting. Tanabata was thought to
be crazy. He did not care what happened to the plants. He had dismissed the
new help-ers that were left him. Weed outgrew the seedlings. The rainy
season set in, and the field was devastated by a storm. Tanabata lived on his
savings.
The rainy season passed. Sunny, cold November came to the hills. In a month
more, Tanabata would perhaps go home to die in Japan. His despondency
had not been lessened. When he thought of his lost boy, he wept all the more.
VIII
But, one evening, Fas-ang came back. She stood behind the house, scanning
the wreck left of what was formerly a blooming garden. She had heard back
home, from wayfarers who had returned, of Tanabata. The man who had
alienated the affections of Fas-ang had left her.
“Your Japanese husband is said to be ruining himself,” some reported.
“He pines for you and his boy,” others brought back.
“It is said he is thinking of going home across the sea, but he must see his
little son first,” still others informed her.
Fas-ang at once decided. “Then I must return to him before it is too late.”
And so she came.
In the twilight, she stood, uncertain, hesitant. She heard the low mournful
tune arising from the bamboo flute that Tanabata was playing, What
loneliness! Fas-ang wondered if that now seemingly forbidding house was
still open for her. Could she dispense the gloom that had settled upon it?
There was a woman’s yearning in her. But she wavered in her resolve, feeling
ashamed.
The music had ceased. She almost turned away when the child, holding her
hand, cried aloud. Tanabata looked out of the window, startled. He saw the
mother and child. He rushed outside, exultant. Gently, he took them by their
hands and led them slowly into the house. Then he lighted the big lamp that
had long hung from the ceiling, unused.
“How My Brother Leon Brought Home A Wife”
by Manuel E. Arguilla
She stepped down from the carretela of Ca Celin with a quick, delicate grace.
She was lovely. SHe was tall. She looked up to my brother with a smile, and
her forehead was on a level with his mouth.
"You are Baldo," she said and placed her hand lightly on my shoulder. Her
nails were long, but they were not painted. She was fragrant like a morning
when papayas are in bloom. And a small dimple appeared momently high on
her right cheek. "And this is Labang of whom I have heard so much." She
held the wrist of one hand with the other and looked at Labang, and Labang
never stopped chewing his cud. He swallowed and brought up to his mouth
more cud and the sound of his insides was like a drum.
I laid a hand on Labang's massive neck and said to her: "You may scratch his
forehead now."
She hesitated and I saw that her eyes were on the long, curving horns. But
she came and touched Labang's forehead with her long fingers, and Labang
never stopped chewing his cud except that his big eyes half closed. And by
and by she was scratching his forehead very daintily.
My brother Leon put down the two trunks on the grassy side of the road. He
paid Ca Celin twice the usual fare from the station to the edge of Nagrebcan.
Then he was standing beside us, and she turned to him eagerly. I watched Ca
Celin, where he stood in front of his horse, and he ran his fingers through its
forelock and could not keep his eyes away from her.
"Maria---" my brother Leon said.
He did not say Maring. He did not say Mayang. I knew then that he had
always called her Maria and that to us all she would be Maria; and in my
mind I said 'Maria' and it was a beautiful name.
"Yes, Noel."
Now where did she get that name? I pondered the matter quietly to myself,
thinking Father might not like it. But it was only the name of my brother
Leon said backward and it sounded much better that way.

"There is Nagrebcan, Maria," my brother Leon said, gesturing widely toward
the west.
She moved close to him and slipped her arm through his. And after a while
she said quietly.
"You love Nagrebcan, don't you, Noel?"
Ca Celin drove away hi-yi-ing to his horse loudly. At the bend of the camino
real where the big duhat tree grew, he rattled the handle of his braided rattan
whip against the spokes of the wheel.
We stood alone on the roadside.
The sun was in our eyes, for it was dipping into the bright sea. The sky was
wide and deep and very blue above us: but along the saw-tooth rim of the
Katayaghan hills to the southwest flamed huge masses of clouds. Before us
the fields swam in a golden haze through which floated big purple and red
and yellow bubbles when I looked at the sinking sun. Labang's white coat,
which I had wshed and brushed that morning with coconut husk, glistened
like beaten cotton under the lamplight and his horns appeared tipped with
fire.
He faced the sun and from his mouth came a call so loud and vibrant that the
earth seemed to tremble underfoot. And far away in the middle of the field a
cow lowed softly in answer.
"Hitch him to the cart, Baldo," my brother Leon said, laughing, and she
laughed with him a big uncertainly, and I saw that he had put his arm around
her shoulders.
"Why does he make that sound?" she asked. "I have never heard the like of
it."
"There is not another like it," my brother Leon said. "I have yet to hear
another bull call like Labang. In all the world there is no other bull like him."
She was smiling at him, and I stopped in the act of tying the sinta across
Labang's neck to the opposite end of the yoke, because her teeth were very
white, her eyes were so full of laughter, and there was the small dimple high
up on her right cheek.
"If you continue to talk about him like that, either I shall fall in love with him
or become greatly jealous."
My brother Leon laughed and she laughed and they looked at each other and
it seemed to me there was a world of laughter between them and in them.
I climbed into the cart over the wheel and Labang would have bolted, for he
was always like that, but I kept a firm hold on his rope. He was restless and
would not stand still, so that my brother Leon had to say "Labang" several
times. When he was quiet again, my brother Leon lifted the trunks into the
cart, placing the smaller on top.
She looked down once at her high-heeled shoes, then she gave her left hand
to my brother Leon, placed a foot on the hub of the wheel, and in one breath
she had swung up into the cart. Oh, the fragrance of her. But Labang was
fairly dancing with impatience and it was all I could do to keep him from
running away.
"Give me the rope, Baldo," my brother Leon said. "Maria, sit down on the hay
and hold on to anything." Then he put a foot on the left shaft and that instand
labang leaped forward. My brother Leon laughed as he drew himself up to the
top of the side of the cart and made the slack of the rope hiss above the back
of labang. The wind whistled against my cheeks and the rattling of the wheels
on the pebbly road echoed in my ears.
She sat up straight on the bottom of the cart, legs bent togther to one side,
her skirts spread over them so that only the toes and heels of her shoes were
visible. her eyes were on my brother Leon's back; I saw the wind on her hair.
When Labang slowed down, my brother Leon handed to me the rope. I knelt
on the straw inside the cart and pulled on the rope until Labang was merely
shuffling along, then I made him turn around.
"What is it you have forgotten now, Baldo?" my brother Leon said.
I did not say anything but tickled with my fingers the rump of Labang; and
away we went---back to where I had unhitched and waited for them. The sun
had sunk and down from the wooded sides of the Katayaghan hills shadows
were stealing into the fields. High up overhead the sky burned with many
slow fires.
When I sent Labang down the deep cut that would take us to the dry bed of
the Waig which could be used as a path to our place during the dry season,
my brother Leon laid a hand on my shoulder and said sternly:
"Who told you to drive through the fields tonight?"
His hand was heavy on my shoulder, but I did not look at him or utter a word
until we were on the rocky bottom of the Waig.
"Baldo, you fool, answer me before I lay the rope of Labang on you. Why do
you follow the Wait instead of the camino real?"
His fingers bit into my shoulder.
"Father, he told me to follow the Waig tonight, Manong."
Swiftly, his hand fell away from my shoulder and he reached for the rope of
Labang. Then my brother Leon laughed, and he sat back, and laughing still,
he said:
"And I suppose Father also told you to hitch Labang to the cart and meet us
with him instead of with Castano and the calesa."
Without waiting for me to answer, he turned to her and said, "Maria, why do
you think Father should do that, now?" He laughed and added, "Have you
ever seen so many stars before?"
I looked back and they were sitting side by side, leaning against the trunks,
hands clasped across knees. Seemingly, but a man's height above the tops of
the steep banks of the Wait, hung the stars. But in the deep gorge the
shadows had fallen heavily, and even the white of Labang's coat was merely a
dim, grayish blur. Crickets chirped from their homes in the cracks in the
banks. The thick, unpleasant smell of dangla bushes and cooling sun-heated
earth mingled with the clean, sharp scent of arrais roots exposed to the night
air and of the hay inside the cart.
"Look, Noel, yonder is our star!" Deep surprise and gladness were in her
voice. Very low in the west, almost touching the ragged edge of the bank, was
the star, the biggest and brightest in the sky.
"I have been looking at it," my brother Leon said. "Do you remember how I
would tell you that when you want to see stars you must come to Nagrebcan?"
"Yes, Noel," she said. "Look at it," she murmured, half to herself. "It is so
many times bigger and brighter than it was at Ermita beach."
"The air here is clean, free of dust and smoke."
"So it is, Noel," she said, drawing a long breath.
"Making fun of me, Maria?"
She laughed then and they laughed together and she took my brother Leon's
hand and put it against her face.
I stopped Labang, climbed down, and lighted the lantern that hung from the
cart between the wheels.
"Good boy, Baldo," my brother Leon said as I climbed back into the cart, and
my heart sant.
Now the shadows took fright and did not crowd so near. Clumps of andadasi
and arrais flashed into view and quickly disappeared as we passed by. Ahead,
the elongated shadow of Labang bobbled up and down and swayed drunkenly
from side to side, for the lantern rocked jerkily with the cart.
"Have we far to go yet, Noel?" she asked.
"Ask Baldo," my brother Leon said, "we have been neglecting him."
"I am asking you, Baldo," she said.
Without looking back, I answered, picking my words slowly:
"Soon we will get out of the Wait and pass into the fields. After the fields is
home---Manong."

"So near already."
I did not say anything more because I did not know what to make of the tone
of her voice as she said her last words. All the laughter seemed to have gone
out of her. I waited for my brother Leon to say something, but he was not
saying anything. Suddenly he broke out into song and the song was 'Sky Sown
with Stars'---the same that he and Father sang when we cut hay in the fields
at night before he went away to study. He must have taught her the song
because she joined him, and her voice flowed into his like a gentle stream
meeting a stronger one. And each time the wheels encountered a big rock, her
voice would catch in her throat, but my brother Leon would sing on, until,
laughing softly, she would join him again.
Then we were climbing out into the fields, and through the spokes of the
wheels the light of the lantern mocked the shadows. Labang quickened his
steps. The jolting became more frequent and painful as we crossed the low
dikes.
"But it is so very wide here," she said. The light of the stars broke and
scattered the darkness so that one could see far on every side, though
indistinctly.
"You miss the houses, and the cars, and the people and the noise, don't you?"
My brother Leon stopped singing.
"Yes, but in a different way. I am glad they are not here."
With difficulty I turned Labang to the left, for he wanted to go straight on. He
was breathing hard, but I knew he was more thirsty than tired. In a little
while we drope up the grassy side onto the camino real.
"---you see," my brother Leon was explaining, "the camino real curves around
the foot of the Katayaghan hills and passes by our house. We drove through
the fields because---but I'll be asking Father as soon as we get home."
"Noel," she said.
"Yes, Maria."
"I am afraid. He may not like me."
"Does that worry you still, Maria?" my brother Leon said. "From the way you
talk, he might be an ogre, for all the world. Except when his leg that was
wounded in the Revolution is troubling him, Father is the mildest-tempered,
gentlest man I know."
We came to the house of Lacay Julian and I spoke to Labang loudly, but
Moning did not come to the window, so I surmised she must be eating with
the rest of her family. And I thought of the food being made ready at home
and my mouth watered. We met the twins, Urong and Celin, and I said
"Hoy!" calling them by name. And they shouted back and asked if my brother
Leon and his wife were with me. And my brother Leon shouted to them and
then told me to make Labang run; their answers were lost in the noise of the
wheels.
I stopped labang on the road before our house and would have gotten down
but my brother Leon took the rope and told me to stay in the cart. He turned
Labang into the open gate and we dashed into our yard. I thought we would
crash into the camachile tree, but my brother Leon reined in Labang in time.
There was light downstairs in the kitchen, and Mother stood in the doorway,
and I could see her smiling shyly. My brother Leon was helping Maria over
the wheel. The first words that fell from his lips after he had kissed Mother's
hand were:
"Father... where is he?"
"He is in his room upstairs," Mother said, her face becoming serious. "His leg
is bothering him again."
I did not hear anything more because I had to go back to the cart to unhitch
Labang. But I hardly tied him under the barn when I heard Father calling me.
I met my brother Leon going to bring up the trunks. As I passed through the
kitchen, there were Mother and my sister Aurelia and Maria and it seemed to
me they were crying, all of them.
There was no light in Father's room. There was no movement. He sat in the
big armchair by the western window, and a star shone directly through it. He
was smoking, but he removed the roll of tobacco from his mouth when he saw
me. He laid it carefully on the windowsill before speaking.
"Did you meet anybody on the way?" he asked.
"No, Father," I said. "Nobody passes through the Waig at night."
He reached for his roll of tobacco and hithced himself up in the chair.
"She is very beautiful, Father."
"Was she afraid of Labang?" My father had not raised his voice, but the room
seemed to resound with it. And again I saw her eyes on the long curving
horns and the arm of my brother Leon around her shoulders.
"No, Father, she was not afraid."
"On the way---"
"She looked at the stars, Father. And Manong Leon sang."
"What did he sing?"
"---Sky Sown with Stars... She sang with him."
He was silent again. I could hear the low voices of Mother and my sister
Aurelia downstairs. There was also the voice of my brother Leon, and I
thought that Father's voice must have been like it when Father was young. He
had laid the roll of tobacco on the windowsill once more. I watched the smoke
waver faintly upward from the lighted end and vanish slowly into the night
outside.
The door opened and my brother Leon and Maria came in.
"Have you watered Labang?" Father spoke to me.
I told him that Labang was resting yet under the barn.
"It is time you watered him, my son," my father said.
I looked at Maria and she was lovely. She was tall. Beside my brother Leon,
she was tall and very still. Then I went out, and in the darkened hall the
fragrance of her was like a morning when papayas are in bloom.
LOVE IN THE CORNHUSKS by Aida L. Rivera
Tinang stopped before the Señora’s gate and adjusted the baby’s cap. The
dogs that came to bark at the gate were strange dogs, big-mouthed animals
with a sense of superiority. They stuck their heads through the hogfence,
lolling their tongues and straining. Suddenly, from the gumamela row, a little
black mongrel emerged and slithered through the fence with ease. It came to
her, head down and body quivering.
“Bantay. Ay, Bantay!” she exclaimed as the little dog laid its paws upon her
shirt to sniff the baby on her arm. The baby was afraid and cried. The big
animals barked with displeasure.
Tito, the young master, had seen her and was calling to his mother. “Ma, it’s
Tinang. Ma, Ma, it’s Tinang.” He came running down to open the gate.
“Aba, you are so tall now, Tito.”
He smiled his girl’s smile as he stood by, warding the dogs off. Tinang passed
quickly up the veranda stairs lined with ferns and many-colored bougainville.
On landing, she paused to wipe her shoes carefully. About her, the Señora’s
white and lavender butterfly orchids fluttered delicately in the sunshine. She
noticed though that the purple waling-waling that had once been her task to
shade from the hot sun with banana leaves and to water with mixture of
charcoal and eggs and water was not in bloom.
“Is no one covering the waling-waling now?” Tinang asked. “It will die.”
“Oh, the maid will come to cover the orchids later.”
The Señora called from inside. “Tinang, let me see your baby. Is it a boy?”
“Yes, Ma,” Tito shouted from downstairs. “And the ears are huge!”
“What do you expect,” replied his mother; “the father is a Bagobo. Even
Tinang looks like a Bagobo now.”
Tinang laughed and felt warmness for her former mistress and the boy Tito.
She sat self-consciously on the black narra sofa, for the first time a visitor.
Her eyes clouded. The sight of the Señora’s flaccidly plump figure, swathed in
a loose waist-less housedress that came down to her ankles, and the faint
scent of agua de colonia blended with kitchen spice, seemed to her the
essence of the comfortable world, and she sighed thinking of the long walk
home through the mud, the baby’s legs straddled to her waist, and Inggo, her
husband, waiting for her, his body stinking of tuba and sweat, squatting on
the floor, clad only in his foul undergarments.
“Ano, Tinang, is it not a good thing to be married?” the Señora asked, pitying
Tinang because her dress gave way at the placket and pressed at her swollen
breasts. It was, as a matter of fact, a dress she had given Tinang a long time
ago.
“It is hard, Señora, very hard. Better that I were working here again.”
“There!” the Señora said. “Didn’t I tell you what it would be like, huh? . . . that
you would be a slave to your husband and that you would work a baby
eternally strapped to you. Are you not pregnant again?”
Tinang squirmed at the Señora’s directness but admitted she was.
“Hala! You will have a dozen before long.” The Señora got up. “Come, I will
give you some dresses and an old blanket that you can cut into things for the
baby.”
They went into a cluttered room which looked like a huge closet and as the
Señora sorted out some clothes, Tinang asked, “How is Señor?”
“Ay, he is always losing his temper over the tractor drivers. It is not the way it
was when Amado was here. You remember what a good driver he was. The
tractors were always kept in working condition. But now . . . I wonder why he
left all of a sudden. He said he would be gone for only two days . . . .”
“I don’t know,” Tinang said. The baby began to cry. Tinang shushed him with
irritation.
“Oy, Tinang, come to the kitchen; your Bagobito is hungry.”
For the next hour, Tinang sat in the kitchen with an odd feeling; she watched
the girl who was now in possession of the kitchen work around with a
handkerchief clutched I one hand. She had lipstick on too, Tinang noted. the
girl looked at her briefly but did not smile. She set down a can of evaporated
milk for the baby and served her coffee and cake. The Señora drank coffee
with her and lectured about keeping the baby’s stomach bound and training it
to stay by itself so she could work. Finally, Tinang brought up, haltingly, with
phrases like “if it will not offend you” and “if you are not too busy” the
purpose of her visit–which was to ask Señora to be a madrina in baptism. The
Señora readily assented and said she would provide the baptismal clothes
and the fee for the priest. It was time to go.
“When are you coming again, Tinang?” the Señore asked as Tinang got the
baby ready. “Don’t forget the bundle of clothes and . . . oh, Tinang, you better
stop by the drugstore. They asked me once whether you were still with us.
You have a letter there and I was going to open it to see if there was bad news
but I thought you would be coming.”
A letter! Tinang’s heart beat violently. Somebody is dead; I know somebody is
dead, she thought. She crossed herself and after thanking the Señora
profusely, she hurried down. The dogs came forward and Tito had to restrain
them. “Bring me some young corn next time, Tinang,” he called after her.
Tinang waited a while at the drugstore which was also the post office of the
barrio. Finally, the man turned to her: “Mrs., do you want medicine for your
baby or for yourself?”
“No, I came for my letter. I was told I have a letter.”
“And what is your name, Mrs.?” He drawled.
“Constantina Tirol.”
The man pulled a box and slowly went through the pile of envelopes most of
which were scribbled in pencil, “Tirol, Tirol, Tirol. . . .” He finally pulled out a
letter and handed it to her. She stared at the unfamiliar scrawl. It was not
from her sister and she could think of no one else who could write to her.
Santa Maria, she thought; maybe something has happened to my sister.
“Do you want me to read it for you?”
“No, no.” She hurried from the drugstore, crushed that he should think her
illiterate. With the baby on one arm and the bundle of clothes on the other
and the letter clutched in her hand she found herself walking toward home.
The rains had made a deep slough of the clay road and Tinang followed the
prints left by the men and the carabaos that had gone before her to keep from
sinking mud up to her knees. She was deep in the road before she became
conscious of her shoes. In horror, she saw that they were coated with thick,
black clay. Gingerly, she pulled off one shoe after the other with the hand still
clutching to the letter. When she had tied the shoes together with the laces
and had slung them on an arm, the baby, the bundle, and the letter were all
smeared with mud.
There must be a place to put the baby down, she thought, desperate now
about the letter. She walked on until she spotted a corner of a field where
cornhusks were scattered under a kamansi tree. She shoved together a pile of
husks with her foot and laid the baby down upon it. With a sigh, she drew the
letter from the envelope. She stared at the letter which was written in
English.
My dearest Tinay,
Hello, how is life getting along? Are you still in good condition? As for myself,
the same as usual. But you’re far from my side. It is not easy to be far from
our lover.
Tinay, do you still love me? I hope your kind and generous heart will never
fade. Someday or somehow I’ll be there again to fulfill our promise.
Many weeks and months have elapsed. Still I remember our bygone days.
Especially when I was suffering with the heat of the tractor under the heat of
the sun. I was always in despair until I imagine your personal appearance
coming forward bearing the sweetest smile that enabled me to view the
distant horizon.
Tinay, I could not return because I found that my mother was very ill. That is
why I was not able to take you as a partner of life. Please respond to my
missive at once so that I know whether you still love me or not. I hope you did
not love anybody except myself.
I think I am going beyond the limit of your leisure hours, so I close with best
wishes to you, my friends Gonding, Sefarin, Bondio, etc.
Yours forever,
Amado
P.S. My mother died last month.
Address your letter:
Mr. Amado Galauran
Binalunan, Cotabato
It was Tinang’s first love letter. A flush spread over her face and crept into her
body. She read the letter again. “It is not easy to be far from our lover. . . . I
imagine your personal appearance coming forward. . . . Someday, somehow
I’ll be there to fulfill our promise. . . .” Tinang was intoxicated. She pressed
herself against the kamansi tree.
My lover is true to me. He never meant to desert me. Amado, she thought.
Amado.
And she cried, remembering the young girl she was less than two years ago
when she would take food to Señor in the field and the laborers would eye her
furtively. She thought herself above them for she was always neat and clean
in her hometown, before she went away to work, she had gone to school and
had reached sixth grade. Her skin, too, was not as dark as those of the girls
who worked in the fields weeding around the clumps of abaca. Her lower lip
jutted out disdainfully when the farm hands spoke to her with many
flattering words. She laughed when a Bagobo with two hectares of land asked
her to marry him. It was only Amado, the tractor driver, who could look at
her and make her lower her eyes. He was very dark and wore filthy and torn
clothes on the farm but on Saturdays when he came up to the house for his
week’s salary, his hair was slicked down and he would be dressed as well as
Mr. Jacinto, the schoolteacher. Once he told her he would study in the city
night-schools and take up mechanical engineering someday. He had not said
much more to her but one afternoon when she was bidden to take some bolts
and tools to him in the field, a great excitement came over her. The shadows
moved fitfully in the bamboo groves she passed and the cool November air
edged into her nostrils sharply. He stood unmoving beside the tractor with
tools and parts scattered on the ground around him. His eyes were a black
glow as he watched her draw near. When she held out the bolts, he seized her
wrist and said: “Come,” pulling her to the screen of trees beyond. She resisted
but his arms were strong. He embraced her roughly and awkwardly, and she
trembled and gasped and clung to him. . . .
A little green snake slithered languidly into the tall grass a few yards from
the kamansi tree. Tinang started violently and remembered her child. It lay
motionless on the mat of husk. With a shriek she grabbed it wildly and
hugged it close. The baby awoke from its sleep and cries lustily. Ave Maria
Santisima. Do not punish me, she prayed, searching the baby’s skin for
marks. Among the cornhusks, the letter fell unnoticed.
*Sonnet I
*For Freedom and Democracy
*Nationalism and Culture
***These readings are to follow.