Dusk: A Novel (Modern Library Paperbacks) (10 page)

The young priest was unmoved. Ba-ac, past sixty, was taken to a cell of the
municipio
, a dank and perpetually dark enclosure smelling of urine, and was hanged there by the right hand.

Now the hand was gone, but not the anger that blazed in his mind and the venom that had inflamed his being. He could still see the young priest as he saw him then—the ivory face, the sensuous smile—even as he pronounced Ba-ac’s fate. Maybe he had not really been killed. Maybe everything was an aberration. But the image in his mind was clear, and in the muffled night, the bells which tolled confirmed only too well what he had done.

The camachile trees at last, the edge of the village, the growling of dogs. He stumbled once more at the margin of the field which they had planted to mongo beans, and bits of hard earth dug into his palm. As he rose, he glanced up to a sky sprinkled with stars.

An-no was in the yard, talking with Dalin, whose bull cart had already been unhitched. To him, Ba-ac shouted: “Hurry, hitch all the bull carts. We are leaving—all of us, we are leaving!”

An-no followed him as he rushed up the stairs to the kitchen where Mayang, her eyes red from blowing at the earthen stove, was letting a pot of rice simmer.

He drew a full pitcher from the water jar and drank, his throat making gurgling sounds, then he faced his wife, waving his left hand. “Old Woman, we must flee Po-on! Do you know what I have done? You have no time to serve that meal. Listen—all of us, your children, we have to flee …”

“You are drunk again,” Mayang said, not minding him.

“I am not!” Ba-ac shouted at her. He brandished his left arm as if it were a precious ornament he wanted her to sec. “With this hand, I smashed his face till it could not be recognized. I killed him!” Triumph, pride! “The young priest who sent your son away, who made me what I am. I killed him!”

His wife looked at him, disbelieving; then she saw his trousers grazed by dust, the white shirt speeked with red. She peered at them, touched them, then withdrew her hand in horror, for the blood had clung to her fingers.

“Yes, it is blood, Old Woman,” Ba-ac said. “I could not stop. I struck again and again.”

Mayang crumpled on her knees, wrung her hands, and animal sounds escaped her. Her wailing brought Bit-tik to the house. “Old Man, you have decreed death for yourself and shame and punishment on all of us!”

“Shame? Punishment? Disgrace?” It had filled him quickly, this courage which lifted him as well. Mayang had grown old. He looked evenly at her as she struggled to hold back her tears. “It is not disgrace I bring you, my beloved half”—he rarely used the words—“it is honor. Don’t you know what this means? I am not a servant anymore. So we must run away and hurry. Else they will find us here in the morning.”

Mayang stood up sobbing and went to their wooden trunk in a corner. Their few clothes were inside, most of which she had woven herself, her skirts, her starched
pañuelo
. An-no and Bit-tik were now in the house, silent and tense, and Ba-ac told them what to do. They listened, understood, and in an instant they were down the yard herding the animals. The neighbors—they had committed no crime other than to live in Po-on and be related to him—they must be told, then they could elect to stay and suffer, or to flee.

“It is not your sons who should tell your brothers and cousins,” Mayang told Ba-ac with derision in her voice. “Go tell them yourself. Are you not proud of what you have done? When the Guardia come, will they make distinctions?”

He needed Istak now. He would know the right words to bring the truth to them not as a bludgeon but as light. Where could that son be at this time? At the edge of the village again,
thinking, dreaming? He went out and at the wall of blackness he shouted: “Istaaakkk—Istaaakk!”

Istak came running from the direction of the dalipawen tree, his white shirt distinct in the dark.

“My son, we have no time …”Then quietly, solemnly, Ba-ac told him. Istak listened, the words cutting deeply; when it was over, he embraced the old man and wept; his father’s breath told him the deed was not the handiwork of
basi
. His father smelled of tobacco, the earth, and harsh living.

“It is my fault, Father,” Istak said bitterly. “This happened because of me. So leave then—all of you. I will stay.”

Istak knew the Guardia Civil. They were Indios like himself and yet they were different—the uniform and the gun had transformed them. What would he tell them when they came? Padre Jose had said that a father’s success could be measured only by how well he had made his children able to stand on their own. The old priest was thinking, of course, of that time when Istak would be a priest, cast adrift by the ways of the world, but strengthened by faith. To the real father who would be hunted like a mad dog, how would Istak be to him?

“Help me tell our relatives,” Ba-ac said. “I have brought disaster to them—”

He had not spoken too soon. From the houses across the mud-packed yard, his cousins, their wives, and their children came running, An-no and Bit-tik behind them, then Kardo, Ba-ac’s youngest brother, Simang—Mayang’s sister—and still others, the neighbors in the six-house village: they gathered in knots, their inquiries and anxieties a continuous murmur punctuated by exclamations—“Ay, fate!”

Ba-ac was the eldest, he was the leader, and they knew of the agony he had gone through. He did not speak of the young
priest; he told the older people equably, without justification, and they listened intently, knowing that now they would share his punishment.

“So we must seek new land beyond the mountains,” Ba-ac said to the hushed gathering. Above, the stars were out in all their splendor and the night around them was thick with the smell of earth, of sweat, of living. “We will go beyond the land of the Bagos; if need be, we can learn to live with them, start a new village, as others have already done—the many who also ran away. They cannot follow us there. They will not dare unless they come in droves and we will not be alone. Haven’t others done this?”

Ba-ac turned to Istak beside him. “Tell them, son. Tell them it is not hopeless.”

Istak turned to faces eager for solutions, for peace. He must tell them what he had always been told by Padre Jose—to have faith. As for patience and industry, they were Ilokanos born to these virtues—it was in their blood, in the very air they breathed.

“Since we have been ordered to leave anyway, we should not wait—we should look at this as a challenge. But in doing so, let us not forget the Almighty, that we go in peace although we be threatened, persecuted. This is the way of the Lord. I know some of you may want to stay …” From the older people, an immediate sound: one said, “No, we are all related, we will stay together.”

“How will we live with little grain? Will we eat the seed rice?” his uncle Kardo asked.

“We will live as we have always lived—frugally. We will eat bamboo shoots, the green leaves of the mango and butterfly trees. And the forest provides—we can trap deer, wild fowl. We have known difficult times—remember when we had so little food we ate the pith of the big palm?”

They murmured approval. They were Ilokanos—they would
not starve anywhere. And they also believed Istak because he was the most learned, the most skilled in a language none of them could understand. Ever since his return, they had flocked around him, urging him to set up a school so that they, too, would know how to read and write—not just the rich mestizos and favorites of the friars. They would sustain him, weave his clothes, cut his hair, and give him enough grain to fill his granary so that he would not have to hold the handle of a plow and coarsen his palms. He had, of course, become enthusiastic about it, how much he could do—those years in Cabugaw were not to be wasted. He had already fashioned a series of lessons from the elementary
cartilla
to the higher form that would include philosophy and some science—he was going to impart to the young people of Po-on all that Padre Jose had given him.

He must tell them that there would be no school, and worse—that they really had to leave Po-on. This was all that the new priest wanted them to know. Now he would tell them that they had only the night to prepare, that sunrise must not catch them here. He remembered what Padre Jose had once told him of history, how the bearer of bad news was himself dispatched with the sword although the bad news that he brought was not of his own making.

To the right, across the level patch of ground, was the house of Kardo, his father’s youngest brother. Istak felt closest to him, perhaps because Kardo was more like an older brother. What mattered were his wife and his five children. He must leave, and not in peace but in fear. They had been welded together, not just by blood or marriage, but by work, for they had always shared what could not be done by just one man or one family—the planting of rice, the harvesting, the repair of the dikes, of the irrigation canals, and of their homes.

Before the clump of bamboo which formed an arbor, a gateway to the village, was the house of his mother’s sister, Simang. Her husband and children were before him, repeating, “Must we leave now?”

“But I will stay behind,” Istak said quietly. He had decided on this, to stay and to beg with them who ruled, that what Ba-ac did was on impulse. He would take whatever punishment they would mete out because it was for him that his father went to see the new priest. He spoke their language, he had proven his loyalty; they would understand. Yet he recoiled at the thought of what might happen; the Guardia did not care about justice; they knew only how to exact punishment.

Kardo told Istak there was no sense in being left behind, but Istak was adamant. If it was a guide they needed, Dalin knew the way.

He got an armful of firewood in the woodpile and tied it underneath the carriage of the cart. From below the houses, they gathered the chickens in bamboo coops. The pigs were trussed up. They did not have too many clothes—for each family just one wooden trunk and no more.

Tears in her eyes, Mayang dismantled the ancient loom under the house and carefully bundled the levers, the shuttles. The loom was her grandmother’s. Would there be cotton in the new land? They would build new homes and there was no time to uproot the posts, the sturdy sagat and parunapin which their fathers had dragged from the mountain. There were a few old posts, however, from the old house—as strong as ever—and these they tied underneath the carts.

They worked strenuously, loading what little food there was, even the green papayas in the yard. Daylight was nearing and stars glimmered in the bowl of sky; they would fade soon and the feared sunlight would be upon them.

Six carts—thirty people, including the children—that was all of Po-on. They would join the many others, the
mal vivir
who had fled the Ilokos whenever there was a revolt or a crime against the Spaniards.

An-no was finished with his chores and went to Istak. “Why don’t you want to come with us?”

Istak held his brother by the shoulder; An-no was taller and bigger of build. “This is what you want, is it not, my brother?”

An-no shook his arm off and his voice was no longer rimmed with bluster. “We need you, Manong,” he said. “No one among us can speak their tongue. This is a journey where wisdom is needed.”

“I have to stay,” Istak said simply. “I must speak to them, beg them.”

The dogs started to howl. Among the children roused from sleep and uncomfortable in the bull carts, one started to cry.

“This is one time we should stay together,” An-no said. “Can you not see that Father needs help? What have you really learned in Cabugaw?”

“What Does one need to know?” Istak asked, holding up his hands to show the raw blisters, but in the dark, An-no could not sec.

He could make out An-no’s angry face. “Stay behind, then,” his brother said, “and recite your Latin. Maybe the fruits of the trees will fall at your feet.” Then he wheeled and headed toward the line of carts being readied.

Alone, covered by the night which he sometimes wished was permanent, Istak cried softly. He was not going to be a martyr, he was not going to be heroic. It was they who were leaving who would be more than brave; the
tulisanes
preyed along the coast and the roads that led out of the Ilokos. If they went by sea, they would probably be safer, and if bad weather came, they could always head for some cove. But by sea, they could also be
easily tracked and caught by the Spanish steamboats. If only Padre Jose were here to plead for him, for them.

In the house, Mayang had finished putting everything of value into the trunk. She had also gathered the woven bamboo crowns for the pots to sit on, the pine splinters for kindling wood, and lengths of rope. From a peg that stuck out of the bamboo wall, she took her most precious possession, a tortoiseshell comb inlaid with a thin veneer of gold. In the flicker of the oil lamp, Ba-ac recognized its gleam. “You are not wearing that,” he said.

“If I will die running,” Mayang said, “I might just as well die with this on my head.”

Their most precious possession, however, was not their good clothes or, for the women, their tortoiseshell combs. It was the
carabao
which they treasured most, because without this docile animal, they would not be able to farm; they would go hungry. Its skin had no pores and had to be cooled with a daily bath in the creek or with water from the well.

From under the house, Ba-ac gathered the golden sheaves of tobacco hung to dry. They had been harvested two weeks before and some of the leaves were still greenish and not ready for smoking. The
municipio
was going to buy it all, but he would not give them that privilege now; he would need a lot to smoke, to chew, and to barter.

Then they were ready; a big pot of rice had been cooked and coffee had been brewed from roasted corn and flavored with thick molasses. Toward the cast, still no glimmer of sunrise. They would not wait for daylight.

Why should we be rooted here, in a land which is not ours? All over the north, in the past, men had fled to the forest. Free men,
they cleared the land and started anew, well beyond the claws of the Guardia Civil, the friars and their fawning acolytes. No less a man than old Padre Jose had spoken about them when they had pressed beyond Tirad, down the fertile valley of Nueva Segovia. They were everywhere, with new names, new lives. They could start anew, too.