Dusk: A Novel (Modern Library Paperbacks) (11 page)

Not me, Istak told himself. If he stayed he could perhaps explain—hold back the storm that would descend and engulf them all. Explain he would, not with words but with his faith in the justness of God.

“I will be safe, Mother,” he assured Mayang, standing by the lead cart which An-no would drive. Behind them, tethered with maguey twine, were the work animals, a
carabao
with a calf and two cows. In Po-on, they had the most, but where they were going they would all be equal. Six carts altogether, with children wrapped in coarse blankets, for it was cool. Underneath the carts and behind them stoves and cooking pots were carefully tied. Six carts, six families—how could they travel without being seen? If they went singly, they would fall prey to robbers who ambushed in the foothills and isolated distances. If they went together, they could easily be tracked, questioned, found out; now, more than ever, they needed cunning, which, perhaps, Istak would be able to give them.

“I will follow, Mother,” he reiterated. “It will not be difficult to trace you. I just want to be sure, to know what will happen to Po-on.”

“Don’t look back, then,” Mayang said, her voice sad. “Keep us in your mind.”

Istak walked with them to the edge of the village, well beyond the bamboo grove, down the gully to the open fields, the carts in single file, their solid wooden wheels creaking. They must be oiled, Istak reminded his brother. In the darkness, he
could make out the familiar faces, the nephews and nieces, the cousins he had grown up with. And as Dalin’s cart passed—the seventh and last, she reached out and held his hand briefly. A dull ache coursed through him, the warmth of her hand filling him with warmth as well; so young and already a widow. Would she be able to show them the way? And what would happen to her? To them?

4

T
he road to Vigan was well traveled. Ba-ac and his brothers had gone to the capital when they were conscripted to work on the governor’s mansion and on the road to the south. They would not take that road—in every town they would be stopped by the Guardia, who would have been warned by telegraph. If they were not detained, their chickens, even their work animals would be taken.

But time was in their favor. The rivers were dry and the trails would no longer be rivulets of mud. They would skirt the foothills of the Cordilleras through land which they were familiar with. In the day, they would rest while the men scouted what lay ahead and when night came, they would be on their way again. There were enough hollows, folds in the hills and bamboo groves to hide them. They had bows and arrows tipped with
iron, and their bolos were sharp. If they were lucky, they could even have wild boar or deer meat.

Daylight now. The sun rode the heavens and banished the dew that had covered the grass, glistening like many jewels. They were near the Cabugaw foothills, where the tall grass still grew lush and green on the dikes. They had traveled slowly on trails not often used. The
carabao
hooves had also dug a rhythm of hollows on the ground, and in places where the runners of sleds had cut, the ridges were high and it was difficult for the carts to roll smoothly and straight.

Ba-ac in the lead cart saw it behind, the cloud of dust in the first flush of morning far down to the horizon—the Guardia finally coming to Po-on.

The bend of the river was to their left—actually an expanse of sandy loam, boulders, and more scraggly growths of grass and stunted camachile trees no taller than a man. It was an act of God, Istak would have said, that they were there at that very moment. “Hurry! Hurry!” the old man shouted at the carts behind him. “Down the gully, all of you. Behind the grass, hide where you cannot be seen. And the animals—keep them quiet. Unhitch the carts!”

He was a leader, the repository of wisdom, though he had but one arm. They were all afraid even if they had done nothing. They would protect Ba-ac, too, because they were together, related by blood. Now, the morning sun poured on them. They waited, the mothers shushing their children, the men silently looking at one another. The dust cloud raised by the horses drew nearer and though they could not hear them, they could see the cloud disappear; they were crossing farther up the river and in a while, the dust cloud appeared again, a wraith on the horizon.

The animals did not make a sound. A long, long wait—then
it came, the crack of a gun echoing across the fields. Ba-ac went up the incline and peered at the distance.

Toward the east, beyond the thin line of bamboo and trees, a wisp of smoke plumed up. The smoke thickened and soon the trail of dust again, going back toward them. In the distance, the flames shot up with spirals of gray smoke. Po-on was burning! They did not even leave the houses for the next tenants to move into. Years of sweat had been poured into that village, the roofs they shaped, the posts they dragged from the forests. Everything was in that pillar of smoke reaching up to the cloudless sky. The men cursed, the women wept silently.

“I will go back,” Dalin said resolutely after some time. “They are not after me, they have nothing to blame me for or accuse me of. I am not from Po-on …”

“What can you do even if you went back?” An-no asked. “If they burned Po-on, surely, they must have killed Istak, too, or taken him. They will catch you, torture you, and then they will know where we are … and where we are going.”

“You don’t know what I have gone through to be alive,” the young woman said, looking straight at the man who, she knew, wanted her to stay, not just for her safety, but for himself. She hitched her cart. “Do not go away. I will return here,” she told Ba-ac.

They are gone. Istak turned over the words, feeling their bite. He glanced around at the houses, empty now and shrouded by night. How would it all look when daylight came—this ghost of a village, without the voices of children, the grunt of animals? Even now, he could imagine his mother’s voice summoning the pigs to the trough, “Riii—say, Riii—say”; Ba-ac calling for the young calf to come home. “Ooooowah-ngek … 
Ooooowah-ngek …” In their hurry, they must have left behind many precious things. Not all the chickens were in the coops, the firewood, the sheaves of tobacco were still under the house, the old pots, the seeds of mango, of tomato, and eggplant were still hanging in the caves to dry. Even this wooden mortar on which he sat, its smooth hollow recessed deep by the constant pounding of pestles. As a boy he had helped his mother pound rice in it after the stalks were first threshed in a long wooden trough hewn from solid wood. The pestle had callused his hand. He had loved the rhythmic sound of the pounding if there were three of them at the mortar, the thuds following one another and echoing in the quiet. It was not the grain which he had enjoyed pounding, though; it was the boiled bananas mixed with young coconut meat and cakes of cane sugar. The bananas became pulpy and sticky, they sucked at the pestle, and part of the skill in pounding was in the ability to withdraw the pestle quickly before the next came crashing down.

An-no had argued against bringing the mortar, for it was heavy, so they brought only the pestles. He wondered if they would be able to find another trunk as solid and as hardy as this.

From its perch on the guava tree near the house a rooster crowed. Istak looked up at the sky, at the stars that still studded it like gems. The east had started to pale; he could hope for the morrow—this was what Padre Jose had always said, although his father had long since given up the fervent prayer. Padre Jose—a rock of virtue, of kindness, maybe because he had spent more than forty years in Filipinas. After dinner, in the early evenings, he would indulge in his only vice—a glass of
tinto dulce
, which Istak served. He had once caught Istak tasting the wine and he had roared with his only expletive:
“¡Carajo!”
But he had, perhaps, immediately felt so miserable at having to scold
his favorite acolyte that he gave the young man instead one glass—one full glass—to sip in his presence.

Istak had gotten drunk, but Padre Jose was drunker and started to sing of his youth in a voice out of tune and loud.

And on Istak’s twenty-first birthday, he was summoned to the musty room where the old priest slept. And from an ancient cabinet he brought out a ledger bordered with gold and gave it to Istak. It was handsomer than the ledgers he used for the registry of births, deaths, and marriages. Istak was dumbstruck by the richness of the gift. The old priest said, “Here, Eustaquio—write down your thoughts. In Latin because you know it well now …”

He had expected that year to enter the Vigan seminary and take the ledger with him, but when he left Cabugaw he also left it behind. The young priest would inspect his things and it would seem as if he had pilfered expensive church property. He left it in the sacristy among the other ledgers. It all came to mind, what he had written one early dawn like this when visions of the future were sunny, even in that dreary room behind the sacristy where the acolytes slept.

He wrote:

So they are gone and, as he promised, he would follow them to Solana, to the valley, which Dalin said would be their haven. He would take the shortest route, cross the Cordilleras in Tirad, which he already knew, then risk the journey through Igorot country, hoping the friends he had made there would remember him.

Would he be able to leave? He had decided to suffer in his father’s stead—so stay he must so that they could leave without being hounded. He would explain, he would beg, he would tell them his forfeited life was just as good. And perhaps there would be compassion for him; perhaps Padre Jose would intercede, tell them what a good and loyal subject he was. After what his father had done, there was no more hope—ever—of his going to Vigan. Of what use was this plodding, then? He was not a farmer; he must learn how to become one, to leave behind the intoxicating world of books. It had occurred to him how he had often felt a pang of guilt when he was still in Cabugaw, remembering his brothers and parents immersed in the drudgery of Po-on. He had been untrue to them, he could not pay back even a
kusing
of the debt he owed them all. Now was his chance to redeem himself. These were the thoughts badgering him when his eyes became heavy with sleep, and he lowered himself onto the polished floor of the threshing trough.

He woke up to the thunder of horses’ hooves on the hardened earth. He rose quickly and recognized Capitán Gualberto of the Lawag garrison, a shock of blue-and-black uniform in the morning light, his golden epaulets gleaming. He had come to the convent so many times, always carefully groomed, his boots
shiny, his uniform well pressed, his short-cropped hair trimmed so that the white of his scalp just above the nape and the cars shone. On these occasions Istak had served him hot chocolate and rice cakes, and the Guardia officer had always thanked him in a raspy, effeminate voice belying the anger that burned in him, anger at the recalcitrant Igorots whose domain was denied him, anger at the secret enemies of Spain, the masons. Maybe Capitán Gualberto would remember, maybe he would consider his plea.

With the officer was Capitán Berong and six Indio Guardia. Capitán Berong’s white shirt was drenched with sweat and dirtied.

Istak rushed to meet them. To Capitán Berong, first, then to the Spanish officer, his eyes beseeching, in polite Spanish, as was expected of him, his good morning, then: “I beg for mercy, Apo …”

It was as if Capitán Berong, who had asked him to teach his daughters, had never known him. “He is the son,” the capitán said to the Spaniard, his voice rimmed with derision. “Evil is in him as well.” Was this the same man who had said he, Eustaquio Salvador, was needed in Cabugaw?

Capitán Gualberto drew the revolver from his holster. “And where are they? And your father with one arm?”

He did not want to lie, but God forgive me, I must protect them, I must be worthy of the blood that flows in me, and it came out quickly, the words carefully chosen, “Apo, when Capitán Berong said that we must leave Po-on where we were all born, we followed what we were ordered to do. Except for me, they all left yesterday, Apo. I chose to remain, to watch over this village in the hope that I—I may be allowed to stay”—he glanced at Capitán Berong—“perhaps to teach … but if by leaving they have committed a crime, then take me in their stead …”

“That is easy,” Capitán Gualberto said, taking aim with his revolver. “Spanish justice triumphs again.”

How Does Death come? Dalin,
Ave Maria, purísima
—a rod of black catching a glint of sun, the hole—the big, black hole, Dalin,
Ama mi adda ca sadi langit
, the spark of fire, the thunder and the massive hammer, oh, the black, black pain, the blackness, Dalin, Dalin …