Dusk: A Novel (Modern Library Paperbacks) (33 page)

The concern in her face deepened. He told her everything without any embellishment, and when he was through, she embraced him and cried, “I may not see you again. I have waited for this day, I knew it would come.”

She had always been brave. Like the house posts uprooted from the Ilokos, she was also sturdy. She would be able to withstand the long wait, the uncertainty, he assured himself as he held her, feeling the quiver in her body, the trickle of her tears against his cheek. “I will return, just wait,” he whispered.

He left her so she could finish her cooking, the smell of the vegetable stew clinging to his nostrils. This was the pleasure of home he would certainly miss, and briefly, he wondered where he would have his breakfast; the road to Bayambang was not within his compass and he did not know of a single eating place along the way.

At his instruction, his older son had gone quickly to the neighbors, to Bit-tik first. Now the men, the women, and children were gathered in the yard, sitting on their haunches, on the long wooden mortar where the sheaves of rice were pounded.

To them, he entrusted his family. He was leaving, he said, on a journey to the north. They knew of the Cripple’s presence in Rosales, this great man whose wisdom they could not fathom. He was tempted to tell them he would go across the Cordilleras and that he would probably try and see Po-on again. Po-on where they came from and where it all began. Po-on which clung to them tenaciously as memory.

In the afterglow, he recognized all the faces raised to him. The soft light hid the lines of care and hard work just as it hid from them, too, the glaze of tears in his eyes.

He was valuable to them—teacher, healer, patriarch; now he
realized with searing sharpness that they were valuable to him not only as cousins and neighbors—they were the earth, the water, the air which sustained him.

He asked Bit-tik to stay after they had gone; he would have a last word with him. They stood in the yard talking, while above, the stars swarmed and the cool harvest air filled the lungs. He wrapped an arm around his brother’s shoulder. “How do you think the weather will turn out in the next few days?”

“You are the one who knows more about the ways of God, Manong,” Bit-tik said. “I hope that it will be good, not because the harvest season is upon us—but because you will be going on a long journey.”

“Yes,” he murmured. “It is a long trip. And the boys—you know, they cannot yet take care of the farm or of their mother.”

“Do not insult mc,” Bit-tik said. “If we cat, they will eat.”

Istak did not speak again. Before he turned to leave, he tightened his arm around the broad, strong shoulders of his younger brother.

Supper was waiting in the house; the stew was steaming on the low eating table, on top of it a big black mudfish which had been broiled. The new rice in the open pot was red and fragrant. A small coconut bowl was beside the rice pot; it was half filled with salted fish sauce flavored with lime juice and roasted red pepper. A plate of boiled camote tops completed the meal. The two boys ate quickly with their hands; they were growing and they always seemed famished. He watched them—Antonio, who was older, who had already handled the plow, whose brow was wide like his; and Pedro the younger, who had inherited his mother’s handsome features. He had delivered them himself—held them up to his wife, their umbilical cords still uncut, their bodies still wet and shining with the juices of the womb. They were such tiny, wailing things then, and now they were big.
Three more harvests, just three more short years and Antonio would be circumcised, and Pedro after him. Would they be able to take care of their mother? Would they stay in Cabugawan, or would the call of far and exotic distances bewitch them as once he himself had hearkened, had longed for the distances he would traverse? Now, there was this long and perhaps perilous journey. What new wisdom would he extract from it?

“Take me with you, Father,” Antonio pleaded, looking eagerly at him. “I can ride behind you, I know. I will take care of the horse, gather the grass for him.”

“No, son,” Istak said softly. “This is a journey I must take alone. Maybe, when I return—we can go on a long, long ride. You in the back, Pedro in the front because he is smaller.”

They continued eating, Dalin wordless now. Outside, the darkness was complete.

They all went down to the yard, the night alive with the soughing of the wind, the whispering of insects. He held his two boys close to his chest, half kneeling, smelling the day on their young bodies. Antonio—he had learned some reading, writing, a little arithmetic, and Pedro—only eight years old—alert of eye and swift with his hands and legs. Again—how would they fare when he was gone? But Don Jacinto had promised to help them if by some awry turn of fate he did not return. And they were among relatives here.

He stood up and held Dalin, felt her heart thump against his chest. The hard work in the fields, the pounding of rice, the weaving, and the cooking had roughened her palms. With the pain in her face was this grace, this luster which he had always loved. He could say nothing except look at her and hope to God that whatever might happen, she would always be safe. He wanted most to remember her as he saw her, the starlight in her eyes, the silence of her prayer. He held her tight, then let go.

His provisions were light—the sack that was half full, a clean shirt and trousers, a thick blanket which Dalin herself had woven, a length of saluyot twine, his old bolo, and a pencil and his journal. He tied them into a bundle which he slung over his shoulder. It would be his pillow for the night.

As he mounted the horse, Dalin finally broke into a plaintive cry. Tears burned in Istak’s eyes. The boys followed him beyond the gate, where they were joined by their cousins. It was too early for them to sleep; soon the moon would be out in all its sheen. They would have gone with him beyond the arbor of bamboo at the end of the village, but Istak told them this was as far as they should go.

The night was all around, fireflies winking in the air. Bayambang was two towns away to the west. The president would be there in a day. If Istak did not tarry, he would be there ahead of them. He had all that time to plan.

15

I
stak took the road to Santo Tomás. Times were perilous and brigands who preyed on travelers would covet his horse. Kimat was well trained and amiable, and he responded quickly to every nudge and snap of the reins. The night was cool; the shadowed, even fields, some still heavy with grain, were perfumed with the scent of harvest and newly mown hay. From underneath some of the farmhouses along the road, a dog would stir and sometimes rush out to snap at the horse’s legs. But Kimat did not frighten easily. Istak rode at a canter, almost in a walk. He did not want to tire the animal needlessly—there were many miles to go. Before he reached Alcala, after Santo Tomás, the moon sailed out of a cloud bank. He found a spot beyond the road with a stand of tall grass behind it; he dismounted, took a long sip from his water bottle. His eyes had become heavy and the hide of the horse was wet with perspiration.

“A pity, Kimat,” he whispered into the animal’s ear. “This is just the beginning. We still have many rivers to cross, mountains to climb. Patience, my friend. Patience.”

He tied to his own leg a length of saluyot twine and attached it to the reins so that if Kimat strayed too far, he would wake up. With his jute-sack saddle unrolled into a mat and his knapsack for a pillow, he lay down.

Above, the moon had disappeared into a cloud bank. How vast were the heavens and here he was, a puny man with a puny life. He had tried to give this life meaning by being a healer, by hoping that he would leave his tiny imprint at least in Cabugawan. But all men die—as anonymously as they have lived, no matter what their achievements.

While the horse grazed, he closed his eyes and imagined Dalin, her smile, her eyes.

He must have fallen asleep; he was awakened by the crunch of cartwheels on the dirt road. He rose quickly. There, on the road beyond the screen of grass was a column of men, some of them on horseback, moving toward Bayambang. In the waning moonlight, it seemed their horses were much, much bigger than his mount and the men seemed bigger, too. They marched with stolid yet easy strides; they did not seem tired. Yet they did not talk—they would have come upon him with the stealth of a cat had it not been for the creak of the carts drawn by horses and the shuffle of feet on the dirt.

They did not see him, nor did they see Kimat, who had now raised his head but did not neigh or make a sound. How fortunate that he had dismounted a distance from the road, and had a grass screen to hide him. He was sure now that they were not Filipinos—they were Americans, and the shorter men behind them were probably their Pampango scouts. They were going to close in on Bayambang, where President Aguinaldo was!

The last sound of the column had barely died when Istak
mounted Kimat and cut across the fields—it was now all plain all the way to Bayambang. He must detour around Alcala, and though he did not know the way, at least he knew the general direction of Bayambang—the Ilokano farmers would show him the way through pockets of scrub and new clearings if he strayed.

Near the town of Alcala, just as light was about to break, intermittent gunfire erupted from across the expanse of ripening grain. Then silence again, the crowing of cocks. Now, a sallow light upon a land rimmed by flounces of bamboo, woods, and farmers’ homes. Close to the right was a village. The people there would no longer be Ilokanos but Pangasiñenses. He had learned a little of their language from Dalin, so he would be able to ask directions. How would they greet him, a stranger with a beautiful horse?

He rode swiftly through a line of trees to the village. He was wrong—it was still Ilokano, and at the well, a group of women were filling their earthen jars. They looked at him passively as he approached. Why had he come this early? And not through the village road but across the field?

“I was lost,” he lied, allaying their suspicions immediately. “My horse needs a drink, and so do I …”

One of the women filled a wooden tub and Istak led the horse to it. Kimat took long drafts, and shook his mane after he was full.

“I am on my way to Bayambang,” he said. “And on the way, I saw the Americans—I did not want them to take my horse, so I cut across the fields.”

“Were you the one they fired at?” one of them asked, her eyes wide with expectation. “We were wakened by the shooting.”

“No,” he said with a smile. “It seems God is very kind to me. They did not see me at all.”

A farmer and his sons appeared with sickles; they were on their way to harvest before the sun came out in full force.

“Follow the village road,” the man said, “then turn right at the fork till you reach the river. From there, just follow the river to the west. You will be in Bayambang.”

He was hungry; he wanted to cook his breakfast and roast the dried beef. But the man’s wife, who was among those by the well, said there was still enough rice, coffee, and fried fish waiting in their kitchen.

Beyond the fork of the road, as the man had said, Istak came upon the Agno and its wide delta. He was familiar with the delta in Carmay, how the waters came cascading down the mountains and every year wrought new channels upon it. But the river, giver of life, was also cruel. Again memories—how his mother was swept away and he was unable to help her. Where in its long and uneven course did she finally surface? Or had her body sunk to the bottom? Through the years, all through the length of the river that he could reach, he asked so that there would be one spot at least where he and his children could pray, where they could light the votive candles when the Day of the Dead came. He never found out; the whole river, then, was Mayang’s burial ground, each drop sacred.

Alcala was now behind him; would he be too late? But the president did not travel alone, unguarded or without arms. And the men who had passed him in the night could not have been more than a hundred.

Beyond the narrow strip of delta was the ferry, a huge raft made of three tiers of bamboo strapped together by rattan. At one end of the big raft was a hut where the ferryman stayed when it rained or when it was hot. It was the start of the dry season
and the Agno was no longer wild and deep. One man with a pole could push the raft to the other side. But during the typhoon season when the river swelled and giant whirlpools sucked away in the current, four men would have difficulty guiding the raft across.

Istak dismounted at the river’s edge where the ferry was moored. The ferryman, like the drivers of the carriages and the bull carts that carried commerce between the towns, would be a rich source of information. He was small, dressed in loose, tattered clothes that seemed to hang from a frame about to collapse. He was eating a breakfast of dried fish and freshly cooked rice, and a couple of fish were still roasting over the coals in the stove by the hut. The strong aroma reached out to Istak.

“Let us eat,” the ferryman said in greeting.

Istak said he had already eaten, then asked the ferryman if he had heard the gunfire early that morning. The ferryman nodded between mouthfuls. “It must be the rear guard of the president,” he said.