SUMMER SOLSTICE

Nick Joaquin

The Moretas were spending St. Johns Day with the childrens grandfather, whose feast-day it was.
Doa Lupeng awoke feeling faint with the heat, a sound of screaming in her ears. In the dining room the three
boys, already attired in their holiday suits, were at breakfast, and came crowding around her, talking all at
once.

How long you have slept, Mama!

We thought you were never getting up!
Do we leave at once, huh? Are we going now?
Hush, hush, I implore you! Now look: your father has a headache, and so have I. So be quiet this
instant or no one goes to Grandfather.

Though it was only seven by the clock, the house was already a furnace, the windows dilating with the
harsh light and the air already burning with the immense, intense fever of noon.

She found the childrens nurse working in the kitchen. And why is it you who are preparing breakfast?
Where is Amada? But without waiting for an answer, she went to the backdoor and opened it, and the
screaming in her ears became a wild screaming in the stables across the yard. Oh, my God! she groaned
and, grasping her skirts, hurried across the yard.

In the stables, Entoy, the driver, apparently deaf to the screams, was hitching the pair of piebald ponies
to the coach.

Not the closed coach, Entoy! The open carriage! shouted Doa Lupeng, as she came up.
But the dust, seora
I know, but better to be dirty than to be boiled alive. And what ails your wife, eh? Have you been
beating her again?
Oh, no, seora: I have not touched her.
Then why is she screaming. Is she ill?
I do not think so. But how do I know. You can go and see for yourself, seora. She is up there.
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When Doa Lupeng entered the room, the big half-naked woman sprawled across the bamboo bed
stopped screaming. Doa Lupeng was shocked.
What is this Amada? Why are you still in bed at this hour? An in such a posture! Come, get up at once.
You should be ashamed!

But the woman on bed merely stared. Her sweat-beaded brows contracted, as if in an effort to
understand. Then her face relaxed, her mouth sagged open humorously and, rolling over on her back and
spreading out her big soft arms and legs, she began noiselessly quacking with laughter the mute mirth
jerking in her throat, the moist pile of her flesh quivering like brown jelly. Saliva dribbled from the corner of
her mouth.

Doa Lupeng blushed, looking around helplessly; and seeing that Entoy had followed and was leaning
in the doorway, watching stolidly, she blushed again. The room reeked hotly of intimate odors. She averted
her eyes from the laughing woman on the bed, in whose nakedness she seemed so to participate that
she was ashamed to look directly at the man in the doorway.

Tell me, Entoy: has she had been to the Tadtarin?

Yes, seora. Last night.
But I forbade her to go! And I forbade you to let her go!
I could do nothing.
Why, you beat her at the least pretext!
But now I dare not touch her.
Oh, and why not?
It is the day of St. John: the spirit is in her.
But, man...
It is true seora. The spirit is in her. She is the Tadtarin. She must do as she pleases. Otherwise, the
grain would not grow, the trees would bear no fruit, the rivers would give no fish, and the animals would die.
Naku, I did not know your wife was so powerful, Entoy.
At such times she is not my wife: she is the wife of the river, she is the wife of the crocodile, she is the
wife of the moon.

But how can you still believe such things? demanded Doa Lupeng of her husband as they drove in
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the open carriage through the pastoral countryside that was the arrabal of Paco in the eighteen-fifties.
Don Paeng, drowsily stroking his mustaches, his eyes closed against the hot light, merely shrugged.
And you should have seen that Entoy, continued his wife. You know how the brute treats her: she
cannot say a word but he thrashes her. But this morning he stood as meek as a lamb while she screamed
and screamed. He seemed actually in awe of her, do you know actually afraid of her!

Don Paeng darted a sidelong glance at his wife, by which he intimated that the subject was not a
proper one for the children, who were sitting opposite, facing their parents.

Oh, look, boys here comes the St. John! cried Doa Lupeng, and she sprang up in the swaying
carriage, propping one hand on her husbands shoulder while with the other she held up her silk parasol.

And Here the men with their St. John! cried voices up and down the countryside. People in wet
clothes dripping with well-water, ditch-water and riverwater came running across the hot woods and fields and
meadows, brandishing cans of water, wetting each other uproariously, and shouting, San Juan! San Juan! as
they ran to meet the procession.

Up the road, stirring a cloud of dust, and gaily be drenched by the crowds gathered along the wayside,
a concourse of young men clad only in soggy trousers were carrying an image of the Precursor. Their teeth
flashed white in their laughing faces and their hot bodies glowed crimson as they pranced past, shrouded
in fiery dust, singing and shouting and waving their arms: the St. John riding swiftly above the sea of dark
heads and glittering in the noon sun a fine, blonde, heroic St. John: very male, very arrogant: the Lord of
Summer indeed; the Lord of Light and Heat erect and godly virile above the prone and female earth
while his worshippers danced and the dust thickened and the animals reared and roared and the merciless
fires came raining down from the skies the vast outpouring of light that marks this climax of the solar year
raining relentlessly upon field and river and town and winding road, and upon the joyous throng of young men
against whose uproar a couple of seminarians in muddy cassocks vainly intoned the hymn of the noon god:

That we, thy servants, in chorus.

May praise thee, our tongues restore us

But Doa Lupeng , standing in the stopped carriage, looking very young and elegant in her white frock,
under the twirling parasol, stared down on the passing male horde with increasing annoyance. The insolent
man-smell of their bodies rose all about her wave upon wave of it enveloping her, assaulting her senses, till
she felt faint with it and pressed a handkerchief to her nose. And as she glanced and saw with what a smug
smile he was watching the revelers, her annoyance was deepened. When he bade her sit down because all
eyes were turned on her, she pretended not to hear; stood up even straighter, as if to defy those rude creatures
flaunting their manhood in the sun.

And she wondered peevishly what the braggarts were being so cocky about? For their arrogance, this
pride, this bluff male health of theirs was (she told herself) founded in the impregnable virtue of generations of
good women. The boobies were so sure of themselves because they had always been sure of their wives. All
the sisters being virtuous, all the brothers being brave, thought Doa Lupeng with a bitterness that surprised
her. Woman had built it up: the poise of the male. Ah, the women could destroy it, too! She recalled,
vindictively, this mornings scene in the stables: Amada naked and screaming in bed while from the doorway
her lord and master looked on in meek silence. And was it not the mystery of a woman in her flowers that had
restored the tongue of that old Hebrew prophet?

Look, Lupeng, they all have passed now, Don Paeng was saying, Do you mean to stand all the way?
She looked around in surprise and hastily sat down. The children tittered, and the carriage started.
Has the heat gone to your head, woman? asked Don Paeng, smiling. The children burst frankly into
laughter.
Their mother colored and hung her head. She was beginning to feel ashamed of the thoughts that had
filled her mind. They seemed improper almost obscene and the discovery of such depth of wickedness in
herself appalled her. She moved close to her husband, to share the parasol with him.

And did you see our young cousin Guido? he asked.

Oh, was he in the crowd?
A European education does not seem to have spoiled his taste for country pleasures.
I did not see him.
He waved and waved.
The poor boy, he will feel hurt. But truly, Paeng, I did not see him.
Well, that is always a womans privilege.

But when that afternoon, at the grandfathers house, the young Guido presented himself, properly
attired and brushed and scented. Doa Lupeng was so charming and gracious with him that he was enchanted
and gazed after her all afternoon with enamored eyes.
This was the time when our young men were all going to Europe and bringing back with them, not the
Age of Victoria, but the Age of Byron. The young Guido knew nothing of Darwin and evolution; he knew
everything about Napoleon and the Revolution. When Doa Lupeng expressed surprise at his presence that
morning in the St. Johns crowd, he laughed in her face.
But I adore these old fiestas of ours! They are so romantic! Last night, do you know, we walked all the
way through the woods, I and some boys, to see the procession of the Tadtarin.
And was that romantic, too? asked Doa Lupeng.

It was weird. It made my flesh crawl. All those women in such a mystic frenzy! And she who was the
Tadtarin last night she was a figure right out of flamenco!
I fear to disenchant you, Guido but that woman happened to be our cook.
She is beautiful.
Our Amada is beautiful? But she is old and fat!
She is beautiful as that old tree you are leaning on is beautiful, calmly insisted the young man,
mocking her with his eyes.

They were all out in the buzzing orchard, among the ripe mangoes; Doa Lupeng seated on the grass,
her legs tucked beneath her, and the young man sprawled flat on his belly, gazing up at her, her face moist
with sweat. The children were chasing dragonflies. The sun stood still in the west. The long day refused to end.
From the house came the sudden roaring laughter of the men playing cards.
Beautiful! Romantic! Adorable! Are those the only words you learned in Europe? cried Doa Lupeng,
feeling very annoyed with this young man whose eyes adored her one moment and mocked her next.
Ah, I learned to open my eyes over there to see the holiness and the mystery of what is vulgar.

And what so holy and mysterious about about the Tadtarin for instance?
I do not know. I can feel it. And it frightens me. Those rituals come to us from the earliest dawn of the
world. And the dominant figure is not the male but the female.
But they are in the honor of St. John.
What has your St. John to do with them? Those women worship a more ancient lord. Why, do you
know that no man may join in those rites unless he first puts on some articles of womens apparel and
And what did you put on, Guido?
How sharp you are! Oh, I made such love to a toothless old hag there that she pulled off her stocking
for me. And I pulled it on, over my arms, like a glove. How your husband would have despised me!
But what on earth does it mean?
I think it is to remind us that once upon a time you women were supreme and we men were the
slaves.
But surely there have always been kings?
Oh, no. The queen came before the king, and the priestess before the priest, and the moon before the
sun.
The moon?
who is the Lord of the women.
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Why?
Because the tides of women, like the tides of the sea, are tides of the moon. Because the first blood
But what is the matter Lupe? Oh, have I offended you?
Is this how they talk to decent women in Europe?
They do not talk to women, they pray to them as men did in the dawn of the world.
Oh, you are mad, mad!
Why are you so afraid, Lupe?
I, afraid? And to whom? My dear boy, you still have your mothers milk in your mouth. I only wish you
to remember that I am a married woman.
I remember that you are a woman, yes. A beautiful woman. And why not? Did you turn into some
dreadful monster when you married? Did you stop being a woman? Did you stop being beautiful? Then why
should my eyes not tell you what you are just because you are married?
Ah, this is too much now! cried Doa Lupeng, and she rose to her feet.
Do not go, I implore you! Have pity on me!
No more of your comedy, Guido! and besides where have those children gone to? I must go after
them.

And she lifted her skirts to walk away, the young man, propping up his elbows, dragged himself forward
on the ground and solemnly kissed the tips of her shoes. She stared down in sudden horror, transfixed and
he felt her violent shudder. She backed away slowly, still staring; then turned and fled toward the house.

On the way home that evening, Don Paeng noticed that his wife was in a mood. They were alone in
the carriage; the children were staying overnight at their grandfathers. The heat had not subsided. It was
heat without radiations: that knew no twilights and no dawns; that was still there, after the sun had set; that
would be there already, before the sun had risen.
Has young Guido been annoying you? asked Don Paeng.
Yes! All afternoon.
These young men today what a disgrace they are! I felt embarrassed as a man to see him following
you about with those eyes of a whipped dog.
She glanced at him coldly. And was that all you felt, Paeng? Embarrassed as a man?
A good husband has constant confidence in the good sense of his wife, he pronounced grandly, and
smiled at her.

But she drew away; huddled herself in the other corner. He kissed my feet, she told him
disdainfully, her eyes on his face.
He frowned and made a gesture of distaste. Do you see? They have the instincts, the style of the
canalla! To kiss a womans feet, to follow her like a dog, to adore her like a slave
Is it so shameful for a man to adore women?
A gentleman loves and respects woman. The cads and the lunatics they adore the women.
But maybe they do not want to be loved and respected but to be adored.
Ah, he has converted you then?
Who knows? But must we talk about it? My head is bursting with the heat.

But when they reached home, she did not lie down but wandered listlessly through the empty house.
When Don Paeng, having bathed and hanged, came down from the bedroom, he found her in the dark parlor
seated at the harp and plucking out a tune, still in her white frock and shoes.
How can you bear those hot clothes, Lupeng? And why the darkness? Order someone to bring a light
in here.
There is no one, they all have gone to see the Tadtarin.
A pack of loafers we are feeding.

She had risen and gone to the window. He approached and stood behind her, grasped her elbows and,
stooping, kissed the nape of her neck. But she stood still, not responding, and he released her sulkily. She
turned around to face him.
Listen, Paeng. I want to see it, too. The Tadtarin, I mean. I havent seen it since I was a little girl. And
tonight is the last night.
You must be crazy! Only low people go there. And I thought you had a headache? He was still
sulking.
But I want to go! My head aches worse in the house. For a favor, Paeng.
I told you: No! Go and take those clothes off. But, woman, whatever has got into you! He strode off to
the table, opened the box of cigars, took one, banged the lid shut, bit off an end of the cigar, and glared about
for a light.
She was still standing by the window and her chin was up. Very well, if you do not want to come, do
not come but I am going.
I warn you, Lupe; do not provoke me!
I will go with Amada. Entoy can take us. You cannot forbid me, Paeng. There is nothing wrong with it. I
am not a child.
7

But standing very straight in her white frock, her eyes shining in the dark, and her chin thrust up; she
looked so young, so fragile, that his heart was touched. He sighed, smiled ruefully, and shrugged his
shoulders.
Yes, the heat has touched you in the head, Lupeng. And since you are so set on it very well, let us
go. Come, have the coach ordered!

The cult of the Tadtarin is celebrated on three days: the feast of St. John and the two preceding days.
On the first night, a young girl heads the procession; on the second, a mature woman and on the third, a very
old woman who dies and comes to life again. In these processions, as in those of Pakil and Obando, everyone
dances.
Around the tiny plaza in front of the barrio chapel, quite a stream of carriages was flowing leisurely. The
Moretas were constantly being hailed from the other vehicles. The plaza itself and the sidewalks were filled
with chattering, strolling, profusely sweating with people. More people were crowded on the balconies and
sweating people. The moon had not yet risen; the black night smoldered; in the windless sky the lightnings
abruptly branching fire seemed the nerves of the tortured air made visible.
Here they come now! cried the people on the balconies.
And Here come the women with their St. John! cried the people on the sidewalks, surging forth on the
street. The carriages halted and their occupants descended. The plaza rang with the shouts of the people and
neighing of horses and with another keener sound: a sound as of sea-waves steadily rolling nearer.

The crowd parted, and up the street came the prancing, screaming, writhing women, their eyes wild,
black shawls flying around their shoulders, and their long hair streaming and covered with leaves and flowers.
But the Tadtarin, a small woman with white hair, walked with calm dignity in the midst of the female tumult, a
wand in one hand, a bunch of seedlings in the other. Behind her, a group of girls bore aloft a little black image
of the Baptist a crude, a primitive, grotesque image, its big-eyed head too big for its puny naked torso,
bobbing and swaying above the hysterical female horde and looking at once so comical and so pathetic that
Don Paeng, watching with his wife in the sidewalk, was outraged. The image seemed to be crying for help, to
be struggling to escape a St. John indeed in the hands of the Herodias; a doomed captive these witches
were subjecting first to their derision; a gross and brutal caricature of his sex.

Don Paeng flushed hotly: he felt that all those women had personally insulted him. He turned to his
wife, to take her away but she was watching greedily, taut and breathless, her head thrust forward and her
eyes bulging, the teeth bared in the slack mouth, and the sweat gleaming on her face. Don Paeng was
horrified. He grasped her arm but just then the flash of lightning blazed and the screaming women fell silent:
the Tadtarin was about to die.

The old woman closed her eyes and bowed her head and sank slowly to her knees. A pallet was
brought and set on the ground and she was laid on it and her face covered their heads with their black shawls
and began wailing softly, unhumanly a hushed, animal keening.

Overhead the sky was brightening; silver light defined the rooftops. When the moon rose and flooded
8

with hot brilliance the moveless crowded square, the black-shawled women stopped wailing and a girl
approached and unshrouded the Tadtarin, who opened her eyes and sat up, her face lifted to the moonlight.
She rose to her feet and extended the wand and the seedlings and the women joined in a mighty shout. They
pulled off and waved their shawls and whirled and began dancing again laughing and dancing with such
joyous exciting abandon that the people in the square and on the sidewalks, and even those on the balconies
were soon laughing and dancing too. Girls broke away from their parents and wives from their husbands to join
the orgy.

Come, let us go now, said Don Paeng to his wife. She was shaking with fascination; tears trembled on
her lashes; but she nodded meekly and allowed herself to be led away. But suddenly she pulled free from his
grasp, darted off, and ran into the crowd of dancing women.

She flung her hands to her hair and whirled and her hair came undone. Then, planting her arms
akimbo, she began to trip a nimble measure, an instinctive folk movement. She tossed her head back and her
arched throat bloomed whitely. Her eyes brimmed with moonlight, and her mouth with laughter.

Don Paeng ran after her, shouting her name, but she laughed and shook her head and darted deeper
into the dense maze of the procession, which was moving again, towards the chapel. He followed her,
shouting; she eluded him, laughing and through the thick of the female horde they lost and found and lost
each other again she, dancing, and he, pursuing till, carried along by the tide, they were both swallowed up
into the hot, packed, turbulent darkness in the chapel. Inside poured the entire procession, and Don Paeng,
finding himself trapped tight among milling female bodies, struggled with sudden panic to fight his way out.
Angry voices rose all about him in the stifling darkness.

Hoy, you are crushing my feet!

And let go off my shawl, my shawl!
Stop pushing, shameless one, or I kick you!
Let me pass, let me pass, you harlots! cried Don Paeng.
A bah, its a man!
How dare he come in here?
Break his head!
Throw the animal out!
Throw him out! Throw him out! shrieked the voices, and Don Paeng found himself surrounded by a
swarm of gleaming eyes.

Terror possessed him and he struck out savagely with both fists, with all his strength but they closed
9

in as savagely: solid walls of flesh that crushed upon him and pinned his arms helpless, while unseen hands
struck and struck his face, and ravaged his hair and clothes, and clawed at his flesh, as kicked and buffeted,
his eyes blind and his torn mouth salty with blood he was pushed down, down to his knees, and half-shoved,
half-dragged to the doorway and rolled out to the street. He picked himself up at once and walked away with a
dignity that forbade the crowd gathered outside to laugh or to pity him. Entoy came running to meet him.

But what was happened to you, Don Paeng?

Nothing, where is the coach?
Just over there, sir. But you are wounded in the face!
No, these are only scratches. Go and get the seora. We are going home.

When she entered the coach and saw his bruised face and torn clothing, she smiled coolly.
What a sight you are, man! What have you done with yourself? And when he did not answer: Why,
have they pulled out his tongue too? she wondered aloud.

And when they were home and stood facing each other in the bedroom she was still light-hearted.
What are you going to do, Rafael?
I am going to give you a whipping.
But why?
Because you have behaved tonight like a lewd woman.
How I behaved tonight is what I am. If you call that lewd, then I was always a lewd woman and a
whipping will not change me though you whipped me till I died.
I want this madness to die in you.
No, you want me to pay for your bruises.
He flushed darkly. How can you say that, Lupe?
Because it is true. You have been whipped by the women and now you think to avenge yourself by
whipping me.
His shoulders sagged and his face dulled. If you can think that of me
You could think me a lewd woman!
Oh, how do I know what to think of you? I was sure I knew you as I knew myself. But now you are as
distant and strange to me as a female Turk in Africa!

10

Yet you would dare whip me

And because if you ceased to respect me you would cease to respect yourself?
Ah, I did not say that!
Then why not say it? It is true. And you want to say it, you want to say it!
But he struggled against her power. Why should I want to? he demanded peevishly.
Because either you may say it or you must whip me, she taunted.

Her eyes were upon him and the shameful fear that had unmanned him in the dark chapel possessed
him again. His legs had turned to water; it was a monstrous agony to remain standing.
But she was waiting for him to speak, forcing him to speak.
No, I cannot whip you! he confessed miserably.
Then say it! Say it! she cried, pounding her clenched fists together. Why suffer and suffer? And in the
end you would only submit?

But he still struggled stubbornly. It is not enough that you have me helpless? It is not enough that I feel
what you want me to feel?
But she shook her head furiously. Until you have said it to me, there can be no peace between us.

He was exhausted at last: he sank heavily to his knees, breathing hard and streaming with sweat, his
fine body curiously diminished now its ravaged apparel.
I adore you, Lupe, he said tonelessly.
She strained forward avidly. What? What did you say? she screamed.
And he, in his dead voice: That I adore you. That I worship you. That the air you breathe and the
ground you tread is holy to me. That I am your dog, your slave
But it was not still enough. Her fists were still clenched, and she cried: Then come, crawl on the floor,
and kiss my feet!

Without a moments hesitation, he sprawled down flat and, working his arms and legs, gaspingly
clawed his way across the floor, like a great agonized lizard, the woman steadily backing away as he
approached, her eyes watching him avidly, her nostrils dilating, till behind loomed the open window, the huge
glittering moon, the rapid flashes of lightning. She stopped, panting, and leaned against the sill. He lay
exhausted at her feet, his face flat on the floor.

11

She raised her skirts and contemptuously thrust out a naked foot. He lifted his dripping face and
touched his bruised lips to her toes; lifted his hands and grasped the white foot and kissed it savagely kissed
the step, the sole, the frail ankle while she bit her lips and clutched in pain at the windowsill; her body
distended and wracked by horrible shivers, her head flung back and loose hair streaming out the window
streaming fluid and black in the white night where the huge moon glowed like a sun and the dry air flamed into
lightning and the pure heat burned with the immense intense fever of noon.
DIVIDE BY TWO
Francisco Arcellana

God knows I hate the sight of violence.

But is it really violence I cannot stand?
Isnt it rather truth?

They have set down a line of adobe blocks, three blocks wide and two blocks deep, across the lawn
between their cottage and ours, Belle said.

Yes, I know, I said. I walked to the window and stood there, looking over at their cottage. The piano
music from the cottage came strong and clear. I was here this morning when he brought those blocks home. I
peeled my shirt; it was soggy with sweat. He carried the blocks in the baggage compartment of their car. It
took him all three trips. He had three boys with him to help. I shook my shirt in the cooling air and walked to
my room. I know where he got those blocks, too. There is a construction going on right now at engineering
school. They have a pile of adobe blocks there as high as the Cheops. You cant miss it. You see it from the
bus line every time. In my room, the strains of piano music didnt reach sustainably.

Belle had followed me into my room. They have marked off boundaries, she said. They have defined
limits.
I folded my shirt behind the back of my armchair. So they have, I said. So they have.My undershirt
was wet, too. I yanked it off.
It is all as if they have put up a fence, Belle said.
Fences make good neighbors, I said. I whipped the apple green towel of the T-bar and rubbed myself
briskly.
It might as well be the great wall of China, Belle said.

Well, no, not really.I said. It is not as bad as that. I returned the towel to the crossbar. I looked
around for a dry undershirt but did not find any. I went to the bedroom where my clothes-closet was. Belle
followed me. There was no light in the closet. The bulb hadnt been changed since it went bad shortly after we
12

moved into the cottage. I fumbled in the dark feeling with my fingers. In the darkness in the closet the strains of
the piano came steadily, strong and clear.

She is no Turk but she keeps on playing Turkish March, Belle said.

I knew where my undershirt would be and it didnt take long to find them with my hands. I pulled one out
and was putting it on while I walked back to the sala.
It is unkind, inconsiderate, not neighborly, not nice. Belle said.

I stopped beneath the light in the narrow passage from the bedroom to the sala between the book
closet, and the bathroom, one arm through one armhole, half out of the sando shirt, the neck of which I held
open with my hands. I looked at Belle. Come again, Belle? I asked.

Belle said again the denunciatory words.

I got my head through the other armhole, got into the shirt. I walked on to the sala. I didnt know how
tired I was until I fell back on the lounging chair.
Belle picked up the foot stool, brought it near my chair and sat down. The least thing they could have
done was to tell us first about it.
I felt very tired and shut my eyes and didnt say anything.
Dont you think they owed it to us? Belle asked. Out of regard for our feelings shouldnt they have
asked us how we feel about the fence?

The piano music threaded through the words like a leit-motif. How is that again, Belle? I asked.
They have no regard for us, Belle said. They dont care what we think. They dont think we feel. As
far as they are concerned, we are not human.
The piano came jubilantly threading through the words.

Is that right, Belle? I asked.

Dont you think they should at least have gone to us and said: Look here, you! We are putting up this
boundary, see? You keep to your side and we will keep to ours, understand? Belle asked.
13

Do you really think that? I said.

Yes, I do. Belle said, I havent thought about it.
Well, then, Belle said, think about it. You can start thinking about it now.
I wondered why the words came ringing clear to me. Then I felt and sensed that the piano had been
stilled. Suddenly the night was silent; suddenly, the air was still.
I rose from the lounging chair. I walked to the globe-traveler near the wall outlet, I plugged \ the cord in,
and snapped the lid open. Belle followed me. I was playing the range disk for music when Belle leaned forward
and snapped the lid shut.

Whats the matter, Belle? I asked.

Theres nothing the matter, Belle said.
Well then, get off, I said. Get off them and get off me.
Belle was silent for a moment. Then, It is she? she said.
What about her? I asked.
I dont think she likes me, Belle said.
She doesnt like anyone, I said. What makes you think so?
I have given her things, Belle said. They dont seem to make an impression on her. I gave her cheese
on her last birthday. She didnt even thank me.
Why do you have to go around giving people things for? I asked. Maybe she doesnt like cheese.
Maybe the cheese wasnt such a good idea.

She doesnt like me, Belle said. And she doesnt like anyone to like mewhen he gave me flowers
from her garden, I dont think she like that.
Who would? I asked. Maybe the flowers wouldnt be such a good idea either.
He was just being friendly as I was. Belle said.
Oh, yes, I said.
He was just being neighborly as I believe in being, Belle said.
Sure, sure, I said.
But she doesnt want to be. And I dont think she believes in being. Belle said. And I dont think she
wants to be either.
Oh, well, Belle, I said. I dont really know them. It is you they really know.
14

Oh, you do, too, Belle said. You ride with them too, sometimes.
I did that only once, I said. I rode with them on the front seat. She tapped him on the thigh when she
got off at Pavilion 2. That was the last time.
Did that bother you? Belle asked.
Not that in itself, I said. Only the demonstrativeness: as if to show that she is his and he is hers.
What about the demonstrativeness of her puttering about her garden on very short shorts? Belle
asked.
I dont like demonstrativeness. Moving here is not my idea, I said.

It was as much yours as it was mine, Belle said.

When you visited this area for the first time to look at these cottages, did you have to ride with him in
the car? I asked.
He was going to look at the cottages himself, Belle answered. He was only being friendly.
And the second time when you looked at the cottages, was he looking at the cottages, too - and the
third time? I asked.
That was for our going to be neighbors, Belle said.
There are forty cottages in this area, I said, why did we have to pick up this one right up next to
theirs?
It was as much your choice as it was mine, Belle said.
So it was, I said, so it cant be helped.
No, it cant, Belle said.
All right, then. Get off. Get off them and get off me, I said.
But you must do something, Belled said.
What about?I asked.
They didnt set the adobe markers right. They have been laid nearer our cottage than their cottage.
Their half of the lawn is bigger than ours, Belle said.
Is that right? I asked. I walked to the window. It wasnt too dark to see the adobe markers gleaming in
the ghostly light. I saw the flowers, too the roses, the zinnias, the dahlias, the African daisies swaying like
scepters in the night. Walking back to my chair, I looked up at the wall clock. It was getting on a quarter to nine.
The clock began to chime. Just as I got to the lounging chair. I sat down and put my chair up on the stool.

Their half of the lawn is bigger than ours, Belle said.

15

Maybe they needed all the lawn they can get so they can plant them all to flowers, I said.
They havent divided the lawn fairly, Belle said.
You mean, the halves are not equal? The halves are not halves? I asked.
Whats the matter with you? Belle asked.
Whats the matter with him? I asked. Isnt he a doctor of mathematics, or something? A fine doctor of
mathematics he has turned out to be if he cant even divide by two.
Whats eating you? Belle glared.
Maybe he should have brought a survey team with him and used a transit, a plumb line, and a pole, I
said. Maybe he could divide by two, then. Maybe he could even divide by ten.
Dont tell me, Belle said. Tell him. Tell them.
For crying out loud, I said.
Go ahead, Belle said. Go over. Tell them off. Tell them where to get off.
Get off, Belle! I said. Get off them.
If you wont, I shall, Belle said. I shall right now. She started for the door.
For crying out loud Belle.I said. I dont know them well enough to speak to them. I shall write them a
note.
All right, Belle said.

The portable typewriter was in the case under my bed. I set it up at the head of the dining table. When I
pulled my hands away from lifting the case, they were covered with dust. I removed the lid but didnt take the
machine off its base. The inside corners of the lid were spun with cobwebs. There were webs between the
machine and the ridge of the base. I couldnt find any white paper anywhere so I decided to use one sheet
from the legal size bond pad of ruled yellow paper.

I didnt date the note. I made it short and to the point. It was fascinating to watch the keys falling
forward and then back leaving the black marks on the yellow sheet. As I typed I heard the opening bars of
Marriage of Figaro from the high fidelity radio-phonograph next door.

(Mathematics and Mozart, I said. Mozart and mathematics.)

I typed on my name but didnt sign it. When I saw that I had not quite filled half back to the machine
and handed the other half to Belle. There you are, I said Short and sweet; I hope he likes it.

16

Belle read the note. After she finished, she didnt say a word. Is it all right? I asked.
Yes, Belle said. Then, send it off, I said.
All right, Belle said. She called Nata and had the note delivered at once.
I didnt get to hear Mozart to the end that night. About half way through the opera (that would be after
Face I of the long playing record), the player was snapped off. Then I saw him leave their cottage.
I sat up erect in my chair and watched his head bob up and down as he walked up to Finchshafen
Road. When turned up the road, I knew where he was going. I stood up. I walked through the screen door
and watched him walk up the concrete walk to the porch steps. He stopped at the foot of the stairs. I
looked through the wire screen at his upturned face.
Yes? I asked.
Can I see for a minute? he asked.
Me? I asked.
Yes, you, he said.
Wont you come up? I asked.
No, he said. Id rather talk to you on the street.
All right, I said. If thats what you feel about it.

I joined him at the foot of the porch steps. We went down the cement walk together. As soon as
we went past the shelter of the cottage, a blast of the cold night air struck my face. I felt my left
cheek twitching.
Yes? I asked. Whats on your mind?

We walked down the Finchshafen road. He didnt say anything for a long time. I looked at him.
I waited. I had never spoke to him before. He considered a long time, long enough for me to be able to look
back at the house to see if Belle was at the window watching.

When he spoke, his first words were: Have you and Belle been fighting? It was not only words; it
was also the way he said them: my left cheek was twitching so badly, it was almost spastic. He had
spoken so softly and in such a low-pitched voice I barely heard him. It was as if he didnt wish ether
his house or my house to hear; as if we were conspirators both and we were plotting a conspiracy
together.

17

Fighting? I asked. What about? What for? What are you talking about? I sought his face for the
guilt that could only be the mirror of the guilt in my own.

We stood on Finchshafen road halfway between our cottages; we were waiting to catch the
guilt upon our faces which nonetheless we were mortally afraid to see. I stood on the upper slope in
the direction of his.

Your note wasnt very friendly, he said. It wasnt very neighborly.

Why should it be? I added. It wasnt meant to be.
Oh, so, he said. It wasnt meant to be.
You bet your life, it wasnt meant to be, I said.
Well, if thats what you feel about it, he said.
How else did you expect me to feel about it? he said.
How did you expect me to feel? I asked.
In that case then, he said, you can appeal to authority and I shall not move the adobe blocks an
inch.
For Christs sake, I said. Whos talking about authority? Who is talking about adobe blocks?
Dont raise your voice, he said.
Why shouldnt I raise my voice? I asked.
Dont shout at me, he said.
I shall shout at you if I please, I said.

It was a clear lovely night. The sky was clear and cool and full of stars. The sky and the stars
seemed very far away. But the air was clear and you could see all the way up to the sky and the stars
and it seemed a long, long way. There was a very pale moon and the white clouds before it all the
way across the sky.
Across and up and down Finchshafen road in the cottages, people were coming out on their
porches to listen and watch. I looked back at our house to see if Belle was standing behind the
window wire screen and I looked at their house too.

A plague on both our house, I said.

18

Belle wasnt on the porch when I looked; I didnt hear her go down the porch steps, down
the concrete walk, out to and down Finchshafen road.

I shouldnt be even talking to you; this is pestilence, I said.

I didnt feel Belle around until I heard her voice rising shrill and clear above the snarl of our
voices. She was standing beside me and before him and shouting in his face.

For Christs sake, Belle, I said. This is mans work.

Belle didnt hear me. She was deaf, deaf with the fury that possessed her purely.

She had her face thrust outwards. She held her arms rigidly to her sides as if it were all she
could do to keep them there, to keep them from rising and striking out. Her eyes - they never wavered,
they never lifted from the face that they regarded were flashing and her face was pale-white. Her
voice and her body both were shaking.

For Christs sake, Belle, I said. Let go. This is mans work.

She couldnt hear me.

Her voice rose clear and passionate, piercing, and shrill in the inviolate night. I pulled at her
arm to make her turn to me. I thrust my face savagely before her.

For Christs sake, Belle, I said. Get off. This is my fight and the adversary is mine.

Belle couldnt see me for the fury that possessed her purely.
I sought her face but couldnt look there long. Even as I turned away I had a fleeting glimpse
of my declared adversarys face: the shock there was not more than the shock on mine.

For Christs sake, Belle, let go. This is mans work. I have met the enemy and he is mine. Let go,
let go off. This is my fight, not yours. The enemy is mine, I said as I pulled at her and dragged her
bodily away.

19

We Wont Cry about This

Socorro A. Villanueva

She stays in bed with Ralph Waldo Emerson all weekend, his book close to her breast, like a lover. And
she has conversations with this man, dead a century, because, she says, his words are alive for talking - to
and true, and she likes truth and true men, whatever she means by that. She takes to books because she
doesnt have a man otherwise, is what I think. She dated for a while Roque, this long-haired commercial
director who was like eight years her junior. But now hes gone, thank God. Lately she talks to books and is
outrageously lazy. She has recent favorites, likes Thoreau and the Buddhist, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Gary
Zukab, the soul geek. The Bible, even. But she and Emerson, woooh, theyre tight.
You have a problem with that? she asks me without looking up from the page. She looks pale.
I think, Ma, youre going psycho, I say, and she laughs, says she suspects she was born nuts and
may have passed it on me along with her nose and skin color.
Its child abuse, what you do. Raising us crazy by example, I say.
Her room is a mess. Sheets are falling off the slides of her bed and an altar of bottles stands on her
night table - Coke, water, wine- like the Holy Trinity. The whole room is gloomy with the curtains drawn and
the walls dim into hepatitis yellow. Books, books, books.
Hey! she says. Who says Im raising who here? Im just reading a book, for Christs sake!
20

My sister, her name is Squeak, marks her page on The Celestine Prophecy (also from my mothers
library) and comes to lie between Ma and me on the bed.
Mas bedroom couch is Squeaks house. She lives there like a mindless, faithful mongrel, and there
are nights when she stares out the window into the big sky and sees UFOs. Day after Ma first heard about
this, she got up on the roof to see if it were possible for a Peeping Tom with a flashlight to get near that
window. Impossible, from any angle. There was no access, unless Peeing Tom could fly, she said. One night I
saw them both looking out, almost midnight it was, and my Ma-my Ma! told me they were waiting for aliens to
swing by the block that night.
Look at you, I tell Squeak, youre sixteen, you should be on the phone with boys, not reading a
book about prophets!
This is not about prophets, dork! she squeaks.
IN MARCH NOTHING good happens in March Ma comes home with her hair all gone, head
shaved to a shine. She zooms into the dining room and goes: Ta-da!
Squeak and I shriek. A freaking Sinead OConnor! She is 43, for crying out loud.
Then she breaks the news, breaks us. She says she better get at the hair before the chemo does. She
says the word khee-moe like it was the detergent bar shed picked up at Unimart. I feel like Ive been
stabbed. Right here, between my ribs. I fly out there, leaving a trail curses behind me and go straight to my
bedroom. I whack my pillows until the seams come off and the white fluff flies about me like dry snow.
SHE STRUTS AROUND the house like she is healthy, like she has hair. How come your friends
dont come around anymore? she asks on my way out to school one morning while I struggle balancing my
history book and my gym bag and my stuff bag. I tell her something, like the guys are busy college now, you
know, crap like that. She winks at me. She winks at me!
What you winking at me for, Ma?
Its a blessing I get hit in the lungs. At least I get to keep the boobs, she says.
Right. Like youre A-cups were something to die for!
Ah like em, she says. Ill keep them or die.
She is at the door, with the sun on her face. Something about her makes me want to say, Wanna
come? But if I ask her, she will come. Her head is a blinding orb in the light.
Ever consider wearing a wig? I say as I get into the car.
She goes: But I feel hip this way!
I get used to it after a while. Her Royal Baldness. The Hairless Wonder. Life with Ma is a series
of getting used to anyway. Outrage after outrage. Like the time she painted the living room purple when
Pa began to spend too many weekends away at conferences. Not just purple but two-day-old-bruise purple.
I refused to have a birthday party at home with our black-eye walls and yellow couch. Pa was livid. Hes
a very quiet man, very proper, and the new colors made him go like, What the hell?
We were having breakfast that day, and Ma smiled and said, Just so you know how we feel around
here.
I BUY HER a beret from a thrift shop, black and stinking like hell, who knows where that beret
came from. Maybe some scruffy artist who doesnt know shampoo from snot. She wears it to breakfast:
Ooh-la-la, she says, ver is zee pat-tey dey fwa?
21

I want to cry into my coffee.

Squeak takes out our old baseball caps, some of them Pas from the old days when there was a Pa.
Pa flew to Miami five years ago in March, a day after I graduated from Grade 7 on a business trip with
Marge, his executive assistant, and never came back. We were at the airport picking him up, what, three
times?
Those days when we wondered about Pa, we invented a color game. Ma would start saying, Blue
lagoon, and we all took turns finding blue objects to add to the list.
Blue tsinelas.
Blue sky.
Blue dress.
The one who run out of blue was a rotten egg.
One day Ma said, Lets look for Pa in the den. Only Squeak followed her there. Because I was like,
Yeah, right, like hes sneaked in last night and decided to play peek-a-boo. But they found his goodbye note
and affidavits of this and that, giving Ma sole right to everything the house, the cars, membership in the
Valle Verde country club all neatly filed in his briefcase, most possibly filed by Marge the slut, too. It
was like a time bomb. Im sorry honey
KAPOW!
Jesus, I am a rich woman! Ma exclaimed then. Yippee? Her face was white as a zombie and
her mouth curled as if a wire was holding it down and she was struggling to keep it up.
Then her amigas, the ad agency freakazoids, Nabby and Anna and Bambina, came most nights and
we all got drunk together. Yes, even me and Squeak, we downed Asti Spumanti like fish. It was summer
vacation, and some evenings we watched cartoons from Squeaks video library, and everything was funny.
The Little Mermaid was funny, and the Lion King we laughed louder than the hyenas, even at the stampede
scene where Mufasa was trampled to death. Someone said, Wildebeests! and we all burst out laughing, I
dont know what for.
Our late night binges went on until my grandmother treated Ma to an extended tour of Europe and
we had to hole up with Tita Lanie in her Makati apartment. When she came back, Ma sold our big house in
Pasig (yes, the one with the purple sala) and we moved to a townhouse where Pa became a private thing,
no longer talked about in the open.
I hang the baseball caps on a wire, color-coded, across her dressing mirror. Ma says she likes it.
Gives me a clear view of my life options, she says. Ha! One Sunday, she was feeling good and the three of
us, we troop to the Glorietta mall like we were some baseball cap patrol. I drive; do that all the time now,
but never the BMW, which belongs to Ignatio et Lamina, but we still get to keep, Ma being on indefinite leave
she says, humanitarian leave, theyre so kind, yada, yada on full pay and benefits. I think: Ad agency
president on mortal leave. Beat that! Let her drive to heaven in the Bee-Em!
Squeak and I hide our hair in buns under caps and we walk around half-blind, our chins raised to
see under the brims of our caps. Ma is wearing my jeans. She likes it that she fits around 24 inches of
Guess, but I watch her browse at the bookstore self-help, how-to-go-to-heaven rip offs and she is frail
and sad and I want to hold her like Squeak holds her.
MAS HAIR GROWS BACK by November, so she looks human again, decent and respectable, the way
a mother should. We are out to dinner to celebrate her hair, and she wearing Squeaks clothes a white tiny22

tee with Roxy printed on the chest. Her belly button peeks out of the space between Squeaks shirt and my
pants. She glues a red bead on her forehead and uses half a bottle of extra-hold gel to spike her hair up front
like a screwed-up crown of thorns. She looks like a teenager with laugh lines.
Were good with each other again after our wild tiff in October, when I said I wanted to quit school for
a while, just take a break while all these are happening , and I was such a pea brain that I asked her.
She considered it dropping out altogether.
I had told her I wanted to clean up the house. Ma did not mind clutter, and with her at home all the
time, the clutter was near burying us alive. Pa was a tidy man, and he wouldnt put up with a messy house.
Yikes! If he were here, hed die first. I thought if I tidied up and I needed months to tidy up!
everything would be fine. Maybe, I hoped.
What? Leave school so you can clean up the house? What the hells the matter with you, Katrina?
She calls me by that name only when shes fired up, and it sounds ugly to me every time she says it. She calls
me Tyke normally, or its variations: Tykee, Tyke-wonder, Tyke-coon.
And what is that compared to the fucking matter with you? You dont even have hair, Mama!
I dont remember the rest of it. I just said fuck, fuck, fuck.
But now were good again, in a way. We dont talk beyond hi-wassup-bye, therefore we dont argue,
and thats as good as it can get for now. Im in school. As in, all the time. I hardly go home before dinner
anymore and I wonder if she knows I hang out with the gang at the billiard hall like I lived there.
You never know what Ma thinks. She has headaches and pains bigger than the house, Squeak says.
Though I dont know how she knows. Ma never speaks of pain. We wont cry about this, shes been saying
for as long as I can remember. The times we fell from our bikes, when we cancelled a beach trip because
Squeak got the pox, when our dog Bruno died; and thats what she said when she announced she had a
cancer. We wont cry about this. Like when Pa left. There was no pain to talk about, and I wonder where the
pain goes when you just keep it in. Maybe, they become cancer cells that eat you alive. Metastic whatever.
Who knows?
The doctor says its stage five, and so near the end, but were not crying about it, at least not in the
open. Squeak has eye bags like puffballs and her guidance counselor has been here for a chitchat with Ma.
Her grades are on a spin dive.
Ma talks to the books still, and to the bromeliads in the garden. And to Squeak, of course. A lot of time
she talks to Emerson stuff to herself while she sits, lotus-style, on a mat, visualizing a golden healing light
flowing into a hole in her head and running through her sick body, downing her mutated cells like duck pins. A
Buddha thing, I think.
I struggle with my books and barely turn out the papers. Middle-of-term papers, reflection papers,
critique papers, hey-its-Tuesday-lets-write-a-paper papers. God, these Jesuits are suckers for papers- one
five-pager every frigging day, almost! Its raining Cs and Ds in my life. But, heck, whos going to cry about it?
ALL SORTS OF PEOPLE come over like the house was some tourist stop. Mas friend party here like
the world was going to end, and, in many ways, it will, for Ma and Squeak and me. Yeah, right. Something to
party for. Mas friend, gosh! I feel like drowning in a sea of stupid red wine and Sergio Mendes and the freaky
Brazils. On weekends, my grandmother has this busload of geeks- these Jesus-Jesus people, stretching their
arms over Mas head like they were advertising roll-on anti-perspirant, Amen, Amen. Christ!
They come for the pastries, I tell Squeak.
We have no pastries. Youre so stupid, Tyke!
Squeak has become so deadpan and thin, too, like her cheekbones are going to pop out of her skin any
23

minute. What a geek; and wheres the respect? Im two years older, for crying out loud. Call me stupid as if Im
stupid. Ill show her yet.
TITA LANIE HAS COME to stay in the house, for food, looks like. Tita Lanie is Mas younger sister, a
big-time lawyer who is such a fussy bitch that she is unable to get a man. Who will marry her, anyway? Shes
got this bulldozer kind of grit. Sometimes I wonder if she knows about Ma, but of course she knows. But its
like she doesnt know! She just hangs out here and cooks and fiddles with her laptop. While Ma dies. Slowly.
Happily.
Squeak has moved permanently to Mas room has attached herself to Mas body, like Velcro.
Its almost Christmas and me and the gang, we go out for a big weekend gimmick in Subic, all of us
stoned on booze and doobies and Dino takes me home on the third day, just before dawn, I think it is.
Someone slaps me in the face as soon as I step through the door.
Fuck! I scream and I get hit again.
Its my stupid sister.
How could you mess up at a time like this? Were counting days, practically, and you have the nerve to
to distress her! She is twisting her words like her speech cant catch up with the boiling bile inside of her.
Oh yeah? I scream back. Like I cant live while shes busy dying?
She hits me again, right across the face, and I grab her head and hurl it, like a football, except maybe
lighter, and her body flies with her head and lands on the floor. I kick her in the butt. Dont you ever dare hit me
again, I hiss, and just then a flood of anger comes over me and I get down on my knees to pull her up by the
hair.
She turns around and kicks me on the shin. Her fingers dig into wherever she finds my flesh, drawing
bloody stripes on me. I dont let go of her hair, her head now looking up the ceiling. Her face is like crumpled
and twisted I dont know if Ill ever forget how she looks.
Tita Lanie, her hair a mass of tangles around her fat face, comes to break us up. You should be sorry
for yourselves! she screams.
God! I cant be sorrier for myself! I yell like I am hawking self-pity to all of Valle Verde Townhomes.
God! I am the sorriest person alive!
I dont remember what else. There are details that sink so deeply and so instantly, and I wonder where
they go; I wonder if they will ever come back. I hear phrases like, its okay to be angry, go ahead, cry. she is
full of conversation lawyer that she is! and I am just swimming in my own grief and I am crying like a baby,
curled up on the floor like a fuzz ball.
I wake up in the next morning, still on the floor, and Ma is on the couch, stroking my hair with her toes. I
was such a stupid, gross-out kid, I used to take off her shoes when she got home from work and sniff her feet.
That smell. The comforting stink of Mama being home, and all as well.
Rottweiler, she tells me. She is slumped on the couch, and her head, it is falling to the side, like her
neck couldnt hold it up. I feel like I swallowed the sofa and its stuck in my throat. I put her cold feet on my face
and say, Yuck. But hold it there.
We spend Christmas in the hospital. She wont eat anymore, and her face twists in pain all the time,
even in her sleep. Cough, cough, cough. Coughing that goes on and on. I cant breathe. Please let it stop,
stop, stop. Squeak is banging her head on the oxygen tank.

24

Room 401. Everybody I mean, everybody in the world who has any little thing to do with us is
outside in the lobby. Only three of us are in the room, my choice, but I lied and said Ma said so.
White Christmas, Ma says, faintly now, pointing to her white sheets. Squeaks laugh like she was
Santa who hasnt eaten for a year. I point to my shirt, which is white and new, a gift from Dino. Squeak points
to her bracelet of white beads, the one I had put in a pink wrapper, my present. Ma takes Squeaks hand and
points it to her lips, which are whiter than anything I can imagine. We stop playing. I am suddenly very tired. Im
the rotten egg of all time.
I want to lie down with Ma but with Squeak already beside her and all these contraptions tacked on
her body, I only manage to sit at the foot of the bed and play with the buttons that swing me, slowly, slowly, up,
then down.
I think of Christmases past there have been many happy times, but is that all we fucking get? Mas
eyes close and I close mine, too, fighting to shut off images of Christmas up ahead.

The Man Who Sold Dreams

Antonio A. Hidalgo
Gladys always looked forward to Wednesdays, for that was the day of the week when she went to
Robinsons Supermarket in Galleria Mall to shop for the little luxuries that, for some years now, had been
practically the only source of her familys joy. Little things like a fourth-kilo of sliced Majestic Ham and a
small bottle of Ladys Choice Sweet Mixed Pickles with which to make sandwiches for breakfast, a small
bottle of Ladys Choice Creamy Peanut Butter, a small box of Magnolia Cheddar Cheese, and, sometimes
even, what she liked best of all, a bag of imported Nabisco Oreo cookies. It strained her meager household
budget, but she reasoned to herself, and once or twice to Rod, who had mildly questioned her spending on
nonessentials in an upscale market, that it really did no harm and give her and the family some pleasure,
not least through the act of shopping itself that allowed her to put on makeup, dress in her newest jeans and
blouse and, either in her black or brown pair of leather pumps, step out of the house after Rod had left for
work and Ralph had gone to school, to spend the better part of the day in the fascinating Galleria that was
always crowded with all sorts of people.
She alighted from the jeepney coming from Cainta just across from Galleria and crossed the street
toward the beckoning mall. Gladys walked past the huge shrine of Mama Mary on the corner of EDSA,
past the Mercury Drug Store and entered the side entrance of National Book Store. She briefly glanced at the
local romance novels, then tarried at the shelves with the imported ones. She browsed through two of
them for a while and got engrossed in one: Snowbound Sweetheart, by Judy Christenberry. She smiled
at herself when she recognized the will-she-wont-go-to-bed plot involving a fashion model and a hunk, but
finally put it back with a shrug and decided not to buy it this time, as it was still a week away from Rods next
payday. Maybe next week.
She left National through the entrance inside the mall, ambled through the crowded corridor stalls
selling cheap imported knockoffs of designer casual clothes, cursorily examined a pair of mod splash fadedfaded DKNY Jeans and a lavender polo blouse, and wended her way to the market that, it seemed to her, was
more brightly lit than either National or the corridor stalls.
25

There was a celadon-green Hyundai Starex van at the entrance of the Supermarket. It was the grand
prize in the coming Christmas raffle for the supermarket customers. Ones name, address and phone number
just had to be printed on the back of ones receipt, signed, and dropped in the collection boxes to get a
chance to win the van.
Gladys asked permission from the salesgirl tending the collection boxes to get into the Starex van;
the surly girl grudgingly nodded her approval and opened the front door by the drivers seat. She sat
behind the wheel and studied the dashboard, marveled at the tiny TV set, the CD changer and player, the
array of indicators and controls within easy reach and thought of how much vehicles had changed since she
drove the family Toyota while living with her parents decades ago. Like a child, she turned the wheel back and
forth and briefly dreamed of family weekend outings to provincial resorts in the huge van with Rod and Ralph.
She ran her fingers over the soft upholstery on a paisley print and primped herself in front of the mirror on
the windshield visor. Then she alighted and thanked the salesgirl with a big smile. She made a note to herself
to make sure to drop her receipt in the collection box later as she entered the supermarket. Who knows but
that she might win the van stranger things had happened.
She went into the supermarket, past boxes of Synergy All Purpose Powder Detergent and IGA
Tasteroos, Crispy Rice and Corn Flakes that were on sale, and headed for the wine and cigarette store on
the left side of the supermarket to tarry over the neatly stacked wine bottles, reading the French, Spanish,
American, Australian and Chilean labels. She had sometimes read in the romance novels scenes of evening
repasts with fine wine, and intended to surprise Rod someday with a bottle with which to highlight their
dinner, but they had not yet gotten up the nerve to do it. Then, she moved onto the shelves with brandies and
other liqueurs and read their varied labels too, thinking that she might go all the way one day and get a bottle
of good liqueur with which to cap their dinner before they retired for the night. Wouldnt that really startle
Rod? Maybe shed do it for Christmas with a bottle of burgundy wine and Cointreau.
Gladys moved onto the supermarket proper and started with the display of deli goodies behind a
refrigerated glass counter. There were so many meats, there was even the Tyrolan slab bacon that look like
preserved litson kawali; she remembered that the store had run out of this last week. She looked at the tag on
the package: Php. 375 for a fourth-kilo too expensive a treat for now. It would have to wait. She gazed at
the pockets of a large German franks and dark Hungarian spicy sausages and their prices and finally asked
the salesgirl for a 300-gram pocket of local/fat/thin Chinese sausages that cost Php 90.50.
She loaded the sausages on her trolley and moved to the shelves with the preserved sweets and
snacks. Gladys carefully examined a cylindrical box with a new flavor in Pringles potatoes chips: while
consomm, then studied a bottle of American Peanut butter. Finally, she picked up a small bottle of Nata De
Coco , and a six-packed A & W root beer, a box of tissue paper, two bars of soap and a small box of Kraft
cheddar cheese, and pushed her lightly loaded trolley to the paying counter.
Gladys decided to have a budget meal of chicken, rice and a soft drink at the McDonalds on the
ground floor, which was usually not as crowded as the one in the basement beside the fast food stalls. She
was right about this and had to queue only briefly for her meal. After lunch, she went into the Marith and
Francois Girbaud store beside McDos to look at jeans and blouses. Then to Florsheim which she used to
imagine how Rod would look in them. She left the Florsheim shop, logging her small bag of groceries, and
intended to continue window shopping. She did not expect, at all was most surprise, in fact, to see the
strange stall right smack in the middle between Floorshiem on her side and Celine on the opposite one.
(DREAMS FOR SALE - Php 100 FOR THIRTY MINUTES,) the sign said. She had never seen the stall
before though she was sure that she knew every single shop and stall in the mall. It tickled her curiosity and
she approached the solitary man sitting behind a small desk. She took a seat across the desk and look at him.
He smiled reassuringly at her. He was middle-age, baldy, wore glasses and was dressed simply in a white
short-sleeve and dark pants.
Do you really sell dreams? Gladys asks impishly while she smiled back at the man.
Yes I do, he answered evenly as he looked calmly at her with lively eyes.
26

But what does that mean?

We will talk for thirty minutes and I will help you weave your dream.
What will I get at the end of thirty minutes?
Your dream.
And youll charge me of hundred pesos for that? A movie is only sixty pesos and it lasts for two hours.
Yes, but your own dream will be more satisfying and will last longer. It will be yours alone it need not
be shared with anyone.
Im really curious. But its too expensive.
Tell you what: why dont you try it? If youre not completely satisfied with your dream, you wont have to
pay me anything. I only put up this stall yesterday and thats my promo to get people to try my service.
Gladys looked at the mans face again. There was a reassuring quality about him-he didnt look like a
petty crook that would try to scare her into paying if she didnt want to. She impulsively decided to give it a try.
Okay, what do I do?
Just sit back and relax, the man said. Then he stared intently at her face for ten seconds. Before
Gladys could get uneasy, he spoke again in a soft, low voice that had a musical quality to it.
Tell me, what do your dream of these days?
Winning the Starex van that is being raffled off downstairs at the supermarkets. My husband and my
son and I could go on weekend trips to out-of-town resorts in it. I could pack our lunch and we could have
picnics every week.
The man listened carefully, then he said: You were seven years old when you skipped and ran
around the beach near your house in La Union very early one morning, at sunrise, before your mother got up
to prepare breakfast. You wove one of your first dreams then.
Gladys was startled. This scene was one of the dearest in her heart. How could he know about it? She
said nothing while she stared intently at him.
A storm was coming. The sea was restless. But you were not afraid. You had slipped out of the house
wearing only a panty to play on the beach.
Gladys frowned. She crossed her legs tightly and folded her arms across her chest.
The sting of salt spray on your face and chest awakened your senses. You enjoyed it a great deal.
You felt one with the sea, the sky, with nature and the world. You dreamed of the freedom to roam and enjoy
the world that would surely be yours when you grew up. You dreamed of living a full and happy life, he said in
a low, soothing, pleasant voice that instantly dissolved Gladys apprehension.
How did you do that? Do I know you? Have we met before?
The man simply smiled.
You went back to the same place on the beach at sunrise when you were fifteen, one morning during
your summer vacation in your senior year in high school. You had put on your bathing suit and had swum out
to sea. You occasionally dived underwater to look at the fish and playfully tried to catch them. As you dried
yourself with a towel back on the beach, you thought of your own impending adulthood with great anticipation;
you were so certain that you would prosper and do great and important things, for nature is so abundant.
Perhaps you would establish a tinapa factory and distribute your products throughout Luzon.
Yes, Gladys said enthusiastically. And I still dream of it. And when I finally do it, then Ill buy the
Starex van for my family.
The man smiled beatifically and leaned back in his chair. He was silent for a long time.
Gladys broke the silence. Is that it? Are my thirty minutes over?
Yes, the man answered. You can complete your dream on your own now, without my help.
Gladys paid the man and walked to the jeepney stop with a light heart. She recalled and savored
the two beach scenes in her mind on the ride home and felt, rather than thought, that the man was right. The
roots of her dream were still somewhere out there on the beach in La Union.
After their dinner that night, when Gladys had washed and put away the dishes and utensils, she
conversed briefly with Rod while they lay on their bed before they watched TV. She told him of the strange
man in the mall who sold dreams and of her pleasant experience. She related in wonderment how he had
lyrically described two of the childhood scenes that she especially treasured. And how those scenes, and the
childhood dreams that they evoked, had, indeed, stayed with her all day and had made her very happy. This
27

made the hundred pesos she had paid him well worth it.
Rod felt a bit bothered when Gladys told him of her experience. A strange man probing his wifes mind,
monkeying with her childhood memories and dreams, perturbed him. It was too intimate; it invaded his
privacy as well as hers; it violated his sole right to intimate conversations like that with the mother of their
child. But he saw that it had made Gladys happy and he decided not to ruin this by expressing his
apprehension.
Im glad that you enjoy it, he said. Hope it lasts you for several weeks, for we really cant afford
expensive entertainment like that too often.
Dont worry about that. It was just a whim. He may be out of business next week, when I shop again.
His stall is so strange; I dont think hell get many customers.
After watching TV for a couple of hours, for the first time in some weeks, Rod made love to Gladys
before they went to sleep. She responded quite passionately because she was in a good mood and they slept
very soundly that night.
NEXT WEDNESDAY, Gladys went to Galleria again to shop, she had done every Wednesday for years
now. She retraced her route of last week from habit and both essentially the same things from the
supermarket. She ate at the same McDos outlet, except that she ordered a hamburger budget meal this time.
Then she looked for the man that sold dreams.
He was there

seating behind his desk, and there was no else in the stall, just like it had been last

week.
Hello, he greeted her warmly when she sat down. How was your shopping?
Okay. Both the usual stuff. Do you have another dream for me today?
He looked at her intently for a few second, then he started the session.
It was a hot and humid evening in early June. Your boyfriend was visiting you in your Uncles house in
Singalong. To make him more comfortable, you suggested that you both go up on the roof to enjoy the breeze
and look at the stars. He was a bit surprised by this at first, then he quickly realize that this would give him
more privacy with you.
On the roof, you sat on the chairs you had brought and looked for shooting stars. You saw two, then
you chatted intimately for hours about the stars, the universe out there, and your dreams in life. He talked
passionately for some time about his plans to become a lawyer after finishing his accounting course. He
wanted to help poor people attain a measure of justice in our free-for-all society where the rich and powerful
often step on the poor and powerless. You responded by telling him how, one day, you would set up a business
that would provide good cheap food for ordinary people. At this business would allow him to donate some of
his hours pro bono to poor legal clients.
It was a good evening full of warm feelings between the two of you. He kissed you for the first time.
Then he proposed marriage.
Gladys instinctively touched her cheek with a palm of her hand and realized that she was brushing off
a tear. But how do you know these things? she blurted out, interrupting the man.
The man just smiled.
It was a great evening. A turning point in my life. The dreams we made that night willlive forever
Gladys said haltingly as the man sat in silence. Gladys lapsed into silence too and was lost in thought for
some minutes. The two of them just sat there, with neither looking at the other.
Finally, Gladys turned to the man, smiled and thanked him and paid.
She was sad and happy all day at home from the lost dreams that the man had retrieved for her, while
she cleaned the house and, later, prepared dinner and waited for Rod and Ralph to come home. She thought
of how Rod never did get to go to Law school as he had hoped. He worked immediately after graduating so
that they could get married and then couldnt go back to school. She quitted her job as secretary to have
28

Ralph and then never went back to work. She never tried to set up a business as she had planned. But
she was elated when she remembered their youthful selves, full of hopes and dreams. And she thought
that, maybe, it wasnt too late. Maybe it was never too late.
After dinner, Gladys wanted to recount her strange experience with the man who sold dreams at
the mall to Rod as they lay in bed. This time, Rod got mad and couldnt get himself from chiding Gladys.
But why do you share our most intimate moments with a stranger?
I didnt. He knew all about our night in the roof. I dont know how or why, and he wouldnt tell me, when
I asked.
How is that possible? How can I believe that?
But you must. Because its true.
Okay, Ill let it go this last time. But you must stop seeing this man, for heavens sake. I cant let
him go on playing with your mind. He might be out to destroy our marriage for his own strange reasons.
Okay, if thats what you want. But he has done no harm. He behaves very properly. And he makes me
happy for days on and by reviving a part of you and me that I thought had already died.
I dont think thats what hes up too. He is too strange. Ill go see him tomorrow and talk to him.
Talk to him, if you must. Youll see theres nothing to be afraid of. Hes a kind old man whos nearly
bald. Please dont get angry with him. Im sure he means well. I feel that very strongly.
Rod did not make love to Gladys that night, for he was in a bad mood. Neither of them slept well.
THE NEXT MORNING Rod went to work as usual in the accounting firm where he was a clerk. But he
asked a couple of hours off from his boss to attend to some urgent family business. Then he went to Galleria at
ten to have it out with the strange man who pride into his wife's dreams.
He methodically and precisely followed Gladys directions until he got to the front of the Florsheim
Shop, where he could see Celines across the corridor. But when he looked, there was no stall in the middle
with a man that sold dreams. That area of the corridor was empty.
Rod went into the Florsheim Shop, pretended to look at the shoes and waited for the salesman to
approach him. He asked about the prices of a few pairs rather perfunctorily, then he inquired about the stall
with a man the man sold dreams.
The salesman looked at him quizzically and asked him to repeat the question. When Rod did that, the
salesman simply shook his head vigorously and said he had never seen or heard of such a strange stall
before.
Rod went to Celines and asked the salesgirl there about the strange man and his stall. The girl laugh
and said that there was no such stall in the mall and that she doubted if there was that kind of stall in any
other mall in the country.
Thoroughly confused, Rod went back to his office and tried, rather unsuccessfully, to work as if nothing
untoward had happened.
He really couldnt concentrate on his work, so he went home early and quietly slipped into the house.
From the tiny living room, he saw Gladys with her back turned, cooking. He smelled his favorite Batangas
Bulalo. She was dressed in a thin duster and desire stirred in him as he noticed that she had kept her good
figure through their years of marriage. She paused from cooking to brush the hair from her ears. He glimpsed
her naked pink ear. In that instant he thought he understood what Gladys was trying to tell by inventing the
story of the strange man who sold dreams. He crept quietly behind her and kissed her ear.
She was startled and dropped her ladle. But she giggled girlishly when she saw that it was her
husband. After kissing him back on the mouth she asks: Well, did you talk to the man who sells dreams?
Rod laughed and said: No, I changed my mind. Youre right, he does no harm. And whatever makes
you happy makes me happy too. Listen, why dont we catch a movie at the Galleria after dinner tonight? Lets
date, like in the old days.
29

Gladys looked into Rods eyes. Then she hugged him tightly.

THE SMALL KEY

Paz Latorena

It was very warm. The sun, up above a sky that was all blue and tremendous and beckoning to birds
ever on wing, shone bright as if determined to scorch everything under heaven, even the low, square nipa
house that stood in unashamed relief against the gray green haze of grass and leaves.

It was a lonely dwelling, located far from its neighbors, which were huddled close to one another as if
for mutual comfort. It was flanked from both sides by tall, slender bamboo trees which rustled plaintively under
a gentle wind.

On the porch, a woman past her early twenties stood regarding the scene before her with eyes made
incurious by its familiarity. All around her the land stretched endlessly, it seemed, and vanished into the
distance. There were dark, newly plowed furrows where in due time timorous seedlings would give rise to
sturdy stalks and golden grain, to a rippling yellow sea in the wind and sun during the harvest time. Promise of
plenty and reward for hard toil! With a sigh of discontent, however, the woman turned and entered a small
dining room where a man sat over a belated midday meal.

Pedro Buhay, a prosperous farmer, looked up from his plate and smiled at his wife as she stood framed
by the doorway, the sunlight glinting on her dark hair, which was drawn back, without relenting wave, from a
rather prominent and austere brow.

Where are the shirts I ironed yesterday?she asked as she approached the table.
30

In my trunk, I think. he answered.

Some of them need darning, and, observing the empty plate, she added, do you want some more
rice?

No, hastily, I am in a hurry to get back. We must finish plowing the south field today because
tomorrow is Sunday.

Pedro pushed the chair back and stood up. Soledad began to pile the dirty dishes one on top of the
other.

Here is the key to my trunk. From the pocket of his khaki coat, he pulled a string of nondescript red,
which held together a big shiny and another small, rusty-looking one.

With deliberate care, he untied the knot, and, detaching the big key, dropped the small one back into
his pocket. She watched him fixedly as he did this. The smile left her face and a strange look came into his
eyes as she took the big key from him without a word. Together they left the dining room.

Out on the porch, he put an arm around her shoulders and peered into her shadowed face.

You look pale and tired, he remarked softly. What have you been doing all morning?

Nothing, she said listlessly, but the heat gives me a headache.

Then lie down and try to sleep while I am gone. For a moment, they looked deeply into each others
eyes.

It is really warm, he continued. I think I will take off my coat.

He removed the garment absentmindedly and handed it to her. The stairs creaked under his weight as
31

he went down.

Choleng, he turned his head as he opened the gate, I shall pass by Tia Marias house and tell her to
come. I may not return before dark.

Soledad nodded. Her eyes followed her husband down the road, noting the fine set of his head and
shoulders, the ease of his stride. A strange ache rose in her throat.

She looked at the coat he had handed to her. It exuded a faint smell of his favorite cigars, one of which
he invariably smoked, after the days work, on his way home from the fields. Mechanically, she began to fold
the garment.

As she was doing so, a small object fell to the floor with a dull, metallic sound. Soledad stooped down
and picked it up. It was the small key! She stared at it in her palm as if she had never seen it before. Her mouth
was tightly drawn and for a while she looked almost old.

She passed into the small bedroom and tossed the coat carelessly on the back of the chair. She
opened the window and the early afternoon sunshine flooded in. On a mat spread on the bamboo floor were
some newly washed garments.

She began to fold them one by one in feverish haste, as if seeking in the task of the moment a refuge
from painful thoughts. But her eyes moved restlessly around the room until they rested almost furtively on a
small trunk that was half concealed by a rolled mat in a dark corner.

It was a small, old trunk, without anything on the outside that might arose ones curiosity. But it held the
things she had come to hate with unreasoning violence, the things that were causing her so much unnecessary
anguish and pain, and threatened to destroy all that was most beautiful between her and her husband.

Soledad came across torn garment. She threaded a needle but after a few uneven stitches, she pricked
her fingers and a crimson drop stained the white garment. Then she saw she had been mending on the wrong
side.

What is the matter with me? She asked herself aloud as she pulled the thread with nervous and
impatient fingers.

32

What did it matter if her husband chose to keep the clothes of his first wife?

She is dead now, anyhow. She is dead, she repeated to herself over and over again. The sound of her
own voice calmed her. She tried to thread the needle once more. But she could not, for the tears had come
unbidden and completely blinded her.

My God,she cried with a sob, make me forget Indos face as she put the small key back into his
pocket.

She brushed her tears with the sleeve of the camisa and abruptly stood up. The heat was stifling, and
the silence in the house was beginning to be unendurable.

She looked out into the window. She wondered what was keeping Tia Maria. Perhaps Pedro had
forgotten to pass by her house in his hurry. She could picture him out there in the south field gazing far and
wide at the newly plowed land, with no thought in his mind but of work, work. For, to the people of the barrio
whose patron saint, San Isidro Labrador, smiled on them with benign eyes from his crude altar in the little
chapel up the hill, this season was a prolonged hour of passion during which they were blind and deaf to
everything but demands of the land.

During the next half hour, Soledad wandered in and out of the rooms, in an effort to seek escape from
her own thoughts and to fight down an overpowering impulse. If Tia Maria would only come and talk to her to
divert her thoughts to other channels!

But the expression of her husbands face as he put the small key back into his pocket kept torturing her
like a nightmare, goading her beyond endurance. Then, with all resistance to the impulse gone, she was
kneeling before the small trunk. With a long drawn breath she inserted the small key. There was an unpleasant
metallic sound for the key had not been used for a long time and it was rusty.

II

That evening Pedro Buhay hurried home with the usual cigar dangling from his mouth, pleased with
himself and the tenants because the work in the south field had been finished. He was met by Tia Maria at the
gate and was told by her that Soledad was in bed with a fever.

I shall go to town and bring Dr. Santos, he decided, his cool hand in his wifes brow.

33

Soledad opened her eyes.

Dont Indo, she begged with a vague terror in her eyes which he took for anxiety for him because the
town was pretty far and the road was dark and deserted by that hour of the night. I shall be all right tomorrow.
Pedro returned an hour later, very tired and rather worried. The doctor was not at home. But the wife
had promised to send him to Pedros house as soon as he came in.

Tia Maria decided to remain for the night. But it was Pedro who stayed up to watch for the sick woman.
He was puzzled and worried more than he cared to admit. It was true that Soledad had not looked very well
when he left her early that afternoon. Yet, he thought, the fever was rather sudden. He felt that it must be a
symptom of a serious illness.

Soledad was restless the whole night. She tossed from one side to another, but towards morning she
fell into some sort of troubled sleep. Pedro then lay down to snatch a few winks.

He woke up to find the soft morning sunshine streaming through the half opened window, playing on
the sleeping face of his wife. He got up without making any noise. His wife was now breathing evenly. A
sudden rush of tenderness came over him at the sight of her so light, so frail.

Tia Maria was nowhere to be seen, but that did not bother him for it was Sunday and the work in the
south field was finished. However, he missed the pleasant aroma which came from the kitchen every time he
woke up early in the morning.

The kitchen looked neat but cheerless, and an immediate search for wood brought no results. So,
shouldering an ax, Pedro descended the rickety stairs that led to the backyard.

The morning was clear and the breeze soft and cool. Pedro took in a breath of air. It was good, it smelt
of trees, of the rice fields, of the land he loved.

He found a pile of logs under the young mango tree near the house, and began to chop. He swung the
ax with rapid clean sweeps, enjoying the feel of the smooth wooded handle in his palms.

As he stopped for a while to mop his brow, his eye caught the remnants of a smudge that had been
34

built in the backyard.

Ah! he muttered to himself. She swept the yard yesterday after I left her. That coupled with the heat
must have given her a headache and then the fever.

The morning breeze stirred the ashes and a piece of white cloth fluttered into view.

Pedro dropped his ax. It was a half-burnt panuelo. Somebody had been burning clothes. He examined
the slightly ruined garment closely. A puzzled expression came into his eyes. First it was doubt groping for
truth, then amazement, and finally, agonized incredulity passed across his face. He almost ran back to the
house. In three strides he was upstairs. He found his coat hanging from the back of a chair.

Cautiously, he entered the room. The heavy breathing of his wife told him that she was still asleep. As
he stood by the small trunk, a vague distaste to open it assailed him. Surely, he must be mistaken. She could
not have done it, she could not have done thatthat foolish

Resolutely, he opened the trunk. It was empty.

It was nearly noon when the doctor arrived. He felt Soledads pulse and asked questions which she
answered in monosyllables. Pedro stood by listening to the whole procedure with an inscrutable expression on
his face. He had the same expression when the doctor told him by the gate that nothing was really wrong with
his wife, although she seemed to be worried about something. The doctor merely prescribed a day of complete
rest for her.

Pedro lingered on the porch after the doctor mounted his horse and galloped away. He was trying not to
be angry with his wife. He hoped it would be just an interlude that could be recalled without bitterness. She
would explain sooner or later, she would be repentant, perhaps she would even try to convince him that she
had done it because she loved him. And he would listen and eventually forgive her for she was young and he
loved her. But somehow, he knew that this incident would always remain a shadow in their lives.

How quiet and peaceful the day was. A cow that had strayed by looked over her shoulder with a round
vague inquiry and went on chewing her cud, blissfully unaware of such things as a gnawing fear in the heart of
a woman and still a smoldering resentment in a mans.

35

FAITH, LOVE, TIME AND DR. LAZARO

Gregorio C. Brillantes

From the upstairs veranda, Dr. Lazaro had a view of stars, of the country darkness, the lights of
the distant highway at the edge of town. The phonograph in the sala played Chopin like a vast
sorrow controlled, made familiar, he had been wont to think. But as he sat there. His lean frame in
the habitual slack repose he took after supper, and stared at the plains of night that evoked gentle
images and even a kind of peace (in the end, sweet and invincible oblivion), Dr. Lazaro remembered
nothing, his mind lay untouched by any unconscious thought, he was scarcely aware of the April heat;
the patterns of music fell around him and dissolved swiftly uncomprehended. It was as though
indifference were an infection that had entered his blood; it was everywhere in his body. In the
scattered light from the sala his angular face had a dusty, wasted quality; only his eyes contained life.
He could have remained there all evening, unmoving, and buried as it were, in a strange half sleep,
had his wife not come to tell he was wanted on the phone.

Gradually, his mind stirred focused; as he rose from the chair he recognized the somber
passage in the sonata that, curiously, made him think of ancient monuments, faded stone walls, a
grayness. The brain filed away an image, an arrangement of sounds released it He switched off
the phonograph, suppressed an impatient quiver in his throat as he reached for the phone; everyone
had a claim on his time. He thought: why not the younger ones for a change? He had spent a long
day at the provincial hospital.

The man was calling from a service station outside the town the station after agricultural high
36

school and before the San Miguel bridge, the man added rather needlessly, in a voice at once frantic
yet oddly subdued and courteous. Dr. Lazaro had heard it countless times in the corridors of the
hospital, in waiting rooms: the perpetual awkward misery. He was Pedro Esteban, the brother of the
doctors tenant in Nambalan, said the voice, trying to make itself less sudden and remote.

But the connection was faulty, there was humming in the wires, as though darkness had
added to the distance between the house in the town and the station beyond the summer fields. Dr.
Lazaro could barely catch the severed phrases. The mans week old child had a high fever; a bluish
skin; its mouth would not open to suckle. They could not take the baby to the poblacion, they would
not dare move it; its body turned rigid when touched. If the doctor would consent to come at so late
an hour, Esteban would wait for him at the station, if the doctor would be so kind

Tetanus of the new-born: that was elementary, and most likely, it was hopeless, a waste of
time. Dr. Lazaro said yes, he would be there; he had committed himself to that answer, long ago;
duty had taken the place of an exhausted compassion. The carelessness of the poor, the infected
blankets, the toxin moving towards the heart; they were casual scribbled items of a clinical report. But
outside the grilled windows, the light suddenly seemed alive and waiting. He had no choice left now but
action: It was the only certitude he sometimes reminded himself even if it should prove futile, before
the descent into nothingness.

His wife looked up from needles and twine, under the shaded lamp of the bedroom; she had
finished the pullover for the grandchild in Baguio and began work, he noted another of those altar
vestments for the parish church. Religion and her grandchild certainly kept her busy She looked at
him, not so much to inquire as to be spoken to: a large placid woman.

Shouldnt have let the driver go home early, Dr. Lazaro said. They had to wait now to call
Childs probably dead

Ben can drive for you.

Hardly see that boy around the house. Seems to be taking his vacation both from home and
school.

Hes downstairs, his wife said.

Dr. Lazaro put on a white shirt, buttoned it with tense abrupt motion. I thought he is gone
out againWhos that girl hes been seeing?...Its not just warm, its hot. You shouldve stayed on in
Baguio Theres disease, suffering because Adam ate the apple. They must have an answer to
everything.. . he paused at the door, as though for the echo of his words.
37

Mrs. Lazaro had resumed her knitting in the circle of yellow light, her head bowed, she
seemed absorbed in some contemplative prayer. But her silences had ceased to disturb him, like the
plaster saints she kept in the room, in their cases of glass, or that air she wore of conspiracy, when
she left with Ben for Mass in the mornings. Dr. Lazaro would ramble about miracle drugs, politics,
music, the common sense of his unbelief, unrelated things strung together in a monologue; he posed
questions, supplied his answers; and she would merely nod, with an occasional Yes? an Is that
so? and something like a shadow of anxiety in her gaze.

He hurried down the curving stairs, under the votive lamps of the Sacred Heart. Ben lay
sprawled on the sofa, in the front parlor, engrossed in a book, one leg propped against the back
cushions. Come along, were going somewhere, Dr Lazaro said, and went into the clinic for his
medical bag. He added a vial of penstrep, an ampule of caffeine into the sachels contents;
rechecked the bag before closing it; the catgut would last just one more patient. One can only cure,
and know nothing beyond ones work There had been the man, today in the hospital: the patients
eye flickering their despair in the eroded space. Dr. Lazaro brushed aside the stray vision as he
strode out of the whitewashed room; he was back in his element, among syringes, steel instruments,
quick decisions, and it gave him a sort of blunt energy.

Ill drive, Pa? Ben followed him through the kitchen, where the maids were ironing the weeks
wash, gossiping and out to the yard, the dimness of the single bulb under the caves. The boy
pushed back the folding doors of the garage and slid behind the wheel.

Somebodys waiting at the gas station near San Miguel. You know the place?

Sure, Ben said.

The engine sputtered briefly and stopped. Batterys weak, Dr. Lazaro said. Try it without the
lights. And he smelled the gas line overflow as the old Pontiac finally lurched around the house
and through the trellised gate, its front beams sweeping over the dry dusty street.

But hes alright, Dr. Lazaro thought as they swung smoothly into the main avenue of the town,
past the church and the plaza, the kiosk bare for once in a season of fiestas, the lamp posts shining
on the quiet square. They did not speak; he could sense his sons concentration on the road; and
he noted, with a tentative amusement, the intense way the boy sat behind the wheel, his eagerness
to be of help. They passed the drab frame houses behind the market place, and the capitol building
on its landscaped hill, the gears shifting easily as they went over the rail tracks that crossed the
last asphalted section of the main street.

Then the road was pebbled and uneven the car bucking slightly; and they were speeding
38

between open fields, a succession of narrow wooden bridges breaking the crunching drive of the
wheels. Dr. Lazaro gazed at the wide darkness around them, the shapes of trees and bushes hurling
toward them and sliding away, and he saw the stars, nearer now, they seemed, moving with the car.
He thought of light years, black space, infinite distances; in the unmeasured universe, mans life
flared briefly and was gone, traceless in the void. He turned away from the emptiness. He said:
You seem to have had a lot of practice, Ben.

A lot of what, Pa?

The way you drive. Very professional.

In the glow in the dashboard lights, the boys face relaxed, smiled. Tio Cesar let me use his
car in Manila. Special occasions.

No reckless speeding now, Dr Lazaro said. Some fellows think its smart. Gives them a thrill.
Dont be like that.

No, I wont Pa. I just like to drive and go places, thats all.

Dr. Lazaro watched the young face intent on the road, a cowlick over the forehead, the small
curve of the nose, his own face before he left to study in another country, a young student full of
illusion, a lifetime ago: long before the loss of faith, God turning abstract, unknowable, and
everywhere it seemed to him, those senses accidents of pain. He felt a need to define unspoken
things, to come closer somehow to the last of his sons; one of these days, before the boys
vacation was over, they might go too to a picnic together, a trip to the farm: a special way for the
two of them - father and son, as well as friends. In the two years Ben had been away in college,
they had written a few brief, almost formal letters to each other: your money is on the way, study
hard, these are the best years.

Time was moving toward the end, was swirling around and rushing away, and it seemed Dr.
Lazaro could almost hear its hollow receding roar; and discovering his sons profile against the
flowing darkness he had a thirst to speak. He could not find what it he want to say.

The agricultural school building came up in the headlights and glided back into blurred shape
behind a fence.

39

What was the book you were reading, Ben?

Biography, the boy said.

Statesman? Scientist maybe?

Its about a guy who became a monk.

Thats your summer reading? Dr. Lazaro asked with a small laugh, half mockery, half affection.
You are getting to be a regular saint like your mother.

Its an interesting book, Ben said.

I can imagine He dropped the bantering tone. I suppose youll go on to medicine after your
A.B.?

I dont know yet, Pa.

Tiny moths like blown bits of paper flew toward the windshield and funneled away above them.
You dont have to be a country doctor like me, Ben. You could build up a good practice in the city,
specialized in cancer, maybe or neuro-surgery, and join a good hospital. It was like trying to recall
some rare happiness, in the car, in the shifting darkness.

Ive been thinking about it, Ben said. Its a vocation, a great one. Being able to really help
people, I mean.

Youve done well in math, havent you?

Well enough, I guess. Ben said.

40

Engineering is a fine course too, Dr. Lazaro said. Therell be lots of room for engineers. Far
too many lawyers and salesman. Now if your brother He closed his eyes, erasing the slashed
wrists, part of the future dead in a boarding-house room, the landlady whimpering, he was such a
nice boy, a doctor, your son Sorrow lay in ambush among the years.

I have all summer to think about it, Ben said.

Theres no hurry. Dr. Lazaro said. What was it he had wanted to say? Something about
knowing each other, about sharing, no, it was not that all.

The station appeared as they coasted down the incline of a low hill, its fluorescent lights the
only brightness on the plain before them, on the road that led farther into deeper darkness. A freight
truck was taking on a load of gasoline as they drove up the concrete apron and stopped beside the
station shed.

A short barefoot man in a patchwork shirt shuffled forward to meet them. I am Esteban,
doctor, the man said, his voice faint and hoarse, almost inaudible, and he bowed slightly with a
careful politeness. He stood blinking looking up at the doctor, who had taken his bag and flashlight
from the car. In the windless space, Dr. Lazaro could hear Estebans labored breathing, the clank of
the metal nozzle as the attendant replaced it in the pump: the men in the truck looked at them
curiously.

Esteban said, pointing in the darkness beyond the road: We will have to go through those
fields, doctor. Then cross the river. The apology for yet one more imposition was a wounded look in
his eyes. He added in his subdued voice: Its not very far Ben had spoken to the attendants
and was looking at the car.

The truck rambled and moved ponderously unto the road, its throb strong and then fading
into the warm night stillness.

Lead the way, Dr. Lazaro said, handling Esteban the flashlight.

They crossed the road, to a cleft in the embankment that bordered the fields. Dr. Lazaro was
sweating now in the dry heat: following the swinging ball of the flashlight beam, surrounded by the
stifling night, he felt he was being dragged, helplessly toward some vast and complicated error; a
meaningless ceremony. Somewhere to his left rose a flapping of wings a bird cried among unseen
leaves; they walked swiftly and there was only the sound of silence, the constant whirl of crickets,
and the whisper of their feet on the path between the stubble fields.
41

With the boy close behind him, Dr. Lazaro followed Esteban down a clay of slope to the slap
and ripple of water in the darkness. The flashlight showed a banca drawn up at the rivers edge.
Esteban waded waist-deep into the water, holding the boat steady as Dr. Lazaro and Ben stepped
on board. In the darkness, with the opposite bank like the far rise of an island, Dr. Lazaro had a
moments tremor of fear as the boat slid out of the black waters; below prowled the deadly currents;
to drown here in the depths of night But it took less than a minute to cross the river. Were here
doctor, Esteban said, and they padded up a stretch of sand to a clump of trees: a dog started to
bark, the shadows of kerosene lamp wavered at a window.

Unsteady on a steep ladder, Dr. Lazaro entered the cave of Estebans hut. The single room
contained the odors he often encountered but had remained alien to stirring an impersonal disgust:
the sourish decay, the smells of unaired sick. The old man greeted him, lisping incoherently; a
woman, the grandmother, sat crouched in a corner, beneath a framed print of the Mother of
Perpetual Help; a boy, about ten, slept on, sprawled on a mat; Estebans wife, pale and thin, lay on
the floor with the sick child beside her. Motionless, its tiny blue tinged face drawn away from its
chest in a fixed wrinkled grimace, the infant seemed to be straining to express some terrible ancient
wisdom.

Dr. Lazaro made a cursory check skin dry, turning cold; breathing shallow; heartbeat, fast and
irregular. And in that moment, only the child existed before him; only the child and his own mind
probing now like a hard gleaming instrument; how strange that it should still live, his mind said, as
it considered the spark that persisted with the rigid and tortured body. He was alone with the child,
his whole being focused on it, in those intense minutes shaped into a habit now by so many similar
instances; his physicians knowledge trying to keep the heart beating, life rising again.

Dr. Lazaro removed the blankets that bundled the child and injected a whole ampule to
check the tonic spasms, the needle piercing neatly into a sparse flesh; he broke another ampule,
with deft precise movements, and emptied the syringe, while the infant lay stiff as wood beneath his
hands. He wiped off the sweat running into his eyes, then holding the rigid body with one hand, he
tried to draw air into the faltering lungs, pressing and releasing the chest; but even as he worked to
rescue the child, the bluish color of its face began to turn grey.

Dr. Lazaro rose from his crouch on the floor, a cramp ache in his shoulders, his mouth dry.
The lamplight glistened on his pale, hollow face as he confronted the room again, the stale heat, the
poverty. Esteban met his gaze; all of their eyes were upon him, Ben at the door, the old man, the
woman in the corner, and Estebans wife, in the trembling shadows.

Esteban said, Doctor

He shook his head, and replaced the syringe case in his bag, slowly and deliberately, and
fastened the clasp. There was a murmuring behind him, a rustle across the bamboo floor, and when
42

turned, Ben was kneeling beside the child. As he watched, with a tired detached surprise, the boy
poured a trickle of water from a coconut shell on the infants brow. He caught the words halfwhispered in the quietness: in the name of the Father Son the Holy Ghost

The shadows flapped on the walls, the lamplight quivering before it settled into a slender
frame. By the river, dogs were barking. Dr. Lazaro glanced at his watch; it was close to midnight.
Ben stood over the child, the coconut shell in his hands, as though wondering what next to do with
it, until he saw his father nod for them to go.

Doctor, tell us,Esteban clutched at his arm.

I did everything, Dr. Lazaro said. Its too late. He gestured vaguely, with a dull resentment;
by some implicit relationship, he was also responsible for the misery in the room, the hopelessness.
Theres nothing more I can do, Esteban, he said. He thought with a lick of anger. Soon, the child
will be out of it, you ought to be grateful. Estebans wife began to cry, a weak smothered gasping,
and the old woman was comforting her. It is the will of God, my daughter

In the yard, Esteban pressed carefully folded bills in the doctors hand: the limp, tattered feel
of money was part of the futile journey. I know that this is not enough, doctor, Esteban said. As
you can see we are very poorI shall bring you fruit, chicken, someday.

A late moon had risen, edging over the tops of the trees, and in the faint wash of its light,
Esteban guided them back to the boat. A glimmering rippled on the surface of the water as they
paddled across; the white moonlight spread in the sky, and a sudden wind sprang rain-like and was
lost in the trees massed on the river bank.

I cannot thank you enough, doctor, Esteban said. You have been very kind to come this far,
at this hour.

They stood on the clay bank, in the moon shadows beside the gleaming water. Dr. Lazaro
said: You better go back now, Esteban. We can find our way back to the road. The trail is just
over there, isnt it? He wanted to be rid of the man, to be away from the shy humble voice, the
prolonged wretchedness.

I shall be grateful always, doctor, Esteban said. And to your son, too. God be with you. His
faceless voice withdrawing in the shadows, a cipher in the shabby crowds that came to town on
market days.

43

Lets go, Ben, Dr. Lazaro said.

They took the patch back across the field; around them the moonlight had transformed the
landscape, revealing a gently, more familiar dimension, a luminous haze upon the trees stirring with a
growing wind; and the heat of the night had passed, a coolness was falling from the deep sky.
Unhurried, his deep pace, no more than a casual stroll, Dr. Lazaro felt the oppression of the night
begin to lift from him; an emotionless clam returned to his mind. The sparrow does not fall without
the fathers leave, he mused at the sky, but it falls just the same. But to what end are the
sufferings of a child? The crickets chirped peacefully in the moon-pale darkness beneath the trees.

You baptized the child, didnt you, Ben?

Yes, Pa. The boy kept in step beside him.

He used to believe in, too, the power of the Holy Spirit washing away the original sin, the
purified soul made heir of heaven. He could still remember fragments of his boyhood faith, as one
might remember an improbable and long discarded dream.

Lay baptism, isnt that the name for it?

Yes, Ben said, I asked the father. The baby hadnt been baptized. He added as they came
to the embankment that separated the field from the road: They were waiting for it to get well.

A fine gesture; it proved the boy had presence of mind, convictions, but what else? The world
will teach him his greatest lesson.

The station had closed, with only the canopy light and the globed neon sign left burning. A
steady wind was blowing now across the fields, the moonlight plains.

He saw Ben stifle a yawn. Ill do the driving, Dr. Lazaro said.

His eyes were not what they used to be, and he drove leaning forward, his hands tight on
the wheel. He began to sweat again, and the empty road and the lateness and the memory of
Esteban and of the child dying in the morning in the cramped lamp-lit room fused into a tired
44

melancholy. He started to think of his other son, the one whom he had lost.

He said, seeking conversation, If other people carried on like you, Ben, priests would run out
of business.

The boy sat beside him, his face averted, not answering.

Now, youll have an angel praying for you in heaven, Dr. Lazaro said, teasing, trying to
create an easy mood between them. What if you hadnt baptized the baby and it died? What would
happen to it then?

It wont see God, Ben said.

But isnt that unfair? It was like a riddle trivial but diverting. Just because

Maybe God has another remedy, Ben said. I dont know but the Church says

He could sense the boy groping for the tremendous answers. the Church teaches, the Church
says God: Christ: the communion of saints: Dr. Lazaro found himself wondering again at the world
of novenas and candles, where bread and wine became the flesh and blood of the Lord, and a
woman bathed in light appeared before children, and portal men spoke of eternal life, the vision of
God, the bodys resurrection at the end of time. It was like a country from which he was barred; no
matter the custom, the geography didnt appeal to him. But in the car suddenly, driving through the
night, he was aware of an obscure disappointment, a subtle pressure around his heart, as though he
had been deprived of a certain joy.

A bus roared around a hill toward them, its lights blinding him, and he pulled to the side of
the road, braking involuntarily as a billow of dust poured in, the thick brittle powder almost choking
him, making him cough, his eyes smarting, before he could shield his face with his hands. In the
headlights, the dust shifted down and when the air was clear again, Dr. Lazaro, swallowing a taste
of earth, of darkness, maneuvered the care back onto the road, his arms numbed and exhausted. He
drove the last half mile to town in silence, his mind registering nothing but the grit of dust in his
mouth and the empty road unwinding before him.

They reached the sleeping town, the desolate streets, the plaza empty in the moonlight, and
the huddled shapes of houses, the old houses that Dr. Lazaro has always known. How many nights
45

had he driven home like this through the quiet town, with a mans life ended behind him, or a child
crying newly risen from the womb; and a sense of constant motion, of change, of the days moving
swiftly toward an immense revelation touched him once more, briefly, and still he could not find the
words. He turned the last corner, then steered the car down the graveled driveway to the garage,
while Ben closed the gate. Dr. Lazaro sat there a moment, in the stillness, resting his eyes,
conscious of the measured beating of his heart, and breathing scent of dust that lingered on his
clothes, his skin, before he finally went around the tower of the water tanK of the front yard where
Ben stood waiting.

With unaccustomed tenderness, he placed a hand on Bens shoulders as they turned toward
the cement-walled house. They had gone on a trip! They have come home safely together. He felt
closer to the boy than he had ever been in years.

Sorry for keeping you up this late, Dr. Lazaro said.

Its all right, Pa.

Some night, huh, Ben? What you did back to the barrio. There was just the slightest
patronage in his tone, your mother will love to hear about it.

He shook the boy beside him gently. Reverend Father Ben Lazaro. The impulse of uncertain
humor it was part of the comradeship. He chuckled drowsily. Father Lazaro, what must I do to gain
eternal life?

As he slid the door open on the vault of darkness, the familiar depths of the house, it came
to Dr. Lazaro faintly in the late night that for certain things like love, there was only so much time.
But the glimmer was lost instantly, buried in the mist of indifference and sleep rising now in his
brain.

46