Title: THE CENTIPEDE Author: Rony V. Diaz is an award-winning Filipino writer. He has won several Palanca Awards.He Awards.He joined the paper in 2001 as executive director. He eventually became publisher and president of the Manila Times School of Journalism. He has taught English at U.P. Diliman and has worked for the Philippine government as a Foreign Service corp Born in Cabanatuan, Nueva Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija but Ecija but moved to Mindoro after the bombing of Clark of Clark Field. Field. Character:
Author – A boy who narrates the story and the main cast of the stories who love their Pets. Delia – Sister of the author who hate h ate the Pets of his brother. Eddie - A man who help in their house. Berto - a man who gave the centipede. Biryuk – A pet dog of the author. Settings:
In the house and in the ground. Plot: •
When he saw her sister beating his dog. Few Imaginations During the time his father and the author hunted some animals in the forest.
•
•
When her sister told Eddie and Berto to kill his dog.
•
When the time Berto give the Centipede to the author.
•
When the time the author express exp ress his feeling to her sister.
Climax:
When the time the author express his feelings to her sister and her sister did not move, and she look his brother while while crying and voice out all the bad things that can do her sister to his pets. Conflict:
Man’s against Man -- That’s That’s because because there there are are a problem problem the the author author and his siste sister. r. Denouement:
When the time Delia kill the centipede of the author, and the author express his feelings.
Moral lesson:
Don’t make a thing that can affect the relation in your family. Summary:
One day he saw her sister beating his dog, and he remembers the day when he and his dog become a friend. Her sister told to Eddie and Berto to kill his dog, but not only those things to do of her sister, also to destruct his pet like Butterfly and his father told him “why?”, but her sister did not answer. In other side he looks Berto in the ground, and Berto gave him a centipede, but the same time his centipede kill his sister, but that time the author has to express his feeling about her sister.
Title: HARVEST Author: Loreto Paras Sulit
Paras-Sulit was born in Ermita, Manila.[1] After finishing her secondary education in Manila, she entered the University of the Philippines, where she first gained notice for her short fiction. While at the University, she co-founded the U.P. Writer's Club in 1927 along with other student-writers such as Arturo Rotor and Jose Garcia Villa. She graduated with a Bachelor of Sciences degree in education, magna cum laude, in 1930.
Characters:
Fabian: The older brother of Vidal and the husband of Tinay. Vidal: The youngest brother of Fabian and have an interest of Francia. Tinay: The wife of Fabian. Milia: In love with Vidal Francia: Relatives of Master. Master: The owner of one of the big farm in their place.
Settings: In the farm, house of two brothers, and the house of the master.
Plot: •
In the farm where work Fabian and Vidal together with some other people, and at the place master will come together with the girl name Francia a beautiful lady. And Vidal got attract them.
•
In the afternoon the two brothers go home and no exchange of words, but Vidal talk about a lady that he see in the farm.
•
In the house the suffer is on the table, but Tinay could not eat, because she attendant her baby.
•
In that day the two brothers go back to the farm.
•
After a while Fabian go to master house to get the bill, and he make lies about Vidal in front of Francia.
•
During Fabian turn their house he found Vidal in Batalan and thinking some of the deferent happen in his life.
Conflict: Man’s against nature – Because of the situation of the life of their family Fabian could not allowed to Vidal to go to Francia to become a servant.
Man’s against man – Because the two brothers have an argument. Man’s against himself – Because Vidal cannot express his true feelings about Francia
Denouement: When the time Fabian goes to the house of master’s and tell lies about Vidal on why he could not go with here, that’s because there life did not deserve to mingle the life of Francia.
Moral Lesson:
Don’t lose faith on your self and don’t compare your life into the other.
Summary:
In the farm there are two brothers name Fabian and Vidal. Vidal the youngest brother he works very fast w/o pushing, he could harvest in the field in the morning. Vidal had always been afraid of his brother because he doesn’t appreciate beautiful things. Harvest time has almost ended Vidal, said Fabian and he made mention about Milia A lady that have like to Vidal. After a while the Master’s come together with the lady name Francia, and Francia said Vidal if he welling to work in their place. After that the two brothers walk to go home and did not exchange of word, but Vidal found himself to talk about a lady that he see. In their house Vidal had relaxed because he tired in that day. At the morning deserving Vidal ask his brother to goes master’s house to work of francia But fabian is the one to go the house of master’s and he see Francia at that place, and he tells lies about Vidal, and Francia get the point of Fabian and she give a 20 peso bills to Fabian for their wok in the farm. And during the time Fabian retune to his house he found Vidal in Batalan and he give 20 peso bills, and Vidal thinking some deferent memories in his life.
THE CENTIPEDE by Rony V. Diaz
WHEN I saw my sister, Delia, beating my dog with a stick, I felt hate heave like a caged, angry beast in my chest. Out in the sun, the hair of my sister glinted like metal and, in her brown dress, she looked like a sheathed dagger. Biryuk hugged the earth and screamed but I could not bound forward nor cry out to my sister. She had a weak heart and she must not be surprised. So I held myself, my throat swelled, and I felt hate rear and plunge in its cage of ribs. I WAS thirteen when my father first took me hunting. All through the summer of that year, I had tramped alone and unarmed the fields and forest around our farm. Then one afternoon in late July my father told me I could use his shotgun. Beyond the ipil grove, in a grass field we spotted a covey of brown pigeons. In the open, they kept springing to the air and gliding away every time we were within range. But finally they dropped to the ground inside a wedge of guava trees. My father pressed my shoulder and I stopped. Then slowly, in a half-crouch, we advanced. The breeze rose lightly; the grass scuffed against my bare legs. My father stopped again. He knelt down and held my hand. “Wait for the birds to rise and then fire,” he whispered.
and the covey dispersed like seeds thrown in the wind. I fired and my body shook with the fierce momentary life of the rifle. I saw three pigeons flutter in a last convulsive effort to stay afloat, then fall to the ground. The shot did not scare the dog. He came to us, sniffing cautiously. He circled around us until I snapped my fingers and then he came me. “Not bad,” my father said grinning. “Three birds with one tube.” I went to the brush to get the birds. The dog ambled after me. He found the birds for me. The breast of one of the birds was torn. The bird had fallen on a spot where the earth was worn bare, and its blood was spread like a tiny, red rag. The dog scraped the blood with his tongue. I picked up the birds and its warm, mangled flesh clung to the palm of my hand. “You’re keen,” I said to the dog. “Here. Come here.” I offered him my bloody palm. He came to me and licked my palm clean. I gave the birds to my father. “May I keep him, Father?” I said pointing to the dog. He put the birds in a leather bag which he carried strapped around his waist. Father looked at me a minute and then said: “Well, I’m not sure. That dog belongs to somebody.” “May I keep him until his owner comes for him?” I pursued.
I pushed the safety lever of the rifle off and sighted along the barrel. The saddle of the stock felt greasy on my cheek. The gun was heavy and my arm muscles twitched. My mouth was dry; I felt vaguely sick. I wanted to sit down.
“He’d make a good pointer,” Father remarked. “But I would not like my son to be accused of dog-stealing.”
“You forgot to spit,” my father said.
“All right,” he said, “I hope that dog makes a hunter out of you.”
Father had told me that hunters always spat for luck before firing. I spat and I saw the breeze bend the ragged, glassy threads of spittle toward the birds. “That’s good,” Father said. “Can’t we throw a stone,” I whispered fiercely. “It’s taking them a long time.”
“Oh, no!” I said quickly. “I shall return him when the owner comes to claim him.”
Biryuk and I became fast friends. Every afternoon after school we went to the field to chase quails or to the bank of the river which was fenced by tall, blade-sharp reeds to flush snipes. Father was away most of the time but when he was home he hunted with us. BIRYUK scampered off and my sister flung the stick at him. Then she turned about and she saw me.
“No, you’ve to wait.” Suddenly, a small dog yelping shrilly came tearing across the brooding plain of grass and small trees. It raced across the plain in long slewy swoops, on outraged shanks that disappeared and flashed alternately in the light of the cloud-banked sun. One of the birds whistled
“Eddie, come here,” she commanded. I approached with apprehension. Slowly, almost carefully, she reached over and twisted my ear. “I don’t want to see that dog again in the house,” she said coldly. “That dog destroyed my slippers again. I’ll
tell Berto to kill that dog if I see it around again.” She clutched one side of my face with her hot, moist hand and shoved me, roughly. I tumbled to the ground. But I did not cry or protest. I had passed that phase. Now, every word and gesture she hurled at me I caught and fed to my growing and restless hate. MY sister was the meanest creature I knew. She was eight when I was born, the day my mother died. Although we continued to live in the same house, she had gone, it seemed, to another country from where she looked at me with increasing annoyance and contempt. One of my first solid memories was of standing before a grass hut. Its dirt floor was covered with white banana stalks, and there was a small box filled with crushed and dismembered flowers in one corner. A doll was cradled in the box. It was my sister’s playhouse and I remembered she told me to keep out of it. She was not around so I went in. The fresh banana hides were cold under my feet. The interior of the hut was rife with the sour smell of damp dead grass. Against the flowers, the doll looked incredibly heavy. I picked it up. It was slight but it had hard, unflexing limbs. I tried to bend one of the legs and it snapped. I stared with horror at the hollow tube that was the leg of the doll. Then I saw my sister coming. I hid the leg under one of the banana pelts. She was running and I knew she was furious. The walls of the hut suddenly constricted me. I felt sick with a nameless pain. My sister snatched the doll from me and when she saw the torn leg she gasped. She pushed me hard and I crashed against the wall of the hut. The flimsy wall collapsed over me. I heard my sister screaming; she denounced me in a high, wild voice and my body ached with fear. She seized one of the saplings that held up the hut and hit me again and again until the flesh of my back and thighs sang with pain. Then suddenly my sister moaned; she stiffened, the sapling fell from her hand and quietly, as though a sling were lowering her, she sank to the ground. Her eyes were wild as scud and on the edges of her lips,. drawn tight over her teeth, quivered a wide lace of froth. I ran to the house yelling for Father. She came back from the hospital in the city, pale and quiet and mean, drained, it seemed, of all emotions, she moved and acted with the keen, perversity and deceptive dullness of a sheathed knife, concealing in her body that awful power for inspiring fear and pain and hate, not always with its drawn blade but only with its fearful shape, defined by the sheath as her meanness was defined by her body. Nothing I did ever pleased her. She destroyed willfully anything I liked. At first, I took it as a process of adaptation, a step of adjustment; I snatched and crushed every seed of anger she planted in me, but later on I
realized that it had become a habit with her. I did not say anything when she told Berto to kill my monkey because it snickered at her one morning, while she was brushing her teeth. I did not say anything when she told Father that she did not like my pigeon house because it stank and I had to give away my pigeons and Berto had to chop the house into kindling wood. I learned how to hold myself because I knew we had to put up with her whims to keep her calm and quiet. But when she dumped my butterflies into a waste can and burned them in the backyard, I realized that she was spiting me. My butterflies never snickered at her and they did not smell. I kept them in an unused cabinet in the living room and unless she opened the drawers, they were out of her sight. And she knew too that my butterfly collection had grown with me. But when I arrived home, one afternoon, from school, I found my butterflies in a can, burned in their cotton beds like deckle. I wept and Father had to call my sister for an explanation. She stood straight and calm before Father but my tear-logged eyes saw only her harsh and arrogant silhouette. She looked at me curiously but she did not say anything and Father began gently to question her. She listened politely and when Father had stopped talking, she said without rush, heat or concern: “They were attracting ants.” I RAN after Biryuk. He had fled to the brambles. I ran after him, bugling his name. I found him under a low, shriveled bush. I called him and he only whimpered. Then I saw that one of his eyes was bleeding. I sat on the ground and looked closer. The eye had been pierced. The stick of my sister had stabbed the eye of my dog. I was stunned. ,For a long time I sat motionless, staring at Biryuk. Then I felt hate crouch; its paws dug hard into the floor of its cage; it bunched muscles tensed; it held itself for a minute and then it sprang and the door of the cage crashed open and hate clawed wildly my brain. I screamed. Biryuk, frightened, yelped and fled, rattling the dead bush that sheltered him. I did not run after him. A large hawk wheeled gracefully above a group of birds. It flew in a tightening spiral above the birds. On my way back to the house, I passed the woodshed. I saw Berto in the shade of a tree, splitting wood. He was splitting the wood he had stacked last year. A mound of bone-white slats was piled near his chopping block When he saw me, he stopped and called me. His head was drenched with sweat. He brushed away the sweat and hair from his eyes and said to me: “I’ve got something for you.” He dropped his ax and walked into the woodshed. I followed him. Berto went to a corner of the shed. I saw a
jute sack spread on the ground. Berto stopped and picked up the sack.
white cloth. I went near, I stood behind her chair. She was not aware of my presence. I unwrapped the centipede. I threw it on her lap.
“Look,” he said. I approached. Pinned to the ground by a piece of wood, was a big centipede. Its malignantly red body twitched back and forth.
My sister shrieked and the strip of white sheet flew off like an unhanded hawk. She shot up from her chair, turned around and she saw me but she collapsed again to her chair clutching her breast, doubled up with pain The centipede had fallen to the floor.
“It’s large,” I said. “I found him under the stack I chopped.” Berto smiled happily; he looked at me with his muddy eyes. “You know,” he said. “That son of a devil nearly frightened me to death” I stiffened. “Did it, really?” I said trying to control my rising voice. Berto was still grinning and I felt hot all over. “I didn’t expect to find any centipede here,” he said. “It nearly bit me. Who wouldn’t get shocked?” He bent and picked up a piece of wood. “This wood was here,” he said and put down the block. “Then I picked it up, like this. And this centipede was coiled here. Right here. I nearly touched it with my hand. What do you think you would feel?” I did not answer. I squatted to look at the reptile. Its antennae quivered searching the tense afternoon air. I picked up a sliver of wood and prodded the centipede. It uncoiled viciously. Its pinchers slashed at the tiny spear. “I could carry it dead,” I said half-aloud. “Yes,” Berto said. “I did not kill him because I knew you would like it.” “Yes, you’re right.” “That’s bigger than the one you found last year, isn’t it?” “Yes, it’s very much bigger.” I stuck the sliver into the carapace of the centipede. It went through the flesh under the red armor; a whitish liquid oozed out. Then I made sure it was dead by brushing its antennae. The centipede did not move. I wrapped it in a handkerchief. My sister was enthroned in a large chair in the porch of the house. Her back was turned away from the door; she sat facing the window She was em broidering a strip of
“You did it,” she gasped. “You tried to kill me. You’ve health… life… you tried…” Her voice dragged off into a pain-stricken moan. I was engulfed by a sudden feeling of pity and guilt. “But it’s dead!” I cried kneeling before her. “It’s dead! Look! Look!” I snatched up the centipede and crushed its head between my fingers. “It’s dead!” My sister did not move. I held the centipede before her like a hunter displaying the tail of a deer, save that the centipede felt thorny in my hand.
The Gift of My Father from the book, The Laughter of My Father by Carlos Bulosan
My uncle Sergio had three sons, who had all left the Philippines for other parts of the world by the time Father had moved Mother and us children from his farm on the island of Luzon into the town where Uncle Sergio lived. I was six years old when the move took place. I did not know where my uncle Serigo's two older sons were living, but I did know that the youngest had gone to America and was in business there as a building contractor, in California. His name was Poltron and he was fair of complexion, and before he left home he used to strut about the town like a peacock. One day Father and I were coming home from a wedding when we saw many people in the year of my uncle Sergio's house, which was a block away from our house. A big automobile was parked in the street and the house was bright with oil lamps and lanterns. It was one of those dark Philippine nights. We stood under a tree, watching. I saw my uncle coming down the wooden ladder of his house with a flashlight in his hand. He stood in the yard, talking to the people. He was a gambler by profession, and most gamblers in our province had big houses and lived more luxuriously than those who worked hard for a living. Uncle Sergio's flashlight was new, and he kept flashing it at random against the house and among the coconut trees, as if he were enchanted by a marvelous new toy. Suddenly he focused the beam on us. "Is that you, Simeon?" my uncle called in Ilocano, the language of northern Luzon. "Yes," Father said. "It's the night of all nights!" my uncle shouted. "Did you bring home a wife?" Father asked. "My son Porton came home from America and brought a beautiful girl," my uncle said.
Father and I jumped over the barbed-wire fence and pushed our way through a crowd of people in the yard. We climbed the polished ladder of Uncle Sergio's house and rushed into the living room. My cousin Porton was standing smoking a cigar in the center of a ring of barefooted men and women. He was wearing a heavy fur overcoat, although it was a hot night, and was sweating profusely. An old man rubbed his face against the soft fur of the coat. A young man snatched the cigar out of Porton's mouth and took a bite of it, chewing the tobacco with great satisfaction. Then a girl grabbed the feather in Porton's hat and put it in her hair. There were naked children on the floor, smelling and licking Porton's shoes. Father pushed the people away and stepped up to my cousin. "Welcome home!" he said. "You are Uncle Simeon?" my cousin asked. "I've something special for you." He produced a beautifully wrapped bottle of Manila rum from the pocket of his coat. Father grabbed it. "I came to see your wife," he said. "Sweetheard!" my cousin called in English, turning toward the little private room where my uncle kept his most precious belongings. "Yes, sweetheart," answered a girl's voice. "Are you ready, sweetheart?" my cousin asked. "Yes, sweetheart!" The small door of the private room opened and a beautiful girl emerged from it. She stood at the door and her black eyes beamed. Wonder filled the house. The men opened their mouths to say something, but could not because joy filled their throats. The women and the young girls sighed. Then my cousine approached the wonderful creature and put his arm around her slender waist. "Meet the people, sweetheart," he said.
"I'm glad to meet you all," she said in Spanish. "This is my uncle Simeon, sweetheart," my cousin said. "I'm glad to meet you, Uncle Simeon," she sid, reaching eagerly for Father's hand.
revolution. He even collected the white juice of a calachuchi tree and smeared it on the dusty shoes to improve their appearance before he put them on.
"Where are my cousins, Uncle Simeon?" Porton asked.
Uncle Sergio's yard was full of people who had come from the villags to look at the fabulous girl from America. They brought many gifts and put them in the yard. There were three Igorots there, too, headhunters from the mountains of Luzon. They wore G-strings and carried bows and poisoned arrows. They sat under the house with their dogs and talked among themselves.
"Your youngest cousin is here," Father said, pushing me forward.
Father and several men gathered under the granary to talk.
"My youngest cousin is here, sweetheart," Porton said to his wife.
"I tell you she is americana!" Father said, looking toward my cousin's wife.
The girl knelt on the floor and put her arms around me.
"No!" my uncle protested, "She is española!"
Father sparkled with gladness. "Sweetheart," he said, shaking the girl's hand.
"Her hair is curly and light, isn't it?" Father asked. "Hello," she said. "But her skin is olive," my uncle said. "Say 'Sweetheart,'" Father said to me. "Hellow, sweetheart," I said.
"I tell you she is americana," Father said. "I saw one likeher in Manila when I was fourteen."
The marvelous girl got up and laughed beautifully. "I like you very much," she said.
Just then my cousin Porton came over to the group, "What's all the argument about?" he asked.
"Let's go outside now," my uncle said. "Let's give the young couple some rest."
"It's about your wife," his father said. "Your uncle says she is americana. I say she is espanola."
The crowd started to go, but the young men all stopped before they went out the door and looked back at the girl.
"You are both wrong," my cousin said. "She is mejicana."
"Good night," she said.
My uncle Sergio killed three pigs the next day and asked the neighbors to attend a feast in hon or of his won and the wife he brought home from America. Father was enchanted by the girl. He went to our arm and came back to town with two sacks of fresh vegetables for the feast and a pair of old shoes he had used as a soldier during the
HARVEST by Loreto Paras Sulit
HE first saw her in his brother’s eyes. The palay stalks were taking on gold in the late afternoon sun, were losing their trampled, wind-swept look and stirring into little, almost inaudible whispers. The rhythm of Fabian’s strokes was smooth and unbroken. So many palay stalks had to be harvested before sundown and there was no time to be lost in idle dallying. But when he stopped to heap up the fallen palay stalks he glanced at his brother as if to fathom the other’s state of mind in that one, sidelong glance. The swing of Vidal’s figure was as graceful as the downward curve of the crescent-shaped scythe. How stubborn, this younger brother of his, how hard-headed, fumed Fabian as he felled stalk after stalk. It is because he knows how very goodlooking he is, how he is so much run-after by all the women in town. The obstinate, young fool! With his queer dreams, his strange adorations, his wistfulness for a life not of these fields, not of their quiet, colorless women and the dullness of long nights of unbroken silence and sleep. But he would bend… he must bend… one of these days. Vidal stopped in his work to wipe off the heavy sweat from his brow. He wondered how his brother could work that fast all day without pausing to rest, without slowing in the rapidity of his strokes. But that was the reason the master would not let him go; he could harvest a field in a morning that would require three men to finish in a day. He had always been afraid of this older brother of his; there was something terrible in the way he determined things, how he always brought them to pass, how he disregarded the soft and the beautiful in his life and sometimes how he crushed, trampled people, things he wanted destroyed. There were flowers, insects, birds of boyhood memories, what Fabian had done to them. There was Tinay… she did not truly like him, but her widowed mother had some lands… he won and married Tinay. I wonder what can touch him. Vidal thought of miracles, perhaps a vision, a woman… But no… he would overpower them…he was so strong with those arms of steel, those huge arms of his that could throttle a spirited horse into obedience.
“Harvest time is almost ended, Vidal.” (I must be strong also, the other prayed). “Soon the planting season will be on us and we shall have need of many carabaos. Milia’s father has five. You have but to ask her and Milia will accept you any time. Why do you delay…” He stopped in surprise for his brother had sprung up so suddenly and from the look on his face it was as if a shining glory was smiling shyly, tremulously in that adoring way of his that called forth all the boyishness of his nature—There was the slow crunch, crunch of footsteps on dried soil and Fabian sensed the presence of people behind him. Vidal had taken off his wide, buri hat and was twisting and untwisting it nervously. “Ah, it is my model! How are you, Vidal?” It was a voice too deep and throaty for a woman but beneath it one could detect a gentle, smooth nuance, soft as silk. It affected Fabian very queerly, he could feel his muscles tensing as he waited for her to speak again. But he did not stop in work nor turn to look at her. She was talking to Vidal about things he had no idea of. He could not understand why the sound of her voice filled him with this resentment that was increasing with every passing minute. She was so near him that when she gestured, perhaps as she spoke, the silken folds of her dress brushed against him slightly, and her perfume, a very subtle fragrance, was cool and scented in the air about him. “From now on he must work for me every morning, possibly all day.” “Very well. Everything as you please.” So it was the master who was with her. “He is your brother, you say, Vidal? Oh, your elder brother.” The curiosity in her voice must be in her eyes. “He has very splendid arms.” Then Fabian turned to look at her. He had never seen anyone like her. She was tall, with a regal unconscious assurance in her figure that she carried so well, and pale as though she had just recovered from a recent illness. She was not exactly very young nor very beautiful. But there was
something disquieting and haunting in the unsymmetry of her features, in the queer reflection of the dark blue-blackness of her hair, in her eyes, in that mole just above her nether lips, that tinged her whole face with a strange loveliness. For, yes, she was indeed beautiful. One discovered it after a second, careful glance. Then the whole plan of the brow and lip and eye was revealed; one realized that her pallor was the ivory-white of rice grain just husked, that the sinuous folds of silken lines were but the undertones of the grace that flowed from her as she walked away from you. The blood rushed hot to his very eyes and ears as he met her grave, searching look that swept him from head to foot. She approached him and examined his hot, moist arms critically. “How splendid! How splendid!” she kept on murmuring. Then “Thank you,” and taking and leaning on the arm of the master she walked slowly away. The two brothers returned to their work but to the very end of the day did not exchange a word. Once Vidal attempted to whistle but gave it up after a few bars. When sundown came they stopped harvesting and started on their way home. They walked with difficulty on the dried rice paddies till they reached the end of the rice fields. The stiffness, the peace of the twilit landscape was maddening to Fabian. It augmented the spell of that woman that was still over him. It was queer h ow he kept on thinking about her, on remembering the scent of her perfume, the brush of her dress against him and the look of her eyes on his arms. If he had been in bed he would be tossing painfully, feverishly. Why was her face always before him as though it were always focused somewhere in the distance and he was forever walking up to it? A large moth with mottled, highly colored wings fluttered blindly against the bough, its long, feathery antennae quivering sensitively in the air. Vidal paused to pick it up, but before he could do so his brother had hit it with the bundle of palay stalks he carried. The moth fell to the ground, a mass of broken wings, of fluttering wing-dust.
After they had walked a distance, Vidal asked, “Why are you that way?” “What is my way?” “That—that way of destroying things that are beautiful like moths… like…” “If the dust from the wings of a moth should get into your eyes, you would be blind.” “That is not the reason.” “Things that are beautiful have a way of hurting. I destroy it when I feel a hurt.” To avoid the painful silence that would surely ensue Vidal talked on whatever subject entered his mind. But gradually, slowly the topics converged into one. He found himself talking about the woman who came to them this afternoon in the fields. She was a relative of the master. A cousin, I think. They call her Miss Francia. But I know she has a lovely, hidden name… like her beauty. She is convalescing from a very serious illness she has had and to pass the time she makes men out of clay, of stone. Sometimes she uses her fingers, sometimes a chisel. One day Vidal came into the house with a message for the master. She saw him. He was just the model for a figure she was working on; she had asked him to pose for her. “Brother, her loveliness is one I cannot understand. When one talks to her forever so long in the patio, many dreams, many desires come to me. I am lost… I am glad to be lost.” It was merciful the darkness was up on the fields. Fabian could not see his brother’s face. But it was cruel that the darkness was heavy and without end except where it reached the little, faint star. For in the deep darkness, he saw her face clearly and understood his brother. On the batalan of his home, two tall clay jars were full of water. He emptied one on his feet, he cooled his warm face and bathed his arms in the other. The light from the kerosene lamp within came in wisps into the batalan. In the meager light he looked at his arms to discover where their splendor lay. He rubbed them with a large, smooth pebble till they
glowed warm and rich brown. Gently he felt his own muscles, the strength, the power beneath. His wife was crooning to the baby inside. He started guiltily and entered the house. Supper was already set on the table. Tinay would not eat; she could not leave the baby, she said. She was a small, nervous woman still with the lingering prettiness of her youth. She was rocking a baby in a swing made of a blanket tied at both ends to ropes hanging from the ceiling. Trining, his other c hild, a girl of four, was in a corner playing siklot solemnly all by herself. Everything seemed a dream, a large spreading dream. This little room with all the people inside, faces, faces in a dream. That woman in the fields, this afternoon, a colored, past dream by now. But the unrest, the fever she had left behind… was still on him. He turned almost savagely on his brother and spoke to break these two grotesque, dream bub bles of his life. “When I was your age, Vidal, I was already married. It is high time you should be settling down. There is Milia.” “I have no desire to marry her nor anybody else. Just—just—for five carabaos.” There! He had spoken out at last. What a relief it was. But he did not like the way his brother pursed his lips tightly That boded not defeat. Vidal rose, stretching himself luxuriously. On the door of the silid where he slept he paused to watch his little niece. As she threw a pebble into the air he caught it and would not give it up. She pinched, bit, shook his pants furiously while he laughed in great amusement. “What a very pretty woman Trining is going to be. Look at her skin; white as rice grains just husked; and her nose, what a high bridge. Ah, she is going to be a proud lady… and what deep, dark eyes. Let me see, let me see. Why, you have a little mole on your lips. That means you are very talkative.” “You will wake up the baby. Vidal! Vidal!” Tinay rocked the child almost despairingly. But the young man would not have stopped his teasing if Fabian had not called Trining to his side. “Why does she not braid her hair?” he asked his wife.
“Oh, but she is so pretty with her curls free that wa y about her head.” “We shall have to trim her head. I will do it before going out to work tomorrow.” Vidal bit his lips in anger. Sometimes… well, it was not his child anyway. He retired to his room an d fell in a deep sleep unbroken till after dawn when the sobs of a child awakened him. Peering between the bamboo slats of the floor he could see dark curls falling from a child’s head to the ground. He avoided his brother from that morning. For one thing he did not want repetitions of the carabao question with Milia to boot. For another there was the glorious world and new life opened to him by his work in the master’s house. The glamour, the enchantment of hour after hour spent on the shadow-flecked ylang-ylang scented patio where she molded, shaped, reshaped many kinds of men, who all had his face from the clay she worked on. In the evening after supper he stood by the window and told the tale of that day to a very quiet group. And he brought that look, that was more than a gleam of a voice made weak by strong, deep emotions. His brother saw and understood. Fury was a high flame in his heart… If that look, that quiver of voice had been a moth, a curl on the dark head of his daughter… Now more than ever he was determined to have Milia in his home as his brother’s wife… that would come to pass. Someday, that look, that quiver would become a moth in his hands, a frail, helpless moth. When Vidal, one night, broke out the news Fabian knew he had to act at once. Miss Francia would leave within two days; she wanted Vidal to go to the city with her, where she would finish the figures she was working on. “She will pay me more than I can earn here, and help me get a position there. And shall always be near her. Oh, I am going! I am going!” “And live the life of a—a servant?” “What of that? I shall be near her always.”
“Why do you wish to be near her?” “Why? Why? Oh, my God! Why?” That sentence rang and resounded and vibrated in Fabian’s ears during the days that followed. He had seen her closely only once and only glimpses thereafter. But the song of loveliness had haunted his life thereafter. If by a magic transfusing he, Fabian, could be Vidal and… and… how one’s thoughts can make one forget of the world. There she was at work on a figure that represented a reaper who had paused to wipe off the heavy sweat from his brow. It was Vidal in stone. Again—as it ever would be—the disquieting nature of her loveliness was on him so that all his body tensed and flexed as he gathered in at a glance all the marvel of her beauty. She smiled graciously at him while he made kn own himself; he did not expect she would remember him. “Ah, the man with the splendid arms.” “I am the brother of Vidal.” He had not forgotten to roll up his sleeves. He did not know how he worded his thoughts, but he succeeded in making her understand that Vidal could not possibly go with her, that he had to stay behind in the fields. There was an amusement rippling beneath her tones. “To marry the girl whose father has five carabaos. You see, Vidal told me about it.” He flushed again a painful brick-red; even to his eyes he felt the hot blood flow. “That is the only reason to cover up something that would not be known. My brother has wronged this girl. There will be a child.” She said nothing, but the look in her face protested against what she had heard. It said, it was not so. But she merely answered, “I understand. He shall not go with me.” She called a servant, gave him a twenty-peso bill and some instruction. “Vidal, is he at your house?” The brother on the patio nodded.
Now they were alone again. After this afternoon he would never see her, she would never know. But what had she to know? A pang without a voice, a dream without a plan… how could they be understood in words. “Your brother should never know you have told me the real reason why he should not go with me. It would hurt him, I know. “I have to finish this statue before I leave. The arms are still incomplete—would it be too much to ask you to pose for just a little while?” While she smoothed the clay, patted it and molded the vein, muscle, arm, stole the firmness, the strength, of his arms to give to this lifeless statue, it seemed as if life left him, left his arms that were being copied. She was lost in her work and noticed neither the twilight stealing into the patio nor the silence brooding over them. Wrapped in that silver-grey dusk of early night and silence she appeared in her true light to the man who watched her every movement. She was one he had glimpsed and crushed all his life, the shining glory in moth and flower and eyes he had never understood because it hurt with its unearthly radiance. If he could have the whole of her in the cup of his hands, drink of her strange loveliness, forgetful of this unrest he called life, if… but his arms had already found their duplicate in the white clay beyond… When Fabian returned Vidal was at the batalan brooding over a crumpled twenty-peso bill in his hands. The haggard tired look in his young eyes was as grey as the skies above. He was speaking to Tinay jokingly. “Soon all your sampaguitas and camias will be gone, my dear sister-in-law because I shall be seeing Milia every night… and her father.” He watched Fabian cleansing his face and arms and later wondered why it took his brother that long to wash his arms, why he was rubbing them as hard as that…
