Love in the Rice Fields Read online

  And Iro, bless his soul, replied: “Is that so, Ponsoy? I had no idea. If I had known, I would not have pressed my suit. Did you really begin courting her before I did? Then, go ahead and woo her. I will stop pursuing her.”

  Iro and his father left for their country when we were all about to turn eighteen. I recall, we were with each other the whole nght before they packed their bags. His eyes were welling with tears. He admitted it was difficult to pry one’s self loose from friends. If his father would allow him, he would not leave with him.

  Yes, that’s a good idea, we said in unison. Don’t leave with your father, Iro. Let’s stay with one another until the end of time. We would make charcoal. We would till the land, breed carabaos, raise chickens. We’ll get married at the same time. We’ll build our houses in one big lot. What one eats the others will also eat. The poverty of one will be shared by the others.

  We were naive then. Eighteen-year-old men oblivious to the truths about life, unaware of how life really worked.

  But Osima was adamantly against the idea. Osima told us: “I am sorry. Sinziro cannot remain behind. However, you will still see each othet. We’ll visit our country first, and then we will return. Do you understand? Alright, Ponsoy. Alright, Karding. Alright, Berto, Alright, Pedro, We shall come back. Don’t ever forget my son.”

  And we turned our backs, nursing broken hearts. Sinziro was a good friend..

  (There is a flash in the distance, a bullet whizzes by, followed by a shot. The soldier wheels his machine gun to face the direction where the bullet was fired. The sound of rapid firing breaks the stillness of the night. No shot comes from the opposite direction. The hillside reverberates with the sound of gunfire. In a few minutes, silence once more reigns. And the Moon continues to bathe those woods, mute witnesses to the drama of life and death being played out. If only the stones strewn about, the leaves of grass wilting in the heat, the gaping holes formed by the bombs falling from the sky with their message of death could find their voice.

  Ponsoy, wake up. I’m famished.

  (The soldier rubs his face. He can hardly see. Cold beads of perspiration are forming on his forehead. His whole body seems wrapped in a freezing cloud. He rests his hand on the bandage covering his gaping chest wound. He could feel the sticky blood.)

  Ponsoy, go to our house and get some food. Mother is there. Waiting to be of service to her son. She’ll offer you food—mouth-watering food. Chicken stew garnished with vegetables and bananas. Milkfish wrapped in banana leaves and grilled. Chicken breasts marinated in vinegar and garlic, and fried in oil extracted from pork. And dessert such as sweetened slices of jackfruit and coconut meat. Please go, Ponsoy. Please tell her I am kissing her hand with respect. Please inform her that I will return as soon as I have done my duty. I am coming home. But please tell her to send me some food. She’ll be delighted to know that her son will be able to feast on food only she can prepare. Ponsoy …

  (The soldier wearily lays his body down on the ground. He wipes the sweat off his face. But his eyes continue to fail him, as he flounders in the darkness. The radiant Moon is a vague shadow in the chaotic sky, blackened, like chunks of mud.)

  Karding, come here. See the children playing luksong tinik. Aren’t they enjoying themelves hugely? The future is farthest away from their minds. The ever-present moment is blissful. Over there is Ingkong Pento, patiently tilling the cornfield into the night. The Moon is bright and emits enough light.

  (The soldier does not hear a rustling sound above the shelter’s opening. It is a barely audible sound probably caused by an evening breeze gliding over the leaves. A shapeless shadow appeared to stir, but perhaps its is merely the shadow cast by a huge boulder that appeared to have moved when struck by a ray of light, briefly covered by a wispy cloud.)

  Isyang is somewhere there, Karding. Run after her. Please tell her I cannot leave now. Please tell her that I wish to say something, but I am afraid, fearing that she might not understand …. Karding, I have, for a long time, wanted to tell Isyang how much I have loved her. Karding, do you think Isyang will understand?

  (Another slight movement in front of the shelter escapes the soldier’s attention. Another shadow appears to make a surreptitious move. But in the light of that Moon, the sole possessor of the knowledge of a death that is to come, one wonders if a human life is an utterly insignificant thing to be tragically snuffed out in the midst of such bountiful nature, whose only purpose is to bestow her blessings on humankind?)

  Isyang, it is with trepidation that I come to you to open a long suffering heart. Please do not get angry, Isyang …

  (Another rustling sound, clear and umistakable, no longer reaches the ears of the soldier, severely weakened by fatigue and hunger, nursing a deep wound drenched with blood, the life force being drained away.)

  Is this true, Isyang? That you have long suspected? And is it really … Isyang, I have been foolishly blind ….

  (A shadow suddenly materializes, to the shock of the soldier. A menacing harbinger of death looms at the entrance of the shelter. The soldier twists his body, raises his arms to clutch at the opening as if to try to stave off the attack. But the wasted, exhausted body has lost whatever life it once had. His legs crumble and he slips. He scrambles to his feet, but he falls down on his knees. And he finally sprawls on the ground. As he hits the ground, his hand comes into contact with a gun and a bayonet. He grabs the gun and forces himself to rise on his feet, and fire at the agent of death. A split heartrending second of labored breathing and suppressed rebelliousness of a wounded soldier desperate to insert the knife into the gun barrel, the last moment when a mind pleads to each fiber of his … the final moment that constitutes a man’s whole life—but he loosens his grip on the gun and the soldier collapses on top of the bodies of his dead friends. And the shadow rushes towards the soldier and leans forward. In the fading light, he stares at the face now shrouded with the pallor of death. And from the shadow’s lips comes what sounds like a deep sigh.

  When five more shadows join him, the men speak in whispers and once in a while, the first shadow would point at the dead soldier. The shadows leave gently as if to make sure that the dead would not be disturbed in the sleep of peace.

  The light from the Moon has begun to fade. And the rays of the sun heralding the coming of dawn begin to flood the world.)

  The Measure of a Man

  The sun had been out for hours when Kardo began walking down the path diverging from the village road. From a distance, within earshot, the house where he grew up appeared like an old altar seeking shelter under the overhanging branches of mango trees.

  From childhood, that old house had been a symbol of all the simple joys beloved of a son nurtured by the village. Those with weary bodies drew renewed strength from it, hunger was alleviated and thirst satiated in its welcome embrace, and it was where pain and loneliness gave way to healing. His face broke up into a smile at the cascade of thoughts rushing through his mind. But the smile was instantly wiped off and the man took a deep breath.

  He let his eyes wander among the many houses spread out all over the vast fields. Over there was the house of Nana Masyang. Nearby was where Ingkong Berong lived. And his cousin Aryong’s house stood in the distance … the young man heaved a sigh as he recalled a passage from the letter of his younger sister: “Nana Tasya fainted twice and Tata Pedro bit into his lips until blood oozed when the message from the Army about Ka Aryong was relayed to them …” He turned his attention to the distant outline of the mountains and asked himself, as an attempt to force his mind off the grim news, a question that was almost childlike in its innocence: “Will the end of days confront us beyond those mountains?” That question would have been met with an amused smile or a burst of laughter in his younger days, but now it resulted in another prolonged sigh.

  A shrill scream, let out by his younger sister rushing to meet him, suddenly broke into his revery. Tagpi was barking and kept wagging its tail as the dog bounded into view, followed by hi
s sister, Talia.

  “Kaka …”

  Kardo slowed down until he came to a halt. He reigned in a mad desire to bolt away and flee from his sister.

  “Kaka,” Talia breathlessly said in greeting, “I told myself it was you. Why don’t you give me your bag?”

  Kardo handed over his haversack. Words got stuck in his throat. He forced himself to smile.

  From a distance, he could make out his mother and father waiting for him at the wooden gate. He lowered his gaze. As she was wont to do, she had willed herself to break down in tears: her constant companion for all occasions, whether joyful or sad, were copious tears, always tears.

  He kissed the bony hands of his father hard and let his lips tarry a little longer on the gnarled hand. He did not get the chance to kiss his mother’s hand. She immediately threw her arms around the son who had just arrived.

  A red hen was cackling in the enclosure under the first floor. A fat pig was foraging through the garbage collected in one corner of the yard to be later burned to smoke the mango trees. An undernourished calf, with spots of white, was bleating. Their carabaos were munching their food in the corral. And Tagpi was wagging its tail as it pranced around the family, looking up at them. All these impressions constituted a knowledge he did not have to think about and absorb individually, but these scenes still intruded sharply into his mind. And merely deepened his melancholy.

  After a desultory conversation, a time he dreaded, with his family, Kardo sat down on the kitchen step after lunch. His mother was washing the plates while Talia was wiping the dining table.

  “Kaka,” Talia said, “I saw Neneng yesterday.”

  Kardo kept quiet. His head was bowed.

  Talia walked towards Kardo. “Kaka,” she said, trying to jolt him from his apparent stupor. “I saw Neneng. It’s Neneng, Kaka …”

  The man took a deep breath.

  “She asked me if you had written to us. I told her you had not. Perhaps, I thought, you have not sent her a letter.”

  Kardo flicked his ashes at the chicken on the ground.

  “I’ll see her again later in the day in the ….”

  Kardo suddenly abruptly cut her sister. “Don’t let her know you’ve seen me.”

  A puzzled look appeared on her sister’s face. “But why, Ka Kardo? And don’t you want to visit her? She has been asking about you.”

  Kardo cast a glance at their mother who was not paying attention to their conversation. “Talia,” he spoke almost in a whisper, “please don’t let her know I’m back.”

  “But why, Kaka?”

  “That’s it. You won’t understand, even if I were to tell you. Leave me now and help mother wash up.”

  But the sister, not satisfied with his answer, persisted. “But why don’t you tell me?”

  Kardo merely shook his head and took another deep breath. After Talia left him, Kardo slowly stood up and walked towards his father, busy pinching the tobacco leaves with his fingers and twisting it, by the window. He observed the gentle hands wrapping the slivers of tobacco leaves in thin papers.

  The young man gazed at his father. The old man’s face had not changed. A quiet and untroubled face—a picture that summoned forth the image of conical heaps of palay waiting to be threshed near a hut in the shadow of trees.

  “Father, I will no longer return to Kiangan,” Kardo spoke deliberately.

  “I’ve asked permission from Captain Alcaraz. He understood the reason. I won’t ever go back to Kiangan.” Kardo planted his elbows on his thighs and cupping his chin with is hands, he cast a downward glance.

  The old man produced a barely audible sound from his throat, but did not say a word.

  “It’s been almost two weeks since I killed two Filipino women. It was a shock,” Kardo began his story, quite tentatively. He examined his father’s face again. The son breathed deeply and picked up the narrative, speaking in a soft voice, as gentle as the flow of the water in a spring. “I did not know that the women were cooped up in a cave. Shots were being fired from the cave. We lobbed a couple of grenades deep into the cave. The firing from within the cave ceased. We slowly approached the cave. And the two women suddenly emerged from behind the boulders, used as cover, near the entrance of the cave …”

  His father made the soft sound as if clearing his throat. Kardo waited for his father’s response, but the old man quietly busied himself with his tobacco leaves.

  “From where we were, I recognized the figures as women. I saw their hands raised. They were screaming. I could not hear what they were saying. In a blink of an eye, I lost control, I fired at them with my Thompson. One of them was a young woman, the other was probably the mother …”

  The old man threw his son a brief but appraising look. “Were there other people in the cave?”

  “A Filipino and two Japanese. The Filipino was Yu En. The woman had in their possession some documents in Japanese.”

  Moments of silence elapsed.

  “Since that incident, I could hardly sleep. I could always see them. The bloody corpses of the two women, their terrified screams, their final gasps before death filled my dreams. The Japanese were enemies, even the Filipino, but those women were not … despite …”

  The old man was overcome by a deep sense of unease. For a few moments, the old man and his son seemed like waxen figures. Kardo’s father slowly rose to his feet, and quietly went downstairs. Kardo was left behind, seated by the window, his hands clutching his face.

  The old man aimlessly walked around the yard. With his slow pace and his head on his chest, he struck a figure of a man who seemed to be searching for a precious object that had fallen to the ground.

  The wind was calm. The fragrance of the flowering mango trees hung heavy in the air. The white rooster, a leghorn, cackled as it scratched off pieces of palay falling from the stone grinder, as its swarm of fat hens followed its trail. Small swallows flitted to and fro among the trees. The emaciated calf, with white patches, bleated repeatedly. And the rice stalks in the fields exchanged delighted smiles with the sunlight.

  The sound of his father’s voice from the ground interrupted Kardo’s stream of memories. “Kardo,” the old man said slowly. “Your mother is over there. You tell her the story …”

  Kardo peered from the window. He saw her mother washing clothes near the well. Happiness radiated from her face. The old woman was still not aware of his presence, even as he came close to her.

  The mother and her son talked for a long while. Gradually, a deep sadness transformed what was once a happy face until her eyes welled up with tears that eventually rolled down her wrinkled cheeks. Kardo’s eyes were beginning to tear up.

  “All my life, I had nothing but respect for women because of you and the future mother of my children, God willing,” Kardo spoke sadly. “I could never forgive myself.”

  Tagpi, standing at the foot of the stairs, began to scratch the ground, he barked furiously, bolting away through the gate, and outside the house. He pursued a while dog until the second rice paddy. When about to close in on the white dog, Tagpi ceased running and slowly returned to the house while Ka Pascual’s mother dog quietly went its way. Kardo threw a forlorn look at his dog.

  The old woman quietly stood up and climbed the stairs. Not long after she left, Kardo caught a glimpse of the flickering light of a candle in front of the altar of their Virgin Mother. He looked for his father. The old man was weaving a granary basket out of palay. The young man joined his father and proceeded to weave his own basket.

  The sun was on its westward journey, and the father and his son were still huddled together working on their baskets when Kardo’s mother came down the stairs, with a tapis wrapped around her waist and a kerchief on her head, as his younger sister walked behind her mother. Talia looked at her brother curiously, still looking for an answer.

  “Oy,” the old woman said, “we’ll join the novena in the chapel.”

  The sun was about to disappear from the horizon when Talia rushed t
hrough the gate and returned to the house. “Kaka,” she yelled. “come with me.” Her face shone with delight.

  Kardo rose to his feet and walked towrds his sister.

  “Kaka,” she blurted out, “now I know the reason why you have acted strangely. After the novena, mother and I approached Impong Sabel. The other women in the chapel joined us. Mother narrated what had happened to you. They said pray the rosary to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Please don’t be sad, Kaka.”

  Kardo held his sister by her shoulders. “Talia,” he said, his anguished spirit reflected in his eyes, “was Neneng with you?”

  Talia nodded.

  “What did she say … did she tell you anything …?”

  “That she would wait for you by the walk near Ka Maria’ house …”

  “Was she not angry with me, does she not hate me …?”

  “There was a smile on her face, Kaka …she was smiling …”

  “Talia, look at me carefully. How about you—do I revolt you? Are you not ashamed of me in front of other people …?”

  “Aba, not at all … why …?” And she tearfully threw her arms around her brother.

  After a quick change of clothes, the young man hurriedly left the house. His pace accelerated, spurred on by the sight of Neneng, now waiting for him by the duhat tree. You were weighed down by a burden. But you had shown your sorrow. We prayed for you. Several feet away, Kardo slowed his pace down and walked towards Neneng tentatively.

  “Neneng,” he muttered.

  The young woman turned to him with a radiant smile.

  “You know what happened. Are you still willing to accept me despite the traces of blood on my hands …?”

  Tears were slowly forming in his sweetheart’s eyes. “My mother said that a man’s worth is measured not by one transgression but by what his heart is made of …”

  Kardo reached out for Neneng’s hands. “But you, Neneng … you … are you willing to accept me … like you did before?”

  The young woman flashed a lovely smile. “I’ve been waiting for you for a long time. I thought you had come and gone without my knowledge …”