Noli Me Tangere (Touch Me Not)

Captain Tiago was very happy. During this whole terrible time no one cared about him. He wasn’t arrested, held incommunicado, or submitted to interrogations, electric shocks, perpetual foot-baths in underground rooms, and other malicious acts known to certain personages who call themselves civilized. His friends, that is to say, those who had been his friends (ever since the man had denied his Filipino friends from the instant they were suspected by the government) had returned to their homes as well, after a few days of vacation in state buildings. The Captain General himself had ordered their possessions taken from them, having deemed them unworthy of keeping them, to the great dismay of the one-armed man, who had wanted to celebrate the upcoming Christmas holidays in their abundant and rich company.

Captain Tinong returned to his house sick, pale, and bloated—the excursion had not proven to be a good experience—and so changed that he does not address a word nor even say hello to his family, who cry, laugh, and chatter, wild with joy. Afraid to run the risk of greeting a subversive, the poor man no longer goes out of his house. Even Cousin Primitivo, with all the wisdom of the ancients, cannot draw him out of this mute state.

“Crede, prime,” he said to him, “if we hadn’t burned all your papers, they would have stretched your neck. But if we had burned down the house, they wouldn’t have touched a hair on your head. But quod eventum, eventum; Gratias agamus Domino Deo quia non in Marianis Insulis es, camotes seminando.”²⁷¹

Stories like Captain Tinong’s were not unknown to Captain Tiago. The man overflowed with gratitude without knowing to whom exactly he owed such extraordinary good fortune. Aunt Isabel attributed the miracle to the Virgin of Antipolo, to the Virgin of the Rosary, or at least to the Virgin of Carmen, and at the very, very least, the least she could concede, to Our Lady of the Correa. According to her the miracle could not escape from there. Captain Tiago did not deny the miracle, but he added:

“I can believe it, Isabel, but the Virgin of Antipolo would not have done it by herself. My friends must have helped, my future son-in-law, Señor Linares, pestered Antonio Cánovas himself, the one whose portrait La Ilustración carried, the one who doesn’t deign to show the public more than half his face.”

This fine man could not suppress a smile of satisfaction each time he heard important news about the events. And that’s all there was. It was whispered secretly that Ibarra would be hanged, that perhaps if the evidence to convict him had been somewhat lacking, lately some had appeared to confirm the accusation: experts had stated that indeed the work on the school could be used to create bulwarks and fortifications, even if they might not be completely effective, but what could one expect from ignorant indios. These rumors pacified him, and made him smile.

In the same way that Captain Tiago and his cousin’s views diverged, family friends were also divided into two camps, the miraculists and the governmentalists, though the latter was much smaller. The miraculists were subdivided: Binondo’s chief sexton, the candle merchant, and the head of one brotherhood saw the hand of God, guided by the Virgin of the Rosary. The Chinese chandler, his supplier in Antipolo, said, while fanning himself and rubbing his leg, “Dun be stuped. Is Vilsin af Antipulo! She can evlyting. Dun be stuped!”

Captain Tiago held the Chinaman in high regard; he fancied himself a prophet, a doctor, and other such things. Examining the palm of Tiago’s late wife in the sixth month of her pregnancy, the Chinaman had predicted, “Ef no es buoy and dun die, will be pretty gel.”

And María Clara came into the world to make the infidel’s prophecy come true.

So Captain Tiago, a prudent and fearful man, could not come to a decision as easily as had Paris, the Trojan. He could not give preference to one of the two virgins, for fear of offending the other, which might be accompanied by serious consequences. “Prudence!” he would say to himself. “We’re not about to throw it all away.”

He was suffering from such doubts when the governmental party arrived: Doña Victorina, Don Tiburcio, and Linares.

Doña Victorina spoke on behalf of the three men and herself. She spoke about Linares’s visits to the Captain General and insinuated repeatedly the convenience of having a relation of distinction.

“Tho,” she concluded, “fyou tek thelter undah good thed, good thtuff cumth.”

“Thuh-thuh-th’other way ’round, dear!” the doctor corrected her.

For the past few days she had tried to make like an Andalusian by suppressing her d’s and substituting a th for an s, and no one could persuade her differently. First she had her fake curls taken out.

“Yeth,” she added, speaking about Ibarra. “That one got what he ’etherved. I thaid it the firtht time I thaw him. That one ith a thubverthive. What i’ the general tell you, cuthin? What hath he thaid, what newth did he thay about Ibarra?”

Seeing her cousin hesitate, she went on, directing her comments to Captain Tiago.

“Believe me, thir, if they con’emn’im to ’eath, which ith to be hope’, it’th becauth of my cuthin.”²⁷²

“Señora, señora!” Linares protested.

But she paid him no mind.

“Oh, how ’iplomatic you’ve become! We know that you are the general’th counthel, and that he can’t live without you . . . Oh, Clarita, what a pleathure to thee you!”

María Clara was still pale, though she was well on her way to recovery from her illness. Her long hair was pulled back with a light blue silk ribbon. She greeted them timidly, and with a sad smile, and then went toward Doña Victorina for her ceremonial kiss.

After the customary words, the pseudo-Andalusian went on.

“We’ve come to vithit you. You’ve come out thankth to your relationship,” looking at Linares meaningfully.

“God has protected my father!” the young woman said softly.

“Yeth, Clarita, but the time of miraclth hath pathed. We Thpaniarth thay if you ’efy the Virgin, you better run.”

“Thuh-thuh-th’other way!”

Captain Tiago, who until then could not get a word in edgewise, dared to ask a question, paying a good deal of attention to the answer.

“So, Doña Victorina, you believe that the Virgin . . .”

“We’ve come exprethly to thpeak to you ’bout the Virgin,” she replied mysteriously, pointing to María Clara. “We nee’ to ’ithcuth bithneth.”

The young woman realized she was supposed to retire. She found a pretext and left, leaning against the furniture.

What was said and spoken in this conference is so low-down and dirty that we would prefer not to mention it. It is enough to say that when they took leave of one another everyone was happy, and afterward Captain Tiago said to Aunt Isabel, “Tell them at the inn that tomorrow we’ll be giving a party! Go get María Clara ready. We’re marrying her shortly.”

Aunt Isabel stared at him, horrified.

“You’ll see! When Señor Linares is our son-in-law, we’ll frequent all the palaces. Everyone will envy us, they’ll die of envy!”

And so at about eight o’clock on the evening of the following day Captain Tiago’s house was again full, though this time his guests were limited to Spaniards and Chinese. The fair sex was represented by peninsular Spaniards and Philippine women.

The better part of our acquaintances are there: Father Sibyla, and Father Salví, among the various Franciscans and Dominicans; the old Civil Guard lieutenant, Señor Guevara, more solemn than ever; the ensign, who related the story of the battle for the thousandth time, looking down on everyone as if he were Don Juan of Austria; now he is a lieutenant, with the rank of commander; de Espadaña, who eyes him with respect and fear and avoids his glances, and Doña Victorina fretting. Linares had not yet arrived, though, since he was such an important person he should arrive later than everyone else. There are beings so without guile that when they arrive an hour late they end up as great men.

Among the group of women María Clara was the object of all whispering. The young woman had greeted and welcomed them with great ceremony, without sacrificing her air of sadness.

“Pff,” a young woman said, “she’s quite the proud one.”

“A cutey,” another replied, “but he could have chosen someone with less of an idiot’s face.”

“Gold, my girl; a proper young man knows when to sell himself.”

In another spot someone was saying, “To get married when the first fiancé is about to be hanged!”

“I would call it prudent. Have a replacement ready.”

“Well, when one loses a spouse . . .”

The young woman may have heard these conversations, since she was seated on a chair arranging a tray of flowers, since one - could see her hands shake, turn white, and be bitten several times.

In the men’s circle, the conversation was of a higher tone and, naturally, centered on recent events. Everyone was speaking, even Don Tiburcio, except Father Sibyla, who maintained a disdainful silence.

“I hear that your reverence is leaving town, Father Salví?” asks the new lieutenant, whose new star had rendered him much friendlier.

“There’s nothing left for me to do here; I have to focus on Manila for the future . . . And you?”

“I’m leaving town, too,” he answered, stretching. “The government needs me to take a flying column and disinfect the countryside of its subversive elements.”

Fray Sibyla quickly looks him up and down and then turns his back on him.

“Do they know for certain yet what’s going to happen to that little chief, that subversive fellow?” a government staffer asked.

“Are you talking about Crisóstomo Ibarra?” the other asks. “Most likely, and most justly is that they’ll garrote him, like they did the ones from ’72.”

“He’ll be exiled,” the old lieutenant says dryly.

“Exile! No more than exile! But he’ll be an exile forever!” several exclaim simultaneously.

“If that young man,” Lieutenant Guevara went on in a loud, harsh voice, “had been more circumspect, if he had been less trusting in certain people with whom he had corresponded; if our prosecutors had not known how to interpret his writings so well, he certainly would have come out of it absolved.”

The old lieutenant’s declaration and the tone of his voice astonished the listeners, who did not know what to say. Father Salví looked away, perhaps so as not to see the somber look the old man had directed toward him. María Clara dropped the flowers and stopped moving. Father Sibyla, who knew how to be still, appeared to be the only one who knew how to ask a question.

“Are you talking about letters, Señor Guevara?”

“I’m talking about what I was told by the defense attorney, who took on the case with zeal and interest. Apart from several ambiguous lines this young man wrote to a woman before leaving for Spain, lines in which the prosecutor saw the planning and a threat against the government, and which he acknowledged were his, they couldn’t accuse him of anything.”

“And the bandit’s statement before he died?”

“The defense attorney negated all that, since, according to that same bandit, they had never communicated with the young man, only one Lucas, who was an enemy of his, which could be proved, and who committed suicide, perhaps out of remorse. They proved that the papers they found on the body were falsified, since the letter was exactly the same as one that Señor Ibarra had seven years ago, but not one from today, which made them suppose that its model was this accusing letter. Even further, the defense attorney said that if Señor Ibarra had refused to acknowledge the letter, they could have done a great deal on his behalf, but when he saw it he turned pale, lost all spirit, and admitted that he had written it.”

“You said,” a Franciscan asked, “that the letter was addressed to a woman. How did it end up in the prosecutor’s hands?”

The lieutenant did not respond. He looked at Father Salví for a moment and then left, nervously twisting the pointy tip of his gray beard, while the others made comments.

“It’s the hand of God,” said one. “Even women hate him.”

“He had his house torched to save himself, but he hadn’t counted on his female guest, that is, his beloved, on his babai,” another said with a laugh. “Here’s to God! To Santiago, to Spain!”

Meanwhile, the old soldier stopped his pacing and went toward María Clara, who had been listening to the conversation, immobile in a chair, flowers visible at her feet.

“You are a very prudent young woman,” the old lieutenant said to her softly. “You did well to give them the letter . . . it will assure you a peaceful future.”

She watched him walk away, a stunned look on her face, biting her lips. Fortunately Aunt Isabel passed by. María Clara had enough strength to grab her dress.

“Aunt!” she whispered.

“What’s the matter?” she asked her, frightened by the look on the young woman’s face.

“Take me to my room!” she begged, pulling on the old woman’s arm to get up.

“Are you ill, my child? You look as if you’d seen a ghost. What’s the matter?”

“A dizzy spell . . . the people in the living room . . . the light . . . I need to rest. Tell Father I’m sleeping.”

“You’re ice cold! Do you want some tea?”

María Clara shook her head. She locked her bedroom door and, with no strength, dropped to the floor at the foot of an image, sobbing.

“Mother, Mother, Mother!”

Moonlight came through the window and door leading onto the patio.

The orchestra went on playing gay waltzes. The laughter and tumult of conversation reached the bedroom. Several times her father, Aunt Isabel, Doña Victorina, and even Linares knocked at her door, but María Clara remained on the floor, immobile, illuminated by the moonlight, at the foot of the image of the mother of Jesus.

Gradually the house became quiet again, the lights were put out. Aunt Isabel rapped at the door again.

“Well, she’s gone to sleep,” the aunt said loudly. “The young have no cares, they sleep like the dead.”

When everything was silent, she slowly got up and took a look around. She saw the patio, the miniature grape arbors bathed in the melancholy light of the moon.

“A peaceful future! Sleep like the dead!” she whispered softly, and went toward the patio.

The city slept. From time to time one could hear nothing but the sound of a coach passing over the wooden bridge over the river, whose solitary waters peacefully reflected the moonlight.

The young woman raised her eyes to the sky; they were limpid, like sapphires. Slowly she took off her rings, her earrings, her brooches, her comb, placing them on the patio railing, and looked toward the river.

A small boat, loaded down with hay, had stopped at the foot of the dock each house had on the banks of the river. One of the two-man crew went up the stone staircase, jumped a wall, and, seconds later, one could hear footsteps coming up the patio stairs.

María Clara saw him stop when he saw her, but it was only for an instant; then the man advanced slowly. When he was three feet away, he stopped again. María Clara retreated.

“Crisóstomo!” she murmured, terrified.

“Yes, it’s Crisóstomo,” the young man replied gravely. “An enemy of mine, a man who has good reason to hate me, Elías, got me out of the prison my friends threw me into.”

These words produced a sad silence. María Clara bowed her head and let both her hands fall.

“I took an oath beside my mother’s body to make you happy, however cruel my destiny might be! You could forswear your oath, she wasn’t your mother. But I, I who am her son, hold her memory sacred, and despite thousands of risks I have come to complete mine, and now fortune has let me speak to you in person. María, we will not see each other again. You are young, but perhaps someday your conscience will confront you . . . I have come to tell you, before I go, that I forgive you. Now, be happy . . . farewell!”

Ibarra attempted to leave, but the young woman held him back. “Crisóstomo!” she said. “God has sent you to deliver me from despair . . . listen to me, and then you can judge me!”

Ibarra wanted to disengage himself from her, but gently.

“I didn’t come for explanations . . . I came to leave you in peace.”

“I don’t want the peace you’re offering. Peace I will give myself. You hate me and your hatred will embitter me until I die.”

Ibarra saw her desperation, and the poor woman’s pain. He asked what she wanted.

“I want you to believe that I have always loved you!”

Crisóstomo smiled bitterly.

“Ah, you doubt me, you doubt your childhood friend, who never hid a single thought from you!” the young woman exclaimed, pain in her voice. “I understand. When you know my story, the sad story that they told me during my illness, you may have sympathy and might not smile at my pain. Why didn’t you let me die in the hands of my ignorant doctor? Both of us would be happier!”

María Clara rested a moment, and then went on.

“You who doubt me, you’ve brought this on yourself, may my mother forgive me. On one of the painful nights of my suffering, a man revealed the name of my real father to me and then forbade my love for you . . . unless my real father would forgive the injury you have done to him.”

Ibarra retreated; he stared at the young woman, astonished.

“Yes,” she went on, “the man told me he could not permit our union, since his conscience prohibited it and he would be obliged to make it public at the risk of causing great scandal, because my father is . . .”

She whispered a name in the young man’s ear so softly only he - could hear it.

“What was I to do? Was I to sacrifice to my love my mother’s memory, my false father’s honor, and the good name of my real one? And could I do so without you yourself hating me?”

“But proof, did you have proof? You needed proof!” Crisóstomo exclaimed, convulsed.

The young woman took two papers from her breast.

“Two of my mother’s letters, two letters, written in the midst of her remorse, when she still held me at her breast. Here, read them and see how she cursed me, how she longed for my death . . . my death! Which in vain my father sought with drugs! He left these letters behind in the house in which he lived, the man found them and kept them, and he only gave them to me in exchange for your letter . . . to be certain, according to what he said, that I would not marry you without my father’s consent. Ever since I have carried them with me, in place of your letter, I have felt an iciness in my heart. I sacrificed you, I sacrificed my love . . . What would one not do for a dead mother and two living fathers? Could I have suspected to what use he would put your letter?”

Ibarra was horror-struck. María Clara went on.

“What was left to me? Could I have told you, perhaps, who my father was? Could I have asked you to forgive him, the man who made your father suffer so greatly? Could I have asked my father perhaps to forgive you, could I have said that I was his daughter, the man who wished for my death so ardently? All that remained was to suffer, to keep my secret, and die suffering . . . Now, my friend, now that you know the sad story of your poor María will you have the same smile of disdain?”

“María, you are a saint!”

“I am happy just to think you believe me . . .”

“However,” the young man added, changing his tone, “I have heard you are marrying . . .”

“Yes!” the young woman sobbed. “My father demands such a sacrifice . . . He loved me and fed me, when it was not his responsibility. And I will pay back the debt I owe him by ensuring his peace, through this new relation, but . . .”

“But?”

“I will not forget the oaths of fidelity I made to you.”

“What are you thinking of doing?” Ibarra asked, trying to read it in her eyes.

“The future is dark and destiny lies in shadows! I don’t know what is to be done. But I know that I love only once, and without love, I will never belong to anyone. And you, what will become of you?”

“I am no more than a fugitive . . . I’ll run. In a little while - they’ll discover my escape, María . . .”

María Clara took the young man’s head in her hands, and kissed him repeatedly on the lips, embraced him, and then, suddenly pushing him away, “Run, run!” she said. “Run! Good-bye!”

Ibarra stared at her, his eyes brilliant, but, at a sign from her, he went away, intoxicated, irresolute.

He jumped back over the wall and got into the boat. María Clara, leaning on the balustrade, watched him slowly recede into the distance.

Elías removed his hat, and bowed deeply.