We arrived in San Quentin shortly after eight P.M. The house was ablaze with lights. The generator in the back was humming and would continue to do so the whole night. Angela met us at the landing and she kissed me and stood on tip-toe to kiss Delfin as well. It was the first time, I think, that she kissed him.
Anselmo, the encargado for that part of the hacienda planted to rice, was at the landing, ever ready to jump at my bidding. He was fair of skin, maybe of Spanish or Chinese ancestry. His father had been encargado, and Anselmo’s oldest son would probably get the job, too.
I had not visited the hacienda for more than a year and had entrusted so much to this man. I had used it as collateral in many transactions and it had served us well. I have always tried to be one step—no, three steps—ahead in my thinking about traditional agriculture and saw the opportunities in manufacturing, food processing and other industries that are agriculture-based. From there, I had hoped that with technology transferred from the United States or Japan, I could expand into light industry.
The house is on the eastern edge of the town, at the end of a long road lined, as in Sta. Mesa, with acacia trees that my grandfather had planted. It is not on the main road, but it cannot be missed because it is the biggest house in San Quentin, larger than the municipio, with its wide lot and stable for horses in the back, although the stable had not been in use for many years because seldom did Corito and I go horseback riding in the hacienda like we used to when we were children. The house is roofed with tile, so old that grass had sprouted in the cracks; the walls are brick, plastered over. Two of the upstairs bedrooms had lowered ceilings to make them easier to air-condition. The staff at the house really did nothing except clean it, and because they never knew when we would come, it was always neat and the floors shiny. Now they were lined up at the landing, too, eager smiles plastered on their faces. They know that when we leave, all of them will be given additional money. All of them, too, would have better fare, for when the cook came she always brought along more food than we could consume.
Behind the house is the water tower, a steel cylindrical tank painted red, perched on iron girders as tall as a buri palm. As a boy, I would climb the tower, usually late in the afternoon, and sit on the shelf below the tank and watch the sun sink in a blaze of reds and purples at the rim of the world—the ripening grain a shining golden ocean in October. In July, that same landscape would become water-logged fields, a vast crisscrossed mirror awaiting the transplanting of rice seedlings. Beyond the rice fields, in the far distance, is the rimless expanse of green—the cane fields stretching as far as the eye can see and, in the horizon, the twin smokestacks of the Cobello sugar mill, a wisp of smoke curling above it. And, across the graying sky, a white blur of herons swooping down for their evening meal of tadpoles. Beholding this glorious plain, I would be filled with that exhilarating sense of possession, of pride, knowing all this would be mine.
Now the rice fields are fallow and brown and the emerald vastness of growing rice is yet to come and, after that, the sweet fragrance of ripening grain and newly cut hay would swirl all around and drift into the big house itself.
I told Anselmo to send a messenger to the village where Severina had lived. All her relatives to the third degree must come to the house in the early morning.
We had fresh eggplants, bitter melons. Anselmo had a pig butchered. I was tired. I had a long talk with Delfin in the car, all those three hours from Manila to San Quentin. He was closer to me now. And that night, he would sleep with me in one of the two air-conditioned rooms.
After dinner, Angela asked Delfin to help her with her homework. She had brought along a lot of it, and indeed she was not good at arithmetic. Not only was Delfin good at math, he was also excellent in composition, which would be an asset when he would prepare those briefs for the courts. He had earned a little money, as he had already explained, writing reports for some of his classmates. I was in bed, dozing, when Corito came in, locked the door, and extracted from me her usual pleasure. She did all the work, my mind was elsewhere and, sometimes, I could hear Angela’s laughter down the hall. It was also the first time I heard Delfin laugh.
In a while, Delfin came to our room. I was in bed reading progress reports. He stripped down to his jockey shorts, displaying an Adonis physique; his torso, chest and arms exuded power, hard masculinity, reminding me of my own youth. And on his neck dangled this necklace—
I had seen it before. I stood up and went to him. “Your mother gave you this,” I said, fingering the triangle. It was smooth to my touch. I remembered it as whitish, but now it was completely reddish-brown, with a soft lustre like gold.
“To protect you from misfortune, from evil …”
He smiled rather sheepishly, I think. “Yes, sir. That was what my mother said. Especially since I come from Siquijor.”
I nodded, recalling the brief profile of the island and its infestation with witchcraft.
Peace and well-being soon lulled me to sleep. I also dreamed, which rarely happens now. Sometimes I note down these dreams in some vague expectation that a good psycho-analyst might go over them and find in them aspects of my personality that have been secreted under an external patina of iron perseverance and business acumen. In this dream, I was a boy and I was in some field chasing grasshoppers. I had a bag already filled with them, and there was another boy, a peasant, who was behind me, also catching grasshoppers, and the boy was no other than Delfin. He said he would eat the grasshoppers as his mother had very little food in their house. I was filled with pity and gave him all the grasshoppers I had caught. I started to cry. I did not know people ate them and I was just catching them for fun … end of dream.
In reality, I know Filipinos eat grasshoppers. Even the Japanese do. Now I am again digressing because I have come to one of my favorite delights—food. Not just good food but interesting food, perhaps the only pleasure left in later years when the muscles are palsied but not the palate.
When I was a boy, a locust plague hit Nueva Ecija, among the most infested areas being San Quentin. The tenants were ecstatic instead of being apprehensive that the insects would devour their plants. With all sorts of traps and mosquito nets, they caught the locusts by the sack and sold them as far as Manila. One of the hacienda workers brought half a sack to Sta. Mesa but only I and the maids ate them, fried in vinegar, crispy and crunchy like chitcharon.
Our most fastidious gourmets are the Pampangos—they eat crickets, too. All my cooks—you guessed it—are from Pampanga.
I have tried a lot of exotic food most Filipinos wouldn’t touch. Ann Lee’s father became a good friend—now there’s a real connoisseur. It was he who introduced me to chicken feet, duck tongue and web, dog, civet cat in Chinese wine, the gamy flavor subdued, anteater and, of course, in the winter, snake soup. I’ve tried rattlesnake in Albuquerque; bear steak in Anchorage; moose, elk and reindeer in Stockholm; turtle meat in Malacca and, in Japan, whale sushi—its flavor is strong and fishy—and that special kamikaze sashimi, the poisonous blow-fish. Its subtle taste is not worth dying for. And in Cotabato, crocodile filet—its texture is like tough chicken meat. Kangaroo tail soup in Melbourne—it’s just like oxtail soup. And those beautiful Sydney oysters! No lime, no hot sauce, just its pristine taste. Chew it just a little to let its delicate flavor tease your palate, then let it glide down your throat smoothly, like the caress of an aged single malt whiskey. I am sorry to hear they are soon to become inedible because of pollution.
My most interesting eating adventure, however, was right here in the Philippines. I have mentioned earlier and at some length my interest in the welfare of our ethnic minorities—they are the poorest and most exploited of our people. I had heard of the health problems of the Dumagats in the Sierra Madre range so, on my own, I flew there by helicopter with my medical team. They had so much to do, I found out: goiter for lack of iodized salt, skin diseases, malnutrition, tuberculosis. We were high up and deep in the mountain range, in a valley that was far from the sea. I had not figured on the out-of-season typhoon that isolated us for almost a week as the helicopter couldn’t come and supply us. We had to eat what the Dumagats had—plenty of vegetables, camote and dried wild pig and deer meat. We were cold, often wet, but our appetites were excellent. Never before had dried meat tasted so good.
One afternoon they brought in a big buck they had trapped and so we had fresh meat that night. It was very bland because they simply boiled it with camotes without salt. There was more meat than we could eat so I asked what they would do with the rest.
Dry it, they said.
The storm lifted that same afternoon. The following day, the sun emerged bright and steady on the verdant valley. The deer meat was laid out in the sunlight in neat strips. And everyone in the village, including the children and the women, urinated on it.