15
In the morning the household was agog over Angel’s sudden departure, the servants speculating on where and when he would die.
“I can’t understand it,” Father said at the lunch table. He was angry and perplexed. “So I did whip him, but was that enough to make him leave?”
“Maybe he wanted to be free,” said Sepa, who was serving us.
“Free?” Father asked incredulously. “Wasn’t he free here to do his foolishness?” He turned to me. “You were the last one he saw. What did he tell you? Why didn’t you stop him?”
“He said he would send you the money, Father, to pay the debt of his parents.”
“And I’ll believe that? Why didn’t you stop him?”
I could not speak.
“So Angel is gone,” he said aloud for all the servants to hear. “Ingrate! I gave him a roof and three meals a day, and he could at least have come to me and said, ‘Oy, I’m leaving now because my belly is full and my limbs are strong.’ See what I get for my kindness to people. Nothing but insults that claw the mind!”
Father’s anger, however, did not persist, nor did the talk of the servants about Angel. In a week, all attention centered on the forthcoming celebration of Father’s birthday. It was not really for him alone; more than anything, it was an occasion for all of his tenants to come to town to partake of his food, and at the same time bring their children and grandchildren, so that Father would get to know them. It was a time for them to render us service, to fix the fences, clean the yard, and whitewash the walls.
For Father’s close friends, too, it was a time to gather in the house and share his liquor. For our relatives who lived in other parts of the province or in the city, this was a time for remembering old ties.
Among our Manila relatives, it was Tia Antonia and her children who came most often “to have a better whiff of air.” I suspect, however, that she came to Rosales almost every month not only for the country air but to save on groceries, for Tia Antonia was the prototype of the Ilokano housewife—a tightwad as only Ilokanos could be. For the big feast she was the first to arrive.
Old David and I met her at the railroad station. I was peeved at Father’s sending me there, for it interrupted my mouse hunting in the storehouse. Tia Antonia and her children needed no welcoming committee—Rosales was practically their home. As we came within sight of the red brick station, Old David’s horse paused and its bony head dropped. He prodded its skinny rump with his big toe and whacked the reins on its back.
“Thank heavens, this calesa is not for hire,” he sighed as the horse finally lifted its head and plodded on.
The old man turned to me and grinned. His breath stank with nipa wine, but he talked soberly: “If it were, no one would use it. You can’t expect much from horses now. But you should have seen the horses I tended then in your grandfather’s stable. Colts, roans, all spirited, from the provinces of Abra and Batangas. They could race the wind and come out winners by how far the east is to the west!”
The train from Paniqui had long come in and was now leaving the station, the steel bumpers of its three dilapidated coaches whanging as they lurched forward. Calesas filled with passengers were pulling out of the parking lot under the acacias, and the platform was almost empty of people. We could have reached the station earlier, but through the main street, along the shrub-lined road that skirted the creek to the station, though Old David always clacked his tongue, never once did his horse perk up.
“There they are,” I said, nudging the old man as we reached the shade of the acacias where now not a single calesa was parked. Even from a distance it was easy to recognize Cousin Andring, with his paunch and round balding head, and Tia Antonia, who always wore a severe chocolate-colored terno, her gray hair tightly knotted.
Old David tied the reins to one of the posts that palisaded the station yard. I jumped down and ran to Tia Antonia, who was standing by the ticket window, and kissed her bony hand. She was past fifty and looked ascetic but still used perfume liberally, a brand that had a particular scent similar to that of crushed bedbugs. Andring tousled my hair.
“If I didn’t know you were coming,” Tia Antonia said drily, peering down at me through her steel-rimmed eyeglasses, “we would have taken one of the caretelas.”
Cousin Andring beckoned to the old man. “David,” he called pointedly, “don’t tell me you were drunk again and forgot.”
The old man mumbled something about the horse being slow, but Cousin Andring went on: “Hurry with the bags.” Three pieces of baggage lay at his feet. David picked up one—a leather valise, the biggest of the three, and sagged under its weight.
“Careful!” Tia Antonia hissed. “My thermos bottle and medicines are in there.”
Old David smiled as he picked up the bag and walked away. Cousin Andring called him back and told him to take one more bag, but the old man walked on.
“The old lazy drunk!” Cousin Andring swore. “I cannot understand why Tio tolerates him. He is late, and now he is also insolent.”
He picked up the two bags and, overtaking the old man, dumped one on his shoulder. Old David momentarily staggered, but he balanced the bag and carried it to the back of the calesa.
“It is about time Tio bought a car,” Cousin Andring said as we joggled up the dirt road to town. “I don’t see why he doesn’t. He has the money.”
“Whip the horse, David,” Tia Antonia said irritably. “I’m hungry.”
Old David whacked the reins on the back of the animal, but its pace did not change. Cousin Andring grabbed the rattan whip slung on the brace beside the old man. He moved to the front and sat beside me on the front seat, then leaning forward, he lashed at the horse. Our speed did not pick up, so he gave up after a while. “The servants and the horses Tio keeps,” Cousin Andring said in disgust, “they are all impossible.”
Father met us at the gate. After they had alighted, Old David took the calesa to the stable. He carried the bags upstairs and let me take the heavy leather harness off the horse.
I led the animal to its watering trough and watched it take long draughts. Old David came to my side and, breathing heavily, told me to go up to the house, where they were waiting for me at lunch.
“I’m not hungry,” I said.
Old David shook his head, then scrubbed the moist, steaming hide of the animal. “All morning you have been bringing rice and vegetables from Carmay,” he spoke softly to the horse’s ear. “Then you are whipped and cursed.” He laughed mirthlessly. “Ay! It’s the life of a horse for you.”
From the kitchen window Sepa called me; Father would be angry if I did not eat my lunch on time. I turned and left Old David.
The kitchen hummed that night; the stove fires burned bright, and the servants moved briskly about. In the wide yard, under the balete tree, Father’s tenants butchered a carabao, several pigs, and a goat. The activity in the house, the boisterous laughter of Cousin Andring in the sala, where he told stories to Father and the other arrivals, made sleep difficult.
A light flickered in the stable—an old squat building with a rusty tin roof at one end of the yard. It was strange that a light should still be on there, so I went down to look. The door was bolted from the inside. I peeped through a crack and saw the horse prostrate on the sawdust, and Old David sitting on an empty can beside it. He let me in.
“He is very sick,” he explained. He watched the beast’s dilated nostrils, its dull, rasping breath. He had covered the animal with jute sacks soaked in warm water.
“Will it die?”
He lifted the storm lamp on the ground and looked at me. “There is a limit even to the strength of a horse,” he said.
I stayed with him for some time and helped drive away the flies that crawled on the horse’s head. He carried pails of boiling water from where the tenants were heating water in big iron vats, and when the water was no longer very warm, he poured it on the jute sacks that covered the animal.
Soon the roosters perched on the guava trees crowed. It was past eleven. “Go to sleep now,” Old David told me. “Tomorrow is a big day, and don’t let a sick horse worry you.” He thanked me and walked with me to the stairs.
Sleep was long in coming. The laughter in the hall, the incessant hammering in the yard, the scurrying feet of servants persisted all through the night. Between brief lapses of sleep I thought I heard the insistent neighing of the horse.
In the morning more of Father’s tenants and their wives and children trooped to town. Under the balete tree a long table made of loose planks and bamboo stands was set. Big chunks of carabao meat and pork with green papayas steamed in cauldrons for them. I passed the drinks—gin and basi—and played no favorites. To each I gave only a cup.
The tenants never went up to the house where Father’s relatives and friends gathered in the sala around a big round table laden with our food, fat rolls of morcon, caldereta, dinardaraan, lechon, and, from La Granja, tinto dulce, sherry, anisado.
Before the food was served to the tenants Old David came to me with a big bottle.
“Fill it up,” he pleaded.
“You’ll get drunk again,” I said, knowing I already had given him three cups of gin.
“It’s for the horse,” he said. “A little alcohol might help it.”
I could not refuse the old man.
Before noon, when the food was about to be served to the tenants, the five demijohns under my care were empty. I went to the stable to see how the horse was. It will be better in the morning, Old David had told me the night before. He was still in the stable. His withered face was red, and the bottle of gin I had given him was on the ground, half empty.
“Old David, you drank the wine,” I said, angered by his lie.
He nodded and grinned foolishly, his black teeth showing. “It’s no use,” he said, pointing to the horse that now lay still on the sawdust, its eyes wide open. Several flies were feasting on its eyes, on the streams of saliva that had dried on its mouth. The jute sacks that had covered its brown hide were scattered around.
“Only a while ago,” Old David explained, shaking his head.
“Father must know,” I said.
“No, not on a day like this. All these people. What will he say?”
“It is his horse,” I said. “Tell him.”
“It’s an old horse, and it was more mine than his,” Old David whined. “He never liked it. He had no need for it.”
“If I tell him myself, it will not be good for you,” I told him.
He stood up and, with wobbly steps, followed me to the house. In the sala Father and his guests were already eating. I went to him and told him Old David had something important to say. He beckoned to the old man, who remained standing at the top of the stairs where I had left him. He walked to the table and whispered the news in Father’s ear.
“No!” Father exclaimed. He turned to the startled assemblage. “Of all things to happen on my birthday!”
Cousin Andring, who sat near him, bent over and asked, “Not bad news, is it?”
“It is,” Father said, but there was no trace of grief in his voice. “My old horse is dead. All the rest the Japanese took. But this. Now it’s dead.” He turned to the old man. “What did it die of?”
“I don’t really know, Apo. Maybe exhaustion.”
“I always knew that horse couldn’t endure it,” Cousin Andring said. “You should have hitched another yesterday, David.”
“There is none other,” Old David said. He turned to Father. “What shall we do now, Apo?”
Father stroked his chin, exaggerating the gesture. “Well, inasmuch as no one wants to eat the meat of a dead horse, there is only one alternative left. David, you bury the horse.”
Father’s guests roared.
“Tell us,” Father went on when the laughter subsided, “when did it die?”
“How long have you been tending horses, David?” Cousin Andring asked. “You were not able to cure this one, even with your experience.”
“The Apo knows I’ve been in this household since I was a child. Ever since, I have tended not only horses but also children. One can cure sickness, but death …”
“Tell us, then,” Cousin Andring leaned forward, his eyes bulging with inspiration, “about your experiences tending horses. God, let us saddle up David and have some fun,” he said, turning to our other relatives, all of whom smiled approval.
The old servant moved to the middle of the hall near the table stacked with wine and food. He looked anxiously at Father, but Father was now occupied with the leg of a fried chicken. When he caught Father’s eye, Father merely nodded and said, “Go ahead, David. Speak up.”
Old David blinked, wiped his bloodshot eyes with his shirt-sleeve.
“Here,” Cousin Andring said, rising and offering the old man his unfinished glass of Scotch. “You may have had too much, but this is different. It may even refresh your memory.”
“Thank you,” Old David said. He took the proffered glass and emptied it into the brass flower vase on the table. Again, the bumptious howling.
Cousin Andring relished it. “If you can’t tell us about horses, David,” he went on, “tell us the story of your life. Anyone who has lived as long as you, and has drunk as much, must have an interesting life.”
Old David turned briefly to me, but I could not look at him; I felt dismal and responsible for his predicament. He turned to Father, but again Father nodded.
“My life,” he said finally, softly, without the slightest trace of emotion, his red eyes steady on my Cousin Andring, “is like an insect’s. So small it can be crushed with the fingers like this.” He paused, and with his thumb and forefinger lifted, he made the motions of crushing an imaginary insect.
“Ah, but for an insect—a flea, for instance—you are very durable,” Cousin Andring said. The guests smiled.
“Now tell us,” Cousin Andring said, “your life as a man, not as a butterfly.” More laughter. Cousin Andring beamed. He was apparently enjoying himself.
Old David held the table edge. His voice was calm. “Yes, I’ll tell you all.” His eyes swept the hall.”I was born here. I knew this place when it was a wilderness, when the creek … you’d be surprised—it wasn’t wide then. Why, there were some parts of it that one could cross merely by jumping. And the fish …
“I have watched young people grow so quickly like the shoots of bamboo. Most of you here, Benito, Antonia, Marcelo—all of you. And I said, someday, maybe, among these fine children, there would be one like their father. You must all revere his name, you whose lips still smell of milk …”
“And Carlos Primero!” Cousin Andring roared. Laughter swelled in the hall again.
“There was kindness in the hearts of men,” Old David said, undistracted. “I recall similar parties like this, which your grandfather used to give. His servants—us—we did not eat in the yard. We ate with him at his table, and we drank wine from the same cup he used!”
“More wine!” Cousin Andring howled again.
“There was less greed, less faithlessness. Men were brothers—the rich and the poor. It was a day for living, but now the past is forgotten and it can never be relived again even by those who used to belong to it. It was a good time, a time for loving one another, for forgiving one’s faults and understanding one’s weaknesses. Now the people don’t even know what kindness means to a horse …”
“Let’s drink to the health of the horse,” Cousin Andring said. “By God, we’ll give that horse a decent funeral, eh, Tio?” Cousin Andring winked at Father.
More laughter. The guests raised their glasses of wine and beer and smacked their lips. Then they fell to eating again, nibbling at drumsticks, reaching for the mountains of prawn and crab on the table.
Old David turned to Father and said in a quavering voice, “I have said enough, Apo.”
Father laid the spoon on his plate. “All right, David. We lost all the horses. No, I am not blaming you and your drinking. After all, even horses die. Now, maybe, I’ll buy a pickup truck, a jeep, or a car. You can’t drive—and even if you can, I won’t let you be the driver. What good would you be in the household then?”
“There is still the garden, Apo,” Old David said. He bent forward, his arms twitching. “And I can clean the car, wash it every day, till it shines like the bronze studs of the harness. And I can help in the housekeeping. I’ll sweep the yard twice a day, Apo. Even the streetfront of the house …”
“You are too old for that, David,” Father said, smiling wryly.
“And too slow,” Tia Antonia chimed in, “and too drunk.”
Cousin Andring stood up and faced the old man. “Well,” he said, gesturing with his fat hands. “Since you seem to have no more use for David here, we can bring him with us to the city.” He turned to Father. “What do you say, Tio? You don’t know the trouble with the servants we are having there. You cannot trust anyone except those whom you have known long and well. Tell Tio, Mother, about our last maid who ran off with the houseboy across the street, bringing with her your pearl earrings and some of the silver. David drinks too much, more than he can hold, but …”
Tia Antonia nudged Father. “It is true,” she said gravely.
“I’d rather stay here, Apo,” Old David said, his eyes pleading. “I was born here. I’ll die here.”
Father grumbled. “Don’t worry about dying, David. You’ll live to be a hundred. You’ll still be around long after we are turned to dust.” Father turned to his sister: “I have no objection.” Then to the old man, “You’ll go, David. Maybe just for half a year—”
“My days are numbered, Apo. I feel it in my bones, in the lungs that are dried in my chest,” Old David said.
“Who wants to live forever?” Cousin Andring asked. “Drink, David.” He extended another glass of Scotch. “There’s more of this where you are going. None of the cheap nipa wine and gin you have here.”
But the old man did not even look at my cousin; he turned and shuffled out of the hall.
The next morning the house was quiet again. Several women from Carmay stayed behind, and, after the guests had gone, they swept the yard, then scrubbed the narra floors. The stable was being torn down by the boys. Earlier, the horse had been dragged to the nearby field and buried there.
I lingered in the stable, waiting for Old David to go. He was dressed in his best denim—a little faded on the knees and on the buttocks but still quite new because, unlike his other pair of pants, it was not patched. He watched the planks being torn down. The dirty harnesses cluttered up a corner together with those that he had cleaned, their bronze plates polished to a sheen. His battered bamboo suitcase, lashed tight with abaca twine, was beside him.
“When will you return?” I asked.
His eyes were smoky red as they always were. He gazed at the ground, at the black streaks of molasses, which the boys had carelessly spilled in their hurry to dismantle the stable. Upstairs in the house, Cousin Andring traded parting pleasantries with Father. Then they came noisily down the stairs.
“Must you really go?” I asked the old man again.
Old David’s voice was hollow and distant. “So it must be. This is the time for leaving. Just as there was a time for beginning, planting, growing. I watched them all grow—your uncles, your father—all of them. Your grandfather—he was a spirited young man. I remember how he dared his father’s wrath, how he would flee to the forest with me in search of game. We swam the swollen creek together, even when logs hurtled down with the current. Ay, he was not born to the wilderness, but he defeated me in almost every contest except running. We would race to the edge of the river, but my legs—they were young and agile then, and they always carried me there first. He could shoot straight with the bow or with a gun. But he died, too.” A long pause. “Then your father—I would carry him perched on my shoulders, just like you. I used to drive him around, just the two of us, in the calesa to Calanutan and Carmay. I remember we spilled out once when the wheel fell into a deep rut and broke. I carried him to town on my shoulders, and never once did I put him down. Balungao it was, and that’s five kilometers away.”
“You are drunk again,” I said.
He dug his big toe into the sawdust and shook his head. “Ay—I knew them all. I watched them grow into big men, learned men. But no one lives forever—that’s what your cousin said. I can die here, where I saw them all grow. There is nothing like the land you belong to claiming you back. But everywhere the earth is the same.”
Father, his hands on the shoulders of Tia Antonia and Cousin Andring, walked idly to the gate where the jeep was parked. The servants were loading it with vegetables, two sacks of rice, chicken, and bunches of green bananas.
Cousin Andring turned to us. “And why isn’t David moving yet?” he shouted. “Is he drunk again?”
The old man stood up and tried lifting his valise, but it was cumbersome. I grasped its lashing at one end, and we carried it to the jeep.
“Does he have to bring all that junk to the city?” Cousin Andring asked, looking apprehensively at the jeep that was now overloaded. “I’ll bet anything it’s all bottles of nipa wine. A year’s ration, that’s what.”
Father smiled. “Let him,” he said.
“Hurry, David,” Cousin Andring urged the old man, “we’ll miss the train.”
We raised the suitcase, but the old man’s hold was not firm enough and the trunk fell. I stepped aside lithely just in time to avoid being hit by it. Its lashing broke, and out spilled his things—an old prayer book, his clothes, a leather case in which he kept his betel nuts, and a bottle of nipa wine. The bottle broke when it hit the ground, and its contents were spilled.
Tia Antonia buckled over laughing, but Cousin Andring was angry. “God,” he cursed, “can’t you be more careful, David?”
Pushing the old man aside, he picked up his things and dumped them into the open suitcase, then heaved everything into the jeep.
Old David’s face was pale and expressionless. He was the last to board the vehicle, and as it started, he turned briefly to me. I could not tell whether what glistened on his cheeks was beads of sweat or tears.