John Sayles - A Moment in the Sun

“Why have you brought him here?”

“He needs a doctor.”

“Dr. Estero is in Palauig.”

“That is ten miles farther on.”

“You have no right.”

“But here we are.”

Bayani raises an arm with some difficulty. “Don’t you recognize me, Don Nicasio?” he asks in Zambal.

Diosdado’s father does not speak. Bayani raises his voice, speaking to the old man’s back.

“Both of your boys home and this is your reception?”

The other men, Diosdado’s guerilleros , look away. Don Nicasio tells his segundo to send a carriage for Dr. Estero and to have Trini bring some food for these beggars, and then strides back into the house.

“I’m sorry, hermano ,” Bayani says to his brother. “I was never taught proper manners.”

It was somewhere back in Pampanga that Diosdado guessed, but he has not found the words to acknowledge it.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I did,” Bayani shrugs. “Not in so many words, but I did. You people only hear what you want to.”

Trini comes out then, bent with age, tears in her eyes.

“God has spared you,” says his old ama , embracing Diosdado and then setting up a table for the men to eat. When the food comes there is more than enough to fill their shrunken bellies.

“We had better finish this,” says Kalaw through a mouthful of lechón , “before the Americans take it all.”

Diosdado is certain his father will have no trouble with the Americans, even if his son — sons — are insurrectos with a price on their heads. Men like his father are making their accommodations all over the Philippines, coming to an understanding, waiting in line for the positions that will be handed down by the new masters of the land. The americanistas will not look so different than those who did the bidding of the Spanish — businessmen, the wealthier politicians, the owners of plantations. Ilustrados , even many of the scribblers, especially the ones who can write in English, have begun to campaign for “wiser heads to prevail” and “the gradualist approach” to independence. He has heard of a masquerade party in Manila with an adobo prepared, quite purposely, with American tinned pork obtained from their quartermaster corps.

“I’ve never set foot in that house,” says Bayani when they try to move him into the zaguán , “and I’m not going to now.”

Finally Diosdado sends the others to sleep on the palm mats Trini has laid out, and stays outside with Bayani in the garden, covering him with a blanket. It is very difficult for the sargento to breathe now, as if he had to strain through a quart of water to find the bubble of air within it.

“The doctor will be here soon,” Diosdado tells him.

“The doctor isn’t coming.”

It grows darker in the garden, the shadow of the Virgin lengthening toward them. Bayani fights to keep his eyes open.

“I hated you,” he says after some time. “I hated your clothes and I hated your shoes and I hated seeing you in your carroza on the way to church and the times I heard you speak I hated your voice. I hated Don Nicasio too, though my mother said he was a great man, great and proud and very intelligent. But I hated you more because you were where I should have been. You wore my shoes and ate at my table, the one with the cloth covering it, with a separate plate for every dish, while I was out sneaking chickenshit from your yard to spread on our potato patch. I tried to get the Baluyut brothers to beat you up because I was too shy, too ashamed, to do it myself.”

Diosdado smiles. “I always wondered what I did to upset the Baluyut brothers.”

“When you went away to school I was already in the world, stealing from people, killing moros for the Spanish, and I forgot about you. I thought I did. But when I joined the sublevo my first thought was to come to Zambales, to evict Don Nicasio from this house in the name of the Revolution and live here, rule here, myself. And when you came back one day, looking like a maricón in your white suit with your hair full of brilliantine and speaking Spanish like a peninsular , I would say ‘Go away, boy, you are not welcome on this land.’ ”

Talking costs Bayani, and he pauses to catch his breath.

“Then you ruined my dream,” he says when he can speak again, a slight smile on his lips. “You ruined my sweet dream of revenge. ‘We have a young lieutenant from Zambales,’ they told me, ‘and we want you to look out for him.’ ”

“I am sorry,” Diosdado tells him. For confession, carefully choosing one of the friars who didn’t know his voice to unburden to, he said the words but never felt the remorse. He feels it now. “I am sorry for what was done to you and your mother.”

“She didn’t want money. She only wanted him to look at her when he passed on his horse, passed in his carriage. To look at her as if she was there, as if he had loved her. But he is not corrupt enough, our father, to love two women and be just to them both.”

“My mother must have known about you.”

“We called her La Rezadora , whenever we’d see her coming back from morning mass, muttering her novenas. The One Who Prays. Maybe she was praying for our father’s soul.”

“And you still hate me.”

Bayani laughs, coughs wetly. “Take a look at us now. We could be twins, except I have more holes in me than you do. How can you hate your twin?”

Diosdado feels himself crying now. Maybe for his mother. The shadow of the Virgin covers Bayani’s face.

“The doctor will be here soon,” he says. “We’ll regroup and make a stand here in Zambales and on some of the other islands—”

“They’re paying fifteen American dollars if you hand in your rifle. How many of our men have ever had that much in their pocket? No — the yanquis will win and all of your friends will learn their language, your children will learn their language and priests of the American religion, if they have one, will take the place of the friars.”

“Maybe.” Diosdado has had to wrestle with the possibility. Being steadfast does not mean you have to be stupid. “But one day they will leave—”

“But one day they’ll leave,” says Bayani, “just like the Spanish are leaving, and then we’ll be able to kill each other in peace, the Christians against the moros , the Tagalos against the Ilocanos, the rich against the poor, men like me against men like our father. A true Republic of the Philippines.”

One of the workers returns then, a young man Diosdado remembers climbing trees with when they were boys, the kind of young man who should be bearing arms for his country. He steps forward shyly, deferential.

“Señor,” he says, “I am very sorry to report that Dr. Estero cannot be persuaded to come. He says that he is afraid that when the Americans arrive people will tell stories. He sends this.”

The young man, Joaquín is his name, Diosdado thinks, holds out a hand to reveal a small black ball of opium.

“No more,” Bayani growls. “If it hurts enough, I won’t regret leaving.”

Diosdado sits with him into the night, the tuko lizards chirping, the moon rising slowly over the grave markers in the panteón. Diosdado is cold but does not move.

“Bury me with my mother,” says Bayani at the end. “May God forgive us all.”

It is the filth he can’t abide. Niles has come, in the last few days, to pray that they will kill him.

“They live like beasts, like hunted beasts,” he remarks to the Corre-spondent, who he knows is still alive because of the occasional tightening of the tether around his neck. “And we are less than beasts to them.”