Francisco Jose - Don Vicente - Two Novels

“I hear only the river, a dog, the wind, and insects,” I said.

It seemed as if his thoughts were far, far away.

“The bells, boy,” he said, a glow on his face bright as happiness, clear as morning. “The bells are ringing.”

I remembered again the legend of the bells, how men like Grandfather had defied time and circumstance, lived through the years crowned with bliss and fortune, because, once on a Christmas night, they heard the bells. And here was this old man, who had always said this was not so, straining his old deaf ears listening, crying.

I looked at his face again, at the drooping eyelids, at the thin lips mumbling a prayer, perhaps, and it occurred to me that he no longer belonged to my time. He had taken on a countenance that struck me with awe. In the next instant, I drew away from him and slowly turned and ran across the new hay, over the irrigation ditches, down the incline, beyond the towering palms standing like hooded sentinels of darkness, all the way to Carmay in the Christmas night. I went breathlessly up to the old man’s house, my heart thundering in my chest, and cuddled among the pillows in his damp room, not wanting to return, cursing myself for not hearing anything and, most of all, for not believing what the old man said he heard.

When Christmas morning broke over Carmay, a neighbor and I went where Grandfather and I camped in the night. I had expected the old man to be angry with me for having left him.

I told no one about what Grandfather said he heard, not even the doctor who declared that Grandfather, whom we found lying serenely on the sled with an angelic smile on his face, had finally died of old age.

After Grandfather’s death, Father asked Tio Benito if he wanted to live in Carmay, but my uncle was too comfortable in his new residence to care for the virtues of the village. Before the elements could claim Grandfather’s house, Father had it torn apart, and all its good planks of wood were brought to Rosales. The other materials — the galvanized-iron sheets, sash windows, and wooden sidings, even the kitchen utensils — were given by Father to his tenants.

The wooden shed, which was full, he gave to a tenant family that had suffered a disaster that year; while the woman of the house was preparing charcoal, some sparks flew and their house burned down. They were so poor that they would have slept on the ground and without a roof had not Father taken pity on them and given them the woodshed.

I remember this family very well, particularly Ludovico, the son. Among the many farmer boys whom I knew, Ludovico alone dared show me his true feelings and speak to me in anger, as if I were no more than a worthless younger brother.

But then, Ludovico’s anger was not the long, smouldering kind. The moment he had given vent to his feelings, he was again his old likeable self. He was a tall, gangling youth with eyes that gave the impression he was sleepy all the time, but those eyes became instantly alive the moment he spoke. He seldom talked, though, and when he did, he seemed always to be groping for the proper words to say.

He was dark like most of the other barrio boys who had no education except the practical kind that one absorbed after knowing hunger quite as well as the endless drudgery that went with being a tenant. He had only a pair of pants — blue denims, well worn, faded at the knees and the buttocks — which he washed himself and ironed with such consuming care, as if it were a de hilo suit.

Ludovico came to the house on a Sunday after the first mass was said. He accompanied his mother, Feliza — a thin little woman who always spoke in a whisper, whose face was as pale as a banana stalk. Her wide bamboo basket was usually filled with vegetables — sweet-potato tops, bamboo shoots, eggplants, greens that she could not have sold for much, because in Rosales vegetables are cheap and could be had for the asking. She would give some of the vegetables to Sepa, for these were raised on Father’s farm, and by some unwritten law, a part of such harvest belonged to us.

Feliza was very industrious — this much could be seen in the way she swept the storehouse or the yard so thoroughly whenever Father asked her.

Ludovico always carried the firewood — dried acacia or dalipawen branches on a pliant pole balanced across his shoulder. One bundle was for us, and the other was for sale in the public market.

They always came barefoot, and their feet were thick and black with mud or dust depending on the season. Like most of the tenants in Carmay, Ludovico would have probably grown to a venerable old age without having known how it was to wear shoes. I would ask them to come up to the house for a while, but like the other tenants, they would refuse with plenty of head-shaking. They would look bashfully at their dirty feet and still decline to come up to the house even after they had gone to the artesian well below the kitchen to wash.

After Ludovico had stacked the firewood in the woodshed and carried the other bundle to market, he would return to the house and wait in the yard while his mother sold the greens and the extra firewood.

Feliza would return at about eleven, her face damp with sweat. With the little money she had made from the vegetables, she would have bought a bottle of kerosene, salted fish wrapped in dried banana leaves, sometimes a bundle of rice cakes, laundry soap, and cheap little items from the Chinese stores that occupied Father’s building along the main street.

They would not depart until Father had acknowledged their presence, not by talking with them as they stood motionless at the bottom of the stairs but by simply waving his hand in their direction and occasionally inquiring how things were in Carmay.

It was while waiting for his mother that Ludovico and I became friends. I would often join him on the stone bench in the shade of the balete tree. He was never voluble; he would shift his position when cramped, or sometimes he would venture into the graveled street and loiter there.

I asked him once if he had gone to school.

He had reached the third grade, he said, his face aglow as if reaching the third grade and being able to write one’s name were an achievement.

During the harvest season, I would get permission to go to Carmay regularly with Old David. The old servant would leave me in Ludovico’s care, and Ludovico would lift me and carry me around on his shoulders while I held on to his short, dry hair.

One day, we went to gather camachile fruits along the provincial road. That was the day Ludovico was scared, for I had messed with some poisonous vine, and the whole day my arms swelled and ached. Father gave him three lashes with the horse whip, and after that Ludovico waited on me as if I were a sultan’s son.

I remember the time we were standing by the half-dried irrigation ditch and my straw hat was blown into the ditch by a strong gust of wind. He crouched low on the embankment to retrieve my hat. On a sudden impulse, I gave him a little shove and into the muddy ditch he fell. He got splashed all over with black mud. He cussed, but I laughed and laughed till I found out that he was really angry. I thought he would give me a thrashing, but when he noticed I was scared, he began laughing, too. He laughed so madly I thought he would never stop.

After the harvest season, the open spaces no longer fascinated me. In a few months the rains came, in driblets at first and then in torrents. Just the same, Ludovico walked three kilometers to our house from the barrio with his two bundles of firewood balanced on a pole.

Once, sitting on the top rung of the kitchen stairs, I watched him drink from the artesian well. I was in a mood for pranks. I went down, splashed water on him and, while at it, I slipped and fell at his feet. We laughed together till Sepa told him to go away, which he did immediately, as if he were a whipped dog.