Francisco Jose - Dusk

The pain crept back but no longer as sharp as when he moved for the first time, a dull weight against his shoulder and his chest. Though the air smelled clean, he had difficulty sucking it. Were his lungs punctured? He listened to his breathing — there was no whistling, no rasping, but the ache was there, deep and permanent.

“Be still,” Dalin again, oh that beautiful, soothing voice; “You have lost a lot of blood. It is a miracle that you are alive. A miracle. There is a hole below your shoulder and behind your back where the bullet went through …”

His lung must be punctured and he must be bleeding inside. He was so weak, it seemed he had no body anymore and he was just a hollow man, his bones and innards taken out. He was dying, he was now sure of that. Our Father Who Art in Heaven … oh, dear God! Dalin, don’t leave me, don’t leave me … Above him, the design of bamboo slats which held the woven fronds in place — was this the last thing he would sec? Dalin, Holy Mary, Mother of God … then darkness again …

And again, too, the are of light, brighter now. It was no illusion, he was alive, his lungs were intact, he was breathing. He could even bring his head up a little, and in doing so, he realized that his chest was bandaged with strips of cloth.

“Dalin … Dalin …”

“I am here,” she said behind him. He could hear her move toward him, then her hand rested on his arm. Her calm, lovely face, a finger pressed to her lips. “Do not talk,” she said, squatting beside him so that he could see her, feel her leg pressed against his side, her whole wonderful presence banishing the lie of his passing. “I will tell you everything. Your father, your family — they are all in the delta waiting for us. We will not leave till it is dark so that we will not be followed …”

“And where are we?” His voice sounded weak.

“We are within a ring of bamboo at the foot of a hill, away from Po-on. It is no more. They burned it all. Nothing there but ashes and posts still smoldering. They left you in the yard. Thank God, after they shot you, they did not drag you into the fire. Perhaps they thought you were dead. And why not? We were in the delta when we heard the shot, we saw the fire, and after they had left, I came after you …”

Sweet, beautiful stranger.

“I thought you were dead, but I looked closer. You were breathing. The blood had clotted and stopped the flow. I unhitched the bull cart, tilted it, and lifted you into the back.”

Sweet, beautiful stranger.

“My bull is tethered and grazing. If you are hungry, or if you are thirsty?”

Sweet, beautiful stranger, my guardian angel, may you be always near.

“It will be dark soon, we will join them …”

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the joy of being alive waned and a great, formless weariness dropped over him, the weariness not of the wound throbbing in his chest. Another wound festered deeper than the laceration in his flesh, the thought that they showed no mercy to him, ever loyal servant of the Church, of Mother Spain. He closed his eyes as the tiredness suffused him and now he really wanted release, the comfort of sleep, anything to dull the mind, to keep him from thinking. They were only men, doing what would prove them stronger, more powerful, and therefore, fit to rule. There is still a just God who will pass judgment. Or could this be but part of that suffering he must endure, condemned as he was to believe in a God who decreed that salvation lay in suffering?

Bit-tik’s voice woke him, “Will he live?” The rustling of people, heavy breathing, murmurs indistinct and incessant, and blackness heavy and portentous all around.

“Let us pray,” Dalin said.

Now he could feel the cart lurch a bit. They were moving, moving away from Po-on. A still, moonless night, the dark mass of the range their only guide; they would follow the foothills all the way down to La Union, then to Pangasinan.

They had onions and garlic; the two pigs that had squealed when they were still in the riverbed were quickly butchered, their meat salted. Not all the meat could be salted, however, so they feasted in the evening and for a moment forgot that they were fugitives. The chickens were quiet in their bamboo cages under the carts — it was the roosters and their crowing that could give them away, but there were roosters all over the land, many of them wild, their crowing everywhere.

There was room in Dalin’s cart, so he stayed there, in her care. She had really joined them.

That night, Mayang gave him a piece of roasted pork. It should have given him pleasure; it had been a long time since he had had pork, not since he left Cabugaw. But it tasted bitter and he had no appetite. He was weak, he could hardly move, and his right arm was without feeling still. He touched his fingers with his left hand but could feel nothing. He was really like his father now.

Soft footsteps alongside the cart, the carabaos straining at their yoke. Moving along on uneven ground, the cart sometimes dipped or yawed, and each fall brought a bolt of pain. He felt the bandage again and again to make sure that he was not bleeding, and was relieved to find it was not wet.

Dalin sat out front and he could make out her shape, her turning to him occasionally. He slept fitfully and had disjointed dreams: Padre Jose in his black cassock drinking not his wine but basi in a coconut bowl; Carmencita — yes, he had dreamed of her many times — dressed in the white gown of a bride, baring her breasts to him, and he had grabbed at them, sucked them, and when the warm milk filled his mouth, he spat it out and found it red, the dark living red of blood. He woke up, then drifted back to sleep. This time he dreamed he had entered the seminary in Vigan; he was no longer a novice — he was wearing the soutane of a priest, and he was teaching — yes, he was teaching and his students were not Indios — they were all old and venerable friars, among them Padre Jose. They were all listening to him, rapture on their Castilian faces, as he spoke not about theology, but about the mind as healer, about the capacity of man to free himself from the bondage of his own carnal limitations. And he showed them how it was possible for someone of earthly shape like him to do what was not possible — he willed himself off the floor, and he rose till his head almost touched the ceiling, then he looked down at them, smiling benignly at their amazement.

“What does it all mean?” he asked Dalin in the morning when they stopped in the hollow of a hill, surrounded by a flourish of butterfly trees. Children splashed naked in the stream behind the cart and the women were cooking the morning meal. The rich smell of roasting pork drifted into the cart.

“I do not know,” Dalin said, lifting his head a little so he could drink the bittersweet coffee Mayang had brewed. His chest throbbed with a dull blob of pain. “My dreams are so simple … nothing as interesting as yours,” Dalin continued, “although once I flew over the sea and could look down into the depths and see where the schools of fish were.”

As they waited for the dark to come, she kept him company. Mayang drifted in and out, feeling his brow and bringing to him bowls of broth. Outside, the women prepared the meals, pounded rice, and the men mended their fish nets, or wove baskets out of the young bamboo which they cut from the thickets along the streams.

Istak grew weaker and his right arm was still numb no matter how much Dalin massaged it. The wound throbbed even more. He prayed, tears streaming down his face, asking that his life be spared, not because he wanted vengeance, but because he wanted to prove he could surmount this personal anguish to do service to his God still.

He thanked God, too, for Dalin beside him, comforting him, telling him now about herself. Who was this angel, whose touch was elixir, whose presence was light? Where had she come from? Lingayen: that was where she was born, a small town at the rim of the sea. Her people were fisherfolk and salt makers. They had a house surrounded by coconuts. Lingayen — a beach with white sand and a gentle surf. There was this tall and ancient tree at the fork of the road which led to their town and when people passed by, they always looked back. Lingayen — looking back — and that was how the town got its name. She knew enough of his language and she spoke it with an accent; she had learned it as a child when her parents sailed up and down the coast, selling coconut sweets, salt, and shrimp paste which they made from the tiny shrimps they caught in fine mesh nets in the gulf.