Francisco Jose - Dusk

“Could a spirit enter another human being and give it a purpose?” Bit-tik was anxious to know.

“Yes, it is possible,” Istak said after a while, “for a man to welcome into his mind and heart any spirit, a belief, a faith that was expressed in thought and deed by another man. If the receptacle is clean, I think wonders can be achieved. Is this what you are looking for?”

Bit-tik shook his head, “I don’t know, Manong.”

“You must not wander too often now,” Istak advised.

He valued Istak’s advice, so he made plans to build himself a house, and in the next few weeks, he roamed the forest beyond the farm looking for sagat trees for posts. He found them, cut them, and waited for them to dry. It was not difficult to gather cogon for the roof, buri palm leaves for the walls, and bamboo for the floors. And when anyone built a house, the neighbors always helped, and their only pay was the day’s meal.

Bit-tik did not build his house. The small first hut that he built looked like a beggar’s hut beside the new and bigger homes. A gust of wind could blow it down. An-no added a large room to his house, then told his brother to move in with them.

Bit-tik continued his wandering and journeyed to Tayug again in the hope that he would meet once more the young men who had taken him to their distant valley. He asked the people in the marketplace if they had ever come down again. No one knew — in fact, the people of Tayug knew little of what was beyond the mountains except that it was forbidding and hostile, and the only people who lived there were the Bagos and those who had become savages.

He returned to Cabugawan more subdued than ever. If Dalin and Istak asked him the usual question about when he would finally bring a woman home, he had the same answer, “Maybe when the crow turns white.”

As Orang surmised, he truly loved Sabel and could not find someone to replace her.

There were occasions when thoughts of the past crowded Istak’s mind. During Holy Week in the year Bit-tik told him about the valley high up in the Caraballo range, he remembered the journal he had left in Cabugaw and what his uncle Blas had said about how he would compose a poem about their journey. Hearing the pasyon sung by Orang, listening to her relate the suffering of Christ at the hands of His own brethren, and His betrayal, he relived the past, its sorrow and fear. Listening to Orang, tears burned in his eyes.

Yet, there was comfort in the convent, the certitude not only of God’s presence and the beneficence that Padre Jose had selflessly given. The church was once a redoubt against the violence of Muslim raids, so why could it not be a haven from injustice itself?

It finally came during their fourth year in the new land. First, it was just some rumor brought by Blas, who went to town on Sundays — the market day — to look at farm implements, gossip, and get a little drunk in the tienda there. They were idling in the village yard — the evening was young and a full moon adorned the sky. The children were playing, and their shouts and laughter decorated the vast stillness of the night.

They were talking softly; the planting season would soon be upon them. Though there were still wilds to clear, life already had a distinct, well-ordered pattern that could be rent only by nature’s vagaries.

“In the market this morning,” Blas said, pausing to spit out the wad of tobacco he had been chewing since after supper, “I heard this salted-fish merchant from Dagupan say there is a plague in the south — and it is spreading to the north. Some towns in Cavite already have it. People die in just two days — they vomit and defecate continuously until there is no more body to them.”

Istak tensed; it was the dreaded cholera, for which there was no cure, just as it had been with the pox which infected all Cabugaw when he was still a boy just starting out as an acolyte. His family had survived it; would they survive cholera? Always, like some thorn embedded in the flesh that hurt when memory stirred, he would remember the weeping of people, the bodies with ripe, red sores, the pus oozing out of them. At first it was just three or four deaths in a day, then it was ten or twenty, then fifty — and all had to be buried hastily. “The cholera is worse,” Padre Jose had said, tears streaming down his craggy face. “Perhaps we have not been Christian enough.” And again and again, he heard the old priest intone sadly, dully: “It is the hand of God.”

The very night Blas told them about the plague, Istak had a dream.

He was harvesting the grain, but every time he stooped with the scythe, the stalks in his hands turned to ash and the whole field became an expanse of black.

He was now running away from it, and someone was chasing him, the footfalls behind him growing louder and louder although he was already faster than the deer. Then, on his head a huge hand rested. He stopped and turned to look at what he knew was a giant behind him, but there was no one there and no matter how quickly he turned around, he could not see who was behind him, although he could hear the gusty breathing and feel the great hand clamped on his head.

He ran again, his limbs racing the wind, but still the hand rested on his head, and behind him, the laughing, mocking voice: You cannot run away from destiny.

His legs began to feel like logs. You are not destiny, Istak shouted.

Then who am I?

The devil!

And if I am the devil, what am I trying to do?

You know that I have wavered in my faith, you want me on your side.

Istak slowed into a wearied walk. More derisive laughter behind him, and again he turned abruptly to confront his tormentor, but whoever he was, he was quicker and was behind Istak again.

I am not the devil, the booming voice said. And I will prove to you I am not. Tomorrow, when you waken, there will be a guava branch in your yard. Boil its leaves — the broth can heal the sick. Its fruits though sour can fill the stomach. Plant it in your bangcag . You have three mounds there. You will know which mound to select — dig a hole before it. There will be a treasure there and the guardian of this treasure will test your courage. I do not know if you will pass. If you do, plant the twig close by. It will prove to you that I am neither the devil nor his disciple. I am God’s messenger and you will use all His gifts when the time comes.

Liar! Istak screamed, and again he twisted around. The hand was no longer on his head but there was no one behind him either. The voice!

He remembered it then; it was old Padre Jose’s.

Morning came to Cabugawan with the splendor of May; mayas chirping on the grass roof, and beyond the open window, the bamboo bending to a breeze, the chicken cackling in the yard. It all came back with the urgency of birth or death or whatever could shake the world, for there on the ground was the guava twig that he had seen in his dream, only it seemed bigger, its leaves fuller and greener.

He rushed down and picked it up with trembling hands, raised it to the sun, bent it. Yes, it was real, and to Bit-tik, who was then starting out, he asked if there was anyone who had come that morning to the village to visit, any of the children …

The children? But they were all still asleep; they had not breakfasted yet.

This cannot be, this cannot be; this is reality and what I saw was a dream.

He hurried back to the house and to Dalin, who stirred from their mat, he said, “I must do some digging in the bangcag .” He wanted to explain to her what had happened, but anxiety prodded him. He wanted to know the verity of what lurked in the depths of his mind, what sorcery it was that placed the twig in his yard, for surely it would now reveal itself in the hole he would dig.