Central Visayas

1.) The Black Monkey 

by Edith L. Tiempo

Two weeks already she had stayed in the hunt on the precipice, alone except for the visits of her husband. Carlos came regularly once a day and stayed three or four hours, but his visits seemed to her too short and far between. Sometimes, after he had left and she thought she would be alone again, one or the other of the neighbors came up unexpectedly, and right away those days became different, or she became different in a subtle but definite way. For the neighbors caused a disturbed balance in her which was relieving and necessary. Sometimes it was one of the women, coming up with some fruits, papayas, perhaps, or wild ink berries, or guavas. Sometimes the children, to grind her week’s supply of corn meal in the cubbyhole downstairs. Their chirps and meaningless giggles broke the steady turn of the stone grinder, scraping to a slow agitation the thoughts that had settled and almost hardened in the bottom of her mind. She would have liked it better if these visits were longer, but they could not be; for the folks came to see her, yet she couldn’t come to them, and she, a sick woman, wasn’t really with her when they sat there with her. The women were uneasy in the hut and she could say nothing to the children, and it seemed it was only when the men came to see her when there was the presence of real people. Real people, and she real with them.

As when old Emilio and Sergio left their carabaos standing in the clearing and crossed the river at low tide to climb solemnly up the path on the precipice, their faces showing brown and leathery in the filtered sunlight of the forest as they approached her door. Coming in and sitting on the floor of the eight-by-ten hut where she lay, looking at her and chewing tobacco, clayey legs crossed easily, they brought about them the strange electric of living together, of showing one to another lustily across the clearing, each driving his beast, of riding the bull cart into the timber to load dead trunks of firewood, of listening in a screaming silence inside their huts at night to the sound of real or imagined shots or explosions, and mostly of another kind of silence, the kid that bogged down between the furrows when the sun was hot and the soils stony and the breadth for words lay tight and furry upon their tongues. They were slow of words even when at rest, rousing themselves to talk numbingly and vaguely after long periods of chewing.

Thinking to interest her, their talk would be of the women’s doings, soap-making and the salt project, and who made the most coconut oil that week, whose dog has caught sucking eggs from whose poultry shed, show many lizards and monkeys they trapped and killed in the corn fields and yards around the four houses. Listening to them was hearing a remote story heard once before and strange enough now to be interesting again. But it was last two weeks locatable in her body, it was true, but not so much a real pain as a deadness and heaviness everywhere, at once inside of her as well as outside.

When the far nasal bellowing of their carabaos came up across the river the men rose to go, and clumsy with sympathy they stood at the doorstep spiting out many casual streaks of tobacco and betel as they stretched their leave by the last remarks. Marina wished for her mind to go on following them down the cliff to the river across the clearing, to the group of four huts on the knoll where the smoke spiraled blue glints and grey from charcoal pits, and the children chased scampering monkeys back into forested slopes only a few feet away. But when the men turned around the path and disappeared they were really gone, and she was really alone again.

From the pallet where she lay a few inches from the door all she could set were the tops of ipil trees arching over the damp humus soil of the forest, and a very small section of the path leading from her hut downward along the edge of the precipice to the river where it was a steep short drop of fifteen or twenty feet to the water. They used a ladder on the bushy side of the cliff to climb up and don the path, let down and drawn up again, and no one from the outside the area could know of the secret hut built so close to the guerilla headquarters. When the tide was low and then water drained toward the sea, the river was shallow in some parts and the ladder could be reached by wading on a pebbly stretched to the base of the cliff. At high tide an outrigger boat had to be rowed across. They were fortunate to have the hiding place, very useful to them whenever they had to flee from their hut on the knoll below, every time a Japanese patrol was reported by the guerillas to be prowling around the hills.

Two weeks ago, in the night, they had fled up to the forest again, thinking a patrol had penetrated. Marina remembered how she and Flavia and Flavia’s daughter had groped their way up to the precipice behind their faster neighbors, how the whole of that night the three of them had cowered in this dark hut while all around monkeys gibbered in the leaves, and pieces of voices from the guerillas on the river pieced into the forest like thin splintered glass. And all the time the whispered talk of their neighbors crouched in the crevices of the high rocks above them floated down like echoes of the whispers in her own mind. Nobody knew the reason for the harm sounded by headquarters unto the next morning when Carlos and two other guerillas paddled around the river from camp and had told everyone to come down from their precipice and return to the huts; it was not enemy troops but the buys chasing after the Japanese prisoner who had escaped.

Following the notice of Carlos, old Emilio and others went back to the knoll the day after the alarm. She had stayed, through two weeks now. Sick and paralyzed on one side, she had to stay where she was a liability to no one in case of danger. She had to stay until the Japanese prisoner was caught, and if he had been able to slip across the channel to Cebu and a Japanese invasion of this guerilla area was instigated, she would be safe in this hideout.

Listening closely for several nights, she had learned to distinguish the noises made by the monkey in the tree nearest her door. She was sure the tree had only one tenant, a big one, because the sounds it made were unusually heavy and definite. She would hear a precise rustle, just as if it shifted once in its sleep and was quiet again, or when the rustling and the grunts were continuous for a while, she knew it was looking for a better perch and muttering at its discomfort. Sometimes there were precipitate rubbing sounds and a thud and she concluded it accidentally slipped and landed on the ground. She always heard it arrive late at night, long after the forest had settled down. Even now as she lay quietly, she knew the invisible group of monkeys had begun to come, she knew from the coughing that started from far up to the slope, sound like wind on the water, gradually coming downward.

She must have been asleep about four hours when she awoke uneasily, aware of movements under the hut. Blackness had pushed into the room, heavily and moistly, sticky damp around her eyes, under her chin and down the back of her neck, where it prickled like fine hair creeping on end. Her light had burned out. Something was fumbling at the door of the compartment below the floor, where the supply of rice and corn was stored in tall bins. The door was pushed and rattled cautiously, slow thuds of steps moved around the house. Whatever it was, it circled the hut once, twice and stop again to jerk at the door. It sounded like a monkey, perhaps the monkey in the tree, trying to break in the door to the corn and rice. It seemed to her it took care not to pass the stairs, retracing its steps to the side of the hut each time so she could not see it through her open door. Hearing the sounds and seeing nothing, she could not see it through her open door. Hearing the sounds and seeing nothing, she felt it imperative that she should see the intruder. She set her face to the long slit at the base of the wall and the quick chilly wind came at her like a whisper suddenly flung into her face. Trees defined her line vision, merged blots that seemed to possess life and feeling running through them like thin humming wires. The footsteps had come from the unknown boundary and must have resolved back into it because she could not hear them anymore. She was deciding the creature had gone away when she saw a stooping shape creep along the wall and turn back, slipping by so quickly she could deceive herself into believing she imagined it. A short, stooping creature, its footsteps heavy and regular and then unexpectedly running together as if the feet were fired and sore. She had suspected the monkey but didn’t feel sure, even seeing the quick shaped she didn’t feel sure, until she heard the heavy steps turn toward the tree. Then she could distinguish clearly the rubbing sounds as it hitched itself up the tree.

She had a great wish to be back below with the others. Now and then the wind blew momentary gaps through the leaves and she saw fog from the river below, fog white and stingy, floating over the four huts on the knoll. Along about ten in the morning the whole area below would be under the direct that of the sun. The knoll was a sort of islet made by the river bending into the horseshoe shape; on this formation of the two inner banks they had made their clearing and built their huts. On one outer bank the guerilla camp hid in thick grove of madre-de-cacao and undergrowth and on the other outer bank, the other arm of the horseshoe, abruptly rose the steep precipice where the secret hut stood. The families asleep on the knoll were themselves isolated, she thought; they were as on an island cut off by the water and mountain ranges surrounding them; shut in with it, each one tossing his thought to the others, no one keeping it privately, no one really taking a deliberate look at it in the secrecy of his own mind. In the hut by herself it seemed she must play it out, toss it back and forth.

Threads of mist tangled under the trees. Light pricked through the suspended raindrops; the mind carried up the sound of paddling from the river. In a little while him distinctly. Neena! Neena! Her name thus exploded through the air by his voice came like a shock after hours of stealthy noises.

He took the three rungs of the steps in one stride and was beside her on the floor. Always he came in a flood of size and motions and she couldn’t see all of him at once. A smell of stale sun and hard walking clung to his clothes and stung into her; it was the smell of many people and many places and the room felt even smaller with him in it. In a quick gesture that had become a habit he touched the back of his hand on her forehead.

“Good,” he announced, “no fever.”

With Carlo’s presence, the room bulged with the sense of people and activity, pointing up with unbearable sharpness her isolation, her fears, her helplessness.

“I can’t stay up here,” she told him, not caring anymore whether he despised her cowardice. “I must go down. There is something here. You don’t know what’s happening. You don’t know, or you won’t take me stay.”

He looked at her and then around the room as though her fear squatted there listening to them.

“It’s the monkey again.”

“Man or monkey or devil, I can’t stay up here anymore.”

“Something must be done,” he said, “this can’t go on.”

“I’ll go down and be with the others.”

He raised his head, saying wearily, “I wish that were the best thing, Neena, God knows I wish it were. But you must go down only when you’re ready. These are critical days for all of us in this area. If something breaks–the Jap, you know, think what will happen to you down there, with me at headquarters. You’ve known of reprisals.”

He looked at her and his sooty black eyes were like the bottom of a deep drained well. “I wish I could be here at night. What I’m saying is this: it’s a job you must do by yourself, since nobody is allowed out of headquarters after dark. That monkey must be shot or you’re not safe here anymore.”

“You know I can’t shoot.”

“We are continuing our lessons. You still remember, don’t you?”

“It was long ago and it was not really in earnest.”

He inspected the chambers of the rifle. “You didn’t need it then.” 

He put his life into her hands.

She lifted it and as its weight yielded coldly to her hands, she said suddenly, “I’m glad we’re doing this.”

“You remember how to use the sight?”

“Yes,” and she could not help smiling a little. “All the o’clock you taught me.”

“Aim it and shoot.”

She aimed at a scar on the trunk of the tree near the door, the monkey’s tree. She pressed on the trigger. Nothing happened. She pressed it again. “It isn’t loaded.”

“It is.”

“The trigger won’t move. Something’s wrong.”

He took it from her. “It’s locked, you forgot it as usual.” He put it aside. “Enough now, you’ll do. But you unlock first. Remember, nothing can ever come out of a locked gun.”

He left early in the afternoon, about two o’clock.

Just before the sundown the monkey came. It swung along the trees along the edge of the precipice, then leaped down on the path and wandered around near the hut. It must be very, very hungry, or it would not be so bold. It sidled forward all the time eying her intently, inching toward the grain room below the stairs. As it suddenly rushed toward her all the anger of the last two years of war seemed to unite into one necessity and she snatched up the gun, shouting and screaming, “Get out! Thief! Thief!”

The monkey wavered. It did not understand the pointed gun she brandished and it came forward, softly, slowly, its feet hardly making any sound on the ground. She aimed, and as it slipped past the stairs and was rounding the corner to the grain room she fired again and once again, straight into its back. 

The loud explosions resounded through the trees. The birds in the forest flew in confusion and their high excited chatter floated down through the leaves. But she did not hear them – the only reality was the twisting, grunting shape near the stairs and after a minute it was quiet.

She couldn’t help laughing a little, couldn’t help feeling exhilarated. The black monkey was dead, it was dead, she had killed it. Strangely, too, she was thinking of the escaped prisoner that she strangely feared him but was curious about him, and that now she could think of him openly to herself. She could talk about him now, she thought. Shoe could talk of him to Carlos and to anybody and not hide the sneaky figure of him with the other black terrors of her mind.

She realized that she was still holding the gun. This time, she thought, she had unlocked it. And with rueful certainty, she knew she could do it again, tonight tomorrow, whenever it was necessary. The hatter of some monkeys came to her from a far up in the forest. From that distance, it was vague, a lost sound; hearing it jarred across her little triumph, and she wished, like someone lamenting a lost innocence, that she had never seen a gun or fired one.

2.) ANG PINAGMULAN NG BOHOL (Alamat/Boholanos)

(“Myth of Bohol”)

Salin ni Patrocinio V. Villafuerte

Ang mga tao noon ay naninirahan sa kabila ng ulap. Isang araw, ang kaisa-isang
anak na babae ng datu ay nagkasakit. Hindi mapalagay ang datu.
“Tanod, may sakit ang anak ko. Humayo ka, papuntahin mo rito ang manggagamot. Ngayon din!”

“Ngayon din po, Mahal na Datu!”
Nang dumating ang matandang manggagamot at ang tanod sa tahanan ng Datu. . .
“Magagawa ng matandang lalaki ang anuman na makagagaling sa kanya!” ang sabi
ng datu.
Sinuring mabuti ng matandang manggagamot ang maysakit. Pagkatapos ng
pagsusuri, nag-usap ang manggagamot at ang Datu sa labas ng kubo. . Tumawag ng
pulong noon din ang datu. . .
“Mga kalalakihang nasasakupan ng aking barangay. Makinig kayo sa akin. Maysakit
ang aking anak na babae at ang tanging hinihiling ko ay ang inyong tulong. Sundin ninyong
lahat ang mga tagubilin ng manggagamot. . . . upang magbalik ang dating lakas ng aking
anak.”
“Mga lalaki, dalhin ninyo ang maysakit sa malaking puno ng balite. Hukayin ninyo
ang lupang nakapaligid sa mga ugat, ang utos ng manggagamot.
“Gagawin naman ang iyong ipinag-uutos alang-alang sa pagmamahal namain sa
datu at sa kaniyang kaisa-isang anak na babae!”
Nagsimulang kumilos ang mga tauhan ng datu. Pinuntahan nila ang lugar na
kinatatayuan ng puno ng balite. Ang maysakit na anak ng datu ay isinakay sa duyan.
Hinukay ng ilang lalaki ang lupa sa paligid ng mga ugat ng puno ng balite. Nang ito’y
matapos.
“Dalhin ang maysakit sa kanal! Ang tanging makagagaling sa kanya ay ang mga
ugat ng malaking puno ng balite.” Buong ingat na inilagay sa kanal ang maysakit.
Ngunit sa di-inaasahang pangyayari, bumuka ang lupa. . .
“Ooooops, Aaaa. Ama ko, tulungan ninyo ako Ama. . .”
At babae’y tuluyang nahulog sa hukay ng ulap.
“O, Diyos ko. Ang aking anak. Ibalik ninyo siya sa akin. . . O, hindi! Ang aking
anak!”
“Huli na ang lahat, Datu. Siya’y patay na.!”
Sa ilalim ng ulap ay may malaking daluyan ng tubig. Gumulong sa hangin ang
maysakit bago tuluyang bumagsak ang kanyang katawan sa malaking daluyan ng tubig.
Nakita ng dalawang bibe ang pagkahulog ng babae.
“Isplas! Wasss! Isplas!
Nagmamadaling lumangoy ang dalawang bibe at mabilis na bumagsak sa likod nila
ang katawan ng babae. Sa kanilang mga likod namahinga ang may sakit.
“Kwak, kwak, kwak, kwak!”
At isang pulong ang idinaos.
”Ang babaeng kababagsak lamang mula sa ulap ay labis na nangangailangan ng
tulong. Kailangang tulungan natin siya.”
“Oo, dapat tayong gumawa ng bahay para sa kanya.”
“Lumundag ka, palaka, at dalhin mo ang dumi ng puno sa ibaba,” ang utos ng
pagong.
Sumunod ang palaka ngunit hindi siya nagtagumpay. Inutusan naman ng malaking
pagong ang daga. Siya ma’y sumunod ngunit nabigo.
Hanggang sa. . .
“Susubukin ko, ang kusang-loob na sabi ng malaking palaka.
Sa pagkakataong ito, ang lahat ng hayop ay nagsigawan at naghalakhakan, maliban
sa malaking pagong.
“Natitiyak naming hindi mo iyon magagawa. He-he-he! Ha-ha-ha.”
“Subukin mo, baka ikaw ang mapalad.”
Huminga nang malalim ang matandang palaka at nanaog. . . nanaog. . Sa wakas,
ang samyo ng hangin ay dumating at sumunod ang matandang palaka. Sa kanyang bibig,
nagdala siya ng ilang butil ng buhangin na kanyang isinabog sa paligid malaking pagong. At
isang pulo ang lumitaw. Ito ang naging pulo ng Bohol. (Kung susuriin ang likod ng pagong,
mapapansin ang pagkakatulad nito sa hugis at anyo ng Bohol). At dito nanirahan ang
babae. Nanlamig ang babae kayat muling nagdaos ng pulong. . .
“Kailangang gumawa tayo ng paraan para siya mainitan.
“Kung makaaakyat ako sa ulap, makukuha ko ang kidlat at makagagawa ako ng
liwanag, “ang sabi ng maliit na pagong.
“Gawin mo ang iyong magagawa. Marahil ay magiging mapalad ka.
Isang araw, nang hindi pa gaanong dumidilim, uminog ang ulap at tinangay ang
pagong nang papaitaas.
“Uww-ssss ! Brahos !”
Mula sa ulap, kumuha siya ng kidlat. . .
“Brissk ! Bruumm ! Swissss !”
Nabuo ang araw at ang buwan na nagbigay ng liwanag at init sa babae. Mula noon,
naninirahan ang babae sa piling ng matandang lalaking nakita niya sa pulo. At nanganak
siya ng kambal. Sa kanilang paglaki, ang isa’y naging mabuti at ang isa’y naging masama.
“Ihahanda ko ang Bohol sa pagdating ng mga tao.”
Ang mabuting anak ay gumawa ng mga kapatagan, mga kagubatan, mga ilog at
maraming hayop. Lumikha rin siya ng mga isdang walang kaliskis. Ngunit ang ilan sa mga
ito’y sinira ng masamang anak. Tinakpan niya ng makakapal na kaliskis ang mga isda
kaya’t mahirap kaliskisan ang mga ito
“Ano ang ginawa mo?”
“Walang halaga lahat ‘yan.”
“Walang halaga?”
“Bakit mo pinahihirapan ang iyong sarili sa paggawa rito? Hangal ka!”
“Inihahanda ko ang lugar na ito para sa pagdating ng mga tao.”
“Dito, dito’y wala tayong kinabukasan. Samantalang sa ibang lugar ay hindi ka
kailangang gumawa. Isa kang baliw ! »
Kaya’t naglakbay sa kaunlaran ang masamang anak. Dito siya namatay.
Samantalang ang mabuting anak ay nagpatuloy ng pagpapaunlad ng Bohol at inalis ang
mga masasamang ispiritung dala ng kanyang kapatid. Hinulma ang mabuting anak ang
mga Boholano sa pamamagitan ng pagkuha ang dalawang lupa sa daigdig at hinugis ang
mga ito ng katulad ng tao. Dinuran niya ang mga ito. Sila’y nabuhay.
“Ngayong kayo’y naging lalaki at babae, iniiwan ko sa inyo ang mga magagandang
katangiang ito: kasipagan, mabuting pakikitungo, katapatang kabutihang-loob, at
mapagmahal sa kapayapaan.”
Ikinasal ang dalawa at nagsama. Isang araw, kinausap sila ng mabuting anak.
“Narito ang iba’t ibang uri ng buto. Ibig kong itanim ninyo ang mga butong ito para
kayo matulungan. Gawin ninyong laging sariwa at magandang tirahan ang lugar na ito.”
Nang malaunan, ang mabuting anak ay lumikha ng igat at ahas katulad ng isda sa
ilog. Lumikha rin siya ng malaking alimango.
“Humayo kayo, dakilang igat at dakilang alimango saan mang lugar na ibig ninyong
pumunta.”
Sinipit ng malaking alimango ang malaking igat. Nagkislutan ang dalawa at ang
kanilang paggalaw ang lumikha ng lindol.
Ito ang dahilan kung bakit maraming alimango sa Bohol, maging sa lupa o sa dagat,
at ang igat na kaunaunahang nilikha ng mabuting anak. Gustong-gusto kainin ito ng mga
Boholanos. Hindi sila kumakain ng palaka dahil iginagalang nila ang mga ito. Hindi rin nila
kinakain ang mga pagong katulad ng ibang mga Bisaya kahit maaaring ihain ang mga ito sa handaan.

3.) Irong Latagaw

mga adik sa Brgy. Agdao)

ni Errol A. Merquita

Wa ka kabalo
daghan gapaniid sa imo;
sa matag oras
nga musuroy ka-
naay matang gabantay.
sa kada tao
nga imong gikaistorya-
naay kamot nga galista.
sa mga dalang
imong giaagian-
naay lit-ag nga gapaabot.
Ug parehas sa mga nangaging gabii,
naay gidakop ang mga gwardya
nga irong latagaw.
Gibukbok,

ang iyang ulo og kahoy
gisulod sa sako,
gikuyod ang lawas sa semento,
samtang mipatagaktak ang
basiyo sa kwarentay singko
hangtod nga ang iyahang tyabaw,
namahimong dugo nga
mibisbis sa yuta uban
sa pagkatag sa mga bakho.
Kinsa ang musunod?
Wala ka kabalo
nakalista na imong
pangalan isip usa ka
Irong latagaw!

4.) Sa 58, Unsa Pay Molukso?

                                                     by Estrella D. Alfon

ROSA was scrubbing the clothes she was washing slowly. Alone in the washroom of her mistress’ house she could hear the laughter of women washing clothes in the public bathhouse from which she was separated by only a thin wall. She would have liked to be there with the other women to take part in their jokes and their laughter and their merry gossiping, but they paid a centavo for every piece of soiled linen they brought there to wash and her mistress wanted to save this money.

A pin she had failed to remove from a dress sank its point deep into her fin­ger. She cried to herself in surprise and squeezed the finger until the blood came out. She watched the bright red drop fall into the suds of soap and looked in delight at its gradual mingling into the whiteness. Her mistress came upon her thus and, shouting at her, startled her into busily rubbing while she tried not to listen to the scolding words.

When her mistress left her, she fell to doing her work slowly again, and sometimes she paused to listen to the talk in the bathhouse behind her. A little later her mistress’ shrill voice told her to go to the bathhouse for drinking water. Eagerly wiping her hands on her wet wrap, she took the can from the kitchen table and went out quickly.

She was sweating at the defective town pump when strong hands closed over hers and started to help her. The hands pressing down on hers made her wince and she withdrew her hands hastily. The movement was greeted by a shout of laughter from the women washing and Rosa looked at them in surprise. The women said to each other “Rosa does not like to be touched by Sancho” and then slapped their thighs in laughter. Rosa frowned and picked up her can. Sancho made a move to help her but she thrust him away, and the women roared again, saying “Because we are here, Sancho, she is ashamed.”

Rosa carried the can away, her head angrily down, and Sancho followed her, saying “Do not be angry,” in coaxing tones. But she went her slow way with the can.

Her mistress’ voice came to her, calling impatiently, and she tried to hurry. When she arrived, the woman asked her what had kept her so long, and without waiting for an answer she ranted on, saying she had heard the women joking in the bathhouse, and she knew what had kept the girl so long. Her anger mounting with every angry word she said, she finally swung out an arm, and before she quite knew what she was doing, she slapped Rosa’s face.

She was sorry as soon as she realized what she had done. She turned away, muttering still, while Rosa’s eyes filled with sudden tears. The girl poured the water from the can into the earthen jar, a bitter lump in her throat, and thought of what she would do to people like her mistress when she herself, God willing, would be “rich.” Soon however, she thought of Sancho, and the jokes the women had shouted at her. She thought of their laughter and Sancho following her with his coaxing tones, and she smiled slowly.

Getting back to her washing, she gathered the clothes she had to bleach, and piled them into a basin she balanced on her head. Passing her mistress in the kitchen, she said something about going to bleach the clothes and under her breath added an epithet. She had to cross the street to get to the stones gathered about in a whitened circle in a neighbor’s yard where she was wont to lay out the clothes. She passed some women hanging clothes on a barbed-wire fence to dry. They called to her and she smiled at them.

Some dogs chasing each other on the street, she did not notice because the women were praising her for the whiteness of the linen in the basin on her head. She was answering them that she hadn’t even bleached them yet, when one of the dogs passed swiftly very close to her. Looking down, she saw in wide alarm another dog close on the heels of the first. An instinctive fear of animals made her want to dodge the heedlessly running dog, and she stepped gingerly this way and that. The dog, intent on the other it was pursuing, gave her no heed and ran right between her legs as Rosa held on to the basin in frantic fear lest it fall and the clothes get soiled. Herpatadiong was tight in their wetness about her legs, and she fell down, in the middle of the street. She heard the other women’s exclamations of alarm and her first thought was for the clothes. Without getting up, she looked at the basin and gave obscene thanks when she saw the clothes still piled secure and undirtied. She tried to get up, hurrying lest her mistress come out and see her thus and slap her again. Already the women were setting up a great to do about what had happened. Some were coming to her, loudly abusing the dogs, solicitousness on their faces. Rosa cried, “Nothing’s the matter with me.” Still struggling to get up, she noticed that her wrap had been loosened and had bared her breasts. She looked around wildly, sudden shame coloring her cheeks, and raised the wrap and tied it securely around herself again.

She could stand but she found she could not walk. The women had gone back to their drying, seeing she was up and apparently nothing the worse for the accident. Rosa looked down at her right foot which twinged with pain. She stooped to pick up the basin and put it on her head again. She tried stepping on the toes of her right foot but it made her wince. She tried the heel but that also made her bite her lip. Already her foot above the ankle was swelling. She thought of the slap her mistress had given her for staying in the bathhouse too long and the slap she was most certain to get now for delaying like this. But she couldn’t walk, that was settled.

Then there came down the street a tartanillawithout any occupant except the cochero who rang his bell, but she couldn’t move away from the middle of the street. She looked up at the driver and started angrily to tell him that there was plenty of room at the sides of the street, and that she couldn’t move anyway, even if there weren’t. The man jumped down from his seat and bent down and looked at her foot. The basin was still on Rosa’s head and he took it from her, and put it in his vehicle. Then he squatted down and bidding Rosa put a hand on his shoulders to steady herself, he began to touch with gentle fingers the swelling ankle, pulling at it and massaging it. They were still in the middle of the street. Rosa looked around to see if the women were still there to look at them but they had gone away. There was no one but a small boy licking a candy stick, and he wasn’t paying any attention to them. The cochero looked up at her, the sweat on his face, saw her looking around with pain and embarrassment mingled on her face. Then, so swiftly she found no time to protest, he closed his arms about her knees and lifted her like a child. He carried her to his tartanilla, plumped her down on one of the seats. Then he left her, coming back after a short while with some coconut oil in the hollow of his palm. He rubbed the oil on her foot, and massaged it. He was seated on the seat opposite Rosa’s and had raised the injured foot to his thigh, letting it rest there, despite Rosa’s protest, on his blue faded trousers. The basin of wet clothes was beside Rosa on the seat and she fingered the clothing with fluttering hands. Thecochero asked her where she lived and she told him, pointing out the house. He asked what had happened, and she recited the whole thing to him, stopping with embarrassment when she remembered the loosening of her patadiongand the nakedness of her bosom. How glad she was he had not seen her thus. The cochero had finished with her foot, and she slid from the seat, her basin on a hip. But he took it from her, asking her to tell him where the bleaching stones were. He went then, and himself laid out the white linen on the stones, knowing like a woman, which part to turn to the sun.

He came back after a while, just as Rosa heard with frightened ears the call of her mistress. She snatched the basin from the cochero’s hand and despite the pain caused her, limped away.

She told her mistress about the accident. The woman did not do anything save to scold her lightly for being careless. Then she looked at the swollen foot and asked who had put oil on it. Rosa was suddenly shy of having to let anyone know about her cochero, so she said she had asked for a little oil at the store and put it on her foot herself. Her mistress was unusually tolerant, and Rosa forgot about the slapping and said to herself this was a day full of luck!

It was with very sharp regret that she thought of her having forgotten to ask the cochero his name. Now, in the days that followed, she thought of him, the way he had wound an arm around her knees and carried her like a little girl. She dreamed about the gentleness of his fingers. She smiled remembering the way he had laid out the clothes on stones to bleach. She knew that meant he must do his own washing. And she ached in ten­derness over him and his need for a woman like her to do such things for him—things like mending the straight tear she had noticed at the knee of his trousers when her foot had rested on them; like measuring his tartanilla seat cushions for him, and making them, and stringing them on his vehicle. She thought of the names for men she knew and called him by it in thinking of him, ever afterwards. In her thoughts she spoke to him and he always answered.

She found time to come out on the street for a while, every day. Sometimes she would sweep the yard or trim the scraggly hedge of viola bushes; or she would loiter on an errand for tomatoes or vinegar. She said to herself, He dreams of me too, and he thinks of me. He passes here every day wishing to see me. She never saw him pass, but she said to herself, He passes just when I am in the house, that’s why I never see him.

Some tartanilla would pass, and if she could, as soon as she heard the sound of the wheels, she looked out of a window, hoping it would be Angel’s. Sometimes she would sing very loudly, if she felt her mistress was in a good humor and not likely to object. She told herself that if he could not see her, he would at least wish to hear her voice.

She longed no more to be part of the group about the water tank in the bathhouse. She thought of the women there and their jokes and she smiled, in pity, because they did not have what she had, some one by the name of Angel, who knew how to massage injured feet back to being good for walking and who knew how to lay out clothes for bleaching.

When they teased her about Sancho, who insisted on pumping her can full every time she went for drinking water, she smiled at the women and at the man, full of her hidden knowledge about someone picking her up and being gentle with her. She was too full of this secret joy to mind their teasing. Where before she had been openly angry and secretly pleased, now she was indifferent. She looked at Sancho and thought him very rude beside… beside Angel. He always put his hands over hers when she made a move to pump water. He always spoke to her about not being angry with the women’s teasing. She thought he was merely trying to show off. And when one day Sancho said, “Do not mind their teasing; they would tease you more if they knew I really feel like they say I do,” she glared at him and thought him unbearably ill-mannered. She spat out of the corner of her mouth, letting him see the grimace of distaste she made when she did so, and seeing Sancho’s disturbed face, she thought, If Angel knew, he’d strike you a big blow. But she was silent and proud and unsmiling. Sancho looked after her with the heavy can of water held by one hand, the other hand flung out to balance herself against the weight. He waited for her to turn and smile at him as she sometimes did, but she simply went her way. He flung his head up and then laughed snortingly.

Rosa’s mistress made her usual bad-humored sallies against her fancied slowness. Noticing Rosa’s sudden excursions into the street, she made remarks and asked curious questions. Always the girl had an excuse and her mistress soon made no further questions. And unless she was in bad temper, she was amused at her servant’s attempts at singing.

One night she sent the maid to a store for wine. Rosa came back with a broken bottle empty of all its contents. Sudden anger at the waste and the loss made her strike out with closed fists, not caring where her blows landed until the girl was in tears. It often touched her when she saw Rosa crying and cowering, but now the woman was too angry to pity.

It never occurred to Rosa that she could herself strike out and return every blow. Her mistress was thirtyish, with peaked face and thin frame, and Rosa’s strong arms, used to pounding clothes and carrying water, could easily have done her hurt. But Rosa merely cried and cried, saying now and then Aruy! Aruy!, until the woman, exhausted by her own anger left off striking the girl to sit down in a chair, curse loudly about the loss of such good wine, and ask where she was going to get the money to buy another bottle.

Rosa folded her clothes into a neat bundle, wrapped them in her blanket, and getting out her slippers, thrust her feet into them. She crept out of a door without her mistress seeing her and told herself she’d never come back to that house again.

It would have been useless to tell her mistress how the bottle had been broken, and the wine spilled. She had been walking alone in the street hurrying to the wine store, and Sancho had met her. They had talked; he begging her to let him walk with her and she saying her mistress would be angry if she saw. Sancho had insisted and they had gone to the store and bought the wine, and then going home, her foot had struck a sharp stone. She had bent to hold a foot up, looking at the sole to see if the stone had made it bleed. Her dress had a wide, deep neck, and it must have hung away from her body when she bent. Anyway, she had looked up to find Sancho looking into the neck of her dress. His eyes were turned hastily away as soon as she straightened up, and she thought she could do nothing but hold her peace. But after a short distance in their resumed walk home, he had stopped to pick up a long twig lying on the ground. With deft strokes he had drawn twin sharp peaks on the ground. They looked merely like the zigzags one does draw playfully with any stick, but Rosa, having seen him looking into her dress while she bent over, now became so angry that she swung out and with all her force struck him on the check with her open palm. He reeled from the unexpected blow, and quickly steadied himself while Rosa shot name after name at him. Anger rose in his face. It was nearly dark, and there was no one else on the street. He laughed, short angry laughter, and called her back name for name. Rosa approached him and made to slap him again, but Sancho was too quick for her. He had slipped out of her way and himself slapped her instead. The surprise of it angered her into sudden tears. She swung up the bottle of wine she had held tightly in one hand, and ran after the man to strike him with it. Sancho slapped her arm so hard that she dropped the bottle. The man had run away laughing, calling back a final undeserved name at her, leaving her to look with tears at the wine seeping into the ground. Some people had come toward her then, asking what had happened. She had stooped, picked up the biggest piece of glass, and hurried back to her mistress, wondering whether she would be believed and forgiven.

Rosa walked down street after street. She had long ago wiped the tears from her face, and her thoughts were of a place to sleep, for it was late at night. She told herself she would kill Sancho if she ever saw him again. She picked up a stone from the road, saying, I wish a cold wind would strike him dead, and so on; and the stone she grasped tightly, say­ing, If I meet him now, I would throw this at him, and aim so well that I would surely hit him.

She rubbed her arm in memory of the numbing blow the man had dealt it, and touched her face with furious shame for the slap he had dared to give her. Her fists closed more tightly about the stone and she looked about her as if she expected Sancho to appear.

She thought of her mistress. She had been almost a year in the woman’s employ. Usually she stayed in a place, at the most, for four months. Sometimes it was the master’s smirking ways and evil eyes, sometimes it was the children’s bullying demands. She had stayed with this last mistress because in spite of her spells of bad humor, there were periods afterward when she would be generous with money for a dress, or for a cine with other maids. And they had been alone, the two of them. Sometimes the mistress would get so drunk that she would slobber into her drink and mumble of persons that must have died. When she was helpless she might perhaps have starved if Rosa had not forcibly fed her. Now, however, thought of the fierce beating the woman had given her made Rosa cry a little and repeat her vow that she would never step into the house again.

Then she thought of Angel, the cochero who had been gentle, and she lost her tears in thinking how he would never have done what Sancho did. If he knew what had happened to her, he would come running now and take her to his own home, and she would not have to worry about a place to sleep this night. She wandered about, not stopping at those places where she knew she would be accepted if she tried, her mind full of the injustices she had received and of comparisons between Sancho and Angel. She paused every time a tartanilla came her way, peering intently into the face of the cochero, hoping it would be he, ready to break her face into smiles if it were indeed. She carried her bundle on her arm all this while, now clenching a fist about the stone she still had not dropped and gnashing her teeth.

She had been walking about for quite a while, feeling not very tired, having no urgent need to hurry about finding herself a place, so sharp her hopes were of somehow seeing her cochero on the streets. That was all she cared about, that she must walk into whatever street she came to, because only in that way would he see her and learn what they had done to her.

Then, turning into a street full of stores set side by side, she felt the swish of a horse almost brushing against her. She looked up angrily at thecochero’s laughing remark about his whip missing her beautiful bust. An offense like that, so soon after all her grief at what Sancho had done, inflamed her into passionate anger, and mouthing a quick curse, she flung the stone in her hand at the cochero on his seat. It was rather dark and she did not quite see his face. But apparently she hit something, for he suddenly yelled a stop at the horse, clambered down, and ran back to her, demanding the reason for her throwing the stone. She exclaimed hotly at his offense with the whip, and then looking up into his face, she gasped. She gasped and said, “Angel!”

For it was he. He was wearing a striped shirt, like so many other people were wearing, and he had on the very same trousers of dark blue he had worn when he massaged her foot. But he gazed at her in nothing but anger, asking whether her body was so precious that she would kill his horse. Also, why did she keep saying Angel; that was not his name!

Rosa kept looking up at him not hearing a word of his threats about taking her to the municipio,saying only Angel, Angel, in spite of his protests that that was not his name. At last she understood that the cochero did not even remember her and she realized how empty her thoughts of him now were. Even his name was not Angel. She turned suddenly to walk away from him, saying, “You do not even remember me.”

The cochero peered at her face and exclaimed after a while, “Oh yes! the girl with the swollen foot!” Rosa forgot all the emptiness, forgot the sudden sinking of her heart when she had realized that even he would flick his whip at a girl alone on the road, and lifted her smiling face at him, stopping suddenly to tell him her foot had healed very quickly. The cochero asked her after a while where she was going, and she said breathlessly, without knowing just why she answered so, “I am going home!” He asked no questions about where she had been, why she was so late. He bade her ride in his vehicle, grandly saying he would not make her pay, and then, with many a loud exclamation to his horse, he drove her to her mistress’ house.

Rosa didn’t tell him what had happened. Nor anything about her dreams. She merely answered the questions the cochero asked her about how she had been. “With the grace of God, all right, thank you.” Once he made her a sly joke about his knowing there were simply lots of men courting her. Rosa laughed breathlessly and denied it. She wished they would never arrive, but they soon did. The cochero waited for her to get out, and then drove off, saying “Don’t mention it” to her many thanks. She ran after the tartanilla when it had gone off a little way, and asked, running beside the moving vehicle, looking up into his face, “What is your name?”

The cochero shouted, without stopping his horse, “Pedro” and continued to drive away.

Rosa went into the house without hesitation, forgetting all her vows about never stepping into it again and wondering why it was so still. She turned on the lights and found her mistress sleeping at a table with her head cradled in her arms, a new wine bottle before her, empty now of all its contents. With an arm about the thin woman’s waist, she half dragged her into her bed. When the woman would wake, she would say nothing, remembering nothing. Rosa turned on the light in the kitchen and hummed her preparations for a meal

                              5.) SERVANT GIRL

ni Erlinda Kintanar Alburo

(Alang kang Rene, sa Leap Year 2004)
Naa pay daghan dihang naglumpayat.
Pananglitan, ang ulan sa sandayong—
Ang liso sa iyang bayanan –
Ang itoy nga nagkiat –
Ang mananaog sa lumba –
Ang naghikog diha sa taytayan –
Si Inday nga mao pay pagkadawat
og sulat ni Undo –
ug ang kilatnong silaw gikan ni Buddha.

Makutlo sad gikan sa mga basahon, anaay duruha:
Ang baki ni Basho nga milukso
Human sa dakong kahilom
Diha sa dakong linaw
Nagpasiplat sa kalunhawng
Nakapulpog sa tubigong salamin.
Unya, naa sad diay si Sleeping Beauty
Nga nahaigking pagbangon
Ang iyang mga ngabil ug mata
Napukaw tungod sa anino
Sa usa ka malamatong halok.
Apan labaw sa tanan:
Human sa hamubong hulaw
Ang pinitik sa akong kasingkasing
Nagkadagma-dagma
Kay may balangaw ang imong mga mata
Bisan karon,
Labina
Karon.