Shortly after Old David left to serve in Tia Antonia’s house in the city, I, too, had to pack my bags. I always knew that someday, after I finished high school, I would proceed to Manila and to college. In my younger days I had looked ahead to the event, but when the moment finally came, leaving Rosales filled me with a nameless dread and a great, numbing unhappiness. Maybe it was friendship — huge and granitelike — or just plain sympathy. I could not be too sure anymore. Maybe I fell in love for the first time when I was fifteen.
Her name was Teresita. She was a stubborn girl with many fixed ideas, and she admonished me once: “Just because you have so much to give does not mean it will all be accepted. Just like that. There’s more to giving than just giving.”
She was sixteen then, and looking at her made me think of moments bright and beautiful, of the banaba in bloom.
I did not expect her to be vexed when I brought her a dress, for it was not really expensive. Besides, as the daughter of one of Father’s tenants, she knew me well enough, better perhaps than any of the people who lived in Carmay, the young folks who always greeted me politely, doffed their straw hats, then closed-mouthed went their way.
I always had coins in my pockets, but that March afternoon, after counting all of them and the stray pieces that I had tucked away in my dresser, I knew I needed more.
I approached Father. He was at his working table, writing on a ledger, while behind him one of the new servants stood erect swinging a palm-leaf fan over his head. I stood beside him, watching him scrawl the figures on the ledger, his wide brow and his shirt damp with sweat. When he finally noticed me, I could not tell him what I wanted. He unbuttoned his shirt down to his paunch. “Well, what is it?”
“I’m going to take my classmates this afternoon to the restaurant, Father,” I said.
He turned to the sheaf of papers before him. “Yes,” he said. “You can tell Chan Hai to take off from his rent this month what you and your friends can eat.”
I lingered uneasily, avoiding the servant’s eyes.
“Well, won’t that do?” Father asked.
It was March, and the high school graduation was but a matter of days away. “I also need some money, Father,” I said. “I have to buy something.”
Father nodded. He groped for his keys in his drawer, then he opened the iron money box beside him, drew out a ten-peso bill, and laid it on the table.
“I’m going to buy—” I tried to explain, but with a wave of his hand he dismissed me and went back to his figures.
It was getting late. After feeding the hogs, Sepa was getting the chickens to the coops. I hurried down the stairs to the main road, which was quiet and deserted now except in the vicinity of the round cement embankment in front of the municipio, where the town loafers were taking in the stale afternoon sun.
The Chinese storekeepers who occupied Father’s building had lighted their lamps. From the ancient artesian well at the rim of the town plaza, the water carriers and servant girls babbled while they waited for their turn at the pump. Nearby, traveling merchants had unhitched their bull carts after a whole day of slow travel from town to town and were cooking their supper on broad blackened stones that littered the place. At Chan Hai’s store there was a boy with a stick of candy in his mouth, a couple of men drinking beer and smacking their lips portentously, and a woman haggling over a can of sardines.
I went to the huge bales of cloth that slumped in one corner and picked out the white silk cloth with glossy printed flowers. I asked Chan Hai, who was perched on a stool smoking his long pipe, how much he would ask for the material I had picked for a gown.
Chan Hai peered at me in surprise. “Tenpesos,” he said.
With the package, I hurried to Carmay. Dusk was falling very fast, the leaves of the acacias had folded, and the solemn, mellow chime of the Angelus echoed to the flat stretches of the town. The women who had been sweeping their yards paused. Children reluctantly hurried to their homes, for now the town was draped with a dreamy stillness.
Teresita and her father lived by the creek in Carmay. Their house sat on a sandy lot that belonged to Father, set apart from the cluster of huts of the village. Its roof, as it was with the other farmhouses, was thatched and disheveled, its walls were battered buri leaves. It stood alone near the gully that had been widened to let the bull carts and calesas through when the bridge was washed away. Madre de cacao trees abounded in the vicinity but offered scanty shade. Piles of burnt rubbish rose in little mounds in the yard, and a disrupted line of ornamental San Francisco ringed the house.
Teresita was in the kitchen, sampling the broth of what she was cooking. There was a dampness on her brow and a redness in her eyes.
“What are you doing here at this hour?” she confronted me. In the glow of the crackling stove fire, she looked genuinely surprised.
I could not tell her at once or show her what I brought.
“I wanted to see you,” I said, which was true.
“But it’s already late, and you have to walk quite a long way back.” She laid down the ladle on the table and looked puzzled. She must have noticed then that I was hiding something behind me.
“What do you have there?” she asked, moving toward me.
I laid my package on the wooden table cluttered with battered tin plates and vegetables.
“It’s for you,” I said. My face burned like kindling wood. “I hope you’ll like it.”
Her eyes still on me, she opened the package. When she saw what it was, she gave a tiny, muffled cry. She shook her head, wrapped the package again, then gave it to me. “I can’t,” she said softly. “It does not seem right at all.”
“But you need it, and I’m giving it to you,” I said firmly. The burning in my face had subsided. “Is there anything wrong with giving one a gift?”
And that was when she said, “There are things you just can’t give like what you are doing now …”
I think it all started that evening when we were in the third year and Teresita recited a poem. It was during the graduation exercises, and she was the only junior in the program. I cannot remember distinctly what the piece was about, except that she spoke of faith and love, and how suffering and loss could be borne with fortitude, and as she did, a clamminess gripped me, smothered me with a feeling I’d never felt before. I recall her resonant voice cleaving the hushed evening, and I was silently one with her.
I did not go home immediately after the program, for a dance in honor of the graduates followed. Miss Santillan, who was in charge of the refreshments, had asked me to help Teresita in serving them. I sat on one of the school benches after I got tired, watching the dancers file in and out, giggling. When most of them had eaten, Teresita asked Miss Santillan for permission to leave.
“My father, ma’am,” she said. “He doesn’t want me to stay out very late, because of my cough. Besides, I have work to do early tomorrow.”
“Going home alone?” Miss Santillan asked.
“I’m not afraid,” she said resolutely.
I stood up, strode past the table laden with an assortment of trays and glasses. Beyond the window, a moon dangled over the sprawling school buildings like a huge sieve, and the world was pulsating and young.
“I’ll walk with you,” I said.
She protested at first, but Miss Santillan said it would be best if I went along. After Miss Santillan had wrapped up some cakes for her, we went down the stone steps. The evening was clean and cool like a newly washed sheet, and it engulfed us with an intimacy that seemed unreal and elusive. We did not speak for some time.
“I live very far,” she reminded me, drawing a shabby shawl over her thin shoulders.
“I know,” I told her. “I’ve been there.”
“You’ll be very tired.”
“I’ve walked longer distances. I can take Carmay in a run,” I said, trying to impress her.
“I’m sure of that,” she said. “You are strong. Once I was washing in the river, and you were swimming with Angel, and you outraced him.”
“I did not see you,” I said.
“Of course,” she said, “you never notice the children of your tenants, except those who serve in your house.”
I was so upset that I could not speak at once. “That is not true,” I objected. “I go to Carmay often.”
She must have realized that she had hurt me, for when she spoke again she sounded genuinely sorry. “That was not what I meant, and I didn’t say that to spite you.”
Again, silence.
The moon drifted out of the clouds in a sudden smudge of silver, lighting up the dusty road. It glimmered on the parched fields and on the giant buri palms that stood like hooded sentinels. Most of the houses we passed had long extinguished their kerosene lamps. Once in a while a dog stirred in its bed of dust and growled at us.
“You won’t be afraid going home alone?” she asked after a while.
“There is a giant capre in the balete tree that comes out when the moon is full,” I said. “I’d like to see it. I’ve never seen a ghost.”
“When I die,” she laughed, “I’ll appear before you.”
“You’ll be a good ghost, and I won’t be afraid,” I said.
We walked on. We talked about ourselves, the friends that we ought to have had but did not. We reached the edge of the village where the row of homes receded and finally her house, near the river that murmured as it cut a course through reeds and shallows.
When we went up to the house, her father was already asleep. In fact he was snoring heavily. At the door she bade me good night and thanked
Shortly after Old David left to serve in Tia Antonia’s house in the city, I, too, had to pack my bags. I always knew that someday, after I finished high school, I would proceed to Manila and to college. In my younger days I had looked ahead to the event, but when the moment finally came, leaving Rosales filled me with a nameless dread and a great, numbing unhappiness. Maybe it was friendship — huge and granitelike — or just plain sympathy. I could not be too sure anymore. Maybe I fell in love for the first time when I was fifteen. Her name was Teresita. She was a stubborn girl with many fixed ideas, and she admonished me once: “Just because you have so much to give does not mean it will all be accepted. Just like that. There’s more to giving than just giving.” She was sixteen then, and looking at her made me think of moments bright and beautiful, of the banaba in bloom. I did not expect her to be vexed when I brought her a dress, for it was not really expensive. Besides, as the daughter of one of Father’s tenants, she knew me well enough, better perhaps than any of the people who lived in Carmay, the young folks who always greeted me politely, doffed their straw hats, then closed-mouthed went their way. I always had coins in my pockets, but that March afternoon, after counting all of them and the stray pieces that I had tucked away in my dresser, I knew I needed more. ผมทาบทามบิดา เขาได้ที่โต๊ะทำงานของเขา เขียนบนบัญชีแยกประเภท ในขณะที่ด้านหลัง หนึ่งของข้าราชการใหม่ยืนตรงควงแฟนลานเหนือหัว ยืนอยู่ข้างเขา ชมเขา scrawl ตัวเลขในบัญชีแยกประเภท คิ้วของเขามากมาย และเสื้อของเขาที่ชื้น ด้วยเหงื่อ เมื่อเขาก็สังเกตเห็นฉัน ฉันจะไม่บอกเขาบางแสน เขา unbuttoned เสื้อของเขาเพื่อ paunch ของเขา "ดี มันคืออะไร" "ฉันจะไปฉันมลบ่ายนี้ร้านอาหาร พ่อ ฉันกล่าว เขาก็หันไป sheaf ของเอกสารก่อนที่เขา "ใช่ เขากล่าวว่า "คุณสามารถบอกไห่จันทร์จะออกจากเขาเช่าเดือนนี้ที่คุณและเพื่อนของคุณสามารถกิน" ฉันอวลอยู่ uneasily หลีกเลี่ยงสายตาของข้าราชการ "ดี ไม่ที่ทำ" พ่อถาม มันคือมีนาคม และจบมัธยมมีแต่เรื่องของวันไป "ฉันยังต้องการเงินบางส่วน พ่อ ฉันกล่าว "แล้วจะซื้อบางสิ่งบางอย่าง" พ่อพยักหน้า เขา groped ของเขาคีย์ในลิ้นชักของเขา แล้วเขาเปิดกล่องเงินเหล็กข้างเขา ขวางเปโซ 10 รายการ และวางบนโต๊ะ "ฉันจะซื้อ — " พยายามอธิบาย แต่ ด้วยมือ เขาไล่ฉัน และกลับไปที่ตัวเลขของเขา มันคือการล่าช้า หลังจากให้อาหาร hogs, Sepa คือการไก่ถึง coops ฉันรีบลงบันไดไปถนนสายหลัก ซึ่ง สม่ำเสมอขณะนี้ยกเว้นตั้งสถานีซีเมนต์กลมหน้า municipio ที่รองเท้าไม่มีส้นเมืองได้รับแสงแดดยามบ่ายที่เก่า Storekeepers จีนผู้ครอบครองอาคารพ่อมีไฟส่องสว่างของโคมไฟ จากบ่อบาดาลโบราณที่ริมของพลาซ่าเมือง สายน้ำและข้าราชการหญิง babbled ในขณะที่พวกเขารอที่ปั๊มเปิดของพวกเขา เดินทางพ่อค้าได้ unhitched รถวัวของพวกเขาหลังจากเดินทางจากเมืองทั้งวันของช้า และมีอาหารของว่างบนกว้างมืดหินที่ littered ที่เก็บจานไฮ มีเด็ก ด้วยไม้ของขนมในปาก สองคนดื่มเบียร์ และ smacking ริมฝีปากของพวกเขา portentously หญิงและหลังสามารถของปลา ผมไปก้อนใหญ่ของผ้าที่ slumped ในมุมหนึ่ง และเลือกหาผ้าขาวกับดอกไม้พิมพ์เคลือบมัน ถามจันทร์ Hai ผู้ตั้งอยู่บนเก้าอี้เป็นท่อยาวของเขาสูบบุหรี่ เท่าใดเขาจะถามสำหรับฉันได้รับเป็นชุด จานไห peered ที่ฉันประหลาดใจ "Tenpesos เขากล่าวว่า ด้วยแพคเกจ ฉันรีบไป Carmay ค่ำก็ตกลงอย่างรวดเร็ว มีพับใบไม้ acacias และตีระฆังบุด เมลโลว์ของ Angelus ได้พูดย้ำการเหยียดนิ้วของเมือง ผู้หญิงมีแก้วหลาการหยุดชั่วคราว เด็กเต็มใจรีบบ้าน สำหรับตอนนี้ เมืองมีมากกับความนิ่งฝัน Teresita และพ่อของเธอที่อาศัยอยู่ โดยครีใน Carmay บ้านของพวกเขานั่งในทรายมากที่อยู่กับพ่อ สร้างคลัสเตอร์ของฮัทของหมู่บ้าน ของหลังคา ก็ มี farmhouses อื่น ๆ มุง และ disheveled กำแพงได้ออกจากวิกฤตบุรี มันยืนอยู่คนเดียวใกล้ห้วยที่มีการ widened เพื่อให้รถกระทิงและ calesas ผ่านเมื่อสะพานถูกน้ำ ต้น cacao เด Madre abounded ในบริเวณใกล้เคียง แต่เสนอ scanty เงา กุหลาบกองขยะที่เผาไหม้ใน mounds เล็ก ๆ ในลาน และบรรทัดสวยงาม San Francisco disrupted ช่วยบ้าน Teresita ได้ในห้องครัว ซุปอะไรที่เธอได้ทำอาหารในการสุ่มตัวอย่าง มีเปียกรอยคิ้วของเธอและแดงในดวงตาของเธอ "จะทำอะไรที่นี่ในเวลานี้" เธอเผชิญหน้ากับฉัน ในเรืองแสงไฟเตาเสียงแตก ๆ เธอดูจริงใจประหลาดใจ ฉันไม่สามารถบอกเธอในคราวเดียว หรือแสดงเธอสิ่งที่ฉันทำได้ "อยากจะเห็นคุณ, " ฉันกล่าว ซึ่งเป็นจริง "แต่อยู่สาย และคุณต้องเดินทางค่อนข้างยาวกลับ" เธอวางทัพพีบนโต๊ะ และดูพิศวง เธอต้องได้สังเกตเห็นแล้วว่า ฉันได้ซ่อนอะไรข้างหลัง "คุณมีอะไรมี" เธอถาม ย้ายไปฉัน ผมวางแพคเกจของฉันบนโต๊ะไม้ที่ระเบียบจากวิกฤตแผ่นดีบุกและผัก "ก็คุณ ฉันกล่าว ใบหน้าของฉันเขียนเช่น kindling ไม้ "ฉันหวังว่า คุณจะชอบ" Her eyes still on me, she opened the package. When she saw what it was, she gave a tiny, muffled cry. She shook her head, wrapped the package again, then gave it to me. “I can’t,” she said softly. “It does not seem right at all.” “But you need it, and I’m giving it to you,” I said firmly. The burning in my face had subsided. “Is there anything wrong with giving one a gift?” And that was when she said, “There are things you just can’t give like what you are doing now …” I think it all started that evening when we were in the third year and Teresita recited a poem. It was during the graduation exercises, and she was the only junior in the program. I cannot remember distinctly what the piece was about, except that she spoke of faith and love, and how suffering and loss could be borne with fortitude, and as she did, a clamminess gripped me, smothered me with a feeling I’d never felt before. I recall her resonant voice cleaving the hushed evening, and I was silently one with her. I did not go home immediately after the program, for a dance in honor of the graduates followed. Miss Santillan, who was in charge of the refreshments, had asked me to help Teresita in serving them. I sat on one of the school benches after I got tired, watching the dancers file in and out, giggling. When most of them had eaten, Teresita asked Miss Santillan for permission to leave. “My father, ma’am,” she said. “He doesn’t want me to stay out very late, because of my cough. Besides, I have work to do early tomorrow.” “Going home alone?” Miss Santillan asked. “I’m not afraid,” she said resolutely. I stood up, strode past the table laden with an assortment of trays and glasses. Beyond the window, a moon dangled over the sprawling school buildings like a huge sieve, and the world was pulsating and young. “I’ll walk with you,” I said. She protested at first, but Miss Santillan said it would be best if I went along. After Miss Santillan had wrapped up some cakes for her, we went down the stone steps. The evening was clean and cool like a newly washed sheet, and it engulfed us with an intimacy that seemed unreal and elusive. We did not speak for some time. “I live very far,” she reminded me, drawing a shabby shawl over her thin shoulders. “I know,” I told her. “I’ve been there.” “You’ll be very tired.” “I’ve walked longer distances. I can take Carmay in a run,” I said, trying to impress her. “I’m sure of that,” she said. “You are strong. Once I was washing in the river, and you were swimming with Angel, and you outraced him.” “I did not see you,” I said. “Of course,” she said, “you never notice the children of your tenants, except those who serve in your house.” I was so upset that I could not speak at once. “That is not true,” I objected. “I go to Carmay often.”
She must have realized that she had hurt me, for when she spoke again she sounded genuinely sorry. “That was not what I meant, and I didn’t say that to spite you.”
Again, silence.
The moon drifted out of the clouds in a sudden smudge of silver, lighting up the dusty road. It glimmered on the parched fields and on the giant buri palms that stood like hooded sentinels. Most of the houses we passed had long extinguished their kerosene lamps. Once in a while a dog stirred in its bed of dust and growled at us.
“You won’t be afraid going home alone?” she asked after a while.
“There is a giant capre in the balete tree that comes out when the moon is full,” I said. “I’d like to see it. I’ve never seen a ghost.”
“When I die,” she laughed, “I’ll appear before you.”
“You’ll be a good ghost, and I won’t be afraid,” I said.
We walked on. We talked about ourselves, the friends that we ought to have had but did not. We reached the edge of the village where the row of homes receded and finally her house, near the river that murmured as it cut a course through reeds and shallows.
When we went up to the house, her father was already asleep. In fact he was snoring heavily. At the door she bade me good night and thanked
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