RICE AND BULLETS

Hernando R. Ocampo

Without taking his breakfast, Tura left the house very early in the morning
with an old jute sack slung across his shoulder. Long ago the sack had contained rice for his family—
for his daughters Ine and Clara, for his little son Totoy, and for his wife Marta. But now the jute sack
was bulging with the sharp, hard edges of three big stones which he had gathered the night before.
"What are those stones for"? Marta asked. "Mister Remulla said we must have three big stones in our
sack. He said these stones would represent the three biggest islands in our country," Tura explained.
"What are you going to do with them?" Marta asked.
"I don't know," Tura answered, seemingly peeved. “Mister Remulla said that with these stones we'll
soon have something to eat, and that is all I care about. He told us we ought not to be hungry. We have
as much right to eat and live as the proprietarious have."
Marta had ceased to ask further questions. At the mention of rice she had
suddenly seemed satisfied. But this morning, before Tura left, she asked again, "Are you sure there will
be no trouble?"
"How could there be? Mister Remulla knows what he is doing. He said that is
what they do in America. He came from America. He ought to know." And slinging the jute sack with
the big stones across his shoulder, Tura left his wife on the threshold, while his three children, ill-clad
and ill-nourished, looked sheepishly on.
Out in the street Tura wondered how things would have ended for all of them
had not Mister Remulla arrived, but there was no use of that now. Mister Remulla had come. That was
the important thing. And soon they'd no longer be hungry. They'd have rice; Mister Remulla said so.
And thinking of this, Tura felt his unshod feet become lighter and nimbler,
and in a short while he had covered the length of the narrow unpaved street of which he lived. He was
now upon the asphalted provincial road which came soft and moist against his feet. Soon he overtook
other men, each with a jute sack bulging with three stones slung across his shoulder. Some of them
carried big placards with big letters. WE ARE HUNGRY, GIVE US RICE, LONG LIVE ALL OF US!
the various placards said in the vernacular, and Tura, seeing them, felt happier. Soon his daughters Ine
and Clara, and his son Totoy, would have something to eat. They would no longer subsist on salabat.
And Tura rubbed his pointed chin at the thought, the palm of his hand caressing and being caressed by
the bristly stubble on his unshaved face. Of course, he could have taken some hot salabat before he left.
But what little salabat there was in the house had to be left for his children and wife. Water and ginger
for the salabat and fuel with which to cook it could be had free. But sugar. You could not get sugar with
pebbles or rocks.
Thinking of this, Tura felt a slight rumbling in his stomach. He swallowed repeatedly, then walked on
rapidly with the other men. They headed toward the plaza.
The sun had risen midway between the zenith and the horizon when Tura
and his companions reached the place, and already there was a big crowd of men, all with sacks across
their shoulders. Banners and placards with big red letters rose here and there over the heads of the
crowd concentrated around the bandstand, like a swarm of ants gathered around a lump of sugar. Soon
Tura and his companions were lost in the hustle and bustle of the crowd. Meanwhile, a ceaseless
humming, as of so many bees hovering over a garden, now amplified, now curiously muffled, seemed
to descend upon rather than rise from the masses of men with sacks across their shoulders.
Somebody stepped on Tura's bare toes. Tura frowned, but changed to a smile when the offended, a tall
fellow with sunken features, who also carried a jute sack across his shoulder, turned and smiled
apologetically. He must also be very hungry, Tura thought, seeing the man's lean features and
remembering his own hunger. And again Tura felt the slight rumbling in his stomach, felt the
vinegarlike gnawing inside his body. If he could only have a smoke, everything would be all right. Tura
wished somebody among the people around him would smoke. Then he would have nerve enough to
ask for a cigarette, or at least a puff, a tiny little puff.
He swallowed repeatedly, wondering when the whole thing would begin. He
was becoming impatient, and the rumbling and the vinegarlike gnawing inside his stomach was
growing. He was still wishing for a smoke when a sudden roar rose from somewhere. The big crowd
became more animated, and slowly it moved in ripples closer to the bandstand.
In a l ittle while a man, in coffee-colored woolen pants and a black lumber
-jack shirt, mounted the stand and another great roar rose from the crowd. "Long live Mister Remulla!"
the people shouted, waving their placards in the air, and the man in the stand bowed graciously, then
responded, "Long live! Long live!" the crowd echoed the response "Long live, Long live! Viva!"
Now the man raised both hands, and gradually, except for a muffled humming, the crowd was silenced.
The man dramatically wiped his face with a gaudily colored handkerchief, then began haranguing the
crowd with excited gesticulations and emphatic pauses.
Hedged far behind in the crowd, Tura heard nothing of the man's talk except such stray words as "we
must eat," "we want rice," “give us rice," "we are hungry," yet, without fully knowing why, Tura
shouted with the rest when the man in the bandstand made one of his dramatic pauses. And as the
moments passed, Tura became more enthusiastic, more excited, and as his excitement and enthusiasm
rose, he began to forget the rumbling and vinegarlike gnawing in his stomach. Tura was now perspiring
and feeling hot and good and strong. He felt he could do anything – anything. He swayed with the
wave of the throng when the man in the bandstand raised his right hand in a dramatic gesture, then left
the stand to lead the crowd out of the plaza onto asphalted provincial road.
With their jute sacks bulging with stones and with their big- lettered placards, the people noisily
followed their leader. An unshod army of hungry men, with placards, red-lettered, swaying overhead,
trod the asphalt provincial road, a continuous amplified humming as of so many bees seeming to
descend upon rather than to rise from them. As they neared the warehouses of the Chinese merchants,
the humming suddenly rose into a series of deafening roars.
Tura, now oblivious to the insistent gnawing inside his stomach, pushed ahead of the men in front of
him. He brushed them aside with a strength hitherto alien to him, not unlike an animal athirst which
had suddenly sensed water a short distance ahead.
Tura had now almost reached the front ranks; he could see the imposing
figure of Mister Remulla, their leader, shouting, perspiring, waiving his arms, leading his unshod army,
his hungry army, onward.
A few meters away from the first warehouse, the biggest among the huddled squat buildings of
concrete walls and galvanized iron roofing, Mister Remulla waved his followers to stop; and when the
crowd stopped, Tura took the opportunity of pushing himself further forward. He wanted to know why
they had to stop. He was feeling good and strong. Why must they stop?
Reaching the front line, Tura saw the reason; some four or five policemen
stood in front of the big sliding door of the warehouse. They looked big and menacing in their khaki
uniforms and their khaki helmets, their riot guns cocked and ready in their hands.
"You'd better go home peacefully – you people," one of the
policemen shouted. "You know you cannot do this."
Tura wanted to shout something back at these men of the law who had sided with the rich Chinese: he
wanted to shout something about insistent rumblings and vinegarlike gnawings inside the stomach. But
the words stuck, uncomfortably solid in his throat. He swallowed a big lump to relive himself.
"Go home – go on back home – go on back home," the policemen repeated.
"We do not mean to do any harm" the leader, Mister Remulla, replied. "We have come for some rice –
just enough to feed our hungry children."
The policeman made a move as if to approach Mister Remulla, his riot
gun menacing cocked, his face hard-set in a scowl, but someone from the rear threw one of his three
stones at the policeman. The first stone was followed by another, and still another. The leader, Mister
Remulla, waved his arms frantically for the crowd to stop, but the hail of stones from the rear
continued, while the men in front were carried forward by the stream of their fellow hungry men. Thus
the crowd moved upon the policemen, and they fired.
Tura had thrust his hand into his sack for the first stone.
Regaining that surging feeling of something hot and good inside him, he pushed and shouted with the
pushing and shouting crowd. He heard several thundering reports from the policemen's riot guns, but he
did not mind. He was among the first to reach the warehouse door where, somehow, the bolts were
removed. And once opened, the crowd poured in like a swarm of locusts.
They had overpowered the handful of policemen, and drunk with the taste
of easy victory, they now pushed each other out of the way, each madly screaming and scrambling to
fill sacks. Somebody brushed Tura aside at the foot of one of the big piles of rice sacks, and in turn
Tura pushed another out of his way. The rice sacks were ripped open and the grains flowed white and
minutely solid on the hard floor.
At the sight of so much rice Tura felt smothered and suffocated. For a brief
moment he stood as if dazed before he was able to sweep the open end of his jute sack downward into
the loose piling white rice. Then, at a mad rate, he began to fill his sack with fistful after fistful of the
glittering white grain.
Suddenly, over the din and the mad scramble, Tura heard several shots fired
from outside.
“The police! "The police! The warning echoed and reechoed in numerous
frantic voices.
Tura closed the end of his half-filled sack, slung it over his shoulder, and made for the big door. He
was followed by the rest of his companions, but at the door they were confronted by a policeman with
his riot gun threateningly leveled at them. The policeman ordered the men to return the rice, but
someone behind Tura heaved his sack of rice against the policeman, and the khaki-clad agent of the
law, losing his balance, fell. And the crowd, led by Tura, rushed past the fallen guard, trampling him
under their unshod feet. Out of the warehouse the men rushed with their precious burdens of white,
glittering grains of rice.
But outside, they found the agents of the law greatly reinforced. In their
khaki uniforms the policemen were frantically blowing their whistles shooting their riot guns into the
air, urging the crowds to stop and surrender the rice.
Tura was once more confronted by another policeman. He was no longer in
a position to dodge his opponent, so he clutched his sack tighter, then swing it against the khaki-clad
fellow whose gun was aimed at him. The policeman staggered, but at the same time Tura left a sudden
stinging hotness coursing from his sack of rice, stalked on as if on air, half-consciously feeling the
warmth of something trickling from his belly, vaguely hearing the noise around him. Then the sack
slipped from his weakening fingers. He felt a swimming sensation, and vaguely he saw the precious
grain spilling on the dirty ground.
Oh, no! No! You cannot take that away from me. You cannot take that away
from me. That is for my wife, for my children. Tura dived face downward, face foremost, for the
scattered grains of rice on the ground. Here, here. Tura heard himself calling his wife and children, as
his fingers clutched at the rice. Here is the rice for you. You need not live on salabat any more. You
need not be hungry anymore.
But his voice seemed strangely hollow. It seemed to come from a distance,
a very far distance beyond …