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Story1 ONE evening in August 1941, I came out of a late movie to a silent, cold night. I shivered a little as I stood for a moment in the narrow street, looking up at the distant sky, alive with stars. I stood there, letting the night wind seep through me, and listening. The street was empty, the houses on the street dimwith the kind of ghostly dimness that seems to embrace sleeping houses. I had always liked empty streets in the night; I had always stopped for a while in these streets listening for something I did not quite know what. Perhaps for low, soft cries that empty streets and sleeping houses seem to share in the night. I lived in an old, nearly crumbling apartment house just across the street from the moviehouse. From the street, I could see into the open courtyard, around which rooms for the tenants, mostly a whole family to a single room, were ranged. My room, like all the other rooms on the groundfloor, opened on this court. Three other boys, my cousins, shared the room with me. As I turned into the courtyard from the street, I noticed that the light over our study-table, which stood on the corridor outside our room, was still burning. Earlier in the evening after supper, I had taken out my books to study, but I went to a movie instead. I must have forgotten to turn off the light; apparently, the boys had forgotten, too. I went around the low screen that partitioned off our study and there was a girl reading at the table. We looked at each other, startled. I had never seen her before. She was about eleven years old, and she wore a faded blue dress. She had long, straight hair falling to her shoulders. She was reading my copy of Greek Myths. The eyes she had turned to me were wide, darkened a little by apprehension. For a long time neither of us said anything. She was a delicately pretty girl with a fine, smooth. pale olive skin that shone richly in the yellow light. Her nose was straight, small and finely molded. Her lips, full and red, were fixed and tense. And there was something else about her. Something lonely? something lost? I know, I said, I like stories, too. I read anything good I find lying around. Have you been reading long? Yes, she said. not looking at me now. She got up slowly, closing the book. Im sorry. Dont you want to read anymore? I asked her, trying to smile, trying to make her feel that everything was all right. No. she said, thank you. Oh, yes, I said, picking up the book. Its late. You ought to be in bed. But, you can take this along. She hesitated, hanging back, then shyly she took the book, brought it to her side. She looked down at her feet uncertain as to where to turn. You live here? I asked her. Yes. What room?

She turned her face and nodded towards the far corner, across the courtyard, to a little room near the communal kitchen. It was the room occupied by the janitor: a small square room with no windows except for a transom above the door. You live with Mang Lucio? Hes my uncle. How long have you been here? I havent seen you before, have I? Ive always been here. Ive seen you. Oh. Well, good nightyour name? Maria. Good night, Maria. She turned quickly, ran across the courtyard, straight to her room, and closed the door without looking back. I undressed, turned off the light and lay in bed dreaming of far-away things. I was twenty-one and had a job for the first time. The salary was not much and I lived in a house that was slowly coming apart, but life seemed good. And in the evening when the noise of living had died down and you lay safe in bed, you could dream of better times, look back and ahead, and find that life could be gentle even with the hardness. And afterwards, when the night had grown colder, and suddenly you felt alone in the world, adrift, caught in a current of mystery that came in the hour between sleep and waking, the vaguely frightening loneliness only brought you closer to everything, to the walls and the shadows on the walls, to the other sleeping people in the room, to everything within and beyond this house, this street, this city, everywhere. I met Maria again one early evening, a week later, as I was coming home from the office. I saw her walking ahead of me, slowly, as if she could not be too careful, and with a kind of grownup poise that was somehow touching. But I did not know it was Maria until she stopped and I overtook her. She was wearing a white dress that had been old many months ago. She wore a pair of brown sneakers that had been white once. She had stopped to look at the posters of pictures advertised as Coming to our neighborhood theater. Hello, I said, trying to sound casual. She smiled at me and looked away quickly. She did not say anything nor did she step away. I felt her shyness, but there was no self-consciousness, none of the tenseness and restraint of the night we first met. I stood beside her, looked at the pictures tacked to a tilted board, and tried whistling a tune. She turned to go, hesitated, and looked at me full in the eyes. There was again that wide-eyedand sad? stare. I smiled, feeling a remote desire to comfort her, as if it would do any good, as if it was comfort she needed. Ill return your book now, she said. Youve finished it? Yes. We walked down the shadowed street. Magallanes Street in Intramuros, like all the other streets there, was not wide enough, hemmed in by old, mostly unpainted houses, clumsy and unlovely, even in the darkening light of the fading day.

We went into the apartment house and I followed her across the court. I stood outside the door which she closed carefully after her. She came out almost immediately and put in my hands the book of Greek myths. She did not look at me as she stood straight and remote. My name is Felix, I said. She smiled suddenly. It was a little smile, almost an unfinished smile. But, somehow, it felt special, something given from way deep inside in sincere friendship. I walked away whistling. At the door of my room, I stopped and looked back. Maria was not in sight. Her door was firmly closed. August, 1941, was a warm month. The hangover of summer still permeated the air, specially in Intramuros. But, like some of the days of late summer, there were afternoons when the weather was soft and clear, the sky a watery green, with a shell-like quality to it that almost made you see through and beyond, so that, watching it made you lightheaded. I walked out of the office one day into just such an afternoon. The day had been full of grinding worklike all the other days past. I was tired. I walked slowly, towards the far side of the old city, where traffic was not heavy. On the street there were old trees, as old as the walls that enclosed the city. Half-way towards school, I changed my mind and headed for the gate that led out to Bonifacio Drive. I needed stiffer winds, wider skies. I needed all of the afternoon to myself. Maria was sitting on the first bench, as you went up the sloping drive that curved away from the western gate. She saw me before I saw her. When I looked her way, she was already smiling that half-smile of hers, which even so told you all the truth she knew, without your asking. Hello, I said. Its a small world. What? I said its nice running into you. Do you always come here? As often as I can. I go to many places. Doesnt your uncle disapprove? No. Hes never around. Besides, he doesnt mind anything. Where do you go? Oh, up on the walls. In the gardens up there, near Victoria gate. Dyou know? I think so. What do you do up there? Sit down and And what? Nothing. Just sit down. She fell silent. Something seemed to come between us. She was suddenly faraway. It was like the first night again. I decided to change the subject. Look, I said, carefully, where are your folks? You mean, my mother and father? Yes. And your brothers and sisters, if any. My mother and father are dead. My elder sister is married. Shes in the province. There isnt anybody else. Did you grow up with your uncle?

I think so. We were silent again. Maria had answered my questions without embarrassment. almost without emotion, in a cool light voice that had no tone. Are you in school, Maria? Yes. What grade? Six. How dyou like it? Oh, I like it. I know you like reading. She had no comment. The afternoon had waned. The breeze from the sea had died down. The last lingering warmth of the sun was now edged with cold. The trees and buildings in the distance seemed to flounder in a red-gold mist. It was a time of day that never failed to carry an enchantment for me. Maria and I sat still together, caught in some spell that made the silence between us right, that made our being together on a bench in the boulevard, man and girl, stranger and stranger, a thing not to be wondered at, as natural and inevitable as the lengthening shadows before the setting sun. Other days came, and soon it was the season of the rain. The city grew dim and gray at the first onslaught of the monsoon. There were no more walks in the sun. I caught a cold. Maria and I had become friends now, though we saw each other infrequently. I became engrossed in my studies. You could not do anything else in a city caught in the rains. September came and went. In November, the sun broke through the now ever present clouds, and for three or four days we had bright clear weather. Then, my mind once again began flitting from my desk, to the walls outside the office, to the gardens on the walls and the benches under the trees in the boulevards. Once, while working on a particularly bad copy on the news desk, my mind scattered, the way it sometimes does and, coming together again, went back to that first meeting with Maria. And the remembrance came clear, coming into sharper focusthe electric light, the shadows around us, the stillness. And Maria, with her wide-eyed stare, the lost look in her eyes IN December, I had a little fever. On sick leave, I went home to the province. I stayed three days. I felt restless, as if I had strayed and lost contact with myself. I suppose you got that way from being sick, A pouring rain followed our train all the way back to Manila. Outside my window, the landscape was a series of dissolved hills and fields. What is it in the click of the wheels of a train that makes you feel gray inside? What is it in being sick, in lying abed that makes you feel you are awake in a dream, and that you are just an occurrence in the crying grief of streets and houses and people? In December, we had our first air-raid practice.

I came home one night through darkened streets, peopled by shadows. There was a ragged look to everything, as if no one and nothing cared any more for appearances. I reached my room just as the siren shrilled. I undressed and got into my old clothes. It was dark, darker than the moment after moon-set. I went out on the corridor and sat in a chair. All around me were movements and voices. anonymous and hushed, even when they laughed. I sat still, afraid and cold. Is that you. Felix? Yes. Maria. She was standing beside my chair, close to the wall. Her voice was small and disembodied in the darkness. A chill went through me, She said nothing more for a long time. I dont like the darkness, she said. Oh, come now. When you sleep, you turn the lights off, dont you? Its not like this darkness, she said, softly. Its all over the world. We did not speak again until the lights went on. Then she was gone. The war happened not long after. At first, everything was unreal. It was like living on a motion picture screen, with yourself as actor and audience. But the sounds of bombs exploding were real enough, thudding dully against the unready ear. In Intramuros, the people left their homes the first night of the war. Many of them slept in the niches of the old walls the first time they heard the sirens scream in earnest. That evening, I returned home to find the apartment house empty. The janitor was there. My cousin who worked in the army was there. But the rest of the tenants were gone. I asked Mang Lucio, Maria? Shes gone with your aunt to the walls. he told me. They will sleep there tonight. My cousin told me that in the morning we would transfer to Singalong. There was a house available. The only reason he was staying, he said, was because they were unable to move our things. Tomorrow that would be taken care of immediately. And you, Mang Lucio? I dont know where I could go. We ate canned pork and beans and bread. We slept on the floor, with the lights swathed in black cloth. The house creaked in the night and sent off hollow echoes. We slept uneasily. I woke up early. It was disquieting to wake up to stillness in that house which rang with childrens voices and laughter the whole day everyday. In the kitchen, there were sounds and smells of cooking. Hello, I said. It was Maria, frying rice. She turned from the stove and looked at me for a long time. Then, without a word, she turned back to her cooking. Are you and your uncle going away? I asked.

I dont know. Did he not tell you? No. Were moving to Singalong. Yes, I know. Well, anyway, Ill come back tonight. Maybe this afternoon. Well not have to say goodbye till then. She did not say anything. I finished washing and went back to my room. I dressed and went out. At noon, I went to Singalong to eat. All our things were there already, and the folks were busy putting the house in order. As soon as I finished lunch, I went back to the office. There were few vehicles about. Air-raid alerts were frequent. The brightness of the day seemed glaring. The faces of people were all pale and drawn. In the evening, I went back down the familiar street. I was stopped many times by air-raid volunteers. The house was dark. I walked back to the street. I stood for a long time before the house. Something did not want me to go away just yet. A light burst in my face. It was a volunteer. Do you live here? I used to. Up to yesterday. Im looking for the janitor. Why, did you leave something behind? Yes, I did. But I think Ive lost it now. Well, you better get along, son. This place, the whole area. has been ordered evacuated. Nobody lives here anymore. Yes, I know, I said. Nobody. Story 2 a. THE DINNER PARTY THE evening before he killed himself, Virgilio Serrano gave a dinner party. He invited five guestsfriends and classmates in university myself included. Since we lived on campus in barracks built by the U.S. Army, he sent his Packard to fetch us. Virgilio lived alone in a pre-war chalet that belonged to his family. Four servants and a driver waited on him hand and foot. The chalet, partly damaged, was one of the few buildings in Ermita that survived the bombardment and street fighting to liberate Manila. It had been skillfully restored; the broken lattices, fretwork, shell windows and wrought iron fence had been repaired or replaced at considerable expense. A hedge of bandera espaola had been planted and the scorched frangipani and hibiscus shrubs had been pruned carefully. Thus, Virgilios house was an ironic presence in the violated neighborhood. He was on the porch when the car came to a crunching halt on the graveled driveway. He shook our hands solemnly, then ushered us into the living room. In the half-light, everything in the room glowed, shimmered or shone. The old ferruginous narra floor glowed. The pier glass coruscated. The bentwood furniture

from the house in Jaen looked as if they had been burnished. In a corner, surrounded by bookcases, a black Steinway piano sparkled like glass. Virgilio was immaculate in white de hilo pants and cotton shirt. I felt ill at ease in my surplus khakis and combat boots. We were all in our second year. Soon we will be on different academic paths Victor in philosophy; Zacarias in physics and chemistry; Enrique in electrical engineering; and Apolonio, law. Virgilio and I have both decided to make a career in English literature. Virgilio was also enrolled in the Conservatory and in courses in the philosophy of science. We were all in awe of Virgilio. He seemed to know everything. He also did everything without any effort. He had not been seen studying or cramming for an exam in any subject, be it history, anthropology or calculus. Yet the grades that he won were only a shade off perfection. HE and I were from the same province where our families owned rice farms except that ours was tiny, a hundred hectares, compared to the Serranos, a well-watered hacienda that covered 2,000 hectares of land as flat as a table. The hacienda had been parceled out to eleven inquilinos who together controlled about a thousand tenants. The Serranos had a large stone house with a tile roof that dated back to the 17th century that they used during the summer months. The inquilinos dealt with Don Pepes spinster sister, the formidable Clara, who knew their share of the harvest to the last chupa. She was furthermore in residence all days of the year. Virgilio was the only child. His mother was killed in a motor accident when he was nine. Don Pepe never remarried. He became more and more dependent on Clara as he devoted himself to books, music and conversation. His house in Cabildo was a salon during the years of the Commonwealth. At night, spirited debates on art, religion language, politics and world affairs would last until the first light of dawn. The guests who lived in the suburbs were served breakfasts before they drove off in their runabouts to Sta. Cruz, Ermita or San Miguel. The others stumbled on cobblestones on their way back to their own mansions within the cincture of Intramuros. In October, Quezon himself came for merienda. He had just appointed General MacArthur field marshal of the Philippine Army because of disturbing news from Nanking and Chosun. Quezon cursed the Americans for not taking him in their confidence. But like most gifted politicians, he had a preternatural sense of danger. The Japanese will go to war against the Americans before this year is out, Pepe, Quezon rasped, looking him straight in the eye. This was the reason the Serranos prepared to move out of Manila. As discreetly as possible, Don Pepe had all his personal things packed and sent by train to Jaen. He stopped inviting his friends. But when the Steinway was crated and loaded on a large truck that blocked the street completely, the neighbors became curious. Don Pepe dissembled, saying that he had decided to live in the province for reasons of health, at least until after Christmas.

Two weeks later, he suffered a massive stroke and died. The whole town went into mourning. His remains were interred, along with his forebears, in the south wall of the parish church. A month later, before the period of mourning had ended, Japanese planes bombed and strafed Clark Field. Except for about three months in their hunting lodge in the forests of Bongabong (to escape the rumored rapine that was expected to be visited on the country by the yellow horde. Virgilio and Clara spent the war years in peace and comfort in their ancestral house in Jaen. Clara hired the best teachers for Virgilio. When food became scare in the big towns and cities, Clara put up their families in the granaries and bodegas of the hacienda so that they would go on tutoring Virgilio in science, history, literature, mathematics, philosophy and English. After his lessons, he read and practiced on the piano. He even learned to box and to fence although he was always nauseated by the ammoniac smell of the gloves and mask. Despite Claras best effort, she could not find new boxing gloves and fencing equipment. Until she met Honesto Garcia. Honesto Garcia was a petty trader in rice who had mastered the intricate mechanics of the black market. He dealt in anything that could be moved but he became rich by buying and selling commodities such as soap, matches, cloth and quinine pills. Garcia maintained a network of informers to help him align supply and demand and at the same time collect intelligence for both the Japanese Army and the Hukbalahap. One of his informers told him about Clara Serranos need for a pair of new boxing gloves and protective gear for escrima. He found these items. He personally drove in his amazing old car to Jaen to present them to Clara, throwing in a French epe that was still in its original case for good measure. He refused payment but asked to be allowed to visit. Honesto Garcia was the son of a kasama of the Villavicencios of Cabanatuan. By hard work and numerous acts of fealty, his father became an inquilino. Honesto, the second of six children, however made up his mind very early that he would break loose from farming. He reached the seventh grade and although his father at that time had enough money to send him to high school, he decided to apprentice himself to a Chinese rice trader in Gapan. His wage was a few centavos a day, hardly enough for his meals, but after two years, he knew enough about the business to ask his father for a loan of P60 to set himself up as a rice dealer. And then the war broke out. Honesto was handsome in a rough-hewn way. He tended to fat but because he was tall he was an imposing figure. He was unschooled in the social graces; he preferred to eat, squatting before a dulang, with his fingers. Despite these deficiencies, he exuded an aura of arrogance and self-confidence. It was this trait that attracted Clara to him. Clara had never known strong-willed men, having grown up with effete persons like Don Pepe and compliant men like the inquilinos who were always silent in her presence.

When Clara told Virgilio that Honesto had proposed and that she was inclined to accept, Virgilio was not surprised. He also had grown to like Honesto who always came with unusual gifts. Once, Honesto gave him a mynah that Virgilio was able to teach within a few days to say Good morning. How are you today? The wedding took place in June of the second year of the war. It was a grand affair. The church and the house were decked in flowers. The inquilinos fell over each other to, supply the wedding feast. Carts and sleds laden with squealing pigs, earthen water jars filled with squirming river fish, pullets bound at the shank like posies, fragrant rice that had been husked in wooden mortars with pestles, the freshest eggs and demijohns of carabao milk for leche flan and slews of vegetables and fruit that had been picked at exactly the right time descended on the big house. The wives and daughters of the tenants cooked the food in huge vats while their menfolk roasted the suckling pigs on spluttering coals. The quests were served on bamboo tables spread with banana leaves. The war was forgotten, a rondalla played the whole day, the children fought each other for the bladders of the pigs which they blew up into balloons and for the ears and tails of the lechon as they were lifted on their spits from the fire. The bride wore the traje de boda of Virgilios mother, a masterpiece confected in Madrid of Belgian lace and seed pearls. The prettiest daughters of the inquilinos, dressed in organza and ribbons, held the long, embroidered train of the wedding gown. Honestos family were awe-struck by this display of wealth and power. They cringed and cowered in the sala of the big house and all of them were too frightened to go to the comedor for the wedding lunch. Not very long after the wedding, Honesto was running the hacienda. The inquilinos found him more congenial and understanding. At this time, the Huks were already making demands on them for food and other necessities. The fall in the Serrano share would have been impossible to explain to Clara. In fact, the Huks had established themselves on Carlos Valdefuerzas parcel because his male children had joined the guerilla group. Honesto learned for the first time that the Huks were primarily a political and not a resistance organization. They were spreading a foreign idea called scientific socialism that predicted the takeover of all lands by the workers. Ricardo Valdefuerza, who had taken instruction from Luis Taruc, was holding classes for the children of the other tenants. Honesto was alarmed enough to take it up with Clara who merely shrugged him off. How can illiterate farmers understand a complex idea like scientific socialism? she asked. But they seem to understand it, Honesto expostulated because it promises to give them the land that they farm. How is that possible? Quezon and the Americans will not allow it. They dont have the Torrens Title, Clara said with finality. Carding Valdefuerza has been saying that all value comes from work. What we get as our share is surplus that we do not deserve because we did nothing to it.

It rightly belongs to the workers, according to him. I myself dont understand this idea too clearly but that is how it is being explained to the tenants. They are idle now. After the war, all this talk will vanish, Clara said. When American troops landed in Leyte, Clara was four months with child. THE table had been cleared. Little glasses of a pale sweetish wine were passed around. Victor pushed back his chair to slouch. The war has given us the opportunity to change this country. The feudal order is being challenged all over the world. Mao Tse Tung has triumphed in China. Soon the revolution will be here. We have to help prepare the people for it. Victor declared. Why change? Virgilio asked. The pre-war order had brought prosperity and democracy. What you call feudalism is necessary to rebuild the country. Who will lead? The Huks? The young turks of the Liberal Party? All they have are ideas; they have no capital, no power. The university was alive with talk of imminent revolutionary change. Young men and women, most of them from the upper classes, spoke earnestly of redistributing wealth. Nothing will come of it Virgilio said, sipping his wine. Of all of us, you have the most to lose in a revolution, Apolonio said. What we should aim for is orderly lawful change. You might lose your hacienda but you must be paid for it. So in the end, you will still have the capital to live on in style. You dont understand, Virgilio said. It is not only a question of capital or compensation. I am talking of a way of life, of emotional bonds, of relationships that are immutable. In any case, we can do nothing one way or the other so let us change the subject. Dont be too sure, I said. We can influence these events one way or another. You talk as it you have joined the Communist Party, Virgilio said. Have you? But before I could answer, he was off on another tack. You know I have just been reading about black holes, Virgilio said addressing himself to Zacarias. Oppenheimer and Snyder solved Einsteins equations on what happens when a sun or star had used up its supply of nuclear energy. The star collapses gravitationally, disappears from view and remains in a state of permanent free fall, collapsing endlessly inward into a gravitational pit without end. What a marvelous idea! Such ideas are art in the highest sense but at the same time, the decisive proof of relativity, Virgilio enthused. Do you know that Einstein is embarrassed by these black holes? He considers them a diversion from his search for a unified theory, Zacarias said. Ah! The impulse towards simplicity, towards reduction. The need to explain all knowledge with a few, elegant equations. Dont you think that his reductionism is the ultimate arrogance? Even if it is Einsteins. In any case, he is not succeeding, Virgilio said.

But isnt reductionism the human tendency? This is what Communism is all about, the reduction of human relationships to a set of unproven economic theorems, I interjected. But the reductionist approach can also lead to astounding results. Take the Schredinger and Dirac equations that reduced previous mysterious atomic physics to elegant order, Enrique said. What is missing in all this is the effect on men of reductionism. It can very well lead to totalitarian control in the name of progress and social order, Apolonio ventured. Let me resolve our debate by playing for you a piece that builds intuitively on three seemingly separate movements. This is Beethovens Sonata, Opus 27, No. 2. Virgilio rose and walked gravely to the piano while we distributed ourselves on the bentwood furniture in the living room. He played the opening Adagio with sensitive authority, escalating note to note until it resolved into the fragile D-flat major which in turn disappeared in the powerful rush of the concluding Presto, the movement that crystallized the disparate emotional resonances of the first two movements into an assured and balanced relationship. When the last note had faded, we broke into cheers. But at that moment, I felt a deep sadness for Virgilio. As the Presto flooded the Allegretto, I knew that he was not of this world. Outside, through the shell windows, moonlight softened the jagged ruins of battle. b. THE INVESTIGATION ON July 14, 1950, in the evening, Virgilio killed himself in his bedroom by slitting his wrists with a straight razor and thrusting them into a pail of warm water. His body was not found until the next morning. He did not appear for breakfast at eight. At eight-thirty, Josefa, the housemaid, knocked on the door of Virgilios bedroom. Getting no response, she asked Arturo, the driver, to climb up the window to look inside. The three maids panicked. Arturo drove off at once in the Packard to get me. After leaving a note for the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, we stopped at the police station near General Luna to report the suicide. Two police officers were immediately assigned to investigate. They came with us in the car to the house in Ermita. They started interrogating me in the car. Who are you? Police Officer No. 1 asked. Why are you involved?, Police Officer No. 2 demanded. I was somewhat nervous but as calmly as I could be, I answered. My name is Nestor Gallego. I am a second-year student at University of the Philippines. Virgilio Serrano, the deceased, and I come from the same town, Jaen,

in Nueva Ecija. I have known Virgilio since 1942 and I think he considers me his closest friend in university. That is the reason the driver came to me. The policemen brought together the household staff. Did you touch, move or remove anything in the bedroom? Did any of you go out of the house after the driver left for the university? To both questions, the maids answered, No, whereupon they were told to stay within the premises for separate interviews later in the morning. Police Officer No. 1 went out to the yard presumably to look for clues. Police Officer No. 2 made a sketch of the scene and then searched the bedroom systematically. He opened the drawers of the tallboy carefully, he felt around the linen and underwear. The wardrobe and the aparador were also examined. But it was on the contents of the rolltop desk that No. 1 concentrated. The notebooks, a diary, and address book were all neatly arranged around a Remington typewriter. He was looking for a letter, a note even, to give him a clue or lead to the motive for the suicide. On the first page of one of the notebooks were the Down There and then To my friend and confidant, Nestor Gallego, with affection. Although unsigned, it was in Virgilios spidery hand. You know anything about this? No. 1 said in a low, threatening voice. He handed it to me. I leafed through the pages. It looked like a long poem that had been broken down into thirteen cantos. No, I said. I have not seen this before. But it is for you. What does it say? I dont know, I have to read it first, cuttingly. My sarcasm rolled off him like water on a duck. Well thenread, he ordered, motioning me to the wooden swivel chair. A frisson ran up my spine. My hands trembled as I opened the notebook and scanned the poem. There were recognizable names, places and events. There were references to his professors in university and his tutors in Jaen. The names of some of his inquilinos appeared again and again. But the longest sections were about Honesto and Clara Garcia and Ricardo Valdefuerza. From the tone and the words, it was a satire patterned closely after Dantes Inferno. Virgilio, like Dante, had assigned or consigned people to different circles down there. It ended with a line from Valery, A lextrme de toute pense est un soupir. I cannot say truthfully that I understand it. I know some of the people and places referred to but not why they appear in this poem. I will have to bring this back for analysis, No. 1 said, giving it to No. 2 who put it carelessly in a plastic carryall. When you are done with it, can I have it back? I have a right to it since it was dedicated to me. I wanted desperately to read it because I felt that it concealed the reason for Virgilios suicide. They spent another hour talking to the household help and scribbling in grimy notebooks.

Before they left past one oclock, No. 1 said: It is clearly a suicide. There was no struggle. In fact, it was a very neat suicide. He made it sound as if it was a remarkable piece of craftsmanship. I hated him. I went with Arturo to the post office to send a telegram to Jaen. Virgilio dead stop please come at once. The undertaker took charge thereafter, informing us that by six oclock, the remains would be ready for viewing. He asked me to select the clothes for the dead. I chose the white de hilo pants and the white cotton shirt that Virgilio wore the other day. It is wrinkled, the undertaker said. Dont you want to choose something else. No, I shouted at him. Put him in these. c. THE FUNERAL FATHER Sean ODonovan, S.J., refused to say Mass or to bless the corpse. Those who die by their own hand are beyond the pale of the Church, he said firmly. Let us take him home, Clara said. She asked me to make all the arrangements and not to mind the cost. The rent for the hearse was clearly exorbitant. I bargained feebly and then agreed. Victor, Zacarias, Enrique, Apolonio and myself were to travel in the Packard. Honesto and Clara had driven to Manila in a new Buick. The hearse moved at a stately 30 kilometers per hour while a scratchy dirge poured out of it at full volume. The Garcias followed in their Buick and we brought up the rear. The rains of July had transformed the brown, dusty fields of Bulacan and Nueva Ecija into muddy fields. We passed small, nut-brown men, following a beast and a stick that scored the wet earth; dithering birds swooped down to pluck the crickets and worms that were turned up by the plow. The beat of sprung pebbles against the fender of the car marked our passage. The yard of the big house was already full of people. In the sala, a bier had been prepared. The wives of inquilinos were all in black. Large yellow tapers gave off a warm, oily smell that commingled with the attar of the flowers, producing an odor that the barrio folk called the smell of death. Then the local worthies arrived, led by the congressman of the district, the governor of the province, the mayor of Jaen, the commander of the Scout Rangers who was leading a campaign against the Huks, with their wives and retainers. They were all on intimate teams with Honesto and Clara. Except for the colonel who was in full combat uniform, they were dressed in sharkskin and two-toned shoes. They wore their hair tightly sculpted with pomade against their skulls and on their wrists and fingers gold watches and jeweled rings glistened. They all knew that Honesto had political ambition. It was not clear yet which position he had his sights on.

With the death of Virgilio, the immense wealth of the Serranos devolved on Clara and on Honesto and on their 5-year old son, Jose Jr. Both the Nacionalista and Liberal Parties have been dangling all manner of bait before Honesto. Now, there will be a scramble. Honesto shook hands with everyone, murmuring acknowledgments of their expressions of grief but secretly assessing their separate motives. Clara was surrounded by the simpering wives of the politicians; like birds they postured to show their jewels to best advantage. They only fell silent when Father Francisco Santander, the parish priest, came to say the prayer for the dead and to lead the procession to the Church where Virgilios mortal remains would be displayed on a catafalque before the altar before interment in the south wall side by side with Don Pepes. I left the sala to join the crowd in the yard. My parents were there with the Serranos and our tenants. There was a palpable tension in the air. A number of the kasamashad been seized by the Scout Rangers, detained and tortured, so that they may reveal the whereabouts of Carding. They were frightened. From what I heard from my parents, most of the tenants distrusted Honesto who they felt was using the campaign against the Huks to remove those he did not like. The inquilinos were helpless because Clara was now completely under the sway of Honesto. I walked home. When I got there, Restituto, our caretaker, very agitated, took me aside and whispered. Carding is in the house. He has been waiting for you since early morning. I kept him from view in your bedroom. He looked at me, uncertain and obviously frightened. What shall we do? Leave it to me. But do not tell anyonenot even my parents. He shall be gone by the time they return. I put my arm around Restitutos shoulder to reassure him. Carding wheeled when I walked in, pistol at the ready. He was dressed in army fatigues and combat boots. A pair of Ray-Ban glasses dangled on his shirt. He put the pistol back in its holster. You shouldnt be here. There are soldiers all around. They will not come here. They are too busy in the hacienda, Carding said. The shy, spindly boy that I knew during the war had grown into a broad muscular man. His eyes were hooded and cunning. I have to talk to you. Did Virgilio leave a last will and testament? Not that I know of. He left a notebook of poems. What is that? Carding demanded, startled. A notebook of verses with the title Down There. You are mentioned in the poem. But the police has it, I answered. Did it say anything about the disposition of the hacienda in case of his death? I did not have a chance to read it closely but I doubt it. Arent such things always done up in legal language? There certainly is nothing like that in the notebook. What are you leading up to? Carding sighed. In 1943; Virgilio came to see me. He had heard from Honesto that I have been talking to the tenants about their rights. Virgilio wanted to know himself the bases of my claims. We had a long talk. I told him about the

inevitability of the triumph of the peasant class. Despite his wide reading, he had not heard of Marx, Lenin, or Mao Tse Tung. He was visibly shaken. But when I told him of the coming calamity that will bring down his class, he asked What can I do? and I said: Give up. Give up your land, your privilege and your power. That is the only way to avoid the coming calamity. He apparently did not have any grasp of social forces. He kept talking of individual personstenants that he had known since he was a child, inquilinos who had been faithful to his father until their old age, and all that nonsense. The individual does not matter, I yelled at him. Only the class called the proletariat. But even without understanding, he said that he will leave the hacienda to the tenants because it was probably the right thing to do. But Clara should not be completely deprived of her means of support. It was exasperating, talking to him, but he did promise that in his will the tenants would get all. Obviously, he changed his mind. Carding said in a low voice. That is too bad because now we have to take his land by force. I was speechless. In university, talk of revolution was all the rage but this was my first encounter with a man who could or would try to make it happen. When I get back the notebook, I will study it to see if there is any statement that will legally transfer the Serrano hacienda to you and the other tenants, I said weakly. I will be in touch, Carding said. He walked out the door. The day of the funeral was clear and hot. Dust devils rose from the road. In the shadow of the acacia trees in the churchyard, hundreds of people of all ages crowded to get away from the sun. Inside the church, even the aisles were packed. Introibo ad altare Dei Father Santander intoned. Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam, I answered. The mass for the dead began. My heart was racing because I knew the reason for Virgilios suicide. But nobody would care, save me. Story 3 "YOU can use this," said Inciang, smiling brightly and trying to keep her tears back. "It is still quite strong, and you will not outgrow if for a year yet." Itong watched his sister fold his old khaki shirt carefully and pack it into the rattan tampipi, which already bulged with his clothes. He stood helplessly by, shifting his weight from one bare foot to the other, looking down at his big sister, who had always done everything for him. "There, that's done," said Inciang, pressing down the lid. "Give me that rope. I'll truss it up for you. And be careful with it, Itong? Your Tia Orin has been very kind to lend it to us for your trip to Vigan."

Itong assented and obediently handed his sister the rope. His eyes followed her deft movements with visible impatience; his friends were waiting outside to play with him. He was twelve years old, and growing fast. Sometimes when Inciang toiling in the kitchen, sweeping the house, or washing clothes by the well in the front yard held a long session with herself, she admitted she did not want Itong to grow. She wanted to keep him the boy that he was, always. Inciang had raised Itong from the whimpering, little, red lump of flesh that he was when their mother died soon after giving birth to him. She had been as a mother to him as long as she could remember. "May I go out now and play, Manang?" And Inciang heard herself saying, "It will be a year before you will see your friends again Go now." She listened to the sound of his footsteps down the bamboo ladder, across the bare earthen front yard. Then she heard him whistle. There were answering whistles, running feet.

"TELL him, Inciang," her father had said. That was about three months ago. Inciang was washing clothes by the well with Tia Orin. "Yes, you tell him, Inciang," said Tia Orin. It was always Inciang who had dealt with Itong if anything of importance happened. Inciang rose to her feet. She had been squatting long over her washtub and pains shot up her spine. "Hoy, Itong," called Inciang. Itong was out in the street playing with Nena, Lacay Illo's daughter. "Hoy, Itong," called Inciang. "Come here. I have something to tell you." Itong gave a playful push at Nena before he came running. He smiled as he stepped over the low bamboo barrier at the gate which kept the neighbors' pigs out. How bright his face was! Inciang's heart skipped a beat. "You have something to tell me, Manang?" Inciang brushed her sudsy hands against her soiled skirt. "Yes. It is about your going to Vigan." Itong sat down suddenly on the barrier.

"Your are going to high school, after all, Itong," Inciang said. She said it defiantly, as if afraid that Itong would like going away. She looked up at her father, as if to ask him to confirm her words. Father sat leaning out of the low front window, smoking his pipe. Itong looked at her foolishly. Inciang's heart felt heavy within her, but she said, with a little reproach, "Why, Itong, aren't you glad? We thought you wanted to go to high school." Itong began to cry. He sat there in front of his father and his sister and his aunt Orin, and tears crept down his cheeks. "The supervising principal teacher, Mr. Cablana," went on Inciang in a rush, "came this afternoon and told us you may go to high school without paying the fees, because you are the balibictorian." Itong nodded. "Now, don't cry," said his aunt Orin. "You are no longer a baby." "Yes," added the father. "And Mr. Cablana also promised to give his laundry to Inciang, so you'll have money for your books. Mr. Cablana is also sure to get the Castila's laundry for Inciang, and that will do for your food, besides the rice that we shall be sending you. Stop crying." "Your Tata Cilin's house is in Nagpartian, very near the high school. You will stay with him. And," Inciang said, "I don't have to accompany you to Vigan, Itong. You'll ride in the passenger bus where your cousin Pedro is the conductor. Your cousin Pedro will show you where your Tata Cilin lives. Your cousin Merto, son of your uncle Cilin, will help you register in school. He is studying in the same school. Will you stop crying?" Itong looked at Inciang, and the tears continued creeping down his cheeks. Itong was so young. Inciang began to scold him. "Is that the way you should act? Why, you're old now!" Then Itong ran into the house and remained inside. His father laughed heartily as he pulled at his pipe. Inciang started to laugh also, but her tears began to fall fast also, and she bent her head over her washtub and she began scrubbing industriously, while she laughed and laughed. Outside the gate, standing with her face pressed against the fence, was Nena, watching the tableau with a great wonder in her eyes. Inciang had watched Itong grow up from a new-born baby. She was six years old when she carried him around, straddled over her hip. She kept house, did the family wash, encouraged Itong to go through primary, then intermediate school,

when he showed rebellion against school authority. When he was in the second grade and could speak more English words than Inciang, her father began to laugh at her; also her Tia Orin and her brood had laughed at her. "Schooling would never do me any good," Inciang had said lightly. She watched Itong go through school, ministering to his needs lovingly, doing more perhaps for him than was good for him. Once she helped him fight a gang of rowdies from the other end of the town. Or better, she fought the gang for him using the big rice ladle she was using in the kitchen at the time. And her father had never married again, being always faithful to the memory of Inciang's mother. The farm which he tilled produced enough rice and vegetables for the family's use, and such few centavos as Lacay Iban would now and then need for the cockpit he got out of Inciang's occasional sales of vegetables in the public market or of a few bundles of rice in thecamarin. Few were the times when they were hard pressed for money. One was the time when Inciang's mother died. Another was now that Itong was going to Vigan. Inciang was working to send him away, when all she wanted was to keep him always at her side! She spent sleepless nights thinking of how Itong would fare in a strange town amidst strange people, even though theirparientes would be near him. It would not be the same. She cried again and again, it would not be the same.

WHEN she finished tying up the tampipi, she pushed it to one side of the main room of the house and went to the window. Itong was with a bunch of his friends under the acacia tree across the dirt road. They were sitting on the buttress roots of the tree, chin in hand, toes making figures in the dust. And, of course, Itong's closest friend, Nena, was there with them. Strange, Inciang thought, how Itong, even though already twelve years old, still played around with a girl. And then, that afternoon, the departure. The passenger truck pausing at the gate. The tampipi of Itong being tossed up to the roof of the truck. The bag of rice. The crate of chickens. The young coconuts for Tata Cilin's children. Then Itong himself, in the pair of rubber shoes which he had worn at the graduation exercises and which since then had been kept in the family trunk. Itong being handed into the truck. Lacay Iban, Tia Orin, and Inciang were all there shouting instructions. All the children in the neighborhood were there. Nena was there. It was quite a crowd come to watch Itong go away for a year! A year seemed forever to Inciang. Itong sat in the dim interior of the bus, timid and teary-eyed. Inciang glanced again and again at him, her heart heavy within her, and then as the bus was about to leave,

there was such a pleading look in his eyes that Inciang had to go close to him, and he put his hand on hers. "I'm afraid, Manang." "Why should you be?" said Inciang loudly, trying to drown out her own fears. "This boy. Why, you're going to Vigan, where there are many things to see. I haven't been to Vigan, myself. You're a lucky boy." "I don't want to leave you." "I'll come to see you in Vigan." She had considered the idea and knew that she could not afford the trip. "Manang," said Itong, "I have a bag of lipay seeds and marbles tied to the rafter over the shelf for the plates. See that no one takes it away, will you?" "Yes." "And, Manang, next time you make linubbian, don't forget to send Nena some, ah?" Inciang nodded. "You like Nena very much?" "Yes," coloring a little. Itong had never concealed anything from her. He had been secretive with his father, with his aunt Orin, but never with her. From Vigan, Itong wrote his sister only once a month so as to save on stamps and writing paper. His letters were full of expressions of warm endearment, and Inciang read them over and over again aloud to her father and to Tia Orin and her brood who came to listen, and when her eyes were dim with reading, Inciang stood on a chair and put the letters away in the space between a bamboo rafter and the cogon roof. "My dear sister," Itong would write in moro-moro Ilocano, "and you, my father, and Tia Orin, I can never hope to repay my great debt to all of you." And then a narration of day-to-day events as they had happened to him. And so a year passed. Inciang discussed Itong with her father every day. She wanted him to become a doctor, because doctors earned even one hundred pesos a month, and besides her father was complaining about pain in the small of his back. Lacay Iban, on the other hand, wanted Itong to become a lawyer, because lawyers were big shots and made big names and big money for themselves if they could

have the courts acquit murderers, embezzlers, and other criminals despite all damning evidence of guilt, and people elected them to the National Assembly. Itong's last letter said that classes were about to close. And then, one morning, when Inciang was washing the clothes of the supervising principal teacher, with a piece of cotton cloth thrown over her head and shoulders to shelter her from the hot sun, a passenger truck came to a stop beside the gate and a boy came out. He was wearing white short pants, a shirt, and a pair of leather slippers. It was Itong. But this stranger was taller by the width of a palm, and much narrower. Itong had grown so very fast, he had no time to fill in. "Itong, are you here already?" "It is vacation, Manang. Are you not glad to see me?" They ran into each other's arms. Father came in from the rice field later in the afternoon. "How is my lawyer?" he asked, and then he noticed Itong wore a handkerchief around his throat. "I have a cold, Father," said Itong huskily. "How long have you had it?" "For several weeks now." "Jesus, Maria, y Jose, Inciang, boil some ginger with a little sugar for your poor brother. This is bad. Are you sure your cold will not become tuberculosis?" Itong drank the concoction, and it eased his sore throat a little. It seemed he would never get tired talking, though, telling Inciang and Lacay Iban about Vigan, about school, about the boys he met there, about his uncle Cilin and his cousin Merto and the other people at the house in Nagpartian. He went out with his old cronies, but he had neglected his marbles. The marbles hung from the rafter over the shelf for the plates, gathering soot and dust and cobwebs. It was a reminder of Itong's earlier boyhood. And he did not go out with Nena any more. "Have you forgotten your friend, Nena, already?" Inciang asked him and he reddened. "Have you been giving her linubbian, Manang?" he asked. And when she said "Yes," he looked glad. On those nights when he did not go out to play, he occupied himself with writing letters in the red light of the kerosene lamp. He used the wooden trunk for a table. Inciang accustomed to go to sleep soon after the chickens had gone to roost under the house, would lie on the bed-mat on the floor, looking up at Itong's back bent studiously over the wooden trunk.

Once she asked, "What are you writing about, Itong?" And Itong had replied, "Nothing, Manang." One day she found a letter in one of the pockets of his shirt in the laundry pile. She did not mean to read it, but she saw enough to know that the letter came from Nena. She could guess what Itong then had been writing. He had been writing to Nena. Itong had changed. He had begun keeping secrets from Inciang. Inciang noted the development with a slight tightening of her throat. Yes, Itong had grown up. His old clothes appeared two sizes too small for him now. Inciang had to sew him new clothes. And when Itong saw the peso bills and the silver coins that Inciang kept under her clothes in the trunk toward the purchase of a silk kerchief which she had long desired, especially since the constabulary corporal had been casting eyes at her when she went to market, he snuggled up to Inciang and begged her to buy him a drill suit. "A drill terno! You are sure a drill terno is what you want?" Itong patted his throat, as if to clear it. "Please Manang?" "Oh, you little beggar, you're always asking for things." She tried to be severe. She was actually sorry to part with the money. She had been in love with that silk kerchief for years now. "Promise me, then to take care of your throat. Your cold is a bad one." Another summertime, when Itong came home from school, he was a young man. He had put on his white drill suit and a pink shirt and a pink tie to match, and Inciang could hardly believe her eyes. She was even quite abashed to go meet him at the gate. "Why, is it you, Itong?" He was taller than she. He kept looking down at her. "Manang, who else could I be? You look at me so strangely." His voice was deep and husky, and it had queer inflections. "But how do I look?" Inciang embraced him tears again in her eyes, as tears had been in her eyes a year ago when Itong had come back after the first year of parting but Itong pulled away hastily, and he looked back self-consciously at the people in the truck which was then starting away. "You have your cold still, so I hear," said Lacay Iban, as he came out of the house to join his children.

"Yes," said Itong, his words accented in the wrong places. "I have my cold still." Looking at Itong, Inciang understood. And Itong, too, understood. Lacay Iban and Inciang looked at each other, and when Inciang saw the broad grin spreading over her father's face, she knew he understood, too. He should know! "Inciang," said Father gravely. Inciang wrested her eyes from Nena whom she saw was looking at Itong shyly from behind the fence of her father's front yard. "Inciang, boil some ginger and vinegar for your poor brother. He has that bad cold still." Inciang wept deep inside of her as she cooked rice in the kitchen a little later. She had seen Itong stay at the door and make signs to Nena. She resented his attentions to Nena. She resented his height, his pink shirt, his necktie. But that night, as she lay awake on the floor, waiting for Itong to come home, she knew despite all the ache of her heart, that she could not keep Itong forever young, forever the boy whom she had brought up. That time would keep him growing for several years yet, and more distant to her. And then all the bitterness in her heart flowed out in tears. In the morning, when Nena came to borrow one of the pestles. "We are three to pound rice, Manang Inciang; may we borrow one of your pestles?" Inciang could smile easily at Nena. She could feel a comradely spirit toward Nena growing within her. After all, she thought, as she gave Nena the pestle, she never had a sister, she would like to see how it was to have a sister. A good-looking one like Nena. Inciang smiled at Nena, and Nena blushing, smiled back at her.