Contemporary Writer

Francisco Arcellana

Francisco "Franz"^[1] Arcellana (September 6, 1916 – August 1, 2002) was a Filipino writer, poet, essayist, critic, journalist and teacher. He was born on September 16, 1916. Arcellana already had ambitions of becoming a writer during his years in the elementary. His actual writing, however, started when he became a member of The Torres Torch Organization during his high school years. Arcellana continued writing in various school papers at the University of the Philippines Diliman. He later on received a Rockfeller Grant and became a fellow in creative writing the University of Iowa and Breadloaf's writers conference from 1956- 1957.
He is considered an important progenitor of the modern Filipino short story in English. Arcellana pioneered the development of the short story as a lyrical prose-poetic form within Filipino literature. His works are now often taught in tertiary-level-syllabi in the Philippines. Many of his works were translated into Tagalog, Malaysian, Russian, Italian, and German. Arcellana won 2nd place in 1951 Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, with his short story, "The Flowers of May." 14 of his short stories were also included in Jose Garcia Villa's Honor Roll from 1928 to 1939. His major achievements included the first award in art criticism from the Art Association of the Philippines in 1954, the Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan award from the city government of Manila in 1981, and the Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas for English fiction from the Unyon ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipino (UMPIL) in 1988. Francisco Arcellana was proclaimed National Artist of the Philippines in Literature in 1990.
Arcellana died in 2002. As a National Artist, he received a state funeral at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.

His grandson Liam Hertzsprung performed a piano concert in 2006 dedicated to him.
Arcellana's published books include:

• Selected Stories (1962)
• Poetry and Politics: The State of Original Writing in English in the Philippines Today (1977)
• The Francisco Arcellana Sampler (1990).

My Reaction:

       I believe that Francisco Arcellana is really a talented man. He became an inspiration specially to those people whose passion is writing. i also believe that he is an awesome writer cause he receive a lot of awards and his works will really touch the hearts of the readers and I am one of them. I read his work which is "The Flowers Of May" -this story won first prize at Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Award in 1951. It is all about a family who are mourning for the death of their daughter, Victoria. In the end, they will realize the the value of life even if the one you dear will be taken away from you.

                             

                                  "The Flowers Of May"

It is May again. It is still generally sultry but it has begun to rain in the afternoons and the evenings are clear, the skies are of the utmost blue; new grass is breaking from the earth everywhere.

It is specially pleasant in the afternoons after the rain. The air is clear and fragrant, the sky has a new washed look, and everything looks clean and newborn.

Maytime makes me think of rain and flowers. It makes me think of my father and my mother, my brothers and my sisters, the living and the dead. It makes me think of churches and how it is inside churches on May afternoons.

Maytime is running in the rain and gathering sampaguita buds. It is Father standing by the window, watching the rain, his grief for the dead Victoria deep and unspoken; and it is Mother too standing beside Father, trying to share and understand that grief. It is Manuela and Juaning and the dead Victoria and Peping and Narciso and Clara and Ting and Lourdes and Paz and Gloria and Monserrat and Toni and even the dead Josefina and the dead Concepcion whom I did not know. It is the church in Tondo and the chapel in Gagalangin and the churches in the Walled City and the churches in Ermita and Malate and San Andres and Baguio and all the places that I have ever been.

This is how it is inside churches in the afternoons in May: there are girls all dressed in white. They wear blue girdles. They stand or sit in chairs arranged in two rows beneath the church dome in front of the altar. The smallest are in front and the tallest bring up the rear. They have reed trays filled with flowers: sampaguitas, camias, lilies, plenty of lilies; all the flowers of May. They pray and sing. A woman in white wearing a blue girdle claps her hands and the girls sit down. She claps her hands and the girls rise. The girls sing and then they dip their hands into their flower trays and pick up fistfuls of flowers which they throw into the middle of the aisle between them until the path is well strewn with petals. The path is meant for the Blessed Virgin Mother to tread upon, the flowers are meant to receive the imprint of her small white feet. The girls march up the altar and disappear into the refectory. Long after they they gone you still hear their voices. The air is heavy with the scent of crushed petals.

I do not know why on May afternoons I should seek the inside of churches. Unless it is because I like watching the flower festival; or because I like looking at girls all dressed in white or because I like the pure chaste look of blue girdles; or because I like the sound of young girl voices; or because I like to listen to singing, young girls singing; or because

I like the sight of an altar all decked with flowers, the flowers of May; or cause I like the cool clean smell of flowers (a May afternoon inside a church is like a May morning anywhere) or because of all these things together.

It is usually a different church each time. Before the war it was mostly the Lourdes church in Intramuros. Now it is mostly the Pro – Cathedral in San Miguel. It is other churches too. The young girls are the same, the voices are just as young, sweet, and innocent, and the fragrance that of the same May morning.

It is surely not anything like what it is to my brother, Narciso, who has become a Catholic priest. And it can not be like what it is to my sisters, every single one of the seven of them, the living and the dead Victoria. It is certainly not anything like what it was to the dead Victoria.

It is not anything like what my brothers know: I can’t imagine Juaning doing it; I can’t think of Peping doing it either; Ting who is going to medical school would—but it would not be at all the same thing; and Toni? Toni who is going to intermediate school? Perhaps Toni.

And I don’ t know that it is anything like what father might have known when he was living; and Mother only does Father’s wish. Father might have known it; if he did, it was surely before Victoria died —not after, hardly after.

Maytime is an afternoon in May. The year is 1934. It is the year of Victoria’s death. It is an afternoon in May and Victoria has been dead two months.

Mother returns with the tea and the tea things (the green china) which she places on the sideboard. She joins Father at the round table and admires the flowers.

“Lovely, aren’t they?” Mother asks.

Father does not answer.

When the girls appear they are dressed for church, their reed trays hanging empty from their hands. They go to the sideboard, Mother pours the tea, they set their flower trays down on the floor beside them and with a lot of sound and encouragement, from Mother —”Don’t gulp itdown: tea is to sip and not to gulp”—take their tea.

The girls pick up their trays and walk to the round table where the flowers are. Mother picks up the tea things and carries them out to the kitchen. She returns; hover about the girls who are gathered about the flowers. Mother does not look much taller than the girls or much older – she may well be one of them. Fussing a great deal, the girls arrange the flowers in their trays.

“What beautiful blossoms! What fresh and fragrant flowers! What lovely lilies!” Mother enthuses.

The girls look up at Mother with bright pleased happy faces.

“Take some of the lilies, Mother,” they offer. “Take some of the lilies for our own chapel.”

“Well, now,” Mother says. “That is a sweet idea. Don’t you think it is sweet of the girls to offer me some of their lilies, Pepeng?” Mother turns to Father brightly.

Father does not say anything.

“I do not think I’ll take some,” Mother says. “I’ll take three lilies, just three, only three and no more—one from each of your trays. I shall take the least among your lilies.”

MOTHER PICKS UP one lily and then another and then still another. She holds the lilies in her arms as if they are a bride’s bouquet. She carries the lilies to the family chapel built in the cubicle that par tially roofs the stairwell where an oil lamp burns all night and day before a Holy Family- Mother stands before the graven group, the three lilies lying in her arms like a bride’s bouquet.

Father and the girls watch Mother’s little play with what she calls the least among the lilies.

Mother picks up one lily and places it to the right of the Holy family. She picks up the second lily and sets it to the left. But when she picks up the third lily she hesitates: she does not quite know what to do with the third lily.

The girls laugh at Mother’s little impasse with the third lily. Father watches quietly.

Mother is a long time about the third lily. She falls into an agony over it. She holds it like a candle in her hand—the long stem secure against her palm, the green stalk caught between her thumb and fingers, the lily leaning forward like a candleflame—and does not know what to do about it.

The girls finish their trays; they turn now to attend to Mother’s contest with the lily. Father stands silent watching Mother at her play.

It does not look like Mother will ever be able to resolve her little drama with the odd lily; no climax is in sight.

The girls pick up their trays, ready to go.

Mother is silent and still, in an agony over the last lily. The girls walk toward the stairs.

The sound of the rain on the roof has unaccountably stopped. “Enough of this!”

Someone has suddenly spoken.

It is father speaking. There is a stridency, strange and urgent, in voice.

The girls stop where they are, halfway between the center of the sala and the stairhead, midway between Father standing by the round table and Mother in the family chapel.

“Enough, enough of this,” Father says.

Mother hears but does not turn, she does not dare to turn. She is very still but not the lily in her hand. She is very still but the lily is agitated in her hand.

‘I have had enough,” Father says.

Mother twirls the green stalk a long time before she realizes what she is doing. Then she stills the lily, wills it to stillness, stills herself, wills herself to stillness that is very much like death.

She turns and confronts Father.

“Enough of what, Pepeng?” Mother asks brightly. “What have you enough of?”

“I won’t have any more of it,” Father says. The girls are still and silent, in a shock of listening. “What would you have no more of?” Mother asks. “Do you think it is easy to watch your child die before your eyes?” Father demands in a voice loud and unnatural.

“Do you think it is so simple to let your child die?” Father demands again.

“0 Pepeng,” Mother cries, her mouth a little parted as if she is in pain, her hand that holds the lily rigid as if it is hurting her. Father proclaims: “Victoria did not want to die!” His grief had found utterance at last.

“Victoria did not want to die,” Father reiterates. “I saw that she did not want to die.”

Mother cries, “0 Pepeng, stop,” but Father will not stop. Father will not be consoled.

“The flowers are gone. The flowers of May are gone. I saw that Victoria did not want to die. There was nothing I could do. There was nothing one could do,”

Father says helplessly. His grief is terrible and deep.

It is as terrible as the naked terror stark in Mother’s eyes and deep as the new knowledge and first and final and only wisdom that we have just now begun to share. So this is death. So this is what it means to die. And for the first time since she died and we buried her, we learn to accept the fact of Victoria’s death finally, we know at last that Victoria is dead—really and truly dead.

May Day Eve By Nick Joaquin

The old people had ordered that the dancing should stop at ten o’clock but it was almost midnight before the carriages came filing up the departing guests, while the girls who were staying were promptly herded upstairs to the bedrooms, the young men gathering around to wish them a good night and lamenting their ascent with mock signs and moaning, proclaiming themselves disconsolate but straightway going off to finish the punch and the brandy though they were quite drunk already and simply bursting with wild spirits, merriment, arrogance and audacity, for they were young bucks newly arrived from Europe; the ball had been in their honor; and they had waltzed and polka-ed and bragged and swaggered and flirted all night and where in no mood to sleep yet--no, caramba, not on this moist tropic eve! not on this mystic May eve! --with the night still young and so seductive that it was madness not to go out, not to go forth---and serenade the neighbors! cried one; and swim in the Pasid! cried another; and gather fireflies! cried a third—whereupon there arose a great clamor for coats and capes, for hats and canes, and they were a couple of street-lamps flickered and a last carriage rattled away upon the cobbles while the blind black houses muttered hush-hush, their tile roofs looming like sinister chessboards against a wile sky murky with clouds, save where an evil young moon prowled about in a corner or where a murderous wind whirled, whistling and whining, smelling now of the sea and now of the summer orchards and wafting unbearable childhood fragrances or ripe guavas to the young men trooping so uproariously down the street that the girls who were desiring upstairs in the bedrooms catered screaming to the windows, crowded giggling at the windows, but were soon sighing amorously over those young men bawling below; over those wicked young men and their handsome apparel, their proud flashing eyes, and their elegant mustaches so black and vivid in the moonlight that the girls were quite ravished with love, and began crying to one another how carefree were men but how awful to be a girl and what a horrid, horrid world it was, till old Anastasia plucked them off by the ear or the pigtail and chases them off to bed---while from up the street came the clackety-clack of the watchman’s boots on the cobble and the clang-clang of his lantern against his knee, and the mighty roll of his great voice booming through the night, "Guardia serno-o-o! A las doce han dado-o-o.

And it was May again, said the old Anastasia. It was the first day of May and witches were abroad in the night, she said--for it was a night of divination, and night of lovers, and those who cared might peer into a mirror and would there behold the face of whoever it was they were fated to marry, said the old Anastasia as she hobble about picking up the piled crinolines and folding up shawls and raking slippers in corner while the girls climbing into four great poster-beds that overwhelmed the room began shrieking with terror, scrambling over each other and imploring the old woman not to frighten them.

"Enough, enough, Anastasia! We want to sleep!"

"Go scare the boys instead, you old witch!"

"She is not a witch, she is a maga. She is a maga. She was born of Christmas Eve!"

"St. Anastasia, virgin and martyr."

"Huh? Impossible! She has conquered seven husbands! Are you a virgin, Anastasia?"

"No, but I am seven times a martyr because of you girls!"

"Let her prophesy, let her prophesy! Whom will I marry, old gypsy? Come, tell me."

"You may learn in a mirror if you are not afraid."

"I am not afraid, I will go," cried the young cousin Agueda, jumping up in bed.

"Girls, girls---we are making too much noise! My mother will hear and will come and pinch us all. Agueda, lie down! And you Anastasia, I command you to shut your mouth and go away!""Your mother told me to stay here all night, my grand lady!"

"And I will not lie down!" cried the rebellious Agueda, leaping to the floor. "Stay, old woman. Tell me what I have to do."

"Tell her! Tell her!" chimed the other girls.

The old woman dropped the clothes she had gathered and approached and fixed her eyes on the girl. "You must take a candle," she instructed, "and go into a room that is dark and that has a mirror in it and you must be alone in the room. Go up to the mirror and close your eyes and shy:

Mirror, mirror, show to me him whose woman I will be. If all goes right, just above your left shoulder will appear the face of the man you will marry." A silence. Then: "And hat if all does not go right?" asked Agueda. "Ah, then the Lord have mercy on you!" "Why." "Because you may see--the Devil!"

The girls screamed and clutched one another, shivering. "But what nonsense!" cried Agueda. "This is the year 1847. There are no devil anymore!" Nevertheless she had turned pale. "But where could I go, hugh? Yes, I know! Down to the sala. It has that big mirror and no one is there now." "No, Agueda, no! It is a mortal sin! You will see the devil!" "I do not care! I am not afraid! I will go!" "Oh, you wicked girl! Oh, you mad girl!" "If you do not come to bed, Agueda, I will call my mother." "And if you do I will tell her who came to visit you at the convent last March. Come, old woman---give me that candle. I go." "Oh girls---give me that candle, I go."

But Agueda had already slipped outside; was already tiptoeing across the hall; her feet bare and her dark hair falling down her shoulders and streaming in the wind as she fled down the stairs, the lighted candle sputtering in one hand while with the other she pulled up her white gown from her ankles. She paused breathless in the doorway to the sala and her heart failed her. She tried to imagine the room filled again with lights, laughter, whirling couples, and the jolly jerky music of the fiddlers. But, oh, it was a dark den, a weird cavern for the windows had been closed and the furniture stacked up against the walls. She crossed herself and stepped inside.

The mirror hung on the wall before her; a big antique mirror with a gold frame carved into leaves and flowers and mysterious curlicues. She saw herself approaching fearfully in it: a small while ghost that the darkness bodied forth---but not willingly, not completely, for her eyes and hair were so dark that the face approaching in the mirror seemed only a mask that floated forward; a bright mask with two holes gaping in it, blown forward by the white cloud of her gown. But when she stood before the mirror she lifted the candle level with her chin and the dead mask bloomed into her living face.

She closed her eyes and whispered the incantation. When she had finished such a terror took hold of her that she felt unable to move, unable to open her eyes and thought she would stand there forever, enchanted. But she heard a step behind her, and a smothered giggle, and instantly opened her eyes.

"And what did you see, Mama? Oh, what was it?" But Dona Agueda had forgotten the little girl on her lap: she was staring pass the curly head nestling at her breast and seeing herself in the big mirror hanging in the room. It was the same room and the same mirror out the face she now saw in it was an old face---a hard, bitter, vengeful face, framed in graying hair, and so sadly altered, so sadly different from that other face like a white mask, that fresh young face like a pure mask than she had brought before this mirror one wild May Day midnight years and years ago.... "But what was it Mama? Oh please go on! What did you see?" Dona Agueda looked down at her daughter but her face did not soften though her eyes filled with tears. "I saw the devil." she said bitterly. The child blanched. "The devil, Mama? Oh... Oh..." "Yes, my love. I opened my eyes and there in the mirror, smiling at me over my left shoulder, was the face of the devil." "Oh, my poor little Mama! And were you very frightened?" "You can imagine. And that is why good little girls do not look into mirrors except when their mothers tell them. You must stop this naughty habit, darling, of admiring yourself in every mirror you pass- or you may see something frightful some day." "But the devil, Mama---what did he look like?" "Well, let me see... he has curly hair and a scar on his cheek---" "Like the scar of Papa?" "Well, yes. But this of the devil was a scar of sin, while that of your Papa is a scar of honor. Or so he says." "Go on about the devil." "Well, he had mustaches." "Like those of Papa?" "Oh, no. Those of your Papa are dirty and graying and smell horribly of tobacco, while these of the devil were very black and elegant--oh, how elegant!" "And did he speak to you, Mama?" "Yes… Yes, he spoke to me," said Dona Agueda. And bowing her graying head; she wept.

"Charms like yours have no need for a candle, fair one," he had said, smiling at her in the mirror and stepping back to give her a low mocking bow. She had whirled around and glared at him and he had burst into laughter. "But I remember you!" he cried. "You are Agueda, whom I left a mere infant and came home to find a tremendous beauty, and I danced a waltz with you but you would not give me the polka." "Let me pass," she muttered fiercely, for he was barring the way. "But I want to dance the polka with you, fair one," he said. So they stood before the mirror; their panting breath the only sound in the dark room; the candle shining between them and flinging their shadows to the wall. And young Badoy Montiya (who had crept home very drunk to pass out quietly in bed) suddenly found himself cold sober and very much awake and ready for anything. His eyes sparkled and the scar on his face gleamed scarlet. "Let me pass!" she cried again, in a voice of fury, but he grasped her by the wrist. "No," he smiled. "Not until we have danced." "Go to the devil!" "What a temper has my serrana!" "I am not your serrana!" "Whose, then? Someone I know? Someone I have offended grievously? Because you treat me, you treat all my friends like your mortal enemies." "And why not?" she demanded, jerking her wrist away and flashing her teeth in his face. "Oh, how I detest you, you pompous young men! You go to Europe and you come back elegant lords and we poor girls are too tame to please you. We have no grace like the Parisiennes, we have no fire like the Sevillians, and we have no salt, no salt, no salt! Aie, how you weary me, how you bore me, you fastidious men!" "Come, come---how do you know about us?"

"I was not admiring myself, sir!" "You were admiring the moon perhaps?" "Oh!" she gasped, and burst into tears. The candle dropped from her hand and she covered her face and sobbed piteously. The candle had gone out and they stood in darkness, and young Badoy was conscience-stricken. "Oh, do not cry, little one!" Oh, please forgive me! Please do not cry! But what a brute I am! I was drunk, little one, I was drunk and knew not what I said." He groped and found her hand and touched it to his lips. She shuddered in her white gown. "Let me go," she moaned, and tugged feebly. "No. Say you forgive me first. Say you forgive me, Agueda." But instead she pulled his hand to her mouth and bit it - bit so sharply in the knuckles that he cried with pain and lashed cut with his other hand--lashed out and hit the air, for she was gone, she had fled, and he heard the rustling of her skirts up the stairs as he furiously sucked his bleeding fingers. Cruel thoughts raced through his head: he would go and tell his mother and make her turn the savage girl out of the house--or he would go himself to the girl’s room and drag her out of bed and slap, slap, slap her silly face! But at the same time he was thinking that they were all going to Antipolo in the morning and was already planning how he would maneuver himself into the same boat with her. Oh, he would have his revenge, he would make her pay, that little harlot! She should suffer for this, he thought greedily, licking his bleeding knuckles. But---Judas! He remembered her bare shoulders: gold in her candlelight and delicately furred. He saw the mobile insolence of her neck, and her taut breasts steady in the fluid gown. Son of a Turk, but she was quite enchanting! How could she think she had no fire or grace? And no salt? An arroba she had of it!

"... No lack of salt in the chrism At the moment of thy baptism!" He sang aloud in the dark room and suddenly realized that he had fallen madly in love with her. He ached intensely to see her again---at once! ---to touch her hands and her hair; to hear her harsh voice. He ran to the window and flung open the casements and the beauty of the night struck him back like a blow. It was May, it was summer, and he was young---young! ---and deliriously in love. Such a happiness welled up within him that the tears spurted from his eyes. But he did not forgive her--no! He would still make her pay, he would still have his revenge, he thought viciously, and kissed his wounded fingers. But what a night it had been! "I will never forge this night! he thought aloud in an awed voice, standing by the window in the dark room, the tears in his eyes and the wind in his hair and his bleeding knuckles pressed to his mouth.

But, alas, the heart forgets; the heart is distracted; and May time passes; summer lends; the storms break over the rot-tipe orchards and the heart grows old; while the hours, the days, the months, and the years pile up and pile up, till the mind becomes too crowded, too confused: dust gathers in it; cobwebs multiply; the walls darken and fall into ruin and decay; the memory perished...and there came a time when Don Badoy Montiya walked home through a May Day midnight without remembering, without even caring to remember; being merely concerned in feeling his way across the street with his cane; his eyes having grown quite dim and his legs uncertain--for he was old; he was over sixty; he was a very stopped and shivered old man with white hair and mustaches coming home from a secret meeting of conspirators; his mind still resounding with the speeches and his patriot heart still exultant as he picked his way up the steps to the front door and inside into the slumbering darkness of the house; wholly unconscious of the May night, till on his way down the hall, chancing to glance into the sala, he shuddered, he stopped, his blood ran cold-- for he had seen a face in the mirror there---a ghostly candlelight face with the eyes closed and the lips moving, a face that he suddenly felt he had been there before though it was a full minutes before the lost memory came flowing, came tiding back, so overflooding the actual moment and so swiftly washing away the piled hours and days and months and years that he was left suddenly young again; he was a gay young buck again, lately came from Europe; he had been dancing all night; he was very drunk; he s stepped in the doorway; he saw a face in the dark; he called out...and the lad standing before the mirror (for it was a lad in a night go jumped with fright and almost dropped his candle, but looking around and seeing the old man, laughed out with relief and came running.

"Oh Grandpa, how you frightened me. Don Badoy had turned very pale. "So it was you, you young bandit! And what is all this, hey? What are you doing down here at this hour?" "Nothing, Grandpa. I was only... I am only ..." "Yes, you are the great Señor only and how delighted I am to make your acquaintance, Señor Only! But if I break this cane on your head you maga wish you were someone else, Sir!" "It was just foolishness, Grandpa. They told me I would see my wife."

"Wife? What wife?" "Mine. The boys at school said I would see her if I looked in a mirror tonight and said: Mirror, mirror show to me her whose lover I will be.

Don Badoy cackled ruefully. He took the boy by the hair, pulled him along into the room, sat down on a chair, and drew the boy between his knees. "Now, put your cane down the floor, son, and let us talk this over. So you want your wife already, hey? You want to see her in advance, hey? But so you know that these are wicked games and that wicked boys who play them are in danger of seeing horrors?"

"Well, the boys did warn me I might see a witch instead."

"Exactly! A witch so horrible you may die of fright. And she will be witch you, she will torture you, she will eat

your heart and drink your blood!"

"Oh, come now Grandpa. This is 1890. There are no witches anymore."

"Oh-ho, my young Voltaire! And what if I tell you that I myself have seen a witch.

"You? Where?

"Right in this room land right in that mirror," said the old man, and his playful voice had turned savage.

"When, Grandpa?"

"Not so long ago. When I was a bit older than you. Oh, I was a vain fellow and though I was feeling very sick that night and merely wanted to lie down somewhere and die I could not pass that doorway of course without stopping to see in the mirror what I looked like when dying. But when I poked my head in what should I see in the mirror but...but..."

"The witch?"

"Exactly!"

"And then she bewitch you, Grandpa!"

"She bewitched me and she tortured me. l She ate my heart and drank my blood." said the old man bitterly.

"Oh, my poor little Grandpa! Why have you never told me! And she very horrible?

"Horrible? God, no--- she was the most beautiful creature I have ever seen! Her eyes were somewhat like yours but her hair was like black waters and her golden shoulders were bare. My God, she was enchanting! But I should have known---I should have known even then---the dark and fatal creature she was!"

A silence. Then: "What a horrid mirror this is, Grandpa," whispered the boy.

"What makes you slay that, hey?"

"Well, you saw this witch in it. And Mama once told me that Grandma once told her that Grandma once saw the devil in this mirror. Was it of the scare that Grandma died?"

Don Badoy started. For a moment he had forgotten that she was dead, that she had perished---the poor Agueda; that they were at peace at last, the two of them, her tired body at rest; her broken body set free at last from the brutal pranks of the earth---from the trap of a May night; from the snare of summer; from the terrible silver nets of the moon. She had been a mere heap of white hair and bones in the end: a whimpering withered consumptive, lashing out with her cruel tongue; her eye like live coals; her face like ashes... Now, nothing--- nothing save a name on a stone; save a stone in a graveyard---nothing! was left of the young girl who had flamed so vividly in a mirror one wild May Day midnight, long, long ago.

And remembering how she had sobbed so piteously; remembering how she had bitten his hand and fled and how he had sung aloud in the dark room and surprised his heart in the instant of falling in love: such a grief tore up his throat and eyes that he felt ashamed before the boy; pushed the boy away; stood up and looked out----looked out upon the medieval shadows of the foul street where a couple of street-lamps flickered and a last carriage was rattling away upon the cobbles, while the blind black houses muttered hush-hush, their tiled roofs looming like sinister chessboards against a wild sky murky with clouds, save where an evil old moon prowled about in a corner or where a murderous wind whirled, whistling and whining, smelling now of the sea and now of the summer orchards and wafting unbearable the window; the bowed old man sobbing so bitterly at the window; the tears streaming down his cheeks and the wind in his hair and one hand pressed to his mouth---while from up the street came the clackety-clack of the watchman’s boots on the cobbles, and the clang-clang of his lantern against his knee, and the mighty roll of his voice booming through the night:

"Guardia sereno-o-o! A las doce han dado-o-o!"

Footnote to Youth by Jose Garcia Villa

The sun was salmon and hazy in the west. Dodong thought to himself he would tell his father about Teang when he got home, after he had unhitched the carabao from the plow, and let it to its shed and fed it. He was hesitant about saying it, but he wanted his father to know. What he had to say was of serious import as it would mark a climacteric in his life. Dodong finally decided to tell it, at a thought came to him his father might refuse to consider it. His father was silent hard-working farmer who chewed areca nut, which he had learned to do from his mother, Dodong’s grandmother.

I will tell it to him. I will tell it to him.

The ground was broken up into many fresh wounds and fragrant with a sweetish earthy smell. Many slender soft worms emerged from the furrows and then burrowed again deeper into the soil. A short colorless worm marched blindly to Dodong’s foot and crawled calmly over it. Dodong go tickled and jerked his foot, flinging the worm into the air. Dodong did not bother to look where it fell, but thought of his age, seventeen, and he said to himself he was not young any more.

Dodong unhitched the carabao leisurely and gave it a healthy tap on the hip. The beast turned its head to look at him with dumb faithful eyes. Dodong gave it a slight push and the animal walked alongside him to its shed. He placed bundles of grass before it land the carabao began to eat. Dodong looked at it without interests.

Dodong started homeward, thinking how he would break his news to his father. He wanted to marry, Dodong did. He was seventeen, he had pimples on his face, the down on his upper lip already was dark–these meant he was no longer a boy. He was growing into a man–he was a man. Dodong felt insolent and big at the thought of it although he was by nature low in statue. Thinking himself a man grown, Dodong felt he could do anything.

He walked faster, prodded by the thought of his virility. A small angled stone bled his foot, but he dismissed it cursorily. He lifted his leg and looked at the hurt toe and then went on walking. In the cool sundown he thought wild you dreams of himself and Teang. Teang, his girl. She had a small brown face and small black eyes and straight glossy hair. How desirable she was to him. She made him dream even during the day.

Dodong tensed with desire and looked at the muscles of his arms. Dirty. This field
work was healthy, invigorating but it begrimed you, smudged you terribly. He turned back the way he had come, then he marched obliquely to a creek.

Dodong stripped himself and laid his clothes, a gray undershirt and red kundiman shorts, on the grass. The he went into the water, wet his body over, and rubbed at it vigorously. He was not long in bathing, then he marched homeward again. The bath made him feel cool.

It was dusk when he reached home. The petroleum lamp on the ceiling already was lighted and the low unvarnished square table was set for supper. His parents and he sat down on the floor around the table to eat. They had fried fresh-water fish, rice, bananas, and caked sugar.

Dodong ate fish and rice, but did not partake of the fruit. The bananas were overripe and when one held them they felt more fluid than solid. Dodong broke off a piece of the cakes sugar, dipped it in his glass of water and ate it. He got another piece and wanted some more, but he thought of leaving the remainder for his parents.

Dodong’s mother removed the dishes when they were through and went out to the batalan to wash them. She walked with slow careful steps and Dodong wanted to help her carry the dishes out, but he was tired and now felt lazy. He wished as he looked at her that he had a sister who could help his mother in the housework. He pitied her, doing all the housework alone.

His father remained in the room, sucking a diseased tooth. It was paining him again, Dodong knew. Dodong had told him often and again to let the town dentist pull it out, but he was afraid, his father was. He did not tell that to Dodong, but Dodong guessed it. Afterward Dodong himself thought that if he had a decayed tooth he would be afraid to go to the dentist; he would not be any bolder than his father.

Dodong said while his mother was out that he was going to marry Teang. There it was out, what he had to say, and over which he had done so much thinking. He had said it without any effort at all and without self-consciousness. Dodong felt relieved and looked at his father expectantly. A decrescent moon outside shed its feeble light into the window, graying the still black temples of his father. His father looked old now.

“I am going to marry Teang,” Dodong said.

His father looked at him silently and stopped sucking the broken tooth. The silence became intense and cruel, and Dodong wished his father would suck that troublous tooth again. Dodong was uncomfortable and then became angry because his father kept looking at him without uttering anything.

“I will marry Teang,” Dodong repeated. “I will marry Teang.”

His father kept gazing at him in inflexible silence and Dodong fidgeted on his seat.

“I asked her last night to marry me and she said…yes. I want your permission. I… want… it….” There was impatient clamor in his voice, an exacting protest at this coldness, this indifference. Dodong looked at his father sourly. He cracked his knuckles one by one, and the little sounds it made broke dully the night stillness.

“Must you marry, Dodong?”

Dodong resented his father’s questions; his father himself had married. Dodong made a quick impassioned easy in his mind about selfishness, but later he got confused.

“You are very young, Dodong.”

“I’m… seventeen.”

“That’s very young to get married at.”

“I… I want to marry…Teang’s a good girl.”

“Tell your mother,” his father said.

“You tell her, tatay.”

“Dodong, you tell your inay.”

“You tell her.”

“All right, Dodong.”

“You will let me marry Teang?”

“Son, if that is your wish… of course…” There was a strange helpless light in his father’s eyes. Dodong did not read it, so absorbed was he in himself.

Dodong was immensely glad he had asserted himself. He lost his resentment for his father. For a while he even felt sorry for him about the diseased tooth. Then he confined his mind to dreaming of Teang and himself. Sweet young dream….

——————————————-

Dodong stood in the sweltering noon heat, sweating profusely, so that his camiseta was damp. He was still as a tree and his thoughts were confused. His mother had told him not to leave the house, but he had left. He had wanted to get out of it without clear reason at all. He was afraid, he felt. Afraid of the house. It had seemed to cage him, to compares his thoughts with severe tyranny. Afraid also of Teang. Teang was giving birth in the house; she gave screams that chilled his blood. He did not want her to scream like that, he seemed to be rebuking him. He began to wonder madly if the process of childbirth was really painful. Some women, when they gave birth, did not cry.

In a few moments he would be a father. “Father, father,” he whispered the word with awe, with strangeness. He was young, he realized now, contradicting himself of nine months comfortable… “Your son,” people would soon be telling him. “Your son, Dodong.”

Dodong felt tired standing. He sat down on a saw-horse with his feet close together. He looked at his callused toes. Suppose he had ten children… What made him think that? What was the matter with him? God!

He heard his mother’s voice from the house:

“Come up, Dodong. It is over.”

Suddenly he felt terribly embarrassed as he looked at her. Somehow he was ashamed to his mother of his youthful paternity. It made him feel guilty, as if he had taken something no properly his. He dropped his eyes and pretended to dust dirt off his kundiman shorts.

“Dodong,” his mother called again. “Dodong.”

He turned to look again and this time saw his father beside his mother.

“It is a boy,” his father said. He beckoned Dodong to come up.

Dodong felt more embarrassed and did not move. What a moment for him. His parents’ eyes seemed to pierce him through and he felt limp.

He wanted to hide from them, to run away.

“Dodong, you come up. You come up,” he mother said.

Dodong did not want to come up and stayed in the sun.

“Dodong. Dodong.”

“I’ll… come up.”

Dodong traced tremulous steps on the dry parched yard. He ascended the bamboo steps slowly. His heart pounded mercilessly in him. Within, he avoided his parents eyes. He walked ahead of them so that they should not see his face. He felt guilty and untrue. He felt like crying. His eyes smarted and his chest wanted to burst. He wanted to turn back, to go back to the yard. He wanted somebody to punish him.

His father thrust his hand in his and gripped it gently.

“Son,” his father said.

And his mother: “Dodong…”

How kind were their voices. They flowed into him, making him strong.

“Teang?” Dodong said.

“She’s sleeping. But you go on…”

His father led him into the small sawali room. Dodong saw Teang, his girl-wife, asleep on the papag with her black hair soft around her face. He did not want her to look that pale.

Dodong wanted to touch her, to push away that stray wisp of hair that touched her lips, but again that feeling of embarrassment came over him and before his parents he did not want to be demonstrative.

The hilot was wrapping the child, Dodong heard it cry. The thin voice pierced him queerly. He could not control the swelling of happiness in him.

“You give him to me. You give him to me,” Dodong said.

——————————————-

Blas was not Dodong’s only child. Many more children came. For six successive years a new child came along. Dodong did not want any more children, but they came. It seemed the coming of children could not be helped. Dodong got angry with himself sometimes.

Teang did not complain, but the bearing of children told on her. She was shapeless and thin now, even if she was young. There was interminable work to be done. Cooking. Laundering. The house. The children. She cried sometimes, wishing she had not married. She did not tell Dodong this, not wishing him to dislike her. Yet she wished she had not married. Not even Dodong, whom she loved. There has been another suitor, Lucio, older than Dodong by nine years, and that was why she had chosen Dodong. Young Dodong. Seventeen. Lucio had married another after her marriage to Dodong, but he was childless until now. She wondered if she had married Lucio, would she have borne him children. Maybe not, either. That was a better lot. But she loved Dodong…

Dodong whom life had made ugly.

One night, as he lay beside his wife, he rose and went out of the house. He stood in the moonlight, tired and querulous. He wanted to ask questions and somebody to answer him. He w anted to be wise about many things.

One of them was why life did not fulfill all of Youth’s dreams. Why it must be so. Why one was forsaken… after Love.

Dodong would not find the answer. Maybe the question was not to be answered. It must be so to make youth Youth. Youth must be dreamfully sweet. Dreamfully sweet. Dodong returned to the house humiliated by himself. He had wanted to know a little wisdom but was denied it.

When Blas was eighteen he came home one night very flustered and happy. It was late at night and Teang and the other children were asleep. Dodong heard Blas’s steps, for he could not sleep well of nights. He watched Blas undress in the dark and lie down softly. Blas was restless on his mat and could not sleep. Dodong called him name and asked why he did not sleep. Blas said he could not sleep.

“You better go to sleep. It is late,” Dodong said.

Blas raised himself on his elbow and muttered something in a low fluttering voice.

Dodong did not answer and tried to sleep.

“Itay …,” Blas called softly.

Dodong stirred and asked him what it was.

“I am going to marry Tona. She accepted me tonight.”

Dodong lay on the red pillow without moving.

“Itay, you think it over.”

Dodong lay silent.

“I love Tona and… I want her.”

Dodong rose from his mat and told Blas to follow him. They descended to the yard, where everything was still and quiet. The moonlight was cold and white.

“You want to marry Tona,” Dodong said. He did not want Blas to marry yet. Blas was very young. The life that would follow marriage would be hard…

“Yes.”

“Must you marry?”

Blas’s voice stilled with resentment. “I will marry Tona.”

Dodong kept silent, hurt.

“You have objections, Itay?” Blas asked acridly.

“Son… n-none…” (But truly, God, I don’t want Blas to marry yet… not yet. I don’t want Blas to marry yet….)

But he was helpless. He could not do anything. Youth must triumph… now. Love must triumph… now. Afterwards… it will be life.

As long ago Youth and Love did triumph for Dodong… and then Life.

Dodong looked wistfully at his young son in the moonlight. He felt extremely sad and sorry for him.

Aliguyon(Epiko ng mga Ifugao)

Ang lahat ng tao ay magkakapatid sa kabila ng pagkakaiba sa wika, sa ugali, at sa pananampalataya.

Sa mga hinagdang taniman sa bulubundukin naninirahan si Aliguyon, isang mandirigmang Ipugaw na mabilis at magaling sa paghawak ng sibat.  Anak siya ni Antalan, isa ring mandirigma.  Maagang natuto ng pakikipaglaban si Aliguyon sa tulong ng kanyang ama.  Ang unang larangan ng digma ni Aliguyon ay ang matitigas na lupa sa tabi ng kanilang tahanan.  Ang unang sandata niya ay ang trumpo at ang mga unang kalaban niya sa larong ito ay ang mga bata rin sa kanilang pook.  Kapag pinawalan ni Aliguyon ang kanyang trumpo, matining na matining na iikot ito sa lupa o kapag inilaban niya ito sa ibang trumpo, tiyak na babagsak na biyak ang laruan ng kanyang kalaban.

Tinuruan din siya ng kanyang ama ng iba’t-ibang karunungan: umawit ng buhay ng matapang na mandirigma, manalangin sa Bathala ng mga mandirigmang ito at matutuhan ang mga makapangyarihang salita sa inusal ng mga pari noong unang panahon.

Ikinintal ni Amtalan sa isip at damdamin ng anak ang katapangan at kagitingan ng loob.  Talagang inihanda ng ama si Aliguyon upang maipaghiganti siya ng anak sa matagal na niyang kaaway, kay Pangaiwan ng kabilang nayon.  Nang handang-handa na si Aliguyon, nagsama siya ng iba pang mandirigma ng kanilang nayon at hinanap nila ang kalaban ni Antalan.  Subalit hindi si Pangaiwan ang natagpuan kundi si Dinoyagan, ang anak na lalaki nito.  Mahusay din siyang mandirigma, tulad ni Aliguyon, inihanda rin siya ng kanyang ama sa pakikipaglaban upang maipaghiganti siya ng anak sa kalaban niyang si Antalan.

Kaya anak sa anak ang nagtagpo.  Kapwa sila matatapang, kapwa magagaling sa pakikipaglaban lalo na sa paghawak ng sibat.

Itataas ni Aliguyon ang kanyang sibat.  Nangingintab ito lalo na kung tinatamaan ng sikat ng araw.  Paiikutin ang sibat sa itaas saka mabilis ang kamay ng binatang kalaban.  Aabangan ng matipunong kanan ang sibat na balak itimo sa kanyang dibdib.

Tila kidlat na paroo’t-parito ang sibat.  Maririnig na lamang ang haging nito at nagmistulang awit sa hangin.

Nanonood ang mga dalagang taga-nayon at sinusundan ng mga mata ang humahanging sibat.  Saksakin mo siya, Dinoyagan!

Sasawayin sila ng binata, Kasinggaling ko siya sa labanang ito.

Araw-araw ay nagpatuloy ang kanilang laban hanggang sa ito’y inabot ng linggo, ng buwan.  Kung saan-saan sila nakarating.  Nagpalipat-lipat ng pook, palundag-lundag, patalun-talon sa mga taniman.

Namumunga na ang mga palay na nagsisimula pa lamang sumibol nang simulan nila ang labanan.  Inabot ng taon hanggang sa sila’y lubusang huminto ng pakuluan ng sibat.  Walang nasugatan sa kanila. Walang natalo.

Naglapit ang dalawang mandirigma.  Nagyakap at nagkamayan, tanda ng pagkakaibigan at pagkakapatiran.  Dakila si Aliguyon.  Dakila si Dinoyagan.  Ipinangako nilang sa oras ding iyon na lilimutin na ang alitan ng kanilang ama.  Nagdiwang ang lahat.

Lalong nagkalapit ang damdamin ng dalawang mandirigma nang mapangasawa si Aliguyon si Bugan, ang kapatid ni Dinoyagan at nang maging kabiyak ng dibdib ni Dinoyagan ang kapatid ni Aliguyon.   Nanirahan sila sa kani-kanilang nayon.  Doon sila namuhay nang maligaya.  Doon lumaki ang kani-kanilang mga supling.

Kung may pista o anumang pagdiriwang sa kanilang nayon, buong kasiyahanng pinanonood ng mga taga-nayon ang dalawa lalo na kung sila’y sumasayaw.  Kung mahusay sila sa pakikidigma ay mahusay din sila sa pagsasayaw.  Lumulundag sila at pumailanlang na parang maririkit na agila.

Sa kani-kanilang nayon, tinuruan nina Aliguyon at Dinoyagan ang mga tao tungkol sa marangal na pamumuhay, karangalan, at katapangan ng mga mandirigma, at pagmamahal at pagmamalasakit sa Inang Bayan.  Kahit na sila’y pumanaw, binuhay ng mga Ipugaw ang kanilang kadakilaan.  Inaawit ang kanilang katapangan.  Hindi mawawala sa puso at kasaysayan ng mga Ipugaw ang kagitingan ng dalawang mandirigma.  Nagpasalin-salin sa mga lahi ng Ipugaw, ng mga Pilipino ang dakilang pamana ng mga dakilang mandirigma.