The Last Leaf by O. Henry

In a little district west of Washington Square the streets have run crazy and broken themselves into small strips called "places." These "places" make strange angles and curves. One Street crosses itself a time or two. An artist once discovered a valuable possibility in this street. Suppose a collector with a bill for paints, paper and canvas should, in traversing this route, suddenly meet himself coming back, without a cent having been paid on account! So, to quaint old Greenwich Village the art people soon came prowling, hunting for north windows and eighteenth-century gables and Dutch attics and low rents. Then they imported some pewter mugs and a chafing dish or two from Sixth Avenue, and became a "colony." At the top of a squatty, three-story brick Sue and Johnsy had their studio. "Johnsy" was familiar for Joanna. One was from Maine; the other from California. They had met at the table d'hôte of an Eighth Street "Delmonico's," and found their tastes in art, chicory salad and bishop sleeves so congenial that the joint studio resulted. That was in May. In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors called Pneumonia, stalked about the colony, touching one here and there with his icy fingers. Over on the east side this ravager strode boldly, smiting his victims by scores, but his feet trod slowly through the maze of the narrow and moss-grown "places." Mr. Pneumonia was not what you would call a chivalric old gentleman. A mite of a little woman with blood thinned by California zephyrs was hardly fair game for the red-fisted, short-breathed old duffer. But Johnsy he smote; and she lay, scarcely moving, on her painted iron bedstead, looking through the small Dutch window-panes at the blank side of the next brick house. One morning the busy doctor invited Sue into the hallway with a shaggy, grey eyebrow. "She has one chance in - let us say, ten," he said, as he shook down the mercury in his clinical thermometer. " And that chance is for her to want to live. This way people have of lining-u on the side of the undertaker makes the entire pharmacopoeia look silly. Your little lady has made up her mind that she's not going to get well. Has she anything on her mind?" "She - she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples some day." said Sue. "Paint? - bosh! Has she anything on her mind worth thinking twice - a man for instance?"
< 2 > "A man?" said Sue, with a jew's-harp twang in her voice. "Is a man worth - but, no, doctor; there is nothing of the kind." "Well, it is the weakness, then," said the doctor. "I will do all that science, so far as it may filter through my efforts, can accomplish. But whenever my patient begins to count the carriages in her funeral procession I subtract 50 per cent from the curative power of medicines. If you will get her to ask one question about the new winter styles in cloak sleeves I will promise you a one-in-five chance for her, instead of one in ten." After the doctor had gone Sue went into the workroom and cried a Japanese napkin to a pulp. Then she swaggered into Johnsy's room with her drawing board, whistling ragtime. Johnsy lay, scarcely making a ripple under the bedclothes, with her face toward the window. Sue stopped whistling, thinking she was asleep. She arranged her board and began a pen-and-ink drawing to illustrate a magazine story. Young artists must pave their way to Art by drawing pictures for magazine stories that young authors write to pave their way to Literature. As Sue was sketching a pair of elegant horseshow riding trousers and a monocle of the figure of the hero, an Idaho cowboy, she heard a low sound, several times repeated. She went quickly to the bedside. Johnsy's eyes were open wide. She was looking out the window and counting - counting backward. "Twelve," she said, and little later "eleven"; and then "ten," and "nine"; and then "eight" and "seven", almost together. Sue look solicitously out of the window. What was there to count? There was only a bare, dreary yard to be seen, and the blank side of the brick house twenty feet away. An old, old ivy vine, gnarled and decayed at the roots, climbed half way up the brick wall. The cold breath of autumn had stricken its leaves from the vine until its skeleton branches clung, almost bare, to the crumbling bricks. "What is it, dear?" asked Sue. "Six," said Johnsy, in almost a whisper. "They're falling faster now. Three days ago there were almost a hundred. It made my head ache to count them. But now it's easy. There goes another one. There are only five left now." "Five what, dear? Tell your Sudie." "Leaves. On the ivy vine. When the last one falls I must go, too. I've known that for three days. Didn't the doctor tell you?"
< 3 > "Oh, I never heard of such nonsense," complained Sue, with magnificent scorn. "What have old ivy leaves to do with your getting well? And you used to love that vine so, you naughty girl. Don't be a goosey. Why, the doctor told me this morning that your chances for getting well real soon were - let's see exactly what he said - he said the chances were ten to one! Why, that's almost as good a chance as we have in New York when we ride on the street cars or walk past a new building. Try to take some broth now, and let Sudie go back to her drawing, so she can sell the editor man with it, and buy port wine for her sick child, and pork chops for her greedy self." "You needn't get any more wine," said Johnsy, keeping her eyes fixed out the window. "There goes another. No, I don't want any broth. That leaves just four. I want to see the last one fall before it gets dark. Then I'll go, too." "Johnsy, dear," said Sue, bending over her, "will you promise me to keep your eyes closed, and not look out the window until I am done working? I must hand those drawings in by to-morrow. I need the light, or I would draw the shade down." "Couldn't you draw in the other room?" asked Johnsy, coldly. "I'd rather be here by you," said Sue. "Beside, I don't want you to keep looking at those silly ivy leaves." "Tell me as soon as you have finished," said Johnsy, closing her eyes, and lying white and still as fallen statue, "because I want to see the last one fall. I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of thinking. I want to turn loose my hold on everything, and go sailing down, down, just like one of those poor, tired leaves." "Try to sleep," said Sue. "I must call Behrman up to be my model for the old hermit miner. I'll not be gone a minute. Don't try to move 'til I come back." Old Behrman was a painter who lived on the ground floor beneath them. He was past sixty and had a Michael Angelo's Moses beard curling down from the head of a satyr along with the body of an imp. Behrman was a failure in art. Forty years he had wielded the brush without getting near enough to touch the hem of his Mistress's robe. He had been always about to paint a masterpiece, but had never yet begun it. For several years he had painted nothing except now and then a daub in the line of commerce or advertising. He earned a little by serving as a model to those young artists in the colony who could not pay the price of a professional. He drank gin to excess, and still talked of his coming masterpiece. For the rest he was a fierce little old man, who scoffed terribly at softness in any one, and who regarded himself as especial mastiff-in-waiting to protect the two young artists in the studio above.
< 4 > Sue found Behrman smelling strongly of juniper berries in his dimly lighted den below. In one corner was a blank canvas on an easel that had been waiting there for twenty-five years to receive the first line of the masterpiece. She told him of Johnsy's fancy, and how she feared she would, indeed, light and fragile as a leaf herself, float away, when her slight hold upon the world grew weaker. Old Behrman, with his red eyes plainly streaming, shouted his contempt and derision for such idiotic imaginings. "Vass!" he cried. "Is dere people in de world mit der foolishness to die because leafs dey drop off from a confounded vine? I haf not heard of such a thing. No, I will not bose as a model for your fool hermit-dunderhead. Vy do you allow dot silly pusiness to come in der brain of her? Ach, dot poor leetle Miss Yohnsy." "She is very ill and weak," said Sue, "and the fever has left her mind morbid and full of strange fancies. Very well, Mr. Behrman, if you do not care to pose for me, you needn't. But I think you are a horrid old - old flibbertigibbet." "You are just like a woman!" yelled Behrman. "Who said I will not bose? Go on. I come mit you. For half an hour I haf peen trying to say dot I am ready to bose. Gott! dis is not any blace in which one so goot as Miss Yohnsy shall lie sick. Some day I vill baint a masterpiece, and ve shall all go away. Gott! yes." Johnsy was sleeping when they went upstairs. Sue pulled the shade down to the window-sill, and motioned Behrman into the other room. In there they peered out the window fearfully at the ivy vine. Then they looked at each other for a moment without speaking. A persistent, cold rain was falling, mingled with snow. Behrman, in his old blue shirt, took his seat as the hermit miner on an upturned kettle for a rock. When Sue awoke from an hour's sleep the next morning she found Johnsy with dull, wide-open eyes staring at the drawn green shade. "Pull it up; I want to see," she ordered, in a whisper. Wearily Sue obeyed. But, lo! after the beating rain and fierce gusts of wind that had endured through the livelong night, there yet stood out against the brick wall one ivy leaf. It was the last one on the vine. Still dark green near its stem, with its serrated edges tinted with the yellow of dissolution and decay, it hung bravely from the branch some twenty feet above the ground.
< 5 > "It is the last one," said Johnsy. "I thought it would surely fall during the night. I heard the wind. It will fall to-day, and I shall die at the same time." "Dear, dear!" said Sue, leaning her worn face down to the pillow, "think of me, if you won't think of yourself. What would I do?" But Johnsy did not answer. The lonesomest thing in all the world is a soul when it is making ready to go on its mysterious, far journey. The fancy seemed to possess her more strongly as one by one the ties that bound her to friendship and to earth were loosed. The day wore away, and even through the twilight they could see the lone ivy leaf clinging to its stem against the wall. And then, with the coming of the night the north wind was again loosed, while the rain still beat against the windows and pattered down from the low Dutch eaves. When it was light enough Johnsy, the merciless, commanded that the shade be raised. The ivy leaf was still there. Johnsy lay for a long time looking at it. And then she called to Sue, who was stirring her chicken broth over the gas stove. "I've been a bad girl, Sudie," said Johnsy. "Something has made that last leaf stay there to show me how wicked I was. It is a sin to want to die. You may bring a me a little broth now, and some milk with a little port in it, and - no; bring me a hand-mirror first, and then pack some pillows about me, and I will sit up and watch you cook." And hour later she said: "Sudie, some day I hope to paint the Bay of Naples." The doctor came in the afternoon, and Sue had an excuse to go into the hallway as he left. "Even chances," said the doctor, taking Sue's thin, shaking hand in his. "With good nursing you'll win." And now I must see another case I have downstairs. Behrman, his name is - some kind of an artist, I believe. Pneumonia, too. He is an old, weak man, and the attack is acute. There is no hope for him; but he goes to the hospital to-day to be made more comfortable." The next day the doctor said to Sue: "She's out of danger. You won. Nutrition and care now - that's all."
< 6 > And that afternoon Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay, contentedly knitting a very blue and very useless woollen shoulder scarf, and put one arm around her, pillows and all. "I have something to tell you, white mouse," she said. "Mr. Behrman died of pneumonia to-day in the hospital. He was ill only two days. The janitor found him the morning of the first day in his room downstairs helpless with pain. His shoes and clothing were wet through and icy cold. They couldn't imagine where he had been on such a dreadful night. And then they found a lantern, still lighted, and a ladder that had been dragged from its place, and some scattered brushes, and a palette with green and yellow colours mixed on it, and - look out the window, dear, at the last ivy leaf on the wall. Didn't you wonder why it never fluttered or moved when the wind blew? Ah, darling, it's Behrman's masterpiece - he painted it there the night that the last leaf fell."

Impeng Negro by Rogelio Sicat

"BAKA makikipag-away ka na naman, Impen."

Tinig iyon ng kanyang ina. Nangangaral na naman. Mula sa kinatatalungkuang giray na batalan, saglit siyang napatigil sa paghuhugas ng mumo sa kamay.

"Hindi ho," paungol niyang tugon.

"Hindi ho...," ginagad siya ng ina. "Bayaan mo na nga sila. Kung papansinin mo'y lagi ka ngang mababasag-ulo."

May iba pang sinasabi ang kanyang ina ngunit hindi na niya pinakinggan. Alam na niya ang mga iyon. Paulit-ulit na niyang naririnig. Nakukulili na ang kanyang tainga.

Isinaboy niya ang tubig na nasa harap. Muli siyang tumabo. Isinawak niya ang kamay, pinagkiskis ang mga palad at pagkaraa'y naghilamos.

"Dumaan ka kay Taba mamayang pag-uwi mo," narinig niyang bilin ng ina. "Wala nang gatas si Boy. Eto ang pambili."

Tumindig na siya. Nanghihinamad at naghihikab na iniunat ang mahahabang kamay. Inaantok pa siya. Gusto pa niyang magbalik sa sulok na kanyang higaan. Ngunit kailangang lumakad na siya. Tatanghaliin na naman bago siya makasahod. At naroon na naman marahil si Ogor. Kahit siya ang nauna ay lagi siyang inuunahan ni Ogor sa pagsahod.

Umingit ang sahig ng kanilang barungbarong nang siya'y pumasok.

"Nariyan sa kahon ang kamiseta mo."

Sa sulok ng kanyang kaliwang mata'y nasulyapan niya ang ina. Nakaupo ito, taas ang kaliwang paa, sa dulo ng halos dumapa nang bangko. Nakasandig ang ulo sa tagpiang dingding. Nakalugay ang buhok. Bukas ang kupasing damit na giris, nakahantad ang laylay at tuyot na dibdib. Kalong nito ang kanyang kapatid na bunso. Pinasususo.

"Mamaya,aka umuwi ka namang...basag ang mukha."

Bahagya na niyang maulinigan ang ina. Nakatitig siya sa tatlo pa niyang kapatid. Sunud-sunod na nakatalungko ang mga ito sa isa pang bangkong nas atagiliran ng nanggigimalmal na mesang kainan. nagsisikain pa.

Matagal na napako ang kanyang tingin kay Kano, ang sumunod sa kanya. Maputi si Kano, kaya ganito ang tawag dito sa kanilang pook. Kakutis ni Kano ang iba pa niyang kapatid. Marurusing ngunit mapuputi. May pitong taon na si Kano. Siya nama'y maglalabing-anim na. Payat siya ngunit mahahaba ang kanyang biyas.

Hinalungkat na niya ang kahong karton na itinuro ng ina. Magkakasama ang mga damit nila nina Kano, Boyet at Diding. Sa may ilalim, nakuha niya ang kulay-lumot niyang kamiseta. Hinawakan niya iyon sa magkabilang tirante. Itinaas. Sinipat.

"Yan na'ng isuot mo." Parang nahulaan ng kanyang ina ang kanyang iniisip.

Isinuot niya ang kamiseta. Lapat na lapat sa kanya ang kamisetang iyon noong bagong bili ngunit ngayo'y maluwag na. Nagmumukha siyang Intsik-beho kapag suot iyon ngunit wala naman siyang maraming kamisetang maisusuot. Mahina ang kita ng kanyang ina sa paglalabada; mahina rin ang kanyang kita sa pag-aagwador.

Nagbalik siya sa batalan. Nang siya'y lumabas, pasan na niya ang kargahan. Tuluy-tuloy niyang tinungo ang hagdan.

"Si Ogor, Impen," pahabol na bilin ng kanyang ina. "Huwag mo nang papansinin."

Naulinigan niya ang biling iyon at aywan kung dahil sa inaantok pa siya, muntik na siyang madapa nang matalisod sa nakausling bato sa may paanan ng kanilang hagdan.

Tuwing umagang mananaog siya upang umigib, pinagpapaalalahanan siya ng ina. Huwag daw siyang makikipagbabag. Huwag daw niyang papansinin si Ogor. Talaga raw gayon ito: basagulero. Lagi niyang isinasaisip ang mga biling ito ngunit sadya yatang hindi siya makapagtitimpi kapag naririnig niya ang masasakit na panunuksyo sa kanya sa gripo, lalung-lalo na mula kay Ogor.

Si Ogor, na kamakailan lamang ay bumabag sa kanya, ang malimit magsisimula ng panunukso:

"Ang itim mo, Impen!" itutukso nito.

"Kapatid mo ba si Kano?" isasabad ng isa sa mga nasa gripo.

"Sino ba talaga ang tatay mo?"

"Sino pa," isisingit ni Ogor, "di si Dikyam!"

Sasambulat na ang nakabibinging tawanan. Pinakamatunog ang tawa ni Ogor. Si Ogor ang kinikilalang hari sa gripo.
Noong una, sinasagot niya ang mga panunuksong ito:

"E ano kung maitim?" isasagot niya.

Nanunuri ang mga mata at nakangising iikutan siya ni Ogor. Pagkuwa'y bigla na lamang nitong kakayurin ng hintuturo ang balat sa kanyang batok.

"Negrung-negro ka nga, Negro," tila nandidiring sasabihin ni Ogor. Magsusunuran nang manukso ang iba pang agwador. Pati ang mga batang naroon: Tingnan mo ang buhok. Kulot na kulot! Tingnan mo ang ilong. Sarat na sarat! Naku po, ang nguso...Namamalirong!

Sa katagalan, natanggap na niya ang panunuksong ito. Iyon ang totoo, sinasabi niya sa sarili. Negro nga siya. Ano kung Negro? Ngunit napapikit siya. Ang tatay niya'y isang sundalong Negro na nang maging anak siya'y biglang nawala sa Pilipinas.

Ang panunuksong hindi niya matanggap, at siya ngang pinagmulan ng nakaraan nilang pagbababag ni Ogor, ay ang sinabi nito tungkol sa kanyang ina. (Gayon nga kaya kasama ang kanyang ina?)

"Sarisari ang magiging kapatid ni Negro," sinabi ni Ogor. "Baka makatatlo pa ang kanyang nanay ngayon!"

Noong kabuntisan ng kanyang ina sa kapatid niyang bunso ay iniwan ito ng asawa. Hindi malaman kung saan nagsuot. At noon, higit kailanman, naging hamak sila sa pagtingin ng lahat. Matagal-tagal ding hindi naglabada ang kanyang ina, nahihiyang lumabas sa kanilang barungbarong. Siya ang nagpatuloy sa pag-aagwador. At siya ang napagtuunan ng sarisaring panunukso.

Natandaan niya ang mga panunuksong iyon. At mula noon, nagsimula nang umalimpuyo sa kanyang dibdib ang dati'y binhi lamang ng isang paghihimagsik: nagsusumigaw na paghihimagsik sa pook na iyong ayaw magbigay sa kanila ng pagkakataong makagitaw at mabuhay nang payapa.

Sariwa pa ang nangyaring pakikipagbabag niya kay Ogor, naiisip ni Impen habang tinatalunton niya ang mabatong daan patungo sa gripo. Mula sa bintana ng mga barungbarong, nakikita niyang nagsusulputan ang ulo ng mga bata. Itinuturo siya ng mga iyon. Sa kanya rin napapatingin ang matatanda. Walang sinasabi ang mga ito, ngunit sa mga mata, sa galaw ng mga labi nababasa nya ang isinisigaw ng mga paslit: Negro!

Napapatungo na laamang siya.

Natatanaw na niya ngayon ang gripo. Sa malamig ngunit maliwanag nang sikat ng araw, nakikita na niya ang langkay ng mga agwador. Nagkakatipun-tipon ang mga ito. Nagkakatuwaan. Naghaharutan.

Sa langkay na iyon ay kilalang-kilala niya ang anyo ni Ogor. Paano niya malilimutan si Ogor? Sa mula't mula pa, itinuring na siya nitong kaaway, di kailanman binigyan ng pagkakataong maging kaibigan.

Halos kassingulang niya si Ogor, ngunit higit na matipuno ang katawan nito. Malakas si Ogor. Tuwid ang tindig nito at halos hindi yumuyuko kahit may pasang balde ng tubig; tila sino mang masasalubong sa daan ay kayang-kayang sagasaan.
Nang marating niya ang gripo ay tungo ang ulog tinungo niya ang hulihan ng pila. Marahan niyang inalis sa pagkakakawit ang mga balde. Sa sarili, nausal niyang sana'y huwag siya ang maging paksa ng paghaharutan at pagkakatuwaan ng mga agwador.

Nakakaanim na karga na si Impen. May sisenta sentimos nang kumakalansing sa bulsa ng kutod niyang maong. May isa pang nagpapaigib sa kanya. Diyes sentimos na naman. Kapag tag-araw ay malaki-laki rin ang kinikita ng mga agwador. Mahina ang tulo ng tubig sa kanilang pook. At bihira ang may poso.

Tanghali na akong makauuwi nito, nausal niya habang binibilang sa mata ang mga nakapilang balde. Maluwag ang parisukat na sementong kinatitirikan ng gripo at ang dulo ng pila'y nasa labas pa niyon.

Di-kalayuan sa gripo ay may isang tindahan. Sa kalawanging medya-agwa niyon ay nakasilong ang iba pang agwador. May naghubad na ng damit at isinampay na lamang sa balikat. May nagpapaypay May kumakain ng halu-halo.

Sa pangkat na iyon ay kay Ogor agad natutok ang kanyang tingin. Pnilit niyang supilin ang hangaring makasilong. Naroon sa tindahan si Ogor. Hubad-baro at ngumingisi. Mauupo na lamang siya sa kanyang balde. Mabuti pa roon, kahit nakabilad sa init. Pasasaan ba't di iikli ang pila? naisip niya. Makasasahod din ako.

Kasalukuyan siyang nagtitiis sa init nang may maulinigan siyang siga mula sa tindahan:



"Hoy, Negro, sumilong ka. Baka ka pumuti!"

Si Ogor iyon. Kahit hindi siya lumingon, para na niyang nakita si Ogor. Nakangisi at nanunukso na naman.

"Negro," muli niyang narinig, "sumilong ka sabi, e. Baka ka masunog!"

Malakas ang narinig niyang tawanan. Hindi pa rin siya lumilingon. Tila wala siyang naririnig. Nakatingin siya sa nakasahod na balde ngunit ang naiisip niya'y ang bilin ng ina, na huwag na niyang papansinin si Ogor. Bakit nga ba niya papansinin si Ogor?

Tinigilan naman ni Ogor ang panunukso. Hindi pa rin siya umaalis sa kinauupuang balde. At habang umiisod ang pila, nararamdaman niyang lalong umiinit ang sikat ng araw. Sa paligid ng balde, nakikia niya ang kanyang anino. Tumingala siya ngunit siya'y nasilaw. Nanghahapdi at waring nasusunog ang kanyang balat. Tila ibig nang matuklap ang balat sa kanyang batok, likod at balikat. Namumuo ang pawis sa kanyang anit at sa ibabaw ng kanyang nguso. may butil na rin ng pawis sa kanyang ilong.

Itinaas niya ang tirante ng kamiseta. Hinipan-hipan niya ang manipis na dibdib. Di natagalan, isinawak niya ang kamay sa nalalabing tubig sa balde. Una niyang binasa ang batok---kaylamig at kaysarap ng tubig sa kanyang batok. Malamig. Binasa niya ang ulo. Kinuskos niya ang kanyang buhok at nabasa pati ang kanyang anit. Binasa niya ang balikat, ang mga bisig. May nadama siyang ginhawa ngunit pansamantala lamang iyon. Di nagtagal, muli niyang naramdaman na tila nangangalirang na naman ang kanyang balat. Kay hapdi ng kanyang batok at balikat.

"Negro!" Napauwid siya sa pagkakaupo nang marinig iyon. Nasa likuran lamang niya ang nagsalita. Si Ogor. "Huwag ka nanag magbibilad. Doon ka sa lamig."

Pagkakataon na ni Ogor upang sumahod. At habang itinatapat nito ang balde sa gripo, muli niyang nakita na nginingisihan siya nito.

Napakatagal sa kanya ang pagkapuno ng mga balde ni ogor. Napabuntong-hininga siya nang makitang kinakawitan na ni Ogor ang mga balde. Sa wakas, aalis na si Ogor, naisip niya. Aalis na si Ogor. Huwag na sana siyang bumalik.

May galak na sumusuno sa kanyang dibdib habang pinagmamasdan ang pagkapuno ng sinundang balde. Susunod na siya. Makaka sahod na siya. Makakasahod na rin ako, sabi niya sa sarili. pagkaraan ng kargang iyon ay uuwi na siya. Daraan pa nga pala siya kay Taba. Bibili ng gatas.

Datapwa, pagkaalis ng hinihintay niyang mapunong balde, at isasahod na lamang ang sa kanya, ay isang mabigat at makapangyarihang kamay ang biglang pumatong sa kanyang balikat. Si Ogor ang kanyang natingala. Malapit lamang pala ang pinaghatidan nito ng tubig.

"Gutom na ako, Negro," sabi ni Ogor. "Ako muna."

Pautos iyon. Iginitgit ni Ogor ang bitbit na balde at kumalantog ang kanilang mga balde. Iginitgit din niya ang sa kanya, bahagya nga lamang at takot na paggitgit. "Kadarating mo pa lamang, Ogor, nais niyang itutol. Kangina pa ako nakapila rito, a. Ako muna sabi, e," giit ni Ogor.

Bantulot niyang binawi ang balde, nakatingin pa rin kay Ogor. Itinaob niya ang kaunting nasahod na balde at ang tubig ay gumapang sa semento at umabog sa kanilang mga paa ni Ogor. Uuwi na ako, bulong niya sa sarili. Uuwi na ako. Mamaya na lang ako iigib uli. Nakatingin sa araw, humakbang siya upang kunin ang pingga ngunit sa paghakbang na iyon, bigla siyang pinatid ni Ogor.

"Ano pa ba ang ibinubulong mo?"

Hindi n a niya narinig iyon. Nabuwal siya. Tumama ang kanan niyang pisngi sa labi ng nabiawang balde. Napasigaw siya. Malakas. Napaluhod siya sa madulas na semento. Kagyat na bumaha ang nakaliliyong dilim sa kanyang utak. Habang nakaluhod, dalawang kamay niyang tinutop ang pisngi. Takot, nanginginig ang kanyang mga daliri. Dahan-dahan niyang iniangat iyon. Basa...Mapula...Dugo!

Nanghilakbot siya. Sa loob ng isang saglit, hindi niya maulit na salatin ang biyak na pisngi. Mangiyak-ngiyak siya.
"O-ogor...O-ogor..." Nakatingala siya kay Ogor, mahigpit na kinukuyom ang mga palad. Kumikinig ang kanyang ulo at nangangalit ang kanyang ngipin. "Ogor!" sa wakas ay naisigaw niya.

Hindi minabuti ni Ogor ang kanyang pagsigaw. Sinipa siya nito. Gumulong siya. Buwal ang lahat ng baldeng nalalabi sa pila. Nagkalugkugan. Nakarinig siya ng tawanan. At samantalang nakadapa, unti-unting nabuo sa walang malamang sulingan niyang mga mata ang mga paang alikabukin. Paparami iyon at pumapaligid sa kanya.

Bigla siyang bumaligtad. nakita niya ang naghuhumindig na anyo ni Ogor. Nakaakma ang mga bisig.

"O-ogor..."

Tumawa nang malakas si Ogor. Humihingal at nakangangang napapikit siya. Pumuslit ang luha sa sulok ng kanyang mga mata. Nasa ganito siyang kalagayan nang bigla niyang maramdaman ang isang ubos-lakas na sipa sa kanyang pigi. Napasigaw iya. Umiiyak siyang gumuglong sa basa at madulas na semento. Namimilipit siya. Tangan ang sinipang pigi, ang buong anyo ng nakaangat niyang mukha'y larawan ng matinding sakit.

Matagal din bago napawi ang paninigas ng kanyang pigi. Humihingal siya. Malikot ang kanyang mga mata nang siya'y bumangon at itukod ang mga kamay sa semento.

Si ogor...Sa mula't mula pa'y itinuring na siya nitong kaaway...Bakit siya ginaganoon ni Ogor?

Kumikinig ang kanyang katawan. Sa poot. Sa naglalatang na poot. At nang makita niyang muling aangat ang kanang paa ni Ogor upang sipain siyang muli ay tila nauulol na asong sinunggaban niya iyon at niyakap at kinagat.

Bumagsak ang nawalan ng panimbang na si Ogor. nagyakap sila. Pagulung-gulong. Hindi siya bumibitiw. Nang siya'y mapaibabaw, sinunud-ssunod niya: dagok, dagok, dagok... pahalipaw... papaluka...papatay.

Sa pook na iyon, sa nakaririmarim na pook na iyon, aba ang pagtingin sa kanila. Marumi ng babae ang kanyang ina. Sarisari ang anak. At siya isang maitim, hamak na Negro! Papatayin niya si Ogor. papatayin. Papatayinnn!

Dagok, dagok, dagok...Nag-uumigting ang kanyang mga ugat. Tila asong nagpipilit makapaibabaw si Ogor. Tila bakal na kumakapit ang mga kamay. Sa isang iglap siya naman ang napailalim. Dagok, dagok. Nagpipihit siya. Tatagilid. Naiiri. Muling matitihaya. Hindi niya naiilagan ang dagok ni Ogor. Nasisilaw siya sa araw. Napipikit siya. Mangungudngod siya, mahahalik sa lupa. Ngunit wala siyang nararamdaman sakit. Wala siyang nararamdamang sakit!

Kakatatlo ng asawa si Inay. Si Kano...si Boyet...si Diding...At siya...Negro. Negro. Negro!

Sa mga dagok ni ogor, tila nasasalinan pa siya ng lakas. Bigla, ubos-lakas at nag-uumiri siyang umigtad. napailalim si Ogor. Nahantad ang mukha ni Ogor. Dagok, bayo, dagok, bayo, dagok, bayo, dagok...Kahit saan. Sa dibdib. Sa mukha. Dagok, bayo, dagok, bayo, dagok, dagok, dagok...

Mahina na si ogor. Lupaypay na. Nalalaglag na ang nagsasanggang kamay. Humihingal na rin siya, humahagok. Ngunit nagliliyab pa rin ang poot sa kanyang mga mata. Dagok. Papaluka. Dagok, bayo, dagok, bayo, dagok...



Gumagalaw-galaw ang sabog na labi ni Ogor.

"Impen..."

Muli niyang itinaas ang kamay.

"I-Impen..." Halos hindi niya narinig ang halingling ni Ogor. "I-Impen...s-suko n-na...a-ako...s-suko...n-na...a-ako!"

Naibaba niya ang nakataas na kamay. Napasuko niya si Ogor! Napatingala siya Abut-abot ang pahingal. makaraan ang ilang sandali, dahan-dahan at nanlalambot siyang tumindig, nakatuon ang mga mata kay Ogor. Wasak ang kanyang kamiseta at duguan ang kanyang likod. May basa ng dugo't lupa ang kanyang nguso.

Marmaing sandaling walang nangahas magsalita. Walang makakibo sa mga agwador. Hindi makapaniwala ang lahat. Lahat ay nakatingin sa kanya.

Isa-isa niyang tiningnan ang mga nakapaligid sa kanya. Walang pagtutol sa mga mata ng mga ito. Ang nababakas niya'y paghanga. Ang nakita niya'y pangingimi.

Pinangingimian siya!

May luha siya sa mata ngunit may galak siyang nadama. Luwalhati. Hinagud-hagod niya ang mga kamao. nadama niya ang bagong tuklas na lakas niyon. Ang tibay. Ang tatag. Ang kapangyarihan. Muli niyang tiningnan ang nakabulagtang si Ogor. Pagkaraa'y nakapikit at buka ang labing nag-angat siya ng mukha.

Sa matinding sikat ng araw, tila sya ang mandirigmang sugatan, ngunit matatag na nakatindig sa pinagwagihang larangan.

A Question of Fidelity

This story was being authored by Gemino Abad, and it is copied with permission with the author.

I KNOW, Filo I know," Paco told his imaginary self, "in a story it would be a cheap trick, and Nelson would surely deride it." But there it was! could he help it?--on the cab's front door was written, Great is your faithfulness. It caught him up as though it laid a mocking charge at his door, and as his heart tingled, he sensed that it was the last incident, entirely factual, which should illuminate the fiction of his past. But his own life story? "Ye gods!" it was farthest from his mind. And the last incident? why? The first day of the advertisers' conference had just ended and he was only waiting for Bianca at the balcony of Inday's candle shop, idly watching in Baguio's misty dusk the customers that came into the café below, when the cab drove in and stopped to let off someone. A pretty girl, her legs faintly luminous as she slid out, glanced up at him and hurried inside. It was the merest instant, lost at once. "How many such moments in a lifetime, ha Filo?" he gibed, but Filo only stared, wildly considering a moment's impulse… No, Paco didn't think the pretty girl resembled Bianca. Not at all.
Paco was creative director in the Asia-Pacific Ad World, Inc., and Bianca, his assistant, who took charge of the two biggest accounts with the company, Coca-Cola and Philip Morris. For quite a while now, whenever they had their coffee breaks and exchanged notes on the company's business dealings and enjoyed each other's bantering, he sometimes sensed a sweet yearning for her. She was young and alive, nice-smelling, pretty… But he would quickly repress it. "Ye gods, Filo!" he'd inwardly cry, "I'm past fifty and happily married. It's juvenile, your hankering after a lost youth, also called midlife crisis, haha! Bianca in her mid-twenties, could very well be my own daughter, and surely has not a few male friends, much younger, and not-unlikely, has a special affection for one."
In the hazy light from street and café Paco couldn't catch more of the cab's text as it drove away. It was surely from the Old Testament, the Psalms maybe, but surely too, this puzzling now was a distraction, a quick evasion. For some time he had wondered whether he could unravel to himself his own story. Then, perhaps, he might see into his future or, at least, the sort of person that he had become from which events still to happen must inexorably take their form. But what a strange notion, that if he were to contrive now his real life-story, just such a cab's message should happen just as it already has, as a twist to his past's fiction.
Paco smiled to himself. He was in fact, it seemed to him, always living his story, or that of his pathetic "other," Filo. Bianca had promised that she would join him at Inday's. He glanced at his watch, quarter to six. There were many things to talk over, they had agreed, but he wasn't eager to review them just now, he would as usual simply let things happen as they come. Filo would of course insist that he take control, but he knew Filo--at the last moment, he would draw back. No, certain things you just let happen, they take their natural course like the common cold. Sometimes, when you try to have it your way, things become a little perverse, as though they have a will of their own. The important thing is to avoid hurting anyone.
"Are you avoiding me, Paco?" Bianca had asked point-blank while they were having their usual coffee break in the office. "No, of course not, Bai," he had quickly denied. It was a lie, but what choice did he have? She had frowned but did not press. A simple denial was best, for explanations are like clouds, forming and dispersing, the words failing short, or worse, aghast to spell out the heart's agenda, embarrassed with its yearning items. There are simply no clear skies in human affairs, and so, how could he even begin to explain to Bianca?
Whenever he mentioned Bianca to his wife Agnes, usually over breakfast when they would relate some events the day before, he sensed that it agitated her although she never let on. An uneasy feeling would come over him, perhaps from the way Agnes looked, as though she had not heard anything, or as though on a sudden her mind were somewhere else, but her eyes would turn sad, as if a light there had been snuffed, and he would feel guilty and vexed at the same time. It would always make him vaguely apprehensive and irritable, her sad look, her silence, as though he had done her wrong, haunting him through his day at the office.
Agnes was the senior partner with four women friends in a law firm that they had put up. She often came home late, and after kissing him, looking up from his papers at his work table, she would quietly enter their teenage son Dylan's room and kiss him, already fast asleep, and later carry the laundry in her arms to the washing machine before she retired for the night. She called it a form of relaxation! She had a remarkable strength of character, managerial, down-to-earth, which often bared his pathetic inadequacy in practical matters, yet capable of gentleness, a rich warmth of affection and intense loyalty, but also to his secret discomfiture a fine, sometimes even caustic moral sense… Surely he had resented it at times,. finding no reasonable excuse, because he tended toward sloth and a happy indifference. Filo was poor refuge, just as well quite hid. O, he loved Agnes, and the future had often seemed bleak without her quiet affection, her cool efficiency…
What could be keeping Bianca? Paco lighted a cigarette. Maybe in a quarter or so, he could take a cab back to Pines Hotel to look for her. He leaned over the balcony and watched the small crowd below in the café's patio. A young man with unkempt hair swirling around his twin cowlicks, in faded jeans with a tear on the right knee, was sitting at one table, tuning his guitar and trying a few chords. A dark frail-looking girl sat close to him, indifferently watching the passersby on the street as she sipped at the straw into her bottle of Coke. The tip of her straw was stained a deep red… "What, Filo?" It was strange that Filo should be perturbed by the stain. "Maybe they're lovers, ha Filo?" he felt a twinge of envy. Maybe there was going to be a performance later, and would she be singing? Four guys were noisily talking and laughing over their bottles of beer and chicharon at another table, and rose as one with a loud cheer, "Rita!" as the pretty girl he was earlier looking at joined them.
A dèjá vu swept Paco to a familiar café, he had met Rita before! among other noisy customers, but as he looked closely at her, he was certain it had never happened. No, it was not possible, however Filo denied it. He looked again. Though the light from street and café struggled with the pervading dusk, Rita's face seemed to glow with a kind of companionable warmth. Just such bright almond eyes, too, and a full sensual mouth... Rita threw her head back and laughed, and Paco could hardly take his eyes off where the little delta between her breasts fairly glowed in the hazy light. Something snakelike too about her as she leaned over the table to touch familiarly an arm or push jestingly at one or the other of the flirtatious guys. "Like a snake, Filo?" however did he, Paco, get that impression? Filo sneered at Paco's recollection. He was only eighteen when he had gone up to Baguio for the first time and proposed to meet the woman caller at Star Café. She too had long dark hair and wore a tight dark red dress which showed her figure to advantage. No, she was not a Chinese mestiza like Rita, but she was not unattractive. Her name, she had told him over the phone, was Zita.
His parents didn't know at the time that he was attending the YMCA Summer Youth Leadership Conference. It wasn't right, they would have said, to participate in a Protestant fellowship. He went ahead of his friends Nelson and Deomund from UP Los Baños to see the city for himself the day before, enjoy the scenery freely wandering around, even perhaps write ardent verses under the pine trees for Deomund's sister, Celine, without the distraction of endless debates with Nelson on what makes a poem.
At the bus station--was it somewhere near Tutuban? he couldn't quite recall just now--after a hurried lunch, he noticed that his Dangwa ticket bore his lucky number: 7490. Neither could he recall where Nelson had read that 4 was in Chinese mythology the number for Death, but it had always seemed to him a good omen. He sat almost at the edge of his seat during the entire trip because he had an old couple for seatmates, an enormously fat woman with a can of La Perla biscuits on her lap where she would dip from time to time for a nibble, and a small, sickly looking man, obviously her husband, who was quite glum but would sometimes mutter and whine to himself. To keep from failing or pressing against the glum old man whenever the bus made a sharp turn, he would grip hard the bar on the back of the opposite seat across the aisle which had become cluttered with luggage and boxes. He decided the old couple wouldn't be pleasant company for six hours, and pretended to be dozing most of the time while keeping his grip with an outstretched hand on his bar. The fat woman never offered him a biscuit during the entire trip.
"Isbo! Isbo!" the conductor cried before they went up Kennon Road. The bus stopped at a roadside where, as the cloud of dust settled, he could see dark naked boys cavorting like nimble goats over the rocks and diving into the clear waters of a mountain stream that glittered in the sun. A number of passengers, among them the old couple, went down to relieve themselves among the scraggly bushes. It was a painful sight, the fat woman with her husband in tow navigating the cluttered aisle, stepping carefully over the luggage and holding on to the seats or the other passengers, as they made their way to the door. Outside, in the soft wash of five o'clock sunlight, the glum old man had to cling to the fat woman's neck with his left arm as he stood shaking, waited, and then blessed the grass and scatter of shards on the ground.
As the bus climbed the zigzag along the mountain slopes, Paco's ears seemed suddenly to have fallen deaf and then softly popped and filled again with the bus engine's roar and the passengers' incessant chatter. He felt buoyant and free, eagerly awaiting his first sight of Baguio as pine trees raced past the fat woman's dozing head at the window and flushed the cool mountain air with their fresh invigorating scent. His eye caught a waterfall dropping gracefully like a long, serene sheet of shimmering lace down a cliff crowded with desperate trees and shrubs. How he wished, as the sight vanished around a bend, he could get off there awhile to stretch his cramped legs and gaze at the silent marvel of clear mountain water leaping out of the sky! Was it perhaps an American colonial officer who called it Bridal Veil the first time that he climbed up to the site of Baguio from camp to camp on a relay of horses? Who was the bride he thought of--perhaps an Igorot maid, a village chief's peace offering… Paco dismissed his fantasy. Deomund would surely scoff: "So the past romanticizes itself to clear its conscience." When Paco saw the gigantic lion's head carved out of the rock over a cliff's edge, he knew they would he in Baguio soon enough.
They drove past villas and pretty cottages along a ridge amid their lush flowering gardens, a roadside café, a sprawling bungalow displaying its rich stores of woodcraft and woven things--Ah, here at last, thought Paco, the summer capital of government and the rich, the Shangri-La of honeymoons. The bus chugged tiredly on a narrow dirt road to its station, on either side a clutter of shanties and ramshackle stores, and ragged children playing among the litter of the poor--a squatter colony among pine trees vanishing down a ravine. Through the tall pines like towers lost in the gathering shadows, Paco glimpsed the dull gold-brown sheen of dome and spires, the Baguio Cathedral in the last light of day.
At the bus station, he asked for directions to Session Road from a boy vendor of strawberries in little rattan baskets. A cab driver offered to take him to Patria Inn, but no, he preferred to walk the distance, breathe the cool pine-scented air, and jostle with the crowd strolling pell-mell down Session Road as the city throbbed to life in the neon flood and blare of music and hubbub of trade and fellowship. He was in no hurry to get to his inn. His luggage was light, which he slung over his shoulder, and despite the long trip, he felt energized by the festive tumult around him. Neither was he hungry; perhaps he might just have a snack before midnight in one of those bars that he had passed. Never had he felt freer, it was as though he had all of life and the world to enjoy at leisure. He was glad when, at the inn, he was given a room that looked out on an empty lot, filled with the debris of a wrecked building but gazing out on Session Road so that, at his window, he caught still the strains of music from the bars and felt the quiet, undemanding companionship of strangers in the streaming crowd.
The phone suddenly rang, startling him. He hadn't told either Deomund or Nelson about Patria Inn. "Hello?" Perhaps someone had dialed the wrong number. "Yes?" A tinny rasp at the other end. "Who is it?" Standing by the large bed, he held the telephone set absently over the lamp at a low side table. "You don't know me," a woman's soft voice, "if you're lonely, I'm at Star Café…" Is it right to just--hang up' now? "Hello?" pretending he didn't quite hear. But she probably sensed his confusion. "Will you come?" So frank and direct a dare, and is he able? A listening silence like a spell. Who is she? "It's okay, I just got in…" at once he felt stupid. "I…" Yes, why shouldn't he just hang up, 'Sorry, ma'am'--a cruel touch! "Oh," a sigh, or so he imagined, "I'll wait, take your time." What lame excuse now? he'd be a silly "country bumpkin," in Nelson's words. "Alright," pretending casualness, a cool indifference. "I'll see you there." He heard a low nervous giggle, as to say perhaps how easily she had won! "Oh, how nice… I like your voice. Call me Zita." She twitters, and he is caught! but she cannot see, he had better have a hold on himself. "I'm Filo," the first name that came to mind "how will I know it's you, Zita?" Ah, what pretense, even the way he made his voice deep and resonant; he felt a tremor of adventurous daring. What will happen now? he had crossed over. "I'm in a red mini, with a white handbag," Zita's voice caught on a light mischievous note, "waiting at the counter by the cashier. Will you really come, Filo?" She was confidently teasing. "Yes," he was surer of himself now, "I'll have a dark-leather jacket on, and a blue cap," both which he didn't have, but he had already formed a plan.
She was indeed sitting at the counter on a high stool near the cashier, her long shapely legs catching the eye at once, and a glass of Coke beside her small white handbag. He dallied just outside Star Café to buy the Manila Times from an old woman vendor before he took a corner table at the foot of a stair where he took cover in the editorial page. Ostensibly reading--"Oh, just coffee, black ha," to the Chinese waiter who hovered above the page--he watched Zita cross her legs and lean her head a little on her left hand which she had placed behind her ear, her long dark hair flowing to the small of her back. She was not unattractive, just about his age, too, and she cut a nice sensuous figure in her red mini. He was glad he hadn't said, "Oh, so sorry, ma'am" and hung up. Something easy and nimble too about her movement as, she reached for her bag and took out a little mirror where she checked her face, frowning a little. This is for real, Filo, he thought, he wasn't imagining a temptress in a garden. Perhaps Zita earns her college tuition from tourists and vacationers. But now, what? Zita looked quickly around as she put back the mirror into her bag, then scanned three, four customers as they went in from the crowd of passersby and vendors on the pavement just outside Star Café. She straightened up, looked briefly in his direction where he slid between the movie pages and reached for his cup of coffee. For a split second there, did not her glance catch his eye, his solitariness suddenly suspect, as his hand froze at his cup? She must already have paid her bill, or perhaps, she was a favored customer at the café; pushing aside her empty glass, she spoke to the cashier, slid gracefully from her high stool at the counter, and left him stranded, somehow disconsolate, amid all the movies "Now Showing."
His eyes followed Zita's dark red form and quickly lost her in the crowd. But Filo still pursued her, calling her name. How he filled Paco with distaste. The milling crowd on Session Road suddenly seemed cheerless and indifferent. Passing by a bar called Melody, he thought a snack would feel like gravel in his mouth. Zita? probably his own fiction. Couldn't he just have walked casually up to her, confidently touch her arm on the counter, say "I'm Filo"… Now she was only an imaginary garden, and Filo the only live toad there, he could croak all night! He went up to his room and stripped to mock Filo in the bathroom mirror. Filo only hovers at the edge of critical moments, but does not live. At heart perhaps, give him breath and space for action, a schemer, and like all schemers, slinks away as the moment rises to its accomplishment. Ah, he was thoroughly punished for his empty daring.
"O, Paco, how long were you waiting?" He started at Bianca's cheery voice as she tapped lightly his elbow on the balcony's railing. She looked pretty and elegant in her plaid skirt, sky blue blouse, and a silken scarf around her throat. Paco was glad he hadn't gone back to the hotel to look for her. She always seemed to bring exhilaration to his accustomed solitude where Filo, he imagined, would just sulk in a shallow pond, his dreams awash in lichen. It was what drew him to her, not simply that hey enjoyed their imagination together in creating images and texts for their clients, it always seemed as though they were opening up worlds where they could be quite free, basking in their fantastic light; no, not only the free rein to their imagination, but her vitality, which seemed to sharpen a sad knowledge, long denied, that he had missed those tricky and delicious moments with women in his youth's dry and desolate solitariness; Bianca's was a kind of wild electric vibrancy which often expressed itself in youthful mischief, when she'd slice into his seriousness with some witty gibe or even play a trick or two on his projects, deliberately confounding the mathematics in some corner of the budget (but she always found a clever way for him to notice the absurd error).
"I'm so sorry, Paco, I had to help the girls run photocopies…" "It's okay, Bai, I was just watching Rita." "Rita?" Bianca's eyes squinted with mock envy. "It's a secret." He wanted to see surprise on her face. "Oh… you were dreaming!" she jeered blithely. "Look there… but keep your voice down. There, with those boisterous crooks. She's very pretty, no?" "So… you were dreaming." She looked at him, smiling, and he laughed. It was so characteristic of Bianca, scoring at once and taking charge, while he let things be, considering most as indifferent, and content to be left alone or merely jest and banter. "O, but I was also thinking, how do you steal an image from that scene for a Coca-Cola commercial?" "Right," she taunted, "how do you rouse a cliché?" "Maybe you'd like to look around in the shop?" "No, let's go somewhere else." "Neutron's?" Bianca nodded. "The evening's so cool, Paco, let's enjoy it and walk."
They took the spiral stairs down to the café. As they passed Rita's table, Bianca glanced at her, the way a woman swiftly appraises another, it always mystified Paco why women seem instinctively driven to it. As they rounded a corner of the street, she asked, "Did you just invent that name for her?" "No, I heard those guys call her Rita," "She's pretty," she concluded, "with a mole on her lip which makes her a chatterbox." Paco couldn't help but laugh, "Such a serious charge, Bai!"
As they turned another corner, they could see through the dark cascade of pine trees down a winding street, dimly lighted Burnham Park and its small glimmering lake, now quite deserted. Neutron's was a private cozy café on a hill that overlooked it. Only a few customers were quietly conversing at small round tables. Seeming to flow and tingle like a brook in air were soft strains played by a pianist behind a trellis of flowering plants. They took a table in an alcove and ordered drinks, creme de menthe for Bianca and vodka tonic for himself.
"Well, you start it, Bai," as they waited for their drinks, "you said we have things to talk over." "Okay," fingering her scarf around her throat, "you just seem a little distant these days. Is there something… wrong?" "Really?" but Paco knew it was coming, Bianca was always forthright, "it may just be something that worries me… in the family, you know." He lighted a cigarette. Bianca seemed to study him a while. "Dylan is asthmatic. But we've been to an acupuncturist, I think it'll cure the kid."
Paco considered his white lie. It would be indelicate to involve Agnes; besides, his impression of her odd silences on Bianca might really be quite spurious. He remembered Dylan's first attack of asthma a month back. The poor kid barged crying into their bedroom, breathing heavily. "It's alright, son," he tried to comfort him as he got out of bed and placed his arm around his son's shoulder, "you can sleep with us"--as Dylan used to when he was little. But he felt helpless before his son's anguish and could only wish it were his own affliction. Agnes went to the medicine cabinet and set up the respirator. She took off Dylan's shirt and rubbed some ointment on his chest as he lay in bed, gasping for breath. Through all that, leaning on the headboard, he kept gently tapping his son's shoulder as to tame his drowning, and as he watched mother and son, he felt a wave of tenderness toward Agnes…
"Acupuncture?" Bianca broke into his thoughts. "Yes," he pulled himself up, "Dr. Jesus Santiago, he's getting to be quite famous. He trained in China, I'm told, after Harvard medical school." "I sure hope, Paco, your son gets well soon. Can acupuncture treat insomnia, do you think?" "O, I should think so, but I'll ask next time we visit."
They fell silent awhile as a waitress in a light green uniform came with their drinks. She looked at Paco with a querying smile, Would that be all? and he waved her away, "Just ice water, please, and an ashtray, ha."
He looked earnestly at Bianca. "I think I need to be sure about something." "What?" teasing. "Does it bother you, Bai, when people talk, I mean, seeing how were often together, they'd be gossiping soon enough." "O, I would just ignore it, gossips are so empty-headed." "Trouble is," swirling the ice in his drink, "they don't know how else to fill up." "Too bad," shaking her head. "Well, as for me, I'd actually be pleased," said Paco, chuckling and looking slyly at her. "I think it would sort of improve my reputation." "Meaning?" her eyes lighted up mocking. "That there's danger in my character," Paco pursued quizzically, but half-serious, "not all milk of kindness, you know; it has a dark side." "So has everyone, but then," laughing, "as to that sleazy fame you want, you'd be using me." "Gads, I thought you said you wouldn't mind the whole town talking." "Now I do, because--why do you want a double?" "The dark side needs light." "Paco, you're being melodramatic. Are you writing a story?"
She was close. Filo, it occurred to him, was not quite man at his best--Paco smiled over his drink--no, yet deeper than he knew himself, with quite a pagan notion of sexuality. If Eve, he'd darkly say, were the first woman, then woman is life's very source, and man must connect with her or be less than human; man is the parasite, drawing his vigor, his machismo, from that source, her sex. Gads! how Filo's silly notions carry him away. He crushed his cigarette in the ashtray.
"Am I writing a: story?" he echoed. "Actually, at lnday's, I was thinking that." On a sudden he remembered the near fatal accident with Agnes two weeks back that he had told Bianca about, and a strange intuition swept through his mind, a sense that for one deeply troubled and in denial, something just happens or erupts as though to express the unnamed distress. But how really stupid of him then! as their old Ford stalled on a slope along Krus na Ligas on their way to a reunion of friends, how could he have let go of the handbrake!
"Did you write stories before, Paco?" "No… I only recalled just now that near accident with our car." "Ah, that was terrible…" Bianca waved her hand as though to ward off an imminent tragedy.
But Paco couldn't shake off his memory. It wasn't so much the terror of that moment that shook him, but an immense feeling afterwards of sadness, as though for the first time in his life he knew emptiness if he should lose Agnes. But what stark mindlessness! When their Ford stalled, he had put the hand brake on, gone out of the car, and walked to a mechanic's shop they had just passed. What luck, he had told himself, for he knew little about cars, and Agnes would sometimes reprove him for not reading the car's manual. The mechanic told him to release the hand brake, or so he thought he heard, and he did like an idiot! opened the car door as he stood on the street and released the brake. Of course the car slid down, rolling backward without direction, and desperately trying to seize it by its side, he fell on the road where he barely had time and space to duck as the open door swung past his head. He picked himself up and scurried after the runaway car, unmindful of vehicles driving past up and down on either side of the slope. All this time Agnes froze on the front seat, she told him afterwards that she closed her eyes when she saw a truck down the slope, and thought he would surely go under its wheels.
"Hello?" Bianca shook his hand. "Oh, sorry, Bai… I got distracted." The same feeling swept through him, a great inexplicable sadness, sweet to the soul as it suffered the sudden rush of memory and in a flash seemed to have at last fathomed a great mystery. Oh, a tired truism. it certainly is, how each day's familiarity blinds one, and the easy companionship devours the ardor of feeling, and one takes the affection freely given, and takes it, like the air one breathes without having to take thought. Filo could be cynical about all that, and stand back and jeer, but right now, now, as he remembered how the Ford caught on a tree stump where it would have plunged into the squatter's shanties across the shallow ditch, the sudden tide of sadness was suffering almost more than he could bear so that his tears seemed to well up where he stood shamed upon a crumbling strand of his life's own time.
"Paco… is anything wrong? You look…" Bianca gently pressed his hand. "It's alright, I…" Maybe this vodka, suggested itself; no, he must not lie again. He felt strangely pure with the sudden resolve, a new wholeness seemed to surge through him. How could he in his heart return to Agnes if he didn't face up his feeling for Bianca, make a clean breast of it, and let go? Now was the moment he had sensed at Inday's candle shop. "Have I told you about Zita?" "You mean Rita?" "No… it was my first time in Baguio…" "Ah, yes, that woman who called you at Patria Inn, you played a heartless trick on her!" "I was only eighteen, and I think frightened. Nothing really happened there, but maybe it struck me then… about sex and women, you know." Ah, there was no help for Filo now, so daring in dream, who wouldn't think of jumping like Basho's frog! "What?" she looked mockingly at him. "There's that need… maybe we guys joke no end about it to sort of make light of it." Bianca shook her head, smiling. "Oh, you're just thinking it, Paco, intellectualizing it. It's the normal thing, but," laughing softly, "it's just to start things." He laughed with her, but the moment had come, although he had a vague sense of its rashness. "I meant to tell you, Bai… I'm quite drawn to you, but…" But it isn't right, oh, he shouldn't have so foolishly blurted, what need to be so honest?
Bianca looked startled, and the mocking glint in her eyes blinked out. "I know, Bai, it's crazy." She was silent a long time. "But if the feeling is honest?" It was almost a whisper. "Oh, it's honest, Bianca," was all he could say as he stared at his drink. Couldn't he have found another way without hurt to be open and plain? He felt oppressed by a feeling that he had transgressed a silence between them where their light heartedness with one another had seemed perfectly natural.
"Paco," Bianca placed her hand gently on his. She sounded distant and looked beautiful and sad and inaccessible. I'm sorry, Bai, it's crazy of me, let it go, he wanted to say. "Maybe, Paco, it's really just Zita--like you have to make it up to her." She let her hand stay on his.
Was she just saying it? But, Yes, he thought bitterly, it might be Zita, for she had become a creature of his disappointed memory; but also, No, for it was rather with having to be honest with Bianca, by a hurtful bridge of poor words, that he had crossed over a darkness. He looked at her as though across a great distance, "You may be right, Bai…" he said, and pressed her hand. What words more? I'm sorry, Bai… anything more would seem to mock the silence that he had in foolhardiness transgressed. She smiled at him and released his hand.

Nasa Bingit Siya ng Kamatayan ni Eduardo Porras Jr.

Tahimik ang buong paligid, tanging tunog ng mga nagsisitsitang kulisap ang aking naririning. Marami akong naiisip na sadyang di maalis-alis sa aking isipan, isang buwan na ang nakakaraan. Na i-imagine ko pa kung minsan ang maamo niyang mukha at wari’y may ibubulong na isang napakalaking tanong na siyang bumabagabag sa ‘king isipan. Kasunod niyan, naririnig ko ang mga yapak sa isang tabi, tumigil ako sa paghinga at dahan-dahan kong binuksan ang kurtina na siyang naghahati sa aking silid, kinakilabutan ako, ngunit pinilit ko, napalingon ako ng sandali at kita ang isang lamaparang unti-unting namamatay na nakapatong sa isang tumpok na libro. Pinikit ko ang aking mga mata at inisip Siya at biglang…may dumampi sa aking mga pisngi…sadyang napakalamig na hangin, hindi ko maintindihan, hindi ordinaryo. Nanginginig ang buo kong katawan.. dahan-dahan kong binuksan ang bintana ng aking mga mata at takot akong makitang, isang ulong pugot ang tumambad sa ‘king paningin. Ito’y nakapatong sa isang putol na puno ng “starapple” malapit sa aming bahay. Walang ilaw noon,sadyang napakadilim at nakaderitsang tingin sa ‘kin ang kanyang mga mata na unti-unti nang nabubulok. Kasabay niyan, umaalolol ang aso ng aming kapitbahay na para bagang may nakikita rin. Napasigaw ako, “Diyos ko po, tulungan mo ako!” at dali-daling kinuha ang malapad na kumot at itinabon sa aking buong katawan, sabay bigkas ng mga dasal. Natakot akong, baka sa aking siya magsasalita ng katotohanan. Hindi ko alam ang aking gagawin,naguguluhan ako. Napabalikwas ako ng maraming beses matapos ang isang oras na paghihintay na may kasunod na mangyari. Bawat galaw at ingay ramdam at rinig ko, pati na yaong hinga ng aming kalabaw na makikita sa may di-kalayuan. Pinatibay ko ang aking loob at sinabi ko sarili, “Kaya ko ‘to!” Nagbitiw ako ng mga salita, isang dasal na naman, “Diyos ko, na makapangyarihan sa lahat, nawa’y tulungan niyo po ako sa aking kalagayan, sana po maging matatag ako, matatahimik na siya. Ibigay niyo na po ang hinihingi niyang hustisya para maging ganap na ang kanyang pamamhinga, Sa ngalan ng ama, ng anak at ng Espiritu Santo, Amen.” Umiinit ang aking mga taenga na para bagang ako’y nabuhayan ng loob. Matapos masambit ang mga katagang iyon unti-unting huminahon ang aking pakiramdam. Tinangka ko ulit na pagmasdan ang labas ng aming bintana, matapos mangyari ang mga sandaling yaon., subalit ng tingnan ko’y tanging putol na puno lamang ang aking nakita. Wala na siya! Mga alas dos na riyan at maya-maya’y magbubukang-liwayway na…tumitilaok na ang tandang sa kabilang bahay, kaya’t tinangka kong manaog sa may tarangkahan upang magpahangin ng kunti at naghihintay para simulan naman ang isang bagong bukas. Uminom ako ng kape, at dali-daling pumunta sa may kinaroroonan ng ulong nakita ko. Hinay-hinay kong pinagmasdan ang bawat sulok ng puno at naghihintay na may makitang kung ano, subalit, wala, wala akong may nakita na makapagpaptunay na totoo nga iyon. Napaihi ako sa may di-kalayuan, sa may ilog malapit sa kinatitirikan ng aming bahay. Sapilitan kong ialis sa aking isipan ang mga palaisipang yaon, datapwat di ko magawa. Araw-araw, oras-oras niya akong pinapa-alala sa mga pangyayari. Gusto ko na sanang mamahinga sa kakaisip sa kanya at limutin siya ng lubusan. Kaya nga naisulat ko ang kwento na ito. Siya’y isa sa aking mga kaklase na talaga naming mabait, magaling sa mg talakayan at kahit anupaman. Palakaibigan sa ibang tao at kahit na mga guro’y humahanga sa kanyang galing. Ganyan ang kanyang katauhan… Miyerkules ng umaga, nakipag-usap siya sa ‘kin ukol sa kanyang mga plano’t hangari’y para sa skul. Pagkatapos nun, bumalik ako kaagad para pumasok sa aming klase at bago makaalis napangiti siya sa ‘kin at binalingan ko rin siya ng ngiti. Pagkalipas ng mga oras, ang oras na itinakda na siya’y sunduin ng kamatayan, siya’y masaya kasama ng ilang mga kaibigang malapit sa kanya. Pumunta siya sa lugar na parati niyang pinupuntahan at kina-umaga’y siya’y nawala na parang bula. Hinanap siya saan mang sulok ng bayan, pero ni-bakas wala. Nalaman na lang ng lahat, umaga ng Lunes ang balitang may isang tao na nakabitin sa isang puno at wala na itong buhay mga isang linggo bago siya nakita. Patay na nga siya, kita ng dalawa kong mata. Totoo nga! Nabubulok na ang kanyang mga mata at puno ng mga uod ang buong katawan. Napadigwa ako, halos lahat kami’y naawa sa kanya, at ang iba’y umiiyak pa. Hindi ko matitiis ang baho at amoy na nagmumula sa kanyang katawan, kaya umalis ako. Ilang oras pa, kinuha siya sa puno yaon at dinala sa isang pinakamalapit na punerarya. Sadyang napaka-brutal ang ginawa sa kanya. Nakatanggap siya na mga suntok, pasa at isang napakalaking “stub wounds” malapit sa kanyang puso na siguro nga’y nagging dahilan ng kanyang pagkamatay. Siya’y ibinurol ng dalawang araw lamang kasi’y talagang napakabaho na. Napaiyak kaming lahat sa mga nangyari at labag man sa aming kalooban ang kanyang pagkamatay, wala kaming magagawa. Hanggang sa ngayon, patuloy paring nakakubli ang katotohanan sa likod ng kanyang pagkamatay. Baka ikaw ay isa sa kanila, sana naman ay sumuko kana, para sa ikakatahimik niya.!

Resurrection by Cirilo Bautista

On a Friday afternoon, Lazaro Corpuz, 38, businessman and head of a corporation that engaged in heavy machinery, emerged from the coolness of his office on the sixth floor of a building in downtown Manila; while the elevator carried his body to the ground floor, or while the building was going up against the stability of the elevator, his mind was flying somewhere else.Ernie was saying as he dropped ice cubes into his glass of scotch that it was better for Garmel, Limited – oplunk! 0 to chuck their deal with them if they would not honor their contract of two years ago, and – plunk! – anyway that lousy president of theirs was no better at golf than a crippled midget.Lazaro had smiled to himself then, thinking of Ernie’s peculiar manner of stringing illogical facts together whenever he wanted, out of envy or sheer malice, to downgrade someone.In this case, the president of Garmel, Limited, who was a friend of theirs both, having failed to deliver contracted items, became the object of his displeasure.The morning, however, ended well for him and Ernie and the absent president because Ernie took his suggestion of freezing the matter for at least tow days until they had heard from the erring company.Lazaro brushed away a bit of white string from the lapel of his dark coat tailored from Italian wool – how the devil it had got there he did not know, his office being air-conditioned and kept clean by a man he had hired to do nothing but vacuum its carpeted floor and dust the bookshelves and the mahogany table – thus he brushed the string away with a little annoyance creasing his forehead.In his expensive suit he felt big and important.Though his friends had ribbed for his western habit, he did not feel comopelled to wear the barong tagalog that Ernie and the rest of his staff favored.What they did not realize was that it was not a habit for him – it was his way of wrapping himself with prestige that his office, he insisted, called upon him to uphold.Inside his air-conditioned [sic] room he enjoyed the aura of superiority his suit gave him, but when walking outside the building, and this he had to admit to himself, he sweated a lot.His physiognomy was such that he sweated a lot, even in the mild season before summer.But then, so what?That was a small sacrifice he had to face, that was a reality he had to face because he, Lazaro Corpuz, had been chosen, out of so many men in the business world, to head a big corporation. He could not let the image of this corporation tarnish because he sweated a lot. Satisfied by this justification,
he looked up at the numerals blinking at the top of the elevator door. Damn, they should make elevators go faster. Suppose I have an appointment to fulfill (and he was glad that at the moment he did not have any), the way this box is running I’d surely be late for it.He gazed at his patent leather black shoes shining against the polished wall of the elevator and again a feeling of
satisfaction filled him.Just last night at a cocktail party, a man, he had forgotten whom – and so he was sure it was nobody important – remarked that he knew how to carry his clothes, and though it had elated him no end, he did not allow his elation to show, he merely nodded at the man as though what he had said was an incontrovertible fact, and therefore needed no commentary.Well, he though, stroking his gray silk tie – cravat, he always referred to it, for he found a secret joy in referring to it thus – he could give any man a run for hismoney when it came to good grooming.Not only was he handsome – that was another fact – but he could also afford to indulge his delicate taste.There was nothing theologically erroneous about it.He flicked
a strand of hair off the cuff of his shirt with a snap of his thumb and forefinger.He worked hard for his money, and it was not his fault that he was a bachelor – and would probably be to the end – and not saddled with a wife and kids.No one could grudge him his pursuit of the finer things in life.It was as though an emblem of some mysterious heraldric origin had appeared
before him, goldenwith some some strange inscriptions that said follow Me, and he had followed, and was still following.Along the way he had to shed off the naivete, the crudeness in words and mannerisms, to be worthy of this singular calling.It was a devotion whose outward manifestation took the forms of expensive clothes, the proper residence, the correct circle of
acquaintances, the right women.And all his waking hours he had stepped to the silent music which accompanied that emblem, ardor and uprightness his cul-de-sac, ready to joust with any intruder that would deign to break his vigilance.There was a slow, soft sound, and when he raised his eyes from his shoes, he saw the elevator door opening.

“Sir!”There was a voice somewhere near his elbow as he walked along the corridor.He turned around and saw Romero holding several sheets of white paper.

“Oy, romero,” Lazaro said with a slight irritation in his voice.“What is it?”He could not imagine what the office messenger wanted with him.

“I’m sorry to bother you, Sir, but these invoice slips I have –“

“Go see Reyes.He’s in charge of those things.”

His irritation was growing.

“I have seen Mr. Reyes already, Sir – he told me these needed your signature.”Invisibly, Romero was shaking in his shoes.Obviously he did not want to get in Lazaro’s way, but he did not want to displease Reyes either, Reyes being his immediate superior.He realized, however, that Lazaro was the Fianl eing whose decisions and orders made the corporation move, and
survive.The wretched man, thus noticing Lazaro’s irritation, had the mind to flee before Lazaro could say another word, and befroe he aggravated the situation, when Lazaro snatched the sheets from his hand and, after glancing at them, said, “Tell Reyes to see em first thing tomorrow,” and with a wave of his hand dismissed the messenger.By God, he said to himself as he resumed walking, what sense has this Reyes got?He should know better than to send a messenger after me.The time I have, my schedule.Again he rejoiced with the knowledge that he had no appointment to meet, at least for that afternoon.

The automatic door hissed ecstatically as he stepped out of the building.Momentarily he shut his eyes against the glaring sun that struck him like a giant machete, then he glanced at his gold wristwatch.Four o’clock.Time enough for a drink.God, how he needed one in this hot sticky
place.He was beginning to sweat inside his coat, but with the perseverance of a martyr buttoned it up, saw to it that his tie was straight, and lsowly crossed the street.a man was mugged, by mistake, by a group of thugs trailing a businessman who had just withdrawn a great amount from a bank; the peso’s devaluation, beautifully illustrated by a graph, showed its purchasing power declining in a world market; a man was hacked to death while sleeping hby his wife who had discovered his affair with her sister.From this last item – literally accompanied by photographs of the bleeding man in bed and of his contrite wife crying in the police station – Lazaro averted his eyes.He had never had the stomach for such bloody things, that was why he never bought htose papers, if he could help it, for they seemed to feature nothing but bloodshed; nevertheless, he had not totally outgrown his habit of browsing over their front pages spread out by the windows of the nesstands.Four-fifteen.He refused the offer of a sweepstakes ticket by a thin, almost cadaverous woman who hung by his side for a few hopeful seconds, then, seeing no encouraging signs on his face, turned around to try her luck with another passerby.He must tell Reyes not to bother him with those little matters of invoice slips.Anyway that was what he was paid for.He could always see the accountant in case of some difficulties.But God, to send a messenger to him, and just when he was about to go home – He dropped a twenty-five-centavo coin in the metal box of a beggar who, by all appearance, was no less healthy that he was, and the clink of the coin was like the sound of heavenly approval of his generosity.As it were, all that was lacking was the blare of clarions or a dance of pyrotechnics to announce his brotherly concern for his fellowmen.As far as he could remember, he had always
patronized that beggar.Probably because the beggar stood in front of the hotel where Lazaro usually took his afternoon drink, and the beggar always acknowledge this patronage with a slight inclination of his head which to Lazaro meant, “Much obliged.”Four-twenty.lazaro touched his tie involuntarily.He returned the droorman’s smile and strode across the hotel lobby.two Americans in their middle fifties, obviously tourists, were signing the hotel book.Their luggage stood beside the registry table.Turning left, Lazaro caught a glimpse of his imge in the giant mirror standing near a door marked “Cocktail Lounge.”He passed his hand over his hair, pushed the door, stood awhile by the doorway to familiarize himself with the dimly lit room, and moved across the carpet to the bar on his right.“Scotch on the rocks,” he said to the barman and took one of the stools linng the counter.It was here, secure and comfortable in this cozy room that caressed him like a womb, where he could sink into the luxury of fanciful cogitation, removed
from the pressure of office work.Papers.Papers.Papers.He had examined and signed mountains of them.Well, he could not deny that he relished his work, but a man needed respite now and tehn.The ice cubes tinkled in the glass as the barman handed him his drink.He took a sip and the coolness and the heat of the liquid snaked down his throat, leaving him with a sensation of
seductive warmth.How would eh tell Emma that everyhting was over between them?A charming girl, but a bit on the aggressive side.They had dinner together yesterday – one of those private expensive restaurants – and he had noticed the signs.She frequently spoke of “our friends,” “our summer vacation,” “our life”.Our.He did not like being spoken of in such possessive terms, no, even though the speaker was one whose company and beauty he had greatly enjoyed.He took another sip.No.The barman was shaking a concoction in a chilled glass, his face serious and impassive.No.He must tell her he hated to belong, to be possessed; he had plans which did not include – and this was what he read in Emma’s recent actions – marriage.He could write her.Dear Emma – I have told you how much I enjoy your company.I always look forward to meeintg you for you – and he smiled to himself at this – are on oasis that redeems me from the ennui of my uneventful days.He could imagine her sitting on the iron swing in her garden, a tall glass of iced lemonade on the table by her feet, reading his letter that would be sent by private courier.He knew that garden, he had been there several times before:there was a small fishpond by the brick wall covered by overhanging morning glories.She had told him the eyllow and blue angel fish had come direct from [sic] Hong Kong, and indeed he has been captivated by the tiny fish that seemed merely to float, so light and delicate they were in water.A pair of sculpted swans stood near the pond, to its left, while to its right was an invitation, almost life size, of the Venus of Milo.Yes, he could imagine her now going over the nseen letter, I’ve noted your – he did not know how to put it without sounding offensive – predilection for speakingof our affairs seriously.I made it perfectly clear from the start that our friendship would be just that – friendship, and I believe you understood that.She would crease her brows at this point, but what could he do?So, much as I hate it, I have to say goodbye.I know this would pain you, but, beleve me, it would pain me more.I must confess it would take me some time to get over the memories of the sweet time we spent together, your smile, your peculiar gestures, your love, yet I hae a life to lead, and must not object to such a sacrifice.He signalled the barman for a fresh drink and crossed his legs.Well, that was that.No used stretching the point.She would understand.He could evensend her a bunch of red roses, her favorite, with the letter, to indicate that he was a gentleman [sic] through and through.Not a bad idea.Satisfied, he sipped his second drink with concentration.A voice at his side said, “May I join you?”He turned and recognized Pete.

“Sure,” he said.

Pete dropped his heavy bulk on the nearby stool.

“I say, nothing better to smoothen a day that a cool drink, eh?” [sic] he said.

“How’s business?”Lazaro said.Pete occupied a room in Lazaro’s building hwere his name, with its proper title, in bold letters printed on the door, proclaimed his existencd:Pedro salgado, Attorney-at-law.

”I can’t complain.a lot of people still get robbed, or embezzled, and I have my hands full settling their problems.”

“Glad to hear that.”

“As a matter of fact, I even get divorce cases.”

“Divorce cases, in this country?Let’s drink to that.Come one, let’s have another round.This one’s on me.”Lazaro gave the order to the barman and when their drinks came they drank in silence, each momentarily absorbed in his own thoughts.Lazaro saw Emma again in the garden.Poor girl, but he had to do it.He remembered they had taken a stroll after dinner.When they came upon a jewelry store.Emma had stopped and looked at the display window.she pointed out a gold wedding band to him.“Wouldn’t that make a perfect wedding ring?”she said.Lazaro knew he was right.That was another sign.Poor girl.He finished his drink.Pete was still nursing his, with his big hand almost hiding his glass.Lazaro checked his watch.Five-fifteen.

“Well, I must go,” he said.He stood up.

“Appointment?”

“No.Home.see you tomorrow.”

“Same time, same place,” Pete said [sic] smiling.

THE DOORMAN opoened the glass door and flashed another smile as Lazaro got out of the lobby.the air had grown oppressively hot, and he began to sweat again.the liquor was working in his system already, no doubt about that, for he felt heady, the flesh of his cheeks was taut in reddishness, his lips dry.After reachiing almost the end of the block he remembered his car was at the serviceman’s.With a sigh of resignatino he walked back to the hotel, trying to ignore the progressive heaviness of his coat that now was like a sheet of copper embracing his trunk.He hurried to the telephone in the lobby.He fumbled [sic] for a coin in his pocket, found it, inserted it into the slot, and waited for a voice on the other end of the line.He was shaking his head as he put down the phone.dAmn it, just when he needed the car it was not ready.He walked out of the hotel, this time not noticing the doorman’s smile, and cursed under his breath. He did not enjoy the prospect of a five-minute walk to the jeepney stop and jostling for a seat in one of those infernal machines.He was still cursing as he climbed up the cement steps of the overpass.The neon lights of the tall buildings near the pass cast shadows of diverse patterns on the people who rushed up and down, their faces commonly haggard and unsmiling, for it was the end of the day for them who had jsut ememrged from struggling with time to earn a living.Typists,
seamstresses, vendors, teachers, waiters, writers – a little scrutiny of the arms, the hair, the movement of their bodies, would reveal they were there, but Lazaro did not scrutinize:for him they were all the same, a faceless tide of humanity that went by him in a kind of blurred procession, hardly distinguishable each from the other, confounding in their continued motin.He
slowed his pace to catch his breath.He took out his silk handkerchief and wiped off the perspiration that dotted his forehead.damn this heat.Paris, or New York – ah, that was something else.It would be spring at this time in New York with those pleasant smiling people enjoying the air and the oakleaves and the elmleaves putting on their sheen of green, and in Paris those fascinating ladies in short skirts greeting everyone, their pretty faces lending a touch of beauty to the already intoxicating beauty of the day, would be letting their hair go in the wind – ah, Paris, why had he not stayed there, why did he have to come back to this heat and this dirt and htis smog that was Maila?Shaking his head in mournful regret he quickened his pace.Well, there was hoe to anticipate, or what passed for his home, he being a bachelor – his apartment in New Ermita, with its air-conditioning and record player and refrigerator always stocked with the necessary provisions.He licked his lips thinking of the drink he would have right after arriveing home.ah, the feel of a soft couch under his tired bones... Occupied by theses htoughts he barely realized that he ahd already reached the jeepney stop.With dismay he eyed the long line of people waiting for a ride.Again he cursed under his breath.He hardly had the strength to fight for a seat with that number of people around, and the number, he noticed, increased rapidly.They were spouted out, as it were, byt he cavernous mouth of the nderground pass near the church and it seemed to him that all of them headed for the same jeepney stop.Damn it.He stood elbow to elbow with a man on his left and an old woman carrying a basket of cabbages and fish on his right.Well, nothing to do but sweat it out and wait.Lazaro dipped his hand into his pocket for the twenty-five-centavo coin that he would need for his fare; but hwen his fingers encountered no round, small, serrated object, he searched more carefully;
still there was no coin.It took him a while to remember that he had used his last coin in making thtat call to the serviceman’s.Grinning to himself in secret shame at this momentary lapse of memory, he took out his wallet.He hoped the driver would have no objection to breaking a five-peso bill – that was the smallest amount he always carried.He looked into the bill compartment of his wallet, and for the first time he felt a shiver that was like a cold knife against his spine:there was nothing there.No, it could not be.Just this morning he had fifty pesos there, he could not have spent all of it...In growing panic he explored his wallet meticulously, inch by inch.First he removed the various cards – credit cards, calling cards, identification cards, and a small plastic calendar – ad transferred them to his left hsirt pocket; then he went over the secret bill folder covered by a false flap, brought out some more cards, a few airmail stamps, folded pieces of paper where he had jotted down important phone numbers and addresses – still he could not find any peso bill.Once more, although he knew there would be nothing there, he turned to the coin pocket, inserted his forefingers there, hoping by some miracle to touch a coin – God, even just a single ten-centavo coin – but, God, there was nothing
there.No, it could not be.How come... In his mind he reviewed his activities that day in order to find out just how his money had gone.There was that drink – those drinks – in the bar, and before that, lunch, taxi fare to the office – no, he could not have spent fifty pesos for those things.There must be

...Damn it , yes lunch. That’s what it went. He had three guests for lunch- prospective buyers-and he had brought then to the Shanghai. He had forgotten exactly how much he spent there, but he knew the place was not

exactly a poor man’s restaurant. Yes. That was why-and this he recalled

vividly –the last peso bill he drew from his wallet was the one he gave to the

cashier in the bar, and it seemed there was no change for that , no, none. He

was fooled into thinking that some more bills remained in his wallet by those

folded sheets of paper. His panic subsided into fear, but even then he tried to

get hold of himself. He must not be put off by this. There must be some way-

Well, he could get into a jeepney, just the same, and alight nonchalantly later

as though he paid for his fare. If the driver demanded his fare, he could put

on an aggrieved face and say the driver must be mistaken, he had already

pain, then he could stride off with a show of indignation. Perhaps, the driver

would even apologize to him...but how couldhe really attempt it? Suppose he

bungled it, suppose he could not act convincingly, suppose the driver insisted

that he has not paid? No, it was dangerous. He could not do it. He could take

a taxi and pay the driver at home, but this was out of the question. Taxis in

this place, and at this time of the evening were as rare as pearls in a bucket

of oysters. No, he had to take a jeep. If only, his hand holding his

handkerchief stopped midway to his perspiring forehead, He experienced a

surge of hope. Yes, why did he not think of it before? Pete. He must still be in

the bar. He had to be. He would not object to a loan of, say, one peso. Lazaro

turned around abruptly, almost knocking down a small boy, and pushed his

way out of the crowd. Pete, he had to be there. Running, in spite of his

drenched coat that stuck to his back, and in spite of the slight, dizziness

caused by the liquor he had taken earlier, his legs covered the cement steps

of the over pass three at the time, so that when he reached the top of the

steps he was puffing. Still he ran getting down the last flight of steps , he ran

down the sidewalk, barely aware of the newsboys and newsstands and the

ticket seller, he ran past the record shop and the blareof a phonograph player

exuding the sounds of the latest pop song, he ran and ran and ran. The

doorman had barely the time to open the hotel door for him and bring out his

customary smile.He watched in puzzlement as Lazaro barged in and crossed

the lobby for the cocktail lounge. The doorman shook his head. Lazaro was

shaking in excitement and fear, or in a fearful excitement, running along the

corridor and avoiding looking at himself in the giant mirror. Reaching the

door of the lounge, he stopped and tried to get hold of himself . He passed his

fingers over his hair , arranged a lock of hair that had fallen over his

forehead, adjusted his coat , wipe his face with his handkerchief . After

achieving a semblance of composure thus, he entered the room. He gave the

interior a careful survey; there were more people now occupying the stools of

the counter; a man and a woman sat in animated conversation near the right

wall where the tables were lighted by the subdued discreet glow of small

electric lamps; clinking of glasses punctuated the formal atmosphere . But

his eyes encountered no human form that belonged to Pete . His heart

beating fast, he strode to the counter.

‘the usual , sir?’ the barman said.

‘not this time , Joe.’ Lazaro said. ‘but tell me, is Pete still around?’

‘Pete?’ The barman raised his brows

‘I mean Mr. Salgado. Attorney Salgedo.’

‘Ah, I’m afraid not , Sir. He left a few minutes after you did’

‘Damn it,’ Lazaro said under his breath.

‘Sir?’

‘No, nothing, thanks jus the same.’

Slowly, crestfallen, he moved out of the room. His legs were lead, and the

heaviness spread up to his lungs and head. He could not believe this was

happening to him. It was preposterous. He- Lazaro Corpus...He gave the

doorman a forced smile as the latter opened the door for him . Outside, he

paused by the hotel steps and stared absent-mindedly at the neon lights

blazing their messages on top of the opposite buildings. On the top of his

building , the image of a beverage bottle changed colors-now red, now blue,

announcing in unmistakable terms that it was a nation’s number one drink.

Lazaro sighed, put his hands deep in his pockets, gazed at the sidewalk. He

was about to walk uncertainly into the night when a glint of metal caught his

eyes. The thin hand holding the metal box was familiar to him. Lazaro

thought for a while and a smile flitted across his face. He approached the

beggar who extended his box to him. The box was already half-filled with

coins, Lazaro noticed.

‘You remember me, don’t you?’ Lazaro said.

The beggar smiled

‘Im glad you do. You see- ‘ Lazaro did not know how to put it. ; You see...you

know I always drop something in your box whenever I pass by, always.’

The beggar continued to smile.

‘Damn it, can’t you talk?’ Lazaro almost shouted.

The neggar’s eyes widened in fear, but he managed to open his mouth and

point out his tongue, at the same time shaking his head.

‘Oh, so you can’ speak. Well, as I was saying, I’ve always been kind to you .

This afternoon, I-well-I didn’t know it but I-we;;-I spent all my money-‘

Lazaro felt uneasy talking to the beggar. He quickly looked around to see if

anyone was watching him. A few people passed by hardly glancing at them.

‘You see,’ Lazaro said turning to the man again. The beggar stood pressed

against the wall of the hotel and stared with uncomprehending eyes at

Lazaro. The beggar had ceased smiling. ‘You see, I’ve spent all my money

and discovered it too late that I have none left to get home. That can happen

to anyone, can’t it ?Sometimes no forgets, no?’

The beggar held his box close to his chest. He kept staring at Lazaro.

‘It can happen to anyone.’ Lazaro continued. ‘Damn it, it happened to me

today. You realize I’m in a fix. Pete-Pete, my friend- has gone home and

there’s no one I could-‘ Lazaro winced, embarrassed at having to explain

such personal details to this unknown creature before him. ‘ What I mean is,

could you – could you give me back the twent-five centavos I dropped in your

box this afternoon?’

There was a blanked expression on the beggar’s face.

‘Just twenty-five centavos, man, that’s all I’m asking of you . Surely you

won;t refuse me that? Just twenty-five centavos.’

The beggar hugged his metal box and pressed closer to the wall. It was

absurd, surely this gentleman was trying to play a joke on him- this

gentleman was drunk. With pleading eyes he looked at Lazaro. Please, the

eyes, said, please leave me alone. I’m just a poor man, I can’t understand.

Lazaro became irritated at the beggar’s reluctance.

‘Look.’ he said, trying to conceal his annoyance, ‘ let’s consider this a loan,

see? Give me twenty-five centavos and first thing tomorrow I’ll give fifty,

even a peso, all right?’

The beggarshrank against the wall . The joke was going too far. If only a

policeman would come around...

‘Damn it, man,’ Lazaro finally shouted, and the beggar shrank further in fear,

‘can’t you understand? I need twenty-five centavos . Do you want me to rob

you out of it?’

The beggar’s eyes shone in terror and his lips quivered as though he wanted

to say something. Confused by Lazaro’s anger, and wanting to avoid another

outburst from the man, with shaking hands the beggar extended his box to

Lazaro. Lazaro smiled and picked up the twenty-five centavos coin from the

box. Then he walked away as fast as he could , grasping the coin firmly in his

palm. He climbed up the overpass and did not look back, for he was afraid he

would see the beggar following himwith his eyes. Lazaro slipped the coin into

his coat pocket and reaching the top of the over pass, he suddenly felt file

laughing out loud; and he did, but the sound came out in short muffled

ejaculations, staringstrong from the stomach and weakening at the throat,

much like a sob.

The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe

THE thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitely, settled --but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.It must be understood that neither by word nor deed had I given Fortunato cause to doubt my good will. I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation.He had a weak point -- this Fortunato -- although in other regards he was a man to be respected and even feared. He prided himself on his connoisseurship in wine. Few Italians have the true virtuoso spirit. For the most part their enthusiasm is adopted to suit the time and opportunity, to practise imposture upon the British and Austrian millionaires. In painting and gemmary, Fortunato, like his countrymen, was a quack, but in the matter of old wines he was sincere. In this respect I did not differ from him materially; --I was skilful in the Italian vintages myself, and bought largely whenever I could.It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season, that I encountered my friend. He accosted me with excessive warmth, for he had been drinking much. The man wore motley. He had on a tight-fitting parti-striped dress, and his head was surmounted by the conical cap and bells. I was so pleased to see him that I thought I should never have done wringing his hand.I said to him --"My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met. How remarkably well you are looking to-day. But I have received a pipe of what passes for Amontillado, and I have my doubts.""How?" said he. "Amontillado, A pipe? Impossible! And in the middle of the carnival!""I have my doubts," I replied; "and I was silly enough to pay the full Amontillado price without consulting you in the matter. You were not to be found, and I was fearful of losing a bargain.""Amontillado!""I have my doubts.""Amontillado!""And I must satisfy them.""Amontillado!""As you are engaged, I am on my way to Luchresi. If any one has a critical turn it is he. He will tell me --""Luchresi cannot tell Amontillado from Sherry.""And yet some fools will have it that his taste is a match for your own."Come, let us go.""Whither?""To your vaults.""My friend, no; I will not impose upon your good nature. I perceive you have an engagement. Luchresi--""I have no engagement; --come.""My friend, no. It is not the engagement, but the severe cold with which I perceive you are afflicted. The vaults are insufferably damp. They are encrusted with nitre.""Let us go, nevertheless. The cold is merely nothing. Amontillado! You have been imposed upon. And as for Luchresi, he cannot distinguish Sherry from Amontillado."Thus speaking, Fortunato possessed himself of my arm; and putting on a mask of black silk and drawing a roquelaire closely about my person, I suffered him to hurry me to my palazzo.There were no attendants at home; they had absconded to make merry in honour of the time. I had told them that I should not return until the morning, and had given them explicit orders not to stir from the house. These orders were sufficient, I well knew, to insure their immediate disappearance, one and all, as soon as my back was turned.I took from their sconces two flambeaux, and giving one to Fortunato, bowed him through several suites of rooms to the archway that led into the vaults. I passed down a long and winding staircase, requesting him to be cautious as he followed. We came at length to the foot of the descent, and stood together upon the damp ground of the catacombs of the Montresors.The gait of my friend was unsteady, and the bells upon his cap jingled as he strode."The pipe," he said."It is farther on," said I; "but observe the white web-work which gleams from these cavern walls."He turned towards me, and looked into my eyes with two filmy orbs that distilled the rheum of intoxication."Nitre?" he asked, at length."Nitre," I replied. "How long have you had that cough?""Ugh! ugh! ugh! --ugh! ugh! ugh! --ugh! ugh! ugh! --ugh! ugh! ugh! --ugh! ugh! ugh!"My poor friend found it impossible to reply for many minutes."It is nothing," he said, at last."Come," I said, with decision, "we will go back; your health is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me it is no matter. We will go back; you will be ill, and I cannot be responsible. Besides, there is Luchresi --""Enough," he said; "the cough's a mere nothing; it will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough.""True --true," I replied; "and, indeed, I had no intention of alarming you unnecessarily --but you should use all proper caution. A draught of this Medoc will defend us from the damps.Here I knocked off the neck of a bottle which I drew from a long row of its fellows that lay upon the mould."Drink," I said, presenting him the wine.He raised it to his lips with a leer. He paused and nodded to me familiarly, while his bells jingled."I drink," he said, "to the buried that repose around us.""And I to your long life."He again took my arm, and we proceeded."These vaults," he said, "are extensive.""The Montresors," I replied, "were a great and numerous family.""I forget your arms.""A huge human foot d'or, in a field azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel.""And the motto?""Nemo me impune lacessit.""Good!" he said.The wine sparkled in his eyes and the bells jingled. My own fancy grew warm with the Medoc. We had passed through long walls of piled skeletons, with casks and puncheons intermingling, into the inmost recesses of the catacombs. I paused again, and this time I made bold to seize Fortunato by an arm above the elbow."The nitre!" I said; "see, it increases. It hangs like moss upon the vaults. We are below the river's bed. The drops of moisture trickle among the bones. Come, we will go back ere it is too late. Your cough --""It is nothing," he said; "let us go on. But first, another draught of the Medoc."I broke and reached him a flagon of De Grave. He emptied it at a breath. His eyes flashed with a fierce light. He laughed and threw the bottle upwards with a gesticulation I did not understand.I looked at him in surprise. He repeated the movement --a grotesque one."You do not comprehend?" he said."Not I," I replied."Then you are not of the brotherhood.""How?""You are not of the masons.""Yes, yes," I said; "yes, yes.""You? Impossible! A mason?""A mason," I replied."A sign," he said, "a sign.""It is this," I answered, producing from beneath the folds of my roquelaire a trowel."You jest," he exclaimed, recoiling a few paces. "But let us proceed to the Amontillado.""Be it so," I said, replacing the tool beneath the cloak and again offering him my arm. He leaned upon it heavily. We continued our route in search of the Amontillado. We passed through a range of low arches, descended, passed on, and descending again, arrived at a deep crypt, in which the foulness of the air caused our flambeaux rather to glow than flame.At the most remote end of the crypt there appeared another less spacious. Its walls had been lined with human remains, piled to the vault overhead, in the fashion of the great catacombs of Paris. Three sides of this interior crypt were still ornamented in this manner. From the fourth side the bones had been thrown down, and lay promiscuously upon the earth, forming at one point a mound of some size. Within the wall thus exposed by the displacing of the bones, we perceived a still interior crypt or recess, in depth about four feet, in width three, in height six or seven. It seemed to have been constructed for no especial use within itself, but formed merely the interval between two of the colossal supports of the roof of the catacombs, and was backed by one of their circumscribing walls of solid granite.It was in vain that Fortunato, uplifting his dull torch, endeavoured to pry into the depth of the recess. Its termination the feeble light did not enable us to see."Proceed," I said; "herein is the Amontillado. As for Luchresi --""He is an ignoramus," interrupted my friend, as he stepped unsteadily forward, while I followed immediately at his heels. In an instant he had reached the extremity of the niche, and finding his progress arrested by the rock, stood stupidly bewildered. A moment more and I had fettered him to the granite. In its surface were two iron staples, distant from each other about two feet, horizontally. From one of these depended a short chain, from the other a padlock. Throwing the links about his waist, it was but the work of a few seconds to secure it. He was too much astounded to resist. Withdrawing the key I stepped back from the recess."Pass your hand," I said, "over the wall; you cannot help feeling the nitre. Indeed, it is very damp. Once more let me implore you to return. No? Then I must positively leave you. But I must first render you all the little attentions in my power.""The Amontillado!" ejaculated my friend, not yet recovered from his astonishment."True," I replied; "the Amontillado."As I said these words I busied myself among the pile of bones of which I have before spoken. Throwing them aside, I soon uncovered a quantity of building stone and mortar. With these materials and with the aid of my trowel, I began vigorously to wall up the entrance of the niche.I had scarcely laid the first tier of the masonry when I discovered that the intoxication of Fortunato had in a great measure worn off. The earliest indication I had of this was a low moaning cry from the depth of the recess. It was not the cry of a drunken man. There was then a long and obstinate silence. I laid the second tier, and the third, and the fourth; and then I heard the furious vibrations of the chain. The noise lasted for several minutes, during which, that I might hearken to it with the more satisfaction, I ceased my labours and sat down upon the bones. When at last the clanking subsided, I resumed the trowel, and finished without interruption the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh tier. The wall was now nearly upon a level with my breast. I again paused, and holding the flambeaux over the mason-work, threw a few feeble rays upon the figure within.A succession of loud and shrill screams, bursting suddenly from the throat of the chained form, seemed to thrust me violently back. For a brief moment I hesitated, I trembled. Unsheathing my rapier, I began to grope with it about the recess; but the thought of an instant reassured me. I placed my hand upon the solid fabric of the catacombs, and felt satisfied. I reapproached the wall; I replied to the yells of him who clamoured. I re-echoed, I aided, I surpassed them in volume and in strength. I did this, and the clamourer grew still.It was now midnight, and my task was drawing to a close. I had completed the eighth, the ninth and the tenth tier. I had finished a portion of the last and the eleventh; there remained but a single stone to be fitted and plastered in. I struggled with its weight; I placed it partially in its destined position. But now there came from out the niche a low laugh that erected the hairs upon my head. It was succeeded by a sad voice, which I had difficulty in recognizing as that of the noble Fortunato. The voice said--"Ha! ha! ha! --he! he! he! --a very good joke, indeed --an excellent jest. We will have many a rich laugh about it at the palazzo --he! he! he! --over our wine --he! he! he!""The Amontillado!" I said."He! he! he! --he! he! he! --yes, the Amontillado. But is it not getting late? Will not they be awaiting us at the palazzo, the Lady Fortunato and the rest? Let us be gone.""Yes," I said, "let us be gone.""For the love of God, Montresor!""Yes," I said, "for the love of God!"But to these words I hearkened in vain for a reply. I grew impatient. I called aloud --"Fortunato!"No answer. I called again --"Fortunato!"No answer still. I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture and let it fall within. There came forth in return only a jingling of the bells. My heart grew sick; it was the dampness of the catacombs that made it so. I hastened to make an end of my labour. I forced the last stone into its position; I plastered it up. Against the new masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones. For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them. In pace requiescat!