Footnote to Youth

by: Jose Garcia Villa

The sun was salmon and hazy in the west. Dodong thought to himself he would tell his father about
Teang when he got home, after he had unhitched the carabao from the plow, and led it to its shed and fed
it. He was hesitant about saying it, he wanted his father to know what he had to say was of serious
importance as it would mark a climacteric in his life. Dodong finally decided to tell it, but a thought came
to him that his father might refuse to consider it. His father was a silent hardworking farmer, who
chewed areca nut, which he had learned to do from his mother, Dodong’s grandmother.
I will tell him. I will tell it to him.
The ground was broken up into many fresh wounds and fragrant with a sweetish earthy smell. Many
slender soft worms emerged from the further rows and then burrowed again deeper into the soil. A short
colorless worm marched blindly to Dodong’s foot and crawled clammily over it. Dodong got tickled and
jerked his foot, flinging the worm into the air. Dodong did not bother to look where into the air, but thought
of his age, seventeen, and he said to himself he was not young anymore.
Dodong unhitched the carabao leisurely and gave it a healthy tap on the hip. The beast turned its head to
look at him with dumb faithful eyes. Dodong gave it a slight push and the animal walked alongside him to
its shed. He placed bundles of grass before it and the carabao began to eat. Dodong looked at it without
interest.
Dodong started homeward thinking how he would break his news to his father. He wanted to marry,
Dodong did. He was seventeen, he had pimples on his face, the down on his upper lip was dark – these
meant he was no longer a boy. He was growing into a man – he was a man. Dodong felt insolent and big
at the thought of it, although he was by nature low in stature. Thinking himself man-grown, Dodong felt he
could do anything.
He walked faster, prodded by the thought of his virility. A small angled stone bled his foot, but he
dismissed it cursorily. He lifted his leg and looked at the hurt toe and then went on walking. In the cool
sundown, he thought wild young dreams of himself and Teang, his girl. She had a small brown face and
small black eyes and straight glossy hair. How desirable she was to him. She made him want to touch
her, to hold her. She made him dream even during the day.
Dodong tensed with desire and looked at the muscle of his arms. Dirty. This fieldwork was healthy
invigorating, but it begrimed you, smudged you terribly. He turned back the way he had come, then
marched obliquely to a creek.
Dodong stripped himself and laid his clothes, a gray under shirt and red kundiman shorts, on the grass.
Then he went into the water, wet his body over and rubbed at it vigorously. He was not long in bathing,
then he marched homeward again. The bath made him feel cool.
It was dusk when he reached home. The petroleum lamp on the ceiling was already lighted and the low
unvarnished square table was set for supper. He and his parents sat down on the floor around the table
to eat. They had fried freshwater fish, and rice, bananas and caked sugar.
Dodong ate fish and rice, but did not partake of the fruit. The bananas were overripe and when one held
them, they felt more fluid than solid. Dodong broke off a piece of caked sugar, dipped it in his glass of
water and ate it. He got another piece and wanted some more, but he thought of leaving the remainder
for his parents.
Dodong’s mother removed the dishes when they were through, and went out to the batalan to wash them.
She walked with slow careful steps and Dodong wanted to help her carry the dishes out, but he was tired
and now felt lazy. He wished as he looked at her that he had a sister who could help his mother in the
housework. He pitied her, doing all the housework alone.
His father remained in the room, sucking a diseased tooth. It was paining him, again. Dodong knew.
Dodong had told him often and again to let the town dentist pull it out, but he was afraid, his father was.
He did not tell that to Dodong, but Dodong guessed it. Afterward, Dodong himself thought that if he had a
decayed tooth, he would be afraid to go to the dentist; he would not be any bolder than his father.
Dodong said while his mother was out that he was going to marry Teang. There it was out, what we had
to say, and over which he had done so much thinking. He had said it without any effort at all and without
self-consciousness. Dodong felt relieved and looked at his father expectantly. A decresent moon outside
shed its feeble light into the window, graying the still black temples of his father. His father looked old
now.“I am going to marry Teang,” Dodong said.
His father looked at him silently and stopped sucking the broken tooth, The silence became intense and
cruel, and Dodong wished his father would suck that troublous tooth again. Dodong was uncomfortable
and then became very angry because his father kept looking at him without uttering anything.
“I will marry Teang,” Dodong repeated. “I will marry Teang.”
His father kept gazing at him in inflexible silence and Dodong fidgeted in his seat.
“I asked her last night to marry me and she said…yes. I want your permission… I… want… it…” There
was an impatient clamor in his voice, an exacting protest at his coldness, this indifference. Dodong looked
at his father sourly. He cracked his knuckles one by one, and the little sound it made broke the night
stillness dully.
“Must you marry, Dodong?”
Dodong resented his father’s question; his father himself had married early. Dodong made a quick
impassioned essay in his mind about selfishness, but later, he got confused.
“You are very young, Dodong.”
“I’m seventeen.”
“That’s very young to get married at.”
“I… I want to marry… Teang’s a good girl…
“Tell your mother,” his father said.
“You tell her, tatay.”
“Dodong, you tell your inay.”
“You tell her.”
“All right, Dodong.”
“You will let me marry Teang?”
“Son, if that is your wish… of course…” There was a strange helpless light in his father’s eyes. Dodong
did not read it. Too absorbed was he in himself.
Dodong was immensely glad he had asserted himself. He lost his resentment toward his father. For a
while he even felt sorry for him about the diseased tooth. Then he confined his mind dreaming of Teang
and himself. Sweet young dreams…
Dodong stood in the sweltering noon heat, sweating profusely so that his camiseta was damp. He was
still as a tree and his thoughts were confused. His mother had told him not to leave the house, but he had
left. He wanted to get out of it without clear reason at all. He was afraid, he felt. Afraid of the house. It had
seemed to cage him, to compress his thoughts with severe tyranny. Afraid also for Teang. Teang was
giving birth in the house; she gave screams that chilled his blood. He did not want her to scream like that,
she seemed to be rebuking him. He began to wonder madly if the process of childbirth was really painful.
Some women, when they gave birth, did not cry.
In a few moments he would be a father. “Father, father,” he whispered the word with awe, with
strangeness. He was young, he realized now contradicting himself of nine months ago. He was very
young… He felt queer, troubled, uncomfortable…“Your son,” people would soon be telling him. “Your son,
Dodong.”
Dodong felt tired of standing. He sat down on a sawhorse with his feet close together. He looked at his
calloused toes. Suppose he had ten children…What made him think that? What was the matter with him?
God!
He heard his mother’s voice from the house.
“Come up, Dodong. It is over.”
Suddenly, he felt terribly embarrassed as he looked at her. Somehow, he was ashamed to his mother of
his youthful paternity. It made him feel guilty, as if he has taken something not properly his. He dropped
his eyes and pretended to dust off his kundiman shorts.
“Dodong,” his mother called again. “Dodong.”
He turned to look again and this time, he saw his father beside his mother.
“It is a boy.” His father said. He beckoned Dodong to come up.
Dodong felt more embarrassed and did not move. His parent’s eyes seemed to pierce through him so he
felt limp. He wanted to hide or even run away from them.
“Dodong, you come up. You come up,” his mother said.
Dodong did not want to come up. He’d rather stayed in the sun.
“Dodong… Dodong.”
I’ll… come up.
Dodong traced the tremulous steps on the dry parched yard. He ascended the bamboo steps slowly. His
heart pounded mercilessly in him. Within, he avoided his parent’s eyes. He walked ahead of them so that
they should not see his face. He felt guilty and untrue. He felt like crying. His eyes smarted and his chest
wanted to burst. He wanted to turn back, to go back to the yard. He wanted somebody to punish him.
His father thrust his hand in his and gripped it gently.
“Son,” his father said. And his mother: “Dodong..”
How kind were their voices. They flowed into him, making him strong.
“Teang?” Dodong said. “She’s sleeping. But you go on…”
His father led him into the small sawali room. Dodong saw Teang, his girl-wife, asleep on the papag with
black hair soft around her face. He did not want her to look that pale.
Dodong wanted to touch her, to push away that stray wisp of hair that touched her lips. But again that
feeling of embarrassment came over him, and before his parents, he did not want to be demonstrative.
The hilot was wrapping the child. Dodong heard him cry. The thin voice pierced him quietly. He could not
control the swelling of happiness in him.
“You give him to me. You give him to me,” Dodong said.
Blas was not Dodong’s only child. Many more children came. For six successive years, a new child came
along. Dodong did not want any more children. But they came. It seemed that the coming of children
could not helped. Dodong got angry with himself sometimes.
Teang did not complain, but the bearing of children told on her. She was shapeless and thin now, even if
she was young. There was interminable work to be done. Cooking. Laundering. The house. The children.
She cried sometimes, wishing she had not married. She did not tell Dodong this, not wishing him to
dislike her. Yet she wished she had not married. Not even Dodong whom she loved. There had been
another suitor, Lucio, older than Dodong by nine years, and that was why she had chosen Dodong.
Young Dodong. Seventeen. Lucio had married another after her marriage to Dodong, but he was
childless until now. If she had married Lucio, she wondered, would she have borne him children? Maybe
not, either. That was a better lot. But she loved Dodong…
Dodong whom life had made ugly.
One night, as he lay beside his wife, he rose and went out of the house. He stood in the moonlight, tired
and querulous. He wanted to ask questions and somebody to answer him. He wanted to be wise about
many things.One of them was why life did not fulfill all of the Youth’s dreams. Why it must be so. Why one
was forsaken… after love.
Dodong could not find the answer. Maybe the question was not to be answered. It must be so to make
youth Youth. Youth must be dreamfully sweet. Dreamfully sweet. Dodong returned to the house,
humiliated by himself. He had wanted to know a little wisdom but was denied it.
When Blas was eighteen, he came home one night, very flustered and happy. Dodong heard Blas’ steps
for he could not sleep well of nights. He watched Blass undress in the dark and lie down softly. Blas was
restless on his mat and could not sleep. Dodong called his name and asked why he did not sleep.
“You better go to sleep. It is late,” Dodong said.
Blas raised himself on is elbow and muttered something in a low fluttering voice.
“Itay..” Blas called softly.
Dodong stirred and asked him what it was.
“I’m going to marry Tona. She accepted me tonight.”
Dodong lay on the red pillow without moving.
“Itay, you think its over.”
Dodong lay silent.I loved Tona and… I want her.”
Dodong rose from his mat and told Blas to follow him. They descended to the yard where everything was
still and quiet.The moonlight was cold and white.
“You want to marry Tona,” Dodong said. He did not want Blas to marry yet. Blas was very young. The life
that would follow marriage would be hard…
“Yes.”“Must you marry?”
Blas’ voice was steeled with resentment. “I will marry Tona.”
“You have objections, Itay?” Blas asked acridly.
“Son… n-none…” (But truly, God, I don’t want Blas to marry yet…not yet. I don’t want Blas to marry yet…)
But he was helpless. He could not do anything. Youth must triumph… now. Afterward… it will be Life.
As long ago Youth and Love did triumph for Dodong… and then Life.
Dodong looked wistfully at his young son in the moonlight. He felt extremely sad and sorry for him.
Desire
by Paz Latorena

She was homely. A very broad forehead gave her face an unpleasant, masculine look. Her eyes, which
were small, slanted at the corners and made many of her acquaintances wonder if perchance she had a
few drops of celestial blood in her veins. Her nose was broad and flat, and its nostrils were always dilated,
as if breathing were an effort. Her mouth, with thick lips, was a long, straight; gash across her face made
angular by her unusually big jaws.
But nature, as if ashamed of her meanness in fashioning the face, moulded a body of unusual beauty.
From her neck to her small feet, she was perfect. Her bust was full, and her breast rose up like twin roses
in full bloom. Her waist was slim as a young girl’s her hips seemed to have stolen the curve of the
crescent moon. Her arms were shapely ending in small hands with fine tapering fingers that were the
envy of her friends. Her legs with their trim ankles reminded one of those lifeless things seen in shop
windows displaying the latest silk stockings.
Hers was a body of a sculptor, athirst for glory, might have dreamt of and moulded in a feverish frenzy of
creation, with hand atremble with a vision of the fame in store for him. Hers was a body that might have
been the delight and despair of a painter whose feelings faltering brush tried in vain to depict on the
canvass such a beautiful harmony of curves and lines. Hers was a body a poet might have raved over
and immortalized in musical, fanciful verses. Hers was a body men would gladly have gone to hell for.
And they did. Men looked at her face and turned their eyes away; they looked at her body and were
enslaved. They forget the broad masculine forehead, the small eyes that slanted at the corners, the
unpleasant mouth, the aggressive jaws. All they had eyes for was that body, those hips that has stolen
the curve of the crescent moon.
But she hated her body – hated that gift which Nature, in a fit of remorse for the wrong done to her face,
had given her. She hated her body because it made men look at her with an unbeautiful light in their eyes
– married eyes, single eyes.
She wanted love, was starved for it. But she did not want that love that her body inspired in men. She
wanted something purer, cleaner.
She was disgusted. And hurt. For men told other women that they loved them looking deep into their eyes
to the soul beneath their voices low and soft, their hands quivering with the weight of their tenderness.
But men told her that they loved her body with eyes that made her feel as if she were naked, stripped
bare of their simple eyes to gaze upon. They told her that with voices made thick with desire, touched her
with hand afire, that scared her flesh, filling her with scorn and loathing.
She wanted to be loved as other women were loved. She was as good as pure as they. And some of
them were as homely as she was. But they did not have beautiful bodies. And so they were loved for
themselves.
Deliberately she set out to hide from the eyes of men the beautiful body that to her was a curse rather
than a blessing. She started wearing long, wide dresses that completely disfigured her. She gave up
wearing the Filipino costume which outlined her body with startling accuracy.
It took quite a time to make men forget that body that had once been their delight. But after a time they
became accustomed to the disfiguring dresses and concluded she had become fate and shapeless. She
accomplished the desired result.
And more.. For there came a time when men look at her and turned their eyes away, not with the
unbeautiful light of former days but with something akin to pity mirrored there –pity for a homely face and
a shapeless mass of flesh.
At first she was glad. Glad that she had succeeded in extinguishing that unbeautiful light in the eyes of
men when they looked at her.
After some time, she became rebellious. For she was a woman and she wanted to be loved and to love.
But it seemed that men would not have anything to do with a woman with a homely face and an
apparently shapeless mass of flesh.But she became reconciled to her fate. And rather than bring back
that unbeautiful light in men’s eyes, she chose to go … with the farce.
She turned to writing to while away the long nights spent brooding all alone.
Little things. Little lyrics. Little sketches. Sometimes they were the heart throbs of a woman who wanted
love and sweet things whispered to her in the dark.. Sometimes, they were the ironies of one who sees all
the weaknesses and stupidities of men and the world through eye made bitter by loneliness.
She sent them to papers which found the little things acceptable and published them, “To fill space,” she
told herself. But she continued to write because it made her forget once in a while how drab her life was.
And then came into her life – a man with white blood in his veins. He was one of those who believed in
the inferiority of colored races. But he found something unusual in the light, ironic tirades from the pen of
the unknown writer. Not in the little lyrics. No, he thought that those were superfluous effusions of a
woman belonging to a race of people who could not think of writing about anything except love. But he
liked the light airy sketches. They were like those of the people of his race.
One day, when he had nothing to do, he sent her, to encourage her, a note of appreciation. It was brief,
but the first glance showed her that it came from cultured man.
She answered it, a light, nonsensical answer that touched the sense of humor of the white man. That
started a correspondence. In the course of time, she came to watch for the mail carrier for the gray tinted
stationery that was his.
He asked to see her – to know her personally. Letters were so tantalizing. Her first impulse was to say no.
A bitter smile hovered about her lips as she surveyed her face before the mirror. He would be
disappointed, she told herself.
But she consented. They would have to meet sooner or later. The first meeting would surely be trial and
the sooner it was over, the better.
He, the white man, coming from a land of fair, blue-eyed women, was shocked. Perhaps, he found it a bit
difficult to associate this homely woman with one who could write such delightful sketches, such delightful
letters.
But she could talk rather well. There was a light vein of humor, faintly ironical at times, in everything she
said. And that delighted him.
He asked her to come out with him again. By the shore of Manila Bay one early evening, when her
homely face was softened by the darkness around them, he forgot that he was a white man, that she was
a brown maiden – a homely and to all appearances, shapeless creature at that. Her silence, as with half
closed eyes she gazed at the distance, was very soothing and under the spell of her understanding
sympathy, he found himself telling her of his home way over the seas, how he loved the blue of the sea
on early morning because it reminded of the blue of the eyes of the women of his native land. He told her
of his love of the sea, for the waves that dashed against the rocks in impotent fury, how he could spend
his life on the water, sailing on and on, to unknown and uncharted seas.
She listened to him silently. Then he woke up from the spell and, as if ashamed of the outburst of
confidence, added irrelevantly:
“But you are different from the other women of your race,” looking deep into her small eyes that slanted at
the corners.
She smiled. Of course she was, the homely and shapeless mass of flesh that he saw her to be.
No, I do not mean that, “he protested, divining her thoughts, “you do not seem to care much for
convention. No Filipino girl would go out unchaperoned with a man, a white mad at that.”
“A homely woman can very well afford to break conventions. Nobody minds her if she does. That is one
consolation of being homely,” was her calmly reply.
He laughed.
“You have some very queer ideas,” he observed.
“I should have,” she retorted. “If I didn’t nobody would notice me with my face and my … my figure,” she
hated herself for stammering the last words.
He looked at her impersonally, as if trying to find some beauty in her.
“But I like you,” was his verdict, uttered with the almost brutal frankness in his race. “I have not come
across a more interesting girl for a long time.”
They met, again. And again. Thoughts, pleasant thoughts, began to fill her mind. Had she at last found
one who liked her sincerely? For he liked her, that she was ready to believe. As a friend, a pal who
understood him. And the though gave her happiness – a friend, a pal who understood him – such as she
had never experienced before.
One day, an idea took hold of her – simply obsesses her. He was such a lover of beautiful things – of
beauty in any form. She noticed that in all his conversations, in very look, every gesture of his. A desire to
show him that she was not entirely devoid of beauty which he worshipped came over her.
It would not do any harm, she told herself. He had learned to like her for herself. He had leaned to value
their friendship, homely as she was shapeless as he thought her to be. Her body would matter not at all
now. It would please the aesthete in him perhaps, but it certainly would not matter much to the man.
From the bottom of a very old truck, she unearthed one of those flimsy, shapedly things tha had lain there
unused for many years. As she looked at herself in the mirror before the appointment, she grudgingly
admitted that her body had lost nothing of its hated beauty.
He was surprised. Pleasantly so.
Accustomed as he was to the beautiful bodies of the women of his race, he had to confess that there was
something of unusual beauty.
“Why have you been hiding such a beautiful figure all this time,” he demanded in mock anger.
“I did not know it was beautiful,” she lied.
“Pouff! I know it is not polite to tell a young lady she is a liar so I won’t do it. But… but…”
“But…” fear was beginning to creep into her voice.
“Well… Let us talk of something else.”
She heaved in a deep sigh. She was right. She had found a man to whom her body mattered little if
anything at all. She need not take warning. He had learned to like her for herself.
At their next meeting she wore a pale rose Filipino dress that softened the brown of her skin. His eyes
lighted up when they rested on her, but whether it was the unbeautiful light that she dreaded so much,
she could not determine for it quickly disappeared. No, it could not be the unbeautiful light. He liked her
for herself. This belief she treasured fondly.
They had a nice long ride out in the country, where the winds were soft and faintly scented and the
bamboo tress sighed love to the breeze. They visited a little our of the way nipa chapel by the roadside
where a naked Man, nailed to the Cross, looked at them with eyes which held all the tragedy and sorrow
of the world – for the sins of sinning men.
She gazed at the figure feeling something vague and incomprehensible stirring within her. She turned to
him for sympathy and found him staring at her… at her body.
He turned slightly red. In silence they left the little chapel. He helped her inside the car but did not start it
at once.
“I… I… love…” he stammered after some moment, as if impelled by an irresistible force. Then he
stopped.
The small eyes that slanted at the corners were almost beautiful with a tender, soft light as she turned
them on hi. So he loved her. Had he learned not only to like her but to love her? For herself. And the half
finished confession found an echo in the heart of the woman who was starved for love.
“Yes…” there was a pleading note in her voice.
He swallowed hard. “I love…. Your body.” He finished with a thick voice: And the blue eyes flared with the
dreaded, hateful light.
She uttered an involuntary cry of protest, of pain of disillusion. And then a sob escaped her.
And dimly the man from the West realized that he had wronged this little brown maiden with a homely
face and the beautiful body as she never had been wronged before. And he felt sorry, infinitely so.
When they stopped before the door of her house, he got out to open the door for her.
“I am sorry,” was all he said.
There was a world of regret in the eyes she turned on him.
“For what?” she asked in a tired voice. “You have just been yourself… like other men.” He winced.
And with a weary smile she passed within.
 Wedding Dance
By Amador Daguio
Awiyao reached for the upper horizontal log which served as the edge of the headhigh
threshold. Clinging to the log, he lifted himself with one bound that carried him across to the narrow
door. He slid back the cover, stepped inside, then pushed the cover back in place. After some moments
during which he seemed to wait, he talked to the listening darkness.
"I'm sorry this had to be done. I am really sorry. But neither of us can help it."
The sound of the gangsas beat through the walls of the dark house like muffled roars of falling waters.
The woman who had moved with a start when the sliding door opened had been hearing the gangsas for
she did not know how long. There was a sudden rush of fire in her. She gave no sign that she heard
Awiyao, but continued to sit unmoving in the darkness.
But Awiyao knew that she heard him and his heart pitied her. He crawled on all fours to the middle of the
room; he knew exactly where the stove was. With bare fingers he stirred the covered smoldering embers,
and blew into the stove. When the coals began to glow, Awiyao put pieces of pine on them, then full
round logs as his arms. The room brightened.
"Why don't you go out," he said, "and join the dancing women?" He felt a pang inside him, because what
he said was really not the right thing to say and because the woman did not stir. "You should join the
dancers," he said, "as if--as if nothing had happened." He looked at the woman huddled in a corner of the
room, leaning against the wall. The stove fire played with strange moving shadows and lights
upon her face. She was partly sullen, but her sullenness was not because of anger or hate.
"Go out--go out and dance. If you really don't hate me for this separation, go out and dance. One of the
men will see you dance well; he will like your dancing, he will marry you. Who knows but that, with him,
you will be luckier than you were with me."
"I don't want any man," she said sharply. "I don't want any other man."
He felt relieved that at least she talked: "You know very well that I won't want any other woman either.
You know that, don't you? Lumnay, you know it, don't you?"
She did not answer him.
"You know it Lumnay, don't you?" he repeated. "Yes, I know," she said weakly.
"It is not my fault," he said, feeling relieved. "You cannot blame me; I have been a good husband to you."
"Neither can you blame me," she said. She seemed about to cry.
"No, you have been very good to me. You have been a good wife. I have nothing to say against you." He
set some of the burning wood in place. "It's only that a man must have a child. Seven harvests is just too
long to wait. Yes, we have waited too long. We should have another chance before it is too late for both
of us."
This time the woman stirred, stretched her right leg out and bent her left leg in. She wound the blanket
more snugly around herself. "You know that I have done my best," she said. "I have prayed to Kabunyan
much. I have sacrificed many chickens in my prayers."
"Yes, I know." "You remember how angry you were once when you came home from your work in the
terrace because I butchered one of our pigs without your permission? I did it to appease Kabunyan,
because, like you, I wanted to have a child. But what could I do?"
"Kabunyan does not see fit for us to have a child," he said. He stirred the fire. The spark rose through the
crackles of the flames. The smoke and soot went up the ceiling.
Lumnay looked down and unconsciously started to pull at the rattan that kept the split bamboo flooring in
place. She tugged at the rattan flooring. Each time she did this the split bamboo went up and came down
with a slight rattle. The gong of the dancers clamorously called in her care through the walls.
Awiyao went to the corner where Lumnay sat, paused before her, looked at her bronzed and sturdy face,
then turned to where the jars of water stood piled one over the other. Awiyao took a coconut cup and
dipped it in the top jar and drank. Lumnay had filled the jars from the mountain creek early that evening.
"I came home," he said. "Because I did not find you among the dancers. Of course, I am not forcing you
to come, if you don't want to join my wedding ceremony. I came to tell you that Madulimay, although I
am marrying her, can never become as good as you are. She is not as strong in planting beans, not as fast
in cleaning water jars, not as good keeping a house clean. You are one of the best wives in the
whole village." "That has not done me any good, has it?" She said. She looked at him lovingly. She
almost seemed to smile. He put the coconut cup aside on the floor and came closer to her. He held her
face between his hands and looked longingly at her beauty. But her eyes looked away. Never again would
he hold her face. The next day she would not be his any more. She would go back to her parents. He let
go of her face, and she bent to the floor again and looked at her fingers as they tugged softly at the split
bamboo floor. "This house is yours," he said. "I built it for you. Make it your own, live in it as long as you
wish. I will build another house for Madulimay."
"I have no need for a house," she said slowly. "I'll go to my own house. My parents are old. They will
need help in the planting of the beans, in the pounding of the rice."
"I will give you the field that I dug out of the mountains during the first year of our marriage," he said.
"You know I did it for you. You helped me to make it for the two of us."
"I have no use for any field," she said.
He looked at her, then turned away, and became silent. They were silent for a time.
"Go back to the dance," she said finally. "It is not right for you to be here. They will wonder where you
are, and Madulimay will not feel good. Go back to the dance."
"I would feel better if you could come, and dance---for the last time. The gangsas are playing."
"You know that I cannot."
"Lumnay," he said tenderly. "Lumnay, if I did this it is because of my need for a child. You know that life
is not worth living without a child. The man have mocked me behind my back. You know that."
"I know it," he said. "I will pray that Kabunyan will bless you and Madulimay."
She bit her lips now, then shook her head wildly, and sobbed.
She thought of the seven harvests that had passed, the high hopes they had in the beginning of their new
life, the day he took her away from her parents across the roaring river, on the other side of the mountain,
the trip up the trail which they had to climb, the steep canyon which they had to cross. The waters boiled
in her mind in forms of white and jade and roaring silver; the waters tolled and growled,
resounded in thunderous echoes through the walls of the stiff cliffs; they were far away now from
somewhere on the tops of the other ranges, and they had looked carefully at the buttresses of rocks they
had to step on---a slip would have meant death.
They both drank of the water then rested on the other bank before they made the final climb to the other
side of the mountain. She looked at his face with the fire playing upon his features---hard and strong, and
kind. He had a sense of lightness in his way of saying things which often made her and the village people
laugh. How proud she had been of his humor. The muscles where taut and firm, bronze and compact in
their hold upon his skull---how frank his bright eyes were. She looked at his body the carved out of the
mountains five fields for her; his wide and supple torso heaved as if a slab of shining lumber were
heaving; his arms and legs flowed down in fluent muscles--he was strong and for that she had lost him.
She flung herself upon his knees and clung to them. "Awiyao, Awiyao, my husband," she cried. "I did
everything to have a child," she said passionately in a hoarse whisper. "Look at me," she cried. "Look at
my body. Then it was full of promise. It could dance; it could work fast in the fields; it could climb the
mountains fast. Even now it is firm, full. But, Awiyao, I am useless. I must die."
"It will not be right to die," he said, gathering her in his arms. Her whole warm naked naked breast
quivered against his own; she clung now to his neck, and her hand lay upon his right shoulder; her hair
flowed down in cascades of gleaming darkness.
"I don't care about the fields," she said. "I don't care about the house. I don't care for anything but you. I'll
have no other man."
"Then you'll always be fruitless."
"I'll go back to my father, I'll die."
"Then you hate me," he said. "If you die it means you hate me. You do not want me to have a child. You
do not want my name to live on in our tribe."
She was silent.
"If I do not try a second time," he explained, "it means I'll die. Nobody will get the fields I have carved
out of the mountains; nobody will come after me."
"If you fail--if you fail this second time--" she said thoughtfully. The voice was a shudder. "No--no, I
don't want you to fail."
"If I fail," he said, "I'll come back to you. Then both of us will die together. Both of us will vanish from
the life of our tribe."
The gongs thundered through the walls of their house, sonorous and faraway.
"I'll keep my beads," she said. "Awiyao, let me keep my beads," she half-whispered.
"You will keep the beads. They come from far-off times. My grandmother said they come from up North,
from the slant-eyed people across the sea. You keep them, Lumnay. They are worth twenty fields."
"I'll keep them because they stand for the love you have for me," she said. "I love you. I love you and
have nothing to give."
She took herself away from him, for a voice was calling out to him from outside. "Awiyao! Awiyao! O
Awiyao! They are looking for you at the dance!"
"I am not in hurry."
"The elders will scold you. You had better go."
"Not until you tell me that it is all right with you."
"It is all right with me."
He clasped her hands. "I do this for the sake of the tribe," he said.
"I know," she said.
He went to the door.
"Awiyao!"
He stopped as if suddenly hit by a spear. In pain he turned to her. Her face was in agony. It pained him to
leave. She had been wonderful to him. What was it that made a man wish for a child? What was it in life,
in the work in the field, in the planting and harvest, in the silence of the night, in the communing with
husband and wife, in the whole life of the tribe itself that made man wish for the laughter and speech of a
child? Suppose he changed his mind? Why did the unwritten law demand, anyway, that a man, to be a
man, must have a child to come after him? And if he was fruitless--but he loved Lumnay. It was like
taking away of his life to leave her like this.
"Awiyao," she said, and her eyes seemed to smile in the light. "The beads!" He turned back and walked to
the farthest corner of their room, to the trunk where they kept their worldly possession---his battle-ax and
his spear points, her betel nut box and her beads. He dug out from the darkness the beads which had been
given to him by his grandmother to give to Lumnay on the beads on, and tied them in place. The white
and jade and deep orange obsidians shone in the firelight. She suddenly clung to him, clung to his neck as
if she would never let him go.
"Awiyao! Awiyao, it is hard!" She gasped, and she closed her eyes and huried her face in his neck.
The call for him from the outside repeated; her grip loosened, and he buried out into the night.
Lumnay sat for some time in the darkness. Then she went to the door and opened it. The moonlight struck
her face; the moonlight spilled itself on the whole village.
She could hear the throbbing of the gangsas coming to her through the caverns of the other houses. She
knew that all the houses were empty that the whole tribe was at the dance. Only she was absent. And yet
was she not the best dancer of the village? Did she not have the most lightness and grace? Could she not,
alone among all women, dance like a bird tripping for grains on the ground, beautifully
timed to the beat of the gangsas? Did not the men praise her supple body, and the women envy the way
she stretched her hands like the wings of the mountain eagle now and then as she danced? How long ago
did she dance at her own wedding? Tonight, all the women who counted, who once danced in her honor,
were dancing now in honor of another whose only claim was that perhaps she could give her
husband a child.

"It is not right. It is not right!" she cried. "How does she know? How can anybody know? It is not right,"
she said.
Suddenly she found courage. She would go to the dance. She would go to the chief of the village, to the
elders, to tell them it was not right. Awiyao was hers; nobody could take him away from her. Let her be
the first woman to complain, to denounce the unwritten rule that a man may take another woman. She
would tell Awiyao to come back to her. He surely would relent. Was not their love as strong as the
river?
She made for the other side of the village where the dancing was. There was a flaming glow over the
whole place; a great bonfire was burning. The gangsas clamored more loudly now, and it seemed they
were calling to her. She was near at last. She could see the dancers clearly now. The man leaped lightly
with their gangsas as they circled the dancing women decked in feast garments and beads, tripping on the
ground like graceful birds, following their men. Her heart warmed to the flaming call of the dance;
strange heat in her blood welled up, and she started to run. But the gleaming brightness of the bonfire
commanded her to stop. Did anybody see her approach?
She stopped. What if somebody had seen her coming? The flames of the bonfire leaped in countless
sparks which spread and rose like yellow points and died out in the night. The blaze reached out to her
like a spreading radiance. She did not have the courage to break into the wedding feast.
Lumnay walked away from the dancing ground, away from the village. She thought of the new clearing
of beans which Awiyao and she had started to make only four moons before. She followed the trail above
the village.
When she came to the mountain stream she crossed it carefully. Nobody held her hand, and the stream
water was very cold. The trail went up again, and she was in the moonlight shadows among the trees and
shrubs. Slowly she climbed the mountain.
When Lumnay reached the clearing, she cold see from where she stood the blazing bonfire at the edge of
the village, where the wedding was. She could hear the far-off clamor of the gongs, still rich in their
sonorousness, echoing from mountain to mountain. The sound did not mock her; they seemed to call far
to her, to speak to her in the language of unspeaking love. She felt the pull of their gratitude for her
sacrifice. Her heartbeat began to sound to her like many gangsas.
Lumnay though of Awiyao as the Awiyao she had known long ago-- a strong, muscular boy carrying his
heavy loads of fuel logs down the mountains to his home. She had met him one day as she was on her
way to fill her clay jars with water. He had stopped at the spring to drink and rest; and she had made him
drink the cool mountain water from her coconut shell. After that it did not take him long to decide to
throw his spear on the stairs of her father's house in token on his desire to marry her.
The mountain clearing was cold in the freezing moonlight. The wind began to stir the leaves of the bean
plants. Lumnay looked for a big rock on which to sit down. The bean plants now surrounded her, and she
was lost among them.
A few more weeks, a few more months, a few more harvests---what did it matter? She would be holding
the bean flowers, soft in the texture, silken almost, but moist where the dew got into them, silver to look
at, silver on the light blue, blooming whiteness, when the morning comes. The stretching of the bean pods
full length from the hearts of the wilting petals would go on.

Lumnay's fingers moved a long, long time among the growing bean pods.