9. Discuss the literary style of the author.

THE EXILE
Ricardo I. Patlinjug
What did they say? Precisely: Alberto Sanchez, the young priest and doctor,
couldn't remember. He wasn't listening; he was thinking. But his pose gave the
illusion of a patient and perfect listener. There was a line of thought he was
pursuing, snared in the meshes of some broken images moving in the dark
chamber of his mind. It was unfair: he keeping his silence as if he were deaf and
dumb and they: doing all the talking, trying to keep up connections. Slowly he
turned to the young couple, Ramon Aquino and his wife, Teresa, the look of
apology luminous in his face. "I passed by your house yesterday," he said and lit
a stick of cigarette. The white smoke veiled his wan face. They were sitting on a
bench hewn out of a white rock and set under the thick foliage of fruit trees.
Ramon Aquino was a rich young man. He owned most of the fishing boats in the
island.
"And why didn't you drop in, Father?" Teresa asked, looking up at the
priest's pale face.
"I was in a hurry then," he explained. “It was already dusk and you know
how difficult and dangerous it is to walk in the dark." He dropped the words
slowly: pebbles falling into some murky waters.
"Well," Ramon said, "but some of these days you're going to visit us,
Father?”
"Of course. I'll be there when Teresa's time comes," he said. He laughed looking at
Teresa who was pregnant. The murky waters were as placid as ever.
Teresa winced and cupped her belly with her palm. "He must be a boy. He kicks a
lot."
Fr. Sanchez shifted his gaze to the white sun: a blinding luminance breaking free from
the dark fringe of tall trees upland. A flabellum of dark gray, flanked by a deep growth,
marked a headland of rocks. Tall, mighty rocks scanning the plains: gods whispering
high secrets in the wind.
This was a Sunday and already the mass was over. "He's restless and naughty. I only
hope he won't kill me," Teresa intoned jokingly.
Fr. Sanchez laughed again. His hands fluttered to his breast and rested there. His fingers were
frail and bony and white against the big black crucifix he wore. There were shadows, threatening
shadows, creeping at the edge of his thought. Now his listeners were staring at him with a puzzled
look. The waters didn't stir.
"You're a very sad and lonely man, Father," Ramon said. “I can't
figure out why you are assigned here.”
He didn't answer. He shrugged his shoulders and watched a flock of sea
gulls swoop down the barnacled boulders. The prey, trapped, hissed, and
was caught. “The religious are the real loners," he said. Outside the cluster
of huts dotting across the plains off-shore, the nets hung to dry ballooned in
the wind but were soon pressed tight against the bamboo poles. Now the
nets looked like black monks: patient, sad, trapped.
"I wonder what will happen to you here, Father," Teresa said once
more. He answered her with sad laughter. Soon the couple bade him
goodbye and went away.
Why he was assigned to the island was a question which Fr. Sanchez hadn't the
least curiosity to dig into. For him the question was some sort of a tocsin he
shouldn't disturb lest it create a fuss. Or a book labeled index in the Catholic
University library where he used to study and which simply meant: not for
circulation. True, an incident had happened before his assignment but he wasn't
prone to believe that it was the root cause of his sudden transfer. There were
other reasons. And one of them was the fact that he was a doctor. But his good
friend, Paulo, considered the incident as the immediate cause of his plight.
“Punishment from the gods!” Paulo had shockedly commented. “And you're a
fool if you pretend that it is not!”
After his ordination, his notoriety as a poet had caused a stir in the
seminary. The prediction was that his poetry would perish if submitted
to the censor's desk. The prediction came true when his second
volume of poems didn't get the imprimatur.
It was a wake, he remembered, a wake for his art, when the bald and soutaned
literati huddled close together around the glasstopped table. It was a misleading
scene. The old critics showed all signs of sensitivity. But the moment they started
talking, they merely exhibited their frayed grasp of the classical theory of art and
logic no stronger than their rheumatic limbs. Their eyes glowed with abortive
insights as their withering wits unhesitatingly tore Fr. Sanchez's manuscripts into
shreds. There was only one who defended the art of the young priest: the old
artist, Fr. Tereso Menez. But his sympathy for Fr. Sanchez was easily thwarted by
his colleagues' forceful eloquence, impassioned speech, and vehement pounding
on the table to reinforce the strength of a doddering argument. It was a useless
fight Fr. Tereso had to put up, but he fought just the same and it was this which
drew admiration from Fr. Sanchez, Fr. Tereso emerged was drained from the
discussion room, lamenting the sad plight of medioc through yet," he said to Fr.
Sanchez. "So don't worry." shaking. "However, please don'd get us wrong. You
see...
worried about you, Fr. Sanchez,” the Rector said, flushing hard and
he wagged his head awkwardly and leaned back,
u get us wrong. You see ... I am not a literary critic," decision."
awkwardly and leaned back, “but I think I can justify the censor's Fr. Sanchez kept his
silence across the tal mouth to speak, but before he could say a w
mis silence across the table. What should he say? He opened his
ut before he could say a word the Rector waved his hand for total silence. Fr. Sanchez
sulked in his seat with a long face
ed in his seat with a long face. "Art and religion are not two opposing ends, Sanchez,"
the Rector went on, trying to sou
the Rector went on, trying to sound authoritative on the
way for his reach, too elusive for his weak aesthetics, too complicated for his
mind nearing the point of senility. "I bet you know Of course I do. He looked up a
do. He looked up at the Rector's furrowed face. It was a hideously
ce: prominent jaws tensely set, the watery eyes lucent beneath the thick glasses. The
face reminded him of some
race reminded him of some gothic mask fashioned by medieval artisans.
ad
1 not

"...But we are worried about you, Fr. Sanchez, the

cor

422
"Art and religion can easily be reconciled. God himself is an artist, you should
know that. The point of reconciliation is not hard to find as long as you are
conscious of your religion. What is so disgraceful about your poems is the subtle
manipulation of subjects and themes-a subterfuge, I would say—so that what are
essentially pagan and obscene assume the appearance of being Christian and
moral. In our time, Art hungers for a purpose. And the purpose, the ideal purpose,
is to draw men toward God. But in your case-I can hardly believe it myself--you
are doing exactly the opposite!" He paused for effect and heaved a deep breath.
"No, I really can't understand why you discuss Christ and Prometheus in the
same breath, Parsifal as an absurd hero and, oh-this blasphemous portrayal of
man as Sisyphus after the Fall ... it's disgusting!” Now the Rector was sweating
profusely. His face sagged with the heat.
It took the young priest a long time to frame his answer. He was looking out the window
when he spoke: "I wrote most of those poems before I entered the seminary."
"But you believe in what you have written, don't you?”
“They are a private vision-my poems I mean. And you see..." How to explain
himself without working into a passion? “You see ..."
The Rector waved his hand for silence again and Fr. Sanchez fell to studying the
floor.
"If what you said in your poems are the things you believe in, then why you
decided to become a priest passes my comprehension. What made you enter the
seminary in the first place?”
“... It's this acute feeling of emptiness,” he said, his hand gripping the glass:
tight and kind of angry.
"And because of that you're going to enter the seminary?” Paulo asked, faceless
behind the screen of cigarette smoke. Already it was late in the evening. The wind
was cool and heavy and the sounds of the city had turned into a muffled noise
drumming dully against the concrete walls of the apartment.
“You see, I need ... I am through with ...” he faltered, groped for words and
stopped altogether.
"Emptiness! There are many things in this world that will fill it up." "What
for instance?”
"This-these monthly sessions we have ...Oh, boy! You should not have stopped
attending them. But the priesthood! ---"
He didn't stir from his seat. He looked at his glass: the yellowish liquid, the
white bubbles shimmering at the edge. Cigarette smoke spread, shreds of
white ribbons teasing the eyes, veiling things, coaxing the mind to
remember even as it coaxed the eyes to close.
It was a circular lawn of thick Bermuda grass. A high concrete wall topped with
spearheads of broken glass surrounded the place protectively. Facing the
driveway across a bed of pebbles and dry leaves, rose a marble angel with
broken wings and a battered face. In the center of the lawn was an exposed
square surrounded with broken columns, and there: the flames leaped, throbbed
to the rhythm of a wild Beat music, and they: dancing wildly, madly, their eyes
smouldering, gleaming like embers, and their exposed bodies golden in the
raging, crackling fire and he: seemingly out of his mind, dancing with a little
woman with small brave breasts, who, at the height of the revel, clung to him
passionately, mumbling words that didn't mean anything, and he: remembering
himself, suddenly trembled, felt sick and nauseated while the woman kept on
clinging to him, waiting to be loved, and didn't understand when he suddenly
screamed; No, not this! and ran out of the garden into the night, leaving behind
the mouldering fire and the embers glowing in the dark like frightened eyes. ...

423 “It's defeating! Disgusting! You'll rot there... your art ..." His head swirled with the
images and the sounds of the city. But before he could ask the images has fled in the
dark corners and were gone. He fell silent before the Tincing face, at once embarrassed
by his sterile silence. Now he became aware of a
que, sour heaviness rolling his stomach. It was something nauseating which, he
thought with pain, couldn't be washed out by the contents of the glass he held.
Conversation had become a ritual to their group in the University, mere cursory
jabs at their unfeeling selves. But now it was different. Words were blows, severe
blows aimed to knock him down, leaving behind an imprint almost of heat. He
fastened his eyes to his friend's lean face and said in a voice slightly tremolous:
"No, this won't disrupt anything. I will continue to write. My second book of
poems. . . I'm not through with it yet.” The words cleared from his mouth languidly
like wounded birds.
Paulo finished his drink, shook his head and said: "I think we're going to lose you
forever." His voice came out faintly as though he were talking from afar.
"Perhaps," he said. He watched Paulo keep his uneasy silence across the table.
“But you see, I think I have the calling, the vocation. You will not understand this,
but you see ..." once more he sought the right words to express himself but
failed. His mind was blank. There was, instead, the sound of unfamiliar syllables
vibrating in his brain as though someone had struck a wrong cord somewhere.
"You're a fool! Priesthood. You can't revolutionize poetry by chanting hymns!"
"You don't understand me,” he said. His voice: soft, resigned.
"Of course I don't understand you!” Paulo was angry. His voice told him that. It was a
deeply hurt voice: sharp, sudden, cutting the ribbons of smoke that bound them tight.
"I have made my mind," he said. "I am convinced. To run away from this is to betray my
conviction." He felt the anger across the table; felt the pain that was also his. He
steadied himself in his seat. He felt as though something had weighed him down..
Impatience strained to surface across Paulo's face. He rose, flailed his arms helplessly
in the air and shouted: “This is getting on my nerves! ...."
"... Now don't let these things get on your nerves,” the Rector said leaning forward,
searching the young priest's face: blank, bland, withdrawn. And seeing himself not
there, he reached him again, now with his comforting voice: "We can also make
allowances, you see. Our Order tolerates talents and we have artists to boot.” He
named them. “As for your poems, well you can
“Throw them into the furnace!" A month later, Fr. Sanchez was assigned to the
island. It was a barren island. Sunswept. Windlashed. Most of the islanders lived
by fishing. ne decrepit stone church summed up the spiritual condition of the
people. The islanders had more use for him as a doctor than as a priest. But
unless armed with a Justification, they wouldn't come to him. He had tried, how
hard he had tried, to become one with the islanders themselves. But almost
always, he ended up sulking in his room and his name hovering gently between
two nameless faces discussing a vague legend.
Although his mind conspired to make him think that he had wandered
disastrously into a wrong world, yet there never was a time when he failed to feel
the strength of the unfamiliar but palpable force of kinship with the islanders.
Which was the very reason why he forgave them all, nursed no resentment
against
them.

Naked to the waist, he was aware of beads of sweat rolling down his hairy chest.
The wind coming in from the wide, grilled window was thin and trembling. He kept
to his bed in spite of the heat, reading Weston's From Ritual to Romance.
Suddenly he

424 slammed the book shut. Face lined with sweat, he watched the ceiling with a
far and vacant gaze. Images danced within the field of his vision: Parsifal
searching for the Holy Grail, the wounded Fisher King, the vast expanse of the
whimpering Wasteland, the trees skeletal and brittle under the brooding sky. He
rose to his feet and looked out the window. It was a blistering noon with a fatal
air, and the high sun was a blinding luminance in the sky. Beyond the huddled
houses the free stretch of the barren earth, strewn with the stubble of the year's
lean harvest, looked stunned and desolate. The heat! The heat! He felt that
something in him was burning too. He winced as he lit a stick of cigarette.
Nearby, yellow leaves fell onto the porous ground with a whispering sound.
Someone called out his name, and when he turned back he saw Roque's face:
tight, sweating. "There's an emergency call, Father," the altar boy said. Once
more he winced.
He felt the violet dusk deepen the color of his sadness as he walked down the low
and narrow hallway toward his room. As he had expected, his trip that afternoon
had been useless. At the back of his mind he could still see the fisherman's
mangled body—the bloodshot eyes, the broken limbs, the insides all ripped out-
and he standing helplessly because there was nothing else he could do. He had
arrived too late. The air was heavy with the smell of explosives. As soon as he
entered his room he lit the kerosene lamp. Then he took off his cassock wearily
and hung it on a rack set against the wall. The wind from the sea blew nicely at
his exposed body. He closed his eyes and heaved a deep breath. When he
opened them he saw a gray smudge staining the whiteness of his cassock. He
wondered if he was seeing things. He closed his eyes for the second time and
then fastened them on his cassock once more. There was no change. His
cassock, a brilliant white, was diffused with a gray smudge. Well, he thought, I
must have gotten it somewhere.
Now stretched on his back with an arm across his eyes, he tried to focus his mind
on some comforting thing. But his thought could only move within the perimeter
of a circleful of broken images. He noted, more than anything else, the image of
himself in a circle of violet light, fishing in a dull canal. The eerie scene swung
across the broad, indeterminate landscape of his mind. Suddenly he was moved
by some dark thought which swept within him like fear. He felt weak and drained
in the ebbing heat.
He woke up with the sun. That morning he had the feeling of waiting for something he
didn't know. He swung out of bed, threw open the window and looked out. Farther west,
beyond the drag of the rocky peninsula, a boat with fat red sails ripped the belly of the
huge blue water with the swiftness and grace of a swordfish. Tensely it nosed its way
landward. The sails quivered in the close path of wind, burst into brilliant purple when
touched by the long fingers of the sun. Sea gulls flecked the bare sky like toy balloons.
They flashed westward over hills and plains.
After the mass he cleaned his room. He was shocked to discover how the
termites had eaten up most of his important manuscripts, notes, medical and
philosophy books. He searched for some insecticide but couldn't find any. He
went out and took a dip in the sea. Then he ate his breakfast. After that he set out
to visit his patients. It was an exceptionally beautiful morning. The early bursting
brightness spread across the full and restless sea. Beyond the channel the
mainland faded into a disjointed blur. Upland, trees touched by the sun burst
brilliant green. The mighty rocks lay crouched, still like dead gods.
A dove cut a neat path across a patch of sunlight. Beneath, disturbed by the
swift, sudden passage, gaudy butterflies dispersed, then regrouped
symmetrically.

425
Multicolored flowers danced on the wending way: teased the eyes with their
consuming beauty. He was in a state of pure wakefulness. And precisely: he
noted the
errain ands the disturbing beauty with careful passion. Felt: Nature's tender
fingers touching the finer sensibilities of the poet in him.
I am human, not vegetal, he recalled the letter he had sent to Paulo a month
after his arrival in the island, and as such, the beauty of the place stirs my
senses, coaxes the poet in me to come to life. Only idiots do not respond to the
disturbing beauty of the island. True. I am constantly haunted with the poems I
failed to write, the literary experiments I didn't pursue. But you see, poetry here
has no meaning; art; a language nobody understands. I am no longer an artist.
The artist in me has become a ghost: cold and separate, abstract like love. Priest
and doctor, that's what I am now. I believe that sbiritual and medical alleviations
are legitimate approaches to solve the problems of individual transcience. And I
won't quote the Bible to bore you.
Nearby a bird burst out of an ancient tree festooned with vines and ferns,
shattering the brooding silence of the dim interior with its shriek. The cry-it was a
kind of pained persistence slicing across the air eerie lightness. From an
abandoned quay, the echo bounced back, then strained to surface across his
drawn face like an ugly stain. At the bend of the cove children and women were
waiting for the morning catch. He was breathing harshly, his chest pained in the
effort. He waited for his mind to clear and respond to the flow of images and
voices fanned inland by the wind. ...
Already it was evening when he reached the port. At the end of the long, narrow
pier the boat was ready to pull anchor. He turned around and at once saw Paulo's
composed face illumined by the faint light cast from a nearby lamppost. He
appeared bland in the eerie atmosphere, a dreamy figure looking sick and
defeated. After a while the figure spoke: "I am afraid." And he answered: "I can
take care of myself." The fact wavered, turned white as smoke. For a moment he
was aware of his feeling him only at the edge of his benumbed consciousness.
He half listened to him talking about the Fisher King alone in his wasteland. When
he finished, already the implication was clear in his mind. So he said: "I will
probably discover it for myself. You see, there are lots of possibilities.” The face
winced. The mouth opened like a wound to drop names: Parsifal. Sisyphus.
Gerard Manley Hopkins.
Which made him think of the necessity of explanation. He said: "Understand I
don't have a cheerful certainty of the world, you know," and when he didn't
answer, he went on: "Speculation always captures the interest of an active mind.
However, there are certain things knowable only after the passage of time."
The face looked up and said: "In your case, the possibilities are few. I have
mentioned them"
"Son of Cassandra, you!” he said and laughed to break the tension between
them.
In the island itself, after leaving the progressive town of the mainland and crossing the
18-mile channel, Fr. Sanchez was at once aware of having left behind the complexities of
modern life. In entering this new world, so remote, so devoid of the edificies of
civilization with which he had so little direct contact, he thought he had fallen into a
vacuum, free-a temptation which encountered little opposition-to create, asserting some
kind of kinship with his finer sensibilities. But this sort of kinship was purely of a
disturbingly impersonal quality so that the sweeping anguish, the kind that could be
fashioned only by loneliness, had all the chances in the world to annihilate it. So he had
to bring his nerves to heel, steady his mind, and keep some order in his thoughts.
Practically nothing happened that day. The hours took on a boring languor and
he
426 could feel himself gently washed by the game of being bored. His patients
appeared fine enough to go out fishing but, as always, they wouldn't talk. The
blank look on their bland faces challenged to be reached. Armlength of wariness.
Shuttered minds: dumb as stone. In the absence of communication, the full threat
of exclusion descended on him.
Now walking down on the uneven face of the dry, rocky earth, he was terrified to
admit the accuracy of his own observation that he was a stranger in the island, an
outsider ensconced within the walls of subtle indifference. No, there was no one
to blame but himself. He had misjudged the seriousness of the matter by clinging
to the illusion that a minister's devotion to his parish is just like a fire in a cold,
windlashed forest crawling with shivering people. The warmth of the fire, he
thought, would surely draw the trembling crowd.
He was wrong. In the island the fire was regarded with silence.
His mind coursed on with the wind. The heat. There was something he could not
isolate with the heat: the tendency to brood over the slightest thoughts. Now he
was thinking what in life would define his existence. The name Jean Genet
invaded his thoughts. But suppose . . . Bah! Why should he imperil himself by
asking risky questions? Would it not be easier for him to just kneel before the
altar, bow his head and pray? Brethen, the words of their Order's founder
drummed in the frail chambers of his ear. Brethen, when doubts cross your mind,
pray to God to strenthen your Faith. But such an act is ... is downright stupid, he
thought. It is one way, and the easiest, to evade the crucial issues of life. To be a
priest is not to shirk questions concerning the immediate and the physical. One
should, as the cliche goes, face the music. But what if the music is unbearable?
He could feel the pain gather in his chest. He could feel it tighten into a searing
knot that made him wince. No, he couldn't say he was a minister for nothing. If his
estrangement from his parish and superiors would continue beyond all aid, still
he could afford to be benign, accept his lot and perhaps spend the rest of his
time searching for clues that would help unravel the ramifications of the mess in
which he had acquiescently participated. Lately, more and more questions had
started hemming him in. And while it was true that he had withdrawn deeper and
deeper into himself, still he couldn't say he had deteriorated. No, he couldn't say
he had deteriorated. He felt a bit satisfied. He could pride himself in having stayed
in the island longer than any other priest. There were not many priests in the
diocese who would accept his assignment without grumbling. And for this
reason, he humorously considered himself a hero of some sort, doing a vicarious
task while praying to God that he would be given enough strength and patience
to carry on with the job.
Already it was dusk when he reached the church. This was the last part of
summer and the violent hour lingered for a while on the windlashed island: now
smelling of brine and seaweed. About a hundred meters offshore the boat with
red sails was anchored.
When he entered his room, he willed himself to stillness. The turn of
consciousness was tired but precise.
Bent low over the yellow pages of the book which recorded the cost of his
physical existence in the island, he watched the old priest, Benigno, with the
intentness of an artist sketching his model with careful aplomb.
When Fr. Benigno noticed the presence of Fr. Sanchez in the room, he crossed
his short legs, threw back his immense bald head and fixed his eyes, which were
a dull glow in a nest of wrinkles, on the young man's pale face. It was the old,
strong, probing, demanding stare. "Your penmanship ... it's horrible!” he grunted.
His voice: like the sputtering of a radio in a stormy weather.
427
The remark didn't suprise the young priest at all, for it had become a
part of the old op himself, like the dirt beneath his fingernails. It was an
old remark repeated over od over (his visit was inconceivable without
it), reminding Fr. Sanchez as to how long he had been entrenched in
the island. The truth was that it wouldn't make any difference at all
whether Sanchez's handwriting was good or bad because the old
priest
was half-blind.
Same needs?” he closed the book and looked up. "Any complaints?" he
pursued with
impatience.
Fr Sanchez didn't answer. It would be useless: Fr. Benigno was deaf.
The old priest rose to his feet, vaguely irritated. Sanchez knew why. It was because he
had no complaint. Fr. Benigno had been the inspector of this part of the diocese for a
long time and his mind was an aggregate of complaints left behind by Fr. Sanchez's
predecessors. He had always been irked by the young priest's disturbing silence, his
stoical serenity, his tacit acceptance of things dreaded by the others. It was so because
Fr. Sanchez had understood his situation earlier. He knew that cliches like Are you
contented with your life here? Would you like to move to another place? What are your
complaints?-were just formalities, stupid formalities. A negative answer to the first
question would lead to a lengthy sermon how paltry the assignment in the island was
compared to the precarious mission of their brothers living among the cannibals in the
wilderness of Africa; a positive answer to the second would mean inability to cope with
commonplace problems; and the submission of a list in answer to the third would be a
disgrace, an obvious proof of weak asceticism and ignorance of the lives of martyrs
which Fr. Benigno had always the passion to vaunt before his departure.
"Your monthly needs ... they'll be sent here soon,” the old priest spoke again.
"Thank you, Father,” a useless answer that had to be said just the same to
complete the illusion of communication. He watched the old priest amble toward
the room adjoining his.
Summer ended one violet morning. A rainbow arched over the island
and the sky, heavy with dark clouds, murmured some wordless
lamentation to the gathering wind.
Thunder. Flashes of searing lightning.
And then the rains came. Heavy rains pattering in torrents on the
nipa-roofed houses, scaring the birds in their nests atop the cliffs.
The rainy season in the island would be the time when the fishermen had to
beach their boats, repair the hulls and mend their nets. Some would just stay in
their houses: smoked in silence, listened to the roaring of the angry sea and
watched the rain with secret sadness. In the early evening they would spend their
time drinking cheap bottled wine in a nearby store.
in the days that followed the young priest became restless. The death rate in the
Island increased to considerable, though not alarming, proportions. Being the
only priest and doctor in the island, he was at once beleaguered with sick calls
more than his poor body could meet. What sickened him most, however, was not
his lack of rest but the
utility of his trips. Almost always he would arrive at the caller's house only to see the
patient dead and the relatives crying. Seeing the worried face of the caller pleading for
help with cogency and watching it break at the end of the journey was a horrifying
experience darkly touching the core of his widening sensitivity. Suddenly he had
become a watcher of human anguish and was himself a victim of it. Now lying in bed.
Eyes closed. Feeling sick and nauseated. He felt the burden of the
of his spirit. A colossus of world's horror worming blindly in the pith
tha

428
despair-himself-loomed darkly in the arena of his mind. And when this image dwindled,
he saw himself again, this time kneeling in a circle of violet light, and about him a
streaming mass of silent people. Their ugly and contorted faces towered before his
praying figure: And their wild eyes spoke: Fool!
He started speculating nervously on what would have happened to him if he hadn't
entered the seminary. Then he remembered Paulo and all the intense-looking angry
young men in the University where he had studied. Their art. Their ambitions. Those
people, he thought, could mock him with their success. He thought of them with secret
envy. For he-what would he show to his friends if he were to meet them one of these
days? The question, like a sharp pendulum, hung tremulously in the air ready to inflict a
wound.
Then one day he received a letter from Paulo. It wasn't the kind of letter he had
expected. As a matter of fact, reading it gave him the shock of non-recognition. How
great the discrepancy was between his speculation and the reality. I've given up my
studies altogether. I've come to dislike the academic. The campus is peopled with
pretenders, know-alls, cheap critics and hopeless writers. Believe me, they have no life
of their own behind their propagandism. I don't like the Administration either. You
propose an idea to them: they fall back and watch you break. Help is a metaphor they
can't understand. They have a special term for us now: underachievers. I'm wondering,
though, what those stern people behind the professorial tables have achieved. Only the
talented ones, the humble ones, are silent. But they too are leaving the University.
It's always painful to see so many bright minds groping about, confused, after a
series of disillusionments, he thought. Only God knew what would happen next.
Life, it seemed, could be lived only so intensely, so passionately, as long as the
pattern which you helped take shape was still intact. The moment the pattern
breaks, at once the spirit resigned even before the body rotted.
His nervous belief that some unfavorable development was going on in Paulo's life in
the city wasn't betrayed when he received his friend's second letter. At this time, he
thought it odd to remain silent. It was a disturbing letter, a pain in the crotch: No, I'm not
indulging in self-pity, but to an artist the loss of individuality is a terrible thing. I want to
define myself the best I can, know the limit of my reach, grasp the forces of human
transcience, understand the qualities of the immediate and the physical. I won't
describe to you what's happening to me, that would be boring. But still I can't believe in
spiritual consolation. What I believe is the mortal, the temporal life. I am positive that
one of these days I can find a solution: a human solution to a human problem.
That night Fr. Sanchez penned his answer: The human dilemma is not mitigated
by mere awareness of human transcience. This awareness might lead to a
solution, a possibility which is not farfetched because the human mind is prone
to answer problems of this sort. But in the meantime, i.e., the period before the
solution is found, tension is aggravated. Like a tightrope walker you will find
yourself balancing precariously on a thin line. I am not happy here. But in the
island I am aware of my separate individuality in a way I haven't experienced
before. But his isn't a blessing, you see. In this alien milieu I have become a
metaphysical outcast! Suddenly I am tortured by the terrifying, unnerving
anguish of a misfit! But all these things are not enough to drive me howling to my
God.
Paulo's third letter sowed seeds of terror in the young priest's heart: Life is a
berbetual toil to slough off the burden-set upon our shoulders by this corrosively
malignant world. I will put an end to this absurd toil. And I am not afraid.
Remember me. But without grief...
leo

429 That morning, mass was a loneliness mocked by the large, full voice of the
sea. The hymns he solemnly chanted rose blindly like bats, floundered freely,
then fell on him like burning coals. The Hanged Man wavered in the field of his
gaze, but it was the frozen stare of the bloody, twisted face that troubled him. It
fixed him bare, touched his soul coldly, probed the enormity of his emptiness,
explored the magnitude of his mute terror which, of late, had begun to mark the
character of his nervous footsteps. For a long time he fought to resist the
tremendous impulse to stop the sacred ceremony and cry. Go down! Down! Look
for the congealed God in you! Beads of sweat dotted across his forehead, filling
the fine lines webbing there. "Panem caelestem accipiam et nomen Domini
invocabo,"He struck his breast. "Domine non sum dignus, ut entres sub tectum,
meum"-He felt his body tremble, drift. A lump lodged in his throat. Truly I am not
worthy. He struck his breast again and his face, taut and tense, winced. A sharp
pain sliced across his heart. "Sed tantum dic verbo, et sanabitur anima mea,” he
pursed. But this isn't right, he thought. When his voice faded, silence was a
hooded stranger leaning against the wall in the corner, making faces at him.
"Quod ore sumpsimus Domine ..." he flung the words drily: pebbles rising up an
incline, then rolled back upon reaching the dark top. He felt himself as hollow as
his church, as decrepit as his sacristy. "Ite misa est.”He closed his eyes as the
stray wind lashed him in the face.
A heavy rain came in with the darkness. In his room Fr. Sanchez lit the kerosene
lamp dangling from a dirty cord. He was feeling very weak and his muscles and
bones were aching. His legs were numbed, his feet swollen. He had journeyed
much that day. In the half dark his ashen face appeared twisted as though he was
about to cry. Outside the wind whistled. And judging from the sound that came in
through the closed door, it had risen to a storm pitch. He was only too glad he
wasn't caught by the rain and the dark in the open. The moment the room rested
into focus, two neat envelopes lying on his writing table arrested his attention.
Absently he picked up one. It was a short letter and it came from Paulo's mother.
He held the letter close to the light. But he wasn't able to read past the first
paragraph. A pain tore through him. Paulo is dead. God forgive him. He hanged
himself. The opening sentences read. A sudden dull ache throbbed blindly in his
head as though an inside force was feverishly trying to break through the skull
that enclosed his brain. He dropped his tired body onto the bed and closed his
eyes. Now he was painfully aware of how disastrously and intimately he and
Paulo were bound together. Paulo was more than just a friend. The pain he felt
told him that. He was bound to him by affection and respect, by loneliness and
pain.
How long he lay in bed he didn't know, but soon he remembered the other
letter and he rose to his feet to pick it up. It came from the bishop. We
congratulate you for the good job you have done in the island, the letter
read. Lately, we have finally decided to let you work in the seminary.
Someone will take your place in the island. Come here at your earliest
convenience. He folded the letter slowly, shoved it into his pocket and lit a
cigarette. The light, screened by the smoke, appeared fuzzy violet. Before
he could regain his proper composure, somebody knocked on the door.
"Come in,” he said.
Slowly the heavy door opened. ...
Someone with an unfamiliar voice spoke softly in the half dark: "I am Fr. Jose
Montes. The bishop's letter ... it explains my presence here."
Fr. Sanchez swayed but didn't speak. The intentness of his gaze, pure as silence,
made the stranger tremble. Then he faced the wall, his back to the light. The
distrubing silence deepened in the room. And when Fr. Jose spoke again in the
middle of that long silence, they were both startled: "The bishop's letter ... it's
good news. Aren't you happy?"
430
“Who is happy?" His voice was thick and bitter. He tried to cast about in his mind for
some words that might explain everything but he found only lame and useless ones. Yes,
yes; it's impossible to explain. He leaned against the wall like a tired slave of the gods.
There was a sudden terrible isolation in his rigid posture. He reeled to the window and
opened it. What's happening to me? he asked himself.
"Our superiors are impressed because you feel so at home in the island. They
haven't received any complaint from you. They said you have the makings of a
good priest."
Fr. Sanchez gave out a dry laugh. Something in his tired eyes convulsed: a bloody bird baring
its wounded breast. His face was rigid, tight like a rubber strap strained to its limit. Unresentfully,
he looked at the stranger's half-open mouth and for a few moments listened to his deep-drawn
breath. "We all make mistakes," he said. Then he laughed again. “Yes, we all make mistakes.
You see, there are only two who know the kind of life I lead in the island: myself and God!” God!
he said the word softly to himself. He wondered why the word sounded so strange to him, as if
this were the first time he was aware of its meaning. “God.” His voice was dry and hollow. His
mind shook itself free from the word with an effort of reason.
Fr. Jose threw him a quick, impatient look, and sensing that he wasn't really wanted in the room,
he mumbled a goodnight and went out.
Fr. Sanchez put out the light.
He tried to sleep but couldn't. He was thinking of so many things. His head was full and yet he
felt himself empty and somehow ridiculous. Soon he would be out of the island. But what of it?
Would it make him a different man? Then he fell to thinking about walls and closed doors.
Where was the way out? Was there really a way out? He had grown progressively rigid. He was
jolted when he heard a nervous, frantic knocking at the door. Let me rest, his mind screamed.
But he rose just the same, lit the lamp and went out. It was Roque at the door. Beside him stood
a man panting like a mad dog. "Esteban wants to see you, Father," the boy said.
Esteban cringed under the priest's steady gaze. "I... was sent by Ramon Aquino,
Father," he started. "His wife, Teresa, is in birth pains.”
He closed his eyes and shivered in the half dark. "Father..."
"Yes, I'm going." He turned toward his room to prepare his things.
When Fr. Sanchez stepped into the room, his vision wavered and narrowed down to a
man pacing up and down the wide sala. The rosary beads dangled in his hand like an
intolerable chain of tears. When Ramon saw him, he halted from where he was, and
without saying a word he raised his trembling hand and pointed to a dubious closed
room where the faint groaning could be heard. Fr. Sanchez hurried to the inner room. But
soon he appeared in the sala again, his face hideously twisted. He announced to the
worried husband that an operation was necessary. "This operation," he began to say,
and stopped as though he had difficulty with his breathing. "This operation is a risky
one,” he pursued, dropping the words nervously in the quietness. "I ... I can't promise
anything. The safety of both ... There's no assurance.” His ashen face was deeply sad
and tired in the faint wash of light.

Ramon hid his face. "I'll pray for God's help,” he said and withdrew in the
darkness. With the help of an old midwife Fr. Sanchez performed the
operation.
Teresa was very pale. She lay in bed: crumpled up like a rag doll. Her breath
came in short gasps. He saw the inouth open but no words came, only the feel of
cutting pains,
431 she pulsing pallid color of the trembling lips, the mouth: a dark hole which tugged at
the mind like a thumb. Fr. Sanchez started the operation as calmly as he could. But he
was Thinking all the time about the bishop's letter. Would his stay in the city really
matter? Was it the way out? Suddenly he felt as if he were walking heedlessly toward a
strange, perilous brink. ...
The wind was cool but his face was lined with sweat. The turn of consciousness was
abrupt. He was drifting-he thought he was drifting-into a world where all abstractions
were made concrete and saw himself in a wasteland again fishing in a dull canal, and
he raised his hand high above his head in the frantic arc of a message to the listening
sky. The reply was silence, silence, solid and cold as rock, cold as the dead trees and
the wet, barren earth. And he faced the voiceless people moving about him and said:
Understand-please understand. It is the pain, the pain of my wounds, and he pointed to
them his bleeding wounds, and then burst into tears because they didn't understand.
The baby cried. The operation was over. The priest heaved a deep breath. Once more the baby
cried. Teresa lay still. There was no sign of life in her long, gaunt face. The door swung open.
Ramon lurched in. The priest gave him a languid look. “I did my best," he said coldly. “But you
see ... it is like this . . . it was a risky operation." He looked warningly at Ramon. "I'm sorry. I'm
very sorry."
Ramon didn't speak for a long time. He just stared at the priest, the light
gleaming in his eyes. Then he burst out, very loud: “I prayed! How hard I prayed!”
The rosary in his hands broke.
The words cut through the priest. “I did my best," he said again and gestured wearily
beacuse, now, words failed him and even the catch of his voice proved too much for
him. He felt he was also responsible for the misery in the room, the hopelessness.
Ramon began to sway and rock. Then he broke and crumbled. An animal cry tore
savagely from his throat.
Fr. Sanchez made for the door.
A sudden wind sprang rainlike and was lost in the trees massed behind the
sprawling house.
It was almost dawn when he picked his way back to the church. It wasn't raining any
more but the chilly wind presaged the coming of another tremendous downpour. Torch
in hand, he moved with difficulty over slippery boulders and on the uneven footpath
broken by porous coral. He turned to a low ridge and started up some hidden footpath
among the flower bushes. Stubbing a toe he made a bold step forward. The right foot
touched a slippery rock, slid. He staggered, reeled crazily, and fell into a muddy pool of
water. Darkness caught him unaware. He winced as he rose to his feet. The dark,
dreaming world lay still, cocooned in a white, sleepy mist.
There was a wound in his head, and when he touched it he shivered. He felt the
blood flowing in tiny rivers down his nape, staining his clayed cassock. Here in
the open space the horror of the great universe confined him, possessed him
purely like a lonely absolution in the dark.
The heavy sky brooded and watched him.
He moved. Stopped. A hushness gathered about his feet. Leaves clung to him wetly
and he could feel them as the free wind coursed on gently.
A formless anger began to throb in his aching head when, upon wiping himself,
he found out that he had lost the big black crucifix he wore. He looked around:
the uneven ground yielded nothing but his medical bag lying beside the brackish
pool of water. In the absence of anything dry to brun, he took the bishop's letter
from his pocket and lit it.
432
The flame flickered hesitantly in the dark. He bent low and moved about
with a grim grace, searching with painful terror the precious thing he had
lost.
The flame swiftly consumed the piece of paper. He did not find the crucifix.
For a moment he stood rigid on the disturbed ground and didn't know what to do.
The sudden roll of thunder shook the earth and his heart and once more he
moved Sharp flashes of lightning sliced across the brooding face of the sky. He
groped his way in the darkness, in the thick darkness of a hostile world, his body
shivering in the coursing wind. Broken images assulted his vision with the
suddenness of an ambush: himself unvesting; a child crying (terrified by the
irrational confusion of the world); hanged men. With a painful effort he shook
himself free from the vague terror that had seized him. He walked on: now a man
sure of himself, ready to face the dark forces lurking in ambush in the darkness
ahead. And as he took the last knoll, he felt like an escapee with a bold heart for a
new adventure.
Questions:
1. What mood is created in the opening paragraph? 2. Define the following words:
flabellum - lucent
bland tocsin
subterfuge ensconced imprimatur vegetal
acquiescently literati quay
colossus
3. What did Fr. Sanchez think of the censors who rejected his poetry? 4. Fr.
Sanchez said that when he entered the seminary there was "this acute
feeling of emptiness." What did he mean? 5. Why was Fr. Sanchez sent to the
island? 6. What did the gray smudge on the white cassock mean? 7. Discuss the
line, "The artist in me had become a ghost...." 8. In what sense was Fr. Sanchez a
stranger on the island? 9. Why does the author say Fr. Benigno was half blind
and deaf? 10. a) Point out the half sentences in this selection. b) Why does the
author use
them? 11. What is the purpose of Paulo's first letter to Father Sanchez? 12.
Comment on the line, "Human dilemma is not mitigated by mere
awareness of human transcience." 13. Why did Paulo's third letter sow terror in
the young priest's heart? 14. What caused Paulo's death? 15. What did Fr.
Sanchez mean when he said, “We all make mistakes." 16. What purpose does
Teresa's death have in the story? 17. What does the lost crucifix imply? 18.
Discuss the line, "He walked on: now a man sure of himself, ready to face
the dark forces lurking in ambush in the darkness ahead." 19. What does the final
line of the story suggest? 20. Evaluate the entire story.