For Father’s close friends, too, it was a time to gather in the house and share his liquor. For our relatives who lived in other parts of the province or in the city, this was a time for remembering old ties.
Among our Manila relatives, it was Tia Antonia and her children who came most often “to have a better whiff of air.” I suspect, however, that she came to Rosales almost every month not only for the country air but to save on groceries, for Tia Antonia was the prototype of the Ilokano housewife — a tightwad as only Ilokanos could be. For the big feast she was the first to arrive.
Old David and I met her at the railroad station. I was peeved at Father’s sending me there, for it interrupted my mouse hunting in the storehouse. Tia Antonia and her children needed no welcoming committee — Rosales was practically their home. As we came within sight of the red brick station, Old David’s horse paused and its bony head dropped. He prodded its skinny rump with his big toe and whacked the reins on its back.
“Thank heavens, this calesa is not for hire,” he sighed as the horse finally lifted its head and plodded on.
The old man turned to me and grinned. His breath stank with nipa wine, but he talked soberly: “If it were, no one would use it. You can’t expect much from horses now. But you should have seen the horses I tended then in your grandfather’s stable. Colts, roans, all spirited, from the provinces of Abra and Batangas. They could race the wind and come out winners by how far the east is to the west!”
The train from Paniqui had long come in and was now leaving the station, the steel bumpers of its three dilapidated coaches whanging as they lurched forward. Calesas filled with passengers were pulling out of the parking lot under the acacias, and the platform was almost empty of people. We could have reached the station earlier, but through the main street, along the shrub-lined road that skirted the creek to the station, though Old David always clacked his tongue, never once did his horse perk up.
“There they are,” I said, nudging the old man as we reached the shade of the acacias where now not a single calesa was parked. Even from a distance it was easy to recognize Cousin Andring, with his paunch and round balding head, and Tia Antonia, who always wore a severe chocolate-colored terno, her gray hair tightly knotted.
Old David tied the reins to one of the posts that palisaded the station yard. I jumped down and ran to Tia Antonia, who was standing by the ticket window, and kissed her bony hand. She was past fifty and looked ascetic but still used perfume liberally, a brand that had a particular scent similar to that of crushed bedbugs. Andring tousled my hair.
“If I didn’t know you were coming,” Tia Antonia said drily, peering down at me through her steel-rimmed eyeglasses, “we would have taken one of the caretelas.”
Cousin Andring beckoned to the old man. “David,” he called pointedly, “don’t tell me you were drunk again and forgot.”
The old man mumbled something about the horse being slow, but Cousin Andring went on: “Hurry with the bags.” Three pieces of baggage lay at his feet. David picked up one — a leather valise, the biggest of the three, and sagged under its weight.
“Careful!” Tia Antonia hissed. “My thermos bottle and medicines are in there.”
Old David smiled as he picked up the bag and walked away. Cousin Andring called him back and told him to take one more bag, but the old man walked on.
“The old lazy drunk!” Cousin Andring swore. “I cannot understand why Tio tolerates him. He is late, and now he is also insolent.”
He picked up the two bags and, overtaking the old man, dumped one on his shoulder. Old David momentarily staggered, but he balanced the bag and carried it to the back of the calesa.
“It is about time Tio bought a car,” Cousin Andring said as we joggled up the dirt road to town. “I don’t see why he doesn’t. He has the money.”
“Whip the horse, David,” Tia Antonia said irritably. “I’m hungry.”
Old David whacked the reins on the back of the animal, but its pace did not change. Cousin Andring grabbed the rattan whip slung on the brace beside the old man. He moved to the front and sat beside me on the front seat, then leaning forward, he lashed at the horse. Our speed did not pick up, so he gave up after a while. “The servants and the horses Tio keeps,” Cousin Andring said in disgust, “they are all impossible.”
Father met us at the gate. After they had alighted, Old David took the calesa to the stable. He carried the bags upstairs and let me take the heavy leather harness off the horse.
I led the animal to its watering trough and watched it take long draughts. Old David came to my side and, breathing heavily, told me to go up to the house, where they were waiting for me at lunch.
“I’m not hungry,” I said.
Old David shook his head, then scrubbed the moist, steaming hide of the animal. “All morning you have been bringing rice and vegetables from Carmay,” he spoke softly to the horse’s ear. “Then you are whipped and cursed.” He laughed mirthlessly. “Ay! It’s the life of a horse for you.”
From the kitchen window Sepa called me; Father would be angry if I did not eat my lunch on time. I turned and left Old David.
The kitchen hummed that night; the stove fires burned bright, and the servants moved briskly about. In the wide yard, under the balete tree, Father’s tenants butchered a carabao, several pigs, and a goat. The activity in the house, the boisterous laughter of Cousin Andring in the sala, where he told stories to Father and the other arrivals, made sleep difficult.
A light flickered in the stable — an old squat building with a rusty tin roof at one end of the yard. It was strange that a light should still be on there, so I went down to look. The door was bolted from the inside. I peeped through a crack and saw the horse prostrate on the sawdust, and Old David sitting on an empty can beside it. He let me in.
“He is very sick,” he explained. He watched the beast’s dilated nostrils, its dull, rasping breath. He had covered the animal with jute sacks soaked in warm water.
“Will it die?”
He lifted the storm lamp on the ground and looked at me. “There is a limit even to the strength of a horse,” he said.
I stayed with him for some time and helped drive away the flies that crawled on the horse’s head. He carried pails of boiling water from where the tenants were heating water in big iron vats, and when the water was no longer very warm, he poured it on the jute sacks that covered the animal.
Soon the roosters perched on the guava trees crowed. It was past eleven. “Go to sleep now,” Old David told me. “Tomorrow is a big day, and don’t let a sick horse worry you.” He thanked me and walked with me to the stairs.
Sleep was long in coming. The laughter in the hall, the incessant hammering in the yard, the scurrying feet of servants persisted all through the night. Between brief lapses of sleep I thought I heard the insistent neighing of the horse.
In the morning more of Father’s tenants and their wives and children trooped to town. Under the balete tree a long table made of loose planks and bamboo stands was set. Big chunks of carabao meat and pork with green papayas steamed in cauldrons for them. I passed the drinks — gin and basi—and played no favorites. To each I gave only a cup.
The tenants never went up to the house where Father’s relatives and friends gathered in the sala around a big round table laden with our food, fat rolls of morcon, caldereta, dinardaraan, lechon, and, from La Granja, tinto dulce, sherry, anisado.