It was May at last, and the first rain had a special magic. They must bathe in it, wash their clothes in it, drink it. Mayang laid her pots outside till they were full, and after the children had bathed, the older folk went out, too. Istak went out without his shirt, his ribs protruding. An-no and Bit-tik were with the girls who had joined them and he could see them through the rain, laughing and joking. Maybe An-no had already forgotten Dalin.
Dalin was close by, bathing the bull, scrubbing its white hide. She was wet and her hair came down behind her in dripping strands. Her wet blouse clung to her body and in the rain he saw her breasts, the nipples dark and distinct. She turned to him briefly and smiled.
He gazed at her, at the skirt that clung to her legs. He admired her, seeing for the first time the fullness of her body. A pleasant sensation coursed through him — desire, just as he had once desired the daughters of Capitán Berong when they would bend before him so that he could see their breasts. Then they would face him while the blood rushed to his face, smile at him, and he would stammer, unable to continue with his teaching.
But the daughters of Capitán Berong were beyond the compass of his imagination. He was from Po-on and they were fair of skin, unreachable; the men who could claim them would not be brown like him.
Dalin was brown.
They stopped that night in a mango grove close to the road and a village where the women went to cook. The firewood that they had strapped behind the carts was drenched and would not kindle. It stopped raining shortly after sunset and the smell of earth blessed with rain, the leaves still dripping, was about them. The whole world was alive and breathing.
They gathered the carts in a semicircle and put the cambaos and the bull within the are, and while the men talked the women prepared their meal or hung their wet clothes on the maguey twine which they strung from cart to cart. They cooked rice and vegetables for the next day’s breakfast as well so that all they would have to cook in the morning would be the coffee to warm their stomachs before they started out again. They had one more mountain to cross and the trails through the forest would be tortuous and slippery, but thank God, they were now free from the land of the Bagos.
Earlier in the evening, An-no had found a kutibeng in one of the carts and was strumming it. Ever since Dalin had taken Istak into her cart, An-no must have concluded it was no longer possible for him to possess her. It was just as well, for there was this girl Orang. She had a younger sister, but Orang was more mature, although flat-chested, and her eyes were always bright. Now, in the dark, Istak could hear his younger brother singing an old ballad, and the words were meant for Orang.
Since his recovery, Istak no longer slept in the cart but beneath it. Tonight, however, the ground was wet and Dalin told him to come up. He had demurred. “They are already saying many things about us, how I have been taking care of you,” she said. “Would it matter if we slept together now?”
He did not go to sleep at once. She sat before the cart looking out into the night, listening to the laughter in some of the carts, the mooing of carabaos. Cicadas called from the black shroud of trees around them, and beyond the shroud, in the open field, fireflies winked at them. The cooking fires of the houses beyond the grass kept them company as well.
It was cool, not like in the past when he was forced to take off his shirt, and this he had done with great difficulty because the wound, though healed, did not allow him easy movement. He needed a blanket now. Dalin faced him and their legs touched.
“Soon you will get back all the strength that you lost. I am happy,” she said.
“You will really go with us wherever we go?”
She did not speak; he could not see her eyes but knew she was looking at him. Then she turned and lay down beside him. She had turned on her side and so did he.
“I will decide when we get there,” she said.
“Suppose I asked you to stay with me …”
“You are not a farmer,” she said quietly. “I knew that from the very beginning. I do not think you can stay long on a farm. Not that you will not work.”
“I cannot be anything now but a farmer.”
“You can teach. You know many things we don’t know.”
“There is no place for people like us except the farm, Dalin,” he said. “Or the road, or the sea.”
She asked him how his arm was. He lay on his back and extended it to her. He could move it but the shoulder reminded him of a greater pain each time he lifted his arm.
She felt the scar with her hand. He liked the feel of that hand on his shoulder and impulsively, he turned and held it.
She understood. “You are not yet strong,” she said. “There are still many things you cannot do.”
He could feel himself stirring, the blood rushing to the tips of his fingers.
“I am not a virgin anymore,” she said with some sadness.
“You will be my first,” he said.
He kissed her, but she pushed him away tenderly.
He could not leash the animal stirring, he could not stop. His hands groped for her, found her warm and trembling, but she would not let him. “You are not yet strong,” she whispered into his ear as she half rose, looming so close, her face almost touching his. Then she kissed him and he tasted her lips, felt her tongue probe into his mouth.
“Don’t move then,” she told him. “I will do everything for you. And then, when you are strong …”
“You are the first,” Istak said again, then there were no more words.
So this is how two bodies melt into one, a communion, a celebration. This is what he had longed for and would have missed had he entered the seminary. He was a weakling after all, unable to withstand the devil call of the flesh. They were not even married — this was what he was taught, this was what he knew. Yet, within his deepest conscience, this was not wrong. It was bound to be, not temptation, but fate that brought them together, not just her stumbling into Po-on but her going back to the village to take him away from the avid clutch of death. She had given him life, now she was giving herself to him as well.
He slept well afterward, then woke up to the twitter of birds and the scurrying all around him, the boys hitching the carts, the women collecting children, animals, and clothes, getting ready to move. The pots had all been washed and he had slept through it all. He pretended sleep when Dalin went inside the cart and looked at him. The cart started to move, the solid wooden wheels squeaking. The children were talking about the falling star that night. Think of your birthday — and your wish will come true.
The air had a freshness to it; clean and washed, it flowed inside the cart. Dalin’s back was before him and he remembered how he had embraced her, felt the smooth fall of her shoulders, the softness of her breasts.
“Dalin,” he whispered.
She turned to him, her face radiant as morning.
“Thank you,” he said gratefully.
“Are you hungry?”
He nodded.
“There is rice in the pot — it is still warm and the coffee is still hot. There is also a piece of dried meat on top of the rice.”
He rose, squatted behind her, and ate. Occasionally, she turned to him, still holding the bull’s lead, and watched him. They were in the middle of the caravan and his mother was walking up ahead. The grass was wet and the ground was still solid, but in many places mud had already formed and the prints of carabao hooves on the mud were indistinct now. One more caravan like theirs and the road would turn into a quagmire.