Padre Jose had taught him how to worship, to hold on to the rosary as if it were a sturdy rope which drew him up from the black pit of creation. And this rope gave him a strength that others from Cabugaw or those born like him would never have. It would draw him not only out of the pit but from the putrefaction of the poverty and villainy of the village — out and into a world of abundance and a surfeit of case which the Church gave only to a chosen few. He saw this in Padre Jose and in the other priests — resplendent in their vestments, gorging on the food that people had worked so hard to produce.
Would he transform this rope into a leash?
It was the priest who ruled, who enacted the laws of the Church and of man, and added to such laws the lash of prejudice, for power was always white, Castilian, and not brown like the good earth.
It seemed so long ago now, but even when he was in Cabugaw it was often talked about in whispers, like the dusty whiff of age that whirls up from cupboards and cabinets long shut — the death of those three mestizo priests, Gomez, Burgos, and Zamora — why were they killed? Could they have managed to weaken the Church — just the three of them? The very Church to which they belonged and which they served?
Did the Spanish priests really believe that the Indios — even if they were mestizos — could be equal to the Spaniards, that they could be the highest officials of the Church?
There were always excuses, there was no escaping them, for the power to disagree was not with the Indios, just as it would never be with him. So the Church, then, was Castilian. The Church was not interested in justice, or in the abolition of inequality. The temple, then, was just another pit, and the rosary he held offered no salvation. No God can haul men like him up from the abyss of perdition.
But God, I don’t doubt You. I can see You in the morning, in the dew on the grass. Should I worship You in silence, without the obeisance and obedience to Your ministers? Should I stop singing and, within me, let my deeds speak of my gratitude and belief in Your greatness?
The men who taught us of Your presence, who opened the doors of Your temple that we might see the light — they are white like You. Are You, then, the god of white people, and if we who are brown worship You, do we receive Your blessings as white men do?
I pray that You be not white, that You be without color and that You be in all men because goodness cannot be encased only in white.
I should worship, then, not a white god but someone brown like me. Pride tells me only one thing: that we are more than equal to those who rule us. Pride tells me that this land is mine, that they should leave me to my destiny, and if they will not leave, pride tells me that I should push them away, and should they refuse this, I should vanquish them, kill them. I knew long ago that their blood is the same as mine. No stranger can come battering down my door and say he brings me light. This I have within mc.
He returned to the cart to find Dalin already asleep. She woke up as he lay quietly beside her. Rain pattered lightly on the palm roof and she drew the old blanket over her legs. He turned on his side and fondled her flat stomach, feeling its smoothness, its warmth.
“Where have you gone?”
“I was by the trail, by myself …”
He had never asked her before, and they had never talked about it, although he had always known that, in her own way, she was religious, crossing herself every morning when she woke up and again when she went to sleep.
“Do you believe in God?”
Though he could not see her face clearly, he could make out her eyes and they were wide open.
“What kind of question is that?” she said, then quietly: “Surely, I believe in God. We are together — this is God’s will.”
He lay on his back again. He wanted to tell her then, but there were things he could not reveal to others; he was not sure now that he still believed.
CHAPTER 9
They were up early in the morning. Two merchants from Abra with a dozen horses trailing them trotted up to where they were brewing the corn coffee. The men traveled very light; they carried their provisions in packs on two horses. They were going all the way to Manila and may they just cook their meal with them? They had dried meat and leftover rice which needed to be fried. Both were in their early thirties, dark-skinned, and obviously well traveled. While Dalin waited for the pot to boil, the younger man talked about the horses. They were for the races in Manila. After retiring from the races, the horses would be used to pull the carriages of the rich. Then, casually, he asked where they came from.
“From Ilokos Sur,” Istak said with some hesitation.
“What town?”
“Cabugaw,” Istak said.
The man shook his head and dug his bare toe into the soft earth. “Two towns away,” he said, “in Binalonan, there are Guardias with a Spanish officer.”
“What does he look like?” Istak said.
“White like all Kastilas,” the man said. “He has short hair.”
There flashed in his mind the image of Capitán Gualberto.
“The Guardia are searching all the caravans from the north. There is a one-armed man from Cabugaw they are looking for. They have been beating up people, particularly those who come from Sur, to get information from them — even if they are not from Cabugaw. But they did not bother us — he knows how to deal with them.” The man thrust a chin to the older horse merchant, obviously his employer, busy turning the dried meat roasting on the coals.
“There is no one-armed man here, as you can see,” Istak said.
“Even so,” the man said. “You are from Cabugaw, aren’t you? If I were you, I would put as much distance as I could from them immediately …”
Dalin had heard everything.
The other man spoke softly. “Yes — after you cat, you should leave. You never know what they will do. I hope all your papers are with you.”
Dalin turned to Istak. She did not speak; her eyes told him of her fear. He turned around to the morning activity, children playing in the sun, wives preparing breakfast, and men checking on the work animals, giving them their ration of hay.
Their visitors would ride all the way to Tarlak, and from there, they would put the beautiful animals on the train to Manila. Finished with their breakfast, they mounted and were on their way.
Istak did not want to distress the others. He let them brew their coffee and roast the dried python meat on the open fire.
It was best that only he and Dalin know that the Guardia were closing in on them again. They must leave now. Already the Caraballo range loomed ahead. A few more miles and they would cross the Agno, and from then on, the promise of eastern Pangasinan.
Now, they struck out onto trails even Dalin did not know. A pelting rain by midafternoon hid almost everything from view, but they moved on, the water seeping through the walls of the carts. The wheels soggy with mud, they sloshed through villages enveloped with rain and as evening finally shrouded the land, still they moved on. By now, the uncles from Candon understood only too well why they must not pause. For supper, they ate cold chunks of rice and the dried python that was roasted in the morning; the cold rice stuck to their throats and had to be washed down with water.
The men who went ahead of the caravan were wet and they shivered but they, too, marched on, stopping only once in a while to ask from an isolated farmhouse the general direction of the ferry which they would have to board to cross the Agno. Shortly before daybreak, the rain finally lifted and the east was bathed with the mellow light of a new day.
They were back on the old road, muddy and impassable in many places. They had to detour through fields and indentations that were made firm by banana trunks laid over them. An-no, who was ahead of the caravan, rushed back to them eagerly shouting: “The river, the river — it is ahead.”