“You can sit there,” she said.
He tried to rise but to his amazement there was no strength in either his arms or legs. “I am not strong,” he said. She bent still closer to him and held him in the crook of his legs and shoulders so that he snuggled to her, and as a mother would take a baby from the crib, she lifted him and gently propped him on the chair.
He saw what the new world was — the sun a white flood upon the plain, so green and shiny he could feel the earth throb. In the sky, clouds billowed in masses of kapok white. This was creation itself and Istak began to cry.
It came back — the dim voices in the night, his brother An-no shouting in the yard, the scuffle there, the curses, and Dalin, her face taut with despair.
“What happened to An-no?”
His words were clear but she merely looked at him and did not speak.
“Tell me,” he insisted, turning away from the window and the new life framed there.
“They took him away,” she said sadly. “He claimed as his what your father did. They wanted to get you but he said it was he. You were very ill. We understood.”
“That his life was not worth as much as mine?”
She looked at him and did not reply.
“They showed us his body — they wanted us to know. Then they gave it to us. He had a good funeral.”
For a long time he did not speak; head bowed, he closed his eyes and brought to mind how it was, the journey that brought them to this land and to the beginning which was Po-on. Again, those days when An-no, Bit-tik, and he were small, roaming the green fields in May, searching for the first growths of saluyot that their mother cooked with grasshoppers which they had caught to eat as well, three brothers swimming in the river, gathering the fruits of camantres and lomboy that grew wild there. What did these years engender? He had been away from them for ten years and yet, though there were enmities among them, the bond had endured — reaffirmed by a supreme act of love. Why did An-no do it when he could just have remained silent and they would have taken him instead? Why did he do it and in doing so gamble as well? Istak was ill and dying — how could An-no have known that he would survive the fever? He turned all these questions over, remembering only what was good to remember of a past that he wanted to forget. Did he not even have a new name? He started to cry again, the tears scalding his eyes, trickling down his cheeks, and he shuddered, his thin frame shaking with the immensity of his grief.
Dalin embraced him.
One evening, when Istak was already well and could stand and walk around the house but not venture into the yard as yet, Bit-tik and Orang came with a big bowl of wild-pig meat stewed in vinegar. Bit-tik had trapped the animal that had been destroying the peanut patch at one end of his farm.
Istak could eat his fill and would soon be strong enough to work in the bangcag, and teach and heal again. They ate in the kitchen, savoring the meat, Orang hardly speaking. Sadness still lingered in her face, but neither grief nor motherhood had destroyed her handsome features.
“I want to ask you a question, Manong,” Bit-tik said when they were finished. Dusk was descending quickly, and in a while, Dalin would light the earthen oil lamp that dangled from a rafter, then join them squatting around the low table.
“When was it that you could not ask me anything?” Istak asked.
He could see Orang nudge Bit-tik on the side, and Bit-tik looked at her briefly, then spoke again: “It has been three months now that Manong An-no has gone. I live in his house.”
“It is also your house,” Orang said softly.
Bit-tik glanced at her, then went on. “The year of mourning is not over. Is it a sin, Manong? In my heart, I know it is not.”
Istak knew at once what his brother would say next; he did not let him. “Orang needs someone to look after the farm An-no left behind. And her two very young children — they hardly knew their father. You will now be father to them. And you can truly love them, for your blood is also in them. And now, you have two farms to work, not just one. But when will you stop wandering, and be tied to a house? Orang keeps a good house, and she knows how to cook very well — look at this adobo. Where can you get something as good as this except in a rich man’s house?”
Dalin sat beside Orang; she was older by at least five years and since that time when Capitán Gualberto had ravaged her, there had existed between the two a bond stronger than that which welds two sisters together.
“I am very happy it will be this way, Orang,” Dalin said.
The rains came and in early July a typhoon blew across the land and bowled over many farmers’ homes. But not the houses of Istak and An-no. With the typhoon came the nine-day rain which flooded the fields and swelled the rivers to overflowing, and with the land washed fresh, the pestilence disappeared. As Dalin’s belly grew, Istak regained strength. He had not brought any books from Cabugaw and had yearned so much for something to read, particularly in those times when, weak and emaciated, he could not leave the house. He tried recalling the important though tiny bits of knowledge taught him, and formulated a chronology wherein he could recall events, people, fragments of the past that must be resuscitated so that the present could yield some meaning or, at least, be explained.
With his improved health, he started to heal others again and news of his healing touch reached the nearby villages. They came seeking cures for stomach pains, late menstrual periods, fevers, and they left thinking he wrought miracles with his Latin oraciónes, which were really just the prayers that he had recited in church.
He attended to everyone, and in some instances knew he could do nothing as in that deep pit of his vision no light prevailed, just the blackest of black. It was at such moments that he prayed silently, asking God to have mercy on this human being, that the end be painless and quick.
Istak did not accept payment; he was not a medíco titulado—and what he did offer was but water brewed from guava leaves.
They usually came early in the morning, sometimes even before sunrise, for it was at this time of day that Istak felt he was best prepared. Those whom he cured recounted how it was when he “touched” them, the unseen force emanating from his hand which ended the pain, the warmth that flowed from his touch inundating the body and, finally, the feeling of being lifted from the mundane self for an instant into a state of well-being, if not of grace. When someone told him this, Istak would not believe it was his doing. It was the Divine who inhabited these parts, not he who was mortal, who sinned. Why had he not had this “touch” before, why now was he endowed with it, and in this particular corner of the world? Could it be that here, perhaps more than in Cabugaw or anywhere else, was where the kindly spirits dwelled?
What they did not know was that every time he “touched” the sick, he was drained of strength, and by midmorning, although there were still people waiting, he could no longer attend to them. He had become so weak, at times he had difficulty stumbling up to his own house.
He did not want anyone in the village to remain illiterate like his parents, so he gathered the children and taught them the cartilla and a little arithmetic. They did not have books and almost no paper and pencils, so they used banana leaves and charcoal from their stoves, and wrote on smooth bamboo boards or on the ground. He taught them a little Spanish, too, enough to understand some conversation, told them never to speak the language when Spaniards were within hearing, that whatever they knew of the language they should keep to themselves.