The Cripple was meticulous; he said the loops occupied too much space and interfered with the reading because they were distractive; the penmanship drew attention to itself and not to what was being said.
“Remember, Eustaquio, these are curtains to a window. And the words are themselves the window. First, the writing must be neat but not ornate, for if I wanted beautiful letters, then I would have nothing but a page of the alphabet in ornate lettering. The Chinese consider calligraphy an art form and it can be beautiful, but attention, as tradition demands, is drawn to the shape of the characters themselves. Great calligraphers are, therefore, great poets, too. But you are not Chinese. Words should not hinder the expression of thought unless one is expressing poetry. I am not writing poetry; I am writing to convince people of the validity of our struggle, its righteousness, and the utter fallacy and hypocrisy of the Americans in saying we are not capable of self-government.”
For all his wisdom, Padre Jose had never spoken to him like this and with such lucidity. How he would have rewritten now that pompous journal which he had started in Cabugaw, influenced as he was by the classics and the Latin poets; he was but twenty-one then, and Padre Jose — bless him — had said that even one so young as he had already shown wisdom by being concerned not only with living but with what made life bearable. How apt, how beautiful it had all sounded. He was shut up in the convent, assured of his meals and safe from conscription in the public works in Vigan and elsewhere, yet he could see the inequities heaped upon his people, the drudgery that warped the lives of his own kin in Po-on. He saw, but could not bring himself to loathe the old priest, just as he could not hate the Americans the way the Cripple did. He had heard in frightened whispers what they had done to Filipino soldiers, the women they chanced upon, these big men with red hair and red beards, pillaging the villages, but he had seen not a drop of blood nor heard one gunshot.
“They have done all these, Eustaquio.”
He brought to mind what had happened to Po-on, how he was shot and left to die, but there was a reason.
“There is no need for reason in war,” the Cripple said with a sneer. “Passion rules. And yet, for those of us who can and should think, we must always remind ourselves that if we lose, it will not be only our lives — which have become inconsequential — but those of our future generations. We have so many structures to build so that we will be strong — for one, a church that is truly ours. We are a divided citizenry. We have ambitious leaders who think only of themselves, and an army in retreat. But not everything is lost. Our men can continue fighting even though they may no longer be in uniform. They will be indistinguishable from the village people in the daytime and at night, whenever the opportunity comes, they will strike. Every Filipino becomes suspect then.”
In a month, the Cripple had regained his health and Istak returned to his bangcag. The rains lengthened, the rice grew, and by October, the first harvest was in. Now, the rains no longer came in nine-day torrents; the sun shone and the air was thick with the scent of newly cut hay. The moon came out silvery and full. It was on nights like this, lying on the sled in the yard, listening to the children play in the moonlight, their eager voices lifting his spirit, that thoughts bedeviled him. The Cripple still believed in God, but not God as the source of all good. Men could be morally upright not because an omnipresent God meted out punishment to those who strayed, but because men possessed reason. Where did this reason, this conscience come from? Man did not sprout from some empty seed by himself, but through a Supreme Will. And the city which this man builds is the City of God as well; shall it have blood as its foundation — as the native belief held and thus struck fear in the young — so that it will last for centuries, longer than Rome, for all eternity even? How long can this city last if it is not God who keeps watch over it?
An unblemished November day, the fields caparisoned with gold. He was starting out for his bangcag when Don Jacinto arrived. Had the Cripple’s condition worsened? He had prayed for him more than he had ever done for any of the sick who sought him.
“It is not his health,” Don Jacinto said. “He wants you to go on an errand — something only you can do.”
As he entered the room, the Cripple turned to him, grinning. “Thank you for coming, Eustaquio.”
“At Don Jacinto’s bidding, Apo,” Istak said. The Cripple pointed to a chair. What errand could he do for this man who, with his pen, could squeeze water from stone?
“Have you ever gone back to the Ilokos since you left it, Eustaquio?”
“No, Apo,” Istak said with a shake of the head.
“You told me you know your way across those mountains to the valley. Through the land of the Igorots. You said you were there every year with this old priest. That you even made some friends among the Bagos …”
How well the Cripple remembered! In the late afternoons when he asked Istak up to the azotea to have a merienda of cocoa and galletas, he had asked Istak about his boyhood, how he had learned so much without formal schooling. Istak had reminisced, sometimes with reluctance, for he was uneasy recalling his Spanish mentor.
The Cripple’s mind was a cavernous repository not just of ideas but of facts. He asked Istak about the Igorots — how they reacted to the missionary priests, how he himself felt about the savages that they were, whose homes were decorated with the skulls of their enemies, who regarded the Christian Ilokanos with hatred. Istak was frightened of them at first and that fright had not really left him, even afterward when he saw them again and remembered many of them, not just their villages perched on mountainsides or their well-groomed fields but also their names. There came to mind how the Bagos had attacked their bull-cart train. Would they ever change, would they ever be brothers to us?
“Yes, Apo,” Istak said. “I was with them. Perhaps they still have no guns, so they cannot fight those who are armed. But they know their land — they rain stones from the mountaintops, they ambush those who are not wary or who cross their territory without their permission.”
“They were a splendid sight in Malolos when the republic was inaugurated,” the Cripple said quietly. “They paraded in their loincloths, armed with axes and spears. Like the Moros in the south, they are our brothers. We must recognize their belonging to Filipinas, their willingness to fight for her.”
He turned to Don Jacinto briefly, then to Istak. “Some months ago when the war already seemed lost — yes, Eustaquio, we always prepared for the worst — Bishop Aglipay and General Luna went north to look for our last redoubt. Now I am going to ask you, Eustaquio, to do a favor not only for Don Jacinto and for me — but for yourself, your family, though you may not think of it this way. In time, I know you will. It is a very dangerous job, and you must do it with great caution and secrecy. You will surely go through territory already occupied by the Americans and if you are caught, you will most probably be tortured before you are shot. Remember, the enemy has spies who are brown like us, the opportunist Chinese and mestizos in Manila whom the Americans have enlisted to work for them, and those bastard Macabebes.”
“Please don’t tell me what you don’t have to, Apo,” Istak said. “Just tell me what the job is, if I can do it.”
“You can,” Don Jacinto said, smiling benignly. “We have been discussing this since yesterday. You are the man to do it.”
“You know the land of the Bagos. The Ilokos is your own country,” the Cripple said. “You speak excellent Spanish, and even Latin, and it is just as well, for the people you are going to meet cannot speak your language, nor you theirs.”