The night has began to cool,
the air seeping through the bamboo slats of the hut. Oriang drew her shawl
closer and tasted the sauce on the earthen pot. Nowhere near the adobo she used
to have during family Sunday meals but still, it will be a feast with more potatoes
than chicken parts. Her comrades found some native chicken wandering near the
hut and happily caught these for her. It’s been awhile since they had some meat.
Living in the mountains for weeks before coming to Cavite have been hard,
digging rootcrops and hacking sap vines for water. Tonight they’ll partake chicken
steeped in vinegar and garlic with mounds of warm rice. Then she heard a slight
commotion and looked out the window, She saw people congregating, jubilant with
someone’s arrival. “Supremo! “ someone called. Her husband had arrived.
Coming back from the camp in
Tejeros, he went past her with no word. She knew it wouldn’t be a celebration
tonight. His somber mood reflected the same one when he lost in San Juan, when
the Spanish guards defeated them when its reinforcements arrived, he lost many Katipunero
brothers there. She herself witnessed the slaughter, riding her mare on the
sidelines, watching from afar as he tried to raid the powder room of the
colonizers and heard the bursts of gunshots and curses and screams in Spanish.
It was the same look he had in every defeat. But this one had a sting it seems.
He looked downtrodden, his bolo haphazardly thrown on the table, his crumpled
and dented strawhat at his feet. He let out a sigh and slumped on a bamboo bench. Unfazed
about this blight, Oriang took out large spread of banana leaf and smoothed it
on the table. She then poured some contents of the adobo, careful to leave
enough for the others, the rich scent wafting inside the hut. He smiled and eagerly
scooped the chicken bits with his hand.
After dinner, Oriang gathered
her needles and thread to sew some of his worn and yellowed shirts. She took
off her payneta and let her hair flow freely, taking advantage of the breeze. He
sat in front of her, his head leaned back, his eyes closed.
“They demoted me..” he said, his voice hoarse. She didn’t say anything,
letting the rustling of the leaves outside fill the gap of her silence. She
knew there are still words he had to say like a wound that needs to fester with coagulated
blood still willing to flow. They were in Cavite to unify the two warring
groups of the revolutionary group he established, the Katipunan and as its
leader, he felt he had to intervene. But
this meeting turned into an election he didn’t foresee. As he continued, she
learned that they wanted Emilio, a Caviteño to lead a revolutionary government not
him. He who pierced the silence of the Motherland and rattled the Spanish
government. She can hear his deep sighs
and noticed his closed fist, clenching his arm.
“After everything, Oriang, everything… ” he
lamented.
Everything, she thought. What
does that encompass really? Fleeing for
your life, surviving a fire, losing a child and living in the mountains for
this fight for independence, does that cover it? Isn’t that enough sacrifice
for this cause? What more can they possibly want from him?
“I almost killed that Tirona..calling
me unlettered, unqualified even for a post they spat at me”, he continued in anguish.
Oriang didn’t say a word. His
defeat in San Juan had grazed his pride but now it was hacked in pieces.
Recalling his sacrifices, she remembered their son and felt the familiar pain.
He was named Andres too, like his father. He was barely three and died of
smallpox. They couldn’t reach to get medicines on time. He was giddy and playful
boy. Andres used to carve him play daggers and wooden boxes from discarded
lumber. But they didn’t have time to
mourn him because they had to flee. It was day in August when they buried him. Andres face had been gaunt, emotionless while
looking at the men placing their child to the ground. She held tightly at his
arm as their son was being lowered to the pit and let out a faint scream as a
primal pain gutted her. She tried hard to steady herself as her legs wobbled
and threatened to give way. But Oriang didn’t fall.
“Maybe wanting a free county is
not enough,” Andres continued in the cool night.“Because why would they want to
believe me, I’m not an ilustrado like Rizal. Maybe they’ve treated him with
more respect” he mocked.
Then he stood up and paced the
bamboo floors, creaking at each step. Then in a sudden fit, he kicked a wooden
chair that came crashing into the nipa wall. “Mga punyeta!” he yelled.
“Andres!” Oriang wailed, dropping her threads. She made her way to the fallen
chair.
“I’m sorry he said, following
her. She looks at him, his eyes filmed with defeat. Their betrayal flicked his
armor, pricking the braggadocio he insolently waved. But Oriang refused to acknowledge
his defeat. There was too much at stake. The Supremo has to have the tenacity
to lead the people. She touched his
shoulder. “We will go past this, like we always do” she said. Her face
determined in the darkened room, her frail frame undeterred. He nodded and went
to his men.
It had been a few days when the
frantic knocks came on the door. Her heart lurched as she remembered the same
sounds that awakened her at night in Caloocan when the Guardia Civil came. But
this time it was different. Emilio’s men were here. With thundering hoove
steps, they fired shots and Oriang saw some of her Katipunero brothers fell,
others beaten. She held her Remington
rifle tight but Andres told her to flee before they arrived. She tried hiding
in a thicket but was captured with Andres and his brother, Procopio and brought
to Naic for trial.
His meeting with other
Katipuneros a few days ago had been the subject for this sedition trial. The trial lasted for days and they were
placed in a dingy cellar with only one window.
It was stuffy and overheated. Andres was weak from his wounds, a gunshot
in the arm and stab wounds on his neck. He was also feverish. Oriang ripped
portions of her tapis to bind his wounds and dipped some of it in water and
dabbed it on his body to lower his fever. With an old, musky blanket she
covered him. Her solitude often awakened by her worries of his fate, triggering sobs that are stifled when he stirs.
It had been the ninth of May
and it was the night of her birthday. Andres heard her cries. He touched her
hand. “What is it?” he asked weakly. “Nothing” she replied. “Please..” he pressed. She was silent then replied. “It’s just my birthday…I’m sorry I’m being a baby..”
He smiled. “Happy birthday, mahal“ he said. She leaned to meet his lips. “I’m
sorry we couldn’t celebrate tonight…” he sighed. “You deserve a grand
celebration, Oriang with lots of food, lots of friends, lots of laughter, he
said “Maybe your parents were right..I can’t give you a good life” he said. She
jerked and looked at him. “Don’t say that“ she admonished. Andres smiled and wearily
closed his eyes.
When he fell asleep, Oriang
remembered how she has changed, from a daughter of a gobernadorcillo to a
revolutionary. And how escaping from the Guardia Civil have became apart of her
life when she married Andres. Like riding
a carromata in darkened alleys while
clutching critical Katipunan documents or paddling a riverboat in Pasig River to
get away from the Spaniards. Perilous as it was, she loved the river part of
her escape, the lapping water, the moon that suffused the river with its light,
the silence. Far from the travails, the torture, the anguish. She found a
stillness there, a comfort she often brings back as she goes through the chaos,
the cries again.
The next day the verdict came
out, its content was unknown. When the guards arrived at their door, Oriang
held on to Andres as long as she can, grabbing his shirt, holding on to his leg
until they forcibly ripped them apart. They led him to a hammock because he was
too weakened to walk. Her cries teamed
with the tempest that arrived that day. The wind whined as it broke the tree
branches and the rain fell hard, angry and steady. She begged the guards not to
take his husband and let her go to Heneral Miong and beg for his life or at least let
him recover from his wounds before taking him away. They agreed. Holding up her
saya tightly, she crossed a furious river while holding on to the sides of
white-washed boulders embedded in the water. But when she arrived in the camp, the Heneral wasn’t there.
When she went returned, she saw
some guards carrying the blanket they used and the hammock lay in a pile.
“Where is he? Where are they?” she screamed frantically. They didn’t answer and
walked away. “Please, please, sirs, where are they?” she asked each soldier,
grabbing the sides of their uniform, begging and kneeling along their path.
Finally, someone said. “We left them in the mountains.”
Oriang ran. In her wooden clogs,
she hauled herself up the rocks that littered the slope, grabbing the branches,
vines that covered a soggy trail. The rain drummed her face as she clambered on
the mud-covered rocks and protruding tree roots. She searched the mountain,
going through the thick cogon grasses, scraping herself and calling out his
name. She didn’t find him. Days passed and other Katipuneros went up and stayed
with her, bringing her food and clothes. But she didn’t eat, accepting only
buko shards to abate her hunger. She was filthy and her saya was soiled from
dirt, her fingernails ragged and scratches adorned her hands and shoulders.
No, they could not have done it,
she thought. We are brothers. Filipinos. No. She refused to believe that they
can commit an atrocious act to a brother. After all he did, this was it? Fate
can’t be that cruel. No. She wanted to believe he was alive even if the gritty
mountains mocked her with its immovable stance, bearing witness to her harried
state. No, this can’t be the end. We will always go past anything.
Then he arrived. Julio. One of
their trusted friends. They led him to
Oriang. He was aghast at her despondent state but remained collected. She had a
slight stench that whiffed in the air. “Oriang, you have to go down..,please
don’t do this to yourself ” he said
urgently. She looked at him in his white rolled-up polo and blue trousers with
a pistol hanging on his side. Nakpil, she sometimes calls him, is a scrubbed
face she haven’t seen in weeks.“ I haven’t found him yet, Julio” she said,
barely a whisper. Her lips were dry and her hair was down and unruly, her payneta
dangling on the side. They were at a peak of a valley, the sun simmering on
their heads. “We already scoured the mountains” he said then shook his head.
Her eyes remained fixed on the shrubs below. Yes, fate can be unkind. It can.
With that, she drew a deep breath and let the searing numbness she fought for
days finally subdue her. Then she looked
at Julio’s kind face and noticed the darkness edging on his side, slowly
filling the afternoon light then her legs gave way.
