Midsummer (by Manuel E.

Arguilla)

He pulled down his hat until the wide brim touched his shoulders. He
crouched lower under the cover of his cart and peered ahead. The road
seemed to writhe under the lash of the noon-day heat; it swum from side to
side, humped and bent itself like a feeling serpent, and disappeared behind
the spur of a low hill on which grew a scrawny thicket of bamboo.
There was not a house in sight. Along the left side of the road ran the deep,
dry gorge of a stream, the banks sparsely covered by sun-burned cogon grass.
In places, the rocky, waterless bed showed aridly. Farther, beyond the
shimmer of quivering heat waves rose ancient hills not less blue than the
cloud-palisaded sky. On the right stretched a land waste of low rolling dunes.
Scattered clumps of hardy ledda relieved the otherwise barren monotony of
the landscape. Far away he could discern a thin indigo line that was the sea.
The grating of the cartwheels on the pebbles of the road and the almost
soundless shuffle of the weary bull but emphasized the stillness. Now and
then came the dry rustling of falling earth as lumps from the cracked sides of
the gorge fell down to the bottom.
He struck at the bull with the slack of the rope. The animal broke into a
heavy trot. The dust stirred slumbrously. The bull slowed down, threw up his
head, and a glistening thread of saliva spun out into the dry air. The dying
rays of the sun were reflected in points of light on the wet, heaving flanks.
The man in the cart did not notice the woman until she had rounded the spur
of land and stood unmoving beside the road, watching the cart and its
occupant come toward her. She was young, surprisingly sweet and fresh
amidst her parched surroundings. A gaily stripped kerchief covered her head,
the ends tied at the nape of her neck. She wore a homespun bodice of light
red cloth with small white checks. Her skirt was also homespun and showed
a pattern of white checks with narrow stripes of yellow and red. With both
hands she held by the mouth a large, apparently empty, water jug, the cool
red of which blended well with her dress. She was barefoot.
She stood straight and still beside the road and regarded him with frank
curiosity. Suddenly she turned and disappeared into the dry gorge. Coming to
where she had stood a few moments before, he pulled up the bull and got out
of the cart. He saw where a narrow path had been cut into the bank and stood
a while lost in thought, absently wiping the perspiration from his face. Then

he unhitched his bull and for a few moments, with strong brown fingers,
kneaded the hot neck of the beast. Driving the animal before him, he
followed the path. It led up the dry bed of the stream; the sharp fragments of
sun-heated rocks were like burning coals under his feet. There was no sign of
the young woman.
He came upon her beyond a bed in the gorge, where a big mango tree, which
had partly fallen from the side of the ravine, cast its cool shade over a well.
She had filled her jar and was rolling the kerchief around her hand into a flat
coil which she placed on her head. Without glancing at him, where he had
stopped some distance off, she sat down of her heels, gathering the fold of
her skirt between her wide-spread knees. She tilted the brimful jar to remove
part of the water. One hand on the rim, the other supporting the bottom, she
began to raise it to her head. She knelt on one kneeresting, for a moment, the
jar onto her head, getting to her feet at the same time. But she staggered a
little and water splashed down on her breast. The single bodice instantly
clung to her bosom molding the twin hillocks of her breasts warmly brown
through the wet cloth. One arm remained uplifted, holding the jar, while the
other shook the clinging cloth free of her drenched flesh. Then not once
having raised her eyes, she passed by the young man, who stood mutely
gazing beside his bull. The animal had found some grass along the path and
was industriously grazing.
He turned to watch the graceful figure beneath the jar until it vanished
around a bend in the path leading to the road. Then he led the bull to the well,
and tethered it to a root of the mango tree.
"The underpart of her arm is white and smooth," he said to his blurred image
on the water of the well, as he leaned over before lowering the bucket made
of half a petroleum can. "And her hair is thick and black." The bucket struck
with a rattling impact. It filled with one long gurgle. He threw his hat on the
grass and pulled the bucket up with both hands.
The twisted bamboo rope bit into his hardened palms, and he thought how...
the same rope must hurt her.
He placed the dripping bucket on a flat stone, and the bull drank. "Son of
lightning!" he said, thumping the side of the bull after it had drunk the third
bucketful, "you drink like the great Kuantitao!" A low, rich rumbling rolled
through the cavernous body of the beast. He tied it again to the root, and the
animal idly rubbed its horns against the wood. The sun had fallen from the

perpendicular, and noticing that the bull stood partly exposed to the sun, he
pushed it farther into shade. He fanned himself with his hat. He whistled to
entice the wind from the sea, but not a breeze stirred.

face. He saw her eyes. They were brown and were regarding him gravely,
without embarrassment; he forget his own timidity.
"Won't you join me, Ading?" he said simply. He remained seated.

After a while he put on his hat and hurriedly walked the short distance
through the gorge up to the road where his cart stood. From inside he took a
jute sack which he slung over one shoulder. With the other arm, he gathered
part of the hay at the bottom of the cart. He returned to the well, slips of
straw falling behind him as he picked his way from one tuft of grass to
another, for the broken rocks of the path has grown exceedingly hot.
He gave the hay to the bull, Its rump was again in the sun, and he had to push
it back. "Fool, do you want to broil yourself alive?" he said good-humoredly,
slapping the thick haunches. It switched its long-haired tail and fell to eating.
The dry, sweet-smelling hay made harsh gritting sounds in the mouth of the
hungry animal. Saliva rolled out from the corners, clung to the stiff hairs that
fringed the thick lower lip, fell and gleamed and evaporated in the heated air.

Her lips parted in a half smile and a little dimple appeared high upon her
right cheek. She shook her head and said: "God reward you, Manong."
"Perhaps the poor food I have is not fit for you?"
"No, no. It isn't that. How can you think of it? I should be ashamed. It is that
I have must eaten myself. That is why I came to get water in the middle of
the day--we ran out of it. I see you have eggs and shrimps and sugar. Why,
be had nothing but rice and salt."
"Salt? Surely you joke."
"I would be ashamed..."

He took out of the jute sack a polished coconut shell. The top had been
sawed off and holes bored at opposite sides, through which a string tied to
the lower part of the shell passed in a loop. The smaller piece could thus be
slipped up and down as a cover. The coconut shell contained cooked rice still
a little warm. Buried on the top was an egg now boiled hard. He next brought
out a bamboo tube of salt, a cake of brown sugar wrapped in banana leaf, and
some dried shrimps. Then he spread the sack in what remained of the shade,
placed his simple meal thereon, and prepared to eat his dinner. But first he
drew a bucketful of water from the well, setting the bucket on a rock. He
seated himself on another rock and ate with his fingers. From time to time he
drank from the bucket.
He was half through with his meal when the girl came down the path once
more. She had changed the wetted bodice. He watched her with lowered head
as she approached, and felt a difficulty in continuing to eat, but went through
the motions of filling his mouth nevertheless. He strained his eyes looking at
the girl from beneath his eyebrows. How graceful she was! Her hips tapered
smoothly down to round thighs and supple legs, showing against her skirt
and moving straight and free. Her shoulders, small but firm, bore her shapely
neck and head with shy pride.
When she was very near, he ate more hurriedly, so that he almost choked. He
did not look at her. She placed the jar between three stones. When she picked
up the rope of the bucket, he came to himself. He looked up--straight into her

"But what is the matter with salt?"

"Salt...salt...Makes baby stout," he intoned. "My grandmother used to sing
that to me when I complained of our food."
They laughed and felt more at ease and regarded each other more openly. He
took a long time fingering his rice before raising it to his mouth, the while he
gazed up at her and smiled for no reason. She smile back in turn and gave the
rope which she held an absent-minded tug. The bucket came down from its
perch of rock in a miniature flood. He leaped to his feet with a surprised yell,
and the next instant the jute sack on which he lay his meal was drenched.
Only the rice inside the coconut shell and the bamboo of tube of salt were
saved from
the water.
She was distressed, but he only laughed.
"It is nothing," he said. "It was time I stopped eating. I have filled up to my
neck."
"Forgive me, Manong," she insisted. "It was all my fault. Such a clumsy
creature I am."

"It was not your fault," she assured him. "I am to blame for placing the
bucket of water where I did."
"I will draw you another bucketful," he said. "I am stronger than you."

noisily, spewed it out, then commenced to drink in earnest. He took long,

deep droughts of the sweetish water, for he was more thirsty than he had
thought. A chuckling sound persisted in forming inside his throat at every
swallow. It made him self-conscious. He was breathless when through, and
red in the face.

"No, you must let me do it."

But when he caught hold of the bucket and stretched forth a brawny arm for
the coil of rope in her hands, she surrendered both to him quickly and drew
back a step as though shy of his touch. He lowered the bucket with his back
to her, and she had time to take in the tallness of him, the breadth of his
shoulders, the sinewy strength of his legs. Down below in the small of his
back, two parallel ridges of rope-like muscle stuck out against the wet shirt.
As he hauled up the bucket, muscles rippled all over his body. His hair,
which was wavy, cut short behind but long in fronts fell in a cluster over his
forehead.

"I don't know why it makes that sound," he said, fingering his throat and
laughing shamefacedly.
"Father also makes that sound when he drinks, and mother always laughs at
him," she said. She untied the headkerchief over her hair and started to roll it.
Then sun had descended considerably and there was now hardly any shade
under the tree. The bull was gathering with its tongue stray slips of straw. He
untied the animal to lead it to the other side of the girl who spoke; "Manong,
why don't you come to our house and bring your animal with you? There is
shade and you can sleep, though our house is very poor."

"Let me hold the bucket while you drink," she offered.

He flashed her a smile over his shoulders as he poured the water into her jar,
and again lowered the bucket.

She had already placed the jar on her head and stood, half-turned to him,
waiting for his answer.
"I would be troubling you, Ading."

"No, no, you must not do that." She hurried to his side and held one of his
arms. "I couldn't let you, a stranger..."
"Why not?" He smiled down at her, and noticed a slight film of moisture
clinging to the down on her upper lip and experienced a sudden desire to
wipe it away with his forefinger. He continued to lower the bucket while she
had to stand by.
"Hadn't you better move over to the shade?" he suggested, as the bucket
struck the water.
"What shall I do there?" she asked sharply, as though the idea of seeking
protection from the heat were contemptible to her.
"You will get roasted standing here in the sun," he said, and began to haul up
the bucket.
But she remained beside him, catching the rope as it feel from his hands,
coiling it carefully. The jar was filled, with plenty to drink as she tilted the
half-filled can until the water lapped the rim. He gulped a mouthful, gargled

"No. You come. I have told mother about you." She turned and went down
the path.
He sent the bull after her with smart slap on its side. Then he quickly
gathered the remains of his meal, put them inside the jute sack which had
almost dried, and himself followed. Then seeing that the bull had stopped to
nibble the tufts of grass that dotted the bottom of the gorge, he picked up the
dragging rope and urged the animal on into a trot. They caught up with the
girl near the cart. She stopped to wait.
He did not volunteer a word. He walked a step behind, the bull lumbering in
front. More than ever he was conscious of her person. She carried the jar on
her head without holding it. Her hands swung to her even steps. He drew
back his square shoulders, lifted his chin, and sniffed the motionless air.
There was a flourish in the way he flicked the rump of the bull with the rope
in his hand. He felt strong. He felt very strong. He felt that he could follow
the slender, lithe figure to the end of the world.

Impeng Negro ni Rogelio Sikat

Baka makikipag-away ka na naman, tinig iyon ng kanyang ina.
Nangangaral na naman. Mula kinatatalungkuang giray na batalan, saglit
iyang napatigil sa paghuhugas ng mumo sa kamay.

Matagal na napako ang kanyang tingin kay Kano, ang sumusunod sa kanya.
Maputi si Kano, kaya ganito ang tawag dito sa kanilang pook. Kakutis ni
Kano ang iba pa niyang kapatid. Marurusing ngunit mapuputi. May pitong
taon na si Kano. Siya namay maglalabing-anim na. Payat siya ngunit
mahaba ang kanyang biyas.

Hindi ho, paungol niyang tugon.

Hindi ho... Ginagad siya ng kanyang ina. Bayaan mo na nga sila. Kung
papansinin moy lagi ka ngang mababasag-ulo.

Hinalungkat na niya ang kahong karton na itinuro ng ina. Magkakasama ang

damit nila nina Kano, Boyet, at Diding. Sa may ilalim, nakuha niya ang
kulay-lumot niyang kamiseta. Hinawakan niya iyon sa magkabilang tirante.
Itinaas. Sinipat.

May iba pang sinasabi ang kanyang ina ngunit hindi na niya pinakinggan.
Alam na niya ang mga iyon. Pulit-ulit na niyang naririnig. Nakukulili na ang
kanyang tainga.

Yan nang isuot mo. Parang nahulaan ang kanyang iniisip.

Isinaboy niya ang tubig na naa harap. Muli siyang tumabo. Isinawak niya ang
kamay, pinagkiskis ang mga palad at maghilamos.
Dumaan ka kay Taba mamayang pag-uwi mo, narinig niyang bilin ng ina.
Wala nang gatas si Boy. Etong pambili.
Tumindig na siya. Nanghihimad at naghihikab na itinaas ang mahabang
kamay. Inaantok pa siya. Gusto pa niyang magbalik sa sulok na kanyang
higaan. Ngunit kailangan na siyang lumakad. Tatanghaliin na naman bago
siya makasahod. At naroon na naman marahil si Ogor. Kahit siya ang nauna
ay lagi siyang inuunahan ni Ogor sa pagsahod.
Umiingit ang sahig ng kanilang barung-barong nang siyay pumasok.

Isinuot niya ang kamiseta. Lapat na lapat ang kamisetang iyon noong bagong
bili ngunit ngayoy maluwag na. Nagmumukha siyang Intsek-beho kapag
suot iyon ngunit wala naman iyang maraming kamietang maisusuot. Mahina
ang kita ng kanyang ina sa paglalabada; mahina rin ang kita niya sa pagaagwador.
Nagbalik siya sa batalan. Nang siyay lumabas, paan na niya ang kargahan.
Tuloy-tuloy niyang tinungo ang hagdan.
Si Ogor, Impen, pahabol na bilin ng kanyang ina. Huwag mo nang
pansinin.
Naulinigan niya ang biling iyon at aywan kung dahil sa inaantok pa siya,
muntik na siyang madapa sa nakausling bato sa may paanan ng kanilang
hagdan.

Nariyan sa kahon ang kamiseta mo.

Sa sulok ng kanyang kaliwang matay nasulyapan niya ang ina. Nakaupo ito,
taas ang kaliwang paa, sa dulo ng halos dumapa nang bangko. Nakasandig
ang ulo sa tagpiang dingding. Nakalugay ang buhok. Bukas ang kupasing
damit na gris, nakahantad ang laylay at tuyot na dibdib. Kalong nito ang
kanyang kapatid na bunso. Pinasususo.
Mamya, baka umuwi ka na namang... basag ang mukha.

Tuwing umagang mananaog siya upang umigib, pinagpapaalalahanan siya ng

ina. Huwag daw siyang makikioagbabag. Huwag daw niyang papansinin si
Ogor. Talaga raw gayon iyon; basagulero. Lagi niyang iinasaisip ang mga
bilin nito ngunit adya yatang hindi siya makapagtitimpi kapag narinig niya
ang masasakit na panunukso sa kanya sa gripo, lalung-lalo na mula kay
Ogor.
Si Ogor, na kamakailan lamang ay bumabag sa kanya, ang malimit
magsimula ng panunukso.

Ang itim mo, Impen, itutukso nito.

paghihimagsik, nagsuumigaw na panghihimagsik sa pook na iyong ayaw

magbigay sa kanila ng pagkakataong makagitaw at mabuhay nang payapa.

Kapatid mo ba si Kano? isasabad sa mga nasa gripo.

Sino bang talaga ang tatay mo?
Sino pa, isisingit I Ogor, di si Dikyam.
Sasambulat na ang tawanan. Pinakamatunog ang tawa ni Ogor. Si Ogor ang
kinikilalang hari sa gripo.

Sariwa pa ang nangyaring pakikipagbabag niya kay Ogor, naiisip ni Impen

habang tinatalunton ang mababatong daan, patungo sa gripo. Mula sa bintana
ng mga barung-barong, nakikita niyang nagsusulputan ang ulo ng mga bata.
Itinuturo siya ng mga iyon. Sa kanya rin napapatingin ang matatanda.
Walang sinasabi ang mga ito, ngunit sa mga mata, sa galaw ng mga labi,
nababasa niyang isinisigaw ng mga paslit, Negro!
Napatungo na lamang siya.

E, ano kung maitim? isasagot niya.

Nanunuri ang mga mata at nakangising iikutan siya ni Ogor. Magsusunuran
nang manukso ang iba pang agwador. Pati ang mga batang naroon : Tingnan
mong buhok. Kulot na kulot! Tingnan mong ilong. Sarat na sarat! Naku po,
ang nguso. Namamalirong!
Sa katagalan, natanggap na niya ang panunuksong ito. Iyon ang totoo, sinabi
sa sarili. Negro nga siya. E, ano kung Negro? Ngunit napipikit siya. Ang
tatay niyay isang sundalong Negro na nang maging anak siyay biglang
nawala sa Pilipinas.
Ang panunuksong hindi niya matanggap, at siya ang pinagmulan ng nakaraan
nilang pagbababag ni Ogor, ay ang inabi nito tungkol sa kanyang ina. (Gayon
nga kaya kasama ang kanyang ina?)
ari-sari ang nagiging kapatid ni Negro, sinabi ni Ogor. Baka makatatlo pa
ang kanyang nanay ngayon!
Noong dinadala ng kanyang ina ang kapatid niyang bunso ay iniwan ito ng
asawa. Hindi malaman kung saan nagsuot. At noon, higit kailanman, naging
hamak sila sa pagtingin ng lahat. Matagal-tagal ding hindi naglabada ang
kanyang ina, nahihiyang lumabas sa kanilang barung-barong. Siya ang
nagpatuloy sa pag-aagwador. At iya ang napagtuunan ng sari-saring
panunukso.
Natatandaan niya angmga panunuksong iyon. At mula noon, nagsisimula
nang umalimpuyo sa kanyang dibdib ang datiy binhi lamang ng isang

Natatanaw na niya ngayon ang gripo. Sa malamig ngunit maliwanag nang

sikat ng araw, nakikita na niya ang langkay ng mga agwador. Nagkakatipuntipon ang mga ito. Nagkakatuwaan. Naghaharutan.
Sa langkay na iyon ay kilalang-kilala ang anyo ni Ogor. Paano niya
malilimutan si Ogor? Sa mulat mula pa, itinuring na siya nitong kaaway, di
kailan man binigyan ng pagkakataongmaging kaibigan.
Halos kasinggulang niya si Ogor, ngunit higit na matipuno ang katawan nito.
Malakas si Ogor. Tuwid ang tindig nito at halos, hindi yumuyuko kahit may
pang balde ng tubig, tila sino mang masasalubong sa daan ay kayang-kayang
sagasaan.
Nang marating niya ang gripo ay tungo ang ulong tinungo niya ang hulihan
ng pila. Marahan niyang inalis ang pagkakawit ng mga balde. Sa sarili,
nausal niyang sanay huwag siyang maging paksa ng paghaharutan at
pagkakatuwaan ng mga agwador.
Nakakaanim na karga na si Impen. May sisenta sentimos nang
kumakalansing sa bulsa ng kutod niyang maong. At may isa pang
nagpapaigib sa kanya. Diyes sentimos na naman. Kapag tag-araw ay malakilaki rin naman ang kinikita ng mga agwador. Mahina ang tulo ng tubig sa
kanilang lugar. AT bihira ang may poso.
Tanghali na akong makauuwi nito nausal niya habang binibilang niya sa
mata ang mga nakapilang balde. Maluwang ang parisukat na sementong
kinatitirikan ng gripo at ang dulo ng pilay nasa labas pa niyon.

Di kalayuan sa gripo ay may isang tindahan. Sa kalawanging yerong medya

agwa ay nakasilong ang iba pang agwador. May naghubad na ng damit, at
isinampay na lamang sa balikat. May nagpapaypay. May kumakain ng haluhalo.
Sa pangkat na iyon ay natutok agad ang kanyang paningin kay Ogor. Pinilit
niyang supilin ang hangaring makasilong. Naroon sa tindahan si Ogor.
Hubad-baro at ngumisi. Mauupo na lamang siya sa kanyang balde. Mabuti na
rin iyon kahit nakabilad a araw. Pasasaan bat di iikli rin ang pila, nasaisip
niya. Makakasahod din ako.
Kasalukuyan siyang nagtitiis sa init nang may maulinigan siyang sigaw mula
sa tindahan :
Hoy, Negro, sumilong ka baka pumuti!
Si Ogor iyon. Kahit hindi siya lumingon, para na niyang nakita si Ogor.
Nakangisi at nanunukso na naman.

naramdamang tila nangangalirang na naman ang kanyang batok at balat. Kay

hapdi ng kanyang batok at balat.
Negro! Napatuwid siya sa pagkakaupo nang marinig iyon. Nasa likuran
lamang niya ang nagsalita. Si Ogor. Huwag ka nang magbilad. Don ka sa
lamig.
Pagkakataon na ni Ogor upang sumahod. At habang itinatapat nito ang balde
sa gripo, muli niyang nakitang ngingisihan siya nito.
Napakatagal sa kanya ang pagkapuno ng mga balde ni Ogor.
Napabuntunghininga siya nang makitang kinakawitan na ni Ogor ang mga
balde. Sa wakes, aalis na si Ogor, naisip niya. Aalis na si Ogor. Huwag na
sana siyang bumalik
May galak na sumuusuno sa kanyang dibdib habang pinagmamasdan ang
pagkapuno ng sinundang balde. Susunod na siya.

Negro, muli niyang narinig, sumilong ka sabi, e baka ka masunog!

Makakasahod na siya. Makakasahod na rin ako, sabi niya sa sarili. Pagkaraan

ng kargang iyon ay uuwi na siya. Daraan pa nga pala siya kay Taba. Bibili ng
gatas.

Malakas ang narinig niyang tawanan. Ngunit hindi pa rin siya lumingon. Tila
wala siyang naririnig. Nakatingin siya sa nakasahod sa balde, ngunit ang isip
niya ay ang bilin ng ina, na huwag na raw niyang papansinin si Ogor. Bakit
ba niya papansinin si Ogor?

Datapuwat, pagkaalis ng balding hinihintay niyang mapuno, at isasahod na

lamang ang a kanya, ay isang mabigat at makapangyarihang kamay ang
biglang pumatong sa kanyang balikat. SI Ogor ang kanyang natingala.
Malapit lamang pala ang pinaghatdan nito ng tubig.

Tinigilan naman ni Ogor ang panunukso. Hindi pa rin siya umaalis sa

kinauupuang balde. At habang umuusad ang pila, nararamdaman niya lalo
ang init ng araw. Sa paligid ng balde, nakikita niya ang kanayng anino.
Tumingala siya ngunit siyay nasilaw. Nanghahapdi at waring nasusunog ang
kanyang batok, likod at balikat. Namumuo ang pawis sa kanyang batok at sa
ibabaw ng kanyang ilong.

Gutom na ako! Negro, sabi ni Ogor, Ako muna.

Itinaas niya ang tirante ng kamiseta. Hinipan-hipan niya ang manipis na

dibdib. Di natagalan at isinawak ang kamay sa nalabing tubig sa balde. Una
niyang binasa ang ulo. Kinuskos niya ang kanyang buhok at nabasa pati ang
kanyang anit. Binasa niya ang balikat, ang mga bisg. May nadama siyang
ginhawa. Ngunit pansamantala lamang iyon. Di nagtagal, muli niyang

Pautos iyon. Saglit siyang hindi nakakibo. Natingnan lamang niya si22 Ogor.
Iginitgit ni Ogor ang balde at kumalantog ang kanilang mga balde.
Iginitgit niya ang kanyang balde bahagya nga lamang at takot siya sa
paggitgit. Kadarating mo pa lamang, Ogor nais niyang itutol. Kangina pa ako
nakapila rito, a.
Ako muna sabi, e. giit ni Ogor.

Bantulot niyang binawi ang balde. Nakatingin pa rin si Ogor. Itinaob niya
ang kakaunting nasahod ng balde at ang tubig ay gumapang sa semento at
umabot sa mga paa ni Ogor. Uuwi na ako, bulong niya sa sarili. Uuwi na ako.
Uuwi na ako. Mamaya na lang ako iigib uli. Nakatingin sa araw, humakbang
siya upang kunin ang pingga ngunit sa paghakbang na iyon, bigla siyang
pinatid ni Ogor.

Matagal din bago napawi ang paninigas sa kanyang pigi. Humihingal siya.
Malikot ang kanayng mga mata nang siyay bumangon at itukod ang mga
kamay sa semento.
Si Ogor. Sa mulat mula pat itinuturing na siya nitong kaaway. Bakit siya
ginaganoon ni Ogor? Bakit? Bakit?

Ano pa bang ibinubulong mo?

Hindi na niya narinig iyon. Nabuwal siya. Tumama ang kanyang kanang
pisngi sa labi ng nabitiwang balde. Napasigaw siya. Napaluhod siya sa
madulas na semento, dalawang kamay niyang tinutop ang pisngi.
Takot, nanginginig ang kanyang mga daliri. Dahan-dahan niyang iniangat
iyon. Basa Mapula Dugo!
Nanghihlakbot siya. Sa loob ng ilang saglit hindi na niya maulit na salatin
ang biyak na pisngi. Mangiyak-ngiyak siya.
Ogor O gor Nakatingala siya kay Ogor, mahigpit na kinukuyom ang
mga palad. Kumikinig ang kanyang ulo at nangangalit ang kanyang ngipin.
Ogor! sa wakes ay naisigaw niya.

Kumikinig ang kanyang katawan. Sa poot. Sa naglalatang na poot. At nang

makita niyang aangat ang kanang paa ni Ogor upang sipain siyang muli ay
tila nauulol na asong sinunggaban niya iyon at niyakap at kinagat.
Bumagsak ang nawalan ng panimbang na si Ogor. Nagyakap sila. Pagulonggulong. Hindi siya bumibitiw. Nang siyay mapaibabaw, sunod-sunod niya
Dagok, dagok, dagok, dagok, dagok, dagok pahalipaw
papalukapapatay.
Sa pook na iyon, sa nakakarimarim na pook na iyon, aba ang pagtingin sa
kanila. Maruming babae ang kanyang ina. Sarisari ang anak . At siya, isang
maitim, hamak na Negro Papatayin niya si Ogor papatayin. Papatayin.

Hindi minabuti ni Ogor ang kanyang pagkakasigaw. Sinipa siya nito.

Gumulong siya. Buwal ang lahat ng balding lalalabi sa pila. Nagkalugkugan.
Nakarinig siya ng tawanan. At samantalang nakadapa, unti-unting nabuo sa
walang malamang sulingan niyang mga mata ang mga pang alikabukin.
Paparami iyon at pumapaligid sa kanya.

Dagok. Dagok, dagok Nag-uumigting ang kanyang mga ugat. Tila asong
nagpipilit makaibabaw si Ogor. Tila bakal na kumakapit ang mga kamay. Sa
isang iglap siya naman ang napailalim. Dagok, dagok, Nagpipihit siya.
Tatagilid. Naiiri. Muling matitihaya. Hindi niya naiilagan ang dagok ni Ogor.
Nasisilaw siya sa araw. Napipikit siya sa araw. Mangungudngod siya,
mahahalik sa lupa ngunit wala siyang nararamdamang sakit!

Bigla siyang bumaligtad. Nakita niya ang naghuhumindig na anyo ni Ogor.

Nakakaakma ang mga bisig.

Nakakatatlo ng asawa si Inay. Si Kano si Boyet Si Diding at siya

Negro, Negro, Negro!

Ogor

Sa mga dagok ni Ogor tila nasasalinan pa siya ng lakas. Bigla, ubos- lakas at
nag-uumuti siyang umigtad. Dagok, dagok, bayo, bayo, dagok, bao kahit
saan. Sa mukha.. Dagok, dagok, dagok, dagok

Tumawa nang malakas si Ogor. Humihingal at nakangangang napapikit siya.

Pumulas ang luha sa sulok ng kanyang mga mata. Nasa ganito siyang
kalagayan nang bigla niyang maramdaman ang isang ubos-lakas na sipa sa
kanyang pigi. Napasigaw siya. Umiiyak siyang gumulong sa basa at madulas
na semento. Namimilipit siya. Tangan ang sinipang pigi, ang buong anyo ng
nakaangat niyang mukhay larawan ng matinding sakit.

Mahinana si Ogor. Lupaypay na. Nalaglag na ang nagsasangang kamay.

Humihingal na rin siya, humahagok. Ngunit nagliliyab pa rin ang poot sa
kanyang mga mata. Dagok. Papaluka. Dagok, bayo, dagok, bayo, dagok,
bayo, dagok, bayo

Gumagalaw-galaw ang sabog na labi ni Ogor.

Impen
Muli niyang itinaas ang amay. Dagok.
I-mpen halos hindi na niya naririnig ang halinghing ni gor. I-mpen,
suko n-naa-akos-suko na na a-ako!
Naibaba niya ang nakataas na kama. Napasuko niya si Ogor! Napatingala
siya. Abut-abot ang paghingal. Makaraan ang ilang sandali, dahan-dahan at
nanlalambot siyang tumindig, nakatuon ang mga mata kay Ogor. Wasak ang
kanyang kamiseta at duguan ang kanyang likd. May basa ng dugot lupa ang
kanyang nguso.
Maraming sandaling walang nangahas na magsalita. Walang nakakibo sa
mga agwador. Hindi makapaniwala ang lahat. Lahat ay nakatingin sa kanya.
Isa-isa niyang tiningnan ang mga nakapaligid sa kanya. Walang pagtutol sa
mga mata ng mga it. Ang nababakas niyay paghanga. Ang nakita niyay
pangingimi.
Pinangingimian siya!
May luha siya sa mga mata ngunitmay galak siyang nadama. Luwalhati.
Hinagud-hagud niya ang mga kamao. Nadama niya ang bagong tuklas na
lakas niyon. Ang tibay, ang tatag ang kapangyarihan. Muli niyang
tiningnan ang nakabulagtang si Ogor. Pagkaraay nakapikit at buka ang
labing nag-angat siya ng mukha.
Sa matinding sikat ng araw. Tila siya isang mandirigmang sugatan ngunit
matatag na nakatindig sa pinagwagiang larangan.

Borges, Politics, and the Postcolonial by Gina Apostol

MARK OCONNELL on The New Yorkers "Page Turner" writes astutely
about Borgess complex reflexivity in Two New Books about Borges, a
review of new publications from New Directions, Borges at Eighty:
Conversations (translated by Katherine Silver) and Professor Borges: A
Course on English Literature (translated by Willis Barnstone). OConnell says
of Borgess interviews:
Theres something fascinatingly Borgesian about the way in which the selfawareness of the performance is itself highly performative. This preoccupation
with the divided self veers close to a sort of ontological double act, a one-man
odd-couple routine.
And he describes well a peculiar stamp of Borgess fiction:
Borgess writing was always, to some degree, a creative form of reading, and
many of his best fictions were meditations on the condition of fictionality:
reviews of invented books, stories whose central presences were not people
but texts.
But OConnells astuteness fails him when he falls into the reductive trap of
thinking that, as an artist, Borges is not political. OConnell is urged to that
conclusion because Borges says so. I have no use for politics, he quotes
Borges saying in an interview. And like a gullible reader of Pierre
MenardsDon Quixote, OConnell falls for Borgess wit, his double act. This
is odd, because Borges has just instructed OConnell and any reader who
reads Borgess interviews to doubt anything Borges says. As OConnell
correctly says of Borgess work: Doubt was the sacred principle of his work,
its animating force and, frequently, its message.
I have long taught Borges in my classes, and I understand how deeply indebted
I am as a writer to Borgess tricky, duplicitous mind. But it is only as I have
tried to explain the effect of Borges on my work, in the realm of the political
the effect of Borges on someone who grew up in the Third World that I
have come to understand a blindness we might have about Borges as a writer.
In his reviews final paragraph, OConnell is sad about Borgess tactical
withdrawal from the very real terror and anarchy and injustice of the world.
He further notes that:
Borgess refusal to engage with politics wouldnt have been nearly so
remarkable had he not lived through two World Wars and, in his own country,
six coups dtats and three dictatorships.

Having grown up under dictatorship, beset by the psychological scars of a

history of colonization, I know my debt to Borges. I learn from him as an artist,
but I also read him, unavoidably, as a luminous thinker about the politics and
problems of the so-called Third World, and about the issues of engagement
that confront us in America now. I keep wondering if my own response is
idiosyncratic. But then, I realize, writers in The New Yorker and such who talk
about Borges might not have the experience that Borges and I have the
postcolonial experience of that divided self, that ontological double act.
Anyone who has grown up in a country where history has been created by the
words of its occupiers understands this existential condition the sense that
who you are is a fiction, the result of texts constructed by others.
Certainly, Borgess statements about his indifference to politics are alarming:
I am not politically minded. I am aesthetically minded, philosophically
perhaps. I dont belong to any party. In fact, I disbelieve in politics and in
nations. I disbelieve also in richness, in poverty. Those things are illusions.
But I believe in my own destiny as a good or bad or indifferent writer.
To be honest, as I read this, I start laughing. You can, of course, believe Borges
why not, if he says so? But you can also see him performing his double act,
enacting the writer Borges, the provocative, public intellectual that
the I abhors in that terse masterpiece, Borges and I. Interestingly, OConnell
begins his review with a quote from that instructive story:
I like hourglasses, [the I narrator] writes, maps, eighteenth-century
typography, the taste of coffee, and the prose of Stevenson; [Borges] shares
these preferences, but in a vain way that turns them into the attributes of an
actor.
And yet when it comes to Borgess actorly statements about politics,
OConnell fails to give the writer the benefit of Borgess own skepticism of
his public self.
What is it about the writer in the First World that wants the Third World writer
to be nakedly political, a blunt instrument bludgeoning his worlds ills? What
is it about the critic that seems to wish upon the Third World the martyred
activist who dies for a cause (OConnell: In his own country, six coups detat
and three dictatorships one hears exclamation points of disappointment)?
Where does this goddamned fantasy come from that fantasy of the
oppressed Third World artist who must risk his life to speak out, whos not
allowed to stay in bed and just read Kidnapped? I have to say, look at it this
way: It only benefits dictatorships when all the Ken Saro-Wiwas die and
the loss of all the Ken Saro-Wiwas diminishes us all. Why is it not okay that
an old man in Argentina lives for his art and yet it is okay for a writer
in The New Yorker whose country is targeting civilians abroad in precision

assassinations to merely sit and write reviews about dead Argentines whose
political feelings are insufficiently pronounced? Where is the great American
artist leading his fellow citizens in barricades against the NSA? And why are
these New Yorker critics not calling them out for their refusal to engage with
politics?
Although it is amusing to imagine a blind librarian in Buenos Aires
brandishing his weapons of Kipling tomes against the old junta, it is less
possible to imagine Jonathan Franzen or Jeffrey Eugenides risking jail at all
for any reason. Why are Americans allowed to be more cowardly than others?
These are momentary, kneejerk thought-bubbles that rise up whenever I read
reviews in The New Yorker. But this is only part of the problem, because for
any of us who read Borges closely from the perspective of the colonized,
Borges is very political: he gives us a template to think about our politics and
our problems. He provokes us to imagine what identity and nation, the
other and the self are, with cunning, humor, and incalculable, astonishing
vision and precision. This is not to say that he provides his political lessons
directly, or even intentionally. As OConnell notes, To read his stories is to
experience the dissolution of all certainty, all assumption about the reliability
of your experience of the world. Borgess stories, in fact, dissolve the
certainties of that hegemonic world of The New Yorker; but then, he decenters
everyones assumptions about politics, about being, about God.
Borges is the author of the essay The Argentine Writer and Tradition, an
amusing, deconstructive lesson on how to read and write a country. In anticolonial poetics in Argentina, in the Philippines, and elsewhere, the question
of tradition is dominant: what makes a literature Argentine? What makes
a story Filipino? Its a question that always drove me nuts because the
arguments always seemed at best foolish, and at worst dangerously essentialist.
Anti-colonial critics at one point suggested that one must isolate Filipinoness or Argentine-ness and find some pure, untrammeled state beyond
history, when the native was pristine and untouched by the foreign, or even
time. But the Filipino or Argentine or Kenyan or Indian is necessarily hybrid,
condemned to deal with the past: history makes our identities irreducibly
multiple. The Filipino is Western and Asian, European and Ifugao, animist and
Christian, all simultaneously and vertiginously so. To isolate what is
Filipino is to seek a chimera. And in such lucid essays as The Argentine
Writer and Tradition, a quite polemical work that sends up these fantasies of
our singular national identities, Borges dissuades people like me from seeking
such illusions. The essay is a classic in deconstructive postcolonial thought,
before Gayatri Spivak, before Homi Bhabha. The public intellectual Borges
may not have directly wrestled with political stances and historical dilemmas
in his passing interviews. But in his essays and his fiction, with clarity and

logic, he sets up for the Argentine, or for someone like me, a template for how
to think about our historical reality, and thus our art. That portal he provides is
a political act.
In typical fashion, Borges presents the problem of Argentine tradition with
doubt:
My skepticism does not relate to the difficulty or impossibility of solving this
problem. [. . .] Rather than with a true mental difficulty, I take it we are dealing
with an appearance, a simulacrum, a pseudo-problem.
The essays logic unfolds to dissipate a chimera. Borges takes as his departure
the almost instinctive solution to the problem of tradition that the
Argentine literary tradition already exists in the gauchesque poetry. To me,
this is the same solution that nationalist critics (and they may be Filipino or
Western or both) often come to they wish to isolate a pre-colonial form or
story, say epic syntax in Tagalog, or the dusty themes of a Native American
romance with plants, or the too-much-sung story of migration, and expect the
artist to grapple with such traditions. But Borges proceeds to devastate that
solution with a close reading of motifs and syntax in gauchesque poetry:
gauchesque poetry is a literary genre as artificial as any other. In short, one
form is not more essentially Argentine as the next. He makes definitive,
political pronouncements: The idea that Argentine poetry should abound in
Argentine traits and Argentine local color seems to me a mistake, he writes,
employing with humor that Borgesian trick of inverse persuasion, his
trademark logical-jujitsu move: The Argentine cult of local color is a recent
European cult which the nationalists ought to reject as foreign.
As a writer from the colonized world, I find Borgess work almost intolerably
revealing, as if spoken directly to the political debates that beset my country.
Borgess postcolonial critique and analysis in his ficciones are obscured by his
philosophical sleights of hand, startling plots, and narrative wizardry, but
though buried, his critique is powerful. In particular, I am struck by his logic
of the inverse. His use of doppelgangers (sometimes triplegangers) and mirrors
and refractions and texts within texts spies that become victims, heroes that
are villains, detectives caught in textual traps of their own making, translators
who disappear in puffs of smoke in someone elses writers block in
Borgess stories, these astonishing mutations force us to see reality from new
perspectives, force us to question our own encrusted preconceptions. While
questions of ontology and Berkeleyan illusion and all those philosophical
games beloved of Borges are paramount, the constant revisiting of the
problems of fictionality and textuality in these stories have profound echoes
for the postcolonial citizen, bedeviled by and grappling with questions of

identity and nation, questions seething always under our every day, our
working hours, our forms of art.
Pierre Menard, Author of The Quixote is structured as a classic Borgesian
inversion. Ostensibly it is about writing. A minor French Symbolist poet,
Menard has a grand plan to rewrite the story of the Quixote by not changing a
single word in it. Of course, the inversion, the joke, is that Menard is really
about reading, not writing Borges flips the binary: Pierre Menard is a reader
of the Quixote, and as such rewrites a book whenever he reads it. An
exemplary fable of poststructuralism (though I do not imagine that Borges was
merely writing a footnote to some essay by Roland Barthes), Menard is also
a commentary on the postcolonial condition. The clue here is that Borges, a
writer in Latin America, chooses as text for rewriting that classic of the
colonizing Spanish, the Quixote. He could have chosen Hamlet(one of his
favorite illusions), The Odyssey (his second favorite), or his third, weird
favorite, Sir Thomas Brownes Urn-Burial. But in this text about the art of
reading as an act of innovation, of revolution, Borges chooses the canonical
Spanish text. Part of Menards inversion, its playfulness, is that Menard is a
Frenchman who believes the Quixote is a contingent not necessary text
a blasphemous notion, perhaps, to a Spaniard. The truism, of course, is that
the Quixote is necessary in the Spanish canon. Borges raises the question of
how to read artifacts of Argentinas colonial patrimony, say schoolbook texts
like Don Quixote, through other, non-Spaniard, dare we say Argentine eyes.
In this way, Borgess philosophical plot of inversion is a political question for
artists in Latin America and elsewhere: whenever we read work that seems
necessary, established by colonial patrimony, or tradition, like The
Quixote, maybe we need to read it awry, anew like an ironic French
Symbolist, or a mischievous Argentine. Significantly, this does not mean we
throw the book away: we keep it in our patrimony, but we reread it. Menardly.
As a Filipino, I grew up memorizing "The Gettysburg Address" and singingMy
country tis of thee, quite without irony. I dont lament at all having Lincolns
prose in my bones I can recite his words in my sleep, I think: I love The
Gettysburg Address (though America The Beautiful is another story).
Borgess work explains why it makes sense that the Western canon is part of
me, too. In Borgess work, the outsider who is also inside is a powerful reader
those characters are usually his heroes. In the spy-versus-spy story Garden
of Forking Paths, there are two outsiders, doubles of each other: the Chinese
spy Yu-Tsun who works for the Germans (who despise the Chinese), and the
Irish spy Madden who works for the British (who of course oppress the Irish).
Themes of the colonized abound. Yu-Tsuns exemplar of genius is German
Goethe but he finds himself killing an Englishman whom he calls as noble
as Goethe, Dr. Albert, a Sinologist, a great scholar of his own ancestors
labyrinth, some vast Chinese novel. To prove himself to the Germans, Yu-

Tsun kills the Chinese scholar, the lone man who has the key to his history,
with infinite weariness and contrition. Note the layers of reading and readers
and doubles and double-crossers we must get to in order to come to the
nub of this story: that through our enemies we conceive ourselves.
Borges teaches me to solve questions that are inherently ethical and political:
Who am I writing for? What is my tradition? If I am writing to speak my
nation, how am I defining it? And Borges reminds me that what is central to
my knowledge of myself is provisional and fabricated: it comes from texts. In
Tln, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, the narrator Borges and his sidekick Bioy find
an encyclopedia article describing in full the fables of a world of counter-facts
that are an inverse mirror of our own. The narrator discovers that the
enthralling, encyclopedic world of Tln and Uqbar is a hoax underwritten by
some crass American millionaire, but the reader is unable in the end to
distinguish the world of Tln from the modern world that troubles him now
as Borges says, the world has become Tln, that is, a mere text made up by
others. (The economic parable here is, as that eminent Borgesian John Barth
used to say, grist for another mill.)
Borges always puts within the realm of aesthetics this voluntary dream of
the other. He says in his essay on Argentine tradition:
We should feel our patrimony is the universe; we should essay all themes, and
we cannot limit ourselves to purely Argentine subjects in order to be
Argentine; for either being Argentine is an escapable act of fate and in that
case we should be so in all events or being Argentine is a mere affectation,
a mask [. . .] I believe that if we surrender ourselves to that voluntary dream
which is artistic creation, we shall be Argentine and we shall also be good or
tolerable writers.
For him, his stories about doppelgangers and mirrors and texts-within-texts are
ways in which he solves artistic problems they are the voluntary dream
which is artistic creation. But they are also the plots that solve the problem
Borges faced specifically as a writer in Argentina. His meditations on the
condition of fictionality: reviews of invented books, stories whose central
presences were not people but texts are a response to his condition as a writer
dealing with the effects of colonization.
An obvious problem that faces me as a writer from the Philippines, for
instance, is that the texts that define me are, more often than not, written by
my countrys conquerors. OConnells description of Borgess public self can
be read as a description of the colonized: a divided self defined by stories
whose central presences were not people but texts. It is impossible to perceive
who I am except through acts of serial reading.

A series of U.S. Senate Hearings on the Affairs of the Philippine Islands in

1902 describes step by step how my countrys modern government was set up
through the biases and lenses of William Howard Taft, first governor-general
of the Philippines, General Elwell Otis, the occupying general of Manila at the
start of the war with America, and the American senators imperialists and
anti-imperialists who in the hearings serve as my proxy readers of myself,
interpreting and cross-examining their witnesses portrayals of the Philippines.
Not a single Filipino is called to testify on our behalf. These arbitrary men,
some of whom were very well-meaning racists, were a scattered bunch of
expansionists, isolationists, worrywarts, and moralists who by some act of fate
shaped who I am. The senate hearings (available online) are illuminating
artifacts, especially when I reread them through a Borgesian, Menardian lens.
One senator, Thomas M. Patterson of Colorado, calls the lies of General Elwell
Otis about the Filipino leader Emilio Aguinaldo astonishing and made with
perfect impunity. From Taft to Otis to sundry servicemen in the U.S. Army,
Filipinos are called any number of names and calumnies with perfect
impunity. But it is also through these enemy documents that I learn about our
civil service, how public schools were set up, the reasons for establishing
English as the unifying language, and so on. Matters I take for granted, like
the division of Manilas districts or the trite metaphors about the beauty of its
sunsets, are all in fact already constructed in the U.S. Senate in 1902. Ours is
like a Borgesian, fantastic country, a Tln, dreamed up by diseased capitalists.
And my job as an artist and a citizen is to pursue like a spy, a detective, a
doomed translator, a reading and rereading of the double in the text, the elusive
Filipino, who must be read awry through others words: inverse, anew.
Borgess tragic characters are always those who fail to see the other: the
Dupin-like detective in Death and the Compass, the Minotaur in House of
Asterion, the translator in Averroess Search. In Averroess Search, one
of those virtuosic Borges stories whose design is as terrifyingly lucid as its
allusions are maddening, the doctor and translator Averroes, an Arab in
Muslim Spain whose translation of Aristotle during the Wests Dark Ages is
key to the survival of Aristotles work, is trying to figure out the meaning of
the word tragedy in the Poetics. He fails, because (in the storys plot) the
concept of drama does not exist in the Muslim world. A man named Borges,
who is the storys narrator, rescues Averroes from his plots infamy by
inserting himself in the story as a failed artist with writers block who finds it
impossible to imagine Averroess world. From this triple inversion, ultimately
self-reflexive, set in Cordoba, a place of conquest, we gain a concept of history
and self that is persistent in Borges simply put, what we know as history,
or truth, is merely a form of reading, often faulty.

We know, after stories like Trayvon Martins, that the paradox of the self as
contingent on understanding the other is as much a lesson for the colonizer as
it is for the colonized. My fantasy about George Zimmerman is Borgesian: I
imagine him one day narrating the story of Trayvon Martin as if he were
Trayvon Martin, like Borgess traitor Vincent Moon in Shape of the Sword,
whose only way to tell the story of his crime is to take on the voice of the man
he killed. This grapping with the other, who is after all part of our own self, is
the ethical question that governs the po litics of our times. We need, in these
days, to be constantly inverting our perception conceive the Muslim as
ourselves, the vicious colonizer as part of our painful story, our history as part
of a larger mystery, all of our stories as stories of detection, of reading. In short,
a good way to engage in politics is to be powerfully Borgesian.
As OConnell says of Borgess stories: They were fictions made from fiction,
drawn from reading, not from life. But the inversion of this point is also true:
a politically meaningful life can be drawn from Borgess acts of powerful
reading. That is what Borges creates in his stories an art of reading that
makes meaning out of the mess of our modern world. His infinite art is subtler
than his fleeting conversations in such books as Borges at Eighty:
Conversations. That, perhaps, cannot be avoided. But his critics need to be
subtler, too.