SONIA

Francisco Icasiano

She folded her hands upon her bosom, this four-year old
child of mine and as her breathing became more labored, prayed
as I led her: "Jesus. You love little children: help me!" that was at
midnight on November 28, 1932. A few minutes later, she had joined
the angels and left us in anguish that numbered all feelings.

But t have since risen from the depths to which Sonia's death
crushed me, and phoenix- like have left my dead ashes, to sing the
charms that the death of one so dearly loved can bring to the soul. I
have known the darkness of occasional brooding, but I would dwell
most upon a struggle with sorrow that has sweetened my nature,
which otherwise, would have been stultified by the pain.

Pain, I have realized, is beautiful only when one can rise from
its depressing power. I have known the people who have become bitter
and cynical under the lash of sorrow, and I have known some who
have never recovered from anguish. My experience is important only
so far as it may help others towards growth: it is worthless to me if
it implies vanity.

Sonia is, to me, as fairy tale told or a lyric half lost in fancy, a
delicate melody unsung. Had she grown into full womanhood, she
might have become an intellectual, for she was deliberate and clear- cut
in her language, precise in her reasoning, and keen in sensing
nuances which matured minds about her could not appreciate;
then, I should have been forever lost, the glamour of its poetry never
felt even in vague suggestions, and the delicate melodies never
perceived. As a friend suggested to me when grief was most oppressive:
"you shall always remember her as a child. "How beautiful I felt it was!
What a beautiful things a man perceives in such sorrow! What keen
and living poetry! For nothing but poetry could give such feeling.
In such a moment reason would have destroyed me with
consummate triumph; for if I had tried to explain why God had
snatched away from me the things I loved best in life, I would have
allowed reason to rob me of reason. But poetry in all her magnificence
came sailing behind the somber shape of sorrow to show me the way
to a more beautiful, more full and more
nearly perfect life. Sonia shall always live in my memory as a child
who wonders why the star shine in the sky and the rain drops from
heaven and the grass on the wayside: as a child who find all things
pure and true in her innocent eyes. I shall look in those eyes and
see so much confidence and faith when I feel that I am losing my
own faith and confidence I shall draw from my memory of her a child's
enthusiasm for life, when my heart is heavy and my eyes dim with age.
This is my ideal, to see the whole life with a mind mellowed by age,
though a heart forever young - wise and happy! Days before she died,
I had a premonition to her death; but I dismiss it, consoling
myself with the thought that if such a thing should come to pass -
heaven forbid - I should perhaps be rewarded for becoming a true,
sincere and humble artist through the suffering that would come
from such a shocking experience. For the first time in my life, the idea
of becoming an artist suddenly lost in its chance. I would rather remain
obscure than lost its greatest masterpiece, wrought in my own blood,
and polish by the greatest love that I was capable of giving. Like the
reeds in the river, I would rather keep my leaves and flowers that be
cut up by the great Pan into the flute. The melody of the wind was
enough for me as I bent rhythmically with its blowing. I would refuse
the greater melody of art that exacts so much.

But when her hour came the blade of death cleave my heart, I
felt as if I, too, had died and a new soul had emerged, more

beautiful, because cleanse of all bitterness. How true it is as poor

Oscar Wilde wrote that, the "Pleasure is for the beautiful body,
but pain for the beautiful soul." But
what costly knowledge this first. Experience has indeed taken away
more than it has been able to give. It has suddenly occurred to me that
the real artist is measured by his ability to utilize misfortune in
recreating the soul. I say, "recreating" Because art is the recreation
of life an experience, into that which sooths and ennobles the soul; if
a man with any artistic pretensions allows sorrow to destroy him, he is
a mere artisan, incapable of producing anything of worth; for, the
first thing an artist must recreate, before true art can be realized, is his
own soul. Moreover, sorrow must crush, ere it can reshape the man
in s mold of glory. The reed must have cut to pieces, and holes bored
through it, before it can have produced such magic melodies as their
sound.

The sun on hill forgot to die.

 And the lilies revived, and the
dragonfly Came back to dream on
the river.

Before an artist can sweetly harrow the hearts of others, his

own must have died. There is a story told of an ambitious singer
who thought he would sing for the grand operas. He sang before a
celebrated maestro who, in the middle of an aria from Rigoletto,
thundered out, "Enough! Enough! This will never do. Your heart has
been broken!"

In De profounds, Oscar Wilde, made the following analysis of sorrow

in its beginning upon art:

Truth in the art is the unity of a thing with itself; the outward
rendered expressive of the inward; the soul made incarnate; the
body instinct with spirit. For this reason there is no truth comparable
with sorrow. There are times when sorrow seems to me to be the
only truth. Other things may be illusions of the eye or the appetite,
made to blind the one and cloy (overdo) the other, but out of sorrow
have the worlds been built, and the birth of a child or a star there is
pain."

Indeed, was it not Zeus' head split open an axe that Athena
might spring full grown from it?

Besides sorrow's power of giving birth to art, there is another

blessing, which must come, with all art and all of suffering? It is a way
of thinking that solidifies and satisfies, becomes profound and
permanent; a real philosophy of life and is therefore, a creation, an art
itself, and not the mere adoption of some powerful, second-hand
outlook that proves worthless when put to the test.

Feeling that the lower forms of logic would be useless to me at

the time of my deepest sorrow, 1 approached life by the highest
route, through "the deepest voice of human experience" religion.

Early the next morning after Sonia's death, Gods hand rested
upon my shoulders. On previous occasions, the more suggestion of her
death would drive me into imagining a sudden flight to some distant
land. I knew not where, for an obscure place where I might forget to
die. But that morning, I felt strangely calm. Not the remote shades
of thought about running away from my sorrowing family
 Goethe's line:

Who never ate his bread in sorrow?

Who never spent the midnight
hours-Weeping and waiting for the
morrow He knows you not, ye
heavenly Powers.

Lived inky memory

I had eaten my bread in sorrow

I had passed the right weeping and

watching for a More bitter dawn

And felt the touch of the

Spirit Upon my being

I went to the scorch of St. Ignatius in Intramuros where,

humbled by sorrow, I sought the Lords forgiveness of the
confessional. I offered up my Sonia, and also my two other boys,
and even my own life. If He desired to take back his own. The pagan
protest that was surging in my boson, I painfully quelled.

It is different to give up the things we hold dear on earth. But

when Sonia, whom I loved best, had been given up, to what could
be resigned, I felt that grown generous to magnanimity. I had
ceased to find difficulty in giving up my pride, and I was humbled; I
had ceased to fear for my future, and I was no longer in vain _ I
gave up all notions of fame, and became myself. But I was better, I
was born to greater realization of truth, a fuller feeling of freshness -my
new philosophy doubtless has given me a new sense of values. The
things I had held dear, in common with other people. I discovered
to be a glittering tinsel and hollowness. We find ourselves only after
we have lost everything we hold dear in our temporal habitation; we
find our soul only after we have divested ourselves of all the
flummery of the flesh. For indeed, how can we find our souls when we
are wrapped up in matter, so that we cannot give a step, or put our
hand, or lift up our eyes, but material things are all about us,
following us even to put up our dreams. People say something
pleasant to us, and thought it be but "hot air", it is enough to puff us
up. We would feed our souls upon vanity, and know not it is
Barmecides feast. Could we strip ourselves of pride and vanity,
things would fall back into their proper places, and we should see the
hidden harmony of creation, and piece through the things that alone
are seen of the world to those that are unseen, setting no store be
these fascinating shadows, ever before the time when they crumble
away and vanish into naught, as worldly things must, sooner or later.

The Worldly Hope men set their

hearts upon Turn ashes - or it
prospers; and anon

Like snow upon the Desert's dusky

Face, Lightning a little hour or two
- was gone.

The climax in this grand ascend of sorrow is the perfection of

Reality when in moments of devastating grief, my being seemed
consumed. I tried to deceive myself by pretending that it was all a
dream and would wake up to find Sonia's death a mere fancy, the
force illusion would always vanish and a newer, more vivid, more
convincing, more permanent if painful realization would reveal to me
that the whole of human experience this side of eternity is nothing
but a dream which with death, finally comes to an awakening to the
only reality intended by the Maker of Life. I am convinced that life in
this temporary habitation is a vague and miserable dream, a
nightmare in which the dreamer is driven from one path to another,
now frightened by life, now terrified by the thought of death; until one
realizes that there is this nightmare a symbol of Reality that is
coming with the dawn and the awakening.

This realization of the reality must make a real artist of a man.

Broken with pain, the soul dies to be reborn, stronger and more
beautiful; enriched and ennobled by sorrow, the artist in the man
rises above himself; shorn of all fineries and pettiness - all none -
essential, in a word, the artist flows naturally towards the infinite
whither all artistic effort must be directed.

Thither must I direct my art ... Art to me had ceased to be artful

and artificial. It had become the natural life of the soul; it is the
voice of my soul crying out to heaven for a vision of Sonia,
pleading for a final communication with her. I shall remove
everything about me. When the last word is written and my hands
drop limp and lifeless by my side. I hope to hear the gentle pattern of a
little feet and the tender touch of a little hands around my
neck...SONIA.
 Pliant Like the Bamboo
by Ismael V. Mallari

There is a story in Philippine folklore about a mango tree and a bamboo

tree. Not being able to agree as to which was strongest of the two, they called
upon the wind to make the decision. The winds blew its hardest. The mango
tree stood fast. It would not yield. It knew it was strong and sturdy. It would
not sway. It was too proud. It was too sure of itself. But finally, its roots gave
way, and it tumbled down. The bamboo tree was wiser. It knew it was not as
robust as the mango tree. And so, every time the wind blew, it bent its head
gracefully. It made loud protests, but it let the winds have its way. When
finally, the wind got tired of blowing, the bamboo tree still stood in all its
beauty and grace.

The Filipino is like the bamboo. He knows that he is not strong enough
to withstand the onslaughts of superior forces. And so, he yields. He bends his
head gracefully with many loud protests. And he has survived. The Spaniards
came and dominated him for more than three hundred years. And when the
Spaniards left, the Filipinos still stood—only much richer in experience and
culture. The Americans took the place of the Spaniards. They used more subtle
means of winning over the Filipinos who embraced the American way of life
more readily than the Spaniards’ vague promise of the hereafter.
Then the Japanese came like a storm, like a plaque of locusts, like a pestilence
rude, relentless and cruel. The Filipino learned to bow his head low to
“cooperate” with the Japanese in their “holy mission of establishing the Co
Prosperity Sphere.” The Filipino had only hate and contempt for the Japanese,
but he learned to smile sweetly at them and to thank them graciously for their
“benevolence and magnanimity.” And now that the Americans have come back
and driven away the Japanese, those Filipinos who profited most from
cooperating with the Japanese have been loudest in their protestations of
innocence. Everything is as if the Japanese had never been in the Philippines.

For the Filipino will welcome any kind of life that the gods offer him. That
is why, he is contented, happy and at peace. The sad plight of other peoples of
the world is not his. To him, as to that ancient Oriental poet, the past is
already a dream and tomorrow in only a vision but today, well-lived makes
every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow, a vision of hope. In
like manner, the Filipino regards vicissitudes of fortune as the bamboo tree
regards the angry blasts of the blustering wind.

The Filipino is eminently suited to his romantic role. He is slender and

wiry. He is nimble and graceful in his movements. His voice is soft, and he has
the gift of languages. In what other place in the world can you find people who
can carry on a fluent conversation in at least three languages? This gift is
another means by which the Filipino has managed to survive. There is no
insurmountable barrier between him and any of the people who have come to
live with him—Spanish, Americans, Japanese. The foreigners do not have to
learn his language. He easily manages to master theirs.

Verily, the Filipino is like the bamboo tree. In its grace, in its ability to
adjust itself to the peculiar and inexplicable whims to fate, the bamboo tree is
his expressive and symbolic national tree. It will have to be, not the molave nor
the narra, but the bamboo.
 THE FLOOD
(Excerpt from Without Seeing The Dawn)
By Esteban Javellana

The mountaineer spoke the flood, such as one would drown, the whole wide
lowlands, carry away houses and crops and suck in all living things, man and
beast and fowl, in its angry swell. He spoke with the low, hushed voiced and
manner of the muscular young mountain man which awed and frightened his
hearers, and they glanced uneasily at the field of ripening grain. It was Carding
who had seen the mountaineers first. Carding was sitting on
the chair which faced the west and that was where the trail which came from the
mountain lay. And even at the distance, he knew that it was Caldong, because
who among the dirty, smelly mountaineers who came down to the lowland to
purchase salted fish on market day had Caldong’s height, his proud, haughty
bearing and his incredibly long strides? But Carding did not say at once, “What
bring Caldong to the lowlands when it is not yet market day?” because Manong
Tinoy was speaking. Manong Tinoy said, “If I were to guess, I would say that the
price paid for the representative’s lands will go into his election campaign fund. I
do not blame him, however, they are very funny class of people,anyway. Some of
them spend all theirmoney and sell all their land and other property in an effort
to get elected to a public officer, and the salary does not always recompense their
expenses. Sometimes they do not even get elected. To my way of thinking, people
who want to be politicians, except those who are so rich they need not count
their expenses or so poor that they do not have a centavo to lose, anyway, are
brainless as a mudfish.” “It may be as you say it is,” Carding said listlessly, “but
what I am worried about is how we can make a living after harvest.” “Don’t let
that worry you,” Manong Tinoy cheered him.” A young fellow who is hardworking
like you should not find it hard to work as tenant for some landlord. Aye, in no
time at all you will find work to do.” Carding had heard that before. And, indeed,
he had found work. Giving up the work in the city had not been so hard. Money
came easily to him, it was true. But nothing tied him to his work. Working inthe
field was different. There was a bond between him and the soil. And when he
looked back to his little paradise of rolling hills and deep dark fields which had
been his for such a short time, he felt hurt. Of course, he would find work. “I
hope what you say is true, Manong,” he said. “I am glad that I shall have one
good harvest.” “Yes,” said Manong Tinoy, gazing fondlyat the rice fields. “This
year’s crop will be one of the best in many years.”

The mountaineer’s long strides had brought him almost beneath the window.
As usual with mountain people, he had no clothes on except for a red G-string.
Caldong was young and slit-eyed with high cheekbones. But he was taller than
most of them; he had an enormous chest, powerfularms, and long thighs that
rippled with muscles. “Hoy, Caldong,” Carding called out, “what bring you here
to the lowlands? It is not Tuesday yet.” “Aye, ‘Nong Carding, that I know,” the
mountaineers responded, “But it is not to the market that that I am going. I come
to bring fearful news.” “Ha, what it is?” broke in Manong Tinoy, sticking his head
out of the window. “You are there Manong Tinoy?” said Caldong in the high-
pitched chatter of the mountain folk. “It is you I am looking for because you are
the headman of the nearest lowland village.” “Come up, Caldong,” said Manong
Tinoy, “and tell as all.” The mountaineer came up, squatted on the floor and
began his tale. “Do you remember Bensay and his wife, Tolya, Manong Tinoy?”
“Yes, they often come down to the lowlands with you on market day.” ‘And
Bongsod, Manong Tinoy?” “Yes, yes. Isn’t he the toothless old man who you told
me lives alone and is already a dotard because he wants to chase the pretty girl
of the village around the anthill? Why?” “They are all dead,” said Caldong sadly.
Manong Tinoy shook his head. “That is too bad,” he said, clocking his tongue to
show his sympathy. “But did you come down just to tell us that?” “No, Manong
Tinoy,” said Caldong. “The evil spirit that lived in the mountain became angry.
They pushed down the mountainside and Tolya and Bantay and Bongsod were
buried underneath.” Manong Tinoy stood up. “Come,” he said the mountaineer.
“I will give a ganta of the rice to the children of Bantay and Tolya.” “But that is
not all, Manong Tinoy,” said Caldong. It was then that he spoke of the water and
of dam. “I climbed to the highest mountain top and what did I see? The river does
not flow big now because the mountain side has fallen and blocked the river.
Behind the dam, the water has risen until the topmost branches of the tallest
trees on the mountain side cannot be seen anymore. So that headman of our
village said to me: “Go, because you are the fastest. “Go and tell our brothers of
the lowlands of the danger. Tell them to run to the hills while there is yet time.
So here I am.” His story finished, Caldong folded his arms across his breast.
Manong Tinoy and Carding looked at each other. And when they looked away,
each of them glanced furtively at the reddening fields. “Come, Caldong,” said
Manong Tinoy and his faced was pale. “Come, let us tell the town mayor.” “We
are going up to the mountain tomorrow,” said Manong Tinoy, “to see for
ourselves how big is that water.” “Should the flood come,” said Tonio, “we can
run to the hills.” But Manong Tinoy said sadly, “That is true, my son. But our
palay – it cannot.” That was what was topmost in the minds of everybody – the
grains in the fields which were not yet ready for the harvest. That night Carding
could not sleep. He prayed silently over and over again. “Dear God, do not send
the flood until after the crops are gathered in.”

In the morning Carlos Concepcion, the eldest son of the mayor and member of
the town council, arrived with Bastian and Berlong, two young cocks of the town
whose roosts were the billiard hall near the street crossing whose feeding place, if
they had any money, was the pancit shop in the corner of the town market.
Together with Manong Tinoy and Carding, they followed Caldong, who was the
guide. First, they followed up the wide, stony course of the river. For a whole day,
they marched, resting only to eat their midday meal. And Carlos Concepcion,
whose knees were already quaking with fatigue asked, “Hoy, mountaineer, is it
still far?” “Ah, no,” said Caldong, moving his arm in a wide area: “it is just over
there.” Then they resumed their walk, the mountaineer leaping from stone to
stone with the nimbleness of a monkey while the others lagged behind. And he
led them up, up where the banks of the river were two smooth cliffs, where there
was no footpath or toehold over the water. So they had to strip and swim the
deep. Upward still they climbed and entered places where the vines and shrubs
grew profusely on the banks and strange, orange-colored snakes crept
noiselessly through the banks foliage. Once more, they came out to the light
where large, black lizards, mottled with specks of green and yellow and red,
sunned themselves upon the wide boulders. “Do not harm them.” Warned
Caldong as Bastian picked up the stone. “They belong to the spirits of the river
who will visit you with strange, incurable illnesses, if you harm their pets.”
Presently, they turned from the river and took unused paths up the side of the
mountain where they had to dig their toes into the earth in order to gain a
foothold, and they grasped at the vines and the protruding roots which crawled
on the face of the bellies like lizards creeping upon their prey. In the place called
Toyongan, Caldong pointed out to them the empty hut of Tolya and Bantay. They
had been digging sweet potatoes in the clearing near the baseof the mountain,
the mountaineers said, when the slide buried them under.Bantay could have
escaped, said Caldong, but he ran to save his wife and so was buried with her.
There were other huts built squat and low under the tall trees. They had the
thatched roofs of lives and cogon grass and walls of the bark of trees. “This was
our village,” Caldong said. “Where have your people gone to?” asked the mayor’s
son. “Up,” said the mountaineers. “Up where the water cannot reach them.” “Let
us sleep here,” said Carlos. Early the next morning, even as the mists were low in
the grass, the party started once more. They entered the cold, sunless forest
carpeted with wet fallen leaves. It was a dead quiet forest and in itno birds sang.
Rotting logs dissolved into pulpy nothingness under their feet and many leeches
clung between their toes and sucked their blood. Overhead, high upon the
branches of the silent trees, perched rare orchids like slim, green birds with a
plumage of brilliant white. They reached the site of the landslide in mid-morning.
High upon that mountain top they saw, way down below them, the three
tributaries of the Jalaur River, Makan, Lumanan, and Agbutuan, like the forks of
a giant trident, swollen and choked with muddy water.

From where they stood, they could see the riverbank and that it was still rising.
And the dam of loose earth, boulders, mud, and sand that held back the
incredible water looked none too strong. They wondered fearfully how long it
would hold. Back in the barrio, the people gathered excitedly around them and
asked, “What did you see?” The mayor’s son said, “We saw the river as deep as
the sea. The water beating against that dam is enough to flood all Calinog, even
Passi. Perhaps, it may even reach Duenas, who knows?” “What shall we do?” the
woman asked, trembling with fright. “It is best that you go to the hills.”
They looked at Manong Tinoy for guidance and he said, “At daytime, it will be
dangerous enough. If it breaks at nights, heaven help us all.” Day after day, the
village folk gathered to speculate about the flood and to listen to Olang Rufo, the
medicine man,reminisce about the flood of 1882 when Calinog was a little
Spanish pueblo. “Yes,” the little old man would say for perhaps twelfth time,
blinking his weak, bleary eyes, “that was a flood we old folks always remember
with horror. When it was over, the people caught eels and mudfish inside the
church. Ten people perished in that flood. Maybe, twenty.” There were those who
did not linger to listen to Olang Rufo’s tales of
Floods. There were those who piled their household goods, their palay, and their
children upon their carozas, put their chickens into bamboo coops, and drove off
to the hills while their sons dragged squealing pigs behind. But there were others
for whom it was hard to leave, to whom the fields were like ailing members of
their families and they could not bear to abandon in times of illness or disaster.
And they leaned out of their windows and looked wistfully at their neighbors who
were evacuating to the hills and hoped in their hearts that the signal would be
given on time. The signal would be a shot. The townspeople had been warned of
this. The two young men, Beriong and Bastian had stayed behind in the
mountains with provisions. They made a hut in the mountain top. They were to
be the first watch. The moment the dam broke, they would set off a shot like the
ones which furnished the noise when the “Hallelujah” was being sung during the
celebration of the High Mass on the day of the town fiesta. That shot would be
the signal for everybody to run to the hills. Came the time when the grains were
ripe enough to harvest and everybody old enough to work, even those who had,
and descended upon the fields. Still there were not enough harvesters because
each one wanted top harvest his own crop first. And the harvesters who usually
came from other town had not arrived because they were afraid of the tales about
the coming flood. “Come and help me harvest my palay,” Carding said to a
carpenter who had no field of his own, “and I will give you a sheaf for every eight
sheaves you gather.” The carpenter was a fast harvester. He moved like a
machine among the ripened paddy, leaving in his wake only broken palay stalk
and long grass stubble. His nimble fingers danced about, snatching swiftly at the
clusters of grain. By midday, he and Carding had harvested halfof the first wide
plot. One day. The next.
And the next. Already at the base of the hillside, stacks of harvested palay had
sprung up like enormous toadstools, waiting for the thresher’s feet. And on the
fifth day, Manong Tinoy and all his family came to help harvest Carding’s rice.
“The threshers are already erecting the threshing stands of our palay,” they said.
“God grant that the flood does not come until after the harvest is measured and
gathered in.” At noontime, the harvesters went to Carding’s house to eat the
midday meal which Lucing had cooked. They were all light-hearted and gay.
“Harvest has come and it’s almost gone,” said Manang Petra, sucking at a
chicken bone,” and no flood has come.” “Perhaps you were only teasing us, eh,
Tinoy?” said Manang Juliana. Manong Tinoy and Carding looked at each other.
“Think nothing of it,” said Manong Tinoy, making his voice light. “It might never
come until we are all through with the harvesting and threshing.”

Barely had he ceased talking when theyheard the shot. They stared at each other
for a frozen moment. Then they ran to the west window, upsetting the platter of
rice and the plates full of chicken soup. Lucing seized Carding’s arm and
whispered hoarsely as he pointed, “Look!” In the fields, they saw the harvesters
run away toward the hills, heedlessly spilling their baskets and sacks which were
full of harvested grain. They trampled on the paddy and leaped over the high
dikes in great confusion. From where the river carved the hill in the west, they
saw the flood and rush toward them with a mighty roar, rolling out over house
and work animal and growing field like an incredible sheet of dirty canvas,
dashing against the dikes with a sibilant hiss and enveloping everything on its
path in a deadly embrace. “Mother of God!” Manang Juliana shrieked and she
leaped down the stairs, followed by the men and Manang Petra, who kept crying
as she ran, “Run Lucing! The baby!” But already Lucing had snatched the
sleeping baby from its mat on the floor and was hurrying down the stairs,
Carding at her heels. In the yard, Bag-o was running round and round the tree
to which he had been tethered, snorting madly, and his eyes were bloodshot.
“Run on ahead,” Carding shouted over the roar of the onrushing flood. “I’ll free
the carabao first.” But she clung to his arm. “No! No!” she gasped. “You’ll drown
if you stay.” So, Carding abandoned the doomed beast. He took the child from
his wife’s arms and they ran toward the hill. They ran on and on, sometimes
stumbling sometimes falling like people drunk, and their breaths came out hot
and shorts, and their hearts in their breasts pounded like these heavy pestles
upon a mortarful of palay. Only the broad field of tall, unharvested rice separated
them from the safety of the hill when Lucing stumbled and broke her ankle.
Lying in their in enfolding couch of grain, her twisted ankle pulsating with pain,
she become delirious and happy all at once, and she found it hard to fight off a
desire to close her eyes and sleep. Then she heard his voice calling. “I’m here,
Carding,” she called back.
“I can’t walk anymore, Carding. Run with the baby to the hill. And come back –if
there is still me.” She knew that there would be no time for him to come back for
her. She knew that by the time she reached the safety of the hills, she would
have been devoured by the flood. Two tears rolled down her cheeks. But he ran
back, brushing aside that tall grain, and knelt beside her and tried to lift her to
her feet. “No,” he said shakily. “It must be the three of us-together.” But Tonio
came running toward them, cutting a wide swatch in his mad rush. He had seen
them from the hill and had guessed their plight. “I’ll take the baby,” he gasped.
“Carry her.” With the baby in his arms, Tonio raced back toward the hill once
more like a frightened young carabao. Carding lifted his wife and she was
strangely light in his arms. From the corners of their eyes, they saw roofs and
walls of houses breasting along the flood like a boy’s paper boat sailing on a
turbulent gutter. Huge stumps of fallen trees and trees uprooted by the force of
the current rode along the swirling flood and snagged the branches of the other
trees.

Many people were already standing on the hill, mutely watching as the flood the
flood swallowed their crops, their houses, and their work animals. Manong Tinoy
and the other men ran down and helped Carding and Lucing as the water swept
at their feet. Manang Petra, her broad, usually ruddy face now pale with fear,
was holding Crisostomo in her arms. When Carding looked down at the valley, he
saw that the site of his fields and his house was a wide, muddy sea. He could not
bear to look at it so he hid his face in his arms. He felt his wife’s hand on his
shoulder and heard her voice in his ear: “He was a lazy old carabao, wasn’t he?
And Carding, you can build a bigger and stronger house, you know. That old
house was getting a little too crowded for us, anyway. Don’t you know? We are a
growing family.” He heard his son whimper and cry.There was Manang Petra’s
voice soothing the child, singing, “Sleep, little baby, sleep. Your mother is not
here. She has gone to market to buy bread. Sleep, little baby.” It was then that
he began to cry unashamedly, unmindful of all those woeful people.