Heart of Summer by Jose Iñigo Homer Lacambra Ayala III

(A transcript of a short story for Philippine Literature classes.)

Early one summer evening with no birds flying in a red sunset sky; he saw her crossing the street. From the bridge, he saw her crossing below on cobbled stones. Stepping lightly. Sharp heels clicking. Gently swaying to warm winds.

Hey, he said. You there below.

She stopped. Looked around, ready to fly.
She tilted her face to the wind. Her flowing hair swished about her shoulders. Pursued on her red lips he could see the world outlined: f-r-e-s-h. Then the angry tossing of her head in a few minutes she disappeared.
He took the cigarette from his mouth and slowly began to knock the ashes into the purpling river below. There was a Sunday-emptiness in the streets. He passed by the stores feeling the eager gnawing, sharp lights on his eyes. Pale mannequins in silk negligees beckoned and called. Bright silver voices tinkled behind inch-thick glass.
You there, he whispered. Beautiful, beautiful.
A night watchman stared at him through iron grills and tapped his nightstick to the pavement.
He moved on. Turned his head to look back at the glass panes that shrouded warm, flesh-pink hands. At the corner of an intersection he was sucked within the hot trembling of the city night air, listening to the faint calls of children playing hide-and-seek.
Under the pretext of pushing back the hours, caught in great whorls of colored life, he went to a movie house.
He stood before the ticket window fumbling for loose change. He cleared his throat. One down, please.
The cold air inside the dark arena made his throat dry. Cigarette smoke hung like veils in the air. He stood behind, letting the firefly screen glimmer slowly into focus.
An usher signaled him with a flashlight to an empty leather-cushioned chair.
Dear to the voices that crowded around him, elbowing and pushing, he found himself pressed to rose granite walls beside her, she of the white hands and the cup shell face with elfin eyes.
Excuse me he said in a whisper.
Her light brown eyes framed curved wings of lashes shut him out of her glance as she edged hurriedly away.
He felt like the hunter stalking old men. The hunter whose veins pulsed and throbbed as he stamped clawed hands on the roof. Softly hissing, his breath sang between his teeth as he drew near her once more.
Please, he said. So many years have gone and always silence between us.
She turned her back of green silk flowers to him, not saying anything.
His stomach rolled with spasms. He crossed the aisle of seats. He lumbered about trying to get lost in a crowd of sharp eyes. Maneuvering himself between a block-frocked grandmother and her little monster with silver pistols, he managed at last to preach the cushioned door and the dark night beyond chandeliered lights. Moaning inside with unbearable cries he grouped his way blindly through the narrow streets of the city. He stumbled with stone steps past the rumbling wheels of cars, the beckoning ladies behind barred glass the arching bridge over purple waters, the lavender lights of drink-dine-dance to the sagging door of his room.
He flaked off his clothes. Lacquered with sweat he stood in the middle of the scratched floor, fear and desire still fused into one big heavy rock in his chest. Etched behind his closed eyelids, he still saw her, the inaccessible vision. The smell of roses, the fire, the pain of being alone.
He threw himself on the bed, sobbed, was possessed by black clouds. He was unable to quiet the hurried place of tomorrow’s endless search for another she and another her in twenty and fifty ways, he saw himself crawling in the city mud looking for the lost image. As always the prey eluded him. The warm voice of summer kept whispering in his ear. The hateful clock kept ticking. The very room seemed bathed in a yellow mist of sweat as he turned this way and that way. Tireless nerves drawn taut twitched. One half of his face sagged as the other half leered.
Dreaming he saw the yellow brown house where she lived. Lace curtains were ruffled by a sudden cool breeze. Her green diary of poems. The amber drink with cold sweat around its glassy throat. The upright piano with chandeliered lights. Picture frames of smiling her and pensive she. The diploma with medals. A wooden blacked sofa. Magazines on the rack. Waxen lilies on the vase. Her mother with hair done up in a bun and a face of smiles.
She’ll be out in a minute. Where did you two meet?
In the garden. On the street. In a house. Which lie would he choose? So he said, by the sea wall. During a storm. With summer lightning. Tangerine flowers. Green glove lights.
Must have been fun. The mother answered.
I did not even get a chance to touch her fingers, he thought. He shook his head, replied, yes we had a lot of fun. Watching the wind frown out the sea. Picking whispering sea shells. Throwing bubbles of colored sound between us.
I’m glad the mother said. I hope you continue to take her out. It does her a world of good to be with you.
What did you say ma’am?
Writing letters to that horrid man. Can you imagine that? A man who confesses his most secret sins to an innocent girl like mine? Yet he professes to love her.
Letters. Horrid man. Secret sins. What was this all about?
Yes, her mother continued. Her kind voice tore and twisted his dreams to shreds. He even has the nerve to come here and face me. Telling me in the face that I have no right to read my daughter’s letters.
Hello, she said, coming into the wounded room. What has my mother been staging about?
The mother left the room.
The cool wind ruffles the face curtains. The framed picture and the gold medals swing back into the place. The flying magazine settles down on the rock. The feather fans the air. She sits down. Pink toes wink as she crosses her legs. Her voice, like remembered laughter.
Inexplicably, he was wondering alone. Climbing long, narrow flights of stair lined with street lamps. Opening and closing unending doors. Beating his fists against lad walls, rose window, and seashell floors.
Then he was with her again in the small yellow brown house. They were eating suffer. Was covered with torn design. From there proclaim beds, raw fish lets were scooped out with spoon lights steeped in garlic vinegar. The meal is hurried pantomime of swallowing and drinking. Their mouths open but tongues refuse to move. Summer lighten thunder and splits the room.
After supper, you have to know, his mind whispering. You have to know, he edge his hand to here. Briefly the tip of his forefinger kisses her numb. Her moonlight arms move an inch away. Like crumpled paper his heart rustle, pale, and his monetary strays.
His eyes enter each room corner; linger in her rosebud lips and her cup shell face. Don’t be afraid, his mind claims.
And so the three words tumbled in his lips, multiplied, reechoed by his veins.
I love you.
Smiling with clay-shuttered eyes, she answered, do you know? Have you forgotten? You are my friend My knight in shining armor. Come let us play hide-and-seek.
The evening angel dropping wings begs for the drying lamp. The fire is out-will not relight.
Not for many more summers yet, she declares.
With chisel eyes, she carves him out of the heart and throws him into the summer rain. Past nine in the evening he walks past midnight and still he walks his feet crumpling leaves with sad little sounds. The black night whirls him drunk to his room and bangs the door shut.
He was curled up at the foot of the bed, his head dipped in a pool of sunlight. There was the papery feel of starched linen against his cheek. Low, drawn out groans trickled out of his mouth. Another nimble summer morning had swept the sun across the sky calling him for the great delicious yellow hunt. There were stained glass flowers to be picked before they melted with the heat. There were speckled words seeds to be sown and reaped. Morning fire gardens and wine blue reeds to catch.
He swept the door behind him and crept down the street humming a gay madrigal.
I shall try the beach today, he announced to himself.
He thought of glistening sweat drops on opened pores. He smiled. Ringing the air with a fat whistle he hailed a taxi.
To the sea, to sea, he shouted. A sunrise drives to the yellow beach alley. After an hour’s ride, he reached the wrinkled water gleaming beneath the summer sky. The sound of waves quivered in the air. He stood on a sand gulf his eyes widening into stares.
Nothing had changed. The coiling, froth of water tendrils. The yellow tumid sand purpling the wind. Meshes of legs and arms and heads hanging in the air to dry. He walked about his mind lost in the season of white sunlight and vague figured clouds. Slowly the rhythm of the hunt flowed through his veins without a break, gathering cadence as his body hurried onward to the chase.
Where are you, he whispered.
He heard the sound of stifled laughter from afar.
Near the lifeguard tower he saw her. She of the gossamer flash and the silver eyes.
Hey, he shouted.
He ran toward cup-shell face and the elfin eyes.
Wait!
His feet fell unyielding to yellow sand as he stumbled on a stone.
Wait! He shouted again. He pounded the erring stone with his fist.
Slavering froth blossomed on his mouth as he gasped and rolled over the yellow beach, trying to stand up.
Then, he heard pebble words cutting through the air farming a wall.
He is mad. Don’t touch him. Be careful.
Purple splotched in the face, he pawed and scooped the yielding earth like a martyred beetle.
The lifeguard finally came. The man propped him against arvined seawall draped with limp seaweeds.
He flung the outstretched hand. Go! Leave me! The air pointed heat, flared before his eyes like glowing flower swords. Where is she? She asked.
His flesh cried out, renew the hunt. Look for the glass stained flower.
Below the turquoise sky the sea beckoned with fretted fingers. He saw her suddenly wading in the pool of blues and greens.
This time you shan’t escape me, chuckled his brain. The glow of pleasure wove its silken mesh about his shaken limbs and drew him on.
Slowly he picked his way through the maze of heads until he reached the edge of lopping waters. He moved toward the light. His shoes of watered sand slowly ebbed with the morning tide.
He was near, quite near, when she heard the beating sound of waves against his outstretched hands.
She winked her pearl-creamed nose. Who are you? What do you want? Why are you here?
I have lost my way, he said, smiling with tenderness.
Pah, she said and scooped water into his face.
Don’t you remember? Are you not. . .
No, I’m not, she said. Beside you’re much too old to be wading about. She moved on to deeper water.
Please don’t, he said. You know I can’t swim.
You have nothing to fear. Often I have followed you in the night. Did you know that?
Look, she said. I’m married woman with kids. So why bother me huh?
The other night I saw you at the movie house with him. He wagged his finger? Behind glass, beneath floors in the sky, whispering always whispering.
You’re crazy! Get away from me! I’ll call for help.
Aah, my pretty little faun, it will not be easy as that. You shan’t get away this time.
He held out his arm and lurched her. He crashed against a wad of seawater. She was gliding a meter away phosphorescent white.
Wait, he said. There’s really no place for you to go. See. . . he pointed to the distant shore. They are too far away to hear you shout.
You are old and you are ugly. You should be out away. You filthy maniae! She began to cry.
There are no ugly things in this world, he shouted in anger. All things are bright and beautiful. I know because it is the truth like you her so bright and beautiful. I won’t hurt you. Just let me hold your hands, the way you used to once a long time ago. Crossing streets on the beach, the summer rain, sand burials in the movies. . . Look at your shadow in the sky he painted to the sun.
She turned her pale, trembling gaze upwards.
He reached out and grasped her by the foot.
Come here, he gasped. Let me tell you the long nights and the empty streets without lover.
With the other foot she managed to kick him in the chest. Breaking free of his claw-like hold she arched her silver body through the sea flashing away on the water wings.
No! Come back here!
He heaved his body through the waves, flapped his arms, sprinkled ivory spume into rain.

Comeback…the words were cut from his throat as the bottom fell from beneath his feet. He sank between the waves. A wild kicking brought him up the sunlit hair. Gurgling and spitting bitter salted water, he called out and sank beneath once more.

He closed his eyes. The water began to sting his eyes like bees. A last strong beat in his veins sent his limbs into frenzied motion. Like a picture book whale he swished up for the last time. The ever faithful eye swept the pale blue sky for the heart of summer.

Manila and Byzantium by Michael A. Bernard, S.J.

(A transcript of the argumentative essay for Philippine Literature classes.)

The question is sometimes asked why Filipinos, to whom English is not native, should write their stories or their essays, social letters, newspapers and business reports in English, and not, say, in Tagalog or Visayan or Ilocano. Why, if they must write poems, do they have to write them in English verse — or what passes for verse?

To this question varied answers can be offered. One fairly common reply is that Filipinos write English today because they were forced in colonial times to do so; and consequently, the continued use of English is a sign of subservience and of a colonial mentality.

From which position, two corollaries follow. The first is that the national honor demands that Filipinos should discard the use of English — or of Spanish — as soon as possible. The other corollary is that a genuinely Filipino literature in English is impossible, for no nation can produce great literature in a language not its own.

It is not our intention here to challenge this position. Rather, we wish to explore an alternative position in which a milder judgment might be passed on the continued use of English in the Philippines. For although it is undoubtedly true that the use of English and of Spanish in the Philippines had a colonial origin, nevertheless both of these languages have become such a part of the national culture that it seems permissible to suppose that their use need not signify either subservience or a colonial mentality. Moreover, in the case of English, some optimism might be expressed that a worthy literature in that language might evolve on Philippine soil.

– I –

Sixty-three years ago, a Filipino literature in English would have been unthinkable.  Hardly anyone spoke English; no one wrote it.  The masses of the people spoke native languages and dialects (Malayan in origin); the educated class spoke Spanish.  

To say that they “spoke” Spanish does not quite convey the meaning intended. It was more than just speaking, in the way, for instance, that almost all educated Europeans outside France speak French yet without making French the “natural” language of their innermost thoughts and feelings. Three hundred years of Spanish rule had made the Spanish language a part of the Philippine scene; and though only a very small minority spoke it, they spoke it as if it were a native tongue. Spanish never became the language of the Filipino masses, as English became the language of the masses in Ireland, or French in Quebec, or Spanish in Latin America; but the educated FNipino came to speak Spanish as fluently, as easily, as correctly — as naturally — as the educated Spaniard. The educated Filipino in many cases spoke Spanish at home. He spoke Spanish among his friends. He told his jokes, read his newspapers, conducted his litigation in Spanish. His prayers — when he said them — were in Spanish.

Rizal could not be accused of servility or of possessing a colonial mentality. There can be no question of his patriotism. Yet he wrote his works in Spanish, though he came from Laguna where good Tagalog is spoken. When on the eve of execution, he wanted to write a Last Farewell, he wrote it in the language he knew best, the language he had made his own — in Spanish.

The Battle of Manila Bay in May 1898 changed all that. Dewey’s guns shattered not only the Spanish fleet but an entire culture. A new era was ushered in; new ways prevailed, including a new mode of speech. In half a century, the Filipinos became an English-speaking nation in a manner more thorough-going than was ever the case with Spanish. For Spanish was the language of a small elite; but English has become the language of the multitudes. Not indeed of the multitudes in the hills or the rice paddies, but the multitudes of those who have gone to school — and these are a large number.

The rapid spread of English throughout the archipelago in the first thirty years of American occupation was a tribute to the effectiveness of the educational system. Despite their obvious deficiencies, the schools — private in the larger towns and public everywhere — taught English with some success. Not to speak of the Christian population who live in the towns, this writer has met native tribesmen in Bukidnon and Cotabato in Mindanao, and in the Mountain Province in Luzon, who had attended the pre-war primary schools and who spoke English fluently. The quality of teaching since the war has left much to be desired, and it is the common complaint that students are flocking to the universities whose previous preparation has been faulty.  Be that as it may, English has become a lingua franca in the Philippines. In this process, not only the school but other factors as well have played an important role. Books have come in floods from Britain and America. There are also the modern media of communication: the radio, the phonograph record, television, and above all the films. Hollywood and Arthur Rank are very much with us. Some would say Hollywood is too much with us. There is a vigorous film industry in the Philippines, mostly in Tagalog; but people flock by the thousands to see the Hollywood productions. With the wheat has come the chaff. Shakespeare and the great authors of British and American literature are here; but so are the worthless books and the noxious magazines. Great drama may be seen on the screen and great music heard from phonograph records; but Filipinos have become all too familiar with Hollywood mores and the rock and-roll.

Today the Filipino student studies his law or medicine or physics or mathematics or history or philosophy in the same language as the students of these disciplines in Australia or Canada or the United States or Ireland or Great Britain — or in Borneo, Malaya, Ceylon, Hongkong or India. The Filipino reads his newspapers, listens to his radio, argues his case in court, speaks for or against a measure in Congress or denounces graft and corruption — all in English. To be sure, it is not always the Queen’s English. Some would call it an inferior species of “American.” The name does not matter. What matters is that an Oriental people, living in seven thousand islands scattered over an Asian sea, has become part of a growing body of English-speaking nations. Anglo-American culture has become part of the Philippine cultural heritage.

There is of course no intention of abandoning the native tongues. In the Ilocos, people speak Ilocano. Tagalog is spoken in Manila and the surrounding provinces, and Visayan in the Visayas and Mindanao. The provinces of Pangasinan, Pampanga and the Bicol region have their own native languages. But just as three hundred years of Spanish rule have given all these people — with their varied tongues and varying local customs — a common citizenship and a common nationality, so half a century of American rule has given them English as a common tongue.

– II –

In view of all this, there is nothing incongruous in the fact that when Filipinos write, they write, for the most part, in English. This is no more strange than that South Americans, whose ancestry may be Aztec or Inca or some other non-European race, should speak and write Spanish as their own native tongue.

It is a common tendency to try to simplify and to compartmentalize everything. We like to put things in separate pigeonholes. We expect Italians to write in Italian, Spaniards in Spanish, Frenchmen in French. Englishmen in English, and Filipinos in “Pilipino.” It offends our sense of neatness to find people of one nationality using the language of another. Yet history shows that this is always happening. Was it not only a few decades ago that parliamentary and legal debates in Poland were still held in Latin and when many educated men in Hungary spoke not a word of Magyar but only French and German?

The fact is that the human race resists compartmentalization. Sts. Mark, Luke and John wrote the Gospels and St. Paul of Tarsus his Epistles in Greek. They were Semitic, but they belonged to the same Hellenistic culture that Philip and Alexander of Macedon (who were no Greeks) had spread throughout the East; the same Hellenistic culture to which Marcus Aurelius belonged, who also wrote in Greek though he was Roman Emperor. The Latin translation of the Bible which we call the Vulgate was written by St. Jerome who was from Dalmatia. Tertullian and St. Ambrose wrote in Latin, though Ambrose was a Gaul and Tertullian an African. Prudentius the Spaniard wrote his verses in Latin. The best known poem about the Moselle in France was written in Latin by Ausonius. Their different nationalities did indeed color their outlook, but they possessed the immense advantage of a common language, understandable from Rome to Gibraltar and from the Danube to the Nile. In the East, the common language was Greek, in the West Latin; and Latin, incidentally, remained the common language of scholars for eighteen hundred years, from the time of Cicero to that of Newton.

– III –

Perhaps, some day, some Tagalog Dante or some Visayan Cervantes may write a great novel or a great epic that would catapult these languages into greatness. It is not without significance, however, that Dante, who made Italian great, wrote many of his works in Latin. As he himself confesses, he was a disciple at the feet of Vergil. Shakespeare may have known little Latin and less Greek: but the fact is that he did have this knowledge and was the heir of the Graeco-Roman tradition.

Meantime, our Filipino writers are writing in English. Alejandro Roces tells his humorously improbable tales about fighting roosters. N. V. M. Gonzalez tells of life in the kaingins of Mindoro, Bienvenido Santos of the Filipino expatriates in America and of life in Sulucan and in the fields around Mayon. Nick Joaquin tells of the good old days in the old walled city of Manila. Edith and Edilberto Tiempo write of life in Negros, Gregorio Brillantes writes of life in Tarlac, Gilda Cordero Fernando and Kerima Polotan Tuvera write of life in Manila. And so on with many other writers in prose, while Jose Garcia Villa writes poems bristling with commas, which Edith Sitwell praises in superlatives terms. Perhaps, in the future, some Filipino writer might create a literary masterpiece in English. There is nothing intrinsically impossible about great literature being written in an alien tongue

Near-Death at Sea

For today’s Write Day Wednesday, I feature a short story written by my late mother in her university days as BA English student…

Near-Death at Sea

by Imelda Guirindola Nartea

The town was dark when we docked at the small quay, now being lighted by the gleam of light coming from the lamps of the nearby houses.  Who could say we’ve had the most horrible experience that ever happened to a hilarious group such as ours?

We took the boat early that morning with the hope of finding the shrill pleasure in sea-bathing in one of the islands off the coast.  The sun was bright, the weather, fair; noone could see a trace of danger clouds in the blue sky above.

Our party, composed of three girls and four boys, all in their early teens, expected a really enjoyable picnic.  We had a big lunchbox stuffed with all the wonderful boodles the market could offer. To accompany this were two cases of soft drinks and a gallon of tuba.  We were supposed to meet a girl friend living in the island.  She will have to join us with the fresh fruits and crops from their farm.

Indeed, the morning proved exciting and great!  The water was warm, and we could see the lovely kingdom at the bottom of the sea – a paradise of corals and green weeds.  Gliding along on our boat, we were caught in awe by the colorful foundation of the blue-green water.

After almost two hours of swimming and toying with the seawater, we rowed back to shore and started with the most-awaited part of the day – lunch!  We spread banana leaves under a shady tree and prepared the food and drinks.  Lunchtime had never been so hearty for me and  in the one our group shared that day.  I realize one could eat well when he is closest to nature; when he becomes one with the bare beauties of the earth.  Stories were told, funny stories to stir the appetite.  Then the boys had their fill of the “tuba” while the girls, went a-rowing and swimming again.  Hours passed slowly… no one seemed to notice the passing of time. Until someone found out it was already two in the afternoon.  Our island girl friend hurried us off as she was afraid the afternoon winds might be hard on our way.

Packing our things in haste, I felt a change in our emotions as betrayed by our faces.  Although there were traces of the enjoyment, the look in everyone’s eyes spelled danger.  As we gathered speed, we noticed gusts of wind swinging our boat off its course.  Soon the waves became bigger as the wind started to blow hard, real hard that we began to huddle close to each other.  The once warm and inviting sea seemed like a monster eyeing us; threatening us with its waves.  We shivered as the rain started to sympathize with the angry wind.  Our friend handling the motorboat gave all he knew so that we could battle the strong waves intending to swallow us up.  Then, the expected happened.  Our boat capsized, with the bottom of the boat covering us all.  We had to swim to the surface for air.  Our screams, contested with the rain and the wind.  But no amount of shouting could help us then,  so we had to struggle to remain afloat while the boys made frantic efforts to turn the boat in place.  They were able to have it  floating again after half an hour of agonizing terror on everyone.  Back to the boat, soaking in salt water , we had to hug each other and feel the warmth left in our bodies.  We were forced to take the longer route near the coast in order to evade the big waves which tried to drown us.  After almost two hours of praying and knee-shaking, we reached our place.  We saw the familiar lights from the houses along the cost.  The rain has stopped by now.  Strange, too the sea was calm as we started to walk away from the quay.  

Back at the house where we started the day, we changed to dry clothes and laughter rang again.  Nobody suspected we were at a point where we neared death that day.  The mask of fear vanished from ours faces – we had to forget the experience or else we will never stop shivering.  We had some more eating and drinking before we finally went home for the night. 

Alone in my room, stretched on my soft bed,  I slept with a smile on my face with the last thought – what shape could death have been in the cold wavy sea?