fiction

from The Great Philippine Jungle Energy Cafe
by Alfred Yuson

AGUA DE MAYO

The middle days of May were as sepia as all other days, perhaps even more so by a shade. The summer had been unusually hot, unusually dry even for an island where wind and rain were alien for a quarter of a year. Until everything gathered together for the feast of Agua de Mayo. Tempers, childbirths, sermons, swallows and crows, old lakes, young boys, pigs’ tails, mayors and mayors’ wives, silent enchantresses — everyone and everything! Agua de Mayo! The first rain of May. Water from the heavens as salve for spirit, colic, cough and cold. Water for the parched season of nothing to be thankful for. By tradition blessed and holy, oh, as the fluids of Mother Mary, o first rainwater of May, when all the dust fell prey to the rataplan, the drumming. First thick drops of prayerful water, prayed-for water, incantatory rainwater pirouetting on bodies sepia and streets dry as dust the begetter, raindrops, first raindrops of May! Until then summer would stay sultry, could only be so. Brows and breasts were knit and frayed, blew to the quick. Dust took over papers, sheets, cups, books, groins, hair, heads and lives for whom loves stayed in dry heat till heat itself overcame with its first May come. Agua de Mayo!

This day of May, in Bacong, portent seemed to hang unawares, over the dusty air. Six horses were seen, of a sudden, rampaging through the short streets. Heard over the din of thundering hooves was a yell so free, fierce and alive urging the spectacle on as from someone who had been there in the near past, in those short dusty streets, and now familiarly come back, such was the triumph of his cry in full flush of dust. Six horses. Of different colors and breeds. In order of appearance, from left to right as it were through the southern end of town, give or take a nose, the twenty-four thundering hooves belonged to: (1) Bucephalus; (2) Scout; (3) Hero; (4) Marengo; (5) National Velvet; and (6) Ilocos King.

Seen on top of one horse, extreme right, was a young fellow whose figure seemed familiar but really in all that dust one could not tell, he wasn’t even laughing like Leon the prankster devil. Seen jumping from Horse One to Five and back again, like a circus bareback specialist, was an older man who seemed in all that dust to be enjoying himself, such was his power. They charged through the short streets clouded with dust, the older man yelling in full flush, so free and fierce and alive.

Melecio.

Kinoa the barber recognized him, and said thus, Melecio, he has come back, but where the devil did he steal all those horses? Melecio’s not one to steal, said Balboa whose straight black hair had been cut off into inchstrips and which now flew about like no one’s business but the dust’s. Where the devil did he get all those horses, Kinoa persisted. And why does he jump from one to the other bareback and all, while the younger fellow stayed all the while on Extreme Right, is that Ilocos King?! How should we know, Balboa answered, his nostrils quivering in the prick of dust and hair. Come on, cut off the other half of my head’s hair, and stop being such a philosopher.
Paquito the dwarf espied the swirling clouds of dust from his perch in the belfry. He dropped his four-foot baby python, Isabella. The young she-snake coiled instinctively around her master’s stumpy leg. Paquito pulled Isabella off and placed her in a corner, where an endcoil of rope lay in wait for the gnarled stumpy hands to toll the hours. Paquito squinted at the clouds of dust rising up over Bacong’s central street. He had never seen such a phenomenon before, he though. Mostly it had been sunsets over the mountain with twin horns, Cuernos de Negros they called it, that, and sunrises with that awful Leon coming out from the surf and playing with himself right before Mass. This was something else. He had to squint and still could not quite make out what caused the swirling clouds of dust. He did something only dwarfs are trained to do from birth. To sharpen their sights, they spat into their fingers, rubbed these quickly against their butts, then spread their palms over their eyes. Instantly he saw, and knew, and cursed.

Paquito to the snake: “You will not believe this, Isabella, but it is Leon our fool of a friend, he has come back with his good-for-nothing brother-in-law, and I think they’re planning to steal the show come fiesta time.”

Padre Salsa was relieving himself when he heard what seemed like conquistadors come over the New Land once again. “Cortez,” he muttered, and wiped himself. “He has found the Fountain, no, it’s de Leon, yes, good old Ponce, he has found the Fountain and come to share the blessings of youth, yes!”

Padre Salsa quickly adjusted his tunic and rushed out into the courtyard, where he nearly stumbled into the dwarf racing past with that, ugh, four-foot snaked coiled round his stumpy leg. “No, you are not to share in the Fountain,” Padre Salsa cried, striking out with his cane.

But everyone knows dwarfs cannot be hurt by handcarved objects, and the baby python hissed in contempt at this doddering old priest’s lack of native lore. Coiling looser, Isabella allowed herself to be dragged into a more intimate inspection of a phenomenon. The stumpy leg raced on with another, raising its own train of dust, as dwarf and snake beat priest and cane by a proverbial mile.

He was first on the site, was Paquito. Knowing the ways of his fool of a friend Leon, he positioned himself inconspicuously in a side niche within the old banyan’s buttressing roots. A sleeping firefly woke to the surprise of daylight glint in Isabella’s eyes, and fluttered quickly off its way to deeper darkness.

Silvestra came calmly out into the small bamboo porch just as Leon and Melecio rode in with the six horses. Close on their heels and hooves were Kinoa the barber, Anacleto the ricecake peddler, Meniang the mat weaver, Pepe Quimpo and Gelio Joaquin who were apprentice Guardia Civil, Balboa the loafer son of a hacendero, Imelda the profligate widow with Turing her jeweler in tow, Magno the fisherman who all this time had secretly lusted after Silvestra, the portly mayor, his two bodyguards, three aides, seven properly uniformed Guardia Civil with rifles and bayonets, Botong, Enteng, Nanding, the mayor’s buxom wife, Tacio the historian, and finally Padre Salsa with his cane.

Isabella the snake sank into sleep as her master sat still in his banyan niche. The proceedings Paquito observed would of course later be recounted in diverse oratorical fashions and focal lengths, and Tacio himself would prepare a lengthy account which he would later put to the lamp, in the sheer idiocy of his last years, sighing to himself that the unearthly was not his province…

“Bestra!” Melecio cried loudly. “We have the charm! We have the charm!”

The hooves thundered to a stop amid a final swirl of dust, and through the clouding screen Leon’s eyes spoke of calm resignation as they met Silvestra’s. Their eyes locked in understanding, for both knew that pain was fast at hand. It would follow the false glint of power, yecch, but naturally.

“We have the charm! We have it!? Melecio jumped off the faithful pinto Scout and rushed through the wall of dust to take Silvestra in his arms. “We have come back with it, Bestra! And nothing can stop us now!”

Just as Melecio lifted Silvestra triumphantly off the porch, the pursuing townsfolk came into view. Immediately they formed a circle around the hut, the way curiosity tends to approach as a swiftly dwindling radius of intimacy.

Paquito saw it all, and marveled.

Leon got off Ilocos King, and with a pat on its tan Godolphin rump sent it off hoofing once more, followed by the other five, off toward the sea to raise another fine cloud of dust.

Melecio strode confidently to the narrowing circle, his arms in full akimbo.

“Well, if it isn’t our portly mayor come to lead his faithful people…” said Melecio sneeringly.

He hadn’t even noticed their diminished chances for escape as the horses galloped past the old banyan, sending a speck of hurting dust into Paquito’s left eye before they eventually and most unceremoniously disappeared. The dwarf squinted his way through what he realized was a historic precedent of vainglorious local importance, the kind of myth-seed which would upstage even his Isabella’s worth as fanciful ally.

“Well, if it isn’t the mayor’s wife, lover of pig’s tails, come to see how their able guards will soon march off with their own tails between their legs…” Melecio sneered further.

Silvestra eyed Leon. They discoursed quickly through the impending contretemps.

“How is it, Leon, that the weak speak more than the strong?”

“It is like the littlest bird, who chirps for more than its fair share of space. Hovering over much more of place, the hawk remains silent.”

“Shall you talk this way forever, now that you’ve swallowed the banana’s charm?”

“No, my dear sister Bestra, no way. My speech shall curve here and there the way the banana shapes its day.”

“And now did it taste, this drop from the banana heart?”

“It was not from the heart, but from the latest unfurled leaf. Just as your husband had said.”

“Melecio heard it wrong. The charm comes from the banana heart, on the night of the new moon. That is the lore.”

“No matter. I was laughing and my eyes were closed. The drop could have come from banana heaven, for all I know. It tasted like reveries of old age, or like the secret of a successful recipe for leche flan, or like the beginning of a dream of grace…”

“Did both of you swallow the charm? I think not.”

“No. You are right.”

“It was you.”

“Yes.”

“And Melecio’s drawing from you, he is like that, he will sap your strength, Leon.”

“You have been silent yourself, though allow him the same…”

“Seeing as how he is ignorant.”

“Seeing as how he’s a fool.”

“Yes, but don’t you just love ‘em…”

“Louts and fools, yes, my soft spot is even softer now, like a newborn’s fontanelle, what with that infernal drop of banana mush…”

“And how did it happen? I suppose you yawned in attendance, and true to the elliptical manner of fate, the sideline grew more precious in the lack of moonlight…”

“No, I tell you, I laughed, most inadvertently so. And you speak like me now, my dear sister.”

“Yes, we both speak like the tortoise. Remember, Leon?”

“I remember, yes. Yours was the power.”

“But I am woman. I need it not for show.”

“But I am young.”

“And have to explain away your laughter…”

“So you did. You opened your mouth, in bold bored disbelief, and the drop from the heart slid through. It’s so you, Leon.”

“What heart?”

“The banana’s.”

“What we eat boiled in vinegar?”

“Didn’t you receive the drop from the banana’s purple heart?”

“I tell you, I don’t know. If you say so. Expect it from the latest unfurled leaf I was told. The youngest of greens. At the right moment. In the right spirit. Facing east. All that balderdash. So said Melecio. Of course I did not believe. But somehow my mouth must have wavered so in risible appreciation, and the drop slipped in. The night of the new moon, that too, of course.”

“No, Leon, you were not under a leaf that dripped. The magic liquid pearl came from the darkest purplish tip of the banana heart. Up north they say whoever catches it in his mouth finds himself defending it against an army of familiars. If he keeps the charm in his mouth till sunrise, then it is his for a lifetime. All that is as true as the heart is purple, and pointed, and tastes delicious boiled in vinegar. That is the lore. Melecio misled you.”

“Like a fool.”

“Like a fool, and a soon-to-be crippled husband.”

“I know now why you had been selfish with your power, Bestra.”

“You understand, Leon. Bear it like a smile, for as long as you may, for it shall soon turn into grimace.”

“Words beyond the tortoise, sister.”

“Words that flutter like the mysteries of pictures.”

“Words that circle and swoop, as the hawk of destiny now does to your fool little bird of a husband.”

Their eyes locked, Leon’s and Silvestra’s, and they shared, shhh now…sibling seerdom.

Melecio, arms and soul and mind akimbo, sprang forward to meet the spectating circle. Instinctively the mayor moved back, and in his official portliness bumped into Botong, causing the lad’s chin to reflect a suddenly spinning world as of falling glass, the head it belonged to colliding vertiginously with the chest of a retreating Guardia Civil, sending his lightly cradled rifle crashing to the ground to strike up a slight swirl of dust simultaneous with a loud report and Melecio’s proximate scream.

Silvestra and Leon rushed forward as Melecio crumpled to the ground clutching his shattered knee.

The crowd moved back in various directions, leaving the offending rifle lying all alone in the settling dust before them. Melecio screamed proximately in distant pain. Silvestra gathered him in her arms, and in an instant he was reduced to quiet sobbing. Leon strode forward.

Paquito peered closer from his banyan niche.

Leon collected the rifle and laughed. He wrenched off the trigger and trigger guard and tossed them aside. The Guardia Civil retreated in lockstep. The mayor’s wife clung to Botong who was nearest her. Enteng tripped over himself as he joined Nanding in pulling Botong away.

Leon wrestled off the bolt and cast it aside, laughing and moving forward. Kinoa backed up slowly, fingering his scissors in his back pocket. Meniang made a hasty sign of the cross and turned away. Pepe and Gelio stayed rooted with their mouths agape, surprised at Leon’s show of strength.

Leon tore off the barrel, metal sights and all, and flung them to the ground. His laughter became more robust as he came close to the retreating crowd. The mayor tried to grab at one of the fleeing Guardia Civil, but the anonymous uniform was quick to elude him. Balboa comforted Imelda, much to Turing’s distate. He held on tighter to his jewelbag as the randy Magno jostled past to get close to the mayor’s buxom wife. The mayor’s aides and bodyguards were quick to run off faster than everyone else, and were now even racing past the doddering Padre Salsa and the mortified but intensely curious Tacio.

Leon grasped the stripped wooden rifle and quickly rubbed his hands in spirals around it. He pulled one end and bent it into a curving handle. He tugged at the rest and tapered off the rifle into an elegant cane. Paquito’s jaw almost dropped, had it not been for Isabella waking and coiling up against it.

With a roar of laughter Leon jumped up across the crowd, soaring quickly and magnificently past everyone agape to land right beside the astonished Padre Salsa, whom he now gave a resounding smack on the tunicked bottom. Tacio dropped his journal in bewilderment. Leon went after the Guardia Civil and not one of them proved too quick for his cane and laughter. Finally Leon found the mayor and gave him too a sharp whack that brought Paquito out like a shot from his banyan niche. Isabella coiled tightly around a leg, wondering as to her master’s next stumpy move. The master proceeded to bump into a figure standing by the old banyan. He hadn’t noticed her from his niche. She was Sisa, who now took no notice of the dwarf as she surveyed the proceedings with a new face, one that was — yes — now breaking into a wide smile.

From a hundred feet out Leon felt another phenomenon contesting his first grand show of magic. Instantly he espied Sisa by the old banyan, with Paquito at her side gazing up at her incredulously. Sisa’s smile grew wider and a rumble of thunder rent the air. Leon laughed, tossing his head back vigorously.

Sisa joined him in laughter, and instantly the skies broke into a respectful, tentative drizzle. Leon waved his makeshift cane and laughed a covenant with Sisa. The rain began to fall in torrents. Agua de Mayo!

And Silvestra walked slowly back to her hut as Leon picked up the fallen Melecio and dragged him off sobbing through the blinding rain and past the dumbstruck crowd for whom the twin images bacame shimmering studies in elegant, measured escape, until they noticed a small skulking figure rushing up to join the modest exodus, with something four feet long or so coiled round its stumpy leg and waving up against the harsh large drops of the first May rain, and they knew that elsewhere in town the young boys and girls were jumping for joy and good growth while their fathers and mothers collected the sacred rainwater in coconut halves and pranched about too bathing in the rain’s glad abandon, while here they stayed rooted under more than just a drenching force, gazing wonderingly at the three strange fugitives making their way in the distant haze toward the path that led to the foot-hills. One clutched his leg while another had something coiled and mysterious around his. And the third, leading them, boomed with laughter that drowned out even the raging retaplan that was Agua de Mayo.

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