The Truth Berries

XXIV

       The bus had traveled for five hours already and it made its scheduled stop at the boundary of the two provinces. Most of the passengers got off to buy themselves their midnight meal while some took their desired restroom breaks. Miguel, however, stayed on his seat and lighted a cigarette. He took a long drag of it and savored its entire flavor in his mouth before he blew the smoke out of his window. The driver saw him smoking inside and considered asking him to stop and to throw it away. But since the bus was almost deserted, he let Miguel be. That was one of the advantages of travelling with ordinary bus lines. They didn’t care much and they travel a lot faster than the air-conditioned ones owned by big companies. Usually, provincial buses follow a mandated maximum speed limit of 80 kilometers per hour. These men didn’t. The faster they reached their destination, the earlier they came back. More trips meant more income so they drove like the devil’s after them.

       But the real reason why he chose to travel by it was because they did not usually check who the passengers were. Whether you’re a saint or a sinner, as long as you could pay the fare, you’re all passengers alike. Air-conditioned buses picked travelers at their own terminals and they had some way of monitoring their passengers. They often asked for identification first before they let you in. the bus he was travelling on picked him up on the side of the road, not at a terminal so there was no record of him riding on one. He paid the fare and he did not asked for a ticket. The bus conductor didn’t give him any either.

       Miguel left his father’s house when he was just sixteen and he only came back once when his beloved mother died of heart attack. He stayed there for three days and two nights. Then he left right after the funeral. He entrusted his father’s house to a mute widow who served as their housekeeper since he was a child. Now, he has forgotten much of that place and the province barely knew him. After fifteen minutes, the conductor notified all the passengers to return to their respective seats for the trip shall resume shortly. One by one, the men and the women started pouring back to the bus. The young woman nursing a baby girl went to sit beside him again. She kept on shuffling on her seat which caused the baby to wake up and cry. The crying baby made him look their way just to see in time its young mother taking his right breast to feed her. The woman, seeing him looking their way, was embarrassed so she shifted slightly to her right as she fed the baby. Miguel looked out of the window again.

       He wanted to sleep but his mind kept on spinning. So Miguel just stared out of his window. He absent-mindedly watched as the places they passed by changed from illuminated business establishments to very dark forests, with an occasional lighted hut dotting the full extent of the road. The baby had stopped crying and almost everyone was already asleep after twenty minutes. Someone from the back of the bus snored lightly but no one seemed to notice. Five hours have passed and four more to bear before he reach his destination. He tried to think of things that might keep him awake, but all his thoughts were blurred. All he could think of was his late wife Nadia. He had no clue where to start. He knew nothing of who might have been her killer. All he knew was that the chest which he received played a significant role in it. Had he surrendered the chest to somebody else, then she might still be with him. He closed his eyes and felt a surge of guilt and regret. He never noticed it but his tears started to run down his face and fell to his arms. Miguel fell asleep.

       It felt like a shallow nap but he had slept the entire four hours of the trip. When he woke up, the sky was already beginning to light up. Then he noticed that more than half of the initial passengers were already gone. He looked out of the window and he saw the unmistakable silhouette of the Mayon Volcano against the gray skies. He was almost there. Twenty-five minutes later, he was dropped in front of the town plaza. Everything has changed since he left the place, yet it still gave him the distinctive sense of familiarity since the last time he was there. Then he felt something that he has never felt for quite a week already. He tried to deny it but the smile that surfaced on his face betrayed him. He was home.

       But actually, he was still one ride away from home. He went to the town’s tricycle terminal but he did not find a single one there. Instead, street vendors selling all kinds of vegetables and live chickens now occupied the place. He went to ask one vendor where all tricycles have gone to but she gave him a puzzled look.

       “What do you mean?”

       “I mean where the tricycle terminal is now?”

       “It’s right behind that building.”

       Miguel looked to the direction the woman was pointing to.

       “They’re right behind that now?”

       “Have you been living underground? It has always been there.”

       Miguel saw no point in arguing so he thanked the woman and walked to it. He saw them all lined up there. He approached one and inquired which one was going to his own barangay and the man pointed him a few steps away to another line of tricycles. He paid the driver twice the fare the last time he came home. Miguel was stooped inside the sidecar’s low ceiling and he bumped his head once when the wheels struck a rather large hole on the highway.

       “That wasn’t there the last time”, he told himself. The driver ignored him.

       A few minutes after, he got off in front of a village’s dilapidated entrance gate. He started walking towards the southernmost part of the village where the paved road ended and a dirt road leading to the mountains appeared. He stopped at the end of the road and looked at the mountains where he once knew his father. It looked the same against the now lightening horizon. Somewhere midway to its peak was his father’s house, hidden from the outer world. He wondered if the mute woman who nurtured him would still be there until now. He took a deep breath and continued walking. Miguel crossed an iron metal bridge over the clear waters of a river. He remembered that river but not the bridge itself. It wasn’t there when his mother died and they had to carry her coffin while crossing a bridge made only of bamboos and piled stones.

       Miguel met a young man at the other end of the bridge. He greeted him with a quaint smile but the guy only stared at him. He knew that man but it was when he was still a young child. The guy, on the other hand, had some trouble remembering him. Miguel thought it would be best to keep it that way so he flushed out all ideas of announcing his arrival. He hastened his steps and in a few moments, he was passing by the rows of houses at the foot of the mountains. The sun was up already, and several of the houses were starting to open their windows to welcome the new day. There were some curious looks from other men and women as he passed by them and Miguel kept his head low, hiding himself with his black cap. When he reached the last of the houses near the top, he looked back on his tracks. There were two men looking at him even as he reached the top but on the whole, he made a quiet return. He started to trek the mountains now.

       The mountains changed a little in minor ways. There were parts were the vegetation used to be thick, but now it was cut down to give way to some root crops. Then there’s the cave where he and his father used to hunt for wild chickens and birds, but the entrance to it was now totally engulfed by the poisonous vines endemic to its forests. But the limestone beneath the feet always felt the same for him. It was nature’s reminder to anyone entering that hidden paradise of hers to always mind his or her own steps. Miguel trekked for ten tiring minutes and then he saw smoke rising up to the sky. She must still be there, he thought. Miguel started running now, unable to suppress the childish excitement he was feeling. When he passed the bend between two mountains, he could already smell the rich scent of coffee made from pan-burned rice.

       “It’s definitely her.”

       In no time, he climbed the artificial stairs on the steep slope which he and his father once made one rainy afternoon. Several wood stakes were already half-gone because of weathering, making the climb dangerous now. But Miguel did not mind it. He took two steps at a time, and he landed on the top in just a couple of seconds. He felt his heart racing but not of the climb but because of sheer excitement. He walked in front of the door and knocked three times. The woman peered through the tiny slit at the door and he saw her stepped back. She was nailed to her place with her hand covering her mouth and nose.

       “Inday, it’s me, Mikoy.”

        The woman opened the door and looked at him from head to toes.

       “It really is me, Mik-“

       Miguel couldn’t finish for the woman rushed forward and gave him a hug that’s worth more than three decades. The woman made indistinct sounds as she cried on his chest and her tears soaked his shirt. Miguel couldn’t hold his own so he let his tears fall down on her head and he buried his face in her hair. She smelled like coconut milk and firewood smoke. The smell reassured him once more that he, Miguel Romero, was finally home.