The House of the Unholy

The Farmer's Son

The high noon has the sun at its peak illuminating over the vast rice fields. As feverish humid wind blows, a young man of native origin trails on the dirt road. With his sleeves he wipes off drops of sweat rushing from his forehead settling down on his thick brows. His straw hat gives enough shade against the scorching sun as he makes his way to the stone house.

Teo has been home for four days and only now does Isko find time to visit his friend as his father and he had to furrow the lands harder to meet the increase in the regular contribution since Fray Luciano imposed higher tributes. The tribute which used to be at eight reales that had burdened the townsmen increases to fifteen reales portioned as ten reales for the community tax, two reales for the town protection paid to the guardia civil and cuadrilleros and three reales sanctorum tax in support of the church. The friar reasoned out that he had to employ additional civil guards due to reports of attacks in the nearby towns. It has been believed that bandits claimed responsibility of these attacks stealing sacks of rice and vegetables from farms; and live stocks such as goats, pigs, chickens and carabao from ranches; resulting to an unrest. To protect the town of Pasi from these attacks; the friar summoned additional civil guards and demanded higher tribute collections from the workers.

Even the cattle ranch where he is also employed, he and the other cow hands have to labor additional hours in guarding the ranch to keep the bandits off the live stocks.

Isko finally reaches the huge gate; pauses walking to wipe his sweat with his sleeves and fixes his straw hat. He sees the muddy ground leading to the staircase with protruding large stones intentionally built to serve as pathways. On his way he sees Tatang Chuy descending from the staircase;

“Good day, Tatang Chuy”, the young lad greets as he gently removes his straw hat

Tatang Chuy looks at the approaching red faced visitor, who seems to be suffering from high fever

“It’s a hot day, I see,” Chuy greets back with a huge toothless smile

“It is, Tatang Chuy” Isko answers as he consciously wipes another drop of sweat on his forehead, “I thought I would pass out on the way,”

“Segnor Mateo is upstairs,” Chuy taps the young man’s shoulder, “you’re in time, Teo had just finished his lunch,” he pauses, “and drink some water,” he adds as he makes his way out

Isko ascends upstairs passing through the large entrance hall, across the main living room he reaches the dining room. At the end of the long wooden table, Teo sits finishing his tea. Servants line up attentively inches away from the dining table while Ditas sits beside his segnor.

“You are early,” Teo pushes his chair as he stands up to welcome his guest, “come join though; we have just finished,” he adds

“Oy, Isko, there are still some snails left at the bottom of the jar, have at it” Ditas invites

The porcelain jar still has some cooked snails in it in coconut milk mixed with a number of cubed squash and pieces of string beans. At the corner of the table there lays the jar of rice half emptied. Beside it lay grilled catfish on a plate; it is half consumed with its bare fish bones by the belly. The table is also adorned with ripe mangoes, pineapple and papaya; all sliced in half; while at the center there still lays an empty jar of vegetable soup with malunggay leaves still hanging by its opening.

“Thank you Nanang Ditas, but I already had lunch at home,” Isko reasons out as he makes a final glance at the food on the table.

“Water is fine,” he says, “it’s hot outside; I think I can finish one jar by myself” he finishes with an inaudible cackle

“Might as well finish the whole well until it drains!” quips Ditas along with an infectious laugh

Teo and Isko leap through the staircase down the ground floor; through the protruding large stones they hop one after the other.

“The bandits just seized sacks of rice and live stocks?” Teo asks curiously as he trails behind Isko hopping through the stone pathways after Isko relays the news of the attacks in the nearby towns.

“Fortunately they did not feel barbaric and did not burn the villages,” Isko answers

“Nobody wants to perish starving,” Teo exclaims sardonically

“And take someone else’s sustenance?,” Isko retorts

Teo smiles and shakes his head, “they’re bandits!” he answers

They finally reach the tall gate where Tatang Chuy is waiting at the parked carriage. Upon seeing the two young men, Chuy loosens a smile.

“Hurry up boys!” the old man greets, “the good old Don is waiting for us” he finishes as the boys reach the carriage

Once inside, Tatang Chuy pulls the horse’s rein and the carriage turns towards the dirt road. Isko sits on the left side, his straw hat on his hand serving as a fan; while Teo sits beside him calmly looking out the window to the surrounding rice fields.

“Did you see him?” Teo asks softly, “the Don!” he continues still looking out the window

“Father and I paid respect” Isko answers

Silence follows after as the carriage turns to a rough road. The wagon struggles to keep its pace as it rolls over stones and rocks. Teo has his left hand covering his head while his right hand tightly grips the window handle. Isko extends both his hands to reach for the roof of the carriage pushing it off to keep his head from bumping onto it

“Alright boys, hold on tighter!” Tatang Chuy shouts from outside

The carriage passes through the final stretch of the stony road. One of its wheels trips over a huge protruding stone and drives the wagon off the air. Crushed rocks and dust flies off the air as the wagon makes an impact touching down the ground after.

“Are you both still alive?!” Tatang Chuy laughs as the carriage now drives smoothly

“Barely breathing, Tatay Chuy!” Teo answers back bursting to laughter

“I thought I felt my heart coming out of my mouth,” Isko claims as he fans himself again with his straw hat

“How did the Don look in his final days?” Teo interrupts,

Isko pauses fanning the straw hat as he glances through Teo’s face

“He did not take it well,” Isko reluctantly answers, “far from the intimidating stance he was known for,” he continues

Teo smiles shyly, “He can be quite domineering at times”

“Pardon my word, Segnor,” Isko smiles back

“I thought he would overcome it; give it a good fight,” Teo responds

“It overcame him instead” Isko pauses, “I did not want to suffer the same. I prefer death to come at me quickly; preferably in my sleep,” he finishes with bitter smile on his face

“Nobody does,” Teo answers, “nobody is prepared of their own death. Even I, when I think of it sometimes, I wish that if I am to go, I’d like it to come as quick as possible,”

Isko assesses his segnor’s tone; stares at him for a moment

“People in this town still find ways to throw in some mysteries to his death,” he says

“I heard about that,” Teo responds,

Isko looks far at the rice fields as he carefully fixes his straw hat in place,

“My father was just like them,” Isko pauses, “they suspect a mambabarang,”

“But do you believe them?,” Teo curiously asks

“They claimed that the Don was punished by a pagan witch,” Isko pauses, “a hag who is silently practicing the old religion planned to overthrow the colonizers; and the Don’s death was just the prelude”

Teo stares at his friend who is still looking out the window

“I was with my father when we visited the Don,” Isko takes air in, “I saw him vomited dark liquid mixed with his blood; he was pale, his stomach lumped, “

“His liver failed him,” Teo interrupts, “people would turn pale and their stomach would swell once their liver turns problematic,”

Isko retreats silently for he knows these are the times that he would not know how to respond each time Teo makes medical comments. Times like these remind him of his segnor’s superiority while he, is just a plain farm boy who plows his segnor’s land.

“I am sorry about Nanay Seling, Isko” Teo interrupts

Isko glances at his segnor and shortly cuts it away to look out the window. His nod acts as his acknowledgment to his segnor’s empathy.

Just as how fortunate Teo to be adopted and raised by Don Lorenzo was Isko’s infortune. The son of a rice farmer and a lavandera to the church; Isko was left in town when Teo was sent to study pharmacy in a university in manila. Isko then turned as his father’s aid in plowing the land that does not belong to them; grew up to be inheriting the only job that most men in their town knew; like what his father’s father did; and like what his sons’ son would be doing; farming. Once he turned seventeen, the Don employed him as one of his cow hands in the Don’s cattle ranch along with other calf men, him feeding hays to young stock.

While Isko is looking out the carriage he recalls one summer when Teo got back from Manila after two years of studying in Manila. The stone house’s asotea was crowded by wealthy families, noblemen and the curate himself, Fray Luciano; all came to acquaint themselves with Teo, “The lad who is studying farmacia in a university in Manila” as how they addressed him. Teo and him tried to isolate themselves from the crowd but the guests always find ways to greet Teo.

“This is your night, Mateo. Why settle in the corner with a farm boy,?” Fray Luciano greeted as he sipped from his cup of wine, “You should get used to hosting these feasts,”

The friar raised his hand and gestured to the crowd to refrain from what they were doing at that moment. He then raised his cup as he made an announcement;

“I knew all along, Mateo will grow up to be such a gentlemen. It has always been proven that the only way to mold a clay is to subject it to the heat of fire”, he continued with a huge smile while he proposed a toast. On his right hand, a glass full of rice wine, on his left he holds a tobacco, “There is pride in his accomplishment in a short span of time. He breezed through his two years of studying farmacia. His remaining four years would be the real test of perseverance though, he will be away from home, from the familiar faces that are here. Nothing is guaranteed to be easy, but he can take this night, this feast that the good Captain prepared for him. Engrave it in his memory so when the times get tough and the fire he will be subjected to becomes fiercer, he can vividly look back to this night and know that we have always been proud of him. And he will turn out alive, still breathing; and a perfectly molded clay! ”

The asotea was engulfed by the noise of applauses and cheers and the crowd joined the friar in his toast all proudly looking at Teo; while the Captain stood in the crowd cheering the proudest.

Fray Luciano raised his hand again and interrupted the cheering crowd when he made another announcement;

“And oh!,” the friar continued, “It is with sympathy that I wish I could say the same for Isko” Fray Luciano continued now frowning at the sight of Francisco.

The young man, after being looked down by the friar, could only look down further on his self. He could feel as if the marble flooring of Don Lorenzo’s stone house was about to pull him down, eat him whole and alive.

“This clay right here,” Fray Luciano continued, at that time holding Isko’s shoulder, “This clay here has turned into a hardened mud!,” the friar paused as he sipped another pangasi from his glass, “And no matter how hot the fire we subject him into, he will only turn into a coal!. Nothing much, just a burned coal,” the friar paused and looked back down at Isko, “A dirt!. Just like the soil and roots he has been plowing.” then the friar burst into laughter

The other guests followed and the asotea was filled with insults at Isko who got drowned further with embarrassment. His fists are closed tightly, rage filled his soul, as he was about to burst to outrage, by then Teo held him by the shoulder.

A year after Teo’s return for the summer, Isko lost his mother to tuberculosis. For years the hapless woman has been suffering from bad cough which could have been contracted from working as a lavandera. Despite being asked by her husband to see a physician, Seling shrugged it off as simply a cough. As she started deteriorating, Isko felt powerless as he could not do anything to ease his mother’s suffering and he could not provide for his family. He tried to beg for Fray Luciano’s empathy but the friar claims that his mother was paid fairly for her services as a lavandera. Other times the friar would swear that if there would be any amount in excess of the regular tributes collected he might be able to extend an assistance; but that never materialized until Isko’s mother succumbed to tuberculosis. Her body was laid to rest north of the seaport at the town’s cemetery; the first funeral that Teo missed to attend to.

Right at that moment Isko realizes how far apart Teo and he have become. Far from the children that they were back when they were still serving the church as altar boys; back when Teo was just an orphan. He just quietly sits there as he watches the carriage makes a full stop in front of an iron gate; the town’s cemetery.