Fifties

Deep Earth

DEEP EARTHHE STOOPED low and heaved out another shovelful of earth. Some particles flew, hit his face and struck him right between the eyes, but he

kept on shoveling. From where he was he could see the tiny village of lean black crosses and small white niches. He could see grass and weeds lustily feeding on mounds of rich earth. Soon, he

thought, they would call him: Pio, Pio, the grass must be cut, the dead cannot breathe. He would be cutting grass, pulling out weeds, washing white the niches. Pio, Pio, they would call, and very

quickly he would heed, very meekly he would say: Yes, yes, though he knew the dead need not breathe. He could only smile, and sometimes laugh.

The sunrays fiercely stabbed his back shielded only by a sweat-drenched undershirt. The depth he had dug was now his height. Some six inches more, he thought, and it would be six feet deep. That

was what the late gravedigger Emong told him: Dig down to six and you will notice the earth becoming soft and slippery. Now mud clung to his toes; his denim pants and fatigue undershirt were

soiled. The shovel became heavier with thick earth, and Pio could hardly throw the diggings out without some hurtling back, sometimes hurting him. A little later he heard from afar a brass band

playing solemn music. He knew he was almost through. He hurled out the pickaxe and the shovel he had use, and clutching at the firm edge of the grave he swung out of it like an amateur acrobat. The

band music came nearer. Pio hastily drew his handkerchief, wiped his face and arms with it, then put it back moist and dirty in his pocket.

The hearse was nearing. He saw black-clad, black-veiled women and mourning children following the coffin carried by four men. The other people, curious sympathizers all, went ahead of the men

carrying the coffin and gathered around the grave he had just dug. Pio murmured: These people ought to hurry. Hurry! For now he remembered his wife Maria. Again he drew out his handkerchief and

wound it around his head. That would give him a semblance of shade. The sun shone bright and hot. He sat on a nearby mound, leaned against its cross. Come, hurry! he wanted to shout. Maria, his

Maria, big, almost sick, with child, might need him any moment now. Only this morning when Manang Didang, the mother of the deceased, called for him, Maria was saying something to him, inaudible,

but he understood. He shouted back to Manang Didang: “Yes, Manang, I’ll be on my way!” and he whispered to Maria: “What is it, Mayang?”

Maria looked very sick sprawled on the mat, her head sunk in the pillows. She smiled palely at Pio, and there was pain on her lips and in her eyes. “Nothing, Pio, nothing. Go ahead. Who

called? Who died?”

Pio felt with his right hand the swollen belly of Maria as if trying to know what really ailed her, as if wanting to feel if the bundle of life that was inside was moving. Lightly, he let his

fingers pass over the forehead of his wife, then stroked caressingly her hair and helped her sit up on the mat, putting pillows behind her.

“That was Manang Didang. Teong died.”

Maria made the sign of the cross once and uttered a short prayer. Pio did not bother to hear her prayer, for he knew what it was. He put on his denim pants and went down. From below where he

kept his pickaxe and shovel and rope, he shouted: “Are you sure nothing hurts you, Mayang?” The bamboo floor slightly squaked, and he heard Maria softly say, “Sure, Pio,

nothing.”

Then Pio remembered. He would call Manang Didang’s niece, Petring. She could prepare coffee and fry the rice left over from last night for breakfast. Maria should not be moving around now.

Not this day nor the coming days. So he left.

He ran past twelve houses before he reached Manang Didang’s place. He was panting when he saw Manang Didang.

“Manang!” he called. Manang Didang was busy arranging the chairs and benches around some three or four tables under a large canvas shed supported by strong bamboo poles. Many card

games had been played there the past nights, and many more were to be played tonight.

“You’re not soliciting, Pio?”

Manang Didang was apprehensive, for she had spent a lot for the coffee and pan de sal filled with corned beef hash she had very generously offered the many sympathizers. “No,

Manang. But will you please send Petring to Mayang? She’s not feeling well. Yes, Manang?”

Whatever Manang Didang answered, Pio did not hear, for he hurried away like a young carabao on its way to the fields.

“Mayang! Mayang! Don’t leave your sleeping mat. Somebody’s coming to attend to you.” That was all he said when he reached the foot of the stairs of his home. He turned to

where the pickaxe and shovel and rope were and took them, hastily slinging the rope on one of his massive shoulders.

“Yes, Pio.” Her voice came to him like a soft wind from the east.

Pio took the short trail to the cemetery. The beaten path started from the white stone well at the back of his hut, shaded by old bamboos and littered with carabao dung, wilting leaves and stray

hay, crawled through a mango grove and ominously ended at the grave of Emong, his friend and predecessor. His hand touched the black cross at the head of Emong’s grave, and trying to feel

jovial, he said: “Another one, Emong. Teong this time.”

And thought, I am to dig a grave, and Maria’s womb is full.

Then he headed towards where he was to dig. He regarded the earth with measuring eyes, then lid down his shovel and rope which sank into the soft bed of grass. He struck the earth with the

pickaxe. Earth was hard and insolent, but Pio was harsh and strong. Down, down, Pio dug; deeper down he went, six feet into earth. Pio swung his Pickaxe and dug in his shovel.

NOW THERE he was, sitting in the sun, atop an almost forgotten grave, thinking of Maria, his Maria, and wanting to tell the people that had come to bury Teong, to hurry, hurry, for Mayang

might be needing him now, might be feeling worse now, for now was the month for the child, his and Mayang’s to come, if he had counted the months right. If her uneasiness of last night that

had kept him awake was the prelude to birth, if Mayang’s heaving and sighs last night were signs of the baby’s coming, then the dead must be buried at once and quickly, so he could

hurry back to Maria.

Someone shouted for the rope. Pio stood up, retrieved the rope from the bed of grass and laid it down on the hard ground. Four men set the coffin down the rope. Pio wanted to cry, Please,

hurry!

Manang Didang asked the man from the funeral parlor to uncover the coffin, so she could see Teong for the last time, but one of the elders counselled against it. She had to be pulled away from

the coffin. Pio regarded the scene with savage impatience.

“Let us put the coffin now in the grave,” Pio suggested.

Teong was eased down into earth. This was the eternal peace, the unending rest. Amen. Pio shoveled earth on the wooden coffin after the sympathizers had thrown their handfuls of clayey

earth.

“Not too hard, Pio,” Mana Didang cried as Pio shovelled the earth into the still gaping grave. Pio leveled the mound of earth over Teong’s grave, used his bare feet to round

the edges, then asked for the cross. Manang Didang cried, almost shrieked, when Pio struck the sharpened-pointed cross into the head of the grave.

“You are too rough, Pio.”

Pio only smiled. He rubbed his hands on his denim pants, removed the handkerchief tied around his head, patted his temples, and combed his hair with his fingers. “I’m through,”

he said, “and I can leave.” Maria, he thought, I’m coming. To Manang Didang, Pio said: “I’ll go there tonight, or maybe tomorrow, or maybe never...” Then he sped

away.

Manang Didang could not hear him for she was lost in her weeping. As for Pio, he was now on his favorite trail running back to his hut, back to where Maria, his Maria, was lying on the sleeping

mat heavy with child.

PIO RACED with the sun from Emong’s grave, through the mango grove, stepping on leaves and twigs that crackled under his weight. Pio left the sun perched atop the bamboos that lined the

beaten path to his hut.

Suddenly he stopped. There was Manang Sedes heading towards him. Manang Sedes was the village midwife. They called her hilot, but to Pio she was Manang. “Manang,” he called,

and his voice was frightened.

Manang Sedes was cursing the heat as she was fanned herself with her pañuelo. “You animal!” she cried when she saw Pio.

“You young calabaw! Leaving your wife in such a condition!”

“What happened, Manang?”

“Don’t rush me, you neglectful husband!”

But Pio could no longer wait. He remembered how Maria looked in the morning. So he hurried away, leaving Manang Sedes cursing him, calling him names. Pio did not look back, but Manang Sedes kept

on shouting at him till he was too far to hear.

Pio reached the white stone well at the back of his hut. Silence enshrouded his hut. Even the air was still. Only the sun was very much alive, ferociously alive.

“Petring!” he called at the foot of the stairs. He heard the bamboo floor creak.

“Yes, Manong?”

Pio looked at the young girl’s face, his eyes begging. Blankness stared at him.

“How is Mayang?” Unknowingly he was mounting the stairs step by step, quietly, almost stealthily.

From the head of the bamboo stairs, he saw Mayang sprawled on the mat, her face white and vivid. She was sobbing.

“Mayang, Mayang, what is it? Mayang, how are you?” He heard only her sobs.

“Where is the child? My, our, child?”

Suddenly, he turned back.

No! his heart was crying. No! At the foot of the stairs was earth, heard and insolent as the earth of Teong’s grave. He remembered the shovel, the rope, the crying and the disconsolate,

the cross, the weeds, all. His eyes hurt with tears seeking to be shed. His bare feed struck the earth, which seemed to move. He struck it again and again as thought he would dig at the foot of the

stairs with his feet.