The Black Monkey
by Edith L. Tiempo
Two weeks already she had stayed in the hunt on the precipice, alone except for the visits of her husband. Carlos came regularly once a day and stayed three or four hours, but his visits seemed to her too short and far between. Sometimes, after he had left and she thought she would be alone again, one or the other of the neighbors came up unexpectedly, and right away those days became different, or she became different in a subtle but definite way. For the neighbors caused a disturbed balance in her which was relieving and necessary. Sometimes it was one of the women, coming up with some fruits, papayas, perhaps, or wild ink berries, or guavas. Sometimes the children, to grind her week’s supply of corn meal in the cubbyhole downstairs. Their chirps and meaningless giggles broke the steady turn of the stone grinder, scraping to a slow agitation the thoughts that had settled and almost hardened in the bottom of her mind. She would have liked it better if these visits were longer, but they could not be; for the folks came to see her, yet she couldn’t come to them, and she, a sick woman, wasn’t really with her when they sat there with her. The women were uneasy in the hut and she could say nothing to the children, and it seemed it was only when the men came to see her when there was the presence of real people. Real people, and she real with them.
As
when old Emilio and Sergio left their carabaos standing in the clearing and
crossed the river at low tide to climb solemnly up the path on the precipice,
their faces showing brown and leathery in the filtered sunlight of the forest as
they approached her door. Coming in and sitting on the floor of the eight-by-ten
hut where she lay, looking at her and chewing tobacco, clayey legs crossed
easily, they brought about them the strange electric of living together, of
showing one to another lustily across the clearing, each driving his beast, of
riding the bull cart into the timber to load dead trunks of firewood, of
listening in a screaming silence inside their huts at night to the sound of real
or imagined shots or explosions, and mostly of another kind of silence, the kid
that bogged down between the furrows when the sun was hot and the soils stony
and the breadth for words lay tight and furry upon their tongues. They were slow
of words even when at rest, rousing themselves to talk numbingly and vaguely
after long periods of chewing.
Thinking to interest her, their talk would be of the
women’s doings, soap-making and the salt project, and who made the most coconut
oil that week, whose dog has caught sucking eggs from whose poultry shed, show
many lizards and monkeys they trapped and killed in the corn fields and yards
around the four houses. Listening to them was hearing a remote story heard once
before and strange enough now to be interesting again. But it was last two weeks
locatable in her body, it was true, but not so much a real pain as a deadness
and heaviness everywhere, at once inside of her as well as
outside.
When
the far nasal bellowing of their carabaos came up across the river the men rose
to go, and clumsy with sympathy they stood at the doorstep spiting out many
casual streaks of tobacco and betel as they stretched their leave by the last
remarks. Marina wished for her mind to go on following
them down the cliff to the river across the clearing, to the group of four huts
on the knoll where the smoke spiraled blue glints and grey from charcoal pits,
and the children chased scampering monkeys back into forested slopes only a few
feet away. But when the men turned around the path and disappeared they were
really gone, and she was really alone again.
From
the pallet where she lay a few inches from the door all she could set were the
tops of ipil trees arching over the damp humus soil of the forest, and a very
small section of the path leading from her hut downward along the edge of the
precipice to the river where it was a steep short drop of fifteen or twenty feet
to the water. They used a ladder on the bushy side of the cliff to climb up and
don the path, let down and drawn up again, and no one from the outside the area
could know of the secret hut built so close to the guerilla headquarters. When
the tide was low and then water drained toward the sea, the river was shallow in
some parts and the ladder could be reached by wading on a pebbly stretched to
the base of the cliff. At high tide an outrigger boat had to be rowed across.
They were fortunate to have the hiding place, very useful to them whenever they
had to flee from their hut on the knoll below, every time a Japanese patrol was
reported by the guerillas to be prowling around the
hills.
Two
weeks ago, in the night, they had fled up to the forest again, thinking a patrol
had penetrated. Marina remembered how she and Flavia
and Flavia’s daughter had groped their way up to the precipice behind their
faster neighbors, how the whole of that night the three of them had cowered in
this dark hut while all around monkeys gibbered in the leaves, and pieces of
voices from the guerillas on the river pieced into the forest like thin
splintered glass. And all the time the whispered talk of their neighbors
crouched in the crevices of the high rocks above them floated down like echoes
of the whispers in her own mind. Nobody knew the reason for the harm sounded by
headquarters unto the next morning when Carlos and two other guerillas paddled
around the river from camp and had told everyone to come down from their
precipice and return to the huts; it was not enemy troops but the buys chasing
after the Japanese prisoner who had escaped.
Following the notice of Carlos, old Emilio and others
went back to the knoll the day after the alarm. She had stayed, through two
weeks now. Sick and paralyzed on one side, she had to stay where she was a
liability to no one in case of danger. She had to stay until the Japanese
prisoner was caught, and if he had been able to slip across the channel
to Cebu and a Japanese invasion of this guerilla
area was instigated, she would be safe in this
hideout.
Listening closely for several nights, she had learned to
distinguish the noises made by the monkey in the tree nearest her door. She was
sure the tree had only one tenant, a big one, because the sounds it made were
unusually heavy and definite. She would hear a precise rustle, just as if it
shifted once in its sleep and was quiet again, or when the rustling and the
grunts were continuous for a while, she knew it was looking for a better perch
and muttering at its discomfort. Sometimes there were precipitate rubbing sounds
and a thud and she concluded it accidentally slipped and landed on the ground.
She always heard it arrive late at night, long after the forest had settled
down. Even now as she lay quietly, she knew the invisible group of monkeys had
begun to come, she knew from the coughing that started from far up to the slope,
sound like wind on the water, gradually coming
downward.
She
must have been asleep about four hours when she awoke uneasily, aware of
movements under the hut. Blackness had pushed into the room, heavily and
moistly, sticky damp around her eyes, under her chin and down the back of her
neck, where it prickled like fine hair creeping on end. Her light had burned
out. Something was fumbling at the door of the compartment below the floor,
where the supply of rice and corn was stored in tall bins. The door was pushed
and rattled cautiously, slow thuds of steps moved around the house. Whatever it
was, it circled the hut once, twice and stop again to jerk at the door. It
sounded like a monkey, perhaps the monkey in the tree, trying to break in the
door to the corn and rice. It seemed to her it took care not to pass the stairs,
retracing its steps to the side of the hut each time so she could not see it
through her open door. Hearing the sounds and seeing nothing, she could not see
it through her open door. Hearing the sounds and seeing nothing, she felt it
imperative that she should see the intruder. She set her face to the long slit
at the base of the wall and the quick chilly wind came at her like a whisper
suddenly flung into her face. Trees defined her line vision, merged blots that
seemed to possess life and feeling running through them like thin humming wires.
The footsteps had come from the unknown boundary and must have resolved back
into it because she could not hear them anymore. She was deciding the creature
had gone away when she saw a stooping shape creep along the wall and turn back,
slipping by so quickly she could deceive herself into believing she imagined it.
A short, stooping creature, its footsteps heavy and regular and then
unexpectedly running together as if the feet were fired and sore. She had
suspected the monkey but didn’t feel sure, even seeing the quick shaped she
didn’t feel sure, until she heard the heavy steps turn toward the tree. Then she
could distinguish clearly the rubbing sounds as it hitched itself up the
tree.
She
had a great wish to be back below with the others. Now and then the wind blew
momentary gaps through the leaves and she saw fog from the river below, fog
white and stingy, floating over the four huts on the knoll. Along about ten in
the morning the whole area below would be under the direct that of the sun. The
knoll was a sort of islet made by the river bending into the horseshoe shape; on
this formation of the two inner banks they had made their clearing and built
their huts. On one outer bank the guerilla camp hid in thick grove of
madre-de-cacao and undergrowth and on the other outer bank, the other arm of the
horseshoe, abruptly rose the steep precipice where the secret hut stood. The
families asleep on the knoll were themselves isolated, she thought; they were as
on an island cut off by the water and mountain ranges surrounding them; shut in
with it, each one tossing his thought to the others, no one keeping it
privately, no one really taking a deliberate look at it in the secrecy of his
own mind. In the hut by herself it seemed she must play it out, toss it back and
forth.
Threads of mist tangled under the trees. Light pricked
through the suspended raindrops; the mind carried up the sound of paddling from
the river. In a little while him distinctly. Neena! Neena! Her name thus
exploded through the air by his voice came like a shock after hours of stealthy
noises.
He
took the three rungs of the steps in one stride and was beside her on the floor.
Always he came in a flood of size and motions and she couldn’t see all of him at
once. A smell of stale sun and hard walking clung to his clothes and stung into
her; it was the smell of many people and many places and the room felt even
smaller with him in it. In a quick gesture that had become a habit he touched
the back of his hand on her forehead.
“Good,” he announced, “no
fever.”
With
Carlo’s presence, the room bulged with the sense of people and activity,
pointing up with unbearable sharpness her isolation, her fears, her
helplessness.
“I
can’t stay up here,” she told him, not caring anymore whether he despised her
cowardice. “I must go down. There is something here. You don’t know what’s
happening. You don’t know, or you won’t take me
stay.”
He
looked at her and then around the room as though her fear squatted there
listening to them.
“It’s the monkey again.”
“Man
or monkey or devil, I can’t stay up here anymore.”
“Something must be done,” he said, “this can’t go
on.”
“I’ll go down and be with the
others.”
He
raised his head, saying wearily, “I wish that were the best thing, Neena, God
knows I wish it were. But you must go down only when you’re ready. These are
critical days for all of us in this area. If something breaks–the Jap, you know,
think what will happen to you down there, with me at headquarters. You’ve known
of reprisals.”
He
looked at her and his sooty black eyes were like the bottom of a deep drained
well. “I wish I could be here at night. What I’m saying is this: it’s a job you
must do by yourself, since nobody is allowed out of headquarters after dark.
That monkey must be shot or you’re not safe here
anymore.”
“You
know I can’t shoot.”
“We
are continuing our lessons. You still remember, don’t
you?”
“It
was long ago and it was not really in earnest.”
He
inspected the chambers of the rifle. “You didn’t need it
then.”
He
put his life into her hands.
She
lifted it and as its weight yielded coldly to her hands, she said suddenly, “I’m
glad we’re doing this.”
“You
remember how to use the sight?”
“Yes,” and she could not help smiling a little. “All the
o’clock you taught me.”
“Aim
it and shoot.”
She
aimed at a scar on the trunk of the tree near the door, the monkey’s tree. She
pressed on the trigger. Nothing happened. She pressed it again. “It isn’t
loaded.”
“It
is.”
“The
trigger won’t move. Something’s wrong.”
He
took it from her. “It’s locked, you forgot it as usual.” He put it aside.
“Enough now, you’ll do. But you unlock first. Remember, nothing can ever come
out of a locked gun.”
He
left early in the afternoon, about two o’clock.
Just
before the sundown the monkey came. It swung along the trees along the edge of
the precipice, then leaped down on the path and wandered around near the hut. It
must be very, very hungry, or it would not be so bold. It sidled forward all the
time eying her intently, inching toward the grain room below the stairs. As it
suddenly rushed toward her all the anger of the last two years of war seemed to
unite into one necessity and she snatched up the gun, shouting and screaming,
“Get out! Thief! Thief!”
The
monkey wavered. It did not understand the pointed gun she brandished and it came
forward, softly, slowly, its feet hardly making any sound on the ground. She
aimed, and as it slipped past the stairs and was rounding the corner to the
grain room she fired again and once again, straight into its
back.
The
loud explosions resounded through the trees. The birds in the forest flew in
confusion and their high excited chatter floated down through the leaves. But
she did not hear them – the only reality was the twisting, grunting shape near
the stairs and after a minute it was quiet.
She
couldn’t help laughing a little, couldn’t help feeling exhilarated. The black
monkey was dead, it was dead, she had killed it. Strangely, too, she was
thinking of the escaped prisoner that she strangely feared him but was curious
about him, and that now she could think of him openly to herself. She could talk
about him now, she thought. Shoe could talk of him to Carlos and to anybody and
not hide the sneaky figure of him with the other black terrors of her
mind.
She realized that she was still holding the gun. This
time, she thought, she had unlocked it. And with rueful certainty, she knew she
could do it again, tonight tomorrow, whenever it was necessary. The hatter of
some monkeys came to her from a far up in the forest. From that distance, it was
vague, a lost sound; hearing it jarred across her little triumph, and she
wished, like someone lamenting a lost innocence, that she had never seen a gun
or fired one.
2.) ANG PINAGMULAN NG BOHOL (Alamat/Boholanos)
anak na babae ng datu ay nagkasakit. Hindi mapalagay ang datu.
“Tanod, may sakit ang anak ko. Humayo ka, papuntahin mo rito ang manggagamot. Ngayon din!”
“Ngayon din po, Mahal na Datu!”
Nang dumating ang matandang manggagamot at ang tanod sa tahanan ng Datu. . .
“Magagawa ng matandang lalaki ang anuman na makagagaling sa kanya!” ang sabi
ng datu.
Sinuring mabuti ng matandang manggagamot ang maysakit. Pagkatapos ng
pagsusuri, nag-usap ang manggagamot at ang Datu sa labas ng kubo. . Tumawag ng
pulong noon din ang datu. . .
“Mga kalalakihang nasasakupan ng aking barangay. Makinig kayo sa akin. Maysakit
ang aking anak na babae at ang tanging hinihiling ko ay ang inyong tulong. Sundin ninyong
lahat ang mga tagubilin ng manggagamot. . . . upang magbalik ang dating lakas ng aking
anak.”
“Mga lalaki, dalhin ninyo ang maysakit sa malaking puno ng balite. Hukayin ninyo
ang lupang nakapaligid sa mga ugat, ang utos ng manggagamot.
“Gagawin naman ang iyong ipinag-uutos alang-alang sa pagmamahal namain sa
datu at sa kaniyang kaisa-isang anak na babae!”
Nagsimulang kumilos ang mga tauhan ng datu. Pinuntahan nila ang lugar na
kinatatayuan ng puno ng balite. Ang maysakit na anak ng datu ay isinakay sa duyan.
Hinukay ng ilang lalaki ang lupa sa paligid ng mga ugat ng puno ng balite. Nang ito’y
matapos.
“Dalhin ang maysakit sa kanal! Ang tanging makagagaling sa kanya ay ang mga
ugat ng malaking puno ng balite.” Buong ingat na inilagay sa kanal ang maysakit.
Ngunit sa di-inaasahang pangyayari, bumuka ang lupa. . .
“Ooooops, Aaaa. Ama ko, tulungan ninyo ako Ama. . .”
At babae’y tuluyang nahulog sa hukay ng ulap.
“O, Diyos ko. Ang aking anak. Ibalik ninyo siya sa akin. . . O, hindi! Ang aking
anak!”
“Huli na ang lahat, Datu. Siya’y patay na.!”
Sa ilalim ng ulap ay may malaking daluyan ng tubig. Gumulong sa hangin ang
maysakit bago tuluyang bumagsak ang kanyang katawan sa malaking daluyan ng tubig.
Nakita ng dalawang bibe ang pagkahulog ng babae.
“Isplas! Wasss! Isplas!
Nagmamadaling lumangoy ang dalawang bibe at mabilis na bumagsak sa likod nila
ang katawan ng babae. Sa kanilang mga likod namahinga ang may sakit.
“Kwak, kwak, kwak, kwak!”
At isang pulong ang idinaos.
”Ang babaeng kababagsak lamang mula sa ulap ay labis na nangangailangan ng
tulong. Kailangang tulungan natin siya.”
“Oo, dapat tayong gumawa ng bahay para sa kanya.”
“Lumundag ka, palaka, at dalhin mo ang dumi ng puno sa ibaba,” ang utos ng
pagong.
Sumunod ang palaka ngunit hindi siya nagtagumpay. Inutusan naman ng malaking
pagong ang daga. Siya ma’y sumunod ngunit nabigo.
Hanggang sa. . .
“Susubukin ko, ang kusang-loob na sabi ng malaking palaka.
Sa pagkakataong ito, ang lahat ng hayop ay nagsigawan at naghalakhakan, maliban
sa malaking pagong.
“Natitiyak naming hindi mo iyon magagawa. He-he-he! Ha-ha-ha.”
“Subukin mo, baka ikaw ang mapalad.”
Huminga nang malalim ang matandang palaka at nanaog. . . nanaog. . Sa wakas,
ang samyo ng hangin ay dumating at sumunod ang matandang palaka. Sa kanyang bibig,
nagdala siya ng ilang butil ng buhangin na kanyang isinabog sa paligid malaking pagong. At
isang pulo ang lumitaw. Ito ang naging pulo ng Bohol. (Kung susuriin ang likod ng pagong,
mapapansin ang pagkakatulad nito sa hugis at anyo ng Bohol). At dito nanirahan ang
babae. Nanlamig ang babae kayat muling nagdaos ng pulong. . .
“Kailangang gumawa tayo ng paraan para siya mainitan.
“Kung makaaakyat ako sa ulap, makukuha ko ang kidlat at makagagawa ako ng
liwanag, “ang sabi ng maliit na pagong.
“Gawin mo ang iyong magagawa. Marahil ay magiging mapalad ka.
Isang araw, nang hindi pa gaanong dumidilim, uminog ang ulap at tinangay ang
pagong nang papaitaas.
“Uww-ssss ! Brahos !”
Mula sa ulap, kumuha siya ng kidlat. . .
“Brissk ! Bruumm ! Swissss !”
Nabuo ang araw at ang buwan na nagbigay ng liwanag at init sa babae. Mula noon,
naninirahan ang babae sa piling ng matandang lalaking nakita niya sa pulo. At nanganak
siya ng kambal. Sa kanilang paglaki, ang isa’y naging mabuti at ang isa’y naging masama.
“Ihahanda ko ang Bohol sa pagdating ng mga tao.”
Ang mabuting anak ay gumawa ng mga kapatagan, mga kagubatan, mga ilog at
maraming hayop. Lumikha rin siya ng mga isdang walang kaliskis. Ngunit ang ilan sa mga
ito’y sinira ng masamang anak. Tinakpan niya ng makakapal na kaliskis ang mga isda
kaya’t mahirap kaliskisan ang mga ito
“Ano ang ginawa mo?”
“Walang halaga lahat ‘yan.”
“Walang halaga?”
“Bakit mo pinahihirapan ang iyong sarili sa paggawa rito? Hangal ka!”
“Inihahanda ko ang lugar na ito para sa pagdating ng mga tao.”
“Dito, dito’y wala tayong kinabukasan. Samantalang sa ibang lugar ay hindi ka
kailangang gumawa. Isa kang baliw ! »
Kaya’t naglakbay sa kaunlaran ang masamang anak. Dito siya namatay.
Samantalang ang mabuting anak ay nagpatuloy ng pagpapaunlad ng Bohol at inalis ang
mga masasamang ispiritung dala ng kanyang kapatid. Hinulma ang mabuting anak ang
mga Boholano sa pamamagitan ng pagkuha ang dalawang lupa sa daigdig at hinugis ang
mga ito ng katulad ng tao. Dinuran niya ang mga ito. Sila’y nabuhay.
“Ngayong kayo’y naging lalaki at babae, iniiwan ko sa inyo ang mga magagandang
katangiang ito: kasipagan, mabuting pakikitungo, katapatang kabutihang-loob, at
mapagmahal sa kapayapaan.”
Ikinasal ang dalawa at nagsama. Isang araw, kinausap sila ng mabuting anak.
“Narito ang iba’t ibang uri ng buto. Ibig kong itanim ninyo ang mga butong ito para
kayo matulungan. Gawin ninyong laging sariwa at magandang tirahan ang lugar na ito.”
Nang malaunan, ang mabuting anak ay lumikha ng igat at ahas katulad ng isda sa
ilog. Lumikha rin siya ng malaking alimango.
“Humayo kayo, dakilang igat at dakilang alimango saan mang lugar na ibig ninyong
pumunta.”
Sinipit ng malaking alimango ang malaking igat. Nagkislutan ang dalawa at ang
kanilang paggalaw ang lumikha ng lindol.
Ito ang dahilan kung bakit maraming alimango sa Bohol, maging sa lupa o sa dagat,
at ang igat na kaunaunahang nilikha ng mabuting anak. Gustong-gusto kainin ito ng mga
Boholanos. Hindi sila kumakain ng palaka dahil iginagalang nila ang mga ito. Hindi rin nila
kinakain ang mga pagong katulad ng ibang mga Bisaya kahit maaaring ihain ang mga ito sa
handaan.
3.) Irong Latagaw
daghan gapaniid sa imo;
sa matag oras
nga musuroy ka-
naay matang gabantay.
sa kada tao
nga imong gikaistorya-
naay kamot nga galista.
sa mga dalang
imong giaagian-
naay lit-ag nga gapaabot.
Ug parehas sa mga nangaging gabii,
naay gidakop ang mga gwardya
nga irong latagaw.
Gibukbok,
ang iyang ulo og kahoy
gisulod sa sako,
gikuyod ang lawas sa semento,
samtang mipatagaktak ang
basiyo sa kwarentay singko
hangtod nga ang iyahang tyabaw,
namahimong dugo nga
mibisbis sa yuta uban
sa pagkatag sa mga bakho.
Kinsa ang musunod?
Wala ka kabalo
nakalista na imong
pangalan isip usa ka
Irong latagaw!
4.) Sa 58, Unsa Pay Molukso?
Naa pay daghan dihang naglumpayat.
Pananglitan, ang ulan sa sandayong—
Ang liso sa iyang bayanan –
Ang itoy nga nagkiat –
Ang mananaog sa lumba –
Ang naghikog diha sa taytayan –
Si Inday nga mao pay pagkadawat
og sulat ni Undo –
ug ang kilatnong silaw gikan ni Buddha.
Makutlo sad gikan sa mga basahon, anaay duruha:
Ang baki ni Basho nga milukso
Human sa dakong kahilom
Diha sa dakong linaw
Nagpasiplat sa kalunhawng
Nakapulpog sa tubigong salamin.
Unya, naa sad diay si Sleeping Beauty
Nga nahaigking pagbangon
Ang iyang mga ngabil ug mata
Napukaw tungod sa anino
Sa usa ka malamatong halok.
Apan labaw sa tanan:
Human sa hamubong hulaw
Ang pinitik sa akong kasingkasing
Nagkadagma-dagma
Kay may balangaw ang imong mga mata
Bisan karon,
Labina
Karon.