Footnote to
Youth
-Jose Garcia
Villa-
The sun was salmon and hazy in the west. Dodong thought to
himself he would tell his father about Teang when he got home, after he had
unhitched the carabao from the plow, and let it to its shed and fed it. He was
hesitant about saying it, but he wanted his father to know. What he had to say
was of serious import as it would mark a climacteric in his life. Dodong
finally decided to tell it, at a thought came to him his father might refuse to
consider it. His father was silent hard-working farmer who chewed areca nut,
which he had learned to do from his mother, Dodong’s grandmother.
I will tell
it to him. I will tell it to him.
The ground
was broken up into many fresh wounds and fragrant with a sweetish earthy smell.
Many slender soft worms emerged from the furrows and then burrowed again deeper
into the soil. A short colorless worm marched blindly to Dodong’s foot and
crawled calmly over it. Dodong go tickled and jerked his foot, flinging the
worm into the air. Dodong did not bother to look where it fell, but thought of
his age, seventeen, and he said to himself he was not young any more.
Dodong
unhitched the carabao leisurely and gave it a healthy tap on the hip. The beast
turned its head to look at him with dumb faithful eyes. Dodong gave it a slight
push and the animal walked alongside him to its shed. He placed bundles of
grass before it land the carabao began to eat. Dodong looked at it without interests.
Dodong
started homeward, thinking how he would break his news to his father. He wanted
to marry, Dodong did. He was seventeen, he had pimples on his face, the down on
his upper lip already was dark–these meant he was no longer a boy. He was
growing into a man–he was a man. Dodong felt insolent and big at the thought of
it although he was by nature low in statue. Thinking himself a man grown,
Dodong felt he could do anything.
He walked
faster, prodded by the thought of his virility. A small angled stone bled his
foot, but he dismissed it cursorily. He lifted his leg and looked at the hurt
toe and then went on walking. In the cool sundown he thought wild you dreams of
himself and Teang. Teang, his girl. She had a small brown face and small black
eyes and straight glossy hair. How desirable she was to him. She made him dream
even during the day.
Dodong tensed with desire and looked at the muscles of his arms.
Dirty. This field
work was healthy, invigorating but it begrimed you, smudged you terribly. He turned back the way he had come, then he marched obliquely to a creek.
work was healthy, invigorating but it begrimed you, smudged you terribly. He turned back the way he had come, then he marched obliquely to a creek.
Dodong
stripped himself and laid his clothes, a gray undershirt and red kundiman
shorts, on the grass. The he went into the water, wet his body over, and rubbed
at it vigorously. He was not long in bathing, then he marched homeward again.
The bath made him feel cool.
It was dusk
when he reached home. The petroleum lamp on the ceiling already was lighted and
the low unvarnished square table was set for supper. His parents and he sat
down on the floor around the table to eat. They had fried fresh-water fish,
rice, bananas, and caked sugar.
Dodong ate
fish and rice, but did not partake of the fruit. The bananas were overripe and
when one held them they felt more fluid than solid. Dodong broke off a piece of
the cakes sugar, dipped it in his glass of water and ate it. He got another
piece and wanted some more, but he thought of leaving the remainder for his
parents.
Dodong’s
mother removed the dishes when they were through and went out to the batalan to
wash them. She walked with slow careful steps and Dodong wanted to help her
carry the dishes out, but he was tired and now felt lazy. He wished as he
looked at her that he had a sister who could help his mother in the housework.
He pitied her, doing all the housework alone.
His father
remained in the room, sucking a diseased tooth. It was paining him again,
Dodong knew. Dodong had told him often and again to let the town dentist pull
it out, but he was afraid, his father was. He did not tell that to Dodong, but
Dodong guessed it. Afterward Dodong himself thought that if he had a decayed
tooth he would be afraid to go to the dentist; he would not be any bolder than
his father.
Dodong said
while his mother was out that he was going to marry Teang. There it was out,
what he had to say, and over which he had done so much thinking. He had said it
without any effort at all and without self-consciousness. Dodong felt relieved
and looked at his father expectantly. A decrescent moon outside shed its feeble
light into the window, graying the still black temples of his father. His
father looked old now.
“I am going
to marry Teang,” Dodong said.
His father
looked at him silently and stopped sucking the broken tooth. The silence became
intense and cruel, and Dodong wished his father would suck that troublous tooth
again. Dodong was uncomfortable and then became angry because his father kept
looking at him without uttering anything.
“I will
marry Teang,” Dodong repeated. “I will marry Teang.”
His father
kept gazing at him in inflexible silence and Dodong fidgeted on his seat.
“I asked her
last night to marry me and she said…yes. I want your permission. I… want… it….”
There was impatient clamor in his voice, an exacting protest at this coldness,
this indifference. Dodong looked at his father sourly. He cracked his knuckles
one by one, and the little sounds it made broke dully the night stillness.
“Must you
marry, Dodong?”
Dodong
resented his father’s questions; his father himself had married. Dodong made a
quick impassioned easy in his mind about selfishness, but later he got
confused.
“You are
very young, Dodong.”
“I’m…
seventeen.”
“That’s very
young to get married at.”
“I… I want
to marry…Teang’s a good girl.”
“Tell your
mother,” his father said.
“You tell
her, tatay.”
“Dodong, you
tell your inay.”
“You tell
her.”
“All right,
Dodong.”
“You will
let me marry Teang?”
“Son, if
that is your wish… of course…” There was a strange helpless light in his
father’s eyes. Dodong did not read it, so absorbed was he in himself.
Dodong was
immensely glad he had asserted himself. He lost his resentment for his father.
For a while he even felt sorry for him about the diseased tooth. Then he
confined his mind to dreaming of Teang and himself. Sweet young dream….
——————————————-
Dodong stood
in the sweltering noon heat, sweating profusely, so that his camiseta was damp.
He was still as a tree and his thoughts were confused. His mother had told him
not to leave the house, but he had left. He had wanted to get out of it without
clear reason at all. He was afraid, he felt. Afraid of the house. It had seemed
to cage him, to compares his thoughts with severe tyranny. Afraid also of
Teang. Teang was giving birth in the house; she gave screams that chilled his
blood. He did not want her to scream like that, he seemed to be rebuking him.
He began to wonder madly if the process of childbirth was really painful. Some
women, when they gave birth, did not cry.
In a few
moments he would be a father. “Father, father,” he whispered the word with awe,
with strangeness. He was young, he realized now, contradicting himself of nine
months comfortable… “Your son,” people would soon be telling him. “Your son,
Dodong.”
Dodong felt
tired standing. He sat down on a saw-horse with his feet close together. He looked
at his callused toes. Suppose he had ten children… What made him think that?
What was the matter with him? God!
He heard his
mother’s voice from the house:
“Come up,
Dodong. It is over.”
Suddenly he
felt terribly embarrassed as he looked at her. Somehow he was ashamed to his
mother of his youthful paternity. It made him feel guilty, as if he had taken
something no properly his. He dropped his eyes and pretended to dust dirt off
his kundiman shorts.
“Dodong,”
his mother called again. “Dodong.”
He turned to
look again and this time saw his father beside his mother.
“It is a
boy,” his father said. He beckoned Dodong to come up.
Dodong felt
more embarrassed and did not move. What a moment for him. His parents’ eyes
seemed to pierce him through and he felt limp.
He wanted to
hide from them, to run away.
“Dodong, you
come up. You come up,” he mother said.
Dodong did
not want to come up and stayed in the sun.
“Dodong.
Dodong.”
“I’ll… come
up.”
Dodong
traced tremulous steps on the dry parched yard. He ascended the bamboo steps
slowly. His heart pounded mercilessly in him. Within, he avoided his parents
eyes. He walked ahead of them so that they should not see his face. He felt
guilty and untrue. He felt like crying. His eyes smarted and his chest wanted
to burst. He wanted to turn back, to go back to the yard. He wanted somebody to
punish him.
His father
thrust his hand in his and gripped it gently.
“Son,” his
father said.
And his
mother: “Dodong…”
How kind
were their voices. They flowed into him, making him strong.
“Teang?”
Dodong said.
“She’s
sleeping. But you go on…”
His father
led him into the small sawali room. Dodong saw Teang, his girl-wife, asleep on
the papag with her black hair soft around her face. He did not want her to look
that pale.
Dodong
wanted to touch her, to push away that stray wisp of hair that touched her
lips, but again that feeling of embarrassment came over him and before his
parents he did not want to be demonstrative.
The hilot
was wrapping the child, Dodong heard it cry. The thin voice pierced him
queerly. He could not control the swelling of happiness in him.
“You give
him to me. You give him to me,” Dodong said.
——————————————-
Blas was not
Dodong’s only child. Many more children came. For six successive years a new
child came along. Dodong did not want any more children, but they came. It
seemed the coming of children could not be helped. Dodong got angry with
himself sometimes.
Teang did
not complain, but the bearing of children told on her. She was shapeless and
thin now, even if she was young. There was interminable work to be done.
Cooking. Laundering. The house. The children. She cried sometimes, wishing she
had not married. She did not tell Dodong this, not wishing him to dislike her.
Yet she wished she had not married. Not even Dodong, whom she loved. There has
been another suitor, Lucio, older than Dodong by nine years, and that was why
she had chosen Dodong. Young Dodong. Seventeen. Lucio had married another after
her marriage to Dodong, but he was childless until now. She wondered if she had
married Lucio, would she have borne him children. Maybe not, either. That was a
better lot. But she loved Dodong…
Dodong whom
life had made ugly.
One night,
as he lay beside his wife, he rose and went out of the house. He stood in the
moonlight, tired and querulous. He wanted to ask questions and somebody to
answer him. He w anted to be wise about many things.
One of them
was why life did not fulfill all of Youth’s dreams. Why it must be so. Why one
was forsaken… after Love.
Dodong would
not find the answer. Maybe the question was not to be answered. It must be so
to make youth Youth. Youth must be dreamfully sweet. Dreamfully sweet. Dodong
returned to the house humiliated by himself. He had wanted to know a little
wisdom but was denied it.
When Blas
was eighteen he came home one night very flustered and happy. It was late at
night and Teang and the other children were asleep. Dodong heard Blas’s steps,
for he could not sleep well of nights. He watched Blas undress in the dark and
lie down softly. Blas was restless on his mat and could not sleep. Dodong
called him name and asked why he did not sleep. Blas said he could not sleep.
“You better
go to sleep. It is late,” Dodong said.
Blas raised
himself on his elbow and muttered something in a low fluttering voice.
Dodong did
not answer and tried to sleep.
“Itay …,”
Blas called softly.
Dodong
stirred and asked him what it was.
“I am going
to marry Tona. She accepted me tonight.”
Dodong lay
on the red pillow without moving.
“Itay, you
think it over.”
Dodong lay
silent.
“I love Tona
and… I want her.”
Dodong rose
from his mat and told Blas to follow him. They descended to the yard, where
everything was still and quiet. The moonlight was cold and white.
“You want to
marry Tona,” Dodong said. He did not want Blas to marry yet. Blas was very
young. The life that would follow marriage would be hard…
“Yes.”
“Must you
marry?”
Blas’s voice
stilled with resentment. “I will marry Tona.”
Dodong kept
silent, hurt.
“You have
objections, Itay?” Blas asked acridly.
“Son…
n-none…” (But truly, God, I don’t want Blas to marry yet… not yet. I don’t want
Blas to marry yet….)
But he was
helpless. He could not do anything. Youth must triumph… now. Love must triumph…
now. Afterwards… it will be life.
As long ago
Youth and Love did triumph for Dodong… and then Life.
Dodong
looked wistfully at his young son in the moonlight. He felt extremely sad and
sorry for him.
