Free Dusk: A Novel (Modern Library Paperbacks) by F. Sionil Jose Page A

we might prepare.”
    “He wants us to leave immediately, Father.”
    “One more year will not make a difference,” Ba-ac said. “We wall be able to bring along some chickens and we will be able to uproot this house properly. And your mother can weave some lengths of cloth. Don’t tell your brothers, or your mother.”
    “Let me come with you,” Istak said. I can speak his language—he wanted to add, but did not.
    “You stay here,” Ba-ac said. “I do not think the new priest likes you, else he would have retained you, is that not so?”
    Istak did not reply. His father had confirmed what had longlain in his mind. And yet it was so obvious in the manner with which the priest spoke to him, as if he were a mindless child good only for kitchen chores. As the new priest had said, he had had his fill of “
la sopa boba
.”
    The old man hurried to the house, and when he emerged he wore his white starched pants and white collarless shirt. He even seemed to be in good humor. “I will also ask him to take you back,” he said brightly.
    “He will not permit it, Father.”
    “I will beg,” Ba-ac said. “Beggars cannot be proud. I will get on my knees …” His voice trailed off.
    It was a long walk to town—a full three miles of April dust and a sun which bore down on everything. The catuday and marunggay trees along the trail were powdered with dust. At this time of the year, the frogs found refuge in the deep cracks in the earth, where they were sought and speared with barbed hooks.
    Ba-ac reached the town shortly before dusk had settled. Soon they would be indistinct—the grass-roofed houses in yards enclosed by bamboo fences, the old houses of stone with tiled, high-pitched roofs and sash windows—the homes of Cabugaw’s rich—and at the edge of town, the big church, its limestone walls painted creamy yellow, its belfry higher than any tree in the village. The streets were empty, save for a few stray goats and pigs. Near the church, across the wide plaza scraggly with dying grass, was Capitán Berong’s big brick house. His daughters were seated in the iron chairs on the wide lawn over which stood an old acacia tree, its trunk huge. The sisters would probably grow into spinsters unless they went to Vigan, or unless some rich trader came and saw them, for there were no young men in Cabugaw rich enough or intelligent enough for them.
    The churchyard was not yet cleared of the litter of the revelry which marked the new priest’s birthday, the palm leaf and banana wrappers of rice cakes, the orange peels and frayed paper wrappings of candies, the blackened remnants of rockets and firecrackers. At the door of the
kumbento
, a young acolyte was scrubbing the tile floor. He recognized the old man, so he let him in.
    How many times had he been here when Istak still served in the sacristy and yet had never set foot beyond the tile porch into the sanctum within. This massive building—his grandfather and his father had helped build it; they had fired the brick for its walls, and the lime that set the mortar, they had gathered it from the sea. He had seen the scars on his father’s back, what the bull-whip had etched permanently there, like harsh lines drawn by the harrow on the land, and though he was very young then, he could never forget, and remembering it, Ba-ac felt a loathing for the building slowly coil in him. He pushed the heavy wooden door and stepped into an alcove, dimly lighted by an oil lamp. In a while, night would engulf the town and soon, one of the acolytes would climb the belfry to toll the Angelus.
    Beyond the alcove, as the boy at the door had told him, were the stairs, and up the stairs of huge solid planks were the priest’s quarters, forbidden to all of them unless they were called. He went up the flight, apprehensive that no one had announced his coming. The walls were lined with heavy velvet drapes, broken only where a sash window was open to the oncoming evening. He was in a
sala
with