Make Me The Liquid By Your Vase

By Nina Estrada Puyat Prometheus Unbound

I
Make me the liquid by your vase contained By Ruben Cuevas
Make me the clay that you would shape and mould.
Make me the puppet by your wish ordained,
The shadow and reflection of your world.
Make me the memory of your smile when this Mars shall glow tonight,
Is fled. The glimmer of your tear before
Artemis is out of sight.
They fall. The sigh suspended from a kiss
Conceived and born in your heart's inmost core.
Rust in the twilight sky
Let me be the music that your fingers play.
The instrument beneath your singing hands. Colors a bloodshot eye,
The echo of your voice, the midnight of your day,
The eddy following your soul's respnse. Or shall I say that dust
For, Love, I would be paint beneath your brush:
Distinct and yet united, we two at last. Sunders the sleep of just?

LII
I shall not yield although he storms my castle.
I shall not kiss him back although I tear Hold fast to the gift of fire!
My heart. I shall note let sound of his pestle
Pounding at my soul break through the mask I wear, I am rage! I am wrath! I am ire!
Betray the frigid treachery I dare.
The vulture sits on my rock,
I shall not let his seeking hands caress me.
He shall not touch this jet-black hair that is mine.
Licks at the chains that mock
He shall not see the prayer of eyes misty
With hunger, beggared yet unpleading, nor find Emancipations breath,
The initiated breasts' pubescent line.
The moon will set, but he and I will never Reeks of death, death, death.
Know each other. Chained to a vow once made,
In numb despair I shall deny him answer
And turn away: virtuous, pure and . . . dead.
Death shall not unclench me.
LIV
On one another yet we shall in time I am earth, wind and sea!
Set eyes, and I my sweet revenge shall gain,
For muffled tears that fell like prayer rain Kisses bestow on the brave
To still the clamor of a bell that chimed
That defy the damp of grave
Relentlessly within my haunted mind.
For all the humiliated shame that died
And strike the chill hand of
Over my love so ruthlessly denied
By your unfaithful heart of stone, I'll find Death with the flaming sword of love.
A brand to sear your memory, a way
To torture you again with sighs of lips
You well remember and of breasts and hips
Whose feel you knew but lost. I only pray
The vengeance that upon your soul I lay
Will not redound and break this heart of clay.
 Footnote to Youth

By 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.

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 not
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.
 The Flowers of May
Francisco Arcellana

is May again. It is still generally sultry but it has begun to rain in the afternoons and the
evenings are clear, the skies are of the utmost blue; new grass is breaking from the earth
everywhere.
It is specially pleasant in the afternoons after the rain. The air is clear and fragrant, the
sky has a new washed look, and everything looks clean and newborn.
Maytime makes me think of rain and flowers. It makes me think of my father and my
mother, my brothers and my sisters, the living and the dead. It makes me think of churches and
how it is inside churches on May afternoons.
Maytime is running in the rain and gathering sampaguita buds. It is Father standing by
the window, watching the rain, his grief for the dead Victoria deep and unspoken; and it is
Mother too standing beside Father, trying to share and understand that grief. It is Manuela and
Juaning and the dead Victoria and Peping and Narciso and Clara and Ting and Lourdes and Paz
and Gloria and Monserrat and Toni and even the dead Josefina and the dead Concepcion whom I
did not know. It is the church in Tondo and the chapel in Gagalangin and the churches in the
Walled City and the churches in Ermita and Malate and San Andres and Baguio and all the
places that I have ever been.
This is how it is inside churches in the afternoons in May: there are girls all dressed in
white. They wear blue girdles. They stand or sit in chairs arranged in two rows beneath the
church dome in front of the altar. The smallest are in front and the tallest bring up the rear.
They have reed trays filled with flowers: sampaguitas, camias, lilies, plenty of lilies; all the
flowers of May. They pray and sing. A woman in white wearing a blue girdle claps her hands
and the girls sit down. She claps her hands and the girls rise. The girls sing and then they dip
their hands into their flower trays and pick up fistfuls of flowers which they throw into the
middle of the aisle between them until the path is well strewn with petals. The path is meant for
the Blessed Virgin Mother to tread upon, the flowers are meant to receive the imprint of her
small white feet. The girls march up the altar and disappear into the refectory. Long after they
they gone you still hear their voices. The air is heavy with the scent of crushed petals.
I do not know why on May afternoons I should seek the inside of churches. Unless it is
because I like watching the flower festival; or because I like looking at girls all dressed in white
or because I like the pure chaste look of blue girdles; or because I like the sound of young girl
voices; or because I like to listen to singing, young girls singing; or because I like the sight of an
altar all decked with flowers, the flowers of May; or cause I like the cool clean smell of flowers
(a May afternoon inside a church is like a May morning anywhere) or because of all these things
together.
It is usually a different church each time. Before the war it was mostly the Lourdes
church in Intramuros. Now it is mostly the Pro-Cathedral in San Miguel. It is other churches
too. The young girls are the same, the voices are just as young, sweet, and innocent, and the
fragrance that of the same May morning.
It is surely not anything like what it is to my brother, Narciso, who has become a Catholic
priest. And it cannot be like what it is to my sisters, every single one of the seven of them, the
living and the dead Victoria. It is certainly not anything like what it was to the dead Victoria.
It is not anything like what my brothers know: I can't imagine Juaning doing it; I can't
think of Peping doing it either; Ting who is going to medical school wouldbut it would not be
at all the same thing; and Toni? Toni who is going to intermediate school? Perhaps Toni.
And I don' t know that it is anything like what father might have nown when he was
living; and Mother only does Father's wish. Father might have known it; if he did, it was surely
before Victoria diednot after, hardly after.
Maytime is an afternoon in May. The year is 1934. It is the year of Victoria's death. It is an
afternoon in May and Victoria has been dead two months.
Mother returns with the tea and the tea things (the green china) which she places on the
sideboard. She joins Father at the round table and admires the flowers.
"Lovely, aren't they?" Mother asks.
Father does not answer.
 When the girls appear they are dressed for church, their reed trays hanging empty from
their hands. They go to the sideboard, Mother pours the tea, they set their flower trays down on
the floor beside them and with a lot of sound and encouragement, from Mother " Don't gulp
it-down: tea is to sip and not to gulp"take their tea.
The girls pick up their trays and walk to the round table where the flowers are. Mother
picks up the tea things and carries them out to the kitchen. She returns; hover about the girls
who are gathered about the flowers. Mother does not look much taller than the girls or much
older-she may well be one of them. Fussing a great deal, the girls arrange the flowers in their
trays.
"What beautiful blossoms! What fresh and fragrant flowers! What lovely lilies!" Mother
enthuses.
The girls look up at Mother with bright pleased happy faces. "Take some of the lilies,
Mother," they offer.
"Take some of the lilies for our own chapel."
"Well, now," Mother says. "That is a sweet idea. Don't you think it is sweet of the girls to
offer me some of their lilies, Pepeng?" Mother turns to Father brightly.
Father does not say anything.
"I do not think I'll take some," Mother says. "I'll take three lilies, just three, only three
and no moreone from each of your trays. I shall take the least among your lilies."
MOTHER PICKS UP one lily and then another and then still another. She holds the lilies
in her arms as if they are a bride's bouquet. She carries the lilies to the family chapel built in
the cubicle that partially roofs the stairwell where an oil lamp burns all night and day before a
Holy Family-Mother stands before the graven group, the three lilies lying in her arms like a
bride's bouquet.
Father and the girls watch Mother's little play with what she calls the least among the
lilies.
Mother picks up one lily and places it to the right of the Holy family. She picks up the
second lily and sets it to the left. But when she picks up the third lily she hesitates: she does not
quite know what to do with the third lily.
The girls laugh at Mother's little impasse with the third lily. Father watches quietly.
Mother is a long time about the third lily. She falls into an agony over it. She holds it like
a candle in her handthe long stem secure against her palm, the green stalk caught between
her thumb and fingers, the lily leaning forward like a candleflameand does not know what to
do about it.
The girls finish their trays; they turn now to attend to Mother's contest with the lily.
Father stands silent watching Mother at her play. It does not look like Mother will ever be able
to resolve her little drama with the odd lily; no climax is in sight.
The girls pick up their trays, ready to go.
Mother is silent and still, in an agony over the last lily. The girls walk toward the stairs.
The sound of the rain on the roof has unaccountably stopped.
"Enough of this!"
Someone has suddenly spoken.
It is father speaking. There is a stridency, strange and urgent, in voice. The girls stop
where they are, halfway between the center of the sala and the stairhead, midway between
Father standing by the round table and Mother in the family chapel. "Enough, enough of this,"
Father says.
Mother hears but does not turn, she does not dare to turn. She is very still but not the lily
in her hand. She is very still but the lily is agitated in her hand.
'I have had enough," Father says.
Mother twirls the green stalk a long time before she realizes what she is doing. Then she
stills the lily, wills it to stillness, stills herself, wills herself to stillness that is very much like
death.
She turns and confronts Father.
"Enough of what, Pepeng?" Mother asks brightly. "What have you enough of ? "
"I won't have any more of it," Father says.
The girls are still and silent, in a shock of listening.
 "What would you have no more of ? " Mother asks.
"Do you think it is easy to watch your child die before your eyes?"
Father demands in a voice loud and unnatural.
"Do you think it is so simple to let your child die ?
" Father demands again.
"No Pepeng," Mother cries, her mouth a little parted as if she is in pain, her hand that
holds the lily rigid as if it is hurting her.
Father proclaims: "Victoria did not want to die!"
His grief had found utterance at last.
"Victoria did not want to die," Father reiterates. "I saw that she did not want to die.
" Mother cries, "No Pepeng, stop," but Father will not stop. Father will not be consoled.
"The flowers are gone. The flowers of May are gone. I saw that Victoria did not want to
die. There was nothing I could do. There was nothing one could do," Father says helplessly.
His grief is terrible and deep.
It is as terrible as the naked terror stark in Mother's eyes and deep as the new
knowledge and first and final and only wisdom that we have just now begun to share. So this is
death. So this is what it means to die.
And for the first time since she died and we buried her, we learn to accept the fact of
Victoria's death finally, we know at last that Victoria is deadreally and truly dead.
 Magnificence
By Estrella Alfon

There was nothing to fear, for the man was always so gentle, so kind. At night when the little
girl and her brother were bathed in the light of the big shaded bulb that hung over the big study
table in the downstairs hall, the man would knock gently on the door, and come in. he would stand
for a while just beyond the pool of light, his feet in the circle of illumination, the rest of him in
shadow. The little girl and her brother would look up at him where they sat at the big table, their
eyes bright in the bright light, and watch him come fully into the light, but his voice soft, his manner
slow. He would smell very faintly of sweat and pomade, but the children didnt mind although they
did notice, for they waited for him every evening as they sat at their lessons like this. Hed throw his
visored cap on the table, and it would fall down with a soft plop, then hed nod his head to say one
was right, or shake it to say one was wrong.

It was not always that he came. They could remember perhaps two weeks when he remarked
to their mother that he had never seen two children looking so smart. The praise had made their
mother look over them as they stood around listening to the goings-on at the meeting of the
neighborhood association, of which their mother was president. Two children, one a girl of seven,
and a boy of eight. They were both very tall for their age, and their legs were the long gangly legs of
fine spirited colts. Their mother saw them with eyes that held pride, and then to partly gloss over
the maternal gloating she exhibited, she said to the man, in answer to his praise, But their
homework. Theyre so lazy with them. And the man said, I have nothing to do in the evenings, let me
help them. Mother nodded her head and said, if you want to bother yourself. And the thing rested
there, and the man came in the evenings therefore, and he helped solve fractions for the boy, and
write correct phrases in language for the little girl.

In those days, the rage was for pencils. School children always have rages going at one time
or another. Sometimes for paper butterflies that are held on sticks, and whirr in the wind. The
Japanese bazaars promoted a rage for those. Sometimes it is for little lead toys found in the folded
waffles that Japanese confection-makers had such light hands with. At this particular time, it was for
pencils. Pencils big but light in circumference not smaller than a mans thumb. They were unwieldy
in a childs hands, but in all schools then, where Japanese bazaars clustered there were all colors of
these pencils selling for very low, but unattainable to a child budgeted at a baon of a centavo a day.
They were all of five centavos each, and one pencil was not at all what one had ambitions for. In
rages, one kept a collection. Four or five pencils, of different colors, to tie with strings near the
eraser end, to dangle from ones book-basket, to arouse the envy of the other children who probably
possessed less.

Add to the mans gentleness and his kindness in knowing a childs desires, his promise that
he would give each of them not one pencil but two. And for the little girl who he said was very bright
and deserved more, ho would get the biggest pencil he could find.

One evening he did bring them. The evenings of waiting had made them look forward to this
final giving, and when they got the pencils they whooped with joy. The little boy had tow pencils, one
green, one blue. And the little girl had three pencils, two of the same circumference as the little
boys but colored red and yellow. And the third pencil, a jumbo size pencil really, was white, and had
been sharpened, and the little girl jumped up and down, and shouted with glee. Until their mother
called from down the stairs. What are you shouting about? And they told her, shouting gladly,
Vicente, for that was his name. Vicente had brought the pencils he had promised them.

Thank him, their mother called. The little boy smiled and said, Thank you. And the little girl
smiled, and said, Thank you, too. But the man said, Are you not going to kiss me for those pencils?
They both came forward, the little girl and the little boy, and they both made to kiss him but Vicente
slapped the boy smartly on his lean hips, and said, Boys do not kiss boys. And the little boy laughed
and scampered away, and then ran back and kissed him anyway.

The little girl went up to the man shyly, put her arms about his neck as he crouched to receive
her embrace, and kissed him on the cheeks.

The mans arms tightened suddenly about the little girl until the little girl squirmed out of his
arms, and laughed a little breathlessly, disturbed but innocent, looking at the man with a smiling
little question of puzzlement.

The next evening, he came around again. All through that day, they had been very proud in
school showing off their brand new pencils. All the little girls and boys had been envying them. And
their mother had finally to tell them to stop talking about the pencils, pencils, for now that they had,
the boy two, and the girl three, they were asking their mother to buy more, so they could each have
five, and three at least in the jumbo size that the little girls third pencil was. Their mother said, Oh
stop it, what will you do with so many pencils, you can only write with one at a time.

And the little girl muttered under her breath, Ill ask Vicente for some more.

Their mother replied, Hes only a bus conductor, dont ask him for too many things. Its a pity.
And this observation their mother said to their father, who was eating his evening meal between
paragraphs of the book on masonry rites that he was reading. It is a pity, said their mother, People
like those, they make friends with people like us, and they feel it is nice to give us gifts, or the
children toys and things. Youd think they wouldnt be able to afford it.

The father grunted, and said, the man probably needed a new job, and was softening his way
through to him by going at the children like that. And the mother said, No, I dont think so, hes a
rather queer young man, I think he doesnt have many friends, but I have watched him with the
children, and he seems to dote on them.

The father grunted again, and did not pay any further attention.

Vicente was earlier than usual that evening. The children immediately put their lessons down,
telling him of the envy of their schoolmates, and would he buy them more please?

Vicente said to the little boy, Go and ask if you can let me have a glass of water. And the little
boy ran away to comply, saying behind him, But buy us some more pencils, huh, buy us more
pencils, and then went up to stairs to their mother.

Vicente held the little girl by the arm, and said gently, Of course I will buy you more pencils,
as many as you want

And the little girl giggled and said, Oh, then I will tell my friends, and they will envy me, for
they dont have as many or as pretty.

Vicente took the girl up lightly in his arms, holding her under the armpits, and held her to sit
down on his lap and he said, still gently, What are your lessons for tomorrow? And the little girl
turned to the paper on the table where she had been writing with the jumbo pencil, and she told him
that that was her lesson but it was easy.

Then go ahead and write, and I will watch you.

Dont hold me on your lap, said the little girl, I am very heavy, you will get very tired.
 The man shook his head, and said nothing, but held her on his lap just the same.

The little girl kept squirming, for somehow she felt uncomfortable to be held thus, her mother
and father always treated her like a big girl, she was always told never to act like a baby. She looked
around at Vicente, interrupting her careful writing to twist around.

His face was all in sweat, and his eyes looked very strange, and he indicated to her that she
must turn around, attend to the homework she was writing.

But the little girl felt very queer, she didnt know why, all of a sudden she was immensely
frightened, and she jumped up away from Vicentes lap.

She stood looking at him, feeling that queer frightened feeling, not knowing what to do. By
and by, in a very short while her mother came down the stairs, holding in her hand a glass of
sarsaparilla, Vicente.

But Vice nte had jumped up too soon as the little girl had jumped from his lap. He
snatched at the papers that lay on the table and held them to his stomach, turning away from the
mothers coming.

The mother looked at him, stopped in her tracks, and advanced into the light. She had been in
the shadow. Her voice had been like a bell of safety to the little girl. But now she advanced into
glare of the light that held like a tableau the figures of Vicente holding the little girls papers to him,
and the little girl looking up at him frightenedly, in her eyes dark pools of wonder and fear and
question.

The little girl looked at her mother, and saw the beloved face transfigured by some sort of
glow. The mother kept coming into the light, and when Vicente made as if to move away into the
shadow, she said, very low, but very heavily, Do not move.

She put the glass of soft drink down on the table, where in the light one could watch the little
bubbles go up and down in the dark liquid. The mother said to the boy, Oscar, finish your lessons.
And turning to the little girl, she said, Come here. The little girl went to her, and the mother knelt
down, for she was a tall woman and she said, Turn around. Obediently the little girl turned around,
and her mother passed her hands over the little girls back.

Go upstairs, she said.

The mothers voice was of such a heavy quality and of such awful timbre that the girl could
only nod her head, and without looking at Vicente again, she raced up the stairs. The mother went to
the cowering man, and marched him with a glance out of the circle of light that held the little boy.
Once in the shadow, she extended her hand, and without any opposition took away the papers that
Vicente was holding to himself. She stood there saying nothing as the man fumbled with his hands
and with his fingers, and she waited until he had finished. She was going to open her mouth but she
glanced at the boy and closed it, and with a look and an inclination of the head, she bade Vicente go
up the stairs.

The man said nothing, for she said nothing either. Up the stairs went the man, and the mother
followed behind. When they had reached the upper landing, the woman called down to her son, Son,
come up and go to your room.

The little boy did as he was told, asking no questions, for indeed he was feeling sleepy
already.

As soon as the boy was gone, the mother turned on Vicente. There was a pause.
 Finally, the woman raised her hand and slapped him full hard in the face. Her retreated down
one tread of the stairs with the force of the blow, but the mother followed him. With her other hand
she slapped him on the other side of the face again. And so down the stairs they went, the man
backwards, his face continually open to the force of the womans slapping. Alternately she lifted her
right hand and made him retreat before her until they reached the bottom landing.

He made no resistance, offered no defense. Before the silence and the grimness of her attack
he cowered, retreating, until out of his mouth issued something like a whimper.

The mother thus shut his mouth, and with those hard forceful slaps she escorted him right to
the other door. As soon as the cool air of the free night touched him, he recovered enough to turn
away and run, into the shadows that ate him up. The woman looked after him, and closed the door.
She turned off the blazing light over the study table, and went slowly up the stairs and out into the
dark night.

When her mother reached her, the woman, held her hand out to the child. Always also, with
the terrible indelibility that one associated with terror, the girl was to remember the touch of that
hand on her shoulder, heavy, kneading at her flesh, the woman herself stricken almost dumb, but her
eyes eloquent with that angered fire. She knelt, She felt the little girls dress and took it off with
haste that was almost frantic, tearing at the buttons and imparting a terror to the little girl that
almost made her sob. Hush, the mother said. Take a bath quickly.

Her mother presided over the bath the little girl took, scrubbed her, and soaped her, and then
wiped her gently all over and changed her into new clothes that smelt of the clean fresh smell of
clothes that had hung in the light of the sun. The clothes that she had taken off the little girl, she
bundled into a tight wrenched bunch, which she threw into the kitchen range.

Take also the pencils, said the mother to the watching newly bathed, newly changed child.
Take them and throw them into the fire. But when the girl turned to comply, the mother said, No,
tomorrow will do. And taking the little girl by the hand, she led her to her little girls bed, made her
lie down and tucked the covers gently about her as the girl dropped off into quick slumber.
 Call Me Flory
Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero