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

repay you? You made the coffin, you brought me here. I will have a lifetime paying you for all you have done. But it is my wish that you stay …”
    An-no dug his toe into the ground and mumbled something unintelligible.
    “Help me carry the coffin,” Istak asked his brother, and together they brought it to the cart. The few neighbors who had gathered in the yard had heard her wish, and to them she said, “God be with you, thank you for coming.”
    They drove out of the yard. Istak whacked the reins on the broad back of the bull and the cart dipped down the low incline onto the dusty path lined with dying weeds. The trip would take the whole morning and it would almost certainly be high noon before they would reach the cemetery. The brown fields spread around them. To their right, the Cordilleras seemed so nearthough they were at a far distance. Since he went to Cabugaw ten years ago, he had gone up these ranges every year during the dry season when the rivers were no longer bloated. Padre Jose always brought with them four of the best horses in the church stable. The old priest did not ride the best one; he reserved it for the tortuous trails to the land of the Igorots that lay beyond the narrow pass called Tirad. Istak had looked forward to these trips, to the rambling discourses of the old priest, to the meetings with the Igorots whom he finally got to know—and yes, to see them again—the bare-breasted girls who worked the narrow valleys and mountainsides, their arms tattooed, their bodies glistening with sweat in the sunlight.
    He carried the Iloko missal, the holy water, and candles; on their two-pack horses were their ration of water, some salt, sugar, hand-rolled cigars (which the old priest was addicted to), salted meat, rice, and their iron cooking pot. He soon learned the way so well, it seemed he had lived in this forbidden land all his life. He knew them, too, the Igorots, who did not harm them although his own people expected otherwise; the Igorots were savages—did they not kill strangers or one another when their tribal laws were violated?
    Now the mountains beckoned to him—if he could only flee this withered plain and lose himself up there close to the clouds where the air is so pure it made breathing such a pleasure. Maybe someday he would be able to go there again and forget what had happened, break out of the mountains into the valleys beyond. Dalin was beside him, and though he did not believe what his mother had said, she seemed to have cast a spell over him.
    The bull loped down the trail and the wheels hit a bump—a root of a tree. Briefly their arms touched.
    “Why did you not want them to come along?” he asked afterward.The village was well behind them, just a line of madre de cacao trees.
    She turned to him, her face determined. “I told you I would bury him anywhere. That is why it is just the two of us. Over there, at the bend of the river where An-no came upon us, beyond the clump of bamboo—no one can see us dig the grave there.”
    “But why there?” Istak asked, surprised. “It is not done that way, you know that.”
    “It was what he wanted. He knew he was going to die. Bury me, he said, where there’s water—the river, the sea. Any place where there is water, for water is life, too. Do you understand? And when we have buried him, then I will go. Far away to where his people are so that I can tell them. You will not even remember me then.”
    “But I will remember you,” Istak said. He wanted to add, “always,” but he held back. “You cannot travel by yourself now. You know how it is—by land, even by sea—the way is very dangerous. Unless you have companions. You know what I mean.”
    She nodded, not as if to acknowledge the truth of what he said but as if to accept the sorrow which she must bear. “But what can they steal from me?” she asked, expecting no answer.
    Istak did not reply. “You can stay with us,” he said much later. If she left, there would be