Asocena

Painting by Saudi

1) Title – Asocena

2) Author – Antonio Enriquez

3) Author’s Bio – Antonio Enriquez born and raised in Zamboanga City and educated at a local Jesuit school, Ateneo de Zamboanga –an all-boys institution then –is the author of several books of short stories and novels. He has been published in his homeland, the Philippines, and abroad. His short stories have been included in anthologies and translated into Korean and German.

It was his fearful and unforgettable experience in Liguasan Marsh in Mindanao that likely started his career as a novelist. Liguasan Marsh was the setting of his first novel, Surveyors of the Liguasan

Marsh, 1981. Other novels: The Living and the Dead, Giraffe Books, Philippines, 1994; Subanons, University of the Philippines Press, Quezon City, 1999; most recent work: Samboangan: the Cult of War, (epic novel), University of the Philippines Press, 2007.

However, his “happiest and memorable times” in his grandfather’s land in Labuan, 35 kms. northwest of Zamboanga City, and the last coastal village reachable by land from there, which prodded him to write about farmers, fishermen, and the rural folk. Labuan village is the setting of his

stories in the collection, Dance a White Horse to Sleep and Other Stories, 1977. The aforementioned novel and story collection were published by UQP Press, Queensland, Australia. Other short story collections:

Spots on Their Wings and Other Stories, Silliman University, Philippines, 1972; The Night I Cry and Other Stories, New Day Publisher, Philippines, 1989; The Unseen War and Other Tales from Mindanao, Giraffe Books, Manila, 1996; The Voice from Sumisip & Four Short Stories, Giraffe Books, Manila, 2003.

He is a much awarded writer, among the notable awards: UMPHIL –Writers Union of the Philippines –; University of the Philippines National Fellow for Literature lifetime award; S.E.A. Write Award; Hawthornden International Retreat for Writers Fellowship; and Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for the short story and its grand prize for the novel.

He and his wife Joy, with their five grandchildren, now live in Cagayan de Oro City.









ASOCENA



By Antonio Enriquez





Like most of the boys in Labuan, a coastal barrio in Zamboanga, Chu has a farm dog. He calls him Leal, which in the Chabacano dialect means loyal. Its always fun to watch Leal chase the big monkeys in the cornfield, for as the dog passes under the low branches of the trees on the slope of a small hill above the kaingin,swidden farm, the monkeys hanging by their tails from the low branches would reach out and pull Leals tail. This always enrages the dog and he would bark at the foot of the hill until the monkeys, bored, leaves for higher branches. Chu cannot think of anything funnier happening to a farm dog.

Early one morning Leal is missing, and Chu goes up to the kaingin to look for him. “Has you seen Leal, Pa?”

“No,” says his father. “I thought he was with you when I left the house.”

“I hope nothing has happened to him,” the boy says.

The father notes real worry in his son’s voice. His boy is taking it badly. Hes too young to worry like this. He says, “Maybe hes in the house.”

“Dont worry, Chu,” says the father. “Hes just around somewhere.”

“Does you think, Pa,” Chu says, “that anything has happened to him?”

Theres that worry in his voice again, the father notices. Chu looks bad trying to hide his worry, not knowing how to handle it. “Youre a big worrier,” he says. “Why doesnt you look for him at the river? He loves to flush those wild palomas,pigeons, along the river bank.”

The sun is still very young in the morning. Chu walks barefoot along the footpath, coming down the slope of the hill through the meadow in front of the house. The path is smooth and the dew is cool under his bare feet. He passes the house and goes around the back and on to the long bank of the river, his feet wet in the mud clay, and then goes up the river to a clearing below the woods where the wild pigeons comes down every morning. But the palomas is quietly feeding in the black sand, pecking at the small pebbles, lumping low and short-legged on the river bed. If Leal were here, he would come between them and the clearing, and once they flushes they would come whirring at him, some rising steep, others skimming by his head, before they angles back down into the brush. And so Chu goes on, around the clearing, taking the longer route back to the house.

At lunch Chu wont eat anything. He sits at the table staring at the food on his plate. He has that worried look again, the same one as at the kaingin, staring at his food without touching it.

His father says, “Doesnt you want to eat?”

“Im not hungry.”

“The tapa is wonderful.” The father picks up Chu’s plate, puts a piece of fried sun-dry venison on it, and, setting the plate down in front of the boy, he says, “You try it, hijo,son.”

Chus mother reaches for a knife on the table and cuts the venison into slices. Then she sets the knife down beside the meat. She says, “Try a tiny piece, Chu.”

“I doesnt want to eat anything,” says the boy.

“Chu,” says his father, “that isnt the way to talk to your mama.”

“Its alright, Ingo,” the woman says. “He didnt mean it. Did you, hijo?”

“No,” says Chu, without looking up from his plate.

“Whats really the matter, Chu?” the father asks.

“Nada—Nothing, Pa,” he says. “Nothing.”

“Go on, tell me,” says the father. “You can always tell your papa.”

Chu keeps gazing at the food on his plate. Hes trying hard not to cry, his face strained and looking sadder every minute. “They killed Leal, Pa.”

“Who killed your dog.?”

“Tomas and his friends,” Chu answers.

“No!” says his mother. “How could anyone be so beastly?”

“Theyre beasts!” says the boy.

“Is you sure of this?” says the father. He hasnt gone with the boy to search for his dog earlier that morning. He has thought nothing of it then. Anyway, the plowing of his kaingin has to be done first, for he has seen signs in the sky that told him the rainy season is coming earlier this year.

“Tomas always bragged theyd kill my dog for asocena,” says Chu.

“Oh, no!” Chu’s mother cries, imagining that maybe now the dog is already on someone’s plate as asocena,dog’s meat, cooked like Spanish casserole.

Chu springs up from the table, tilting over his chair, and runs out of the house. The farmer stands up, and his wife says to him, “Dont do anything rash, Ingo.”

“Ill just see if Chu is alright.”

His wife says, “Remember, Ingo, that you wont gain anything quarreling with that sort of man.”

Ingo walks out of the dining room, through the sala, and down the steps. He finds his son under the camias tree wiping his tears on his soiled shoulder sleeves. Poor Chu, he thinks. He doesnt look a bit like a boy of nine with that sad look on his face. Poor Chu. He has been waiting to cry since early this morning. Pobrecito Chu.

“Stop crying, hijo.”

The boy says, “I wants to go with you.”

“What——” says Ingo. Then he says, “Go with me? You means that … “

“Si, Papa.”

Ingo is quiet for a while. He cannot look at his son. “We will see Tomas later,” he says. But the boy starts to cry again, and that same sad look comes over his face and the small shoulders rises and shakes. So he says, “Bueno—Good. But you must stop crying.”

The boy says, “Ive stopped crying already, Pa.”

The two of them goes around the house and across a stream below the shed, where the river narrowes before it widens again and emptys into an inlet near the sea. Then they climbs over a fence, their feet wet and muddy, and through the coconut lot, coming out suddenly onto the long shoreline of the beach. Its a little after midday and the suns high in the sky. Already theres men drinking as the boy and his father passes the tuba-an,coconut wine stores, along the beach. The two o’clock autobus is parked in front of the tuba-an. The driver is waiting for the fishermen to come in with their catch, so he can take it to the city market.

Tomas Dayrit and some other men is drinking at a table by the window, with squat glasses of tuba in front of them. They has been drinking since early that morning, the half-empty plates of caldereta, casserole, beside them. Theres some fish buyers standing outside the tuba-an store, or sitting inside at the tables as they waits for the fishermen to bring in their night’s catch from the small islands of Balug-Balug and Sangbay.

Ingo goes into the store while the boy stands outside with the fish buyers by a window. When Chu sees the asocena on a table, his stomach turns but he bravely stands there by the window and waits for his father.

Tomas Dayrit says, “Does you wish an invitation yet?”

“No,” says Ingo. “I dont eat dog meat.”

“This isnt dog meat,” says Dayrit. “Its goat meat.”

“You cannot fool me,” says Ingo, going over to the table. “No matter how you cooked it, I can see its dog meat.”

Dayrit says, “Is you calling me a liar, Ingo?”

He is a huge man, dark and nearly bald, with broad shoulders, and his idea of fun is to get into a fight. Hes an Ilocano, one of the few who has come south to this small coastal barrio in Zamboanga.

The other men at the table has stopped drinking. Theys watching Chus father.

“I isnt calling you a liar, Tomas,” says Ingo.

“Wow, wow, wow!” says one of the men who sits by the big man, imitating a dogs bark.

“Then eat it,” says Dayrit.

“Youre not going to make me eat my own son’s dog.”

“What?” Dayrit exclaims. “What? What?”

The big man stands up from the table and, laughing quietly inside, his eyes becomes red coals in their sockets. He gets his glass of tuba of coconut wine, his hand going all the way around. He has big hands. And fighting to him is like a hot cup of black coffee steaming in the half-light of dawn.

The other men, sitting there at the table, watches Ingo like jackals.

“Alright,” says Ingo, “its goat meat.”

“Wow, wow, wow!” says the men at the table.

Ingo turns away and walks quickly out of the store. Hes very mad and goes out through the door without looking back. Dayrit sits back on his chair and his laughter rolls out from deep in his chest. The men at the table watches Ingo as he walks off down the long shoreline toward the inlet. They sees that he is very mad. They sees it in the way he walks, his heavy steps making imprints on the sand. In the meantime the boy who has followed the quarrel with his eyes goes down toward the autobus. He doesnt not follow his father to their house.

At home Ingo climbs the stairs, his feet heavy on the wooden steps. He walks into the sala, living room, and hooks his buri hat on a deer’s horn hanging on the wall by the window.

His wife is crocheting a doily in the sala. She is very fond of crocheting. “Whats wrong, Ingo?”

“I had a quarrel with Tomas,” he says. “The liar!”

“Dont say I didnt warn you,” his wife says, looking up from her work. The sunlight comes through the half-drawn curtains of the window and slants on the floor scrubs clean with water and rag. She puts her open hands in her lap, saying, “Ingo, you mustnt lie to me. Tell me, was you responsible for this quarrel you had with Tomas?”

“No,” he says. “He just wouldnt admit that he had killed Chu’s dog for asocena. Anyone could tell he was lying.”

“What did Tomas say?” his wife asks.

“He didnt say anything,” says Ingo. “He was only looking for an excuse to quarrel.”

“You know, Ingo, I really dont see how anyone can eat dog meat,” she says. “Its detestable!”

“Ilocanos dont think so,” says Ingo. “Theyll eat anything.”

“Ingo!” shrieks his wife. “Ingo, please dont say that of people. Not even of Tomas and his gang.”

“No?” says Ingo, recalling suddenly and very clearly how it had really been.

His wife replies, “No, it isnt good to talk that way.”

Ingo turns away from the window and takes his buri hat off the hook. He tramps across the length of the sala, putting his hat on as he passes through the door.

His wife picks up her crochet again. Her eyes flits for a moment toward the door and then returns to her work. Without looking up, she says, “Is you going out again?”

“Im going over to see `Ñor Pedro,” says her husband. “He promised me a puppy.” He walks to the porch and puts a hand on the wooden railing of the stairs. He doesnt look back, but he ceases walking and seems about to return.

His wife says, loud, fast, “Yous taking Chu along with you?”

“Si,” says Ingo doing down the stairs, the worn-out steps smooth under his feet, and on to the sandy ground. He finds the boy alone under the house. He says, “Doesnt you want to come along with me?”

“Ill stay here,” says Chu. He shuffls his feet on the sandy ground; as the dust lifts up around his shanks, it settles on his perspiring legs. It makes smudges of dark dirt on his brown limbs, like maps drawn recklessly in the dust with a finger or a stick. “Oh, Pa. Papa, Papa.”

I wishes his legs would stop sweating, his father thinks. But I cannot stop that just as I cannot bring back his dog for him. “What?” says Ingo. “Whats it, hijo?”

But Chu is quiet for a while, the beads of sweat running onto his feet. Then he says, “Never mind, Pa.”

“Is it about your dog, hah?”

“Yes, Pa.”

“Im sorry about it. Truly Im, hijo,” the father says. I wishes he hadnt been there, he thinks. I wishes to God he hadnt come along to see it.

Now Chu says, “Couldnt youve done something for him?”

“No,” his father says. “It was too late. No one could have done anything for your dog.”

Ingo cannot not look at his son as he speaks. Hes watching the boy’s feet, bare, wet, and baked with dust from the sand under the house. He notes that his son’s toenails is long and dirty.

“Ive a surprise for you, Chu,” he says. “Does you wish to see it?”

“Whats it, Pa?”

“Just come along, hijo,” he says.

The two of them goes down the walk and through the bamboo gate. The boy stops and closes the gate behind him. Coming down the dirt road, the father and the boy turns on to a footpath that cuts through the lawa-an woods. The path is full of pies de gallo grass, and on either side the thickets and the forest floor is covered with dry leaves. Walking along the soft and spongy path they climbs up a bluff, the small woody forest now behind them, and then comes around the slope until they sees the squat nipa—palm house on top of the hill.

“Howre you, Ingo?” says `Ñor Pedro.

With the nipa house behind him, `Ñor Pedro stands before a wooden, rope-twining contraption. It has a crude wheel to twirl soft rattan strands into persoga, a kind of heavy rope for trussing up carabaos and cows.

“Its well with me,” says Ingo. “And with you?”

“Igualmente...the same,” the other says.

Ingo sits down on a boulder beside the house, his muscles twitchy with the climbing. The boy goes on around the house to the orchard behind. `Ñor Pedro fixes the wheel with a bar, comes around the wooden contraption, and squats beside the farmer.

“I was to bring my crops down this morning,” says `Ñor Pedro, “but it became a little dark over the mountains. I was afraid it would rain.”

Ingo says, “It would be difficult to go up and down the hill when it rains.”

“O-o,” says `Ñor Pedro. “Youve to wait for a week until the way becomes dry.”

Chus father looks past Ñor Pedro and beyond the now-idle, rope-twining machine toward the orchard. He sees his son walking under the papaya and banana trees and down to the point of the granite ledge. The newly cut banana branches hangs like stumps, and their latex is still half-fresh around the ends. Below the ledge he knows is a deep ravine, and during rain the river bed would roar with water from the mountains.

With his neck stretched, its thick veins swollen like roots, Ingo shouts to his son, “Doesnt go out too far on the ledge, Chu.”

“Youre lucky to have such a buen hijo,” says `Ñor Pedro. “A good son.”

“Indeed, Im lucky.”

“I envy you very much, Ingo.”

`Ñor Pedro has no son of his own, a rare thing, for the people of the barrios is usually blessed with eight or ten children. Somewhere in the squat nipa house is his barren wife.

Chu’s father says then, “Thats why I came here.”

“Whats it?” `Ñor Pedro asks.

Ingo tells him, speaking slowly, although the veins in his neck swells as though he was shouting again to his son. “Im quite worried about him. Really, Im.”

“Es nada ... it’s nothing,” says Ñor Pedro. “Hes just a boy.”

“He must have been terribly hurt,” says Ingo, “when he saw his own father being bullied in front of Tomas and his barcada, gang.”

The other farmer, squatting on his wiry legs, says, “Maybe it wasnt as bad as you sees it now, Ingo.”

But Ingo shakes his head, then jerked it suddenly toward the farmer, and says, “Tell me frankly, Ñor Pedro. Does my son think Im maybe a coward? I means, because I didnt stand up to Tomas.”

“No, I dont think so, Ingo,” says Ñor Pedro. He pauses for a moment, shifts his weight to one leg, and his sinewy muscles ripples up his limbs. “But what can I do to help the boy?” He doesn want anything to hurt the boy. He knows that if he has a son he wont want him hurt.

“Could I now get the puppy you promised me?”

The two of them rises and walks around the house. Underneath, in a dust hole, the little puppies lies with their paws pressed against the bitchs swollen paps. Once in a while, their small, fluff-covered heads jerkes back as they makes suckling sounds with their tongues. Now the two farmers bends down under the low bamboo floor of the house. Ñor Pedro says, “The puppies are too young to wean yet.”

“Its important that I has the puppy now,” says Ingo. “You understands, of course.”

“Si,” says Ñor Pedro. “Maybe itll help the boy to forget, hah?”

“Hes a very sensitive boy, `Ñor Pedro.”

Then the father looking toward the orchard calls, “Oh, Chu, come over here. Ive a surprise for you.”

The boy comes over from the orchard. He goes under the house and looks down into the dust hole where the puppies is suckling.

Ñor Pedro says, “Which one does you want, Chu?”

The boy says nothing.

“Does you want that brownish one?” his father asks.

Still he says nothing.

Ñor Pedro leans down and takes one of the small puppies. The bitch rises, and the puppies hangs desperately on to her paps and some falls back into the hole. The bitch watches Ñor Pedro for a while and then lies down, and the puppies scrambles back and begins suckling again. Setting the puppy in the boys arms, `Ñor Pedro says, “Its a male.”

“Is they eating already?” asks Ingo.

“Not yet,” `Ñor Pedro replies. “You can give him milk with boiled rice.”

“Chu will take care of him,” he says. “Wont you, hijo?” Ingo passes a hand down the puppys back. The puppy is soft and small under his calloused hand. “Hes nice, no?” Then, “Say thank you to your tio, uncle.”

“Muchas gracias, tio,” says Chu.

Then the three of them goes back to the front yard, the boy following behind with the puppy in his arms. Ingo stands beside the empty cart in the yard. Behind it, Ñor Pedros carabao is tied to the scarred trunk of an old guyabano fruit tree. And beside the tree is old dung which is caked dry on the top and lies on the ground like tiny crusted anthills.

“You must come more often,” says Ñor Pedro. “And Chu, you also.”

“Si,” says the boy. “Ill come with Papa.”

“Come here any time you wants another puppy.”

Ñor Pedro smiles at the boy. But theres nothing in the boys face to tell whats now going on in his little head. He wishes he could help him.

“We will go now,” says the father. “Say good-bye, Chu.”

“Adios, Tio Pedro.”

“Takes good care of your puppy, Chu,” says Ñor Pedro.

“Yes,” says the boy. Still theres nothing in his face, not even in his voice.

The father and his son leaves the yard, smelling the fresh, warm dung, and then goes down the hill the same way they had come. Then the father feels it. He feels it, somehow, without the boy saying anything. He feels it while going down the slope and turning around the mountain and going easily down the footpath, as he feels the wind blowing on the top of the trees and down in the brush below the small forest.

“Doesnt you want the puppy Tio Pedro gave you?” he asks.

“Pa,” says the boy. “Papa——” and he stops speaking.

The farmer feels it again, now feeling it and hearing it clearly in his sons voice, quiet and soft, not even rising above a whisper. “Qué pasa—Whats it, hijo?”

“Is he a brave puppy?”

“Valiente—Brave?”

“Si, so when he becomes big he will bite Ñor Tomas.”

So thats it, Ingo thinks. The thing with Tomas Dayrit earlier this afternoon isnt yet over with him. All the time talking there with Ñor Pedro I thought it was all over, finished. But here its now, and how does you handle it?—saying, “Is you still thinking of your dog Leal, hijo?”

“Si, Papa.”

“Im sorry about it, Chu. Truly Im.”

Now they goes on without talking. Coming back seems to the father to take them much longer than going up. He wishes he could see his own house now. Then he hears the boy say, his voice seeming to come from a long way away, soft, still quiet: “Why didnt you fight him, Pa? Leal would have bitten Ñor Tomas if he knew he was going to harm us.”

“It wouldnt change anything,” says Ingo. “Fighting with Tomas wouldnt bring Leal back to life.”

“I wishes you had fought him though, Papa,” says his son.

The farmer Ingo is groping for the right words to say to his son, but before he can find them he sees their house at the foot of the slope. A gas lamp shines in the sala window. He quickens his steps, as though he is chasing the sun which is already low in the sky. When they reaches home, its already dusk, and he transfers the gas lamp from the window onto the middle of the dinner table. 

End