CHAPTER VII
SAN DIEGO AND ITS PEOPLE.
Not far from the shores of the Laguna de Bay lies the town of SanDiego, surrounded by fertile fields and rice plantations. It exportssugar, rice, coffee, and fruits, or sells them at ridiculously lowprices to the Chinese, who make large profits out of the credulityand vices of the laborers.
When the sky was serene and the atmosphere clear, the boys usedto climb to the very peak of the old moss and vine covered churchtower. And what exclamations they would utter when, from that highpinnacle, they looked out at the beautiful panorama that surroundedthem. There before them lay a great mass of roofs, some nipa, somethatch, some zinc and some made out of the native grasses. And out ofthat mass, which here and there gave way to an orchard or a garden,every one of those boys could find his own little home, his ownlittle nest. To them everything was a landmark; every tamarind treewith its light foliage, every cocoanut tree with its load of nuts,every bending cane, every bonga tree, every cross. Beyond the town isthe crystal river, like a serpent asleep on a carpet of green. Hereand there, its tranquil surface is broken by rocks projecting fromits sandy bottom. In places, it is hemmed in between two high banks,and there the rapidly rushing waters turn and twist the half-baredroots of the overhanging shade trees. But further on it spreads itselfout again and becomes calm and peaceful.
But what always attracts attention is a peninsula of forest projectinginto this sea of cultivated land. There can be found hollow-trunkedtrees, a century old, trees which die only when struck by lightningand set on fire. They say, also, that even in that case the fire neverspreads to any other tree. This old grove is held in a certain degreeof awe, for around it have been woven many strange legends. Of thesethe most probable, and consequently the least known and believed isthe following:
When the town was still a miserable group of huts, when weeds grewin abundance in the so-called streets, and deer and wild boar roamedabout at night, there arrived one day an old Spaniard. His eyes weredeep and thoughtful and he spoke Tagalog fluently. After visitingthe different estates and peddling out some goods he inquired forthe owners of this grove, which by the way, also contained severalhot water springs. A number of persons claiming to be the ownerspresented themselves, and the old man purchased from them the grove,paying in exchange some money, jewelry and clothing. A short timeafterward he disappeared, no one knew where.
His sudden disappearance made the people think for a time that hehad been spirited away, but later on a fetid odor was noticeablenear the grove, and some shepherds, upon investigation, found thebody of the old man in a badly decomposed condition hanging from thelimb of a baliti tree. When alive the old man had terrorized many byhis deep and resonant voice, his sunken eyes and his silent laugh,but now that he was dead, and a suicide at that, the mere mentionof his name gave the town women nightmare. Some of them threw thejewelry that they had bought from him into the river and burned allthe clothing, and, for a long time after the body had been buriedat the foot of the baliti tree, no one cared to venture near it. Allsort of stories became current about the haunted place.
A shepherd, looking for his flock, said that he had seen lights in thegrove. A party of young men, passing near the place, heard groans andlamentations. An unfortunate lover, in order to make an impression onthe disdainful object of his affections, promised to spend a nightunder the tree and to bring her a branch from its trunk, but on thenext day he was taken ill with a quick fever and died.
Before many months had passed, a youth came to the town one day. Hewas apparently a Spanish mestizo, declared himself the son of thedead stranger, and established himself in that far-off corner of theworld. He began to farm the land and devoted himself especially tothe cultivation of indigo. Don Saturnino was a taciturn young man,violent and sometimes cruel, but very active and industrious. Hebuilt a wall around his father's grave and, from time to time, wentall alone to visit it. A few years later he married a young girl fromManila who bore him a son, Rafael, the father of Crisostomo.
Don Rafael, from his earliest youth, was fond of farming. Under hiscare, the agriculture which had been started and fostered by his fatherwas rapidly developed. New inhabitants flocked to the vicinity, andamong them were a great many Chinese. The village grew very fast andwas soon supporting a native priest. After it had become a pueblo,the native priest died and Father Damaso took his place.
Still the grave and the adjoining lands were respected. At times,children, armed with sticks and stones, ventured to wander about,exploring the surrounding country and gathering guayabas, papays,lomboy and other native fruits. Then, all of a sudden, while they werebusily engaged collecting the fruits, some one would catch a glimpse ofthe old rope hanging from the baliti tree, and stones would be heard tofall. Then some one would cry, "The old man!" "The old man!" Droppingfruit, sticks and stones, and leaping from the trees, the boys wouldflee in all directions through the thickets and between the rocks,not stopping until they emerged from the grove, pale and panting,some laughing, some crying.
You could not say that Don Rafael, while alive, was the mostinfluential man in San Diego, although it is true that he was therichest, owned the most land, and had put almost everybody elseunder obligations to him. He was modest and always belittled hisown deeds. He never tried to form a party of his own, and, as wehave already seen, no one came to his aid when his fortune seemed tofail him.
Whenever Captain Tiago arrived in town, his debtors received him withan orchestra, gave him a banquet, and loaded him down with gifts. Ifa deer or a wild boar was caught he always had a quarter of it forhis own table; if any of his debtors found a beautiful horse, withina half hour it would be in the Captain's stable. All of this is true,but still when the Captain had his back turned they made fun of himand referred to him as Sacristan Tiago.
The gobernadorcillo [4] was an unhappy fellow who never commanded butalways obeyed; he never attacked any one, but was always attacked;he never ordered anybody, but everybody ordered him; and besides, hehad to take the responsibility for everything that they had commanded,ordered or disposed. The position had cost him five thousand pesosand many humiliations, but, considering the profits he made, theprice was very cheap.
San Diego was like Rome; not the Rome of the time of Romulus, whenhe marked out the walls with a plough, nor when, later, he bathedin his own blood and that of others and dictated laws to the world:no, San Diego was like the Rome of contemporaneous history, with thisdifference--instead of being a city of marble, monuments and coliseums,it was a city of sauali [5] and cock-pits. The parochial priest ofSan Diego corresponded to the Pope in the Vatican; the alferez [6]of the Civil Guard to the King of Italy in the Quirinal, but bothin the same proportion as the sauali or native wood and the nipacock-pits corresponded to the monuments of marble and coliseums. Andin San Diego, as in Rome, there was continual trouble. Everybodywanted to be the leading senor, and there was always some one elsein the way. Let us describe two of these ambitious citizens.
Friar Bernando Salvi was the young and silent Franciscan whom wementioned in a preceding chapter. He had even more of the customsand manners of his brotherhood than had his predecessor, the violentFather Damaso. He was slender, sickly, almost always pensive, and verystrict in the fulfillment of his religious duties as well as verycareful of his good name. A month after his arrival in the parishalmost all the inhabitants became brothers of the "Venerable ThirdOrder," to the great grief of its rival, "The Brotherhood of the MostSacred Rosary." His heart leaped with joy at seeing on every neck inthe town from four to five scapularies, a knotted cord around everywaist, and every funeral procession dressed in habits of guingon. Thesacristan mayor or head warden of the order made quite a little capitalby selling and giving away all those things considered necessary tosave the soul and overcome the devil.
The only enemy of this powerful soul saver, with tendencies in accordwith the times, was, as we have already stated, the alferez. The womenrelate a story of how the devil tried one day to tempt Father
Salviand how the latter caught him, tied him to the bed post, whippedhim with a lash and kept him tied fast for nine days. Thus he hadbeen able to conquer the devil entirely. As a result, any one whopersisted in being an enemy of the priest was generally considered aworse man than the devil himself--an honor which the alferez aloneenjoyed. But he merited this reputation. He had a wife, an old,powdered and painted Filipino by the name of Dona Consolacion. Thehusband and several other people called her by a different name,but that does not matter. Anyway, the alferez was accustomed to drownthe sorrows of unhappy wedlock by getting as drunk as a toper. Then,when he was thoroughly intoxicated he would order his men to drillin the sun, he himself remaining in the shade, or, perhaps, he wouldoccupy himself in beating his wife.
When her husband was dead drunk, or was snoring away in a siesta,and Dona Consolacion could not fight with him, then, wearing a blueflannel shirt, she would seat herself in the window, with a cigarin her mouth. She had a dislike of children and so from her windowshe would scowl and make faces at every girl that passed. The girls,on the other hand, were afraid of her, and would hurry by at a quickpace, never daring to raise their eyes or draw a breath. But say whatyou may, Dona Consolacion had one great virtue; she was never knownto look into a mirror.
These were the leading people of San Diego.
Toward the west of San Diego, surrounded by rice fields, lies a villageof the dead. A single, narrow path, dusty on dry days, and navigableby boats when it rains, leads thither from the town. A wooden gate,and a fence, half stone and half bamboo, seem to separate the cemeteryfrom the people in the town, but not from the goats and sheep of theparochial priest of the immediate vicinity. These animals go in andout to rummage among the tombs or to make that solitary place gladwith their presence.
One day a little old man entered the cemetery, his eyes sparkling andhis head uncovered. Upon seeing him, many laughed, while a number ofthe women knit their eyebrows in scorn. The old man seemed to takeno notice of these manifestations, but went directly toward a pileof skulls, knelt down and began to search among the bones. After hehad sorted over with considerable care the skulls one by one, he drewhis eyebrows together, as though he did not find what he was lookingfor, moved his head from side to side, looked in all directions,and finally got up and went over toward a grave-digger.
"Eh, there!" he shouted to him.
The grave-digger raised his head.
"Do you know where that beautiful skull is, the one white as the meatof a cocoanut, with a complete set of teeth, which I had over thereat the foot of the cross under those leaves?"
The grave-digger shrugged his shoulders.
"Look you!" added the little old man, bringing out of his pocket ahandful of silver. "I have more than that, but I will give it to youif you find the skull for me."
The glitter of the coin made the grave-digger reflect. He lookedover in the direction of the bone pile and said: "Isn't it overthere? No? Then I don't know where it is."
"Don't you know? When my debtors pay me, I will give you more,"continued the old man. "It was my wife's skull, and if you find itfor me----"
"Isn't it there. Then I don't know where it is," repeated thegrave-digger with emphasis. "But I will give you another."
"You are like the grave that you are digging," cried the old manirritably. "You don't know the value of what you lose. For whom isthis grave?"
"For a dead person, of course," replied the bad-humored man.
"Like a tomb! Like a tomb!" repeated the old man dryly. "You don'tknow what you throw out nor what you swallow. Dig! dig!"
At this the old man, who was Tasio, the village philosopher, turnedand started toward the gate.
In the meantime, the grave-digger had finished his job, and twolittle mounds of fresh, red clay were piled on either side of thegrave. He took some betel nut out of his broad-brimmed hat, and beganto chew away, looking with an air of stupidity at everything withinhis horizon.