MAIKLING KUWENTO
Gold from the Fields
By Felicia Sanchez

THE GOLD is in the rice fields. He was only a boy when his father told him that, only eleven or twelve years old, but Mr. Cigres remembers the morning well.

Tatay was in the yard, sitting on a bamboo stool under the camachile tree. He was a thin, long-limbed man, but the muscles on his arms bulged thick from the sleeves of a shirt that was a size too small for him, and the trousers he had folded up to his shins revealed his stone-like calves. Nitong Cigres, a boy then, saw that his father held a notebook in one hand and a stub of pencil in the other, and the boy knew that Tatay was practicing his penmanship.

Tatay did not like to be disturbed, but the boy had no choice. He was already late for school. He crept near, yet his father remained oblivious to him, and he watched the thickly calloused fingers curled around the pencil, the steady, sinewy wrist as it guided the pencil across the paper. C-I-G-R-E-S. The name filled the page, because his father wanted to write it perfectly, with every arc and loop smooth and fluid. But the boy knew that Tatay's script would look even more beautiful if he would only buy himself a new notebook, for the paper in the old notebook was dark and coarse- almost like Tatay's skin, which was burnt and wrinkled from so many years in the sun.

For a minute the boy wondered if his father would have been fair-skinned like the men in the city if he had not been a farmer. If Tatay had not been a farmer, he probably would have become an architect or a draftsman. Tatay loved to draw. He had also been the smartest boy in his class, but his family had been very poor and as the eldest son he had had his duties…

A mild wind rose and the boy looked up at a shower of the camachile's thumbnail leaves falling in the sun. He watched the mottled shade dance under the pale-skinned tree, myriad shadows on his feet, on the ground, on Tatay's dark hands, until Tatay finally looked up and asked him what he wanted.

His reply was inaudible but his lips mouthed "pera ho," and so Tatay put the notebook and pencil down, stood up and gestured to the boy to follow him. Instead of going into the house, however, they walked on the dirt road leading to the rice fields, and they stopped only till they reached the pilapil that marked one end of their family's paddies. Under the late morning sun, the field seemed to heave and swell like a great shining lake.

Father and son were quiet, the former out of habit and the latter out of customary reverence. He had developed this humility towards his father early, because Tatay was not someone with whom he could talk about school, the new drama on the radio, or the captivating serialized novels in Liwayway. But in the silence the boy thought not of radio and magazines but of more valuable, vaguely disturbing things, like the time Tatay had tried to teach him how to plow, managing only to make deep, slightly crooked furrows in the ground- plowing imperfectly; of his cousin Enteng, who was his age, and who did not go to school that year to help Tatay and the other farmers watch over the paddies; of his elder brothers, whom their parents sent to Manila to take up courses in the universities, only to return after a number of years with their courses unfinished and their hearts arrested by attractive, extravagant girls. That was how the frail shoulders of Tatay's young men had shrugged off the harvests reaped by the scarred, sun-cracked hands.

A low rumble rose from Tatay's throat, and the boy cast him a furtive glance. Tatay puffed up his bony chest with a deep breath, as if inhaling the whole, solid fragrance of earth and ripening grain, and as he exhaled he said: The gold is in the rice fields, Nitong. You cannot want anything else.

The boy stared out at the fields. The rice stalks were taller than he was, and they nodded to him under the weight of the grain. The fields rippled in the breeze and shimmered in the sun; soon it would be harvest time, and their house would again be filled with sacks of rice that bent the bamboo slats of the floor.

Tatay, I would like to go back to school, the boy said while sweat formed on his brow, for the sun sweltered him.

I gave you twenty pesos last week.

Ay siya,Tatay, you remember that was for the chickens? On Saturday I will go with Enteng and the others to Agoncillo, we have many buyers there and we will sell the chickens, we will earn a lot, Tatay, but Tatay, for now-

Heh, his father coughed, and spat. Your mother has spoiled you.

The boy glanced up as a small flock of maya flew past. From somewhere in the fields a clattering sprung up and pierced the open-air quiet. He knew it was his cousin Enteng using the pagakpak to scare away the birds, swinging the bamboo clapper so vigorously that it snapped and crackled like firecrackers.

The maya flew off and the clattering stopped. Then Tatay spoke in a voice that puzzled his youngest child.

When you finish college, Nitong, I will give you something very special.

The boy wiped the sweat from his nose as he sat down on his haunches, twisting in his dusty slippers to balance himself. A needle of grass brushed against the side of his heel and he scratched there distractedly. He looked up at his father who seemed very tall standing there beside him, his frame a glowing shadow against the wide sky, his height soaring up to the bluest, brightest point in the shining air, so that the boy had to squint and rub his eyes.

Soon the sun reached its zenith, slept beneath the skyline of villages and then scaled the eastern mountains the next morning: in this way do days grow into weeks and months and years, the seasons moving faster than thumbnail leaves swirling in the sun, swifter than the maya flying above rice stalks yellow with grain. Three decades pass this way, and Mr. Cigres, remembering, feels that it has taken him less than a moment to age.

AND STILL it has been too long, Mr. Cigres sighs. He raises his head distractedly towards the booth where his son Jun is using the ATM, but the noonday sun burns on the glass door, and he turns away. He presses his fingers down on his eyes, and then almost involuntarily he smiles, because there are so many occasions he can recall in detail: graduating from grade school, high school and college, the time he passed the board exams and became a CPA, that awesome day his mother cooked a feast, the whole village celebrating with him, and his father gave him the promised gift- yet all he can think of now is that late morning when he was eleven or twelve years old.

That time, that morning by the fields, he thought of what it was that Tatay was going to give him. While the fields glowed under the light of the sky he thought of the sawali wall in his parents' bedroom: once, he had seen Nanay reach behind a flap in the wall and take out a tiny carton box; she had started when she noticed him peering through the door. She called him to her side, a sheepish grin on her face, and as she opened the box in front of him, she said, "I like to look at it sometimes, Nitong, to see, to make sure it still sits, waiting..." And then he had seen the thick gold ring, its purplish stones glinting in the room's shallow light. By the rice fields, sitting at Tatay's feet, he imagined how the stones would dazzle, how the gold band would glitter, drenched in the envy of the blinding sun. He thought then that the ring would shame the layered radiance of both the sun and the rice fields, even though it had been the harvests that had given his father the money in the first place.

It had been Tatay's decision to spend some of his savings on the ring. Nanay had been surprised because Tatay never bought jewelry, not for anyone. But once, when only the eldest son was in college and finishing seemed imminent, Tatay had gone to town and bought the ring from a traveling merchant. Tatay told Nanay, as he placed it slowly behind the sawali wall, that it was a token for the future. The ring would see sunlight soon, for the eldest son was near graduation- but years passed and after a succession of sons, the ring still sat, waiting, even as Tatay sought to forget it.

And so, beside the rice fields, when his father made the promise and Nitong realized what the gift could be, the boy tried to stare up at the sun and almost saw the gold ring, its purplish stones all afire.

Now Mr. Cigres sees in his mind the boy squatting on the pilapil, and beside him, the father looking out at the rice fields. Mr. Cigres dwells on the glowing image, searching for something he is yet to understand. He knows it is not so much the family's jewelry that gives him pause but the promised gift, Tatay's gold ring. The ring is his now -yes, given on the day they celebrated his passing the board exams too many years ago- but even as he feels that what he might have to do is almost unforgivable, he must remember that the ring is his.

(To be continued in the next issue.)

For comments and reactions to this article, please visit Tinig.com Forums.