UNIT 4 + EXPLORING FILIPINO TRADITIONS. THE WHITE HORSE OF ALIH Mig Alvarez Enriquez ‘Alih moved along with the crowd which flowed like a river to the edge of the town where the big parade was to wind up. The town was made up of a hodge-podge of races—brown, yellow, and white, brown-yellow and brown- white; and its culture was a mixture of Malay, Spanish, Chinese, and American. Alih was brown, but he did not feel he belong d in the town. He walked its concrete sidewalks, strolled on its wooden-planked wharf, rode its pony-drawn rigs, drank the fermented coconut juice, the #uda, and ate pork in its restaurants like a Christian; still, he felt he did not belong. Alih lived in the village across the river on the edge of the sea where the nipa-thatched houses were perched on posts above the water; where the women sat in rows on the bamboo cat-walks combing their long, glossy hair, chewing betel nuts, or gossiping; where the children played naked on the beach all day; where the men came home for the night smelling of fish from the open sea of the market place; for Alih was a Moro, a non-Christian, and today he felt all the more alien to the town because he was there to kill! The day was the Fourth of July, the big American holiday that the town celebrated with a huge parade followed by cockfighting, pony-racing, hog catching, pole-climbing, and dancing in the streets. Nobody within reach of the town would miss the great spectacle. Nobody who could walk, ride, or crawl would be left out of the fun, Nobody cared about Alih. Nobody knew he was in town, sworn to kill- not the men who had wronged him and his brother Omar- but any and everyone he could until he was killed. As he moved with the crowd he felt pushed and pulled one way and another. It filled him with resentment, but he locked his jaw and damned his feeling. His time had not yet come: ‘The heart beat down on him and drew the sweat from the pores of h:> lean hard body, soaking the light, white cotton shirt he wore. When he came to an acacia tree spreading its branches across the ditch on the roadside, he broke out of the crowd and took refuge in its shade. But soon after, hunger began pinching his stomach. All week long he had prayed and.fasted. From new moon to full moon, he had not eaten a grain of rice, nor drunk a drop of water under the watchful eye of the sun. What little he ate and drank he did under cover of night. 127ee PHIIPRJNE LITERATURES: TEXTS, THEMES, APPROACHES. Gathering saliva in his mouth he swallowed a goblet of it to relieve his insides. Before the sun was up this morning, he had risen with his brother Omar and together they had slipped naked into the sea and washed their bodies clean of all impurities-even the heady smell of the gil in Balete who had shared his mat and sheet. He had gloried in her smell, but the memory of it was all that was necessary to urge his blood to thicken and his flesh to grip hs bones with passion and give him courage to die-and live forever in the arms of a woman! ‘As Omar and he were shaving the hairs of their groins preparing themselves for burial, he thought of nothing else but the beautiful maiden of undefiled body that Omar said would be his in paradise! Would she have blue-black eyes and a litte black mole on a cotner of her south fike Fermina, the Christian girl who served drinks atthe night market by the dock? Or would she have brown eyes and corn-silk hair like the wives of the ‘Americans who lived in the big houses acsoss the river? Ah, she must be lovelier by fas. His body had to be clean, very clean for her. He rubbed his skin with a small round stone until he almost bled, and then poured fragrant water where he had scraped the hairs off: Not a stubble of hair was on his arms, nos on his chest, not on his loins, When he sallied into town he was as clean as an infant just out of the womb, but now the sweat was running grimily down his armpits. He could feel it gathering around his waist and trickling down his crotch. Now his flesh ‘was stinking like cotting dey fish, fouler than the carrion of pork-eaters! Suddenly little knots of cold began to climb behind his knees. Would he falter and fail? Would fear overcome him? No! His scrotum was firmly bound at the roots and his genitals heid fast with a white loin cloth against his groin. ‘A man could not be afraid, Omar said, if his testicles could not withdraw inside the body. He was just a litte tired. He could have drunk the stronger tuba baja to keep his body hot, but the drink would make his breath foul to his Aowri and (Ommar would semell it roo and think he had been afraid, Perhaps, he should have bound his legs and arms tightly with copper wires as Omar said the sworn Killer, or juramentades, as the Christian called them, had done ia ancient times to keep their lesh turgid and their blood thick. The man Sampang, a mountain warrior, had defied a whole squad of soldiers and had continued to kill with forty bullets in his body! Alih's hand moved stealthy to the slit under the double folds of his wide silk pants which he wore wrapped around the waist under a heavy leather belt. His fingers closed around the hardwood handle of the sheathed long blade that ‘was strapped to the inside of his left leg. The feel of the weapon's handle in his grasp sent the blood rushing back into his limbs. No, he was not aftaid! He needed neither drink nor leg bands! He wished he could kill the man who had esUNIT 4 + EXPLORING FILIPINO TRADITIONS dispossessed him and his brother of their goods but he did not know who they were. Only killing men of their kind, men of their faith, would atone for the crime that had put them to shame. Their blood would wash off the resentment he felt and cleanse his spirit for his reward in heaven! ‘The Imam, the village priest, had tried to dissuade him and his brother. “It is wrong to kill,” the old man had said as he sat facing them on his prayer rug in the large boat, which was his house. His voice rang in Alih’s ears like a shell hom sending signals to the sailboats on the sea-faint unsteady, pleading, not compelling. “The prophet did not teach it.” But Omar had whispered in his ears, “He is getting old in the head. We cannot listen to him.” ‘The shrill blast of a whistle somewhere down the road jarred his thoughts and awoke his senses. Two men wearing sun helmets started pushing the people to the sides of the road. Alih’s hand released his weapon. His blade was true. He had tested its edge on the nail of a thumb. He had worked on it all week long while keeping the fast. His blade would not fail him. But it made him hungrier. He had had nothing to eat or drink since daybreak. During the week he had kept himself from thinking about food by working on his blade, by watching it grow keener, whiter and whiter. Now that he did not have to work on the blade, he was hungry, very hungry. His mind was accepting death, but his body was rebelling. By Allah, he wanted to eat. His hunger was like an octopus in his middle extending tentacles to his throat, to his limbs, to his brains. Struggling with his hunger he leaned against the tree to stay on his feet. ‘The band going by made uproarious sounds like the rattling of empty cans. ‘The clangor perked him up momentarily. A group of girls dressed in white and wearing veils with red crosses on their foreheads walked by talking loudly, beating Paper flags in the air. When the band stopped playing, the clatter of the girls’ wooden shoes rose maddeningly over the rattle of their flags and the sound of their voices. Now was the time, Alih thought. It was torture to wait longer. But where was Omar? He was to come from the village and join him here under this tree. They would make the attack together. They would be killed together, and together they would ride their white horses to heaven. He pushed back the black round fez on his head and unbuttoned his shirt to the waist uncovering his hard-fleshed chest to the breeze. He must not look dangerous, he must not arouse suspicion in any way, Omar had cautioned him emphatically. 7 Wiping his low forehead and high cheek bones on the sleeves of his shirt, he leaned back against the acacia tree looking like one whose only concern was his physical comfort in the stifling weather, Nobody watching him would have 129PHILIPPINE LITERATURES: TEXTS, THEMES, APPROACHES known that underneath his calm exterior his body was alive to the hair roots, and his mind was counting the seconds like a stop watch. His disguise was perfect. ‘The uncropped hair of his head that showed in wisps under the fez curled about his ears like a schoolboy’s. There was nothing uncommon about his face. He had not plucked off the eyebrows as the traditional sworn killers of old had done. Omar had said that they did not have to wear the mask of death on their faces. ‘They had not taken the oath to kill before a datu. The datu, Omar said, was bound by law to notify authorities and the authorities would post men with guns and clubs all over the town wherever the people gathered-in schools, in market places, in churches, in plazas. The town would be awake at all hours, and the men would carry weapons strapped to their waists when they went out in the streets. They would keep the women and the children in their houses and would be ready to jump upon any suspicious-looking Moro at the barking of a dog, or the slamming of a door. Once when a dog had fought with another over a bone, an innocent Moro was clubbed to death. A sworn killer today would not stand a chance to kill if he followed the ritual of the past. No, neither he nor his brother Omar would be caught and thrown into jail before they could use their blades. By the sun, the all-seeing eye, they would not be outwitted this time! A clatter of hoof shook the crisp noon air. A horse came galloping down the road. The horseman wore polished boots that reached to his knees. His shirt was tight on his body, and across his chest was a band of glittering ornaments like the metal caps of beer bottles. The man sat on his horse like the Son of Zorro, whom he had seen many times in the movies. Shouting orders to a group of boy scouts to help the policeman push the crowd back, the man spurred his horse ahead of the parade in the direction of the plaza. Alih’s eyes followed the horse with feverish intensity. Soon he would be on a horse himself. And his horse would have wings like the horse on the billboard at the gas station near the ice-plant just outside the town. It would have a silver mane and a silky flowing tail, its body and legs as white as milk fresh from the udder. Omar had said that that was what the prophet had promised to the faithful—a white horse to ride to heaven, and as many chaste damsels or houris as the number of infidel heads he could lay before Allah, ‘The harsh voices of women shouting invectives as the boy scouts who were pushing them back and the angry shrieks of children who had fallen into the muddy ditch along the toad failed to claim his attention. A barefoot boy peddling ice cream in a box ringing a bell close to his face did not succeed either. For Ali's fancy had captured his white horse and already he was covering it with a caparison of gold making ready to set ff on his journey. Would he look as good on his stallion as the man on his? “Your body bends in long segments, and you are 130UNIT 4. + EXPLORING FILIPINO TRADITIONS fall of sinews,” Omar had told him. “You are like a beautiful colt yourself!” Omar new all about horses. He had worked at the stables of the datu of the village and had even driven a calesa, He, Alih, had never ever gone close to a horse. “Stay away” Omar had shouted at him every time he came closer to a horse. “Tt will kick you, it will kick you!” fhe had only learned to mount! All he had ever ridden was a wooden horse sna merry-go-round. An expression of joy admixed with pain swept across his face. He had ridden beside Lucy! Lucy was the litle girl in the reservation across the river where the Americans tived. She was all white and pink and gold, like the dolls in the cardboard boxes on the shelves in the Japanese toy stores in town. He had come upon her one morning in the guava bush where she was playing with some shells. Hewasin firstgradein school then, learningtto read and write. He remembered he had trouble with the little black bugs called words. He could not make with his mouth the strange sounds that matched the words in the little red book. He had not wanted to go to school, but a policeman had come to the village and had spoken to the davu, and the dat of the village had told Omar that his litle brother would have to go to school. “The school was across the river on the other side of the town. There was no bridge spanning the river. The Moros were not allowed to set foot on the reservation, To go into town, they had to use their vintas and anchor behind the ‘tone breakwater at the foot of the government dock. Paddling was very tiresome for a little boy like Alih, so he would swim across the river to the stone steps behind the big grey house with the big wire nets on the windows, One day he came upon a litle girl. He was so frightened that he dropped his clothes which he had held in a bundle above his head and leapt back into the river’The litle gir] picked up his clothes and ran to the stone steps holding them put to him, She called to him like a datu’s daughter, and he found himself doing her bidding, Cupping himself with one hand, he swam close and stretched out the other hand for his bundle. When he came back that day, he wandered hlong the beach and picked up the prettiest shells he could find. He strung them together and left them on the stone steps of the house. When he returned in the afternoon, the shells were trone, But the little girl was never there again. One afternoon, though, many days Tater, he saw her with her maid,a Christian girl, at the fair. He had been blacking boots earlier in the day and his pocket was heavy with coins. He emptied his pocket to the man seated on a crate at the gate and then climbed on the horse next to the girl. He looked at the girl only from the comers of his eyes. He was afraid the maid would move her to another house if he showed any interest in 131PHILIPPINE LITERATURES: TEXTS, THEMES, APPROACHES her. Bat the little girl had recognized him and began to talk to him. He did not, understand a word she said, but he pretended he did by laughing. He felt very proud riding beside her. He wished everybody could see them laughing together. ‘They went round and round to the rhythm of the cymbals and the measured beats of a drum. When he was up, she was down. When he was down, she was up. He felt very light—like a piece of cotton in the air.'The servant girl who stood behind the little girl holding her to the horse had called her Lucy! In the evening he had no money to show Omar for his work during the day. Omar made him drop his pants and lie on his stomach on the floor. “This will teach you not to spend your money foolishly,” he said as he gave him three lashes with his leather belt. He could only squat to eat his supper that night, his flesh felt raw, but he was strangely happy. A company of khaki-clad men were walking down the road, their heavy leather shoes pounding the macadam pavement in unison. The rifles on their shoulders held naked steel blades that glinted in the sunlight. As they swung past him they looked to him like skeletal fingers, marking him for death. His hand instinctively sought the handle of the weapon between his legs again. He raised himself on his toes and looked over the heads of the crowd. He could not see Omar anywhere. Suddenly he felt the little knots of cold behind his knees again. He knew that Omar was reckless and without fear. Omar was quick with his fists when the little scar on his right eyebrow turned livid. But where was he? Had he betrayed himself and been taken? Omar would not be taken without a fight. He had warrior blood in him although he had lived like a sea rover and fished for a living. Omar had been with their father and uncles in the big fight at the cottas in the mountains of Jolo a long time ago. ‘Their father had been accused of killing a man he had not killed and the men who were working for the American governor had wanted to put him in prison. ‘Their father had sent word that he had not killed the man, but the soldiers would not honor his word. They had had no respect for him although he had been to Mecea and was a hadi of his village. They had wanted him to submit to the judgment of the Americans. Their father had taken his family to the old stone fort that their grandfather had taken from the Spaniards and there had made his stand. Omar had helped to dig pits at the foot of the hill around the fort. They drove sharp stakes in the ground and covered them with vines in the same way that they trapped the wild boar that came to eat the rootcrops in the clearing at the outskirts of the village. ‘The black of Omar's eyes had closed to points like heads of pins when he told him the story. “Everyone perished except our mother and me," he had told Alih, his words sounding like pebbles dropping from his mouth. “But you should have 132UNIT 4 + EXPLORING FILIPINO TRADITIONS seen how the government soldiers were killed,” Omar had exalted. “They looked like pigs on the spit that the Christians roast to eat in their fiestas! You were there, too, Alih, but you did not see what happened because you were asleep in the body of our mother.” Alih had often wished he had not been asleep in the body of their mother when it happened. He had never been in a real fight, and he did not have the courage that his brother had. Often he was afraid-but afraid to show that he was afraid—ike now with the little knots of cold growing behind his knees. Sometimes he felt Omar's eyes prying into him. They picked the very pores of his body. Omar's eyes had made him do things. His eyes had made him do what he did one night at a beer garden at the dock. Alih had just come in for a smoke, and to watch Fermina, the bar maid. She was pretty and good to watch. Besides the mole on the corner of her mouth, her eyes were big and alive. And whien she smiled, her teeth showed white like coconut meat. He had not meant to bother her, but Omar was at a table in a comer looking at him through rings of smoke, across a pile of bottles and glasses. He did not join Omar but he felt his eyes following him. He took another table and called for beer, and more beer! He drank quickly so that the ugly taste would not stay long in his mouth, He clenched his fist under the table to keep his face straight while he drank. And soon he began to feel all man. Omar had said the brave Moro was the Moro who could make passes at Christian girls. When Fermina came back to pour him another drink, he grabbed her by the wrist and drew her to him. “Just one kiss,” he begged bravely, just one kiss.” “Let me go, let me go,” the git] cried, pulling away. Alih flung an arm around her waist and pulled her down to his lap. The git] swung the pitcher of beer at him, He tried to reach her mouth with his, but a stream of saliva shot at his face. The girl wrenched herself free and ran behind the counter. Mocking laughter broke from Omar, and Alih felt the roof of the house falling on his head. The light went out of his mind, and he began tearing the place apart—upsetting tables, smashing chairs, and breaking glasses... He was thrown to jail for six months. Later he was put to work on the road, digging ditches and carrying loads. But worse than the hot eye of the sun upon his bare back during his punishment were the eyes of Omar on his nape, and the ring of his laughter in his ears on that fateful night. ‘The parade was passing rapidly by: a group of barefoot laborers bearing placards in bamboo frames; two rows of women in pina-cloth blouses and long skirts, shading their faces with Japanese paper fans; young girls four abreast balancing themselves on high-hecled shoes, carrying flowers in their arms. 133PHILIPPINE LITERATURES: TEXTS, THEMES, APPROACHES Soon there would be only the long rows of cars and jeeps and calesas trailing the parade. Soon Alih would be on the outer fringe of the crowd, not in the middle of it. There would not be many within reach to kill. Where was Omar? This was his plan! He had said - “Like the way we drop sticks of dynamite in a school of fish, Alih, right in the middle-” He could not kill alone. He must not be killed alone. He did not know about the horses! Suddenly a terrible thought like a big wave when the sea was furious struck him on the face. What if there were no horses? What if the village priest was right and there were no horses? “The white horse as a reward for killing, my sons, is an illusion conjured by fanatics in their attempt to give reason to their behavior. The prophet never taught it. He was a man of peace. You will not find favor with him if you do this!” the Imam had told them. Alih remembered the old man's face in the wavering light of the oil lamp. His sunken cheeks were spectral, but the tears in his eyes and the sadness of his voice hhad made him feel sorrier for him than for themselves over what had happened to them, Several moons ago, Omar had decided they should venture out as merchants. They sold their house, their boats and fishing nets, even their rare cloths and their mother's pearls. A neighbor, who was now prosperous enough to keep a radio in his house, had told them that foreign goods were cheap in Sandakan in British North Borneo and could be sold for twice as much in town. Omar and Alih had set to sea in a small Aumpit with a motor and outriggers. They had bought French perfumes, English soaps and pomades, American cigarettes, Persian rugs, and native cloths. Lim Ching the rich Chinese merchant had given them seventeen barrels of crude oil for their motor, three bales of dried fish and a sack of rice on their promise to sell the goods to no one but him, “You will sell to me, only to me,” Lim Ching had said to them greedily, beating his palms on his fat stomach, “You will not regret it.” ‘The trip had been without danger. The rough sea did not turn their stomachs and the winds, the sun, and the rain were not unkind to their bodies. They laughed at the Coast Guard boats that went past them as they hid in little island coves during the day, and as they drifted by them with a dead motor without a light during the night. But when they arrived at Curuan, a village so far out of town that the roads did not reach it, a group of men with straw hats pulled low over their ears, hiding their faces behind masks, had come from the coconut grove with guns and clubs, and had taken all they had except their boat and food. ‘The bitterness in their hearts was like a drink that was too strong for the stomach to hold down. They went back to the sea and stayed there a long time. 134UNIT 4 + EXPLORING FILIPINO TRADITIONS And when they had eaten all their food and had drunk all the rainwater in their earthen jar, Omar spoke about killing and dying. “Only by killing, Alih, can we wash away our shame...” he said, staring into space from the prow of their boat. ‘Alih’s heart had almost stopped beating. He leaned back and stretched himself full length on the long narrow deck, and watched the vaulted sky lower itself about him. A cloud floating above spread a white mourning sheet across it—and he listened to his heart beating over the grave-yard silence of the sea. But the little winds were astir and tingled the bare flesh of his sensitive body. Gripping the edge of his straw mat to still a trembling within him, he said, “Omar, I am not afraid to kill, but I am too young to die. I have not yet slept with a woman.” “That is true,” Omar said. “Itis time you knew women. I shall take you to a girl in Balete who can sleep with you. Then you will have your houri in paradise.” A burst of handclapping and boisterous cheering turned Alih’s attentioh towards a slow, lumbering truck coming down the road. The truck was hung with colored ribbons, paper flowers, and the yellow fronds of coconut palms. The American and Philippine flags were spread over its chassis side by side. ‘Mounted on the vehicle was a globe covered with Manila paper. Crudely painted in water colors on the globe were the maps of the two Americas and Philippines. Holding on to a pole on the globe stood a beautiful girl. In her right hand she held uplifted a gilt torch hung with long cellophane streamers that caught the sunlight splinters. Alih gazed at the girl like a man who just come out of his blindness. Her gracefully uplifted limb was long and full and the skin of her underarm, which parted the sleeves of her gown exposed, was of a pink and white hue—like the inside of a shell. How soft and supple her body must be under that gauzy dress that caught the wind like the sail of alittle vinta, he thought. ‘A boy seated with the driver was picking from a huge cardboard box, handfuls of candies and cigarettes and throwing them to the crowd. ‘As the float came closer, Alih thought he saw a little black mole on the corner of the litte girl's mouth; she smiled—and it was at him she smiled—and it was sweet. If he only could reach her mouth with his! Her hair tumbled down her shoulders in waves and little wisps, touching her cheeks—and it was like silk of com where the ear was young. Its pungent fragrance seemed to reach him and fill his nostrils, Suddenly it climbed to his head—and it was like the smell of the girl in Balete who had shared in his mat and sheet. The blood thickened in his veins and the muscles of his body gripped his bones with passion. ‘The head of the parade had now reached the monument to Rizal - the hero 135PHIUPPINE {ITERATURES: TEXTS, THEMES, APPROACHES of the country - where the important men of the town were going to make speeches. The people pushed one another as they rushed to the stand, breaking up the group formations, With a loud spurting of the motor, the big float shook to a stop not far from Alih. The boy who had been throwing candies and the cigarettes alighted and called to the girl on the float. Throwing the gilt torch to the boy below, the gir! began to climb down the paper globe. When she reached the floor of the vehicle, the boy came to the side of the float and held out his arms to her. As the girl bent down, Alih held his breath. The girl was holding out her arms to the boy but somehow it seemed the boy was he—Alih! It was then that a strong hand reached out from behind him and clapped him on the shoulder. He turned around and trembling—as if the earth when ‘many guns were firing - seized him, It was his brother Omar! His face was dark and shining with sweat, his feet were unsteady, and on his breath was the unmistakable smell of his native drink, the tuba. He had been drinking! His soul instinctively recoiled. Drunk! Omar was drunk! He who had spoken of white horses and houris was drunk! He who had defied the holy man of the village saying - “Shame, shame, Man of Mohammed, your blood has turned to water o you would not put in the prophet the heart of chicken’—was drunk and afraid! : “Now!” cried Omar, as he leapt into the street drawing from the folds of his pants the fatal blade. The crowd screamed. Fear and panic seized everyone. Shrieks of terror tore out of many throats, The people dispersed from Omar's path like children at a fair on the approach of an escaped elephant or tiger. The boy making ready to help the girl down tumed around and took to his heels. The git] jumped to the ground, fell, picked herself up and started to run, But her long flowing robe caught on an edge of the bamboo frame of the float and held her. Frantically she struggled to set herself free, pulling and tearing at her skirt with her fingers. Terror, cold and stark, was on her face as she saw Omar coming toward her swinging aloft his naked blade. Scream after scream broke from her throat. ‘The screams struck Alih like blows on the head. They jolted his memory. The girl was his, his—Alih’s! And she was not to die, She was Fermina, the Christian ‘maid he had wanted to kiss, the little American girl who had smiled at him and laughed with him, the woman of Balete who had shared his mat and sheet...she was not to die! Drawing his blade from its sheath between his legs,he leaped after his brother like a horse gone wild. A savage cry sprang from his lips as he caught the sun in his razor-sharp blade and swung it down on his brother's back again and again, 136UNIT4 + EXPLORING FILIPINO TRADITIONS until a volley of hot lead ripped through his flesh, blowing up the fire in his veins they geysered up to the sky in spouts of deep, dark red. The town spoke about the strange tragedy for many days after. But nobody had known Alih, and nobody could figure out why he turned against his brother. Some said that the rigid fasting must have made him lose his head, others that, perhaps, he had always hated his brother; but I, who was not even there, declare that—like many other men—Alih, simply, did not love his white horse as he did his houri. Comprehension Questions: 1. Why does Alih, who has brown complexion like the rest of the people in the town, feel an alien and does not belong? 2. What are some common misconceptions about the Moros? Why do you think we have these misconceptions about them? 3. Describe Alih’s relationship with his brother, Omar. 4. Explain the title. What is the significance/symbol of the white horse in Ali’ life? 5. What is the original plan of Omar and Alih for that 4* of July American parade? What are the reasons behind it? 6. Explain the last line: “AliA, simply, did not love his white horse, as he did his houri.” 137