Today I will be taking my sister Tatiana to the bus station… It’s been almost a year since I quit school. Mother did not know I quit college, and so does my sister, Tatiana.
Back then, they used to send me money every month. It is usually enclosed in a letter from mother, asking me how I’m doing in school, asking me about my condition, and talking about theirs. Always attached to it was a little piece of paper, a letter from Tatiana. She wouldn’t ask for anything material, instead, shower me with questions like, ‘How is it like to ride an escalator?’ or ‘What does a movie house look like?’ Soon I started to take out the money and throw away the letters.
Months after months, then came a time when a letter would mean hoping to find an amount of money enclosed in it. Otherwise that would mean that I am receiving a promissory letter which usually starts with a, ‘sorry, the earth’s not yielding a harvest’ and a promise to send money the month after.
Letter after letter, asking me to go home if I’m free or at least respond. Then lately, the money in the letter was just enough to pay for the tuition and a little extra amount to squeeze in the spending. With the diminishing amount that I received were the diminishing friends and vanishing girlfriends. Friends I skipped classes with to enjoy the unwise beauty of spending money, and girlfriends to go out on dates with in fancy places. My quitting college goes with the decision that it might be wise to let go of education and use the money to sustain the company of friends and girlfriends. So I thought it wise. So I thought it wise…
But they’re all gone now. Friends left after having realized that I have nothing more to keep up with their expensive lifestyle. Girlfriends go after having realized that I have lost my sense of direction.
Letter after letter, kept piling up, but I had grown cold and hated the sender. Just the other week, I received a letter from Tatiana. I wondered then why it was her name that the envelop bears and not my mother’s. Her letter was short and quick.
Dear Manong Markus,
Nanan is dead.
Your sister,
Tatiana
But I have grown cold, and it took me days before I realized that I have lost all my friends and have no one to turn to. No more.
I arrived just three days ago. Mother has already joined my father in the grave, but I could only care less. Three days back I walked the long way to our house under scourging sun and flaming heat. Every step I took on cracked grounds lifted a smoke of dust into the air. From afar through the flaming heat of the earth was a silhouette of a girl tilling on dry land. Everytime her shovel hits the ground, dust rises and blows into the air… It was my sister, Tatiana.
When I was nearing the house, she recognized my coming and ran up to me. She was very excited. I was feeling the opposite, for I could only care less. Without a word she grabbed my right hand unto her sweating forehead. Before she let go she wiped off the sweat that wet my hand with her shirt and asked my permission to go and prepare a bath and some food she spared from mother’s wake.
I pulled out a chair from the kitchen table and rested as I watched her hustle preparing my bath and food. She was boiling tea, and I watched her stroking the fire with more chunks of wood. She was forcing a smile while I looked rather insensitive.
“What happened to Nanan, Tatiana?”
She halted without looking for a moment and moved when she finally spoke.
“She was coughing more months, Manong.”
Suddenly tears started forming in her eyes, her voice started to tremble.
“Everyday the coughing got worse… and worse… Then there were nights… there were nights when… she was trembling… and… and… and cough-ing so ha-ard. Then blood. Blood was coming out of her mouth every-time… everytime she coughed.”
“Will you stop crying, Tatiana?”
“She was throwing up blood, Manong. I was so scared… and… and I did not know what to do… I was so scared. The night before she died… she threw up a lot of blood. There were lumps… and it scattered on the flo-or. And the next day… I… I woke up only to find that she’s… she’s already dead. Nanan died, Mano-ong.”
“That’s enough, Tatiana! I’ve heard enough!”
I slept the whole afternoon while my sister headed back to the hills. It was way past seven when I awoke and she’s already waiting at the kitchen for our supper. We ate supper together and she started explaining why she sent such short a letter.
She was afraid to ask me to go home because when Nanan was still alive our mother would tell her that I must be really busy with my education so that it would be very difficult for me to find time to go home.
She said she understood. Education is very interesting but is very difficult at the same time, and that she’s sorry if they were not able to send enough money. That I has been months since the last rain dampened the land so that before harvest time comes, the corns stalks have all dried out, and the harvest low.
Two years ago when I decided to move to the city for college and left Nanan at the farm, Tatiana decided to give up entering high school to help Nanan with the crops just to let me through college.
She said they always see to it that when harvest time would come, I always get prioritized for the money they get for selling corns, and that Nanan would always tell her that someday soon I am going to be successful and she can go back to school when we can already afford to pay farm workers to till the land.
She said there were weary nights when the only thing that would give them comfort was when they talk about me and they would wake up the following morning ready to work tirelessly before the sun rises and after it sets with so much hope of deliverance from their plight.
She said that Nanan spoke of so many good things about me. That the night before she died, she reminded her again to look after my needs as she was always reminded of. She said she has always admired me so that even now that Nanan is gone she is willing to till every bit of soil and the hills for the corns to grow till I finished college as Nanan have always managed to survive with.
I spoke less.
After we ate she did the dishes and I headed for the porch. I sat down Nanan’s old rocking chair back when Tatat was still alive while watching me and little Tatiana play at the front yard. After she did the dishes, she came up to me. She said she has to be early the following day so she has to be taking some rest. I spent the evening watching the slopes and the bare hills where the corn seeds lay buried, waiting for the rain. From there I could see the wide cloudless sky, the million stars, and the bright quiet moon.
The other day, my second day home was a lot more uneventful. The sun was high when I awoke and Tatiana has already gone far with her planting when I saw here from the window. She was dropping seeds of corn into every hole she digs, covering one after the other. The whole afternoon I just sat there at the porch with recollections of the years and the life that I have thrown to waste. I was recalling Tatiana’s stories of how my mother successfully talked her into living a living a rotten life, to my benefit.
If she only knew… I do not know if I still am worthy of my sister’s respect and I do not know if I still hate my mother for my fate. I have also struggled with the question of how my father could afford to be too early to die though I realized then that, like Nanan, he died of working day and night at the farm.
Whatever it was that got into me, before sunset, I rose to my feet and decided to be the one to prepare our supper. In the evening, when she arrived, she was trembling for fear she just did the gravest mistake of allowing a man to do the chores only girls are supposed to do. I was preparing the table when she arrived.
“Oh, Manong! You shouldn’t be doing that! I’m sorry. I know I should have come home early to prepare your food. You must be very hungry.”
She started weeping again.
“Stop it, Tatiana!”
“If Nanan is here, she wouldn’t forgive me for allowing this to happen.”
She broke down and started catching her breath.
“I said enough of it, Tatiana! I have prepared your bath so go clean up so we could eat!”
Upon hearing this, for the first time she was able to look at me straight in the eyes, without a wink, in shock. The tears joined the dust on her face forming dark lines on her check. She stood there frozen.
“Go on.” I nodded signaling her to go.
“Yes, Manong.”
She hurried, still trembling. I waited for her until she has finished taking her bath and changed. She came out her room gently combing her hair, head bent. Quietly we ate, and I still had to insist on helping her with the dishes. She was wiping clean the sink when I left her and headed for the rocking chair at the front porch. I found myself again stating aimlessly at the bare hills. Minutes passed and she came out of the door with a purse on both hands.
“Manong.”
“What is it, Tatiana?”
“It might take months before the rain would come for the corn seeds to sprout, Manong. I thought this might help for the moment.”
“What is that?”
“A little amount from the mortuary, Manong, all that the villagers could afford for help. I know this is not enough but this is all that I can give you for now, Manong.”
“Keep it.”
“I did not say anything more. She did not ask no more, still fearful. She went to sleep and in a while I followed.
Yesterday was my third day home. I woke up at three in the morning. I thought I woke up a lot earlier. I found out that she was already in the kitchen. She’s boiling tea and preparing the bag of seeds for the day’s planting.
“It’s yet too early, Manong. Go back to bed and get some rest. By morning I will have the tea and your food prepared so you can have your breakfast when you wake up.”
“No. I’m coming with you out in the field.”
“What!”
“Prepare some tea while I go put on my working clothes.”
We were at the table drinking tea. I was staring at my little sister who cannot afford to look at me straight-faced. I was studying her now getting my full attention. She was wearing a sweater over her frayed dress revealing only her fingers. It’s turned dark and her nails were stained, with the earth settling from beneath the tips. Her hands have turned rough and callous.
Her hear she covered with a piece of scarf revealing only her face and locks of her browning hair from beneath her ears. What used to be a fair and pinkish face of a sweet young girl is now exposing a dark burnt skin with an expression of resiliency over a lingering agony.
I finished my tea, rose to my feet and reached for my father’s hat that’s been left hanging on the wall for years since his death. I brushed off the dust and put it on my head. She immediately finished her tea and grabbed both tin cups from the table, placed it on the sink while I grabbed the shovel and the heavy bag of seeds on the side. From the sink she turned.
“Manong!” Her voice raised in surprise.
“What?”
“Oh, you look exactly like Tatat. Younger and finer though.”
Then tears started welling in her eyes again.
“What, are you going to cry again?”
“No. I’m sorry.”
She bent her head, wiped her tears and was quick to recover.
“I changed my mind. You stay here and prepare our breakfast while I go do the planting. When you’re done take whatever you’ve prepared to the field so we could eat.”
“But, Manong.”
“Yes. You heard me, Tatiana. You know I have done this before. Now I am doing this again. Soon your face will go clearer and I will have all your burnt skin. Goodbye.”
She touched her face and again stood there frozen. I hurried out carrying the bag and the shovel, not any more wanting to see her reaction.
Just when the sun appeared she arrived. I have gone far with the diggings and beads of sweat are falling from my face. She handed me a piece of cloth and I dried my face of every trace of sweat. We had breakfast in the middle of the field, under golden sunrise, and we talked.
“The money, Tatiana.”
“From the mortuary, Manong?”
“Yes. You are to use it.”
“What?”
“You heard me. The summer is about to end and you, you are going back. You are going back to school, enter high school.”
“But you need it, Manong.”
“I have long quit college, Tatiana! These past days I have been thinking. This is where I belong. I am bound to till the land and grow corn. With our parents now gone, you no longer have anyone to look after you now but me. You, are my responsibility now that they are no longer with us. You are to go back to school. There’s a community high school in the next town. That’s all that the land and I can afford you for now but when you finish high school you can move to the city and join college at the university. There you are going to ride an escalator and enjoy the movie house. You will eat and enjoy the taste of ice cream and wear lipsticks. You are going to have everything you want including the answer to all the questions you’ve long been asking me about the city. I will afford it for you, I and the land.
“We might not be able to afford it, Manong. I can just stay and help you with the farm.”
“The tuition is free there. You can stay in the dormitory and all that I have to worry about for now is your spending. We will have a good harvest so that I can send you money. You can go home on weekends or on month’s end if you want but I will let you decide on that. I am not obliging you.”
“How can we have money when the land is barely yielding?”
“See those clouds?” I pointed at the mass of clouds from the far horizon. “That means that the summer is over and soon it is going to rain.”
“Oh those clouds, Manong. It makes promises it never keeps. We’ve been seeing heavy clouds for months. We keep looking up and praying it would fall but the sun is was always too strong to dry it up before it touches the land. Last year it did not rain till November.”
“It will fall, Tatiana. God will let it fall. Tomorrow you will be going to the next town and you are to enroll.”
We spent the whole morning planting the remaining lot. I would shovel up a hole and she would drop a seed or two. We could cover it up and the dust would come sticking up our faces. By noon the work was finally over. We rested and finished the food that was left in the basket. We have decided to visit our parents’ grave.
In the afternoon the clouds have moved on top of the hills. It got even darker above us standing before our parents’ grave.
Last nigh we spent the evening lying on the front yard watching the evening sky covered with dark clouds. The night was warm and not a single star in sight. We were silently watching the sky, my hands locked behind my head, her hands lay rested on her stomach.
“Manong?”
“What?”
“Did you feel that?”
“What?”
“Raindrops, Manong!”
“Raindrops.” I whispered as I quietly listened. Then I felt a drop on my face and felt it wet.
“It’s going to rain, Manong! It’s going to rain!”
“Yes, Tatiana, God gave us rain at last!”
For the first time in many years I saw a smile on my sister’s face. She stood to her feed and spread her hands looking up to the sky. That was the first time in many years that I saw a gleaming smile with happiness painted all over her face. We hurried into the house when the rain finally arrived and it started to pour even harder.
While in bed, we were keenly listening to the sound of the rain as if it was some entertaining music to our ears.
“The corns, Manong.”
“Yes Tatiana, the corns.”
Last night we hardly slept.
At dawn just before sunrise I woke up to the voice of my sister calling from outside the house. I went out to see what it was that she was calling me for. To my surprise, we started jumping about what we saw. The fields and the hills are blooming with a million candle flames, of golden yellow where the corn seeds sprung from the earth at last. The rain in over and the land is soft and damp cold.
We raced to the hills with the golden leaves continuously springing from the earth at last. The rain is over and the land is wet. We were laughing and dancing and running all over, and the sun started to lay its rays on the hills.
Today I will be taking my sister Tatiana to the bus station… She is to enroll today at the community high school in a nearby town. We walked every step of the way like walking in a vast garden.
I turned around and behold the slopes that Tatiana so patiently tilled. I thanked God for the rain. The fields of corn with the bounty of spring, a life begins on Tatiana’s hills.
