The Quarrel
By Andres Cristobal Cruz
With
half-shut eyes he tried in his mind, to make out other things of the objects in
the still dim room. His shirt, for instance, hanging from a nail of the post
between the bed and small altar of the Sagrada Familia, appeared, against the
unmoving faint light of the oil wick, like a man’s severed body, armless in the
dark, headless against the blackwood, and like the cellutex curtain drawn to
side against the wall seemed cold and mute, as if driven there by the whole
night’s darkness which would soon leave, allowing light outside to comment,
through the blind eyes of their only window where sashpanes were missing, here
and there upon the narrow room, defining in straight rays the reality of the
things he had made out –– the still golden finger that was the oil lamp-wick
which now looked more like a tiny slit of light, or a small bright leaf of light
in the huge wall of darkness, the incomplete form of a man that was his shirt
where it should not be, had it been noticed by Nina, on the nail –– all of
these the outside light would slowly reintegrate into what they really were.
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He
heard the first trip dragging itself in the distance, leaving three tortured
shrill whistle blasts and the irregular rumbling of iron-wheels to echo in
whose consciousness lay listening, echo less and less until what had been one
should became only a vague thought, as it was now with him as he turned on his
side, getting under the mosquito net to lie beside Nina, his wife. She had her
back to him; he had shaken her when she shriek in the nightmare, and since then
he had not slept again. He pulled her lovingly by the shoulder, his hand
passing over her breast as she turned, still asleep. Had the child lived, that
was six months, seven? He tried to remember, had it lived, she would be
cradling it now. She moaned, called: Ismael, Nina, he whispered; she yawned
after a while, meeting him under the tightening sheet as they pressed the
coldness. What time is it? He heard her say. It’s very cold, she said shivering against
him. She was awake now; they lay on their backs. Above them, on the second
floor, Mrs. Smith, their landlady was up, her cane, she had rheumatism, tapping
in long intervals. There was the rent to pay.
“I’ll
ask her to wait,” he said, rubbing his palms together. “When did she tell you?”
“Last
night,” she said turning once more to him, “she’s very mean, the hag.” Her
small laughter tickled his neck. She had little harmless curse worse, hag one
of them.
“She’s
not very old, nor very ugly,” he said, “forty? Forty-five?”
“I
wonder if her husband still remember her,” she said in a little sarcastic
voice, “she wants to be Missis Smith’ the wife of an American…”
“Was
he a sergeant?” Until now he was not sure.
“A
captain, so she told me,” she said, “how she could talk about him! You know,
nothing-better-than-American-way talk,” she said “he’s now a civilian in
business-s what’s that for?” she asked after he had kissed her on the mouth.
“Good
morning,” he said turning on the other side and reaching out a hand for the
radiophone on the headtable by the bed. The radio was silent for a while, then
a soft tune came out. Chopin. It was Early Morning Classic time. It was the kind
of music they liked. He turned back to her. She put her head on his arms and
snuggled close…
“I’m
asking up Wordsworth today,” he said. The image of the classroom appeared in
his mind, there were the young faces before him.
“Do
you still like him?” she asked. “In college she was one of your favorites.”
“I
still do,” he said, Wordsworth and the rest, and the new ones.”
“Your
class understands?”
“A
little, and now and then,” he said. He had been having a hard time with the
class.
“Pure
water gone stale. And tasteless, etcetera,” she said in a mock lecturing voice,
“Sir, you have me for an anxious student.” She laughed softly, teasingly.
He
pulled her to him. “We’re still young,” he said. He remembered the scene in the
City Hall. That was after he got the high school job right after graduation.
But she was not able to finish her course. There was a child she was going to
have and her parents, quite well-to-do and proper about things in the
determined ways of the old, had found out too soon. “Are you sorry, Nina?”
“About
what?”
“Us,
the child, your parents,” he said. He had asked the same thing a long time ago.
He felt like he wanted to really be sure, really sure.
“We
have nothing to be sorry about,” she said and her lips on his confirmed deeply
for him her words. He embraced her tightly.
“Get
up, get up,” she said after a long while, playfully trying to push him off the
bed. “We can’t live on it, alone.” She was in her joking mood, and he felt glad
about it, sometimes he wondered if she had completely forgotten about the
child. She was such a brave little woman…
Sunlight
fell slicing through the narrow passages between the houses on the other side
of the estero; it was warm on his face as he stood gurgling water inside the
roofless makeshift bathroom that jutted over the sloping edge of the estero.
Opening his mouth as his head bent the gurgled water splashed on the thick
board flooring, the smell of dead animal rose from under –– it was bloated pig
with a mass of active worms on its pale yellow and blue belly –– he looked
around instinctively for something to dislodge it out with the post of the
bathroom and mossy concrete edge. There was nothing handy for the purpose. He
washed his face, he seldom took his bath here; seeing the black water moving
under him he thought of the white-tiled bathroom in the school, and the shower,
of the swimming pools and Nina went to Sunday mornings, the beach in the
province; Nina and his mother preparing the picnic food while he and his kid
brothers built sand castles while Judge, his father, stood nearby taking the
sea wind… His face tightened, the dead pig under, worm and smell, assailed his
nostrils; not this, he said to himself, somebody outside the door coughed; Not
this! He flushed the water in the small coffee can he had dipped in gasoline
drum that was half-filled ; the wall, a rusty sheet of corrugated iron dripped
with the wash of water carrying the urine and rust. Another cough outside the
door.
“Will
they give up, Maestro?” It was Mang Jose, the old carpenter. He was standing
out on the narrow lot between the back of the small four-door accesoria and the
common bathroom.
“I
don’t know,” he said opening the door wider and stepping out. It’s up to the
President, I guess.”
“It’s
up to us, Maestro,” Mang Jose said. “What I mean to say is it is really up to
us, isn’t it Maestro?”. In the sunlight, the carpenter’s face appeared older,
even pained where the wrinkles stood out. He always had something to say
something: Huks, politics, the ‘merkanos, the fellowmen soldiers fighting in
the far-away island. The old man was an ispiritista, Rizal, Quezon, Saint
Peter, he had talked to them, and they all wanted peace, so Mang Jose told him.
“Peace is what God wants,” the old man said pulling the door of the bathroom
after him, “peace!” He must have seen the bloated pig. “The devil of a pig!” he
heard the old man saying aloud. From the row of kitchens to each of the ground
rooms of the accesoria, smoke floated in different shapes.
He
stood out in the sunlight, wiping his face with a towel, in his mind reciting
“The world is too much”– he wondered if the class understand the poem. But that
is something he must see about it. A part of his job. He could hear the jeeps
warming up on the small street in front of the accesoria. As usual Mrs. Smith
was barking out orders to the men who were to take out her jeeps for the
routes, “Sooner or later,” he recited aloud, “but stopped after we lay waste
our powers.” Nina had appeared by the narrow backdoor, a coconut midrib broom
in her hand fighting the hard earth with a regular swishing noise. Mrs.
Smith’s passenger jeeps roared. “A phantom of delight,” he teased her loudly.
She looked up from her sweeping and made a funny face. He walked up to her and
giving her a pat on the cheek went up to their room asking, “What’s breakfast?”
on the way.
“As-you-like-it
eggs,” she said to him. He could hear her broom swishing on the ground towards
the backyard. Inside the bedroom claimed from the kitchen-dining space by the
cellutex curtain printed with blue birds in gay flight he listened to the
music, turned the volume knob, and the rich voice of a tenor poured out louder
song. Intermezzo. He took up the clean shirt lying on the already made-up bed.
His shirt on the nail was no longer there. He smiled. Nina was such a fast
housekeeper. She went about her chores with what he sometimes thought of as her
punitive fury against disorder of any kind. She had never lost her
next-to-Godliness mind she was brought up in. Everywhere in their room the mark
of her hands was in the a chair was set, a pillow cased and smoothed out
invitingly again, his lesson plan notebook and the books neatly placed on
the small study table; she was humming in the kitchen; the shell of an egg distinctly
broke on the edge of a frying pan… and then another. It was going to be
as-you-like-it for them. He looked out of the window. He caught sight of a hand
quickly disappearing on the upper edge of the bathroom wall of the house
on the other side of the estero, there was the splash. On the scummy water a
big ball of newspaper moved slowly, unfolding as it followed on the tide of
procession of bits of driftwood and a mass of house manure from the nearby
stables. A daily occurrence. Now, they seemed used to it. They could even tell,
if they liked, what had been dropped or what had been thrown. He had felt sorry
the first days they started living in this almost a slum place, but then, there
was Nina. He put on his shirt.
“We
need a little,” Nina had said, “let us not feel sorry about what we must face.”
That face was also her, aside from the Nina that was his young wife with the
large dark eyes, a dimple-slit on one cheek, long hair, lips that were full of
flesh as they were with the soul of words.
You
decided your life, Nina’s mother had said that evening when they found out
about the baby she was going to have, live it then with him…And here ther were
in a rented room she made with her heart and hands: into a room distinct from
the others in the same accesoria, distinct from the
just-so-there-are-walls-floor-to-lie-on others: a radiophono they bought after
the child died, the books, the few but good clothes –– and there was her
extracurricular job of teaching the kids in the accesoria, they came to her for
extra lessons (I’m an educational system, she would tell him when he felt
jealous of her attention to the kids), the wives who came now and then to
borrow money and utensils. With the small salary he had, Nina managed
commendably to make ends of their wants and means just meet. Except for the
times, and they were so few and negligible, when he sent necessary amounts to
his kid brothers, or when their friends didn’t live up to their promise to pay
punctually – but they could always wait and make adjustments. And what a budget
commissioner Nina could be at such times. She would always skimp; or haggle to
the amused despair of the market vendors. Thanks to my charm! She would say and
wink across their small round dining table, or you won’t be eating that. He tucked
his shirt, zippered himself there, hearing Strauss? It must be Strauss, he
guessed, gay, light, nymphy almost. There! He said looking at himself on the
large round mirror of the dresser. From the kitchen she called.
“Coming,”
he answered. He set the phono put several records. Breakfast music. That was
what the modern science can do. The birds on the curtain seemed to fly as a
straywind flapped across and made little vertical waves. The table was set just
for two, the as-you-like-it still smelled with the flavor of her cooking. He
instantly felt hungry. Behind him she was patting in a bulge on his shirt.
There! She said pushing him towards the chair.
“We
thanked thee…” Nina’s voice saying the grace struck him as oddly beautiful each
morning. They made the sign of the cross.
“you
had a nightmare,” he said smiling as she poured him coffee in his cup. “Must be
something you ate last night.”
“That’s
superstition,” she answered reproaching with a distorted smile. She had
pigtailed her hair and seeing her thus – the coffee was hot – he put down the
cup, looked at her. There was a serves-you-right look in her eyes. She laughed
softly. “Don’t forget to tell Missis Smith about the money,” she said, “it was
due yesterday, you know.” Behind the curtain another record dropped.
“My
pretty phantom of delight,” he said. He mashed the egg with the fried rice. The
catsup was taking time to flow, he shook the bottle harder.
The
jeeps had gone, and as he ate he could hear the voices of the other tenants.
“Don’t be a bother!” that was Aling Pepang to her youngest child with the neck
goiter and who was wailing. From the bathroom came the pouring of water for the
clothes wash. Nina was half listening to the music while eating. An instant
picture of her appeared in his thought. She was sweating as she worked without
any expression in her face… Until she tapped his plate with a spoon he did not
have an awareness of himself before the table. “What’s wrong?” Nina’s voice
sounded frantic. He had opened his eyes. “Nothing,” he said. The dimple
appeared on her cheek, her smile seemed to fight what he suddenly thought of.
It was foolish thought. About getting Nina to live with his parents in the
province. She would surely say No again. Mrs. Smith was on the sidewalk outside
talking loudly to somebody. Gossiping, talking of how much she spent for
marketing… Her voice came nearer and nearer in the narrow passage between the
ground rooms. Nina looked at him. She was going to say something when, without
knocking, Mrs. Smith came in by the backdoor, her cane tapping against the
polished rungs of the low stairs.
“Come
in,” Nina said, “have breakfast Missis.”
“I
came for the rent, it’s due today.” The landlady’s voice was cutting.
“We
would like to give it now,” Nina said with a humbly apologizing tone.
“Yes,
Missis,” he said, “my friend forgot to pay me yesterday, and I just sent money
to the province.”
“I’ve
no business with your friend,” the landlady said putting a fist to her large
ugly hip and keeping her head cocked.
“The
school I’m teaching in is private, a small school, it so happened they couldn’t
pay the full salaries,” he said. That was the truth.
“I
have only one say, today’s today, I need the money!” the rise of the landldy’s
voice shook him unguardedly, the cane kept tapping the floor with authority.
Under
the table he stepped on Nina’s foot. “But tomorrow or next day I can give it,”
he said trying to suppress an inexplicable mass of sudden hatred that rose in
him, even as his legs shook for a moment beneath the table; he gripped the
spoon and fork until his fists felt about to bursts, hearing: “Tomorrow!
Tomorrow!” and other words, words that smashed the music turning behind the
curtain of birds, falling past his ears, struck obscenely at the plates, the
coffee cups, and amidst them he caught a glimpse of Nina’s face, her mouth open
as if she had just been slapped, her eyes struck wide with a wordless
astonishment; “Tomorrow! He says! Tomorrow!” he heard while he felt in his
breast the tortured beatings of many wings in the hardening air of disgust and
hate that welled and fell with words that were neither his nor Nina’s. “How
long? How long?” his mind cried wanting to laugh and at the same time shout,
just shout: “STOP IT!” he only heard words, he was no longer listening. Nina
was struggling to free her foot. And there was the gasp.
Now
he was only aware of holding Nina back, the two of them pushing each other
away, bodily he tried to get her safely behind the curtain of birds. “Too much!
Too much!” Nina was shouting too: words clashed with words, there was long
ripping sound of something, and he found himself brushing away something that
felt like a net on him or Nina.
“What
good people you are! How clean! What saints!” the words came clear and
insulting in his ears.
“You’re
envious, you hag! Leech! LEECH!” and there was Nina faying him; now he was
pulling her, now pushing her, the room seemed to be turning and he saw now and
then the faces of anonymous people that appeared from nowhere, children, women,
men, in the light and shadows of the walls and window then the door, here a
sudden piece of nearby roofs and sky, hearing words, there the sudden fragment
of dimming faces, colorless sky, dark, light, eyes that swept around; himself
and Nina flashing off and on in the round mirror. “Nina! Nina!” He shouted,
shaking her as if in a terrible nightmare, pushing and pulling, holding her in
his frantic arms, noise and music scratched the air, rasped through him, other
hands swiftly appeared and disappeared in the turning room. “You’re envious,
you hag! Who comes to our kitchen and looks at our food! You give me this! Give
me that! You! You think you’re the richest around! Leech! Let me go! Let me go!
Ismael! Let me!” And when he was pulling Nina back, shouting: “Enough! Enough!”
he saw Mang Jose holding Mrs. Smith back, her black cane cutting the air up and
down as if she were a mad woman conducting noise; “Maestro! Missis! Nina,
child!” His fingers reached wildly behind Nina, he twisted a knob and the music
blared, hearing at the same instant Mrs. Smith’s: “Ha! Yes! Yes! Turn it loud!
Turn it loud! I’ll shout! Shout! Everybody will hear!” Voices screeched and
shrieked with his own. He had half-dragged and pushed Nina down on the bed when
he felt something strike his shoulder with a sharp pain, and the music stopped
dead while something clattered down the floor. “Leech! Leech!” Nina kept on
shouting. Suddenly his palm stung on something soft. “Nina!” and then he was
bursting his lungs. “Get out!” LEECH! GET OUT! Get out! Leech!”
He
closed the window and the door, then sat down tired and weak on the edge of the
bed, passing the small open bottle of ammonia spirit over Nina’s quivering
nostrils as her head rolled from side to side; she was sobbing and tears and
the sliver of saliva from her mouth mixed where she rubbed her face with agony
on the pillow. “Nina,” he called, “Nina.”
Shivers
crept and passed under her skin as if the closed room chilled him. He looked at
the floor that was scratched and ugly with the pervading presence of crazy and
formless streaks of dust and the dark smudges of feet. Through the spaces of
the window light fell carrying a broad band of thin whirling smoke, a page on
the volume of Wordsworth lying open on the floor stood upright and rigid as if
an invisible hand were turning it, and then a page fell gray and looking blank,
on the headtable by the bed the last record on the phono was broken, a black
incomplete disc that carried a fragment of music, he ranged hid eyes around the
room, feeling like a confused survivor of a nightmare that had racked his body;
his eyes fell on the black cane that was leaning against the table, its shook
coiled oddly on the neck of the phono arm, he disinterestedly gave it a short
kick on its lower end and it fell clattering for a moment down the floor, he
smirked bitterly at its rattling sound. Across the floor the curtain lay like a
tent crushed by the stampede of beasts; he saw the birds only as a disordered
mass of dark dots on white, a broken cup shone dully under the table, from its
gaping shattered mouth was a dark pool.
He
tightly shut his eyes for a moment, passing a cold palm breaking with sweat
heavily across on his face, shaking vigorously his head because he wanted to
uproot the images that struck out in his mind; but they were there: the torn,
shattered, dirtied, smashed, and cluttered objects that were once whole and
neat within their room’s privacy and order; the cries, the screaming, yelling,
shouting, raging words that now seemed remote and vague under the splashing of
water of kids bathing outside and the loud regular hammering of Mang Jose in
the other room across the dim narrow passage. The floor was cold; he picked up
the volume of poetry that he had thrown in fury blindly at the landlady, closed
it between his hands and with it thrust open the window that almost slapped
back on hinges that momentarily screamed in his hearing, the sudden light
outside binding him with its harsh brightness.
It
was not the rent to be paid that he could think about. The quarrel and the
noise seemed to be intruding in the room. He remembered Mang Jose pulling away
Mrs. Smith. He saw himself shouting. He had slapped Nina to quiet her, slapped
her out of practical necessity. Had he struck the landlady? Leech, he thought,
the dark whitish scabs on the surface of the ester moved slowly in the shadow
of the house on the other side, then in the bright light, then another shadow
blackened them before his eyes, a dead large trunk was drifting with bits of
papers and leaves clinging on its emerged skeletal twigs. He looked back at
Nina lying on the crumpled bed. He had never thought she could be that violent
and strong. “Maestro,” somebody called behind him. It was Mang Jose washing his
hands on the tap outside the bathroom. The old carpenter was approaching him
walking under the shade of the eaves.
“Maestro,
you can understand more, you know more,” the old man said.
He
nodded, smiling bitterly to himself, “It’s useless,” he said, “it’s almost
noon, I’m late.”
Mang
Jose went into the bathroom. “I’ve taken out the dead pig.” He heard the old
man saying aloud.
“Ismael,
Ismael.”
He
sat again on the edge of the bed. He patted her cheeks where her tears had
dried. He helped her up off the bed. “Are you all right?” he asked. She nodded,
she swayed a little against him, and after a while she straightened herself
back. She walked away and picked up the curtain, spreading it as far as her
hands could reach to the sides. His feet touched the black cane. He stooped and
picked up the cane; it broke easily on his knees. “You’ll be late, Ismael,” he
heard Nina saying, “I’ll pick up things.” He threw the broken pieces far out of
the window. The pieces jabbed into the water of the estero. They made up of the
surface and drifted with the ebb. Behind him, he was aware of Nina putting
things in order. It was going to take a long time to clean up things again.
Before they could go out and take a long walk. He knew that like him she was
thinking of a new place. “I’ll help,” he said touching her hand that held one
end of the curtain. He took the other end and pulled it across the room.
He
saw fingering the torn edges of the rip that made an empty between them. He
heard the sharp, clear sounds of many things outside. “We don’t need it anymore,”
he said holding off the limp curtain from him. She was clearing her nose
through the pinch of her fingers.
