Philippine literature, Two Brothers

Two Brothers

by Rony V. Diaz

At dawn the two brothers left the town. Carrying spear guns and openmesh rattan baskets, they walked barefooted along the edge of the sliding sea toward the doce. The sea, still weighted by the wind, slid in long unbroken swells toward the shore where it broke and dragged away the footprints and the delicate whorls left by the crabs on the black sand of the beach. The boys walked rapidly; the older brother one or two steps ahead – tugging, it seemed, in his monintum his smaller and lighter companion whose quich, awkward strides resembled those of a fleeing, wingless bird.

The whirling whips of the sun advance and darkness crouched behind the mountains, staining them into dolidity with coagulated shadows.

The two brothers had reached the elbow of the beach, jawed rocks spray-crowled at this time of tide, from where the curved away from the town of follow a tall, harsh cliff of clay at whose rocky base the dissolving worls of the sea abruptly ended. They walked on a rocky stretch of beach.

With the thrust of the sun, the wind that had settled, gray and heavy, on the surface of the sea, soared and released its herd of white-maned and yellow light stroked the black beach.

The rocks ended in from of a small turtle-shaped cave and more they were on sighing, salt-dashed sand.

Without stoppine, the older brother handed his spear gun and basket to his companion. He unbuttoned his shirt, stripping it off and wore it slung in a knot about his hips. The wind was heavy and cold. The smaller looked as he gave him back his gun and basket. His body was dark and tightly muscled. He was looking at the sea. The tide was coming in the waves slid on in rhythmic-rolls. The boy could tell thet his brother was satisfied.

”Give me your antipary, Simo,” Hi brother said
Simo reached into a pocket of his short pants and pulled out a pair of goggles. He gave them to his brothe.His brother stopped and began to examing the goggles closely. He ran the nail of hiis forefinger along the caulking that held the oval-cut glases to the wooden frame.

“The caulking has dried,” he said softly. “I think it will hold. But I’ll try them out for you first before you use them”

They had gone spear fidhing at the mouth of the river last week and the culking of Simo’s goggles had come loose. The glass fell off and salt water dashed intp his eyes. Simo swam to the bank of the river, his eyes smarting. His brother pulled him up and gave him his pair. “Enjoy yourself,” he said. “I’ll keep watch over you.” Simo caught two samaral, which made his brother chuckle gleefully. Going home the fish stringed through with black nito, his brother promised to make a new pair for him that evening his brother stared to whittle the goggles from a seasoned block of santol wood.

When they reached the breadwater, his brother stopped. Simo stepped close to him and waited. His brother dropped his spear and basket on the sand unbuttoned his pants, unknotted the shirt and stepped into the sea in a pair of faded woolen trucks. Hw stpeed at waist deep, snapped on the goggles over his eyes and plunged into the sea.

He broke for air near the iddle of the breakwater. He clung loosely to the rocks for several moments and then vaulted up, shaking off drops of water that spangled his dark body.He straightened abruptly and in that moment he seemed to stand on the horizon, his head touching the sky. Like a lighthouse, the image reared in Simo’s ind. He pulled off the goggles and waled toward Simo. From the way he walked and dangled the goggles had satisfied his brother.

“It’ll do,” his brother confirmed, handing back the goggles to Simo. He hitched up his pants, picke up his shirt, spear gun and basket and they stoke toward the wharf.

Riding his brother’s shadow, Sime felt a blood-measured thrust of pride and elation puse through his body. He felt safe, wrapped to say to his brother’s as in an imminent cocoon.

This was the first time he would fish the piers. He was happy and he wanted to talk. He groped about in his mind for something to say to his brother. Then he remembered the kaltang.

He knew everything about that fish. He and his friends had taled interminable about it, its habits, shape and augury. It was one of the town’s recent legends of hear his brother talk about it, probably to hear his bice deliver the exorcism that would dispel the ystery and danger of this unknown fish.

“Do you think we’ll see the kaltang?” Simo asked timorously.

His brother looked at him and smiled. “I don’t know. Probably we won’t . Nobody has seen it since it appeared once in these waters, and that was years ago.”

“It is dangerous, isn’t it?” Simo pursued.

“It hasn’t harmed anyone yet, as far as I can remember. You see it appeared when this wharf was being built.” Simo knew that; and, still striding with his brother he scarched his lips and eyes for the cabalistic image, the twitch or the gesture the unfamiliar predictable. “One of the engineers,” his brother continued voice uninflected, “was standing on the files when a low swinging derrick knocked him off into the sea. His head was crushed. Several laborers dived in to get him and almost all of them saw this fish which they call a kaltang, a dark, wide-mouthed and horned, swimming abouth the dead men, weaving in and out of the bloodstained water. That was all, and the kaltang remains to this day a pretty mysterious fish. Nobody has seen it again.” All that Simo know, and still he waited; but it did not come, and his brother’s voice floated before them like smoke, which the wind shook and snatched away.

The had reached the dock now. From where they stood, the cuseway, built of cairned stones held together by poured concrete and corralled by glinting low copper rails, looked like a white, crutched appendage that had been grafled to the harch torso of the cliff. The squat concrete piers that suppoted the wharf clobbered with dark extrusions of oyster spats. Two moter launches were berthed along the pier head. An old steamboad was moored along the left side of the wharf. Sailboats were anchored several yards away from the pier, their masts rising and falling with the wheeling horizon like buoying poles.

The climbed up to the causeway and walked toward the pier head. Several mangy-looking, sleep-logged stevedores were loafing in front of a canteen away from the wind. They were smoking and drinking coffee out of dark metal cups. They all looked at the two brothers save one who was watching his cigarette unwind its skein of blue smoke.

“Hoy, Litoy,” one of them shouted in greeting when they saw his brother.

“Going fishing?” It’s too early. The tide is just starting to flow in.”

“Yes,” his brother said disinterestedly. Then the smoke watcher suddenly rose and approached them. He put his arms on his brother’s shoulder. He walked with them.

“Litoy, I’ve a favor to ask from you.” He flicked away his cigarette.

“Let’s hear it,” his brother said, annoyed, simo could tell, by the arm on his shoulder. Simo know at once and whatever that stevedore would ask for, his brother would deny. He was annoyed and he would say no, Simo told himself; he felt embarrassed for the man.

“I heard,” the stevedore said slowly, that your uncle got the contract for the bridge at Alag.”

“Yes?” his brother said almost angrily.

“You are going to oversee it, aren’t you?”

“Of course. What about it?”

“I just thought you might have a job for me,” the stevedore said.

“We’ve filled up all the positions,” Litoy said. “You should have talked to me earlier.”

“But I’ll send for you when we need more men.”

“Thank you, Litoy. But no job now?”

“None at the moment. I said I’ll send for you when we need more men, “ his brother growled. By now Simo was uncomfortable.

“Thank you. Thank you.” He disengaged his arm and began to talk effusively. He startedd to tell them about likely where there would be fish and he even offered to help them look for fish.

“I know this place. You do not have to tell me where to fish.”

His brother quickened his pace and the stevedore dropped off. Simo looked back and saw him walk back slowly to the canteen, his shoulders hunched and his hands in the pocket of his dim jacket.

A truck loaded with lumber roared passed them and turned along side one of the motors launches. Three stevedores mounted the open truck and began to push off the lumber.

The two brothers stopped at the old steamboat. A pile of split mangrove trunks was nearly stacked near the gangplank. Gray smoke blew through a blunt smoke stack. It was an old boat, spanned from bow to stem by and old, unsealed rachitic-looking lumber roof. The sternsman’s seat was above the engine room. They saw that the wheel was lushed to two cleats on the wall. Below the wheel was an open hatch, which led to the engine room. From the engine room an old man emerged, picked up pieces of rajita that ware strewn on the deck and returned below.

Litoy stepped up close and looked in.

“They are firing up this junk,” he said to Simo. “Wonder why?”

“Hey you, “ Litoy called down. The old man reappeare, peered at them and walked up the gangplank.

“Ah, Mang Orto. Have you bought this junk?” Litoy asked.

“No, Ninoy fixed the engine last because the atorney wanted a boat to carry a load of rice to Mamburao.” The old man stopped, then continued: “He saw me this morning and asked mo to fire that furnace for him. I know next to nothing about steam engines and the furnace is going full blast. I wish he would come back.”

“Ninoy? Hash, he’s probably asleep somewhere,” Litoy said.

“I wish he would come back. I’m hungry and this pig ofa boat looks ready to come apart.”

“Just keep the furnace going.He’ll be back in time.”

Litoy walked off to the opposite side of the dock, Simo trailing after him.

They stripped off their clothes and prepared for the dive. Litoy tested the rubber of his spear gun and then spat on to his goggles. He rubbed the spittle on the glass. He pulled the goggles around his head.

“Stay close to me,” he told Simo. “In case you get the cramps I can pull you out.” He picked up a coil of rope and gently lowered it. A glistering net of oil floated on the water.They slid down the rope, the spear guns tucked under their armpits, into the water.

They broke through the net of oil, which instantly enveloped and raised a rank, hot smell. His brother swam carefully around the concrete piles. Treading water, he turned to Simo and said, “It is light enough under water, we can see.” Then he plunged in spume of spray. Simo inhaled deeply, jacked double and followed after him the cold water crushed against his belly and the air inside his chest webbed into thinstrands that tautened with every stroke he took, Simo stayed down as long as he could, then turned broke water and dived in again.

His brother had looked up and when he saw Simo dived again, he turned head on and swam for the floor of the sea.

Simo heard the sea sigh into his ears and thereafter scaled all sound. He could feel the beating of his blood against his temples.

At ten feet, he felt a wedging sense in his ears, but the soft splayed-looking body of his brother ahead tugged him on and he sounded headlong until the pressure became a cold, molten metal in his head which he discovered was relieved by hard swallowing. Each swallow he took tightened the webbed strands of air in his chest.

This was the first time he had gone this deep, and although he wanted to break surface again, he also wanted to impress his brother.

At first, everything at the bottom looked green and even the bright murrey corals were only dark horns that rigidly defied the mobility of the sea. It was light enough as his brother had said, but gliding over the white sand and dark corals, Simo noticed that his brother cast no shadow. The pressure had made him a little giddy and this fact occurred to him without surprise as though somehow he had expected it. The shadow less domain of the under sea slipped on for several yards and was lost in a hazy, amorphous horizon. Then the corals flamed, and banded cowries and bright spiny shell stained the white san. Objects were stretched into exaggerated sizes and shapes. His brother’s body looked flat and enormous – not a blot on the bright scope but assimilated, bended into the scene by the encompassing sea.

Simo swam carefully, trying to look for fish. He saw his brother stop, only his legs undulating. He weam up to him in time to see him let loose a spear. It shot forward in a feather of bubbles. Ahead, Simo saw a red fish thrash and lie still, then it thrashed again and swam for the corals where it as lost. His brother raised his arem and he rose, Simo following closely. Under the wharf, where shadow shouldered the piers, his dark brother beamed at him, he gasped for breath and then said excitedly, “I got one. Did you see it?”

“It’s a maya-maya, “ his brother said.

Simo pushed the fish into one of the rattan baskets that they had tied to the end of the rope. His brother was preparing his spear gun for the next dive.

They trod water for sometime. His brother swam behind Simo and told him to dive ahead.

Simo plunged in, dragged the weight of air and water after him, his lungs and heart fluttering with his strokes and his ears ticket off the pressure. He skated smoothly in the water, swaying his lead from side to side, looking for fish. Ambassids swarm with him.

Then he saw a black lapu-lapu flit briefly behind a branch of coral and he stayed still. Simo raised his spear gun and swam forward. He approached the lapu-lapu as closely as he could and he saw its wide mouth half open, its fins quivering, its large shallow eyes staring at him, he aimed his spear gun. The sea tugged at it. He steadied it, aimed at its red-studded pectoral fin, and pressed the trigger. The steel shaft drove forward, trailing a fume of bubbles. Another fish sailed off at the soundless strike of bubbles.

His brother slapped him on the buttocks. They swam up and smiled broadly. He peered closely at Simo through his water-fogged goggles and said happily. “That was a big one. This will be a day.”

Simo dived alone to get the fish swimming um, he brush against one on the piers and he felt oyster shells rasped against his skin. There was no pain but he knew he had cut himself. He gave the fish to his brother. “I cut myself,” he told him.

“Come up and let’s have a look at it,” his brother said, pushing thedead lapu-lapu into Simo’s basket.

They pulled themselves up by the rope. On the concrete floor of the wharf, the sun had imbedded spikes of hat. Litoy knelt down besides Simo to look at the wound. Simo sat on one of the anvil-shaped mooring heads. The oyster shell had scraped off the skin. He began to bleed.

“That is nothing,” his brother said, “It won’t hurt under water. Seawater is as thick as blood. Let’s dive.”

That was an old superstition but the meaning that flew out of Litoy’s unwilling, caed intonation startled Simo and he sensed its shadow hover hawk like over the idea of his wound.

They slid down the rope and ished continously for and hour.

Simo was starting to feel the chill of the water when an explosion racked the sea.

The tide had come in completely and the water had pushed nearly four feet up to the ceiling of the wharf, beneath, the sea was noth through with currents of cold water.

Simo was staling a striped maya-maya when the exlosion froze into an instantaneous block about his head. He felt a solid wall of water hit him and his body became numb. Before that moment when he completely lost muscular control, he felt a violent kick strike him on the face. He rolled in the waer and he crashed against one of the oyster-pitted piers. Then she flincked his skin cleanly; he felt his check split open and blood glided before his eyes, which the crepuscular light of the undersea turned, into a momentary purplish blob. He rolled over and he saw the fleeting feet of his brother, attacking the moiling water with frightened flutters.

The block that encased his head melted into his brain and he gasped, salt burning his mouth and nose and he lay crushed by the remorseless wall of the stricken sea. Then his body stiffened.

When his reflexes retuned, he sucked in his belly and taut webs of air in his body slacked; the sea bouyed him up. A sharp pain pierced his ears; a series of minute explosion rang in his head. He felt as though his skull has burst but fear had cleared his brain and with great deliberation, he turned over and began to swim, his blood slowly thinning in his lungs, for the surface.

It was then that he saw his brother. He was swimming toward him, headlong, looking soft and splayed in the shadow less world of the undersea, afloat above him, his fear-strengthened mind perceived his brother, saw his scaled body and expressionles glass-walled eyes peering cruelly at him, his mouth pulled wide, and his hair pressed by the sea into a black sharp horn. Blood was again cast before his eyes and his brother disappeared. He left Litoy’s body brush against his ahd his hands close around his waist. With his ramaining strength, he jerk loose and swam swiftly, pushed by the water, to the surface of the sea.

Gripping one of the oyster-pitted piers, he ripped off his goggles and through shocked slat-burned eyes saw the old stemboat keel and sink into the unctuous, shadeless sea.

Pushed by the sun against the shagreen floor of the wharf, Simo lay stretched, his hands pressed on his guttered cheek.

Litoy knelt beside Simo and tried to press his shirt on the wound. Simo feeble resisted his help.

Their eyes met and softly Simo accused Litoy: “I saw you. I saw you swimming toward me.”

“I came for you,” Litoy said. “I came back for you.”

“Back! How could you say that? Why did you have to come back?” Simo shouted. Tears of pain came to his eyes.

The tangled voices of the people, who had knotted them in, ceased whirring and hung suspended, unhitched, above them waiting to absorb the next strike.

Then Simo heard one of them say: “The jeep is ready, Litoy. Let’s take him to the hospital.”

But Litoy seemed not to hear because he lifted his face to them and pleaded. “He’s delirious. Can’t you see he’s delirious?”

“Calm yourself, bridge-builder,” the familiar voice of the stevedore mocked. “You really brought him back.”

“Shut up!” Litoy cried hollowly.

“But you should have seen Mang Orto,” the stevedore continued. “What was left of his body was scalded beyond recognition.”

Simo closed his eyes at this revalation. His whole body was kindled by a pain more intense than the one that spanked his cheek as he felt himself merged with the hurled figure of Mang Orto, his skin peeled off. His body quivered with subpreme sobs. The pain of emergence was unbearable.

Simo heard the jeep start and roar away. “They’re taking his body away,” the stevedore said.

Rony V. Diaz was born in Cabanatuan City and was a former student of N.V.M. Gonzales at the University of the Philippines. Diaz was a three-time Palance Award winner. Among his works were “The Centepede”, a third prize winner in 1952-53, “Death in an Sawmill”, a first prize winner in 1953-54 and “The Two Brothers”. The later is a story of two brothers engaged in spear fishing.

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