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Love in the Corn Husk by Aida Rivera-Ford

April 5, 2014April 5, 2014 · imageryandbeyond

Love in the Cornhusk by Aida Rivera

Tinang stopped before the Señora’s gate and adjusted the baby’s cap. The dogs that came to bark at
the gate were strange dogs, big-mouthed animals with a sense of superiority. They stuck their heads
through the hogfence, lolling their tongues and straining. Suddenly, from the gumamela row, a little
black mongrel emerged and slithered through the fence with ease. It came to her, head down and
body quivering.

“Bantay. Ay, Bantay!” she exclaimed as the little dog laid its paws upon her shirt to sniff the baby on
her arm. The baby was afraid and cried. The big animals barked with displeasure.

Tito, the young master, had seen her and was calling to his mother. “Ma, it’s Tinang. Ma, Ma, it’s
Tinang.” He came running down to open the gate.

“Aba, you are so tall now, Tito.”

He smiled his girl’s smile as he stood by, warding the dogs off. Tinang passed quickly up the veranda
stairs lined with ferns and many-colored bougainville. On landing, she paused to wipe her shoes
carefully. About her, the Señora’s white and lavender butterfly orchids fluttered delicately in the
sunshine. She noticed though that the purple waling-waling that had once been her task to shade from
the hot sun with banana leaves and to water with mixture of charcoal and eggs and water was not in
bloom.

“Is no one covering the waling-waling now?” Tinang asked. “It will die.”
“Oh, the maid will come to cover the orchids later.”

The Señora called from inside. “Tinang, let me see your baby. Is it a boy?”

“Yes, Ma,” Tito shouted from downstairs. “And the ears are huge!”

“What do you expect,” replied his mother; “the father is a Bagobo. Even Tinang looks like a Bagobo
now.”

Tinang laughed and felt warmness for her former mistress and the boy Tito. She sat self-consciously
on the black narra sofa, for the first time a visitor. Her eyes clouded. The sight of the Señora’s
flaccidly plump figure, swathed in a loose waist-less housedress that came down to her ankles, and
the faint scent of agua de colonia blended with kitchen spice, seemed to her the essence of the
comfortable world, and she sighed thinking of the long walk home through the mud, the baby’s legs
straddled to her waist, and Inggo, her husband, waiting for her, his body stinking of tuba and sweat,
squatting on the floor, clad only in his foul undergarments.

“Ano, Tinang, is it not a good thing to be married?” the Señora asked, pitying Tinang because her
dress gave way at the placket and pressed at her swollen breasts. It was, as a matter of fact, a dress
she had given Tinang a long time ago.

“It is hard, Señora, very hard. Better that I were working here again.”

“There!” the Señora said. “Didn’t I tell you what it would be like, huh? … that you would be a slave
to your husband and that you would work a baby eternally strapped to you. Are you not pregnant
again?”

Tinang squirmed at the Señora’s directness but admitted she was.

“Hala! You will have a dozen before long.” The Señora got up. “Come, I will give you some dresses
and an old blanket that you can cut into things for the baby.”

They went into a cluttered room which looked like a huge closet and as the Señora sorted out some
clothes, Tinang asked, “How is Señor?”

“Ay, he is always losing his temper over the tractor drivers. It is not the way it was when Amado was
here. You remember what a good driver he was. The tractors were always kept in working condition.
But now … I wonder why he left all of a sudden. He said he would be gone for only two days … .”

“I don’t know,” Tinang said. The baby began to cry. Tinang shushed him with irritation.

“Oy, Tinang, come to the kitchen; your Bagobito is hungry.”

For the next hour, Tinang sat in the kitchen with an odd feeling; she watched the girl who was now in
possession of the kitchen work around with a handkerchief clutched I one hand. She had lipstick on
too, Tinang noted. the girl looked at her briefly but did not smile. She set down a can of evaporated
milk for the baby and served her coffee and cake. The Señora drank coffee with her and lectured
about keeping the baby’s stomach bound and training it to stay by itself so she could work. Finally,
Tinang brought up, haltingly, with phrases like “if it will not offend you” and “if you are not too
busy” the purpose of her visit–which was to ask Señora to be a madrina in baptism. The Señora
readily assented and said she would provide the baptismal clothes and the fee for the priest. It was
time to go.
“When are you coming again, Tinang?” the Señore asked as Tinang got the baby ready. “Don’t forget
the bundle of clothes and … oh, Tinang, you better stop by the drugstore. They asked me once
whether you were still with us. You have a letter there and I was going to open it to see if there was
bad news but I thought you would be coming.”

A letter! Tinang’s heart beat violently. Somebody is dead; I know somebody is dead, she thought. She
crossed herself and after thanking the Señora profusely, she hurried down. The dogs came forward
and Tito had to restrain them. “Bring me some young corn next time, Tinang,” he called after her.

Tinang waited a while at the drugstore which was also the post office of the barrio. Finally, the man
turned to her: “Mrs., do you want medicine for your baby or for yourself?”

“No, I came for my letter. I was told I have a letter.”

“And what is your name, Mrs.?” He drawled.

“Constantina Tirol.”

The man pulled a box and slowly went through the pile of envelopes most of which were scribbled in
pencil, “Tirol, Tirol, Tirol… .” He finally pulled out a letter and handed it to her. She stared at the
unfamiliar scrawl. It was not from her sister and she could think of no one else who could write to
her.

Santa Maria, she thought; maybe something has happened to my sister.

“Do you want me to read it for you?”

“No, no.” She hurried from the drugstore, crushed that he should think her illiterate. With the baby
on one arm and the bundle of clothes on the other and the letter clutched in her hand she found
herself walking toward home.

The rains had made a deep slough of the clay road and Tinang followed the prints left by the men
and the carabaos that had gone before her to keep from sinking mud up to her knees. She was deep in
the road before she became conscious of her shoes. In horror, she saw that they were coated with
thick, black clay. Gingerly, she pulled off one shoe after the other with the hand still clutching to the
letter. When she had tied the shoes together with the laces and had slung them on an arm, the baby,
the bundle, and the letter were all smeared with mud.

There must be a place to put the baby down, she thought, desperate now about the letter. She walked
on until she spotted a corner of a field where cornhusks were scattered under akamansi tree. She
shoved together a pile of husks with her foot and laid the baby down upon it. With a sigh, she drew
the letter from the envelope. She stared at the letter which was written in English.

My dearest Tinay,

Hello, how is life getting along? Are you still in good condition? As for myself, the same as usual. But you’re far
from my side. It is not easy to be far from our lover.

Tinay, do you still love me? I hope your kind and generous heart will never fade. Someday or somehow I’ll be
there again to fulfill our promise.

Many weeks and months have elapsed. Still I remember our bygone days. Especially when I was suffering with
the heat of the tractor under the heat of the sun. I was always in despair until I imagine your personal
appearance coming forward bearing the sweetest smile that enabled me to view the distant horizon.
Tinay, I could not return because I found that my mother was very ill. That is why I was not able to take you as
a partner of life. Please respond to my missive at once so that I know whether you still love me or not. I hope you
did not love anybody except myself.

I think I am going beyond the limit of your leisure hours, so I close with best wishes to you, my friends
Gonding, Sefarin, Bondio, etc.

Yours forever,

Amado

P.S. My mother died last month.

Address your letter:

Mr. Amado Galauran

Binalunan, Cotabato

It was Tinang’s first love letter. A flush spread over her face and crept into her body. She read the
letter again. “It is not easy to be far from our lover… . I imagine your personal appearance coming
forward… . Someday, somehow I’ll be there to fulfill our promise… .” Tinang was intoxicated. She
pressed herself against the kamansi tree.

My lover is true to me. He never meant to desert me. Amado, she thought. Amado.

And she cried, remembering the young girl she was less than two years ago when she would take
food to Señor in the field and the laborers would eye her furtively. She thought herself above them
for she was always neat and clean in her hometown, before she went away to work, she had gone to
school and had reached sixth grade. Her skin, too, was not as dark as those of the girls who worked
in the fields weeding around the clumps of abaca. Her lower lip jutted out disdainfully when the
farm hands spoke to her with many flattering words. She laughed when a Bagobo with two hectares
of land asked her to marry him. It was only Amado, the tractor driver, who could look at her and
make her lower her eyes. He was very dark and wore filthy and torn clothes on the farm but on
Saturdays when he came up to the house for his week’s salary, his hair was slicked down and he
would be dressed as well as Mr. Jacinto, the schoolteacher. Once he told her he would study in the
city night-schools and take up mechanical engineering someday. He had not said much more to her
but one afternoon when she was bidden to take some bolts and tools to him in the field, a great
excitement came over her. The shadows moved fitfully in the bamboo groves she passed and the cool
November air edged into her nostrils sharply. He stood unmoving beside the tractor with tools and
parts scattered on the ground around him. His eyes were a black glow as he watched her draw near.
When she held out the bolts, he seized her wrist and said: “Come,” pulling her to the screen of trees
beyond. She resisted but his arms were strong. He embraced her roughly and awkwardly, and she
trembled and gasped and clung to him… .

A little green snake slithered languidly into the tall grass a few yards from the kamansi tree. Tinang
started violently and remembered her child. It lay motionless on the mat of husk. With a shriek she
grabbed it wildly and hugged it close. The baby awoke from its sleep and cries lustily. Ave Maria
Santisima. Do not punish me, she prayed, searching the baby’s skin for marks. Among the cornhusks,
the letter fell unnoticed.
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