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THE YEAR was first of all the strangeness of a new town, a railroad station on a day in June, with the rain falling and the steam breath of the train engine blue in the grey air, and riding in a carretela with his father and mother through tunnels of leaves to the house by the river. Then in a bright morning, the whir of grasshoppers deep in the damp grass of the plaza, the long sprawling schoolhouse, the nameless faces, the fresh mud smell of the corridor, and the bell’s urgent ringing as his father waved, winking and smiling, going away down the steps. Room 10 was a sudden loneliness. Through the windows there was a view of mountains, dark-blue and infinitely far, they seemed; one might try to journey toward them., across countless plains, day and night, and never reach them because they receded into the horizon perpetually; and seated at his desk in the room with the unknown children, he imagined himself lost somewhere in that impossible distance. At noon the day darkened and rained, and his father came and they left together, sharing a raincoat, walking down the soft cool raining streets of the town.

Grade Three was Miss Castillo, the ruler in her hand pointing, rapping the table, tapping the blackboard, Writing, Arithmetic, her voice sometimes tired, sometimes harsh, but often happy, even laughing, and leading the class in song, a warm and vibrant voice; and the year, too, was the typhoon skies of July and August, the thick greenness of the plaza, new friends, Vic, Junior, Kiko, Doming, matchboxes of spiders, marbles, airplane model cut-outs, Batman, the Human Torch, Captain America, color prints of cowboy stars, the odors of ink and chalk, the twin flags fluttering over the schoolhouse, and the hot lemon sun between the long rains.

He was nine years old now, an only child, thin and pensive but capable of outbursts of intense energy, his mop of hair shaking loose over his eyes. He liked the town more than the previous ones they had lived in: here were two movie houses and high school cadets drilling with wooden rifles in the plaza and Bombay bazaars on the main street; cascoes came down the huge river and the train whistles said come to the city, come; and listening to the fading machine rumble in the night, he felt a pang of waiting for dreams he could not touch with words.

His father clerked in the treasurer’s office, in the municipal hall, a neat tile-roofed building surrounded by great acacias; and in the mornings they would leave the house together, side by side, the boy trying to match his father’s stride, brisk and certain, across the bridge with its massive iron girders, the boats bobbing on the flashing water, Rizal Street streaming noisily with children hurrying to school. Remembering the other town, the tiny crumbling schoolhouse, the stillness under the dusty palms, he wished fervently that his father would not be assigned again to work elsewhere. In the backyard of the house his father had taken, there was a santol tree with branches miraculously arranged for a young boy’s easy climbing, and from a comfortable perch secret among the leaves, he could see a bend of the river and a part of the main street, and he could play at being an eagle or the pilot of a fighter plane.

The house itself, which they shared with a family, was pleasant enough: it had a porch shaded by a morning-glory vine, and through the wide kitchen window one looked out on a checker-board of fields, and on the edge of the world the glint of rails, the train crawling small as a toy but its power trembling through your arms on the windowsill. He would wave to the passengers, although he knew he was too far to be seen, and fancy himself on the train too, counting the telegraph poles going by, faster, almost blurring together, finally slowing down, the city rising about him, vast and mysterious.

He had a plot behind the school building and planted pechay and tomatoes and eggplants, in a row of similar plots like fresh graves, the names printed on placards set in the dark soil like little crosses. October came, and winds blew cool cotton clouds through the sky, the cloud-shadows passing swift on the ground, over the rooftops, on the church and the convento, the trees, the river. Fascinated, he would pause during a game at recess to watch the shadows racing across the schoolyard, gone in a twinkling, dissolving toward the mountains, the unseen places.

In Room 10, with the stern portraits of heroes watchful on the walls, under the thumb-tacked cardboard slogans, he added and multiplied and divided sums gradually growing complex, recited patriotic poems, sang the children’s songs about the ripe guavas and far Zamboanga and Maria going to town. At a program for visiting school officials, he was one of a group of unwilling boys that did a folk dance; and only Miss Castillo’s gift of chocolate candy relaxed his rebellion enough for him to go through the steps with passable grace. His favorite subject was Geography, for in the large blue-covered book was the tang of the oceans, and the mists of valleys, the proud names of countries. It seemed then that all of the world became familiar and near, the way it was with the town, its regions explored and made his own, the woods behind the convento, the riverbank, the shortcuts to school, known and therefore free of danger.

A photographer came with his black shrouded camera and took a picture of the class ranged on the front steps, with him in the front row with Miss Castillo because he was among the bright ones. In the picture his face had a tense, almost belligerent look. “Remember to smile next time,” his mother said.

*  *  *  *  *

A CLASSMATE named Jaime had been absent for more than a week, and one morning, Miss Castillo said, “Jaime is dead.” The room drained of sound and from the other wing of the building filtered faint voices like murmurs, and in the next room a girl recited on in a singsong tone.

The teacher’s announcement seemed to hang in the unstirring room for a long time, and he noted a fly buzzing on a wall. The awesome fearful word sank slowly into his understanding, and brought a thrill of terror to his heart. He stared at the vacant desk and he experienced again, as on the first day of class, a sense of mountains unreachable forever, while a pressure weighed against his ears and hummed remotely in the quiet room.

In the afternoon the class trooped to Jaime’s house, a dim sagging nipa shack on the outer edge of town. Everyone spoke in hushed careful voices, as if an immense calamity would claim them all at once if they showed the slightest disrespect. He looked at Jaime’s half-closed lightless eyes and chalk lips and turned away, a bewildered shock dry in his throat. He had known the dead boy but slightly: a sullen face, a shrill laugh, the frayed faded clothes of the very poor, that was all; and Jaime was more alien now, a complete stranger. The crowded house oppressed him, it would bury him in its darkness; and he sought out Junior and Doming and they went down the ladder to the yard and sat there on the roots of an old tree, not talking, until their teacher came and told them they could go home. In the rapid dusk, they ran as if pursued, panting into the more familiar quarter of town, where the streetlights were, the bustle of carretelas, the stores.

He dreamed one night of Jaime alive, Jaime’s mouth forming words but without sound, trying to talk, his hands gesturing desperately; but there was no telling what it was he wanted to say. “What happened to your voice?” he asked Jaime in the dream, and then they were in the classroom and Jaime stood before them, speechless, his eyes pleading and helpless. The bell signaled the end of school, and they fled from the room, and he looked for Jaime so they could take the train together to the city; but Jaime was gone, and he searched for him around the building, calling out his name in all the rooms, and Miss Castillo said, “What is it? Tell me, what have you lost?” He wakened then, to morning and his father standing beside the bed, smiling. “You were talking in your sleep,” his father said, his hand warm and gentle on the boy’s cheek, as though checking on a fever. “Get up now or you’ll be late for school. . .”

*  *  *  *  *

DURING A recess period, one of the sixth graders pushed him against another boy, who lashed at him instantly, tackling him to the ground.

They wrestled, a fist jabbed at his ear, he freed himself, struck back, swung and landed a blow on his opponent’s mouth, his weight behind the blow, his knuckles crashing against teeth. Someone pulled him away, while others chanted “Fight!. Fight!” fiercely crowding around him. It had all happened in a few seconds; and recovering from the suddenness, he saw whom he was fighting, a boy he did not know. He wanted to explain that it was all a mistake, there was no reason to punish each other; but the other boy, crying now, cursing furiously, came at him, leading with his fists.

The bell dispersed the little mob, sending them all flying back to their rooms. He had cut his knuckles, and he sucked at them, tasting for the first time the salt of blood, his heart thumping, feeling trapped and outraged, a victim, forced into a fight. He sensed further violence waiting for him, hiding in ambush wherever he would go, and there was no returning. He could only wait, and fight back, hard, but against his will when he was struck again.

In the noon sun, outside the gate, the boy he had fought stood waiting, stood in his path with three others, their hatred focused on him, like heat through a magnifying lens, burning into his chest. But the tall boy from Grade Six, the one who had pushed him, was suddenly by his side, a protective arm thrown around his shoulder.

“You touch him and I’ll break your bones, all four of you,” the tall boy said. “Stay away from him, do you hear? Go!” And the four slunk away, glancing back as though to say, just you wait, we’ll get you yet, tomorrow, next week, someday.

“Why did you make us fight?”

The boy from Grade Six laughed. He had large crooked teeth and a ripe pimple on his nose. “I must have tripped and you happened to be in the way,” he said. “My name’s Dado, and you are my friend, yes?”

He did not know what to say. He felt faint and hungry and it was hot standing in the sun.

“You fought well, you know,” said Dado. “I like the way you got him on the mouth. I can teach you some other tricks, you know, and they’ll never be able to lick you.”

They went across the plaza, Dado’s hand heavy on his shoulder. He had an impulse to shake off the hand, and run. A certain instinct warned him against Dado’s companionship, but at the same time he knew the consequences of his rejection.

“I’m going home,” he said.

“Of course,” said Dado. “I’ll even walk you home if you like. But first, there is something we must settle.” He asked with the air of a conspirator: “You have money with you?”

“Why?”

“I asked the question.”

“I spent it all this morning.”

Dado’s hand gripped his arm, tightening. “Don’t you lie to me.”

“But it’s true,” he said.

“You owe me fifty centavos,” said Dado.

“But I don’t owe you anything.”

“I’m telling you. It ought to be a peso, but I like you, so we’ll make it fifty centavos. That’s fair enough, isn’t it?”

“But —”

“Bring the money this afternoon. Tell your father it’s for a school program. Tell him anything, but bring some money, is that clear?”

He glanced away, at the mountains blue in the glare, the giant boulders of clouds, the trees and the town, the confusion and the fear knotted in his chest.

Dado said softly, like a brother, kind and understanding, “Don’t look so glum. I’m your friend. I saved you from a beating, didn’t I? Look, when you give the money this afternoon, I’ll take you to our secret place. It’s like a cave. Nobody knows about it, only the members of our gang.”

“You’re making it all up.”

“Ah, you’ll like it there, of that I’m sure. The fifty centavos will be your membership fee. You’ll be the first to join from Grade Three. Later on, we’ll ask all your friends to join.”

“There’s no such place. I don’t believe you.”

“I’ll be waiting for you this afternoon,” said Dado.

His father and mother had finished lunch when he arrived, and he ate hurriedly in the kitchen; and when his mother noticed a bruise on his knee, he said he had stumbled playing in the schoolyard. He sneaked his coconut-shell bank out of the house while his parents were taking their siesta, and broke it with a stone and pocketed five ten-centavo coins and hid the shattered shell in a bush. If his father would only come down now and ask why he had destroyed the shell, he might tell him. . . The house was quiet in the leafshade, he was alone, and Dado was waiting for him.

“Come with me,” said Dado when he handed over the money, catching him abruptly by the wrist. “Come, I’ll show you our hiding place,”
and before he could protest, Dado had dragged him through a break in the hedge and under the school building. Powerless to resist, captured in some tide of force, he half-crawled deeper into the damp gloom, Dado pulling him on, until they came to a hole dug in the ground.

There were boys in the pit; some were smoking cigarettes, red dots glowing like demon eyes in the half-light; and with the dank rotting smell of sunless earth rose the sharp fume of alcohol. “Go in,” said Dado; and when he did not move, crouched on the hard-packed edge of the pit, he was shoved sprawling into a tangle of arms and legs and muted spiteful laughter. He had dropped his books and he could not find them, groping for them on the dark bottom of the pit.

“Meet our new treasurer,” said Dado.

“Let me go,” he whimpered.

“You can’t go unless we say so,” someone said.

“Maybe he wants a drink,” said another, laughing.

A bottle was thrust at him, but he would not touch it. The bell began to ring for the start of the afternoon session, and he began to sob, and a hand was clapped roughly on his mouth. His crying stopped after a while, and he sat quiet and trembling, his back against the cool wall of earth, the red cigarette eyes glowing about him. “You tell anyone about this place and we’ll kill you,” someone said, he could not see who it was; all their faces were vague and featureless in the hidden twilight. He wanted to tell them, please let me go and I won’t ever tell; but no sound came from his throat, he could not speak, like Jaime in the dream; and somewhere beyond the darkness that was the floor above them, the children were singing: “What shall we do when we all go out — all go out — all go out —” their voices distant and forlorn.

He had one hope left, that Miss Castillo had not called the roll and marked him absent for the afternoon.