To Catch a Gust of Wind [COMPLETE]

Chapter 2 - Kingdom of the Child [#5]

"Poverty eats your soul."

"Poverty eats your soul." Rafael had heard it from his father. "It strips off what you have left in you as a human being. It bares you to the bones and leaves you unglorified in your nakedness."

Rafael wondered at that time what his father had meant. The words had remained, but the meaning seemed to fly to some place, somewhere in the recesses of his mind, there to remain until recalled. Tay Paeng was indoctrinating him, as he learned later. More like a re-education from one who barely finished his elementary education.

When you can't get out from your wretched condition in life, push someone up, don't let him get stuck with you. There are those who live their whole lives in the shadow, too afraid to get out under the sun; go to sleep at night with nary an attempt to look at the sky and discover it's full of stars.

Rafael had witnessed the inner struggle of his father to be educated. When he was in high school, at nights before he went to bed, Tay Paeng would ask him to translate a few words or phrases to English. Why his father had chosen the English language, Rafael had no idea at that time. It's only now that he tried to guess. Perhaps it had to do something with the program set up at the village school being conducted at that time by the schoolteachers. They tried to educate the old folks, those who did not finish the elementary grade, let alone had not attended school, how to read and write.

"What's English for 'pag-antos'? Tay Paeng would ask him. How many times his father had asked him on the topic?

"Suffer, sacrifice," Rafael would reply. Then his father would use the word in a sentence, and he would say it in English as best as he could. There were times he was unsure of the translation. But who cares? His father would believe anything he would say in English. English, for Tay Paeng, was the measure of intelligence. He knew his father felt proud himself when he was able to speak in English, however awkward it was for the ears.

The rigors of life in the hacienda had made his father a determined man. Tay Paeng knew the hacienda was his battlefield, his prison and he would die a laborer, like his father (Rafael's grandfather), before him. Parents would want their children to follow in their footsteps, wouldn't they? But not in his circumstance. His father told him countless times, too many he lost count of the situation when his father did so, usually during special days, like New Year or Christmas or Rafael's birthday when his father would go into a monologue, detailing his stories with pain and sacrifices he's willing to undergo just to feed their family, not to mention making promises to send him to college. Often, Rafael would fall asleep in the end, Tay Paeng's voice transformed into a mechanical speech, the button on the ready to change its volume but not ready to stop, especially when he would listen to his father in the porch at night after supper, and the monologue would turn into a soliloquy.

Tay Paeng was particularly fond of telling a particular story about his grandmother, Lola Beatrice, or Lola Batre as she was lovingly called, Rafael's great grandmother on his father's side. In fact, Rafael had memories of her when he was a child seven or eight years old as far as he could remember, snippets of memories for him to recall someday, like this one right now. He even made Lola Batre write her name on a piece of torn paper after so much cajoling.

Tay Paeng would like to tell it as a story. Rafael could still hear his father's words as he told the story. He watched every play of expression on his father's face, full of emotion and nuances in the tone of his voice, made alive by the way his father had narrated it countless of times. As it turned out, Tay Paeng came out as the protagonist.

...Bert looked into Paeng's eyes and what he saw surprised him. It's not what he expected to see. The soft, black eyes expressed caring and yet were vibrant. A surge of adrenaline tingled up his spine when Paeng eagerly took his hands.