Big Sister

THIS IS A SHORT STORY WRITTEN BY CONSORCIO BORJE.

"YOU can use this," said Inciang, smiling brightly and trying to keep her tears back. "It is still quite strong, and you will not outgrow if for a year yet."

Itong watched his sister fold his old khaki shirt carefully and pack it into the rattan tampipi, which already bulged with his clothes. He stood helplessly by, shifting his weight from one bare foot to the other, looking down at his big sister, who had always done everything for him.

"There, that's done," said Inciang, pressing down the lid. "Give me that rope. I'll truss it up for you. And be careful with it, Itong? Your Tia Orin has been very kind to lend it to us for your trip to Vigan."

Itong assented and obediently handed his sister the rope. His eyes followed her deft movements with visible impatience; his friends were waiting outside to play with him. He was twelve years old, and growing fast.

Sometimes when Inciang toiling in the kitchen, sweeping the house, or washing clothes by the well in the front yard held a long session with herself, she admitted she did not want Itong to grow. She wanted to keep him the boy that he was, always. Inciang had raised Itong from the whimpering, little, red lump of flesh that he was when their mother died soon after giving birth to him. She had been as a mother to him as long as she could remember.

"May I go out now and play, Manang?"

And Inciang heard herself saying, "It will be a year before you will see your friends again… Go now."

She listened to the sound of his footsteps down the bamboo ladder, across the bare earthen front yard. Then she heard him whistle. There were answering whistles, running feet.


"TELL him, Inciang," her father had said. That was about three months ago. Inciang was washing clothes by the well with Tia Orin.

"Yes, you tell him, Inciang," said Tia Orin. It was always Inciang who had dealt with Itong if anything of importance happened.

Inciang rose to her feet. She had been squatting long over her washtub and pains shot up her spine.

"Hoy, Itong," called Inciang. Itong was out in the street playing with Nena, Lacay Illo's daughter. "Hoy, Itong," called Inciang. "Come here. I have something to tell you."

Itong gave a playful push at Nena before he came running. He smiled as he stepped over the low bamboo barrier at the gate which kept the neighbors' pigs out. How bright his face was! Inciang's heart skipped a beat.

"You have something to tell me, Manang?"

Inciang brushed her sudsy hands against her soiled skirt. "Yes. It is about your going to Vigan."

Itong sat down suddenly on the barrier.

"Your are going to high school, after all, Itong," Inciang said. She said it defiantly, as if afraid that Itong would like going away. She looked up at her father, as if to ask him to confirm her words. Father sat leaning out of the low front window, smoking his pipe.

Itong looked at her foolishly. Inciang's heart felt heavy within her, but she said, with a little reproach, "Why, Itong, aren't you glad? We thought you wanted to go to high school."

Itong began to cry. He sat there in front of his father and his sister and his aunt Orin, and tears crept down his cheeks.

"The supervising principal teacher, Mr. Cablana," went on Inciang in a rush, "came this afternoon and told us you may go to high school without paying the fees, because you are the balibictorian."

Itong nodded.

"Now, don't cry," said his aunt Orin. "You are no longer a baby."

"Yes," added the father. "And Mr. Cablana also promised to give his laundry to Inciang, so you'll have money for your books. Mr. Cablana is also sure to get the Castila's laundry for Inciang, and that will do for your food, besides the rice that we shall be sending you. Stop crying."

"Your Tata Cilin's house is in Nagpartian, very near the high school. You will stay with him. And," Inciang said, "I don't have to accompany you to Vigan, Itong. You'll ride in the passenger bus where your cousin Pedro is the conductor. Your cousin Pedro will show you where your Tata Cilin lives. Your cousin Merto, son of your uncle Cilin, will help you register in school. He is studying in the same school. Will you stop crying?"

Itong looked at Inciang, and the tears continued creeping down his cheeks. Itong was so young. Inciang began to scold him. "Is that the way you should act? Why, you're old now!"

Then Itong ran into the house and remained inside. His father laughed heartily as he pulled at his pipe. Inciang started to laugh also, but her tears began to fall fast also, and she bent her head over her washtub and she began scrubbing industriously, while she laughed and laughed. Outside the gate, standing with her face pressed against the fence, was Nena, watching the tableau with a great wonder in her eyes.

Inciang had watched Itong grow up from a new-born baby. She was six years old when she carried him around, straddled over her hip. She kept house, did the family wash, encouraged Itong to go through primary, then intermediate school, when he showed rebellion against school authority. When he was in the second grade and could speak more English words than Inciang, her father began to laugh at her; also her Tia Orin and her brood had laughed at her.

"Schooling would never do me any good," Inciang had said lightly.

She watched Itong go through school, ministering to his needs lovingly, doing more perhaps for him than was good for him. Once she helped him fight a gang of rowdies from the other end of the town. Or better, she fought the gang for him using the big rice ladle she was using in the kitchen at the time.

And her father had never married again, being always faithful to the memory of Inciang's mother. The farm which he tilled produced enough rice and vegetables for the family's use, and such few centavos as Lacay Iban would now and then need for the cockpit he got out of Inciang's occasional sales of vegetables in the public market or of a few bundles of rice in the camarin. Few were the times when they were hard pressed for money. One was the time when Inciang's mother died. Another was now that Itong was going to Vigan.

Inciang was working to send him away, when all she wanted was to keep him always at her side! She spent sleepless nights thinking of how Itong would fare in a strange town amidst strange people, even though their parientes would be near him. It would not be the same. She cried again and again, it would not be the same.