Lifted Veils

The mid-day is when the people are scarce at the seaport market in Banate; far from the crowded place that it has always been during peak hours every break of dawns or late afternoons. Teo has not been back at the port since he arrived back from Manila few weeks ago, and today, he is standing in front of a small stall of seafood manned by an old woman. The offerings on display still have their scent of the sea in them, stinking the atmosphere. The woman, in between chewing buyo, juicing it with her saliva and spitting them out, is quietly watching the young man eyeing another stall not far from where he is standing;

"Segnor, you have been here since yesterday and you made it clear you had no intentions of buying any of my fish. Yet here you are again standing at my stall," the woman shrieks

Teo looks back at the old woman and slowly turns his head down, lowering his hat to also cover his face with it. His gesture seems to get across his apologies to the old woman. He recalls standing at the same spot just yesterday, also looking over the small stall of bamboo shack at the corner, with the same woman behind him advising him that the stall at the corner is only operating on Tuesdays and Thursdays; the reason why he is at the port again that Thursday afternoon.

"If you are still waiting for that stall to open, you may need to wait a little longer. Biyang sometimes open her stall late in the day, I am unsure if she still can profit in selling her vegetables that late. One day, that woman just popped in here suddenly, with her stall mostly closed for the rest of the week" the old woman chimes in still chewing her buyo

Teo gives way to an approaching fat woman who stops by the fish vendor stall. He can hear the buyer trying to get discount from the old woman while he is still peeking over the closed stall at the corner. A moment passes by and he sees a small cart being pushed by a veiled woman stops in front of the stall. On it he sees variety of vegetables crammed in the small cart, leafy vegetables, root crops and other agricultural produce. The woman then parks the cart beside the small stall at the corner and unloads the products from the cart onto the stall. It is then when Teo approaches the inattentive veiled woman;

"Do you need help with those, Segnora Fabiana?" Teo interrupts from behind

The veiled woman slothfully turns her back around while still filling the vegetables stocks on the stall, after which she nods at the young man after she takes a good look at him;

"Good day, Segnor" Fabiana answers in return, "I am good, honestly, I can handle this"

"I asked around town where I may find you and someone told me she might have recalled passing by your stall in this port, so I gave it a try yesterday only to find your stall will not be opened until today," he exclaims

Fabiana smiles to face the young man;

"And here you are,"

"Are these vegetables of your own growing, Segnora?" the young man pauses, "These look like they are newly harvested. I am unaware you are farming. I have not seen you in ours at all. Which farm where they from?" Teo enquires while scrutinizing the products from where he stands

"They were grown at my backyard, Segnor," Fabiana responses

"Was that allowed by the friar?" Teo pauses, "I thought homegrown produces can only be consumed personally? If one has to sell them, they have to be registered at the Captain's office for taxation," Teo curiously claims

Fabiana halts from fixing the vegetables on the stall to remove her veil and faces the young man again;

"It has been registered through the Old Captain Segnor, months before his demise. I assure you the parish and the colony has been getting their fair share of my contribution from the little income I have been getting from these," the woman smiles awkwardly while shaking her head

"My apologies, Segnora, it was just that the other vendors made it appear you just suddenly popped up in here one day, it gave me an impression of an illegal trade," Teo responds looking around the other stalls with a concealed laugh

"Such a shame I always earn your suspicion, Segnor," Fabiana giggles as she resumes in filling her stall with vegetables on it, "I actually have been here the day you arrived back from Manila, it was one of those days I decided to open my stall earlier than usual. I saw you standing in there, with your belongings at your foot. You had your cup of coffee back then until Mang Chuy came to pick you up. That was weeks ago, Segnor," Fabiana concludes as she finishes fixing the vegetables at the stall

"I had not known you back then, Segnora," Teo replies as he removes his top hat

"And you do now?," Fabiana enquires in mid-laughter

"I think I do," Teo pauses, "You were right about Utoy, and Fray Luciano. I did find the boy at the old church bell tower with the bell ringer just like how you claimed. That is why I am here, Fabiana, I need to know how you knew the truth,"

Fabiana enters her stall and fixes a small stool inside to recline on it;

"My apologies Segnor as I only have one stool. I wish I could offer you one to sit on," Fabiana pauses, "You see, I sometimes supply the parish with my vegetables, I might have seen the boy cleaning the friar's house during one of my visits at the parish. At first I was not aware that the boy I saw was the son of Mang Gener and Aling Nita, until an ancestor confirmed with me in a dream. Then the next day, the missing boy's family summoned me and asked for my help, and that was when I saw you too. You claimed that I have been right all along, yet you are here to know how I knew the truth when you have been made aware beforehand how I did. You witnessed it, did you not Segnor?,"

Teo twitches his neck in disapproval;

"But…"

"It all happened right before your eyes, Segnor, yet you still try to deny it. Sometimes our eyes are made too comfortable looking through a veil that when that veil is suddenly lifted and see our surroundings clearly for the first time, we get too overwhelmed with how things around us shine brightly we then long to have the veil back on to filter our sights with it again," Fabiana sternly responds

"You were right, Segnora Fabiana. I got too overwhelmed after finding out one truth after another. I guess, unconsciously, I was putting the veil back on to make myself comfortable again, when all I could do was just to adjust my eyesight to the new unfiltered surroundings that were revealed before my eyes," Teo drops his head down while taking air in uncontrollably

"Acknowledging that your veil has been lifted is a good start, Segnor," Fabiana pauses to take air in as well, "the Salgado Farms boast of freshly picked produce, I am sure you are not here to have a taste of vegetables grown from my back yard,"

"I learned of a dark past that I committed when I was a child. It was more of an acknowledgment of the past that I have been concealing for long. Growing up, I always have this vision of a memory that I was unsure if it had really transpired or not, a quick fragment of a broken memory always trying to surface like it was someone else's memory that I suddenly have tapped on to. Now that I found out the truth about it, it lighted up candles that have been there all along. Unlit candles, waiting for the moment when a sudden rush of recollection would burn their wicks back on to find that it was not someone else's memory after all. It was mine all this time, that it was me committing that very dark crime," Teo claims while struggling to catch his breath

"Our greatest pitfall is always our guilt. We may get away from committing crimes but we can never run away from our conscience. It was the way of your young mind to protect yourself from your conscience by classifying the truth and isolating it, burying it down somewhere your guilt would not hunt it. But even the minds could not commit a perfect crime as it left cluttered memories of the once buried incident, it manifested as broken memories leading your conscience to where it was buried," Fabiana exclaims staring at Teo

The young man nods in approval as he looks away into the scattered stalls before them, his silence is suddenly interrupted by Fabiana as she claims;

"I told you that the Don was a confidante. I have known all along what you have done years ago and how the old Captain covered it all up. The church played along as they benefitted from covering the truth too" Fabiana pauses, "The Don was right, you were too young to be persecuted for an incident that we were sure you did not intend to do. There is just one thing I am sure of, that you would always have it in you the guilt of accidentally killing a friend" she finishes stoically

Teo slowly nods his head in approval again

"It is up to you how you would let the truth affect you moving forward, Segnor" she takes air in, "I want you to listen carefully to the next words I am about to say. The old Captain had an amicable but hidden agreement with the Red People dwelling in the mountains as he allowed them to plow the lands up the mountains which the friar wanted to acquire too. Your foster father reasoned out that the lands in the mountains were not arable, and for a long time the friar believed him. Now that the Don is dead, there is no one to protect the lands from being conquered by the church"

Teo curiously watches the woman catches her breath;

"The Bandits?" Teo halts, "My foster father was protecting them?"

Fabiana shakes her head in disagreement;

"They were farmers. Some of them were progenies of the original inhabitants of the lands that the church conquered. These farmers will be taking the lands that belong to them once and for all; along with their religion that was thrown away by the occupants"

"I should warn the people then. And my Uncle too, Teniente Leon. I have to tell him" Teo austerely exclaims

The woman grips the young man's arm and pulls him;

"Listen to me, Segnor. The Red People's attack is inevitable, it has been planned long before. It is now time to make the visitors leave for they have been staying for so long they even took what was ours. They have mistaken our hospitality for naivety. The Pulahanes will stage their attack at the next ringing of the bells of the Parish of the St William the Hermit. They will attack any foreigners that they will come across with and will spare those natives whether they are for or against the rebellion. They know of you as the native boy who acts like the foreigners but I persuaded them to believe that you are still one of us, a son of this land. If you alert your Uncle of the impending attack then you will be declared an enemy"

"Why are you telling me all this, Segnora?" Teo whispers as he runs out of breath

"I am highly indebted with the Old Captain. I am saving you for I am doing him a favor. You have two days to leave this town, go back to Manila. You have a life ahead of you in the city and there is nothing left here for you but sullen memories"

"But I have good memories of my foster father here, Segnora" he responds

"Then do it for him," Fabiana pauses, "He sent you to the city for a reason. He wanted you to stay there for he knew of the brewing attack of the Pulahanes from the mountains. He knew it was just a matter of time before the tension erupts, and that time is now"

Teo plants his palms on the stall where the vegetables and fruits are on display. He takes another deep breath as he nods to agree with the woman once again

"You have to leave before the ringing of the bells on Sunday, Segnor. Please wear this hapin as a sign of your immunity when the attack comes and you are still in town" Fabiana hands him an amulet of a small booklet with straws attached to holes at the top of it.

Teo stares at the amulet on his palm, then he slowly thrusts it in his front pocket without responding to her. Unconsciously, he looks behind him onto the other stalls as if to confirm that nobody saw him hiding the amulet on his pocket

"Now if you could excuse me Segnor, I still have some vegetables to sell so that I can pay my taxes accordingly" Fabiana interrupts with a soft voice

Teo responds with a final nod to acknowledge the woman. He then steps back and puts his hat back on before he steps away into the dirt road