THE MIDDLEMAN

THE MIDDLEMAN

Calbi Asain

¹    1962. Noon time.

²    Lowly nipa huts on stilts crowded the coast of a fishing villaged Higad. The white beach lining the blue sea served well as a kind of canvas on which the fishermen’s shabby domiciles stood. Some houses were wind-swept and lonely; others looked newly built. Canoes could be seen tied to the rocks on the shore, suggesting the fishermen were home. The whole neighborhood smelt of dried fish on many kinds, including squid and shark. The tide was low.

³    What made the village quite eye-catching was the prence of an elegant house in the middle of it. On its left side was a smaller building where fishermen sold their catch and where they met to thresh out some problems affecting them. A concrete pavement led to both structures to which bamboo footbridges form the nipa huts were connected as the roots of a tree are linked to its trunk.

⁴    In this sumptuous, architecturally-remarkable dwelling lived PAH Jannaral, the middleman, and Buh Gandayla, his pious wife.

⁵    Pah Jannaral was the man in the village the fisheremen admired and looked upt o. his name was synonymous with hard work and success in life. He was, to top it all, the quintessence of every fisherman’s dream because he was able to change his lot and his family’s through what he called patience and perseverance.

⁶    Pah Jannaral used to be a poor fisherman like all the rest. But by a stroke of fourtune, as he often said, he was able to lift his family out of a squalor an dnow headed the village, bought the fishermen’s catch in bulk, sold a great deal of them in the market, and preserved and shipped the rest to othr towns and cities.

⁷    “Pah Jannaral must be very lucky. Look, his two children go to an exclusive school. But our children can’t. I wonder how we can do the same thing,” said Buh Jainab, wife to Pah Hamsa, the middleman’s confidant or right-hand man.

⁸    “You’re dreaming big dreams again. All we have to do is be patient. And who knows? We might follow in his footsteps someday. Pah Jannaral told me once that ll one needs to do is to work hared in ordere to live comfortably,” Pah Hamsa told his wife.

⁹    “Work hard? Isn’t that exactly what we’ve been doing all these years? But look, wer’re no better off! We are still what we used to be fifteen years ago.” But Jainab glared at Pah Hamsa. The she rememberee something and said, “Enough of this argument. Aren’t you supposed to meet the fishermen a little after noon? You’re supposed to buy their catch,” she reminded her husband.

¹⁰ “That’s right. I almost forgot. I’ve got to go now,” Pah Hamsa said and walked hurriedly towared the middleman’s house, the footbridge creaking under his weight.

¹¹ Pah Hamsa was very close to Pah Jannaral. He had been working for him several years. As right-hand man, he enjoyed Pah Jannaral’s full trust. His ideas and insights usually influenced the middleman’s decisions. And he returned the middleman’s trust by being loyal to him and by being honest and sincere in dealing with his fellow fishermen. He had projected the name of Pah Jannaral to the village quite well, and the fishermen looked up to both of them as their protectors and saviors.

¹² One late afternoon, Pah Hamsa had to run all the way to the middleman’s house, his movements shaking the footbridge. He had to report something he thought Pah Jannaral should know before he took action.

¹³ “I have a problem…well, it’s not really a problem. You know, a young man approached me this morning. He said his father is dead and that his mother is now married to a rich but cruel Chinese businessman. He’s just twenty-three years old, strong and quite mature for his age. I mean, that’s what I’ve gathered from a short conversation with him. He wanted something to do but couldn’t find employment. I was thinking…” Pah Hamsa informed Pah Jannaral, who interrupted him.

¹⁴ “Do you want him to work for us?” Pah Jannaral, the middleman asked.

¹⁵ “Yes. Although I just met him this morning, I think we can trust him. You see, my eldest son Hamir is attending college next year. I want him to concentrate on his studies. So I need somebody to take his place,” Pah Hamsa said.

¹⁶ “Okay. No problem. You let him work for us. It’s up to you to tell him what to do and how much he is to be paid,” Pah Jannaral said.

¹⁷ “Do you want to see him personally?” Pah Hamsa asked the middleman.

¹⁸ “No need. I leave it up to you to decide what to do,” Pah Jannaral said.

¹⁹ Pah Hamsa was about to take his leave when Buh Gandayla, the middleman’s wife, emerged from the dining room. She invited Pah Hamsa and his family for a thanksgiving the following day. This was Buh Gandayla’s pledge to extend her gratitude to the Almighty for the good fortune she and her husband had been enjoying.

²⁰ She was a very religious woman, and he loathed everything evil. She told Pah Jannaral once that she would prefer poverty to luxury if the latter was acquired through unlawful means. Pah Jannaral loved his wife, fifteen years his junior, and never married another one even if he could do so.

²¹ “Try to be with us tomorrow morning. The imam is coming here for the thanksgiving. Our folks in Higad will be included in the prayers. We  should not forget the Almighty for his blessings,” she piously said, eyeing the well-furnished living room with great satisfaction.

²² “We’ll be here. Thank you very much,” Pah Hamsa said.

²³ He left quickly, for he still had to familiarize Utuh Mansul, his new assistant, with what he would do. He invited Utuh Mansul to join his family for the thanksgiving. He refused to do so, however, and concentrated instead on what he was supposed to do. Pah Hamsa didn’t insist.

²⁴ In just a short time, Utuh Mansul was able to work quiete well with virtually all the fishermen. They liked the way he dealt with them, to the delight of Pah Hamsa. He easily earned Pah Hamsa’s trust. As Pah Hamsa was right-hand man to the middleman, so was Utuh Mansul to Pah Hamsa. This was why Pah Hamsa did not have to present Utuh Mansul to Pah Jannaral. He found Utuh Mansul an excellent assistant.

²⁵ The weather was bad one night, and the fisherkmen did not take to the sea to fish. Utuh Mansul was so low in spirits that same night tht his depression caught Pah Hamsa’s attention. So wrapped up in thought was he that he did not notice Pah Hamsa sit by his side on the wooden bench.

²⁶ “Anygthing wrong?” Pah Hamsa asked. “You look so sad,” he said, patting Utuh Mansul’s shoulders. Utuh Mansul turned to Pah Hamsa and then looked away.

²⁷ “I hope I’m not being nosey. I’ve come to regard you as my son, and I can’t stand seeing you so downcast like this,” Pah Hamsa went on.

²⁸ “It’s my father, Pah Hamsa. I always remember him when the weather is bad,” Utuh Mansul said.

²⁹ “But he is dead. He died thirteen years ago. You sadi so, right?” Pah Hamsa said.

³⁰ “It’s how he died that always bothers me, Pah Hamsa. He was mercilessly murdered, hacked to death right in front of me. I was ten then,” Utuh Mansul revealed, his voice shaking. Pah Hamsa was shocked by this revelation because Utuh Mansul had not told him before how his father died. Seeing how deeply affected the young man was, he refrained from questioning him further.

³¹ “Why don’t you go to bed now? Remember, we still have to meet our fishermen tomorrow,” he suggested, hopin to divert Utuh Mansul’s mind form what was troubling him.

³² “Yes, I remember. I’ll wake up early tomorrow. That I promise,” Utuh Mansul assured Pah Hamsa. He then went to sleep on a dafed mat on the floor beside Pah hamsa’s two sons, Abdel and Hamir.

³³ That same evening, in the imposing residence of the middleman, the whole household  was awakened. Buh Gandayla, his religious wife, had a nightmare, the worst so faar in her lifetime.

³⁴ “No, I can’t believe it! Evil, evil, evil. I hate you, Jannaral!” she yelled. The middleman quieted his wife by sahining her by the arm.

³⁵ “What did you dream about? You seemed to hate me so much in your dream,” Pah Jannarl, the middleman, asked his wife in an injured tone. Still shocked by the nightmare, Buh Gandayla could not talk right away. She went on sobbing. To her mind, it was not only a dream; it was a revelation of hideous act.

³⁶ One clear morning, Pah Hamsa and his family, including Utuh Mansul, were eating crabs, fish, seaweed, bivalves  and boiled cassava on the floor, and exchanging pleasentries when their casual talk took on a new twist as they mentioned a tentant who had married the only daughter of a rich landowner in a barrio nearby. Pah Hamsa’s tow boys, Hamir and Abdel, kidded each othe about getting rich in the same way.

³⁷ Pah Hamsa chided the boys, saying it was not a good way to do so. “Hard work, boys,” Pah Hamsa admonished. “It’s the only good way to do it”

³⁸ “Plus two big mole on the forehead,” Hamir and Abdel chorused.

³⁹ “That’s right!” But Jainab, Pah Hamsa’s wife, said. “Your Pah Jannaral has them, and tha’t why he’s rich! She stressed.

⁴⁰ Utuh Mansul enjoyed listening to the give-and-take. But when BUh Janinab confirmed the middleman’s two big moles on his temple, he suddenly looked troubled. His mind buzzed with suspicious: “Two big what? Moles.. two big moles. Could Pah Jannaral be the… No, it’s impossible!” Utuh Mansul said to himself. Pap Hamsa noticed Utuh Mansul’s change of mood, and intended to talk to the young man sometime later.

⁴¹ Utuh Mansul was preoccupied with the moles of fPah Jannaral, the middleman, and the murder of his father preyed more and more upon his mind. The one who killed his father had two big moles on his forehead.  He could still remember vividly how theman snatched his father’s suitcase, which contained a good deal of money, the only money that his father had salvaged from the conflagration tht gutted their big textile store in the heart of the town.

⁴² With his father gone and their capital stoelen, he and his mother had to move to a faraway place where they live miserably. When he was twenty, his mother remarried, and her Chinese husband treated him harshly. He then decided to return to his birthplace and found himself in Higad, a fishing village whre he met Pah Hmasa, who recommended him to Pah Jannaral, the middleman, for employment.

⁴³ Pah Hamsa became curious about Utuh Mansul’s reactionto the middleman’s two big moles. He wondered what the big moles meant to Utuh Manusul. He wished the young man would confide in him voluntarily since he did no twna to open old woulnds and meddle in Utuh Mansul’s private life.

⁴⁴ Several weeks later, Buh Gandayla, the middleman’s wife, awakened her husband and the whole household again because of another nightmare. It was a sfightening as the first one. In her dream, she saw her husband brak out of the thick smoke, running toward the dark, seemingly aftaid of the crowd watching a burning block. And Buh Gandayla screamed when her husband vanished in the dark, for she hated it. She equated the dark with evil.

⁴⁵ The middleman was shaken when his wife divulged her dreams to him, especially when she mentioned the big fire in the dream. He wished she would stp narrating what happened. He even appeared restless when Buh Gandayla decided to see a dream interpreter in the village the following day. She thought a bad spirtie caused all her nightmares. Besides, she was afraid the nightmates would affect her baby, which she expected to have on cleansing day.

⁴⁶ A month after, Utuh Mansul, the yong man the middleman had employed, was down with malaria. He could have seen the middleman’s two big moles had he not gotten sick, for Pah Hamsa’s family and Utuh Mansul were invited again for another thanksgiving in the middleman’s house. After the thanksgiving, Buh Gandayla, the middleman’s house, asked Pah Hamsas to have her dreams interpreted.

⁴⁷ Pah Hamsa suddenly thought of Utuh Mansul, though he knew of a fine interpreter in the village, who went deep-sea fishing and got stranded on a nearby island. He remembered how Utuh-Mansul had warned a fisherman nto to fish one night when the latter dreamed of being enveloped by a thick cloud in the middle of the sea. The fisherman did nto listen to Utuh Mansul, and boasted he did not believe in dreams, even if he did. He went off to fish just the same, and was robbed by aremed men on another pump boat. He lost his catch and his pump boat’s engine.

⁴⁸ After a week of medication in the health center, Utuh Mansul recovered from malaria. He and Pah Hamsa went back to work. Their boss, Pah Jannaral, the middleman, left for Zamboanga to buy spare parts and new pump boat engines. He would be back in a week’s time

⁴⁹ For a whle, Pah Hamsa almost forgot all aobut Buh Gandayla’s dreams. But noticing again Utuh Mansul’s gloom, Pah Hamsa asked him to interpret the dreams of Buh Gandayla, hoping he could mitigate Utuh Mansul’s dejection. He then relted all the nightmares of the middleman’s wife to Utuh Mansul.

⁵⁰ Utuh Mansul was tongue-tied while Pah Hamsa was narrating Buh Gandayl’s dreams. He felt as if what took place when he was till ten years old was happening right the. How a well-built man took his father’s suitcase containing much cash and ran away with it after hacking his father on the head with a bolo used for filleting big fish in two. Utuh Mansul remembered vividly what the thief looked like. His father and the thief exchanged blows before the thief finally made  his final, lethal attack on this father.

⁵¹ Dumbfounded by Pah Hamsa’s revelation of the dreams, Utuh Mansul came to his senses on ly when Pah Hama asked what the dreams meant.

⁵² “The middleman wil be in great trouble!” Utuh Mansul said. “Something tragic will befall his wife!” he predicted further.

⁵³ Utuh Mansul stared at Pah Hamsa. He bombarded him with many questions.

⁵⁴ “Pah Hamsa, does the middleman really have two big moles on his forehead? You see, I havent’t seen him ever since I caeme her.” Pah Hamsa nodded, uneasy about Utuh Mansul’s mentioning the moles again.

⁵⁵ And more questions flowed from Utuh Mansul’s mouth, his lips trembling.

⁵⁶ “Is he tall and dark-complexioned? Was he a poor fisherman before he became the fishermen’s middleman in Higad? Is he about fifty-five years old now?

⁵⁷ “Yes,” replied Pah Hamsa.

⁵⁸ After two weeks, Pah Jannaral, the middleman, was back from Zamboanga. He immediately called his fishermen to a meeting to discuss the rising costs of the spare parts and the new engines and how they would pay the middleman back.

⁵⁹ As the middleman’s confidant, Pah Hamsa arrived at the meeting ahead of the rest. Utuh Mansul came in late. Pah Hamsa had asked him to inspect the new engines bought by Pah Jannaral.  After going over them, he proceeded to the meeting.,

⁶⁰ Pah Jannaral was, at the time, busy computing the cost of the things he bought on the blackboard, his back to the audience. He faced the fishermen shortly afterwards, his face seen for the first tilme by Utuh Mansul.

⁶¹ Despite the passage of thirteen years, the middleman still sproted a crew cut, the same cut Utuh Mansul saw when his father was murdered. The middleman’s two big moles, which to the fishermen were the source of his fourtune, were still on his forehead. Utuh Mansul was absolutely certain: the middleman was the murderer of this father.

⁶² He went home quickly. He went stratight to the kitchen where he found Buh Jainab, Pah Hamsa’s wife and her children Hamir and Abdel. He stood by the door for a moment before joining them in what they were doing.

⁶³ In a controlled tone, he said:”I’ll miss all this soon. I’ll miss everybody, our togertherness.’

⁶⁴ “Miss?” Hamir asked, surprised. “But why?” Where are you going?”

⁶⁵ “I don’t know. I really don’t know. Maybe nowhere. I have to leave, you see,” Utuh Mansul explained.

⁶⁶ “But that’s impossible” Abdel countered. “It’s cleansing day tomorrow. We’ve got to be together! Isn’t it so, Mother?” Abdel asked Buh Jainab. She only noded to Abdel and turned to Utuh Mansul, her eyes misty. Utuh Mansul left them abruptly, apparently touched.

⁶⁷ Sensing something wrong, Buh Jainab informed her husband Pah Hamsa regarding Utuh Mansul’s announcement of leaving.

⁶⁸ “Did he tell you why?” Pah Hamsa, the middleman’s right-hand man, asked his wife.

⁶⁹ “He didn’t explain. He just said he was leaving, that’s all. I myself couldn’t believe it,” Buh Jainab said, trying to recall whether she had treated Utuh Mansul unkindly. Pah Hamsa did the same, but he couldn’t recall having scolded or embarrassed Utuh Mansul at any time. On the eve of cleansing day, he talked to Utuh Mansul.

⁷⁰ “I don’t know. I just feel I must leave. I don’t want to. You see, it pains me do tdo this. But I think I’ll be compelled to do so just the same. I love all of you—you, the kids, and Buh Jainab, whom I consider my own mother. But…” Utuh Mansul bowed, his head in his hands, unable to continue talking.

⁷¹ There was a squall that same night. The weather suddenly turned bad, although it was fair and sunny the whole day. Competing with the deafening thunder and lightning was the voice of Buh Gandayla, the wife of Pah Jannaral, the middleman. She was yelling again. It was ther third nightmare in a row. She kicked, moaned, and shouted at the same time. In her dream, she saw newly-honed bolo brandished in the dark, seemingly following her husband.

⁷² Cleansing day.

⁷³ Men, women, and children woke up early. The fire in stoves lit up and roused the sleepy village, followed by the crackling of coconut shells used by mothers as fuel; the punding of the pestles on th morart as the fathers pulverized rice for baking; the sound of oil crackling in the frying pan; the tinkling of glasses and the clatter of plates; the hissing of water from buckets; and the occasional screaming of mothrs at naughty children, who were giggling and chasing each other, silenced only by the calling of the muezzin for an early morning prayer.

⁷⁴ At nine o’clock in the morning, most of the folks of Higad had already flocked to the shore to observe the yearly cleansing rituals. Pah Jannaral, the middleman, and his family left their home a little after nine, his wife still drowsy because of lack of sleep, brought about by her nightmare. Some fishermen and their kin went to the beach ever earlir. They could be seen in groups, each having an imam to lead the prayers.

⁷⁵ Actual cleansing began. The native huddled in groups thigh-deep in the sea near the shore. The imam splashed them with sea water, accompanined by proper recitals meant to rid them of bad spirits and to protect them from danger and untowared incidents. Each member of the group had a pebble in his hand, which he would throw away after the cleansing.

⁷⁶ When cleansing in the sea was over, the natives went back to the shore whre the imam peformed another thanksgiving ritual before they ate their provinsions on the shore. Cleansing rites ended.

⁷⁷ Buh Gandayla, the wife of the middleman, decided to go home earlier than the rest. She was unable to eat with great relish. She was very sleepy. She expected her baby any time that week. And she felt she would have it that very day. The pain in her stomach was intesnsifying.

⁷⁸ On the way home, Buh Gandayla complained that the lower lid of ther left eye was pulsating. Actually, she could interpret the sighn as a bad one, but she expected Pah Jannaral to dispel her fears. Pah Jannaral, on the other hand, knowing that the contraction of a lower lid was an omen, did not pay attention to her anymore, not wanting her to worry some more. Besides, it was cleansing day. Dangers had supposedly been driven off. They arrived home with Buh Gandayla already writhing in pain.

⁷⁹ It was 11:30 in the morning. The main door of their house was ajar. They must have forgotten to close it when they went to the beach for cleansing. Usually, trustful as they were, they would leave thir house open even when they were not home.

⁸⁰ The middleman pushed open the door and entered ahead of his wife. But before they were even able to settle on their new red sofa, Utuh Mansul suddenly barged in from the kitchen. His eyes bulging, he glowered at Pah Jannaral.

⁸¹ “You killed my father thirteen years ago. Murderer! I’ll tell your wife now what you did several years ago, so that she’d know the kind of husband you are, you who got rich out or what you call hard work. Buh Gandayla, this man, your husband, killed my father!” Utuh Mansul screamed over and over, seemingly out of his mind.

⁸² “My dreams! My dreams! They’re all true!” Buh Gandayla shouted, clasping her belly, which suddenly made her double up with pain.

⁸³ “No! This fellow doesaasn’t know what he’s talking about! He’s a liar, do you hear? A liar!” Pah Jannaral, the middleman, yelled. He then rushed forward, hoping to stop Utuh Mansul from whatever he had intended to do with the long, well-honed bolo he was now brandishing.

⁸⁴ But before the middleman could move any farther, Utuh Mansul slashed the middleman’s neck with his sharp blade. Blood gushed out of the middleman’ s neck onto the wall, daubing it with globs of red. His skull hit the floor with a thud; the sofa craked under his lifeless body as it fell.

⁸⁵ Buh Gandayla went hysterical at the sight of this horror. She ran out of ht house, and went down the stairs. Screaming as she ran, she clasped her belly as if to keep the baby inside her from falling. She tripped over a hole on the concrete footbridge and collapsed. Utuh Mansul rushed to her side, his rage now gone. He helped the middleman’s wife lie on her back.

⁸⁶ In a short while, the fishermen and their families arrived. They ware all shocked to see utuh mansul’s shirt spotted with blood and the middleman’s wife bleeding on the bridge. Minutes later, the cry of a newborn babay was heard. It was Buh Gandayla’s, the middleman’s last child. Hearing the baby cry, Buh Gandayla raised her head a little, struggling to look at the bundle of helplessness, and feel back. She died on the bridge.

⁸⁷ Pah Hamsa, the middleman’s confidant, was the last fisherman to arrive, and he elowed his way through to the pressing crows to see what happened. Utuh Mansul ran tol him and kissed his hands.

⁸⁸ “Pah Jannaral was my father’s murder. I killedhim,” he said matter-of-faculty.

⁸⁹ The bolo in his hand dripping with the middleman’s blood, Utuh Mansul left the shocked, incredulous neighborhood. He continued walking until he reached the crossroads. To his right was the way to the municipal hall; to his left, a long, unpaved road to the hinterland.

⁹⁰ Utuh Mansul turned right.

Meet the Writer

Calbi Asain is an English teacher whose stories and essays have won awards from the Ateneo de Zamboanga. He writes in Tausug as well as English and Filipino.

Asain was summa cum laude when he graduated from the Notre Dame of Jolo. He has graduate degrees in English and Philippine Studies from the UP.

He has attended the UP National Writers Workshop and the Silliman Writers Workshop. His works have appeared in Midweek, Ani and Graphic. His book Panunggud and Other Stories was published by the DLSU Press in 2001. In 2003, he won the Rajah Baginda Award for Outstanding Tausug in Literature. (http://panitikan.com.ph/authors/a/caasain.htm)