MARCELINO A. FORONDA JR.

(Santa Maria, Ilocos Sur, 1926)

o Essayist, poet and fictionist. A dedicated historian, Foronda has published several
essays on Philippine history.
o His essays, poetry, and fiction have appeared on Ilocano magazines and
anthologies. Among these awards are:
▪ Horacio dela Costa Memorial Award in historical writing from the American
Historical Committee of the Philippines
▪ the First Francisco Ortigas Distinguished Professor of Philippine Studies Award,
1984–1985,
▪ Lorenzo M. Tanada Distinguished Professor of Philippine History Award, 1985-
1986 all from De la Salle Univeristy
▪ The National Social Scientist in History Award from the Philippine Social
Science Council, 1991
▪ Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas Award for Ilocano fiction and criticism
from the Unyon ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipinas (UMPIL), 1992
▪ Gawad Karunungan from the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila, 1993
 THE AVOCADO TREE
Marcelino A. Foronda Jr.

Hesitantly, she stood before the gate and looked at the simple structure in front
of her. It was a one-story affair, midway between a cottage and a chalet, and from
where she stood, she could see the sagging wooden walls and part of the corrugated
iron roof which was torn off the beams. When at last she pushed open the gate and
stepped inside the yard, she noticed the lush growth of weeds that covered the patch
which, months ago, she had planted with flowers. She climbed the low steps, also in the
process of decay. On the rickety porch still stood the ancient rocking chair covered
with dust and cobwebs. Many times in the past she had sat on that chair, thinking of
the future, and, when homesickness seized her, she thought of the bamboo hut by the
stream in the land where trees grow tall and strong, thousands of miles away.

How she found strength to go back to the house that afternoon, she herself
didn’t know: it was a compulsion which she could not resist. Her brother-in-law and his
wife were very understanding. They took her under their roof after what happened.
“You should not look back,” her sister-in-law had advised her. “Forget the past.” And
her brother-in-law said: “Our home is yours. Under no circumstances should you go
back to that house. It will only bring your sorrow and pain.” As on this very same
afternoon, there were other times when the compulsion to return would come over her,
a blind, insane were other times when the compulsion to return would come over her, a
blind, insane desire that practically dragged her to that house, but in complete
understanding her brother-in-law would always come for her. She was on the porch
now but she ventured to go no farther and sat on the rocking char instead, unmindful
of the dust and cobwebs that covered it.

The woman was in her late fifties. There was tubercular look in her stooping
shoulders, in her thin chest, in those bony hands, and in those hollow cheeks clinging to
prominent cheekbones as if she were sucking at a large invisible cigar. Her eyes were
still sharp but there was a deathly horror in them. She stared absentmindedly into the
distance, past the fence which separated the yard from the road fronting the house,
and scanned the wide expanse of grape fields that stretched endlessly to the skies.
They had meant much to her, the grape fields. They had meant life and hopes and
ambitions to be fulfilled-but that was yesterday’s dream. She sighed.

The midafternoon breeze passed momentarily through the yard and she heard
the faint rustle of the avocado leaves. She was gazing at the midget avocado tree now
with gnarled trunk and thin bleak-looking branches. It stood ridiculously at one end of
the front yard, near the road, and now the tall grasses had grown thickly and wildly
around it (perhaps concealing the wound on the trunk, she thought.) Yet she was
certain the wound was still there-that it would remain there so long as the tree lived.

From the great fields, she heard someone singing a song which she could not
make out at first, but as the men came nearer the road, the words became clearer; it
was a song which spoke of an unrequited love, of the frustration of the lover and his
death.

Love and death: years ago these had no meaning for her; they were just words
of a sentimental song of that region in the old country from which she came. Lovestruck
barrio swains, she remembered, would sing that song to the strains of a guitar, while
they serenaded their sweethearts. It had sounded foolish to her then, almost childish,
but hearing the song now, in surroundings thousands of miles away, it did not sound
foolish or childish at all. And she thought of home. With that thought she delivered her
gaze to the tumble-down floor which creaked even as she shifted her weight in the
rocking chair. He built this house, she thought. He built it with his own hands.

The song stopped. She rose from the chair and went down the stairs. At this time
years ago, she thought, she would have been tending the garden which she had
planted in front of the house. This kept her busy while her husband worked in the grape
fields. Now there were no flowers to brighten up the rather bleak front yard, only weeds
that grew wild and unchecked as if to hide the trunk of the avocado tree.

(And he was holding a seedling encased in a bamboo tube and he said, brother
brought it home, he’s back from the old country and you should see his wife, she’s
young almost snatched from the cradle, you would say, and I said, he’s been gone for
only a short while, and he said, how could he stand it there? No electricity, no radios,
no nothing, and I said, you speak as if you were used to such things, and he said, you
are still homesick for the old country, aren’t you? You still find it hard here, but you won’t
be alone anymore, you have a brother’s wife to gossip with, and I said, it was not
leaving the old country that hurt, it was leaving the school, and he laughed, you always
think of that school, he said, and truly I found it hard to forget that old school and the
children I taught, and he said, you know one of your former pupils got elected
congressman from our district: brother says he was sponsor at his wedding and he sends
you his regards, and I said, it was nice of him to remember, and he said, the avocado
seedlings, I guess I’ll plant it tonight and he asked, even with the cold? Perhaps, I said,
and that night he was tender as on our wedding night, and I said, the avocado can
wait for the morning, there is no hurry planting it.)

The men were already in the patch of the vineyard near the edge of the road
opposite the house. She still could not see them for they were hidden by trellises
covered by the sprawling vines, but she could hear their laughter.
 There were times when a lull would be followed by a sudden outburst of loud
boisterous laughter. Her husband, she remembered, also liked to laugh a great deal
and everyone liked his friendly, unassuming ways. But that was before the war. For one
day, he went to ward and returned a changed man.

The men were laughing again, and she imagined a taunting quality in their
laughter, but the work day was almost over and soon the men would be gone, soon
they would return to their bunkhouse for an early supper, and she surmised; would
dashed off to town to take their hard-earned cash in a poker game or use it on women.
But her husband used to return home after work in the fields and would putter around
the yard. She remembered now how these men, his friends, would come to their home
and would say jokingly: “That’s what you get for bringing home a wife. Now you are
tied up like a pig. You are missing all the fun. What do you earn money for if not to enjoy
yourself? And she would blush at these words but would feel good as her husband
would say:

“You should remember that I have a family. You don’t want me to squander all my
money and let my wife and son starve, do you?” And she would thank God for all
these things and for their little son who, at the moment, was the center of their world.

Yes, she said softly to herself, he was not like these men, my husband wasn’t.

(After supper which was at give in the afternoon, he would water the avocado
seedling and tell me, it looks like it will grow into a big, mighty avocado tree, the way
they do in the old country, and after putting our little boy to bed, we would talk about
a lot of things, he smoking his pipe and I darning his work clothes, and once he said, the
avocado tree should grow big enough to bear its first fruit when our son comes of age,
and I noticed the feeling of pride in his voice, and he would talk about his plans for the
boy, and would say, you’ve been good teacher; you’ll see to it that you son becomes
a congressman, and I would sit there listening and again he would say, there are more
opportunities here than in the old country; of course, you son can never become a
congressman here but he will yet become an engineer, and he will build dams and
bridges and roads, yes, he will, even if it will mean breaking my back to send him
through college, and he would tell me that years ago it was also his dreams to build
dams and bridges and roads, he would tell me about critics who said our country was
primitive and he made up his mind to study and then go home to prove the critics were
wrong, but you cannot study without money and I didn’t have, and I would feel good
inside, and yes, brother and sister-in-law had no children, the doctor said they could
have no children, and so they spoiled my son, and one day brother and sister-in-law
brought my boy some gifts, it was his fourth birthday, a toy pistol and a doll, the doll’s for
a joke, my sister-in-law said, but my boy threw the pistol away, and began to play with
the doll, but my husband grabbed it, and thundered: boys don’t play with dolls, and my
boy cried, and cried and cried.)
 There was laughter in the fields and then someone was singing that song again,
that song about love and death. Along the dusty road a truck chugged its way and
honked its horn. She heard some of the men shouting at the driver, telling him they had
enough boxes of grapes for him, and then the engine coughed to a stop at a place
not far from the house. And as he did so dust flew in all directions and she coughed as if
bothered by the dust. She was still standing there, watching the avocado tree,
watching those fragile branches and that gnarled trunk and for a moment she felt
pains in her legs and she wanted to go back to the house. She retraced her steps back
to the porch but as she came to the stars, she sat on the first step instead.

As she sat there, leaning on the wooden railing of the stairs, she wondered how
things would have turned out otherwise. But fate, she mused, was such an elusive thing.
In that small town thousands of miles away, her kinsfolk would have told her things
happened the way they did because of fate. Things could not have been prevented;
they would have said. When you are born your destiny is written in the stars and you
can do nothing to change its course. Yes, fate is a very elusive thing, she agreed at last,
but she was also religious and she knew that in every act is the will of God. In that small
town, she remembered, the priest has said that God sends trials to prove man’s faith in
Him. Why would I be tried? She asked. I’ve always been a good mother and wife. These
thoughts came to her mind as she was looking at the avocado tree again: that frail,
tiny tree that seemed incongruous in its alien surroundings/

(He had pruned the avocado tree every now and then but it didn’t grow the
way they did in the old country, and the war came and went our boy grew up, but still
after eighteen years the tree remained sickly as ever and one afternoon, he said: I
don’t know what’s wrong with the tree, it doesn’t seem to grow; by this time it should
be bearing fruit, and I said, it’s cold, and that night we talked about the future, as was
our wont, and we talked about our son and he asked me, does he still go out with the
boys in town? And I kept silent and again he said, I can never talk to him anymore and
he ridicules everything I do, even the way I speak English and the way he calls me
“dad” my eye! Isn’t the equivalent in the dialect good enough for him? Perhaps it was
our fault not to have taught him the dialect, and why doesn’t he go out with girls, and I
said for the simple reason that there are no girls of our race here, you don’t expect him
to go out with white girls, do you? And he said, why shouldn’t he? And I said, you know
the reason, and he said, perhaps he will find the right girl for him there, as his uncle did,
and I said, he will be a total stranger among his own people, why, he doesn’t even
speak the dialect and he said, I would like to send him to school but how can I with the
amount I earn

But he doesn’t even show interest in going to school, he seems only interested in going
out with the boys, the way I look at it, he will turn out like me, working in the vineyards all
his life, but what hurts me the most is he is strange, your son is strange; I married you at
his age, didn’t I? and I said, no, you were twenty-five when we got married and he’s
only eighteen, and he said, but I didn’t go out with boys, and I said, he’s just acting his
age, “teen-gangs” they call them; I wanted to tell the father of my boy that lately I had
found smelly handkerchiefs smudged with red, and scraps of letters in my son’s pockets,
although the name and the contents did not quite make sense to me, and I began to
fear for him because I know itinerant young prostitutes from beyond the boarder
roamed the place; but my husband was insistent, you son is a disgrace, he said, he
said, he’s a disgrace; and I saw him gritting his teeth; and again he said, an only son
who won’t propagate his name.)

The song stopped and again there was that loud taunting laughter and she
wondered what the fun was all about. She could see the workers, some of whom were
loading boxes in the truck, for now they were on the edge of the vineyard near the
road. And then she saw a young man emerge from the grape field, a little hazy at first,
until at last she saw him approach the yard. There was something athletic in the way he
walked and as he dashed into the yard and greeting her in the dialect, she saw he was
young perhaps eighteen or nineteen, at most twenty-one.

“I didn’t know somebody lived here,” the young man said. She noticed a certain
carefreeness about him, a certain tender bestiality. He had a funny looking hat and his
work clothes drenched in sweat clung to his well-built body. She rose from the steps.
Suddenly she remembered: “You are the student who came to work here this summer,”
she said: “My brother-in-law told me about you. He’s the overseer here.”

He looked embarrassed. “They always kid me,” e said. “We ran out of water and
there is faucet in the backyard. It’s near the roost-coop.”

God, she thought, he could have been my son. And she felt as if a fist was
suddenly thrust into her throat. He could have been my son. The young man came
back to thank her in a moment dashed back to the grape fields as suddenly as he had
come. He could have been my son, her mind kept repeating, my son. The roost-coop
would still be in the backyard, she thought, and wondered if there were still splotches of
blood on it.

(He would sit on that rocking chair on the porch, staring blankly at the avocado
tree and there were times when I could see him mumbling to himself, and all our friends
told e the war changed him a great deal, and once I told him to see a doctor but he
was provoked to anger and would not listen to me and I knew he should not think too
much and I should keep him busy and so one day, I said, there’s space in our
backyard, why don’t you raise poultry for a change? It was one of those days when he
was feeling well for I even saw him smile and he said, woman, what are you up to? You
want me to raise roosters so I can gamble all my earnings in the cockfights Sundays?
But I didn’t remind him that he hadn’t worked for some time and I said, I guess we need
some eggs in the house and perhaps you son can help you, and he said, my son? And I
regretted having mentioned his son for now his momentary happiness was gone and
there was bitterness in his voice, my son? He asked and I said, he can help you, can’t
he? And he was suddenly fierce and he said, I don’t know what to do with him, and I
said, you hate your son too much, and he said, he’s strange, and, Lord the greatest
misfortune of a father is to have an only son who won’t propagate his name, and
suddenly he stopped and I saw that tortured, maddening glare in his eyes, and one
afternoon before supper I saw the father of my boy bringing a lifeless bloody rooster, its
head severed by the double-edged knife which he held in his right hand and the
rooster’s neck was dripping blood and my stomach went limp and I moaned a little, but
he said, don’t you want a rooster for supper tonight? And he talked matter-of-factly
when he added, perhaps your son would like it, too, or doesn’t he come home
anymore? And I said, your son found a job in that restaurant near the railroad station in
town and I guess he prefers to stay near his job, but the father of my boy kept mumbling
to himself, your son, he said, he’s a stranger, and I saw that tortured, maddening look in
his eyes gain, that fierce, demoniacal look as he threw the headless rooster onto the
kitchen saying, he’s strange, the greatest misfortune of a father…and I knew that he
was obsessed by that thought, that it was impossible to bring him and our son together,
but one afternoon he told me he was going to town to see our boy, and I asked him if
he wanted me to come with him, but he said no and I waited for him, but after
midnight when he didn’t come I sensed something was wrong; it was perhaps early
dawn when, tired of waiting I went to sleep but between consciousness and dreaming,
I became aware of footsteps and then scuffing near the porch and I was sure they had
both come, my husband and my son, and I rose from bed, a few moments…and then I
heard a thud, a long moan, and a deep wailing voice: Dad…Dad…Dad…DON’T! and
there was that silence, Lord that silence, and my husband’s voice: “And don’t call me
dad! Don’t call me dad!” And he, the father of my boy, was furiously swinging the
bloodstained double-edged knife in an effort to cut the avocado tree when the police
came and as I watched all this nightmare I saw the wounds of the trunk of the tree.)

She wanted to run away, to cry out loud, for now voices and moans and cries
tortured her mind but that dreadful, maniacal urge was only momentary. The trunk had
gone, honking its horn and chugging along its way, and she could see the men now on
their way back to the camp and above the boisterous, taunting laughter of the men,
she could hear that song about love and death. It was getting dark and she felt cold.
She rose from the steps and started to go. She pushed open the gate but she did not
look intently at the avocado tree: it was only the outline of the tree she saw, the misty,
hazy outline now hidden by the approaching darkness and her tears. She knew her
brother-in-law would come and tell her: “So, you’re here again,” but there would be no
reproach in his voice, only understanding. Come let’s go home,” he would say and
unhesitatingly she would follow him, but she knew that for her home would always be
that bamboo hut by the stream in the land where trees grow tall and strong, thousands
of miles away.

She stepped out of the yard and closed the gate.