THE HOUSE ON ZAPOTE STREET by Quijano de Manila (NICK JOAQUIN)

Dr. Leonardo Quitangon, a soft-spoken,mild-mannered, cool-tempered Caviteno,was still fancy-free at

35 when he returned to Manila, after six years abroad. Then, at the University of Santo Tomas, where
hewent to reach, he met Lydia Cabading, amedical intern. He liked her quiet ways and began to date her
steadily. They went to the movies and to baketballgames and he took her a number oftimes to his house
in Sta. Mesa, to meet his family.

Lydia was then only 23 and looked like a sweetunspoiled girl, but there wasa slight air of mystery about
her. Leonardo and his brothers noticed that she almost never spoke of her home life orher childhood;
she seemed to have no gay early memories to share with her lover, as sweethearts usually craveto do.
And whenever it looked as if she might have tostay out late, she would say: "I'll have totell my father
first". And off she would go, wherever she was, to tell herfather, though it meant going all the way to
Makati, Rizal, where shelived with her parents in a new houseon Zapote Street.

TheQuitangons understood that she was an only child and that her parents were, therefore, over-
zealous inlooking after her. Her father usually took her to school and fetched her after classes, and had
been known to threaten to arrest young men who stared at heron the streets or pressed too
closeagainst her on jeepneys. This high-handedness seemed natural enough, for Pablo Cabading, Lydia's
father was a member of theManila Police Depatment.

After Lydiafinished her internship, Leopardo Quitangon became a regular visitor at the house on Zapote
Street: hewas helping her prepare for the board exams. Her family seemed to like him. The mother
Anunciacion,struck him as a mousy woman unable to speak save ather husband's bidding. There wasa
foster son, a little boy the Cabadings had adopted. As for Pablo Cabading, he was a fine strapping man,
an Ilocano, whogave the impression of being taller than he was and looked every inch an agent of the
law: full of brawn andguts and force, and smoldering with vitality. Hewas a natty dresser, liked youthful
colors and styles, decorated his house with pictures of himself and, at50, looked younger than his
inarticulate wife, who was actually two yearsyounger than he.

WhenLeonardo started frequenting the house on Zapote Street, Cabading told him: ill be frank with you.
None of Lydia's boyfriends ever lasted ten minutesin this house. I didn't like them and I told them so and
made them getout." Then he added laying a hand on the young doctor's shoulder:"But I like you. You are
agood man."

Therest of the household were two very young maids who spoke almost no Tagalog,and two very fierce
dogs, chained to the front door in the day time, unchained in the front yard at night.

The house of Zapote Street is in the current architectural cliché: the hoity-toity Philippine split-level
suburbanstyle—a half-story perched above the living area, to which it is bound by the slope of the roof
and which it overlooksfrom a balcony, so that a person standing inthe sala can see the doors of the
bedrooms and bathroom just above his head. The house is painted, as isalso the current fashion, in
various pastel shades,a different color to every three or four planks. The inevitable piazza curvesaround
two sides of the house, which has a strip of lawn and a low wall all around it. The Cabadings did notkeep
a car, but the house provides for an eventualgarage and driveway. This, and the furniture, the shell
lamps and thefancy bric-a-brac that clutters the narrow house indicate that the Cabadingshad not only
risen high enough to justify their split-level pretensions but were expecting to gohigher.

Lydia took the board exams and passed them. Thelovers asked her father'spermission to wed. Cabading
laid down two conditions: that the wedding would ba a lavish one and that was topay a downy of
P5.000.00. The youngdoctor said that he could afford the big wedding but the big dowry. Cabading
shrugged his shoulders; no dowry, nomarriage.

Leonaradospent some frantic weeks scraping up cash and managed to gather P3.000.00. Cabading
agreed to reducehis price to that amount, then laid down a final condition: after the wedding, Lydia and
Leonardo must make their home at the house on Zapote Street.

"I built this house for Lydia," said Cabading,"and I want her to live here even when she's married.
Besides, her mother couldn't bear to beseparated from Lydia, her only child."

Therewas nothing. Leonardo could do but consent.

Lydia and Leonardo were on September 10 last year,at the Cathedral of Manila,with Mrs. Delfin
Montano, wife of the Cavitegovernor, and Senator Ferdinand Marcos as sponsors. The reception was at
theSelecta. The status gods of Suburdia were properly propitiated. Then thenewlyweds went to live on
Zapote Street -- and Leonardo almost immediately realizedwhy Lydiahad been so reticent and
mysterious about her home life.

The cozy family group that charmed him in courtship days turned out to be rather too cozy. The entire
householdrevolved in submission around Pablo Cabading. The daughter, mother, thefoster-son, the
maids and even the dogs trembled when the lifted his voice. Cabading liked to brag that was a"killer": in
1946 hehad shot dead two American soldiers he caught robbing a neighbor's house in Quezon City.

Leonardo found himself within a family turned in on itself, self-enclosedand self-sufficient — in a house
that had no neighbors and no needfor any. His brothers say that he made morefriends in the
neighborhood within the couple of months he stayed there than the Cabadings had made in a year.
Pablo Cabading did not like what his to stray out of,and what was not his to stray into,his house. And
within that house he wanted to be the center of everything, even of his daughter's honeymoon.

WheneverLeonardo and Lydiawent to the movies or for a ride, Cabading insisted on being taken along. If
they seated him on the back scat whilethey sat together in front,be raged and glowered. He wanted to
sit in front with them.

WhenLeonardo came home from work, he must not tarry with Lydia in the bedroom chatting: both of
them must comedown at once to the sala and talkwith their father. Leonardo explained that he was not
much of a talking: "That's why I fell in love with Lydia, becauseshe's the quiet type too". No matter, said
Cabading. They didn't have to talk at all; he would do allthe talking himself, so longas they sat there in
the sala before his eyes.

So, his compact family group sat around him at night, silent, while Cabading talked and talked. But,
finally, thetalk had stop, the listeners had to rise and retire - and it was this moment that Cabading
seemed unable tobear. He couldn't bear to see Lydia andLeonardo rise and go up together to their
room. One night, unable to bear it any longer he shouted, as they roseto retire:

"Lydia,you sleep with your mother tonight. She has a toothache." After a dead look at her husband,
Lydia obeyed.Leonardo went to bed alone.

Theincident would be repeated: there would always be other reasons, besides Mrs. Cabading's
toothaches.

What horrified Leonardo was not merely what being done to him but his increasing acquiesces. Had his
spirit been soquickly broken? Was he, too, like the rest of the household, being drawn to revolve,
silently andobediently, around the masterof the house?

Once,late at night, he suddenly showed up at his parents’ house in Sta. Mesa and hisbrothers were
shocked at the great in him within so short a time. He looked terrified. What had happened? Hiscar had
broken down and he had hadit repaired and now he could not go home. But why not?

"Youdon't know my father-in-law," he groaned. "Everybody in that house must be in by a certain hour.
Otherwise, the gatesare locked, the doors are locked, thewindows are locked. Nobody can get in
anymore!”

A younger brother, Gene offered to accompany him home and explain to Cabading what had happened.
The two rode toZapote and found the house darkand locked up.

Says Gene: "That memory makes my blood boil -- my eldest brother fearfully clanging and clanging the
gate, andnobody to let him in. 1 wouldn't have waited a second, but he waited five, ten, fifteen minutes,
knockingat thai gate, begging to be let in. I couldn't haveit!"

In the end the two brothers rode back to Sta. Mesa, where Leonardo spentthe night. When he returned
to the house onZapote the next day, his father-in-law greeted him with a sarcastic question:"Where
were you? At a basketball game?"

Leonardo became anxious to take his wife away from that house. He talked it over with her, then they
went totell her father. Said Cabading bluntly: "If she goes with you, I'll shoot her head before your eyes."

Hisbrothers urged him to buy a gun, but Leonardo felt in his pocket and said, "I've got my rosary." Cried
his brother Gene:"You can't fight a gun with a rosary!".

When Lydia took heroath as a physician, Cabading announced that only he and his wife would
accompany Lydia to theceremony. I would not be fair, he said, to let Leonardo, who had not borne the
expenses of Lydia'seducation, to share that momentof glory too. Leonardo said that, if he would like
them at least to use his car. The offer was rejected.Cabading preferred to hire a taxi.

Afterabout two months at the house on Zapote Street, Leonardo moved out, alone. Her parents would
not let Lydia go andshe herself was too afraid to leave.During the succeeding weeks, efforts to contact
her proved futile. The house on Zapote became even more closed tothe outside world. If Lydiaemerged
from it at all, she was alwaysaccompanied by her father, mother or foster-brother, or by all three.

Whenher husband heard that she had started working at a hospital he went there to see her but instead
met herfather coming to fetch her. The very next day, Lydiawas no longer working at the hospital.

Leonardoknew that she was with child and he was determined to bear all her prenatal expenses. He
went to Zapote oneday when her father was out and persuaded her to come out to the yard but could
not make her make themoney he offered across the locked gate. "Justmail it," she cried and fled into the
house. He sent her a check byregistered mail; it was promptly mailed back to him.

OnChristmas Eve, Leonardo returned to the house on Zapote with a gift for his wife, and stood knocking
at the gatefor so long the neighbors gathered at windows to watch him. Finally, he was allowed to enter,
present hisgift to Lydia and talk with her for a moment. She saidthat her father seemed agreeable to
ameeting with Leonardo's father, to discuss the young couple's problem. So the elder Quitangon and
two of his younger sonswent to Zapote one evening. Thelights were on in Cabading house, but nobody
responded to their knocking. Then all the lights were turned off. As they stoodwondering what to do, a
servant girlcame and told them that the master was out. (Lydia would later tell them that they had not
been admitted because herfather had not yet decided what shewas to say to them.)

The last act of this curious drama began Sunday last week when Leonardo was astounded to receive
anearly-morning phone call from his wife. She saidshe could no longer bear to be parted from him and
bade him pick her up at a certain church, where she was with herfoster brother. Leonardo rushed to the
church, picked up two, dropped the boyoff at a street near Zapote, then spedwith Lydia to Maragondon,
Cavite where theQuitangons have a house. He stopped ata gasoline station to call up his brothers in Sta.
Mesa, to tell them what he had done and to warn them that Cabadingwould surely show up there. "Get
Mother out of the house," he toldhis brothers.

At about ten in the morning, a taxi stopped before the Quitangon house in Sta. Mesa and Mrs. Cabading
got out andbegan screaming at the gate: "Where'smy daughter? Where's my daughter?" Gene and
Nonilo Quitangin went out tothe gate and invited her to come in. "No! No! All I want is mydaughter!"
shescreamed. Cabading, who was inside the waiting taxi, then got out and demanded that the
Quitangons produce Lydia. Vexed,Nonilo Quitangon cried: "Abah, what have we do with where your
daughteris? Anyway, she's with her husband." Atthat, Cabading ran to the taxi, snatched a
submachinegun from a box, and trained it on Gene Quitangon. (Nonilohad run into the house to get a
gun.)

"Produce my daughter at once or I'll shoot you all down!"shouted Cabading.

Gene, thegun's muzzle practically in his face, sought to pacify the older man: "Why can't we talk this
over quietly,like decent people, inside the house? Look,we're creating a scandal in the neighborhood.."

Cabading lowered his gun. "I give you till midnight tonight toproduce my daughter," hegrowled. "If you
don't, you better ask the PC to guard this house!"

Then he and his wife drove off in the taxi, just a moment before the mobile police patrol the neighbors
had calledarrived. The police advised Gene to file a complaint with the fiscal's office.Instead, Gene
decided to go to the house on Zapote Street,hoping that "diplomacy" would work.

Tohis surprise, he was admitted at once by a smiling and very genial Cabading. "You are a brave man,"
hetold Gene, "and a lucky one", And he ordered a coke brought for the visitor. Gene said that hewas
going to Cavitebut could not promise to "produce". Lydia bymidnight: it was up to the couple to decide
whether they would come back.

It wasabout eight in the evening when Gene arrived in Maragondon. As his car drove into the yard of
this family's oldhouse, Lydiaand Leonardo

appearedat a window and frantically asked what had happened. "Nothing," said

Gene, and their faces lit up. "We'rehaving our honeymoon at last," Lydiatold

Gene as he enteredthe house. And the old air of dread, of mystery, did seem to have lifted from her
face. But it was thereagain when, after supper, he told them what had happened in Sta. Mesa.

"I can't goback," she moaned. "He'll kill me! He'll kill me!"

"Hehas cooled down now," said Gene. "He seems to be a reasonable man after all."

"Oh, you don'tknow him!" cried Lydia."I've known him longer, and I've never,never been happy!"

Andthe brothers at last had glimpses of the girlhood she had been so reticent about. She told them of
Cabading'sbaffling changes of temper, especiallytoward her; how smiles and found words and caresses
could abruptly turn into beatings when his mood darkened.

Leonardosaid that his father-in-law was an artista, "Remember how he

used to fan me when I supped there while I wascourting Lydia?"

(At about that time, in Sta. Mesa, Nonilo Quitanongon, on guard at the gate of his family's house, saw
Cabadingdrive past three times in a taxi.)

"I can't force you to go back," said Gene. "You'll haveto decide that yourselves.But what, actually, are
you planning to do? You can't stay forever here in Maragondon. What would you live on?"

Thetwo said they would talk it over for a while in their room. Gene waited at the supper table and when
a longtime had passed and they had not come back he went to the room. Finding the door ajar, he
looked in. Lydia and Leonardo were on their knees on the floor,saying the rosary, Gene returned to the
supper table. After another long wait,the couple came out of the room.

Said Lydia:"We have prayed together and we have decided to die together.” We'll go back with you, in
themorning."

Theywe’re back in Manilaearly the next morning. Lydiaand Leonardo went straight tothe house in Sta.
Mesa, where all their relatives and friends warned them not to go back to the house on Zapote Street,
asthey had decided to do.Confused anew, they went to the Manila policeheadquarters to ask for
advice,but the advice given seemed drastic to them: summon Cabading and have it outwith him in front
of his superior officer. Leonardo's father then offered to go to Zapote with Gene and Nonilo,to try to
reason with Cabading.

They found him in good humor, full of smiles and hearty greetings. He

reproached his balae for not visitinghim before. "I did come once," drily

remarked the elder Quitangon, "but no one would openthe gate." Cabading had his wife called. She
came into the room and satdown. "Was I in the house that

night our balae came?" her husband asked her. "No, youwere out," she replied.

Havingspoken her piece, she got up and left the room. (On their various visits to the house on Zapote
Street, the Quitangons noticedthat Mrs. Cabading appearedonly when summoned and vanished as soon
as she had done whatever was expectedof her).

Cabading then announced that he no longer objected to Lydia's moving out of the house to live with her
husband inan apartment of their own. Overjoyed,the Quitangons urged Cabading to go with them in Sta.
Mesa, so that the newlyweds could be reconciled with Lydia'sparents. Cabading readily agreed.

When theyarrived in Sta. Mesa, Lydia and Leonardo were sitting on a sofa in the sala.

"Whyhave you done this?" her father chided her gently. "If you wanted to move out, did you have to run
away?" ToLeonardo, he said: "And you - are angrywith me?" house by themselves. Gene Quitangon felt
so felt elated he proposed a celebration: "I'll throw ablow-out! Everybody is invited! This is on me!" So
they all went to Max's in Quezon City and had a very merry fried-chicken party. "Why, this is a
familyreunion!" laughed Cabading. "This should be on me!" But Gene would not let him pay thebill.

Earlythe next morning, Cabading called up the Sta. Mesa house to pay that his wife had fallen ill. Would
Lydia pleasevisit her? Leonardo and Lydiawent to Zapote, found nothing the matter withher mother, and
returned to Sta. Mesa. After lunch, Leonardo left for his classes. Then Cabading called upagain. Lydia's
mother refused to eat and kept asking forher daughter. Would Lydiaplease drop in again at the house on
Zapote?Gene and Nonilo Quitangon said theymight as well accompany Lydiathere and start moving out
her things.

When they arrived at the Zapote house, theQuitangon brothers were

amused bywhat they saw. Mrs.Cabading, her eyes closed, lay on the parlor sofa, a large towel spread
outbeneath her. "She has been lying there all day," said

Cabading, "tossing restlessly, askingfor you, Lydia."Gene noted that the towel wasneatly spread out and
didn't look crumpled at all, and that Mrs. Cabading was obviously just pretending to be asleep. Hesmiled
at the childishness of the stratagem, but Lydiawas past being amused. She wont straight to her room,
were they heard her pulling out drawers.While the Quitangons and Cabading were conversing, the
supposedly sick mother slipped out of the sofa andwent upstairs to Lydia's room.

Cabading told the Quitangons that he wanted Lydia and Leonardo to stay there; at the house in Zapote.
"I thoughtall that was settled last night," Gene groaned.

"I built this house for Lydia," persisted Cabading,"and this house is hers. Ifshe and her husband want to
be alone, I and my wife will move out of here, turn this house over to them." Genewearily explained that
Lydiaand Leonardo preferred theapartment they had already leased.

Suddenlythe men heard the clatter of a drawer falling upstairs. Gene surmised that ithad fallen in a
struggle between mother and daughter. "Excuse me," said Cabading, rising. As he wentupstairs, he said
to the Quitangons, over his shoulder, “Don't misunderstand me. I'm notgoing to 'coach' Lydia".He went
into Lydia's room and closed the doorbehind him.

Aftera long while, Lydiaand her father came out of the room together and came down to the sala
together. Lydia wasclasping a large crucifix. There was no expression on her face when she told the
Quitangon boys to gohome. "But I thought we were going to startmoving your things out this
afternoon,," said Gene. She glanced at the crucifix and said it wasone of the first things she wantedtaken
to her new home. "Just tell Narding to fetch me," she said.

Back in Sta. Mesa, Gene and Nonilo had the painful task of telling Leonardo, when he phoned, that Lydia
was backin the house on Zapote. "Why did you leave her there?" cried Leonardo. "He'll beat her up!I'm
going to get her."Gene told him not you go alone, to pass by the Sta. Mesa house first and pick up
Nonilo. Gene could not go along; hehad to catch a bus for Subic, where he works.When Leonardo
arrived, Gene told him: "Don't force Lydia to gowithyou. If she doesn't want to,leave at once. Do not, for
any reason, be persuaded to stay there too."

When his brother had left for Zapote, Gene realized that he was not sure he was going to Subic.He left
too worried. He knew he couldn't rest easy until he had seen Lydia and Leonardo settled in theirnew
home. The minutes quickly tickedpast as he debated with himself whether he should stay or catch that
bus. Then, at about a quarter to seven, the phonerang. It was Nonilo, in anguish.

"Somethingterrible has happened in Lydia'sroom! I heard four shots," he cried.

"Who are upthere?"

"Lydia andNarding and the Cabadings."

"I'llbe right over.

Genesent a younger brother to inform the family lawyer and to alert the Makati police. Then he drove
like mad to Zapote. It was almost dark whenhe got there. The house stood perfectlystill, not a light on
inside. He watched it from a distance but could see no movement, Then a taxidrove up and out jumped
Nonilo. Hehad telephoned from a gasoline station. He related what had happened.

He said that when he and Leonardo arrived at the Zapote house, Cabading motioned Leonardo upstairs:
"Lydia is in herroom." Leonardo went up;Cabading gave Nonilo a cup of coffee and chatted amiably with
him. Nonilo saw Mrs. Cabading go up to Lydia's roomwith a glass of milk. A while later, they heard a
woman scream, followed by sobbing. "There seems to betrouble up there," saidCabading, and he went
upstairs. Nonilo saw him enter Lydia's room, leaving the dooropen. A few moments later, the door was
closed. Then Nonilo heard three shots. He stood petrified, butwhen he heard a fourth shot he
dashedout of the house, ran to a gasoline station and called up Gene.

Nonilopointed to the closed front gate; he was sure he had left it open when he ran out. The brothers
suspected thatCabading was lurking somewhere in the darkness, with his gun.

Beforethem loomed the dark house, now so sinister and evil in their eyes. The upper story that jutted
forward,forming the house's chief facade,

bore a curious sign: Dra. Lydia C. Cabading, Lady Physician. (Apparently,Lydia

continued- or was made- to use her maidenname.) Above the sign was the garlandof colored lights that
have been put up for Christmas and had not yet been removed. It was an ice-cold night, thedark of the
moon, but the two brothersshivered not from the wind blowing down the lonely murky street but from
pure horror of the house that had sofatally thrust itself into their lives.

But the wind remembered when the sighs it heard here were only the sighing of the ripe grain, when the
cries itheard were only the crying of birds nesting in the reeds, for all these new suburbs in Makati used
to begrassland, riceland,marshland, or pastoral solitudes where few cared to go, until the big city spilled
hither, replacing the uprootedreeds with split-levels, pushing noisy little streets into the heart of the
solitude, and collecting here fromall over the country the uprooted souls that now moan or giggle where
once thecarabao wallowed and the frogs croaked day and night.In very new suburbs, one feels
humansorrow to be a grass intrusion on the labors of nature. Even barely two

years ago, the talahib still roseman-high on the plot of ground on Zapote Street

where now stands the relic of an ambiguous love.

As the Quitangon brothers shivered in the darkness, a police van arrivedand unloaded quite a large
contingent ofpolicemen. The Quitangons warned them that Cabading had a submachinegun. The
policemen crawled toward the front gate and almost jumped when a younggirl came running across the
yard, shaking with terror and shrieking gibberish.She was one of the maids. She and her companion and
the foster son had fled from the house when they heardthe shooting and had been hiding in the yard.
Itwas they who had closed the front gate.

Apoliceman volunteered to enter the house through the back door; Gene said he would try the front
one. He peered inat a window and could detect no one in the sala. He slipped a hand inside, opened the
front door andentered, just as thepoliceman came in from the kitchen. As they crept up the stairs they
heard a moaning in Lydia's room. They tried the doorbut it was blocked from inside."Push it, push it,"
wailed a woman's voice. The policeman pushed the door hard and what was blocking it gave. Hegroped
for the switch and turned light. As they entered, he and Gene shuddered at what they saw.

Theentire room was spattered with blood. On the floor, blocking the door, lay Mrs. Cabading. She had
been shot inthe chest and stomach but was stillalive. The policeman tried to get a statement from her
but all she could say was: "My hand, my hand- it hurts!"She was lying across the legs of her daughter,
who lay on top of her husband's body. Lydia was stillclutching an armful of clothes;Leonardo was
holding a clothes hanger. He had been shot in the breast; she, inthe heart. They had died instantly,
together.

Sprawled face up on his daughter's bed, his mouth agape and his eyes bulging open as though still
staring in horrorand the bright blood splashed on his facelay Pablo Cabading.

"Oh, I cursed him!" cries Eugenio Quitangon with passion."Oh, I cursed him as he lay there dead, God
forgive me! Yes, I cursed thatdead man there on thatbed, for I had wanted to find him alive!"

Fromthe position of the bodies and from Mrs. Cabading's statements later at the hospital, it appears
thatCabading shot Lydia whileshe was shielding herhusband, and Mrs. Cabading when she tried to shield
Lydia. Then he turned the gun onhimself, and it's an indication of the man's uncommon strength and
power that, after the first shot, through theright side of the head, which must have been mortal enough,
he seems to havebeen able, as his hands dropped to his breast, to fire at himself a second time. The
violent spasm of agonymust have sent the gun - a .45 caliber pistol-flying from his hand. It was found at
the foot of the bed, near Mrs. Cabading'sfeet.

Thedrama of the jealous father had ended at about half-past six in the evening, Tuesday last week.

The next day, hurrying commuters slowed down and a whispering crowd gathered before 1074 Zapote
Street, to watch the policeand the reporters going through the pretty little house that Pablo
Cabadingbuilt for his Lydia.