The Wedding Dance blame me; I have been a good husband to you.

"

By Amador Daguio "Neither can you blame me," she said. She seemed about to
cry.
Awiyao reached for the upper horizontal log which served
as the edge of the headhigh threshold. Clinging to the log, "No, you have been very good to me. You have been a good
he lifted himself with one bound that carried him across to wife. I have nothing to say against you." He set some of the
the narrow door. He slid back the cover, stepped inside, burning wood in place. "It's only that a man must have a
then pushed the cover back in place. After some moments child. Seven harvests is just too long to wait. Yes, we have
during which he seemed to wait, he talked to the listening waited too long. We should have another chance before it
darkness. is too late for both of us."

"I'm sorry this had to be done. I am really sorry. But neither This time the woman stirred, stretched her right leg out and
of us can help it." bent her left leg in. She wound the blanket more snugly
around herself.
The sound of the gangsas beat through the walls of the dark
house like muffled roars of falling waters. The woman who "You know that I have done my best," she said. "I have
had moved with a start when the sliding door opened had prayed to Kabunyan much. I have sacrificed many chickens
been hearing the gangsas for she did not know how long. in my prayers."
There was a sudden rush of fire in her. She gave no sign
that she heard Awiyao, but continued to sit unmoving in "Yes, I know."
the darkness.
"You remember how angry you were once when you came
But Awiyao knew that she heard him and his heart pitied home from your work in the terrace because I butchered
her. He crawled on all fours to the middle of the room; he one of our pigs without your permission? I did it to appease
knew exactly where the stove was. With bare fingers he Kabunyan, because, like you, I wanted to have a child. But
stirred the covered smoldering embers, and blew into the what could I do?"
stove. When the coals began to glow, Awiyao put pieces of
pine on them, then full round logs as his arms. The room "Kabunyan does not see fit for us to have a child," he said.
brightened. He stirred the fire. The spark rose through the crackles of
the flames. The smoke and soot went up the ceiling.
"Why don't you go out," he said, "and join the dancing
women?" He felt a pang inside him, because what he said Lumnay looked down and unconsciously started to pull at
was really not the right thing to say and because the the rattan that kept the split bamboo flooring in place. She
woman did not stir. "You should join the dancers," he said, tugged at the rattan flooring. Each time she did this the
"as if--as if nothing had happened." He looked at the split bamboo went up and came down with a slight rattle.
woman huddled in a corner of the room, leaning against The gong of the dancers clamorously called in her care
the wall. The stove fire played with strange moving through the walls.
shadows and lights
upon her face. She was partly sullen, but her sullenness was Awiyao went to the corner where Lumnay sat, paused
not because of anger or hate. before her, looked at her bronzed and sturdy face, then
turned to where the jars of water stood piled one over the
"Go out--go out and dance. If you really don't hate me for other. Awiyao took a coconut cup and dipped it in the top
this separation, go out and dance. One of the men will see jar and drank. Lumnay had filled the jars from the mountain
you dance well; he will like your dancing, he will marry you. creek early that evening.
Who knows but that, with him, you will be luckier than you
were with me." "I came home," he said. "Because I did not find you among
the dancers. Of course, I am not forcing you to come, if you
"I don't want any man," she said sharply. "I don't want any don't want to join my wedding ceremony. I came to tell you
other man." that Madulimay, although I am marrying her, can never
become as good as you are. She is not as strong in planting
He felt relieved that at least she talked: "You know very beans, not as fast in cleaning water jars, not as good
well that I won't want any other woman either. You know keeping a house clean. You are one of the best wives in the
that, don't you? Lumnay, you know it, don't you?" whole village."

She did not answer him. "That has not done me any good, has it?" She said. She
looked at him lovingly. She almost seemed to smile.
"You know it Lumnay, don't you?" he repeated.
He put the coconut cup aside on the floor and came closer
"Yes, I know," she said weakly. to her. He held her face between his hands and looked
longingly at her beauty. But her eyes looked away. Never
"It is not my fault," he said, feeling relieved. "You cannot again would he hold her face. The next day she would not
be his any more. She would go back to her parents. He let
go of her face, and she bent to the floor again and looked at eyes were. She looked at his body the carved out of the
her fingers as they tugged softly at the split bamboo floor. mountains
five fields for her; his wide and supple torso heaved as if a
"This house is yours," he said. "I built it for you. Make it slab of shining lumber were heaving; his arms and legs
your own, live in it as long as you wish. I will build another flowed down in fluent muscles--he was strong and for that
house for Madulimay." she had lost him.

"I have no need for a house," she said slowly. "I'll go to my She flung herself upon his knees and clung to them.
own house. My parents are old. They will need help in the "Awiyao, Awiyao, my husband," she cried. "I did everything
planting of the beans, in the pounding of the rice." to have a child," she said passionately in a hoarse whisper.
"Look at me," she cried. "Look at my body. Then it was full
"I will give you the field that I dug out of the mountains of promise. It could dance; it could work fast in the fields; it
during the first year of our marriage," he said. "You know I could climb the mountains fast. Even now it is firm, full.
did it for you. You helped me to make it for the two of us." But, Awiyao, I am useless. I must die."

"I have no use for any field," she said. "It will not be right to die," he said, gathering her in his
arms. Her whole warm naked naked breast quivered
He looked at her, then turned away, and became silent. against his own; she clung now to his neck, and her hand
They were silent for a time. lay upon his right shoulder; her hair flowed down in
cascades of gleaming darkness.
"Go back to the dance," she said finally. "It is not right for
you to be here. They will wonder where you are, and "I don't care about the fields," she said. "I don't care about
Madulimay will not feel good. Go back to the dance." the house. I don't care for anything but you. I'll have no
other man."
"I would feel better if you could come, and dance---for the
last time. The gangsas are playing." "Then you'll always be fruitless."

"You know that I cannot." "I'll go back to my father, I'll die."

"Lumnay," he said tenderly. "Lumnay, if I did this it is "Then you hate me," he said. "If you die it means you hate
because of my need for a child. You know that life is not me. You do not want me to have a child. You do not want
worth living without a child. The man have mocked me my name to live on in our tribe."
behind my back. You know that."
She was silent.
"I know it," he said. "I will pray that Kabunyan will bless you
and Madulimay." "If I do not try a second time," he explained, "it means I'll
die. Nobody will get the fields I have carved out of the
She bit her lips now, then shook her head wildly, and mountains; nobody will come after me."
sobbed.
"If you fail--if you fail this second time--" she said
She thought of the seven harvests that had passed, the high thoughtfully. The voice was a shudder. "No--no, I don't
hopes they had in the beginning of their new life, the day want you to fail."
he took her away from her parents across the roaring river,
on the other side of the mountain, the trip up the trail "If I fail," he said, "I'll come back to you. Then both of us will
which they had to climb, the steep canyon which they had die together. Both of us will vanish from the life of our
to cross. The waters boiled in her mind in forms of white tribe."
and jade and roaring silver; the waters tolled and growled,
resounded in thunderous echoes through the walls of the The gongs thundered through the walls of their house,
stiff cliffs; they were far away now from somewhere on the sonorous and faraway.
tops of the other ranges, and they had looked carefully at
the buttresses of rocks they had to step on---a slip would "I'll keep my beads," she said. "Awiyao, let me keep my
have meant death. beads," she half-whispered.

They both drank of the water then rested on the other bank "You will keep the beads. They come from far-off times. My
before they made the final climb to the other side of the grandmother said they come from up North, from the slant-
mountain. eyed people across the sea. You keep them, Lumnay. They
are worth twenty fields."
She looked at his face with the fire playing upon his
features---hard and strong, and kind. He had a sense of "I'll keep them because they stand for the love you have for
lightness in his way of saying things which often made her me," she said. "I love you. I love you and have nothing to
and the village people laugh. How proud she had been of give."
his humor. The muscles where taut and firm, bronze and
compact in their hold upon his skull---how frank his bright She took herself away from him, for a voice was calling out
to him from outside. "Awiyao! Awiyao! O Awiyao! They are stretched her hands like the wings of the mountain eagle
looking for you at the dance!" now and then as she danced? How long ago did she dance
at her own wedding? Tonight, all the women who counted,
"I am not in hurry." who once danced in her honor, were dancing now in honor
of another whose only claim was that perhaps she could
"The elders will scold you. You had better go." give her
husband a child.
"Not until you tell me that it is all right with you."
"It is not right. It is not right!" she cried. "How does she
"It is all right with me." know? How can anybody know? It is not right," she said.

He clasped her hands. "I do this for the sake of the tribe," Suddenly she found courage. She would go to the dance.
he said. She would go to the chief of the village, to the elders, to tell
them it was not right. Awiyao was hers; nobody could take
"I know," she said. him away from her. Let her be the first woman to complain,
to denounce the unwritten rule that a man may take
He went to the door. another woman. She would tell Awiyao to come back to
her. He surely would relent. Was not their love as strong as
"Awiyao!" the
river?
He stopped as if suddenly hit by a spear. In pain he turned
to her. Her face was in agony. It pained him to leave. She She made for the other side of the village where the
had been wonderful to him. What was it that made a man dancing was. There was a flaming glow over the whole
wish for a child? What was it in life, in the work in the field, place; a great bonfire was burning. The gangsas clamored
in the planting and harvest, in the silence of the night, in more loudly now, and it seemed they were calling to her.
the communing with husband and wife, in the whole life of She was near at last. She could see the dancers clearly now.
the tribe itself that made man wish for the laughter and The man leaped lightly with their gangsas as they circled
speech of a child? Suppose he changed his mind? Why did the dancing women decked in feast garments and beads,
the unwritten law demand, anyway, that a man, to be a tripping on the ground like graceful birds, following their
man, must have a child to come after him? And if he was men. Her heart warmed to the flaming call of the dance;
fruitless--but he loved Lumnay. It was like taking away of strange heat in her blood welled up, and she started to run.
his life to leave her like this. But the gleaming brightness of the bonfire commanded her
to stop. Did anybody see her approach?
"Awiyao," she said, and her eyes seemed to smile in the She stopped. What if somebody had seen her coming? The
light. "The beads!" He turned back and walked to the flames of the bonfire leaped in countless sparks which
farthest corner of their room, to the trunk where they kept spread and rose like yellow points and died out in the night.
their worldly possession---his battle-ax and his spear points, The blaze reached out to her like a spreading radiance. She
her betel nut box and her beads. He dug out from the did not have the courage to break into the wedding feast.
darkness the beads which had been given to him by his
grandmother to give to Lumnay on the beads on, and tied Lumnay walked away from the dancing ground, away from
them in place. The white and jade and deep orange the village. She thought of the new clearing of beans which
obsidians shone in the firelight. She suddenly clung to him, Awiyao and she had started to make only four moons
clung to his neck as if she would never let him go. before. She followed the trail above the village.

"Awiyao! Awiyao, it is hard!" She gasped, and she closed When she came to the mountain stream she crossed it
her eyes and huried her face in his neck. carefully. Nobody held her hand, and the stream water was
very cold. The trail went up again, and she was in the
The call for him from the outside repeated; her grip moonlight shadows among the trees and shrubs. Slowly she
loosened, and he buried out into the night. climbed the mountain.

Lumnay sat for some time in the darkness. Then she went When Lumnay reached the clearing, she cold see from
to the door and opened it. The moonlight struck her face; where she stood the blazing bonfire at the edge of the
the moonlight spilled itself on the whole village. village, where the wedding was. She could hear the far-off
clamor of the gongs, still rich in their sonorousness, echoing
She could hear the throbbing of the gangsas coming to her from mountain to mountain. The sound did not mock her;
through the caverns of the other houses. She knew that all they seemed to call far to her, to speak to her in the
the houses were empty that the whole tribe was at the language of unspeaking love. She felt the pull of their
dance. Only she was absent. And yet was she not the best gratitude for her
dancer of the village? Did she not have the most lightness sacrifice. Her heartbeat began to sound to her like many
and grace? Could she not, alone among all women, dance gangsas.
like a bird tripping for grains on the ground, beautifully
timed to the beat of the gangsas? Did not the men praise Lumnay though of Awiyao as the Awiyao she had known
her supple body, and the women envy the way she long ago-- a strong, muscular boy carrying his heavy loads
of fuel logs down the mountains to his home. She had met
him one day as she was on her way to fill her clay jars with
water. He had stopped at the spring to drink and rest; and
she had made him drink the cool mountain water from her
coconut shell. After that it did not take him long to decide
to throw his spear on the stairs of her father's house in
token on his desire to marry her.

The mountain clearing was cold in the freezing moonlight.

The wind began to stir the leaves of the bean plants.
Lumnay looked for a big rock on which to sit down. The
bean plants now surrounded her, and she was lost among
them.

A few more weeks, a few more months, a few more

harvests---what did it matter? She would be holding the
bean flowers, soft in the texture, silken almost, but moist
where the dew got into them, silver to look at, silver on the
light blue, blooming whiteness, when the morning comes.
The stretching of the bean pods full length from the hearts
of the wilting petals would go on.

Lumnay's fingers moved a long, long time among the

growing bean pods.