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THE SUMMER SOLSTICE by NICK JOAQUIN

Retrieved from https://ischoolsericsonalieto.wordpress.com/2011/01/07/the-summer-solstice-by-nick-joaquin/

The Moretas were spending St. John’s Day with the ‘What is this, Amanda? Why are you still in bed at
children’s grandfather, whose feast it was. Doña this hour? And in such posture! Come, get up at
Lupeng awoke feeling faint with the heat, a sound of once. You should be ashamed!”
screaming in her ears. In the dining room the three
But the woman on the bed merely stared. Her
boys, already attired in their holiday suits, were at
sweat-beaded brows contracted, as if in an effort to
breakfast, and came crowding around her, talking at
understand. Then her face relaxed, her mouth
once.
sagged open humorously and, rolling over on her
“ How long you have slept, Mama!”
back and spreading out her big soft arms and legs,
“We thought you were never getting up!” she began noiselessly quaking with laughter-the
mute mirth jerking in her throat; the moist pile of
“ Do we leave at once, huh? Are we going now? “
her flesh quivering like brown jelly. Saliva dribbled
“Hush, hush, I implore you! Now look: your father from the corners of her mouth.
has a headache, and so have I. So be quiet this
Doña Lupeng blushed, looking around helplessly; and
instant-or no one goes to Grandfather.”
seeing that Entoy had followed and was leaning in
Though it was only seven by the clock the house was the doorway, watching stolidly, she blushed again.
already a furnace, the windows dilating with the The room recked hotly of intimate odors. She
harsh light and the air already burning with averted her eyes from the laughing woan on the bed,
immense, intense fever of noon. in whose nakedness she seemed to participate that
she was ashamed to look directly at the man in the
She found the children’s nurse working in the doorway.
kitchen. “ And why is it you who are preparing
breakfast? Where is Amada?” But without waiting “Tell me, Entoy: has she been to the Tadtarin?”
for an answer she went to the backdoor and opened
“Yes, senora. Last night.”
it, and the screaming in her ears became a wild
screaming in the stables across the yard. “Oh, my “But I forbade her to go! And I forbade you to let her
God!” she groaned and grasping her skirts , hurried go!”
across the yard.
“ I could do nothing.”
In the stables Entoy, the driver, apparently deaf to
“Why, you beat her at the least pretext!”
the screams, was hitching the pair of piebald ponies
to the coach. “But now I dare not touch her.”
“Not the closed coach, Entoy! The open carriage!” “Oh, and why not?”
shouted Doña Lupeng as she came up.
“It is the day of St. John: the spirit is in her.”
“But the dust, señora-”
“But man—“
“I know, but better to be dirty than to be boiled
alive. And what ails your wife, eh? Have you been “It is true, senora. The spirit in her.”
beating her again?” “But, man—“
“Oh no, señora:I have not touched her.” “It is true señora. The spirit is in her. She is the
“Then why is she screaming? Is she ill?” Tadtarin. She must do as she pleases. Otherwise, the
grain would not grow, the trees would bear no fruit,
“I do not think so. But how do I know? You can go the rivers would give no fish, and animals would
and see for yourself, señora. She is up there.” die.”
When Doña Lupeng entered the room, the big half- “Naku, I did not know your wife was so powerful,
naked woman sprawled across the bamboo bed Entoy.”
stopped screaming. Doña Lupeng was shocked.
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“At such times she is not my wife: She is the wife of light that marks this climax of the solar year ─raining
the river, she is the wife of the crocodile, she is the relentlessly upon field and river and town and
wife of the moon.” winding road, and upon the joyous throng of young
men against whose uproar a couple of seminarians
====
in muddy cassocks vainly intoned the hymn of the
“But how can they still believe such things?” noon god:
demanded Doña Lupeng of her husband as
That we,thy servants,in chorus
they drove in the open carriage through the pastoral
May praise thee,our tongues restore us….
countryside that was the arrabal of Paco in the
1850’s.
Don Paeng, drowsily stroking his mustaches, his But Doña Lupeng, standing in the stopped carriage,
eyes closed against the hot light,merely shrugged. looking very young and elegant her white frock,
under the twirling parasol, stared down on the
“And you should have seen the Entoy,” continued his
passing male horde with increasing annoyance. The
wife. “You know how the brute treats her: she
insolent man-smell of their bodies rose all about
cannot say a word but he trashes her. But this
her─wave upon wave of it─enveloping her,
morning he stood as meek as lamb while she
assaulting her senses, till she felt faint with it and
screamed and screamed. He seemed actually in awe
pressed a handkerchief to her nose. And as she
of her, do you know─ actually afraid of her!”
glanced at her husband and saw with what a smug
Don Paeng darted a sidelong glance at his wife, by
smile he was watching the revellers, her annoyance
which he intimated that he subject was not a proper
deepened. When he bade her sit down because all
one for the children, who were sitting opposite,
eyes were turned on her, she pretended not to hear;
facing their parents.
stood up even straighter, as if to defy those rude
“Oh, look, boys— here comes the St. creatures flaunting their manhood in the sun.
John!”cried Doña Lupeng, and she sprang up in the
And she wondered peevishly what the braggarts
swaying carriage, propping one hand on her
were being so cocky about? For this arrogance, this
husband’s shoulder while with the other she held up
pride, this bluff male health of theirs was (she told
her silk parasol.
herself) founded on the impregnable virtue of
And “Here come the men with their St. John!” cried
generations of good women. The boobies were so
voices up and down the countryside. People in wet
sure of themselves because they had always been
clothes dripping with well-water, ditch-water and
sure of their wives. “All the sisters being virtuous, all
river-water came running across the hot woods and
the brothers are brave.”thought Doña Lupeng, with a
fields and meadows, brandishing cans of water,
bitterness that rather surprised her. Women had
wetting each other uproariously, and shouting San
built it up: this poise of the male. Ah, and women
Juan! San Juan! As they ran to meet the procession.
could destroy it, too! She recalled, vindictively,
this morning’s scene at the stables: Amada naked
Up the road, stirring a cloud of dust, and gaily and screaming in bed while from the doorway her
bedrenched by the crowds gathered along the lord and master looked on in meek silence. And was
wayside, a concourse of young men clad only in it not the mystery of a woman in her flowers that
soggy trousers were carrying aloft an image of the had restored the tongue of that old Hebrew
Precursor. Their teeth flashed white in their laughing prophet?
faces and their hot bodies glowed crimson as they “Look, Lupeng, they have all passed now,” Don
pranced past, shrouded in fiery dust, singing, and Paeng was saying.”Do you mean to stand all the
shouting and waving their arms: the St. John riding way?”
swiftly above the sea of dark heads and glittering in
She looked around in surprise and hastily sat down.
the noon sun— a fine, blonde, heroic St. John: very
The children tittered, and the carriage started.
male, very arrogant: the Lord of Summer indeed; the
Lord of Light and Heat─erect and goldly virile above “Has the heat gone to your head, woman?” asked
the prone and female earth─while the worshippers Don Paeng, smiling. The children burst frankly into
danced and the dust thickened and the animals laughter.
reared and roared and the merciless fires came
raining down from the skies─the vast outpouring of
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Their mother coloured and hung her head. She was “She is beautiful— as that old tree you are leaning
beginning to feel ashamed of the thoughts that had on is beautiful,”calmly insisted the young man,
filled her mind. They seemed improper— almost mocking her with his eyes.
obscene— and the discovery of such depths of
They were out in the buzzing orchard, among the
wickedness in herself appalled her. She moved closer
ripe mangoes; Doña Lupeng seated on the grass, her
to her husband, to share the parasol with him.
legs tucked beneath her, and the young man
“And did you see our cousin Guido?” he asked. sprawled flat on his belly, gazing up at her, his face
moist with sweat . The children were chasing
“Oh, was he in that crowd?”
dragonflies. The sun stood still in the west. The long
“A European education does not seem to have day refused to end. From the house came the
spoiled his taste for country pleasures.” sudden roaring laughter of the men playing cards.

“I did not see him.” “Beautiful! Romantic! Adorable! Are those the only
words you learned in Europe?” cried Doña Lupeng,
“He waved and waved.” feeling very annoyed with this young man whose
“The poor boy. He will feel hurt. But truly, Paeng, I eyes adored her one moment and mocked her at the
did not see him.” next.

“Well, that is always a woman’s privilege.” “Ah, I also learned to open my eyes over there— to
see the holiness and the mystery of what is vulgar.”
====
“And what is so holy and mysterious about— about
But when that afternoon, at the grandfather’s, the the Tadtarin, for instance?”
young Guido presented himself, properly attired and
brushed and scented, Doña Lupeng was so charming “I do not know. I can only feel it. And it frightens me.
and gracious with him that he was enchanted and Those rituals come to us from the earliest dawn of
gazed after her all afternoon with enamoured eyes. the world. And the dominant figure is not the male
but the female.”
This was the time when our young men were all “ But they are in honor of St. John.”
going to Europe and bringing back with them, not
the Age of Victoria, but the Age of Byron . The young “What has your St. John to do with them? Those
Guido knew nothing of Darwin and evolution; he women worship a more ancient lord. Why, do you
knew everything about Napoleon and the know that no man may join in those rites unless he
Revolution. When Doña Lupeng expressed surprise first puts on some article of women’s apparel and—“
at his presence that morning in the St. John’s crowd, “And what did you put on, Guido?”
he laughed in her face.
“How sharp you are! Oh, I made such love to a
“But I adore these old fiestas of ours! They are toothless old hag there that she pulled off her
so romantic! Last night, do you know, we walked all stocking for me. And I pulled it on, over my arm, like
the way through the woods, I and some boys to see a glove. How your husband would
the procession of the Tadtarin.” have despised me!”
“And was the romantic too?” asked Doña Lupeng. “But what on earth does it mean?”
It was weird. It made my flesh crawl. All those “I think it is to remind us men that once upon a time
women in such a mystic frenzy! And she who was you women were supreme and we men were the
the Tadtarin last night— she was a figure right out of slaves.”
a flamenco!”
I fear to disenchant you,Guido— but that woman “But surely there have always been kings?”
happens to be our cook.”
“Oh, no. The queen came before the king, and the
“She is beautiful.” priestess before the priest, and the moon before the
sun.”
“Our Amada is beautiful? But she is old and fat!”
“The moon?”
“—who is the Lord of the women.”
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“Why?” “These young men today— what a disgrace they are!

I felt embarrassed as a man to see him following you
“Because the tides of women, like the tides of the
about with those eyes of a whipped dog.”
sea, are tides of the moon. Because the first blood—
But what is the matter, Lupe? Oh, have I offended She glanced at him coldly. “And was that all you felt,
you?” Paeng? Embarrassed— as a man?”
“Is this how they talk to decent women in Europe?” “A good husband has constant confidence in the
good sense of his wife,” he pronounced grandly, and
“They do not talk to women, they pray to them— as
smiled at her.
men did in the dawn of the world.”
But she drew away; huddled herself in the other
“Oh, you are mad! mad!”
corner. “He kissed my feet,” she told him
“Why are you so afraid, Lupe?” disdainfully, her eyes on his face.
He frowned and made a gesture of distaste. “Do you
“I, afraid? And of whom? My dear boy, you still have see? They have the instincts, the style of the canalla!
your mother’s milk in your mouth. I only wish you to To kiss a woman’s feet, to follow her like a dog, to
remember that I am a married woman.” adore her like a slave— “
“I remember that you are a woman, yes. A beautiful “Is it so shameful for a man to adore women?”
woman. And why not? Did you turn into some
dreadful monster when you married? Did you stop “A gentlemen loves and respects Woman. The cads
being a woman? Did you stop, being beautiful? Then and lunatics— they ‘adore’ the women.”
why should my eyes not tell you what you are— just
“But maybe we do not want to be loved and
because you are married?”
respected— but to be adored.”
“Ah, this is too much now!” cried Doña Lupeng, and
“Ah, he has converted you then?”
she rose to her feet.
“Who knows? But must we talk about it? My head is
“Do not go, I implore you! Have pity on me!”
bursting with the heat.”
“No more of your comedy, Guido! And besides—
But when they reached home she did not lie down
where have those children gone to! I must go after
but wandered listlessly through the empty house.
them.”
When Don Paeng, having bathed and changed, came
As she lifed her skirts to walk away, the young man, down from the bedroom, he found her in the dark
propping up his elbows, dragged himself forward on parlour seated at the harp and plucking out a tune,
the ground and solemnly kissed the tips of her shoes. still in her white frock and shoes.
She stared down in sudden horror, transfixed— and
“How can you bear those hot clothes, Lupeng? And
he felt her violent shudder. She backed away slowly,
why the darkness? Order someone to bring a light in
still staring; then turned and fled toward the house.
here.”
On the way home that evening Don Paeng noticed
“There is no one, they have all gone to see the
that his wife was in a mood. They were alone in the
Tadtarin.”
carriage: the children were staying overnight at their
grandfather’s. The heat had not subsided. It was “A pack of loafers we are feeding!”
heat without gradations: that knew no twilights and
She had risen and gone to the window. He
no dawns; that was still there, after the sun had set;
approached and stood behind her, grasped her
that would be there already, before the sun had
elbows and, stooping, kissed the nape of her neck.
risen.
But she stood still, not responding, and he released
“Has young Guido been annoying you?” asked Don her sulkily. She turned around to face him.
Paeng.
“Listen, Paeng. I want to see it, too. The Tadtarin, I
“Yes! All afternoon.” mean. I have not seen it since I was a little girl. And
tonight is the last night.”
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“You must be crazy! Only low people go there. And I descended. The plaza rang with the shouts of people
thought you had a headache?” He was still sulking. and the neighing of horses— and with another
keener sound: a sound as f sea-waves steadily rolling
“But I want to go! My head aches worse in the
nearer.
house. For a favour, Paeng.”
The crowd parted, and up the street came the
“I told you: No! Go and take those clothes off. But,
prancing, screaming, writhing women, their eyes
woman, whatever has got into you!” He strode off to
wild, black shawls flying around their shoulders, and
the table, opened the box of cigars, took one,
their long hair streaming and covered with leaves
banged the lid shut, bit off an end of the cigar, and
and flowers. But the Tadtarin, a small old woman
glared about for a light.
with white hair, walked with calm dignity in the
She was still standing by the window and her chin midst of the female tumult, a wand in one hand, a
was up. bunch of seedlings in the other. Behind her, a group
of girls bore aloft a little black image of the Baptist—
“Very well, if you do not want to come, do not a crude, primitive, grotesque image, its big-eyed
come— but I am going.” head too big for its puny naked torso, bobbing and
“I warn you, Lupe; do not provoke me!” swaying above the hysterical female horde and
looking at once so comical and so pathetic that Don
“I will go with Amada. Entoy can take us. You cannot Paeng watching his wife n the sidewalk, was
forbid me, Paeng. There is nothing wrong with it. I outraged. The image seemed to be crying for help, to
am not a child.” be struggling to escape— a St. John indeed in the
But standing very straight in her white frock, her hands of the Herodiads; a doomed captive these
eyes shining in the dark and her chin thrust up, she witches were subjecting first to their derision; a
looked so young, so fragile, that his heart was gross and brutal caricature of his sex.
touched. He sighed, smiled ruefully, and shrugged
his shoulders. “Yes, the heat has touched you in the
head, Lupeng. And since you are so set on it— very Don Paeng flashed hotly: he felt that all those
well, let us go. Come, have the coach ordered!” women had personally insulted him. He turned to his
wife, to take her away— but she was watching
The cult of the Tadtarin is celebrated on three days: greedily, taut and breathless, her head thrust
th feast of St. John and the two preceding days. On forward and her eyes bulging, the teeth bared in the
the first night, a young girl heads the procession; on slack mouth, and the sweat gleaming on her face.
the second, a mature woman; and on the third, a Don Paeng was horrified. He grasped her arm— but
very old woman who dies and comes to life again. In then just a flash of lightning blazed and the
these processions, as in those of Pakil and Obando, screaming women fell silent: the Tadtarin was about
everyone dances. to die.
Around the tiny plaza in front of the barrio chapel, The old woman closed her eyes and bowed her head
quite a stream of carriages was flowing leisurely. The and sank slowly to her knees. A pallet was brought
Moretas were constantly being hailed from the other and set on the ground and she was laid in it and her
vehicles. The plaza itself and the sidewalk were filled face covered with a shroud. Her hands still clutched
with chattering, strolling, profusely sweating people. the wand and the seedlings. The women drew away,
More people were crowded on the balconies and leaving her in a cleared space. They covered their
windows of the houses. The moon had not yet risen; heads with their black shawls and began wailing
the black night smoldered; in the windless sky the softly, unhumanly— a hushed, animal keening.
lightning’s abruptly branching fire seemed the
nerves of the tortures air made visible. Overhead the sky was brightening; silver light
defined the rooftops. When the moon rose and
“Here they come now!” cried the people on the flooded with hot brilliance the moveless crowded
balconies. square, the black-shawled women stopped wailing
And “Here come the women with their St. John!” and a girl approached and unshrouded the Tadtarin,
cried the people on the sidewalks, surging forth on who opened her eyes and sat up, her face lifted to
the street. The carriages halted and their occupants the to the moonlight. She rose to her feet and
extended the wand and the seedlings and the
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women joined in a mighty shout. They pulled off Terror possessed him and he struck out savagely
and waved their shaws and whirled and began with both fists, with all his strength— but they
dancing again—laughing and dancing with such closed in as savagely: solid walls of flesh that crushed
joyous exciting abandon that the people in the upon him and pinned his arms helpless, while
square and on the sidewalks, and even those on the unseen hands struck and struck his face, and ravaged
balconies, were soon laughing and dancing, too. Girls his hair and clothes, and clawed at his flesh, as—
broke away from their parents and wives from their kicked and buffeted, his eyes blind and his torn
husbands to join in the orgy. mouth salty with blood— he was pushed down,
down to his knees, and half-shoved, half-dragged to
“Come, let us go now,” said Don Paeng to his wife.
the doorway and rolled out to the street. He picked
She was shaking with fascination; tears trembled on
himself up at once and walked away with a dignity
her lashes; but she nodded meekly and allowed
that forbade the crowd gathered outside to laugh or
herself to be led away. But suddenly she pulled free
to pity. Entoy came running to meet him.
from his grasp, darted off, ad ran into the crowd of
dancing women. “But what has happened to you, Don Paeng?”
She flung her hands to her hair and whirled and her “Nothing. Where is the coach?”
hair came undone. Then, planting her arms akimbo,
“Just over there, sir. But you are wounded in the
she began to trip a nimble measure, an instinctive
face!”
folk-movement. She tossed her head back and her
arched throat bloomed whitely. Her eyes brimmed “No, these are only scratches. Go and get the señora.
with moonlight, and her mouth with laughter. We are going home.”
Don Paeng ran after her, shouting her name, but she When she entered the coach and saw his bruised
laughed and shook her head and darted deeper and face and torn clothing, she smiled coolly.
into the dense maze of the procession, which was
moving again, towards the chapel. He followed her, “What a sight you are, man! What have you done
shouting; she eluded him, laughing— and through with yourself?” And when he did not answer: “Why,
the thick of the female horde they lost and found have they pulled out his tongue too?” she wondered
and lost each other again— she, dancing and he aloud.
pursuing— till, carried along by the tide, they were And when they were home and stood facing each
both swallowed up into the hot, packed, turbalent other in the bedroom, she was as still as light-
darkness of the chapel. Inside poured the entire hearted.
procession, and Don Paeng, finding himself trapped
tight among milling female bodies, struggled with “What are you going to do, Rafael?”
sudden panic to fight his way out. Angry voices roses “I am going to give you a whipping.”
all about him in the stifling darkness.
“But why?”
“Hoy, you are crushing my feet!”
“And let go of my shawl, my shawl!” “Because you have behaved tonight like a lewd
woman.”
“Stop pushing, shameless one, or I kick you!”
“How I behaved tonight is what I am. If you call that
“Let me pass, let me pass, you harlots!” cried Don lewd, then I was always a lewd woman and whipping
Paeng. will not changed me — though you whipped me till I
“Ahah, it is a man!” died.”
“How dare he come in here?” “I want this madness to die in you.”
“Break his head!” “No, you want me to pay for your bruises.”
“Throw the animal out!” He flushed darkly. “How can you say that, Lupe?”
“Throw him out! Throw him out!” shrieked the “Because it is true. You have been whipped by the
voices, and Don Paeng found himself surrounded by women and now you think to avenge yourself by
a swarm of gleaming eyes. whipping me.”
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His shoulders sagged and his face dulled. “If you can He was exhausted at last: he sank heavily to his
think that of me—“ knees, breathing hard and streaming with sweat, his
fine body curiously diminished now in its ravaged
“You could think me a lewd woman!”
apparel.
“Oh, how do I know what to think of you? I was sure
“I adore you, Lupe,” he said tonelessly.
I knew you as I knew myself. But now you are as
distant and strange to me as a female Turk in She strained forward avidly. “What? What did you
Africa!” say?” she screamed.
And he, in his dead voice: “That I adore you. That I
“Yet you would dare whip me—“
adore you. That I worship you. That the air you
“Becase I love you, because I respect you—“ breath and the ground you tread is holy to me. That I
am your dog. Your slave…”
“And because if you ceased to respect me you would
ceased to respect yourself?” But it was still not enough. Her fists were still
clenched, and she cried: “Then come, crawl on the
“Ah, I did not say that!” floor, and kiss my feet!”
“Then why not say it? It is true. And you want to say
it, you want to say it!” Without a moment’s hesitation, he sprawled down
flat and, working his arms and legs, gaspingly clawed
But he struggled against her power. “Why should I his way across the floor, like a great agonized lizard,
want to?” He demanded peevishly. the woman steadily backing away as he approached,
“Because, either you must say it— or you must whip her eyes watching him avidly, her nostrils dilating, till
me,” she taunted. behind her loomed the open window, the huge
glittering moon, the rapid flashes of lightning. She
Her eyes were upon him and the shameful fear that stopped, panting, and leaned against the sill. He lay
had unmanned him in the dark chapel possessed him exhausted at her feet, his face flat on the floor.
again. His legs had turned to water; it was a
monstrous agony to remain standing. She raised her skirts and contemptuously thrust out
a naked foot. He lifted his dripping face and touched
But she was waiting for him speak, forcing him to his bruised lips to her toes; lifted his hands and
speak. grasped the white foot and kissed it savagely—
kissed the step, the sole, the frail ankle— while she
“No, I cannot whip you!” he confessed miserably.
bit her lips and clutched in pain at the windowsill,
“Then say it! Say it!” she cried, pounding her her body distended and wracked by horrible shivers,
clenched her fists together. “Why suffer and suffer? her head flung back and her loose hair streaming out
And in the end you would only submit.” the window— streaming fluid and black in the white
night where the huge moon glowed like a sun and
But he still struggled stubbornly, “Is it not enough
the dry air flamed into lightning and the pure heat
that you have me helpless? Is it not enough that I
burned with the immense intense fever of noon.
feel what you want me to feel?”
But she shook her head furiously. “Until you have
said it to me, there can be no peace between us.”