“Ignacio, you are on my back, tell me, what do you hear?”
“I heard nothing.”
“We shouldn’t be far from our destination.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t hear anything.”
“You are such a poor worm, Ignacio.”
An elongated black figure moved up and down along the river. Sometimes the black figure climbed up the rocks, sometimes shrank, and sometimes enlarged. There was only one shaky shadow of the two.
“We should be close to that village, Ignacio. With your ears sticking out, listen carefully for the barking of dogs. Do you remember someone telling us that Tonaya is behind the mountain? When did the downhill start, think about it, Ignacio.”
“I do not remember.”
“I’m tired.”
“Let me down.”
The old man walked back slowly until he reached the big rock behind him, but instead of putting down the person on his back, he took his back. Although he felt his legs were weak, he still didn’t want to sit down, because he couldn’t afford his son’s body as soon as he sat down.
“what do you think?”
“not good.”
His son didn’t talk much, and it became less and less. Sometimes he seemed to fall asleep. Sometimes he was shaking again. He knows when his son trembles because of his wobbly walking, because his son’s two feet hang on both sides of his hips like spurs. The son’s hands were wrapped around his father’s neck, but at this moment he shook his head like a whip.
“Do you have a terrible pain?”
“It’s kind of,” the son replied.
At the beginning, his son once said to him: “Let me go…just leave me here…you will go alone. Tomorrow or when I get better, I will catch up with you.” He has said a few words almost fifty times. Now he didn’t even say these few words.
The moon is facing the sky high. This is a big red moon that illuminates their eyes and makes their black shadows on the ground longer and darker.
“I don’t know where to go.”
However, no one responded to him.
The whole body of the man on his back was brightened by moonlight, his face was pale and bloodless, showing dim reflections.
“Did you hear what I just said? I said I can’t see the way.”
The other person remained silent.
He walked with one foot high and one foot low. Sometimes he bends down, sometimes straightens, and walks step by step.
“This is simply not a road. People told us that Tonaya is under the mountain. We have climbed over this mountain, but still can’t see Tonaya, even the voice that can show us that it is nearby Nothing.”
“You let me down, father.”
“you’re uncomfortable?”
“Yes.”
“Anyway, I am going to carry you to Tonaya. I will find someone to treat you there. I have carried you on my back for several hours. I will never leave you here and let you be Killed.”
He swayed, stumbled two or three steps to the side of the road, and straightened again. “I must carry you to Tonaya.”
“Let me down.” The son’s voice became very low, almost as if he was talking to himself, “I want to lie down for a while.”
“You sleep on my back, I will hold you tight.”
The bright moonlight brightened the face of the sweaty old man. Since his neck was held tightly by his son’s hands, he couldn’t lower his head, so he had to squint his eyes to avoid the glare of the moon.
“I didn’t do all this for you (this conversation changed’you to’ you, which means that the speaker no longer sees the other person as his own son-translator’s note), I am for your dead mother , Because you are her son, I did this. If I left you where I met you, she would definitely blame me. She was encouraging me, not you, because you brought me There are only difficulties, pain and humiliation.”
While he was talking, he was sweating, but the night wind dried his sweat. After being blow-dried, sweat came out again.
“I must carry you to Tonaya and have someone treat you. I know that once the injury is healed, you will do your crooked ways again. But it’s not my business. You just give I got away and let me know about you no longer. Just that’s OK… because you are no longer my son. I have cursed the blood you inherited from me. This is what I learned. You were robbing the road. You made a living by stealing and you killed people. If you don’t admit it, your godfather, Telanquilino, is an example. He baptized you, and he gave you the baptism. His name, but he will inevitably suffer this bad luck and meet you. Since then, I have said:’He is not my son.
“You (here again used’you are worthy, and the speaker treats the listener as a son-Translator’s Note) see if you can see anything, or if you hear anything. You can do it on my back I can’t do this because I feel deaf in my ears.”
“IM thirsty.”
“You can bear it! We may be almost here. The problem may be that the night is very deep and the lights in the village have gone out. However, you should at least hear the dog barking. Listen carefully.”
“Give me some water to drink.”
“There is no water to drink here, only stones. You bear it. Even if there is water, I won’t let you come down and drink water. When you come, no one will come to help me carry you on my back, and I am alone I can’t carry you on my back.”
“I’m very thirsty and sleepy.”
“I remember how you were when you were born. At that time, you were like this: you woke up when you were hungry, and you fell asleep when you were full. Your mother had to feed you water because you sucked up all her milk. You can’t get enough to eat, and you have a bad temper, but I didn’t expect that this bad temper will rise into your mind as the years go by… Your mother wants you to grow up vigorously. She thinks you must grow up. It will make her depend on. She only gave birth to you. She died when she gave birth to her second child. Even if she is still alive at this time, you will be angry with her.”
He felt that the knees of the man he was carrying were not clamped as before, and his feet were hanging down, swinging from side to side. He felt that the head of the person he was carrying was shaking, as if tearing.
“You are crying, Ignacio? It was my memories of your mother that made you cry, didn’t you? But you never did good for her! Our kindness is not rewarded. It seems we pass What was given to you was not love, but a wicked stomach. You should know now, you were injured. What about your friends? They were all killed. However, they have no relatives. They It is perfectly possible to say: “We have no one to be pitiful. But what about you, Ignacio?”
The village is already in sight. In the moonlight, he saw the roof gleaming. In the last few miles of the road, he felt his waist bend so hard that his son’s weight was about to crush him. When he walked to the first house in the village, he leaned against the railing on the side of the road and put down his son feebly. The bones on his body seemed to be scattered.
He strenuously separated his son’s hands that had been holding his neck. When he felt relieved, he heard dogs barking everywhere.
“Did you not hear the dog barking just now?” he said, “you don’t even want to give me this little hope.”
