A man there was once in Valladolid who loved to talk about everything under the sun. He knew a lot, that’s for sure. His name was Eduardo Infante.
Eduardo, or ‘Ed’ as he was known, was a member of a prominent family in Valladolid. In fact, his late great great grandfather was rumored to be the soldier who named the place ‘Valladolid’ in memory of his hometown in Spain. Ed’s father ran their hacienda as well as his two elder brothers. His mother died when he was born, the reason why his father didn’t have much interest in him.
Ed’s childhood was a sad memory. Always left by his father at home taken care by his Yaya Meling, it was like Ed was orphaned by his father too. The age gap between him and Graciano, the middle-son, was ten years so they could no longer play catch or hide and seek together. Carlos, their eldest, was by then managing a portion of their land. In short, Ed was always alone.
An excerpt from the poem entitled Mi Infancia Solitaria (My Lonely Childhood) written by Eduardo Infante when he was 11 years old:
Odio a mi padre para el funcionamiento de la granja
Odio a mi hermano por daño en el brazo
Odio a mi niñera, no tengo el sentido común
Sin duda me odio a mi entera existencia
Or in English:
I hate my father for running the farm
I hate my brother for hurting my arm
I hate my nanny, got no common sense
I definitely hate my entire existence
Like any child of hacienderos those days, Ed was home schooled. His teacher was Mercedita Fuente from Bago who visited him in their mansion at least twice a week. If Ed grew up a well educated man, it was all because of Mercedita. She taught Ed all he had to know - Science, Arithmethic, Geography, Hablar de Espanol, and Literature. Ed’s favorite was Science.
Ed was saddened, however, when Mercedita stopped teaching him when he was 17 years old. He didn’t know that his brother Graciano tried to rape her. It affected the teenage Ed so much. It was like he was back to his lonely childhood when he had no one to talk to. For seven years that he was tutored by Mercedita, he was used to conversing with someone intellectual enough about anything under the sun. Now that Mercedita’s gone, how much he missed those moments of talking and talking about this and that and so on.
Years passed and Ed’s depression got worse. He self -studied in the huge library of his late uncle. But knowledge proved to be boring without any discussion. Ed wanted someone to listen to his thoughts, someone to talk to about his discoveries of the world.
So in some days, he tried to stroll along the town and talked to people.
“Did you know that the sun is the center of everything?” Ed told a carpenter. “Before, people thought that the earth is at the center. But they were wrong. The sun is actually at the center and all the planets, including earth, revolve around it.”
Mr. Lumauag, the carpenter, nodded his head and went on with his hammering.
“Have you heard of Timbuktu?” Ed asked Mr. de Dios, a tailor. “It’s a town somewhere in Africa.”
The tailor muttered, “Uh-uh…” then he continued cutting some cloth.
“This is amazing…did you know that someone actually measured the circumference of the world without leaving his place?” Ed tried to talk to the baker this time as he bought some pan de sal. “His name is Eratosthenes.”
The baker replied, “Do you want to try our pan de siosa?”
When he accompanied his brother at the rice mill, Ed told the miller, “The Greeks defeated the Trojans. You know what, Cassandra was right all along!”
The miller, an uneducated lad name Nonoy, left before Ed could mention the name of the Trojan priestess.
Nothing, nothing, nothing. There was no one who could lend some ear for poor Eduardo Infante. “Hijo de puta!” He always swore to his miserable life.
Some time in summer, Ed got what he prayed for in the person of Margaret Tecson. Margaret, or ‘Maggie’ she was called, was from Himamaylan and a relative of Carlos’ wife. She and Ed were introduced during the second birthday of Simeon Infante IV, the first grandson of Don Simeon Infante III, Ed’s father.
“So what do you do Ed? Do you work in the hacienda too?”
“No. I don’t lay my hands on Papa’s sugarcanes. I just stay at home…I audit some papers.” Ed was obviously trying to make some good impressions. No woman ever talked to him for so long since Mercedita left. And he was 20 years old already.
“That’s nice. No wonder you’re not as tan as Carlos and Graciano.”
“Have you read Aristotle’s Politics?” That’s it. Ed couldn’t help it.
“Aristotle? Politics? Wait…I was only talking of your brothers.”
“I’m sorry, Maggie. It’s just that…uhm…I really want to talk about Aristotle as of now. If ever you find me weird…well…uhm…”
“Aristotle you mean? I was able to read Ars Rhetorica and Ars Poetica. My grandfather has copies. In Ars Rhetorica there’s this thing I want to share actually. Do you know that…”
Blah blah blah. It was a landslide. It’s like the long dormant volcano inside Ed suddenly exploded. Maggie was as intellectual as he was. And since their friendship started that fateful day, every time Maggie would drop by Valladolid and visit Ed, they would talk and talk and talk about this and that and so on.
Ed was never happier. Maggie too. Actually, they fell in love after a series of discussions about Sappho, Phidias, Mt. Vesuvius, Seine River, African savannahs, the invention of the compass, the Kite Festival of Japan, Cobra’s venom, voodoo practices, Caribbean pirates, and the polar auroras. Though, it was not the kind of love that they had to kiss in public or hold each other’s hands. They simply felt it. Any intellectual chat defined their own orgasms.
Their mutual relationship lasted three years. And everyone was asking when would they become official. Maggie wanted to marry. She already wanted to have kids of her own. But the problem was with Ed. It seemed that he was too preoccupied with every new knowledge that he got and he forgot what Maggie really needed. Maggie waited and waited while Ed continued talking and talking and talking about this and that and so on.
In the end, Margaret Tecson gave up waiting. She loved Ed but she had to secure her future. And besides, if she loved Ed and Ed loved knowledge, then she had to leave him with what he really loved. Maggie stopped seeing Ed, to his surprise and demise. After a month, she found her new love interest, a cabeza from one of the barrios in Valladolid.
And Ed’s world suddenly began to crumble. Farewell to those sunny afternoons beneath an aged acacia tree talking about life and love and anything in between. Farewell to Margaret’s ears.
Ed undergone the process of grieving.
Denial: “She will soon come back to me. She’ll realize that her new hijo de puta love interest is nothing but an empty coconut shell. When boredom comes, she will surely talk to me once again.”
Anger: “Tonta! I can’t believe someone as intelligent as her would fall prey to some idiot of a man who can’t event explain Newton’s Laws of Motion!”
Bargaining: “Dear God, bring Maggie back to me. I promise to have more time with her. I will limit my reading time for only 10 books a week.”
Depression: “Why is it always like this? Am I doomed to be alone?”
Acceptance: “THIS CAN’T BE! I CAN’T ACCEPT THIS!”
There. It would have been nice if Eduardo Infante had learned to let go of Margaret Tecson. It would have been nice if he accepted the fact that he lost his first love forever. But no. He didn’t succeed in the last stage of his grieving. And only one thing happens when the process of grieving is prolonged.
For three days and three nights, Ed stayed in his room in total silence. He never talked. He didn’t touch any book. He sat on his chair beside his window looking at the acacia tree nearby where he and Maggie shared many memories. He didn’t sleep either or eat or bathe. Madness took over him on the fourth day of his silent lamentation. When he came out of his room, he was indistinguishable due to his dramatic weight loss and very thick mustache. He began to talk again.
“The Wright Brothers killed Abraham Lincoln in Waterloo. Haha! But Halley’s Comet arrived earlier carrying Athena’s aegis. Surprisingly, John Milton is an amphibian!”
Yes, Ed began to talk again. But he was talking nonsense.
A week later, Don Simeon Infante III announced to the public that his youngest son was missing. So it seemed that the father only realized the value of his son when he was gone. Ed actually went into Himamaylan, to Maggie’s hometown. And there he stalked her everyday and he waited and waited and waited for his plans to come full circle. His plans for retaliation.
During the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patron saint of the town, something happened that the people of Valladolid would never forget in the years to come. The fiesta was celebrated with a street procession and merrymaking with grand exposition of the year’s farm harvests. It was the happiest day for Margaret Tecson and Serafin Gumban. In the middle of the celebration, Serafin proposed to marry Margaret.
That year, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe was also the happiest day for Eduardo Infante. Triggered by the sweetness of Maggie and her fiancé enjoying with the townspeople, Ed finally decided to carry out his plan. Disguised as a nobody wearing a buri hat and clutching a very sharp balisong, Ed entered the crowd and approached the unaware Maggie.
The laughter of the townspeople suddenly ended with a single scream coming from Margaret Tecson. Then followed the screams of other women seeing the blood spurting from the area where Maggie’s left ear had been. “My ear! Oh my God!” Poor Maggie. Ed had just cut it off from her.
And Ed bolted quickly out of the scene. The last thing he heard was the cabeza ordering some men to capture the culprit. Futile, Ed thought. His was a best laid plan. Ed was able to escape the crowd unnoticed clutching Maggie’s bloody ear in one hand. And he ran and ran and ran away from everyone, from Maggie whom he loved once.
By nightfall, Ed was inside the Our Lady of Guadalupe Cathedral. Wearing his best barong, he was clutching a crystal jar with Maggie’s chopped ear inside floating in mixed brine and vinegar. He was a having secret rendezvous with Father Gregorio Paz, one of the parish priests.
“So the rumors are true, Ed. You’ve gone mad! Everyone in town is looking for you!”
“Let them look for me, Father. I have none the cares. Now start this sacrament and do it quickly.”
For the price of 200 pesos, Father Gregorio Paz celebrated the matrimony of Eduardo Infante and the left ear of Margaret Tecson. That year, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe was the happiest day for Ed for he finally had a partner for life - an ear, a wife, a pickled wife - that could listen forever about his talks about this and that and so on.
On the same night, the criminal, the madman, the talker, fled into the mountains where the aboriginal aetas once took refuge. The town of Valladolid never heard of Eduardo ‘Ed’ Infante again until Ana Sofia Gumban Miravalles, the granddaughter of Margaret Tecson-Gumban, shared the story of an intelligent man who loved to talk about this and that and so on and how he chopped off her grandma’s left ear on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe in 1904.