Mill of the Gods (Estrella Alfon) not ready for the thing her mother told her one
thing her mother told her one night
Among us who lived in Espeleta that street that I love,
about whose people I keep telling tales among us, I
say, there was one named Martha, and she was the
daughter of Pio and Engracia.
To all of us, life must seem like a road given us to travel,
and it is up to Fate, that convenient blunderer, whether,
that road be broad and unwinding, or whether it shall be
a tortuous lane, its path a hard and twisted mat of dust
and stones. And each road, whether lane or avenue, shall
have its own landmarks, that only the traveller soul shall
recognize and remember, and remembering, continue the
journey again. To Martha, the gods gave this for a first
memory: a first scar.
She was a girl of twelve, and in every way she was but a
child. A rather dull child, who always lagged behind the
others of her age, whether in study or in play. Life had
been so far a question of staying more years in a grade
than the others, of being told she would have to apply
herself a little harder if she didnt want the infants
catching up with her. But that was so dismal thing. She
had gotten a little bit used to being always behind. To
always being the biggest girl in her class. Even in play
there was some part of her that never managed to take
too great a part she was so content if they always made
her it in a game of tag, if only they would let her play.
And when she had dolls, she was eager to lend them to
other girls, if they would only include her in the
fascinating games she could not play alone.
This was she, then. Her hair hung in pigtails each side of
her face, and already it irked a little to have her dresses
too short. She could not help in her mothers kitchen,
and could be trusted to keep her room clean, but she was
when she was awakened from sleep.
It was a sleep untroubled by dreams, then all of a sudden
there was an uproar in the house, and she could hear her
mothers frenzied sobbing, and it was not sobbing that
held as much of sorrow as it did of anger. She lay still
for a while, thinking perhaps she was dreaming, until she
could hear her fathers grunted answers to the half
understood things her mother was mouthing at him.
Then there were sounds that was clearly the sound of
two bodies struggling in terrible fury with each other.
She stood up, and like a child, cried into the night.
Mother?
She wailed the word, in her panic finding a little relief in
her own wailing, Mother? And she heard her mothers
voice call her, panting out, saying, Martha, come
quickly, come into this room!
Martha got up and stood at the door of the room,
hesitating about opening it, until her mother, the part of a
terrible grasp, said Martha! So Martha pushed in the
door, and found her mother and her father locked in an
embrace in which both of them struggled and panted and
had almost no breath left for words. Martha stood wide
eyed and frightened, not knowing what to do, just
standing there, even though she had seen what it was
they struggled for. A kitchen knife, blade held upwards
in her mothers hand. Her arms were pinioned to her
sides by her husband, but her wild eyes, the frenzy with
which she stamped her feet on his feet, and kicked him
in the shins, and tried to bite him with her teeth, these
were more terrible than the glint of that shining blade. It
was her father who spoke to her saying urgently, Martha,
reach for her knife, take it away. Yet Martha stood there
and did not comprehend until her mother spoke, saying
No, no; Martha, your father deserves to be killed. Then it
was Martha who realized what she was to do, and
slowly, hesitantly, she went near them, her fear of both
of them in this terrible anger they now presented making
her almost too afraid to reach up for the knife. But reach
up she did, and with her childs fingers, put her mothers
away from the weapon. And when she had it in her
hands she did not know what to do with it, except look at
it. It wasnt a very sharp knife, but its blade was clean,
and its hilt firm. And so she looked at it, until her father
said. Throw it out of the window, Martha and without
thinking, she went to a window, opened a casement and
threw it away.
Then her father released her mother, and once her
mother had gotten her arms free, she swung back her
hand, and wordlessly, slapped him; slapped him once,
twice, three times, alternating with her hands, on
alternate cheeks, until her father said. Thats enough,
Engracia. And saying so, he took her hands in his, led
her resisting to the bed, and made her sit down.
And Martha was too young to wonder that her father,
who was a big man, should have surrendered to the
repeated slapping from her mother who was a very small
frail woman.
Her father said, Arent you ashamed now Martha has
seen?
And immediately her mother screamed to him,
Ashamed? Me, ashamed? Ill tell Martha about you!
Her father looked at Martha still standing dumbly by the
window out of which she had thrown the knife, and said,
No, Aciang, she is just a child. And to her: Martha,
go back to bed.
But now her mother jumped up from the bed, and
clutched at Martha, and brought her to bed with her. And
deliberately without looking at Marthas father, she said,
Martha you are not too young to know. And so, the
words falling from her lips with a terrible quiet, she told
Martha. The words that were strange to her ears, Martha
heard them, and listened to them, and looked from her
mother to her father, and without knowing it, wetting her
cheeks with her tears that fell. And then her mother
stopped talking, and looking at her husband, she spat on
him, and Martha saw the saliva spatter on the front of the
dark shirt he wore. She watched while her father strode
over them, and slowly, also deliberately, slapped her
mother on the cheek. Martha watched his open palm as
he did it, and felt the blow as though it had been she who
had been hit. Then her father strode out of the room,
saying nothing, leaving them alone.
When her father had gone, Marthas mother began to
cry, saying brokenly to Martha, It is that woman, that
woman! And making excuses to Martha for her father,
saying it was never completely the mans fault. And
Martha listened bewildered, because this was so
different from the venomous words her mother had told
her while her father was in the room. And then her
mother, still weeping, directed her to look for her father
and Martha went out of the room.
Her father was not in the house. The night was very dark
as she peered out of the windows to see is she could find
him outside, but he was nowhere. So she went back to
her mother, and told her she could not find her father.
Her mother cried silently, the tears coursing down her
cheeks, and her sobs tearing through her throat. Martha
cried with her, and caressed her mothers back with her
hands, but she had no words to offer, nothing to say.
When her mother at last was able to talk again, she told
Martha to go back to bed. But it wasnt the child that repay his parents first for all that they had done for him.
entered who went out of that room. He must first be sure to be able to afford the things she
deserved. Well turned phrases he said his excuses with.
And yet the terror of that night was not so great because
Charming little evasions. And if she did not see through
it was only a terror half understood. It wasnt until she
them while he spoke them, his frequent absences, where
was eighteen, that the hurt of that night was invested
his visits had been as a habit; his excuses to stay away
with its full measure. For when she was eighteen, she
when once no amount of sending him off could make
fell in love. She was a girl of placid appearance, in her
him stay away; these but made her see. And understand.
eyes the dreaming stolid night of the unawakened. She
still was slow to learn, still not prone to brilliance. And And then the way neighbours will, they tried to be kind
when she fell in love she chose the brightest boy of her to her. For they could see her heart was breaking and
limited acquaintance to fall in love with. He was slightly they tried to say sweet things to her, things like her being
older than herself, a little too handsome, a trifle too far too good for him. And then they heard that he had
given to laughter. Espeleta did not like him; he was too married. Another girl. And they saw her grief, and
different from the other young me n on the street. But thought it strange that a girl should grieve over an
Martha loved him. You could see that in the way she undeserving lover or so. She lost a little of the
looked at him, the way she listened to him. plumpness that was one of her charms. And into her eyes
crept a hurt look to replace the dreaming. And Espeleta,
Marthas pigtails had lengthened. She now wore her
with all the good people, strove to be even kinder to her.
braids coiled on the top of her head like a coronet, and it
Watched her grief and pitied her. And told her that
went well with the placid features, the rather full figure.
whatever mistakes she had committed to make her
She was easily one of our prettier maidens. It was well
grieve so, to make her suffer so, they understood and
that she was not too brilliant. That she did not have any
forgave. And they did not blame her. But now that she
too modern ideas. The air of shyness, the awkward lack
had learned her lesson, she must beware. She knew her
of sparkling conversation suited her Madonna like face
own father as much as they knew about him. And it was
and calm. And her seriousness with love was also part of
in the Fates that his sins must be paid for. If not by
the calm waiting nature. It did not enter her head that
himself, then by whom but she who was begotten by
there are such things as play, and a game. And a mans
him? So, didnt she see? How careful she should be?
eagerness for sport. And so when she noticed that his
Because you could, they said it to her gently, kindly,
attentions seemed to be wandering, even after he had
cruelly, because she could if she were careful, turn aside
admitted to a lot of people that they were engaged, she
the vengeance of the implacable fates. And she believed
asked him, with the eager desperation of the
them kind although she hated their suspicions. She
inexperienced, about their marriage.
believed them kind, and so she started, then, to hate her
father. And that night long ago came back to her, and
she wished she had not thrown that knife away.
He laughed at her. Laughed gently, teasingly, saying
they could not get married for a long time yet; he must
Espeleta saw Martha turn religious. More religious than
Iya Andia and Iya Nesia, who were old and saw death
coming close, and wanted to be assured of the easing of
the gates of heaven. Espeleta approved. Because
Espeleta did not know what she prayed for. Because they
saw only the downcast eyes under the light veil, the coil
of shining hair as it bowed over the communion rail.
Yet Marthas mother and father still lived together. They
never had separated. Even after that night, when she was
twelve years old and frightened, and she had called for
him and looked for him and not found him. The next day
he had come back, and between her mother and him
there was a silence. They slept in the same bed, and
spent the nights in the same room, and yet Martha and
Espeleta knew he had another bed, another chamber.
Espeleta praised Marthas mother for being so patient.
After Martha had fallen in love, when she began hating
her father truly then also she began despising her
mother.
You did not know it to look at Martha. For her coil of
braided hair was still there, and the shy way of speaking,
and the charming awkwardness at conversation. And
Martha made up her earlier lack of lustre by shining in
her class now. She was eighteen and not through high
school yet. But she made up for it by graduating with
high honours. Espeleta clapped its hands when she
graduated. Gave her flowers. Her mother and father were
there, too. And they were proud. And to look at Martha,
you would think she was proud too, if a little too shy
still.
Martha studied nursing. And started having visitors in
her mothers house again. Doctors this time. Older men,
to whom her gravity of manner appealed, and the innate
good sense that seemed so patient in her quiet
demeanour. Espeleta was now rather proud of Martha.
She seemed everything a girl should be, and they cited
her as an example of what religion could do. Lift you out
of the shadow of your inheritance. For look at Martha.
See how different she is from what should be her
fathers daughter.
But what they did not know was that all of these doctors
Martha had to choose someone slightly older than the
rest. And where the girl of eighteen that she had been
almost a child unschooled, now she was a woman wise
and wary. Where the other nurses knew this doctor only
as someone who did not like their dances as much as the
younger ones, who did not speak as lightly, as flippantly
of love as the younger ones, Martha knew why he didnt.
Between the two of them there had been, form the very
start, a quick lifting of the pulse, an immediate
quickening of the breath. From the very start. And where
he could have concealed the secrets of life, he chose the
very first time they were able to talk to each other, to tell
her that he was not free. He had a wife, and whether he
loved her or not, whether she was unfaithful to him or
not, which she was, there had been the irrevocable
ceremony to bind them, to always make his love for any
other woman, if he ever fell in love again, something
that must be hidden, something that might not see light.
She was a woman now, Martha was. Wise and wary. But
there is no wisdom, no weariness against love. Not the
kind of deep love she knew she bore him. And as even
she him, she found within herself the old deep abiding
secret hate. Against her father. Against the laws of man
and church. Against the very fates that seemed rejoiced
in making her pay for a sin she had not committed. She
now learned of bitterness. Because she could not help
thinking of that night, long ago, when her mother had sat
on the bed, and in deliberate words told her just what
kind of a father she had. It had been as though her
mother had shifted on to her unwilling, unready
shoulders the burden of the sorrows, the goad of the
grief.
Espeleta, that was so quick to censure, and to condemn;
even Espeleta had taken the situation in Marthas house
as something that could not be helped. And as long as
there was no open strife, Espeleta made excuses for a
thing that, they said, had been designed by Fate.
Marthas father came home. Acted, on the surface, the
good husband. And since he was married to Marthas
mother, so must Marthas mother bear it, and welcome
him home again. Because she would rather he came
home, then went to the other one, wouldnt she?
Espeleta cited heavenly rewards. For Marthas mother.
And Martha went to church regularly, and was a good
nurse. And still called her father, Father.
You have heard that one of course, about the mill of the
gods, how they grind exceedingly fine, and grind
exceedingly slow. Espeleta hadnt heard that one, nor
had Martha. But Espeleta of course would have a more
winded version of it. Anyhow, one day at the hospital,
Martha was attendant nurse at an emergency case. A
man had been shot. There were three bullets through his
chest, but he was still alive. Martha laughed queerly to
herself, saying I must be dreaming, I am imagining that
man has my fathers face.
It was the doctor she loved who was in charge. With a
queer dreaming feeling, she raised her eyes to meet his,
and was shocked to see him drop his gaze, and over his
face steal a twist as of pain, as of pity. They were
instantly their efficient selves again, cloaking themselves
in the impersonal masks of physician and nurse. It was
as if he who lay there beneath their instruments and their
probing fingers was any man, the way it could be any
man. Not her father. But all while, training and
discipline unavailing. Martha said to herself, but it is my
father.
He died on the table. He never gained consciousness.
Martha drew the sheet over his face and form. And
watched as they wheeled him out of the room. She still
had the instruments to put away and the room to put in
order. But this did not take long and when she went out
into the corridor, she found her mother weeping beside
the shrouded form on the wheeled table. There was a
policeman beside her awkwardly trying with gruff words
to console the little woman over her loss. Beside the
policeman stood also the doctor, who passed an arm
around the shoulder of Marthas mother, saying simply,
we tried to save him.
Martha joined them, knowing that she should be in tears,
yet finding that she had none to shed. It would ease the
tightness within her, would loosen the hard knot in her
heart to cry. But you cannot summon tears when you
feel no grief, and the pain you feel is not of sorrow but
of the cruel justness of things. She could not even put
her arms around her weeping mother. When the doctor
told her that she would be excused from duty the rest of
the day, that he would arrange it for her, she did not
thank him. She did not say anything for indeed she no
longer had any words, nor any emotions that required
speech. Or should be given speech. For one cannot say,
how right! How just! When ones father has just died.
Her mother and she took a taxi together to accompany
the hearse that took her father home. There was a crowd
awaiting them. Espeleta in tears. Espeleta crying
condolence and opprobrium in the same breath. It was
from them their good neighbours, their kind
neighbours that Martha learned how Gods justice
had overtaken the sinner.
Colon is not as intimate as Espeleta. For it is a long
street and broad street. But where the railroad crosses it,
the houses group together in intimate warmth and
neighbourly closeness and its families live each others
lives almost as meddlingly as Espeleta does. And is as
avid for scandals as Espeleta is. Among the people in
Marthas house were some from Colon. And it was they
who supplied the grimmer details, the more lucid
picture.
In that other womans house and Martha did not even
know the other womans name there had existed the
stalemate state of affairs that had existed in Marthas
house. Only where in Marthas house it had been a wife
who was patient, in that other womans house it had
been the husband who had bided his time. And yet the
neighbours had thought he had not cared. For indeed he
had seemed like a man blind and deaf, and if he raised
his voice against his wife, it was not so they could hear
it. Yet today, he had come home, after he had said he
was going away somewhere. And had come upon
Marthas father in the house, and had, without saying
anything, taken out his revolver, and shot at him.
Martha heard all these. And thought you know often life
seems like an old fashioned melodrama, guns and all.
And yet the gun had not gone off. It had jammed, and
Marthas father had been able to run. And running, even
as he seemed far enough from the house to be safe, the
gun in the husbands hand had come right again. The
man had gone out in the street, aimed at the fleeing
figure. That explained why the bullets had gone in
through his back and out through his chest. They said
that the street was spattered with blood and where he
fell, there was a pool of gory red. The killer had
surrendered himself at once. But everyone knew he
would not pay with his life he had taken. For the woman
was his wife and he had come upon them in his own
home.
Martha stayed with the kind condolers only a while. She
left her mother for them to comfort as best as they could.
They would have praises like The good God knows
best; they would have words like, Your grief is ended,
let your other grief commence. She went to look at her
father lying well arranged now in his bier. Already in
spite of the manner of his death, there were flowers for
him. Death had left no glare in the eyes that the doctor at
the hospital had mercifully closed, over the features
lingered no evidence of pain. And Martha said, Death
was kind to you.
In Marthas room there hung a crucifix. Upon the
crossed wood was the agonized Christ, His eyes soft and
deep and tender, even in his agony. But as Martha knelt,
and lighted her candles, and prayed, in her eyes was no
softness, and on her lips no words appealing for pity for
him who had died. There was only the glitter of a justice
meted out at last, and the thankfulness for a punishment
fulfilled. So she gave thanks, very fervent thanks. For
now, she hoped, she would cease to pay.
c
    

 
2

















































































































22








 










! 


" 

# 
$ 



 



2


 

$




 







 


 




 


 







 
















2 

















222


 





 

 
 








 













2


%
 






 





 


 








&

 



$

  



 







 





 '


  






&







&

 




  


 











!





2(






  

 

"



 


 




 




2




 

 








  













  |