The Forgotten Dark Tales of Negros

The Desperate Man Who Married a Pickled Ear

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.”