She watched them leave—the soldier, the sick wife, and the child who had drunk from the enemy’s breast. Ricardo Ramos is now 46 years old. He is a history teacher in Manila. He did not know about Lumen until three years ago, when his father confessed on his deathbed.
Lumen touched the boy’s cheek. “You owe me a bullet you did not fire. You owe me a hut you did not burn. You owe me nothing.” Gatas Sa dibdib ng kaaway
She reached out her gnarled hand and touched his face. Her fingers traced his jaw, his nose, his lips. She watched them leave—the soldier, the sick wife,
Lumen, in turn, began to sing to the child. Not lullabies of peace, but the war songs of her tribe. She sang of the river that took her baby. She sang of the mountain where the rebels hid. The child slept. He did not know about Lumen until three
She unbuttoned her baro . The infant latched on. The feature of this story is not the act itself. It is the texture of the days that followed.
She is 84 now. Her name is Lumen. But to the soldiers who once occupied this river bend, she was simply the wet nurse .
For six months in 1978, Lumen’s breast milk sustained the child of a man she was taught to hate. That man was a lieutenant in the Philippine Constabulary. He had burned her brother’s hut to the ground. And yet, every dawn, as the mist rose off the Hinabangan River, she let his infant son suckle at her chest.