“I’ve prepared something special for you,” Betty called out from the kitchen. She turned away from the kerosene stove. She was a short, anemic-looking woman with deep-set eyes and thin lips. She had always been frail, and motherhood, as it had happened with many women, should have endowed her with more flesh, but she was thinner than ever. Her voice, however, had a certain warmth and fullness that somehow made up for her meager frame. “I remember your letters and how you used to crave for pinakbet‖ with broiled mudfish. Well, the mudfish—I stopped by the market this afternoon—”
“Thank you, Manang,” he said. He stood beside her, opened the earthen pot, and the heady smell of eggplants, bitter melons, onions, tomatoes, and mudfish in stew whorled up to him. For a while he let the luxurious aroma engulf him, then he placed the lid back on the bubbling pot.
“I do wish you’d eat more,” Tony said, looking at his sister. She was indeed thin, and now, in the yellow light, she seemed even thinner. But Betty was not pallid in body or spirit, for each muscle in her taut frame was toughened by hard physical work—washing and housecleaning—and by the work in the fields when she was younger.
“How is Father?” Betty asked after a while.
“He is all right, but he thinks he hasn’t long to live,” Tony said. “When was it that you saw him last? He wants to see the children.”
“The children,” Betty sighed. “Tony, you know the children can’t know about their grandfather—it is for the best.”
“Yes,” Tony said quietly.
“They will not understand. No one in this street will understand.”
Tony didn’t speak.
“I wish Father would understand,” Betty was saying, “but he seems unchangeable. I can’t do much for him. I never did much for him. Six years you were away, maybe I saw him only twice a year.”
Tony quickly veered away from the nettlesome subject. “Where is Manong?” he asked.
“Upstairs. Go ask him to come down,” Betty said, laying the chipped china on the table beyond the stove. “He likes pinakbet, too.”
Tony climbed the narrow stairs dusty with afternoon, to the room that faced the street. Bert, his brother-in-law, was there, plucking hair from his armpits and grimacing properly before the cracked glass of the aparador.a
“We are having pinakbet this evening,” Tony said.
Bert grunted. He was short like his wife, but massively built, and his short-cropped hair accentuated the shortness of his neck and the squareness of his chin. He was Ilocano, too, with thick lips and deep brown skin. While he clerked for a Chinese flour importer in Binondo district, he studied law at night. He followed Tony down the darkened stairway, his steps heavy.
Betty’s boys were already at the table, noisy as pigs, and the maid darted about, attending to their every whim.
Tony had never discussed the subject of marriage before with his sister, although they had touched on its fringes in the past, bantering about the girls in Rosales who had shown him inordinate attention. And remembering Rosales, thoughts of his cousin Emy thrust themselves once more on his consciousness. She had been with him in this very house, studying to be a teacher because that seemed to be the cheapest course for her to take, although it was not the limit of her talent.
He wondered how his sister would react to what he had to say. No, he was not shirking his responsibility of sending her children to school in gratitude for the assistance she had given him. There would be no shirking—the duty was his, he being a younger brother, and it was as natural as birth itself.
“Manang,” he started, searching Betty’s face for a sign of reproach or approval, but Betty was attending to the food. “I’m getting married.”
Even the boys stopped eating and turned to him.
“To whom?” Betty asked, leaning forward, her spoon motionless in her hand.
It was Bert’s turn. “Carmen Villa? The girl in the pictures you sent us from Washington?”
Tony nodded.
“This is wonderful!” Bert was enthusiastic. “Isn’t she the daughter of the Villas? Do they already know and have they accepted you?”
“Carmen has. As for her parents, I don’t think there will be any trouble.”
“When will you get married?” Betty asked.
“In a year—maybe even less.”
Bert stirred in his chair. “There has to be more time. Preparations. After all, the Villas … you know what I mean.”
“That’s why I’m telling you now.”
“This is foolish,” Betty said, aghast and overjoyed at the same time. “Tony, what can we do?”
“You don’t have to do anything. Don’t worry.”
“How easy it is for you to say that!” Betty said. “You know we have to think of the sponsors.”
Tony had never given the embellishments of the wedding serious thought, and to his sister he said simply, “You’ll be one, Manang.”
“Me? Me?” Betty objected shrilly. “Let’s get the governor. After all, he is from our town and he knows you. We have to show we know someone important, have influential acquaintances. I’m not saying that we can ever equal the Villas, but we can put on an appearance.”
Tony laughed hollowly. “There is no sense in that,” he said. “Carmen knows everything about me. My income. I’ve told her everything.”
“So what if she knows.” Betty was insistent. “There are her parents, her relatives—people who don’t know. It’s for them that we will put on an appearance.”
“There will be no people. Just us—and the members of her family. It’s already settled. It’s going to be very quiet. Besides, I don’t want us to spend. You know I have no money.”
“But we can get the investment back. Oh yes, Tony, we can,” Betty said. “Just don’t forget us when you are there. The Villas … I haven’t really stopped hoping. Maybe, someday, I’ll go back to college and get a master’s degree or something, and then I’ll be able to get a better job. But so much will have to depend on you.”
“Even I, someday, may come to you for assistance,” Bert said. “But this does not have to be said. I will—particularly when I’m through with law. It’s so hard to get a position these days, even when you are a lawyer. You know what I mean.”
“But how can I be of help?” Tony asked. “I am not even sure if I’ll be able to live on my salary. Certainly I’m not going to live on Carmen’s money. Oh no.”
“Throw delicadezab out of the window,” Betty said. “Maybe I will yet be able to leave that public school. Ten years—can you imagine that? Ten years and not a single raise.”
Tony ate in silence.
“Well, you can do something,” Betty insisted.
“I don’t know,” Tony said sullenly. “It all seems confusing now.”
“The Villas are rich, aren’t they? I’m not saying that you should be grasping, but look at how we have suffered. Don’t you remember any more?”
“I don’t want to sound ungrateful,” Tony said, his appetite gone.
“It’s not your fault that she is rich,” Betty was determined. “After all, not every girl can have a prize like you. Do you remember how those girls back home vied for your attention? You can write to Emy and she’ll tell you about all those who are there waiting. She knows, and here you are worrying about what people, particularly the Villas, would say. They wouldn’t ask questions, my dear.”
Emy—and the caverns of the past were lighted up again; memories, sharp and shining as if they were minted only yesterday, lingered in his mind, and briefly he wondered where his cousin was, what she was doing, and if she still cared. But the wondering was quickly pushed aside by his sister’s insistent, “The Villas are rich … rich …”
“I just want to show them that we don’t need their money,” Tony said. “We have to keep a little of what face we have.”
“Face? Face?” Betty was grim. “Do the poor have any face or the right to it? It’s too late now to think of that. A hundred years ago maybe—then it woul
d have been different. There were opportunities then for people to succeed with industry, honesty, and pride. Not anymore, Tony. In school I repeat all these things, but I know I’m lying to those children, and they themselves see what’s happening. The poor cannot be proud.”
“They can at least have self-respect. They don’t have to be so ingratiating,” Tony said faintly. He saw how useless it was to argue. His nephews, too, had lost all interest in the squabble, and they now tackled their food with happy noises.
“It would be different,” Betty continued, “if we didn’t lose everything—and most of it went to you.”
“It’s not for you to say that,” Bert came to Tony’s defense.
“It’s true,” Betty glared at her husband. “When he was in college he never had to worry about his fees. I helped.”
Betty turned to Tony. “I’m not saying that you didn’t deserve to be helped. You have always been bright. That’s why it’s up to you to help us.” The edge was gone from her voice, but she impressed upon him now the fact that he was no longer a part of the family, that he had grown far beyond their conception of him. Now he was salvation, a symbol of the elusive dream they never could attain.
“Do not forget,” Betty measured her words. “The land—it was precious, but your career was more important.”
“You went to college, too, Manang,” he said sullenly. “And Mother slaved for you, too.”
“But I’m a woman, Tony, and I’m not as bright as you. Don’t think of repaying me. Think of Mother. Think of how we all came to Manila because there was nothing left in the province for us. Nothing but old people and tenant relatives who couldn’t help us.”
“I know, I know,” he said dully. “But it’s still wrong.”
“Go ahead then,” Betty said, “be righteous, because you have never suffered. Can’t you see that you are our only hope?”
Tony shook his head. “What you are trying to tell me is probably the same thing that bothers Carmen’s parents. Where’s your pride?”
“Talk to me about pride,” Betty raised her voice again. “You didn’t talk to me about it when I was giving you my pay.”
“That’s not the way to talk,” Bert said.
“Now you accuse me of ingratitude,” Tony said bitterly. “You know I’m aware of my debts and that I’ll pay—not all of them, but I’ll pay.”
He could have said more, but he was the younger. A silence laden with remonstrances descended upon them, broken only by the boys slurping their food. There was no sense in staying at the table longer. “I’m full,” Tony said, not turning to his sister, and rose.
He went up to his room. It was stuffy. Its wooden sidings were bare but for a calendar with the picture of a man happily guzzling a bottle of beer. His iron cot was on one side along with the writing table, which was piled with books and his old typewriter.
Tony went to the only window that opened on the railroad tracks, four bands shining in the afterglow.
Now loneliness welled within him and magnified the words he had just heard. Pride, poverty—they trashed at the chest and emptied it of other feelings; they dulled the mind after one had heard them over and over again. Yet in this ugly room they seemed to belong like beckonings he could not ignore. It was as if the words evoked an ancient world where he had gotten lost, and now he must go and find the place where he had started, the small town, the rain-washed field, and the muddied river; find the locusts on the wing, the farmer boy calling the stray calf home, the brass bands in the early morning, and the acacia leaves closing.
Tony left the window and sat on his cot. The sounds of evening were around him, and he could hear from downstairs his sister’s continued arguing with her husband. Why did they have to be so craven in their needs? If only they could see the hopeless limits of this street and accept this as the fate they must endure and not moan over.
The door opened and Bert stepped in. “You have to stuff your ears with cotton every time your sister speaks,” he said in an affected, jovial tone. “It’s the heat, and she’s tired. What’s more, there’s the summer vacation and no teaching, therefore no money. You know, the kids are already going to school.” He laughed lightly. “You know what I mean.”
“I understand, Manong,” Tony said.
Bert continued, “You shouldn’t think badly of her. As Betty said, when you are poor, you can’t have pride. Only the rich have pride. And we … we are stubborn, that’s all.”
“I know, I know,” Tony said, but his words were drowned as a freight train thundered by. For an instant, a yellow glare flooded the room and everything in it shook.
Bert moved to the chair and sat like an impassive Buddha. As the train moved on and its noise died away, he spoke again: “There is no sense troubling you, particularly now that you are about to be married. It’s just that your sister worries so much. You know what I mean?”
Tony nodded. “I am not angry with her. She will always be Manang Betty.”
“Yes,” Bert said with another shaky laugh. “And I’ll always be your Manong Bert.”
Tony nodded again.
Folding his stubby hands, Bert said, “I hope you have made the proper choice. Still, I always feel that a man should know women. Your sister— I’m not being unfaithful to her, remember this,” he spoke with some hesitation, and Tony felt uncomfortable because his brother-in-law was about to confide in him, and he never liked confidences. They served like heavy fetters that drew the confidant and the confessor cumbersomely together. There was no common ground between him and this fat, bumbling man who knew nothing better than clerking and dreaming of being a lawyer. But there was no way out; he couldn’t run away from this room; he must listen now to the drab tale. “There were three others before Betty came,” a slight, nervous laugh. “I had to make a decision. So here I am.”
“And here I am,” Tony said without emotion.
“You are making the right choice,” Bert said, “marrying into that family. But I hope just the same that you got some experience in the United States. Not just book learning and that sort of thing. Experience with women, you know what I mean.”
“Yes,” Tony said.
The older man’s eyes gleamed lecherously. “American girls are really hot, aren’t they, Tony?”
Tony could almost anticipate the next question, and watching his brother-in-law working up to it, watching the smile broadening on his rotund face, Tony felt uneasy and almost angry at having to answer such asinine questions.
“Everyone says that,” Bert went on, making sounds with his tongue. “Do tell me about them … not now, I know you are tired, but some afternoon when you aren’t too tired and when your sister isn’t around. You know what I mean.”
Tony smiled. “Yes, when she is not around.” Relief came over him; he didn’t have to talk about American women now. It wasn’t that they were unpleasant to talk about, but talking about them involved deception. He had always found it difficult to talk about sex. He had never, for instance, talked about Emy. And now, even while he faced this inquisitive man, his mind wandered to thoughts of Emy—Emy as he had known her, chiding him, telling him he would be someone to look up to, and when one is respected, said Emy, can one possibly hope for more?
The sentiment was pedestrian and tritely put, but it had seemed so meaningful—the whole world was in it—when she had expressed it to him, in this very room, the evening before he was to leave. And now, if Emy knew what was going to happen to him, would she approve? What she thought of him meant so much, even now, and within him he could feel a flickering tenderness, tenderness for the girl who was the first, an indefinable feeling that was both sorrow and joy, for Emy now belonged to the past. This was not final—it could never be final. He was faithful to her—if not to her person at least to her memory. He had long wanted to ask Bert how she was. He couldn’t tell Bert that he had written to her and she had never answered; he just wanted to find out what she was doing, if she was well and happy or if she had married.
/> But the question as he would have worded it wouldn’t take shape, and the guilt that he had felt about her fed his anxiety instead. “I wonder how Rosales is. And Emy, too. Is she already teaching?” Just like that, matter-of-factly, as if she were someone who had merely touched the edges of his life.
“Well, not much has happened to Rosales,” Bert said. “I’ve never been there—you know that. And as for Emy …”
“I hope she has already found a job.”
“She is not teaching.” Bert spoke with some difficulty, as if he did not want to talk about her.
“Why not? She should have approached some politician—”
“It’s not that way,” Bert said. “That girl—Your Manang and I, we were disappointed with her. Something … something happened to her. Well, she had it coming, and you wouldn’t think it possible. She was such an intelligent girl. She has a child and she’s not married. You know what I mean.”
Fear, sadness, and a hundred other feelings engulfed him. Not this, not the magnitude of this tragedy could befall Emy.
“She wouldn’t say who he was,” Bert continued. “But that girl did change a lot. You wouldn’t recognize her afterward. Remember how she used to be very well mannered? Well, she often went out alone. At night, too. After school, God knows where she went. This was after you had gone. We tried to talk to her, and we told her that nothing good would come out of her habits, but she refused to listen. There must have been a man she had been meeting some place all those nights that she stayed out late—sometimes past midnight. We warned her. But that girl— Why didn’t she have the man come to the house? Your Manang Betty said we would like to meet him. A wild one she turned out to be.”
Tony couldn’t believe what he was hearing, but somehow the truth of it seeped slowly in, and the pity that he felt for her vanished and in its place was something akin to loathing, not only for what had happened but for this city, which had destroyed her. In his heart there rose a helpless hatred for the street and all that it was—the repository of everything ugly and dark.
“She went home that Christmas for the vacation,” Bert continued, “and she never returned. She didn’t even write to your manang. We just learned afterward that she had this baby.”
The Samsons: Two Novels; (Modern Library) Page 4
