“What’s she doing now?” Tony asked.
“Nothing. Tending the house and looking after her son and Bettina, the younger sister. Remember her? I hope nothing similar will happen to her. Since their father died …”
“Yes,” Tony said, “Manang Betty wrote to me about it.”
“Didn’t Emy write to you about it?”
“No,” he said. “I did write to her, then … I stopped.”
“I came upon her reading your letter,” Bert said with a smile. “She seemed absorbed in it. I tried to ask her what was in it, but she didn’t even answer. Well, fate is fate. Nothing can be done now.” Bert stood up and idled at the door, his bulk filling the frame. “I overestimated Emy. I always thought she was smarter than most girls. But when a woman is titillated, her mind becomes useless. You know what I mean?”
“Yes,” Tony said, walking to the window. Across the tracks the night was pocked with the lights of shabby wooden accesorias. Farther beyond, where the city blazed with neon, the night was pale orange. The four lines of black steel below him shone in the uncertain night.
Bert went on in a sonorous voice: “Tell me, Tony. As I said, you don’t have to be ashamed. I’m your brother-in-law. Are American girls really different? You know what I mean.”
Tony did not speak; the revulsion had always lain fallow in his mind and now it burgeoned fully, a disgust for this talkative slob whose only interest in America centered around its women.
He had a mind to lie, to tell him of satisfied hungers and nymphomaniacs ravishing the campuses, but Tony said instead, “They are the most incomprehensible and frigid women I’ve ever seen.”
“You must be fooling,” Bert laughed.
“I’m not,” Tony said, his words rimmed with sarcasm.
“I don’t believe you,” Bert said. “You are trying to fool me.”
“Maybe I am.”
“But you’ll tell me? You know what I mean?”
“Maybe I will.”
Bert left him, making clucking noises with his tongue as he went down.
Alone again, Tony despaired at the thought of having to be confronted with the same question, by other people in other places. And what could he say? It would perhaps be simple if Emy were still here and he could tell her the truth; she would then tell him how to go about elaborating on his American experience and saying the right things, the true things, because, as Emy said, the truth always mattered. Emy—she would make a good wife for any man.
They had shared this room, this single window, too. Between them, as a halfhearted concession to privacy, they had hung a curtain, an old Igorot-woven blanket, blue with stripes of black and red. He had gotten the blanket in the mountain province of Bontoc during an excursion there to do research on indigenous Igorot culture. It was slung across the room, and it shielded her from him when she was asleep or when she was dressing. There were times, however, when the blanket was ignored because it was warm or because they had something interesting to talk or argue about, and they would face each other without shame. No one would have suspected that what happened would ever have happened, because they were first cousins. But it did, and remembering it, a twinge of pleasure compounded with sadness touched him. The first possession is bound to wedge deep in the mind—this seed, this wisdom, and this hurt that would never be blown away and be lost to the wandering wind.
It was the month before he left for America. It had rained that evening—one of those brief but heavy August showers—and he had tried to avoid the soggy ruts in the street. He had stepped into one instead and suddenly had wet his shoes, his only pair. Emy was asleep, and in the dark he took off his clothes silently, hoping not to make a sound, but he sneezed. Knowing that he would soon catch cold, he groped for the blanket on his cot. As he wrapped it about him, Emy stirred. She asked if he was drenched. Go on and sleep, he had told her, but she ignored him. As she lifted the blanket that hung between them, he could make her out standing before him in her nightgown. It must have been quite a despedida,c she had said; what time is it? Past midnight, he had told her. He sneezed again, and without another word she went downstairs and made him some tea.
When she returned she switched on the small lamp on the table they shared when they studied their lessons, and she looked at him, her eyes aglow, and told him to lie on his stomach so she could rub his back with Mentholatum. He didn’t object because she was full of maternal solicitude. No, she had told him clearly, he had no business catching pneumonia, particularly now that he was leaving, and then she asked how the despedida turned out, who was there, which girls. What he said was incoherent, for he was aware only of her soft hands on his back spreading the ointment, patting it, pressing it below his shoulder blades. How delightful, how soft her hands felt, and as she bent lower, her breath murmured in his ear and warmed his neck, her thighs pressed close to him, he turned on his side and saw her young face, traces of sleep still on it, her eyes gazing down on him, full of care. Then it was all blurred, Emy in his arms uncomplaining, the stumbling to the table to switch off the lamp, the quiet remonstrations, the final surrender. It had happened without prelude, as if the moment was something inevitable and expected. The following morning he woke while the dawn was not yet alive upon the city to find a delicious ache in his bones, and Emy cuddled close to him in his narrow bed, still asleep; the fragrance of her hair and her breath swirled all around him.
He had kissed her, tasted her mouth, and she had wakened with a start, stared at him, frightened and confused. Then she had turned away from him when realization came to her in all its happy, terrifying completeness, and she sobbed quietly. It was the first time a woman had cried before him and he didn’t know what to do except fumble and stammer and clasp her hand and tell her he loved her. And he said it with a thickness in his voice, for his cold had developed quickly and “I love you” sounded like a rusty whisper: “I love you, I love you.” And he kissed her again, telling her that she would catch his cold, too, and she stopped crying then and kissed him in that shy, wary manner of women who had finally discovered this first but lasting knowledge.
Love? Was it really love, and if it was, was he old enough to have understood its consequences? Emy had always been more firm, more sure of herself, and before he left, on the last hour that they were alone, she had told him: “Tony, you have to be sure. You have to be sure.”
It had sounded so dramatic and mushy afterward, and how often had he relived it, seen himself in that frustrating mirror called conscience. He was sure he loved her; he was sure that he would return to her, claim her, and take her away from the intractable damnation of Antipolo. He was so sure of all this, but time and distance conspired against him, and in the end he was no longer sure. He developed this sense of frustration about her, and in time the frustration turned to indifference. He had done what was expected of him—written to her religiously, avoiding those endearments that lovers shared, dropping but a few stray insinuations, fond recollections of the Mentholatum rub, the lamp on the table, the Igorot blanket. But to all his letters she had given but one reply, then all was silence.
He had once asked Betty where Emy was. Betty wrote briefly, told him that Emy was all right and back in the province, that her father had died. Emy was alive and she did not care.
Now he knew why Emy had not written.
Still, how could one escape the past? It had dogged him before and he had fled it only because there were other consuming interests—America and its neuroses and its preoccupation with order and new and gleaming things—and then there was Carmen, who by herself had meant all that was unattainable. Her very name created visions of the gracious life, the air-conditioning, the air-foam mattresses, the automatic refrigerators and Florsheim shoes—all that he was alien to, even now. Now all these things and the bountiful life were his for the picking. The past be damned then, for what really mattered was now. He asked himself to what infinite reaches had he staked his claims? From the depths of him he heard his own voice saying: A
ccept, accept! The words ticked in his head like the strikings of a pendulum, measured, persistent, confirming loudly the fact that he was still possessed of a conscience and a capacity to study himself, a capacity for humility, too, and with the humility, a readiness to search the wild, unending landscape of his vision for that single and vivid spark that would tell him he was a success. In all ways he was, and there was more coming. America had not been miserly after all with its benevolence, nor had it spoiled him. No, America had not defiled his perspective and his innocence.
How was it then? How had it been in the old boardinghouse on Maple Street, the four years he spent in it with his roommate, Bitfogel? Larry Bitfogel—and he rose quickly and started a letter. Larry, who majored in agricultural economics, was now in South America as a consultant with the International Cooperation Agency.
“My dear Larry,” he wrote in his slow, careful hand, “I am now back home and safely under the yoke at the university.
I hope you will soon be able to visit Asia, where your services are urgently needed. If you come, please let me know so I can show you around.
I haven’t gone around very much as yet. I don’t know how I’ll be thinking in a few more days, but at the moment, while the impressions are still sharp and clear, let me tell you that I’m pleased as well as disappointed by the things I see.
There are new buildings, a lot of traffic on the streets, but this progress, as you know, is deceptive. The slums are still here, the poverty, the filth. I told you once that poverty is a way of life with us.
Remember how we used to work in the summers—you in the construction gang where there was always more money and I in those greasy restaurants? That was honorable and we saved a lot. It’s not so here. It’s still a disgrace to be poor and to work with one’s hands. But the situation seems to be improving. The waiters look neater now—they wear white and they even have caps. Poverty now wears a starched uniform.
I do hope you’ll come to Manila soon. Of course, only third-rate Americans come to the Philippines to make a living exploiting us yokels. The first-rate Americans stay home to reap the milk and the honey. And you, my dear Larry [he paused and beamed at his patronizing attitude], you are first-rate.…
I miss the old room, the bull sessions, and your coffeepot. [He cast his eyes about his room.] I miss your electric typewriter, too.
You used to insist—after I had told you of our problems and our history—that only a revolution could change the stink in our social order. I still disagree with you and that is why I do hope I can have a revolution against revolution. Do come so that we can start livening up this place.
He closed the letter with that little nicety, then lay on his hard, old cot, deaf to the noises of the world and finally immune to the heat of the early May night. He was home; a very secure position at the university awaited him, and there was, as a bonus, Carmen Villa. So this was Antipolo—and this was not the end. It was the beginning, and before him the opportunities were limitless. He could no longer be bothered by nightmares, for a man sure of himself, sure of his achievements and of what the morrow would bring could not be shaken by such trifles as the omnipresent past, or social responsibility. Knowledge always brings comfort, and before he went to sleep, Tony Samson felt like the most comfortable man on earth.
* Carretela: A two-wheeled horse-drawn cart.
† Manang: An affectionate, respectful form of address for an older sister or woman. Ilocanos do not call older relatives by their given names alone. Masculine form: Manong.
‡ Pechay: A variety of cabbage, like bok choy.
§ Accesoria: An apartment; literally an “outbuilding.” A word widely used until the 1950s.
‖ Pinakbet: A vegetable dish made with fermented fish.
a Aparador: A wooden cabinet for clothing.
b Delicadeza: Delicacy, refinement, scrupulousness (Sp.).
c Despedida: A going-away party; a farewell.
CHAPTER
2
When Tony awoke the sunlight had already splashed the room, a dazzling white on the mosquito net and on the starched doily that adorned his reading table. It was not the sun that woke him, though; it was the freight train that thundered by and shook the wooden house as if it were a flimsy packing crate. The train was the final reminder that he was in Antipolo. Another train had passed in the night, but after its clangor had gone he drifted quickly back to sleep. He remembered the times he looked out of the window right into the coaches as the trains sang by. The pleasure of being home was intense, and could have been more so if he had returned not to Antipolo but to Rosales, whose images lingered longest in the years that he was away. But home was Antipolo now, and it would only be by the sheerest of accidents that he would ever return to Rosales.
Tony stood up. Beyond the iron grill of the window lay the city—a jumble of wooden houses and rooftops, of rusty tin and gleaming aluminum. No breeze stirred on this muggy morning, but nevertheless the warm odor of dried fish frying in the kitchen below wafted up to him. And he heard his sister shushing her boys because their uncle was still asleep.
Listening to these domestic sounds, Tony felt at peace. He looked around him at his luggage, at the bookcase with its paint peeled off, at the lightbulb that hung above him, and, finally, at the bent, rusty nail that stuck out from the post at the other end of the room. The nail that had held an Igorot blanket a long time ago—the thought came languidly. I must not think of Emy now, he told himself, it’s enough that I’m back in this room and it is not as forlorn or as empty as I expected it to be.
After breakfast he went to the corner drugstore to make a call. The number Carmen had given him rang at once and he was pleased to hear her voice, vibrant and clear, at the other end of the line. A tingling sensation raced through him at the sound of her laughter. Yes, she missed him terribly and she wasn’t able to sleep at all. Yes, what a horrible night it had been, even with the air-conditioning. Oye, she was thinking of him always and the night reminded her of Washington, too, and that August when it was practically suffocating and, remember (another happy gurgling sound), they both went to sleep with nothing on (a peal of laughter). But that wasn’t important really; it was her missing him, his nearness, that mattered. And he tried to tell her, you shouldn’t be saying these things over the phone, darling. Isn’t anyone within earshot? And remember, all Manila phones are party lines.
But she wouldn’t stop teasing him. Then: Damnit, her anger came over the line like a jolt. Damnit, so what if the whole world is listening in. Tony, darn you, I miss you very much, your arms, your lips, the way you kissed me. I miss you and you should be glad to hear that.…
In the bus, on his way to the university, Tony beheld the completeness with which the dry season made its conquest. It had licked each blade of grass until the greenness was wiped clean from the landscape and what was once living patches as he remembered them had become huge brown scars. The season seemed to have infected the air, and from this infection it had moved on, crept into the pores and under the cranium until it lodged itself in the folds of the mind.
It was on a season like this that he had met Carmen, and deftly he brought to mind that August in Washington when he lived in a dingy room on Massachusetts Avenue near the Philippine embassy. No breeze could drift even accidentally to his room, even after he had moved his bed next to the window that opened onto the street lined with elms. He had gone that morning to the embassy to talk with the cultural officer—an old acquaintance—about some of his research problems, and he had chanced upon her asking for the latest Manila papers because she did not know what was happening to her friends and she had not read a Filipino paper in days.
Yes, she was studying in the area, public relations and interior decoration, and tomorrow (she had gotten the paper she was looking for and she was headed for the door) she said she hoped she would see him again at the ambassador’s cocktail party. He was leaving, too, and was walking out with her, and he had said, “I really want to see you again, bu
t tomorrow, I don’t think I’ll be there.…” It could have ended on the spot and he would not have known anything more about her, but he saw her again, because in Washington, Filipino students often saw one another. He had no time for parties—he did not have the money—because he was busy finishing his doctoral thesis on the ilustrados* and the Philippine Revolution; yes, he would like to show her the town if she would care to have him for company. And one afternoon she even went to his boardinghouse, because he knew people at the International Center and she wanted to visit the place, and some day the Library of Congress, too—if he would take her there. It had seemed as if love could not sprout from such a prosaic beginning, and thinking now of all this, Tony Samson wished that his conquest had encountered more difficulties and was not as easy as it turned out to be.
He was glad to find Dean Lopez in. His office was still on the ground floor of the main building and its frosted-glass windows were open to a faint breeze. The ceiling fans were unchanged and squeaky. When he was a graduate assistant he used to work in this office, and he remembered, with a sense of lightness, bringing the dean his lunch in an aluminum fiambrera† when the dean worked overtime. He ate his lunch here, too, after all the doors were closed and he was alone. His lunch often consisted of nothing but three pieces of pan de sal‡ with Spanish sardines or a slice of native cheese, and these he downed with a bottle of Coke that he got from the vending machine down the hall. After lunch he often stole a nap on the bench reserved for visitors until the one o’clock bell jarred him back to his chores.
The old man seemed genuinely pleased to see him. “Tony, you don’t look like an Ilocano anymore!” The dean leaned back in his swivel chair and looked at him. “Your complexion has become fairer. And you have been overfed—look at your waistline!”
The Samsons: Two Novels; (Modern Library) Page 5
