The Samsons: Two Novels; (Modern Library)

by F. Sionil Jose

  “Thank you, Papa,” Tony said. Under the table Carmen pressed his hand.

  “It will not be difficult. I want you to work for me, to be in places where I need you, to talk in places where I want you, to talk and write what I want you to write. My interest is Carmen’s interest and her interest is yours—and your children’s.…”

  A pause, then Don Manuel turned to Carmen and then to Tony again: “Isn’t that logical, son?”

  This was the trap with all its embellishments, but Tony nodded nevertheless.

  “Don’t think of it as inevitable. When a man marries, the decisions he makes are not for him alone but for his wife and his family. I want you to leave the university. Start working for yourself, for Carmen.”

  In the early morning Tony knew that he would never be able to visit Baguio again and wander through its emerald hills with a sense of freedom. As they drove to the airport on this chilly morning, an undefinable feeling almost akin to sorrow riled him. There could be no rationalization now of his defeat—for what else could it be but a defeat?—and yet, if he must look for one, he could always say, as did Don Manuel, that he must think of Carmen and the child she bore.

  The landscape was sun-washed, white with the mist that floated down the hills, engulfed the city, and then drifted away. The drive to the airport was smooth, and as they looped down the hills, the wind singing and the cold biting, Tony wished that he had stayed longer, savored the illusion longer, before going down to the lowlands. And yet he could not hate his father-in-law, for Don Manuel was a gentleman. The businessman saw to it that his feelings were spared. Dale Carnegie—he must have been Don Manuel’s favorite author. Not Malraux, or Mabini,‡ or Ortega y Gasset—these men exuded not light and goodwill but depressing truths. Tony must know how to parry with words, to hide under the clean, happy jargon of public relations. Don Manuel had been very kind: “I’m not hurrying you up. If you think you have a future at the university, by all means stick it out there. Give yourself two months to think it over, then let’s talk shop. Two months is no water under the bridge. That was how long it took me to decide on the steel mill—just passing it around among friends. Then it came clearly: we had to start somewhere; if we didn’t, someone else would—the Japanese or the Americans or, in some future time, the Chinese. And where would that leave us? It’s always best to be out there first. You may not know it, but if you are first you will not fail. The first zipper maker, the first rubber shoe manufacturer—they can afford to retire. They were the first and that was how they made a profit. And if you don’t make a success out of it, there’s still the distinction of being first. No one can take that from you.”

  * Esteros: Land adjoining an estuary inundated by the tide; estuary; pool or pond; marshy land.

  † Colegialas: Female college students.

  ‡ Apolinario Mabini (1864–1903): Theoretician and spokesman of the Philippine Revolution.

  CHAPTER

  7

  When he walked into the department, most of his colleagues were already waiting for the first bell.

  “You old dog, we never knew you’d marry—and so soon. And the Villas. Now there’s another man gone wrong correctly. You should have told us so we could have given you a despedida.” The words sang in his ears and they sounded sincere. He let the ribbing go on until the bell rang and he had to hurry off to his first class.

  His students were but a handful—only twenty-two—and he always had a notion that they could have been brighter if they only tried. He was prepared as usual for an interesting Monday morning and was greeted by smiling faces. Then a girl out front, who was majoring in political science, stood up, “Congratulations, sir. It is all over the campus.”

  In the afternoon the ribald jokes became less frequent and he accepted the fact that his marriage was public knowledge. It gave him peace of mind to know that the marriage had been viewed matter-of-factly and was even something he could be proud of. There was none of the knowing looks and the sharp double talk at which his colleagues were agile, none of the little thrusts that would tell him that they suspected he married Carmen Villa only for her money.

  The dean’s office was on the ground floor and he was halfway there when this awful sense of having been remiss came to him: he hadn’t told the old man at all about his wedding. He could easily rationalize that now by explaining that it was a surprise even to himself. But that was not easy to believe and, besides, the first decent thing he should have done this Monday was to go to the dean.

  The dean was a small, dark man, and sitting behind his huge narra-wood desk with its small Filipino flag and his name carved in gothic on black hardwood, he looked more like a schoolboy, with his chubby cheeks and pugnacious chin.

  He acknowledged Tony’s presence with a quick smile, then he went back to the stapled sheaf of papers he was reading.

  It went on like this for about three minutes. Tony started shuffling in his seat. He was now growing aware of the Lopez “treatment.” In the past the old man had used it to put his subordinates and the professors under him in their proper places. Dean Lopez, however, exercised the utmost care in inflicting this kind of punishment. He meted it out only to those he could officially order around, or those who stood to gain from him some benevolence, those tokens of official largesse that he passed out—a good word at the faculty meeting, the promise of a raise or a promotion, an invitation to his house for merienda. I’ll give him two minutes, Tony thought, glancing at his watch. Beyond the open window the afternoon was bright. Students idled under the leafy acacias. In a soft, firm voice he said, “I still have to prepare some papers, Dean, and since you seem very busy, I’ll return and see you after five.”

  Dean Lopez slowly lowered the sheaf he was holding and looked at him. “My time is important, too, Samson,” he said. The old man had always called him by his first name, but now he was calling him by his family name. “So,” the dean continued, “I hope you don’t mind while I finish this. It won’t take but another five minutes.”

  Dean Lopez finally dropped the sheaf.

  “Yes,” he said, standing up and, without looking at the young man, turning to the window. “I want to talk to you about your paper on the Ilocos. It is a waste of time and you should not continue it. Work on something more useful, something that has never been touched before. You know I have already done some work on the subject. Do you think you can dredge up something on it on which I haven’t already dwelt? That’s presumptuous of you, you know.…”

  Tony Samson studied the stout, motionless figure and tried to surmise what had come upon him.

  “I’m sorry that you should think of it that way, sir,” he said. “You see, I’m doing it on my own. On my own time, too.”

  Dean Lopez wheeled and his mouth curled. “You are wrong, Samson,” he said. “Your time is not your own. It’s the university’s. Or didn’t you know that?” His voice was sheathed with bluster.

  “I didn’t think it was like that, sir,” Tony said.

  “Well, you had better start thinking now the way I want you to think,” Dean Lopez said. “Do you want to be a full professor in five years or do you want to be a mere associate all your life? I decide on that, too, or have you forgotten?”

  “No, sir,” Tony said simply. The old man was bared to him in all his rawness. “Is that all you wanted to tell me, sir?”

  “No, that’s not all. I will talk to you for as long as I please. About the Socrates Club—you are not qualified for it. Simply because you have a doctorate doesn’t mean you are in. I drafted the rules of the club, you know. And don’t think that I don’t know— There’s such a thing as a Chinese B in Harvard.”

  “I don’t know what you are driving at, sir,” Tony said sullenly.

  “Well, if you don’t know, let me tell you that Orientals in Harvard get a passing grade as a charitable gesture. After all, they won’t degrade Harvard by staying in the States. It’s that simple, Samson. In other words, we don’t want Chinese B’s in the Socrate
s Club.”

  “I hadn’t expected it to be this way, sir,” Tony said icily. “I don’t think I deserve to be crucified for something I did not really aspire to.”

  “Don’t be coy with me and say you didn’t aspire for membership in the club. That’s a lie, Samson, and you know it.”

  The blood left Tony’s face and a clamminess came over him.

  “That’s the trouble with you,” Dean Lopez said serenely. He went back to his desk. The afternoon sun stole in from the glass windows and fell on its glass top, reflecting onto his ruddy face, his peasant hands, and his shock of white hair. “You presume too many things. Look, I’ve been here for more than two decades and that’s why I am the dean. And look at you, you have just started and you already want to be a regent or the dean. Over my dead body, Samson. Understand that? Over my dead body. You cannot be dean of this college, not while I am alive. You may have married well and you may have political influence, but you cannot be the dean while I am alive. And all the politicians you know can go to hell for all I care.”

  “Whoever gave you the idea I wanted to be dean and that I’m taking over your post?” he stammered.

  Dean Lopez was smiling now. “I know, I know,” he said sarcastically. “That’s just the problem with people who get too big for their breeches and who want to go up fast. Did America do these things to you? And you can’t even qualify for the Socrates Club.”

  Tony Samson felt like slapping the old man’s face. “I don’t like to disagree with you, sir,” he said faintly, “but you said you submitted my name. And I didn’t even know it until you told me before I left for Baguio.”

  “Now, now,” Dean Lopez said. “Let us not be like women. Everyone knows of the honor that goes with joining the club. Think of it: in the country there are only forty members and in the university there are only ten. Do not tell me that you aren’t interested.…”

  “I am, sir,” Tony said. “I’d be a hypocrite if I said I was not. It’s just that I did not apply.”

  Dean Lopez exploded. “Damn you!” he said, his eyes darting fire. “If the club does not want you, you should take it with grace.”

  He had never expected that a moment as rife with anger as now would come, for he had never made an allowance for the time when he would glare back at his benefactor and damn him. But in a voice that was hoarse and almost a whisper: “Don’t ever talk to me about grace. Or scholarship! You have no right—you plagiarist!” And trembling with unspoken rage, he wheeled out of the dean’s office into the raw, sun-flooded afternoon.

  That evening Tony wrote to Lawrence Bitfogel again. He did not say, however, that he had quit the university. That would have been too painful to relate and Larry would never understand. He had worked so hard for the chance to be a teacher, and now all the anguish, all the privation, six years, six long years of starving, of wandering and despairing—all this had gone to waste.

  Dear Larry, he started, I would have invited you to my wedding, but it caught even me by surprise. We eloped and up to now I’m still in a daze. No, it’s not someone you know or someone I’ve told you about. I met her in Washington and, of course, she’s Filipina. You know very well my views on mixed marriages and you know I’m too much of a coward to attempt something as radical as a mixed marriage. But at least you can grant me some imagination—I eloped, didn’t I? This isn’t the only reason I’m writing this letter, though. I must tell you, too, that I have acquired new interests. Perhaps these interests have to go with marriage and my new status. I do wish very much that you were here now, so that we could talk things over. It’s not the marriage that has me all dazed and confused, far from it. It’s the university and the host of problems that it has dumped upon my lap. At any rate, I am doing all right, and don’t … don’t ever loathe me if someday I mellow or change into an arch-conservative. Come to Manila soon.

  The letter was the last he mailed to Lawrence Bitfogel.

  There were other letters, of course, wherein he expressed his thoughts candidly, and this he could do easily, objectively, because he had always been analytical and even ruthless with himself when he sought the bedrock of truth, the soft shale of emotion, of egoism having been eroded by his own relentless questioning. But when all these letters were written, he could not mail them and he placed them all in that folder where he had compiled personal notes—not to be read by anyone, he told himself wryly, until I am dead.

  CHAPTER

  8

  It was Carmen who announced it a week afterward at the breakfast table. “Well, Papa,” she said airily. “Tony has quit the university. I think we should celebrate.”

  Tony raised a hand to stop her, but she ignored him. “Papa, don’t you think it’s about time Tony started learning how you operate, too?”

  “I don’t think my quitting the university is something to be taken lightly,” Tony said petulantly. “You must understand, Papa,” he turned to Don Manuel, who had set his glass of orange juice down and was now looking at him, “that the university was what I had prepared for. Teaching is in my system. It wasn’t an easy decision.”

  “We all have to make decisions.” Don Manuel sounded sympathetic. He picked up his glass. “The decisions are sometimes difficult, but it’s better that we choose to make them rather than be forced to make them. A good soldier, I always say, selects his fights.”

  “I wish I could say that, Papa,” Tony said. “I was forced and that’s what I hate.”

  “Well,” Carmen said, “there’s always a silver lining even in the darkest cloud. Or at least silver-plated.”

  “Of course, of course,” Don Manuel said equably. “And I must tell you that this development pleases me. One man’s loss, after all, is another man’s gain. I’ve told you, Tony. I need someone I can trust, someone with perception and talent.”

  The flattery was pleasant to his ears. How pat, how neatly everything was falling into place.

  After breakfast Don Manuel beckoned Tony to the terrace. In the shade of the green canvas awning, looking down on the rain-drenched city, Tony listened to his father-in-law speak with almost childlike simplicity. “Today, Tony, I’d like you to see the office, get the feel of the place.” He discoursed further on such mundane topics as knowing how to get along with people, praising them when praise was needed, and showing a firm hand when this, too, was necessary. They parted on such platitudes. It was too late to retrace his steps; he was trapped in a maze where the Villas were the minotaurs, and somehow, though he should have detested the entrapment, it was not as distasteful as he once thought it would be.

  The morning wore on in a drizzle. Beyond the patio glazed with rain the bougainvillea drooped and a murkiness cloaked the acacias, the garden, and, in fact, the whole world. Somewhere in the caverns of the house Tony could hear Mrs. Villa ordering someone in her brisk manner to do the marketing early. The very sound of her voice, the thought of having to sit with her at lunch again, riled him. And yet Tony did not really hate her. He was aware of this the first time he met her and the incapacity to loathe her came about not because she was Carmen’s mother but because Mrs. Villa, in spite of her grossness, was herself.

  He went to their room, where Carmen was reading the papers in bed, and he sat down beside her. He kissed her lightly on the cheek. “Baby,” he said, “when I start working for Papa, don’t you think we should start living alone? Not that I don’t like it here, but we should be able to live our own lives.”

  She looked up. “All right, darling. Promise me we will not talk about this subject anymore, because if you do I’m going to say yes.”

  He bent over and bit her ear.

  “Papa is going to build a cottage at the end of the lot beyond the pool. It will be for us.”

  He shook his head. “I mean, if we leave this house we should live away from here.”

  “You give me a good reason, darling. If it’s mother you don’t want to see, well, you don’t have to see her at all once the cottage is finished. Esto, the entrance will
be from the rear, from the other side of the street …”

  It was still raining when he reached the boulevard, and the asphalt glistened like a mirror through the dreary, slanting rain. The Villa Building stood alone on a wide lot planted to grass and aroma trees. Its five stories were shielded from the sun, for the building was one of the first in Manila to use horizontal sun-breakers. It was painted in soft cream, was fully air-conditioned, and could have easily passed for a box—well-proportioned and neat—if it did not have an unusual facade that featured a long, sweeping cantilever marquee flanked by two columns of gray Romblon marble. The foyer, too, with its floor and walls of marble, was quietly elegant.

  Don Manuel’s office was on the fifth floor or “executive country,” and there was an express elevator to it. Tony was quickly ushered in by the efficient matronly secretary, who often came to the house with Don Manuel’s homework.

  A Japanese, whom Don Manuel introduced as a steel expert, and Senator Reyes were getting ready to leave when he went in; they were already at the door, engaged in parting niceties. The senator and his Japanese companion had one thing in common: the porcine face of a man well-fed and contented. The senator’s cheeks were white with talc and he grinned meaninglessly when Don Manuel introduced Tony.

  “Ah—” Senator Reyes sighed. His eyes were pouched and flinty. “It’s a pleasure meeting you, Dr. Samson. I respect Ph.D.’s, you know. Well,” he turned to Don Manuel and slapped the entrepreneur on the back, “I hope everything at the university turns out fine. I was there last Monday as you requested. Dr. Samson will surely be a regent next month. Two regents will vacate their posts. Their terms have expired.”