“We must start from there,” Tony said.
“Yes, but just the same, we reject it,” Charlie said. “No, we don’t reject life, we love it. But we do not love hunger and illness and the despair they breed all around us. Hunger is real, Tony. You can see it in the villages, in my own neighborhood. You do not see it in Pobres Park—it is an academic thing to be discussed in the Villa Building and you do not feel it there. It takes the poor to understand poverty, you said that yourself. And whatever you say now, your friends in the Park would not understand, for if they do, they wouldn’t have gone there.”
“They are our people, too,” Tony said. “You know that ours is an open society. You can go up and down, right or left, to any distance or height you may want to reach. Everyone has a chance …”
“You are wrong,” Charlie said. “Not everyone has a chance. We … we are lucky in a way. How many artists, how many geniuses, how many great minds are aborted in the nameless villages and slums of this country because children don’t go on to college? Do you know, ninety percent of our children don’t go past the fourth grade because they cannot afford to? Universal education—that is one of the biggest jokes.”
“Maybe so,” Tony said. “But still, there are millionaires today who didn’t have a centavo to their name after the war.”
“But what happened after they got to the top?” Charlie asked. “They forgot those at the bottom of the heap. Perhaps we shouldn’t ask them to have a conscience. Perhaps all we need ask of them is vision.”
“Manuel Villa has vision,” Tony said.
“He does not have it anymore than Dangmount and his friends,” Charlie said sadly. “A chicken in every pot, a Ford in every garage. These are meaningless slogans, but the men who fashioned them had vision. America had her share of robber barons, but these same robber barons dreamed big dreams, empires, progress.”
“Pax Filipina,” Tony said.
“No, I don’t mean that,” Charlie said. “I am for Filipino entrepreneurs who can think of progress for this country, and not just of vacations in Europe, marble swimming pools, and a dozen mistresses.”
“I assure you,” Tony said, “there are men in the Park who think of progress for this country, too, because it means progress for them first. The poor do not have a monopoly on virtue, you know.”
Godo picked up the talk in anger again. “Are you trying to be comfortable in a place where you will never have real peace of mind?”
“What do you want me to do?” Tony said desperately. “Go home and run amok? Bring a hand grenade to the next board meeting of the Villa Development Corporation? Is that what you want?”
“Now you are talking sense,” Godo said in mock seriousness. “No, Sonny Boy, I don’t expect such heroics from you. I just want you to know how things stand. I have no illusions. My publisher is no different. Like your Don Manuel, as long as the money keeps pouring in, that’s okay with him. And us? He doesn’t even know I have a dying wife, that I live in an accesoria that stinks to high heaven. That’s the social order, Sonny Boy, and don’t you ever forget it!”
“I have enough problems,” Tony said lamely. “I try to be useful in the best way I can.”
“That’s nice to know,” Godo snorted. “It’s nice to hear that you are comfortable being a dummy.”
Tony was in no mood to argue; Godo and Charlie could still be useful to him, and they could help to publicize the steel mill again in another year or two. He held his tongue and said simply, “You are being nasty again.”
Charlie smiled. “There are many things that were left out in that write-up, Tony. And you know just what I mean.”
“No, I don’t.” Tony tried to be vehement.
Godo grinned. “You mean to tell me that you don’t know that the Villa steel mill is owned by Japanese, Americans, and Chinese? Do you mean to tell me that you never knew the firms list Senator Reyes as their counsel? Or that Senator Reyes is a member of your board?”
“I know,” Tony said morosely.
Godo rattled off the names. “Dangmount, Saito, and the Chinese millionaire Johnny Lee.”
“They are on the board, but what difference does that make?” he asked, feigning ignorance, remembering what Don Manuel had said about his being in the family now.
“They control the stocks, son,” Godo leveled a finger at him. “And your father-in-law is a dummy in spite of his wealth. Don’t let Senator Reyes and his talk of nationalism fool you as he has fooled almost everyone else. He is in the employ of the monopolists and the sugar people—another vested group. Aside, of course, from working for your father-in-law.”
Tony sneered. “Why didn’t you print the story as you saw it, then?” He leaned over and spoke softly for a moment. “Look, I had thought that perhaps you would do just that. Deep inside I always believed you were brave, Godo, that you wouldn’t pull your punches.” Then, his voice rising, “I’m tired of polemics and excuses. And you’re just giving me one more lousy excuse.”
Charlie smiled laconically again. “Ah, Tony, the things we can’t print. The publisher has to make money and we have to live on the ads your father-in-law and his friends place in the magazine.”
“In other words, you are not pure.”
“I have never claimed purity,” Godo said, “but I’m honest with myself. I hope you can say the same, Tony.”
“Look,” Tony said solemnly. “What is it that you want? My skin? In college— Let me tell you about my old roommate, Lawrence Bitfogel. The three of you would make excellent bedfellows. He believed in revolution as an alternative. But it is too late for us to engage in that. You know what happened to my grandfather and my father? The Huks. The weapons have changed, but I don’t think you realize that.”
“Yeah,” Godo snickered. “Sex is the weapon. Marry the landlord’s daughter—or Don Manuel’s.”
The blood warmed in Tony’s temples.
“The Ilocano settlers in Mindanao … the pattern is clear,” Charlie repeated.
“I can’t comment on that,” Tony shot back. “Don Manuel has reasons, and everything—I’m sure of that—must be legal.”
“Legal!” Godo exploded. “Yes, corruption is now legal. And tyranny, too. And deception. Everything is legal.”
“I don’t care anymore,” Tony said wearily. “There’s no sense in going against the wave, against all of you. I want to run away.” He checked himself, for Godo was looking at him intently.
“Where will you go? Back to America and its comforts?”
“I just don’t know,” Tony said weakly. “But another revolution is so cheap, so commonplace. Perhaps if we killed ourselves instead …”
They parted on that note. It was not yet eleven and Tony decided to return to his office and try to shake off the malaise of the encounter. He did not want to remember what Charlie had said about Mindanao and the settlers. He tried to place the subject in a hidden corner of his mind and ignore it. He decided to return to his grandfather’s journal. The labor would dispel the anguish of the day and all the discomforts he felt from meeting with Godo and Charlie.
Before noon someone came to see him—a relative from Pangasinan, according to his secretary. No one had visited him in the past few days, no one from the old crowd at the university, least of all someone from home.
Bettina.
He remembered Bettina as a lanky kid with pigtails, climbing guava trees in the backyard of the old house in Rosales, and as a visitor to Manang Betty’s accesoria one dry season. An inquisitive youngster who had wanted to see all of the city during those two vacation months, she was always out the whole day visiting places like Tondo and San Nicolas, which he had never bothered to see, until her older sister Emy became concerned and put a stop to her wanderings.
Now Tony studied the neat, girlish scrawl on the visiting card. A pang of homesickness possessed him, and in this cool, anesthetized room, a host of remembered images bloomed in the recesses of his mind—the Cabugawan of yesteryears; the small, thatched
houses; the broken-down fences; and beyond these the eternal fields of gold and green. He rose and strode out. She saw him first and she stood up, smiled shyly, and reminded him at once of his own youth, of the things that were, of Rosales. She was a young woman now in her early twenties or late teens. Somehow, the provinciana† character was discernible in her, in her lips, which were not painted; her shoes, which were cheap pumps; her cheap printed dress; and her bare arms browned by the sun.
“Bettina, I’m so happy to see you,” was all he could say and he took her hand as he used to, then led her away from the curious gaze of the other visitors.
Alone in his office, Tony looked at her closely. “I never thought you’d come and see me,” he said. “You don’t know how nice it is to see someone from home.”
They sat together on the sofa. “Do you want anything to drink? Coffee? I know, stay for a while and I’ll treat you to lunch. We can eat in one of the restaurants near here and then you can tell me everything about what’s happening in Rosales. And Emy— I’m starved for news about her. How is she?”
For the first time she looked at him fully. “She’s well,” she said simply.
“I’m happy to know that,” he said, meaning every word. “Tell me, what can I do for you? I haven’t seen anyone from Rosales for a very long time. I miss the place, but I can’t seem to get away from here so I can have a breath of fresh air.”
Bettina clasped her hands. “I know you are always busy and that’s why I came here myself. Manang Betty said that I shouldn’t bother you like this. Am I bothering you, Manong?”
He laughed. “Of course not,” he said. “When could Bettina bother her cousin? Remember, it’s been years since I saw you. And look at you now, so grown-up. It’s about time you get married.”
“That’s not an easy thing to do,” she said, blushing. Then her eyes crinkled in a smile. “A man must first love you and be faithful to you, no matter what happens.”
“Don’t be too choosy,” Tony said, laughing. “You’ll end up being an old maid.”
Bettina turned away.
“If it’s a job you need,” Tony said, “I can help you get one.…”
“No,” she said hurriedly and faced him again. “It’s not a job, Manong. You can help me when I am ready. Now … now, I … I had to stop schooling—after Father died. There wasn’t enough money.…”
“I’m sorry,” Tony said softly. “I was in Europe when I learned about it. But still, if you want me to, I can help send you to school. I’m helping Manang Betty’s children now. I can really help,” he said eagerly.
“I know, but …”
He leaned over, the better to catch every word, for now he realized that she had come to tell him something important, much more important than a job or the need to go to school.
“Manang Emy— she will never forgive me for this,” she said. “Promise me that you won’t tell her that it was I who came and told you. She will kill me if she learns.”
Tony did not speak. He nodded dumbly.
“I’m returning home right away, this afternoon. I saved enough money for this trip. I told her I was going to Dagupan, not to Manila. I’m going home and what I will tell you, please, let this stay with you, only you.”
Tony leaned forward. A moistness was gathering in the girl’s eyes and in a while she was crying softly, the stifled sobs shaking her.
“She did not want you to know,” she said, “but she couldn’t hide it from me any longer. Six years she hid it from everyone. All your letters, all you wrote from America—she kept them all. She reads them and sometimes cries over them. And that’s how I found out. She couldn’t hide anything from me. We have grown so close to each other, particularly after Father died and there was no one in the house but us and her little son.”
“Yes?” he asked in a voice that was not his. “Do you mean to tell me that the boy is mine?” But even when Bettina had given him the answer he both expected and dreaded, he was being lifted away from this air-conditioned office to that drab, old room in Antipolo that he had shared with Emy. A wistfulness commingled with remorse, filled him.
“She should have told me. Why didn’t she tell me this?” he asked desperately. “If I had only known. Why didn’t she tell me?”
Bettina spoke huskily. “You know the answer to that.” After a brief silence: “I hope you don’t misunderstand. Emy did not send me here—that is something she would never do. It’s just that Rosales, well, you know what the town has always been. Things haven’t changed. If only there was work to do, Manong. You must understand.”
Tony did not speak.
“I’m not blaming Manang Emy,” Bettina said. “Nor am I blaming you. But the boy, it’s him I’m worried about. He often asks me now who his father is, because the children—his classmates and the kids in the neighborhood—you know how Cabugawan is. It is so small that you cannot hide anything. What will happen when the boy finds out?”
“And what am I expected to do?” Tony rose and spoke sharply. “It’s all her fault. She never told me. I wrote and wrote to her and she never answered—only once and she didn’t tell me.”
For the first time Bettina flared up. “You don’t understand. She was thinking of you. Can’t you see? If she had written, if she had told you … can you imagine what would have happened? You were studying. Here was your chance to make something of yourself. Here was your chance to get out of Rosales and get something more than what Rosales could offer. It is that clear, Manong, and you haven’t even realized it.”
It didn’t sink into his consciousness at once and when it finally did, Tony knew what a fool he had been. Her faith—how beautiful it was! It could not be anything else but that—and the beauty of it sustained him through the years. The memory of Emy had made it easy for him to stave off his shameful physical hunger in those days when his allowance did not come on time and he had nothing to eat but stale bread and tea. And in the evenings, after he was through with his lessons and his papers, he would lie awake thinking of her, of the narrow room in Antipolo and the bittersweet memories it evoked, of the Igorot blanket strung across the room, and Emy behind the blanket, the trains whistling and thundering by, shaking the room, the whole house, and rattling them both. He brought to mind the old hometown, and how he and Emy had grown up together as only cousins in small towns did, and with a great ache welling inside him, he remembered how he once told her that someday, if he would ever marry, he would look for someone rich, so that he wouldn’t have to slave anymore, skin his knuckles, have a premature ache in his bones. He was in a jovial mood when he told her this. They were in Rosales, and beyond the coconut trees, the moon sailed in a velvet sky and they could hear the shouts of children playing patintero‡ down the dusty street. In two months they would both leave Rosales with his sister Betty. He was in a jovial and expectant mood, but Emy must have taken him seriously, for after he had spoken she became silent and sullen.
Now that his halfhearted wish had come true, what did Emy think of him? Did she loathe him for having married Carmen Villa? The doubt that assailed him, the feeling that somehow Emy did not approve of what he had done, hurt him deeply.
I am not to blame, he said to himself, and besides, I’m not in love with her anymore. Emy belongs to the past. It’s Carmen I married and it’s Carmen I love.
But somehow the reiteration seemed hollow. He could cheat anyone, all of the professors in the university, all his friends, and even Carmen, but there was someone he could never lie to successfully—and that was himself.
* Mami: Noodle soup.
† Provinciana: Provincial; masculine form: provinciano.
‡ Patintero: A game usually played in the moonlight.
CHAPTER
13
It was an ordinary town whose life was shaped by the seasons, the planting and the harvesting of rice, and the drudgery and the idleness between. Years ago, when it was a mere sitio of ten or a dozen cogon huts, a Spanish Dominican friar on his way to Cagayan Val
ley passed it. June—and he came upon those bushes crowned with white, fragrant flowers. The bush was called rosal, and the town, which had an abundance of them, was baptized Rosales.
Many of the bushes were still in the churchyard, in the cemetery, and along the streets when Tony left Rosales. Their flowering marked the coming of the rains, the advent of the planting season, and the town fiesta. Tony always associated the town fiesta with rain because it was held in June—on the feast day of San Antonio de Padua—and June was always a rainy month. He liked the fiesta, with its rice-planting and flooded paddies; it was the paddies, of all the things he had left behind, that he remembered best, the brown mud, the growing rice, the frogs and the freshwater crabs, and the smell of earth touched by rain. But the paddies also brought to mind things that had nothing to do with grain and growth—his father, an embittered rebel, and his grandfather, who took a whole clan from the wretched narrowness and persecution of the Ilocos to the broad plains of Rosales, who joined the revolution and fell in some nameless battlefield.
Homecoming could be pleasant if it did not stir, as it did now, an ancient sorrow and that sense of utter inability to undo what had been done. When he stepped down from the air-conditioned coach in Paniqui an urge to rush back to the train or catch the next bus to Manila took hold of him. The helplessness was now compounded with a sense of guilt.
The train connection was waiting on the tracks beyond the cement platform, a battered diesel trolley with peeling orange paint, the black hump of its exhaust shaking and spewing thin wisps of gray smoke.
Tony went to it. The day was unusually humid and the fumes from the engine stung his nostrils. The wooden benches were wobbly and decrepit. Bamboo baskets, most of them empty, a few still filled with greens and bars of soap, lay on the well-scuffed wooden floor. Farm women talked in quiet tones around him. Their faces were dark with sun and work, and he could tell at a glance that they were homely, with sagging breasts and horned hands. They smoked cheap, hand-rolled tobacco-leaf cigars, and the smoke from their constant puffing and their earthy smell were all around him.
The Samsons: Two Novels; (Modern Library) Page 19
