“I try to live for now,” I said.
“I have my mother, my brothers and sisters.”
“I know.”
“With us, nothing serious, that’s all.”
“I cannot be flippant with you,” I said. “I am sincere. Remember that.”
“But why me?” she asked. “There are so many girls in your school. They are not unwed mothers, and they do not have families to support. And most of all, they don’t work in massage parlors where they give sensation to six, eight men every day—old men, teenagers, businessmen. Why me? Why can you not be clear-headed?”
“I am.”
“Then keep away from me.”
“Do you want me to?”
“Yes,” she said, but without conviction.
I kissed her hand that had grasped a hundred penises.
“I don’t understand, Pepe,” she said.
“It’s fate.”
I was silent for a while, contemplating her face, the sad eyes, the small pert nose, the lips, and the soft line of her jaw.
“Ramona,” I breathed.
“What?”
“I am dreaming again,” I said. “Even with people, I sometimes forget I am here, here in Manila, here in this Barrio, here.”
“What are you trying to tell me?”
“Do not laugh. Ever since I was young I have always held one girl in my heart. You know, those crushes when you are a teenager. But this one has lasted.”
“Tell me about her.”
“She is dark brown—very kayumanggi,b as they say. Usually, the girl boys dream of are fair, mestiza.”
“But she is dark.”
“Yes, as dark as you. I will recognize her when I see her.”
“You mean you have not met her?”
“Yes, I have—but here, only in my mind.”
“Something like an ideal?”
“More than that. She is very real to me. I can hear her voice, and it is melodious and soft. I can see her, slim but not thin. And her breasts are small. She is slightly bowlegged. And her skin is clear and richly toned. And her eyebrows are unplucked.”
“But she does not exist.”
“She does, here,” I gestured toward my breast.
“Ligaw tingin, kantot hanging.c But this is worse because she does not even exist,” she sighed.
“I told you, she is here.”
“How did you first meet her?”
“In some melody Mother hummed when I was young. Ramona—if only she would be real someday.”
“Ramona—she even has a name. But it isn’t a very romantic name.”
“It is to me.”
“How did she get that name?”
“I don’t know all the words, ‘I hear the mission bells above … I dread the dawn when I wake to find you are gone …’ ”
“She isn’t here,” she said. “But I am.”
“And so is the night,” I said, “and it is a long, long night.”
“What are you trying to say?”
How could I tell her? Describe the murk where I had been, in my mind more than in what was around us?
“The world is dark,” I said, instead. Her hand tightened on mine. The sun blazed down, a boy selling ice cream came to us, but we did not want any. She had a new wristwatch, it was almost four. We had clung to words as if they were nuggets of wisdom, but the only truth was that we were together in this dismal place. How does the song go? “It’s only words, and words are all I have to take your heart away …” And now, while I was rich with words, I could not speak the right ones to impress upon her that sitting on this edge of perdition or clinging to this razor’s edge, as the old saying goes, is our only alternative.
* Syoki: Not masculine; homosexual.
† Cartulina: Cardboard, poster board.
‡ † Banca: A Philippine canoe.
§ Makibaka! Huwag Matakot!: Join! Don’t be afraid!
‖ Sugod: Advance!
a Lechon: A roast suckling pig.
b Kayumanggi: Skin color—not too dark, not too light.
c Ligaw tingin, kantot hangin: Courting by means of just looking.
Let the People Know
Although Auntie Bettina said I could be a scholar if I only tried, I was surprised to get the highest grades and to be eligible for free tuition in the next school year. There would be two months of Brotherhood inactivity; we would not have any demonstrations till June or July when the universities would be full again and most of our members had returned to Manila from the provinces. I also found out that I had a talent for Spanish, and I studied it in the summer session, determined that after those two months—by June—I should at least be able to understand and converse a bit in it.
My determination was wrought out of anger. When I met Betsy, although I had already had a year of Spanish—grammar and such—I still could not speak the language. She was born to it; her family spoke it at home, together with English, Visayan, and Tagalog.
Now I also had a clearer image of the class against which we were pitted. I did not have to take political science or sociology to understand this. Instinct sufficed. Even in school, I knew my teachers, like Professor Hortenso, were different.
I tried attending to the rules, and it was not difficult, for these rules could be bent to accommodate friends, and I could, myself, assume a color to their liking. That is what we learn early. But I had been aware of what I was doing and I always had to be cautious with those I did not really know, particularly those who might be able to do me good. I was not worried about being harmed—how could anyone hurt me or drag me farther down from where I was?
But with Betsy I was never cautious; I just opened up, innards and all, as if I had known her all my life. She was a junior at Maryknoll, and like most Maryknoll girls, she talked too much.
We were invited to a seminar in Tagaytay in April. I had organized the Brotherhood in the University so well that I knew every class leader by his first name. It was difficult at first, remembering so many faces, attending meetings and working in the Barrio at the same time. But there were fringe benefits; the free seminar was one of them. By then, I was also being invited to speak before students in forums outside my university. There was nothing, however, as lavish as this seminar—a live-in and an opportunity to meet other students for one week. A Jesuit was the seminar leader, but it was Americans who financed it; perhaps they hoped to influence our thinking, although I don’t see how they could possibly do that, for students usually have fixed views.
We assembled in Plaza Miranda at nine in the morning and boarded a bus. It was a sweaty drive to the other end of Manila, then through browned fields and small, scraggly towns; we went slowly up, past coconut groves, pineapple patches, and blooming fields of daisy. All the while the green heightened, the air freshened, and then, suddenly, we were up, and below was this shimmering blue lake dappled with sun and, in its middle, a green island.
Betsy was not with us in the bus; her family had taken her by car to Tagaytay. We gathered in the lobby of the lodge and registered. Afterward, as I was wandering at one end of the lodge grounds, looking at the volcano in the distance, I saw her.
I could not miss that face, those dark eyebrows, those eyes. It was Doris, the girl from the Makati Supermarket whose friend had been one of my customers. My immediate impulse was to run, to want the earth to swallow me up so that she would not see me and broadcast that I was a pusher, but how could I ignore a girl like her? Ever since I gave up the job Kuya Nick proffered, I was often nagged by this intense desire to go to the supermarket on the appointed time just to see her and perhaps talk with her, but there was no point; she was a million miles away from where I lived.
Then, gathering courage, nerve, steel, and such, I strode up to her and said, “Doris …” softly. She did not turn. “Doris,” I said louder.
She turned around, surprised, then she broke into that smile that I always loved. “Pusher!” she cried, then pressed her hand to her mouth and looked around to see if anyone was wi
thin hearing.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Selling more dope,” I said. I looked at the name card on her blouse. “Liar,” I said. “I always thought of you as Doris.”
She looked at mine. “And I always thought of you as Toto,” she said.
We both laughed and asked simultaneously: “How have you been?”
“You first,” she insisted.
“Well, as you know, I did not last a week in that job. The money was very good, but not enough.”
“You wanted to be the big man yourself,” she said.
“Yes, and get to be a millionaire like your father. I am still trying.”
“I missed you the following week,” she said. “Somehow I knew you would not last. You are much too open, and therefore vulnerable.”
“Spoken with wisdom. And what happened to your friend?”
“You should meet her,” she said, gushing. “On my birthday, she will be there. Promise to come.”
“I promise.”
“She has become stout—and that is a problem, she thinks she is fat. She stopped way back. The week that you did not come, I told her mother. We took her to a doctor, to a psychiatrist. It was also a form of rebellion against her parents and a desire to get attention from them. What I suspected all along.”
“What are you, a head shrinker?”
“Psychology major. But … what shall I call you? Jose?”
“Everyone calls me Pepe. Beatriz?”
“It sounds awful, doesn’t it? Betsy. It sounds better.”
“Betsy, it is wonderful seeing you.”
“Same here,” she said, holding my hand and pressing it.
We walked to the main building, my head light, the world aglow. She was the prettiest in the group, but I had not seen her legs in Tagaytay. She was slightly bowlegged, but her legs were not ugly; as a matter of fact, they made her look sexier.
All through the seminar, she wore two pairs of jeans, one really faded denim that had begun to break at the knees, and a brown corduroy pair that was also faded with use. Her formless katsa blouses were almost always buttoned up to her neck, and the only decor she wore was a touch of lipstick and that beautiful scent—Tabu, she told me later. Her shabby clothes, however, could not hide her prettiness, and once, during the meeting, she noticed me admiring the fine line of her jaw; I was embarrassed when she leaned over, a twinkle in her eyes, and whispered: “Caught you!” Much later, when I met her mother, I was quite sure that if she did not watch out, when she got married and raised children, she would be as round as a volleyball. When I told her this, she merely laughed and said she would not care, for by then she would have already bagged her man.
The fifty of us were from all over the country, and five were Muslims. About half were girls and most of them were pretty. She asked what school I came from and I said DM; that really perplexed her, so I explained, “Diploma Mill—you know, one of those downtown universities.”
And she said, “Why are you so apologetic and defensive? I haven’t started to work you over yet.”
She said Maryknoll was an elite school, all right. Still, though you could have all the money in the world, if you did not make the grade, you would be expelled.
We listened to dull speeches every day, one in the morning and another in the afternoon, then we would break for discussions. She did not speak much at the discussions, but could put away long-winded speakers with dispatch. There was this show-off from UP who commented for more than fifteen minutes on Philippine-American relations after the guest speaker that day—a writer of considerable background and knowledge—talked about the American sugar quota and its support of the oligarchy. The UP delegate was a nice fellow, but he merely repeated what everyone already knew, and Betsy waved her hand to interrupt him. When he paused, she simply annihilated him: “We all know how much you dislike American imperialism. Will you please tell us how we can dismantle it?”
He was flabbergasted, but Betsy had summed up our feelings, and we applauded her.
At dinner that evening—we always sat together by then—I told her, “I will not permit you to dispose of me like that.”
“Then,” she said, “don’t make stupid speeches.”
I told her about Father Jess, and she was surprised that I was living with him. Yes, she knew Father Jess—her mother came from the same town as his in Negros. Father Jess’s family was wealthy—in sugar like they were—but he was the black sheep, and the planters did not like him for taking the side of the seasonal workers.
“And on whose side are you?” I asked her pointedly.
“Don’t generalize,” she said curtly. “If not for this seminar, I would be in Negros now. I teach kindergarten for the children of our workers. They get paid very well, and they go to a hospital if they are sick.”
“I don’t believe you,” I told her bluntly.
She was angry. “Come with me,” she challenged. “I am not saying there is no injustice; all I am asking is that you not generalize.”
“Behind every great fortune is a great crime,” I said, remembering Balzac.
“We are not criminals,” she shouted.
We parted on that, the friendship turning awry.
When I got back to the Barrio, I asked Father Jess about her family, about their hacienda. He merely grinned and, two days later, a messenger arrived with an invitation for me to attend Betsy’s birthday party. In her note, she said, “Please don’t fail to come. You promised. Our drug addict will be there. I will be going to Negros and won’t be back till the beginning of the school year.”
“You are moving up in the world,” Father Jess said.
It was my first visit to the Park, and I tried to make myself presentable. I had thought of cutting my hair slightly shorter—it went down past my nape—but I liked it that way; trimming it would be too much of a sacrifice for Betsy. I decided just to shampoo it instead. I now had a barong that I had worn only twice and a new pair of dark, double-knit pants. My shoes were scuffed, but I inked them black then shined them.
At the kumbento door Tia Nena approved and Roger said I did not look like a Barrio boy anymore. I took the bus to Makati and then a taxi to the Park.
We drove through an acacia-shaded street and, at its end, the Park gate, where a blue uniformed guard stopped us. He looked suspiciously at me, then asked where I was going. I gave him the number on Tamarind Road. He noted down the taxi plate number, asked for the driver’s license, then told us to proceed. I cursed him under my breath.
Now I was here, in the gilded precinct of the oligarchy. Now it was all before me, around me—the ivy-covered walls—and through the grilled fences and opened gates, the truculent magnificence of wealth. These are the monuments to untrammeled greed, I knew, but they were lovely to look at, they were impressive in their pretension.
In one of our meetings we had talked about the Park—how convenient it was as a symbol of the oligarchy, how easily it could be taken over. Someone said it should be razed to the ground, but I had thought that was a stupid idea, all this wealth, all this comfort turning to ashes when we could, in some future time, have all of it, and these beautiful homes would then be vacation houses, the dachas of the proletariat. A demonstration against the Park was in the air; it certainly was in my mind. Such a possibility must have frightened its denizens, for, in the first big demonstration that year, they were so scared that they left their homes to be guarded by their hirelings while they trooped to the Makati hotels and waited for the demonstrations to ebb.
They need not have feared, for there was no demonstration against the Park. The demonstrations were in the crowded and poor districts of the city, in Quiapo, in Santa Cruz—places where the rich would not be. In retrospect, we missed an opportunity to confront our enemy. Were we afraid? We knew that, behind those high walls, there were guns against which we could not pit anything except our flesh and our numbers. Or if we were not scared, was it because our leaders were not really with the masse
s whom they said they championed? At heart, were they with our exploiters? It was so easy to demonstrate against the Americans—they were omnipresent for all to see, and they did not really fight back.
I could not explain why this was so, but I had seen it, what happened in Diliman, at the state university campus, when our cadres finally blockaded it and started manning the checkpoints. They did not stop the air-conditioned cars or demand that the passengers alight to be searched. No, they stopped the buses and the jeepneys instead, the public and dilapidated vehicles that carried the masses.
All through that tumultuous year, it was also the poor shopkeepers in Quiapo, Malate, and Ermita whose windows were stoned and whose stores were looted—not the big department stores in Makati, not the exclusive boutiques of the culture vultures of Pobres Park. I knew even then that there was something basically wrong with our demonstrations, and I would have been critical, but by then, to contest what we were doing was to confront the leadership. I was not prepared to do that, nor was I ready to be labeled a deviationist.
I got off two blocks from Betsy’s house, which was easy to find. It had a low adobe wall and its wide yard was planted to palm and dwarf mango trees. A guard let me in.
The stone driveway was lined with well-trimmed santan hedges that were in bloom, and the garage at the far end, which was open, contained three fat American cars. Betsy’s Volks was parked in the driveway.
It was one of those pleasant, balmy late afternoons, the sinking sun still shiny on the beige marble walls of the house, on the narra paneling and the blue-tile roof. The invitation was for five o’clock. I was thirty minutes late. I walked across the wide, red-tiled porch, and before the massive, ornately carved wooden door I was awkward and self-conscious. I pressed the doorbell.
It was Betsy in jeans as usual. “Happy birthday,” I said, but she did not shake my hand; instead, she stepped back, appraised me, then exclaimed, “Pepe, you are handsome!”
My ears burned, and before I could remonstrate she grasped my hand and drew me into the wide cavern that was the de Jesus living room, refreshingly cool in the April heat. The house had central air-conditioning.
The Samsons: Two Novels; (Modern Library) Page 46
