I shook my head. This was something Professor Hortenso had not told me.
“All the Punetas,” Betsy was saying, “since way back, have sent their children to Europe at the age of puberty so they would not intermarry with mongrels. Here, they are Spaniards, but in Spain, they call themselves Filipinos knowing that being a Filipino there opens doors. That is what Papa says. At least we—This is our home, Pepe. Even if my parents … they are so burgis. So very burgis!”
“They cannot do anything about that,” I said, trying to sympathize with her.
She did not seem to hear. “Something in me rebels against them,” she continued softly, “even against myself. Believe me. But I love them, Pepe. I really do!”
“We cannot be but what we are,” I said.
The wistful, somber face, the slow shake of her head. “Please don’t misunderstand. It is not guilt feelings. I like being comfortable, and I am happy that I am, as you would say, on the other side of the fence. But I also know what is on the other side. It is so easy to say that I did not make this world the way it is, that my responsibility is first to myself, and with this I would then be able to justify everything. But this also means that I have to be blind, and deaf. And these I don’t want to be. But what can I do, Pepe?”
“Be true,” I said. Platitudes, clichés. “I love my mother, too, but I don’t like her pushing me on to college, being somebody I don’t want to be.” I meant every word, and at that moment, I wondered what Mother was doing, knowing how it was in Cabugawan at this time of day, the sun bright on the leaves of palms and bananas, the day alive with the grunt of hogs, the mooing of carabaos. “Still,” I continued, “whatever she did, whatever she does, you don’t know how much I love her!”
She bent down. “My mother wants to protect me—from you … something like bad luck.”
“The poor are always bad luck,” I said harshly.
“Pepe, please do not be angry. I would not be telling you these things if …” she paused, picked at her omelet. “It had something to do with Carmen Villa, with how she died. Do you know what happened to her?”
“No,” I said, “and I do not care.”
“She became insane and she just, well, just died slowly, not even a year after her husband died. Mama, she says Antonio Samson … he committed suicide—that was what Carmen Villa believed, that was what she told Mama. What a waste … what a waste! Do you know how he died?”
It all came rushing back. “Yes,” I said, almost choking on the word. “I stayed in the room where he had lived for years, used the very bed where he had slept. And every day I would look out of the window at those infernal tracks where he was killed. And I could imagine him lying there in several pieces, I could imagine him …” I could not speak anymore as angry thoughts swooped into my mind.
“If only he were alive,” Betsy said, “I would like to go to him, ask him for help. And explain. I want to belong, Pepe, to help. To do what is right. I would tell him that the ilustrado class need not be condemned. I would tell him not to generalize. And because he was such a brilliant man, he would understand, he would know.”
“Betsy,” I said, raising my voice so that the waiters turned to us. She was startled and I was taken aback at the vehemence of my feelings. I gripped the table’s edge, bent over to her, and said calmly, “Antonio Samson, he did me, he did my mother wrong. He was not my uncle, Betsy. Antonio Samson was my father.”
* Djahe: Ashamed.
Down with the Burgis
I decided never to see Betsy again, to avoid her if she came to the Barrio, so I wrote her a letter, worked over it one night:
Dear Miss de Jesus—, [she would immediately get the irony of that greeting]
How I wish there were words adequate enough to express my gratitude for your kindness in inviting me to your house and to that French restaurant. I want to thank you, too, for visiting me here in the Barrio, for trying to explain things as they are. I know that there are situations [like ours] about which we can do nothing; I know that oil and water do not mix—it is in their nature and these are what I [not you, you really want to go against your mama and papa] must live with. There is, therefore, no point in my wanting to see you again [although God knows, I want to see you again, your pretty face … your lips, how nice you look when you pout! Hell, am I falling in love with you? It is Lily whom I love, or maybe Lucy. It is true then, men are really polygamous—bastards that we are] but I hope, in the foreseeable future [ha, you are an optimist, after all], under different circumstances, I will be able to meet you again. I do not want to say good-bye—there is no good-bye between friends. [Hypocrite, you don’t want to be just friends with her; you want to slip your hand up her panties!] You know sociology so you understand what I am really trying to say. I am deeply hurt [for once, I am saying the truth], more than you will ever know, but it is enough that I have known you, your graciousness, your friendship.
I kept it for some time and decided that I could do a Spanish version of it later. I was learning quickly.
By June I could converse a bit in colloquial Spanish with Tia Nena. She occupied the room next to the one Toto and I had shared and had heard us talking. I suppose there was little we had discussed that she did not know. She came with Father Jess to the Barrio and was called Tia Nena from the very beginning by everyone, and that was what I called her, too, although Lola would have been more appropriate, for she was in her seventies. But she was still sprightly and hardworking. Father Jess had asked her to stop washing his clothes—Lily’s mother could do it—but she did it just the same, even Toto’s clothes and mine, which had embarrassed me no end, so that once I changed, I washed my clothes immediately.
I never got to ask Father Jess if it was true that he salvaged Tia Nena from the Psychopathic Hospital in Mandaluyong; but if she was insane, it could not have been a serious dementia, for there was nothing in her behavior that was unusual, nothing but her reluctance to talk about herself, her mumbling before her stove about her sons. “My Luis … my Victor …” over and over again.
I went to her once and asked, “Tia, what were you saying? Victor? Luis?”
She turned abruptly to me, a faraway look in her eyes. “I had two sons,” she said, in a voice that was almost sepulchral. “One was white, the other was black …”
“I have two hands,” I tried to humor her, “the left and the right.”
She went back to her cooking as if I were not there at all.
Toto’s death had affected her. Sometimes she came into our room, looked at the things in Toto’s cabinet, and shook her head. Father Jess told me to use Toto’s clothes—we were, after all, about the same height—but I could not, I simply could not. So one day, Father Jess put them in a cardboard box and said he would give them away, but Tia Nena retrieved a shirt, a pair of pants, and together with Toto’s pictures and notebooks, she put them in a plastic bag with naphthalene balls, then sealed everything in a milk carton, and put them atop Toto’s empty cabinet.
When she was young, Tia Nena had worked for a Spanish family as a maid. Her conjugation was correct. She knew English, too, though she seldom spoke it. I was learning Spanish from her better than in school; I was sure that, by the opening of the school year, Mr. Ben de Jesus could no longer insult me to my face.
Being the new managing editor of the school paper meant an increase in pay—two hundred pesos a month. My partial scholarship was also made full; my grades had been very good, and now I started researching Philippine history, even going to original sources in Spanish. I went to see Professor Hortenso more often, not only for his books but for advice. I did not, however, tell the world that I had crammed on my Spanish. I was never a show-off. What could I be proud of? I was much, much older than most of my classmates—a sophomore at twenty-four, I should have a degree by now—and it embarrassed me no end when I thought of Betsy. She was a senior, she would be graduating at the end of the school year, and I would be there for another two years.
I did not s
ee her for two months. I would not bring her malas—bad luck—like her mother had surmised, the way my father had brought malas to Carmen Villa. When she came back, however, we were simply fated to see each other again. I was now a member of the Educational Committee of the Brotherhood; Professor Hortenso was its chairman. We had to meet twice a month, often at Hortenso’s house—just eight of us—not only to map out the information campaign for our growing membership but also to counter the now insidious propaganda of rival youth organizations that envied us, and the fact that thirty-three of our members had already succumbed to Metrocom and police guns. We kept this roster in all our publications to illustrate how committed we were.
A week after my appointment as managing editor, Professor Hortenso invited me to lunch. Mrs. Hortenso had cooked goat caldereta and I felt guilty, eating like a hog because it was very good; it may have been for their supper, too. “But there is more, Pepe,” she said when I hesitated after the third helping. She stood up, went to the kitchen, and brought out the pan, which was, indeed, still half full.
“It is my favorite, Mrs. Hortenso,” I complimented her. “And you cook very well. The only other cook I know who can do it well is Tia Nena in the kumbento.”
“I always knew priests ate well,” she said. “Maybe you should add Juan Puneta to your list of caldereta cooks. He said once, didn’t he, Dad,” she asked her husband, “that his caldereta is excellent.”
Professor Hortenso continued eating. “You don’t have to believe everything he says,” he said under his breath.
“Ha!” Mrs. Hortenso exclaimed. “Look who’s talking. You believe everything he says.”
Professor Hortenso looked up from his plate and glared at his wife. I did not want to witness a family quarrel, but I could not stand up and leave.
Mrs. Hortenso was undaunted. She turned to me, wanting me to be her ally. “I hope you do not misunderstand, Pepe,” she said. “I believe in these things you are doing, else I would not want to live here,” she cast a condescending look around her, the unpainted and grimy adobe walls, the naked lightbulb above us, the cracked cement floor, the cheap Binondo furniture. “He finished with honors, you know—the first Filipino to do so at Cambridge. He—You know, we are not poor. And he was offered a good job here with a British company—old-boy ties … fraternities, that is what you call them here.”
“Please, honey,” Professor Hortenso said, “don’t talk like this.”
“But he refused. He refused help from his parents. He refused to teach even in the State University where he would be getting twice what he is getting now. Teach at the diploma mill, that is where he feels he is needed. And I agree with him, of course. Over there at UP, those pampered rich, they do not need an education.…”
“Honey,” Professor Hortenso protested again, “please, don’t make us look like martyrs.”
“But we are,” she fairly screamed at him. “Living here; the kids not going to the best schools, you working yourself to death—and that bastard Puneta taking all the credit for the articles and speeches you write for him!”
“Please,” Hortenso raised his voice, “this has gone far enough.”
I was now all attention for Mrs. Hortenso, for her mobile, pretty face, the eyes flashing fire. “Pepe, do you know?”
I shook my head.
“Don’t listen to my wife, Pepe,” Professor Hortenso told me, a wan smile on his face. “She is tired and …”
“I am not tired,” she hissed at him. “And I am not angry at you or at Pepe. Here,” she thrust the plate of caldereta toward me; I took another helping.
“It was he who wrote Puneta’s doctoral dissertation. And what did he get?”
Professor Hortenso flung his arms in the air in a gesture of futility.
“Nothing. Nothing! And Puneta promises and promises. And what does he give the Brotherhood? Why, my husband gives more of his own money, his time. I give more …”
“Don’t brag, honey,” Professor Hortenso said.
“I am not,” she said, glaring at him again. “I am just stating the truth. How much have you spent for those pamphlets? Remember how I went to Papa and got money so that you could have the last pamphlet released from the printer? Remember?”
He had given up; he merely smiled and let his wife speak on. “A beggar who gives five centavos gives more than the millionaire who gives five hundred pesos!”
Professor Hortenso looked at his watch and rose. “Pepe, we will be late,” he said. Our meeting was at three, but it was only one o’clock. I stood up reluctantly, for I wanted to hear more about Juan Puneta. I would ask Lily when I got back, and this time, I would ask for details.
Mrs. Hortenso, now calm and serene, followed us to the door and dutifully kissed her husband on the cheek. “Dad,” she said as we stepped out, “it is going to rain.”
A darkening sky, clouds that obscured the sun since morning. We were both optimists. We walked to the boulevard to save fifteen centavos because from there we could get a jeepney that would go directly to Taft. We had time and Professor Hortenso wanted to talk.
“I hope you will keep to yourself what my wife told you,” he said.
“Is that what you want, Professor?”
He nodded. Then, after sometime, he continued wearily, “I have been bothered by people like Puneta in a very profound way. You see, he belongs to the oligarchy, but he is educated, he has liberal ideas, and is willing to help. He has helped.…”
Silence. We were nearing the boulevard. We would have to cross and walk a little distance to Central Market and get our jeepney there.
“I know it could be very wrong, that he is merely using us,” he said pensively. “There is enough warning, enough literature on the subject. You know, the most impressive is your uncle’s book, particularly the last chapter.”
I knew what else he had to say, and I was no longer listening. The elite, the masses not making revolution, collaborating with those in power …
We crossed on the overpass. “But we have to be pragmatic,” he continued firmly. “We cannot say we will reject their money because it is not pure, because it is tainted. Besides, we get to know their weaknesses so that they will not subvert the revolution as they did the last time. The important thing is that we—you and I—we know. If we are careful, we will not be fooled as they were fooled in the past!”
We got off at Taft and walked toward the bay, but as his wife had warned, it had started to drizzle, and the drizzle turned into driving rain that clattered like pebbles on the tin roofs and marquees. We ran up Herran and stopped in a souvenir shop on Mabini, where we hoped we could get a taxi to Roxas Boulevard, to the Puneta Building.
When we got there finally, we were half an hour late and dripping wet. I had not expected Betsy to be a member of the Educational Committee, and when she met us at the foyer and shook my hand, Professor Hortenso smiled. “Well, it is good to know that you know one of your committee members.”
We went up in the elevator to the eighth floor, Betsy asking me in a whisper why I did not write to her; I told her I did but had not mailed it.
When we got to the office of Puneta—one of several—she whispered again. “After this I want to talk with you. Let us go some place where we can be alone.”
The rest were already there, drinking coffee and eating neatly chopped sandwiches of cheese and ham. I was still full of caldereta, but I ate again.
Juan Puneta, tall, mestizo, always cracking his knuckles, welcomed us; he was particularly warm to Professor Hortenso, whom he called Nonong, embracing the professor as if he were a long lost brother.
The meeting did not interest me, but I was fascinated by Puneta, by his mannerisms, and I tried to find out what in his very masculine features was the clue to his homosexuality. I could not find any. He moved about with machismo and decision. In spite of his lips, there was nothing effeminate about his voice, his intonation. He dressed elegantly, but that was because he could afford it. His fingernails were not manicured.
No jewelry adorned his fingers, just a simple gold wedding band. Had Lily made a mistake?
I noticed Puneta looking at me and I turned away. We were talking about reaching more people, spreading the base of the Brotherhood, even making alliances with other groups.
Betsy was taking notes and putting in a word or two, but I was soon far away, thinking of my meeting with her parents and wondering where we would go tonight. I looked at her, bent over her pad, at her finely molded face and at her full breasts under her formless katsa blouse.
Puneta snatched me from my reverie: “Pepito Samson—he has not contributed anything yet. I am sure he knows a lot, what with his background, where he lives.”
Professor Hortenso turned to me. “Well, Pepe?”
I must have looked bewildered.
“Any suggestion you can make about broadening our base? Reaching more young people? You organized that chapter in Tondo; surely you must have ideas,” Puneta pressed.
I did not have to think; I remembered Ka Lucio. For a month now he had not been working. He had tuberculosis, as Father Jess and all of us had suspected, and was at home, resting … on what?
“I think we can learn from the past,” I said. “We have a neighbor, Ka Lucio. He was Commander Puti—he is sick now—spent twelve years in jail. He knows a lot. We can learn from him and establish links with men like him, and his followers, and the children of his followers. They are ready to join us. We have, I think, been committing mistakes, like emphasizing ideology and politics when we should be winning members, winning them on the basis of their needs. As for education, it is the leadership that needs it, but as Ka Lucio said, the Huk movement was strongest when it was facing an enemy, a real enemy, whether it was the Japanese or the Constabulary that pillaged the villages.”
“We should also be able to identify those enemies who are lurking in the background, who wear the masks of friends, who steal our souls with kindness or with promises,” Professor Hortenso spoke evenly. “I am, of course, referring to the Americans—just in case you have forgotten.”
The Samsons: Two Novels; (Modern Library) Page 48
