Francisco Jose - The Samsons - Two Novels

“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.

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.