Francisco Jose - The Samsons - Two Novels

“The first,” he said, “is that while violence is necessary, it is not the only instrument for change. There are others just as good. But you must accept violence — you cannot begin to build until you have destroyed. You don’t know love until you have hated.”

I knew that and aloud, “Yes, yin-yang.”

“What did you say?”

He did not know what I was talking about. “Night and day. Yes, Ka Lucio, I understand.”

“No, it is more than that,” he said. “You must destroy the rotten foundations to build a new edifice. You must know how to identify and hate injustice before you learn to value, above all, justice.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Your enemy,” he said coldly, “is the rich. You must be able to tell them that to their faces. And when you point the gun between their eyes, you must do it without passion — or compassion. Do it as duty, do it to survive.”

I thought of Betsy, my Betsy, her burgis parents. I could not do what Ka Lucio was saying. But Toto— Remembering him brought the old anger back in all its primal force.

“And to survive,” Ka Lucio went on, “you have to be cunning. Know human character. The evil around you. The poor are not saints, as you can see. You will see perfidy,” he was emphatic. “You will see it again and again until it has become so common that you think the whole world is against you. And you will not only be confused, you will also be angry at what you consider your poor judgment. You will see an enemy behind every rock, you will suspect every smile, every gift — and this is not as it should be. For in spite of the perfidy that may surround you, there is always goodness and even sacrifice, sometimes from those you least expect it. There will be men who will give their lives not just for the purposes you believe in, but for you — for you personally — not so much in friendship but in loyalty.”

“How will I recognize betrayal?”

“You cannot. Nor will you be warned, unless by some intuition you know that something is going to happen. Feelings are easy to hide. It is not like poverty, which you cannot hide. And when it happens the first time, you will be so surprised it happened at all. It will take some time for you to recover from it, that is if the treachery has not disposed of you physically.”

“What makes men traitors?”

Ka Lucio shook his head. “How can I tell? A hundred reasons, as many as there are men and causes and leaders. It could be envy, money, a woman, pride, hurt feelings, or just plain human cussedness.”

“Tell me about the first time it happened to you,” I asked.

Ka Lucio’s thin face darkened. He shook his head slowly as if wanting to dam the flood of memories that had come. Then, almost in a whisper: “It is too painful to talk about,” he said. “In that ambush, if we had not been more alert, we would all have been killed. But my wife was not so fortunate.” Again, silence. “How did they know we were going to take that route, on that day, at that hour? It was not luck. At least a dozen men knew we were going to pass that way and at least half of them were not with us. So, if you are to lead, lead alone. The general idea you must relay to everyone, but the details you must keep to yourself.”

“But that is so basic, Ka Lucio,” I said.

“Yes, but we forget the basic things. We become overconfident; we think we have done right. It is the details, the small ones, that get us.”

“How did you lose your caution?”

“You live with people. You share the same dangers every day. You think you can trust everyone, you become vulnerable. You start pouring yourself out. You are flattered — oh, not the obvious kind, but small things that imply you are doing well and you are loved. You are the source of all wisdom, of all hope. Without you the whole effort crumbles. The salvation of the group — no, the whole country — depends on you. These make good wine and soon you are drunk. Not so much in believing these things, but knowing that you are esteemed. Respected, ha! That is the final accolade. We really do not look for love from people; we look for respect. Love, that is reserved for the gods. Those who are loved can expect to be hurt and be forgiven their mistakes. That is the nature of love. But those we respect — they are harsher, more demanding. We lose respect for a man and that man is dead. It is enough, I think, that we are believed.”

“How do you avoid deception?”

Ka Lucio was silent again. “I do not know,” he finally said. “I suppose there is no way one can avoid it. But there is one way by which one can make deception and perfidy not the end, but the beginning. I think that with our brothers we should be sincere. Love and respect everyone so they will have little cause for anger. This means looking at their problems in their minutest and protecting them from the embarrassments that come with their shortcomings. Be a strict disciplinarian but compassionate in the dispensation of punishment.”

“You cannot do that,” I said. “Punishment is always harsh, or it isn’t punishment.”

“But one can forgive.”

“And lose in the end.”

“No,” Ka Lucio said grimly. “That was what the Communists did, and they lost. I was against discipline without compassion, but they said no. They executed one of my commanders for being away from his post — iron discipline, they said. And do you know what he did that they knew but could not forgive? He went to his village to visit his wife who was going to have a baby — their first. It was unfortunate that in his absence there was an encounter. They also executed one of my aides. He was short of funds, it is true, but what they did not consider was that he had given the money to a brother whose wife was going to have an operation. You have to know the details and look at them with your heart, not with a book of rules.”

“Still, you lost in the end,” I insisted. “Like the Colorums, maybe you believed the entire country would rise with you. The same with the Sakdals *—they believed they would also have the whole nation with them merely because most of our people were poor like them.”

“We did not win that particular struggle,” Ka Lucio said, “but as you very well know, we have formed a continuity, a tradition. We did not really lose. We were just humiliated. And I will tell you why they were able to batter our defenses and sap our strength. They used our ideas, our words, to win the people who were our best friends. No, they did not defeat us; it is painful for me to admit and count one by one what we inflicted on ourselves. They had only to offer a little reward, the promise of some land no bigger than a man’s palm. They only had to come with a few artesian wells, a few roads, and a few tins of sardines — and the people were bought. You see, we offered them less in their eyes, although in their minds they knew it was more. But what is a man’s life that would be sacrificed for them? Honor, courage, loyalty — these are all very good, but they cannot buy a ganta † of rice, and that is what they needed. Not beautiful words for their stomachs nor beautiful thoughts for their brains. A Mexican — Zapata, I think — once said, ‘Better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.’ You’d be surprised how many would rather eat gruel on their knees.”

Back at the kumbento , I mulled over what Ka Lucio had said. Always, Betsy came to mind, her defenselessness when I said “I am the masses.” Was she the enemy? How could I ever think of her that way? She was in the same demonstration as Toto and me; she could have been killed like two other girls who were in that same demonstration. There were many questions I wanted to ask her, but I kept them to myself, flattering myself that she wanted me for what I am. She was the only one, aside from Toto, who knew Antonio Samson was my father; was she really convinced that he had committed suicide? And if she was, would she want to have a malas in her family, too? She would be a masochist if that was what she wanted. I had to see her again, my arms ached to hold her again. She was the dream I could never afford; if she gave herself to me, it would be charity.