Francisco Jose - The Samsons - Two Novels

He gave some money to the Brotherhood, so I must not antagonize him. I must be nice, polite. Meekly: “I don’t really know, sir.”

“Don’t ‘sir’ me,” he said in mock anger. “Really, I am not your teacher, and don’t let my age and my Ph.D. intimidate you.”

“Yes, sir.”

He laughed. “Well, if you cannot call me by my nickname, which is Juan, then a plain Mr. will do.”

“Yes, Mr. Puneta,” I had no intention of calling him Dr., not after the way Mrs. Hortenso had talked against him. “I have not given it any thought, but whatever assignment will be given to me, I will do it.”

“Excellent!” he enthused, cracking his knuckles again.

The bouillabaisse came. “This is the specialty of the Casino,” Puneta said. I remembered reading about it as a dish from Marseilles, a thick soup with pieces of fish, clams, crab — seafood chop suey — and I liked it.

Then he asked me about the former Huk commander in the barrio.

“He is writing,” I said. I held back, not sure whether I should tell him what Ka Lucio had told me, the handbook he was doing, the list of former members we should see — in Laguna, Tarlac, Pampanga, Nueva Ecija, Pangasinan, Bicol, even in far off Panay, in Mindoro, and in Mindanao. I did not know they had organized that far. I thought the Huk movement was confined to Central Luzon, particularly Tarlac and Pampanga.

“What is he writing?”

“His memoirs,” I lied. “He is very sick.”

“I should see him then,” Juan Puneta said. He seemed thoughtful. “I am sure he needs help.”

Our tripe came. I had expected us to discuss politics; I wanted to find out how well he knew Philippine communism — the subject of his Cambridge dissertation — and how intellectually sharp he was. I asked him if I could read his thesis, but he dismissed my request with an imperious wave of the hand. “Just one of those academic requirements,” he demurred. “Better read the new collection of essays that I have written; it will be published soon.” Then, without any warning, he asked if I had ever gone whoring.

I was caught off guard. I fumbled and could not reply. He shook a finger at me and grinned: “You seem more interested in politics than in sex.”

I expected him to proposition me then, but he continued blithely: “Revolutionaries should not have emotional entanglements with women. It is bad because they will then be vulnerable. You can always go whoring for release.”

I did not speak.

He suspected, perhaps, that I was not pleased. “I mean it,” he said. “It is one way by which you can get release. Are you twenty already, Pepito?”

“Twenty-four going on twenty-five,” I said.

“Well, you are at the height of your sexual powers. There is nothing unhealthy about whoring — if you are careful.”

“I have never tried, sir,” I said.

“Try it sometime,” he said. “It will keep your mind away from girls who will smother you.”

“I have not even—” I thought about what Lily had told me, “tried anything tamer — like the sauna and massage.”

He threw his head back and laughed. “You must be a Puritan, then, working with that priest in Tondo.”

“No, sir,” I said, “I certainly am not.”

He shook his head and went on grinning: “Well, saunas, that is one place I have never been to.”

How easily he lied. “But try going to one, find out which is best, then someday”—his eyes twinkled—“we can go together.”

Much, much later I thought about the bizarre meeting and wondered why Juan Puneta had wanted to see me. He had talked about women, he was bragging about his techniques, how necessary it was to have women under male control. He had a very extensive collection of pornography, he said, which I must see some time. But more than that, I must visit him at his home, and he made a date right there — a week from Friday, at nine in the morning; I should come to his office and we would go target-shooting — no, not in a cat house, at his home, he had a shooting range there. He also collected guns and I must learn how to shoot and shoot well if I am going to be in the vanguard of the Brotherhood. As a matter of fact, he said, if I wished, we could go to his house that very moment. But I told him I had classes in the afternoon, and it was past three.

He signed the chits, asked if I wanted anything other than the small glass of anisado ‡—my first drink of liqueur — I downed it in one gulp and burned my throat. The sangria had gone to work, the anisado , too, and I was voluble and careless. No, I did not want anything more. I should go straight to school; our finals were at hand and I did not want to lose my scholarship. If not for this I would go with him target-shooting, not only in his house.

He laughed heartily, took me to his car, and drove me off to Recto. As we neared the university and its traffic, he took some fifty-peso bills out of his wallet and handed them to me. I did not want to take them, but he thrust them into my pocket. “It’s not for you,” he said, grinning, “for the Brotherhood. Go to saunas — look for the best, then be my teacher. And after that the target practice.”

I did not feel that I should tell Professor Hortenso what had transpired — the talk about sex techniques and target-shooting — it was too incredible to recount. But at least Puneta did not proposition me. When I got to my class, I counted the money — it was exactly five hundred pesos. It was the second time I had that much money, and for sure, within the week, Roger and the boys would have another feast in Panciteria Asia or some place fancier. And maybe, at long last, I would also be able to visit Lily where she worked.

The Colonial is in a three-story boxlike building with a red neon sign in Gothic on its facade. A blue-uniformed guard stood by the ornately filigreed door. He opened it as I got out of the taxi and greeted me, “Good afternoon, sir.” I stepped into a red-carpeted lobby. Giant shell lamps illumined the reception area, and though it was only half past two in the afternoon, it already seemed like dusk, for all the heavy maroon drapes were drawn.

The reception desk was crowded with business types. It was rush hour, as many of the “guests” had arrived from their lunches in nearby restaurants.

I walked up to the desk after the crowd had thinned. Two girls were manning it and one asked without smiling, “What is it, sir? Executive or VIP?” Lily had told me the Executive cubicles were more expensive, but what did I care? I had Puneta’s money.

“Executive,” I said. I took one fifty-peso bill and handed it to her, then asked, “Is seventeen busy?”

She looked at the listing before her and said, “No.” She picked up a microphone and called: “Seventeen, ready.” A boy behind the desk handed me a key with a big, white plastic holder.

“Third floor, sir,” the girl said.

I went up the carpeted flight; at the landing a boy asked if I would like to shower and steam first. He guessed, I suppose, that this was my first time in the Colonial. “What is your number, sir?”

I showed my key, and he guided me to the cubicle — so dim I could not see anything. “I am blind here,” I said. The boy laughed; he opened a cabinet at a corner and in a sudden flood of yellow light, they jumped up — the low platform with a foam rubber mattress, an extra towel, rubber slippers encased in plastic.

“You put your things here, sir,” the boy explained, pointing to the cabinet. “Lock it and bring your key. The shower and steam bath are in front of the door where you came in.”

I thanked him, then sat on the pad. I closed the cabinet with the lightbulb, and the room was thrown into darkness again. I took off my shoes but did not strip; I had no intention of taking a shower, much less a massage. The door had a small glass window, but a piece of cardboard had been taped over it so that I had some privacy. The door, however, had no latch and could be opened at any time; the panels between the cubicles did not go all the way down to the floor; there was a narrow slit between.