Francisco Jose - The Samsons - Two Novels

“I need prompt replies,” White Sidewall said, smiling. I turned to my left; there was a man in a black T-shirt and denim pants standing there — big and so well built he could have been a professional wrestler. I glanced at his powerful hands. He was no karatista; his knuckles had not hardened.

I knew then that I would be tortured. I started to think of ways by which I would be able to meet it, react to every blow, every turn of the screw as if the end had come — that would perhaps make them less violent. I decided the Brotherhood was not worth dying for; I would tell them everything I knew. After all, I was not involved in any conspiracy.

The questioning continued evenly. White Sidewall was taking his time, even joking with his companions while I sat there, listening to their ribald jokes. “I suppose you are not a virgin, Mr. Samson?”

I shook my head.

Laughter from all three. “Well,” White Sidewall again, “our Berdugo”—he thrust a chin at Tarzan behind me—“has a preference for virgins, male or female.” Again, peals of laughter.

They did not wear watches, so I did not know what time it was. Outside it was light, but in the room, with but one window open, it was quite dim. Someone brought in their lunches on tin trays, and they ate slowly, enjoying their fried chicken and their noodle soup. Not even out of politeness did they say, let us eat. When they were through, they smoked, lifted their feet onto the table and comported themselves as if I were not there.

The questioning, it seemed, was over. They were sleepy after the meal, so they took me back to the room. I was sure now that the building was some kind of office that had not been furnished, that we were far from houses. I lay on the floor and shut my eyes, tried to reconstruct the questions, their implications. It was obvious that they had trailed me, they knew where I often went, and they had knowledge of the organization. It was useless lying. But the direction of their questioning puzzled me. What were they really after? Were they afraid that the Brotherhood was powerful enough to start a revolution? That was Toto’s fondest wish, the pinnacle of his aspirations, but it was sheer fantasy.

And the scream. Were they holding others and were they going to soften me up first before they turned on the screws? How long would it take? It was my second night. I had a very late breakfast, but there was no water, no food in the room.

My head ached where Tarzan had hit me, though there was no swelling. The blow was not intended to render me unconscious, only to instruct me in the futility of not cooperating with them. And that was what I wanted to do, if only I knew the answers to their questions!

In the beginning I had thought that hunger could be avoided or at least escaped if I went to sleep. But I couldn’t do it; it was not just the mosquitoes. I did not know what to expect next, what new pain was to be inflicted on me. Perhaps this was part of the torture itself, and realizing that, I tried to think of those things I enjoyed most. Yet dark thoughts kept intruding, I remembered Betsy, my dear Betsy, her face, imagined the smell of her hair, her Tabu, the feel of her skin, her cheeks. She was in my mind when I finally fell asleep.

It was early morning when I was roused. The door was open, and Tarzan was there, looking as menacing as always.

“You will clean the toilet,” he said. “So take your clothes off.”

He undid my handcuffs and, for a moment I was tempted to strike at him, but there would be others outside, and they would not hesitate to use their guns.

I carried my pail with my own excrement of the day before, and went with him to the toilet at the far end of the hall. Other plastic pails were there, waiting to be emptied into the bowl.

As I bent over, emptying my pail into the bowl, something warm splashed on my head and all over me. I turned, then felt nausea; I was covered with feces, my face, my back. Tarzan had emptied one of the pails over me, and he now looked at his obscene handiwork, his eyes aglow with malice.

He laughed, and now, White Sidewall and the others came and looked at me. I was too shocked to react, and my first impulse was to rush out of the toilet and embrace them, rub the feces on their bodies, but that would only anger them and make them more severe. I knew that this was premeditated, to humiliate me, to humble me.

Tarzan threw me a mop and told me to start cleaning my mess. “You young radicals,” he muttered, “you are full of shit.”

I emptied the pails into the bowl, showered once, twice, thrice until there was not a trace of smell on me; I washed my jockey shorts, too, and was about to put it on, still wet, but Tarzan, who was watching all the while through the open door, said I should get out naked.

They marched me back to the room where they had interrogated me the day before. I did not try to cover my nakedness with the still wet shorts that I carried; I was weak from the work, from what had happened, and I could not endure pain.

It was the same bare cubicle, but this time a big wooden chair stood close to the wall. The windows above were shuttered, and the room was humid and warm, smelling of paint and cigarette smoke.

On the floor was a piece of machinery with handles and electric wires extending from it. They motioned for me to sit in the chair, and it was then that Tarzan became all efficiency; with canvas straps, he fastened my arms and chest to the back of the chair, spread my legs and tied them to the legs of the chair. I looked at White Sidewall, at the other two, but they seemed uninterested while Tarzan did his job.

White Sidewall examined the straps. Satisfied that they were secure, he spoke to me. “You know, Mr. Samson, we did not like your answers yesterday; you were not telling the truth. Now we have to be more careful.”

“Sir,” I said, looking at Tarzan, who was checking the contraption and its wires. “Will you be specific? What question did I not answer truthfully?”

White Sidewall ignored my question. “Now, please give us the correct answers. We know that a shipment of guns has landed on the Pacific coast, close to the town of Baler. These guns are for you. Can you tell us where these guns are now and who is in charge of distributing them?”

I did not know of any arms shipment, or how one would be distributed. “I don’t know what you are talking about,” I said.

White Sidewall nodded toward Tarzan, who returned to me with the wires; at their ends were tongs, and he attached them to my scrotum. They pinched a little. I realized then that the machine was some generator or transformer, such as what they used in the signal corps of the army. Tarzan squatted before the box his hands on the knobs.

“All right then, who is in charge of recruitment in the Northern Quezon sector?”

My legs were weightless and my throat ached. “Sir,” I said, “I don’t know. I really don’t know. I will tell you all about the Directorate. I did that yesterday, the members, who they are, where they live — anything that I know, I will tell you. But people in Quezon Province … I don’t know anyone.”

White Sidewall nodded at Tarzan again, and slowly the man started turning a knob. It came like a sharp claw tearing at my genitals, and the pain was so severe I gasped for breath, grasped the arms of the chair. Tarzan turned the knob off. His face was wreathed with smiles. Now he stood up and took the tongs off my scrotum, then he started fingering my penis. His fingers smoothed the head caressingly, all the while his dark, pimpled face was upturned to me, grinning. I looked at the sharply burning eyes and immediately realized that he was a homosexual. He returned to his seat before the infernal machine.

“We are experts, Mr. Samson, in extracting information,” White Sidewall assured me. “So please don’t make it difficult for us and for yourself. You have seen how considerate we can be. You had a good breakfast yesterday, and we will return you to the Barrio, I promise you, with not a wound on your body, or with any sign that would mean we did not do our job with delicadeza. That is the word, right? So why don’t you help us and we will do everything for you in return?”