Francisco Jose - The Samsons - Two Novels

I go back to Tondo, my accursed present, my consecrated future. I have learned so much here and I know myself now as I never did before. My needs were so basic — a stomach, for instance, that had to be filled. Contemplation is a luxury that could waylay and lull me into forgetting that my hunger was just a symptom of a far greater need … all those we emblazoned in the streets, our placards crying for justice, for revolution — they had sounded so hopelessly unreal. Not anymore.

Beyond the houses the sea slammed on the seawall, bringing with it the perennial stench of oil and rotting fish and all the accumulated smells of the cesspool that the bay had become. In the late evenings when the bray of traffic had died down and the living noises had been stilled, I sometimes went out to the narrow churchyard, the night arched above me, alive with the pungencies of the swamp and above the narrow ring of rooftops, the sky — how serene and distant the stars. It brought to mind how it was in the fields of Rosales at night when I was alone in that thatched farmer’s shed, surrounded by the dark that pulsed and heaved around me with the scent of grass, the crickets alive in the folds of the earth. It seemed then that I could hear my heart, my thoughts as they took shape, and it seemed, too, that there was peace — lasting and deep — only because I was alone.

Now I was alone again, surrounded by these melancholy shapes, these decrepit lives. I would always be alone, I could rely on no one but myself. A poet said that the strongest man is he who stands alone — but there was no strength in me, only this wanton disregard for time that would bring me nothing but unhappiness, a desolation of the spirit in which there would be no resurrection, no green shoot to nourish so that it would grow, as the bamboo grows. I would die, but this was no longer so horrible a fate, an abomination to be feared, for at least I would be able to do something with my life and not just breathe the foul air or fill to overflowing this pit that is my stomach.

On the day before the Misa de Gallo *started Juan Puneta came to Tondo. He had left messages everywhere, in the kumbento , at the office of the school paper, at Professor Hortenso’s house, and once his driver came saying he wanted to see me. I had made excuses, but now there was no avoiding him. Father Jess received him as I was in the sacristy, helping Roger and the members of the Brotherhood string the colored lightbulbs for the church front.

“Ah, Pepito,” he said, embracing me like a brother he had not seen in ages. He was in a khaki safari suit. He smelled of cologne.

“I have wanted to see you for some time now. Where have you been?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” I said, “I have been working hard — you see, my scholarship …”

“I still would like very much to take you to the house. We have so many things to discuss.”

“But I have work to do. We are finishing the Christmas decorations and …”

“It is all right, Pepe,” Father Jess interrupted me. “Roger can take care of that.”

I turned to Father Jess, but he could not read my urgent signals, and having no more excuses, I sighed as Father Jess walked us to the door.

“He will be back before lunch, Padre,” Juan Puneta said.

A blue Mercedes 280 SE was parked on the street and it was Juan Puneta who drove.

“I have so many things to tell you,” he gushed. “But first, tell me how you have been. I hear that the next demonstration will really be big. Are you prepared for it — I mean for the violence that will surely come?”

“We are now prepared,” I said.

He was silent. “What about the things that the Huk commander was going to write?”

“Ka Lucio?”

He nodded.

“He was murdered,” I said. “Didn’t you know?”

He looked surprised.

“The police came, asked questions. It was not even mentioned in the newspapers. Who would care for an ex-Huk commander in the first place?”

“I hope you learned a lot from him,” Puneta said. We were going over Del Pan bridge and soon we would be in another country, the antiseptic, manicured boulevard, then the golden ghetto of Makati.

“Nothing. Nothing,” I lied. I had asked Cora after Ka Lucio’s funeral if there was anything he had written that I could read. But there was nothing; she knew of the ruled pad where he was writing, but it could not be found. We searched his bookcase, his desk, but it was not there.

“It is sad, very sad,” Puneta kept repeating and cracking his knuckles as we paused in the traffic.

Puneta’s house was at the other end of the Park, shaded by giant acacia trees on whose trunks clambered vines and orchids. At the gate he got out and unlocked the door, then we drove in. The grounds were surrounded by a tall ivy-covered wall — an expanse of green, well-trimmed grass, hedges. At the far end was a pool, and still farther, a stable.

Puneta parked in the driveway. No one was in the house, not a guard, not a maid. “The maids’ day off and they will not be back till five in the afternoon. As for my wife, she has gone with the kids to visit her mother. They will not be back till this afternoon. Which is very good — we can talk without interruption. Then we can go down and shoot, have a meal. I cook, you know. You can help. And someday, you should try my caldereta. ”

This is it. This is where I pay back the five hundred.

We went to the kitchen where he prepared two cups of coffee. It was nothing like Tia Nena’s cubbyhole; it was airy and as wide as the whole kumbento itself; on one side, an array of stoves, ovens on the wall. On another, cabinets, a giant freezer, and a refrigerator. The breakfast nook as he called it adjoined the kitchen, actually an antiseptic-looking dining room by itself.

“I was not able to report to you on the money you gave me,” I said. “I gave three hundred pesos to Cora, Ka Lucio’s niece, for the funeral. I spent some of it myself — and, yes, I have found the best sauna in town.” I was watching him, looking for a sign that would betray him, but his ivory mestizo face was bereft of expression. “I have been to three of them, but the best is in Makati. The Colonial.”

Not even a flicker of interest.

“We should go there one day then. Now, if possible, but it does not really open till noon,” I continued.

“That’s interesting,” he merely commented. “Yes, we should go there. But that is pretty tame, Pepito. We can go to another place where there are girls — as well as boys.”

Now the proposition.

“It is quite expensive … but money is no problem. If you want girls. Or boys.”

I smiled. “I prefer girls,” I said. “As for the boys—”

“Are you willing to try?”

I was about to answer, but the phone jangled. He picked it up and said, “Hello,” then he spoke in Spanish. “Yes, but wait, there is someone here with me. I will answer you in the bedroom. Call again.” He hung up the phone and to me, he said in Tagalog, “A moment—”

He left and soon the phone rang again. On the second ring, when it was interrupted, I picked it up, too.

They were speaking in Spanish again: “Who is that with you?” the voice at the other end was anxious.

“Just one of those dumb village boys. But it is all right, I am here in the bedroom and he is in the kitchen. Besides, he cannot understand Spanish. What is it, chico ?”

The man seemed frantic. “What is this I hear about another big demonstration in January? Shall we tell our men to work on the kids again? They want more money this time. After all there were more than ten killed in the last …”

“Of course, of course,” Juan Puneta said with exasperation. “They have to be there. Always, I don’t care how many get killed. They must simply make sure that the kids will blame the Metrocom, the police, for everything.”