Francisco Jose - The Samsons - Two Novels

And finally, sweetly, there was Washington again, and Carmen on that frozen Sunday morning preparing breakfast in the kitchenette, her lipstick all gone, her hair mussed, and her face oily and flat with the wash of sleep. She smelled more strongly than ever of woman and fulfillment, acutely so, and seeing her thus and smelling her thus, he dragged her back to the bedroom. What was the difference? This, this thing that had happened, was nothing but a sophisticated copy of the custom of those sturdy hill people in Bontoc, whose life he had tried to understand; the same, the same — they who practiced trial marriage and who made the union binding only when the woman was finally with child were no different from him and Carmen. Civilization simply had more refinements — the apartment on Massachusetts Avenue, this girl, twenty-four years old, with her Spanish ancestry glowing in her clear skin, her exquisite nose and imperious chin, the rich endowments in her limbs.

“This heat,” Carmen interrupted his thoughts again. She took the seat beside him. “I hope the air-conditioning in my room, our room, is doubled soon. That cannot wait, can it? Lovemaking in this heat. It’s just like being pigs, no?”

He leaned over, pressed her hand, and laughed at her little obscenity.

The maid returned with a tray of drinks. “Tell Mama and Papa we are here.”

“Your papa is not yet in, señorita.” The girl returned to the grilled door of the terrace.

“Mama is a character,” Carmen said. “You’ll adore her.”

His drink, relaxing and complete, sank down his burning throat.

“Should I worry about her?”

“No,” she whispered. “You have nothing to worry about now.”

It was not different — his being here was like the Igorot ritual a thousand years old. A young man expressing suit went to the house of the girl and cast his spear at her stairway. If the girl’s father came down and brought the spear up, he was welcome; if, however, the father grabbed the lance and hurled it away or, as sometimes happened, flung it at the young man himself, that meant his rejection. He was here now with a primeval want, to see if the spear would be picked up and brought into the house, or if he would feel its blade upon his flesh.

In a while the sliding door of the terrace opened again and a woman in a short red playsuit, pudgy-looking and in her early fifties, padded out, an ice bag on her head. She was swinging a palm fan languidly across her face.

“Carmen, this damned heat. Did you see the invitation to the fashion show this Sunday?”

“No, Mama.”

“You never are a help,” the older woman pouted and kept swinging the fan as she waddled down. She flopped into the chair opposite Tony, who had risen and said, “Good afternoon, Mrs. Villa.” The chair creaked and sagged under her weight. She was not really enormous, but she was solid and she struck a ridiculous picture in her briefs, her thighs bulging out in folds like those of a chubby child. Her eyes glanced off Tony and in that brief encounter he knew she had probed through him.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Villa,” he repeated.

She looked again at Tony indifferently.

“This is Tony, Mama,” Carmen said.

“Of course,” she said, swinging the fan. “Oh, it’s warm, really warm. Where do you stay?”

“In Antipolo, Mrs. Villa.”

“There?” incredulously. “Why, how can all those people ever live in that place. I remember passing that way last All Souls’ Day. It was warm then. It must be broiling there now.”

“One gets used to the heat.”

“Don’t tell me,” Carmen’s mother apparently did not brook dissent. “Our bedroom is air-conditioned and it’s still warm. Heaven knows how I can ever live without air-conditioning.”

“The old houses, Mrs. Villa,” Tony said, trying to make conversation, “were built to be cool. The old architects, they did something about the weather. The houses they made had wide windows and high ceilings …”

“Air-conditioning is unbeatable. I hope the air-conditioning in Mr. Villa’s car is repaired soon. Then he wouldn’t want the driver to drive fast. Come to think of it, don’t drive fast, young man. Simply because it’s hot is no reason for you to drive fast.”

Carmen threw an uneasy glance at Tony. Then, to her mother: “Tony doesn’t drive, Mama.”

“I don’t have a car,” Tony said flatly.

The older woman sat back. “What did you say your name was?”

Carmen answered for him. “Mama, I told you already. Tony Samson.”

“Ah, yes, I remember. You must be a relative of Dr. Alfonso Samson, no? That man! He certainly gets around. Remember, Carmen? Have I told you how we met him — your pa and I — in New York last summer? And then on the boat to France? There he was on the America —and I could have sworn he followed us. And did I delight in your father’s show of jealousy!” Turning to Tony, she went on with amazing lightness: “Do you know where he is now?”

Tony Samson looked at his shoes. “No, Mrs. Villa,” he said hopelessly. “He isn’t a relative. I just know him from what I read in the papers.”

“Aren’t you from Negros?”

Carmen’s voice was desperate. “No, Mama. From Pangasinan.”

“Oh well, names really mislead.”

Tony felt his mouth drying up again; one more question, he thought, and I’ll melt. Oh, this terrible heat.

Mrs. Villa rose. “What do you do, young man? I should know because, after all, Carmen is very keen about marrying you. I want to make sure you can support a wife.”

“Mama!”

“I’m through with college,” Tony said bravely.

“At Harvard, as you already know,” Carmen helped him.

“I am going to teach,” he said, turning to Carmen as if to say, I can take care of myself. “I’m also doing a little writing.”

“Writing? Now, that’s really good. I read in the papers about an American writer who sold a sexy book for a million dollars.”

“It’s different here, Mrs. Villa,” Tony said.

“You mean you don’t earn enough? Romulo is a writer, isn’t he?”

“Yes, Mama,” Carmen hurried to Tony’s defense again, “but—”

“I’ll make enough to live on, Mrs. Villa,” Tony said grimly.

“They all say that,” the older woman said with a hint of boredom.

“Carmen,” she faced her daughter, “if only Nena de Jesus didn’t grab Ben. He is back in your father’s office. You left on the same boat for Frisco, didn’t you?”

Carmen glared at her mother. “He is my best friend’s husband, Mama,” she said with striking stiffness. “He is dumb, no good,” she touched Tony’s hand. “I have made my choice.”

“You are insolent,” Mrs. Villa chided her. She dismissed her revolt with another languid swing of the fan. “I give up,” she said, rising, her flabby thighs and her chin quivering. Then she waddled back into the house.

They didn’t speak for a while. He looked at the white wall lined with bougainvillea. Beyond the garden wall, a piano tinkled. A car whined up the road and the afternoon steamed on.

Carmen spoke first: “I’m sorry, darling. But I told you Mama is a character.”

“She wasn’t a bother, really,” he lied.

“She was, too,” Carmen insisted. “But she’s always like that. Just like a child.” She laughed mirthlessly and her eyes as they slid to him were supplicating.

“It’s all right,” he said. “I’m not from Negros and I’m not related to this Samson doctor. Damn it, America was fine on a scholarship, but life would be better if I were a hacendero from Negros, wouldn’t it? Maybe we should elope and then we would have nothing but ourselves—”

“That’s being impractical, darling, but I’ll give it a thought. Besides, it’s just Mama and she can’t do anything. And Papa …”