Francisco Jose - The Samsons - Two Novels

Carmen nodded.

“You still want a dozen children?” Nena asked.

“Well, we are off to a good start,” she said, winking at Tony.

They had finished their coffee and the waiter started clearing their table.

“What do we do now?” Tony asked after their table was cleared.

“What do newlyweds do?” Godo asked. They all laughed.

Carmen turned to Godo. “I hope you won’t mind if I ask you to take Nena home. Her husband might beat her up—”

“It’s all right, darling,” Nena said, rising. Her flabby face was sad. “Ben never gets jealous. Not with a figure like mine.”

“Please, it’s a pleasure,” Godo said gallantly. “I may yet prove that your husband has no right taking you for granted.”

Nena de Jesus smiled and Tony knew that she had not been flattered in a long, long time. The restaurant foyer was lighted by a soft flow of capiz *lamps that dangled from the mahogany ceiling. Godo turned to the couple behind him. “I’m sure you are in a hurry to be left alone.”

“Of course,” Carmen said gaily.

They drove to the church where Carmen’s car was parked, and before Tony got out, Godo held his arm. “Be good to her, old boy. You will not find another girl like Carmen. Not in a million. And that goes for her millions, too.”

Laughter again, but this time Tony didn’t laugh.

Alone at last, they drove quietly to the boulevard.

Carmen parked on the sandy shoulder just behind the seawall, and night rushed about them, alive with the shudder of waves against the rocks, the swish of cars speeding on the boulevard behind them. Above, through the windshield, the stars shone, and before them was the seawall, the sea flat and quiet. Beyond the dark expanse the lights of Cavite gleamed and a beacon flashed green and red above the lights.

“I wish Godo had more sense than that. As if your money meant everything to me,” he said after a while. “He makes me feel so cheap, the way he talks. He had never learned refinement.”

“You are sore,” she said with alarm. She moved closer to him. “Not all our money is filthy, honey. And those crooked deals — they can’t be helped nowadays. Besides, have you forgotten that money isn’t corrupt, that it’s the people who are?”

“You don’t know what you are saying,” he said glumly. “I don’t think anyone in your family ever knows what money really means — the immense responsibility that goes with it. That includes your father.

“ Esto , there is one important thing you don’t know,” she said hotly. “This quiet, simple wedding about which you had second thoughts — I didn’t want to go ahead with it at first. But Papa, he was thinking of you, your pride, and he said it was best this way. You should at least give him credit for thinking of you. And don’t let anyone know I’ve told you.”

He couldn’t believe what he heard. “The wedding, everything … everything was your father’s idea?”

“Yes,” she snorted.

Now that he had drawn from her this confession, he did not know whether he should be angry or grateful. Above the confusion in his own mind he realized that, henceforth, none of his waking hours would be spared the businessman’s attention. He should be grateful for having been relieved of considerable expense and embarrassment, but gratitude to Don Manuel Villa would now take the form of soft, comfortable chains that would never be shattered.

“He must think a lot of you to have consented to this,” he said.

She moved away from him and sat back. On the rocks below the seawall the waves were a whisper, and in the night, somewhere among the grass and in the stunted palms, cicadas found their voice. She spoke softly, as though talking only to herself: “Yes, Papa thinks he loves me, but I know he doesn’t really care. And if I got pregnant and had an illegitimate child, he couldn’t care less. He would simply ask that I be well taken care of and the child, too. That goes for Mama and all my dear brothers and sisters. And they’d worry about me only because what I might have done would give the family a bad name. I’ve known that and money has nothing to do with it. Do you know Papa has three mistresses and I’ve never heard Mama complain? Papa once brought one of them to a party at the house. Everyone knew, even Mother, and we all acted as if nothing was unusual. So you see, I’m really alone — just like you. And that’s why I want something I can call my own.”

“It is not true,” he said, feeling sorry for having been so direct. “You are dramatizing things again.”

“It’s true,” Carmen insisted. “So don’t think I’m being nasty this way. If I had told Papa that I’d already gotten married to you, he couldn’t have cared less.”

She sidled closer to him, her face beseeching. He touched her cheek and kissed her gently. “We shouldn’t be mad at each other on this day — of all days,” he whispered. “I shouldn’t tell you these things; they are what I should keep to myself.”

“And I … I have no pride when I am with you.”

“Listen, so you think you know what my father did when I was young? I told you, he bound me to a sled and horsewhipped me. Do you know what a horsewhip is? Well, my old man was careful not to strike my eyes. Just my back. You saw the scars.”

“It’s just a few marks — not really scars, just white marks,” Carmen said. “Mama, well, you know who she is, how her tongue works. She was poor until Father met her.”

He had wanted then to tell her how he had lied, that his father was in prison, not dead.

But his courage did not come. So tonight he decided that the problem would never surface again; he must live the lie now and talk of his father as belonging to the past, irrevocably there and pertinent only as a memory. He caressed her hair and told her how his mother had always been an angel, how she had slaved without a word of complaint.

“Perhaps you will be like her,” he said.

And she kissed him. “That’s the best compliment you’ve given me, darling.”

A balut †vendor approached them. After refusing, Carmen started the car and they slid back to the boulevard.

She wanted to drive him to Antipolo, but it was late and they parted instead at her gate. He waited until she was safely within the high, white-washed walls, then he walked to the corner and got a cab.

Tony did not wake his sister, choosing, instead, to go to bed immediately. But sleep was a long time coming, maybe because of the coffee and the brandy. It was long past midnight and he wondered if Carmen was awake, too. She always had an agile mind; in Washington they would sit up talking, cozily snuggled together. But he could not recall anything searing that they had talked about, nothing that had bared her soul, although he had told her much about himself. All that he could remember was the coffeepot bubbling somewhere in the kitchen, the late-night TV shows they watched together, her eagerness. Why had it been that way? Was it true after all that Carmen never knew how it was to be really loved, and that because she did not know, she had tried to find the meaning of surrender? There would be no secret meetings anymore; her most important problem was solved.

Below the house, in the slimy ditch half-covered with grass, the frogs started to croak, for the rains had finally come.

* Capiz: Translucent, squarish inner shell of small marine bivalve common in Philippine coastal waters; used to make lamps and decorative objects.

† Balut: A snack made from fertilized duck eggs incubated almost to the point of hatching and then boiled.

Don Manuel went to the railroad station at noon to see them off. Just as Carmen had said, he did not seem ruffled at all. “Your mama is angry,” he told Tony as they stepped out of the car.