Francisco Jose - The Samsons - Two Novels

“There’s a lot of time,” Tony said.

“I’m glad you accepted Papa’s invitation. He will come here tonight and have dinner with us.”

Tony Samson, unable to say anything that might spoil Carmen’s plans, lay on the bed. But sleep had left him. Even Carmen, soft to the touch, now appeared to him as no more than any other woman. It would have been vastly different if this were Washington, although Washington was now a year past. He recalled again the apartment Carmen had in Massachusetts Avenue, its comforts. Her family — did they really accept him as Carmen had wanted him to be accepted? Why did her father now come to Baguio? Was it to play golf as he had told her or could there be a more significant reason?

“Get up, darling,” Carmen said, pulling the woolen blanket away from him. In another instant she was over him, all arms and kisses and warmth and woman scent.

“Food is what I need,” he said, biting her ear.

* * *

The boy who brought in their breakfast was silently efficient and he left as quickly as he could. Sipping her coffee and still in her negligee, Carmen became thoughtful as she returned to the clear glass window. The pines outside were covered with mist. “Once, I dreamed of this day. In college we read a lot of books, most of them things you wouldn’t think colegialas †would be capable of taking a glimpse of. But there we were, reading and looking at pictures when the nuns weren’t looking. You know, the kind of stuff that gets discreetly shown under false covers in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower …”

“Monsieur, feelthy pictures,” Tony blandly imitated the French vendor.

Carmen laughed heartily. “ Oye , do you know that in the last week of our high school the nuns asked a priest to lecture to us about the facts of life? It was funny. We were all giggling in the rear. Here was this priest, fat and kindly looking — a German or a Belgian, I don’t remember — rattling off the facts about the sperm meeting the ovum. It was funny, I tell you.”

“What I want to know …” Tony stretched his hand across the table and held her hands, “is it someone other than me who made you really aware of these basic facts?”

She pouted: “You know damn well that you were the first. Esto , what more proof do you need?”

“I’m satisfied,” Tony said. “But then I was away for a summer in Europe and I heard when I was away that you were dating this fellow who works for your father — Nena’s husband, this Ben—”

He wasn’t able to finish. A piece of bread struck him in the face, and before he could recover, Carmen had rushed to their bedroom and slammed the door after her. Only after some mushy explanations did Carmen open the door.

Thinking about the incident later, Tony was vaguely amused, yet at the same time surprised that he had asked the question at all. Through those years when he was exposed to the morality of the American campus, he no longer attached value to chastity, and he believed that he would not care about a woman’s past as long as he loved her. He brought to mind that dilapidated room in Antipolo and again, that sharp, sweet pain of remembrance stabbed at him. He had changed; yes, he had changed so much that now he could afford to say, Carmen, I don’t care how many men you have had. I love you, that is all that matters.

At eight Don Manuel was in the lobby. In the crackling glow of the fireplace where a pine log burned, he looked young, almost like an older brother to Carmen. He smiled. “Just the three of us,” he said. “I have so many things to tell you and I can hardly wait.” Explanations: how the summer house where the newly weds should have stayed needed a greenhouse, how badly he fared in golf the whole day. They walked with Carmen in the middle, holding their arms, to the dining room, where they were seated at a corner table. Carmen bantered about Tony learning golf, and just before the coffee and the dessert came, Don Manuel dropped the amiable air and became serious.

“I’m not satisfied with the service we are getting from our advertising agency,” he said with a hint of impatience. “Look, we give them more than fifteen percent commission on the ads they prepare. They also charge us a retainer — five thousand a month — and that is not peanuts. And you know what they do? They can’t even cook up a sensible reply to all the accusations against this steel mill we are putting up. It will be the only one of its kind in the country. So what if the Japanese get a sizable chunk of the profit? After all, they are helping put it up. And what difference does that make? If it isn’t the Japanese who make the killing, it’s the Americans — as if we have no surfeit of Americans here telling us what to do. They just want us to be hewers of wood and drawers of water for as long as they can manage.”

“What do you want me to do, Papa?” Tony asked. He already sensed that Don Manuel did not come to dinner to talk about golf.

“Nothing much as far as your talents are concerned. I’ve read some of the stuff you have written, Tony. That article on the uses of the past, for instance, your thesis on the Philippine Revolution — I’ve glanced through them. I know how you teachers regard businessmen as nothing more than money-mad people. You’d be surprised if you went around more with some of my friends. I’m money-mad, all right, but that doesn’t stop me from honing on new ideas. And you have many bright ideas, Tony, brilliant ideas.…”

“Thank you, Papa,” Tony said. Under the table Carmen pressed his hand.

“It will not be difficult. I want you to work for me, to be in places where I need you, to talk in places where I want you, to talk and write what I want you to write. My interest is Carmen’s interest and her interest is yours — and your children’s.…”

A pause, then Don Manuel turned to Carmen and then to Tony again: “Isn’t that logical, son?”

This was the trap with all its embellishments, but Tony nodded nevertheless.

“Don’t think of it as inevitable. When a man marries, the decisions he makes are not for him alone but for his wife and his family. I want you to leave the university. Start working for yourself, for Carmen.”

In the early morning Tony knew that he would never be able to visit Baguio again and wander through its emerald hills with a sense of freedom. As they drove to the airport on this chilly morning, an undefinable feeling almost akin to sorrow riled him. There could be no rationalization now of his defeat — for what else could it be but a defeat? — and yet, if he must look for one, he could always say, as did Don Manuel, that he must think of Carmen and the child she bore.

The landscape was sun-washed, white with the mist that floated down the hills, engulfed the city, and then drifted away. The drive to the airport was smooth, and as they looped down the hills, the wind singing and the cold biting, Tony wished that he had stayed longer, savored the illusion longer, before going down to the lowlands. And yet he could not hate his father-in-law, for Don Manuel was a gentleman. The businessman saw to it that his feelings were spared. Dale Carnegie — he must have been Don Manuel’s favorite author. Not Malraux, or Mabini, ‡or Ortega y Gasset — these men exuded not light and goodwill but depressing truths. Tony must know how to parry with words, to hide under the clean, happy jargon of public relations. Don Manuel had been very kind: “I’m not hurrying you up. If you think you have a future at the university, by all means stick it out there. Give yourself two months to think it over, then let’s talk shop. Two months is no water under the bridge. That was how long it took me to decide on the steel mill — just passing it around among friends. Then it came clearly: we had to start somewhere; if we didn’t, someone else would — the Japanese or the Americans or, in some future time, the Chinese. And where would that leave us? It’s always best to be out there first. You may not know it, but if you are first you will not fail. The first zipper maker, the first rubber shoe manufacturer — they can afford to retire. They were the first and that was how they made a profit. And if you don’t make a success out of it, there’s still the distinction of being first. No one can take that from you.”