Francisco Jose - The Samsons - Two Novels

“I know, Papa,” Tony said. “Poverty is degrading.”

Don Manuel stood up and paced the floor. “I knew poverty. I’ll tell you how it was when my father was just starting to build his furniture factory. He had to wake up at dawn to count the lumber that came in. We had to walk to school, all the way from Ermita to Intramuros. That’s a good long walk, even now. I’ve known how it is to be hungry, to be broke, and to be unhappy. Father would give us no more than five centavos a day. Five centavos! And one pair of shoes until they were worn out and our toes and soles stuck out.”

The rich man cracked his knuckles. “He was a tyrant, but he taught us well.” A long pause, then the talk veered quietly to what Tony had to do. The simplicity of his job amazed him; he was to be the official spokesman of the Villas. Henceforth, there would be no business negotiations unless he had spoken on the plausibility of having these negotiations exploited for the good name of the Villas. He was to be a troubleshooter and a member of the brain trust. He was to be a public relations man, he was to be a facade-builder.

“I don’t want to sound ungrateful, Papa,” Tony said, latching on to every word, “but there must be some other thing I can do.”

“That’s honest of you,” Don Manuel said kindly. “Not many people can say that, Tony. Well, there aren’t many like you. But you are different. We are all crude moneymakers, but you, you are different. And you can start making yourself useful right now by telling me if there’s anything wrong with teaming up with the Chinese, Japanese, and Americans. I want an honest opinion, Tony. You can give me the answer next week.”

Don Manuel led Tony to the door at the left side of the room. It led to a room with cream-colored drapes and a thick rug. The businessman tugged at a line and the draperies opened to a rain-shrouded view of the bay and the boulevard.

The desk was not as modern as Don Manuel’s, but it was huge. One side of the room was lined with empty, glass-fronted shelves. And on a low table beside the desk was the latest electric typewriter — its soft red color glowing handsomely in the light.

“You’ll love working here,” Don Manuel stated proudly. “All this is yours. Your secretary will be outside. Look for one right away — that’s your decision. When I need you I’ll just buzz you, and son, do please jump when I do.”

“Yes, Papa,” Tony said.

Alone in this comfortable room, Tony felt lost for a moment. He sat in his upholstered swivel chair and turned around. Those shelves — they would soon be filled with his books. His hand caressed the electric machine. It did not seem real, his being in a place as comfortable, as conducive to easeful thinking as this. How supremely convenient it was for him simply to accept the fact that now he was no longer a Samson but someone drawn into the magnetic circle of the Villas and therefore a nonentity without a mind all his own.

He could see his personal landscape and in it there was nothing extraneous. Everything fitted handsomely. He would probably build a house in Pobres Park like Ben de Jesus, Senator Reyes, Alfred Dangmount, and all the rest, and see how well Carmen had learned interior decorating in the United States. He would not interfere with her plans; all he would require would be a small room, a study where he would be able to work. And someday he would grow a paunch in his job and learn to play golf. He would have money stashed away somewhere — that was most certain because he had married Carmen Villa. He would have an affair, too, probably a dozen at that, not because such affairs were necessary but because they were inevitable concomitants of his status. A beautiful secretary, perhaps? Or one of Carmen’s close friends? Or the wife of one of his associates in the office? These were the handsome possibilities. As for children, there would be at least five — and several more who would naturally be illegitimate. Carmen would send the girls to the Assumption Convent, where they would learn French — or to Madrid, where they would polish their Spanish and acquire a European accent. As for the boys, they would go to La Salle, of course, or to the American School, or to San Beda. Not Ateneo — my God! That school had become too common and too crowded with plebeian characters. And after La Salle there would be trips to Europe, not America. Going to America — that was also now too common. Everyone, absolutely everyone, had gone there. And then when the children had grown up they would have to take their pick from the Villa crowd. That was the only way to perpetuate the system that he had joined. There was no fighting against it because the system, which afforded him such delicious comforts as he had never known before, was bigger and more formidable than Antonio Samson.

He stood up and went to the window. The sea again, the rain, memories rushing in and stirring up and about, inchoate and yet alive. When he was in Antipolo, or when he was in the States, wandering in the gilded wilderness of that continent, he seldom looked at the sea. And at night, if there was no rain, there would be stars. How long had it been since he last looked at the stars? He knew them when he was in Rosales, going home in the dark or playing in the dusty street where the lamps were not strong enough to banish the vast attraction of the sky. How was Rosales now? And Emy?

A dull ache passed through him and he assured himself that this was what he had always wanted — this progress, this change. The world was changing and if in the process he was changed, too, well, he could not stop the inevitable any more than he could stop time. I’ll be all right. Tony Samson repeated the words carefully in his mind. I’ll be all right — and he wished to God that he would be.

When Senator Reyes invited Tony to lunch, it had never occurred to Tony that there would be a measure of rapport between him and the politician who had made a career of nationalism.

Don Manuel bantered with them in the foyer. “Be careful, Tony. He might take you to one of those joints where they serve nothing but peasant food.”

“I’ll take him to a place where they sprinkle cyanide on those who don’t know what Filipinism means,” Senator Reyes chortled.

“Ahhh …” grunted Alfred Dangmount. He was on his way to his car, too; the board meeting had just ended and the directors were filing out of the elevator. “Take him to that place where they spike the drinks with cantaritas ,” the American said, grunting again.

The American’s sally raised more remarks, but Tony didn’t catch them; by this time he had already gotten into Senator Reyes’s air-conditioned Cadillac. Within, the scent of cologne was a refreshing change from the antiseptic smell of his office.

Senator Reyes was a master politician. “It is seldom that I have a scholar, a Ph.D., with me. So don’t be alarmed if I ask too many questions and pick your brains,” he said, flashing what seemed to be a genuine smile. The senator’s eyes crinkled. His teeth were yellowish from cigar-smoking.

“The pleasure is all mine, Senator,” Tony said.

They went to one of the new Spanish restaurants on the boulevard — a low, adobe building that was air-conditioned. Its interior was dim, and although it was high noon, the cartwheel lamp that dangled from the low ceiling was lit. Senator Reyes guided his guest to a corner table, but before reaching the place he had to stop at a table to slap an anonymous back.

They sat down without ceremony, and as the headwaiter rushed to them, Senator Reyes ordered two dry sherries. “I shouldn’t have any complaints,” he turned to Tony, shaking his head. “And I don’t want to sound hypocritical, but I do have troubles and I sometimes wish I could earn a living without having to pay too heavy a price.”