Francisco Jose - The Samsons - Two Novels

“They are our people, too,” Tony said. “You know that ours is an open society. You can go up and down, right or left, to any distance or height you may want to reach. Everyone has a chance …”

“You are wrong,” Charlie said. “Not everyone has a chance. We … we are lucky in a way. How many artists, how many geniuses, how many great minds are aborted in the nameless villages and slums of this country because children don’t go on to college? Do you know, ninety percent of our children don’t go past the fourth grade because they cannot afford to? Universal education — that is one of the biggest jokes.”

“Maybe so,” Tony said. “But still, there are millionaires today who didn’t have a centavo to their name after the war.”

“But what happened after they got to the top?” Charlie asked. “They forgot those at the bottom of the heap. Perhaps we shouldn’t ask them to have a conscience. Perhaps all we need ask of them is vision.”

“Manuel Villa has vision,” Tony said.

“He does not have it anymore than Dangmount and his friends,” Charlie said sadly. “A chicken in every pot, a Ford in every garage. These are meaningless slogans, but the men who fashioned them had vision. America had her share of robber barons, but these same robber barons dreamed big dreams, empires, progress.”

“Pax Filipina,” Tony said.

“No, I don’t mean that,” Charlie said. “I am for Filipino entrepreneurs who can think of progress for this country, and not just of vacations in Europe, marble swimming pools, and a dozen mistresses.”

“I assure you,” Tony said, “there are men in the Park who think of progress for this country, too, because it means progress for them first. The poor do not have a monopoly on virtue, you know.”

Godo picked up the talk in anger again. “Are you trying to be comfortable in a place where you will never have real peace of mind?”

“What do you want me to do?” Tony said desperately. “Go home and run amok? Bring a hand grenade to the next board meeting of the Villa Development Corporation? Is that what you want?”

“Now you are talking sense,” Godo said in mock seriousness. “No, Sonny Boy, I don’t expect such heroics from you. I just want you to know how things stand. I have no illusions. My publisher is no different. Like your Don Manuel, as long as the money keeps pouring in, that’s okay with him. And us? He doesn’t even know I have a dying wife, that I live in an accesoria that stinks to high heaven. That’s the social order, Sonny Boy, and don’t you ever forget it!”

“I have enough problems,” Tony said lamely. “I try to be useful in the best way I can.”

“That’s nice to know,” Godo snorted. “It’s nice to hear that you are comfortable being a dummy.”

Tony was in no mood to argue; Godo and Charlie could still be useful to him, and they could help to publicize the steel mill again in another year or two. He held his tongue and said simply, “You are being nasty again.”

Charlie smiled. “There are many things that were left out in that write-up, Tony. And you know just what I mean.”

“No, I don’t.” Tony tried to be vehement.

Godo grinned. “You mean to tell me that you don’t know that the Villa steel mill is owned by Japanese, Americans, and Chinese? Do you mean to tell me that you never knew the firms list Senator Reyes as their counsel? Or that Senator Reyes is a member of your board?”

“I know,” Tony said morosely.

Godo rattled off the names. “Dangmount, Saito, and the Chinese millionaire Johnny Lee.”

“They are on the board, but what difference does that make?” he asked, feigning ignorance, remembering what Don Manuel had said about his being in the family now.

“They control the stocks, son,” Godo leveled a finger at him. “And your father-in-law is a dummy in spite of his wealth. Don’t let Senator Reyes and his talk of nationalism fool you as he has fooled almost everyone else. He is in the employ of the monopolists and the sugar people — another vested group. Aside, of course, from working for your father-in-law.”

Tony sneered. “Why didn’t you print the story as you saw it, then?” He leaned over and spoke softly for a moment. “Look, I had thought that perhaps you would do just that. Deep inside I always believed you were brave, Godo, that you wouldn’t pull your punches.” Then, his voice rising, “I’m tired of polemics and excuses. And you’re just giving me one more lousy excuse.”

Charlie smiled laconically again. “Ah, Tony, the things we can’t print. The publisher has to make money and we have to live on the ads your father-in-law and his friends place in the magazine.”

“In other words, you are not pure.”

“I have never claimed purity,” Godo said, “but I’m honest with myself. I hope you can say the same, Tony.”

“Look,” Tony said solemnly. “What is it that you want? My skin? In college— Let me tell you about my old roommate, Lawrence Bitfogel. The three of you would make excellent bedfellows. He believed in revolution as an alternative. But it is too late for us to engage in that. You know what happened to my grandfather and my father? The Huks. The weapons have changed, but I don’t think you realize that.”

“Yeah,” Godo snickered. “Sex is the weapon. Marry the landlord’s daughter — or Don Manuel’s.”

The blood warmed in Tony’s temples.

“The Ilocano settlers in Mindanao … the pattern is clear,” Charlie repeated.

“I can’t comment on that,” Tony shot back. “Don Manuel has reasons, and everything — I’m sure of that — must be legal.”

“Legal!” Godo exploded. “Yes, corruption is now legal. And tyranny, too. And deception. Everything is legal.”

“I don’t care anymore,” Tony said wearily. “There’s no sense in going against the wave, against all of you. I want to run away.” He checked himself, for Godo was looking at him intently.

“Where will you go? Back to America and its comforts?”

“I just don’t know,” Tony said weakly. “But another revolution is so cheap, so commonplace. Perhaps if we killed ourselves instead …”

They parted on that note. It was not yet eleven and Tony decided to return to his office and try to shake off the malaise of the encounter. He did not want to remember what Charlie had said about Mindanao and the settlers. He tried to place the subject in a hidden corner of his mind and ignore it. He decided to return to his grandfather’s journal. The labor would dispel the anguish of the day and all the discomforts he felt from meeting with Godo and Charlie.

Before noon someone came to see him — a relative from Pangasinan, according to his secretary. No one had visited him in the past few days, no one from the old crowd at the university, least of all someone from home.

Bettina.

He remembered Bettina as a lanky kid with pigtails, climbing guava trees in the backyard of the old house in Rosales, and as a visitor to Manang Betty’s accesoria one dry season. An inquisitive youngster who had wanted to see all of the city during those two vacation months, she was always out the whole day visiting places like Tondo and San Nicolas, which he had never bothered to see, until her older sister Emy became concerned and put a stop to her wanderings.

Now Tony studied the neat, girlish scrawl on the visiting card. A pang of homesickness possessed him, and in this cool, anesthetized room, a host of remembered images bloomed in the recesses of his mind — the Cabugawan of yesteryears; the small, thatched houses; the broken-down fences; and beyond these the eternal fields of gold and green. He rose and strode out. She saw him first and she stood up, smiled shyly, and reminded him at once of his own youth, of the things that were, of Rosales. She was a young woman now in her early twenties or late teens. Somehow, the provinciana †character was discernible in her, in her lips, which were not painted; her shoes, which were cheap pumps; her cheap printed dress; and her bare arms browned by the sun.