Francisco Jose - The Samsons - Two Novels

On the day Mrs. Villa was to give the most lavish party in her career as hostess, Tony had a problem. Charlie had gone to his hometown in Sorsogon — his first visit since he finished college — on a two-week vacation. He had returned to Manila with the startling news that he would end his gallivanting days and return to Sorsogon to get married.

Charlie was the last in Tony’s circle of college friends who had remained single. He had warded off the idea of marriage not because the thought was unattractive but simply because the very prospect of having to support a family on his meager pay as staff writer of the Sunday Herald discouraged him. He had found pleasure in a somewhat profligate life that took him to the Ermita bars, cabarets, and disreputable places in Pasay and Caloocan. Now he had found someone in his hometown, a charming girl whose morals and virginity — these he was most emphatic about — he was sure of. He had known the girl when she was still in high school and she had bloomed, according to Charlie, in those years that he had not been home. As for the bleakness with which Charlie always regarded the future, even this seemed to have been blown away. “There are clerks,” he said, “who make less than I do and they manage to live with honesty and with fortitude. Besides, if the worst comes, the hell with it; we can always return to Sorsogon, to her father’s little farm, and live on coconuts and camote.” The morning after Mrs. Villa’s party Charlie would take the Bicol Express to Sorsogon; his last night in Manila as a bachelor was to be spent with his closest friends, Godo and Tony.

“I’ll explain it to your mama,” Don Manuel had said when Tony informed his father-in-law of his inability to attend Mrs. Villa’s dinner party. He had gone to sleep wondering what useful gift he could give Charlie, who would live in Manila with his bride. Carmen had decided that for him. It would be a book on sexual hygiene and a matrimonial bed with a rubberfoam mattress.

When he woke up the sun was streaming through the blue voile curtains and was splashed on the cool beige of the panels and the polished parquet floor. Tony turned on his side. He was now wide awake. His wife lay on her stomach — her usual sleeping position, her pink nightgown flowing over the edge of the bed, exposing her thighs. She snored slightly — a domestic sound that assured him in the quietness of this air-conditioned room that all was well with Carmen Villa and, therefore, with the world. He stood up, shivered lightly, and, having groped for his slippers, padded to the bathroom and readied his shaving kit.

He thrust his chin at the mirror and looked at his face — a young face, the lips a trifle thin, the brow a bit wide. There was nothing impressive about the face. The nose, the cheeks were sallow now although once they were darker, almost like a peasant’s. Nothing impressive, nothing striking except the eyes. What did Carmen once say about them? Soulful? Meditative? Melancholy?

He passed the blade steadily across his jaw. It’s made of glass, he thought — and that’s another joke on me. With another arc he was through.

Back in the bedroom he let his wife sleep on. It was when he was dressing that the thought whittled at him again: Emy. He was not surprised anymore that he thought of her with more frequency now, particularly in this room, where he had known completeness — not the bootleg kind he had shared with Emy, but the completeness that was public, that sometimes had a touch of achievement.

He speculated about how his life would have turned out if it had been Emy he had married and not this lovely woman. He would perhaps still be at the university, taking breakfast that Emy herself would have prepared, or he would be in some anonymous corner of the city, escaping from the strictures of convention.

Tony opened the door and went down to the dining room. It was one of those days when the morning was dazzling and pure and the conspiracy of heat and dust had not yet started its insidious dominance over everything. Beyond the sliding doors and the marble terrace, the garlic vine and the calachuchi bloomed. The pool was filled and opaque blue in the crystal sunlight. Beyond the pool, four carpenters were busy setting up rough planks for the tables that would be covered with Mrs. Villa’s finest linen, then loaded with food only her fastidious mind could conjure. Across the wide lawn, near the rear entrance to the garden, bunches of rattan chairs were piled, ready to be set in place.

Tony sat alone at the breakfast table, drank coffee, and regarded the work that would transform the garden, the lawn, and even the terrace into another one of those gaudy “dreamlands” that Mrs. Villa always fashioned when she gave a party. “Gaudy” was the word — a bit unkind, perhaps, to his mother-in-law but the truth nonetheless. Inwardly Tony recoiled again at the prospect of having to be here tonight, to go from table to table with Carmen and live the happy notion that he was now a Villa.

Carmen would probably not awaken until noon. Tony wondered where she had been the evening before, perhaps with Ben de Jesus again, for he now seemed to be always around when Carmen was working on her favorite charity. Carmen’s relationship with Ben had been more than friendly once. She had explained Ben to him, and because he did not want to appear prudish or possessive, he accepted her explanation at face value and tried to forget all about Ben. Although, thinking of it now, Ben’s name drew a nagging thought of those brief, casual meetings with him in the office or at the parties he had to attend with Carmen.

It had been several weeks now since Carmen had started to come home late, and sometimes she would arrive after midnight while he was still at his desk. She would sidle up to him and plant a simple kiss on his cheek. Sometimes she smelled faintly of liquor. She always came home with someone, though. Sometimes it was Ben and Nena or Ben and her friend Carmita. He did not ask for explanations. They were not necessary. She would tell him, nevertheless, that she had been to Cora’s or Annie’s — friends who were still single and were doing a lot of charitable work.

Now their latest venture was a fashion show, and Carmen’s assistance, as she herself had told him, was indispensable because she had seen several fashion shows in New York and in Paris. Her attendance at these foreign shows was an achievement in itself. With such a background she could contribute some splendid suggestions about how the parade of models should be conducted.

What should happen tonight was no fashion show, although in this very house such a display had been held several times before; the last was called Oriental Night — a party given by Carmen’s mother on her birthday. He had mixed with the guests to please Carmen and for no other reason, and tonight he had to be here again, because this would mark one of the most important events in Don Manuel’s life.

The Villa Steel Mill was now fully established after years of skul-duggery and greasing palms.

Don Manuel came down in golfing shorts, which he preferred when he was at home because they were comfortable. His legs were lean and hairless and he walked briskly to the table. Tony greeted him.

Don Manuel smiled and sat down to his glass of orange juice and the morning papers, which were neatly arranged for him.

The scraping of slippers along the staircase that followed was familiar. Mrs. Villa was also up early. She wore her graying hair in curlers again and, like her husband, had on shorts.

She did not return Tony’s greeting. She plopped down beside her husband, then rang the small table bell before her. She pulled out a newspaper from those before Don Manuel; her eyes were alert. In a moment she turned to Tony. “I thought you knew the society editor of this paper. Look at this — look at it — just a tiny, tiny photograph. Do the society editors have anything against me? And to think that last Christmas I sent all of them Christmas gifts — Swiss lace. Do you know that you can’t get Swiss lace even at the Escolta?”