Francisco Jose - The Samsons - Two Novels

“Well,” he said, looking briefly at her, “I suppose I shouldn’t mind the background music. Go ahead, shoot your mouth off.”

“Tony,” she was imploring him. “Listen and do not hate me for what I am going to tell you.”

“I can’t hate you enough,” he said.

Her voice was quivering. “Once upon a time, I knew I would do anything for you. I’d do what you would command me to do. If you had wanted, we could have gone together wherever you wanted to go, lived where you wanted to live. I would have missed many things and I would have objected strongly. But I would have gone with you just the same … if you had put your mind to it, if you did not fall so easily to Father’s bait — and to mine. I love the things I’m accustomed to, but I would have gone with you.…”

“But it’s different now. Is that what you’re saying?”

She turned away. “So many things have changed. Now I see nothing of value. And you, I don’t blame you, because a man’s ambition is different, and because Father wanted you — honestly, sincerely … and I … I pushed you …”

“You know damn well this wasn’t what I wanted,” he said hotly. “Not all this, not all—” Then he stopped, suddenly aware that he was lying. He had coveted this, this comfort, this bigness, this power.

“I pushed you, that’s what I did,” she said quietly.

“No, no one did,” he told her. “My fate, my reasons, are mine alone. Now that you have made your excuses please leave me alone …”

She stood by as he carried another suitcase from the closet and laid it open on the bed.

“Believe me,” her voice betrayed a real disconsolation. “It won’t happen again. I’m bad. I guess I had forgotten, I’ve always been bad. I will never be a saint.”

“It’s not simply a matter of forgetting. So don’t talk about sin.”

“I imagine you are sorry for yourself,” Carmen said. “If it were Emy you had married, it wouldn’t have turned out like this. I must see her sometime and learn from her.”

“She has suffered enough without your seeing her.”

“But it’s true,” Carmen said hollowly. “She is different. She’s good in spite of all that happened. Maybe that has been in the back of my mind all the time — her goodness and my rottenness.”

“It happened long ago,” Tony said, going back to the closet. She followed him there.

“You can forgive me,” she said desperately.

“I can, but it won’t be the same again.” He paused. “And most of all, how can I forgive myself?”

“Are you going back to her?”

“To Emy?”

“Who else? You have always been sentimental about her.”

“Even if I did she wouldn’t take me. No, I’m returning to Antipolo, that’s all.”

“You don’t have to go. Do you want me to explain how it happened?”

“You don’t have to. It happens to the best people.”

“Don’t say that. I’m not the best. Father is not the best. You said so yourself once. You said he is a scoundrel, a patriot for convenience. Maybe that’s the reason. For convenience we do so many things.”

“Don’t explain life,” he said. “Please, I don’t want to hear another word from you. I despise you.”

Carmen shuffled to the door but did not close it after her.

Then he was ready. He surveyed the room, wondering if he had forgotten anything. All that he wanted to bring were in these two suitcases, bulging now with his old clothes. The rest he left behind, and if Carmen should send them to him he would write her a thank-you note. That, too, was the civilized thing to do.

He lifted the two suitcases. They were heavy and he was amazed, since they did not really hold much. He remembered that he had not done any manual labor in months and had not lifted anything heavier than a portfolio. He smiled at himself and, flexing his muscles once, carried the suitcases to the door.

Mrs. Villa stood there, her flabby form barring the way. She was still dressed in blue denim overalls, her party costume. The theme was industry and she represented a typical steelworker. Her voice sounded old and it lacked the acidity with which it always dripped. “Carmen’s crying. She didn’t tell me what you quarreled about and I don’t think I can find out from either of you. You are both old enough to know what’s right and what’s wrong. Are you really leaving, Tony?”

“Yes, Mama,” he said, putting down the suitcases.

“Is it because I have been mean to you?”

Tony studied the painted lips, the fleshy chin, the wide, inquiring eyes. “I’ve learned to like you, although I know you never liked me. You wore no mask. You were yourself.”

“That was not everything, son.” It was the first time she referred to him as a son and the word touched him. “I’m sorry if I made you think I didn’t like you.”

“It’s all right, Mama,” he said. “With you I didn’t have to be on guard. That’s the truth.”

“I’m such a scatterbrain, Tony.”

“But you are sincere. You didn’t try to be good to me, because you didn’t like me. And I didn’t have to be jolted by the way you acted, because from the beginning— Remember, Mama, when I first came here?”

“That’s past,” she said. “We should all learn to keep the past where it should be.”

“But the past is important. It’s linked with the present.”

“Well, I don’t care about the past. Why should I?”

“I know, Mama.”

“Did Carmen tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“She never did tell you what my family was?”

“Never, but I know. I’ve known it for a long time now and, frankly, I never cared.”

“Well, it was more by accident, but why should I tell you what you already know? And after all the things that I’ve done to you?”

“I understand, Mama.”

“You don’t,” Mrs. Villa said, “for if you did, you’d unpack your things now.”

“I wish what you just told me made a difference, but it doesn’t. It merely explains your distaste for me. I remind you of yourself.”

“Don’t try to talk smart,” Mrs. Villa scolded him.

“I’m sorry, Mama.”

“Don’t be a fool. I’m not saying that you should stay here because I like you. I’m a selfish woman, Tony. What’s going to happen to Carmen? You are the first good thing that she has had, the first good thing this family ever had — if I may flatter you. Somehow, well, let’s admit it, my friends often talk about you. They say you have another kind of brains, something the Villas never had — unless, of course, you mean brains for making money.… And your papa, he’s my husband and I know — nights he’d lie awake, saying, ‘Tony is right. Tony is right …’ ”

“I didn’t know I had a market value or that I had some snob appeal,” Tony said.

“Don’t talk smart, I said. What I’m trying to say,” Mrs. Villa came forward and shook a pudgy finger at him, “is: have some sense. Someday you’ll find that what’s good for the Villas is also good for you.”

Tony could not face Mrs. Villa anymore. “I’m leaving, Mama,” he said with finality. “I don’t know, but if I change my mind, you’ll be the first to know.”

Mrs. Villa shook her head. “I know your kind,” she said softly. “When you make up your mind it’s made up. Once you’ve gone through that door you’ll never return.”

“Am I such an open book?”

Her hand drifted to his arm, held him tightly but her grip relaxed as Tony moved to the door.

“It will never be the same again, Tony,” she said sadly. She followed him to the hall.

“I’m sorry, Mama,” he said, holding the suitcases firmly. They seemed lighter now and he carried them, almost blithely, down the rear stairway and to the back entrance, where he called a cab.