Francisco Jose - The Samsons - Two Novels

Emy — and the caverns of the past were lighted up again; memories, sharp and shining as if they were minted only yesterday, lingered in his mind, and briefly he wondered where his cousin was, what she was doing, and if she still cared. But the wondering was quickly pushed aside by his sister’s insistent, “The Villas are rich … rich …”

“I just want to show them that we don’t need their money,” Tony said. “We have to keep a little of what face we have.”

“Face? Face?” Betty was grim. “Do the poor have any face or the right to it? It’s too late now to think of that. A hundred years ago maybe — then it would have been different. There were opportunities then for people to succeed with industry, honesty, and pride. Not anymore, Tony. In school I repeat all these things, but I know I’m lying to those children, and they themselves see what’s happening. The poor cannot be proud.”

“They can at least have self-respect. They don’t have to be so ingratiating,” Tony said faintly. He saw how useless it was to argue. His nephews, too, had lost all interest in the squabble, and they now tackled their food with happy noises.

“It would be different,” Betty continued, “if we didn’t lose everything — and most of it went to you.”

“It’s not for you to say that,” Bert came to Tony’s defense.

“It’s true,” Betty glared at her husband. “When he was in college he never had to worry about his fees. I helped.”

Betty turned to Tony. “I’m not saying that you didn’t deserve to be helped. You have always been bright. That’s why it’s up to you to help us.” The edge was gone from her voice, but she impressed upon him now the fact that he was no longer a part of the family, that he had grown far beyond their conception of him. Now he was salvation, a symbol of the elusive dream they never could attain.

“Do not forget,” Betty measured her words. “The land — it was precious, but your career was more important.”

“You went to college, too, Manang,” he said sullenly. “And Mother slaved for you, too.”

“But I’m a woman, Tony, and I’m not as bright as you. Don’t think of repaying me. Think of Mother. Think of how we all came to Manila because there was nothing left in the province for us. Nothing but old people and tenant relatives who couldn’t help us.”

“I know, I know,” he said dully. “But it’s still wrong.”

“Go ahead then,” Betty said, “be righteous, because you have never suffered. Can’t you see that you are our only hope?”

Tony shook his head. “What you are trying to tell me is probably the same thing that bothers Carmen’s parents. Where’s your pride?”

“Talk to me about pride,” Betty raised her voice again. “You didn’t talk to me about it when I was giving you my pay.”

“That’s not the way to talk,” Bert said.

“Now you accuse me of ingratitude,” Tony said bitterly. “You know I’m aware of my debts and that I’ll pay — not all of them, but I’ll pay.”

He could have said more, but he was the younger. A silence laden with remonstrances descended upon them, broken only by the boys slurping their food. There was no sense in staying at the table longer. “I’m full,” Tony said, not turning to his sister, and rose.

He went up to his room. It was stuffy. Its wooden sidings were bare but for a calendar with the picture of a man happily guzzling a bottle of beer. His iron cot was on one side along with the writing table, which was piled with books and his old typewriter.

Tony went to the only window that opened on the railroad tracks, four bands shining in the afterglow.

Now loneliness welled within him and magnified the words he had just heard. Pride, poverty — they trashed at the chest and emptied it of other feelings; they dulled the mind after one had heard them over and over again. Yet in this ugly room they seemed to belong like beckonings he could not ignore. It was as if the words evoked an ancient world where he had gotten lost, and now he must go and find the place where he had started, the small town, the rain-washed field, and the muddied river; find the locusts on the wing, the farmer boy calling the stray calf home, the brass bands in the early morning, and the acacia leaves closing.

Tony left the window and sat on his cot. The sounds of evening were around him, and he could hear from downstairs his sister’s continued arguing with her husband. Why did they have to be so craven in their needs? If only they could see the hopeless limits of this street and accept this as the fate they must endure and not moan over.

The door opened and Bert stepped in. “You have to stuff your ears with cotton every time your sister speaks,” he said in an affected, jovial tone. “It’s the heat, and she’s tired. What’s more, there’s the summer vacation and no teaching, therefore no money. You know, the kids are already going to school.” He laughed lightly. “You know what I mean.”

“I understand, Manong,” Tony said.

Bert continued, “You shouldn’t think badly of her. As Betty said, when you are poor, you can’t have pride. Only the rich have pride. And we … we are stubborn, that’s all.”

“I know, I know,” Tony said, but his words were drowned as a freight train thundered by. For an instant, a yellow glare flooded the room and everything in it shook.

Bert moved to the chair and sat like an impassive Buddha. As the train moved on and its noise died away, he spoke again: “There is no sense troubling you, particularly now that you are about to be married. It’s just that your sister worries so much. You know what I mean?”

Tony nodded. “I am not angry with her. She will always be Manang Betty.”

“Yes,” Bert said with another shaky laugh. “And I’ll always be your Manong Bert.”

Tony nodded again.

Folding his stubby hands, Bert said, “I hope you have made the proper choice. Still, I always feel that a man should know women. Your sister— I’m not being unfaithful to her, remember this,” he spoke with some hesitation, and Tony felt uncomfortable because his brother-in-law was about to confide in him, and he never liked confidences. They served like heavy fetters that drew the confidant and the confessor cumbersomely together. There was no common ground between him and this fat, bumbling man who knew nothing better than clerking and dreaming of being a lawyer. But there was no way out; he couldn’t run away from this room; he must listen now to the drab tale. “There were three others before Betty came,” a slight, nervous laugh. “I had to make a decision. So here I am.”

“And here I am,” Tony said without emotion.

“You are making the right choice,” Bert said, “marrying into that family. But I hope just the same that you got some experience in the United States. Not just book learning and that sort of thing. Experience with women, you know what I mean.”

“Yes,” Tony said.

The older man’s eyes gleamed lecherously. “American girls are really hot, aren’t they, Tony?”

Tony could almost anticipate the next question, and watching his brother-in-law working up to it, watching the smile broadening on his rotund face, Tony felt uneasy and almost angry at having to answer such asinine questions.

“Everyone says that,” Bert went on, making sounds with his tongue. “Do tell me about them … not now, I know you are tired, but some afternoon when you aren’t too tired and when your sister isn’t around. You know what I mean.”

Tony smiled. “Yes, when she is not around.” Relief came over him; he didn’t have to talk about American women now. It wasn’t that they were unpleasant to talk about, but talking about them involved deception. He had always found it difficult to talk about sex. He had never, for instance, talked about Emy. And now, even while he faced this inquisitive man, his mind wandered to thoughts of Emy — Emy as he had known her, chiding him, telling him he would be someone to look up to, and when one is respected, said Emy, can one possibly hope for more?