Francisco Jose - Don Vicente - Two Novels

“They’re in a hurry, so they must have been called to a place where they are needed more.”

She was looking intently at him. “And with them no longer here, who will protect us?”

He wanted to tell her of Vic’s visit, but he had never told her much about his brother except that he was intelligent and continually asking questions and that he wished Vic could have gone to college. It was now clear that Vic had really come to warn him, not just to continue the old harangue. Somehow, in the recesses of his mind, no matter what happened, he would be secure; for all the truculence of Vic’s rhetoric and the oppressive tension that pervaded the plain, he was convinced that he was no enemy.

“Surely you don’t believe all those stories about the Huks. I would be more worried about the constabulary and the civilian guards. Look what they did to Sipnget.”

“Don’t the papers tell the truth?” Trining asked. “Look at the stories about Santa Cruz, San Nicolas — the Huk massacres in the Army camps they attacked. And San Nicolas is only twenty kilometers away.”

“Twenty-three,” he corrected her.

She stood up and went to the window again. “We should get out of this place, Luis,” she said heavily. “I see no future here, nothing but days we cannot call our own. If we go back to the city, we can lose ourselves, and my baby will have better care, not like in the provincial hospital where we left him.” She turned to Luis. “Why can I not see him? Is he so shriveled and ugly — that is what premature babies are supposed to be — that I may lose all composure upon seeing him?”

For a moment Luis was taken aback and did not know what to say. Then he surmised that the nurses must have been telling her things, hinting. “What did the nurses tell you?”

“Nothing,” she said, “except that premature babies look ugly sometimes and they never really put on flesh and their skin never really stretches until they are nine or ten months — and that’s a pretty long wait, isn’t it? And look at the milk in my breasts that should go to him, poor thing.”

“He is being taken care of properly—”

“We should really get out of Rosales.” She was determined. “I’m afraid for you and what could happen here. We can rent a small house and sell the house on Dewey — even this house, if it has to be that way. Both are too big for us, anyway. We can live like ordinary people, with just one maid. I’ll do most of the housework and the cooking. But let us go while there is time. This afternoon.”

He could not face her, for now it seemed that he must stay in Rosales, not because he wanted to defy his brother’s warning, not because he did not want to give Trining the peace of mind that she sought, but simply because he knew in his bones that he could not live elsewhere — not in the city, which would remind him of Ester and of the lies he had told. Living here would be living with the truth, no matter how damning it was. Living here required courage, too, which he must now possess. Most of all, being in Rosales would confirm, for him at least, that illusory contract he must have with his own people.

“No, Trining,” he said evenly. “This is where we must stay. I’ll have the baby taken to Manila this week, so that he will have the proper care, but we — we must live here, for this is where we belong. I see now why Father was so concerned, why he returned here.”

Her reply was a long time in coming. “I’ll stay with you. I’ll follow you …”

“To the ends of the earth.” He laughed lightly and kissed her on the cheek.

The nurse knocked on the door. The commanding officer of the detachment was downstairs — and would Don Luis please give him five minutes? He was sorry that he could not call earlier, but their order to leave was sudden. He told the nurse to ask the captain into the hall and to please wait.

When Luis came into the hall the captain was staring at the mellowed frames of European Postimpressionist paintings that his father had brought home from his trips. The captain was a short, wiry man, probably in his early thirties, with prominent cheekbones and a narrow forehead. He appeared spare from a distance but on closer look was actually firmly built and muscular. He saluted Luis, then came forward and extended his hand. Luis saw him almost every morning getting into a jeep or armored car, then disappearing up the dirt road that led to the foothills and returning again in the late afternoon, his gait as brisk as ever. He had come for a visit one evening, but only Santos and Trining received him. He is a lonely man, Trining had told him later, and Luis had said brusquely, the guilty are always lonely.

Luis shook his hand. The officer’s grip was clammy and tight. “I am very sorry, sir,” he said, “that I have to say good-bye the first time I see you.”

Luis motioned him to sit down on one of the overstuffed leather sofas in the hall, then asked a maid to bring some coffee.

“We are going up north,” the officer continued. “We did not receive our orders until early this morning on the radio. There seems to be more trouble there.”

“Once it was confined to central Luzon,” Luis said, a wisp of sadness in his voice. “Now, it’s all over the country — in the Visayas, in Mindanao …”

“Yes,” the captain said, “and fighting them is like ramming a steel fist in the air. They are everywhere and nowhere.”

“They are wherever there is hunger and exploitation,” Luis said. “They feed on greed and injustice.”

The officer looked down and seemed thoughtful, then he turned to Luis, his eyes burning. “I wish I could form opinions as easily as you,” he said, a hint of impatience in his voice. “It is of course very sad that my orders will always be to seek and destroy them. They are worthy opponents — some of them could really teach us tricks in guerrilla warfare and intelligence work. I am particularly impressed by Commander Victor — his daring, his brilliant tactics. The batallion has lost more than twenty men to him, and we haven’t captured a single man from his unit. Yes, I know he is your half-brother, and I am sure that you still hate us for what happened in Sipnget. I just want you to know that none of my men were involved, that it was after the incident that we — all of us — replaced the detachment here.”

“I don’t want to hear about it,” Luis said.

“I did not mean to digress,” the officer said. “I just brought it up so that you would know that I know.”

“Don’t you feel a little bit uneasy, Captain, fighting your own kin? I imagine you must be a veteran of Bataan.”

“Yes, yes,” the captain readily answered. “I was interned in Capas — the Death March, all of that. Yes, it was different fighting the Japanese. But it is our lives or theirs — it is really that simple when you are in the field.” He cracked his knuckles. Perspiration had moistened his face, and his shirtfront was wet. “But what can one do? We are not landowners like you. We are professional soldiers — at least the officers, like me. Of course those boys down there, with their families — they are not professionals. They joined the Army because it was just another job. God knows how difficult it is to get a job. Not one among them wants to go to the hills to fight — and yes, some of them have relatives, too, on the other side. No, sir, it has not been easy and it will never be. There is really no sense in going after your own kin, but we must keep our house in order. I am no student of politics the way you are, but if this country disintegrates, there are powers ready to grab us. One can say that under the Americans this may not be possible — but the Huks are anti-American, although I do not think the Russians are helping them. Why can’t they be just nationalists? It would be better that way. Even then, this I want to assure you — they are doomed.”