Francisco Jose - Don Vicente - Two Novels

Luis crouched low, hiding himself from the street, and slipped through the azotea door. Through the low stone balustrade he peered into the street and beyond — into the town. No shape emerged from the darkness — just the fine uneven line of the horizon against the sky dotted with stars, for the rain had gone and with it its portent of clouds. They were taking their time, and if they did tarry, there would be time for him and Trining to escape. He rushed back to their room, and in the dark, to which he was now accustomed, he saw that their bed was empty.

He rushed out, shouting her name, and at the other end of the hall he caught up with her wobbling to the door. He swept her up in his arms and in spite of her protests carried her back. She was light and helpless as a child. Perhaps she did not hear him call her name, and when she snuggled in his arms, her face pressed warm and cool against his cheek, she asked, “Why were you so afraid? I just wanted to make sure the door was bolted tight. They must not harm you, Luis. Even if I die you must live.”

“They will not harm us,” he assured her, but he knew he was lying. There was no place for them that was safe, not in this house, not in Rosales, not in Manila even, for it was not so much violence that they could not escape; it was life itself — crude, cunning, and vengeful. But they would leave behind this abomination that would inherit all of Rosales — the land — and the thought of it sickened him. At the same time it confirmed for him, at least, the irony of his being here.

“If they break into this house, will they burn it?”

He shook his head. “It will be a waste,” Luis said. “My brother knows much, much more than that.”

“Your brother?”

“He is Commander Victor,” he said simply.

Trining did not speak. It was better that way. She must now know and understand that this fate was not just theirs; it was also shared by someone who had, after all, come to warn him in a final gesture of remembrance and love.

“Forgive me,” he said brokenly. “Vic came here last night; he told me to take you away, to leave immediately. I did not heed him — I was so sure — and I was thinking only of myself.”

“Do not blame yourself,” she said softly. “Please do not blame yourself.” He was holding her hand and he felt her stiffen. “Oh, Luis,” she whispered, “it is beginning to hurt.”

“Please, God,” he cried softly, “please do not let her die.” Then he mumbled senselessly into her ear. “When morning comes the servants — and the doctor — will be back. I will not leave you. I won’t leave you.”

Trining stretched her hand out. Her voice was composed and clear. “You are cold,” she said. Indeed a breeze had sprung in through the smashed windows. “Lie beside me,” she said. He looked at her face again in the soft dark and listened to the rattle of gunfire in town, then he pulled the sheet over her, leaving her pallid face and her arms, limp at her sides, uncovered. He lay beside her, and as he did so she closed her eyes and only her breathing, quiet and measured, assured him that she was still alive. His hand went under the sheet and passed over her breast, over the wound. Her skin was warm, and there was no trace of wetness around the bandage.

So this was how it would end, in the cold night, with his brow moist with sweat, his wife dying beside him.

Violence was bearing down upon him and on this house, which his grandfather had helped to build. There was no town then, no main street — just a rise of ground covered with shrubs and trees strangled by vines. The shrubs and the trees were all burned by his grandfather and his grandfather’s people. They had chanced upon this land — away from the harried coastal strip in the Ilokos, from where they had migrated — and they helped build this house, this room, where he now waited.

It was quiet again. Cicadas complained in the drenched acacias in the yard, and a dog barked in the street. He turned on his side and gazed at his wife’s quiet face. Her eyes were still closed, and remembering her pain, he stifled the urge to touch her, to wake her up if she was asleep, to disturb her. Quietly he stood up and went to the window. Beyond the moss-covered wall and the asphalted camino provincial lay the black fields of Rosales. Below, in the garden, were tumbled pots of dahlias and roses that Trining had tended. The shattered glass crunched at his feet as he moved away from the window. He turned the bronze latch of the door to the azotea and peered out. Nothing stirred there. He stepped out and leaned on the iron pergola, to which a screen of bridal bouquet clung, its small white blossoms, like his light blue pajamas, distinct in the black. The town could clearly be seen from this vantage, and in some sections of it flames licked at the sky, red throbbing hues that melted into the darkness. Portions of the town were burning, maybe the municipio or his father’s accesorias . From this distance the destruction seemed beautiful. It was as if he was in Sipnget again. He remembered one early twilight when he and his grandfather were setting the yellowed grass afire. He had thrilled then to the crackling of the flames as they enveloped the field so quickly. He had to run, shaking off wisps of warm ash that had swirled up with the flames, then drifted down and covered him — and everything.

The rain at dusk had washed the azotea , and portions of the tile-work were glazed with water. In the reflection the flames, bright as sunset, painted the bowl of darkness above. Now the crackle of burning wood and the hiss of flames reached him and he closed the azotea door and went back to the room.

He bent over Trining and listened again to her breathing. It was even and slow, and happiness lifted him, away from this room and its portents. We are alone now, the two of us. You should not be destroyed, you should live — it is I who should go. You have a great love for life, your youth is fresh, and it will be wasted. Forgive me for giving you not the future but this .

This was the other violence — the mind that was warped, the peace that was shattered and could not be mended. He had seen and known the other kind, seen the mutilated bodies, the clean bullet holes through which life had escaped, the sightless eyes that could no longer guide one along the path of vengeance. He had stood before that unmarked grave in Sipnget — and what had that violence done to him? It had not made him weep. It had not made him strong. He had continued to speak, but to himself alone, and they understood him not, not his father or his tenants — they never knew what it was that he really wanted to say, whether in his poetry or in his prose, what it was that made him procrastinate. Was it really love that moved him? What is the truth that one must believe in now? Passion could well be evil. Logic, then, is what lasts. It cannot be destroyed — like facts, like numbers, like history. Perhaps the answer was in religion and God — how he sought it and how he followed it, through a long and perilous journey, along crooked paths, and in the process, God, how he had lived and yet not loved! If he did love, Ester would not be dead, or Grandfather — and now Trining.

He thought of writing a letter again, but to whom would he address it? Dear Trining, dear world, dear son, who will inherit this rubble: what will happen to us is an indictment against our time. We have everything and nothing. We die in peace, yet in anger. We were born to a world rotten with evil, although we all pledged ourselves to what was good. We spoke softly, but our hands were rough and we lived long and life shortchanged us .

If I live through this, dear wife, dear son, please remember it was not my intention to hurt or to destroy, but I have done these nonetheless. The spring was clear, but time had muddied it. I hate ugliness, but it is part of me, perhaps because it is also part of birth — that miraculous happening is preceded by agony, as is the dawn by the dark, impalpable night .