Francisco Jose - Don Vicente - Two Novels

Father stood up from his chocolate and galletas to meet him. Tio Baldo took Father’s hand, and though Father tried clumsily to shake off his hold, Tio Baldo brought the hand to his lips.

The following day he resumed his old chores, but Father had other ideas. Father took the broom and ledger from him. “I did not send you to college so you can count sacks,” he said in mock anger. “Go train a surveying party. You’ve work to do.”

Tio Baldo was delighted, particularly so when Father bought him a second-hand transit and a complete line of surveyor’s instruments. With these and some of the farm hands trained as linemen and transit men, he straightened out the boundaries of Father’s farms, apart from Don Vicente’s hacienda.

For half a year he worked very hard; he would start for the fields early in the morning with his huge canvas umbrella, chain, and stakes, and he would return to Rosales late in the evening. He did not work for Father alone; he worked, too, for the tenants.

Then, one evening, Father came home in an extremely bad humor. He struck my dog with his cane when it came yelping down the gravel path to meet him.

“See if Baldo is in,” he told me at the top of the stairs in a manner that was enough to send me scampering down from the house to the nipa hut.

Tio Baldo rushed to the house at once, to the dining room where Father had sat down to supper and was slurping a bowl of cold chicken soup. The moment he saw Tio Baldo, Father pushed the soup aside.

“Sit down!” he shouted, pointing to the vacant chair at his side. “I want to talk to you, you ungrateful dog.”

Tio Baldo, his face surprisingly unruffled, took the seat beside Father.

Father did not waste words. “I’ve always considered a little knowledge dangerous. Baldo, the truth. Is it true you are starting trouble against Don Vicente?”

I admired Tio Baldo’s courage. “Forgive me, Manong,” he said softly. “I am grieved, but I’ve already given them — the old people in Carmay — my word. I only want to get their lands back. Don Vicente can still live in luxury even without those lands, Manong. It’s common knowledge he grabbed these lands because the farmers didn’t know anything about cadastral surveys and Torrens titles. You said so yourself.”

The steady glow of the Aladdin lamp above him lighted up Father’s face. It was very red. “You accuse Don Vicente of being a thief? You might as well shout to the world that I’m a robber, too, because I’m his overseer.”

“You are his employee,” Tio Baldo said.

“And that I’m only doing my job?” Father screamed. He flung his spoon to the wall, and Sepa picked it up quietly.

Tio Baldo nodded.

“What are you doing, Baldo?” Father asked, his face distorted with rage. “What has gone into your head?”

“You knew my father,” Tio Baldo said simply. “You said he was not impoverished until Don Vicente took his land. I’m locating the old Spanish markers. The old men are very helpful, Manong. Please don’t be angry with them.”

As if by an unknown alchemy, Father’s anger slowly diminished, and when he spoke again after a long silence, his voice was calm. “Well, then, so that is how it will be. I’ll tell Don Vicente about this, of course. You will have lots to answer for, Baldo. I only hope you know what you are doing.”

Tio Baldo nodded.

Father looked at him with resignation. “I don’t know what to do with you, Baldo,” he said finally. “You have so much to learn. I’m sorry for you.”

That night I could not sleep for a long time. Father stayed up late in his room, writing, pacing. Occasionally, he would curse aloud and slap his writing desk. When morning came, he roused me from sleep and handed me a fat envelope to mail. It was addressed to Don Vicente.

Four days later, a woman came.

It was early November then. The first harvest was being brought in by the tenants, and their bull carts were scattered in the wide, balete-shaded yard.

She arrived in Don Vicente’s black Packard, and from the balcony, I saw her step out with the lightness of a cat. She must have been Father’s old acquaintance, for she shouted his name in greeting when she saw him padding down the stairs to greet her.

They embraced effusively. “Ah, Nimia!” Father sighed. “I didn’t expect you. This is a surprise.”

She grinned and tried to press away the wrinkles on her elegant blue dress. She went up to the house, sat daintily on Father’s rocking chair in the sala , and shucking off her high heels, curled her toes. Her toenails were as brightly painted as her lips. She must have been near forty and used to having her way, to getting what she wanted, and the very way she talked with Father, the coyness of her gestures, the instances when she touched his arm or smiled at him, suggested not just how well she knew how to use her femininity but how well prepared she was to go all the way if that, too, was the ultimate necessity. That she was brought to Rosales in Don Vicente’s own car from Manila indicated just as well the extent to which the rich man would go to protect his interests; he knew the people in the country who mattered, men who made the laws, who rendered justice, but, more than all of these, he knew, too, the primordial weakness of all men, and I suppose that included Father.

Nimia, as Father called her, fascinated me — how she swung her hips when she walked, how she crossed her legs when she sat down, revealing just a bit of thigh, how everything in the world seemed pleasant and beyond cavil, for there was this smile plastered on her face and it never seemed to leave her.

She came to me when she finally saw me, her perfume swirling around her, and kissed me on the cheek — a wet, motherly kiss — then looked at me with those black witch eyes kindling with delight. “How you have grown!” Then to Father, “He was just a baby when I saw him,” and I thought she would talk more with me, but she wheeled around and relegated me to limbo, while she asked Father about the town, about the problems of Don Vicente and his tenants, and finally about this Baldo.

Father lingered around her with his light talk, ignoring her question. He asked what she would have for refreshments — a glass of sarsaparilla or halo-halo ? “Nothing,” she said, then in all earnestness she asked, “Tell me, what does Baldo look like?”

“You have handled worse people.” Father patted her arm. “He is not handsome, of course. A little bit on the lean side, with an average peasant’s face, but I’m sure you’ll have a hard time with him.”

“Vicente always says that in the beginning,” she said, waving Father away with a deft motion of her hand.

“I know Baldo better than you,” Father said.

“After I’m through, I’ll know him better. When do I start?” she asked.

“Right now, if you want,” Father said.

But she did not start at once. Like a bat, she waited for the dark. After supper, she peered out the window; light burned in the sala of the small house, and before a big table there, Tio Baldo was poring over maps.

She smiled confidently at Father, then she went down to the house.

I did not notice her return, but after breakfast the following morning, she started packing her things. Her face was sour when she bade Father good-bye at the gate.

“Don Vicente must try something new,” Father said.

“I’ll tell him you can do just that, but you aren’t lifting a finger,” she said angrily.

Father waved as she boarded the Packard that would take her back to Manila. “I have limitations, my dear,” he said lightly.

She did not wave back.

After the woman left, things moved quickly. November tapered off into December, and the harvest came in a steady stream. Shortly after lunch one afternoon, the black Packard with a uniformed chauffeur drove into the yard, its horn blaring.