Francisco Jose - Don Vicente - Two Novels

Father dressed hurriedly. Our visitor was Don Vicente himself. It was the first time I had seen him, although almost every day his name was mentioned in the house. Father tried to talk him into getting up into the house, but he firmly refused. He sat inside his car, gesticulating, his fat white face tightly drawn. Occasionally, he would shake a stubby finger at Father, and though I could not understand much of their conversation, which was in Spanish, I knew that the rich man was very angry.

Don Vicente concluded his tirade by thrusting a cardboard box in Father’s hand, and then, at a wave of his hand, his chauffeur started the car. Father stood stiffly and said good-bye, and the car sped away.

After we had supped, Father bade me follow him to his room. He handed me the box, then we went to Tio Baldo’s house.

I had not been in it for some time, and now I noticed how really small it was. The sala was bare except for the big table and a sorry-looking bookcase made of packing crates. The only costly fixture in the house was the Coleman lamp hanging from a rafter, and below it Tio Baldo was drafting. When he saw us, he stopped and came forward to meet us.

“You know why I’m here?” Father asked.

“Does it matter, Manong?” Tio Baldo said. “It is always good to have you visit.”

Father took the cardboard box from me, and ripping its cover away, he spilled its contents on the large blue map on which Tio Baldo was working.

“It’s all yours. There’s five thousand pesos there. Count it. Not a centavo less.”

“If you say it’s a million, Manong,” Tio Baldo said, “it’s a million.”

“Don Vicente brought it this afternoon.”

“I heard he was here,” Tio Baldo said. “But I didn’t expect this.”

“All the money you got from the old men — you can return it now, and there would still be enough left to tide you through five lifetimes. Is the price all right?”

“Don Vicente hasn’t enough to buy us out,” Tio Baldo said. “We have all the proofs we need now. We will charge him for damages, too, when we get the land back.”

“You are not taking this money, then?” Father asked, moving toward him.

Tio Baldo did not speak.

“What’s wrong with you?” Father asked sternly. “Don’t you know an opportunity when you see it? You’ll never earn this in a thousand years. Think of it!”

Baldo gathered the bills and returned them carefully to the box. “If you were in my place,” he asked, facing Father, “would you take it?”

Father blanched and his lips quivered.

“Tell me,” Tio Baldo pressed. “Would you take it?”

Father picked up the box and, muttering, he stomped to the door.

The next morning, Father left for the city. When he returned the following day, the first thing he did was tell me to call Tio Baldo to the house.

He came obediently. I followed him to Father’s room and stood guard at the door to see to it that no one ventured near.

“Well, Baldo,” Father said, a hint of sadness in his voice, “I’ve done everything I could. That money … if you want it, it’s still available.”

“I have all the maps and papers ready,” Tio Baldo told Father quietly instead. “I’ll leave for the city tomorrow. The old people who have opened their bamboo banks — all of them — they are expecting so much. I think we have enough to present to the officials. They’ll give us justice, I’m sure.”

Father spoke calmly. “So you think you can win. You are at the end of your road, Baldo.”

“I’m not afraid,” he said with conviction. “There are people on our side.”

Father controlled himself; the veins in his temples were bloated, and his fists were balled. “Do you think you’ll matter?”

“You are wrong to think otherwise,” Tio Baldo said.

“You think I am?” Father brought his fist down on the small table beside him and sent paper clips and pencils flying around the room.

Tio Baldo simply looked at him.

“You think I’m afraid, too?”

Tio Baldo turned away from Father and walked to the window. The yard below was littered with bull carts. A cool wind sprang and wafted up to the house the heady scent of harvest.

“Am I afraid?” Father held him by the shoulder.

“I never said that,” Tio Baldo said, without making the slightest move to shake off Father’s hold. “I think you are only acting your age.”

“Now I’m old!” Father said. “Now I’m a fool. But let me tell you this. Need I remind you it’s not only me you are destroying but yourself, and, perhaps, all those dear to you?”

Tio Baldo, still gripped by Father’s hands, smiled wanly. “I owe you for many things,” he said. “An education, but above all, a sense of right. Please don’t take the last away.”

Father’s hands dropped from Tio Baldo’s shoulders.

“Baldo,” he said softly after a bit of silence, “I’m not taking anything back. Education and righteousness, they are good.” He slapped his thigh in languid resignation. “But we have to live. All of us. All right, I have a few hectares to my name, a rice mill, some houses. But still, I’m nothing. And you know that. Don Vicente — he has everything. He can ruin not only you or me but all of us — not because he wants to, but he may be forced to.”

“We have nothing to lose,” Tio Baldo said. Tears began to well in his eyes.

Father took him to the door. “There’s nothing more I can say,” he said.

Tio Baldo’s gait quickened as he crossed the hall. He hurried down the stairs and stepped into the afternoon.

We did not hear from him the whole month that he was in the city. Christmas passed, and we would not have known that he was finally home had not Old David seen him hurry from the railroad station to his house without speaking to anyone.

The news must have reached Carmay, for at dusk Don Vicente’s tenants started coming, some riding their work animals to town straight from the fields and bearing still the strong odor of earth and sun. The young ones came, too, but there were more old men, farmers who had known nothing but the cycle of plowing and planting. They gathered in the yard, talked quietly among themselves, and wondered perhaps why Tio Baldo did not come out at once to speak to them.

At about eight, he finally came down from the hut and walked among his people. From underneath his house, he rolled out a wooden mortar into their midst and perched himself on top of it. His mother took a kerosene lamp from their kitchen and strung it up on a low branch of the balete tree.

It took him some time before he finally spoke, louder now than the mere whispers with which he half acknowledged those who welcomed him. No sound rippled from the crowd; they hung on to each word, and each was like a huge, dull knife plunged into their breasts.

Then, when he paused, someone spoke, loud enough for all to hear: “And our money, have you cheated us?”

Tio Baldo exclaimed, “All my life, I’ve lived in virtue, but now, with you condemning me, I’ll crawl in the dust to beg your forgiveness.” Lifting his palms to a darkened sky, his voice shaking with his grief, he turned around into the silent crowd that flowed beyond the yard of the little house to the street.

“Tell me,” he said. “Tell me, you who are older than I, upon whose brows wisdom sits. I’ve tried, but we cannot fight money with money, nor force with force because we haven’t enough of these. Where have I failed? Have I not been true to all of you? Tell me, my fathers who are old and wise, tell me what to do. I have no money to pay you back. Even the house where I live is not mine. But my blood — take it. Tell me, my elders, if it’s enough.”

But they did not tell him; they stood like many stolid posts, unable to speak.