Francisco Jose - Don Vicente - Two Novels

“The mice gnawed some parts,” he explained, pointing to a mess of shredded paper where pink baby mice, their eyes still shut, were cuddled together and making soft squeaking noises. For the next two days he stayed in our house, working far into the night. When he was through, the piano was returned to its old niche. It had a new coat of varnish, the lid was propped up and polished to a sheen, and the white ivory keys were no longer yellow.

After supper, upon Father’s prodding, Miss Santillan walked over to the piano. We watched her settle primly on the stool, then tentatively run her fingers over the keys. The music that bloomed later was full, magical, and Father rocked quietly in his chair.

Then it was their last rehearsal, and Mr. Sanchez came to the house again. The block-glass window in the corner was flung open, and the last vestiges of sun that came in made the piano shine like burnished gold. Miss Santillan played “One Kiss” several times. On Father’s rocking chair, which had not been returned to the azotea yet, Mr. Sanchez sat and listened. After a while he went to Miss Santillan’s side. He rested his arm on the piano ledge, looked at Miss Santillan’s face, then sang. His voice was tremulous and without much timbre at first, but as the melody held him, it soon filled the house.

After “Oh Promise Me,” a Spanish song, he sang another, whose words I could not understand. They were not able to finish the last, because there was a brisk clapping behind me. I turned and saw Father standing at the top of the stairs. He did not return the greeting of Mr. Sanchez. To Miss Santillan, he said gravely: “I didn’t know you could sing, too,” then he walked briskly to his room and his ledgers.

Miss Santillan played softly after Father had gone, and in a while Mr. Sanchez begged to be excused. He said he had something important to do at home.

“But won’t we sing just once more?” She tried to hold him back. “We might not be able to practice again.”

“Oh, yes, we will,” Mr. Sanchez stammered, then he stepped back to the door, mumbling unintelligibly about his work.

Father appeared at the supper table. He was very quiet, and it was only after the dessert that he spoke. Without looking at Miss Santillan, he dug his spoon into the bits of nanca sweet and said: “I see you sing, too.”

Miss Santillan could not face Father. “I had no formal training,” she said.

“And the other teacher, too?” His voice dripped with sarcasm. “You made a nice duet, indeed!”

“We will sing in the high school program tomorrow.”

“Really?” Father said. “Well, that’s good! I think you’ll make a good show. It’s really all right for you to like singing very much, to like a man even …”

Miss Santillan gripped the table’s edge; a flush of red had crept to her face. “Isn’t this becoming too personal, sir?” she asked.

Father glared at her. “Personal or not, I cannot let any lovemaking take place in this house.”

“Lovemaking!” Miss Santillan slumped, shocked, on her seat. “We were only singing a … a duet!”

Father had not raised his voice, but it was stern. “I don’t care which men you want to meet. But as long as you are staying here, under my care, I want you to know that I am like — like your father here.”

He stopped and, in all dignity, stood up, walked to the sala , and pushed his rocking chair back to the azotea . Miss Santillan, speechless for a long while, finally rose and made for her room.

The next morning she was back in her perch under the balete tree. The day of the high school show had come, and though she was needed at school, she did not go. Father arrived late for supper, and when it was over he got his cane from the rack and went down the darkening streets. A boy came from the high school where the program was about to begin and asked for Miss Santillan, but she told me to tell the messenger that she was not feeling well. After the Angelus, Sepa lighted the bronze Aladdin lamp, and Miss Santillan brought out her sewing box. The quiet in the house was awful.

“Aren’t you going to play tonight?” I asked.

She shook her head and did not even turn to me.

“I am going to the school to watch the program,” I said. “Aren’t you coming along?”

Another vehement shaking of the head.

It was sheer waste, and I loathed it. I went to the piano at the far corner. I wanted to run my fingers over its keys, so I tried to lift the lid, but to my surprise, it would not budge. The man who repaired and tuned it had installed a shiny, silver-plated lock — and it was on.

Three days after our high school day, Miss Santillan packed her things and told Father she was moving to another house with one of her female colleagues because she “needed help and guidance on some of her class projects.”

Father objected a little, but I did try very hard to dissuade her.

Later in the afternoon, Father went down, his white coat crumpled and dirtied, and he stayed out the whole night. He did the same thing many times afterward, and though I suspected where he went, I did not ask.

I was having a snack in the kitchen one late afternoon when Sepa, who was serving me, said: “I hope you don’t think ill of your father when he leaves in the late afternoons.”

“You are speaking in riddles,” I said. “He plays chess in the convent or in Chan Hai’s shop.”

The old woman sighed, and her small, bleary eyes were slits as her cheeks puffed up in a smile. “Maybe he does …”

“You old fool.” I waved her away with my spoon. “You know nothing but make stories.”

She called me to the window, and I reached it in time to see Father hurrying out of the yard, past the screen of bananas in the direction of the rice mill.

“Do you know where he’s going?” she asked. She wiped her fat, oily face with her apron and went back to the stove.

“He is taking a shortcut to the rice mill,” I said. “If you have something to say, say it.”

“You’ll find out yourself,” she said. “You’ll find out.”

“You are a witch!”

“Follow him, then,” she said. She shook the ladle at me and laughed again.

“You old witch,” I said, flinging the spoon at her.

For a woman of her build, she dodged nimbly. As I left, her roiling laughter trailed me.

It was not easy to forget what Sepa had said, but in time I did forget, for there was Carmay and boys like Angel with whom I played. Father started leaving the house more often. He would be out the whole night and return only in the morning. I never bothered asking him, for he worked hard, managing his farm and Don Vicente’s, and if he did play chess even for a whole week, it was his business and I would not interfere.

Angel and I were out in the fields near the rice mill one gusty April afternoon. We were flying a kite I fashioned out of Father’s extra Christmas wrapping papers the year past. Angel let me launch it alone; it was a perfect kite, for I had just run a short distance when a puff of wind picked it up and sent it soaring to the sky. It wavered sideways, then hovered motionless in the air, its string uncoiled to the very handle, taut and tugging at my hand.

With my kite safely up, I sat down in the shade of a banaba and dismissed Angel, for I no longer needed his help. He had barely disappeared beyond the turn of the path when a strong wind swept the sky; the string snapped, and the kite started its slow, swaying descent.

I raced across the field and followed the kite as it was blown farther away. In a while I found myself near the river, beyond the rice mill. I ran up the mountain of black ash, and as I reached the top I looked down and saw Father walking swiftly along the bend of the river to the new nipa house on the lot where Martina and her father had once lived.