Francisco Jose - Don Vicente - Two Novels

“I’ll stay here for a month, if you’ll let me — or two months. Then I will go back to school.”

“You should be in Rosales.”

“I can’t go back. The house bores me; you yourself hate it. I think I will take up a secretarial course — shorthand and typing. I’ll keep house for you, and I can type some of your manuscripts afterward.”

“Thank you, but you will only mess up everything.”

“You don’t even give me a chance.”

“And I don’t want you to stay longer than you should. People, my friends come here — you know that — and they will talk.”

“Tio said I should stay here until school begins,” she said stubbornly. “We are cousins, Luis, or have you forgotten?”

He scowled at her. He went to the bathroom and started to brush his teeth. “Have you fixed up the guest room?”

“Marta has done that.”

Luis went back to his room, took Trining by the hand, and led her to the sofa, where they sat, her head resting on his shoulder, his arm around her. “How did Father take my leaving so soon?”

“He was very sad,” she said evenly, “but I think he understands. Anyway, you have seen him — and he told you things, I presume.” Then, somberly: “What’s happening, Luis? Are we going to have trouble? Sometimes just thinking about this frightens me and makes me sad. No, not again. Oh, God, not again! You once said that we are far from the — the people. This morning, remembering what you said, I took the bus, and a taxi from the bus station to here. I was not scared. Only once — only once …”

“Brave girl.” He patted her arm.

“I don’t even know now if I should finish college. It seems unnecessary. What do you think, Luis?” She paused and pressed closer to him. “What is going to happen to us?”

He remembered how he had kissed her for the first time the other evening. There were many times in the past when he would embrace her as they danced or horsed around, but there was never any of this closeness and this intimacy that they now shared.

“I wish I could tell you now,” he said, “but everything is so uncertain. Let’s not talk about the future. Think about something more pleasant.”

“Let’s talk about Mr. Dantes’s anniversary. The grandest thing ever, and I did not go.”

“It was fine.”

“Were my classmates there? Whom did you meet?”

“None,” Luis said, “but I did get to know a bit of Ester, and she set me thinking.”

“What about?” Her interest was piqued.

“She rather seems too mature for her age …”

“And you think that I am not — that I am a scatterbrain besides?”

He hugged her. “No, but why compare yourself with her? You are prettier, although she isn’t bad-looking.”

“You can say that again,” Trining said boorishly.

“I told her that I’d like to see her again.”

Trining turned to him. He could feel her breath warm on his cheek, and her voice was belligerent. “Just what is it that you want to do?” He smiled at her and pressed her close to him again. “Are you in love with her?” He tweaked her nose and laughed. “Well, are you?”

“And if I am?”

“Answer me!”

He gazed at her sullen face, mobile and pretty, and at her eyes, now smouldering. Eyes that could light up and easily beguile him into forgetting that they were cousins. Yes, she had bloomed and was ignorant of the miracle that had transpired. She still had that girlish spontaneity in her moods, in her laughter, in the way she would fling her arms, her nostrils flaring, when she was happy or angry. This was now what fascinated him — the freshness, the vitality of her womanhood. Her cheeks glowed in the light, and her lips, although she was pouting, were full of promise. It was not so long ago that she had been almost tomboyish in the way she moved, in the brusqueness of her speech, and now here she was in his arms, a creature that was ready for the first warm touch of love. “Are you jealous?”

“Tell me, Luis.”

“Her father is my boss. I am just developing her acquaintance. No, how can you say that I love her when I have just met her?”

Her face was still close, but the anger was gone. He stroked her hair and then, bending, kissed her softly. Her lips were slightly parted, and her breath was honeyed and sweet. She sighed and embraced him. “It’s wonderful. Now I know why they close their eyes. It’s more enjoyable that way.”

He withdrew briefly and could not help laughing. She laughed at herself, too, then kissed him again. He started to fondle her breasts, and she squirmed. “You don’t like it?” he asked.

“It tickles,” she murmured, but soon stopped squirming as his fingers touched her nipples. His hand began to wander down the silky line of her thighs. For a moment he could feel her stiffen, although her mouth still clung to his.

“Luis — not here,” she said in a husky whisper.

“And why not?”

“It embarrasses me.”

“I suppose it always does the first time,” he murmured, “but you have to have a first time.”

“I know,” she said. “I’ve been reading all those books, and we have had lectures in school.”

“Well, this is real now,” he said, bending so that they were now prostrate on the sofa. He could feel her gasp for breath. Her embrace had become tighter, possessive. “Luis, what is going to happen to us?” she repeated the question, this time with urgency.

“Love me,” he said, pleading.

She nodded and sighed an almost inaudible yes, pressing her eager body still closer to him.

June came in a green that flooded the boulevard. The dead brown of March that had scorched the city was gone. The banaba trees had begun to bloom, and their purple flowers brightened the wide shoulders of the streets and the fronts of restaurants and nightclubs. The school year opened, and a rash of college uniforms — the plaid skirts, the grays and blues — colored the Luneta in the afternoons, together with the olive-gray and khaki of the ROTC cadets having their drills there. The invigorating smell of green things wafted to the house, bringing memories of Sipnget. Trining came, too, every Friday afternoon when her classes were over, and she stayed with him until Sunday afternoon, when he drove her back to the convent school.

It had been a significant year for the magazine, and the signs were clear that it would soon be able to stand alone and would not have to depend on financial assistance from the other Dantes publications, although the magazine had already displeased influential people and business leaders with its satirical and irreverent lampooning of their personalities. That they did not make good their threats pleased Dantes very much. Like Luis, he had correctly argued that if it were known that they were bringing pressure on the magazine, it would have confirmed not only their lack of humor but their vulnerability as well.

Luis had really intended to see Ester again, but the opportunity did not come until one afternoon shortly after school had opened. She came to the office with Trining and two other classmates.

“Our first term paper has already been assigned,” she said after the niceties were done. She wore no lipstick. Looking at her finely molded face, Luis could see her personality shining through. This afternoon there was something efficient and businesslike about her. “We came to you for advice, really. We do not know anything about the agrarian problem that you have been writing about — and labor, too — and our understanding of our sociology is rather poor. We didn’t know that our professor had written for you.”

Luis liked the unintended compliment. “Well, for a start,” he said, “suppose you tell me if you have been in a picket line — any of you.”