Francisco Jose - Don Vicente - Two Novels

“I didn’t ask you about the Americans,” Luis said.

“Yes, but you cannot avoid them,” Vic said. “They are everywhere and, most dangerously, in the dark corners of the mind, especially the minds of the ignorant people we deal with every day.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“I am coming to that,” Vic said, a smile fleeting across his dark face. “I believe in Mother — our mother.” He paused and waited for the word to sink in. “She fed me, she taught me all that I will ever know. Even if she didn’t teach me anything, I would still believe in her, because I know she is Mother, who brought me up in this world. There are lots of things in this world that I despise — the lying and the thieving. You don’t know how deeply I resent these things, how I rage — but I believe in Mother.”

“Do you believe in me?” Luis asked. He had not wanted to ask the question, but he had to know the answer now.

For some time Victor did not speak. When he finally did he looked straight into his brother’s eyes. “I wish I could answer you with a simple yes and mean it. We have never lied to each other, but how can I say that I believe in you when I can’t even believe in myself now? I am wracked by doubts, by anguish and mistrust. There is nothing anymore that one can be sure of, Manong. Nothing is true anymore except Mother, for she is what she is and we cannot change her. And death.”

“I am your brother, Vic,” Luis said softly, but within him he was crying out: Believe me, I am you and you are me!

“Do you think I will ever forget?” Vic’s voice shrilled. “You have done for me what no one has ever done, and I am grateful. Without you and the money you sent Mother I would not have been able to finish high school. All the learning that I got afterward — it came from the books you sent me. The wealth you gave me is here”—Vic pointed to his head—“where no one can take it — not even you. But there is something here, too. Memory. I remember our days together — and our quarrels.” Vic laughed suddenly and his laughter was eerie. When he paused, his eyes were misty. “Mother loved you, perhaps more than she loved me, because you were not wanted — and I was. That everyone knew. But where are you now, and where am I? This is the whole point. You will go far, very far, but what of those who are still in Sipnget?”

“And do you not believe me because I am a bastard and because I am only a half-brother?”

“You fool!” Vic lashed at him. “Haven’t I just spoken about how we grew up together and lived together? That is something I always look back to with pleasure. That’s why I came here.”

“And yet you cannot trust me?”

“I trust even Marta and Simeon. Why shouldn’t I trust you in another way? But you asked if I believed you.”

“There’s so little difference,” Luis said wearily.

“I said we lived together, but that was long ago and I have never talked with you as I am doing now. In between, many things have happened. You went to the city and I stayed on the farm. I am not saying that you don’t deserve better things — you were always smarter than I, and you had a way with words.” Vic paused and looked around him. “I had to catch up with my own education my own way, and I know that people change when they live differently, away from the land. Now, tell me. Have you changed? What do you believe in now?”

Luis walked to the window that opened to the bay. The night was calm, a faint glimmering of stars and the silence of a world gone to sleep, and the bay was a black, shimmering stretch — a line of lights where Cavite was. It was long past midnight. Luis turned to Vic and said slowly, “I believe in humanity — not just you or Mother but all mankind. Do I sound like a preacher or a cheap politician making a pretty speech? This is not what I intend to do. Father told me that he wanted me to go into politics. I believe in life, that it is sweet, and that, for all its occasional bitterness, we — man, that is — are headed toward something better — fulfillment. There is much shame, however, and so much hypocrisy around us, and these inhibit our fulfillment as human beings. I am what you may call a humanist. I cannot explain this to you. Life is holy and it is for all of us. God’s design I cannot understand myself, and I never will, but I do know that what we are experiencing now will pass and in the end we will all be brothers, not just blood brothers, as we are, but brothers in spirit. Neither you nor I can change the world or human nature, and we can only aim at changing attitudes — and perhaps teach those who have so much to give a portion of their blessings to those who have less.”

“Paradise on earth, achieved with human understanding. Not a single egg broken.” Vic coughed mirthlessly.

“Do not try to be smart or funny.” Luis spoke hotly. “I have been writing poetry, as you very well know — not very good, perhaps, but this is not important. What I am trying to say is that I have hope that there is still truth to be gleaned, even from the garbage dump, if we search hard enough.”

“And you think that I have no hope? We fought the Japanese with slingshots because we had hope. We now fight for the same reason. You forget the source of our real strength. It is not people like you, although you can be one of us. We are very rich in numbers. The poor are many — they are the majority. This is all that I understand. As for the good life or reason or the world of the spirit, you can afford to be poetic about it because you are here. You forget one thing: we are there!”

“Is that what they are teaching you in the Stalin universities? I have heard about them.”

Victor laughed loudly. “Listen,” he said after a while, “we have lots of books, and lecturers, some of whom are Ph.D.’s. Does this surprise you? And we do have schools but not the kind you think. Every day is school day for us. We deal with facts, not with books. We know who is exploited and who are exploiters. If there is a god at all, He is in us — He is not up there. Paradise can be here if we fight well. There is goodwill in men if they are of the same class.”

“You sound so familiar,” Luis said softly, thinking of his own college days and those sophomoric discussions under the acacia trees. “I am tired of dreams. Why can you not be practical and learn to live with facts, as you say you do? With education — and I am only too glad to help you — you can be more than what you are, whether you are a farmer or a clerk. There is a lot of room. There’s freedom, too. Why are you doing this? There must be a reason.”

Vic had not stirred from where he sat. “I cannot give an easy answer,” he said with great feeling. “I wish I could tell you that I will endure all privation because I love our country, but what is our country? It is a land exploited by its own leaders, where the citizens are slaves of their own elite.”

“Be honest,” Luis pressed. “Do you think you will be different if you achieve power?”

“I do not know,” Vic said humbly. “One cannot foresee the future. I would like to say that I will be Spartan and honest. I am no hero. I would like the good life if I can get it. I would like to have lechon every day, to travel and see the world. I would like to be comfortable and not have one worry. But none of these is possible. It is not even possible for me to go to school the usual way, to know myself better …”

Luis was silent.

“And you want to know why I am away from all the comforts that I could appreciate, just like other human beings? I will tell you why. I am tired, Manong — very tired. I am tired of everything. I hate the present and I long for the future. It is a future that I hope will at least provide enough food for all of us. I am tired of soft-boiled rice and camote tops and coconut meat and green papayas, such as we have in the mountains most of the time. Once, long ago, I thought that all that mattered was food. There was so little of it — you know what we had in Sipnget.”