Francisco Jose - Don Vicente - Two Novels

He took off his shoes, too, and stretched his legs. “Is your father afraid that something might happen to you if you are with me?” he asked pointedly.

“Luis,” she chided him, “he does not even know I’m with you — and on Christmas Day.”

He lay on his side. Beyond the slope of sand, the sea was clear and lustrous. Two boats, their sails tipping and bloated with wind, were riding in the far distance. Beyond them lay the small green hump of Corregidor, and still farther the soft blue line of Bataan and the aquamarine rise of Mount Mariveles.

“You can leave now if you want to. Breathe the word and I’ll take you home.”

She bent over him and cupped her hand over his mouth. “Don’t talk like that,” she said. She shook her head. “Please, why do you always want to fight with me? You are so belligerent, and you want me to be your enemy. All right, I’ll stay with you all day if that will make you happy.”

He sat upright, his manner grown mild, and pressed her hand. “Thank you,” he said contritely.

Ester did not mean to drop the subject. “Even to me you are bitter. Do you hate women, or mankind in general? I cannot believe it, but I wish you’d at least be honest with me. Tell me that you over-dramatize — like all poets perhaps — that you wouldn’t have been expelled from the university had you not fought over such a trifling matter.”

“Trifling!” he shouted at her, his humor vanished again. “It is a question of belief, and furthermore, I was not expelled. I quit!”

“Call it what you want,” she said coolly. “You would have graduated with honors and not have been a false martyr if you just saw it the other way. The priests are human, too. They had their reasons and they felt cheated. I hear that they considered you one of their best products.”

He closed his eyes and strangled the anger that was growing in him. False martyr, human beings — he clenched his fist and struck his palm viciously.

“That would have been me,” Ester said sadly.

He turned to her. She was gazing at him with the kind of look no man can fail to recognize, that countenance that can render granite into sand. What has come over me? What devil anger possesses me so that I lash out at everyone who comes close? I was unhappy because I did not know what to do. I hesitated and wondered. I was afraid that I was not right, that I would end up hurting people, then I looked around me and found that it was not I who was doing wrong to other people — it was they who had hurt and betrayed me, not so much because they had not accepted me but because they had in a sense rejected me. I cannot be close to anyone, not even to those who have reared me — and here is the girl who would give me herself and all the sacrifice this act implies .

He sat up, stroked her arm, and traced a blue vein with his finger. “I am not angry with you — you must know that. It is with myself that I am continually at war. Maybe that’s overdramatizing it again, but like you said, I am egotistical and self-centered.” He smiled. “You must forgive me. You are a wonderful creature.”

Her humor had returned. “Cut it out,” she said. “You know I am no ravishing beauty. It is the blind man who will appreciate me.”

“Because he will see something that others will not see — your soul, which is beautiful, too. Do you know what you really have?”

She shook her head. “Flattery will get you somewhere.”

He knew it then and he was sure of it. “You have a glowing personality. You are real,” he said, and holding her shoulders, he drew her to him and kissed her softly, ever so softly.

Afterward she left for the car to change, and when she came back and stood before him Luis realized what a really beautiful creature Ester was. The lavender swimsuit both revealed and concealed. He stared at her and marveled at the shapeliness of her figure, her thighs, the high, pointed mold of her breast, and how elegantly she walked.

“You are undressing me!” she said, blushing. “Come, let us swim.”

He did not go with her. “I’ll watch,” he said. She threw him a kiss and ran down the beach. He watched her swim out, her arms rising and dipping into the water with even grace. One time she dived so long that he thought something disastrous had befallen her, then she bobbed up, nearer the shore, laughing. “It’s not so cold,” she shouted. She didn’t stay in the water long. She was panting when she returned, shaking off her hair the droplets that had seeped into her bathing cap. After taking a shower in one of the bathhouses near the main rest house, she joined Luis and spread their lunch on the plastic sheet that had covered the basket.

Marta had prepared the food well — roast beef left over from the party, Coke, omelet, ox tongue, oranges, and raisin bread. They ate slowly, and when they were through, Ester wrapped the leftovers neatly and placed them back in the basket. She took some magazines from the car, and they leafed through them and argued a bit. It was then that the fatigue of the previous night caught up with him. “You wouldn’t mind if I dozed?” he asked. He lay down, and she took his head on her lap. Before he closed his eyes he had one glimpse of her lovely face looking down at him.

It was late afternoon when he woke up. The surf had become a thunderous crash. Ester was beside him. He sat up. The beach was empty, and the slope of sand where the breakers rolled in a while ago had become a chasm, and the waves, massive and white, were collapsing with a roar.

“That was some sleep,” Ester said. “I’m glad you are rested.”

“You should have wakened me.”

“But you needed sleep,” she said. “Besides, you were talking in your sleep and it was great fun listening.”

“What did I say?”

“Your life story,” she told him gaily.

He stood up and stretched his arms. “Thank you for keeping watch,” he said. She gathered the magazines, helped fold the canvas sheet, and followed him to the car.

All the way back he drove slowly, although the traffic was not heavy, since there were few commuters from Cavite during the holidays. Dusk had descended upon Manila when they crossed over from Baclaran to Dewey. The bay was shrouded with the purple hues of sunset.

“Do come and cook supper, like you told me,” he said. They were on the boulevard, and the façades of restaurants and nightclubs were already ablaze with neon.

“It — it is not proper, Luis,” she said tentatively. “Papa—”

He pressed her hand and assuaged her doubts. “I’ll take you home after supper. I will say we have been out, that’s all. He won’t get angry.”

“But I also said I don’t know how to cook. I am handy with a can opener only—”

He pressed her hand again. As he swung the car to the right, up the driveway, he said, “We will have the house all to ourselves.”

She looked at him covertly and asked, “How long will your servants be away?”

“They are certainly not coming back tonight — or tomorrow.”

Holding hands, they went up the short flight of stairs. This is what I want , Luis thought as blood raced to the roots of his hair. He opened the door and switched on the lights in the hall, Ester close behind him. She switched on the lamp by the piano and went to the kitchen with the lunch basket. Although this was only her third time in the house, she knew it well.

“Shall I start cooking now?” she asked at the kitchen door.

“We have time for that,” Luis called from the bedroom, where he was washing up. When he went to the kitchen Ester was still there, studying the refrigerator. He dragged her away despite her feeble protests. His arm deftly around her waist, they glided past the kitchen light, which he turned off, and into the hall. They sat down on the couch near the azotea door.