Francisco Jose - Don Vicente - Two Novels

Eddie was amazed to see him back. “You deserve a much longer honeymoon,” he joked. “Of course I know that what you can do in forty-eight hours would take us ordinary mortals forty-eight days.”

Luis grinned. He flung his leather portfolio atop the bookcase behind his desk and inserted a sheet of copy paper into his typewriter.

“Tell me what is so important that you cut short your honeymoon,” Eddie said, hovering by him.

Luis looked at his associate. He trusted him completely. Eddie worked harder than Luis himself, but in spite of his ambition he completely subordinated himself to his editor’s wishes.

“I’ve seen something in my part of the country that provides the clue to why the Huks are getting stronger every day,” Luis said. “A massacre has been committed. We didn’t even get to know about it. Worse, it was condoned and glossed over. Twenty were killed.” His voice started to tremble, and he stopped. Eddie sat on the edge of Luis’s desk and listened keenly. “In my hometown. The constabulary and my father’s civilian guards — they destroyed the village, too.”

Eddie rubbed his chin. “Of course you have the proofs, photographs, testimonies — all those things.”

Luis glared at his associate. “My eyes — what more proof is needed? I know the village, the people. It is gone. I saw the charred posts, the mass grave where the victims were buried.”

Silence.

“You are in for something big, Luis,” Eddie said. “Something we might go into with our very lives.”

“Yes, and we can’t let it pass. I’ll have to lay it open — the whole mess. You don’t know what this means to me. It is my own father whom I am fighting now. He knew about it, but he kept silent.”

Eddie winced. He stood up and went to his desk. “He may have his own reasons, Luis, and they may be good. In any case”—he looked briefly at the calendar—“our deadline is five days from now.”

Luis made a listing of the authors he wanted for the special issue. He also checked up on the file of articles that had already been accepted and those that had been set in type, ready to be used. In half an hour he had made half a dozen calls and worked out a dummy. Now the editorial, which he must write — and the article on Sipnget.

He should not have been surprised to find Ester in his home that evening. Eddie had informed him with a sly, knowing wink that she had called twice, asking when he would return. She had not bothered him in the office, but here she was now, watching him as he moved about, to the kitchen, where Marta was preparing the table. They had greeted each other at the door with a mere handshake, and making a bright effort to sound casual, she had congratulated him. He had in turn asked her to stay for dinner and told her that she did not have to worry about how long she could stay.

“Tell me how it was — the vacation, the wedding,” she said, watching him as he helped Marta prepare an extra plate at the table.

“I had not expected you here,” he said.

She laughed softly. “Poor Luis — always acting surprised. I was in your office yesterday, and today I called up Eddie about you.” Her laughter trailed off into another question: “How does it feel to be married?”

“I thought you wouldn’t want to see me again, least of all come here,” he said, not bothering to answer her questions. “What is it that’s bothering you, Ester?”

“You don’t have to ask me that,” she said flatly. “But you can ask me why I am not on my knees.”

They sat down to dinner, but Luis nibbled at his paella, his favorite, which Marta had prepared. Ester, too, did not seem hungry. “Well, I must want something to be here. Aren’t you curious enough to find out?”

“Tell me.”

“That’s game of you, Luis,” she said. “I just want to hear you talk, really, about your town, your big house, your father’s hacienda, and of course your wedding night. Know something? I have always known that Trining was very possessive about you, that she really wanted you. Were you nice to her — I mean, gentle to her?”

Her prattle had become quite unbearable. “What are you trying to prove?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

He stood up, and because she made a motion to rise, he went to her and eased her out of the room. They went together to the azotea , out of Marta’s presence.

“You know everything. You don’t have to ask questions,” he said. She sat close to him, so that he could smell the fragrance of her hair. When she spoke again, it seemed as if she had suddenly aged and her voice was feeble. “Yes, I used to think that I knew most of the answers, that I could even guess what you would do. Tell me how it happened. It was not what I expected of you. Not that I do not think Trining is a good girl for you, but you had some ideas, and marrying your cousin — that was not in the stars.”

“Yours,” he said, “not mine. Do you find anything immoral about it?” He was defending himself and Trining.

“That’s nice of you, thinking that I am still concerned with morality.” She had become curt. “Do you love her?”

“Does it really matter?”

She turned away.

“I have no explanations,” he said simply.

“I didn’t ask you to unravel your dark thoughts,” she said. “I can only guess. You know, Father did not approve of you — he thought we were going to be really serious. He wanted me to marry my cousin — you must have seen him. He is old enough to be my father. He is balding, has bad teeth and bad breath — but who cares? He is the only heir on his side — and the family wealth, you know, as the cliché in Negros goes, must not fall into the hands of others.”

“It’s not a bad idea,” Luis said.

“Yes,” Ester said. “So you are very rich now, Luis — richer than you thought you’d ever be. Was it your father who told you to marry your cousin, so that your hacienda won’t be split?”

“That’s not true!” he said, glaring at her.

“All right, then.” She drew back. “It may not be true, but it’s a fact, isn’t it?” She walked to the door and crossed the hall to the foyer. Luis followed her, and for a while, when she turned to him it seemed as if she had regained her spirit, for a smile played at the corners of her mouth. “But we must really see each other again, although the rules are now changed. After all, you are a married man now.” She broke into a nervous little laugh. “You must come and see me tomorrow — at six.”

He did not answer. She smiled again and did not wait for him to accompany her down the driveway, where her car was parked.

When she was gone he went to his room to think things out. He was not going to see her again. He was going to steel himself against the compulsion. To Trining, he was going to be the husband that his father had never been to his mother.

Yet it was only a little past five, and here he was, on his way to Ester’s house. The sun was still hot on the pavement, glittering in the shop windows and bouncing off windshields in blinding flashes of silver. It was an easy drive after he had extricated himself from the traffic in downtown Manila.

When he drove in she was reading in one of the wrought-iron chairs that lined the porch of the Dantes residence. Casting her book aside on the low glass-topped table, she raced down the driveway to meet him. She wore a green print dress, and her eyes were alive. Only the nervous flutter of her hands as she clutched at his and the tremor in her voice gave her away. “You are extremely early, Luis”—she smiled at him—“and look at me, I haven’t even made myself up.”

“You are prettier in the raw,” he said.

She pivoted him out of the porch and the shade of the bougainvillea trellis to the lawn, into the cool shadow of the house, and they sat in the garden chairs. “I’ll go get some drinks,” she said, and went back to the porch, where she vanished behind a ripple of violet-and-green curtains. She had not asked him what he wanted, but Ester was always full of surprises. He felt the old familiarity return. He remembered how he had sat in the same chair, how her mother had always asked him inside, how he had always said that he preferred it here — unless, of course, it was raining — among the palmettos and the well-kept hedges, sipping Coke and nibbling at cookies and exchanging inanities. Those were, of course, the days before they started arguing with each other, before this wall between them was set up by pride, by misunderstanding.