Francisco Jose - Don Vicente - Two Novels

“For whom are we going to modernize, sir?” he could not resist asking. “For whom shall we break our backs, miss our meals, and even kill our brothers in order to be modern?”

“You are cynical and you mistrust me,” Dantes said, a hint of sadness in his voice. “How I wish you did not ask that, for it implies that I am working only for myself. Yes, that is true, I love wealth and the power that goes with it, but I know that I will not live forever — like you, I once had youth, but look at me now. I am not as healthy as I’m supposed to be …”

Luis remembered how Dantes was said to have gone to those Swiss rejuvenation clinics, so that he could have more virility — monkey glands, all those things that the rich could afford — and as the rich man droned on, almost like a hypochondriac, about his impending death, Luis not only got a glimpse of Dantes’s weakness but also began to think of all those like Dantes who had everything but were aware that everything was ephemeral.

“Sic transit,” Dantes was saying. “In my case it could be cancer or heart attack — or just the usual complications one expects in old age.” He shook his head slowly and his gaze wandered to the city spread before his picture window — splotches of tin and cement, the sickly green trees, and a smoky sky mottled with clouds. His voice sounded remote and suddenly cold. “I have thought a lot about justice, but let me make this clear — it should be my kind. I make the rules, for I am what I am — the patron, the hacendero , the feudal lord — all those sociological clichés that you use. I like the role. It gives me a feeling of deep satisfaction, almost orgiastic — to use again one of your fashionable words — of superiority, of achievement, and of doing well. The justice I dispense with is mine, for I am the lord, and this justice will go to the workers, for whom you profess love and affection, not as a flood but as a trickle. If you will pardon my sarcasm, how much do you pay your driver and your maids? What are the terms of tenancy on your father’s hacienda?”

Luis bristled and raised his hand in protest, but Dantes waved his protest away imperiously and continued, his voice now raised almost in a rant: “The poor do not know what abundance means. They will not appreciate it, since they are not conditioned to it. We are Western men — our wants, our ambitions are unlimited. They are Asians — primitives with limited wants and equally limited vision. They will always be workers, do not forget that. It is the fate of men to be born unequal. Those with brains will rise in any society, democratic or totalitarian. Ideology is meaningless to those who do not know the difference between caviar and bagoong . Margarine, not Danish butter.”

Dantes paused and his eyes blazed — but only for an instant. Now they were warm again. “You must forgive my enthusiasm,” he said with a quiet laugh. “Sometimes I really sound like a soapboxer or a schoolteacher, and I forget that you are not only an editor but one of the most distinguished young writers in the country today.”

Luis carefully brushed aside the compliment. “Thank you, sir,” he said, “but I cannot help feeling that you seem to think the lower classes are aspiring to utopia. I can assure you — most of the time all they want is three meals a day, education for their children, medicine when they get sick.” He paused, for he suddenly realized that he was merely repeating what his brother had said. “These they do not have. Have you ever been to the Philippine General Hospital, sir?” He knew the question was impertinent, for every year it was to the Mayo Clinic that Dantes went for a checkup. “Have you seen the charity patients there, sleeping in the halls, dying because they have no medicine?”

“That’s the government’s responsibility, Luis, not mine. There is no employee in our companies who does not enjoy the best medical care and pension benefits — much more than what all those crooked union leaders are demanding. I gave all these benefits to the employees without their asking for them. No one can lecture to me about the rights or needs of the poor.”

The intercom buzzed. Miss Vale’s voice came clear. “The two officers are here, sir.”

Dantes’s voice changed quickly. “Serve them something and tell them we will be ready in a few moments.”

Dantes turned to Luis and his voice was grim. “You realize that I have been making a speech.” The grimness quickly disappeared and he smiled wanly. “I do get incoherent sometimes, but out there are two officers, and before they come in I want you to know that there is only one side — my side. I am not interested in what is right or wrong — or what is true or false. My main interest is that nothing happens to this organization. Let me make this clear — I will back you all the way but only if you subordinate whatever ideas you have to what I have mentioned.”

Luis nodded. There was not a single doubt in his mind now that the Old Man had really drawn the line. Yet he could not but appreciate Dantes and his frankness, his simple illustration of what he wanted and what he was. Luis should have had no illusions from the very beginning — as Ester had said, this should have sunk into the depths of his subconscious. If she were here now … Oh, Ester, if you were here now, you would be kind to me, you would comfort me, give me your hand and say that the world will always be like this and we can do nothing about it except be close to each other and share as best as we can the agony of our helplessness .

“In a way,” Dantes was saying softly, “we have been lucky — the Army is not so corrupt or power-hungry as it is in Latin America, and it is easy to work things out because the officers are just after promotions.”

“But someday it will be corrupted, sir,” Luis said. “It is already starting. As with all our institutions, it will decay, for the Army will no longer have a vision and its highest castes will be only after comforts. This will start at the top, not with the privates and the corporals. But it will spread down, and there will be no stopping it, for the leaders shall have been infected; the colonels will not believe their generals, the lieutenants will not believe their colonels, and the privates will not believe their lieutenants. Patriotism becomes a sham, a means toward getting rewards. A dictator will go masquerading as the man on a white horse. And he will do it easily — for as long as we have an Army that does not side with the poor—”

Dantes had listened, but his was the last word nonetheless: “And what army in the world, ever, has been an instrument of the poor? It has always been, will always be, the instrument of the state — and therefore of the powerful!”

The dialogue was over. Dantes strode to his desk and reached for the intercom.

Two officers, a fat balding colonel and an ascetic-faced major, came in. They did not extend their hands when Dantes introduced them to Luis. “Colonel Cruz, Major Gutierrez.” They looked at the Old Man’s beady eyes, which did not soften, even when everybody was seated.

“These gentlemen have gone to your town, Luis,” the publisher said, “and they want to disabuse your mind about the massacre.”

“There is nothing to talk about,” Luis said. “Everything was in the magazine, Mr. Dantes. There is no point in discussing it — unless they have something new to add to it. If they have a reply, we will, of course, as a matter of policy, print it.”

The colonel took the bluster from Luis. “Yes, there are still many things we can discuss,” he said, his voice perceptibly hostile. “Inaccuracies, omissions — all of which have put us in a very bad light. You should have checked all your facts first before you wrote that trash.”