Francisco Jose - Don Vicente - Two Novels

To please Sepa, he went with her to the Protestant chapel. He played no favorite, for on the following Sundays he tried them all — the Catholic church, the Seventh-Day Adventists, even the Aglipayans. Not one of the denominations, however, appealed to him. After he had tried them all, he did not hide his loathing for “the stuffy crowdedness in the churches — even God would have been uncomfortable there. With all those many converts, they have no need for me. The priests talk in a language I cannot understand,” he said. He complained, too, of people with bad voices singing.

“What did you do in California on Sundays, Tio?” I asked.

“I had a good time,” he said, a grin breaking across his rotund, oily face.

“Did you play games? Cockfights?”

His eyes twinkled. He looked at me expansively. “Cockfights — yes, although the Americans never liked them; they always tried to haul us to jail for it. And games … yes.” He turned to Father and to Sepa, who was hovering by, ready with another helping of his favorite dinardaraan . “I will tell you later … later …”

That afternoon, I cornered him in the bodega , where he was making an inventory of the sacks of grain gnawed by rats. “We followed the crops in California,” he explained. “We would be picking beans, tomatoes, lettuce. Then strawberries and grapes. And apples, yes, apples. I would smell of apples even on Sundays.”

I could picture him munching an apple, although he said apples made him sick. On Sundays, he went on, he had plenty of money. He brushed his teeth, wore his flashiest suit and his black Stetson, then boarded the silver bus that was fast and smooth, and soon he was in town. He went around a corner, and when he came out, he was holding the waist of a tall blonde, who was, all the while, laughing and immensely enjoying herself.

I did not like her laughter. I did not like her looks, even if she was as white as a newly washed radish. She destroyed the picture of baskets and baskets of golden apples that Tio Benito had picked.

A year after Tio Benito had returned, I noticed that the talk about his ways and the questions that were posed to him diminished, then almost disappeared. Everyone began to accept him for what he was — even his profanities, his showing off, and his attachment to his black Stetson when a lighter, airier hat would have sufficed. On Tio Benito’s part, he seemed to have become more morose each day, for he had finally spent all his money and had started to sell some of his things; he even tried to sell his woolens, which no one would buy. Now he often asked for money from Father, but knowing his ways, Father would only give him pin money; after all, Tio Benito was assured a roof over his head and meals every time he was hungry. More than that, he had his share of the harvest, which, alas, was months away. He wandered less and less to the marketplace and to the barbershop on the main street and kept more to the house, talking with Sepa, Tio Baldo, and Old David, for they listened dutifully to his jokes and his stateside stories. Sometimes he also ventured to Carmay to be with Grandfather on weekends.

Then one day he announced pompously at the breakfast table that he would go to the neighboring town to look after a business deal involving the buying and selling of the mongo harvest, and would Father be gracious enough to advance him a small loan of fifty pesos, which he would repay within the month? Father was a bit puzzled but was pleased nonetheless; at last — American commercialism had made its mark in a time of need.

Tio Benito was away for a week, but on the next Sunday he returned at about lunchtime. He looked pleased. His shirt was wet with perspiration, for the sun was bright and the streets were baking in the heat. He did not seem to mind, although I knew him to curse even at the slightest rise in temperature. Now his eyes danced with a light I had never seen before, except when he described his Sundays in America.

Tio Benito had a companion — a woman. She looked at least twenty years older than he. Tio Benito was middle-aged, but he did not have any of the wrinkles that lined the woman’s face. I told myself, of course, that she must be just a business associate and not someone toward whom he had amorous intentions; after all those blondes in America, such a thought was unthinkable.

Not that she was ugly; she was brown — very — and she had classic Ilokano features: a broad forehead, a small nose, and lips that were quite thick. What struck me were her upper teeth, which were all set in gold so that when she smiled it seemed as if her mouth was on fire. From snatches of conversation while they were talking with Father in the sala , I learned that the woman lived three towns away, that she had come to pay my very surprised and very amused father the fifty pesos that Tio Benito owed him plus whatever interest there was. But more than this, she also wanted to talk to all of us about a very urgent matter “concerning salvation and the soul.”

“Yes,” Father said. “This is very good to hear. But let us eat first.”

We stood up and went to the dining room, and when Sepa saw Tio Benito, she told him he was lucky, for she had prepared dinardaraan , his favorite dish. It consisted of pork and the innards of the pig stewed in its own blood and in vinegar. The day before, a neighbor had butchered his pig, and Father gave a cavan of palay for five kilos and the innards.

At the mention of dinardaraan , Tio Benito scowled at the cook, but he did not say anything. We sat before the long narra table, in the middle of which was the glass fruit tray topped with oranges and apples. Like Tio Benito, I also relished dinardaraan , but I could have been knocked down with the paper wand Sepa waved to drive the flies away. There he was, straight as a bamboo, his head bowed, his eyes closed; with his woman companion, he was praying! Father was all smiles; it seemed that we no longer had a pagan in our midst. After this surprise, I pushed toward him the bowl of dinardaraan , reminding him it was my favorite, too.

It happened then; with disdain clouding his greasy face, he pushed the bowl away as if it were poison.

“I prepared it,” Sepa said, surprised and defensive.

But Tio Benito ignored her; he stood up abruptly, and in sudden inspiration, he began the best speech — or sermon — I ever heard on the importance of eating the right food so as not to pollute the body or offend God. He spoke with power and conviction, and we stopped eating; even the maids paused in their chores and crowded in to listen to the words of wisdom that now poured from his lips. He spoke of the growing evil in the world, of the need for brotherhood, community, kindred spirit that would not only allow us to enter the kingdom of God but also banish the usurpers of His word in this land. He railed against the friars who established a church subservient to Rome: look at the money collected in the Catholic churches — it is sent to a foreign land to fatten foreign priests. The Americans were no better; they also sent their own missionaries to perpetuate the subservience of Filipinos to them. The Catholic priests, the Protestant pastors — they talk in a foreign language, they are ashamed of their own, of Ilokano or of Tagalog, which are the languages of the people. And then he spoke of the reasons why he could not eat dinardaraan or anything with blood, for such food was not fit for anyone who believed in the true God, for anyone who could read the Bible and regard it as sacred, for it is right there — and he proceeded to quote from memory the particular chapter and verse. It was my first experience with a convert of the Iglesia Ni Kristo . Sepa was very pleased, although her particular sect was Protestant; what was important was that Tio Benito finally believed.