Francisco Jose - Don Vicente - Two Novels

With Trining, Luis was the last to descend, and at the landing the solicitous crowd milled around them, recreant favor seekers all. In the driveway, which was cleared so that the couple could pass, the town police, in starched khaki uniforms and black armbands, formed a two-file honor guard, and beyond the gate, in the street — where the coffin was pushed into a shiny funeral coach drawn by four black horses — were the inconsequential people of Rosales, the tenants, the mob that had come to pay the great man their last respects. The shuffling of stolid feet and the low, hushed voices merged into one depressing hum. It was warm in the yard, too, and the sweaty smell of people was heavy in the air. The brass band started the Funeral March, and the policemen in the driveway moved to the gate and into the street, where they led the procession, their flag drooping in the immobile air.

Behind the funeral coach, Luis and Trining, in their Chrysler, led the mourners, followed by the politicians, the provincial and town officials. Behind them, inching their way along the main street, were three trucks from the rice mill, all bursting with funeral wreaths, with streaming black ribbons, purple lotus flowers, and greens. Behind the trucks the multitude, on foot, kept pace.

The Catholic priest, who lived on Don Vicente’s grace, timed his arrival perfectly. Accompanied by two acolytes, the young priest walked down the street with burning incense. He went to the rear of the funeral coach and intoned a prayer, then the funeral procession moved on.

Trining turned to Luis. Above the dragging cadence of funeral music and the shuffle of feet on the asphalt, she whispered, so that Simeon would not hear, “You must forgive him. He is dead and cannot hurt you anymore.”

But it is the dead who hurt us most, for we cannot ask them questions, bring them to heel, or confirm with them what it was that made them what they were. Even in death, something of the man lives on — the visitation of his sins. What he did is not confined to himself. The wars he sanctioned go on long after every bone in his virulent body has become one with the soil. Upon this soil we feed and we imbibe the same virus. Death is the ultimate truth, not for him who is gone but for us who still live . “Yes,” Luis said softly, “he can still hurt us, perhaps not so much by what we remember but by what others will expect of us — Asperris. We carry his name, you know, and that is a burden.”

The procession left the asphalted street and proceeded to the dirt road leading to the cemetery. The street was now lined with sorry-looking houses roofed with thatch and walled with buri-palm leaves. People came out of their houses to line the street and gaze at this most impressive display of big cars. Never again would Rosales have a funeral of such magnitude. Never had it had so many politicians and officials gathered together, all in the name of Vicente Asperri.

Had it not rained a few days back, dust would have risen to suffocate all of them. As it was, only a thin, powdery cloud rose, and it covered the coach ahead, the carved cherubs on its hardwood door, while the black wooden wheels creaked in their slow turning. In about half an hour the procession reached the cemetery at the southern end of the town, and the crowd made way for Luis and his wife and all the personages gathered around them as they headed for the small visita in the center of the cemetery — a dilapidated structure with a rusting tin roof and four posts gone awry. Near this the Asperri mausoleum stood on a lot wide enough for a house. It was walled with white Romblon marble. Here lay Don Vicente’s father, his brother, and his sister-in-law, their black marble tombs shaded by lowland pine. There was a tenant whose sole duty was to look after it, to trim the gumamela hedges and water the plots of African daisies and amarillo shrubs, so that, although the whole cemetery had not yet responded to the touch of May, this particular plot was green and abloom.

The politicians vied with one another in hoisting the coffin out of the coach. They carried it to the chapel and set it on a low platform. Santos walked over to Luis and asked if he wanted the cover removed. Luis shook his head. Out of the tightening circle that surrounded them the priest came forward and stuttered the last ritual. When it was over he went to Luis, his breath stinking of tobacco, and said that he hoped everything would be well, that Luis would continue to be the Catholic that his father was. Then the politicians and their wives crowded around Luis, asking him and his wife to visit them in Manila. We have known your father’s greatness, they all said; and we hope that you will not forget us … The band played “Nearer My God to Thee,” and the tomb was sealed. It was time to leave; he took Trining’s hand, turned listlessly to the assemblage, and attempted a smile, after which they walked to the car.

They were silent all the way, and when they went up to the house Trining said, “I know what you’re thinking of.” They washed their feet with warm water, which a servant had placed at the top of the stairs, and they shed their outer clothes of black. Marta had insisted that this be done, so that no abomination would visit them.

Luis remained silent, and in their room Trining repeated, “Luis, how much better it would be if you just talked.”

The warm water had banished the tiredness from his feet, and he sank into bed. The heat in the room descended on him like a solid mass, pressing down and seeking every minute pore of his skin. Trining went to him and sat on the edge of the bed. She was wearing a comfortable maternity dress, which she had ordered from her dressmaker in Manila. Although the dress was chic, it could not hide the contour of her belly.

“My grandfather … Father is there in that handsome mausoleum — and my mother, I don’t even know where she is. Can’t you see how terrible it is? So now I am the lord and master of this castle — hah!” He laughed without mirth. “Did you see how they came to me, the politicians? Have you ever seen such a funeral? Can you not imagine the power I now hold — to do with as I wish? Stop the waves, do not dirty the hem of my royal robes—”

“Luis, what are you talking about?” Trining was distraught.

He sat up beside her, pressed her hand, and said softly, “Even a king does not have all the power in the world, sweetheart. There are things I must do myself, with no help from anyone.”

“I’m your wife. Do let me help.”

He held her face and kissed her softly. “How do we go about living with this blot in our minds?”

“We can try,” she said hopefully. “There must be a way we can get to those who knew what really happened. Santos — he should be able to help.” Her eyes shone.

“They are all cowed,” he said. “Do you think you can find even one who would stand up to the constabulary? They have never been on the side of the people — all those officers are always on the side of the rich.”

“Which we are,” Trining said flatly. “So there must be a way that we can find out. We start here, in this house, and if we cannot get anything here, we can go to Sipnget, or that refugee village.”

“Aguray.”

“We can even go to the mountains, if the answers can be found there.” She was looking at him intently, searching his face, and he marveled at her tenacity — this frail creature, reared in comfort, who now, in his moment of need, was by his side.

After lunch they hastened to Don Vicente’s bedroom, which would be dismantled, and the maids hurried out, emptying it of its memories of sickness and death. When the room was finally bare and Don Vicente’s clothes were packed in mothballed lockers, Luis called Trining and pointed to the spiral staircase that went to the tower. Like him, she had never been up there. It had been locked all these years. He had once asked the servants about the tower, and they had told him that it was there where Don Vicente Asperri’s wife had lived and wasted her years in lunacy, cursing her husband who lived in the room below and slept away from her, on their wide matrimonial bed, cursing him for having failed to give her a child.