The Samsons: Two Novels; (Modern Library) (10 page)

“I haven’t been in touch,” Tony said, “and she is not in Antipolo anymore.”

The talk glided on and Tony tried to be casual, tried to steer away from all reminiscences that gravitated to Antipolo and Emy, but no matter how hard he tried, his thoughts always swept back to her, to those precious bits of the past embedded in his mind. She was once more with him, the memory, the feel of her, and the day would never be the same again.

Strange how thoughts of her didn’t bother him very much anymore, particularly in the past few months. This might have been because of his involvement with Carmen—or could love wither like maple leaves in the fall? But the withering away was not complete; her name always brought an undefinable pain to his chest—a sharp, sweet pain that came quietly with all the silent urgings of that thing called conscience.

No, he could not forget Emy, not only because she was the first but because she was the past—his dear, dead past, without which he had no currency. No, he could not brush her memory away as he would dust from a book. Emy was in him, as real as his breathing and for as long as he lived.

T
he drugstore, Boie’s, was on the ground floor of a pink building, a refreshing pink in the dazzling heat. Tony hurried to the mezzanine coffee shop where Carmen was to meet him and scanned the crowd. Carmen would stand out in any gathering—fair skin, pretty face, shapely figure—she could easily draw all eyes once she walked into a room. Tony often wondered why she had accepted him at all. But Carmen was different from her sisters; she took up philosophy and letters instead of the usual liberal arts courses. She was open, too, in her preferences and outspoken in her views. She could be what she desired because she had money to shield her from all forms of noise, to enable her to damn all that did not agree with her.

She was not in the coffee shop, so Tony returned to the ground floor, to the stacks of paperbacks there, and was soon browsing.

How would it be if his mother were still alive and he took Carmen to her? How would his father have reacted—the stern, broken man who was incapable of repentance? It was in Washington that he told her about Rosales and his family. The student party they had attended had become a bore, and in the warm Washington dusk they
had decided to walk home, loaded as they were with canapes and wine. Yes, that was it; it was the vermouth that had loosened their tongues, and under the elms, as they walked hand in hand, feeling alive, he told her why he was in Washington searching in the archives for papers on the revolution. Oh yes, his father had been so right about learning and college, but he, Antonio Samson, went to college not merely because the idea was propitious, but because he wanted to find out if he was made of the same stuff as his father. With wine in his head he had felt compelled: “Let me tell you about my father and about our town. It was never a haven for those who were weak. It was only for those who were strong. And my father was strong in his own, silent way. Do you know that he was not afraid to die?” But she didn’t want to hear about death and suffering, not then anyway, because she wanted perhaps to be noble or was in no mood to have the evening spoiled. “I’m afraid to die,” she had said plaintively, “and I’m a coward and I’m mean. I haven’t any virtue, and what’s more I think I am already drunk.” She had laughed gaily and so he would not tell her more about his old man, whom he loved and hated because he was so simple in a world that had grown terrible and complex. “Let me tell you then,” he had insisted, “about myself when I was young.” And under the elms, keeping in step with her, he spoke of the creek where he had bathed, of the old man who horsewhipped him. But he did not tell her, though he wanted to, of what his father had done—the
hacendero
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he had killed, the municipal building he had burned; he did not tell her how he saw a squad of Pampango soldiers slap his father again and again until his mouth bled. His father no longer fought then, for his hands were cuffed; he merely spat the blood out at their faces and said, “You will not be masters forever.” That was the image he treasured most of his old man, bloodied but defiant. “I’ve known the vehemence of his anger,” Tony told Carmen, but there was no sorrow in his voice, only the placidity of remembrance. “I have long since known what I must do. No, I’m not going to fight another useless revolt as my father and my grandfather before him did. What happened to both of them? They lost all of their land to the thieves who called themselves leaders. No, I’ll do the fighting in my own way and live while I can. The weapons have changed.”

Their footfalls on the sidewalk were slow and soft, and in a while they were inside an apartment building and going up in an elevator. They paused before the door, still holding hands, and because this was Washington and not Manila, and because his head was still brimming with happiness and confession, he held her, and that was the funny part about it, the delicious part: she did not object one bit. He held her, felt the rustling of her dress, the softness of her body, her shoulders, and then he kissed her gently on the lips and murmured, “Thank you for a very pleasant evening,” and she laughed softly and said, “Thank you, too, and I hope we’ll get around to see each other again.”

When he was in the foyer and out in the street the traffic had suddenly become alive. Wonder of wonders, he had kissed Carmen Villa! Who the hell in Manila would believe him even if he shouted this news until his lungs burst? Fool, he had thought, smashing his fist into the trunk of an elm. And with feet that seemed to float on air, he had danced on aimlessly in the magic summer twilight, bubbling to himself: fool, fool, fool!

Fool—and the self-inflicted stigma was forgotten, for into this May afternoon, into this rendezvous, Carmen walked gracefully. He turned to her as she entered and forgot everything; he was intensely aware only of this girl who had come at his bidding. She came to him like a lissome goddess and a great happiness welled in his chest. She wore an apple-green dress that accentuated her freshness, and smiled that knowing smile of lovers, then sidled close to him, taking care, however, that their arms merely brushed, for she had said, in anticipation of times such as now, when, back in Manila, she would be seen with him: “I have many friends, Tony, and I don’t want them to talk too much.”

“I’m not late, darling,” she said breathlessly as he guided her up the flight of stairs to a table.

A waiter hovered and took their orders—two cups of coffee. Then the crowd disappeared and they were alone. It was just the other day that he last saw her, walking down the gangplank arm in arm with her father. The hunger for her, for the honeyed tang of her lips, her talk, had been whetted; they had taken the ship together and had tried their best to be strangers to each other (it was impossible,
of course) because she did not want the Filipinos on the boat to be oversuspicious. Moreover, she had a cabin to herself while he had a tourist berth. The effort at distance had strained the voyage, more so when it ended and she did not even introduce her father to him at the pier when the boat finally docked.

Her cheeks were flushed and her dark eyes mirrored an inner anxiety as they sought his. She leaned forward and spoke softly as if in secret: “Tony, I hate to bring this up again. You forget many things. I’m supposed to have some pride. Tell me now, when are we going to get married?”

He smiled, “I’ve told you, baby. I have to save a little first.” She lowered her gaze and bit her lower lip. She did that every time she was distressed. He leaned forward, “Is something the matter?”

“We should get married now. This week. Tomorrow. Isn’t it important to you?”

“Of course, it is.”

“I don’t want to do this. It’s supposed to be blackmail, but you have to know.”

“A secret?”

“In a few weeks it won’t be. Tony, it’s that important. This month. It was due two weeks ago, but I wasn’t too sure. I thought I was just seasick. On the boat, remember? Well, this morning, I threw up again. And green mangoes …”

Tony reached out and held her hand and all of a sudden he had an urge to pick her up and fondle her. “Baby,” he said, his voice shaky, “I didn’t know. Yes, this month. Don’t worry. Don’t worry …”

He had expected something like this, but the thought that he would soon be a father had never occurred to him so bluntly as it did now. One riddle had resolved itself into something exhilarating and, at the same time, frightening, but he felt no twinge of guilt—only a feeling akin to joy. It was another summer in a place called Washington; it was another place—Carmen’s apartment, its sensual attractions and, most of all, her welcome. Yes, that was it, the lavish welcome—that was what he treasured most.

Bending forward, he whispered, “Baby, I love you”—meaning: Baby, I love your welcome, your warmth. And this was what he shared with her, for Carmen loved her body, too, she loved her skin and her patrician features, more than the ordinary woman. He had, at first, taken her beauty for granted, just as he had taken for granted
the generous attributes of other girls. And certainly Carmen was not fairer than some Mediterranean types he had seen on the Boston campus and in his Spanish summer study tour later on. On their first night she brought to him the attention and pride that she lavished on herself. “Touch me gently,” she had told him while the lamp in the corner bathed her with a soft, even light. He had made a move to switch the light off, thinking she might be embarrassed. But she stopped him and said, “You can turn on all the lights if you want to.” The suggestion had pleased him and he did turn them on—the twin fluorescent lamps above flooded her bedroom, and in their cool, bluish scrutiny he marveled at the luster of her skin, the velvety yielding of her breast to his touch. She stood there, basking in the light and smiling.

His throat was parched and his voice, which he heard only dimly, rasped, “You are so beautiful!” And as he thought of this and lived it all over again, the welcome and the abandon, sin no longer was sin but fulfillment.

“We will get married soon,” he said. “Even if we have to elope. I can’t stand it—meeting you like this, missing you and unable to do anything.”

Creases appeared quickly on her brow as she pouted. “My folks, Tony, you have to meet them. I’ve told them about us.”

“Everything?”

“Don’t be a fool,” she said, smiling.

T
hey agreed to meet at Boie’s again at three. He toyed with a cup of coffee without cream and sugar—a sophistication he had acquired in Cambridge—and wished that the ordeal would soon be over. He knew he would meet Carmen’s parents someday, but in the past this expectation had not bothered him or filled him with foreboding as it did now, with the meeting so near.

It would have been vastly simpler if her parents were ordinary people and not mestizos. In the beginning, his awareness of this fact had been conveniently ignored, only to be resuscitated now that he was home. But before a host of equally depressing images could shape in his mind, Carmen arrived. She was prompt and Tony had not finished his cup.