The Samsons: Two Novels; (Modern Library) (19 page)

He finished Senator Reyes’s speech on time and it was printed in full in the newspapers and even editorialized for giving new proportions to nationalism. And when Don Manuel learned that it was his son-in-law who wrote the speech, he did not hide his pleasure from his wife and Carmen.

“Today,” Don Manuel said that morning at breakfast, “you will be with us during the board meeting. Everyone must profit from what you know.”

On the way to the office Don Manuel became more open and he impressed upon Tony how the Villa fortune was not built overnight. Don Manuel’s grandfather had a furniture shop in Intramuros and it started everything. Don Manuel’s grandfather was, of course, Spanish; and in the last days of the Spanish regime and the early days of the American occupation, the narra
aparadors
, the sala sets embossed with mother-of-pearl, and the ornate
kamagong
chests of the Villa furniture shop acquired an appeal with the
ilustrados.
No aristocratic home was complete without Villa furniture. After the illustrious grandfather died, Don Manuel’s father built up the business. In time it expanded to include lumber. Then the Villas branched out into construction and were soon building magnificent residences in Malate and Ermita and in the new posh suburb of Santa Mesa. And as they built and decorated these homes they also moved into a wider and more affluent circle.

When Don Manuel was old enough to help his father, the Santa Mesa residence of the Villas was already finished, but the family did not move into it. The Villas still lived in Intramuros and kept the new Villa house as a showcase. By then, too, the business had already spread out to include transportation and shipping. It was only when Don Manuel’s father died of a heart attack while in the bedroom of his mistress in Malate that the whole family decided to move over to Santa Mesa—a change from their antique and cramped appointments in the Walled City—and discovered the handsome refinements of suburban living. This was, of course, when Santa Mesa was still considered a suburb and the fast-growing city had not encroached upon its rusticity yet. As the eldest, Don Manuel became manager of the bigger and more profitable branches of the Villa interests.
The business was not damaged much by the war. In fact, the war was a blessing to the Villas and to Don Manuel in particular. He had readily foreseen the construction needs of the country and the shortages that would be difficult to fill. He did not slip in his planning nor did he fail to see the importance of developing the friendship and the loyalty of political leaders like professed nationalists of the caliber of Senator Reyes. Now Don Manuel’s eldest son managed a new plywood factory and lumber concessions in Mindanao. Another son became interested in textiles and Don Manuel set up a mill in Marikina. The mill produced fishing nets, cotton fabrics, and upholstery material for the furniture factory that had expanded and was attended to by Don Manuel himself, since it was the progenitor of the Villa fortune. The husbands of two daughters managed the construction branch of the Villa Development Corporation. As for Carmen, she had gone to the United States to study interior decoration, public relations, and advertising, so that she would be able to assist in the family business.

All the Villa children had married according to their choices, and Don Manuel took immense pride in this fact. There were enough executive jobs for his sons-in-law and there was nothing he asked from them except loyalty.

The board met on Wednesdays from nine in the morning until lunchtime. The boardroom was on the fifth floor, in the executive country—a handsome dao-paneled hall with a long table made of one solid piece of narra and surrounded by high-backed swivel chairs upholstered in genuine cowhide. All the furniture in the Villa Building and in the homes of most of the Villa employees and executives was, of course, produced by the Villa furniture factory. At one end of the boardroom was a special panel that included, among other things, a well-stocked bar, a kitchenette, a high-fidelity set, and several tape-recording machines. Don Manuel did not have extraneous interests other than golf and high-fidelity record-changers, and the electronic equipment of the conference room was his idea. On his desk in the boardroom was a series of switches that enabled him to pipe high-fidelity music to the room or to record what was said—to the consternation and delight of the other members when the recording was played. He did not drink—he didn’t even touch beer, and during social functions he always asked for ginger ale because it looked like Scotch. The bar in the boardroom was his concession to
his brothers and to Senator Reyes, in particular, for the senator was an excessive drinker.

The directors started arriving at nine-thirty. The first was Johnny Lee, an ascetic-looking, fiftyish Chinese who spoke pidgin English. He was born in Amoy, China, and talk had it that he started as a junk peddler. He had built up his business well, and during the Occupation he collaborated with the Japanese by providing them with gasoline and diesel engines. He had been a most astute businessman. So well did he manage that after the war his junkyard became a huge automotive shop. He bought American surplus equipment, particularly heavy machinery, by the thousands and then resold these to the government and raked in huge profits by being friendly with government officials. Now his hands were in every kind of moneymaking enterprise. He kept a respectable front, of course, by managing an automotive assembly plant and a chemical factory in Mandaluyong. It was also said that he owned a chain of motels in Pasay City, and these motels were actually classy prostitution dens that catered to politicians, newspapermen, and visiting firemen. Lee knew that he would live and die in the Philippines, and even before World War II he had himself naturalized. He had married his former help—an unlettered Cebuana—and raised a dozen children. His wife was never seen in public and that was to his advantage, because she was reportedly homely and no one would understand why a millionaire like Lee had an ugly wife. She served him more than a wife should serve her husband. Lee registered many of his properties in her name. The fact that Lee was naturalized and had a Cebuana wife and a dozen children rendered him immune to the deportation laws. When the Manila nationalists became vehement with their nationalism, Lee provided them with money. The ads he placed in the newspapers sold not only his automobiles and chemicals, but also decried how aliens were exploiting Filipinos.

The last director to arrive was Senator Reyes. He explained his breathless entrance: there was an important bill on tobacco, which would affect the businesses of Johnny Lee and Alfred Dangmount, and he did not want to be absent from the deliberations of his special committee until he had the bill safely pigeonholed to oblivion for “further study.”

All eight of the board members were present. Lee was complaining about the surveillance that the Bureau of Internal Revenue was
placing on his cigarette factory in Pasay. It was simply unthinkable. Did he not contribute more than three hundred thousand pesos to the party so that Senator Reyes and all their friends would win?

“I’ll look into that,” Senator Reyes said, making notes on the pad before him. Johnny Lee settled back on his swivel chair, a grin spreading across his boyish face. “Thank you,
Senador
,” he said. That was the only English he spoke during the meeting and “thank you” seemed to be the only words he spoke with a smile. Always, when he spoke, an inscrutable expression clouded his face and his even tone somehow gave the impression that beneath his blandness was cunning and determination.

“Include me, too,” Dangmount groaned from the other end of the table. A southerner, he had come to the Philippines during the Liberation and married into a wealthy family from Negros. With the initial capital he thus acquired and some financial sleight of hand, he built an octopuslike business.

“I’m having a helluva lot of trouble with the bank,” Dangmount snapped at Senator Reyes. “Look,
Compadre
,” he turned to Don Manuel with a knowing wink, “I’m getting a lot of questions about that plywood machinery we’re buying for increased operations in Mindanao. Now, if we don’t get that license soon …”

It became clear to Tony that the interests of each were enmeshed in those of the others. The distinction between government, business, and politics was demolished. The controls on dollar exchange were meaningless; Dangmount had worked out a convenient system. The machinery, for instance, was highly overpriced through collusion with the American supplier, in this way the dollars saved from the transaction could be stashed away in Switzerland. It was the same with Johnny Lee and the other board members. The brilliant senator and nationalist was their legal counsel.

Tony tried to justify himself; the capitalists were creating many new jobs. Dangmount, for instance, had started another tile factory and Lee had gone into the manufacture of electronics equipment with transistors imported from Japan and Hong Kong. And there was no one in Congress, of course, more vociferous in his nationalist protestations than Senator Reyes. “I’m doing this for my country and people” was his favorite battle cry.

“How did you like the members of the board?” Don Manuel asked Tony that same gloomy afternoon in July. “Come on, be honest with me.”

Inside the cool sterility of executive country, inside Don Manuel’s regal office, the mind could be free. The fluorescent lamp burned like liquid silver and the new rug of abaca gleamed like soft gold. Tony said, “Dinosaurs, prehistoric monsters feeding on the weak.”

Don Manuel’s lean, handsome face was emotionless, but his voice was rimmed with disdain: “Well, you should have spoken up at the meeting, Tony. You were free, no one was holding you back.”

“I did not mean to be impolite, Papa,” he said with apprehension for having spoken thus. “But you asked me what I thought.”

Don Manuel shook his head. “Should I be glad now that you kept your trap shut? Just the same, let me remind you, Tony, that you are part of the family now. Don’t you ever, ever forget that.”

“I won’t, Papa,” Tony said solemnly. “I knew that on the day you first talked with me.”

“We understand each other then,” Don Manuel said, smiling. “But when there’s something on your mind, tell me. You know I like discussions …” He was about to say more, but the phone jangled. When Tony left the room Don Manuel was still busy at the phone, emphatically telling Saito San at the other end of the line that the installation of the machinery for the mill should be speeded up even if bottoms had to be chartered to dispatch the machinery from Japan.

Back in his own office Tony gazed through the glass window. Yes, the rainy season had finally come.

The rain was no longer just a brief afternoon shower but part of the seasonal downpour. It would last nine days. The bay churned with white caps and waves leaped up and sprayed the seawall. The boulevard was no longer the ebony black it was when the sun drenched the city. The rain had washed the oil away and the asphalt had lost its sheen. The grass on the boulevard islands, on the hotel fronts, no longer had a bedraggled look. It had turned green. The banaba trees bloomed and their clusters of purple brought throbbing color to the green. His first rainy season after six years evoked many images and odors, the smell of grass, of carabao dung, and of the earth being broken for the seed. These came to him in remembered whiffs whenever he strolled along the boulevard and the scent of the
new grass under the feet of other strollers reached his nostrils. But the rain and the seed were no longer within his vision; in this land of dinosaurs nothing would grow.

The job Don Manuel gave Tony did not require technical training or an exemplary business sense. It was, as the entrepreneur had said, public relations. He bought a dozen books on the subject to augment Carmen’s books and he went through them earnestly. The books were all loaded with unblushing seriousness on the necessity of not telling everything and of practicing Dale Carnegie’s approach to life.

He had hired a secretary, too—a pretty Ilocana his sister Betty had recommended. She was twenty-one and was taking political science at the university but had to stop schooling because her parents in La Union could no longer pay her tuition.

Tony visited Antipolo almost every week but was not quite successful at reconciliation with his sister. He usually went there in a cab, and on the way, he would stop at a supermarket and buy groceries—sugar, rice, vegetable oil, candy for the boys, and a lot of canned goods because his sister could not afford a refrigerator. His income was, of course, more than what he thought his father-in-law would give him. In addition, he had a representation allowance and could obtain even more cash from the cashier anytime he needed some. His signature on the voucher was as good as cash, and the feeling that he had ready money brought to with it a higher sense of responsibility. He did not want his father-in-law to think that he was taking advantage of the Villa coffers. He meticulously kept the receipts of his expenses until the auditor told him that it was absolutely unnecessary. One of the office cars was also assigned to him, but he used it sparingly, taking a cab when he was on his own. Carmen did not bother him for money, for she had her own bank account plus a generous monthly allowance from her father. To this Tony added his monthly pay, which he gave to her with the simple statement that this was a matter of custom and Carmen accepted it with good humor.