The Samsons: Two Novels; (Modern Library) (20 page)

The first public relations survey that Don Manuel assigned to Tony was not difficult. Tony had had experience in public-opinion sampling. In his undergraduate days he had worked on a paper on
the non-Christian tribes of Mountain Province. He used the same technique and gathered a fairly representative sample of opinions from varying levels; he talked with taxi drivers, business acquaintances of Don Manuel, students and professors, and salesgirls. He was amazed at what he found. The pervasive resentment against the Japanese had dwindled. Only a few—those with extremely bitter memories of the Occupation—were pathologically opposed to more business contact with the Japanese. As for the steel mill, it hardly mattered that the Japanese had a big hand in it. As Don Manuel had said, if the Japanese were not in it, the Chinese or the Americans would be there and the result, the economic tentacles with which these aliens would encompass the country, would be just as stringent.

It was this observation that Tony wrote in his report and handed to the board. It seemed that the last war was relegated to some forgotten eon. The men around him brimmed with goodwill. His report was actually no more than a confirmation of what Don Manuel and the other directors expected.

Don Manuel was kind, even gallant. He did not gloat over what he had expected all along. But even if Don Manuel did not do this, Tony began to feel that there was little justification for his presence in the Villa organization. He often brooded, and this uneasy feeling disturbed his placid routine. He would then ask Fely, his secretary, to bring out his press releases, measure the clippings, and calculate how much they would have cost Don Manuel if the clippings were paid advertisements. To make his job important, he had an order relayed to all the departments that there would be no press story released—not even a story on a marriage or a baptism of anyone connected with the Villa organization—unless he had put his imprimatur on it.

Mrs. Villa took advantage of Tony’s new function and she always had a story about her in the society pages. Neither writing Mrs. Villa’s press releases nor ghosting occasionally for Senator Reyes, however, gave Tony the justification he sought. Somehow he had to achieve something dramatic and spectacular, to make not only Don Manuel but everyone in the organization look up to him and say: That’s Antonio Samson, and he is earning his money as Antonio Samson and not as Manuel Villa’s son-in-law.

To do this he would have to ask his close friends to assist him.
Someday he would have a good story not only on Don Manuel but on his operations as well, and he would have this story featured in Godo’s magazine. He weighed the possibility, the arguments to buttress the soundness of his proposition. Name any five leading entrepreneurs in the country today and you will have Don Manuel among them. Isn’t that enough reason?

Maybe Godo would write the story himself, but if Godo would do that the credit would be Godo’s, and he hesitated, for he remembered that Godo had a set of values that could not be easily eroded. In the end, Godo might even loathe him for having broached the idea at all. Godo had not camouflaged his loathing for the Villas and all those “filthy merchants” who were not creating new industries for the country. An approach to Godo was, indeed, compounded with the subtlest of problems. Still, Tony would have to make the pitch sooner or later, and he would naturally lean on the good old college days and all that mushy sentimentalism as the basis for the favor. He justified the strategy with Don Manuel’s definition of friends: they were not friends if they could not help.

To Tony, a friend was someone who could offer sanctuary. To Don Manuel, a friend was someone useful. But values change as the social stratum rises. Now Tony must look at friends, too, in this utilitarian fashion. They must no longer be the ones to whom he was emotionally tied by youthful references, by common problems, and, perhaps, a common past.

There was Ben de Jesus, for instance, who could be useful to him. He seemed likable enough, maybe because he was in the employ of Don Manuel. He seemed to be a regular fellow and not the stuffed shirt Tony had presumed him to be. And this afternoon Ben had tried to be amiable.

He was, of course, a mestizo like Don Manuel, but his skin was darker and his arms were hirsute. His thick eyebrows gave him a rugged look, but his cleft chin, which needed a shave twice a day, imparted to his very masculine face a certain softness.

Ben had sounded patronizing: “I’ve been married longer than you, so that makes me an authority. Let Carmen come home late once in a while. Like tonight. My wife called up—she is with Carmen. They are in a beauty parlor or clinic or something and they will have supper together. If I were you, Tony, I’d step out occasionally,
too, and vary the menu. Carmen wouldn’t mind—if she doesn’t know.”

Ben had laughed, but in his attempt at casualness Tony noticed a tinge of nervousness. Ben’s comment was an attempt to ingratiate himself into Tony’s personal domain, and Tony understood that; understood, too, the gamble Ben had taken. If his wife was a good friend of Ben’s wife, did that mean he must develop Ben’s personal friendship, too? Quickly he decided that it would not be bad to know Ben better, to appear friendly. He was a part of the organization; this was now the primary consideration.

“That’s a good idea,” Tony had said, smiling. “I’m sure Carmen wouldn’t, but I’m so out of touch that I need someone like you to show me around, to help me with the window-shopping.”

“That shouldn’t be difficult for someone who has lived for some time abroad.” Ben flattered him. “You have taste and there’s a lot of class around this establishment or down the boulevard.”

“Having taste can be different from having an acquisitive talent,” he said.

“You tell me that after you got Carmen?” Ben had laughed. “You should be teaching me tricks.”

They parted on this light note and Tony, feeling kind of wonderful, told Fely, his secretary, to finish typing the article on steel and have the clean copy ready on his desk the following morning.

It was almost midnight when Carmen came home. Tony was still at work when her car stopped in the driveway below their room, and he paused at the desk and rearranged the research materials he had been collating.

The moment she came in she started to gripe about her busy day. “Sometimes I envy you,” she said in a strained voice. “You just sit in the office and never worry about tomorrow.” She planted a dutiful peck on his forehead and went straight to the bathroom.

Tony went on with his work. His notes were voluminous and Fely had not been very good in her transcription. The Ilocano communities on the west coast, the areas where they converged—Salinas Valley, Stockton, and Lodi—and the cycle of their movement from California to Oregon and then to Alaska during the canning
season … the notes were not properly arranged. The shower in the bathroom sounded and in a few more moments Carmen would begin her evening ritual, the cream on her face, the ointment on her skin. It was, as usual, half an hour, and when she came out she went straight to bed.

“I’m very tired, darling,” she said.

“After the beauty parlor?” Tony asked, closing the folder on the Salinas community. “You were supposed to relax there.”

She grumbled something inaudible. He was growing sleepy, too, and in a while he quietly slipped into the bed with her. It was late and he was not particularly stimulated tonight, but out of habit he cuddled close to her and ran an inquisitive hand quickly up her satiny thighs. He had expected the familiar tuft of pubic hair, soft and furry under her silken underwear.

He drew back, amazed and incredulous all at once. She had suddenly come to life and the answer she gave to his unspoken question was an angry push and a retort: “You think of nothing but that. You are getting to be a shameful bore.”

“Baby,” he sat up and was looking at her face, at the frown. “So, you aren’t going to have a baby after all. Why didn’t you tell me right away? When did it come?”

“Do I have to tell you everything?”

“Yes,” he said, “you must tell me everything.” He stood up and held her hands and he was surprised to find them cold. “When did it happen? Don’t tell me it was delayed three months. Is that possible? Has this happened to you before? No, you said it never happened before. I remember it—that afternoon we were at the Boie and you were so worried …”

“Of course it’s possible,” she said, shaking away his hold. “Accidents can happen and they do happen. You have to be a woman to understand these things.
Esto
, there was a time Nena de Jesus didn’t have it for three months—and then it came. Well, you have to understand these things. Do I have to be so goddam clinical about it?” She had raised her voice, but even in her anger Tony could sense something wrong, something missing, and he knew it at once: there was not enough conviction, enough sincerity, in what she was saying.

But he was not sure of himself, either. Tolerantly, “I’d be happier, honey, if you tell me the truth. Come on, I want the truth. Nena was
with you the whole afternoon … was there an accident or something.”

“Oh, stop acting like a policeman,” she said coldly. “I just had an abortion, that’s all. Nena took me to her doctor. There’s nothing to worry about. It was all very sterile and efficiently done. He gave me some pills, just in case …”

The truth clawed at him. “Did you have to do it?”

“It was necessary,” she said peevishly. “I’m young. I can have children when I’m past thirty.”

“And you don’t think of me at all? Don’t you think you should have told me before you did this?” He had never been angry with her before, but now this rage coiled within him quickly and sprang up and he cried out, “You are a murderer, that’s what you are!”

A clamminess came over his hands and in his stomach was a sickening turn, a nausea. When he spoke again his voice was hoarse and there seemed to be a rock in his throat: “You are rotten, you are no good. I can expect this from a tramp, but not from you … of all people, you!”

The suddenness of his fury must have shocked her, for she backed away from him. “I didn’t know this would upset you, really, darling,” she said supplicatingly. “I thought I was the only one responsible, since it was in my belly anyway!”

“It was mine, too,” he said.

“It was more mine than yours,” she said, almost casually. “
Oye
, I’m not trying to say that we should have no children. But I’m not thirty yet, darling. There are many years still ahead of us. We can have them afterward—a dozen if that’s what you want.”

But it was too late now and not all the honeyed words could bring back the life that was lost. What was marriage without children? There came briefly to his mind the mist-shrouded mountains of Bontoc, the
ulog
, and the girls who lived in it. They loved by another code and they did not have this preoccupation with creams and diets. They worked hard in the fields, half-naked. To them a marriage was not sanctioned, it was not real, until the woman became pregnant. And only then did the marriage become sanctified, only then.

“You love yourself too much, you really don’t care for children. You shouldn’t have gotten married at all—that would have made
you happier. Are you thinking now that we’ve made a mistake?” he asked, his voice rimmed with hate.

She evaded him with amazing agility. “Do you or don’t you love me?” she asked.

Tony walked to his desk.

“
Oye
, I asked you a question.” She was behind him.

“The time is rather late for that kind of talk, isn’t it?” he asked.

“I want to know.”

“I love you—and you know that,” he said, facing her.

She kissed him blandly, then went back to bed. Tony sat down, leafing through all that he had written. It was useless. He could not concentrate. He took a paperback book from the shelf above the desk, a detective story, but after a few minutes he gave that up, too. He lay beside her, watched the rhythmic rise and fall of her belly and the almost childlike smile on her face as she slept. She was lovely and at this moment pure, like an angel, beyond the reproach of a constant and damning conscience. Yet it was to her own self that she had sinned, not so much to him.

She is a murderess—the thought ate at him, but it did not persist. She was his wife—this was the finality to consider. She was his wife, the key to the good life that was proffered to him and which he had gladly accepted.

I
  have never felt the need to unburden myself as I do now. I could easily go to Godo, but I must be prudent and should not jump to conclusions. I miss my classes. They had given me pleasure, for the classroom was my forum. There I could speak freely of the history that to me is self-evident; there I could narrate my hopes and, most of all, my fears. I looked upon my students in the light of my own experience; I did not hesitate to tell them that I not only had the authority of facts, but that it was my conviction that our worst enemy was ourselves, our vanity, our pride, and our desire for honor.