The Samsons: Two Novels; (Modern Library) (42 page)

Anyway, I was soaping myself and had to do it again. It did not take long really and, though I enjoyed it, I looked forward to the time when it would be for real.

When I got out, Lucy was at the bathroom door, her face lighted up with mischief. I was very embarrassed when she asked in a bantering manner, “What have you been doing?”

She was slightly older than I, maybe twenty-five, and I asked angrily, “What do you do when you take a bath?”

“It depends,” she said. “I didn’t hear the shower for some time.”

“You do not rub off the dirt or soap yourself?”

“It was not soaping or rubbing,” she said, looking at me, the grin on her face telling me that she knew.

I fumbled and did not know what to say.

Then, confirmation, the laughter crinkling the corners of her mouth.

“You peeped!” and I went after her.

I did not want to hurt her, and I really was not angry, just embarrassed.
I grabbed at her, but she was ready, and we were soon wrestling like two children from the kitchen on to the living room. I pinched her buttocks and she yelped aloud, then she grabbed my arm and bit it so hard, I cried at her to stop. When she let go, I held her and dragged her to the floor, then pinned her down, panting. She glared at me, her breasts heaving; I had her legs wide apart, my torso between them. Her arms were pinned down and she could not move except to try to bring her head up. Then, suddenly, I felt this stirring and, bending down but still holding her wrists so that she could not hit back, I kissed her breasts. Almost immediately her struggling ceased, and when I looked at her face, the fight was no longer there—instead, the unerring light of expectation, of wonder. Bending over, releasing her hand, I kissed her, thrust my tongue into her mouth.

I really did not care anymore if a sudden knock exploded on the door or if the windows were open, which they were not because they were always shut more as a matter of precaution against robbers than for privacy.

I thought conquest would be easy, for, by then, the compulsions that were surging in me could no longer be leashed. But Lucy started pushing me, wriggling, and was all arms and elbows and pointed knees. But these, more than anything, served only to heighten my resolve and convinced me afterward that there was a latent rapist in me. Her resistance, it turned out, was temporary; I do not know if it was just to show that she was no easy prey or that she wanted to test how determined I was. Or maybe she found out how physically strong and well beyond calming I was and that there was no further sense in lengthening the struggle.

My entry was gentle and smooth; through her gasps, she said: “Do not hurry … please. No one will be here … we have all the time.”

She did a lot of housework, but her hands were not rough. They were soft, beautiful hands, exquisitely expert and strong; her breasts were firm and after a time she cautioned me, for, as she said, they began to hurt.

After we had lain for a delicious length of time on the tiles, which were cold, we went up to my room. We had become impervious to cold, sweetly unconscious of everything but the rhythm and warmth of our bodies. We took our time upstairs as she had suggested,
savoring each other in the light of day, and then it was dusk, time for her to cook dinner. Exhausted, it was an act of will for us to part.

Everything was not in the script, everything was not as I had read in those paperbacks that passed through our hands in high school—explicit American guidebooks to that mysterious domain that is woman. I had thought that I would be clear-minded and would recall everything—the step-by-step preparation, the plateau, the peak, the cozy, cuddling talk and display of tenderness that would cap it all—but I had merely acted out the hasty and irrational beast. I did not forget, however, to ask her if she was happy and in reply she looked at me—those big, black eyes dreamy and half-closed—and nodded.

I had fulfilled a prophecy made when I was thirteen by an aging sacristan named Lakay Benito. He was the oldest acolyte in the church, a tenacious remnant of a bygone age, out of place in a church where they also played guitars and sang Ilocano and English hymns. He was, however, at his best in the novenas held in our houses when he responded in Latin, his rich, sonorous voice booming
Ora Pro Nobis.
All the way back, as far as memory could drag me, he had been to us not only an acolyte, whose knowledge of Latin opened secret vistas, omnipotent talismans beyond the comprehension of many even in Cabugawan, but was also a
brujo
, an
herbolario
,
^‡
and he looked it. A wisp of a beard dangled from his chin and his white hair framed a dark face pocked by two piercing eyes, a large black mouth, and an eggplant protruberance for a nose. His legs were spindly and bowed and he could not wear shoes except Japanese rubber sandals because his toes were splayed from walking barefoot in the muddy fields for too many years. He performed the ceremony of manhood for all the boys in the village when they reached puberty. That early January morning six of us gathered in his yard, shivering in the cold. He had built a bonfire of dry bamboo slats and coconut leaves and we had sat around it, waiting. He came down the stairs in his cotton
carzoncillo
†
and under
his arm, an old, soiled kit and a bundle of young guava leaves. Then he led us to the creek.

Strips of fog floated over the calm, still waters. He picked me to be the first, maybe because he liked me, I think, enough to teach me my first
oración
,
^‖
a charm to ward away malevolent dogs—an
oración
in Latin that I should not repeat to anyone, else it would lose its potency.

We all stripped on the bank of the creek. I squatted before him, surrounded by the other boys, my fear spiced with curiosity as I watched him unsheath the razor, slide back the foreskin with a bamboo stick and then, with one swift whack, cut it off. It hurt a little, no more than a bee sting, but then the blood started to ooze and would not stop. He did not appear worried, but my anxiety now turned to fright. He chewed the guava leaves, then spat them on the wound, mumbling words I could not understand. The blood formed a small puddle on the dry earth. After what seemed like an hour, the bleeding stopped and he looked at me, his craggy face lighted up. “You are a bleeder, and that is very good.”

I went home to a special breakfast of fried eggs and adobo—a rarity in our house. Mother and Auntie Bettina were all smiles, but they never asked how it was. I had become a man.

Lakay Benito had wrapped the wound with a clean rag. I was not only a bleeder. In another day, the wound had swelled and frightened me again, I had to show it to him. “Big, overripe tomato,” he chuckled, his eyes shining, “Pepe, a few more years and I predict you will make your women very happy.”

S
o much for the loss of my virginity.

At school my thoughts always meandered to the remembered feel of skin, silky motions, musky scents. I could hardly wait for the morning class to be over so I could hurry home and find out how efficient were the Masters and Johnson instructions, how true their thesis. But for all the grace of Lucy, I did not miss a day of school; a dogged sense of doing what was expected of me or perhaps a belated acceptance of duty kept me there.

One day, Toto, whom I had taken to be a serious student, asked if I wanted to join a student organization in the university, The Brotherhood. They were recruiting new members and I had seemed to him an excellent candidate.

“It is a very active organization,” Toto said. “You will like it; we discuss contemporary history in our meetings. And you know so much.”

I would be nice to Toto; after all, he occasionally invited me for a Coke and once or twice for
siopao
and coffee, although I had not been able to reciprocate. He was a scholar and also had a job as an acolyte for a priest in Tondo. He said he was an orphan and did not have to worry about saving money.

I had other ideas. I tried to hold off but I remembered his acts of kindness, the Coke, and the
siopao
, and he even gave me a paperback book that his priest boss gave him, a novel,
Man’s Fate
, by André Malraux.

Gratitude! Why do I always have to be grateful? Why couldn’t I do things because I liked to do them and not because I wanted to repay a favor? I came to Manila, to this university, not because I wanted to but because I did not want to displease Mother and Auntie Bettina. I tried to get home early, although there was no specific demand that I do so, because I wanted to be grateful to Tio Bert and Auntie Betty for the room and for the
dinengdeng.
And I did not try to impose myself on Lucy when my relatives were at home not because discretion demanded it but because I was grateful to her for being my first, grateful that she gave herself to me, and not because I was worried that she might lose her job if we were found out.

And here I was being grateful again to Toto, whose friendship I did not seek but who had nonetheless become my friend and was someone I could tell everything to, although I did not tell him about my father or Lucy.

We went to the small noodle restaurant at Recto and had
siopao espesyal
, and because Auntie Bettina had not arrived yet with my money, Toto paid again.

We walked from there to a cramped wooden apartment in Dapitan where the meeting was to be held. I had expected a big group, but there were only four of us. Five others straggled in. Perfunctory introductions were made as we came from several nearby schools—Far Eastern, Santo Tomas, PCC, National U, UM. We filled the small living room cluttered with newspapers, pamphlets, and that cheaply varnished furniture found in abundance in Misericordia. We had soft drinks without ice and an open can of chocolate cookies that was soon empty.

The meeting did not start till after two. I had become restless and told Toto that I wanted to leave, but then a man in his early thirties arrived and everyone stood up. Toto had told me a little about him, so here he was—the epitome of virtue, of intellect—a lean man with a mop of dry, uncombed hair in a cheap cotton shirt that was not properly ironed. He was a political science professor at my university and I recalled a poster in the corridor about his public lecture on nationalism and the oligarchy that was crammed to overflowing
when it was held at the Student Hall. He looked undernourished and dried up, but there was this warm smile on his face as he greeted us and tried to have a word with everyone, and for Toto, a patronizing arm around the shoulder. He apologized for being late. The Brotherhood, he said, was now being put through an inquisition. The dean, he said, was particularly vexed with him, with his nonacademic activities, and had wanted him to resign. He was able to convince the dean otherwise, he said, by appealing to his sense of decency, his compassion, but at the same time, implying that the Brotherhood may do something drastic if this happened—a student strike, for instance. He must work quietly now, stay in the background, and henceforth, it was the students who must be in the forefront, doing the hard chores of organization, of demonstration, if the Brotherhood was to thrive.

I listened with amusement; the man was angling for sympathy. He started talking about the Brotherhood in tones almost sacramental. This is the answer to the problems of the young, of inequality, disunity, and corruption. If the nation had been exploited by imperialists, if the caciques were despoiling the land and making serfs of freemen, it is because the young have not banded together to spell out the future in their own terms. The Brotherhood would make war on the enemies of democracy, and the young could triumph in this war for the Brotherhood is theirs to use.

The harangue lasted for a while. I looked at the rapt faces around me and then I chanced a glance at Toto and was surprised to see him looking at me; I winked at him and he seemed ill at ease that I had caught him observing my reaction to the speech. I never liked speeches, whether by professional politicians or professors turned politicians. I had lived long enough in a village to know who exploits the little people—the landlord, yes, and the money-lenders, too. But it is the riffraff who really take advantage of their own kin. I had planted vegetables in the yard and when the eggplants were ready, who would come but our neighbors, asking for them when they could easily have planted their own.

He was through and he looked around. I realized that we were a carefully selected group.

“Any questions?” he asked perfunctorily and was surprised
when I raised my hand. I was the only one to do so. I glanced at Toto, at his shock, as if I had just committed the worst indiscretion. But hell, I am not a robot that will go where it is pushed. The professor turned to me, his eyes expectant: “Yes, please.”

I asked plainly, “What can we expect from the Brotherhood? Why should I give it loyalty? What do I get in return?”

I had caught him unaware and he fumbled for words. “Please clarify your question” he said. “Am I to understand that you expect benefits from such a membership? Is that what you want to ask?”

I nodded. “You see, sir,” I said, “when a politician comes to our village and makes a pretty speech about corruption in government, about how he intends to change things when he gets elected, we know it’s just words. But sometimes, particularly before the election, he gets our muddy road fixed. And of course, there is the five pesos he distributes to those who can vote.”

They all laughed and even Professor Hortenso smiled. “I cannot promise you these things,” he said. “As a matter of fact, you may not get anything from the Brotherhood. It is you who will give to it. As duty, perhaps, if you can look at it that way.”