The Samsons: Two Novels; (Modern Library) (9 page)

Tony had balked at the idea because in the back of his mind he had always held in reserve the final acquiescence to revolt. He knew what it meant; his father was ever in his thoughts as the final and painful proof of that failure.

When Angel and Jacinto did not show up the following school
year, he knew what had happened, and much later, the three who had remained received identical letters written “in the field.” The letters were not hortatory; they were, as a matter of fact, even apologetic. They asked for help, and if this was not possible, “then we ask that you do not lose hope.” He never heard from them again and he was quite sure, after all these years, that they were dead, or if they were alive, they could not now return to the life they had left.

Remembering all this afterward, Tony sometimes loathed himself for having been such a coward. But then, Charlie and Godo did not flee to the hills, either; like him, they had elected to conform, to glean the ravaged land of whatever token of grace and beneficence was left in it after the dinosaurs had trampled everything.

At Rizal Avenue he turned away from the crowds to a narrow asphalted side street dusty with horse manure, its sidewalks reminiscent of the Walled City and composed of the ballast stones of galleons that returned centuries ago from Acapulco in Mexico.

The newspaper office was in a bleak, gray building, a gothic edifice that had somehow escaped destruction during the war. He went up three oily flights to the sanctum, a room alive with the whirr of electric fans and the racket of typewriters and teletypes.

The magazine section had not changed—it was still the same dusty corner with drab, unpainted walls, mahogany-varnished tables, and antique typewriters. His friends were at their desks. Charlie saw him first and yelled, “Tony! How’s the Oriental American?” Then it was all noise, Godo standing and slapping him on the back, the usual greetings and the handshakes and ribald remarks about American girls and the inevitable invitation to the squalid Chinese coffee shop downstairs.

They hustled down the cracked stairway, Tony in the middle, Godo—fat, wobbly with flesh and talk—at his right, and at his left Charlie, lean and quiet. The coffee shop had not changed, either. Its red-tile floor was as dirty as ever, and the corners reeked with the implacable smell of cockroaches and ammonia and were as dark as secrets. The shop was called Newsmen’s Corner and it lived up to its name, a nook as greasy-looking as some of the characters who frequented it.

They found an empty table still sodden with spilled Coke and cigarette ash. A waitress, short and dowdy, her lips flaring red, took their orders (soda for Godo, who said coffee made him nervous).

“You are going back to the university?” Godo asked. The exuberance of greeting had subsided and they spoke in even tones. They seemed to soak in impressions, alert, taking in all words as if they were truths to live by.

“There’s no place like home,” Tony said.

“The profound comment of the afternoon,” Charlie said. It was his favorite joke—“profound comment”—and Godo, jocular and looking more like a landlord than a writer, laughed loudly.

“Well, the university is an easy life,” Godo said.

“It is a rat race,” Tony said lightly, but he meant every word.

“Doing any writing?” Charlie asked.

“I never stopped,” Tony said. “Right now I’m on a very ambitious project. A cultural history of the Ilocos. It’s something that has never been attempted before. Someday I’m going there to trace my ancestry. Find out things about my grandfather. The great Ilocano migration, you know. Saw a lot of my people in California, Chicago, New York.”

“Wonderful project,” Godo said. “Show us some chapters when you are through. We may run them in a series.”

Then the talk turned to a familiar theme. “Now, about American women,” Charlie said, a leer spreading across his dark, pimply face. “I haven’t been abroad so I’d like to listen to your wonderful lies.” Nudging Godo, Charlie said, “Tell him about your pickups in that staid, puritan city of Boston. Compare notes.”

Godo had gone to Boston two years back on a fellowship of sorts and had not stopped talking about the trip. But this afternoon he seemed rather reticent. “It’s not necessary,” Godo said. “I’d rather Tony tell us of his experiences. As for America, I still have hopes for its people. Otherwise I feel they are wrong, trying to buy friendship with dollars and scholarships. But we shouldn’t object too much—beggars can’t be choosers, you know. Cliché, but hell, it’s true.”

Tony wanted to steer the talk away from the forthrightness of Godo, which had always exasperated him. “If I only knew you were coming to Boston,” he said, “I could have entertained you.”

“Did you get my card?” Godo asked. “I left one, you know. You
were out in Vermont, enjoying the New England scenery no doubt”—another gale of laughter.

“It was a summer job really and I had no choice,” Tony said. “My fellowship was never enough.”

“Be on the lookout now,” Godo said. “Anyone who was in the United States as a freeloader is suspect or is an apologist for American policy.”

“And that includes you,” Charlie said, grinning at his colleague.

“Of course!” Godo said. “Have I ever said I don’t like freeloading? But I’m an ingrate and you know that I accept all that I can and I suffer no compunctions about being ungrateful afterward. I wasn’t born yesterday.”

“I can’t understand,” Tony said gravely, “this new nationalism. Haven’t we always been Filipinos? In the university the talk is confusing. And I am suspicious of anything that’s worn on the sleeve.”

“There you go again, mouthing platitudes,” Godo said with a hint of irritation. “When will you and your kind—the bright boys who loudly proclaim themselves intellectuals—stop talking and start working?”

“I have written articles for you,” Tony said. “That’s action within my limitations.”

“Oh yes,” Godo said. He loved speeches and in his formalistic style was ready to perorate again. “I appreciated your last one—the uses of the past. The writers in the universities, the teachers—I am bowled over by their nationalistic talk. You have everything tagged and placed in a compartment. Go ahead, and while you write facetiously about high and ghostly matters, I go out and meet the people. Ah, the people! And what do I find? Something you never knew and will never understand because you have never been a part of them. Here you are, cooped up in Manila, in your sewing circles, in your coffee clubs, while the people seethe. I know because it’s my job to know. And some day the whole country will blow up before your eyes. It won’t be nationalism and you won’t even realize it, because you have lost touch.”

Godo had not changed, nor had his speeches. Tony felt a touch of superiority not only because of his new doctorate but because he could look at things more dispassionately now than either of them. And so the talk dropped again to the hoary and angry themes that
he had long discarded. Oh yes, they tried to be trivial about it, but the distinction between sarcasm and wit became thin and, hearing them talk about culture, the economic chaos, and their insecurity, he couldn’t help pitying them. Look at them, grasping at ideals long outdated because these were what they understood, because it was with such ideals that they could justify their lives. They held on to beliefs that were bigger than they: once it was the Common Man, pervasive and purposeful because the Common Man was salvation. Then it was the Barrios, and now Nationalism, because they had finally gotten down to essentials, groping for identities they all had lost.

“But damnit,” Tony said, “I’ve never doubted my identity. I’ve never lost sight of the fact that I’m Asiatic.”

“Filthy word. It’s Asian, not Asiatic,” Godo reprimanded him.

“Semantics—that’s for gutless aesthetes,” Charlie said. He spoke seldom, but when he did his opinions were strong and his words had a sure, unrelenting sharpness.

“I do hope all this noise will die down,” Tony said. “Then maybe we will be less conscious about being Filipinos. I wish I could write on that. Could you use it if I did?”

“You are always welcome to our pages,” Charlie said. “And more so now that we can attach a Ph.D. to your byline. It’s good for the magazine. Gives us snob appeal.”

“I liked your last piece,” Godo said, “about the uses of the past. But I doubt if you believe all you said. You are always trying to pull someone’s leg, and sometimes it is your own. I gather that the piece constituted your doctoral thesis.”

“Yes,” Tony said proudly. “The
ilustrados
had much to contribute to the Revolution of 1896, you know. They knew the past and its meaning.”

“It’s not the complete truth,” Godo said firmly. “I disagree with you when you say it’s the whole truth. The
ilustrados
were not the heroes, nor were they brave. It was the masses who were brave. They were the heroes. Not your Rizal,
^c
who wanted to help the Spaniards frustrate the Cuban revolutionists. Not your Rizal, who loathed revolution.
He and his kind—they were not the real heroes. It’s always the small men who are. Bonifacio
^d
and the farmers at Balintawak. The people—you call them contemptible, don’t you.”

“That is not true,” Tony said. “I’m poor, too.”

“Yeah, but you have the attitudes of the rich. Well, the people, the ones you suggest are the rabble, they are the ones who rise to great heights when the time comes. Revolutions for a better life are never made by the rich or the intellectuals. They have everything to lose. Revolutions are made by small men, poor men—they are the ones who suffer most. They care the least about the status quo.”

“But revolution is so outmoded now,” Tony Samson said, thinking of his father and his grandfather. He was thinking, too, of Lawrence Bitfogel, his roommate for four years in Cambridge, who had told him bluntly the very things Godo was saying. “The
ilustrados
,” Tony tried to defend his thesis, “you must remember, had the minds to plan, the money, and, most important, the capacity to administer government.”

“Yes,” Godo said, “they also had the mind and the capacity to accept the bribes the Spaniards gave them at the Pact of Biak-na-bato. Paterno—all the merchants and shopkeepers you worship now—they were all bribed.… I’m sorry you wasted so much time on that thesis. Yes, it’s interesting, it’s well done—your article on the past—but it’s not the whole truth. Slash away at the myths. That America gave us democracy, that MacArthur ordered us to fight the Japs as guerrillas. Our job is to destroy myth, not build them.”

It was useless arguing—they would not understand, they did not have his training and his background. “I’ll try to do that,” Tony said, affecting a tone of humility; then he changed the subject abruptly: “But I’ll not be able to write for you in the near future. As a matter of fact, I’m getting married.”

The maneuver worked and Godo turned to him: “To whom?”

“Don’t ask because I won’t tell. It’s a surprise. But don’t worry, I’ll invite you to the wedding. Next week or next year.”

“Charlie has to get married soon, too,” Godo said. “It is a wonderful institution, but never marry for any reason except love. Then you won’t have regrets. Somehow every problem seems easy to
solve. Money, I’ve come to realize, is one of the easiest problems to overcome. It’s when something happens to your inner self—that’s something money can’t solve.”

“Another profound comment of the afternoon,” Charlie said lightly.

But Godo was dead serious. “That’s the truth and you better think about it.”

“How is your wife?” Tony asked solicitously, recalling the frail and lovely freshman whom Godo had met when they were in their senior year and with whom Godo had eloped. Tony still had a clear image of Linda—her quiet, soft features and her long, flowing hair, which she wore in a tight bun.

“That’s what I mean,” Godo’s bluster was gone. “When you marry for love, every problem seems easy to solve. Well, she has not been doing very well. After two children— It would have been easier for her if she were healthy, but you remember Linda, Tony, she was always sickly. She has to have an operation soon. I don’t worry about that. You can always steal or sell your soul to the devil and rationalize such an act with a clear conscience.”

“I’m sorry,” Tony said.

“Thanks for the sentiment,” Godo said, smiling. “I really don’t ask for much. Just a chance to have my wife and children go through life with the least physical pain. That isn’t much to ask, is it? But in this bloody country, when a millionaire has a cold he goes right away to a fancy clinic in New York. And me, I can’t even afford to have my head examined. Hell, there’s justification in the old class struggle—I don’t care what you call it—but does a rich man have more right to live simply because he has more money?”

“You could have married for money,” Charlie said.

A smile spread across Godo’s flabby face. “I like that,” he said. “But, as I have always said, I have no regrets.” He turned amiably to Tony. “So don’t commit that mistake, chum. Don’t marry for any reason other than love. And who is she? Your cousin? She is pretty, and I recall, too, that you were more than cousinly with her the last time I visited you in Antipolo.”

“No,” Tony said, a flush creeping over his face. He was instantly reminded of Emy, of how once she had been a part of his life. Godo and Charlie had met and had come to know her during the times they dropped by to borrow books or to talk, for it was
she who usually prepared the coffee. Perhaps all along they had suspected.

“That’s too bad,” Charlie said. “Did you fall out of love or something?”

Tony smiled wryly. “It wasn’t that, really. But you know how it is; we are cousins.”

“Oh now, this isn’t the eighteenth century,” Godo laughed. He had fully regained his humor. “Don’t tell me you are still bothered by taboos. Write a letter to the pope and he will give you a quick dispensation.”

Tony tried to laugh the joke away, but the old hurt was back, and above his personal anguish he heard Godo cackle: “Well, if you are not interested in her you can give me her phone number. If she won’t object to a married man … or Charlie here, he may yet change his mind. Why, I was envying you, Tony boy, that setup you had in Antipolo.”