by Nick Joaquin
PEPANG: And so your wife can have somebody to look after your house while she goes off to her clubs and committees!
MANOLO: Poor Candida! Poor Paula!
PEPANG: After all, we have been supporting them all these years. The least they can do now is to be useful to us. And it’s about time they learned to be of some use. They’re certainly old enough!
MANOLO: They’re too old to change.
PEPANG: Oh, nonsense. The trouble with them is this house, this house! They’re buried alive here. It will do them good to be pulled out of here. We are really doing it only for their own good.
MANOLO: And besides, good servants are so hard to get nowadays.
PEPANG: And they will learn to be happy, they will learn to live.
MANOLO: They are happy enough here, they have their own way of life.
PEPANG: What way of life? Hiding from the world in this old house; turning over the family albums; chattering over childhood memories; worshipping at father’s feet . . . Is that your idea of life, Manolo?
[She picks up her compact, snaps it open, & begins to do her mouth.]
MANOLO: Well, what’s yours—playing mah-jongg?
PEPANG: Now look here—don’t you want Candida to live with you?
MANOLO: I suppose you want to take her too?
PEPANG: My dear, your wife would never forgive me! Her need is greater than mine. She thinks her clubs and committees more important than my mah-jongg.
MANOLO: Will you stop bringing my wife into this conversation!
PEPANG: Oh, is this a conversation?
MANOLO: And all those fool things you females do!
PEPANG: At least, we females always know what we do with our time—
MANOLO: Here comes Don Perico.
PEPANG [putting away her compact]: But you men just sit around and groan at your watches.
[Enter DON PERICO.]
PERICO: Pepang, has my wife arrived?
PEPANG: Is she coming here, Don Perico?
PERICO: I told her to pick me up here at ten o’clock. [He pulls out his watch.] It is almost eleven now. [He groans.]
MANOLO: Senator, the women always know what they do with their time.
PERICO: I never know what they are doing, most of the time. And I have to be at Malacañan at one o’clock. The president is expecting me at lunch.
We have to discuss the present emergency. Oh, I hardly have time now even to eat!
PEPANG: Then come and sit down a moment, Don Perico. Paula has arrived. Manolo, do go and call her.
[Exit Manolo.]
And how do you find our father, Don Perico?
PERICO [sitting beside her on the sofa.]: He has gone to sleep now.
[He pauses, frowning. Don Perico is in his early seventies, a big man with silver hair, handsome & still vigorous; dressed with expensive good taste; and gleaming with success, self-confidence, and that charming democratic friendliness with which the very rich & powerful delight to astonish their inferiors. Right now, however, his frown of concern is sincere; his complacency has been shaken.]
Pepang, what has happened to him?
PEPANG: What do you mean, Don Perico?
PERICO: Oh, I should have come to visit him before!
PEPANG: Has he changed very much?
PERICO: No—no, I would not say so. He still is the same Lorenzo I remember—very humorous, very charming. And how he can talk! Oh, no one can talk like your father, Pepang. Conversation is one of the lost arts—but your father is still a genius at it.
PEPANG: Yes, father was in fine form today—so gay, so amusing.
PERICO: And yet—something was missing . . .
PEPANG: But you must remember that he is not a young man anymore.
PERICO: About this accident that he had—it was nothing serious?
PEPANG: Oh, it was serious enough—God knows! Imagine a man of his age falling from that balcony in his room!
PERICO: And this happened a year ago?
PEPANG: Right after he finished painting that picture.
PERICO: But he suffered no serious injuries?
PEPANG: We called in the best doctors to examine him.
PERICO: Then why does he stay in bed?
PEPANG: We have long been urging him to come out of his room.
PERICO: Pepang, what has happened to him?
PEPANG: Just what did you notice, Don Perico?
PERICO: He seems to have no will to live.
[Pepang is silent, staring at him. Enter Paula & Manolo.]
PAULA [approaching]: Good morning, ninong. How are you?
PERICO [rising]: Is this Paula?
[She kisses his hand.]
Caramba, Paula—I hardly know you! You were only a little girl the last time I saw you.
PAULA: Yes, ninong—it is a long time since we have had the pleasure of your company.
PERICO: Oh Paula, Paula, you must forgive me. We people in the government—we cannot call our lives our own. Our days, hours, even our minutes—all, all belong to the nation!
PAULA: Let me congratulate you on your victory in the last elections.
PERICO: Thank you. As a senator, I find myself in a very good position to help you, Paula.
PAULA: Thank you, ninong—but we need no help.
PEPANG [rising]: Now, Paula—listen first!
PERICO: I have been told that your father has refused to apply for the pension to which he is entitled.
PAULA: My father will not accept any pension from the government.
PERICO: Of course, no one can force him to do so—and it is only a trifling sum anyway. But listen, Paula—you do desire your father’s welfare, no?
PAULA: He will never take the money.
PERICO: No—and I quite respect his reasons, even while I deplore them. But he has served his country unselfishly; it is merely just that his country should not forget him in his old age.
PAULA: Ah, but his country has a poor memory!
PERICO: A poor memory—how true! We are always too excited over the latest headlines and the newest fashions. But now there is this painting . . .
[He moves toward the PORTRAIT, and the others follow.]
Yes, there is this painting . . . Thank God, there is this painting . . . The whole country is talking about it. We can no longer afford to ignore your father. He has forced us all to remember him.
MANOLO: Do you think this a great painting, senator?
PERICO: My boy, it would be impossible for me to judge this picture objectively. It is too much a part of myself. Any opinion of mine would be merely affectionate and sentimental—for this is a picture of the world of my youth, a beautifully accurate picture. Oh, I am amused when I hear these young critics accusing your father of escaping into the dead world of the past! And I pity these young critics! When we were their age, our minds were not so parochial. The past was not dead for us—certainly not the classic past. We were at home in the world of the hexameter and the Ablative Absolute; it was not a closed world to us—nor an exotic one; it was our intellectual and spiritual atmosphere. We had Homer and Virgil in our bones—as well as St. Augustine and Aquinas, Dante and Cervantes, Lord Byron and Victor Hugo. Aeneas and Bonaparte were equally real to us, and equally contemporary. It was as natural for Pepe Rizal to give his novel a Latin title as for Juan Luna to paint gladiators. Oh, you should have heard us—with our Latin tags and our classical allusions and our scholastic terminology—
PEPANG: Oh, we did, we did!
MANOLO: Remember, senator—we had the privilege of growing up in this house.
PEPANG: Father brought us up on the classics.
MANOLO: He tried to, anyway.
PEPANG: Not very successfully.
MANOLO: But, oh, the tears I shed over those Latin declensions!
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br /> PAULA: Pepang, our Latin slang, when we were children—remember?
PEPANG [laughing]: Soror mea carissima, give me a piece of your cibus!
PAULA: Nolo, nolo—quia tu es my inimica today and per omnia saecula!
PEPANG: Avida!
PAULA: Pessima!
MANOLO: Pater mi, Pater mi—veni statim! Ecce, feminae pugnantes! [They all laugh.]
PEPANG: And remember all those uproarious games he would play with us?
PAULA: With the blankets!
PEPANG: Yes—we would take the blankets and dress ourselves up in togas. And father would be Jupiter, the king of the gods—and we children would be ancient Greeks and Romans—
MANOLO: And poor mother—how she would groan over her soiled blankets!
PAULA: But father would only laugh at her! He called her the Cassandra of the Kitchen!
PEPANG: Oh, that old laugh of father’s!
MANOLO: Like a roll of thunder!
PEPANG: And however angry you were with him, when he laughed at you, you simply could not go on being angry!
PAULA: Remember how poor mother would end up by simply laughing helplessly?
MANOLO: Because father would be sitting here—on an old box—very stern and solemn—Jupiter, the king of the gods!
PEPANG: Oh, father was magnificent at games like that! And you know why? Because he was not stooping down to play with us children. He shared our seriousness. When he played Jupiter, you could almost see the lightnings round his head. You forgot that his toga was only a blanket and his throne only an old box, and his crown only a bunch of old paper flowers . . . You forgot that it was all only a game—you really felt yourself on Mount Olympus . . . Oh, how many times have we all sat here wide-eyed, listening to him—and when we looked around, it was not this room that we saw—not those chairs, nor those balconies, nor that shabby street outside. What we saw was a space of blue waters, a white sail, and oars gleaming in the sunshine . . .
PERICO: Yes, that is your father all right. Oh, he was a magus. You all know what we called him at school: Lorenzo el Magnifico. There was something lordly about him, even as a boy—an air of elegance and extravagance, though he was poorer than most of us—and a marvelous vitality. He was like—But what need is there to describe him? Look—that is your father up there—that radiant young man! That is the young Lorenzo, the true Lorenzo, the magnifico. Not that bony, shivering, naked old man he is carrying on his back!
[A silence, during which they all look at PORTRAIT. Unnoticed, Candida comes up the stairs. She glances disconsolately toward the group in front of PORTRAIT; goes to the hatrack to leave her umbrella; and remains there, her head bowed, her back to the audience. Meanwhile, Don Perico, who has been frowning at PORTRAIT, turns resolutely toward Paula.]
PERICO: Paula, your father tells me that this picture belongs to you and your sister. Now listen—would the two of you be willing to make a patriotic sacrifice?
[He waits; but Paula is silent. Upstage, Candida turns her face around.]
Because if you were to be patriotic enough to give this picture, to donate this picture to the government—the government might, as a token of gratitude, be willing to set aside a fund—a fund to be administered by your sister and yourself—a fund sufficient to maintain your father and yourselves while he and you are alive. Your father would then have no objection to the money; it would not be offered to him but to you and your sister as a—well—as a kind of reward for your generosity. Paula, I am in a position to arrange all this. I ask you to have confidence in me. I ask you to be generous: give this picture to your country; give this picture to your people.
[Paula is still silent, her head bowed. Upstage, Candida has turned around.]
Oh Paula, you would be making a noble and unselfish and heroic sacrifice. As you know, our country possesses not a single painting by your father. His great works are all abroad—in the museums of Spain and Italy. That is why the government is so anxious to acquire this picture. Surely, his own land is entitled to one of his masterpieces?
PEPANG [after a pause]: Well, what do you say, Paula?
MANOLO: But of course, senator, Paula and Candida will want to discuss this first between themselves. They will want to think it over.
CANDIDA [coming forward]: We have no need to discuss it, we have no need to think it over!
PEPANG: Candida!
PERICO: Oh, is this Candida? How are you, my child? Do you remember me?
CANDIDA: I remember you, Don Perico, and I am very sorry—but you are only wasting your time. You can go back and tell the government that this picture is not to be had. Paula and I will never part with it!
PEPANG: Candida, be silent and listen!
CANDIDA: I have heard all I need to hear! [She turns quickly, toward doorway.]
PERICO: Candida, wait! [She pauses.] Come here, my child. Are you angry with your old godfather?
CANDIDA [turning around]: You are the last person in the world who should want to take this picture from us!
MANOLO: Don Perico merely wants to help our father, Candida.
PERICO: I understand how you two girls feel about this picture. Your father has painted it for you as a last memento—and of course you find the thought of parting with it very painful. But if you really love your father, you will not think of yourselves—you will think of his welfare. Now listen, Paula; listen, Candida: I am not a doctor but I can see that there is something wrong with your father.
[Paula & Candida glance at each other.]
Oh, I ought to know; I have known him all his life. We grew up together, we went to school together, we went to Europe together, and we fought side by side in the Revolution. I have not seen him for a long time—and I blame myself; yes, I blame myself! I should have come to visit him before. But, as you all know, our roads parted a long time ago. I went my own way—and he . . . he stayed here. When I saw him again this morning I thought at first that he had not changed at all: he still seemed the embodiment of grace and charm and intelligence. But we had been too close once, he and I; we had been too intimate once for me not to notice that—well—that there was something wrong. I could see it and I could feel it. And I know it. There is something wrong with your father.
CANDIDA [dully]: Yes.
PERICO: He is sick.
PAULA & CANDIDA: Oh no!
PERICO: I think he is. Very sick. And anyway, I agree with Pepang and Manolo: this old house is not the place for him. He needs light and fresh air and coolness and quiet. He should be under medical care; he ought to be placed in a hospital—some good private nursing-home. Now, that will be rather expensive; and I understand that your father—uh—that he has—well—that he has lost his money. But if you accept this offer of the government, Paula and Candida, you will have the means with which to take care of your father as he should be taken care of.
CANDIDA: He is not sick! Oh, you do not know, you do not know!
PAULA: There is no hospital that can cure him!
PEPANG: What do you mean, Paula?
CANDIDA: We mean that we cannot accept the offer.
PEPANG: Are you two out of your senses? Do you value this painting more than father’s life?
PAULA: Father is not sick. And he wants to stay here.
CANDIDA: And we shall stay here with him.
MANOLO: But even if he is not sick, you cannot stay here, you should not stay here! Don’t you know that a war may break out any day now? And Intramuros is the most dangerous place in the city! Oh, tell them, senator—tell them!
CANDIDA [smiling; approaching]: Yes, senator—tell us. What are we to do? Are we to abandon this house? Are we to abandon this house as you abandoned poetry? Go on, senator—tell us. Who could advise us better than you? I promise that we will do whatever you say. Do you agree, Paula?
PAULA: We will do whatever you think is bes
t, ninong. I promise.
CANDIDA: There, we have both promised! Our lives are in your hands, senator. Think carefully, think very carefully! Oh, but what need have you to think? You made a similar decision yourself a long time ago. You yourself abandoned this house when you abandoned poetry, when you abandoned our poor little dying world of the past! Did you ever regret your decision, senator? But what a foolish question! One has only to look at you now. You are rich, you are successful, you are important—
MANOLO: Candida, be silent!
CANDIDA: I must talk. Someone must talk, no? The senator does not answer.
PERICO [dully]: Candida, Paula—I have no right to advise you—
CANDIDA: But why not?
PAULA: We listened to your poetry once; we will listen to you now.
CANDIDA: Surely, a senator has more authority than a poet?
PERICO: I ask you to think in terms of reality, not in terms of poetry.
PAULA: Oh, poetry is not real?
PERICO: Poetry will not save you from the bombs.
CANDIDA: No—only politics can save us.
PERICO: Candida, Paula—I feel in my bones what you feel for this house; but this is no time for poetic attitudes! If the war should catch you in this house, what would you do? You are two helpless women. And what would happen to your father?
PAULA [smiling; looking up at PORTRAIT]: Like Aeneas there, we would carry him on our backs!
PERICO: Yours is the classic piety—the piety indeed of Aeneas! But it is a piety that belongs to Art, not to life! It looks sublime in that picture up there; it would only look ridiculous in the real world!
CANDIDA: The sublime is always ridiculous to the world, senator.
PERICO: Then the world is right.
PAULA: You did not always think so.
CANDIDA: And how fiercely you used to stand against it! In what beautiful words, you used to pour out your scorn of its laws, your anger against its cruelty, your contempt for its malice!
PERICO: Poetry was the passing madness of my youth, a plaything of my childhood.
PAULA: But when you became a man you put away the things of a child.
PERICO: No man has a right to stand apart from the world as though he were a god.