“But this is nothing exceptional,” Eddie said. “I am sure that the Romans found the same kind of panderers when they were building their empire. It is simply survival and preservation of interests.”
“The revolution lives, but the dream dies—and we cannot do anything, we who were nourished on that dream, for we are too puny or too involved in the system itself. So my dearly beloved and dying father keeps a company of civilian guards and deems it a necessity, even when his guards kill innocent villagers. We cannot even perish in leisure, for the pain of waiting will be worse than death itself. If we must die—pardon the heroics—death must come, swift and painless, in the manner in which we were reared, afraid of pain.”
“I am sure that those whose memories of the Occupation are bitter will disagree with you,” Eddie said. “They knew what pain was.”
“Not that kind, not that kind,” Luis said. “Physical pain is much too simple, although there is nothing quite like it.”
“Whatever it is,” Eddie said boorishly, “keep it away from me.” Then seriously: “Luis, I hope that you will get over it very soon. Just remember, the magazine is your baby now. You gave it life. Of course I can always put it out, but then it will no longer have the personality that you have given it.”
Luis stirred his coffee. “I wish you wouldn’t talk like some damned preacher, giving me motivation and all that jazz.”
“I mean it,” Eddie said. “Perhaps I’m also thinking of myself, but I am really trying to tell you that there is no sense in your acting like this. It was not your fault any more than it was Ester’s. No one in the office blames you.”
Luis leaned forward and glared. “But it was mine, more than Ester will ever know,” he said. “I did not give her strength, sympathy when she needed it. I was just too damned concerned with myself.” He stood up, went to the counter, and paid the check. Eddie followed him to the door, and in the lobby Luis said, “All right, I will try and make it tomorrow.”
When they parted, they shook hands, which they rarely did. The rain started again—a slight drizzle—and Luis ducked in the shade of the marquee. Holding the jacket closer to his chest, he sat on the base of one of the columns. Beyond the ebony pavement came the clop-clop of horses’ hooves on the asphalt. Every once in a while a car sloshed past, its lights flat and bright on his face. When the rain finally stopped he crossed the street and walked toward Plaza Goiti. He looked up; it was midnight and Eddie was still upstairs, working. It had become chilly, and at Plaza Goiti he hailed a cab and gave up the idea of walking until he was tired and could easily go to sleep. He did not stop before his house. He got off a long way from it and walked the deserted seawall. Beside him was the sea, black and formless but heaving and alive. The walk would be long, and it would end in the gumamela-lined driveway. He would go up to the porch, unlock the door, and walk past the silent living room, with its muted piano, which Ester used to play, and its record racks, and beyond, to the bedroom, where he would lie listening to his breathing, to the click of lizards on the wall and the scurrying of mice in the recesses of the ceiling. He would remember what Ester had told him, recall the warmth of her arms around him, the taste of her tears and the thrashing of her heart against his own. God—we were one, as close as no other two people have been, and she had to run away, not so much from life as from me.
He sank on the rain-drenched seawall, and bending over, he gave way and finally found release in a grief that wrenched from him a moaning loud and unmanly. He was still sobbing when a policeman emerged from the shadows, tapped him lightly on the shoulders with his truncheon, and asked him if he was drunk. He turned to the anonymous face, and in the first flush of turquoise dawn—for it was almost daybreak—he rose slowly and murmured a flat and level “No.” He went up the boulevard and straight and steadily to his house, as if drawn to it by the power that makes a criminal hie back to the scene of his crime.
CHAPTER
31
In the five days that Luis did not go to work there had piled up on his desk letters, telegrams, and other messages, most of which he would have enjoyed, for many of them were congratulatory. Seeing them now, he felt no sense of fulfillment, no affirmation of his righteousness. They were merely reminders of a turmoil that had uncoiled. He went over them perfunctorily, then dumped them all in a side drawer.
The phone rang and Eddie answered it. “It’s the Old Man,” he said. “He wants to see you.”
The publisher’s voice sounded relieved. “Ah, so you have finally come,” he said as soon as Luis was on.
“I wasn’t well, sir. I hope I didn’t inconvenience you.”
“I understand,” the publisher said. “If it was a blow to you, Luis, just remember, it was much, much more to us. Have you written to your wife, or called her up and told her? They were such good friends, you know.”
“No, sir, I haven’t,” he said, feeling a pang of guilt. He should have told Trining, but then it was probably just as well that she did not know. Perhaps Marta and Simeon had mentioned the tragedy to her, but the fact that she had not called him up was indication that she still didn’t know.
“I hope you are all right now,” Dantes said. “Can you come to my office immediately? There are officers who will be here in an hour, and they want to clarify a few things about your special issue.”
When he hung up, Eddie was looking at him expectantly. “It’s the constabulary,” Luis said simply.
“Patience,” Eddie told him as he opened the door.
A few of the men at the desks turned to him. Perhaps they knew what was in store for him in the publisher’s office, perhaps they envied his courage, which they, in their conformity, in their middle age, no longer had, but he walked on, not wanting to talk even with those who knew him well. This was his problem, and he must handle it alone.
Miss Vale was waiting for him, and she smiled perfunctorily as he paused before her desk. She was efficient, not given to office gossip, and she was one of Dantes’s most trusted workers. It was rumored that she was an illegitimate sister of Dantes, but Miss Vale was dark and Ilokano, while Dantes was fair-skinned and Negrense. “Go right in,” she said, smiling at Luis. He was pleased to find that with that single smile she could still look like a young girl.
The publisher was opening his morning mail with a gold letter opener, and on his large circular desk were copies of the morning papers, including Luis’s magazine. “Sit down, Luis,” he said without turning to his editor. “If you want a drink, the bar is over there.” Dantes thrust his chin across the expanse of blue carpet, the conference table, to the cabinet at the far end of the big room.
“It’s too early, sir,” Luis said.
Dantes stood up, elegant in his cream linen suit, alligator shoes, and green silk tie. He cracked his knuckles—a sign that he was nervous—and started pacing the floor, his head bowed, as if in thought. “I have often wondered about you,” he finally said, the smoky eyes focused on Luis for a brief moment. “Why should you feel uncomfortable with your money, Luis? It is not a crime to be rich, you know.”
“No, sir,” Luis said. “I have never considered myself a criminal.” He found himself speaking with confidence. “I like my comforts. They are, after all, mine by inheritance, and I am sure that my father wants me to enjoy them.”
Dantes walked over to the narra conference table—a huge, glass-topped, rectangular single piece of wood surrounded by a dozen gilt-edged hand-carved chairs. His voice sounded far away. “Anyone reading you would conclude that you hate the rich and think that all of us are scoundrels who make money exploiting the working class. Even if we do, please do not forget that the poor will always be with us and it is not our fault. They will be there because they are stupid, and they are stupid because they are poor. They are there because they are lazy, they have no capital, no incentives, no imagination, and no will to work. In any society, however, there are those among these wretched poor who will rise. History is full of them. Your own Manila elite—and you kn
ow how I despise the new ones—many of them started with nothing but glib tongues and nimble fingers—”
“But do they need to be always with us?” Luis asked diffidently, as if he were addressing the question to himself. “If so, I would then admit that society is always exploitative. We go to the nature of man—his perpetual evil—”
Dantes glanced at Luis, and a small laugh preceded his reply. “Ah, Luis—just like Philosophy Twenty-four again. Ah, my undergraduate years.” He sighed. “Soon we will be going into theology, then escapism, then nirvana, and all that sort of thing. I continue to read, Luis, though not much”—he thrust his chin again at the books that lined the huge office. Indeed Dantes was very erudite, and every historian in the country knew of his extensive collection of rare books on the Philippines, including one of the first editions of the Doctrina, which was the first printed book in the country.
“I know, sir,” Luis said humbly, “and that is why I consider it a privilege that you should even seek my views or talk like this with me.”
“Enough of the flattery,” Dantes said, but he was obviously pleased. “I love the Buddhists—they seem to have all the answers. I am particularly amused by the Tantric Buddhists. You should see my collection on Tantric art one of these days—mostly from India and Nepal. Ah, but I am straying now. What I want to say is that the poor need not be with us always. That is why we have revolutions—all through history. Don’t you believe that the Communists, the Marxists, invented revolution. They had it in ancient Egypt—in Rome, Spartacus. All through history blood has been spilled, and it is not a pretty sight, Luis. I don’t really think you want revolution. You are just like me, living with illusions, too comfortable to go after most of them—but, mind you”—he paused and pointed a finger at the young man—“I am not accusing you of insincerity.”
“Thank you, sir,” Luis said, feeling relieved. The room had begun to get stuffy, and he could feel the blood rising to his temples.
“I think I understand your motivation,” Dantes said. “I think you are a bit muddled and unclear, even to yourself. The quest for justice is in every man, even in me. I have vision, too, I like to think. I would like to see this country grow, I would like to see it laced with prosperous towns, with people who have money to enjoy life, to buy the good things in the market, the products we make—”
“Just like America,” Luis said evenly, but the sarcasm made its mark.
“Don’t talk like that,” Dantes said. “You must see progress in economic terms, and its social aspects will follow, since this is a society where awareness of other people’s feelings has always been a part of tradition. Can you not see, Luis, what I am trying to do? I want my hands not only on industry but also on communications. Radio and television—we have them now—and power, electricity, and shipping and transport—the whole complex that would make this country surge forward.”
With the Danteses in the lead, Luis said to himself.
“I know you have been upset by how you joined my organization, but I cannot stand persons who do not see it my way, which, by God, I know is not wrong. Besides, in the end, you must judge me not according to what I say but by what I have done. And what have I done? Think of the thousands gainfully employed, enjoying some of the best privileges anywhere in the country. Of course this is not just what I want to do, and it is for this reason that I want nationalists on my staff. We must modernize, and this starts in the mind, not in the mouth. We must stop being hewers of wood, drawers of water—to use your awful cliché.”
Luis turned the thought in his mind. This was what the Meijis did, this was the siren call being trumpeted in all the new countries—how to stop being slaves not only to tradition but to the mother country.
“For whom are we going to modernize, sir?” he could not resist asking. “For whom shall we break our backs, miss our meals, and even kill our brothers in order to be modern?”
“You are cynical and you mistrust me,” Dantes said, a hint of sadness in his voice. “How I wish you did not ask that, for it implies that I am working only for myself. Yes, that is true, I love wealth and the power that goes with it, but I know that I will not live forever—like you, I once had youth, but look at me now. I am not as healthy as I’m supposed to be …”
Luis remembered how Dantes was said to have gone to those Swiss rejuvenation clinics, so that he could have more virility—monkey glands, all those things that the rich could afford—and as the rich man droned on, almost like a hypochondriac, about his impending death, Luis not only got a glimpse of Dantes’s weakness but also began to think of all those like Dantes who had everything but were aware that everything was ephemeral.
“Sic transit,” Dantes was saying. “In my case it could be cancer or heart attack—or just the usual complications one expects in old age.” He shook his head slowly and his gaze wandered to the city spread before his picture window—splotches of tin and cement, the sickly green trees, and a smoky sky mottled with clouds. His voice sounded remote and suddenly cold. “I have thought a lot about justice, but let me make this clear—it should be my kind. I make the rules, for I am what I am—the patron, the hacendero, the feudal lord—all those sociological clichés that you use. I like the role. It gives me a feeling of deep satisfaction, almost orgiastic—to use again one of your fashionable words—of superiority, of achievement, and of doing well. The justice I dispense with is mine, for I am the lord, and this justice will go to the workers, for whom you profess love and affection, not as a flood but as a trickle. If you will pardon my sarcasm, how much do you pay your driver and your maids? What are the terms of tenancy on your father’s hacienda?”
Luis bristled and raised his hand in protest, but Dantes waved his protest away imperiously and continued, his voice now raised almost in a rant: “The poor do not know what abundance means. They will not appreciate it, since they are not conditioned to it. We are Western men—our wants, our ambitions are unlimited. They are Asians—primitives with limited wants and equally limited vision. They will always be workers, do not forget that. It is the fate of men to be born unequal. Those with brains will rise in any society, democratic or totalitarian. Ideology is meaningless to those who do not know the difference between caviar and bagoong. Margarine, not Danish butter.”
Dantes paused and his eyes blazed—but only for an instant. Now they were warm again. “You must forgive my enthusiasm,” he said with a quiet laugh. “Sometimes I really sound like a soapboxer or a schoolteacher, and I forget that you are not only an editor but one of the most distinguished young writers in the country today.”
Luis carefully brushed aside the compliment. “Thank you, sir,” he said, “but I cannot help feeling that you seem to think the lower classes are aspiring to utopia. I can assure you—most of the time all they want is three meals a day, education for their children, medicine when they get sick.” He paused, for he suddenly realized that he was merely repeating what his brother had said. “These they do not have. Have you ever been to the Philippine General Hospital, sir?” He knew the question was impertinent, for every year it was to the Mayo Clinic that Dantes went for a checkup. “Have you seen the charity patients there, sleeping in the halls, dying because they have no medicine?”
“That’s the government’s responsibility, Luis, not mine. There is no employee in our companies who does not enjoy the best medical care and pension benefits—much more than what all those crooked union leaders are demanding. I gave all these benefits to the employees without their asking for them. No one can lecture to me about the rights or needs of the poor.”
The intercom buzzed. Miss Vale’s voice came clear. “The two officers are here, sir.”
Dantes’s voice changed quickly. “Serve them something and tell them we will be ready in a few moments.”
Dantes turned to Luis and his voice was grim. “You realize that I have been making a speech.” The grimness quickly disappeared and he smiled wanly. “I do get incoherent sometimes, but out there are two offic
ers, and before they come in I want you to know that there is only one side—my side. I am not interested in what is right or wrong—or what is true or false. My main interest is that nothing happens to this organization. Let me make this clear—I will back you all the way but only if you subordinate whatever ideas you have to what I have mentioned.”
Luis nodded. There was not a single doubt in his mind now that the Old Man had really drawn the line. Yet he could not but appreciate Dantes and his frankness, his simple illustration of what he wanted and what he was. Luis should have had no illusions from the very beginning—as Ester had said, this should have sunk into the depths of his subconscious. If she were here now … Oh, Ester, if you were here now, you would be kind to me, you would comfort me, give me your hand and say that the world will always be like this and we can do nothing about it except be close to each other and share as best as we can the agony of our helplessness.
“In a way,” Dantes was saying softly, “we have been lucky—the Army is not so corrupt or power-hungry as it is in Latin America, and it is easy to work things out because the officers are just after promotions.”
“But someday it will be corrupted, sir,” Luis said. “It is already starting. As with all our institutions, it will decay, for the Army will no longer have a vision and its highest castes will be only after comforts. This will start at the top, not with the privates and the corporals. But it will spread down, and there will be no stopping it, for the leaders shall have been infected; the colonels will not believe their generals, the lieutenants will not believe their colonels, and the privates will not believe their lieutenants. Patriotism becomes a sham, a means toward getting rewards. A dictator will go masquerading as the man on a white horse. And he will do it easily—for as long as we have an Army that does not side with the poor—”
Don Vicente Page 38