All of the neighborhood in Pasay was cindered ruin. Nothing of our house remained except the blackened walls. Nothing. The trees were shattered, too. There was no one in the vicinity I could talk to, who could tell me if there were survivors, particularly a sweet young prostitute with clear brown skin, a dimpled chin and eyes that sparkled always. I was later told that all the people in the neighborhood had fled to the Rizal Memorial Stadium nearby, and that was where the Japanese had massacred them.
I never saw Adela again, but I will never, never forget her. What she left scarred me. In afterthought, I now realize why Colonel Masuda, the gentleman that he was, did not want to touch her. Before Christmas, she had developed a sore on her lip that wouldn’t go away and, very soon after, I developed a sore, too—not big, but it, too, wouldn’t disappear till after a time. It was the unmistakable symptom that, at the time, I did not know. Colonel Masuda loved Adela, perhaps much more than I did, but it was from him that she and Corito and I got this dread disease.
Soon enough, the city was normal. Running water and electricity were restored in certain parts, and all sorts of GI goods were on sale on the sidewalks—American cigarettes, K rations. Army trucks became the first buses, plus a few old ones that were rehabilitated. The jeepneys soon appeared. Father was given four jeeps by the government, as our cars, which hadn’t run for a year or so, were all rusted. The hacienda, which we had not visited during the war, was overrun by the Huks, but they were soon driven out by the army and the civilian guards. As for Father, again, the truism of what he told me about seeking opportunities was evident.
I was quite surprised that he was honored by the Americans—they even made him a colonel. It turned out that all along he was a guerrilla—the double game that Colonel Masuda had so aptly described. I don’t know how he did it, but the citation is there on the wall. Nothing that I saw or heard during the war years indicated his valor, his capacity for conspiracy. But there are really quite a few things I never knew about him, or about my grandfather. Perhaps it is best that I did not bother.
My dear sister got married almost a decade after the war. Manila was no longer rubble; the Manila Hotel, where so many social functions were held, was renovated. Our Sta. Mesa house intact, untouched by vicissitudes, was remodeled and equipped with central air-conditioning. The wide garden that was planted partly to okra, eggplants, tomatoes and pechay had long been replanted with bermuda grass. There was no power in our part of the city after the war, but Father had obtained a generator from the U.S. Army, whose highest officials, including General MacArthur, were his prewar friends. All the past magnificence of the house—Mother’s silver and china, which were not looted—were on display again, as if no misery had ever ravaged this city.
The long gowns, the tuxedos, the cultivated flamboyance were, however, no longer in sight. The mestizo elite, sustained by raucous snobbery, was there—by now, I could recognize them, their illustrious names, their bland, smug faces. There was, however, one person who was certainly missed, whose munificent favors had flowed to all of us in that wedding reception. If he were alive, he would have been the godfather; Quezon had died of tuberculosis in the United States. But, from the wisps of conversation that evening, he was present in spirit.
Corito’s husband was a tall, handsome mestizo. His forebears, like mine, had also figured in the revolution, and knowing this, I often wonder if there were any Indio leaders in the revolution at all. From the very beginning, when he was courting Corito, I was somehow bothered by this quality of sinuous strangeness about him, an illusive allure that soon clarified itself. I was really growing up, not just intellectually but in perception, this time of sexual perversity. Camilo was taller than me, and he even had a mustache, which he often flattened with his thumb—a mannerism he couldn’t get rid of, and he did this often when he was talking. He had long, thin fingers, almost like a woman’s, but there was nothing effeminate in his gestures. His eyes seemed very sharp, fidgety, and when he talked to people he didn’t look them in the eye. I don’t know what Corito saw in him, but then I think my parents and Camilo’s parents had something to do with the marriage.
The wedding reception did not last long—not as long as the parties in the house before the war, when some of the guests stayed on for breakfast. Before midnight, all the guests had departed except for the waiters clearing up the mess in the wide grounds. The dining tables had been set under a canopy of white U.S. Army parachutes, for the rainy season had started. Fortunately, it did not rain that night.
I had become drowsy quite early and had gone to my room where I listened desultorily to the music coming from the aging Serafin Payawal and his orchestra on the terrace. I had also drunk a little wine—I suppose there were still a few cases in the air-raid shelter that Father had stocked. I was partial to white and to port. I was soon asleep.
It must have been around two in the morning—the whole house was quiet. In the kitchen there was no more clatter. From the street one heard the occasional jeep, the music of crickets in the trees. I was awakened by something soft, scented and familiar. Corito was fondling me, kissing me, her mouth tasting of wine, too.
And what about Camilo?
In the soft slight light, I could see the disdain on her face. With me in tow, we went to her bedroom—her bed larger now, a matrimonial bed. Our eyes had gotten used to the dark and, sprawled there, asleep and snoring loudly, was her husband, still in the white suit of the groom.
“He did not do it,” Corito said, not bothering to lower her voice. I was now sure Camilo’s failure was more than drunkenness. He seemed endowed with virility, and with his mustache he oozed machismo. But sprawled there, his mouth agape, he looked slovenly and dissipated.
Corito shook him, but he slept on. At that very moment, the idea suddenly bloomed in my mind, effulgent, seductive. I realized the risk, and perhaps that was precisely what quickened my pulse, inflamed me. Corito did not need any encouragement. Right there, beside her husband in the deep throes of drunken stupor, we did it willfully, savagely and with delicious vengeance. Corito moaned and heaved, her back arched, her embrace maniacal in its intensity, and through all that tumultuous and noisy passion, Camilo snored on.
*General Artemio Ricarte refused to pledge allegiance to the United States after the Spanish-American War, went into exile in Japan, and returned to the Philippines with the Japanese army in 1942.
In the muddied depths of my own being, there is one clear thought that glitters through: I want to die. God, how I wish the end would come so that I would finally be free from these villainous realities about which I can do nothing. Let me sink quickly into that black and rimless murk from where there is no returning, in which there is no consciousness, no bliss. Let it be—after all, my passing will be as insignificant as the demise of insects, living things no less with rights to the sunlight, the sweet air. But they can flit about with their wings while I cannot move on my own feet. They can drink the nectar of flowers as pure as the morning has made it—and what is it that I imbibe but the cruel adulterations that my ailing system needs? How many times have I tried to hold my breath but in the end had to gasp and drink deep, large drafts of the conditioned air?
They watch me with leering eyes, immobile and helpless though I am, with those infernal machines nearby, ever ready to pump oxygen into my lungs and blood into my arteries. Just let me die, I plead with them, but they think I am simply joking, and maybe I am, for in spite of these dark and dangerous thoughts, they know that I wake up, expectant, that another day has come, and that, perhaps, this time, there will be some happy change, no matter how subtle, no matter how trite.
Twelve of them in four-hour shifts, so they will always be alert. All registered nurses and physical therapists, delectably pretty. They pamper me with professional ministration and saccharine coquetry—I have promised that a one-year bonus—and they know it could be more than that—would go to anyone who could make me respond as a man again to their touch. God, how I miss it now, more tha
n food, more than anything in the world.
In the morning, they lift me from my bed and lay me carefully in a tub of warm water. I have grown thinner—the hardness in my muscles has long given way to a flabbiness, a looseness of the skin, which has wrinkled and is more pale now than it ever was. I dread looking at that dead instrument that once could be as hard as a truncheon—that now is no more than a dried and wrinkled eggplant.
They take turns washing my loins, hoping they can, by some prayer or miracle, make it spring to life. I wait eagerly, hopefully, prayerfully, for them to succeed. But they never do.
They wipe me dry and spread baby powder all over my body. I know I exude the odor of an old man—sour, repugnant—and who would want to smell me now as I used to smell my Angela when she was a baby! Ah, that heavenly scent of a baby! What vaporizes from my pores are the ignoble odors of the posterior, of the sick, of the dying! They lavish me with care, but not because they have some loyalty to me, as I know a wife would care for an invalid husband, wipe his anus and handle his excreta, taking all these not as sacrifice but as manifestation of love, for this is the least love can do. For none of them love me. I am clearheaded enough to realize this, which I was not when I was virile. Now, it is only my money that they care about, that the world is interested in. So let it be—I will not drown in illusion. I will not wallow in the muck of self-pity. I will enjoy this wealth vicariously if I can. They put me in a smock and, over it, a thin blanket; it could be cold, but it would make no difference, for my extremities are impervious now to temperature. Except for my face.
My breakfast is ready, but it is like baby food, pureed, homogenized, soft-boiled and without salt—the ultimate punishment! I take in everything with a glass straw. I am tempted to bite it, to swallow those shards so that my intestines, my stomach would be lacerated and I would finally die. Ah, to drink Dom Perignon with a straw, steak blended into an abominable liquid. No, no, not those juicy chunks that linger and please the palate.
As I had always suspected, he was homosexual. I recognized Camilo’s sexual deviation even before he married my sister. On those occasions that he visited before he and Corito got married, he would greet me with so much brotherly affection, a tight hug, a lingering handshake and the unmistakable look of lust on his face. In a sense, he confirmed my male attractiveness. I wondered what drove him into this marriage. It was only later that I realized it was for convenience. Father was misinformed. Camilo’s family, it turned out, was not so secure after all; much of their property was mortgaged as collateral in the many loans that Camilo’s father had taken out. Moreover, he had gambled, kept mistresses and by himself managed to waste their wealth so that when he died shortly after Camilo’s wedding, their estate was divided among eight children and Camilo’s share was not sufficient to enable him to live in comfort. He was going to be dependent on Corito’s largesse.
Whatever nastiness there was between Corito and me later on, there was one quality about her that made me confident she would not squander her share. She was very careful with money, a result I am sure of Mother’s constant lecturing; she was not going to let any man, Camilo included, and her lovers in the future, take advantage of her.
Back to school—this time at the Ateneo. Letran’s élan had diminished; Ateneo was attracting upper-class Filipinos, most of them future leaders of the nation. It was necessary that I be enrolled there. I never noticed it till someone wrote about it—look at the children in the public schools, how thin, how malnourished they look and, almost always, they had bad teeth and their skins were blemished. But look at all those boys at La Salle and Ateneo, the girls in the elite women’s colleges—how well scrubbed, how well fed they all look.
I took for granted such blatant differences, understood them as fate, as an inevitable condition of the world. I was not going to grieve over it, but I was not going to exploit it or condone it either. That would have been callous of me. I retained fond memories of Severina, and it was from such a station that she came. Ah, Severina—she always evoked from me such sweet nostalgia, that tenderly painful remembering of the first love. Perhaps, because I am now in this parlous condition, memory is more poignant.
There is no better preparation for leadership than the study of the law, that’s what Father said, although he himself did not study law. He had no need to; he had hired the best lawyers. I doubt very much if they had helped. Most of the justices in the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals and a host of judges were his personal friends, his having been a cabinet minister in Quezon’s government. After the war, he was also elected senator and as such was noted for his urbanity, civic spirit and, before I forget, his sterling nationalism. And because it had become fashionable, he also made some anti-American speeches. This insight that I learned from him served me well, as you can see.
So law it was. In the meantime, because of those idle days during the Occupation, I developed a habit of reading, as I’ve said, even those upstart novels written by Filipinos. Like my father, I boasted of an interest in things Filipino, antiques, folk crafts and, in the process, became involved with the plight of our ethnic minorities. It is really so easy to beguile the so-called nationalist intelligentsia with professions of passionate involvement with Philippine culture, especially if such a profession is amply illustrated. Such is the case with Father’s collection of rare Philippine books, which he never read but collected avidly. It was natural for me to have continued this interest, and there even came a time when I was acknowledged to have some expertise in Philippine bibliography; actually, I had hired a retired librarian to give some order to the books in the house.
I considered it a duty to continue and improve on my father’s collection. After the war, I embarked on trips around the country, looking up rotting churches, gathering antiques, abandoned furniture, old paintings, religious images—santos—so that in time several rooms of the Sta. Mesa house were simply bursting with the stuff. That august residence soon acquired the stature of a museum to be visited by culture vultures as well as those scholars interested in this nation’s cultural artifacts and its pre-Hispanic past.
As for the ethnic minorities, I championed their cause, for which they honored me and made me chieftain, sultan or whatever was the highest title they could give their leaders.
My forays into their isolated areas also enabled me to map out their mineral deposits, timber resources and whatever could be exploited from this nation’s natural bounty. And the sensual satisfaction! As chieftain, I had access to the tribal feminine treasure trove—in fact, in most instances, such treasures were offered to me. But let it not be forgotten that I did help them, perhaps wrongly as some anthropologists have criticized—but what have these mealymouthed academics done for them? There was no tribe that was not welcome in Sta. Mesa, and the quarters in the back that were reserved for our tenants and servants was their home whenever they came to Manila.
My travels to these isolated regions sparked my interest in travel in general, and let it not be forgotten that I have also helped the tourism industry. In the late fifties, I set up one of the first travel agencies in the country, about which I will speak more.
Now, there is another mestizo landlord who tried to imitate me. He had conned several professors and American journalists into writing about his tribal “discoveries.” The phony! I was told by impeccable sources he even buried shards of old porcelain in caves so his nitwit believers could dig and find them.
Again, a willful digression. I was concerned that my nationalism not appear as a pose the way it was with my father. This country is crawling with poseurs, impostors, charlatans, especially in the press and in so-called intellectual circles. I have nothing but contempt for these people, these writers who canonize themselves with their pious pronouncements but whose lives are without piety, least of all virtue. Beware of Filipinos who make brilliant speeches—underneath that dazzling verbiage is a dubious personality, maybe ruthless and corrupt, for good men never have to say anything—their deeds speak
loudest for them.
Deeds indeed! Let it not be said that I have not acted charitably for others. But let me go on with the story—there is always time to indulge in self-glorification but less for self-pity.
I had often been tempted to accede to Camilo’s unspoken invitation. Just simple acquiescence when he gave one of those brotherly hugs would have led to something more conclusive. I can never forget his wedding night, when Corito and I celebrated it in his unfeeling presence. What would have happened if he woke up? Would he have made it a ménage à trois as the French call it?
When Corito gave birth to Angela soon after, I am sure Camilo knew the darling baby wasn’t his. Did he bother at all? Did he accuse my sister, or needle her about who the father was? Corito said he treated the baby as his own, and whatever his suspicions, he kept his peace. The price of disturbing the harmony in the house was a risk he did not want to take. But this only for the time being.
I did not finish my law. Father died with his boots on, as we often say. I always knew he had a mistress, not just one, for it turned out there were four. I don’t know how he did it but there were no illegitimate children. No one contested his will. In the first place, he took good care of his women, providing them with houses, substantial properties to sustain them. He was a senator then and the salacious fact of his death was known to all his friends, to us in the family certainly, but there was not a single wisp of scandal in the newspapers. Long before he died, he showed me a list of the journalists who regularly got money from him. I was to continue the time-honored practice. So you see what I mean when I say we shouldn’t believe all those vaulting pronunciamientos of columnists.
Sins Page 5