Sins

by F. Sionil Jose

  It was difficult for me to understand why a boy who had obviously lived in want in some dilapidated village in the Visayas would reject the ease and comfort that I offered, circumstances that were legitimately his and were all being gladly given. If I were he, I would have grabbed everything.

  How did Severina raise him? To loathe me perhaps for having abandoned her? But I did not know. Why then did she bother at all at the last moment to reveal my identity? Thinking back, I realized how culpable I was. When she left, I should have inquired about her whereabouts from the help. I should have persevered, threatened them even, particularly her distant aunt, the cook. If I had persevered, I am sure they would have told me. I could then have found her and her baby. But would I have stood by her? Again, the warning from my parents, their wish to keep our property intact, to see that our bloodline, the Spanish in it, was strengthened, not diluted. And to the wealth that Corito and I inherited, I had already added so much on my own. What was one house for Delfin in Diliman? I could build it with a snap of a finger. I kept several houses. And I seldom visited them, nor did Corito and Angela, for now Corito always wanted to be where I was, wanted me beside her when she needed me, always using Angela as bait, as an excuse, that the girl was not well again. And, God, most of the time it was true. But though I wanted to build Delfin a house, I could not do it without his consent.

  Without his being aware, I knew not only about the tiny room he kept but also his schedule in school. I tried not to be conspicuous in my attention. I knew he resented my wish to pamper him.

  The driver had carefully timed it; Delfin would be coming out of the Liberal Arts building at noon, his Friday afternoons being free, and the car drove over to the sidewalk. I had gotten out of the car and there was no way he could avoid me. “I want to invite you to lunch, hijo,” I said.

  He turned briefly to a couple of classmates who were with him; they were staring at me, at the Cadillac with a uniformed driver. It was the first time in four months that I had seen him, but an aide had kept tabs, every month handing him an envelope with cash that would enable him to be comfortable. He had at first refused it, but the aide had pleaded with him that I would fire him if he did not do his job. That was quick thinking but, in truth, I never told him that.

  Delfin smiled at me, warmly enough, I think. He wore the same faded khaki pants, white shirt and battered sneakers. He had also lost a bit of that sun-browned skin and he was fairer now. I saw myself in him again, only he was taller, though not by much.

  “Thank you, sir, but I have plans this afternoon.”

  I held his arm firmly and led him to the Cadillac. “Tell me about it in the car,” I said. I was prepared to drag him and I think he sensed that.

  He was tight-lipped and glum, speaking only when I spoke to him. It occurred to me to be blunt. “Delfin, what ugly things did your mother tell you about me?”

  The question must have startled him. He looked at me in surprise. “You never knew my mother, sir. She was a good person, with never an unkind word for anyone. She never spoke about you till, like I said, she was already very ill. And all that she said was that I should see you, that you should know.”

  I was mortified. “We are going to the Polo Club,” I said. Then I called Corito on the car radio; she was at the Assumption waiting for Angela. Both would proceed to the Club from school.

  Makati was growing magnificently, an enclave of business, banking, its residential areas well planned for the rich. My own office building was already almost finished, thirty stories tall. I was also going to build a house in Dasmariñas. It would be more convenient to entertain there. I wanted a place to stay where I was not always at Corito’s side. The Huk rebellion was over, its members having turned into mere brigands. It had bothered me and Father, too, but we knew Magsaysay, who was then president, would defeat them and come to the succor of the oligarchy.

  My businesses were thriving, too, but it seemed I had learned so little about empathy. I could not understand Delfin’s deep longing for independence, his desire to challenge the world and live on his wits and brawn in a manner I never fostered in my own self, used as I was to the privileges of birth and high station. Where did all that granite perseverance come from? From Severina and her peasant origins? I was beginning to appreciate my son as someone different from me. I would never be able to do what he was now doing.

  The drive along Highway 54, soon to be known as EDSA, was quiet but tense. Corito and Angela were already at the Club. The two often came here on weekends to ride, Corito to shed off some pounds, and Angela to exercise. At eight, she was tall but oh so thin. They were on the patio drinking Coke. Always, Delfin was polite as he greeted them. He remained standing until I told him to sit down. Angela never stopped gazing at him, smiling. On the sunny polo field, the stable boys were walking some of the horses. A waiter came and took our orders.

  It was a leisurely lunch, chopped endives with oil and vinegar, chateaubriand and Spanish sherry. Angela had very little appetite; I had to finish her steak. She was very much alive, however, not quiet and seemingly lost. She had a lot of questions like “I would like to visit you. Will you take me to your place one day?”

  Delfin merely smiled at her.

  “Tito said you have moved from that place where we first took you. I am very glad you did. But you can live in Sta. Mesa—I cannot understand why you don’t want to. We have so many empty rooms.” She turned to her mother. “That room next to mine, there’s nothing there but cabinets and cabinets. Sometimes, at night, I think there is a ghost there—no, you don’t want that room. But the room across the hall?”

  Corito would do anything to please her daughter. “You must come,” she said graciously, warmly. “Why don’t you visit? The weekends when you don’t have classes. Help Angela with her homework …”

  Again, a noncommittal smile. I was very happy that Corito and Angela had voiced my feelings without my prodding. Corito knew who he was, she had seen Severina and me in an embrace, but she did not show any sign of jealousy anymore—and anyhow, Severina was dead. The whole house knew Delfin was my son and there, in the Club, I wished there were people now who knew me, who would approach our table.

  Angela couldn’t be stopped. “Why don’t you want to come even if we want you so much? What is the reason, Delf?” she had given Delfin a nickname.

  “I would like to very much,” he finally said. “But I want to be on my own, to learn how to be independent.”

  An honest answer, and I was grateful for it.

  Just as I had hoped, Don Simeon, who owned the Agricultural and Industrial Bank where I had a minority interest, happened by. He knew Corito and Angela. I stood up and introduced Delfin, who had also risen. “My son, Simeon.”

  The banker stepped back, looked Delfin over, then grinned and pumped my son’s hand. “So it is true—what I heard about you having a son. But you know, Charlie, he is handsomer than you and, I hope, brighter, too, although that would take a lot of doing.”

  We laughed. Delfin was blushing. Don Simeon was twenty years older than I, mestizo, too, and to Delfin he said, “I presume you are still in school, hijo. What are you going to be?”

  He hesitated, and I answered for him. “He is a scholar at the state university. He is studying law.”

  Don Simeon chuckled. “So he will replace Jake when he is through, huh?”

  “If Delfin so chooses,” I said, suavely, considering his feelings.

  Don Simeon was looking for a table. I asked him to join us so he would be able to know Delfin better. That is how business relationships start, from social beginnings. I wanted, in fact, to introduce Delfin to as many of my associates and connections as possible, if only he deigned stay with us. But Don Simeon was expecting company and it was enough that he had met Delfin. Everyone would soon know the reality of my son—and heir.

  When Delfin said he had plans that afternoon, I suspected he had quickly concocted a reason for staying away, for it was Friday and I had hoped he woul
d be able to be with me not just that afternoon but perhaps for the weekend. I did not want to appear as if I were begging. Angela was now having her favorite macapuno—coconut—ice cream and Corito always appreciated the cheesecake. It was almost three in the afternoon. I took Delfin to Francesco, my Italian tailor for the last five years, and, there, Delfin was fitted for a couple of summer suits and one for fall. I also ordered for him several shirts and summer trousers. I told him I would like to take him on one of my trips and, please, give away that old pair of khakis and get several pairs of new shoes. As a haberdasher, Francesco also had a good line of Italian shoes for men.

  Delfin did not object to Francesco; he stood there, acceding to the master cutter’s measuring him, and all the while Francesco was saying how splendid he looked, what a handsome mannequin he would make at a fashion show. Francesco was homosexual.

  It was one of the most pleasant afternoons I had ever spent with Delfin. We hadn’t talked at length before and I wanted so much to know about him, his boyhood, his needs.

  “I am doing all right, sir,” he said. “I am earning a little …”

  And what could a prelaw scholar, studying rigorously to maintain his scholarship, do to earn money?

  He was candid; he said he helped some of his classmates with their reports and he also tutored a couple of girls from nearby Maryknoll in math—he was good at it and had considered taking up a science degree, but had decided on law instead.

  Was it his ambition to be a politician? We were in the car on our way to my office. I wanted my senior staff to see him.

  “No, sir, that’s farthest from my mind.”

  “Stop calling me ‘sir,’ ” I said, a little peeved. “Call me Papa, hijo, if you can manage it.”

  He did not reply. I knew then he would never call me Papa, and the old hurt came back, the suspicion that Severina must have coached him, pounded into his young mind that I had done them wrong.

  “You did not explain to me why you want to be a lawyer.”

  This time, he hesitated and, then, again the truth: “In Siquijor, sir, there are many people who are made even poorer because they have no way of fighting back, because they cannot afford lawyers …” and as if he was suddenly aware of having said too much, he stopped.

  Was this my son talking about championing the poor? Youthful idealism, I concluded; I had heard a bit of that from some of my classmates at the Ateneo, like Jake, my chief counsel, for instance, but they soon forget it all when they enter the real world, the world which I dominate.

  My Makati building was ready, and the finishing touches were being completed in the upper floors. My office was on the ground floor, unlike other executives who want their offices higher up. My penthouse, however, was there at the top, where I had a view of the city. It was accessible only to me, with its private elevator.

  All my top people were also on the ground floor. We did not go to my office through my rear entrance but through the front so that as we walked through executive country, all of them could see Delfin. I did not have to introduce him—by his looks alone they could see he was the son I had been boasting about.

  In my office, I told him to sit down and read The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times while I sifted through the messages that had come in during the late morning and lunch hour. Tina, my private secretary, came in with her pad and more messages. She was older than I; I had inherited her from Father. She was fat, jovial and extremely efficient. We always spoke in Spanish, and I introduced Delfin to her. “I have heard a lot about you,” she said in Spanish, presuming Delfin spoke Spanish, too. “You are so handsome and you look just like your father.”

  Delfin smiled and replied in English, “Thank you, ma’am, for the compliment.”

  Nothing of importance from Tina or in the papers on my desk. I took him to the rear, to the private elevator and to the top, my penthouse. I often stayed here when I had company or when I entertained a maximum of eight people. For more, I used the house in Dasmariñas. Going now to Sta. Mesa was too much of a bother—the distance, the knotted traffic and the pollution that seeped through the air-conditioning. My building was taller than almost all the other Makati buildings and, from the penthouse, Manila sprawled in all directions. Were it not for the acacia trees, I could see the house in Sta. Mesa. On one side was the helicopter pad and the anchored helicopter, kept in readiness if I wanted to go to the beach house in Bataan, or to the hacienda, or even to Sta. Mesa if I was in a hurry. I had not meant to show all these possessions or even my lifestyle to Delfin. I had wanted privacy with him, to know him and, looking back, I suppose I had awed him somewhat, for now he was rigidly silent.

  But even if I did not show him all these, maybe, bright as he was, he already knew the extent of my holdings.

  “I sometimes stay here, hijo,” I said. I took him to the other bedroom. And then I made the pitch. “If you will be uneasy staying in Sta. Mesa, you can stay here with me. I will not bother you—in any case, I am not here often. As you know, I am often away on business trips, or I am in Sta. Mesa, or in that other house in Dasmariñas …”

  When he did not reply, I knew I was again rejected.

  What could I possibly do to gain my own son’s affection?

  Here I am, one of the country’s richest, most powerful men, but with him, I am completely powerless.

  My own son! I survey the supreme magnitude of my economic achievement and a chest-thumping sense of pride buoys me. I had really used Corito’s and my own inheritance to grow, to parlay all these into something my father had never dreamed of. Like him, I had gotten to meet the important people in government and out. I had helped them, too, contributed not just to their political agenda but also to their own pockets, and they had all responded—the reparations, the lumber concessions, the licenses and franchises and the approval of Congress—even my income tax deductions. I had a battery of brilliant people, most of them lawyers, who knew all the loop-holes, and some of them even proclaimed themselves as nationalists—I lured them, paid them homage, co-opted them, then used them all.

  And why shouldn’t they believe in me? I was collecting Philippine antiques, Chinese porcelain, preserving them, even created an exhibition hall for my collection in the absence of a national museum. I gave away prizes in literature, supported the local stage and charity! All this, recorded dutifully by journalists, is nationalism indeed.

  What will I talk about with Delfin, my reading, my knowledge of Roman law, the lines I could remember from the Roman orators? Yeats and T. S. Eliot—do not forget, my dear reader, that I had dabbled in poetry, that I love poetry, thanks to those many idle days during the Occupation in the brothel in Pasay when I was always reading. But would showing off my intellect bring me closer to my son? I doubted it—he might even conclude that I was just showing off, for that is what I did at board meetings when my ignoramus colleagues would ask me who it was this time I was quoting and, sometimes, although it was my very own thoughts, I would attribute them to some Chinese or Indian philosopher—nonexistent, of course, but who among them would know? Cobello locuta est, causa finita est! (Cobello has spoken, the dispute is finished!)

  Then, it occurred to me. I would take Delfin to Nueva Ecija, to Hacienda Esperanza—he would certainly like to see where his mother came from, maybe even to meet some of his mother’s relatives who were still there.

  “I will take you to Nueva Ecija this afternoon. Cancel all your plans. I have not been there myself in a long time …”

  I could see at once the pleasure light his face. “Yes, sir,” he said. “Thank you.”

  My impulse had worked. Finally, I was going to do something he approved of.

  The house in San Quentin had always been maintained so that if I ever decided to visit the place, I would be comfortable. I called Sta. Mesa and told the cook to prepare to leave for San Quentin; Corito and Angela had just come in, too, and Corito said she would take Angela with her. It would be a wonderful weekend for the family.

 
; Delfin said he had brought no clothes, so I flung open one of the cabinets. “Take anything you want,” I said. “I am sure they will fit you, taller though you are, but not by much.” He was embarrassed, hesitant. I picked a suitcase and started filling it.

  I am not a finicky dresser. In the last three years, Francesco had made me only four dozen suits, but he likes to announce that he is my tailor. I have, at most, only a dozen tuxedos and another dozen old tweed jackets, mostly Donegals. When my three-button gray flannel suits tailored in the fifties went out of fashion in the seventies, I still wore them because all were of fine English wool. In fact, I sometimes wear a five-dollar tie picked up on a New York sidewalk with my Savile Row suits because I like the traditional Brooks Brothers design. All these may seem excessive until one realizes I have several houses abroad and in each there are enough clothes for any season. My only one caprice is white silk shirts, all made to order in Hong Kong with a red monogram above the breast pocket: C.C.

  I had to go back to my office to sign some papers. Delfin sat there, reading the newspapers and business magazines. He sauntered over to the shelves that line one side of my office—more Philippine books there, some rare editions, some sociology classics, fiction, history. He browsed until I was through and my secretary had also received instructions in the event that important matters cropped up that weekend.

  We arrived in San Quentin shortly after eight P.M. The house was ablaze with lights. The generator in the back was humming and would continue to do so the whole night. Angela met us at the landing and she kissed me and stood on tip-toe to kiss Delfin as well. It was the first time, I think, that she kissed him.