The Samsons: Two Novels; (Modern Library) (64 page)

“But we are,” she fairly screamed at him. “Living here; the kids not going to the best schools, you working yourself to death—and that bastard Puneta taking all the credit for the articles and speeches you write for him!”

“Please,” Hortenso raised his voice, “this has gone far enough.”

I was now all attention for Mrs. Hortenso, for her mobile, pretty face, the eyes flashing fire. “Pepe, do you know?”

I shook my head.

“Don’t listen to my wife, Pepe,” Professor Hortenso told me, a wan smile on his face. “She is tired and …”

“I am not tired,” she hissed at him. “And I am not angry at you or at Pepe. Here,” she thrust the plate of
caldereta
toward me; I took another helping.

“It was he who wrote Puneta’s doctoral dissertation. And what did he get?”

Professor Hortenso flung his arms in the air in a gesture of futility.

“Nothing. Nothing! And Puneta promises and promises. And what does he give the Brotherhood? Why, my husband gives more of his own money, his time. I give more …”

“Don’t brag, honey,” Professor Hortenso said.

“I am not,” she said, glaring at him again. “I am just stating the truth. How much have you spent for those pamphlets? Remember how I went to Papa and got money so that you could have the last pamphlet released from the printer? Remember?”

He had given up; he merely smiled and let his wife speak on. “A beggar who gives five centavos gives more than the millionaire who gives five hundred pesos!”

Professor Hortenso looked at his watch and rose. “Pepe, we will be late,” he said. Our meeting was at three, but it was only one o’clock. I stood up reluctantly, for I wanted to hear more about Juan Puneta. I would ask Lily when I got back, and this time, I would ask for details.

Mrs. Hortenso, now calm and serene, followed us to the door and dutifully kissed her husband on the cheek. “Dad,” she said as we stepped out, “it is going to rain.”

A darkening sky, clouds that obscured the sun since morning. We were both optimists. We walked to the boulevard to save fifteen centavos because from there we could get a jeepney that would go directly to Taft. We had time and Professor Hortenso wanted to talk.

“I hope you will keep to yourself what my wife told you,” he said.

“Is that what you want, Professor?”

He nodded. Then, after sometime, he continued wearily, “I have been bothered by people like Puneta in a very profound way. You see, he belongs to the oligarchy, but he is educated, he has liberal ideas, and is willing to help. He has helped.…”

Silence. We were nearing the boulevard. We would have to cross and walk a little distance to Central Market and get our jeepney there.

“I know it could be very wrong, that he is merely using us,” he said pensively. “There is enough warning, enough literature on the subject. You know, the most impressive is your uncle’s book, particularly the last chapter.”

I knew what else he had to say, and I was no longer listening. The elite, the masses not making revolution, collaborating with those in power …

We crossed on the overpass. “But we have to be pragmatic,” he continued firmly. “We cannot say we will reject their money because it is not pure, because it is tainted. Besides, we get to know their weaknesses so that they will not subvert the revolution as they did the last time. The important thing is that we—you and I—we know. If we are careful, we will not be fooled as they were fooled in the past!”

We got off at Taft and walked toward the bay, but as his wife had warned, it had started to drizzle, and the drizzle turned into driving rain that clattered like pebbles on the tin roofs and marquees. We ran up Herran and stopped in a souvenir shop on Mabini, where we hoped we could get a taxi to Roxas Boulevard, to the Puneta Building.

When we got there finally, we were half an hour late and dripping wet. I had not expected Betsy to be a member of the Educational Committee, and when she met us at the foyer and shook my hand, Professor Hortenso smiled. “Well, it is good to know that you know one of your committee members.”

We went up in the elevator to the eighth floor, Betsy asking me in a whisper why I did not write to her; I told her I did but had not mailed it.

When we got to the office of Puneta—one of several—she whispered again. “After this I want to talk with you. Let us go some place where we can be alone.”

The rest were already there, drinking coffee and eating neatly chopped sandwiches of cheese and ham. I was still full of
caldereta
, but I ate again.

Juan Puneta, tall, mestizo, always cracking his knuckles, welcomed us; he was particularly warm to Professor Hortenso, whom he called Nonong, embracing the professor as if he were a long lost brother.

The meeting did not interest me, but I was fascinated by Puneta, by his mannerisms, and I tried to find out what in his very masculine features was the clue to his homosexuality. I could not find any. He moved about with machismo and decision. In spite of his lips, there was nothing effeminate about his voice, his intonation. He dressed elegantly, but that was because he could afford it. His fingernails were not manicured. No jewelry adorned his fingers, just a simple gold wedding band. Had Lily made a mistake?

I noticed Puneta looking at me and I turned away. We were talking about reaching more people, spreading the base of the Brotherhood, even making alliances with other groups.

Betsy was taking notes and putting in a word or two, but I was soon far away, thinking of my meeting with her parents and wondering where we would go tonight. I looked at her, bent over her pad, at her finely molded face and at her full breasts under her formless
katsa
blouse.

Puneta snatched me from my reverie: “Pepito Samson—he has not contributed anything yet. I am sure he knows a lot, what with his background, where he lives.”

Professor Hortenso turned to me. “Well, Pepe?”

I must have looked bewildered.

“Any suggestion you can make about broadening our base? Reaching more young people? You organized that chapter in Tondo; surely you must have ideas,” Puneta pressed.

I did not have to think; I remembered Ka Lucio. For a month now he had not been working. He had tuberculosis, as Father Jess and all of us had suspected, and was at home, resting … on what?

“I think we can learn from the past,” I said. “We have a neighbor, Ka Lucio. He was Commander Puti—he is sick now—spent twelve years in jail. He knows a lot. We can learn from him and establish links with men like him, and his followers, and the children of his followers. They are ready to join us. We have, I think, been committing
mistakes, like emphasizing ideology and politics when we should be winning members, winning them on the basis of their needs. As for education, it is the leadership that needs it, but as Ka Lucio said, the Huk movement was strongest when it was facing an enemy, a real enemy, whether it was the Japanese or the Constabulary that pillaged the villages.”

“We should also be able to identify those enemies who are lurking in the background, who wear the masks of friends, who steal our souls with kindness or with promises,” Professor Hortenso spoke evenly. “I am, of course, referring to the Americans—just in case you have forgotten.”

I recalled the Directorate sessions; I did not want to disagree openly with him, but it was best that I spoke my mind. I owed him this.

“I cannot accept this form of anti-Americanism, Professor,” I said. “The Americans are not a problem as such. Just look at the hordes at the American embassy every day. Filipinos wanting to immigrate. I would rather work in an American firm than in a Filipino company. I know Americans give better pay, privileges, and I can aspire to a very high post with them. Not with the Spanish mestizo companies. I am not one of them.” I was explicit. I wanted Puneta to know.

“I know what you are going to say,” Professor Hortenso said. “But we have to look at our struggle in a broader perspective.”

“First things first,” I said. “We cannot take on the world. And besides, once you have gotten rid of the oligarchy, it should not be difficult to push the Americans out. The experience of other countries illustrates this. And even if we had a revolution and won in the end, what would we do? We would still have to produce and sell—sell, yes, to America.”

“It is not just for the reason I mentioned,” Professor Hortenso continued evenly. “We have to recognize our being part of Asia, our being Asian.”

“But Asia means backwardness,” I said. “Monuments, religious tradition—why should we worry if we don’t have these? We should be able to create them ourselves. What is an ancient culture embellished with ritual if there is no freedom in that society, not enough food? We will create the new culture, and thank God we will not be shackled by the past.”

“Except that the Americans have shackled us to their concepts, their megalomania.” It was Betsy who spoke.

I had not intended to defend the Americans. They are such a big target and could not be avoided. They are also an overwhelming presence. Wherever one turns, they are there, with their technology, their brands, and their malaise. They are, it is true, an obstruction to legitimate nationalist aspirations, and they don’t need Filipinos to defend them, least of all a self-seeking escapee from that limbo called Cabugawan. They can do that very well with their own hirelings in the elite schools, in Pobres Park—the nationalist bourgeoisie whose fortunes are entwined with theirs. Still, there are things that must be said, not in their behalf but in the interest of truth.

Puneta was very pleased. “See?” he was beaming, his white teeth gleaming, his mestizo eyes crinkling. “See? Really, Pepe, I should have a long, long talk with you. I should go over there and talk with your Ka Lucio, too.”

“Isn’t American imperialism real?” Betsy interrupted Puneta.

“No doubt, no doubt,” I smiled at her. “But the people are pro-American, Betsy. Look at me: I have no ill feelings toward them, toward anyone. But I hate whoever was responsible for the death of Toto … of our thirty-three friends. Whoever killed them is the enemy.”

“Go beyond that,” Betsy said.

“I can. But my friends in the Barrio—their concern is food and jobs. They are not political.”

“We have to be political.” She was insistent.

“I don’t disagree. But even in my university— I don’t know about the schools of the oligarchy.”

“Don’t be patronizing,” she said sharply. It was now she or I.

“I organize on the basis of friendships, on being Ilocano. Most of the students are not really interested in demonstrations, except that they mean no classes. Do you know what their interests really are? To pass, to be able to get a degree, and after that, a job. Politics is a luxury of the rich.”

“This is reverse snobbery,” Betsy countered. “Are you saying that the masses do not need political education?”

“I am the masses,” I flung at her. “Do you want my credentials?”

I had pushed her into a corner, and she scowled at me. I had the floor to myself, and I did not give it away.

“Yes, everyone needs to be politicized, not just the masses. But we are talking about organizing and winning a broader base. This comes first if we are to have the sea. And we can build this sea around us first by talking the people’s language—not the language of conference rooms and seminars. And this language is warm, earthy. Many of my friends in the Barrio,” I continued slowly, “have not even finished grade school. When I organized the chapter there I had a broom—
ting-ting
, that I used in sweeping the church floor every day. I detached one midrib and snapped it and I said, see, alone, singly, how weak it is? Then I held out the broom to them and challenged anyone to break it. This is what unity brings, I said. Strength, usefulness. And they understood immediately. That is why we were able to get cement for the basketball court. Now we can play even in the rainy season. And we painted the multipurpose center, too. All of us. We are proud of these.”

They were listening eagerly. They were all hopelessly
burgis
; what did they know about living in Tondo?

“Any day,” I continued, “I can get more than fifty young people from the Barrio. Fifty! You cannot go there and make speeches and expect them to follow you. Do you know that all sorts of politicians go there and make speeches? What makes you think you’re any different?”

They did not speak.

“Look, even Father Jess who has lived there seven years feels they don’t really accept him. And he is right, and not because religion has become very impersonal. We all know that priests are not poor, that they are not really like us. But I—I have been there only a year and I can raise, like I said, fifty followers at any time. Not only do I live there, but I also fight with them. I give them milk, relief goods—though these are not mine. I have taken them to restaurants, got drunk with them. You don’t need speeches in Tondo.”

“There should really be a way for those from the villages who have gone to the cities and become other than what they were—successes, you know—they should go back to the barrios, to their roots …” Juan Puneta spoke to no one in particular.

I could not let it pass. “Sir, I am no success, but do you mean I should go back to my village in Pangasinan? That is unthinkable! Why should I? Life in Tondo is harsh, but life in Cabugawan is harsher. That is why I am here, this is the reason the farmer would
sell his only carabao to send his son to college. If he had a chance, he would not be a farmer.”

This was what Auntie Bettina and Mother had hammered into me, I wanted to tell them, for now, more than at any other time, all that I heard from them came with ringing clarity.

“You are saying then that once we industrialize, once we have a chicken in every pot, there would be no need for revolution, there would be no problem even in organizing people,” Professor Hortenso concluded.

“We will organize so we will have a chicken in every pot,” I said. “But we are incapable of truly uniting. It is not just the
ningas cogon
, the lightning enthusiasm that dies once the speeches are done with. Look at us. How many youth organizations are there now? It is not the Americans or the oligarchy whom we really hate most; it is those who do not belong to the Brotherhood. We call them clerico-fascists, deviationists, CIA agents. And God, we are fighting for the same cause! It is just that our names are different. How many organizations are there of lawyers, teachers, doctors? Perhaps as many as there are people who want to lead them, people who cannot go beyond their petty personal ambitions, who think they are the only true bearers of light. You find this thinking in the village, so we use the techniques that are useful in the village, but the leaders, Professor, they should be able to go beyond the psychology of our villages.”