Luis took off his shoes and sat on the floor. His mother sat on a stool that he had made years back as a project for his “industrial work” in school. The old man returned to his perch by the window, the bamboo shuttle now idle in his hand.
“What are you doing now, son, aside from studying?” his mother asked.
“I am now working, Mother,” he said. “It is in a newspaper office, and it is very tiring.”
“My poor Luis! I hope that you are never in need—”
“Father gives me more than enough,” he assured her. “And with my work, I now have a little all my own.” He took his wallet out.
“Don’t,” she said, pride in her voice. “Your grandfather — we make enough to live on, and you know our needs are few.”
“Just the same,” he said, thrusting the bills into the pocket of her skirt; she made an attempt to take them out, but he held her hand firmly, brought it to his lips, and kissed it. “Mother,” he said with emotion, “please — it is my own money now, and I would like to give it to you.”
Her eyes shone, and after a while she asked how it was with him, if he had problems. And he told them in a rambling manner how he was not able to finish college and that not having a college degree was not important anymore. He spoke of how he had quarreled with his father rector, murmuring, “I defied them all, I defied them all,” and when the anger evoked by memory died away, he spoke of the trips he had taken, to Hong Kong and the Visayas, the many friends he had made, many of them writers and poets. They sat there, drinking in every word. And looking at them enthralled by his presence, his talk, it suddenly occurred to Luis how unjust he had been to them, how recreant. It is a sham — the thought rankled him; how can I ever tell them that I have told my friends my mother is dead, that Sipnget does not exist, nor Vic and the past that we shared? God — he closed his eyes briefly and pondered his shame — what has warped me?
“I am so happy, Luis,” his mother was saying, “I am so happy …”
He sidled close to her and held her hand; her palm was calloused, and a wave of guilt swept over him again. In their moments of need, which were many, he had helped them little. His work and his friends were not that much of a distraction; he had simply forgotten them, and realizing this, he now saw the futility of his coming here, the hypocrisy of it all, but he said without conviction, “I need you. I am so far away, and I cannot come here as often as I want. I will just send you money then, and write to you more often …”
They were silent.
“What is it that you need? Mother, is there any way you can come and see me in Manila, too? I’d like to give you as much of my own money as I can. The little that you have saved, what are you doing with it?”
The old man stirred and looked at his daughter. “Tell him, Nena,” he said.
“What we saved,” his mother said, “we gave to our leaders. You don’t know who they are, but you must know now. Someday, son, we will get back the land your grandfather lost. Then you won’t have to worry about sending us money.”
“Who are these leaders?” His interest was aroused.
“Fine men,” his mother said, “and it won’t be long now before we will succeed. You will see.”
“You may be fooled again — if you are not careful,” he warned them.
“Who knows?” the old man asked, rising from his seat. He inserted the shuttle into a loose fold of the buri wall, lighted his pipe from the lamp, and sat on the floor. “The drowning man clutches at the water lily, hoping that a leaf will save him. Maybe it is the same with us, but this time we are holding on to something bigger — a sturdy raft, not a leaf.”
Luis walked to the window. The night was still, and he could hear the river rushing through the shallows.
“Soon, life here won’t be all darkness,” the old man mused. “We have the right leaders now, Luis — not the way it was.”
“Don’t believe everything your grandfather says,” his mother said. She was spreading the sleeping mat on the bamboo floor. “But something has to be done. Children are born and there is not enough food for them — and you know why.”
This, then, was what they hankered for. How elemental their needs and how little did he heed them. All that he remembered was the greenness of leaves, the taunting face of his father, who by one snap of the finger could dispossess them. Where, then, lay their hope and salvation from years of drudgery? His grandfather’s words came again: “Our leaders are different now. They are not after money. We hold meetings and they tell us how we have been slaves, not just here but in other places, other countries. The only strength we have is in our numbers — the poor are much more numerous than the rich. And someday we will triumph.”
The old man rambled on, but Luis was no longer listening. The sounds of evening, the howling of a dog, and the stray wisps of laughter in Tio Joven’s store came to him.
His mother tugged at his arm. “You will sleep here — in the sipi, where Vic and you used to sleep?”
He shook his head. “I have to go back, Mother.”
“So it must be,” the old man said. “Don’t hold Luis back. I think he belongs there now.”
“I’d like to stay,” Luis said, avoiding the old man’s eyes, “but I have to leave early tomorrow.”
“So soon?” his mother asked. “I thought you would stay here for the vacation.”
“My work, Mother,” he said simply.
They accompanied him down the path, beyond the squat cogon houses. The store was being closed when they passed, and his Tio Joven called out to him again, asking when he would come back, and Luis shouted, “Soon! Surely!”
They paused at the foot of the dike, and they would have talked some more but he bade them good night, and after kissing their hands, he went up the path.
The walk back to the camino, where Simeon waited, seemed unusually long. It was all wrong — his coming here, his going back to Rosales, to a father as impersonal as his caryatids with archaic smiles.
They drove back in silence. Only when the car purred up the driveway did Luis speak. “We go back to the city tomorrow,” he told his driver.
Simeon turned to his master: “So soon, Apo? But we have just gotten here.”
He did not have to explain, but he did. “I have work to do,” he said lamely. “In my kind of work, Simeon, one does not have vacations.” Then his tone became jocular: “Don’t you want to go back to your wife? From the looks of it, you would rather be away from her!”
Trining was in his room, reading the manuscripts in his portfolio. “I didn’t misplace any of these,” she said, turning away from the writing table. “I was waiting. I’m anxious to find out.”
Luis sighed. He removed his shoes and dragged a chair to the door that opened to the azotea, where a breeze and the scent of the garden flowed in. Trining followed him and caressed his nape. “You stayed quite a long time,” she said. “I was beginning to worry.”
“Nothing will happen to me.” He held her, pressing her to him. “Do you think the Huks are all over the place? Even if they are, they know who I am. What if I didn’t return?”