“I guess you’re right,” he said. “Why don’t you help me live a little?” He glanced at his watch.
“It is still early,” Ester said, “and you asked me to help, didn’t you?”
It was a dare he must pick up sometime. Right now he could not stay for another moment. The night was lost, no matter how amusing the conversation and enchanting this girl. In that inner self there was no light; there was this scourge of the searching mind that could not be eluded.
“I have to be up very early,” he said. “Aren’t you happy that I’m such a thoughtful employee?”
“That’s not a nice thing to say,” she said. “You are trying to put me in my place, and I am not spoiled.”
“I’m sorry.”
Ester tried to be light. “And speaking of Father, he sleeps until lunchtime sometimes but still manages to work the whole night. Aren’t you really going to meet some of my friends?”
Luis smiled and stood up. “I’d rather be with you,” he said solemnly. He had intended to flatter her, but now that he had said it he meant every word. “I really would like very much to be with you again when I can have you all to myself.”
Her eyes shone, and he felt that they were looking right through his permeable skull, into the recondite corners of his brain, reading his thoughts as if they were in blazing neon.
“I’m not really a snob — even if you did call me one.”
“I did not,” she objected vehemently. “Whoever gave you—”
He pressed his forefinger to her lips to stop her from talking further. “I think I am beginning to love you,” he said.
Even as he drove away it seemed as if Ester was still beside him. He could still smell her fragrance, her hair, and most of all, he could envision those dark, sad eyes that would — he was now sure — always hound him.
CHAPTER 22
When Luis drove up the graveled driveway and saw that the lights in his bedroom were on, he decided that Marta must have forgotten to turn them off again. It was her duty to turn off all the lights except those in the foyer whenever he went out in the evening. He would remind her in the morning about her wastefulness. He went up the stairs, fumbled briefly with his keys, then opened the door. Soft music flowed from the radio/phonograph in the study. It was almost midnight, and he did not remember having turned it on when he left. He hurried in and turned the radio off; glancing into his bedroom, he saw Trining, asleep in his bed. He gazed at her with some vexation, which quickly turned into amusement. Trining was in a pink negligée, the hem of which was raised, so that her beautiful white thighs gleamed creamy and soft in the light. He could also see the clean slopes of her breast and its rising and falling as she breathed. He went into the room, bent over her slowly, and kissed her lips. She stirred, stretched her arms, then opened her eyes.
“Oh, Luis,” she murmured, purring like a kitten disturbed from a nap. Her displeasure with his having left her was gone, and a smile lit her face. She swung her legs down and stood up.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, wondering how she had come — and so soon. “Had I known you also wanted to return to Manila, I would have waited for you.”
“I told Tio that I wanted to be with you — and he put me on the bus. You should take the bus sometime. It is quite an experience. Tio wanted me driven over, but why should it matter how I came?”
Luis started taking off his barong tagalog.
“How were the dukes and the princesses?”
“I never met them. Ester said you should have come.”
He took his pants off and put on his pajamas. He could undress before her without embarrassment, for they had grown up together, known each other for so long.
“I’ll stay here for a month, if you’ll let me — or two months. Then I will go back to school.”
“You should be in Rosales.”
“I can’t go back. The house bores me; you yourself hate it. I think I will take up a secretarial course — shorthand and typing. I’ll keep house for you, and I can type some of your manuscripts afterward.”
“Thank you, but you will only mess up everything.”
“You don’t even give me a chance.”
“And I don’t want you to stay longer than you should. People, my friends come here — you know that — and they will talk.”
“Tio said I should stay here until school begins,” she said stubbornly. “We are cousins, Luis, or have you forgotten?”
He scowled at her. He went to the bathroom and started to brush his teeth. “Have you fixed up the guest room?”
“Marta has done that.”
Luis went back to his room, took Trining by the hand, and led her to the sofa, where they sat, her head resting on his shoulder, his arm around her. “How did Father take my leaving so soon?”
“He was very sad,” she said evenly, “but I think he understands. Anyway, you have seen him — and he told you things, I presume.” Then, somberly: “What’s happening, Luis? Are we going to have trouble? Sometimes just thinking about this frightens me and makes me sad. No, not again. Oh, God, not again! You once said that we are far from the — the people. This morning, remembering what you said, I took the bus, and a taxi from the bus station to here. I was not scared. Only once — only once …”
“Brave girl.” He patted her arm.
“I don’t even know now if I should finish college. It seems unnecessary. What do you think, Luis?” She paused and pressed closer to him. “What is going to happen to us?”
He remembered how he had kissed her for the first time the other evening. There were many times in the past when he would embrace her as they danced or horsed around, but there was never any of this closeness and this intimacy that they now shared.
“I wish I could tell you now,” he said, “but everything is so uncertain. Let’s not talk about the future. Think about something more pleasant.”
“Let’s talk about Mr. Dantes’s anniversary. The grandest thing ever, and I did not go.”
“It was fine.”
“Were my classmates there? Whom did you meet?”
“None,” Luis said, “but I did get to know a bit of Ester, and she set me thinking.”
“What about?” Her interest was piqued.
“She rather seems too mature for her age …”
“And you think that I am not — that I am a scatterbrain besides?”
He hugged her. “No, but why compare yourself with her? You are prettier, although she isn’t bad-looking.”
“You can say that again,” Trining said boorishly.
“I told her that I’d like to see her again.”
Trining turned to him. He could feel her breath warm on his cheek, and her voice was belligerent. “Just what is it that you want to do?” He smiled at her and pressed her close to him again. “Are you in love with her?” He tweaked her nose and laughed. “Well, are you?”
“And if I am?”
“Answer me!”
He gazed at her sullen face, mobile and pretty, and at her eyes, now smouldering. Eyes that could light up and easily beguile him into forgetting that they were cousins. Yes, she had bloomed and was ignorant of the miracle that had transpired. She still had that girlish spontaneity in her moods, in her laughter, in the way she would fling her arms, her nostrils flaring, when she was happy or angry. This was now what fascinated him — the freshness, the vitality of her womanhood. Her cheeks glowed in the light, and her lips, although she was pouting, were full of promise. It was not so long ago that she had been almost tomboyish in the way she moved, in the brusqueness of her speech, and now here she was in his arms, a creature that was ready for the first warm touch of love. “Are you jealous?”