How readily he agreed now with his brother — but only because the agony was now his.
But what of this girl, this woman who was to bear his child, who had turned to him as her savior and master? He stroked her hair and said, “Don’t say that — how can I ever hate you? You are the most wonderful thing that has happened to me.”
“If you are filled with anger today,” Trining said, “I hope you will have it in your heart to forgive. There is hope, Luis, and time is on our side, because we are young. I have memories, too, or have you forgotten? When they killed my parents and my brother I should have grown up hating those who killed them, but I do not, for you have helped me grow and understand.”
Time is not on our side, the thought formed clearly; time is certitude, time ordains us all to die, as Father will die — but why has he lived so long to warp my life? Time was his friend, not ours.
CHAPTER 28
There had always lurked somewhere in the shadows of this house, compounded with its musty odors and clammy surfaces, a pall of inevitable decay so real that Luis could feel it hovering over him. What did his father say? What was it that had curdled all the warmth that once coursed through him? The Asperris were destined to be tormented, to be flailed and torn in spirit. Look at Don Vicente’s Spanish wife, whose body was wasted by abortions, whose days were lived in madness. In the end they would all die, and nothing, nothing would remain of them. This was not spoken but implied, understood by the people in Rosales and Sipnget who had watched what transpired in this big red house, who had seen how the Asperris were born, debauched, and how they then passed away — his father’s father, the uncles and aunts, until there was no one but Don Vicente.
Luis, however, was not an ordinary Asperri. From the very beginning, a deep, dull ache in his heart told him that he had not really forgotten, that he was still capable of more than kindness. He would be saved from damnation as long as he dispensed with tokens of virtue as he knew virtue when he was young, but as long as he was capable of kindness he would also be an easy victim of deceit. Kindness — as his father had said — was just another form of emotion that man must free himself from so that he would be strong. How much easier it would be if he merely followed what the old man wanted and dismissed the agonies of conscience with the thought that he was committed to something just as necessary — the well-being of no other than himself. This self, however, this bundle of nerves and flesh, this mirror of the inner consciousness that had long been cracked, was the prison from which he would now flee, for it was not just rotten tendon and bone — it was also blood that had been poisoned.
This blood nurtured in a distant corner of Spain was no longer what it was, and its perversion was in him, nagging him, reminding him that in this house was his destiny. He must now take leave of it.
He had already packed and was waiting for one of the boys to fill up the radiator and clean the seats of the car. Trining had made a cup of coffee for him, and he was ready to go. “What will you do now?” she asked.
“I will avenge them, that’s all,” he said simply.
“Oh, Luis, you will end up fighting your father.”
He walked to the azotea. The east was paling, and in the orange light the jagged rim of the distant hills stood out. Beyond the sprout of coconuts at the right a dog barked, then the silence of early morning descended upon the town again, punctuated by the crowing of cocks.
Her arms closed around him, and her voice trembled. “I am afraid, Luis, not just for myself but for you. Please take me along.”
He kissed her on the forehead. “We have already talked about this. For the moment your place is here. He is sick, and that is a concession I am giving him. It is foolish, you being here and I there, but this is not forever.”
She was silent. Then, after a while: “I will call you up as often as I can. Will you try to write down whatever is happening over there, whatever comes to your mind?”
“Every day,” he promised. They went down together and she kissed him passionately. “Tell me everything he does,” he whispered. When the car drove down to the gate and into the street it was already morning.
Luis arrived in the city before noon and proceeded to his office at once. As he had expected, everyone at the desk had heard about his wedding. He had no time for the bantering, and although there was this emptiness in his stomach, he tried to smile. All the way he had carefully planned how he would play up what had befallen Sipnget — the crisis in the rural areas, the immediate need for land reform, and the renovation of the armed forces. It would be one issue devoted to nothing but political reform, and the touchstone would be Sipnget.
Eddie was amazed to see him back. “You deserve a much longer honeymoon,” he joked. “Of course I know that what you can do in forty-eight hours would take us ordinary mortals forty-eight days.”
Luis grinned. He flung his leather portfolio atop the bookcase behind his desk and inserted a sheet of copy paper into his typewriter.
“Tell me what is so important that you cut short your honeymoon,” Eddie said, hovering by him.
Luis looked at his associate. He trusted him completely. Eddie worked harder than Luis himself, but in spite of his ambition he completely subordinated himself to his editor’s wishes.
“I’ve seen something in my part of the country that provides the clue to why the Huks are getting stronger every day,” Luis said. “A massacre has been committed. We didn’t even get to know about it. Worse, it was condoned and glossed over. Twenty were killed.” His voice started to tremble, and he stopped. Eddie sat on the edge of Luis’s desk and listened keenly. “In my hometown. The constabulary and my father’s civilian guards — they destroyed the village, too.”
Eddie rubbed his chin. “Of course you have the proofs, photographs, testimonies — all those things.”
Luis glared at his associate. “My eyes — what more proof is needed? I know the village, the people. It is gone. I saw the charred posts, the mass grave where the victims were buried.”
Silence.
“You are in for something big, Luis,” Eddie said. “Something we might go into with our very lives.”
“Yes, and we can’t let it pass. I’ll have to lay it open — the whole mess. You don’t know what this means to me. It is my own father whom I am fighting now. He knew about it, but he kept silent.”
Eddie winced. He stood up and went to his desk. “He may have his own reasons, Luis, and they may be good. In any case”—he looked briefly at the calendar—“our deadline is five days from now.”
Luis made a listing of the authors he wanted for the special issue. He also checked up on the file of articles that had already been accepted and those that had been set in type, ready to be used. In half an hour he had made half a dozen calls and worked out a dummy. Now the editorial, which he must write — and the article on Sipnget.
He should not have been surprised to find Ester in his home that evening. Eddie had informed him with a sly, knowing wink that she had called twice, asking when he would return. She had not bothered him in the office, but here she was now, watching him as he moved about, to the kitchen, where Marta was preparing the table. They had greeted each other at the door with a mere handshake, and making a bright effort to sound casual, she had congratulated him. He had in turn asked her to stay for dinner and told her that she did not have to worry about how long she could stay.