The publisher was opening his morning mail with a gold letter opener, and on his large circular desk were copies of the morning papers, including Luis’s magazine. “Sit down, Luis,” he said without turning to his editor. “If you want a drink, the bar is over there.” Dantes thrust his chin across the expanse of blue carpet, the conference table, to the cabinet at the far end of the big room.
“It’s too early, sir,” Luis said.
Dantes stood up, elegant in his cream linen suit, alligator shoes, and green silk tie. He cracked his knuckles — a sign that he was nervous — and started pacing the floor, his head bowed, as if in thought. “I have often wondered about you,” he finally said, the smoky eyes focused on Luis for a brief moment. “Why should you feel uncomfortable with your money, Luis? It is not a crime to be rich, you know.”
“No, sir,” Luis said. “I have never considered myself a criminal.” He found himself speaking with confidence. “I like my comforts. They are, after all, mine by inheritance, and I am sure that my father wants me to enjoy them.”
Dantes walked over to the narra conference table — a huge, glass-topped, rectangular single piece of wood surrounded by a dozen gilt-edged hand-carved chairs. His voice sounded far away. “Anyone reading you would conclude that you hate the rich and think that all of us are scoundrels who make money exploiting the working class. Even if we do, please do not forget that the poor will always be with us and it is not our fault. They will be there because they are stupid, and they are stupid because they are poor. They are there because they are lazy, they have no capital, no incentives, no imagination, and no will to work. In any society, however, there are those among these wretched poor who will rise. History is full of them. Your own Manila elite — and you know how I despise the new ones — many of them started with nothing but glib tongues and nimble fingers—”
“But do they need to be always with us?” Luis asked diffidently, as if he were addressing the question to himself. “If so, I would then admit that society is always exploitative. We go to the nature of man — his perpetual evil—”
Dantes glanced at Luis, and a small laugh preceded his reply. “Ah, Luis — just like Philosophy Twenty-four again. Ah, my undergraduate years.” He sighed. “Soon we will be going into theology, then escapism, then nirvana, and all that sort of thing. I continue to read, Luis, though not much”—he thrust his chin again at the books that lined the huge office. Indeed Dantes was very erudite, and every historian in the country knew of his extensive collection of rare books on the Philippines, including one of the first editions of the Doctrina, which was the first printed book in the country.
“I know, sir,” Luis said humbly, “and that is why I consider it a privilege that you should even seek my views or talk like this with me.”
“Enough of the flattery,” Dantes said, but he was obviously pleased. “I love the Buddhists — they seem to have all the answers. I am particularly amused by the Tantric Buddhists. You should see my collection on Tantric art one of these days — mostly from India and Nepal. Ah, but I am straying now. What I want to say is that the poor need not be with us always. That is why we have revolutions — all through history. Don’t you believe that the Communists, the Marxists, invented revolution. They had it in ancient Egypt — in Rome, Spartacus. All through history blood has been spilled, and it is not a pretty sight, Luis. I don’t really think you want revolution. You are just like me, living with illusions, too comfortable to go after most of them — but, mind you”—he paused and pointed a finger at the young man—“I am not accusing you of insincerity.”
“Thank you, sir,” Luis said, feeling relieved. The room had begun to get stuffy, and he could feel the blood rising to his temples.
“I think I understand your motivation,” Dantes said. “I think you are a bit muddled and unclear, even to yourself. The quest for justice is in every man, even in me. I have vision, too, I like to think. I would like to see this country grow, I would like to see it laced with prosperous towns, with people who have money to enjoy life, to buy the good things in the market, the products we make—”
“Just like America,” Luis said evenly, but the sarcasm made its mark.
“Don’t talk like that,” Dantes said. “You must see progress in economic terms, and its social aspects will follow, since this is a society where awareness of other people’s feelings has always been a part of tradition. Can you not see, Luis, what I am trying to do? I want my hands not only on industry but also on communications. Radio and television — we have them now — and power, electricity, and shipping and transport — the whole complex that would make this country surge forward.”
With the Danteses in the lead, Luis said to himself.
“I know you have been upset by how you joined my organization, but I cannot stand persons who do not see it my way, which, by God, I know is not wrong. Besides, in the end, you must judge me not according to what I say but by what I have done. And what have I done? Think of the thousands gainfully employed, enjoying some of the best privileges anywhere in the country. Of course this is not just what I want to do, and it is for this reason that I want nationalists on my staff. We must modernize, and this starts in the mind, not in the mouth. We must stop being hewers of wood, drawers of water — to use your awful cliché.”
Luis turned the thought in his mind. This was what the Meijis did, this was the siren call being trumpeted in all the new countries — how to stop being slaves not only to tradition but to the mother country.
“For whom are we going to modernize, sir?” he could not resist asking. “For whom shall we break our backs, miss our meals, and even kill our brothers in order to be modern?”
“You are cynical and you mistrust me,” Dantes said, a hint of sadness in his voice. “How I wish you did not ask that, for it implies that I am working only for myself. Yes, that is true, I love wealth and the power that goes with it, but I know that I will not live forever — like you, I once had youth, but look at me now. I am not as healthy as I’m supposed to be …”
Luis remembered how Dantes was said to have gone to those Swiss rejuvenation clinics, so that he could have more virility — monkey glands, all those things that the rich could afford — and as the rich man droned on, almost like a hypochondriac, about his impending death, Luis not only got a glimpse of Dantes’s weakness but also began to think of all those like Dantes who had everything but were aware that everything was ephemeral.
“Sic transit,” Dantes was saying. “In my case it could be cancer or heart attack — or just the usual complications one expects in old age.” He shook his head slowly and his gaze wandered to the city spread before his picture window — splotches of tin and cement, the sickly green trees, and a smoky sky mottled with clouds. His voice sounded remote and suddenly cold. “I have thought a lot about justice, but let me make this clear — it should be my kind. I make the rules, for I am what I am — the patron, the hacendero, the feudal lord — all those sociological clichés that you use. I like the role. It gives me a feeling of deep satisfaction, almost orgiastic — to use again one of your fashionable words — of superiority, of achievement, and of doing well. The justice I dispense with is mine, for I am the lord, and this justice will go to the workers, for whom you profess love and affection, not as a flood but as a trickle. If you will pardon my sarcasm, how much do you pay your driver and your maids? What are the terms of tenancy on your father’s hacienda?”