29
It was one of those cool January mornings. The sea breeze and the scent of roses blooming in the patch below his window flooded the room; the sun splashed on the floor and on the cream-colored walls; and the white voile curtains breathed in and out of the wide, bright frame of a window. Marta had switched on the radio in the hall at half volume, and it was playing a schmaltzy tune: “Stardust” again. Mayas twittered in the rubber trees in the yard, and cars hummed on the boulevard.
Luis sat on his bed, then bent low, pressed his forehead to the mattress, and let the blood flow to his brain. After a while in this position, he rose and went to the bathroom. He let the shower run, and soon delicious slivers of cold tingled his nerves. When he came out Marta was already making his bed and fluffing up his pillows. “Are there tomatoes in the refrigerator?” he asked.
“I’ll see, Apo,” Marta said, walking to the door.
“Slice and sprinkle them with salt. If there are salted eggs, that’s more than enough for breakfast.”
I am a woman conceiving—he was amused by the thought. Tomatoes, salted eggs. There’s nothing like starting the day with something salty. His body had awakened. Luis went to the dining room, his hair glistening with Vaseline. He ate the tomatoes with relish, and the hard golden yolk of the salted duck eggs was still in his mouth when he glanced at the hall and saw Simeon waiting for him in the foyer, twirling his khaki driver’s cap. “I’ll go down now,” Luis told him. The gold-numeraled clock in the hall indicated that it was past ten. He was late and mildly irritated. If Ester did not talk so much—and thinking of her kept him awake through most of the night—he would have gotten to bed earlier. He dressed quickly, threw his robe on the bed, and hurried down.
Simeon drove fast, but as they neared his office the car got meshed up again in the morning traffic. “Any instructions, Apo?” Simeon asked as he parked.
‘Just leave the car and go back home,” he said. Ester might visit him again, and he could not tell her to leave. Now he needed her, not as a woman but as sustenance. She should leave him well enough alone, she could not go on fooling herself or him, but the compulsion to be with her was stronger now. “If Ester comes to the house,” he told the driver, “tell her to call me up in the office—that is, if I am not home yet.”
The Dantes building was near the Escolta, flanked by office buildings and shops. It was one of the newest in the area, for most of the buildings were erected before the war and the Dantes building featured awnings and a marble foyer and was completely air-conditioned. In the back was a big parking area, but it was never really full, for most of the Dantes employees had no cars; Luis, with his big black Chrysler and uniformed driver, was an exception.
He walked briskly through the back door, to the elevator, and pitched up to the fourth floor. As usual Eddie was already at his typewriter. “Isn’t it a beautiful morning, Eddie?” he said gaily as he flung his portfolio atop the low shelf of books behind the desk. Eddie paused and looked at him apprehensively. “Better hurry and see the Old Man. He was here quite early asking for you. I think he has been crying—his eyes were swollen and misty—or maybe he had too much drink last night.”
“He doesn’t drink, you know that,” Luis said. He sat on his swivel chair and quickly pored over the mail. Already there was a letter from Trining. He recognized her pastel blue stationery and penmanship—the full loops, the exaggerated cross of her t’s. Contributions—he could discern that by the weight of the envelopes. He separated them from his personal mail and dumped them on Eddie’s desk.
“See if you can hash one up to catch up with this issue.”
Eddie nodded. Without looking up from his work, he said, “I really think you should go see the Old Man right away, Luis.”
Luis pushed the green door, which bore his and Eddie’s names in gold script, and went out.
Miss Vale, Dantes’s grim and antiseptic-looking secretary, told him to go straight into the publisher’s office. Eduardo Dantes was at his desk, his head bowed, his long bony hands folded on the glass top. His temples were graying, and the lines on his wide, sallow forehead were deep. He was fifty-five, but he looked much older and very tired. Having used a great amount of energy building not only his publishing house but also other businesses, he should retire now, but he had said in his characteristic soft-spoken swagger that he was good for another three decades, even if in the last he would have to go to work in a wheelchair, “for that’s the way the cookie crumbles.” He was always neatly dressed, in linen suits and alligator shoes, and his silk ties were from Paris. He wore no jewelry, unlike many other wealthy Filipinos, who plastered their shirts with diamond buttons and cuff links. He had a simple gold wedding band.
In that particular Dantes manner, he did not look at Luis squarely. “Sit down,” he said, unfolding his hands. He started fidgeting with the gold cigarette lighter on the wide glass-topped desk. Luis sat on one of the green leather upholstered chairs that ringed the Old Man’s desk. Still without looking at him, Dantes stood up and proceeded to the window. He looked through the clear polished glass as if lost in thought. He brought out a Sobranie but did not offer Luis one. Yes, his eyes were quite swollen.
“How well did you know my daughter, Luis?” he asked distinctly.
Luis was startled. “I wish you’d tell me first why you are asking me this question, sir,” he said, wondering what Ester had done. Had she finally gone to her father, just as he had gone to his, and confronted him?
Dantes faced him, his eyes red and filmy. He stuck the cigarette into his thin mouth but did not light it, then he took it and squashed it on the ashtray on his desk. “You are always wary, always trying to walk out of traps,” he said. His countenance continued to be sullen.
“That is not a fair observation, sir,” Luis said, feeling badgered. “I thought I was impulsive most of the time.”
Dantes shook his head and went back to his desk. “This is not a business discussion, Luis, but it is important—perhaps more important than business.”
“But I wouldn’t be able to know her more than you do,” Luis said, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.
“You could have been in love with her,” Dantes suggested, looking away.
Luis settled back in his chair and laughed hollowly. “You must be joking, sir. You know, of course, that I have just gotten married.”
Dantes turned away, took another cigarette, and lighted it. He inhaled deeply. “That makes it simpler,” he said.
“I don’t understand.”
Dantes sounded remote and his voice was raspy. “Ester is dead, Luis. I hope this means something to you.”
Luis clutched the arms of his chair, half rose, then slumped back. “No—this cannot be. No!” he cried, but this was Ester’s father telling him that Ester was dead. “I am very sorry, sir,” he stammered, “but how—only last night—”
“Suicide.”
“No,” he cried again. “Why did she do it? It’s unthinkable—Ester!”
“This morning,” Dantes continued calmly now, “she didn’t come down for breakfast. Her room was locked from the inside, so we forced it open. Sleeping tablets—one whole bottle.”
Now, with sudden and vicious truculence, bits of Luis’s talk with her came back and clawed at him. “She was with me last night,” Luis said. “We went out for a drive, and she had dinner in the house. My cook prepared paella, and we talked. We talked. I wanted to drive her back, because I had picked her up. She said she would go home alone. I got her a cab at the boulevard—”
“Was there anything to indicate that she would do this?” The publisher’s tone was demanding.
He gripped the edge of the publisher’s desk. “I don’t know what you are driving at, sir,” Luis said grimly. “I liked your daughter very much—although we had arguments, too. I felt great affection for her. I do not deny this, but to imply that I am the cause—”
“No,” Dantes cut him short. “I am not saying that, but did she confide anything? I must get to the bottom of it, can you not see?”
Luis sat back and shook his head. “Am I to know everything?”
“Do not misunderstand,” Dantes said, opening his drawer. “I have a letter for you from her. It was on her dresser. It surprised me very much that she wrote to you at all.”
Luis felt a chill ride to the tips of his fingers. “I’d do anything to have her back,” he said with great feeling. “Ester—she is one of the most wonderful people I have ever met.”
“She wrote only two notes,” Dantes said. His voice seemed about to break, and he paused for a while. “The other was for her mother and me.” He placed the sealed letter on his table. Luis took it and hastily opened it. It was, like the address on the envelope, in Ester’s hand. “Dear Luis [the greeting was so prosaic!]—Did you know that I once won the school hundred-meter dash? Please forgive me. Ester.”
“There is not much here,” Luis lied, shoving the letter back.
“Nothing?”
“See for yourself.”
Dantes fingered the note silently. “There’s nothing? But everything is here. Why should she ask for your forgiveness?”
“She regarded me, I think, as her best friend. She knew that I would not approve of what she did. She was running away all the time—like me. Most of the time. Sir, this you will not understand.”
“What was she running away from?”
“I don’t know. It could be life itself, and she got tired of running. We talked about it.”
Dantes was silent again. “May I keep this note?” he said after a while.
“I’ve seen it,” Luis said simply.
Dantes’s lips were drawn. “You don’t care—and you say that you are her best friend or sweetheart—”
“Don’t think of me that way,” Luis said softly. “I admired her very much and loved her in my own way, but not in the way you think. Not that way.” He was speaking with candor, and he could hear his heart pounding, the words rushing out in a torrent. “There were many things we had in common. We had a sense of communion although we argued and quarreled, but we were alive, Mr. Dantes. That you must understand. We were not two pieces of furniture. We were alive then, but now she is dead. Do you think this does not pain me at all?”
“Will you tell me why she did it?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Did you love her enough to want to elope with her—marry her?”
Luis’s slight laugh was hollow. “It never crossed our minds. I don’t want to make it look as if she was not beautiful, that she had no virtues. Yes, maybe—the friendship could have been more than what it was, but marriage was out of the question. As you can see, I got married—but not to her. No, it was not like that at all. Something I cannot explain—something more.”
“What could be more?” Dantes whined, and balling his fists, he struck the glass top of his desk, shaking the big flower vase and the menagerie of blotters, inkstands, and clay figurines that cluttered it. He was now sobbing uncontrollably, and he turned away, his lean frame shaking. “She had everything she wanted. I wanted her to marry properly and be comfortable and not have a single worry in the world! This is how fathers are—wait and see.” He turned expectantly back to Luis, his eyes misty and red. “Tell me that you loved her—it would be the best way, and I would understand.”
Luis closed his eyes, and in the dark, incongruous depths of his mind there formed slowly, clearly, the image of Ester, just as it was the first time he drove her out to that lonely beach in Cavite and she lay in the shade of the low, thorny trees, listening to the pounding surf. “No,” Luis said, gritting his teeth. “It was not that kind of love, or else I should have asked her to marry me way, way back. She knew that, sir. It was something else, just as tender and precious.”
Dantes had calmed down. He blew his nose and walked to the window again. “The funeral will be tomorrow afternoon,” he announced. “Don’t send anything.”
Luis looked at the thin, broken man and pitied him. “I am sorry, sir,” he said. “Perhaps I can say this: I’ll miss her more than you ever will.”
As Luis opened the door Dantes called him back. “Don’t tell anyone about this—for Ester’s sake.”
He nodded, then shuffled out.
I have never written a love letter and it seems rather late and funny for me to write one, but this is a love letter and my regret is that you will not read it. We are so much alike and so, although you will not read it, I will keep it and go over it every once in a while.
I will not forgive you, for you have caused me unspeakable grief, and more than this, you have planted in my mind the suspicion that I am responsible, not for your life but for your death. Maybe your father is right—I have killed you, and in the process I will also kill myself, not because I love you, which I do, but because we are one.
I will try to write this letter minus the obscurity and ambiguity that you said are my faults. I do agree with you that sometimes obscurity simply is a camouflage for illogical thinking or, worse, bad writing. So, you see, you influenced me, perhaps in a manner that you never realized.
When you were around I had some sense of security in feeling that I could just pick up the telephone and talk with you. I know now that I miss you as one who has lost his sight will always miss the light. So I now feel this overwhelming sense of loss. It is as if I could have been able to save you if I had not procrastinated, but I could not have done anything really except—as did that stupid king—stand before the surf (remember how it was in Cavite?) and bid it stop. I have one royal vice—a self-assurance that is engendered by ignorance.
If I cannot forgive you, it must be you who must forgive me, for I was ignorant and I did not understand the great wrong I had done. There is no way now, however, by which it can be undone, and not even God’s mercy can put back in place what I have diminished within myself—and so I must now move about, the incomplete man.
Yet I must atone for myself I must do this as a cripple and compound my misery by begging. This is not manly. It is degrading, but with you I now have no pride.
I love you, Ester, I love you and it is only in words, for this love is beyond deed. I can only relive the hours we were together, the needless conflict, the intimacy of love’s supreme act, and I must now ask why you are gone when you could still be alive, not my little harlot but this earth’s most precious gift.
I must now give death—not yours but mine—the contemplation that I have not given it, for your death will also be mine. It is the riddle of the unlived experience, the great emptiness of time that is not yet imprinted in the senses or etched on paper and stone. It is the riddle that we cannot unravel, not because it is a compulsive challenge but because the mind seems somehow incomplete, a vacuum that cannot be filled.
I have always felt that the emptiness of my life stems not from the absence of memories or events but from the lack of courage to go after life itself, the way a hunter would go after the most dangerous game, which is death, the way a seeker would challenge the loftiest peaks. We do not conquer life, no one can conquer what one cannot define, but at least it is there and it is ours to shape and to possess fully, with all the senses working, with all the powers of the heart surging, as we search for the answer to the greatest riddle of them all—death, the ultimate end, the enemy of all men, the final quietus to the noblest of emotions, the tenacity and ethereal creativity of faith. You have found the answer and I have found love.
I have asked my brother, whom you have never met, not to hate but to love. I did not mean it. I had meant to ask you, too, not to hate, but I could not do it. You trusted me and in so doing asked me, too, to have faith. Must this, then, be all? Should we drag our feet, believing that our bones will hold our puny frames against everything—the tyranny of fathers and the perfidy of those who practice treachery? You said that we must love because only by love can mankind be saved and the savages amongst us elevated to the realm of the gods—but how can we love when we are nourished on hate? The old virtues no longer suffice. The world moves farther away from the orbit that was plotted out for us by the great religions. We will not be machines, but we will be something worse—we will be pigs.
It’s not five years since the end of the war, and as you know, the theology of self-immolation has fascinated me, more so now that I can see it impinge upon my life. I will not know—never—what really made you do it, for it was not in the name of honor, nor was it failure to serve that compelled you to kill yourself, as it did the samurai. I would flatter myself if I surmised that it was love. I do not think that you were a weakling, either in body or in spirit, to have expressed by this act your rejection and abhorrence of our reality—the sadhu who encases himself with ashes and sends away the spirit from the body also dies. Nor do I think that it was loss of comprehension, for if there was anything that has really impressed me about you, it was your intelligence, which was more than intellect and intuition. It was, I think, an intelligence of the highest order, for it was conditioned by compassion.
I do not know and I cannot know, but this I do know—I will enshrine you here in my mind and in my heart, and I will hate you for tormenting me, but I will cherish you nonetheless, for enkindling, even just for an instant, the faith that had long died in me, so that I can and will escape the fate of pigs.
Thank you, my dear Ester, for humbling me, for making me less the man I thought I was but more the human being I aspire to be.