THE DINNER PARTY
THE
evening before he killed himself, Virgilio Serrano gave a dinner party.
He invited five guests—friends and classmates in university— myself
included. Since we lived on campus in barracks built by the U.S. Army,
he sent his Packard to fetch us.
Virgilio
lived alone in a pre-war chalet that belonged to his family. Four
servants and a driver waited on him hand and foot. The chalet, partly
damaged, was one of the few buildings in Ermita that survived the
bombardment and street fighting to liberate Manila.
It
had been skillfully restored; the broken lattices, fretwork, shell
windows and wrought iron fence had been repaired or replaced at
considerable expense. A hedge of bandera española had been planted and
the scorched frangipani and hibiscus shrubs had been pruned carefully.
Thus, Virgilio’s house was an ironic presence in the violated
neighborhood.
He
was on the porch when the car came to a crunching halt on the graveled
driveway. He shook our hands solemnly, then ushered us into the living
room. In the half-light, everything in the room glowed, shimmered or
shone. The old ferruginous narra floor glowed. The pier glass
coruscated. The bentwood furniture from the house in Jaen looked as if
they had been burnished. In a corner, surrounded by bookcases, a black
Steinway piano sparkled like glass.
Virgilio was immaculate in white de hilo pants and cotton shirt. I felt ill at ease in my surplus khakis and combat boots.
We
were all in our second year. Soon we will be on different academic
paths—Victor in philosophy; Zacarias in physics and chemistry; Enrique
in electrical engineering; and Apolonio, law. Virgilio and I have both
decided to make a career in English literature. Virgilio was also
enrolled in the Conservatory and in courses in the philosophy of
science.
We
were all in awe of Virgilio. He seemed to know everything. He also did
everything without any effort. He had not been seen studying or cramming
for an exam in any subject, be it history, anthropology or calculus.
Yet the grades that he won were only a shade off perfection.
HE
and I were from the same province where our families owned rice farms
except that ours was tiny, a hundred hectares, compared to the
Serrano’s, a well-watered hacienda that covered 2,000 hectares of land
as flat as a table.
The hacienda had been parceled out to eleven inquilinos who
together controlled about a thousand tenants. The Serranos had a large
stone house with a tile roof that dated back to the 17th century that
they used during the summer months. The inquilinos dealt with Don Pepe’s spinster sister, the formidable Clara, who knew their share of the harvest to the last chupa. She was furthermore in residence all days of the year.
Virgilio
was the only child. His mother was killed in a motor accident when he
was nine. Don Pepe never remarried. He became more and more dependent on
Clara as he devoted himself to books, music and conversation. His house
in Cabildo was a salon during the years of the Commonwealth. At night,
spirited debates on art, religion language, politics and world affairs
would last until the first light of dawn. The guests who lived in the
suburbs were served breakfasts before they drove off in their runabouts
to Sta. Cruz, Ermita or San Miguel. The others stumbled on cobblestones on their way back to their own mansions within the cincture of Intramuros.
In October, Quezon himself came for merienda.
He had just appointed General MacArthur field marshal of the Philippine
Army because of disturbing news from Nanking and Chosun. Quezon cursed
the Americans for not taking him in their confidence. But like most
gifted politicians, he had a preternatural sense of danger.
“The
Japanese will go to war against the Americans before this year is out,
Pepe,” Quezon rasped, looking him straight in the eye.
This
was the reason the Serranos prepared to move out of Manila. As
discreetly as possible, Don Pepe had all his personal things packed and
sent by train to Jaen. He stopped inviting his friends. But when the
Steinway was crated and loaded on a large truck that blocked the street
completely, the neighbors became curious. Don Pepe dissembled, saying
that he had decided to live in the province for reasons of health, “at
least until after Christmas.”
Two
weeks later, he suffered a massive stroke and died. The whole town went
into mourning. His remains were interred, along with his forebears, in
the south wall of the parish church. A month later, before the period of
mourning had ended, Japanese planes bombed and strafed Clark Field.
Except
for about three months in their hunting lodge in the forests of
Bongabong (to escape the rumored rapine that was expected to be visited
on the country by the yellow horde. Virgilio and Clara spent the war
years in peace and comfort in their ancestral house in Jaen.
Clara
hired the best teachers for Virgilio. When food became scare in the big
towns and cities, Clara put up their families in the granaries and bodegas of the hacienda so
that they would go on tutoring Virgilio in science, history,
literature, mathematics, philosophy and English. After his lessons, he
read and practiced on the piano. He even learned to box and to fence
although he was always nauseated by the ammoniac smell of the gloves and
mask. Despite Clara’s best effort, she could not find new boxing gloves
and fencing equipment. Until she met Honesto Garcia.
Honesto
Garcia was a petty trader in rice who had mastered the intricate
mechanics of the black market. He dealt in anything that could be moved
but he became rich by buying and selling commodities such as soap,
matches, cloth and quinine pills.
Garcia
maintained a network of informers to help him align supply and
demand—and at the same time collect intelligence for both the Japanese
Army and the Hukbalahap.
One of his informers told him about Clara Serrano’s need for a pair of new boxing gloves and protective gear for escrima.
He found these items. He personally drove in his amazing old car to
Jaen to present them to Clara, throwing in a French epée that was still
in its original case for good measure. He refused payment but asked to
be allowed to visit.
Honesto Garcia was the son of a kasama of the Villavicencios of Cabanatuan. By hard work and numerous acts of fealty, his father became an inquilino.
Honesto, the second of six children, however made up his mind very
early that he would break loose from farming. He reached the seventh
grade and although his father at that time had enough money to send him
to high school, he decided to apprentice himself to a Chinese rice
trader in Gapan. His wage was a few centavos a day, hardly enough for
his meals, but after two years, he knew enough about the business to ask
his father for a loan of P60 to set himself up as a rice dealer. And
then the war broke out.
Honesto
was handsome in a rough-hewn way. He tended to fat but because he was
tall he was an imposing figure. He was unschooled in the social graces;
he preferred to eat, squatting before a dulang, with his fingers. Despite these deficiencies, he exuded an aura of arrogance and self-confidence.
It
was this trait that attracted Clara to him. Clara had never known
strong-willed men, having grown up with effete persons like Don Pepe and
compliant men like the inquilinos who were always silent in her presence.
When
Clara told Virgilio that Honesto had proposed and that she was inclined
to accept, Virgilio was not surprised. He also had grown to like
Honesto who always came with unusual gifts. Once, Honesto gave him a
mynah that Virgilio was able to teach within a few days to say “Good
morning. How are you today?”
The
wedding took place in June of the second year of the war. It was a
grand affair. The church and the house were decked in flowers. The inquilinos fell
over each other to, supply the wedding feast. Carts and sleds laden
with squealing pigs, earthen water jars filled with squirming river
fish, pullets bound at the shank like posies, fragrant rice that had
been husked in wooden mortars with pestles, the freshest eggs and
demijohns of carabao milk for leche flan and
slews of vegetables and fruit that had been picked at exactly the right
time descended on the big house. The wives and daughters of the tenants
cooked the food in huge vats while their menfolk roasted the suckling
pigs on spluttering coals. The quests were served on bamboo tables
spread with banana leaves. The war was forgotten, a rondalla played
the whole day, the children fought each other for the bladders of the
pigs which they blew up into balloons and for the ears and tails of the lechon as they were lifted on their spits from the fire.
The bride wore the traje de boda of Virgilio’s mother, a masterpiece confected in Madrid of Belgian lace and seed pearls. The prettiest daughters of the inquilinos, dressed in organza and ribbons, held the long, embroidered train of the wedding gown.
Honesto’s family were awe-struck by this display of wealth and power. They cringed and cowered in the sala of the big house and all of them were too frightened to go to the comedor for the wedding lunch.
Not very long after the wedding, Honesto was running the hacienda. The inquilinos found
him more congenial and understanding. At this time, the Huks were
already making demands on them for food and other necessities. The fall
in the Serrano share would have been impossible to explain to Clara. In
fact, the Huks had established themselves on Carlos Valdefuerza’s parcel
because his male children had joined the guerilla group.
Honesto
learned for the first time that the Huks were primarily a political and
not a resistance organization. They were spreading a foreign idea
called scientific socialism that predicted the takeover of all lands by
the workers. Ricardo Valdefuerza, who had taken instruction from Luis
Taruc, was holding classes for the children of the other tenants.
Honesto
was alarmed enough to take it up with Clara who merely shrugged him
off. “How can illiterate farmers understand a complex idea like
scientific socialism?” she asked.
“But they seem to understand it,” Honesto expostulated “because it promises to give them the land that they farm.”
“How is that possible? Quezon and the Americans will not allow it. They don’t have the Torrens Title,” Clara said with finality.
“Carding
Valdefuerza has been saying that all value comes from work. What we get
as our share is surplus that we do not deserve because we did nothing
to it. It rightly belongs to the workers, according to him. I myself
don’t understand this idea too clearly but that is how it is being
explained to the tenants.”
“They are idle now. After the war, all this talk will vanish,” Clara said.
When American troops landed in Leyte, Clara was four months with child.
THE table had been cleared. Little glasses of a pale sweetish wine were passed around. Victor pushed back his chair to slouch.
“The
war has given us the opportunity to change this country. The feudal
order is being challenged all over the world. Mao Tse Tung has triumphed
in China. Soon the revolution will be here. We have to help prepare the
people for it.” Victor declared.
“Why
change?” Virgilio asked. “The pre-war order had brought prosperity and
democracy. What you call feudalism is necessary to rebuild the country.
Who will lead? The Huks? The young turks of the Liberal Party? All they
have are ideas; they have no capital, no power.”
The
university was alive with talk of imminent revolutionary change. Young
men and women, most of them from the upper classes, spoke earnestly of
redistributing wealth.
“Nothing will come of it” Virgilio said, sipping his wine.
“Of
all of us, you have the most to lose in a revolution,” Apolonio said.
“What we should aim for is orderly lawful change. You might lose your
hacienda but you must be paid for it. So in the end, you will still have
the capital to live on in style.”
“You
don’t understand,” Virgilio said. “It is not only a question of capital
or compensation. I am talking of a way of life, of emotional bonds, of
relationships that are immutable. In any case, we can do nothing one way
or the other so let us change the subject.”
“Don’t be too sure,” I said. “We can influence these events one way or another.”
“You talk as it you have joined the Communist Party,” Virgilio said. “Have you?”
But before I could answer, he was off on another tack.
“You
know I have just been reading about black holes,” Virgilio said
addressing himself to Zacarias. “Oppenheimer and Snyder solved
Einstein’s equations on what happens when a sun or star had used up its
supply of nuclear energy. The star collapses gravitationally, disappears
from view and remains in a state of permanent free fall, collapsing
endlessly inward into a gravitational pit without end.
“What
a marvelous idea! Such ideas are art in the highest sense but at the
same time, the decisive proof of relativity,” Virgilio enthused.
“Do
you know that Einstein is embarrassed by these black holes? He
considers them a diversion from his search for a unified theory,”
Zacarias said.
“Ah!
The impulse towards simplicity, towards reduction. The need to explain
all knowledge with a few, elegant equations. Don’t you think that his
reductionism is the ultimate arrogance? Even if it is Einstein’s. In any
case, he is not succeeding,” Virgilio said.
“But
isn’t reductionism the human tendency? This is what Communism is all
about, the reduction of human relationships to a set of unproven
economic theorems,” I interjected.
“But
the reductionist approach can also lead to astounding results. Take the
Schröedinger and Dirac equations that reduced previous mysterious
atomic physics to elegant order,” Enrique said.
“What
is missing in all this is the effect on men of reductionism. It can
very well lead to totalitarian control in the name of progress and
social order,” Apolonio ventured.
“Let
me resolve our debate by playing for you a piece that builds
intuitively on three seemingly separate movements. This is Beethoven’s
Sonata, Opus 27, No. 2.” Virgilio rose and walked gravely to the piano
while we distributed ourselves on the bentwood furniture in the living
room.
He
played the opening Adagio with sensitive authority, escalating note to
note until it resolved into the fragile D-flat major which in turn
disappeared in the powerful rush of the concluding Presto, the movement
that crystallized the disparate emotional resonances of the first two
movements into an assured and balanced relationship.
When
the last note had faded, we broke into cheers. But at that moment, I
felt a deep sadness for Virgilio. As the Presto flooded the Allegretto, I
knew that he was not of this world.
Outside, through the shell windows, moonlight softened the jagged ruins of battle.
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