Read Online The Samsons: Two Novels; (Modern Library) by F. Sionil Jose - Free Book Online

flimsy packing crate. The train was the final reminder that he was in Antipolo. Another train had passed in the night, but after its clangor had gone he drifted quickly back to sleep. He remembered the times he looked out of the window right into the coaches as the trains sang by. The pleasure of being home was intense, and could have been more so if he had returned not to Antipolo but to Rosales, whose images lingered longest in the years that he was away. But home was Antipolo now, and it would only be by the sheerest of accidents that he would ever return to Rosales.
    Tony stood up. Beyond the iron grill of the window lay the city—a jumble of wooden houses and rooftops, of rusty tin and gleaming aluminum. No breeze stirred on this muggy morning, but nevertheless the warm odor of dried fish frying in the kitchen below wafted up to him. And he heard his sister shushing her boys because their uncle was still asleep.
    Listening to these domestic sounds, Tony felt at peace. He looked around him at his luggage, at the bookcase with its paint peeled off, at the lightbulb that hung above him, and, finally, at the bent, rusty nail that stuck out from the post at the other end of the room. The nail that had held an Igorot blanket a long time ago—the thought came languidly. I must not think of Emy now, he told himself, it’s enough that I’m back in this room and it is not as forlorn or as empty as I expected it to be.
    After breakfast he went to the corner drugstore to make a call. The number Carmen had given him rang at once and he was pleased to hear her voice, vibrant and clear, at the other end of the line. A tingling sensation raced through him at the sound of her laughter. Yes, she missed him terribly and she wasn’t able to sleep at all. Yes, what a horrible night it had been, even with the air-conditioning.
Oye
, she was thinking of him always and the night reminded her of Washington, too, and that August when it was practically suffocating and, remember (another happy gurgling sound), they both went to sleep with nothing on (a peal of laughter). But that wasn’t important really; it was her missing him, his nearness, that mattered. And he tried to tell her, you shouldn’t be saying these things over the phone, darling. Isn’t anyone within earshot? And remember, all Manila phones are party lines.
    But she wouldn’t stop teasing him. Then: Damnit, her anger came over the line like a jolt. Damnit, so what if the whole world is listening in. Tony, darn you, I miss you very much, your arms, your lips, the way you kissed me. I miss you and you should be glad to hear that.…
    In the bus, on his way to the university, Tony beheld the completeness with which the dry season made its conquest. It had licked each blade of grass until the greenness was wiped clean from the landscape and what was once living patches as he remembered them had become huge brown scars. The season seemed to have infected the air, and from this infection it had moved on, crept into the pores and under the cranium until it lodged itself in the folds of the mind.
    It was on a season like this that he had met Carmen, and deftly he brought to mind that August in Washington when he lived in a dingy room on Massachusetts Avenue near the Philippine embassy.No breeze could drift even accidentally to his room, even after he had moved his bed next to the window that opened onto the street lined with elms. He had gone that morning to the embassy to talk with the cultural officer—an old acquaintance—about some of his research problems, and he had chanced upon her asking for the latest Manila papers because she did not know what was happening to her friends and she had not read a Filipino paper in days.
    Yes, she was studying in the area, public relations and interior decoration, and tomorrow (she had gotten the paper she was looking for and she was headed for the door) she said she hoped she would see him again at the ambassador’s cocktail party. He was