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By Carlos Bulosan
They were arguing in the living room.
“You’ve invited him to come here?” the
mother asked.
“Why not?” the daughter said. “He’s nice
and intelligent.”
The mother looked at her daughter with horror.
“A soldier?” she said. “A Filipino soldier?”
The father came from the kitchen with a glass of
wine in one hand and a bottle in the other.
He had heard his wife and daughter arguing when
he came home, but had gone straight to his room as though he were
unconcerned. At the dinner table his wife had looked strangely at
the girl. The daughter had rushed to the living room where she threw
herself into a chair. He had looked at his wife then, long,
questioning her purpose. Their arguments had already touched him. He
had looked at his wife, through the years of their life together,
trying to put his thoughts together.
“Would you like your daughter to bring a
Filipino here?” she had asked him.
He had merely looked at her with the great
patience of a husband who had worked dutifully for years to have a
decent home.
“Would you?” she had cried.
He had walked to the living room without
answering her. He had stood near the chair where the girl was
weeping. He had wanted to understand her. He had bent over to touch
her, but suddenly he had straightened up, stood for a while, eager,
then walked to the kitchen for the bottle of wine.
Now, he came out of the kitchen with a glass in
one hand and the bottle in the other.
“Go up to your room, Marcella,” he said.
The girl looked up at her father the way she had
always looked at him when she had pleaded for understanding. All
through the years she had always looked at him that way. There was a
time when she had come home from school and cried to him. It seemed
that she had met a boy that time. If it were not for him, she would
have neglected her studies that year.
She looked now at her father as though all the
years were crowding in upon her, challenging his victories and deep
convictions. He could see in her eyes the light of other years, the
strong light that once glowed warmly in his eyes, the immortal light
that had shone in other lands and times.
If only I could go back to the beginning, he
thought. Instead he said to his daughter, “Go up to your room now,
Marcella.”
She knew that she was defeated. She jumped from
the chair and fled across the room and rushed up the stairway. She
slammed the door and flung herself upon the bed, sobbing and kicking
the air.
“Martha,” he said to his wife, looking up
the stairs. “When did she meet him?”
“In the public library.”
He walked to his chair and sat down. “Well, he
must be a nice boy.”
“Walter!” she cried with horror.
He made a motion to go to her, hesitated, sat
back and shook his head. Then he got up and walked to the table for
his pipe. Suddenly, the doorbell rang out loud.
“That’s probably him now,” he said.
She brushed the tears from her eyes. The bell
rang again. The man walked to the door and opened it. A Filipino
soldier was standing in the light rain. He was holding a box of
candies.
“Is this Marcella Roberts’ house?” he
asked.
“Yes,” the man said, hesitant, pondering.
Then he said, “Come on in.”
The soldier walked into the house and stood on
the threshold for a moment, the cold of the night outside still
clinging heavily to him. The man closed the door and took the
soldier’s cap, walking over to the far corner of the room where
his wife was waiting.
“You are Marcella’s mother?”
“Yes,” she said.
“I thought so,” the soldier said. “You
look exactly as I thought you would, only you are much younger.”
“Where is your station?” the man asked.
“Fort Ord,” the soldier said.
“How is it out there?”
“It is great,” he said. “Nice bunch of
fellows in that camp. I like the place. I’ve been studying
seriously.”
The man was still standing before the soldier,
fumbling deliberately with his pipe.
“I was in the first war,” he started and
stopped.
There was a sudden interest in the young man’s
voice. “Were you?” he said, jumping to his feet,
“I’d served ten months in France.”
“Then you understand the feelings of a
soldier. They say the other war was fought for democracy. Some of
those who fought in it say it’s a lie. I don’t interpret it that
way though. It was fought for democracy all right, but somewhere the
ideals were gobbled up by powerful men.”
The man was beginning to feel that he had
something in common with the soldier. The only difference was that,
when he was a soldier, he did not have the chance to clarify his
beliefs. He was glad that at last, some 25 years later, he had met
another soldier who, though born in another part of the world, could
have been himself, bringing with him the bright hopes he had fought
for in that other war.
He walked back to his chair and sat down, facing
the soldier. He glanced at his wife swiftly. Looking back at the
soldier , a yearning to confide something personal surged through
him.
“Have you ever lived in this city before?”
he asked.
“Yes,” the soldier said. “Ten years ago.
But most of the people I knew are gone. This afternoon I walked
around looking at the new stores and buildings. I stopped at the
newsstands and touched the magazines and newspapers. I like this
city very much indeed. Life reacts itself in the city streets. Ten
years ago I used to stand in the station, watching the people, and
always there was a powerful yearning in me to go away.
‘Someday,’ I used to say to myself, ‘I’ll go away and never
come back.’ But I never went away. I remember when I was a little
boy my father and I would go to the mountains just for the sheer joy
of walking long distances. I’m like my father, who had a yearning
for far away places. It took a war to take me away though. I might
not come back to all this wonderful—“ He stopped and looked
around the house with a strange affection and sincerity, as though
he was storing up the bright image of the room in his mental world.
He appreciated all of it.
The man stirred in his chair. “Marcella is ill
and she can’t come down,” he said.
“Ill?” the soldier said, frightened.
“She has the flu, but she’ll be all
right.”
“I hope she’ll be all right.”
“We’ll tell her that you called,” the
mother said.
“Thank you Mrs. Roberts,” he said. He walked
across the room and put the book and box of candies on the table.
“I’ll leave these candies for Marcella. This small book of poems
is written by a Filipino who lived in this city. He was the first of
my people to write a book in English.”
The man felt the strong pride in the soldier’s
voice. “We’ll give them to her,” he said.
“Tell her to get well soon,” the soldier
said. “Tell her not to get the flu any more. Tell her the weather
is dangerous this year.” He walked to the door and the man
followed him.
“Goodnight. Mrs. Roberts,” he said, and
stepped out of the house.
“I’ll walk with you to the street,” the
man said.
The rain had stopped falling and there was a
misty moonlight in the trees. There was a fresh smell in the air.
The man and the soldier stood in the street, under a wide arc of
light.
“What you’ve said there,” the man said
with feeling, “is what I’ve always wanted to say.”
“I’m glad you feel that way, sir,” the
soldier said.
The man gave his hand eagerly, “Good luck,
young man,” he said.
The Filipino soldier walked into the night. He
did not look back to see that the man was watching him walk away.
From Selected Works and Letters edited by
Epifanio San Juan Jr. and Ninotchka Rosca, Friends of the Filipino
People, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1982
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