The Samsons: Two Novels; (Modern Library) by F. Sionil Jose

acquiescence to revolt. He knew what it meant; his father was ever in his thoughts as the final and painful proof of that failure.
    When Angel and Jacinto did not show up the following schoolyear, he knew what had happened, and much later, the three who had remained received identical letters written “in the field.” The letters were not hortatory; they were, as a matter of fact, even apologetic. They asked for help, and if this was not possible, “then we ask that you do not lose hope.” He never heard from them again and he was quite sure, after all these years, that they were dead, or if they were alive, they could not now return to the life they had left.
    Remembering all this afterward, Tony sometimes loathed himself for having been such a coward. But then, Charlie and Godo did not flee to the hills, either; like him, they had elected to conform, to glean the ravaged land of whatever token of grace and beneficence was left in it after the dinosaurs had trampled everything.
    At Rizal Avenue he turned away from the crowds to a narrow asphalted side street dusty with horse manure, its sidewalks reminiscent of the Walled City and composed of the ballast stones of galleons that returned centuries ago from Acapulco in Mexico.
    The newspaper office was in a bleak, gray building, a gothic edifice that had somehow escaped destruction during the war. He went up three oily flights to the sanctum, a room alive with the whirr of electric fans and the racket of typewriters and teletypes.
    The magazine section had not changed—it was still the same dusty corner with drab, unpainted walls, mahogany-varnished tables, and antique typewriters. His friends were at their desks. Charlie saw him first and yelled, “Tony! How’s the Oriental American?” Then it was all noise, Godo standing and slapping him on the back, the usual greetings and the handshakes and ribald remarks about American girls and the inevitable invitation to the squalid Chinese coffee shop downstairs.
    They hustled down the cracked stairway, Tony in the middle, Godo—fat, wobbly with flesh and talk—at his right, and at his left Charlie, lean and quiet. The coffee shop had not changed, either. Its red-tile floor was as dirty as ever, and the corners reeked with the implacable smell of cockroaches and ammonia and were as dark as secrets. The shop was called Newsmen’s Corner and it lived up to its name, a nook as greasy-looking as some of the characters who frequented it.
    They found an empty table still sodden with spilled Coke and cigarette ash. A waitress, short and dowdy, her lips flaring red, took their orders (soda for Godo, who said coffee made him nervous).
    “You are going back to the university?” Godo asked. The exuberance of greeting had subsided and they spoke in even tones. They seemed to soak in impressions, alert, taking in all words as if they were truths to live by.
    “There’s no place like home,” Tony said.
    “The profound comment of the afternoon,” Charlie said. It was his favorite joke—“profound comment”—and Godo, jocular and looking more like a landlord than a writer, laughed loudly.
    “Well, the university is an easy life,” Godo said.
    “It is a rat race,” Tony said lightly, but he meant every word.
    “Doing any writing?” Charlie asked.
    “I never stopped,” Tony said. “Right now I’m on a very ambitious project. A cultural history of the Ilocos. It’s something that has never been attempted before. Someday I’m going there to trace my ancestry. Find out things about my grandfather. The great Ilocano migration, you know. Saw a lot of my people in California, Chicago, New York.”
    “Wonderful project,” Godo said. “Show us some chapters when you are through. We may run them in a series.”
    Then the talk turned to a familiar theme. “Now, about American women,” Charlie said, a leer spreading across his dark, pimply face. “I haven’t been abroad so I’d like to listen to your wonderful lies.”