Free Three Filipino Women by F. Sionil Jose

dweller’s
barong-barong.
Her view of the world was, therefore, cosmetic although she, herself, would not admit it.
    The violence—and I had reports of it—was committed in many places, in our own town, mostly in our province. A former clerk in the
municipio
had dredged up the fact that her father had absconded with some money. The poor man was beaten up and Father had to treat him for lacerations. She was perhaps determined that in her homeground, she should be on top—which she was not only because Senator Reyes poured a lot of money but because she was the local girl who made good. The opposition mayor of Tubas, close to our town, was killed. It was a shooting “accident” and although people had come to Manila to say it was not, there was no mention of it in the papers. That was the extent to which the papers were manipulated. And vote-buying, bribery, dumping—I will not recite these. It is enough that I knew they happened not because she and her father-in-law were insecure but because they believed in overkill.
    With both of them now in the Senate, I thought it was time to push through government programs such as those which we had worked so hard to shape. After the euphoria had died, I got the whole sheaf of proposals together one Saturday morning. It was a full two weeks after the election and I knew that the time was opportune to discuss them for soon the Senate sessions would start.
    It was not that I personally was filled with love for the downtrodden, but in that small Negros town, Father had attended to the workers in the farm with free professional care. Mother taught school before she married Father and she tried her best to teach the children who did not attend public school the rudiments at least of writing and reading. Father had always hammered into us that the workers, though they were not as educated as we were, had the same blood. I was not about to organize them into a militant and radical labor union nor was I inclined to shout revolution like some of my colleagues at the university. I think I was too comfortable to do that, but I was not going to see them mired in either perpetual ignorance or poverty. I saw enough evidence in America to show that wealth—when spread around—would do everyone a bit of good.
    Narita always called when she needed me, which was often. It was one of those few instances when I called her. “All right, Eddie. Come early enough so we can have lunch,” she said brightly.
    I had already bought a Volks. Her money was useful and because she was happy with the group, she upped my consultancy fee as she called it to four thousand a month, much, much more than I was making at the university. I had difficulty convincing myself that I really earned it.
    She was not yet up when I arrived and it was already past eleven. She had earlier gone horseback riding at the Polo Club then gone back to sleep. By noon, I was served coffee and a plateful of sandwiches and cold yogurt. I was halfway through when she came down in her dressing gown, a shimmery kind, her breasts showing through.
    “That is a very sexy dress,” I said, thinking about New York again. In the almost three years since, we never had any kind of real intimacy and all the reward I got was an occasional kiss on themouth, the pressing of bodies, a lingering handclasp. I was in a position where I couldn’t expect more.
    She took the sandwiches away and told the cook to prepare the table at once. But I already had enough and I barely touched the Chateaubriand. It was a leisurely lunch and I could see that the arduous campaign had not ravaged her; she was as fresh and as lovely as ever. With our coffee, we went to the library. She noticed my bulky portfolio. “It is business then”, she smiled.
    I recalled our first meeting with the senator in the same room, how we had talked about responsive government and that as she probably saw in her provincial sallies, the first priority was rural poverty, agrarian reform,