Notes from an aborted autobiography

My daughter, Jette, continues her questions from an article that came out in the STAR Lifestyle’s Art & Culture section on Aug. 4:

1. What relationships have shaped you the most as a man, as a writer, as a husband and father?

My mother, more than anyone, nurtured me, shaped me and whatever I’ve really achieved, I owe it to her not only because it was in her womb where I began, but because ever since I saw the light, it was she who really brought it, kindled it and let it shine so I could see the way. When she died, that light did not fade or dim for by then, it had been ignited in my heart and mind — the love, compassion and sacrifice.

Early enough, I realized how hard she worked to bring food to our dulang (table). Years later, oh-so-many years later, I used to hold those gnarled hands and kiss them.

It is my relationship with my mother that truly shaped me most as a man — as everything that I am. My daughter Jette asked me once about my regrets. I knew it then as it gnaws me now that my deepest regret is that I haven’t shown my mother more love, more care as I was much too involved with myself, the demands of my writing.

When she was on her deathbed, I did not want to see her in such a condition — I couldn’t bear the pain, the feelings of guilt, the memory that I did not love her enough in a manner validated by deeds. How could I? I wanted to remember her always as she was, a tiny woman who cared for me as no other person did.

I saw my mother as the eternal heroine, unrecognized, often unremembered. Once, I dreamed of her wearing her old rags and telling me those were all that she could afford. I wept in my dream.

Forgive me, Inang. I have no more tears to shed.

I made several foreign friends. I fondly recall the Indonesian writer Soedjatmoko and his younger brother, Kismadi, both brilliant, compassionate. I met both almost at the same time in the Sixties — Kismadi when he was with the Asia Magazine in Hong Kong. He got married to a Filipino writer, Gloria Castro.

Soedjatmoko was a university professor in Jakarta; he became ambassador to Washington under the Suharto regime and later on, United Nations University president in Tokyo. I visited him in both positions. He invited me to dinner at his residence in Tokyo — a magnificent domicile in keeping with his exalted position. As we entered the apartment, he asked if I remembered his modest house in Jakarta that was almost bare of furniture. And when I said yes, he chuckled, “Frankie, it is easy to adjust to luxury.”

At one time, we had a sensitive political discussion on American imperialism and Indonesian (and Philippine) nationalism. He asked if I wanted a Javanese or a Soedjatmoko answer. I said both.

His Javanese answer was longwinded, obfuscating and in the end, he didn’t say anything. The Soedjatmoko answer was laconic and direct, “We must suffer the American hegemony for the sake of regional stability.”

Another great Indonesian friend was the late Mochtar Lubis, novelist and patriot who was persecuted by both Sukarno and Suharto. When he was in jail, it was his wonderful wife, Hally, who ran the household and supported him all the way. Mochtar was tall, handsome, articulate, and the girls liked him. Beneath that flamboyance, was iron-hard integrity. I seldom went to Jakarta and when I was there, I always stayed with him. He came to Manila more often that I could go there, and we would also meet abroad in international conferences. He always brought with him a small jar of sambal — the hot sauce he always spiced his meals with.

Mochtar and Nick Joaquin — both are dead but they’ll always live in my mind. These two are the most decent writers I know. I have written about how Nick and I argued a lot but the arguments never became personal. He spoke his mind and I did the same. I trusted him and I think he trusted me, too. We shared confidences and he was candid in his advice to me, which I followed. Mochtar gave me the same advice — to rein in my frankness so I would survive. This, from a man who loudly opposed tyranny, whose newspaper, Indonesia Raya was closed by both Sukarno and Suharto, both of whom imprisoned Mochtar as well. He advised me to stay in Manila in case there is anarchy and massive unrest. The city is safer than the provinces. And as a novelist, he enjoined me not to forget my art, echoing Bertolt Brecht’s injunction that “shouting about injustice hoarsens the voice.”

2. What values do you hold most dear? What experience in your life gave you those values? Was it important to you to pass those values to your children?

We really don’t live (or start to live) tied to certain beliefs or systems of belief. These come about by circumstances, by accident of birth and geography. For instance, when I was young my mother and relatives told me (and other young relatives) to be industrious and patient (anos ken gapet). And so it was, all through my life, I think I’ve worked hard although I have not always been patient.

I’ve nagged my kids, too, to be hardworking and I think I also had them learn independence. I don’t think I really hammered virtue into them although I recall telling them, there is not one grain of rice with which I fed them that was bought with corruption to the best of my recollection.

I am not self-righteous. How can one ever be if he experienced the hardships, the pain that others went through? During the Marcos years, for instance, normally decent people descended to the depths because they needed to live and they can do this only by kowtowing or serving the dictatorship. So then, compassion, too, is one virtue I’d like to have and pass on to my children although such compassion might not be what I’ll get from my fellowmen.

Perseverance. When I started writing fiction, I got so many rejection slips. I read a lot but somehow, the craft of the masters did not come to me easily. There were no workshops in my time, hardly a course on creative writing.

I read, imitated, and mastered the meaning of words. It took a lot of time. All those rejections I got in high school diminished when I was in college. Came a time when at the University of Santo Tomas, Miss Paz Latorena, my literature teacher, herself a notable writer, said, ”Sionil, now you are writing stories — not telling them.”

Miss Latorena did not teach me how to write; she taught me how to read and in that process, I learned the trade. If all the rejection slips deterred me, I wonder what I would be doing today. Perhaps, I would have been a successful doctor although Miss Latorena said that was unlikely because, as she put it, I would have been a lousy doctor — I had too much imagination.

3. What is your most sincere regret, your greatest frustration?

There are so many of them, all about my incapacity to be more compassionate, more giving, most of all to those who really cared for me, my mother most of all. In her frail last days, I used to hold those gnarled, calloused hands and kiss them like I do with my wife’s hands now — almost in sacerdotal obeisance. But none of these gestures sufficed. I was just too busy with myself, my work and my ceaseless daydreaming.

I remember this incident only too well. There was a beggar looking at the books at the window of my bookshop. I was there — he looked at me and then extended a hand asking for alms. I looked at him and instinctively shook my head. Beggars to me are repulsive if they look well and healthy. In those days that I was hungry it never crossed my mind to beg, for begging to me meant the death of independence, of the human personality, and of dignity.

He turned away without expression and that was when I saw he was a cripple. Next time a cripple extends his hand to me, I will not deny him.

My greatest frustration as a writer is my seeming incapacity to influence people, to see at least some visible and creative result of my pleading, my editorializing.

I have been told that I am successful — is it because I’ve gotten good reviews, received awards, etc.? For so many writers, these are emblems of achievement to be valued and enjoyed. Sure, they mean something — but they are so woefully wanting.

It is not the applause I need — I would like to see Filipinos live better, eat three meals a day, assured of justice. I have pleaded for these. I pray that change will come because I had contributed even just a tiny bit to that clamor which is never heeded.

4. Do you ever talk with God? What is your most incredible spiritual experience?

I talk with God all the time — the God of all creatures and most of the time, I also feel He has so much to do. He does not listen. He is everywhere and at any time of day for which reason I see no need to go to church. As our parish priest said, I’m religious but not pious.

Our belief in God and our experience with Him are all very personal. We can’t avoid Him when we witness the world, even just the seed as it becomes a plant, to bloom and bear fruit, and continue the timeless chain of life.

In 1942, when I was 18 during the Japanese Occupation we were living with my cousin, Dr. Eustaquia Alberto in her big house in Rosales. We moved to her farm in the nearby village of Carmay and she and her mother stayed in a house close by while we stayed in the house of my cousin, Luis Corpuz, who was my rich cousin’s tenant. Her mother Anday Pine belonged to the town principalia — the Pine family.

We left the town because the guerrillas, that early, had killed a Japanese soldier — a sentry in the town garrison and the rumor was that the Japanese would get some 10 or 20 townspeople and kill them all. It was during that dry season that I caught typhoid. The land was brown and dead, the sun scorched everything and it was always warm.

First, I had a very high fever; thank God, Manang Nenita (Eustaquia) was a doctor and she took care of me. Later on, I was told I was no longer conscious of my surroundings. They expected me to die and they already had a coffin prepared beneath the house. I can only remember snatches of consciousness, of voices, the cool air slipping through the bamboo slats of the floor.

They said it was almost a month that I was barely conscious. Finally, I became aware once more of everything, the voices of people, even the chirping of birds on the grass roof, the musical call of the martins in the buri palms, the soft patter of rain. I raised the blanket that covered me and was shocked to see that my legs had became so thin, my knees were round balls joined by two sticks. Mid morning, and I wanted to get up but I was so weak I could hardly raise my arms.

Luis, my cousin, cradled me in his arms, and propped me on a chair before the open window — my first view of God’s beautiful world, the rice field already green, the sunlight pouring over everything, the buri palms, the distant trees — and clouds white and fluffy all over the blue sky. Seeing all these, I wept.

I recalled this scene in Poon, when the peasant Eustaquio (in honor of Manang Nenita) Samson wakes up from his near-death encounter with cholera.

I asked God a lot of questions when I was young. Now, in this twilight, I thank Him every morning when I wake up, remembering what Dr. Toto Camara said, that after 70, every day is a bonus, a gift from God.

I ask God to give me a lease on life so I can finish this novel tentatively titled, “My Esperanza.” I don’t ask God for eternal life — but that I leave this life with the least physical pain. I don’t want to live longer if I’ll be a burden to people, if I became a vegetable. Eternal life? What a bore it will be if we know that no disease, no old age, no accident can maim us. What challenge will there be? What meaning can life have if it cannot be cherished?

5. Why do you write such sad stories?

Rolando Quintos, an old friend, implored me way back to please write even just one happy novel, one that would capture the gaiety of Filipinos, their laughter and I really tried, really wracked my mind for a happy plot, one which ends with the characters journeying to the sunset, their faces aglow with joy.

But no matter how hard I try, I can’t get past the first chapter or even the first few pages. There are so many happy events in my own life worth recalling and writing, events that lifted my spirit and assured me God is in His heaven looking kindly on us. But the words won’t come.

 How I envy those humorists who can manufacture all those situations then bring laughter or, at the very least, a chuckle to people.  There is just too much bleakness and deadening gloom all around us and we need cheer and smiles to brighten our lives.

Way back when I was in my teens I saw an American movie — it was in the old black and white medium, starring Joel McCrea (Editor’s Note: Sullivan’s Travels). The main character, a filmmaker — Eddie Romero and I discussed it — is not happy with himself. He wants to give meaning to his life by making films that will give joy to people. He embarks on a journey of discovery. One portion of the film involves two men battling one another with cranes and other big machines — the ultimate dilemma of the machine age — then he goes to prison, the bleakest portion of his journey, and one evening he comes upon all those poor devils, those inmates, howling with laughter at a cartoon movie. His search has ended.

A simple, instructive parable — but is this really what I want to do? I have read so much, seen so much at this rickety age of 89. I have had my cataracts in both eyes removed and I can read now without glasses, and the colors as they are splashed on objects, on landscapes have taken on more lucidity and brightness. Indeed, even with the typhoons in season and dark clouds loom, the sun often breaks out.

But soon after, darkness falls. How to meander in the dark and not stumble, how to find a way out of it into the splendor of day — this is, I think, the story of our lives which I would like to tell, to dwell on that darkness, the melancholy, to give life not just to art itself but to us who roam in the darkness.

6. Who are the people who have most influenced you? Why?

I’ll be 90 in another month and looking back, it is perhaps inevitable that I‘d mention my mother first and foremost, then my wife, and finally, my children who have influenced me the most. I’ve already written about my mother. I was telling my children the other day who gathered here in the house to honor their mama on her birthday (Oct. 26) that she is soft and gentle — like water — but that she is also very strong. We got married when she was 19 — the oldest of a brood of 10, and apparently the most pampered colegiala, and didn’t know really how to cook, raise children and manage a home — then got married to a man with such a miniscule income. But she managed to run not just a home but a small business as well, to protect me from all sorts of noise so I could write. Then the children who, as they grew, went to school, found jobs and partners in life, raised their children — watching them, caring for them — all these taught me fatherhood, grandfatherhood and living on to his decrepit age — and still writing.

All these loved ones are natural influences — but the individuals, totally unrelated to me by blood — I can think only of so few. I say this with some pride because my life itself is an avid learning experience wherein, in moments of introspection I realize the mistakes I committed, the opportunities I did not grab.

Of the many foreign friends I made, it is the late Ivan Kats who influenced me the most. I first met Ivan in Paris in May 1960. That was the year Raul Manglapus and I were invited to Berlin for the 10th anniversary of the Congress for Cultural Freedom.

My relationship with this organization started in the late Fifties when Prabhakar Padhye — the CCF representative in Asia based in New Delhi — visited Manila and met with me. By then, I had set up the Philippine Center of International PEN with Alfred T. Morales as its first chairman and I as its national secretary.

Prabhakar asked me to join the CCF and affiliate Comment with it. Comment is the quarterly initiated by Elmer Ordoñez, he was an English teacher at the UP. I had demurred but he had kept me in mind and was certainly responsible for inviting Raul who I suggested, and me to Berlin.

Before proceeding there, I first went to Paris, stayed at a small hotel (the Oceanic) behind Blvd. Haussmann where the CCF office was located. Ivan Kats was newly married to a pretty American girl who belonged to the Eastern Establishment. They had a house in the suburbs close to the Palace of Versailles; as Ivan explained, the house was actually the laundry of the French king, Louis the XIV. He also drove me around Paris in that tiny Citroen with a canvas roof that folded, all the while expounding on French writers. Though Ivan was of Dutch ancestry he spoke French and I don’t know what other European languages. He loved books just like I did; he had a huge library and I soon learned that he also made money in the antiquarian book trade. But more than anything, I admired his erudition; we were talking about revolution, which I believed in; he told me this story about Gladstone passing a work gang and to them, he said, “Ireland will be free — but you will still be breaking stories.” I always remembered that for I am convinced that when the Revolution is won, that will be the beginning — not the end — in the building of a nation. And so many are destined to be laborers.

With Ivan, I got to meet so many writers, among them — pardon the name-dropping now — Raymond Aron, Pierre Emmanuel, Albert Camus, Ignazio Silone, Salvador de Madariaga, Stephen Spender…

When the CCF broke up because of the charges that it was funded by the CIA, Ivan and I continued the personal relationship that bloomed into something deeper. When Alejo, my sixth child, was born, I asked him to be the godfather. By then Solidarity, the magazine which CCF initiated, was well established and so was the bookshop (Solidaridad) that became its primary supporter.

Upon the dissolution of the CCF, he set up a foundation — OBOR — devoted to the publication of books for distribution in Southeast Asia. As its director, he maintained his contacts with the writers of the region. And whenever I visited America I always visited him, sometimes together with my kids in his rural home in Connecticut. As always, those visits were enlivened with delightful conversation and good food. Well-informed and possessed with a thorough knowledge of the classics, he contributed so much to my understanding of Western thought, particularly the fundamentals of culture. When he died of cancer, I mourned him not just as an intellectual colleague, but as a trusted friend.

There was one memorable incident I shared with Ivan. On that evening I slept in their house near Versailles, in that long twilight we went walking in the woods nearby. He suddenly paused and said, “Frankie — listen.” A bird somewhere in the trees was warbling. “That,” Ivan said, “is a nightingale.”

I was utterly disappointed. I have read so much in European prose and poetry how beautifully nightingales sing. Many of our birds, I assure you, sing much, much sweeter than this fabled European creature.