In Loving Memory: Soldado Tenso Conserbado (1898-1976)
“Conserbado believed that everything he wrote was God’s gift to mankind.”
NOVEMBER 19, 2024
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The story, “In Loving Memory: Soldado Tenso Conserbado (1898-1976),” is excerpted from Amado Anthony G. Mendoza III’s Materyales sa Komplisidad (Materials on Complicity) published in 2023 by the University of the Philippines Press. Materials on Complicity — which is driven by the partly astute, partly misguided, and thoroughly obsessive impulse to try to understand reactionary ideologies and to dissect the pathologies of writers and intellectuals who choose to become mercenaries for the state — is part of the trilogy that began with the novel Aklat ng mga Naiwan (Book of the Damned), winner of a PEN/Heim Translation Grant in 2023.
Book of the Damned moves through the dictatorial regime of President Caesar Repaso — and its aftermath — in the Philippines through multiple voices and narrators who may or may not be invested in the truth about a character named Felix Canelo. The book’s attempt to fuse the artist (Felix Canelo) with the dictator (Caesar Repaso) — a metaphor for the violent complicity and struggle between the makers of history, writers and despots— is a recurring theme in the three-book series.
The second book in the trilogy, Movovug: Diksyunaryo ng mga Pipi (Movovug: A Dictionary for the Aphasic), starts with the fallout of the intellectuals’ complicity with state terrorism in Book of the Damned. And, as the title suggests, the second novel in the series functions as an antipodal dictionary that defines and documents the fears, aspirations and methods of resistance of the silenced and the oppressed.
“In Loving Memory: Soldado Tenso Conserbado (1898-1976),” an excerpt from Materials on Complicity, the third book in the series, is told from the point of view of Ramoncito, the literary translator of the titular author Soldado Tenso Conserbado, whose fictionalized biographical account comprises one of the many interlocking puzzle pieces in Mendoza’s ambitious trilogy. In translating this story, I paid close attention to using language that mirrors the narrator’s attitudes, mannerisms and personality — in this case, those of Ramoncito, who is brilliant and perceptive but self-effacing, someone who knows his place. The story, to me, is most compelling in how it shows why the status quo can present such an irresistibly hypnotic force to the conservative mind.
—KRISTINE ONG MUSLIM
There was this one article, a “timeless” and remarkable piece of photojournalism, in one of the last few issues of the Philippines Free Press released before the Japanese invaded the country. I could no longer remember the article’s exact publication date but the photograph that went with the piece still haunted me to this day. It was of Soldado Tenso Conserbado and the veterans of the guerra civil — the war between the republican forces and General Franco’s men, the war that catapulted Franco to power for more than three decades.
The veterans, posing along with Conserbado for the photo, were those who had fought for the side of the falangista. This was evident in the embroidered patch on their uniforms. The man to the right of Conserbado was smiling from ear to ear. The other two men could not shake off their stiff military bearing even when posing for a picture — somber expression on their faces and with only the upper half of their lips visible from the tension of being bitten back. A proof that their sacrifice was stamped on the face of eternal recognition by the victorious and the powerful. Behind the men was a grossly oversized monument that immortalized the victory of Franco’s forces and honored the martyrdom of those who had died for the ideals of the great Generalissimo. The photo’s caption bore the epithet: “THE VETERANS OF THE WAR AGAINST THE INSURGENTS. THE HEROES OF THE 15th BRIGADE!”
After three decades — decades seemingly gone in a flash because of the inability of humans to resist the frequent enticement of wakeless slumber — I now faced Conserbado, drinking expensive whiskey inside his large apartment in Escolta. It was 1969 then. The term of former President Marcos had just ended, three years before he declared Martial Law, and based on public reception, he was looking all set to be reelected. Conserbado, on the other hand, was hailed as one of the greatest Spanish-language writers in the Philippines.
His intellectual peers were the likes of Jesus Balmori, Manuel Bernabe, the senator Claro M. Recto, and many other writers who wrote in Spanish. Among his distinguished peers, he was the only one still alive. Balmori passed away three years after the Second World War, while both Bernabe and Recto died in 1960. Although Conserbado was considerably younger than his contemporaries, younger by a decade — the golden period — his writings were in line with the spirit of his predecessors. He used to joke about how his “fame” (and he would always mention this in self-effacing quotable terms) was a result of his contemporaries’ “waiving of their own physical position” to make space for god and their respective spouses.
Conserbado, however, did not have the illustrious reputation of his peers, and this was probably due to his decision to distance himself from and show a patent lack of interest in the heated debates of his time, especially the vitriolic writerly spats that defined the 1920s and the 1930s. Each time I asked him about his staunch refusal to be involved in those debates, he would always respond with his trademark caustic wit dispensed in mangled Spanish, “Ramoncito, nunca comprende es muy dificil.”
I first met Conserbado in 1965, during a conference of writers in Manila. My friend Jesus introduced us. He said that Conserbado had long been searching for someone who could translate his works into Filipino. It also helped that I knew about him and my father being friends in the 1920s and 1930s while attending the same university in Spain. He returned to the Philippines before the guerra civil. My father, on the other hand, stayed behind in Spain, wanting to “participate in the making of history.” I was four when I learned of my father’s death in the hands of the father of my then-most favorite childhood buddy, Ancieto. In those days, the buzz around the neighborhood had a common narrative: Ancieto’s father was a hero, while my own was a poor deluded mestizo obsessed with dangerous ideas. Sadly, that was the last time Ancieto’s family was talked about in a positive light. The Japanese period brought bouts of misfortune to his family. After that, I did not hear anything of note again about Ancieto’s family.
Heated discussions occurred with regularity, because like most writers who had excessive faith in their abilities, Conserbado believed that everything he wrote was God’s gift to mankind.
All in all, my first encounter with Conserbado was uneventful and did not bode of anything remotely generative. We did not even talk about the possibility of a project or collaboration. Like most of the writers of his time, Conserbado was more interested in assessing my caliber as a translator.
“So, what have you translated then?”
A rabbit unaware of the scrutinizing gaze of a tiger, I walked right into Conserbado’s bait.
“A few poems by Vallejo, a collection of Francisco Sicardi’s short stories, and essays by Domingo Sarmiento and Roberto Arlt.”
“I see… It looks like you won’t be needing any of my work to boost your reputation! You’re just like your father. Always taking his own path.”
Long after several years of friendship and collaboration in multiple projects, I still could not help but go over and over in my head that memory of our first encounter. Maybe it was to remind myself how far I had come; and maybe to remind myself of the amusing start of our friendship. Conserbado, in times when he felt the urge to pull my leg, could not help but recall the moment of our first encounter, too.
II.
Each time, Conserbado and I would begin our work at exactly eight in the morning. We would meet in the library in the City of Manila where, like Borges in the twilight of his career, he was given an honorary position. Minerva, the chief host of the administrative division, would greet us in the hallway, always with a bunch of paperwork for Conserbado to sign — possibly to lend a semblance of importance to Conserbado’s otherwise useless office. Each time, he would simply sign the paperwork right then and there, not bothering to read what it said. Or to consider its implication. I think he still had a grasp — albeit a flimsy one — of the precarious situation of library workers who every day had to create “official” acts for him just to sustain the illusion of prestige in the title accorded to him by the City of Manila.
For seven years, we spent a great deal of our time inside the comfortable and spacious room in front of the library’s special archives of newspapers from the nineteenth century to the first two decades of the twentieth century. We would normally wrap up our work by four or five in the afternoon, depending on the endurance (as his arthritis and rheumatism were firing up with more regularity in those days) and disposition of Conserbado. When he was really in the mood to write, we would extend until eight. Sometimes, too, until nine in the evening. I would always be thankful for the graciousness of the employees in the library. In those nights, Conserbado would invite me to join him to dine on pork asado in Binondo or munch chopitos at his Escolta apartment. His wife Josefa, a retired public school teacher, would often join us for supper. There were times when she would have comments (which, I admit, had helped a lot) related to the countless drafts of my translation of her husband’s writings. But Josefa usually left us alone drifting in the sea of our ideas. There were even times when we would wake up comfortably ensconced under a blanket, our heads against the sofa’s head rest.
The labor involved in the project could be categorized into two: which works to translate and how to revise the resulting translated drafts. The first four or five hours each day were spent on reading and discussing which selections to translate. Heated discussions occurred with regularity, because like most writers who had excessive faith in their abilities, Conserbado believed that everything he wrote was God’s gift to mankind. We kept arguing about his tendency to obsess about certain topics, and he would write about them ad nauseam, ad infinitum. For example, in his polemic essay “Los Olvidados” (1948) — a clear dig at the work and politics of left-leaning director Luis Bunuel — he discussed the supposed forgotten heroes of the “decimoquinta brigada” and how, despite Franco’s Generalissimo, the revolutionary ideas of socialism and communism still held sway. In his essay “Comunistas: Escoria de la Tierra” (1952), he also echoed his dismay over the so-called resurgence of leftist thinking and progressive ideas. And to complete his holy trinity of repetition, there was his essay “El Espectro Totalitario” (1959), where Conserbado likened communism to a ghost that had to killed again and again by forces on the side of kindness, justice, and progress.
He was always insistent on the importance of “continuity” for a writer. Every time he rehashed that same old point, I kept reminding him that “continuity” was a secret element in a writer’s work and whose occurrence was accidental. In the hands of readers, it should organically manifest, and it should not be anything that was calculated or meticulously planned. Another indication of how contrived his belief in this was his inexplicable bias for the word “continuity” instead of its Spanish equivalent.
Add to this, I kept reminding Conserbado that the ultimate goal of the project was to come up with a representative collection of his essays. It was better if the essays offered variety in terms of topic, theme, tone, and style. When our debate ventured into publishing matters, he would suddenly clam up, as if saying, “Go ahead, know-it-all.” Sometimes, too, he was just being stubborn; he would doggedly fight to no end for a particular piece of writing or contentious point. In those cases, I would give way and simply agree with his ideas. Intuition guided when one would surrender (temporarily) to the other his most cherished principles and beliefs; this give-and-take dynamic formed between us a transcendent understanding of each other. It is also this same understanding between us that resulted in the book project that took us almost seven years to finish.
We devoted the hours from one to four in the afternoon for tidying up my finished drafts. Although Conserbado had no academic expertise in linguistics and philosophy, his Spanish fluency operated on a level that was way too sophisticated for a translator, even for a native speaker, to grasp. It would be inaccurate to describe his language as idiomatic, because his proficiency was not based on his usage of classical metaphors but on his formulation of new idioms from the most execrable and filthiest lanes of the Spanish language. His unique grasp of language resided in the dark alleyways of meaning that not too many writers dared to enter. Even though our discussions in the morning sessions were not as heated as those in the afternoon, I could say that there was no doubt that those times had been hugely productive.
It was also in those moments that he shared with me some details about his tortuous personal life. From the real reason he shied away from debates (“giera patani” verbal clash was his term for this; it can be remembered that Rosauro Almario, in describing the characteristics of literary debates in the early years of the twentieth century, had used the same term) between Lope K. Santos, Carlos Ronquillo, Iñigo Ed Regalado, Godofredo Herrera, and alias Secretary of Heart to his real relationship with the writers from the periodo de oro. With unbounded resentment, he also told me about his altercation with Manuel Bernabe.
The bad blood between the two, according to Conserbado, began when he declined Bernabe’s invitation to write a poem in support of his run as Manila’s vice mayor. Bernabe told him that the poem was to be recited for a huge gathering in Rizal Avenue (now named Avenida). Conserbado said that he refused because he did not want to sully with politics the sacred and pristine act of writing a poem. Bernabe then started to distance himself from Conserbado. Months later, he heard from friends and acquaintances about how Bernabe had been spreading rumors about Conserbado “not growing some balls” in his poetry, about Conserbado becoming contented with just glancing back and reminiscing the slowly fading brilliance of his early successes.
The intensity of his anger at Bernabe, once a friend who he had entrusted with his dreams, drove him to the point of considering challenging him to duel. But according to Conserbado, no treacherous friend deserved a dignified death. So instead of daring Bernabe to a duel, Conserbado waited for him to show up at his favorite tavern and to confront him there with his fists. At this point, it was not too much to say that the encounter between Bernabe and Conserbado did not do both of them a favor. Aside from the shattered teeth and dislocated jawbones, the two writers almost risked the entirety of their lifework’s reputation just to “champion” their wounded pride: Bernabe failed to win a seat for vice mayor of Manila, while Conserbado’s already lethargic literary career sunk even further.
In those same afternoon sessions, Conserbado told me about his “literary biases” (this was the term he used) that he said he could not admit to other writers who were his friends. For instance, he was ashamed to say that he had never developed the least bit interest in reading Julian Cruz Balmaseda, Alejandro Abadilla, and many other poets at the forefront of Philippine poetry. He almost blushed with embarrassment when he admitted his failure to comprehend Nick Joaquin’s novels and the fact that he was never able to get past page 30 of any of the great author’s books. With utmost confidence, he confirmed his aversion for the works of Villa, Hernandez, and Benigno Ramos. He said to include Brigido Batungbakal and Marcel Navarra in the second tier of tiresome and annoying writers; both writers, according to Conserbado, were writing stories at the edge of “socialist vulgarity” and “pamphlets that reeked of propaganda.”
And like our previous exchanges, I once again ended up looking like a wannabe writer, an escritor joven (again, if I use Conserbado’s fond moniker for me) lost in the savage wilderness of ideas and words.
In world literature, he revered Quevedo and Novalis; Joyce, Kafka, Woolf, and Whitman scandalized him. The works of Melville, Rolland, and Twain were peak display of the epidemic of “committed literature,” while the French blathered (again, this was the word he used) way too much. He also professed a lack of interest in women writers. For Conserbado, a woman who writes is no different from a woman who tries to learn to hold and fire a gun — a sight often too distasteful for him to behold, if not one that had deadly consequences.
Although our respective beliefs in matters related to literature and many other things tended to often clash, our professional relationship remained smooth throughout. In fact, we arrived at the same conclusion that our obviously irreconcilable views drove us to find out and examine what other positioning in issues we had yet to articulate. I still remembered that one time he went all out with his desire to know his interlocutor. While we were working through the draft of my translation of his “El Spectro Totalitario” (which I translated into “The Ghost of Totalitarianism”), he asked me out of nowhere about my communist politics.
“What are your views on communism? On communists?”
“We’ve known each other for a long time, Sol… I think you already know my opinion on these things.”
“I sure do have an idea what your beliefs are. But just this once, Ramoncito, come on and indulge me.”
“All right… What if I tell you that I am open to communist ideas and goals? That I believe — just like the anarchists, pacifists, and liberals — communists have the right to assert their vision for a just and progressive society.”
“Que barbaridad would have been my fitting answer to that point. But since you indulged me with a response, I will give you a chance to save yourself.”
He paused to sip coffee and went on talking. As for me, I glanced at the clock, wishing for time to save me from my current situation.
“Go ahead, Ramoncito, explain to me, to this old man being told by many to have been left behind by time, how the communists’ tendency to complicate simple things benefits the world, the society. Explain to me, please, how society can possibly benefit from an ideology that sees religion as a false form of consciousness?! And that by solving problems in production, all the problems in the world will be solved?!”
“Because there really is no such thing as ‘simple,’ Sol. Because political economy can explain what institutions refuse to explain to ordinary people. And besides, hasn’t the problem always been in production as well as in the distribution of products from such production? All part and parcel of what keeps ordinary people poor.”
“You’ve been blinded, Ramoncito. How can you believe in an ideology that won’t even consider the spiritual health of an individual? You must remember how civilization cannot exist without religion. We’ll end up as barbarians if those communists win.”
“But don’t you see how your question only shows the complex nature of issues besetting society. No civilization is born innocent.”
“Oh, no. Even in spouting truisms, you already sound like them.”
“Even your precious Roman Catholic civilization was built on centuries of violence.”
“The past is not like the present, Ramoncito! The ones who delivered the abundance we now enjoy, you can’t hold them responsible for the abuses of the few. Our civilization has reached its pinnacle of success! And I will never ever trust organizations whose aim is to cover up the impoverishment of an individual’s soul.”
“You’re right about how the times have changed, Sol. You also cannot hold against people or organizations their desire for change.”
“This is where we part ways, amiguito. Lo ves, mi amiguito, those of us belonging to an older generation believe that in all things, especially in writing, the most ideal simplicity must be achieved. Anything that seeks to complicate things leads to failure... This is the one trait of a creature that cannot find its steady path in life…”
As I processed what he had just said, it slowly dawned on me that I lacked the ability to make a solid rebuttal. The terms of surrender even seemed to melt right off my desert-dry tongue. That this was no longer only a question of right or wrong, of what is just or unjust, and of matters centered on civilization and the barbarity of our discussion. And like our previous exchanges, I once again ended up looking like a wannabe writer, an escritor joven (again, if I use Conserbado’s fond moniker for me) lost in the savage wilderness of ideas and words.
III.
Talanggunita ng Isang Contra-Insurgente (Memoir of a Counter-Insurgent) was the title I used for Conserbado’s collection of essays that I translated. At first, Conserbado was hesitant to even accommodate the possibility of such a title. For him, it was too loud and abrasive. It was a clear departure from the type of writing he was advocating. He also found “contra-insurgente” to be problematic because it reminded him of the mercenary contra from Colombia, Nicaragua, and Peru — that although they targeted communists, they lacked a principled stand except for their allegiance to ley del plomo, or the rule of the bullet. Additionally, this title was the reason for one of our most longstanding arguments. The title he had in mind that time was Ehemplong Panitik (Literary Paragon), because he believed his essays were rife with lessons on writing. I told him that even though his preferred title had admirable intentions, it did not adequately cover the overall direction of the project. I also said that his life as an author and intellectual was most captured by the term contra-insurgente,” a descriptor that was a perfect representative of his struggle to assert the importance of conservative thinking in the face of a rising tide of progressive and radical ideas. After months of heated exchanges of ideas, as well as hundreds of cups of coffee and platters of steamed peanuts, he finally relented and accepted my proposed title.
One of my greatest shortcomings as his friend and translator was probably my failure to ask him what exactly his beliefs were and what part he played in some key moments in history.
The final number of essays that went into the collection was twenty-two. From the original 40 entries, we ended up with 22 after the near-daily reflection, finding the right balance, and challenging the various other directions that the project might take. We agreed to divide the collection into two sections: 11 essays would go into each section. He titled one section “Escritos Eclecticos” (Eclectic Writings). Majority of the essays in that particular section hashed out the source and inspiration of his thoughts on politics, culture, and literature. My two most favorite essays in that section were “La Edad de Ningún Movimiento” (The Age of No Motion) and “No Pongo Esperanza en los Vientos del Cambio” (I Place No Hope in the Winds of Change); both defied the correlation between societal change and emergence of modern culture. But what made those essays more interesting was his sporadic attempts to eulogize the people who had given him life lessons. In the first essay, for example, there were a few allusions about his history teacher, who Conserbado said had pushed him to reexamine his ethical and political stances. Or his cousin, who fought in the First World War and taught Conserbado how to stay brave and strong in the face of life’s trials.
The second section, which bore the title “El Reto Conservado” (The Preserved Challenge), was more focused on a specific idea: the possibility of resurgence and dominance of conservative thinking. For the essays in this section, Conserbado made an effort to track the conservative standards in all fields of study inside and outside the academe. He also outlined the political and cultural steps needed to restore the conservative mold of society.
We were on the seventh year of our project when he suddenly died: five years after the Plaza Miranda bombing and four years after Marcos declared Martial Law. It was amazing how Conserbado had breezed through all those recent events in Philippine history without getting emotionally involved.; he must have focused all his energy and attention to our project. Back then though, I could feel a cansancio profundo every time Conserbado gave way to the points I raised as well as my suggestions. Cansancio profundo referred to that metaphysical exhaustion from the onslaught of events that could not be explained solely by words, by his words.
Even if there weren’t too many people in Conserbado’s wake, his funeral lasted for a week mostly because of Josefa’s determination to carry out her husband’s wishes. In those days, Josefa and I became much closer as I was one of the few people who kept returning to the wake to be at her side. In one of our conversations, she asked me to delay the publication of the collection. She said that the world, in its current shape, was not yet ready for her husband’s ideas. My misgivings on the veracity of her claims did not stop me from heeding her plea. Right after Conserbado’s burial, I shelved the final draft of our project and the seven years worth of ideas and experiences that came with it. After four years, in 1980, Josefa passed away. Since I was the only one left alive among their circle of acquaintances, I made all the arrangements for her funeral and interment.
Revisiting some of Conserbado’s manuscripts, I came across the aforementioned article clipping in front of my endecha. It was inserted in his copy of Pio Baroja’s El árbol de la ciencia. As I looked at Conserbado photographed with the veterans of la guerra civil, I remembered how fascinated I was with his personality — a fascination that I held then and to this day — which I unfortunately could not explain to anyone. One of my greatest shortcomings as his friend and translator was probably my failure to ask him what exactly his beliefs were and what part he played in some key moments in history. On the other hand, I trusted he needed nobody, not even me who had been his confidant for a long time, to vindicate him. His body of work was enough to explain his near-lifetime’s worth of essaying the purest simplicity in life.
✺ Published in “Issue 22: Language” of The Dial
