The Necklace

Guy de Maupassant

She was one of those pretty and charming girls born, as if by an error of fate, into a
family of clerks. She had no dowry, no expectations, no means of becoming known,
understood, loved or wedded by a man of wealth and distinction; and so she let
herself be married to a minor official at the Ministry of Education.

She dressed plainly because she had never been able to afford anything better,
but she was as unhappy as if she had once been wealthy. Women don't belong to a
caste or class; their beauty, grace, and natural charm take the place of birth and
family. Natural delicacy, instinctive elegance and a quick wit determine their place
in society, and make the daughters of commoners the equals of the very finest
ladies.

She suffered endlessly, feeling she was entitled to all the delicacies and luxuries of
life. She suffered because of the poorness of her house as she looked at the dirty
walls, the worn-out chairs and the ugly curtains. All these things that another
woman of her class would not even have noticed, tormented her and made her
resentful. The sight of the little Brenton girl who did her housework filled her with
terrible regrets and hopeless fantasies. She dreamed of silent antechambers hung
with Oriental tapestries, lit from above by torches in bronze holders, while two tall
footmen in knee-length breeches napped in huge armchairs, sleepy from the stove's
oppressive warmth. She dreamed of vast living rooms furnished in rare old silks,
elegant furniture loaded with priceless ornaments, and inviting smaller rooms,
perfumed, made for afternoon chats with close friends - famous, sought after men,
who all women envy and desire.

When she sat down to dinner at a round table covered with a three-day-old cloth
opposite her husband who, lifting the lid off the soup, shouted excitedly, "Ah! Beef
stew! What could be better," she dreamed of fine dinners, of shining silverware, of
tapestries which peopled the walls with figures from another time and strange birds
in fairy forests; she dreamed of delicious dishes served on wonderful plates, of
whispered gallantries listened to with an inscrutable smile as one ate the pink flesh
of a trout or the wings of a quail.

She had no dresses, no jewels, nothing; and these were the only things she loved.
She felt she was made for them alone. She wanted so much to charm, to be envied, to
be desired and sought after.

She had a rich friend, a former schoolmate at the convent, whom she no longer
wanted to visit because she suffered so much when she came home. For whole days
afterwards she would weep with sorrow, regret, despair and misery.
*
One evening her husband came home with an air of triumph, holding a large
envelope in his hand.

"Look," he said, "here's something for you."

She tore open the paper and drew out a card, on which was printed the words:

"The Minister of Education and Mme. Georges Rampouneau request the pleasure
of M. and Mme. Loisel's company at the Ministry, on the evening of Monday January
18th."

Instead of being delighted, as her husband had hoped, she threw the invitation on
the table resentfully, and muttered:

"What do you want me to do with that?"

"But, my dear, I thought you would be pleased. You never go out, and it will be
such a lovely occasion! I had awful trouble getting it. Every one wants to go; it is
very exclusive, and they're not giving many invitations to clerks. The whole ministry
will be there."

She stared at him angrily, and said, impatiently:

"And what do you expect me to wear if I go?"

He hadn't thought of that. He stammered:

"Why, the dress you go to the theatre in. It seems very nice to me ..."

He stopped, stunned, distressed to see his wife crying. Two large tears ran slowly
from the corners of her eyes towards the corners of her mouth. He stuttered:

"What's the matter? What's the matter?"

With great effort she overcame her grief and replied in a calm voice, as she wiped
her wet cheeks:

"Nothing. Only I have no dress and so I can't go to this party. Give your invitation
to a friend whose wife has better clothes than I do."

He was distraught, but tried again:

"Let's see, Mathilde. How much would a suitable dress cost, one which you could
use again on other occasions, something very simple?"
 She thought for a moment, computing the cost, and also wondering what amount
she could ask for without an immediate refusal and an alarmed exclamation from
the thrifty clerk.

At last she answered hesitantly:

"I don't know exactly, but I think I could do it with four hundred francs."

He turned a little pale, because he had been saving that exact amount to buy a gun
and treat himself to a hunting trip the following summer, in the country near
Nanterre, with a few friends who went lark-shooting there on Sundays.

However, he said:

"Very well, I can give you four hundred francs. But try and get a really beautiful
dress."

The day of the party drew near, and Madame Loisel seemed sad, restless, anxious.
Her dress was ready, however. One evening her husband said to her:

"What's the matter? You've been acting strange these last three days."

She replied: "I'm upset that I have no jewels, not a single stone to wear. I will look
cheap. I would almost rather not go to the party."

"You could wear flowers, " he said, "They are very fashionable at this time of year.
For ten francs you could get two or three magnificent roses."

She was not convinced.

"No; there is nothing more humiliating than looking poor in the middle of a lot of
rich women."

"How stupid you are!" her husband cried. "Go and see your friend Madame
Forestier and ask her to lend you some jewels. You know her well enough for that."

She uttered a cry of joy.

"Of course. I had not thought of that."

The next day she went to her friend's house and told her of her distress.

Madame Forestier went to her mirrored wardrobe, took out a large box, brought
it back, opened it, and said to Madame Loisel:
 "Choose, my dear."

First she saw some bracelets, then a pearl necklace, then a gold Venetian cross set
with precious stones, of exquisite craftsmanship. She tried on the jewelry in the
mirror, hesitated, could not bear to part with them, to give them back. She kept
asking:

"You have nothing else?"

"Why, yes. But I don't know what you like."

Suddenly she discovered, in a black satin box, a superb diamond necklace, and her
heart began to beat with uncontrolled desire. Her hands trembled as she took it. She
fastened it around her neck, over her high-necked dress, and stood lost in ecstasy as
she looked at herself.

Then she asked anxiously, hesitating:

"Would you lend me this, just this?"

"Why, yes, of course."

She threw her arms around her friend's neck, embraced her rapturously, then
fled with her treasure.

The day of the party arrived. Madame Loisel was a success. She was prettier than all
the other women, elegant, gracious, smiling, and full of joy. All the men stared at her,
asked her name, tried to be introduced. All the cabinet officials wanted to waltz with
her. The minister noticed her.

She danced wildly, with passion, drunk on pleasure, forgetting everything in the
triumph of her beauty, in the glory of her success, in a sort of cloud of happiness,
made up of all this respect, all this admiration, all these awakened desires, of that
sense of triumph that is so sweet to a woman's heart.

She left at about four o'clock in the morning. Her husband had been dozing since
midnight in a little deserted anteroom with three other gentlemen whose wives
were having a good time.

He threw over her shoulders the clothes he had brought for her to go outside in,
the modest clothes of an ordinary life, whose poverty contrasted sharply with the
elegance of the ball dress. She felt this and wanted to run away, so she wouldn't be
noticed by the other women who were wrapping themselves in expensive furs.
 Loisel held her back.

"Wait a moment, you'll catch a cold outside. I'll go and find a cab."

But she would not listen to him, and ran down the stairs. When they were finally
in the street, they could not find a cab, and began to look for one, shouting at the
cabmen they saw passing in the distance.

They walked down toward the Seine in despair, shivering with cold. At last they
found on the quay one of those old night cabs that one sees in Paris only after dark,
as if they were ashamed to show their shabbiness during the day.

They were dropped off at their door in the Rue des Martyrs, and sadly walked up
the steps to their apartment. It was all over, for her. And he was remembering that
he had to be back at his office at ten o'clock.

In front of the mirror, she took off the clothes around her shoulders, taking a final
look at herself in all her glory. But suddenly she uttered a cry. She no longer had the
necklace round her neck!

"What is the matter?" asked her husband, already half undressed.

She turned towards him, panic-stricken.

"I have ... I have ... I no longer have Madame Forestier's necklace."

He stood up, distraught.

"What! ... how! ... That's impossible!"

They looked in the folds of her dress, in the folds of her cloak, in her pockets,
everywhere. But they could not find it.

"Are you sure you still had it on when you left the ball?" he asked.

"Yes. I touched it in the hall at the Ministry."

"But if you had lost it in the street we would have heard it fall. It must be in the
cab."

"Yes. That's probably it. Did you take his number?"

"No. And you, didn't you notice it?"

"No."
 They stared at each other, stunned. At last Loisel put his clothes on again.

"I'm going back," he said, "over the whole route we walked, see if I can find it."

He left. She remained in her ball dress all evening, without the strength to go to
bed, sitting on a chair, with no fire, her mind blank.

Her husband returned at about seven o'clock. He had found nothing.

He went to the police, to the newspapers to offer a reward, to the cab companies,
everywhere the tiniest glimmer of hope led him.

She waited all day, in the same state of blank despair from before this frightful
disaster.

Loisel returned in the evening, a hollow, pale figure; he had found nothing.

"You must write to your friend," he said, "tell her you have broken the clasp of her
necklace and that you are having it mended. It will give us time to look some more."

She wrote as he dictated.

At the end of one week they had lost all hope.

And Loisel, who had aged five years, declared:

"We must consider how to replace the jewel."

The next day they took the box which had held it, and went to the jeweler whose
name they found inside. He consulted his books.

"It was not I, madame, who sold the necklace; I must simply have supplied the
case."

And so they went from jeweler to jeweler, looking for an necklace like the other
one, consulting their memories, both sick with grief and anguish.

In a shop at the Palais Royal, they found a string of diamonds which seemed to be
exactly what they were looking for. It was worth forty thousand francs. They could
have it for thirty-six thousand.
 So they begged the jeweler not to sell it for three days. And they made an
arrangement that he would take it back for thirty-four thousand francs if the other
necklace was found before the end of February.

Loisel had eighteen thousand francs which his father had left him. He would
borrow the rest.

And he did borrow, asking for a thousand francs from one man, five hundred from
another, five louis here, three louis there. He gave notes, made ruinous agreements,
dealt with usurers, with every type of money-lender. He compromised the rest of his
life, risked signing notes without knowing if he could ever honor them, and, terrified
by the anguish still to come, by the black misery about to fall on him, by the prospect
of every physical privation and every moral torture he was about to suffer, he went
to get the new necklace, and laid down on the jeweler's counter thirty-six thousand
francs.

When Madame Loisel took the necklace back, Madame Forestier said coldly:

"You should have returned it sooner, I might have needed it."

To the relief of her friend, she did not open the case. If she had detected the
substitution, what would she have thought? What would she have said? Would she
have taken her friend for a thief?

From then on, Madame Loisel knew the horrible life of the very poor. But she played
her part heroically. The dreadful debt must be paid. She would pay it. They
dismissed their maid; they changed their lodgings; they rented a garret under the
roof.

She came to know the drudgery of housework, the odious labors of the kitchen.
She washed the dishes, staining her rosy nails on greasy pots and the bottoms of
pans. She washed the dirty linen, the shirts and the dishcloths, which she hung to
dry on a line; she carried the garbage down to the street every morning, and carried
up the water, stopping at each landing to catch her breath. And, dressed like a
commoner, she went to the fruiterer's, the grocer's, the butcher's, her basket on her
arm, bargaining, insulted, fighting over every miserable sou.

Each month they had to pay some notes, renew others, get more time.

Her husband worked every evening, doing accounts for a tradesman, and often,
late into the night, he sat copying a manuscript at five sous a page.

And this life lasted ten years.

 At the end of ten years they had paid off everything, everything, at usurer's rates
and with the accumulations of compound interest.

Madame Loisel looked old now. She had become strong, hard and rough like all
women of impoverished households. With hair half combed, with skirts awry, and
reddened hands, she talked loudly as she washed the floor with great swishes of
water. But sometimes, when her husband was at the office, she sat down near the
window and thought of that evening at the ball so long ago, when she had been so
beautiful and so admired.

What would have happened if she had not lost that necklace? Who knows, who
knows? How strange life is, how fickle! How little is needed for one to be ruined or
saved!

One Sunday, as she was walking in the Champs É lysées to refresh herself after the
week's work, suddenly she saw a woman walking with a child. It was Madame
Forestier, still young, still beautiful, still charming.
Madame Loisel felt emotional. Should she speak to her? Yes, of course. And now
that she had paid, she would tell her all. Why not?

She went up to her.

"Good morning, Jeanne."

The other, astonished to be addressed so familiarly by this common woman, did

not recognize her. She stammered:

"But - madame - I don't know. You must have made a mistake."

"No, I am Mathilde Loisel."

Her friend uttered a cry.

"Oh! ... my poor Mathilde, how you've changed! ..."

"Yes, I have had some hard times since I last saw you, and many miseries ... and all
because of you! ..."

"Me? How can that be?"

"You remember that diamond necklace that you lent me to wear to the Ministry
party?"

"Yes. Well?"
 "Well, I lost it."

"What do you mean? You brought it back."

"I brought you back another exactly like it. And it has taken us ten years to pay for
it. It wasn't easy for us, we had very little. But at last it is over, and I am very glad."

Madame Forestier was stunned.

"You say that you bought a diamond necklace to replace mine?"

"Yes; you didn't notice then? They were very similar."

And she smiled with proud and innocent pleasure.

Madame Forestier, deeply moved, took both her hands.

"Oh, my poor Mathilde! Mine was an imitation! It was worth five hundred francs
at most! ..."
Long Walk To Forever
Kurt Vonnegut

They had grown up next door to each other, on the fringe of a city, near fields
and woods and orchards, within sight of a lovely bell tower that belonged to a
school for the blind. Now they were twenty, had not seen each other for nearly
a year. There had always ben playful, comfortable warmth between them, but never
any talk of love.

His name was Newt. Her name was Catharine. In the early afternoon, Newt
knocked on Catharine's front door.

Catharine came to the door. She was carrying a fat, glossy magazine she had
been reading. The magazine was devoted entirely to brides. "Newt!" she said. She
was surprised to see him.

"Could you come for a walk?" he said. He was a shy person, even with
Catharine. He covered his shyness by speaking absently as though what really
concerned him were faraway--as though he were a secret agent pausing briefly on a
mission between beautiful, distant, and sinister points. This manner of speaking had
always been Newt's style, even in matters that concerned him desperately.
"A walk?" said Catharine.
"One foot in front of the other," said Newt, "through leaves, over bridges---"
"I had no idea you were in town," she said.
"Just this minute got in," he said.
"Still in the Army, I see," she said.
"Seven months more to go," he said. He was a private first class in the
Artillery. His uniform was rumpled. His shoes were dusty. He needed a shave. He
held out his hand for the magazine. "Let's see the pretty book," he said.
She gave it to him. "I'm getting married, Newt," she said.
"I know," he said. "Let's go for a walk."
"I'm awfully busy, Newt," she said. "The wedding is only a week away."
"If we go for a walk," he said, "it will make you rosy. It will make you a rosy
bride." He turned the pages of the magazine. "A rosy bride like her--like her--like
her," he said, showing her rosy brides.
Catharine turned rosy, thinking about rosy brides.
"That will be my present to Henry Stewart Chasens," said Newt. "By taking
you for a walk, I'll be giving him a rosy bride."
"You know his name?" she said.
"Mother wrote," he said. "From Pittsburgh?"
"Yes," she said. "You'd like him."
"Maybe," he said.
"Can--can you come to the wedding, Newt?" she said.
"That I doubt," he said.
"Your furlough isn't for long enough?" she said.
 "Furlough?" said Newt. He was studying a two page ad for flat silver. "I'm not
on furlough," he said.
"Oh?" she said.
"I'm what they call A.W.O.L.," said Newt.
"Oh, Newt! You're not!" she said.
"Sure I am," he said, still looking at the magazine.
"Why, Newt?" she said.
"I had to find out what your silver pattern is," he said. He read names of silver
patterns from the magazine. Albemarle? Heather?" he said. "Legend? Rambler
Rose?" He looked up, smiled. "Iplan to give you and your husband a spoon," he said.
"Newt, Newt--tell me really," she said.
"I want to go for a walk," he said.
She wrung her hands in sisterly anguish. "Oh, Newt--you're fooling me about
being A.W.O.L.," she said.
Newt imitated a police siren softly, and raised his eyebrows.
"Where--where from?"
"Fort Bragg," he said.
"North Carolina?" she said.
"That's right," he said. "Near Fayetteville--where Scarlet O'Hara went to
school."
"How did you get here, Newt?" she said.
He raised his thumb, jerked it in a hitchhike gesture. "Two days," he said.
"Does your mother know?" she said.
"I didn't come to see my mother," he told her.
"Who did you come to see?" she said.
"You," he said.
"Why me?" she said.
"Because I love you," he said. "Now can we take a walk?" he said. "One foot
in front of the other--through leaves, over bridges--"

They were taking the walk now, were in a woods with a brown-leaf floor.
Catharine was angry and rattled, close to tears. "Newt," she said, "this is
absolutely crazy."
"How so?" said Newt.
"What a crazy time to tell me you love me," she said. "You never talked that
way before."
She stopped walking.
"Let's keep walking," he said.
"No," she said. "So far, no farther. I shouldn't have come out with you at all,"
she said.
"You did," he said.
"To get you out of the house," she said. "If somebody walked in and heard you
talking to me that way, a week before the wedding--"
"What would they think?" he said.
"They'd think you were crazy," she said.
"Why?" he said
 Catharine took a deep breath, made a speech. "Let me say that I'm deeply
honored by this crazy thing you've done," she said. "I can't believe you're really
A.W.O.L., but maybe you are. I can't believe you really love me, but maybe you do.
But--"
"I do," said Newt.
"Well, I'm deeply honored," said Catharine, "and I'm very fond of you as a
friend, Newt, extremely fond--but it's just too late." She took a step away from him.
"You've never even kissed me," she said, and she protected herself with her hands. "I
don't mean you should do it now. I just mean that this is all so unexpected. I
haven't got the remotest idea of how to respond."
"Just walk some more," he said. "Have a nice time."
They started walking again.
"How did you expect me to react?" she said.
"How would I know what to expect?" he said. "I've never done anything like
this before."
Did you think I would throw myself into your arms?" she said.
"Maybe," he said.
"I'm sorry to disappoint you," she said.
"I'm not disappointed," he said. "I wasn't counting on it. This is very nice, just
walking."
Catharine stopped again. "You know what happens next?" she said.
"Nope," he said.
"We shake hands," she said. "We shake hands and part friends," she said.
"That's what happens next."
Newt nodded. "All right," he said. "Remember me from time to time.
Remember how much I loved you."
Involuntarily, Catharine burst into tears. She turned her back to Newt,
looked into the infinite colonnade of the woods.
"What does that mean?" said Newt.
"Rage!" said Catharine. She clenched her hands. "You have no right--"
"I had to find out," he said.
"If I'd loved you," she said, "I would have let you know before now."
"You would?" he said.
"Yes," she said. She faced him, looked up at him, her face quite red. "You
would have known," she said.
"How?" he said.
"You would have seen it," she said. "Women aren't very clever at hiding it."
Newt looked closely at Catharine's face now. To her consternation, she
realized that what she had said was true, that a woman couldn't hide love.
Newt was seeing love now.
And he did what he had to do. He kissed her.

"You're hell to get along with!" she said when Newt let her go.
"I am?" said Newt.
"You shouldn't have done that," she said.
"You didn't like it?" he said.
 "What did you expect," she said--"wild, abandoned passion?"
"I keep telling you," he said," I never know what's going to happen next."
"We say good-by," she said.
He frowned slightly. "All right," he said.
She made another speech. "I'm not sorry we kissed," she said. "That was
sweet. We should have kissed, we've been so close. I'll always remember you , Newt,
and good luck."
"You too," he said.
"Thirty days," he said.
"What?" she said.
"Thirty days in the stockade," he said--"that's what one kiss will cost me."
"I--I'm sorry," she said, "but I didn't ask you to go A.W.O.L."
"I know," he said.
"You certainly don't deserve any hero's reward for doing something as
foolish as that," she said.
"Must be nice to be a hero," said Newt. "Is Henry Stewart Chasens a hero?"
"He might be, if he got the chance," said Catharine. She noted uneasily that
they had begun to walk again. The farewell had been forgotten.
"You really love him?" he said.
"Certainly I love him!" she said hotly. "I wouldn't marry him if I didn't love
him!"
"What's good about him?" said Newt.
"Honestly!" she cried, stopping again. "Do you have any idea how offensive
you're being? Many, many, many things are good about Henry! Yes," she said, "and
many, many, many things are probably bad, too. But that isn't any of your business. I
love Henry, and I don't have to argue his merits with you!"
"Sorry," said Newt.
"Honestly!" said Catharine.
Newt kissed her again. He kissed her again because she wanted him to.

They were now in a large orchard.

"How did we get so far from home, Newt?" said Catharine.
"One foot in front of the other--through leaves, over bridges," said Newt.
"They add up--the steps," she said.
Bells rang in the tower of the school for the blind nearby.
"School for the blind," said Newt.
"School for the blind," said Catharine. She shook her head in drowsy wonder.
"I've got to go back now," she said.
"Say good-by," said Newt.
"Every time I do," said Catharine, "I seem to get kissed."
Newt sat down on the close-cropped grass under an apple tree. "Sit down,"
he said.
"No," she said.
"I won't touch you," he said.
"I don't believe you," she said.
 She sat down under another tree, twenty feet away from him. She closed her
eyes.
"Dream of Henry Stewart Chasens," he said.
"What?" she said.
"Dream of your wonderful husband-to-be," he said.
"All right, I will," she said. She closed her eyes tighter, caught glimpses of her
husband-to-be.
Newt yawned.
The bees were humming in the trees, and Catharine almost fell asleep. When
she opened her eyes she saw that Newt really was asleep.
He began to snore softly.
Catharine let him sleep for an hour, and while he slept she adored him with
all her heart.
The shadows of the apple trees grew to the east. The bells in the tower of the
school for the blind rang again.
"*chick-a-dee-dee-dee*," went a chickadee.
Somewhere far away an automobile started nagged and failed, nagged and
failed, fell still.
Catharine came out from under her tree, knelt by Newt.
"Newt?" she said.
"H'm?" he said. He opened his eyes.
"Late," she said.
"Hello, Catharine," he said.
"Hello, Newt," she said.
"I love you," he said.
"I know," she said.
"Too late," he said.
"Too late," she said.
He stood, stretched groaningly. "A very nice walk," he said.
"I thought so," she said.
"Part company here?" he said.
"Where will you go?" she said.
"Hitch into town, turn myself in," he said.
"Good luck," she said.
"You too," he said. "Marry me, Catharine?"
"No," she said.
He smiled, stared at her hard for a moment, then walked away quickly.
Catharine watched him grow smaller in the long perspective of shadows and
trees, knew that if he stopped and turned now, if he called to her, she would run to
him. She would have no choice.
Newt did stop. He did turn. He did call. "Catharine," he called.
She ran to him, put her arms around him, could not speak.
 Musical Chairs by Christine V. Lao

On the last day of school, Ms. Munsayac distributed the invitations to Jaymee’s

eighth birthday party. Inside the little pink envelope was a thick, cream-colored card with

the words, “You’re invited!” in pink glitter. The words danced atop a picture of a

brightly colored carousel with five prancing horses, all dainty bejewelled creatures with

small feathery wings on each foot. “A prize for the best dressed princess on the

carousel!”

Jaymee no longer spoke to Heidi, not after the incident involving the pencil box,

but Heidi couldn’t help but smile at the lovely picture. It was magical. It was perfect. It

made Heidi feel that everything was alright, or would be.

“I won’t be there,” Ms. Munsayac said. “I’ll be back home in Tarlac to visit my

parents. But Jaymee’s mom told me she expects to see all of you there. All of you. No

exceptions.”

Tita Karen was Jaymee’s mother. Everyone knew who she was, because she was

always at school. Heidi often saw her chatting with Ms. Munsayac during dismissal time,

and once, even with Dr. Ferrer, the school principal. She was very slim, always in a

simple shift dress, always in pastel colors. She wore pearl stud earrings and soft ballet

flats. She spoke in a gentle voice and rolled her r’s, and when she laughed, she threw

back her head and her long, shoulder length hair fell like a waterfall down her back. Heidi

thought Tita Karen was the prettiest woman she had ever seen.

“Can’t you come to school like Tita Karen?” she once asked her mother.
 “Parents aren’t allowed inside.” Her mother was hunched over the office laptop,

typing numbers into a table.

But Heidi knew the truth. “Tita Karen was there yesterday. We saw her as we

were going out for P.E. She joined us and told us jokes all the way to the covered courts.

Ms. Munsayac was laughing at the jokes too.”

“There are better things to do than trade jokes with your teacher.”

Her mother had not even looked at her throughout their conversation.

Heidi’s mother worked at a doctor’s office in Manila, two trains, a jeepney,

and one tricycle ride away from where they lived. Every day, Heidi waited for her to pick

her up two hours after they had been dismissed. Heidi did not mind. There was time

enough to play with the other girls who were fetched late, and when they were all gone,

she would wander around the pleasant school grounds, the ground staff sweeping away

the day’s fallen leaves in the late afternoon light.

This twilit ease was broken by the vroom-vroom-vroom of a tricycle bearing

her mother. “Didi! Didi!” she would call out, even though Heidi, alerted by the trike’s

rough sound, would be standing on the curb, ready to board. The road home was hot and

muggy, dusty during dry spells, and muddy during rain. There was nothing to say on the

long ride home; the rumble-grumble of the tricycle and honking of cars filled in the space

where words ought to have been.

The smoke and the smog made Heidi’s head ache. Heidi took to watching her

mother, who often fell asleep on the ride home. She was plump, with a small, flat nose

and a double chin. Her stringy hair was often slick with sweat. Her blouses were buttoned
all the way up, but were too tight—her mother was thinner many years ago, when she

had had them made—and so Heidi would try cover the gaps between the buttons with

anything she had on hand: a sweater, a folder, a handkerchief.

Once they had passed the narrow bridge over the creek, Heidi would wake her,

for home was near. They would get off at Aling Celing’s, whom they paid a small fee for

daily dinner rations, which came in a small steel container. “How is the scholar?” Aling

Celing would say, nodding at Heidi. “Doing well, thanks to your help,” Heidi’s mother

invariably said. There were evenings she did not have to hand anything to Aling Celing.

At home, there was always rice, and the piece of fish, the bowl of sayote or

togue from Aling Celing—always more than enough for the two of them—were their

own kind of comfort, different from the quiet ease Heidi felt in her school, but comfort

nonetheless.

Jaymee’s birthday invitation challenged this sense of contentment. As the date

of the party drew near, Heidi could not help but pester her mother about attending.

“No exceptions, Ms. Munsayac said.”

“This isn’t a school party is it?” Heidi’s mother was transcribing a recording

on her laptop.

“No, but—”

“I don’t see why you should go—”

“Why we should go—”

“What do you mean, ‘we’?” Heidi’s mother stopped the tape recorder, took off

her earphones, and looked at Heidi sternly.

 Heidi looked away. “All the other mothers will be there. They always are.”

“But this isn’t a school activity. It’s after the last day of school.”

“But Ms. Munsayac said we should be there. There will be games. And

awards.”

“Awards? What kind of awards?”

“She didn’t say.”

Her mother put on the earphones and turned on the recorder. She began typing

once more. She had stopped asking questions. But she didn’t say no.

Things had been easier when Tita Lany was still around. Tita Lany was Heidi’s

aunt, Dad’s sister. Before she moved to Daly City to teach, she was the principal of the

kindergarten Heidi attended. After class, Heidi went straight to Tita Lany’s office, with

her little sandwich and box of milk. Tita Lany always took her lunch with Heidi, and then

tucked her in for an afternoon nap on the couch in the principal’s office. No one seemed

to mind. It was a small school. Everyone knew Heidi’s father had died when she was very

young. They all doted on her.

At the end of the day, Tita Lany took Heidi home, cooked dinner, and stayed up

until Mom came home. While they waited for Mom, Tita Lany taught Heidi how to make

words from the letters she had learned in class; to add and subtract the numbers she was

taught in school.
 “Didi’s a quick study,” Tita Lany observed one evening, “I think she can make it

to the girls’ school near the plaza.”

“We can’t afford it, Lany. And we can’t keep asking your help. Especially when

you move to America.”

But some of Tita Lany’s girls had received scholarships. Heidi could, too. “What

do you think, Didi?”

Heidi envied the big girls from the school beside the plaza. They looked so smart

in their blue jumpers and white blouses. “Yes!” she shouted, jumping on the bed. “Yes,

yes, yes!”

It was a hot day when Heidi visited the school for the first time. The heat

shimmered on the damp moss that covered the school walls. It was a relief to enter the

administration building: a cool, well-lit structure that, from the inside, seemed to have

been carved from a block of marble. But her mother was uneasy. Heidi could tell,

because she kept smoothing back her hair.

“I should have bought you new shoes,” she muttered.

Heidi looked down, and noticed, for the first time, how wrinkled they looked, and

how dusty. There were some forms to fill. And after, a teacher asked Heidi to follow her

down the hall.

She asked Heidi some questions about herself, her family, the things she liked and

disliked – all too easy, Heidi thought. Then she led Heidi to a small desk with blocks and

puzzles, and asked her to play with them. Time passed by quickly. The teacher smiled at
her as they left the room. “We’re headed for the playground.” Heidi’s heart leapt with

joy.

On the far side was a slide that looked like a castle. Two girls in the blue and

white uniform were climbing the slide. The teacher said Heidi could go and play if she

liked.

Heidi approached them. They were taller, but not by much, and this made her feel

less uncertain. They sat, side by side, on top of the slide, like princesses looking down at

Heidi.

“Hello,” Heidi called out, but they said nothing. Heidi circled the slide and then

decided to join them. But when she had climbed to the top of the slide, the two princesses

only looked at her, and then at each other, their tiny backsides wedged tightly into the top

of the slide.

“Can I join you?”

“No,” they said in union.

Slowly Heidi climbed down the slide, made her way to the empty swing across.

And just when she had settled into it, the princesses slid down, one after the other.

Heidi walked back to the teacher, who had been observing her all this time. They

returned to the lobby where her mother was waiting.

A few weeks later, they called Tita Lany, who was, by then, already in Daly City.

“Like you said. With scholarship.”

“That’s great!” Tita Lany’s voice cackled through the static.

“But they said she needs to make friends.”

 “Don’t we all?”

“I don’t know how I can manage, Lany.”

“You’ll have to, for her sake.”

When they hung up, she turned to Heidi and asked, “You really want to do this?”

Heidi nodded, already imagining herself in the smart blue jumper and crisp white

blouse, playing on the castle-shaped slide in the fairy-tale playground, answering test

after easy test, as her teachers smiled kindly at her.

The day of the party, Heidi’s mother took a leave from work to bring Heidi to

the mall. At the toy store, Heidi chose an ink stamp set for Jaymee – something that Heidi

would have loved to buy for herself – but Mom said it was too small a gift, and bought a

Barbie doll instead.

Their next stop was the children’s section of the department store.

“What do girls wear to parties these days?” Mom asked. “Princess theme.”

The attendant showed them a rack of Disney princess gowns. Mom checked

the tag on one of the dresses.

“We’ll be late,” said Heidi.

“Be patient, Didi. We’ll find the right dress.”

“I don’t want to try any.” What games would they be playing? What would the

prizes be?

But her mother insisted. She asked about party dresses at half-price, and made

Heidi try one dress after the other. None of them seemed to make her happy.
 “We’ll be late.”

“Be patient.”

Heidi thought of cupcakes and cotton candy and realized she was hungry. But

instead she said, “I’m tired.”

Mom stopped riffling through the rack of dresses on sale, and looked at her

angrily. Heidi noticed the fine lines at the edges of Mom’s eyes, and the dark circles

underneath. She had forgotten to put on some powder and lipstick. She looked tired, and

old.

“It’s just a class party. When we have those in school, we all dress like this.”

“Really?”

Heidi was wearing a pair of jeans that Tita Lany had sent her, together with the

pencil box that had caused her so much trouble lately.

“I’m more comfortable in jeans anyway.”

Her mother looked relieved.

“Let’s get you a new shirt. And maybe some baby cologne. You’ll be sweaty

after the ride.”

The train had broken down again, and the guard at the station’s entrance turned

them away. As they boarded a jeep, Heidi wondered why things couldn’t always be as

easy as school.

She had taken to the new school like a duck takes to water. She loved the quiet

classrooms, the orderly school grounds, the well-swept lawns and rows of kalachuchi

trees that lined the well-landscaped pathways. The stories they read in class were unlike
any she had read before, and the math exercises they did calmed her restless mind. She

was often praised by her teachers. And in this school, the teachers were generous with

their praise.

Generosity, Heidi learned, was very important to the school. A few weeks

after school started, the principal sent out a letter requesting each student to bring two

cans of corned beef and a box of juice in tetrapaks for those who had lost their homes

during the last typhoon. During the second quarter, Ms. Munsayac distributed a letter

signed by Tita Karen, soliciting cash donations for the annual PTA fund drive. The third

quarter came with a booklet of 20 tickets each priced at P100, which the students needed

to sell for the school’s social action fund. Her mother bought the corned beef and juice

and sent money to Tita Karen. But when Heidi brought home the tickets, she told Heidi

she would have to sell the tickets herself.

“Go ask Aling Celing if she’d like to buy a few.”

Heidi simply returned the booklet to Ms. Munsayac. She could not bear to ask

anyone this favor.

Why did she find this so difficult? This was not a problem for the others, she

observed. Certainly it wasn’t Gabby’s problem. Gabby brought a box of corned beef and

sold twice the number of tickets required. And Gabby often treated the girls to rounds of

iced tea during recess. She was a great favorite of the girls, and the teachers always

praised her for being so friendly.

“That’s a nice lunch bag,” Gabby would say, fingering the strap of Heidi’s

new bag; or, “I had a pencil like that once,” she’d recall, picking up Heidi’s only

mechanical pencil. She’d hang around a bit, as though waiting for Heidi to say
something--perhaps ask if she could join them--but Heidi never did. So Gabby and her

friends—Jaymee was Gabby’s best friend—would leave Heidi in the classroom,

sometimes taking with them a pencil or eraser that they particularly admired. More often

than not, the borrowed things would make their way back to Heidi by the end of the day,

sometimes with a note saying, “Thank you for letting me borrow.”

But sometimes they didn’t. On those days, Heidi’s stomach would be all tied

up in knots. Because no matter how tired she was from work, her mother never failed to

check Heidi’s things. It upset her when Heidi came home a pencil or crayon short.

“Where is it?”

“With Gabby.”

“She took it?”

“She borrowed it.”

“Did you ask her to return it?”

“No.”

“Ask her to return it.” Sternly. Then, softly: “You can do it. You’re so much

braver than I am.”

The jeepney dropped them off at Gate 1. Heidi’s mother handed over her

company ID to the guard on duty.

The children’s party?” he said, eyeing the gift-wrapped present tucked under

her arm.
 She nodded. “How far from the gate?”

“Five houses. Best to get a tricycle – one of those that carries the village

sticker.” He showed them a sample. “We don’t let the others in.”

“That’s nothing,” she said. And Heidi agreed.

But soon they realized they were wrong. They walked and walked and still

they were unable to see the second of five houses. Heidi felt the sweat trickle down her

new shirt. Her legs felt hot inside her jeans.

Suddenly, the familiar roar of a tricycle from behind them. The guard, the

tricycle driver said, had asked him to come after them. They rode in silence as the tricycle

made its way down the wide village street.

Finally, they stopped by a towering green gate, half-open. A group of men sat

on a bench right beside it, watching the cars parked on the vacant lot across. Heidi

clambered down the tricycle and waited for her mother to follow. But all she did was

hand Heidi the gift.

“Didi, if I come with you, we wouldn’t have a tricycle to bring us back to the

gate.”

Heidi did not understand.

“It’s easier to get us a tricycle if I wait outside the village.”

“Please come in,” one of the men said to them. “The guests are all inside.”

“Can you please make sure she is taken care of?”

The man took Heidi by the hand.

“Don’t worry,” Mom called out. I’ll be back at 6:30.”

 Heidi followed the tricycle as it vroomed away, her eyes filling with tears.

“Your classmates are already inside,” the man said kindly. “Don’t cry. Look!”

And that’s when the stilt walkers appeared. Some of them juggled little colored

balls, others made merry noises with whistles of every shape and size. “Welcome to

Jaymee’s eighth birthday party!” they cried.

A circus girl lifted Heidi overhead. Heidi found herself among feathers and

colorful pillows, inside a sedan lifted by four stilt walkers. From her moving perch she

enjoyed a bird’s eye view of the party. At the far end of the garden, a group of boys,

dressed like princes, were playing with a big black dog that jumped in and out of a hula-

hoop, and performed other tricks. On the other side of the garden, little girls in floor

length gowns were taking turns riding real ponies. A carousel at the center of the garden

played sweet music as it went round and round and round.

The stilt walkers let Heidi down by the carousel. “This is as far as we go,”

said the circus girl, “Enjoy the party.”

“Didi? Is that you?”

From behind the carousel, a woman in a silver-colored wig, a glittery mask,

and a ball gown the color of the moon. Heidi was so bedazzled by the sight of her, she

failed to recognize who it was.

“I’m so glad you made it. Ms. Munsayac thought you might not come,” Tita

Karen said, as she took Heidi’s gift.

Heidi was tongue-tied, transfixed by everything around her. The little girls

running past her wore make up; the little boys wore pomade on their hair.
 Tita Karen led her inside a tent, big, white, and airconditioned. “Ladies,” she

said to the women inside, “this is Didi.”

“Oh,” one of the ladies said.

They all looked thin and willowy. They all wore candy-colored shift dresses.

They were all fully made-up. Heidi could not tell one apart from the other.

“The girls are done with merienda,” Tita Karen explained, “They’re enjoying

the games in the garden. You can join them when you’re done.”

She led Heidi to the buffet table at the far end of the tent. On it, were two small

mountains of chicken lollipops, two pineapples skewered with sticks of pork barbecue,

and a bed of red and yellow stuff inside a long silver tub. Heidi had not seen anything

like it before. It smelled delicious.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Lasagna.”

Heidi liked the way the word sounded, repeated it, liked the way it rolled

around her mouth.

She realized then that the room had turned quiet.

“It’s Jaymee’s favorite,” Tita Karen said, breaking the silence. “We have it so

often, I’m actually sick of it.” She asked the waiter to cut a hefty slice for Heidi.

“It’s just like spaghetti. But better,” one of the mothers said from across the

room.

She was right. It was rich and warm, soft and comforting, sour and sweet,

buttery and cheesy. Heidi knew this was something Aling Celling wouldn’t ever be able
to make. She took one bite after the other, forgetting everything but the dish before her.

She did not even notice that one of the mothers had approached.

“Didi, right?” said the lady in the cherry red shift. “I’m Gabby’s mom.”

Heidi felt the weight of all eyes on her.

“Is your mom here?” the woman said. “I’d like to speak to her.”

Heidi shot up from her seat, pulling the table cloth with her. As she ran out the

tent, she heard her plate crash to the floor.

“Oh,” she heard one of the painted women say, very softly.

Heidi had hoped Mom wouldn’t notice that the new pencil case was missing. But

Mom noticed everything, forgot nothing.

“This is the same girl who took your mechanical pencil?”

“Yes.”

“And the yellow eraser?”

“Yes.”

But this time, Heidi wanted to say, this time was different. The pencil box wasn’t

taken from her, she had given it away. But she couldn’t find the words to explain what

had happened, why she had felt that giving Gabby the pencil case was the right thing to

do – what she had wanted to do. Her mother had asked so many questions, none of which

seemed to fit the answers Heidi wanted to give.

 During recess, Gabby came by her table with two cups of iced tea. “My birthday.

Got everyone some iced tea,” she said, setting down a cold cup on Heidi’s desk. “Just

making sure you got one too,” she said, gulping down her drink.

Something in the way Gabby had given her the drink reminded her of Tita Karen,

who had, not too long before that, dropped in one day with a tray of chocolate cupcakes

with pink frosting and tiny pearl sprinkles.

“Thank you,” Heidi said, after sipping some of her tea.

“Is that a new pencil case? I haven’t seen that before.” Gabby looked at the new

pencil box on her desk. It came in the last box Tita Lany had sent Heidi from Daly City.

“It’s new.”

“Can I borrow it?”

“You can have it,” Heidi said, in her most grown-up voice. It seemed like the

correct thing to say, the most gracious, the most generous. “It’s your birthday after all.

Besides, I have another one at home.”

Gabby whooped with joy. Together, they emptied the pencil case. Heidi gathered

the homeless pencils and erasers and placed them inside a pocket of her bag.

“Thank you,” Gabby said, as she ran out the door with her empty cup in one

hand, and Heidi’s pencil case in the other. Heidi smiled as the other girls gathered around

Gabby, admiring the pencil case they had failed to notice when it was sitting on her desk.

“You can’t let them treat you this way, Didi,” Mom said, her voice suddenly soft,

her arms drawing Heidi into a hug.

 “I can handle it,” Heidi whispered, though she still did not understand how she

had been hurt, or why.

“You get that pencil box back.”

“Yes.” Heidi felt a tear roll down her cheek. She brushed it off quickly.

“Good girl,” Mom said, rubbing her back with long strokes. “You’re so much

braver than I am.”

Heidi did not feel very brave when she spied her pencil box on Gabby’s desk.

It was only a pencil box, a small matter she wanted to forget about. But she had promised

to get it back.

At recess, Gabby and Jaymee, stopped by Heidi’s desk. “Would you like to

come with us, Didi? We’re going to the canteen.”

Heidi shook her head, began clearing her desk.

When they had gone, Heidi went up to Gabby’s desk, emptied the pencil box,

and left the note she had prepared the night before, which said:

“Thanks for returning my pencil case.”

When Gabby read the note, she sat in her seat and said nothing. Heidi heaved a

sigh of relief and placed the pencil box she had recovered on her desk. But when

Jaymee saw the pencil box on Heidi’s desk, she said, “Why do you have Gabby’s pencil

box?”

Heidi said nothing. Ms. Munsayac had already entered the room. She took out

her notebook and began copying the lesson on the board, but she couldn’t concentrate
properly. She felt that the other girls were looking at her. Jaymee approached Ms.

Munsayac, and pointed at Heidi. Heidi swiftly hid the pencil box inside her bag. She felt

sick.

When the bell rang, Ms. Munsayac asked Heidi to stay behind.

“Jaymee said you have somebody else’s pencil box in your bag. Is that true?”

Heidi shook her head and tried to be brave. “It’s mine,” she wanted to say, but

she could only cry.

Ms. Munsayac took away the pencil case. Heidi had done something serious,

she said. Of course, she would be calling Heidi’s mother.

But when her mother came to fetch her, Ms. Munsayac was not mentioned at

all. All evening, Heidi waited to be asked about the pencil case. But she wasn’t.

“Go to bed,” was all her mother said to Heidi.

The next day, Ms. Munsayac returned the pencil box. “I’m sorry I didn’t notice

what Gabby was doing to you. I’ll be speaking to Gabby and her parents, like I promised

your mom. It won’t happen again.”

She found her classmates at the pavilion, all dressed in Disney Princess outfits.

Cinderellas, Snow Whites, Ariels, Auroras, and Belles—they were all seated in a semi-

circle, squealing in laughter. Gabby was dressed as Cinderella; Heidi could not take her

eyes off her glass slippers. Jaymee, the celebrant, wore a tiny tiara. She was dressed as

Belle, but even Heidi could see that the material from which her gold gown was made
was much more special than the other girls’ dresses. The princesses were in the middle

of a quiz bee.

“I want to join,” she whispered to the lady assisting the party host.

“Oh sweetheart, wait for the next game. This one’s almost over.”

And so Heidi waited as her friends battled it out. In the end, Jaymee won, and

all the contestants blew air kisses at each other. Everyone clapped, and shouted, “Happy

birthday, Jaymee!”

Jaymee smiled, as she ran back to the tent with the rest of the girls. Heidi

considered following them, but then she was called to join the next game.

She realized immediately that the girls she would be competing against were

so much younger than she was. They were no more than babies. Their nannies trailed

after them anxiously.

The game, it turned out, was Musical Chairs. Heidi didn’t need to listen to the

host explain that they would be going round and round looking for a space to sit on. That

it was just like going on a carousel, but the one without a seat would not be able to ride.

They played the sweet tinkling music that the carousel played, and Heidi

walked round and round, imagining herself an adult among children. The music stopped,

and Heidi knew what to do. The other kids didn’t. This was all new to them. Their

nannies screamed: “Find a chair!”

Heidi realized, she could win this. Every step, she took deliberately, always

positioning herself in front of a seat. When the music stopped, all she needed to do was

sit. There was no chance she could lose.

 One by one, the chairs were removed, and the ring around them grew smaller

and smaller, until there remained only Heidi, and the littlest princess, a toddler in a gold

and pink gown.

Heidi studied the competition, wondering how she had lasted as far as she did.

The little girl did not seem very smart or interested in winning.

“Come on, Sab, you can do it! Eyes on the prize!”

Heidi saw the child’s mother, a young woman in a pale pink shift clapping her

hands, encouraging the little one on.

“Sab! Sab! Sab!” the crowd began to chant.

Heidi looked at the child--so adorable in her pink and gold gown, her blush-

colored lipstick, her tiny crown--and felt anger rise from her belly, and constrict her

throat.

When the music played, little Sab planted herself in front of the chair and

began to dance the Macarena. The crowd began to laugh. Heidi tried to push her gently so

that they could finish the game. Sab looked up at Heidi and chuckled. And for the briefest

of moments, Heidi smiled at the little one. Sab took a step forward. Heidi stepped

forward too.

And then the music stopped. Heidi sat down on the remaining chair. Sab lost

her balance and fell. The crowd gasped. Little Sab’s mother ran to the stage. But when

she got there, Saab announced, “Booboo not hurt.”

The crowd cheered. Sab and her mommy went down the stage.

The host thanked Heidi for being such a good sport, and handed her a toy

balloon.
 Heidi wandered around the garden, watching the sights. She rode the carousel

twice, and visited the black dog. But she didn’t join the girls on the prancing ponies, no.

At six o’clock, the stilt walkers reappeared, carrying a three-tier cake with a

rotating carousel topper on the palanquin. They set it down on the stage where the games

had been played. Heidi hung back from the little princes and princesses singing the

birthday song. The sun had begun to set, and Heidi noticed how, though the stage seemed

too brightly lit, the garden was too rapidly embraced by shadow.

The birthday song ended, pictures were taken. Still, Heidi hung back, and no

one seemed to notice. Not the mothers and nannies clicking their point-and-shoots and

cellphone cameras; not the waiters clearing away the stray plates and goblets. The host

asked the children to fall in line, to bow or curtsey in front of Jaymee, and receive a token

in exchange. Heidi considered approaching the stage but thought the better of it, seeing,

for the first time, that she was the only child who was not in a costume.

Was it the end?

Oh, no, the host said, one last thing! There were just too many goodies, we

almost forgot this one! He called the stilt walkers back, one last time.

This time, they carried with them a beautiful papier mache horse in pink,

turquoise and gold glitter. A golden horn protruded from the centre of its forehead, and

two gilt wings, from its back.

Heidi thought it was the most magical thing she had ever seen.

Jaymee was called onstage, blindfolded, and given a bat.

 Heidi watched them turn Jaymee round and round; how Jaymee aimed at the

air once, twice, and broke nothing; and finally, when they fixed her aim, how she broke

the paper horse, first at the neck, and then at the chest. A shower of sweets, glitter, coins.

The crowd surged forward.

A little prince walked off wearing the horse’s head. The horn had broken off.

Not too long after, the crowd disappeared.

All that was left of the paper horse was a broken wing.

“Pick that up and throw it in the trash.”

It took a moment before Heidi realized that the woman with the broom was

talking to her.

Obediently, she picked up the wing, and a few other ribbons left on the stage.

The host’s assistant hissed at the woman who had ordered her about, whispered a few

harsh words to her. The woman shrugged and turned away from Heidi.

Where was her mother? Her nanny? Did she need a phone to call or text them?

“They are on their way, thanks,” Heidi said to the assistant, clutching her little

balloon and the broken wing tightly to her chest.

She did not dare to walk to the gate, where Tita Karen and Jaymee were still

seeing the last stragglers off, and so followed the staff to the kitchen and from there, by

following the caterer, found her way to the service gate.

The guard at the service gate gave her no trouble. Out on the curb, Heidi heard

the familiar sound of a tricycle approaching. She followed the sound down the long road

snaking into the darkness. Now that she knew who she was and where, the trip back

would take much longer.

“Didi! Didi!”

The sound of her mother’s voice broke her heart.

She was tired, so very, very tired.

Bravely, she put on her happiest smile.

 Bibliographic Information

“Musical Chairs” was published in BANWA: The Multidisciplinary Journal of UP

Mindanao. LAO, CHRISTINE. 2016. “Musical Chairs” (fiction). Banwa 12A:
LIT005. http://ojs.upmin.edu.ph/index.php/banwa-a/article/download/210/322.

Biographical Note

Christine V. Lao studied creative writing at the University of the Philippines. Her
stories have appeared in the anthologies Heat: A Southeast Asian Urban
Anthology; Maximum Volume: Best New Philippine Fiction 2014; Lauriat: A
Filipino-Chinese Speculative Fiction Anthology; and Philippine Speculative
Fiction. Her stories have also been published in Expanded Horizons; BANWA;
Philippine Genre Stories; Philippine Graphic; and Philippines Free Press. Ms.
Lao was a fellow for fiction at the 50th Silliman University National Writers’
Workshop.
ZITA
by Arturo B. Rotor

TURONG brought him from Pauambang in his small sailboat, for the coastwise
steamer did not stop at any little island of broken cliffs and coconut palms. It was
almost midday; they had been standing in that white glare where the tiniest pebble
and fluted conch had become points of light, piercing-bright--the municipal
president, the parish priest, Don Eliodoro who owned almost all the coconuts, the
herb doctor, the village character. Their mild surprise over when he spoke in their
native dialect, they looked at him more closely and his easy manner did not deceive
them. His head was uncovered and he had a way of bringing the back of his hand to
his brow or mouth; they read behind that too, it was not a gesture of protection. "An
exile has come to Anayat… and he is so young, so young." So young and lonely and
sufficient unto himself. There was no mistaking the stamp of a strong decision on
that brow, the brow of those who have to be cold and haughty, those shoulders
stooped slightly, less from the burden that they bore than from a carefully cultivated
air of unconcern; no common school-teacher could dress so carelessly and not
appear shoddy.

They had prepared a room for him in Don Eliodoro's house so that he would not
have to walk far to school every morning, but he gave nothing more than a glance at
the big stone building with its Spanish azotea, its arched doorways, its flagged
courtyard. He chose instead Turong's home, a shaky hut near the sea. Was the sea
rough and dangerous at times? He did not mind it. Was the place far from the church
and the schoolhouse? The walk would do him good. Would he not feel lonely with
nobody but an illiterate fisherman for a companion? He was used to living alone.
And they let him do as he wanted, for the old men knew that it was not so much the
nearness of the sea that he desired as its silence so that he might tell it secrets he
could not tell anyone else.

They thought of nobody but him; they talked about him in the barber shop, in the
cockpit, in the sari-sari store, the way he walked, the way he looked at you, his
unruly hair. They dressed him in purple and linen, in myth and mystery, put him
astride a black stallion, at the wheel of a blue automobile. Mr. Reteche? Mr. Reteche!
The name suggested the fantasy and the glitter of a place and people they never
would see; he was the scion of a powerful family, a poet and artist, a prince.

That night, Don Eliodoro had the story from his daughter of his first day in the
classroom; she perched wide-eyed, low-voiced, short of breath on the arm of his
chair.

"He strode into the room, very tall and serious and polite, stood in front of us and
looked at us all over and yet did not seem to see us.
" 'Good morning, teacher,' we said timidly.

"He bowed as if we were his equals. He asked for the fist of our names and as he
read off each one we looked at him long. When he came to my name, Father, the
most surprising thing happened. He started pronouncing it and then he stopped as if
he had forgotten something and just stared and stared at the paper in his hand. I
heard my name repeated three times through his half-closed lips, 'Zita. Zita. Zita.'

" 'Yes sir, I am Zita.'

"He looked at me uncomprehendingly, inarticulate, and it seemed to me, Father, it

actually seemed that he was begging me to tell him that that was not my name, that I
was deceiving him. He looked so miserable and sick I felt like sinking down or
running away.

" 'Zita is not your name; it is just a pet name, no?'

" 'My father has always called me that, sir.'

" 'It can't be; maybe it is Pacita or Luisa or--'

"His voice was scarcely above a whisper, Father, and all the while he looked at me
begging, begging. I shook my head determinedly. My answer must have angered
him. He must have thought I was very hard-headed, for he said, 'A thousand miles,
Mother of Mercy… it is not possible.' He kept on looking at me; he was hurt perhaps
that he should have such a stubborn pupil. But I am not really so, Father?"

"Yes, you are, my dear. But you must try to please him, he is a gentleman; he comes
from the city. I was thinking… Private lessons, perhaps, if he won't ask too much."
Don Eliodoro had his dreams and she was his only daughter.

Turong had his own story to tell in the barber shop that night, a story as vividly
etched as the lone coconut palm in front of the shop that shot up straight into the
darkness of the night, as vaguely disturbing as the secrets that the sea whispered
into the night.

"He did not sleep a wink, I am sure of it. When I came from the market the stars
were already out and I saw that he had not touched the food I had prepared. I asked
him to eat and he said he was not hungry. He sat by the window that faces the sea
and just looked out hour after hour. I woke up three times during the night and saw
that he had not so much as changed his position. I thought once that he was asleep
and came near, but he motioned me away. When I awoke at dawn to prepare the
nets, he was still there."

"Maybe he wants to go home already." They looked up with concern.

"He is sick. You remember Father Fernando? He had a way of looking like that, into
space, seeing nobody, just before he died."

Every month there was a letter that came for him, sometimes two or three; large,
blue envelopes with a gold design in the upper left hand comer, and addressed in
broad, angular, sweeping handwriting. One time Turong brought one of them to him
in the classroom. The students were busy writing a composition on a subject that he
had given them, "The Things That I Love Most." Carelessly he had opened the letter,
carelessly read it, and carelessly tossed it aside. Zita was all aflutter when the
students handed in their work for he had promised that he would read aloud the
best. He went over the pile two times, and once again, absently, a deep frown on his
brow, as if he were displeased with their work. Then he stopped and picked up one.
Her heart sank when she saw that it was not hers, she hardly heard him reading:

"I did not know any better. Moths are not supposed to know; they only come to the
light. And the light looked so inviting, there was no resisting it. Moths are not
supposed to know, one does not even know one is a moth until one's wings are
burned."

It was incomprehensible, no beginning, no end. It did not have unity, coherence,

emphasis. Why did he choose that one? What did he see in it? And she had worked
so hard, she had wanted to please, she had written about the flowers that she loved
most. Who could have written what he had read aloud? She did not know that any of
her classmates could write so, use such words, sentences, use a blue paper to write
her lessons on.

But then there was little in Mr. Reteche that the young people there could
understand. Even his words were so difficult, just like those dark and dismaying
things that they came across in their readers, which took them hour after hour in the
dictionary. She had learned like a good student to pick out the words she did not
recognize, writing them down as she heard them, but it was a thankless task. She
had a whole notebook filled now, two columns to each page:

esurient greedy.
amaranth a flower that never fades.
peacock a large bird with lovely gold and
green feathers.
mirash The last word was not in the dictionary.

And what did such things as original sin, selfishness, insatiable, actress of a
thousand faces mean, and who were Sirse, Lorelay, other names she could not find
anywhere? She meant to ask him someday, someday when his eyes were kinder.

He never went to church, but then, that always went with learning and education,
did it not? One night Bue saw him coming out of the dim doorway. He watched again
and the following night he saw him again. They would not believe it, they must see it
with their own eyes and so they came. He did not go in every night, but he could be
seen at the most unusual hours, sometimes at dusk, sometimes at dawn, once when
it was storming and the lightning etched ragged paths from heaven to earth.
Sometimes he stayed for a few minutes, sometimes he came twice or thrice in one
evening. They reported it to Father Cesareo but it seemed that he already knew. "Let
a peaceful man alone in his prayers." The answer had surprised them.

The sky hangs over Anayat, in the middle of the Anayat Sea, like an inverted
wineglass, a glass whose wine had been spilled, a purple wine of which Anayat was
the last precious drop. For that is Anayat in the crepuscule, purple and mellow,
sparkling and warm and effulgent when there is a moon, cool and heady and
sensuous when there is no moon.

One may drink of it and forget what lies beyond a thousand miles, beyond a
thousand years; one may sip it at the top of a jagged cliff, nearer peace, nearer God,
where one can see the ocean dashing against the rocks in eternal frustration, more
moving, more terrible than man's; or touch it to his lips in the lush shadows of the
dama de noche, its blossoms iridescent like a thousand fireflies, its bouquet the
fragrance of flowers that know no fading.

Zita sat by her open window, half asleep, half dreaming. Francisco B. Reteche; what
a name! What could his nickname be. Paking, Frank, Pa… The night lay silent and
expectant, a fairy princess waiting for the whispered words of a lover. She was not a
bit sleepy; already she had counted three stars that had fallen to earth, one almost
directly into that bush of dama de noche at their garden gate, where it had lighted
the lamps of a thousand fireflies. He was not so forbidding now, he spoke less
frequently to himself, more frequently to her; his eyes were still unseeing, but now
they rested on her. She loved to remember those moments she had caught him
looking when he thought she did not know. The knowledge came keenly, bitingly,
like the sea breeze at dawn, like the prick of the rose's thorn, or--yes, like the purple
liquid that her father gave the visitors during pintakasi which made them red and
noisy. She had stolen a few drops one day, because she wanted to know, to taste, and
that little sip had made her head whirl.

Suddenly she stiffened; a shadow had emerged from the shrubs and had been lost in
the other shadows. Her pulses raced, she strained forward. Was she dreaming? Who
was it? A lost soul, an unvoiced thought, the shadow of a shadow, the prince from his
tryst with the fairy princess? What were the words that he whispered to her?

They who have been young once say that only youth can make youth forget itself;
that life is a river bed; the water passes over it, sometimes it encounters obstacles
and cannot go on, sometimes it flows unencumbered with a song in every bubble
and ripple, but always it goes forward. When its way is obstructed it burrows deeply
or swerves aside and leaves its impression, and whether the impress will be shallow
and transient, or deep and searing, only God determines. The people remembered
the day when he went up Don Eliodoro's house, the light of a great decision in his
eyes, and finally accepted the father's request that he teach his daughter "to be a
lady."

"We are going to the city soon, after the next harvest perhaps; I want her not to feel
like a 'provinciana' when we get there."

They remembered the time when his walks by the seashore became less solitary, for
now of afternoons, he would draw the whole crowd of village boys from their game
of leapfrog or patintero and bring them with him. And they would go home hours
after sunset with the wonderful things that Mr. Reteche had told them, why the sea
is green, the sky blue, what one who is strong and fearless might find at that exact
place where the sky meets the sea. They would be flushed and happy and bright-
eyed, for he could stand on his head longer than any of them, catch more crabs, send
a pebble skimming over the breast of Anayat Bay farthest.

Turong still remembered those ominous, terrifying nights when he had got up cold
and trembling to listen to the aching groan of the bamboo floor, as somebody in the
other room restlessly paced to and fro. And his pupils still remember those
mornings he received their flowers, the camia which had fainted away at her own
fragrance, the kampupot, with the night dew still trembling in its heart; receive
them with a smile and forget the lessons of the day and tell them all about those
princesses and fairies who dwelt in flowers; why the dama de noche must have the
darkness of the night to bring out its fragrance; how the petals of the ylang-ylang,
crushed and soaked in some liquid, would one day touch the lips of some wondrous
creature in some faraway land whose eyes were blue and hair golden.

Those were days of surprises for Zita. Box after box came in Turong's sailboat and
each time they contained things that took the words from her lips. Silk as sheer and
perishable as gossamer, or heavy and shiny and tinted like the sunset sky; slippers
with bright stones which twinkled with the least movement of her feet; a necklace of
green, flat, polished stone, whose feel against her throat sent a curious choking
sensation there; perfume that she must touch her lips with. If only there would
always be such things in Turong's sailboat, and none of those horrid blue envelopes
that he always brought. And yet--the Virgin have pity on her selfish soul--suppose
one day Turong brought not only those letters but the writer as well? She
shuddered, not because she feared it but because she knew it would be.

"Why are these dresses so tight fitting?" Her father wanted to know.

"In society, women use clothes to reveal, not to hide." Was that a sneer or a smile in
his eyes? The gown showed her arms and shoulders and she had never known how
round and fair they were, how they could express so many things.

"Why do these dresses have such bright colors?"

"Because the peacock has bright feathers."

"They paint their lips…"

"So that they can smile when they do not want to."

"And their eyelashes are long."

"To hide deception."

He was not pleased like her father; she saw it, he had turned his face toward the
window. And as she came nearer, swaying like a lily atop its stalk she heard the
harsh, muttered words:

"One would think she'd feel shy or uncomfortable, but no… oh no… not a bit… all
alike… comes naturally."

There were books to read; pictures, names to learn; lessons in everything; how to
polish the nails, how to use a fan, even how to walk. How did these days come, how
did they go? What does one do when one is so happy, so breathless? Sometimes they
were a memory, sometimes a dream.

"Look, Zita, a society girl does not smile so openly; her eyes don't seek one's so--that
reveals your true feelings."

"But if I am glad and happy and I want to show it?"

"Don't. If you must show it by smiling, let your eyes be mocking; if you would invite
with your eyes, repulse with your lips."

That was a memory.

She was in a great drawing room whose floor was so polished it reflected the myriad
red and green and blue fights above, the arches of flowers and ribbons and
streamers. All the great names of the capital were there, stately ladies in wonderful
gowns who walked so, waved their fans so, who said one thing with their eyes and
another with their lips. And she was among them and every young and good-looking
man wanted to dance with her. They were all so clever and charming but she
answered: "Please, I am tired." For beyond them she had seen him alone, he whose
eyes were dark and brooding and disapproving and she was waiting for him to take
her.

That was a dream. Sometimes though, she could not tell so easily which was the
dream and which the memory.
If only those letters would not bother him now, he might be happy and at peace.
True he never answered them, but every time Turong brought him one, he would
still become thoughtful and distracted. Like that time he was teaching her a dance, a
Spanish dance, he said, and had told her to dress accordingly. Her heavy hair hung in
a big, carelessly tied knot that always threatened to come loose but never did; its
dark, deep shadows showing off in startling vividness how red a rose can be, how
like velvet its petals. Her earrings--two circlets of precious stones, red like the
pigeon's blood--almost touched her shoulders. The heavy Spanish shawl gave her
the most trouble--she had nothing to help her but some pictures and magazines--she
could not put it on just as she wanted. Like this, it revealed her shoulder too much;
that way, it hampered the free movement of the legs. But she had done her best; for
hours she had stood before her mirror and for hours it had told her that she was
beautiful, that red lips and tragic eyes were becoming to her.

She'd never forget that look on his face when she came out. It was not surprise, joy,
admiration. It was as if he saw somebody there whom he was expecting, for whom
he had waited, prayed.

"Zita!" It was a cry of recognition.

She blushed even under her rouge when he took her in his arms and taught her to
step this way, glide so, turn about; she looked half questioningly at her father for
disapproval, but she saw that there was nothing there but admiration too. Mr.
Reteche seemed so serious and so intent that she should learn quickly; but he did
not deceive her, for once she happened to lean close and she felt how wildly his
heart was beating. It frightened her and she drew away, but when she saw how
unconcerned he seemed, as if he did not even know that she was in his arms, she
smiled knowingly and drew close again. Dreamily she closed her eyes and dimly
wondered if his were shut too, whether he was thinking the same thoughts,
breathing the same prayer.

Turong came up and after his respectful "Good evening" he handed an envelope to
the school teacher. It was large and blue and had a gold design in one comer; the
handwriting was broad, angular, sweeping.

"Thank you, Turong." His voice was drawling, heavy, the voice of one who has just
awakened. With one movement he tore the unopened envelope slowly,
unconsciously, it seemed to her, to pieces.

"I thought I had forgotten," he murmured dully.

That changed the whole evening. His eyes lost their sparkle, his gaze wandered from
time to time. Something powerful and dark had come between them, something
which shut out the light, brought in a chill. The tears came to her eyes for she felt
utterly powerless. When her sight cleared she saw that he was sitting down and
trying to piece the letter together.
"Why do you tear up a letter if you must put it together again?" rebelliously.

He looked at her kindly. "Someday, Zita, you will do it too, and then you will
understand."

One day Turong came from Pauambang and this time he brought a stranger. They
knew at once that he came from where the teacher came--his clothes, his features,
his politeness--and that he had come for the teacher. This one did not speak their
dialect, and as he was led through the dusty, crooked streets, he kept forever wiping
his face, gazing at the wobbly, thatched huts and muttering short, vehement phrases
to himself. Zita heard his knock before Mr. Reteche did and she knew what he had
come for. She must have been as pale as her teacher, as shaken, as rebellious. And
yet the stranger was so cordial; there was nothing but gladness in his greeting,
gladness at meeting an old friend. How strong he was; even at that moment he did
not forget himself, but turned to his class and dismissed them for the day.

The door was thick and she did not dare lean against the jamb too much, so
sometimes their voices floated away before they reached her.

"…like children… making yourselves… so unhappy."

"…happiness? Her idea of happiness…"

Mr. Reteche's voice was more low-pitched, hoarse, so that it didn't carry at all. She
shuddered as he laughed, it was that way when he first came.

"She's been… did not mean… understand."

"…learning to forget…"

There were periods when they both became excited and talked fast and hard; she
heard somebody's restless pacing, somebody sitting down heavily.

"I never realized what she meant to me until I began trying to seek from others what
she would not give me."

She knew what was coming now, knew it before the stranger asked the question:

"Tomorrow?"

She fled; she could not wait for the answer.

He did not sleep that night, she knew he did not, she told herself fiercely. And it was
not only his preparations that kept him awake, she knew it, she knew it. With the
first flicker of light she ran to her mirror. She must not show her feeling, it was not
in good form, she must manage somehow. If her lips quivered, her eyes must smile,
if in her eyes there were tears… She heard her father go out, but she did not go;
although she knew his purpose, she had more important things to do. Little boys
came up to the house and she wiped away their tears and told them that he was
coming back, coming back, soon, soon.

The minutes flew, she was almost done now; her lips were red and her eyebrows
penciled; the crimson shawl thrown over her shoulders just right. Everything must
be like that day he had first seen her in a Spanish dress. Still he did not come, he
must be bidding farewell now to Father Cesareo; now he was in Doñ a Ramona's
house; now he was shaking the barber's hand. He would soon be through and come
to her house. She glanced at the mirror and decided that her lips were not red
enough; she put on more color. The rose in her hair had too long a stem; she tried to
trim it with her fingers and a thorn dug deeply into her flesh.

Who knows? Perhaps they would soon meet again in the city; she wondered if she
could not wheedle her father into going earlier. But she must know now what were
the words he had wanted to whisper that night under the dama de noche, what he
had wanted to say that day he held her in his arms; other things, questions whose
answers she knew. She smiled. How well she knew them!

The big house was silent as death; the little village seemed deserted, everybody had
gone to the seashore. Again she looked at the mirror. She was too pale, she must put
on more rouge. She tried to keep from counting the minutes, the seconds, from
getting up and pacing. But she was getting chilly and she must do it to keep warm.

The steps creaked. She bit her lips to stifle a wild cry there. The door opened.

"Turong!"

"Mr. Reteche bade me give you this. He said you would understand."

In one bound she had reached the open window. But dimly, for the sun was too
bright, or was her sight failing?--she saw a blur of white moving out to sea, then
disappearing behind a point of land so that she could no longer follow it; and then,
clearly against a horizon suddenly drawn out of perspective, "Mr. Reteche," tall, lean,
brooding, looking at her with eyes that told her somebody had hurt him. It was like
that when he first came, and now he was gone. The tears came freely now. What
matter, what matter? There was nobody to see and criticize her breeding. They
came down unchecked and when she tried to brush them off with her hand, the
color came away too from her cheeks, leaving them bloodless, cold. Sometimes they
got into her mouth and they tasted bitter.

Her hands worked convulsively; there was a sound of tearing paper, once, twice. She
became suddenly aware of what she had done when she looked at the pieces, wet
and brightly stained with uneven streaks of red. Slowly, painfully, she tried to put
the pieces together and as she did so a sob escaped deep from her breast--a great
understanding had come to her.
FAITH, LOVE, TIME AND DR. LAZARO
Greg Brillantes

From the upstairs veranda, Dr. Lazaro had a view of stars, the country darkness, the
lights on the distant highway at the edge of town. The phonograph in the sala played
Chopin – like a vast sorrow controlled, made familiar, he had wont to think. But as
he sat there, his lean frame in the habitual slack repose took after supper, and stared
at the plains of night that had evoked gentle images and even a kind of peace (in the
end, sweet and invincible oblivion), Dr. Lazaro remembered nothing, his mind lay
untouched by any conscious thought, he was scarcely aware of the April heat; the
pattern of music fell around him and dissolved swiftly, uncomprehended. It was as
though indifference were an infection that had entered his blood it was everywhere
in his body. In the scattered light from the sala his angular face had a dusty, wasted
quality, only his eyes contained life. He could have remained there all evening,
unmoving, and buried, it is were, in a strange half-sleep, had his wife not come to tell
him he was wanted on the phone.

Gradually his mind stirred, focused; as he rose from the chair he recognized the
somber passage in the sonata that, curiosly, made him think of ancient monuments,
faded stone walls, a greyness. The brain filed away an image; and arrangement of
sounds released it… He switched off the phonograph, suppressed and impatient
quiver in his throat as he reached for the phone: everyone had a claim on his time.
He thought: Why not the younger ones for a change? He had spent a long day at the
provincial hospital.

The man was calling from a service station outside the town – the station after the
agricultural high school, and before the San Miguel bridge, the man added rather
needlessly, in a voice that was frantic yet oddly subdued and courteous. Dr. Lazaro
thad heard it countless times, in the corridors of the hospitals, in waiting rooms: the
perpetual awkward misery. He was Pedro Esteban, the brother of the doctor’s
tenant in Nambalan, said the voice, trying to make itself less sudden remote.

But the connection was faulty, there was a humming in the wires, as though
darkness had added to the distance between the house in the town and the gas
station beyond the summer fields. Dr. Lazaro could barely catch the severed
phrases. The man’s week-old child had a high fever, a bluish skin; its mouth would
not open to suckle. They could not take the baby to the poblacion, they would not
dare move it; its body turned rigid at the slightest touch. If the doctor would consent
to come at so late an hour, Esteban would wait for him at the station. If the doctor
would be so kind…

Tetanus of the newborn: that was elementary, and most likely it was so hopeless, a
waste of time. Dr. Lazaro said yes, he would be there; he had committed himself to
that answer, long ago; duty had taken the place of an exhausted compassion. The
carelessness of the poor, the infected blankets, the toxin moving toward the heart:
they were casual scribbled items in a clinical report. But outside the grilled
windows, the night suddenly seemed alive and waiting. He had no choice left now
but action: it was the only certitude – he sometimes reminded himself – even if it
would prove futile, before, the descent into nothingness.

His wife looked up from her needles and twine, under the shaded lamp of the
bedroom; she had finished the pullover for the grandchild in Bagiuo and had begun
work, he noted, on another of those altar vestments for the parish church. Religion
and her grandchild certainly kept her busy … She looked at him, into so much to
inquire as to be spoken to: a large and placid woman.

“Shouldn’t have let the drive go home so early,” Dr. Lazaro said. “They had to wait
till now to call … Child’s probably dead…”

“Ben can drive for you.”

“I hardly see that boy around the house. He seems to be on vacation both from home
and in school.”

“He’s downstairs,” his wife said.

Dr. Lazaro put on fresh shirt, buttoned it with tense, abrupt motions, “I thought he’d
gone out again… Who’s that girl he’s been seeing?...It’s not just warm, it’s hot. You
should’ve stayed on in Baguio… There’s disease, suffering, death, because Adam ate
the apple. They must have an answer to everything… “He paused at the door, as
though for the echo of his words.

Mrs. Lazaro had resumed the knitting; in the circle of yellow light, her head bowed,
she seemed absorbed in some contemplative prayer. But her silences had ceased t
disturb him, like the plaster saints she kept in the room, in their cases of glass, or
that air she wore of conspiracy, when she left with Ben for Mass in the mornings. Dr.
Lazaro would ramble about miracle drugs, politics, music, the common sense of his
unbelief; unrelated things strung together in a monologue; he posed questions,
supplied with his own answers; and she would merely nod, with an occasional
“Yes?” and “Is that so?” and something like a shadow of anxiety in her gaze.

He hurried down the curving stairs, under the votive lamps of the Sacred Heart. Ben
lay sprawled on the sofa, in the front parlor; engrossed in a book, one leg propped
against the back cushions. “Come along, we’re going somewhere,” Dr. Lazaro said,
and went into the clinic for his medical bag. He added a vial of penstrep, an ampule
of caffeine to the satchel’s content’s; rechecked the bag before closing it; the cutgut
would last just one more patient. One can only cure, and know nothing beyond one’s
work… There had been the man, today, in the hospital: the cancer pain no longer
helped by the doses of morphine; the patients’s eyes flickering their despair in the
eroded face. Dr. Lazaro brushed aside the stray vision as he strode out of the
whitewashed room; he was back in his element, among syringes, steel instruments,
quick decisions made without emotion, and it gave him a kind of blunt energy.

I’ll drive, Pa?” Ben followed him through the kitchen, where the maids were ironing
the week’s wash, gossiping, and out to the yard shrouded in the dimness of the
single bulb under the eaves. The boy push back the folding doors of the garage and
slid behind the wheel.

“Somebody’s waiting at the gas station near San Miguel. You know the place?”

“Sure,” Ben said.

The engine sputtered briefly and stopped. “Battery’s weak,” Dr. Lazaro said. “Try it
without the lights,” and smelled the gasoline overflow as the old Pontiac finally
lurched around the house and through the trellised gate, its front sweeping over the
dry dusty street.

But he’s all right, Dr. Lazaro thought as they swung smoothly into the main avenue
of the town, past the church and the plaza, the kiosko bare for once in a season of
fiestas, the lam-posts shining on the quiet square. They did not speak; he could
sense his son’s concentration on the road, and he noted, with a tentative
amusement, the intense way the boy sat behind the wheel, his eagerness to be of
help. They passed the drab frame houses behind the marketplace, and the capitol
building on its landscaped hill, the gears shifting easily as they went over the
railroad tracks that crossed the asphalted street.

Then the road was pebbled and uneven, the car bucking slightly; and they were
speeding between open fields, a succession of narrow wooden bridges breaking the
crunching drive of the wheels. Dr. Lazaro gazed at the wide darkness around them,
the shapes of trees and bushes hurling toward them and sliding away and he saw
the stars, hard glinting points of light yards, black space, infinite distances; in the
unmeasured universe, man’s life flared briefly and was gone, traceless in the void.
He turned away from the emptiness. He said: “You seem to have had a lot of practice,
Ben.”

“A lot of what, Pa?”

“The ways you drive. Very professional.”

In the glow of the dashboard lights, the boy’s face relaxed, smiled. “Tio Cesar let me
use his car, in Manila. On special occasions.”
“No reckless driving now,” Dr. Lazaro said. “Some fellows think it’s smart. Gives
them a thrill. Don’t be like that.”

“No, I won’t, Pa. I just like to drive and – and go place, that’s all.”

Dr. Lazaro watched the young face intent on the road, a cowlick over the forehead,
the mall curve of the nose, his own face before he left to study in another country, a
young student of full illusions, a lifetime ago; long before the loss of faith, God
turning abstract, unknowable, and everywhere, it seemed to him, those senseless
accidents of pain. He felt a need to define unspoken things, to come closer somehow
to the last of his sons; one of these days, before the boy’s vacation was over, they
might to on a picnic together, a trip to the farm; a special day for the two of them –
father and son, as well as friends. In the two years Ben had been away in college,
they had written a few brief, almost formal letters to each other: your money is on
the way, these are the best years, make the most of them…

Time was moving toward them, was swirling around and rushing away and it
seemed Dr. Lazaro could almost hear its hallow receding roar; and discovering his
son’s profile against the flowing darkness, he had a thirst to speak. He could not find
what it was he had meant to say.

The agricultural school buildings came up in the headlights and glided back into
blurred shapes behind a fence.

“What was that book you were reading, Ben?”

“A biography,” the boy said.

“Statesman? Scientist maybe?”

It’s about a guy who became a monk.”

“That’s your summer reading?” Dr. Lazaro asked with a small laugh, half mockery,
half affection. “You’re getting to be a regular saint, like your mother.”

“It’s an interesting book,” Ben said.

“I can imagine…” He dropped the bantering tone. “I suppose you’ll go on to medicine

after your AB?”

“I don’t know yet, Pa.”

Tiny moth like blown bits of paper flew toward the windshield and funneled away
above them. “You don’t have to be a country doctor like me, Ben. You could build up
a good practice in the city. Specialized in cancer, maybe or neuro-surgery, and join a
good hospital.” It was like trying to recall some rare happiness, in the car, in the
shifting darkness.

“I’ve been thinking about it,” Ben said. It’s a vocation, a great one. Being able to
really help people, I mean.”

“You’ve done well in math, haven’t you?”

“Well enough, I guess,” Ben said.

Engineering is a fine course too, “ Dr. Lazaro said. “There’ll be lots of room for
engineers. Planners and builders, they are what this country needs. Far too many
lawyers and salesmen these days. Now if your brother –“ He closed his eyes, erasing
the slashed wrists, part of the future dead in a boarding-house room, the landlady
whimpering, “He was such a nice boy, doctor, your son…” Sorrow lay in ambush
among the years.

“I have all summer to think about, “ Ben said.

“There’s no hurry,” Dr. Lazaro said. What was it he had wanted to say? Something
about knowing each other, about sharing; no, it was not that at all…

The stations appeared as they coasted down the incline of a low hill, its fluorescent
lights the only brightness on the plain before them, on the road that led farther into
deeper darkness. A freight truck was taking on a load of gasoline as they drove up
the concrete apron and came to a stop beside the station shed.

A short barefoot man in a patchwork shirt shuffled forward to meet them. 

I am Esteban, doctor,” the man said, his voice faint and hoarse, almost inaudible, and
he bowed slightly with a careful politeness. He stood blinking, looking up at the
doctor, who had taken his bag and flashlight form the car.

In the windless space, Dr. Lazaro could hear Esteban’s labored breathing, the clank
of the metal nozzle as the attendant replaced it in the pump. The men in the truck
stared at them curiously.

Esteban said, pointing at the darkness beyond the road: “We will have to go through
those fields, doctor, then cross the river,” The apology for yet one more imposition
was a wounded look in his eyes. He added, in his subdued voice: “It’s not very far…”
Ben had spoken to the attendants and was locking the car.

The truck rumbled and moved ponderously onto the road, its throb strong and then
fading in the warm night stillness.

“Lead the way, “ Dr. Lazaro said, handing Esteban the flashlight.
They crossed the road, to a cleft in the embankment that bordered the fields, Dr.
Lazaro was sweating now in the dry heat; following the swinging ball of the
flashlight beam, sorrow wounded by the stifling night, he felt he was being dragged,
helplessly, toward some huge and complicated error, a meaningless ceremony.
Somewhere to his left rose a flapping of wings, a bird cried among unseen leaves:
they walked swiftly, and there was only the sound of the silence, the constant whirl
of crickets and the whisper of their feet on the path between the stubble fields.

With the boy close behind him, Dr. Lazaro followed Esteban down a clay slope to the
slope and ripple of water in the darkness. The flashlight showed a banca drawn up
at the river’s edge. Esteban wade waist-deep into the water, holding the boat steady
as Dr. Lazaro and Ben stepped on the board. In the darkness, with the opposite bank
like the far rise of an island, Dr. Lazaro had a moment’s tremor of fear as the boar
slide out over the black water; below prowled the deadly currents; to drown her in
the dephts of the night… But it took only a minute to cross the river. “We’re here
doctor,” Esteban said, and they padded p a stretch of sand to a clump of trees; a dog
started to bark, the shadows of a kerosene lamp wavered at a window.

Unsteady on a steep ladder, Dr. Lazaro entered the cave of Esteban’s hut. The single
room contained the odors he often encountered but had remained alien to, stirring
an impersonal disgust: the sourish decay, the smells of the unaired sick. An old man
greeted him, lisping incoherently; a woman, the grandmother, sat crouched in a
corner, beneath a famed print of the Mother of Perpetual Help; a boy, about ten,
slept on, sprawled on a mat. Esteban’s wife, pale and thin, lay on the floor with the
sick child beside her. 

Motionless, its tiny blue-tinged face drawn way from its chest in a fixed wrinkled
grimace, the infant seemed to be straining to express some terrible ancient wisdom.

Dr. Lazaro made a cursory check – skin dry, turning cold; breathing shallow;
heartbeat 
fast and irregular. And I that moment, only the child existed before him; only the
child and his own mind probing now like a hard gleaming instrument. How strange
that it should still live, his mind said as it considered the spark that persisted within
the rigid and tortured body. He was alone with the child, his whole being focused on
it, in those intense minutes shaped into a habit now by so many similar instances:
his physician’s knowledge trying to keep the heart beating, to revive an ebbing life
and somehow make it rise again.

Dr. Lazaro removed the blankets that bundled the child and injected a whole ampule
to check the tonic spasms, the needle piercing neatly into the sparse flesh; he broke
another ampule, with deft precise movements , and emptied the syringe, while the
infant lay stiff as wood beneath his hands. He wiped off the sweat running into his
eyes, then holding the rigid body with one hand, he tried to draw air into the
faltering lungs, pressing and releasing the chest; but even as he worked to rescue
the child, the bluish color of its face began to turn gray.

Dr. Lazaro rose from his crouch on the floor, a cramped ache in his shoulders, his
mouth dry. The lamplight glistened on his pale hollow face as he confronted the
room again, the stale heat, the poverty. Esteban met his gaze; all their eyes were
upon him, Ben at the door, the old man, the woman in the corner, and Esteban’s
wife, in the trembling shadows.

Esteban said: “Doctor..”

He shook his head, and replaced the syringe case in his bag, slowly and deliberately,
and fastened the clasp. T Here was murmuring him, a rustle across the bamboo
floor, and when he turned, Ben was kneeling beside the child. And he watched, with
a tired detached surprise, as the boy poured water from a coconut shell on the
infant’s brow. He caught the words half-whispered in the quietness: “.. in the name
of the Father.. the Son… the Holy Ghost…”

The shadows flapped on the walls, the heart of the lamp quivering before it settled
into a slender flame. By the river dogs were barking. Dr. Lazaro glanced at his watch;
it was close to midnight. Ben stood over the child, the coconut shell in his hands, as
though wandering what next to do with it, until he saw his father nod for them to go.

Doctor, tell us – “Esteban took a step forward.

“I did everything: Dr. Lazaro said. “It’s too late –“

He gestured vaguely, with a dull resentment; by some implicit relationship, he was

also responsible, for the misery in the room, the hopelessness. “There’s nothing
more I can do, Esteban, “ he said. He thought with a flick of anger: Soon the child will
be out of it, you ought to be grateful. Esteban’s wife began to cry, a weak smothered
gasping, and the old woman was comforting her, it is the will of God, my daughter…”

In the yard, Esteban pressed carefully folded bills into the doctor’s hand; the limp,
tattered feel of the money was sort of the futile journey, “I know this is not enough,
doctor,” Esteban said. “as you can see we are very poor… I shall bring you fruit,
chickens, someday…”

A late moon had risen, edging over the tops of the trees, and in the faint wash of its
light, Esteban guided them back to the boat. A glimmering rippled on the surface of
the water as they paddled across,; the white moonlight spread in the sky, and a
sudden wind sprang rain-like and was lost in the tress massed on the riverbank.

“I cannot thank you enough, doctor,” Esteban said. “You have been very kind to
come this far, at this hour.” He trail is just over there, isn’t it?” He wanted to be rid of
the man, to be away from the shy humble voice, the prolonged wretchedness.

I shall be grateful always, doctor,” Esteban said. “And to you son, too. God go with
you.” He was a faceless voice withdrawing in the shadows, a cipher in the shabby
crowds that came to town on market days.

“Let’s go, Ben” Dr. Lazaro said.

They took the path across the field; around them the moonlight had transformed the
landscape, revealing a gentle, more familiar dimension, a luminous haze upon the
trees stirring with a growing wind; and the heat of the night had passed, a coolness
was falling from the deep sky. Unhurried, his pace no more than a casual stroll, Dr.
Lazaro felt the oppression of the night begin to life from him, an emotionless calm
returned to his mind. The sparrow does not fall without the Father’s leave he mused
at the sky, but it falls just the same. But to what end are the sufferings of a child? The
crickets chirped peacefully in the moon-pale darkness beneath the trees.

“You baptized the child, didn’t you, Ben?”

“Yes, Pa.” The boy kept in the step beside him.

He used to believe in it, too. The power of the Holy Spirit washing away original sin,
the purified soul made heir of heaven. He could still remember fragments of his boy
hood faith, as one might remember an improbable and long-discarded dream.

“Lay baptism, isn’t that the name for it?”

“Yes,” Ben said. I asked the father. The baby hadn’t been baptized.” He added as they
came to the embankment that separated the field from the road: “They were waiting
for it to get well.”

The station had closed, with only the canopy light and the blobed neon sign left
burning. A steady wind was blowing now across the filed, the moonlit plains.

He saw Ben stifle a yawn. I’ll drive,” Dr. Lazaro said.

His eyes were not what they used to be, and he drove leaning forward, his hands
tight on the wheel. He began to sweat again, and the empty road and the lateness
and the memory of Esteban and of the child dying before morning in the
impoverished, lamplit room fused into tired melancholy. He started to think of his
other son, one he had lost.

He said, seeking conversation, If other people carried on like you, Ben, the priests
would be run out of business.”
The boy sat beside him, his face averted, not answering.

“Now, you’ll have an angel praying for you in heaven,” Dr. Lazaro said, teasing,
trying to create an easy mood between the. “What if you hadn’t baptized the baby
and it died? What would happen to it then?”

It won’t see God,” Ben said.

“But isn’t that unfair?” It was like riddle, trivial, but diverting. “Just because..”

“Maybe God has another remedy,” Ben said. “I don’t know. But the church says.”

He could sense the boy groping for the tremendous answers. “The Church teaches,
the church says…. “ God: Christ: the communications of saints: Dr. Lazaro found
himself wondering about the world of novenas and candles, where bread and wine
became the flesh and blood of the Lord, and a woman bathed in light appeared
before children, and mortal men spoke of eternal life; the visions of God, the body’s
resurrection at the tend of time. It was a country from which he was barred; no
matter – the customs, the geography didn’t appeal to him. But in the care suddenly,
driving through the night, he was aware of an obscure disappointment, a subtle
pressure around his heart, as though he had been deprived of a certain joy…

A bus roared around a hill toward, its lights blinding him, and he pulled to the side
of the road, braking involuntarily as a billow of dust swept over the car. He had not
closed the window on his side, and the flung dust poured in, the thick brittle powder
almost choking him, making him cough, his eyes smarting, before he could shield his
face with his hands. In the headlights, the dust sifted down and when the air was
clear again, Dr. Lazaro, swallowing a taste of earth, of darkness, maneuvered the car
back onto the road, his arms exhausted and numb. He drove the last half-mile to
town in silence, his mind registering nothing but the frit of dust in his mouth and the
empty road unwinding swiftly before him.

They reached the sleeping town, the desolate streets, the plaza empty in the
moonlight, and the dhuddled shapes of houses, the old houses that Dr. Lazaro had
always know. How many nights had he driven home like this through the quiet
town, with a man’s life ended behind him, or a child crying newly risen from the
womb; and a sense of constant motions, of change, of the days moving swiftly
toward and immense reverlation touched him onced more, briefly, and still he could
not find the words.. He turned the last corner, then steered the car down the
graveled driveway to the garage, while Ben closed the gate. Dr. Lazaro sat there a
momen, in the stillness, resting his eyes, conscious of the measured beating of his
heart, and breathing a scent of dust that lingered on his clothes, his skin..SLowely he
merged from the car, locking it, and went around the towere of the water-tank to the
frotnyard where Ben Stood waiting.

With unaccustomed tenderness he placed a hand on Ben’s shoulder was they turned
toward the ement –walled house. They had gone on a trip; they had come home
safely together. He felt closer to the boy than he hade ever been in years.

“Sorry for ekeeping you up this late,” Dr. Lazaro said.

“It’s all right, Pa.”

Some night, huh, Ben? What you did back in that barrio” – ther was just the slightest
patronage in this one –“ your momother will love to hear about it.”

He shook the boy beside him gently. “Reverend Father Ben Lazaro.” 

The impulse of certain humor – it was part of the comradeship. He chuckled

drowsily: father Lazaro, what must I do to gain eternal life?”

As he slid the door open on the vault of darkness, the familiar depth of the house, it
came to Dr. Lazaro faitly in the late night that for certain things, like love there was
only so much time. But the glimmer was lost instantly, buried in the mist of
indifference and sleep rising now in his brain.
On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning
Haruki Murakami

One beautiful April morning, on a narrow side street in Tokyo’s fashionable

Harujuku neighborhood, I walked past the 100% perfect girl.

Tell you the truth, she’s not that good-looking. She doesn’t stand out in any way. Her
clothes are nothing special. The back of her hair is still bent out of shape from sleep.
She isn’t young, either - must be near thirty, not even close to a “girl,” properly
speaking. But still, I know from fifty yards away: She’s the 100% perfect girl for me.
The moment I see her, there’s a rumbling in my chest, and my mouth is as dry as a
desert.

Maybe you have your own particular favorite type of girl - one with slim ankles, say,
or big eyes, or graceful fingers, or you’re drawn for no good reason to girls who take
their time with every meal. I have my own preferences, of course. Sometimes in a
restaurant I’ll catch myself staring at the girl at the next table to mine because I like
the shape of her nose.

But no one can insist that his 100% perfect girl correspond to some preconceived
type. Much as I like noses, I can’t recall the shape of hers - or even if she had one. All
I can remember for sure is that she was no great beauty. It’s weird.

“Yesterday on the street I passed the 100% girl,” I tell someone.

“Yeah?” he says. “Good-looking?”

“Not really.”

“Your favorite type, then?”

“I don’t know. I can’t seem to remember anything about her - the shape of her eyes
or the size of her breasts.”

“Strange.”

“Yeah. Strange.”

“So anyhow,” he says, already bored, “what did you do? Talk to her? Follow her?”

“Nah. Just passed her on the street.”

She’s walking east to west, and I west to east. It’s a really nice April morning.
Wish I could talk to her. Half an hour would be plenty: just ask her about herself, tell
her about myself, and - what I’d really like to do - explain to her the complexities of
fate that have led to our passing each other on a side street in Harajuku on a
beautiful April morning in 1981. This was something sure to be crammed full of
warm secrets, like an antique clock build when peace filled the world.

After talking, we’d have lunch somewhere, maybe see a Woody Allen movie, stop by
a hotel bar for cocktails. With any kind of luck, we might end up in bed.

Potentiality knocks on the door of my heart.

Now the distance between us has narrowed to fifteen yards.

How can I approach her? What should I say?

“Good morning, miss. Do you think you could spare half an hour for a little
conversation?”

Ridiculous. I’d sound like an insurance salesman.

“Pardon me, but would you happen to know if there is an all-night cleaners in the
neighborhood?”

No, this is just as ridiculous. I’m not carrying any laundry, for one thing. Who’s going
to buy a line like that?

Maybe the simple truth would do. “Good morning. You are the 100% perfect girl for
me.”

No, she wouldn’t believe it. Or even if she did, she might not want to talk to me.
Sorry, she could say, I might be the 100% perfect girl for you, but you’re not the
100% boy for me. It could happen. And if I found myself in that situation, I’d
probably go to pieces. I’d never recover from the shock. I’m thirty-two, and that’s
what growing older is all about.

We pass in front of a flower shop. A small, warm air mass touches my skin. The
asphalt is damp, and I catch the scent of roses. I can’t bring myself to speak to her.
She wears a white sweater, and in her right hand she holds a crisp white envelope
lacking only a stamp. So: She’s written somebody a letter, maybe spent the whole
night writing, to judge from the sleepy look in her eyes. The envelope could contain
every secret she’s ever had.

I take a few more strides and turn: She’s lost in the crowd.
Now, of course, I know exactly what I should have said to her. It would have been a
long speech, though, far too long for me to have delivered it properly. The ideas I
come up with are never very practical.

Oh, well. It would have started “Once upon a time” and ended “A sad story, don’t you
think?”

Once upon a time, there lived a boy and a girl. The boy was eighteen and the girl
sixteen. He was not unusually handsome, and she was not especially beautiful. They
were just an ordinary lonely boy and an ordinary lonely girl, like all the others. But
they believed with their whole hearts that somewhere in the world there lived the
100% perfect boy and the 100% perfect girl for them. Yes, they believed in a
miracle. And that miracle actually happened.

One day the two came upon each other on the corner of a street.

“This is amazing,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you all my life. You may not believe
this, but you’re the 100% perfect girl for me.”

“And you,” she said to him, “are the 100% perfect boy for me, exactly as I’d pictured
you in every detail. It’s like a dream.”

They sat on a park bench, held hands, and told each other their stories hour after
hour. They were not lonely anymore. They had found and been found by their 100%
perfect other. What a wonderful thing it is to find and be found by your 100%
perfect other. It’s a miracle, a cosmic miracle.

As they sat and talked, however, a tiny, tiny sliver of doubt took root in their hearts:
Was it really all right for one’s dreams to come true so easily?

And so, when there came a momentary lull in their conversation, the boy said to the
girl, “Let’s test ourselves - just once. If we really are each other’s 100% perfect
lovers, then sometime, somewhere, we will meet again without fail. And when that
happens, and we know that we are the 100% perfect ones, we’ll marry then and
there. What do you think?”

“Yes,” she said, “that is exactly what we should do.”

And so they parted, she to the east, and he to the west.

The test they had agreed upon, however, was utterly unnecessary. They should
never have undertaken it, because they really and truly were each other’s 100%
perfect lovers, and it was a miracle that they had ever met. But it was impossible for
them to know this, young as they were. The cold, indifferent waves of fate
proceeded to toss them unmercifully.
One winter, both the boy and the girl came down with the season’s terrible
influenza, and after drifting for weeks between life and death they lost all memory of
their earlier years. When they awoke, their heads were as empty as the young D. H.
Lawrence’s piggy bank.

They were two bright, determined young people, however, and through their
unremitting efforts they were able to acquire once again the knowledge and feeling
that qualified them to return as full-fledged members of society. Heaven be praised,
they became truly upstanding citizens who knew how to transfer from one subway
line to another, who were fully capable of sending a special-delivery letter at the
post office. Indeed, they even experienced love again, sometimes as much as 75% or
even 85% love.

Time passed with shocking swiftness, and soon the boy was thirty-two, the girl
thirty.

One beautiful April morning, in search of a cup of coffee to start the day, the boy was
walking from west to east, while the girl, intending to send a special-delivery letter,
was walking from east to west, but along the same narrow street in the Harajuku
neighborhood of Tokyo. They passed each other in the very center of the street. The
faintest gleam of their lost memories glimmered for the briefest moment in their
hearts. Each felt a rumbling in their chest. And they knew:

She is the 100% perfect girl for me.

He is the 100% perfect boy for me.

But the glow of their memories was far too weak, and their thoughts no longer had
the clarity of fouteen years earlier. Without a word, they passed each other,
disappearing into the crowd. Forever.

A sad story, don’t you think?

Yes, that’s it, that is what I should have said to her.

Originally published in The Elephant Vanishes, Murakami’s collection of short

stories.
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
By Ursula Le Guin

(1) With a clamor of bells that set the swallows soaring, the Festival of Summer
came to the city Omelas, bright-towered by the sea. The rigging of the boats in
harbor sparkled with flags. In the streets between houses with red roofs and painted
walls, between old moss-grown gardens and under avenues of trees, past great
parks and public buildings, processions moved. Some were decorous: old people in
long stiff robes of mauve and grey, grave master workmen, quiet, merry women
carrying their babies and chatting as they walked. In other streets the music beat
faster, a shimmering of gong and tambourine, and the people went dancing, the
procession was a dance. Children dodged in and out, their high calls rising like the
swallows' crossing flights over the music and the singing. All the processions wound
towards the north side of the city, where on the great water-meadow called the
Green Fields boys and girls, naked in the bright air, with mud-stained feet and
ankles and long, lithe arms, exercised their restive horses before the race. The
horses wore no gear at all but a halter without bit. Their manes were braided with
streamers of silver, gold, and green. They flared their nostrils and pranced and
boasted to one another; they were vastly excited, the horse being the only animal
who has adopted our ceremonies as his own. Far off to the north and west the
mountains stood up half encircling Omelas on her bay. The air of morning was so
clear that the snow still crowning the Eighteen Peaks burned with white-gold fire
across the miles of sunlit air, under the dark blue of the sky. There was just enough
wind to make the banners that marked the racecourse snap and flutter now and
then. In the silence of the broad green meadows one could hear the music winding
through the city streets, farther and nearer and ever approaching, a cheerful faint
sweetness of the air that from time to time trembled and gathered together and
broke out into the great joyous clanging of the bells.

(2) Joyous! How is one to tell about joy? How describe the citizens of Omelas?

(3)They were not simple folk, you see, though they were happy. But we do not say
the words of cheer much any more. All smiles have become archaic. Given a
description such as this one tends to make certain assumptions. Given a description
such as this one tends to look next for the King, mounted on a splendid stallion and
surrounded by his noble knights, or perhaps in a golden litter borne by great-
muscled slaves. But there was no king. They did not use swords, or keep slaves.
They were not barbarians. I do not know the rules and laws of their society, but I
suspect that they were singularly few.
(4) As they did without monarchy and slavery, so they also got on without the stock
exchange, the advertisement, the secret police, and the bomb. Yet I repeat that these
were not simple folk, not dulcet shepherds, noble savages, bland utopians. They
were not less complex than us. The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged
by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid.
Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a
refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can't lick
'em, join 'em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to
embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can
no longer describe a happy man, nor make any celebration of joy. How can I tell you
about the people of Omelas? They were not naive and happy children--though their
children were, in fact, happy. They were mature, intelligent, passionate adults whose
lives were not wretched. O miracle! but I wish I could describe it better. I wish I
could convince you. Omelas sounds in my words like a city in a fairy tale, long ago
and far away, once upon a time. Perhaps it would be best if you imagined it as your
own fancy bids, assuming it will rise to the occasion, for certainly I cannot suit you
all. For instance, how about technology? I think that there would be no cars or
helicopters in and above the streets; this follows from the fact that the people of
Omelas are happy people. Happiness is based on a just discrimination of what is
necessary, what is neither necessary nor destructive, and what is destructive. In the
middle category, however--that of the unnecessary but undestructive, that of
comfort, luxury, exuberance, etc.--they could perfectly well have central heating,
subway trains, washing machines, and all kinds of marvelous devices not yet
invented here, floating light-sources, fuelless power, a cure for the common cold. Or
they could have none of that; it doesn't matter. As you like it. I incline to think that
people from towns up and down the coast have been coming in to Omelas during the
last days before the Festival on very fast little trains and double-decked trams, and
that the train station of Omelas is actually the handsomest building in town, though
plainer than the magnificent Farmers' Market. But even granted trains, I fear that
Omelas so far strikes some of you as goody-goody. Smiles, bells, parades, horses,
bleh. If so, please add an orgy. If an orgy would help, don't hesitate. Let us not,
however, have temples from which issue beautiful nude priests and priestesses
already half in ecstasy and ready to copulate with any man or woman, lover or
stranger, who desires union with the deep godhead of the blood, although that was
my first idea. But really it would be better not to have any temples in Omelas--at
least, not manned temples. Religion yes, clergy no. Surely the beautiful nudes can
just wander about, offering themselves like divine soufflés to the hunger of the
needy and the rapture of the flesh. Let them join the processions. Let tambourines
be struck above the copulations, and the glory of desire be proclaimed upon the
gongs, and (a not unimportant point) let the offspring of these delightful rituals be
beloved and looked after by all. One thing I know there is none of in Omelas is guilt.
But what else should there be? I thought at first there were not drugs, but that is
puritanical. For those who like it, the faint insistent sweetness of drooz may
perfume the ways of the city, drooz which first brings a great lightness and
brilliance to the mind and limbs, and then after some hours a dreamy languor, and
wonderful visions at last of the very arcana and inmost secrets of the Universe, as
well as exciting the pleasure of sex beyond belief; and it is not habit-forming. For
more modest tastes I think there ought to be beer. What else, what else belongs in
the joyous city? The sense of victory, surely, the celebration of courage. But as we
did without clergy, let us do without soldiers. The joy built upon successful
slaughter is not the right kind of joy; it will not do; it is fearful and it is trivial. A
boundless and generous contentment, a magnanimous triumph felt not against
some outer enemy but in communion with the finest and fairest in the souls of all
men everywhere and the splendor of the world's summer: this is what swells the
hearts of the people of Omelas, and the victory they celebrate is that of life. I really
don't think many of them need to take drooz.

(5)Most of the procession have reached the Green Fields by now. A marvelous smell
of cooking goes forth from the red and blue tents of the provisioners. The faces of
small children are amiably sticky; in the benign grey beard of a man a couple of
crumbs of rich pastry are entangled. The youths and girls have mounted their horses
and are beginning to group around the starting line of the course. An old women,
small, fat, and laughing, is passing out flowers from a basket, and tall young men
where her flowers in their shletterining hair. A child of nine or ten sits at the edge of
the crowd, alone, playing on a wooden flute. People pause to listen, and they smile,
but they do not speak to him, for he never ceases playing and never sees them, his
dark eyes wholly rapt in the sweet, thin magic of the tune.

(6) He finishes, and slowly lowers his hands holding the wooden flute.

(7) As if that little private silence were the signal, all at once a trumpet sounds from
the pavilion near the starting line: imperious, melancholy, piercing. The horses rear
on their slender legs, and some of them neigh in answer. Sober-faced, the young
riders stroke the horses' necks and soothe them, whispering, "Quiet, quiet, there my
beauty, my hope...." They begin to form in rank along the starting line. The crowds
along the racecourse are like a field of grass and flowers in the wind. The Festival of
Summer has begun.

(8) Do you believe? Do you accept the festival, the city, the joy? No? Then let me
describe one more thing.

(9) In a basement under one of the beautiful public buildings of Omelas, or perhaps
in the cellar of one of its spacious private homes, there is a room. It has one locked
door, and no window. A little light seeps in dustily between cracks in the boards,
secondhand from a cobwebbed window somewhere across the cellar. In one corner
of the little room a couple of mops, with stiff, clotted, foul-smelling heads stand near
a rusty bucket. The floor is dirt, a little damp to the touch, as cellar dirt usually is.
The room is about three paces long and two wide: a mere broom closet or disused
tool room. In the room a child is sitting. It could be a boy or a girl. It looks about six,
but actually is nearly ten. It is feeble-minded. Perhaps it was born defective, or
perhaps it has become imbecile through fear, malnutrition, and neglect. It picks its
nose and occasionally fumbles vaguely with its toes or genitals, as it sits hunched in
the corner farthest from the bucket and the two mops. It is afraid of the mops. It
finds them horrible. It shuts its eyes, but it knows the mops are still standing there;
and the door is locked; and nobody will come. The door is always locked; and
nobody ever comes, except that sometimes--the child has no understanding of time
or interval--sometimes the door rattles terribly and opens, and a person, or several
people, are there. One of them may come in and kick the child to make it stand up.
The others never come close, but peer in at it with frightened, disgusted eyes. The
food bowl and the water jug are hastily filled, the door is locked, the eyes disappear.
The people at the door never say anything, but the child, who has not always lived in
the tool room, and can remember sunlight and its mother's voice, sometimes speaks.
"I will be good," it says. "Please let me out. I will be good!" They never answer. The
child used to scream for help at night, and cry a good deal, but now it only makes a
kind of whining, "eh-haa, eh-haa," and it speaks less and less often. It is so thin there
are no calves to its legs; its belly protrudes; it lives on a half-bowl of corn meal and
grease a day. It is naked. Its buttocks and thighs are a mass of festered sores, as it
sits in its own excrement continually.

(10) They all know it is there, all the people of Omelas. Some of them have come to
see it, others are content merely to know it is there. They all know that it has to be
there. Some of them understand why, and some do not, but they all understand that
their happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the
health of their children, the wisdom of their scholars, the skill of their makers, even
the abundance of their harvest and the kindly weathers of their skies, depend
wholly on this child's abominable misery.

(11) This is usually explained to children when they are between eight and twelve,
whenever they seem capable of understanding; and most of those who come to see
the child are young people, though often enough an adult comes, or comes back, to
see the child. No matter how well the matter has been explained to them, these
young spectators are always shocked and sickened at the sight. They feel disgust,
which they had thought themselves superior to. They feel anger, outrage, impotence,
despite all the explanations. They would like to do something for the child. But there
is nothing they can do. If the child were brought up into the sunlight out of that vile
place, if it were cleaned and fed and comforted, that would be a good thing indeed;
but if it were done, in that day and hour all the prosperity and beauty and delight of
Omelas would wither and be destroyed. Those are the terms. To exchange all the
goodness and grace of every life in Omelas for that single, small improvement: to
throw away the happiness of thousands for the chance of the happiness of one: that
would be to let guilt within the walls indeed.

(12) The terms are strict and absolute; there may not even be a kind word spoken to
the child.

(13) Often the young people go home in tears, or in a tearless rage, when they have
seen the child and faced this terrible paradox. They may brood over it for weeks or
years. But as time goes on they begin to realize that even if the child could be
released, it would not get much good of its freedom: a little vague pleasure of
warmth and food, no doubt, but little more. It is too degraded and imbecile to know
any real joy. It has been afraid too long ever to be free of fear. Its habits are too
uncouth for it to respond to humane treatment. Indeed, after so long it would
probably be wretched without walls about it to protect it, and darkness for its eyes,
and its own excrement to sit in. Their tears at the bitter injustice dry when they
begin to perceive the terrible justice of reality, and to accept it. Yet it is their tears
and anger, the trying of their generosity and the acceptance of their helplessness,
which are perhaps the true source of the splendor of their lives. Theirs is no vapid,
irresponsible happiness. They know that they, like the child, are not free. They know
compassion. It is the existence of the child, and their knowledge of its existence, that
makes possible the nobility of their architecture, the poignancy of their music, the
profundity of their science. It is because of the child that they are so gentle with
children. They know that if the wretched one were not there sniveling in the dark,
the other one, the flute-player, could make no joyful music as the young riders line
up in their beauty for the race in the sunlight of the first morning of summer.

(14) Now do you believe in them? Are they not more credible? But there is one more
thing to tell, and this is quite incredible.

(15) At times one of the adolescent girls or boys who go to see the child does not go
home to weep or rage, does not, in fact, go home at all. Sometimes also a man or
woman much older falls silent for a day or two, and then leaves home. These people
go out into the street, and walk down the street alone. They keep walking, and walk
straight out of the city of Omelas, through the beautiful gates. They keep walking
across the farmlands of Omelas. Each one goes alone, youth or girl, man or woman.
Night falls; the traveler must pass down village streets, between the houses with
yellow-lit windows, and on out into the darkness of the fields. Each alone, they go
west or north, towards the mountains. They go on. They leave Omelas, they walk
ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back. The place they go towards is a
place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe
cit at all. It is possible that it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are
going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.