List of Short Stories

Bienvenido Santos

1. Scent of Apples 1955. A Collection of Stories, pp. 21-29. University of Washington Press.

When I arrived in Kalamazoo it was October and the war was still on. Gold and silver stars
hung on pennants above silent windows of white and brick-red cottages. In a backyard, an old man
burned leaves and twigs while a grey-haired woman sat on the porch, her red hands quiet on her lap,
watching the smoke rising above the elms, both of them thinking of the same thought perhaps about
a tall, grinning boy with blue eyes and flying hair, who went out to war, where could he be now this
month when leaves were turning into gold and the fragrance of gathered apples was in the wind? It
was a cold night when I left my room at the hotel for a usual speaking engagement. I walked but a
little way. A heavy wind coming up from Lake Michigan was icy on the face. It felt like winter straying
early in the northern woodlands. Under the lamp posts the leaves shone like bronze. And they rolled
on the pavements like the ghost feet of a thousand autumns long dead, long before the boys left for
faraway lands without great icy winds and promise of winter early in the air, lands without apply trees,
the singing and the gold! It was the same night I met Celestino Fabia, “just a Filipino farmer” as he
called himself, who had a farm about thirty miles of Kalamazoo. “You came all that way on a night like
this just to hear me talk?” I asked. “I’ve seen no Filipino for so many years now,” he answered quickly.
“So when I saw your name in the papers where it says you come from Islands and that you’re going
to talk I come right away.” Earlier that night I has addressed a college crowd, mostly women. It
appeared that they wanted me to talk about my country; they wanted me to tell the things about it
because my country had become a lost country. Everywhere in the land the enemy stalked. Over it a
great silence hung; and their boys were there, unheard from, or they were on their way to some little
known island on the Pacific, young boys all, hardly men, thinking of harvest moons and smell of forest
fire. It was not hard talking about our own people. I knew them well and I loved them. And they
seemed so far away during those terrible years that I must have spoken of them with a little fervor, a
little nostalgia. In the open forum that followed, the audience wanted to know whether there was
much difference between our women and the American women. I tried to answer the questions as
best as I could, saying among other things, that I did not know much about American women, except
that they looked friendly, but differences or similarities in inner qualities such as naturally belonged to
the heart or to the mind, I could only speak about vagueness. While I was trying to explain away the
fact that it was not easy to make comparisons, a man rose from the rear of the hall, wanting to say
something. In the distance, he looked slight and old and very brown. Even before he spoke, I knew
that he was, like me, a Filipino. “I’m a Filipino,” he began, loud and clear in a voice that seemed used
to wide open spaces, “I’m just a Filipino farmer out in the country.” He waved his hand towards the
door. “I left the Philippines more than twenty years ago and have never been back. Never will
perhaps. I want to find out, sir, are our Filipino women the same like they were twenty years ago?” As
he sat down, the hall filled with voices, hushed and intrigued. I weighed my answer carefully, did not
want to tell a lie yet I did not want to say any thing that would seem platitudinous, insincere. But more
important than these considerations, it seemed to me that moments as I looked towards my
countryman, I must give him an answer that would not make him so unhappy. Surely, all these years,
he must have held on to certain ideals, certain beliefs, even illusions peculiar to the exile. “First,” I
said as the voices gradually died down and every eye seemed upon me, “First, tell me what our
women were like twenty years ago.” The man stood to answer. “Yes,” he said, “you’re too young . . .
twenty years ago our women were nice, they were modest, they wore their hair long, they dressed
proper and went for no monkey business. They were natural, they went to church regular, and they
were faithful.” He had spoken slowly, and now in what seemed like an afterthought, added. “It’s the
men who ain’t.” Now I knew what I was going to say. “Well,” I began, “it will interest you to know that
our women have changed—but definitely! The change, however, has been on the outside only.
Inside, here,” pointing to the heart, “they are the same as they were twenty years ago, God-fearing,
faithful, modest, and nice.” The man was visibly moved. “I’m very happy, sir,” he said in the manner of
who, having stakes on the land, had found no cause to regret one’s sentimental investment. After
this, everything that was said and done in the hall that night seemed like an anticlimax, and later as
we walked outside, he gave me his name and told me of his farm thirty miles east of the city. We had
stopped at the main entrance to the hotel lobby. We had not talked much on the way. As a matter of
fact, we were never alone. Kindly American friends talked to us, asked us questions, said goodnight.
So now I asked him whether he cared to step into the lobby with me and talk shop. “No, thank you,”
he said, “you are tired. And I don’t want to stay out too late.” “Yes, you live very far.” “I got a car,” he
said, “besides . . .” Now he smiled, he truly smiled. All night I had been watching his face and I
wondered when he was going to smile. “Will you do me a favor, please,” he continued smiling almost
sweetly. “I want you to have dinner with my family out in the country. I’d call for you tomorrow
afternoon, then drive you back. Will that be all right?” “Of course,” I said, “I’d love to meet your family.”
I was leaving Kalamazoo for Muncie, Indiana, in two days. There was plenty of time. “You will make
my wife very happy,” he said. “You flatter me.” “Honest. She’ll be very happy. Ruth is a country girl
and hasn’t met many Filipinos. I mean Filipinos younger than I, cleaner looking. We’re just poor
farmer folk, you know, and we don’t get to town very often. Roger, that’s my boy, he goes to school in
town. A bus takes him early in the morning and he’s back in the afternoon. “He’s a nice boy.” “I bet he
is,” I agreed. “I’ve seen the children of some of the boys by their American wives and the boys are
tall, taller than the father, and very good looking.” “Roger, he’d be tall. You’ll like him.” Then he said
goodbye and I waved to him as he disappeared in the darkness.
The next day he came, at about three in the afternoon. There was a mild, ineffectual sun shining and
it was not too cold. He was wearing an old brown tweed jacket and worsted trousers to match. His
shoes were polished, and although the green of his tie seemed faded, a colored shirt hardly
accentuated it. He looked younger than he did the night before now that he was clean shaven and
seemed ready to go to a party. He was grinning as we met. “Oh, Ruth can’t believe it. She can’t
believe it,” he kept repeating as he led me to his car—a nondescript thing in faded black that had
known better days and many hands. “I says to her, I’m bringing you a first class Filipino, and she
says, aw, go away, quit kidding, there’s no such thing as first class Filipino. But Roger, that’s my boy,
he believed me immediately. What’s he like, daddy, he asks. Oh, you will see, I says, he’s first class.
Like you daddy? No, no, I laugh at him, your daddy ain’t first class. Aw, but you are, daddy, he says.
So you can see what a nice boy he is, so innocent. Then Ruth starts griping about the house, but the
house is a mess, she says. True, it’s a mess, it’s always a mess, but you don’t mind, do you? We’re
poor folks, you know.” The trip seemed interminable. We passed through the narrow lanes and
disappeared into thickets, and came out on barren land overgrown with weeds in places. All around
were dead leaves and dry earth. In the distance were apple trees. “Aren’t those apple trees?” I asked,
wanting to be sure. “Yes, those are apple trees.” He replied. “Do you like apples? I got lots of ‘em. I
got an apple orchard, I’ll show you.” All the beauty of the afternoon seemed in the distance on the
hills, in the dull soft sky. “Those trees are beautiful on the hills,” I said. “Autumn’s a lovely season.
The trees are getting ready to die, and they show their colors, proud-like.” “No such thing in our own
country,” I said. That remark seemed unkind, I realized later. It touched him off on a long deserted
tangent, but ever there perhaps. How many times did the lonely mind take unpleasant detours away
from familiar winding lanes towards home for fear of this, the remembered hurt, the long lost youth,
the grim shadows of the years; how many times indeed only the exile knows. It was rugged road we
were traveling and the car made so much noise that I could not hear everything he said, but I
understood him. He was telling me his story for the first time in many years. He was remembering his
own youth. He was thinking of home. In these, old moments there seemed no cause for fear, no
cause at all, no pain. That would come later. In the night perhaps. Or lonely on the farm under the
apple tree. In this old Visayan town, the streets are narrow and dirty and strewn with corral shells.
You have been there? You could not have missed our house, it was the biggest town, one of the
oldest, was a big family. The house stood right on the edge of the street. A door opened heavily and
you enter a dark hall leading to the stairs. There is the smell of chickens roasting on the low-topped
walls, there is the familiar sound they make and you grope your way up a massive staircase, the
bannisters smooth upon the trembling hand. Such nights, they are no better than the days, windows
are close against the sun; they close heavily. Mother sits in her corner looking very white and sick.
This was her world, her domain. In all these years I cannot remember the sound of her voice. Father
was different. He moved about. He shouted. He ranted. He lived in the past and talked of honor as
though it were the only thing. I was born in that house. I grew up there into a pampered brat. I was
mean. One day I broke their heart, I saw mother cry wordlessly as father heaped his curses upon me
and drove me out of the house, the gate closing heavily after me. And my brothers and sisters took
up my father’s hate for me and multiplied it numberless times in their own broken hearts. I was no
good. But sometimes, you know, I miss that house, the roasting chickens on the low-topped walls. I
miss my brothers and sisters. Mother witting in her chair, looking like a pale ghost in a corner of the
room. I would remember the great live posts, massive tree trunks from the forest. Leafy plants grew
on the sides, buds pointing downwards, wilted and dies before they could become flowers. As they
fell on the floor, father bent to pick them and throw them out into the corral streets. His hands were
strong. I have kissed those hands . . . many times, many times. Finally we rounded a deep curve and
suddenly came upon a shanty, all but ready to crumble in a heap on the ground, its plastered walls
were rotting away, the floor was hardly a foot from the ground. I thought of the cottages if the poor
colored folk in the south, the hovels of the poor everywhere in the land. This one stood by itself as
though by common consent all the folk that used to live here had decided to stay away, despising it,
ashamed of it. Even the lovely season could not color it with beauty. A dog barked loudly, as we
approached. A fat blonde woman stood at the door with a little boy by her side. Roger seemed newly
scrubbed. He hardly took his eyes off me. Ruth had a clean apron around her shapeless waist. Now
as she shook my hands in sincere delight I noticed shamefacedly (that I should notice) how rough her
hands, how coarse and red with labor, how ugly! She was no longer young and her smile was
pathetic. As we stepped inside and the door closed behind us, immediately I was aware of the familiar
scent of apples. The room was bare except for a few ancient pieces of second-hand furniture. In the
middle of the room stood a stove to keep the family warm in witer. The walls were bare. Over th
dining table hung a lamp yet unlighted. Ruth got busy with the drinks. She kept coming in and out of a
rear room that must have been the kitchen and soon the table was heavy with food, fried chicken legs
and rice. Even as we ate, Ruth kept standing and going the kitchen for more food. Roger ate like a
little gentleman. “Isn’t he nice looking?” father asked. “You are a handsome boy, Roger,” I said. The
boy smiled at me. “You look like Daddy,” he said. Afterwards I noticed an old picture leaning on the
top of a dresser and stood to pick it up. It was yellow and soiled with many fingerings. The faded
figure of a woman in Filipina dress could yet be distinguished although the face had become a blur.
“Your . . .” I began. “I don’t know who she is,” Fabia hastened to say. “I picked that picture many
years ago in a room on La Salle Street in Chicago. I have often wondered who she is.” “The face
wasn’t blur in the beginning?” “Oh, no. it was a young face and good.” Ruth came with a plate full of
apples. “Ah,” I cried picking out a ripe one, “I’ve been thinking where all the scent of apples came
from. The room is full of it.” “I’ll show you,” said Fabia. He showed me a backroom, not very big. It
was half-full of apples. “Every day,” he explained, “I take some of them to town to sell to the
groceries. Prices have been low. I’ve been losing on the trips.” “These apples will spoil,” I said. “We’ll
feed them to the pigs.” Then he showed me around the farm. It was twilight now and the apple trees
stood bare against a glowing western sky. In apple blossom time it must be lovely here, I thought. But
what about wintertime? One day, according to Fabia, a few years ago, before Roger was born, he
had an attack of acute appendicitis. It was deep winter. Ruth was pregnant and none too well herself.
At first she did not know what to do. She bundled him in warm clothing and put him on a cot near the
stove. She shoveled the snow on their front door and practically carried the suffering man on her
shoulders, dragging him through the newly made path towards the road where they waited for the
U.S. Mail car to pass. Meanwhile snowflakes poured all over them and she kept rubbing the man’s
arms and legs as she herself nearly froze to death. “Go back to the house, Ruth!” her husband cried,
“you’ll freeze to death.” But she clung to him wordlessly. Even as she scrubbed her arms and legs,
tears rolled down her cheeks. “I won’t leave you, I won’t leave you,” she repeated. Finally the U.S.
Mail car arrived. The mailman, who knew them well, helped them board the car, and, without stopping
on his usual route, took the sick man and his wife direct to the nearest hospital. Ruth stayed in the
hospital with Fabia. She slept in a corridor outside the patients’ ward and in the day time helped in
scrubbing the floor and washing the dished and cleaning the men’s things. They didn’t have enough
money and Ruth was willing to work like a slave. “Ruth’s a nice girl,” said Fabia. “Like our won Filipino
women,” Before nightfall, he took me back to the hotel. Ruth and Roger stood at the door holding
hands and smiling at me. From inside the room of the shanty, a low light flickered. I had a last
glimpse of the apple trees in the orchard under the darkened sky as we were on our way back to
town. The dog had started barking. We could hear it for some tie, until finally we could not hear it
anymore, and all was darkness around us, except where the head lamps revealed a stretch of road
leading somewhere. Fabia did not talk this time. I didn’t seem to have anything to say myself. Nut
when finally we came to the hotel and I got down, Fabia said, “Well, I guess I won’t be seeing you
again.” It was dimly lighted in front of the hotel and I could hardly see Fabia’s face. He had not come
down the car, but he had moved to my side, and I saw his hand, extended. I gripped it. “Tell Ruth and
Roger,” I said, “I love them.” He dropped my hand quickly. “They’ll be waiting for me now,” he said.
“Look,” I said, not knowing why I said it, “one of these days, very soon, I hope, I’ll be going home. I
could go to your town.” “No,” he said softly, sounding very much defeated but brace. “Thanks a lot.
But, you see, nobody would remember me now.” The he started the car, and as it moved away, he
waved his hand. “Goodbye,” I said, waving back into the darkness. And suddenly the night was cold
like winter straying early in these northern woodlands. I hurried inside. There was a train the next
morning that left for Muncie, Indiana, at a quarter after eight.

2. Immigration Blues June 1977.Scent of Apples. Issue “New Letters”

Through the window curtain, Alipio saw two women, one seemed twice as large as the other.
In their summer dresses, they looked like a country girls he knew back home in the Philippines, who
went around peddling rice cakes. The slim one could have passed for his late wife Seniang’s sister
whom he remembered only in the pictures because she never made it to the United States. Before
seniang’s death, the couple had arranged papers to facilitate the approval of her visa. The sister was
always “almost ready, all the papers have been signed,” but she never showed up. His wife had been
ailing and when she died, he thought that hearing on her death would hasten her coming but the wire
he had neither was returned nor acknowledge. The knocking on the door was gentle. A little hard of
hearing, Alipio was not sure it was indeed a knocking on the door, but it souanother nded different
from the little noises that sometimes hummed in his ears in the daytime. It was not yet noon, but it
must be warm outside in all that sunshine, otherwise those two women would be wearing spring
dresses all the least. There were summer days in San Francisco that were cold like winter in the
Midwest. He limped painfully to the door. Until last month, he wore crutches. The entire year before
that, he was bed-ridden, but he had to force himself to walk about in the house after coming from the
hospital. After Seniang’s death, everything had gone to pieces. It was one bust after another, he
complained to her few friends who came to visit him. “Seniang was my good luck. When God decided
to take her, I had nothing but bad luck,” he said. Not long after Seniang’s death, he was in the car
accident, for almost a year he was in the hospital. The doctors were not sure he was going to walk
again. He told them it was God’s wish. As it was he was thankful he was still alive. It had been a
horrible accident. The case dragged on in court. His lawyer didn’t seem too good about car accidents.
He was an expert immigration lawyer, but he was a friend. As it turned out, Alipio lost the full
privileges and benefits coming to him in another two years if he had not been hospitalized and had
continued working until his official retirement. However, he was well provided. He didn’t spend a cent
for doctor and medicine and hospitals bills. Now there was a prospect of a few thousand dollars
compensation. After deducting his lawyer’s fees it would be something to live on. He had social
security benefits and a partial retirement pension. Not too bad, really. Besides, now he could walk a
little although he still limped and had to move about with extreme care. When he opened the door, the
fat woman said, “Mr. Palma Alipio Palma?” her intonation sounded like the beginning of a familiar
song. “Yes,” he said. “come in come on in.” he had not rung all that time, not even a wrong number,
and there was nobody he wanted to talk to. The little noises in his ears had somehow kept him
company. Radio and television sounds lulled him to sleep. The thin one was completely out of sight
as she stood behind the big one who was doing the talking. “I’m sorry, I should have phoned you first,
but we were in a hurry.” “the houses is a mess,” Alipio said truthfully. Had he been imagining things?
He remembered seeing two women on the porch. There was another one, who looked like Seniang’s
sister. The woman said ‘we,’ and just the the other one materialized, close behind the big one, who
walked in with the assurance of a social worker, about to do him a favor. “Sit down. Sit down.
Anywhere,” Alipio said as he led the two women through the dining room, past a huge rectangular
table in the center. It was bare except for a vase of plastic flowers as centerpiece. He passed his
hand over his face, a mannerism which Seniang hated. Like you have a hang-over, she chided him,
and you can’t see straight. A TV set stood close to wall in the small living room crowded with an
assortment of chairs and tables. An aquarium crowded the mantelpiece of a fake fireplace. A lighted
bulb inside the tank showed many colored fish swimming about in a haze of fish stood. Some of it lay
in scattered on the edge of the shelf. The carpet underneath was sodden black. Old magazines and
tabloids lay just about everywhere.
“Sorry to bother you like this,” the fat one said as she plunked herself down on the nearest
chair, which sagged to the floor under her weight. The thin one choose the end of the sofa away from
the TV set. “I was just preparing my lunch. I know it’s quite early, but I had nothing to do,” Alipio said,
pushing down with both hands the seat of the cushioned chair near a movable partition, which
separated the living room from the dining room. “It’s painful just trying to sit down. I’m not too well
yet,” he added as he finally made it. “I hope we’re not really bothering you,” the fat one said. The
other had not said a word. She looked pale and sick. Maybe she was hungry or cold. “How’s it
outside?” Alipio asked. “I’ve not been out all day.” Whenever he felt like it, he dragged a chair to the
porch and sat there, watching the construction going on across the street and smiling at the people
passing by who happened to look his way. Some smiled back and mumbled something like a greeting
or a comment on the beauty of the day. He stayed on until he got bored or it became colder than he
could stand. “It’s fine. It’s fine outside. Just like Baguio,” the fat one said. “You know Baguio? I was
born near there.” “We’re sisters” Alipio was thinking, wont the other one speak at all? “I’m Mrs.
Antonieta Zafra, the wife of carlito. I believe you know him. He says you’re friends. In Salinas back in
the thirties. He used to be a cook at the Marina.” “Carlito, yes, yes Carlito Zafra. We bummed
together. We come from ilocos. Where you from? “Not much. Carlito and I talk in English. Except
when he’s real mad, like when his cock don’t fight or when he lose, then he speaks Ilocano. Cuss
words. I’ve learned them myself. Some, anyway” “Yes. Carlito. He love cockfighting. How’s he?”
“Retired like you. We’re now in Fresno. On a farm. He raises chickens and hogs. I do some sewing in
town when I can. My sister here is Monica. She’s older than me. Never been married.” Monica smiled
at the old man, her face in anguish, as if near to tears. “Carlito. He got some fightin cocks, I bet.” “Not
anymore. But he talks a lot about cockfighting. But nobody, not even the pinoys and the Chicanos are
interested in it.” Mrs. Zafra appeared pleased at the state of things on her home front. “I remember.
Carlito once promoted a cockfight . Everything was ready, but the roosters won’t fight. Poor man, he
did everything to make them fight like having them peck on each other’s neck s and so forth. They
were so tame, so friendly with each other. Only thing they didn’t do is embrace.” Alipio laughed,
showing a set of perfectly white and even teeth, obviously dentures. “He hasn’t told me about that, I’ll
remind him.” “Do that. Where’s he? Why isn’t he with you?” “We didn’t know we’d find you. While
visiting some friends this morning, we learned you live here.” Mrs. Zafra was beaming on him. “I’ve
always lived here, but oi got few friends now. So you’re Mrs. Carlito. I thought he’s dead already. I
never hear from him. We’re old now. We’re old already when we got our citizenship papers right after
Japanese surrender. So you and him. Good for Carlito.” “After Seniang died, she was not yet sixty,
but she had this heart trouble. I took care of her.” Alipio seemed to have forgotten his visitors. He sat
there staring at the fish in the aquarium, his ears perked as though waiting for some sound, like the
breaking of the surf not far, or the TV set suddenly turned on. The sisters looked at each other,
Monica was fidgeting, her eyes seemed to say, let’s go, let’s get out of there. “Did you hear that?” the
old man said. Monica turned to sister, her eyes wild panic. Mrs. Zafra leaned forward, her hand
touching the edge of the chair where Alipio sat, and asked gently, “Hear what?” “The waves. Listen.
They’re just outside you know. The breakers have a nice sound like at home in the Philippines. We
lived in a coastal town. Like here, I always tell Seniang, across that ocean is the Philippines, we’re not
far from home.” “But you’re alone now. It’s not good to be alone,” Mrs. Zafra said. “At night I hear
better. I can see the Pacific Ocean from my bedroom. It sends me to sleep. I sleep soundly like I got
no debts. I can sleep all day, too, but that’s bad. So I walk. I walk much before. I go out there. I let the
breakers touch me. It’s nine the touch. Seniang always scold me, she says I’ll be catching cold, but I
don’t catch cold, she catch the cold all the time.” “You must miss her,” Mrs. Zafra said. Monica was
staring at her hands on her lap while the sister talked. Monica’s skin was transparent and the veins
showed on the back of her hands like trapped eels. “I take care of Seniang. I work all day and leave
her here alone. When I come home, she’s smiling. She’s wearing my jacket and slippers. You look
funny, I says, why do you wear my things, you’re lost inside them. She chuckles, you keep me warm
all day, she says like you’re here, I smell you. Oh, that Seniang. You see, we have no baby. If we
have a baby . . . “ “I think you and Carlito have the same fate. We have no baby also.” “God dictates”
Alipio said, making an effort to stand. In a miraculous surge of power, Monica rushed to him and
helped him up. She seemed astonished and embarrassed at what she had done. “Thank you,” said
Alipio. “I have crutches, but I don’t want no crutches. They tickle me, they hurt me, too.” He watched
Monica go back to her seat. “You need help better than crutches,” Mrs. Zafra said. “God helps,” Alipio
said, walking towards the kitchen as if expecting to find the Almighty there. Mrs. Zafra followed him.
“What are you preparing?” she asked. “Let’s have lunch,” he said. “I’m hungry. I hope you are also.”
“We’ll help you,” Mrs. Zafra said, turning back to where Monica sat staring at her hands again and
listening perhaps for the sound of the sea. She had not noticed nor heard her sister when she called,
“Monica!” The second time she heard her. Monica stood up and went to the kitchen. “There’s nothing
to prepare,” Alipio was saying, as he opened the refrigerator. “What you want to eat? Me, I don’t eat
bread so I got no bread. I eat rice. I was just opening a can of sardines when you come. I like
sardines with lotsa tomato sauce, it’s great with hot rice.” “Don’t you cook the sardines?” Mrs. Zafra
asked. “Monica will cook it for you if you want.” “No! if you cook sardines, it tastes bad. Better
uncooked. Besides, it gets cook on tip of the hot rice. Mix with onions, chopped nice. Raw not
cooked. You like it?” “Monica loves raw onions, don’t you, Sis?” “Yes,” Monica said in a low voice.
“Your sister, she is well?” Alipio said, glancing towards Monica. Mrs. Zafra gave her sister an angry
look. “I’m okay,” Monica said, a bit louder this time. “She’s not sick,” Mrs. Zafra said, “But she’s shy.
Her own shadow frightens her. I tell you, this sister of mine, she got problems.
“Oh?” Alipio exclaimed. He had been listening quite attentively. “I eat onions, raw,” Monica
said. “Sardines, too, I like uncooked.” Her sister smiled. “What do you say, I run out for some
groceries,” she said, going back to the living room to get her bag. “Thanks. But no need for you to do
that. I got lotsa food canned food: corn beef, pork and beans, Vienna sausage, tuna crab meat,
shrimp, chow mein, imitation noodles, and of course, sardines in green and yellow labels. “The yellow
ones with mustard sauce, not tomato,” he explained. “All I need is a cup of coffee,” Mrs. Zafra said,
throwing her handbag back on the chair in the living room. Alipio opened two drawers near the
refrigerator. “Look he said as Mrs. Zafra came back running back to the kitchen. “I got more food to
last me . . . . a long time.” The sister gaped at the bags of rice, macaroni, spaghetti sticks, sugar,
dried shrimps wrapped in cellophane, bottles of soy sauce and fish sauce, vinegar, ketchup instant
coffee, and more cans of sardines. The sight of all that foodstuff seemed to have enlivened the old
man. After all, food meant life, continuing sustenance, source of energy and health. “Now look here.”
He said, turning briskly now to the refrigerator, which he opened, the sudden light touching his face
with a glow that erased years from his eyes. With a jerk he pulled open the large freezer, cramped full
of meats. ”Mostly lamb chops,” he said, adding “I like lamb chops.” “Carlito, he hates lamb chops,”
Mrs. Zafra said. “I like lamb chops,” Monica said, still wild eyed, but now a bit of color tinted her
cheeks. “Why do you have so much food?” she asked. Alipio looked at her before answering. He
thought she looked younger than Mrs. Zafra. “You see,” he said, closing the refrigerator. He was
beginning to chill. “I watch the papers for brgain sales. I can still drive the car when I feed right. It’s
only now my legs bothering me. So I buy all I can. Save me man trips. Money, too.” Later they sat
around the enormous table in the table dining room. Monica shared half a plate of boiling rice topped
with sardine with Alipio. He showed her how to place the sardines on top, pressing it a little and
pouring spoonfuls of tomato juice over it. Mrs. Zafra had coffee and settled for a small can of Vienna
sausage and a little rice. She sipped her coffee meditatively. “This is a good coffee,” she said. “I
remember how we used to hoard Hills Bros. coffee at . . . at the convent. The sisters were quite
selfish about it. “Antonieta was a nun, a sister of mercy,” Monica said. “What?” Alipio exclaimed,
pointing a finger at her for no apparent reason, an involuntary gesture of surprise. “Yes, I was,” Mrs.
Zafra admitted. “When I married, I had been out of the order for more than a year, yes, in California at
St. Mary’s.” “You didn’t . . . “ Alipio began. “Of course not,” she interrupted him. “If you mean did I
leave the order to marry Carlito. Oh no, He was already an old man when I met him.’ “I see. We used
to joke him because he didn’t like the girls too much, he reared his head up as he laughed, covering
his mouth hastily, but too late. Some of the tomato soaked grains had already spilled out on his plate
and on the table in front of him. Monica looked pleased as she gathered carefully some of the grains
on the table. “He hasn’t changed,” Mrs. Zafra said vaguely. “It was me who wanted to marry him.
“You? After being a nun, you wanted to marry. . . Carlito? But why Carlito?” Alipio seemed to have
forgotten for the moment that he was still eating. The steam from the rice touched his face till it
glistened darkly. He was staring at Mrs. Zafra as he breathed in the aroma without savoring it. “It’s a
long story,” Mrs. Zafra said. She stabbed a chunky sausage and brought it to her mouth. She looked
pensive as she chewed on it. “When did this happen?” “Five, six years ago. Six years ago, almost.”
“That long?” “She had to marry him,” Monica said blandly. “What?” Alipio shouted, visibly disturbed.
There was the sound of dentures granting in his mouth. He passed a hand over his face. “Carlito
done that to you?” The coffee spilled a little as Mrs. Zafra put the cup down.” “Why no,” she said.
“What are you thinking of?” Before he could answer, Monica spoke in the same tone of voice, low,
unexcited, saying, “He thinks Carlito got you pregnant, that’s what.” “Carlito? ”She turned to Monica in
disbelief. “Why, Alipio knows Carlito,” She said. Monica shrugged her shoulder. “Why don’t you tell
him why?” she suggested. “As I said, It’s a long story, but I shall make it short,” Mrs. Zafra began.
She took a sip from her cup and continued, “After leaving the order, I couldn’t find a job. I was
interested in social work, but I didn’t know anybody who could help me.” As she paused, Alipio said,
“What the heck does Carlito know about social work?” “Let me continue,” Mrs. Zafra said. She still
had a little money, from home, and she was not too worried about being jobless. But there was the
question of her status as an alien. Once out of the community, she was no longer entitled to stay in
the United States, let alone secure employment. The immigration office began to hound her, as it did
other Filipinos in similar predicaments. They were a pitiful lot. Some hid in the apartments of friends
like criminals running away from the law. Of course, they were law breakers. Those with
transportation money returned home, which they hated to do. At home they would force to invent
stories, tell lies to explain away why they returned so soon. All their lives they had to learn how to
cope with the stigma of failure in a foreign land. They were losers and no longer fit for anything useful.
The more sensitive and weak lost their minds and had to be committed to insane asylums. Others
became neurotic, antisocial, depressed in mind and spirit. Some turned to crime. Or just folded up, in
a manner of speaking. It was a nightmare. Antonieta didn’t want to go back to the Philippines under
those circumstances. She would have had to be very convincing to prove that she was not thrown out
of the order for immoral reasons. Just when she seemed to have reached the breaking point, she
recalled incidents in which women in her situation married American citizens and automatically,
became entitled to permanent residency with an option to become U.S citizens after five years. At first
she thought of the idea of such marriage was hideous unspeakable. Perhaps other foreign women in
similar situations could do it- and have done it-but not Philippine girls. But what was so special about
Philippine girls? Nothing really but their upbringing was such that to place themselves in a situation
where they had to tell a man that all they wanted was a marriage for convenience, was degrading, an
unbearable shame. A form of self-destruction. Mortal sin. Better repatriation. A thousand times better.
When an immigration officer finally caught up with her, he proved to be very understanding and quite
a gentleman. Yet he was firm. He was young, maybe of Italian descent, and looked like a salesman
for a well-known company in the islands that dealt in farm equipment.
“I’m giving you one week,” he said. “You have already overstayed by several months. If in one
week’s time, you haven’t left yet. You might have to wait in jail for deportation proceedings.” She
cried, oh, how she cried. She wished she had not let the order, no, not really. She had no regrets
leaving up to this point. Life in the convent turned sour on her. She despised the sisters and the
system, which she found, tyrannical, inhuman. In her way, she had a long series of talks with God
and God had approved of the step she had taken. She was not going back to the order. Anyhow even
if she did, she wouldn’t be taken back. To jail then? But why not marry an American citizen? In one
week’s time? How? Accost the first likely man and say, “You look like an American citizen. If you are,
indeed, and you have the necessary paper to prove it, will you marry me? I want to remain in this
country. All week she talked to God. It was the same God she had worshipped and feared all her life.
Now they were palsy walsy, on the best of terms. And she brooded over his misfortune, he brooded
with her, sympathized with her, and finally advised her to go look for an elderly Filipino who was an
American citizen, and tell the truth of the matter. Tell him that if he wished, it could be a marriage in
name only. For his trouble, she would be willing to pay on the installment plan? If he wished . . .
otherwise . . . Meanwhile he would look the other way. How she found Carlito Zafra was another
story, more confused and confusing. It was like a miracle, though. Her friend God could not have sent
her to a better instrument to satisfy her need. That was ot expressed well, but I amounted to that, a
need. Carlito was an instrument necessary for her good. And, as it turns out, a not too unwilling
instrument. “We were married the day before the week was over,” Mrs. Zafra said. “And I’ve been in
this country ever since. And no regrets.” They lived well and simply, a country life. True, they were
childless, but both of them were helping relatives in the Philippines, sending them money and goods
marked made in U.S.A “Lately, however, some of the goods we’ve been sending do not arrive intact.
Do you know that some of the good quality materials we send never reach our relatives? It’s
frustrating.” “We got lotsa thieves between here and there,” Alipio said, but his mind seemed to be on
something else. “And I was able to send for Monica. From the snapshots she sent ud seened to be
getting thinner and more sickly, teaching in the barrio. And she wanted so much here.” “Seniang was
like you also, hiding from immigration, thank God for her,” Alipio told Mrs. Zafra in such a low voice he
could hardly be heard. The sisters pretended they didn’t know, but they knew practically everything
about him. Alipio appeared tired perceive and eager to talk so they listened. “She went to my
apartment and said, without any hesitation, marry me and I’ll take care of you. She was thin then I
thought what she had said was funny, the others had been matching us, you know, but i was not
really interested. I believe marriage means children. And if you cannot produce children, why get
married? Besides, I had ugly experience moments. When I first arrived in the States, here in Frisco
was young and there were lotsa blondies hanging around of Kearny Street. It was easy. But I wanted
a family and they didn’t. None of ‘em. So what the heck, I said.” Alipio realized that seniang was not
joking. She had to get married to an American citizen otherwise she would be deported. At the time,
Alipio was beginning to feel the disadvantages of living alone. There was too much time in his hand.
How he hated himself for some of the things he did. He believed that if he was married, he would be
more sensible with his time and money. He would be happier and live long. So when Seniang showed
that she was serious, he agreed to marry her. It was not to be in name only. He wanted the woman.
He liked her so much he would have proposed hiself had he suspected that he had a chance. She
was hard working, decent, and in those days, rather slim. “Like Monica,” he said. “Oh, I’m thin,”
Monica protested, blushing deeply, “I’m bones.” “Monica is my only sister. We have no brother,” Mrs.
Zafra said, adding more items to her sister’s vita. “Look,” Monica said, “I finished everything on my
plate. I’ve never tasted sardines this good. Especially the way you eat them. I’m afraid I’ve eaten up
your lunch. This is my first full meal. And I thought I’ve lost my appetite already.” The words came out
in rush. It seemed she didn’t want to stop and she paused only because she didn’t know what else to
say. She moved about, gaily and at ease, perfectly at home. Alipio watched her with a bemused look
in his face as she gathered the dishes and brought them to the kitchen sink. When Alipio heard the
water running, he stood up, without much effort this time, and walked to her saying, “Don’t bother. I
got all the time to do that. You got to leave me something to do. Come, perhaps your sister wants
another cup of coffee.” Mrs. Zafra had not moved from her seat. She was watching the two argue
about the dishes. When she heard Alipo mention coffee, she said, “No, no more, thanks. I.ve drunk
enough to keep me awake all week.” “Well, I’m going to wash them myself later,” Monica was saying
as she walked back to the table, Alipio close behind her. “You’re an excellent host, Alipio.” Mrs. Zafra
spoke in tone like a reading from a citation on a certificate of merit or something.” And to two
complete strangers at that. You’re a good man.” “But you’re not strangers Carlito is my friend. We
were young together in this country. And it’s something, you know. There are lotsa guys like us here.
Old-timers, o.t.’s , they call us. Permanent residents. U.S. citizens. We all gonna be buried here.” He
appeared to be thinking deeply as he added, “But what’s wrong with that?” the sisters ignored the
question. The old man was talking to himself. “What’s wrong is to be dishonest. Earn a living with
both hands, not afraid of any kind of work, that’s the best good. No other way. Yes, everything for
convenience, why not? That’s frankly honest. No pretend. Love comes in the afterwards. When it
comes. If it cmes.” Mrs. Zafra chuckled, saying, “Ah, you’re a romantic, Alipio. I must ask Carlito
about you. You seem to know so much about him. I bet you were quite a . . .” she paused because
what she wanted to say was “rooster,” but she might give the impression of over-familiarity. Alipio
interrupted her, saying “Ask him, he will say yes. I’m a romantic.” His voice held a vibrance that was
surprised and a revelation to the visitors. He gestured as he talked puckering his mouth every now
and then, obviously to keep his denture from slipping out. “What do you think? We we’re young, why
not? We vowed ‘em with our gallantly, with our cooking. Boy those dames never seen anything like
us. Also, we were fools, most of us, anyway. Fools on fire.” Mrs. Zafra clapped her hands. Monica
was smiling. “Ah, but the fire’s gone. Only the fool’s left now,” Alipio said, weakly. HI voice was low
and he looked tired as he passed both hands across his face. Then he raised his head. The listening
look came back to his face. When he spoke, his voice shook a little. “Many times I wonder where are
the others. Where are you. Speak to me. And I think they’re wondering the same, asking the same,
so I say, I’m here, your friend, Alipio Palma my is broken, the wife she’s dead, but I’m okay. Are you
okay also? The dead they can hear even if they don’t answer. The alive don’t answer. But I know. I
feel. Some okay, some not. They old now, all of us who were very young. All over the United states of
America. All over the world. . .” Abruptly, he turned to Mrs. Zafra, saying, “So. You are Carlito. But
CArlito, he never had fire.”
“How true, how very very true,” Mrs. Zafra laughed. I would burn him. Can,t stand it. Not
Carlito. But he’s a good man, I can tell you that.” “No question. Dabest,” Alipio conceded. Monica
remained silent, but her eyes followed every move Alipio made, straying no further than the reach of
his arms he gestured to help make clear the intensity of his feeling. “I’m sure you still got some of that
fire,” Mrs. Zafra said. Monica gasped, but she recovered quickly. Again, a rushing words came from
her lips as if they had been there all the time waiting for what her sister had said that touched off the
rent of words. Her eyes shone as in a fever as she talked. “I don’t know Carlito very well. I’ve not
been with the very long, but from what you say, from the way you talk, from what I see, the two of you
are very different.” “Oh, maybe not,” Alipio said, trying to protest, but Monica went on. “You have
strength, Mr. Palma. Strength of character. Strength in your belief in God. I admire that in a man, in a
human being. Look at you. Alone. This huge table. Don’t you find it too big sometimes?” Monica
paused perhaps to allow her meaning to sink into Alipio’s consciousness, as she fixed her eyes on
him. “No. Not really. I don’t eat at this table. I eat in the kitchen,” Alipio said. Mrs. Zafra was going to
say something, but she held back. Monica was talking again. “But it must be hard, that you cannot
deny. Living from day to day. Alone. On what? Memories? Cabinets and the refrigerator full of food? I
repeat, I admire you, sir. You’ve found your place. You’re home safe. And at peace.” She paused
again this time to sweep back the strand of hair that had fallen on her brow. Alipio had a drugged
look. He seemed to have lost the drift of her speech. What was she talking about? Groceries?
Baseball? He was going to say, you like baseball also? You like tuna? I have all kinds of fish. Get
them at bargain price. But, obviously, it was not the proper thing to say. “Well, I guess, one gets used
to anything, even loneliness,” Monica said in a listless, dispirited tone, all the fever in her voice gone.
“God dictates,” Alipio said, feeling he had found his way again and he was now on the right track.
What a girl. If she had only a little more fish. And color. Monica leaned back on her chair, exhausted.
Mrs. Zafra was staring at her in disbelief, in grievous disappointment. Her eyes seemed to say, what
happened, you were going great, what suddenly hit you that you had stop, give up, and defeated?
Monica shook her head in a gesture that quite clearly said, no, I can’t do it. I can’t anymore, I give up.
Their eyes kept up a show, a deaf-mute dialogue. Mrs. Zafra: Just when everything was going on
fine, you quit. We’ve reached this far and you quit. I could have done it my way, directly, honestly. Not
that what you were doing was dishonest, you were great, and now look at the dumb expression in
your eyes. Monica: I can’t. I can’t anymore. But I tried. It’s too much. “How long have you been in the
States?” Alipio asked Monica “For almost a year now!” Mrs. Zafra screamed and Alipio was visibly
sheken, but she didn’t care. This was the right moment. She would take it from here whether Monica
went along with her or not. She was going to do it her way. “How long exactly, let’s see. Moni, when
did you get your last extension?” “Extension?” Alipio repeated the word. It had such a familiar ring like
“visa” or “social security,” it broke into his consciousness like a touch from Seniang’s fingers. It was
quite intimate. “You mean. . .” “That’s right. She’s here as a temporary visitor. As a matter of matter,
she came on a tourist visa. Carlitro and I sponsored her coming, field all the necessary papers, and
everything would have been fine, but she couldn’t wait. She had to come here as tourist. Now she’s in
trouble. “What trouble?” Alipio asked.
“She has to go back to the Philippines. She can’t stay here any longer.” “I have only two days
left” Monica said, her head in her hands. “And I don’t want to go back.”| Alipio glanced at the wall
clock. It was past three. They had been talking for hours. It was visas right from the start. Marriages.
The long years and the o.t’s Now it was visas again. Were his ears playing a game? They might as
well as they did sometimes, but his eyes surely were not. He could see this woman very plainly,
sobbing on the table. Boy, she was in big trouble. Visas. Immigration. Boy, oh, boy! He knew all about
that. His gleaming dentures showed a crooked smile. He turned to Mrs. Zafra. “Did you come here,”
he began, but Mrs. Zafra interrupted him. “Yes, Alipio. Forgive us. As soon as we arrived, I wanted to
tell you without much talk, I wanted to say, I must tell you why we’re you here. I’ve heard about you.
Not only from Carlito, but from other Filipinos who know you, how you’re living here in San Francisco
alone, a widower, an we heard of the accident, your stay in the hospital, when you were released,
everything. Here’s my sister, a teacher in the Philippines, never married, worried to death because
she’s being deported unless something turned up like she could marry a U.S. citizen, like I did, like
your late wife Seniang, like many others have done, are doing in this exact moment, who can say?
Now look at her, she’s good, religious, any arrangement you wish, she’d accept it. But I didn’t have a
chance to say it. You welcomed us like old friends, relatives. Later every time I began to say
something about why we came, she interrupted me. I was afraid she had changed her mind and then
she began to talk, then stopped without finishing what she really wanted to say, that is, why we came
to see you, and so forth.” “No, no!” Monica cried, raising her head, her eyes red from weeping, and
her face damp with tears. “You’re such a good man. We couldn’t do this to you. We’re wrong. We
started wrong. We should’ve been more honest, but I was ashamed. I was afraid. Let’s go! Let’s go!”
“Where you going?” Alipio asked. “Anywhere,” Monica answered. “Forgive us. Forgive me, Mister.
Alipio, please.” “What’s to forgive? Don’t go. We have dinner. But first, let’s have merienda. I take
merienda. You do also, don’t you? And I don’t mean snacks like the Americans.” The sisters
exchanged glances, their eyes chattering away. Alipio chuckled. He wanted to say, talk of lightning
striking same fellow twice, but thought better of it. A bad thing to say. Seniang was not lightning. At
times only. Mostly his fault. And this girl Monica. . . Moni? Nice name also. How can this one be
lightning? Mrs. Zafra picked up her purse and before anyone could stop her, she was opening the
door. “Where’s the nearest grocery store around here?” she asked, but she didn’t wait for an answer.
“Come back, come back here, we got lotsa food,” Alipio called after her, but he might just as well
have been calling the Pacific Ocean.
3. The Door 1955. A Collection of Stories, pp. 86-97. University of Washington Press.

Oh, the stories I can tell you, if you but have the time to listen, but you are going away. Everybody is
going some place. They are all in a hurry, they will not listen to me. And those who will tarry here
forever, they have no ears for my stories, because they have seen them happen everywhere, and
they don’t want them told, they are a commonplace, they say, they should be hushed and forgotten.
We have had happy moments which, truly, had not quite lasted but there will be other such moments.
So my friends will not listen, because my tales are sad, because they do not have the heart. But you
will listen to me, Ben, even if you, too, are going away. Because I saw the look in your eyes as you
turned around to gaze at Nanoy’s grave; and I knew that you too could have loved Nanoy and shared
his loneliness, you could have suffered. So I walked beside you and held your hand, and deep in my
heart I felt, Ben will understand my stories, to him I shall tell them. i In our apartment, there were four
of us. I was happy with my friends, because everybody spoke my language, our language, I feel so
happy using now with you. We spoke in English only when we cursed, it came in so nicely. Or when
another countryman dropped in for a chat, and he kept talking in English, then the other boys talked,
too. They talked very well, and all I would say was, “Yes” or “Hell, that’s a fact,” in an attempt to cover
up my terrible ignorance which my rough trembling hands so often exposed. There were other boys
and Filipino families in the apartment building. I knew Delfin because I often met him near the stair
landing. His room was just across the way, at the foot of the staircase. Here he lived with Mildred, his
blonde American wife and her two little daughters, Anne and Esther, by a previous marriage. I was
very fond of the two little girls because they were so pretty and little and they had such curly golden
hair. Soon they were calling me Uncle. Often I brought them candy bars and they would rush to meet
me near the main door of the apartment building. I put my arms round their wet sticky necks and gave
them what I had remembered to buy. Mildred would scold them sometimes, saying nasty things. She
would come out of the door wearing a silk negligee and she would run after them in the hall as they
squealed and cried and ran away from her. “You spoil their appetites,” Mildred would tell me, and I
would answer in English, of course, “It don’t matter none, really,” I said. Delfin would sometimes be
around watching the chase. All he would do was smile stupidly and look on. He never invited me to
his apartment. Often I would stand near the open door and talk with the little girls. That was all. One
day I heard the boys in our apartment talking about Delfin. I was surprised at the things they said
about him. Dick, Noli, and Sev seldom agreed on many things, but they were one in their
condemnation of Delfin. It wouldn’t have been for meanness. My friends were not angels, but they led
such busy lives that they had no time to sprout wings or grow horns. It must be true then, the things
they said. “You don’t know him yet, Ambo,” said Dick, “but wait till you do, and then you would be
saying the same things that you hear us saying now.” Dick had finished law school, working days and
studying at night. He was very gentle by nature, and wouldn’t be talking of another man this way if it
was not a fact that Delfin was everything they said about him. “He’s a disgrace to our people,” said
loud-mouthed Noli, for whom everything was country and politics. He had a shrill voice and wanted to
be a Senator in the Philippines. He was intensely nationalistic. Everything a Filipino did in America
was a reflection on our country and our people. “Delfin’s a damn fool,” was Sev’s private opinion. Sev
drove a taxi. He was neat and effeminate in his ways. His taxi was adorned with pictures of the Lady
of Lourdes, of all sizes. There were also pictures of MacArthur and the American and Filipino flags
intertwined as if in lovingness. It seemed that it was common knowledge that Mildred ran around with
other boys. She would take them to her apartment, and Delfin would leave quietly and walk the
streets. If he was not home and came later, and he would find the door locked from the inside, he
knew that he had come at the wrong time again. He would wait outside the apartment building, till a
strange man came out, and he would try the door again with his key. Often he slept elsewhere,
especially on winter nights when walking up and down the streets or loafing in badly heated
hamburger joints made him sick—a shooting pain through the meat of his legs or through the stoop of
his back. He would knock at our door at the most unholy hours of the night and say, “May I sleep here
tonight?” The boys would let him in the living room, show him the couch and throw him a blanket.
Dick and Sev would pretend to be very sleepy, for they hated to see him that way, as though the thing
where happening to them, too. But if Noli was awake, he would shout from his room, “Is that you
again, Del? God, you’re not a man. You must have been castrated in childhood. Why don’t you leave
that woman? Why do you make a goddamn fool of yourself? She’s beautiful. All right. Aren’t there
others as willing, less shameless? Man, where’s your sense of honor? We’re ashamed of you! If you
don’t listen to us, why come here at all? You insult us with your presence. You contaminate us with
your . . . with your . . . filth!” Delfin would pull the blanket over him, as if to shut off the words a little
and the light from the street lamp below. Then he would be quiet as though fast asleep. Once when
Delfin came to our apartment, the boys told him stories of men who defended their honor. Sev said,
“Have you heard of the Filipino in St. Louis who caught his wife sleeping with another man? He
chased the man through the streets. The man was naked and held a pillow close to his breast as if
that protected him. He was so scared. Then the Filipino went back to his wife and slashed her throat.”
Sev made a slashing motion with his hands across his throat, then a choking sound. It was
picturesque. It was gruesome. “And after he had slashed her throat,” Sev continued “he cut off her
nipples. The he gave himself up, carrying the nipples in his hands, staining the sergeant’s blotter with
blood. He’s now in an insane asylum.” Dick had the kindness of heart to change the subject.
Meanwhile Delfin hadn’t said a word in his defense, but he clung to every word of the storyteller, and
he swallowed a little near the end. Then when everybody was quiet, he said, “I don’t think I can kill
Mildred. I don’t think I can live without her.” His sincerity touched us all. For the first time I saw Noli
look at him without contempt, but with pity, with a little kindness. I was coming home late after
midnight in October when I found Delfin sitting on the stone steps of our apartment building, his head
against the stone pillar. “You frightened me,” I said as soon as I was sure that it was he. He was tall
and very dark. His teeth sparkled whitely when he smiled. And he was smiling now. “Did you have a
good time?” he asked, and without waiting for a reply, he added, “Sit down a while with me. It’s too
warm inside.” “You’re not staying here all night, are you?” I asked sitting down on the cold stone
steps. “Oh, no,” he said, looking in the direction of their apartment. “You got a visitor?” I tried with
difficulty to make my question sound matter-of-fact. His answer was a slight nod of the head. “Man,” I
said, “You’re crazy.” “I know,” he said softly. This would go on. I would be saying a lot of things that
wouldn’t mean anything to him. So I asked after Anne and Esther. Were they all right? Of course,
they were all right. What did the little ones know? God, why did they have to know? God, why did I
stay, there, sitting down on the cold stone steps, sharing these crazy hours of waiting with a man like
Delfin? A terrible anger was welling up inside me; all I wanted was try to understand. “Let’s go
upstairs to our apartment,” I said. “It’s getting chilly out here.”
“No,” he said. “Noli’s just come up. He told me not to go to your apartment tonight or else he
would throw me out.” “That would serve you right,” I said, clenching my fist, getting all of Noli’s anger
in me. “Hell!” I cried impulsively, jumping to my feet. “Let’s go to your apartment. We’ll bust the door
and take the . . . out of both of them.” “No,” said Delfin “you will wake up the little girls.” I stared at him
for a while, spitting at the pavement at my feet. Then I sat down again and laughed softly. What had
gotten into me? What business did I have straightening, so to say, the back-hanging collar of this
cuckold of a man, countryman or no countryman? “Oh, well,” I said after a while, “I guess you know
best.” “No,” he admitted. “I’m all wrong. I’m all sick inside of me, worse than leprosy.” “You know,” I
said, “there are many nice girls at the Club.” “I know.” “Some of them a lot better looking than Mildred.
And a million times nicer.” “How do you know?” “I don’t. But I know Mildred.” “I love Mildred.” “Love,
my God! What do you know of love? It’s a curse; it’s a disease that has got into you.” “I know. I know.
I told you it’s worse than leprosy. But sometimes I tell myself it’s love. We called it love in the
beginning. We have moments of beauty together, Mildred and I, and I find this nowhere else. No
other woman could give it to me. I cannot live without her, I tell you. I can’t. . . I can’t.” He held his
head in his hands and he was quiet. I sat there, looking at him, and thinking: Lord, the things Filipinos
do in this country. The things we say. The things that happen to us. What keeps us living on like this
from day to day, from loveless kiss to loveless kiss, from venomed touch to venomed touch. Thrill of
the gaming table, what keeps us alive, thrill of a woman, sight of her body, sharp fleeting moments of
dying . . . they are the blessed ones like Nanoy, though it took him too long to die. Busy with these
thoughts, I had not noticed a man leave the building. Now only his back was visible in the street light
beyond. His steps were brisk and fast as though already late. “Was that the man?” I asked. “I don’t
know,” Delfin answered. “I don’t know any one of them.” Then we stood up, and together we walked
through the hallway, pausing in front of his apartment. The door was closed still. Delfin placed his
hand upon it, and it opened quietly to his touch. “Goodnight,” he said, his teeth sparkling in a happy
smile. I went up to my room, groping in the dark. Someone had turned off the stairway light again.
Now I would have to fumble for the lock on our door, or maybe it would yield to my touch like magic. ii
It was not often during these many years in America that I could look forward to a Christmas with
honest joy. Christmas to me was just another day. It meant more people spending money, bigger tips,
and the spoken words, “Merry Christmas.” It meant that there would be more boys at the club, more
little men at the races. It means silly talks in corners, at lonely tables in Filipino restaurants: “Last
night I dreamed I was back home in the Philippines and it was Christmas. Sister was a grown up lady.
She was wearing an afternoon dress I had brought at Hecht’s. She was lovely, like my memory of
Mother when I was a child. There was a whole platter full of rice cakes, suman wrapped in yellow
leaves. The air was full of the smell of roasting pigs. And many little children came to me and kissed
my hand. In each of their palms I placed a new silver dollar—I had a bagful from Riggs National Bank
—you should have seen the glitter of the silver under the lamplight, you should have seen the glitter
in the children’s eyes.” Sometimes Christmas meant walking up and down the icy streets, looking for
a restaurant, and finding none, for most of them are closed on Christmas Day. Because most people
should be home on Christmas instead of walking up and down the streets, with icy winds blowing
from the River, their steps swinging to the music of Christmas carols, sung everywhere, loudest in the
crowded street above the din of hurried steps turned towards home; megaphones blaring forth joy to
the world, the Lord is come. But, please Lord, let me find a place where I could eat. I’m so hungry.
But I looked forward to that Christmas with honest joy. For the first time in many years, I had a
Christmas gift for someone, for two little blonde girls who called me Uncle. Once I had fever and I
kept to my room. Every time the boys came from work, the first thing they said, invariably, was, “Anne
and Esther want to know how you are.” On the third day, the two little girls came to my room crying.
“Mom would not let us see you,” they said, “But now she’s away. Get well quick, Uncle,” they pleaded.
Anne put her little soft hands on my forehead. “Do you have a headache?” she asked. “A little,” I said,
truthfully. She passed her fingers across my forehead, lightly, gently. Little Esther said, “I’ll rub your
legs.” “Don’t,” I said, “that will tickle me.” And we three laughed. After a while, I said, “You’d better go
now.” And they kissed me goodbye. When they had gone, I turned to the wall and closed my eyes.
And one day, shortly before Christmas, the two little girls came up to me, crying. “Uncle, Uncle, we’ve
a Christmas tree!” They opened the door of their apartment wide enough for us to see across the hall
in corner: a pretty lighted Christmas tree. The next day I got busy asking friends what I could give for
Christmas to two little girls. There were a number of suggestions. Different persons told me different
things. I spent the next few days, walking through F Street, between 7th and 14th Streets, looking for
an apt gift for each child. And I was happy within me. For the first time in many years, there was a
glow in my heart, Christmas felt truly like Christmas, and the songs in the streets, and the carols in
the air, and the little tinkling bell in the hand of the Salvation Army man or woman now freezing in the
cold—all had meaning. As soon as I had their gifts packed nicely, one for Anne and the other for
Esther, I attached a little print card decorated with holly on each, and wrote “Merry Christmas.” My
hand didn’t seem heavy and my heart was light; there was no hesitancy, no sluggishness in the
movement of my hand as I wrote on each, “Love, Uncle,” as though my hand for such things need not
have to tremble, since there was nothing to hide, and something deep to say which I was just saying
now, after these many years, love to you, to anyone, this time to two little girls with windblown curls
and the prettiest freckled noses you ever saw. I gave the two little packages to Mildred. She stood by
the open door wondering what it was that tugged at my heart, like the singing of many happy voices
that have not had voice nor music for a long, long time. On Christmas Eve I went down after dinner
and the little girls were there awaiting me. I stood by the open door while their hands held mine,
pulling me into the room. “Where’s Del?” I asked.
“He’s working tonight,” said Mildred. She stood in the hall, slim and attractive in a red
housecoat. She was combing back her yellow curls. “I’ve just had a bath,” she said as though to
apologize. She exuded soap and orange blossoms. “Merry Christmas,” I said as I allowed myself to
be pulled in by the two very eager girls. “Nice Christmas tree,” I said. “The winkers don’t work,” said
Mildred. She showed me a box of winkers that she said she had been trying to use. I fixed the socket
and the wire ends, and turned on the juice, but they wouldn’t work. I sat on the rug and fixed the
wiring. Then Esther went to the door and came back, saying “I’ve closed the door. Uncle is staying
with us tonight.” Anne was also saying something else. Mildred had turned on the radio and there was
loud singing. I heard Esther’s words, but I didn’t bother to weigh their meaning. Mildred watched me
as I worked, and she, too, knelt playfully on the rug and pattered around the Christmas tree. The little
girls were dancing about and singing. Soon I turned on the juice again and the winkers came on and
went off in a glorious moment that seemed success, and the two little girls gave out a cry of
happiness. It was shortlived, because the winkers didn’t come on any more, and I was beginning to
get embarrassed about my inability to do anything about them. “We shouldn’t have put them on too
early,” Mildred explained, and in a resigned voice, added. “They’re really no good though. The other
light will do.” “But we like the winkers, Mom,” the girls cried. And they urged me to keep on trying. So I
spent several minutes more, tinkering with the wire ends. I was getting hot around the neck, so I said,
“Mind if I take this off?” and I removed my jacket, and the girls ran away with it to their room. “Be
careful!” Mildred shouted after them. She turned to me and asked. “Isn’t there anything important in
your pockets?” “No,” I said without looking up from my work. Well, by the time the winkers were good
and working, it was nearly bedtime for the little ones. The whoop of delight with which they
announced my success was not as loud nor as vociferous as their first, though protracted, yell of
delight earlier in the night. Anne gave a Christmas poem about a silent house without noise, and
without a mouse, but she kept yawning and forgetting the lines, we had to clap our hands before she
was through. Then Esther sang “Silent Night” and Mildred and Anne joined her; and I kept humming,
too, and it seemed, I had always known the melody without having been aware of it. “Now you’ll go to
bed like good girls,” said Mildred, “And Santa Claus will fill your stockings with gifts.” “Yes, Mom,” they
said sleepily as they pulled me to their bedroom. It was a pretty bedroom, done up in blue and red.
There was a bed where they slept side by side. Over the wall that looked like a fireplace, they had
hung two empty stockings. “That’s mine,” said Esther. “This is mine,” said Anne. Mildred pulled Esther
to her and started dressing her for the night. “Help me,” said Anne, getting up on a chair. And I helped
her, a little awkwardly at first. “Thank you,” said Anne, putting her arms around me impulsively, and
nearly falling off the chair. Then she kissed me hard on the cheek, saying, “Goodnight, Uncle.”
“Goodnight,” said Esther, pulling me down to her. And she kissed me on the cheek, less fervently,
sleepily.
“It’s beyond their sleeping time,” said Mildred, as she turned off the light and closed the door
after us. “I have my jacket there,” I said. “It’s all right,” said Mildred. “What about a midnight snack?” I
turned the radio low as Mildred got busy in the kitchen. “What would you have?” she asked.
“Anything,” I said, going to the kitchen. “I’m not really hungry.” “The kitchen is a mess,” she
apologized. Then she added, “Del should be here by now. It’s past midnight. I wonder what’s
detaining him?” Mildred placed a couple of sandwiches before me and a bottle of cold milk. She sat at
the other end of the table with a glass of milk. “Spending Chritsmas with the boys, I suppose?” she
said. “Maybe,” I said, not really having any plans. “Did you know Del quite well before you came to
America? He talks a great deal about you. It seems you people knew each other quite well.” “Yes,” I
said lying deliberately. When we talked of boys we liked to our American friends, we always said we
knew each other in the Philippines; and we talked about our families as though we had deep ties of
association and kinship. Mostly it was just talk. Perhaps it gave us strength to talk like that. We didn’t
wish to be known as the forgotten children of long lost mothers and fathers, as grown-up men without
childhood, bastards of an indifferent country. “Yes,” I repeated, “We knew each other very well,”
adding another deliberate lie. “His family was well known in our province. His father was tall and dark
like him, and deeply loved by all. Del’s father was noble.” “And his mother?” Mildred asked. “He talked
of her more often.” “She was a sweet lady. She was loving and religious. She was faithful.” “Do you
want another glass of milk?” Mildred asked. “No, thanks,” I said, “I’d better be going. Must be past
midnight now.” “I’ll get your jacket,” she said. When she came out of the girls’ bedroom, she had the
jacket in her hands. “Let me help you,” she said. “No, thanks,” I said, taking the jacket gently from her
hand, and folding it. “I’m just going up like this.” “Well, it’s Christmas Day,” Mildred said, giving me her
hand, “Merry Christmas, Ambo.” “Thanks,” I said, “Merry Christmas also.” I let go off her hand quickly.
Mine were trembling so. “Anne and Esther make me very happy,” I said. It was a great truth that I had
to say. “They love you very much,” Mildred said, undoing the bar, “I never bolt this door except . . .”
As the door opened, we saw Delfin sitting on the stairway, his head in his hands. Now he looked up at
the sound of opening door, and when he saw me, he stared hard and long. Then he looked away and
bit his lips. “How long have you been sitting here?” Mildred asked him. “Come on in.” Delfin had not
moved. He was looking at me still with deep upbraiding eyes. “Merry Christmas, Del,” I said, trying to
be casual. What else could I tell him, what could I say? Did I not sit up with him on a night in autumn,
while the door to this apartment remained bolted from the inside? Now he had hidden his head in his
hands, and when he looked at me again, his face was contorted as in pain. I wanted to give him my
hand, but it lay heavy on my side, my trembling fingers clawing at the folds of my woolen jacket. With
great effort, he stood up in answer to Mildred’s now insistent bidding, and as he came to my side, a
great sadness was on his face, no longer pain, and tears stood in his bloodshot eyes. In a vague
whisper, he said, in the dialect, “Why you too, Ambo?” Then he went in, and the door closed upon
them. Instead of going up to my room as I had intended, I put on my jacket and went outside. It was a
cold night; an icy breeze was blowing. But I walked on and on. Then the bells of St. Mary’s on Fourth
Street began pealing loudly, but the spirit of Christmas had already gone out of me, all the songs, all
the music, all the singing gladness within me, all memory of ringing bells.

Carlos Bulosan
4. The Faith of My Mother Originally published in FOLIO (formerlyLiving Poetry), Vol. IV, No. 1
Autumn 1946 (editors: Margaret Dierkes & Henry Dierkes). Retrieved from
http://www.oovrag.com/stories/stories2008b3.shtm

My sister Marcela was sick for a long time with a mysterious disease. She went to bed on her sixth
birthday and stayed flat on her back for three years. She just looked straight into the low ceiling and
tears rolled down her face. She never made any noise during the day, but at night we could hear her
sobbing bitterly. There was nothing we could do for her, so we turned away and tried to sleep. Mother
was always working in the fields and doing some chores in the house. Sometimes Marcela would ask
Mother to sit by her side. Mother would rest only for a few hours, because when the dawn came, she
was up again, cooking for my sister and preparing to go to work. But one day when she came home
from the public market she found my sister walking in the yard as if she had never been sick. Mother
put her load on the ground and ran up to my sister and grabbed her with great tenderness. Then she
knelt on the ground and started to cry. The neighbors came to the fence and hung on it with
solemnity, for they had shared the agony of my sister's illness. Mother carried Marcela in her arms
and rushed up the house. She ran from the living room to the kitchen, and back again, looking for
something she could not find. Finally she saw me sitting on the windowsill and caressing Uncle
Sergio's new fighting cock. "Where is our santo, son?" she said (Santos are wooden figures of the
saint and the Holy Trinity carved by journeyman artists for the village houses.) We had a santo, a
wooden figure of Jesus on the Cross, but it had disappeared when my brother Silvestre came home
for a visit from Manila. I said, hoping father did not sell it: "I didn't see it for a long time, Mother." "Go
to your uncle and borrow his santo," Mother said. "Yes, Mother," I said, jumping off the windowsill. I
ran down the ladder with the cock in my hands. My uncle was not home. I took the santo from the
niche in the wall and carried it with the gamecock to our house. The rooster had dirtied the face of St.
Peter with its wastes, so Mother took it from me and went to the kitchen. She filled a small wooden
tub with water and washed the santo with soap. Father suddenly came up the house feeling
ungracious and mad. "You sure take good care of that piece of wood while your husband walks in the
street like a stinking pig," he said. "Why do you say such an unholy thing?" Mother said. She wiped
the santo with her skirt and went to the living room. She put the figure in the niche and lighted a
candle.
My sister Marcela knelt on the floor beside Mother, and they started to pray. When Father saw
that my sister could walk, he looked at me with cruel eyes. He looked as if it was my fault that I did
not tell him why Mother had to clean the santo. His face changed suddenly and inevitably, because
he was also a religious man in his own way. Maybe he was not as religious as Mother, but he felt
grateful that my sister was well again. Father knelt beside Mother and my sister, bowing his head low
in sincere devotion and even clapping his hand restfully under his wine-stained chin. There was
nothing I could do, so I knelt beside him with the gamecock in my arms. He looked sideways at the
cock, but Mother was already chanting the litany. I tried to concentrate on the holy beard of St. Peter,
but the rooster kept cackling and pecking at the floor. Perhaps the cock was also praying because
when the ceremony was over, it wiggled out of my arms and stood on the floor for quite some time
staring at the beard of St. Peter. Mother looked at Father with great admiration and respect. She
looked at me and the gamecock, but there was doubt in her face. My sister got up and kissed
Mother's hands; then she kissed Father's hands and went to the kitchen. Father and Mother got up
and walked about the house with great holiness. I climbed down the ladder and walked in the bright
afternoon sun. For quite some time there was great holiness in our house. The rains came and the
farmers started planting rice. Then the dry season came and the women and children went to the
fields and harvested the rice. The men hauled the rice bundles in small carts and stacked them in
their granaries. Then the hot days came and the women spread their bundles in the sun to be dried,
so that it would be easy to separate the husks from the grains with wooden pestles. The men sat
under the coconut trees and drank wine from big earthen jars and talked about their women and
children. Toward the beginning of November, before the Christmas holidays occupied the minds of
the townspeople, peddlers from all over the island of Luzon started coming to our Province. From
Pampanga, a province to the south of Pangasinan, our province, came cloth peddlers with long broad
canes, and walked in our street for many days. From the province of Ilocos Norte, in the northern part
of the island came illiterate peddlers selling prayer books and paper bound vernacular novels. And
from Abra, another province in the north, came men who sold plow handles, bolos, knives and other
metal implements that were necessary to the peasants in our province. Then in the middle of
December, when we were preparing for the holidays, the santo peddlers with their wooden figures
hanging on both ends of long poles that they carried on their shoulders came to our town shouting
their wares. The women untied their handkerchiefs and counted their year's savings. When the first
santo peddler came to our street, Mother grabbed her money and met him eagerly. The peddler bent
his knees and let the pole slide off his shoulders. The wooden figures stood on the ground. Mother
picked up a small figure of St. Lourdes. "How much?" she asked. "Five pesos," the peddler said. "It
was only a peso ten years ago," Mother said. "Lady, that was ten years ago," the peddler said. "That
was in my father's time. In my grandfather's time, if you want to know, it was only ten centavos. And
you could get it for nothing sometimes because people were not hungry for money. The artists were
interested only in their art, but the worshippers were interested in the divinity of the santo. From my
grandfather's time to my time, however, many years of intensive study in woodcarving have elapsed.
Now you tell me that five pesos is too much for this beautifully hand-carved figure of St. Lourdes, the
patron saint of your province."
"You should have been a politician, uncle," I said. "You talk pompously and also beautifully."
"Do you think so, son? The peddler said. "Maybe you should have been a town crier or poet or
something like that," I said. "Yes, I believe what you said, son," he said. "We are born with a very
special gift for humanity, but nobody seems to care when you are not a politician. I took to carving
wooden figures because I can say anything I want to these mute things. When I am alone in my
shack in San Vicente-that is my town-I put my figures around the wall and talk to them. St. Judas-are
you surprised?-is the best listener because he has a guilty conscience." "They talk to you, too?" I
asked. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you that they do," he said. Suddenly he looked at Mother and
said, "Lady, St. Agustin, the figure in your left hand, is six pesos. And that one in your right, St.
Joseph, is ten pesos." "You sure know your coconuts," I said. "I like selling better than carving,
although I am a great artist," the peddler said. "I am not a quiet man, but I was forced to silence by
my work. Woodcarving needs deep concentration of mind and body. Now I like shouting aloud to the
world, because I feel as though I were the herald of kingdom come." "You should have been a
preacher," I said. "I like your voice very much." "Do you think I am honest enough to be a preacher,
son? " he asked. "I don't care if you are honest with the santos or not," I said. "But I think you've a
holy voice." "Is there money in it?" he said. "Yes, there is money in it," I said. "But there is more
money in gambling." The peddler grabbed me with affection. When the women in the neighborhood
started coming, he pushed me in the corner of the gate. I knew that he wanted me to stay there and
wait for him. I knew that he wanted to talk to me about gambling. It was then that Father started
coming down the road toward our house. He stopped behind the women who were bargaining with
the peddler over the prices of the wooden figures. At first he seemed bored and disinterested, but he
pushed his way closer when he saw Mother holding the figure of the Holy Trinity. "How much?"
Mother asked, rubbing the nose of the Virgin Mary." "Twenty pesos," the peddler said. Mother
trembled a little. "That is too much money," she said. "Besides, I have only a very little faith." "Do you
think twenty pesos is too much for the Mother and Father of God-and the great Child Jesus Himself?"
he shouted, gesticulating wildly with his hands. "I have only four pesos." Mother said. "Lady, how long
did you earn that money?" the peddler said. "One whole year," Mother said. "Well, you can have St.
Lucas," the peddler said. "He is worth four pesos." "I don't remember him," Father said suddenly." "Is
he a holy man?" "Well, kind of, " the peddler said. "Who is he, anyway?" Father asked. "Oh, he is a
man in San Vicente," the peddler said. "You have a holy man in San Vicente, the town of
santomakers?" Father asked suggestively. "Well, this man is a town character," the peddler said. "He
is always doing some mischief here and there. I thought of making a santo while he is still alive, so
that it will not be so hard for him when he goes."

"I like that sentiment very much," Father said. "I am a town character too. Do you think you can make
me a santo before I go?" "It depends," the peddler said, evading the attentive ears of the women.
Then he whispered something to Father. "It is a good racket," Father said. The peddler turned around
and smiled at me. Then the women paid the peddler and went away rubbing their figures with their
skirts. Mother was still undecided. "Lady, are you waiting for kingdom come?" the peddler said.
"Three pesos for St. Mary," Mother said. "Ten pesos," the peddler said. "Three and a half," Mother
said. "I need the fifty centavos for rice." "Lady, it is five and I will never go down," he said. "Maybe St.
Mary likes to be sold for three and a half," Father suggested. The peddler pondered over it. "I think
you are right," he said. "All right, three and a half." Mother paid the peddler and went to the house.
When everybody was gone, Father saw me hiding in the corner of the fence. The peddler told me to
come out and gave me a figure of Christ on the Cross. He was completely nude. "You like it, boy?"
the peddler asked. "You don't need that santo, son," Father said, grabbing it away from me. "That is
only for grown men. You still don't understand certain ways of the world." "Do you know this holiest of
the unholy, boy? The peddler asked. "He is my youngest son," Father said. "You have a fortune in
this boy," the peddler said, twinkling with delight. Then he grabbed me affectionately in his arms and
said: "Now, tell me more about the gambling racket."

5. Sometimes It’s Not Funny Originally published by University of Washinton Press 1914-
1976.Retreived from Bulosan: An Introduction with Selections 2004 pp. 53-58. Anvil Publishing.

That winter I was living with Bill and Leo in a little apartment house. There were two bedrooms and a
kitchen downstairs. We took turns sleeping in the bedroom; but since I worked at night and came
home late, I usually slept on the couch in the living room. It was a very pleasant arrangement,
because when I came home early sometimes, Leo slept on the couch. Bill worked during the day, so
he always had a room upstairs. The neighborhood was surrounded with small bars where jukeboxes
played all night long. I would stop at one of the bars sometimes and drink a glass of beer. But one
night when I was feeling a little low, I sat at a corner table in my favorite bar and drank several
glasses of beer. I was giddy when I stumbled into the apartment. I lay on the couch without taking off
my clothes and went to sleep almost immediately. When I woke up an hour later, I felt cold and
hungry. I looked out the window and saw snowflakes falling, making soft little noises on the tall grass
in the yard. I stood there in the darkness for a long time, listening to the lovely sound and
contemplating the whiteness of the night.
Then I walked into the kitchen hoping to find something to eat. I found a few pieces of bread
and a glass of milk in the frigidaire. I sat at the table and started eating, listening to the quiet sound
outside in the night. I was about ready to lie down on the couch when I heard a soft knock on the front
door. I did not expect any visitor because it was quite late, so I opened the door with some
reluctance. And there she was—a small strange woman, shivering and looking at me with pleading
eyes. I did not know why, but I opened the door and led her into the kitchen, helping her with the wet
overcoat before she sat down. Then I made some coffee and filled a cup for her. I filled another cup
for myself and sat with her, drinking silently and waiting for her to speak. After a while she said, “My
name is Margaret.” I put out my hand and touched hers, and there was something promising yet
tragic about it. I got up and poured more coffee into our cups, wondering what to say. It was my first
time to be alone with a girl. It was in that half-tragic mood when it started to rain. I could hear the
water falling on the roof. I went upstairs to see about the windows. I closed them and returned
downstairs. But when I entered the kitchen, I saw that the girl had slumped down in her chair. She
was sound asleep. For a moment I did not know what to do. Should I carry her upstairs to one of the
empty bedrooms? She looked so tired and helpless. I went upstairs and fixed a bed for her. Then I
returned to the kitchen again, lifted her carefully, and carried her to bed. I took off her shoes and
stockings and loosened her clothes around the neck. And when I felt satisfied that she was
comfortable, I put out the lights and watched her breathing silently in the dark. Then I went downstairs
again and lay on the couch, my hands folded under my bed, thinking far into the night. It was the first
time that a girl had entered our apartment. Bill and Leo and I had been living together off and on for
six years, and we had never thought of breaking up for the company unless of course, one of us got
married and wanted to live in another place. I was thinking of all these things when I went to sleep.
When I woke up it was already morning and I could hear the snowflakes falling in the yard, making a
noise similar to that leaves make in the autumn when they fall to the ground. Quickly, I rushed
upstairs to see if Margaret was still asleep. She was. But she had turned her back toward the door
and I could not see her face. Her unusually long hair was twisted about her and made a little nest in
the bed. I wrote a simple note saying that when she woke up, her breakfast would be on the table. I
tacked the note on one of her shoes so that she would not miss it. Then I went to the other room and
saw that Bill and Leo were sleeping together, their backs to each other. The blanket was falling away
from Leo, so I lifted it up and covered him. I went downstairs then and started to prepare breakfast,
thinking of Margaret, wondering what kind of toast she would want with her coffee. I was already
eating when Bill came down hurriedly, drank a cup of coffee and rushed out to work. He did not say a
single word. I was washing the dishes when Leo came down. He ate his breakfast slowly and seemed
secretly happy. Then he went to work. I could hear his heavy shoes crunching in the thick snow down
the pathway. After a while Margaret came down, too. She was lovely. She was young and lovely. She
was happy and lovely. “Good morning,” she said. “Good morning, Margaret,” I said. She sat at the
table then, and it was like a song. I leaped from my chair and set the plates in front of her. I rushed to
the stove and fried some eggs. I glanced back at her. She was quiet and lovely. I put the food before
her and sat down, watching her, absorbing her, feeling something sinking deeper and deeper inside
me. She was lovely. Then she said, “Leo proposed to me last night.” I was stunned. I found her in the
night. I took her out of the snow. I was angry. I was mad with Leo. I was mad, mad, like that time
when I was a little boy and my cousin stole my precious toy. “I promised to marry him,” she said. I
was stupefied. I had carried her upstairs. I put her safely in bed. I tucked her in like a good little girl. I
prepared her breakfast. I waited for her to come down. And now she had promised to marry Leo? I
did not even see him last night. How long did it take them to get acquainted with each other? “We will
get married as soon as possible,” she said. Then I knew that my little dream was broken, and the
pieces were rolling away from me. I could hear a man walking down the pathway. He was kicking the
snow. Was he angry, too? Was something he had been building up for years stolen from him? But I
could only say, “Congratulations.” “Thanks,” Margaret said. “You were very nice last night. “You were
very nice too,” I said. But something soft died inside me. I said, “We will be friends always.” I left her
then. I was absent-minded in the shop that day. My thoughts were at home with Margaret. I had just
met her the evening before. But I felt that all the years I had hidden inside me were coming out into
the open, drying in the bright summer sun. And the sun was not too friendly, but not too cruel either.
When I came home from work that evening, I rushed upstairs to see if Margaret was already sleeping.
But I found Leo and Bill sleeping together in Leo’s bed. I could not understand it. I went to the other
room and found Margaret sleeping in the bed where Bill would have been that evening. I was
puzzled. I went downstairs and prepared the couch, thinking of Margaret. Once before dawn, I heard
the soft sound of moving feet in Bill’s room and afterward the noise of splashing water in the
bathroom. Toward morning it began to rain, and I could hear the monotonous sound it made on the
roof. Peacefully, I was lulled to sleep. When I woke up, Leo and Bill had already left for work. I went
upstairs to see if Margaret was still sleeping, and she was alone. I went to the kitchen and prepared
breakfast. I had already set the table when I heard her coming down the stairs, pausing at the window
in the living room to watch the rain falling. And then she came to the kitchen and sat at the table. I
said, “Did you hear the rain last night?” “I did not,” she said. “I didn’t even hear you come in, although
I tried hard to wait.” I felt comforted. Just a little sentiment like that—and I felt vast and large. Perhaps
the long years of living alone had blossomed at last, and bloomed in Margaret’s presence. “I have
wonderful news for you,” she said. I looked into her face. I looked into her eyes. “Bill proposed to me
last night,” she said. “And I promised to marry him.” “I thought Leo had proposed to you,” I said. “And
I thought you had promised to marry him.” “That was the other night,” she said softly. And there was
nothing I could say to push away the darkness that came to terrorize my life. I stopped eating. I sat
looking into her eyes, but there was no light there to show me the way out. I looked, hoping to stand
on some huge promontory of thought and reached out my hand into the darkness and push it away
so that the broad light of day could come again. I went to work, but it was like a dream. I did not
remember anything. I went through the motions of working, but everything seemed mechanical. Once
I found myself staring blankly into space. I also heard myself groaning, but I could not understand it.
And I was afraid I would start talking to myself. I came home late that evening because there was
some extra work for me at the shop. I found Bill sleeping soundly in his own bed. Leo was sleeping in
his. I went downstairs and lay on the couch, wondering what had happened to Margaret. It began to
rain at dawn. But I fell asleep when it started, making it seem like the noise of rustling leaves on some
faraway mountainside. The next day was Sunday. It was our day off. When I woke up, I found Leo
and Bill eating breakfast. I joined them at the table. “Where is Margaret?” I asked. “She is gone,” Bill
said laughing. “She came, and she went.” “I thought you were going to marry her,” I said. “I was not
the only one who was going to marry her,” Bill said sarcastically. “Leo is another man. The first night.”
“That is the only way with some women,” Leo said cynically. “Propose left and right. The racket
started with a cute little man in a legendary garden and a delicious apple tree.” Bill started to laugh
loudly. Then Leo joined him. Then I knew that they were chiding me; that Margaret was another page
in the history of their lives. Then Bill stopped laughing. “Why didn’t you propose, too?” he asked me.
There was genuine feeling in his voice, sympathy in his face. “You could have done it. But now she’s
gone.” “Yes; but now she is gone,” Leo said with finality. Bill started laughing again. He was almost
choking. He slapped the table with his palms, stamped on the floor with his feet, so great was the
mirth that Margaret’s two proposals had evoked in him. “But sometimes it is not funny!” I screamed
above his laughter. Leo was startled. Bill suddenly stopped laughing. They looked at me. But they
could not understand the tears in my eyes. It was like the end of a long prayer. I jumped from the
table and rushed outside and ran madly across the snow. I raced down the street, not knowing where
to go that cold morning. I kept saying, “Margaret, Margaret, Margaret.”
6. The Odyssey of Constancia Drake Originally published by University of Washington Press 1914-
1976. Retreived from The Philippines is in the heart : a collection of stories with an introduction by E.
San Juan, Jr. 1978 pp 65-72. New Day Publication.

Constancia Drake was born of a poor family in a little Ohio town. She was the last of three sisters who
had long gone away when she was old enough to question their family misfortune. But she was a
good little girl and she adjusted herself to the conditions at home at an age when her girl friends were
still playing with naughty boys in the moonlight. She found an afternoon job at the local bakery when
she was going to high school; but before she finished the second year the old man of a heart attack.
Constancia could have gone away then like her sisters, but there was the old woman to take care of
because she had been bedridden, ever since she could remember. She quit school, therefore, and
found a full-time job in a little store that sold trinkets and knick-knacks, and on Sundays she wheeled
her mother in a chair down the block and made the neighbors admire her courage and good virtues.
Thus she lived and worked for many years until one day, when she approaching twenty-five, her
mother died in her sleep. Constancia buried her quietly and left town. Constancia went to New York
and took a job at a department store, but it was a bad year, so that after a while she was laid off. It
was during those days of heart-breaking job hunting, she was living in a furnished room somewhere
near Columbus Circle when she met a man who made her heart flutter and she dreamed wildly about
the future. She found another job immediately waiting at tables. Then she moved to a better rooming
house on Madison Avenue so that she would have some kind of respectability when her man came
with his silent ways and exciting stories about the world. Now this man had knocked around the globe
a great deal. He had seen a long distinguished service in the war and came back with a mellowed
mind and a heart that beat kindly for every one. It seemed that he had been born in a small town also
somewhere in the Middle West and had wandered a lot since he was twelve, at which age his family
scattered never to meet again. Ralph Rollinson, because that was the name he gave Constancia,
saw his country widely as the next man but did not understand a great many things. But what he saw
in other peoples abroad opened his eyes at home. He did not feel at ease again until he met
Constancia at a small restaurant one night in the spring. It was love at first sight—at least on the part
of Constancia Drake who had never known this kind of love before. But to Ralph Rollinson, who had
seen love in many forms and shades, and who had almost experienced a great love in some foreign
country where he had seen service as a soldier, it was a kind of love that needed tending and good
care. It was something that came to them at an opportune time, something to mould tenderly into a
truly magnificent thing in the midst of the great ruins around them. When Ralph Rollinson finally found
a job driving a truck, Constancia could at last plan for a definite future, she thought of marriage many
times because she was then getting on in years, and one cold night when the snow was falling
outside her window, she prepared a warm pot of coffee and presented the idea to her man. Well,
marriage was something that was both in their minds, and so it was settled that in a month’s time they
would fulfill their dream. But a week afterward there was a teamster strike in the city and Ralph
Rollinson sat around in Constancia’s room for days and then one night he went out to attend a
meeting and never came back again. Of course Constancia would not believe it. When the first few
weeks passed by without a word from him, she still hoped that he would appear one night. She
waited for several months and then a year passed, but in the middle of the following year when the
snow began to fall again and Constancia was almost down to her last dollar, she packed up her
things and left for West Coast. She went to San Francisco, of course, because she had a girl friend
there who had told her that it was not difficult to get a job in that city. But it was a bad year
everywhere in the land and San Francisco was also shaken down to its roots. Constancia was
determined to fight it alone for a while, but when she could not stand it any longer she went to look for
her friend. Constancia found her after a long search at a place that she would rather keep to herself.
She packed up her things again, for the hundredth time at the age of thirty-five, and went to Los
Angeles because it was winter and she had hoped to enjoy the sunshine that she had heard so much
about when she was still in her hometown.
But it was raining when she arrived and somewhere on the mountains she could see caps of
snow. The warm rain was a new experience, but she could not be mistaken about the snow because
she had seen plenty of it as a little girl. Constancia looked out the window of her room in a downtown
hotel and listened dreamily to the gentle patter of the rain on the roof and the exciting noise of water
rushing down the drain. It was a new city and there were many new people in it. In as far as she was
concerned, it was a city of golden promise and years of delight. She had forgotten Ralph Rollinson by
now, except once in a while when she saw a man walking in the street that seemed like him. She had
almost forgotten her father and mother because that time with them seemed far away and
irretrievable. Now in this promising city she would surely find something at last to hold on to; she did
not know what would it be, but her heart told her that it would change the whole course of her life.
Change for the better? She did not know, of course. Change for the worse? And she was afraid of
that thought. Anyway, she found a good job one day taking care of children in the house of a rich
man. And she enjoyed it because she was once again closer to a kind of life that reminded her of a
time when she was still a little girl with curled brown hair. The youngest girl was naughty, but she was
a darling. She taunted Constancia once in a while with a bottle of ink, but she merely grabbed the
child and kissed her affectionately. And when she was permitted to take her to town, Constancia often
carried the child to her room and opened cute little boxes of candy. She was very happy and
contented with her job and the people at the large house were very nice to her. And then she began
to be lonely. She was now nearing forty and there were patches of grey hair on her temple and above
her ears. She thought of Ralph Rollinson again these days. And when it was cold outside she stood
by the window and watched the rain falling in slanting motion, driven by the wind that came down
from the valley not far away. And she thought: In the morning I will buy a new light dress and plan a
trip to Mexico. I will also buy a hat to protect myself from the strong sun of the south. And she did just
that. She had an extended time off in the afternoon of the next day, so she went to several stores
looking for the things she wanted, but finally she found a place where the salesman was very
pleasant and courteous. He was not like other salesmen that she had known who were always trying
to sell something that was not worth her money or measuring up her legs and weighing her bosom.
Well, this salesman was really nice and when he asked her somewhat fearfully if she would like to
have dinner with him, Constancia’s heart fluttered a little and she wanted to weep with joy. Why, yes,
it had been such a long time since one so nice invited her out. And he was good-looking, too. It was
agreed then in a silent but mutual way that they would meet at a certain modest place not far from
where he lived. Constancia went to her room and put on the new dress, although it was in the middle
of winter and the rain was falling heavily that night. But she wanted to please him, and to be close to
him, because he had sold the dress to her. And that was something that had brought them together. It
took her quite a while to fill up the deepening edges in her face, especially the unmistakable lines in
the corners of her mouth and eyes. But she used a considerable quantity of hormone cream and
covered it up lightly with powder of brownish color. Now, really, the wrinkles and the sure signs of age
in her face were hidden. Before she entered the place where she would meet him she murmured a
prayer of hope that she had known as a child at home. Robert Reskam was there waiting for her, all
attention, dressed somewhat elegantly. Constancia almost screamed with joy. But she got hold of
herself and sat down in front of him. They were bright all night long, pleasing each other with kind little
words, choosing phrases that would not be misconstrued with double meanings. They had a few
glasses of white wine. They ate gaily. And they danced too, whispering nice things to each other. And
when they parted at her door, he kissed her lightly on the lips and for a brief moment Constancia’s
heart seemed to stop beating. When his footsteps died down the hallway and she was standing in
front of the mirror in her room, Constancia noticed that her tears were making inroads in her face, and
the wrinkles of age began to appear again. She opened that jar of hormone cream and dabbed a
large amount on her face and spread it carefully down her neck. The she undressed and went to bed,
but it was already near morning when she stopped thinking of Robert Reskam and sleep came to her
like a dream.
They went around a lot after that evening. And when she thought that it was about time, Robert
Reskam asked her to marry him. It was a dream come true. It was worth the long years of waiting. It
was worth the sacrifice and the prolonged denial. It was the ultimate fulfillment of all that she had
longed for down the unhappy span of her life. And she thought one morning before the week of glory;
I know now that happiness comes out of grief, the sharing of grief, and the forgetting of grief. It comes
to all, the young and the old equally. It comes to any one who is capable of acquiring it. It belongs to
every one. It is not the sole property of this or that man because he is rich or poor. Or because he
belongs to this race or believes in that religion. Good Lord, I know now. And she looked at her fast-
greying hair, nearly all white now, wondering if she should touch it up with a little coloring to hide a
few years that were gone from her life. But when she remembered that Robert Reskam’s hair was as
nearly grey as hers, Constancia smiled and pushed aside the foolish thought that marriage belonged
only to the very young. So she went to bed early that night and for the first time she slept soundly and
long. When she woke up the city was covered with snow. She went to work hugging herself with the
comforting thought that soon she would have a husband to warm and any amount of snow in the
world could not thaw the warmth of life. The days passed by slowly but full excitements and
anticipations. When the morning came for the marriage the sun shone brightly in the sky. Constancia
interpreted it to mean that it was a favorable sign. She prepared herself carefully and she even hurt
herself with the many pins that she had stuck here and there to make her body shape out in a
flattering way. She was ready before the hour came and she sat on her bed thinking of the money
she had in the bank, making it stretch out so far that she even included a honeymoon to Honolulu.
Then she started to smile foolishly to herself because her imagination had wildly run away from her
like a horse galloping down the valley of home. And the memory of home made her think of her father
and mother who had been both dead all these long years. She smiled just the same, thinking: I wish
Pa and Ma were here now to see me in my bridal clothes. I bet they would love this satiny dress and
these snow-white frills bordering it. She meditated warmly waiting for Robert Reskam, who did not
appear that day nor the day after. Still Constancia waited for a few more days in her bridal clothes.
But when three weeks passed and there was no word or sign of Robert Reskam, she carefully folded
the much-folded clothes. Then she went quietly about her work again, and when the rich man for
whom she had been working went away, Constancia found another job in an Old People’s Home. It
was not easy to be with old men and women, but she was nearing fifty herself at this time. She could
understand the eccentric old folks who unbared the ruins of their lives to her every day. It was the
only job she could find now because the stores and even the houses of the rich people would not hire
her any more. One look at her grey hair, all white and wiry now, and at the thick wrinkles in her face
and hands, and she knew the answer right away. That was why she had given up the idea of
pretending to be younger than she actually was and looking for a better job. When she found the Old
People’s Home she made up her mind to stay until she herself would be committed in it. And then
one day when she was sixty and her eyes were getting very weak, Constancia was scrubbing the
kitchen of the Home when an old man in crutches knocked on the door. She stopped and turned
around somewhat grouchily. Then she jumped to her feet and ran to the old man screaming. She
wrapped her weak old hands about his neck and wept bitterly. The world could not now contain her
happiness and her sorrow. Robert Reskam had come to her after nearly twenty years of silence. He
had come back a broken a broken old man, incapable of work, and probably would not last another
year. It seemed that on the day when they were supposed to get married, Robert Reskam had an
automobile accident on his way to pick her up. He was confined in a hospital for three long years, but
when he was finally released he could not quite make up his mind. He realized that he was of no use
to her. He wandered about in his helpless way and lost her. But somewhere in the mist of years he
had heard about Constancia again, so in one desperate attempt he went to Old People’s Home and
found her scrubbing the kitchen floor. And not long afterward Constancia was admitted into the Home
for the old. And after a few difficulties were ironed out, Robert Reskam was also admitted into the
place. So at long last, after more than five decades of great sacrifice and soul-wrecking denial,
Constancia Drake sat happily with her broken old man in the sunny yard of the Old People’s Home.

Ninotchka Rosca

7. The Goddess First published on Monsoon Collection. 1983. Queensland: University of

Queensland Press. Retrieved from The Best Philippine Short Stories of the 20th Century Edited by
Isagani Cruz, 2000 pp. 548-557.

MARTHA, stepping into the elevator reeking of metal polish, became typist number forty-three in a
roster of one hundred working for a corporation that received messages from all over the world. The
messages had to be copied in quadruplicate, the replies to them typed in triplicate. Both message
and reply were written in antiseptic prose, as clinical as the thirteen floor hall cut up into cubicles by
vinyl panels. Martha occupied cubicle number three, with its narrow table, two chairs, four
cantilevered shelves, and a poster; it varied from Roman to Greek, Swedish, French, the South
Seas… One was even in Banawe rice terraces. But for Martha, it was the Roman Colosseum. Like all
the girls of the thirteenth floor, Martha wore a blue and beige uniform. Her hair was knotted into a
smooth helmet, and she carried the mandatory black patent leather bag matching her shoes. She
also had the same near-sighted vagueness about the eyes. During the half-hour before closing time,
when the girls jammed the ladies’ room and powdered, combed, and roughed themselves furiously,
Martha had trouble picking out her face in the mirror. Martha would steal a glance at the girl standing
beside her and wonder if that vagueness in the eyes concealed a secret like her own. Martha was
seven years old when she was violated, but she never told on the culprit. The moist excitement she
had shared with him precluded that. She had accepted his ministrations passively; she could not
prevent her mind from fusing with his as he had groped for her in the damp geography of the flesh.
Afterwards she had gone to her room, removed her clothes, and looked at herself in the mirror. The
garden boy’s frightened sobs still echoed over the left ear. She saw, in the mica world, a little girl, her
face nothing more than two huge eyes fringed by lashes so thick they cast shadows on the
cheekbones. She acquired the habit of brushing her skin with her fingertips: a gesture half-irritated,
half a caress. It took months before she realized she could not rid herself of the pollen of the boy’s
touch. The knowledge was sudden and fragile. One twilight she had been walking with her cousin
Sela, who, at ten years of age, had the crispness of a morning sea. Martha did not like being with
Sela. Her cousin made her aware of her thinnes, her paleness, and all the other errors of her body.
They were two blocks away from their district when a dark man in a soldier’s uniform stopped them.
He asked for the location of a street neither Martha nor Sela had ever heard of. Martha stared at the
man while Sela told him of the streets’s non-existence. The man was fingerin a huge mole besides
his nose.
Abruptly, with his eyes fixed on Martha, he offered them ten pesos if they would help him attain
carnal release. Martha turned to Stela for enlightenment. Sela frowned and tugged at here arm
impatiently. “What did he want?” she asked. Sela, brought up as strictly as Martha, shrugged. She
was listless and disturbed. “He said something. I don’t know. It sounded impudent. Anyway, we’ve
been told never to speak strangers.” “I wonder what he wanted.” Martha said. She was almost certain
it had something to do with what had been done to her. Standing a foot away from the man, she had
felt the heat rising from his flanks. The skin above his upper lip had been beaded with sweat, and the
fingers feeling the mole had seemed like brown worms groping for passage. Dinner made her
forget, she was eating a ripe mango when a banging of doors and shouts announced her aunt’s
arrival. Sela, turned out, had walked into a houseful of dinner guests and had screamed the vulgar
word used by the man. In the disorder that followed, her cousin had laid the blame on Martha. Her
father rapped the knuckles of her hands with a wooden ruler. She was then sent to bed with the
admonition that children should be seen, not heard. Upstairs in her room she forgot her mother, her
aunt, and, after wishing that warts would grow on her face, her cousin. What reminded was the worry
over her instinctive understanding of what the man wanted. In the dark she saw her body luminous as
a glow-worm. Her drift to sleep was a passage to the dark side of the moon. Despite her inadequate
vocabulary, she realized that she knew that terrain. Her fears were justified. Her stigmata were as
visible as Ash Wednesday’s cross of sorrow.
The innocence of grown-ups astonished her. In a crowded bus she watched slyly her mother’s
grateful nod at a man’s offer to hold Martha on his lap. Her spine stiff with knowledge, she bore his
heavy hand on her thigh without rancor. An implicit conspiracy lay between her and the exhibitionist
who waited for her every afternoon as she walked home from school. She even smiled at the lunatic
who bathed naked at a leaking fire hydrant. On Friday she played truant and slipped into a cheap
movie house. She found them there – the mean who had surrendered to strange passions. Their
need was so violent it called to her, roamed the aisles for her. Martha, Martha, the voices whispered
in the dark. They catacombed her in their melancholia. Afraid she was on the brink of insanity, Martha
fled and swore never to return. At sixteen, she had her talk with her mother, who handed over her fail-
safe weapons in the world.
Life, the old woman said, was to be got over as quickly as possible. For the flesh, there could
be no celebration. On lived for death and died immortality. Shortly after third difficult afternoon among
the azaleas, her mother was taken ill. She became as faded as the mynah bird kept in a rusty cage.
Her death was of no surprise to anyone. Martha herself looked without emotion at the corpse
stretched out like a larded fish on the matrimonial bed surrounded by icon, rosaries, medicine bottles,
and the vapours of corruption and incense. After the funeral, Martha’s father eloped with a married
woman; he sent his daughter quaint postcards with European stamps. Sela, her cousin, become
engaged. At the betrothal party, Martha was introduced to the young man. He acknowledges here
presence with reluctance and immediately returned his eyes to Sela. He did not simply loot at Sela;
his eyes devoured her, licked here, and gnawed at her. He flinched at any attempt to claim his
attention, and his hands were constantly reaching out to touch Sela’s arm, cheek, shoulder. Martha
hated her cousin’s smugness. Sela, she thought, could not even begin to understand the nature of
the man’s devotion. Martha stood as close to him as she dared. She spoke to him, and the remnants
of his passionate glance, whenever he turned to her, made here skin crawl. She considered drawing
him aside, but the house too crowded, the young man too entangled in the wed Sela’s hair and
perfume. She had to give up the idea. She lived alone, made no friends, and reduced her
conversation to what was necessary. Working as a typist enabled her to map out her movements.
She hated the day when her blue and beige uniform, her flat helmet of hair, her patent leather bag
and shoes drove beauty from her face. In the daytime she was full of imperfections: eyes too large,
mouth too swollen, skin of an indifferent colour.
But in the evening… She refused to use the electric lights and lit candles instead. Naked, she
would pace through the rooms, watching her blazing self in the mirrors. She thought the reflection had
eyes that waited. She was nineteen when she was picked up at the corporation’s cocktail lounge,
where an after office hours drink was part of the affectation of the thirteenth floor girls. Martha had
just finished her gin and tonic when a man slid onto the bar stool beside her. He offered her another
drink, which she accepted. As she sipped the cold liquid, she listened to him. He had been
watching for several days now, he said. She had seemed so cold, so apart from everything. She
never giggled like the other girls; she didn’t even smile. Martha glanced at him from beneath her
lashes.
He had blue eyes. Pale blue eyes. Fish eyes. Pale blue silver fish eyes. He smiled, guessing
she was dusting his face with her own brown-black eyes. In a strange sort of way, he said, she was
very beautiful. He said it again after Martha’s third drink. She was beautiful. That evening they dived
into her mother’s deathbed and nearly tore each apart. He was nearly fifty, but he had the capacity to
surprise her still. He probed as thoroughly as a doctor searching for a suspected disease. When her
flesh was detonating with his ferocity, he spoke to her again and told her of her beauty. His hands
leeched to her skin. He held her down until the anger of his body passed. The next day they saw
each other again and the same thing happened. Without having said the word love, they become
lovers. He was a Frenchman, an engineer assigned to the corporation’s mines. He was alone, having
abandoned his wife and children. “Actually, wives and children,” he said, laughing. His good humour
was constant, and he chattered endlessly. She was good to him. He said, for him and because of
him. Once he visited her in her cubicle and worked himself into a fury over the poster. “The Roman
Coliseum, my ass!” he exclaimed. “Take a Greek print. Take French. Take a Tahitian hut. Or take a
banana peel and tack it to the wall. Anything but Roman.” She shook her head. The Greek she said,
was too delicate, the Swedish too landscapy; she preferred this one because Roman was… well, it
was… “Cold and grandiose,” he finished for her. His dislike made her flush. They met three times a
week. Between their meetings, Martha was a chair, a table, a machine, a pair of hands. The hour
before closing times she could hardly keep still. She stared blankly at the teletyped messages on her
table: was in Lebanon, branch closed, three hundred laid off; India in famine, dispose of wheat;
Liberian tanker cracked up at sea, oil headed for resort coast. There was a nary a whimper. With a
soft-lead pencil, Martha scribbled her own message on the paper’s margins: hello, how are you, how
beautiful you are, love me, define me, please love me. He held her fingers between his lips and said
they tasted of communion wine. He kissed her and told her of the shape of her mouth beneath his
own. He talked to her about herself.
Martha listened to his breathing. Dullness grew in her. She lay awake, images of herself in his
hands running through her mind. Finally, at four o’clock, she tried to rouse him, but he said something
in French, brushed her kisses away, and snored peacefully. He missed an appointment. The gin stale
in her mouth when she went home. In the morning there were purple circles under her eyes. She felt
as sticky as a salamander. He apologized, complained of fatigue and the heat, but never restored the
third day to their routine. Martha began to find her typed papers soggy with tears. She stared at the
walls with suspicion. He missed another appointment. Martha climbed in grimly. “Smile,” he said. “I’m
here.” She reached over and leaned on the car horn. A wall ripped through the night’s stupor. He had
to knock her arm aside. Martha screamed. She demanded to know why and was attacked by hiccups.
He hated scenes, he said; they were too inelegant, too heavy on the soul. She said an obscene word.
He lost his temper and told her she was frigid anyway. This so shocked Martha that her jaw dropped.
She stepped out of the car and took the bus home. For months the incomplete statement ran through
her mind: How dare he…? How dare he what? Beneath her fingers, the world moved on smoothly.
Two airplanes hijacked by Palestinians, insurance loss; Picasso dies, art investment secure;
Bangladesh drying like a prune in the sun; Baguio mines pollute ten thousand acres of rice fields. She
typed out messages in quadruplicate, replies in triplicate. The Roman poster went neglected on the
wall. At night she wore a blue and beige nightgown. She lost the desire to see her body. When the
annual basketball tournament of the corporation was held, she was the only one who showed up in
her uniform. The Frenchman was in the grandstand with the other executives. With his white hair, he
looked like an ordinary old man each time he slouched in his seat. Now twenty-one, Martha was
attending her own betrothal party. The young man was a junior executive in the corporation. He had a
brilliant future. He also wore gold-rimmed eyeglasses and carried a Gucci bag, and his pants were
help up by a Cardin belt. She received congratulations. The courtship had been conducted during car
trips, for the young man would pick her up after office hours and drive her home. They said good-
night at the gate her house. Martha was conscious of her image as the perfect bride-to-be. She
greeted each stranger’s face that approached, handed out the drinks, drank to her fiancé, answered
his parents with respect. She allowed the guests to precede her to the buffet table. She herself ate
nearly and sparely. No one noticed the glances she flicked at the door. In a moment of weakness she
had slipped an invitation into an envelope addressed to the Frenchman. She drank a quantity of white
wine – a taste she had acquired from the foreigner. Queried about how many children she wanted,
Martha suppressed a shudder and replied that that was up to her husband-to-be. No, she was not
going to work; he wished her to stay home and take care of the family. As she spoke, she had the
uncanny feeling she was fading away. When she made her farewells at exactly ten o’clock, she was
already convinced that the wine, the food, the white and pink décor, and the pink and white faces had
nothing to do with her, in her white gown, collared and sleeved, she sat primly beside the young man
in the cream-coloured Volkswagen. At the second red light she glances at him. He had a nice mouth,
she thought. The plae light of the mercury bulbs revealed his tiny ear to her. Her hand reached out to
touch him, but at that moment he looked at her with a polite inquiry in his eyes. Did she like his
parents, he asked. She said yes and stifled a yawn. How about his aunt? Again, she said yes. She
had taken care of her husband for nearly a year when he had fallen ill. She was a good cook, too.
Before she left the car, she smiled at him and said she would take care of him, too, if and when he fell
ill. He laughed and said that though he did not foresee such a misfortune, it was of course expected
of her to just do that. He leaned over and brushed her cheek with his lips.
Martha’s eyelids drew the curtains on the world. Her fingers tightened on his shoulder. He
withdrew abruptly and with some embarrassment said he’d pick her up the next day. Martha let him
go. The mynah bird had long perished, but its rusted cage was still there – a whimsical antique
sculpture. She would have to sell the house, she thought the rooms, looking at the relics of her
parents’ life together, she undressed slowly. It was cold. Her toes caressed the rose-embossed
carpet. How strange for her mother to have chosen such hedonistic furnishing. The noise of a key
being fitted into the front door lock made her jump. Her first impulse was to run to the bedroom. But
the door was already opening. In panic, she ripped the curtain off the dining room window and draped
it around her body. The cloth was stiff; the print of gamboling tigers made her feel ridiculous. But
there was no time for anything else. Already the door was opening. The Frenchman walked in. he
tossed the key into the air, deftly caught it with his right hand and pocketed it. “you look marvellous,”
were his first words. “Mistake number one: always change locks at the end of a love affair.” “I’m
getting married,” she said. “Everybody does. Eventually.” He said, limping into the room. “Oh! my
gout. Three girls had got married on me. You’re the fourth.” “I don’t know if I should,” she said
abruptly and surprised herself. “Now, I’m going to be a father to you,” he laughed. “Go ahead
daughter. Tell daddy what’s bothering you. The concept of marriage? ” “No,” she said, “of need.”
“Strange,” he said. He went to a cupboard and took out a bottle of whisky. “Ah, yes,” he went on as
he poured himself a drink. “At my age, the only shot of fire left is alcohol. To be young again! And
getting married. Girls, women. I can only love them with words nowadays.” The years had ruined him.
He slumped into Martha’s favourite armchair and sipped his drink. Things were critical, he said. He
had to make a decision soon; to stay or return to France. But what was there in France for him? On
the other hand, what was there for him here? Martha listened and walked about the room. She did not
notice the tightening orbit of her walk. He watched with amused eyes. When she stopped in front of
him, he put down the glass with an ironic smile and embraced her. “You smell of spring,” he said. He
tried to lift her but the years had melted his muscles. Martha’s toes touched the carpet. She walked,
she followed. Her toes were so tiny, he said, her kneecaps were gorgeous. How beautiful she was,
with her eyes, her impeccable, arrogant mouth. He fashioned a sacrifice with his words. Martha
listened, trembled, and surrendered herself. Limb by limb, word by word, he drew her from chaos and
gave her life. He groaned, twisted his body and tried to take her to the path of mortality. “Come with
me,” he said. Martha, immortal, lay beneath him with crossed arms. “Jesus,” he said, “I’m too old for
this.” He dropped beside her, curled into an embryonic position and fell asleep. He was snoring when
he stood up. The world in the mirror was leprous with shadows. Martha felt the coldness of the
bathroom tiles. Through the open door the Frenchman’s snores sounded like weeping. The girl in the
mirror had her right hand on her left shoulder. There was a glitter in her eyes. Her hair crackled away
from her brow and melted into the darkness. Martha smiled: a little smile, a mere lifting of the corners
of the mouth. How beautiful you are, she whispered. How very beautiful. Your luminous hair, your
white arms, the navle pit of your belly. How very, very beautiful you are. From the bedroom, the
groans of the last, the true, the eternal worshipper accompanied her voice.
Months later, when Paco was pressed to explain his behavior, he could only come up with a
lame statement about pain. It was, he said, a precondition to man’s knowledge of himself – probably.
Of course, he could not be sure. When one was under detention, one was never sure of anything.
Paco had been the “guest” at the district’s annual undercover men’s conference. It had lasted for
three days with about a hundred participants. Twenty or thirty of them took part in the game with
Paco. He couldn’t be sure of anything. They pulled out two fingernails from his left hand and extracted
a canine tooth. They also ripped a strip of skin – six inches long, an inch wide – from his right
forearm. Two bamboo splinters were driven beneath the nails of his big toes. He wanted to tell them
what they wished to know and even what they weren’t interested in. but each time he opened his
mouth, he was struck dumb by amnesia. He couldn’t remember anything – not even his name. He
tried to die by hanging his head against the walls. But that only made him dizzy. Maybe that was why
torture failed, he said. The pain became so intense, so exquisite, nothing but itself existed. It became
verily the person. But he was just guessing, he said. Actually, he could offer no explanation. To the
last night when he made his escape, he still could not explain why he betrayed no one.

8. Generations
First published on Monsoon Collection. 1983. Queensland: University of Queensland Press.
Retrieved from < http://www.docfoc.com/generations-ninotchka-rosca>

Mumbling calmed the soul. To Selo, this was knowledge that came with old age. He would sit
outside on the front ladder, his bare feet resting on the last rung, and mumble. Words would push up
from between his lungs, past his tonsils, and work their way between his toothless gums. His lips spat
them out in small explosions. There were any number of things to mumble about: sometimes he told
a story, sometimes he just followed the movement of the sun from east to west, sometimes he
grumbled about the house, the road, and the harvest. Today he made sounds. It was summer, but
enough water remained in the. Irrigation canal to feed the seedbeds. Viewed from the house, the
canal was a shimmering distortion in a brown palm of land distorted by heat waves. The two boys
playing in the yard had grown used to Selo's mumbling. The older, nine years of age, drew a circle on
the ground with his dirty forefinger. He was not quick enough, and two drops of sweat fell from his
brow into the circle. Against the soil's glitter, the sweat drops were black, shallow holes. He studied
them for a moment; then, carefully, he covered the holes with two chipped marbles-one orange, one
blue. Just outside the line he had drawn, his brother's toes dug into the powdery earth. The older boy
ignored his brother just as he ignored Old Selo. Grandfather's bad humor, their grandmother used to
say, had started with the withering of his right hand. The bird-claw that resulted had not been her
fault. As a matter of fact, she had saved his life. The claw was nothing more than an extraneous
addition to the whole-regrettable but unimportant. She had saved his life. Because of the debt, the
boys' memories of the old woman were rimmed with guilt. No one had been able to help her when her
turn to die came. It took place at the height of the monsoon season. The house was so waterlogged
the bamboo posts had split their brown skins and were mottled green. A translucent pair of leaves
even sprouted from the middle node of the bamboo holding the kitchen wall up.
Grandmother, who had complained of chest pains for weeks, had a coughing attack so fierce
she sounded like a joyous frog. The fit lasted for hours. It would take her by the throat and snap her
small head back and forth, while bits of matter-red flecked with foam-ejected from her mouth and
darted around like tiny bats. Mother, a Lysol-soaked rag in her hand, chased the steaming bats and
shouted for the rest of the family to keep away. It was hard work, but she would not allow anyone to
help. Finally, grandmother gave a terrible series of yelps. Her eyes disappeared into her head. She
fell, cutting her brow on the pallet's edge and overturning the chamber pot. Since that time, the boys
had known that a man's interior was dark red and gray, spongy and foamy. This was wisdom
uncovered by death: a man's interior was uninteresting, made up of tissue so dark-red it turned black
in the gaslight. A man was neither good nor bad inside, only uninteresting. Old Selo, on the other
hand, could not remember that evening. One day his wife was there; the next, she wasn't. After
thinking about it, Old Selo decided that death was a sin of omission where the dead forgot to live. It
was all as simple as that. The dead didn't do anything.
The living mumbled like him, shouted like his daughter-in-law, cursed like his son, cried like his
grandsons, or turned into beauties like his granddaughter. She was fifteen years old and had dark
brown skin and straight black hair reaching down to the small of her back. With her large eyes, her
nice mouth, she could have a future.
 Selo glanced at the sacks piled near the shed-brown jute sacks fat with rice grains. It had been
a good harvest. His claw itched. His left hand caressed it. Like all the men in the village, he had
indulged in man-talk in his youth. He and the other men had been members of a supposedly national
society of peasants. They had gathered in the empty schoolhouse during evenings and had made
plans for the future. It had been exciting to think of cramming the landlord's genitals down his throat. It
had been exciting to talk of snaring and roasting his dogs grown vicious on a diet of meat. The dogs
had chased old Selo once, when he had tried to deliver the landlord's share of the harvest himself. In
high hopes, Selo had had the society's insignia tattooed on the skin web between his thumb and
forefinger. Other men in the village carried the blue sickle on their bodies-on the chest, above the
heart; on the thigh; on the skin web between thumb and forefinger. It betrayed them when the
landlord's goon squads started kicking house doors down. The massacre went on for months, with
the odor of putrid flesh mingling with the harvest fragrance.
The rivers seemed full of crocodiles then, with all the bodies floating in the water. The
landlord's men hadn't reached their village yet, but old Selo's wife was already screaming that he was
a dead man. Taking his courage in hand, he whetted his fan-knife and prepared to excise the tattoo.
At the last moment, however, he remembered his friends, bodies fertilizing the fields. He dropped the
knife.
His wife cursed him for three hours and finally lost her patience. She heated a silver coin in the
charcoal stove and with her blackened firethongs dropped it on Selo's tattoo. The house posts shook
with the old man's bellows, and disconsolate screams answered him from a cloud of ricebirds
hovering over the field. The trick worked. When the metal cooled, his wife ripped the coin off Selo's
hand, deftly stripping the flesh underneath.
Selo, angered by his wifes triumph, wrapped his hand in a rag. He refused to let anyone look
at the wound. The boys waited for the vehicle to come into sight before rising to their feet. It was a
jeep with a trailer and a dust cloud streaking behind it. When the jeep stopped before the bamboo
gate, the dust cloud blew towards the house, forcing the boys to avert their faces. Old Selo remained
as he was and tasted gritty soil on his lips. Four men jumped off the jeep. All had tooled leather gun
belts around their waists. One wore a bun hat. "Your father home?" the man with the hat asked. The
boys looked at each other. Finally, the older one shook his head. "That's all right," one of the men
called out. "The rice is here, anyway." The hatted man scratched his nape and frowned.
"Listen now," he said to the boys. "Tell your father he left only thirty sacks of rice for the
propietano. He should have left fifty. Then, he owes me ten more for the seeds and five more for the
weeder.
So, we're talking thirty-five sacks now. Can you remember that?" The boy felt he should say
something but could not find the words for what he wanted to say. He gave a shrug and nodded.
"Okay," the man turned to his companions. "Load up." One of the men was strong enough to
lift an entire sack by himself. The other two worked together. As they moved back and forth, the pile
of sacks sank closer and closer to the ground.
"Come on, come on," the man with the hat said, "it's tricky business. Never know what these
peasants will do." He tugged at a sack impatiently Old Selo scuttled off the ladder, drew something
hanging on the nearest house post. He rushed towards the men. The boys shouted: It was enough
warning. The man with the hat evaded the downward slice of the machete. The blade buried itself in
the topmost sack's belly.
Old Selo tugged at the hilt, and gold kernels bathed the jute sacks. Without hurry, the man with
the hat seized Old Selo's wrist and wrung the weapon from him. Reversing the machete, he struck
Old Selo's chest with the hilt. A cry escaped the old man. His spine hit the ground and the man with
the hat pinned him with a foot. "It's okay," he said to his men.
"I'll keep him quiet. Hurry up now. I don't want more trouble." When the jeep with the trailer
disappeared, the boys helped Old Selo back to the ladder. He seemed to have forgotten the incident
and resumed mumbling, his lips speckled with blood. The boys looked at each other. They walked to
the gate, squatted down, and waited. It took some time for the horse-drawn rig to appear at the road's
rise. It moved so slowly that the boys could hardly keep still. They lost control when they recognized
their mother and sister among the passengers. The older boy was aware of his incoherence, but
impatience pushed the words out of his mouth. The afternoon's story had to be told. Still shouting, he
watched his mother climb down the rig and help his sister maneuver a basket past the dirty wheel.
The horse, its flanks covered with sweat and whipmarks, snorted; its skin trembled.
The mother tried to wipe off the blood from Selo's mouth, but it had dried and would not come
off. She released her skirt's hem impatiently and pushed the old man up the ladder. Meanwhile, the
two boys menaced the basket their sister was carrying. She threatened them with a flst. They shied
away, returned and tried to peer into the basket, sending it banging against the girl's shins. She
shouted at them to leave her alone. There was nothing in the basket but food.
The distressing news set the younger one wailing. Mother leaned out of the window and
ordered him to stop or else... Inside the house, Old Selo had clean lips again, his daughter-in-law
having used a wet rag on his face. He watched as she prepared the evening meal. She held an
eggplant down with her left hand, forefinger extended and pressed against its end, while her right
hand stroked through the eggplant's flesh with a knife. Her fingertip was never more than a hair's
breadth away from the blade as it sliced through the vegetable. She grumbled as she worked.
She had warned Old Selo's son, she said, but he would not listen. He kept talking about the
law. But what in god's name had the law got to do with people? Laws were paper and ink; they were
kept in filing cabinets in offices in town and city buildings. Now, if it were the law of the sun or of the
seas or of the earth that would be an altogether different matter. People's laws had nothing to do with
people. The girl smiled at herself in the cracked mirror on the wall. Her eyes sought out the
photograph of an actress pinned to the wall. Like her, the actress had limpid eyes and a small mouth.
The girl sighed and lifted the weight of her hair from her nape. God willing, she would have a future.
She smiled again, and then picked up a thin blue towel draped on a battered bamboo chest.
"Where are you off to now?" her mother asked in her usual harsh voice. "To the canal," she
said, "to take a bath." "Take the boys with you." The girl crinkled her nose. "Why do I have to?"
"Because you're no longer a child," came the answer. "Because of what could happen which must not
happen?" "It's not as if I take my clothes off," the girl muttered, but her voice had lost its conviction.
"Take the boys with you." They tried to keep the canal's lips as bare and hard-packed as the summer
fields, but green things somehow managed to make their way there. They took root overnight, dipping
hair tendrils into the water: bizarre flowers of purple and yellow, stringy weeds, and the mimosa
pudica.
The girl hated the mimosa for its deceptive shyness. At the least touch, its leaves folded and
drooped but only to bare the thorns on its stems. The boys stripped immediately and dived into the
water. They swam, transformed into sleek brown puppies with iridescent limbs and bodies. The girl
watched. Then she too entered the water. First she washed her hair, scrubbing it with crushed herbs
and leaves. Then groping beneath the water, she cleaned the soft secrets of her body. Her fingers
cupped her unfinished breasts. Sighing, she leaned back in the water and lifted her face to the sky
where the sun was beginning to cool. It was nearly dusk when they left the canal.
The boys shared the weight of a pail of water while the girl shivered in her wet clothes. At the
backyard's edge, the girl abruptly signalled for the boys to stop. From the house came her father's
growls, her mother's shrilling. The boys' eyes widened. They turned to the sister, but something in her
face made them look away. A clatter of tin plates erupted from the house. There was the sound of a
slap, a sharp cry.
Then, the creaking of the ladder as someone came down in a hurry. The girl showed her teeth.
Dinner was ready. The mother was picking up plates from the floor. She pointed to the table. The
boys smiled and carried the pail into the kitchen. The girl changed her clothes. "Rice!" the older boy
exclaimed. "Not gruel. Real rice." "Might as well eat it," the mother said. "It won't last very long." She
drowned the rice mound on Selo's plate with soup. A twinge of anger shot through the girl. It was a
shame and a waste. Grandfather couldn't take anything solid anyway. But that was the way it was,
the way it had always been. Even with eating, one took a vow akin to marriage- one ate as the others
ate, for richer and for poorer. Old Selo waited for the table to be cleared. It seemed hardly possible
that the day was over, as the day before had been over. The sun was born in the east, died in the
west; the dry season came and merged with the monsoon season. Flood and drought. And all
through the changes of time, men worked in the fields, holding on and holding out, coaxing the earth
into yielding the golden kernels, so tiny they seemed like babies' gasps. Why couldn't the sun and the
rain clouds be nailed to the sky? Instead of men, the elements should hold on.
Hold on, as his wife used to say. Obediently, the old man lowered his body to the mat spread
out by his grandsons. His body loosened its moorings and entered the sea of sleep. He dreamt, his
dream melting into the dreams breathed out by his daughter-in-law and his grandchildren. One dream
now possessed the house, each member of the family giving to it. There were scenes of joy, a
morning rimmed with hope, a child's universe of a toy. "Wh-wh-what?" the granddaughter murmured.
Something was in the yard. It moved, its bulk rustling against the nipa fronds of the house's walls.
In the dark, the boys' eyes were pitted stars. The girl looked at her mother; the older woman
was also awake, listening in the dark. Before she could say anything, the door blew open so violently
it tore its upper rope hinges. In the doorway, a man's shadow stood, his head and shoulders dusted
by moonlight. Resentment came into the room. The man halted, prowled about the accusing air of his
family.
His insulted soul gave him pride. Son-of-a-goat, he said, he was a man, and a man had rights.
So the law decreed. Circling, he came upon a face. His grief balled itself into a fist. Without a word,
he smashed a blow into his wife's face. Something heavy struck his back and clung to his neck with
little claws. The man beat at the thing on his back. He swept it off and threw it to the floor. He began
to kick at it. But the white bat shrieked in his daughter's voice.
The man stopped. The shadows were unravelling themselves. There were his wife, his sons,
his daughter and Old Selo, his father, curled like a gnome in the corner. He found the door and lost
himself in the night. "Stop him," the mother cried out. "Not me," the girl said. "He kicked me. T
he son-of-a-bitch kicked me." "Don't say that," the mother said. "Follow him and see he's all
right."
"He's drunk."
"Do as you're told," the mother said, dabbing at the blood on her mouth. "It's curfew time. If the
soldiers find him, everything will be over for sure."
The girl did not move. "Please follow him," the mother said. She was still stroking her mouth.
"Please. We have to-to hang on." The girl kicked at a pillow.
"All right," she said. "But if he kills me, it will be on your head."
"Take your brother with you," the mother called out. The older boy was already running after his
sister. He caught up with her in the yard. She took his hand, murmured something that sounded like
everything had to be over and led him to the gate. Moon-touch had transformed the world, and the
two halted before the alien landscape. The boy felt he was gliding on silver water. From a distance
came their father's voice. He was cursing the night. "He's making for the town," the girl said.
"Son-of-a-whore," the boy muttered. "He'll hit a checkpoint for sure." The girl broke into a run. The
boy followed his eyes darting with suspicion among the strangely lit objects of the night world. The girl
shied suddenly, bumping into her brother. "A snake," she said. "I don't see anything."
"I heard it. Never mind. Hurry." It was too late. Three shadows broke the silver road. The father was
trying to convince the two soldiers that a man had the right to get drunk where and how it pleased
him. Particularly when the harvest was involved, yes, sir, particularly ...One of the soldiers replied by
pummelling him in the ribs and stomach. "Pests," the boy whispered and spat on the ground.
"Sssh," the girl held her brother's hand. "It will be all right. He pays now. Don't worry." "Pay for what?
They'll take him to the barracks now." "Sssh. I'll take care of this. Go home and tell mother
everything's all right. I'll bring him home." "Sure." "Believe me. Trust me. I'll get him out." "How?" The
girl did not answer. Looking at her, the boy saw her lips had pulled back, her teeth were bare. In the
moonlight, her mouth seemed full of fangs.

She entered the room on tiptoe but hardly a second passed before a man's voice exclaimed:
"Well, what have we here?" There were two of them-one seated behind a varnished table, the other
on a canvas bed. The first held a notebook and wore fatigues; the second was in his Undershirt and
pants and was polishing his boots. "Please, sir," the girl said, "my father ..." The room smelled of wax
and detergent. Light spilling from a naked bulb overhead turned the floor blood clot red.
"Which one is he? The men here are so active it's hard to tell who has sired whom," the sergeant
said. "He was picked up, sir, just a while ago."
The girl swallowed. In a softer voice, she added: "He was drunk, sir." She told herself that nothing
had changed in the room. The bulb still swung from the frayed cord; the light was as harsh as before.
There was no reason for the hair on her nape to stand. "What do you want with him." "I've come to
take him home."
"Child, it's not as simple as that. First, we have to take him to the judge. Violating curfew, disturbing
the peace. And so on. Then we'll have a trial. Since it's Saturday, we have to wait till Monday to even
begin. The judge will either fiI:le him or send him to jailor both. It may take weeks, months-maybe
years."
"Please, sir, my mother's waiting." "I suppose you can pay the fine."
"We don't have money," she said, flushing. "But we have rice." The soldiers looked at each other. The
sergeant said there was nothing to be done. As a matter of fact, the girl herself was violating curfew
and he was tempted to arrest her, too. The soldier on the cot laughed.
"You want to see him?" She nodded. The sergeant stood up and motioned for her to follow.
"We locked him in the toilet," he said. It was an outhouse. The father rose from the cement floor
when the door was opened. He bleated at the sight of his daughter. "Go away," he said. "Go away.
Tell your mother I'll be all right. Go on home."
His left eye was swollen. A blue-grey lump glistened on his forehead. The girl swallowed again. She
stretched out a hand to him but the sergeant pushed her away. He closed the door on the father's
voice.
"Well, he stays there," the sergeant said, "at least until he's sentenced."
The girl stood before the table. "Please, sir," she said, "I must take him home." "Can't do. Not unless
you pay the fine. Do you have money?" The girl bit her underlip. "No? Maybe you can pay some other
way.What do you think?" The sergeant turned to the other soldier. "Can she pay some other way?"
The man laughed. His eyes glittered. "I should think so. She's old enough. And peasant girls are
strong."
"How about it?" the sergeant asked. "You owe your father that much." The girl's mouth opened.
"Any self-respecting daughter would do much more. How about it? We'll give him a bed, make him
comfortable while you're paying. At dawn, we'll give him to you. How about it?"

She entered the room on tiptoe but hardly a second passed before a man's voice exclaimed: "Well,
what have we here?" There were two of them-one seated behind a varnished table, the other on a
canvas bed. The first held a notebook and wore fatigues; the second was in his Undershirt and pants
and was polishing his boots. "Please, sir," the girl said, "my father ..." The room smelled of wax and
detergent. Light spilling from a naked bulb overhead turned the floor blood clot red. "Which one is he?
The men here are so active it's hard to tell who has sired whom," the sergeant said. "He was picked
up, sir, just a while ago." The girl swallowed. In a softer voice, she added: "He was drunk, sir." She
told herself that nothing had changed in the room. The bulb still swung from the frayed cord; the light
was as harsh as before. There was no reason for the hair on her nape to stand. "What do you want
with him." "I've come to take him home." "Child, it's not as simple as that. First, we have to take him to
the judge. Violating curfew, disturbing the peace. And so on. Then we'll have a trial. Since it's
Saturday, we have to wait till Monday to even begin. The judge will either fiI:le him or send him to
jailor both. It may take weeks, months-maybe years." "Please, sir, my mother's waiting." "I suppose
you can pay the fine." "We don't have money," she said, flushing. "But we have rice." The soldiers
looked at each other. The sergeant said there was nothing to be done. As a matter of fact, the girl
herself was violating curfew and he was tempted to arrest her, too. The soldier on the cot laughed.
"You want to see him?" She nodded. The sergeant stood up and motioned for her to follow. "We
locked him in the toilet," he said. It was an outhouse. The father rose from the cement floor when the
door was opened. He bleated at the sight of his daughter. "Go away," he said. "Go away. Tell your
mother I'll be all right. Go on home." His left eye was swollen. A blue-grey lump glistened on his
forehead. The girl swallowed again. She stretched out a hand to him but the sergeant pushed her
away. He closed the door on the father's voice. "Well, he stays there," the sergeant said, "at least
until he's sentenced." The girl stood before the table. "Please, sir," she said, "I must take him home."
"Can't do. Not unless you pay the fine. Do you have money?" The girl bit her underlip. "No? Maybe
you can pay some other way.What do you think?" The sergeant turned to the other soldier. "Can she
pay some other way?" The man laughed. His eyes glittered. "I should think so. She's old enough. And
peasant girls are strong." "How about it?" the sergeant asked. "You owe your father that much." The
girl's mouth opened. "Any self-respecting daughter would do much more. How about it? We'll give him
a bed, make him comfortable while you're paying. At dawn, we'll give him to you. How about it?"
The boy took her hand. "Not yet," he said. "We have to hang on. Hang together." He guided
her to the path. "We'll tell mother. But first, we must take a bath. Whoreson. They must have struck
him a hundred times. His head's nearly gone. A hundred times. Whoreson." A whimper broke from
the girl. "Ssssh," the boy said. "It's all right. We'll tell mother. She'll find someone else. But first, we
must take a bath. In the canal." They left the road and took a short-cut across the field. They saw the
youngest brother playing near the canal and waved to him. After a while, the boy said: "It's all right.
Who'll complain against soldiers?" They picked up the youngest and preceded to the canal, the older
boy still busy with what could happen. The girl, he said, could be indentured now, as a servant to the
landlord. "Mind you take care of yourself there," he said. "Mind that you do that. And someday,
someday, maybe we can all go to town and live there."\ In the house, the mother was teasing old Selo
by pretending to carryon a conversation with him. Since the old man paid no attention but merely
mumbled, she was forced to comment on a variety of subjects. She made coffee for him and sat
beside him. Together, they gazed out of the window. A fly hovered, and the mother flicked at it with
her hand. Old Selo said something. "What?" The woman asked, laughing. "of course, flies are lovely,
with rainbow wings. But let them settle on you and they'll lay eggs. They breed maggots. Don't ask
me why. Maybe because they're forced to breed on trash, garbage, all the sick things. Maggots." Old
Selo mumbled on. The mother saw the children crossing the fields. She smiled and waved to them.
They were free-so her man must be coming home soon. Yes, there they were the three of them, the
boys and the girl. They were headed for the canal which was shimmering a distortion in a brown palm
of land distorted by heat waves. Old Selo looked and mumbled. Though it was summer, enough
water remained in the canal to feed the seedbeds.

9. A Party for Mrs MacArthur

First published 20 January 1990.;Santos, Bienvenido 1995 “The Day the Dancers Came” 1960
Dalisay Jr. Penmanship pp36-38. Retreived from Abad, Gemino H. 2012. Hoard of Thunder
Philippine Short Stories in English 1990-2008 pp. 9-17. UP Press.

To have survived the great is greatness enough – was how Basilio Santos explained his
obsession with Mrs. Douglas MacArthur, wife of the son of Arthur MacArthur. This bit of logic came to
him one early Sunday morning as he was walking to the neighbourhood flea market. Its truth was so
surprising he found himself halted at the intersection where Chinatown central began. He looked up;
he looked down. All the shops were still closed, and only about a half dozen men were out on the
streets. He noted how sunlight noosed a pagoda roof and a water tank; trash from last night’s
commerce- trampled purple plums, shredded green leaves- glinted on the sidewalk. For a minute, he
left he was inside a movie, at the mouth of King Solomon’s mines, exotic gems tossed by a casual
hand his for the picking. When he returned empty-handed to his apartment, he told his roommate
Iliong what he’d discovered. He repeated it to Pearl when, alert as a puppy, she arrived for lunch.
Neither thought much of it. From behind the curtain dividing the living room and which screened off
his sleeping area, Iliong grunted. Pearl, on the other hand, claimed there was no need for an excuse.
If Basilio wanted to host a party for Mrs. MacArthur why, then, a party there should be. He really had
no intention of becoming a host but he could not disappoint her. She was young and eager, twenty-
two years old, as austere and simple as her name. when she showed up on his doorstep, holding out
a letter from his niece back home-a niece who wasn’t at all on his brother’s mind when Basilio
boarded the ship that took him from Manila to San Francisco-all he could think of was how perfect
would be at a party for Mrs. MacArthur. With spring just beginning, she wore a peach-colored
shirtdress, a pert box hat, sheer stockings, and white shoes, and because she’d just been to church,
white lace gloves. She looked, as Basilio told Iliong, “proper; a little off but right, nevertheless.” When
she came again the following Sunday, he had what he thought would round heroff to perfection-a 24-
inch string of faux pearls. It was unfortunate she was wearing jeans, which pronounced the fake
pearls atrocious. Gallant but atrocious. But being what she was, barely able to contain her eagerness
to make a dent on this brave new world, she took to the idea of a part for Mrs. MacArthur
immediately. She called up a few “pillars of the community,” as Basilio referred to them; checked up
on some restaurants; even drew up a taped music, just as afternoon tea was better than dinner. “Why
tea?” was Iliong’s only comment. “Because no one does afternoon teas anymore.” Basilio answered,
echoing Pearl and thinking how odd it had turned out be. All he needed for his dream. It seemed, was
an energetic, young and much focused woman. These were halcyon days. Pearl’s busyness at what
she called “pre-op organizing” (forgive her language; she was an RN) had scattered the idea of a
party beyond Basilio’s thin social circle. Now, not a week passed without at less a call from someone
wanting to be invited. Neither she nor Basilio had anticipated that Mrs. Douglas MacArthur could be
vital to so many situatons. “WWII veterans lobbying for benefits,” he told Iliong. “Bataan survivors
petitioning for citizenship. Diplomats working for more aid loans. Anti-defamation legues…” From the
depths of his bunk, Iliong answered with a neutral sound. He didn’t like the idea of a party and had his
doubts about the intrusion of strangers into his Basilio’s quiet life. He warned Basilio that Pearl could
be dragging them into something they couldn’t handle. Laughing, Basilio repeated that to Pearl, to
show her he did not take Iliong seriously. But Pearl, delicately raising a cup of coffee to her rose-patal
lips, gave him a measuring look. He became conscious of the faded rust-colored, paisley-patterned
curtain sealing off Iliong’s world from the living room. Fear awoke, its neck hood swollen, in his heart.
It was careless of him. He rarely talked about Iliong, letting the curtain sever him from reality as
effectively as any Berlin Wall. For some reason, the way Pearl had looked during that first visit had
compelled him to explain how Iliong was an exceedingy sick man and worse, most grievously
embarrassed by his illness. In the second of their four decades together, Basilio’s roommate had
contracted a disgusting though nonfatal skin disease, whose nature he was not about to afflict Pearl
with, and had decided to withdraw from all eyes. “That was how we put it,” Basilio had said, lowering
his voice. “From all eyes. He’s at peace now and enjoys hearing about the world from me. He listens
in to conversations here, of course – but that’s nothing. It’s only to break the monotomy. What harm
could come from that? We’re only two old men together.” Pearl had demanded to know the exact
symptoms,, rattling off one skin disorder after another. “Shingle! Must be . . . eczema! or such a thing
as pseudo-leprosy. . . “ This was followed by suggestions to visit one doctor after another, and Basilio
had been hard put to fend off her enthusiasm. Truth to tell, he had enjoyed it, since the girl, dismayed
that a compatriot should remain untreated when the most advance medical technology was
available, rang him up even in the dead of night, as she ended one hospital work shift and before
starting another. To discuss symptoms and possible diagnoses, she said. It had taken, all in all, three
months of evasion on Basilio’s part to convince her it was hopeless. After that, the paisley curtain had
become no more than curtain meant to hide unmentionables. That she hadn’t forgotten. Pearl showed
Basilio one somewhat brisk evening with a fall nip in the air. Looking up from the list she was making,
a list which contained such admonitions as find out Mrs. MacArthur’s first name!, Pearl had turned her
head towards the curtain while her eyes’ pupils had sisled back to basilio, “I don’t think anyone’s in
there,” she said, face suddenly all-knowing, no longer young. He had no answer for her. He was sure
he had a roommate, indeed recalled being with him on the day peace was celebrated at Times
Square, when all the bells of New York rang like maddened angels; when men and women came
boiling out of street corners, buildings and shops, hats a skew, mouths stretched open by screams of
joy; when strangers pressed lukewarm beer bottles into his hands and receiving a nod to the
question, Are you a Filipino?, urged him to have one for MacArthur! Oh, yes. Certainly, that was his
roommate’s voice slithering, cool as a snake, into his ear saying, “Well, now, we can go back to
invisibility, no?” The words, having been spoken, an omen for Basilio’s declining years, were
imprinted, as it were, on Broadway’s clangorous air. He’d been young man before WWII. Suddenly,
as the final dingdong of the bell of Japan’s surrender petered out into silence, he was old. He lost his
job. The engaging Irish woman, who’d shared his coffee-and-Danish every five o’clock Monday to
Friday, moved on; an eviction notice arrived, saying he had to make way for a new building. He found
himself renting a desolate apartment at the border at the border between what could be called
Manhattan proper and the alien territory of Chinatown. On the edge, as he would say to Iliong and to
himself over the years; on the edge and never quite sure of one thing or the other. . . Who cared?
Casualties of peace could not lobby for attention like casualties of war. There had been sickness-of
that he was sure. If he felt around his brain carefully, he would find twilight memories of a country of
pain. But he was too scared to call all that up. As soon as a batwing of darkness stirred the settled air
of his mind, he fled, closed a door to his footprints and firmly turned a key. It was swell enough,, he
would say to himself, that he survived; and doubly lucky that Iliong had survived with him. Now and
then, mostly at dawn, when street traffic had not begun and the garbage trucks had long ceased their
grumbling, such a silence would possess the three-room apartment as to rouse Basilio. Staring at the
rectangular pane of the front window made translucent by a mercury street bulb, he would be
assailed by a certainty that he was alone, had always been alone, and that the world outside wasa
lying empty and fallow. But Iliong always answered his panicky call: Yes, Bas? A low voice, without
inflexion, abrupt and reassuring as a candle in the dark. He had been tempted to breach the integrity
of the paisley curtain. There had been days when he hadn’t even dared to look at it, fearing that fear
would overcome him, that he would storm that delicate barrier. Weeks when the dread that he’d
completely lost his mind, that he would not, ever, be able to tell whether Iliong was fact or fancy,
assailed him. At such times, he moved like a zombie in his own home, hoping the presence behind
the curtain would betray its nature, with a word, a sudden move. . . But that passed, as everything
else did. Fear ebbed and with it, the fear of fear. He grew used to Iliong answering whenever he
called out. With Iliong and now, Pearl, Basilio could count himself among the truly blest. He had two
friends to think of as he walked among the flea market stalls, waving to familiar vendors, accepting for
inspection this or that gewgaw, carefully considering a purchase. He could let drop casually that
perhaps his friend would like such a scarf. . . or that a brooch would indeed be useful to his friend,
Pearl. Each time either’s name dropped from his lips, a profound gratitude seized him and his eyes
would water. He was so very, very lucky. Better to be thankful and not question, not to look for flaws,
he told himself while mulling over whether to buy or not a half-dozen steamed buns to share with the
two. Today being Sunday with Pearl would be coming for lunch. That was a pleasant thought. It was
always Sunday with Pearl while Iliong was for every day. A special treat and a staple. What more
could a man ask for? Better to simply savor the idea of a party for Mrs. MacArthur, rolling it over and
over in his mind like a rock candy. Better to be content looking at Pearl, over the food-speckled table
top of their regular lunch diner, and to imagine how she’d fit in with the Mozart, the orchids, and the
fragility of bone china. She was trying her best, Pearl said a bit guiltily. It was just bad luck that
everything happened all at once this season. With the mother “back home” due for an eight childbirth,
Pearl had had to take on a second job-which made it difficult to work on the party plans, not to
mention holding on to a tentative romance (here she flushed a little) with a nice young man, a
Caucasian in law school whose splinter-studded and bruised left hand she’d bandaged one day. “but
I’m trying to apportion my time equitably,” she said, and followed that with a confession the young
man to resolve their status. She smiled, little white teeth barely showing, dipped a delicate forefinger
into her cup of tea, and sucked on it. Basilio was unperturbed. Preparations for party, any party, took
time, he said. And what the hell, they hadn’t managed to discover Mrs. MacArthur’s about it,” he told
pearl, patting her hand as it lay half-curled like a shell on the tabletop. He himself was busy. He didn’t
tell her but he had been putting together a portrait of how he and Pearl, and perhaps Iliong, would
look at party. Though the details were largely accidental, dependent on what caught his eye from day
to day, still they were legion, demanding a time-and-patienceconsumiing vigilance. He scoured the
flea market for the pieces that would complete his vision. A tuxedo set which fitted him (perhaps it
had been a boy’s, for basilio was a small man), priced at thirty dollars. A silk dress, the color of
champagne, its folds falling the way silk fell against Jean Harlow’s flesh in those old movies. Like
seawaves, he said happily. When the dress came back perfect from the cleaners. This and other stuff
he hung in his bedroom closet, tucked away among clothes bought for Iliong, clothes which went
unworn. He had not told Pearl what the party was about, really. Not that it wasn’t to honor a great
lady, Mrs. Douglas MacArthur, wife of the man who, along with his father, placed Basilio’s country on
the map. But Basilio was also convinced-why, he didn’t know- that the party was just the means to
draw Iliong out of his self-imposed exile. He was certain its celebratory air would somehow make its
way to parting the divide of paisley curtain, and one afternoon, the afternoon of the party to be exact,
Basilio was sure of it, as he and Pearl donned their finery and prepared to leave for the reception, as
the two of them were delirious with the thought of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with a little white-
haired lady auraed by dignity, the paisley curtain would stir, would part a little. An eye would peep out,
a voice would ask, What are you up to now? And Basilio would pretend not to notice the
momentousness odd that instant and, winking at Pearl, would say negligently, Oh, we’re only off to
tea with Mrs. MacArthur. At which Iliong would be offended that he wasn’t invited, would be hurt,
would pout, would sulk, and Basilio would produce, from the generous recesses of his bedroom
closet, the proper costume for the man; produce all the pieces of it – top hat, silk gloves, a little cane,
shirt, jacket and pants, shoes, and a frilly-edged handkerchief for the breast pocket. And hand it ovre
to Iliong with the admonition to hurry and dress up smartly, because they were all about to step into
their rightful niche in the world.
Gathering the components of this dream would take a while, what with only a social security
check between himself and the poor house. So he was in no hurry, he told Pearl – which was a lie
because he was in a race, he damn well knew it, looking at and into her face where the softness was
congealing into angular lines of bitterness. He poured her another cup of tea and asked about her
mother, her young man, her work… anything at all stop himself from saying what he wanted but didn’t
dare say. It would be useless anyway; such a bit of wisdom could not be transferred. It had to be
experienced. How could he tell her, he demanded of Iliong when the Sunday guest was gone, leaving
the opaque from window sprayed with dusk’s red-golden light – how could he tell her that one never
got used to it, that there was no way of reconciling one’s self to it? “You hope that with time, it will
ease up,” he said. “But it doesn’t happen. Because you know that each day of your absence is a day
you can never recover. Events transpire; things happen. Children and tress grown without knowledge
of you. Pebbles shift in the riverbed. Whole chunks of memory are filed away without your
participation. You go to sleep with this thought. It doesn’t wane with time, only sharpens, increasing
your sense of loss. And you realize that departures are not onetime but constant, daily, and not only
yourself but the landmarks you abandoned are leaving. Leaving. In your absence, the earth has
moved by that much in the vastness of space. How could I tell her this, Iliong?” “You use words so
well, Bas,” Iliong said. “You should’ve been a poet.” He laughed. “And starve even more than we
already did?” He walked to his bedroom, past the mismatched fortune of the living room and the sorry
litter of the kitchen with its grease-blackened cast-iron stove-oven. At the farthest end of the railroad-
type apartment was the closet, set against the last wall. He pushed one of its sliding doors open.
Inside were the clothes for Iliong and Pearl, their nearly complete costumes which, he was sure now,
would never be complete, just as they would never discover Mrs. Douglas MacArthur’s first name
soon enough for the party ro become truth. That had been in the brittle quality of her glances –
undeniable, despite her attempt to cast an ordinary light on her words. There was trouble with the
young man, she’d said jauntily, right hand fluttering in a wave of dismissal. She was angry. Bitter and
angry. Mind muscle, and bone clenched about a volcanic rage. Basilio recognized the symptoms. His
heart skipped a little, remembering the desolation of his Irish lady’s leave taking. He’d felt then he
was losing a world, this world – which was unfair, for he’d gambled away the old one for its sake. And
having lost so many worlds, he’d built a shell, a snail’s lair to carry on his back, impossible and
misplaced. He’d asked Pearl what the problem was, and she’d answered airily that the young man
was being evasive. And what, he’d persisted, was she going to do about it? “Force truth out,” she
said, the pupils of her eyes contracting to hard points of black light. And she’d added something about
the difference between his and her generation, speaking as though they were islands isolated by
time. Before leaving, she told him of how, because there were no public toilets, male pedestrians
would spread their legs, casually unzip their pants, and urinate in scant privacy of the steel beams of
Mac Arthur Bridge in Manila. Basilio pressed both knuckles against his closed eyes, rubbing gently,
smoothing himself with the motion. She spoke the truth, Pearl did; had always done so, since she had
the courage of the unhurt. Only time and repeated punishment could break her from the habit, and a
longer period and more grievous punishment before she learned to lie to herself. But she would learn
– eventually, if she were to survive. In the meantime… O, Bas would be the one to pay, of course, he
being the most vulnerable and closest to her. It seemed almost predestined that driven beyond
endurance by the lies that attent all sel-exile, she would hurl herself against the frail veil of the rust-
colored paisley-patterned curtain, to crash through the barrier into the world beyond – to find what?
Perhaps, a young man, whose skin had been endowed by a strange disease with the smoothness of
mango skin, impervious to time. Handsome and lithe, he would take her hand on his arm and draw
her to Times Square where peace was being celebrated and where they would trade embraces with
strangers before moving on the Waldorf for an everlasting party in honor of Mrs. Douglas Mac Arthur,
a perfect little party attended by tall, confident men in tuxedoes and slim women in silk dresses and
stubby-heeled shoes, not a strand of hair out of place in the whole ballroom, floating on the music of
Mozart and eternal happiness. Or then again, perhaps she’d find nothing but a four-drawer bureau, a
small table with a porcelain basin and pitcher, and a naked bunk – all shrouded by an inch-thick layer
of pale relentless dust.

Michelle Skinner
10. Scent of Flowers
1990 Contest, First Prize University of Hawaii on Manoa. Retrieved from Philippine American
Short Stories pp. 34-48. Philippine Arts, Letters and Media PALM Council and Giraffe Books 1997

Underneath the hotel, the elevator door slides open and Linda squints in the familiar
fluorescent glare. She crosses her arms against the cold and tries not to breathe deeply the sickly
sweet smell which pervades the hall. The walls and ceilings are lined with large, flat black pipes, and
Linda walks down the hall following one of the pipe trails. It leads her to a large room full of women
wearing brown, yellow and orange hotel uniforms imprinted with a Hawaiian tapa cloth pattern. Non-
uniform sweaters are pulled over their blouses. The women sit in front of gray tables pulling laundry
from the carts arranged around them. There is also bit of heavy sweet smell in this room although it
smells mostly of detergent and fresh, warm sheets. “Hi, Linda,” says Albertine, the Hawaiian lady who
is the supervisor of the housekeeping staff, “You on your way to work?” “Yeah.” “Ines, your daughter,”
says one of the Filipino ladies. Linda’s mother has already turned in her chair. She holds a pillowcase
in one hand and motions to her daughter with her free hand. Linda takes a chair from a nearby table
and sits beside her mother. Sitting among the piles of laundry, her mother tells her about that
morning. “I was watering the plants on the lanai, and I thought I noticed a sweet scent in the air.” She
folds the sheet once, twice, finally tossing the compact bundle into the basket with the other folded
sheets. She reaches for another. “But, none of the plants have flowers. I thought the scent came from
that green hanging plant in the corner. You know, the prickly one. Except that I don’t think it’s a
flowering plant.” She lays the sheet on the table and looks at Linda. “You know, I thought of your
grandmother. That’s what the smell of flower means, that the dead are paying a visit.” Linda listens
quietly. She doesn’t look at her mother but instead fingers a corner of the sheet. Her mother takes up
the sheet and continues folding. Under the fluorescent lamp and against the whiteness of the sheet,
her mother’s hands appear splotched a painful purple. “I sat down to wait.”
“What happened?” Linda asks. “Nothing. A breeze came to the apartment and blew the scent
away.” “Maybe it was one of the plants you smelled.” “No. I checked, and I didn’t see any flowers.”
Linda’s mother finishes one basket of sheets. She stretches her arms and then rubs her shoulders.
“Are you thirsty?” she asks. “You want to split a Coke?” “O.K.” Linda’s mother gives Linda two
quarters. She begins folding laundry from another basket as Linda walks to the Coke machine. “The
dead don’t come to visit here,” Linda hears one of the Filipino ladies say. “they know this isn’t their
home.” Later that evening Linda changes out her restaurant uniform so she won’t be too conspicuous
and waits for the number fifty six bus outside the market in Kuhio. It’s a well-lit place. Linda tucks her
long hair behind her ears and checks her watch. It’s eleven-thirty, and the bus won’t be along for
another twenty minutes. She leans back on the palms of her hands and looks around at the other
people who are waiting. A car pulls up to the corner. “Linda,” says the driver. She looks into the black
car. “Mario.” “Going home? You need a ride?” She hesitates. She is not sure she wants to ride with
him, her ex-boyfriend. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.” He stretches across the seat and opens the door. “Get in.”
Linda settles into the darkness of the car. It is better than the buses which are much too bright for her
and other tired people traveling toward darkness and sleep. Linda sits with her arms crossed against
her chest. Mario turns the radio up. Apparently he had turned it down to talk to her. Linda watches his
dark hand and fingers searching for radio station. “What you want to listen to?” “Anything,” says
Linda. He doesn’t reply but continues to turn the dial. Finally he settles on a station playing dance
music. I got to get a new stereo. This one’s junk.” Linda uncrosses her arms and relaxes into her
seat. She stays on her side of the car and leans against the door. “Hey,” Mario nudges her on the
shoulder. “How you doing? Haven’t seen you for a while.” “I’m doing O.K.” They head over the bridge
and out of Waikiki. He doesn’t take the freeway but takes almost the same route the bus would. He is
cruising, looking out his window at pretty women. Linda looks away. “How’s your folks?” “Fine” “Your
sister?” “She’s O.K.” “She don’t live with your folks no more?” “No.” “She’s a wild one,” he says and
smiles at her. He smiles his pretty-boy smile which alarms Linda. They drive past the lei stands of
Manukea which will open in five hours for early morning business. As they turn right, Linda thinks she
smells flowers in the air. She leans her head out the window, and her hair blows in the breeze. It can’t
be from the lei stands. Those are locked up, shut tight, the sweet pink and orange petals sealed off
from the night. “Do you smell those flowers?” she asks Mario. But she has spoken too softly, and he
doesn’t hear her above the radio. They glide through the sleeping part of Chinatown. Linda
remembers what her mother said. This is an old part of town with small, tight shops and narrow
streets. The dead must walk the streets every night. But these are Chinese, so maybe they don’t
believe in that story. “Do you know that story?” she asks Mario. She forces her voice above the level
of the radio. “What?” “Do you know that story about the flowers? If you smell flowers, that means the
dead are coming to visit.” “Is this a old Filipino story?” “Yes.” They are at a stoplight, and he runs his
hand through his sun-browned surfer hair. “Never heard it,” he says, disappointing her again. He lays
his brown hand back on the steering wheel. They enter the dark and dangerously quiet streets of
Kalihi. Mario stops in front of her apartment building. “Here you go.” A group of boys are lounging in
front of the building. “Mario!” one of the boys yells. “Hey, Jimbo!” Mario says. “Howzit?” Linda doesn’t
hear the answer. “Thanks,” she says. “No problem.” He smiles his smile with half-closed eyes. Linda
is glad that the car is big and much wider that necessary for two people. He is still smiling, looking at
her, pulling her toward him. “See you around,” she says. He nods, she looks away, and gets out of
the car. Linda hears the car leave as she walks toward her apartment, toward the yellow light in the
entrance. As she approaches, the boys run their eyes over and past her, smoke rising casually from
their lips. Slowly, like waking animals, they move across the light coming through the doorway. Linda
moves toward them briskly to hide her weakness and lack of confidence. "Hey, Linda," one of the
boys says softly, his eyes half-closed. "Where you go so late?" "You and Mario back together?" They
shift, the inside of their jeans scratching together. Sweet smoke burns her tired eyes, and boys are
roo heavy with smell of sweat and smoke and everything she doesn't want to know, Linda pushes
through them, their sweat bruising her arms, their breath on her hair almost too heavy to bear. "Hey,
Lin!" One of them calls down the hall to her. She pauses at the stairs, but does not look at them. "You
seen your sister lately?" Linda climbs the stairs. "We have!" The laughter diminishes, but she cannot
escape it anywhere in the stairwell, in the building of chipped, yellow walls. She hunches her
shoulders and pull her bag closer for protection, for comfort. She wishes that the boys did not need
her or anyone else to humiliate. She enters the apartment and knows the darkness is not empty.
"Hello," her father says. He is sitting in the dark living room. Linda stands tired, trying to hold back all
the secrets he cannot know.
"Hello," says Linda. She turns on the hallway light. "How was work?" "O.K." He rises from the
couch where he had been lying. "Have something to eat before you go to bed." "I will," Linda says,
knowing she won't eat. " I want to take a shower first." "All right," he says as he disappears into his
room. In the shower, Linda uses hot, hot water, the hottest she can stand, to wash off the smell of
everything. And finally her body is smooth to her fingers and smells as sharp and as clean as the
soap melting in the shower. She falls asleep between the dry sheets with the smell of the soap. On
Friday, after work, Mario gives Linda a ride. He passes by the bus stop and beeps at her. "Thought
you'd be here," he says as Linda gets in the car. "Thanks," she says. They drive in silence through a
side street and down to the canal which is the edge of Waikiki. Linda doesn't know what to say to him.
She doesn't want the ride but needing it makes her angry. She tries to lean her head against the
door. But the constant vibration hurts her so she has to sit up. She thinks for a moment that maybe
she ought to say something. Instead she let the radio fill in the space within them. "Do you want to go
to a party?" asks Mario. They are waiting for a stop light. "I don't think so." "Come on." He pulls her
hand like a child. "Come go with me." He smiles, trying to melt her. "No," Linda said. She pulls her
hand away. "No, I'm tired." "You sure?" "Yeah, I'm sure. I'm already tired." The radio plays, but they
are silent, and even the radio cannot penetrate the silence. Linda thinks it is a hurt silence. It is
dense. The apartment, when she enters, is quiet. Linda doesn't want to break the silence, so she
takes off her shoes and leaves them by the door. She glides through the darkness and into her room
where she undresses by the bit of light sneaking through the edge of the curtain. But it is impossible
to be quiet in the bathroom, so she hesitates, then flips on the light and turns the shower knob. The
sudden sound of water makes her cringe. Afterwards, she wraps herself in her white terry cloth
bathrobe and walks out to the lanai. She checks the plant for flowers. She checks even those plants
she knows cannot bear flowers. She likes to believe that anything is possible. But the Japanese
bamboo shoes no secret to bloom, the prickly hanging plant in the corner is nothing but profusion of
spiny green leaves. She looks up at the nearly identical apartment next door. She is hoping too hard,
she thinks. It is not comforting thought. She walks back inside. "Linda?" says her father as she
passes his room. "Yes," she reassures him. Linda wakes the next morning to the ringing of the
telephone. "Hello?" She tries to speak clearly, as if she is completely awake. It is her sister. "Hi,
Helen." "Is he there?" "Yeah." Linda looks toward the bedrooms. "But he's sleeping. Helen . . ." Linda
suddenly feels she must talk to her sister because Helen would understand her. "You want to meet
for lunch today?" "Today?"
"Yeah. Today." "O.K. How about Ala Moana?" "Isn't that kind of far for you?" "I moved." "Oh."
Linda adjusts to the information. "How about twelve-thirty?" "O.K. Where should we meet?" "The food
court?" "Yeah. O.K." Linda hangs up and looks at the clock siting by the stove. It's only six o'clock.
She walks back to her room to get more sleep. "Linda?" says her mother from the bedroom. "Who
was that?" asks her father. "No one." At twelve-thirty, when Linda gets to the Food Court, her sister is
sitting by the entrance, near the juice bar, her sunglasses on and her feet propped up on one of the
chairs. She sits carelessly, her skinny body in jeans and a T-shirt, looking for disapproval. She has
bleached a single, long, white streak through her dark hair. "Hey, Lin," Helen says. "You changed
your hair." Hellen pulls at the strand of hair and smiles. "Yeah." She looks at Linda. "Let's go to
McDonald's." They walk around the corner to the pink and green McDonald's. Linda pulls a leaf off
one of the plastic plants by the door. The plants are everywhere in the restaurant - the ceiling, the
walls, surrounding the tables. She wishes they were real and that the leaves would bend over and
tear in her fingers. Helen studies the menu through her sunglasses. Finally they order, and Linda
pays for it. Helen carries their tray to a table. "So, how you been?" Helen asks. She opens a box and
lifts out her cheeseburger. "O.K." "Yeah? How's school?" "It's all right." Helen nods and eats one of
her fries. "How's Pizza Hut?" "Busy. I'm glad I'm not in the kitchen anymore." They are silent as they
chew on their food. "How are you?" Linda asks. "O.K. O.K. I'm doing all right." "You said you moved."
"Yeah. I'm living in Makiki now." "That's far from work." "I'm not working there anymore." "Where are
you working?" "At a club." "Really? Which club?" "Just a club," Helen says. Linda eats a french fries.
"Where do you live now?" she asks, stalling. "Nehoa Street," says Helen. "Fourteen-oh-two Nehoa."
They continue eating quietly. Helen finishes her hamburger and begins eating her fries. Linda doesn't
know what to tell Helen. She feels ridiculous and pathetic here in the presence of her sister.
"So, what's the problem?" Helen asks. "What?" "You asked me to come here." Linda wipes
some ketchup off the table. She picks up another napkin and wipes the spot completely clean. "I don't
know," she says finally. She stares at the tabletop, "He's goodlooking," she adds. "I know that," Linda
says. "He doesn't understand, everything's easy to him. He scares me," Linda finishes softly. This is
not at all what she wanted to say. "Why does he scare you?" "I don't know." Linda stares at her fish
sandwich. "Just something." "Shit, Linda. You scared too much," Helen says and resumes eating her
french fries. Linda feels too miserable to eat anymore. Helen finishes her fries and wipes her hands
carefully, finger by finger, on her napkin. She adjusts her sunglasses and stands. "I got to go. If Mom
and Dad ask, tell them I'm O.K." Linda is left sitting at the table with the barely eaten fish sandwich.
She watches her sister walk outside. Helen looks back and does not wave, just looks through her
dark glasses. Linda realizes she didn't even see her sister's eyes. She wants to tell Helen that
everything is too close and not at all simple. She can't explain it. On Sunday, after they get home from
the noon mass, Linda's mother sits in the living room reading the newspaper. Linda first changes out
of her dress, then joins her mother. Her father is on the lanai watering the plants and turning the soil
with his hands, the trowel forgotten behind. She sits on the couch and reaches for a section of the
newspaper. When her father has washed the dirt from his hands and replaced the watering pitcher,
he joins them. The sports section has been left for him, and he picks it up. Linda adjusts the
crocheted throw on the couch to cover up the coffee stain. It's a humid day. Her legs and arms stick
to the upholstery and the throw. She glances at her father, who is staring intently at the page before
him. His lips move slightly and he seems about to say something so she waits. Nothing. She returns
her eyes to the open page in her lap. "The bitch!" Her father says. His hands clutch the newspaper
tightly. Linda and her mother stare at him. He tears the paper apart and throws it violently. It floats.
He kicks it. Linda's mother rushes to his side, but he pushes away from her and stomps out to the
lanai. Linda waits while her mother, the paper shielding her face, learns the source of her father's
anger. Finally, her mother, dazed and shocked like a child or a very old woman, looks up at nothing in
particular. She holds a torn page out for Linda and joins her husband on the lanai. They speak in low
voices, her father angry, her mother soothing, but confused. Linda does not hear what they say. She
scans the page of the basketball scores and basketball articles. She notices the ad for the Club
Brazil, with beautiful, exotic girls and a picture of a woman who cannot be anyone but her sister. Her
sister in a bikini. She can see her sister's eyes, although not very well. It is a small picture. The eyes
are dark and small as she remembers them. But they are smiling, not defiant like she knows her
sister to be. She doesn't think her sister has changed as much as the picture implies. Her parents
have stopped talking. Linda leans across the coffee table and looks outside. Her mother looks
strange in her church dress and slippers. They are standing with their hands on the wall of the lanai,
staring at the next building. Her mother's head jerks as if she is waking up. She looks cautiously at
her husband. Linda needs to get away, but is afraid that if she walks outside, she will have to look at
the whole neighborhood of low-cost apartments. She will be filled with the sight of tired, older, and
angry young people. Helen said she, Linda, was afraid of a lot. Helen is fearless and careless so she
cannot be touched by such things. Linda pretends she is like this also. She walks to the door and puts
on her sneakers. On her way out she catches her mother's eyes. They look away from each other.
Downstairs Linda finds that the boys are not there. In their place they have left cigarette butts and the
faint smell of beer and urine. Linda walks around the block looking at everything. It's not as bad as all
that, she tells herself repeatedly. She passes the yellow buildings, old long ago, and says hello to
those she knows. She keeps her distance. Climbing the stairs to her apartment, she thinks that Helen
would have left and not come back. When she gets home her parents do not say anything. Her father
sits in his chair reading the entertainment section of the newspaper. The sports section is nowhere to
be seen. Her mother is in the bathroom heaving buckets of water against the wall of the tub. The
water splashes loudly against the tile and the smell of Pine Sol permeates the whole apartment. Linda
walks into the bathroom and tells her mother that she will speak to Helen. On Friday, Linda decides
that she cannot put it off any longer. She cannot find her sister in the phone book. She can't even
remember her address so she sits on the couch and looks at the sports section of the Sunday
newspaper spread on the coffee table. Finally she picks up the paper and tears out the ad. Twelve-
sixteen North Beretania Street. She refolds the sports section and places it in the closet with the other
papers, in the middle of the pile so her parents will not have to look at it. She arrives at the club at five
o'clock, thinking it won't be full of customers yet. But it is the kind of bar which attracts the afterwork
crowd, and it is Friday. Linda stands by the doorway, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dark room.
When they do, she realizes that a number of men are staring at her. She walks to one corner of the
bar and waits for the bartender to notice her. "Yes?" The woman looks at her suspiciously. "Is Helen
here tonight?" Linda asks softly. "Who?" The woman's voice is demanding. "Helen," Linda raises her
voice. "Is Helen here tonight?" "No. Helen not here yet." "When will she get in?" "Maybe six, six thirty.
You like something to drink?" "Yes. I'll have a Seven-Up, please." Linda looks around the room. She
catches the eye of a few men and quickly looks away. Helen could look right through them, the way
she looks at most anything. Linda can't do that. A karaoke plays somewhere in the dimness waiting to
accompany the first person brave enough to sing. The bartender sets a small glass of Seven-Up in
front of her. Linda hunches her shoulders protectively and waits. The man next to her lights a
cigarette, and she wrinkles her nose as the smoke drifts past. Linda watches the door, and she orders
another Seven-Up so as not to feel so lost. Helen enters half an hour late. She runs a hand through
her hair as she walks across the room. Her brown stomach is exposed between the short yellow
blouse and the jeans she is wearing. She stops at the bar to talk to the bartender who points to Linda.
Helen walks over. There are no empty seats, so she stands. "How you doing?" Helen asks. She tucks
her hair, with the white streak, behind her ears and leans against the bar. "I couldn't find your number
in the phone book," says Linda.
"Did Dad send you?" "No. I came on my own." The bartender sets a drink by Helen, but she
doesn't seem to notice it. Helen looks Linda in the eyes. Linda thinks Helen's eyes still look the same.
But she's not sure. "So what's the problem?" Linda doesn't answer. She drinks from her glass of
Seven-Up. The man sitting next to Linda leaves to sit at a table. Helen takes her drink and climbs
onto the barstool he has vacated. "Well, what does Dad want?" "You know what he wants," Linda
says impatiently. "He's upset about the picture." "Yeah, yeah" "He thinks you're embarrassing the
family." "I don't think that many people even saw the damn thing." "It doesn't matter," says Linda. "He
saw it. And so did Mom." "So what am I supposed to do? Beg for forgiveness?" She runs a finger
through the wet rings on the counter. "It's a little late now," she says softly. "Just don't do it again,"
says Linda. It's all she can think to say. They sit without talking, their elbows on the bar almost
touching. A woman in a sleeveless gold lame dress is standing in the circle of light which serves as a
stage, saying something about a song. "That's the owner," Helen says. The owner holds her left hand
out to the audience, and a man in a business suit weaves his way through the crown toward her. After
a minute of chatter, the woman leaves the man behind in the circle of light. Music fills the room, and
the man begins singing "The Girl from Ipanema" to the music of the karaoke. "He's not very good,"
says Linda. "None of them are," says Helen. "You should hear them when they're really drunk." They
both smile. "That's a nice blouse," says Helen. Linda looks down to see what she's wearing. It's her
sleeveless polka-dot blouse. "Thanks, she says. "It's new." "It's nice," says her sister. "Why did you
move?" Asks Linda. "I moved in with this guy Steven." Linda wonders what happened to Guy. She
knows sho should not ask, but she doesn't know what to say. She's not quite sure what to say to her
sister anymore. Helen shakes her head. "Anyway, that's why you couldn't find me in the phone book.
It's his apartment and the phone's under his name." "I hope it works out," Linda finally says. "Who
knows?" Helen shrugs. "I always fall in love with them, and then it never works out." Linda realizes
that Helen is not fearless or untouchable. Her sister, like her, hopes for too much. "It'll work out,"
Linda says, trying to help her sister. "Yeah, well, it's fun while it lasts," says Helen. Linda wants to tell
her sister not to say that, not to talk like that. But she doesn't say anything. "How's Mario?" "I don't
know," Linda sighs. "I just don't know." Helen stirs her ice with her finger. Finally she slides off the bar
stool. "I have to get to work," she says. "Yeah." Linda is standing. "I better go."
 Helen reaches for her drink, then turns to Linda. "Tell them I'm O.K." "I will." Linda takes the
bus to the hotel where her mother works. When Linda visits, it is always at the same time of day, and
her mother is almost always folding sheets. Linda says hello to Albertine who gives her a flower from
a plastic bag full of flowers. "I have lot of hibiscus at home," Albertine explains. "And they look so
pretty I thought I'd share them." "Thanks," says Linda. "Put it in your hair," her mother says. Linda
places the flower over her right ear. "Very pretty," says her mother. Albertine smiles, then returns to
her folding. Linda notices a number of the other women wearing flowers. The flowers look sad under
the fluorescent light. And they do nothing to ward off the cold. "Did you talk to your sister?" Linda's
mother asks. "Did you tell her how angry your father was?" Her mother sets her elbows on the sheet
she has just folded. She leans her face on her hands. "Yes." Linda plucks the flower from her hair and
twirls it in her hand. "Yes, I told her." "What did she say?" "She won't do it again. She promised."
"That's all?" "What do you want?" Her mother is silent. Linda smells the flower, but it smells green,
like grass. Not like a flower at all. "I have to go," Linda says. Linda walks to her usual bus stop. It's
almost nine o'clock on a Friday night, and she's certain that Mario will come by. She does not get on
the number fifty-six when it stops. A few minutes later Mario does drive by, but he doesn't expect her,
and she has to stand at the curb and wave to him. "Hi," she says. He opens the door for her. "You're
early." "I didn't work tonight." Linda leans her head toward the window so the breeze will blow on her
face. It smells of car exhaust and food. "I was just visiting my mom." She runs her hand through her
hair, again and again, pulling the tangles loose. She can feel Mario watching her. She continues to
run her hand through her hair, but it only get tangled again in the breeze. "Let's go somewhere," she
says. They go to Ala Moana Beach. Holding her hand, he drags her, running, toward the outcropping
of land. They climb down the slope onto the large black rocks which sit in the black water. "Come on,"
he urges and holds out his hand. Linda takes off her shoes. She climbs down hesitantly, afraid that
she will slip and fall and be smashed against the wet rocks. He is a shadow, but she grabs his hand.
She can hardly see him in the dark. He lays a hand on her stomach then moves away from her. A few
moments later she hears him slip into the water. She walks cautiously to the edge of the rock and
feels his clothes against her bare toes. "Come in," he says.
"The waves. . ." "They aren't bad. Look." The ocean surges softly, and the waves break in
white splashes under the small slip of a moon. This is not at all like it is under the bright light of day.
"The rock are sharp." "Trust me," he says, like someone who says it often. Linda takes off her clothes
and slides into the blue-black water. She slips underwater, and, for a moment, it is all silence. She
rises, her wet hair clinging to her neck and shoulders. The warm, heavy sea is on her tongue, and the
smell of it is only slightly unpleasant. "Trust me," he is saying. And she knows he is not to be trusted
even before she touches him. She knows she is hoping for too much.

11. Natural Selection

In the Company of Strangers pp. 15-25. 17 November 2009. HI: Bamboo Ridge Press

The intellectual awakening of the Philippines which followed the American occupation and the
establishment of modern school system is one of the most gratifying results of American control in the
islands. . . . It is because of this intellectual awakening the desire for growth and development that the
American teachers have an opportunity of doing so important a work in introducing western methods
and ideals, and in keeping the schools in close touch with western culture. - Henderson S. Martin,
Secretary of Public Instruction, from Report of the Philippine Commission to the Secretary of War,
1900-1916.

April 7, 1909
Dear Anna,
I am safely arrived in the Philippine Islands after two weeks’ voyage over the Pacific, not quite as
pacific as I had hoped. Although I had means this fist letter to begin with my initial impressions of
Manila, residual seasickness, exacerbated by an unpleasant encounter with some local food on my
second day in the tropics, resulted in my being diagnosed with dysentery and bedridden for almost
two weeks. I was then, upon doctor’s orders, confined for a further two weeks thereafter, until I regain
my strength and usual weight. I am rapidly mending, with only six more days left in my confinement,
and the good doctors at the military hospital have told me I shall soon be fit and ready for my duties. I
admit to chafing at being so delayed in arriving at my new school. As you may recall, classes at the
new agricultural college are to commerce mid-April. However, I quite likely shall be able to depart
within the next week, certainly before the end of the month. My superior has written urging me to
remain in Manila until duty discharged, as I will be no good to them in my current condition. As I still
tire easily, due to the effects of my recent illness, I am afraid this shall be a rather brief missive. Let
me assure you, dear sister that a am indeed feeling better every day and look forward to writing a
much longer letter upon my complete recovery. Yours in good health,

Your brother Harry

April 12,1909
Dear Anna,

I must once again apologize for the brevity of my previous letter. As I am indeed in much better spirits
and health, I deemed it best to write you immediately. The doctors at the U.S. military hospital have
given me a clean bill of health, and I plan tomorrow to begin acquiring a few of the necessities I shall
require for my new post. My hope is to leave for the college and my teaching duties within a week’s
time. This unexpected interlude in Manila has allowed me to become acquainted with some old hands
here teachers who have traveled around the archipelago and been stationed at many sites. A Mr.
Brown, currently resting here in Manila before taking up a new station as superintendent in Tar-lac
has visited me almost daily and told many stories of his years spent among the Bon-Toc Igorots in the
northern hinterlands. I must say that even after many years spent on my doctoral fieldwork in Mexico,
I feel unprepared for the sort of deprivations he has encountered. He has, however, assured me that
my new college is quite within a day’s reach of Manila and frequently supplied with goods from the
capital as well as regular mail service. Many others have given similar assurances, including a Miss
Atwater, a scholarly matron who spent many years as an elementary school teacher not far south of
the newly established college where I shall soon be teaching. I hasten to add that I am currently
ensconced and rather comfortably, at the home of an American businessman who lets out some of
his many rooms to fellow Americans passing through Manila. The home is laid out very much in the
Spanish style to which I grew accustomed in Mexico – one enters the courtyard area around which
are arrayed such rooms as the sala and library, which is meagerly stocked with books as I recently
discovered upon finally venturing in there. However, the courtyard itself is quite pleasant with an
abundance of plants in large Chinese ceramic pots and even a feathery palm in the middle, growing
from amongst the flagstones. It was under that palm where your invalid brother stationed himself
during this last week as the doctors had encouraged me to get some fresh air. So, every afternoon, I
had simply to walk to the door of the bedroom, call out “Ayudame por favor!” and one of the male
servants, usually the one called Domingo, would help me down the stairs from my room and arrange
the steamer chair for me, always ensuring to provide me with some cool water – well boiled, mind you
– and a small merienda of pan de sal, a Spanish bread very popular here, and warm broth, as
recommended by the doctors. As I had hoped, my Spanish, from my fieldwork in Mexico for my
Cornell studies, has proven useful. As I am feeling well enough and the doctor yesterday gave his
assent, Mr. Brown has arranged an excursion for us this afternoon. We shall travel by carromata
along the bay to Luneta Park. The sea air will doubtless do me good.
With much affection,
Your brother Harry

August 3,1909
My dearest Anna,
I do apologize for any consternation caused by my first letters from the tropics. Let me assure
you that I am in the best of health and completely recovered from my illness, so far recovered in fact,
that not two weeks after writing last I commended my duties at the new agricultural college, to which
your much anticipated letter was forwarded. I have copied my new address at the top of this letter, so
you may send your missives directly. I do hope this missive finds you and your family continuing to
fare well. That Matias has gone through his first harvest season with his father is certainly a
milestone. I recall many years ago my first such harvest with father. That first year was arduous for
one not accustomed to such physical labor although I had many times assisted father with tilling and
planting and other work on the farm. The harvest, however, was quite different from any other
experience, requiring such an intensity of labor in a brief period of time that my body was left aching
for weeks after. As you may remember, many were the nights when father and I had to complete our
work by lantern light, and many were the mornings when you could not stir me from bed! Classes at
our new agricultural college and farm commenced in the middle of April, and, as I arrived nearly two
weeks later, I expected my days would be full of planting to account for the time lost during my illness.
However, my superior let me know that as the monsoon season was soon to begin, we would be
spending our days primarily in classroom studies. The Philippines does not have a winter or fall but
has dry and wet season as well as a cool season, which I’m told comes in December and runs
through early February, if we are fortunate. My colleagues and I, all five of us, convene all our
courses in a very large army tent. If the weather is favorable, we are able to conduct some of our
lectures out of doors, which is infinitely preferable to the hot and humid confines of our tent. We are
fortunate, or so I am told by my superior, Dr. Bicknell, to have for our use two blackboards and a
small cache of chalk. As ours is a government-established institution, we have been supplied,
however meagerly, with most of the necessary tools. Nonetheless, we have learned to have a light
hand with the chalk. My current accommodations consist of a small Army tent and cot shared with my
colleague Nash. You will notice at the bottom of this letter a rather hasty sketch of it. Nash and I also
share a small table for our few hygiene supplies. We plan, by the end of the year, to erect two school
buildings and more permanent accommodations. To this end, we have met with the town mayor on
two occasions. He also paid a visit to our college and farm, accompanied by several other town
officials, including a young woman who seemed to enjoy conversing with Mrs. Able, wife of one of our
teachers and a teacher herself. The young lady told Mrs. Able that the mayor had invited her as her
aunt had expressed interest in being a possible benefactress to the college. We only hope this shall
indeed be the care. Again, let me congratulate Matias for completing his first harvest. My regards to
Karl as well and please give Alice and little Mary each a peck on the cheek from me. It is with no
small amount of envy that I envision the apple butter and pies you and Alice must certainly be baking
at this time of year along with the strawberries and raspberries you must be canning. The fruit most
available here is the guava, which as you may recall, I was never fond of in Mexico. But I am learning
to appreciate the pine-apple and coconut in these climes.

Yours in good health, Your brother Harry

October 15, 1909

My dear Anna,
 You may tell Matias and your husband, Karl, that I am once again a farmer. Strange as it may
seem at the beginning of your fall, we are entering our corn planting season. The monsoon season
having ended my colleagues and I as well as the students of this new college, were able, by the end
of September to plant the four varieties of corn that I carried with me I had been warned by Nash and
Able, prior to our planting, that some of the students might balk at such labor. Yes, we are an
agricultural college, but apparently manual labor is frowned upon by much of the populace, who send
their children to school in order that they may become professionals who do not engage in such labor.
One of our students in particular is the scion of a Spanish mestizo – a term used by the natives to
refer to those of mixed Spanish and Filipino blood. He is heir to many hectares and seemed
dismayed when told about the upcoming assignment. However, when Dr. Bicknell, our director, made
it clear that such work was expected of all students as a demonstration of learning and that he himself
would be participating, the student had little recourse but to take up shovel and rake on the appointed
day. Bicknell assigned this young man with Mrs. Able with whom a foul disposition would have been
most ungentlemanly. Through such maneuvers, the good doctor ensured that all went well. By the
end of the week, the young man was resigned to the proposition of more labor to come. Currently, our
student population consists only of twelve young men, yet we are moving forward with great
enthusiasm for this new undertaking. As I recounted in one of my first letters, before departing from
Manila I was fortunate to spend time with fellow pedagogues with many years’ experience in these
islands. They cautioned me not to expect too much in my first year. One of the American teachers felt
the Filipino temperament had not yet matured to the point as to be inclined toward creativity or
accuracy. However, several others including the earlier-mentioned Mr. Brown and a Miss Youngberg,
felt that such deficiencies were more the mark of inadequate education – exercise of the mind as
Miss Youngberg called it – and the Spanish system of rote memorization. They did agree that
preparing the students to be accurate and observant scientists would be quite a task indeed. While
these shortcomings were not immediately evident in the few months of classroom instruction they
have become more so now that I am in the field with my charges. They are eager yet somewhat
careless lot as pertains to measurement, recordkeeping, scrupulous observation, proper staking, and
other such staples of the scientific trade. In spite of much repetition, I have yet to see them properly
maintain the stakes between the field of their own accord although I have reminded them that such
staking is necessary to maintain the integrity of our recordkeeping and is, in fact, one of the hallmarks
of a true biologist. Such difficulties are to be expected at the beginning of our program. I can only
hope that after two full years with us, our young men shall indeed be more capable scientists.

Wishing for some of your apple butter, Your brother Harry

November 3,1909
Dear Anna

Your news about little Mary’s influenza was troubling indeed. I do hope she has completely
recovered after all of your and Alice’s ministrations. By the time you take receipt of this letter, Karl and
Matias should have successfully completed all the harvesting. Just yesterday I was forced to release
one of our fields – planted with Mexican corn variety “A” – from scientific study. The young men
responsible for its care introduced a local fertilizer – chicken manure collected from local henhouses
down the road – in spite of explicit instructions regarding the field’s care. Their reasoning was the
plant growth would be aided by the fertilizer, which I acknowledge was quite likely. However, as I
reasoned, unless they had a sufficient quantity for the remaining three varieties of corn, the scientific
knowledge we can gain from the field in question was in jeopardy, I admit the field is likely to do better
with the added fertilizer and told the young men so. They were all looking very dismayed after my
rather blistering attack upon their less-than-scrupulous scientific methods. I encouraged them to
acquire enough manure next time to fertilize all the fields. Also, rather than raze the field in question, I
assigned them to care for it but refrain from including any analysis of said field in their journals. I must
do the young instigator of this incident, a native boy named Esteban, some justice in acknowledging
his initiative. He rose well before the others in order to accomplish his task of collecting the chicken
manure from the farmers, from whom he’d previously arranged to collect at least two buckets each.
Truth to be told, this is not unlike my experience in Mexico although I had hoped for better from a
territory governed over ten years by the U.S. It is, however, still too early to hope for such, I am afraid.
Nonetheless, work is proceeding. We hope, over the next two weeks to plant the C’s – the cacao,
coffee, and camote – the latter a local variety of sweet potato, which is staple in this region. The
coffee and cacao are also native to this region. My colleagues, the Ables, shall be experimenting on
different methods of wee and pest control. For now, the corn is the only crop under my purview.

Postcript, November 7,1909

We have much entertainment of late, having been guests of honor at two recent gatherings in
the community. One was hosted by the town mayor and the other by an elderly woman apparently the
aunt of the young lady who visited our school not long after my arrival. They were quite jovial events
with many musicians and much dancing. I discovered that as a guest of honor we were expected to
dance quite often and with many of the young ladies there. Fortunately, as my Spanish – from my tine
in Mexico – enabled me to converse with my hosts, I was not needed on the dance floor as frequently
as poos Nash. Prompted by one of our hosts, the elderly woman known as Dona Mercedes to
expound upon my recent experiences in the Philippines, I related the aforementioned story of the
corn and the fertilizer. “Well, of course,” Dona Mercedes replied upon my completion. Seeing I was
baffled, her young niece came to the rescue: “They are not too much interested in science, maestro,”
she explained. “Their ultimate goal is increase of crops.” “As it is mine,” I protested. “Peor es nada,”
the aunt reminded me which means, roughly, “Half is better than none.” Oddly, dear sister, this
recalled to me father’s admonition that “beggars can’t be choosers.” I suppose I am, after these many
years of schooling and work, still very much a beggar of this earth, mining her for all that God can
provide. Thus was I reminded of my purpose in going off to Cornell: to ensure that we all are provided
with adequate food. And, so highly did I enjoy the large quantities of food at the gatherings,
particularly the noodles at Dona Mercedes’, which I praised very highly, that she was moved to send
a large dish, freshly prepared, to the school the following day. Thus did all the students and faculty
enjoy a very hearty supper. Her generosity did much to alleviate my yearnings for some of your home
canned apples and berries or a loaf of fresh bread.

Affectionately, Your loving brother Harry

December 11,1909
Dear Anna,

We at the college have been a little harried of late. Nash, my tentmate, was taken ill two weeks
ago, and we had all taken turns the first week – especially when his temperature was quite high –
ministering to him and trying to keep seemed little improved and Dr. Bicknell decided to send him to
the hospital in Manila accompanied by the Ables. We are quite certain it is not cholera but the doctors
at the military hospital can certainly do much better that we. In the meantime, while we await the
Ables’ return, we are continuing to care for our fields but have temporarily suspended all classroom
instruction. We are all praying for Nash’s recovery. Rest assured, I am in fine health.
Your loving brother Harry

December 13, 1909

Dear Anna,
The Ables have just returned and brought word that Nash is suffering from pneumonia,
possibly brought on by the recent volcanic activity from Ta-al Volcano, which, while not near enough
to pose a threat, certainly does spew gases, which of late the winds have blown in our direction.

The rest of us are well. Harry

February 26, 1910

Although I have not heard yet from you, as the mail is very often at least two months traveling
over ocean, I thought it apt to write with my wishes for a blessed Easter and a fine and temperature
spring. By the time you receive this, summer may already have arrived! My colleague, Nash, is now
fully recovered and has returned to his duties. A blessing for many of my compatriots here has been
the opening of a bakery not a mile from our school. A local entrepreneur, the young woman
mentioned in previous letters, has taken it upon herself to import to our sleepy hamlet a baker in
Manila. Currently, they undertake to produce at least three different baked goods each day: the usual
loaf of bread, the ubiquitous pan de sal, and another sweeter Spanish roll called ensaimada. The
baker has informed me that he knows many other recipes but cannot yet produce them as the
demand is little and the ingredients quite dear. Often when I stop in the shop for my loaf of bread, the
proprietress offers me a mug of Spanish chocolate or coffee and one of her rolls, and she, her elderly
aunt (Dona Mercedes), and I converse in Spanish and in some English. Bothe were educated in one
of the convents in Manila. The young lady, upon completion of her studies, subsequently enrolled in a
newly established English language program at the American Normal School. However, after only six
months of such schooling, she returned to his province to help care for her ailing father, who passed
away soon after. Within a year of that, she opened her bakery because, as she said, she is not one to
remain at home without any occupation. Of such mettle, I hope, will this nation come into the
twentieth century. The two ladies speak Spanish very fluently although with more of a Castilian flavor
than that to which I’m accustomed. I have discovered that my Spanish, while adequate for Manila, is
quite inadequate for the provinces. Many of my charges here speak only rudimentary Spanish.
Fortunately, the American teachers who have been here for ten years did their work well, and my
students’ English is such that we are usually able to understand each other satisfactorily. We are, as
is usual in our schools here, lacking in textbooks and tablet paper. One of the textbooks I had hoped
to use for my next level of instruction is not available, thus requiring that I change my previously
planned lessons. We do what we are able with what we have. We at the college, in addition to writing
our lessons on our blackboards and repeating often the necessary information, also have the
students work on the farm, which reinforces much of our teaching. We currently are nurturing
cabbages, corn, tomatoes, potatoes, and various fruit trees. The native cacao and coffee are thriving
under the weed and pest control conditions we have undertaken to maintain on some of our fields.
We expect increase crop yields. My attempts to grow some carrots with two of my students failed
miserably as the entire crop was attacked by pests while still young.
Thanks to the efforts of Dr. Worcester, my professor from Cornell, we have been able to
acquire more of the three varieties of Mexican corn, which have proved so much more amenable to
the native climate than the American Midwestern corn seed. I had suspected as much and, thus,
many of our current cornfields are planted with these varieties, which I brought myself from my own
stock. We hope within the next few months to begin a small program in animal husbandry and to this
end, have been making inquiries in order to acquire some pigs and cows. Finding suitable dairy cows
has proved to be quite a task in a country where there are very few cows to be had at all. Matias and
his sister, Alice, perhaps would be happy to hear this as I imagine the milking of the farm cows falls
on their small shoulders. They probably cannot imagine a land without cows.

Affectionately, Your brother Harry

March 5, 1910
Dear Anna,
Having finally received your much delayed letter, I must express my condolences at the
passing of little Mary. She is in the Lord’s hand and must be looking down upon you with fondness. I
only wish I could have met her. Sorrowfully,

Your loving brother Harry

July 10,1910
My dear Anna,
I have passed over a year in this new territory and have grown quite accustomed to the
rhythm of life here. This is now my second monsoon season and the rains have been much heavier
than those last year. We recently endured what s called here a bag-yo, a hurricane. Fortunately, we
had by that time finally completed our two school buildings and two additional building mean to serve
as accommodation for students and faculty and thus withstood the hurricane with little difficulty. One
indeed was endowed by the young lady proprietress of the bakery and her elderly aunt. The other
was erected thanks to the generosity of Don Abelard Quinones de Santiago, the father of our mestizo
student. We also have erected a temporary greenhouse and hired a native man to be our farm
supervisor. Bautista is very knowledgeable in medicinal uses of native plants and recently proved of
great assistance to Nash, who was suffering from a severe cold and fever. I hope Bautista may prove
useful in my plan to restart the carrot crop as he also has assisted us in better controlling cabbage
pests. In addition to more pleasant accommodations and facilities, we now have daily delivery of
bread from the local bakery and that, accompanied with the milk we get from our two new dairy cows,
has made our mornings and days much more pleasant. Our students, quite unaccustomed to the
taste of milk, excepting perhaps the occasional goat’s milk, were not fond of it at first. However, mixed
with their morning coffee or chocolate, they find it very palatable, as do I. This and our promise to
make ice cream later this year have certainly given them much more incentive to learn the animal
husbandry portion of our curriculum. Although we now receive daily bread deliveries, I still shop at the
bakery once a week, simply for the conversation. Also, the lady proprietress has taken to loaning me
books from her Spanish library, for which I loan her my American ones in exchange. In this way, I
have been able to read a small book of sacred poems by Lope de Vega. Recently, I have been
attempting the Noli Me Tangere of the native hero Rizal, a book that has proved difficult due to the
more complex Spanish. This was a book considered so seditious by the Spanish authorities that Rizal
was exiled and later executed for it. The lady has, in turn, developed a fondness for our Longfellow.
Her English is as yet rudimentary, so I thought this among all my books, a good one with which to
begin. And lest I forget, Marciano, he head baker, who now has two assistants, has recently added a
coconut tart to the bakery’s offerings, owing to the abundance of coconuts in this region. While I still
yearn for apple pie, the tarts certainly do much to alleviate such yearnings. He promised that I should
successfully manage to cultivate apples here, he will undertake to make me a pie. Although the lady
and Marciano are doing well, her elderly aunt, Dona Mercedes, has lately been much too ill to leave
their house. Thus, I took it upon myself to visit her bedside the other day and pay my respects as well
as read to her a verse from her Spanish Bible. I hope this letter finds you faring well. Do give my
regards to Karl and the children. I am keeping you and your family in my prayers.

With much affection Your brother Harry

December 23, 1910

My dearest sister Anna,
I wish you and your family a most blessed Christmas. As this letter will most certainly reach
you well after the New Year, let it also come with my very sincere wishes for a joyful and blessed new
year! Much has happened here since my last letter so many months ago. My sincere apologies for
having delayed so long in waiting, which is inexcusable, but I think you shall understand once I relay
the events of the past months. First and foremost, I suppose, I should let you know that your brother
is finally and perhaps surprisingly after these many years, a married man. My wife is the former Miss
Estrellita Domingo Santa Cruz, whom I fondly refer to as Estrella, my star. You may recall her from
previous letters as the proprietress of the bakery of which I am so fond although for more reasons
than I previously told you. We will have been married one month come ten January. Her aunt, who
continues to remain in bed due to ill health, was able to bless our nation. As you can now surmise,
many of the last few months were spent wooing my lady and ensuring that her aunt would give us her
blessing. Both were quite the tasks for your brother, a bachelor these many years and quite
unpracticed. Nevertheless, I apparently did well enough or perhaps they simply pitied me. Enclosed
you will find a photograph taken at our wedding. Also, you will observe, at the top of this letter, my
new address. As my wife’s home is situated very close to the college and her aunt desired that we
keep her company, I have moved my few belongings there. This has worked quite out well for
Bicknell, who joked that my marriage could not have come at a better time as he had recently hired
and additional faculty member for our animal husbandry curriculum. My former quarters have thus
been reserved for a Mr. Washburn, due to arrive midFebruary. May his arrival in Manila be more
auspicious than my own. I can assure you I’ve never been happier. My only difficulty of late has been
with the over-solicitousness of my dear wife. I had to remind her just this morning that for someone of
an independent spirit, she should surely understand my wish to accomplish everyday tasks on my
own. As this she had to laugh and thus was our first martial spat resolved. I wish you and your family
the joy of Christmas and a blessed New Year!
Much love, Your brother Harry

Estrella sends regards as well.

12. Beautiful
In the Company of Strangers pp. 27-37. 17 November 2009. HI: Bamboo Ridge Press
Virgie never woke early. She had already thrown off all the sheets, but she was sweating when
she got up. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she moved her feet around the floor, searching for the
house slippers. One foot, then another slid into each slipper. She stood and glanced at Nita’s bed,
partly hidden by the curtain that separated the room. Nita’s bed was empty and neatly made. A
square, pink pillow embroidered with blue flowers was precisely positioned in the middle with half of it
on the larger pillow tucked neatly under the bedspread. Virgie wondered what Nita would do if she
moved the pillow just an inch. She noticed that underneath Nita’s neatly positioned pillow was a letter.
Ani must have put it there. Nita would have hidden it away in one of her drawers. Virgie reached for
her pack of cigarettes, took one out and lit it. The smoke rose slowly toward the ceiling, dissipating
near the thin crack in the plaster above her bed. She took a few more puffs, and then pushed aside
the curtain that separated her bed from Nita’s, although the curtain wasn’t in her way. She picked up
the envelope and looked at the sender’s address. It was from George, the American from Iowa. Nita
had dated him for two weeks last year and he had written every month since. Sometimes Nita read
parts of his letters aloud, to get Virgie’s advice on how to reply. “He says, ‘You wouldn't’t like Iowa. It’s
very cold in the winter, not warm like your Boracay. Today it’s 14 degrees Fahrenheit with the
windchill. What is that in Celsius? Does he not want me to go there? Does this mean he’d like to
come live here? ‘In the Philippines?” Nita hoped he would propose someday, so she was very careful
with her replies. She assured him that she would very much like to see Iowa. “I’ll always be waiting for
you in warm Boracay,” she had ended her most recent letter, much like all her other letters. “So he’ll
remember to come back,” she had said. Virgie thought of that jealousy as she held George’s newest
letter. She consoled herself with the thought that George was old and fat and smelled of days’ old
sweat. Not that she did any better. She tucked the letter back under the pillow, just one corner
sticking out. The cigarette was finished in another minute, and she stubbed it out in the ashtray. On
her way to the bathroom, she stopped to push aside the curtains that surrounded Ani’s bed. Ani, in
imitation of Nita, as usual, had neatly made her bed. The white of the sheets shone through the hole
in the pink bedspread. Virgie undressed and dropped her
clothes on Ani’s bed, since it was closest to the bathroom. After washing up, she put on jeans and a
camisole top made of alternating layers of shiny, light pink fabric. Max, the German, had given it to
her yesterday. She had promised to see him again today. She thought about how he resembled
George. Nothing to be done about that. She sprayed her neck and wrists with perfume, powdered her
face and put on lipstick and eyeliner, had neatly made her bed. The white of the sheets shone
through the hole in the pink bedspread. Virgie undressed and dropped her clothes on Ani’s bed, since
it was closest to the bathroom. After washing up, she put on jeans and a camisole top made of
alternating layers of shiny, light pink fabric. Max, the German, had given it to her yesterday. She had
promised to see him again today. She thought about how he resembled George. Nothing to be done
about that. She sprayed her neck and wrists with perfume, powdered her face and put on lipstick and
eyeliner, a little rouge. Studying herself in the mirror, she pursued her lips as if to kiss her image. Her
eyes were wide, as if surprised. She relaxed her face, fluffed her hair and sprayed it with hairspray. It
always made her cough. Coughing, she grabbed her purse and left the room.

Outside, there was a breeze from the ocean. It lifted Virgie’s hair slightly as she walked along
the sidewalk, past the bars and souvenir shops, past the cigarette and chewing gum vendor, past the
young boy who sold peanuts in the morning form the street, marijuana from the alley at night. His
eyes were glassy as he looked up from rolling paper cones for the peanuts. She wondered how he
managed to make any money. Down a side street, past the sari-sari store was a small bakery, really
just a wooden window propped open from five to eleven every morning. Virgie bought two rolls of pan
de sal, the only bread the bakery sold, and a bottle of Coca-cola. She leaned against the building and
ate the bread then passed the empty bottle through the window. Checking her watch, she saw she
had an hour before her usual nail appointment. It would be enough time to drop off her laundry at
Aling Dalisay’s and go to Mercury Pharmacy. Best to be prepared. At the pharmacy, she walked at
the counter until one of the clerks noticed her. Virgie passed her the latest prescription from Doctora
Reyes. The young girl read the prescription and looked puzzled for a moment. Virgie realized she
was probably new. “Shit,” she muttered. She could have found the items herself but now she had to
wait for the child in front of her to figure out what the hell she needed. She started at the young clerk’s
bangs, a little too long and covering her eyes, which were trying to read the writing on the small
sheet. The girl had an outbreak of pimples on her cheeks. Virgie wondered exactly how old she was.
Just as Virgie was about to interrupt her perusal, the girl scurried off to the pharmacist’s station, a
raised glass cubicle on the right side of the room. She pointed to Virgie as she showed the
pharmacist the prescription. The pharmacist pushed her glasses closer to her eyes then, without even
glancing at the clerk gave her instructions while handling back the prescription. The girl seemed
frozen the suddenly jerked her head and moved toward that shelves full of pharmaceutical products.
Virgie glared at her watch. Maybe Doctora Reyes was right. Every few months, when Virgie went for
her appointment, the doctor reminded her that she could find other work. “Alam ko, Doc,” Virgie
always replied. She liked Doctora Reyes, who always spoke frankly, leaning back in her chair as if
perpetually tired. “I’m concerned about your health,” the doctor would usually continue. “Yours is not a
healthy occupation.” And she would tick off the dangers on her fingers. “STDs, AIDS, possible
pregnancy and then what would you do, bodily harm - a lot those men could abuse you easily.” “I’m
careful,” Virgie always replied. “That’s what all the girls say. You probably don’t even use condoms
half the time.” Then Doctora would write the prescriptions and give them to her. “If anything happens,
come see me.” The last time she had added. “Two more years, Virgie. You shouldn’t go more than
that.” “You want to give me a job?” Virgie shot back. The doctor then shook her head. “This office isn’t
the place for you. But maybe you’ll find something. The sooner the better.” The young clerk nervously
dumped the packages of condoms and birth control pills on the counter. Virgie looked at her in
irritation but the clerk’s eyes were fixed on the cash register. She bit her bottom lip as she punched in
everything with great deliberation. Finally, Virgie was able to pay the clerk and take her package. She
looked at her watch again just enough time to drop off the laundry. When she finally arrived at the
salon, she was sweating and grateful for the sudden gust of air conditioning as she opened the door.
Lulu was sitting in the chair closest to the door having her hair cut. “Not too short,” she was telling the
stylist as Virgie entered. “You know how the men like it.”
“Below the shoulder or shoulder length?” the stylist asked. “Below the shoulder,” she turned to
see Virgie. “Virgie!” Lulu yelled. She held her arms out under the cutting gown. The hair stylist
stepped out of their way. Virgie and Lulu embraced and kissed each other on the cheek. “Kumusta
ka?” Lulu inquired loudly. Everything about Lulu was loud, from her sequined jeans, which peeked out
from under the robe, to her red lipstick and pinkish and violet eye shadow. She had a husky voice,
which she liked to characterize as sexy. “How’s business, ah?” she asked. “How’s tricks?” She
laughed loudly at the joke, which she’d picked up from a movie, or so she’d told Virgie when she’d
explained the joke. “Which one gave you that?” She pointed at Virgie’s shirt. “A new one.” Virgie sat
down at the nail stylist’s station. “Looks like Bebe.” “I’m sure it’s a fake. He bought it at one of the
shops by the beach.” “That’s all right. At least he has taste. Or did you choose it?” “I chose it.” The
nail stylist interrupted to ask Virgie what color she wanted. “Something like this.” Virgie said, pointing
to the one of the layers on her blouse. The stylist pulled out a bottle and showed it to her. Virgie
nodded. “So, how long have you been with him?” “A few days. Three.” “Is he staying long?” Lulu
asked. “A week.” “Does he stay up long?” “I don’t know.” Lulu laughed huskily. “That’s right. Keep him
waiting! Good girl.” The hair stylist began to divide Lulu’s hair into sections, to touch up her highlights.
“A week,” Lulu continued, “that’s good. Makes them feel they have to get a lot in a short time. Has he
taken you to dinner?” “Only once.” “That’s OK. That’s still good.” An hour later they left for lunch at
Lulu’s insistence. “I’ve been a week without a boyfriend,” she moaned. “I don’t know how I’m going to
pay my rent.” Lulu, Virgie knew was not doing as badly as she claimed. She actually rented a small
studio, by herself, in one of the larger hotels. She’d been around a long time but neither Virgie not
anyone else knew how old she was. “She has to be at least thirty-five,” Nita, Virgie’s roommate, had
said one night. She was explaining business in Boracay to Ani, the new girl. “But Lulu has charm,”
said Nita, summing her up better that Virgie could have. “She charms everyone, men and women.”
Ani sat on the bed, her legs drawn into her chest and her thin arms wrapped around them. She had
arrived earlier that day, walking behind Ben as if she wanted to disappear. After some instructions,
Ben had left her with them. He’s patted Ani on the shoulder as he left, and she had flinched. “Thirty-
five,” Nita repeated, obviously to Ani’s nervousness. “But she looks younger. She’s very good with
make-up.” Walking beside Lulu, Virgie wondered if she was indeed thirty-five. She didn’t look that
much older than Virgie, who had turned twenty last month. “Doctora Reyes said to get out of the
business in two years,” Virgie told her. “Look at this,” said Lulu, pulling Virgie’s arm.
 Virgie looked at the window display Lulu was studing. The jeans on the rack were stitched in a
reddish-purple thread. “Four thousand pesos,” Lulu read. “Maybe later.” She turned back to Virgie.
“What did you say about Doctora Reyes?” “She told me to get out of the business in two years.” “That
busybody,” said Lulu, walking on. She tossed her hair, now with light brown streaks. “She’s always
trying to convert us.” Lulu turned the corner and headed toward the beach. Virgie hurried to catch up.
“How long have you been here, Lulu?” she asked. Lulu turned suddenly. “You are not really going to
do as the doctora says.” Before Virgie could answer, she went on. “We’re not all doctors. It’s easy for
her to talk.” Lulu stalked on angrily passing the stalls that sold fresh fruits and drinks. Virgie followed
silently. She couldn’t think of anything to say. Although she hated when Lulu got in one of her moods,
Lulu usually was right. They walked on. At the first bar they passed, a man yelled to Lulu, “Hello,
beautiful!” The other men at his table burst into hoots and laughter. Lulu tossed her head and smiled
as she walked on. When she spoke again, she seemed in a better mood. “Rafi’s is the best place to
meet someone,” said Lulu. “And I know the owner. He’s a friend. He’ll make sure we get the best.”
Lulu sauntered along beside Virgie, her lips swaying as she planted each stiletto heel on the
sidewalk. A trio of men, wet from swimming at the beach, turned to look at them, Lulu’s white blouse
dipped down in a low V and was fringed with sequins in tan ad white and brown. It looked like she’d
dusted her cleavage with some sparkly powder. “This is my Sex and the City blouse,” she whispered
to Virgie as she entered the restaurant. Lulu leaned across the podium and flirted with the man who
was to seat them. While waiting for a table, she asked to see Rafi, the owner of the restaurant. The
young man went back to see if Rafi was in his office. “He’s Greek, I think,” Lulu said to Virgie, as they
waited. “He looks Filipino to me.” said Virgie, looking at the young man’s retreating back. “I mean
Rafi.” Rafi was in, said the young man, and Lulu could go back to see him in the office. “Come.” said
Lulu as started down the hall. Virgie shook her head. “I’ll wait for you out here.” “I’ll seat your friend.”
said the young man. A family of American tourists passed them talking loudly. “It’s so hot,” said the
woman. She was sunburned and her hair rose in fine frizzy wisps around her head. The two boys with
them, their sons probably, glanced at Virgie as they passed her. She ignored them and followed the
young restaurant host, who seated her at one of the windows looking out at the beach and made sure
she had a drink and a bowl of nuts while she waited. No one else was around. The young man
returned and surprised her with a heavy fashion magazine from the U.S. “Thank you,” Virgie said,
noncommittally. She was delighted. She loved the glossiness of such magazines, the perfumed smell
of the pages, each one turned slowly as she studied the photographs. It was several minutes before
she noticed another group had sat nearby, some waiters eating their lunch. She glanced at her watch.
It was after two o’clock. The fans overhead turned slowly and breeze blew in from the ocean. A group
– French, Virgie concluded after listening for a moment – walked in the door. The three men laughed
boisterously as they were escorted to their table. A waiter rose from his meal and went to the men’s
room. A minute later, he returned, picked up some menus, and proceeded to take the men’s orders.
Virgie smoked her cigarettes and slowly slipped the ice water with lemon.
“Would you like to join our group?” Virgie looked up to find the youngest of the three men
who’d just entered. His eyes were light brown and his dark hair curl at the ends, just above his
shoulders. She was tempted, but, always practical, declined. Max was here for another week. He had
money. He wanted to see her. “No, thank you. I’m waiting for a friend.” Virgie finished her cigarette
while reading the fashion magazine. Lulu finally rejoined her. “I’m hungry!” Lulu announced loudly.
She glanced at the menu. “Rafi’s on the Beach at Boracay” read the menu cover. The cover featured
a curvaceous woman in a bikini, curled on a beach chair, sipping a drink that was the same pink as
her bikini. “The grilled fish with prawns is very good.” Lulu suggested. “And the paella.” “Let’s get
that.” Lulu called the waiter and ordered paella. “And two glass of white wine.” She added, looking at
Virgie, “Never too early to start.” The waiter came back shortly with a plate of grilled vegetables.
“Compliments of Rafi.” Another of the Frenchmen came over and greeted Lulu. “Hello,” Lulu replied.
“My name is Henri.” “Please have a seat.” Lulu said, almost regal in her politeness. She indicated the
chair next to her. He sat and smiled at Virgie, said “allo” to her too. The waiter interrupted them with
the wine at that time, so Virgie didn’t bother to reply. She took a sip of her wine and speared a slice of
grilled eggplant. “Is this your first time on Boracay?” Lulu asked Henri. “Yes, I heard of this beach
many years ago, but only now I am able to vacation here.” Virgie watched and listened as Lulu smiled
and nodded with interest between sips of wine. Lulu expressed surprise where appropriate as Henri
told of how he had planned the trip with his friends and told of an amusing incident that had happened
to them shortly after their arrival in Manila. “No? Really?” Lulu interjected, wide-eyed. “Yes, really,”
the Frenchman insisted, laughing. Virgie picked up a slice of grilled tomato with her fork. She sliced it
into three pieces as she listened. Lulu laughed with Henri, leaning her hand on his knee, her newly
cut and dyed hair swaying close to his face. Soon his chair was even closer to Lulu’s, her hand
resting on his arm. The other Frenchmen abandoned their table to sit with Henri. “Your friend has
broken that young man’s heart,” said Henri. He pointed to the young man who’d asked Virgie to join
them. “Oh,” said Lulu, “this is Virgie. She is quite shy. Give her a few days,” Lulu pretended to change
the subject. “How long are you here?” “We arrived yesterday,” Henri replied. “We will be staying for
two weeks.” “See!” said Lulu. She turned to the young man. “Mister . . . “ “Julian.” “Mr. Julian, you
have two weeks to change the shy, young lady’s mind.” Julian sipped from his glass of red wine and
said nothing. He did smile a little.
After lunch, Lulu and Virgie said goodbye to the men. “Our boss is expecting us at four,” Lulu
lied smoothly. To demonstrate her interest in their welfare, she dispensed the typical tourist advice
regarding snorkeling, renting watercraft, and purchasing sunscreen. She also recommended a good
bar with live music at night. “The band that plays tonight is fantastique,” she said, imitating their
pronunciation. “I guarantee you will like it.” “Will we see you there?” Henri asked. “Perhaps.” She
kissed Henri goodbye on the cheek. Max was at the juice bar when Virgie and Lulu arrived. It took her
a moment to pick him out since he looked like several of the other men drinking alone, sunburned,
watching the women who walked by. But he waved when he saw her. “Hallo, beautiful,” he said. “I’m
happy to see you.” Virgie leaned over and kissed him on the mouth. He held the back of her head in
one large hand as he pressed her mouth open with his tongue. Virgie kissed back. He tasted like the
fruit shake he’d been drinking. She wondered if she tasted like fish and wine. Max rubbed his free
hand along her leg. When he pulled away, he noticed her blouse. “I’m glad you like this.” “I love it,”
Virgie replied. She gestured toward Lulu. “This is my friend Lulu.” “Hello,” said Lulu. “We just had a
lunch, but Virgie was anxious to get here as soon as possible to see you.” Max smiled. “I thought we
could go swimming,” he said to Virgie. “I’d like to see you in a bikini..” He squeezed her leg. “Well,”
said Virgie, one hand on her hip, the other on his shoulder, “you’ll have to buy me one.” “How much?”
“At least 1,000 pesos.” He handed her 1,500. Virgie gave him a long kiss. “I’ll be back in thirty
minutes,“ she said. Max waved. “You should have asked for more,” said Lulu. “I’ll get more next time.”
“If there is a next time.” “There will be,” Virgie snapped. Lulu didn’t reply. They walked back to the
room. Lulu lay on Virgie’s bed flipping through a magazine Virgie had picked up in a hotel lobby. She
glanced at Nita’s bed. “Is she always so neat?” “You know Nita,” Virgie said over her shoulder. She
felt a little nervous putting the money away in her hiding place while Lulu was there, but Lulu wasn’t
watching her. “What would she do if we moved the pillow?” “Go ahead and move it. See what
happens.” But Lulu didn’t get up. “Who’s your new roommate?” She nodded at the bed by the
bathroom. “Ani,” Virgie began to change into her bikini. “You haven’t met her.” “How’s she doing?” “I
don’t think she’ll last. She’s young.” “Some men like that.” Lulu flipped through the magazine a
second time. She set it aside and sat up in the bed. “Don’t you have a television?” Lulu asked. “No.”
“Next time you should definitely get enough money for a television.”
“And how do I explain that? Do I tell him I need 5,000 for an evening gown?” “Five thousand
isn’t a very good television,” Lulu paused, “or a very good evening gown.” Virgie laughed. She whirled
around in her bikini. “What do you think?” “Very sexy,” said Lulu. She flicked the belt buckle on the
front. “Very modern. Where did you get it?” “Freddy made it. He makes the best bikinis.” Lulu nodded.
“I’ll have to see him soon. I need a new one.” “Better get some money first.” “Don’t remind me,” Lulu
groaned. “Oh don’t act that way,” said Virgie as she wrapped a skirt around her waist. “You’ve got Mr.
Henri now.” “True,” said Lulu. “I’ll have to find him at the bar tonight before someone else gets him.”
Virgie put on a jacket and zipped it halfway. They walked back toward the beach. On the way, Lulu
stopped to look at shoes on sale in one of the stores. She put a pair on and walked around for Virgie.
“What do you think?” “The heel should be a little wider and the toe pointier.” Lulu nodded. “A shame
we don’t have a mall here.” Virgie had seen pictures of malls in her magazines: clean and cool with
brightly arrayed, angular mannequins. “I’d like that,” she said. She suddenly envisioned herself amidst
the round racks of a shop, silky fabrics, jeans, bright shoes arrayed on shelves along the wall. She
longed for the cleanness of all that, the smell of newness. Lulu continued to walk around in the shoes.
Virgie watched her walk near the boy who sold peanuts and marijuana. The boy looked up at Lulu
then he turned to looked at Virgie. For a moment his eyes were clear and he reminded her of her
brother. Then he stared back at Lulu, hips swaying in her high heels, walking in front of some men
who were carrying snorkeling equipment and towels. The men ogled her. Virgie looked away. “Let’s
go,” she said to Lulu. “What?” Lulu looked to her as if startled. “O have to go.” She watched Lulu
returned the shoes. The smell of the ocean wafted toward them on a breeze. Fish and seaweed, she
thought. It always smelled like fish and seaweed. Lulu was still looking at shoes, so Virgie turned
toward a rack next to her and smelled the sleeve of a blouse. It smelled like all the other shirts she’d
bought there. And it had the same coarse feel. Lulu out her own shoes back on. “I’ll leave you here,”
she said. “I hope your date goes well.” “Thanks for lunch.” Lulu laughed. “In a few days, you can look
for Mr. Julian. Que sexy!” Virgie smiled. They kissed and hugged goodbye. Virgie sat on the beach
while Max swam. Before he had gone in, she’d rubbed sunscreen all over him, which had aroused
him. “Not now,” she’s said, as he pushed his body heavily against her. The plastic straps of the beach
chair dug into her back and legs and she didn’t like the smell of the sunscreen. “I thought you wanted
to swim.” She tried to sound joking. Then she added, “Later.” After swimming he came back to give
her a kiss and brought her a bottle of water from one of the refreshment stands. “I think I will rent
some snorkeling equipment.” “That’s good.” She nodded. “Have fun.” She waved at him as he walked
off again. A strong breeze blew as she lay on the chair. February and the nights were still cool. She
reached for the towel at the foot of the chair and covered herself with it, closed her eyes again. The
breeze continued, blowing the smells of the ocean: seaweed, fish, crabs, salt. As a girl she had sat
outside their home with her mother, in the red of early evening, grilling the fish and watching the pot
of rice set on the fire steam. She sliced tomatoes and onions and put them in a guttered earlier that
day when her father had pulled his boat ashore with the morning’s catch. His net was usually bulging
with fish that he sold at the market and later, when the hotels and tourists came to the restaurants.
When she got older, she had accompanied him as he went his rounds, selling the fish and crabs he
caught. She stood in corners and sat on stools in the back of restaurants, staying quiet while her
father negotiated with the buyers. Most of the buyers knew them and one, Tito Ben, who liked to sit
and talk with her father, would give her a soft drink with a straw while she waited. He was from the
village too but had moved to town to work in the restaurant he now managed. He and her father
talked about the old times, people who were still alive and people who were long dead. “Maybe
someday,” he said as he patted her head, “you will come here to live too.” “Maybe,” her father had
replied. When she’d left the village, Tito Ben was the first one she had sought out. She had gone to
the back of the restaurant, as she always had. The restaurant was empty and they had sat at a table,
drinking soft drinks with a straw while she told him why she was there. The room was cold from the
air conditioning and Virgie had shivered as he had explained what she could do. “You should stay
home and help your mother,” Ben had said. “That’s why I’m here.” Ben had sighed and nodded. “Very
well.” And in the morning, he had taken her to see Mrs. Tantoco. “At least she’s pretty,” the woman
had said. Bed had looked away. She hadn’t seen him since then. Virgie opened her eyes to see
Max’s face dripping with water. “Hello, beautiful,” Max standing so as to shade her from the sun. “Did
you see many fish?” she asked. “Oh, yes!” It was beautiful, beautiful!” he exclaimed. She handed him
the towel she’d used as a cover. He dried himself. “Would you like to eat dinner?” He sat on the edge
of the beach chair. “I would like to go to the Italian restaurant.” “Then we will have to dress very
nicely?” “Yes, true.” He dried the little hair he had so it stuck up. “Why don’t you come back to my
room and shower there?” “No,” said Virgie, getting up. “I need to find my friend to borrow a nice
dress.” “Don’t do that,” Max said. “I will buy you one.” He gave her 5,000. “I can never remember how
much this money is worth. Will that be enough?” “Yes.” She kissed him on the top of the head and
evaded his hands. “It may take me a while. Why don’t I meet you at the restaurant?” Max looked up at
her, pain in his eyes. How many times had they been through this before? It was his second visit to
Boracay, he’d told her. Before that, he had vacationed in Indonesia. Each trip had probably been
much like all the others. Perhaps next year he would come back and look for her, or he might look for
someone else. She carefully wrapped her skirt, tied it tightly.
Then she reached down to Max, smoothed the hair on his head. “Oh, Max,” she said playfully.
“We’ll have a lovely evening.” She put the five 1,000 bills in her bikini top and put on her jacket,
zipped it to her neck. She kissed him again, along kiss, and left him standing on the beach, towel in
hand. The breeze blew harder bringing the smell of fish and seaweed again. She thought of buying a
nice shawl and new perfume to wear with her red dress. Something to keep her warm.