ESSENCE by Jose Claudio B.

Guerrero
WE had just finished lunch in a small caf along Katipunan Road. Two cups of steamy brew enveloped our table in a delicious aroma."So where did you meet?" I asked my friend Patrick as he put down his coffee cup."In the Faculty Center in UP." "Again? How come you meet a lot of guys there? I'm always there and nothing ever happens."Patrick pointed to his face and smiled."Che!" I replied laughing. But I knew that it was true. Patrick was not really that good looking, but he had this sexy air about him. And he had fair skin which is, for most Filipinos, a prerequisite for beauty. I looked at the mirror behind him and saw my dark, emaciated reflection."So anyway, I was washing my face in the ground floor washroom when in comes this really cute guy. I've seen him on campus a few times before. So anyway, he goes and takes a leak," Patrick paused. "You know those FC urinals, right?"I nodded. "No partitions."Patrick took another sip from his cup and continued. "So anyway, this guy sees me checking him out. To my surprise, he turns to me, giving me full view of him in all his glory and smiles. I smile back. And," Patrick took a deep breath, "the rest is for me alone to know." He ended by dabbing the sides of his napkin to his mouth.I knew pressing Patrick for more details would shut him up just like that so I let it pass. I could wheedle out all the details later. "So what's his name?" "Carlo."I raised an eyebrow and gave Patrick my you've-got-to-be-kidding look. He laughed and nodded in agreement."Yes it's another Carlo. It's always Carlo, or Paolo, or Mike, or Jay--" "So what name did you use?" I asked, cutting him short."My favorite, Paolo." We both laughed. "Enough of me. Tell me about yourself. It's been what, a month since we've talked?" "More like three weeks," I answered as I motioned to a waiter for the cake menu."Oh no. You're ordering cake." "Why?" "You order cake when you're depressed." "No I don't. And anyway, I'm not depressed this time." The waiter arrived with the cake menu. After giving our orders, Patrick continued pressing me for news."I told you, I lead a boring life." "I'm sure," answered Patrick mischievously. "So how's your Chinese boyfriend?"Patrick's question caught me off-guard as I sipped from my cup. I snorted and felt coffee go up my nose. We both started laughing. "He's not Chinese," I answered when I had recovered. "He's Korean. And he's not my boyfriend, excuse me. I'm his tutor." "I'm sure," said Patrick needling me. "And what are you tutoring him in?" "English." "I'm sure. Oh good, here's the cake."As I dug my fork into my cake's rich cream cheese, I happened to look at the mirror and saw the caf doors open. A dumpy, fair-skinned guy walked in. "Oh my God." I froze.Patrick saw the expression on my face and looked around for what caused it. Finding it, he said, "Don't tell me you're still crazy over Mark." "No I'm not. It's just that, well" "Well what?" asked Patrick, his eyes suddenly alive with curiosity."It'syou know," I answered. My eyes told him the rest."No," he answered not wanting to believe it.I smiled."When?"

"Two weeks ago." "Why didn't you tell me sooner?" "You're always busy." "Well I'm not busy anymore. Tell me everything." Patrick leaned over to me forgetting all about his cake. "It's not everyday your best friend loses his virginity." "It happened two weeks ago. Our teacher dismissed us early so I was walking in the AS parking lot looking for my driver. It was already dark and only a few cars were left. Well, one of the cars was his. He smiled at me and asked me what time it was," I paused and took a bite from my cake."And?" "And what happened next is for me alone to know." I replied mimicking him."Fuck. Don't do this to me. Tell me. I have to know. I won't be able to sleep," Patrick begged. Noticing his unused fork, he grabbed it. "Tell me or I'll stab you with this." Just then Mark passed so he hurriedly lowered his fork. "He looks conscious. Maybe he suspects you've told me."I just smiled."I know some guys who are like that. Once something has happened between you, they suddenly feel awkward when you're around. Eventually you end up avoiding each other." Patrick studied his cake for a while then started eating. After some time he spoke up. "I'm so happy for you," he said smiling as he grabbed my hand and shook it warmly. "I remember all those times we sat here eating cake and talking about your to-die-for classmate Mark. Mark and his cologne, Mark and his new cologne, Mark and his crew cut, Mark and his burnt-out cigarette butt." He considered for a moment and then said, "Boy, am I glad those days are over." He laughed. I smiled."Is it really true that you took puffs from his cigarette butt?"My ears went red and I nodded. "Whatever he touches, he leaves an essence. When I take a puff from his cigarette butt, our essences meld. We become one," I hastened to explain. "It's like we've shared something. Like a bond."Patrick gave me a pitying look. "At least you don't have to do that anymore."I smiled and mashed the blueberries on my plate.We finished our cakes as we updated each other with what has happened to our high school barkada. As we waited for our change, Mark stood up to leave and finally noticed us. He smiled and went out. Patrick pinched me as I smiled back, my ears burning.PATRICK dropped me off at the Faculty Center after lunch and rushed to the theater for rehearsal. Having thirty minutes to waste before my next class, I decided to go to the FC washroom and tidy up.The faint scent of detergent, cigarette smoke, and stale urine greeted me as I opened the door. As I expected, the washroom was deserted. I stood in front of the mirror and took out tissue from my bag. As I dabbed moistened tissue on my face, the washroom door opened and a woody cologne scent wafted in.It was Mark. He went straight to the urinals. I pretended not to notice him. When he finished peeing, he joined me by the mirror, washed his hands, and then straightened his shirt collar. As he looked at his reflection, he saw me watching him and smiled, "It's you again." I smiled back and offered him a tissue. He declined and left.When the door closed, I hurried to the urinal. I unbuttoned my fly and peed. I looked down and watched my pale yellow fluid join his, a bit darker and frothy against the white porcelain. As I watched the fluids mix, their colors getting more and more difficult to distinguish until finally no difference could be seen, a warm pleasurable sensation from within me slowly surged, growing more and more powerful, until finally shudders of ecstasy racked my still untouched body.

LINES by Lakambini A. Sitoy

SHE lived alone, she told me, in an apartment that could house a family of four. To fill the silence, the first thing she did as soon as she had settled in was get a phone."Yeah, me too," I said. "I had a second one installed a couple of months ago. Problem is every time it rings it's some asshole looking for a phone pal."The company was a new one, eager to sign on subscribers. Brand new black wires now webbed the skies across the city. Strangers who had waited decades to get connected suddenly had unlimited access, to me as well as her.I kept a box of calling cards by my receiver, which was an arm-length from the bed. Each pale rectangle represented someone who'd said they could introduce me to someone else: people who might show me the way to a better job with a fat paycheck and real perks. Those evenings when I was home, itching for something to do, I would dial

my collection of numbers relentlessly, banishing the thought of rejection from my mind.I soon made contacts of a different nature. Night after night, in between my calls, the phone would ring. I'd hear an alien "Haloh?", giggly and juvenile; or sometimes just silence for a heartbeat or two before the line went dead."Teenage boys," she laughed when I told her. "They want to make sure it's a girl on the other end. I get calls like that all the time."She always put the phone down on those cracked, uneducated voices from out of the ether. Like me she was polite only to people she knew. I never counted this as a fault.THIS was the big city. Unchaperoned, her family tucked away in one of those sleepy, cash-crop provinces, she enjoyed a kind of defiant freedom. Part of it was the license to be anonymous. Another was the right to style herself liberated, to go out to the little bars on Friday nights with guys like me and yet be too nervous to make love when the time came.For company in the darkness she had her faceless suitors, who never rung her up earlier than half past twelve. I suppose they must have taken note of her number and the light girly voice on the other end, the mysterious woman who refused to talk to them yet never unplugged her phone. What kind of people would be up through the wee hours of the morning? I thought of the security guards at our building sitting slack-jawed beneath spotty fluorescent bars. Those connection fees were cheap, anyone could apply. Driving past squatter enclaves on my way to work, I would marvel at how each ramshackle dwelling, the size of a toilet, was topped with a television antenna. Each shack would hold a new phone. I smiled to myself at what must be taking place nightly in the 2:00 a.m. dark: she in her white, cologne-sprinkled bed, jolted rudely awake by some squatter's bid for contact.She and I, we were a team, like brother and sister, a most efficient twosome. At the two-bit ad agency where we worked, the projects our bosses assigned us almost always turned out perfect. I hate to brag, but she had a good mind, like a deadly little knife, and so did I. She was as fiercely loyal as I was diplomatic, so none of our supervisors ever got away with stealing our ideas. Of course we were meant for higher things. Overworked and underpaid--that was a given. She spent her salary on clothes and cabfare and accessorized her apartment with books. The money was never enough.Me, I had the car payments and the baby to deal with.At least I didn't have to worry about rent. The house belonged to my wife."IT'S all here," she would laugh, passing her calling card to those friends of mine we'd run into, in some Malate bar after work. "Trunk lines, direct line, pager, cell phone, home phone but strictly for emergencies and only if it's a pick up and drop off sort of job you wanna talk about; email--"These men, young fathers like myself, would take the thin scrap of beige from her, pass their eyes over her face and breasts and, imprinting completed, slip the card into some pocket. Then they would turn their inquisitive gaze upon me. I suppose she and I were a unit, even when we sat a chair or two apart--we must have been obvious, even then, before I'd even touched her. But I'd signal the waiter for another beer, my face revealing nothing, and their curiosity would pass.We had been out for a few drinks, the summer night she showed me her apartment. In the car, she turned her pager over and over between her fingers, as though hoping for rescue. My hand moved to the cell phone at my hip, but if I cut the power my wife would know something was wrong. She noticed my indecision, made a great show of watching the road. We drove through a miasma of invisible waves, through air so thick I found it hard to breathe, my respirations audible over the whump of our wheels on the asphalt. My thoughts spun around in crazy circles until finally, as we neared the end of the journey and the tension between us was so great I thought I would have to crash the car just to relieve it, I ceased altogether to think. Her place was in a maze of sidestreets off a rundown commercial district. We had never been out so late. As I pulled up, I cut the engine without thinking, and she let her breath out in a sigh. On cat feet, so as not to awaken the neighbors, we found our way to her door. The apartment was a mess, laundry on the couch, crockery in the sink. She was embarassed, and at the same time defiant--so she was no housekeeper, so she was no one's wife.She offered me something to eat, but there was nothing in the refrigerator but a few shriveled wedges of apple, and some capers and jam. In a recess she found a half-finished bottle of Kahlua, its throat encrusted with sweetness. The kind of treat women keep for an undreamed-of but hoped-for eventuality. We sipped the liquor straight, from plastic ice cream tumblers. The vapors made her sneeze.We sat for some time while she pointed out spots on the walls where paintings ought to have hung and house plants flourish. Her gestures were

small and prim from the tension. I was supposed to compliment her on her independence, I knew, and on how gutsy she was to be living alone, but in truth I wasn't sure what I felt. My voice quavered as we went up to her bedroom--some pretense about listening to a CD or two, at three o'clock in the morning, the two of us mouthing inanities, barely conscious of what we were saying. She clicked on a light. The room was bathed without warning in the warm glow of seduction, and there we stood in the half-darkness, looking inquisitively into each other's faces, until one of us lunged, reaching out too clumsily for the gravity of the moment, and closed the distance between ourselves.Her flesh was soft and hot, perfumed by the sweat of a day gone by. Her blouse was the thin, fashionable kind that took forever to unbutton, so that ever so often she would stop breathing while I fumbled. An embarrassment that I couldn't help suffused me as zippers opened and garters snapped. Her flesh was so moist and so close, her response so sharp and immediate, and the terrible thing was that I knew her--she was no stranger in a karaoke club. I don't think I once met her eyes. She made just one token gesture of resistance, pressing her thighs together as I pulled her underwear down, the scrap of white cotton slipping unimpeded down her legs. I put my face to her pubis, my lips seeking out her wet folds--like teasing oysters from their weed-encrusted shells. She went rigid, stifled a shout, began to sob. Down in the darkness, gripping her buttocks hard enough to hurt, it was as if I was hoisting her into air, and fleeting images entered my head of my year-old daughter: the dull, half-words she too said whenever I picked her up. Her knees gave way and we fell in a heap, struggled to free ourselves from our clothes. As we moved back and forth, the scent of her sex, our bodies, rose in the air--the scent of sex, on our fingers, on my lips, and then all over my hair as she caressed me. It was an odor of beer and Winstons and sweat and sex and detergent and sun trapped in denim, and the sex was strongest. We were like two children playing pretend--now on the floor, now in a chair, on our knees, in her bed. We grinned stupidly, like wolves, and snuffled at each other.That first dawn I came twice--the first almost as soon as I had entered her, the second in desperation when it became apparent she had lapsed into a kind of terrified, pained, interminable pre-orgasmic state. "It's not fair," I said afterwards, putting a little humor into my voice as I dabbed at the puddles I'd made on her belly. I was covered in sweat, and a little angry. I had, after all, buried my face down between her thighs. I wanted her to tell me how happy I'd made her. I needed a rating. Somewhere among my clothes, the cell phone pulsed a couple of times--the battery signalling its temporary death. She stretched out an arm, one breast brushing my lips for a moment while she unplugged her own telephone receiver. Now we were unreachable. Incognito, exiled. I lay against her in the half light, still afraid to look into her eyes, the reality and the uncomfortable intimacy of what we had just done slowly sinking in.MORNINGS as soon as my wife had left for work we made love, relentlessly, over the phone, her breathing exploding in my eardrum, her voice tiny, taut, almost weeping. In the office we devised little games by which we could do it, in our clothes, without contact, murmuring to each other as we pretended to surf the net. One night we stayed until everyone else had gone home, and as we made our way down a darkened corridor to the exit I pulled her to me, and we stumbled into the meeting room with its glass door and long table and swivel chairs. "This is our secret, ok?" I told her; it would be our private contract. She kissed my lips, slipping me the tongue. "I trust you." The heat was wretched. Her fingers knew nothing about buttonflies and it took forever for her to open my jeans. She went for my cock as though trying to inhale it. I propelled her downwards until she knelt before me, then tugged at her hair, hard: "Now look at me. Look up at me." Deep, protesting sounds came from her throat. The darkness whirled. I felt myself coming. I wrenched her to her feet and slung her against the table, slipping into her from behind, one hand strumming the folds of her vulva, the other hard over her mouth. She bucked for a few moments, then turned languid and pliant. Someone entered the outer office then--one of the guards, training his light over the silent computers, the coffee maker, the rubber plant. He looked directly at us through the one-way glass; I met his unseeing eyes over her nape, but never once stopped the gentle movement of my pelvis. I fucked her, from behind, as though in some aquarium, fluid and in total silence. That was the night I found out what it was like to disappear.Disappear--diffuse into the ether, to emerge in some motel room, falling sideways across the bed, the air crisscrossed with inaudible voices bouncing off our sweat-slicked bodies in waves. That summer I discovered how to

live many lives: that you could be a totally different person in secret, that you could have a day face and a night face, a face for your lover, a face for your wife, a face for the fat and aging personnel manager who got you drunk buddy-fashion to hide her desire. I learned you could lie so efficiently as to deceive even yourself: watching my wife get dressed in the morning I would repeat word for word fictitious conversations with drinking buddies I made up then and there. When she had gone I would lie sleepily back in the pillows, staring at the parquet floor, the pink drapes, the shadow of the mango tree against the window--things that were my wife's and were now mine as well--and think with faint disgust of me and my lover lying in each other's arms just hours before.BUT the thing was she simply didn't understand the dynamics of fucking. She began to demand favors as a matter of course, and how could I make her understand that these were things I couldn't even give the woman I was married to? She wanted kisses, on the lips and then on and on, over her breasts. She wanted pillow talk, her fingers moving over my chest in the familiar fashion of people you've grown up with. We swapped stories about losing our virginity, but she didn't much care about the women I'd bedded; she wanted to know how she measured up next to them, was she good, was she thin, did I like what I saw?And she had this hang-up about love, a word she tried to slip in every now and then-"I love your body; I love saying your name"--to see how far she could go.But it's not about love, it's never about love; it always starts with the clinical act of looking: at some girl, at her red-black hair and skin that's so pale it's literally white, the cute way she enunciates the t's at the ends of her words, the straps of her sandals alien to the accidental touch of lumpy jeepney-riding feet. It's in the looking and the chatting and the choosing, the incomparable thrill of finding a soul as horny as yours. Of finding out which one is attached but will come across, which one will ride in your car with you, direct you in the night to her little apartment with, invariably, a sports bra in the bathroom and a teddy bear on the bed.It's discovering infinitesimal variations in a multitude, a paradox of flavors and textures, like the salmon and capers in that sandwich I once had at the Pen, at once tart and yielding, oozing pleasure onto your tongue.There were moments when, listening to her respirations coming slower and deeper from within her chest, the corners of her mouth fluttering, I lost track of my own flesh. Was it the movement of her fingers, or mine, that caused that liquid warmth to spread unnervingly throughout my body; was that her tongue, were these my hands When, for a change, she touched herself as I watched, she did so with such sublime confidence, proud of her awakened cunt, offering it up to my gaze like a peeled fruit or a vulnerable and selfinflicted wound. It was unsettling to hear her calling my name. In orgasm she sounded like a child that had been whipped. She came so intensely after a while, and so often, that I found myself rising too soon afterwards to stumble to the bathroom, flagellating myself with cold droplets from the shower. One morning I discovered that a scrap antenna on the garbage truck had knocked our wires down; it was her time of the day to call and, longing acutely for her voice, I jerked off twice before I even got out of bed. After that I found myself putting in extra work not to be involved, and when that time came the sex was no longer fun.I don't know how the people at work found out. She must have told; I am pretty sure I didn't. A casual mention, over beers, that I was fucking someone at the agency--that doesn't constitute telling, and the folks I was talking to were probably too drunk to hear. But it got around. In record time the usual morality posse in any office, the ones with an axe to grind against the pretty, were giving her the cold shoulder. It didn't help that she had alienated herself from them . Of course those had been my instructions: "to avert suspicion make sure we're never seen together." That put her in an invisible cell, for everyone was my buddy; I'm simply that sort of guy. If she'd been Machiavellian enough to fit into a corporate office she would have ignored my instructions, brazenly kept up our old flirtation. Hiding in plain sight. Instead, she'd sit miserably in her cubicle, occasionally chirping a question to one of her girlfriends, puzzling over the inevitable monosyllabic response.Then someone took her off the cookie company account. The personnel manager wrote her a memo, but this one was about performance--she hadn't produced anything worthwhile in months--so it didn't have anything to do with me, nothing at all.The strange thing about it was that everyone loved me; the guys flipped me knowing grins; the girls were extra nice, extra supportive, made it a point to start up private conversations with me whenever she was in the room.

They plied me in shrill voices for stories about my wife, my little girl. The boss called me to his office, where to my surprise he poured me a beer. What's between you and her, he said, but he was a man who already knew the answer to that one and I bonded to him instantly. I told him as far as I was concerned, we were just friends; I didn't know what her problem was. We had a good laugh. He shook his head, and as I let myself out of his office, my face warm and my cheek twitching happily from the attention, I saw her, just coming out of the pantry, a styro cup of coffee in one hand. There was something different about her face, a tautness beneath the freshly-applied layer of makeup, and her jacket was something I hadn't seen before, too new, too radical; something a more exciting woman would wear. She looked into my eyes; I saw the panic there.We encumber ourselves with the internet and phones and pagers, all the modern means of transmitting the word, but in the final analysis, despite the wonderful clarity of voice and image, we have nothing substantial to say. I turned from her and headed for my cubicle.I STILL think about her sometimes, in the mornings when my wife has left the house and I'm drowsy and erect, my mind reaching for the phone even before I'm fully awake. This is the only time of the day that I have for myself--my nights are spent in bars now, usually with company, and on weekends we take the baby to the mall. My daughter is taller and a whole lot heavier, she talks in a perfect American accent too; I don't know where she gets it, Nickelodeon maybe.So, taking myself in hand, I think of the woman who was once my lover. I still hear the words she used to murmur, more for their sake than to get any meaning across: You are so good, why is this good, I love this part of you. I remember the curve of her buttocks and how satisfying it was to smack her there, lightly, just hard enough to hear the rich report. I remember the intensity of her gaze, rolling up to meet mine; how close she would come to asphyxiation; how fear and pleasure were indistinguishable in her eyes. All right, I'll say it; I miss her. Maybe I should have changed offices when it started; that would have been a whole lot more convenient. Now my memories are spoiled with a heavy dose of guilt at not once coming to her defense when they fired her, me who knew her work best.I know it could be disastrous--my wife has been uncharacteristically curious about how I spend my evenings nowadays--but I wish she would call, just once, just to ask how I'm doing, preferably when I'm alone. Is she sleeping with someone now; is he married, too; does she have a new job? I knew her favorite radio station but never heard her speak the dialect she had used as a child. Nor found out what her hometown was called, whether her brother had once touched her breasts long ago the way I'd once explored my sister's, what would have gone into that children's book she was always saying she would write.Sometimes scents, textures, entire blocks of memory will surface. I know enough about the human subconscious to understand that much of this is censored, broken and reassembled, to form something which, like a well-written advertorial, stops just short of the truth. When I see her again that secret shared pleasure will be gone, that trust, that certainty I had those nights when we were the last to leave the office and I needed to wait only a few seconds before I felt the pressure of her fingertips against my fly. I suppose all the people you ever knew amount to nothing more than impulses in your brain, chains of chemicals with lengthy names. After a while the substances in your system rearrange themselves and then you're all right.One Saturday we came home later than usual, and as I loaded the week's groceries into the refrigerator, I caught my wife staring in puzzlement at the caller I.D. Someone had tried to contact us for three hours straight that evening, 67 times all told. I went cold. But the number was something I had never seen before.The phone rang for the 68th time. I picked it up gingerly. It was a man on the other end, sounding drunk, disoriented and more than a little desperate--could he talk to Sheila?It was a young voice, comfortable with his English, but a public school accent. Intrigued, I found myself being polite, for the first time in my life, to a stranger. I told him he had the wrong number, could perhaps check his address book instead of wasting his time. But the fellow didn't seem to understand. "I just want to talk to Sheila," he repeated; growing more and more blustery the longer he talked, trying to fathom the relationship between his Sheila and this unknown man about his age on the other end. Finally I slammed the phone down. I thought of this phantom Sheila, if that was her name, and wondered where she lived and if she was at home right now, doing stretches on the floor of the bedroom she shared with a friend, after a dinner of Dulcinea carrot cake that she worried would wind up on her bony ass. I saw her laughing goodbye in the first light of morning, girl in platforms, girl with Bellady red hair, slipping this moron a number randomly scrawled before disappearing into a taxi, never

wanting to see him again but too charitable to spoil the afterglow. I've taken to dialing pager numbers now, sort of for my own amusement. I punch in the autopage suffixes, and then the other five or so numbers at random. I listen to the greeting messages. It's mostly boring, uninvolved, unemotional stuff. Hi. This is Dr. Enriquez. Please leave your message so I can get back to you.Some folks, though, they will play their favorite song. Once I even got a blast of synthesized sound. Funny what elaborate forms of camouflage people will erect. Professional tones or electronic noise, it's all the same thing: a bid to keep distance, over a system designed to thwart it.But one night I got this girl, with a light, scratchy teenage-slut sort of voice. I paged her via the operator and left her my cell phone number, but she didn't return my call. It was a relief to have something else occupy my mind, and the more I dialled her number, the more her message grew on me. A teasing salutation, then a phone number rattled off in some elusive language, too low and rapid to decipher, and then gasping little kissy-kissy sounds as the tape ran out. She was too young, I figured, to have any notion of soul. A clean slate, nascent; no talent, no career and no ripened sexuality to juggle.I jerked off to the sound of her voice through the receiver. But it wasn't any good. I would have gladly traded in the past six months for a shot at the rest of her. Puppy-ear breasts, dimples, and her hands in particular, pale, perfectly-oval fingernails with cuticles calcified from too much pruning. Hands of which she would be vain.The touch of a stranger is hot and exotic, a world apart from your own. Tentative at first, it turns forceful right when you least expect it, a foolhardy bid for intimacy, flooding you all the way to your heels with triumph and joy. That's all we look for basically, a little joy

THE SUMMER I LEARNED TO BIKE by E.L. Koh

I WAS around ten years old when the Americans liberated Manila. Years of hardship under the Japanese regime were finally coming to an end. Though the air that morning was no different from two days earlier when the Japanese soldiers left, there was some tension, a hurry-up kind of tension intensified by crowd noise--the sound of running footsteps and of people yelling for others to hurry up. Looking out through the iron grill of our living room window down the looban, I could see our neighbors, young and old, rushing past the rickety wooden bridge to Surbaran Street and farther on.There was Mang Enteng without his fighting cock. He was in his usual faded undershirt with a black cigarette hanging from his lips, running like there was no tomorrow. Not far behind was Aling Isyang, our local gossip, dragging her wooden bakya and pulling up her skirt to run faster and keep pace with the crowd that was now becoming a mob. There was also Conrad, the handsome college basketball player and craze of the loobanwomen. He too was running. It wasn't long before my good buddy Pitoy came and called me to join him."Madali ka, may luting sa Azcarraga," he yelled above the noise of the crowd."What looting?" I yelled back."Just come. Maybe we can get ourselves something. A bike maybe." Pitoy was firm. Living on the edge of the Tondo slums, we sometimes fantasized about owning bikes so we can go around like the rich boys of Santa Cruz and Binondo. We could even bike all the way to Santa Mesa to see those big houses we had only heard about."Okay," I yelled again and by way of taking leave, hollered to Inay and Ate Panching who were in the kitchen, "There's looting, they say."I then headed for the door. Since my father's death, Inay had been very liberal about letting us kids come and go as we please. She set a curfew of ten o'clock, which we followed, give or take five minutes. My older sister was stricter in demanding that we tell her where we were going and what we were going to do. Inay said something I didn't catch. So did Ate Panching but I only heard the last part which sounded like "lipstick."I left in a hurry in my undershirt, raggedy shorts and bare feet. My puny, lethargic body got into gear. There we were--two skinny boys, barely four feet tall, rushing to where everybody was heading, half-running, half-walking. As we turned the corner of O'Donnell and Surbaran, we saw more people heading for Azcarraga. In the bedlam, I lost sight of Pitoy who until then had been running next to me.When I got to Azcarraga near Avenida Rizal, I saw men carting away all kinds of goods--clothes, radio, small appliances, and bikes--from the Chinese department stores that lined the streets. One man had a small bike in one hand, a frying pan in the other, and dresses draped over his shoulder. Someone asked where he got the bike. He pointed with his lips towards a store and said, "Duon." He continued on his way without losing a step. I knew he was going to leave them at home and come back for more.I went straight to the store the man pointed to. I was deterred from joining the looters partly because of my Catholic upbringing but mostly out of fear of getting hurt or getting caught. The latter, of course, was almost impossible as there was no longer law and order but I didn't know that. To minimize my guilt, I went into the store after

most of the looters had left. There was broken glass, furniture and garbage all over the place. Most of the merchandise was gone except for some broken and torn stuff. There was a loose bike wheel but somebody grabbed it before I could get it.Being barefoot, I had to carefully pick my way to look around. I have been cut by a shard of glass before and it took forever to heal. In a corner behind the counter, I saw a stack of new calendars lying untouched. After some hesitation, I grabbed an armful and went out. At the next store, it was the same thing--ransacked, empty, broken glass and garbage all over, but nothing worthwhile to pick up. So I decided to go home with my calendars.When I brought my loot home, Ate Panching blew her top. "Gago, why didn't you get something we could use?"We could use these calendars, why not, I thought. We could have one in the living room, one in the bedroom where all five of us slept on the straw mat wall to wall, one in the kitchen and even one in the bathroom. Besides, the color picture of the nipa hut near the rice field was really nice, I said to myself. I didn't answer as she rattled off a list of things I should have picked up--the pots and pans Inay mentioned and the cosmetics she wanted.I quickly took off for Azcarraga again. I knew I could do better this time. It was a good twenty minutes of half-run and half-walk. There were still a good number of people going my way and I blended in with them. By this time, the looters had picked up almost everything and had moved up several blocks along Avenida Rizal. As I scrounged around the nearly empty shelves of once glorious stores, I found more clutter and garbage than usable goods. There were piles of stationery I could use in school but they were not on Ate Panching's list.I caught up with the main crowd and saw a few things that would have pleased her. But looters were fighting and grabbing the goods from each other. I saw cosmetics strewn about but was afraid of getting hurt so I stayed away. When the place cleared out, I picked up a lipstick and a small powder case, put them in my pocket and moved on. At another store, I saw a pile of toilet paper rolls. I wanted to string them up but there was no string so I gathered as many in my small arms as I could to take home.As I got closer to home, it felt like my arms were about to fall off. Toilet paper wasn't heavy but it was bulky and made my arms stretch awkwardly during the long walk home. Even from afar, I could already see Ate Panching by our door with her arms akimbo. She didn't blow her top this time. When I got within earshot, she said, "Toilet paper lang? You better quit your looting before you get killed." I was grounded for the rest of the day. I wanted to give her the compact and lipstick bulging in my pocket but she was so mean to me."What will I do with these?" I said to myself as I fingered the cosmetics in my pocket. So I slowly dropped them on the floor and kicked them under the aparador. All the while I wondered how Pitoy did. I didn't see him the next day although there was looting still going on. Two days later, he came to our apartment and yelled for me under our grilled window. He showed off his spanking new bike."What? You got it!" I said as I looked in disbelief. I eyed the cross bar where I could sit to hitch a ride with him."Yeah, got it yesterday.""How? I don't believe it. Are there any more? Can you show me where?" "Sure. But you can't hitch a ride with me yet because I'm still learning how to ride it. Let's leave it at my home and we can go."After walking briskly for some ten minutes, Pitoy turned to me and with a broad grin said, "Nah, it was Conrad who got it and gave it to me."Now that really got me wondering. Although Conrad was popular in thelooban, he was no philanthropist. I had seen him give a bag of mangoes to our neighbor Clarita once before but that was because he was courting her. At another time, he handed a bunch of hibiscus he picked from the bush to pretty Sonya. But a bike to Pitoy? I didn't believe it.Pitoy and I walked back to our regular haunt behind the rickety Surbaran bridge. It was a clear spot covered by a discarded galvanized iron sheet. We sat on the broken benches and Pitoy told me how it happened."Remember last Christmas when I was delivering pyembreras of food for Aling Maria?" Indeed, he was. Aling Maria was in my opinion the best cook in our looban. I especially liked her dinuguan and her ginataan.Several of our neighbors had their meals catered by her. There was Mrs. Malacon who was always in poor health and couldn't be bothered to cook for her husband and two kids. There was Aling Conching, the seamstress, who was advised not to wet her hands after working long hours with the sewing machine. Then there was young Mrs. Garcia who wouldn't let kitchen work ruin her beautiful hands, Cutex on her nails and all. We heard she didn't want kids because they would ruin her figure and that was why Mr. Garcia, who was an assistant manager at Tiger Store, spent more and more time at the store."Yeah, I know you made a lot of money then.""Nah, that was only ten centavos a delivery in Japanese money and now it's worth nothing." "So what happened?""You know when I deliver pyembreras to the houses, people usually left the payment on their kitchen table for me to pick up." "So?" "This time at Mrs. Garcia's house, there was no money. I thought she probably forgot so I walked to the bedroom where I heard some noise. The door was slightly open and I was going to call her when I heard heavy

breathing. I peeked in and saw Conrad half-naked on top of Mrs. Garcia. They didn't see me but I knew they were doing you know what." "Yay! Why didn't you tell me that before?" "I couldn't." "And where was Mr. Garcia?" "You know he was at the store and wouldn't be home till late that night." "Did you stay and watch? What did you do?" "I was scared. I tip-toed softly back to the kitchen, took the pyembrera and went back out. I then knocked loudly on the apartment door and called out, 'Mrs. Garcia, here's your pyembrera. Will you bring me the money? I am late.' I had to wait a few minutes before she came to the door in her bathrobe." "What did she say?" "She said she was in the bathroom. I tell you, Tony. She is the most beautiful woman I ever saw." Pitoy then told me how he pretended to hurry but went to hide a few doors down the street and waited for Conrad to come out. When he finally did fifteen minutes later, Pitoy sauntered towards him and asked how he liked the bistek, the beef steak in soy sauce, Pitoy had just delivered to Mrs. Garcia."What do you mean?" Conrad asked, his face a little flushed."Oh, I just delivered the pyembrera to Mrs. Garcia. I brought it to the kitchen but took it out again when I saw you were busy in the bedroom. You heard me yell from the door, didn't you?"Conrad, though proud of his sexual conquests, hated it when caught red-handed. He grabbed Pitoy by the collar and threatened to kill him if he ever repeated to anyone what he had just said. He quickly let go when he saw Aling Isyang some distance in the looban. He glared at Pitoy. When he cooled down, he promised Pitoy a reward if he kept his mouth shut."So that's why he gave you the bike?" "In a way, yes. You see when you and I got separated at O'Donnell I just kept going to Avenida Rizal and up towards Times Cinema. I was almost all the way to the bike shop on Carriedo Street when I saw Conrad coming out of the store with a big radio in one hand and steering a bike out with his other hand. I ran to him and asked if there were any more bikes left. He said yes but that I wouldn't be able to get one because I wasn't strong and big enough." "So how did you get it?" "I begged him to go back in and get even a small one while I kept an eye on his radio and his bike. I also reminded him I hadn't said anything to anyone about what happened at Mrs. Garcia's home. Since that had been so long ago, he smiled, winked at me and agreed. He got me this smaller bike." "Great. But now that you've told me what happened last Christmas, won't he be upset and take the bike back, or worse beat you up?" "Tony! How will he know? Are you gonna tell him?" Pitoy was suddenly angry and screaming at me. "This is supposed to be a secret and you are not to tell anyone. Not even your brothers or your Ate Panching," he yelled."Of course, not. We're friends, are we not?" When I saw how agitated he had become, I added, "Wait, I have a new calendar for you. Maybe you can teach me how to bike once you get the hang of it. It's a nice bike." I was going to give him a roll of toilet paper too but Ate Panching had locked them away in the footlocker. (Hah, I knew I got something useful.)Pitoy gave me a worried look, scratched his head and mumbled, "Putang 'na, you have to keep my secret." Though I was never one to squeal on a friend, I realized I had something on him. I knew I could now twirl him around in my fingers as I wished. From that time on, Pitoy began to give in more and more whenever we argued. He also began to say "putang 'na"more and more when he got upset.That was a great summer for me. I learned to ride a bike. Pitoy and I took turns pedaling while the other

hitched a ride. It was almost as if I was part owner of the bike. We biked all around our neighborhood and even ventured to Binondo and Santa Cruz. We became the best of friends and we told no one about our little secret.

SERVANT GIRL by Estrella D. Alfon

ROSA was scrubbing the clothes she was washing slowly. Alone in the washroom of her mistress house she could hear the laughter of women washing clothes in the public bathhouse from which she was separated by only a thin wall. She would have liked to be there with the other women to take part in their jokes and their laughter and their merry gossiping, but they paid a centavo for every piece of soiled linen they brought there to wash and her mistress wanted to save this money. A pin she had failed to remove from a dress sank its point deep into her finger. She cried to herself in surprise and squeezed the finger until the blood came out. She watched the bright red drop fall into the suds of soap and looked in delight at its gradual mingling into the whiteness. Her mistress came upon her thus and, shouting at her, startled her into busily rubbing while she tried not to listen to the scolding words. When her mistress left her, she fell to doing her work slowly again, and sometimes she paused to listen to the talk in the bathhouse behind her. A little later her mistress shrill voice told her to go to the bathhouse for drinking water. Eagerly wiping her hands on her wet wrap, she took the can from the kitchen table and went out quickly. She was sweating at the defective town pump when strong hands closed over hers and started to help her. The hands pressing down on hers made her wince and she withdrew her hands hastily. The movement was greeted by a shout of laughter from the women washing and Rosa looked at them in surprise. The women said to each other Rosa does not like to be touched by Sancho and then slapped their thighs in laughter. Rosa frowned and picked up her can. Sancho made a move to help her but she thrust him away, and the women roared again, saying Because we are here, Sancho, she is ashamed. Rosa carried the can away, her head angrily down, and Sancho followed her, saying Do not be angry, in coaxing tones. But she went her slow way with the can. Her mistress voice came to her, calling impatiently, and she tried to hurry. When she arrived, the woman asked her what had kept her so long, and without waiting for an answer she ranted on, saying she had heard the women joking in the bathhouse, and she knew what had kept the girl so long. Her anger mounting with every angry word she said, she finally swung out an arm, and before she quite knew what she was doing, she slapped Rosas face. She was sorry as soon as she realized what she had done. She turned away, muttering still, while Rosas eyes filled with sudden tears. The girl poured the water from the can into the earthen jar, a bitter lump in her throat, and thought of what she would do to people like her mistress when she herself, God willing, would be rich. Soon however, she thought of Sancho, and the jokes the women had shouted at her. She thought of their laughter and Sancho following her with his coaxing tones, and she smiled slowly. Getting back to her washing, she gathered the clothes she had to bleach, and piled them into a basin she balanced on her head. Passing her mistress in the kitchen, she said something about going to bleach the clothes and under her breath added an epithet. She had to cross the street to get to the stones gathered about in a whitened circle in a neighbors yard where she was wont to lay out the clothes. She passed some women hanging clothes on a barbed-wire fence to dry. They called to her and she smiled at them. Some dogs chasing each other on the street, she did not notice because the women were praising her for the whiteness of the linen in the basin on her head. She was answering them that she hadnt even bleached them yet, when one of the dogs passed swiftly very close to her. Looking down, she saw in wide alarm another dog close on the heels of the first. An instinctive fear of animals made her want to dodge the heedlessly running dog, and she stepped gingerly this way and that. The dog, intent on the other it was pursuing, gave her no heed and ran right between her legs as Rosa held on to the basin in frantic fear lest it fall and the clothes get soiled. Her patadiong was tight in their wetness about her legs, and she fell down, in the middle of the street. She heard the other womens exclamations of alarm and her first thought was for the clothes. Without getting up, she looked at the basin and gave obscene thanks when she saw the clothes still piled secure and undirtied. She tried to get up, hurrying lest her mistress come out and see her thus and slap her again. Already the women were setting up a great to do about what had happened. Some were coming to her, loudly abusing the dogs, solicitousness on their faces. Rosa cried, Nothings the matter with me. Still struggling to get up, she noticed that her wrap had been loosened and had bared her breasts. She looked around wildly, sudden shame coloring her cheeks, and raised the wrap and tied it securely around herself again.

She could stand but she found she could not walk. The women had gone back to their drying, seeing she was up and apparently nothing the worse for the accident. Rosa looked down at her right foot which twinged with pain. She stooped to pick up the basin and put it on her head again. She tried stepping on the toes of her right foot but it made her wince. She tried the heel but that also made her bite her lip. Already her foot above the ankle was swelling. She thought of the slap her mistress had given her for staying in the bathhouse too long and the slap she was most certain to get now for delaying like this. But she couldnt walk, that was settled. Then there came down the street a tartanilla without any occupant except the cochero who rang his bell, but she couldnt move away from the middle of the street. She looked up at the driver and started angrily to tell him that there was plenty of room at the sides of the street, and that she couldnt move anyway, even if there werent. The man jumped down from his seat and bent down and looked at her foot. The basin was still on Rosas head and he took it from her, and put it in his vehicle. Then he squatted down and bidding Rosa put a hand on his shoulders to steady herself, he began to touch with gentle fingers the swelling ankle, pulling at it and massaging it. They were still in the middle of the street. Rosa looked around to see if the women were still there to look at them but they had gone away. There was no one but a small boy licking a candy stick, and he wasnt paying any attention to them. The cochero looked up at her, the sweat on his face, saw her looking around with pain and embarrassment mingled on her face. Then, so swiftly she found no time to protest, he closed his arms about her knees and lifted her like a child. He carried her to his tartanilla,plumped her down on one of the seats. Then he left her, coming back after a short while with some coconut oil in the hollow of his palm. He rubbed the oil on her foot, and massaged it. He was seated on the seat opposite Rosas and had raised the injured foot to his thigh, letting it rest there, despite Rosas protest, on his blue faded trousers. The basin of wet clothes was beside Rosa on the seat and she fingered the clothing with fluttering hands. The cochero asked her where she lived and she told him, pointing out the house. He asked what had happened, and she recited the whole thing to him, stopping with embarrassment when she remembered the loosening of her patadiongand the nakedness of her bosom. How glad she was he had not seen her thus. The cochero had finished with her foot, and she slid from the seat, her basin on a hip. But he took it from her, asking her to tell him where the bleaching stones were. He went then, and himself laid out the white linen on the stones, knowing like a woman, which part to turn to the sun. He came back after a while, just as Rosa heard with frightened ears the call of her mistress. She snatched the basin from the cocheros hand and despite the pain caused her, limped away. She told her mistress about the accident. The woman did not do anything save to scold her lightly for being careless. Then she looked at the swollen foot and asked who had put oil on it. Rosa was suddenly shy of having to let anyone know about her cochero, so she said she had asked for a little oil at the store and put it on her foot herself. Her mistress was unusually tolerant, and Rosa forgot about the slapping and said to herself this was a day full of luck! It was with very sharp regret that she thought of her having forgotten to ask the cochero his name. Now, in the days that followed, she thought of him, the way he had wound an arm around her knees and carried her like a little girl. She dreamed about the gentleness of his fingers. She smiled remembering the way he had laid out the clothes on stones to bleach. She knew that meant he must do his own washing. And she ached in tenderness over him and his need for a woman like her to do such things for himthings like mending the straight tear she had noticed at the knee of his trousers when her foot had rested on them; like measuring his tartanilla seat cushions for him, and making them, and stringing them on his vehicle. She thought of the names for men she knew and called him by it in thinking of him, ever afterwards. In her thoughts she spoke to him and he always answered. She found time to come out on the street for a while, every day. Sometimes she would sweep the yard or trim the scraggly hedge of viola bushes; or she would loiter on an errand for tomatoes or vinegar. She said to herself, He dreams of me too, and he thinks of me. He passes here every day wishing to see me. She never saw him pass, but she said to herself, He passes just when I am in the house, thats why I never see him. Some tartanilla would pass, and if she could, as soon as she heard the sound of the wheels, she looked out of a window, hoping it would be Angels. Sometimes she would sing very loudly, if she felt her mistress was in a good humor and not likely to object. She told herself that if he could not see her, he would at least wish to hear her voice. She longed no more to be part of the group about the water tank in the bathhouse. She thought of the women there and their jokes and she smiled, in pity, because they did not have what she had, some one by the name of Angel, who knew how to massage injured feet back to being good for walking and who knew how to lay out clothes for bleaching. When they teased her about Sancho, who insisted on pumping her can full every time she went for drinking water, she smiled at the women and at the man, full of her hidden knowledge about someone picking her up and being gentle with her. She was too full of this secret joy to mind their teasing. Where before she had been openly angry and secretly pleased, now she was indifferent. She looked at Sancho and thought him very rude

beside beside Angel. He always put his hands over hers when she made a move to pump water. He always spoke to her about not being angry with the womens teasing. She thought he was merely trying to show off. And when one day Sancho said, Do not mind their teasing; they would tease you more if they knew I really feel like they say I do, she glared at him and thought him unbearably ill-mannered. She spat out of the corner of her mouth, letting him see the grimace of distaste she made when she did so, and seeing Sanchos disturbed face, she thought, If Angel knew, hed strike you a big blow. But she was silent and proud and unsmiling. Sancho looked after her with the heavy can of water held by one hand, the other hand flung out to balance herself against the weight. He waited for her to turn and smile at him as she sometimes did, but she simply went her way. He flung his head up and then laughed snortingly. Rosas mistress made her usual bad-humored sallies against her fancied slowness. Noticing Rosas sudden excursions into the street, she made remarks and asked curious questions. Always the girl had an excuse and her mistress soon made no further questions. And unless she was in bad temper, she was amused at her servants attempts at singing. One night she sent the maid to a store for wine. Rosa came back with a broken bottle empty of all its contents. Sudden anger at the waste and the loss made her strike out with closed fists, not caring where her blows landed until the girl was in tears. It often touched her when she saw Rosa crying and cowering, but now the woman was too angry to pity. It never occurred to Rosa that she could herself strike out and return every blow. Her mistress was thirtyish, with peaked face and thin frame, and Rosas strong arms, used to pounding clothes and carrying water, could easily have done her hurt. But Rosa merely cried and cried, saying now and then Aruy! Aruy!, until the woman, exhausted by her own anger left off striking the girl to sit down in a chair, curse loudly about the loss of such good wine, and ask where she was going to get the money to buy another bottle. Rosa folded her clothes into a neat bundle, wrapped them in her blanket, and getting out her slippers, thrust her feet into them. She crept out of a door without her mistress seeing her and told herself shed never come back to that house again. It would have been useless to tell her mistress how the bottle had been broken, and the wine spilled. She had been walking alone in the street hurrying to the wine store, and Sancho had met her. They had talked; he begging her to let him walk with her and she saying her mistress would be angry if she saw. Sancho had insisted and they had gone to the store and bought the wine, and then going home, her foot had struck a sharp stone. She had bent to hold a foot up, looking at the sole to see if the stone had made it bleed. Her dress had a wide, deep neck, and it must have hung away from her body when she bent. Anyway, she had looked up to find Sancho looking into the neck of her dress. His eyes were turned hastily away as soon as she straightened up, and she thought she could do nothing but hold her peace. But after a short distance in their resumed walk home, he had stopped to pick up a long twig lying on the ground. With deft strokes he had drawn twin sharp peaks on the ground. They looked merely like the zigzags one does draw playfully with any stick, but Rosa, having seen him looking into her dress while she bent over, now became so angry that she swung out and with all her force struck him on the check with her open palm. He reeled from the unexpected blow, and quickly steadied himself while Rosa shot name after name at him. Anger rose in his face. It was nearly dark, and there was no one else on the street. He laughed, short angry laughter, and called her back name for name. Rosa approached him and made to slap him again, but Sancho was too quick for her. He had slipped out of her way and himself slapped her instead. The surprise of it angered her into sudden tears. She swung up the bottle of wine she had held tightly in one hand, and ran after the man to strike him with it. Sancho slapped her arm so hard that she dropped the bottle. The man had run away laughing, calling back a final undeserved name at her, leaving her to look with tears at the wine seeping into the ground. Some people had come toward her then, asking what had happened. She had stooped, picked up the biggest piece of glass, and hurried back to her mistress, wondering whether she would be believed and forgiven. Rosa walked down street after street. She had long ago wiped the tears from her face, and her thoughts were of a place to sleep, for it was late at night. She told herself she would kill Sancho if she ever saw him again. She picked up a stone from the road, saying, I wish a cold wind would strike him dead, and so on; and the stone she grasped tightly, saying, If I meet him now, I would throw this at him, and aim so well that I would surely hit him. She rubbed her arm in memory of the numbing blow the man had dealt it, and touched her face with furious shame for the slap he had dared to give her. Her fists closed more tightly about the stone and she looked about her as if she expected Sancho to appear. She thought of her mistress. She had been almost a year in the womans employ. Usually she stayed in a place, at the most, for four months. Sometimes it was the masters smirking ways and evil eyes, sometimes it was the childrens bullying demands. She had stayed with this last mistress because in spite of her spells of bad humor, there were periods afterward when she would be generous with money for a dress, or for a cine with other maids. And they had been alone, the two of them. Sometimes the mistress would get so drunk that

she would slobber into her drink and mumble of persons that must have died. When she was helpless she might perhaps have starved if Rosa had not forcibly fed her. Now, however, thought of the fierce beating the woman had given her made Rosa cry a little and repeat her vow that she would never step into the house again. Then she thought of Angel, the cochero who had been gentle, and she lost her tears in thinking how he would never have done what Sancho did. If he knew what had happened to her, he would come running now and take her to his own home, and she would not have to worry about a place to sleep this night. She wandered about, not stopping at those places where she knew she would be accepted if she tried, her mind full of the injustices she had received and of comparisons between Sancho and Angel. She paused every time a tartanilla came her way, peering intently into the face of the cochero, hoping it would be he, ready to break her face into smiles if it were indeed. She carried her bundle on her arm all this while, now clenching a fist about the stone she still had not dropped and gnashing her teeth. She had been walking about for quite a while, feeling not very tired, having no urgent need to hurry about finding herself a place, so sharp her hopes were of somehow seeing her cochero on the streets. That was all she cared about, that she must walk into whatever street she came to, because only in that way would he see her and learn what they had done to her. Then, turning into a street full of stores set side by side, she felt the swish of a horse almost brushing against her. She looked up angrily at the cocheros laughing remark about his whip missing her beautiful bust. An offense like that, so soon after all her grief at what Sancho had done, inflamed her into passionate anger, and mouthing a quick curse, she flung the stone in her hand at the cochero on his seat. It was rather dark and she did not quite see his face. But apparently she hit something, for he suddenly yelled a stop at the horse, clambered down, and ran back to her, demanding the reason for her throwing the stone. She exclaimed hotly at his offense with the whip, and then looking up into his face, she gasped. She gasped and said, Angel! For it was he. He was wearing a striped shirt, like so many other people were wearing, and he had on the very same trousers of dark blue he had worn when he massaged her foot. But he gazed at her in nothing but anger, asking whether her body was so precious that she would kill his horse. Also, why did she keep saying Angel; that was not his name! Rosa kept looking up at him not hearing a word of his threats about taking her to the municipio, saying only Angel, Angel, in spite of his protests that that was not his name. At last she understood that thecochero did not even remember her and she realized how empty her thoughts of him now were. Even his name was not Angel. She turned suddenly to walk away from him, saying, You do not even remember me. The cochero peered at her face and exclaimed after a while, Oh yes! the girl with the swollen foot! Rosa forgot all the emptiness, forgot the sudden sinking of her heart when she had realized that even he would flick his whip at a girl alone on the road, and lifted her smiling face at him, stopping suddenly to tell him her foot had healed very quickly. The cochero asked her after a while where she was going, and she said breathlessly, without knowing just why she answered so, I am going home! He asked no questions about where she had been, why she was so late. He bade her ride in his vehicle, grandly saying he would not make her pay, and then, with many a loud exclamation to his horse, he drove her to her mistress house. Rosa didnt tell him what had happened. Nor anything about her dreams. She merely answered the questions the cochero asked her about how she had been. With the grace of God, all right, thank you. Once he made her a sly joke about his knowing there were simply lots of men courting her. Rosa laughed breathlessly and denied it. She wished they would never arrive, but they soon did. The cochero waited for her to get out, and then drove off, saying Dont mention it to her many thanks. She ran after the tartanilla when it had gone off a little way, and asked, running beside the moving vehicle, looking up into his face, What is your name? The cochero shouted, without stopping his horse, Pedro and continued to drive away. Rosa went into the house without hesitation, forgetting all her vows about never stepping into it again and wondering why it was so still. She turned on the lights and found her mistress sleeping at a table with her head cradled in her arms, a new wine bottle before her, empty now of all its contents. With an arm about the thin womans waist, she half dragged her into her bed. When the woman would wake, she would say nothing, remembering nothing. Rosa turned on the light in the kitchen and hummed her preparations for a meal.

TURTLE SEASON by Timothy R. Montes

HORSES galloping across the screen; the violins swelling to a melodramatic coda; a man wielding a bolo shouting at the top of his lungs; a crazy woman with a full head of thick, unkempt hair staring operatically at the camera; three black-frocked priests being garroted; a man, in slow-mo, arching his back while behind him a cloud of smoke spreads from the muskets of a firing squad; and then a black round hat lying on the ground. The music slurred to a metallic squeak as the reel bumped to its end and scratches marred the white cloth on which the film had been projected. Captain Raul Daza continued to sit there as if expecting some epiphany from the centuries-old movie while the curator coughed and tinkered with his antique contraption. The omnilights came on and Capt. Daza blinked in the stark whiteness of the small screening room; a defective switch seemed to be clogging up his brain. What do you think, Captain? The curator smiled sheepishly, as if he wanted no less than five stars for a review. He had such thick bifocals. Is that all? The man chuckled. Yes, Captain. The movies over. Funny, but they used to pay money just to watch this. He returned the film to its rusty canister and closed it with a loud thunk. Is it authentic? The question came from the young officer sitting in the corner of the room. Capt. Daza had almost forgotten his presence. Lt. Alan Salazar, rookie of the year: a perfect unobtrusive spy. Yes. Certified pre-Gaia, digitally restored. At least two hundred years old. The two peacekeepers, Capt. Daza and Lt. Salazar, weighed their thoughts in silence. The revelation seemed to make their brains tick like Geiger counters, trying to find the right number for the right frame. Meanwhile the curator merely yawned and asked if he could be excused. Capt. Daza thanked him for coming at so late an hour, and the curator went out of the room in a hurry. Capt. Daza blearily gazed at the video-lined walls of the screening room. The Bureau of Forbidden Archives smelled of oxidation; he could almost taste the metallic decay in the air. His mind was too tired to take in the obscure titles of the banned films from the past (Vile Show, Piano List, Scorpion Days); he was too sleepy to think of old myths when he was still reeling from the discovery of the day. Why, Daisy, why? The room suddenly felt like a tomb. What do we do with it, sir? Capt. Daza swiveled around to face the young officer. He was at a loss; the young mans blue helmet was the only thing on the table between them. Stiff, confident, and square-jawed, Lt. Salazar seemed to be in a hurry to get his orders. You found this? Sir, yes, sir. My team found the relic at the salt warehouse where the cultists were holding a meeting. Capt. Daza stretched out his legs as, still dazed, he took in the information. The cultists again? For this they had to wake me up in the middle of the nightthe few steps to the window made him feel light-headedto watch an ancient movie that is as incoherent as my own dreams. He stared at the night scene outside the glass window and suppressed a yawn. He had to stay awake, break the lethargy that had drugged him for the past two days. He rested his forehead on the glass and tried to make sense of the superimposed images on it: inside, outside, the world was a matter of reflections. A tenuous membrane between sleep and waking. He had been dreaming of the turtles for the past few nights, the creatures crawling in from the sea, their carapaces gleaming in the moonlight. How many of them this time? Thirteen, sir. Two rebels got away through a tunnel under the warehouse. But we captured thirteen. The lieutenant, fresh from the officers academy, was still excited over his catch of social deviants. Peacekeeping, Capt. Daza had to remind himself, was a science. But somehow he also found the young officers earnestness irritating. The young man had a way of reserving important information for clinchers: One was a woman, sir. A university student. Is that so? Capt. Daza felt the young man could use some shock treatment. He was a young idealist blinded by his own moralism. Is she pretty enough to be raped? Capt. Daza had his back turned on the young man; nevertheless, after uttering it, he felt the hesitation in the air. So this one belongs to the old school of political correctness, Capt. Daza smirked at his own reflection on the glass. The pathetic young man had tried to impress him and was now groping for the remnants of his deflated military ego: service, selflessness, sacrifice. Do you atone for everything by doing eternal push-ups? Daisy used to ask him that. Capt. Daza did not know why he was giving the young man a hard time; his migraine was acting up again.

Are you sure this came from the cultists? Sir, yes, sir. The young man seemed to be holding his breath, but Capt. Daza held on to his silence. This is the first time we found one of their holy relics, sir. The whole film is intact. What do they call it? Hosea Rysal. A banned film from the 20th century, sir. Capt. Daza continued staring out the window. He watched the distant shadows of houses lining the shoreline; the moon, at midnight, was a wafer hovering over the roofs. Under a lamppost across the street, his car looked like a glistening insect. He wanted to be home, in bed, away from the cocksure pronouncements of a young man who reminded him of his own youthful certainties when he arrived on the remote island twelve years ago. Capt. Daza caught his own peppery white head reflected in the window glass and he stared at himself brooding over the superimposed world of the night outside the window. The moon was glowing on his forehead. What do we do with it, sir? Archive it or burn it? Capt. Daza continued to stare at the moon plastered on his forehead. He let his silence grate on the nerves of the young man. The moon was a golden ball of pain throbbing in his head. Why, Daisy, why? Sir? What do we do with the relic, sir? The Code of Censorship? An entanglement of limbs flashed in his brain: the long flowing hair of his wife cascading over the phallus of a stranger. Daisy, smiling, the vestal virgin of his youth, straddling the rigid cock of a faceless stranger. Shall we burn? Put it in my drawer, he said, feeling dizzy. Ill decide what to do with it tomorrow. The young man, as if waiting for him to change his mind, refused to leave the room. Against his better judgment, Capt. Daza found himself taking out a cigarette from his pocket. Whats the matter, lieutenant? Never seen a cigarette before? Sir, its not that? Youre dismissed. The young soldier stared at him and Capt. Daza had to outglare him. He knew he was violating protocol and the young man could spread rumors? I want to talk to the rebels first before deciding what to do with that film. A puff from the cigarette was helping him calm down; his headache was going away. With finality, he turned his back on the young man and listened to the clicking of the young mans heels as he walked away. Why am I doing this? He asked himself as he listened to the footsteps getting fainter and fainter down the hallway outside. He stood there deep in thought, smoking self-consciously. He waited until the young man emerged from the building, the blue United Nations peacekeepers helmet turning orange under the lamppost. Capt. Daza took a drag to assure himself what he was doing was not a dream. Service, selflessness, sacrifice: he used to hiss those words to himself when he was training at the peacekeeping academy. He could vividly picture out the face of the training commander repeating those words as if they were pre-adolescent children mumbling the motto History is a nightmare I am trying to wake from. Such a quotable quote, almost poetry. Such sweet, harmless propaganda: he could almost hear the innocent children mumbling that motto in values education. When Lt. Salazar disappeared at the bend of the road going to the officers quarters, Capt. Daza took the rusty film canister from the table and clipped it under his armpit. Emerging from the screening room, Capt. Daza felt a sentient quality in the night. The big clock at the end of the hallway suddenly looked like a portal to another world. He walked down the corridor and turned to the left wing of the quarters. He swiped his ID on the door marked Restricted and it opened with a hiss. The Intelligence Network of the Gaia Peacekeepers confronted him: a mainframe computer linked to the mainland. He had to go through another round of ID confirmation before the computer asked for the network access code. Please log in subject of enquiry and reason for information access. Capt. Daza typed: Criminal investigation. He felt as honest as a pre-brainwashed schoolboy. After a couple of minutes, Central Data flashed the info he wanted: Hosea Rysal/Jose Rizal (?)the computer monitor flashed a Malayan face with a thin mustache19th Century, Age of Political Superstition. National Hero of Archipelago III. Died a martyr for nationalism. Writer, ophthalmologist, amateur scientist. History of deletion: During Islam-Christian religious wars before the Great Upheaval, Gaia Peacekeepers occupied Archipelago III. Secretary-General of the United Nations ordered erasure of all traces of religious and political idolatry which had caused internecine wars. Pax Gaia forbids access to banned historical files without Level III permission. Level III permission! Capt. Daza took in the information with a growing sense of helplessness. His headache was suddenly back, throbbing like another heartbeat. He wanted to shout, Fuck the bastards! although part of him didnt care anymore. The rebels would fry in their own lard. That his wife was having an affair was banal compared to this state of general censorship. Sex bored him, his work bored him: he was a perfect citizen of the age. And yet, as he closed the intelligence file and turned off the computer, a rankling

doubt lingered at the back of his brain; he watched the light on the monitor getting smaller and smaller until it blinked out to a pins head. For a while, he stayed there staring at a blank computer screen. ITS turtle season, sir. What? The turtles will soon be invading our beaches. Egg-laying time. Yeah, they should market that as a tourist attraction. Capt. Daza tipped Martin, his favorite club waiter, and, not minding the cold seeping up his sinuses, sipped the iced tea while watching his wife sauntering down the shoreline. Not bad, he said to himself as he continued to follow the contours of Daisys body. The warm brown hues of her skin melded well with her red bikini. Through the coruscating heat of summer, she was walking down to the waterline, a goddess claiming the world with her beauty. I have been inside that body so many times, he mused, but I cannot really claim her as mine. The body was a tough place to colonize: the mind remained free. He now preferred to look at her from an aesthetic distance, a body wholesuch vision was the closest he felt to loving her. Island-wife, fringe benefit for the assignment in the island of Mundano. He remembered the past ten years with her as a blur of nipples, of the salty taste of her neck, of her lips around his penis. Pornographic fragments of anatomical parts. Not bad, he told himself. Not bad for a fifty-year old frontier commander who outlasted three Secretary Generals. Anything else, sir? The obsequious waiter was still standing beside him. No. Would you like to make a reservation for turtle soup? Capt. Daza chuckled. Do you think I need an aphrodisiac? Macho bravado: he had a good laugh with the waiter. They are late this year, sir. We have been waiting since last week for the sea turtles to come. Dont worry, Martin. Theyll come. The turtles always come this time of the year. As he spoke, Capt. Daza lifted his glass of iced tea to his face and watched the scene on the beach from the distorted bubble of his drink. He imagined the bodies strewn on the beach as replicas of the sea turtles of his dreams. The creatures, dark blobs from the water, were creeping on the sand to lay their eggs. And when he shifted the glass to take another sip, the dark carapaces transmogrified into flabby torsos of sunbathers baking themselves in the lurid summer sun. Reverse Darwinian evolution: from water you came and to water thou shalt return. Capt. Daza was becoming philosophical. The sound of the surf was a persistent background to the shouts of children playing in the distance. The sound of the sea is the hum of the universe: he tried to remember where he read that mystical bullshit. He had read so many books since he was assigned to this godforsaken place. So, Raul, have you caught any pirate in Zulu Zee lately? Dripping wet from a swim, Prof. Hernandez whispered like a conspirator, bending over Capt. Daza on his reclining beach chair. Interesting life, huh? Spend your days in a beach club while pursuing adventures of pirates and swashbucklers. Edwin, has it been a year since we last got drunk together? Capt. Daza was happy to see an old friend again. Time flies. R and R season again in your paradise island. Dont envy me, my friend. Im just a small-time peacekeeper of a fringe station. I protect tourists from the encroachment of terrorists and cultists. Tell me about the latest news from the mainland. Nothing is happening there, my friend. Prof. Hernandez vigorously rubbed the towel on his hair. Just your usual suicides. He plopped down on the adjacent beach chair and scanned the shoreline strewn with bathers. And adultery. And divorce. And petty conflicts blown out of proportion by the starved imagination. You are actually leading a more interesting life here on Kalayasan island. Thats the problem with peace. It keeps psychiatric health workers like me busy. We are the lifeguards of a picnic society. You want to bring back the war? Whos talking about war? Nobody has heard of that word since the era of genetic decoding. Is that Daisy? Capt. Daza did not need to reply. Silence was the only answer fit for the vision of Venus rising from the sea. It took Prof. Hernandez a minute to disengage from the sigh-inducing sight of Daisy. Capt. Daza allowed his friend his freedom to fantasize while he listened to the hum of the universe. The shout of children: the sound of the surf. I always thought you were a lucky bastard. Island assignment with a wife to die for. Lifes a beach. It took some time for his friend to catch the pun. The delayed reaction came as a snort erupting into a bellyshaking laugh. After a while, Prof. Hernandez sat back and also contemplated the deep emptiness of a cloudless sky. Peace, you know, is boring. All quiet on the southern front. No religion, no ideology, no point of contention. Negative peace, they used to call it. And what do we have when there is no moral equivalent of war?

Overworked shrinks who look forward to a week of vacation on your island, courtesy of the Association of Psychologists of Gaia. With a raffle ticket. First prize: a nubile companion for sexual health. I can put you in jail for such heresy, my friend. Raul, whatever happened to your sense of humor? Are you honest only when you are drunk? I remember you giggling at the social engineering of our elementary years. History is a nightmare I am trying to wake from. Holy Gaia, the platitudes we used to memorize then. Capt. Daza. took a moment to glance sidewise at his friend and observe the changes on his friends face: the thinning hair, the wrinkles. The professors strained sense of humor was directly proportional to a years work of listening to the delusions of his patients. Capt. Daza did not want to spoil his friends vacation by relating his own anguish over his wifes adultery. Have you heard of Sigmund Freud? asked Prof. Hernandez. No. But Im ready for a lecture. Minor heretic from the 20th century. So? Been reading him. Part of the censored list? Yeah. Who cares? Nobody believes him, right? I do. Capt. Daza stiffened. He could hear the coconut fronds whirring above them. Thats another problem with the Reign of the Ahistorians. Anything ancient is relegated to academic mumbo-jumbo. Black magic, witchcraft, and, as you called them a while ago, the cultists. With his eyes closed, Capt. Daza merely nodded. The sea breeze was soporific; he only had a few hours of sleep the night beforehe had the same dream of blue turtles. The words coming from his friend on the adjacent recliner wove well with his dreamy state. Anyway, anyway. Old man Freud believed we are not totally rational beings whose wills can be manipulated that easily. This ancient heretic thought that there is a dark, murky sea inside each one of us. And in this sea, floating like an iceberg, is the undefinable mass of animal urges we try to suppress: sex, violence, the big no-nos of civilization. But its there, floating, waiting to emerge from the waters, the iceberg of the Unconscious. Capt. Daza could almost see it, the crystal mountain of ice floating in his mind. He felt like a passenger on an exploration ship plumbing the depths of his own psyche. He was standing on the bow of the ship, looking at the cold slippery mass of iceberg. He could almost touch it, the whale of a great myth. Fantastic, isnt it? Capt. Daza felt sea-sick with the vision. He fluttered his eyes open and was surprised to see blue sky instead of murky waters. And here we are in the age of genetic determinism, trying to be rational about everything. Law and order: you patrol this island in the daylight and everything is under control. But you only scratch the surface, my friend. You cannot control the subterranean life of this island. Do you remember what it feels like to patrol at night? You are an agent of the day intruding into the realm of the night. You cannot control the darkness: you can even be swallowed by it. Capt. Daza was almost certain his friend was a heretic, a cultist. Nevertheless, he was the only one he could freely joke with, get drunk with. Prof. Hernandez was a darned good story-teller and lecturer. Outwardly, everything is peaceful. Pax Gaia: history has been manipulated for social ends. Do you know that Mundano was the only island which resisted colonization for centuries? That is, until the Great Upheaval. What kept them from being swallowed by economic and spiritual globalization was a narrow-minded adherence of the inhabitants to some sacred myths, their belief in some sort of collective unconscious. What you have are the tattered remnants of those peoples. Tusugs were pirates; now they are smugglers of contraband films. Marnaws were gypsy traders; now they peddle pornographic materials under their malongs. Pax Gaia is an operative reality in the mainland, but not here, my friend. Not in Mundano. That is why I say you live a more interesting life here. The Great Upheaval may have erased all forms of non-scientific habits of thinking in the mainlandreligion, tribe, superstitionbut when you remove the social scaffolding through radical engineering, you come up with distorted remnants of the old ways of thinking: cults, underground economy in fetish films, inversion of values. These are all manifested here in your jurisdiction. Edwin, Ive had second thoughts about the lecture. Go back to your vacation. No, no. Listen. Outwardly everything is peaceful. But peace can only be sustained against the backdrop of its antithesis. This is supposed to be the golden age, Pax Gaia has been running on for two centuries. And what do we have? Slippages. Cracks. You deal with cultists and film piracy; I deal with emotional breakdowns. We are looking at the same chunk of ice, my friend.

Prof. Hernandez swivelled his legs to the side and sat up to make a point. The war, my friend, is very much alive, here. And he jabbed a finger at Capt. Dazas heart. You cannot dam up a river. When I talk to a patient, I hear the rumbling of a volcano about to erupt. Capt. Daza felt offended by the mixed metaphors. His sternum was tingling where his friend had dipped a finger. Great Gaia, Raul, if I can harness all the potential energy from those walking volcanoes, it would blow up this planet to smithereens. Capt. Daza sat up on his beach chair and scanned the shoreline. Daisy was coming out of the water, her body cleaving the sea fracted with diamonds. It was a sight too bright and dazzling for comfort; he collapsed back on his reclining chair with tears in his eyes. After a while, he blurted: Edwin, you think Im a lucky bastard? Take this, you whining bastard. My wife is having an affair. One. Im impotent. Two. This island is boring me to death. Three. Prof. Hernandez was finally silent. Three axioms to describe my life and a shrink shrinks back? The children were shouting on the sandbar. The universe hums: time to listen to the background static. After a while, Prof. Hernandez was able to find his voice again. Holy Gaia, Raul, I dont need another client. Im supposed to be on vacation here. Can you do me a favor? Capt. Daza had put on his eyeshade and was smiling enigmatically. What? Shut up. I dont need your help. Oh, yes, you do, my friend, Prof. Hernandez had lost his tone of levity. People who dont think so are the ones who actually need my help. But Capt. Daza had blocked out his chatter; he was listening to the message of the surf. The black radiation was hissing from the navel of the universe. IM leaving. Capt. Daza would rather look at the moon rising over the waters. His bedroom had a perfect view of the sea. The sea, the seahe thought his life on the island would be a constant honeymoon with this view of the sea. I said Im leaving. All right, you bitch. Cant you at least wait until the turtles come? This is not about sex, Raul. Then tell me what this is all about. He suddenly pivoted around and hurled the photographs at her. He screamed: Tell me why you are fucking around! The pictures could have been peddled by the cultists at the Taw-taw wharf: breasts, cocks, sexual gymnastics. Daisy flushed. At first she looked more embarrassed than sorry. Why, Daisy? Capt. Daza thought Daisy looked virginal in her sadness, in her sincerity, in her innocent act of clutching the curtain. Its not about you, Raul. Like him, she was groping for the truth. In an age of political honesty, she knew that words were useless. Her tears, when they came, could not even defend her. Ten years down the drain, Capt. Daza thought, and all she could do was cry. If its not about me, is this about you? She vigorously shook her head but Capt. Daza did not know yes from no anymore. It could have been a desperate gesture by anyone under tactical interrogation: the shaking of the head. Are you the bored housewife who fucks the gardener because her husband cant get it up? No, Raul, its more than that. Her whole body was now trembling as, very slowly, she sat on the edge of their bed. She seemed to be trying to catch her breath but Capt. Daza refused to be taken in by her damsel-indistress act. You want a baby? She shook her head. Are you bored here? Because if you are, I can request for a reassignment to the mainland. You wont get bored there. There are classical concerts there. Music to elevate the soul. And movies. Legally sanctioned movies. How could he sound so pathetic to himself? Listen, Daisy. He knelt down in front of her and tried to hold her hands but she just looked away. I can still do it. There was now a surging passion in his words. The turtles are coming. He could see them like a vision of his rejuvenated self. It always works, Daisy. I have a new film from the archives. His voice edged on to the verge of panic. We can watch it together as a prelude to making love. It always works, you know. The turtle soup, the films? His eyes were now sparkling in the moonlight.

Youre sick, Raul, she hissed. Youre sick. A thread of saliva spun out of her mouth as his fist struck her cheekbone. She fell back on the bed with a crack from his belt. Holy Gaia, Daisy, youre so beautiful. Capt. Daza started unbuckling his trousers. I want you to suck my cock, Daisy? He switched on the digital camera projector and the shadows began to flicker on the bedroom wall. Please, Daisy, suck my cock like you used to do? The montage began to play again, the pornography from the past merging with the figures on the bed, the violins and the horses and the crazy woman and the bolo and a hero falling to his death. Outside the window, by the light of the moon, the turtles were creeping in from the dark waters of the humming sea.

UNDER THE MANGO TREE by Hugh Aaron

ONE would think we were a couple of returning heroes. Americanos, Americanos, the naked children shouted, zigzagging like circus clowns in mad circles around us as Billiard Ball and I ambled abreast down the beaten path through the shade of the green canopy. Heavy duffel bags hanging from our shoulders were laden with gifts: bottles of beer, cartons of cigarettes, cans of fruit juice. Repeatedly sweeping past us like zephyrs, each child snatched a bar of sweet chocolate from our extended hands. We were no less boisterous than they, shouting along with them, asking their names, having a good time ourselves, caught up in the infectious joy of their freewheeling abandon. Such was the character of our entry into Lubao time after time. As we walked down the village street, people waved from their houses repeating our names, people we didnt recognize from our earlier visit. Hullo Beelyard Ball, and Al. Hullo. Comusta. Anita emerged from one of the houses to greet us. You must both stay with my family, she said. Then Alejandro appeared and said to Billiard Ball, I have been waiting all week. Please, if you wouldnt mind some metaphysical discussion I would be honored to have you as my guest. How can I resist metaphysical discussion? said Billiard Ball with a smile. As the two walked off, I heard Alejandro say, And I imagine you have read Mans Fate in the original French? How lucky! Malraux is right. For our time the answer lies in courageous action. Had Billiard Ball found himself a revolutionary? I followed Anita up the ladder to her familys one-room house, similar in its simplicity to Rosalios but larger. Both had the same style cooking hearth near one wall, the split bamboo floor, the same immaculateness. Squatting before the hearth, Anitas mother, looking in her fifties (but only in her thirties, I learned later), was preparing the noon meal. She acknowledged our entrance with a nod and a warm smile. Sitting cross-legged on a floor mat in a corner, Anitas wispy maternal grandmother, her skin wrinkled like an elephants, grinned, showing toothless black gums. She mumbled something incomprehensible to me in Spanish. Shortly Mr. Quiboloy, wearing a wide-brimmed hat woven of jute, came in from the hot fields. We shook hands warmly. Thank you for having me, Mr. Quiboloy, I said. You may call me Lucio, now that we are old friends, he responded. We all sat on the floor in a circle and ate brown rice and chicken from clay bowls while Mr. Quiboloy spoke of their lot in Lubao. I am only a small tenant farmer, he saidto clarify his role, not to complain. The family in the hacienda on the Bataan highway owns the land. The fancy place we passed on the way? Yes, the fancy place, he said, and everyone laughed at my odd description. I keep fifty percent for myself and fifty percent is for the landowner. The incentive is small, but what choice do we have? The Hukbalahaps think we have one, Father, said Anita.

How dare you speak of them in our house, Mr. Quiboloy said in a flash of anger. Turning to me, he explained. The Huks are radicals, communists; they know only one way: violence. Then, addressing Anita, he said, Where do you get such foolish thoughts? Is that what you are learning in school? Is that what Alejandro teaches? Where are the Huks from? I asked. From everywhere, Lucio replied. Some dwell within our own barrio, but since I am not a sympathizer, I cannot be sure which ones they are. You see, I believe in Philippine democracy. I believe we should be like America, where everyone has an opportunity to succeed and live well. But thats not always true. You remember our discussion last weekend? I said. Oh, yes, I have not forgotten. Still, you have not had to live through our poverty and pain. You have never had that in America. How could I argue? I knew of no pain first-hand. I never saw anyone starving. Through the desperate thirties there was always food on our table and ample clothes to wear and a snug apartment to sleep in. Although my father had lost the wealth gained during his most vigorous years, and he had lost his daring and capacity to dream for the rest of his life, he never lost his belief in America. In its worst times the nation somehow provided opportunity for survival. When the meal was over, Anita handed me a sleeping mat, which I unrolled on the floor beside those of my hosts. It was too hot to be out in the high sun of the early afternoon. What could be more sensible than to have a cool siesta? In two hours Anita awakened me from a soft sleep. Lucio had returned to the field, her mother was elsewhere, and her grandmother squatted quietly in a corner weaving a mat. My father has asked me to show you the mango tree, she said. Will you come with me, please? We walked down the path to the highway, at first side by side, but soon she fell behind. Am I going too fast for you? No, no, she said, urging me to keep on ahead. She continued to linger behind. Are you tired? No, no, and she giggled in amusement. Its the custom in Lubao that I walk behind. Since the concrete highway was blistering, we walked along the narrow dirt shoulder, which was less hot but still burned through the soles of my GI boots. Anita, barefoot as usual, didnt seem to mind. Nor, in her white dress and wide brimmed woven hat, did she seem bothered by the afternoon sun beating down on us, while I perspired heavily and had to stop to rest now and then under a tree. Although several passing ten-wheel army trucks offered us a lift, she refused them. Grudgingly I submitted to her wish. We have only a few miles, she said, a promise of small comfort. Soon we passed by the grand white stucco hacienda, a stark contrast to Anitas house. So this is where the rich landowners live, I said. Oh, but they are no longer rich, Hal. They have the land, but that is all. The Japanese took all the crops. The land is of little use without seed. And the Japanese removed all their possessions, leaving the house bare. They are mestizos and very proud, but the Japanese took that away too. A commander occupied the hacienda and humiliated the family, making them his servants. He hoped that by doing this, the rest of us would be pleased and that we would cooperate with him. And werent the people happy to see the selfish landowner get what he deserved? Oh, no, the Santoses are good people; they are always very kind. When we have malaria, they bring us quinine. When a typhoon ruins our crops, they give us rice to eat and new seed for the next planting. The Japanese commander had mistaken how we would feel. We knew he was cruel. At last we reached our destination, the small solitary thatched house on stilts beside the sluggish stream that I had observed on our first trip along the highway. We climbed the ladder to the house and entered its cool, dim interior, where I saw a mostly naked old man seated on the floor. This is my grandfather, said Anita as she uncovered a basket of fruit, vegetables, and rice that she had brought for him. He reached for my outstretched right hand with his left; his other arm hung limp by his side. Comusta ka, he said in a clear, high voice. Comusta, I said, returning the greeting. He then spoke to Anita in dialect, pointing to a small woven box beside his hearth, which she retrieved for him. From it he removed a GI dog tag, which he held suspended for me to see. It is an American soldiers necklace, said Anita. May I look at it closely? I asked, astonished that he would have such a thing. The dog tag bore the name Roger B. Anderson and his serial number and blood type. Where did your grandfather get this, Anita? From Lieutenant Anderson, she replied plainly. I dont understand. GIs dont give away their dog tags.

Let us sit and I shall tell you about Lieutenant Anderson. She peeled a banana for her grandfather, and handed me one with a dark green skin. It is quite ripe even though it is green, she said. It was, and tasted sweeter than any I had ever eaten. He is there under my grandfathers mango tree. I followed her gaze through the doorway. Symmetrical and spreading, a low tree stood between the house and the stream, creating a cool, grassy oasis beneath its graceful branches. Baffled by her indirection, I tried to deduce her meaning. Buried? In a grave? Under the tree? Anitas grandfather, having sense my sudden comprehension, broke into excited dialect, and struggled to rise. My grandfather says that you may keep the necklace, said Anita. She addressed him sternly and he sat down again. My grandfathers bones give him much pain. They never healed correctly after the Japanese broke them. He should stay with us in the barrio, but he refuses. My grandfather is a stubborn man. Later I learned that Anita made the trip to her grandfathers house several days a week to bring him food and often to stay and cook for him. I could sense an unspoken bond between them, a mutual appreciation. Anita once confessed that she felt much closer to her grandfather than to her own father. The old and young are on common ground: Both are concerned only with the fresh simplicities of life, the very business of being alive. Anita began her story: The Japanese marched hundreds of American prisoners through Pampanga from Bataan, giving them no food or water, and whipping them when they fell behind. They made them walk on the hot concrete so that they left bloody footprints from their scorched and wounded feet. I winced, recalling my recent distress walking under the sun, even along the cooler shoulder of the highway. Anita spoke with a chilling earnestness, as if she were describing a scene in progress, making no comment, stating only facts. Some were already weakened from wounds in the battle on Bataan and could not keep up. Lieutenant Anderson was one of these. When the men fell and did not rise after being kicked and beaten, they were shot, and their bodies were collected on a wagon pulled by carabao that followed the marchers. Lieutenant Anderson was shot there at the edge of the road. She stared out at the glaring white concrete. But my grandfather and grandmother saw him move; he was still alive. So before the wagon passed they dragged him from the road and hid him under the trees by the stream in the field behind the house. They nursed his wounds for many weeks. She interrupted her account to consult with her grandfather in dialect. Yes, my grandfather says it was more than a month before the American opened his eyes and spoke. Did you meet him? I asked. Much later in the barrio, she said, but I was only a child. I had failed to realize immediately that she had become a woman in the intervening four years. It was very dangerous for my grandparents. The Japanese often warned us not to help the Americanos or we would be shot. When the monsoon came and the land was covered with water, Lieutenant Anderson was moved to Reverend Mr. Corums house in Lubao. But soon the Japanese returned to search for the Americano, saying they had heard we were hiding one of the marchers. Someone, maybe from the barriowe shall never knowhad betrayed us. They entered my grandparents house and asked my grandfather to give them the Americano, but he would admit nothing. They broke his limbs and he passed out from the pain. Tears welled up in her eyes at the thought of his suffering. Then they took him and my grandmother to the barrio where all the people were gathered and they showed what they did to my grandfather and they threatened to kill us one by one until we gave them the Americano. My father and Reverend Mr. Corum replied to the Japanese commander that killing us would be useless. She faltered; the words came hard. The commander ordered a soldier to stand my Nanay by the wall of the church. With tear streaked cheeks, she went on. And he shot her. Oh, I loved my Nanay so very much. She had to stop, and her grandfather reached for her with his one good arm and took her into it and comforted her with the soft words of his dialect as he, too, cried. Her story was too appalling. I was speechless. I wanted to take on her pain, to share the suffering of her memory. But regaining her composure, she resumed. After the commander killed my Nanay, the Americano, Lieutenant Anderson, appeared from Reverend Mr. Corums house. He had witnessed the commanders cruelty and understood that others would also die unless he was found. The soldiers took him and flung him to the ground and beat him with their rifles. And then the commander ordered his soldiers to stand him by the wall of the church where my Nanay had stood. Blood was pouring from his head and they shot him. Then they left us. What happened to the bodies of your Nanay and Lieutenant Anderson? We took them and prepared them and, after a deep mourning, buried them side by side under the mango tree, as my grandfather wished. The sun appeared like an enormous orange balloon balanced at the apex of a faraway mountaintop. The heat of its slanting rays was now comfortably diminished in the late afternoon. We must return to Lubao, said Anita. Embracing her grandfather, she bid him good-bye and I shook his hand again. Let me show you the graves. Together we stood beside them, each marked by a simple boulder, nothing more. The rounder rock is

my Nanays grave. The next few moments we shared in silence. Soon she raised her eyes and asked, Do you like mangoes? Taking one from the tree, she gave it to me. It was sweet and moist. Absolutely delicious, I said. It is by far my favorite fruit, she replied. And dont you think it is a beautiful tree? See how it spreads its branches like the arms of dancers; see how it shades the earth and makes it green. It was in the flash of that instant, transcending all feelings of desire, that I understood I had fallen in love with Anita. It was then I knew I had found someone who surpassed all I could ever hope to be. Yes, its a beautiful and rare tree, I answered. During our walk back to Lubao we hardly spoke, save for one short exchange. I have never been alone with a man, never with an Americano, she said. But my father said I could be with you, for he trusts you. At first I was very frightened, but now I am happy that we have spent this time together. What are you afraid of? That I would bite you? She laughed. No, no, of course not that. What then? Delaying her reply, she slipped farther behind me as she pondered how best to express her thoughts. I stopped, waiting. That I am not worthy, she said. That you would be ashamed of me. That we are like monkeys. Oh, my God, Anita. Dont you realize how beautiful you are? Americanos are beautiful. Mestizos are beautiful. No, you are. I gently enclosed her hand in mine. It was the first time we touched. I hope you will come back often, she said, hesitatingly withdrawing her hand. Nothing can stop me, I promised. That evening Billiard Ball and I had supper at the reverends. Anita, like soft music, was ever-present in the background, assisting Mrs. Corum. Afterwards we retired to the cozy living room, joined by Lucio, Anitas father, and Hando. The gathering, being more intimate, dealt with both controversial and heartfelt matters, ranging from Shakespearean drama and symphonic music (Bartok no less), extolled by the uncommonly erudite Hando, to local politics and agrarian reform. Lucio, farmer and mayor, was a graduate of an agricultural college, a respected expert. We must not be impatient and greedy, he said, referring to a program he was promoting among his fellow farmers. Rather than harvest all our rice for todays consumption, we must set aside a portion for seed even if it means we will be hungry a while longer. But few were paying heed to his recommendation. It is not easy to believe in the future when the present is still so hard, he sighed. Yes, Hando agreed, we must take the necessary steps now to become masters of the future. And we must be concerned with more than rice seedlings. Reform, dividing the haciendas and distributing the land, is essential. Isnt that what the Huks are striving to do? I asked. But they are trying to do it by violent means, said Lucio. That is wrong. Our people have been exploited for more than three hundred years, said Hando with vehemence, his smooth, feminine amber skin taut and glistening. The hacienda system is too firmly implanted. It will never submit to being destroyed peacefully. But violence never knows where to stop. The innocent end up being victims, Lucio countered with equal insistence. If we expect to be independent, we must also have stability. Perhaps America should be our model, said the reverend, addressing Billiard Ball. Unlike us, you do not kill your politicians over elections. You do not have our corruption. Sadly, we have few patriots and everyone is for himself. But Roxas will unite us, said Lucio, referring to the new presidential candidate in the elections to take place less than a year hence. Roxas was a collaborator; he betrayed us, Hando said dourly. Finding their intensity contagious, I listened, unable to decide who was right. With independence near at hand, at a crossroad in their history, they were contemplating the formation of the new nation and how best to correct ancient, firmly established inequities and injustice. Would their hopes and arguments ultimately be meaningless? Would Billiard Ball and I care to attend church in the morning, asked Reverend Mr. Corum. We politely begged off, and he took no offense. I have never met a Jew before, he said. but your religion and the history of your people are a part of my education as a clergyman. Do you attend your church? Well, the truth is I dont practice a religion, I said sheepishly. But I was born a Jew and I insist on belonging. The Jews have been a scapegoat ever since their exile from Babylonia over two thousand years ago. I cant escape the past and I feel a duty to accept its consequences. Thats very noble of you. I dont see it as noble. It is necessary for my self-respect.

But as a Jew you have nothing to fear in America, said Hando, who was listening intently. Probably not. Tolerance is part of the American tradition, I replied, but I sometimes worry when Im singled out and despised by prejudiced Gentiles. When I was a child I was often victimized by my schoolmates. I see, said Hando, then you are a Jew first? Hando, you are being discourteous to our guest, said Reverend Mr. Corum. Please forgive him, said Lucio. He often oversteps decent bounds. Really, Id like to answer the question, I said. Having ignored the reverends rebuke and Lucios apology, Hando kept his clear, penetrating, catlike eyes fastened on mine. No, Hando, I am first an American. Ah, what a lucky many you are. If only I could first be a Filipino. And you, Billiard Ball, do you have a faith? asked the reverend. I suppose Im an atheist, he replied, but I dont disapprove of religion, although its the major cause of war and misery throughout the history of civilized man. Not religion itself, if you will forgive me for contradicting you, said the reverend, holding up his finger pedantically, but man, in the name of religion. Yes, Reverend, said Billiard Ball, nodding vigorously. I stand corrected. Such were our conversations. They were of a depth and seriousness and range I had never experienced before. We discussed political systems, communism versus democracy, psychology, mans startling discoveries of his hidden self, his search for meaning in life (There is none according to Billiard Ball), the crisis in physics, the pessimism of contemporary philosophers, the shocking renunciation of tradition in modern art and music, the truth of literature, and on and on. Billiard Ball and I found, in this comparatively primitive village, a gold mine of astounding sophistication. And who was the principal force behind all this magnificent cerebration? Reverend Mr. Corum, of course, supported by two lesser and opposing forces: Lucio and Hando. The reverend was on an endless voyage in search of lifes truth. In an unobtrusive, self-effacing manner, he subtly enticed us to follow him, to think aloud without fear of criticism or reproof. But attacks on those personalities present or close to us were forbidden. Despite his extraordinary sophistication, there was a deceptive simplicity, a childlike quality, an innocence about him. His gentleness was saintly. I was always eager to be in his presence, to hear his views on any subject, to hear his questions. His quiet power was the source of the barrios pride in itself. It was he who made the barrio an enclave against alien influences. Admiring America, he distrusted Americans and their careless style. Loving God, he rarely invoked his name. And not once in conversation during the time I knew him, an all too brief five months, did he mention Lieutenant Andersons name, or speak of the cruel Japanese commander or refer to Nanays untimely death. On a subsequent visit I vividly recall a discussion on the nobility of sacrificing oneself for another. It is natural to the human spirit, the reverend stated. Dont we place our children and all those we deeply love before ourselves? Hadnt we practiced this spirit toward the prisoners of the Death March? And didnt we bear witness to the highest form of sacrifice by the Americano? Yes, I believe that in the end our goodness will prevail, for it is the most universal human trait. All of history disputes your thesis, Billiard Ball retorted. May I say, if you wish to call up history, then we shall find support for any view of mans nature, replied the reverend. Checkmate, I whispered to Billiard Ball. That night Billiard Ball slept at Handos house, and I at Anitas with three generations in a single room. Being a product of a comfortable urban middle class environment, certain practical questions came to mind. How did one have sex, unless perhaps very quietly; where did one find privacy, and where was the bathroom? I never found the answer to the first; wherever one could, and rarely, was the answer to the second, and to the third the answer was a question: What is a bathroom? One bathed in the local stream and went out in the field to defecate. I found this hard to cope with, but in the nick of time I learned that there was an outhouse behind Reverend Mr. Corums. In the morning Anita served me the traditional rice, from America, she said, and eggs and some goats milk, a menu similar to that at Rosalios. On a like occasion during a later visit, to my awkward chagrin, she served me a bottle of Budweiser. Since beer was available only on the black market, it must have cost Lucio a large sum. Thinking back to our prior group discussion comparing the Filipino and American diets, I recalled mentioning that Americas favorite drinks were Coke and beer. But I did not explain that I cared for neither, particularly beer. The magnanimity of these people was unbounded. I could not fail to come to love them. After church, which Billiard Ball and I did not attend, a volleyball net was set up across the width of the dirt street. One side of the street was bordered by banana trees and the other by the white stucco wall of the church, which still bore the chips and holes of spent bullets when Nanay and Lieutenant Anderson were murdered. The volleyball game, in which Hando, Billiard Ball, and I and other new friends participated, was an exciting, happy event, full of joking and laughter, and watched by everyone in the barrio. The prize for the

winning team was a carton of Camels, donated by Billiard Ball. At one crucial stage I accidentally hit the net, costing our side the loss of the ball and, quickly, the game. My mortification at being responsible for the loss was so evident that the winners insisted upon splitting the carton of cigarettes equally with the opposing team. Their sensitivity to the feelings of others was beyond me. Again, as on the previous weekend but more so, we departed that Sunday afternoon with unbearable sadness. But our hearts were also full of fresh pleasurable memories, and the prospect of more such visits. Tears filled Anitas eyes as we said good-bye, and Hando embraced Billiard Ball. Reverend Mr. Corum held my hand in both of his, reluctant to let it go. On the ride to Olongapo in back of an army truck, I told Billiard Ball Anitas story of Lieutenant Anderson. Poor devil, Anderson, said Billiard Ball. It was a heroic act, and it shouldnt go unacknowledged. As soon as we get back to the base, Ill report our discovery. No, dont, I said belligerently. Dont you see hes a symbol to the barrio people? They took an enormous risk in saving his life and keeping him. Christ, it cost them Anitas grandmothers life, and they were ready for anything rather than give him up. Id hate to think what could have happened if Anderson hadnt surrendered himself. He represents a victory to them. He gave them cause for self-respect while being humiliated by a cruel enemy. Look how Anitas grandfather watches over and cares for the grave. Billiard Ball weighed my argument for several minutes. I understand what youre saying, Hal. You look upon these people as being like your own, dont you? Its true, Ive never felt so at home, so much a part of them, as if I belonged. I can see that, but that isnt what I mean. Puzzled, I waited for him to continue. They are like the Jews against the world. You, your people, and they have suffered and still suffer and refuse to submit. It is, I think, what attracts you to each other; its what you have in common. Confused, surprised, I stammered, Maybe youre right. Im not sure. I have to think. Getting back to Anderson, consider this, Hal, said Billiard Ball. Dont you think Andersons family would like to have his remains? Shouldnt they also know about his meritorious act of heroism, what a special individual he was? Maybe he left a wife or son behind to feel proud of him for the rest of their lives were they to know. And wouldnt we also deprive our country of a chance to honor its best? I stared at Billiard Ball in silence. By the time we reached the dock at Olongapo, we were no nearer to a resolution. Okay, Hal, he said, Im going to follow my own conscience. Like you, I think Anderson was first an American, and should go home. Im going to report Anitas story.He did, and I didnt hold it against him.

BIG SISTER by Consorcio Borje

"YOU can use this," said Inciang, smiling brightly and trying to keep her tears back. "It is still quite strong, and you will not outgrow if for a year yet."Itong watched his sister fold his old khaki shirt carefully and pack it into the rattan tampipi, which already bulged with his clothes. He stood helplessly by, shifting his weight from one bare foot to the other, looking down at his big sister, who had always done everything for him."There, that's done," said Inciang, pressing down the lid. "Give me that rope. I'll truss it up for you. And be careful with it, Itong? Your Tia Orin has been very kind to lend it to us for your trip to Vigan."Itong assented and obediently handed his sister the rope. His eyes followed her deft movements with visible impatience; his friends were waiting outside to play with him. He was twelve years old, and growing fast.Sometimes when Inciang toiling in the kitchen, sweeping the house, or washing clothes by the well in the front yard held a long session with herself, she admitted she did not want Itong to grow. She wanted to keep him the boy that he was, always. Inciang had raised Itong from the whimpering, little, red lump of flesh that he was when their mother died soon after giving birth to him. She had been as a mother to him as long as she could remember."May I go out now

and play, Manang?"And Inciang heard herself saying, "It will be a year before you will see your friends again Go now."She listened to the sound of his footsteps down the bamboo ladder, across the bare earthen front yard. Then she heard him whistle. There were answering whistles, running feet."TELL him, Inciang," her father had said. That was about three months ago. Inciang was washing clothes by the well with Tia Orin."Yes, you tell him, Inciang," said Tia Orin. It was always Inciang who had dealt with Itong if anything of importance happened.Inciang rose to her feet. She had been squatting long over her washtub and pains shot up her spine."Hoy, Itong," called Inciang. Itong was out in the street playing with Nena, Lacay Illo's daughter. "Hoy, Itong," called Inciang. "Come here. I have something to tell you."Itong gave a playful push at Nena before he came running. He smiled as he stepped over the low bamboo barrier at the gate which kept the neighbors' pigs out. How bright his face was! Inciang's heart skipped a beat."You have something to tell me, Manang?"Inciang brushed her sudsy hands against her soiled skirt. "Yes. It is about your going to Vigan."Itong sat down suddenly on the barrier."Your are going to high school, after all, Itong," Inciang said. She said it defiantly, as if afraid that Itong would like going away. She looked up at her father, as if to ask him to confirm her words. Father sat leaning out of the low front window, smoking his pipe.Itong looked at her foolishly. Inciang's heart felt heavy within her, but she said, with a little reproach, "Why, Itong, aren't you glad? We thought you wanted to go to high school."Itong began to cry. He sat there in front of his father and his sister and his aunt Orin, and tears crept down his cheeks."The supervising principal teacher, Mr. Cablana," went on Inciang in a rush, "came this afternoon and told us you may go to high school without paying the fees, because you are the balibictorian." Itong nodded. "Now, don't cry," said his aunt Orin. "You are no longer a baby." "Yes," added the father. "And Mr. Cablana also promised to give his laundry to Inciang, so you'll have money for your books. Mr. Cablana is also sure to get the Castila's laundry for Inciang, and that will do for your food, besides the rice that we shall be sending you. Stop crying." "Your Tata Cilin's house is in Nagpartian, very near the high school. You will stay with him. And," Inciang said, "I don't have to accompany you to Vigan, Itong. You'll ride in the passenger bus where your cousin Pedro is the conductor. Your cousin Pedro will show you where your Tata Cilin lives. Your cousin Merto, son of your uncle Cilin, will help you register in school. He is studying in the same school. Will you stop crying?"Itong looked at Inciang, and the tears continued creeping down his cheeks. Itong was so young. Inciang began to scold him. "Is that the way you should act? Why, you're old now!"Then Itong ran into the house and remained inside. His father laughed heartily as he pulled at his pipe. Inciang started to laugh also, but her tears began to fall fast also, and she bent her head over her washtub and she began scrubbing industriously, while she laughed and laughed. Outside the gate, standing with her face pressed against the fence, was Nena, watching the tableau with a great wonder in her eyes.Inciang had watched Itong grow up from a new-born baby. She was six years old when she carried him around, straddled over her hip. She kept house, did the family wash, encouraged Itong to go through primary, then intermediate school, when he showed rebellion against school authority. When he was in the second grade and could speak more English words than Inciang, her father began to laugh at her; also her Tia Orin and her brood had laughed at her."Schooling would never do me any good," Inciang had said lightly.She watched Itong go through school, ministering to his needs lovingly, doing more perhaps for him than was good for him. Once she helped him fight a gang of rowdies from the other end of the town. Or better, she fought the gang for him using the big rice ladle she was using in the kitchen at the time.And her father had never married again, being always faithful to the memory of Inciang's mother. The farm which he tilled produced enough rice and vegetables for the family's use, and such few centavos as Lacay Iban would now and then need for the cockpit he got out of Inciang's occasional sales of vegetables in the public market or of a few bundles of rice in thecamarin. Few were the times when they were hard pressed for money. One was the time when Inciang's mother died. Another was now that Itong was going to Vigan.Inciang was working to send him away, when all she wanted was to keep him always at her side! She spent sleepless nights thinking of how Itong would fare in a strange town amidst strange people, even though theirparientes would be near him. It would not be the same. She cried again and again, it would not be the same.WHEN she finished tying up the tampipi, she pushed it to one side of the main room of the house and went to the window. Itong was with a bunch of his friends under the acacia tree across the dirt road. They were sitting on the buttress roots of the tree, chin in hand, toes making figures in the dust. And, of course, Itong's closest friend, Nena, was there with them. Strange, Inciang thought, how Itong, even though already twelve years old, still played around with a girl.And then, that afternoon, the departure. The passenger truck pausing at the gate. The tampipi of Itong being tossed up to the roof of the truck. The bag of rice. The crate of chickens. The young coconuts for Tata

Cilin's children. Then Itong himself, in the pair of rubber shoes which he had worn at the graduation exercises and which since then had been kept in the family trunk. Itong being handed into the truck.Lacay Iban, Tia Orin, and Inciang were all there shouting instructions. All the children in the neighborhood were there. Nena was there. It was quite a crowd come to watch Itong go away for a year! A year seemed forever to Inciang. Itong sat in the dim interior of the bus, timid and teary-eyed. Inciang glanced again and again at him, her heart heavy within her, and then as the bus was about to leave, there was such a pleading look in his eyes that Inciang had to go close to him, and he put his hand on hers. "I'm afraid, Manang." "Why should you be?" said Inciang loudly, trying to drown out her own fears. "This boy. Why, you're going to Vigan, where there are many things to see. I haven't been to Vigan, myself. You're a lucky boy." "I don't want to leave you." "I'll come to see you in Vigan." She had considered the idea and knew that she could not afford the trip."Manang," said Itong, "I have a bag of lipay seeds and marbles tied to the rafter over the shelf for the plates. See that no one takes it away, will you?" "Yes." "And, Manang, next time you make linubbian, don't forget to send Nena some, ah?"Inciang nodded. "You like Nena very much?" "Yes," coloring a little.Itong had never concealed anything from her. He had been secretive with his father, with his aunt Orin, but never with her.From Vigan, Itong wrote his sister only once a month so as to save on stamps and writing paper. His letters were full of expressions of warm endearment, and Inciang read them over and over again aloud to her father and to Tia Orin and her brood who came to listen, and when her eyes were dim with reading, Inciang stood on a chair and put the letters away in the space between a bamboo rafter and the cogon roof."My dear sister," Itong would write in moro-moro Ilocano, "and you, my father, and Tia Orin, I can never hope to repay my great debt to all of you." And then a narration of day-to-day events as they had happened to him.And so a year passed. Inciang discussed Itong with her father every day. She wanted him to become a doctor, because doctors earned even one hundred pesos a month, and besides her father was complaining about pain in the small of his back. Lacay Iban, on the other hand, wanted Itong to become a lawyer, because lawyers were big shots and made big names and big money for themselves if they could have the courts acquit murderers, embezzlers, and other criminals despite all damning evidence of guilt, and people elected them to the National Assembly.Itong's last letter said that classes were about to close. And then, one morning, when Inciang was washing the clothes of the supervising principal teacher, with a piece of cotton cloth thrown over her head and shoulders to shelter her from the hot sun, a passenger truck came to a stop beside the gate and a boy came out. He was wearing white short pants, a shirt, and a pair of leather slippers. It was Itong. But this stranger was taller by the width of a palm, and much narrower. Itong had grown so very fast, he had no time to fill in."Itong, are you here already?" "It is vacation, Manang. Are you not glad to see me?"They ran into each other's arms.Father came in from the rice field later in the afternoon. "How is my lawyer?" he asked, and then he noticed Itong wore a handkerchief around his throat. "I have a cold, Father," said Itong huskily."How long have you had it?" "For several weeks now." "Jesus, Maria, y Jose, Inciang, boil some ginger with a little sugar for your poor brother. This is bad. Are you sure your cold will not become tuberculosis?"Itong drank the concoction, and it eased his sore throat a little. It seemed he would never get tired talking, though, telling Inciang and Lacay Iban about Vigan, about school, about the boys he met there, about his uncle Cilin and his cousin Merto and the other people at the house in Nagpartian.He went out with his old cronies, but he had neglected his marbles. The marbles hung from the

rafter over the shelf for the plates, gathering soot and dust and cobwebs. It was a reminder of Itong's earlier boyhood. And he did not go out with Nena any more. "Have you forgotten your friend, Nena, already?" Inciang asked him and he reddened. "Have you been giving her linubbian, Manang?" he asked. And when she said "Yes," he looked glad.On those nights when he did not go out to play, he occupied himself with writing letters in the red light of the kerosene lamp. He used the wooden trunk for a table. Inciang accustomed to go to sleep soon after the chickens had gone to roost under the house, would lie on the bed-mat on the floor, looking up at Itong's back bent studiously over the wooden trunk.Once she asked, "What are you writing about, Itong?" And Itong had replied, "Nothing, Manang."One day she found a letter in one of the pockets of his shirt in the laundry pile. She did not mean to read it, but she saw enough to know that the letter came from Nena. She could guess what Itong then had been writing. He had been writing to Nena. Itong had changed. He had begun keeping secrets from Inciang. Inciang noted the development with a slight tightening of her throat.Yes, Itong had grown up. His old clothes appeared two sizes too small for him now. Inciang had to sew him new clothes. And when Itong saw the peso bills and the silver coins that Inciang kept under her clothes in the trunk toward the purchase of a silk kerchief which she had long desired, especially since the constabulary corporal had been casting eyes at her when she went to market, he snuggled up to Inciang and begged her to buy him a drill suit. "A drill terno! You are sure a drill terno is what you want?" Itong patted his throat, as if to clear it. "Please Manang?" "Oh, you little beggar, you're always asking for things." She tried to be severe. She was actually sorry to part with the money. She had been in love with that silk kerchief for years now."Promise me, then to take care of your throat. Your cold is a bad one."Another summertime, when Itong came home from school, he was a young man. He had put on his white drill suit and a pink shirt and a pink tie to match, and Inciang could hardly believe her eyes. She was even quite abashed to go meet him at the gate."Why, is it you, Itong?"He was taller than she. He kept looking down at her. "Manang, who else could I be? You look at me so strangely." His voice was deep and husky, and it had queer inflections. "But how do I look?"Inciang embraced him tears again in her eyes, as tears had been in her eyes a year ago when Itong had come back after the first year of parting but Itong pulled away hastily, and he looked back self-consciously at the people in the truck which was then starting away."You have your cold still, so I hear," said Lacay Iban, as he came out of the house to join his children."Yes," said Itong, his words accented in the wrong places. "I have my cold still."Looking at Itong, Inciang understood. And Itong, too, understood. Lacay Iban and Inciang looked at each other, and when Inciang saw the broad grin spreading over her father's face, she knew he understood, too. He should know!"Inciang," said Father gravely. Inciang wrested her eyes from Nena whom she saw was looking at Itong shyly from behind the fence of her father's front yard. "Inciang, boil some ginger and vinegar for your poor brother. He has that bad cold still."Inciang wept deep inside of her as she cooked rice in the kitchen a little later. She had seen Itong stay at the door and make signs to Nena. She resented his attentions to Nena. She resented his height, his pink shirt, his necktie.But that night, as she lay awake on the floor, waiting for Itong to come home, she knew despite all the ache of her heart, that she could not keep Itong forever young, forever the boy whom she had brought up. That time would keep him growing for several years yet, and more distant to her. And then all the bitterness in her heart flowed out in tears.In the morning, when Nena came to borrow one of the pestles. "We are three to pound rice, Manang Inciang; may we borrow one of your pestles?" Inciang could smile easily at Nena. She could feel a comradely spirit toward Nena growing within her. After all, she thought, as she gave Nena the pestle, she never had a sister, she would like to see how it was to have a sister. A good-looking one like Nena. Inciang smiled at Nena, and Nena blushing, smiled back at her.

CLAY by Juan T. Gatbonton

IT was beginning to get light when I awoke. Feeling the bamboo slats of the floor hard against my back through the mat, I looked up to where the bamboo rafters made light lines against the darker shade of the nipa roofing. Outside, a square of brightening sky was framed by the open window. Afraid Clay would be waiting, I got up, rolled the mat and walked to the kitchen to wash my face. Coming out into the open kitchen, I felt the wind: cold, sharp when I breathed too deeply. A light mist made the other houses gray and indistinct. The split bamboos that made up the kitchen floor were moist and the water in the earthen jar that stood near the stairs

was like ice. The water was numbing to the hands and made the skin of my face tighten. I brushed my arms across my face and walked to the stove. The pot held rice left over from supper; although the barracks were only a few minutes run, I did not stop to eat. I went down the steps, the rungs wet and cold under my bare feet, and ran out through the still-dark street towards the barracks. The army camp was on the east side of the main street, a few houses away from the river. Clay would probably be sitting on the rail bamboo rungs nailed parallel on upright wooden posts that fenced the camp, his long legs swinging, the tips of his boots almost touching the ground, one big hand holding on to the rail and the other waving, his voice ringing: Hey Kid! as I came near. As I ran on past the dark houses of the town, past veiled women going to early mass, I hoped that he would not be too impatient from waiting. Clay was not at the fence. The big acacia tree near the road, a few steps away from the fence, threw a shadow across the gate to the camp. The gate was of steel matting; a big chain held it fastened to a log post. The yard was littered with colored paper, wine bottles, and cigarette butts from last nights dance. The gray, two-story building of concrete and galvanized iron that was the army barracks was silent. The window near where Clays cot stood was closed. I walked to the foot of the acacia tree and sat down to wait. Leaning my head on the cool, rough trunk, I could see the light in the tower of the church near the western end of the town sparkle in the dark. Then, the bells tolled for mass. In the distance, shadowy figures were walking towards the church door from which light now streamed into the darkness. The rest of the town had not awakened. Sitting under the tree, I looked at the road that was Candabas main street. It was short and even, barely a kilometer long from where it started at the river bank to where it faded into the clump of trees that hid the cemetery. The Americans had built a bridge and gouged out a new road on the left bank of the river. This hard asphalt road ran up to the far-off Arayat mountain where the fighting was. Now in the early morning, with the mist slowly lifting as the sun rose, the blue head of the mountain lay buried in the clouds. The new road was empty. The steel bridge, silent after the movements of the night, was dull brown in the early daylight. Still Clay had not opened his window to laugh and shout: Hey Kid! I moved from the tree and sat on the fence near the gate. The bamboo rails, wet with the mist, were rapidly drying in the rising sun. The grass growing thick along the fence smelled fresh and clean. In the forest, the trees would be green; the flowers of the bankal trees would fill the air with their fragrance and the water would be very cool. We would have good swimming today, I thought. The pool would be very clear. I wished Clay would come. CLAY was one of the army mechanics. He was my best friend. Sometimes I could not understand him: he talked too fast that I could not always get what he meant. Then I would say: I beg your. pardon? the way Miss Rosete said one should. Clay would laugh and shout: For gosh sakes! You people are sure polite! And he would laugh and laugh. He would curse too, but with Miss Rosete the day I introduced him, his language was all right. Miss Rosete was my teacher at the high school. She was from the city and she stayed in a boarding house near the school building. She and I had found the pool in the forest together. That was the day our class was going to hold a program, and she and I went into the woods to gather flowers for the stage. She was singing and smiling all the way and she looked very beautiful. There was a light wind that morning and it blew her curls and carried the smell of her perfume to me as I walked before her to clear the path of thorns and creepers. After we had gathered flowers, she sat down under a tree to wipe away the fine beads of sweat that crowned her brow. I stood looking at her while she passed her white handkerchief across her face. Then she stood up and we walked through thick bushes deeper into the forest. Carrying the flowers cradled in her arm, she followed me up a winding path scarcely visible among the thick leaves of the bushes. She stopped and said: Look! My eyes followed where her hand pointed, through a column of trees on the right side of the path. There was the pool: jewelling the forest with its whiteness. We left the path and walked slowly towards it. She sat down on a rock at the waters edge and made me sit near her. She said: Its beautiful; very softly. We looked into the pool. You could see the bottom, it was so clear: with white pebbles on its bed. She took off her shoes and dipped her feet in the water. She said: I wish we could go swimming, the water looks so beautiful! She was gently swinging her feet, her legs running like silver in the water. Then she dipped the flowers we had gathered in the pool and gave them to me to carry back to town. After that, I went to the pool in the forest often. I would sit at the foot of the rock where she had sat and listen to the little forest noises: the water trickling among the stones where the pool was shallow, and above, the trees with their crickets and birds singing. No other noises. The quiet would make me feel I was in church, all the people gone away and I alone, praying: not really praying, but just listening for the sounds of Godnot minding the ache of the knees from the kneelinglistening to the birds in the eaves and the children playing in the convent-yard. I would take off my clothes, enter the water and swim quietly, sometimes diving deep, deep

into the pools heart. I would pretend that she was there, sitting on the rock, smiling at me, her feet silver in the water. There at the pool I met Clay. I was diving for the white stones at the bottom of the pool and did not see him until he came through the last line of flowering bushes that hid the pool. I looked up as he came near. The early sun struck his face and made his blonde hair glisten. He stood there and smiled at me. Then he laughed. Hey Kid! he said. Nice place you got here. He walked nearer, sat down at the foot of the rock where Miss Rosete had sat, and leaned his head on the stone. He. said: Good swimming huh? I was embarrassed and remembered her teaching. I smiled: Wont you join me, sir? He laughed and said: Well, what dya know? Hes educated! I felt proud. He took off his clothes, put them near the rock and dived in. He said his name was Clayton but everybody called him Clay. He offered to shake hands but I was so shy I merely smiled and told him my name. Lets come back here again, Clay said. We went to the pool almost everyday after that. One morning I went to the motor pool to fetch him. He was working on a truck and he asked me to wait. I sat on the fender of the car and watched him work. His face was greasy and flecked with dust; sweat dripped from his face and fell on his arms as he strained, tightening the bolts, running his dirty hands over the engine. He washed up and changed his clothes. Im too tired to go to the pool, Clay said. There must be some nice girls in this town; lets go meet them. He said, teasing me, I ought to let him meet my girl and did I think old Clay was going to take her away from me? I said I had no girl but I took him to see Miss Rosete at the high school. Classes had not begun and she was in the room preparing the next days lesson. The door was open and we stood there for a moment, watching her. She saw us and she smiled at me, then, not smiling, turned to look at Clay. I walked in and stood in front of her desk. Clay came into the room, his heavy boots loud against the cement floor. I said: Miss Rosete, this is Clay; and Clay put out his hand, smiled and said: How are you? Now she smiled. She extended her hand. Her hand looked small in his big hairy hand. She quickly drew her hand away and she said she was sorry, she had lots of things to do, but she smiled at me and then smiled at Clay and said she was glad to have met him. We tiptoed out of the room and all the way to the street, Clay was striking his fist against my shoulder and saying: Jesuschrist!! Jesuschrist! THE sun was growing hotter. Somebody struggled with the nearest window and then it was open and Clay was there, blinking as the light struck his face. Hey Kid! He waved his hand. He was trying to put on his shirt. You are damned early, he said and disappeared into the darkness of the building. After a few minutes, the gray door of the barracks opened and Clay walked to where I sat, waiting. We started down the road towards the river. The clay path was hot under my feet and the grass, now that the sun had dried the dew, was turning brown with dust. Clay said: Damn hot, aint it? He took off his khaki shirt. We walked on, he in his gray undershirt, his shirt dangling from his right hand. Where the undershirt left off, his skin was red and blotched with freckles. Already, drops of sweat were beginning to form on his forehead from the walking. Just before the bridge, we turned left and climbed up the mound behind which lay the woods. The path winding up to the top of the hillock rose steeply; we clutched at the bushes along it for support. At the top of the mound, we stopped to rest. Below, we could see the road and the ugly bridge, now alive with trucks and people crossing. The noise of their passing came to us low and indistinct. The river flowed brown, foaming along some logs that were tied near the bridge. Looking away from the road to the woods, we could see knee-high cogon growing where the hillock sloped and the first low trees began. Clay and I ran down the slope and into the forest. Clays heavy boots crushed fallen leaves and rustled against dead branches from the trees above. The sun came through the leafy sky in bright patches that flashed as the trees stirred in the wind. Clay said: Lets sit down a while. He pulled a handkerchief from his hip pocket. His face was pale red. There were little dark lines under his eyes. He wiped away the drops of sweat that glistened on his nose and gathered in furrows on his forehead. He put his handkerchief back in his pocket and sat down heavily on the ground. Sit down, he said. He rubbed his eyes. Boy, but am I tired! Raking leaves together, he bundled his shirt over the pile they made and there pillowed his head. He closed his eyes. Nice dance last night, Clay said. He grinned. He sat up suddenly, put out a big hand and rumpled my hair. Say, did I ever thank you for introducin me to that dame who teaches you or something? His hand balled into a fist and softly struck my shoulder. Clay chuckled and rolled his eyes, making strange noises with his tongue. Boy, he laughed. But is she good! Boy, did old Clay have a good time! His hand, rough and moist. rubbed on the back of my neck. Seeing the look on my face, he laughed. Say, how old are you anyway? he asked. I said nearly sixteen. Aw, you are too young, junior! Clay said. You wouldnt get what I mean! His harsh laughter tore the silence of the forest. Still laughing, he got up and we walked on towards the pool. The wind had risen a bit. and under the tree where the sun could not get through, it was chilly. Clay put his arm around my shoulders. His arm was big and hairy, little drops of sweat clinging to it. Boy oh boy, Clay said. But did I have a helluva time last night! He

laughed, showing his teeth, his face close to mine smelling of pomade and perspiration. Jesuschrist, Clay said. Jesuschrist! Clay suddenly let go of my shoulder and leaped up to grab at the branch of a guava tree that grew along the path. He clung to the branch. swaying his body, sending flowers from the tree falling to the ground in flurries of whiteness. Yippeeee! Clay shouted. Yippeeee! Birds flew up and, chirping, fluttered above the trees. Clay dropped to the ground beside me. He was breathing heavily. Here Kid, he said. Have a guava. You look hungry. He laughed, bowed elaborately and opened his palm where a guava lay small arid white, its flesh exposed where bats had dug at its core, the marks of their teeth leaving red gashes on its skin. I broke the guava open. It smelled sweet and over-ripe. Little worms stirred in its core. I threw the guava away. Clay laughed. Get ya nother one. I said never mind, I was not hungry. Well, come on then, he said. Lets not keep the old pool waiting. He ran ahead of me, his big body swaying from side to side, his boots tramping the bushes along the path. Now the path narrowed and was lost among the thick undergrowth. The bushes that hid it were here and there stained with mud stray carabaos had left behind them. Brown grass grew in tangles, their blades sharp, drawing white scratches on the skin. The ground, where the sun never shone, was muddy. But where the pool began, the grass thinned, the trees were taller than in any other part of the forest: straight, white-limbed columns with singing life in their branches, below them the water breaking into a million separate diamonds. Clay was taking off his undershirt as he ran. Reaching the waters edge, he flung his clothes on a bush and, stamping his muddy boots on the rock, fumbled with their laces. After he had pulled the shoes off, he scraped them against the side of the rock to clean them of the mud they had gathered from the walking. Hurry up, Kid, he shouted. The water looks good! He sat down at the edge of the stone and dangled his legs in the water. The water swirled darkly where his feet touched bottom. Clay lit a cigarette and started to chant softly something about a blonde who couldnt say no. His voice rose and fell in a grating monotone. The sun lay hidden behind the trees and I was a long time taking off my clothes. The waters going to be cold, I thought. What the hecks taking you such a long time? Clay shouted. He flipped his cigarette butt into the middle of the pool and dived noisily after it. Then he was splashing water, making a lot of noise, shouting: Yippeeee! Yippeeee! Hey come on! Hey come on! I went into the water slowly, first wetting my feet and chest. The water was cold. Come where it is deeper, Clay said. He arched and dived into the pools writhing heart. His feet thrashed the water wildly. Then his body broke the water. Look, he said. Black sand filled his open hand. Water dripped from his face. A thin trickle of mucus ran down the corner of his nose. Clay laughed; I touched bottom! He spat and laughed. Lets see you do it, Kid. Lets see you do it. I said I couldnt. Clay threw the sand at me. You gotta learn, he laughed. You gotta learn. He laughed again and began swimming towards me, his arms and feet flailing the water. Birds in the trees flew away as something heavy came stumbling up the path. Then a young bull carabao lumbered past the bushes and walked towards us, its feet leaving muddy tracks on the grass. Standing at the edge of the water, the carabao gazed at us with red, heavy-lidded eyes. Flies hovered over its head and settled on the black mud that encrusted its back. The carabao looked mean. I climbed up the bank, picked up one of the stones gleaming there and threw it at the beast. The stone hit the carabao between the horns, bounced, and fell back at my feet. Flecks of foam and saliva dripped down the carabaos mouth as it snorted at me and bellowed angrily. I dipped my hands in the pool and threw water at it. Still bellowing, the carabao turned and silently went away, crashing down the undergrowth. It would have made the water dirty, I told Clay. Probably strayed from its herd down the hill. Come on Kid, Clay said. He splashed water at me and ran into the pond, his feet sending clouds of mud swirling up the waters surface. A dull-brown circle rose and spread from around his body. When we had dressed and gone back down the path, carefully avoiding the mud flecks the carabao had left on the bushes, Clay said: We are gonna have nother party tonight. He grinned, showing his white teeth. Im bringing Imacool-ada again. He had trouble pronouncing Miss Rosetes first name. Come to the barracks, Kid, Clay said. We are gonna have real ice-cream. He put his hand around my shoulder. Ill get ya some. Clay smiled at me and winked his eyes. Ill get you some cake too. After lunch, I dressed for school. The sun was hot and the street was empty. I kept to the side of the road where the fences of the houses offered shade against the sun. Near the school building, a squat one-story building near the town square, there were a few figures walking. Students, boys and girls, were gathered on the stairway, talking and laughing. They turned to look at me as I brushed past them and walked up the low concrete stairs. The sudden darkness of the corridor, after the brilliance of noon, brought flashes of light to my eyes as I walked toward the classroom in the western end of the building. The stone slabs of the floor echoed my footsteps. The door creaked as I pushed it open. The room was dark and empty. Big chalk markings on the blackboard spelled: No Classes. I went in and sat down in the front row near the table. Sitting in the half-dark, I could smell the odor of old dust heavy in the air.

I got up and pushed the dusty window open. Even with the sunlight coming in, the room was still empty. A shaft of light struck the empty chair where Miss Rosete should be, smiling and talking to me. The flowers in the vase at her table had not been replaced with fresh ones. I wished I had remembered to pick flowers at the pool. As I sat silently in the empty room, the patch of light rose higher and was caught among the dusty cobwebs that laced the eastern corner. The church bells tolled three oclock. The last silver sound of their ringing was still in the air when the old janitor came in. He walked so silently I did not see him until he was at the door. Peering into the room where I sat, he said: Miss Rosete is not coming. I rose and walked out of the room. The old man closed the window and the door behind him and melted into the shadows of the corridor. In the light of the afternoon sun, my shadow crept along the stone floor ahead or me as I went out into the street. In the classroom nearest the stairway, they were having a program and somebody was singing. I walked to the town square and sat down on a bench. I wanted to go to the pool but I was afraid it might rain. Later, going homeward, I passed the house where Miss Rosete stayed. The iron gate at the head of the walk gaped open. The door of the house was closed. The windows of her room returned my look with a stolid, unseeing stare. I lay in bed until it was dark. Then I dressed and walked to the army barracks. The camp was ablaze with lights. The acacia tree, slumped in the darkness facing the road end, seemed to shrink from the sound of the soldiers merry-making. Through the dark barracks door, music blared out into the night. I crept through the open gate into the yard and peered through one of the windows on the ground floor. The glass on the window was dusty and I could not see into the room clearly. A thick haze of smoke whirled and made weird patterns over the heads of the soldiers and the women gathered there. The girls of most of the soldiers were there but I could not see Miss Rosete in the room. In a corner, a woman was sitting on a soldiers lap. The soldier was nuzzling her nape with his mouth. She was giggling shrilly. In the yard near the door, several men were sitting in the dark, talking and smoking. As I neared them. they laughed loudly. Somebody slapped his thigh and shouted: Looks like old Clays been stood up. Our pretty boys been stood up! Everybody guffawed. Then I heard Clays voice. It sounded hoarse and thick. He laughed. Aw, he said. She dont worry me none. But I sure convinced her last night, he said. I sure convinced her. Once ya get one of those babes convinced, theyre just like the girls here. His cigarette glowed in a red arc as he waved a hand in derision. The little babes just playin hard to get, thats all. She cant stay away from me. After I get through with them, they cant stay away. Everybody laughed. Clay, somebody said through gusts of laughter. Clay, you sure are a fast one. Clay threw his cigarette butt through the fence to where the moonlight made the road a pale ribbon against the dark. You guys known old Clay, he said. Old Clay always convinces them. She didnt even know how to kiss. Boy, I sure learned her! I turned back toward the gate. Clay rose and walked towards me. Hey Kid, he shouted. I didnt see ya. Com here. I got somethin for ya. I ran to the road. Hey Kid. Com here. Whats the matter wi ya. His big body lurched against the gate as he clung to it for support. The soldiers laughed. Clay was clinging to the gate, the chain rattling as he swayed. Hey Kid! Heres your ice-cream! I ran and ran. The voices and the drunken laughter grew faint in my ears. I ran swaying from side to side, not knowing where I was going. Then I was stumbling up to the hillock. The mist had settled and the bushes were cold and rough against my hands clutching for support. Below me, the lights on the bridge made reddish circles against the mist rising thick from the river. Music from the camp came faint and strange to my ears. I ran down the slope, the cogon grass lashing at my legs. Brambles along the trail clutched at my body and an owl hooted in a tree as I ran past its lair. The darkness of the forest swallowed me. When I stopped, there was the pool, white in the moonlight. Breathing heavily, smelling the sickly sweetness of the flowering bankal trees, I stood at the waters edge. Something dark stirred and rose out of the water. It was the carabao. Raising its dark head, it snorted at me. Its eyes glowed fiery red in the darkness. Dark water trickled down its nostrils and mingled with the slaver from its mouth as it glared at me. I threw stones at the carabao again and again, but it only moaned and refused to go away.

THE SUMMER OF MY 17TH YEAR by H.O. Santos

FRIDAY, April 5, 2002

IT was hot this morning when I went to the Masbate pier with my older cousin John. School was out and the dry season had begun. The air was still, making it feel hotter yetthe usual breeze that comes from the sea seemed to have gotten lost somewhere. We were there to meet his college friend who was visiting our island for the first time. They hadnt seen each other since his friend moved to the States right after they graduated from college. That was five years ago. John pointed him out to me when he came down the gangplank off the ferry from Lucena. Although he did not look too unlike the other passengers, there was something uncommon about him. Maybe it was the high backpack and small bamboo suitcase he carried that made him look out of the ordinary. Or maybe it was because his shirt and pants werent neatly ironed like the others. His hair was mussed up but he didnt seem to care. He didnt exactly look like a bumhe even made it look like wrinkled clothes were what everybody else should have been wearing if they wanted to be in style. He looked like an exciting kind of guy who didnt care what others thought of himthe kind who might just be the one I needed to make my life less humdrum. He and my cousin exchanged greetings and talked for a while before he acknowledged my presence and introduced himself. My name is Tim, it was really Timoteo before I went to Los Angeles. He laughed as if he thought one had to go to Los Angeles to get an American nickname. Im Minda, Johns cousin. My family and I live next door to him. Oh, good. Then well see a lot of each other. After that, he promptly ignored me again and resumed his conversation with John. John drove us home in his car with Tim in the front seat. I was in the back with Tims luggage. They had so many things to tell each other to get fully updated with what had happened since they last saw each other. I wanted to tell them thered be enough time later for all that. I felt left out. My cousin John had always been the most adventurous member of our clan. He went to college in Manila and did pretty well as far as grades were concerned. He surprised me when he returned to Masbate to stay and take care of his familys cattle ranch. He did that after devoting four years of his life to earn a college degree. I couldnt understand that. I wish I can be like John but I cant. Instead of Manila, I have chosen to go to Los Baos for college when the school year opens. Not only is it closer, it is also less chaotic. John has always been my favorite cousin because he is the only one in my family who can understand young people like me. I was born eight years after my older brother, who in turn was two years younger than John. That makes me a lot younger than all my siblings and cousins. It is sometimes an advantage in that they pamper me and let me get away with things they normally wouldnt have. At the same time, it makes me feel lonely because I have very few people I can share my feelings with. Often, Im afraid they will think the things that bother me are silly so I keep them to myself except when I can talk to John. SATURDAY, April 6, 2002 I SAW Tim again this morning when I stepped out the front door. He was in the yard next door, looking lost and alone. He came over when he saw me. Wheres everybody? Oh, John will be back soon. He must have left early to check on the ranch. What about you? Why arent you in school? Dont you know its summer break? Gosh, I forgot. Summer in America starts in June. Besides, its Saturday today. He looked at me sheepishly. Oh, my God. I cant even keep track of what day of the week it is anymore. Im getting old. I didnt mean to embarrass him so I was glad he took it lightly. I said, Its okay. Its still Friday in America. I was beginning to appreciate that the useless information I had learned in school wasnt so useless after all. He gazed at me as if trying to figure out what kind of person I was. I suddenly felt shyit was a strange and unfamiliar feeling for I wasnt a shy person. I didnt know why I felt that way. Anyway, what school do you go to? I just finished high schoolI went to Sacred Heart College in Lucena. Thats far from here. Do you have relatives there? No, I stayed in a boarding house. Im quite independent and can take care of myself. You look so young Not really, Im sixteenIll be seventeen this year. And Im going to college in June. Away from home. At University of the Philippines in Los Baos. That doesnt necessarily make you an old woman.

But Im not like the other sixteen-year-olds you may have met before. How? I can take care of myself. He smiled but said nothing. I couldnt tell if I impressed him or if he didnt understand what I said. I wanted to say more but was unable to find words that would have explained further what I meant. He was silent for a while before he spoke again. How far is the public market from here? Not too far, about a kilometer. Do they sell cooked food theredo they have places where one can sit down to eat? Yes, lots of them. Can you come with me? To eat? John wont like it if he finds out you went somewhere to eat. Theyre probably preparing something special for lunch. Come on. Be a friend. This is my only chance to go and eat in a public market. Why do you think so? Because my friends always steer me away from places they think I shouldnt see. I knew I was betraying a cousin, my favorite cousin at that, but there was something in his request that thrilled me. My father had always forbidden me to eat in the public market. I had gone there to eat with my friends a few times before, all without my fathers knowledge. I didnt understand all the warning about sanitationdidnt cooking kill any germs that may still be in the food? Okay, I said. Ill take you there. Go ask your mom for permission. I dont have towere not going far. But Ill have to tell our help where Im going in case she asks. Dont you feel scared going with a stranger? Youre not a stranger. Besides, youll never get off this island alive if something happens to me.He laughed loud. I knew he was beginning to understand right then that I was not the typical sixteen-yearold he assumed I was. We walked to the public market. The sun was hot but I didnt mind. I wanted people to see me walking and wonder who the man with me was. I didnt see anyone I knew but they could have been peeking from their windows, hiding from my sight. He looked around the market, curious about everything. Vendors were cajoling us to come to their place each claimed to have the best food in the market. I wanted very much to have known the area better so I could steer him to the right place. It maddened me that I didnt. Whatever youre thinking, dont eat too much, I told him when he started looking at the food on display. Whys that? Because Huh? John will find out I went with you here and hell get mad. When we get back I want you to eat a lot of whatever they serve you. Do you always tell people what to do? No, but I know it will be a problem for me if you dont eat lunch in my cousins house. You dont want me to get in trouble, do you? He patted me on the shoulder and said, I promise you wont. So we each had an ukoy although I could tell that he wanted very much to try the kare-kare that looked so tempting. I felt sorry that I was always sensiblewhy couldnt I have been more adventurous and off-beat like he was? All my life I had deferred to my elders, tried hard to please them. They praised me for being mature and responsible for my age. They didnt know that Id rather do things because theyre what I want to do, not because theyre what they expect from me. SUNDAY, April 7, 2002 TODAY was a very busy day for everyone. John was having a party in his house in honor of Tim and my family was helping prepare the food. I was given the task of cutting the vegetables to pieces of the right size. There was so much to cut I was afraid it would take me the whole day. I wanted to wear the dress my mother had given me for my graduation. It had been pressed and ready for me to put on. It was a simple but elegant off-white, sleeveless dress. My friends had gushed about how I looked in that dress. They said I looked like I was at least twenty years old. I finished my assigned chore as fast as I could because I needed to go to the beauty parlor to have my hair done. I wanted so much to look nice for that evening. It felt like graduation day and a lot more.

I went early to Tims partyI wanted to have a quiet talk with him before everybody else arrived. I know people will say Im being irrational but I like him very much. I like him because he is so modesthe never tells anyone he is from America. He isnt like the boys in school who are too immature for my taste. I know he is right for me even though I have only known him for a few days. People dont understand that a girl just knows. We got to chat for a long time before the guests arrived. He told me about life in the U.S.he said Filipinos who are used to getting pampered would have a hard time adjusting to life there. After working all day at the office, we still have to cook and clean up when we get home, was one of the things he said. Im glad I can take care of myself I wont have a hard time if I ever go there. He smiled with a smile that seemed to say, You may think so but theres more to adjusting to a new life than that. Maybe he wasnt convinced that I was an independent woman who can live alone. I felt bold and asked him directly, Do you have a girl friend? No. Why not? Cant you find anyone you like? I hoped he didnt notice the lilt in my voice that was there because his answer had pleased me. Im sure there are lots of nice women around, its just that I have been busy the last few years trying to get my career going. You try harder when youre in a new country. Would you prefer a Filipina or an American girl friend? I wanted more details. I really dont know, he said. But I know I want someone like youpretty, happy, and not afraid to speak out. Too bad youre too young. He was probably teasing me but I knew for certain I wasnt too young. Im not too young, was all I could say, however. I wanted to tell him about John and Jacqueline Kennedy, how she was much younger than he was, but couldnt do it. I didnt understand why I could never say all I wanted to say when he was around. I let it go at that. The food at the party was good and everyone was pleased. I felt proud when I told Tim I helped in its preparation. I havent done much cooking but I feel confident I can do a good job if I have toI had watched my mother lots of times and remember most of the recipes. I was thrilled when Tim asked me for the first dance. He said he didnt care too much for dancing and would do it only with someone like me. I thought it probably wasnt true so I asked why. He said, Because Im not a very good dancer and I know you wont complain. At least, he knows Im not the complaining type. The night would have been perfect if that Christina hadnt showed up. She always comes late for anything and makes a grand entrance so she can be noticed by everyone. She tells everyone she is twenty-six but I think shes really twenty-eight. I dont like her because she thinks she is so beautiful that men find her irresistible. I know she uses too much makeup and spends too much money on clothes. She is lucky her father is rich. She began to monopolize Tim with her conversation. She couldnt tell that Tim was simply being polite to her. I hardly think he will fall for her because she is too old for him. Anyway, she ruined the evening for me. I dont just dislike her, I really hate her. TUESDAY, April 9, 2002 IVE hardly seen Tim the last two daysJohn has been showing him around the island and I have been busy helping my mother arrange to ship live cattle to Manila. That was my familys business, making sure cattle from the ranchers in Masbate get to their buyers in Manila in good shape. I saw Tim only in the evenings when everybody got home but never got to talk to him. I know its crazy but I miss him so much.

WEDNESDAY, April 10, 2002 WHEN my mother and I got home this evening, I found a package waiting for me. It was from Tim. I took the package to my room and found a book of poems and his sunglasses inside. With them was a note from him: Dear Minda, Im sorry I didnt get a chance to see you today. I was hoping I could speak with you before I went away but they told me you wouldnt be home till later. Im leaving early this evening on the M/V Maria Carmela to go to Lucena and on to Manila. I wasnt planning on leaving until Saturday but your friend Christina begged me to escort her to Manila. She said the trip always terrified her and I couldnt refuse.

You have been my best friend on this island and Ill never forget you. Im giving you my sunglasses and this book of poems by Louise Glck that I have been reading during this trip. I hope youll like them, but more than that I hope they will remind you of a friend. You have been very nice to me and I wish to thank you for all the nice times Ive spent with you. I wish you all the success you deserve as you go on to college. Im sure youll make your parents proud. Your friend, Tim He was wrong. Christina wasnt my friend. She was a shameless witch who would do all kinds of tricks to get men to like her. I couldnt help but cry as I ran to the street to catch a tricycle to the pier. The ferry had already left when I got there. The ship was still visible and I could see its lights in the distance as it sailed away. I couldnt understand why this was happening to me. Tomorrow, I would have been home the whole day because my mother had finished her work for the week. And I already knew how to tell Tim about John and Jacqueline Kennedy without making it look too obvious that we could be a pair. I also wanted to give him a picture of me when I graduated from high school and tell him to remember to write me in Los Baos. He wont even know how to get in touch with me after all this. I only needed one more day and that Christina had to ruin everything. THURSDAY, April 11, 2002 I WOKE up late because I hardly slept last night. Perhaps, Tim will find a way to write me. Maybe John can tell him how to get in touch with me. But inside me is a terrible feeling that he will never write and that I will never see him again. I dont want to mope and feel sorry for myself but I really feel like crying again. Nevertheless, Ill try to make this day a normal day for myself and not let anyone know. Theyll never understand. I will read the book he gave memaybe, theres a message in the poems he wants me to read. I will wear his sunglasses when I go out later. But first, I will have a good breakfast and listen to the news on the radio. I need to know whats going on out there for I havent been outside my own little world for almost a week.

THOUSAND YEAR EVE by Angelo Rodriguez Lacuesta

I HAD never been to a radio station before, and I was shocked that it looked so ordinary. Even the offices adjacent to the disc jockeys' booths resembled those government agencies where you got your license or paid your taxes: a row of desks, clicking typewriters, worn-out, obsolete computers in a dirty beige color, a bunch of hardened secretaries, and a gaggle of people shuffling around and waiting in vague lines. Off to one side, facing a corridor filled with people, were big square glass windows. Those were the disc jockey's booths. From small speakers perched above the windows came the sound of a woman's voice. Presumably that was what was on air at the time. Sure enough, in a corner of one of the windows was a little sign that said "On The Air"--just as I had expected it to be. The woman was weeping while speaking, and from where I stood, in the main office area, I thought I could see the figure of the woman in one of the booths, through the glare of reflections on the window. The woman was calling for her missing mother. She was 68 years old, about five feet tall, with graying hair, and had worn a dress with blue flowers on the day she disappeared. They had gone to the zoo a week before. They had gone there because it was a Sunday and animals fascinated her. After separating ways with her daughter for a half an hour, the old woman failed to show up at a small rest area, which was their prescribed meeting place. A three-hour wait ended in a search involving a gaggle of security guards. When closing time came-The woman's voice was interrupted by the deep, booming voice of the announcer. His tone was kind and concerned. I was surprised that it didn't sound tired, or hurried, or irritated, as I would most likely have been. It sounded just like that--exactly like that radio announcer we imagine in our head, a dislocated voice overriding

everything, but a kind voice. With enough character so you could talk back to it, regard it, but with a kind of indifference that comes from authority. It sounded as if it came from another world. The woman then resumed, explaining that her mother had Alzheimer's disease. It was strange hearing the word Alzheimer's within the tones and textures of that voice, because I could tell the woman wasn't used to saying that word, and it sat in the middle of her sentences, perfectly enunciated, like a newly built landmark that divided the past and the present. The term had been taught to her by doctors, experts, but it had surely never arisen between mother and daughter. As I joined the people huddled outside the booth I could see into it. The booth was small, and the acoustic boards that lined the walls were covered with posters of movies and singers and bands. There were old memos and announcements. Wires sprung out from a stack of equipment. The announcer sat behind a panel decked with buttons and sliding switches. He was wearing headphones and moving some of the switches. After a few moments I recognized him as a television personality. He hosted his own afternoon show. In the show he sat on a couch and fielded a string of guests. That show had a little oval inset in the corner that showed a woman performing sign language. I realized now that the show was a public service program--a televised version of the radio program he was running now. And just like that television show, his guests took their turn in front of him, entering the booth and speaking into the microphone. Their voices emerged from the speakers. After they spoke the host would speak. Then the booth door opened, a name would be called and someone from the hall would enter and sit in front of the announcer. From time to time the sequence would be broken by a string of commercials advertising soap or insurance. Briefly, the sound would brighten and a jingle would play; after some minutes someone punched in the program ID, which was a short musical passage played on an organ that had the effect of a 1950's horror or mystery show. That was because the radio show was all about unsolved cases. Then, the announcements would resume. One of the staff in the main office area called out my last name and I approached the booth. Before I could reach it the door opened and a little girl came out, tears streaming from her cheeks. In my hands I tightly held a little piece of paper. On it I had scribbled some things that I imagined would be important. I had written out a long list, fearing I would forget something that turned out to be crucial information. Inside, the air smelled of cigarette smoke and damp air-conditioning. There was a little three-foot high Christmas tree in the corner, with light bulbs that blinked on and off and a little foil hanging that said "Happy Holidays." The announcer looked at me briefly and squinted at a clipboard. He gestured to a chair and took a long drag from a cigarette. He called my name and I nodded. He switched on the microphones and announced my name on the air. All through this I was turning the paper over and over in my hands until my hands and the paper had rubbed off on each other and shared the same color. I was folding and unfolding it, until I could barely read the pencil marks. I had written out phrases and underlined key words, listed details down to the minutiae, and now they were lost to grayness. There was a microphone on a stand in front of me. I gripped the mike, adjusted its position and began to speak. I glanced down at the paper without looking, without reading, and spoke. My voice reverberated through the studio as I began relating all the details, stringing them together with prepositions, adjectives, words. My father, last seen New Year's eve, wearing a striped collared shirt, jeans and red slippers. Medium build. Black hair with white and silver streaks. 58 years old. Missing, lost, or kidnapped since New Year's Eve, four days ago. I was looking at the announcer, guessing when he would interrupt me with his silky voice.

The announcer looked at me briefly, perhaps to see if I was done, and picked up the tail end of my fading announcement with a loud burst that was meant to add excitement to my case. The announcer looked at me as he spoke, and I recognized that he was giving me words of encouragement, telling me to leave his name and contact numbers on the master list outside. I felt, in that brief glance of his, that I found all comfort and solace. Then he switched his gaze to other matters: the control panel in front of him, the cue cards passed to him by an assistant. As he looked away he added that I would know in a few days. I stood up, afforded the announcer a nervous smile, but he had turned to his list and was calling for the next guest. In the main office area there was another line of people, all waiting to sign the master list, which was merely a set of clipboards arranged in alphabetical order. There was a woman at the desk who acted officiously, reminding people to hurry up or fill in the proper blanks. After a while I noticed that the people respected her concern for order. After I filled in the blanks she offered me a Christmas greeting and reminded me that they would call me if there was any word. I stepped out of the office, past a fresh crowd that was gathering, and took a taxi to work. Though it was the first day of work after the holidays, everybody knew that my father had gone missing. My wife and I had made sure to call every one of them over the past days. By New Year's morning, we had gone through the list of friends and neighbors, people we knew to know my father; by the next day we had gone even through those who didn't know him. It was quite an awkward thing, having to greet them for the holidays and then asking them if they had seen him, or heard from him. My father was a loud, gregarious man, and it was not unusual for him to call one of his friends, out of the blue, for a chat or a drink. The office was still slumbering in the Holiday spirit when I timed in, with only a handful reporting to work. My cubicle, normally unadorned except for a wall calendar and an appointment book, was cluttered by Christmas gifts from co-workers. I turned on my computer, mindlessly sifted and reorganized files, looked at the time, and made a few tentative calls. When lunchtime came around, someone came over to my cubicle and invited me to lunch. I could tell his tone was guarded and unsure. I accepted the invitation with a voice that I hoped would not be so tainted with grief and exhaustion. I realized that the last time I had heard my own voice, besides the small remarks I had made to the taxi driver, was in the radio announcer's booth. Hearing my own voice now, exchanging pleasantries for the New Year's and agreeing to have lunch, seemed a strange and dislocating experience. Whether it was because the holidays had drained all our funds or because we were in a somber mood, we chose to have lunch at the company canteen, a few floors down. The company had set aside half an entire floor as a dining area, brightly lit and nondescript. A long stainless steel counter ran the length of the canteen, and although it was past noon, only a few people were lined up along the railing. Over lunch they asked me what had happened. I heard my voice once again telling them, over the din and the soft music, with an accuracy that startled me, every detail of our separation. After a small dinner, my father, my wife and my child went to bed to rest before the festivities. I sat in the living room, watching TV and drinking beer. An hour before midnight, my father appeared and sat with me. He said nothing, merely coughing a little now and then. Some minutes later my wife emerged with the baby. She frowned at the sight of us sitting there and immediately went into the kitchen to prepare. We had all wanted to go somewhere else to spend the holidays. My wife had wanted to take our one-year-old child up to the beach in Ilocos, where her family would be staying, and Christmas and New Year's would be light and cold. I had made hotel reservations for myself and possibly a few friends, where I could sit and stew through the season. After a while, my father and I took four worn tires from our garage and rolled them out to the street, piled them carefully in the middle, sprinkled a little kerosene and set the whole thing on fire. By that time our entire street was studded with tire bonfires and lined with people who had come out to watch the explosions and count the minutes.

That New Year's Eve was the millennium's eve. If anything, it meant that the explosions would be louder and the fireworks bigger and brighter. A half-hour away from midnight, the night sky was lit up with swirls of color, and from time to time, the swirls would reach down and ignite the street like lightning. On CNN they had followed the millennium celebrations as the stroke of midnight crept across the world, jumping from country to country, showing an assortment of cultural celebrations and fireworks. They had been doing this since early evening, and by the time it was almost our time, the whole thing had begun to weigh heavily on me. My wife was still in the kitchen with the maid, preparing the New Year's Eve dinner. There were only three of us living in the small apartment, but my father always had visitors--all old men--coming in after midnight, until the morning hours. By dawn our living room would be filled with old men, and the smell of old men, and the smell of cigars, cigarettes and liquor. I decided that after the midnight celebrations I would retire to my study and do some reading. Because it was the millennium, we had stocked up on more fireworks than ever--and more than was necessary. By five minutes to midnight, the whole street was filled with fire and smoke. My ears were ringing and a thick fog of gunpowder smoke hung in the air. My father had changed from his pajamas into a striped, long-sleeved shirt and jeans. This was all protection--he always loved to stand close to the fire and toss in the fireworks, as though he were tossing garlic and onions into a frying pan. When the fire had reached its full height, we sat on either side of our pile of fireworks--worth a lot of money if you ask me, but still not worth much against the a sky that seemed like a sea of explosions. We tested our noise levels with a few firecrackers, and we were satisfied with the volley of small explosions they made, echoing back and forth against the high walls of our neighborhood fences. As the firecrackers split open in the fire my father looked at me and said something I could not hear. By this time the explosions on the street had risen steadily into a continuous barrage. My father stood up and gathered an armful of big rockets. I was looking at my watch, counting down the seconds. I shouted for my wife to come out for the big bang, but she merely looked at me through the living room windows. The baby was crying hysterically from all the noise. From the corner of my eye I thought I could see my father walking up the street, picking a path among the flare of fountains, the shockwaves of homemade bombs, and the sibilance of rockets shooting into the sky. I was seeing this from the corner of my eye; I didn't bother to call out to him because, thinking harder about it, I had believed all along that it wasn't him, it was someone else walking down the street. As the night turned to midnight and the sky and the street erupted into each other I looked around our bonfire for my father. When the next lull came, several minutes later, I realized that he had gone. Is there any story that hasn't been told? Any incident that can be told without anybody thinking, I haven't heard anything like that before. Everything's been told, and told better. At the radio station there was a man who was calling out to his older brother who had neglected to send money from Kuwait, where he worked as an engineer. There was an old woman who cried for justice for her son, who had been raped and beaten to an inch of his life, and whose pulverized jaw could not even accommodate a whisper of the name of his attacker. And there are other stories, other mysteries, wherever we go. They had mysteries like this day in, day out, at the radio station, at the police precinct, at the barangay hall. In fact, all these places and cases so closely resembled one another that the pictures of the dead and missing, the telephone numbers to call and the people to ask for on the phone, these names and things all vibrated into each other and began to look the same. Every 68-year-old woman stood five-foot tall, had graying hair, and wore a flowery dress. Every old man looked the same. In the taxis I rode, the radios were constantly tuned to the AM band, where the mystery show aired in the mornings and in the afternoons. Occasionally, breaking news came through the airwaves, involving phone calls from lawyers offering help or concerned citizens reporting the whereabouts of those lost and those who had run away. There were agencies and offices and even individuals out there who concerned themselves with the lost and the disappeared and the uncollected. I had earlier tried to solicit their help, but they told me the sheer volume of their clientele meant I might be attended to in many weeks' time. At that I resolved to do my own searching. By the end of the second week my father was still missing and I had almost grown desperate, but decided that it would be too late to go back to the help agencies.

My wife had delayed her move to Ilocos for the meantime. Whenever I got home, often very late after long hours at work and a slow, thoughtful reconnaissance around our neighborhood streets, I would be mildly surprised to still find her in her room, sleeping with the baby in her arms. I would sit and watch TV in the living room and discover that the persevering presence of my family had a difficult, grating character. By that time I realized I had owed her more than I could ever hope to repay and repair. During those moments I agonized over the unanswered questions. Was my father, in fact, dead, killed at midnight by an explosion? I imagined a stray bullet falling from the sky, or a rocket veering off course to strike my father's slow-moving figure dead center. But I shrugged off these possibilities as too impossibly fantastic. Surely the key to my father's disappearance lay in circumstances more spectacular. I also reflected briefly on whether my father might have been the victim of a crime, such as an assassination or a kidnapping. I took to scouring the papers for any news of salvagings and unclaimed corpses. I was thankful for finding no such news, and decided that such a savage crime could not happen to my father. We were not exactly rich folk, and my father did not maintain a high position anywhere. If he was anything, he was simply and merely my father. It would have been a case of mistaken identity. Still, I went to a newspaper to report it. A reporter asked me about the incident and, tired from the nth telling, I merely rattled off the details into his dictaphone. You forget the meaning of words the more you say them. But as I recited them I imagined the numbers and the details would bring my father from the void and contain him. I felt like a magician, a medicine man, uttering a spell composed of strange words, a litany of broken Latin that had to be repeated again and again, ad nauseum, until your familiar agreed to appear. In a few days a small article appeared in the broadsheets, repeating my words, tucked under the bigger news of the current political expose. It also appeared in the tabloids, where it graced the pages where the small, sensational crimes of the day were reported. More than once, the thought occurred to me that he might have faked his disappearance, that he might have walked away from our disintegrating life and marriage in order to save it. Or that he had turned an old pair of eyes upon himself and, seeing an old man growing older and unneeded in his son's household, decided to skip town and join his old gang in a journey to points unknown. After all, I seemed to remember that he had a thoughtful look in his eyes on the night he disappeared. Such possibilities lay open and waiting before me as I sat in my living room, looking at the news on TV and pondering my next move. I knew that such possibilities were very clear to my wife. After all, she had known my father all these years and she had come to know everything he was, as much as she knew everything about his son. It was becoming an unsolved case. I remembered the organ stinger from the radio show and the woman at the radio station who had lost her mother at the zoo. I remembered hearing of old men and women going missing for days, even weeks, and I could see these old folks wandering from bus stop to bus stop, sleeping at the foot of buildings and begging for food. I imagined that after a while, they would have to build an entirely new life for themselves, without previous memories, like babies born to a new world. It was at that time that I thought of summoning other, metaphysical means. A friend of a friend knew of a medium who specialized in lost items, and, wondering whether my father would count as a lost item, I contacted him. This time I was asked to bring a personal item of the lost individual. I could not bring anything very substantial, since my father had brought his wallet, put on his only cap, worn the watch I had given him many years before, and taken his only pair of shoes with him. I only managed to present a very old pair of bathroom slippers to the medium, who seemed to cringe at the sight of them. The medium himself was an old man who wore a dingy robe whenever he performed his "readings." He clucked his tongue and declared that the item I had brought would certainly not do much, but added quickly that he would try, slapping down a worn down deck of Spanish cards on the table. He made reshufflings and rereadings and offered several vague guesses about my father. Then he glared at me and decided that the old man might not be in the realm he was searching, or that he could be eluding his third eye. For a fee he agreed to perform periodic searches in the ethereal plane and assured me that if my father wanted to contact me, he would find a way.

True enough, that night I dreamt of finding my father. I dreamt that it was a clear night, like the night he disappeared, except there were no fireworks, nothing in the sky, not even the moon or the stars. In my dream he wanted to return and to signal his intention he lit the fireworks he had brought with him. Each rocket burned perfectly and burst perfectly in the night sky, exploding cleanly, like five exclamation points. In my dream world the phone rang: "We've found your missing relative." I dressed quickly, feverishly, even forgoing my pants and socks. But when I arrived at the station to claim him, they showed me a different old man, sitting on a chair, sipping Coke from a small plastic bag. On the table beside him lay a half-eaten sandwich. In dreams, it seems, food is always half-eaten and everyone, most especially the dreamer, is almost always half-dressed. In dreams there are only half-discoveries. In dreams we expect to be tricked and are constantly jumpy, awaiting the strange twist or the inevitable fall. In the event of the latter, even a peaceful death is denied us, and we awake, sweaty and eyeballs still moving. As we spend the first waking moments trying desperately to remember our dream lives or wondering if a death in dreams provokes our real deaths, everything is soon forgotten and we move and live in the natural world. The morning I awakened to was bright, oxygen-rich, with the sounds of my wife and child in the next room. I had dinner with my wife on the eve of her departure for Ilocos. She had prepared a simple meal, spare but thoughtfully prepared and accompanied by wine, as we had always had in the beginning. We did not speak at first, but after a few minutes I stammered a few compliments about the meal and thanked her for her support during the whole affair. I didn't know myself whether I was talking about my ordeal about my lost father, or the seven-year marriage. She smiled and as she spoke I could see in her eyes a new clarity and a great hope for her future and the future of the baby. Still, I was foolish enough to imagine that her pity for me and my continuing predicament would compel her to stay. Over coffee she gave me her contact numbers and e-mail addresses and offered an open invitation to visit. I returned her invitation. Some weeks later I found myself at the radio station again, taking my place in the line across the booth. I looked at the announcer expectantly, to see if he remembered me. He didn't, of course. When it was my turn to speak, I discovered that time had rubbed the details down to an old, dull, unremarkable list of descriptions that could have matched anyone's. I might have been describing the old stranger I had dreamed of. I might have even been describing myself thirty, forty years later. I imagined my own voice filtering through the mesh gate of the microphone in my hands, transported through the wires. I imagined it bursting through the overhead speakers like fireworks, bouncing off satellites, picked up by radios and skimming off the minds of listeners, sitting in their cars and their afternoon reveries.

PROJECT IN ENGLISH
Submitted by: Samuel Kenneth Baldoza I-Oxygen