“Do you know where he’s going?” she asked. She wiped her fat, oily face with her apron and went back to the stove.
“He is taking a shortcut to the rice mill,” I said. “If you have something to say, say it.”
“You’ll find out yourself,” she said. “You’ll find out.”
“You are a witch!”
“Follow him, then,” she said. She shook the ladle at me and laughed again.
“You old witch,” I said, flinging the spoon at her.
For a woman of her build, she dodged nimbly. As I left, her roiling laughter trailed me.
It was not easy to forget what Sepa had said, but in time I did forget, for there was Carmay and boys like Angel with whom I played. Father started leaving the house more often. He would be out the whole night and return only in the morning. I never bothered asking him, for he worked hard, managing his farm and Don Vicente’s, and if he did play chess even for a whole week, it was his business and I would not interfere.
Angel and I were out in the fields near the rice mill one gusty April afternoon. We were flying a kite I fashioned out of Father’s extra Christmas wrapping papers the year past. Angel let me launch it alone; it was a perfect kite, for I had just run a short distance when a puff of wind picked it up and sent it soaring to the sky. It wavered sideways, then hovered motionless in the air, its string uncoiled to the very handle, taut and tugging at my hand.
With my kite safely up, I sat down in the shade of a banaba and dismissed Angel, for I no longer needed his help. He had barely disappeared beyond the turn of the path when a strong wind swept the sky; the string snapped, and the kite started its slow, swaying descent.
I raced across the field and followed the kite as it was blown farther away. In a while I found myself near the river, beyond the rice mill. I ran up the mountain of black ash, and as I reached the top I looked down and saw Father walking swiftly along the bend of the river to the new nipa house on the lot where Martina and her father had once lived.
For an instant, I wanted to call out to him and tell him of the kite that was now drifting down the river, but it became apparent that he was in a hurry. What Sepa had said rankled in my mind, and I hurried down the ash mound and trailed him.
Father walked quickly, as if he was afraid someone was following him. As he neared the nipa house, a woman I had never seen before came out. She hurried past the bamboo gate to the path, and as Father drew near, her arm went around his waist, and arm in arm they went up to the house.
I crouched behind a sapling, numb in spirit, and forgot all about the kite. I remembered Mother’s whitewashed grave and Father’s angry voice when he saw me wearing her dress. When I finally went home, the sun had sunk and Rosales was empty and dark.
All through the night, I could not sleep. When Father arrived at dawn amidst the howling of the dogs, for the first time I loathed him.
He appeared at the breakfast table in excellent spirits, his face radiating happiness. He must have noticed my glumness, for he asked me what the matter was. I shook my head and did not answer.
The whole day I stayed in the bodega with my air gun idle in my hands. Many rats were out in the open, scampering in the eaves and on the sacks of grain, clear targets all, but somehow they no longer interested me.
And at the supper table after all had left, Sepa came and tried to humor me.
Unable to contain myself anymore, I went to Father, who was smoking in the azotea.
“I was near the rice mill yesterday afternoon,” I said, hedging close to him. The rocking of his chair stopped; he knocked his pipe on the sill and turned to me.
“What were you doing there?”
“I was flying a kite,” I said, looking down at my rubber shoes, unable to meet his gaze. “Its string snapped and I chased it. I went near the new house by the river.”
I looked quickly at him and saw in the cool light of the Aladdin lamp his tired, aging face.
“What else did you do?” he asked, his voice barely rising above a whisper.
“Nothing,” I said. “I saw you.”
He looked away and said quietly, “I don’t have to explain anything.” And with a wave of his hand, he ordered me away.
I waited until I was sure the house was quiet, then I stole into the kitchen and with the meat cleaver, I busted my bamboo bank and filled my pockets with the silver coins. The back door was open, and without a sound I stepped out into the moonlight.
Sepa was at the gate. She sat beneath the pergola, smoking a hand-rolled cigar whose light burned clear like sapphire in the soft dark.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“Do not interfere,” I said. “You are a cook and nothing else.”
She held my arm, but I brushed her away. Undaunted, she stood up and followed me to the street. In the moonlight, she peered at me. “Young one,” she said, “it’s a nice night for taking a walk, isn’t it?”
I did not speak.
She said lightly, “It’s a lot better sleeping out in the open than in a room stuffy with curtains and mosquito nets.” Her hand alighted on my shoulder. “But then sometimes it rains, and then there’s the heat of the highway, and the awful dust that spreads and itches and soon pocks your body with sores.”
“Leave me alone,” I said.
“I should, but listen. It is a man who understands, who knows that life isn’t always cozy,” she said with a wisp of sadness in her voice. “We would like to see things as we want them to be. Unfortunately, that can’t always be.”
We reached the town plaza, which was now deserted of promenaders and the children skating in the kiosk. The plaza was lined with rows of banaba trees glistening in the moonlight.
“Take these trees,” she said, “how wonderful it would be if all through the year they were blooming. But the seasons change just like people. There is nothing really that lasts. Even the mountains don’t stand forever. But people, I am sure, can be steadfast if they have faith.”
Her hand on my shoulder was light, and as I walked slowly she kept pace with me. With her wooden shoe, she kicked at a tin can and sent it clattering down the asphalt.
“Who is she, Sepa?” I asked after a while.
“Who?”
“You know whom I mean.”
“She is good-looking. She came from a village in the next town … was a barrio fiesta queen.”
“Did Father build the new house for her?”
“That’s all I know,” she said. After a while, from out of the quiet, she spoke again: “You know how it is with the hilot—the midwives who deliver babies. I’m one, too. Remember? Sometimes they have to use force to hasten birth and lessen the mother’s suffering. It’s always better for the mother and the baby, but it doesn’t always look good with the hilot. She is misunderstood.”
“I understand you perfectly,” I said flatly.
Sepa sighed: “I still believe your mother was the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and more than that I believe, too, that she bequeathed much of her graciousness to her only child. And your father — he is a wonderful man.”
Then it was November again, and the rains no longer came in gusts; the sun shone and the grain ripened, and all over the land the rich smell of harvest hung heavy and sweet. There would be smoke in the early evenings and the delicious odor of roasting, half-ripe, gelatinous rice, and there would be pots of bubbling sweets — camotes, bananas, langka. The mornings would be washed with dew, and I would lie longer in bed till the sun roasted my brain.
It was on one such morning that I was roused from sleep. Father had swept into my room, his leather boots creaking; he tapped the iron bedpost with the steel butt of his riding stick, and in the bronze glimmer of day, he stood before me, big and impressive. “A hunter must rise ahead of the sun,” he said.