42opus

is an online magazine of the literary arts.

10 October 2007 | Vol. 7, No. 3

Jewel

The pig's cage was in the corner of the yard in deep grass. She scratched its hairy black back with a stick, and it grunted and leaned into the bars. She rubbed the rough hide.

"You spend too much time with that animal." Tiya squatted in the doorway of the cottage sifting rice in a flat basket. The grains jumped in the air and whispered as they hit the dry reeds. "It's only a pig."

"He's a good pig," Lisa said.

"A pig is a pig," the old woman said, and rose slowly, a hand on her back. "A pig is only good for one thing." She went inside out of the sun.

"Good pig," Lisa said, rubbing its side. "Good pig."

She sat in the grass, back to the cage, shaded by a fringed Sugar palm. The pig snuffled wetly beside her. She tore a blade of grass and threaded it through her fingers. The bruised stem left a green stain on her skin. She drew juicy green dots and whorls on the pale underside of her arm and snaking up her narrow calf.

Tiya would scrub the marks if she saw them, shaking her head and clicking her tongue. Lisa licked a thumb and slowly rubbed them out.

In the sunlight beyond the dark circle around the cage, the neat, whitewashed house shimmered in the sun. At night, the wind fingered the roof's tight layers of dried grass, sighing, and the smooth wood floors and bamboo walls gave off a dusty scent like cinnamon. She would lie under the white mosquito netting and watch the gauze breathe, rising and falling in eddies from the slow, spinning blades of the overhead fan. It was difficult to sleep in the murmuring, watchful house, but in the afternoon it was still and quiet. She had nowhere to go. It would be hours before her father came home. In the cool nest of lemony grass she shut her eyes.

Lisa's father spent his days at the university, where the Dean had invited him to lecture for the summer. He hadn't been given tenure at the small Midwestern college where he taught during the year, but in The Philippines there were opportunities for an educated American with contacts. This visit might be the start of a new life, he had told her. Asia was wide open, he said, wide open. A dollar could buy a lot of pesos. They would work hard to make a good impression, and they would be asked to return, or perhaps they would stay. In the meantime, the house they lived in, and the pig, belonged to the Dean.

In the evenings, in the cottage, her father practiced his lectures, walking up and down the wood-lined rooms, gesturing, to the glowing lamps, to the wood walls, to her. She didn't understand his work—something about trade and resources, something about selling—but she would say, "Very good, Daddy, very nice."

Her mother had understood his theories, had sifted through pages of his looping script and wandering sentences and fashioned his manuscripts. She was patient and admiring. In the afternoons, she and Lisa would sit near the open window and watch for her father on the street below. When they saw him they would run to the front door. Beneath their feet he'd be pressing the elevator button and patting his pockets for the key. The cables would thrum as he rose to them, the key would click in the lock, and, finally, he would step into the room in a gust of cold air. Lisa would search his pockets for trinkets. She would put her tiny feet on his long black shoes, and he would spin her around the room.

After her mother died, he worked longer hours, but fell further behind. His articles went unpublished. He would begin a sentence and drift into silence, hold a scarf or a comb and turn it over and over in his hands. He jumped from project to project, was mute one moment and manic the next.

Lisa tried to make it better. She would meet him at the door and take his coat. She listened as he talked about his day, what a student had said, or how the bus was late. His voice would rumble over her like white noise, and she would nod and murmur. It felt right to listen. It made her mother seem present. It made him happy. Happier.

In the cottage, as night fell, her father said, "You must be bored here all day. You must be lonely. It's not much of a vacation for you, is it?"

"It's fine, Itay."

"You're learning a new language, at least."

"Talaga." It's true.

"I'll get you a tutor."

"Tiya can teach me," she said.

"One of the students perhaps."

"If you say so."

"You're a good girl."

She was almost sixteen. She understood that her father had stopped seeing her. He was preoccupied or else she was a painful reminder; she had her mother's fine bones and startling light eyes. When she looked in the oval mirror on the cottage wall, all she could see was a jumble of bones. She was a puzzle, the pieces stretched into nameless, aching, indistinct shapes.

The tutor was soft-spoken. His long face was pitted with scars, blue against his dark skin and mysterious like tribal designs. His name was Mitchie Torre. He tapped the kitchen table.

"Lamesa," he said. "We two sit, upo, and drink tsaa at the lamesa."

"Lamesa, upo, tsaa," Lisa said.

At the stove, Tiya sniffed. "Some people. Some people have nothing better to do than talk."

"Tsaang malamig, cold tea," Mitchie said steadily. "From tired old leaves. The man drinks tsaang malamig in the woman's big, empty kitchen."

Tiya sniffed, but lit a flame under the kettle.

Lisa smiled into her palm.

"Maybe a few outdoor words," Mitchie said, and followed her into the overgrown yard. The grass brushed their legs as they walked.

Mitchie paused at the pig's cage. "Baboy," he said. "A nice fat pig."

"My friend," she said, and immediately regretted it. It sounded childish. "Baboy," she said quickly. "Big, fat baboy." The pig rolled on its side and sighed.

They walked around the garden naming plants. At the edge of the dusty road Mitchie stopped and lifted his chin to the terraced mountains. "It's not like where you come from?"

"Where I come from is flat and cold. Malamig."

"Malamig, yes. Here we work in the sun."

"Not you," she said.

"Because I study? No, you see?" He held out his arm. The top was dark, like coffee, but beneath it the brown was shot with cream. She put her pale forearm next to his, and they stood a moment looking at their two arms touching.

"We shouldn't waste the tea," he said, and put his hands in his pockets.

They stepped into the shade.

"Tsaa, fat baboy" Lisa told the drowsing pig as they passed. "Tsaa with Mitchie at the lamesa."

Mitchie held open the door.

The Dean lived in the big house on the rise, overlooking a manicured lawn lined with palms, spidery orchids, and limp, ripe Medinilla blossoms. There was a fountain, with dimpled cherubs, and a gravel driveway that wound from the dirt road to the pillar-lined front porch. Inside, the floors were covered with thick, Oriental rugs, and the walls with gilt-edged oil paintings.

When they first visited, Lisa had marveled at the portraits lining the entry. The women wore bright, beaded dresses, the starched shoulders of their sleeves rising high around their necks like collars. The men stood impassively behind them, their eyes hooded. They were like kings and queens.

The Dean's son had come up behind her. Boy, he was called. His hair was slick against his head. He had stood too close, near enough for her to smell the cloying sweetness of his aftershave and, beneath it, a hint of something acrid.

"Old paintings of dead people: these are not for young American girls, I think. Americans like fun, no? Loud music, fast cars."

"They're lovely, really."

"No, no. You'll find it tiresome. This is what you Americans call the 'third world,' after all. We're behind the times. But not so bad as this." He waved his hand dismissively at the paintings. "We can do better than this for entertainment."

He had squeezed her arm, and she had edged away, smiling politely.

Now she was back on the wide veranda at Boy's invitation. Her father had insisted.

"He's creepy," she said.

"Really, Lisa, don't be rude. You've barely met him. I'm sure he's a fine young man. Give him a chance."

She stepped through the wide doors and followed a pounding bass beat. In the living room, Boy was dancing, his eyes closed and a cigarette dangling from his lips. Ash fell, and he ground it into the carpet.

"Lisa, Lisa," he said, opening his eyes. He dropped the cigarette in a cloisonne bowl. "Good, you came. Come dance with me little Lisa."

His shirt was off. His fleshy chest glistened.

"Come." He took her hand and spun her. The song ended and a slower one began. He pulled her close, his hands on her back.

The breath in her ear was smoky. Through the sheer curtains she could see a line of trees, and above their branches the gentle arch of the cottage roof.

"Lisa, Lisa," he hummed. "Pretty American Lisa."

When she was small, she would hide in the closet—not hide so much as be. She would press her face into her mother's furs and the silky lining of her father's jackets. She would slip her feet into their giant shoes, her mother's pumps like stilts, and she would wiggle her toes. She would fill her chest with the bitter smell of mothballs and her ears with cloth-muffled silence. Some days it would be hours before they found her.

Her father had given away her mother's clothes when she died. There were cold white spaces in the closet between his hanging suits, echoing bare wall. Then they moved, and she had no special place.

Pressed to Boy, his sweat dampening her shirt, she closed her eyes and tried to remember what quiet felt like. She tried to remember the feathery softness of the fur on her cheek and the thick, cottony silence. She willed herself into that small, safe space, but his hands were on her back and she was hard against his unfamiliar shape. Then the song ended, and in the moment of silence between the tracks, he said her name as if tasting it: "LeeeSaaa."

He released her, and she fled.

That night, she waited in the dark doorway as her father came up the walk. He kissed her cheek and she took his bag.

"How was your day?" he asked.

His hair was mussed, as if he'd been pulling it in frustration. His shirt was wilted, and there were circles of sweat under his arms.

"It was fine," she said. "Tiya has dinner waiting."

"And Boy?" he said, sitting heavily on the high-backed chair by the door. "How was it with him?" He pulled off his shoes and rubbed his feet. He sighed, relaxing.

She squeezed his bag to her chest.

"He played music, and we danced," she said.

He loosened his tie. "That's good," he said. "I told you."

Lisa's language lessons continued, away from Tiya's sharp tongue.

The road they were on twisted and curved around the terraced mountain like a snake and, beyond the edge, dropped sharply away. She dug her fingers into Mitchie's shoulders and kept her eyes on the horizon.

They stopped at a small shop. The sun was high. They sat on the steps drinking cold, sweetened limejuice and eating soft rolls.

"To hunger, gutom. To eat, kain," Mitchie said.

She nodded, her mouth full of sweet bread.

"And for someone who talks too much—this is not your problem—we say tulak ng bibig, this one has two mouths."

The narrow street was empty. Strains of tinny music floated through the open shop window. A yellow dog in the shade of the tiled roof twitched and trembled in its sleep. On the wall above them, a sleek lizard tilted his head and eyed them. It scurried into a crack and disappeared.

Lisa's legs still tingled from the ride up the hill. Her lips stung pleasantly from the limes. She felt slow and comfortable in the sun. She wanted the moment to last.

"What?" Mitchie said.

"Nothing. I like it here."

"Yes. It's nice," he said, watching her stretch. He looked away. "There are parts that are not so nice, though. Places you wouldn't like."

"How do you mean?"

He shrugged. "We're a poor nation."

They walked back to the bike. She climbed up behind him. The knots of his backbone pushed through his thin shirt. They looked like the keys of an instrument, and she wondered how they would sound if she ran a finger along them. She clenched her hands.

"Show me," she said.

"I don't think so."

"I'll never know what it's like then. What it's really like."

"You won't be frightened?"

"You'll be there."

He kicked the bike into life. "Hold on," he said.

They rode into the valley.

Lisa followed Mitchie through row after row of listing tin shacks. Puff-bellied children tugged at her hands and clothes. They stroked her white skin and made darting swipes at her yellow hair. They giggled and covered their broken teeth with dirty fingers. She emptied her pockets into their hands. She undid the clasp on her thin silver chain and dropped it in a boy's open hand. He ran off shouting, waving the necklace like a flag.

An oily stream ran sluggishly beside the walkway, its banks lined with garbage: plastic bags, torn paper, twisted metal, and the sodden, fly-blackened carcass of a dog. A rat poked its pink nose through the bones. The smell was like a living creature burrowing into her skin and infesting her clothes. She wanted to cover her nose, but she was ashamed. People lived here.

"Your family is wealthy?" Mitchie said.

"Not wealthy."