Paquette’s Birthday
by Herb Henson
“There were no problems in Antipuluan until the American came here,” Jess said. As he talked, his strong fisherman’s fingers moved deftly, alternately weaving, then tying, two lengths of monofilament fishing line into small squares.
“The American bothers no one as far as I can see,” Meding replied. The old woman was stripping fiber threads from the husk of a dried coconut. Later, she would braid and splice these threads into a single strong line for use as the outer edge of the fishing net. The two were sitting on the porch of Meding’s house.
“Anyway, we don’t know that Tassig is dead,” Meding said.
Jess shook his head. “A man goes fishing as he has every day since he was a boy in waters he has fished many years. He doesn’t return to the village and his wife and children for three days and nights. Yes, I think he must be dead.”
They continued working for a few minutes without talking. Gusts of wind rustled the thatch roof of the house. As he worked, Jess watched the horizon to the east where black clouds had gathered, filling the sky. The bay and the Sulu Sea beyond the reef stirred restlessly, whitecaps forming in the freshening breeze. Outrigger fishing boats, nosed up to the nearby beach and tethered to coconut trees, rose and fell in the waves.
“Other unexplained things have happened, too,” Jess said. “Rosemary, the daughter of George, also mysteriously missing; pigs, dogs, and chickens gone without a trace. Things like these did not happen before the American came here.”
Meding studied the tone of his voice — something more than just concern, she thought. Resentment? What the young man said was true, but she could not see what part the American could have had in these things that were disturbing the tranquility of their village. As the oldest and most respected of Antipuluan’s elders, she was expected to know what to do to restore things to normal. She knew that Jess, the unofficial leader of the men, had come to her for her opinion and advice. But she wasn’t ready to give it yet.
“I will think about what you have said,” she told him, delaying any decision.
Jess nodded. His business finished, it was time for him to go. He got up and carefully laid the net aside. “I must see to my boat now,” he said.
He left the porch and walked quickly through the grove of coconut trees to the beach, his long black hair blowing in the wind. Other fishermen were already there. Bare to the waist, muscles rippling under sun-darkened skin, they worked together heaving their boats out of the water and up on the beach, safe from the approaching storm.
Meding folded and stowed the net under the porch. Inside the house, she closed and latched woven bamboo shutters over the windows. She was just in time. The rain began, only a few drops at first, then a drenching downpour. Snug inside, she stoked the cooking fire, palmed a handful of rice into a pan of water, then balanced the blackened pan on the rocks over the fire. She worked mechanically, her mind busy sorting and defining questions to be answered. Is the American somehow causing our troubles? Is it just coincidence that these things happened after he came to the village? What is the connection?
It had grown cold. She wrapped an old sweater around her shoulders and sat crosslegged on the floor by the fire. Underneath the house, sheltered from the rain, her animals complained noisily about their close quarters. She watched the water in the pan as it started to boil and thought back to when the American had arrived in Antipuluan two weeks earlier. The American’s wife, Paquette, had been born and raised here. Hers was a local success story. After finishing high school in Puerto Princesa, the island’s capital city, Paquette had gone to the United States to live with an American family and to go to college on a scholarship. Then and now this was a rare opportunity for a young Filipina from a poor family. Everyone in the village had been excited about Paquette’s adventure and good fortune. That was ten years ago. Now the young woman was back home to visit and had brought along her American husband and their young son. The three were staying with Paquette’s sister, a half-kilometer up the beach from Meding’s house.
The rice was ready. Meding spooned a helping into a bowl and mixed in wild greens and pieces of dried fish.
Seated again by the fire, she ate her meal and resumed her analysis.
The day after she and her family had arrived in Antipuluan, Paquette had come to Meding’s house to pay her respects. She came alone just after the morning meal and brought pandisal bread and mangoes in a basket. Like Meding, she wore the tapis dress favored by the island women, wrapped around her figure, tucked and secured above her breasts. Meding had been busy building small fires in her yard, making smoke to drive off the mosquitoes that always came during the night. After the two had embraced, Meding held Paquette at arm’s length.
“You have improved in size,” she said, smiling.
Paquette laughed, flashing perfect white teeth. “You mean I have become fat?”
“No, no. You are the same pretty girl I remember, only now you have filled out and become a beautiful woman.”
It was true. But if Paquette had stayed here in the village, Meding thought, she would now be gap-toothed and worn like her less fortunate schoolmates.
While Meding heated water for coffee, Paquette explained that she and her family had returned to Antipuluan so that they could celebrate her birthday in the place where she was born.
“When is your birthday?” Meding asked.
“Two days from today.”
“There will be a party?”
“Yes, in the evening when it is cool,” Paquette explained. “And during the day we will be taking a trip to satisfy a curiosity I have had since I was a little girl.”
Paquette pointed toward the sea to a tiny hump visible on the horizon.
“Since I was a child collecting shells along this beach, I have wanted to visit that island,” she said. “In my mind then it was a very beautiful place. Now, finally, I shall go there and see for myself. My brother-in-law, Roberto, will take us in his boat.”
“The place is called Arena Island,” Meding said. “No one lives there, only sea birds.”
“You have been to the island?”
“Only once. I brought something back. Come, let me show you.”
They put their coffee cups aside and Meding led the way around to the back of her house. A bamboo cage sat under the overhang of the house, supported above the ground on several flat rocks.
“Nick nick,” Meding said.
At the sound of her voice, a gray-plumed head on a long, feathered neck popped up between the bamboo bars of the cage.
“Nick nick,” the bird responded.
Paquette laughed with delight.
“He is my pet,” Meding said, loosing the catch at the top of the cage. The bird nuzzled her fingers. “His name is Nick-Nick and he is a sea heron. I took Nick-Nick’s egg from his mother’s nest in the sand on Arena Island two years ago.”
“He is wonderful,” Paquette said.
Meding lifted the heron from the cage and set him on the ground at her feet. The bird sprang away and bounded about the yard, his head bobbing up and down.
“Nick nick, nick nick,” the bird chortled as he ran. Meding’s sow squealed with annoyance as Nick-Nick sprinted past her bed of mud.
“You must bring your husband and son to see him,” Meding told Paquette. “Come at feeding time. He eats only fish, so his mealtime is just before siesta when the men return from fishing.”
“I will bring them,” Paquette promised.