“Did you see that?” asks Jose.
“Don’t let them see you looking.” She says this more as a constant reminder than in response to current danger.
“An American must have escaped.”
Mrs. Garcia did not want to leave Trinidad. She’s worried about the child, but this is the same reason she doesn’t want her on the bus. Who knows what she might say and who might hear it? When Trinidad first came to the province, she wouldn’t speak. Now she speaks all the time, crazy stuff. What do you expect? Intramuros had been emptied of everyone she knew, and there she was — little Trinidad, wandering around. No one knows where her parents are, or Miguel, or what happened to the house. Mrs. Garcia pushes a tear off her cheek with the back of her hand. She grimaces when she does this, as though dust has irritated her eyes. Yes, her stupid son probably was keeping a radio. All those years of law school down the drain.
Shori hears banging on the metal gate. Will he never be able to take his nap? He peeks out of the door. He hears his houseboy’s voice. “Important that sir sleep.” But curiosity gets the better of him and he steps onto his balcony. There are two soldiers.
“What brings you here?” asks Shori.
“An American has escaped.”
“Have you alerted the guard?” “Woken up” would be better. That fat ass sits in the pillbox all day. He should drink. That would be better than this nameless, compulsive sloth. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Shori has told the guard to keep the natives on their toes. The guard has interpreted this creatively. Shori has seen a woman creep into the pillbox. He has seen her creep out, her hands bulging with cigarettes. He wanted to say something, but was worried. That guard knows that Shori spends all day in his house. He probably senses that Shori just wants the war to be over, that he is thinking, If the Americans invade, I can go home. Shori must pluck out this ugly thought time and time again, as if it were a stubborn weed. Better not to stir the guard. Better to leave him sedated with food and aboriginal sex. How sympathetic everyone would be if they only knew how hard it is to govern.
Trinidad pushes open the gate. She looks up and down the street. No one is about, except for a lame dog hobbling along. He stops to sniff at some garbage. Trinidad wonders why no one has eaten him yet. She slips through the gate, pulling it shut behind her. She is wearing her good patent leather shoes with the shiny buckles. Some sense of occasion has made her do this. She has plaited her hair; the right braid is perfect, but the left has ridged bumps rising out from the part. No matter. She has more important things to think about. The woman in the basement is angry; her moaning kept Trinidad up all night. But Trinidad’s mind is still clear. She walks quickly, not looking to the right or left. She would like to get there before people start waking up from their siestas.
Mrs. Garcia massages her cousin’s legs. High blood pressure. Poor Lourdes. And she no longer has her medicine.
“How does that feel?”
“Good, of course,” says Lourdes.
“This war is bad for all of us.”
Lourdes laughs, sticking her tongue through the gap where her two front teeth once stood guard. She laughs, poking her tongue through this space, making a hissing sound. “War or no war, I am supposed to die. I am an old woman with a bad heart. No injustice there.”
Mrs. Garcia’s eyes fill with tears, but she catches herself just in time. Her eyes are wells, but no tears fall.
“What are you thinking of?” Lourdes asks.
“Even without this war, you will die. I have no hope of keeping you around. I have already started to miss you.” Mrs. Garcia leans back to sit on the floor. She gives up her stoicism and lets the tears roll down her face.
Lourdes starts to laugh again, in sympathy for her cousin. “At least I won’t have to live much longer under the Japanese.” She leans back in her rocker. “And to think, you’re just waiting for the Americans to return.”
Mrs. Garcia looks at her cousin. She is right.
“Why is it,” says Lourdes, “that every damned time one conqueror shoots at another, there’s some stupid Filipino standing in the middle?”
Lourdes plants her crooked forefinger in the center of her forehead.
This, finally, makes Mrs. Garcia laugh.
• • •
How can there be another person at the gate? And this time, Shori really was about to drift off. Dreams are the only escape from this place. Shori can hear the houseboy. It’s Tagalog. What business can a native have at his doorstep? Shori pulls himself up. He walks again to the balcony. Walking is like swimming in this heat. There is a girl at the gate.
“Are you selling something?” asks Shori.
The girl immediately bows her head. She is silent.
“What does she want?”
“I don’t know, sir,” says the houseboy. “She insists on seeing you. She says it is important.”
“What do you want?” Shori asks.
“American.” Trinidad is unaware of the lucky coincidence that day. Shori waves her inside. He was hoping that the American would surface in some other town. Who knows? Maybe this girl is lying.
Jose is almost finished with the living room floor. Mrs. Aragon says that she is nearly blind and doesn’t care about the state of the floors anymore. But Mrs. Garcia insists. Every Friday Jose sets to working the red wax into the floorboards, polishing with the coconut husk beneath his foot. This takes him longer than most, but who else will do it? It is hot, but Mrs. Garcia is wearing a scarf. Earlier, when she thought Jose was not looking, she unwrapped it for Mrs. Aragon to see the deep scratches in her neck — five neatly spaced lines as though intended for music. And imagine. That little loca Trinidad asking him that morning what was up with the scarf. Why would her grandmother wear such a thing in this heat? Maybe she wasn’t faking. Maybe Trinidad really can’t remember. Jose picks a sliver of red wax from beneath his thumbnail. That would really be frightening, if she couldn’t remember.
• • •
Who would have known that in addition to the usual ills of the Japanese, this man was a pervert? It is Friday, and everyone knows that Mrs. Garcia takes the bus to visit her cousin Mrs. Aragon, that she takes Jose along with her, that the stately — although run-down — house, shaded by tamarind trees and hidden behind an imposing wall, is empty except for Trinidad. He does not know if he wants to be a part of this, even if he is just driving them there. He is just the kalesa driver, not the moral police. Diablo clops along at a steady rate with his head, as always, leaning to the left. It makes you think you’re headed in that direction, but no; Diablo’s head goes to the left, but his hoofs go straight. I am just a kalesa driver, he reminds himself. Then he sneaks a peek, pretending to check the sky for an improbable rain cloud. He processes his mental picture at leisure. Shori seems harassed. His hair is uncombed, which is unusual for him. The top button of his jacket is undone. Trinidad looks straight ahead. She is wearing her Sunday clothes. She seems very determined. What a serious little girl this Trinidad is. He wonders if what they say about her is true. Is she really demented? She must be. Why else would she be taking Shori to her house? But wait.
“Americano?” asks Shori, doubting and threatening at the same time. He pulls at the collar of his shirt.
“Americano,” replies Trinidad with a solemn nod.
Is there an escaped American in the Garcia house?
Trinidad sees the ring glinting on Shori’s finger. This has been much easier than she imagined. She did not know that an American had escaped from the camp. She was going to tell Shori’s houseboy that the American was a guerrilla sneaking out of the mountains, that he was injured and needed a place to stay for a few days. The houseboy could relay anything you needed to communicate to Shori, but Shori had come without any explaining on her part.