Post by ernesto thaddeus m. solmerano on Jun 15, 2007 21:52:15 GMT -5
Of Fish, Flies, Dogs, and Women
By Timothy R. Montes
[Flies, flies, flies.]
So, Mana Biben, you want to know how I turned my life around? You think I became the biggest fish dealer in this town by crying on my sleeves? Look at me— you think it's all that easy? Here you see me spending my day watching over the fish, raking in money just by swatting away flies while my good-for-nothing husband drowns himself in tuba. You think that is fair? Should I blame the cruel world and jump off a cliff?
Ah, Mana Biben, life's unfair, indeed. It's a useless piece of stone you can't get rid of. One day you will have to pick up that stone and decide what to do with it: smash it against your head or throw it at the crazy world. Before you know it, you will have made a choice that will change your life. The important thing is that you did something to that stone.
[Flies, flies.]
I must admit that I led a miserable life before this thing happened. Misery, however, has a way of blinding our eyes in a beautiful way. You know, you can see rainbows through your tears. Small consolation, I say, but when you are a woman fighting for survival you can't afford to indulge in self-pity.
Five years ago, my husband used to beat me up. I knew some people were laughing at me behind my back, but I did not mind. When you're a battered wife the world shrinks like a squeezed lemon. The juice of your will dries up and all that's left is the bitterness of the rind. And the more you are squeezed, the more bitter life becomes.
As I sold fish, I walked the streets like a ghost.
[Flies, flies.]
At that time I was just starting in the fish business. My husband had stopped giving me money from his copra harvest and I had to feed the children from my own sweat. But I was timid and shy; I was afraid of the marketplace competition. I shrank away from the scrambling for customers at the market stalls, contented with the scraps left by other fish dealers here. I was a small-time vendor, selling my fish from house to house. Hard on the feet, but easy on the competition.
[Flies, flies, flies.]
Then one morning I found myself standing on the threshold of a strange realization.
I was passing by the rusty gate of Attorney Sabate's house when, after a brief hesitation, I dared myself to enter. It was a burst of strange courage on my part, I suppose. You know how notorious Attorney Sabate's dogs are— large German shepherds with a knack for jumping strangers.
I entered the gate. They never lock it, what with those dogs making the lawyer's house safe as a bank. I had heard so many stories about those dogs, but that morning I had chosen to disregard them. I was bent on selling all my fish.
The door clanged shut behind me— I stood there paralyzed by fear. I had a basketful of fish on my head and when those black dogs appeared, I couldn't run. I, as we say, stiffened like an erection.
You understand, of course, why I couldn't run. I couldn't let five hundred pesos' worth of fish go to the dogs. I had borrowed the capital from the market usurer, met the pump boats at the wharf early that morning, and haggled with the fishermen for the fish in iced crates—-for what? For me to feed them to a rich lawyer's dogs?
No, the fish was my life. A dirt-poor wife who had to feed five small children would understand the real value of a basketful of fish. Try balancing a basket of fish on your head. If you can do it, try calling the dogs to come barking at you. See what I mean? Facing those dogs, I told myself I would rather die of rabies than of hunger.
And so I stood there on Attorney Sabate's driveway while those big dogs formed a ring around me. Fresh fish! Fresh fish! I had to shout above the barking din. Fresh fish! Fresh fish! Some of those dogs were so close, their hairy muzzles were tickling my legs. Fresh fish! Fresh fish! I was shouting not only for money but for dear life, too.
Sweating out my fear, I waited so long for someone to come out of the house and save me from the fangs of those dogs.
And you know who came out of the house? [Flies, flies.] The daughter. Yes, yes. Angelica disgrasyada. And she was carrying the baby in her arms. And you know what, Mana Biben? She looked so beautiful, so. . . how shall I call it, innocent? She was wearing a white gossamer gown. I was entranced by the sight of her—- she almost looked ethereal, so frail. I stood there looking at this madonna on the veranda while the dogs continued to circle close around me.
And you know what happened? [Flies, flies.] Nothing. We just looked at each other. Me, a fish vendor, and she, a single mother. Everyone in town had been talking about her for months. Attorney Sabate's daughter, Miss Fiesta Queen in high school, comes home from college in the middle of the school term. Did not go out of the house after that. Verdict: pregnant.
This town thrives on gossip like that.
But there I was, perhaps the first outsider she saw after she gave birth to her child.
Strange, those fierce dogs between us and we just stared at each other like, you know, stupid fools. I did not have to say “Get your dogs off me!” in the same way that I need not have asked her “Whose baby is that you're holding?” Common sense can make us act like dumb fools—- silence can mean anything. I mean, she saw my situation and she just watched me! Ah, Mana Biben, we women can be victims of common sense.
But I think I understood her position, too. You see, she was carrying a baby. What could she do? Put the infant on the floor and come to my rescue? Between an adult in distress and a baby sleeping in her arms, a mother isn't left with much choice. No, this was a child she carried in her arms and she just looked at me not knowing what to do while I suffered through the prospect of being tattered to pieces by those dogs.
Maybe she was angry at the world, maybe she saw herself in my situation, I don't know what her reason was, but she had made that choice. Hold on to your child and let those dogs have their way with that woman. And so I continued to stand on the driveway for another minute, not daring to move a muscle for fear my breathing might provoke those dogs into biting me.
And you know what? [Flies, flies.] I stood my ground. In the silent battle, I had also made that choice. I looked back at her as if to say: So whose burden is heavier now, yours or mine? I'm a poor, helpless woman and you're a disgrasyada—- will you exchange your burden for a basket of fish?
And you know what? [Flies, flies.] The dogs stopped barking. A miracle, I say. Must have smelled my courage—- dogs can smell fear, you know, and bully you with that knowledge. I had stood my foolhardy ground, and the dogs found me uninteresting without my fear. They dispersed one by one to the back of the house. Finally, when everything was clear, I began my sales talk.
“Would you like to buy fish?” I asked.
“No,” came the reply.
The sudden-silence of the dogs made our voices resonant in the morning air. All the while, watching her, I kept thinking how small she looked, how frail.
“I'm sorry,” she said. “My parents are not in. I'm the only one left this morning. And I don't have any money.” Listening to her, I felt a surge of pity. There she stood, a single mother, awkwardly holding her child behind the balustrade. I could see the anguish in her eyes while my mind raced through a maze of some dimly remembered pain. I don't have any money! So many women fall in love with the wrong men at the wrong moment and end up holding their babies awkwardly like that, too dazed to understand why so small a thing can be so heavy a burden to carry. She was just too young to come to terms with it and yet she carried her pain so well it made her look beautiful.
“May I look at the baby?” I asked.
She stared blankly at me as if she had not understood. The girl had been cooped in their house for months and was as pale as a ghost.
“I said may I look at the baby?”
She smiled uncertainly and, without waiting for a word, I put down my basket and approached her.
[Flies, flies.]
As I walked towards this girl at the end of the driveway, it felt as if I was approaching an altar. The church-like atmosphere made me see things in a new light.
You remember, Mana Biben, how it felt like on your first communion? In the excitement, you can taste your own saliva—- every step is a station to the cross. It was like that—- I was aware of the sacredness of my own shadow plunging on ahead of me as I walked toward the madonna and child.
And you know what, Mana Biben? [Flies, flies.] I forgot all my problems when I saw the face of the sleeping child. Oh, yes, I am a softhearted woman, that I admit. But I had been walking in the heat of the sun for an hour that morning. And when I came to the child, in the shade of the veranda, my head felt like ice oozing into a wonderful coolness.
And there, bent over that child, I felt as if I, myself, could endure the pain and the loneliness of an outcast as long as I held love like that in my arms.
Ah, Mana Biben, hold a baby in your arms and the world disappears into thin air. You're a mother, you should understand what I'm trying to say.
[Flies, flies.]
We stood there for a minute or two taking in the fragile beauty of the baby in silence.
“Boy or girl?” I asked.
“Girl.”
Strangers as we were to each other, we wrapped ourselves in a silent bond as we kept on looking at the sleeping child.
Then, suddenly, a deep-felt anger started to build up in me. It came from nowhere—- the sight of a sleeping child seemed to have stirred something in my head. I knew I was on the verge of going crazy, and I talked as if my tongue would stick to the roof of my mouth.
“Listen,” I told her. “Don't believe what others may say about you. The people in this town don't understand what we go through. Those gossips think we have a choice—-But do you understand? There's nothing to be ashamed of.”
I, myself, was shocked by what I had said. I seemed to have stepped back from the precipice of insanity, and heard only the echo of my own words. I had lived in this town all my life and I never thought I had any reason to complain about my lot. As far as I was concerned I was just a fish vendor with a drunkard for a husband. Every time he beat me up and I would go around with a swollen face, people talked behind my back saying, “Maria lab-asera is a fool not to leave.”
But Angelica did not understand all these things running inside my head. The girl just looked at me quizzically, the fear of strangers creeping back into her eyes. “Please,” she said. “Don't talk about it.”
Don't talk about it! The poor girl did not understand what I meant. I was confusing her pain with mine. The bottled-up emotions rose up as a lump in my throat, choking me like a tightening rope. You fall in love with a slick-haired young man at a fiesta dance ten years ago and the next thing you know you're pregnant so you have to marry him. Before the year is out you realize your husband's an alcoholic, spends all his money on tuba and cockfighting. And so you try to sell fish to feed the children, and when your husband learns about it he demands money from you and when you don't give him he beats you black and blue. And then those gossips laugh at you behind your back saying you're a fool not to leave your family.
Do you think I have a choice? No! Hold a baby in your hands and try making a choice: should you drop the baby to the floor or dash its head against the wall? No, love does not give you that choice. It sticks to you like a leech and sucks your blood dry. That is love for you.
I stood there trembling, finally aware of being trapped for life. There was only one way out of my misery. I could choose to just let go and lose my mind. The dark chasm beckoned to me: jump. Death and insanity seemed to have converged at that moment. But before I could take the plunge, I heard the dogs again.
I turned around and saw that my basket had been overturned. The dogs were scrambling over my fish.
I ran—- I don't know where I got the courage—- and started fighting the dogs. Yes, I fought the d**n dogs. Barehanded, would you believe that? I was so angry I didn't care anymore if I'd get bitten. My head whirled around the violent sensations of that moment—- fangs, paws, fishtails, slimy scales. The growling I heard seemed to come more from my throat than from those dogs. I rolled on the driveway grappling with those animals.
[Flies, flies.]
Ha-ha! Would you believe me if I tell you I got all my fish back? Yes, snatched them from the fangs of those dogs. Five fierce dogs I beat back with these bare hands. And the dogs, as if sensing my crazy anger, ran back whimpering to the other side of the house.
Talk about going crazy. Even the dogs were afraid of me. It was only when they had gone that I realized I was still shouting “Pestengyawamoooooooo!” at the top of my lungs.
On my knees I gathered the scattered fish. I must have been a terrible sight, all bruised and bloodied like that. My fingers were still trembling as I picked up the fish and put them back on the basket. There I was, my wounds still smarting, and all I could think of was how to remove the dust from the fish.
“I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” the girl on the veranda, holding her child closer to herself, was sobbing.
“No!” I shouted back at her. “Don't be sorry! You can do anything you want, you can say anything to me, you can say my fish is dirty, tell me to go to hell, but please please please do me a favor, all right? Don't be sorry!” My voice had turned shrill; my ears were burning. “This town is sorry! Everybody's sorry! Ashamed of the consequences of what they do!” I stood up, reeling. “So don't be sorry for me, understand?”
God, I was raving like a lunatic.
And the poor girl, trembling in fear, just held on to her baby.
“You love your child?” I shouted at her.
She nodded.
“Then never, never be sorry! You don't deserve your baby if you feel sorry for her. Understand?”
I don't know why I kept shouting like that. I picked up my basket and felt my face scalded by tears. “Never, never, be damned sorry!” I kept on repeating those words as I walked away.
By the time I reached the gate, the dogs began to howl again from the back of the house. I felt like fainting. But at the back of my head, even as I was cursing the world, I could hear the last sane words I could muster in the face of death: If he touches me again, I swear to God I'll kill him.
I strode out of the gate shouting Fresh fish! Fresh fish! voice ringing with anger.
[Flies, flies, flies.]
The basket I carried felt a world lighter after that.
That, Mana Biben, is the story of how I changed my life. I reckoned that if I could beat the dogs like that, there was no reason why I couldn't beat back my good-for-nothing husband. I mean, sure, he still drinks like a sinner but he doesn't dare touch me anymore.
I left Angelica disgrasyada standing there at the end of the driveway. A month later after the incident, there was a rumor that her parents had sent her to the States. People never saw her again. I don't care for gossip, anyway. As far as I'm concerned, she's still standing there on that veranda, holding her baby—without rancor, without regret. When I cast a last glance at her, just before stepping out of the gate, I saw a vague smile forming on her lips. My eyes warped her white figure and, as I stepped out of the gate, she turned into a melting image of a woman in white in the distorting pools of my tears.
[Flies, flies.]
I've got this stall in the marketplace now. I know it takes more cunning and less cursing to get a place in the world for women like us. But dogs are still prowling out there, Mana Biben, and I've learned it's not good business sense to make them smell your fear.
[Flies, flies.] But tell me, Mana Biben, why does fish attract so many flies?
By Timothy R. Montes
[Flies, flies, flies.]
So, Mana Biben, you want to know how I turned my life around? You think I became the biggest fish dealer in this town by crying on my sleeves? Look at me— you think it's all that easy? Here you see me spending my day watching over the fish, raking in money just by swatting away flies while my good-for-nothing husband drowns himself in tuba. You think that is fair? Should I blame the cruel world and jump off a cliff?
Ah, Mana Biben, life's unfair, indeed. It's a useless piece of stone you can't get rid of. One day you will have to pick up that stone and decide what to do with it: smash it against your head or throw it at the crazy world. Before you know it, you will have made a choice that will change your life. The important thing is that you did something to that stone.
[Flies, flies.]
I must admit that I led a miserable life before this thing happened. Misery, however, has a way of blinding our eyes in a beautiful way. You know, you can see rainbows through your tears. Small consolation, I say, but when you are a woman fighting for survival you can't afford to indulge in self-pity.
Five years ago, my husband used to beat me up. I knew some people were laughing at me behind my back, but I did not mind. When you're a battered wife the world shrinks like a squeezed lemon. The juice of your will dries up and all that's left is the bitterness of the rind. And the more you are squeezed, the more bitter life becomes.
As I sold fish, I walked the streets like a ghost.
[Flies, flies.]
At that time I was just starting in the fish business. My husband had stopped giving me money from his copra harvest and I had to feed the children from my own sweat. But I was timid and shy; I was afraid of the marketplace competition. I shrank away from the scrambling for customers at the market stalls, contented with the scraps left by other fish dealers here. I was a small-time vendor, selling my fish from house to house. Hard on the feet, but easy on the competition.
[Flies, flies, flies.]
Then one morning I found myself standing on the threshold of a strange realization.
I was passing by the rusty gate of Attorney Sabate's house when, after a brief hesitation, I dared myself to enter. It was a burst of strange courage on my part, I suppose. You know how notorious Attorney Sabate's dogs are— large German shepherds with a knack for jumping strangers.
I entered the gate. They never lock it, what with those dogs making the lawyer's house safe as a bank. I had heard so many stories about those dogs, but that morning I had chosen to disregard them. I was bent on selling all my fish.
The door clanged shut behind me— I stood there paralyzed by fear. I had a basketful of fish on my head and when those black dogs appeared, I couldn't run. I, as we say, stiffened like an erection.
You understand, of course, why I couldn't run. I couldn't let five hundred pesos' worth of fish go to the dogs. I had borrowed the capital from the market usurer, met the pump boats at the wharf early that morning, and haggled with the fishermen for the fish in iced crates—-for what? For me to feed them to a rich lawyer's dogs?
No, the fish was my life. A dirt-poor wife who had to feed five small children would understand the real value of a basketful of fish. Try balancing a basket of fish on your head. If you can do it, try calling the dogs to come barking at you. See what I mean? Facing those dogs, I told myself I would rather die of rabies than of hunger.
And so I stood there on Attorney Sabate's driveway while those big dogs formed a ring around me. Fresh fish! Fresh fish! I had to shout above the barking din. Fresh fish! Fresh fish! Some of those dogs were so close, their hairy muzzles were tickling my legs. Fresh fish! Fresh fish! I was shouting not only for money but for dear life, too.
Sweating out my fear, I waited so long for someone to come out of the house and save me from the fangs of those dogs.
And you know who came out of the house? [Flies, flies.] The daughter. Yes, yes. Angelica disgrasyada. And she was carrying the baby in her arms. And you know what, Mana Biben? She looked so beautiful, so. . . how shall I call it, innocent? She was wearing a white gossamer gown. I was entranced by the sight of her—- she almost looked ethereal, so frail. I stood there looking at this madonna on the veranda while the dogs continued to circle close around me.
And you know what happened? [Flies, flies.] Nothing. We just looked at each other. Me, a fish vendor, and she, a single mother. Everyone in town had been talking about her for months. Attorney Sabate's daughter, Miss Fiesta Queen in high school, comes home from college in the middle of the school term. Did not go out of the house after that. Verdict: pregnant.
This town thrives on gossip like that.
But there I was, perhaps the first outsider she saw after she gave birth to her child.
Strange, those fierce dogs between us and we just stared at each other like, you know, stupid fools. I did not have to say “Get your dogs off me!” in the same way that I need not have asked her “Whose baby is that you're holding?” Common sense can make us act like dumb fools—- silence can mean anything. I mean, she saw my situation and she just watched me! Ah, Mana Biben, we women can be victims of common sense.
But I think I understood her position, too. You see, she was carrying a baby. What could she do? Put the infant on the floor and come to my rescue? Between an adult in distress and a baby sleeping in her arms, a mother isn't left with much choice. No, this was a child she carried in her arms and she just looked at me not knowing what to do while I suffered through the prospect of being tattered to pieces by those dogs.
Maybe she was angry at the world, maybe she saw herself in my situation, I don't know what her reason was, but she had made that choice. Hold on to your child and let those dogs have their way with that woman. And so I continued to stand on the driveway for another minute, not daring to move a muscle for fear my breathing might provoke those dogs into biting me.
And you know what? [Flies, flies.] I stood my ground. In the silent battle, I had also made that choice. I looked back at her as if to say: So whose burden is heavier now, yours or mine? I'm a poor, helpless woman and you're a disgrasyada—- will you exchange your burden for a basket of fish?
And you know what? [Flies, flies.] The dogs stopped barking. A miracle, I say. Must have smelled my courage—- dogs can smell fear, you know, and bully you with that knowledge. I had stood my foolhardy ground, and the dogs found me uninteresting without my fear. They dispersed one by one to the back of the house. Finally, when everything was clear, I began my sales talk.
“Would you like to buy fish?” I asked.
“No,” came the reply.
The sudden-silence of the dogs made our voices resonant in the morning air. All the while, watching her, I kept thinking how small she looked, how frail.
“I'm sorry,” she said. “My parents are not in. I'm the only one left this morning. And I don't have any money.” Listening to her, I felt a surge of pity. There she stood, a single mother, awkwardly holding her child behind the balustrade. I could see the anguish in her eyes while my mind raced through a maze of some dimly remembered pain. I don't have any money! So many women fall in love with the wrong men at the wrong moment and end up holding their babies awkwardly like that, too dazed to understand why so small a thing can be so heavy a burden to carry. She was just too young to come to terms with it and yet she carried her pain so well it made her look beautiful.
“May I look at the baby?” I asked.
She stared blankly at me as if she had not understood. The girl had been cooped in their house for months and was as pale as a ghost.
“I said may I look at the baby?”
She smiled uncertainly and, without waiting for a word, I put down my basket and approached her.
[Flies, flies.]
As I walked towards this girl at the end of the driveway, it felt as if I was approaching an altar. The church-like atmosphere made me see things in a new light.
You remember, Mana Biben, how it felt like on your first communion? In the excitement, you can taste your own saliva—- every step is a station to the cross. It was like that—- I was aware of the sacredness of my own shadow plunging on ahead of me as I walked toward the madonna and child.
And you know what, Mana Biben? [Flies, flies.] I forgot all my problems when I saw the face of the sleeping child. Oh, yes, I am a softhearted woman, that I admit. But I had been walking in the heat of the sun for an hour that morning. And when I came to the child, in the shade of the veranda, my head felt like ice oozing into a wonderful coolness.
And there, bent over that child, I felt as if I, myself, could endure the pain and the loneliness of an outcast as long as I held love like that in my arms.
Ah, Mana Biben, hold a baby in your arms and the world disappears into thin air. You're a mother, you should understand what I'm trying to say.
[Flies, flies.]
We stood there for a minute or two taking in the fragile beauty of the baby in silence.
“Boy or girl?” I asked.
“Girl.”
Strangers as we were to each other, we wrapped ourselves in a silent bond as we kept on looking at the sleeping child.
Then, suddenly, a deep-felt anger started to build up in me. It came from nowhere—- the sight of a sleeping child seemed to have stirred something in my head. I knew I was on the verge of going crazy, and I talked as if my tongue would stick to the roof of my mouth.
“Listen,” I told her. “Don't believe what others may say about you. The people in this town don't understand what we go through. Those gossips think we have a choice—-But do you understand? There's nothing to be ashamed of.”
I, myself, was shocked by what I had said. I seemed to have stepped back from the precipice of insanity, and heard only the echo of my own words. I had lived in this town all my life and I never thought I had any reason to complain about my lot. As far as I was concerned I was just a fish vendor with a drunkard for a husband. Every time he beat me up and I would go around with a swollen face, people talked behind my back saying, “Maria lab-asera is a fool not to leave.”
But Angelica did not understand all these things running inside my head. The girl just looked at me quizzically, the fear of strangers creeping back into her eyes. “Please,” she said. “Don't talk about it.”
Don't talk about it! The poor girl did not understand what I meant. I was confusing her pain with mine. The bottled-up emotions rose up as a lump in my throat, choking me like a tightening rope. You fall in love with a slick-haired young man at a fiesta dance ten years ago and the next thing you know you're pregnant so you have to marry him. Before the year is out you realize your husband's an alcoholic, spends all his money on tuba and cockfighting. And so you try to sell fish to feed the children, and when your husband learns about it he demands money from you and when you don't give him he beats you black and blue. And then those gossips laugh at you behind your back saying you're a fool not to leave your family.
Do you think I have a choice? No! Hold a baby in your hands and try making a choice: should you drop the baby to the floor or dash its head against the wall? No, love does not give you that choice. It sticks to you like a leech and sucks your blood dry. That is love for you.
I stood there trembling, finally aware of being trapped for life. There was only one way out of my misery. I could choose to just let go and lose my mind. The dark chasm beckoned to me: jump. Death and insanity seemed to have converged at that moment. But before I could take the plunge, I heard the dogs again.
I turned around and saw that my basket had been overturned. The dogs were scrambling over my fish.
I ran—- I don't know where I got the courage—- and started fighting the dogs. Yes, I fought the d**n dogs. Barehanded, would you believe that? I was so angry I didn't care anymore if I'd get bitten. My head whirled around the violent sensations of that moment—- fangs, paws, fishtails, slimy scales. The growling I heard seemed to come more from my throat than from those dogs. I rolled on the driveway grappling with those animals.
[Flies, flies.]
Ha-ha! Would you believe me if I tell you I got all my fish back? Yes, snatched them from the fangs of those dogs. Five fierce dogs I beat back with these bare hands. And the dogs, as if sensing my crazy anger, ran back whimpering to the other side of the house.
Talk about going crazy. Even the dogs were afraid of me. It was only when they had gone that I realized I was still shouting “Pestengyawamoooooooo!” at the top of my lungs.
On my knees I gathered the scattered fish. I must have been a terrible sight, all bruised and bloodied like that. My fingers were still trembling as I picked up the fish and put them back on the basket. There I was, my wounds still smarting, and all I could think of was how to remove the dust from the fish.
“I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” the girl on the veranda, holding her child closer to herself, was sobbing.
“No!” I shouted back at her. “Don't be sorry! You can do anything you want, you can say anything to me, you can say my fish is dirty, tell me to go to hell, but please please please do me a favor, all right? Don't be sorry!” My voice had turned shrill; my ears were burning. “This town is sorry! Everybody's sorry! Ashamed of the consequences of what they do!” I stood up, reeling. “So don't be sorry for me, understand?”
God, I was raving like a lunatic.
And the poor girl, trembling in fear, just held on to her baby.
“You love your child?” I shouted at her.
She nodded.
“Then never, never be sorry! You don't deserve your baby if you feel sorry for her. Understand?”
I don't know why I kept shouting like that. I picked up my basket and felt my face scalded by tears. “Never, never, be damned sorry!” I kept on repeating those words as I walked away.
By the time I reached the gate, the dogs began to howl again from the back of the house. I felt like fainting. But at the back of my head, even as I was cursing the world, I could hear the last sane words I could muster in the face of death: If he touches me again, I swear to God I'll kill him.
I strode out of the gate shouting Fresh fish! Fresh fish! voice ringing with anger.
[Flies, flies, flies.]
The basket I carried felt a world lighter after that.
That, Mana Biben, is the story of how I changed my life. I reckoned that if I could beat the dogs like that, there was no reason why I couldn't beat back my good-for-nothing husband. I mean, sure, he still drinks like a sinner but he doesn't dare touch me anymore.
I left Angelica disgrasyada standing there at the end of the driveway. A month later after the incident, there was a rumor that her parents had sent her to the States. People never saw her again. I don't care for gossip, anyway. As far as I'm concerned, she's still standing there on that veranda, holding her baby—without rancor, without regret. When I cast a last glance at her, just before stepping out of the gate, I saw a vague smile forming on her lips. My eyes warped her white figure and, as I stepped out of the gate, she turned into a melting image of a woman in white in the distorting pools of my tears.
[Flies, flies.]
I've got this stall in the marketplace now. I know it takes more cunning and less cursing to get a place in the world for women like us. But dogs are still prowling out there, Mana Biben, and I've learned it's not good business sense to make them smell your fear.
[Flies, flies.] But tell me, Mana Biben, why does fish attract so many flies?