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"Ah," he sighed. "So long ago. So very long ago."
We both understood that he had just told me that he was a Huk, a member of one of the few remaining small bands of roving bandits who operated with little or no pretense of any political means or end to their banditry. I wondered if he had been on the raid the night before, wondered if those were his comrades we had killed.
He stowed the captured fragments of time in the wallet, then exposed his right calf. A mottled stitching of a machine gun wound scarred the leg. An old, smooth scar reflecting the unforgotten pain, pain compounded in nearly twenty years of ru
He and I talked until dusk, even smiled twice more together, then gravely shook hands as if over the coffin of a common friend. He tucked his gleaming shoes under his arm and walked toward the mountains in the sunset, his white hair waving like a flag of a forgotten truce in the strengthening breeze off the sea, and tiny mushrooms of dust puffed between his misshapen toes.
That night and the next day swept past like the waters of a rapids; our pleasure and peace leaping and laughing over any discontented rocks we might have brought to the beach. Once a fierce yellow sunset drifted into a delicate green, lime-aired dusk. The gentle surf crested in the quick darkness with swirling phosphorous fringes of tiny animals like liquid silver. Under the black water the shining protozoa loomed like little lights into our eyes, then curved away like speeding cars. Long careless daylight hours were spent watching the chameleon in the thatch of my roof, and he observing me with the same lazy indifference. I slept once in the window-box at the large hut, too drunk to walk, peaceful among the deep sleeping noises, the shimmering ribbons of light reflected on the slough. From the pavilion across the way laughter and the ingratiating whine of the jukebox wound over the dead water as Qui
That night we took the bus into town and went to a whore house.
It was a tall, nearly three-story shell of mud and straw bricks. The whitewash had peeled away like scabs to expose older and more flaky coats. The ground floor was open and cluttered with the usual assortment of cracked tables, bamboo chairs, bar, and bubbling jukebox. Over the back half of the room a jumbled maze of bamboo rooms climbed all over each other toward the roof. The small cubicles were stacked in a random association, each seeming to have no relation to any other, nor as a whole any co
The girls who stood up when we arrived were of a very provincial sort, either indecently young moving up in the bonded hierarchy of whoredom, or absurdly old, having fallen to the last layer. The Trick, except for Morning and I (he because of his peculiar brand of romantic puritanism or puritanical romanticism, and I because of my… rank?), didn't seem to mind and fell to seducing them in wholesale lots. Cagle sat on the lap of the largest professional in the whole PI, and acted like a ventriloquist's dummy to her great pleasure. Morning and I drifted to the rear where a solitary woman was shuffling a deck of cards under a bare light bulb. It was still early and there were no Filipino customers in the place.
"Okay, man," Morning said, "that's for this one."
"Don't be in such a rush. Your old sarge may have something to say about that, young trooper. That's your problem, kid, too big a hurry." He laughed and walked up to the table.
She had the delicate features – the thin, well-bridged nose, small curved lips – which spoke of some Spanish blood, but her body was squat, full and still firmly stacked in spite of the twenty-nine or thirty years of use. She would be shorter when she stood up than we had thought her to be. She wore no make-up and dressed in a simple black jersey and slacks and no shoes.
"Do you mind if we join you, young lady. Perhaps buy you a drink or something?" Morning asked, his cool, confident self as always with the women.
"I am not so young as I was but, yes, please sit if you wish," she answered, her voice as soft and heavy as her breasts. As we sat, she laid out a game of solitaire, placing each card as carefully and deliberately as if it were a piece in a puzzle. She moved with a patience, a sad dignity, but jolly wrinkles pinched the corners of her eyes and the suggestion of an ironic smile rippled about her face like a breeze on a pond.
"I'm Lt. Morning," Joe said, "And this is…"
"Sgt. Krummel," I interrupted before he made me a major again.
"Hello," she answered politely, not pausing in her game. She gave no name. Morning asked her. "My name is what you wish it to be," she replied. "That is my job, to be whatever and whoever men wish. Their girl friend, their wife, their mother, their battle, and I've even once been a sister. But it will cost you a lot of money, my young friend, to find out my name, because I'm a fine player. Yes, very much money." She did not glance up from the cards.
"Do, do you work here?" Morning asked.
"No." She answered as if that were the end of it, but after a short pause, added, "I work in Manila at the Golden Cave, but I also own this place. I come here to rest…" She paused again. "But for a profit, an unusual profit, or for even an unusual excitement, I might tell you my name. For say as much money as a lieutenant makes in, let us say, a week." She raised her head to stare into Morning's eyes, her long loose hair swaying back from her face. I saw mountain showers crossing the horizon at dusk, night rain swinging in the wind, and shimmering black strands coiled on a pillow. Her breasts bobbed shyly like a child's first curtsy.
"Is it worth it?" he asked.
"Is it ever? Isn't it always? I know a captain who says it's better, something like – my accent is different from his – 'Ya pays ya money, an' ya takes ya chance.' "
Morning laughed, then stood up to go for beer.
"Yes, I would very much like a beer, thank you," she answered when he asked. "You don't talk very much," she said, looking up at me as Joe walked away.
"Keeps me out of trouble."
"Your friend, he talks very much?"
"Very much. And lies a little, too."
She laughed, soft and mocking like a muted trumpet. "All men lie to us. It doesn't matter. I think I prefer the lies to the truth. Once a sailor told me the truth, that he loved men instead of women because he couldn't help himself. After that, when he couldn't make it, he cut his arms with a broken beer bottle. Yes, I better like lies, I think."
"Did he die?"
"Who? Oh, the sailor. No, he was lying about that. But he did ruin four of my dresses and nearly lost my job."
"The Golden Cave is a very famous place. I've heard about it, but I've never been there."
"You must come sometime. During the week. Never on weekend. But this is a famous place, too. It isn't as… what would you say?"