Jimbo had never invited her into his room on the other side of the door, but she had gone in there once. She was surprised to find that his room was smaller than hers. There was no sitting area, and the bathroom was in the hall. Honorata liked the room better than her brightly colored one. The walls were a deep gray, and the mix of gray and tan and chocolate colors calmed her. Honorata looked at everything in the room carefully—she stared at Jimbo’s things—but she didn’t touch anything, didn’t open a drawer, or move anything sitting on his dresser.
After awhile, the days became more difficult than the nights. There was nothing for her to do. She didn’t know anyone and didn’t have anywhere to go. Gina took care of the house and the food. Trembling, she asked Jimbo if she could buy some groceries and cook dinner. At first, he said that she did not need to cook, but the next day, he left a hundred dollars in an envelope and told her to take a cab home from the store.
Honorata carefully smoothed out each bill and studied it. She thought about the pesos she had sent to her mother and wondered if her uncle was giving her mother money now. She had let her uncle tell her mother that she had fallen in love with an American, that she was leaving with him, and she had not written her mother since. There was no phone in Buninan, and she could not have risked hearing her mother’s voice anyway. She knew she should write, but Honorata could not find the courage to tell her mother that she was fine, that she was happy, that she was rich. This is what she would have to write, and even thinking about it made her cry. No, she could not write her mother.
Instead, she went to the American store and tried to find what she needed to make a meal. The rice was dry and fell off her fork when she tried to eat it, but a customer pointed her to tamarind one day when a clerk said that they did not carry sampalok, and another time, a man gave her directions to an Asian market not too far away. The market was mostly Chinese, but she found good rice there.
That night, Jimbo asked her if she liked the ring.
“It’s pretty,” she said.
She didn’t know how to answer his question.
“Do you know why I gave it to you?”
Honorata thought of her uncle. She thought of Jimbo’s house, of Gina, of Martin taking him to work each morning. It didn’t seem likely that he had given her the ring because her uncle had bargained for it.
“I gave it to you because your uncle asked for it. Because I wanted you to be happy.”
She trembled involuntarily.
“I didn’t trust your uncle. But here you are.”
Honorata began to shake, and tried to hide it by wrapping her arms tightly across her chest.
“I wasn’t sure you would walk off the plane.”
Tears filled her eyes, so she lowered her face. She could feel him waiting, waiting to hear what she would say, but she could not speak. The silence stretched out, and Honorata knew that she had to look up, she had to speak, but before she could, she heard him turn and leave the room.
“Good night, Rita.”
Jimbo didn’t come to her room that night. He didn’t give her a bath, he didn’t have sex with her. Honorata was relieved. She crawled into bed and pulled the covers completely over her head. In the blackness, hot and without enough air, she slept deeply.
A few mornings later, after Jimbo had finished with her, he brought up the ring again.
“It’s an engagement ring. I have the band that goes with it. Would you like to go to Vegas?”
How strange that he would ask her this. What did he imagine?
“I’ve never been there.”
“Of course you haven’t.”
They sat quietly.
“Are you wondering why I want to marry you?”
She looked up at him. She didn’t want to say anything, but she stared straight in his eyes. She didn’t often look at him this way, though she already knew it moved him.
“I want a wife. I know my money . . . I know that you are here because . . . because your country is poor. I understand that. But I want a wife. I don’t want a whore.”
Honorata noticed that his foot was shaking as he spoke, though his voice was measured, matter of fact.
“I want a family.”
She looked in his eyes still, not answering.
“You’ll have to sign papers. I’m not giving away my money. But I’m a generous man. When you’re my wife, those papers won’t matter.”
Honorata looked down then. Her heart fluttered with the faint memory of the woman she had been, the girl. She saw Kidlat’s face, the smile she had known her whole life, the narrow plane of his back, and the knees that rounded out too large for his calves. She thought of her father, before he died, and the lime green of the rice fields, and how her stomach had lurched when she had taken the jeepney up the Mountain Trail with him. For a moment, she remembered the soft island air on her skin, the slap of wet fronds against her thighs, the slosh of water running through the fields, the trill and mutter of birds, and the squawk of the rooster being beaten for pinikpikan.
She should never have gone to Manila. But she had loved Kidlat. And how would her mother have lived if she had not gone to the city?
Jimbo was waiting. Honorata said nothing but pulled him back toward her pillow, buried her head in the thin strands of hair on his wide chest, and flicked her tongue against his nipple. He moaned. This was the only way she knew to avoid answering.
13
“I had a rooster, and the rooster pleased me,” sang Coral, after stepping through the arch of paper flowers that festooned the door of the kindergarten classroom.
“Cock-a-doodle-doo!” yelled Faraz, which Coral ignored. Sara dropped her box of crayons, and Coral ignored that too. The rest of the children hurried to put away their things—the construction paper to the middle of the table, the crayons and scissors into the slots of their desks—and two boys raced to be first to sit on the color block mat.
“I fed my rooster on a green berry tree.”
The children on the mat joined in.
“The liiiiittttle rooster went cock-a-doodle-doo, dee doodly doodly doodly doo.”
“The duck!” called Aaron from his desk near the bookshelf. Coral ignored him.
“I had a cat and the cat pleased me.”
More children were on the mat, singing now. They wiggled a little, scrambling for place, and Coral slowed the tempo of the song, without quite looking at any wiggler.
“I fed my cat on a green berry tree.”
No more wigglers, and even Aaron was putting his art project in the correct spot on the bookshelf.
“The liiiittttlle cat goes meeeeow, meeeow, the little rooster goes cock-a-doodle-doo dee doodly doodly doodly doo.”
By the time they got to the duck, all the children were assembled, each on his or her own color square, and Coral had motioned for Aaron to sit cross-legged next to her. They finished the song with the lion, roaring with wide-open mouths, and just after the last doodly doo, Coral paused, raised her hands high, and then all together, in perfect time, every child clapped once.
“Hoorah! Mrs. Barrosa’s class, you are on top of the world today.”
“Hi, Miss Jackson.” “Hello, Miss Jackson.” “Miss Jackson, are we doing the love song today?” “Yes, the love song!” “Can we do the love song?”
Their voices came in an excited rush, but nobody jumped up or shouted. They sat eagerly waiting.
“We can do the love song today. But first, can anybody tell me what we are learning about music this month?”
“About music writing!”
“Yes. About music writing.”
Coral held up a card with a treble clef.