The Kite of Stars and Other Stories

by Dean Francis Alfar

  The Maiden and the Crocodile

  XII

  SHE KISSED HIM one last time, failing to notice how the roughness of his skin slowly began to turn to the soft lost flesh of his youth, and he realized that it was all he could do not to cry.

  And she stood up without a word, with neither gasp nor sigh, and picked her way through the deepening shadows, his heart in her hand, leaving him to die alone. He thought, perhaps too kindly, that it was her way of leaving him a degree of dignity, a painful measure of kindness that nonetheless cut deep into the place where his heart once dwelt.

  And finally, when he felt the last of his strength give way, when there was not a scale or snout or tooth or claw left of him, but only a man’s dying body, he sighed.

  His dismal human eyes wept no crocodile tears but tears as dry as rivers and as dim as stars.

  XI

  “FORGIVE ME,” SHE whispered, as she took the spear and stabbed his chest. It was as if the first strike hurled his senses away from his body. He felt no pain at her savagery, only the unmistakable discomfort of mistaken nostalgia.

  A thousand false days whirled before him — of how, together, they swam in the rivers and chased the water birds; how she rode on his back as they hunted the torpid fishes; how she told him that she loved him no matter what he looked like, no matter what he was, that she would be pretend to be a diuata enchanted beyond hope by his charming voice. But none of that happened, of course.

  She tore out his heart, dulled and almost silent, and held it to her ear. She did not seem to mind that she was covered in his blood, and had added more to her cheeks as she listened. Satisfied, she looked at him looking up at her, helplessly dying and helplessly in love.

  “I have to go.”

  X

  HE HAD SUSPECTED of course that something like this would happen. Many had tried over the years to win his heart. But he had always stood victorious at the end of every challenge, denying all that tried the intimacies and mysteries of his affection. I have grown careless, he told himself. I have fallen in love, he told himself. I am going to die, he told himself.

  He could not move, of course. Such was the power of the net fixed by devotion. He had allowed himself to believe her and his belief empowered the net and the net held him so tightly, so securely that he could not even speak.

  “I need your heart,” the maiden told him.

  He could only watch as she picked up one of the spears that decorated his home, the very spear that a hunter named Lan’sanud had wounded him with. It had taken him years to recover.

  IX

  HE DREAMED A reptile’s dream — basking in the sun with his beloved, soaking up the heat of daylight, and swimming away forever beyond the boundaries of the river and into the endless ocean.

  He dreamed a man’s dream — denying the gods of the river their rightful due, staring in horror as his hands turned to claws, and being unable to shed any tears that were true.

  When he awoke, he was entangled in a net that smelled of coconut oil, crushed ginger, and a woman’s sourness.

  VIII

  “WHERE IS YOUR heart?” she asked him, as she stroked the hard edges of his reptilian snout and looked innocently into his eyes. “I know you do not keep it in a tree like Unggoy or in a shell like Pagong,” she whispered into his small ears. “Where is it?”

  And with the maiden’s relentless cooing, asking, and stroking added to the regular eddies of the river, he felt his resolve weaken and he told her where it was.

  “In your chest? Like everyone else?” she marveled. “I never would have guessed.”

  He nuzzled against her softness, and, finding solace in the warmth of her caresses and comfort in trust he had just bestowed, fell asleep in her embrace.

  VII

  ONE DAY, SHE showed him a net that she brought with her.

  “It’s to help you catch things with,” she told him. “I feel guilty that you provide all the food when I am with you. I’m going to try to catch some fish.”

  He was reluctant, feeling that as a gentleman and the master of his domain he was perfectly capable of providing for them both. But she was adamant.

  “At least let me try,” she told him, and he agreed.

  But when the afternoon had passed and the net remained empty despite her best efforts, she tossed it onto the rocks nearby, and gladly accepted some fruit he brought to her after striking a tree with his tail.

  VI

  “ARE YOU LONELY?” she asked him once.

  He told her that yes, sometimes he was.

  “Why?” she asked him, as tears formed in her eyes.

  Because everyone is frightened of me, he told her.

  “They try to kill you,” she continued for him. “With spears.”

  Yes, he agreed, dismayed at her tears. And he showed her his collection of spears that various people had tried to kill him with.

  She laughed and laughed, which made him feel better inside.

  V

  WHEN THEY BEGAN to speak, it was of inconsequential things. The climate, the temperature of the river, the number of pebbles in his domain. He found her articulate and witty, laughing at his attempts at clever conversation and never ever bored.

  She told him he was charming, and gently teased him about his retiring nature.

  “You are beautiful,” she told him, when she finally touched his skin, running her fingers across his raspy texture.

  His heart echoed the sentiment and he told her exactly that.

  They grew comfortable, like an old couple, sometimes not needing the security of words to prove that they were indeed sharing time and space in a place where silence embraced them.

  IV

  IT WAS A long courtship. For despite what everyone said or thought, he was terribly shy and was never one to rush things, at least not anymore.

  She played the demure young maiden, acting surprised at his presence but not at his appearance, and coy in her manners.

  He gradually grew to expect her company with every passing day, days they spent in silence, gazing at each other — he, in the river; she, on the riverbank.

  III

  HE WAS USED to his solitude, and only went out to either answer a challenge or feed on the ailing or hopeless animals that came to his waters to die.

  He would spend his days counting the same pebbles around his domain, and the nights listening to the stillness of the forest that echoed the movement of the currents and the secret sound of his despair.

  He had begun to think that perhaps he had grown too old to hope for better things, that he would forever be what he was, how he was, until the stars fell from the sky.

  II

  SHE WAS BORN without a heart, and she had always felt different. Where others could freely fall in love or cry at loss or smile at sunsets, she was simply hollow.

  She had learned how to pretend to be one of them, smiling at the right times, swooning over handsome boys, wailing at village funerals. But inside she knew only emptiness.

  She sought out a bruja in the mires where no one dared to go, fearless in her heartlessness, and there she learned of a heart she could own, a net she could make, and a spear that she must find.

  When she stood unmoving in the brujah’s hut with a peculiar feeling in her stomach, the wisewoman told her that it was only hope and that it would go away in time.

  She sought him out. The great bu’aia.

  I

  THEY FIRST MET through glances. His, unblinking and half-submerged in the river; hers, guileless and drowning in the color of mud.

  He was surprised to see a young woman so near his home. Only the hopeless or the foolish or the brave ever came to him, and most of the time it was to win his heart which they believed could work miracles.

  She, of course, had come to do exactly that, for the emptiness in her bosom was as dry as rivers and as dim as stars.

  Dragon Eyes

  I

  I FIRST BEGAN to hate my mother when I was three years old.


  My family was host to an important official of the Tsino trader society, representing the mercantile interests of Diya al Din, a land in the mysterious southern reaches of Hinirang where no Ispancialo had ever set foot. My father had spent much time and gold wooing this man, with the intent of establishing stronger ties for the goods my family bartered.

  For the entire duration of his stay, my mother was an unreasonable bundle of anxiety, running this way and that, making certain that every little thing was perfect. The appearance and smooth running of a household, then as now, was reflective of both my family’s worth and business acumen. Everything had to be pristine without the sign of any effort, as if such circumstances occurred every day without fail.

  On the last day of the official’s visit, my mother prepared an extraordinary feast, thirty-six varieties of food with selections from the Tsino, Katao, Ispancialo, and southern Hinirang cuisines. Each immaculate offering filled no more space than a saucer, so as not to dull the appetite.

  One of the dessert dishes was made with my favorite duhat, a tartly sweet purple fruit the size of two thumbnails. As the adults ate and made conversation, I spotted the dish on a tray and fell to temptation. I ate one, two, seven pieces, before I realized what I had done. As dread stole up my spine, I ran to the vestibule and tried to wipe away the evidence of my crime, using the cloth closest to my stained hands. I thought myself free of any suspicion until I realized just what cloth I had used.

  It was the formal silk over-robe of the official my family was entertaining. My handprints had marred the fabric, imprinting violence on the subtle sky blues, lavenders and grays.

  When the official stood to leave after dinner and saw what had happened to his robe, he could barely repress his fury. My mother fell to her knees offering profuse apologies as my father ran after the angry official, whose unspoken curses were felt nonetheless.

  After the ornate doors shut close, my mother turned to me slowly, flashing her dragon eyes. She stared at me for a moment then looked away as she picked herself up off the floor. But instead of saying something to me, she spoke to the servants who stood a distance away.

  “Bring all the duhat we have in the kitchen, in the storeroom, in the pantry,” she instructed loudly. Within moments the servants returned with four large baskets brimming with the violet fruit.

  My mother took the baskets and set them on the floor in front of me. I remember not understanding what was going to happen, wracked by tears of guilt that caused my entire body to shudder.

  “You have brought shame to this house,” she told me, in a tone that defied any denial. With a quick motion she took a duhat and forced it into my mouth.

  “Eat it.”

  I struggled to chew, moving the fruit back and forth quickly between my teeth and spitting out the seed into my hands.

  “You will eat until the spirit of gluttony leaves this house — so eat this, and this!” She forced another into my mouth; and another; and another, her fingers relentlessly stuffing more and more between my lips until I lost count of how many I was trying to swallow. I choked and retched and wept but had to finish every single duhat contained in the four baskets.

  When I still could not get out of my bed three days later, my father called for a doctor, but my mother told him it was obviously just a case of overeating.

  Since then I have obeyed her, to the extent that my nature allowed me, like a good daughter. But she never had my love or my sympathy, even when my father died. Because my hate was strong and true, violet in its secret violence, and tart with the stench of overripe duhat.

  II

  YEARS BEFORE SHE finally succeeded and became a ghost, my mother took me to see the Dragon in the Bell. I was eleven years old, almost a woman, when she shook me awake and began braiding my hair.

  I sleepily protested being awakened many hours before the dawn, and fought the strong fingers that danced around my head, adding ribbons of pale silk and small jeweled ornaments. Outside the windows, I could smell the portent of rain.

  “Hush,” my mother scolded me. “Rising Jade Lady appeared to me in a dream and told me it was time to show you something.”

  “Who’s Rising Jade Lady?” I asked, roused bit by bit by the sudden pulls and tucks on my hair.

  “Foolish girl,” she said, shaking her head irritably. “Do you not listen to anything I tell you? You must take after your father’s side of the family.”

  I had learned from an early age never to argue with her when she used that tone of voice, even as she reminded me of my dead father’s circumstances and relations. But often my rebellious nature betrayed me.

  “But what does my father have to do with this?” I asked, a little too loudly. I hated the way she unfailingly found ways to criticize my father’s memory, despite what he did.

  “Rising Jade Lady is a great ancestor, very great, very important,” my mother continued, turning me to face her. “She only appears in dreams because she is dead, long dead. But unlike your worthless father who only appears when there is nothing of worth to be mentioned from beyond the Black Gates, Rising Jade Lady comes only when there is something of consequence to be said. She is that important, that big, that old.”

  “And what did she want you to show me, mother?” I asked as she finished her fussing, pinning the last of my unruly curls into place.

  “Questions!” she exclaimed. “Questions all the time! Why are you always questioning your mother? How rude, so headstrong! So impatient, like your father!”

  “But where are we going?” I asked her, slipping on my favorite pair of sandals.

  “When I say I’ll show you, that means I’ll show you. Now keep your tongue still,” she admonished me.

  Without another word, we left our room and walked silently through the house, our footsteps light and measured, calculated not to disturb the sleeping people in the other rooms — my grandfather, aunts and uncles, and my cousins. I remember the moon reflected on the wooden floor, polished to perfection every day by servants to my elder aunt’s high standards. She told me once that the worth of a person could be measured in their reflections, and that it helped if the object that gave the reflection was perfect.

  We paused at the main doorway to pick up two parasols, in case of a sudden downpour, and departed by the main gate guarded by matched statues of proud foo dogs, their stone eyes trained to see what could not be seen.

  My mother took my hand in hers and I hurried to keep with her pace as we rushed towards the Pavilion of the Dragon, at the center of Lújìng Béishú, where waited whatever Rising Jade Lady had instructed her to show me.

  All the Tsino in Cuidad Meiora dwell in one place. The Ispancialo conquerors call it L’Averia du Tsino, the enclave of the slant-eyes; to us it was Lújìng Béishú, the House That Chose Its Own Path. We were separated from the rest of Ciudad Meiora by high stone walls surmounted by stone sentinels; stones that were brought, I am told, from the distant land of our ancestors when our people first came to Hinirang. Within the area encircled by the walls stood hundreds of beautiful houses, temples, gardens and ornamental lakes.

  Three gates stood open or closed depending on the season and the time of day, permitting or denying entry into our city-within-a-city: the Gate of Ten Thousand Wishes faced the west, where the Tsino merchant vessels came and went, bringing goods both mundane and mysterious from the other parts of Hinirang’s vast archipelago; the Gate of Tranquil Hope faced the south, leading to the Bridge of Seven Steps — beyond that were the shanty towns where strangers and those who came from the distant provinces lived, beguiled by the promises of the great city; the Gate of Unbound Prosperity opened to the east, where the vast markets of Ciudad Meiora upheld the virtue of commerce night and day. Lújìng Béishú has never had a northern gate, because every civilized person knows that only an evil wind blows from that direction.

  III

  THE UNION OF my mother and father was determined by Heaven long before they met each other. The marriage was arr
anged by a professional matchmaker, consulted by both sets of parents who wanted to increase the trickle of blessings that fell sparingly upon both their houses. My parents’ birth signs combined foretold much wealth and harmony and both families rejoiced.

  Sometimes Heaven is wrong, or more properly, what is written in the sky can be misinterpreted by matchmakers who did not want to stand in the way of so much hope. The year my father planted me in my mother’s womb was the same year he began to spend more and more time in the other provinces, trying to add to the family coffers, but spending more at various teahouses whenever he returned. In an area the size of Lújìng Béishú words travel faster than horses, fueled by jealous lips and destructive tongues.

  I remember the day that my mother was summoned from her gardening by a stoic Keeper of the Peace to identify my father’s remains. She reeled, dropped her pruning scissors and left me alone with the dozens of orchids she loved.

  She found him in a pool of his own blood, the price exacted by too many unfulfilled promises made to a young serving girl, who had also taken her own life in despair.

  “She cut out the pieces of his heart that belonged to her,” my mother told me. “Slish-slash, just like you do to a pig.”

  My mother did not cry throughout the entire episode. She wore her white widow’s garb and carried her shame with a courage that defied any who looked her in the eye. She did what she could to prevent the continued erosion of our fortune, for my father could not take his debts with him beyond the Black Gates, but she did not have a knack for commerce. Instead, her older brother took over her share of the family business, giving her a modest allowance for expenses. This devastated my mother but she did not show it, declining the proper number of times before allowing herself to accept the offered amount. It was one-tenth of what she used to have.

  We moved into my uncle’s house and learned to adjust to our loss of status, for of course her brother’s wife ran the household. For my mother, it was another stroke added to the terrible painting that was her shame. We shared a single room, cramped by too many memories of finer things. That is where she began the long and involved process of becoming a ghost.