Princessa Bangus, or, The Milkfish Princess

Right outside the window was a stand of white plumeria, and beyond that a garden with a neatly trimmed lawn. Morning and night, the sprinklers made a drowsy clatter on the grass. Pass the garden was a swimming pool and a row of tall palm trees, whose huge fronds waved gently in the trade winds.

I liked to stand out there and look back at the shore, at the long white beach, the red lifeguard tower, the green row of palm trees -- it was a gorgeous scene, maybe a little too picture-postcard perfect. Off to the right, the beach ended in a line of dark craggy rocks that led to the hotel cottages where my wife and I were staying. It was the end of June, still early in the tourist season, and there weren't many people in the hotel or on the beach.

She threaded her way across the market-place between piles of pomegranates and the taxis and the camels, wailing a short chant over and over again.

She grabbed my arm in a tight grip.
"Are you all right?" she asked me.
Her words brought me back to reality, and I stood up from the bench. This time I had no trouble standing. Once more I could feel on my skin the sweet May breeze. For a few seconds I stood there in a strange, dim place. Where the things I could see didn't exist. Where the invisible did. Finally, though, the real number 28 bus stopped in front of me, its entirely real door opening. I clambered aboard, heading off to some otner place.
I rested my hand on her shoulder. "I'm all right," I told her.


"You'll be back, right?"

I'd been lost in thoght. I looked up when she said this and saw the bus slowing down as it went round the curve coming up the slope. This wasn't the kind of brand-new bus we'd ridden over on but one of the older buses I remembered.

I'd been thinking of the box of chocolates we'd taken when we went to that hospital on that long-ago summer afternoon.

"What does that feel like?"

"Does it bother you?"
I shook my head.

I tried to picture it, but the image wouldn't come.

She frowned. "I dont' really get it either, but every time somebody sympathizes with me about my ears that line comes to me."

I laughed.

"Is that strange?" she asked.

"Yes," I laughed. And she laughed. It'd been a long time since I'd seen her laugh.

"Would you be the first for me?"

"The first?" I asked, a little surprised.

"That's enought," I said.She spun around to sit faceing forward, shifting around on the bench.

She looked disappointed. Maybe I had said the wrong thing.

She was at the table, huddled over a steaming bowl.

I stopped at a Sari-Sari store near the nightclub and bought a handful of candy.

She had on the same dress with the faded flowers. I sat at a table near the window and lit a cigarette.

"By the time you grow up you're going to be a beautiful girl."

She laughed and wiped the tips of her fingers, covered in oil from the doughnuts.

Her mou-mou had two hip pockets, in one of which was a small gold-colored pen. Whenever she leaned forward I could see her small, white breast peep out of the V-neck collar.

I looked off to one side and tried to visualize her back home in the States. Braces. Clean white blouse, pleated blue skirt. Shoes instead of slippers.

Where does it hurt? she asked.
I pressed my temples.

"This is my father," she said, producing a folded piece of paper from one of her pockets. I unfolded the glossy picture. It turned out to be a crudely clipped photograph of Ricky Nelson from a magazine.

"You're not mad, are you?"

"Yes, I guess so," she said after giving it some thought. "What do you think?" she asked me.
"Sounds like a sad story to me," I replied.

It was well after twelve when she came back. She was carrying a small bag of tamarinds and had a sort of unfocused look on her face. After she appeared at the entrance to the cafeteria it took some time for her to spot me and come over. She walked awkwardly, as if she couldn't keep her balance. She sat down across from me and, like she'd been too busy to remember to breathe, took a huge breath.

"Are you hungry?" I asked.
She nodded silently.

She looked uncertainly around the room. "Here's fine," she said. I ordered lunch, fried chicken, for both of us. Until the food was broght over to us she gazed silently out the window at the same scenery I'd been looking at -- the sea, the row of zelkovas, the sprinkler.

We sat there, across from each other, silently eating.



She bent over the table, a serious look on her face.

Now, though, seeing the way she tilted her head, her left ear aimed at me, I found it strangely touching. Like the sound of rain heard long ago, his awkwardness struck a chord with me.

I looked carefully around the restaurant and glanced outside. It was the same old view of a quiet residential district I remembered well.

Everything all right? she asked worriedly. Ever since I sat down at the table next to the window I must have had a perplexed look on my face.

She thought about what I'd said.

"You're half? Like me?" /
"Yeah, that's right."

"Did you used to think about your father when you were young?"
Even as I shook my head no, I pictured the photograph of my biological father. He was tall, a foot resting on the fender of a patrol car.

"Why not? WHy didn't you think of him?"
"Cause I had a father." That wasn't the reason, but I couldn't think of any other way to explain it.

We reached the city, brightly lit and teeming with traffic.

The young woman rummaged through the hobo bag resting on the table. She pulled out a photograph and scowled. "This is my father." Then she reached back into her bag and produced several more pictures of American sailors, which she fanned on the table in front of her. One by one she jabbed each photo and said, "Or maybe it's this man. Or this one. Or this one."

I pressed an American quarter into her outstretched hand.

She returned not long after carrying a bag of tamarind.

She threaded her way across the flyblown market-place between palm baskets filled with golden mangos and the cages of chattering chickens and the red, red hogs that hung from the eaves of the butcher's wooden awning, their flesh hacked and wrapped in waxpaper.

Also titled 'Princessa Bangus, or The Milkfish Princess, or Gum Girl

The patches of dust on her face made her look as if she'd stood with a camo-stick in front of a mirror.

floppy slippers slapping the concrete.


The girl reminded me of myself when I was little. Coltish legs.
An ache inside of me.
I froze with a sweaty bottle of San Miguel halfway to my mouth.

Light trembling along the floor

A kind of carp, or catfish. Lagoons, ponds, mangroves, rivers, coral reefs, warm shelves in the pacific. Forked tail fin, spread wide. A very bony fish.

The Bangus Harvest.