Nick
Joaquin
THE WOMAN WHO HAD TWO NAVELS
When she told him she had two navels he believed her at
once: she seemed so urgently, so desperately serious-and besides,
what would be the point in telling a lie like that, he asked himself,
while she asked
him
if he could help her, if he could arrange "some–
thing surgical"-an operation " . .
"But I'm only a horse-doctor," he apologized: to which she
scathingly retorted that, well, if he could fix up horses- And she
cried that it was urgent: her whole life depended on it ...
He inquired how old she was, and noting-while she replied
that she was thirty- how her eyes turned cagey for the first time
since she came into the room he wondered, putting on his spectacles,
if
she might be knocking off a few years, but could not tell, for the
stylized face with the black hat pulled low over it recorded no time
in years, only in hours.
"But does my age matter?" she asked, turning coy.
"And are you married?" he primly pursued.
She nodded and, slipping off a glove, displayed her left hand,
the thread of metal round the third finger not more polished than the
flesh it bound.
"-with children?"
"No." Again she sounded cautious. "But I've not been married
long," she quickly added; and more quickly still, defiantly, "The
truth is," she rapped out, "I was married only this morning."
His face went blank, and she began to tell him about her life.
"When I was a little girl I thought everybody else had two
navels ... Oh,
you
smile- you've never had to face a fact that was
yours only, not general data. You were a nice boy-weren't you,
Doctor?-and lovingly sheltered. I can see that. You've always lived
