THE WOMAN WHO HAD TWO NAVELS
405
you could go out on that azotea and buy everything you needed–
rice, fish, honey, eggs, live poultry, feed for the horses, fruits and
vegetables-from villagers rowing into town in small boats that
looked something like American Indian canoes. The villagers' voices
were what woke you up in the morning and his father would jump
up from bed and run to the window and it would be just light
enough to see the small boat down there on the river and the two
people it carried: the husband sitting behind and rowing; the wife
standing up in front, facing the river, her hands on her hips, and her
body turning this way and that as, very clearly, very solemnly, her
melodious voice lingering on each syllable, she described her wares
to the sleeping houses. His father would snatch a towel and run down
to the azotea. On other azoteas, on both sides of the river, other
boys would be stripping for an early dip and hallooing at each other.
The water was never very clean- "But that never stopped us," said
his father, seated on the sand, eating a sandwich; and with one of
his rare smiles he would add: "And I hope that a few dead pigs or
dogs floating around will not stop you boys from enjoying that river
when we go home."
Sprawled on their bellies on the white sand, at their parents'
feet, he and Tony would ask: "But when are we going home, Papc:?
When are we going to see our own land?" And
if
his father was in
a good mood he would smile and groan: "Only God knows. \ Ve
must move Him with our silence.
Quomodo cantabo canticum Dom–
ini in terra aliena?"
But if troubled in spirit, a mild sarcasm would
strain the fine skin tighter against the sharp bones of his face as
he replied dryly: "Soon, perhaps. The news is getting better and
better." And his mother would quickly become very inquisitive about
the house in Binondo: were its floors of good wood? how many bed–
rooms did it have? could the cousins be trusted to take good care of
it until
they
came home?
She had never seen the house herself; she was much younger
than his father- a ship captain's daughter whom he had met and
married here in Hong Kong when he had begun to realize th -. '
the exile he had imposed on himself and had at first so confidently
supposed would last only a couple of years might actually last
<til
his lifetime. He had married desiring sons; quietly resolved that he
