could not be forced to go alone, and it seemed unfair to send either of
the smaller kids, Allen or Jasmine, who stood side by side, on the verge
Reconnaisance
Tara FT Sering
The thin, feathery, tali grass swayed with the wind in an endless
wave of goodbye. There was no returning now. Beyond the grassy
field, Bibi could glimpse her older sister Pia, her cousin Allen, their
neighbors Jaime and Joseph and Jasmine. They were waving, and Bibi
could tell from afar, giggling.
The high afternoon sun rippled in its own heat, and with very
little shade in the newly developed residential subdivision in the
outskirts of the city, everything wilted and baked and hardened under
its glare. There were no clouds.
It was the afternoon of the Third World War, and the opposing
camps - Pia, Bibi, and Allen versus Jaime, Joseph, and Jasmine -
were dressed in full battle gear: denim pants, water~proof jackets, lab
glasses, slingshots draped on their shoulders and plastic packs of bottle
cap ammunition tied to their belts. Midvhy into the conflict - both
teams ducking behind parked cars, climbing an occasional short tree
throwing rotten guavas and waterballoo'.t's at each other - someone
had released a bottle cap from a slingshot and it went flying past a
vacant lot where it landed somewhere near the Arana house. A faint
yet sickening sound of glass breaking sent threads of cold apprehension
running through the backs of the sweat-soaked soldiers, and one by
one, they emerged from their hiding posts and gathered on the street.
No one would admit to the crime and yet, responsible Pia, the
oldest in the group, declared that of course someone had to go and
check. On the basis of seniority, Pia had the authority to appoint anyone
on a mission to survey the damage; but Jaime could not be persuaded,
Joseph followed everything Jaime did and did not do and therefore
of tears. Pia herself refused to go or to explain why. It had to be Bibi, or
their mama would soon find out that someone was failing math in
school, and it wasn't Pia. .
From where they stood the Arana house looked quiet and
undisturbed; a consolation for Bibi that the house might be deserted.
She only needed to wade through the waist-high grass to get to where
the silent house stoJd, check how much damage they had caused,
report back to base, and everything would be fine.
It was natl,lral perhaps that 8ibi, in the years that followed, would
forget about that hot afternoon, only to remember it at certain points
in her life; for instance, when she returned home from work one
afternoon and found that her husband had cleared out his closet, she
stood there at the doorway of the bedroom, feeling the cool glass of
one of the Arana house's windows pressed against her nose, the one
.she had peered into years ago when she was nine.
Under the blazing sun Bibi returned to the five tiny figures one
more time, squinting through the white glare. Sweatfrom her 'forehead
trickled down her face, and tears threatened to burst through her eyes.
Her hands were cold, electrified; her feet were heavy and half-
pralyzed as she stood in front of the low, rusty grille gate. Her heart
thumped, sank, slid down to her stomach.
She pushed open the creaking gate and waited for a sign of dogs.
There were none. She began to take small, careful steps along'the
pebble-washed path that led to the main door, but a gallery of windows
to the left of the large, intricately carved door caught her attention.
The orders were for her to check for something broken, and it was not
a window, then the bottle cap must have hit something else of less
. importance.
Except for one window to the far left, all the others had their green
curtains drawn. None appeared to have been broken, nor did their
clear glass reveal any cracks. But there seemed to be a movement
behind the last one whose curtains were pulled aside.
Despite having a natural instinct to run from the slightest sign of
th~ unfamiliar, Bibi moved to inspect the window on the far-left. It
 I:
I
, I,'
was dim inside but not completely dark, and a rustling that seemed
f~ll and re~urned laughing into bed, and the way his wife smiled and
oblivious to her continued despite her approach. When'she pressed
giggled, bhnded and in captivity. And as Bibi, her legs scratched from
her nose against the glass, she gasped and her knees buckled as though
overgrown ~eeds, nea:ed h~me base an involuntary smile briefly
in a failed attempt to bolt. Mrs. Arana was blindfolded and her wrists
escaped her hps, somethmg of immense reliet and a hint of excitement.
were loosely tied to opposite posts at the foot-end of the bed. Hunched
over her, Mr. Arana whose fat, white, dimpled body glistened with
sweat, lowered himself toward his wife, bucking his head and mouth
over and away from her wrinkled nipples; then she klaked him with
so much force despite her pale legs and knobby knees that he fell off
the bed, only to pick himself up - a hook like a thick, purplish cowlick
dangling from a clump of hair in between his legs -laughing. Mrs,
Arana herself could not suppress waves of giggles, and once more Mr.
Arana jumped on top of her, kissing her body from between her
collarbones, in between her sagging breasts, down to her belly button,
her round stomach, the dark mesh in between her legs.
Bibi pulled away from the window, her breath short and fear
pounding in her ears like an invasion. Her lips were pale and cold.
She turned around and with eyes wide ".l: ld unblinking, dashed down
the pebble-washed path, through the gate, across the street and into
the grassy field. She would later remember this afternoon in the middle
of making love with an acquaintance's boyfriend whose bare shoulder,
pressing hard on her mO'.1th,she would bite with uncontainable desire.
He would yelp in pain and stop pressing himself into her and stare at
her, irritated and befuddled, and she would lie there, her eyes steady,
her lips curled in one corner, her belly surging and ebbing and surging
again with pleasure.
•
The afternoon of the war, Bibi sprinted through the field, her face
tight and stunned. When the others saw her approaching they bega,n
to wave, but the speed and determination with which Bibi Wid
approaching must have seemed unnatural,strange, as tho\.1.g-h
something had happened while she was, however briefly, out of sight.
They stopped and waited.
And Bibi, running halfway thrQugh the field, recalled in a flas:,
the way Mr. and Mrs. Arana looked when they sat side by side in
church, she with a black lace fan and he with his shirt buttoned to the
neck. She remembered, too, almost in that same instant, the way he