"Pienso que usted es un hombre que mira divertido," Isabella said playfully, as she unfolded her fan to cover her smile.
"Senora, please. I'm trying really hard. You know I don't speak good Spanish," he said to her.
"You know, Antonio, you're in a foreign land. You should try harder. I could be telling you something you want to hear," she said, as she folded her fan and smoothed out her skirt.
"Anthony," he corrected. "And I know, I know. But it has only been --"
"Hay Dios mio, it has been four years!" she exclaimed. She got up and walked towards the edge of the balcony. She looked out into her family's hacienda and stared at the mighty tree in the corner of the garden. "You moved here four years ago, and four years ago, I didn't speak a word of English."
"Well, it can be difficult. I picked up a lot of Spanish since then, but I just couldn't form a decent sentence," he said, as he stood next to her. He rested his elbows on the grate. "It's not as easy as you think, you know."
"Your English, I took the time to learn it. And I think I'm better at English than you are, Senor Antonio."
"Well, mi perro está en mi torta," he said haughtily. "So there."
Isabella gasped and then shook her head. "What a mean and inappropriate thing to say."
"I'm sorry, I- I- I don't even know what I said, the little boy across the street taught me that..."
She then cracked a smile. "'A dog in your cake'. I didn't think you were one of those people who ate dogs." She then burst into giggles, covering her mouth with her fan.
"No, no, no! I don't eat -- Hey! That wasn't very nice," he said, as she gathered her notebook and pen and stood up.
"Like I said, Senor Antonio," she said as she headed towards the steps that led to the garden. "Knowing our language has it's advantages. Goodbye for now, I will see you tomorrow. I have to attend to some business."
It was such a rarity that a woman upstages a man that Anthony was actually fairly amused. Maria Isabella Victorina Ibanez was not like any other women he has met. Isabella was a fiercely independent woman, always ready to pick at anything. But she was also very feminine, which makes losing to her such a pleasure.
Her fierce independence stems from being raised by her father, an avid supporter of the revolutionists. He refused to raise a woman who cannot defend herself, a concept almost unheard of in a time when women were shamed for being able to read. When he cannot teach her himself, about the languages and about the world, he supported some of the revolutionists, literary masters in their time, to give her a distinct advantage of being able to speak two, now three, languages fluently. She spoke fluent Tagalog and Spanish, and she became one of the very few women at the time who earned a living and tutored children and young adults the languages.
It wasn't until four years ago, when she met Anthony. He was part of the US Thomas contingent, a group of American teachers who signed up and was deployed to put up schools for the newly acquired US territory. Unlike the Spaniards who lived in morbid fear of educated indios, the Americans were eager to teach the residents about the Arts, Sciences and Mathematics.
She approached him one day as he was walking out of a converted school. She gave him a piece of paper that said "Escuela, Ingles". Anthony understood immediately that she wanted to learn English. She was a very eager student, and by the second year of him teaching her, she was already teaching him about Tagalog and Spanish.
"Good morning," she said in Tagalog to their resident gardener. The gardener immediately removed his wide brimmed hat, nodded back and put his hat back, and went back to trimming the hedges. She walked towards the large tree in the middle of the garden, where a group of women were gathered, mostly wives of the tenants that live and work on her family's property. It was two weeks before lent, and she was elected as organizer of the annual cenaculo.
The cenaculo, or passion play, was an anticipated event for the tenants on the hacienda. It was one of the few events on the property where women and children were actually involved. For the women, it was a chance to congregate with the rest of the wives. It was also a nice break from the monotony.
"Good morning ladies. Today we will cast Judas and Mary Magdalene. Any ideas?" she asked as she opened up her notebook.
Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw a pair of eyes, staring at her from with in the tree trunk.
Did I just see that? she asked herself. She was almost certain it was pink, and it blinked at her. She must have been staring for a while, because one of the ladies approached her.
"Senora? May bumabagabag sa inyo?"
"No, no, I'm fine. Thank you, Celia. I got distracted. I apologize," she replied in Tagalog. She went back to her notepad, and when she glanced at the tree, she thought she saw a small hand wave at her.
This is not right, she thought as the first batch of Mary Magdalenes came up on the make shift stage. She shook her head, and tried to focus. Maybe it's just the light.
