Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 34, No. 13 & 14, Winter 1989

“You have improved in size,” she said, smiling.

Paquette laughed, flashing perfect white teeth. “You mean I have become fat?”

“No, no. You are the same pretty girl I remember, only now you have filled out and become a beautiful woman.”

It was true. But if Paquette had stayed here in the village, Meding thought, she would now be gap-toothed and worn like her less fortunate schoolmates.

While Meding heated water for coffee, Paquette explained that she and her family had returned to Antipuluan so that they could celebrate her birthday in the place where she was born.

“When is your birthday?” Meding asked.

“Two days from today.”

“There will be a party?”

“Yes, in the evening when it is cool,” Paquette explained. “And during the day we will be taking a trip to satisfy a curiosity I have had since I was a little girl.”

Paquette pointed toward the sea to a tiny hump visible on the horizon.

“Since I was a child collecting shells along this beach, I have wanted to visit that island,” she said. “In my mind then it was a very beautiful place. Now, finally, I shall go there and see for myself. My brother-in-law, Roberto, will take us in his boat.”

“The place is called Arena Island,” Meding said. “No one lives there, only sea birds.”

“You have been to the island?”

“Only once. I brought something back. Come, let me show you.”

They put their coffee cups aside and Meding led the way around to the back of her house. A bamboo cage sat under the overhang of the house, supported above the ground on several flat rocks.

“Nick nick,” Meding said.

At the sound of her voice, a gray-plumed head on a long, feathered neck popped up between the bamboo bars of the cage.

“Nick nick,” the bird responded.

Paquette laughed with delight.

“He is my pet,” Meding said, loosing the catch at the top of the cage. The bird nuzzled her fingers. “His name is Nick-Nick and he is a sea heron. I took Nick-Nick’s egg from his mother’s nest in the sand on Arena Island two years ago.”

“He is wonderful,” Paquette said.

Meding lifted the heron from the cage and set him on the ground at her feet. The bird sprang away and bounded about the yard, his head bobbing up and down.

“Nick nick, nick nick,” the bird chortled as he ran. Meding’s sow squealed with annoyance as Nick-Nick sprinted past her bed of mud.

“You must bring your husband and son to see him,” Meding told Paquette. “Come at feeding time. He eats only fish, so his mealtime is just before siesta when the men return from fishing.”

“I will bring them,” Paquette promised.

Meding finished eating and rinsed her bowl. Outside, the wind and rain rattled and pelted her house furiously. This is a storm, she thought, not merely a squall. She wondered how long it would last. If the bad weather continued through the night, the men would miss a day’s fishing — another problem added to the others. The villagers needed to fish for their food and also to earn the few pesos they received selling part of their catch to the merchants from the nearby town of Narra. Lying down on the floor by the fire, she pulled her sleeping blanket over her, closed her eyes, and resumed examining what she knew about the American.

The day after the first meeting, as promised, Paquette had brought her husband and son to visit. The American was tall and lean. He had short brown hair peppered with gray, and brown eyes that were both intelligent and friendly. The boy was small for a six-year-old, but he was a handsome mixture of his father and mother’s features and skin coloring and seemed bright and happy. Both father and son were dressed in T-shirts, faded jeans, and dusty sneakers. After the introductions were over, the adults sat on the porch sipping coconut wine while the boy inspected the yard and Meding’s animals.

“You must find our ways here very simple compared to your life in the United States,” Meding had said to the American. Her English was good, remembered from her schooling and practiced at every opportunity.

“Different,” the American replied. “But your way of life here isn’t so simple. It requires skills few Americans have to live from the land and sea as people here do.” He spoke softly and, Meding thought, with confidence and authority. A man accustomed to being listened to.

“What work do you do?” she asked.

“I retired from the army just a month ago,” the American replied. “I was a soldier for twenty years.”

“We met while I was going to school,” Paquette explained. “My husband was teaching an army reserve training course at the college where I was a student.”

Meding nodded. “So what will you do now?” she asked.

“I’m not sure,” the American shrugged. “I don’t know the answer to that question yet.”