The Tesseract by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141941455
Publisher: Penguin Publishing
Published: 2009-08-10T00:00:00+00:00

3

The sudden downpour that evening was as unexpected as a fist-fight in a church, and was strong enough to tear branches from palm trees. But even the power of the rain, and the crack and brightness of the lightning, seemed a desultory warning of the winds that followed. By nightfall, it had become the kind of typhoon that could lift a house and spin it across a paddy-field.

Sitting in a pool of oil-lamp light, held securely in Corazon’s arms, Rosa could feel her mother’s lips moving against her ear, but over the sound of the storm she couldn’t hear the words. ‘Dios mío,’ Rosa imagined. Corazon would be using a Spanish prayer, because where God was concerned, she believed Spanish was the language most likely to produce results. ‘Por favor, dé su protección a esta casita y esta familia.’

A fresh peal of thunder, which sounded as if the entire structure of the sky was breaking away from its horizon seam, made Corazon’s hold tighten. Rosa dared to open her eyes for a moment, and saw a strobe of white slashes against the dark walls of her home. The typhoon was peering through the gaps in the nipa matting. Nestled further into her mother’s embrace, Rosa decided not to open her eyes again until the slashes were caused by daylight.

But daylight never really came. Hours later, the only indication of sun-up was Doming waking. He had slept better than his wife and daughter, untroubled by the shattering noise. As he stretched his muscles, Corazon gently extricated herself from her daughter’s curled form, and walked over to the kitchen area to fix some breakfast.

Rosa watched her father gauge the storm by leaning against the front door and feeling it vibrate through his shoulders. A flick of his eyebrows conceded that they were locked in for the day. After a few minutes of drumming his fingers on his belly, he was seated at their small wobbly table, frowning at his stubby fingers. Fish-hooks were lined up to his left, strips of blue thread were lined up to his right, and threaded fishhooks were rapidly lining up in front of him.

Rosa helped Doming until mid-morning. Then she helped him sharpen some of his knives. Then some of Corazon’s. In the afternoon, Doming fixed the wobbly table and the family spent the rest of the day playing pusoy dos, even though the pack was short the two of diamonds.

The next twenty-four hours were much the same, the one variety being the nature of the chores. And so were the next. The only difference to the fourth day was Rosa’s realization that if she didn’t see Lito soon, she was going to go crazy.

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