company. When I went back to work I told Gilsa that I couldn't add much to the P.C. investigation of Collins's murder. I also filed a report that the death certificate supporting Precy Allen's claim was genuine. In the opinion of this investigator … It seemed fair, and far less complicated that way. I told Gilsa, Truth's the truth. He wasn't happy to have spent three weeks and five thousand dollars to hear that, but I was back in his graces soon enough. I am good at my job.

     I have never told Vangie what happened along the forest path. Correon's death, attributed to the NPA, was in the Manila papers the day we docked. She may have read it, perhaps not. In any case she has never mentioned him, and neither have I. She did tell me that she had been in the caretakers' house that night, and witnessed Lito's execution. Otherwise, we have never discussed the cruel hours between our kiss at the threshold of the hut and our reunion on the Hermosa road.

     Acquaintances ask: Has she adjusted? The easiest answer is that Vangie would never languish anywhere. She is happy, and she belongs. She has learned to drive the freeways. She reads food labels and has been properly indoctrinated in the hazards of cholesterol and saturated fats. At movies she laughs in all the right places. She fits as if she were born here. Actually the fit is even closer than that—she has a newcomer's relish for our comforts and opportunities.

     Yet there are moments when I know that she is not one of us, and never will be.

     I have to go back to my last full day in the Philippines, the day the ship docked in Manila. We had taken the ferry because nobody would look for us there. For the same reason, we checked into a cheap pension on Mabini Street. I still had a lock box at the Silahis, though; I wanted to empty it and arrange our flights. It was early afternoon. We needed clothes. Vangie left to shop while