The few remaining students were making their way to the gate. They were flirting and fooling around. Constancia watched them until they disappeared from her sight and their laughter faded away.
She turned away from the window and faced Amir. He was seated beside her desk. “Do you really have to go?” she asked him.
“Father sent for me, ma’am,” he said. “I’m sorry I can’t help in the preparations for the prom.”
“The prom!” she said. “If you were not worried about your duty as the student council president, you would have left without a word, wouldn’t you?” She shook her head. “I’ve witnessed this before, Amir, many times. Some male students would just suddenly stop attending classes at the same time. And they never told me where they were going. You’re the first one to ask permission, do you know that?”
“It is only for a week, ma’am,” he said.
“A week? I hope so, Amir. I hope this battle will stop right away.”
“It will. The military will be retreating soon. We have more men and high-powered guns now,” Amir said with pride in his voice.
“But, son,” she said, “the military uses planes to drop bombs.”
“Don’t worry, ma’am,” he said, smiling. “We’ve got this magnetic anti-plane device.” He steered an imaginary rudder. “When pointed straight at the plane, the plane would wobble and drop on the ground.”
“You make it sound like a game.” She sighed. “Don’t go, Amir.”
Amir stood up. “I have to, ma’am. I want to. I can’t back off, especially now that we have only a year to go.”
“What do you mean?”
“Victory. Separation. The whole island will be ours in a year. It’s going to happen finally.”
“Amir, it never happened for forty years. Why would it happen in one year, this year?”
“We’ve got help from the outside, ma’am. The anti-plane device I told you, it’s from them.”
Constancia wanted to tell Amir so many things, but she knew nothing could change his mind. This was no time for declamation and a bottle of Coke. “Come back, Amir,” she said. “For your diploma.”
Amir smiled. The usual sweet smile. “I will, ma’am. Count on that.”
“How about Odin, is he going with you?”
“Yes, he’s one of us.”
* * *
“If I were not a woman and fat and ugly, I would have been killed here a long time ago,” said Constancia.
Usman laughed, but he forced himself to stop lest he would choke with the tinagtag he was eating. “Don’t say that, ma’am,” he said. “You’re too harsh on yourself.”
“But that’s true,” said Constancia. “Do you think if I’m beautiful the datus and commanders here would not fight over me to be their fifth wife?”
Usman grinned. “But haven’t you thought of marrying again, ma’am? You have been widowed for a long time.”
“Oh no, never again. If I marry one of those Muslims men here, who are dominant, we would end up shooting each other. My husband was shy and rarely talked. That was why we got along well.” She laughed, brown and brittle bits of tinagtag flying out her mouth. “Perhaps he was too kind, that's why God took him early.”
Usman didn't know how to react.
“To make matters worse, I was pregnant when my husband died,” said Constancia. “I was struck with grief, but I was thankful that at least I was having his child. The baby, however, died while still inside me. It must be caused by the stress, but it might also be my age. I was already in my thirties when I got married, you know.”
“Oh, ma’am,” said Usman. “You’re life story is really something out of a telenovela.”
“Indeed,” she said. “But you know what, Usman, I realize God might have taken my child but he gave me more, a lot more . . . These students, they’re my children.”
“Perhaps, ma’am, you are really destined to be a principal.”
“Yes, this must be what God wants me to do with my life. That’s why I believe those boys who are now in the mountains will return. God will bring them back to me.”
“Does that mean you're staying here, ma’am?”
“I don’t know, Usman. I can’t decide while those boys are still out there.”
“It’s been five days now, ma'am, since they were gone. I pray Allah will take care of them. I saw in the news last night that the military had started conducting air raids.”
(To be continued)
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