A Girl in Dipolog Kerima Polotan Tuvera

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A Girl in Dipolog

Kerima Polotan Tuvera

I saw first not the girl but a worn-out bench and a rough table on which old shoes and slippers were arranged. No sign anywhere announced this was a repair shop, because it was no shop really, only a portion of a sidewalk, timidly pre-empted by this girl who couldn’t have been more than ten, the age of a daughter I had left back home who would at this hour be seated at her piano.

She wore a leather apron and was twisting what looked like twine into ball. Beneath her apron, her dress was size to small, and when she turned around from stepping forward t meet me, I saw the scrawny back and the spindly legs.

“Where is your father?” I asked. The alley behind her led to home, a dark hole from which sounds of living drifted. A kettle dropped. Someone was husking the floor.” your father?”

She didn’t answer me. I shucked the step in. Very business-like she offered me a stool. She picked up my step- in.”Your father?” I repeated.

For the first time, she spoke.”This is mine,” she said, gesturing to her bench and table. If I had meant to exclaim over her youth she stopped me by pulling out a box from where she lifted her tools- needle, thread, and hammer.

She bent over her work, lost in it, her dark hair nearly touching her knees, her short bob obscuring her face. Expertly, her hands pierced, and then threaded: knotted, snipped, and hammered. She handled her tools carefully, as though she had a hard time coming by them. She worked on the slipper with complete concentration, not once lifting her face. She knotted a final stitch, then snipped, and was beginning to return her tools when is said,” Do the other. Please”

Her solemnity compelled respect, and for twenty minutes I sat there watching the little craftsman. She was ten, a grave girl earning money for food to put in the kettle that someone dropped in the morning- when would the virus revolution reach her, when would she graffiti?

Seventy centavos was all she charged e. I wanted to give a tip but her seriousness left me too shy. There was no price for that pride. She emptied a faded purse shut, folded the newspaper, and put the stool away. ”are you here every day?”I asked.

“Yes” she said,” when school is closed.” Behind her workbench once more she leaned back her hands folded, awaiting another stray like me. She had not smiled at all.

…I said goodbye. The town felt less strange now – it had rubbed against my skin. Dipolog, its houses spread sparsely beneath the sun, the smell of the sea strong in the wind, had begun to take shape from me.