Kashmira rested the guitar on the stand, slipped off the stool, and went to stand behind the music table. She clicked a switch before replying. "An old Philippine folk song from Pampanga. That's a province north of Manila. It's about somebody who lost a ring and is very sad. Atin Ku Pung Singsing."
"What's that?"
"The song's name."
"I didn't recognize any of the words."
"They speak a different language in Pampanga. I don't know the language very well, but I like this song."
"Do you sing many folk songs?"
"No. I use this song to ensure that the equipment is still working and to prepare my voice."
"Have you had singing lessons?"
"No."
"Guitar lessons?"
"No. I found some old U-tube videos. That got me started. Now I watch videos of other guitarists and try to copy what they do."
"What does the equipment do?"
"It records the song. I click this button to return the machine to the starting position; then I click this button to play it back. Like this."
...
"You don't look very happy about that recording."
"It wasn't very good. I've never sung in front of anybody before. You made me nervous."
"Do you want me to leave?"
"No. This won't be a good day for singing, anyway."
"Why's that?"
"I can't concentrate. My mind is all confused."
"From what we talked about earlier?"
"Yah."
"Why do you have to concentrate when you sing? Don't you just open your mouth and sing? That's what our family does when we sing."
"I have to concentrate. I'm not good at it yet."
"What are you concentrating on? Remembering the words? Making sure you hit the high notes?"
"No. None of that. I'm concentrating on figuring out where the song is going to go next. I know what I'm going to sing for about five or six seconds at a time. If I can't figure out what to sing after that, the song ends. I must always be planning ahead. Some days I can't do that."
"You're making up the song as you go?"
"Yes. Isn't that what you do?"
"No. We sing the tune that somebody else has created and we sing the words that somebody else has written."
"Huh."
# # # # # # # #
Mathias was standing with Kashmira behind the music table. "I think I understand. This button is to start and stop. This button is to go back to the beginning. If I start it up again, whatever you sing will replace what you sang before."
"Yes."
"Let's try it. But don't sing. Just say a few words. How close do you have to be to the microphone?"
"About here. I'll keep talking. You start and stop it."
...
"That worked."
"Told you that part was easy."
"What happens if I stop, don't rewind, and start up again?"
"It will make a new recording."
"Could I get the first one back?"
"If it was taped today. This screen here shows the time that the tape started and stopped. You press on the part of the screen that you want to hear."
"Where does the recording go after the day is over? Can you retrieve it?"
"I don't think so. I've never tried to find my old songs."
"You don't want to listen to any of them again?"
"No. I told you. I'm not very good. I just sing what I'm feeling that day."
"How do you do that?"
"I open my mouth and what comes out is what comes out. Why would I want to listen to that again?"
"But you feel better after you've sung, right? I always feel good after we've had a family song night."
"Sometimes. Depends on what I was singing."
"Why don't you show me? I'll tape it. Then we can listen and you can tell me what you were trying to sing."
"You won't make fun of me? I told you. I can't concentrate right now."
"I won't make fun of you. Sing for twenty seconds. That's all."
# # # # # # # #
"I've never heard anything like that before."
"I told you. I'm not very good! You said you wouldn't make fun of me!"
"I meant that in a good way."
"A good way?"
"Yeah. That was... I don't know what to say. You told me in your song that you were upset, but you didn't say a single word. I knew what you were feeling! It was... it was amazing!"
"Really?"
"Yes! It was like I was listening to a musical instrument but it was your voice instead. A violin, perhaps. I don't know much about the old instruments. All we have back home are harmonicas."
"What's a violin?"
"A thing with strings on it; the musician has a stick with strings on it too. Pulling the stick over the strings makes nice sounds. We could probably find it on some old U-tube clips. Do you ever put words into your music?"
"I don't know what words I'd put in. I'm concentrating on the music. Besides I can't sing the music and say the words at the same time."
"Your voice went up very high near the end. Did you have trouble getting that high?"
"No. I could have gone higher."
"How far up and down the scale can you go?"
"What's a scale? Why all the questions? I thought you liked my song."
"I do. I really, really liked it. One last question. Are you in a better mood right now?"
"Yeah. Cause you liked my song."
"Sing me how you're feeling now."
...
"Holy Kangahoopdedoodle!"
"What's that?"
"It's an expression my family uses when we are very excited about something. It would be what you might say if I told you – I know how you can escape from your father!"
"Holy Kanga-thingy!"
Back to the Table of Contents
Chapter 14
It's now one day later – Tuesday afternoon. Kashmira was sitting in the loveseat in the music room, feet curled up underneath her. Her left arm was cocked into an L- shape, her head was resting on her left hand, and her eyes were focused on Mathias who was standing behind the music table.
Kashmira was wearing a shimmering, multi-hued ankle-length skirt with an ivory white, long-sleeved blouse. She had been wearing a similar style of skirt yesterday – but with different colours. The blouse yesterday had been deep yellow. Mathias had commented on how nice she looked when she had entered the room that morning.
"This old thing?" she had replied in surprise to somebody complimenting her on how she was dressed. "These are my school clothes."
No wonder the girls in your school hate you.
Back to present time. "Have you figured it out yet?" Kashmira asked this question from the loveseat. The tone of her voice revealed that she was becoming impatient. Kashmira fit lengthwise inside the loveseat almost perfectly. She couldn't lie down completely on it, but she'd be comfortable with her head on one of the armrests and her body slightly curled. It would be easy for her to nap in it. Mathias could sit in the loveseat normally, with his feet on the floor. If he tried to lie down, he wouldn't be able to curl his body into the tight space. He could lie on his back, but his feet would dangle over the armrests.
Mathias had found the manual that described the functions of the AMIT. Fortunately it had been built in Australia and the manual was in English. The manual was at least 200 pages thick. "I understand some of it. The recordings you make each day aren't lost; they're stored inside the equipment. If I click the Storage button and hold it down for five seconds, I'll see a list of days that hold recordings. You'd have to know which day you recorded a song if you wanted to listen to it again. Wait, page 133 describes how you can save each song under a name and then access an alphabetical list of each song, so there must be a way..."
Kashmira lowered her head to the armrest and closed her eyes. "Tell me again why you're doing this." A man who was more attuned to how women can give men warnings about
impending disruptions in the local emotional weather would have noticed the storm signals in Kashmira's voice and body. Mathias was busy working on a problem that required a solution. His focus was on solving a mystery.
"I need to find one or two of your best songs. Afterwards I can make a copy of them and play them for somebody I know. If he likes them, he'll find a way for you to sell your songs and earn money. That way, you'll be able to support yourself and you won't be dependent on some man's allowance."
"Who is this man?"
The man was Wizard, but Mathias wouldn't reveal that quite yet. "Only a man I know. He's very good at creating businesses that make money."
"And he likes to throw his money away? When my father spends money, he gets something for it."
"I believe people will spend money to listen to your songs. I'll ask some other people what they think too." Those people would be the Wilizy directors. Again, Mathias wouldn't be revealing that to her any time soon.
"Nobody would pay money to sit around and listen to sounds from a computer speaker. The poor are too busy working. The rich people are too busy making more money. Besides, my music doesn't have words. So what would be the point of listening?"
"You make beautiful sounds with your voice. At one point, the song you sang yesterday sounded like a waterfall."
"If people wanted to listen to a waterfall, they'd go to a waterfall. That way, they could see it too."
Mathias had no answer to that, so he ignored her comment. "None of your songs have been saved under a file name, so I can't search for them that way. We could listen to some of the old recordings until you found one you liked, or you could sing some new ones. Which would you prefer?"
"You wouldn't like the sound of any song that I sang today."
Again, Mathias missed the underlying warning completely. He was planning ahead. He'd listen to everything she had ever sung and would put file names on them of some kind. Perhaps describing the tone of the song? Happy? Sad? But for now, he needed two good songs that Wizard and the directors could listen to.
"OK. We'll pick at random. I'll listen to the longest songs first. Those may be what you thought were the best. Tell me when you like something."
"I don't like any of them. You choose." And with that, Kashmira rolled over into a tight ball with her back to Mathias and drifted away. Ever since summer holidays had started, she had been very sleepy and tired. Mathias was being irritating, plus she needed a nap. Her last coherent thought was that if Mathias woke her, he better be wearing a flameproof fireman's suit.
Mathias didn't pick up on that body language warning either.
# # # # # # # #
Kashmira felt the touch of a hand on her shoulder, but didn't roll over. "What?!"
"I found two songs."
"How nice for you. What time is it?"
"You've been sleeping for two hours. I thought you'd want to be woken up."
Kashmira rolled over onto her back, stretched, and sat up properly in the loveseat. She put her head into her hands. "I needed to sleep some more." She managed to say this without snapping at him. In case my readers haven't picked up on this yet, Kashmira did not have what one might describe as a placid, easygoing nature. The Kashmirian winds often blew hot. "What are we going to do now?"
"I thought we could eat some lunch. I brought fruit and vegetables." Mathias had purchased them from Pablo's stall early in the morning. Mathias had just clued in on body language signals and was treading softly. He also understood the meaning of "What?!" The reader should cut Mathias some slack here. Nobody in the wider Wilizy family had a personality like Kashmira's. He had never met anybody like her outside of the family either. "What did you bring to eat?" Mathias asked Kashmira.
"I don't bring anything to eat or drink when I come here. If I become hungry, I go outside and tell a guard to go back home and bring me my lunch. The cook puts it in the refrigerator."
Mathias looked at her in disbelief. It was a two block walk.
"What? Food spoils quickly in the heat."
At least she hadn't snarled the What?
# # # # # # # #
Kashmira and Mathias were sitting in a small kitchen on the west side of the cathedral – Kashmira's music room was on the cathedral's south side. The kitchen was electrified with the same cable that El Patrón had provided to the music room. The kitchen consisted of a small refrigerator and a portable electrical stove with two elements that plugged into a wall outlet and sat on a counter that also included a single sink with a tap and running water. The kitchen had a few cupboards that held a sprinkling of plates, bowls, and cups/glasses. Wash clothes and towells lay on a shelf underneath the counter. A battered folding table was set up against a wall with three folding chairs scattered around it. Kashmira and Mathias were sitting in two of those chairs. Mathias had emptied his paper bag of fruit and vegetables into one of the bowls, rinsed them, and placed the bowl on the table. They were eating with their fingers. A single dull knife was on the table – Mathias had used it to slice the two apples and peel the orange.
"Aren't you still hungry?" Mathias asked.
Kashmira was sitting slightly away from the table, with her legs crossed, and her hands in her lap. She had eaten three slices of an apple. "No."
"Are you sure that the guards won't be suspicious that you didn't send them back to get your lunch?"
"I'm sure. I've had days where I've stayed here from dawn to dusk without food. If my songs are working, I won't even notice when it's time to go home. The guard outside this wall has to call to me to tell me that it's dark."
"They're not allowed to come inside the cathedral?"
"No. Armed men are not allowed inside the cathedral. The guard outside calls to me through the window when he's brought my lunch and I go out to get the food."
"If they thought that you were in danger, would they come in anyway?"
"Yes. The guard outside my window is always listening. If I'm being held against my will, I am to tell my captors that the guard will expect me to ask for my lunch. They will allow me to do that. When I ask for my lunch, I will call him Señor."
"What do you usually call him?"
"I don't call him anything."
"Are there other situations where the guards may enter the cathedral?"
"Yes. If the guard doesn't hear me singing after an hour, and if I don't respond to a question about my safety, they will storm the cathedral. Why are you asking about the guards?"
"Our plan will fail if the guards learn that a strange man is hanging around you."
"That's true. You're not a student in my school, so my father would assume that you were part of a plan to capture me and hold me for ransom. He'd interrogate you and kill you."
"Have there been attempts before?"
"Yes. My capture is what he fears the most."
"That must mean that he cares about you. At least a little."
Kashmira snorted. It was a most unladylike snort. "He cares about losing the money he will receive from selling me. But that would be a small amount of money compared to what my kidnappers would demand from him. They'd send him my fingers hoping he'd gave in."
"He wouldn't pay?"
"Not even if they sent him all my fingers and toes along with pictures of them being cut off. That's what kidnappers do in the Philippines to force families to pay the ransom. They'd kill me if he didn't pay."
"Why wouldn't he pay?"
"If he gave in, it would be a sign of weakness. His business would never survive. When he doesn't give in, his enemies will fear him even more. They know that he will find them and everybody they are close to will die horrible deaths. Worse than mine."
"What does he fear? He won't pay. Everybody will die. He'd still have his business."
"In the time after my capture and until he is able to show his anger at my death, much attention will be on my father. My father can't do business when everybody is looking at him, wondering. And while he's stopped from doing business, pe
ople who know things might become brave enough to say something to the right people."
"People like Pablo?"
"Yes. People like Pablo. If I ever escaped from my father, I wouldn't be able to disappear. He has to know that I haven't been abducted. Otherwise..."
"Pablo dies."
"And others. Yes."
"And he'll always have guards around you even if you aren't living at home."
"Yes. I'd be free from living in the same house as my father; but that just means that I'm more likely to be abducted. I know what the kidnappers would do to me. I fear that more than I hate my father."
"What are you trying to say?"
"I thought about this all last night. What you're planning won't work. I'd rather live dependent on my father or some other wealthy powerful man than be mutilated and killed. You should go back to where you live and leave me alone."
Back to the Table of Contents
Chapter 15
They were still in the kitchen. Mathias hadn't tried to argue with Kashmira when she told him that he should leave. He hadn't known what kidnappers did to their victims but he understood now why she had changed her mind. Of course she'd be scared of that. Anybody would be. He stood up and gathered up the remains of their lunch.
"What are you doing?" Kashmira asked.
"Cleaning up after myself. The next people who use this room shouldn't have to come in and find my mess. Where do people in the Philippines put their garbage?"
"I don't know."
"Usually it's under the sink." Mathias opened the cupboard, stepped back, and pointed. "That's the garbage bin."
"Huh."
A few seconds later, he had a damp wash cloth in his hands. Kashmira was looking at him. "Catch," he warned and lobbed the cloth at her.
Kashmira wasn't expecting a washcloth to come flying through the air at her, but managed to snag it anyway. Her immediate reaction was to stand up and hold it with two fingers away from her clothes. "Why did you throw that at me? Are you mad because I won't try and escape from my father?"
The temperature in the room had risen. Mathias still had no clue about feministically controlled climate change. "No. I'm sad about that. I'm not mad. I lobbed the washcloth to you so that you could wipe down the table."
"Why would I do that?"
"Because you and I made a little mess in the kitchen. You and I should clean it up before we leave. Crumbs and fruit droppings are all over the tabletop. I cleared the big stuff from the table. You can wipe the table clean."