Free The Stowaway by Robert Hough Page A

conversations with me in English, or Cantonese if they know some. I like to answer in Tagalog, just to watch the expression on their faces!”
    The three men chuckle. For Father Albano, this is nothing out of the ordinary, Filipino seamen appreciating the comfort, and the familiarity, of a priest from back home. For a pair of sailors two months into an eight-month passage, he’s a comfort item, like the stained glass of a neighbourhood church or the smoking-oil scent of a favourite noodle stand. The words that come out of hismouth, heknows too well, are by and large inconsequential— much of his ministering is performed by the hue of his skin, and the shape of his face, and his familiarity with the clamorous side-streets of Manila.
    Yet as he makes small talk with the two men, he senses that they are suffering from something beyond the garden-variety loneliness that builds during a voyage. The smaller one may hide it better than the stocky one, but it’s still there, in the way the muscles in his forearms twitch, and in the way he clenches his jaw when thinking. The bigger one—the one who’d introduced himself as a bosun—keeps taking quick sidelong glances at the young officer, as though he expects the smaller man to do or say something. The conversation continues: gulf weather, Texan barbecue, news from home, movies. As they talk, the little voice upon which the priest relies, honed during thousands of conversations with upset sailors, grows in his head. Soon, he is listening to
it
, rather than to the words coming from the mouths of the two men.
    Broas signals that the conversation is over by glancing at Rodolfo and nodding. The two stand, and it’s all the priest can do to stop from saying,
No, wait, tell me what it is.
    Instead, he stands with them, pushing back his chair as he asks a question. “How are things on board?” and even before Ariel Broas manages to compose himself and say, “Fine, fine,” the priest Albano can see it, seeping from each of them, an aura of dread.

SIX
    My dearest, dearest Dani,
    Oh my love, how I miss you and need you and wish we were together, at all times and forever. And, oh, the number of times a day I imagine us in New York City, being happy and working at good jobs and maybe, even, who knows, with little Danis running around and laughing and being bad boys like their father. At night, I push my face deep into my pillow and try to imagine what it would be like to be without problems. During the day, I’m moody and not myself, and people know to stay away and not bother me because I’m a girl whose sweetheart has left for America, and there is nothing I can do but wait.
    I am knitting you a sweater. When I get stuck on tricky parts, like under the arms or around the neck, I’m encouraged by the thought that it will keep you warm in the Big Apple, but then I start to sniffle, for there is nothing more I want than to be there, with you, in the United States of America. Other times, when I’m tired of knitting, I try hard to think of all the things that bring me joy and I think, okay, any world that has these things mustalso be a world that can allow my sweetheart to be alive, and healthy, and happy. This helps.
    Dani—there is something I must tell you. The other day I was at home and I heard a knocking at the door. When I opened it I saw a woman named Maria Sangeorzan, who is a friend of my friend Marta from Satu Mare. She had come because her husband, Petre, and her second cousin Radu had left for Algeciras about six weeks before you, and she wanted to come and meet me because she’d heard you had done the same thing. I looked at her and she smiled weakly so I asked her in and we had some coffee, and it was then then that she asked if I had heard from you recently. I told her I had, and was about to pull out the postcard you sent from France when I noticed that she was looking downward at her fidgeting hands. At this point, I realized something was wrong, and that this