About this story
You dive with a knife to save a nameless boatman from a cayman at the lake corrals, and the friend you make there stands by you on the night of bells, when planted papers send you to prison and your father's house burns. Forty-five chapters carry the homecoming to a Christmas Eve pyre and exile on a dawn shore.
Who you’ll meet
Padre Damaso, the Franciscan friar who publicly refuses the returning son's hand at a Manila dinner table; Lieutenant Guevara and Captain Tiago, the two men who watch him do it.
How it opens
Captain Tiago's Manila house filled with clergy, officials, and guests before anyone explained the occasion.
Lamps reflected from mirrors while conversation divided itself by rank, race, and religious order.
Captain TiagoGentlemen, the young man returning from Europe has reached the door.
Padre DamasoEurope returns many opinions and very little respect with its students.
Lieutenant GuevaraCourtesy may wait until the traveler has removed his coat, Father.
Choose
I am grateful for each familiar face willing to know me again.
Seven years makes me a guest where I once expected to belong.