#shirbert fix-it

No—he buys them because he can, and because the peddler’s heart radiates a kindness and a benevolence that resonates to Gilbert’s own soul and so he knows, with indisputable certainty, he deserves not to be separated from those he loves most.

There are, what seems like, hundreds of stalls littered all over Trinidad. The docks alone boasts of a market filled with a ragtag combination of goods, of differing shapes and sizes, catering to all sorts of distinctive ailments and demands. Not that Gilbert needs anything… which is why he doesn’t know what draws him to the ramshackle pile arrayed into a sorry excuse for a booth.

Or maybe he does.

He doesn’t have an eye for jewelry, at least he doesn’t think so, for his mother’s own baubles had been sold off—to provide for his father’s health care and sustain the farm—save for a few key pieces and heirlooms, but there is no denying the pulchritude of this merchant's wares. He and Bash were headed for the ship when a glint from his peripheral caught his eye, so bright was its glare. Like a moth to a flame, he gravitates towards its light, bypassing the droves of attractive vendibles for the multitudes of spherical orbs strung together in artful strands.

“You have.”

A weathered hand enters his line of vision as it presents the precious goods with a proud flourish and he follows the length of the muscled arm to the person attached to it. His olive skin gleams gold, telling of many a days spent working under the sun. His eyes are angular, his nose flat and his lips full and wide, as if always poised to smile. It prompts Gilbert to twist his own mouth into a grin, and the two smirk in delighted conspiracy though they have never seen the other before this very moment.

“You have,” the jeweler remarks again, this time tugging at his sleeve lightly. Gilbert laughs, not because what he says is particularly funny but because of how he says it, not so much phrased as a question or suggestion yet not a command or a rude edict either. Instead he hears a statement, a finality within those two words, spoken as they are in knowing yet gentle tones. As if Gilbert was always meant to land in this deserted and decrepit corner of the port—his eyes destined to feast upon the rows and rows of effulgent pearls laid before him like a banquet to feed his starving gaze.

“I didn’t know we harvested pearls in Trinidad,” Bash remarks, a wonderment to his inflection that informs Gilbert his friend is just as captivated as he. The jeweler shakes his head.

“No—no Trinidad,” he pauses, the two men leaning forward in anticipation. The jeweler smiles, a flair for dramatics evident in his every gesture as he tilts his head, takes a deep breath and reveals, “Las islas Filipinas.”

“Las islas Filipinas,” Gilbert repeats, as though harkening the words back to him would stunt his ever growing curiosity. “Where is that?” he asks, almost aggressively, that same curiosity puppeteering his movements. The jeweler’s grin only widens as he delights in Gilbert’s inquisitiveness.

“East,” the jeweler says and in his own vigorous eagerness, Bash adds, “East? Asia?”

He nods, a whole new light entering his eyes at the recognition of his homeland. “Sí, sí! My home—Perlas,” he points at the rows and rows of pearls, “ng Silanganan.”

Gilbert shakes his head as dejection weighs heavy on his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he sighs. “I don’t speak…”

“Tagalog,” provides the jeweler. “It is all right,” he reassures, “I speak, little English. Little Spanish. We understand each other, sí?”

The smile never once wavers from his lips and Gilbert feels something in him lift. He cannot pinpoint what that something is exactly, only that he senses a bond between him and this jeweler that he finds difficulty putting into words. Still, it isn’t an unwelcome sensation. If anything, it puts him at ease.

“I’m Gilbert,” he says and with a nod to his companion, he introduces him. “This is Bash. What’s your name?” He holds out his hand.

The jeweler tilts his head at the proffered limb as though seeing it for the first time, confusion clouding his gaze. “My name?”

All of a sudden, the cloud in his eyes transforms into a mist, overflowing till they line his face. Gilbert blanches, panic seizing him as apologies spill from his lips. The jeweler stops him by grasping his outstretched palm between his own. “No. No sorry. It has been long, long time since I have told another my name.”

“You were a slave.” There is no question to Sebastian’s hard tone, only harrowing familiarity and resignation as he eyes the jeweler with a newfound affinity. The jeweler’s shoulders sag.

“Still slave.”

“What?”

“That is why I sell perlas. Save enough money to join boat. Go home to my country and fight. Find my beloved. My sinta.”

His name is Alon, he tells them. In his native language, it means waves—“I was born in sea, I work in sea, and I will die in sea.” He hails from one of over 7,000 islands in Filipinas where generations of his family gathered pearls, going out to the ocean where they lived at the first hint of dawn and returning just when the remaining trace of sun was a line of orange ray along the horizon. But the reach of the Colonizers throughout the country grew till their island and eventually, their village, could no longer escape them any more than the rise of the tide. His master took him from his family—a wife and one child, for they had been married only a short time and they could not bear to bring more into a life of servitude—to sell the jewels in Acapulco, Mexico. They arrived but he managed to escape, with the pearls fortunately, and had been trying to make his way back home by selling them bit by bit since.

“For you,” Alon points to Gilbert before handing him a hoop of gleaming, white pearls.

“Oh, I—I don’t,” he stutters. I don’t have anyone waiting for me back home, not like you, is what he means to say though for an inexplicable reason, he cannot bring himself to speak the words out loud—his fingers closing over the necklace even as he thrusts it back to Alon’s direction. He shakes his head.

“For you,” he repeats, his eyes fixed and his tone firm through the elated smile that unendingly shapes his lips. “For your sinta,” he affirms with a hand to his heart. With his free hand, Gilbert slips into his bag to dole out his payment when Alon stops him. It is Gilbert’s turn to insist. He pays double the asking amount.

“I hope you find your way home. I hope you save your country, and you be with your wife.”

Bash, who till then has remained tense and stoic, brings out more than a couple notes himself.

“You deserve to have your life be your own,” Sebastian says as he passes the money to Alon, whose eyes have filled with insurmountable tears once more. “May this bring you closer to freedom, friend.”

Alon leaves his place behind the rickety stall to hug them both.

“Maraming salamat,” he murmurs, droplets coursing down his cheeks to land onto the cloth of their shoulders. “Thank you.”

They pull away, but only at arm’s length from each other.

“I have greeting in my home, mabuhay. It means live, but we say it both hello and goodbye so… mabuhay, good friends.” He kisses both their hands. “Mabuhay.”

Gilbert closes his eyes, his entire being awash in peace even as he stands in the middle of one of the busiest places of Trinidad. They may have just met, but it is with stunning clarity that Gilbert finally understands what Anne means when she speaks of meeting a kindred spirit. For what other name could there be for the emotions welling inside him? For the way his soul had reached out to Alon’s from across the market, hidden as his booth was? For the immediate, albeit brief, friendship that sprung between them?

This is what he murmurs onto Anne’s skin, after all these years, once he clasps the circlet of white pearls around her neck.

“What?” she says, turning with a flourish as she tilts her head back with pride, so that he may admire her better.

(And admire he does, planting another kiss onto the hollow of her throat, falling enraptured by the way her breath hitches and their hearts beat in perfect unison—booming, racing, delicious staccatos against their pressed chests)

“Mabuhay,” he reiterates, though no louder than a whisper as he pulls her even closer, this divine enchantress who holds his heart. “I bought this necklace during my travels and the man who sold it to me, it was his parting words. I never forgot them. It means ‘live’.”

“You’ve had this all that time?”

Anne gasps as astonishment brightens her blue eyes at the revelation. It brings forth a chuckle from him.

“It’s funny. I told myself that these pearls weren’t for you. I fancied myself merely helping a friend out. But to see them now… how could I be so foolish?” He traces the line of gems, his fingers brushing against her collarbone in lambent strokes. Anne purrs, her eyes fluttering, and Gilbert—unable to help himself—captures her bottom lip between his, sucking at the luscious curve of her mouth before uttering, “they were never meant for anyone but you.”

She blushes, the blooming red staining first her cheeks then her neck. He kisses her there again, harder this time, till he leaves a mark. Anne moans and he feels it to his bones, a shiver pulsing down his spine.

“You make me feel alive, Anne.”

“I think… I think I was drowning, before I met you,” she tells him when his kisses have made their way from the curve of her shoulder to the curve of her cheek. “I think you saved me.”

“Impossible,” he avers, sincerity coating his inflection and burning through his molten, silver gaze. “As much as I want to, you’ve never needed anyone to save you. You’ve always been strong enough to be your own prince.”

She kisses him, for how could she not? Anne has often thought she needed other people to save her. It isn’t till Gilbert that she figures, it was within her to save herself.

“Maybe so,” she concedes. “But I was lost,” she tucks a stray curl behind his ear, her thumb caressing his cheek as she goes. “I was lost until you.”

For three years they will be engaged albeit living in separate places, Anne to her principalship in Summerside and Gilbert to medicine school in Kingsport. But on the long and lonely nights he is away from her, when the din of the boarding house becomes too loud, the presence of the men too suffocating, he will think about those pearls. He will think of Alon, and what he had to endure having even been further away from his sinta than Gilbert ever will be and he will sigh, mabuhay, because he is here and he lives in a world where Anne too is alive and he will hope. He will hope and hope and hope, that his friend and his family are too.

(And even more years later, he will smile and triumph when news arrives on the island, of the independence of Las islas Filipinas from a 300-year tyranny)

He will think about how he was on the other side of the globe and still, upon seeing the jewels, try as he did with all his might to deny it, his first thought was of Anne. He will think about the sheen of it against her delicate neck and how it illuminates her skin. He will think about how it isn’t so much the pearls that shine but Anne herself, her very essence and spirit infusing the air around her with a glow that draws you in.

But for now… now he avows—

“You are the sun, Anne. You are the sun, the moon and the North Star. Should a tempting peregrination strike me in my darkest hours away from you, I will look to the sky and know.”

He cups her face between her hands.

“All the roads lead back to you.”

AN: This one is really close to my heart. I hope you enjoyed it!