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.The weather was hotter than usual, and the air conditioning would be no guarantee.On the fourth day, the caretaker, squinting at the ash and detecting a faint print near the centre of the tray, decided that the ghost had at last appeared.But it was too late! With a heart near to breaking, Raphaela and her seven children, her newest baby on her hip, watched the caretaker empty each plate and tureen into large black plastic bags, tie up the bags securely, then carry them to dump into the refuse bins outside.They waited for him to get back into the house, then closed in, making frantic little noises as they untied each bag to see what could be saved.It was no use; all the food had gone quite bad.The next year, as the Feast approached once more, the hopes rose again.The eternal roast pig, roasted to precisely that point when the crispy, crunchy skin detached itself to provide a separate, purer eating pleasure, the shiny white steamed chickens carried in a bunch by their necks, the mountain of pink, sugared buns shaped like peaches and women’s breasts – Raphaela’s children could describe each item in perfection of detail, as it was carried into the house by the caterer.She said to them, “Hush, we’ll wait and see; we don’t know what will happen,” remembering the bitterness of the previous year’s experience.They waited, with held breath, their eyes never leaving the Great House, so that they could be the first to run up and lay claim to the booty.The waiting seemed interminable, and Raphaela, knowing that their next meal would be from ghosts or never, began to fret and mutter her fears out loud.“The weather’s much hotter this year.The soup will be the first to go, and then the vegetables.The roast pig may be saved yet.”She continued sullenly, “Some people who have all the food they want, even when they are dead, have no thought for others who go hungry all the time.”She prayed to the saint whose name she bore, and whose holy image she wore in a small brass medal on a string round her neck: ‘O holy St Raphael, Helper of the Innocents and the Suffering, help me!’The afternoon sun continued to beat down pitilessly; Raphaela’s head began to spin giddily and when it cleared, she saw, not the angel but Madam Teh Siew Po, exactly as she had appeared in the photograph on the altar table: a plain, almost sad face, the severe hairstyle of the time not detracting from the youthfulness of the features.She was sitting, as in the photograph, in an ornate high-backed chair, small and slim-looking despite the loose, long-sleeved black silk blouse and baggy black silk trousers, her bejewelled fingers stiffly spread out on her knees, her tiny feet in pointed, embroidered shoes.Raphaela stared; she noted the perfect plucked arches over the large sad eyes, the tiny lucky mole above the right upper lip.Half a century separated the two women, and more than half of Fate’s injustice, for one received only eggs and the other only scorpions: the wealthy and protected Chinese woman who never knew a day of want in life or death, and the Filipino slum woman, abandoned by her husband and lover, with seven children to support and herself to die soon from a suppurating stomach wound because she did not have the money to pay for an operation.But just now, the concern was more immediate, for food in the stomach, and Raphaela Santos, with all the energy she could muster, spoke to Madam Teh Siew Po across the immense gulfs.“I have been waiting for so long.Will you please come, or it will be too late! It will spoil!”She repeated, with mounting exasperation, “Please come.We have not eaten for two days!” The sad, childlike face looked back at her; Raphaela saw, with surprise, the intense friendly interest that was suddenly irradiating the plain features, and felt ashamed of her own ungraciousness.“I didn’t mean to be rude,” she said, “I was just so very hungry and desperate that I sounded rude but then – ,” with sudden shrewdness, “we are sisters, are we not, and sisters can bare their sad hearts to each other, can they not?”The irradiated face nodded assent and Raphaela, beginning to feel once more the oppression of the afternoon heat, shook her head vigorously, rubbed her eyes, and opened them to see the face gone and at her feet, a rabbit, sitting up, ears twitching.“My, my!” she cried.“A rabbit.Enough food for the whole family.” She was sure it was sent by that strange Chinese woman whom she had just spoken to; no rabbit would ever be found in the vicinity, as any four-footed population would have long ago been decimated by the slum children.“Come, rabbit dinner!” she said, struck by the whimsicality of the dead woman.But the creature darted away, in the direction of the Great House and was lost to sight.“Rabbit dinner gone,” she said, shrugging her shoulders and playing up to the whimsicality but at the same time thinking it rather unkind of the Chinese woman to play a trick like that on her [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]