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"I'm not addressin' you."Before I can assert myself, the three of us are surrounded by what, in any othercountry, might be a children's troupe. In Manila there is something more sinisterabout the painfully thin arms trailed around our necks."Madame, you want boy? You like boy?" croaks a voice that bespeaks an agenot yet his. "Me pretty boy." He pats his crotch and parts his lips.I can't help it. I smile. He is pretty. Annoyed I lean down and throw the cigarettedangling from his tar stained fingers to the ground. Anin is giggling."Come on, little man. We'll see if you're man enough for me." She strings herarms around him, tottering on her heels. A roar of approval rolls from the jammedjeepenies as the boy staggers along under Anin's fleshy arm."Push arf ya shits," growls the big, black man tripping along at our heels. "Aye!Aint yow ganna wish me a white Christmas or nothing.""Yes ... nothing." I reply jauntily. And wished I hadn't. Another mad Americanfloating around the tropics.He kicks a kid."I didn't ask you," he snarls.I try to take Anin's arm and steer her onto the pavement, away from all the handsreaching down from the jeepenies."Madam, madame." The small boy implores. "You think me small. No madame.Me this long. Madame! I show you good time!""Anin." I've had enough. "For God's sake! Half of Manila's following you aroundlike a bitch on heat!""That's no way to address no lady.""Madame, me cheap. Big.""Anin!" She ignores me. I know her in this kind of mood, oblivious to everything,being swept along in the rawness, the wet excitement. Yet it's her, not me, the faintvisions begin to haunt on the way home. It is her they wake in the night. That womanwith the kids curled up on the pavement under their wisps of ragged cloth will soonstalk her dreams. Then, in the early hours of the morning, I have to take her inmy arms and rock her."We all undergo various forms of suffering." So I comfort her. How else do youpeel away the begging eyes, justify yourself?I walk behind her for a way. I wish she wouldn't swing her buttocks to quite thedegree she does, though I have to admit it was one of the first things about herto attract me. She claims that one of her legs is shorter than the other.We pass a Go-Go Bar. The strains of "If you want to ride ... ride a white horse"slowly separate themselves from the other tunes. A girl is wrapped around a poleoutside. Another stands sucking her navel into her little nut brown stomach, beforespitting it out in a scatological thrust.It fascinates me, the sudden concealment of her belly-button under its shelf offat. I shake off an arm and peer around a door. On a brightly lit dance floor bikinicladgirls on stilettos, try to expend as little energy as possible in a winding discodance routine that they keep up all night, unless a customer request otherwise.In the darkness below the stage is the usual contingent of whites, unrhythrnicallyshuffling around like a chain gang, their faces reflecting the bloated purple of a dyingliver."No, I'm not going in," I assure the guard on the door. "I have no desire to swillbeer with an Australian, be insulted by a German when his boyfriend makes a passat me or be outbid by a Swiss over the youngest whore in the house.""Why you come to Manila?""Why indeed?" I think as I continue in pursuit of Anin.In fact I'm determined to leave for Baguio tomorrow as we've planned to do forthe last two weeks. Yet every day, when I wake her at noon with a hot, sweet tea,WESTERLY, No.2, JUNE, 1989 21