That night I first saw the man in the moon was the night Felix came. Adriana said that if I was good and looked through a find silk handkerchief, I would be able to see the eyes and ears and nose of the full moon. I had tried it for many full moons before, but I never did see anything, though at times I looked so hard that tears came to my eyes, and when I looked away, I'd see a white sphere in all the shadows around me.

But that night the face had been there. I could make out the eyes and the dark line that was the mouth was turned up at the corners. I remember how, kneeling on a chair by the window, I looked at it raptly, believing that its eyes were fixed on me. I must have been kneeling there that way for quite a while, when I heard footsteps in the garden.

"Good evening, Emma," he said. I stood up and crumpling the silk handkerchief in my hand, ran to the door.

The only light in the veranda was from the pale glow of the moon, so all I could see was the outline of a short, stocky man.

"Hello," I said. "Who are you?"

"I'm Felix," he answered.

"What do you want?"

"Doña Marta sent me. She says your mother needs a gardener."

"You know, we had a houseboy. He was very tall and thin, like a bamboo pole." Felix laughed. "But he went back to the province to get married. Are you married?"

"Last year I was."

"What happened?"

"My wife left me."

"Why?"

"She thought I was crazy>"

"Are you?"

"I don't think so, but she did."

"Why?"

"Well. . . one time she wanted me to chop down a coconut tree growing in front of our house because it had stopped bearing fruit. She said we could use it for firewood. We needed firewood, you know. But I did not want to cut it down, its leaves were growing so beautifully."

"You should have cut it down though so you could make a fire."

"Oh, I found wood for her. I cut down part of our fence. The wood was rotting anyway."

"Then you're not crazy."

"She said I was. She also said I was ugly and black and dirty."

I turned away from him and climbed a chair to reach the light switch. Then I looked at him. I didn't know what to say because he was really very ugly. He had dark curly hair, thick and messy. Everything about his face seemed exaggerated. His nose was flat and spread all over his face, his eyes were round and large, and his floppy ears stuck out through the curls.

I looked away and only then noticed a small bundle of white cloth that he was holding in his right hand.

"What do you have in there?" I asked, pointing to it.

"Starfish. Do you want to see them?" he asked.

Nodding, I jumped down from the chair.

There were many of them, and as he opened his bundle, some rumbled to the ground. They were very pretty, lying there on top of his folded clothes.

"Here, have one." He picked a small white one.

As I reached for it eagerly, I heard Mother coming down the stairs.

"Felix," she said, "I didn't know you had arrived."

I was ordered to the kitchen to see if dinner was ready, and I remembered I wanted to tell Adriana about the man in the moon.

For Emma, the kitchen held magic ­ huge, shadowed, full of smoke and charcoal smells, its space dwarfing the long table on which Dencia, the cook, sliced and chopped and pounded, and which she scrubbed daily with sandpaper leaves, so its surface felt like velvet.

Every day after lunch, the servants rested in the kitchen. They kept their voices low, careful not to wake their masters taking their siesta. Emma, who always managed to escape from the noonday rest, would sneak downstairs and join them.

In the deep recess under the broad staircase was a bunk where the driver sometimes took his nap, his wife combing his hair. More often, they spent the hour playing cards, while Dencia would sit by herself, yawning and complaining, or when goaded by Emma and Adriana, would tell tales about her hometown in the North.

Felix never said much. Dencia tried to draw him out, but all she ever got was a nod, or a grunt, and now and then, a puzzled look. Dencia called him kulang-kulang, lacking in the head. Once, an irritated Emma defended him angrily, but Felix merely walked out of the kitchen.

During noon hours, the hot sun blazed on unshaded plants and the gardener had little to do except pick up dry fallen leaves. He could not sweep the grounds, for fear of breaking the midday silence. It was unwise to trim the plants in the heat, he said, or to water them, so there was time for him to listen to Emma retell kitchen tales.

As he squatted on the ground, Emma. and sometimes Adriana, sat on a flat boulder he had covered for them with old newspapers. Under the shade of the mango tree it was cool and peaceful.

"Felix, come and help me," I called from across the garden. Lola Marta was visiting and she wanted some flowers for the image of the Blessed Virgin on her altar. As I strung the perfumed sampaguita buds that Felix picked I told him about Lola Marta and her prayers.

"She makes us pray before and after all meals. In her room is an altar where she kneels and prays before siesta, and again when she wakes up. After dinner, she prays the Rosary, sometimes with Mother, sometimes alone. When my sister, Marina, is home she makes her pray too. One day, when I have received my First Holy Communion, she will make me do it too."

"Why does she pray so much?" asked Felix.

"I don't know. Maybe to ask for something. I guess she wants to go to heaven."

"She can ask for that?"

"Oh, you can ask for anything." I held up the necklace of fragrant flowers and placed it on my head. "Look at me Felix, I can be a beautiful princess!"

The gardener nodded.

"Of course, if you see the man in the moon, you will already know that you can go to heaven. I have already seen him."

Felix gazed at me in wonder as I told him of that night when he first arrived to join the household.

"If you are good and beautiful you will see the moon's face and that means you can join him in heaven."

"I can try to be good, but to be beautiful. . . that is hard. "The words came slowly. I said nothing.

"I am ugly," he finally said.

I rose from the stone, removed the tiara of flowers from my head, tugging at some of the blossoms entangled in my hair.

"Maybe, you'll not always be ugly," I told him.

Dencia would not have agreed. She never thought much of anyone, finding fault in all she met. So it intrigued Emma that Dencia was constantly asking her about Felix. What do you talk about in the afternoons" Does he every say anything about me" She kept on with her questions, even when Emma could not supply the answers she desired. Finally, angrily, Dencia warned, "If he every says anything, it's a lie! He thinks he is somebody, but he is just kulang-kulang."

She then flounced off, her hand making wild circular motions next to her ear, leaving behind a very bewildered Emma.

Although she liked Felix much more than she did Dencia, Emma still though the cook very entertaining. Her best was when she and Adriana would ask Dencia to do her movie actress walk. Gladly, Dencia would first paint her mouth and cheeks. Then, with one hand on her waist, the other raised up with fingers deliberately pointed, she took exaggerated, swaying steps, hips gyrating with sensuous jerks to the left and the right. It was even funnier when she would rise on tiptoe, swing around, her breasts moving with every spin.

Once Emma's mother came into the kitchen and found them sitting on the piedra-china floor, doubled up with laughter, while Dencia pranced and twirled a fan she added to her act. Señorita Nena was stern with Emma, ignoring Dencia, who was quick to pretend she was using the fan for lighting the embers in the stove.

Emma repeated to Felix what Dencia once said ­ that there were five men who wanted to marry her ­ and that she had asked for their names, but Dencia would not tell, and that once Dencia had shown her a photo, but since it was a movie actor, she had her doubts. Felix merely shook his head.

Three months after Felix came to the house, it started to rain. I woke up one morning, knowing a typhoon was coming. It was very cold and windy. Wrapping my blanket around me, I climbed onto the windowsill and looked out at the sea. The sea was gray and the sky was gray and I could not tell where one ended and the other began. I watched the waves swell as they neared the shore, then softly return to the deep.

That was when I saw Felix. He was running along the beach at furious speed. His hair lay in damp curls on his head, his face was unsmiling, his jaw set, his eyes fixed intensely ahead of him. The wind whipped the clothes away from his body and his shirt had come open in front, leaving his chest exposed to the cold blasts of wind and air.

Around his waist was tied a long string, stretching behind him on the sand, at the end of which dangled what must have been a dozen empty tin cans. He was too far away for me to hear, but I knew that as he ran, they made loud, raucous, clanking noises.

Now I knew his wife was right. I went to Mother's room.

"Oh, Mama, Felix ­ Mama, he is really crazy. You should see him. Come here." I pulled her to the window.

"There Mama, there ­ look, see him running? See those cans tied to him? Mama, he is crazy after all, isn't he?"

I looked up at her, pulling at her dress, trying to get an answer. Her eyes followed the running figure for what seemed a long time.

"Go change you clothes," was all she said.

Adriana and Emma weathered the rainy season, occupied with games and conversation. Felix, they saw little of, but Emma would sometimes hear the clanking of the cans as he made his way to the shore.

Finally the days began to clear. Before dawn, fishermen would once again go out to sea with nets and kerosene lamps, to be back by sunrise with their catch. Pale golden sunsets would spread across the edge of the ocean and the evening sky would be free of clouds.

One afternoon as Emma and Adriana were making their way to the beach, they met Felix, carrying his strings of cans. The sun had just begun its descent but already one could trace the moon.

"The moon is full tonight," Felix said. He hesitated, fiddling with the end of twine that he used to tie around his waist. The knot had loosened and a can was slipping off.

Just then they heard a laugh. Dencia stood on the seawall, towering above them, her wide skirt billowing in the wind.

"Fool," she shouted. "Monster, not born of woman! Son of split bamboo!"

"What does she mean?" Emma asked, taking Felix's hand. He said nothing. Dencia dropped down, confronting him.

"Too good for me, you think you are? We will see." She snatched the string of cans from his hand and swung them around her head, over and over, like pinwheels.

"You're crazy!" Emma said, aghast.

"Crazy?" she laughed. "She's the crazy one." She pointed at Felix, the cans still in her hand.

"Ask him what he can have but will not take. Ask him what he wants to be so clean for. Go on, ask him, ask him!"

A change came over Felix's face. "Be quiet, woman," he ordered/

"Woman? You know what woman is, do you? Tell me, how does a man know a woman? Tell me, you evil monster."

"He is not evil," Emma cried. "Felix is good."

"What do you know of good?" Dencia turned to the child, her anger spreading. "That ugly monster is bad. But I'll have him yet!"

"Dencia," Felix cut her short. "Don't let them hear your dirt." This was the first time Felix had said her name and Dencia was silenced.

Emma added, "If you don't stop I will tell Mother."

After dinner, I hurried to find Mother so I could borrow the silk handkerchief. I heard voices coming from the kitchen.

"You should never go to a man's room," Mother was saying.

"No," Dencia sobbed.

"You know he does not want you there." The sobbing increased.

"I am not bad. He says I am, but I am not."

"Perhaps not. Come you must join Doña Marta and me for prayers."

When the three women had disappeared into grandmother's room, I slipped away. It was bright outside, the moon high in the sky, the garden washed with its silver glow.

Felix waited for me by the gate. As soon as I was near him, I handed him the silk handkerchief and he placed it over his face, intently gazing at the sky through the fine weave.

I waited. Finally he said, "I see him," the cloth fluttering slightly as he spoke.

"Are you sure?" I asked. "Is it clear?"

"Yes, very clear ­ the eyes, the nose, the mouth." He made no move to remove the cloth from his face, holding it tight so it would not slip.

I looked at the clear sea, the gentle waves reflecting splinters of the moon. Felix still gazed upwards. I began to count the stars and the lighted fishing boats.

As I turned to go up to the veranda, Felix said happily, "He was smiling at me." He touched the top of my head and walked on towards his room by the garage. The fragrance of sampaguitas mixed with the salty smell of the sea.

Emma woke the next morning to loud, unfamiliar voices. As she dressed, she heard her grandmother pass by her room, her long skirt making crisp, starchy sounds. Emma ran behind her, wondering why she was making the sign of the cross as she hurried down the stairs.

In the veranda there were strangers crowding around a low bench. Emma edged closer unnoticed. Felix lay on the bunk, his face white as paper, his curly hair wet and plastered to his head, a half smile on his face.

Emma moved nearer, but her mother saw her. She pulled Emma, lifted her in her arms and hugged her close. The men were talking to Doña Marta, describing what they had seen.

"He is always running by the beach, or wading in the water. But this time, he just walked on, as if he was heading straight for the moon. . . We did not think he would drown. He knew how deep it was that far out. When we reached him, it was too late."

The fisherman who spoke looked at Emma. He had often seen her with Felix. He addressed her gently. "As he walked into the ocean all we could hear was him laughing."

"Laughing?" with an effort Emma kept her voice calm.

The man nodded. "This time he did not have his cans," he said.

But that Emma knew.