Our neighbor, Isabel, is an interesting woman. She's my age and gorgeous, with a 6-year old son. She lives alone in the small house next door, and entertains a steady stream of much-enamored suitors who arrive on motorbike. Rumors abound, of course, but we stay out of it. We respect her right to make her own decisions.
We like Isabel and we feel rather sorry for her. If it's possible, the neighborhood finds her stranger than they even find us. She's assertive and awfully harsh, and has been getting more so. She yells at everyone, and especially at her son. She recently got into a physical fight (in which she lost a fistful of mexas) for beating the son of a neighborhood woman.
When the neighborhood noticed that she was getting round in the stomach, people started getting mean. They talked and talked and talked about it. Poor Isabel. And her belly kept on getting bigger.
One of her suitors, a well-respected border guard, seemed to take responsibility for her change in figure. He moved his clothes into the house and started visiting with regularity. Things were looking better for the 6-months pregnant Isabel.
Then, they had a fight. Dan and I came home one day to hear screaming and crying and the sound of slamming doors. Isabel had locked herself in the house and her marido was hurling bricks at the door.
BOOM! A brick hit the door frame and crumbled on the veranda.
"Ki-ki-ki ayai ayai wee-OHH!" shouted Isabel.
BOOM! A brick hit and crumbled.
"A wee-YOHHH!" she wailed
BOOM! BOOM! Two bricks.
And then the marido hopped on his motocrycle and zoomed away.
Silence.
"What was that?" I asked Seni. "Does Isabel need help?"
"No, said Seni, "Her marido is just mad. He won't come back for a while. He heard that the baby wasn't his and that Isabel had been with lots of other men."
"And where's he going now?" I asked.
"He said that she isn't faithful," said Seni. "So he's gone to live with his other girlfriend."
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