Puntan Dos Amantes

 

Long ago when the Spanish still ruled the island of Guam, an event

happened which brought deep sorrow to a powerful family and reminded

the Spaniards, of fierce pride, that one should never fail to listen

to the human heart.

 

In old Agana, there lived a proud family. The father was a Spanish

aristocrat and the mother was a Chamorro of noble blood. Although

the land they owned and the position they held were reason enough for

thier dignity and pride, their finest possession was their only

daughter. She had the kind of beauty which is seldom seen. She was

more than beautiful, for her modesty was so genuine and her charm so

natural that her beauty shone outward to all around her. She was

sought after by boys and men, and although she smiled on all, young

and old, ugly and handsome, her innocence protected her from

misunderstanding and harm.

 

One day, a self-assured gallant, three times her age, came to court

her. As a captain in the service of the King of Spain, he was well

recieved by the girl's ambitious father, who was flattered that a

grandee would pay his daughter so much honor. From the first visit,

the opinionated father decided that the captain would be his

daughter's husband.

 

However, the daughter in no way encouraged the suitor, and the vain

captain did not seem conscious that she could have no interest in him.

Sure of himself, he pressed his courtship, certain that she could not

resist him for long.

 

When the father saw that she continued to hold off the captain with

cool courtesy, he made it clear to his daughter that he intended to

marry her off to the grandee. Lowering her eyes in respect and

humility, she said nothing. But her father's unloving sterness pained

her deeply. When he told her that he knew what was best for her

future, she wanted to please him and abide by his wishes, but her

womanly instinct compelled her to confess, "I feel nothing for the

good captain." The father, annoyed, reminded her of her duty to her

parents. Meekly she asked, "I already have one good father. Do I need

another in so old a husband?"

 

The father, angered because she had questioned his judgement, warned

her that she should obey or he would send her away from her home

forever to learn the meaning of obedience in a convent in distant

Spain. Crying, she ran to her mother who told her daughter she must

resign herself to her father's will. Felling wretched, the girl

wandered along the shore as the sea soothed her with it's silence and

peace.

 

The girl wanted to be a good daughter and was frightened at the

thought of being sent away from her beloved island for the rest of her

life. She was torn, too, by a yearning to be married to a boy of her

own choosing. A man who would make their life together a lovely dream.

But she had beheld him only in her heart. Alone and unhappy, she

wandered on the high peninsula overlooking Tumon Bay, the vast ocean

thrashing below. There, against the setting sun, sat a young man, lost

in his own solitary thoughts. His gentle eyes seemed to be studying a

lonely star, asking it what life should be. She saw that he, too, was

seeking. She felt as if she had found the boy of her dreams.

 

When he became aware of her gaze upon him, he turned toward her. He

awed by her beauty, and she sensed that he, somehow, felt her sadness

and yearning.

 

He got up and slowly came to her. His hand touched her shoulder to

comfort her, and she knew then that he would always understand. Before

the last rays of the sun vanished and the night stars fully appeared,

they learned the meaning of love.

 

That evening the girl returned home. She now had a real reason for

resisting the captain's unwanted advances. However, that night the

officer, dazzled by the new flush in her cheeks, grew more persistent

and ardent than even before. His words, so clever and grandiloquent at

dinner, became empty and unkind when, in the hallway, she fled his hot

embrace. His impatience and anger showed that he did not know what

true gentleness was.

 

Alone in her room, the bright girl realized that the captain wanted

her as he did the fine horse he rode on festive days. With a sinking

heart, she saw that her father was giving her away like a piece of

land to a vain, powerful man to gain hisfavor at court. While she

reasoned this, the captain downstairs decided to force the issue

before he left. He demanded the girl's hand in marriage and the

father willingly consented. At once he summoned the girl from her

bed to announce his decision. His daughter's crestfallen face went

pale. He patted her, assuring the girl she would be happy and her

future would be secured.

 

She would have yeilded to tears, but her pride made her dare to tell

the truth in true Castilian style.

"I do not--I do not love the captain. I cannot--I shall never be his

wife."

Emabarrased and furious at his daughter's disobedience, he ordered,

"You CAN--and you SHALL."

 

She would learn to kiss his hand in respect and reverence. The weeping

girl, humiliated by her father's command, ran upstairs to her mother

and told her what had happened. the mother, a dutiful wife who had

learned early to bow to her husband's will, if not to his wisdom,

tried to convince her daughter all would be well.

"You will love the captain one day--out of love for your mother and

father," her mother said.

 

Between tears of joy, the girl admitted to her mother that she had

fallen in love with the boy she had met that evening on the heights.

The mother shook her head at the news while she rocked her child in

her arms, but she bowed to her daughters's passion. She would tell

her husband that his daughter was in love with a young fisherman who

could read the stars.

 

The mother went at once, but the haughty father forbade her to speak

women's nonsense. Besides, how could he go back on his word to the

grandee now? He would never permit his daughter, greatest prize of all

his possessions, to waste her life on a poor nobody. Hesitantly, the

mother went back and told her daughter what the father had said.

 

the next morning the father announced the date of the marriage feast

to his silent child. As she listened to her father's practical reasons

for the match, she understood for the first time the Spanish way--the

cruelty in it's greatness, the heartlessness in it's empire, and the

pride and the resignation it demanded. Before it's great, dark power

over her tiny life, she felt small and lost.