Summary
The next part of the novel opens with Mary Texeira telling Pepe that she has seen both Concha and Connie. She says they are stunning, and you would think they were sisters. She thinks the mother is more attractive, and questions Pepe thinking the daughter is more appealing. She says people say they are jewel thieves or gem smugglers. She addresses her husband, Paco, by commenting on the letters the women have been sending him since he met them in Manila. From their dialogue, it is made clear they are having tea and cake. The Texeira children are in another room of their “sardine can of an apartment.”
Paco asks Pepe about his father. Pepe says his father isn’t doing well since the trip to Manila, and his brother Tony wants to put him in a nursing home. He says he wishes to God he’d never gone. Mary says she wishes Paco had never gone either. Paco tells her to shut up. They discuss their expensive, dirty accommodations in Hong Kong.
Pepe says his father was going to have the house in Manila rebuilt, but now there’s no more talk of moving. Mary reveals casually that she had discussed Manila with Concha. Paco stands up in anger at the fact that his wife went to visit with her. The narrator comments that Paco and Mary are part Portuguese, part Filipino. They look like siblings.
When asked, Mary reveals she saw Concha on Monday afternoon. She says he had been so strange since returning, and then the letters arrived. She was worried. She tells Pepe that Paco hardly leaves the house now. Paco shouts that he doesn’t leave because he wants to avoid running into “those women.”
Mary asks why not, and if he’s been “raping them.” He asks why she didn’t ask Concha herself. She says they discussed watercolors, which makes the men laugh. Mary says she and Concha ended up going to Rita’s curio store and Concha bought two of Mary’s watercolor paintings.
Mary says that Concha evidently didn’t know Paco well enough to have been raped by him; she didn’t even remember his name. Paco calls Concha a “bitch.” Mary describes Concha’s elegant outfit. She says Concha was small, and she wanted to hold her and rock her. She says Concha is deeply devout, meditating on the Virgin despite the jewelry and ornate embroidered dragon clothing she wears.
Pepe says he thought Mary was jealous of Concha. Mary says that's nonsense: she was frantic. Paco says he would feel worried if she hadn’t been. Mary confirms that he hasn’t been raping anybody. Paco replies: “Well, not all the way…” Mary apologizes for being frantic. Paco apologizes for knocking her washing line down in the apartment.
Instead of picking up the washing from the floor, Paco and Mary decide to take the children out to the park. They invite Pepe, who grins and agrees to join. Mary says Pepe must enjoy “watching the sexes fight.” Paco says he will get her beret and their babies.
Analysis
The third part of The Woman Who Had Two Navels sees the location shift to Paco and Mary Texeira’s Hong Kong apartment, which is even more cramped than Pepe’s. The couple have three children and hang their wet clean clothing on a line that crosses the living room, a visual image that emphasizes the couple’s poverty in a city where rents are notoriously high. Pepe has come to the couple seeking further information about Connie and Concha, the strange elite women who visited him that day.
To Pepe’s surprise, Mary already knows about Connie and Concha, and—at least to some extent—knows about their relationship with her husband, Paco. With a bold, no-nonsense tone of voice, Mary tells Pepe about the letters the women have sent Paco and offers her opinion on which is the more attractive of the two. Her casual manner suggests she is attempting to provoke her unfaithful husband, who sits in the same room and listens. From Paco’s curt responses, it is clear there is more to the story that he has so far divulged.
Briefly directing the conversation away from himself and onto Pepe’s father, Paco asks how Doctor Monson has been. Pepe admits his father hasn’t been well since his trip to the Philippines and wishes he had never gone; if he’d stayed, he would have been able to live longer in the fantasy of returning and rebuilding rather than contending with the disappointing reality of what doing so would entail.
Mary is quick to return the focus to her husband, who she wishes also hadn’t gone to the Philippines and met Connie and Concha. In an instance of situational irony, Mary reveals that she met with Concha that day. Furthering the irony, she says that they got along and Concha even wanted to purchase two of Mary’s watercolors. The interest in Mary’s art seemed to have distracted Mary from her curiosity about Paco and Concha’s relationship. This detail makes Pepe and Paco laugh, in part because of sexist condescension at the apparent frivolity of the exchange, in part out of relief that Concha and Mary didn’t find themselves in conflict.
Speaking bluntly and crudely, she asks her husband if he was “raping” Connie and Concha. Paco’s answer is cryptic, seemingly a joke, as he says that it never went as far as rape. The tension between the couple dissolves as they appear to make up before each other, Mary apologizing for being “frantic” in her paranoia. However, the couple’s compromised moment of harmony will prove more performative than genuine in the next section, when the reader learns of Paco’s account of what happened between him and Connie and Concha in Manila.
