Quiapo Fortunes

She sees my future in the ace of spades. Her fingers are gnarled, knuckles knotted from a lifetime of soothsaying. She owns no fortune teller's salon, only a carboard box she squats behind as she turns over more cards; first the seven of clubs, then the jack of diamonds. “This is good,” she tells me in her nasal Tagalog, voice hoarse from the lateness of the day. “You will be rich.” She carries no crystal ball, swirls no tea leaves. Her claim to authenticity lies in the wizened lines on her face, tracing branching paths from pruned forehead to folded, sunburnt jaw.

Around us, a market bursts into song. Rows of bright green calamansi and ripened mangoes intersperse with the rosy blush of Fuji apples, the sweetness of orange dalandan. Religious figurines and toilet plugs are sold beside pellets of rat pesticide and mother-of-pearls. Inside ratten baskets shrimps float in shallow pools of cloudy water, baffled by the sweltering heat. Several meters away the Quiapo church stands serene, tolerant of the shrill, cacophonous energy outside its doors.

The old woman turns another card.

“The queen of hearts.” She smiles. “You will marry soon.”

I study the crisscross of wrinkles unfolding over her face, the way her eyes crease in study. I speculate about her own future – if she could have foretold her destiny, of her little place along this noisy, dust-strewn street. But for the next fifteen minutes, the sounds of the bazaar around us fade until nothing matters but the old woman's voice, the pack of playing cards before her, and me.

I pay what I owe, and rise. A nearby vendor hands out thin white candles, all smelling of fresh sampaguita. “For free,” she tells me, gesturing at the church. I accept her generosity, and move into the next street, where the squeal of jeepneys and the roar of buses drown out the bedlam behind me. I look over my shoulder one last time. The old woman sits by her makeshift parlor, smiling to herself.

I wonder what it is she sees.