4216 1/2 Lockwood Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90029
February 16, 2004

Dear Abuelita,

How are you? I am well. Do you remember how I told you that one of my neighbors had found a pearl? Well, I've never really liked him, in fact, I consider Kino a foe. I am not convinced that Kino is the right person to handle the Pearl of the World. Kino is not capable of handling money or anything as valuable as the pearl because he is uneducated. He failed his family by making wrong decisions that made their life miserable. I have heard from some of the other neighbors how he was easily cheated by people who desired the pearl, like the Priest and the Doctor, because of his lack of knowledge. Kino became aggressive, greedy, and overprotective with the pearl until it got to the point where he was worshipping the pearl. Kino gave more attention to the pearl than to his family. He soon forgot the real purpose of selling of the pearl, which was to save his son, Coyotito.

I may not have liked him, but before Kino found the pearl, we all knew him to be a good husband. He enjoyed simple things like listening to the sound of the ocean every morning at dawn. Once, he even mentioned to me how he loved all those early morning sounds, and even referred to them as the Song of the Family.

Ay, abuelita, Kino is a young, strong fisherman, and this is all the life he has ever known. He said to a lady two brush houses down that "the sounds of his world are songs that have existed in his people for hundreds of years," and among those ancient songs in Kino's head are his own songs, the Song of the Family and the Song of the Pearl that Might Be. I have often seen Kino standing at the door, looking out into the morning dawn, as Juana fixes breakfast for her husband. The motion of Juana's cooking and the sounds of her work inside the house make up the Song of the Family for Kino. The sounds are so familiar to Kino that he does not even have to look to know what is happening. As Juana works, she hums an ancient song, and this melody is also part of the Song of the Family along with every other sound of their home. That is the song that constantly plays in Kino's head, "sometimes it rose to an aching chord that caught the throat, saying this is safety, this is warmth, this is the Whole. (p. 4) Really, I think I've done these same things when my wife cooks breakfast in the morning. In those early days, the setting and the mood of our small village was always relaxed.

But, Abuelita, Kino's attitude changed when he found the Pearl of the World. I think the pearl brought Kino and his family bad luck because he supposedly started hearing the Song of Evil. I think the pearl itself was evil. Kino became more protective of the pearl than of his family. They left the village to protect the pearl because many people wanted to take it away from Kino. Kino has even told some of his closer friends how the trackers followed him and they set up camp at the spring just below the cave where Kino hid. Kino thought that if he could kill the man with the rifle, he could kill the other trackers and save his family and the pearl. He said he shed his white clothes because they would have been visible in the night and wore only the knife around his neck. Kino told his wife that if he was killed, she should remain hidden until the men passed and then strike out on her own to Loreto. Juana was afraid for him, but she couldn't do anything for him. Kino then leaped from his place and stabbed the watchman through the neck and into the chest as the gun went off. He wrenched the rifle away and hit the man who was barely awake with the rifle butt, crushing his head like a melon. Then Kino said he felt his "brain cleared from its red concentration and he knew the sound--the keening, moaning, rising hysterical cry from the little cave in the side of the stone mountain, the cry of death" (p.114). When he got back to Juana, he saw that Coyotito got shot by the trackers because of Kino's negligence and wrong decisions. If he had only listened to Juana and had thrown the pearl back to the sea, like she told him that first night they had it, they might not have lost their son.

Sincerely yours,
Joram David A. Dugay