The Faith of My Mother
By Carlos Bulosan

Editor's note: This story was originally published in FOLIO (formerly Living Poetry), Vol. IV, No. 1 Autumn 1946 (editors: Margaret Dierkes & Henry Dierkes) recovered by R. Grefalda and now reprinted here in Our Own Voice after 62 years.

But one day when she came home from the public market she found my sister walking in the yard as if she had never been sick. Mother put her load on the ground and ran up to my sister and grabbed her with great tenderness.

My sister Marcela was sick for a long time with a mysterious disease. She went to bed on her sixth birthday and stayed flat on her back for three years. She just looked straight into the low ceiling and tears rolled down her face. She never made any noise during the day, but at night we could hear her sobbing bitterly. There was nothing we could do for her, so we turned away and tried to sleep.

Mother was always working in the fields and doing some chores in the house. Sometimes Marcela would ask Mother to sit by her side. Mother would rest only for a few hours, because when the dawn came, she was up again, cooking for my sister and preparing to go to work. But one day when she came home from the public market she found my sister walking in the yard as if she had never been sick. Mother put her load on the ground and ran up to my sister and grabbed her with great tenderness. Then she knelt on the ground and started to cry.

The neighbors came to the fence and hung on it with solemnity, for they had shared the agony of my sister's illness. Mother carried Marcela in her arms and rushed up the house. She ran from the living room to the kitchen, and back again, looking for something she could not find. Finally she saw me sitting on the windowsill and caressing Uncle Sergio's new fighting cock.

"Where is our santo, son?" she said (Santos are wooden figures of the saint and the Holy Trinity carved by journeyman artists for the village houses.)

We had a santo, a wooden figure of Jesus on the Cross, but it had disappeared when my brother Silvestre came home for a visit from Manila. I said, hoping father did not sell it: "I didn't see it for a long time, Mother."

"Go to your uncle and borrow his santo," Mother said.

"Yes, Mother," I said, jumping off the windowsill. I ran down the ladder with the cock in my hands. My uncle was not home. I took the santo from the niche in the wall and carried it with the gamecock to our house.

The rooster had dirtied the face of St. Peter with its wastes, so Mother took it from me and went to the kitchen. She filled a small wooden tub with water and washed the santo with soap. Father suddenly came up the house feeling ungracious and mad.

"You sure take good care of that piece of wood while your husband walks in the street like a stinking pig," he said.

"Why do you say such an unholy thing?" Mother said. She wiped the santo with her skirt and went to the living room. She put the figure in the niche and lighted a candle.

My sister Marcela knelt on the floor beside Mother, and they started to pray. When Father saw that my sister could walk, he looked at me with cruel eyes. He looked as if it was my fault that I did not tell him why Mother had to clean the santo. His face changed suddenly and inevitably, because he was also a religious man in his own way. Maybe he was not as religious as Mother, but he felt grateful that my sister was well again.

My sister got up and kissed Mother's hands; then she kissed Father's hands and went to the kitchen. Father and Mother got up and walked about the house with great holiness.

Father knelt beside Mother and my sister, bowing his head low in sincere devotion and even clapping his hand restfully under his wine-stained chin. There was nothing I could do, so I knelt beside him with the gamecock in my arms. He looked sideways at the cock, but Mother was already chanting the litany. I tried to concentrate on the holy beard of St. Peter, but the rooster kept cackling and pecking at the floor. Perhaps the cock was also praying because when the ceremony was over, it wiggled out of my arms and stood on the floor for quite some time staring at the beard of St. Peter.

Mother looked at Father with great admiration and respect. She looked at me and the gamecock, but there was doubt in her face. My sister got up and kissed Mother's hands; then she kissed Father's hands and went to the kitchen. Father and Mother got up and walked about the house with great holiness. I climbed down the ladder and walked in the bright afternoon sun.

For quite some time there was great holiness in our house. The rains came and the farmers started planting rice. Then the dry season came and the women and children went to the fields and harvested the rice. The men hauled the rice bundles in small carts and stacked them in their granaries. Then the hot days came and the women spread their bundles in the sun to be dried, so that it would be easy to separate the husks from the grains with wooden pestles. The men sat under the coconut trees and drank wine from big earthen jars and talked about their women and children.

Toward the beginning of November, before the Christmas holidays occupied the minds of the townspeople, peddlers from all over the island of Luzon started coming to our Province. From Pampanga, a province to the south of Pangasinan, our province, came cloth peddlers with long broad canes, and walked in our street for many days. From the province of Ilocos Norte, in the northern part of the island came illiterate peddlers selling prayer books and paper bound vernacular novels. And from Abra, another province in the north, came men who sold plow handles, bolos, knives and other metal implements that were necessary to the peasants in our province.

Then in the middle of December, when we were preparing for the holidays, the santo peddlers with their wooden figures hanging on both ends of long poles that they carried on their shoulders came to our town shouting their wares. The women untied their handkerchiefs and counted their year's savings.

When the first santo peddler came to our street, Mother grabbed her money and met him eagerly. The peddler bent his knees and let the pole slide off his shoulders. The wooden figures stood on the ground. Mother picked up a small figure of St. Lourdes.

"How much?" she asked.

"Five pesos," the peddler said.

"It was only a peso ten years ago," Mother said.

"Lady, that was ten years ago," the peddler said. "That was in my father's time. In my grandfather's time, if you want to know, it was only ten centavos. And you could get it for nothing sometimes because people were not hungry for money. The artists were interested only in their art, but the worshippers were interested in the divinity of the santo. From my grandfather's time to my time, however, many years of intensive study in woodcarving have elapsed. Now you tell me that five pesos is too much for this beautifully hand-carved figure of St. Lourdes, the patron saint of your province."

"You should have been a politician, uncle," I said. "You talk pompously and also beautifully."

"Do you think so, son? The peddler said.

"Maybe you should have been a town crier or poet or something like that," I said.

"I am not a quiet man, but I was forced to silence by my work. Woodcarving needs deep concentration of mind and body. Now I like shouting aloud to the world, because I feel as though I were the herald of kingdom come."

"Yes, I believe what you said, son," he said. "We are born with a very special gift for humanity, but nobody seems to care when you are not a politician. I took to carving wooden figures because I can say anything I want to these mute things. When I am alone in my shack in San Vicente-that is my town-I put my figures around the wall and talk to them. St. Judas-are you surprised?-is the best listener because he has a guilty conscience."

"They talk to you, too?" I asked.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you that they do," he said. Suddenly he looked at Mother and said, "Lady, St. Agustin, the figure in your left hand, is six pesos. And that one in your right, St. Joseph, is ten pesos."

"You sure know your coconuts," I said.

"I like selling better than carving, although I am a great artist," the peddler said. "I am not a quiet man, but I was forced to silence by my work. Woodcarving needs deep concentration of mind and body. Now I like shouting aloud to the world, because I feel as though I were the herald of kingdom come."

"You should have been a preacher," I said. "I like your voice very much."

"Do you think I am honest enough to be a preacher, son? " he asked.

"I don't care if you are honest with the santos or not," I said. "But I think you've a holy voice."

"Is there money in it?" he said.

"Yes, there is money in it," I said. "But there is more money in gambling."

The peddler grabbed me with affection. When the women in the neighborhood started coming, he pushed me in the corner of the gate. I knew that he wanted me to stay there and wait for him. I knew that he wanted to talk to me about gambling.

It was then that Father started coming down the road toward our house. He stopped behind the women who were bargaining with the peddler over the prices of the wooden figures. At first he seemed bored and disinterested, but he pushed his way closer when he saw Mother holding the figure of the Holy Trinity.

"How much?" Mother asked, rubbing the nose of the Virgin Mary."

"Twenty pesos," the peddler said.

Mother trembled a little. "That is too much money," she said. "Besides, I have only a very little faith."

"Do you think twenty pesos is too much for the Mother and Father of God-and the great Child Jesus Himself?" he shouted, gesticulating wildly with his hands.

"I have only four pesos." Mother said.

"Lady, how long did you earn that money?" the peddler said.

"One whole year," Mother said.

"He is always doing some mischief here and there. I thought of making a santo while he is still alive, so that it will not be so hard for him when he goes."

"Well, you can have St. Lucas," the peddler said. "He is worth four pesos."

"I don't remember him," Father said suddenly." "Is he a holy man?"

"Well, kind of, " the peddler said.

"Who is he, anyway?" Father asked.

"Oh, he is a man in San Vicente," the peddler said.

"You have a holy man in San Vicente, the town of santo makers?" Father asked suggestively.

"Well, this man is a town character," the peddler said. "He is always doing some mischief here and there. I thought of making a santo while he is still alive, so that it will not be so hard for him when he goes."

"I like that sentiment very much," Father said. "I am a town character too. Do you think you can make me a santo before I go?"

"It depends," the peddler said, evading the attentive ears of the women. Then he whispered something to Father.

"It is a good racket," Father said.

The peddler turned around and smiled at me. Then the women paid the peddler and went away rubbing their figures with their skirts. Mother was still undecided.

"Lady, are you waiting for kingdom come?" the peddler said.

"Three pesos for St. Mary," Mother said.

"Ten pesos," the peddler said.

"Three and a half," Mother said. "I need the fifty centavos for rice."

"Lady, it is five and I will never go down," he said.

"Maybe St. Mary likes to be sold for three and a half," Father suggested.

The peddler pondered over it. "I think you are right," he said. "All right, three and a half."

Mother paid the peddler and went to the house. When everybody was gone, Father saw me hiding in the corner of the fence. The peddler told me to come out and gave me a figure of Christ on the Cross. He was completely nude.

"You like it, boy?" the peddler asked.

"You don't need that santo, son," Father said, grabbing it away from me. "That is only for grown men. You still don't understand certain ways of the world."

"Do you know this holiest of the unholy, boy? The peddler asked.

"He is my youngest son," Father said.

"You have a fortune in this boy," the peddler said, twinkling with delight. Then he grabbed me affectionately in his arms and said: "Now, tell me more about the gambling racket." 

© Carlos Bulosan

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