America Is in the Heart

by Carlos Bulosan

  I was playing baseball with the girls in the vacant lot between our houses when my cousin came running to me. He grabbed the bat from my hand, gasping for breath.

  “You have the highest score in the entire school, Allos,” he said excitedly. “And you have the highest score throughout the province of Pangasinan. Perhaps you have the highest score in the Philippines. You know, we have the same examination papers throughout the islands.”

  I felt guilty and ashamed. The girls dropped their gloves and came running to me. Their eyes shone with envy. They trembled with love. When my cousin read them their marks, which he had copied on a slip of paper, they slunk away like cats and did not come out of their rooms for a long time. Those who had fair grades joked with the landlady and the cook, but they refused to talk to me.

  There were one hundred thirty questions and I had correctly answered one hundred twenty-seven in thirty minutes. The students had been given one hour, but I had finished my paper thirty minutes ahead of time. It had been so stated by the examiner on my paper. My fame spread far and wide. I saw my teacher regularly and we had fun laughing at the joke that we had played upon the school. Then he urged me to study seriously.

  The girls from other houses began coming to my boarding house with their lessons, bringing neatly embroidered handkerchiefs. They came after school and filled the house with the smell of their powder and cheap perfume. They washed my shirts and helped the cook with the dishes. My landlady began to look on me as someone miraculous. I had become a valuable asset to her business.

  * * *

  —

  But my fame had become a nuisance. When the fishing season came again, I felt a great relief. I stayed away until dark hoping that no one would be waiting for me. I noticed that one girl was always in the kitchen with one of the boys when I came home. This girl, Veronica, had evidenced a great dislike for me. I had never paid any attention to her, but I could see that she wanted to hurt me.

  One night I had gone to the presidencia to send money to my mother. I returned to my boarding house eating peanuts and looking up at the bright stars in the sky. As I drew near the school, I heard the dogs barking excitedly. I stopped and listened. Then I heard the pathetic wail of a baby. I could not believe my ears. I picked up a stone and chased the dogs away.

  I found the baby lying on the grass. It was so small. I picked it up carefully and carried it into the house. I woke up my landlady and showed her the baby.

  “Where did you get it?” she asked, trembling with sudden fear.

  “I found it on the grass in the schoolyard,” I said. “The dogs were barking over it. I was lucky to come along, because they might have killed it.”

  “In the schoolyard, did you say?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  The woman collapsed. When she came to, the boys were already awake. They surrounded her, rubbing their eyes and looking at the baby with surprise. My landlady cried out:

  “My business is ruined! My business is ruined!”

  When I went to my room, I saw a faint light in the kitchen. I walked on tiptoe and peeped through the door. Veronica was burning some clothes in the stove. She became angry when she saw me.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, going into the kitchen and looking at the burning clothes.

  “Go away!” she screamed. “Go away or I will kill you!”

  I saw the blood on her feet and on the floor near the stove. I went into my room and tried to sleep, pushing away the face of the little baby when it came to my mind. I could still hear the excited voices of the boys in the other house. Then the roosters started crowing and the fishermen came out of their houses with their lunch boxes. It was time for me to go with them. I felt my way in the dark and climbed down the ladder.

  When I came home in the afternoon there was a large crowd near the house. I saw two policemen at the door and two others in the house. My landlady came running to me with my suitcase.

  “Don’t go into the house, Allos!” she said, putting the suitcase in my hand. “There is going to be trouble with that girl. Go!”

  “I did not do anything,” I said weakly.

  “Go away from here, son!” she insisted. “Go anywhere! Don’t stay another minute in Lingayen. You are a good boy and I’d hate to see you in trouble. Go!”

  I walked away from her and took the first bus to Binalonan.It was foolish of my landlady to think that I had any part in the birth of the baby. I looked at the perfect credit cards that my teacher had given me. I thought of my cousin and sighed. I leaned far out the window and looked at the twinkling stars in the sky. I was nearing the dark land of home.

  CHAPTER XII

  It was ten o’clock in the morning when I reached Binalonan. I went to the presidencia and asked the postmaster if he had seen my brother Luciano. The policemen told me that he had not been around for a long time. I carried my suitcase to his house. I saw a young woman looking out of one of the windows. She was holding a crying baby. Then I saw my brother coming down the ladder with an ax. He put the ax on a pile of firewood and met me.

  “When did you arrive, Allos?” he asked.

  “I have just arrived,” I said. “Do you think mother is still in Mangusmana?”

  “I have heard that she has gone to San Manuel with the girls,” he said. “They went there to harvest mongo. It is the season, you know.”

  “What about father?” I asked.

  “Father went with them,” he said.

  When my brother noticed that I was looking toward the window, he opened the gate and said: “I am married now and I have a daughter. Come and meet my wife.”

  I did not want to ask him about his political aspirations. He had been deep in politics when I had left Binalonan. I noticed that his wife was big with child again.

  “We are expecting another,” he said in apology.

  Later he and I went to our old house. A gambler and his wife had bought it. They were in the yard admiring a gamecock. We stood outside the fence looking into the house, but when the man invited us to play cards, we walked around the fence silently and left.

  “It is a good house,” I said, beginning to feel badly because a professional gambler had bought it.

  “We were all born in it,” my brother said. “We grew up in it, too. If I had enough money, I would like to buy it for my children.”

  “I would, too,” I said. “Remember the window where we used to hang the parrot cage? And the beautiful pot that mother brought home with her from one of the villages? I had fun in that house. I guess I will never live in it again.”

  “It is too bad we are all scattered now,” he said.

  “I will come back someday,” I said. “I will come back and buy that house. I will buy it and build a high cement wall around it. I will come back with lots of money and put on a new roof. It must be leaking now. I will put new walls, too. Wait and see!”

  “I don’t have my health any more, Allos,” Luciano said sadly. “If I were you I would never stop moving until I came back with money. When are you leaving again?”

  “Tomorrow,” I said. “But I would like to go to San Manuel and say good-bye to the family before I leave for Manila. I think I know where to find them. I used to work there with mother, you know.”

  In the morning I took a caromata for San Manuel. The town had not changed. I went directly to the field where mother and I had worked years before. They were all glad to see me, but when I told them that I was leaving for America, they became sad and silent. Then Francisca unwrapped the bit of cloth where she kept her earnings and put the money in my pocket.

  “I cannot take your money, Francisca,” I said.

  She looked at me as though she had something important to say. Then she said: “Take it anyway, brother. When you are in America go to school, and when you come back to Binalonan teach Marcela and me to read. That is all I want f
rom you. We will be working hard with mother while you are gone.”

  There was a big lump in my throat. A little girl giving me five pesos so that I could go to school in America! It was her whole year’s savings.

  I took my father’s hand and tried to tell him that it was good-bye. He leaned on his walking stick to keep himself from falling.

  “Be sure to come back, son,” he said weakly. “When you find it hard and there is no other way, you must come back to Binalonan and stay with us.”

  “I will come back, Father,” I said.

  My sisters clung to my hands, looking at me with pleading eyes. There was a meadow lark somewhere in the sunlit field, and it was singing rapturously. Not far away a peasant girl was singing a kundiman, or love song, and a young man answered with a song as sweet and innocent. Near by a little boy was playing with a quail that he had snared with horsehair in the unharvested mongo field. In a metallic instant, I remembered how Luciano and I had snared birds.

  I walked on the footpath that led to the driveway. When I reached the gravel road that finally took me to the highway, I looked back at my family for the last time. I saw my mother in bold outline. Raising her dark hands, she wept without moving her eyes; without moving her lips, she cried, and in the aching surge of a moment she put her face in her hands and sobbed loudly between fits of agonized laughter.

  * * *

  —

  I went to Binalonan to say good-bye to Luciano. His wife had just given birth to another baby. I knew that he would have a child every year. I knew that in ten years he would be so burdened with responsibilities that he would want to lie down and die. I was glad that I was free from the life he was living. When I had finally settled myself in the bus, I looked down and saw my brother’s pitiful eyes.

  “Don’t come back to Binalonan, Allos!” he said. “Even if you have to steal and kill, don’t come back to this damned town. Don’t ever come back, please, little brother!” He was running furiously alongside the bus and waving his hands desperately with the importance of what he had to say. “Don’t come back as I have done. See what happened to me?” He let my hand go and suddenly stopped running. He was crying and shaking, as though a strong wind were bending him from side to side.

  * * *

  —

  On the train to Manila I met a tall university student from La Union, where he had spent his vacation. He was going back to the university, but was unhappy at the prospect. He looked at his books contemptuously and glanced quickly out of the window, waving at the peasant girls selling rice cakes and boiled eggs in makeshift stands near the railroad tracks. I saw the engraved name on his leather suitcase: Juan Cablaan.

  When he noticed my inquisitive eyes, Juan said: “Yes, that is my name. My father is the governor of my province. He is a good lawyer and he wants me to follow his profession. Hell!” He cursed and kicked his suitcase away, looking out of the window and waving at the girls.

  But he was very helpful to me. He said: “Don’t let the choceros, or drivers, cheat you. Don’t talk to them in the dialect.”

  When we arrived at the station in Manila, Juan called for a caromata. He instructed the driver to go to a certain address. When we reached the place, we saw many barefoot provincianos at the gate. It was evident that they had just arrived in the city from the provinces. They were carrying homemade suitcases.

  “These peasants from the provinces are also going to America,” Juan said to me, glancing nonchalantly at my rattan suitcase.

  “How did you know I am going to America?” I asked.

  He did not answer me. When the caromata stopped in front of the little house, Juan opened his suitcase and offered me a pair of old shoes.

  “Wear these shoes, if you don’t want people to know that you are from the provinces and on your way to America,” he said. “Some thieves and pickpockets might think that you have money about you. I know you have only a few pesos tied with a cloth belt under your coat.”

  He was right, and I felt embarrassed. “I have no money to pay for the shoes,” I said.

  “Forget it,” he said.

  I entered the gate with the rest of the peasants from the provinces. The house was overflowing with boys, chattering in their dialects and putting away their provisions in the corners of the house. I went to the window and looked out. For nearly a mile around I saw only nipa houses.

  We were in Tondo, in the slum district of Manila. Every day there was panguingue, a card game, in the house. Some of the peasants were tempted to play and lost. They stayed on in Manila hoping to earn enough money to take them to America. But they never earned enough, so they stayed on and on in the city, and their relatives never heard from them again.

  * * *

  —

  There was a cockpit in the neighborhood, and I went to watch. The bettors were outside the rope enclosure shouting their bets. Only the owners of the cocks and the referee were inside. When the betting had been arranged by three hawkers who went around, the owners of the fighting cocks stepped out of their corners and met in the center of the ring. They held the gamecocks in their arms, the birds glaring at each other challengingly.

  The referee came forward with two sharp steel spurs and, showing the dangerous sharp blades to the two men, he attached one to the right leg of one bird with a leather strap and the other to the second rooster. When this was done to the satisfaction of both men, the referee wrapped the bases of the spurs with pieces of thick black cloth. The men allowed the birds to peck at each other, instructively and challengingly. Then they threw them decisively in the center of the ring.

  The men and the referee moved back to their corners watching the cocks intently. The birds flung their full weight against each other, and their weapons interlocked. They fluttered about on the ground. The men ran and picked them up. There was no damage: the birds were unharmed. They turned around swiftly and flung themselves upon each other. The bettors screamed at the top of their voices and stamped wildly on the ground.

  Suddenly one of the cocks rushed the other, but its opponent was alert to danger, and the first rooster fell to the ground. Then a tragic and pathetic thing happened. The fallen cock had buried its spur in the ground and the other cock turned around and began attacking it viciously. The crowd screamed shrilly, a fanatical screaming. The free bird attacked the helpless one again and again, trying to bury the sharp steel blade, but the armorless cock evaded it miraculously. Suddenly the earth gave way: the bird freed the spur. Stepping backward, it buried its gaft in the neck of the other. The head fell like a stone to the ground. The victor strutted shakily, raised its bloody head and crowed. The maddened screaming stopped.

  Then something happened. The men suddenly started pushing each other and milling around the enclosure. I ran toward the gate and jumped over the fence. Someone was following me. I looked back, and to my surprise, I saw Juan Cablaan running behind me.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I come here now and then to see how the slum people live. I also come here for a good time. It is a good experience. I know another interesting place in this district. I will show it to you.”

  It was evening. I could hear church bells ringing. We walked around awhile, and Juan pointed out interesting antiquities and other relics of the past. When the lights came on in the better districts of Manila, we retraced our steps to Tondo and the slum dwellers. We stopped in front of an inconspicuous nipa house. There was a little red light near the door. I could see the dark figure of a man coming slowly down the ladder.

  “There is something I would like you to see before you leave for America,” Juan said. “Have you ever been with a girl?”

  Not fully comprehending what he meant, I followed him quietly into the dark house. A woman stopped us at the door. Juan touched me.

  “Do you see her?” he whispered.

  I peered th
rough the door and saw a young girl on the bamboo floor with a naked man.

  “What are they doing there?” I asked.

  “The girl is a prostitute,” he said. “And this old witch is her mother. Do you want to try it?”

  I groped my way to the ladder and ran to the street, glad to feel the fresh air. Juan was walking rapidly beside me.

  “There are many girls like her in Manila,” he said sadly. “They came from the provinces hoping to find work in the city. But look where they have landed!” He laughed bitterly.

  I began to run furiously away from him. When I reached my boarding house the men looked at me. I put my arms around a post and tried to ease the wild beating of my heart. I wanted to cry. Suddenly, I started beating the post with my fists.

  In the morning a big truck came to take us to the government detention station. We carried our bundles and suitcases and waited in a wide room. After a while a doctor came and tapped on our chests; then we were taken to our boat. The people began throwing confetti, and suddenly it began to rain. The boat moved slowly out of the harbor, threading the sharp tongue of land that led out into the open sea.

  I stood on the deck and watched the fading shores of Manila. Long afterward I found myself standing in the heavy rain, holding my rattan suitcase and looking toward the disappearing Philippines. I knew that I was going away from everything I had loved and known. I knew that if I ever returned the first sight of that horizon would be the most beautiful sight in the world. I waved my hat and went into the vestibule that led to the filthy hold below where the other steerage passengers were waiting for me.

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER XIII

  I found the dark hole of the steerage and lay on my bunk for days without food, seasick and lonely. I was restless at night and many disturbing thoughts came to my mind. Why had I left home? What would I do in America? I looked into the faces of my companions for a comforting answer, but they were as young and bewildered as I, and my only consolation was their proximity and the familiarity of their dialects. It was not until we had left Japan that I began to feel better.