1

My Father Goes to Court (Carlos Bulosan) One morning a policeman from the presidencia
came to our house with a sealed paper. The rich man had
When I was four, I lived with my mother and filed a complaint against us. Father took me with him
brothers and sisters in a small town on the island of Luzon. when he went to the town clerk and asked him what it was
Father’s farm had been destroyed in 1918 by one of our about. He told Father the man claimed that for years we
sudden Philippine floods, so several years afterwards we had been stealing the spirit of his wealth and food.
all lived in the town though he preferred living in the
country. We had as a next door neighbor a very rich man, When the day came for us to appear in court,
whose sons and daughters seldom came out of the house. father brushed his old Army uniform and borrowed a pair
While we boys and girls played and sang in the sun, his of shoes from one of my brothers. We were the first to
children stayed inside and kept the windows closed. His arrive. Father sat on a chair in the centre of the courtroom.
house was so tall that his children could look in the Mother occupied a chair by the door. We children sat on a
window of our house and watched us played, or slept, or long bench by the wall. Father kept jumping up from his
ate, when there was any food in the house to eat. chair and stabbing the air with his arms, as though we
were defending himself before an imaginary jury.
Now, this rich man’s servants were always frying
and cooking something good, and the aroma of the food The rich man arrived. He had grown old and
was wafted down to us form the windows of the big house. feeble; his face was scarred with deep lines. With him was
We hung about and took all the wonderful smells of the his young lawyer. Spectators came in and almost filled the
food into our beings. Sometimes, in the morning, our chairs. The judge entered the room and sat on a high chair.
whole family stood outside the windows of the rich man’s We stood in a hurry and then sat down again.
house and listened to the musical sizzling of thick strips of
bacon or ham. I can remember one afternoon when our After the courtroom preliminaries, the judge
neighbor’s servants roasted three chickens. The chickens looked at the Father. “Do you have a lawyer?” he asked.
were young and tender and the fat that dripped into the
burning coals gave off an enchanting odor. We watched “I don’t need any lawyer, Judge,” he said.
the servants turn the beautiful birds and inhaled the
heavenly spirit that drifted out to us. “Proceed,” said the judge.
Some days the rich man appeared at a window and The rich man’s lawyer jumped up and pointed his
glowered down at us. He looked at us one by one, as finger at Father. “Do you or you do not agree that you
though he were condemning us. We were all healthy have been stealing the spirit of the complaint’s wealth and
because we went out in the sun and bathed in the cool food?”
water of the river that flowed from the mountains into the
sea. Sometimes we wrestled with one another in the house “I do not!” Father said.
before we went to play. We were always in the best of
spirits and our laughter was contagious. Other neighbors “Do you or do you not agree that while the
who passed by our house often stopped in our yard and complaint’s servants cooked and fried fat legs of lamb or
joined us in laughter. young chicken breast you and your family hung outside
his windows and inhaled the heavenly spirit of the food?”
As time went on, the rich man’s children became
thin and anaemic, while we grew even more robust and “I agree.” Father said.
full of life. Our faces were bright and rosy, but theirs were
pale and sad. The rich man started to cough at night; then “Do you or do you not agree that while the
he coughed day and night. His wife began coughing too. complaint and his children grew sickly and tubercular you
Then the children started to cough, one after the other. At and your family became strong of limb and fair in
night their coughing sounded like the barking of a herd of complexion?”
seals. We hung outside their windows and listened to
them. We wondered what happened. We knew that they “I agree.” Father said.
were not sick from the lack of nourishment because they
were still always frying something delicious to eat. “How do you account for that?”

One day the rich man appeared at a window and Father got up and paced around, scratching his
stood there a long time. He looked at my sisters, who had head thoughtfully. Then he said, “I would like to see the
grown fat in laughing, then at my brothers, whose arms children of complaint, Judge.”
and legs were like the molave, which is the sturdiest tree
in the Philippines. He banged down the window and ran “Bring in the children of the complaint.”
through his house, shutting all the windows.
They came in shyly. The spectators covered their
From that day on, the windows of our neighbour’s mouths with their hands, they were so amazed to see the
house were always closed. The children did not come out children so thin and pale. The children walked silently to a
anymore. We could still hear the servants cooking in the bench and sat down without looking up. They stared at the
kitchen, and no matter how tight the windows were shut, floor and moved their hands uneasily.
the aroma of the food came to us in the wind and drifted
gratuitously into our house. Father could not say anything at first. He just
stood by his chair and looked at them. Finally he said, “I
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should like to cross – examine the complaint.” “You like to hear my family laugh, Judge?” Father
asked?
“Proceed.”
“Why not?”
“Do you claim that we stole the spirit of your
wealth and became a laughing family while yours became “Did you hear that children?” father said.
morose and sad?” Father said.
My sisters started it. The rest of us followed them
“Yes.” soon the spectators were laughing with us, holding their
bellies and bending over the chairs. And the laughter of
“Do you claim that we stole the spirit of your food the judge was the loudest of all.
by hanging outside your windows when your servants
cooked it?” Father said.
“Yes.”

“Then we are going to pay you right now,” Father Scent of Apples
said. He walked over to where we children were sitting on
Bienvenido N. Santos
the bench and took my straw hat off my lap and began
filling it up with centavo pieces that he took out of his
When I arrived in Kalamazoo it was October and
pockets. He went to Mother, who added a fistful of silver
the war was still on. Gold and silver stars hung on
coins. My brothers threw in their small change.
pennants above silent win-dows of white and brick-red
cottages. In a backyard an old man burned leaves and
“May I walk to the room across the hall and stay twigs while a grey-haired woman sat on the porch, her red
there for a few minutes, Judge?” Father said. hands quiet on her lap, watching the smoke rising above
the elms, both of them thinking of the same thought
“As you wish.” perhaps, about a tall, grinning boy with blue eyes and
flying hair, who went out to war: where could he be now
“Thank you,” father said. He strode into the other this month when leaves were turning into gold and the
room with the hat in his hands. It was almost full of coins. fragrance of gathered apples was in the wind?
The doors of both rooms were wide open.
It was a cold night when I left my room at the
“Are you ready?” Father called. hotel for a usual speaking engagement. I walked but a
little way. A heavy wind coming up from Lake Michigan
“Proceed.” The judge said. was icy on the face. It felt like winter straying early in the
northern woodlands. Under the lampposts the leaves shone
like bronze. And they rolled on the pavements like the
The sweet tinkle of the coins carried beautifully in
ghost feet of a thousand autumns long dead, long before
the courtroom. The spectators turned their faces toward
the boys left for faraway lands without great icy winds and
the sound with wonder. Father came back and stood before
promise of winter early in the air, lands without apple
the complaint.
trees, the singing and the gold!
“Did you hear it?” he asked.

“Hear what?” the man asked. It was the same night I met Celestino Fabia, “just
a Filipino farmer” as he called himself, who had a farm
about thirty miles east of Kalamazoo.
“The spirit of the money when I shook this hat?”
he asked. “You came all that way on a night like this just to
hear me talk?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“I’ve seen no Filipino for so many years now,” he
“Then you are paid,” Father said. answered quickly. “So when I saw your name in the
papers where it says you come from the Islands and that
you’re going to talk, I come right away.”
The rich man opened his mouth to speak and fell
to the floor without a sound. The lawyer rushed to his aid. Earlier that night I had addressed a college crowd,
The judge pounded his gravel. mostly women. It appeared that they wanted me to talk
about my country; they wanted me to tell them things
“Case dismissed.” He said. about it because my country had become a lost country.
Everywhere in the land the enemy stalked. Over it a great
Father strutted around the courtroom the judge silence hung; and their boys were there, unheard from, or
even came down from his highchair to shake hands with they were on their way to some little known island on the
him. “By the way,” he whispered, “I had an uncle who Pacific, young boys all, hardly men, thinking of harvest
died laughing.” moons and smell of forest fire.
It was not hard talking about our own people. I
knew them well and I loved them. And they seemed so far
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away during those terrible years that I must have spoken friends talked to us, asked us questions, said goodnight. So
of them with a little fervor, a little nostalgia. now I asked him whether he cared to step into the lobby
with me and talk.
In the open forum that followed, the audience
wanted to know whether there was much difference “No, thank you,” he said, “you are tired. And I
between our women and the American women. I tried to don’t want to stay out too late.”
answer the question as best as I could, saying, among
other things, that I did not know much about American “Yes, you live very far.”
women, except that they looked friendly, but differences “I got a car,” he said, “besides . . .”
or similarities in inner qualities such as naturally belonged
to the heart or to the mind, I could only speak about with Now he smiled, he truly smiled. All night I had
vagueness. been watch-ing his face and I wondered when he was
going to smile.
While I was trying to explain away the fact that it
was not easy to make comparisons, a man rose from the “Will you do me a favor, please,” he continued
rear of the hail, wanting to say something. In the distance, smiling almost sweetly. “I want you to have dinner with
he looked slight and old and very brown. Even before he my family out in the country. I’d call for you tomorrow
spoke, I knew that he was, like me, a Filipino. afternoon, then drive you back. Will that be all right?”
“I’m a Filipino,” he began, loud and clear, in a “Of course,” I said. “I’d love to meet your
voice that seemed used to wide open spaces, “I’m just a family.” I was leaving Kalamazoo for Muncie, Indiana, in
Filipino farmer out in the country.” He waved his hand two days. There was plenty of time.
towards the door. “I left the Philippines more than twenty
“You will make my wife very happy,” he said.
years ago and have never been back. Never will perhaps. I
want to find out, sir, are our Filipino women the same like “You flatter me.”
they were twenty years ago?”
“Honest. She’ll be very happy. Ruth is a country
As he sat down, the hall filled with voices, hushed girl and hasn’t met many Filipinos. I mean Filipinos
and intrigued. I weighed my answer carefully. I did not younger than I, cleaner looking. We’re just poor farmer
want to tell a lie yet I did not want to say anything that folk, you know, and we don’t get to town very often.
would seem platitudinous, insincere. But more important Roger, that’s my boy, he goes to school in town. A bus
than these consider-ations, it seemed to me that moment as takes him early in the morning and he’s back in the
I looked towards my countryman, I must give him an afternoon. He’s nice boy.”
answer that would not make him so unhappy. Surely, all
these years, he must have held on to certain ideals, certain “I bet he is,” I agreed. “I’ve seen the children of
beliefs, even illusions peculiar to the exile. some of the boys by their American wives and the boys
are tall, taller than the father, and very good looking.”
“First,” I said as the voices gradually died down
and every eye seemed upon me, “First, tell me what our “Roger, he’d be tall. You’ll like him.”
women were like twenty years ago.” Then he said goodbye and I waved to him as he
The man stood to answer. “Yes,” he said, “you’re disappeared in the darkness.
too young . . . Twenty years ago our women were nice, The next day he came, at about three in the
they were modest, they wore their hair long, they dressed afternoon. There was a mild, ineffectual sun shining; and
proper and went for no monkey business. They were it was not too cold. He was wearing an old brown tweed
natural, they went to church regular, and they were jacket and worsted trousers to match. His shoes were
faithful.” He had spoken slowly, and now in what seemed polished, and although the green of his tie seemed faded, a
like an afterthought, added, “It’s the men who ain’t.” colored shirt hardly accentuated it. He looked younger
Now I knew what I was going to say. than he appeared the night before now that he was clean
shaven and seemed ready to go to a party. He was grinning
“Well,” I began, “it will interest you to know that our as we met.
women have changed — but definitely! The change,
however, has been on the outside only. Inside, here,” “Oh, Ruth can’t believe it. She can’t believe it,”
pointing to the heart, “they are the same as they were he kept repeating as he led me to his car — a nondescript
twenty years ago. God-fearing, faithful, modest, and nice.” thing in faded black that had known better days and many
hands. “I says to her, I’m bringing you a first class
The man was visibly moved. “I’m very happy, Filipino, and she says, aw, go away, quit kidding, there’s
sir,” he said, in the manner of one who, having stakes on no such thing as first class Filipino. But Roger, that’s my
the land, had found no cause to regret one’s sentimental boy, he believed me immediately. What’s he like, daddy,
investment. he asks. Oh, you will see, I says, he’s first class. Like you
daddy? No, no, I laugh at him, your daddy ain’t first class.
After this, everything that was said and done in
Aw, but you are, daddy, he says. So you can see what a
that hall that night seemed like an anti-climax; and later,
nice boy he is, so innocent. Then Ruth starts griping about
as we walked outside, he gave me his name and told me of
the house, but the house is a mess, she says. True it’s a
his farm thirty miles east of the city.
mess, it’s always a mess, but you don’t mind, do you?
We had stopped at the main entrance to the hotel We’re poor folks, you know.”
lobby. We had not talked very much on the way. As a
The trip seemed interminable. We passed through
matter of fact, we were never alone. Kindly American
narrow lanes and disappeared into thickets, and came out
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on barren land overgrown with weeds in places. All the forests. Leafy plants grew on the sides, buds pointing
around were dead leaves and dry earth. In the distance downwards, wilted and died before they could become
were apple trees. flowers. As they fell on the floor, father bent to pick them
and throw them out into the corral streets. His hands were
“Aren’t those apple trees?” I asked wanting to be strong. I have kissed those hands . . . many times, many
sure. times.
“Yes, those are apple trees,” he replied. “Do you Finally we rounded a deep curve and suddenly
like apples? I got lots of ’em. I got an apple orchard, I’ll came upon a shanty, all but ready to crumble in a heap on
show you.” the ground, its plastered walls were rotting away, the floor
All the beauty of the afternoon seemed in the was hardly a foot from the ground. I thought of the
distance, on the hills, in the dull soft sky. cottages of the poor colored folk in the south, the hovels of
the poor everywhere in the land. This one stood all by
“Those trees are beautiful on the hills,” I said. itself as though by common con-sent all the folk that used
to live here had decided to stay away, despising it,
“Autumn’s a lovely season. The trees are getting
ashamed of it. Even the lovely season could not color it
ready to die, and they show their colors, proud-like.”
with beauty.
“No such thing in our own country,” I said.
A dog barked loudly as we approached. A fat
That remark seemed unkind, I realized later. It blonde woman stood at the door with a little boy by her
touched him off on a long deserted tangent, but ever there side. Roger seemed newly scrubbed. He hardly took his
perhaps. How many times did the lonely mind take eyes off me. Ruth had a clean apron around her shapeless
unpleasant detours away from the familiar winding lanes waist. Now as she shook my hands in sincere delight I
towards home for fear of this, the remembered hurt, the noticed shamefacedly (that I should notice) how rough her
long lost youth, the grim shadows of the years; how many hands, how coarse and red with labor, how ugly! She was
times indeed, only the exile knows. no longer young and her smile was pathetic.

It was a rugged road we were travelling and the As we stepped inside and the door closed behind
car made so much noise that I could not hear everything us, immediately I was aware of the familiar scent of
he said, but I understood him. He was telling his story for apples. The room was bare except for a few ancient pieces
the first time in many years. He was remembering his own of second-hand furniture. In the middle of the room stood
youth. He was thinking of home. In these odd moments a stove to keep the family warm in winter. The walls were
there seemed no cause for fear no cause at all, no pain. bare. Over the dining table hung a lamp yet unlighted.
That would come later. In the night perhaps. Or lonely on
Ruth got busy with the drinks. She kept coming in
the farm under the apple trees.
and out of a rear room that must have been the kitchen and
In this old Visayan town, the streets are narrow soon the table was heavy with food, fried chicken legs and
and dirty and strewn with corral shells. You have been rice, and green peas and corn on the ear. Even as we ate,
there? You could not have missed our house, it was the Ruth kept standing, and going to the kitchen for more
biggest in town, one of the oldest, ours was a big family. food. Roger ate like a little gentleman.
The house stood right on the edge of the street. A door
“Isn’t he nice looking?” his father asked.
opened heavily and you enter a dark hail leading to the
stairs. There is the smell of chickens roosting on the low- “You are a handsome boy, Roger,” I said. The boy
topped walls, there is the familiar sound they make and smiled at me. “You look like Daddy,” he said.
you grope your way up a massive staircase, the bannisters
smooth upon the trembling hand. Such nights, they are no Afterwards I noticed an old picture leaning on the
better than the days, windows are closed against the sun; top of a dresser and stood to pick it up. It was yellow and
they close heavily. soiled with many fingerings. The faded figure of a woman
in Philippine dress could yet be distinguished although the
Mother sits in her corner looking very white and face had become a blur.
sick. This was her world, her domain. In all these years I
cannot remember the sound of her voice. Father was “Your . . .” I began.
different. He moved about. He shouted. He ranted. He “I don’t know who she is,” Fabia hastened to say.
lived in the past and talked of honor as though it were the “I picked that picture many years ago in a room on La
only thing. Salle Street in Chicago. I have often wondered who she
I was born in that house. I grew up there into a is.”
pampered brat. I was mean. One day I broke their hearts. I “The face wasn’t a blur in the beginning?”
saw mother cry wordlessly as father heaped his curses
upon me and drove me out of the house, the gate closing “Oh, no. It was a young face and good.”
heavily after me. And my brothers and sisters took up my
father’s hate for me and multiplied it numberless times in Ruth came with a plate full of apples.
their own broken hearts. I was no good. “Ah,” I cried, picking out a ripe one, “I’ve been
But sometimes, you know, I miss that house, the thinking where all the scent of apples came from. The
roosting chickens on the low-topped walls. I miss my room is full of it.”
brothers and sisters. Mother sitting in her chair, looking “I’ll show you,” said Fabia.
like a pale ghost in a corner of the room. I would
remember the great live posts, massive tree trunks from
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He showed me a backroom, not very big. It was “Tell Ruth and Roger,” I said, “I love them.”
half-full of apples.
He dropped my hand quickly. “They’ll be waiting
“Every day,” he explained, “I take some of them for me now,” he said.
to town to sell to the groceries. Prices have been low. I’ve
been losing on the trips.” “Look,” I said, not knowing why I said it, “one of
these days, very soon, I hope, I’ll be going home. I could
“These apples will spoil,” I said. go to your town.”
“We’ll feed them to the pigs.” “No,” he said softly, sounding very much defeated
but brave, “Thanks a lot. But, you see, nobody would
Then he showed me around the farm. It was remember me now.”
twilight now and the apple trees stood bare against a
glowing western sky. In apple blossom time it must be Then he started the car, and as it moved away, he
lovely here, I thought. But what about wintertime? waved his hand.
One day, according to Fabia, a few years ago, “Goodbye,” I said, waving back into the darkness.
before Roger was born, he had an attack of acute And suddenly the night was cold like winter straying early
appendicitis. It was deep winter. The snow lay heavy in these northern woodlands.
everywhere. Ruth was pregnant and none too well herself.
At first she did not know what to do. She bundled him in I hurried inside. There was a train the next
warm clothing and put him on a cot near the stove. She morning that left for Muncie, Indiana, at a quarter after
shoveled the snow from their front door and practically eight.
carried the suffering man on her shoulders, dragging him
through the newly made path towards the road where they
waited for the U.S. Mail car to pass. Meanwhile
snowflakes poured all over them and she kept rubbing the
man’s arms and legs as she herself nearly froze to death.
“Go back to the house, Ruth!” her husband cried,
“you’ll freeze to death.”
But she clung to him wordlessly. Even as she
massaged his arms and legs, her tears rolled down her
cheeks. “I won’t leave you, I won’t leave you,” she
repeated.
Finally the U.S. Mail car arrived. The mailman,
who knew them well, helped them board the car, and,
without stopping on his usual route, took the sick man and
his wife direct to the nearest hospital.
Ruth stayed in the hospital with Fabia. She slept in
a corridor outside the patients’ ward and in the day time
helped in scrubbing the floor and washing the dishes and
cleaning the men’s things. They didn’t have enough
money and Ruth was willing to work like a slave.
“Ruth’s a nice girl,” said Fabia, “like our own
Filipino women.”
Before nightfall, he took me back to the hotel.
Ruth and Roger stood at the door holding hands and
smiling at me. From inside the room of the shanty, a low
light flickered. I had a last glimpse of the apple trees in the
orchard under the darkened sky as Fabia backed up the
car. And soon we were on our way back to town. The dog
had started barking. We could hear it for some time, until
finally, we could not hear it any-more, and all was
darkness around us, except where the head lamps revealed
a stretch of road leading somewhere.
Fabia did not talk this time. I didn’t seem to have
anything to say myself. But when finally we came to the
hotel and I got down, Fabia said, “Well, I guess I won’t be
seeing you again.”
It was dimly lighted in front of the hotel and I
could hardly see Fabia’s face. Without getting off the car,
he moved to where I had sat, and I saw him extend his
hand. I gripped it.