The Bamboo Stalk by Saud Alsanousi Read Free Book Online Page B

religion and a country. I won’t however deny my parents credit for helping me, unintentionally, to discover my creator, in my own way.
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    5
    There was nothing special about my relationship with the Church in the Philippines. My visits were very infrequent. After I was baptised I didn’t go again till I was twelve. On that occasion I went with Aida and Pedro and his wife for my confirmation ceremony, the third sacrament I had undergone, after baptism and confession.
    First confession had been organised by the school. Schools usually call in a priest to meet the third-grade children and take their confessions. I was nine when the priest came to see us and perform this rite. We lined up outside the classroom and the priest sat inside receiving the children one after another. The sins they confessed were what you would expect from children of that age – fairly insignificant, nothing more than ‘Once I lied to the teacher’ or ‘I disobeyed my mother’ or ‘I stole a pen (or a doll) from so-and-so’. But my sin was different, not a small sin you’d expect from someone as small as me. It seemed like a big sin to me, as big as Inang Choleng was old.
    When I think back to my grandfather Mendoza’s land, I can’t help remembering three sets of creatures that shared the small piece of land with the family. There was Whitey, my grandfather’s dog, there were his cocks and then there was Inang Choleng. She lived alone and I never saw her outside her little house. All I ever saw of her was her upper half when she appeared behind her front door examining her daily bowl of food. My mother cleaned the oldwoman’s house once a week when grandmother was ill and after she died, because grandmother had done the cleaning before her. When my mother was away, Aunt Aida did it. The other women in the neighbourhood used to put bowls of food at her front door every morning and evening. When I was seven I was walking past Inang Choleng’s house one day on the way home from school and I was ravenously hungry. I saw a woman putting a bowl of food in front of Inang Choleng’s house. Usually the bowls would contain white rice and pieces of fruit or fried plantain, but that day I saw half a chicken lying in the bowl by the door. It made my mouth water. I stopped in front of her house, just a short distance away, but I didn’t dare go closer because I was afraid of the old woman. I stared at the bowl. All I could hear was the rustling of the leaves and the buzzing of the bees in the giant hive they had built in the branches of the mango tree over the witch’s house. I look around hesitantly.
Should I do it?
I wondered.
    I looked at the handle of the wooden door.
    What if she suddenly appears and drags me inside?
    I started biting my fingernails.
    I’d run off before she could catch me.
    I took a step forwards.
    What if she starves to death?
    I looked down at the bowl on the ground by the door.
    It looks delicious.
    From somewhere nearby I heard a dog barking. It must have been Whitey.
    The dog will beat me to it if I don’t
. . .
    I took another step forward, torn between the thought that the dog would get there first and my fear that Inang Choleng would drag me inside. My hunger drove me to take another stepforward. Then I stopped and thought about the old woman starving to death, then the barking grew louder and drew closer. The bees were still buzzing. I felt a knot in my stomach. I made a dash to Inang Choleng’s door, closed my little fist around the half chicken lying in the bowl on the ground and ran off, leaving her an empty bowl.
    In the classroom, two years after the incident, alone with the priest, I confessed I had stolen the old woman’s food, even if I didn’t eat it in the end.
    â€˜First repent of your sin,’ he said.
    I nodded. ‘I will, Father, but . . .’
    â€˜Pray for the Lord Jesus twenty times and for the Virgin.’
    The