Fruit of the Drunken Tree

by Ingrid Rojas Contreras

  “What’s happened? Is there a fire? Has something happened?”

  “Nothing’s happened—we can’t sleep.”

  “Should I go sleep downstairs?”

  “No, let us move you. Go back to sleep.”

  Then, at once, Papá closed his eyes and fell back on his pillow, and just like that he was off to sleep. His snoring started up again, like the rumbling of a century-old machine.

  In the morning, Mamá made Cassandra and me a big pot of coffee. Mamá wasn’t watching, so Cassandra and I drank three cups and then we jumped in place and ran up the stairs, then down, then up. Papá was in Mamá’s bedroom ripping Galán posters from the window. Mamá was stomping her foot. “Do you think I’m painted on a wall, you hijueputa? What if I leave? What will you do then?”

  Mamá was always threatening to leave. You’d think Papá would realize it was all a tactic, but in truth, no one could bluff like Mamá. All of us practiced bluffing when we played cards. When Cassandra bluffed her jaw hung slack, even when her lips were closed. Papá wriggled his eyebrows both when he had a good hand and when he didn’t, so it was hard to tell which one it was—but Mamá, Mamá didn’t do anything to her face and her face became, of a sudden, blank. You had no idea what she was thinking. I was bad at cards because I couldn’t remember the rules and I was constantly giving my hand away through my questions. “What does the ace do again?” “You need five of the same suit to do what?” Papá said I had beginner’s luck.

  Cassandra and I knew without having to follow the fight that within an hour’s time, Papá would apologize, back down, and hang Mamá’s posters up again. So we ran up and down the stairs, careless, free, nothing more normal than Mamá and Papá fighting.

  Always when he came home Papá upset our kingdom of women.

  He was a bully, for one. “Well, tell me then, who is the one that makes money in this house? Your hair will not be short for the simple reason that I would pay for the haircut.”

  Papá had strange rules about hair and how long it should be. Mamá said it was all part of a sordid belief system called machismo. Mamá said Papá was a machista. On the other hand, Mamá, Cassandra, and I were feministas. Meaning, if I wanted to have short hair, Mamá would let me and Cassandra would like it (none of us, however, was sure about Petrona—was her short hair convenience or was it rebellion?).

  As feministas, Mamá said we had to choose our battles: “With your father, only fight the really important battles, which are: profession, love, money, and the right to go out in the world unhindered by him. Hair is not an important battle.” Cassandra nodded meaningfully. Her hands folded primly in the lap of her school skirt and her right leg crossed carefully over the left.

  For another, Papá was a master manipulator. One day, he won a stack of American one-dollar bills in a game of pool. When he came home, he dangled the American dollars in front of our faces, asking whom we loved best—him or Mamá. I didn’t want anything to do with the American dollars. I made it a point to snatch Papá’s dollar and rip it in two whenever it was offered because that was a money battle.

  Papá would yell, “Ey! Stop! That’s a perfectly good dollar!”

  He made me sit at the dining table and looked over my shoulder as I aligned the bill perfectly. Then he gave a little grunt of approval. Making sure the bill pieces remained aligned, I taped the two pieces together. Sometimes I had to redo it until Papá was satisfied.

  Every time he promised not to, but he always reripped the bill after I was done with it. He said it was a lesson. “Do you see, Chula, that is exactly how I feel when you rip a dollar I’ve worked for.” Papá said I didn’t understand the value of money, and furthermore, I didn’t understand consequences because I was spoiled.

  When Papá dangled dollars in front of Cassandra, Cassandra never answered if she loved him or Mamá best; instead she took the dollars and let him think whatever he wanted.

  Cassandra told me her strategy was that of deception. If she never answered but took the dollar bill, Papá would think she was answering she loved him best, but in reality, Cassandra had not said a word. Cassandra said those were the rules of politics: you pretended to answer questions without actually answering them.

  “Look, Alma!” Papá always called when Cassandra snatched the dollars from his hand.

  “Look how the eyes in this one light up with the money. Come look! Like little stars in a cartoon!”

  Mamá came and watched as Papá repeated the whole exercise, except the part about whom Cassandra loved best. Mamá watched Cassandra’s eyes attentively as Cassandra snatched up the dollars, and then Mamá and Papá laughed knowingly and in between gasps they said, “Yes, you can really see it! How the eyes dance with real happiness!”

  Meanwhile, Cassandra was getting richer and richer.

  Petrona watched us from the corner of her eye. Petrona didn’t like Papá. I could tell because Papá and Petrona were rarely in the same room together. I didn’t blame Petrona for not warming up to him. Sometimes Papá got into a mood and put on his bathrobe when it was still daylight. It meant Papá would be in his bathrobe all day, with his nose buried in a book, emerging only to talk in some language none of us could speak.

  Then, Papá would walk right by Petrona arranging flowers in a vase as if she were in a different dimension. Papá didn’t even see me, and I was standing right next to Petrona pulling petals from one flower, telling her, “He loves you, he loves you not, he loves you, he loves you not.” Papá looked up and said a few strange things, of which I caught—plebiscite, plutocracy, Weltgeist. I had no idea what any of it meant, but I liked Weltgeist. It sounded important and big like Poseidon, god of the Oceans. I told Petrona Weltgeist was god of the mountains. She was a bearded woman riding a magical goat. Petrona seemed impressed.

  “And what does the bearded woman do?”

  “She spreads the seeds of flowers, and she helps lovers meet.” I waited a moment, then asked, “Petrona, do you have a boyfriend?”

  Petrona giggled. “No, but. Maybe someday.”

  At home, I was transfixed by Petrona’s quiet elegance. I liked the way she said words. I liked how she looked in the sunlight in the living room—the tidy white bow of her apron vibrating just slightly as she hummed in her pretty alto voice, dusting the windowsills, motes rising up and dancing in the light.

  Mamá was loud and grating by comparison. There was nothing subtle about the way she moved or talked, and she was lazy and wanted everything done for her.

  I liked Petrona’s changing moods too. It was like she was an unstable planet. In seconds she went from being peaceful, like she was watching things from above, to her muscles stringing up her neck and palpitating with tension. It only drew me to her. I found her waverings mysterious and alluring.

  I practiced moving like Petrona. When I reached my finger to flick a light on or off, I did so at half speed. Petrona moved so slowly, it looked like a ballet. I didn’t know why I was the only one really seeing Petrona, but it seemed like a gift.

  * * *

  After the weeklong struggle for power and territory came the day when Papá and Mamá would make peace and go out for a date. They asked Petrona if she could sleep over to watch us. Papá wore a tie and Mamá looked like a bejeweled bird, her shawl with small black feathers hanging down from shiny beads. Papá said they were going to a fancy restaurant, then to a party to dance.

  Once they left, Cassandra was under the illusion that she had been left in charge and she told Petrona to bring us a tray with two oranges, four cans of Pepsi, two bags of nuts, and plenty of bread rolls. Cassandra and I were getting ready, as we did every Thursday night, in case of a bombing.

  Every Thursday since the dead girl’s shoe, we repacked our emergency backpacks and set them down ready by our beds. Our lives could be so close to ending it was better to be prepared. When Petrona realized what we were doing
, she said it wasn’t a good idea, the food would spoil, and Cassandra said she was right—that was exactly why we had to repack our bags every week because the food got mushy and wrinkly and started to give off smells. We gave the spoiled food to Petrona and then we knelt in front of our beds stuffing our backpacks. Petrona gazed into the tray of rotting food, and when she finally left, Cassandra and I sat with our backs to one another using our beds as working tables.

  That Thursday I packed my spare toothbrush, toothpaste and soap, the orange and bread and nuts, a change of clothes, and a diary to write nostalgic things. Cassandra packed her crossword puzzles, four new cans of Pepsi, a bag of straws (because she didn’t like touching things that were “public”), and a novel she had to read for school, The Bell Jar. I asked wouldn’t it be better to leave her school book out so she could actually read it, but Cassandra turned and asked if I would carry her toothbrush, and if worse got to worse would I share my food with her, and the toothpaste, and the soap, because as I could see, there was no more room in her bag. She tilted her bag and opened it wide. It was full and at the top things stuck out in sharp angles.

  “Chula, remember. I’m the older one. The older one tells the younger one what to do.” The bridge of her pink-rimmed glasses slid down her nose.

  Cassandra had a hard time getting the right perspective on things.

  “I’ll do it porque quiero, not because you’re telling me.” I offered her my open palm. Cassandra twisted and grabbed her toothbrush on her bed. Her long ponytail swung out as she twisted back, beaming, toothbrush in hand. She slapped the toothbrush on my hand and turned to rearrange her belongings. I stared at her long ponytail shaped like a dark, upside-down tear.

  “You’re welcome,” I said. She didn’t say anything and zipped and unzipped her bag.

  I looked at my hand. Cassandra’s toothbrush was pink and had plastic wrapped around the brush-end held together by a rubber band. My toothbrush was blue, and had gone in unprotected because I liked going against things. I stuffed Cassandra’s toothbrush deep in the bag, up to my elbow. I thought about the dead girl’s shoe. The sock filled with leg. I knew I was supposed to know who was responsible for her dying, but I kept forgetting. Cassandra said, “Don’t you know, Chula, it was Pablo Escobar. They said it like six times on the television.” I remembered something vague about the guerrillas, but maybe they were one and the same. I shook my head. My mind was always up in the clouds. The sound of Cassandra’s backpack zipping up sounded with finality behind me.

  “What do you think Pablo Escobar thinks about?” I asked.

  “Money.” She threw her bag a few times in the air, testing its weight, before setting it down on the floor and stretching out on her bed, yawning. Between us there was a long line of masking tape, from the left wall down the middle of our night table and the night lamp, down the brown carpet floor between our beds, and up between the middle wall between each of our closets. On her side was the writing desk with the boombox. On my side was the wall-to-wall window that looked down on an empty grassy lot and two cows. I had chosen that side of the room so I could look at the cows.

  Ever since the car bomb, I knelt on my bed at least twice a day to pull the lace curtains out to both sides and stare beyond the plastic roofing that sheltered our indoor patio, beyond the broken glass cemented to the top of the wall, to the empty lot. I watched the two cows practicing the swing of their tail and listened to them draw out their lonely mooing for anyone who would listen.

  I named one cow Teresa and the other cow Antonio, after Papá. I didn’t know what gender the cows were or how you could tell them apart, so I referred to them in plural, as in las vacas. Today las vacas lay down at opposite corners of the lot like they were strangers, even though they’re the only cows they know in the whole world. Why do they do that, Mamá? Papá said maybe my cows had been reading Sartre, whatever that meant.

  When there was no one around to see me, I opened the window and mooed at las vacas. They perked up their ears and stopped the swing of their tail, frozen in attention, listening; but they never mooed back.

  I played at being the security guard and stared beyond the cows to where there was a wide sidewalk, and after it the street with the cars speeding past. I watched out for any kind of suspicious behavior and made notes in my diary. Every once in a while there were pedestrians hurrying down the sidewalk, but I was too far to see their faces, to see if they were dangerous. I decided that walking outside by the highway was suspicious enough and jotted down the words “Suspicious pedestrian,” then the time, the day, and the year. Cars left abandoned were also suspicious, because they could hold bombs. I told Mamá or Papá when a car was left unattended, and sometimes they called the police.

  Cassandra asked, “What do you think Pablo Escobar thinks about?”

  I sighed, zipping up my bag, and glanced out the window before lying down like Cassandra.

  “Monstrous things.”

  When Mamá and Papá got home, we made popcorn and cuddled together in Papá and Mamá’s big bed, even though it was late, and we watched the story of a robot who was also a cop. I nestled my head onto the side of Papá’s chest, watching explosions on the television as I fell asleep. The paper with Galán’s outline was lit through by the lamppost light outside. Galán lifted his fist three times across the window.

  The next day when I woke up, Papá was gone.

  Petrona

  In our hut made of trash we mourned little Ramón leaving. It brought on Aurora’s blood. A streak ran down her leg. Mami told me to calm myself, Ramoncito would return, but I was crying for Aurora. It was only a matter of time before Mami would think of Aurora as a burden, and little Aurora would have to go to work. Mami and I fought.

  Little Aurora did most of the cleaning in our hut now. Mami so sick with her breathing, Aurora so little, but still Fernandito, Bernardo, and Patricio, all older than Aurora, refused to get water from the well because that was woman’s work, even though it took that little girl half an hour to drag the water back.

  Bringing water from the well used to be my job. I filled the buckets and carried them on a yoke back to our hut. I splashed the water with an easy swing of my torso. Water fell over the stamped-down dirt floor of our hut. It kept the dust down so Mami could breathe.

  Aurora was not strong. She set the buckets at the entrance, kicked them over, and then on her knees and hands went after the trail of water, drumming her flat palms on the puddles to make it absorb down.

  That was Aurora’s life now. The care of others.

  My life was cleaning and cooking and more cleaning and cooking when I got home to our hut in the Hills.

  My life was tossing and turning at night in the mattress I shared with Mami and little Aurora, my three little boys sleeping like sardines on the mattress next to us.

  I was not good at living a life of honor like Papi. I planned to get groceries for the Santiagos when I knew Leticia had the habit of going. I waited for Leticia at the corner by the house where she worked. I saw her come out, running her fingers through her hair, and I caught up to her like it was a coincidence we were meeting, and then before I could stop myself, I told her I would do it, I would pass the envelopes, I had changed my mind—when could I start?

  7.

  Fruit of the Drunken Tree

  Isa and Lala said now we knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that Petrona had been under a black magic spell—how else could we explain the fact that what had broken Petrona’s silence had been something violent like the dead girl’s leg wearing its red shoe? Only black magic worked that way.

  Even though the others put the question of Petrona to rest, I still had the feeling that something hounded her. On the last day of the school quarter that September, Cassandra and I ran home in our newfound freedom. Cassandra went to take a shower, and I went to the kitchen to see what Petrona was up to. I found her carefully placing the broom
with the bristles pointing up against a corner like she was putting a baby down in a crib. I went to touch the broom, and Petrona yelled to leave it alone, and when Mamá asked about it, Petrona said it was there to keep witches from landing on the roof of our house.

  I was afraid of witches. How could you protect yourself against one? They could make you bleed from the nose by just staring. I heard a man on the radio say, Pablo Escobar is so slippery, the man probably has the protection of a witch. I found Mamá painting her nails pink at the edge of her bed. “Mamá, what witch protects Pablo Escobar?” She looked up. “Pablo Escobar?” She looked to the ceiling thinking for a second. “Probably a witch from the Amazon. That’s where the strongest witches come from.” She extended her right hand and brushed the last bit of pink polish on her pinkie and hummed as she started on the left.

  Cassandra’s and my birthdays came and went, and we spent our whole vacation playing with Isa and Lala. As I went in and out of our house, running into the kitchen yelling for a snack or cold water, Petrona jumped. Soup spoons clattered to the floor, plates broke. I kept track of what Petrona snacked on in my diary in case one day it all made sense: apple with honey, fried plantains, sunflower seeds, chicken breast.

  One day the four of us dozed off watching television. Mamá and Cassandra and I were at angles on the bed, and Petrona was sitting on the floor, resting her head on the edge of the bed by my feet. I stirred awake when Petrona got up. She stood at Mamá’s door. I saw the slow motion with which her hand reached for the knob, the way she turned it trying to keep it from clicking, the way she braced against the door with one hand and opened it slowly with her other hand so it wouldn’t creak. It was so striking I waited until she made her way downstairs, and then I snuck into the hall. I peeked over the banisters and saw Petrona brace the front door like she had done with Mamá’s door, and then she walked out into the front garden.