We sat under the mango tree. After the fire was roaring, Papá tuned the radio to a cumbia station. The adults danced. They held their glasses aloft, making the aguardiente swirl, swinging their hips side to side. Abuela shuffled her feet slowly and lifted her face to the moon. My head began to drop and bob in place, and I caught glimpses of the circling feet, the sound of the hypnotic flute, Abuela’s smiling face as I dreamed or awakened.
* * *
Tica and Memo slept over during the weekends with Cassandra and me in Mamá’s old room. I was usually the last to wake, but one morning I pushed Tica aside and felt like I would die. My arm was so hot I had to unwind the bandage. When the last of the bandage came away, I was sick: the skin was slick and green like a zombie arm. I ran to show someone but then I got dizzy and sat in the living room sweating under the ceiling fan. Somebody had left the radio on.
“The magnicides of now three presidential candidates has escalated the hunt for Pablo Escobar. Meanwhile, the Extraditables have released a statement that they will lay down their weapons.” I gasped in surprise and Papá came in.
“Chula, what are you doing?”
“Papá, I’m dying.” I dropped to the floor and put my cheek against the cool tile. I was too hot. He took a look at my arm and told me it was just bruised and I was not dying. He said there was a heat wave and I should do everything he said. “Okay, but what’s a magnicide?” I asked.
“What?”
“Are the Extraditables laying down their weapons?”
“Chula—” Papá put his arms up and walked away. He got Tica and Memo and Cassandra and me together and we spent the day sucking on ice and folding fans made out of paper. We wore our swimsuits and got wet and stood directly in front of the fan. Immediately we felt better. Cassandra and I spoke to Tica and Memo through the whirr of the fan. Through the fan, our voices became alien voices. We sang, “Arroz con leche me quiero casar…Con una señorita de la capital.”
When it got late, we lined up for the bathroom to get wet once more before sleep. Drops of sweat trickled down my neck. I awaited my turn on the couch directly under Abuela’s living room fan. I was bored so I picked up the phone and dialed home. It was something I did when we traveled, knowing that since nobody would pick up it wouldn’t cost any money. I listened to the elongated ring, sitting in the dark in Abuela’s living room, imagining the cool of Bogotá—the drafty stairs, the dark hallway, the kitchen, the icy cans of orange soda in the fridge.
“Aló?”
I sat up. That was Petrona. But Petrona didn’t have a telephone in her home.
“Aló?” Petrona said again, then to someone else, “They’re not saying anything. Should I hang up?”
“No, just wait. Maybe it’s a bad connection.” This last I heard dimly, like the voice came from a can, but I could hear that it was a boy’s voice.
I cleared my throat. “Petrona, is that you?”
There was silence, then, “Niña? Niña—” “Hang up, hang up now,” the boy said in the background, but Petrona spoke over him: “Oh my god, Chula! So nice to hear from you! I’ve missed you! Is there anyone with you? Why are you calling?”
I looked around the room. Abuela’s black Labrador was drumming his tail at my feet, but there was no one in the main room. Down the hall in the kitchen I could hear Mamá and Abuela getting Tica and Memo ready for bed. “No, there’s no one with me, but—”
“Chula, listen to me. I’m in danger. I mean I’m in hiding. But you can’t tell anyone because I have nowhere to go.”
“You mean someone’s after you?”
“Don’t tell anyone. Niña? Not even your sister. Do you swear? Not your mother either.” The receiver was hot against my ear. Petrona leveled her voice: “I mean it when I say I’m in danger. You don’t want to end up with my blood on your hands. Do you? Niña?”
Her words brought bile to the back of my throat. “But are you okay now?”
“Swear on your mother’s life. Niña? For your own protection. I can’t tell you more, but I’ll be safe as long as you don’t say anything.”
I swore on Mamá’s life. Petrona said she had to hang up because she needed to keep the phone line open and I replaced the phone, thinking what a serious thing it was to swear on someone’s life. I wondered what Petrona could be running away from; then it hit me that the boy in the background had not been just any boy, but the guy who Petrona had brought to our house on the excuse that he was measuring the carpet. Maybe he was Petrona’s boyfriend, but why had she chosen such a brute for a boyfriend? I knew you couldn’t break an oath, there were stories of mothers being struck dead by lightning. I felt the weight of what I had promised to Petrona sinking into me like an anchor. I stretched my shoulders back, but the weight was still there. I began to have trouble breathing, and then Mamá came to tell me it was my turn to get wet in the bathroom. She looked into my face. “You okay, mi cielo?”
“I’m too hot,” I lied. I didn’t want Mamá to die. I didn’t want Petrona’s blood on my hands either. Mamá felt my forehead with the back of her hand and said I would feel better once I got wet. She left me alone in Abuela’s bathroom, and though the barrel looked nearly empty, I dumped two buckets of cold water on myself.
I was breathing normally again, and I sat on the tiles, relieved. I closed my eyes, thankful for the blood thumping in my body, thankful for Mamá’s life, and I imagined Petrona’s blood thumping in her body too, and I felt like we were all joined in some way and whatever was wrong in Petrona’s life she needed me and I would help her.
Petrona
When Mami kicked me out I looked for Gorrión. I zigzagged through the Hills. I did not know where he lived. Nobody did. I went to the playground. Kids playing soccer in the flat patch of dirt did not answer when I asked after Gorrión. I had nowhere to go. I stared at the bushes where little Ramón was found. A little boy appeared next to me. You know who he is, right? His cheeks were covered in dust. I guessed he slept on the streets. I waited for him to see my face and say he had mistaken me for somebody. Instead he asked, You’re Petrona, right? I widened my eyes. Terrible thing. About Ramón. My name’s Julián. He spit on the ground and dug his hands into the pockets of his dirt-caked jeans. He stared at the retaining wall. You know who he’s involved with, right? I wanted to say, Who do you mean. Finally Julián touched his finger to his temple and said, As long as you know. He trotted downhill. He gave a high whistle, and then a three-legged dog came running from under the bushes where Ramón had been found.
Wait! I called. Do you mean Ramón? Or do you mean Gorrión? I cringed from hearing Ramón’s name in that place where he had been dumped and I stared at the boy and dog running together on the path kicking up dust, and then Julián stopped in his tracks and yelled up, Come back at dusk, you’ll see him then!
For a wild moment I pictured Ramón would rise at dusk from the dead and I could see him here, but the next moment I bit into my hand. Dusk at the playground was when the encapotados met to walk to the mountain where they had meetings. All of us in the Hills knew because we heard their singing, always the song about the international working class echoing down the mountain. If you wanted to avoid the encapotados you did not come to the playground at dusk, and I knew Julián had meant Gorrión: come back at dusk and you’ll see Gorrión, and I was once again lost and alone, just me, only me, left to figure out how to keep the rest of the little ones safe and in school, and little Aurora from the path I was following even now.
12.
Devilwind
When Abuela turned the knob of the water barrels the next day, not a drop came out. Tica and Memo were the only ones awake so Abuela took up their hands and told them they were going on a walk to the grocery store to order some more. Mamá woke me up and said Abuela and Tica and Memo should be back in a few hours. She took me to the cement tank in the garden to cool down. It was rectangular and rose up to my neck
. I stood shoulder-deep inside the tank. It was filled with rainwater and Abuela’s orange fish. Before the drought Abuela had used it as a laundry tub (it had a cement-cast washboard on the side), but now she washed her clothes in the river.
Mamá sat on the washboard, pouring water over my head with a blue plastic cup, telling me her dream, but I wasn’t listening. I was watching the orange fish. They darted underneath my armpits. They circled the bright pink torso of my swimsuit. They horded around me like small gelatinous mice, tapping my skin, then scattering. On the ground there were ants traveling over the cobblestones in two highways: eastward to Abuela’s kitchen, westward carrying crumbs. The cobblestones led to Abuela’s overgrown garden and, past where I could see, to a metal door that led out to the hot forest hills of Cúcuta. Far away in the hills there was thunder; but it was early.
I took in a big breath and went underwater. I curved my back and waded past Mamá’s legs into the space underneath the washboard. I could touch all the walls, but not the ground, dropped at an angle. If I pushed my hands against the underside of the washboard the tips of my toes did not catch. The only light came in beams from the opening by Mamá’s legs, where fish swept their tails back and forth and fanned their fins, swimming through the bright columns of green, murky light.
I gathered up my legs and I let my back bounce lightly against the underside of the washboard. It was a magical, lonely feeling.
I was the eye-center.
The beat of my heart thumped thickly in my ears, like an old sound, floating.
When I opened my eyes, Mamá’s legs had disappeared. The fish, too, had scattered. I came up and gasped for air and saw Mamá running down the cobblestones to the back of the garden, the blue plastic cup dangling stupidly in her hand.
* * *
We didn’t fully know what had happened that day until many years later, when Abuela told the story. Abuela said it began with slow walking, with Tica and Memo taking her hands in theirs and supporting her as they went.
Once, Mamá had taken Cassandra and me through the footpath. It was thick with trees that buzzed with animals like in a jungle. The air smelled like overripe mangoes. The footpath led to a valley of yellowing trees and dry cracked earth, and after the forest, it opened to a buzzing highway and a grocery store with a lopsided sign that read Arabastos. It was a footpath Abuela had taken for years and as far as she knew it was safe.
Here’s how Abuela remembers it happened: they were halfway to the store, and the path ahead was bathed in sunlight, then shadow, then sunlight. She felt the bite of a mosquito on her leg. There was the cawing, whistling, and cackling of birds. And then, a sound. “Do you hear that?” Memo said. The sound of the thing they could not see approached them. It came closer, near, just above their heads. Helicopters. Between the tree branches above them. Two of them swinging into view. Flashing their landing skids and tossing the leaves of palm trees like loose tongues. Air thundered in the trees and Abuela’s dress flapped with wind.
Abuela watched as Tica and Memo followed the helicopters with their fingers, drawing lines and arcs in the sky. It was a good thing for children to laugh. When the helicopters disappeared over the tree-crest, Abuela wondered why there would be helicopters in this part of the forest, but she couldn’t think. Then the helicopters appeared behind them. The wind was deafening, and in the distance, at the bend of the path, a group of guerrillas burst out of the bushes. Abuela understood the helicopters were there for these men and women, but she froze. She stared at the first camouflaged man, bounding toward her, machine gun to his chest, the red of his mouth standing out from the dark green painted on his face. He saw her, but then his face lifted, and sparks crackled out of the mouth of his machine gun. The devilwind of the helicopters lifted the leaves from the ground and sent them wheeling in the air as the helicopters dove, firing at the guerrillas. The guerrillas yelled at Abuela, Get out of the way! and other things, but Abuela’s mind was blank with fear. Abuela felt Tica and Memo pulling at her dress, and then she remembered herself and summoning flexibility and strength from a secret padlock of maternal love, Abuela picked Tica and Memo up and threw herself behind a thorny bush. She landed on top of Tica and Memo and gripped them intensely against the ground. The helicopters flew over the path again and again, firing, wind squeezing Abuela down, grass lashing at her face, Tica and Memo sobbing and covering their ears. Behind the thorny bush, Abuela heard sounds that would never leave her: the popping of machine guns, the helicopters, soldiers screaming. There were sparks kicking up dust around them, shots swallowed by the earth. Abuela cried and prayed to the Virgin Mary for their well-being, their paths rid from evil, their safe return. Then she put her face down.
Even after the screaming and the bursts of artillery faded, disappearing eastward, where the jungle grew thick, Abuela could not move. She breathed the wet scent of the earth. Against the ground, Abuela listened to the cries of Tica and Memo. Beneath that, she still heard the chopping wind, the gunshots, the screaming like it was still coming from the middle of her chest. Time passed with Memo whimpering. Then Abuela pawed over Tica’s and Memo’s bodies feeling for blood, not knowing if they had been shot. Abuela thought Memo was bleeding. She thought it was blood. But her hand came away clear, and when she smelled it, she understood it was urine that dripped from the crotch of Memo’s red shorts to the ground. Tica cried and gasped for air, sucking on her thumb.
Somehow Abuela straightened her legs, stood, and came out from behind the bush. She was sure there would be dead bodies, but the forest was empty. Abuela fell on her knees and called out in gratitude to the Virgin, but she was startled by the shrill sound of her own voice. There were cactus thorns stuck to their bodies. Tica screamed at the lines of red and drips of blood like dew in them. Abuela picked the thorns from her granddaughter, and then her grandson.
Along the walk home there was silence. They huddled and walked as a single being. They startled at the smallest sounds and looked about them, sensing the whites of the soldiers’ eyes lunging at them from behind the brush.
Outside her house, lonely palm trees swayed with wind.
Abuela said that it was only when they stepped inside that the sound of things roaring into the sky stopped.
* * *
In the back of Abuela’s garden, I stood for a moment deaf and out of breath. Abuela’s back rose and fell like an embittered sea and Tica and Memo were covered in blood. Mamá had her arms around the three of them and Abuela was saying, “Ay, Alma, Alma. They shot at us, Alma!”
Mamá’s voice came out muffled against Abuela’s shoulder. “But who, Mamá? Who shot at you?”
“The guerrillas!” Abuela cried. “Dios Santo!” Then Abuela’s voice trailed off in a murmured prayer; then audible, then silent, then pronounced among choked wails.
On the grass by Mamá’s feet the blue plastic cup lay on its side.
Drops of water ran down my pink swimsuit and rapped against the dry leaves on the ground.
Mamá’s eyes lifted. “Chula,” she said. “Get Cassandra. Call Tía Inés. Tell Inés to come. Go quickly.”
I turned and ran through the flowers and the beds of vegetables that blurred in my vision: away from the sound of Tica’s and Memo’s crying: musical, fading. I ran past lettuce heads, herbs, tomatoes, dandelions; past the free-roaming rooster perched on a pole; the old turkey, startled, garbling and running to a bush.
I ran onto the cobblestone path and found Cassandra there, kneeling at the corner of Abuela’s house, drawing hills and rivers with blue chalk on the wall. She stood up as I came upon her and she grabbed me by the shoulders.
“Chula, what is it?”
I caught my breath. “Cassandra,” I said, “hurry. Call Tía Inés. Abuela, Tica, and Memo are bleeding.”
“What?” Cassandra shook me. “What happened?”
“They got shot,” I said. “Hurry, tell Tía Inés to come.�
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“Are they alive?”
I nodded and followed Cassandra running to the house. In the living room, the rotary phone winded and unwinded slowly with each number.
Cassandra said, “Tía Inés. Come to Abuela’s. Something’s happened.”
An exclaimed protest echoed from the telephone against Cassandra’s ear.
“Tía, just come.”
We waited by the window. Cassandra bit her lip. “How bad is it?” she asked, but she shook her head and covered her ears so I wouldn’t tell her. Her fingers were stained blue from the chalk. When Mamá came in with Abuela and Tica and Memo we ran to them and they collapsed on the ground. Memo wheezed against my arms and Tica buried her face in Cassandra’s shoulder. Memo’s tears and saliva dripped down my arm, but I was filled with anxiety watching Tica. Her mouth was hanging open like it was unhinged. Cassandra was holding Tica as she wailed, and Cassandra’s face gathered up in sadness, but Cassandra was staring at Abuela, who cried into her own lap.
* * *
Two years before the helicopters, after Tío Pieto was put in the ground and dirt was thrown over his coffin, Papá had said Abuela María couldn’t cry anymore because she was old. At the funeral, Abuela held yellow carnations and murmured somber prayers. She looked out at me from behind her black veil. She twitched the ends of her lips and tried to smile.
* * *
“Tell me, Mamá, try,” my mother said to Abuela. Abuela was taking big breaths and letting them out slowly through her thin, pursed lips. Her hands trembled in front of her mouth.
She began slowly, “I took them to come with me to Arabastos.”
Fruit of the Drunken Tree Page 11
