Fruit of the Drunken Tree

by Ingrid Rojas Contreras

  Then her face shrank. She shook her head of short, gray curls, sucked in air, and began to cry. She covered her face with her wrinkled hands.

  * * *

  At Tío Pieto’s funeral, Papá had said that when people became old, they couldn’t bring themselves to cry anymore, because they had cried continually, on and off, over a lifetime long with happiness and sorrow. He had said their bank of tears had gone dry.

  * * *

  “For the love of God, Mamá, calm yourself down,” Mamá said. She was shaking Abuela’s hands. “You’re traumatizing the children.” I bit my upper lip and looked down at the lap of Memo’s pants. His lap was wet. I connected the sight with the smell of urine.

  Abuela said, “They ran out of the trees.” She took a deep breath. “A helicopter was shooting after the guerrillas. We hid behind a bush.”

  Then her voice broke, and in a high pitch she said, “Alma, if only I hadn’t taken them, Alma!”

  That’s when we heard the front door open and Tía Inés came running through the curtain and gathered her children to her chest. “What happened?” She inspected their faces and felt with her hands over their bodies. She shook them violently, “What happened to you?” Tica and Memo sobbed, convulsing against her. But they could not answer.

  “Inés––you’re hurting the children,” Mamá said.

  Tía Inés took her hands away. There were red marks on Tica’s and Memo’s skin from her nails, but Tica and Memo were fighting to get close to Tía Inés again.

  “They were in the crossfire of guerrillas,” Mamá said, “when they went with Abuela to Arabastos.”

  “Hija,” Abuela said, scrunching her face like she was about to cry, but Tía Inés bared her teeth. “How could you, Mamá? After all the rumors?” Abuela was quiet. Tía Inés lifted Tica and Memo up against her waist. “I don’t want to hear from you. Any of you.” Tía Inés walked out slowly, Tica and Memo wrapping their legs around her pregnant torso, quietly sobbing. We heard the front door close, and then Tica’s and Memo’s crying faded out.

  “Mamá—”

  Mamá helped Abuela rise to her feet. “Not now, Chula.”

  “Cassandra—”

  Cassandra pushed herself up. “Chula, be quiet.”

  I stayed on the floor. I watched Mamá dial Tía Inés. It sounded like a huge commotion, like Tío Ramiro screaming in the background and Tica and Memo crying, then I heard clearly as Tía Inés yelled how come only her children were taken to Arabastos, how come not Mamá’s. There was the dead sound of the line. Mamá dialed the town store where Papá was sending résumés and left a message with the clerk for Papá to return as soon as possible. I could still see Tica’s face without trying. I wiped my eyes.

  There were three bloodstains on the cement where Tica and Abuela and Memo had sat. Then I looked at myself. There on the caramel skin of my shoulders was the print of my sister’s fingers, pressed on me in blue chalk.

  Petrona

  I questioned Gorrión again and again because of what Julián had told me, but Gorrión swore he was not involved with the guerrillas; if anything, he sympathized with the encapotados but that wasn’t a crime. I cried out and asked if he did not know that was why Ramón was dead, and Gorrión said Ramón was dead because of the Colombian army, who had also shot countless innocent boys in the Hills. Don’t get confused, Petrona. In Gorrión’s presence thoughts went from my mind, things flipped upside down, but I could not be confused about little Ramón. Ramón was killed by the paras! Why else did we have to call the police! If the army had done it, they would have been there from the beginning, claiming the death of a guerrillero like they always do.

  I was confident in that truth, but then Gorrión’s words were like dust that rolled under my doorstep and covered everything with dirt. Petrona, think. How long did Ramón have—when a country’s own army shoots innocent civilians? Wasn’t he protecting his own family? Didn’t little Ramón think his younger brothers could be shot just as easily as the friend he lost?

  But not this, I said. I meant not this way, another way where Ramón was still alive, but my anger flew from me and then my bones hurt with loss. What are you afraid of, Petrona, I told you I’m not a guerrillero. My chin trembled and he fell to his knees, Gorrión saying I was his life, why would he do something to hurt me? Then Gorrión swore on his mother and then my life, which he said he loved: he only liked to go to the meetings sometimes to listen. Not this, I repeated in my head, sometimes out loud, until everything drained from me, and then there were no more emotions, I had no more reactions, there was no more fear. I was empty like the Hills at dusk.

  I let Gorrión buy me a cup of hot chocolate. Gorrión knew Mami had kicked me out. He blew the steam in my own cup and held it in front of my mouth so I could sip. He said he could ride the bus with me and escort me to the house where I worked and maybe I could stay there in secret until my mother cooled down. They gave you a key, right? Gorrión said the woman I worked for would surely offer me her house if she knew the trouble I was in. The hot chocolate was sweet on my tongue. When we get married, all these troubles won’t exist, it’ll be you and me and you’ll keep the house and I’ll go to work, and we’ll have dinner and grow old together, and then we’ll be abuelos and we’ll go to the plaza to feed the pigeons and badmouth the younger generation. Gorrión was grinning, imagining all this staring into the air, and I took another sip of the hot sweet and pressed his hand and my eyes filled with water. My sister too?

  Yes, your sister too Petrona. He laughed, looking into my eyes now. Whatever you want.

  I felt small and fragile, escorted to the Santiagos’. Gorrión must have known how like a thin piece of paper I felt, because he helped me off the bus, he took my hand and pulled gently as we crawled into the gated neighborhood through a hole in the fence by the pines in the park. He rested his chin on my shoulder as I opened the Santiagos’ door. We did not turn on the lights. We went to the kitchen and Gorrión and I stood there in the dark. It was nice how quiet the house was, peaceful and quiet as I had only felt in the cemetery. How odd that cemeteries are the only peaceful place. I did not know how much time had passed when Gorrión came near, his voice on my ear, Let me spend the night with you. I can’t, I said. He whimpered like a puppy, he planted kisses on my neck that were a nice distraction, a nice addition to the peace that was like the silence of a cemetery, and we were in my room then and I stained the sheets a little with blood and we slept, and there was only a moment between closing and opening my eyes.

  * * *

  There was so much space in that house. Gorrión looked at me like men look at women in telenovelas. I knew I did not want him to leave. The light fell on the empty stairs. There was food in the pantry. Hot water relaxed my bones so full of loss. There were the two of us, alone, like we had never been. Gorrión looked at me and I felt things lighting up wherever he set his eyes. Mami would kill me if she knew what I was up to. I left word for her at the corner store saying I was at the Santiagos’ and that they had asked me to look after their house. I had left my vacation money at home so I knew they would have enough to eat.

  Here, Gorrión admired my body.

  Gorrión tuned the dial of the radio. Airy music came on. He kissed my hand like a gentleman and twirled me around. At the Santiagos’ I was someone without a care. A fourteen-year-old with parents away on vacation, I liked to imagine, boyfriend in the house. Gorrión and I lay long on the couch. We put our hands behind our heads. Gorrión massaged my feet. He got frozen peas from the freezer and laid the bag on my head. He called me Reina.

  When we prepared food, I thought about the Santiagos. I felt pangs of guilt. They had been kind to me. I felt a growing tenderness for little Chula and Cassandra. But Gorrión said there was a system that took away money from people like us so that people like me did not even have enough to put a family member underground. It hurt me to have Ramón brought up in
this way, but then I thought of little Ramón in a box on top of a stranger in a different box and I took the Santiagos’ rice and beans. They had plenty, and I had nothing.

  For days I slept so well, Gorrión and I cramped in that bed for one. But sometimes I dreamed I was out in the Santiagos’ garden. I was heavy on my hands and knees and Chula stared down at me from a great height. She reached her hand out but our hands could not touch. She looked worried at first, then I realized she was afraid of me. I couldn’t figure out what the dream was about.

  Gorrión found hidden cash and snuck out and back into the neighborhood with frozen chicken. We crowded in the kitchen, cooking it with plenty of oil and onion. We sat in my room, eating with our fingers. We were so happy. Gorrión brought me a glass of water on a tray and it made me cry. But it wasn’t just happiness, just reality catching up to my happiness. Little Aurora was doing all the cleaning and the cooking and taking care of Mami and her asthma and the boys. Gorrión knelt by me, calling me pet names. Reina. Preciosa. Mi princesa. Don’t cry. I love you. Let’s get Aurora to call you. It’ll be okay. We left word at the corner store and waited for Aurora’s call.

  I want to be normal for once, why can’t I?

  Shh, shh, Gorrión said. We’ll find a way. I found shelter in his great neck then the phone began to ring, and I wiped my face and took a deep breath, wondering who it would be this time, whether little Aurora or Chula, for whom would I have to put on a brave face?

  13.

  When at Dinner You Have Fire

  Abuela shuffled around the house, going about her duties with an air of grave responsibility. Her house ran on her robotic hands and departed mind. She made the kettle whistle in the morning; the ceiling fans whir; the afternoon potatoes gurgle and toss inside the boiling pot; the sheets clean; the floors free from dust. She spent the rest of the day on the stool in her store, clasping her notebook of customer debts and credits, pen in hand, staring faintly at the open door. Her eyes were flat and lusterless as absent moonscapes. Her face was bruised and swollen. When we addressed her, she repeated the same four proverbs with a muted voice. We shall eat more and we shall eat less. When at dinner you have fire, for breakfast you’ll have water. What is left for time, time will take away. It is only death that doesn’t have a remedy. At night she retired to her room and lay on her bed and fell asleep without dinner.

  We didn’t hear anything about Tica and Memo. Tía Inés was so upset about my cousins being in a crossfire she refused to see us. Cassandra said Tía Inés probably blamed her and me too for what had happened. Papá and Mamá whispered about Abuela’s bruises, but when they tried to examine her, Abuela pulled away. Several times they tried to drag her to a doctor, but Abuela screamed and hid. Everyone tried to talk to Abuela, but Abuela only said the same old things: We shall eat more and we shall eat less. When at dinner you have fire, for breakfast you’ll have water. What is left for time, time will take away. It is only death that doesn’t have a remedy.

  Cassandra and I spied on Mamá and Papá. They went to whisper in the bathroom. The bathroom had cutouts in the cement along the top of the wall to let a breeze in. We stood on a table in the kitchen by the cutouts, and heard Mamá and Papá discuss awful things: that Abuela was a burden, that her stubbornness against being examined meant she could die, that Abuela was not just a martyr, but a martyr who enjoyed being a martyr. Mamá said, “The cash in her box is gone. I think she gave it to the paramilitary.” Papá was silent. Then: “I thought she hated the paramilitary.” Mamá clucked her tongue. “Well, now she hates the guerrillas more.” Papá sighed. “I guess there’s nothing we can do about that.”

  No one paid attention to Cassandra and me. Abuela’s house was like a captain-less ship. We redecorated parts of it. We moved vases, straightened her little crochet mantelpieces, wiped dust from the brow of her little saints. We climbed the mango trees and ate the fruit while sitting in the branches. Cassandra said I was a complete dimwit, because the day of the helicopters I had told her that Tica, Memo, and Abuela were shot. She explained that to be shot and to be shot at were two different things. To be shot meant to have a bullet go through you. To be shot at meant you were lucky.

  We found a box of sparklers and decided to celebrate the Christmas season since nobody else was. We buried them like blades of grass and lit them, fire and electricity sparkling from the earth. After it was over, the sticks glowed bright red, like long thin embers. We leaned close to look and I pressed the hot metal between my fingers and didn’t take my fingers away when it burned. “Chula!” Cassandra slapped my hand away.

  The rod left a deep red crease on my thumb and index finger and I began to cry. We couldn’t find Mamá so Cassandra broke a large piece of Abuela’s aloe plant and rubbed it on my burn. We sat quietly in the living room, Cassandra rubbing a new piece of aloe on my finger when the one she was using ran out of slime.

  I felt guilty about what had happened to Abuela. It upset me that Tía Inés thought Cassandra and I were somehow to blame. Maybe we were. I couldn’t bear to think about it, so instead I came up with stories of the danger Petrona was in. Maybe Petrona’s father had robbed a drug lord. Maybe the drug lord owned cheetahs with diamond-studded collars. Petrona’s father had stolen one, disappeared, and before the family knew it cheetahs surrounded their house. Petrona was the smart one, so she had the family break a wooden ladder into pieces to make torches. They stepped out holding the blazing wood and the animals hissed, and stayed away. Everyone ran in different directions and Petrona and her family had been in hiding ever since.

  Papá sat down in the living room not noticing Cassandra and me. He held a little radio to his ear: “—might be negotiating. The details of the drug lord’s surrender are not clear—” Then Papá saw the broken stalks of aloe on the ground, made eye contact with Cassandra and me, and turned the radio off. “What in the devil happened here?”

  My eyes welled up. “Papá, turn the radio back on. Was that about Pablo Escobar?” Papá did not do as I asked and I felt a deep pang in the pit of my stomach and then it was like a broken valve and there was no bottom to my crying. I cried until I was red in the face and Mamá was kneeling by me, holding a wet towel to my forehead, asking, “What did you do to her?” and Papá said, “Nothing, Madre, she just started crying.” Papá carried me to the bed and I sobbed until there were no more tears, just sounds.

  Cassandra sat next to me and said it was all tied to my traumatized issues; she had overheard Mamá and Papá say so. “They also said they would find a psychologist who would do pro bono on you.”

  “What is pro bono?”

  “Terrible, terrible, terrible” is all Cassandra said.

  The last thing I wanted was to see a psychologist. There was someone like a psychologist at the school who everyone had to see once a year under the Principal’s authority, except she was a Counselor, and then afterward you had to see a Priest. I was forced to talk to the Counselor after Galán died. She made me arrange blocks into different shapes, stare at ink stains, and make drawings of my family. The whole thing was very uncomfortable.

  I sat up and dried my cheeks. I tucked hair behind my ears and wiped my nose. “I’m fine, see?”

  Cassandra leveled her gaze. She squinted. “Maybe. We’ll see. I’ll keep an eye on you.”

  I stood up and stretched. In order to avoid the pro bono psychologist, I had to act indifferent. Next time Pablo Escobar came up, I would pretend like it meant nothing to me.

  As I continued to play with Cassandra, Petrona and the tragedy of the cheetahs remained in the back of my mind. Cassandra and I kicked balls, chased each other, broke Coke bottles against the wall, but I felt a growing guilt over nothing bad happening to me. The guilt bore into my skin, into my lungs, and before I knew it, I was waking up in the middle of the night, dialing our number, wanting to hear Petrona’s voice. When she answered, I wanted to tell Petrona about Abuela and the h
elicopters, and ask about the cheetahs, but instead I asked for updates on the telenovela Calamar. Calamar was about a village called Consolación de Chiriguay where compasses were useless, ships sank at the harbor, mirages appeared left and right, and everyone who arrived developed an alter ego. The British Captain Longfellow was looking for treasure, and his sidekick Alejandro was looking for a lost sister. Alejandro wore glasses and a suit, but when he wore a bandana on his forehead he was known as el Guajiro, a superhero who fought a pirate called Capitán Olvido—who in turn was also hunting for the treasure, and was known as Artemio when he wasn’t wearing pirate clothes and was just a nice old man. Everyone was fighting for the love of Claramanta, a stuck-up lady in curls.

  “Claramanta got upset at Alejandro and rode off on a horse, she’s such a burra because you know, niña, they are meant to be together. Then el Capitán Longfellow almost found the bewitched medallion, but then he didn’t. And then, let me think…”

  It was nice to hear Petrona’s voice while everybody slept. Abuela’s house was quiet and dark as I lay on the couch, Petrona’s giggling filling my ear. I was glad I had been the one to discover her, because nobody else would have understood. As I listened to Petrona talk about Calamar, I could feel the tension of her hiding in the air. It was there behind the things she told me: “I don’t understand why Claramanta doesn’t see that Alejandro and el Guajiro are the same person, you know, niña?” Then again, maybe I was imagining it.

  I called Petrona every night. One night Petrona missed an episode of Calamar. “I ran out of food and you know, niña, I can’t let the neighbors see me, or they might tell your mamá about me staying here, so I had to sneak out really late at night, and then I just waited for hours until the grocery store opened and I bought some canned food and rice. That wasn’t all—then I had to wait again for it to get dark and sneak back past the guards, into the house. So that’s why I missed the last episode. But maybe they’ll run the episode again over the weekend and I can tell you what we missed.”