Fruit of the Drunken Tree

by Ingrid Rojas Contreras

  19.

  Black and Blue

  Papá got home late at night, but we went out as a family anyway to celebrate Pablo Escobar being in jail. We put on nice clothes, Mamá put on lipstick, and then we went to a restaurant in an area of the city with electricity. There was a steaming plate of pasta in front of me, then tea and a slice of chocolate cake—but all I could think of was, why had Petrona been afraid of her own boyfriend? Why had Petrona’s boyfriend threatened both of us? The weekend went by as I mulled over these two questions and when Papá left on Sunday, almost immediately there was an urgent knocking on the door. I ran back to see what he’d forgotten. “What is it, Papá?”

  But when I lifted my eyes there she was—Petrona, standing at the threshold of the door, her left eye puffed shut and the broken skin by her mouth in a great swell. I widened my eyes in mute astonishment. I noted how the skin of her swollen eyelid ebbed in shades of black and gray and red, but worse, how the expanded flesh of her lid had not only grown out and swallowed up the slit of her eye but also her lashes. Not even the points of her lashes were visible.

  Mamá ran from behind and put her arm around Petrona and ushered her inside. “Close the door,” Mamá said to me and sat Petrona down in the living room. “Petrona, Dios mío, what happened?”

  I went to the kitchen to get sliced potatoes and plastic wrap because that’s what Petrona had done for me the night Galán was shot. In the kitchen, I thought of Petrona’s boyfriend pointing his hand like a gun, and then I imagined his hands into fists hitting Petrona. Had she left him? I held a potato trembling, took a breath, and steadied my hand and sliced through it six times.

  When I returned, Petrona was trying to smile, but flinched as her lip pushed into the bruise by the corner of her mouth, “Really, it was nobody, Señora. I fell getting off the bus.” She held the bruise lightly with the tips of her nails.

  Mamá’s eyebrows went up. “A bruise like that, Petrona? Can only come from a man’s fist.”

  “Honestly, Señora, I fell.” Petrona glanced at me with her one eye then back at Mamá. “Could I spend my vacation here? There’s no one to care for me at home.”

  Mamá regarded her without blinking. “Of course.” She turned to Cassandra, who was sitting on the steps, and asked her to get some medical tape from upstairs. I didn’t know how long Cassandra had been sitting there for, hugging a banister, baring her teeth. Cassandra sniffed and went up the stairs quietly, and when she was gone Mamá explained Cassandra was afraid of blood, and I didn’t even bother to point out that nobody was bleeding. Instead I asked, “What bus were you on?”

  “What?”

  “You said you fell from a bus. What bus were you on? You weren’t coming here because you were on vacation, so where were you going?”

  Petrona thought for a moment. “I had an errand.” Then Cassandra was back and Mamá said it was time to take care of Petrona’s wounds. Mamá made Petrona recline her head back on the couch and then the three of us orbited around her, like moons around the face of a planet. I held a sliced potato over her eye, careful not to push. Mamá put a patch of plastic on the potato and then Cassandra and Mamá moved about taping over the slice until it was held in place. My hands trembled. But if I watched Petrona’s eyebrow, thin and delicate following the bend of her bone, then I could breathe. I followed the curve of her hairline next, noting how her scalp was the whitest thing I had ever seen. Her hair was feathery and damp, like she had recently taken a shower, and the shirt she was wearing, three sizes too big, was a men’s shirt and had a turnover collar that had been ironed.

  I had to run up for some peroxide. Mamá had me pour it by Petrona’s lip, as Petrona reclined her face, and Cassandra dabbed at the dribbling liquid with cotton balls. Petrona didn’t scream like I would have. She didn’t make a sound. But I knew it was painful because the small muscles under her eyes flinched and tensed together. The bruise by her mouth, ballooning out in black and gray, appeared sleek under the peroxide, except where the skin was broken and blood had dried out, the liquid foamed. When it was done, Petrona found my fingers and squeezed. I held the potato in place with my other hand. Mamá and Cassandra worked on securing the potato in a way that would allow Petrona to eat. Petrona had to mime eating. Her lower jaw moved in the smallest of half circles and then clenched up. As Mamá and Cassandra secured the slice, Petrona continued opening and closing her mouth, slowly then quickly, then open, then closed, revealing her pink tongue, her white teeth. It looked like she was talking but her voice was muted, like Petrona was really telling us what had happened but none of us could hear.

  The electricity came on just as we finished. The television and two radios boomed and blasted from upstairs. Mamá and Cassandra ran up to turn things off and even though they were gone just for a moment, Petrona turned to me and squeezed my fingers in her fist. “Chula, I think you imagined you saw someone when you and your mother dropped me off, but I think you made a mistake.”

  I tried to pull my hand away. “I wasn’t going to tell anyone.”

  “You don’t want bad things to happen, do you, Chula?” She pressed my fingers down into the seat of the couch, making me lean closer.

  “Like your eye?”

  “Exactly like my eye.”

  I stammered, “I told you, I won’t say anything.” Petrona let go of my fingers. She caressed my cheek. “That’s my good girl.” Petrona reclined back and patted my knee with her extended hand. I massaged my fingers. If Petrona was protecting some guy who had hit her did it mean she had not left him? Unless he hadn’t. Unless he had pointed his hand like a gun at us to warn her about some danger coming her way—in which case, it would explain why she was protecting him. I wanted to hug Petrona, but I was afraid of her—her face swollen and black, one eye buried completely beneath her flesh. It was mean to be repulsed by the way she looked, so I lay back into the nook of Petrona’s arm and snuggled against her.

  When Mamá and Cassandra came back, I sat up. We wiggled the slices of potatoes on Petrona’s jaw and eye to make sure the slices wouldn’t fall off, and then they took Petrona to lie down in her room.

  The question of Petrona’s boyfriend kept me up at night. If he hit her, maybe it was because he was in need of money and the prospect of Petrona losing her job was the worst thing that could happen. I thought of all the huts made out of tin. If Petrona and her family couldn’t afford to build real walls, how much of her money could her boyfriend be getting? If he was innocent, then the danger Petrona had been hiding from when we were at Abuela’s had finally caught up with her. But what could Petrona have done to provoke a beating? Once or twice I got out of bed, thinking I would go down to Petrona’s room and just ask her, but then I remembered how she had twisted my fingers against the couch. I held the knob of Mamá’s door next, but if I talked to Mamá, Petrona would get fired. I sat before Cassandra’s closed door. But I would not tell her either because she would just tell Mamá, and then I’d be the reason for Petrona getting fired—or worse.

  Cassandra and I had to go to school before the sun came up now because there was no electricity at the school and we had to make the most of daylight hours. It felt wrong to be out so early, or so late, waiting for the school bus. At school I napped through the morning classes. Then it was time to go home again.

  Each night Mamá, Cassandra, and I re-dressed Petrona’s bruises with more slices of potato and each night we saw how her bruises changed. One day we discovered that whole blotches of skin had turned deep wine red and yellow, with vivid tones of green and purple in between. It was almost pretty, like a firework.

  All of us felt bad for Petrona. When Papá came home the following weekend he brought soft ice packs we could put in the freezer and then give to Petrona to hold over her swollen, broken skin. Cassandra and I gathered pillows for Petrona so she could be comfortable and then we went door-to-door asking for used magazines. Once, as we were put
ting the alcohol and cotton away, Mamá stood up, struck with an idea. “Petrona—how old are you?” Petrona said she had just turned fifteen, and then Mamá said that was perfect. We should give Petrona a First Communion and a First Communion party. Petrona’s jaw dropped. Mamá said Petrona had always wanted one; Petrona had said so herself. Petrona said, “No, Señora, I really don’t want to impose.” Mamá waved the air and was already leaving Petrona’s bedroom saying it was no trouble at all, and then she was in the living room dialing numbers on the telephone. I turned to Cassandra to ask what was happening, but Cassandra put a finger on her lips, and we heard as Mamá said hello to someone and asked for a donated wedding dress.

  I turned to Petrona, confused. “Wait, are you getting married?” I was hurt she hadn’t told me.

  Cassandra fell back on Petrona’s bed, cackling. “Petrona! Getting married!”

  Petrona wrinkled her brows and hid her face with her hand, mortified. We heard Mamá saying loudly into the receiver: “I know, she’s fifteen years old.”

  “So you’re not getting married?”

  This sent Cassandra into hysterics and she rolled from side to side laughing and kicking her legs. We heard Mamá say, “Any white dress will do; it’s for a good cause.” Petrona told me she was having a First Communion party, apparently. “Oh,” I said. I patted Petrona’s knee over the blankets and told her not to worry: “You just swallow a wafer and drink some wine, it doesn’t mean anything, and you’ll get presents.”

  At night, while Mamá and I sat balling up socks, Cassandra spoke up and asked why the two latest wallet-size portraits of herself and me were missing from the pages of the photo album. She was sitting at the edge of Mamá’s bed turning the pages.

  “They’re gone?” I was looking over her shoulder. It was true. The small rectangular spaces where the portraits had once been stood out in white, while the rest of the page was evenly yellowed in a darker tone. We didn’t know what had happened to the portraits. None of us had taken them out. After looking in the drawer where the albums were kept and finding no loose photographs there, Mamá crossed herself and said spirits were terrorizing us. I was sure Petrona had taken them to look at us whenever she felt lonely.

  * * *

  During the coming week the swollen skin around Petrona’s eyes started to deflate, and Petrona’s lashes slowly reappeared, then there was a lazy alligator eye, taking everything in. Then her two eyes seemed almost the same size and the dramatic colors turned brown and olive-edged. I took this change in Petrona’s appearance as a sign that it was safe to be friends with her again. The next night, I tiptoed downstairs and around the swinging kitchen door to see what Petrona was up to. I was surprised to see Petrona’s curtain flashing with the unmistakable light of a television. There was no electricity and I was so confused I didn’t think twice about turning Petrona’s knob and stepping inside. There, Petrona sat in bed, the smallest television I had ever seen on her lap, her face cast in blue.

  In a second she lifted her eyes and the television shut off. Her after-image, pale and her lips contorted, hung in the air as I heard the sizzle of her television.

  “It’s only me,” I said.

  Petrona exhaled. “Chula, madre de Dios, I nearly had a heart attack!”

  Her television came back on with a great flash. Petrona squinted and reached her hand toward me. “Come watch, Chula.” I climbed next to her in her bed. “Look,” she said. She switched the channels by pressing on two buttons at the side of the screen; then she turned the little machine upside down to show me where the batteries went.

  We got under Petrona’s blankets and hugged the small television between us and Petrona explained the new telenovela she had started to watch. It was called Escalona and it was the true story of a vallenato composer who had an accordion duel with the devil and won. But the real story was about how Escalona was a womanizer. There he was, serenading a curvy blonde from Brazil, singing to her on his knees. The next scene he was running after some gaunt, big-nosed woman, down narrow cobblestone streets, until he caught her hand and kissed it. As the credits rolled, Petrona said, “Men are so stupid—in the town where I grew up, in Boyacá, there was someone like Escalona. He was such an animal.”

  I had never known where Petrona was from. I called to mind what I knew of Boyacá. It was the state right next to Bogotá. I tried to recall the safe route map. We had driven through Boyacá on our way to Cúcuta. I thought I remembered many little men with berets and sunglasses.

  “What happened to him?” I asked.

  “He’s gone. I don’t know what happened to him. They set our house on fire, and we fled.”

  “Who set your house on fire?”

  Petrona tensed and she stared at the window, as if she’d said more than she intended.

  “Was that the danger you were in?”

  On the little television a comedy show started. Men dressed as women were selling flowers at a bus stop. I sensed Petrona was not going to say any more on the subject. “Petrona, who was the man that Mamá brought over to celebrate his birthday?”

  Petrona pressed her lips. Her face changed colors from the screen. “I think he was just a friend, but maybe he is more.”

  I sat thinking about what the more could mean. Family members were more. Boyfriends were more. I understood then why Cassandra had been angry. Petrona turned off the television. “Come, Chula, time for bed.” She led me in the dark to the stairs and then she kissed the top of my head. I hugged around her waist for some seconds and then I let go.

  * * *

  The dress Mamá got for Petrona was from a divorcée. I wasn’t sure how Petrona felt about it, but the cloth was a pretty shade of white and it was satiny and cool to the touch. Mamá set up her sewing machine at the dining table but the cloth and tools of her sewing took up much of the first floor. They stood together all Saturday in the middle of the living room, Mamá wrapping pliable tape around Petrona, giving Petrona different orders: Arms up, Belly in, Stand up straight.

  As the lights came off and on, Mamá unraveled the dress. She said it all had to be taken in with Petrona’s specific measurements. During daylight hours, as Petrona stepped in and out of the skirt, tried on the disconnected sleeves, put on a veil, held up the bust, Mamá gave short speeches.

  “When a boy is interested, always make sure you are the one to remain in power. Men will want to take power from you—that’s who they are—but don’t allow it—that’s who you are.”

  She said:

  “When you are in love, you are in lust. And if you are in lust, satisfy yourself, then walk away. Never do anything for his sake, not until you are sure he is committed. Then and only then can you be nice to him—but, be careful. Don’t give yourself entirely. Never owe anybody anything, least of all the man you are with. That’s how you’ll remain in power.”

  It was the same stuff Mamá had been telling Cassandra and me for years, but Petrona listened in rapt attention. “What if you’re stuck?”

  Mamá held the skirt piece around Petrona’s waist, fastening it with pins she took from her lips. The pins had colorful heads—violet, turquoise, red. Mamá took a step back to look at her work. The skirt fell from Petrona’s waist like a bell. “Then you leave him.”

  “But if you’re stuck—”

  Mamá fluffed the skirt. “It’s your own fault, Petrona, if you choose to be a fool.”

  During the hours of electricity, Cassandra downloaded a program and set up an email account in the computer. She sent single sentences to her friends at school—Have you done your homework yet? What are you wearing tomorrow?—and sat refreshing her inbox until a reply came in. Downstairs, Mamá sat on her creaky stool and pedaled the sewing machine. Her eyes were absorbed in the rise and fall of the needle, the divorcée’s white cloth rumpling prettily before the taca-taca-taca of her machine. The dress was nearly done. Petrona could step in and o
ut of the skirt, and all that was left was for Mamá to attach the skirt to the torso, and the torso to the sleeves and then as the last touch, the zipper on the back.

  * * *

  Late at night, when I looked in her room Petrona was soundly asleep. I heard the ticking of a clock but not her breathing. I waited until my eyes adjusted and I started to see the black block of her bed, the dark gray of the wall, the lump of her body.

  “Petrona,” I whispered, but there was no answer.

  I went to the living room and listened to Papá’s radio. The drone voice of the news, low and professorial, was soothing. It has been a busy week for Pablo Escobar, the radio announcer went on. I stretched out on the couch and put my hands under my head and closed my eyes. The news of the kidnapping of a senator was closely followed by a bomb threat to a wealthy neighborhood in Bogotá. Carrying 850 tons of dynamite—I was soon soundly asleep.

  Petrona had to take classes at a nearby church for her Communion and went on and on about things she’d learned—like the specifics of a Confirmation. Cassandra and I had no idea what she was talking about. I watched yellow candlelight flicker on Petrona’s face, making the pointy shadow of her nose grow and shorten across her cheek. Finally I asked—getting confirmed about what? Petrona was shocked we didn’t know. She said we had probably gone through a Confirmation ourselves, because you couldn’t do a First Communion without it. She explained that during Confirmation you got anointed with holy oil that had been blessed by an Archbishop.

  “Wow,” Cassandra said.

  “Wow,” I said.

  I didn’t know what Archbishops did, but I did know all about their pretty hats. That’s because I watched Holy Week live from Rome every year. That’s because it was the only thing on the television that wasn’t a Jesus movie. Archbishops were the ones with tall pointed hats and staffs that looked like something a shepherd might use, except they were made of gold.