Fruit of the Drunken Tree Read online

  I dropped to the ground.

  It was like falling asleep.

  8.

  Galán! Galán! Galán!

  When school started again for the final quarter that year, I felt it in my bones that something bad was about to happen. My stomach tensed and fluttered. At school, I smelled blood. I thought I had a nosebleed but when I went to the bathroom to check there was nothing wrong with my nose, just my skin paler than usual and my hands all worked up. I couldn’t figure out where the smell was coming from. During recess, Cassandra patted my back and said I was just excited to see Galán, because Mamá was taking us to Soacha to see Galán give a speech. It was possible that it was just nerves, or maybe it was because we were withholding the fact we were going from Papá since he wouldn’t have allowed us to go. Cassandra gave me her soda pop and took me to see the horses the guards kept at the back of the school. We sat together by the small stable under the eucalyptus trees, and somehow seeing the horses chew grass made me feel better and I forgot about the whole thing.

  When we got home Cassandra and I drew fat hearts on our cheeks with Mamá’s red lipstick and then we traced huge letters on a white posterboard spelling, “Galán!” Cassandra was good with grammar so I mainly filled in the letters of our poster with red, because that was the color of the Liberal Party. “So-a-cha,” I murmured. “So-acha.” Acha sounded like ax, but so didn’t sound like anything, and neither did cha.

  Mamá clicked on her seat belt and we dropped off Petrona at a bus station and then we were off. I couldn’t believe we were going to a political rally. In the car, I sang along to everything that came on the radio. We were the first car in a caravan of seven driving from Bogotá as the sun went down, all of us obviously making the trip to see Galán. The cars sported posters, banners, and stickers. Mamá bounced in her seat and said she was clearly the strongest driver. “I am the Alpha. Oh, look!” she said, decelerating. “I almost lost a subject in the heat of that curve.”

  Mamá’s first subject, directly behind us, was an old man wearing a hat and a vest. Behind him, there was a car filled with girls letting their arms hang out of the window. I could see them at the curves when the old man swept slightly to one side. The one girl in the passenger seat made waves with her arm, while the ones in the back just let their hands hang down. That looked like the thing to do, but Mamá wouldn’t let me put my hand out, even though I pointed to the girls and asked how come they could.

  When we got to Soacha it was getting dark. We were late and Mamá parked the car in a hurry and yanked us so hard she didn’t allow us to get our posters and I nearly fell. Mamá took no notice. The town was small and there was only one main street. She did not slow down until we reached the crowd. People on second-floor balconies hung on to railings yelling down at the crowd, but others sat on stoops silently.

  I didn’t understand what the hurry was. The street where the parade would take place was empty and lit with the amber light of streetlights. The sidewalks were full of people. There was salsa playing from overhead speakers and I was hemmed in by smelly adults who jumped and danced and squished me every which way. The adults chanted and waved little red plastic flags. When I heard drums, I decided I would jump. I looked and looked, but in between seeing the dancing barricade of adults and the street, there were no clowns, no beauty queens, no confetti, no funny hats. I couldn’t find the drums. Mamá had completely forgotten about us. She was jumping in the air, waving a little Colombian flag, laughing. “Ga-lán! Ga-lán!”

  “What kind of a parade is this?”

  Cassandra wrinkled her eyebrows and the red hearts on her cheeks glinted dully. “It’s a political parade, don’t you know anything?” Cassandra was looking at the political parade through a little tunnel formed between a man’s raised arm and a woman’s hat. If we stood on the base of a street lamp we were tall enough to see through the tunnel. Mamá stayed close. I hung on, encircling the lamppost just under Cassandra’s arms. It was difficult, but at least it was a constant sight into the street. Through the little tunnel I saw a man with a wide-open mouth singing, a woman with green eyelids, a man with a trumpet, and a boy dashing by, blowing on a gaita and shaking a maraca.

  “Ga-lán, Ga-lán!” Mamá shook us by the shoulders. “That’s Galán! Galán! Chula! Cassandra!”

  We looked through our tunnel, but it opened and closed as the man with the raised arm jumped up and down and the woman took off her hat and waved it in the air. There was a white truck and then, on the truck bed for a few long seconds, there appeared, in our small tunnel, in flesh and blood, Galán. He seemed to be staring right at me. His hair curled upward like it was charged with static. He smiled, in a dark blue suit and red tie, lifting his hand and waving. And just as quickly he was gone. He was followed by tall white banners that said Galán Presidente and men in suits jumping. We didn’t even have time to think about what we had just seen when everyone closed behind the float and Cassandra and I were swept away in the crowd.

  “Chula! Chula!”

  The crowd carried me away like a strong current. “Help! Cassandra!”

  “Ey! Ey!” a young man cried, seeing I had been separated. Nobody listened and he fought to remain in place but still we got carried further. “Cassandra!” I screamed. The man saw where I was going and said, “Okay, just climb, ready?” and then he threw me and I was up in the air, scrambling on top of people’s heads. Everyone was upset and pushed me aside on top of somebody else until I landed on a large white banner and scratched and kicked over it until I got back close to Cassandra. I threw myself over people until I fell into her arms. Cassandra and Mamá stood still hugging a lamppost. I couldn’t tell if it was the same one as before. The young man was gone when I looked and Mamá wrapped her arms over Cassandra’s arms and yelled to not let go and we all got into the crowd and allowed it to move us. That’s how we found our way to the back of the crowd where people had standing room. Just in time too, because the next thing that happened was that they were announcing Galán on the stage.

  “There he is, Mamá!” He was walking to the front of the stage, both arms raised in salute to the crowd, while on the podium a man was saying, “Here he is, the man we’ve all been waiting for, el Señor Luis Carlos Gal—” Then gunshots splattered into the air and I threw myself, flying, toward the ground. I noticed there was a crack in the pavement. I could see it even by the amber light from the street lamps. I was screaming, but everything lagged—there was a thought in my head, Am I going to die? The words crawled over the splatter of gunshots, suddenly in slow motion, over a hundred people screaming, and then when I hit the ground, everything was happening quickly again, and I heard one clear voice as it said: “Lo mataron! Lo mataron! Hijueputa, lo mataron!”

  There were no more gunshots, just people wailing and running. I clawed at the ground, littered with bottles and flags, yelling for Mamá. I started to run but tripped and my hand was nailed under someone’s boot. I screamed and then Mamá was there, suddenly plucking me up by the neck of my sweater, skinning my legs on the ground, and then I was in her arms with Cassandra, my hand hanging limp and burning. “Dios mío,” Mamá repeated. “Dios mío, Dios mío, Dios mío, Dios mío.”

  Cassandra was crying and people were jumping over walls and running down the alleys and climbing over cars and then Mamá hurled us in through the driver’s car door and then we were driving. Men and women were crawling over the hood of our car, trying to get away. Mamá drove into people, honking. I covered my ears, but my hand hurt terribly when I moved it and Cassandra held me close.

  “Move!” Mamá yelled. She drove on the sidewalk, then we were around the corner and there was no one in the street. Mamá was out of breath, speeding out of Soacha. Cassandra and I sat together clutching each other.

  As time passed, I realized I couldn’t see the mountains, but I knew they were there. We traveled in absolute darkness. We didn’t speak. Mamá’s silence
was forbidding. At times beams of cars driving in the opposite direction flushed our car, and I could see Mamá and Cassandra. Mamá’s temples and overlip gleamed with sweat and her eyes were alert and glanced at everything. Cassandra’s lipstick-hearts were faint and her whole face was reddened slightly with the rubbed-on shade of them. I felt like we were traveling in an invisible vehicle. We were souls speeding up a mountain we could not see, floating in the dark.

  Maybe Galán was dead. Maybe they had shot him. Maybe he had made it out alive. Maybe his soul was now traveling.

  In the distance hanging in the black space a pair of headlights appeared, then they moved right, and disappeared again. That was how I knew we were driving on a winding cliff road.

  After a while, Mamá remembered to turn on her lights. She was less forbidding, so I said, “My hand hurts.” Cassandra said, “Mamá, I think Chula sprained her arm.” Mamá said, “Mierda.” Then, “Cassandra, hold Chula’s hand still.”

  We were all quiet again. Mamá’s headlights lit up the yellow fluorescent lines of the road. They were curvy and it seemed like they were being traced out of nothingness by the invisible hand of God—like God was bored, drawing hills and lines with a highlighter.

  Mamá turned on the radio and that was when we heard Galán had been shot but he was in a hospital fighting for his life. Those were the announcer’s words: Galán is in a hospital fighting for his life.

  I thought we were going to the hospital because of my hand, but Mamá pulled into our driveway. She didn’t turn off the car and remained very still. Then she dipped forward. She was crying. “Mamá, are you okay?” Mamá never cried about anything. I didn’t know what to do, but Cassandra said, “It’s okay, Mamá. Take a deep breath.” Mamá tried breathing, the headlights of the car shining eerily into the first floor of our house. This was a new thing—Cassandra comforting Mamá, like Mamá was the child and not the other way around. I don’t know how long we sat there, but suddenly Petrona came out.

  I was shocked to see her, because hadn’t we dropped her off at a bus station? Petrona shielded her eyes at the door. Then she ran and opened my door. “Señora? Niñas? What happened?” That was when pain exploded in my arm and my arm pulsed like it was a heart. “Does it hurt, niña?” She took me inside. The living room was bright. Petrona was asking me to move my fingers, but I couldn’t. It almost killed me when I tried and they didn’t even move although I thought it. Everything was strange with the pain of my throbbing arm and I heard the disembodied words of the announcer again, fighting for his life. Petrona lifted my jumper to look at my legs. My thigh was bruised dark green, as if I was rotting from the inside. I could move my toes. Fighting for his life, rotting from the inside. Petrona came back with slices of raw potatoes and placed them flat on the bruise then wrapped my thigh with plastic. Outside Cassandra was telling Mamá I needed to go to the hospital because my arm was not sprained, but broken. Mamá came rushing into the living room and knelt by my side. “It’s not broken!” I yelled over Petrona, who was saying that it was. Mamá gave me aspirin and water and was about to get us into the car again when Petrona snatched Mamá’s keys away.

  We stood in stunned silence.

  Mamá’s keychain charms—an amethyst stone, a golden flower—dangled out of Petrona’s fist. Petrona held Mamá’s eyes. “Señora, forgive me, but you’re not thinking straight.” I closed my mouth. Nobody in the history of ever had dared to do anything like that to Mamá. I turned to Mamá to defend Petrona—to say she was young, she was good at her job, she could swear never to question Mamá again—but as soon as I was facing Mamá, I saw Mamá stood clasping her hands at Petrona like how she clasped her hands in front of the saints inside the churches we occasionally visited; like she was praying, and her eyes were even wet.

  Petrona put the car keys down on the mantel. She announced she was coming with us to the hospital and turned away to call for a taxi. As I watched her dial, I wondered why Petrona was at our house. I looked down and noticed she was wearing Mamá’s house slippers.

  In the emergency room Mamá didn’t leave me for a minute. Petrona was with Cassandra in the waiting room. The doctor said my arm was sprained. He told me to not move as he rolled a great wet bandage on my arm. It felt like my arm was trapped, pulsing inside a cloud. Fighting for his life, rotting from the inside.

  “Are you okay, Chula, mi cielo?” I nodded. After a while, Mamá said, “Galán is dead.” I knew Mamá was right even though we would not know for sure until the next day. Fighting for his life, rotting from the inside. Mamá hugged me close and I thought about how when Galán had waved from the top of the stage, those had been the last moments of his life. He had been waving goodbye.

  9.

  Pañuelitos Blancos

  Gunshots were frightening. But the horrifying thing was that you didn’t know if they were headed in your direction. The not knowing, that was what made them chilling. You heard a shot and then you waited to see where it would strike. I thought about how on the platform Galán first saw a welcoming crowd of people yelling his name, and then the opposite—as he lay dying, people running away.

  I thought every second about telling Mamá of how I had smelled blood, but every second I remained quiet. Mamá said the country was under a State of Emergency. Everyone on the television called Pablo Escobar The Brain. Cassandra said it meant Pablo Escobar had ordered Galán’s killing. I couldn’t understand how someone could wake up and order a killing, so I studied the photograph of Pablo Escobar that they showed on the television: his black and white smile, his eyes a little close together, the collar of his Hawaiian shirt starched and wide-angled. His demeanor led you to believe he was in a photo booth at a party, but he was in fact at a police station holding a plaque of numbers with the label Judicial Department of Medellín Prison. I wondered if Pablo Escobar had shot Galán himself. The news played a tape Pablo Escobar had sent to the radio, except it wasn’t him speaking but one of his men: “The fight is now with blood. Every time one of us is extradited, ten judges die.”

  Cassandra didn’t know what extradition was either. I poked at my deadened arm. The pain was dim, like an echo. I told Cassandra I was confused and she said it was simple: Pablo Escobar was the King of Drugs.

  On the television, the Colombian police, dressed up in blue fatigues, confiscated farms, weapons, airplanes, yachts, ranches, and everything inside Pablo Escobar’s mansion, even though Pablo Escobar wasn’t there.

  Cassandra lay on her back and covered her eyes. “You mean they knew exactly where he lived all along? How can one government be so stupid?”

  Pablo Escobar’s mansion was like an amusement park—there were giraffes, elephants, peacocks, ostriches, antelopes, lions, luxury cars, faucets made of gold. The reporters said it was the biggest narco-raid in history. I shifted in my seat. I knew enough to know that just as when people said los Paras, it was short for los Paramilitares, when people said los Narcos, it was short for los Narcotraficantes, and when people said los Narcos who they were really talking about was Pablo Escobar. Pablo Escobar was like the King Midas of words. Everything he touched, the word was transformed: narco followed by a dash—narco-paramilitary, narco-war, narco-lawyer, narco-congressman, narco-estate, narco-terrorism, narco-money. Petrona turned the television off.

  I went to my room to get the book of maps Papá had given me. I knelt on my bed and opened the book to the map of Colombia. I closed my eyes and concentrated. Wherever I point my finger that’s where Pablo Escobar is hiding. I found out Pablo Escobar was hiding in Pasto, Buenaventura, and Valledupar. But then I kept pointing at cities close to Bogotá: Suba, Chía, Anapoima, Usme, Zipaquirá.

  Papá was yelling at Mamá on the telephone: “I forbid you to go to Galán’s funeral! Alma! Do you hear me? Don’t take the girls out of school!”

  He was very nice to Cassandra and me. He purred against my ear: “How is your little hand, my little doll?” Ev
en though Papá had gone to the local phone company, it was still a bad connection and his voice came forked. One Papá spoke in full sentences, and the other was weak and echoed odd things: hand, doll.

  “It’s okay.”

  Papá laughed. “Uy, what a pretty little soldier.”

  “…pretty,” whispered the second Papá.

  “Papá, did Galán know he was going to die?”

  Papá sucked in air, but the second Papá was quiet. “I don’t know, Chula. I think he knew there was that possibility.” There was radio static on the phone line, and then the second Papá was saying, “Possibility,” and then the first Papá said, “We all have to die someday.”

  I stared at my sling. Papá asked to talk to Mamá again, but he didn’t yell at her like the first time. They must have been talking about me, because Mamá gave short grunts in agreement and looked at me through the corner of her eye. When she hung up Mamá rubbed my back and said she was going to the funeral and taking Cassandra, but not me. Mamá said it was because my arm was sprained and she didn’t want it to get worse, but in our bedroom Cassandra told me it was because I was traumatized. “I am not traumatized, I am not traumatized!” I ran to Mamá. “Mamá, I was there when they shot him! I have to go say goodbye!”

  “Say goodbye here, say goodbye there, it doesn’t matter, Chula.”

  “If it doesn’t matter then why are you going?”

  Mamá clicked her tongue. “Chula.”

  “Why are you going, why are you going, why are you going?”

  * * *

  Cassandra and Mamá snuck out. I only heard the motor of the car starting up and then driving away. I kicked the walls in the closet until Petrona came. She carried me in her arms to the kitchen and pressed ice cubes wrapped in towels on my eyes. I told Petrona it was absolute betrayal to be left behind, and she said yes, it was, and my eyes felt swollen. I felt the hot of tears and the cold of ice mixing and wetting my skin.