More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
The U.S. was the land that saved us; Colombia was the land that saw us emerge.
where did you go?
Ours was a kingdom of women, with Mamá at the head, perpetually trying to find a fourth like us, or a fourth like her, a younger version of Mamá, poor and eager to climb out of poverty, on whom Mamá could right the wrongs she herself had endured.
We called it el Borrachero, the Drunken Tree. Papá called it by its scientific name, Brugmansia arborea alba, but nobody ever knew what he was talking about. It was a tall tree with twisted limbs, big white flowers, and dark brown fruits. All of the tree, even the leaves, was filled with poison. The tree drooped half over our garden, half over the neighborhood sidewalk, releasing a honeyed scent like a seductive, expensive perfume.
not to let the neighbors know we ourselves were afraid of it.
Apparently, the tree had the unique ability of taking people’s free will.
I always imagined the silence in Petrona’s throat like dry fur draping over her vocal cords, and when she cleared her throat, I imagined the fur shaking a little, then settling, smooth like hair on a fruit.
I wanted to yell at the television like Mamá and Papá, but I had to learn how to properly do it. I gathered that being a mouse was better than being a mosquita muerta, and being a snake was better than being a man, because flies pretending to be dead could be crushed, mice were shy, and men were persecuted; but everybody always avoided snakes.
all of them salados, all of them unlucky.
“What color is our blood?” I asked, but nobody answered.
She was not a ghost, not a poet, but was she a saint, or under a spell?
At the Santiagos’ there were all the doors you could imagine, to the bedrooms, closing the bathrooms, but also there were doors with no purpose.
my pride didn’t feed his stomach, that it was my fault his three younger brothers were skin and bones, that I could starve if I wanted, but he was in line to be the man of the house, and the power wasn’t mine anymore.
I stared at her lips, thinking how great it would be if the lips parted and words suddenly came out.
“There’s nothing to lose.” Five syllables.
War always seemed distant from Bogotá, like niebla descending on the hills and forests of the countryside and jungles.
The way it approached us was like fog as well, without us realizing, until it sat embroiling everything around us.
“When it’s time, it’s time. There’s no escaping death.”
the life she knew was a last-minute tsunami that could sweep away fathers, money, food, and children. You were never in control, so it was better to let things run their course.
Mamá put her hand over my ear. “When it’s time, it’s time. There’s no escaping death,” and then she repeated the first thing. She repeated the two things like a poem. Petrona twirled the lace of the bedsheets in her fingers. Then she gripped the sheet in a fist.
Mamá’s hand froze inside my hair. “Why?”
floated down and lay on top of the bed like a wrinkled hill.
I really wanted to know what it was like to be dead but nobody would tell me.
I stared at the shape of my thighs, past them into a yawning void of nothingness, where I was unthinking and breathless, nonexistent and nonfeeling. For a few seconds, I was a big roaring nothing. Then I gasped in air and sprang back into fearful, rushed thoughts about not existing. How horrible it was to die!
fogged
false positive,
I closed my eyes and smelled the scent of Aurora’s hair, and tried to forget how I had lost Papi, then one brother, and another, now another. God help me we’ll all die in this hill, is there anything I can do to prevent it.
flurry of preparations
flag of Cuba, which was worth twenty.
Hello, Father. Hello, Mother. It was a tradition that Papá said dated back to the grandparents of past generations. Husbands and wives had saluted each other just the same way and the salute had traveled down from generation to generation like an heirloom.
pressed them on our cheeks.
When he slept it was as if a small death overcame his body,
hijueputa?
Always when he came home Papá upset our kingdom of women.
sordid
As feministas, Mamá said we had to choose our battles: “With your father, only fight the really important battles,
profession, love, money, and the right to go out in the world unhindered by him.
Cassandra said those were the rules of politics: you pretended to answer questions without actually answering them.
How the eyes dance with real happiness!”
Papá would walk right by Petrona arranging flowers in a vase as if she were in a different dimension.
At home, I was transfixed by Petrona’s quiet elegance.
loud and grating
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 didn’t know why I was the only one really seeing Petrona, but it seemed like a gift.
Fruit of the Drunken Tree
Their real enemy was the rich.
The international working class shall be the human race.”
Things blurred and my knees went weak. Then my pain became small. My life opened up clean and clear before me. I dropped to the ground. It was like falling asleep.
The not knowing, that was what made them chilling.
I felt the hot of tears and the cold of ice mixing and wetting my skin.
