Fruit of the Drunken Tree

Chula awakes in the back room of a liquor store with Petrona. Chula fears and mistrusts Petrona, who “had not been hiding from any danger, but was the danger itself” (220). Chula is dragged into a taxi with Petrona, and she believes the kidnapper has returned to move her, but instead, she is taken home. Mamá is enraged with the girls and Petrona, abusing all three verbally and physically. 

Petrona begs Mamá for protection, saying she saved Chula. Mamá gives Petrona all the rings off her fingers and tells her to flee. Petrona reflects, “I had risked everything for another woman’s daughter, and nobody would do the same for me” (223). She tells Gorrión she cannot go through with assisting in the kidnapping of Chula and Cassandra. She boards a bus and begins to plan a new life and identity as a young boy and a man sit down near her. The boy blows a handful of white dust into her face. Just before she loses consciousness, she realizes the man sitting in front of her is Gorrión. 

Chula and Cassandra debate Petrona’s guilt. Mamá tells the girls she fired Petrona. Chula thinks Petrona should be forgiven because Petrona brought Chula back home, but Mamá scoffs at the idea. It begins to rain heavily for the first time since the drought began. 

Mamá and the girls wait for Papá to return from work. Chula resolves never to tell Mamá about being locked in the trunk of the car, because she wants Petrona to be forgiven. They hear news that Pablo Escobar has escaped. Papá does not return home all night. Mamá grows ever more anxious. Chula watches news coverage showing Escobar’s abandoned hideouts. The next night, Chula finds Mamá in a fit. The guerrillas have called her to say that they have kidnapped Papá; they are demanding the family’s assets as ransom. Chula overhears Mamá crafting a plan for them to escape to the United States. Mamá orders the girls to help her clean out Petrona’s old room. Under Petrona’s old mattress, they find a rifle.

Mamá unexpectedly wakes the girls early one morning and they drive to the Hills: Mamá wants to track down Petrona and Gorrión. They climb the hill, which is slick with mud. The rain has obliterated most of the shacks. They reach the remains of the Sanchez’s hut, and Chula crawls inside to look around. They encounter Doña Lucía, who instantly flies into a rage, blaming Mamá for Petrona’s disappearance. When she calms down, she asks Mamá for help finding Petrona. She says the police don’t listen to her, but they will listen to Mamá, since she is from the city. As they descend the hill, Chula feels they are abandoning Petrona.

At the bottom of the hill, they meet Julián, who says he knows what happened to Petrona. After Mamá pays him, he tells them a group of men brought Petrona back with Gorrión, and she appeared drugged with burundanga. They put her in a car with five other drugged women, and Julián expects they killed her. He tells Mamá that Gorrión’s real name is Cipriano. When Mamá and the girls return home, Mamá announces that they are selling the house and moving away. Chula fears Papá will never find them.