Summary

Chapter 12, “Devilwind,” Abuela takes Chula’s cousins, Tica and Memo, with her on a walk through the forest. Meanwhile, Mama takes Chula down into Abuela’s garden and bathes her in a cistern. When Chula surfaces from a shallow underwater swim to play with the fish in the cistern, she sees that her mother is running into the forest. In narration that shifts back and forth through time, Chula describes how Abuela protected Tica and Memo from a helicopter assault on a gang of guerilla soldiers, how they felt blown about by “the devilwind of the helicopters” (106), and how they managed to get home safely, only scratched by thorns on the bush behind which they were hiding. Chula also describes how she was told by her father that the elderly had no capacity to cry anymore; how Abuela never cried after her...