The Weight of All Things

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2000

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Chapter 3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-9

Chapters 10-12

Chapters 13-15

Chapters 16-18

Chapters 19-21

Chapters 22-24

Chapters 25-27

Chapters 28-30

Chapters 31-33

Chapter 34-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Chapters 25-27

Chapter 25 Summary

Nicolás has a dream in which La Virgen is in the pantry showing him the way out. She marks the doorway in the pantry with “Enter Here.” Nicolás awakes and realizes he must find what is on the other side of that door. There is no time during the day to explore. There are guards everywhere and he is kept occupied at all times. Nicolás is tasked with hosing off the sidewalks. From this job he can see Vidal, a senior official, standing post at the corner nearest the small market. Nicolás lays down the hose and offers to help a soldier move barrels to make a roadblock. After they place one empty oil drum the soldier moves on to the next. Nicolás realizes that for one moment, there are no eyes on him. He has an opportunity to run away. He is just about to do so when he realizes he is barefoot and decides he cannot escape without his boots.

At lunch Nicolás thinks of the lock of hair he cut from Gerardo, and how he would like to retrieve it from his cave and present it to La Niña Tencha. He also thinks about how silly it was that he did not run away. He knows he did not need boots to escape. He is distracted by these thoughts as Ofelia gives him instructions to make a wooden cross for the Day of the Cross. She tells him that they will go to the market later to buy fruits to decorate the cross.

Later he is nailing planks of wood together near Chabela, the laundress. He notes that she is as quiet as he, and he finds her comforting. He shows her his work and she tells him that it is better than the cross they made last year. As she scrubs the soldiers’ uniforms with soap she tells Nicolás that she needs to wash his clothes. She offers him some of her ten-year-old son’s clothing to wear while she’s doing the wash. He asks if she lives with her son and she is shocked at the question. She quickly moves toward him and gives him a loving hug. She tells him he is just like a “little lost lamb” (162). Nicolás carries the cross he has built on his back, Christlike, to the mango tree. Vidal asks what he is doing, and Nicolás explains it is for the Day of the Cross. Vidal remembers how much his own mother loved this holiday. After chatting about where they come from, Vidal asks Nicolás to go the market to buy cigarettes for him. He tells him to get himself a Coca-Cola too. Nicolás asks La Niña Rocio for the cigarettes. She tells him she needs his help to reach them from the top of a shelf. While retrieving the box he is amazed to find a doorway to match the one in the pantry.

Chapter 26 Summary

Nicolás assumes that the pantry and the little store are connected by a shared wall. He imagines the doorway in the store with an “Exit Here” sign. He tests the plastered wall in the pantry and finds it is soft and would be easy to kick through. He decides to make an opening low and small. He will use a crowbar that he finds in the patio shed. He plans to make his escape while the soldiers sleep and La Niña Rocio will be at home.

As Nicolás cleans the dining room, Sergeant Molina tells him he is going to target practice and wants Nicolás to carry the ammunition. Molina takes Nicolás into the armory, which is full of every kind of gun, grenade, and rifle. He is instructed to fill a backpack with ammunition. The backpack is the heaviest thing he has carried. Vidal sees Nicolás and calls him a pack mule in a friendly way. Nicolás has taken a liking to Vidal, especially after Vidal recently played guitar and sang after dinner. Vidal smiles and says that at least the heavy backpack will be empty on the return. Nicolás struggles to keep up as he marches to the rifle range with the men under the weight of the backpack.

They pass Alvarado’s house, the pharmacy with the image of the flock of sheep, and the post office where his mother’s letter began “its magical journey to her heart” (168). He recalls his former life upon seeing these landmarks and feels even more determined to escape the Army. At the shooting range, Nicolás carefully studies the way the soldiers fire their weapons and reload them. They are methodical and careful, wasting none of the expensive ammunition. By the end, Nicolás feels sure that he could do what he saw if he needed to. That night, lying under the mango tree with the dogs, he thinks about La Virgen and his mother. He whispers her name and finally accepts the truth that she is dead. He is overwhelmed with grief and collapses on the ground near the captain’s Jeep in silent tears.

Chapter 27 Summary

Tata sits with his back against the church wall in El Retorno. After Nicolás was taken by the Army, Tata emerged from the cave to find the rancho burned to ashes and his grandson gone. Tata had travelled to the capital looking for Nicolás. While there he found out that his daughter, Nicolás’s mother, was dead. He went to Basilio Fermin, who called many Army garrisons, but none of them admitted to having seen Nicolás. So, Tata returned home. He discovered the dead bodies of Dolores’s unit and was relieved that Nicolás was not one of the bodies, but he had no idea where Nicolás could be. Tata decided to stay at the church just as he and Nicolás had agreed to do should they get separated. Ursula, the tortilla maker, has also returned to the village. She looks after Tata. He tries to repay her kindness with fresh fish. Ursula sits with Tata as he keeps watch over the road hoping to see Nicolás every day. He recalls his wife who died when their daughter was eight and he remembers the day his daughter came home to tell him she was pregnant. He says that his grandson is his reason for living.

Chapters 25-27 Analysis

Though Nicolás has an opportunity to escape while washing the sidewalks one day, he chooses not to take it because he is not wearing his boots. He berates himself for being too afraid to take the chance, but the reader can understand that Nicolás is starting to develop a sense of intuition. He attributes his own good decisions to La Virgen, but in this case, it was smarter to listen to his fear than act brave as a lion. He could not outrun the Army, and had he tried to escape that day he certainly would have been shot. Working carefully at digging through the plaster each night is a far braver and calculated escape plan. Although he appears to be “a little lost lamb” (162) to Chabela, he is more like a cunning lion lying in the grass waiting to make its move. It is his sweet lamblike innocence that allows him access to the market where he discovers the other side of the doorway in the pantry and finalizes his escape route, but his inner lion is the one that claws his way through.

Yet, through his determination to escape and his exposure to the strength of the Army, Nicolás is determined to stay connected with his authentic nonviolent self. This is an important distinction, as many of the soldiers depicted in the novel are proud of their occupations and weapons, and they have no interest in returning to their old lives. Nicolás is reminded of the lamb’s goodness and his old, simple life by the image on the pharmacy of Christ and his flock of sheep: “All these reference points gave Nicolás courage, for all had been proof that once he had been another boy, that once he had lived another life. A life he was determined to reclaim” (168).