In the Time of Butterflies

by Julia Alvarez

  And then he told what I was after.

  I sat, my hands clutched on my lap. I don’t know if I was praying as much as listening intently—trying to judge the success of my petition from every pause and inflection in Pena’s voice. Maybe because I was watching him so closely a funny thing started to happen. The devil I was so used to seeing disappeared, and for a moment, like his tilting prism, I saw an overgrown fat boy, ashamed of himself for kicking the cat and pulling the wings off butterflies.

  I must have looked surprised because as soon as he hung up, Pena leaned towards me. “Something wrong?”

  “No, no,” I said quickly, bowing my head. I did not want to be pushy and ask him directly what he had found out. “Captain,” I pleaded, “can you offer me any hope?”

  “It’s in the works,” he said, standing up to dismiss me. “I’ll let you know what I find out.”

  “¡Gracias, ay, muchas gracias!” I kept saying, and I wasn’t just thanking Peña.

  The captain held on to my hand too long, but this time I didn’t pull away. I was no longer his victim, I could see that. I might have lost everything, but my spirit burned bright. Now that I had shined it on him, this poor blind moth couldn’t resist my light.

  It was time to tell him what I’d be doing for him. “I’ll pray for you, Captain.”

  He laughed uneasily. “What for?”

  “Because it’s the only thing I have left to repay you with,” I said, holding his gaze. I wanted him to understand that I knew he had taken our land.

  We waited, and weeks went by. A second, and then a third, pastoral was read from the pulpits. The regime responded with a full-force war against the church. A campaign began in the papers to cancel the concordat with the Vatican. The Catholic church should no longer have a special status in our country. The priests were only stirring up trouble. Their allegations against the government were lies. After all, our dictator was running a free country. Maybe to prove himself right, Trujillo was granting more and more pardons and visiting passes.

  Every day or so, I stopped at the portrait with a fresh flower and a little talk. I tried to pretend he was my boy, too, a troubled one in need of guidance. “You know as well as I do that casting out the church won’t do you a bit of good,” I advised him. “Besides, think of your future. You’re no spring chicken at sixty-nine, and very soon, you’re going to be where you don’t make the rules.”

  And then more personally, I reminded him of the pardon I’d asked for.

  But nothing came through for us. Either Peña had forgotten or—God forbid!—something terrible had happened to Nelson. I started having bad days again and long nights. Only the thought of Easter just around the comer kept Patria Mercedes inching along. The blossoms on the flame trees were about to burst open.

  And on the third day He rose again ...

  The little notes kept streaming in. From the few hints Mate could drop into them, I pieced together what the girls were going through in prison.

  They asked for food that would keep—they were hungry. Bouillon cubes and some salt—the food they got had no flavor. Aspirin—they had fevers. Ephedrine—the asthma was acting up. Ceregen—they were weak. Soap—they were able to wash themselves. A dozen small crucifixes? That I couldn’t make out. One or two, yes, but a dozen?! I believed they were feeling more peace of mind when they asked for books. Martí for Minerva (the poems, not the essay book) and for Mate, a blank book and a pen. Sewing materials for both, plus the children’s recent measurements. Ay, pobrecitas, they were missing their babies.

  I spent hours with Don Bernardo and Dona Belén next door, wishing my mind could fade like hers into the past. I would have gone all the way back, all the way back to the beginning of—I wasn’t sure of what.

  Finally, when I’d almost given up hope, Peña arrived at the house in his big showy white Mercedes, wearing an embroidered guayabera instead of his uniform. Oh dear, a personal visit.

  “Capitán Peña,” I welcomed him. “Please come inside where it’s cool.” I made a point of stopping at the entryway so he could see the fresh flowers under the portrait. “Shall I make you a rum coke?” I was gushing shamelessly all over him.

  “Don’t bother yourself, Doña Patria, don’t bother yourself.” He indicated the chairs on the porch. “It’s nice and cool out there.” He looked at the road as a car slowed, the driver taking in who had dropped in on the Mirabal family.

  Right then and there, I realized this visit was as much for him as for me. I’d heard that he was having trouble at our place—I will never call that farm anything else. All the campesinos had run off, and there wasn’t a neighbor willing to lend a hand. (What could he expect? That whole area was full of González!) But being seen conversing with Doña Patria sent out the message—I didn’t hold him responsible for my loss. All he had done was buy a cheap farm from the government.

  Mamá did, however, hold him responsible. She locked herself in her bedroom with her grandbabies and refused to come out. She would never visit with the monster who had torn her girls from her side. She didn’t care that he was trying to help us now. The truth was the devil was the devil even in a halo. But I knew it was more complicated than that. He was both, angel and devil, like the rest of us.

  “I have good news for you,” Peña began. He folded his hands on his lap, waiting for me to gush a little more over him.

  “What is it, Captain?” I leaned forward, playing my pleading part.

  “I have the visiting passes,” he said. My heart sunk a little, I had wanted the pardon most of all. But I thanked him warmly as he counted out each one. “Three passes,” he concluded when he was done.

  Three? “But we have six prisoners, Captain,” I tried to keep my voice steady. “Shouldn’t it be six passes?”

  “It should be six, shouldn’t it?” He gave me little righteous nods. “But Manolo’s in solitary, and Leandro’s still deciding on a job for El Jefe. So! They’re both—shall we say—unavailable.”

  A job for El Jefe? “And my Nelson?” I said right out.

  “I talked with headquarters,” Pena spoke slowly, delaying the news to increase my anticipation. But I stayed unruffled, praying my Glory Be‘s, one right after the other. “Seeing as your boy is so young, and El Jefe has been pardoning most minors...” He swilled his drink around so the ice tinkled against the glass. “We think we can get him in with the next round.”

  My first born, my little ram. The tears began to flow.

  “Now, now, Doña Patria, don’t get like that.” But I could tell from Peña’s tone that he loved seeing women cry.

  When I had controlled myself, I asked, “And the girls, Captain?”

  “The women were all offered pardons as well.”

  I was at the edge of my chair. “So the girls are coming home, too?”

  “No, no, no,” he said, wagging his finger at me. “They seem to like it in prison. They have refused.” He raised his eyebrows as if to say, what can I do about such foolishness? Then he returned us to the subject of his little coup, expecting more of my gratitude. “So, how shall we celebrate when the boy comes home?”

  “We’ll have you over for a sancocho,” I said before he could suggest something rude.

  As soon as he was gone, I rushed to Mamá’s bedroom and delivered my good news.

  Mama went down on her knees and threw her hands up in the air. “The truth is the Lord has not forgotten us!”

  “Nelson is coming home?” Noris rushed forward. Since his imprisonment, Noris had moped horribly, as if Nelson were a lost love instead of “the monster” who had tortured her all her childhood.

  The younger children began to chant, “Nelson home! Nelson home!”

  Mama looked up at me, ignoring the racket. “And the girls?”

  “We have passes to see them,” I said, my voice dropping.

  Mamá stood up, stopping the clamor short. “And what does the devil want in return?”

  “A sancocho when Nelson comes home.”
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  “Over my dead body that man is going to eat a sancocho in my house.”

  I put my hand on my lips, reminding Mamá that she had to watch what she said.

  “I mean it, over my dead body!” Mamá hissed. “And that’s the truth!”

  By the time she said it the third time, she and I both knew she was resigned to feeding Judas at her table. But there would be more than one stray hair in that sancocho, as the campesinos liked to say. No doubt Fela would sprinkle in her powders and Tono would say an Our Father backwards over the pot, and even I would add some holy water I’d bottled from Jacqueline’s baptism to give to her mother.

  That night as we walked in the garden, I admitted to Mamá that I had made an indiscreet promise. She looked at me, shocked. “Is that why you snuck out of the house a few weeks ago?”

  “No, no, no. Nothing like that. I offered Our Lord to take me instead of my Nelson.”

  Mama sighed. “Ay, m‘ija, don’t even say so. I have enough crosses.” Then she admitted, “I offered Him to take me instead of any of you. And since I’m the mother, He’s got to listen to me first.”

  We laughed. “The truth is,” Mama continued, “I have everything in hock to Him. It’ll take me another lifetime to fulfill all the promesas I’ve made once everybody comes home.

  “As for the Pena promesa,” she added, “I have a plan.” There was that little edge of revenge in her voice. “We’ll invite all the neighbors.”

  I didn’t have to remind her that we weren’t living among our kin anymore. Most of these new neighbors wouldn’t come, afraid of being seen socializing with the blackmarked Mirabals. That was part of Mama’s plan. “Peña will show up, thinking the sancocho is meant just for him.”

  I started laughing before she was through. I could see which way her revenge was going.

  “All those neighbors will look out their windows and kick themselves when they realize they slighted the head of the northern SIM!”

  “Ay, Mamá,” I laughed. “You are becoming la jefa of revenge!”

  “Lord forgive me,” she said, smiling sweetly. There wasn’t a bit of sorry in her voice.

  “That makes two of us,” I said, hooking my arm with hers.

  “Good night,” I called out to the cigarette tips glowing like fireflies in the dark.

  Monday, Pena telephoned. The audience with El Jefe was set in the National Palace for the next day. We were to bring a sponsor. Someone willing to give the young offender work and be responsible for him. Someone who had not been in trouble with the government.

  “Thank you, thank you,” I kept saying.

  “So when is my sancocho?” Pena concluded.

  “Come on, Mamá,” I said when I got off the line and had given her our good news. “The man isn’t all that bad.”

  “Humpf!” Mama snorted. “The man is smart is what he is. Helping with Nelson’s release will do what twenty sancochos couldn’t do. Soon the González clan will have him baptizing their babies!”

  I knew she was right, but I wished she hadn’t said so. I don’t know, I wanted to start believing in my fellow Dominicans again. Once the goat was a bad memory in our past, that would be the real revolution we would have to fight: forgiving each other for what we had all let come to pass.

  We made the trip to the capital in two cars. Jaimito and I rode down in the pickup. He had agreed to sponsor his nephew, giving him his own parcel to farm. I always said our cousin had a good heart.

  Mama, Tio Chiche and his son, Blanco, a young colonel in the army, followed in Don Bernardo’s car. We wanted a show of strength—our most respectable relations. Dedé was staying behind to take care of the children. It was my first excursion out of the Salcedo province in three months. My mood was almost festive!

  At the last minute, Noris stole into the pickup and wouldn’t come out. “I want to go get my brother,” she said, her voice breaking. I couldn’t bring myself to order her out.

  Somehow, in our excitement, our two cars lost each other on the road. Later we found out that Don Bemardo’s old Plymouth had a flat near the Constanza turnoff, and when Blanco went to change it, there was no jack or spare in the trunk. Instead, Mamá described a whole library that Don Bernardo confessed he had hidden there. In her forgetful rages, Dona Belen had taken it into her head to rip up her husband’s books, convinced there were love letters hidden in those pages.

  Because we had backtracked, looking for them, we got to the National Palace with only minutes to spare. Up the front steps we raced—there must have been a hundred of them. In Dedé’s tight little heels, I suffered my Calvary, which I offered up to my Nelson’s freedom. At the entrance, there was a checkpoint, then two more friskings inside. Those were my poor Noris’s Calvary. You know how girls are at that age about any attention paid their bodies, and this was out and out probing of the rudest kind. Finally, we were escorted down the hall by a nervous little functionary, who kept checking his watch and motioning for us to hurry along.

  With all the rushing around, I hadn’t stopped to think. But now I began worrying that our prize would be snatched away at the last minute. El Jefe was going to punish us Mirabals. Just like with Minerva’s degree, he would wait till I had my hands on my Nelson and then say, “Your family is too good to accept pardons, it seems. I’m so sorry. We’ll have to keep the boy.”

  I could not let myself be overcome by fears. I hung on to the sound of my girl’s new heels clicking away beside me. My little rosebud, my pigs-eye, my pretty one. Suddenly, my heart just about stopped. ¡Ay, Dios mío! What could I be thinking, bringing her along! Everybody knew that with each passing year the old goat liked them younger and younger. I had offered myself as a sacrificial lamb for Nelson. Certainly not my darling.

  I squeezed my Noris’s hand. “You stay by me every second, you hear! Don’t drink anything you’re offered, and it’s no to any invitation to any party.”

  “Mamá, what are you talking about?” Her bottom lip was quivering.

  “Nothing, my treasure. Nothing. Just stay close.”

  It was like asking the pearl to stay inside its mother oyster. All the way down that interminable hall, Noris held tight to my hand.

  I needed her touch as much as she needed mine. The past was rushing down that long corridor towards me, a flood of memories, sweeping me back as I struggled to keep up with the little official. We were on our way to the fateful Discovery Day dance, Minerva and Dedé, Pedrito, Papa and Jaimito and I, and nothing bad had happened yet. I was climbing up to the shrine of the Virgencita in Higuey to hear her voice for the first time. I was a bride, promenading down the center aisle of San Juan Evangelista twenty years back to marry the man with whom I would have our dear children, dearer than my life.

  The room was a parlor with velvet chairs no one would dream of sitting on even if invited, which we weren’t. Doors led in from three sides, and posted at each one was a fine-featured guard from El Jefe’s elite all-white corps. A few other families stood by, in clumps, looking solemn, the women in black, the men in suits or formal guayaberas. My yellow dress stood out like a shout I tried to quiet by draping my black mantilla over my shoulders. Still, I was glad I had worn it. I was going to greet my boy dressed in the sunshine he hadn’t seen in a month.

  A crowd of journalists was let in one of the doors. A tall American draped with cameras approached and asked us in his accented Spanish what our feelings were today. We looked to the little man, who nodded his permission. The audience was as much for the press as for us. We were part of a stage show.

  El Jefe entered in a wash of camera flashes. I don’t know what I thought I’d see—I guess after three months of addressing him, I was sure I’d feel a certain kinship with the stocky, overdressed man before me. But it was just the opposite. The more I tried to concentrate on the good side of him, the more I saw a vain, greedy, unredeemed creature. Maybe the evil one had become flesh like Jesus! Goosebumps jumped all up and down my bare arms.

  El Jefe sat down in an orn
ate chair on a raised platform and spoke directly to the families of the prisoners to be released. We had better do a better job of controlling our young people. Next time, we shouldn’t expect such mercy. As a group, we thanked him in chorus. Then we were to name ourselves for him, one by one, and thank him again with little personalized comments. I couldn’t think of anything to add to my thank-you, but I was hoping that Jaimito would come up with something.

  When our turn came, El Jefe nodded for me to speak first. I had a momentary cowardly thought of not giving him my complete name.

  “Patria Mercedes Mirabal de González, to serve you.”

  His bored, half-lidded eyes showed a spark of interest. “So you are one of the Mirabal sisters, eh?”

  “Yes, Jefe. I’m the oldest.” Then, to emphasize what I was here for, I added, “Mother of Nelson González. And we’re very grateful to you.”

  “And who is that little flower beside you?” El Jefe smiled down at Noris.

  The journalists noted the special attention we were receiving and came forward with their cameras.

  Once everyone’s particular thanks had been given, El Jefe turned and spoke to an aide beside him. A hush went through the room like a crack through a china cup. Then talk resumed. El Jefe moved closer to Noris to ask what flavor ice cream she liked. I kept her hand tight in mine while I scanned every door. This might be some sort of roulette game in which I had to guess correctly which one Nelson would come through in order to win his freedom. The American journalist threw out questions to El Jefe about his policies regarding political prisoners and the recent OAS charges of human rights abuses. El Jefe waved them away. He had managed to get out of Noris that she liked chocolate and strawberry if it wasn’t too strawberryish.