In the Time of Butterflies

by Julia Alvarez

  A door swung open. A cortege of guards in dress whites came through, followed by a handful of sorry-looking boys, their skulls visible under their shaven heads, their eyes big and scared, their faces swollen with bruises. When I saw Nelson, I cried out and dropped to my knees.

  Lord, I remember praying, thank you for giving me my son again.

  I didn’t need to remind Him what I had offered in return. Still, I didn’t expect Him to come right out and claim it. Later Jaimito said it was just Trujillo calling me to receive my prisoner. But I know a godly voice when I hear one. I heard Him all right, and He called my name.

  Next day, we were famous. On the front page of El Caribe, the two photographs were side by side: Noris giving her hand to a smiling Jefe (Young Offender Softens El Jefe’s Heart); and me, kneeling, my hands clutched in prayer (Grateful Madre Thanks Her Benefactor).

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  María Teresa

  March to August 1960

  Wednesday, March 16 (55 days)

  I just got the notebook. Santicló has had to be very careful this time around, smuggling in just a couple of things every few days.

  Security measures are stepped up after the second pastoral, he says. You’re safer in here than out there, bombs and what not.

  He tries to say helpful things.

  But can he really believe we’re safer in here? Maybe he is, being a guard and all. But we politicals can be snuffed out just like that. A little visit to La 40, that’s all it takes. Look at Florentino and Papilín—I better stop. I know how I get.

  Thursday, March 17 (56 days)

  The fear is the worse part. Every time I hear footsteps coming down the hall, or the clink of the key turning in the lock, I’m tempted to curl up in the comer like a hurt animal, whimpering, wanting to be safe. But I know if I do that, I’ll be giving in to a low part of myself, and I’ll feel even less human. And that is what they want to do, yes, that is what they want to do.

  Friday, March 18 (57 days)

  It feels good to write things down. Like there will be a record.

  Before this, I scraped on the wall with our contraband nail. A mark for each day, a line through a week. It was the only record I could keep, besides the one in my head where I would remember things, store them.

  The day we were brought here, for instance.

  They marched us down the corridor past some of the men’s cells. We looked a sight, dirty, uncombed, bruised from sleeping on the hard floor. The men started calling out their code names so we’d know who was still alive. (We kept our eyes averted, for they were all naked.) I listened hard but I didn’t hear, “¡Palomino vive!” I’m trying not to worry about it as we didn’t hear a lot of names because the guards commenced beating on the bars with their nightsticks, drowning out the men’s cries. Then Minerva began singing the national anthem, and everyone joined in, men and women. That time Minerva got solitary for a week.

  The rest of us “women politicals” were locked up in a cell no bigger than Mamá’s living and dining room combined. But the real shock was the sixteen other cellmates we found here. “Nonpoliticals,” all right. Prostitutes, thieves, murderers—and that’s just the ones who have confided in us.

  Saturday, March 19 (58 days)

  Three bolted steel walls, steel bars for a fourth wall, a steel ceiling, a cement floor. Twenty-four metal shelves (“bunks”), a set of twelve on each side, a bucket, a tiny washbasin under a small high window. Welcome home.

  We’re on the third floor (we believe) at the end of a long corridor. Cell # 61 facing south towards the road. El Rayo and some of the boys are in Cell # 60 (next to the guardia station), and # 62 on our other side is for nonpoliticals. Those guys love to talk dirty through the walls. The other girls don’t mind, they say, so most of them have taken bunks on that side.

  Twenty-four of us eat, sleep, write, go to school, and use the bucket—everything—in a room 25 by 20 of my size 6 feet. I’ve walked it back and forth many times, believe me. The rod in the middle helps, on account of we hang our belongings and dry towels there, and it kind of divides the room in two. Still, you lose your shame quickly in this horrid place.

  All us politicals have our bunks on the east side, and so we’ve asked for the southeast comer to be “ours.” Minerva says that except for closed meetings, anyone can join our classes and discussions, and many have. Magdalena, Kiki, America, and Milady have become regulars. Dinorah sometimes comes, but it’s usually to criticize.

  Oh yes, I forgot. Our four-footed Miguelito. He shows up for any occasion that involves crumbs.

  Sunday, March 20 (59 days)

  Today I took my turn at our little window, and everything I saw was blurry through my tears. I had such a yearning to be out there.

  Cars were speeding east to the capital, north towards home; there was a donkey loaded down with saddlebags full of plantains and a boy with a switch making him move along; lots and lots of police wagons. Every little thing I was eating up with my eyes so I lost track of time. Suddenly, there was a yank at my prison gown. It was Dinorah, who keeps grumbling about us “rich women” who think we are better than riffraff.

  “That’s enough,” she snapped. “We all want to have a turn.”

  Then the touchingest thing happened. Magdalena must have seen I’d been crying because she said, “Let her have my turn.”

  “And mine,” Milady added.

  Kiki offered her ten minutes, too, and soon I had a whole other half hour to stand on the bucket if I wanted to.

  Of course, I immediately stepped down, because I didn’t want to deny anyone their ten minutes of feasting on the world. But it raised my spirits so much, the generosity of these girls I once thought were below me.

  Monday, March 21 (60 days)

  I keep mentioning the girls.

  I have to admit the more time I spend with them, the less I care what they’ve done or where they come from. What matters is the quality of a person. What someone is inside themselves.

  My favorite is Magdalena. I call her our little birdseed bell. Everybody comes peck-peck-pecking what they want off her, and she gladly gives it. Her ration of sugar, her time at the sink, her bobby pins.

  I don’t know what she’s in for, since there’s a sort of unwritten courtesy here that you’re not supposed to ask anyone—though a lot of the girls blurt out their stories. Magdalena doesn’t say much about herself, but she has a little girl, too, and so we are always talking about our daughters. We don’t have any pictures, but we have thoroughly described our darlings to each other. Her Amantina sounds like a doll girl. She’s seven years old with hazel eyes (like my Jacqui) and light brown curls that used to be blond! Strange... since Magdalena herself is pretty dark with quite a kink in her hair. There’s a story there, but I didn’t dare come right out and ask who the father was.

  Tuesday, March 22 (61 days)

  I broke down last night. I feel so ashamed.

  It happened right before lights out. I was lying on my bunk when the call went round, Viva Trujillo! Maybe it was that call or maybe it was all finally getting to me, but suddenly the walls were closing in, and I got this panicked feeling that I would never ever get out of here. I started to shake and moan, and call out to Mamá to take me home.

  Thank God, Minerva saw in time what was going on. She crawled in my bunk and held me, talking soft and remindful to me of all the things I had to live and be patient for. I settled down, thank God.

  It happens here all the time. Every day and night there’s at least one breakdown—someone loses control and starts to scream or sob or moan. Minerva says it’s better letting yourself go—not that she ever does. The alternative is freezing yourself up, never showing what you’re feeling, never letting on what you’re thinking. (Like Dinorah. Jailface, the girls call her.) Then one day, you’re out of here, free, only to discover you’ve locked yourself up and thrown away the key somewhere too deep inside your heart to fish it out.

  Wednesday, March 23 (62 days)
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  I’m learning a whole new language here, just like being in our movement. We’ve got code names for all the guards, usually some feature of their body or personality that lets you know instantly what to expect from them. Bloody Juan, Little Razor, Good Hair. I never could figure out Tiny, though. The man is as big as a piece of furniture you have to move in a truck. Tiny what? I asked Magdalena. She explained that Tiny is the one with the fresh fingers, but according to those who have reason to know, he has very little to brag about.

  Every day we get the “shopping list” from the knockings on the wall. Today bananas are 5 cents each (tiny brown ones); a piece of ice, 15 cents; one cigarette, 3 cents; and a bottle of milk that is really half water, 15 cents. Everything is for sale here, everything but your freedom.

  The code name for these “privileges” is turtle, and when you want to purchase a privilege, you tell the guardía in charge that you’d like to throw some water on the turtle.

  Today, I threw a whole bucket on the creature and bought rounds of cassava for everyone in our cell with the money Santicló brought us from Mama. Ten cents a stale round, and I couldn’t even keep mine down.

  Thursday, March 24 (63 days)

  Periodically, we are taken downstairs to an officers’ lounge and questioned. I’ve only been twice. Both times I was scared so witless that the guards had to carry me along by the arms. Then, of course, I’d get one of my asthma attacks and could barely breathe to talk.

  Both times, I was asked gruff questions about the movement and who my contacts were and where we’d gotten our supplies. I always said, I have already said all I know, and then they’d threaten me with things they would do to me, to Leandro, to my family. The second time, they didn’t even threaten that much except to say that it was too bad a pretty lady would have to grow old in prison. Miss out on ... (A bunch of lewd comments I won’t bother to repeat here.)

  The ones they take out a lot are Sina and Minerva. It isn’t hard to figure out why. Those two always stand up to these guys. Once, Minerva came back from one of the interrogation sessions laughing. Trujillo’s son Ramfis had come special to question her because Trujillo had said that Minerva Mirabal was the brain behind the whole movement.

  I’m very flattered, Minerva said she said. But my brain isn’t big enough to run such a huge operation.

  That worried them.

  Yesterday, something that could have been awful happened to Sina. They took her into a room with some naked men prisoners. The guards stripped off her clothes in front of the prisoners. Then they taunted Manolo, setting him up on a bucket and saying, Come now, leader, deliver one of your revolutionary messages.

  What did he do? Minerva wanted to know, her voice all proud and indignant.

  He stood up as straight as he could and said, Comrades, we have suffered a setback but we have not been beaten.

  Liberty or Death!

  That was the only time I saw Minerva cry in prison. When Sina told that story.

  Friday, March 25 (64 days)

  Bloody Juan beats on the bars with an iron bar at five, iViva Trujillo! and we are rudely woken up. No chance of mistaking—even for a minute—where I am. I hide my face in my hands and cry. This is how every day starts out.

  Lord forbid Minerva should see me, she’d give me one of her talks about morale.

  It’s my turn to empty the bucket, but Magdalena offers to do it. Everybody’s been so kind about relieving me because of the way my stomach’s been.

  Right before chao comes, Minerva leads us in singing the national anthem. We know through knocking with our neighbor cell that our “serenades” really help raise the men’s spirits. The guards don’t even try to stop us anymore. What harm are we doing? Minerva asks. In fact, we’re being patriotic, saying good morning to our country.

  Today we sing, Adiós con el corazón, since this is Miriam’s and Dulce’s last day. Most of us are crying.

  I end up vomiting my breakfast chao. Anything can set me off these days. Not that my stomach needs an excuse for rejecting that watery paste. (What are those little gelatin things I sometimes bite down on?)

  Saturday, March 26 (65 days)

  We just had our “little school,” which Minerva insists on every day, except Sundays. I guess Fidel did this when he was in prison in the Isle of Pines, and so we have to do it, too. Minerva started us off by reciting some Marti and then we all talked about what we thought the words meant. I was daydreaming about my Jacqui—wondering if she was walking yet, if she was still getting the rash between her little fingers—when Minerva asked what I thought. I said I had to agree with what everyone was saying. She just shook her head.

  Then, we politicals gathered in our comer and rehearsed the three cardinal rules: Never believe them.

  Never fear them.

  Never ask them anything.

  Even Santicló? I asked. He is so good to me, to all of us really.

  Especially Santicló, Sina said. I don’t know who is tougher, Minerva or her.

  Both of them have warned me about getting too fond of the enemy

  Sunday, March 27 (66 days)

  Yesterday night, Santicló brought us the last of the contents of Mama’s package, including some Vigorex. Maybe now this stomach of mine will settle down. The smelling salts will also help. Mama and Patria outdid themselves. We have everything we need and then some luxuries. That is, if Minerva doesn’t give it all away.

  She says we don’t want to create a class system in our cell, the haves and have nots. (We don’t? What about when Tiny gave Dinorah a dulce de leche as payment for her favors, and she didn’t offer anyone a crumb, even Miguelito?)

  Minerva gives me her speech about how Dinorah’s a victim of our corrupt system, which we are helping to bring down by giving her some of our milk fudge.

  So everyone’s had a Bengay rub and a chunk of fudge in the name of the Revolution. At least I get this notebook to myself.

  Or so I think, till Minerva comes around asking if I couldn’t spare a couple of pages for America’s statement for her hearing tomorrow.

  And can we borrow the pen? Minerva adds.

  Don’t I have any rights? But instead of fighting for them, I just burst out crying.

  [pages torn out]

  Monday, March 28 (67 days)

  I left my chao untouched. Just a whiff of that steamy paste, and I didn’t even want to take a chance. I’m lying on my bunk now, listening to the Little School discussing how a woman revolutionary should handle a low remark by a comrade. Minerva excused me from class. I feel like my insides are trying to get out.

  I’ve gotten so thin, I’ve had to take in the waistbands of all my panties and stuff the cups of my brassiere with handkerchiefs. We were fooling the other day about whose were bigger. Kiki made a low remark about how the men are probably doing the same thing with their you-know-whats. First month I was here, I was shocked by such dirty talk. Now I laugh right along with everybody.

  Tuesday late night, March 29 (68 days)

  I can’t even fall asleep tonight remembering Violeta’s prayer at the close of our group rosary: May I never experience all that it is possible to get used to.

  How it has spooked me to hear that.

  Wednesday, March 30 (69 days)

  I am trying to keep a schedule to ward off the panic that sometimes comes over me. Sina brought it up during Little School. She had read a book written by a political prisoner in Russia who was locked away for life, and the only way he kept himself from going insane was to follow a schedule of exercises in his head. You have to train your mind and spirit. Like putting the baby on a feeding schedule.

  I think it’s a good idea. Here’s my schedule.

  —The Little School every morning—except Sundays.

  —Writing in my book during guard change as I can get away with twenty minutes at a time. Also after lights-out if there is a bright enough moon.

  —Going to the “movies” in my head, imagining what is happening at home right this mom
ent.

  —Doing some handiwork. The guards are always bringing us the prison mending.

  —Helping clean up the cell—we’ve got a rotating list of duties Sina wrote up.

  —I also try to do one good thing for a cellmate every day, from giving Delia massages for her bad back to teaching Balbina, who’s deaf, and some of the others, too, how to write their names.

  —And finally, the thing that gets me the most kidding, I try to “walk” for half an hour every day Twenty-five feet down and back, twenty feet across and back.

  Where are you going? America asked me yesterday.

  Home, I replied without stopping my walk.

  Thursday, March 31 (70 days)

  Day by day goes by and I begin to lose courage and wallow in dark thoughts. I’m letting myself go. Today I didn’t even braid my hair, just wound it in a knot and tied a sock around it. My spirits are so low.

  Our visiting privileges were cancelled again. No explanation. Not even Santicló knows why. We were marched down the hall and then brought back—what a mean trick.

  And it’s certain now—Leandro is not here with the rest of us. Oh God, where could he be?

  Friday, April 1 (71 days)

  Minerva and I just had a talk about morale. She says she’s noticed how upset I’ve been lately.

  I am upset. We could have been out with Miriam and Dulce a whole week ago. But no, we Mirabals had to set a good example. Accepting a pardon meant we thought we had something to be pardoned for. Also, we couldn’t be free unless everyone else was offered the same opportunity.