I Lived on Butterfly Hill

by Marjorie Agosín

  I can hardly breathe, and my hands have scattered all the letters to the floor. My aunt reaches to hug me, but I pull away.

  “Celeste, Querida mía,” she says soothingly. “There are many people who don’t want to recognize what is happening to our country because they don’t want to be reminded of pain. They are afraid of pain. But you are not one of those people, Celeste.”

  I sniffle and look at my aunt with some disbelief.

  “No, Celeste. If you never knew pain, how could you recognize joy?”

  Then it all tumbles out of me at once.

  “I want to hear the sounds of Butterfly Hill. The sirens of the boats coming and going from the harbor, the creaking of the swings, Señora Atkinson’s piano . . .” I gasp for air. Tears run hot down my cheeks. “But, but, I wouldn’t care if I never heard anything again if I could only hear Mamá’s and Papá’s voices!”

  “Oh, Celeste.” Tía Graciela pulls me into her arms, and this time I let her.

  “How do they get food? Are they cold at night?”

  For some strange reason I remember it is getting warmer and warmer there, as it gets colder and colder here. But then the thought just reminds me of how far away I am from my parents. Not just miles, but days. So many days between us. I make a decision.

  “Tía Graciela?”

  “¿Sí?”

  “Will you take the calendar off the wall in my bedroom when I am at school tomorrow and throw it away?

  “Are you sure, Celeste?”

  I nod. I finally understand why Abuela Frida doesn’t like calendars. I have been using the calendar on my wall to count the days since I left Chile. 647. Since day ten, Tía Graciela has told me I am being stubborn and hanging on to sadness.

  “I want to measure time according to the seasons, like Abuela does,” I tell my aunt, who is wiping her own eyes and looking so relieved. “Seasons are so much larger than days. Only four a year.”

  “Mamá taught me and Esmeralda that each season is an instrument,” Tía Graciela tells me, and motions for me to sit down. “She would tell us how she always knew it was spring when the piano keys rang like little bells as her old music teacher Mr. Leschetizky played Liszt’s La Campanella.”

  “Then autumn on Juliette Cove is a burnished viola bursting with the sounds of yellow, orange, and red,” I say. Suddenly I feel relieved too. For now it is enough to imagine. No more counting, Celeste, I tell myself. Be like the seasons and just keep going.

  The Mailman Mr. John Carter

  Tía Graciela powders her face with the fine rice powder Abuela Frida gave her. Then she puts on red lipstick and turns her head to the front window like a swan. She does this every day around noon because that’s when the mailman comes by.

  At first they only exchanged a courteous hello, but as months turned into years, Tía Graciela and the mailman John Carter became friends. I like how Mr. Carter is always ready to smile and how his big laugh sounds so genuine.

  “He is nice to chat with,” Tía Graciela tells me. “Before you came, he was the only person I had to talk to besides my clients—I mean, friends,” she corrects herself. “And they only want to hear about themselves!” she continues, and I laugh. And just then we hear Mr. Carter’s familiar TAP-tap-tap-TAP upon the door.

  “Mail’s here! Letters from abroad, Miss Graciela. And a package!”

  My aunt receives letters from all over the world, from places as far away as Russia, because so many of her friends are exiles.

  “Tell me, Graciela, how do you have time to answer all the letters you receive?” he asks. “They are from so many places!”

  “I find time every day. It’s my only way of talking to my friends. So many of them are living in other countries now—Spain, England, Germany, México, Russia. I have a friend in Alabama and others in California, Texas, Chicago . . .” Tía Graciela’s voice trails off. “If Celeste and I didn’t have our letters, we would feel so alone. And, of course, we always look forward to seeing your smile and hearing you say, ‘Mail’s here!’ ”

  I hand a plate of chocolate-chip cookies to Mr. Carter. “I made them myself!”

  “Look!” Tía Graciela whispers, and points at something behind Mr. Carter’s left shoulder.

  “Oh!” My breath catches in my throat. A slender brown deer stands in our front yard. She seems to be looking right at us! Then she moves her head up and down four—no, maybe five—times! “It’s as if she’s nodding yes!” I whisper.

  Mr. Carter tips his hat to both of us and returns to his mail truck. The deer scampers into the woods. And we watch until Mr. Carter, too, has faded into the whiteness of winter on Juliette Cove.

  An Entire Sky Inside

  I wake up in the middle of the night to the smell of salt water, cilantro, and cinnamon. “What a strange dream!” I rub my eyes. In my sleep I stood aboard a small wooden sailboat with billowing sails whiter than the moon. I was skippering the boat, following a large flock of pelicans flying low over the water. Suddenly my friend the old pelican turned back to look at me and started heading south, as if leading me home.

  BOOM! A gust of wind slams the shutters back and forth. A storm must be coming. I glance toward the window. The branches of the trees are waving so fast. It’s as if they are trying to get someone’s attention. Just then Tía Graciela opens the door to my bedroom. Her face is flush—a look I’ve never seen before.

  I hear a branch fall to the ground as my aunt sits beside me and takes my hand. She takes a deep breath. I do too—waiting to hear what has her acting so oddly. It can’t be the storm. . . .

  “I received a call from a friend in Spain very late last night.” Her voice trembles in disbelief. “The General is dead. Celeste, we are going home!”

  I stare at her. “Dead?”

  “Dead.”

  “We’re going home?” I echo.

  “We’re going home!” Tía assures me, her voice cracking.

  Shaking with surprise, disbelief, and joy, I hardly know what to do with myself. I walk downstairs, put my winter jacket and boots on over my pajamas, and wander into the front yard. The night is still and cold, as if the storm never happened. How strange! I just heard that smash of wind! That branch falling! I look up at the stars and see my breath rise like smoke to greet them. They twinkle like little lighthouses. “The Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, Orion the Hunter.” I whisper those names as I find the shapes that Tía Graciela showed me during my first week on Juliette Cove.

  How funny, I think, to realize only now that I love the stars of the Northern Hemisphere almost as much as the constellations of the South. Shivering with cold, I turn to go back to the house. Suddenly a bright light from above shines in my eyes. An orb I have never seen before—so big and bright that it must be a planet—radiates a soft, green light, shining brighter and brighter, until it makes me think of an emerald. Esmeralda!

  The Refuge Against Oppression

  Tía Graciela lets me stay home from school. We sit on the couch in front of the TV all day, waiting for any mention of what has happened in Chile. We watch the morning news, the lunchtime news, and finally—just when I think that friend in Spain was mistaken—our country is mentioned on the evening news.

  The news anchor says that Chile will begin a peaceful transition to democracy. The screen then flashes to—could it be?— the streets of the capital: parades of children and their grandparents emerging from behind locked doors. Men kneeling and weeping while women dance with the colors of Chile—red, white, and blue—all through the streets.

  It’s the first time I have seen my country in three years. Mouth open in shock, I keep pointing to the screen and then turning to look at Tía Graciela to make sure I’m not dreaming.

  Tía Graciela’s face is soaked with tears. “Oh, thank you! God is good.”

  The TV now shows a reporter interviewing citizens of Santiago. How wonderful it is to hear the shhhhh sound of their accents, like soft waves rolling onto the sand. Each voice holds a slightly different
story—there seems to be more than one version of how the Dictator died. My aunt’s brow is wrinkled in concentration.

  Some people believe that the General died drinking his own poison. Others point to the rumors that he suffered from long bouts of colds, until two days ago, when he sneezed so hard that the roof of his bedchamber crashed all around him, trapping him cowering under the covers. And others say the earth conspired to end him and began to quake, but just in his own palace. In no other part of Santiago was even the slightest tremor felt. Not even a leaf fell from the trees.

  Much, much too soon, the reporter from Chile says good-bye. The anchor moves on to another story.

  “No! Wait! Please stay!” I reach my hands toward the television set, wishing I could grab those sights and sounds and hold them safe in my arms.

  Tía Graciela continues to cry, but she is also laughing.

  “We are free, Tía Graciela! All of us! I can hardly believe it! We are free!”

  “We should sing, Celeste.” And no sooner has she uttered the words than we move to our feet as one, put our hands over our hearts, and sing:

  “Pure, Chile, is your blue sky . . . Either you be the tomb of the free or the refuge against oppression.”

  Tía Graciela pulls me into a tight hug. I feel so happy, yet at the same time I am very afraid. I fear to see what has happened to my city, to my family and my friends. Who will be there and who will still be missing? I tremble at the thought of everyone and everything I know having disappeared.

  I look up at Tía Graciela, who seems just as lost in her own thoughts. Maybe . . . maybe . . . we should just stay here. . . . I am finally getting used to Juliette Cove. . . . I’ve made friends with the shadows that live in the woods and the vast silence of the snowy fields. . . . It’s like I have one foot on Juliette Cove and the other on Butterfly Hill. . . . But then I imagine the blue sea and sky of Valparaíso. I see myself arriving at our house on Butterfly Hill for my birthday. Delfina is lighting the candles on my “thousand layers” cake and singing in Mapudungún. My friends and I run down the hills and water all the buganvillias in Valparaíso that shriveled and have refused to bloom since the day Presidente Alarcón was killed.

  Traveling Light

  The next morning we hover over the radio and drink café con leche. After her third cup Tía Graciela stands up and turns the radio off. “That’s enough. Celeste, we can’t sit here all day listening to the announcements from Chile. You need to get ready to go home!” My aunt trots over to the cluttered closet in the hallway, and I follow slowly. I’m not sure I heard her right.

  “Tía?”

  “Hmmm?” Her head is hiding inside the closet.

  “Why did you say ‘you’? Aren’t you coming too?”

  My aunt pulls her head from between the winter coats and sits on the hallway floor. I sit down to face her and reach for her hands. They are cold, and her face suddenly looks pale and listless. “Celeste, I was up all night thinking about returning home to Chile.” She pauses and stares down at our entwined hands for a moment.

  “I am not proud to admit this, but despite my happiness I am filled with so much fear. I don’t know if I am ready to return. I left Chile to be with Guillermo, and it didn’t take long for that to fall apart. But then I was too ashamed to go back, because everyone had told me I was crazy to give up everything for a man I had only known for a few months. And . . . and . . . I always hoped he might come looking for me. . . . So I stayed awhile, and then a while more. And I always felt, well, guilty for leaving my country for what I sometimes feel was a selfish reason, just before the time Chile would need me most. I don’t know if I can face the truth when I return. That some of my friends and neighbors have been disappeared, that my own sister might be . . .”

  I pull away my hands and draw back in horror. “No! No! No!” I yell. “Don’t you dare say it! Don’t you dare even think it!”

  I run outside into the cold. I have never felt anger like this. I feel like I am tangled in my aunt’s fears as well as my own, and I hate it. The fears are like thick cobwebs, and the more I try to escape, the tighter they become. I run over to the garage and kick the old oak door until it cracks with a snap. “Ay! Owwww!” I fall backward and clutch my foot. It sears with pain. I rock back and forth, rubbing my foot.

  “Celeste, mía.”

  I feel Tía Graciela behind me. She puts a hand tentatively on my shoulder. I shrug it off.

  “I am sorry, Celeste. Please forgive me. You always have been so strong. Actually, you have been my strength these past two years. I am not like my tiny young niece with a heart as big and brave as a chorus of angels.”

  I turn to face her. “Tía Graciela?” I say her name like a question. As if the woman standing before me is all the questions I couldn’t answer.

  “Celeste, you will make Mamá and Nana Delfina so happy with your presence. And I know you will find Esmeralda and Andrés. I know you will find your parents.”

  “I know I will too, Tía.”

  “Forgive me, Celeste?”

  “Sí. I love you, Tía.”

  “I love you. Celeste, you are the daughter I never had. Now come inside. There’s much to do.”

  “Let Your Voice Be Heard”

  The first snows of the year have put the yard to bed in billowy sheets of white. I sit at my bedroom window, my face pressed to the glass. It’s hard to believe that this is one of the last times I’ll look out at the forest. In a few days I leave for Chile. I don’t know where to start. When I arrived here nearly two years ago, I never thought it would feel so hard to leave my second blue room and return to my first.

  But first I must say some good-byes. First is the mailman John Carter.

  The chimney of his small red house pours forth smoke like a locomotive. We ring the doorbell, and a few seconds later Mr. Carter appears wearing a flannel bathrobe and slippers. He’s carrying the crossword from the daily paper in his hand. Of course, it’s Sunday, every mailman’s day off! “Graciela! Celeste! To what do I owe this pleasant surprise?” His eyes dance behind his bifocals. “I don’t have any letters today.”

  “Mr. Carter, I came to say good-bye. I am leaving for Chile soon.”

  The mailman takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. “Really? Just like that? Oh, Celeste, I will miss you!”

  I swallow hard.

  “I want to thank you for being such a good mailman and always taking such good care of the letters that mean so much to us.”

  Mr. Carter clears his throat. “Maybe you could send me a letter from Chile? And I will be sure to write to you from here. What is your address?”

  “Butterfly Hill . . . Wait, let me write it down for you.” Mr. Carter hands me the crossword and pulls a pencil from his bathrobe pocket. Beneath the black-and-white grids that always remind me of train tracks leading to no place at all, I write: Cerro Mariposa, Valparaíso, Chile, 2-370835.

  “No house number?” he asks.

  I shake my head and smile. “In the hills everyone knows where everyone else lives.”

  Mr. Carter nods. “Ahhh, no wonder you and your aunt are always so friendly to your neighbors! And yet, I suspect that just as some things at home are simpler, others are more complicated?” He gives us a knowing look.

  “Yes,” I say. “If you visit my city someday, you will ride the cable cars that take you up and down the hills. They are almost a hundred years old, and half the time they don’t work. But just when everyone is ready to give up on them, suddenly you can hear the big wheels at the tops and bottoms of the hills start turning and pulling the cars up and down on pulleys, and then all day you can hear the cable cars rattle over the hills.”

  Tía Graciela throws up her hands and adds, “And you hear the voices of the people inside them, who are happy with our cable cars once again and swear they would never want to get rid of them!”

  Mr. Carter chuckles. “I understand. It is like that sometimes with the mail service.” His face becomes serious, and he puts his han
ds on my shoulders. “And I understand, Celeste, why it is time for you to go home. If the cable cars are working again, you need to be one of the happy young people aboard them. Let your voice be heard.”

  He gives me a big hug. “Write to me and tell me all about it.”

  “Good-bye, Mr. Carter.”

  “Good-bye, Celeste.”

  “And Miss Graciela? What will you do?”

  “I am staying here, Señor Carter. Please don’t forget about me.”

  “Never! Tomorrow I will be at your door . . . hopefully with a letter from Chile.”

  “Gracias, Mr. Carter!” my aunt and I speak in unison as we wave good-bye to a man whose kindness I never will forget.

  Tía Graciela and I are quiet on the short ride home. But when we turn the corner onto River Road, I realize that tomorrow is Monday—a school day—my last on Juliette Cove. My stomach flip-flops. I wish it were my usual end-of-the-weekend blues. But this is a feeling of dread.

  “I think saying good-bye is the most awful thing in this world,” I tell my aunt.

  Tía Graciela sighs softly in agreement. “But remember, Celeste, something your Abuela Frida taught us all—in this family there are no good-byes, only returns.”

  “Tía, life is so strange and unexpected! Now that I finally have friends to miss, now that I am used to living here with you, why does everything have to change so suddenly? I know that I am going home, and I am happy. But a part of me feels like I am leaving home too. A part of me is sad.”

  “Oh, Celeste. Por eso se llama exilio. That’s why they call it exile. You belong everywhere and nowhere at all.”

  I think about what my aunt has said. Maybe once you are an exile, you always are an exile. Always missing somewhere else, always carrying a bit from here and a bit from there, and always with a bit of a broken heart.