In the Time of Butterflies

by Julia Alvarez

  At first Nelson didn’t want to go to a school of pre-priest sissies. But a couple of weeks before the start of classes during the heavy plantings in the yucca field, he had a change of heart. Better to abstain from the gardens of delectable delights than to be stuck planting them, dawn to dusk.

  Besides, his weekends would be his own to spend at his aunt Maria Teresa and his uncle Leandro’s house.

  Besides, some of those pre-priests were no sissies at all. They talked about pudenda and. cunnilingus as if they were speaking of the body and blood of Christ. How do I know? Nelson came home once and asked me what the words meant, assuming they were liturgical. Young people don’t bother with their Latin these days.

  Next step was to convince his father, and that was the hardest of all. Pedrito didn’t see why we should be spending money sending Nelson to a boarding school in the capital. “His best school is right here beside me learning about his patrimonio.”

  I didn’t have the heart to suggest that our son might not want to be a farmer like his father. Recently, Nelson had begun talking to me about going to the university. “It’s just for a year, Papi,” I pleaded. “It’ll be a good finish to his education.”

  “Besides,” I added, “right now, the seminary is the best place for him.” It was true. Johnny Abbes and his SIM were dragging young men off the streets, and farms, and from offices, like Herod the boy babies in all of Judea. The church, refusing as it did to get involved in temporal matters, remained the only sanctuary.

  Pedrito folded his arms and walked off into his cacao fields. I could see him pacing among the trees. That’s where he always went to think, the way I have to get down on my knees to know my own mind. He came back, put his big hands on either side of the door frame his great-grandfather had built over a hundred years ago, and he nodded. “He can go.” And then with a gesture indicating the green fields over his shoulders that his great-grandfather, his grandfather, and his father had farmed before him, he added, “If the land can’t keep him, I can’t make him stay.”

  So with the help of good Padre de Jesus, Nelson entered Santo Tomás de Aquino last September. Out of harm’s way, I thought.

  And for a while, you might have said that he was as I was—safe in God’s love.

  I’ll tell you when I panicked. Around Easter my Nelson began to talk about how he would join the liberators once the rumored invasion from Cuba hit our shores.

  I sat him down and reminded him what the church fathers were teaching us. God in his wisdom would take care of things. “Promise me you’ll stay out of trouble!” I was on my knees before him. I could not bear the thought of losing my son. “Por Dios,” I pleaded.

  “Ay, Mamá, don’t worry!” he said, looking down at me, embarrassed. But he gave me a lukewarm promise he’d stay out of trouble.

  I did worry all the time. I went to Padre de Jesús for advice. He was straight out of seminary and brimming with new ideas. He would have a young way of explaining things I could bring home to my son.

  “Padre,” I said, kissing the crucifix he offered me, “I feel lost. I don’t know what the Lord requires of us in these hard times.” I dared not get too critical. We all knew there were priests around who would report you to the SIM if you spoke against the regime.

  Still, I hadn’t given up on the church as Minerva and Maria Teresa had. Ever since I’d had my vision of the Virgencita, I knew spirit was imminent, and that the churches were just glass houses, or way stations on our road through this rocky life. But His house was a mansion as big as the sky, and all you had to do was pelt His window with a pebble-cry, Open up! Help me, God! and He would let you inside.

  Padre de Jesus did not intone vague pronouncements and send me home with a pat on the head. Not at all. He stood and I could see the travail of his spirit in how he took off his glasses and kept polishing them as if they’d never come clean. “Patria, my child,” he said, which made me smile for he couldn’t have been but five, six years older than my Nelson. “We must wait. We must pray.” He faced me. “I, too, am lost so that I can’t show you the way.”

  I was shaking like when a breeze blows through the sacristy and the votive candles flicker. This priest’s frankness had touched me more than a decree. We knelt there in that hot little rectory, and we prayed to the Virgencita. She had clung to Jesus until He told her straight out, Mamá, I have to be about My Father’s business. And she had to let him go, but it broke her heart because, though He was God, He was still her boy.

  I got braver like a crab going sideways. I inched towards courage the best way I could, helping out with the little things.

  I knew they were up to something big, Minerva and Manolo and Leandro. I wasn’t sure about Maria Teresa, caught up as she was with her new baby Jacqueline. But those others, I could feel it in the tension and silence that would come over them when I walked in on one of their conversations. I didn’t ask questions. I suppose I was afraid of what I would find out.

  But then Minerva came to me with her six-month-old Manolito and asked me to keep him. “Keep him?” I, who treasured my children more than my own life, couldn’t believe my sister would leave her son for anything. “Where are you going?” I asked, alarmed.

  That tense silence came upon her, and then haltingly, as if wanting to be sure with each step that she was not saying more than she had to, she said, “I’m going to be on the road a lot. And I’ll be coming down here for some meetings every week.”

  “But Minerva, your own child—” I began and then I saw it did hurt her to make this sacrifice she was convinced she needed to make. So I added, “I’d love to take care of my little godson here!” Manolito smiled and came readily to my arms. How delicious to hold him like my own baby five months ahead of time. That’s when I told Minerva I was pregnant with a boy.

  She was so glad for me. So glad! Then she got curious. “Since when are you a fortune teller to know it’s a son?”

  I shrugged. But I gave her the best reason I could. “I’ve got a name all picked out for a boy.”

  “What are you going to name him?”

  I knew then I had brought it up as a way of letting her know I was with her—if only in spirit. “Raúl Emesto,” I said, watching her face.

  She looked at me a long moment, and very simply, she said, “I know you want to stay out of trouble, and I respect that.”

  “If there should come a time—” I said.

  “There will,” she said.

  Minerva and Manolo began coming down every week to Ojo de Agua from Monte Cristi, almost from one end of the island to the other. Now, whenever they were stopped at the interrogation stations, they had a good excuse for being on the road. They were visiting their sickly son at Patria González’s house in Conuco. Monte Cristi was too hot, desert really, and their doctor had prescribed healthier air for the little boy.

  Every time they came, Leandro drove up from the capital, and this curly-headed man Nino and his pretty wife Dulce came over from San Francisco. They met up with Cuca and Fafa and one named Marien—though sometimes they called each other different, make-believe names.

  They needed a place to meet, and so I offered them our land. There was a clearing between the cacao and the plátano groves. Pedrito had put some cane chairs and hammocks under a thatched roof, a place for workers to rest or take a siesta during the hot part of the day. Minerva and her group would sit out there for hours, talking. Once or twice when it was raining, I’d invite them to come into the house, but they’d refuse, knowing it was just politeness on my part. And I was thankful to them for sparing me. If the SIM came, Pedrito and I could always swear we knew nothing about these meetings.

  It was a problem when Nelson was home from school. He’d go out there, eager to take part in whatever his uncles were plotting. In deference to me, I’m sure, they kept him at a distance. Not in any way that could hurt his young man’s pride, but in a comradely way. They’d send him for some more ice or cigarrillos or please Nelson, hombre, couldn’t he take the
car down to Jimmy’s and see what was up with that radiator since they had to make it back to the capital this very night. Once, they sent the poor boy all the way to Santiago to pick up batteries for the short wave.

  When he came back from delivering them, I asked him, “What’s going on out there, Nelson?” I knew, but I wanted to hear what he knew.

  “Nothing, Mamá,” he said.

  Then the secret he was keeping became more than he could contain. When it was almost June, he finally confided in me. “They’re expecting it this coming month,” he whispered. “The invasion, yes!” he added when he saw the excited look on my face.

  But you know why that look was there? I’ll tell you. My Nelson would be in school in the capital until the very end of June, out of harm’s way. He had to study hard if he expected to graduate in time to attend the university in the fall. We had our own little plot cooked up to present to his father—the day before university classes started.

  I was the one who was going to be on the road. Mamá couldn’t believe it when I asked if she’d keep Manolito those four days. Why I was five months gone, Mamá exclaimed. I shouldn’t be traveling!

  I explained that I’d be traveling with Padre de Jesús and the Salcedo group, and this retreat was important for renewing my faith. We were going up to Constanza. That mountain air would be good for my baby. And I’d heard the road was fairly good. I didn’t add from whom (Minerva) or why. Troops were patrolling up and down the cordillera just in case any would-be guerrillas inspired by the Cubans were thinking of hiding there.

  “Ay, Virgencita, you know what you do with my girls,” was all Mama said. She had become resigned to her daughters’ odd and willful ways. And yes, she would keep Manolito. Noris, too.

  I had wanted my girl to go along on the retreat, but it was no use. Marcelino’s sister had invited Noris to her quinceañera party and there was too much to do between now and then.

  “But it’s two weeks away, mi amor.” I didn’t add that we had already designed and cut her dress, bought her little satin pumps, and tried out how she would wear her hair.

  “¡Ay, Mami!” she wailed. “Por favor.” Why couldn’t I understand that getting ready for them was what made parties fun?

  How different she was from me at that age! For one thing, Mamá raised us the old-fashioned way where we couldn’t go to dances until after our quinceañeras. But I was raising my girl modem where she wasn’t kept cooped up, learning blind obedience. Still, I wished she’d use her wings to soar up closer to the divine hem of our Blessed Virgin instead of to flutter towards things not worthy of her attention.

  I kept praying for her, but it was like Pedrito having to let go of his son. If the Virgencita didn’t think it was time for my girl to magnify the Lord, I certainly couldn’t talk her into a retreat with “old ladies” and a bunch of bad-breath priests. (Lord forgive her!)

  We were a group of about thirty “mature” women—that’s how Padre de Jesus described us, bless his heart. We had started meeting a few months back to discuss issues that came up in the gospel and to do Christ’s work in the bohios and barrios. Now we even had a name, Christian Cultural Group, and we had spread all over the Cibao area. Four priests provided spiritual guidance, Padre de ]esús among them. This retreat was our first, and Brother Daniel had managed to get the Maryknolls to let us use their motherhouse up in the mountains. The theme was the exploration of the meaning of Mary in our lives. I couldn’t help thinking that maybe Padre de Jesús or Brother Daniel or one of the others would have an answer for me now about what was required during these troubled times.

  “Ha! Your church will keep mum till kingdom come,” Minerva was always challenging me. Religion was now my belonging she didn’t want any part of. “Not a peep to help the downtrodden.”

  What could I say when I, too, was intent on keeping my own flesh safe. I’d written a letter to Padre Fabré down at Santo Tomás.

  Dear Father,

  Greetings in the Lord’s name from the mother of one of your charges, Nelson González, completing his fourth year, a smart boy on the whole, as you yourself wrote in your last report, but not always the best with self-control. To make sure he studies hard and stays out of trouble, please, do not let my son off the grounds except to come home. He is a country boy not used to the city temptations, and I do not want him getting mixed up with the wrong people.

  May this letter be in the strictest of your confidences, Father.

  Most faithfully yours, his mother,

  Patria Mercedes

  But Nelson found out about the letter from his little blabbermouth aunt in the capital. It was unfair, I wasn’t letting him become a man. But I stood firm. I’d rather have him stay alive, a boy forever, than be a man dead in the ground.

  Maria Teresa was also hurt. One Saturday morning, she had come to take Nelson out for the weekend, and the director hadn’t allowed her. “Don’t you trust me?” she confronted me. Now I had two angry souls to appease with half-truths.

  “It isn’t you, Mate,” I began. I didn’t add that I knew from Nelson’s remarks that Leandro and Manolo and Minerva were involved in a serious plot.

  “Don’t worry, I can take care of your baby. I’ve got lots of experience now” Mate was holding pretty Jacqueline, nuzzling her baby’s head with little kisses. “Besides, there’s nothing happening in the capital Nelson could get into, believe me. The Jaragua’s empty. The Olympia has been showing the same movie for a month. No one goes out anymore.” And then I heard her say it: “Nothing to celebrate yet.” I looked her in the eye and said, “You too, Mate?”

  She hugged her baby girl close and looked so brave. I could hardly believe this was our tenderhearted little Mate whom Noris resembled so much. “Yes, I’m with them.” But then, the hard look faded and she was my baby sister again, afraid of el cuco and noodles in her soup. “If anything should happen, promise me you’ll take care of Jacqueline.”

  It seemed I was going to raise all my sisters’ babies! “You know I would. She’s one of mine, aren’t you, amorcito?” I took that baby in my arms and hugged her close. Jacqueline looked at me with that wonder the little ones have who still think of the world as a big, safe playroom inside their mother’s womb.

  Our retreat had been planned for May, the month of Mary. But with the increased rumors of an invasion, El Jefe declared a state of emergency. All through May no one went anywhere without special permission from the SIM. Even Minerva stayed put in Monte Cristi. One day when we hadn’t seen his mother for almost a month, Manolito reached up to me from his crib and said, “Mamá, Mamá.” It was going to be hard to give him up once this hell on earth was over.

  By mid-June, things had quieted down. It looked as if the invasion was not going to come after all. The state of emergency was called off, and so we went ahead with plans for our retreat.

  When we got to Constanza, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had grown up in the greenest, most beautiful valley on the island. But you get used to close-by beauty, and Constanza was different, like the picture of a faraway place on a puzzle you hurry to put together. I kept trying to fit it inside me and I couldn’t. Purple mountains reaching towards angelfeather clouds; a falcon soaring in a calm blue sky; God combing His sunshine fingers through green pastures straight out of the Psalms.

  The retreat house was a little ways out of the village down a path through flower-dotted hillsides. Campesinos came out of their huts to watch us pass. A pretty people, golden-skinned, light-eyed, they seemed wary, as if somebody not so kind had come down the road ahead of us. We greeted them and Padre de Jesus explained that we were on a retreat, so if they had any special requests they wanted us to remember in our prayers, please let us know. They stared at us silently and shook their heads, no.

  We were each assigned a narrow cell with a cot, a crucifix on the wall, and a fount of holy water at the door. It could have been a palace, I rejoiced so in it all. Our meetings and meals were held in a big airy room with a large picture window.
I sat with my back to the dazzling view so as not to be distracted from His Word by His Creation. Dawn and dusk, noon and night we gathered in the chapel and said a rosary along with the little nuns.

  My old yearning to be in the religious life stirred. I felt myself rising, light-headed with transcendence, an overflowing fountain. Thank the Lord I had that child in my womb to remind me of the life I had already chosen.

  It happened on the last day of our retreat.

  The fourteenth of June: how can I ever forget that day!

  We were all in that big room having our midafternoon cursillo. Brother Daniel was talking of the last moment we knew of in Mary’s human life, her Assumption. Our Blessed Mother had been taken up into heaven, body and soul. What did we think of that? We went around the room, everyone declaring it was an honor for a mere mortal. When it came my turn, I said it was only fair. If our souls could go to eternal glory, our hardworking motherbodies surely deserved more. I patted my belly and thought of the little ghost of a being folded in the soft tissues of my womb. My son, my Raulito. I ached for him even more without Manolito in my arms to stanch the yearning.

  Next thing I knew, His Kingdom was coming down upon the very roof of that retreat house. Explosion after explosion ripped the air. The house shook to its very foundation. Windows shattered, smoke poured in with a horrible smell. Brother Daniel was shouting, “Fall to the ground, ladies, cover your heads with your folding chairs!” Of course, all I was thinking of was protecting my unborn child. I scrambled to a little niche where a statue of the Virgencita was standing, and begging her pardon, I knocked her and her pedestal over. The crash was drowned out by the thunderous blast outside. Then I crawled in and held my folding chair in front of me, closing the opening, and praying all the while that the Lord not test me with the loss of my child.