In the Time of Butterflies

by Julia Alvarez

  One naughty night, Dedé left Jaimito sleeping heavily after sex and stole out to the far end of the garden to the little shack where she kept the garden tools. There, in the dark, sitting on a sack of bark chips for her orchids, Dedé had slowly turned the dial on Jaimito Enrique’s transistor radio. The static crackled, then a voice, very taken with itself, proclaimed, “Condemn me, it does not matter. History will absolve me!”

  Fidel’s speech was played endlessly at these off hours, as Dedé soon found out. But night after night, she kept returning to the shack, and twice she was rewarded with the unfamiliar, blurry voice of someone introduced as Comrade Virgilio. He spoke his high-flown talk which had never been what had appealed to Dedé. Even so, night after night, she returned to the shed, for these excursions were what mattered now. They were her secret rebellion, her heart hungering, her little underground of one.

  Now, planning her exodus, Dedé tried to imagine Lio’s surprise at hearing Dedé had joined her sisters. He would know that she, too, was one of the brave ones. His sad, sober eyes that had hung before her mind’s eye for so many years melted into the ones that looked back at her now from the mirror. I need to get out. I cannot go on with this travesty.

  As the day drew closer, Dedé was beset by doubts, particularly when she thought about her boys.

  Enrique, Rafael, David, how could she possibly leave them?

  Jaimito would never let her keep them. He was more than possessive with his sons, claiming them as if they were parts of himself. Look at how he had named them all with his first name as well as his last! Jaime Enrique Fernández. Jaime Rafael Fernández. Jaime David Fernández. Only their middle names, which perforce became their given names, were their own.

  It wasn’t just that she couldn’t bear losing her boys, although that in itself was a dread large enough to stop her in her tracks. She also couldn’t desert them. Who would stand between them and the raised hand when their father lost his temper? Who would make them mangú the way they liked it, cut their hair so it looked right, and sit in the dark with them when they were scared and the next morning not remind them she had been there?

  She needed to talk to someone, outside her sisters. The priest! She’d gotten lax in her church attendance. The new militancy from the pulpit had become like so much noise in a place you had come to hear soothing music. But now that noise seemed in harmony with what she was feeling inside. Maybe this new young priest Padre de Jesus would have an answer for her.

  She arranged for a ride that Friday with Mamá’s new neighbors, Don Bernardo and his wife Doña Belén, old Spaniards who had been living down in San Cristóbal for years. They had decided to move to the countryside, Don Bernardo explained, hoping the air would help Dona Belen. Something was wrong with the frail, old woman—she was forgetting the simplest things, what a fork was for, how to button her dress, was it the seed or the meat of the mango you could eat. Don Bernardo was taking her to Salcedo for yet another round of tests at the clinic. “We won’t be coming back until late afternoon. I hope that won’t inconvenience you very much?” he apologized. The man was astonish ingly courtly

  “Not at all,” Ded6 assured him. She could just be dropped off at the church.

  “What have you got to do all day in church?” Doña Belen had a disconcerting ability to suddenly tune in quite clearly, especially to what was none of her business.

  “Community work,” Dede lied.

  “You Mirabal girls are so civic-minded,” Don Bernardo observed. No doubt he was thinking of Minerva, or his favorite, Patria.

  It was harder to satisfy Jaimito’s suspicions. “If you need to go to Salcedo, I’ll take you tomorrow.” He had come into the bedroom as she was getting dressed that Friday morning.

  “Jaimito, por Dios!” she pleaded. He had already forbidden her to go about with her sisters, was he now going to keep her from accompanying a poor old woman to the doctor?

  “Since when has Dona Belén been a preoccupation of yours?” Then he said the thing he knew would make her feel the guiltiest. “And what about leaving the boys when they’re sick?”

  “All they have is colds, for God’s sake. And Tinita’s here with them.”

  Jaimito blinked in surprise at her sharp tone. Was it really this easy Dede wondered, taking command?

  “Do as you please then!” He was giving her little knowing nods, his hands curling into fists. “But remember, you’re going over my head!”

  Jaimito did not return her wave as they drove away from Ojo de Agua. Something threatening in his look scared her. But Dedé kept reminding herself she need not be afraid. She was going to be leaving him. She told herself to keep that in mind.

  No one answered her knock at the rectory, although she kept coming back every half hour, all morning long. In between times, she idled in shops, remembering Jaimito’s look that morning, feeling her resolve draining away. At noon, when everything closed up, she sat under a shade tree in the square and fed the pieces of the pastry she’d bought to the pigeons. Once she thought she saw Jaimito’s pickup, and she began making up stories for why she had strayed from Dona Belén at the clinic.

  Midafternoon, she spotted a green panel truck pulling up to the rectory gates. Padre de Jesus was in the passenger seat, another man was driving, a third jumped out from the back, unlocked the courtyard gates, and closed them after the truck pulled in.

  Dedé hurried across the street. There was only a little time left before she had to meet up with Don Bernardo and Doña Belén at the clinic, and she had to talk to the priest. All day, the yeses and noes had been swirling inside her, faster, faster, until she felt dizzy with indecision. Waiting on that bench, she had promised herself that the priest’s answer would decide it, once and for all.

  She knocked several times before Padre de Jesus finally came to the door. Many apologies, he was unloading the truck, hadn’t heard the knocker until just now. Please, please come in. He would be right with her.

  He left her sitting in the small vestibule while he finished up with the delivery Dedé could hear going on in the adjoining choir room. Over his shoulder as he departed, Dedé caught a glimpse of some pine boxes, half-covered by a tarpaulin. Something about their color and their long shape recalled an incident in Patria’s house last fall. Dedé had come over to help paint the baby’s room. She had gone into Noris’s room in search of some old sheets to lay on the floor, and there, in the closet, hidden behind a row of dresses, she’d seen several boxes just like these, standing on end. Patria had come in, acting very nervous, stammering about those boxes being full of new tools. Not too long after, when Patria had come with her request to hide some boxes, Dedé had understood what tools were inside them.

  My God, Padre de Jesus was one of them! He would encourage her to join the struggle. Of course, he would. And she knew, right then and there, her knees shaking, her breath coming short, that she could not go through with this business. Jaimito was just an excuse. She was afraid, plain and simple, just as she had been afraid to face her powerful feelings for Lío. Instead, she had married Jaimito, although she knew she did not love him enough. And here she’d always berated him for his failures in business when the greater bankruptcy had been on her part.

  She told herself that she was going to be late for her rendezvous. She ran out of that rectory before the priest could return, and arrived at the clinic while Doña Belén was still struggling with the buttons of her dress.

  She heard the terrible silence the minute she walked in the house.

  His pickup hadn’t been in the drive, but then he often took off after a workday for a drink with his buddies. However, this silence was too deep and wide to be made by just one absence. “Enrique!” she screamed, running from room to room. “Rafael! David!”

  The boys’ rooms were deserted, drawers opened, rifled through. Oh my God, oh my God. Dedé could feel a mounting desperation. Tinita, who had come to work in the household four years ago when Jaime David was born, came running, alarmed by her mist
ress’s screams. “Why, Doña Dedé,” she said, wide-eyed. “It’s only Don Jaimito who took the boys.”

  “Where?” Dedé could barely get it out.

  “To Doña Leila‘s, I expect. He packed bags—” Her mouth dropped open, surprised by something private she wished she hadn’t seen.

  “How could you let him, Tinita. How could you! The boys have colds,” she cried as if that were the reason for her distress. “Have Salvador saddle the mare,” Dedé ordered. “Quick, Tinita, quick!” For the maid was standing there, rubbing her hands down the sides of her dress.

  Off Dede rode at a crazy canter all the way to Mama’s. It was already dark when she turned in the drive. The house was all lit up, cars in the driveway, Minerva and Manolo just arriving from Monte Cristi, Mate and Leandro from the capital. Of course, it would be a big weekend. But every thought of the meeting had faded from Dedé’s mind.

  She had told herself on the gallop over that she must stay calm so as not to alarm Mama. But the moment she dismounted, she was crying, “I need a ride! Quick!”

  “M‘ija, m’ija,” Mama kept asking. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing, Mama, really. It’s just Jaimito’s taken the boys to San Francisco.”

  “But what’s wrong with that?” Mama was asking, suspicion deepening the lines on her face. “Is something wrong with that?”

  By now, Manolo had brought the car around to the door, and Minerva was honking the horn. Off they went, Dedé telling them her story of coming home and finding the house abandoned, the boys gone.

  “Why would he do this?” Minerva asked. She was digging through her purse for the cigarettes she could not smoke in front of Mama. Recently, she had picked up a bad cough along with the smoking.

  “He threatened to leave me if I got involved with your group.”

  “But you’re not involved,” Manolo defended her.

  “Maybe Dedé wants to be involved.” Minerva turned around to face the back seat. Dedé could not make out her expression in the dim light. The end of her cigarette glowed like a bright, probing eye. “Do you want to join us?”

  Dedé began to cry. “I just have to admit to myself. I’m not you—no really, I mean it. I could be brave if someone were by me every day of my life to remind me to be brave. I don’t come by it naturally.”

  “None of us do,” Minerva noted quietly.

  “Dedé, you’re plenty brave,” Manolo asserted in his courtly way. Then, for they were already in the outskirts of San Francisco, he added, “You’re going to have to tell me where to turn.”

  They pulled up behind the pickup parked in front of Dona Leila’s handsome stucco house, and Dedé’s heart lifted. She had seen the boys through the opened door of the front patio, watching television. As they were getting out of the car, Minerva hooked arms with Dedé. “Manolo’s right, you know. You’re plenty brave.” Then nodding towards Jaimito, who had come to the doorway and was aggressively blocking their way in, she added, “One struggle at a time, sister.”

  “The liberators are here!” Jaimito’s voice was sloppy with emotion. Dedé’s arrival with Minerva and Manolo probably confirmed his suspicions. “What do you want?” he asked, hands gripping either side of the door frame.

  “My sons,” Dedé said, coming up on the porch. She felt brave with Minerva at her side.

  “My sons,” he proclaimed, “are where they should be, safe and sound.”

  “Why, cousin, don’t you say hello?” Minerva chided him.

  He was curt in his greetings, even to Manolo, whom he had always liked. They had together invested their wives’ inheritance in that ridiculous project—what was it?—growing onions in some godforsaken desert area where you couldn’t even get Haitians to live? Dedé had warned them.

  But Manolo’s warmth could thaw any coldness. He gave his old business partner un abrazo, addressing him as compadre even though neither one was godparent to the other’s children. He invited himself in, ruffled the boys’ hair, and called out, “Doña Leila! Where’s my girl?”

  Obviously, the boys suspected nothing. They yielded reluctant kisses to their mother and aunt, their eyes all the while trained on the screen where el gato Tom and el ratoncito Jerry were engaged in yet another of their battles.

  Dona Leila came out from her bedroom, ready to entertain. She looked coquettish in a fresh dress, her white hair pinned up with combs. “¡Manolo, Minerva! iQué placer!” But it was Dedé whom she kept hugging.

  So he hadn’t said anything to his mother. He wouldn’t dare, Dedé thought. Doña Leila had always doted on her daughter-in-law, so much so that Dedé sometimes worried that Leila’s five daughters would resent her. But really it was obvious they adored the sister-in-law-cousin who encouraged them in their small rebellions against their possessive only brother. Seven years ago, when Don Jaime had died, Jaimito had taken on the man-of-the-family role with a vengeance. Even his mother said he was worse than Don Jaime had ever been.

  “Sit down, please, sit down.” Doña Leila pointed to the most comfortable chairs, but she would not let go of Dedé’s hand.

  “Mamá,” Jaimito explained, “we all have something private to discuss. We’ll talk outside,” he addressed Manolo, avoiding his mother’s eyes.

  Doña Leila hurried out to assess the porch. She turned on the garden lights, brought out her good rockers, served her guests a drink, and insisted Dedé eat a pastelito snack—she was looking too thin. “Don’t let me hold you up,” she kept saying.

  Finally, they were alone. Jaimito turned the porch lights off, calling out to his mother, that there were too many bugs. But Dedé suspected that he found it easier to address their problems in the dark.

  “You think I don’t know what you’ve been up to.” The agitation in his tone carried.

  Doña Leila called from inside. “You need another cervecita, m‘ijo?”

  “No, no, Mamá,” Jamito said, impatience creeping into his voice. “I told Dedé,” he addressed his in-laws, “I didn’t want her getting mixed up in this thing.”

  “I can assure you she’s never been to any of our gatherings,” Manolo put in. “On my word.”

  Jaimito was silent. Manolo’s statement had stopped him short. But he had already gone too far to readily admit that he’d been wrong. “Well, what about her meetings with Padre de Jesus? Everyone knows he’s a flaming communist.”

  “He is not,” Minerva contradicted.

  “For heaven’s sake, Jaimito, I only went to see him once,” Dedé added. “And it was in reference to us, if you have to know the truth.”

  “Us?” Jaimito stopped rocking himself, his bravado deflated. “What about us, Mami?”

  Can you really be so blind, she wanted to say. We don’t talk anymore, you boss me around, you keep to yourself, you’re not interested in my garden. But Dedé felt shy addressing their intimate problems in front of her sister and brother-in-law. “You know what I’m talking about.”

  “What is it, Mami?”

  “Stop calling me Mami, I’m not your mother.”

  Dona Leila’s voice drifted from the kitchen where she was supervising her maid in frying a whole platter of snacks. “Another pastelito, Dedé?”

  “She’s been like that since the minute I got here,” Jaimito confided. His voice had grown tender. He was loosening up. “She must have asked me a hundred times, ‘Where’s Dedé? Where’s Dedé?”’ It was as close as he could get to admitting how he felt.

  “I have a suggestion, compadre,” Manolo said. “Why don’t you two take a honeymoon somewhere nice.”

  “The boys have colds,” Dedé said lamely.

  “Their grandmother will take very good care of them, I’m sure.” Manolo laughed. “Why not go up to—wasn’t it Jarabacoa where you honeymooned?”

  “No, Rio San Juan, that area,” Jaimito said, entering into the plan.

  “We went to Jarabacoa,” Minerva reminded Manolo in a tight voice that suggested she disapproved of the reconciliation he was engineeri
ng. Her sister was better off alone.

  “They have a beautiful new hotel in Rio San Juan,” Manolo went on. “There’s a balcony with each room, every one with a sea view.”

  “I hear the prices are reasonable,” Jaimito put in. It was as if the two men were working on another deal together.

  “So what do you say?” Manolo concluded.

  Neither Jaimito nor Dedé said a word.

  “Then it’s settled.” Manolo said, but he must have felt the unsettled-ness in their silence, for he went on. “Look, everyone has troubles. Minerva and I went through our own rough times. The important thing is to use a crisis like this to grow closer. Isn’t that so, mi amor?”

  Minerva’s guard was still up. “Some people can’t ever really see eye to eye.”

  Her statement broke the deadlock, though it was probably the last thing Minerva had intended. Jaimito’s competitive streak was reawakened. “Dedé and I see perfectly eye to eye! The problem is other people confusing things.”

  The problem is when I open my eyes and see for myself, Dedé was thinking. But she was too shaken by the night’s events and the long week of indecision to contradict him.

  And so it was that the weekend that was to have been a watershed in Dedé’s life turned into a trip down memory lane in a rented boat. In and out of the famous lagoons they had visited as a young bride and groom Jaimito rowed, stopping to point with his oar to the swamp of mangroves where the Tainos had fished and later hidden from the Spanish. Hadn’t she heard him say so eleven years ago?

  And at night, sitting on their private balcony, with Jaimito’s arm around her and his promises in her ear, Dedé gazed up at the stars. Recently, in Vanidades, she had read how starlight took years to travel down to earth. The star whose light she was now seeing could have gone out years ago. What comfort if she counted them? If in that dark heaven she traced a ram when already half its brilliant horn might be gone?

  False hopes, she thought. Let the nights be totally dark! But even that dark wish she made on one of those stars.