In the Time of Butterflies

by Julia Alvarez

  My nerves were worn thin after the bad night we’d spent. I leapt up—and thank God, Peña’s desk was in the way, for I could have slapped the fat, smug look off his face. “What have you done to our husbands?”

  The door opened, a guard peeked in. I recognized Albertico, our village mechanic’s youngest boy. The look of concern was for us, not Pena. “I heard shouts,” he explained.

  Peña whirled about at that. “What do you think, pendejo?, That I can’t manage a bunch of women by myself?” He shouted obscenities at the scared boy, and ordered him to close the door and to pay attention to his business or he’d have business on his hands he wouldn’t want to pay attention to.

  The door closed immediately in a flurry of apologies.

  “Sit, sit.” Peña motioned me impatiently towards the bench where my two sisters already sat, rigid, clutching their hands in silent prayer.

  “You have to understand,” Patria said in a placating voice. “We’re worried about our husbands. Where are they, Captain?”

  “Your husband”—he pointed to her—“is at La Victoria, I have your pass right here.”

  With a trembling hand Patria took the paper he offered her. “And Manolo and Leandro?”

  “They are being moved.”

  “Where?” Mate asked, her pretty face perking up with ridiculous hope.

  “To Puerto Plata—”

  “Why on earth?” I confronted Peña. I felt Patria squeezing my hand as if to say, watch that tone of voice, girl.

  “Why, I thought you would be pleased. Less distance for the butterflies to travel.” Peña spoke with sarcastic emphasis. I wasn’t all that surprised he knew our code name the way people were bruiting it about. Still, I didn’t like the sound of it in his mouth. “Visiting days in Puerto Plata are Fridays,” Peña was explaining to the others. “If you women want to see your men more often, we can arrange for other days as well.”

  Certainly there was something suspicious in his granting us these privileges. But all I felt was numb, resigned, sitting in that stuffy office. Not only was there nothing in the world we could do to save the men, there was nothing in the world we could do to save ourselves either.

  Talk of the people, Voice of God

  November 25, 1960

  The soldier was standing on the side of the road with his thumb out, dressed in a camouflage uniform and black, laced-up boots. The sky was low with clouds, a storm coming. On this lonely mountain road, I felt sorry for him.

  “What do you say?” I asked the others.

  We were evenly divided. I said yes, Mate said no, Patria said whatever.

  “You decide,” we told Rufino. He was fast becoming our protector and guide. None of Bournigal’s other drivers would take us over the pass.

  Mate had grown suspicious of everyone since Tio José’s visit. “He is a soldier,” she reminded us. On my side of the argument I added, “So? We’ll be all the safer.”

  “He’s so young,” Patria noted as we approached the shoulder where he stood. It was just an observation, but it tipped the scales, and Rufino stopped to offer the boy a ride.

  He sat in front with Rufino, twisting his cap in his hands. The uniform was too large, and the starched shoulders stuck out in crisp, unnatural angles. For a minute, it worried me that he seemed so uncomfortable, maybe he was up to something. But as I studied the closely cropped head and the boyish slenderness of his neck, I decided he was just not used to riding around with ladies. So I made conversation, asking him what he thought of this and that.

  He was headed back to Puerto Plata after a three-night furlough to meet his newborn son in Tamboril. We offered him our congratulations, though I thought he was much too young to be a father. Or a soldier, for that matter. Someone was going to have to take in that uniform. Maybe we could do alterations in our new shop.

  I remembered the camouflage fatigues I’d sewn for myself last November. Ages ago, it seemed now. The exercises I used to do to get in shape for the revolution! Back then, we believed we’d be in these mountains as guerrillas before the year was over.

  And here it was late November, a year later, and we were riding over the pass in a rented Jeep to visit our husbands in prison. The three butterflies, two of them too skittish to sit next to the windows facing the steep drop just inches from the slippery road. One of them, just as scared, but back to her old habits of pretending there was nothing to fear, as el señor Roosevelt had said, but being afraid.

  I made myself look down the side of the mountain at the gleaming rocks below. The dangerous possibilities, the fumes from the bad muffler, the bumpiness of the road—I felt a queasiness in my stomach. “Give me one of those Chiclets, after all,” I asked Mate. She’d been chomping on hers ever since we started to climb the mountain on this curving stretch of road.

  It was our fourth trip to see them since their transfer to Puerto Plata. We had left the children home this time. They’d already been on the previous Friday to see their daddies, and every one of them had gotten car sick on the way there and back. This mountain road made everyone queasy.

  “Tell me something,” I asked the young soldier in the front seat. “What’s it like being posted in Puerto Plata?” The fort there was one of the biggest, most strategic in the country. Its walls stretched out gray and ominous for miles, and its spotlights beamed even into the Atlantic. It was a popular coast for invasions, therefore heavily guarded. “Have you seen any action yet?”

  The young soldier half turned in his seat, surprised that a woman should interest herself in such things. “I just joined last February when the call went out. So far I’ve only done prison detail.”

  I exchanged a glance with my sisters in the back seat. “You must get some important prisoners from time to time?”

  Patria dug her elbow in my ribs, biting her lip so as not to smile.

  He nodded gravely, wanting to impress us with his own importance as their guard. “Two politicals came just this last month.”

  “What’d they do?” Mate asked in an impressed voice.

  The boy hesitated. “I’m not really sure.”

  Patria took both Mate’s and my hands in her own. “Are they going to be executed, you think?”

  “I don’t believe so. I heard they were going to be moved back to the capital in a few weeks.”

  How odd, I thought. Why go to all the trouble of transferring the boys up north only to ship them back in a month? We had already decided on moving to Puerto Plata and opening a store, and this news would ruin that plan. But then, this was just a boy in a too-big uniform. What did he know?

  The storm started up about then. Rufino let down the canvas flaps and told the soldier how to do his side. We snapped the back panels in place. The inside of the Jeep grew dark and stuffy.

  Soon the downpour was upon us. The heavy rain hit the canvas top with the sound of slaps. I could barely hear Patria or Mate talking, much less Rufino and the young soldier up front.

  “Maybe we should think it over,” Patria was saying.

  Before our prison visit today, we had planned to look at some rental houses Manolo’s friend Rudy and his wife Pilar had lined up for us. It had all been decided. We would be moving to Puerto Plata with the children by the first of December, opening up a little store at the front of the house. The reaction to our traveling had finally become too disturbing. Every time we left the house, people came out on the road and blessed us. When we got back, we felt obliged to blow the horn, as if to say, “We’re here, safe and sound!”

  Dedé and Mamá got weepy every time we started out.

  “Those are just rumors,” I’d say, trying to comfort them.

  “Talk of the people, voice of God,” Mama would answer, reminding me of the old saying.

  “Rufino, if it’s too bad, and you want to stop—” Patria had come forward in her seat. We could see that there was nothing to be seen out the front but sheets of water. “We can wait till the storm’s over.”

  “No, no, don’t preoc
cupy yourselves.” Rufino was almost shouting to be heard above the pounding rain. Somehow, a yelled reassurance did not sound very reassuring. “We’ll be in Puerto Plata by noon.”

  “Si Dios quiere,” she reminded him.

  “Si Dios quiere, he agreed.

  It was reassuring to see the young soldier’s head nod in agreement—until he added, “God and Trujillo willing.”

  This was Patria’s first visit to see Manolo and Leandro since they’d been moved. Usually, on Thursdays, she was headed down to La Victoria to visit Pedrito with a regular ride that didn’t return until Friday midday. By that time Mate and I had already left for Puerto Plata, accompanied by one or the other of our mothers-in-law. Since the rumors had gotten so bad, both of them had virtually moved in with us. Their sons had made them promise they wouldn’t let us out of their sight. Those poor women.

  The night before, Mate and I had been readying ourselves for our trip today, talking away, just the two of us. Patria was still in the capital, and Dedé’s little one was sick, and so she was home, taking care of him. Mate was doing my nails when we heard the sound of a car pulling into the driveway. Mate’s hand jerked, and I could see that she had painted the whole top of my thumb red.

  We both tiptoed down the hall to the living room and found Mamá angling the jalousie just so. We all sighed with relief when we heard Patria’s voice, thanking her ride.

  “And what are you doing traveling at this time of night!” Mama scolded before poor Patria was even in the door.

  “I got a ride back tonight with Elsa,” Patria explained. “There were five already in the car. But she was nice enough to squeeze me in. I’ve been wanting to go see the boys.”

  “We’ll discuss that in the morning,” Mamá said in her nonnegotiable voice, herding us out of the room by flipping off the lights.

  In our bedroom, Patria was full of talk about Pedrito. “Ay, Dios mío, that man was so romantic today.” She raised her arms over her head and stretched in that full-bodied way of cats.

  “iEpa!” Mate egged her on.

  She smiled a pleased, dreamy smile. “I told him I wanted to see the boys tomorrow, and he gave me his permission.”

  “Patria Mercedes!” I was laughing. “You asked for his permission? What can he do from prison to stop you?”

  Patria gave me a quizzical look, as if the answer were obvious. “He could have said, no, you can’t go.”

  Next morning, we had Mama almost convinced that the three of us would be just fine traveling by ourselves when Dedé rushed in, breathless. She looked around at the signs of our imminent departure. Her eye fell on Patria, putting on her scarf. “And what are you doing here?” she asked. Before Patria could explain, Rufino was at the door. “Any time you ladies are ready. Good day,” he said, nodding towards Mama and Dedé. Mama murmured her good days, but Dedé gave the chauffeur the imperious look of a mistress whose servant has disobeyed her wishes.

  “All three of you are going?” Dedé was shaking her head. “What about Dona Fefita? Or Dona Nena?”

  “They need a rest,” I said. I didn’t add that we’d be house-hunting today. We hadn’t told our mothers-in-law or Mama or—Lord knows!—Dedé about our plans yet.

  “Why, Mama, with all due respect, are you mad to let them go alone?”

  Mamá threw up her hands. “You know your sisters,” was all she said.

  “How handy,” Dedé said with heavy sarcasm, pacing the room. “How very very handy for the SIM to have all three of you sitting pretty in the back seat of that rundown Jeep with a storm brewing in the north. Maybe I should just give them a call. Why not?”

  Rufino was at the door again.

  “We should go,” I said, to spare him having to say it again.

  “La bendición,” Patria called, asking for Mama’s blessing.

  “La bendicón, mis hijas. Mama turned abruptly, as if to hide the worry on her face. She headed towards the bedrooms. As we went out, I could hear her scolding the children, who were wailing with disappointment at not being taken on our outing.

  Dedé stood by the Jeep, blocking our way. “I’m going crazy with worrying. I’ll be the one locked up forever, you’ll see. In the madhouse!” There was no self-mockery in her voice.

  “We’ll come visit you, too,” I said, laughing. But then seeing her teary, unhappy face, I added, “Poor, poor Dede.” I took her face in my two hands. I kissed her goodbye and then climbed into the Jeep.

  We were at the counter paying for the purses. The very correct young salesclerk was taking his time, and the manager had already been by once to hurry him along. With infinite patience the clerk folded the straps just so, located each purse at the center of the brown parcel paper he painstakingly tore from the roll, and commenced creasing the edges. I watched his hands working, mesmerized. This must be how God does things, I thought, as if He has all the time in the world.

  We had asked permission for this brief detour to El Gallo on our way to Puerto Plata today. Our sewing supplies were low again, and we needed thread in several colors, seam bindings, and ribbons to complete November’s orders. The drive over the mountain was long. If our nerves cooperated, we could catch up on some of the hand sewing today.

  When we went to pay, the salesclerk showed us a new shipment of Italian purses. Mate mooned over one in red patent leather with a snap in the shape of a heart. But of course, she wouldn’t think of such an extravagance. “Unless—” She looked up at us. Patria and I were also examining the display case. There was a practical black bag with innumerable zippered pockets and compartments just perfect for Patria’s goodwill supplies. Then I spotted a smart leather envelope that would be exactly the thing for a young lawyer to carry. An investment in hope, I thought.

  “Shall we?” We looked at each other like naughty schoolgirls. We hadn’t bought ourselves a single thing since before prison. We should, Mate decided. She did not want to be the only one splurging. I didn’t need much talking into, but at the last minute, Patria desisted. “I just can’t. I don’t really need it.” I felt a flicker of anger at her for her goodness that I didn’t want—at this moment—to live up to.

  As he wrapped Mate’s first, the man kept his head bowed. But for one fleeting instant, I caught his eyes on us and a look of recognition dawning on his face. How many people—on the street, in church, on the sidewalks, in shops like this one—knew who we were?

  “New purses. A sign of good luck coming!” Somebody else waiting for the future, I thought. I felt a flush of embarrassment to be caught shopping when I should have been plotting a revolution.

  Rufino came in the store from the sidewalk where he was parked. “We better get started. The rainstorm looks like it’s coming and I want to be over the worse part of the pass by then.”

  The young man looked up from his wrapping. “You aren’t planning to go over the pass today, are you?”

  My stomach clenched. But then, I thought, the more people know, the better. “We always go Fridays to Puerto Plata to see the men,” I told him.

  The floor manager came forward, smiling falsely at us, but throwing meaningful looks his attendant’s way. “Finish up there, you don’t want to delay the ladies.” The young man hurried off and was back momentarily with our change. He finished wrapping my purse.

  As he handed it over, the attendant gave me an intent look. “Jorge Almonte,” he said, or something like that. “I put my card in your purse if there should ever be any need.”

  The rain let up just as we came upon La Cumbre, the lonely mountain village that had grown up around one of Trujillo’s seldom-used mansions. Too isolated, some people said. El Jefe’s two-story concrete house sat on top of the mountain above a cluster of little palm huts that seemed to be barely holding on to the cliff. We craned our necks every time we went by. What did we think we’d see? A young girl brought here for a forced rendezvous? The old man himself walking around his grounds, beating the side of his shiny boots with a riding crop.

  The iron
gateway blazed its five stars above the gleaming T. As we passed, our young soldier passenger saluted, though no guards were in sight.

  We drove by shabby palm huts. The one time we had stopped here to stretch our legs the whole little village had gathered, offering to sell us anything we might want to buy. “Things are bad,” the villagers complained, looking up towards the big house.

  Rufino pulled over and rolled up the side flaps. A welcome breeze blew in, laden with the smells of damp vegetation. “Ladies,” Rufino asked us, before climbing back in, “if you’d like to stop?”

  Patria was sure she did not want to stop. This was her first time, and the road was a little spooky until you got used to it.

  Just as we were rounding the curve—on that stretch where the house shows the most from the road, I glanced up. “Why, look who’s there!” I said, pointing to the big white Mercedes that sat by the front door.

  All three of us knew at the same instant what it meant. An ambush lay ahead! Why else was Pena at La Cumbre? We had seen him just this morning in Santiago when we picked up our permissions. Patria’s chatty friend had made no mention of being headed in our direction.

  We could not turn around now. Were we being followed? We stuck our heads out the window to see what lay behind as well as ahead.

  “I give myself to San Marco de León,” Patria intoned, repeating the prayer for desperate situations. I found myself mouthing the silly words.

  Panic was rising up from my toes, through my guts, into my throat. The thunder in my chest exploded. Mate was already wheezing, searching through her purse for her medication. We sounded like a mobile sanatorium.

  Rufino slowed. “Shall we stop at the three crosses?” Up ahead on a shoulder were three white crosses marking the casualties from a recent accident. Suddenly, it loomed in my head as the place for an ambush. The last place we should stop.