In The Time Of The Butterflies Part 25

late night The moonlight is streaming in through our little window. I can't sleep. I am sitting up in my bunk, writing my last entry in the s.p.a.ce left, and sobbing in the quiet way you learn in prison so you don't add to anyone else's grief.

I feel sad to be leaving. Yes, strange as it sounds, this has become my home, these girls are like my sisters. I can't imagine the lonely privacy of living without them.

I tell myself the connection will continue. It does not go away because you leave. And I begin to understand the revolution in a new way.

At our "farewell party," I took a chance Dinorah might report me and had all of them sign my book like an autograph book. Some of them I'd taught how to write their names, so this is a real memento of my time here.

As for the book itself-Santicio is going to smuggle it out for me. We will be inspected thoroughly, I'm sure, when we leave.

Then we pa.s.sed around our little h.o.a.rd of sugar cubes and crackers and peanuts. I had a couple of bars of chocolates left and I cut those in thin slices. Even Dinorah added some guava paste she'd been h.o.a.rding. Then we looked at each other, and there was such a sad heartfelt feeling among us. Minerva started to say something, but she couldn't get it out. So we just held each other, and one by one, we wished each other well and then goodbye.

For the OAS Committee investigating Human Rights Abuses.

This is a journal entry of what occurred at La 40 on Monday, April 11th, 1960, to me, a female political prisoner. I'd rather not put my name. Also, I have blotted out some names as I am afraid of getting innocent people in trouble.

Please don't put it in the papers either, as I am concerned for my privacy.

When they came for me that morning, I thought that maybe I was being taken to the officers' lounge for questioning.

But instead, b.l.o.o.d.y Juan escorted me down the stairs and outside. There was a wagon waiting. It took me only a minute to realize where we were going.

I kept looking out the window, hoping I'd be seen by someone who might recognize me and tell my family they had spotted me in a police wagon headed towards La 40. How strange that the sun was s.h.i.+ning so innocently. That people were walking around as if there were no such thing in the world as poor souls in my predicament.

I tried getting some explanation as to why I was being taken in. But b.l.o.o.d.y Juan is not one to explain things.

By the time we got to La 40, I was shaking so bad I couldn't get out of the wagon. I felt ashamed that they had to carry me in like a sack of beans.

There was a bunch of them already waiting in the interrogation room, tall fat Johnny with his. .h.i.tler mustache. The one called Can dido with the curly hair. Then a bug-eyed one that kept cracking his knuckles to make the sound of breaking bones.

They stripped me down to my slip and bra.s.siere and made me lie down on this long metal table, but they didn't buckle the belts I saw dangling down the sides. I have never known such terror. My chest was so tight I could barely breathe.

Johnny said, Hey, pretty lady, don't get all excited.

We're not going to hurt you, the one called Candido said.

That made me shake all the more.

When the door opened, and[image]was brought in, I didn't immediately recognize him. A walking skeleton, that's what he looked like, s.h.i.+rtless, his back covered with blisters the size of dimes.

I sprang up, but b.l.o.o.d.y Juan pushed me back down on the table. You lay down nice like you're in bed waiting for him, Bug Eye said. Then he said something gross about what torture does to the necessary organ. Johnny told him to shut up.

What do you want with her?[image]shouted. I could tell he was scared.

We want her to help us persuade you, Johnny said in a voice that was too calm and rational for this eerie place.

She has nothing to do with this,[image]cried.

Are you saying you've reconsidered, Johnny asked.

But[image]stood his ground. I'm not discussing the matter further unless you let her go.

That's when Bug Eye slammed him with a fist, knocking him down. How dare sc.u.m dictate terms to the captain! Then all of them joined in kicking[image]until he was writhing in agony on the floor.

I was screaming for them to stop. It felt like my very own stomach was being punched, and that's when the pains as bad as contractions began.

Then Johnny asked me if I couldn't persuade[image]After all,[image]and[image]had all reconsidered.

I was so tempted to say, Ay, Ay,[image] save yourself, save us. But I couldn't. It was as if that would have been the real way to let them kill us. save yourself, save us. But I couldn't. It was as if that would have been the real way to let them kill us.

So I told those monsters that I would never ask[image]to go against what his conscience told him was right.

Two of a kind, the one called Candido said. We'll have to use stronger persuasions.

I guess, Johnny said. Tie her down.

Bug Eye stood before me, holding a rod with a little switch. When he touched me with it, my whole body jumped with exquisite pain. I felt my spirit snapping loose, soaring above my body and looking down at the scene. I was about to float off in a haze of brightness when[image]cried out, I'll do it, I'll do it!

And down I went, sucked back into the body like water down a drain.

Next thing I knew,[image]was calling out my name and shouting, Tell them I had to do it, as he was being dragged away.

Johnny seemed in a bad mood at all this commotion. Get him out of here, he said. Then to b.l.o.o.d.y Juan, Get her dressed and take her back.

I was left alone in that room with a handful of guards. I could tell they were all ashamed of themselves, avoiding my eyes quiet as if Johnny were still there. Then b.l.o.o.d.y Juan gathered up my clothes, but I wouldn't let him help me. I dressed myself and walked out to the wagon on my own two feet.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

Minerva August to November 25, 1960 House Arrest August and September All my life, I had been trying to get out of the house. Papa always complained that, of his four girls, I should have been the boy, born to cut loose. First, I wanted to go to boarding school, then university. When Manolo and I started the underground, I traveled back and forth from Monte Cristi to Salcedo, connecting cell with cell. I couldn't stand the idea of being locked up in any one life.

So when we were released in August and put under house arrest, you'd have thought I was getting just the punishment for me. But to tell the truth, it was as if I'd been served my sentence on a silver platter. By then, I couldn't think of anything I wanted more than to stay home with my sisters at Mama's, raising our children.

Those first few weeks at home took some getting used to.

After seven months in prison, a lot of that time in solitary, the overload was too much. The phone ringing; a visitor dropping by (with permission from Pena, of course); Pena himself dropping by to see about the visitor; Don Bemardo with guavas from his tree; rooms to go in and out of; children wanting their shoelaces tied; the phone ringing again; what to do with the curdled milk.

In the middle of the day when I should have been out soaking up sun and getting good country air in my infected lungs, I would seek the quiet of the bedroom, slip out of my dress and lie under the sheets watching the sun speckling the leaves through the barely opened jalousies.

But as I lay there, the same overload would start happening in my head. Bits and pieces of the past would bob up in the watery soup of my thoughts those days-Lio explaining how to hit the volleyball so there was a curve in its fall; the rain falling on our way to Papa's funeral; my hand coming down on Trujillo's face; the doctor slapping her first breath into my newborn baby girl.

I'd sit up, shocked at what I was letting happen to me. I had been so much stronger and braver in prison. Now at home I was falling apart.

Or, I thought, lying back down, I'm ready for a new life, and this is how it starts.

I grew stronger gradually and began taking part in the life of the household.

None of us had any money, and the dwindling income from the farm was being stretched mighty thin across five families. So we started up a specialty business of children's christening gowns. I did the simple st.i.tching and seam binding.

The pneumonia in my lungs cleared up. I got my appet.i.te back and began to regain the weight I'd lost in prison. I could wear again my old clothes Dona Fefita had brought down from Monte Cristi.

And, of course, my children were a wonder. I'd swoop down on them, showering them with kisses. "Mami!" they'd shriek. How lovely to be called mother again; to have their little arms around my neck; their sane, sweet breath in my face.

And pinto beans-were they always so colorful? "Wait, wait, wait," I'd cry out to Fela before she dunked them in the water. I'd scoop up handfuls just to hear the soft rattle of their downpour back in the pot. Everything I had to touch. Everything I had to taste. I wanted everything back in my life again.

But sometimes a certain slant of light would send me back. The light used to fall just so at this time of day on the floor below my top bunk.

And once, Minou got hold of a piece of pipe and was rattling it against the galeria galeria rail. It was a sound exactly recalling the guards in prison running their nightsticks against the bars. I ran out and yanked the pipe from her hand, screaming, "No!" My poor little girl burst out crying, frightened by the terror in my voice. rail. It was a sound exactly recalling the guards in prison running their nightsticks against the bars. I ran out and yanked the pipe from her hand, screaming, "No!" My poor little girl burst out crying, frightened by the terror in my voice.

But those memories, too, began to fade. They became stories. Everyone wanted to hear them. Mate and I could keep the house entertained for hours, telling and retelling the horrors until the sting was out of them.

We were allowed two outings a week: Thursdays to La Victoria to visit the men, and Sundays to church. But for all that I was free to travel, I dreaded going out of the house. The minute we turned onto the road, my heart started pounding and my breathing got shallow.

The open vistas distressed me, the sense of being adrift in a crowd of people pressing in on all sides, wanting to touch me, greet me, wish me well. Even in church during the privacy of Holy Communion, Father Gabriel bent down and whispered "iviva la Mariposa!" "iviva la Mariposa!"

My months in prison had elevated me to superhuman status. It would hardly have been seemly for someone who had challenged our dictator to suddenly succ.u.mb to a nervous attack at the communion rail.

I hid my anxieties and gave everyone a bright smile. If they had only known how frail was their iron-will heroine. How much it took to put on that hardest of all performances, being my old self again.

My best performances were reserved for Pena's visits. He came often to supervise our house arrest. The children got so used to his toad face and grabby hands, they began calling him Tio Capitan and asking to hold his gun and ride on his knee horse.

I myself could not get used to him. Whenever that big white Mercedes turned into our narrow driveway, I ran to my bedroom and shut the door to give myself time to put on my old-self face.

In no time, someone was sent back there to get me. "It's Pena. You've got to come!" Even Mama, who once refused to receive him, now b.u.t.tered him up whenever he was over. After all, he had let her have her babies back.

One afternoon I was out tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the laurel in the front yard. Manolito was "helping" me. After cutting the branches, all but a sliver, I held him up to pull them off. From his perch on my shoulders, he reported all he saw out on the road. "Tio's car!" he cried out, and sure enough, I saw the flash of white through a break in the hedge. It was too late to tune up for my performance. I went directly to the carport to receive him.

"What a rare occasion, Dona Minerva. The last few times I've come you haven't been well." In other words, I've noticed your rudeness. All of it is filed away. "You must be feeling better," he observed, without a question mark.

"I saw your car, I saw your car," sang Manolito.

"Manolito, my boy, you are all eyes. We could use men like you in the SIM."

Oh G.o.d, I thought.

"Ladies, it's nice to have you all here," Pena noted, when Mate and Patria joined us on the patio. Dede had appeared with her shears to work on the hedge and keep her eye on "things." Whenever she didn't like my tone, she would clip the crown of thorns violently, scattering a spray of leaves and red petals in the air.

For the umpteenth time, Pena reminded us how lucky we were. Our five-year sentence had been commuted to house arrest. Instead of the restrictions of prison, we had only a few rules to obey. (We called them Pena's commandments.) He rehea.r.s.ed them each time he came: No trips, no visitors, no contact with politicals. Any exceptions only by his permission. "Clear?"

We nodded. I was tempted to bring out the broom and set it by the door, the country way to tell people it was time to go.

Pena dunked the bobbing ice cubes with a fat finger. Today he had come for more than the recital of his rules. "El Jefe has not visited our province for a while now," he began.

Of course not, I thought. Most families in Salcedo had at least one son or daughter or husband in prison.

"We are trying to get him to come. All loyal citizens are writing letters."

Clip-clip went Dede's shears, as if to drown out anything I might be thinking.

"El Jefe has been very generous to you girls. It would be nice if you composed a letter of thanks for his leniency."

He glanced at me and Mate, resting his eyes on Patria last. We gave him nothing with our faces. Poor nervous Dede, who had edged up the patio towards us and was rewatering all the plants, said that yes, that would be wise. "I mean nice," she corrected herself quickly, and Patria, Mate, and I bowed our heads to hide our smiles.

After Pena left there was a fight. The others wanted to go ahead and write the d.a.m.n letter. But I was against it. Thank Trujillo for punis.h.i.+ng us!

"But what harm can a little letter do?" Mate argued. It was no longer so easy for me to talk that one into anything.

"People look to us to be an example, we've got a responsibility!" I spoke so fiercely, they looked a little sheepish. My old self was putting on quite a show.

"Now, Minerva," Patria reasoned. "You know if he publishes the silly thing everyone will know why we wrote it."

"Just go along with us this one time," Mate pleaded with me.

It reminded me of that time in Inmaculada when I had not wanted to perform for Trujillo with my friends. But I had given in to them, and we had almost met our end, too, with Sinita's bow-and-arrow a.s.sa.s.sination attempt.

What finally convinced me was Patria's argument that the letter might help free the men. A grateful note from the Mirabal sisters might just soften El Jefe's heart towards our husbands.

"Heart?" I said, making a face. Then, sitting down to our task, I made it perfectly clear: "This is against my better principles."

"Someone needs to have less principles and more sense," Dede murmured, but without much fight in her voice. I think she was relieved to see a little spark of the old Minerva again.

Afterwards I felt small with what I'd done. "We've got to do something," I kept muttering.

"Calm down, Minerva. Here," Dede said, pulling down Gandhi from the shelf. Elsa had given me this book when I first got out of prison to show me, she said, that being pa.s.sive and gentle could be revolutionary. Dede had approved wholeheartedly.

Today, Gandhi would not do. What I needed was a shot of Fidel's fiery rhetoric. He would have agreed with me. We had to do something, soon!

"We have to accept this cross is what we have to do," Patria said.

"Like h.e.l.l we do!" I said. I was on a rampage.

It lasted only until the end of that day.

We were already in bed when I heard them talking loudly on the porch. They were everywhere-the dark gla.s.ses, the ironed pants, the pomaded hair. They stayed on the road until night, when they drew close to the house like moths drawn towards the light.

Usually I covered my head with my pillow and after a while fell asleep. But tonight I couldn't ignore them. I got up from bed, not even bothering to throw a shawl over my nightgown.

Dede caught me going out the door. She tried to hold me back, but weak though I still was, I pushed her aside easily. Dede was still Dede, without much conviction in her fighting.

Two SIM agents were sitting on our rockers as comfortable as you please. "Companeros," "Companeros," I said, startling them in mid-rock with the revolutionary greeting. "I'm going to have to ask you to please keep your voices down. You're right under our bedroom windows. Remember, you are guards, not guests here." I said, startling them in mid-rock with the revolutionary greeting. "I'm going to have to ask you to please keep your voices down. You're right under our bedroom windows. Remember, you are guards, not guests here."