In The Time Of The Butterflies Part 16

He thought I meant him, but I was looking around at the whole group. "Come on."

Minerva waved away my invitation. "Don't you worry about us."

I said, "Come on in, now. I mean it this time."

They looked from one to the other, and something in my voice let them know I was with them. They picked up their drinks, and I could have been leading the children out of bondage, the way they all followed me obediently into my house.

Now it was Pedrito who began to worry. And the worry came where he was most vulnerable.

The same month we met in Padre de Jesus' rectory, a new law was pa.s.sed. If you were caught harboring any enemies of the regime even if you yourself were not involved in their schemes, you would be jailed, and everything you owned everything you owned would become the property of the government. would become the property of the government.

His land! Worked by his father and grandfather and great-grandfather before him. His house like an ark with beams where he could see his great-grandfather's mark.

We had not fought like this in our eighteen years of marriage. In that bedroom at night, that man, who had never raised his voice to me, unleashed the fury of three ancestors at me. "You crazy, mujer, to invite them into the house! You want your sons to lose their patrimony, is that what you want?"

As if he were answering his father, Raul Ernes...o...b..gan to cry. I gave him the breast and long after he was done, I cradled him there to help coax out the tenderness in his father. To remind him there was some for him as well.

But he didn't want me. It was the first time Pedrito Gonzalez had turned me away. That hurt deep in the heart's tender parts. I was going through that empty period after the baby is born when you ache to take it back into yourself. And the only solace then is the father coming back in, making himself at home.

"If you had seen what I saw on that mountain," I pleaded with him, weeping all over again for that dead boy. "Ay, "Ay, Pedrito, how can we be true Christians and turn our back on our brothers and sisters-" Pedrito, how can we be true Christians and turn our back on our brothers and sisters-"

"Your first responsibility is to your children, your husband, and your home!" His face was so clouded with anger, I couldn't see the man I loved. "I've already let them use this place for months. Let them meet over on your own Mirabal farm from now on!"

It's true, our family farm would have been a logical alternative, but Dede and Jaimito were living on it now. I had already approached Dede, and she had come back without Jaimito's permission.

"But you believe in what they're doing, Pedrito," I reminded him. And then I don't know what got into me. I wanted to hurt the man in front of me. I wanted to break this smaller version of who he was and release the big-hearted man I'd married. And so I told him. His first born did not want this patrimony. Nelson had already put in his application for the university in the fall. And what was more, I knew for a fact he was already in the underground along with his uncles. "It's him you'll be throwing to the SIM!"

Pedrito wiped his face with his big hands and bowed his head, resigned. "G.o.d help him, G.o.d help him," he kept mumbling till my heart felt wrong hurting him as I'd done.

But later in the dark, he sought me out with his old hunger. He didn't have to say it, that he was with us now. 1 knew it in the reckless way he took me with him down into the place where his great-grandfather and his grandfather and his father had met their women before him.

So it was that our house became the motherhouse of the movement.

It was here with the doors locked and the front windows shuttered that the ACC merged with the group Manolo and Minerva had started over a year ago. There were about forty of us. A central committee was elected. At first, they tried to enlist Minerva, but she deferred to Manolo, who became our president.

It was in this very parlor where Noris had begun receiving callers that the group gave themselves a name. How they fought over that one like schoolgirls arguing over who will hold whose hand! Some wanted a fancy name that would touch all the high spots, Revolutionary Party of Dominican Integrity. Then Minerva moved swiftly through the clutter to the heart of the matter. She suggested we name ourselves after the men who had died in the mountains.

For the second time in her quiet life, Patria Mercedes (alias Mariposa #3) shouted out, "Amen to the revolution!"

So it was between these walls hung with portraits, including El Jefe's, that the Fourteenth of June Movement was founded. Our mission was to effect an internal revolution rather than wait for an outside rescue.

It was on this very Formica table where you could still see the egg stains from my family's breakfast that the bombs were made. Nipples, they were called. It was the shock of my life to see Maria Teresa, so handy with her needlepoint, using tweezers and little scissors to twist the fine wires together.

It was on this very bamboo couch where my Nelson had, as a tiny boy, played with the wooden gun his grandfather had made him that he sat now with Padre de Jesus, counting the ammunition for the .32 automatics we would receive in a few weeks at a prearranged spot. The one named Ilander we called Eagle had arranged the air drop with the exiles.

It was on that very rocker where I had nursed every one of my babies that I saw my sister Minerva looking through the viewfinder of an M-1 carbine-a month ago I would not have known it from a shotgun. When I followed her aim out the window, I cried out, startling her, "No, no, not the mimosa!"

I had sent Noris away to her grandmother's in Conuco. I told her we were making repairs to her room. And in a way, we were, for it was in her bedroom that we a.s.sembled the boxes. It was among her crocheted pink poodles and little perfume bottles and snapshots of her quinceanera quinceanera party that we stashed our a.r.s.enal of a.s.sorted pistols and revolvers, three .38 caliber Smith and Wesson pistols, six .30 caliber M-1 carbines, four M-3 machine guns, and a .45 Thompson stolen from a guardia. I know, Mate and I drew up the list ourselves in the pretty script we'd been taught by the nuns for writing out Bible pa.s.sages. party that we stashed our a.r.s.enal of a.s.sorted pistols and revolvers, three .38 caliber Smith and Wesson pistols, six .30 caliber M-1 carbines, four M-3 machine guns, and a .45 Thompson stolen from a guardia. I know, Mate and I drew up the list ourselves in the pretty script we'd been taught by the nuns for writing out Bible pa.s.sages.

It was in those old and bountiful fields that Pedrito and his son and a few of the other men buried the boxes once we got them loaded and sealed. In among the cacao roots Pedrito lowered the terrible cargo. But he seemed at peace now with the risks he was taking. This was a kind of farming, too, he told me later, one that he could share with his Nelson. From those seeds of destruction, we would soon-very soon-harvest our freedom.

It was on that very coffee table on which Noris had once knocked a tooth out tussling with her brother that the plans for the attack were drawn. On January 21st, the day of the Virgin of Highest Grace, the different groups would gather here to arm themselves and receive their last-minute instructions.

It was down this very hall and in and out of my children's bedrooms and past the parlor and through the back galeria galeria to the yard that I walked those last days of 1959, worrying if I had done the right thing exposing my family to the SIM. I kept seeing that motherhouse up in the mountains, its roof caving in, its walls crumbling like a foolish house built on sand. I could, by a trick of terror, turn that vision into my own house tumbling down. to the yard that I walked those last days of 1959, worrying if I had done the right thing exposing my family to the SIM. I kept seeing that motherhouse up in the mountains, its roof caving in, its walls crumbling like a foolish house built on sand. I could, by a trick of terror, turn that vision into my own house tumbling down.

As I walked, I built it back up with prayer, hung the door on its creaky hinges, nailed the floorboards down, fitted the transoms. "G.o.d help us," I kept saying. "G.o.d help us." Raulito was almost always in my arms, crying something terrible, as I paced, trying to settle him, and myself, down.

III.

1960.

CHAPTER NINE.

Dede 1994.

and 1960.

When Dede next notices, the garden's stillness is deepening, blooming dark flowers, their scent stronger for the lack of color and light. The interview woman is a shadowy face slowly losing its features.

"And the shades of night begin to fall, and the traveler hurries home, and the campesino bids his fields the campesino bids his fields farewell," farewell," Dede recites. Dede recites.

The woman gets up hurriedly from her chair as if she has just been shown the way out. "I didn't realize it was this late."

"No, no, I wasn't throwing you an indirecta." indirecta." Dede laughs, motioning the woman to sit back down. "We have a few more minutes." The interviewer perches at the edge of her chair as if she knows the true interview is over. Dede laughs, motioning the woman to sit back down. "We have a few more minutes." The interviewer perches at the edge of her chair as if she knows the true interview is over.

"That poem always goes through my head this time of day," Dede explains. "Minerva used to recite it a lot those last few months when she and Mate and Patria were living over at Mama's. The husbands were in prison," she adds, for the woman's face registers surprise at this change of address. "All except Jaimito."

"How lucky," her guest notes.

"It wasn't luck," Dede says right out. "It was because he didn't get directly involved."

"And you?"

Dede shakes her head. "Back in those days, we women followed our husbands." Such a silly excuse. After all, look at Minerva. "Let's put it this way," Dede adds. "I followed my husband. followed my husband. I I didn't get involved." didn't get involved."

"I can understand that," the interview woman says quickly as if protecting Dede from her own doubts. "It's still true in the States. I mean, most women I know, their husband gets a job in Texas, say well, Texas it's going to be."

"I've never been to Tejas, Tejas, Dede says absently. Then, as if to redeem herself, she adds, "I didn't get involved until later." Dede says absently. Then, as if to redeem herself, she adds, "I didn't get involved until later."

"When was that?" the woman asks.

Dede admits it out loud: "When it was already too late."

The woman puts away her pad and pen. She digs around in her purse for her keys, and then she remembers-she stuck them in the ashtray of the car so she could find them easily! She is always losing things. She says it like a boast. She gives several recent examples in her confused Spanish.

Dede worries this woman will never find her way back to the main road in the dark. Such a thin woman with fly-about hair in her face. What ever happened to hairspray? Her niece Minou's hair is the same way. All this fussing about the something layer in outer s.p.a.ce, and meanwhile, they walk around looking like something from outer s.p.a.ce.

"Why don't I lead you out to the anacahuita turn," she offers the interview woman.

"You drive?"

They are always so surprised. And not just the American women who think of this as an "underdeveloped" country where Dede should still be riding around in a carriage with a mantilla over her hair, but her own nieces and nephews and even her sons tease her about her little Subaru. Their Mama Dede, a modem woman, Epa! Epa! But in so many other things I have not changed, Dede thinks. Last year during her prize trip to Spain, the smart-looking Canadian man approached her, and though it'd been ten years already since the divorce, Dede just couldn't give herself that little fling. But in so many other things I have not changed, Dede thinks. Last year during her prize trip to Spain, the smart-looking Canadian man approached her, and though it'd been ten years already since the divorce, Dede just couldn't give herself that little fling.

"I'll make it fine," the woman claims, looking up at the sky "Wow, the light is almost gone."

Night has fallen. Out on the road, they hear the sound of a car hurrying home. The interview woman bids Dede farewell, and together they walk through the darkened garden to the side of the house where the rented Datsun is parked.

A car nears and turns into the drive, its headlights beaming into their eyes. Dede and the woman stand paralyzed like animals caught in the beams of an oncoming car.

"Who could this be?" Dede wonders aloud.

"Your next compromiso, no?" the interview woman says.

Dede is reminded of her lie. "Yes, of course," she says as she peers into the dark. "Buenas!" "Buenas!" she calls out. she calls out.

"It's me, Mama Dede," Minou calls back. The car door slams-Dede jumps. Footsteps hurry towards them.

"What on earth are you doing here? I've told you a thousand times!" Dede scolds her niece. She doesn't care anymore if she is betraying her lie. Minou knows, all of her nieces know, that Dede can't bear for them to be on the road after dark. If their mothers had only waited until the next morning to drive back over that deserted mountain road, they might still be alive to scold their own daughters about the dangers of driving at night.

"Ya, ya, Mama Dede." Minou bends down to kiss her aunt. Having taken after both her mother and father, she is a head taller than Dede. "It just so happens I was off the road an hour ago." There is a pause, and Dede already guesses what Minou is hesitating to say, for therein awaits another scold. "I was over at Fela's." ya, Mama Dede." Minou bends down to kiss her aunt. Having taken after both her mother and father, she is a head taller than Dede. "It just so happens I was off the road an hour ago." There is a pause, and Dede already guesses what Minou is hesitating to say, for therein awaits another scold. "I was over at Fela's."

"Any messages from the girls?" Dede says smartly. Beside her, she can feel the eager presence of the interview woman.

"Can't we sit down first," Minou says. There is some emotion in her voice Dede can't quite make out. She has soured her niece's welcome, scolding her the minute she gets out of her car. "Come, come, you're right. Forgive your old aunt's bad manners. Let's go have a limonada." limonada."

"I was just on my way out," the interview woman reminds Dede. To Minou, she adds, "I hope to see you again-"

"We haven't even met." Minou smiles.

Dede apologizes for her oversight and introduces the woman to her niece. Oh dear, what a mishmash of grat.i.tude follows. The interview woman is delirious at the good fortune of meeting both sister and daughter of the heroine of the Fourteenth of June underground. Dede cringes. She had better cut this off. Unlike their aunt, the children won't put up with this kind of overdone gush.

But Minou is chuckling away. "Come see us again," she offers, and Dede, forced to rise to this politeness, adds, "Yes, now you know the way."

"I went to see Fela," Minou begins after she is settled with a fresh lemonade.

Dede hears her niece swallow some emotion. What could be wrong? Dede wonders. Gently now, she prods Minou, "Tell me what the girls had to say today?"

"That's just it," Minou says, her voice still uneven. "They wouldn't come. Fela says they must finally be at rest. It was strange, hearing that. I felt sad instead of glad."

Her last tie, however tenuous, to her mother. So that's what the emotion is all about, Dede thinks. Then it strikes her. She knows exactly why Fela was getting a blackout this afternoon. "Don't you worry." Dede pats her niece's hand. "They're still around."

Minou scowls at her aunt. "Are you making fun again?"

Dede shakes her head. "I swear they've been here. All afternoon."

Minou is watching her aunt for any sign of irony. Finally, she says, "All right, can I ask you anything just like I do Fela?"

Dede laughs uneasily. "Go on."

Minou hesitates, and then she says it right out, what Dede suspects everyone has always wanted to ask her but which some politeness kept them from. Trust Minerva's incarnation to confront Dede with the question she herself has avoided. "I've always wondered, I mean, you all were so close, why you didn't go along with them?"

Certainly she remembers everything about that sunny afternoon, a few days into the new year, when Patria, Mate, and Minerva came over to see her.

She had been preparing a new bed in the garden, enjoying the rare quiet of an empty house. The girl had the day off, and as usual on a Sunday afternoon, Jaimito had gone to the big gallera gallera in San Francisco, this time taking all three boys. Dede wasn't expecting them back till late. From Mama's house on the main road, her sisters must have seen Jaimito's pickup drive away without her and hurried to come over and pay Dede this surprise visit. in San Francisco, this time taking all three boys. Dede wasn't expecting them back till late. From Mama's house on the main road, her sisters must have seen Jaimito's pickup drive away without her and hurried to come over and pay Dede this surprise visit.

When she heard a car stop in front of the house, Dede considered taking off into the cacao grove. She was getting so solitary. A few nights ago Jaimito had complained that his mother had noticed that Dede wasn't her old lively self. She rarely dropped by Dona Leila's anymore with a new strain of hibiscus she'd sprouted or a batch of pastelitos she'd made from scratch. Miss Sonrisa was losing her smiles, all right. Dede had looked at her husband, a long look as if she could draw the young man of her dreams out from the bossy, old-fashioned macho he'd become. "Is that what your mother says?"

He'd brought this up as he sat in slippers in the galeria galeria enjoying the cool evening. He took a final swallow from his rum gla.s.s before he answered, "That's what my mother says. Get me another one, would you, Mami?" He held out the gla.s.s, and Dede had gone obediently to the icebox in the back of the house where she burst into tears. What she wanted to hear from him was that he had noticed. Just his saying so would have made it better, whatever it was. She herself wasn't sure what. enjoying the cool evening. He took a final swallow from his rum gla.s.s before he answered, "That's what my mother says. Get me another one, would you, Mami?" He held out the gla.s.s, and Dede had gone obediently to the icebox in the back of the house where she burst into tears. What she wanted to hear from him was that he had noticed. Just his saying so would have made it better, whatever it was. She herself wasn't sure what.

So when she saw her three sisters coming down the path that afternoon, she felt pure dread. It was as if the three fates were approaching, their scissors poised to snip the knot that was keeping Dede's life from falling apart.

She knew why they had come.

Patria had approached her in the fall with a strange request. Could she bury some boxes in one of the cacao fields in back of their old house?

Dede had been so surprised. "Why, Patria! Who put you up to this?"

Patria looked puzzled. "We're all in it, if that's what you mean. But I'm speaking for myself."

"I see," Dede had said, but really what she saw was Minerva in back of it all. Minerva agitating. No doubt she had sent Patria over rather than come herself since she and Dede were not getting along. It had been years since they'd fought openly-since Lio, wasn't it?-but recently their hot little exchanges had started up again.

What could Dede say? She had to talk to Jaimito first. Patria had given her a disappointed look, and Dede had gotten defensive. "What? I should go over Jaimito's head? It's only fair. He's the one farming the land, he's responsible for this place."

"But can't you decide on your own, then tell him?"

Dede stared at her sister, disbelieving.

"That's what I did," Patria went on. "I joined, and then I talked Pedrito into joining me."

"Well, I don't have that kind of marriage," Dede said. She smiled to take the huffiness out of her statement.

"What kind of marriage do you have?" Patria looked at her with that sweetness on her face that could always penetrate Dede's smiles. Dede looked away.

"It's just that you don't seem yourself," Patria continued, reaching for Dede's hand. "You seem so-I don't know-withdrawn. Is something wrong?"

It was Patria's worried tone more than her question that pulled Dede back into that abandoned part of herself where she had hoped to give love, and to receive it, in full measure, both directions.