In The Time Of The Butterflies Part 6

"Didn't your mother tell you?" Dede asked sarcastically. "Don't spirits know the whereabouts of all of us?"

"You sound upset, Mama Dede," Minou observed.

"You know I don't believe in all this spirit business. And I think it's a disgrace that you, the daughter of-"

Minou's eyes flashed with anger, and Minerva herself stood before Dede again. "I'm my own person. I'm tired of being the daughter of a legend."

Quickly, the face of her sister fell away like water down a slanted roof. Dede held out her arms for her dear niece-daughter. Dark mascara tears were coursing down Minou's cheeks. Didn't she, Dede, understand that feeling of being caught in a legacy. "Forgive me," she whispered. "Of course, you have a right to be yourself."

Afterwards, Dede confessed that she did know where Lio Morales now lived. Someone had pointed out the house to her the last time she was in the capital. The comfortable bungalow was just blocks from the dictator's huge wedding cake palace that the mobs had long ago burned down.

"So what's the message you're to deliver?" Dede asked as casually as she could.

"Message?" Minou looked up, surprised. "I was just to say h.e.l.lo and how much Mama thought of him."

"Me, too," Dede said, and then to clarify, "Tell him I said h.e.l.lo, too."

"So when did all the problems start?" The interview woman's voice calls Dede back to the present moment. Again, Dede feels as if the woman has been eerily reading her thoughts.

"What problems?" she asks, an edge to her voice. Whatever feelings she once had for Lio never became a problem for anyone, even for herself. She had taken care of that.

"I mean the problems with the regime. When did these problems start?" The woman speaks in a soft voice as if she suspects she is intruding.

Dede apologizes. "My mind wanders." She feels bad when she can't carry off what she considers her responsibility. To be the grande dame of the beautiful, terrible past. But it is an impossible task, impossible! After all, she is the only one left to manage the terrible, beautiful present.

"If it is too much, I can stop now," the woman offers.

Dede waves the offer away "I was just thinking about those days. You know, everyone says our problems started after Minerva had her run-in with Trujillo at the Discovery Day dance. But the truth is Minerva was already courting trouble two or three years before that. We had this friend who was quite a radical young man. You might have heard of Virgilio Morales?"

The woman narrows her eyes as if trying to make out a figure in the distance. "I don't think I ever read about him, no."

"He was thrown out of the country so many times, the history books couldn't keep up with him! He came back from exile in '47 for a couple of years. Trujillo had announced we were going to have a free country-just like the Yanquis he was trying to b.u.t.ter up. We all knew this was just a show, but Lio-that's what we called him-may have gotten swept up in the idea for a while. Anyhow, he had family in this area, so we saw a lot of him for those two years before he had to leave again."

"So he was Minerva's special friend?"

Dede feels her heart beating fast. "He was a special friend of mine and my other sisters too!" There she has said it, so why doesn't it feel good? Fighting with her dead sister over a beau, my goodness.

"Why was the friendship the beginning of problems?" The woman's head tilts with curiosity.

"Because Lio presented a very real opportunity to fight against the regime. I think that, after him, Minerva was never the same." And neither was I, she adds to herself. Yes, years after she had last seen Lio, he was still a presence in her heart and mind. Every time she went along with some insane practice of the regime, she felt his sad, sober eyes accusing her of giving in.

"How do you spell his name?" The woman has taken out a little pad and is making invisible zeroes trying to get her reluctant pen to write. "I'll look him up."

"I'll tell you what I remember of him," Dede offers, stroking the lap of her skirt dreamily. She takes a deep breath, just the way Minou describes Fela doing right before the sisters take over her body and use her old woman's voice to a.s.sign their errands.

She remembers a hot and humid afternoon early in the year she got married. She and Minerva are at the store plowing through an inventory. Minerva is up on a stool, counting cans, correcting herself, adding "more or less," when Dede repeats the figure before she writes it down. Usually, Dede cannot bear such sloppiness. But today she is impatient to be done so they can close up and drive over to Tio Pepe's where the young people have been gathering evenings to play volleyball.

Her cousin Jaimito will be there. They have known each other all their lives, been paired and teased by their mothers ever since the two babies were placed in the same playpen during family gatherings. But in the last few weeks, something has been happening. All that had once annoyed Dede about her spoiled, big-mouthed cousin now seems to quicken something in her heart. And whereas before, her mother's and Jaimito's mother's hints were the intrusion of elders into what was none of their business, now it seems the old people were perceiving destiny. If she marries Jaimito, she'll continue in the life she has always been very happy living.

Minerva must have given up calling down numbers and getting no response. She stands directly in Dede's line of vision, waving. "h.e.l.lo, h.e.l.lo!"

Dede laughs at getting caught daydreaming. It is not like her at all. Usually it is Minerva whose head is somewhere else. "I was just thinking ..." She tries to make up something. But she is not good at quick lies either. Minerva is the one with stories on the tip of her tongue.

"I know, I know," Minerva says. "You were thinking about Einstein's theory of relativity." Sometimes she can be funny. "You want to call it quits for today?" The hopeful expression on her face betrays her own wishes.

Dede reminds them both, "We should have gotten this done a week ago!"

"This is so silly" Minerva mimics their counting. "Four crumbs of dulce dulce de leche; one, two, let's see, seven ants marching towards them-" Suddenly, her voice changes, "Two visitors!" They are standing at the door, Mario, one of their distributors, and a tall, pale man behind him, his gla.s.ses thick and wire-rimmed. A doctor maybe, a scholar for sure. de leche; one, two, let's see, seven ants marching towards them-" Suddenly, her voice changes, "Two visitors!" They are standing at the door, Mario, one of their distributors, and a tall, pale man behind him, his gla.s.ses thick and wire-rimmed. A doctor maybe, a scholar for sure.

"We're closed," Dede announces in case Mario is here on business. "Papa's at the house." But Minerva invites them in. "Come and rescue us, please!"

"What's wrong?" Mario says, laughing and coming into the store. "Too much work?"

"Of the uninspiring kind," Minerva says archly.

"But it needs to be done-our end-of-the-year inventory is now our new year's unfinished business." Saying it, Dede feels annoyed at herself all over again for not having finished the job earlier.

"Maybe we can help?" The young scholar has stepped up to the counter and is gazing at the shelves behind Dede.

"This is my cousin," Mario explains, "just come from the capital to rescue ladies in distress."

"You're at the university?" Minerva pipes up. And when the young man nods, Mario goes on to brag for his cousin. Virgilio Morales has recently returned from Venezuela where he earned his medical degree. He is now teaching in the faculty of medicine. Every weekend he comes up to the family place in Licey.

"What a serious name Virgilio." Dede blushes. She is not used to putting herself forward in this way.

The young man's serious look fades. "That's why everyone calls me Lio."

"They call you Lio because you're always in one fix or another," Mario reminds his cousin, who laughs good-naturedly.

"Virgilio Morales ..." Minerva muses aloud. "Your name sounds familiar. Do you know Elsa Sanchez and Sinita Perozo? They're at the university."

"Of course!" Now he is smiling, taking a special interest in Minerva. Soon the two of them are deep in conversation. How did that happen? Dede wonders. The young man, after all, had headed straight for her, offering his help.

"How are you, Dede?" Mario leans confidentially on the counter. He tried courting her a few months back before Dede set him straight. Mario is just not, not, well, he's not Jaimito. But then neither is this young doctor.

"I wish we could get this done." Dede sighs, capping her pen and closing the book. Mario apologizes. They have interrupted the girls in their work. Dede rea.s.sures him that it was slow going before the visitors arrived.

"Maybe it's the heat," Mario says, fanning himself with his Panama hat.

"What do you say we all go for a swim in the lagoon?" Minerva offers. The young men look ready to go, but Dede reminds Minerva, "What about volleyball?" Jaimito will be looking for her. And if she's going to end up with Mario, which is no doubt the way things will settle, she'd rather be with the man she intends to marry. So there.

"Volleyball? Did someone say volleyball?" the young scholar asks. It is nice to see a smile on his pale, serious face. It turns out he has played on several university teams.

Minerva gets another great idea. Why not play volleyball, and then, when they are hot and sweaty, go jump in the lagoon.

Dede marvels at Minerva's facility in arranging everyone's lives. And how easily she a.s.sumes they can get permission from Papa. Already the volleyball evenings are becoming a problem. Papa does not feel that two sisters make the best chaperones for each other, especially if they are both eager to go to the same place.

Back at the house, while the young men visit with Mama in the galeria, Minerva argues with their father. "But Papa, Mario's a man you do business with, a man you trust. We're going to Tio Pepe's, our uncle, to play volleyball with our cousins. How much more chaperoned can we be?"

Papa is dressing before his mirror. He has been looking younger, more handsome, something. He cranes his neck, looking over Minerva's shoulder. "Who is that young man with Mario?"

"Just some cousin of Mario's here for the weekend," Minerva says too offhandedly. Dede notes how Minerva is avoiding mentioning Lio's a.s.sociation with the university.

And then the coup de grace. "Why don't you come with us, Papa?"

Of course, Papa won't come along. Every evening he tours his property hearing reports from the campesinos campesinos about what's been done that day. He never takes his girls along. "Men's business," he always says. That's what he's getting ready to do right now. about what's been done that day. He never takes his girls along. "Men's business," he always says. That's what he's getting ready to do right now.

"You be back before it's dark." He scowls. This is the way Dede knows he's granted them permission-when he begins talking of their return.

Dede changes quickly, but not fast enough for Minerva. "Come on," she keeps hurrying Dede. "Before Papa changes his mind!" Dede is not sure her b.u.t.tons are all b.u.t.toned as they head down the driveway to where the young men now wait beside their car.

Dede feels the stranger's eyes on her. She knows she looks especially good in her flowered shinwaist and white sandal heels.

Lio smiles, amused. "You're going to play volleyball dressed like that?" Suddenly, Dede feels foolish, caught in her frivolity as if she were a kitten knotted in yam. Of course, she never plays. Except for Minerva in her trousers and tennis shoes, the girls all sit in the galeria galeria cheering the boys on. cheering the boys on.

"I don't play" she says rather more meekly than she intends. "I just watch."

The truth of her words strikes Dede as she remembers how she stood back and watched the young man open the back door for whoever wanted to sit by him. And Minerva slipped in!

She remembers a Sat.u.r.day evening a few weeks later.

Jaimito and his San Francisco Tigers are playing poorly against the Ojo de Agua Wolves. During a break, he comes up to the galeria galeria for a cold beer. for a cold beer. "Hola, prima," "Hola, prima," he says to Dede as if they are just cousins. She is still pretending not to give him the time of day, but she checks herself in every reflecting surface. Now her hands clench with tension in the pockets of her fresh dress. he says to Dede as if they are just cousins. She is still pretending not to give him the time of day, but she checks herself in every reflecting surface. Now her hands clench with tension in the pockets of her fresh dress.

"Come on and play, cousin." He tugs at her arm. After all, Minerva has long been working up a sweat on the Ojo de Agua side of the net. "Our team could use some help!"

"I wouldn't be much help," Dede giggles. Truly, she has always considered sports-like politics-something for men. Her one weakness is her horse Brio, whom she adores riding. Minerva has been teasing her how this Austrian psychiatrist has proved that girls who like riding like s.e.x. "I'm all flan fingers when it comes to volleyball."

"You wouldn't have to play," he flirts. "Just stand on our side and distract those wolves with your pretty face!"

Dede gives him the sunny smile she is famous for.

"Be nice to us Tigers, Dede. After all, we did bend the rules for you Wolves." He indicates over his shoulder where Minerva and Lio are immersed in an intent conversation in a comer of the galeria. galeria.

It is true. Although Lio is not from Ojo de Agua, the Tigers have agreed to let him play for the weakling team. Dede supposes that the Tigers took one look at the bespectacled, pale young man and decided he wouldn't be much compet.i.tion. But Lio Morales has turned out to be surprisingly agile. The Ojo de Agua Wolves are now gaining on the San Francisco Tigers.

"He's had to be quick," Jaimito has quipped. "Escaping the police and all." Jaimito and his buddies knew exactly who Virgilio Morales was the first night he came to play volleyball. They were split between admiration and wariness of his dangerous presence among them.

Jaimito hits on a way of getting Dede to play. "Girls against guys, what do you say?" he calls out, picking up a fresh bottle of beer. Used to keeping tabs at the family store, Dede has made note of three large ones for Jaimito already.

The girls t.i.tter, tempted. But what about mussing their dresses, what about spraining their ankles on high heels?

"Take off your heels, then," Jaimito says, eyeballing Dede's shapely legs, "and whatever else is in your way!"

"You!" Her face b.u.ms with pleasure. She has to admit that she is proud of her nice legs.

Soon, shawls are flung on chairs, a half dozen pairs of heels are kicked off in a pile at the bottom of the steps. Dress sleeves are rolled up, ponytails tightened, and with squeals of delight, the Amazons-as they've christened themselves-step out on the slippery evening gra.s.s. The young men whistle and hoot, roused by the sight of frisky young women, girding themselves, ready to play ball. The cicadas have started their trilling, and the bats swoop down and up as if graphing the bristling excitement. Soon it will be too dark to see the ball clearly.

As they are a.s.signing positions, Dede notices that her sister Minerva is not among them. Now, when they need her help, the pioneer woman player deserts them! She looks towards the galeria, where the two empty chairs facing each other recollect the vanished speakers. She is wondering whether or not to go in search of Minerva when she senses Jaimito's attention directed her way. Far back, almost in darkness, he is poised to strike. She hears a whack, then startled by the cries of her girlfriends, she looks up and sees a glowing moon coming down into her upraised hands.

Wasn't it really an accident? Dede ponders, rewinding back to the exact moment when she belted that ball. It had sailed over everyone's heads into the dark hedges where it landed with the thrashing sound of breaking branches, and then, the surprising cry of a startled couple.

Had she suspected that Minerva and Lio were in the hedges, and her shot was an easy way to flush them out? But why, she asks herself, why would she have wanted to stop them? Thinking back, she feels her heart starting to beat fast.

Nonsense, so much nonsense the memory cooks up, mixing up facts, putting in a little of this and a little of that. She might as well hang out her shingle like Fela and pretend the girls are taking possession of her. Better them than the ghost of her own young self making up stories about the past!

There was a fight, that she remembers. Lio came out of the hedges, the ball in his hand. Jaimito made a crude remark, carried away by his three-plus beers and growing uneasiness with Lio's presence. Then the picture tilts and blurs the memory of Lio throwing the ball at Jaimito's chest and of it knocking the breath out of him. Of Jaimito having to be held by his buddies. Of the girls hurrying back to their high heels. Of Tio Pepe coming down the steps from inside, shouting, "No more volleyball!"

But before they could be ushered away, the two men were at the quick of their differences. Jaimito called Lio a troublemaker, accusing him of cooking up plots and then running off to some emba.s.sy for asylum, leaving his comrades behind to rot in jail. "You're exposing us all," Jaimito accused.

"If I leave my country, it's only to continue the struggle. We can't let Chapita kill us all." all."

Then there had been the silence that always followed any compromising mention of the regime in public. One could never be sure who in a group might report what to the police. Every large household was said to have a servant on double payroll.

"I said no more volleyball tonight." Tio Pepe was looking from one to the other young man. "You two shake and be gentlemen. Come on," he encouraged. Jaimito stuck out his hand.

Oddly enough, it was Lio, the peace lover, who would not shake at first. Dede can still picture the long, lanky body holding in tension, not saying a word, and then, finally, Lio reaching out his hand and saying, "We could use men like you, Jaimito." It was a compliment that allowed the two men to coexist and even to collaborate on romantic matters in the months ahead.

Such a small incident really. A silly explosion over a foul volleyball. But something keeps Dede coming back to the night of that fight. And to the days and nights that followed. Something keeps her turning and turning these moments in her mind, something. She is no longer sure she wants to find out what.

No matter what Mama said later, she was at first very taken with Virgilio Morales. She would sit in the galeria, galeria, conversing with the young doctor-about the visit of Trygve Lie from the United Nations, the demonstrations in the capital, whether or not there was government in Paradise, and if so what kind it would be. On and on, Mama listened, spoke her mind, Mama who had always said that all this talking of Minerva's was unhealthy. After Lio had left, Mama would say, "What a refined young man." conversing with the young doctor-about the visit of Trygve Lie from the United Nations, the demonstrations in the capital, whether or not there was government in Paradise, and if so what kind it would be. On and on, Mama listened, spoke her mind, Mama who had always said that all this talking of Minerva's was unhealthy. After Lio had left, Mama would say, "What a refined young man."

Sometimes Dede felt a little peevish. After all, her beau had been along, too. But not a word was said about that fine young man Jaimito. How handsome he looked in his Mexican guayabera. guayabera. What a funny joke he had made about what the coconut said to the drunk man. Mama had known him since he was a kindred swelling of her first cousin's belly. What was there to say about him but, "That Jaimito!" What a funny joke he had made about what the coconut said to the drunk man. Mama had known him since he was a kindred swelling of her first cousin's belly. What was there to say about him but, "That Jaimito!"

Dede and Jaimito would wander off, unnoticed, stealing kisses in the garden. They'd play How Much Meat, Butcher?, Jaimito pretending to saw off Dede's shoulder, and instead getting to touch her sweet neck and bare arms. Soon they'd hear Mama calling them from the galeria, a scold in her voice. Once when they did not appear immediately (the butcher had been wanting the whole animal), Mama put a limit to how much Jaimito could come calling-Wednesdays, Sat.u.r.days, and Sundays only But who could control Jaimito, only son of his doting mother, unquestioned boss of his five sisters! He appeared on Mondays to visit Don Enrique, on Tuesdays and Thursdays to help with any loading or unloading at the store, on Fridays to bring what his mother had sent. Mama sighed, accepting the coconut flan or bag of cherries from their backyard tree. "That Jaimito!"

Then one Sunday afternoon Mate was reading Mama the newspaper out loud. It was no secret to Dede that Mama couldn't read, though Mama still persisted in her story that her eyesight was bad. When Dede read Mama the news, she was careful to leave out anything that would worry her. But that day, Mate read right out how there had been a demonstration at the university, led by a bunch of young professors, all members of the Communist party. Among the names listed was that of Virgilio Morales! Mama looked ashen. "Read that over again, slowly," she commanded.

Mate reread the paragraph, this time realizing what she was reading. "But that isn't our Lio, is it?"

"Minerva!" Mama called out. From her bedroom, the book she was reading still in hand, appeared the death of them all. "Sit down, young lady, you have some explaining to do."

Minerva argued eloquently that Mama herself had heard Lio's ideas, and she had even agreed with them.

"But I didn't know they were communist ideas!" Mama protested.

That night when Papa came home from doing his man's business about the farm, Mama took him to her room and closed the door. From the galeria galeria where Dede visited with Jaimito, they could hear Mama's angry voice. Dede could only make out s.n.a.t.c.hes of what Mama was saying-" Too busy chasing ... to care ... your own daughter." Dede looked at Jaimito, a question in her face. But he looked away. "Your mother shouldn't blame your father. She might as well blame me for not saying anything." where Dede visited with Jaimito, they could hear Mama's angry voice. Dede could only make out s.n.a.t.c.hes of what Mama was saying-" Too busy chasing ... to care ... your own daughter." Dede looked at Jaimito, a question in her face. But he looked away. "Your mother shouldn't blame your father. She might as well blame me for not saying anything."

"You knew?" Dede asked.

"What do you mean, Dede?" He seemed surprised at her plea of innocence. "You knew, too. Didn't you?"

Dede could only shake her head. She didn't really know Lio was a communist, a subversive, all the other awful things the editorial had called him. She had never known an enemy of state before. She had a.s.sumed such people would be self-serving and wicked, low-cla.s.s criminals. But Lio was a fine young man with lofty ideals and a compa.s.sionate heart. Enemy of state? Why then, Minerva was an enemy of state. And if she, Dede, thought long and hard about what was right and wrong, she would no doubt be an enemy of state as well.

"I didn't know," she said again. What she meant was she didn't understand until that moment that they were really living-as Minerva liked to say-in a police state.

A new challenge sounded in Dede's life. She began to read the paper with pointed interest. She looked out for key names Lio had mentioned. She evaluated and reflected over what she read. How could she have missed so much before? she asked herself. But then a harder question followed: What was she going to do about it now that she did know?

Small things, she decided. Right now, for instance, she was providing Minerva with an alibi. For after finding out who Lio was exactly, Mama had forbidden Minerva to bring him into the house. Their courtship or friendship or whatever it was went underground. Every time Jaimito took Dede out, Minerva, of course, came along as their chaperone, and they picked up Lio along the way.