In the Time of Butterflies (36 page)

Sunday, early, we packed ourselves in Jaimito’s pickup. Except for a few farm horses over at Dedé’s and the old mule at Mama‘s, it was the only transportation left us, now that all the cars had been confiscated. Mamá laid out an old sheet in the flatbed and put the children in back with me. She and Dedé and Jaimito rode in front. It was still early morning as we drove towards Salcedo for the first mass. The mist was rising all around us from the fields. As we passed the turnoff to our old house in Conuco, I felt a stab of pain. I looked at Noris, hoping she hadn’t noticed, but her pretty face was struggling to be brave.

No one knew that the Voice of God would speak from the pulpit that day. None of us would have expected it from Padre Gabriel, who was, we thought, a stooge substitute sent in after Padre de Jesus was arrested.

When it came, I almost didn’t hear it. Raulito was having one of his crying fits and Jacqueline, who is empathic when it comes to tears, had joined in. Then, too, Minou was busy “reading” my upside-down missal to Manolito. Dedé and I were having a time managing the lot, while Mama was doing her share, casting stem glances from the middle of our pew. As she’s all too fond of telling us, we are raising savages with all our new theories about talking, not spanking. “Fighting tyrants and meanwhile creating little ones.”

I was headed to the vestibule with the children when I heard what I thought I had misheard. “We cannot remain indifferent to the grievous blows that have afflicted so many good Dominican homes ... Padre Gabriel’s voice crackled over the loudspeaker.

“Hush now!” I said, so fiercely the children stopped their fussing and looked at me with full attention.

“All human beings are born with rights derived from God that no earthly power can take away.”

The sun was shining through the stained glass window of John the Evangelist, depicted in a loincloth some church ladies had complained was inappropriate, even in our tropical heat. I propped Raulito up on the baptismal font and gave the other children mints to keep them quiet.

“To deny these rights is a grave offense against God, against the dignity of man.”

He went on, but I wasn’t listening anymore. My heart was beating fast. I knew once I said it I couldn’t take it back.
Oh Lord, release my son,
I prayed. And then I added what I’d been holding back.
Let me be your sacrificial lamb.

When Padre Gabriel was done, he looked up, and there was utter silence in that church. We were stunned with the good news that our Gabriel had delivered unto us. If the church had been a place to clap, we would have drowned out his
“Dóminus vobíscum”
with applause.

We stayed the whole day in Salcedo, sitting in the park between masses, buying treats for the kids as bribes for the next hour-long mass. Their church clothes were soiled by the time the last mass rolled around at six. With each service, the rumor spread, and the crowds grew. People kept coming back, mass after mass. Undercover agents also started showing up. We could spot them easily. They were the ones who knelt with their butts propped on the pew seats and looked about during the consecration. I caught sight of Peña in the back of the church, no doubt taking note of repeaters like me.

Later, we found out this was happening all over the country. The bishops had gathered together earlier in the week and drafted a pastoral letter to be read from every pulpit that Sunday. The church had at last thrown in its lot with the people!

That evening we rode home in high spirits, the babies fast asleep in the arms of the older children. It was already dark, but when I looked up at the sky, I saw a big old moon like God’s own halo hung up there as a mark of his covenant. I shivered, remembering my promise.

We were worried about attending mass the following Sunday. All week we heard of attacks on churches throughout the island. Down in the capital, somebody had tried to assassinate the archbishop in the cathedral while he was saying mass. Poor Pittini was so old and blind he didn’t even realize what was happening, but kept right on intoning the Kyrie as the assassin was being wrestled to the ground.

Nothing as serious as that happened in our parish. But we had our own excitement. Sunday after the pastoral, we were visited by a contingent of prostitutes. When it was time for communion, there was such sashaying and swaying of hips to the altar rail you’d have thought they were offering
their
body and blood, not receiving His. They lined up, laughing, taunting Padre Gabriel by opening their mouths for the Sacred Host and making lewd gestures with their tongues. Then one of them reached right in his chalice and helped herself.

This was like a gunshot in our congregation. Ten or twelve of us women got up and formed a cordon around our priest. We let in only those we knew had come to the table for salvation, not sacrilege. You can bet those
puticas
lit in to us. One of them shoved me aside; but did Patria Mercedes turn the other cheek? Not on your life. I yanked that scrawny, done-up girl to the back of the church. “Now,” I said, “You want to receive communion, you recite the Credo first.”

She looked at me as if I had asked her to speak English. Then she gave me a toss of her head and marched off to the SIM to collect whatever her charge was for desecrating.

The following Sunday, we arrived for early mass, and we couldn’t get in the door for the stench inside. It took no time at all to find out what the problem was.
¡Sin vergüenzas
! They had come into the church the night before and deposited the contents of latrines inside the confessional.

I sent the children home with Mama, afraid of some further incident with the SIM. Dedé, Noris, and I stayed to clean up. Yes, Noris insisted, though I fussed that I wanted her home safe with the others. God’s house was her house, too, she argued. My prayers to the Virgencita to bring her around had been answered. I had to laugh. It was what Sor Asunción always used to tell us. Beware what you ask God. He might just give you what you want.

One morning, close to a month after Mate and Minerva had been taken, I had another visitor. Dedé and Mamá had gone to the capital to make their rounds. Their habit was to drive down every week with Jaimito or with some other prisoner’s family. They refused to take me along. They were sure someone at the SIM headquarters would realize they had overlooked me and grab me on the spot.

Before heading home, they always drove out to La Victoria. Out of desperation, I suppose, hoping to catch a glimpse of the girls. Of course, they never saw them. But often there were sheets and towels hanging to dry through the bars of windows, and this touch of domesticity always gave them hope.

I was in the parlor, teaching Noris how to applique monograms just as I had once taught Mate. The children were busy building their block palaces on the floor. Tono came in and announced there was a visitor. Instantly, my heart sank, for I assumed it was Peña again. But no, it was Margarita, no last name given, wanting to see the
dona
of the house, though she couldn’t say in relation to what.

The young woman sitting on the stoop out back looked vaguely familiar. She had a sweet, simple face and dark, thick hair held back with bobby pins. The eyes, the brows, the whole look had Mirabal written all over it.
Ay, no,
I thought, not now. She stood up the minute she saw me, and bowed her head shyly. “Could we speak privately?”

I wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew Minerva had stayed in touch with them over the years, but I had always kept my distance. I did not want to be associated with the issue of a
campesina
who had had no respect for the holy banns of matrimony or for the good name of Mirabal.

I nodded towards the garden where no one could overhear our talk.

When we were a little ways down the path, she reached in her pocket and offered me a folded note.

My hands began to shake. “God be praised,” I said, looking up. “Where did you get this?”

“My mother’s cousin works in La Victoria. He doesn’t want his name mentioned.”

I unfolded the note. It was the label off a can of tomato paste. The back had been written on.

We’re in Cell # 61, Pavilion A, La Victoria
—
Duke, Miriam, Violeta, Asela, Delia, Sina, Minerva, and me. Please notify their families. We are well but dying for news of home and the children. Please send Trinalin as we are all down with a bad grippe & Lomotil for the obvious. Any food that keeps. Many kisses to all but especially to my little darling.

And then, as if I wouldn’t recognize that pretty hand in a million years, the note was signed,
Mate.

My head was spinning with what needed to be done. Tonight with Mama and Dedé, I would write a reply and fix up a package. “Can we send something back with your relative?”

She nodded, lingering as if she had something else to say. I realized I had forgotten there was always a charge for such services. “Wait here, please,” I said, and ran to the house to get my purse.

She looked pained when I offered her the bills. “No, no, we wouldn’t take anything from you.” Instead, she handed me a card with the name of the pharmacy I always went to in Salcedo; her own name was written on the back. “Margarita Mirabal, to serve you.”

That
Mirabal
was something of a shock. “Thank you, Margarita,” I said, offering her my hand. Then I added the words I found hard to wrench from my prideful heart. “Patria Mercedes, to serve you.”

When she had left, I read Mate’s note over and over as if with each reading, new information would surface. Then I sat down on the bench by the birds of paradise, and I had to laugh. Papa’s other family would be the agents of our salvation! It was ingenious and finally, I saw, all wise. He was going to work several revolutions at one time. One of them would have to do with my pride.

That night, Dedé, Mama, and I stayed up late preparing the package. We made sweet potato biscuits with molasses, which would have a lot of nutrition, and filled a bag full of little things that wouldn’t spoil. We packed a change of underwear for each of them, and socks, and inside the socks I stuck a comb and brush for them to share. I couldn’t imagine how Mate was taking care of that long hair.

Our little pile of things grew, and we began arguing over what was necessary. Mama thought it would be a mistake to send Mate her good black towel she had made the week she was home—to save her nerves. She had finished appliqueing the M in gold satin, but had not gotten to the G yet. “The more you send the more chances someone along the way will steal the whole thing.”

“Ay,
Mama, have a little faith.”

She put her hands on her hips and shook her head at me. “Patria Mercedes, you should be the first one to know .. We kept our sentences incomplete whenever we were criticizing the government inside the house. There were ears everywhere, or at least we imagined them there. ”That is no towel for a jail cell,“ Mamá finished, as if that was what she had been about to say from the start.