Before We Were Free (13 page)

The best story was about when she turned fifteen, and her parents
threw her a big
quinceañera
party. She wore a long white dress like a
bride’s and a tiara of sugar flowers made especially for her by the plantation pastry cook.

When the party was over, Mami really wanted to save that crown,
but her little brother Edilberto found that sweet crown and sucked off the
sugar rosettes. All that was left was the wire frame!

You laugh now, Mami laughed, but I cried as if he’d eaten up my
heart.

Speaking of queens, Mami said, I don’t know if you remember how
six years ago, El Jefe’s daughter was crowned Queen Angelita I? You
were just a little girl, but when you saw her in the papers wearing that
ridiculous silk gown that cost 80,000 dollars, you said, Mami, is that
our queen? And I didn’t know what to say because the help was all
around, and so I said, we don’t actually have a royal family here, but
Angelita was made into a queen by her father. And for a while afterward when we asked you what you wanted for your birthday or for
Christmas or
Vieja Belén
or
Los Tres Reyes Magos,
you’d say you
wanted your father to make you a queen.

And so for your next birthday, you remember? Your father made
you a marshmallow crown. You wore that thing all day long in the sun,
you wouldn’t take it off, and those soft marshmallows began to melt
on your hair. We had a time washing them out.

The thought of Papi made us both fall silent. I lay in the dark,
remembering Papi and Tío Toni, walking on the beach with me, and the
sand and the wind, and Tío Toni joking, Let’s throw her in, and Papi
holding on tight and laughing—

I reached out for Mami’s hand just as she was reaching out for mine.

July
12,
1961,
Wednesday night

Wimpy and Mr. Washburn have been trying to do all they can. But
Papi’s name and Tío Toni’s were not listed among those of the prisoners
the OAS interviewed when they came. I don’t need Mami to tell me
that’s not a good sign.

I heard some of the stories the prisoners told during those interviews.
Mami and the Mancinis were listening to the OAS report on Radio
Swan tonight. They thought I was writing in my diary in the bathroom,
but I was still in the hallway. The announcer read out passages, his
voice matter-of-fact, but the facts themselves were horrible.

Prisoners complained about how their fingernails were pulled out,
their eyes sewn open. About being put on an electric chair called the
Throne and given shocks so they would tell who else was involved.
About how one of them was fed a steak, only to find out it was the flesh
of his own son.

For the first time in a long time, I slipped my little crucifix in my
mouth and said an Our Father. Then I went in the bathroom and threw
up my supper.

July
13,
1961,
Thursday night

What a surprise!

We were out in the bedroom with the Mancinis, listening to the
news, when there was a knock: the maid announcing that the Mancinis
had visitors.

Who is it? Tía Mari asked through the locked door.

El embajador
with a lady, the maid replied.

Tía Mari and Tío Pepe were not expecting the ambassador, and so
of course they suspected a SIM trick. We instantly went into emergency
procedure.

A little later, we heard Tía Mari coming back into the bedroom with
someone else. We heard her locking the bedroom door. Then she came
into the bathroom and said, it’s okay. You can come out now.

So we crept out of the crawl-space closets, thinking the other person
was Tío Pepe or the ambassador himself, but as Mami and I headed out,
there was a blond girl sitting on Tía Mari’s bed with her back to us.

We hurried back to the bathroom.

But Tía Mari called, come on out here, somebody wants to see you.

Mami and I were shocked. We all know that we are not to show our
faces to anyone, except our two hosts.

Tía Mari appeared at the door of the bathroom with this blond girl
wearing sunglasses and a dress that you could tell she didn’t much like by
the way she was looking down, disgusted at herself. Then she glanced up
with the most familiar eyes in the world.

Mundín! Mami cried out.

Hush! Tía Mari said, laughing. So it works, she said. I told
el embajador
that the best test would be if his own mother and sister didn’t
recognize him.

Mundín was on his way to the boat. He hugged us good-bye. I’m
not all that happy about this, he said, and I don’t mean the disguise. I
mean leaving you. Papi always said if anything should happen—

He stopped when Mami started to cry.

Tía Mari let me walk with Mundín to the door of the bedroom. With
every step, I felt my heart falling apart, like that torture I heard about on
the radio where a man was slowly cut up alive.

Mundín turned to me, and they say boys don’t cry, so maybe it
was because he was dressed as a girl, but there were tears in my big
brother’s eyes.

As for me, I was sobbing so hard, I could barely breathe.

July
15,
1961,
Saturday morning

Mami and I stayed up late last night talking. Earlier, we had been
listening to Radio Swan, and the announcer closed the program by saying,
¡Que Vivan Las Mariposas!
Long Live the Butterflies!

That must have got Mami thinking about Papi because she started
talking about the old days and how Papi and my uncles became involved
in the underground movement against the dictator.

After your father came back from college in the States, Mami
explained, he got so busy working and raising his own family that he
didn’t pay much attention to politics. Mami was whispering real low, so
as not to disturb the Mancinis. I had to roll to the very edge of my mat to
hear her.

But things began to go from bad to worse. Our friends were disappearing. One of your uncles was arrested. But we didn’t know what
to do.

Then we heard about these sisters who were organizing a movement
to bring freedom to the country. Everyone called them
Las Mariposas,
the Butterflies, because they had put wings on all our hearts.

Some of your uncles, like Tío Carlos and Tío Toni, joined right
away, Mami went on. But Papi held back, afraid to risk all our lives.

Somehow, the SIM found out about the movement. They started
arresting people, and their families, torturing them, and getting more
and more names. Mamita and Papito and your uncles got out while they
could. Tío Carlos made it just in time.

As for the Butterflies, they were ambushed and murdered on a
lonely mountain road, their car thrown over a cliff to make it all look like
an accident.

And it was then that your father and I took up the torch of the Butterflies and began the struggle again.

I couldn’t believe my own mother with her bad nerves was part of a
secret plot! But suddenly, like one of those lamps you click one more
turn and it throws an even brighter light, I saw her at Papi’s old Remington, typing up declarations, or out in the yard, burning incriminating
stuff, or in the garden shed, covering a sack of guns with an old tarp. My
Joan-of-Arc mother, my Butterfly mami! I felt so proud of her!

Mami went on telling about how the movement spread all over the
country. Everyone was joining up. Papi contacted Wimpy and Mr. Farland, whom he knew from his college days, and the Americans agreed to
help them. Some other men even persuaded General Pupo to join the
plot. The General said that once he had proof that El Jefe was out of
the way, he, Pupo, would take control of the government and hold free
elections.

But then, things started to fall apart, Mami said. She sounded like
one of those wind-up toys winding down. Washington got cold feet. The
night of the
ajusticiamiento,
no one could find Pupo. The SIM moved
in fast.

The end, Mami finished. Her voice was barely a whisper.

I closed my eyes, remembering the promise Papi wanted me to
make, and I thought, No, Mami, not the end. Long live the Butterflies!

July
17,
1961,
Monday, late night

As we were getting ready for bed tonight, Tía Mari said, Oh yes, I
almost forgot. Chucha came up to me at Wimpy’s today and said something I didn’t quite understand. All three of us were in the bathroom,
brushing our teeth. We have to do all our noise simultaneously.

She said to tell you to get ready to use your wings again.

Mami looked surprised. I thought no one but you and Wimpy knew
we were here.

Believe me, Tía Mari said, I didn’t let on. But she followed me all
through the store and then out to the car. And again, she said the same
thing. I said, Chucha, I don’t know what you’re talking about. And she
just gave me that look of hers and then she took this out of her pocket.

It was a holy card of San Miguel lifting his huge wings above the
slain dragon.

My heart has a pair of wings, too—one wing fluttering with excitement because maybe we’ll soon be free! The other shaking with fear
because I don’t really want to be free without Papi and Tío Toni.

July
18,
1961,
Tuesday night

I’m using my little flashlight Tía Mari gave me, as the electricity is
out again all over the capital today. Tío Pepe’s theory is that it’s a SIM
sabotage, one more reason to roll out the army tanks.

We are all feeling very hopeful, as there is a rally planned for
tomorrow. There was also a letter that took up a whole page in the
paper, stating the rights of man, and signed with a lot of important people’s names.

Tío Pepe says this is our Magna Carta, and I’m so glad I was paying
attention that day in history class so I don’t have to ask what that is.

July
19,
1961,
Wednesday—we can hear the rally going on, shouts
of
LIBERTAD!

There is a very small chance, very small, Tío Pepe says, holding his
thumb and forefinger so close they almost seem to be touching, that we
might be able to get on a private flight that will be taking a bunch of
Americans to Florida. Wimpy has been trying to work it so that Mami
and I can board that plane at the last minute.

Suddenly, the thought of leaving our hideaway is scary.

Tío Pepe once told me about this experiment with monkeys
who were caged for so long that when the doors were left open, they
wouldn’t come out.

I wonder what it will be like to be free? Not to need wings because
you don’t have to fly away from your country?

July
20,
1961,
Thursday

Oscar and I have a secret language of books going. So far, he has
picked out
El Pequeño Príncipe, Poesías de José Martí, Cuentos de Shakespeare para Niños, The Swiss Family Robinson.
When I’m
done with each book, I give it back to Tía Mari with the queen of hearts
card back in it.

Then, when the next book arrives, sure enough, there’s the queen of
hearts bookmark!

What will become of Oscar and me? I wonder if there’ll be a movie
about us, like
Romeo and Juliet
? I just hope and pray our story has a
happier ending!

July
28, 1961,
Friday, another rally on the street

Because of all these rallies, the SIM have started arresting people
again and conducting their house-to-house searches.

We are on the alert from Wimpy that our evacuation might be
sooner rather than later. The problem is how to move us to an undisclosed location where we can take a flight to freedom.

The Mancinis are trying to figure something out.

There have been no more book deliveries. On Monday, Tía Mari
sent the girls and Oscar and Doña Margot away to their friends with the
beach house. Because of the rallies, there’s lots of gunfire and massive
arrests. Several bullets came through our old classroom window that
faces the street. Thank goodness the children were already out of the
house. Tía Mari refuses to go in there.

Mami and I are getting on each other’s nerves again with all the tension. I try to do my pacing where she isn’t doing hers, but there’s not
much room inside a closet.

It’s hard to concentrate on anything, even writing in my diary. I
haven’t had the energy to keep to my schedule.