Mami and I stayed hidden until we heard Tía Mari coming back. Virgen María! she cried. I believe I left the door unlocked.
On the floor of the closet, our concentration game was undisturbed—all the center cards facedown. But one card had been turned over: the queen of hearts!
July 4, 1961, Tuesday early morning
Before breakfast, I heard a little pebble strike the window of the bathroom. Then another. I didn’t dare look out just in case. But when a third went ping!, curiosity got the better of me, and I peeked out the high window—
Oscar was standing in the yard, looking up. I ducked down before he saw me.
Later
I’ve been wondering if Oscar did see me?
So just now, I took the queen of hearts, slipped it out the window, and watched it sailing down to the yard below.
July 5, 1961, Wednesday, after siesta
Yesterday being the day of independence for the United States, Wimpy had a barbecue behind his store. The Mancinis were invited. Tío Pepe says that Wimpy knows where we are and is doing all he can to ensure our safety, whatever that means.
Was Chucha there? I asked Tía Mari.
Was she there! She and Oscar would not stop talking.
I touched the spot on my cheek, trying to calm myself down. But my imagination has been going wild. Could they have been talking about . . . me?
Oscar was again outside early this morning, looking up!
July 6, 1961, Thursday evening news
This evening, a surprise: Tía Mari brought me The Arabian Nights, which has to be one of my all-time favorite storybooks. When she saw the smile on my face, she said, So he was right.
It turns out Tía Mari asked Oscar this morning what book he might recommend for someone about his age, and he pulled this one out.
I opened the book, and there it was as a bookmark—the queen of hearts!
July 7, 1961, Friday night
Just knowing that I might have a secret communication going with Oscar makes every day brighter. I’m spending a lot more time in the bathroom, trying out hairstyles.
This afternoon, Mami saw me fussing and said, Who’s going to see you here, for heaven’s sake, Anita?
My face burned. Of course, she’s right. But still, I told her what Tío Pepe had said about the Marquis de Sade. Mami just answered with one of Chucha’s sayings: Dress the monkey in silk, he’s still a monkey!
During supper tonight, Tío Pepe got into a long explanation about how human beings aren’t using their full potential. If the brain were this plate, he said, we’re using this grain of rice. Einstein maybe used this wedge of avocado. Galileo, this yuca patty.
(To think how much potential I’m wasting combing my hair and wondering if I’m pretty enough!)
How do you know when you’re using your full potential? I asked Tío Pepe. But before he could get a word out, Tía Mari said, I’ll tell you when you’re using your full brain power—when you’re smart enough to eat your supper before it gets cold. That made even Tío Pepe smile and dig in.
July 8, 1961, Saturday evening
Reading The Arabian Nights again has started me thinking . . . can stuff like this really happen? A girl who saves her life by telling a cruel sultan a bunch of stories? Let’s say El Jefe had taken me away to his big bedroom, like he wanted to do with Lucinda. Could I have told him some stories that would have changed his evil heart? Or are some people so awful that nothing can really get inside them and make a difference?
I asked Tío Pepe, and he said that is the million-dollar question. He said many great thinkers like Knee-chi (sp??) and Hide-digger (sp???) tried but never came up with a satisfactory answer (and they were working with a lot bigger plate of brains than I am).
Tía Mari has promised to ask Oscar for another book recommendation.
July 9, 1961, Sunday, late afternoon
Mami and I have been alone all day, as the Mancinis went to the beach to visit friends. They shut up the house and sent all the servants away. The place is so creepy and quiet. And of course, every little noise scares us.
Mami and I played cards for a while, and then we went into the bathroom, and Mami herself put my hair up in a bun like a ballerina and made me up with a little lipstick and rouge.
Mami, I asked as we studied the results in the mirror, do you think I look just the tiniest bit like Audrey Hepburn?
Much prettier, Mami said.
She couldn’t have said anything nicer! I forgave her all her nerve attacks and how she hasn’t said one nice thing to me in ages. I turned around and gave her a bone-crunching hug.
Watch you don’t break something, Mami said, laughing, I can’t exactly go to the doctor’s right now.
Later, Sunday night
Tía Mari came back from the beach with some seashells Oscar and the little girls collected.
I picked one to take with me to the closet, a shiny spiral with brown freckles. But then I remembered how Chucha used to say girls who keep seashells die old maids, and I took it back to Tía Mari and said, Keep this for me until I’m married.
She looked a little surprised.
Tío Pepe just returned from the embassy next door with some exciting news—Mundín is going to be evacuated soon! It seems there is an Italian cruise ship in the harbor headed for Miami. The ambassador was hoping to get us all on board, but the captain said he could only take one mysterious passenger, as more would be too high a risk in view of how the SIM are carefully monitoring all ports of exit.
Mami is worried about Mundín and whether the transfer will go okay, and that starts her worrying about Papi and Tío Toni. She isn’t sleeping as well anymore, as she doesn’t have any Equanil left. Tía Mari says that the drugstores are all out. It seems the whole country is taking tranquilizers.
July 11, 1961, Tuesday night
Last night, as we lay on our mats in the closet, Mami started telling me stories about growing up on a sugar estate where her father was the resident doctor. It was like old times again, when we used to get along so well.
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 th
e 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. r />
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.
Tía Mari suggests we entertain ourselves playing cards, but when Mami sorts through the deck, she says, What on earth happened to the queen of hearts?
July 30, 1961, Sunday—most BORING day so far!
This morning, the Mancinis drove out to the beach for the day to see the kids, so it has been like a tomb around here. All I’ve done is read and nap and look at magazines and eat the leftover waterbreads from breakfast, and now I’m going to try to write—