In the Time of the Butterflies

The narrative returns to Patria’s point-of-view. She recites the Bible passage about building “your house upon a rock” (148), and compares her marriage to this rock. She is a devoted wife and lives with Pedrito on his family’s ancestral farm, which is the “rock” of the passage. By contrast, her sisters all seem to live on sand, always moving with the times. Minerva and Manolo, for instance, live in a small, poor house, while Mate and Leandro rent in the city. Dedé and Jaimito have lost their money in different business ventures and moved many times before settling in their childhood home. Patria, on the other hand, stays on her “rock” for eighteen years with Pedrito.

Patria explains that in the eighteenth year of her marriage (1959), things are so bad with the regime that no one can ignore it anymore. Dedé manages to stay out of trouble thanks to Jaimito’s influence, but she worries about her other sisters, and prays for better times. Her son, Nelson, is growing up now and sleeping with an older widow. Patria prays for his safety in these troubling times. He is drawn to his uncles and aunts, and she does not want him to be put at risk.

One night Minerva, Manolo and Leandro appear with Nelson at Patria and Pedrito’s house; they are all drunk and excited, celebrating Fidel Castro’s victory in Cuba. Minerva starts singing the national anthem, and the group celebrates until dawn. They leave to tell their friends, and Nelson wants to go too, but Patria forbids it. Patria and Pedrito have sex that night, and weeks later she learns that she is pregnant. Though she has never wanted to get into politics, she decides to name the child Raúl Ernesto, after two Cuban revolutionaries.

Patria is increasingly worried about Nelson, who has taken to hanging around with Manolo and Leandro and keeps visiting Minerva and Mate. Mate has had a baby named Jacqueline, and Minerva has a new baby named Manolito. Patria decides to send Nelson to a religious school in the capital, where he can still have some independence but be under the protection of the church, which seems to be the only place where boys and men are safe from the regime.

Patria has a hard time convincing Pedrito to let Nelson leave, as he is a man of the earth, and thinks that Nelson will have a better education on the farm. Patria knows that Nelson does not want to be a farmer, but does not tell Pedrito this. Instead, she says that the seminary is the safest place for young men these days. The church still refuses to “get involved in temporal matters” (153), so Trujillo leaves it alone. The terror of his regime is now the SIM (Military Intelligence Service), which is headed by a ruthless man, Johnny Abbes. On the basis of this reasoning, Pedrito finally allows Nelson to go.

At Easter, Patria has another fright when Nelson mentions joining the “liberators” who are rumored to be invading from Cuba soon. Patria tells Nelson that God will take care of things, and she makes her son promise to stay out of trouble.

Worried about Nelson, Patria goes to see Padre de Jesús, a young priest with new ideas, for advice. Though Patria has remained religious since rekindling her faith on the pilgrimage she took with her mother and sisters, she has noticed that her sisters have given up their faith. Instead of consoling Patria, however, Padre de Jesús tells her that he is also lost, and does not know the right action to take at this point. Patria is deeply moved by the young priest’s honesty, and prays to the Virgin with him for guidance.

Little by little, Patria gets braver, inching towards courage and trying to help her sisters with small things. One day, Minerva brings baby Manolito to her and asks Patria to watch him, as she will be on the road quite often. Patria informs Minerva that she is pregnant and, in an attempt to connect with her sister, tells her that she has named the baby after Cuban revolutionaries. Minerva recognizes the naming as a sign of solidarity and when Patria cautiously offers her help “if there should come a time” (155), Minerva says “there will” (155).

Minerva and her group of dissenters start visiting Patria’s farm more often, and Patria eventually lets them use her land for their meetings. When Nelson comes home from school, he is excited about the coming invasion and Patria is happy to think that Nelson will be safely back at school when the supposed invasion happens.

A few weeks later, Patria decides to take a religious retreat with Padre de Jesús and her religious group: about thirty women in total. Though Patria tries to convince her daughter Noris to go with her, Noris wants to stay home and attend parties. Patria goes alone, and looks forward to invigorating her faith while on the trip to the mountain town of Constanza.

Patria then reveals that she has written a letter to one of the priests at Nelson’s school, asking the priests to keep Nelson safe and not let him go out. The letter backfired a bit, as Nelson found out about the letter from Mate and was furious. In her defense, Patria told him that she would rather have a living boy who was angry with her than a dead son. When Patria talked to Mate about the letter she came to realize how involved Mate is with the movement. She thought Mate looked brave, and promised to take care of Jacqueline if anything happened to Mate.

As a result of the invasion rumors, Trujillo declares a state of emergency and Patria’s group has to delay their retreat. When the invasion starts to seem as if it was just a rumor, the state of emergency is lifted, and Patria’s group leaves for the retreat in June. Patria is amazed by the beauty of the mountains, and notices some distrustful-seeming campesinos watching them as they drive past. The church group finally arrives at their quarters, where they will live spartanly and pray, renewing their faith.

The fourteenth of June is the last day of Patria’s retreat. The group is excited and invigorated, and they are talking in the retreat house that morning when suddenly they hear explosions. Padre de Jesús gets everyone to duck and take cover. When the shelling finally ends, Patria gets up and sees that part of the house has been destroyed, that there is smoke everywhere, and that several women in the group are injured. After they tend to the injured, the group begins to pray.

Suddenly, they hear gunfire and huddle in the corner of the house. They watch in horror as a small group of men in camouflage run towards the house, followed by the campesinos they saw earlier, and some guards, all with weapons. The men in camouflage make it to the deck of the house, but then four are captured. Patria watches the face of a young man who seems to be Noris’s age. She yells out to him to duck, but he does not hear her. She watches a look of confusion on his face as he is shot, and then she watches him die.

After the violence of that day, Patria and her group are finally able to home. Patria says she is now “a changed woman” (162). She feels like the boy she watched die was her own stillborn son. The mountains are ablaze from the shelling, and when Patria looks up to try to see God, she notes that the smoke is too thick. Patria prays as she weeps, and finally tells God that she will not “sit back and watch my babies die” (162).

Patria’s family meets her upon her return, as news has spread of the invasion and the shelling in the mountains. They feared that she was dead, based upon the recent news. Though they ask her what happened, Patria is still too traumatized to speak. The next day, it is revealed that forty-nine men were killed in the mountains. They were part of the first wave of the rumored invasion. A week later, there was another invasion, but Trujillo’s planes bomb the ships before most of the men could disembark, and then hunted down the rest. One of the main reasons for the failure of the invasion is that, unlike in Cuba, where the campesinos helped Che and Castro, in the Dominican Republic, the campesinos helped the government to fight the invaders instead.

Two months later, Patria joins Padre de Jesús and a few others for a special meeting. She learns that Padre de Jesús has made up his mind and is now helping the movement. They create a church group, the “Church Militant.” Patria notes that the faith of the room feels electric, as if it is “the fury of avenging angels sharpening their radiance before they strike” (163). The church members are all tired of waiting for the pope and the archbishop to condemn Trujillo for his actions so they decide to take action on their own.

The group calls themselves the ACC, and they plan on providing logistics for the revolutionaries. Their task will be to help the national underground by teaching the brainwashed campesinos not hunt down their own liberators, and to remind them that it is actually a deadly sin to kill a fellow human being. After the meeting, Padre de Jesús asks if Patria knows others who would like to join. Excitedly, Patria tells him that she knows a group. Padre de Jesús comments on how much Patria has changed, and indeed, she feels like her vision is “clean at last.”

The next week, Patria gives birth to her baby, and when Minerva and her group arrive for their meeting, she goes out to them. Nelson thinks that she is there to scold him, but she invites the group inside instead. They are hesitant, as they do not want to put her in danger; a law has recently been passed stating that if anyone is caught harboring enemies of the regime, all of their property will be seized. However, she insists they come inside, even though she knows that Pedrito’s greatest fear is losing his ancestral land.

Indeed, when Pedrito learns that Patria invited Minerva’s group to meet inside the house from now on, he yells at her for the first time in their marriage. He says that her first responsibility should be to her husband, children, and home. Though initially Patria pleads with him, she eventually becomes angry and finally tells Pedrito that Nelson does not want to become a farmer, and that he has already applied to the university and has joined the underground movement. Pedrito cries on hearing the news. Though he remains quiet otherwise, Patria recognizes his silence as acceptance.

Patria’s house becomes the “motherhouse of the movement” (166) from this point on. Minerva and Manolo’s group merges with the ACC, and Manolo becomes president when Minerva refuses to accept the position. There are about forty members in total. Patria is now “Mariposa #3,” and they name their group the “Fourteenth of June Movement” after the massacre in the mountains. The group’s mission is to “effect an internal revolution rather than wait for an outside rescue” (167).

Patria notes the ironies of the group’s work in the house. The family’s breakfast table is now used to make bombs, while Nelson counts ammunition on the couch where he used to play with a wooden gun. In the chair where Patria used to nurse her children, Minerva now checks the viewfinders of the rifles. Around this time, Noris is sent to live with Mamá, and the group uses her room to hide their arsenal of weapons. Pedrito buries boxes of weaponry in the ground, which Patria describes as a new kind of farming, one that he can share with Nelson. Patria says that they are planting “seeds of destruction” (168), from which the group hopes to harvest freedom.

The narrative returns to the present (1994), where night is starting to fall. Dedé quotes some poetry that Minerva used to recite when her husband was in jail. She says that all her sisters’ husbands were in jail at some point, except for Jaimito. Jaimito purposefully did not get involved in the resistance, and Dedé followed her husband’s advice, unlike her sisters. She then tells the interviewer that she did not get involved until “it was already too late” (172).

The interviewer finally gets ready to leave, and when they go to her car, Minou drives up. Dedé is angry with Minou for driving after dark. She worries about all her nieces driving after dark ever since her sisters’ deaths. When Dedé introduces Minou to the interviewer, the woman is extremely happy, as she has now met both the daughter and sister of the famous Minerva Mirabal.

When the interviewer leaves, Minou goes inside with Dedé and tells her aunt that she has gone to see Fela. Fela told her that the sisters were silent and seemed to “finally be at rest” (174). Though she should feel happy, the fact makes Minou sad, as it seems like the last connection she had to her mother is now lost. Dedé tells Minou that she has felt the presence of her sisters all afternoon, so Minou can ask her a question about them instead of Fela. As it turns out, Minou asks Dedé the one question that Dedé has avoided thinking about ever since the tragedy: why she did not go along with her other sisters?

Dedé recalls a day back in 1960 when her three sisters came to see her. In the recollection, Dedé is working in her garden, while Jaimito is away. The couple have been having marital troubles lately, as Jaimito has grown extremely bossy and demanding. When she sees her three sisters arrive, Dedé notes that they seem like the three Fates who are coming to snip the thread that holds Dedé’s life together.

In fact, months earlier, Patria had come to Dedé and asked her to bury some boxes, though Dedé had guessed that Minerva put Patria up to it. Dedé told her sister that she had to ask Jaimito first, and Patria was noticeably disappointed with her. Patria explained to Dedé that she had finally joined the movement and convinced Pedrito to join too. She asked Dedé if everything was okay with her marriage and Dedé broke down and cried.

After her conversation with Patria, Dedé had spoken to Jaimito, but he was furious at Patria’s request. He pushed Dedé onto the bed and made her swear to stay away from her sisters and the trouble they would bring. At that point, Dedé had considered leaving Jaimito and joining her sisters, but, instead, allowed herself to submit to Jaimito and she avoided her sisters for weeks after that.

When the sisters arrive, Dedé—whose nickname is “Miss Sonrisa,” which means Miss Smile—puts on a smile to face her sisters. They all make small talk for a while, and finally Mate reveals to Dedé that something big is about to happen. Minerva says that “the goat is going to die” (178) sometime in the next three weeks. The sisters confide to Dedé that together they are a cell, but that they want Dedé to join them. Before they leave, they tell Dedé to think about their offer and make a decision within the week.

Dedé mentions Jaimito, and the other sisters admit that she needs to use discretion around him, as they really do not know his politics. Dedé defends her husband, saying that he is no more a “trujillista” (Trujillo defender) than Papá was. Defiantly, Minerva responds by saying that their father was a trujillista in his own way, as he chose to stay scared and “kept the devil in power all these years” (179). Dedé finally admits that Jaimito has threatened to leave her if she joins her sisters in the movement. Though Minerva starts to argue, Patria interjects and tells Dedé that it is her decision to make.

When her sisters leave, Dedé decides that she will leave Jaimito. This decision seems like a much bigger decision than deciding to join the underground. She plans the arguments she will use against Jaimito, and then thinks about her lingering affection for Lío. Minerva tells her that he is still alive, and to listen to a specific, forbidden radio station to hear him. Dedé then begins sneaking off during the night to listen and imagines Lío’s reaction when he learns that she has joined her sisters. When he finds out, he will know that “she, too, was one of the brave ones” (181-182).

As the day when Dedé has chosen to leave Jaimito approaches, she begins to get cold feet. She is afraid that she will lose custody of her three sons, and does not want to leave them to Jaimito and his temper. She then decides to consult the new priest, Padre de Jesús, for guidance. She manages to get a ride from her elderly neighbor who is taking his wife to the clinic; when she lies and tells Jaimito that she is just helping her neighbor, he gets angry, saying that she is going over his head. Dedé reminds herself to be brave, however, and that she will be leaving Jaimito soon.

When Dedé arrives at the rectory, no one is around and her courage begins to wane again. Just then, she sees Padre de Jesús unloading a truck and notes that the boxes he is unloading look exactly like the ones that Patria was trying to hide. Right then, Dedé realizes that Padre de Jesús is “one of them” (184). With this new knowledge, she realizes that she has been using Jaimito as an excuse, an excuse for the fact that she is afraid to join her sisters, just as she was afraid to embrace her feelings for Lío and so settled for Jaimito.

When Dedé returns home, she finds that Jaimito and the boys are gone. She panics, and learns that they went to Jaimito’s mother’s house. Dedé saddles her horse and rides off to her mother’s house, where her sisters are gathered for a meeting. Dedé frantically tells them that she needs a ride, and so Manolo and Minerva drive her to Jaimito’s mother’s house, while she explains everything to them. She confesses that she wishes she was brave, but that she cannot join the sisters. Minerva responds that none of them are brave naturally, and that Dedé is brave in her own way.

When they make it to Jaimito’s mother’s house, an angry Jaimito comes out to meet them. With Minerva by her side, however, Dedé feels brave, and demands to see her children. The boys and Doña Leia (Jaimito’s mother) greet Dedé happily, and she realizes that Jaimito has not told them that anything is wrong. Eventually, Jaimito tells her that they have to discuss something privately.

Jaimito accuses Dedé of joining Minerva’s group, but Manolo assures him that she has nothing to do with it. This deflates Jaimito’s anger somewhat. Dedé says that she was actually trying to see the “Communist” priest, which Jaimito does not understand. Minerva and Manolo suggest that Dedé and Jaimito take a honeymoon trip to try and rekindle their romance. Taking the suggestion, Dedé goes on a boat trip with Jaimito, instead of leaving him and joining the resistance.

A week later, the SIM starts rounding up members of Minerva’s group. Leandro is the first to be arrested. The family gathers at Mamá’s house, and Mate tearfully explains what happened. The SIM broke down their door, dragged Leandro away, trashed their house, and drove off in the family’s car. Mamá gets suspicious of her daughters’ activities after this and demands an explanation.

Meanwhile, Patria and her family arrive, crying desperately. Patria explains that some neighbors warned Pedrito and Nelson that they were about to be arrested, so the two hid in the hills. Patria answered the door for the SIM and told them that her son and husband were away, but they ransacked the place anyway. They dug up the fields and found boxes of weapons, and then tore the house apart and set fire to the wreckage.

When Nelson and Pedrito saw the flames, they returned from the hills to protect Patria and the other children and they were arrested. Patria screams “I’ve been good!” (192) to the sky, while Dedé falls to her knees and starts to recite the Creed. Patria joins her and the prayer seems to calm her down a bit.

They try to call a doctor, but he is afraid to be seen helping the Mirabals. Dedé manages to get some sedatives from her elderly neighbor and gives everyone some to calm them down. She then calls Minerva, and when Dedé first hears her voice she realizes that no matter what choices she makes in her life, she will always be bound up with her sisters’ lives.

Minerva confirms that Manolo was arrested the night before. She sounds anxious, but firm, and refuses to run home scared. A few days later, however, Dedé receives a panicked note from Minerva asking for money, as she has been diagnosed with tuberculosis and needs to buy medicine. Dedé immediately goes to the bank, but when she calls again, Minerva has already been arrested. Dedé promises to go and get Minou.

Dedé first goes to find Jaimito, who is in the fields. The power dynamic between the two has shifted lately, as Dedé threatened to leave Jaimito after their boat trip and he had begged her for another chance. Jaimito joins Dedé after hearing the news, and she feels that the “passionate project” (194) of saving her sisters is bringing her and Jaimito back together.

The couple drives to Mamá’s house first, but when they arrive they find that the SIM are already there. Captain Peña, head of the northern SIM, is there to arrest Mate. Mate clings to Mamá like a child, and Peña agrees to let Mamá come with them, but then drives off with Mate before Mamá can get into the car. Dedé and Jaimito try to drive after them, but soon lose them. When they reach the police station, they learn that Mate has been moved to the capital.

Dedé and Jaimito finally return home, where Mamá is crying and praying. She has learned of Minerva’s arrest as well because the SIM came to confiscate her car. Dedé suggests that they go inside as she sees the hedges moving and realizes that the family will always be spied on from now on. They all go in and pray to the Virgin.

That night, Dedé is not able to sleep. She feels a strong temptation to go crazy before the SIM destroys everything she loves. But then she reminds herself of all the people relying on her, and forces herself to have courage. This is the first time that she truly understands the word “courage”. To calm herself down Dedé tries to relive a happy memory.

In the present day, Dedé realizes that the practice of reliving a happy memory actually came much later. It was a device that Minerva taught her after she was released from prison. Dedé remembers worrying about Minerva and arguing with her, repeating to her all of the rumors that were circulating about Trujillo wanting her dead. Minerva was “the secret heroine of the whole nation” (198). In those days, people would always whisper to Dedé about the butterflies, pledging their support.

Minerva had refused to go into hiding, as she thought that Trujillo would never “murder a defenseless woman and dig his own grave” (199). And so, whenever Dedé would start to cry with worry, Minerva would teach her the exercise she developed in prison of reciting a poem over and over. Dedé later combined reciting poetry with recalling a happy memory, a practice which became vital to her during her family’s hardships.