I Lived on Butterfly Hill Read online

  Marisol tries to make her face serious. “Sí, Señorita Alvarado.”

  Our teacher is strict but never unfair. And I like that she always answers our questions, even if all she can say is “I don’t know.”

  The heater in the classroom is broken again, and Señorita Alvarado holds a cup of steaming jasmine tea in her hands to stay warm. She drinks it, sip by sip by sip, and puts it down only to pull one of her many maps from the belt of her skirt, to show us the site of a battle with the Spanish.

  Like me, Señorita Alvarado is very small, and no matter the weather, she always wears a red leather coat that’s a bit threadbare at the collar and the elbows, and so long that it drags behind her like a train when she walks. She paints her lips the exact same red as her coat.

  Marisol, Gloria, Lucila, and I like to watch and see if Señorita Alvarado’s boyfriend will pick her up after school. He has curly hair and dark sunglasses, and drives a motorbike. Señorita Alvarado looks a bit funny as she tries to climb on back with her long leather coat and satchel full of books. Today we catch a glimpse of her boyfriend kissing her on the lips before he puts a helmet on her head. As they speed away, a trail of red rose petals appears on the pavement. “Now that,” Marisol says, clutching her heart dramatically, “is romance.”

  “Don’t you think so, Celeste?” Gloria asks.

  But I barely hear her as I rummage through my backpack for my blue notebook. I pull it out and write: Someday I will wear red lipstick and ride a motorbike up and down the hills of Valparaíso. I’ll be sure to wear my hair loose so it can blow behind me in the wind.

  Beneath a Black Umbrella

  Essays for Señorita Alvarado are due next Friday. Every evening this week I have rushed through dinner and climbed to the roof to work on it. This is what I have written so far:

  My Nana Delfina Nahuenhual Marquén arrived in Valparaíso holding a black umbrella and wearing a yellow rose in her hair. I like to imagine that she floated to my house in a downpour of rain. But Abuela Frida tells me that the long-ago day when Delfina knocked on the door, it was during a heat spell in summer. My surprised grandmother asked Delfina about that umbrella, more appropriate for funerals and sad times. Delfina said she needed protection from spirits, the sun, and the wind, and often the umbrella served as her home since she had lost so many houses in earthquakes. Then, after making a very deep bow, she smiled at newborn Graciela, my aunt, in Abuela Frida’s arms and asked if she was looking for a nanny.

  Just like that, Delfina became a part of the house on Butterfly Hill like the stars are part of the Valparaíso night sky. Back then, Abuela Frida said, we all trusted one another. So without any letters of recommendation Delfina moved in. Her only belongings were her black umbrella and a box of bark from a cinnamon tree. My Abuela Frida loves people with courage, and right then and there she and Delfina became lifelong companions.

  Delfina cures our colds by putting potato peels on our foreheads. She cooks our meals and protects us from earthquakes of the earth and of the soul. She keeps our house clean and filled with magic. At night I peek into her room. She quietly watches the trees among the shadows. She always knows I am there, and without turning her head, she pats the place beside her on the bed. She braids my hair as together we watch the orange sunsets. I watch her face fill with amazement when confronted with so much beauty.

  Delfina talks about herself in the third person. She says, “Here is Delfina.” She always wears a green woolen shawl and covers her mouth when she laughs because she is embarrassed by her missing teeth. She was the one who taught me not to be afraid of ghosts but to approach them and ask questions. She is always reminding me, “Ask heaven for a sign, Querida Celeste.”

  Delfina is continually asking for signs. She asks her Mapuche ancestors, and she asks the Catholic saints. She marks an old calendar with her favorite saints’ birthdays, like Saint Peter, the patron saint of the sea. On this year’s feast day we walked to the harbor, where a large crowd had gathered. In the sand we made starfish and mermaids, wrote the names of the fishermen we know, and prayed for an abundance of fish and for safe returns during storms. I know I am Jewish, but I love to be around saints. I love the eyes on the Virgin Mary statues in the tiny wooden ships, which we parade on the ocean on holidays. I learn to pray Delfina’s prayers because prayer, Papá says, “is a beautiful poem.”

  “That Marta Alvarado is excellent.” My father nods approvingly when he comes to the roof and sees me writing pages and pages of cursive in my notebook, which I promptly snap shut. “She pushes you to be your best.”

  “Yes, but sometimes she is tougher on me than the other kids,” I complain.

  “That is because she sees your potential. And Mamá and I do too.”

  I listen to my father’s heavy feet descend the rickety stairs and don’t open my notebook until I hear his low voice speaking to Abuela Frida. I don’t want Delfina to find out I am writing about her—it would make her feel embarrassed. First, because she is so modest. “What is there to say about Delfina?” she might protest. And second, because she will only recognize her name and won’t be able to read the rest herself. Maybe someday I will teach her to sound out the letters of every word.

  A Dark Cloud Opens

  “Cristóbal, did you notice how quiet Señora Espindola has been all this week?” I whisper to my drowsy friend in the school cafeteria. Cristóbal nods. Señora Espindola is the roly-poly lunch lady who all the kids say swallowed an electric radio—that’s how much she prattles on and on between ladles of chicken stew. I suddenly notice how old she looks when she isn’t jabbering on and waving serving spoons around like an orchestra conductor.

  Marisol, in line behind us, hears me. She sticks her head between our shoulders and whispers, “Her son lives three houses down from me, and our next-door neighbor says he heard a lot of noise in the middle of the night last week.” Marisol pauses and looks this way and that to be sure no one is listening. “The next morning the doors to the house were open—and he and his pregnant wife were gone! No one knows if they ran away or if someone . . . something . . . happened . . .”

  Marisol’s story jerks Cristóbal awake. “But—why? Why would they leave?” he asks, his face going pale. Then he gasps.

  “What? Cristóbal, what?” I press him.

  “It’s just . . . that my pendulum’s been acting funny. Something’s not right . . . and I’ve heard Mamá’s customers in the market whispering about the military. . . .”

  Just then Gloria brushes right past us in line. “Hey, Gloria!” I wave to her to join us, but she quickly turns her head away. “Didn’t she see us?” I ask the others.

  “Oh, she saw us, all right!” Marisol tosses her head, clearly annoyed. “What’s wrong with her? She’s acting so snobby!”

  * * *

  When I get home from school, I go right up to the roof without even eating a snack. It’s been drizzly all day, and suddenly a dark cloud opens up above Butterfly Hill and hard rain begins to fall. I know I should come down from the roof and begin my homework, but I stand there and turn my face to the sky. I want sharp droplets of water to wash away my confusion—about Gloria, about families vanishing in the night, about everything.

  “¡Niña Celeste!” Delfina’s voice wafts up to me with the scent of sopaipillas. “Cristóbal Williams is here!”

  I go downstairs to the kitchen, where Nana is already heaping piles of warm pumpkin bread onto Cristóbal’s plate. He tries to smile at me with his mouth full, but his mouth looks sad and misshapen. Nana Delfina hands me a sopaipilla, then begins to dry my braids with her apron.

  “Cristóbal, what are you doing here?” I ask tentatively, almost afraid of his answer. “You’re not here to walk to Café Iris in the rain . . . are you?”

  Cristóbal shakes his head vehemently. “No, amiga. I feel deep down in my bones that these dark clouds aren’t for playing under, and that they won’t be lifted for a long time.”

  Even though I never used to mind, it fr
ightens me now to hear Cristóbal speaking in riddles. “What do you mean?” I ask, frustrated. “Just say what you came to say.”

  “I’ve had dreams about soldiers, too many to count, marching on the map of Chile until we are nothing but a long line of darkness teetering toward the Pacific Ocean.”

  My heart starts beating fast. Nana Delfina nods at Cristóbal to continue. “And have you noticed the buganvillias that fill the plazas? I’ve walked all over Valparaíso because I couldn’t believe it.” Cristóbal takes a deep breath. “They’ve suddenly started to shrivel!”

  “Does your pendulum show anything?” I press Cristóbal.

  “That’s the worst of it: my pendulum just spins in circles, like it is lost, or going insane.”

  * * *

  That night I toss and turn in my bed. It’s as if my skin is on fire. I lick beads of salt from my lips, and even when I kick off the covers, I don’t stop sweating. Finally my eyes close and don’t open again. I dream that I’m walking up to the roof to look at the stars. But instead of stars, the sky is full of fire. I jump all the way down to Valparaíso Bay to escape the flames, and land without a sound in the dark water. But it’s so hot! “Help! Please! Get me out of here!” The water burns. I fear I am boiling alive! I swim toward a nearby fishing boat and pull myself in. I try to put out the flames that have appeared on my skin.

  “Ahhhhh!” I sit up in my bed, trembling and cold. “The ships!” I yell as Delfina rushes in to wake me up from my nightmare. “They are full of dead fish!”

  The Time of Fear

  On Friday, Señorita Alvarado looks paler than paper. And she acts so strange! She hardly says anything and instead passes out a worksheet of facts and dates for us to fill out and sits at her desk with her hands folded, face turned down. I creep up to the big desk covered with maps and empty teacups. The map on top, a faded map of South America, is covered with tears. “What do you need, Celeste?” asks Señorita Alvarado without turning her face to me. Her voice is a tiny echo.

  “Señorita Alvarado, what is wrong today?” I whisper.

  She is quiet for a long, long time. Then finally she sighs. “You will find out soon enough. Now please go sit down.”

  This isn’t like Señorita Alvarado at all. What’s wrong with her? Taken aback, I hold in tears and do what she says. Then Marta Alvarado turns her pale, wet face toward the entire class. She tries to smile, but the look in her red-rimmed eyes makes my heart drop to my stomach.

  The day seems so long. I can’t wait to go home. “I just know something really awful is happening,” I confide in Lucila as we pound erasers against the outside wall of the building to clean them.

  Lucila’s eyes are wide through the cloud of chalk dust. “Has Cristóbal predicted something?”

  I nod, and Lucila bites her lip until it’s so red, it reminds me of Señorita Alvarado.

  When the old brass bell finally rings to tell us the day is done, I race down the hall and out the front door. The wind seems to chase me as I run all the way home. Panting and trembling, I shut the door behind me and run up to my bedroom without saying hello to Abuela Frida or Nana Delfina. I just want to be alone to think. I grab my notebook and climb the rickety old stairs to the roof. But just when my heart quiets and I finally regain my breath, I hear someone on the stairs. Mamá! Why is she home so early? I rush back inside and down the stairs to meet her.

  “Something feels just like it does before an earthquake, Mamá. What is happening?”

  “Remember how I told you how earthquakes remind us of what really matters?” she says. “Well, there have been some tremors felt in Alarcón’s government. Some opposition. But we believe the people are what give Alarcón his strength. So we have some friends coming over to talk about how we can help maintain peace and order.”

  Mamá’s voice sounds too casual. She’s trying not to worry me. But knowing something is wrong, and not knowing exactly what, is so much worse! Suddenly I remember what she told me a few weeks ago about her fears for Alarcón’s government. Does she remember that? Doesn’t she know I am not the little girl who used to eavesdrop beneath tables just for fun . . . doesn’t she realize I listen so I can know things?! I decide to stay close by to hear what my parents and their friends say during “onces.”

  “Onces” are an important time of day in Chile. And even though “onces” means “elevens,” they happen at five o’clock. Señora Atkinson says in Britain they call it “teatime.” Since I was very small, I have been sitting under the table during onces, listening to my parents’ colleagues from the hospital, professors at the university, painters, and all sorts of people talk about all sorts of things: the Beatles, space exploration, but mostly, lately, more and more—politics.

  Today politics is the only thing they talk about, and in voices that sound like rubber bands about to snap. I listen to words hurriedly flying back and forth about “the situation in this country.” Solidarity. Justice. Criminal. Consensus. Those words repeat so often. Mamá’s friend Clara keeps insisting, “I admire Alarcón for taking such a big risk—trying to change our society into a place where everyone is equal. He had to know that would make the people with money and power angry.” I know what Clara is talking about. My parents, Señorita Alvarado, Lucila’s father in his newspaper column—many people have talked about Alarcón’s plans for Chile since he became president. Health care for all, education for all, everyone having enough to eat and somewhere to sleep at night. But I don’t understand how equality can be dangerous. How could it make someone . . . anyone . . . angry?

  I sneak back upstairs to my blue room and think of what I have overheard. I write the word “riesgo”—“risk.” I used to think it was a beautiful word, but now it makes my hands shake. My cursive “riesgo” looks like it’s trembling with fear.

  Teatime Aflame

  I’m still writing when I realize that I smell smoke.

  I drop my notebook. “Mamá!” I scream. All is quiet in the house, but I hear a commotion outside—shouting and a sharp crackling. The smoke smell grows stronger as I climb to the roof. Strange light and shadows flicker on the street below. “Ma—” I clasp my hands over my mouth to stop myself from screaming. A stern voice from deep inside me is telling me, Celeste, hush!

  My heart pounds. My eyes fill. I want to run and find my parents, but I can’t move or look away. There, in the tiny plaza at the center of Butterfly Hill, is a tall pile of books.

  They are burning.

  “Celeste! Celeste!”

  I nearly lose my balance—my mind is reeling in shock and confusion. There, on my roof, crawling toward me, is Cristóbal Williams!

  “Cristóbal! How did you get up here? What are you doing? What is going on?”

  He arrives by my side, panting, and presses his hand on top of mine. “Stay low,” he whispers. “I don’t want them to see us!”

  “Who? Don’t want who to see us? What is going on?!”

  “Soldiers. But, Celeste, it’s not only here. They are burning books everywhere! All over the city! In Plaza Aníbal Pinto there is a giant bonfire! Piles and piles of books! Soldiers—hundreds of them, with metal helmets and boots—are marching around it and throwing the books in! And people are watching from the alleyways and roofs, but no one is saying anything, or stopping them. . . . It’s like the people are ghosts.”

  “What?! Cristóbal, are you sure?” My head spins even more. I remember what Abuela Frida told me about the Nazis burning books in Vienna. But that was so long ago—it seemed more like a nightmare to me than something real. . . . Could something like that happen here? In Valparaíso? Oh, what what what is going on?

  “Sí. I am sure. My pendulum told me. And then I went and saw it for myself. I started to head home, but all of a sudden I thought of you—and I had to find you and tell you that I wanted to be with you. I don’t know why . . .” His voice drifts off, and I see the fear in his eyes. I shiver at the violent flashes—of flame, then shadow, then flame again—from the ground below.r />
  “Cristóbal, don’t go home. It could be dangerous. Stay here at my house tonight.”

  Cristóbal pauses. “No, I don’t want my mother to be alone. I left without telling her . . .”

  “She must be worried sick! We’ll call her, and then you can stay . . .”

  “No!” He shakes his head adamantly. “Just call her, and let her know I am on my way.”

  “All right.” I give in. Cristóbal can be as stubborn as he is sleepy, but when did he become so brave?

  “¡Adiós, Celeste!”

  “¡Ten cuidado! Please, be careful!”

  I hold my breath and watch Cristóbal climb down the trellis that leads to my dolls’ garden. I clasp my hands together and pray the way I have seen Abuela Frida do. Please, please, let no one see him! Please let him make it home safely!

  I climb inside and run downstairs, wanting my mother’s arms around me more than I ever have. I wish Mamá could rub my forehead like she used to when I had a nightmare, and erase this night from my mind forever.

  My father meets me on the stairs and catches me in his arms. “Papá! Papá! What is it?! What is happening?! Why are they burning books?! Why are there soldiers?!”

  “Shhhh. Shhhhhh.” Papá holds me against his chest for a long, long time. Finally I stop crying and look at his face, gray like ashes from the fire.

  “Papá?” I whisper, afraid of his answer.

  He opens his mouth, but no words come out. He shakes his head and holds me tighter. “Papá?” Every second of his silence takes me closer to screaming in terror. But then I see my mother climbing the stairs. She puts her arms around us both. Her eyes are full of tears.

  “Mamá? Mamá, what is happening?!” My voice pleads with her. Oh, please, please tell me this is all a bad dream! Tell me you can erase it and make everything good again!