I Lived on Butterfly Hill Read online

  Tears trickle down her face. “Celeste, do you remember when we talked about earthquakes?”

  “¿Sí, Mamá?” My voice is tentative, a trembling question mark.

  “Well, tonight we felt an earthquake of the soul.”

  I don’t remember what happens next.

  I awake in my bed with my mother lying next to me, still dressed in her hospital clothes from the day before. There are tear stains on my pillow, and the air smells like smoke.

  The Subversives

  The rest of the weekend is like a bad dream. Everyone knows about the book burning, but no one says anything about it.

  “Papá told me not to talk about it to anyone, even to you, Celeste!” Lucila whispers to me when I run to her Monday morning with the words “fire” and “soldiers” already falling from my lips. “Marisol, too. Don’t ask her about it, okay? Don’t say anything to anyone. Promise? It’s dangerous!”

  “But why? Why is it dangerous?!” I protest. Doesn’t anyone want to know what is happening?! How can we figure things out if we all stay silent?!

  Lucila shakes her head and puts her finger to her lips.

  If Lucila’s father says it’s dangerous, then it must be. He always knows what is going on. He’s a journalism professor and writes a weekly column for Chile’s biggest newspaper. My parents like his articles about how jobs pay little and food is so scarce, how maids are forced to eat leftovers in back rooms instead of sitting at the table with their bosses, how there should be equal rights for women, and education and health care for the poor . . . And suddenly I feel dizzy. Lucila’s father—the words he writes—are they like the books the soldiers burned?

  And every day there are fewer of us in school. Today there are only fifteen—out of thirty-one in our class! One of the absent students is Ana, who is so quiet that I wonder how many days she has actually been gone.

  “Where’s Ana?” I whisper to Gloria, who sits next to me in class. They both live on Cerro Alegre, so I figure she must know—I figure she must care. But Gloria shrugs and turns her face down to Don Quijote. I stare at her. Her curly blond hair, usually loose in ringlets we all envied, is pulled tight back from her face. Since we were little girls, she has been our leader, the one we all look up to. Now I feel like a door has been shut in my face. Gloria has never acted so cold toward me.

  When school lets out for the day, I grab Lucila’s and Marisol’s hands and hold the girls back until the classroom is empty. Señorita Alvarado looks sharply at us, pauses for a moment with her forehead scrunched up, and then finally speaks in a stern tone I’ve never heard her use: “Just talk softly and close the door behind you, chicas, por favor!” She pokes her head out and looks back and forth down the hallway before she leaves, closing the door behind her.

  “What’s going on, Celeste? What is it?” Lucila taps her foot impatiently. “My mother wants me to go home right after school. She said she’ll ground me if I’m late!”

  “We need to talk to Gloria! Something’s going on with her. And Ana, too—she hasn’t been at school. I’m worried. I just don’t know how we can sit in class and pretend everything is okay when everyone around us is either changing or suddenly leaving without saying good-bye! There were only fifteen of us in class today! It must have something to do with the soldiers who were burning the books! And the ships in the harbor! Don’t you notice there are more every day? And they keep getting bigger and bigger!”

  I burst into hysterical tears, and Marisol hugs me close while Lucila whispers, “Celeste, everything will be okay. That’s what Mamá keeps telling me over and over.” She casts a nervous glance over at Marisol. “But please, please, please be careful what you say in public, and who you say it to . . .”

  Marisol picks up where her cousin’s voice trails off. “Our parents told us to show how we really feel only at home . . . behind closed doors.”

  Marisol pulls a tissue from her pocket and wipes my face. “Now let’s go find Gloria! Things with her can’t be as bad as you think, Celeste.”

  I thought it would be hard to find Gloria, but as we walk into the courtyard, we see her seated on our bench with Cristóbal. She’s watching him swing his magic pendulum back and forth with an annoyed look on her face. Gloria calls out as she sees us approach. “Come over here! I want Cristóbal to predict the future for me, but he says he can’t anymore! Help me convince him!”

  “Is that true, Cristóbal?” I ask.

  “Yes! Leave it alone, Celeste.”

  It’s the first time I have ever seen Cristóbal agitated. Then he adds, his face stormy, “My mother forbade it.”

  “Then why do you still have the pendulum?” Gloria prods.

  He shrugs his shoulders. “Don’t know. What’s it to you?”

  “What is it you want to know, Gloria?” Marisol asks.

  Gloria gets that cold, unreadable look in her eyes again. Then she says, tilting her chin upward, “I want to know if Señorita Alvarado is a subversive.”

  At that word, “subversive,” Marisol shifts on her feet uncomfortably, and Lucila turns pale.

  Gloria looks right at Lucila. “Don’t you want to know?”

  Lucila shakes her head, and I interrupt, “Gloria, what’s all this talk about subversives?”

  “Oh, please! You don’t know what subversives are, Celeste? You? The princess of words?!” I just stare at her like she’s insane. “The poets and writers you love so much are subversives! Neruda is!” she says.

  We gasp.

  “But Pablo Neruda is a national hero!” I protest.

  “Of course!” Gloria shrugs matter-of-factly. Her voice sounds old and bitter, like it belongs to a person who carries an umbrella everywhere, always expecting a storm. That eerie voice now inhabiting our friend continues: “My father says that poets, writers, and journalists are subversives. And some singers and artists, and those people who work with the poor and think they can change things themselves.” She casts a glare like a knife in my direction. “Those people are weakening Chile. My father says they are enemies of the fatherland and very dangerous.”

  But why? I feel like I’ve forgotten how to think. Then I realize that, of course, my parents and almost all of our friends and neighbors fall into this group! And my parents—they know Gloria’s father. I wonder if he remembers how my parents will accept a bag of limes or sweet breads or a dozen eggs in exchange for their medical services. Would he consider them enemies of the fatherland?!

  A long stifling silence passes. Then Marisol pulls Lucila’s arm. “We should be getting home,” she says quietly, and the two walk rapidly toward the front gate.

  “We should be getting home too, Celeste,” Cristóbal says, and tucks his pendulum inside his backpack. “You too, Gloria?” he asks.

  “No, I am waiting for my father,” she says coolly. “He’s having a meeting with Principal Castellanos.”

  “About what? It can’t be your grades; you get all As!” I say, forcing a smile, trying to reach the friend inside Gloria. But she gives me a cold stare that makes my blood feel icy.

  “You know what about. But Cristóbal’s right—you should get home, Celeste. Don’t you need to help your grandmother make scarves, or practice some witchcraft with your crazy nana?”

  I back away from her—Gloria’s words land in my heart like a dagger. My whole body fills with hurt and fear.

  “Come on, Celeste.” Cristóbal grabs my hand and leads me out into the street. We walk quickly, in silence, for a long, long while. Then finally I realize that Cristóbal is walking me up Butterfly Hill.

  “You need to get home too, Cristóbal! I can make it alone from here.”

  Cristóbal shakes his head. He looks more wide-awake than ever. “No, Celeste. I want to take you all the way home today.” All I can do is squeeze his hand. I will never find another friend like Cristóbal.

  And I have to ask, “Is it true your mother told you not to use your pendulum?”

  He nods. “She thinks it is dangerous. But
I don’t care, Celeste. People are nervous and wanting answers. So I am using it but only to help them. Not for people who ask questions like Gloria’s.”

  “Cristóbal, please, please, please only predict for people you trust. And do it somewhere safe and secret!”

  Blot Out the Horizon

  I can’t stop looking down at the harbor. More ships—more than ever before—have been arriving all week. Now instead of six, eight, ten, the harbor is full of them, too many to count. And they grow more immense by the day—two, no, three—times the size of my house, maybe even the size of my school. Have those monster ships swallowed all the other boats? The fishing trawlers, the tugboats, the sailboats? I can’t see them anymore. These dark ships with flags that barely wave nearly blot out the horizon.

  I feel a tightness in my stomach and a jumpiness in my throat. Delfina’s word for this feeling in Mapudungún is “julepe.”

  “Celeste, come and eat your empanadas!”

  “Coming, Nana!” I call down. But I don’t move from the window. I am trying to remember the last time I’ve seen the pelicans fly by, and I can’t. I shake my head in disbelief. The julepe must be getting to my head!

  I run downstairs, where everyone is around the table, talking in low voices and not eating the cooling stack of empanadas. My father is on the phone. “What are those huge ships in the harbor?” I blurt out.

  My parents exchange glances, and Abuela Frida murmurs anxiously under her breath in German, “Tell her, Esmeralda.”

  My mother speaks slowly. “They are navy warships, Celeste.”

  Warships? No, they can’t be. I’ve studied enough history with Señorita Alvarado to know that navies don’t work that way. They only use their warships when there are wars, and to have a war, there has to be an enemy. “But, Mamá,” I protest, “Chile isn’t at war with our Valparaíso. That’s like my hand fighting with my thumb. How can we be at war with ourselves?”

  Mamá’s face is pale, and her eyes look lost. But she tells me calmly, “I know it’s hard to believe, Celeste, but it’s true. Cristóbal’s mother called earlier today to tell us that military marches have started in the center of town.”

  I stare at her, both aghast and disbelieving. Then I look to Abuela Frida, whose eyes look as lost as my mother’s. Why hasn’t anyone told me anything about this? What, oh what, is going on?

  Papá has been talking tensely into the telephone, his face strained. He sets the phone down and stares at us. “That was Bernardo. The military has Presidente Alarcón trapped in the Presidential Palace in Santiago. The capital is under siege. Bernardo says . . . He says that people . . .” My father’s voice falters. “Teachers, students, doctors . . . anyone they suspect would support Alarcón . . .” He grasps my mother’s hand. “They are being taken from their homes! Cars without license plates are driving around Santiago, forcing people on the street into the backseats and speeding away!”

  “Andrés! That’s enough!” Abuela Frida interjects sharply. I look to Nana Delfina, who is peeling potatoes at the kitchen sink. I wish she would come and put a potato skin, so cool and soothing, on my forehead. But she keeps her head lowered. It’s like I don’t know any of them! My legs buckle beneath me, and I sink to the floor. Mamá and Papá rush to my side, and each takes an arm and pulls me to my feet.

  “Are we—are we—at war?” I stammer, wanting so much to understand. “I mean, are they . . . at war with us? And who are they, these people who are telling soldiers to march in the streets and sending ships to swallow up our sky?”

  Mamá gently guides me toward a chair next to Abuela Frida. “Do you remember what I told you, Celeste, about earthquakes of the soul—”

  “Sí.” I hear my own voice, as sharp as my grandmother’s a few moments ago, interrupt my mother. I pull away from her. “I’m so tired of hearing about your earthquakes of the soul,” I snap. “I’m fine now, Mamá. Just let me go to my room. Tomorrow’s Monday and I have homework.”

  I run up the stairs and hear Nana tell them, “Let her go. She needs to be alone to understand in her own time, in her own way.”

  I climb to the roof and stare down at the harbor again. All the sounds of Butterfly Hill have stopped. The buganvillias smell of rotting things.

  Waiting for You

  On Friday, Lucila doesn’t come to school. As soon as classes are done, I run to where the older kids hang out to ask her older brother where she is. “Where’s Javier?” I ask them. They all shrug and look at their scuffed shoes. Then a tall boy with long brown hair and a bruise on his cheek hisses, “Javier and Lucila aren’t here anymore, Celeste. Get yourself home quick, and be careful who you ask questions, okay?”

  I run to find Cristóbal. He is in a shady corner of the school yard. As I approach, I see that he is tracing what looks like a map with his finger in the dirt. When he looks up and sees me, he runs his hand over the dirt and erases whatever was there. “Cristóbal! What are you doing?!” I ask, surprised. Cristóbal never hides anything from me!

  “Waiting for you.” He pauses. “Do you want me to walk you home?”

  I exhale, fear subsiding for a second. “That’s exactly what I came here to ask you, Cristóbal! Thank you. Will you stay for dinner?”

  I can tell Cristóbal is worried about making it home on time, so I blurt everything out in a rush: “I’m so worried. Not only is Lucila not in school, but neither is Javier. And all these warships in the harbor and military marches—they must all be connected. Everyone’s whispering, talking about people being taken away by soldiers in Santiago. I’m so scared, Cristóbal. I keep imagining the most horrible things. Do you . . . do you think your pendulum might tell us what’s going on?” I clutch his arm and struggle to catch my breath.

  “It won’t!” Cristóbal sounds frustrated. “Don’t you think I would have told Marisol—and you!—if I had even a little clue? I’ve asked my pendulum to draw a map in the sand a hundred times. It just goes around in circles like it’s crazy!” His face looks stricken, his blue eyes dark. “It only keeps trying to say one thing—a thing too terrible . . .” Cristóbal’s voice cracks. “Let’s go to Butterfly Hill. . . .”

  “What does it tell you? You have to tell me more!” I shake his arm forcefully.

  “Never mind, Celeste! It can’t be true. It’s just a dumb piece of glass!” Cristóbal cries.

  “I don’t believe you! Tell me, please!”

  Cristóbal stares at the dirt he’s just kicked, then back at me. He takes a deep breath. “The navy. They are here to block the harbor. Celeste, soldiers will be going to Santiago to kill the president!”

  “Liar!” I cry, and knock Cristóbal’s pendulum right out of his hands. I run with all my might toward Butterfly Hill.

  Before It’s Too Late

  I have wanted to go find Cristóbal all weekend, to apologize. But my parents won’t let me go any farther than Butterfly Hill. They are afraid that the upheaval in Santiago might spread to Valparaíso.

  “Why don’t you call him? Just say your fear made you hurtful,” Delfina suggests when she finds me brooding in my room. How does Nana always know everything without me saying a word?

  “I will, Nana,” I promise. “Soon.”

  “Don’t wait too long, Niña Celeste,” she tells me sternly. “Something that is hard to do just becomes harder when you wait. Don’t hope it will go away on its own—because it won’t.”

  In the evening we eat spaghetti with pesto sauce, and nobody speaks much. Abuela Frida just sucks lemons. The noodles look sad all drooped over my plate. Maybe I should call Cristóbal now? But instead I follow my parents into their study. Papá turns on the radio. A Beatles song about a place called Strawberry Fields is playing, and I start to wonder if I’d ever get sick of eating strawberries forever, when the song is interrupted by a solemn voice:

  “Buenas tardes. Good afternoon.” The voice coughs, then continues. “Ahem, countrymen and countrywomen. Your attention, please. It has been confirmed that at approximately tw
o o’clock this afternoon, Presidente Alarcón was killed. The Presidential Palace was set on fire by an explosion of unknown origin. That is all the information we have right now.”

  We sit in shocked silence, frozen for what feels like a very long time.

  The song comes back on the radio. I hear the lyrics in English—“Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see”—echo through my reeling mind. But I don’t understand them.

  Terror moves up and down my body in shivers. Terror like a poisonous snake . . . Suddenly I jump out of my skin! Something’s touching my arm! But then I exhale in relief—it’s just my father’s arms around me.

  “Celeste, shhhh!” he murmurs. “Let me hold you.” I look and see tears falling down his face. I have never seen Papá cry!

  There’s a loud pounding on the front door. Now we all jump and exchange nervous glances. Except for Abuela Frida, who remains as still as a statue in her chair. Papá, his face gone gray, walks quickly to the door. It’s our elderly neighbors, Señor and Señora Vergara, whose twin sons live in Santiago. As they drink the coffee Delfina prepares for them, they tell us that a general with a long mustache and enormous dark glasses has taken power.

  “In the capital they are saying Alarcón was killed by a rifle, but they can’t say for certain who fired the shot . . .”

  I don’t want to hear anymore. I slip away to the roof, and nobody stops me. I don’t want to, but I can’t stop picturing the president with a bullet in his forehead. And then I see his heart, on fire and bleeding all over the Presidential Palace. The heart bleeds until it stops beating, until it has no more blood to lose, until Presidente Alarcón is nothing but ash.

  Lines Tied or Cut

  The next morning I try to greet Valparaíso like I always do. “Buenos días, Valparaíso.”

  I hear nothing but silence. The silence feels heavy. It presses on my head like a helmet that’s too small. I wait and hope for the pelicans to appear.