I Lived on Butterfly Hill Read online

  “Sit down and eat while Delfina feeds Doña Frida. You both are getting the look of air. Then once you are fed, ask for a sign.”

  It feels good to sit. I feel so very tired, though I hardly do anything but lie on my bed and wonder all day. I take a few bites of the chicken and vegetable soup that I know is so delicious. I have slurped it up a million times and licked the dribbles from my chin with a smile. But now everything is less than what it was before. I loved eating so much, and now it is work, and I wouldn’t bother if Nana Delfina weren’t here taking care of me. My throat is constricted too, so that I nearly choke on each swallow. And with each swallow I can’t help but wonder if my parents have anything to eat.

  Nana Delfina returns quickly from Abuela Frida’s room. “She is asleep,” Delfina says with a sigh. “But Delfina left the soup on her night table, with her rosemary bread soaking in the bowl.” My Nana Delfina’s wise eyes miss nothing. She sees I am struggling to eat. She quickly fills her own bowl and sits beside me. She rubs my back gently. And almost by magic my chest opens up bit by bit. It is easier to breathe, and the taste returns to the food. Delfina stays like that until I have eaten every bite of soup. Patient and quiet, she lets her own soup cool until I put my spoon down in my empty bowl and say, “Eat, Nana Delfina. You take care of all of us! Who takes care of you?”

  “God and her ancestors take care of Delfina, Querida.” She smiles. “You never have to worry for your nana.” I lean my head against her shoulder as she eats her soup. I can hear her heart beat and the strange gurgling sound of her belly, like when two little tides collide and swirl together in a hollow stretch of sand. I think about Nana Delfina’s faith. It’s so strong, like her straight back and wrinkled brown arms.

  “What are you thinking, my Celeste?” she asks as she pushes her bowl away. I am thinking about my parents, but instead I say, “Where were you born, Nana?”

  “Delfina was born in Cautín, the place where the forests and the desert and the sea merge into one.”

  “That’s where you learned your magic, verdad, Nana Delfina?”

  “Yes, that is true, niña. Delfina’s ancestors taught Delfina to heal. They passed on knowledge with their voices. You know some words of Nana’s language from the songs she sings to you. But you can’t write the words down in your notebook. Mapudungún is an oral language. It is sacred and can only be kept safe on your tongue.”

  She looks deep into my eyes. “When you are older,” she says, “Delfina will pass many secrets on to you. She will teach you to dry peppers and grind them with cumin, coriander seeds, and salt to make merquén to season foods.” Delfina pauses to glance at me mischievously, because she knows I am always more eager for mysteries than for housework! “And she will teach you to visit with your guardian spirits in your dreams.” I smile for the first time in weeks.

  “¡Sí, sí! I would love that, Nana!” My arms tighten around her, and a laugh bursts from her lips like a pink balloon.

  The Sign

  Although Abuela Frida does not let me open the windows, that night I crack my bedroom window up a few inches. Nana told me to ask for a sign, and so I pray for something to arrive from heaven. I imagine that a piece of candy, having escaped a sad birthday party, might arrive. But all throughout the night I feel nothing, not even the wind.

  It is hard to fall asleep surrounded by so much nothingness, so much silence that it seems I am in another city, a strange city inhabited by the dead. At dawn, when I finally have fallen asleep, I am startled awake by the sound of a loud cry. It’s the old pelican! He came back!

  “Good morning,” I whisper, fearing my voice will be heard by the scowling, uniformed men who patrol the streets enforcing the curfew. The pelican flies closer to my window. Suddenly he taps his giant beak against the glass. That’s when my eyes fall upon an envelope tucked into the windowpane. It must have been left there overnight! I snatch the damp paper, my mouth open wider than the pelican’s beak with shock. When I look up, the old pelican is flying toward the harbor. I clutch the letter to my chest. My heart beats a song of wonder and gratitude.

  I sit cross-legged on my bed open the letter, and see a familiar handwriting. Mamá! I hold my breath and read:

  My beloved Celeste,

  How are you, little star? What have you written in your blue notebook? How is your dolls’ garden and your grandmother? How is the house? Has the roof blown away yet?

  Your father and I are safe. We are staying by the ocean, kept safe by the good will of brave friends.

  Keep faith that liberty will return to Chile soon. Each day I dream of seeing you.

  Papá and I send our love.

  Your mother, Esmeralda

  I run into my grandmother’s room. She is still in her bed, half-asleep and half-dressed. Abuela Frida said that if anyone came to look for us, it was always better to have clean underwear on.

  “Abuela Frida, look what arrived!” She blinks again and again as she recognizes her daughter’s handwriting. Abuela’s eyes widen into oceans.

  She presses the place where my mother signed “Esmeralda” to her lips.

  Uncertainty Crackles in Each Corner

  I wake up early to a blue room filled with shadows. I curl up on my side and try to count how long it has been since I received Mamá’s letter. Time has passed so slowly. Each day is like one immensely long spaghetti that we choke on here, prisoners in our own house.

  I sit up and look out the window. Valparaíso is still enveloped in a heavy fog. I lie back down. I have no energy, no desire to be awake. I feel so tired of having to stay near my house at all times. At least I can go to my roof! I feel as if every time I ask Abuela Frida or Delfina a question about what’s happening in the world outside, all I hear are confused words that are worse than their silence. Uncertainty crackles in each corner of the house.

  At breakfast the three of us are so quiet that every time I chew my toast, the sound echoes through my skull and makes it throb. Abuela Frida, who lives half her days in another world and the other half in fear, breaks the silence when she reaches across the table and grips my arm tight. Her hand is wrinkled and bony but strong. She presses my flesh as if she is afraid of losing it. “Celeste, I have to ask you to not climb on the roof anymore. I know how much you love to, Querida, but since there is a curfew, now any crazy person could see you up there and shoot you!”

  I glance pleadingly at Delfina, but she nods emphatically. Abuela Frida continues, “And, Celeste, don’t wear those jeans anymore, even when you are in the house. We never know who might knock on the door, and the military demands that girls dress only in skirts and do up their hair in proper buns. And your hair, Celeste, is wilder than even your mother’s when she was your age.”

  I scowl and pull my arm away. “Abuela Frida, am I still allowed to laugh?”

  The anger in my voice takes us all by surprise. Delfina looks down at her brown palms. But Abuela Frida’s bumblebee voice is gentle. I am the one who sometimes speaks with a stinger. “Of course you can laugh. But now it is better to laugh softly, in whispers.”

  I look at my grandmother’s blue eyes in her frail face. They still sparkle like stars in the sky, like a map of her inner world. I get up from the table and sit at her feet. I feel her hands play with my tangled strands of hair as she says, her voice low but strong, “Celeste, the country is enduring what your mamá calls earthquakes of the soul. Never in Chile have I seen neighbor turn against neighbor. I would never have imagined that in this country someone could knock on your door and pull you from your bed, tell you they are taking you for only a few short hours, and then interrogate you with violence. That you could never be heard from again, and from then on they call you ‘disappeared.’ Celeste, I wish I could protect you from knowing anything of evil, but it would be wrong to hide the truth from you. People, more and more people, are disappearing.”

  I look up at Abuela Frida. Her jaw is set with a strength that gives me the courage to ask what I most dread. “Like my class
mates disappeared? And some teachers suddenly returned to the places they came from? Is that, is that . . .”—my voice falters—“why Mamá and Papá had to go into hiding?”

  “Sí. This earthquake we are living in is called dictatorship. It is called intolerance. Never forget these words. They are the words I escaped on the Ship Called Hope so many years ago.”

  Cuchuflí and Abuelo José

  That night I knock on Abuela Frida’s bedroom door to wish her good night. She is lying in bed, the sheets tucked up to her chin, gazing at the picture of my grandfather on her bedside table.

  “¿Abuela Frida?”

  “¿Sí?”

  “Abuela Frida, tomorrow is Sunday. I want to go down to the city like we used to. We can still go out as long as we are home before curfew, right? I promise to do my hair up and wear my blue pleated skirt.”

  My grandmother looks at me for a long, long time. “Well then, tomorrow we will call Alejandro and ask him to drive us.”

  I sit up with a bounce and clap my hands, and tiny Abuela Frida bobs up and down on the mattress like a fishing boat in the bay. “¡Gracias, Abuela! I am so excited!”

  Abuela Frida wears a mischievous smile. “To tell you the truth, I am too! You aren’t the only one who is sick of being stuck in the house. We’ll have such fun! I wish I could take you to buy cuchuflí wafers! Would you believe your grandfather and I used to buy a pack of four for a single peso?”

  “Oh, I haven’t tasted cuchuflí in such a long time, Abuela! I love how they are shaped like flutes, but instead of music they are filled with sweetness.”

  Abuela Frida gasps. “Celeste, that’s exactly what your Abuelo José would say when he’d bite into one!” I rest my chin on my knees and watch my grandmother travel back to the days when she was a beautiful young girl from Vienna. “It’s a shame you never met your Abuelo José. He had such green eyes! I would tell him he must have an immense, verdant forest in his soul. He was the most generous person I ever met. You remember that I met him on the ship that brought me to Chile?”

  “Sí, Abuela Frida. On the Ship Called Hope.”

  She suddenly pulls me into a tight hug. “Oh, what I wouldn’t give to see those white sails and feel his arms around me once more!”

  Dreaming Runs in the Family

  Alejandro arrives the next day to take us down to the harbor. He used to just beep the horn of his taxi when he came to pick us up, but today he gets out and quietly raps on the door.

  Usually the silver-haired taxi driver was always laughing. When I was little, I thought that God had given him extra teeth, his smile was so big. But today his face is grim—he doesn’t even smile when Abuela Frida comes to the front door with a flourish. As always she is dressed elegantly in an orchid dress and pearl necklace and earrings.

  As Alejandro begins to drive down the hill, I stick my head out the window and wave to Nana Delfina, who is standing at the front door whispering prayers of protection for us. “Celeste”—Abuela Frida tugs on my blouse—“please stay in the car. You know we have to take more care now.” I roll up the window, and Abuela Frida smoothes the pieces of flyaway hairs back into my braids.

  “I’m sorry. Can you believe I actually forgot for a minute, Abuela?”

  “Well, that’s nothing to be sorry about, Querida. But we must keep our wits about us and not get lost in dreamland. You know how dreaming runs in the family! Don’t you agree, Don Alejandro?”

  I actually see a wide grin in the rearview mirror. “After forty years serving you, Doña Frida, I do know something about dreams.”

  “See, that’s why I only ever call Don Alejandro, Celeste! We know that wherever we travel, we always make it back home to Butterfly Hill.”

  We fall into silence as we gaze out the window. All the shops and cafés are closed. I can’t even smell empanadas baking. I look to Abuela Frida in dismay. She reads my thoughts and tells me, “The Dictator has forbidden businesses opening on Sundays.”

  We turn onto the Paseo 21 de Mayo. The wide avenue, usually filled with couples walking arm in arm and street vendors selling everything from lemonades to rainbow-colored kites, looks so empty. But the air is still thick with the lush scent of honeysuckles. Abuela Frida has grown very quiet, her brow furrowed in thought.

  “What’s wrong, Abuela Frida? Do you feel well?”

  “Sí, sí, Querida.” She pats my hand. “But I think some fresh sea air will do me good! Alejandro, can you take us down to the beach?”

  With Abuela on the Shore

  We remain quiet for a while, enjoying the feel of the soft white sand on our bare legs. The tides seem to creep in and retreat on tiptoes. Maybe the sea is afraid to make too much noise. Even the air has changed. The wind smells less of salt and more of ashes. But I don’t share any of this with Abuela Frida. I glance at her sitting with her legs crossed like a proper lady, even in the sand. Her blue eyes are fixed on the blazing horizon.

  She must sense my eyes upon her. Without moving her gaze, she says, “The sun will set soon— I want to talk to you before it gets dark and we have to return home. Celeste of my soul, I have something to tell you.”

  My heart takes a tumble . . . “something to tell you” . . . lately nothing happy ever follows those words.

  “I am listening, Abuela.”

  “Celeste, the situation in this country is going from bad to worse. Your parents have gone into hiding so that they don’t put us in danger, but . . .”

  My grandmother turns at last to face me as I nod hesitantly. How frail my poor abuela looks! But her voice is resolute as she continues, “But the danger creeps closer still. We need, Celeste—we need to send you to live for a while with your Tía Graciela.”

  Tía Graciela? Tía Graciela! My mother’s big sister. I haven’t seen her in years. She lives in one of the northernmost parts of the United States, thousands and thousands and thousands of miles from Chile.

  Then the actual meaning of my grandmother’s words sinks in like a knife. Suddenly I find myself on my feet, clasping my hands and yelling.

  “No! Please, Abuela Frida! Don’t make me leave! Please don’t make me leave! I can’t leave you and Nana Delfina!”

  I am drowning. They can’t send me away! They can’t! I throw myself onto my grandmother’s lap. She lets me cry and cry until I no longer can.

  “¡Ay, Abuela!” My throat burns. I whisper, but it feels like a scream. “What about Mamá and Papá? They could come back soon! And I wouldn’t be here! Or . . . what if they need me to help them?”

  Abuela Frida wipes sand that has stuck to my face. “Celeste, your parents would want you to leave. We discussed this possibility.” She brushes the sand from her gloves and tells me more. “They did not want to frighten you more than you were already, but I think you should know the truth. Esmeralda and Andrés received death threats. And now . . . and now that they have fled, it seems that the government . . .” Abuela’s voice grows unsteady, but her eyes hold mine. “Now it is not safe for you, either. Your parents told me to use my better judgment in regards to your safety. I have prayed about this, Celeste. It is best that we live apart for a time. Right now Chile is no place for a young girl to grow up.”

  I shake my head in disbelief. “But . . .”

  “Believe me. I already have too much experience with these sorts of situations.”

  “I know, Abuela Frida.”

  She looks out at the red ball of light sinking toward the sea, and speaks to me in German. “My mother sent me away because she didn’t want a young girl to be exposed to the cruelty Jews were experiencing in Vienna.”

  Abuela Frida takes a quick, raspy breath. I hold her hand hard, afraid of her memories. “I remember my mother sewing her jewels into the lining of my winter coat. Then she put it on me and buttoned it all the way up. I didn’t want to let go of her, but she pushed me out the door and into the street, where a car was waiting for me. Inside was the young Austrian couple I’ve told you about. They risked their lives to get me o
ut of the country . . .”

  Abuela Frida’s voice softens to an echo. “Celeste, I am an only child like you. I believe that if my parents had known they would die if they stayed in Vienna, they would have come with me. My mother, my father, my grandparents, aunts, and uncles—my entire family died. Only a few months after I escaped, the Nazis raided our house in the night. An Austrian refugee I met in Santiago confirmed my worst fears. He had had his violins repaired by my father, and recognized him among the thousands of people waiting—waiting like animals in pens—for the train to take them to a concentration camp. But I never found out where and when it was that they died.”

  Abuela Frida takes her handkerchief from her pocket and presses it over her nose and mouth.

  “Oh, Abuela Frida!” I put my arms around her, sobbing. “I’m so very sorry.”

  Abuela Frida takes one of my braids, unbraiding and rebraiding it, for a long time. “So you see, Celeste of my soul, I have to take every precaution when it comes to taking care of you.”

  I tighten my arms around her slight frame—so tight, I must be hurting her—but I feel I can never let her go.

  “Mi amor, I am sorry. You are still a little girl, and it’s not right to plunge you into so much sadness. Forgive me.”

  All I can do is hold my Abuela Frida until my arms tremble. She always tells me to save my tears for joy, but I can’t help crying again. Abuela Frida’s thin body also shakes and sobs. It seems we could fill the beach with another ocean.