In the Time of the Butterflies

by Julia Alvarez

Once the goat was a bad memory in our past, that would be the real revolution we would have to fight: forgiving each other for what we had all let come to pass.

The goat was the underground code name for el Jefe. Goats, a popular meat, are often slaughtered and hung on roadside stands—a visual symbol of what would be the fate of the dictator. (Another of his underground nicknames was, Chapita, a slang term for bottle cap. The story is that when he was a boy, Trujillo already showed signs of megalomania and self-aggrandizement. He had his mother puncture two holes on shiny bottle caps and sew these “chapitas” on his shirt to look like medals.) Patria wonders what will happen after the goat is gone? Ours is a “small-town” country, families so interconnected. During the dictatorship, there were those who colluded with the regime, while others in their own extended or even nuclear families were dissidents. Sometimes, even someone not aligned with the regime caved in to avoid torture or a worst fate to himself or to a beloved person. I’ve heard the same thing said about the Civil War in the United States: families, communities were divided. After the dictatorship is toppled, the war is over, the past still has to be addressed. Stories told, grievances aired, reparations made—if not, that trauma remains there, buried and festering. “What happens to a dream deferred?” Langston Hughes asks in his poem, “Harlem.” The last line, “Or does it explode?” is precisely what we’ve seen with the current marches and protests of the Black Lives Matter movement. The Dominican Republic and the United States, and so many countries around the world, are having to face not just “dreams” but haunting nightmares that have long been dismissed and denied, ways of deferring accountability. But along with testimonials, injustices faced and repaired, communities and countries and families will need to forgive each other in order to reach the farther shore. No shortcuts, though. The talk has to be walked, the work has to be done.