Before We Were Free

The next day, Papi goes to work early and takes Mundin with him. From the breakfast table, Anita looks through the window and sees six black Volkswagens coming up their driveway. Four men get out. Their leader asks Mami where Carlos Garcia and his family are. Mami pretends not to understand and acts as if she is confused. She thinks the Garcias are still at home, she says. Mami steps aside when they ask to search the house.

Anita asks Chucha who the men are. “SIM,” she says, which is a group of secret police. Chucha says that they investigate people and then make them disappear. The SIM team searches the entire house. Lucinda tells Anita that they would also love to find their father. The men leave the house but stay parked at the top of the driveway all afternoon. Anita speaks with Chucha, who tells her that when they searched her room, they turned over her coffin and tore the lining.

At dinner, Papi says they have to act as if the SIM are not there. The black cars remain there for days. Every day, when Papi goes to work, one of the cars follows him. Anita asks Mundin to explain things to her, but he just says that she must ask Papi. Her mother won’t give her any answers, either. One night she hears Papi mention butterflies in a car accident on the phone. When she asks him, it’s obvious that he was talking in code. He says that butterflies refers to a group of women who had a car accident, but he won’t say more.

Anita asks Lucinda for answers. Lucinda takes her out onto a balcony and whispers that SIM has hidden microphones in the house and they have to be careful about what they say. She says that SIM is looking for Toni, their uncle, adding that Toni and some friends were involved in a plot to overthrow the Dominican Republic’s dictator a few months earlier. The dictator is El Jefe, which confuses Anita. They have a picture of him—his last name is Trujillo—hanging in their front entryway. Lucinda says this is why everyone left for America: to escape from El Jefe’s secret police.

Two weeks later, Mr. Washburn visits with a proposition. After he leaves, Papi tells Anita that they’re going to have neighbors. Anita is glad, as the compound’s emptiness is unsettling to her. The Washburns are going to move in next door, which is a relief: SIM will be less likely to make trouble with the American consul’s family in the compound. After they move in, Anita gives Washburn’s son, Sam, a tour of the compound. While exploring the land nearby, they find a casita that used to belong to Tio Toni. It had been shut since the previous summer when he had disappeared. Now it is open and Anita sees someone moving inside. They run home and agree not to tell anyone what they’ve seen. 

SIM leaves the compound and the children are allowed to return to school. Mami tells Anita not to talk about what happened with the other students, or with Sam and Susie, the Washburn children. Lucinda has become friends with Susie.

Anita is nervous about going back to school, as she knows everyone will ask her where she has been for two weeks. Lucinda says she should just tell everyone she had chickenpox. She doesn’t even understand why the presence of SIM meant they couldn’t go to school, but Mami will not discuss it.

Anita tells Lucinda about the conversation Papi had when he mentioned butterflies. Lucinda said there was a group called the butterflies who were Papi’s friends. Lucinda hints that the car accident was something more, but then she catches herself. The implication is that their house may still be bugged with secret microphones.

Mami seems calmer now that the Washburns have moved in. She sets up a canasta group to help Mrs. Washburn meet new people. She has also hired a new maid named Lorena to help Chucha with chores. Mami tells Anita to be careful in what she says around Lorena.

She and Sam have returned to Tio Toni’s casita twice, but now there is a padlock on the door. Each time they’ve gone to the casita, there have been fresh footprints leading away from the door, as if someone had been there recently.

Anita is excited when Sam joins her class, and by the approach of Christmas. When Sam introduces himself to the class, the American girls flirt with him. Anita is jealous.

Miss Brown announces that she has a Christmas surprise. The class is going to do secret Santas. Each student will pick a name out of a hat and become the secret Santa for the name of the student they draw. They will leave special notes and gifts for the person whose name they draw whenever possible. At the class Christmas party, they will find out who the secret Santas were. Anita wants to draw Sam’s name, but she gets Oscar instead. Oscar is an excitable, inquisitive boy who asks more questions in class than anyone else. But the next day, due to unspecified complaints from parents, Miss Brown cancels the program.

At recess, two girls, Amy and Nancy, tell Anita what happened. There were some Dominican parents who complained to the principal about the program. Anita thinks that they might not like the idea of Santa replacing the three wise men from the Bible story, but it’s something else. Oscar explains that there is something called an embargo, which means that certain countries don’t want anything to do with the Dominican Republic. Some parents feel that the writing of secret notes might cause trouble. That night, when Anita complains to her parents about it, they say that there are already enough secrets in the world.

In class, Miss Brown compares the embargo to the difficulties that siblings sometimes have in getting along. They might not always approve of each other, but they always want each other to do better and have what they need. When a student asks how the Dominican Republic has misbehaved, and why the embargo is in place, Miss Brown changes the subject.

One day, Anita shows Sam Chucha’s coffin. Sam can’t believe it when Anita tells him that Chucha insists that everything she wear be purple. When he asks what happened to the lining, she almost tells him about SIM, but then changes the subject.

The phone rings occasionally, but when Anita answers, whoever is on the other end hangs up. On one occasion, however, the voice asks for her father and she stays on the line after Papi answers. Papi says something absurd: “We’re waiting for Mr. Smith’s tennis shoes” (36). “They’ll be at Wimpy’s” replies the voice (36). For Anita, it’s as if her parents are playing their own secret Santa game.

On Anita’s birthday, Mami asks if she wants Sam to come over. Anita says no. She’s turning 12, but two weeks earlier she told him she was already 12 and doesn’t want to be caught in a lie. She has a birthday cake in the shape of a heart.

For Christmas, Anita will only be getting one present. She chooses a diary, but what she really wants is for her family to be together again. While out Christmas shopping, they go into a Wimpy’s store. Anita sees her father talking to Wimpy, an imposing man with muscles and tattoos, but she doesn’t know what they’re talking about.