The farthest I can stretch my memory is
back to the day Néstor died. I have no recollections of anything that happened
before that day. I still remember my little brother sleeping on a strange bed;
at that time I didn’t know what a coffin was. He was beautifully dressed. I
don’t remember how I felt, since I certainly didn’t understand what was
happening. Maybe I was indifferent and amused because he was sleeping on that
bizarre bed, and he had two laurel leaves covering his eyes. Perhaps I was
confused because the neighbours kept coming into the house, and talked to my
parents. Maybe I was in shock when some men put a lid on the coffin where my
little brother was, and they were going to lift it, to take him away, and I saw
my mother dash towards them, like a wild animal. She then hugged the coffin,
clung to it, and began to scream like a crazy woman. And I must have been very
scared, thinking that something really bad was happening, when I saw that my
father was also crying. Well, when mom calmed down, those men lifted my little
brother’s coffin, and placed it inside a horse-drawn carriage that was waiting
outside. Then they took him away.
Néstor died of cholera, and to this day my
father regrets with certain bitterness in his voice the fact that we were poor;
he is sure that if we had had money to bring him to a private hospital, we
could have saved him. I know I never saw him again, but I don’t remember
whether I asked my mother questions about where my little brother was, and when
he would return. Sometimes I think my mind is making it up. How can I remember?
I was only three years old; Néstor was two. Maybe my memories have been
influenced by my mother’s repeated account of that occasion. Perhaps what fixed
that experience in my brain was the fact that my father was crying, and I most
probably had never seen him cry before. As I said, the things that took place
that day are my earliest childhood memory. I would see him cry once more, years
later, though.
It was 1959 and the island was still under
the grip of the ruthless dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, which started in
1930. We lived under an atmosphere of constant fear; the regime persecuted,
tortured, and assassinated the dissidents. You had to watch what you said, and
who your friends were, because, a neighbour, a close friend, or even a member
of your family, could denounce you before the authorities as one harbouring
anti-government sentiments. Then one night, the secret police would storm your
house, and take you to La Cuarenta, a torture house the regime had on 40th
Street Santo
Domingo
In January, the armed revolt of the Cuban revolutionaries
had finally succeeded in ousting the dictator Fulgencio Batista. In June, Dominican
exiles, aided by Fidel Castro invaded the Dominican
Republic
My father was a peasant who, at fourteen
years of age, left the family farm and headed for the city in search of a
better life. At this point in time he had a wife and four children (actually
three, Néstor had already died), and living in extreme poverty. He would not take
part in any political activity; he would simply work selling lottery tickets,
and take care of his family. He was just an innocent bystander. But for
reasons unknown to him at that moment, the SIM (Military Intelligence Service),
the secret police, whose members, called calieses (Thugs) by the
population, patrolled the streets in their black Volkswagen beetles called cepillos, started to harass him,
stopping him on the streets, asking him strange questions, watching him,
following him. My father was scared and worried, and went to one of our
neighbours, sergeant Collie, who was a member of the regular police, and told
him what was happening to him. Maybe that was naïve and unwise, but my father
considered sergeant Collie to be a good man. Sergeant Collie confirmed that the
secret police had something on him, but he didn’t know exactly what. He told my
father to be careful, watch his own shadow, and stay away from strangers. This
situation continued for a couple of months, until my father found out why the
secret police had him under surveillance.
Rivas was a prominent and respected lawyer
in the city of Santiago Trujillo
In that time and place where I grew up, I
was taught that men don’t cry. Well, I didn’t live up to that standard the day
I went to visit my father in jail. A neighbour, to whom my father was renting a
house, had a grudge against him. He slandered my father before the authorities
by saying that he was hiding illegal firearms in our house. No formal charges
were laid, our house was never searched, and no guns were found. But all the
same, my father spent one week in jail. That’s how non-existing our human
rights were. Being well connected with the authorities gave one the power to
get someone else in trouble. When my mother and I stepped into the room where
he was waiting, I ran into his arms and started to cry. I wished I could have
been stronger; I suppose he needed that kind of reassurance. But I couldn’t do
better; I was only nine.
My father didn’t cry that day; I know that
for certain, because contrary to the first time, which I vaguely remember, the
second and last time I saw him do it is indelibly engraved in my memory. It was
the summer of 1970. My little brother Hugo was very sick, and had been in pain
for months. He had an accident playing on top of the of carpenter’s bench who
was repairing the house. He tripped and fell, and hit the bench with his belly,
right where the pancreas is. His pancreas was smashed. He had been operated
three times. The doctors gave up on him, and sent him home. A neighbour, who
was a nurse, injected painkillers in his blood stream several times a day; but
when the effect of the drug wore out, he was in a terrible agony. At one point
he body was so deteriorated that he was literally skin and bones.
One Sunday morning, I remember it clearly,
my father was at my little brother’s bed trying to console him, and I was
standing by the bed. My father then lost his composure, he left the room and
headed for the back yard screaming, like a mad man, that he couldn’t watch his
little son suffer so much, that he wanted him to die so that he could rest from
his suffering. I was in shock. But the truth is, every member of our family,
including my mother, wanted my little brother to die, for the same reason. I
followed him to the backyard, he was crying in despair, and once more, I didn’t
know what to do to console him. I simply stood there, next to him, keeping him
company. Once more, I didn’t know better, I was only fourteen. My brother lost
the school year, but he survived, and he holds a special place in our hearts
because, as my mother used to put it, with her colourful language, we snatched
him from Death’s arms. Death took Néstor, but it could not take Hugo.
