Free In the Name of Salome by Julia Álvarez Page A

Báez removed all temptation from my side—for the brothers were exiled to Haiti for writing poems against the new regime. We had left off being a colony to become a dictatorship with a censor who understood the power of poetry.
    It was as if I were back in my childhood again, for just as I had given all my heart to a charming man in a frock coat who rhymed his conversation, I now had given my heart to a charming young man in a short jacket and cap who had declared his feelings for me. My asthma reappeared. I wept for days on end.
    Before Miguel left the country, I had a gift to give him. Night after night, I had been copying over Herminia’s poems, which Miguel had requested. It was my small act of rebellion against the foolish dictates of my elders. I had no idea how I would get them to him.
    It was Ramona who came up with the solution: Ramona, who could never endure my weeping and would do anything to stop my tears. At Sunday mass, as Miguel walked past our pew to communion, Ramona slipped in behind him. They knelt side by side at the communion rail. As they waited for Padre Billini to come down the row with his chalice, Ramona slipped Miguel a sheaf of poems. Accompanying them was my letter, disclosing that I was Herminia. It seemed a much more intimate thing to do than smiling, to take off my disguise and let him know my secret soul as I had put it down on paper.
    A FEW WEEKS LATER , Papá was at our door with a copy of
El Nacional
rolled up under one arm and a scared look on his face. When he unrolled the paper, and thrust it before me, my mouth fell open. There, on the front page, was my poem, “Recuerdos a un proscrito,” which I had included in the poems to Miguel. It was signed “Herminia.”
    â€œÂ¿Qué pasa?” Mamá asked, scouring the paper up and down. President Grant to our north was sending a commission of American senators to study the idea of buying off part of the island and shipping some of their own negro people to live here. A group calling itself the Ku Klux Klan was burning crosses in front of these negro people’s houses, so maybe they wouldn’t mind coming. The Clyde steamship was due in from Havana. Señorita Trinidad Villeta had been crowned Queen of May in Teatro Republicano.
    Papá looked at her impatiently, and then glancing over his shoulder and seeing that the top of the Dutch door was still open, he motioned for me to close it. After he had read the poem out loud, my father said, “This is seditious!”
    My mother’s face shone with fierce pride. “Good for Herminia! She is saying what we all feel and don’t have the courage to speak.”
    Papá looked at her for a long moment, and you could see that he was just now realizing that I had never shared my pen name with my mother. It was our special secret.
    Later that night in bed, Ramona and I figured out what must have happened. Miguel had given my poem to his friends at
El Nacional
to publish. All we could hope for was that he had not betrayed my true identity.
    The next afternoon at his house, Papá warned me. “You must be careful, Herminia. Báez is not the old Báez. He would not protect his old friend if he were to find out my daughter was sowing seeds of sedition. No more publishing without my permission!”
    Of course, I promised not to do what I had never done in the first place. The following week another poem by Herminia waspublished in the paper. “Una lagrima” was not out-and-out seditious, but no dictator could have read those lines addressed to an exile without feeling challenged.
Your patria still in chains . . . The tears you shed for her have never dried
. . . Rumors in the capital were that
El Nacional
would be shut down within the week. But the paper continued publishing. It seemed Báez was showing off to the American senators how freedom-loving he was.
    For several weeks, poems appeared by Herminia in the paper.