Free In the Name of Salome by Julia Álvarez Page B

“Contestación,” “A un poeta,” “Una esperanza,” “Ruego,” “Un gemido,” and finally, “La gloria del progreso,” a poem that caused an uproar. Our old friend Don Eliseo Grullón, a statesman himself, declared that whoever this Herminia was, she was going to bring down the regime with pen and paper.
    Papá was beside himself. Why was I bent on defying him? Exile would be the least of it. I was going to get us all killed. Finally, I had to confess that it was not my doing. I had allowed some acquaintances to have copies. “I’m sorry, Papá.”
    But secretly, I was glad. Poetry,
my
poetry, was waking up the body politic! Instead of letting my father’s fears hold me back, I kept writing bolder poems.
    Sometimes my hand would shake as I wrote.
Herminia, Herminia, Herminia
, I would whisper to myself. She was the brave one. She was not in thrall to her fears. She did not quail at a harsh word. Or to cry over every little thing, wasting her tears.
    Secretly, in the dark cover of the night, Herminia worked at setting la patria free.
    And with every link she cracked open for la patria, she was also setting me free.
    E ACH TIME THERE WAS a new poem by Herminia in the paper, Mamá would close the front shutters of the house and read it in a whisper to the rest of us. She was delighted with the brave Herminia. I felt guilty keeping this secret from her, but I knew if Itold her, all her joy would turn to worry. Her theory was that Herminia was really Josefa Perdomo, but my aunt Ana disagreed. Josefa had a more sentimental, ingratiating style. “This Herminia is a warrior,” my aunt said proudly. “In fact, my theory is that Herminia is really a man, hiding behind a woman’s skirt.”
    â€œHow interesting, tía,” Ramona said, looking directly at me. “Herminia, a man. Somehow I don’t quite see it.” My sister was enjoying herself immensely. She claimed it was all her doing that Herminia had come to the notice of the public. I knew the minute Mamá discovered our travesty, Ramona would be the innocent accomplice, put up to this by her naughty little sister, who had once let a man touch her.
    In fact, we had both lit a fire that was raging out of control. “La patria has discovered her muse,” read one letter by an anonymous writer reprinted in
El Nacional
. Rebellions began erupting everywhere. The American senators left the country. Governor González of the north province of Puerto Plata announced that he was starting his very own party, the Green Party, and he called for all Dominicans to join with him in a public meeting to protest the tyranny of Báez. His proclamation inspired a new poem I began writing that very night,
Wake from your sleep, my Patria, throw off your shroud
. . .
    It was because of this poem that Mamá made her discovery. Our housekeeping habit was to air our mattresses in the open courtyard in back of the house. On airing days I was always very careful to transfer the stack of poems I kept under my side of the mattress to the bottom of the clothes chest.
    That day, I had made the transfer, but it must have been that the ink on my latest revision of “A la Patria” was still wet when I had put the poem away on top of the stack the night before. That one page had stuck to the bottom of the mattress, and as we up-ended it, my mother was staring straight at my poem, or rather Herminia’s poem.
    â€œY esto, ¿qué es?” My mother peeled the poem away and readenough of it to recognize the style. She looked straight at me. “How could you, Salomé?”
    â€œYou said you were proud of Herminia,” I reminded her. “You said she had the courage to say what we all thought but wouldn’t speak.” My knees were shaking. I could feel that tightness in my chest that preceded my asthma attacks.
    My mother did not say a word. I expected her to scold