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By Root 1265 0

never had one, I never will. Do you want to know everything, Lucindita? No man has ever laid a hand on me again since that time. My only man was Trujillo. It’s true. Whenever one gets close and looks at me as a woman, I feel sick. Horrified. I want him to die, I want to kill him. It’s hard to explain. I’ve studied, I work, I earn a good living. But I’m empty and still full of fear. Like those old people in New York who spend the whole day in the park, staring at nothing. It’s work, work, work until I’m exhausted. You have no reason to envy me, I assure you. I envy all of you. Yes, yes, I know, you have problems, hard times, disappointments. But you also have families, husbands, children, relatives, a country. Those things fill your life. But Papa and His Excellency turned me into a desert.”

Samson has begun to move nervously around the bars of his cage; he sways back and forth, stops, sharpens his beak on his claws.

“Those were different times, dear Uranita,” stammers Aunt Adelina, swallowing her tears. “You have to forgive him. He has suffered, he is suffering. It was terrible, darling. But those were different times. Agustín was desperate. He could have gone to prison, they could have killed him. He didn’t want to hurt you. Perhaps he thought it was the only way to save you. Those things happened, even though nobody can understand it now. That’s how life was here. Agustín loved you more than anyone else in the world, Uranita.”

The old woman wrings her hands, distraught, and moves in her rocking chair, overcome with emotion. Lucinda goes to her, smooths her hair, gives her a few drops of valerian: “Calm down, Mama; don’t upset yourself.”

Through the window that looks out on the garden, the stars twinkle in the peaceful Dominican night. Were they different times? Gusts of warm wind blow into the dining room from time to time, fluttering the curtains and the flowers in a pot that stands among statues of saints and family photographs. “They were and they weren’t,” thinks Urania. “Something from those times is still in the air.”

“It was terrible, but it let me learn about the generosity, the delicacy, the humanity of Sister Mary,” she says, sighing. “Without her I’d be crazy or dead.”

Sister Mary found solutions for everything, and was a model of discretion. From her first aid in the school infirmary to stop the bleeding and ease the pain, to her calling on the Superior of the Dominican Sisters, in less than three days, and convincing her to cut through red tape and grant Urania Cabral, an exemplary student whose life was in danger, a scholarship to Siena Heights in Adrian, Michigan. Sister Mary spoke to Senator Agustín Cabral (reassuring him? frightening him?) in the office of the director, the three of them alone, urging him to allow his daughter to travel to the United States. And persuading him as well not to see her again because of how disturbed she was after what happened in San Cristóbal. Urania has often wondered what face Agustín Cabral wore for the nun: hypocritical surprise? discomfort? confusion? remorse? shame? She never asked, and Sister Mary never told her. The sisters went to the American consulate to obtain her visa and requested an audience with President Balaguer, asking him to expedite the authorization that Dominicans needed to apply for in order to leave the country, a process that took weeks. The school paid her fare, since Senator Cabral was now insolvent. Sister Mary and Sister Helen Claire accompanied her to the airport. When the plane took off, what pleased Urania most was that they had kept their promise not to let Papa see her again, not even from a distance. Now, she was also grateful to them for saving her from the belated rage of Trujillo, who could have kept her confined on this island or fed her to the sharks.

“It’s very late,” she says, looking at her watch. “Almost two in the morning. I haven’t even packed yet and I have an early plane.”

“You’re going back to New York tomorrow?” Lucinda asks sadly. “I thought you’d stay a few days.”

“I have to work,” says Urania. “A pile of papers