A quarter of the same

“Hijita, hay cosas que no puedes saber, que todavía no comprendes. Yo estoy para saberlas por ti, para protegerte. Eres lo que más quiero en el mundo.” —Mario Vargas Llosa, “La fiesta del chivo”

I often feel like, growing up, I had three sets of parents. Three separate pairs of loving arms I could turn to whenever I felt sad and needed a pick me up. Three separate households to go to celebrate the holidays. Three, three, three. Under this thrice present family tree of love, I was protected. Having both sets of complete grandparents and a set of present, loving parents shielded me from everything that was big and bad in the world, from everything that was too much for a little, gentle porcelain doll like me to handle.

My paternal grandparents were sent from another world. They weren’t exactly like my maternal grandparents. You see, my paternal grandfather Fernando, or Ando to me, was born in 1940 in Santo Domingo, the capital city of the Dominican Republic. At the time, the city wasn’t known as Santo Domingo, though. It was known as Ciudad Trujillo, and it was completely and entirely under the jurisdiction of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina, or El Jefe, Generalísimo, Su Excelencia. Ando was born to a Dominican father and a Puerto Rican mother during the height of the Trujillo regime, a dictatorship that reigned over the Dominican Republic from 1930 until Trujillo’s assassination in 1961.

My great grandfather Fernando, or Papa Cuki, had close ties to the Trujillo regime, but there’s more to these ties than what meets the eye. His college roommate was Joaquín Balaguer, who eventually became the intellectual mastermind behind and figure head president of the Trujillo regime and was later elected president of the Dominican Republic for several terms beyond the regime’s collapse. Through Balaguer’s strategy of attracting young and educated members of society to gather support for the regime, Papa Cuki joined the diplomatic corps to serve the regime in large cities and metropolitan powerhouses around the world, from Paris to New York City to Buenos Aires to Chicago. After meeting my great grandmother Dalila, or Mamaia, in Washington D.C. during one of his diplomatic placements, his decision to move to Puerto Rico and settle down led him to resign from the diplomatic corps. He thus became a persona non grata to the Trujillo regime. This is how my great grandfather became a political exile, and this jumpstarts the relevance of political movement and unrest in my family.

Until recently, there were things I couldn’t know, things I wouldn’t comprehend. My grandparents and my parents were there to know them for me, to protect me. Because I am what they love most in the world.

I know I seem very knowledgeable about my family’s history. It might come as a surprise, then, that I didn’t really know much of this until I recently finished reading Ando’s copy of “La fiesta del chivo” by Mario Vargas Llosa and read a name with a surname I recognize in one of the last chapters: Rafael Batlle Viñas.

***

“Todo, salvo la muerte, tiene su razón.” —Mario Vargas Llosa, “La fiesta del chivo”

On August 30, 2022, during the first week of my freshman year of college, Ando died. Before his death, there were things I couldn’t know, things I wouldn’t comprehend, things I needed to be protected from. After his death, everything made sense, except for the fact that he had died.

Ando wasn’t sick when he died. He wasn’t the healthiest man alive, and he arguably didn’t take the best care of himself, but he was doing alright, or so I believed. Sure, we split a pint of Eddy’s Rocky Road ice cream from time to time, but who doesn’t indulge in junk food every now and then? In my brain, there was no way to make sense of his passing. He had gone too soon. He didn’t let me know. I had so many questions and they were all left unanswered. I wish I had more time.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have answers, and I didn’t have more time. I did have a lovely last memory of my grandfather, though. As Ando and my paternal grandmother Miña backed out of my driveway the day before I left for my freshman year of college, Ando rolled down the window next to the driver’s seat one last time and asked me, “Sigues leyendo?” He wanted to know if I was still reading.

Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve loved to read. It’s been my most characterizing hobby for as long as I can remember. I first started checking out books that taught me how to draw from my elementary school library. In second grade, though, I evolved to the realm of chapter books. As I kept growing up, I kept reading, which gave me an avenue through which to connect with Ando. Every time I went to Ando and Miña’s apartment, he would ask me about my most recent read and invite me to read with him. As our routine went, I would plop down next to his resident spot on the couch in their living room and crack open my chapter book wherever I had left off as he powered on his iPad and read the most recent news, or whatever sort of reading made my grandfather get smarter by the minute.

While I have a lovely last memory with Ando, and many more memories from the 18 years we spent together, I felt I had no physical mementos to remember him by. I had pictures, yes, but nothing physical, like a book or a pen, that reminded me not only of him, but of the hobbies and interests we shared.

As if reading my mind, one day during my sophomore year of college, my dad called me to say that he had finished reorganizing Ando’s study and if I would like to see pictures. “What?” I replied, confused since I was unaware that he had been working on this project. “Así como lo oyes,” my dad told me, “está hecho todo una biblioteca. Te espera cuando vuelvas en diciembre.” Ando’s study, turned into a library? With all the books he ever read and owned? Receiving this news made Ando’s death feel lighter on my chest, even if only a little, over a year and a half after it had passed. There was one specific book that I was desperate to get my hands on, and I refused to read any copy that wasn’t Ando’s. So, I asked my father, “Está la copia de Ando de “La fiesta del chivo” en la biblioteca?” “Sí,” my dad answered. “Es toda tuya si la quieres.”

I was finally going to get answers. Now, it would all make sense. Even Ando’s death, perhaps. I was hopeful.

***

“Se presentó la oportunidad de ir a estudiar en Michigan y ni tonta, la aproveché.” —Mario Vargas Llosa, “La fiesta del chivo”

The University of Michigan runs in my blood. I am a “legacy” student, as many call it. You could even say I'm a third-generation Wolverine. Some say it’s the only reason I got into this school. I try not to pay attention to comments like that. What I do pay attention to is the third-generation nature of my existence at Michigan, how privileged I am to have the opportunity to study here, and how connected it helps me stay to my family and, most importantly, to Ando.

Ando graduated from Michigan in 1963. He used to be in a fraternity, Sigma Phi Epsilon, the house of which was located where the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy is now placed, with an address that reads 735 South State St. He was a Sigep, or a SigApe, or a frat brother, whatever you want to call it. Following in Ando’s footsteps, my dad Juan Carlos, or Papa, graduated from Michigan in 1996. While Papa chose not to rush a fraternity, he lived in a house—with an address that reads 1423 South University Avenue—with all his best friends, most of which he now considers brothers. It may come as a surprise, or maybe it was just a coincidence, that my freshman year of college at Michigan, I was assigned a dorm room in East Quad, which is housed right next to South University Avenue and is only a six-minute walk away from Ford. You can imagine my concealed disbelief when Papa called me to tell me of Ando’s passing on my second day of classes as a freshman at Michigan and my feet subconsciously walked me to Ford even though I had no previous knowledge of where it was nor what the location stood for.

And to think, I almost didn’t come to Michigan. I almost made myself go against the grain, as I tend to do, convinced that there was nothing left for me to accomplish at Michigan if two generations of Batlle’s had already left their mark here. Had I not paid that enrollment deposit, I don’t think I would have ever processed my grandfather’s death. Because as I aimlessly walked from the Shapiro Undergraduate Library all the way to the Ford School of Public Policy with no map or GPS on, I traced Ando’s footsteps back. He was there, shining down on me, on that sunny Tuesday in 2022, telling me that I wasn’t alone. That he wasn’t gone. That he was there with me, paving the way for every step I took and would go on to take at Michigan and beyond.

When I met my current roommate, who is from the Dominican Republic, and graduated from the same high school Papa went to when Ando briefly uprooted their family there for 13 years of my father’s childhood, I could feel him, them, there with me. Both in life and in death.

Had I not gone to Michigan, it would have been a stupid decision. A dumb decision. A wrong decision. I took advantage of the opportunity to walk in my grandfather’s footsteps, with my father outlining them by my side, and it’s the best decision I’ve made yet. Because a “legacy” is much more than just an “easy in” to a prestigious university. Most everyone has a legacy, to one capacity or another, but it’s what you do with it that matters. It’s the opportunities you take, the ones you make for yourself, that make a difference in the end.

***

“No era fácil sentir en sus hombros el peso de una mano sobrenatural.” —Mario Vargas Llosa, “La fiesta del chivo”

A Michigan student’s natural state of being is feeling like they have something to prove. With a legacy to uphold, high stakes for my own self, and ungodly amounts of self-inflicted pressure, my time at Michigan hasn’t been easy. But has anyone’s been, really? And I know, trust me I do, it’s not that serious. It never is. You don’t have to be that hard on yourself. One bad grade is not the end of your life. Your parents and friends don’t hate you because you disappointed yourself. You are your harshest critic. And the list goes on and on. Trust me, I know.

But with every class skipped, every bad grade received, and every day that felt like I was taking my Michigan education for granted, I felt guilty. Guilty, guilty, guilty. Because, not only was I upholding Ando’s and Papa’s legacy; I felt the weight of the entire Batlle bloodline on my shoulders. And again, it’s never that serious. But it felt like it was to me.

The most serious it’s ever felt, though, was very recently when, sitting in the deafening silence of the Law Library, almost about to nod off, I read about Rafael Batlle Viñas in “La fiesta del chivo.” There’s only one sentence that mentions him in the novel, and the depth of his personal history and punishment at the hands of the Trujillo regime is not thoroughly explored within its pages. But it took nothing more than to read those six letters that I think, write, see, and consider every day to feel the weight of my bloodline crush me further and deeper and more, more, more.

Once that six-letter surname that I know all too well flew off the page and embedded itself into my psyche, I ran. Down the stairs to the bathroom in the basement of the Law Library, I felt like I was flying, and not in the good, weightless, relieving kind of way. It’s a miracle I didn’t run myself into a wall as I punched Papa’s phone number into the keypad and then “ring, ring, ring” made its way through my ear and into my brain and swung from side to side to side to side like the Burton Memorial Tower when it rings at midday, every day.

“Hola, Lelaaaa,” my father sing-songed, searching for my reply ever so gently.

“Quién es Rafael Batlle Viñas?” I demanded hurriedly, not even caring to greet Papa (how rude).

“El hermano de Papa Cuki. Es tu tio bisabuelo,” Papa explained.

“Y por qué se menciona su nombre en “La fiesta del chivo”?” I inquired further. My brain was flooded with questions I urgently needed answers to.

“Porque el gobierno de Trujillo se lo llevó preso a él y a sus dos hijos, quienes fueron los prisioneros politicos más jóvenes del régimen, para torturarlos por su traición” Papa explained.

My great grandfather was a political exile and my great granduncle and his two sons were political prisoners. This should make me feel larger than life, right? I didn’t know what to think, how to feel. I felt curious because I felt detached. I felt the crushing weight of a supernatural hand. But our blood was one in the same, coursing through my veins alive and free and well and fine.

***

“Todavía flota algo de esos tiempos por aquí.” —Mario Vargas Llosa, “La fiesta del chivo”

And slowly but surely, everything started feeling fine. Not good, not bad. Just fine. Until I remember, and suddenly it floats back into my consciousness, and I can’t let go anymore.

I care about my history. I find it interesting, albeit gory and graphic and unfortunate and cruel. But it’s one thing grieving someone you never met, someone who’s blood now courses through your veins but who’s personality you never met nor chose to inherit, versus grieving someone that felt like a quarter part of your soul.

There is no denying that Rafael Batlle Viñas, my great granduncle, and his sons were tortured undeservingly. There is no denying that Papa Cuki, my great grandfather, was unfairly exiled from the Dominican Republic for moving to the land of his lover to settle down and create a life for his family. There is no denying that both my great grandfather and my great granduncle and his children were ridiculed in their time for “crimes” that are celebrated now. And there is no denying that, although my detached history means a great deal to me, I have never shed a tear over it.

Similarly, yet entirely different, there is no denying that Ando, my paternal grandfather, was my confidante, my right-hand man, my best friend. There is no denying that many a tear were shed over his death, that he is part of both my past and my present. There is no denying that I miss him a great deal, that Miña and Papa miss him with every breath they take. There is no denying that, every step I take at Michigan, I am always with him because, at some point, his feet took the same steps, no matter if with a different purpose or direction or person or place in mind. And there is no denying that, despite how connected I felt to Ando in life, I think about him more in death.

Ando was the first close family member I ever lost, the only one I’ve lost to this day. I fear the next funeral I will eventually have to go to because another close family member has died with every fiber of my being. But it does not to dwell on the past when thoughts and memories and feelings and remnants of the times and people we lost still float all around us.

In every conversation I have with Papa now and in every visit I pay Miña during every college break I come home for, he is there. In every book I read, in the slight wear and tear and cracked spines that display that a book has been well-read, well-loved, and well-thought about, I see him. He is there.

When I feel like I want to discuss a book I’ve just recently read with Ando, I go into his study-turned-library and sit in the large black desk chair he always used to sit in. And I read. And there’s still some of him floating around in there, somewhere.