The Feast of the Goat - Mario Vargas Llosa [101]
Could it be that Cabral, knowing Trujillo was going to decorate the former Marine, had begged Gittleman to intercede on his behalf? Was that the reason he had mentioned, in so inopportune a way, the name of someone who was out of favor with the regime, as every Dominican who read “The Public Forum” knew? Well, perhaps Simon Gittleman didn’t read El Caribe.
His blood froze: urine was coming out. He felt it, he thought he could see the yellow liquid pouring out of his bladder without asking permission of that useless valve, that dead prostate incapable of containing it, then moving toward his urethra, running merrily through it and coming out in search of air and light, through his underwear, his fly, the crotch of his trousers. He felt faint. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, shaken by indignation and impotence. Unfortunately, instead of Virgilio Álvarez Pina, he had Dorothy Gittleman on his right and Simon on his left, and they couldn’t help him. Virgilio could. He was president of the Dominican Party, but, in fact, since Dr. Puigvert, brought in secret from Barcelona, had diagnosed the damn infection in his prostate, his really important function had been to act quickly when one of these acts of incontinence occurred, to spill a glass of water or wine on the Benefactor and then beg a thousand pardons for his clumsiness, or, if it happened on a podium or during a parade, to place himself like a screen in front of the stained trousers. But the imbeciles in charge of protocol had placed Virgilio Álvarez four seats away. Nobody could help him. When he stood up he would suffer the horrific mortification of letting the Gittlemans and some of the guests see that he had pissed in his pants without realizing it, like an old man. Rage kept him from moving, from pretending he was going to take a drink and spilling the glass or pitcher that was in front of him.
Very slowly, looking around with a distracted air, he began to move his right hand toward the glass full of water. Very, very slowly, he drew it toward him until it was on the edge of the table, so that the slightest movement would tip it over. Suddenly he remembered that the first daughter born in Aminta Ledesma to his first wife, Flor de Oro—that mad little thing with the body of a woman and the soul of a man who changed husbands as often as she changed shoes—habitually wet her bed until she was in high school. He had the courage to take another peek at his trousers. Instead of the mortifying sight, the stain he was expecting, he discovered—his sight was still formidable, just like his memory—that his fly and pant legs were dry. Completely dry. It had been a false impression, motivated by his fear, his panic at “passing water,” as they said about women in labor. He was overwhelmed by happiness and optimism. The day, which had begun with bad humor and gloomy presentiments, had just become beautiful, like the coastline when the sun came out after a storm.
He stood, and, like soldiers obeying a command, everyone followed suit. As he bent down to help Dorothy Gittleman to her feet, he decided, with all the strength of his soul: “Tonight, in Mahogany House, I’ll make a girl cry out, the way I did twenty years ago.” It seemed to him that his testicles were coming to a boil and his penis beginning to stiffen.
12
Salvador Estrella Sadhalá was thinking that he would never