• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1278 0

expect that they would expose the corruption of the “Trujillista satrapy,” or that Tad Szulc would lay out with so much precision the facts, dates, names, and figures regarding properties owned by the Trujillo family and the businesses that had been awarded to relatives, friends, and collaborators. Only Marrero Aristy could have given him the information. He was sure his Minister of Labor would not set foot in Ciudad Trujillo again. He was surprised when he sent a letter from Miami to the paper in New York, refuting Tad Szulc, and even more surprised when he had the audacity to return to the Dominican Republic. He came to the National Palace. He cried and said he was innocent; the Yankee had eluded his watchful eye and talked in secret to their adversaries. It was one of the few times that Trujillo lost control of his nerves. Disgusted by his sniveling, he slapped him so hard that Marrero Aristy lost his footing, finally stopped talking, and stepped back, horrified. The Benefactor cursed him, calling him a traitor, and when the head of the military adjutants killed him, he ordered Johnny Abbes to resolve the problem of the corpse. On July 17, 1959, the Minister of Labor and his chauffeur drove over a precipice in the Cordillera Central on their way to Constanza. He was given an official funeral, and at the cemetery Senator Henry Chirinos emphasized the political accomplishments of the deceased and Dr. Balaguer delivered a literary eulogy.

“In spite of his betrayal, I was sorry when he died,” said Trujillo, with sincerity. “He was young, barely forty-six, he still had a lot to offer.”

“The decisions of the Divinity are ineluctable,” the President repeated, without a shred of irony.

“We’ve gotten off the subject,” Trujillo responded. “Do you see any possibility of settling things with the Church?”

“Not immediately, Excellency. The dispute has become poisonous. To be perfectly frank, I fear it will go from bad to worse if you do not order Colonel Abbes to have La Nación and Caribbean Radio moderate their attacks on the bishops. Only today I received a formal complaint from the nuncio and Archbishop Pittini regarding yesterday’s assault on Monsignor Panal. Did you read it?”

He had the clipping on his desk and he read it to the Benefactor, in a respectful manner. Caribbean Radio’s editorial, reproduced in La Nación, asserted that Monsignor Panal, the Bishop of La Vega, “formerly known as Leopoldo de Ubrique,” was a fugitive from Spain and listed in the files of Interpol. It accused him of filling “the bishop’s residence in La Vega with women before he turned his fevered brain to terrorism,” and now, “since he fears a legitimate popular reprisal, he hides behind pathologically religious women with whom, it seems, he enjoys unrestrained sexual relations.”

The Generalissimo laughed heartily. The things Abbes García thought up! The last time that Spaniard, who was as old as Methuselah, had a hard-on must have been twenty or thirty years ago; accusing him of fucking pious hags in La Vega was very optimistic; what he probably did was feel up the altar boys, like all those lecherous, faggot priests.

“The colonel sometimes exaggerates,” he remarked with a smile.

“I have also received another formal complaint from the nuncio and the curia,” Balaguer continued, very seriously. “Regarding the campaign launched on May 17 in the press and on the radio against the friars of San Carlos Borromeo, Excellency.”

He picked up a blue folder that held newspaper articles with glaring headlines. “Terrorist Franciscan-Capuchin monks” were making and storing homemade bombs in their church. Neighbors had discovered this after the accidental explosion of one of the devices. La Nación and El Caribe were demanding that the forces of law and order turn their attention to this den of terrorists.

Trujillo passed a bored glance over the clippings.

“Those priests don’t have the balls to make bombs. The most they do is attack with sermons.”

“I know the abbot, Excellency. Brother Alonso de Palmira is a saintly man, devoted to his apostolic mission and