The Feast of the Goat - Mario Vargas Llosa [137]
They had closed the trunk of the Chevrolet, with the corpse inside. Faceless silhouettes surrounded him, patted him on the back, asked, “How do you feel, Pedro Livio?” Were they going to give him the coup de grâce? They had all agreed on that. They wouldn’t leave a wounded comrade behind and let him fall into the hands of the caliés and be subjected to Johnny Abbes’s tortures and humiliations. He recalled the conversation—Luis Amiama Tió was there too—in the garden filled with mangoes, flamboyán, and breadfruit trees that belonged to General Juan Tomás Díaz and his wife, Chana. Everyone had agreed: absolutely no slow deaths. If things went badly and someone was seriously wounded: the coup de grâce. Was he going to die? Were they going to finish him off?
“Get him into the car,” ordered Antonio de la Maza. “We’ll call a doctor from Juan Tomás’s house.”
The shadows of his friends were hard at work, moving the Goat’s car off the highway. He could hear them panting. Fifí Pastoriza whistled: “Damn, it has more holes than a colander.”
When his friends picked him up to put him in the Chevrolet Biscayne, the pain was so intense he passed out. But only for a few seconds, for when he regained consciousness they hadn’t left yet. He was in the back seat, Salvador had his arm around his shoulder and had pillowed his head on his chest. He recognized Tony Imbert at the wheel, and Antonio de la Maza beside him. How do you feel, Pedro Livio? He wanted to say: “Better, with that fucker dead,” but all that came out was a moan.
“Nigger’s in bad shape,” Imbert muttered.
Which meant his friends called him Nigger when he wasn’t there. What difference did it make? They were his friends, damn it: it hadn’t occurred to any of them to give him the coup de grâce. It seemed natural to them to put him in the car, and now they were taking him to Chana and Juan Tomás Díaz’s house. The burning in his stomach and arm had eased up. He felt weak and didn’t try to speak. He was lucid, he understood what they were saying perfectly. Apparently Tony, Antonio, and Turk were wounded too, but not seriously. Flying debris had opened gashes on Antonio’s forehead and the back of Salvador’s head. They held handkerchiefs to their cuts. Tony had been grazed on the left breast and said the blood was staining his shirt and pants.
He recognized the National Lottery building. Had they taken the old Sánchez highway to come into the city by a less trafficked route? No, that wasn’t the reason. Tony Imbert wanted to stop at the house of his friend Julito Senior, who lived on Avenida Angelita, and telephone General Díaz to let him know they were taking the body to Pupo Román, using the coded sentence they had agreed on earlier: “The squab are ready to go into the oven, Juan Tomás.” They stopped in front of a darkened house. Tony got out. They didn’t see anyone around. Pedro Livio heard Antonio: his poor Chevrolet had been hit by dozens of bullets and had a flat tire. Pedro Livio had felt it, it made a horrible racket, and the jolting gave him stabbing pains in the stomach.
Imbert came back: nobody was home at Julito Senior’s. They’d better go straight to Juan Tomás’s house. They started driving again, very slowly; the car tilted and creaked, and they avoided the busy avenues and streets.
Salvador leaned toward him:
“How are you doing, Pedro Livio?”
“Fine, Turk, fine,” and he squeezed his arm.
“It won’t be long now. At Juan Tomás’s house, a doctor will look at you.”
What a shame he didn’t have the strength to tell his friends not to worry, that he was happy now that the Goat was dead. They had avenged the Mirabal sisters, and poor Rufino de la Cruz, the driver who took them to the Fortress of Puerto Plata to visit their imprisoned husbands; Trujillo had ordered him killed as well to make the farce of the accident more believable. That murder had shaken Pedro Livio in the deepest part of his being and moved him, after November 25, 1960, to join the conspiracy organized by his friend Antonio de la Maza. He had only heard of the Mirabal sisters. But, like many Dominicans,