The Feast of the Goat - Mario Vargas Llosa [138]
“I’m dying!” he shouted. “Don’t let me die!”
“We’re almost there, Nigger.” Antonio de la Maza reassured him. “We’ll get you fixed up right away.”
He made an effort not to pass out. A short while later he recognized the intersection of Máximo Gómez and Avenida Bolívar.
“Did you see that official car?” asked Imbert. “Wasn’t that Pupo Román?”
“Pupo’s at home, waiting,” Antonio de la Maza replied. “He told Amiama and Juan Tomás he wouldn’t go out tonight.”
A century later, the car stopped. He understood from his friends’ conversation that they were at the rear entrance of General Díaz’s house. Somebody was opening the gate. They could drive into the courtyard and park in front of the garages. In the dim light of the streetlamps and the lights at the windows, he recognized the garden, filled with trees and flowers that Chana tended so carefully, where he had come on many Sundays, alone or with Olga, for the delicious Dominican lunches the general prepared for his friends. At the same time, it seemed to him that he wasn’t himself but an observer, removed from all the activity. This afternoon, when he learned it would be tonight and said goodbye to his wife, pretending he was coming to this house to see a movie, Olga put a peso in his pocket and asked him to bring her back chocolate and vanilla ice cream. Poor Olga! The pregnancy gave her food cravings. Would the shock make her lose the baby? No, God no! This would be a little sister for Luis Mariano, his two-year-old son. Turk, Imbert, and Antonio had climbed out of the car. He was alone, stretched out on the back seat of the Chevrolet in semidarkness. He thought that nothing and no one could save him, that he would die not knowing who won tonight’s game between his company team, Hercules Batteries, and the Dominican Aviation Company, which was being played on the baseball field at the National Dominican Brewery.
A violent argument broke out in the courtyard. Estrella Sadhalá was berating Fifí, Huáscar, and Amadito, who had just arrived in the Oldsmobile, for leaving his Mercury on the highway. “Idiots! Assholes! Don’t you realize what you’ve done? You’ve given me up! You have to go back right now and get my Mercury.” A strange situation: to feel that he was and was not there. Fifí, Huáscar, and Amadito reassured Turk: in the rush they became confused and nobody thought about the Mercury, but it didn’t matter, General Román would assume power tonight. They had nothing to be afraid of. The whole country would take to the streets to cheer the executioners of the tyrant.
Had they forgotten about him? The authoritative voice of Antonio de la Maza imposed order. Nobody would go back to the highway, it would be crawling with caliés. The main thing was to find Pupo Román and show him the body, as he had demanded. There was a problem; Juan Tomás Díaz and Luis Amiama had just stopped by Román’s house—Pedro Livio knew the house, it was on the next corner—and Mireya, his wife, said that Pupo had left with General Espaillat “because it seems something happened to the Chief.” Antonio de la Maza put their minds at ease: “Don’t worry. Luis Amiama, Juan Tomás, and Modesto Díaz have gone to get Bibín, Pupo’s brother. He’ll help us find him.”
Yes, they had forgotten about him. He would die in this bullet-riddled car, next to Trujillo’s corpse. He had one of those fits of anger that had been the misfortune of his life, but he calmed down almost immediately. What the hell good does it do you to get mad now, asshole?
He had to close his