The Feast of the Goat - Mario Vargas Llosa [139]
“We have to take him to the hospital,” Dr. Vélez Santana declared. “He’s bleeding to death.”
The doctor’s teeth were chattering as if he were dying of cold. They weren’t close friends, Linito wouldn’t be trembling like that on his account. It must be because he just found out they had killed the Chief.
“There’s internal hemorrhaging”—his voice was trembling too—“at least one bullet penetrated the pericardial region. He needs surgery right away.”
They argued. He didn’t care about dying. He felt happy in spite of everything. God would forgive him, he was sure. For leaving Olga alone with her six-months-pregnant belly and Luis Marianito. God knew he wouldn’t profit by Trujillo’s death. Just the opposite; he managed one of his companies, he was a privileged person. By getting involved in this damn thing, he had endangered his job and his family’s security. God would understand and forgive him.
He felt a powerful contraction in his stomach, and he screamed. “Easy, take it easy, Nigger,” Huáscar Tejeda pleaded. He felt like answering, “Nigger’s your mother,” but he couldn’t. They took him out of the Chevrolet. Bienvenido’s face was very close—Juan Tomás’s son-in-law, the husband of his daughter Marianela—and so was Dr. Vélez Santana’s: his teeth were still chattering. He recognized Mirito, Juan Tomás’s chauffeur, and Amadito, who was limping. Taking great precautions, they placed him in Juan Tomás’s Opel, parked next to the Biscayne. Pedro Livio saw the moon: it was shining, in what was now a cloudless sky, through the mangoes and heartsease.
“We’re going to the International Clinic, Pedro Livio,” said Dr. Vélez Santana. “Hold on, hold on just a little longer.”
He cared less and less about what was happening to him. He was in the Opel, Mirito was driving, Bienvenido sat in front, and Dr. Vélez Santana was beside him, in the back. Linito had him inhale something with a strong ether smell. “The smell of carnivals.” The dentist and the physician encouraged him: “We’re almost there, Pedro Livio.” And he didn’t care about what they were saying, or about what seemed to matter so much to Bienvenido and Linito: “Where did General Román get to?” “If he doesn’t show up, we’re fucked.” Instead of chocolate and vanilla ice cream, Olga would receive the news that her husband was being operated on at the International Clinic, three blocks from the Palace, after executing the killer of the Mirabal sisters. It was only a few blocks from Juan Tomás’s house to the hospital. Why was it taking them so long?
Finally the Opel stopped. Bienvenido and Dr. Vélez Santana got out. He saw them knock on the door where a fluorescent light flickered: “Emergencies.” A nurse in a white headdress appeared, and then a stretcher. When Bienvenido García and Vélez Santana lifted him from the seat, he felt a stabbing pain: “You’re killing me, damn it!” He blinked, blinded by the whiteness of a corridor. They took him up in an elevator. Now he was in a very clean room, with a Virgin at the head of the bed. Bienvenido and Vélez Santana had disappeared; two nurses undressed him and a young man with a small mustache put his face close to his:
“I’m Dr. José Joaquín Puello. How do you feel?”
“Okay, okay,” he murmured, happy to have his voice back. “Is it serious?”
“I’m going to give you something for the pain,” said Dr. Puello. “While we prepare you for surgery. We have to get that bullet out.”
Over the doctor’s shoulder he saw a face he knew, with a wide forehead and large, penetrating eyes: Dr. Arturo Damir