The Feast of the Goat - Mario Vargas Llosa [147]
Cabral rose to his feet, very moved. There were still decent people left in the Dominican Republic.
“I’ll be at home all day, Manuel,” he said, shaking his hand warmly. “Don’t forget to tell him that I’m prepared to do anything to regain his confidence.”
“I thought of him as a Hollywood star, Tyrone Power or Errol Flynn,” says Urania. “I was very disappointed when I saw him that night. He wasn’t the same person. They had cut out half his throat. He looked like anything but a Don Juan.”
Her Aunt Adelina, her cousins, her niece, listen in silence, exchanging glances. Even the parrot Samson seems interested, for he hasn’t silenced her with his screeching for some time.
“You’re Urania? Agustín’s little girl? How you’ve grown, and how pretty you are! I’ve known you since you were in diapers. Come over here, my girl, and give me a kiss.”
“He dribbled when he talked, he looked retarded. He was very affectionate with me. I couldn’t believe that this human wreck was Manuel Alfonso.”
“I have to talk with your papa,” he said, taking a step toward the interior of the house. “You really are pretty. You’ll break a lot of hearts. Is Agustín home? Go on, call him.”
“He had spoken to Trujillo and had come to our house from Radhamés Manor to report on what he had done. Papa couldn’t believe it. ‘The only one who didn’t turn his back on me, the only one who offered his hand,’ he kept repeating.”
“Didn’t you just dream that Manuel Alfonso did anything for him?” Aunt Adelina exclaims, disconcerted. “Agustín would have told Aníbal and me right away.”
“Let her go on, don’t interrupt so much, Mama,” Manolita intervenes.
“That night I made a promise to Our Lady of Altagracia if she would help my papa out of his difficulty. Can you imagine what it was?”
“That you’d enter a convent?” Her cousin Lucinda laughs.
“That I’d remain a virgin the rest of my life.” Urania laughs.
Her cousins and her niece laugh too, but unwillingly, hiding their embarrassment. Aunt Adelina remains serious, not taking her eyes off her and not hiding her impatience: what else, Urania, what else?
“That child has grown so big and so pretty,” Manuel Alfonso repeats as he drops into an armchair across from Agustín Cabral. “She reminds me of her mother. The same languid eyes as your wife, Egghead, the same slim, graceful body.”
He thanks him with a smile. He has brought the ambassador to his study instead of receiving him in the living room, so that the girl and the servants won’t hear. He thanks him again for taking the trouble to come in person instead of calling him. The senator speaks in a rush, feeling his heart coming out with each word. Was he able to talk to the Chief?
“Of course, Agustín. I promised you I would, and I did. We talked about you for almost an hour. It won’t be easy. But you mustn’t lose hope. That’s the main thing.”
He wore an impeccably tailored dark suit, a white shirt with a starched collar, and a white-flecked blue tie held in place by a pearl. The top of a white silk handkerchief peeked out of the breast pocket of his jacket, and since he had raised his trousers slightly when he sat down to keep them from losing their crease, his blue hose, without a single wrinkle, was visible. His shoes gleamed.
“He’s very unhappy with you, Egghead.” It seemed that the wound from his surgery was bothering him, because from time to time he contorted his lips in a strange way, and Agustín Cabral could hear his dentures click. “It’s not anything concrete but a number of things that have piled up over the past few months. The Chief is exceptionally perceptive. Nothing escapes him, he detects