The Feast of the Goat - Mario Vargas Llosa [151]
“You said vile and evil,” Aunt Adelina suddenly explodes. “You said that about your father who’s had a living death and is only waiting for the end. About my brother, the person I’ve loved and respected most. You won’t leave this house without explaining the reason for your insults, Urania.”
“I said vile and evil because there are no stronger words,” Urania says very slowly. “If there were, I would have said them. He had his reasons, certainly. His extenuating circumstances, his motivations. But I haven’t forgiven him and I’ll never forgive him.”
“Why do you help him if you hate him so much?” The old woman vibrates with indignation; she is very pale, as if she were about to faint. “Why the nurse, and the food? Why don’t you let him die?”
“I want him to go on with his living death, I want him to suffer.” She speaks very calmly, her eyes lowered. “That’s why I help him, Aunt Adelina.”
“But, but what did he do to make you hate him so much, to make you say something so horrible?” Lucindita raises her arms, incapable of believing what she has just heard. “Holy God!”
“You’ll be surprised at what I’m going to tell you, Egghead,” Manuel Alfonso exclaims dramatically. “When I see a beauty, a real woman, the kind that makes you turn around, I don’t think of myself. I think of the Chief. Yes, of him. Would he like to hold her in his arms, make love to her? I’ve never told this to anyone. Not even the Chief. But he knows. Knows that for me, he always comes first, even in this. And make no mistake, I like women a lot, Agustín. Don’t think I’ve made the sacrifice of giving him gorgeous women to flatter him, or to get favors or positions. That’s what contemptible people think, what pigs think. Do you know why I do it? Out of love, compassion, pity. You can understand, Egghead. You and I know what his life has been. Working from dawn till midnight, seven days a week, twelve months a year. Never resting. Taking care of important matters and trivial ones. Constantly making decisions that determine the life and death of three million Dominicans. In order to bring us into the twentieth century. And having to be concerned about the resentful and the mediocre, the ingratitude of so many bastards. Doesn’t a man like him deserve to have an occasional distraction? To enjoy a few minutes with a woman? One of the few compensations in his life, Agustín. Which is why I feel proud to be what so many vipers say I am: the Chief’s procurer. I’ll drink to the honor, Egghead!”
He raised the glass without whiskey to his lips and put an ice cube in his mouth. He remained silent for a long time, sucking, abstracted, exhausted by his soliloquy. Cabral observed him, saying nothing, caressing his glass full of whiskey.
“We’ve finished the bottle and I don’t have another one,” he apologized. “Take mine, I can’t drink any more.”
Nodding, the ambassador held out an empty glass and Senator Cabral poured in the contents of his.
“I’m moved by what you say, Manuel,” he murmured. “But I’m not surprised. What you feel for him, that admiration and gratitude, is what I’ve always felt for the Chief. That’s why I find this situation so painful.”
The ambassador put his hand on his shoulder.
“It’ll work out, Egghead. I’ll talk to him. I know how to say things to him. I’ll explain it to him. I won’t say it’s my idea, but yours. An initiative from Agustín Cabral. An absolutely loyal man, even in disgrace, even in humiliation. You know the Chief. He likes gestures. He may have a few years on him, a few problems with his health. But he’s never refused the challenges of love. Don’t worry. You’ll recover your position, those who turned their backs on you will soon be lining up at your door. Now, I have to go. Thanks for the whiskey. In my house they don’t let me have a drop of alcohol. How good it’s been to feel that burning, bitter little tickle in my poor throat.