The Feast of the Goat - Mario Vargas Llosa [153]
He stopped, incapable of continuing. His lips and hands were trembling. She looked at him in surprise. But then this was a great piece of news. A chance the radio and newspapers would stop attacking him? That he’d be President of the Senate again? If that was true, why do you look like that, Papa, so discouraged and sad?
“Because I’m being asked to make a sacrifice, my dear,” he murmured. “I want you to know something. I would never do anything, anything, you must understand, really understand, that wasn’t for your own good. Swear to me you’ll never forget what I’m saying.”
Uranita begins to feel irritated. What was he talking about? Why didn’t he come out and tell her what it was?
“Sure, Papa,” she says finally, with a weary gesture. “But what’s happened, why are you being so roundabout?”
Her father sat beside her on the bed, took her by the shoulders, pulled her to him, kissed her hair.
“There’s a party and the Generalissimo has invited you.” He kept his lips tight against the girl’s forehead. “In the house he has in San Cristóbal, on the Fundación Ranch.”
Urania slips out of his arms.
“A party? And Trujillo is inviting us? But, Papa, that means everything’s all right again. Doesn’t it?”
Senator Cabral shrugged.
“I don’t know, Uranita. The Chief is unpredictable. His intentions aren’t always easy to guess. He hasn’t invited both of us. Only you.”
“Me?”
“Manuel Alfonso will take you there. And he’ll bring you home. I don’t know why he’s inviting you and not me. Certainly, it’s a first gesture, a way of letting me know that everything’s not lost. At least, that’s what Manuel assumes.”
“How bad he must have felt,” says Urania, seeing that Aunt Adelina, with lowered head, no longer reproaches her with eyes from which all certainty has been erased. “He talked in circles, he contradicted himself. He was terrified I wouldn’t believe his lies.”
“Manuel Alfonso could have deceived him too…,” Aunt Adelina begins but can’t continue. She makes a contrite gesture, apologizing with her hands and head.
“If you don’t want to go, you won’t go, Uranita.” Agustín Cabral rubs his hands, as if, on that hot afternoon that is turning into night, he felt cold. “I’ll call Manuel Alfonso right now and tell him you’re not well, and give your regrets to the Chief. You’re under no obligation, dear girl.”
She doesn’t know how to respond. Why did she have to make a decision like that?
“I don’t know, Papa,” she says, hesitant and confused. “It seems very strange. Why is he inviting just me? What am I going to do at a party with grown-ups? Or are other girls my age invited too?”
His Adam’s apple moves up and down in Senator Cabral’s slender throat. His eyes avoid Urania’s.
“If he’s invited you, there’ll be other girls there too,” he stammers. “It must be that he no longer considers you a little girl, but a young lady.”
“But he doesn’t even know me, he’s only seen me at a distance, in crowds of people. How can he remember me, Papa?”
“Somebody must have told him about you, Uranita,” her father says evasively. “I repeat, you’re under no obligation. If you like, I’ll call Manuel Alfonso and tell him you’re sick.”
“Well, I don’t know, Papa. If you want me to, I’ll go, and if not, I won’t. What I want is to help you. Won’t he be angry if I say no?”
“Didn’t you understand anything?” Manolita dares to ask her.
Not a thing, Urania. You were still a girl, when being a girl meant being totally innocent about certain things that had to do with desire, instincts, power, and the infinite excesses and bestialities that a combination of those things could mean in a country shaped by Trujillo. She was a bright girl, and everything seemed very hasty, of course. Who ever heard of an invitation made on the day of the party, not giving the guest any time to get ready? But she was a normal, healthy girl—the last day you would be, Urania—and very inquisitive, and suddenly a party in San Cristóbal, on the Generalissimo’s famous ranch, where the horses and cows that won