The Feast of the Goat - Mario Vargas Llosa [162]
“The mess with those shiteating priests,” Trujillo grumbled. “Does it have a solution or not?”
“Of course it does, Chief.” Modesto’s tongue protruded; along with his forehead and neck, his bald head dripped perspiration. “But, if you’ll permit me, the problems with the Church don’t matter. They’ll take care of themselves if the main issue is resolved: the gringos. Everything depends on them.”
“Then there is no solution. Kennedy wants my head. Since I have no intention of giving it to him, we’ll be at war for a long time.”
“It isn’t you the gringos are afraid of, Chief, but Castro. Especially after the disaster at the Bay of Pigs. Now more than ever they’re terrified that Communism will spread through Latin America. This is the moment to show them that the best defense in the region against the Reds is you, not Betancourt or Figueres.”
“They’ve had enough time to realize that, Modesto.”
“You have to open their eyes, Chief. The gringos are slow sometimes. It’s not enough to attack Betancourt, Figueres, or Muñoz Marín. It would be more effective to give some very discreet help to the Venezuelan and Costa Rican Communists. And the Puerto Rican independence movement. When Kennedy sees guerrillas beginning to disrupt those countries, and compares that to the peace and quiet we have here, he’ll get the idea.”
“We’ll talk later.” The Generalissimo cut him off abruptly.
Hearing him talk about things in the past had a bad effect on him. No gloomy thoughts. He wanted to maintain the good mood he had when he started his walk. He forced himself to think about the girl with the flowers. “Dear God, do this for me. Tonight I need to fuck Yolanda Esterel right. So I can know I’m not dead. Not an old man. And can go on doing your work for you, moving this damn country of assholes forward. I don’t care about the priests, the gringos, the conspirators, the exiles. I can clear away all that shit myself. But I need your help to fuck that girl. Don’t be a miser, don’t be stingy. Give me your help, give it to me.” He sighed, with the disagreeable suspicion that the one he was pleading with, if he existed, must be observing him in amusement from the dark blue backdrop where the first stars had begun to appear.
His route along Máximo Gómez simmered with memories. The houses he was leaving behind were symbols of outstanding people and events in his thirty-one years of power. Ramfis’s house, on the lot where Anselmo Paulino’s had been; he had been his right hand for ten years until 1955, when he confiscated all his property, kept him in prison for a time, then sent him off to Switzerland with a check for seven million dollars for services rendered. Across from the house of Angelita and Pechito León Estévez had once stood the residence of General Ludovino Fernández, a workhorse who spilled a good deal of blood for the regime; he was obliged to kill him when he succumbed to political inconstancy. Next to Radhamés Manor were the gardens of the embassy of the United States, for more than twenty-eight years a friendly house that had turned into a nest of vipers. There was the field he had built so that Ramfis and Radhamés could have fun playing baseball. There, like twin sisters, stood Balaguer’s house and the nunciature, another building that had turned irritating, ungrateful, vile. And beyond that, the imposing mansion of General Espaillat, his former head of secret services. Facing it, a little farther on, was the house of General Rodríguez Méndez, Ramfis’s companion in dissipation. Then the embassies, deserted now, of Argentina and Mexico, and the house of his brother Blacky. And, finally, the residence of the Vicini family, the sugarcane millionaires, with its vast expanse of lawn and well-tended flower borders, which he was passing now.
As soon as he crossed the broad Avenida to walk along the Malecón, right next to the sea, on his way