The Feast of the Goat - Mario Vargas Llosa [168]
“You weren’t expecting a visit from me, beautiful.”
“Really, what an honor. How are you, Chief, how are you?”
Trujillo kept her hand between his. Feeling her so close, touching her, inhaling her scent, he felt in control of all his powers.
“I was going to San Cristóbal, but suddenly I thought of you.”
“What an honor, Chief,” she repeated, flustered and confused. “If I had known, I would have fixed myself up to receive you.”
“You’re always beautiful, fixed up or not.” He pulled her to him, and as his hands caressed her breasts and legs, he kissed her. He felt the beginnings of an erection that reconciled him with the world and with life. Moni let herself be caressed, and she kissed him, with some restraint. Zacarías stood outside, a few meters from the Chevrolet, on guard as always, holding a submachine gun. What was going on? There was an edginess in Moni that was unusual.
“Is your husband home?”
“Yes,” she replied, in a quiet voice. “We were about to eat.”
“Have him go out for a beer,” said Trujillo. “I’ll go around the block. I’ll be back in five minutes.”
“It’s just that…,” she stammered, and the Generalissimo felt her tensing. She hesitated, and finally she mumbled, almost inaudibly: “I have the curse, Chief.”
All his excitement left him in a matter of seconds.
“Your period?” he exclaimed in disappointment.
“Please forgive me, Chief,” she stammered. “The day after tomorrow I’ll be fine.”
He let her go and sighed deeply, repulsed.
“All right, I’ll come see you soon. Goodbye.” He leaned his head toward the open door through which Moni had just left. “We’re leaving, Zacarías!”
A short while later he asked De la Cruz if he had ever fucked a menstruating woman.
“Never, Chief.” He was shocked, and made a disgusted face. “They say it gives you syphilis.”
“And worst of all, it’s dirty,” Trujillo lamented. What if Yolanda Esterel, by some damn coincidence, had her period today too?
They had taken the highway to San Cristóbal, and on the right he saw the lights of the Livestock Fairgrounds and the Pony, crowded with couples eating and drinking. Wasn’t it strange that Moni seemed so reluctant and inhibited? She was usually so sassy, ready for anything. Did the presence of her husband make her like that? Could she have invented a period so he’d leave her alone? Vaguely he noticed that a car was blowing its horn at them. Its brights were on.
“These drunks…,” Zacarías de la Cruz remarked.
At that moment, it occurred to Trujillo that perhaps it wasn’t a drunk, and he turned to get the revolver he carried in the back seat, but he couldn’t reach it, because at that moment he heard the blast of a rifle whose bullets shattered the glass in the back window and tore off a piece of his shoulder and his left arm.
19
When General Juan Tomás Díaz, his brother Modesto, and Luis Amiama came back, and Antonio de la Maza saw their faces, he knew before they opened their mouths that the search for General Román had been futile.
“It’s hard to believe,” murmured Luis Amiama, biting his thin lips. “But it looks like Pupo skipped out on us. There’s no sign of him.”
They had gone everywhere he could have been, including the General Staff Headquarters at December 18 Fortress; but Luis Amiama and Bibín Román, Pupo’s younger brother, had been thrown out in a very unpleasant way by the guards: their compadre could not or would not see them.
“My last hope is that he’s putting the Plan into effect on his own,” Modesto Díaz fantasized, without much conviction. “Mobilizing installations, persuading military