The Feast of the Goat - Mario Vargas Llosa [176]
A short time later, there was the screech of brakes and the frantic sound of a car’s horn. The general jumped out of bed and went to the window. He made out the sharp-edged silhouette of General Arturo (Razor) Espaillat coming out of the automobile that had just pulled up. As soon as he saw his face, looking yellow in the light of the street-lamp, his heart skipped a beat: it’s happened.
“What’s going on, Arturo?” he asked, leaning his head out the window.
“Something very serious,” said General Espaillat, coming closer. “I was at the Pony with my wife, and the Chief’s Chevrolet drove past. A little while later I heard shooting. I went to see what was happening and ran into a gunfight, right in the middle of the highway.”
“I’m coming down, I’m coming down,” shouted Pupo Román. Mireya was putting on her robe as she crossed herself: “My God, my uncle, don’t let it be true, sweet Jesus.”
From that moment on, and in all the minutes and hours that followed, when his fate was decided, and the fate of his family, the conspirators, and, in the long run, the Dominican Republic, General José René Román always knew with absolute lucidity what he should do. Why did he do exactly the opposite? He would ask himself the question many times in the next few months, without finding an answer. He knew, as he went down the stairs, that under these circumstances the only sensible thing to do, if he cared anything about his life and did not want the conspiracy to fail, was to open the door for the former head of the SIM, the military man most involved in the regime’s criminal operations, the one responsible for countless abductions, acts of extortion, tortures, and murders ordered by Trujillo, and empty his revolver into him. In order to avoid going to prison or being murdered, Razor’s record left him no alternative but to maintain a doglike loyalty to Trujillo and the regime.
Although he knew this all too well, he opened the door and let in General Espaillat and his wife, whom he kissed on the cheek and tried to reassure, for Ligia Fernández de Espaillat had lost her self-control and was stammering incoherently. Razor gave him precise details: as his car approached, he heard deafening gunfire from revolvers, carbines, and submachine guns, and in the powder flashes he recognized the Chief’s Bel Air and could see a figure on the highway, shooting, maybe it was Trujillo. He couldn’t help him: he was in civilian clothes, he wasn’t armed, and fearing that Ligia might be hit by a stray bullet, he had come here. It happened fifteen minutes ago, twenty at the most.
“Wait for me, I’ll get dressed.” Román ran up the stairs, followed by Mireya, who was waving her hands and shaking her head as if she were deranged.
“We have to let Uncle Blacky know,” she exclaimed, while he was putting on his everyday uniform. He saw her run to the telephone and dial, not giving him time to open his mouth. And though he knew he ought to stop that call, he didn’t. He took the receiver and, as he buttoned his shirt, he told General Héctor Bienvenido Trujillo:
“I’ve just been informed of a possible attempt on His Excellency’s life, on the San Cristóbal highway. I’m going there now. I’ll keep you apprised.”
He finished dressing and went downstairs, carrying a loaded M-1 carbine. Instead of firing and finishing off Razor, he spared his life again, and nodded when Espaillat, his little rat’s eyes devoured by worry, advised him to alert the General Staff and order a nationwide curfew. General Román called the December 18 Fortress and directed all the garrisons to impose a rigorous quartering of troops and to close all exits from the capital, and he told the commanders in the interior that he would shortly