The Feast of the Goat - Mario Vargas Llosa [194]
When the van stopped, they heard the ocean crashing at the foot of a high cliff. The guards opened the door. They were at a deserted spot with reddish earth and sparse trees, on what seemed to be a promontory. The sun was still shining, but it had already begun its descending arc. Salvador told himself that dying would be a way to rest. What he felt now was immense weariness.
Dante Minervino and the powerful black with the face of a boxer had the three adolescent guards climb out of the van, but when the six prisoners tried to follow, they stopped them: “Stay where you are.” Immediately after that, they began to fire. Not at them, at the young soldiers. The three boys fell, riddled with bullets, without time to be surprised, to understand, to scream.
“What are you doing, what are you doing, you criminals!” Salvador bellowed. “Why kill those poor guards? Murderers!”
“We’re not killing them, you are,” Major Dante Minervino replied, very seriously, as he reloaded his submachine gun; the black with the flattened face rewarded him with a giggle. “And now you can get out.”
Stunned, stupid with surprise, the six men were taken down, and, stumbling—the ropes obliged them to move in ridiculous little jumps—over the corpses of the three guards, they were taken to another, identical van parked a few meters away. One man in civilian clothes was guarding it. After locking them into the back of the van, the three men squeezed into the front seat. Once again, Dante Minervino was at the wheel.
And now Salvador could pray. He heard one of his companions sobbing, but this did not distract him. He prayed with no difficulty, as he had in better times, for himself, his family, the three guards who had just been murdered, his five companions in the van, one of whom, in an attack of nerves, was cursing and banging his head against the metal plate that separated them from the driver.
He did not know how long this trip lasted, because he did not stop praying for an instant. He felt peace and an immense tenderness thinking of his wife and children. When they pulled to a stop and opened the door, he saw the sea, the dusk, the sun sinking in an inky blue sky.
The men pulled them out. They were in the courtyard-garden of a large house, next to a pool. There were a handful of silver palms with lofty crowns, and, about twenty meters away, a terrace with figures of men holding glasses. He recognized Ramfis, Pechito León Estévez, Pechito’s brother Alfonso, Pirulo Sánchez Rubirosa, and two or three others he did not know. Alfonso León Estévez ran over to them, still holding his glass of whiskey. He helped Américo Dante Minervino and the black boxer shove them toward the coconut palms.
“One at a time, Alfonso!” Ramfis ordered. “He’s drunk,” Salvador thought. The son of the Goat had to get drunk to give his last party.
The first one they shot was Pedro Livio, who collapsed instantly under the barrage of revolver and submachine-gun fire that cut him down. Next, they pulled Tunti Cáceres over to the palms, and before he fell he insulted Ramfis: “Degenerate, coward, faggot!” And then, Modesto Díaz, who shouted: “Long live the Republic!” and lay writhing on the ground before he died.
Then it was his turn. They did not have to shove or drag him. Taking the short little steps allowed by the ropes around his ankles, he walked by himself to the palm trees where his friends were lying, thanking God that he had been permitted to be with Him in his final moments, and telling himself, with a certain melancholy, that he would never see Basquinta, the Lebanese village left behind by the Sadhalás to preserve their faith and seek their fortune in this land of our Lord.
22
When he heard the telephone ring, President Joaquín Balaguer, still not fully awake, had a presentiment of something very serious. He picked