The Feast of the Goat - Mario Vargas Llosa [203]
By this time, the President had decided that the new parliamentary leader, whose mission would be to discreetly turn the Congress toward positions more acceptable to the United States and the West, would be not Agustín Cabral but Senator Henry Chirinos. He would have preferred Egghead, whose sober habits coincided with his own way of life, while he found the alcoholism of the Constitutional Sot repugnant. But he chose him because the sudden rehabilitation of a man who had fallen into disgrace through a recent decision of His Excellency could anger the hard-core Trujillistas, whom he still needed. He must not provoke them too much, not yet. Chirinos was physically and morally repulsive, but his talent for intrigue and legalistic scheming was infinite. Nobody knew parliamentary tricks better than he. They had never been friends—because of alcohol, which disgusted Balaguer—but as soon as he was called to the Palace and the President let him know what he expected of him, the senator exulted, just as he did when Balaguer asked him to facilitate, in the speediest and most invisible way possible, the transfer of the Bountiful First Lady’s funds overseas. (“A noble concern of yours, Mr. President: to assure the future of an illustrious matron in her misfortune.”) On that occasion, Senator Chirinos, still in the dark regarding what was being planned, admitted that he had been honored to inform the SIM that Antonio de la Maza and General Juan Tomás Díaz were wandering around the old colonial city (he had spotted them in a car parked in front of the house of a friend, on Calle Espaillat) and requested the President’s good offices in claiming the reward Ramfis was offering for any information leading to the capture of his father’s assassins. Dr. Balaguer advised him to forgo the money and not publicize his patriotic denunciation: it could prejudice his political future in an irremediable way. The man whom Trujillo called the Walking Turd to his intimates, understood immediately:
“Allow me to congratulate you, Mr. President,” he exclaimed, gesturing as if he were on a speaker’s platform. “I have always believed that the regime ought to open up to modern times. With the Chief gone, no one better than you to weather the storm and steer the Dominican ship of state into the port of democracy. You can count on me as your most loyal and dedicated collaborator.”
And, in fact, he was. In the Congress he introduced the motion granting General Ramfis Trujillo supreme power in the military hierarchy and maximum authority in all military and police matters in the Republic, and he instructed the deputies and senators regarding the new policy proposed by the President, intended not to negate the past or reject the Trujillo Era but to go beyond it dialectically, adapting it to different times so that as the Republic—with no steps backward—was perfecting her democracy, she would be welcomed again by her sister nations of the Americas into the OAS and, once sanctions were lifted, reintegrated into the international community. In one of his frequent working meetings with President Balaguer, Senator Chirinos asked, not without a certain uneasiness, about His Excellency’s plans with respect to former senator Agustín Cabral.
“I have ordered his bank accounts unfrozen and his services to the State acknowledged so that he can receive a pension,” Balaguer informed him. “For the moment, his return to political life does not seem opportune.”
“We are in full agreement,” the senator said approvingly. “Egghead, with whom I have a long-standing relationship, is a conflictive man who creates enemies.”
“The State can make use of his talent as long as he is not too prominent,” the chief executive added. “I have proposed to him that he serve as a legal adviser in the administration.”
“A wise decision.” Again Chirinos approved. “Agustín always had an excellent