The Feast of the Goat - Mario Vargas Llosa [205]
“Then sooner or later we’ll get them,” Ramfis murmured. “I have thousands of men searching, house by house, hideout by hideout. If they’re still in the Dominican Republic, we’ll get them. And if not, there’s no place in the world where they can escape paying for Papa’s death. Even if I spend my last cent finding them.”
“I hope your wish comes true, General,” said an understanding Balaguer. “Allow me one request. Be sure to follow correct form. The delicate operation of proving to the world that the country is opening to democracy will be frustrated if there is a scandal. Another Galíndez, let us say, or another Betancourt.”
Only with regard to the conspirators was the Generalissimo’s son intractable. Balaguer did not waste time interceding for their freedom; the fate of those arrested was sealed, as Imbert’s and Amiama’s would be if they were captured, and, moreover, he was not sure doing so would further his plans. True, times were changing, but the sentiments of the masses were fickle. The Dominican people, Trujillista to the death until May 30, 1961, would have torn out the eyes and hearts of Juan Tomás Díaz, Antonio de la Maza, Salvador Estrella Sadhalá, Luis Amiama, Huáscar Tejeda, Pedro Livio Cedeño, Fifí Pastoriza, Antonio Imbert, and their associates, if they had laid hands on them. But the mystical consubstantiation with the Chief, in which Dominicans had lived for thirty-one years, was disappearing. Street meetings called by students, the Civic Union, or June 14, sparsely attended at first by a few fearful people, had grown after a month, two months, three months. Not only in Santo Domingo (President Balaguer had prepared the motion to change back its name from Ciudad Trujillo, which Senator Chirinos would have the Congress approve by acclamation at the proper moment), where they sometimes filled Independencia Park, but also in Santiago, La Romana, San Francisco de Macorís, and other cities. Fear was dissipating and the rejection of Trujillo was increasing. His fine historical nose told Dr. Balaguer that the new feeling would grow, irresistibly. And in a climate of popular anti-Trujillism, the assassins would become powerful political figures. That was to no one’s advantage. Which is why he struck down a timid attempt by the Walking Turd when, as parliamentary leader of the new Balaguerista movement, he came to ask him if he believed that an agreement by Congress to grant amnesty to the May 30 conspirators would persuade the OAS and the United States to lift the sanctions.
“The intention is good, Senator. But what about the consequences? Amnesty would wound the sensibilities of Ramfis, who would immediately order the murder of everyone who had been pardoned. Our efforts could crumble away.”
“The astuteness of your perceptions will never fail to amaze me,” exclaimed Senator Chirinos, practically applauding.
Except in this area, Ramfis Trujillo—whose life was devoted to daily bouts of drunkenness at the San Isidro Air Base and in his house on the beach at Boca Chica, where he had installed, along with her mother, his latest girlfriend, a dancer at the Lido in Paris, leaving his pregnant wife, the young actress Lita Milán, in the French capital—had displayed a more willing disposition than Balaguer could have hoped. He had resigned himself to changing Ciudad Trujillo back to Santo Domingo and renaming all the cities, localities, streets, squares, accidents of geography, and bridges called Generalissimo, Ramfis, Angelita, Radhamés, Doña Julia, or Doña María, and he was not insisting on harsh punishments for the students, subversives, and idlers who destroyed the statues, plaques, busts, photos, and posters of Trujillo and family on streets and avenues, in parks, and along highways. He accepted without argument Dr. Balaguer’s suggestion that “in an act of patriotic altruism” he cede to the State