The Feast of the Goat - Mario Vargas Llosa [210]
“I don’t know what to do, Mr. President. I have the prisoners’ wives at the door. I’m being pressured on all sides to make a statement, and I don’t know anything. Do you know why they’ve been transferred to the cells of the Judicial Branch? Nobody can explain it to me. They’re taking them to the highway for a new reconstruction of the crime, which no one has ordered. And no one can get near them because soldiers from the San Isidro Air Base have cordoned off the area. What should I do?”
“Go there personally and demand an explanation,” the President told him. “It is absolutely imperative that there be witnesses to the fact that the government has done all it can to stop the breaking of the law. Go there with the representatives of the United States and Great Britain.”
Dr. Balaguer personally called John Calvin Hill and begged him to support this step by the Minister of Justice. At the same time, he informed him that if, as it seemed, General Ramfis was preparing to leave the country, Trujillo’s brothers would move into action.
He continued attending to affairs, apparently absorbed by the critical financial situation. He did not move from his office at lunchtime, and, working with the Minister of Finance and the director of the Central Bank, refused to receive calls or visits. At dusk, his secretary handed him a note from the Minister of Justice, informing him that he and the American consul had been prevented from approaching the scene of the reconstruction of the crime by armed members of the Air Force. He confirmed that no one in the ministry, the prosecutor’s office, or the courts had requested or been informed of such an inquiry; it was an exclusively military decision. When he arrived home, at eight-thirty in the evening, he received a call from Colonel Marcos A. Jorge Moreno. The van with three armed guards that was to return the prisoners to La Victoria after completion of the judicial inquiry had disappeared.
“Spare no effort to find them, Colonel. Mobilize all the forces you need,” ordered the President. “Call me no matter the time.”
He told his sisters, disturbed by rumors that the Trujillos had killed the men who assassinated the Generalissimo, that he knew nothing. The stories were probably inventions of extremists intended to worsen the climate of agitation and uncertainty. As he reassured them with lies, he speculated: Ramfis would leave tonight, if he had not done so already. That meant the confrontation with the Trujillo brothers would take place at dawn. Would he order them arrested? Would he have them killed? Their minuscule brains were capable of believing that if they eliminated him, they could halt a historical process that would soon erase them from Dominican politics. He did not feel apprehensive, only curious.
As he was putting on his pajamas, Colonel Jorge Moreno called again. The van had been found: the six prisoners had fled after murdering the three guards.
“Move heaven and earth until you find the fugitives,” he intoned, with no change in his voice. “You will answer to me for the lives of those prisoners, Colonel. They must appear in court to be tried according to law for this new crime.”
Before he fell asleep, he felt a sudden surge of pity. Not for the prisoners, undoubtedly slaughtered this afternoon by Ramfis in person, but for the three young soldiers whom Trujillo’s son also had murdered in order