The Feast of the Goat - Mario Vargas Llosa [31]
“Too bad you can’t speak,” she repeats, returning to the present. “We’d try to understand it, together. What made Don Froilán maintain a slavish loyalty to Trujillo? He was loyal to the end, like you. He didn’t take part in the conspiracy, and neither did you. He went on licking the hand of the Chief who boasted in Barahona that he had fucked his wife. The Chief who kept him traveling through South America as Chancellor of the Republic, visiting governments from Buenos Aires to Caracas, from Caracas to Rio or Brasília, from Brasília to Montevideo, from Montevideo to Caracas, just so he could go on fucking our beautiful neighbor in peace.”
It is an image that has pursued Urania for a long time, one that makes her laugh and makes her indignant. The image of the Era’s Minister of Foreign Affairs getting in and out of planes, traveling to South American capitals, obeying the peremptory orders that waited for him at every airport so he would continue his hysterical journey, pestering governments for inane reasons. Just to keep him from returning to Ciudad Trujillo while the Chief was screwing his wife. Crassweller himself, the best-known biographer of Trujillo, mentioned it. So everybody knew, including Don Froilán.
“Was it worth it, Papa? Was it for the illusion that you were wielding power? Sometimes I think it wasn’t, that success was secondary. That you, Arala, Pichardo, Chirinos, Álvarez Pina, Manuel Alfonso, really liked getting dirty. That Trujillo pulled a vocation for masochism up from the bottom of your souls, that you were people who needed to be spat on and mistreated and debased in order to be fulfilled.”
The invalid looks at her without blinking, without moving his lips or the small hands resting on his knees. Like a mummy, a small embalmed man, a wax doll. His robe is faded, threadbare in places. It must be very old, bought ten or fifteen years ago. There’s a knock on the door. She says “Come in,” and the nurse appears, carrying a plate with pieces of mango cut into half-moon shapes and some mashed apple or banana.
“At midmorning I always give him some fruit,” she explains from the door. “The doctor says his stomach shouldn’t be empty for too long. Since he barely eats, I have to feed him three or four times a day. At night, just some broth. May I?”
“Yes, come in.”
Urania looks at her father and his eyes remain on her; they don’t move to look at the nurse even when she sits in front of him and begins to give him little spoonfuls of food.
“Where are his dentures?”
“We had to take them out. He’s gotten so thin they made his gums bleed. For what he eats, broth, cut-up fruit, purees, things from the blender, he doesn’t need them.”
For a long while they are silent. When the invalid finishes swallowing, the nurse brings the spoon up to his lips and waits patiently for the old man to open his mouth. Then, delicately, she gives him the next mouthful. Does she always do this? Or is her delicacy due to the presence of his daughter? No question. When she’s alone with him she must scold him and pinch him, like nannies with babies who don’t talk yet, when their mothers can’t see them.
“Give him a few mouthfuls,” says the nurse. “He wants you to. Isn’t that right, Don Agustín? You want your daughter to give you this nice food, don’t you? Yes, yes, he’d like that. Give him a few mouthfuls while I go downstairs for his glass of water. I forgot it.”
She places the half-empty plate in Urania’s hands, who accepts it mechanically, and she goes out, leaving the door open. After hesitating a few moments, Urania brings the spoon that holds a slice of mango up to his mouth. The invalid, who has still not taken his eyes off her, closes his mouth, clenching his lips like a difficult child.
5
“Good morning,” he replied.
Colonel Johnny Abbes had placed on his desk the daily morning report on