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By Root 1157 0

Maimón, and Estero Hondo, when all the members of the expeditionary force—including Cubans, North Americans, and Venezuelans, in addition to Dominicans—were either dead or in prison, and the regime discovered, in January 1960, a vast network of clandestine opposition called June 14, in honor of the invasion. Its members were students and young professionals of the middle and upper classes, many from families that were part of the regime. At the height of a cleanup operation against the subversive organization, in which the three Mirabal sisters and their husbands were very active—the mere thought of them made the Generalissimo’s blood boil—Trujillo held a luncheon in the National Palace for some fifty military and civilian figures prominent in the regime, in order to punish his boyhood friend and comrade in arms, who had held the highest positions in the Armed Forces during the Era and whom he had dismissed as commander of the Military Region of La Vega, which included Constanza, because he had not exterminated the last concentrations of invaders scattered across the mountains. General Juan Tomás Díaz had been asking in vain for an audience with the Generalissimo ever since. He must have been surprised to receive an invitation to the luncheon, after his brother Gracita sought asylum in the Brazilian embassy. The Chief did not greet him or say a word to him during the meal, and did not even glance at the corner where General Díaz was seated, far from the head of the long table, a symbolic indication of his fall from grace.

Suddenly, as they were serving the coffee, over the conversations buzzing around the long table, over the marble of the walls and the crystal of the blazing chandelier—the only woman present was Isabel Mayer, the Trujillista caudilla in the northeast—the thin, sharp voice known to all Dominicans rose, taking on the steel-barbed tone that foretold a storm:

“Aren’t you surprised, gentlemen, by the presence at this table, surrounded by the most outstanding military and civilian figures in the regime, of an officer stripped of his command because he was not equal to the task on the field of battle?”

Silence fell. The fifty heads flanking the huge quadrangle of embroidered tablecloths all froze. The Benefactor did not look toward General Díaz’s corner. He inspected the other diners one by one, a surprised expression on his face, his eyes very wide and his lips parted, asking his guests to help him solve the mystery.

“Do you know who I mean?” he continued, after a dramatic pause. “General Juan Tomás Díaz, Commander of the Military Region of La Vega at the time of the Cuban-Venezuelan invasion, was dismissed in the middle of the war for conduct unbecoming an officer in the face of the enemy. Anywhere else, such behavior is punished with a summary court-martial and a firing squad. Under the dictatorship of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina, the cowardly general is invited to lunch at the Palace with the nation’s elite.”

He said the last sentence very slowly, syllable by syllable, to emphasize his sarcasm.

“If you’ll permit me, Excellency,” stammered General Juan Tomás Díaz, making a superhuman effort, “I’d like to recall that at the time of my dismissal, the invaders had been defeated. I did my duty.”

He was a strong, robust man, but he had shrunk in his seat. He was very pale and his mouth kept filling with saliva. He looked at the Benefactor, but he, as if he had not seen or heard him, glanced around for a second time at his guests and spoke again:

“And not only is he invited to the Palace. He goes into retirement with full salary and all the prerogatives of a three-star general, so that he can rest knowing he did his duty. And enjoy a well-deserved leisure on his cattle ranches, in the company of Chana Díaz, his fifth wife, who is also his niece, his brother’s daughter. What greater proof of the magnanimity of this bloodthirsty dictatorship?”

When he finished speaking, the Benefactor’s head had looked all around the table. And now it stopped at the corner where General Juan Tomás Díaz was sitting. The