The Feast of the Goat - Mario Vargas Llosa [39]
“Excuse me for insisting, Excellency, but I’d like to reestablish security arrangements. On Máximo Gómez and the Malecón, when you take your walk. And on the highway, when you go to Mahogany House.”
A couple of months earlier he had abruptly ordered a halt to security operations. Why? Perhaps because during one of his excursions at dusk, as he was coming down Máximo Gómez on the way to the ocean, he saw police barricades at every intersection blocking pedestrian and car access to the Avenida and the Malecón while he was on his walk. And he imagined the flood of Volkswagens with caliés that Johnny Abbes had unleashed on the area all around his route. He felt stifled, claustrophobic. It had also happened at night, on his way to the Fundación Ranch, when all along the highway he saw the Beetles and the military barricades guarding his passage. Or was it the fascination that danger had always held for him—the indomitable spirit of a Marine—that led him to defy fate at the moment of greatest danger for the regime? In any case, it was a decision he would not revoke.
“The order stands,” he repeated in a tone that allowed no discussion.
“As you wish, Excellency.”
He looked into the colonel’s eyes—Abbes immediately lowered them—and he skewered him, with a humorous barb:
“Do you think the Fidel Castro you admire so much walks the streets like me, without protection?”
The colonel shook his head.
“I don’t believe Fidel Castro is as romantic as you are, Excellency.”
Romantic? Him? Maybe with some of the women he had loved, maybe with Lina Lovatón. But, outside the sentimental arena, in politics, he had always felt classical. Rational, serene, pragmatic, with a cool head and a long view.
“When I met him, in Mexico, he was preparing the expedition of the Granma. They thought he was a crazed Cuban, an adventurer not worth taking seriously. From the very first, what struck me was his total lack of emotion. Even though in his speeches he seems tropical, exuberant, passionate. That’s for his audience. He’s just the opposite. An icy intelligence. I always knew he’d take power. But allow me to clarify something, Excellency. I admire Castro’s personality, the way he’s been able to play the gringos for fools, allying himself with the Russians and the Communist countries and using them against Washington, like the bumpers on a car. But I don’t admire his ideas, I’m not a Communist.”
“You’re a capitalist through and through,” Trujillo said mockingly, with a sardonic laugh. “Ultramar did very well, importing products from Germany, Austria, and the socialist countries. Exclusive distributorships never lose money.”
“Something else to thank you for, Excellency,” the colonel admitted. “The truth is, I never would have thought of it. I never had any interest in business. I opened Ultramar because you ordered me to.”
“I prefer my collaborators to make a profit instead of stealing,” the Benefactor explained. “Profits help the country, they create jobs, produce wealth, raise the morale of the people. But stealing demoralizes it. I imagine that since the sanctions things are going badly for Ultramar too.”
“Practically paralyzed. I don’t care, Excellency. Now my twenty-four hours a day are dedicated to keeping our enemies from destroying this regime and killing you.”
He spoke without emotion, in the same opaque, neutral tone he normally used to express himself.
“Should I conclude that you admire me as much as you do that asshole Castro?” Trujillo asked, searching out those small, evasive eyes.
“I don’t admire you, Excellency,” Colonel Abbes murmured, lowering his eyes. “I live for you. Through you. If you’ll permit me, I am your watchdog.”
It seemed to the Benefactor that when Abbes García said these words, his voice had trembled. He knew Abbes was in no way emotional, not fond of the effusiveness that was so frequent in the mouths of his other