The Feast of the Goat - Mario Vargas Llosa [78]
The entire Dominican Republic learned about the killing in the rapid, mysterious way that news circulated from mouth to mouth and house to house and in a few hours reached the most remote corners of the country, though not a line appeared in the press, and often, as it circulated, the news transmitted by human tom-tom was colored, diminished, exaggerated until it turned into myth, legend, fiction, with almost no connection to real events. He recalled that night on the Malecón, not very far from where he was now, six months later, waiting for the Goat—to avenge the Mirabal sisters too. They were sitting on the stone railing, as they did every night—he, Salvador, Amadito, and, on this occasion, Antonio de la Maza—to enjoy the cool breeze and to talk, away from prying ears. What had happened to the Mirabal sisters set their teeth on edge, it turned their stomachs as they discussed the deaths of the three incredible women, high in the mountains, in an alleged car accident.
“They kill our fathers, our brothers, our friends. And now they’re killing our women. And here we sit, resigned, waiting our turn,” he heard himself say.
“Not resigned, Tony,” Antonio de la Maza objected. He had come from Restauración, and had brought the news of the death of the Mirabal sisters, which he had heard along the way. “Trujillo will pay. A plan’s in motion. But it has to be done right.”
At that time, an attempt was being planned in Moca, during a visit by Trujillo to the land of the De la Maza family, on one of the trips through the country that he had been making since the condemnation by the OAS and the imposition of economic sanctions. A bomb would go off in the main church, consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and a rain of rifle fire would fall on Trujillo from the balconies, terraces, and clock tower as he spoke on the platform erected in the atrium to a crowd gathered around the statue of St. John Bosco, partially covered by heartsease. Imbert himself inspected the church and volunteered to hide in the clock tower, the most dangerous place in the church.
“Tony knew the Mirabals,” Turk explained to Antonio. “That’s why he’s so upset.”
He knew them, though he couldn’t say they were friends. He had occasionally met the three sisters, and Minerva’s and Patria’s husbands, Manolo Tavares Justo and Leandro Guzmán, at the meetings at which the June 14 Movement was organized, taking the historic Trinitaria de Duarte as their model. The three women were leaders of the small, enthusiastic, but disorganized and inefficient organization that the repression was destroying. They had made an impression on him because of the conviction and boldness they brought to an unequal and uncertain struggle, Minerva Mirabal in particular. It happened to everyone who met her and heard her give opinions, hold discussions, offer proposals, or make decisions. Though he hadn’t thought about it earlier, after the killing Tony Imbert told himself that until he knew Minerva Mirabal, it had never occurred to him that’ a woman could dedicate herself to things as manly as planning a revolution, obtaining and hiding weapons, dynamite, Molotov cocktails, knives, bayonets, talking about assassination attempts, strategy, and tactics, and dispassionately discussing whether, in the event they fell into the hands of the SIM, activists ought to swallow poison to avoid the risk of betraying their comrades under torture.
Minerva spoke about these things, and about the best way to engage in clandestine propaganda pr recruit university students, and everyone listened to her. Because of her intelligence and the clarity with which she spoke. Her firm convictions and eloquence gave her words a strength that was contagious.