The Feast of the Goat - Mario Vargas Llosa [93]
“Ah, the Haitians!” His slap on the table made the fine crystal goblets, platters, glasses, and decanters ring. “The day Your Excellency decided to cut the Gordian knot of the Haitian invasion.”
Everyone had glasses of wine, but the Generalissimo drank only water. He was solemn, absorbed in his memories. The silence thickened. Hieratic and theatrical, the Generalissimo raised his hands and showed them to his guests:
“For the sake of this country, I have stained these with blood,” he stated, emphasizing each syllable. “To keep the blacks from colonizing us again. There were tens of thousands of them, and they were everywhere. If I hadn’t, the Dominican Republic would not exist today. The entire island would be Haiti, as it was in 1840. The handful of white survivors would be serving the blacks. That was my most difficult decision in thirty years of government, Simon.”
“We followed your orders and traveled the entire length of the border.” The young deputy Henry Chirinos leaned over the enormous map displayed on the President’s desk and pointed: “If this continues, there will be no future for the Dominican Republic, Excellency.”
“The situation is more serious than you were told, Excellency.” The slender index finger of the young deputy Agustín Cabral caressed the dotted red line that moved in S curves from Dajabón down to Pedernales. “Thousands and thousands of them, working on plantations, in empty fields, in settlements. They’ve displaced Dominican laborers.”
“They work free of charge, not for wages, but for food. Since there’s nothing to eat in Haiti, a little rice and beans is plenty for them. They cost less than donkeys and dogs.”
Chirinos made a gesture and let his friend and colleague continue:
“Talking to the ranchers and plantation owners is useless, Excellency,” Cabral explained. “They reply by patting their pockets. What do I care if they’re Haitians if they can harvest the cane and work for almost nothing? Patriotism won’t make me go against my own interests.”
He stopped speaking and looked at Deputy Chirinos, who took up the argument:
“All through Dajabón, Elías Piña, Independencia, and Pedernales, instead of Spanish all you hear are the African grunts of Creole.”
He looked at Agustín Cabral, who resumed speaking immediately:
“Voodoo, Santería, African superstitions are uprooting the Catholic religion that, like language and race, distinguishes our nationality.”
“We’ve seen parish priests weeping in despair, Excellency,” young Deputy Chirinos said, his voice quavering. “Pre-Christian savagery is taking over the country of Diego Colón, Juan Pablo Duarte, and Trujillo. Haitian sorcerers have more influence than priests, medicine men more than pharmacists and physicians.”
“The Army didn’t do anything?” Simon Gittleman took a sip of wine. One of the white-uniformed waiters quickly refilled his glass.
“The Army does what the Chief orders, Simon, you know that.” Only the Benefactor and the former Marine were speaking. The others listened as their heads turned from one to the other. “The gangrene had moved very high. Montecristi, Santiago, San Juan, Azua, they were all teeming with Haitians. The plague was spreading and no one did anything. They were waiting for a statesman with vision, one whose hand would not tremble.”
“Imagine a hydra with countless heads, Excellency.” Young Deputy Chirinos’s poetic turns of phrase were accompanied by extravagant gestures. “These laborers steal work from Dominicans who, in order to survive, sell their little plots of ground, their farms. Who buys the land? The newly prosperous Haitians, naturally.”
“It is the second head of the hydra, Excellency,” young Deputy Cabral specified. “They take work from nationals and, piece by piece, appropriate our sovereignty.”
“And our women too.” His voice thickened, and young Henry Chirinos gave off