The Feast of the Goat - Mario Vargas Llosa [99]
He made a contemptuous gesture:
“There is no trouble, Simon. The bishop has taken the side of our enemies. The people were angry, he became frightened, and he ran to hide behind the nuns at Santo Domingo Academy. What he’s doing there with so many women is his business. We’ve placed guards there so he won’t be lynched.”
“It would be good if this could be resolved soon,” the former Marine insisted. “In the United States, many ill-informed Catholics believe the statements made by Monsignor Reilly. That he’s being threatened, that he had to take refuge because of a campaign of intimidation, all the rest of it.”
“It’s not important, Simon. Everything will be straightened out and our relations with the Church will be excellent again. Don’t forget that my government has always been filled with devout Catholics, and that Pius XII awarded me the Great Cross of the Papal Order of St. Gregory.” And abruptly he changed the subject: “Did Petán take you to visit the Dominican Voice?”
“Of course,” replied Simon Gittleman; Dorothy nodded, with a broad smile.
The center that belonged to his brother, General José Arismendi (Petán) Trujillo, had begun twenty years earlier with a small radio station. The Voice of Yuna had grown into a formidable complex, the Dominican Voice, the first television station, the largest radio station, the best cabaret and musical theater on the island (Petán insisted it was the best in the Caribbean, but the Generalissimo knew it had not managed to unseat the Tropicana in Havana). The Gittlemans had been impressed by the magnificent facilities; Petán himself had been their guide, and he had them attend the rehearsal for the Mexican ballet that would perform tonight at the cabaret. Petán wasn’t a bad person if you dug deep enough; when the Benefactor needed him, he could always count on him and his picturesque private army, “the mountain fire beetles.” But, like his other brothers, he had done him more harm than good: because of him and a stupid fight, he had been forced to intervene, and, to maintain the principle of authority, eliminate that magnificent giant—and his classmate at the Haina Officers’ Training School besides—General Vázquez Rivera. One of his best officers—a Marine, damn it—who had always served him loyally. But the family, even if it was a family of parasites, failures, fools, and scoundrels, came before friendship and political gain: this was a sacred commandment in his catalogue of honor. Without abandoning his own line of thought, the Generalissimo listened to Simon Gittleman telling him how surprised he had been to see the photographs of film, show business, and radio celebrities from all over the Americas who had come to the Dominican Voice. Petán had them displayed on the walls of his office: Los Panchos, Libertad Lamarque, Pedro Vargas, Ima Súmac, Pedro Infante, Celia Cruz, Toña la Negra, Olga Guillot, María Luisa Landín, Boby Capó, Tintán and his brother Marcelo. Trujillo smiled: what Simon didn’t know was that Petán, besides brightening the Dominican night with the stars he brought in, also wanted to fuck them, the way he fucked all the girls, single or married, in his small empire of Bonao. The Generalissimo let him do what he wanted there as long as he didn’t go too far in Ciudad Trujillo. But that crazy prick Petán sometimes fucked around in the capital, convinced that the performers hired by the Dominican Voice were obliged to go to bed with him if he wanted them to. Sometimes he was successful; other times, there was a scandal, and he—he was always the one—had to put out the fire, making a millionaire’s gifts to artists who had been offended by that moronic delinquent; Petán had no manners with ladies. Ima Súmac, for example, an Incan princess with an American passport. Petán’s brashness forced the intervention of the ambassador of the United States. And the Benefactor, distilling bile, paid damages to the Incan princess and obliged his brother to apologize. The Benefactor sighed. With the time he had wasted filling in the