A century later, the car stopped. He understood from his friends’ conversation that they were at the rear entrance of General Díaz’s house. Somebody was opening the gate. They could drive into the courtyard and park in front of the garages. In the dim light of the streetlamps and the lights at the windows, he recognized the garden, filled with trees and flowers that Chana tended so carefully, where he had come on many Sundays, alone or with Olga, for the delicious Dominican lunches the general prepared for his friends. At the same time, it seemed to him that he wasn’t himself but an observer, removed from all the activity. This afternoon, when he learned it would be tonight and said goodbye to his wife, pretending he was coming to this house to see a movie, Olga put a peso in his pocket and asked him to bring her back chocolate and vanilla ice cream. Poor Olga! The pregnancy gave her food cravings. Would the shock make her lose the baby? No, God no! This would be a little sister for Luis Mariano, his two-year-old son. Turk, Imbert, and Antonio had climbed out of the car. He was alone, stretched out on the back seat of the Chevrolet in semidarkness. He thought that nothing and no one could save him, that he would die not knowing who won tonight’s game between his company team, Hercules Batteries, and the Dominican Aviation Company, which was being played on the baseball field at the National Dominican Brewery.
A violent argument broke out in the courtyard. Estrella Sadhalá was berating Fifí, Huáscar, and Amadito, who had just arrived in the Oldsmobile, for leaving his Mercury on the highway. “Idiots! Assholes! Don’t you realize what you’ve done? You’ve given me up! You have to go back right now and get my Mercury.” A strange situation: to feel that he was and was not there. Fifí, Huáscar, and Amadito reassured Turk: in the rush they became confused and nobody thought about the Mercury, but it didn’t matter, General Román would assume power tonight. They had nothing to be afraid of. The whole country would take to the streets to cheer the executioners of the tyrant.
Had they forgotten about him? The authoritative voice of Antonio de la Maza imposed order. Nobody would go back to the highway, it would be crawling with
caliés
. The main thing was to find Pupo Román and show him the body, as he had demanded. There was a problem; Juan Tomás Díaz and Luis Amiama had just stopped by Román’s house—Pedro Livio knew the house, it was on the next corner—and Mireya, his wife, said that Pupo had left with General Espaillat “because it seems something happened to the Chief.” Antonio de la Maza put their minds at ease: “Don’t worry. Luis Amiama, Juan Tomás, and Modesto Díaz have gone to get Bibín, Pupo’s brother. He’ll help us find him.”
Yes, they had forgotten about him. He would die in this bullet-riddled car, next to Trujillo’s corpse. He had one of those fits of anger that had been the misfortune of his life, but he calmed down almost immediately. What the hell good does it do you to get mad now, asshole?
He had to close his eyes because a searchlight or powerful flashlight was shining right in his face. Crowded together, he recognized the faces of Juan Tomás Díaz’s son-in-law, the dentist Bienvenido García, Amadito, and was that Linito? Yes, it was Linito, the physician Dr. Marcelino Vélez Santana. They leaned over him, touched him, lifted his shirt. They asked him something he didn’t understand. He wanted to say that the pain had eased, wanted to find out how many holes were in his body, but his voice wouldn’t come out. He kept his eyes wide open to let them know he was alive.
“We have to take him to the hospital,” Dr. Vélez Santana declared. “He’s bleeding to death.”
The doctor’s teeth were chattering as if he were dying of cold. They weren’t close friends, Linito wouldn’t be trembling like that on his account. It must be because he just found out they had killed the Chief.
“There’s internal hemorrhaging”—his voice was trembling too—“at least one bullet penetrated the pericardial region. He needs surgery right away.”
They argued. He didn’t care about dying. He felt happy in spite of everything. God would forgive him, he was sure. For leaving Olga alone with her six-months-pregnant belly and Luis Marianito. God knew he wouldn’t profit by Trujillo’s death. Just the opposite; he managed one of his companies, he was a privileged person. By getting involved in this damn thing, he had endangered his job and his family’s security. God would understand and forgive him.
He felt a powerful contraction in his stomach, and he screamed. “Easy, take it easy, Nigger,” Huáscar Tejeda pleaded. He felt like answering, “Nigger’s your mother,” but he couldn’t. They took him out of the Chevrolet. Bienvenido’s face was very close—Juan Tomás’s son-in-law, the husband of his daughter Marianela—and so was Dr. Vélez Santana’s: his teeth were still chattering. He recognized Mirito, Juan Tomás’s chauffeur, and Amadito, who was limping. Taking great precautions, they placed him in Juan Tomás’s Opel, parked next to the Biscayne. Pedro Livio saw the moon: it was shining, in what was now a cloudless sky, through the mangoes and heartsease.
“We’re going to the International Clinic, Pedro Livio,” said Dr. Vélez Santana. “Hold on, hold on just a little longer.”
He cared less and less about what was happening to him. He was in the Opel, Mirito was driving, Bienvenido sat in front, and Dr. Vélez Santana was beside him, in the back. Linito had him inhale something with a strong ether smell. “The smell of carnivals.” The dentist and the physician encouraged him: “We’re almost there, Pedro Livio.” And he didn’t care about what they were saying, or about what seemed to matter so much to Bienvenido and Linito: “Where did General Román get to?” “If he doesn’t show up, we’re fucked.” Instead of chocolate and vanilla ice cream, Olga would receive the news that her husband was being operated on at the International Clinic, three blocks from the Palace, after executing the killer of the Mirabal sisters. It was only a few blocks from Juan Tomás’s house to the hospital. Why was it taking them so long?
Finally the Opel stopped. Bienvenido and Dr. Vélez Santana got out. He saw them knock on the door where a fluorescent light flickered: “Emergencies.” A nurse in a white headdress appeared, and then a stretcher. When Bienvenido García and Vélez Santana lifted him from the seat, he felt a stabbing pain: “You’re killing me, damn it!” He blinked, blinded by the whiteness of a corridor. They took him up in an elevator. Now he was in a very clean room, with a Virgin at the head of the bed. Bienvenido and Vélez Santana had disappeared; two nurses undressed him and a young man with a small mustache put his face close to his:
“I’m Dr. José Joaquín Puello. How do you feel?”
“Okay, okay,” he murmured, happy to have his voice back. “Is it serious?”
“I’m going to give you something for the pain,” said Dr. Puello. “While we prepare you for surgery. We have to get that bullet out.”
Over the doctor’s shoulder he saw a face he knew, with a wide forehead and large, penetrating eyes: Dr. Arturo Damirón Ricart, the proprietor and chief surgeon at the International Clinic. But instead of smiling and good-natured, which is how he usually looked, he seemed distraught. Had Bienvenido and Linito told him everything?
“This injection is to prepare you, Pedro Livio,” he said. “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. Do you want to call home?”
“Not Olga, she’s pregnant, I don’t want to scare her. Call my sister-in-law Mary.”
His voice sounded firmer. He gave them Mary Despradel’s phone number. The pills he had just swallowed, the injection, the bottles of disinfectant the nurses were pouring on his arm and stomach, made him feel better. He no longer thought he was going to pass out. Dr. Damirón Ricart put the receiver in his hand. “Hello? Hello?”
“It’s Pedro Livio, Mary. I’m at the International Clinic. An accident. Don’t say anything to Olga, don’t scare her. They’re going to operate.”
“Good God, oh my God! I’m coming over there, Pedro Livio.”
The doctors examined him, moved him, and he couldn’t feel his hands. He was filled with a great serenity. With utter lucidity he told himself that no matter how much of a friend he was, Damirón Ricart would have to inform the SIM that a man with bullet wounds had come to the emergency room, something all clinics and hospitals were obliged to do or risk having their doctors and nurses go to prison. And so, pretty soon, the SIM would be all over the place asking questions. But no. Juan Tomás, Antonio, Salvador, must have shown Pupo the body by now, and Román would have alerted the barracks and announced the civilian-military junta. Perhaps at this very moment the military loyal to Pupo were arresting or exterminating Abbes García and his gang of killers, putting Trujillo’s brothers and allies in jail, and the people would be out on the streets, summoned by radios announcing the death of the tyrant. The colonial city, Independencia Park, El Conde, the area around the National Palace, would see a real carnival, celebrating freedom. “Too bad you’re on an operating table instead of dancing, Pedro Livio.”
And then he saw the weeping, frightened face of his wife: “What is it, darling, what happened, what did they do to you?” He embraced and kissed her, trying to reassure her (“An accident, love, don’t be afraid, they’re going to operate”). He recognized his sister-in-law and her husband, Mary and Luis Despradel Brache. He was a doctor and was asking Dr. Damirón Ricart about the operation. “Why did you do it, Pedro Livio?” “So our children can be free, Olga.” She kept asking questions and did not stop crying. “My God, there’s blood all over you.” Releasing a torrent of restrained emotions, he grasped his wife’s arms, looked into her eyes, and exclaimed:
“He’s dead, Olga! He’s dead, dead!”
It was like a movie when the image freezes and moves out of time. He wanted to laugh when he saw the incredulous looks that Olga, his in-laws, the nurses and doctors were giving him.
“Be quiet, Pedro Livio,” murmured Dr. Damirón Ricart.
They all turned toward the door: in the corridor there was a rush of footsteps, people coming down hard on their heels, not caring about the “Quiet” signs on the walls. The door opened. Pedro Livio instantly recognized, among all the military figures, the flaccid face, receding double chin, and eyes embedded in protuberant flesh of Colonel Johnny Abbes García.
“Good evening,” he said, looking at Pedro Livio but speaking to the others. “Please leave. Dr. Damirón Ricart? You stay, Doctor.”
“He’s my husband,” Olga whimpered, her arms around Pedro Livio. “I want to be with him.”
“Take her out,” Abbes García ordered, not looking at her.
More men had come into the room,
caliés
with revolvers in their belts and soldiers carrying San Cristóbal submachine guns over their shoulders. Half closing his eyes, he saw them take away Olga, who was sobbing (“Don’t do anything to her, she’s pregnant”), and Mary, and he saw his brother-in-law follow them, not needing to be shoved. The men looked at him with curiosity and some revulsion. He recognized General Félix Hermida and Colonel Figueroa Carrión, whom he had known in the Army. He was Abbes García’s right hand in the SIM, they said.
“How is he?” Abbes asked the doctor in a slow, well-modulated voice.
“It’s very serious, Colonel,” replied Dr. Damirón Ricart. “The bullet must be near the heart, in the epigastrium. We gave him medication to control the hemorrhaging so we could operate.”
Many of them had cigarettes, and the room filled with smoke. How he wanted to smoke, to inhale one of those mentholated Salems, with their cooling aroma, that Huáscar Tejeda smoked and Chana Díaz always offered in her house.
Above him, brushing against him, was the bloated face, the tortoise eyes with drooping lids, of Abbes García.
“What happened to you?” he heard him say softly.
“I don’t know.” He regretted his answer, it couldn’t be dumber. But nothing else occurred to him.
“Who shot you?” Abbes García insisted, impassively.
Pedro Livio Cedeño remained silent. Incredible that in all these months of planning Trujillo’s execution, they had never thought about a situation like the one he was in now. About some alibi, some excuse, for handling an interrogation. “What assholes!”
“An accident,” and again he regretted making up something so stupid.
Abbes García did not become impatient. There was a bristling silence. Pedro Livio felt the heavy, hostile glances of the men around him. The ends of their cigarettes reddened when they raised them to their mouths.
“Tell me about the accident,” said the head of the SIM, in the same tone of voice.
“I was leaving a bar and somebody shot me, from a car. I don’t know who it was.”
“What bar?”
“El Rubio, on Calle Palo Hincado, near Independencia Park.”
In a few minutes the
caliés
would find out he had lied. Suppose his friends, when they broke the agreement to give the coup de grâce to anyone who was wounded, had done him no favor at all?
“Where’s the Chief?” asked Johnny Abbes. A certain amount of emotion had filtered into his questioning.
“I don’t know.” His throat was beginning to close; he was losing strength again.
“Is he alive?” asked the head of the SIM. And he repeated: “Where is he?”
Although he felt dizzy again, as if he were going to faint, Pedro Livio noticed that beneath his tranquil appearance, the head of the SIM was boiling with agitation. The hand that carried the cigarette to his mouth moved awkwardly, trying to find his lips.
“In hell, I hope, if there is a hell,” he heard himself say. “That’s where we sent him.”
Abbes García’s face, somewhat obscured by smoke, did not change expression this time either; but he opened his mouth, as if he needed air. The silence had thickened. He had to lose all his strength, finally pass out.
“Who?” he asked, very gently. “Who sent him to hell?”
Pedro Livio did not respond. Abbes García was looking into his eyes and Pedro Livio held his gaze, remembering his childhood in Higüey, when they played who-would-blink-first at school. The colonel’s hand lifted, took the lit cigarette from his mouth, and with no change of expression he put it out on his face, near his left eye. Pedro Livio did not scream, he did not moan. He closed his eyes. The heat was intense; there was a smell of singed flesh. When he opened them, Abbes García was still there. It had begun.