The Feast of the Goat

Trujillo and Abbes commence their morning meeting. Trujillo appreciates Abbes’s reports because they are direct: Unlike his former head of the SIM, “the colonel didn’t waste time on stupid shit” (56). Abbes is not a true soldier: He never served in the military and Trujillo considered him slovenly, but he also describes Abbes as “the iciest individual [he] had ever known” (57).

They discuss problem with the bishops, and Abbes argues that Trujillo should silence Bishop Reilly immediately and directly. Trujillo believes that doing so would invite an invasion, and he prefers to postpone. Abbes argues they are now and will forever be at war with the Church, and “in war there are only two options: surrender to the enemy or defeat him” (57). As they discuss their options, Trujillo notes that Abbes is the only person who couldn’t betray him even if he wanted to, as Trujillo is the only one who doesn’t hate Abbes or want to kill him (58).

Abbes’s reputation for cruelty dates back to his youth, and Trujillo decides to ask him about some of the myths he’s heard: that Abbes enjoyed poking out the eyes of chickens as a child and that he was a grave robber. Abbes doubts the first but can’t remember, and claims the second is only a half-truth. Trujillo then asks Abbes a third question: if Abbes is a homosexual. Abbes denies this, acting both calm and indifferent as he has during both other questions.

Abbes, nicknamed “Razor,” came to Trujillo’s attention through the former head of the SIM; after submitting an uncharacteristically detailed report on Dominican exiles in Mexico City, Razor informed Trujillo that all of the information had come from one man, Abbes, who had “gained the confidence of the entire exile community” (60). Razor, the aforementioned time waster, didn’t realize he was talking himself out of a job. Trujillo ordered Razor to bring Abbes into an office in the Palace where Trujillo could watch him closely.

After some weeks, and after observing a conversation between Abbes and Joaquín Balaguer, Trujillo tested Abbes by asking him to find and execute José Almoina in Mexico. After Abbes carried out the assassination quickly and efficiently, Trujillo promoted him to colonel and began to use him to assassinate his enemies abroad. Abbes usually managed not only to kill the exiles but also to ruin their reputations at the same time, a fact that impressed Trujillo. Trujillo neither knew how Abbes set up foreign contacts so quickly nor concerned himself with those details, preferring to reap the benefits of Abbes’s work from a distance.

Their attention turns to Juan Tomás Díaz, a former general, and Henry Dearborn, a CIA agent, whom they believe are conspiring to murder Trujillo. Following a defeated Cuban-Venezuelan invasion of the Dominican, Díaz did not execute every remaining living invader as ordered, and Trujillo dismissed him immediately; at a luncheon a short time later, Trujillo publicly embarrassed Díaz. Trujillo believes Díaz wishes to avenge these deeds by assassinating him but does not consider Díaz a threat.

Abbes requests permission to reestablish security along Trujillo’s walking route and along the highway to Mahogany House, where Trujillo holds trysts, consensual and nonconsensual, with women. Trujillo had halted security on these routes because it made him feel claustrophobic, and he tells Abbes now that his order stands, suggesting that to reestablish security would demonstrate weakness. Trujillo asks Abbes why Abbes chose to marry Lupe, a woman Trujillo considers ugly. Again calm, Abbes explains that Lupe saved his life once, and that although they don’t love one another, he relies on her toughness in dangerous situations.

Holding his shotgun in hand, Antonio greets the driver of the car that has pulled in behind them, asking if Trujillo has changed his mind. Miguel Ángel Báez Díaz tells him that Trujillo has simply been delayed, and that he came by to put them at ease. Antonio feels relieved that he’ll finally be able to fulfill the promise he made to his family four years earlier, after his brother Tavito was killed.

After Ángel leaves and the others realize his identity, they express shock that an avowed Trujillista such as Ángel is involved as well. Antonio reminds them they were all Trujillistas at one point, and they’ve all benefitted in some way from Trujillo’s government. Turk, who has expressed the most disgust, takes back his words, and he recalls not long ago expressing a similar sentiment about de la Maza, whom he accused of selling his brother for “a couple of bucks” (75), words that destroyed their friendship.

The De la Maza family had been anti-Trujillista at the beginning of the Era, in 1930. The family hailed from Moca; President Horacio Vázquez, whom Trujillo had overthrown, was from the same region and was related to the De la Mazas. Once Trujillo took over, the family armed themselves and took to the mountains. For three years they fought, until “Trujillo’s men dissolved the armed bands, inflicting some defeats but above all buying off their lieutenants and supporters” (77). The family returned, with the exception of Antonio and his brothers Ernesto and Tavito, who continued fighting until they were wounded in battle.

From the hospital, Antonio wrote to his father and asked them not to ask for clemency. This drew the attention of Trujillo, who brought Antonio to his office. Having heard of his marksmanship skills, Trujillo argued that it was time for the fighting to end and offered Antonio a position as a military adjutant: “That way, if I disappoint you one day, you can put a bullet in me” (78).

Antonio had never betrayed Trujillo; instead, he became a reluctant admirer: “Antonio could not resist the magnetism that radiated from the tireless man who could work for 20 hours and then, after two or three hours of sleep, begin at dawn the next day as fresh as an adolescent” (79). Antonio respected Trujillo but never became a Trujillista. After leaving the military, he continued to work for Trujillo, managing the Trujillo family’s sawmills. “As a soldier or as a civilian, for more than 20 years he had contributed to [Trujillo’s] fortune and power” (80).

Unlike Antonio, Tavito became a die-hard Trujillista. Tavito benefitted greatly from the Trujillo government: He not only became a pilot and traveled the world but also got out of a murder charge following a drunken fight with a consul while working in London, thanks to Trujillo. Trujillo eventually ordered Tavito to complete a secret mission to pick up a drugged and masked individual from the United States, a man who turned out to be Professor Jesús de Galíndez, a Spanish Basque. After receiving asylum following the Spanish Civil War, Galínez worked for the regime for a time but later resettled in New York and begin writing against Trujillo.

The professor’s kidnapping caused a great stir because he was, at that point, an American citizen; an investigation by the FBI proved that Trujillo had ordered it. When Tavito’s name began appearing in the press, Antonio raced to Ciudad Trujillo to try to warn Tavito; however, Tavito brushed off his concerns because “The Chief rules here” (83). A few days after their conversation, Trujillo began rounding up and disappearing the people involved in the kidnapping. Tavito was imprisoned and allowed no visitors. Antonio tried to get in touch with anyone he could, but no one would see or speak with him. Shortly afterward, a SIM car dumped Tavito’s body onto the front lawn of his house, claiming that he had hung himself. Newspapers ran stories claiming that Tavito had completed suicide because the first American pilot, Murphy, was a homosexual and had made advances onto Tavito, who defended himself “with all the energy of a real man” and “erased the stain to his honor by killing the degenerate” (85).

Antonio vowed revenge, and when SIM agents arrived at his house in Moca, he assumed he was being arrested. Instead, they took him to see Trujillo without even searching him first. Trujillo claimed that he did not have Tavito killed and appointed a commission to look into the matter. Trujillo “spoke without animosity and without inflection, looking into Antonio’s eyes in the direct, peremptory manner with which he always spoke to subordinates, both friends and enemies” (86). Trujillo acknowledged that he sometimes did have to kill for the good of the country, but that when he did, his “hand does not tremble” (87) and that this was not one of those times. Trujillo ended the conversation by granting the family the concession for highway construction between Santiago and Puerto Plata.

Antonio did not kill Trujillo. He left his office in a daze and immediately got very drunk, and a day later made his way to Moca. He was greeted by his wife and parents, who asked if he had been bought off with the highway. He asked for their forgiveness and swore that he would eventually kill Trujillo.

Now, on the highway, waiting for Trujillo, Antonio thinks to himself that in mere moments he will finally fulfill that promise.