The Feast of the Goat

At five o’clock, Trujillo meets with President Joaquín Balaguer, as he has done every weekday for the past nine months. Trujillo has just discovered that Balaguer authorized Urania Cabral to leave the country two weeks prior. Balaguer feels confused, as he had sent a memorandum explaining the proposition, and when Trujillo did not object, as the trip was urgent, Balaguer proceeded. Trujillo doesn’t believe that the letter was lost and instead assumes it was misdirected, to enable her escape.

Balaguer states that he will conduct an investigation to get to the bottom of the incident and apologizes for not speaking with Trujillo personally, but notes that he considered it a trivial matter, since Agustín’s situation was not meant to extend to his family. Trujillo suspects that the Catholic nuns provided the scholarship as a bribe to bring Agustín to their side; however, Balaguer notes that the nuns don’t have a high opinion of Agustín and wanted to help Urania, not him. Trujillo still wonders whether Cabral betrayed him or will betray him still. “Had it been frivolous to put an efficient servant like Cabral to the test at this difficult time for the regime?” (218).

Trujillo pivots to discussing the Church. Balaguer believes he has convinced Monsignor Reilly to leave Ciudad Trujillo; Trujillo wonders if he should exile them, as Abbes has suggested. Balaguer suggests that Trujillo knows better than to listen to Abbes on this: “But the Generalissimo was too wise and too much of a realist to follow the rash, impolitic advice of the head of the SIM, which, if carried out, would have the most unfortunate consequences for the nation” (219). Balaguer thinks Abbes is strong on security but has no feel for politics.

To Trujillo, Balaguer remains a mystery, a man with no ambition who will do whatever Trujillo asks of him. Trujillo wonders whether his puppet president is sincere or has a larger scheme afoot. Neither he nor Abbes have found vice or weakness in Balaguer’s background, either: “There’s something inhuman in you […] You don’t have a man’s natural appetites” (221). Trujillo admits that the one work of intellectualism he’s read was a published speech Balaguer gave some years prior, called “God and Trujillo: A Realistic Interpretation.” Trujillo considers his curiosity about the speech weak, but he knows Balaguer won’t reveal that weakness to anyone. 

Further up the highway, Huáscar Tejeda and Pedro Livio Cedeño wait in their Oldsmobile for the signal; like the four in the Chevrolet two kilometers back, they’ve begun to believe that Trujillo won’t come because the hour grows late. They await Tony’s signal—three headlight flashes—at which point they will cut off Trujillo’s car so that all can surround it. When the two cars race by, the Chevrolet does not signal; faced with a decision, Pedro and Tejeda race after them.

Pedro was once married to a close friend of Trujillo; after their divorce, she used her influence to prevent him from seeing their daughter. His current wife knows he detests the regime for this, but she believes the vendetta to be personal rather than political. Pedro believes his wife wouldn’t understand his true reason for opposing the regime: the murder of the Mirabal sisters.

As they race to catch up, they realize that they also forgot to signal another co-conspirator: Fifí Pastoriza, who waits in the last car along the highway. As they catch up to Trujillo’s now-stopped car, Tejeda slams on the brakes as Pedro opens the door, throwing him from the car. Pedro rolls hard on the pavement, then gets up and moves toward the car before Turk unintentionally shoots him.

As Pedro and others try to assess his injuries, Pedro can only make “guttural noises.” Despite his condition, he feels relieved when he sees Trujillo being put into the Biscayne. The others are in a rush: They need to show the body to General Román so that he will put the rest of the plan into motion. They had agreed to give any injured conspirator a coup de grâce so no one would fall into the hands of Abbes or any other Trujillistas. Pedro wonders if they will follow through on this promise, but they appear not to consider it; instead, they maneuver him into the car and try to figure out how to help him.

More cracks begin to show in the execution of the plan. Turk’s Mercury was left on the highway, which enrages Turk, who realizes that this oversight will implicate him. Amadito assures him that it won’t matter since Román will assume power that night, but they soon discover that Román isn’t at home. When they attempt to deliver the body, his wife tells them Román has left with General Espaillat because something had happened to Trujillo.

Pedro believes they’ve forgotten about him, but he’s soon surrounded by faces, including a dentist, Bienvenido García, and a physician, Linito, who examine him. Linito tells them that Pedro is bleeding to death and must be taken to a hospital immediately, as he needs surgery right away. Pedro no longer cares about dying now that the assassination has succeeded, but he cannot say the words, and they take him to the International Clinic.

At the clinic, doctors stabilize Pedro, and he is able to speak again. He realizes that the doctor will have to inform the SIM that a man with a bullet wound has entered the hospital; however, he believes that the others “must have shown Pupo the body by now, and Román would have alerted the barracks and announced the civilian-military junta” (247). His wife arrives; he tells her it was just an accident, but then excitedly tells her “He’s dead, Olga! He’s dead, dead!” (247).

Abbes enters the room before Pedro goes into surgery; he orders everyone but the doctor to leave. Abbes begins questioning Pedro, who tries to lie to Abbes, even though he knows his lies will be discovered. Pedro then tells Abbes the truth. Abbes’s demeanor doesn’t change; instead, he begins asking about the conspiracy and his co-conspirators, torturing Pedro with cigarettes as he interrogates him. “[Pedro] 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” (249).

Pedro gives up Tony Imbert, then Antonio de la Maza, and he tells Abbes that there were no leaders. He then tells them that the two Antonios are looking for Pupo Román, which stuns Abbes and the others with him. Pedro realizes that something is wrong: The revolution has not begun if Abbes and the two military men who accompany him are still there. The doctor tries to get Pedro into surgery, but Abbes threatens to kill the doctor if he doesn’t revive Pedro for further questioning. Pedro continues confessing about the conspiracy and asks if they’ve shown the body to Pupo and Balaguer, to which Abbes’s jaw again drops—“in some obscure way, [Pedro] was winning the game” (253).

The doctor finally convinces Abbes that Pedro requires immediate surgery, as he’s slipped into a coma. Abbes tells the doctor that if the patient doesn’t survive surgery, the doctor will be executed.