Reasons of State by Alejo Carpentier Read Free Book Online Page B

of getting them
there
as early as possible: cargo boat, tanker, whatever was available.
    “Tell Sylvestre to pack my bags.” He swallowed a large drink, already mounted on the horse of great decisions.
    “Tell Ofelia not to worry. We’ve plenty of money in Switzerland. Let her go to Bayreuth as if nothing had happened and have a good time with her Niebelungen. For me it’s aquestion of a few weeks. I’ve thrashed people with more guts than that shit of a general.”
    And when Sylvestre began carrying down the luggage the Prime Minister thought that probably that affair last night with the little nun of Saint Vincent de Paul had brought him bad luck after all. That starched headdress. And the scapulary. And that rubber skull, certainly bought in the shop called Farces et Attrapes in the Boulevard des Capucines—another unfortunate coincidence—that couldn’t have helped. But, once again, the Divine Shepherdess of Nueva Córdoba would accept his sincere repentance. He would add a few emeralds to her crown; a lot of silver to her cloak. And there would be ceremonies. Candles. A great many candles. The Flag of Her Divinity between wax tapers and the ambos. The cadets on their knees. The ceremony of the accolades. The Cathedral would be lit up and freshly decorated …
    Outside, Rude’s Marseillaise kept up her imaginary noise—sounding soundlessly—from a deep stone mouth which was only one hole more in the monument where the names of 652 generals of the Empire, consecrated by Glory, were inscribed.
    “Only six hundred and fifty-two generals?” murmured the Dictator, reviewing his army in his imagination. “Baedeker must have made a mistake.”
    * In Latin America a “Cholo” is usually an educated and civilized Indian. It can also mean a cross between an Indian and a European.

TWO
    … each man is so fixed in his own judgement that we could find as many reformers as there are heads
.
    — DESCARTES

2
    TWO HOURS AFTER THE TRAVELLERS HAD ARRIVED in their suite at the Waldorf-Astoria, they were proceeding to sign the final papers of their negotiations with the United Fruit Company, rapidly carried through by Ariel while his father and Doctor Peralta were on the high seas. The documents were incontrovertible, provided that the signatory was by act and right—and he would continue to be so for a long time according to forecasters specializing in the politics of this hemisphere—the Constitutional President of the Republic. Besides, the Company ran no risk, whatever happened, because at the start of his rebellion General Ataúlfo Galván had the intelligence and forethought to tell the agencies of the press that now as always, today and tomorrow,
hic et nunc
, both during the progress of the armed struggle and after the “certain victory”—what a nerve, brother!—of the movement to seize the leadership, all the wealth, property, concessions, and monopolies of North American businesses would be safeguarded. It was known by cablegram that the revolutionaries had consolidated their positions on the Atlantic coast—up till now they held four provinces out of nine, that was the dramatic fact—but a stubborn resistance was frustrating their present attempts to advance towards Puerto Araguato and cut the communications between the capital and the ocean. One squadron of warships was awaiting the Headof State off a little Caribbean island, at which a Dutch cargo ship would drop anchor next day on her way to Recife. As for arms, bought from an agent of Sir Basil Zaharoff, they were to be despatched from Florida on board a boat registered in Greece, by a freebooter accustomed to hoisting a Panama or Salvador flag once outside the United States’ three-mile limit when it returned to its usual business—transporting men, arms, slave labour, anything that was wanted in South America, whose creeks, inlets, and bays he knew as well as did the most travelled of local coastal steamers.
    And since there was nothing