Reasons of State by Alejo Carpentier

Author:Alejo Carpentier [Carpentier, Alejo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Hispanic & Latino, Political, Literary
ISBN: 9780394499093
Google: TMEP6yEC-t0C
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 17797147
Publisher: Melville House
Published: 1974-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

12

… there is something like a very powerful and clever deceiver who uses all his skill to keep me constantly deceived …

—DESCARTES

MINISTERS WERE DRAGGED OUT OF BED BY TELEPHONE calls from Doctor Peralta—they had been sleeping off the official dinner, prolonged when they got home by large doses of digestive drinks, yellow liqueurs, green benedictines, and purple cherry brandy—and summoned to an urgent council meeting at 8:30 in the morning, where there would be plenty of coffee trays to help those who were still drowsy shake off the effect of their drinks. When they arrived—chewing peppermint, sweating out aspirin, and clearing their eyes with lotion—the Mayorala Elmira took them to the President’s bathroom, where they were shocked at the sight of broken porcelain, shattered mirrors, debris of bottles, and soap dishes in a pool of eau de Cologne, a bidet with its taps wrenched from their sockets, spouting out uncontrollable fountains of water, and even the ceiling smashed by the explosion.

“Horrible … Terrifying … Inconceivable … And to think how nearly …”

“I’ve refrained from going in,” declared the Head of State somewhat dramatically, when everyone was seated, “because I’m afraid of my own anger.”

There was a long pause, charged with menacing possibilities. Then, in a calmer tone:

“Gentlemen, let us get to work.” The secretary opened the meeting by describing what had happened, the exact time, circumstances, etc. Captain Valverde, Chief of the Judicial Police, had already begun his investigations. Because of the inauguration of the Capitol, the presidential guard had yesterday been transferred to the Great Hemicycle, and it was true that the palace itself had had insufficient attention, the key posts being left to soldiers who were inexperienced in such duties. However, no one except the domestic, personal, and confidential staff had entered the building after the changing of the guard.

“Apart from that,” observed the President, “the bomb which exploded here was not one that could have been brought in someone’s pocket. It must have been under the bathtub itself for many hours, with its mechanism set to go off at the appointed time. This wasn’t the work of some amateur using nitrobenzene, gunpowder, or picric acid; the bomb was made by someone who knew his job. The expert says that the smell of bitter almonds, which is still noticeable, is a sign of technical skill.”

These were the possible hypotheses: the RAS (Revolution of Anarchists and Syndicalists), who had for months past been scrawling their initials on the walls of the city with invisible hands; or perhaps Doctor Luis Leoncio Martínez’s supporters might be more active than was realised—they had been agitating lately with some skill, it must be admitted, and gaining followers in the city and provinces; students, possibly, because students always got mixed up in rioting and bloody-mindedness (and why shouldn’t we close the University of San Lucas this very day?); Russian nihilists (“rubbish,” murmured the President); members of Samuel Gompers’ American Federation of Labor (“that’s absurd”) who had recently carried on revolutionary activities in the north of Mexico.

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