The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

generations later our parents are still so damn secretive, why you’ll find out your brother ain’t your brother only by accident.)
    But let’s not go completely overboard: Trujillo was certainly formidable, and the regime was like a Caribbean Mordor in many ways, but there were plenty of people who despised El Jefe, who communicated in less-than-veiled ways their contempt, who resisted . But Abelard was simply not one of them. Homeboy wasn’t like his Mexican colleagues who were always keeping up with what was happening elsewhere in the world, who believed that change was possible. He didn’t dream of revolution, didn’t care that Trotsky had lived and died not ten blocks from his student pension in Coyoacán; wanted only to tend his wealthy, ailing patients and afterward return to his study without worrying about being shot in the head or thrown to the sharks. Every now and then one of his acquaintances—usually Marcus—would describe for him the latest Trujillo Atrocity: an affluent clan stripped of its properties and sent into exile, an entire family fed piece by piece to the sharks because a son had dared compare Trujillo to Adolf Hitler before a terrified audience of his peers, a suspicious assassination in Bonao of a well-known unionist. Abelard listened to these horrors tensely, and then after an awkward silence would change the subject. He simply didn’t wish to dwell on the fates of Unfortunate People, on the goings-on in Peaksville. He didn’t want those stories in his house. The way Abelard saw it—his Trujillo philosophy, if you will—he only had to keep his head down, his mouth shut, his pockets open, his daughters hidden for another decade or two. By then, he prophesied, Trujillo would be dead and the Dominican Republic would be a true democracy.
    Abelard, it turned out, needed help in the prophecy department. Santo Domingo never became a democracy. He didn’t have no couple of decades, either. His luck ran out earlier than anyone expected.

THE BAD THING
     
    N ineteen forty-five should have been a capital year for Abelard and Family. Two of Abelard’s articles were published to minor acclaim, one in the prestigious — — and the second in a small journal out of Caracas, and he received complimentary responses from a couple of Continental doctors, very flattering indeed. Business in the supermercados couldn’t have been better; the Island was still flush from the war boom and his managers couldn’t keep anything on the shelves. The fincas were producing and reaping profits; the worldwide collapse of agricultural prices was still years off. Abelard had a full load of clients, performed a number of tricky surgeries with impeccable skill; his daughters were prospering (Jacquelyn had been accepted at a prestigious boarding school in Le Havre, to begin the following year—her chance to escape); his wife and mistress were pouring on the adoration; even the servants seemed content (not that he ever really spoke to them). All in all, the good doctor should have been immensely satisfied with himself. Should have ended each day with his feet up, un cigarro in the corner of his mouth, and a broad grin creasing his ursine features.
    It was—dare we say it?—a good life.
    Except it wasn’t.
    In February there was another Presidential Event (for Independence Day!) and this time the invitation was explicit. For Dr. Abelard Luis Cabral and wife and daughter Jacquelyn. The daughter Jacquelyn part had been underlined by the party’s host. Not once, not twice, but three times. Abelard nearly fainted when he saw the damn thing. Slumped back at his desk, his heart pushing up against his esophagus. Stared at the vellum square for almost a whole hour before folding it and placing it inside his shirt pocket. The next morning he visited the host, one of his neighbors. The man was out in his corral, staring balefully as some of his servants were trying to get one of his stallions to stud. When he saw Abelard his face darkened. What the hell do you want from me? The order came straight from the Palacio. When Abelard walked back to his car he tried not to show that he was shaking.

    Once again he consulted with Marcus and Lydia. (He said nothing of the invitation to his wife, not wanting to panic her, and by extension his daughter. Not wanting even to say the words in his own house.)
    Where the last time he’d been somewhat rational, this go-around he was fuera de serie, raved like a madman. Waxed