The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

indignant to Marcus for nearly an hour about the injustice, about the hopelessness of it all (an amazing amount of circumlocution because he never once directly named who it was he was complaining about). Alternated between impotent rage and pathetic self-pity. In the end his friend had to cover the good doctor’s mouth to get a word in edgewise, but Abelard kept talking. It’s madness! Sheer madness! I’m the father of my household! I’m the one who says what goes!
    What can you do? Marcus said with no little fatalism. Trujillo’s the president and you’re just a doctor. If he wants your daughter at the party you can do nothing but obey.
    But this isn’t human!
    When has this country ever been human, Abelard? You’re the historian. You of all people should know that.
    Lydia was even less compassionate. She read the invite and swore a coño under her breath and then she turned on him. I warned you, Abelard. Didn’t I tell you to send your daughter abroad while you had the chance? She could have been with my family in Cuba, safe and sound, but now you’re jodido. Now He has his Eye on you.
    I know, I know, Lydia, but what should I do ?
    Jesú Cristo, Abelard, she said tremulously. What options are there. This is Trujillo you’re talking about.

    Back home the portrait of Trujillo, which every good citizen had hanging in his house, beamed down on him with insipid, viperous benevolence.
    Maybe if the doctor had immediately grabbed his daughters and his wife and smuggled them all aboard a boat in Puerto Plata, or if he’d stolen with them across the border into Haiti, they might have had a chance. The Plátano Curtain was strong but it wasn’t that strong. But alas, instead of making his move Abelard fretted and temporized and despaired. He couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, paced the halls of their house all night long and all the weight he regained these last months he immediately lost. (If you think about it, maybe he should have heeded his daughter’s philosophy: Tarde venientibus ossa .) Every chance he got he spent with his daughters. Jackie, who was her parents’ Golden Child, who already had memorized all the streets in the French Quarter and who that year alone had been the object of not four, not five, but twelve marriage proposals. All communicated to Abelard and his wife, of course. Jackie knowing nothing about it. But still. And Astrid, ten years old, who took more after their father in looks and nature; plainer, the jokester, the believer, who played the meanest piano in all of the Cibao and who was her big sister’s ally in all things. The sisters wondered about their father’s sudden attentiveness: Are you on vacation, Papi? He shook his head sadly. No, I just like spending time with you is all.
    What’s the matter with you? his wife demanded, but he refused to speak to her. Let me be, mujer.
    Things got so bad with him that he even went to church, a first for Abelard (which might have been a really bad idea since everybody knew the Church at that time was in Trujillo’s pocket). He attended confession almost every day and talked to the priest but he got nothing out of it except to pray and to hope and to light some fucking stupid candles. He was going through three bottles of whiskey a day.
    His friends in Mexico would have grabbed their rifles and taken to the interior (at least that’s what he thought they would have done) but he was his father’s son in more ways than he cared to admit. His father, an educated man who had resisted sending his son to Mexico but who had always played ball with Trujillo. When in 1937 the army had started murdering all the Haitians, his father had allowed them to use his horses, and when he didn’t get any of them back he didn’t say nothing to Trujillo. Just chalked it up as the cost of doing business. Abelard kept drinking and kept fretting, stopped seeing Lydia, isolated himself in his study, and eventually convinced himself that nothing would happen. It was only a test. Told his wife and daughter to prepare for the party. Didn’t mention it was a Trujillo party. Made it seem like nothing was amiss. Hated himself to his core for his mendacity, but what else could he have done?
    Tarde venientibus ossa .
    It probably would have gone off without a hitch too, but Jackie was so excited. Since it was her first big party, who’s surprised that it became something of an event for her? She went shopping for a dress with her mother, got her hair done at