The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Cattle Thief0became like Dr. Gull in From Hel l; adopting the creed of the Dionyesian Architects,0 he aspired to become an architect of history, and through a horrifying ritual of silence and blood, machete and perejil, darkness and denial, inflicted a true border on the countries, a border that exists beyond maps, that is carved directly into the histories and imaginaries of a people. By the middle of T-illo’s second decade in “office” the Plátano Curtain had been so successful that when the Allies won World War II the majority of the pueblo didn’t even have the remotest idea that it had happened. Those who did know believed the propaganda that Trujillo had played an important role in the overthrow of the Japanese and the Hun. Homeboy could not have had a more private realm had he thrown a forcefield around the island. (After all, who needs futuristic generators when you have the power of the machete?) Most people argue that EI Jefe was trying to keep the world out; some, however, point out that he seemed equally intent on keeping something in.
     
    28 . So devoted was the pueblo, in fact, that, as Galíndez recounts in La Era de Trujillo , when a graduate student was asked by a panel of examiners to discuss the pre-Columbian culture in the Americas, he replied without hesitation that the most important pre-Columbian culture in the Americas was “the Dominican Republic during the era of Trujillo.” Oh, man. But what’s more hilarious is that the examiners refused to fail the student, on the grounds that “he had mentioned El Jefe.”
     
    29 .Anacaona, a.k.a. the Golden Flower. One of the Founding Mothers of the New World and the most beautiful Indian in the World. (The Mexicans might have their Malinche, but we Dominicans have our Anacaona.) Anacaona was the wife of Caonabo, one of the five caciques who ruled our Island at the time of the “Discovery.” In his accounts, Bartolomé de las Casas described her as “a woman of great prudence and authority, very courtly and gracious in her manner of speaking and her gestures.” Other witnesses put it more succinctly: the chick was hot and, it would turn out, warrior-brave. When the Euros started going Hannibal Lecter on the Tainos, they killed Anacaona’s husband (which is another story). And like all good warrior-women she tried to rally her people, tried to resist, but the Europeans were the original fukú, no stopping them. Massacre after massacre after massacre. Upon being captured, Anacaona tried to parley, saying: “Killing is not honorable, neither does violence redress our honor. Let us build a bridge of love that our enemies may cross, leaving their footprints for all to see.” The Spanish weren’t trying to build no bridges, though. After a bogus trial they hung brave Anacaona. In Santo Domingo, in the shadow of one of our first churches. The End.
     
A common story you hear about Anacaona in the DR is that on the eve of her execution she was offered a chance to save herself: all she had to do was marry a Spaniard who was obsessed with her. (See the trend? Trujillo wanted the Mirabal Sisters, and the Spaniard wanted Anacaona.) Offer that choice to a contemporary Island girl and see how fast she fills out that passport application. Anacaona, however, tragically old-school, was reported to have said, Whitemen, kiss my hurricane ass! And that was the end of Anacaona. The Golden Flower. One of the Founding Mothers of the New World and the most beautiful Indian in the World.
    30 . Nigüa and El Pozo de Nagua were death camps—Ultamos—considered the worst prisons in the New World. Most niggers who ended up in Nigüa during the Trujillato never left alive, and those who did probably wished they hadn’t. The father of one of my friends spent eight years in Nigüa for failing to show proper deference toward the Jefe’s father, and he once spoke of a fellow prisoner who made the mistake of complaining to his jailers about a toothache. The guards shoved a gun in his mouth and blew his brains into orbit. I bet it don’t hurt now, the guards guffawed. (The one who actually committed the murder was known thereafter as El Dentista.) Nigüa had many famous alumni, including the writer Juan Bosch, who would go on to become Exiled Anti-Trujillista Number One and eventually president of the Dominican Republic. As Juan Isidro Jiménes Grullón said in his book Una Gestapo en América , “es mejor tener cien niguas en un pie que un pie en