Annotations for Speakers: Rafael Trujillo

And the obvious question is, why Trujillo? Why now you go to the Dominican Republic after writing so many books about Peru?

Mmhm

I realize that one was about Brazil and so on....

And during these months, I heard so many anecdotes, stories about Trujillo. And I also read some books about what was life in the Dominican Republic during those 31 years of the Trujillo regime.

And I was really fascinated, well, terrified and fascinated with the extremes that Trujillo reached. I think he went much more to the extremes that all Latin American dictatorships in violence, in corruption, and also in theatricalities.

I think he was a kind of showman, not only a very cruel and very shoot person, very corrupt, of course, but also a showman.

And in a way, you can say that during these 31 years, life in the Dominican Republic was a kind of national farce, an operatic farce, orchestrated by this man who had practically total control of people and could convert people in extras.... in the actors of a very sinister....show.

Well, that gave me the idea of the novel. Since then, since 1975, I ha-had the idea. And since then, I started to read and to interview people, take notes.

Had-had you ever met him in his lifetime?

No. Oh, no.

He was killed in '61 and the first time I went to the Dominican Republic was in '75.

Mhm. When did you start writing the book then?

It took me three years, more or less.

So I started, the book was published in Spanish two years ago. So five years ago. And I went many times to the Dominican Republic.

When I started to write the book, people were much more willing to talk.

All-I think the taboo was already finishing so people were much more open to...

Time had passed, in other words.

Yeah.

And not only the enemies, also, but the collaborators and the friends of the regime.

I had incredible conversations with people who worked with him and who still talked about Trujillo with a kind of religious respect, you know?

As is the case of many Latin American dictators. Well, many dictators, not only Latin Americans, hm?

How would you compare him to other dictators... his record compared...

I think, well, he had more or less all the common trends of a Latin American dictator but pushed to the extremes. In cruelty, I think he went far, far away from the rest. And in corruption too.

Maybe the big differences was that unlike, let's say, Somoza, or in the case of Peru, Fujimori, money had not this attraction, this abstract attraction.

Money did not?

No, no, no.

He was not interested in money. He used money, of course, because it was an instrument of corruption. But this was one of the big fights between him and his wife. His wife, yes. She was...

She was salting away money and switching things like that

Oh oh yeah-but hiding this from Trujillo, because Trujillo didn't want his family to take money outside the country.

Well, in the last two years, when he started to decline, you know, he forbidden that any Dominican took money abroad, you know? And if one tried to do it, well, he lost his property and his patrimony. So the family was sending money, but in a very discrete way, against Trujillo's will, you know?

And in his life, his sexual potency was an important thing.

Oh, essential.

Well, that's a common trend in Latin American dictators, eh? Africans too, you know? General Abacha. You remember how he died? [laughter]

But that was one of the first things that puzzled me in '75 when I was in the Dominican Republic. He went to bed with many women, but he went to bed with his minister's wives, for example.

And you got the impression that he did that, not only because he liked these ladies, but because it was a way to put his ministers at a test.

He wanted to know if they were ready to accept this kind of humiliation, the extreme humiliation in a machista country, you know?

That was the extreme humiliation for a Dominican, you know? And many ministers accepted and were prepared to play this, let's say, well, grotesque role. And they remained loyal to Trujillo even after the killing of Trujillo.

So this...so when I mean corruption, I am thinking things like this, you know?

Well, then certainly you have the father actually giving his daughter, which is sort of the only thing It's the first choice, not just the one.

Well, this is something that happened, you know? I had a very interesting conversation with one of his secretaries, Khalil Asha. Ashe. Khalil Ashe.

He's a very nice person. By the way, he was very kind. He organized a dinner for me with former Trujillistas. It was an unbelievable experience. And he told me, he told me, each time that El Jefe went in tourney by the interior, there were many fathers. Modest people, peasants who brought their daughters as a gift to the Jefe.

And the Jefe didn't know what to do with these girls because...And I said, but this is true, absolutely true. And they were very proud, you know? My daughter for the Jefe, for El Jefe. It was not only because they wanted favors in exchange, it was because it was a normal.

So the society was deeply, deeply corrupt by the system, you know? He was a kind of god. And so everything that touched the god was good, you know, was of value.

Sounds like something out of the Middle Ages. I mean king and...

Yeah.

Well, nothing of this is uncommon. I think this happens in all dictatorships, but not with the theatricality that happened with Trujillo. I think Trujillo had the opportunity, as he was a natural born actor, to make life a kind of big, big show in which he could materialize all his fantasies, his appetites. And he did these incredible things, you know?

He made his elder son, Ramfis, a colonel when Ramfis was nine years old, and a general when he was, I think, 12 or 13 with a military parade, you know? And ambassadors had to attend with tales, you know? And it was grotesque. And at the same time, the reality was very, how you say, submissive to this power.

Is there one reason why the people loved him so much?

So the only way in which you could do politics during those days was with Trujillo. So that's what I did.

And since the beginning, I said I'm not going to do two things: I'm not going to participate in sexual orgies with Trujillo [laughter] and I'm not going to steal one dollar.

And he said to me, and I have done this. I have never steal one dollar, and I have never participated in a Trujillo orgy [laughter]

Of course.

But he hated Trujillo because Trujillo humiliated him systematically, publicly.

He was a sewage, for example.

Yeah, exactly.

And he was in the conspiracy, and he was, well, he had the responsibility of the coup d'etat, the establishing of a military junta, to call elections, you know? He had the green lights of the United States, of the State Department.

But he wanted to see the corpse. He said that. I need to see the corpse.

But then he was paralyzed. And I don't think this was because he was a coward, because he was not a coward. He was very courageous during the three months in which Ramfis tortured him in an incredible way with doctors who resuscitated him in order to be tortured again, you know?

All testimonies are that he was very, very courageous during this incredible, you know, agony.

But he had Trujillo inside himself. Trujillo was there like a super ego. And I think that's what happened with millions of Dominicans. Trujillo was inside them, you know, and governing their instincts, their elementary fears. And that was horrendous, you know, the kind of mental slavery. And I think Pupo Roman is the best, is the emblematic case of this.

But the expectations were there. I mean, he had so many moments at the point of the assassination when he could have acted, could have done something. And he's just unable to...

He was unable because he was paralyzed. He was paralyzed because if you kill God, you became really so insecure and confused. And that's what happened to him, you know? God was dead.

What do you do in a world without God? He hated this God, but it was God, you know?

It's the only explanation because he knew perfectly well that he would pay, that he would be known, that he was in the conspiracy.

Did you change your mind about Trujillo as you wrote the book at all? Did you get any different feelings about...

Oh, no, no, not at all.

But if you want order, and only order, you produce Trujillo.

I always, as in the case of Trujillo, I have chosen themes to write novels about in a way in which my impression is that I am not so free to chosen them, that I've been chosen by these themes because something has happened to me or something has been there in my life that is pushing me towards certain themes and excluding others. And I have the impression when I write a novel that my whole personality is involved and not only reason but also unreason, not only knowledge but also irrational drives, you know, emotions.

I was partly thinking something along those lines when I asked before whether you changed your mind about Trujillo when you were writing the book. And I wondered, does the book change as you write it? Are you surprised by things that come up?

Oh, yes. Yes, I am.

Oh, yes.

Always the book, well, the novel is always different of what was my first idea of the novel, always. And sometimes very, very different, you know?

Even in the case of Trujillo, which I knew more or less what would be the structure, the trajectory of the story. At the end, for example, I never thought that Urania would become such an important character, maybe the most important character.

It was also a surprise for me the way in which Balaguer imposed himself and became almost as important as Trujillo, you know?

One of the curiosities of Trujillo in the book is the fact that he has such a dislike of the arts broadly, has no appreciation or understanding.

No, not only, only

Clothing, his dress.

The only time that he was interested in literature was when Balaguer was incorporated to the Academy and read this incredible discourse in which he compared Trujillo to God.

It was an ode to Trujillo.

Well, Trujillo was there. And Balaguer, in a very well-written piece, said, well, did the the Dominican Republic has survived? 400 years of catastrophes, of invasions, of civil wars, of hurricanes, earthquakes.

Because until 1930, God took care of our country. But in 1930, God said, well, it's enough. I'm going to give this responsibility to someone else. And so Trujillo took this responsibility. And Trujillo said many times that for the first time, he was really impressed with a literary text.

And I think he really believed that Balaguer was right when he said that he had taken this responsibility and he has replaced God with this responsibility to save the Dominican Republic of disintegration. [laughter]

But for the rest, he despised the literary fantasies of his wife. His wife published two books.

She didn't write them, though.

No, she didn't.

But she published a book of.