Mempo Giardinelli - God's Punishment

A man, Tito, has recently come out of the prison system of Argentina during a time when a man was in prison as much for his political viewpoint as any actual crime. He has, as such men do, many stories to tell, and this, Mempo Giardinelli's God's Punishment, is one of them.

The story he has to tell concerns General Pompeyo Argentino del Corazón de Jesús González (General González), a man who, while fictional, "still has the power to represent certain names held very dear by members of the military community". The General is a harsh man, committed to the hardest of right-wing ideology. He declares quite openly that he is willing to kill 1,000 innocent citizens if that is what it takes to ensure a single guerrilla receives justice. As his career progresses, he collects medals, kills insurgents, and becomes, in the popular view, a frontrunner for President one day:

He’s a man of firm convictions, a sort of crusader who genuinely feels a remarkable calling for warfare and a clear anti-subversive zeal. He stands out, not only for the efficacy of his repressive methods—which have brought him fame within, and especially beyond, the rank and file of the armed forces—but also because ideologically he’s one of the most classic examples of the simian species looming over civil society at the time...

As the General's career trajectory continues, and the violence in his country increases, his proud eye is suddenly turned away from the carnage and misery toward his son, who has fallen deathly ill. Instantly, his priorities change - though the murdering and imprisonment does not.

The elite doctors of the nation are assembled, but they cannot do enough to guarantee the General's son will survive. Only Dr. Murúa, by far the greatest surgeon in the country, is capable of saving the General's son. He happens, however, to be the father of two subversive characters, both recently swept up in the General's regular purges. The General, upon learning this declares:

“Fine: inform the intelligence service and the federal and provincial police. Have them search for him among his family members and friends, and have them offer all kinds of guarantees. Order them to find that surgeon before 9:00 a.m., as a priority mission. And, as I said, with all guarantees.”

It's not that his position bends so much that he is willing, in this instance, to bring about a certain modicum of change to a specific area of policy for two specific individuals. There is no crisis of conscience here. The (potential) amnesty granted to Dr. Murúa's children is completely self-interested and unaligned with his political ideology, which remains untarnished in its murderous righteousness.

This does not stop him from agonising over his son's life:

General González now wonders about the macabre tricks of fate—though he would call them the will of God—and, perhaps even about the limits of his power. One might also assume, on the other hand, that if his present distress and his youngest son’s misfortune can be attributed to anything or anyone, his war would be the target of his wrath, just as the rebels’ activities would be the primary reason for his finding himself in such an unexpected, insoluble situation.

And:

...they emphasize a paradox, which, like all paradoxes, is cruel: that same morning an unfortunate auto accident has resulted in a brain-dead, comatose boy whose heart, however, is healthy and could be implanted into Juan Manuel. They explain that with each passing minute, Juan Manuel, whose damaged heart is plagued with defects, grows weaker. And they declare that only a miracle can save him, for Dr. Murúa is the only cardiac surgeon in all of Córdoba able to successfully carry out such a complex operation.

Giardinelli's General, the son, the doctors and the nation itself are explicitly creations of fiction; it is never ambiguous as to the true nature of this story. Tito, the old prisoner sitting in a bar, regularly states that the names he is using are invented, and that the characters should be perceived as amalgamations of a general group of individuals - the General stands for all Generals, the dying son for all wayward or unfortunate children.

Given that, the story must be analysed as a parable, a cautionary or moral tale. In this, Giardinelli is quite successful. His distaste for the men who wield the power they possess to achieve horrific aims is clear; equally clear is his contempt for these very same men who are willing to break the rules they so strictly impose on others when it directly affects themselves. At the end of the story, we know the General sleeps well at night. He has suffered no moral quandary, even though he was willing to circumvent his own rigid laws.

The character of Tito as framing narrator allows Giardinelli to elevate himself above the sundry matters of the individuals involved in order to comment upon the larger meanings of what is occurring. The tone of the story, too, assists with this, concerned as it is with correct, precise, but also verbose, elaborative, and at times excessively descriptive. Giardinelli is describing the mores, excesses and failures of a milieu, not just the story of a single individual.

At the end of God's Punishment, those who have suffered under the General's wrath know only that they will suffer more. In a fit of pique, numerous prisoners are killed, and the rest are led to believe that they might be next. The General has learned nothing of compassion, nothing of empathy, nothing of suffering, nothing of justice, nothing of hope or the potential for change to come about by peace. No, instead he becomes more himself, burrowing further into the miserable righteousness of his position as despot and killer.

God's Punishment by Mempo Giardinelli is a short story from Words Without Borders' October 2010 edition, Beyond Borges: Argentina Now issue. All of the work reviewed is freely available online.

See Also

Other stories from the Words Without Borders October 2010 edition, Beyond Borges: Argentina Now issue include:
---Bettencourt, Lúcia - Borges's Secretary
---Bizzio, Sergio - Magic!
---Brau, Edgar - The Key
---Delaney, Juan José - The Two Coins
---Martínez, Guillermo - The “I Ching” and the Man of Papers
---Schewblin, Samanta - Preserves
---Shua, Ana María - Octavio the Invader

Also of interest: Index of short stories under review